Another Woman's House (15 page)

“Not,” said Sam forcibly, “if that gun is where I think it is. That's in the middle of the Sound.”

Myra had reached the stairway. Her hand went out involuntarily toward the unobtrusive piece of wood. The small gesture frightened her. She went quickly up the stairs, aware of the continued murmur of voices in the library. Too much, she thought suddenly, had happened, too fast—like a tidal wave sweeping unexpectedly out of a calm summer sea, taking all before it, toppling towers and laying waste and so destroying familiar landmarks that it was difficult to know the way.

One road alone emerged clear from all the debris, and that was actually two roads, one for her to take, and one for Richard. She passed the door to Alice's room.

It was closed. There was no sound from within, but she hurried past almost for fear she would hear something—Richard's voice, Alice's, mingled in quiet talk.

She reached the wide, pleasant room she had used now for so many months. She entered it and closed the door and the false strength which had operated like a hypnotic spell, sustaining her, collapsed.

She leaned back against the wooden panels of the door. The windows were open as she'd left them late that afternoon when she went downstairs to wait for Richard to come home—telling herself then that it was for the last time.

Ironically, it had proved to be the last time but not as she had then foreseen it.

The sound of the peepers was shrill and musical through the open windows. The book she'd been reading that afternoon lay open on the low table beside the chaise longue. How strange it would seem if she picked it up again, how far away and uninteresting the characters. How incredible it was that a page of black and white print, a paragraph, a sentence, could mark so great a change!

The shrill sweet whistles of the peepers seemed sad now, full of longing. She'd stood down there on the shore, in Richard's arms, hearing that distant thin treble. Good-bye to Richard, good-bye to Myra, good-bye to love.

She caught that thought back. It was silly—melodramatic, self-pity. And true!

Whose hands had last touched the gun?

Whose fingerprints besides her own were upon it?

“If Richard had come in and saw red …” Sam had said. And she had replied, “He wouldn't have let Alice go to trial. …”

It was a terrible, swift debate, as if she were two people.

In order to escape it, as she had escaped the library, she made herself go to the windows and close them. She slid out of her suit and blouse and her little satin girdle and brassiere. She peeled her stockings with, since the war, habitually careful hands. She pulled her dark hair up tightly and turned on the shower in the adjoining bathroom.

What could she do with the shell? The
police would arrive the next day. What wouldn't they make of Richard's revolver, she thought again, despairingly! Suppose, this time, they found it!

Sam had said it was at the bottom of the Sound. It occurred to her for a wild instant that she might row out in the night, drop the gun in deep water.

She put the shell eventually in her small evening bag. Later, when it was dark, she'd get rid of it somehow, outside. It was curious how indestructible so small and inanimate a thing might be.

She got into a long dress, choosing the first one that came to her hand, white with a scarlet jacket and scarlet fold that came to the hem; she was brushing her hair, smooth and close back to the soft, Grecian knot of loose curls at the back of her head, vaguely aware of the whiteness of her face in the mirror, the enormous darkness and anxiety in her eyes, when someone knocked.

She thought for an instant that it might be Richard. It was not. The parlor maid, Francine, stood in the doorway. Her dark hatchet face was sharp with excitement and curiosity; her narrow eyes were avid. She said: “Madam wishes to speak to you, Miss Myra.”

“Madam …” For a moment she thought only of Aunt Cornelia.

“Mrs. Thorne, of course. Oh, Miss, isn't it exciting! Barton says it gave him such a turn when he opened the door and there she was on the step cool as a cucumber. As if she'd been away only for a week-end.” The maid's eyes were delving, curious, sharp.

“Tell Mrs. Thorne I'll be there in a moment.”

“Yes, Miss,” Francine hesitated, plucked at her apron and went away.

She made herself take time, she put on lipstick, choosing the shade that went with the dress as carefully as if it mattered, fastening her scarlet, highheeled slippers, touching hair and wrist and throat with perfume. The woman in the mirror looked strange to her, older, more matured. She forgot the small gold evening bag and went back to get it.

She went out of the room and along the hall to Alice's room and knocked. Would Richard open the door?

He didn't. Alice's high, sweet voice called out, “Is that you, Myra? Come in.”

The room was already a bower. Flowers were all over it. The windows were open, letting in the cool spring night. A small fire crackled within the oval, pink-marble mantel. Richard was not there. Alice, in pink satin and lace, her fair hair still down her back so she looked like a rather luxurious but very beautiful Alice in Wonderland, was lying back in the chaise longue. She smiled rather nervously. “Come in, Myra. How nice you look. Red and white is becoming to you. Please sit down. …”

Her eyes were gentle, half-hidden by long soft eyelashes. She was very small and very frail-looking, lying there with the blue shadows of fatigue in her eyes. Myra felt tall and strong and earthy, somehow, beside her. But her knees were trembling. She sat down in the green slipper chair near Alice, who stretched out one hand pleadingly and said, “I had to talk to you. About Richard and you—and me.”

H
AD RICHARD TOLD HER?

But that would have been too cruel, something that Richard could not have done.

Well, then, had she guessed? Had there been something in the air, something intangible, untetherable and yet present whenever Myra and Richard were together in the same room, breathing the same air, allowing their eyes to meet, no matter how swiftly, nor how impersonally.

The fire sighed softly. Lilac sachet lay in a fragrant cloud in the room. Alice twisted her small hands together; on one of them shone her wedding ring. “I wish you would say something, Myra. It's so hard to try to do this alone.”

Myra said slowly, “You are very tired, Alice. Can't we talk later?”

Alice's eyelashes swept upward for a fractional second in a glance that was half-frightened, half-bold, like the bright inquiry of a bird peering from underbrush. She leaned forward, speaking rapidly and unevenly. “We haven't ever known each other very well, Myra. But I know so much about you, you see. Tim adores you. So does Aunt Cornelia. And then you've been so very kind to Richard and to Aunt Cornelia since you both came back home, in spite of the horror that happened here.”

“Don't think of that.”

“Yes, yes. That's what the Governor said to me. Try to forget. Resume your life as if you had only been away for a time. He said that. I will.”

But she turned her head, nevertheless. She put her chin upon her hand and looked into the fire and added, in a musing voice, “I must pretend it never happened. I must make a new life. I must try to be firm and determined. I must build up self-confidence. I must be the kind of wife Richard wants. That's why”—she turned to Myra—“I had to see you tonight. I can't rest, I can't sleep until I know what you are going to do.”

“What I am going to do?” repeated Myra with a kind of astonishment.

“About Richard, of course,” said Alice.

So Richard must have told her. What had he said?

Alice went on with that weary swiftness and breathlessness. “I thought we could talk about it alone together. He needn't know. He mustn't know. You see, I'd heard so much of you from others, that I felt we could talk about it honestly and frankly, the two of us.” She leaned forward, a soft lock of her hair fell over her Dresden china-like face. She brushed it back and said, “I don't blame either of you. It was bound to happen. I expected it even sooner.”

“You expected it!” Myra was caught again in amazement as if Alice had spread a soft net about her which had tripped and entangled her.

“I knew he'd be lonely. I knew that there are always attractive girls—and, of course, you are extremely attractive, Myra, in that sensible, crisp way of yours.”

Something very feminine, very swift and very absurd in the smallness of its resentment stirred in Myra. Was her claim to feminine charm that of being sensible?

The wide, gilt-framed mirror over the dressing table with all its glitter of gold and crystal, reflected them, and oddly, quickly, both women glanced in that mirror. Yet they did not observe their own faces for their eyes met in the mirror, met and held inquiringly, like the exploring glance of two strangers meeting for the first time.

And then as swiftly, again at a shared impulse, both women looked away from the mirror. Alice said, with a rather nervous laugh, “That mirror is too dark. I must have it changed.”

She leaned forward again toward Myra. “You were here in the house all these months. Propinquity is always the answer, really. Neither of you could possibly have expected me to come home—like this—back to Richard as his wife. I don't blame either of you. And I don't want anybody to be hurt. Yet—yet …” said Alice and stopped and put out both her hand appealingly again toward Myra.

The net was so soft that Myra could barely recognize its presence and yet it lay all at once all about her, as gentle and as pervading and persistent as the scent of lilac. And its meshes were imperceptibly drawing themselves together. Myra got up and went to the window and let the cool night air blow on her face.

“Please look at me, Myra,” said Alice softly. “I've hurt you. I'm sorry. Please look at me …”

Myra turned reluctantly. “Has Richard talked to you?”

Alice hesitated. She bit her small perfect lip and then said, “No. Not—directly. No.”

“How did you know?”

There was for a bare instant a fixed, set look in Alice's face. She said, “It is true then!”

Again astonishment touched Myra. “But you already knew?”

Alice's soft dark eyelashes lowered quickly. “Oh, yes. I knew. I—guessed. It was in the air somehow between you, Myra. Nobody told me. But I—knew. One does know those things. Of course I—I'd better tell you the whole truth, Myra. I had feared you. I knew Richard would be lonely. I would have offered to release him, if he had asked for it. If he had asked for it while I was in prison,” said Alice.

She paused and waited and then went on. “What else could I have done? I could not have expected Richard to live out his life alone. Yes, if he'd asked me then for a divorce I'd have consented. If it—broke my heart …” said Alice and leaned her head back against the lace pillows.

Again to Myra the very complexity of her feelings was bewildering. She could not grudge Alice her freedom and her exoneration. She did not.
And Alice was in the right.
That at least was clear and unquestionable.

Well, she had known that from the beginning. She must tell Alice, she must end this terrible interview. And Alice said, “I am not a practical person. I've never been. Yet—well, there is a practical, and, I admit, a selfish view which yet I must make myself consider. You see, it is true that if Richard leaves me now people will say that I killed Jack Manders, that Richard believes that I killed him.”

“Oh, no!” cried Myra, shocked. “No one can ever say that of you, Alice.”

Alice put her hand across her eyes. The wedding ring on it caught a gleam of light. “I dread the next few months. Myra, I need Richard. And I have to ask you this. Do you think that perhaps—I don't mean to hurt you—but that perhaps Richard might have fancied himself in love with almost anybody? That sounds so cruel!” she cried in sudden compunction. “But wait—Richard loved me. He adored me. We were married a month after we met—one summer in Paris. Mildred Wilkinson introduced us. He had graduated only two weeks before and was having a holiday before settling into the harness that he'd always known was waiting for him. He adored me,” she said again softly. “He gave me everything I wanted. I hadn't a cent, you know. There was barely enough to send me to a good school. Luckily for me, I met Mildred there—she gave me the trip abroad. And I met and married Richard. It was love at first sight. And always, even through the trial, even when everything went against me, he still loved me. He proved it. He was loyal all the time, every minute. Don't you think it possible that now that I'm free he'll turn back to me? Don't you think that he may even now be a little—well, embarrassed—by whatever the situation has been between you?” Again she cried swiftly, “I sound cruel. I—all of us, are very much in your debt. But sometimes it is kind to be cruel.”

“Alice, you need not have said any of this.”

“What do you mean? It is true, isn't it?”

“I am going to leave. I told Richard that before you came home. There is no question of divorce; there is no question of Richard and me marrying. There never will be. Now then …” She moved swiftly toward the door. “They are waiting for me. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you want Francine?”

“No …”

“I'll go downstairs then. …”

“Myra,” said Alice, “when are you going to leave?”

Myra whirled around, for the last time astonished by that wholly astonishing interview. Again Alice's gentle, pale face, her pathetically weary eyes were disarming.

“I don't know. I can't go immediately because the investigation is to be reopened, as you know. …”

Alice sat up suddenly. “Reopened!”

“I thought you knew.”

“They're going to try to find out who—murdered him?”