Better to Eat You (12 page)

Chapter 10

By the time David put Consuelo's car beside the other two that nudged the hill like suckling pigs, the afternoon was waning. He went up the blackened steps into the garden.

The ruined end of the building, the bent and broken fence, the odor of ugliness and destruction, hung over the garden and spoiled its peace, unless you faced the west and held your breath. Malvina was there, facing east and all the ugliness. Waiting for him.

When he saw her his heart stopped and he thought,
No, Lord, not my little owl. Nothing bad to her!
He knew that guilt and blame and self-reproach were hanging, ready to fall upon him for having left her even a few hours. So he understood Sarah better, even while he walked warily toward whatever it would be about her.

Malvina was dressed for dinner already in a frock of red linen, cut square and low, with wide straps crossing the tan of her plump shoulders. She had a stole of white wool on her arm and now she swung it around her. “David …” Her face was grave.

“What is it?” he demanded sharply.

“I don't like telling you this …”

“Go on.” He didn't believe she didn't like it.

“You can't come in,” she said. “Sarah thinks you have gone away.”

“Who told her I had gone away?” he said. His blood seemed to start through his veins again.

“We did. We had to. There was nothing else to do to make her calm. Since we told her, she is better. So you can't come in. I'm sorry.”

He said, “I don't believe you.”

“David. David.” She ran after him. “Grandfather is in the big room. It's cocktail time. Don't, don't … You know what we fear. Any excitement at all might …”

“I don't want any excitement. I want to be sure.”

“Sure of what, David? Sarah does think you have gone. I told her so myself.”

“Whose idea was this?”

“We had to. She doesn't want you here. You made her cry this morning. She told you to go. She begged you to go.”

But David remembered Sarah's mouth nerving itself to say “So long.”

“I don't understand,” he said coolly. “You'll have to excuse me for wanting to understand it. Did your grandfather think of this idea?”

“No, no. We can't upset Grandfather either.”

“Isn't this his house?”

David walked toward the glass door. Malvina caught at him. He could see she was angry because he would not move in the pattern she had designed. “Are you so wild about Sarah that you can't take no for an answer?” she cried. “Don't you care for an old man's life?”

“I care for most lives,” said David quietly. “I even care for the lives of innocent people walking in public places.”

Malvina was breathing deeply. She was close. He could smell her perfume as if it were rising from her skin in a sudden cloud. She said nothing.

“However,” said David calmly, “I think it only courteous to keep a promise.”

“What promise?”

“I promised Sarah not to leave her. If I must leave her I should at least say goodbye.”

“You are not a courteous man,” she said angrily. “You are stubborn. You are intrusive.”

“I was well brought up, just the same,” said David imperturbably. And he opened the door and stood aside gallantly for a lady to enter. Malvina gave him one helpless angry roll of her eyes and stepped in.

It seemed to David that the old man was furious. Although he did not raise his voice beyond the slight whine that David had heard in it before, and the duckings and tiltings of his head were only a little more rapid, still there was strain in the neck chords and a bursting look about the eyeballs.

“Discourtesy,” Grandfather was saying mournfully. “That a guest of mine should be told to leave. No, no, dear boy. You will stay on, if only to show me that you appreciate it was not discourtesy. It was only Malvina's mistaken attempt to confort our Sarah. Mistaken, of course. And I shall be mortified if you do not stay. Mortified. Now please do not go on talking of leaving.”

David hadn't been talking. Fox was doing the talking. David had simply walked in and laid the whole situation quietly on the line. “Malvina tells me I must leave. Because Sarah has been told I've gone.” He'd made a bald quiet statement and sent the old man into this concealed rage.

Now David made one more statement, as quietly as before. “Since I promised Sarah I would not leave, may I make sure she knows?”

“Of course Sarah must know,” said Grandfather irritably. “Malvina has been stupid. Oh, these well-meant lies! It's not as if you had to bother Sarah. You must stay as
my
guest, and Sarah must know it. My dear David.”

“Grandfather,” said Malvina in a voice curiously flat, “I acted for the best. Believe me, you mustn't …”

The old man put his hand on his chest, but his glance was lightning. “Now, Malvina, I am calm. I am very calm. But I cannot speak of this much longer. Edgar, take David along. Look in on poor Sarah. Quickly. Come back, then, and let us have our quiet chat before the fire. Since David is kind enough and courteous enough himself not to leave my house and mortify me.”

“I will do nothing at all to upset you, sir,” said David.

Edgar got up. “I'm not sure, sir …”

“You must all do as I say,” snapped Grandfather.

They walked down the corridor, David last. “I can't leave now,” said David softly. “We must think of his health.”

Edgar stopped at Sarah's door and turned his head. His face was grim. His little eyes reddened around the rims. “You're not as smart as you think you are,” he growled.

“Then tell me …”

But Edgar jerked his shoulders and tapped on the door, opened it, and they stepped within.

She was alone, lying against the pillows, looking completely lax and spent as if there was no starch in her at all. David felt his anger rising. There she lay, paralyzed by all this nonsense. A pretty, intelligent young woman who ought to be living and working and looking around her, imprisoned in this room instead by a superstitious idea and the apathy of despair.

He said briskly, “Hello, Sarah.” Her eyelids scarcely moved. “For the love of Mike, where are your glasses!” he said. “You look
terrible
without them.”

Her eyes flew open in astonishment. Her hand went fumbling for her glasses on the table.

“I came to announce that the rumor of my leaving was a false one. Seems Malvina thought it was a good idea to lie to you.”

Sarah didn't speak.

“Malvina was acting for the best,” said Edgar stiffly. “You've misunderstood her.”

Sarah's lips parted but she didn't speak.

“Malvina says it was the only way to get you calm,” David prodded.

“That's not so,” said Sarah feebly. But a little life came into her face.

“Well? Don't you care?” David challenged, fanning that spark. “Don't you
mind
that people tell you lies and lie about you? Are you going to shake and shudder in that bed and let people tell you whatever they please, true or false? Didn't you hear me say I wouldn't leave you? Did you think I had broken my word so soon? Didn't it cross your mind that
one
of us had deceived you?”

Her mouth was tightening. He thought he must … must … at whatever cost, keep on breaking that terrible apathy. “I've deceived you plenty,” he said boldly. “Look at that piece of paper you rescued, why don't you?”

“What? Wait a minute.” Edgar snatched the scorched fragment from where it lay. “I can't read it,” he complained.

“Sarah can.” David grabbed it and gave it to her. She looked at it. David met her widening eyes. “Now do you see how you suffer for
nothing?
”

“What do you mean?” Edgar was nervous.

“She knows.”

Color was coming into Sarah's cheeks. The woeful, the wan, the forlorn look was vanishing. “I see how you deceived me,” she said primly. She raised up. David saw with pleasure that she was getting angry. “Mr. Wakeley, did your car roll down a hill?”

Now he staggered. “Yes,” he admitted.

“You didn't tell me so?”

“No.”

“That was a kind of lie, I think,” said Sarah.

“I beg your pardon,” David said gently, “for all these things. But you suffer—therefore people spare you. You are
asking
for lies when you act as if you are not tough enough for the truth.”

“Did you intend to ask me to marry you this morning?” she inquired. She was supported on one elbow; her head was tipped over. She looked at him steadily. She was good and mad.

“No,” he said. “Not really.”

“Then you lied to Edgar. Did anyone ask you to lie in that way?”

“No.” David stood foursquare, intent upon her. “But I
have
lied Don't you wonder why?”

He felt Edgar's hand trying to turn him and he snapped, “Doctor, is she so ill she must lie there? Why can't she get up and fight like a human being?”

“You don't understand,” said Dr. Perrott intensely. “Believe me, you don't know what it's all about. Now, come out of here. Now please, come away.”

David was perceptive enough to feel the man's sincerity. He was willing to concede that there were things he did not understand. The man's urgency now made him doubtful. “All right. As long as Sarah knows I did not leave. I hope you are better, Sarah.” He felt sure she was. She was good and mad, and he was glad of it.

She sat bolt upright and the soft fabric of her gown fell low on her bare shoulders. “You were very kind to come and tell me,” said Sarah.

He could have sworn that proudly, toughly, she meant it. He couldn't answer. He let Edgar draw him away.

In the corridor Edgar said, “You do her no favor to teach her to think people lie, you know.”

“No?”

“Symptom,” snapped Edgar.

“Paranoia …” David's step faltered.

“You think of that a little late. Let her
alone.
”

Sarah lay back and stared at the wall. Then she rolled and retrieved the charred sheet of David's notes from the floor.
Clinton,
she read. Then a line lower,
Howe.
Both British generals in the War of the American Revolution. They had nothing to do with the history of the State of California. These notes were old, made for David Wakeley's earlier book, already published. These notes had no value. It didn't matter if they burned. He hadn't even brought his real work here. He had not lost it. Nothing evil had happened to him.

Because he had deceived her. He had not meant to work with her at all. But why? She thought, So, I've been
spared,
have I? Of all the ridiculous …! What is going on? she cried to herself. And something loosened and her heart swelled and she was good and mad and head-over-heels in love.

“Listen to me, Grandfather,” Malvina said, as soon as they were left before the fire. She leaned across the cushions. “There is something you don't know. If you had let me in, this afternoon … but you wouldn't. You wouldn't listen. That car David is driving doesn't belong to him. It belongs to Consuelo McGhee.”

Fox's jaws opened and and closed several times as if he ate and digested this.

“So we
must
get him away.” She was triumphant. “Now you see, don't you? Now tell him you have changed your mind and make him go.”

“Malvina, Malvina,” said the old man, leaning back. The firelight played on his craggy face. “Never do that again. You must always do as I say.” But the fire had gone out of his scolding for the moment.

“He is dangerous. Mrs. McGhee is dangerous. You've always said so.”

“I will tell you because I see you must understand my plans. You are not to tell this to Edgar. Now …” He leaned forward and brought up his hands and began to smack the right fist into the left palm. “Sarah is frantic, afraid for David.” Smack, went his hand. “If David stays, Sarah will run away.” Flesh thudded on flesh. “Sarah will run away as soon as her arms permit her to drive her car.” Smack, he struck his palm. “Her car will take her over the brink at the first turn when she brakes to go around it.” The hands came thudding together. “Because I have arranged that it should.” Smack. “Now, do you see?”

Malvina looked stunned.

“It's not safe, Grandfather. What if Gust or Moon should take Sarah's car?”

“No one will take Sarah's car but Sarah. Because you will hold her keys. You will not put them with the others or in Sarah's room, either. When Sarah wants to know where they are, then you will give them to her. And not before.”

Malvina took the keys that he gave her. She put them into a deep slit pocket at the end of her woolen stole.

“Yes?” he demanded.

“Yes, Grandfather.” Her face looked baffled. All her instincts for intrigue, for the manipulations of people and events, came from this man. But he was her master. She could not outdo him in it.

“It's so simple,” Fox said, relaxing. “So easy and clever, eh? She will sneak away, you see. Perhaps by night. Perhaps some morning when we are not noticing. We will be quite genuinely surprised.” Then he looked angrily at her with his sharp little dark eyes. “But if David Wakeley leaves here, as you so foolishly tried to persuade him to do, then Sarah will not run away.”

“But Grandfather, won't he … how can we keep them apart? What …?”

“You can keep him occupied,” snarled Fox. “Attach him, Malvina. Don't you think you can? Surely you are more of a woman then pallid little Sarah?”

Her face was both shrewd and stupid. “Edgar won't like it.”

“Edgar. Edgar is a fool. Tell Edgar it is policy. Do as I say. Sarah's injuries won't hold her long.”

“How long?”

“A day. Two days. Three at the most. Nothing to do but wait, Malviha. I have arranged everything.”