The Innocent (2 page)

“Claire would have held on. She'd have dogged in the manger until she was eighty.”

“She was only twenty-seven. That's so tragic, Eve!”

“Fod goodness' sake, Margie, calm down. You'll be in hysterics in a minute.”

“That's how I am. That's what I mean. I can't enjoy myself.” She hid her face in her handkerchief.

“I know something you enjoy.” Eve pulled the handkerchief aside and laid her hand on Marjorie's hot cheek. “You positively swooned in there when his hand touched yours passing a cup of coffee.”

“But that's natural isn't it, Eve?” No. It isn't natural; not healthy, animal passion. Not like it used to be before. I use passion to hide from myself. I make myself drunk and blind and deaf with it. Unnatural. Unhealthy. She had to bite her lip hard. “What with little Pete and Charles, I keep feeling I'm having my cake and eating it, too. It's unnerving.”

“Why? Having my cake and eating it is my idea of heaven.”

“No, Eve, because you know you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Any sensible person knows that.” She poked at her eyes and tried to smile. “Maybe for all my bold talk, I can't believe it's true. That Charles loves me, I mean.”

“Sweetiepie, why shouldn't he love you?”

Marjorie pulled Eve closer to the telephone table and pointed to the mirror and then to herself. “Is this the face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium?”

Eve appeared rather embarrassed.

“You see, you've been wondering, you can't understand Charles picking me.”

“I have not.” This was a lie. Marjorie had never attracted beaux. Marjorie was the girl girls got for their difficult brothers. Marjorie was the girl girls used their influence for, to get her dates.

“Well, I don't understand it, either, but I just accept it. As I told your husband, I'm not curious.” Let well enough alone. Let sleeping dogs lie. Marjorie attempted a light laugh. “You can try to figure out why Charles loves me, Eve, and tell me.”

The conversation was broken off then because they heard steps approaching. Marjorie made a warning face at her friend and then turned to Charles, tucking her damp handkerchief into her cuff.

“Margie, what goes on out here? You've been out for——”

“Was Beck boring you with one of his dissertations, Charles? Couldn't you take it?” Eve laughed.

“It was very interesting,” Charles said. “Very interesting, no kidding.” Then he grinned and his dimples showed; he shrugged and the two women were conscious of the sweep of his shoulders. He said to Eve, “That guy knows much too much for me.”

“For me, too,” Eve said.

“Good. Then come on, back me up, help me out!”

He made Eve take him under her wing. She tucked her hand through one of Charles' arms and Marjorie tucked hers through the other.

Beckwith frowned when he saw the three of them that way; he was most uncharacteristically silent for the remainder of the visit.

Beckwith was still too reserved during the drive back to their hotel. Eve believed she knew why. “What's keeping you so quiet, Beck? Struck dumb by Adonis?”

“By Carter? No. Hell, no!”

“You are jealous. You should be. I couldn't take my eyes off him. Of course,” she said thoughtfully, “I never can take my eyes off things of beauty.” She tapped her cheek with her index finger. “How shall I put it, Becky? To me a thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

“I'm not jealous of Carter. He gripes me. He rubs me the wrong way.”

“He rubs every man the wrong way. They can't take having women see what nature really can do when she wants to turn out something special in a male animal. No wonder Charles has such trouble with men when even a clever little chimpanzee like you becomes jealous of his effect on women.” She reached out and squeezed Beckwith's thigh affectionately.

“That isn't why Carter has trouble with men.”

“Of course it is. He's a woman's man, not a man's man.”

“He's nobody's man. He isn't a man.”

“You needn't be jealous, Beck. I liked looking at him but I wouldn't be married to him. Married life wouldn't be worth a hill of beans. I'd have to spend my time worrying about every female in sight with sight. No, I wouldn't have Charles Carter on a bet.”

Beck shifted gears clumsily, making a sound like a Bronx cheer. He was scowling.

“You mean I'm talking sour grapes? You mean he wouldn't have me anyway?”

“He wouldn't have you on a bet. He wouldn't go for your type for a cent.”

“Really!” She turned to stare at Beckwith. He was sniffing peculiarly, then he swallowed several times. “You're very rude. What's the matter with you, Beck?”

“Nothing serious,” he said, sounding very sorry for himself, “only I'm pretty sure I'm getting a cold.”

“But you haven't sneezed once.”

“My throat is sore. I feel hot and cold and there's a kind of tickling premonition in the back of my nose.”

“That sounds like it.” Eve groaned. “Oh, poor Becky! Here we are. Let them park the car and you go upstairs to bed.”

Eve was at the dressing table, rubbing in cold cream. She called to Beckwith, who was in the bathroom. “What are you running that tap for so long?”

“I'm trying to get this water hot enough to fix me a toddy.”

“Beck, I've been wondering why you're so sure Charles wouldn't have me on a bet. After all, I'm not bad.”

Beck appeared with a glass of steaming water. He poured some rye into it.

“What has Margie got that I don't have more of?”

“That has nothing to do with it. It wasn't her looks that got Carter.”

“It wasn't? What do you think Margie did to get him, used a love philter?”

“A baby bottle would be more like it.”

“You mean she mothers him? Margie's always been ready to mother everybody in sight, and as one of the people who took full advantage of this weakness in her, I know whereof I speak. Doesn't that taste awful, Becky? That water should be boiled, not just hot.”

“Awful.”

“But I think it's darling the way little Margie mothers that great big hunk of man. And I can see why. Let me tell you, dearie, when he sort of throws himself on your mercy and you look at him and see what's doing it! Oh, Beck—a woman goes all gooey inside!”

“Gooey is right! Sickening! I can't stand that kind of sentimental drivel. It's disgusting. It's all wet.”

“You'll get all wet, waving that drink around. Well, you should worry, Margie likes it.”

“Margie shouldn't like it.”

“Why not? Really, Beck. She's so flattered and proud because this beautiful man picked her from all the women in the world to be his to love, honor, and obey.”

“She shouldn't be flattered.”

“But she is. She acts as if it was a miracle. I think it's touching.”

“It's touched. She shouldn't be flattered. That guy went for her because she worshiped him and it wouldn't occur to her in a hundred years that he should do the same for her. Your girl friend asks nothing but that he relax and let her adore him and take care of him and bolster him up against the cold hard world. What's flattering about it? If Carter can't have that from a woman, she could be Lana Turner and Linda Darnell and Greer Garson all rolled into one and, as far as Carter is concerned, she could go roll. He'd still take Margie. I wonder why boiled water makes so much difference.” He took a cautious swallow from the glass and grimaced.

“It's like tea. Wait a minute, Becky, don't be so smart. Don't forget my friend Claire came along and took Charles away from Marjorie.”

“Then I'll guarantee she was ready to be his mother plus.”

“Well, Claire was the mother type too, I suppose. You're right there. Not like Margie, not the loving-kindness mother; the matriarch kind of mother. Claire always wanted to run everybody. She couldn't have taken having a man run her like you run me.”

“I do run you, pal, where it counts.” He swished the liquid in his glass distastefully. Even the vapor smelled like a bath some rye had dropped into, not like a toddy at all. He sneezed. “You see?” he asked.

“Poor Becky. Wait a minute, what do you mean Claire was ready to be Charles' mother plus? Plus glamour? Claire was much smarter than Margie, much more striking, better looking.”

“Not better looking, better heeled. Your friend Claire had more money, didn't she? Trust Carter to pick a rich mother while he was at it. I better just drink this down. I'm certainly not enjoying it.” He finished the toddy, set the glass down on the bed table, yanked the cover off the bed, and stood glaring down at it resentfully.

Eve stared at him, then nodded and smiled. She pushed him aside, folded the covers down neatly, opened up the extra blanket and plumped up his pillows. “Why do you think it's wrong for Margie to mother Charles? Look how you want me to mother you.”

Beck crawled into bed. “I do not. You got any maternal instinct lying around, you save it for our offspring where it belongs. I catch you mothering me and I'll divorce you. I'm a man, what there is of me, not a baby, and I want a wife, not a mother.”

He pulled his nose and winced because it was tender. “Incidentally, as I pointed out to your friend, she just isn't curious enough for her own good. She should have figured it out. She should have seen that Carter wasn't asking her to marry him, just to adopt him. Margie's a sweet kid, but she doesn't understand Carter.”

“His wife doesn't understand him. My wife doesn't understand me! All you men say that.”

“Sure, it's a stock remark and usually it means the wife understands too damn well, but not in your girl friend's case. In her case it is quite true and could turn out quite unfunny.”

“The voice of doom! Why don't you get up and Paul Revere over there and warn Margie she's nursing a chidish viper in her maternal bosom.”

“Maybe I should, but I have a cold.”

“Just for a cold? ‘For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider was lost.' For want of a man brave enough to go out with a cold, Margie is lost?”

“Oh, shut up,” Beckwith said. “I'm going to sleep. Sleep a cold and starve a fever.”

Eve waited for Beck to sock his pillow into shape. He did. Sock, Sock. Sock. He looked as if he were pounding somebody into a pulp. He looked angry and apprehensive.

When the Winants left, Marjorie had to do the formula for the next day. She was washing the four cake plates, the four coffee cups and saucers and highball glasses, when Charles came into the kitchen. He broke off a piece from what was left of the chocolate cake and put it into his mouth, disregarding Marjorie's frown. “Who was it telephoned earlier?”

Should she say, a girl who worked for you and Claire who is in a bad way, who left her uniforms here—which sounds as if she left in a hurry—and who was quite upset when I told her Claire was dead? Margie pretended she hadn't heard Charles because of the running water. She turned off the tap. “What did you say, dear?”

“I said, who called?” There was some icing stuck to the cake plate. Charles worked it off.

Why hadn't the girl wanted any part of Claire? Because Claire had been nasty to her? Claire could be nasty if she wanted to. Why had she been so upset she ran out of the drugstore? Because it was upsetting to hear that anyone was dead? The girl had probably left this house in a tizzy because she and Claire had had a scrap about not dusting under the chairs, about scorching one of Claire's pretty nightgowns. It was easy for Marjorie to give herself sensible answers while she was busy, while she was awake. She said to Charles, “It was a wrong number, dear, that's all.”

Marjorie moaned and her head twisted on her pillow. Her dream was so terrible that she fought awake as if she was drowning in sleep, as if it was choking her. Her eyes opened in the dark bedroom, and she knew that something was terribly wrong, that there was danger, that the night was sinister. She sat upright, her breath uneven, and then saw Charles' head on the next pillow. Marjorie moved so that her thigh touched Charles' long, straight back, and then she smiled tremulously. There was no danger. The dark was for Charles and herself to make love in.
“Tender is the night,”
she thought. Charles was her husband. She pressed her thigh harder against his back to feel his firm cool skin under his pajamas. Upstairs (she listened, but he wasn't crying), her baby slept peacefully. It was only the baby who worried her, troubling even her dreams. Any mother would be apprehensive about an infant like little Pete, and it must have been he she had dreamed about. She must have dreamed about Dr. Larker examining little Pete in the hospital that time, and shaking his head over him, folding his stethoscope, pushing it into his hip pocket, and looking very solemn. Of course it was about little Pete.

She would be a wicked mother if she let herself be worried over anything else. It was her duty to keep her mind free for little Pete. Dr. Larker had told her so. “Only the most constant care, the most loving attention, and even at that—You two are a fine, healthy pair,” he had said. “It isn't as if you couldn't have six or eight babies.” Marjorie was always furious when she remembered this. No. She would take care of little Pete. She would save him. Moving smoothly, she pulled the clock toward her and saw by its illuminated dial that it was twenty of six. She might just as well get up now, warm the formula, and coax enough of it down little Pete to keep him going.

And now it was the nurse she saw, shaking her head, holding up the untouched bottle, indicating that little Pete hadn't taken enough to keep a bird alive. But Miss Brush was just a nurse, good enough to take charge of a healthy baby, but not good enough for little Pete. Little Pete needed his mother who could keep him alive because he meant more to her than anything except the man lying next to her. She moved too abruptly; Charles turned and put his arms around her and drew her down. She felt his lips, half on her mouth, half on her chin, and felt his warm breath. Where his breath touched her she came alive, like God breathing his breath upon the clay and making the clay live. It was idolatrous to compare Charles to God, but she couldn't help it. There was idolatry in her love for him and she knew it. Marjorie sighed and let him thrust her back on the pillow, but then it seemed to her that she heard little Pete mewing. Marjorie gave Charles a quick light kiss and started to roll him back to his side but his arms tightened. “I've got to go,” she whispered. “Let go of me, darling.”