The Just And The Unjust (49 page)

'You can't have anything much, Harold. Do you want some milk toast?'

'All right.'

'Then you go back to bed, and I'll bring it up to you. Now, hurry. Right upstairs!'

'Will you stay while I eat it?'

'If I have time. Mother will be home pretty soon.'

'Where's Philip?'

'He's out playing. Upstairs now!'

Harold had been moving closer. He put out a hand and took hold of Bonnie's wrist, clinging to it. He said, 'Why doesn't he have to come in?'; but it was plain that he was little interested in the answer. He wanted to touch her because of the comfort or pleasure it gave him.

'He will have to, in a moment,' Bonnie said. Harold took her by the hips and pressed his forehead against her thigh. Bonnie laid her hand on his head a moment, and said, 'Go on, dear; or there won't be time to bring you anything.'

'All right.' Reluctantly he let her go, turned and padded quickly through the dining-room.

Abner said, 'No. Let's not call it off. What is it you want?'

Bonnie crossed over to the ice-box and took out a bottle of milk. She unhooked a saucepan from the row hanging above the electric stove, snapped on a switch, and poured milk into the saucepan. She said, 'I guess I want somebody who will trust me —about everything. Mother made a mess of her life because of that.'

'I don't see that much of it was her fault.'

'No. She doesn't see that any of it was her fault. She was crazy about Wacker. I'm not going to live that kind of a life.' She dropped a slice of bread into the electric toaster.

Abner said, 'There have been lawyers who never absconded with any trust funds.'

'I don't mean just that. I mean I'm not going to be any man's dear little woman and not worry about anything until he runs off with his stenographer. Get me a bowl out of there, will you?'

Abner took a bowl from the cabinet and put it on the table.

Bonnie said, 'She had no business not to know. I mean, how could anyone married to a man not know that he was in trouble about money? How could she not know he didn't want her any more, and that there was this stenographer? How could she not know that he was the kind of person who would steal and then run? Mother could. It never crossed her mind. She never really knew a thing about him; and I suppose he didn't know much about her — except maybe that she was a fool who wanted a man.'

That was a good description of Cousin Mary; and Bonnie would always have known it; but Abner doubted if she had ever said it before. He did not know how much anyone ever really learned about anyone else; but he was aware of a knowledge of Bonnie that let him be sure that she would be sorry she had said that. Abner said, 'In my line of work you find out a good deal about how people happen to get into trouble. They don't look where they're going. It's like a man driving a car. If everyone kept his eyes on the road there wouldn't be any accidents; but nobody keeps his eyes on the road all the time. You still haven't told me what you want.' She said, 'I want you to trust me.'

'You'll have to say what you mean.'

'Well, here's one thing. You argue about my job. I'm probably going to lose this one; but if we got married we'd have to take care of Mother. I'm sorry; but I'd have to; and what I have to do, we have to do. If we can get by without my working, then I won't work if you don't want me to. Give me that bowl.'

'That isn't what you said last time.'

'I didn't know I needed to say it.' She took the bowl and put a piece of toast in it. 'Can't you see that I'd never, just because I wanted to, do what you didn't want me to? You'd only have to tell me. And everything you did want me to do, I'd do with all my heart.' She took up the saucepan, her hand shaking a little, and poured the scalding milk over the toast.

'We can get by,' Abner said. 'Do you mind living up at the house for a while — well, what I mean is, we might have to do it as long as Father lived.'

'I wouldn't mind living with you anywhere, if —'

'No. Wait. Listen. I think there is a pretty good chance I'll be elected district attorney next November. It's a chance. We haven't lost an election in eighteen years; but that doesn't mean we couldn't lose this one. If we win it, I'll be pretty well fixed. Now, do we have to wait to find out whether I do or not?'

'We don't have to wait for anything.'

'Well, then, sit down and fill the paper out. That's too hot for him to eat.'

'All right.'

She sat on the edge of the metal framed chair and picked the pen up. Abner stood leaning against the sink, looking at her. He found that he held an unlighted cigarette that he had sometime taken out. He drew a booklet of matches from his pocket. The fancy black script on the orange front said
Childerstown Inn
. On the back was a street plan showing where the inn stood in relation to the through routes.

Abner turned it over, taking in the inconsequential detail, which his mind, brought to a nervous pause, made use of as something to think about. He was, in fact, a little frightened by the irrevocable step he had now taken, and had now made Bonnie take. He did not doubt that it was a good step, and the right step; but just as when, in Jake Riordan's office, he had committed himself to Jesse, he was now obliged to wonder whether he was embarking on more than he had the abilities to manage. This was a large order, too. The commitments were not only similar, but linked to each other. He committed himself to Jesse, and so gained a free hand to commit himself here; and the two together must break up the pattern of life which he was used to and knew how to manage.

Living it, the life had seemed to Abner vaguely unsatisfactory; but when he put an end to it there were obvious good points to be remembered. For one simple and artless item, it never mattered when he got home; and though there was rarely or never anything to keep him out and the freedom was useless, he could feel himself being shut in; one after another the ways out closing. Until this afternoon he had also been free to say what he thought about Jesse; but he was not free any longer. As Marty said, he could not stand off and talk in his new position. If he did not like the way things were, he could no longer merely make a complaint; he himself was part of how things were; and he himself would have to work a plan out, implement it, and take the responsibility if it failed.

The sunset light shafted across the table and Bonnie moved the pen from blank space to blank space. Her clear script, wet and shining as the pen point traced it, was already dry on the first lines. Without looking up, she read aloud, 'Is applicant an imbecile, epileptic, of unsound mind, or under guardianship as a person of unsound mind, or under the influence of any intoxicating liquor or narcotic drug —' She gave a short nervous laugh.

'Write, no,' Abner said. He lit the cigarette. 'You can sign it there, and on the second line above. I'll have Arlene notarize it to-morrow. And don't forget you'll have to go down to Doctor Mosher's.'

'All right.'

'You don't sound very sure,' Abner said. He spoke awkwardly, aware in the absurdity of the moment that she felt no surer than he did.

She put the cap on the fountain pen. 'I am,' she said, 'but I —' She looked at him. 'Well, I never did this before.' She held the pen out politely.

Taking it, Abner balanced his cigarette on the edge of the drain board. With the hand thus freed, he caught her hand.

'Ab,' she said, 'do you really —'

'Yes,' he said. 'I really.'

Tightening his grip on her hand, he drew her out of the chair. 'It's not as bad as all that,' he said. The taut scared-to-death look on her face made him laugh, even as it filled him with compunction; and suddenly he remembered what he had forgotten — that if he suffered losses, he would have inestimable gains, the charms of her mind and body so joined that there was no distinguishing them. Both troubled his senses and both exalted his heart. Answering the repressed, the unformed, query that must all along have been in his mind, Abner thought: I would take any damn job. It seemed to him right that he should. He bent and kissed her. 'Ah, Ab,' she said, 'you won't be sorry, will you — '

From upstairs Harold yelled faintly, 'Bonnie!'

'Oh, Lord!' she said, laughing. 'Yes, darling! I'm coming!' She pushed Abner away and took the bowl of milk toast.

"Well, hurry up,' said Abner, somewhat shaken. 'I have to get to court. I'll drive you over to school.'

'No,' said Bonnie. 'I'll have to stay until Mother comes. I don't need to be at school until half past eight. You go, will you. I'll have to tell Mother.'

'Want some help?'

'No. I don't want you to be here.'

EIGHT

1

ON the quiet evening air the tolling of the bell broke out from the courthouse tower. It was not quite dusk. Abner could see gleams of light through the Gothic windows of the main courtroom. Lights were on in the Judge's chambers, and upstairs in the jury room. Abner came under the arch of the passage to the jail. In the window of the warden's sitting-room Mrs. O'Hara held a red tin pot with which she was watering, the spout thrust out between the bars, young petunias in the window box. There was a smell of friend onions from the kitchen; and Abner wondered how much Howell and Basso had been able to eat.

At the rear door a man stood with his hand on the knob, ready to enter. Hearing Abner's steps, he turned his head, and Abner saw that it was Art Wenn. 'Hello,' he said.

Art said, 'Greetings, Ab!' He held out his hand and Abner took it. 'Long time no see!' Art said. He was snubnosed and somewhat dish-faced. He beamed. 'Well, sir!' he said, 'I hear I got to beat you this fall.'

'Where did you hear that?'

'Why, Jesse told me. Had to see him about a little matter, connection this school board trouble. We got to talking. I told him I was going to run. He said you were entering the primaries unopposed, so it looked like you and me.' He laughed uproariously. 'Going in?' he said. 'Thought I'd like to hear the verdict. Commonwealth ask for death?'

Abner nodded.

'Going to get it?'

Abner said, 'I don't see why not.' He opened the door and Art Wenn clapped him on the back to make him go first. 'By the way,' he said, 'Pete Van Zant been around?'

'He was here this afternoon.'

'What did he want?'

'He wanted to see Marty about something.'

'Got to see him. Pete pulled a fast one on me. Let me tell you about it. There's this Mrs. Cooley, see, in Warwick; widow. She and her father, fellow named McGovern, make this promissory note, see, payable to Mrs. McGovern, see, his wife, Cooley woman's mother. All right, it's been discounted by the Farmers Bank and Trust, Warwick, and they pledge it as collateral security along with a lot of others on a Federal loan. All right. Before the maturity of the note, the co-maker, McGovern, dies, see? At maturity, the note was returned to the bank for presentation, collection, or renewal, and was protested for nonpayment, see? Well —'

'Look, Art,' Abner said, 'tell me about it later, will you? Court's going to start in a minute and I have to see Marty.'

Art Wenn, it was plain, was offended. 'Well,' he said, 'didn't mean to bore you. It's a kind of interesting point. Pete's going pretty far, I can tell you. He's going to get into trouble one of these days —'

'You don't bore me,' Abner said — that was a lie, all right! — 'I'd like to hear about it when I have time.'

'Sure, sure,' Art said. 'See you later.'

Since he did not mean it, either, the parting was uneasy. Wenn pushed open the door of the Attorneys' Room, letting out a burst of conversation. Everitt Weitzel came up the hall and said, 'Ab, Marty's in the Judge's chambers. Want to go in there?'

'And suppose I don't want to?' said Abner, relieved.

'Then, go anyway,' Everitt said. He poked Abner with his finger. 'Albert just came down. Spying on the jury.'

'What's he say?'

'Says it's eleven to one for acquittal. No. The Judge had him ask how long they'd be. Scared you.' He limped on chuckling and went into the courtroom.

Abner went past the back stairs to the lighted glass sign over the door of the library. Opening the door, he found it blocked by Albert Unruh, about to leave. Albert stepped aside and said, 'Mr. Blandy thinks they won't be so much longer, Judge.'

Judge Vredenburgh, biting his pipe, nodded. From the easy chair in the corner Maynard Longstreet said, 'Well, hurry them up, Albert.
I
have to get over to school in a couple of minutes. Tell them the Court says to get going.'

'No,' said Judge Irwin, smiling, 'don't do that.' He and Bunting were sitting together looking at the contents of a file folder on the table. He nodded to Abner. He said, 'Judge Linus Coates, Abner's grandfather, was once reversed on that. Did you know that, Ab? The case you find cited is his. I ought to say that he was very rarely reversed; but he had something of a temper.'

'Like Ab,' Maynard said.

'No, I never saw any signs of it in Ab,' Judge Irwin said seriously. 'Oh, you meant that as a pleasantry. Yes; I think Ab has a very good disposition. Not that Linus didn't have a good one, as a rule; but in those days judges were often something of a law unto themselves. He sent word to a jury that had been out a long time on a matter that he thought quite simple, that if they did not bring in a verdict within an hour, they would be excluded from jury service thereafter and he would post their names. It was held, I'm afraid quite properly, to be coercion.'

'Yes,' Judge Vredenburgh said, 'better get up there, Albert, and say nothing.' He knocked his pipe out carefully in an ash tray. 'Well, Ab,' he said. He glanced around to see who was present. Besides Judge Irwin and Bunting and Maynard there was only Hugh Erskine who held a copy of the
Examiner
open to the sports page close up to his eyes.

Judge Vredenburgh went on, 'I'm glad to hear you're going to run. It's bad enough having a new sheriff without having a new district attorney, too. I think you and Marty and Horace and I had better fix some time soon to have a conference. Thought about an assistant?'

Abner said, 'I'd like to have George Stacey.'