The Man Who Loved His Wife (10 page)

“It's for your protection,” said the agent piously.

“You won't find any termites in this house,” the owner added.

“What time do we meet?” asked the agent.

Don assumed an important air. “I happen to have a rather full day tomorrow. A meeting that may go on all afternoon.” Like a man of affairs, he shrugged off the dreary business, suggested
that they get together in the morning of the next day. There was no doubt that he had made a good impression. The Jaguar and the Strode address in Pacific Palisades had not gone unnoticed. These were solid assets like cash in the bank. Donald Hustings seemed a man whose signature could command thousands. But he did not feel that he had made a commitment recklessly. He had given himself an extra twenty-four hours to raise the money.

“You think your father'd advance it?”

Cindy thought about it bitterly. They were driving on the freeway, and she noticed all the posters advertising houses that could be owned by veterans without a penny's down payment. Don had given two years of his life to the US Navy. Her father would probably suggest that a man without ready cash take advantage of some such drab opportunity. During their stay in his house her father had shown little generosity to the honeymoon couple. It was galling to contrast her fate with Nan Burke's splendid life. If Cindy had been a poor man's daughter she could have forgiven her father's ungenerous attitude, but she had so often heard her mother speak in angry reverence of Fletcher's fortune that Cindy had grown up believing herself an heiress. Nothing in Fletcher Strode's present style of living (except the absence of a servant in the house) suggested that he was not wealthy. What had Cindy to expect from such a father? His money was squandered on that second wife.

She looked up at Don. His well-cut features were deformed by a scowl, the sculptured lips pressed between his teeth. “I don't know. Daddy's been so dismal lately, he's in a sort of depression.” She did not speak in her usual flat voice but wailed softly like a disconsolate child. “I'm kind of afraid of asking. It'd be easier with Nan's father. He likes you so much, Donnie.”

Don turned down the car radio. At any other time the jazz combo would have delighted him, but with so many cars whirring on the freeway and Cindy using that affected childish voice, he could barely hear. His tones, still adjusted to the jazz band, were far too loud. “We can't ask him for the down payment. If he's going to finance us for forty thousand, we can't let
him know we don't have the first five thousand.”

“Why not?”

“We'd be poor security. I doubt that his company would accept us even with his recommendation.”

Cindy was not informed about money. Don had to explain the transaction in words of one syllable. He became harsher as the reality of the situation became clearer. It had disappointed Don that Cindy's private income and expectations were not what he had been led to believe; but then he had also represented himself as a suitor with a solid job and brilliant prospects. The house might indeed be a bargain for a man who had a few thousand dollars, but for a man in Don Hustings's position, there were no bargains. “Maybe we oughtn't to buy now.”

“I'll die if we don't get that house. Isn't there some way, Don?”

“We might borrow on your trust fund.”

A transformation took place in Cindy. The plaintive little girl became a woman of iron. Her very skin took on a metallic hue. Once before Don had suggested borrowing on the principal. She had burst out with such an astonishing series of shrieks, accusations, and tears that for days he had been afraid to talk to her. The trust fund settled upon her by Fletcher at the time of his divorce was sacred, her only security against starvation in the streets.

“You know I'd never do that,” she answered with surprising dignity. “But there must be some other way. For people like us. Daddy must still have plenty of money. Couldn't we just use his name?”

Don had become very tense. An idiot truck driver had slowed up just ahead. They were entering the city. Smog made breathing impossible. Heat lay upon the earth like an electric blanket. “Not unless he'd co-sign. That'd be no different from asking him to lend us the money.”

“I don't mean asking him. I mean just being his daughter. After all,” Cindy held her breath while Don swung out and passed the huge truck, “I am his daughter, and he's not so young and has had that terrible operation.”

“He's done all right by you. Do you know how much principal it takes to earn a seventy-five-a-week income? We know nothing about his will, and besides he may live for years.”

“I hope he does,” Cindy said and added without thought of the contradiction, “but there are big insurance policies. He made them out for Mom and me before the divorce and it was in the settlement he'd keep them for us.”

Don sighed. They could not raise money on hopes and promises. Their only chance was a direct appeal to Fletcher Strode. The prospect appalled Don. From time to time he turned to look at Cindy and saw the fear in her face. There were only two courses, either to give up and go back to his hopeless job and his debts, or to risk his father-in-law's contempt. Presently he suggested that Cindy appeal to her father. She answered that financial problems were his responsibility. For the rest of the drive they argued, weaving in and out between the speeding cars and breathing foul fumes. In anger Don drove faster and more dangerously until he was stopped by a traffic cop and given a ticket for reckless driving. This was not a good omen.

A MIRACLE AWAITED Cindy's homecoming. “Nan's here,” she announced with the reverence of a herald angel. A Rolls-Royce was parked in the driveway.

“Don't say anything about the house.”

“Why not? I'm dying to tell them.”

“We've got to break it to your father carefully. He might not approve if he's not in the right mood.”

In the living room they found Nan Burke chattering at Fletcher. Her simple cotton dress had cost two hundred dollars, if not more. “Darling!” she and Cindy cried simultaneously and hurried to touch cheekbones.

“I thought you were in Arrowhead,” Cindy said.

“I was. I am,” Nan replied with the accent and giggle she and Cindy had acquired the same year at the same school. “But after all, Arrowhead shops aren't exactly fabulous and I was desperately in need of shorts. Imagine forgetting to pack shorts! They're an absolute must in the mountains.” Nan could
go on like this for hours. About nothing important. “And with the place at Newport empty, there was no one to fetch them so I came to town for some new ones. And stopped in to see you. And met your famous father.” She glanced toward Fletcher coyly. She had been told about his infirmity and warned that he was morbidly sensitive. “Actually I dropped in to bring you something.” From a mammoth alligator bag that must have cost three hundred dollars (if not more) she brought out a pair of engraved cards. “With Rexie away I don't feel much like going out at night. The mountain air's so positively great that . . . well, really, you won't believe this . . . we fall asleep at nine. Isn't it fantastic? You really ought to come up there, Mr. Strode”—she favored him with a bright, apologetic smile—“it's so relaxing. Really! And you'd be welcome to use our bit of beach and sail one of my father's boats if you'd like.” She gestured with a cigarette, brushed ash off her expensive cotton bosom. Her breasts were large, her waist filling out. Although she was Cindy's age and had so far only one child, she had begun to wear the bountiful air of a patroness.

Cindy cooed over the cards which were for a widely advertised movie premiere, a benefit sponsored by one of Nan's favorite charities. Cindy had heard the girls talk about it, had been aching to go but could not dream of paying fifty dollars for the cheapest seats. The tickets Nan bestowed were for the best box and had probably cost a thousand dollars, if not more. They also entitled the bearers to attend a midnight supper dance at the San Marino estate of an oil millionaire.

Ecstatic, Cindy contrived to show decent protest. “Are you sure you don't want to go, Nan?”

“Without my husband?”

“Why not?” asked Don with a provocative smile.

“Who'd take me?”

“I'm sure there are dozens of men who'd welcome the privilege.”

“I'm not that sort of wife. Not yet.”

Cindy joined Nan in gales of merriment over the innuendo. Don had pleased Nan, which pleased Cindy; and Don was
pleased with himself. Fletcher's stomach rumbled. Elaine came in with a tray of iced tea and cookies.

“What about your parents? Couldn't you go with them?” asked Cindy, stretching the danger of self-sacrifice to its limit.

“They're too lazy. And my father's bored to death by those affairs. People make
speeches
.” Nan made the word sound obscene.

“If you change your mind, just call up and you have your seats back,” Cindy offered reluctantly as she tucked the tickets away in an amusing straw bag which cost only eighteen dollars at a sale.

“Why don't you use my father's seats, Mr. Strode? I'm sure you and your wife would enjoy the show.” Nan addressed Fletcher in a slow, clear voice calculated to show compassion for the afflicted.

Fletcher grunted something inaudible and marched out of the room. He refused to stay and be spoken to like a deaf mute or a moron, and to be offered the charity of unwanted tickets. Did that fool girl imagine he'd burst with joy at the privilege of sitting through an affair that bored her father? Fletcher Strode! God knows, he could afford a pair of tickets if he wanted them; a dozen pairs. He would have liked to hurl the ashtray, stubs and all, at the complacent bosom. Most distasteful of all was Cindy's acting like a poor relation.

“I hope you don't mind poor Daddy, he's so morbidly sensitive,” Cindy said with the frayed remnant of a laugh.

“I tried to offer him a bit of pleasure.” Nan stood up. Her purse slid to the floor.

Elaine murmured thanks for the invitation and excused herself to go after Fletcher. Don hurried to retrieve the fallen bag. Sir Walter Raleigh could not have shown more gallant obeisance to his queen. Nan bestowed a regal smile. Don acknowledged it with a flattering eye. Nan walked out with a swinging motion of her hips. Don accompanied her to the car. Cindy started after them, but Don turned with a wink that bade her remain behind. When he helped Nan into the Rolls, he lifted her hand and kissed it.

“Wasn't Daddy awful?” Cindy whispered when she and Don were in their room with the transistor turned high and the door closed. “You don't think she was sore, do you?”

“I did my best to smooth out the ruffled plumage.”

“You were adorable.” Cindy kissed the tip of his chin. “If businessmen were women, you'd be a millionaire.”

Don stripped off his shirt and flexed his muscles at the suntanned fellow in the mirror. “Never underestimate the power of a woman. Her old man may be clay in Nan's little hand.”

“Wasn't Daddy terrible, though? Tomorrow, Donnie, I'm going to tell him what I thought of that performance—”

“Not if you want the house. Tomorrow you're going to ask Daddy for five thousand dollars. And one thousand of it right away.”

“You're the man, darling, you've got to ask.”

Implacable, the man said, “You're his daughter, the sweetest little girl in the world. Remember, daughter dear, it's only a loan you're asking for.”

“He'll squawk at me in that voice. It makes me sick. I just can't take it.”

The argument went on until they reached a compromise. Cindy would gird up courage and appeal to her father; Don would charm Elaine into using her influence with Fletcher. This seemed a brilliant idea. A couple of cocktails stiffened their courage. Fletcher drank a lot before and during dinner. Afterward they played bridge and he won. This seemed a good omen.

CINDY AND DON came to breakfast promptly. She explained prettily that she had decided to get up every morning at the crack of dawn, and do something useful. “After all, a vacation can't last forever, you know.” She kissed Fletcher on both cheeks and ran to the kitchen to help Elaine. Don explained that he had an early appointment with Douglas Lyman Carter III about an opening in his family's firm. Fletcher grunted something that Don preferred not to understand. Since the day he arrived in California, Don had been talking about his fraternity brother, the Carter heir. After several meetings and many
martinis, Don had been introduced to the personnel manager of Carter Consolidated. An opening had been mentioned, but it was neither interesting nor remunerative enough for a man of Don's caliber. Young Doug had laughed at the very idea of his fraternity brother's taking a job on a junior-junior level and promised a personal meeting with his grandfather.

“Today's the day. Doug's done a top-selling job because the old man's giving me a half hour of his time.” Don was never more blithe than in a spontaneous lie.

“Good luck,” Elaine said.

Cindy wore a pink ribbon in her hair. It gave her an innocent look so that she seemed only a little older than the ruffled child in the photograph on Fletcher's desk. This picture was the one souvenir that Fletcher had wanted to keep after he married Elaine. It brought back memories of the days when his daughter had been adoring and adorable, and he had given her four Saturdays a year. They had gone off together like clandestine lovers, freed of his wife's heavy companionship; to beach or circus or rodeo or ice show; to overeat and laugh boisterously together. He had been looked upon as the king of happiness and had bestowed extravagant toys.