by Carolyn Hart
Manuel handed the telephone to Catharine. “Ma’am, it’s your husband.”
Catharine took the receiver. “Yes.”
“Catharine, are you free tomorrow afternoon? Woody wants to know if we can attend a polo match tomorrow at the British Club.”
“Of course. Shall I meet you there?”
“That would be perfect. I appreciate it, Catharine.”
“I’ll be glad to.” Her voice was colorless and even.
“Is anything wrong?” Spencer asked.
“Oh, no. Everything’s fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
Even in her distant, uncaring mood, she was touched. That was perceptive of Spencer.
“It’s all right, Spencer.”
“Catharine, I’m sorry things are so difficult. I know this isn’t very pleasant for you, to be stuck here with nothing to do and no real friends, but we’re making a lot of progress. We may be able to go back to the States by January.”
Once, she would have been so excited at the prospect. She would have braced herself to tell Spencer that she was leaving him, but now it didn’t make any difference. Manila. New York. Now or January. What difference did it make?
“Catharine?”
“Yes, I’m here. And I’ll count on the polo match tomorrow.”
The horses thundered down the field. Catharine recognized an American officer leaning low out of his saddle, swinging his mallet. The thock as it struck the wooden ball echoed across the field. Someone in the stands yelled, “Good shot, Brewster!”
Catharine stood beneath the intertwining branches of a banyan tree and watched the match without much interest. It was cool and shady beneath the tree, and she felt she’d done her duty for a while. She’d left Spencer in the reviewing stand and circulated through the tent set up near the field and visited with the wives of players and spectators. She’d met several nurses from Fort Stotsenburg Army Hospital, some pilots from Clark Field, and a naval officer from Cavite Naval Base. Now she leaned against the tree and watched the people standing beside the field, men in uniform, women in swirling summery dresses. She watched dreamily. Everyone looked especially attractive today. Funny to think they were eight thousand miles from the States. And how many miles farther was it to England? She could work it out, of course, but it didn’t matter now because Jack wasn’t in England, or, if he was, she didn’t know where.
Then she jerked upright; her breath caught in her throat. She stared through the dimness beneath the tree out into the brilliant, harsh sunlight.
It couldn’t be. Not possibly. It was her imagination creating familiarity out of the set of broad shoulders, the wave of thick, curly black hair. Then the man turned and looked across the emerald-green lawn. Her hand rose to her throat, her heart began to pound, and she felt as if she were going to faint.
She was thin, too damn thin. Had she been sick? Then Jack knew she’d seen him. Her hand went to her throat. Her eyes widened in shock—then joy softened her face. A shout rose behind him. Someone had scored. There was a rush of movement and noise, the thunder of clapping hands. Everywhere there was a sense of movement and excitement. Only he and Catharine stood still, staring at each other through the thick, hazy heat of the November afternoon.
He wanted to hold her, yet he stood with leaden legs. He was afraid. She’d gone with Spencer and left only a note behind. He knew she cared, but how much? Still, it was absurd to stand here, only yards from her, and look with longing eyes. He’d crossed oceans and continents to find her, yet he hesitated. For a damn certain man, he felt very uncertain. Would she be angry that he’d come? He stared across the grass and found it hard to breathe as he looked into her violet eyes. No color ever anywhere was so vivid as Catharine’s eyes, not bluebells in Scotland nor a mountain lake in Switzerland nor the deep purplish haze that twilight brings to a Caribbean sunset.
He was walking toward her now, not even aware he’d taken a step. A gentle breeze molded her soft pink dress against her. She looked lovely and unapproachable, as exotic as the flowers that trellised the bamboo fence behind the spreading banyan tree. He ducked to step beneath the low-slung branches of the banyan.
She stood waiting, her hand still at her throat, her eyes enormous in a pale face.
He stopped just in front of her, stared down, and couldn’t find the words he needed.
Catharine’s mouth trembled. “I thought I would never see you again,” she said huskily. Then she said it again, her voice rising and harshening. “I thought I would never see you again.”
Jack knew then.
Her voice ached with pain, buckled with pain, and he knew why she was so thin and pale. He knew with a rush of gratitude and happiness that she did love him, that she had never stopped loving him, that she stood in the shadow of the banyan tree and struggled for composure. She was his whether he belonged in her world or not, forever and always.
“It’s all right.” He reached out and took her hands in his, held them hard and tight, and he knew he was a lifeline.
Tears brimmed in her eyes, those glorious, vivid, magnificent eyes. “I wrote you. The letter came back addressee unknown. Oh, God, Jack, I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“It’s all right,” he said again.
Gravel crunched as a couple passed along the path beside the banyan tree.
“Hello, Catharine,” a woman’s light voice called.
Catharine looked blankly past Jack and nodded; then she pulled her hands free.
When the couple was past, Jack said abruptly, “Let’s get out of here.”
She nodded, then said breathlessly, “I must leave word for Spencer.” She found a pad in her purse, wrote a short note saying she was tired and leaving early with friends, and gave it to a steward to deliver. Then, her face alight with happiness, she took his hand. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
He smiled down at her, wanting so badly to hold her that he had to clench his hands at his sides. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, feel her strain against him. He smiled and knew with a surge of triumph that she wanted him just as much.
His car, a two-seater Ford convertible, picked up speed when they reached Dewey Boulevard. Manila Bay sparkled to their left. The sea breeze blew against their faces.
Catharine leaned back against the brown leather seat and smiled. Her face almost hurt, the smile felt so unaccustomed. She’d never expected to feel this kind of exuberance and delight again.
“Where are we going?” she shouted against the hot rush of wind.
He turned to look at her.
She loved the way the wind whipped his thick black hair and the way the sun shone on his strong face. He looked wonderful, absolutely wonderful. She loved, too, the puzzlement in his voice when he answered. “Hell, I don’t know. I just got to town. Where can we be alone?”
A tiny flush moved in her cheeks. “There’s a headland about five miles out of town, and there’s an abandoned sugar mill . . .”
She watched his profile as they drove. The coast was a blur beyond his face. She didn’t care how lovely the great expanse of bay was or how the silver tips of the waves glittered in the sunlight. All she cared about was Jack.
She bent forward, reaching out to brush his cheek with her hand.
His head turned. His eyes were dark and warm, full of love and desire.
“I love you,” she said simply. Then she cried out sharply, “Jack, watch out, that cart!”
He jerked the wheel and the Ford careened dangerously near the far edge of the road, just missing the cart.
“I’m going to wreck this goddamn car if we don’t get there pretty soon,” he said urgently.
She laughed shakily. “It’s not far now. There’s a turn-off. See, up there, at the top of the hill.”
He swung the car off onto a narrow, rutted dirt road that was scarcely more than a track. Dust rose in swirls behind them as they bucketed along through a curling green tunnel of ju
ngle growth.
Catharine swallowed. She knew the hunger that drove him because she felt it, too. She wanted to love him. Now. This minute. They didn’t need words. Not now. They needed each other.
The car burst out of the tunnel of growth and into a sparse, dusty, deserted clearing. Jack jammed on the brakes, then turned off the motor. In the sudden quiet, they turned slowly to each other. Monkeys chattered high in the trees above them. A blue and red macaw squawked angrily.
“There’s no one here.” Catharine’s voice was high and breathless.
“This isn’t what I’d planned.” Jack’s voice was uneven, too.
“What had you planned?” she asked gently.
“A perfect night. A moon, soft music, champagne.” He reached out and touched her shoulder. “You’d wear a silver negligee.”
“Not the front seat of a Ford convertible in a jungle thicket?” There was laughter in her voice, laughter and love. She lifted her hands, cupped his dear, brown, worried face. “You’re a fool,” she said dreamily, “a damn fool. Don’t you know that doesn’t matter? I love you. I love you here or in a silk-sheeted bed or in a buffalo wallow or behind a throne. Oh, Jack, love me, love me now.”
He moved then; they both moved. His arms came around her like steel bands. Suddenly there was no more thought, only feeling. They sought each other, their lips moving and touching, their hands urgent. It only mattered that they were together, and their urgent, fiery, hungry need couldn’t wait. They came together in a rough and thrusting union as hot and explosive as lava rolling down a mountainside to plunge into the sea. Not neat or tidy. But monumental and wonderful.
When they rested together, his arms around her, her head on his shoulder, Catharine’s mouth curved in a small, amused smile. Of all the times she’d ever made love, this time was at once the most awkward and the most satisfying. She would never have imagined herself, Catharine MacLeish Cavanaugh, locked in passion in the front seat of a shabby two-seater convertible parked in a jungle clearing. She lifted her face and looked up at Jack. Her smile widened.
He was watching her, but there was no laughter in his eyes—only a kind of tenderness that made her want to cry.
“You’re so lovely,” he whispered.
“Even now?” she asked drily. “In a crumpled dress, my hair falling down . . .”
His mouth closed over hers; his kiss answered all questions.
There are only a few moments of sheer happiness in each life. Catharine knew that, knew it as well as any woman living. This was one of those moments for her. She framed his face in her hands and felt closer to him than she ever had been to anyone in all her life. “Jack, I want to tell you something.”
He tightened his arm around her shoulders.
“I want you to know,” and she spoke simply and openly and every word came from her heart, “that this is the loveliest, most perfect afternoon I’ve ever known.”
Pain and happiness both moved within him. He felt an uneasy sense of life’s evanescence, coupled with delight in Catharine. But that was why he’d come. He’d come for Catharine. He was determined that she would be his forever. He knew that life was fragile and human hope more fragile still. They could never count on tomorrow, but they could, while life and breath lasted, count on each other, whether that time would be measured in moments or in years.
“We’re going to have hundreds of perfect afternoons. This is just our beginning, Catharine.”
She didn’t smile. Her eyes were dark with sadness. “I’ve learned not to count on tomorrow. Jack.”
He tangled his hand in her thick, dark hair. “I’m going to prove to you that you can count on tomorrow. I’m going to love you every day, and one day you won’t have that haunted look in your eyes. You won’t be afraid.” He smoothed her hair; then his hand reached into his pocket. “Look, Catharine.”
He pulled a letter-sized manila envelope from the inside pocket of his uniform jacket. He opened the envelope and took out two tickets. “The S.S. Galveston sails for Honolulu next Saturday. These tickets are for us.”
Catharine stared at the tickets. Two tickets on the S.S. Galveston. Two tickets back to the United States, two tickets to happiness.
She wanted to go. She wanted desperately to take Jack’s hand and go, the two of them together, no matter what the world would say.
She could see the date written on the outside of the ticket. Saturday, November 29, 1941. Less than a week away.
She looked up and knew that he could see the anguish—and the refusal—in her eyes.
His jaw muscles tightened. Suddenly, frighteningly, he looked angry and formidable.
“Goddamn it, Catharine, I came for you.”
She reached out and touched him. His arm was hard and rigid.
“Please, Jack, don’t be angry with me. I love you, and I will go with you—”
His face began to change.
“—as soon as Spencer’s tour is over.”
Slowly, stubbornly, he shook his head. “Saturday, Catharine.”
Peggy stared somberly down at the black and white photograph. She tried to remember Jill’s coloring. Jill had been such a pretty baby, silky golden hair and dark, dark blue eyes. Funny, she could scarcely see a trace of that baby in this photograph of a gawky, solemn ten-year-old with pigtails and braces and eyes hidden behind heavy glasses. It was so hard to believe Grace’s baby was now ten. She’d been four the last time Peggy had seen her. Jill was her only niece.
Pain twisted inside Peggy. She would love babies, too. She knew she would. To hold a tiny life in her arms. To hear the high, mewing cry a new baby made. To see a tiny baby’s hands open and shut, little pink fingers beginning to explore and learn. The smell, feel, and wonder of new life.
She was never, never going to have a baby.
Peggy put the photograph down on the tabletop beside the box of packages her family had sent for Christmas. They’d sent them long ago, of course, to be certain they would arrive in time. It took seven weeks for the ships to sail from San Francisco to Manila. Grace, her mother, and Jill must have braved the thick heat of Georgia in August to do their shopping for Peggy. It was evidence of love and caring. Peggy could feel the hot sting of tears in her eyes. She blinked the tears away and looked again at the photograph. Grace’s daughter. Her niece.
Peggy looked slowly around the dingy apartment. The thick, heavy heat pushed against her, and she felt weary and depressed. Everyone had been so cheerful this afternoon at the Thanksgiving dinner at the Residence. All the staff was there, the high commissioner and his wife, the diplomats and their wives.
Spencer and his wife.
And children, of course. Children of all ages played on the lawn after dinner, running, shouting, having a wonderful time.
She’d sat at a different table from Spencer and Catharine’s, but that didn’t help. Catharine was at his side, his wife. She would always be his wife.
Again a physical sensation of pain moved in her chest.
Usually, she didn’t allow herself to think about it, to look ahead and see the passing years and herself following Spencer from post to post, Peggy Taylor, the efficient, successful secretary. Her mother’s friends remarked that Peggy sure did have an exciting life, all those foreign places, but when was she going to come home and marry Rowley? Why, surely that pretty little Peggy wasn’t going to be a spinster?
Tears burned behind her eyes. She knew how they talked in her little Georgia town. She knew how the bright, curious eyes probed her mother’s face.
This afternoon, she could see, a touch of sickness in her throat, the long years passing, the apartments here or in other cities—and Spencer.
Spencer loved her.
She knew that was true, knew it with certainty.
But he didn’t love her quite enough.
That was the thought she’d never admitted to herself—the thought she’d buried, refused to face and think about. But today it slid out from the dark recesses of her mind and throbbed w
ith an angry, aching pain.
He loved her, he needed her, he wanted her, but he loved his career more.
Peggy once again put the photograph on the table and picked up an unopened letter that had arrived yesterday with the package of gifts. She hadn’t opened it because she knew what it contained. Rowley had such a distinctive hand, small, neat printing in block letters.
She could go home to Stone Mountain and Rowley and one day there would be babies.
But Spencer . . .
She heard his key in the lock. She hadn’t expected him to come this holiday evening. Usually, she jumped up and moved eagerly toward the door when he came, but today she sat in the wicker chair, her shoulders slumped, Rowley’s unopened letter in her lap.
The overhead light flickered on.
“Peggy, why are you sitting in the dark?” He hurried across the room and looked down at her with concern. Then he bent forward. “Honey, are you all right?”
She bit her lips to keep them from trembling. She couldn’t say a word to him or she would cry. Was she all right? No, she was all wrong; her life was all wrong.
Spencer reached out and touched her shoulder. “Honey, what’s happened?”
She shook her head. How could she tell him it was the Thanksgiving dinner with sets and sets of husbands and wives, the sound of children playing on the front lawn, a picture of a solemn ten-year-old girl, and an unopened letter from a man who loved her in a steady, quiet way? She shook her head again. Tears spilled down her face.
Spencer knelt beside her and took her hands in his. “Peggy, tell me what’s wrong.”
She swallowed jerkily, her lips trembled, and she could scarcely see him through the blur of tears. “Spencer, I want to have babies.”
He went rigid, as if an electric shock coursed through him. His face looked suddenly drained and white. Slowly, he stood, pulling her to her feet. They faced each other, but he didn’t speak.