Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances

by Dorothy Fletcher

  “She’s alive,” Doug said, and she heard him sobbing, like a woman. A man crying?

  “Don’t touch me,” she pleaded. “Don’t touch me, for the Lord’s sweet sake. I’m going to vomit …”

  She screamed it.

  “Stay away! Let me alone, stay away … let me get it out, once and forever … don’t touch me!”

  But he did. He lay down beside her, while she got a bellyfull out, and clamped his strong hands over her forehead when she said she was perishing of a headache, and after a while there was nothing but the two of them lying there, breathing hard, and Pompey standing over them, saying, “Mr. John, she be all right, won’t she? Mr. John, don’t let her die, please, Mr. John, don’t let her die.”

  She looked up, her eyes crossed and unfocused, and said, “John?”

  “Yes,” he said calmly. “Come on now, you’ve got to get home. Just go limp, I’ll lift you, don’t fight it, that’s the girl.”

  All the way home, in the car, the back seat, he held her. “Soon now,” he kept saying. “Just a little way longer. Hold on, Margo.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re almost home.”

  “Okay, yes.”

  “How’s your headache?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  “We’ll put you to bed, don’t worry, some aspirin. You okay, dear?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Did you call me dear?”

  “Why not, you’re dear to me.”

  They got to the house. She could smell the house when they went in, the smell of age and must and beautiful memories. “But what about Norma?” she asked.

  “We’ll talk about that tomorrow.”

  “You’re not kidding me,” she said, quietly. “I heard her dying scream. She’s dead, isn’t she? All of them, dead. John, hold my hand, I’m so sad and lonely. Don’t let me go. I don’t want to be alone, I can’t bear to be alone.”

  “I’m here,” he said quietly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here when you wake up, and long after that. Don’t worry. I love you, Margo, I always have. Rest now. I love you. Pompey, get her clothes off. That’s the girl.”

  Her eyes smarted and her stomach was working. “I think I have to throw up again,” she said apologetically. “Pompey, can you get me to the bathroom?” And then the terrible scream came to her again.

  “I heard Norma scream … where is she?”

  “Hush,” Pompey said, his dark face floating in front of her. “Hush now. I don’t want to hear no more.”

  In the bathroom she got rid of some more lake water, and then Pompey helped her to bed. John stood there. He talked to Pompey, and Pompey said, “Now you just take these here pills, Miss Margo.”

  “What are they?” she asked, with only a kind of half vision.

  “To make you sleep, that’s all,” John said, and the authority in his voice was exactly what she wanted.

  She looked up trustingly. “I always knew she despised me, poor girl, but I don’t want her to be dead. Can’t you help her, can’t you help?”

  “It’s too late for that,” someone said, and the pin-wheels danced, and the circles widened, and then there was silence, complete and wonderful. “Oh, now I feel better,” she heard herself say, and pillowed a head beneath a hand. The night closed around her; she was really so terribly tired.

  “Are you there, John?” she asked.

  He said, “Yes, I won’t leave. Go to sleep now,” and like a child she drifted off, because he was there, he had promised to stay there. “That’s my girl,” she heard someone say, and then that was all, but it was enough … it was enough …

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Morning came, and with it the memory of what had happened. A bad taste in the mouth, a bile taste, and then a scream, echoing through the night. The water in her nose and mouth, the branch raised … Ben’s voice …

  All this, and then the mist cleared, and she looked up, saw him sitting there. “What are you doing in my room, Pompey?” she asked.

  “I didn’t want you to wake up to nothing,” he said simply, and when her tears came, wiped them away with a tissue from her Kleenex box. They sat and held each other and then she asked him why he and John had come after her.

  “Tell you the whole story,” he said quietly. “Something happened the night you fell down them stairs. I plumb forgot the next morning, because I sleep hard, you know. Fact is, a little kitten mewed at the door, and I let her in. A cute little bugger, belongs a ways down to the Pipers’, and since I feed her now and on occasion, she thinks she has two places to go for eats. She’s a pretty little half Persian, and I took her into my bed. Then I heard something, so I got up, recalling them telephone calls you had, and wondering about all that. I went out to the big room, and everything seemed right enough.

  “Then next morning you told me you fell down them stairs.

  “It was then this old lame brain started putting two and two together. I had some ideas, not nice ideas, but I know Mr. John and I know Mr. Doug, and whatever their faults those are two good-hearted fellas, still young and raw, maybe, got a lot to learn, both of them. All right, the telephone calls. Mr. Douglas? Well, why? You were seeing each other, then why should he make nasty calls? Mr. John? If he wants to make a play for you, the way Mr. Doug did, he could do that, couldn’t he? Both of you in the same house?”

  “Then who else?”

  “There was, the way I saw it, only one other; Miss Norma. Since she was a child too, I know that girl. Smart in school, with all she had to live down, those parents nothing to brag about. But she had a brain and she used it. First it was Mr. Doug, but that didn’t lead nowhere, so then it was Mr. John.

  “The years, they come and go, and all them years she tries to pin down Mr. John. Not much opportunity in a small town like this, and she wanted more than some clerk in a store. Oh yes, she had ambitions. This house, she came here all the time, like it was her own, but Mr. John never paid her no mind. His mind too much on his work, for one thing.

  “And then, last night, I was restless, kind of, because of those telephone calls you was getting. I couldn’t sleep as good as usual. After a while I got up, wandered around a bit. It was when I came into the big room that I saw them lights again. Going away from the house, like that other night when you fell down the stairs, something funny about it. A car, late at night, going away, and at the time I thought about it. Who could be driving off so late at night? And then, last night, seeing the lights again, going off. I lit a lamp and saw the time. Little before ten. Mr. John went to the Tap Room of the John Adams house, say about nine thirty. And you? You went up to your room.”

  He spread his hands. “So what did I do? I went up to Mr. John’s room, thinking he might of come back. I knocked at the door. No answer, so I went in.

  “No Mr. John.

  “So I go downstairs again, and look outside. His car gone from the driveway. But not only his car, your car too. That’s funny, I think, and I race upstairs to your room. Knock at the door, no answer. I go in and no Miss Margo.

  “At that point, only two things to do. Call Mr. John, maybe you go with him after all. I try the Tap Room. He comes to the phone. Says no, he’s alone, you not with him.

  “I don’t like the sound of it, so next I call Mr. Doug. No answer. I try again, no answer. So I call Mr. John again. Lay it on the line. Tell him you’re not home, not anywhere so far as I can see.

  “Then he raised the ceiling. Screamed at me, he did. ‘Can’t you take better care of her?’

  “I said he was right, I was a no-good old man. He was shouting at me, like God on a bad day. Hung up and a few minutes later he calls back.

  “ ‘It’s a long chance,’ he says. ‘But something come to me. When they was kids. She hit Margo on the head with a stick.’

  “ ‘Who did that hittin’,’ I asked. ‘Norma,’ he said. ‘She hit her and Margo almost drowned.’

  “There was a buzzing on the phone and I started saying, ‘Mr. John, you there?’ and he said, in this funny voi
ce, like he was choking, ‘Let’s try the lake.’

  “I started to say something and he shouted at me again. ‘You just get out there as fast as you can.’ So I did. I got quick as a bunny into my old piece of tin and got out there.”

  He finished his story. “If not, Miss Margo, you been fished out of the water, dead as a doornail, with your eyes hanging open.”

  “Pompey,” she said, whispering it. “I remember that day. I guess I didn’t know much about jealousy then. Except I got the vibrations. I was the city girl, and they were paying a lot of attention to me, the twins. I didn’t think much about it, I liked it, obviously. But she must have suffered … watching them fight over me.”

  “She was bad, a bad girl.”

  “No, not really, Pomp. She was a victim. I’m sure she loved John, and she wanted something from life. I don’t blame her, I never will.”

  “I do,” he said implacably. “I saw that face of Miss Vicky, purple, her tongue hanging out. Who’s to ever know now if she died natural?”

  She stared at him.

  “What do you mean?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Could have put a pillow over her poor head,” he said.

  “Norma?”

  “Day in, day out. Year in, year out. Came a time, maybe, when that girl went plumb crazy. Thought, I’ll end it, I can’t stand this no more. I just remember her face, Miss Margo. Like a fish pulled out of water. The eyes gogging out. It could have been that way.”

  John saying, “Tell her, Norma.” She had gulled him, pretending weakness where there was none.

  Mr. Bach: “She never had a bad day.”

  And Norma, sad-eyed: “John, she’s failing …”

  A still strong woman, looking into the face of hate, seeing the inexorable advance of the hands coming toward her …

  She had a good life, Margo thought, Please let me remember that … she had a good life. Christ, let me always remember that …

  “Don’t cry like that,” Pompey said, distressed, holding her. “Please, Miss Margo, don’t cry like that.”

  And then the hands had choked out her life. And she had seen that it would happen, hence the palindrome. “Don’t,” Pompey said, pleading. “You’ll make yourself sick, Miss Margo.”

  • • •

  Her body was fished out of the water that afternoon. Bloated, eyes open and befogged, hair tangled with water-weed and slime. That beautiful face. The hooks dragged her up, laid her on the ground, a pitiful thing, dead and swollen from the water that had devoured her. “Got tangled in some hell-vines,” the townspeople were told. “Good swimmer too, but these things happen.”

  The casket was closed. She was unrecognizable; it was better that way. Who wanted to see such a sight?

  And so the casket was closed, not to offend. There were a great many carnations: they had been Norma’s favorite flower.

  • • •

  There were visitors all through the day. Old Mrs. Pride, the Minister, and several ladies from the Women’s League of the Methodist Church, bringing pastry and jellies and fudge brownies. The small son of a neighbor brought a whole Virginia ham, with cloves. “She’d of come,” he explained about his mother, through the braces on his teeth. “ ‘Cept she’s almost to term, there’s another child on the way.”

  He was darling, with soft brown eyes and a peachy skin, accepting with downcast eyes but a dimpled cheek, Margo’s kiss and Pompey’s pat on the bottom.

  Abner Zeiss called, saying what a horrible thing, and quoting poetry. “Over a monstrous sea without a bourn …”

  And Norma Calvet was buried the next day.

  There were no more telephone calls from that day on.

  Douglas called, his arms filled with fruits and vegetables and grapes and half a side of beef. “I was always fond of Norma,” he said quietly. “We all thought she was doing so well. I don’t know whether anyone told you, but she spent a year in Forrest Hill, had electric shock, but seemed to recover very well, and made a life for herself.”

  So you see, you find out little by little, Margo thought when he went off. Beautiful Norma, with her problems and heartaches, had at some time in her life spent a year in a mental institution. And it was I who triggered the reaction, Margo thought, I who was the cause of her regression.

  Could she ever forget that?

  At six o’clock, John came home. Margo was curled up on the camel-backed sofa, wan and tired. She said, “Hello, John,” and he said,

  “Hello, Margo,” and gave her a quick look. “You’ve been wondering about Ben, I imagine. He’s in the hospital, I gave him a rather rough going-over, but he’s alive and well. Only he’ll never set foot on this place again.”

  He stood there, at the liquor cart, a hand dashing back his dark hair, and then poured the drinks he made. They sat almost silent, and the cooking smells drifted in from the kitchen. But after a while she had to speak, and said, “John, I just want to say that I’m not going to use this house. It’s yours, you deserve it. You stuck, through thick and thin, through the years. So the house is yours, John, because when I turn it over to the Historical Society I’ll insist you be curator. As a matter of fact it will be a sine qua non.” She looked up. “John, I owe you my life. But I don’t belong here. All those years were … years ago. I’m so … so wracked about Norma, and you must have loved her. In spite of what Pompey said. I’m sure you loved Norma, and I do understand.”

  He got up and stared down at her. “Why, you don’t understand one single thing!” he said harshly. “Are you blind, then? I never loved Norma! I pitied her, wanted the best for her … but I never loved her, nor did I give her any proof that I did. She tried with Doug and she tried with me. But for God’s sake that poor darling was pitiable, pitiable! It was always you, for both of us, Douglas and myself. You were the wonderful unattainable. I know you’ve fallen for my brother, and it’s bad luck for me. He has the charisma, the bravado. Me? I was always the boy who stayed close to home, taking care of her, Aunt Vicky. I know I’m no prize. I can’t help what I am. But just don’t say … that … that …”

  He got up and went to the liquor cart. “You’ll be ready for another drink,” he said thickly.

  She didn’t answer, simply sat looking at him as he pushed his thick, dark hair back with an impatient hand, and didn’t fail to notice that as he filled her glass he spilled some liquid, and that the fingers that wiped up the spill were trembling. They’re both beautiful young men, she thought, and God forgive her if she ever put down John as a clod. Why, he had lived here, through boyhood and manhood, keeping the home fires burning, and as she looked at him from across the room he seemed to grow in stature in her eyes. No European vacations? Why? Because Aunt Vicky had been too old to travel. He had kept the going concern, with good will and good nature.

  Charisma? Anyone could have charisma. But character? How many persons had character?

  “Here you are,” he said, coming back and handing her the glass.

  She said, “Thanks, John,” and looked at him, kept looking at him, until he grew uneasy and said, “We might have some music.”

  He got up and turned on the radio. The strains of “Wien, Wien, nur du allein” filled the room. He sat down again, quietly — John did everything quietly — and crossed his long, lithe legs.

  There was a long, protracted silence. Then she said, “Aren’t you ever going to get married, John?”

  “Possibly not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there was always only one person.”

  “What’s that person’s name?”

  “Oh, Margo,” he said angrily. “I just told you. It was always you, and now will you please drink up and for sake let me be?”

  “You don’t mean to say you’re still in love with me?”

  “Yes, but don’t give it a thought. Undoubtedly I’ll be the best man, keeping a “stiff upper lip. Please don’t say anything more.”

  “Well, of course I’ll say something more,”
she said, putting down her glass. “If you don’t kiss me, I won’t ever know what I missed.”

  He pushed back his hair again, looking angry, even threatening. Then he too put down his glass. “You’re making fun of me,” he said.

  “No, certainly not. If you don’t let me know how you feel, I can’t possibly imagine what it would be like. And if I can’t imagine what it would be like, we’re out of luck, you and I.”

  It happened rather quickly. Then he was there, beside her. Then he was holding her. Then kissing her. Mouth to mouth, body against body. “Why, John,” she tried to say, but couldn’t tear herself away from him. It was just that dazzling time before the sun set, so that gold shot in through the Deerfield blinds, and she had to close her eyes against the blinding beauty of it, and she knew that she had found her home at last, here, in this beloved old house.

  Pompey, poking his head in, said hastily, “Oh, excuse me, you two, just that dinner’s almost ready.”

  “Dinner’s almost ready,” she said dreamily, and wound her arms around John, now knowing that she would end her days here, with this man she had known as a boy and who had fished her out of the lake water and given her back life. They would have children, and their children would have children, and the House on the Hill would endure into other centuries, other times, while they grew old and gray and died their natural deaths.

  But before that —

  Before that would be the begetting of them, in one of the tester beds, love children, love children. “John,” she said, when he got up hastily. “Why are you leaving me?”

  “Because discretion is the greater part of valor,” he told her, flushed, and stirred the pitcher of martinis.

  Then Pompey poked his head in the room again. “Scuse it,” he apologized. “Just that the pot roast’s getting overcooked. Sorry to intrude.” He added, somewhat questioning, “The rest can wait, can’t it?”

  “The rest can wait, can’t it?” John asked, with a quick look at Margo, who said yes, indeed, the rest could wait … for a while …

  For a while.