“You villains!” raged Teresa. “Now I’ll have to make the nurse read it—and she’s a pure soul, she’ll be shocked into a coma. Read it, Virginia—read what Sam wrote.”
“Don’t do it, Virginia. Keep her guessing.”
“Let the doctor read it. Those boys have seen everything.”
Virginia went into Teresa’s bedroom and closed the door. The nurse was there, sitting very straight by the window, looking tired and pale and rigid with disapproval.
“How long has this been going on?” Virginia pulled off her gloves and folded them carefully.
“Since three o’clock. They come and go,” said the nurse tonelessly. “And when I took her blood pressure at noon it was a hundred and eighty. I don’t know what to do!” she worried. “I suppose I should call the doctor.”
“That would be no use,” Virginia said. “Teresa would offer him a highball and jeer at any advice he gave her. I’m going to the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee, I think you need one, too.”
“I’m awfully tired,” sighed the nurse. “I had to lift her—she would get up.”
Virginia slipped through the living room, already blue with smoke, and into the quieter white kitchen, but here, too, was confusion. The maid had left without clearing up. Teresa’s luncheon tray was still piled with soiled dishes and broken food, all the ice trays had been emptied and not refilled and they were heaped in the sink, while the porcelain counter was littered with bottle tops and empty soda bottles.
The nurse surveyed the wreckage dismally. “I’m not paid to do this,” she said, collecting the fragments. “Heavens, the garbage pail is running over. That girl simply walked out, but I don’t blame her. I’d like to walk out myself.”
“Put everything on the dumb waiter and ring the bell. I’ll wash up—I can’t endure a mess.” Virginia pinned a dish towel over her dress and got out the dishmop and soap.
“Neither can I. I’ll help you. But let’s make the coffee first, shall we? My head is splitting. For goodness sake, don’t go away on Sunday again. She will listen to you, now and then, but she only hoots at me.”
They brewed a potful of stiff coffee, and Virginia poured two cups.
“No cream.” The nurse explored the refrigerator, “I hope they don’t smell this in there, they’ll all be crashing out. I hate coffee black, but there’s no help for it.”
They sat perched on the one stool and the edge of the kitchen table, and the hot, fragrant coffee revived Virginia a little, made life look a little less bleak. They washed the dishes and set the kitchen in order, while the bedlam in the front of the apartment went on beyond the pantry doors. The blue, drained look went out of the little nurse’s face, and she was chattering volubly, drying the dishes, when the pantry door slammed open, and Sam Hinchey came out.
“Look!” he gestured with an empty glass. “All the beautiful gals hiding out in the kitchen. What’s the matter? Don’t you like the party?”
“Frankly, we do not,” Virginia said. “I’m sorry—there isn’t any ice. Not till it freezes.”
“You mean,” Sam took a seat upon the table coolly, “you’ve been here—looking right at that refrigerator all this time, and it isn’t frozen yet? And I’m an icicle—anyway halfway an icicle—already!”
“I wish you’d persuade those people to leave.” Virginia hung up the dishmop and dried her fingers. “Teresa isn’t well. This is very bad for her.”
“I can’t persuade them to leave. They wouldn’t go. They’d just laugh and yell for more drinks. You go tell ’em. Give ’em the stony eye and order ’em out.”
“Unfortunately, this is not my house. I merely work for Teresa Harrison. I can’t order her guests to leave, much as I’d like to.”
“You go in and feel her pulse and look solemn,” Sam instructed the nurse. “Maybe that will scare ’em out.”
“I’m going to telephone the doctor if they’re not gone in half an hour.” The nurse set her prim cap straight and pulled down her cuffs. “He’ll have some authority. They’ll listen to him.” She marched out with her heels clicking, and Virginia removed the dish-towel apron, smoothed back her hair, and was starting to follow when Hinchey said bluntly, “Wait a minute, Red-top.”
“Excuse me, please,” Virginia began coldly, but Sam reached and caught at her skirt.
“Slow down a minute, Miss Iceberg. I want to talk to you. About Mike Paull.”
Virginia stopped, looked at him. His face had lost its look of half-drunken silliness. He put down the glass.
“I’m waiting,” said Virginia quietly.
“Sit down—over there. You don’t like me very much—and that’s all right.”
“I hardly know you, Mr. Hinchey.”
“I’m a friend of Mike Paull’s,” he said. “Have you heard from him lately? Where is he?”
“He’s in South America.” She did not sit down.
“You’re a friend of Mike’s, too,” he went on. “I’ve seen you with him. Mike’s a good fellow—crazy as the devil, but—he’s a good fellow.”
“I’m a friend of Mike’s—and I do not discuss my friends, Mr. Hinchey.”
“Wait a minute. The name is Sam, Red. Plain old Sam. And Mike’s my friend. We went through that Bethlehem strike together and it was hot—plenty hot. They were all after us—union guys and strike-breakers, too. We got teargas and brickbats, and a couple of cameras were smashed. It was a sweet brawl. Mike I pulled me out of a few holes and I pulled him out of a couple—we’re still friends, and I know you’re Mike’s friend, too. That’s why we ought to talk to Mike—you ought to talk to him—somebody ought to.”
“About what, particularly?”
“About acting like a heel!” he said bluntly.
“Perhaps you’d better explain,” Virginia said frigidly, cold anger stinging her. After all, Mike was her husband. He was hers to defend, even though this blear-eyed young man was unaware of it.
“Sit down,” Hinchey said again. “I know he’s been taking you places—that’s all right. Mike has a right to live—but he ought not to be an absolute heel—he ought not to treat any nice girl the way he’s treating Harriet.”
So—this was it! Virginia felt her knees turning fluid under her. She sat down abruptly on the stool because she could no longer stand.
“And who is Harriet?” Was that her voice, so thready, so wan?
Sam Hinchey looked at her sharply.
“Why—Harriet’s Mike’s girl. And she’s a nice girl, too, a smart girl. She works on the Tribune—and does a darned good job. Mike’s my friend—but he ought not to cheat on a girl like that. Not that I blame him—you’re pretty swell yourself—you’re a fine person—that’s why I’m talking to you like this. You can understand—you’re fine and you’d want Mike to be square. You wouldn’t want a friend who wasn’t square, I know.”
“I see,” said Virginia, her throat tight and dry, her eyes feeling as though they would burst if she did not relent and let the tears fall. But she held herself erect, feeling stony and hollow and cold. “I did not know about Harriet. No one told me. She has another name, I suppose?”
“Hillery—Harriet Hillery. You’ve seen her stuff in the paper. She gets bylines on a lot of it. And she’s a hard-working kid. She took care of a sick mother till she died, and helped her kid sister through school—she’s swell!”
“You still haven’t told me—just what is Harriet Hillery—to Mike?”
Sam Hinchey looked a little bewildered. “Why, she’s going to marry Mike. It’s been settled—for years! She’s stuck to Mike when a lot of girls would have thrown him out—Mike off to Poland and Spain—a lot of women wouldn’t have stuck, but she did. That’s why I hate to see her get a shabby deal—that’s why I’m talking to you. I saw you with Mike. I could see he was sort of—fascinated. Mike’s that way—some fellows are. See a new girl—a
pretty one—and they’re off. But I knew you weren’t the sort to hand another woman a wallop—not a swell girl like Harriet—so I thought, well, maybe she’ll get sore at me, but I’m going to talk to her anyway. You aren’t sore, are you?”
“No—I’m not sore.” She stood up, but the queer, dazed blindness did not lessen. She groped with an uncertain hand for the wall, for the door. Then, dragging up strength from some inner place, deeper than this stunned shell of a creature that was Virginia Warfield, she said in an odd, dead voice, “Thank you, Mr. Hinchey, I have no intention of cheating anyone.”
“I knew you were like that. I knew you’d be swell about it—” he began, voluble with relief.
But she did not listen. She went through the living room, hardly seeing the people there, ignoring Teresa and the girl who was playing the piano. In the bedroom she got her coat, hat, and purse.
“You’re going out?” asked the nurse anxiously.
“Yes, I’m going.”
“I called the doctor. He’s coming at nine. He’ll put an end—to this!” snapped the nurse.
Virginia did not hear. She crossed the living room again, and Teresa demanded shrilly, “Where in the world are you going?” But Virginia did not answer. She had not heard. She could not hear because she was hearing that voice, that young voice blurred by alcohol, “Mike’s that way—a new girl, a pretty one—Mike’s that way—”
A cab slowed, and she got in.
“Where to, lady?”
“Georgetown.” What was her number? What was her street? Oh, stop—stop, I heard you, Sam Hinchey! Mike’s a heel—Mike’s that way—a pretty girl—she got control of herself with a rending effort, made her numb brain function, remember. A number and a street. A high, old house, two flights of stairs, a gas stove, a rubber apron—steak broiling— Oh, please God, let it stop!
If she could cry—but she could not cry. The pain was too deep. It was a drug, slowing her heart, making her feet cold and wooden. She dropped her purse, fumbled for her money, a coin went rolling off across the street.
“Tight!” muttered the driver, and she was too dulled to be offended.
The house looked lonely, all those upper windows dark. One flight, two flights; the hall was dark. Once it had been dark—her clothes wet, her shoes making little squishy sounds. That was the night—she would not remember, she would not think at all. Her key—where was her key—open it with a bottle opener—.
Warm darkness inside, smelling of dust, face powder, smelling of mice a little—she stumbled across the room, dropped her hat and purse, and sank into a deep chair. She did not turn on a light. Somehow she felt that she could not endure looking at those familiar walls—not yet.
A wind came and mourned around the eaves and rattled the window sashes, and rain fell again, hushed and hesitant, on the roof. How long she sat there, she did not know. Long enough for pain to stop burning her heart, and a slow, cold anger and disgust at herself to chill in its place.
“You fool! You weak, hysterical fool—to let a man—to let any man break you like this!”
She spoke the words aloud, and the rain answered with a beating deluge against the windows.
She turned on the light, drew off her gloves, and hung her coat on its hanger.
Then a white oblong caught her eye, lying just inside the door; a letter, lying where it had fallen through the slot.
She picked it up in cold fingers. It was very thick and had a long row of foreign stamps. It was postmarked “Lima, Peru.”
Chapter 12
She did not open the letter that night. She wanted to be calm and sane when she read it—not twisted and warped by all the wild thoughts that were rushing through her brain now. Morning would bring relief, a readjustment of values, the ability to judge what was important and pertinent and what was merely emotional.
She telephoned Teresa’s nurse and told her that she would not return that night. Then she found a pair of clean pajamas, brushed her hair, and crept into her own bed. The rain increased, the quiet was restful, and presently she slept.
With morning, she deliberately deferred opening the letter until she had had her breakfast. The rain had stopped, the wind blew frostily, her rooms were chilly and fresh. She wrapped herself in a warm robe, made coffee, found a few strips of limp bacon in her tiny refrigerator, and one egg. No bread. She had forgotten to empty her breadbox and the half loaf that remained in it was green with mold. But the hot food was good, and she felt adequate again as she washed the dishes and made up her bed. A warm shower helped, too. She combed her hair, put on a dress of brown wool, did her nails, and smoothed on lipstick before she let herself sit down by the window to read Mike’s letter.
By that time the sun had come out thinly, making the bare trees glisten, lying in a pattern of pale light on the rug. In that calm, prosaic light, all her tormented wretchedness of the night before seemed a trifle silly. Absurd, to go off the deep end, assuming the worst, counting everything lost, when very likely it would all be explained, smoothed out, when no doubt half her desperate imaginings were mere hysteria, the result of loneliness and the strain of not hearing from Mike and not understanding his silence.
As for Harriet Hillery, who knew the truth about her? Not a malicious gossip writer, certainly, nor a half-drunken newspaperman. That was a personal matter between Mike and that girl, and if Mike had neglected to talk about it even to her, his wife, didn’t that mean that it was no longer significant, that it was ended for those two?
Naturally Mike had not discussed it, and if the newspaper people he knew drew wrong conclusions, that was their stupidity, their brash and avid propensity for concerning themselves with the personal affairs of other people, ignoring good taste and the sanctity of privacy; it was not Mike’s fault.
“You are an adolescent, Virginia Warfield,” she told herself sternly. And then she opened the letter.
There were seven big sheets, typed on the stationery of the Gran Hotel Bolivar, typed hastily, with words crossed out and letters transposed, as though Mike’s mind had been flying frantically ahead of his fingers.
It began: “Darling, darling Ginny!”
She read the words over several times, letting Mike’s voice come back, his quick, tender smile, his laughter, the touch of his hands. He did love her—and what else mattered? This was their own, this was their love, and the world forever shut out. She felt warmed and safe again, as though she had been whirling in an icy stream, choking, battered against strange rocks, and suddenly a hand had caught her and pulled her back again into warmth and safety.
“I’m a dirty heel to have put off writing so long,” Mike began. (Odd that he should have said that—used Sam Hinchey’s identical word.) “But there haven’t been enough hours in a day for all I’ve had to do.”
She knew about that, too, the desperate pressing all day against time, work piling up, interruptions driving her mad, the telephone, wires to be answered, information to be hunted for; and at night, a weariness that dulled body and brain till hands quivered holding a pen, and sentences evolved themselves with wooden stiffness.
I’ve been thinking about you every minute and mad at myself because I didn’t bring you along [Mike went on]. There are so many things I want you to see. All this old, old country—
Three pages of that. Virginia found herself skipping words, lines. The Inca, the dancing in the moonlight in the ancient square, the old temples, buried for years, excavated again, the goatherds sleeping in the sun— “But I read all this in Mike’s column!” she was thinking, as she ran through the typed pages, seeking for something that was written for her alone.
Dave Martin is here. [And who was Dave Martin?] I told you about him—or did I forget to? [Oh Mike, you forgot. You forgot so many things!] Dave was with me in Spain and at Darbenut, the time the plane broke down—I told you about that. Today we went back into the hills to an old town
, half modern, half so old that no one knows who built it—
“And I’ll read about that tomorrow in Mike’s column!” she said aloud, half bitterly.
Then, at the end, a paragraph. Erasures, a line crossed out, as though Mike had been worried and uncertain about telling her what he had to say.
You’re the only girl I love, Ginny. [He had underlined the word “only.”] No matter what happens, remember that. You’re my wife and I’m counting the days till I come back to you. And when the mail comes and there’s no letter I feel lost and lonely all day long.
“And how do you think I’ve been feeling?” Virginia said aloud indignantly. “Day after day—two weeks and more—and not a word, not a line?”
After that, a line had been crossed out. But it was possible to read, under the x’s, what Mike had started to type and then thought better of it.
“If you should hear any odd stories,” she read the obscured words. So he knew, or he feared, that she had seen that item in the papers. And after he had begun his explanation, he had changed his mind, decided to wait, perhaps, decided it might be better to ignore it. And now, as she reread the letter, she read between every line an uncertainty, the worried haste of a troubled conscience. It was a duty letter, not spontaneous, in spite of the loverly phrases here and there; in spite of the misspelled rush of affectionate reassurances at the close; in spite of the naive crosses at the bottom of the page. She folded it and put it back into the envelope.
Nothing was solved, nothing was cleared up. Mike loved her—so he said. He missed her—but he had waited seventeen days to tell her so. And now, perhaps, seventeen more days would go by—.
She put on her hat and coat and went to the office. She telephoned Teresa dutifully.
“I hope you’re feeling better today?”
“No, I’m not. I’m feeling definitely low,” snapped Teresa. “Why on earth didn’t you come back? You know I’m not well enough to cope with these creatures. The doctor came and made an absurd scene—as though my blood pressure was any worse than it has been for years! I told him I’d been living with my blood pressure and if it ever did go down to normal, it would probably kill me. And now the nurse is going around with a smug, righteous face on her—arguing that I have to stay in bed. I told her I was going to the office as soon as I learned how to use these foul crutches—and what did she think of that?”
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