“I suppose,” he said, “I should tell you about it.”
“Not if you don’t wish to. It isn’t important.”
“But it is, in a way. Let me ask you a question. If you had known Jeff and me most of our lives, wouldn’t you think it decidedly abnormal to learn suddenly that we were hardly speaking to each other?”
“Well, I don’t know. But, good Lord, John, if I had had any idea of coming between you two in this fashion—”
“Now, wait. You didn’t. That’s just precipitated something deeper, that’s all. It’s better for Jeff to explain that. You shouldn’t get it from me. But think about it a moment. Or think about any twins. It’s generally understood that twins are closer than other people.”
“That’s true.”
“Yes, of course. Now, most of the former household staff knew us from childhood. They knew, or sensed, that something had gone wrong between us, but they didn’t know just how bad it was. Human nature being what it is, though, they would soon learn and they would gossip. A piece of news like that would be a very juicy morsel in our set. It would take on the proportions of a major scandal.”
His explanation was about as insincere and as full of holes as anything I had ever listened to. After being in the house only a few hours I had already learned that the new staff knew all about the quarrel and knew also that the brothers were not speaking. But I could not quite bring myself to tell him that.
I asked, “Aren’t you exaggerating?”
“Not in the slightest. I know what the gossip would be like. I simply will not tolerate any scandal. That was one I could put to rest before it started, so I cleaned house.”
“Rather drastic measures,” I mumbled automatically. I was really wondering about his constant reference to scandal and always in connection with Jeffrey.
“Perhaps,” he said. He was silent for a while, then said, “I’m prepared to take any sort of drastic measures to put the Hamlyne name back where it belongs, on a high level. We have always been respected in this state. It’s going to stay that way. I’m sure of it now.”
Something about the tone of his voice caused me to sit up and ask him, “Some great personal ambition?”
“Naturally.”
“Tell me about it.”
He leaned back and said dreamily, “Actually, there are two ambitions. One is financial, of course; I intend building the Hamlyne wealth into one of the greatest fortunes in the country.”
I had partly guessed that already. “And the other?” I asked.
“Is political.”
I had to smile. “Not really.”
“Why not? The governorship or the Senate, or both.”
He got to his feet and stretched his arms. He looked down at me and said, “So you see why I cannot tolerate scandal. I have to catch even the slightest whisper before it has a chance to start.” He yawned and said, “I don’t think I’ll worry about it any more.”
I felt sorry for John. Not only did he have to meet me, but keeping me company had cost him two days out of the life of a busy man. I told him, “Don’t wait for Jeff. I’ll be here when he arrives. You’re tired. Why don’t you run along?”
“I believe I will. I am tired, and I have some paper work to clear up before I turn in. If you don’t mind, Carol?”
“Not at all.”
“Then I’ll see you in the morning.” He started for the door, but paused to say, “Will you ask Jeff to drop in my rooms for a minute?”
“Certainly.”
“Good night.”
I turned off the single floor lamp so I could enjoy the crackling logs better and thought of the row between John and Jeffrey. I was very curious about the deeper causes precipitated by Jeffrey’s marriage. I wondered what they could be. The Hamlyne estate had been left to the two brothers in equal portions. The Jeffrey John had been hinting about, a wild, headstrong, willful, and reckless character, was not at all the type to give up his personal sovereignty because of a showdown. It was distasteful, but I had to face it: John was either lying about something or giving me only a part of the picture.
As for John’s own character, I was not too sure I liked the way it was developing. John was refreshingly opposite from the people I knew, who worked under intense pressures and dynamited time, yet his casual manner was superficial. His inner pressure, or drive, was as great as any I had known, or greater. Either of his ambitions would be enough for any one man, but he embraced the two as casually as if they were already accomplished. It was apparent that his conceit was something to be reckoned with.
I felt tired, too, and yawned and then listened in the semidarkness. There was no sound. The silence of the house was absolute. A clammy feeling stole over me and I whirled about, as if someone had touched me. There was no one. The vibrations of the pounding surf came through the floor to tingle in the soles of my feet. I turned about to face the fire and smiled at my childish fears.
Nerves, I told myself. Nerves.
Chapter Five
I MUST have fallen asleep, as my next recollection was slowly opening heavy lids and staring at the figure standing before the fireplace. For a moment, I thought John had returned. He was holding a highball glass in one hand and watching me with a peculiar little smile tugging at his lips. I was about to speak when I noticed that he was wearing a gabardine suit, moccasins, and a checked shirt. On his left hand was a heavy gold ring I had given him the day after we were married.
I whispered, “Jeff.”
He raised his highball glass toward me and then sipped at it, laughter dancing in his eyes.
My body was limp as I stared at him wide-eyed. The resemblance between the two brothers was incredible. Except that Jeffrey had a more mischievous twist of the lips, they were identical. Their hair was just as sandy and even had the same sun streaks. After meeting John I had expected Jeffrey to be more tanned, but even that was not the case, though it was understandable. Their light skin would burn but not tan well.
While trying to gather my wits together, I tried to separate one from the other. Jeffrey’s smile was warmer and yet, contradictorily, more cynical. His posture was more casual than John’s. He wore his clothes in a more nonchalant manner. He even seemed to be a fraction taller, though that was not true. It was an illusion. Laughter was bubbling in his eyes. But I could not separate them. They were identically the same, even to the look of weariness about the mouth and the hollow cheeks and loss of weight caused by their angry showdown. Jeffrey was John in different clothes.
Again I whispered, “Jeff, hello.”
He put his glass aside, placed his hands under my armpits, and lifted me for a hungry kiss that bruised my lips. When I pulled my head away he lowered me to the couch. He left to mix two highballs and handed one to me. Then he returned to his stance in front of the fireplace, smiling at me over the rim of his glass.
He raised his glass in a mock salute and said, “Welcome home.”
I blinked at him, still hardly trusting my voice. This was the man with whom I had fallen in love so suddenly and so completely that I doubted ever living before meeting him. And I was still in love. My body was burning with it and I could feel it pounding like little hammers in my temples.
I said, “It’s been a long time.”
He nodded. “Altogether too long.”
“Yes, I was even beginning to doubt that we had ever been married. We knew each other such a short time.”
The laughter faded a bit from his eyes. “Well, darling, I haven’t wanted it this way.”
“I don’t truly understand the situation between you and your brother, Jeff, but some sort of explanation is in order. You just left me sitting in New York — ”
“Now, Carol, I kept in touch with you.”
“But,” I cried, “you had nothing to say. Nothing that made sense. Even Sam — and you know how tolerant he is — was beginning to wonder. To say that I was puzzled and angry and bewildered is really an understatement.”
He left the fi
replace and dropped to the couch at my side. He rubbed a cheek against mine and whispered, “I’ve missed you terribly, darling. Every day I planned to leave for New York on the day following. A dozen times I made plane reservations. But” — he shrugged — “here I remained. It couldn’t be helped. I’ll explain that tomorrow.” He stretched his arms and grinned at me. “Right now I’m worn out. It was a long drive up here.”
I twisted into a corner of the couch so that I could face him. “Jeff, do you realize how unwanted I’ve felt since I arrived here?”
He raised his glass for a long drink. When he lowered it he was frowning. “Unwanted? I don’t get that.”
“But it’s exactly the way I’ve been feeling.”
He growled, “That damned John — ”
“Now, please. It wasn’t your brother at all. He’s been leaning over backward to make me feel at ease. You made me feel unwanted.”
He snorted. “Oh, for God’s sake, Carol! Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I am definitely not being ridiculous. And I very much doubt the superimportance of whatever you were doing in El Centro.”
“Oh, that. So that’s the crux of the whole thing.” He leaned back and half-closed his eyes as he said wearily, “I could have put that aside temporarily and been at the airport to meet you, if that’s what you’re thinking — ”
“It certainly is.”
“ — but there are wheels within wheels. John has placed me in the silly position of having to justify myself. He has too much weight on his side of the argument as it is. I couldn’t take a chance on flubbing that deal and give him more ammunition to fire at me. He has me in a decidedly awkward position. There’s one hell of a lot at stake. Cripes, I had to carry that thing through. Don’t you understand?”
“No, I don’t, but I’m willing to be convinced.”
He laughed. “And I thought I had married an understanding woman! I wonder if there is such an animal. We haven’t seen each other in months and you’re sore as a boiled owl and I find myself alibi-ing. Let’s have no more of this stupidity.” He pulled me to him and pressed his lips against my throat. He whispered, “I still say, ‘Welcome home.’”
None of my doubts were resolved and there was a warning tick beating in the back of my brain, but in his arms I was confused and found myself clinging to him. He said huskily, “Tomorrow we’ll have the whole thing out. Right now — Come on, darling.”
He stood up and placed the screen before the fireplace. He must have sensed that I was doubtful about going with him, for he started talking lightly about John. He said, “I guess it was quite a shock to you to find out how much alike we look. We always get the same reaction. When we were young our father used to dress us alike to please his perverted sense of humor. It raised hell with everyone. No one ever knew which was which. Our teachers and tutors never knew whom to punish or to reward, though I must admit that John was usually on the rewarding end, whenever he could be identified.” He reached down to lift me from the couch and chuckled, “In the event of both punishment and reward to be meted out, I always protested loudly that I was John, just to add to the confusion.”
I started to smile. “That must have been fun, for you.”
He laughed and nodded. “It was. Then, too, I used to take out John’s girl friends, claiming that I was John, and then spend all my time praising the virtues of Brother Jeff.” He raised an amused eyebrow and winked at me. “I was a stinker.”
“No doubt. But you two remained just alike even as you got older. Isn’t that unusual?”
He shrugged indifferently. “I don’t know. We’ve been living in the same climate and the same house and more or less following the same activities, so that may have kept us alike. You’ll get used to it, though. I dare say you’ll be able to tell us apart in a short time.”
He put an arm about my waist and we walked through the living room and out to the great hall. Brannen nodded to us from the dining room, where he was turning off lights, and Jeffrey asked if his luggage had been brought up. Brannen said that it had and disappeared toward the other end of the house.
At the foot of the stairs I remembered to tell Jeffrey, “John said that he would like to see you before you turn in.”
“He’s probably asleep.” He stood there indecisively, rubbing the back of a hand across his chin, then shrugged and said, “Oh, well, it won’t take a minute.”
We went up the staircase on the left and paused at the second-floor landing. Jeffrey asked, “Shall we go in together and have a nightcap with him?”
“I think he’s seen enough of me for a while. But if you think—”
“Nope. Bad idea. I know what he has in mind, another lecture. I may as well have it out with him now. Won’t be a minute.” He started to turn away, then swung back with a wide grin. He reached into his coat pocket and, with a broad wink, brought out a black lace nightgown.
I held it toward the light and blushed. It could be rolled into the palm of one hand and was the sheerest thing I have ever seen.
Jeffrey put an arm about me and kissed me and then hurried down the hall. I heard him open John’s door and say, “Not in bed yet?”
John’s voice was a growl in reply: “Where the devil have you been?”
“Where do you think? Now, you listen to me a minute — ” The door closed and I heard no more, but it had sounded like the opening of another quarrel.
I walked around the curved landing and down the long hallway to my apartment. Jeffrey’s “Join you in a minute” stretched into half an hour. I had changed clothes and was wearing the nightgown and a negligee and was glancing through a magazine in the sitting room when he appeared. Only one light in the room was on, just behind my chair, and Jeffrey stood before me in shadow. When the light did catch his face I surprised a brooding expression and sullen eyes.
I put the magazine aside and looked up at him. “Have you had words with your brother?” I asked.
He stared down at me, his right hand tugging at an ear lobe, a habit I had noticed about the two brothers when they were unusually thoughtful. “It’s funny,” he said. “Damned funny. John thinks you’re wonderful.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “Well,” I said, “my leprosy hasn’t been showing lately.”
He made an impatient gesture with his hand. “You don’t understand.”
“I think I do, a little. He explained it to me, that he thought I was a bit of gold digger, then apologized. He was very sweet about it.”
Jeffrey laughed dryly, without mirth. “You don’t know the half of it. He swore up and down that I had been taken in by a smart gal who would take me to the cleaners at the right moment. Nothing I said could convince him otherwise. When he makes up his mind that way, even dynamite can’t change him. But now, after knowing you only a few hours, he does a complete about-face and tells me you’re wonderful and that I’m a lucky man. How do you like that?”
“Like it? I love it. What else did he say? I don’t receive adulation of this sort every day, you know.”
“He told you quite a bit, didn’t he?”
“He did a lot of talking, if that’s what you mean, but he told me virtually nothing.”
He stood there staring at me a long time, until I began to feel uncomfortable, then said abruptly, “I understand you met the Chandlers in San Francisco.”
I had almost forgotten about them, but now the acid reception of that meeting returned in full force and I understood the source of the warning tick that had been beating in the back of my mind. I nodded and said, “Yes.”
“Like them?”
“No.”
“Hmmmmmmm. What did John have to say about Vivien and — and — ”
“And you? Very little. The only information I gathered was that she had suddenly fallen in love with you. Is that true?”
“Who told you?”
“I know something was wrong, because of her attitude and a nasty crack made by her husband. John confirmed it.”
“Not much, except that he wanted you to explain to Scott and break the whole thing off.” My face began to burn and I got to my feet, facing him. “It was stupid of me,” I said, “but I haven’t realized the full significance of that until this moment. Break what off? She isn’t the kind to go about falling blithely in love without provocation.”
“You don’t think — ”
“I don’t know what to think. Frankly, Jeff, I have never been so upset. There’s something so terribly strange about you and your brother, and something even stranger in your attitude toward me.”
“What, for example?”
“Well, that’s the odd thing about it. I don’t know. It’s like punching your finger at something you think has substance only to have it dissolve in thin air. Call it intuition or anything you please, but I still say I was unwanted and not expected ever to put foot in this house.”
Jeffrey stepped closer and drew me to him. “Carol — ”
I bit my lip and shook my head. “No, Jeff. Please.”
He buried his face in my hair and whispered, “Why not?”
“You’ve changed. I’m still in love with you, but I wonder if you feel the same way. I don’t think you do.”
“My darling, I do love you. I adore you. Don’t talk any more. You’re thinking in terms of words. They’re meaningless. Only one thing makes sense. I do love you.”
Gently his hands moved and stripped the negligee from my shoulders. In another moment he had the nightgown in his hands and dropped that, too, to the floor. I was too surprised even to strike the classic “September Morn” pose and simply stood there staring at him. He stepped back and hungrily drank in the sight of my body with feverish eyes. Then he clasped me fiercely in his arms and covered my shoulders with kisses. He was right. Words ceased to have meaning. A warm tide swept through me and all thought of resistance melted. He lifted me in his arms and it was again the week of our honeymoon and I was wildly in love and our physical need, gentle and savage in turn, had a nature and personality of its own.
Marriage Bed Page 6