Marriage Bed

by Dixon, H. Vernor

  He chuckled. “Sorry I disturbed you. But I come out here sometimes, too.”

  “Why? To gloat over your winnings?”

  His head jerked about and he snapped the cigarette from his mouth. “What was that again?”

  “I’ve heard you’re very lucky at the races.”

  “Oh. Oh, that. Sure. I always put my money on a sure thing.”

  “I never thought that any horse was a sure thing.”

  “Well, the way I play ’em, it’s sure.” He laughed and said, “I don’t lose the way I play it. Know what I mean?”

  He was hinting at something beyond me. I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”

  He shrugged, an oddly delicate gesture for a man. “Didn’t think you would. A good thing, too. Sometimes a little too much knowledge is dangerous. Like a guy I knew once back at Jamaica. He found out a horse was doped.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth and shook his head. “Poor guy. Found him in the New Jersey ash dumps the next day. Couldn’t keep that little information to himself. Know what I mean? But that’s the way it goes in the world!”

  My legs were feeling cramped and I shifted my position. The man was shallow, that was apparent, and it pleased his vanity to hint at matters beyond my comprehension. I wondered just how far I could draw him out and decided to try, in spite of the fact that I was still frightened.

  I attempted a note of friendliness in my voice, not an easy thing for me to do. I said, “I know exactly what you mean. But not everyone seems to realize silence is golden.”

  “Golden!” he laughed. “Yes, ma’am, that’s the literal truth. It’s golden, all right.”

  I said tritely, hating myself for voicing such old wheezes, “It always pays dividends.”

  His laughter was a sharp cackle in the night. “I’ll say.”

  “I don’t imagine you ever thought you’d own a brand-new Cadillac someday.”

  “Man alive, I should say not! Why, if anyone had told me that someday — ” His words came to an abrupt halt and his teeth snapped together with an audible click. He straightened and faced me. He flipped the cigarette into space and the wind spun it back against the house. He slapped the crop against his boot. His lids were so far closed that I could not see his eyes. He purred softly, “Meaning what, ma’am?”

  The smell of danger was in my nostrils and the feel of danger was creeping along my flesh. I took a fresh hold on my courage and said, “Meaning nothing, Mr. Dodd. Nothing. Good night.”

  I turned to step by him and his hand shot out and closed on my arm. “What’s your hurry? We’re just having a nice little conversation.”

  I looked down at his hand on my arm and then up at the open window. “If you don’t let go,” I said, “I shall scream, and tomorrow you’ll be looking for another job.”

  His fingers tightened and then relaxed and his hand dropped. He was laughing quietly at me as he said, “I didn’t mean to annoy you, Mrs. Hamlyne, but as for looking for a new job — well, now, I like it here and I think I’ll stay. Know what I mean?”

  I nodded. I was really beginning to realize what he did mean. I walked by him and off the ledge and into the gardens and ran to the front door. I slipped into the house and turned the lock. I started for the library, but got only as far as the first chair in the living room. I collapsed onto the chair and let the aftermath of fear take possession of me. When it had passed I was so weak I had barely enough strength to stand.

  Blackmail, some form of blackmail, had underscored all of Dodd’s words. Why, I wondered, hadn’t I thought of it before? Or had I? I was too confused to remember. Dodd was the only one left of the former staff, he was thoroughly disliked by the new servants, he had great assurance of the impregnability of his position, and he was supposedly winning heavily at the races, a natural lie to account for increased income. It was all too perfect. Blackmail was the only possible explanation. And John was paying it to him.

  Whatever small doubt may have remained in my mind was now completely erased. Jeffrey was dead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THERE WAS NO LONGER a need to go through Jeffrey’s manuscripts, so I went into the library and placed them in one of the desks. Brannen came in to ask where I would like to have dinner served and also informed me that Mr. Jeffrey was home. It was obvious that he, as well as the rest of the staff, hadn’t the slightest idea that deception was being practiced on all of us. I was then able to understand why John had fired all of the older servants, as they might have seen through the masquerade.

  I rang Jeffrey’s apartment, feeling almost like a ghoul for doing so, but knowing that my life might depend on maintaining the pretense. There was no answer, so I called John’s rooms. He talked for a minute, then “Jeffrey” came on to tell me he had already eaten. He would join me later.

  Oddly enough, it was not difficult to pretend that I was actually talking with the real Jeffrey. John had been so diabolically clever about it all that it was difficult for me to merge the two into one. But I also realized after I had hung up, that if I once began thinking of the two as being one person, I would undoubtedly make a bad slip that would uncover my knowledge. There was no doubt that John was closely watching my every word and action, so that a slip of that sort would probably be fatal. There was only one thing for me to do, and that was to continue accepting the masquerade, even in my thoughts.

  I went to the breakfast room near the solarium and had a solitary meal, forcing an appetite I did not feel. For a short while I considered the idea of escaping from the house at once and flying to Sam. But would even that course offer me sanctuary? Knowing John, his influence, his wealth, the power he could exert, I could not be sure. But I abandoned the idea for another reason. I was not becoming braver, I was still as frightened as ever, but I had to know what had happened to Jeffrey. Sam would find out. So I would remain until he arrived and then I would know.

  After dinner I wandered restlessly into the solarium. The wind pounded and thrummed against the plate-glass windows and the vibrations of the surf pulsed through the tile floor. It was too lonely there, so I went to the library and turned on the radio.

  I was leafing through a copy of Vogue when the desk phone rang. It was John calling from his apartment. He asked, “Is Jeff there with you?”

  “No.”

  “Then he may have gone to his own rooms. He was in here earlier.” He said, after a moment’s pause, “He’s acting rather queer tonight, Carol. He was talking with me for at least half an hour, but his speech lacked coherence.”

  I forced myself to ask, “Anything wrong?”

  “I don’t know. He admitted that he hadn’t even gone to Soledad or King City, but that was all I could get out of him. Listen, Carol — ”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ll see him, no doubt of that. I don’t know if you can handle it, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let him get out of your sight.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Good girl. I may be down later. I don’t know. But if not, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “All right, John.”

  I put the phone in its cradle and turned about to pick up the magazine. I heard someone behind me and spun about to look over my shoulder. “Jeffrey,” as I had to accept him, was standing in the doorway. He was dressed, but had removed his jacket and was wearing a silk dressing gown knotted tightly at his waist. The smile on his face was exactly as Vivien had described it to John, a purposeful smile; there was a suggestion of relief about it.

  I was badly startled. The same man had been talking to me a second before from John’s rooms. It was impossible for him to reach the library in that short space of time. Yet there he was. For a moment, I almost believed that it was Jeffrey and that all of my assumptions were wrong, but only for a moment. There was probably some simple explanation to account for his sudden appearance.

  I kept my eyes on him as he walked into the room. He asked, “What did John have to say?”

  “How did you know I was talk
ing with John?”

  “Well, I heard you say, ‘All right, John.’ What’s on his mind?”

  “You.”

  “Oh. As usual.”

  He looked down at me, then sat on the other end of the couch, on the rounded leather arm. His silent entrance had frightened me and the burning intensity in his eyes was doing nothing to lessen that fear.

  He leaned an elbow on top of the couch and was twisted into a rather awkward position, but kept his eyes upon me. He said, “Luke Dodd phoned a few minutes ago. He said that he had been talking to you this evening.”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  “No.”

  “I’m not too fond of him, either. He’s a sly little worm.”

  I crossed my legs and clasped both hands hard on my knee. I said, “He seems to have some hold on you or John. They way he acts, the slyness of his attitude — ”

  He shrugged. “It’s a relative thing, not worth discussing. He won’t be around long. He got a bit too cocky on the phone about having words with you, and that I won’t tolerate. So I gave him two weeks’ notice. He wants to go in the riding-academy business, anyway. Maybe somewhere up in Carmel Valley. We own land there.”

  And, I thought, you’ll give him most of it and set him up in business. Then he won’t be around to hint and suggest and arouse anyone’s suspicions.

  I said, “Well, that’s a relief. He got on my nerves.” I leaned back, trying to appear at ease. “Jeff,” I asked, “why did you lie last night, trying to make me think you were calling long-distance?”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “I see. But you aren’t going to tell me.”

  “No.”

  I stared at him, fascinated by his act, but continued playing my own new role. “Jeff,” I said, “I’m not entirely lacking in intelligence. Why don’t you let me help you?”

  “No,” he said dully. “You can’t.”

  “But I think I can. Something is bothering you terribly. You aren’t at all normal, you know. You’re a sick man. And I think that if you’d just let me carry a little of the weight it would help you to get well.”

  He smiled, as my words were exactly what he wanted to hear. “You talk just like John. In fact, you two are quite a bit alike, the serious type. He gave me a hell of a talking to a little while ago. He gets very concerned about his younger brother.”

  “Younger?”

  “He was born forty-two minutes before me. That gives him seniority, you see.” His eyes swung away from mine to stare into space. “Maybe,” he mused, “that’s what’s wrong with me.”

  He got to his feet and I almost screamed when he took the typical Hamlyne stance by the fireplace. It was plain to see what Vivien had meant about his odd attitude. He was giving a perfect performance of a man existing solely within himself. Externals were a shadowy projection upon a screen. I was not real. Questions did not have to be answered. I could reach into his nervous system only by heat or cold. The one living thing was an idea in his brain.

  I asked, “Why didn’t you go hunting as you had planned?”

  He shook his head. “I hadn’t planned on it. I was — well — with a friend of mine in Carmel. She couldn’t hold her liquor.” He looked at me from the corners of his eyes and asked, “Shocked?”

  “No, not when someone is lying.”

  “But you are a moralistic little person. You’re lucky, though. Each moral is like a little gyroscope acting to stabilize a person. If you have enough of them purring at one time, then you experience the truly remarkable sensation known as equilibrium. But it takes a lot of them to do it. One gyroscope, even a big one, can’t do it. I know. I had a big one.”

  Listening to him was like something out of a dream. I blinked my eyes to assure myself that I was wide awake and asked him, “What kind of gyroscope was that?”

  “A very simple one. I lived by it all my life. All kinds of people live by it and think they have all the answers. It’s called, loosely, the sportsman’s code. The simplicity of it is appealing. You live by it and you’re admired and respected and you can do no wrong. You’re a right person. But it doesn’t work out that way. People get hurt.”

  “How, Jeff?”

  He squatted on his heels, struck a match, and touched it to the paper and kindling in the fireplace. The flame licked up and spread and in a moment the logs were spurting fingers of red and yellow light.

  He straightened and replied, as if there had been no interruption, “Well, the singularity of the code defeats it. We’re too complex for that kind of simplicity. We think that if we put our cards on the table, especially with women, then we automatically absolve ourselves from further responsibility. Haven’t we been honest about it? You see how it goes? We are then able to walk from any affair with a clear conscience. But the weakness, there, is that we leave a part of ourselves behind. Whenever two people become involved in anything, they always leave a part of themselves.”

  He rubbed his knuckles along his chin, smiling at some inner thought. “So,” he continued, “we leave a bit here and a bit there and the gyroscope starts to slow down and there comes a time when it isn’t running at all and there’s nothing of ourselves left.” He shook his head. “One is not enough. You need a lot of them, a hell of a lot of them.”

  He wanted nothing from me. He was relieving himself of certain statements and I was to be the recording machine. It did not go beyond that.

  I said, “You place most of your emphasis upon your relations with women. Even a simple code would be broader than that.”

  “You’re responsible for that particular emphasis. It wasn’t until I married you that I realized my private gyroscope had run down.” He shrugged and said, “I had left too much of myself elsewhere. You were mating with a vacuum. What a ridiculous and unfair situation!”

  He turned away to poke at the logs, then looked back and again startled and frightened me. He had said all that he meant to say. The idea was burned out. His eyes, though feverish, were again focused on reality. It was an amazing change. His expression even hinted that he had achieved some sort of victory.

  The odd way he had been talking to me, the peculiar nature of his visit with Vivien, all seemed to indicate but one thing, a light farewell that was being played upstage and would be remembered. It was meant to be remembered.

  I could sense that in another few seconds he would he leaving the room and that I could not stop him. But I could spar for time. I said the first thing that came into my mind: “Oh, by the way, I had a telegram this evening from Sam Brandt. He’s coming up to spend the week end with us.”

  He settled back on his heels and frowned at me. “When?”

  “Saturday. He can stay until Monday. I was just thinking, before you came in, we might have some sort of party Saturday night. Make it formal. Sam enjoys that sort of thing. We could invite some of your friends — ”

  He interrupted by laughing and then saying, more to himself than to me, “Perfect. Absolutely perfect.” He grinned and it was obvious that whatever he had in mind would be better delayed. “Why,” he said, “I think that’s a splendid idea. Splendid. Hire a couple of orchestras. Entertainers. We’ll make the old place rock. Suppose we have a drink on it.”

  “Well—”

  He mixed Martinis for us and then settled down with pencil and paper to plan the party. I watched him with sheer, stark horror racing through every cell of my body. I had set a better stage for him, accidentally, than the one he had been so laboriously building. I had only myself to thank for that.

  He talked about the party with great enthusiasm, which I could not match. I tried to get the conversation back on its former plane, but that was impossible. I told him that, in all probability, I would be leaving with Sam, that I could no longer tolerate the situation. He shrugged that off, too, and refused to comment on it. I was a guest trespassing on the privacy of the host.

  I left him in the library, still busily planning the p
arty. He barely looked up to nod a curt good night. I went to my rooms feeling weak and defeated and with barely enough strength to undress. I snapped off the lights and got in bed and sank into the cool sheets.

  I was too tired to start all over from the beginning and make something sensible of the situation. I thought of Sam’s coming visit and concentrated on that and at last closed my eyes and went to sleep.

  When I opened my eyes I was sitting upright in bed and my heart was hammering wildly. I stared into the dark, wondering what had happened to me. It had not been a nightmare. There would have been some trace of that left in my mind. It was not the wind hammering at the windows; that was powerful, but it had not particularly increased in force. But my heart was beating violently. I leaned over to switch on the bed lamp and looked at the ivory clock. It was a few minutes before two A.M.

  I was turning back to the pillows when the cause of my sudden awakening was heard again. It was a scream, a shrill, piercing scream of abject terror. I was petrified with fear, until I remembered Vivien’s presence in the guest room. It was definitely a woman who had screamed.

  It was not bravery that drove me out of bed, but the compulsion to know, the feeling that perhaps the solution to everything was in the next room. I picked up a robe, but my fingers were shaking so badly I dropped it to the floor. I clenched my hands to control myself, then lifted the robe and put it over my shoulders. I waited for a second or more and listened, but the scream was not repeated. I had to force myself out of the bedroom and into the sitting room and to the hallway door. Then it took all of my will to make my hand turn the knob and open the door.

  There was a light burning dimly at the staircase landing, so that, looking toward it, I could see the length of the hallway. It was empty and silent. I stepped into the hall and paused before the door of the guest room. There was no sound, except the wind howling through an open window. There was a terrible draft coming from under the door. The simple awareness that the guest-room window was open was terrifying in itself. There was no reason for any upper windows to be open.