“Yes, clearly.”
“I guess it’s happened to other girls, getting tied up with a pansy, but it wouldn’t have happened to Evelyn if I hadn’t been divorced, if her father had been here. He’d have known right away that there was something wrong with Douglas. As it was, we had no hint, no warning at all.
“They went to Las Vegas for their honeymoon. I had a postcard from Evelyn saying she was fine and the weather was beautiful. That was all, until the doorbell rang one night a week later, and when I opened the door there was Evelyn standing on the porch with her suitcases. She didn’t cry or make a fuss, she just stood there and said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘He’s a pervert’.
“It was a terrible shock, terrible. I kept asking her if she was sure, I told her some men were like that at first, timid and embarrassed. But she said she was sure, all right, because he had admitted it. He had apologized. Can you beat it? He apologized for marrying her! I know now how much suffering that apology cost him. I’m not blaming Douglas any more. How can I? But at the time all I cared about was Evie.
“She left her suitcases out on the porch, wouldn’t even let me bring them into the house, and the next day she took them down to the Salvation Army, her whole trousseau, wedding dress and all. When she came back about around lunch-time she looked so pale and exhausted my heart turned over with pity, yes, and guilt, too. I should have known. I’ve been around. I was responsible.”
Mrs. Merrick turned back to the sink, gathered up the bits of broken plate and tossed them into the trash-can. “A plate breaks and you throw it away. A person breaks and all you can do is pick up the pieces and try to put them together the best way you can. Oh, Evelyn didn’t break, exactly. She just... well, sort of lost interest in things. She’s always been an outgoing and lively girl, very quick to express her opinions or her feelings. On the night she came home she should have made a fuss, I ought to have encouraged her to talk out and cry out a little of the hurt. But she was withdrawn, detached...”
“Evelyn, dear, did you have dinner?”
“I think so.”
“Let me heat up a little soup for you. I made some chowder.”
“No, thank you.”
“Evelyn — baby...”
“Please don’t get emotional, Mother. We have to make plans.”
“Plans?”
“I’ll get an annulment, I suppose. Isn’t that what I’m entitled to when the marriage wasn’t consummated, as they say?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll see a lawyer tomorrow morning.”
“There’s no need for such haste. Give yourself a chance to rest up.”
“Rest up from what?” Evelyn said with a wry smile. “No. The sooner, the better. I’ve got to shed that name Clarvoe. I hate it.”
“Evelyn. Evelyn dear. Listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“He didn’t — mistreat you?”
“In what way?”
“He didn’t, well, make any indecent advances?”
“I did the advancing.”
“Well, thank God for that.”
“For what?”
“That he didn’t mistreat you.”
“You have,” Evelyn said distinctly, “quite the wrong picture. I’ll give you the right one, if you like.”
“Not unless you feel like it, dear.”
“I don’t feel one way or the other. I just don’t want you to get the idea in your head that I was physically abused.” As she talked she rubbed the third finger of her left hand, as if massaging away the marks of her wedding ring. “It began on the plane when he became sick. I thought at the time it was airsickness, but I realize now he was sick with fear, fear of being alone with me.
When we arrived at the hotel, he went into the bar while I unpacked. He stayed in the bar all night. I waited for him, all dressed up in my flossy nightgown and negligee. Around 6 o’clock in the morning two of the bellboys brought him up and poured him out on the bed. He was snoring. He looked so funny, yet so pathetic, too, like a little boy. As soon as he began to show signs of waking up, I went over and spoke to him and stroked his forehead. He opened his eyes and saw me bending over him. And then he let out a scream, the queerest sound I ever heard, an animal sound. I still didn’t know what the trouble was, I thought he merely had a hangover.” Her mouth twisted with distaste and contempt. “Well, he had a hangover, all right, but the party had been years and years ago.”
“Oh, Evelyn. Baby...”
“Please don’t fuss.”
“But why, why in heaven’s name did he marry you?”
“Because,” Evelyn said dryly, “he wanted to prove he was a man.”
Blackshear listened, pitying the woman, pitying them alclass="underline" Evelyn waiting in her flossy nightgown for the bridegroom, Douglas sick with fear, Verna trying desperately to hide the truth from herself.
“Yesterday,” Mrs. Merrick continued, “Evelyn met me downtown at noon to do some shopping. For the first time since the wedding, we saw Verna Clarvoe. I was quite upset. I could think of nothing but the bitter things to say. But Evelyn was perfectly controlled. She even asked about Douglas, how he was and what he was doing and so on, in the most natural way in the world.
“Verna went into that spiel of hers — Dougie was fine, he was taking lessons in photography, and doing this and doing that. It seemed to me that she was trying to start the whole business over again, trying to whip up Evelyn’s interest. And then it struck me for the first time, she doesn’t know, Verna still doesn’t know, she still has hopes, doesn’t she?”
“I think she has.”
“Poor Verna,” she said quietly. “I feel especially sorry for her today.”
“Why especially?”
“It’s his birthday. Today is Douglas’ birthday.”
Chapter 9
Douglas’ door was locked; it was the only way she had of knowing that he had come back some time during the night, perhaps because he wanted to, perhaps because he had no place else to go.
She knocked and said, “Douglas,” in a harsh heavy voice that was like a stranger’s to her. “Are you awake, Douglas?”
From inside the room there came a mumbled reply and the soft thud of feet striking carpet.
“I want to talk to you, Douglas. Get dressed and come downstairs. Right away.”
In the kitchen, the part-time maid, a spare, elderly woman named Mabel, was sitting cross-legged at the dresser ledge, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the morning Times. She didn’t rise when she saw Verna, who owed her back wages in civility as well as cash.
“There’s muffins in the oven. Yesterday’s. Heated up. You want your orange-juice now?”
“I’ll get it myself.”
“I made a grocery list. We’re out of eggs and coffee again. I need a drop of coffee now and then to steady myself and there’s barely a cup left in the pot.”
“All right, go and buy some. You might as well do the rest of the shopping while you’re at it. We need some 100-watt bulbs and paper towels, and you’d better check the potato bin.”