“Say? She can’t even talk!”
“Well, she must have told you something!”
“Why must she? After Finley came over, and that boy told his tale, she went into hysterics. Not even her own mother could talk to her — could you, dear?”
“We took her up from the island, to the doctor, and he took one look at her and ordered her to bed. I don’t know what she’ll say. The condition she’s in, unfortunately, pretty well speaks for itself.”
“And if she admits it, what then?”
“I don’t quite know yet.”
“Do you mean you’re — considering the law?”
“I have to consider it.”
Once more I was slipping in the side door of the hotel, and along past the furnaces, and up in the freight elevator. Their suite was on the second floor, and her room first on the left of the little side hallway they had. I tapped on her door and right away heard her voice, and then she was there, in a little silk bathrobe, her hair tumbling all over her shoulders, and in my arms. “Jack, Jack, I knew you’d come.”
“Put on something and get down there. To the basement.”
“Where have they gone? To your house?”
“They’re up there now. Waiting for me. But how long they’ll wait God knows, and we have to talk. So be quick. Use the freight car and don’t be seen.”
I went down and waited and after a couple of years the car gave a clank and went up. Then it came down, and at last she was there, and we went over to a baggage truck and sat down. “First, let me look at you. What makes you so pale?”
“The dark dress, maybe. And I’ve had — a bad time.”
“Yes, now tell me.”
“Well, the day after that night, when I’d played hooky by going to a picture show, and then had the bright idea of traipsing me down to the island, and found them all gone, and then thought I’d play a trick on you and went up to that place with Dickie—”
“After deciding to jump in the bay.”
“Well? What would you have done?”
“Go on.”
“After you came and got me and took me home, I had to have a story, something to throw them off the track. So I said I had gone—”
“To Washington. I know. What then?”
“Then it was decided that it was being alone so much that had slightly unbalanced my mind.”
“And they brought you back to the island?”
“Yes, things having suddenly quieted down.”
“Why?”
“I think Dickie got scared.”
“He talked, though.”
“Yes. Today, just after lunch, it was threatening rain, and we gave up an idea we had, to go crabbing. Then Margaret went to her room for a nap, and Mother went back and began checking linen. Then Mr. Finley came over and I could hear them talking, from where I was, reading a magazine in my room, for some time. Then Margaret got up and went out there. Then I began to wonder what was going on and went out there, and from the way they kept looking at me I knew that whatever it was, Mr. Finley and Father were talking about me. Then Mr. Finley called Dick and he came over.”
“And what then?”
“Mr. Finley had been telling what Dick had told him.”
“Which was?”
“... That you had done something to me.”
“Do you understand what that was? I mean, what it was I’m supposed to have done to you?”
“Yes, Jack.”
“What did Dickie have to say?”
“He followed us, Jack. He must have, from what he said, because he knew exactly where we parked, there across from the Naval Academy, near the bridge. I think he sneaked out to his car, before we left Zeke’s, and pulled out when we did, without putting on his lights. And, in his own imagination, anyhow, he saw something. And when they began asking me about it, and Margaret began weeping all over the place, I... went to pieces a little.”
“Then they brought you to town?”
“And called a doctor. He put me to bed.”
“The worst is yet to come.”
“How?”
“Your father means to have me arrested.”
“For what?”
“Contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”
“But you haven’t!”
“No, but Dickie says so.”
“Will they believe him, instead of me?”
“I don’t know what they’ll believe.”
It was ten minutes before I got her quiet enough even to talk. Then we heard the watchman, ducked into the car, stooped down, and held our breaths. When he was gone we went out and sat down on the truck again and her hand crept into mine. It was cold as ice. “Jack, why did you come here? Tonight.”
“... To tip you. What’s going on.”
“That’s not all.”
“No.”
“You’re going away?”
“Yes.”
“You’re taking me with you?”
“No.”
“Jack, please.”
“It’s utterly unthinkable.”
“Jack, I love you.”
“I’ve’ loved you since you were two years old.”
“But not only that way. You love me more.”
“If I did, it wouldn’t be more, it would be less.”
“Jack, I’ve loved you since I was two years old, too. I’ve worshipped you. But not this way, as I feel now, until you undumbbelled me. That’s not so nice, to be the family simp, that can’t do algebra factors like Mother or beat the piano like Margaret. Then you came along, and believed in me, and made me happy. Then life began. Then I loved you this way, so I can’t even breathe when I look at you. Jack, you’ll have to take me! I’ll put my hair up! I’ll use lipstick and make-up, so I’ll look older! Jack, I’ll die without you! I love you, I tell you! And you love me!”
“Not that way.”
“Yes! It’s why you’ve left Margaret!”
“Listen, you. You’re to cut this idea out, get rid of it, anything that even looks like it. You’re to go back to school, study your lessons, do what they—”
But she turned from me, curled up on the truck like some kitten, and started to cry, terrible little sobs that she’d fight back and then couldn’t fight back. I got up, stumbled past the furnaces, somehow found my way out to the street.
At the house, the Packard was gone and the windows were dark, so I put the car away and went in. From the study my father called. There was no light in there, but his voice had a rip to it and I about knew the thick cut he’d have to his jaw when I turned on one of the lamps. But I wasn’t quite ready for the wild, maniac look he had in his eye. He was on the couch, and rose up off it like some corpse sitting up in its coffin, and stared at me, and began to talk. “You low, perverted scut, to do a thing like that!”
“Like what, for instance.”
“Are you going to stand there and say you didn’t?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve defended you — successfully, God help me. I’ve made threats that at last have had their effect, and at least the police won’t be called. But if you think I for one second think you’re innocent, you’re badly mistaken. I should have known it would be something like this. With the rotten, depraved blood that’s in you, to which something young is only a new excitement—”
Don’t ask me how I got through the rest of that horrible night. I stood there, and pumps began driving in my head, like they had the day I beat up the organist, like they do still, at no more than a look in somebody’s eye, if I happen to think that look means my mother. I held on to the door jamb, for control, and he talked on and on, and every other sentence he’d tell me to get out of there. I tried to tell him what the truth was, but it was like talking to something insane, and after a while I went upstairs. Then while I was packing, Sheila came in, looking thin and old in some kind of a Chinese kimono, and I told her I was taking clothes and underwear only, and might have to write for the other stuff. She said she’d send anything I wanted. Then she began to cry and I went over to kiss her but she turned away. At that I felt my face get hot, picked up my bags, and went downstairs. In the living room something moved and then Nancy was there with a thermos bottle and a basket full of sandwiches. She whispered the thermos had coffee in it. I thanked her and wanted to kiss her but hated the idea of somebody else turning away. I put the stuff under my arm and went out. Then I was in the car, driving through the night, with the rain coming down, the black road shining ahead, with no more idea where I was going than the Flying Dutchman, and just as much chance of getting there.