Fair Warning (3 page)

It was a small yet widespread circle she moved into, its wideness possible only in a great city, though Baryton, properly speaking, was not a part of Chicago, was not, even, in Cook County, and every day heavily laden commuters’ trains swept in and out from town. But Baryton was not at all a social unit. Rather it was a dwelling place for people whose interests and connections were almost wholly centered in and about Chicago. Occasionally, as with the Copleys, you knew your neighbors.

Marcia remembered her first meeting with the Copleys; it was after she and Ivan Godden had returned from a prolonged Southern trip and Beatrice had had family friends in to tea one Sunday to meet the new Mrs. Godden. They had all known each other except Marcia, and she had felt stiff and, a bride of three months, oddly unsure of herself. In the flood of introductions somehow she had missed Robert and his mother. For presently she found herself in a corner listening rather wearily to the hum of voices and soft little clatter of cups, and when Robert turned up beside her she had not known who he was. And he obviously had not known who she was, for he’d said abruptly, “What are you doing here? Have you had tea? Let me get you some.” He’d got tea and heaped a plate with the kind of sandwiches he liked. “I expect to help eat ’em,” he said, surveying the heap. “I only hope Beatrice hasn’t poisoned ’em. Now, then, tell me all about yourself.”

She hadn’t, because just then Verity Copley appeared and asked Robert to bring her some tea, also. “Beatrice’s food is so good,” she said. “Have you been presenting yourself to the bride, Robert? … It’s my son, that tall thing,” she said to Marcia. “I am Verity Copley.”

“Oh, I say,” Robert had said queerly. “You can’t be the girl Godden married.” His eyes had looked suddenly very dark and sober, and Verity had said quickly, though in a friendly and pleasant way:

“Our gardens adjoin, you know, Mrs. Godden. You must look at my roses one day. Do get me tea, Robert, darling, I’m starving.”

He had got the tea. And had stood by in silence, while Verity chatted and drank her tea. He said only one more thing, and that was as Verity was turning to greet Ivan, who, belatedly, observed his bride’s isolation. And that was queer, too, because it was urgent, as if for some reason he really wanted to know. He’d said, “How long have you been married?”

Marcia told him and he repeated it. “Three months,” he said.

They had gone shortly after that.

She’d seen them again, of course; they were neighbors and friends. In the intervening three years she had got to know them rather well—as well, that is, as she knew anyone. During the past winter, however, she had seen little of them; Verity had been engrossed in painting, Robert had stayed in town most of the time; Marcia herself, much as she liked Verity, had been conscious of an increasing barrier between them, unspoken and unrecognized but there nevertheless. But she couldn’t tell Verity much of her life; Verity could not ask; something formless and impassable had grown between them which forbade any save the most impersonal talk. They had come, that day of March eighteenth, as near it as possible and then had quickly, seeing the danger, sheered away. (Odd, thought Marcia in parenthesis, neither Ivan nor Beatrice had yet spoken of the dog, though they must have known.) She liked to think the Copleys were there; she liked to see the cheerful lights of their windows. But she saw less and less of them. As she saw less and less of Gally—of, in fact, all their friends. ...

The bare wooden bench was cold and damp; there was no wind, but an all-pervading chill. She shivered under her yellow sweater and wished she had stopped to get a coat. But Beatrice would have seen her going upstairs for the coat—would have asked her what she was doing, where she was going, why.

The yellow sweater reminded her again of Ivan and the day of March eighteenth, and again she could see—as she had seen so often since that strange tumultuous day which ended at St. Thomas’s Hospital, waiting to be told whether he was to live or die—the long, sharp, red streaks across his pale cheek.

She lifted her head and looked drearily across the lily pool and the stretch of garden.

Beyond the wall a robin was digging in the Copley garden and paused to sing its rain song—three low tentative notes. It would soon rain. And she must go back into the house; make—or pretend to help make—arrangements for Ivan’s home-coming. Beatrice, of course, would have already taken the thing into her own hands.

Somebody banged the garden door of the Copley house and came down the steps singing “I Believe in Miracles” at the top of his voice. It was Rob, bareheaded and sweater-clad. He came across the garden as if he did not see the shivering girl in yellow in the summerhouse. But he had seen her, for he stopped abruptly at the wall, stopped singing and said, “Hello, Marcia.”

“Hello, Rob.”

He looked at her. His brown hair was wet and shining, his direct blue eyes very keen below straight dark eyebrows. He held a pipe in his mouth, and his collar wasn’t fastened and his brown sweater was worn. He took the pipe out of his mouth, still watching her, and leaned against the wall.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Marcia.

He looked at her again for a long moment.

“Nonsense,” he said and vaulted over the wall, crossed the short, damp stretch of grass, circled the lily pool, and stood in the door of the summerhouse looking down at her.

“Now, then, what’s wrong?”

His eyes, as always under emotion, had turned quite black. He wanted to say, “What has happened to you, what disaster has fallen upon you, why are you so white and hunted and afraid?”

He couldn’t, of course, say it. So he stood there looking down at her through a still, gray world which held only himself and the girl in yellow, sitting so small and huddled and cold before him.

There was the gray, waiting lily pool, with green fringes of sedum and feathery wild phlox clustering in the crevices of the rocks edging the pool. There was the strip of wet lawn, queerly bright in the gray, clear light preceding rain. There was silence, and nothing else in the world.

Marcia said again helplessly, “Nothing’s wrong.” And looked away from him.

His mouth and eyes tightened a little. He glanced up toward the narrow, observant windows of the gray Godden house and said, “Ivan?”

The real meaning of the question was one Marcia couldn’t recognize. She said stiffly, “Oh, he’s very well. Dr. Blakie was just here.”

And he was coming home; she tried to tell him that, but the words and the pleasant, calm voice it demanded would not come, for her throat simply and completely closed. She stared at the lily pool, and a drop of rain fell in the middle of it, making small overlapping circles. She shivered a little, and Rob saw it.

“You are cold,” he said abruptly. “You ought to have a wrap. It’s raining—or about to. How long have you been sitting here?”

“I don’t know.” More drops were falling on the lily pool, breaking up its gray brooding. How long had it been and how much nearer was Ivan’s return?

He eyed her frowningly.

“Come,” he said suddenly. “Verity’s home and hasn’t seen you for ages. Where have you been keeping yourself? At the hospital, I suppose. I’ve not seen you since—since the night Ivan was hurt.” He said that with rather elaborate ease, and took her hands and pulled her to her feet and was propelling her toward the wall. There was a small iron gate at the front and between the two front lawns, but the direct and shorter way was over the wall.

“Oh, no—I can’t. Not now.”

“Why not?”

“Ivan—”

He stopped suddenly, turning her so she faced him.

“Do you mean Ivan doesn’t want you to come to our house?”

“No—no!” She paused and took a breath and said in a light, too bright way: “Of course not. Why, he—insisted on my going to your mother’s dinner party tonight, although Beatrice and I felt it would take both of us from the hospital too early. He wouldn’t hear of our refusing it.” It was too light and too bright and altogether too facile. But she rushed on, nervously and too conscious of that observant gaze: “It will be so nice to see Verity and to have a little gaiety. Beatrice and I shall much enjoy it—we’ve been staying rather close to the hospital, you know, since Ivan’s—” Her voice just simply stopped.

Rob said quietly, “Come, Marcia. Over the wall you go.” His hands on her were gentle and certain. She was standing on the Copley side of the wall, and he was smiling beside her. “You weigh more than one would think,” he said. “You look so awfully slim and fragile.”

She glanced quickly toward the Godden house. Gray stone and thick old ivy which, in summer, too completely veiled the windows. All those narrow windows and gables looking down at her. The french doors to the library were not entirely visible through the masses of evergreens. Was Beatrice watching her? Was Ancill in there dusting the library—arranging his master’s favorite chair? Somebody suddenly opened an upstairs window, and in the quiet they could hear the rasp of it, and both looked that way. The screens weren’t yet on, and the thick lace curtains moved a little in the draft. It was a window of Ivan’s bedroom; Delia, then, was airing and freshening the room. The room adjoining Marcia’s.

Her heart throbbed and struggled until it actually did hurt. She knew somehow that Rob was looking at that window, too, and that his face was white and queer. He said abruptly and rather jerkily, “Hurry up. It’s raining—I’ll light a fire.”

Rain spattered lightly upon them as they reached the house.

“Come into the sunroom. This way—good, the fire’s already laid. You’re as cold as a little frog. Here—sit down.”

It was warm, and the comfortable low chairs were bright with chintz; there was a cheerful confusion of books and magazines, cigarettes, and flowers in vases. A fire was laid on the small hearth, and Marcia, from the deep chair in which he placed her, watched him strike a match and light it. Flames wavered up, caught hold, shot suddenly upward and grew and crackled. Rob stood up and turned, leaning against the mantel and looking down at the dancing flames which threw his face into sharp relief and glowed in reflection against his brown sweater. Bunty, the Scotch terrier, came bouncing in, greeted Marcia with frantic glee, was suddenly overtaken by an unusual moment of thoughtfulness and stretched her small black belly on the rug and watched the fire, too, her red tongue barely showing.

It was warm. For the moment safe.

Only for the moment. She must return to the house across the garden. And prepare for Ivan’s return.

Quite suddenly Marcia was crying. She was not sobbing; she wasn’t making any motion or sound. It was just that tears were raining down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them; she didn’t know they were the bitter, silent tears of exhaustion.

Rob turned abruptly and looked at her again.

She couldn’t stop the tears; she couldn’t any longer keep him from knowing. She was too tired to try.

“Marcia!” he said suddenly in a queer rough voice, and was all at once kneeling beside her, gathering her into his warm arms, putting her head against his shoulder and rocking her a little as one would a child. She sobbed then, leaning against him with the woolen sweater rough and warm on her cheek.

The fire danced and murmured; the little room was in soft twilight; the sky outside was dark, and rain slipped gently against the windowpanes.

“Marcia,” he said again. “Dear—I love you so,” and turned her wet face and kissed her gently, strongly on the mouth, holding her locked in his arms.

Confusion, warmth, peace, tenderness—out of it all emerged something very strange. He was kissing her again, urgently now, and Marcia had never known there could be such sweetness anywhere.

When had she first loved him—now, or months before? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t think. And obscurely she knew that she must not. Not if she were to possess this flash of fire life had unexpectedly given her.

Rob was talking; saying things brokenly which were part of it and as fleeting—he was holding her hands to his mouth, too, kissing them; pushing her hair back from her face and looking at it as if he could never look enough; talking. Reminding her of the knowledge which she’d been pushing away.

Saying she couldn’t go back. Not now.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“I could stand it so long as you were all right. I wouldn’t have let you know, Marcia—I’ve stayed away—kept myself from seeing you. But I can’t bear to see you like this. He’s—he’s destroying you, darling—I can’t stand by and let it go on. You can’t go back to him—”

“Don’t talk about it. Not now.”

“But we must talk about it. It’s there—keeping us apart—”

“Wait.”

He drew a little away, forcing her to meet his eyes directly.

“What do you mean, Marcia?”

“I—I don’t know. I didn’t think of this —”

“I know, darling. Listen—you do love me, don’t you?”

He waited; his eyes were dark and compelling and reached deeply into her own. The rain was plunging now against the windows. The room was shadowy from the storm. The fire leaped and glowed and made soft golden points of light on Rob’s tense face and was reflected deeply in his eyes. “Don’t you?” he repeated urgently.

“Yes,” she said.

His look continued to hold hers for a long, still moment. Then he rose, put her hands gently down, and walked rather unsteadily to the rain-swept window. His shoulders were black against the silver rain, and the firelight danced, and Bunty’s black eyes watched the flames and gleamed. Presently he turned, his hands jammed in his pockets, and said slowly:

“Never forget that, Marcia. And never forget that I love you. I will always love you and you are mine. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said and thought she did understand. But she hadn’t, for he went on immediately, “There are things to do. You are going to leave him, Marcia. You must leave him. Now.”

“No—oh, no. I can’t—”

“Can’t? Why not? There’s nothing else to do.”

“Oh—I can’t. It’s all wrong. I’m married to him.” Words were coming out spasmodically, breathlessly. “Marriage—it lasts, Rob. Till death do you part.”

“Death!” cried Rob explosively and violently, as if her opposition had touched off a long-smoldering spark somewhere. “I’d like to kill him.” He whirled away from her again so she had only a glimpse of his white, suddenly tortured face. He said over his shoulder, trying to speak collectedly: “This—has all come about without your quite realizing it, Marcia. You’ve not had time to think. I know—I’ll be patient. Don’t you see, my dear, that you must leave him? There’s time now to think of it—now while he’s … away.” He paused before the last word, overcoming a kind of shame: he was making love to the wife of a man sick and in the hospital. No—that was wrong. He wanted more than anything the happiness of the woman he loved. Or did he? Wasn’t it, too, his own happiness? He said roughly, “Good God, Marcia—that night he was injured—the night Dr. Blakie worked like the devil himself to save him, all I could think of was, ‘Suppose he dies. Suppose he leaves her free at last. The little princess in the dark tower released—let into life and sunshine again—’ ” He turned again toward her so he was still a black silhouette against the shining window, but she could sense his tense, dark eyes upon her. “A woman,” said Rob harshly, “let loose to love and live again.”