Fair Warning (4 page)

Marcia’s hands went outward as if to stop him. Her eyes were brimming with tears. As she struggled to speak, Rob crossed to her again quickly and knelt down beside her and put his face against her hands.

“And never—never with him any more,” said Rob.

Tears were on her face now, streaming down.

“Oh, Rob, Rob. Stop—you see, he’s coming home today.”

S
OMETHING DROPPED LOUDLY IN
the next room; dropped, was apparently picked up and dropped firmly again. There was a second or two of deliberate silence.

Rob moved and rose to his feet slowly, as if not altogether conscious of what he was doing, then Bunty barked sharply and tumbled to greet Verity, who stood in the doorway, said briskly, “Hello, children,” and entered.

“Fire looks nice,” she said, approaching it and not looking at Marcia and Rob. “April is a cold and treacherous wench. Not to be trusted. Well, my dears?” She turned on a note of question and stood before the fire looking quietly at them.

She was small and very young-looking to be the mother of a son nearing thirty. Widowed many years before, she had never remarried. She was a dynamo of energy; her deep blue eyes had a luminous look, as though she saw a great many things that less spiritual mortals could not see. Not that she was, in the usual sense, spiritual. She was, instead, crisp, lightly ironical, and possessed of vigorous common sense and of amazing, hidden reserves of strength and will. In a light, large workroom at the top of the house she painted extremely successful illustrations for magazines, but the occasional paint stains on her small hands were the only indications of her occupation. She dressed smartly, kept her slender figure without undue effort, and, when she turned her head, showed an unexpectedly strong nose. It was fine and nicely proportioned to her delicately contoured face, but definitely a nose of character. “I paint on my nose,” Marcia had heard her say. And add, “And I brought Robert up on it.”

“Well, my dears,” she repeated. “What’s the conclusion?”

Rob turned a white, preoccupied face toward her and said in a taut queer way: “Marcia and I—”

Verity waved the horn-rimmed spectacles she had removed. Without them her blue eyes were more luminous and a little nearsighted.

“Darlings, I’m not blind. Besides, I couldn’t help hearing some of it. Let’s have no more talk of killing, Rob. That’s silly. Besides, it isn’t done.”

Rob’s face was losing its look of stunned preoccupation, and there was growing in it a kind of tenseness and determination.

He looked at his mother with eyes that saw and recognized her presence and said:

“You’ve known how I felt, Mother. You couldn’t have helped knowing. It wasn’t anything I could—stop. But I’ve stayed away—I’ve not troubled Marcia—”

“I know,” said his mother, looking suddenly very small and tired. “You’ve remembered that the girl you love is another man’s wife. It’s a good thing to remember.” She turned sharply to Marcia. “He has, really, Marcia. I’ve been rather proud of him. Especially since Ivan—” She checked herself abruptly and said: “Well—what about it?”

“It’s different,” said Rob. “It’s altogether different. You see, Marcia loves me. And I’m not going to give her up.”

Verity sank into a chair opposite Marcia and turned her unexpectedly strong profile toward them.

“It isn’t exactly a question of giving her up, is it? After all —she is Ivan Godden’s wife.”

“She loves me,” said Rob again. “I love her. She can’t—You see, Ivan is coming home today.”

Verity looked up quickly, seeking her son’s eyes, which avoided her own.

“What do you mean by that?” she said sharply. “It’s his home—he’s been ill—Marcia can’t leave him the very day—” Again she checked herself and flashed one blue look toward Marcia and said more gently, “What does Marcia say?”

“I—can’t—you don’t know how strong he—you don’t—” She was trembling again as if she were cold. Rob with a kind of defiant gesture went to her and knelt again so as to take her tightly in his arms.

“Don’t be afraid, Marcia,” he said tenderly, but still with a kind of tautness and decision in his voice. “Don’t you see, Mother, how it is with her? She’s not herself—they’ve made her afraid—I—we have got to decide for her. You must leave him now—today— ”

“No, no, Rob. You must not. Marcia is not a child. She must have time.”

“There is no time. He’s coming today. You will leave him, Marcia. Promise me. You will do it?”

“I can’t.” Marcia’s voice was unsteady; dull; it had no force or meaning and was only repeating words which were dictated by something outside her. “I can’t.”

His arms were tighter and his eyes blazing from his white face. He looked angry and a little frightened at her opposition but still determined.

“You must do it. You can come here—my mother will welcome you.” He gave Verity one furious demanding look over Marcia’s head, but she obstinately refused to return it and stared instead into the fire. “You must come here,” said Rob. “Then you’ll divorce him—”

“Divorce—” Marcia struggled against his arms, but he held her tighter.

“Why, yes, of course, darling. Divorce him and—”

“I can’t,” reiterated Marcia. “I can’t,” and leaned against his shoulder, sobbing and at the end of her strength.

He was defeated by weakness. Defeated and humbled and repentant, but under it still determined. “My dear,” he said. “My dear,” and held her gently against him.

Presently Verity rose.

“You must let her go back, Rob. You see how she feels. She’s got to have time to think—time to adjust herself—”

“But Ivan—”

“Ivan is her husband,” said Verity sternly. “He has a right to be dealt with openly and fairly. You must do it that way, Rob. You must tell him—give him a chance to release—”

“Ivan,” interrupted Rob with dreadful scorn. “Ivan— release her—”

“I know,” said Verity wearily. “But nevertheless—”

“I must go home,” said Marcia suddenly. “He’s coming. I’ve got to be there—he’s coming—”

“Marcia—”

“You see.” Rob turned savagely to his mother. “It’s as if he ruled her—as if his influence—”

“Oh, come, come, Rob. It’s no Svengali affair. It’s just, that, naturally, these years of—well, the gradually beating down of Marcia’s own personality—”

“The deliberate, cruel—”

“Hush, my son. Oh, it does no good to talk so much of it now. Marcia is exhausted. It all comes to this: Ivan is returning. Well, then, you must face it—and face him. Things are no different than they ever were. Marcia was his wife when you first met her—”

“And loved her,” said Rob stormily. “And loved her.”

Verity turned toward him decisively. “If you love her so much, then, my son, you will let her go now.”

“And it is different,” cried Rob, “because she loves me. We’ve had this morning—these few moments—and things can never be the same again. I can’t let her go back to him. I can’t. There’s no use talking.”

“You must,” said Verity quietly.

“You are talking of me,” said Marcia, in a small, detached voice, “as if I were not here at all.”

Rob’s arms tightened again, and he said with a sort of angry compunction, “How can I help it, darling? Why won’t you see the truth? How can you yourself make the obstacle to our—our life together?”

“Marcia’s got to find herself again, Rob,” said Verity clearly and slowly, as if to be sure he understood. “And it isn’t Marcia that’s your obstacle. It’s Ivan—”

“Ivan,” said Rob. “Yes. And the way he’s treated Marcia. Until she’s afraid to call her soul her own.”

Verity was white to the lips. She said sharply, “Rob, you are saying things you’ll regret. You can’t reproach Marcia.”

Marcia heard them and understood them, but a stronger and more urgent thing was hanging over her, threatening her, warning her that she must go back to the Godden house. She moved, and Rob released her, and she got to her feet, blindly.

“I’ve got to be there,” she said, “when he comes home. I must go now. He may have returned already. I must be there.” She was panting a little because her heart was thudding so furiously. She looked at Verity and tried to say something that would show them how she felt. But she said instead in a husky voice that held a sort of still horror, “Don’t be so sure about him, Verity. About anything. You don’t know—Ivan.” She whispered the name, as if he might hear.

Rob gave a sort of groan and whirled toward the window again so they could not see his face. Verity shivered as if the room had suddenly grown cold and suddenly went to the window, too, and put her hand on Rob’s arm. Marcia looked at them—looked at Rob as if she were storing up his image to hold secret in her heart. And she must go. Now.

Verity turned back to Marcia. Her face was in shadow, so Marcia could see only its white blur. Her voice was small and cold and distant like a wind from a mountain peak. She said, “There are—ways. Take her home now, Rob. Every moment she’s gone makes it that much harder just now. Get a raincoat; it’s pouring.”

He was for the moment defeated. He got a raincoat—his own raincoat, so loose and big that it enveloped Marcia like a cape. He put it around her and caught her again in his arms and kissed her as if his kiss could weld them forever, as if his kiss could draw from her a strength to match his own.

His hands were trembling when at last he fastened the collar of the coat around her throat. Verity had disappeared.

“Oh, Marcia,” he said, in a last appeal, “can’t you—”

“Rob—Rob—don’t you see—”

“Yes,” he said in a different voice. “I see what he’s already done to you. But I’m going to save you, my darling. I’m going to —”

She turned toward the door and stooped to pat Bunty, who would have accompanied her. At the door Verity appeared again and spoke in a crisply matter-of-fact voice:

“Don’t forget my dinner party tonight, my dear. Remind Beatrice, too, won’t you? At seven-thirty. I don’t suppose Ivan will feel like coming—just out of the hospital.”

It was as if something had given a little shake and everything clicked back into its usual, habitual swing.

“Yes, of course,” said Marcia. “Seven-thirty.”

But out in the silver rain, with its coolness and sharpness on their hot faces, there were again only Rob and herself in the world. “Just for a moment,” thought Marcia, “just until we reach the wall.”

They reached the wall. Rob helped her over it. He didn’t speak at all, but as she went up the stretch of wet lawn and came to the french doors she could feel his gaze upon her, and still his lips against her own.

She entered the library and closed the door. Through the slanting rain she could see his tall figure, leaning against the wall. The room was gloomy and silent behind her.

“Rob—Rob, my dear,” she whispered.

It was hopeless and it was farewell. Even if she had entertained, as she might have done, given time, a wild thought of escape, of freedom, it would have dwindled and died in that room. For already it began to put its dark and somber influence upon her. Rob’s love—that was enchantment; but the Godden house had its own spell, and it was a dark and morbid one, and it surrounded and held Marcia like quicksand.

She forced herself to look away from that figure leaning against the wall—a figure which was blurred in her vision. It was gone. It was done.

The door into the hall was closed as was customary. There was no one in the room, but it had that indescribable air which, even in an exaggeratedly orderly house, follows fresh dusting and arranging. Ivan’s desk shone from polish and was a blank and “empty expanse against which his white, beautiful hands were soon to lie. Ivan’s beautiful white hands —which were to throttle this new thing.

That was hysterical. That was falsely dramatic. In Marcia—underneath and as with most people—along with a great many other conflicting and confusing traits of character there was a sort of bedrock strain of common sense. It was, as Dr. Blakie had said, overlaid and devitalized and beaten down. But it still existed and in flashes reasserted itself. It could not and was not strong enough to combat Ivan; he had been too thoroughly effectual. But it told her now that if there was any throttling to be done she must do it herself.

But she could not think coherently or clearly. She was swept and shaken by the crowding emotions of the morning. If there had been time, she thought vaguely. If the four weeks of Ivan’s absence had been longer—if she had earlier had the now terribly urgent reason for dissolving her marriage—if she had had even money or family or profession to resort to or to furnish her an asylum; but she had nothing. She had lived for three years on Ivan’s bounty and had been frequently reminded of it. And the sudden tempestuous fact of love for Rob—“How long,” she thought again, “have I loved him?”—could not in an hour combat all those months of slowly accumulative terror of the man who held her as relentlessly, as strongly, as irrevocably as a cat holds a mouse.

She was still wearing the raincoat. She took it off and carried it to the closet at the other side of the room to hang it there until it could be returned. She’d seen Rob wear it many times. She put her head against it and held it there for a moment. But it was done. All done—the grave for that love dug before it had dared to live.

That was hysterical, too, she told herself, and realized that she was strung to an abnormally high pitch. She must control herself, become calm, store up a pitiful little reserve with which to face Ivan.

It was raining steadily and monotonously upon a wet brown world. The sounds of it murmured against the french windows. There were no sounds in particular in the house, but there was a subdued, decorous tremor of activity. Somebody went upstairs and downstairs, and paused just outside the library door to speak to someone else. There were footsteps in the room directly above—Ivan’s room—and the closing of a window. A telephone rang and was answered, because it stopped ringing.

She sat there, gathering her few small forces. And automatically the tentacles of the Godden house were surrounding her again, enmeshing her, sapping her strength, suffocating any nascent will to escape.

And then quite suddenly there was another bell. Another bell and footsteps hurrying now in the hall, and voices, and the door opening.