The Plot (15 page)

“This is about Louis? About Louis choosing not to wear his new finery?” Jamey rolled his eyes. “The egoism of young ladies, really! Dear Louis didn't wear the new suit because although I had it made for him since I knew he coveted it, he knew I actually preferred him in his own picturesque outfit, child. He refrained for love of Jamey.”

“No, Jamey, no!”

“You are sitting too close to me, Alex. I can feel the heat from your body.” He waved her away, petulantly. “Forgive me if I am a bit abrupt, child. I am rather terribly
fatigué
.”

“Jamey, I'm frightened. Something is going to happen.”

“What is going to happen if you continue to make these great jerking movements is that I will have to ask you to go to the other side of the room.”

“I'm sorry, Jamey. Please listen to me, then; he came to me and he asked me to go away. Why did he do that, Jamey?”

“Because he wanted you to go away, dear child.”

“Why does he want me to go away?”

“Why do
I
want you to go away? Do, do go away, Alex. You and your fears and alarums are not good for Jamey; excitement isn't good for Jamey. Listen, pet, at your age fear can be delicious, but it is bad at my age. It might snap me, and I don't want to snap. I cling to life these days; with dear Louis here life is very precious to me. I want to live, Alex, with my beautiful Louis.”

“Stop that, Jamey. You're just talking like that to annoy me. Send him away, Jamey. Now.”

He opened his eyes very wide. “Are you mad, dear child?”

“I think maybe I am. I think I'm going crazy. Maum Cloe is at me all the time—evil—evil. I didn't believe it, but now that I know—I think I'm going crazy and I think you
are
crazy, Jamey. You must be crazy not to suspect he is up to something. You're so alone here, Jamey, so unprotected.”

“This is jealousy, dear child.”

“Of you, Jamey? Why am I not jealous of that horrible person he became involved with? Let me tell you about her. When I told him that I thought you and he——Forgive me, please, Jamey——” And then breathlessly, in a flood of tears, she told him about Libbie Mae, about the early morning visit, about what Louis had done and said.

“Dear child!”

“I'll never forgive myself because then he got himself involved with this person. Because of me, he became involved with this dreadful girl.”

“All girls are dreadful. You're dreadful.”

“She is blackmailing him, Jamey. Don't you see, if he has to have money—if she'll make him marry her, otherwise——”

“What a dull, dull plot!”

“He doesn't want to marry her. He'll have to try to get money.”

“You think, perhaps, he wants to marry you?”

“Leave me out of it. Just realize that he doesn't want to marry her and so he'll need money. Where do you think he can get money, Jamey?”

“I haven't the faintest, dear child.”

“Jamey, give it to him so he won't have to try to get it some other way, some terrible way, please, please! Give it to him for your sake, Jamey!”

“What a determined little female it is! Louis hasn't come to me and asked to be rescued from this girl, but you have come. Louis isn't a weakling; he knows what he wants.”

“Because he isn't a weakling, because he's strong.” You're weak, she thought; you're fragile.

“Do you intend to save him in spite of himself? Fuil You should have more shame, child.”

“I'm not trying to save him. I'm trying to save you. I'm thinking of you.”

“Good, dear child, good; I am glad you are thinking of me; now
I
will think of me.” He put his finger to the side of his nose, then sniffed. “A marriage like that might be the very best thing for Jamey, dear child! A
mariage de convenance
—for certain sure this other lady doesn't sound appetizing enough for Louis to be diverted with; why, it might save Louis from a succession of the attractive ones, like you, Alex dear!”

“Jamey, you sound horrible. Give him the money.”

“Perhaps you're not thinking of Jamey or of Louis, either. Perhaps you are afraid that I may become so attached to the dear boy that I will change my will and leave my estate to my spiritual son instead of my spiritual daughter.”

“How can you, Jamey?”

He snickered. “No one has ever accused Jamey Vaughn of not seeing the worst in people, dear child.” He examined his fingernails. “How can your outrageous conduct, pursuing a chap, sticking around after him when he has asked you to leave, be better explained?”

“It isn't true, and you know it isn't true.”

“If you stay on here, trying to make trouble between dear Louis and me, I will know it is true.”

“You can leave your property to anyone you choose. I'm only trying to help you. You're foolish about him; you're stupid about him!”

He looked very tired and, in the morning light, even more parched and drawn than usual. “Jamey is never stupid, Alex. He is a wise old man. He knows all about the appointment in Samarra. Do you know it, Alex? About the man who was going to meet death and, not being wise like Jamey, thought he could flee, hide? So he rushed off madly and landed in faraway Samarra, where the first person he met was that old devil, death, who said, ‘Mr. Stanley, I believe?' If Louis is my fate, I will stay right here, where I can die comfortably, and not dash off to Samarra to meet him, hot and disheveled and not a bit at my best.”

“Jamey … All right, I'll go away. Let Maum Cloe stay here. Let Joseph Reas and William Reas stay here and look after you.”

“This house is much too small, dear child. I find my present arrangements perfectly satisfactory.”

“Then the police. They can send someone to guard you.”

“You want me to tell the police that my spiritual son wants to harm his father? Have it in the newspapers, perhaps?”

“Don't you understand yet, Jamey? Would you prefer to have your obituary in the papers?”

“Yes, dear child. I know my obituary, a star-studded piece! I would rather have that published than let people read that Jamey is such an old horror that a boy he has befriended would wish to kill him.”

“That's vanity—that's all vanity—Oh, Jamey, Jamey, what can I do?”

“I will tell you what you can do. Wash your face and comb your pretty lovelocks.” He pointed to his dressing table. “As a great and undeserved favor, you may use Jamey's
maquillage
.”

“Won't you listen to me, Jamey?”

“Tidy up, Alex dear. One ugly female about the place is enough for an old man who is disposed, in the first place, to find any female far less attractive than she is reputed to be.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

At seven-thirty, Louis heard Ethel go out of the house and saw her heading for the river. At eight o'clock, he heard Alex come into the house and go into Jamey's room. Since Ethel was by the river and Alex was with Jamey, he need not worry about Alex and could put his whole mind to writing a letter. His letters to his mother had become more difficult since the talk he had had with Jamey. He knew now how much his mother depended on his letters because he knew now that they were what she wanted from him. Because of Jamey, his eyes had been opened and he had proved to himself that she did not want him with her now, she wanted his father with her. Louis thought: For better or for worse. The letters to his mother were as difficult to write as anything he had ever done, and he became completely absorbed in this one.

Although his mother was an ignorant woman, she was an intuitive one and it wasn't easy to convince her that he was where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do. He had to ease her guilt over choosing his rival rather than him. He had to make it stick that he was happier where he was than with her. He went on until he had filled six pages with a big clear handwriting that she would find easy to read, giving her comfort about him, which was, he had discovered, all he could give her. He asked civilly after his father because he knew this would please her. It took over three hours, then he addressed the envelope and took it out to the hall table, where Joseph Reas would pick it up.

His mother off his mind, Louis' concern for Alex returned. He knocked on Jamey's door, was given permission to come in and found that Alex was no longer there. Trying to sound mildly interested, he asked where Alex had gone. “She's all right, today, isn't she?”

“Of course, she's all right.” Jamey professed to believe that her violent illness had been what he termed a “tummy-ache.” “She is probably sulking, though.”

“Why, Jamey?”

He wagged his foot so that his slipper fell off. Louis picked it up. “Because Jamey—at an outrageous hour—had to tell her off.”

Louis began to be uneasy. When he put the shoe back on Jamey's bare foot, his nervousness made him clumsy; Jamey squeaked. “Tell her off about what, Jamey?”

“We quarreled, dear boy!
Au fin
, Alex, although nearly perfect, is after all a female, and, being so, it is well to tell her off.”

His hand touched the flesh of the old man's foot. It was chill, cold. “Why did you quarrel, Jamey?”

“Do exercise your imagination, dear boy! What would old Jamey and Alex quarrel about if not you! She was very rude about you, dear boy! She was horrid about you. I was firm, I was firm, although With the utmost reluctance. Alex is a stubborn little thing.”

Louis, now standing with his thumbs thrust into his trouser top, was conscious of the tightening of his stomach muscles. Sweat formed and rolled down his backbone. He stared down at the closed eyes of the old man, the pursed mouth, the lined and pettish face. “What happened, Jamey?”

“You are Oedipus, dear boy. Alex is Jamey's spiritual child-bride, you his spiritual son. I was firm with Alex because I wish to avoid for you the curse of——”

“You don't have to worry about me and your spiritual bride, Jamey. I've got a kind of bride of my own.”

“So Alex told me. She was quite overwrought at the idea of your being blackmailed into marrying the young lady in question.”

“She was?”

“Alex wanted me to give you the money to buy the young lady off, but I won't, dear boy. As I informed Alex, it might be just what you need.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course I realize you have fallen in love with dear Alex.” He sighed. “Love was as inevitable as the reaction to a thrown custard pie, a slip on a banana peeling, to a lost child, to a brave doggie; you couldn't help it, dear boy.”

“Trite. A bore. Everything's a bore.” Where was Alex?

William Reas knocked on the door. He told Jamey he wanted to make sure of something on the menu. “Maum Cloe——”

Louis was frightened. “William Reas, is Miss Wilcoxen at the big house?”

“No, sir. Joseph Reas drove Miss Alex and Miss Ethel to Chas'n this morning about ten. Miss Ethel she came back. Miss Alex didn't come back.”

Louis moved so fast he was at the door before Jamey could ask where he was going. “To find out where Alex is. To make sure she's all right.”

Jamey sighed and fell back on the chaise longue. “Dear me, William Reas, dear me! Alex has run off in a tizzy and now he's probably off to Charleston after her. So that will be only two to dinner, William Reas.”

“Yes, Mr. Jamey.”

“Two to dinner changes things, doesn't it? The young people will eat anything, poor lambs, but dinner for Miss Ethel and myself is a different matter.” He held out his hand, and William Reas handed him the ivory menu card. Jamey considered it gravely, tilting his head, weighing. “William Reas, let me see … white fricassee, lemon sweet-potato pudding, good enough—okra—fine, fine. I tell you, William Reas, under the circumstances, will you ask Maum Cloe if it is too late to change the dessert?” He erased a line and rewrote it on the ivory card. “If Maum Cloe will oblige, we can have ratafia cream, after all. I've been wanting it for ages, but Miss Alex dislikes it. Ethel and I will adore it.
Entendu
, William Reas?”

“I go for tell Maum Cloe, Mr. Jamey.”

“Do, William Reas, do! If Ethel and I cannot have our favorite table companions today, we can at least substitute our favorite dessert.”

“You're in there,” Louis said. “Open that door. Open that door, or I'll break it down.”

“Here I am, Louis.” Ethel leaned against the door-jamb, her hands on her hips. “What's all the excitement?”

Louis conquered his impulse to knock Ethel's hands off her hips (to knock the chip off her shoulder). “The excitement is this, Ethel. Alex believed that she was responsible for the Libbie Mae business. She knew Libbie Mae wanted money from me. She went to Jamey this morning to ask him to buy me off; he wouldn't.” Louis was reconstructing as he went along.

“Of course he wouldn't!” She smoothed the skirt of her dress over her hip.

Louis paid no attention to Ethel. “He wouldn't buy off Budder and Libbie Mae, so Alex decided that she would do it herself. Shut up,” he said to Ethel, who was about to interrupt again. “She came to you because she knew I must have met Libbie Mae through you. You said you'd take her to Libbie Mae and let her try to buy me off. You took her somewhere. Where is she, Ethel? What have you done with her this time?”

“Exactly what I told her I'd do, Louis. I took her to Budder. There's no need for you to be excited, Louis; Budder won't give her another tummy-ache unless I ask him to!”

“Why did you do it, Ethel? Jesus, why did you?”

“I told you why. I told you I didn't want her hanging around here talking to Jamey. I told you that!”

“First you poison her and then you kidnap her.”

“She kidnaped herself. Louis, do you think all the heroine-looking types are predisposed to run straight into danger?”