The Towers of Love (27 page)

“How can you be sure? The thing that worries me is—if this young man is very possessive and, well,
virile
about wanting to keep Pansy, he may kick up a terrible ruckus and cause all sorts of trouble for poor Sandy.”

“Sandy will cope,” he said. “The Air Force will never have seen anything like Sandy. She'll land on them like the bomb on Hiroshima. That poor guy—I can just see his poor face when Sandy swept in to take possession of her daughter. I bet he turned pale. Did you see the
hat
she was wearing yesterday afternoon when she got on the plane?”

“Please,” Reba said, “please don't keep talking as though Sandy were the powerful Katrinka type. Don't you know why she wore that hat? That hat was like—like a piece of armour. She
needed
that hat to give her courage because, all the way out to that plane, she was simply quaking in her boots, absolutely terrified of the ordeal ahead. You mustn't forget that about Sandy—that deep inside she's really a terribly frightened and insecure woman, not sure and confident about anything at all.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I
know
so, Hugh. I know her. I know her inside and out—more thoroughly than I know any other human being in the world. The first time she met the president, for example—the President of the United States. Oh, she was magnificent—magnificent meeting him, and he adored her. But I was with her there, in her room, just before the meeting and she had the most terrible attack of stage fright I've ever seen.”

“I never knew that,” he said.

“It's true. Oh, I know there are lots of people who don't like her—people who don't understand her. The other night, Tom McGinnis didn't like her. He said to me afterwards that he thought she was dreadful.”

“I take it the feeling was mutual,” Hugh said.

“Tom just didn't understand her. You have to understand her to like her, and you have to know her awfully well to understand her. You have to know her the way I know her.”

“Well, I still pity that poor guy,” he said.

“I pity my sister. But come on,” Reba said. “Let's not talk about it, let's not dwell on it. We'll know in another hour or so how it's all worked out, so let's occupy our thoughts with other things. Let me teach you how to play piquet.”

“All right,” he said. “Teach me how to play piquet.”

“We each get twelve cards …” she said, and began to deal.

But though he tried to concentrate on the game and the rules as she explained them to him, he could not really seem to do so and kept looking out of the window, thinking about everything. They played a number of hands, but he was playing very badly, and Reba was winning them all and running up an enormous score against him.

“You're woolgathering,” she said to him. “You're woolgathering again, dear.”

And when, at a little after three o'clock, the telephone rang sharply, Reba jumped up from the table and ran to answer it, and he heard her in the distance saying, “Yes? Yes? Oh, thank God!”

She came back into the room a minute or two later and said, “Well, it's all right. It's all over. They're at the airport. They're waiting for their luggage to come off the plane. They'll be home in about an hour.” But her voice was shaking slightly, and she said, “Fix me a drink, Hugh. I need a little something. Hugh, when they get here, let's pretend that everything's happy and normal, and that nothing has happened. Let's not have any scenes. Let's pretend that everything is happy and normal.”

But he was standing in the window, looking out and wondering why he should be thinking now of those days and his friends at school, and his mother's visits in the red car, and wondering why he was remembering them now with such a strange mixture of wistfulness and sorrow, why they seemed now, in some ways, to have been such wasted days. Thinking back, there had not actually been so very many of them; after Billy had died, and she had begun drinking so heavily, the visits had stopped. They had been silly days, really, yet suffused with a kind of magic; those picnics they had had in the woods beyond the school, and the champagne, and the cigarettes, and the little jokes, and the childish games they had played like:

Now we dance, Looby, Looby, Looby
,

Now we dance Looby, Looby, light
;

Shake your right hand a little
,

Shake your left hand a little
,

Shake your right foot a little
,

Shake your left foot a little
,

Shake your head a little
,

And turn you round about
.

Fourteen

Austin Callender was waiting for him in the library, looking sad and tired and anxious, and he jumped to his feet when Hugh came into the room.

“Hugh,” he said, holding out his hand. “Good to see you, Hugh.”

“Good to see you, Austin,” Hugh said. They shook hands.

“I came as fast as I could,” Austin said. “As soon as I got your call. I drove up as fast as I could, but the traffic on Route Seven was terrible.”

“I didn't really mean for you to come, Austin,” Hugh said. “But I did think you ought to know about it.”

“Oh, of course,” Austin said. “Thank God you called and told me. And—well, I'm sorry, but I just had to come.”

“Sure,” Hugh said.

“I thought—I thought perhaps there was something I could do.”

“Sure, Austin,” Hugh said. “Let me fix you a drink.”

“Is she—is she here yet?”

“Yes, she's here,” he said. “She's upstairs.”

Austin sat down quickly in a chair. “I just don't understand it,” he said. “I just don't understand it at all. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't make any sense to me at all.”

“I know.”

“I just can't believe it. I just can't seem to get it through my head. It's just impossible to believe.”

“Can I fix you a drink, Austin?”

“All right. Just a very light one, please.”

Hugh crossed the room to the cellarette. “Sure you want it very light?” he asked him.

Austin laughed weakly. “No, I guess I didn't mean that,” he said. “Make it a very strong one, Hugh, please.”

Hugh fixed drinks for them both.

“Have you—have you talked to Pryor, Hugh?” Austin asked him.

“Just for a few minutes.”

“How—how is she?”

“She's tired, and—well, I guess, naturally a little upset.” He handed Austin his glass. “Well, cheers,” he said.

“Yes. Ha-ha. Cheers,” Austin said. “Cheers is what I need. Was she—crying, Hugh?”

“A little, perhaps.”

“Oh, God,” Austin said. “Poor Pryor. Poor little thing.”

“Yes.”

“But if she's crying—that could mean that she's sorry, couldn't it? That she's sorry about the whole thing?”

“I suppose it could.”

“Did she mention—me?”

“No, I don't think she did.”

“Well, that could mean—that could mean that she's so sorry that she can't even bear—can't even bear to
think
about me at this point, couldn't it?”

“Perhaps,” Hugh said.

“Oh, God,” he said again. “I just don't understand it. I simply can't understand it at all. What's the fellow's name?”

“His name is Lord, James Lord. Junior.”

“James Lord, Junior,” Austin repeated, shaking his head. “I've never heard of him. Who is he? Where's he from? Did she just meet him—or what? I've never heard her mention such a name. It seems funny that if she knew him, and even liked him a little bit, that she wouldn't mention his name to me. Doesn't it? I mean, has she ever mentioned this fellow James Lord to you?”

“Never.”

“Well, who is he? Where does he come from? How did she meet him?”

“Well, you know she went out to Colorado at Christmas-time to visit her friend Joanne Gibbs. And she apparently met him then. He's at the Air Force Academy. He's from somewhere in the South—South Carolina, I think.”

“South Carolina? Charleston?”

“I don't know what town in South Carolina.”

“Christmas-time. January, February, March. She's known him three months—exactly three months. And in all those three months she's never once mentioned that name to me.” He took a deep swallow of his drink. “Oh, God,” he said, and put his hand across his eyes. “Why? Why would she do such a thing? How could she do such a thing?”

“I'm very sorry, Austin.”

“You know,” he said, “coming up here in the car and thinking about it—my God, what else could I think about?—I came up with only one possible theory that might explain it.”

“What's that?”

“He doped her. He must have doped her. He must have put some kind of dope in her food.”

“Oh, I don't know.”

“He must have. I mean I thought, you know, he might have got her drunk, but Pryor doesn't ever drink much. I've never known her to have more than one cocktail at a party, so I just don't see how he possibly could have got her drunk. But dope—he could give her dope without her knowing about it. He could sprinkle some dope in something she was eating while she wasn't looking—and that would make her do it.”

“Well, I suppose it's a possibility,” Hugh said.

“It's the only possible explanation,” Austin said. “I mean, why else would she do a thing like this if she wasn't doped? There is a kind of dope, you know—you've probably heard about it, Hugh—a kind of dope that will make a girl do things and be—you know—compliant.”

“Perhaps,” Hugh said.

“I'm just sure of it. I'm just sure we'll find that dope is the answer. I mean, I know her, Hugh. I know Pryor. She wouldn't do a thing like this of her own free will. I mean, look, I've been dating her—taking her out all these past months and she's never mentioned to me the name of any other guy.”

“No. But then I wouldn't have expected that she would, Austin,” Hugh said.

“But it isn't just that, Hugh,” Austin said. “What I mean to say is that I
know
her. I know Pryor. And all these months she's been so—well, so affectionate and so warm, and so loving, and devoted—talking about when we were going to get married, and all that. I just know she wasn't thinking about any other guy.”

“Well, I don't know, Austin,” Hugh said.

Austin set down his glass and slammed a fist hard into his palm. “Damn him!” he said. “God damn him! That dirty bum. That dirty bastard. Jesus, if he was here, Hugh, I'd settle with him fast enough, the bastard. I've got half a mind to fly out there myself and settle with him personally. I'd kill the bastard, the damn' narcotics peddler!”

“Have another drink, Austin,” Hugh said.

“Thanks,” Austin said, handing Hugh his glass. And while Hugh went to the cellarette again, Austin said, “I mean, what kind of an academy is it out there, anyway? It's that new thing, isn't it.
Air Force
Academy! Whoever heard of it! I mean it's not like Annapolis or something, is it? I mean, you just don't get the class of people in the god-damned Air Force that you do in the Navy. Those Air Force guys are a pretty grubby lot, aren't they? They're just a bunch of hopped-up sex maniacs.”

“I don't know, Austin,” Hugh said, handing him his drink.

“It's true,” he said. “I've seen them. I know what those Air Force guys are like. They're just the kind who would take some nice girl out and put dope in her food to make her do whatever's on their dirty minds. Bums—they're all bums. I mean, Hugh, I've seen them, and I know. Right on the streets of New York City—I've seen them. I've seen them right on Fifth Avenue. Just the other day, right in New York City, right on Fifth Avenue, there were a couple of them. You should have seen them, Hugh. They looked like bums. Their hats were all on crooked, their uniforms looked as if they hadn't been pressed for a week, their brass needed polishing—they needed shaves. There they were, walking along, bold as life, staggering along, stinking drunk or all doped up, I don't know which, walking along in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue as if they owned the place, with a couple of slutty-looking girls—they were singing and carrying on, trying to grab the girls—real slutty-looking girls, too, just their speed—and, well, that's the United States Air Force for you, Hugh.”

“I don't know much about the Air Force, I'm afraid,” Hugh said.

“Well,” Austin said, glaring darkly at his brown drink, “I do. I know what they're like.” Then he said, “Hugh, do you suppose—do you think I could see Pryor now?”

“I don't know,” he said. “She was resting when I came down.”

“Well, do you think she might have waked up by now, Hugh? Do you think so?”

“Well, I could go up and see,” he said.

“Could you? Would you go up and see if she's awake? And ask her if she'll see me—just for a minute? I want to see her so badly, Hugh. I just want to tell her—oh, I won't say anything to upset her, Hugh, of course. I'm not going to scold her. After all, how could I scold her? It wasn't her fault. She's not the one to blame for anything. And there's going to be the annulment and everything. So all I want to say to her is that I forgive her. That I don't blame her for anything. I've come up here to tell her I forgive her, you see. And I want to tell her that I feel the same as always, that my feelings haven't changed, and that when this whole thing is over, everything's going to be all right. Just the same as always.”

“I'll see if she's awake,” Hugh said. He went out of the room and mounted the stairs to his sister's room.

Pryor Carey—whom the family had always called Pansy—lay on her bed in the room that was growing darker as the sky outside darkened. Her hair was light brown and it lay in a little circle around her head against the white pillow sham, and she was wearing the little black suit that she had worn for travelling, and she was in her stocking feet—she had kicked off the black shoes and they lay on the floor beside the bed—and for a moment, standing at the door, looking at her dim face against the pillow, Hugh could not tell whether she was awake or not.