The Unsuspected (7 page)

Mathilda clutched. She was frightened. She found her fingers twined around his big hands as if she had been a child. She said, "I would like to talk to you by myself, please."

"Why, of course," he said with a certain tenderness. "Please, Hilda."

When they were alone, Mathilda said, "Doctor White, you aren't going to tell me that you performed any marriage . . . that I am the girl you married to—to Mr. Howard? Are you?"

His heavy brows lifted. "I am not likely to forget your face," he said. His eyes did not falter or change his odd look of sorrow. "You have a very beautiful face, my dear."

Mathilda was unbalanced a moment by such a strange and unexpected compliment to her appearance. Then she cried, "But I'm not the girl! If there was a girl! He's been trying to convince me, but I've never seen him before! I've never seen you! It isn't true! Please!"

He drew a book toward him and showed her the page. She saw the names again: John Francis Howard. Mary Frazier, written in her own hand. "No," she cried. She sank back in the chair and put her hands to her eyes.

"You are confused," said the minister in his soft, mellow voice. "That is a terrible feeling. I know. Won't you have faith that all will come clear to you in a while?"

She looked at him, startled. What was he trying to tell her? That she was mad?

"Try not to—dwell on it," he went on, with difficulty. "I don't think you can doubt your own senses."

"No," she said, stiffening. "I don't doubt them. And he can't make me. Nor can you."

"That's right," he said calmly. "Rest on what you remember, on your own best belief. My dear, if you are right and we are all . . .mistaken, for some terrible reason, then it must become clear sooner or later "

"But why?" she cried. "Why isn't it clear now? I'm not mistaken. I'm not sick. Why"—her voice rose hysterically—"why does everybody tell me this lie?"

He came around the desk and put his big hands on her shaking shoulders. "Remember this," he said at last: "I have known Francis before. I know that he has no wish to harm you, Mathilda. And you are not sick. Don't believe that for one second. Don't consider

it." He walked away from her.

And the blood drained away from her heart in sudden panic because something about this man was familiar to her. He was a stranger, but some things about him she seemed to know.

"Come to see me again." He seemed distressed. He opened the door to the hall. The woman came and Mathilda felt herself being led away. The woman was talking softly about tea.

Mathilda was puzzled and angry and frightened, and comforted. She felt somewhere in this quiet house a secret, a secret to do with herself. She was comforted by a queer sense that if she knew she would understand. At the same time, she resented that there should be any secret

"I won't drink tea here!" She flung it in the woman's face.

"Poor child," murmured Mrs. White.

When Francis and the doctor came belatedly through the door, she searched the ministers face for that sympathy. But his face had turned to stone. Even his eyes had changed. They no longer seemed to be seeing her. The sympathy and the mystery both were gone. He said, “I'm very sorry." But he was not. Not any more.

Mathilda thought to herself,
Don't make a scene. Don't cry. to Grandy. Grandy will know what to do.
 

 
Chapter Eight
 

"Did you know Rosaleen Wright?"

She was startled. They had been sitting side by side on the train like strangers. She said, "Of course."

"Did you like her?"

"Of course," she said again. "We are good friends."

"Were," said Francis.

"What?"

"She's dead, you know."

"I. . . didn't know," said Mathilda finally. She was shocked out of her own circle of thoughts. "What happened to her?” she asked quietly, in a minute. "Was she ill?"

"She hanged herself," he said.

Mathilda wanted to scream. "Is this another of your lies?” managed at last. She thought she had never been so buffeted and shaken up and confused and shocked by anyone in her life. This man seemed dedicated to the business of upsetting her.

"Why should I lie about that?" he snapped back angrily.

 She shook her head. She held up her hand as if to beg for an interval between the shocks he kept dealing. Rosaleen, who was such a dear, such a comfort, so much her friend, the only one Althea had never bothered to take away. Rosaleen, whose steady friendship she'd known and kept and never flaunted, lest Althea stir herself to spoil it. Rosaleen, who was so steady and so strong, couldn't be gone, couldn't have been driven desperate, couldn't have been so shaken—

"I don't believe it!" she gasped.

“Don't believe what?" He was eager.

That she'd do that."

“Now, don't you?" he said oddly.

No,"

"That's the story" he shrugged. "She hanged herself five days after you were reported lost. In Grandy's study. She stood on his desk and—"

"Oh, no!" she cried. "Never!"

"You knew her well?" His voice was warm. He must have leaned closer.

"But tell me," she gasped, "why did she? Why?"

"No reason."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean there wasn't any reason."

"But there must have been! I don't understand! What a dreadful thing!" Mathilda wrung her hands. "Oh, poor Grandy!"

"Poor Grandy indeed " he muttered.

Something in his voice touched off her anger again. She leaned forward and twisted to confront him. "There you go again. Now, why do you say that?"

He looked up innocently.

"You don't like Grandy. What is it? What are you trying to do? There's no use denying. I can tell."

"Just a minute," he said, "before you go all intuitional on me. Why do I say 'Poor Grandy, indeed'? Because it strikes me you feel sorry for the wrong person. Poor Rosaleen! Don't you think?" He closed his eyes. "You don't even try to imagine what I might be feeling. Can't you tell? You fly off the handle about Grandy. He's the one." He opened his eyes and met hers boldly, almost impudently. "Can't you see I'm jealous of that old man?"

Mathilda bit her lip. "Maybe," she said in a queer, high little voice, "you and I are just two other people."

He didn't smile. He reached into his pocket as if he'd thought of something. Mathilda brought her eyes to focus on what he held. She saw her own face, laughing.

Francis was murmuring, "Not that it caught you. Two dimensions wouldn't be enough. The beauty you've got is pretty near fourth dimension. It's motion. It's time. It's what I said, like flying."

Her throat felt dry again. What he said was babble. But this was a picture of herself that she had never seen. She thought,
The camera doesn't lie.
Then she thought,
It's a trick.
 

But for the first time her imagination did encompass the impossible, and she thought, just fleetingly,
What if all that he says is true? Nonsense. You might forget, but you don't invent another way of passing the same time and paste it over the gap in your memory.
 

She must get to Grandy. She must not look at anything any more.

When the train got in, he took her quickly to a cab. Mathilda felt a little sick and dizzy. She'd had no time to be prepared. How could she face Oliver? How could she find a way to think of him, a way to live her life in his physical presence?

Oliver had always been around. Such a nice guy, such fun, always around, always willing to go swimming, to play a little tennis. Always ready to gossip or just chat. Oliver had no driving energy toward a purpose of his own. Nothing ever interfered with his availability. What he did for himself, work, if any, was always done unobtrusively, of second importance in his scheme of tilings. He was always around. One grew to depend on it.

Oh, she thought, he would be there now. Married to Althea. How to face Althea? How to hide this as she had always hidden Althea's power to hurt her? Ever since they were little girls, and Tyl's feet and eyes were too big for the rest of her, and she was unsure and shy, Althea, full of grace and pretty poise, had always been watching with her shining eyes. If Tyl had a friend or began an awkward progress toward something less lonely, Althea would manage to slip between and dazzle the friend away. Perhaps she never meant to do it. Perhaps she couldn't help it. No good. Tyl's heart wasn't ready for charity yet. How could she face them?

She was astonished to hear Francis say, "Take it easy, Tyl. He'll be feeling brotherly and a bit miffed. He thinks you're mine."

"Is Althea there?" she asked painfully.

He hesitated. Then he said, almost pityingly, "Why do you let Althea throw you? Don't you know she's envious of you? Always has been?" and while Mathilda gasped, he added savagely, "Althea's been tight in bed with la grippe, but she's up now."

Mathilda didn't understand that savage tone, she didn't understand him, but she felt softened toward him.

Grandy's portico. The big white front door.

Oliver said, "Well, Tyl!" He took her hand. He kissed her cheek. She felt nothing. The moment was blurred. There was Althea, standing back in the hall. She wore yellow. She was exquisite. Her oddly shining gray eyes weren't looking at Tyl at all.

A blond girl in a black wool frock who had the face of a baby doll smiled at her and went running down the long living room, calling, "Mr. Grandison!”

Tyl waited where she was for Grandy. She saw him coming—the arrogantly held gray head, the beak of a nose, the lively eyes behind the pince-nez, the unimpressive body with the fat little bulge of a tummy, the thin legs, the biggish, awkward feet.

She began to laugh and cry. He was purring. His beautiful voice that seemed not to need any breath came pouring out in endearments. Through her own tears, she could see in his black eyes the eternal spectator, who viewed with such lively interest and delight this dramatic and emotional moment in which he took part. He was just the same. She threw herself into his arms. She felt so safe. It was wonderful to feel so safe.

Chapter Nine

Never afterward was Mathilda able to put the ringer of her memory on the moment that changed anything. It was like the tides on the beach. The sea would be coming up on the sand. Later, one was aware that it had begun to go down instead. But the moment of change escaped, couldn't be remembered, was not noticed at the time. So it was about Oliver.

There was a familiar hubbub. Grandy thought she was too thin. "My poor baby, your eyes are bigger than your face!"

Althea said, "That suit, Tyl!" with shocked disgust.

They introduced her to Jane Moynihan. Grandy had a visitor in his study who must be dismissed. He trotted off down the long room again. She saw Francis follow, saw him stop, halfway down, to speak to that pretty little girl named Jane. She saw Althea, watching.

Mathilda remembered later that she was able to turn easily and look Oliver square in the face, finding it the same friendly face, the same sandy eyebrows. Suddenly she could see the white walls of the African town in the sun. The waters of the oceans of the world were crisscrossed with the vanished tracks of the ships of men. She thought.
I've been away.
 

He said, "Gosh, Tyl, you'll never know how I felt!"

She thought,
I'll never care.
 

The tide had turned. It was going out. The strange thing was that it must have turned before this, and she hadn't known. But it was true; she didn't care any more how he felt, how he had felt or how he would feel tomorrow. The agony of caring was gone. Maybe

shed beaten it out of herself by caring so much and so hard. She felt very tired, as if all the sleep she'd lost over her emotions about him had accumulated in a reproachful cloud. It hadn't really been necessary.

Something must have gone out of her face, because Oliver could tell. She could see him persuading himself that he was, on the whole, relieved and glad. She saw right through. It was like watching the wheels go around in an insignificant toy. It was fascinating, but not important. Then the weariness lifted and Tyl felt free and lively. Her body felt light.

She said gaily, "Where are my things? Where do I go?"

"You re in the gray room." Althea was approaching with her mannequin's walk. "I'm afraid we took your old room, darling. Naturally, since it was always the nicest"

"Yes, I know," Tyl murmured. She was amused. It seemed to her that Althea was suddenly transparent too. Oliver picked up her suitcase. There was a little silence among the three of them, because Francis' two bags with his initials on them were there on the

floor.

It came into Mathilda's head to tell them, then and there, and yet she didn't. She ought to have said, "I'm not married to Francis." But something was wrong with her mood. She couldn't have said it without giggling.

"Fran's been down in the guest house," Althea was saying.

"Oh, leave them," said Tyl carelessly. She was too much amused, too tickled, too giddy with inner mirth to tell them now. She ran upstairs. Her feet felt like flying. Althea came pelting after.