Those Harper Women (46 page)

Edith is saved from Diana's flying hands only by sudden, terrible shrieks from the direction of the garden, shrieks that seem to come from several people at once, and that are accompanied by the sound of running footsteps. Edith and Diana stop, then run to the front door. On the veranda they are met by Mrs. McCutcheon, dripping wet, her straw-colored hair down across her face, her gray uniform clinging to her adhesively. She has a wailing and equally dripping Poo in her arms.

Mrs. McCutcheon glares at Edith accusingly. “He fell in your pool!”

“Oh, Poo—Poo! How did it happen?” Diana cries, accepting the damp, sobbing burden of her child.

“He was running and he ran right in! I had to jump in after him, and I'm no swimmer, either!” Mrs. McCutcheon says, continuing to look at Edith as though it, too, were all her fault.

“Well, I can see that neither of you is drowned,” Edith says, as Poo coughs and spits and sobs.

“Really, Mother! You should be more careful of that place with tiny children around! It's not safe! That pool should be fenced! And Poo hates salt water!”

Edith is about to make a retort to this, but changes her mind. She would say to Diana that if Diana spent less time trotting Poo around with her to Paris dress collections, and more time teaching him how to be a little boy, and how to swim … but she doesn't say any of these things. She goes to the wet and howling grandson in her daughter's arms. “Poor little Poo!” she says.

But Poo takes one terrified look at Edith and screams, “Mum-
ma-a!
” and throws his arms around Diana's neck and buries his face against her shoulder, and the destruction of the afternoon seems complete.

But Diana says, “Oh, Poo—don't you remember your own dear Granny? It's your own dear darling Granny, Poo.…” There are tears in Diana's eyes now, and then both women are weeping over the weeping child. And Mrs. McCutcheon, sensing that a family crisis has arisen which excludes her from its significance, withdraws.

The little Negro chauffeur, in his dark green uniform and polished boots, walks slowly along the crowded beach, the sun flashing on his bright brass buttons. He nods, smiling, at old friends, for he is a well-known figure on the island, and he stops to make occasional polite inquiries. Then he continues, peering at groups of reclining bodies, scanning the swimmers in the sea. Curious faces turn upward and follow his zigzagging progress.

Leona, Gordon, and Jimmy are discussing the newspaper clipping she has shown them. Gordon, the lawyer, and Jimmy, the broker, have different opinions.

“This is simply from a gossip column,” Gordon says. “I wouldn't make too much of it if I were you. Besides, these so-called exposes are never quite as startling as the magazines make them sound as though they're going to be. There are such things as libel laws.”

“Still, there's been an awful lot of talk along the Street,” Jimmy says.

Leona is the first to see the approaching John. She jumps up from the sand and says, “Oh, dear. Something's happened.”

Twenty

“
You!
” Diana Gardiner is screaming at Leona. “
You
did this! This man was a friend of yours, it seems! You let him come here, let him talk to Mother!”

Leona sits huddled in a velvet chair, a cigarette between her shaking fingers.

“Now wait a minute, Diana,” Edith says, “Leona honestly didn't know—not in the beginning—that this was the kind of story he was going to write. Be fair. It was a mistake on Leona's part, but it was an honest one.”

“
Read
it!” Diana says, waving the magazine at Leona. “Just read what he says!”

“I've already read it,” Leona says quietly. “He showed it to me.”

“You see?” Diana cries to Edith. “She
knew!
She knew it all along! He showed it to her. And she did nothing! Just sat here like a silly goose, going to the beach! Didn't you
comprehend
what he had written? Did you just sit, doing nothing at all while he went right ahead ruining us?”

“I tried,” she says. “I tried to stop him.”

“
How?
In what way? By saying
please?
Uh!” she snorts and hurls the magazine, pages fluttering, to the floor. “Did it even
occur
to you that the
only
sensible thing to do would have been to call Uncle Harold
immediately
and tell him what this man was planning to say about him? It seems to me that any halfway intelligent human being, with an ounce of family loyalty, would at
least
have thought of that. But no. You didn't do anything. With a little advance warning, Harold might have been able to stop it. Now it's too late. Because you sat on your fanny in the sun.”

Gordon Paine, a few minutes earlier, mumbling something about getting dressed for dinner, has managed to escape the scene and the women's voices. But Jimmy Breed has remained. He sits in the corner of the room, saying nothing, his face grave, his eyes intently on Leona.

Diana picks up her highball glass and rattles the ice cubes. She extends the glass in Jimmy's direction. “Fix this for me, darling, Scotch and water,” she says, not looking at him. He stands up slowly and takes Diana's glass.

“Oh, I'm through with you, Leona!” Diana says. “I don't think I ever want to see you again. How I ever could have produced a child like you I'll never know!”

“Now Diana,” Edith says. “Harold
was
up to some kind of monkey business! He had no right to borrow money on my stock.”

“Mother, if Harold had had the
teensiest
warning that this was in the wind, he would have done something—at least have been ready with a rebuttal. But this caught him off his guard. No, Mother,” she says, shaking her head. “You see? She's Jack Ware's daughter. That's all she is—Jack Ware's daughter.” She touches her eyelids, brushing tears away.

“Don't say that to me, Mother!” Leona says.

“Why not? It's true! I never should have married him, and I never should have had you. You were both bad—bad news, right from the start. I married a stupid, disgusting man, and had a stupid, disgusting daughter.”

Leona jumps up from the velvet chair. “What about this news of you and Perry?
That's
pretty disgusting, if you ask me!”

“My personal life is none of your affair. But if you want to talk about personal lives, take a look at your own. What are you? Just a little tramp.”

“Oh!” Leona says, and starts for the door.

From the bar where he is stirring Diana's drink, Jimmy turns and looks steadily at Leona. “Taking off?” he asks her in a quiet voice.

Leona stands very still in the center of the room.

Then there is a long silence. Jimmy returns with Diana's drink, and offers it to her. But Diana, weeping silently in her handkerchief now, does not see his outstretched hand, and so he places the glass on the table beside her chair. Edith sits looking at a space of floor between her feet. Leona continues to stand addressing Jimmy with her eyes. Suddenly Diana's head comes up, and she sniffs. “I smell smoke!”

“What? Oh, good heavens!” Edith cries.

And now they are all on their feet, for a cloud of very dark smoke is rising from the cushion of the velvet chair where Leona had been sitting.

“It's her cigarette!” Edith cries. And then, “Oh! Help! Help! Nellie!” she shouts. “Help!
Fire! Fire!
”

Nellie, rushing in, apprises the situation quickly, and is the only one with presence of mind enough to seize Diana's highball from the table and empty it on the fire. There is a noisy hiss from the interior of the chair, and then a penetrating, acrid smell in the air.

“Now, on top of everything else, I'm an arsonist,” Leona says to no one in particular.

At this point, Edith thinks, the best suggestion would be that they all repair to their rooms to change for dinner. The four mount the stairs together, in silence, and move in their separate directions down the upstairs halls.

When she opens the door to her bedroom, Edith stops abruptly. A man—Gordon Paine, no less!—is standing, stark naked, in front of her pier glass, examining his body for cuts and bruises.

“Hey!” he cries a little wildly, seeing her, and he makes that curiously girlish gesture of trying to cover his private parts with his hands. Then he grabs for the bedspread and pulls it off the bed, wrapping it around him. “Hey!” he says again.

“Oh, for heaven's
sake!
” Edith says, recovered from the confusion of finding him there. “I simply forgot you were using this room.” Then she says, “Don't worry. I've seen lots better than
that.
” And she slams the door on him.

Outside in the hall she thinks: Isn't it funny. Terrible as this day has been, the sight of Gordon trying to hide himself has somehow redeemed a bit of it. Yes, she thinks, life has its little rewards.

“To the beach?” Edith asks in a drowsy voice. “Oh, Leona, I'm not a beach person—not any more.” It is morning again, and Leona stands beside Edith's bed.

“Please, Granny. There's so much I want to talk to you about.”

“Why to the beach? Why can't we talk right here?”

Leona nods in the direction of the hall outside, and lowers her voice to a whisper. “I don't want to talk here, Granny.”

“Don't be hard on your mother. She's taken all this very badly.”

“It isn't that. It's something I want to tell you. Come.”

“I hope it's good news,” Edith says. “I've had enough bad news for a while.”

“Come to the beach and find out. Please.”

“Well—” Edith is thinking of such things as beach attire, and of how people her age
sit
on the beach these days, and of sand in the shoes and the underthings. Will there be a folding chair? An umbrella? As though she can hear her grandmother's thoughts, Leona says, “I'll get the things together. All you need to do is get in the car and come. And let's hurry, Granny—before everyone else gets up.”

“But what about—” What about people, she thinks? The news is out, it was in the papers, full of words like
swindle
and
manipulator
. Last night the telephone began to ring; it rang until she did as Arthur suggested, removed the receiver from its hook. Surely, on the beach, people will recognize her and say, “There's old Edith Blakewell—I wonder how
she
feels today? Did you read about her brother.… Have they found him yet? Do you suppose she's completely wiped out?” This makes up Edith's mind; she would like to know what people are saying. “Very well,” she says briskly. “It would do me good to get out. Run along and get things ready, and I'll get dressed.”

When Edith gets downstairs, Leona is nowhere in sight, but she finds Gordon Paine sitting on the veranda, dressed, with his suitcase. Seeing Edith, he jumps up.

“You're up bright and early, Gordon.”

He laughs nervously. “Yes, I've got to go, Edith. Things at the office. I—I've got to get back.”

“Of course,” she says. “Well, it's been nice seeing you, Gordon.”

“This whole thing—this business about your brother—is completely incomprehensible, and I'm sure none of it is true. But anyway—”

“I'm afraid it is true, Gordon.”

“Anyway, I want to thank you for your hospitality.”

“What hospitality? I haven't given you much of that.”

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he says, “I'm awfully sorry about what's happened. And of course—not that it's apt to come up, but in case it does—you won't mention to anybody that I've been here, will you? To the newspapers, or anything? I mean it sounds like a pretty nasty business, and by the fact that I've been here it might look as though I were connected with it in some way. As though I, or my firm, had been advising you or something. Mostly for your sake and Leona's—it wouldn't look right if my name were involved.”

“I understand, Gordon.”

“And as for Leona—”

“Yes?”

“She understands that it wouldn't be wise if she and I were seen together for a while. But perhaps, when this thing blows over—”

“Yes.”

“I always thought it would be nice if we could patch things up, but—”

“Such things will have to wait a while. I understand.”

“Well—” He stands awkwardly, looking embarrassed, his eyes averted. It is as though he thinks she is still picturing him with all his clothes off—which, of course, she is. An auto horn sounds outside the gate. “My taxi,” he says, picking up his suitcase. “Good-by, Edith. Say good-by to Leona for me. Tell her I'll be in touch with her—later on.”

He walks rapidly along the veranda and down the front steps, carrying his bag.

A few minutes later Leona comes out with her striped canvas beach bag. “Ready, Granny?”

“Yes, I'm ready.” They go down the steps to where John waits with the car.

Seated in the back seat beside Leona, Edith says, “You know, I'm almost beginning to
enjoy
this! Isn't that the damnedest thing? It's getting to be fun, in a way—seeing how various people react to what's happened.”

Leona touches her grandmother's knee. “When I was little you used to tell me, ‘Saying you're sorry doesn't help.' I know it doesn't help. But anyway, Granny, I want you to know I am—terribly sorry.”

“Let's not talk about it any more.”

Behind John's uniformed shoulders and cap, they descend the hill in the air-conditioned car and then, at the intersection of Garden Street, they are forced to pause to let a short funeral cortege pass by in front of them; it moves slowly, the headlights of its cars blazing, and Leona says, “Hold your breath, Granny.”

“Whatever for?”

“For good luck. Whenever you pass a cemetery or a funeral procession, hold your breath. Don't you know that rule?”