Leona and her husband take up residence in a small New England town. Unsatisfied and bored, her interests start to stray and before long, she takes up with a notorious ladies' man who is out for all the lust he get. Leona tries to keep her affair under the covers, but when her husband learns of her activities, he admits his own-and the two of them really give the town something to talk about!
CHAPTER ONE
Leona said, "But the country doesn't even look like spring! It must be weeks behind New York!"
Dan Collier glanced away from the road at the woods on either side. The birches had new leaves, but they were small and pale, and the reddish buds on the oaks were still tightly curled. Behind the paler colors, like the background of a tapestry, he could see the darkness of evergreens marching up the slope. He and Leona had left the parkway half an hour before, and now they were driving up a road that wound through hills that grew steeper, more irregular, with every turn. Dan knew this country well, though he had never seen it in early spring; it was both familiar and strange, and its bareness held a kind of promise. Or was he imagining that, because he was looking forward to the next few months-to a new job and a new place to live?
Beside him, Leona spoke again. "It ought to be warmer, with May only two days off. Do you think we'll freeze in Windover? Just the name makes me shiver."
She buried her chin deeper in fur and pressed her shoulder against Dan's. Looking down, he could see only her delicate little nose, her long eyelashes, and a strand of hair, darker than the mink jacket that had been her father's Christmas present. He hadn't wanted her to bring that jacket; he didn't think it was suitable for Windover-or was it because he himself hadn't given it to her and wished he had? However, Leona had insisted that, wherever they went, she was going to be warm-and, as happened so often, she was justified.
Aloud, he said, "No, we won't freeze in the cottage. It's just as well we're not going into the big house, though. That would be cold, because it has high ceilings and lots of windows."
"Was it built just for a summer place?"
"I suppose so, though it has a furnace. But Uuncle Edgar spent only one winter there-the year my mother was too ill to be moved. After she died, he went South."
"Dan!" Leona sat up. "Did your mother die in Windover? You never told me-"
"You never asked me, and it didn't seem important."
"But don't you-I mean, don't you mind coming here to live? Won't it be upsetting?"
He shook his head, his eyes fixed on the road. "No," he said. "You see, Mother was always an invalid; I hardly ever saw her except in bed or lying on sofas. She never-well, I never associated her with Windover." He could have added, Or with any other place, but Leona wouldn't have understood what he meant. Her childhood had been as different as possible from his. It was a long way, he reflected, from a big, sunny house outside Philadelphia, with adoring sisters and brothers, and gay, young-looking parents, to the gloomy Park Avenue apartment and the only slightly less gloomy country house in the Berkshires where he had grown up. Yes, it was a very long way....
He looked at his wife. This time her face was turned up to him-small, dark, vivid. Her amber-colored eyes were bright with excitement-a look she always had whenever he spoke of his boyhood. Leona never could believe those years had been real: they were something you read about or saw in a movie; they didn't happen to anyone you knew. Dan had tried to explain them to her, to tell her that his bringing up hadn't been in the least sinister or depressing. "Only children are common," he said. "So are divorces. So are invalid mothers. Just because my life happened to combine all three you make it into a grade-B picture. The lonely boy, the neurotic mother, the father whose name is never mentioned, the stuffed shirt of an uncle. It wasn't really like that, you know."
"Maybe not," Leona conceded. "But you must have been unhappy, all the same. You were too young to realize it. It took me-and being married to me-to make you realize how lonely you were. Didn't it, Dan?"
He had admitted, partly to satisfy her, that it had. But now, as they drove on through the afternoon sunlight, he thought that there had been one summer when he had realized his unhappiness clearly enough. It was the last summer he spent in Windover, the year his mother died, and just before he went to college. Dan Collier felt an odd pang, remembering the summer, and he wished that he weren't with Leona, hurrying to get to Windover, to see the house and unpack the car and go to the Inn for dinner and the night. If he were driving alone, he could pull up beside the road or better still, turn into the narrow lane that wound off through the woods. He would get out and sit on a stone wall and think about that last summer, and about Christina Edgren....
Leona was speaking, and, as often happened, it seemed as if she were reading his mind-not completely, not quite accurately, but coming close to what he had been thinking. "I wish you'd tell me something about Windover, Dan. Is it backwoods, small-town, or are there a few civilized people? It's funny, but you haven't given me a very clear picture of it." Her laugh was rather brittle. "I don't even know whether I'll hate it or not."
"I don't know, either," he said, with an effort. "But whatever we find, I know it will be better than living in a two-room apartment in uptown New York, or in one of those overpriced, cheaply built houses in Deanebury."
He couldn't see Leona's frown, but he could hear it in her voice. Leona's voice could be as gentle and teasing as a child's, and then unexpectedly it could turn sharp, or, as it was now, petulant. "Are you sure there wasn't anything else in Deanebury, if you had to go there-"
"Leona, you know we've been over all that!"
She said quickly, "I mean, there must have been something besides those frightful little modern houses! After all, Mrs. Deane roomed with Mother at school, and she and her family are in the town. If we lived there, we could have fun with them."
"We still can," he said patiently. "Windover is only fifteen miles away. We're in Deanebury but not of it, and that's always an advantage when you come to a new place."
"I don't think so," Leona argued. "Look at my family. They've been in the same place all their lives, and before Mother and Daddy were married they lived only two stations apart on the Main Line!"
"Darling," Dan said, "Windover, Massachusetts, isn't Suburbia, Pennsylvania."
"Dan, you know perfectly well we live in Radnor!"
He did, of course; he had said that deliberately, because he was always slightly annoyed by Leona's smugness when she talked about her family. "Radnor, then," he said. "Or St. David's or Bryn Mawr. Those are all prosperous suburban places. Deanebury is a small industrial city and Windover is a village."
"But is village life better than small-town life?"
"I think so." Dan drew a long breath. He didn't want to reopen the argument that had gone on for several days after his company had assigned him to oversee the construction of a large plant in Deanebury.
Leona had received the news with a storm of protest. "But, Dan, I like New York! We've just started to have fun here! And to be shipped off to the wilds of New England-oh, it's too awful! You must do something!"
"The only thing I can do," he had told her quietly, "is to resign and look for another job. I will, if you insist. Do you?"
And, as she always did, Leona gave in when she was forced to face facts. "No, of course not. But why couldn't the company have sent you to New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, or somewhere near the family?"
Privately, Dan was glad it hadn't. Leona was all too willing to slip back into being Leona Harrison, the youngest and prettiest of the four Harrison girls, instead of his wife. He had fallen in love with her a month after he had finished his stint in the Service; he had married her on her twenty-first birthday, not quite two years ago. He loved her very much, though there were times when he wished she would grow up a little faster.
"I may be all wrong about Windover, Leona, but we agreed to try it," he said easily. "And remember, it's not final; we can always move into Deanebury if you don't like the country, or if it's too far from my work. In the meantime, think of the money we'll save, living in our own house."
Like the child she was, Leona was easily distracted. "That's true," she said. "Did you ever think it would be your own house-I mean, when you used to live in it?"
He shook his head. "I thought Uncle Edgar would live for years, and that when he died he'd leave everything to Yale." He smiled. "I wouldn't even believe it now, if I hadn't seen that complicated will of his."
"Why did it have to be so complicated?"
"Because," he said, dryly, "he wanted to be sure I'd be adequately provided for and at the same time prevented from throwing money around-in other words, because I was his sister's child and at the same time my father's son. Poor Uncle Edgar-what a ghastly time he must have had with that will! It represents a compromise that must have nearly torn him in two-" He broke off. "You know, we ought to have gone to see him more often last year."
"If we had," Leona said shrewdly, "he might have thought we wanted him to leave us something. Besides, he disapproved of me because I didn't know the right stuffy people in Philadelphia."
Dan said nothing, for that was perfectly true. Even so, his uncle might have liked Leona if she had made an effort. She could be utterly captivating when she chose.
Presently he said, "Anyway, he left us the Windover place, with two houses on it. Pretty luxurious, isn't it? If we don't like one, we can always move into the other."
"Or if we fight," Leona said, laughing. "You know, this is rather nice country. Not as civilized as Pennsylvania, of course, but still quite lovely."
They had topped a rise and were looking off into a valley or, rather, a series of valleys that all slid down to a larger one that was in deep shadow. To the north, the Berkshires were hyacinth-blue against the clear spring sky. Beyond the valley, the land climbed, ridge on ridge-the light green of meadows, the brown of plowed fields, the pale and dark tapestry of woods.
Dan thought, It all looks so familiar that I can't believe I've never seen it at this time of year. His mother had died in April, but the funeral was in New York, and he had gone straight there from boarding school. He had spent that summer at a tutoring ranch in Colorado, and he hadn't gone back to Windover until the next June, after his graduation from school, the summer he met Christina.
Leona said, "Is that the town-that white steeple?" He nodded, and she said, "It looks miles away."
"It's not so far. We go down, and up, and then down a little and cross a small river that you can't see from here. The village is by the river, and the church and the Green are on top of a hill. Our house is about a mile beyond."
The words "our house" filled him with an unaccustomed excitement. When he had first thought of coming to Windover, he had been only half-serious, amused at the idea, and relieved at finding a place to live. Now that he was here, it was an adventure. He wondered how Leona would like it. He was almost as ignorant of what lay before them as she, for when he was a boy he had known nothing of the real Windover. It was only that last summer that he had become aware of the town, and then he had seen it through Christina Edgen's eyes.
"Dan," Leona was saying, "you're driving crazily. Are you in such a hurry to get there?"
He smiled, feeling himself flush. "Maybe. You know, Leona, we're terribly lucky."
"To have a place to live? Of course."
But he meant much more than that. He meant that he was lucky to be twenty-five, to be married to Leona, to have a job in a part of the world that he had always liked and wanted to know better. More-he was suddenly overwhelmingly happy to be alive. But somehow he couldn't say that to Leona.
Leona was looking at her watch. "It's half past five," she said. "What time did you say they had dinner at the Inn? Seven? Then we'll have time to stop at the house first."
Twenty minutes later they drove through Windover's single street of shops and turned across the river, up the hill to the Green. The great rectangle of emerald grass was dazzling in the late afternoon sunlight; the elms that bordered it were taller than Dan remembered, though the houses themselves-Colonial, clean-lined and white-painted-seemed smaller. "It all looks terribly neat," Leona said with a faint air of disapproval. But when they reached the stone wall and the two towering stone posts where Dan had to get out to unhook the chain that barred the driveway, and when they stopped the car in front of the huge gray house, she burst into delighted laughter.
"Darling, you never told me it was a mansion. It's simply preposterous! Late General Grant in stone and stucco!"
"You're a few years off," Dan corrected her. "It was built in 1907 by my grandfather, who was both architect and contractor, which may explain it." He grinned. "I never knew him, but the house suited my Uncle Edgar perfectly. He belonged to the Gibson period. Can't you see him on that terrace in a striped blazer, with a mandolin?"
"But it's all so wonderfully corny." Leona laughed. "I never thought we'd live in a place like this."
"We're not going to-yet. The gardener's cottage is something else. Grandfather didn't believe in wasting fancy ideas on the help. It's just down the driveway. Let's leave some of our stuff there and then if there's time we'll make a tour of the big house."
The gardener's cottage, built of fieldstone, was comfortably though sparsely furnished. A small lawn behind it was edged with a border that, rather mysteriously, showed signs of recent care.
"This is nice," she said, "but I like the big house's awfulness." She laughed. "Let's get Johnny and Fran Parsons up from New York and throw a terrific party, shall we? That terrace looks like a promenade deck of an ocean liner. Almost anything could happen there."
Dan didn't answer, looking up at the immense stone platform where his uncle used to pace, smoking his after-dinner cigar; at the windows above that were those of his mother's room. Leona was right, of course; the house was a monstrosity. He had been unhappy here-and, for a few weeks that last summer, wonderfully happy. Now, as he looked at it, he felt, for the first time since his marriage-no, since before that, since before he enlisted in the Navy, even before he went to college-a sense of belonging. Perhaps it was the cool dampness that was rising from the garden, or perhaps it was some quality in the air, a thousand feet higher than New York air and a thousand times cleaner.
Whatever it was, something was stealing over him and filling him with a strange sense of peace. He had never been sentimental, least of all about this house; now he felt a rush of emotion, nameless, as yet, but out of key with Leona's gay amusement. Looking at the fantastically shaped pile of stone and stucco, at the chimneys that were dark against the yellow western sky, he thought, It's funny, I'd forgotten about this place, but it's been ticking away all the time. Things have been growing; the garden has been going on; that tree that I used to play in is twice as big as it was. The house has been waiting. It's a funny old place, but my ancestors built it and now it's mine.
"Listen," Leona said. "What is that bell?"
"The clock on the Green." He listened to the four quarters chiming, and then seven long strokes that lingered on the quiet air.
"We must hurry," Leona said. "Dinner's at seven, and I'm simply starved."
When the bell stopped, Dan heard the thin piping of young frogs. The pool at the foot of the garden must be full of them. Uncle Edgar used to have it drained and scrubbed twice a summer because the frogs kept him awake. But Dan liked their sound, because it meant spring.
"Dan!"
"Yes," he said, "we'll go now." As they drove out the gate, Leona said, "What's its name?"
"What?"
"The place. A place like this always has a name."
"Oh," He hesitated. He hadn't thought of it for years. "Rockledge," he said. "Pretty obvious?"
Leona was shaking her head again. "Too good to be true. I thought of Oak Knoll or Holmwood or The Cedars. I adore Rockledge-I do, Dan, honestly. You're not angry with me for making fun of it?"
"Of course not." But he couldn't join in her laughter.
CHAPTER TWO
The next morning, as he carried the last of the suitcases to the cottage living room, Leona said, "I can unpack all next week, but I've only got you for these two days. Thank God for weekends! You can help me get started on lots of things."
Dan yawned, and sat down on the doorstep. "I can't imagine going to work on Monday. That's the trouble with a lot of sleep-it leaves you lazy. Why get started on anything-yet?"
"Because we ought to," Leona said. She stood still in the middle of the room, looking around it, doubtless, Dan thought, mentally rearranging furniture. How easily women adjust themselves to changes, he thought. A week ago-no, only yesterday-she had been protesting at coming to Windover; now she was intent on getting settled here.
"Well," she said, coming out and sitting down on the step beside him, "are you going to help me? Not with housekeeping-I can do that when you're at the plant. I mean with people. Who lives in Windover, anyway? Natives, summer people, and some all-the-year-round who are neither?"
"That's about it," Dan said.
"Summer people aren't here yet, I suppose. Do you know any all-the-year-rounders?"
He thought. "There are the Harwoods," he said. "He was a friend of my uncles-a retired architect. They live here most of the year, in a big house on the Corning road."
"I mean people our age," Leona said. "Whom did you play with when you lived here?"
"No one," Dan said. "I didn't live here. I stayed here for ten days, sometimes two weeks, between the end of school and the beginning of camp, and from the time camp closed until the opening of school in September. Except," he added, half to himself, "for one summer."
Leona ignored his last words. "You mean, you never saw anyone? What did you do? Wasn't there tennis or swimming or country club dances?"
"There's a club, but I didn't belong. We had our own pool. Sometimes Uncle Edgar made me play golf, which usually ended by my caddying for him, much to the rage of the professional caddies, local kids who needed money. No," Dan said cheerfully. "I'm no help at all to you socially. We're both starting from scratch. But we'll meet people-probably too many. There's a boys' school on the other side of town, you know, and there must be some young faculty."
"But not in the summer." Leona said.
"It's not summer yet, even if you are dressed for it." He glanced at her. She wore a cotton dress and a soft sweater; her slim legs were bare, ending in red play shoes. With her dark hair tied back with a red ribbon, she looked about fourteen.
There was a brief silence. Then Leona said, looking across the drive at the garden that lay below the terrace of the big house, "That's a nice color, that purple thing. What is it-iris? I suppose I ought to learn something about flowers." She sat up as a man rounded the corner of the cottage, a short, powerful man in blue jeans and a khaki shirt. He was middle-aged, with thick, graying dark hair, and very white teeth in a brown face.
"Hi, Dan!"
Dan got up. "Pete, for heaven's sake! How are you?"
"Swell." The man shook hands warmly. "Well, look at you! Last time I saw you, you was a kid. And is this-"
"This is my wife. Leona, this is Pete Romano."
"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Collier." Pete Romano shook hands gravely and turned back to Dan. "I heard you was married."
"And how did you hear we were in Windover?"
"It was in the Reporter. You can't keep a secret in this town." Pete studied him, grinning. "So you're living here?"
"Yes, and working for the construction firm that's building the new electrical plant in Deanebury."
The older man nodded. "I heard that, too. I was wondering if you wanted anything done on the place. That lawyer of your uncle's paid me off last fall, but"-Pete looked away, elaborately casual-"I kinda hated to see it go to weeds, so I been cleaning up some this spring. I'm not charging you for that-goodness knows, I worked for your uncle long enough. I've got other jobs lined up, but I thought I'd drop around and see if you needed any help. A day a week, or something like that. I wanted to give you first chance at my time."
"That's nice of you, Pete. We only got here last night. I don't know how much gardening we're planning. Leona, what do you think?"
Ten minutes later, it was settled; Pete was to come two days a week for a while, to finish the cleaning up and to start Leona on the garden. She got on beautifully with him from the first moment. As they walked around the place, Dan watched her vivid face turned to Pete's dark one, and watched his answering smile.
"You got a pretty wife," he said as he was leaving. "Nice, too. Good-bye, Mrs. Collier. See you Wednesday. Good-bye, Dan." He started for his car, turned back. "I met Christina Barr in the post office," he said. "You used to know her, didn't you? Sure you did-that last summer you was here-her, and her old man, too. He's dead now-died five, six years ago."
"Who?" Dan asked, unnecessarily, for his cheeks were growing hot.
"You know, Christina Edgren-used to work in the drugstore. She married Anson Barr, Dr. Barr's boy." Pete scowled. "Not such a boy, either. He went to war in South Viet Nam-got himself pretty well smashed up. He's bad off, they say, though he don't talk about it, and neither does she. Well, she said to tell you she'd be over sometime."
"That's nice," Dan said, feeling Leona's eyes on him. "We'll be glad to see her. So long, Pete, and thanks for coming."
They stood watching him climb into his shabby pickup truck and rattle off. "He's a nice man," Leona said. "I adore Latins-I was in love with my Italian teacher at school. Who's Christina Barr? You said you didn't know anyone here, and now I find that the whole town knows you. You act as if-" She bit her lip. "Who is she, anyway?"
"A Windover girl." He added, dryly, "As you and my Uncle Edgar would say, a native."
"That sounds as if she wore a necklace of ivory teeth, but I take it from her name that she's Swedish or something Scandinavian. Is she pretty?"
Dan frowned. "I don't know. She's nice looking, but-"
Leona's eyes were very bright. "And you were in love with her when you were eighteen. The son of rich summer people and the local gal-was that it?"
"No." He was surprised at the sharpness in his voice. "That wasn't it at all. There you go again, making up movie plots! Christina was just a girl who was kind to me. She's years older than I."
"Really?" Leona pulled a blade of grass and began to chew it. "How many years?"
"I forget-six or seven. Now don't try to put her into a grade-B picture." He laughed, to cover his embarrassment. But Leona saw it; she was watching him with a gleam of amusement, and of something else. "I was at loose ends that summer," he said, "and Christina was kind to me-she and her father. He was a marvelous character."
"It's all right for me to type him, then?" Leona asked dryly.
Dan went on, "Lots of people in town thought he was queer, but I didn't. He could have been almost anything-poet, a philosopher, a musician. The trouble was, he couldn't work because he was ill, and he drank too much, so Christina and her mother had to support the family. She worked in the drugstore and Mrs. Edgren opened and closed houses for summer people. There were two boys, one about my age, and one younger. I don't know what happened to them. But Christina was-"
"I'm sure she was," Leona said smoothly. "You don't have to protest, darling." He reddened, realizing that he had been talking too much. "Besides," she added, "you're speaking of her as if she were dead, and, according to our friend Pete, she's alive and coming to call on us. We must hurry and get straightened up. She's probably a wonderful housekeeper."
"Leona," he said, "there's nothing to be sarcastic about."
She opened her amber eyes wide. "I'm not. I'm being perfectly serious-and efficient. It's after eleven, and we have dozens of errands to do. Go and get the car and I'll make a list."
As they drove to the village, Dan tried to remember what he knew about Anson Barr, whom Christina had married. He had a vague picture of a tall young man with a lean New England face who had once come to ask his uncle for money for something: was it a church organ, or the Windover Library? He recalled more clearly Edgar Blake's comment on his visitor: "The last of the Barrs! Too bad about these old families. His father graduated from Yale and from a good medical school, but there wasn't enough money for Anson to go to college. He's working in an office in Deanebury and trying to keep the farm going for his mother-half-killing himself, of course. Well, he's the kind who would."
And Christina had married him. He must be a good deal older. She had been twenty-four, that last summer, when Dan was eighteen and a half; now she was thirty-two. He wondered when she had married Anson Barr; and if she was happy. He glanced at Leona, but she was scribbling a shopping list on an old envelope, and didn't see he was distracted. He had told the truth when he said he didn't know whether or not Christina was pretty. He thought, It's amazing how you can know a person well, and think of her for years, and yet not really know what she looks like. He remembered the straight glance from her blue eyes, the way her rather wide mouth curved when she smiled, the way she moved-but when he tried to fit the pieces together they wouldn't make a picture. Pretty? Probably not. But perhaps she was beautiful. He didn't know; he only wondered when he would see her again.
The village was crowded with Saturday morning shoppers, strangers to Dan. The fruit-and-vegetable man, who was Pete's brother-in-law, greeted him genially, but Dan saw that he made out the charge slip to Blake, and corrected him. "It's Collier," he said. "We're in the Blake house, but my uncle died last year."
"Sure, Dan, sure. I was forgetting."
They had finished their errands and were stowing the last of the bundles in the car when Leona said, "Darn it all, I forgot to get bacon. Turn around and I'll dash back. I won't be a minute."
She was a good deal more than a minute. Dan sat on in the noonday warmth, watching what, in Windover, amounted to a traffic jam. A blue convertible was backing out of a tight corner and holding up a line of cars; when it pulled away, a black sedan slid unobtrusively into the space. Someone behind honked angrily, but the driver of the sedan, a woman, paid no attention. She got out and stood by her car, waiting to cross the street. The sun struck her golden hair. It was Christina.
Dan was on the sidewalk before she crossed the street. But she had seen him; she was coming straight toward him. "Dan," she said. "I heard you were here."
"Christina!" He felt her cool, firm handclasp. For a moment he was speechless; then, meeting her eyes, he knew there was nothing he needed to say. They were remarkable eyes-sea-blue and very direct, set under straight brows that were much darker than her hair. They were graver than they had been, perhaps older, but, as he looked into them, seven years fell away and he was eighteen again. It was a September afternoon and he and Christina were sitting by the river.
"You look just the same," he said.
She shook her head, and the slow smile he remembered curved her mouth. "No one is, Dan. You aren't the same. You've grown up."
"Thank heaven." He laughed. "Tell me-" He stopped.
"What?"
"Lots of things. How you are, and your husband."
"I'm well. Do you remember Anson? He was much older than you. And you're married, too-to a lovely girl, I hear."
"Thanks." It was Leona's cool voice. She had slipped into the car by the farther door. "I've heard about you, too," she said. "You're Christina-Barr, isn't it? I'm Leona-Collier, of course." She made no move to shake hands, but Christina took a step toward her, smiling.
"I'm so glad you and Dan have come to Windover."
"I hope we'll be, too," Leona said. "So far we've only got as far as the gardener's cottage, but we're hoping to climb a little higher when we move into the big house."
There was a brief silence, a silence that was full of an odd tension. Christina broke it. "I mustn't keep you. May I come and see you soon?"
"Of course," Dan said. "And we'll drive out to your house."
".'It's not far, four miles. Good-bye." Christina raised a hand in farewell, turned and walked toward the store. She was tall for a woman, almost as tall as Dan, but she moved beautifully. He remembered how her father used to make fun of her wide, thin shoulders. "You look like a coat hanger," he had said. But now she wasn't too thin; she was exactly right-deep-breasted and narrow-hipped.
"As your Uncle Edgar would say, a fine figger of a woman. Or would he?" Leona's light voice made him turn quickly and get into the car. "A Viking's daughter, a true Nordic type.
But she has lovely hair. I wish I could wear mine straight back like that, twisted into a knot. Shall I grow it out and try?"
"No," Dan said. "You're very pretty as you are."
"Pretty," Leona repeated. He glanced at her quickly, and saw that though she was smiling, her amber eyes were narrowed. "Isn't it funny the way words are used? Brunettes are always pretty, but blondes are beautiful."
Dan started to reply and then stopped. When she was in this mood, it was best to leave her alone. "Any more errands?" he asked.
"None, unless you have some more old acquaintances you want to hunt up. I don't mean to be nasty, Dan-I'm just hungry. That breakfast at the Inn was much too dainty for a growing girl. Hurry home, and we'll cook up masses of scrambled eggs."
Something inside of her began to steam. Perhaps it was just a sudden need to have the warmth of his body next to her as reassurance. Or perhaps it was that well-known little twinge of jealousy. She didn't know ... but it was there all right.
Dan felt wonderful.
Perhaps it was simply that he had returned to Windover. Perhaps it was the feeling that his life was now on the right track.
Leona had cleared the dinner dishes from the table and seemed ill at ease. It wasn't easy on her, coming to Windover. But Dan felt it would all work out for the better. "Hey," Dan called out. "How about joining me for a brandy?" He went to the counter and held the bottle of amber liquid up to the light. "Plenty here for two," he said.
Leona laughed. "Maybe it's what I need," she said.
Dan poured out two tumblers and handed Leona one. She looked great, Dan thought. Tall, pretty, clean. He grinned when he thought of the words he would use to describe his wife.
"What's so funny?" Leona asked smiling.
"You're such a good-looking woman," Dan answered. "I'm so lucky to have you."
She sat on his lap and placed her brandy on the table. Leona wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head to her bosom. Dan breathed deeply, aware of his sudden excitement. Leona had always had the power to stir him quickly, and he loved her for it.
He felt her warm breasts through her sweater and said, "I'm glad you're one of those liberated ladies who doesn't wear a bra!"
Leona laughed and sat back, then pulled her sweater off. Her juicy breasts jiggled beautifully before Dan's eyes, and he applied his mouth to them hungrily. First one, then the other. Her nipples became the centers of his pleasure and he licked until both nipples were hard pebbles of excitement, and Leona was breathing heavily when he finally pulled back and grinned at her.
She stood quickly and unfastened her skirt, allowing it to fall to the floor. Dan watched, his arousal so complete that he feared an early finish.
"Well?" Leona asked, standing naked in front of him, her hands on her hips.
"Well what?" Dan asked.
"You just going to sit there all night? I feel all alone all of a sudden!"
Dan laughed and stood up, taking Leona by the hand, pulling her close to him. She wedged her hand between them and grasped his hard lump, clutching it though his wool pants. He kissed her on the mouth, working his tongue hard, and the answering touch of Leona's tongue almost set him off.
He tugged her by the hand, leading her to the bedroom. She followed eagerly, and when he stripped, tossing his clothing on the floor, she watched with hungry eyes.
Then he led her to the bed.
Leona sat on the edge of the bed and Dan stood in front of her. She stroked his cock, loving the way it stretched and thickened under her manipulations. She eased it toward her mouth, and she felt Dan's hands on her head, entwined in her hair, pulling her forward, eager for her mouth.
She grinned. It was funny how much he enjoyed this. It was the only reason that she did it-it actually did little for her own satisfaction, she thought.
Still, she was able to enjoy his excitement and his obvious pleasure whenever she took him in her mouth. She teased him at first, running his hot, hard shaft alongside her face, pressing it to her cheek. She felt him shift his feet, anxious to insert his cock into her mouth. She grinned, knowing that on his face would be a look of pleasant consternation.
Not that Leona was a tease-far from it. But she liked to prolong erotic moments, stretch them out, let them fill her empty nights.
Sometimes Dan was too quick for her, almost brusque in his lovemaking. She desired a slower, more exotic approach to sex.
Then she allowed the tip of his cock to brush her lips, and she felt the shiver of pleasure that it caused in Dan. She did it again, and this time she allowed the swollen head to penetrate her mouth slightly, but she pursed her lips at the last moment, forcing his hardness out. Then she extended her tongue and ran it over the smooth hot head of his cock, and he moaned loudly with pleasure.
It was so easy, Leona thought. Dan was an easy man to please. A little of this, a little of that. She wondered if Dan was going to be her only love in life. Somehow, even though she loved him, it didn't seem fair. She had so much more to offer a man.
Then Dan held her head between his hands, using some force, which Leona enjoyed, and thrust his cock at her mouth, eager for it now.
She smiled and took it, sucking loudly because she knew that it pleased him. He was so large-larger than usual, it seemed to Leona-and that awoke an erotic response in her.
She closed her eyes and it was no longer Dan but a stranger, and Leona lost herself in a fantasy. She always felt guilty afterward, but she never mentioned it to Dan. He was far too conservative to play such games with her. It had to remain her own private pleasure, but she enjoyed it nonetheless.
Leona was a imaginative woman, and she let her imagination run wild during sex. This time, as her fantasy surfaced from the cloudy depths of her mind, she was pretending to be a common prostitute, a woman available to any man who met her price.
Dan was a seaman, recently arrived in port from an extended cruise, and eager to sample the joys that he had missed in the rough company of his shipmates.
He had taken her to a dirty little hotel and forced her to do as he desired. He was using her, unaware of Leona as a "person. "Suck!" she imagined him telling her, and Leona complied with the imaginary command, her arousal sparking her to take every bit of Dan's length.
Then she felt his hands on her shoulders. "Hey," Dan said softly, jarring Leona's fantasy. "Not so hard."
Leona grinned up at him, her eyes bright. "I just feel like it tonight," she said.
Dan smiled at her. Sometimes his wife's fierce eroticism took him by surprise. Of course, that was part of the delight of Leona. So wholesome, so proud-and then suddenly capable of the most erotically wanton behavior he had ever known in a woman.
He pushed her over and climbed into the bed next to her. His hand groped between her legs and he was amazed to find her wet and hot, ready for it, eager for it.
He rolled over and entered her easily, loving the way she grasped his hardness. She was warm and alive, like so many tiny fingers around him, pulling him in, demanding her satisfaction.
He stroked easily but she wanted more. "Harder," she whispered, "do it harder!"
Her talk was exciting and Dan did as he was told, and she shivered in his arms as he stroked deeper and hard, and when he felt the shudderings of her approaching climax he quickened the pace, feeling the resistance in her loins, and then suddenly she was wide open, giving it all to him, and he stroked twice more and joined her in sudden powerful orgasms that carried both of them to the brink of joyful darkness.
CHAPTER THREE
The hall seemed dark after the blazing sunlight of the garden, and musty. Christina opened the door again and felt a tide of air, fragrant with freshly cut grass, lilacs, and the more elusive scent of apple blossoms. Anson always said the latter had no smell, but she knew better. She paused, listening. The old house was very quiet; not a sound came from Anson's study. If only he would rest outdoors, in the sun! But he insisted that he liked the darkness, and the old leather couch that had been in his father's office. It was hard, and narrow, and it suited his back perfectly. He always lay down there after lunch, though Christina didn't think he slept. The pain must be worse. He never mentioned it, but he had grown so much thinner this winter, and he was so pale-Anson, who had been brown ever since she could remember-that she was sure he must be suffering. Last month she had spoken to Dr. Loring about him, and the doctor had suggested a visit to Boston, to a neurosurgeon, who, it was said, had performed amazing operations on the nerves of the spine.
"But if they are destroyed?" Christina asked.
Dr. Loring, a young-old, overworked country practitioner, sighed. "We're not sure they are. In cases like these an ordinary X-ray isn't conclusive. Your husband should have a special kind, with an injection of iodized oil."
When he finished, Christina said, "Anson won't go to Boston."
"I'll do my best to persuade him."
"I wish you would try," she said gently. She knew it would do no good, but she didn't say that, and she didn't tell him what she herself believed: that Anson knew exactly how he was and wanted no false encouragement, no vain hopes. And he's right, she thought. Anson knows. He isn't a child-he's forty, and he has seen death, not just in the war, but when he was a boy and went with his father on calls. Dr. Barr had been Dr. Loring's predecessor in Windover several times removed. Christina remembered him vaguely from her childhood, though no one in her family had ever needed a doctor except her father, and he always stoutly refused to call one.
Dr. Loring had talked to Anson about the Boston neurosurgeon, but nothing had come of it, and in a sense, Christina was relieved. It was easier-if anything was easy-to go on as they had for nearly three years, when Anson was sent back from 'Nam with a puzzling spine injury, not a wound, the Army doctors had said; an infection, perhaps, or the result of some mysterious strain. For the first few months, he had seemed better; then the pain began, dreadful spasms that left him white and sweating and that nothing could relieve. Those had passed, but the pain, though was less acute, was more constant, or, so Christina thought, for Anson never mentioned it. Sometimes, when he moved with greater difficulty than usual, his eyes would meet hers with a steady, ironic little smile as if he were saying, "You and I know all about this, but we won't tell anyone."
But perhaps, she thought, she imagined that look of his, though she had never been especially fanciful. When she was little, her father used to tease her for being so prosaic. "You are no child of mine," he would say, and add something in Swedish that she didn't understand, but that she knew from her mother's expression must be shocking. Then her father would laugh harder than ever.
Now, standing in the silent hall of the old house, Christina Barr sighed a little. She wouldn't go back, even if she could, to her childhood. And yet she often missed it. Her father hadn't a tenth of Anson's goodness and character, but he used to make her laugh as no one else ever did. It was strange for a man as ill as he was to love life and laughter so much. He had died the year before her marriage. How he would roar if he knew she was Mrs. Anson Barr! She could hear his booming voice: "Good for you, Stina-on the right side of the tracks at last!"
She smiled to herself; then, because the creaking of the stairs might wake Anson, she went into the kitchen to wash her earth-stained hands. She had been working in the vegetable garden-there was little time, nowadays, for flowers. The mirror over the sink reflected her flushed face; the sun had been strong this noon, and she had been out in it for nearly and hour. The color made her eyes look very blue, her hair more golden, but it wouldn't last. She could never get tanned; her fair skin burned and peeled and burned again. Anson used to be brown summer and winter, but now he was whiter than she, with a grayish pallor that struck at her heart.
"Chris!" It was queer, Christina thought, that only two people had ever shortened her name-her father and her husband, two men who were poles apart. Her father, in the old-fashioned way, had called her Stina, and Anson, "Chris!"
"Yes, Anson. I'm here."
He leaned against the study doorway, a thin man with rumpled dust-brown hair and a haggard, distinguished face. She had seen pictures of other Barrs, ancestors of his who had fought in the Civil War and the Revolution, all with the same high-bridged nose, the same long jaw, and gray eyes set in carved hollows. Just now his eyes showed that he hadn't slept, but she must keep up the pretense. "You took a long nap," she said.
He nodded absently. "You've been out?"
"Just in the garden. I was going out in a little while to do some marketing and perhaps make a call."
"A call?"
"Mrs. Collier-Dan Collier's wife. You know. I told you I met them downtown last week. He had a job in Deanebury." She hesitated. "She's young, and she must be lonely."
"If they're young," Anson said, "they'll find friends easily enough. There will be plenty of summer people."
"But not yet." She looked straight at him. "I won't go, if you'd rather I didn't."
"I didn't say that, Chris. But it seems like a waste of time and energy to bother with children."
She said quietly, "Dan Collier was kind to my father one summer, years ago." She didn't add that she herself had been kind to Dan, because she didn't think she had, especially. He had been lonely and unhappy, and so, in another way, had she; they had been friends, and they had helped each other. She went on, as Anson said nothing, "It's not easy to come to a new place, and Windover is really new to Dan. He lived here only a few weeks each year. The girl he married is pretty." She added thoughtfully, "She looks like a kitten I had once when I was a child."
"Go and call on her, if you like," Anson said. "But I should think you had enough to do taking care of me, without adopting two stray kittens."
Christina smiled. She wanted to put her arms around him, but he disliked any show of affection, even when they were alone. "I like taking care of everyone," she said. "Even stray kittens."
Anson's somber face lit briefly. "I believe you do. Is that long chair outside? I think I'll sit in the sun for a while."
"Good. I'll bring you a blanket when I come down." She went upstairs, quickly, so that he could make his way outdoors alone. He hated to be helped, and hated still more being watched as he got out of chairs or walked up and down steps. The only exception was at night when he went up to bed. Then he was tired, and he would let her walk beside him while he held the banister with his left hand and with his right clutched her shoulder, sometimes so hard that she had to bite her lip, remembering that his own pain was much worse.
She left him settled with a book, and waved to him as she started out in the seven-year-old sedan. She always loved the feeling of driving off in a car, no matter how many errands she had to do; she liked going to market and meeting people, the friends who had known Christina Edgren and the ones who knew Mrs. Anson Barr. When Anson was overseas, she had closed the house and taken a room in town for the winter months, where she had worked in the library, and at the Red Cross, and accomplished far more than she could have if she had struggled to keep warm in a hundred-year-old farmhouse. When Anson came home, and they went back to the farm, it had been like the first days of their marriage, or it would have been, if he had been well.
On this warm May afternoon she did her shopping with her usual quiet efficiency, and then, because it was too early for a call, she drove down the old road by the river. She wished that this were a weekend, and that Dan would be at home. Christina had never thought of herself as shy, but now, remembering her meeting witn Dan's wife in the village, she wasn't at all sure she wanted to see her alone. The girl had looked her over with such coolness, almost rudeness, Christina thought, What has she heard about me? Perhaps Dan told her something about that last summer, though there's really nothing to tell.
As the car sped along the dirt road that was still rutted after the spring rains, she thought about that summer, and about her first meeting with Dan. She had seen him, of course, a good many times when he was younger, for she had worked in Pringle's store since she had finished high school. But in those earlier summers, Dan had been a child, a thin boy in shorts or duck trousers that were too big for his slender frame, a dark-haired boy who dashed up to the soda fountain, gulped a milk shake, and rushed out again.
Sometimes he spoke to her, briefly and shyly; once, when he had been buying some poison ivy lotion-strange, how you remember things like that!-she had asked what size bottle he wanted, and he had looked up, surprised, as if seeing her for the first time. She had been startled, herself, meeting the deep blueness of his eyes. They were queer eyes for a boy of fifteen, and she found it difficult to look away. As she handed him the package, he had smiled, a smile that was twisted with shyness. "Thanks," he said. "Will you charge it to my uncle, Mr. Blake?" Then, before she could reply, he was gone, leaving the door swinging furiously behind him.
It was that winter that Edgar Blake and Dan's mother had stayed in Windover. Mrs. Collier was ill, and there were frequent orders from the drugstore. Christina had delivered one herself, in a snowstorm. She remembered Edgar Blake's look of surprise when she appeared in the front hall, and his voice: "This is very kind of you, Miss-rr. Very."
His hand had gone to his pocket, and for an awful moment she thought he was going to offer her money. She said quickly, "The order is charged. I was glad to bring it," and went swiftly out.
What a house! she had thought, walking down the ice-covered stone steps. It's like a nightmare. She said the same thing that evening to her parents and her two young brothers.
The boys were disappointed. "Isn't it grand?"
"Maybe, but it's not home-like," Christina said, and her father, pouring out his beer, nodded in agreement. He knew the house, for he had built some of the stone walls for old Mr. Blake, Dan's grandfather.
Dan didn't come to Windover the summer after his mother's death. Christina heard from the postmaster that he was on a ranch, out West. But the next year he came early, the second week of June. He was taller, but his slenderness had filled out and he was surprisingly handsome. Christina thought that he looked older than her brother Carl, who was the same age, and who had just enlisted in the Navy. But he was still shy, saying hello and asking if she had had a good winter.
"It's two winters," Christina told him. "You weren't here last year."
He scowled. "I know. My uncle sent me to a tutoring ranch because he had an idea I was behind in my studies. I'm all right now, finished school."
"Did you graduate this spring?" she asked, and he nodded. "That's fine. I suppose you're going to college."
"Tech. My uncle doesn't like it, but I'm crazy about building things. It's hard, but it's fun."
Christina smiled, but before she could speak, another customer came up, and by the time she was free again, Dan had gone out.
He came in, however, more and more often as the days went on, sometimes to leaf through the magazines on the counter, and buy one, or put them back neatly; sometimes to drink sodas or milk shakes. As June slipped into July, Chris tina became more aware of his brilliant, dark-blue gaze fixed on her. At first it made her curious, and later, uncomfortable, especially as Mr. Pringle, the seemingly absentminded proprietor, had begun to notice the boy's presence. One morning when Dan was in the store, the old man spoke to Christina, without raising his head from the column of figures he was adding: "What is it-calf love?"
She felt herself flush, but she said, in the same casual undertone, "No, no. Just boredom."
"Hm." Mr. Pringle's grunt was anything but noncommittal. It was, quite definitely, a warning, and she wondered if she ought to pass it on to Dan.
And then, one evening, when she was walking home from the store, a car pulled up beside her and Dan Collier's voice said, "Can I give you a lift?"
"It would be nice, but you're not headed my way," she said.
"That's all right," he said. "I was just driving around. I thought of going to the movies in Deanebury, and then I changed my mind." She got in, and he said awkwardly, "I guess I don't know where you live."
"On River Road, the last house."
Still he hesitated, and she gave him directions. "That's funny," he said. "I've just come from that part of town, but I didn't realize it was River Road. I picked up an old guy a little while ago-he'd been down at the tavern on the highway. He was pretty tight, and I-well, I was afraid he'd be hit." He sounded embarrassed. "So I gave him a lift to River Road. He said his name was Axel, but, what with the accent and the beer, he was hard to understand. Maybe he's a neighbor of yours."
Christina said gently, "He's my father."
"Oh." He had been embarrassed before, now he was utterly stricken. "Listen-gosh, I'm sorry. I oughtn't to have said that about his being tight."
"It's all right," she said. "Sometimes he drinks too much-quite often. He's older than most of the men in town, and he can't work much because of his heart. My mother argues with him, and he goes to the tavern. It was good of you to take him home."
"No, but-" He slowed the car, turning to her, and in the dim light from the instrument panel she could see his eyes fixed on her almost desperately. "I wouldn't want you to think-I mean, he wasn't any drunker than lots of men I've seen. And he was a nice sort of guy."
"He is, when you know him," Christina said. "Please don't be embarrassed. I'm awfully grateful, and he will be, too."
They were both silent until he stopped beside the white frame house. Then she said, "Thank you, Dan, for both of us."
"It wasn't anything," he said. "Good night, Christina. That's you name, isn't it? Christina Edgren?"
"Yes. Good night." She turned away, and then stood hesitating, wanting to say something more. But he had slid the car into gear and was going on, to cross the bridge by the old cider mill probably, and take the long way around up to the Green. She stood for a minute breathing the softness of the summer night before she went up the path between the scraggly day lilies to the house and her family. And that ride home, though she didn't know it then, was the beginning of her friendship with Dan Collier.
Christina slowed the car abruptly, turned into a wood road, and started back. She had been lost in that summer of eight years ago. Her father was dead and she was married; Dan was grown up and married, too, and she was on her way to call on his wife. She drove rapidly toward the town, avoided the Green by a shortcut she knew, and reached Edgar Blake's gate-Dan's gate, now. A car stood in the drive, a black convertible with New York plates. Mrs. Collier must have other callers. She was tempted to circle the drive and come out again. But as she approached the strange car, she saw two figures beside it-a slim, dark girl in yellow shorts and Dan himself. She felt quick relief.
He was beside her car as she stopped. "I thought it was you! Leona, here's Christina Barr."
She smiled at him and shook hands with Kay. "If you have guests, Mrs. Collier, I'll come another day." The girl looked blank, and she explained, "That car-"
"It's mine," Dan said. "I got off early today. That is, there was a meeting at the Deanebury bank at two and I didn't go back to work. Will you come in, or shall we sit outside?"
Christina chose the garden. "It's beautiful," she said. "So early in the season, too."
Dan said, "Leona's handiwork."
"And Pete's," the girl said. "Pete Romano. He's teaching me. He really knows about flowers, doesn't he, Mrs. Barr?"
"Please call me Christina. I still jump when I hear Mrs. Barr-I keep thinking it must be Anson's mother. Yes, Pete is a good gardener. Italians usually are."
"But not Swedes?" Dan laughed.
"I haven't had much time for flowers, since Anson came home."
He looked grave. "I've heard that he was ill. What is it?"
"An injury to the spinal cord, they think," she said quickly. "But no one quite knows."
"Is he, does he suffer?" Leona asked.
Christina nodded. "Yes, though he never says so." She changed the subject. "Are you and Dan going to live here, or in the big house?"
"We don't know," Dan said. "There's so much to do to it." He leaned forward. "But you're just the person. Leona, Christina knows everything about Windover. She can tell us who to get-"
He talked on as eagerly as a boy-no, she thought, more eagerly than he ever had, as a boy-about painting and papering and other changes. Leona lay back in her canvas chair, her slim bare legs crossed, her fingers playing with an unlighted cigarette. Watching her amber eyes, her cloudy dark hair, Christina remembered her tawny-eyed, black kitten. The girl looked relaxed, as a kitten does, even bored, but Christina knew that she was neither. She's really quite excited-not by me, but by being Dan's wife and living here. She's very young. And yet perhaps she'll make him grow up. I think she already has.
"You must come to see us," she said as she rose to go. "Perhaps some Sunday-Sundays in spring are long for Anson, because he always used to go trout-fishing and now he can't. Good-bye, Leona-I may call you Leona?"
"Of course." The amber eyes narrowed in a brief smile, and the girl gave her a cool, slim hand.
Dan walked out to the car. "I wish you could take a look at the house, Christina, and give us some advice," he said.
"Next time," she said. "Though you don't need my advice. Good-bye, Dan. Bring your wife to see us."
She thought, as she drove away, how handsome he was standing there in the late-afternoon sunlight. He had taken off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves over his brown arms; his eyes, under the thick, dark hair, were as deeply blue as they had been when they watched her over a magazine in the old store, years ago. He was twenty-five, now, almost twenty-six, and she was thirty-two. Anson was forty, but he looked old enough to be Dan's father.
Leaving the Green behind, and turning the car homeward, she felt queerly depressed. That was unusual for her; she often felt sober, but not melancholy. Quite suddenly, she wished that she could drive in the opposite direction, up to the top of Whittlesey Hill, and sit watching the clouds turn to rose as the sun spread through them, watching the sky change from blue to lavender-gray. As a child, she used to go up there when things at home grew difficult. She would slip away and climb through the steep fields to come out in a meadow that seemed on top of the world. She would lie flat in the summer grass, not thinking or feeling, simply gazing up into the blueness until she was lost in it, deeper and deeper.
She wished she could do that now. It seemed as if she hadn't been alone for years. And that was true; since Anson had come home wounded she had been with him constantly-nursing him, watching him, wondering, and worrying, sharing his pain. If only she could forget it for a moment.
She caught herself up. "If Anson can bear it, I can." She said the words aloud". What was the matter with her? Had the Colliers upset her? That was nonsense. She loved Anson more than she had ever dreamed she could love anyone, and they had been happy together-they still were. Besides, she wasn't a child anymore; romantic love, the kind that Dan and his young wife shared, wasn't for her. But she didn't matter-it was Anson who mattered. She drove faster, thinking, I've left him alone too long. He will be tired and depressed. I shouldn't have gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
Leona got to her feet and smiled wryly at the man who was still kneeling by the flowerbed. "Oh, my aching back! Doesn't yours ever?"
"Doesn't what?" Pete Romano asked.
"Your back ache, gardening."
He shrugged and smiled. "Sometimes, in the spring when I start. Then I forget it." His quick, stubby fingers went on making little holes and setting out the young plants at exactly the right depth, the right distance apart. Watching him, Leona felt drugged with the rhythm of his movements, with the warm sun and air and with her own weariness.
"You don't like gardening, do you?" Pete said.
"Not really," she confessed. She stretched her arms over her head, yawning. "It's so slow, and I'm so clumsy."
His dark eyes gave her a brief, appraising glance. "You got to get used to it. You got to take things slow." She smiled, without answering. "You can't hurry plants," he said. "Or anything."
"Maybe you're right," she said.
"Sure I am."
He went on setting out the seedlings, and she took a cigarette from her sweater pocket and lit it. Presently she said, "Pete, do you ever get bored?"
"Bored gardening?"
"No, just bored. Living."
He shook his head and his teeth flashed in his dark face. "I'm too busy to get bored."
Leona sighed. There was a pause, then Pete said, without looking up, "You're bored, eh?"
"Well, sometimes this place gets me down."
He said, consideringly, "It's a nice place, once you get the big house fixed up."
"But it's so slow! Every night when Dan gets home we go through the house to see what's been done, and nothing has changed. Everything's at a standstill."
Pete agreed.. "Work goes slow, nowadays. But," he threw her a sharp look, "you got nothing to do but watch the workmen? Why don't you do some of it yourself?"
"Paint and paper?"
"My wife paints the whole house, inside-papers, too. You could learn."
Leona smiled mechanically, looking off at the line of trees. "I suppose I could." After a minute she said, "Did you know Dan's family well, Pete?"
"No one knew them well. His mother was sick, and Mr. Blake-well, I guess he was a nice man; he never bothered me, just let me do my work and paid me. But it wasn't a home for a kid."
"What wasn't-Windover, or this place?"
"This house," Pete said. "Windover's O.K. Nice town."
She wanted to disagree with him, but something in his quiet, half-averted face stopped her. How would an Italian gardener know what she was thinking and feeling? He was simply an animal; he worked and ate and slept and got up and did the same things over again. A wave of depression came over her-the feeling she had had more and more lately. With Dan away from eight-fifteen until quarter to six, the days seemed endless, far longer than they had ever been in New York. She was free; they had bought a small secondhand car, and she could go anywhere she liked; to shop, or explore the country, or to see some of the people they had met at the cocktail party that Dan's old friends, the Harwoods, had given for them. There was one attractive young man, who taught at the boys' school. His name was Alan Hunt; he and another young teacher had played tennis with Dan and Leona one Saturday. But this was Wednesday; all those people were busy during the week, as Dan was. Leona's frown deepened. As for the house, she had finished deciding about colors and wallpaper; there was nothing more to do until the workmen had finished. A shopping trip to New York had only increased her restlessness, and though today she had started out gardening enthusiastically enough, now she felt cross and discontented.
Her mood wasn't helped when Pete picked up the flats that had held the seedlings and collected his tools. "It's late," he said. "I didn't hear the bell."
"Maybe the church clock has stopped," Leona said.
"That clock never stops."
"When do you think they'll finish the house?"
"Two, three weeks. More, maybe."
"I wish I could hurry them." He laughed. "Robb Fenn don't hurry for anyone, not even you, Mrs. Collier."
"You don't have to call me Mrs. Collier, Pete," she said. He shook his head, smiling. "But you call Dan by his first name."
"I've known him since he was a kid. You're different." He added, respectfully, "You're a lady."
Leona smiled, then she narrowed her eyes, remembering something. "You call Mrs. Barr, Christina, and you call her husband Mr. Barr, don't you?"
"Sure," Pete said. "Christina's a town girl. She went to school with my young sisters. Anson Barr-well, his father was Doc Barr, and he's older. Not much, but he acts as if he was."
Leona frowned. "It's very mixed up."
"It's life," Pete said cheerfully. That, she had learned was his invariable answer to any question that puzzled him, and he found it perfectly satisfying.
When he had gone, leaving instructions about watering the new plants, Leona wandered across the lawn to the big house and sat on the terrace steps. The workmen had left and the place was very quiet. Dan wouldn't get home for another hour. If only there were some people whom she could drop in on for an amusing conversation, perhaps a cocktail. The young married couples they had met the other day were nice enough, but hopelessly tied up with jobs and children, and there wasn't anyone else she could think of-except Christina Barr.
She frowned, thinking of Christina. She didn't dislike her, but she certainly didn't like her-she wasn't sure why. She and Dan had gone out to the Barrs' the Sunday before, and though Dan had enjoyed himself, Leona hadn't. It was a rainy day, and they had sat indoors by the fire. The house was good of its kind: low-ceilinged, white-paneled, comfortably shabby; Christina's coffee was excellent, and she was warm and friendly. But she and Dan began to talk about people they knew, leaving Leona to Anson. Leona was always uncomfortable in the presence of illness or pain, and she felt tongue-tied with this worn, haggard man who was making such an effort to be agreeable-an effort that exhausted him, for once or twice, when he thought no one was watching him, he leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed, his face as gaunt as a skull.
-Dan noticed his fatigue, for as they left, he said to Christina that he was afraid they had stayed too long.
She shook her head. "He's tired now, but it's done him good to see people. You were nice to come out on such a day."
She stood by the front door watching them go down the steps-a tall figure in a blue dress, her hair bright against the dim hallway. Leona had never liked tall women, perhaps because she was a little afraid of them, but she had to admit that Christina was striking-looking. Dan thinks she's wonderful, she thought, with a prick of resentment. What were they talking about all that time? She had tried to listen, but Anson was speaking in a voice so low that she had difficulty hearing him, and she caught only scraps of their conversation-names she didn't know, Christina's slow voice, Dan's boyish laughter. He acts as if he'd known her always. What happened that summer, anyway? A schoolboy crush, a mother-fixation, or what?
Yet it was Christina who noticed when Anson was silent and Leona left out, and who changed the subject, drawing her into the talk, asking her about the work they were doing in the house. I suppose she means to be kind, Leona thought now, but she's so much older than I. And I simply can't imagine being friends with a woman like that.
She wasn't quite sure what she meant by like that, but she didn't analyze her feeling. She only knew that Christina Barr made her feel uncomfortable, and vaguely resentful, and that Dan, when he was with her, changed in an indefinable but annoying way.
She leaned back against a pillar at the foot of the terrace steps. The stones were still warm from the sun, but the late-afternoon air was growing cool. She thought, At home, Dot and Nelia will be playing tennis with the Merriam boys, and going to swim in someone's pool. It will be warm, warmer than this, and the box in Mother's garden will smell heavenly. A wave of homesickness engulfed her. I'll go down next week for a visit, she decided. There's nothing for me to do here until the workmen finish, and Dan can stay at the hotel in Deanebury if he likes.
"Asleep?" Dan's voice said. "What a lazy wench you are!"
"I'm not-I've been working in the garden all day." She opened her eyes and looked at her watch. "You're late."
"I stopped in the village to put a little more pressure on old Fenn about the repairs."
"It won't work. Pete says he never hurries."
"It did work. He promised to be out the middle of next week. Then we'll get a corps of cleaning women, move in our stuff, and give a party."
Leona jumped up and threw her arms around his neck. "Dan, how heavenly! I can't believe it. I feel as if we'd been here for years, doing nothing! Let's call up Fran and Johnny tonight and ask them to come up next weekend, and maybe Bob Stanton."
"I didn't mean a weekend party," Dan said. "We can have lots of those later on. I meant a Windover party. A sort of housewarming."
"Oh!" Leona's hands dropped from his shoulders and she turned away. "But why? It's so much more fun to import people."
"Later," he said. "Now that we're really living here, let's start by asking our neighbors." She didn't answer, and he said, "What's the matter?"
She bit her lip, then she burst out: "I don't want a stupid, stuffy, neighborhood business for our first party! I want it to be gay, with amusing people-our real friends. Why do we have to ask Windover?"
His eyes, burningly blue, held her. For a moment, she thought he was going to burst out, too, but when he spoke his voice was quiet. "I'll tell you why," he said. "For years, all the time I was growing up, no one was ever asked to this house. My mother and Uncle Edgar lived in it as if it were a mausoleum. They took everything from Windover and gave nothing. No one knew them-they were a mystery, and because of my father's absence, a rather sinsister one. I don't want to live like that. I want to do the exact opposite."
"You mean, you want to run a club?"
"No, but I want to be part of Windover. When you live in a place you owe it certain things. You-" He broke off. "If you don't see what I mean, Leona, I can't make you."
She said sulkily: "I don't see why you're so stuffy and ... and civic-minded, all of a sudden."
To her surprise, Dan flushed. "Maybe because I've never belonged anywhere before, or felt that I did. Now I do."
He was staring off at the hills beyond the river with a queer, remote look, as if he had forgetten her. All at once she heard herself saying, "I suppose you're going to ask Mrs. Barr to the party."
He turned back. "Christina? Of course-and Anson, if he'll come. Don't you want them?"
"Not especially." Leona spoke coolly. "But if this is a Windover party, I suppose you must ask all the natives."
Dan's face set. "Don't talk like a little Main Line snob."
Her cheeks were blazing. "And don't you talk to me that way-ever!"
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean it. But you don't understand. Christina was my first friend in Windover. Naturally I want to ask her."
She shrugged. "Go ahead, if it amuses you."
"It doesn't, especially," Dan said. "Anson won't come and she may not, but I'm going to ask them just the same."
He turned away again. As she looked at his remote profile, she felt a little chill that froze her anger into something like fear. Dan had never spoken to her in that way since she had known him. She stood still, struggling for control. At last she said abruptly, "I was too busy gardening to do anything about supper. Shall we go to the Inn?"
"Yes." He swung around. His eyes were grave, but no longer angry. "Let's not quarrel, Leona-about anything."
"Of course not." But she went past him quickly, toward the cottage. "Make a drink for me while I get clean, will you?"
Ten minutes later she joined him, wearing a new amber-colored frock that matched her eyes, and a new shade of lipstick. They went to the Inn for dinner, and neither of them mentioned the housewarming again. But in the pauses, and there were some rather long ones, Leona found herself watching Dan under her eylashes and thinking, We never quarreled, in New York. But he isn't the person he was then-he's different. Sometimes I don't know him at all. What's changed him-this place, or the people in it? She clenched her hands under the table. I wish we'd never come to Windover!
Anson Barr sat watching the twilight steal across the garden. Even in June, dusk came early to the low-lying ground where the old house stood, though the tops of the encircling trees were still touched with sunlight. When he was a boy he used to wonder why the Barr who built the house hadn't chosen the hill across the road, with its view of Windover and of the valley, and, in autumn, its bright glimpse of the river. But his father always said he was glad the house stood where it did. "It's protected from the weather-easy to keep warm, and to get to. Just imagine going up and down that slope in winter! The old man picked the prettiest spot, too. Look at our trees-you couldn't get anything to grow like that on a hilltop."
The square white house was set in a half-circle of elms, with a group of hemlocks at its northeast corner. But now the trees had grown so tall and thick that the house was almost constantly in shadow; only the south side was sunny and open. Of course, Anson thought, everything needed pruning, especially the lilacs and the vines that draped the porch. Christina accomplished miracles, but she couldn't do everything, and in the awful years since he had been home she had had more to do than ever before.
He thought, as he did a dozen times a day, I'm worse than useless. She'd be far better off if I'd never come back. Why couldn't I have died cleanly and decently overseas instead of putting her through this?
Putting yourself through it, you mean, he answered himself. Lately, since he had been so much alone, he had seemed to became two per sons, with two separate and often opposed minds that welcomed an argument. You're deceiving yourself, trying to rationalize your own suffering by calling it Christina's. She doesn't know what you're feeling. That's one thing you 've spared her.
But Anson Barr replied to Anson Barr, I'm not sure I have. Maybe she's deceiving me; maybe she knows I'm getting worse. How can I tell what goes on behind that clear, serene look of hers? She never lets me know what she really thinks and feels-she never has, not even in the beginning.
Yet both parts of his mind had to agree that her detachment made things infinitely easier for him. He had married Christina because she was cool and self-contained; that was what he wanted. Once, years ago, he had thought he was in love with a girl who was just the opposite. Patty Martin was small, brown-eyed, and very feminine. Anson had known her all his life; when she was nineteen and he twenty-two, he suddenly became aware of her. At first he was fascinated, and later, frightened by her. When she told him she was going away to train as a nurse-when she waited, breathless, for him to ask her not to go-he had kept silent. She went, and afterward Windover talked, saying that he had jilted her because his mother couldn't face the thought of her only son's marrying anyone.
Anson heard the gossip and smiled grimly. The truth was that his mother had wanted him to marry Patty, and it was he who couldn't face it. She was too emotional; she gave and demanded too much; she got behind his reserve. He couldn't respond to her moods. If she were hurt by him, she recovered quickly, for she married within a few months. Anson never saw her again, but when his mother died, she wrote him a little note of sympathy saying that Mrs. Barr had been a wonderful character and that he must miss her.
Anson knew the truth about that, too. While her husband lived, his mother had successfully played the part of an overworked country doctor's busy wife, but when John Barr died she had become her real self-a selfish and domineering woman. Anson's only brother had died in the influenza epidemic that followed the Second World War; his only sister was a missionary in China, and he and his mother lived alone in what Mrs. Barr always called the homestead. He worked three days a week as a clerk in an office in Deanebury, hoping to pick up some knowledge of law and perhaps get a better job; he leased half the farm land and worked the other half; he served on the school board and the library committee, and ran-unsuccessfully-for town treasurer. The years went on with such a slow, grinding monotony that he could hardly tell one from another.
And then his mother died in her sleep, and he was free. Six months later he astonished Windover by marrying Axel Edgren's daughter, Christina, and at thirty-two his life began.
Anson moved a little in his chair on the shadowy porch. Even now, after seven years, it seemed like a miracle, his marrying Christina. He had seen her every day for years, he had always liked her, and thought she was lovely to look at, but it had never crossed his mind, or his heart, either, that she could hold the secret of a happiness deeper than any he had ever imagined. Yet it had all happened so easily! One day a few weeks after his mother's death, he stopped in at the drugstore to ask Mr. Pringle to notarize a paper connected with Mrs. Barr's estate.
The old man shook his head. "I'm not a notary anymore." he said. "You take it down to Len Pike, in the town hall. And here, take . Christina along with you. She's catching the bus for Deanebury to get some stuff we need. You all ready, Christina?"
The tall girl came out from behind the counter. "I don't want to take Mr. Barr out of his way-"
"Of course it isn't out of his way," Mrs. Pringle said testily. "The bus stop's right by the town hall. What are you doing, anyway-getting coy on me?"
Christina's gravity was anything but coy. "I only meant if he wasn't going down to Len Pike's right now-"
"He wants to get that paper signed, don't he? Well, then, hurry up. You don't want to miss the bus."
As they got into Anson's car, Christina said, smiling a little, "You don't have to take me downtown, you know. I have plenty of time to walk to the bus. Drop me anywhere you like."
"Do you think I'd let you-" Anson began, and then broke off, feeling himself flush at the intimacy of the words. "I mean, on a day like this?" he said.
Christina's smile deepened. "It is a glorious day," she said.
"But wet under foot," Anson said hastily.
It was one of those brilliant days in March when the icy grip of winter seems to have relaxed at last. The sky was dazzlingly blue, the sun yellow and warm, and patches of green were showing through the snow. That morning, looking out the kitchen window, Anson had felt his heart lift; now his vague anticipation was justified. He glanced at Christina. He knew her, and yet he didn't know her at all. He saw her in the drugstore, where his mother was forever sending him on errands; he had seen her, too, when she was younger: in the days when he worked in Deanebury he often passed her on her way to school-a tall girl whose long, fair braids were a contrast to the short, tortured locks of her companions. And of course he knew her father, for Axel Edgren was a colorful figure among the quiet Swedish families of the town. Anson recalled that he had died just before Christmas. Well, it was probably a relief; he hadn't worked for years, and he must have drunk up a good part of his wife's and his daughter's earnings.
They were in the village before Anson realized that he hadn't spoken a word to the girl beside him. As she leaned forward to open the door, he said quickly, "Why don't you wait till I get this thing signed, and then I'll drive you to Deanebury?"
"But you're busy-"
"No, I'm not." He almost laughed, it was so true. For the first time in years he didn't have to get back; there was no gray, shapeless figure in the big chair in the living room, waiting to ask where he had been, why the store didn't have this or that, or if he had remembered her medicine. His mother had been dead for a month, but today, for the first time, he felt really free.
The girl was hesitating, her blue eyes fixed on him. "I mean it," he said. "I haven't anything to do, but I can always invent some errand, if you think I need an excuse." He spoke almost gaily, getting out of the car.
Five minutes later, driving off with Christina, he wondered if Len Pike were watching from his office window. But it didn't matter; nothing mattered except that the sky was deep blue, the roadsides were streaming with melting snow, and that his feeling of happiness was bound up with the day, and even more bound up with the girl who sat beside him, her hair bright in the spring sunlight.
How stupid it is, Anson thought now, that a man never remembers what he talks about at the most important times in his life. He remembers the feeling of the moment, the smell of the air, the curve of lips in a smile, but not the words those lips have formed. Perhaps he and Christina hadn't said much on that drive to Deanebury, but he knew he had never felt so gay, so unlike his old self. He recalled scattered bits of their talk; she said she was sorry about his mother, and he thanked her, briefly, and added, "You lost your father a while back. He was an interesting man."
She said, surprised, "Did you know him?"
"Not as well as I'd have liked to."
"People in town weren't very friendly to him, you know." she said slowly. "Perhaps because he was different from most men his age."
"Yes," Anson said. "He enjoyed life, and he told the truth. There aren't many men of seventy who do that."
She was silent for so long that he was afraid he had upset her. When she turned to him, her eyes were bright with tears. "You did know him," she said. "I miss him dreadfully, and so does my mother-even though she was often cross with him."
Anson said, "You have two brothers, haven't you?"
"Yes. The older one, Carl, is in the Navy, and Eric-he's only sixteen, but very big for his age-threatens to run away and enlist in the Army. The war in 'Nam makes boys restless." She paused for a moment, then she asked, "If this war goes on, will you enlist?"
Anson didn't think the question was strange, for he had asked it of himself a good many times during the past few months, before his mother's death and after. "Yes, I would. I'm too old to fly, and I don't know about the Navy, but the Army would take me." He frowned through the windshield. "I'm thirty-two. I suppose that seems old to you."
"No," she said, seriously. "I'm almost twenty-five, and after you're twenty-one or two, everyone is the same age."
The golden afternoon slipped by. They reached Deanebury, and she did her errands, much too quickly. They drank coffee at a soda fountain, and then he drove her back to Windover, to the drugstore and Mr. Pringle.
Since his mother's death, the old house had held a wonderful peace, but at night it seemed too big, too crowded with heavy furniture and too full of shadows. But before he went to bed, he opened the front door and stood listening to the rush of water, the brook, tumbling down the hill across the road-the sound of spring. And suddenly Anson Barr realized that, for the first time since he could remember, he was looking forward to the next day. Tomorrow he could see Christina Edgren. He spoke aloud, standing alone in the windy darkness. "I'm going to marry her. It's the only thing I've ever wanted."
Now, seven years and a few months after that night, he wondered if it were some deep instinct, some need of the race to strengthen and renew itself, that had made him fall in love with Christina so swiftly and so unquestioningly. It was possible. Certainly his own inheritance wasn't strong; the weakness was not on the Barr side, but on his mother's. His father had told him that when he was quite young. Anson remembered being shocked by the detachment with which John Barr spoke of his wife's father, and his queerness, and about her various cousins. "There's a bad strain in the Logans," he said. "It keeps cropping up in different ways."
Was it the unconscious memory of his father's warning that had first drawn Anson to Christina? In marrying her, he had strengthened his New England stock with the best that had come to this country from Northern Europe. Christina's father could out drink most men, but he was no alcoholic; he was essentially healthy-minded and full of vitality. And her mother was a remarkable woman-intelligent, patient, energetic, kind.
But whatever the cause, conscious or unconscious, Anson had fallen in love with Christina as easily and as naturally as breathing. One day, he was alone in the world; the next, he was unable to imagine living another moment without her. But for weeks he put off asking her to marry him, because he was so afraid she would refuse.
And then one May afternoon he walked into the drugstore and told the astounded proprietor that he was taking his assistant off for the rest of the day. Mr. Pringle's jaw dropped and Christina looked amazed, but Anson only said, "Come on, Chris-I want to talk to you." She went, astonished but obedient. Halfway out to his house, he stopped the car and turned to her. "Chris," he said, hoarsely, "Chris, I don't know how to say it, but you've got to marry me. Tomorrow or next week or next month-I don't care when. But you've got to."
Christina laughed. It was the first time he had ever heard her really laugh, and the sound filled him with mingled delight and terror. When she could speak, she said, "Oh, Anson, I thought you'd gone out of your mind! Of course I'll marry you."
He looked at her with desperate intentness. "Do you love me, Chris? Are you sure?"
Instantly she was grave. "Yes, Anson." She spoke slowly. "I love you more than I've ever believed I could love anyone, I've been so afraid-"
"Of what?"
"Afraid that you wouldn't ask me to marry you. But now," she drew a breath, "now we'll be married whenever you like." Her voice was as steady as her eyes, but she blushed deeply as he leaned toward her.
"Oh, Chris," he said. "Chris...."
CHAPTER FIVE
Anson took out the heavy gold watch that had been his father's. In the dimness he could only guess at the position of the hands, but it looked like twenty minutes past eight; Chris was staying a long time at the young Colliers' housewarming. She had urged him to go with her, but the long flight of steps leading up to the house made it impossible. He didn't explain that, however; he only said, "I'm not good at parties, Chris. You go and tell me about it."
"I don't like to leave you. You're alone so much."
He had almost said, "What does it matter? Quite soon I shall be alone entirely." But he had stopped in time, as he had learned to do in the past months. When the terrible pain in his back and legs had turned into an even more terrible numbness, he had been tempted to tell her about it, but he had always managed to check himself. If telling her would help-if she could do something. But there was nothing. The only help she could give him was by being cool, quiet, stable-in other words, by being herself.
It was almost dark. A star shone in the southwest, near the horizon. Was it Venus? One of the things he had always meant to do was to study the stars. When he was in Italy, he had watched them above the mountains and determined that when he got home he would buy a book about them. He smiled bitterly to himself. How many things you plan to do when you get home-if you get home-and then it's too late! It isn't really-I could still learn about the stars, if I wanted to, but I don't. I feel as if the paralysis that is creeping through my body were numbing my mind. I don't want to do anything now but sit, and wait for Chris to come back. Where could she be? She never stayed late anywhere. Has something happened to her? The car is old.
He fought down his anxiety, and it turned to anger, or was it jealously? He must resist that, too. She deserved a good time, if anyone did. But he wondered a little about her fondness for the young Colliers, for Dan. She couldn't be fond of the girl, a difficult little creature; Anson thought. But then she was a child, not much more than twenty.
He sat forward. There had been a glint of yellow light between the trees. He narrowed his eyes, his heart beating faster. She was coming. Yes, the glint became two beams, the headlights of the car coming steadily down the hill. Anson sat back again, with painful slowness. He didn't think that Christina had noticed that he couldn't make certain movements; she believed that it hurt him so much to move that he did it very slowly. That was just as well; he would keep his secret as long as he could. Though at this rate, he reflected grimly, it won't be long before I'm flat in bed.
The headlights swung into the drive, streamed past the garden, and rounded the turn to the garage. Listening, Anson heard the motor stop, heard the opening and closing of the car door and Christina's quick footsteps sounding crisply on the drive, muffled as she crossed the grass. She spoke from the foot of the steps. "Anson?"
"I'm out here."
She was beside him, her warm hand on his. "You're cold. Why didn't you go in?"
He said, and instantly regretted having said it, "I kept thinking you'd be back."
"I know," she said. "I shouldn't have stayed so long."
"You never do, so I worried," Again, it wasn't he who was speaking-it was his new feeling of anger, jealousy, self-pity-whatever it was. "Did you have a good time?"
"Not really. It was a queer party. I'll tell you about it when we're in the house. You must be hungry."
"No." He had no appetite nowadays, though before he was ill he could eat enormously, without adding an ounce or an inch to his spare frame. Now he ate only to keep her from worrying.
"I'll put on the lights." She opened the screen door, and an instant later a yellow glow came from the hall. Anson pulled himself up. His arms and shoulders were still strong, but how long would they be able to lift the rest of his body? From knee to hip his legs seemed encased in armor plate, and he moved them stiffly, and a little sideways, as if he were swinging them from the shoulders like a man on crutches. Loring, the Windover doctor, had urged him to go to Boston, but what was the use? Anson had read enough in his father's medical books to know that spine operations were tricky things.
"Not nowadays," the doctor had argued. "They've made terrific progress in neurosurgery, Anson, even in the past three or four years. This man can take you whole spine apart and put it together again."
"But we don't know what started this trouble. If it were an ordinary injury, something that could be diagnosed-"
"He'll diagnose it," Dr. Loring said confidently. "At least go and have a preliminary examination."
"I'll think about it."
But he knew he wouldn't go. It would cost a lot, and an operation would be even more expensive. Besides, he was sure that nothing could be done. The paralysis would spread, and he would end up in an iron lung. "Except that I won't," Anson said to himself. "I'll be dead long before that, and not from an overdose of sleeping tablets, either." He had no personal scruples about taking his own life; he would do it in a moment if it weren't for Christina. But he couldn't be so unfair to her. There would be another way, he thought; there must be. God wouldn't let him down....
Christina brought trays to the living room and lighted a small fire. "I need it myself," she said. "Even in June, that house of the Colliers' isn't very warm."
"It used to be a tomb," he said. "What have they done to it?"
"They've done a lot. The girl must be clever at such things. The woodwork is painted white, and the old paper has been stripped off and the walls done in clear colors-turquoise and yellow and soft green. She has beautiful linen curtains-very expensive-looking." He thought she spoke rather wistfully. "There are other changes-a window cut beside the stairs, that used to be so dark. But it isn't a comfortable house." She looked thoughtfully around the low-beamed old living room. "I like this much better."
"We could do with some expensive linen curtains," he said dryly. "But if we once started fixing up this house, we'd never end. Who was at the party?"
She frowned at the fire. "It was a mixture. Poor Dan, he knew no one, really, when he was a boy, but the whole town knew who his family was, so he asked everyone. They came, too-most of them out of curiosity, I imagine."
"That's better than having no one at all."
"Yes, but so many of them were strangers to him, and of course they all were to his wife, so it was awkward. That's why I stayed," Christina said.
"To introduce people and be an assistant hostess? A thankless task."
"Well-" She hesitated. "Leona is young, and I imagine that her life has been sheltered, that she has always moved in one circle. She isn't very good with different sorts of people."
And you are, Anson added to himself, not ironically, but honestly. It was amazing. Christina, whose father had been an eccentric, half-drunken stonemason, was far more at home with different kinds of people than the girl who was Dan Collier's wife. And it wasn't just because she knew Windover. She would have been the same in London or Hongkong, in Alberta or Johannesburg, because she was Christina.
Aloud he said, "I wonder why they asked so many people."
"Because," Christina said, "that house is the nearest thing to a home that Dan's ever had. He wants it to be a real home now. I know, because he used to talk to me when he was eighteen."
Anson felt the new stab of jealousy. "You and he must have known each other pretty well. Most boys of eighteen don't talk easily about such things."
Christina turned her level gaze to him. "He did, because he was lonely, that last summer."
For a moment, Anson thought she was going on, to tell him what Dan Collier had talked to her about, but she turned away, back to the fire. He thought, There are some things she'll never tell me. In a way, she'll always be a mystery to me. But isn't that why I married her?
Presently she said, "I wonder how they'll get on, those two."
"In Windover, or with each other?"
"Both. They should have children, of course."
"Why of course? Are children the solution to all problems?" He knew he sounded bitter, but he couldn't help it.
"Not all," Christina said. "But of many. And nowadays, when people have fewer roots than they used to have, children are important."
He said, looking at her bent golden head, "Do you wish we had had them?"
There was a silence; he could feel his pulses quickening. She said at last, "If we could have looked ahead, before you went into the Army, but no one can look ahead." She turned. "Anson, you're not sorry?"
"No." It was the only thing he could say. It was too late, now, to regret anything. And in a way he couldn't regret that he hadn't burdened her with a child to bring up-alone. But he was the last of the Barrs. The family instinct dies hard, he thought, in New England, perhaps everywhere.
She looked at him for a long, thoughtful moment; then she rose and carried the trays out to the kitchen. He sat looking at the fire; it was dying down. What was the poem of Landor's that had depressed him so when he had read it years ago?
I warm both hands before the fire of life, it sinks, and I am ready to depart.
That thought didn't depress him now, for it was truer than he could once have believed. He wished that he had warmed his hands more freely, and for longer, but he was ready. If he could only sink, as this fire on his hearth was sinking now-if it were over, the fierce struggle with the flesh. He closed his eyes.
Christina was beside him, a warm, living presence. "Anson, where is the pain?"
He couldn't tell her that it was everywhere, in his heart, his mind, his whole being. Besides, that wasn't true. What he felt was no longer pain, merely weariness. "There's very little, tonight," he said. "I'm just tired. Let's go up."
"I wish you'd let me turn your study into a bedroom. That would be so much easier for you."
"I couldn't sleep at night if I didn't go upstairs to bed," he said. "Unless it's too much for you to help me?"
She smiled. "How foolish, Anson! As if I weren't strong. I'm as strong as-"
"As your heart," he said gravely. "And only I know how strong that is."
As she turned to him, he saw that her eyes were soft with tears. "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"It's not nice enough," he said. "But I don't talk easily, Neither do you-that's why we get along. The silent Swede, the laconic Yankee. Come, Chris, let's go up."
But later, lying in bed and listening to her quiet breathing, he thought, I wish we did talk more. And, like a stab from the darkness, came the thought: She and Dan Collier talked. Were they in love? She's nearly seven years older than he, but years don't matter, especially with Christina. Is that why she goes to his house? Does she talk to him now?
He was used to lying awake, but tonight the darkness held a tension, as if it were black silk stretched across his eyeballs. He heard sounds too clearly-a car, rushing down the road, the June bugs blundering against the screen. He wished that he were back on the porch, or sitting in the garden. If he got up, but that would disturb Chris, and she was tired. He turned his aching shoulders on the pillow and stared at the dimly out-lined square of the window. He couldn't see the stars, but they were there. Tomorrow he would ask Chris to get him some books about them from the library. He might as well learn about the stars while he had time. Yes, he thought, rather bitterly, there is still time-time to feel pain, to wonder: Is that why she sees him? Do they still talk to each other, and what about?
CHAPTER SIX
Dan drove back from Deanebury faster than usual; but no matter how he hurried, he couldn't make time. It was blazingly hot, and it seemed as if every car and truck on the road were conspiring to delay him. When he reached the turnoff to Windover, he was dripping. He had shed his coat on leaving the office. Now he stopped beside the road, took off his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and rolled up his sleeves before going on.
Reaching home at last, he found two cars in the driveway. One belonged to Alan Hunt, a master at the boys' boarding school. The place was officially closed, but a few seniors who had failed were staying on to be tutored for autumn examinations, and Alan had elected to teach in the summer session. Because his hours were short, he was free almost every afternoon for tennis or swimming. Leona liked him. "He's young," she told Dan, "and terribly amusing. He was the only really nice person at your housewarming."
Your, Dan thought; that was because she had been bored. He had thought the afternoon was a success. "Everyone enjoyed themselves," he said. "Of course the people who give the party never have much fun."
"Well, I didn't," she said sharply. "If that's Windover's idea of gaiety, let's move back to New York. They were like visitors at a museum. They stood around in little groups, whispering, or else they walked through the rooms and stared at things. The didn't even drink the punch-three-quarters of it was left."
"Young Hunt did fairly well by it," he said. "As for the others-they were shy, I suppose. Christina helped, didn't you think?"
Leona shrugged. "Did she? I wouldn't know. Well, it's over, and we won't have to do it again, thank heaven."
All the same, the party had given her a social impetus. She was seeing more people, playing golf and tennis or bridge. When Dan got home there was almost always a car in the driveway. It was often Alan Hunt's; Dan was rather tired of finding the boy swimming in the pool or lounging in the garden, quite frankly waiting for his host to come home and give him a drink. Now, seeing the two cars, Dan frowned, wondering who else was here.
They were all on the terrace-Leona in a bathing suit, Alan Hunt in flannels, and a small thin man in shorts who was introduced as Philip Malone. "He's a writer," Alan said, "and a newcomer to Windover, like yourselves."
Leona laughed. "Don't you dare call Dan a newcomer!" He's frightfully proud of having lived here since he was in diapers. In fact, he's practically a native." She turned to him. "Have a drink, darling? We didn't wait for you today-we were much too thirsty."
As Philip Malone talked, it was plain that he had satisfied his thirst quite thoroughly. He talked a great deal, and very positively, about Windover and what he thought of it. And the more he talked, the less Dan liked him. Presently Dan said, "If you'll excuse me, I'll take a swim. It was scorching at the plant, and the drive home was worse."
"My husband's an engineer," Leona told Philip Malone. "I used to think that engineers lived in exciting places like Brazil or Persia, but we seem to have landed here. Still, it has certain compensations." She smiled at Alan, and Dan, who was turning to go into the house, intercepted her glance and felt a swift, unreasoning annoyance.
The cool water helped his mood, but as he floated lazily, his eyes on the sky, he wondered why she seemed to enjoy needling him. She hardly ever did it when they were alone; it was as if the presence of others awoke some resentment in her, some obscure anger at him. He didn't mind being called a native; in fact, he'd rather be a native of Windover than of any place he knew, but the way she said the words turned them into a spiteful little dig. Lately, especially when she was with Alan, she delighted in opposing Dan, and in laughing at him. He wished the boy weren't going to be around all summer, dropping in every day, wasting Leona's time, and having the tactlessness to stay on after Dan got home. A man wants to see his wife alone once in a while, he thought.
He climbed out of the water, got a cigarette, and stretched flat on the grass. It was peaceful down here at the foot of the garden, with the leaf-shaped green pool reflecting the golden light in the sky. He lay smoking and trying to think of nothing, until he heard the cars drive away; then he got up and went slowly back to the house.
Dinner was a cold meal, left by Rosa, one of Pete Romano's many relatives, who came to clean and cook three days a week. As they sat lingering over raspberry sherbet, Leona said, "Phil Malone wants us to come out to his place for awhile."
"Tonight? But we've just seen him."
"You haven't," Leona said. "It was awfully rude of you to disappear like that and not come back. That's one reason why I think we ought to accept his invitation. They say he's done rather amusing things with a big old barn."
"Let's not go," Dan said. "You can overdo things, especially with a stranger."
Leona looked at him between candles. "Meaning that I'm overdoing Alan. Of course he's not a stranger, now, but-"
He said carefully, "I think you're seeing a good deal of him. He's been here every day this week."
She shook her head. "On Wednesday I met you at the plant and we had dinner with the Deanes."
"Almost every day, then. I don't mind, but-"
She cut through his words. "But Windover's a small town, and we must avoid gossip, especially when we've just come here to live. I know all those stale old arguments, and they don't make sense."
Dan said nothing, and after a minute she went on, more quietly, "Speaking of people, Mrs. Harwood came to call today."
"Really? What did she have on her mind?" . Leona laughed. "I don't know-I didn't see her. Alan and I were in the pool. We heard someone drive in, and we hid under water, and then the car went away. Afterward, I found Mrs. Harwood's card." She laughed again. "I hope Rosa didn't tell her I had a caller already."
"Of course she saw his car," Dan said.
Leona's eyes gleamed with amusement. "I never thought of that. I suppose it will be all over town."
"And she might have walked through the garden and seen you and Alan in the pool. Really, Leona-"
"Really, Dan!" She mocked his tone. "What will people think?"
As he got up, she came around the table and slipped her hand through his arm. "Don't be cross, Dan."
"I'm not. But you must be-" He stopped. What could ne say? More discreet? More sensible? But Leona was neither, and she never had been. He had fallen in love with her because she was child-like and gay, because she symbolized the easy, lighthearted life he had never had at home.
"Well?" she was saying. "What do you want me to be?"
"More grown up," he said. She nodded like an obedient child. "And now," her eyes brightened, "now shall we go over to Phil Malone's?"
"No."
"Didn't you like him?" He shook his head. "Why not?"
"Because he's an egotist."
"Most writers are," said Leona. "And he writes good stuff. But I don't suppose you've read it." She stood looking at him. "You've changed," she said. "Ever since we came here, you've been different. You never used to be so critical of people." As she turned away, he saw that her face had changed. It hadn't hardened, exactly; it had simply become bored, indifferent. Her voice, too, was indifferent as she said: "Well, if you won't go to Phil Malone's, I'll have to call Alan, because he was going to stop for us."
Dan sat on the terrace. As he lighted his third cigarette, he thought that Leona was taking an endless time at the telephone. I must be tired, or in a bad mood, he told himself. J don't think I've changed. She's the one who's up and down, like mercury. She hadn't wanted to come to Windover, and then, suddenly, Windover was the one place in the world for them; she had made extravagant fun of the house-and then had plunged into elaborate plans for redecorating it. Now that it was done, she laughed at it again, and Windover was utterly deadly. And yet he had married her because she was feminine! He thought, Am I impossible to please? What do I want, anyway?
Leona came back. "I called Mrs. Harwood and told her I was sorry to miss her. She wants to put me up for the Garden Club. That means I've made the grade socially, doesn't it?"
He laughed. "Of course. I hope you accepted with pleasure."
"No," she said rather sharply, "I didn't. I told her that I'd think about it. I don't want to join, and get involved in all those stupid things. There's only one meeting a month, but they'll put me on committees to preserve wild flowers and exterminate ragweed."
"After all, Leona, you have to do something in Windover."
"I won't be a club woman-yet," she said. He was silent. "Do you think I should?"
He said slowly, "You must do what you want, I suppose."
Leona sighed. "I'm not sure what I want. She wandered to the steps. "Let's go to the movies."
He was much happier sitting here in the cool darkness and breathing the fragrance that drifted up from the garden. "What's that smell-some flower?" he asked.
"Nicotiana," she said. "It blooms at night. Pete told me. He made a list for me to memorize so that I could impress Mrs. Harwood and the other garden club women." She added complacently, "It worked, too, didn't it?"
Dan laughed. She was a child. He got up. "Are you quite sure you want to go to the movies? It will be stifling in that little auditorium."
"We can always come home, and get in the pool. Come on."
He followed, slowly. Her words echoed in his mind. "I'm not sure what I want." Neither was he. But as he watched her delicate profile in the half-darkness of the movie theater, he thought that he was closer to finding out than she was. For him, the answer lay in his work and in the country-in Windover; for her in parties and people. Which one was right?
And then it was the following afternoon.
It had started simply enough.
Leona was bored, unsettled, and filled with anxiety. She hated moods that she couldn't deal with. She felt the beginnings of a first-class bout of the blues coming on, and it was the last thing in the world she wanted.
She was alone, and it bothered her. Leona was a big city girl in a lot of ways; being alone never bothered her before. But ever since the move to Windover, she had realized that the solitary hours while Dan was gone were the hardest to get through.
Leona found the bottle of wine at two o'clock in the afternoon. It was three-quarters filled, left over from dinner the night they'd opened the second bottle.
She poured out a glassful and smirked. Here she was, drinking by herself in the early afternoon. Classic housewife's syndrome, she thought.
After two glasses, she felt much better. Perhaps she should do this every day, she thought. That way, when Dan got home after work she'd be in good spirits, eager to be his companion and share his troubles and woes.
Leona giggled.
Then of course there was that cute Alan Hunt. Leona knew exactly what Alan was after, and it thrilled her to know that a man other than her husband desired her so openly.
He was handsome, too. Educated, charming, a bit arrogant perhaps, but Leona had always liked arrogant men. As she thought about Alan Hunt, she found herself pouring a third glass of wine. She felt wonderful, carefree and totally at peace with herself.
She drank half the glass of wine and then stood up. Leona walked into the bedroom, conscious that she was a bit dizzy. She giggled again, and as she entered the bedroom she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror.
Just what does he see in me? Leona wondered to herself. After all, a man like Alan Hunt had his choice of girls, yet he persisted in his interest in her.
She slowly undressed, staring at herself in the mirror. She was smiling, and as the last of her garments fell to the floor, she placed her hands on her hips and turned slowly before the mirror.
Her legs, she thought, were always her best feature. They were long and very shapely, trim knees and ankles, well-developed calves, smooth, full thighs that bordered on being too heavy but weren't.
She turned, eying her reflection. Her buttocks were trim and rounded, her waist pinched just right. Her breasts were those of a young girl, without a trace of sagging.
Her face had always been pretty in a conventional sort of way, and her thick hair added a bit of character. She was all right, Leona thought, and Alan Hunt was lucky she paid him any mind at all.
Leona felt dizzy again and lay down on the bed. She drifted off, a smile on her lips. Alan Hunt was there, smirking at her as she lay on the bed. She was suddenly aware of her nakedness and made a move to cover herself. With one strong hand Alan Hunt stopped her. "Don't cover up," he said. "I like you this way. You should never wear anything. That way you'll always be ready for it," he said.
Leona was flushed with excitement. What was he doing here? How dare he appear in her bedroom that way? What if Dan came home early?
His hand was hot on her. He cupped her breast and pinched her nipple so hard that she cried out in pain, and he just laughed. "You're so hot you don't know what to do," he said.
He began undressing, carefully folding his clothes, then turned to her. She gasped when she saw the size of his tool-it appeared to be ten inches long, thick as a baby's arm.
He stroked it as Leona watched with openmouthed amazement. "Not bad, is it?" he said. "More than you expected from an instructor at a boys' boarding school."
"You must leave," Leona managed to say.
Alan Hunt laughed as he walked toward the bed. "I didn't drive all the way out here just to leave," he said. "It's about time you had a good roll, and I'm just the boy to give it to you."
Leona tried to run from the room but Alan Hunt caught her by the arm and easily threw her back onto the bed. "Relax, Leona," he said. "It's what you want."
She shook her head, denying his thoughts, but her eyes remained fixed on the monstrous tool that he held loosely in his hand.
Leona licked her dry lips, flicking out her tongue, and Alan said, "You look hungry." He danced until he stood beside the bed, his enormous cock directly in front of Leona's mouth.
With a moan of passion she grasped the thick shaft and settled the swollen head between her lips, sucking eagerly, bobbing her head as she tried to take more of his hard length into her mouth.
She heard Alan laugh and then he pulled her mouth free of his cock. "I can get that any time," he said roughly. "I want more from you!"
She stared at him and was about to tell him once again to leave, that it was all wrong, but when his hand pushed her down onto the bed, she remained silent.
What if Dan walked in? Suddenly she could no longer worry about that eventuality. All she wanted was Alan's smoothly muscular body atop her, forcing that large, hard tool between her legs.
Alan leered at her, still working his hardness with his hand. She couldn't stop staring at it-she had never supposed that men got that large, and as she watched him, Leona's hand began twitching, and Alan said, "Go ahead. Play with yourself. I'd like that!"
It was as if she had no will of her own. Her hand, now busy between her legs, was giving her more pleasure than she had ever experienced.
She splayed open her legs, allowing his eager eyes to feast on her lewdness.
Then, suddenly, Alan climbed into the bed with her, kneeling astride her, his giant tool the focus of her vision. She felt two fingers enter her, and she churned in animal heat as Alan grinned down at her.
"Just tell me when you want it," he said softly.
"Now! Now!" Leona cried, removing her hand, allowing Alan to settle between her legs.
Then he was in her, forcing his monstrous size into her, and she cried out in pain but it was pleasure as well, a brute animal sexuality that she had never known she could respond to.
She felt herself stretching to the breaking point, and still there was more, penetrating, hot, and she pulled back and tried to shake him off but he laughed in her face and pinned her beneath him, and with one sudden surge he was in all the way, filling her completely, and her orgasm made Leona shriek out in hot wanton pleasure as a deep animal growl escaped Alan's constricted throat.
And then she was suddenly awake, alone in her bedroom, drenched with perspiration, her body still quivering from her phantom lover's attention. Her arousal had been complete and she smiled as she realized it had all been a dream, a harmless dream, and then she heard the front door bang shut and Dan's husky voice calling her name.
"Be down in just a minute," Leona called out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two days later, on his way back from Deanebury, Dan slowed his car in the village. He didn't want to go home, to run into Alan Hunt again, and perhaps some other people; he wanted to go where it was quiet and where he could think. He sat hesitating until an impatient driver behind him blew loudly; then, on an impulse, he swung onto River Road and drove past the house that used to be Christina's. It had been sold; she had told him that her mother had gone to live with a sister in Wisconsin. Dan drove by slowly. It had been enlarged, and a garage built beside it, but the porch and the walk between the day lilies were just as they were the first night he drove Christina home.
He drove on, past the abandoned cider mill and down the river. Where the road divided, he took the right-hand fork that narrowed, winding closer to the water, until it stopped at the old ford that was paved with flat stones. Once, when he was very small, in the days when his uncle still had horses, they had driven down here for a picnic, and Edgar Blake had allowed him to wade across on the slippery stones to the far side of the river where a bridle path wound between tall, dark pines. His mother had come that day, Dan remembered; it was one of the few times she had ever left the house. The next day, of course, she was ill. Now he stopped his car and got out, remembering that curiously Victorian picnic, but remembering much more clearly the September afternoon he and Christina had come here, the day before he left Windover for college. It had been a brilliant day, cooler than this, and as they looked upstream the light on the water had been more dazzling, for the sun was already swinging on its southward course that autumn nearly eight years ago.
There had been no trace of embarrassment that day, for by then he knew Christina Edgren better than he knew anyone else in the world. The night he took her home had been the beginning of a relationship that, Dan supposed now, was strange between a girl of twenty-four and a boy of eighteen. But it had held no strangeness.
The next day, thinking over their short drive to her house, and the few sentences they had exchanged, he realized that he liked her better than anyone else in Windover. She was older than he, but she didn't seem like an older person, or like a girl, or like another boy, though she had a certain impersonality that was boyish. No, she wasn't at all like anyone he had ever met-he wasn't sure how he knew. He was only sure that he wanted to talk to her again.
The drugstore was too public a meeting place, and besides, he had a feeling that old Mr. Pringle was watching him, watching Christina, too. Dan thought, I mustn't do anything to make her lose her job. Presently he hit on a plan that was relatively simple. In the summer, the store was open until eight in the evening. After dinner-always a silent meal, for since his sister's death Edgar Blake was more and more withdrawn, more like a thin, Edwardian ghost than ever-Dan would murmur something about getting a breath of air, and taking the small car, which no one but Peter Romano ever drove, he would circle to Green, passing the drugstore a moment or two after eight, just in time to see Christina come out. She was always alone, for Mr. Pringle lived in an apartment over the store. Dan would sit in the car, on the far side of the Green, watching her. She was unmistakable, even without the light of the street lamp on the corner; no one else walked with such a light, swift stride, her fair head held high, her shoulders slim and straight. He would wait until she was beyond the yellow circle of light, then he would slip the car into gear, drive abreast of her and stop. "Hello."
"Oh, hello, Dan."
"May I take you home?"
And she always answered gravely, as if it were a new idea, "That's awfully nice of you."
One evening, he suggested driving somewhere to get cool, and waited, his heart beating fast, for her reply. "It would be fun, if you have time."
He turned to her almost fiercely. "I haven't got anything else to do." His cheeks burned as he added. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I'd rather drive around with you than do anything else. But, well, probably you won't understand, because you've got a job, and a family, and friends. I've got nothing but time on my hands, this summer."
"But don't you-" She hesitated. "I mean, aren't there boys and girls that you see? What about the summer people at the club?"
He shook his head, scowling. "I've met some of them, but they're all kids. The others are working. In a way, I'll be glad when college starts. I'm going to work next summer, but my uncle wouldn't let me this year-I don't know why."
"He's probably lonely," Christina said. "He must miss your mother."
Dan muttered, "Maybe, but he never says so. He's queer."
"Men get lonely, you know, when they're older," she said. "Like my father."
That surprised him. "But he has fun. I mean," he said awkwardly, "he goes to the tavern and drinks with his friends."
"He does that because he's lonely. And they're not really his friends. You see, he's better educated-or he was, before he came to America-than most of the men in town, and they know it and resent it. And now that his heart is so bad and he can't work, everything is worse."
Dan said, "I liked him a lot, that night when I saw him. Maybe I could come to see him sometime."
Christina was silent, and he changed the subject. Perhaps, he thought, Axel Edgren wouldn't want to see him-a kid of eighteen who had taken him home one night when he was drunk. But maybe Christina could arrange it.
She did, and several times when he took her home he came in and sat on the porch with the old man, and listened to his stories about Sweden and about his first years in New Eng land. Some of the stories were tall, for Axel Edgren had plenty of imagination. He would break into old rhymes and songs as he talked, beating his empty beer mug gently on his knee. Christina never interrupted him, except when he began to talk about the town and neighbors; then she would say, "Now, Father, Dan's part of Windover."
"But he doesn't know what I know. I could tell you things, boy-things you never dreamed of." And Axel would go on, while Christina would touch Dan's arm and lead the way down the porch back to the car, and they would drive off into the summer darkness.
He drove her home every night-usually not straight home, but sometimes to the lake, seven miles away, lying dark and silent in its circle of hills; sometimes up Whittlesey Hill, which she said was the loveliest place in the world, even at night. She showed him woods roads he hadn't known, hidden valleys, high meadows silvered by the moon.
By the time July slipped into August, Dan realized that each day was no more than a period of waiting, a prelude to the evening when he would see Christina. The pattern was fixed, now; he would overtake her at exactly the same spot on the road, stop the car, and wait for her to get in-silently, as if she, too, had been waiting for that moment. Sometimes they hardly spoke, driving down the dark roads, but when Dan stopped the car, they talked-or rather, he did. It wasn't a sudden outpouring; he simply began to tell her things, and then realized that he had hardly ever talked to anyone before in his life-and never to anyone with so much understanding. He told her about the summer, and his uncle and the silence of the big house. "Of course it was always quiet," he said, "even with Mother there. But now you feel its silence even more, and you can see that it's a house where people ought to have fun." He told her about school, and his roommate who was so interested in girls; he went on about his own theories regarding girls, talking to her as easily as if she were another boy. She said little, but her silence held no constraint, and when she did talk, everything she said was sensible, tolerant, wonderfully sane. There was almost nothing they didn't discuss that summer, and there was only one time when they came near a misunderstanding.
That was the night when Dan told her about the mystery that had brooded over his life ever since he could remember-a potentially thrilling, potentially terrible mystery-the mystery of his father. He had never talked to anyone about it-it was the unlocking of his last reserve-and his voice was rough with shyness.
"I was going to ask you," he said. "Don't you think people ought to tell you things?"
They were sitting on Whittlesey Hill watching the moon climb the eastern ridges and spill silver over the town of Windover and its surrounding slopes. Christina's eyes were fixed on it. "What things, Dan?"
"All sorts of things. For instance, if I'd known my mother was going to die, I'd have been different. Uncle Edgar ought to have told me."
"Perhaps he thought you would be so upset that you'd make her upset, too. Or perhaps," she added, "your uncle himself didn't realize how ill she was."
Dan hadn't thought of that. There were so many things that Christina made him see, or that he came to see for himself, when he was with her. "Well," he said, "there's another thing. There's my father."
"Do you know when he went away?" she asked quietly.
"I don't know anything. He must have left when I was pretty young, because I don't remember him. Maybe my uncle made him go. But I don't know. I asked Mother once, when I was eight or nine, and she got very white and sent me out of the room, and Uncle Edgar told me I must never speak of him. He said I had no father. I asked if he were dead, and he wouldn't answer. But I know he's alive, because this summer a letter came and Uncle Edgar for warded it. I saw him mail it. But I don't know about anything, and I've got to." He stared out at the silver-drenched hills. "I've got to," he repeated. "Could you find out for me?"
There was a pause. Then Christina said, "How could I, Dan?"
"It's always easier for an outsider. If my uncle forwarded that letter, there must be some address. Couldn't you ask-what's her name?-the girl who helps sort the mail?"
Christina said, "I wouldn't like to, but if it would help-" Suddenly she turned to him. "Are you going to try to see your father, Dan?"
"Why not?" he asked defiantly. "I'm not a child. I have a right to know what my own father is like."
"But suppose he's-" She stopped.
"What?"
"Oh, queer, or-or bad. Of course he probably isn't, but suppose he was? I don't want to hurt you, but-"
"But you won't help me. All right," he said heavily. "That's O.K. It doesn't matter."
"Dan, listen." She faced him. In the spreading light he could see her wide-set eyes, not blue, now, but gray and deep like the sea. She said quietly, "You can love people very much and still disapprove of them. Mother and I both love my father, but we know that he complicates things. My younger brother is all mixed up about him. Some boys in school said something about Father's drinking and, well, I'm old enough to understand it, and so is Carl, but my younger brother is terribly upset."
Dan said sulkily: "I don't see what you mean."
"I mean that if I asked questions about your father, or if you did, or if you saw him, you might find out something complicating-something that you didn't want to know. I don't believe that your mother and Mr. Blake would have kept you away from him without a real reason. You've got to give people credit for doing what they think is right. You've got to trust them, Dan. That's why I think you oughtn't to try to find your father."
He knew she was right, but his heart swelled with anger and disappointment, and something else-a feeling he couldn't name. He sat staring out at the moon, and at the mist that was rising, white and iridescent, from the dark valley; then, without a word, he turned around and drove home. Christina said nothing until she got out of the car. "Dan," she said in a low voice, "are you angry with me?"
"No," he said stiffly.
"Yes, you are. I'm sorry, but-I'm sorry, that's all. Good night, Dan."
He drove away quickly, not trusting himself to speak. He thought resentfully, I won't see her tomorrow. But the next day he was ashamed of his anger. That evening when he met her, she was her usual serene self. The days went on, and neither of them mentioned their talk about his father, until the very last day-the afternoon before he left for college, when they were sitting by the river.
"I was angry with you that night," Dan confessed. "I had an idea-a sort of fixation, I guess-about my father. I still want to find out about him, but I know you're right. It's better not to know some things."
Christina smiled faintly, looking out at the river that sparkled in the September sunlight. He watched her face-the straight dark brows above the sea-blue eyes that seemed to be looking out at distances-had her ancestors, the men who had explored the northern seas, looked like that?-the golden hair that flowed from her forehead into a knot at her neck; her mouth that curved up at tha corners. Then, for the first time, he thought, I won't see her tomorrow; maybe never again. And suddenly he felt cold all over. He wasn't in love with her-in all these weeks he had never touched her hand. But he couldn't imagine not being able to see her and talk to her whenever he wanted to. It was unthinkable.
She was saying, "What are you thinking about, Dan?"
"You." The word was said before he could stop it. His cheeks burned and the river blurred in a mist, but he heard his voice going on, "I was thinking that I'll miss you."
"You'll be too busy," she said gently. "They work you hard at Tech, don't they?"
He nodded. "Yes, but-" The words rushed to his lips: But how can I work? I'll be alone again. I'll be as scared and lonely as I was when I was ten, and first went to boarding school; only it'll be worse, because now I know what it is to have someone who understands everything, to have you.
But he said nothing. He sat tensely beside her, staring unseeingly at the bright water. Presently, from a distance, he heard her say, "I must go home. Mother's working today, and won't be back until late. Come, Dan."
He turned. She had risen and was smiling down at him. A great lump rose in his throat. "Christina-"
"Yes, Dan?"
"You've been wonderful to me. I can't thank you-"
"For being friends?" Her lips curved, but her eyes didn't smile now; they held his steadily as she said, "I have just as much to thank you for, or more. You've been kind to me, Dan."
"Kind!" The lump choked him. "What are you talking about?"
"I wasn't very happy this spring about things at home. You've helped me to forget them. And you've been kind to my father, too. He's enjoyed seeing you."
"Christina-"
But he couldn't say it; he could only stretch out his hand and grasp hers tightly as he got to his feet. Still holding his hand, she walked to the car. When she turned, her eyes were almost on a level with his. "Christina," he said in a tight voice, "will you kiss me good-bye?"
"Of course." She put both hands on his shoulders. Her lips were firm and cool, but he was trembling. "Good-bye, Dan," she said softly. "I've had a nice summer."
He nodded, unable to say a word. He turned and went around to the other side of the car and got in, bending his head as he put the key in the ignition because his lips were twitching. They drove back down the river in silence. At the old cider mill, Christina said in a low voice, "Will you let me out here? I'd like to walk the rest of the way."
He stopped the car. "Good-bye," he said, not looking at her. "I'll see you. I'll come back sometime."
She didn't answer. He heard her get out and close the door. Then he drove on blindly, his heart on fire, his mind in a turmoil. I'll see her again, he thought. I must. I'll come back.
But he didn't come back. The first weeks of college were like floundering in a whirlpool; by the time he got his head above water it was winter, and his uncle had gone South and the Windover house was closed. He didn't write to her, because there was nothing to say-and because there was so much that he couldn't even begin. He didn't forget her; on the contrary, he thought about her more than he thought of anyone else, in the strange, ordered confusion that was his life. He always saw her standing beside the river on that blue September day. She was still there, still clear and lovely, but her figure grew smaller, and the river grew smaller, too, as the larger river swept him on through college, then the Service....
Dan roused himself. He had stared at the bright, tumbling water until his eyes had closed. "But I wasn't asleep," he said aloud.
A voice answered him. "Yes, you were." It was a voice that had been so closely woven into his thoughts, or his dreams, that he wasn't even surprised.
"Christina," he said. "How long have you been here?"
"A few minutes. I didn't want to startle you."
He looked around, puzzled. "But I didn't hear your car."
"Then you must have been asleep." She smiled, sitting down on the rock beside him.
For a moment, neither of them spoke; he was collecting his thoughts, and she was looking across the river at the dark mass of the pines. "What made you come down here today?" he said.
"I often do, if I have time. It's such a peaceful place. Tonight an old friend of Anson's came for an early supper, so I got it for them and drove to town for some errands, and then came on here."
"It's queer," Dan said, "because I was thinking of you, and of that last afternoon. Do you remember?"
"Yes," she said. "I remember."
He said: "I went home and thought of drinking up Uncle Edgar's port, but I didn't. What did you do?"
"Nothing, I think. Oh, I got supper for the family." She shook her head, smiling a little. "That's the trouble with nice things. They spoil you for everything else. It was a good summer, wasn't it, Dan?"
"The best I ever had. But I hate to think what it would have been like without you."
"Nonsense."
"No, I was horribly at loose ends. Even with you as a balance wheel, I did stupid things. There was that Labor Day dance at the club, do you remember? Uncle Edgar made me go, because some friends of his were giving a dinner for their daughter beforehand. I was furious."
"So you went, and drank champagne, and then drove to my house and whistled under the window."
"And you came down and gave me black coffee and sent me back to the party. You were wonderful, Christina."
She shook her head. "You know, my father heard everything that night. He was sitting on the porch all the time. He teased me for weeks."
"Was it that winter that he died?" Dan asked. "I didn't know, or I'd have written you."
"Yes, just before Christmas. He was ill only a few hours, fortunately."
"And when were you married? Forgive all the vital statistics, but we haven't really talked yet."
"I got to know Anson in March and we were married in June, seven years ago. He went to war a year from that fall."
Dan looked at her clear profile, her hands, rather large hands for a woman, but beautifully shaped, clasped around her knee. He said, "Are you happy, Christina?"
"Yes," she said thoughtfully. "It's strange, suppose, with Anson so ill, but I am. Are you?"
He felt like saying, "At this moment, I am." But instead, he said, "I like my work; I like living with Leona, at least, most of the time. Just now we're in a certain stage-shaking down, you might call it. Living in New York was more like playing house than real marriage. She kept running off to see her family, or they came up to see her. And there's a queer rootlessness to living as we did, as apartment dwellers in a huge city. It was fun, but it wasn't real. Windover is much more real, or it could be."
There was a little pause before Christina said gently, "Give her time, Dan."
He nodded. But he wasn't thinking of Leona. He was wishing suddenly, and with all his heart, that he could go back seven years. But there was Leona, and Anson ... and even if he could relive that summer, what could he have done-then? Christina had been twenty-four and he had been eighteen.
No, this was better. She was here, sitting beside him. She was like a summer day-warm, yet cool, quiet and wonderfully peaceful. He said slowly, "You've always helped me, Christina. Will you go on?"
"Of course," she said. "Always, Dan."
"No matter what?"
"No matter what."
Their eyes met. Hers were deep, sea-blue, and a little troubled. "Dan, what is it?"
"Nothing-yet," he said truthfully. "Just a feeling."
"I know," she said. "I have those feelings, like premonitions."
"Of course-you must." Thinking of her life with Anson, he felt queerly ashamed. "I'm all right," he said. "But let's be friends-always."
"Always, Dan." Her eyes were still quiet, but her lips trembled for an instant, then regained their composed line. He wanted to lean toward her, to lose himself in the blue of her gaze, drowning deeper and deeper, to kiss her lips until they trembled again, awakened to urgency.
But she had turned away, her head up, listening. "What is it?" he asked.
"A car, I think. It came in, and then turned around."
He smiled. "We've blocked the road. But it doesn't lead anywhere except to this old ford, does it?"
"It goes on and rejoins the other road farther down. Don't you remember?"
"I should. But you showed me so many roads, that summer. We must have covered miles."
She smiled, getting up. "It's late, Dan; the sun is almost down. I must get back."
"Come and have dinner with me. We'll drive somewhere."
She searched his face. "What about your wife?"
"She'll have people for cocktails-Alan Hunt, or someone. She almost always does. I'll telephone that I was held up in Deanebury."
Slowly, her eyes on his, she shook her head. "No, Dan. Sometime, perhaps, but not tonight."
He knew there was no use in trying to persuade her. "Sometime, then." He walked with her to her car. "Good night, Christina. Don't forget."
She didn't ask him what; yet he was certain that she knew he didn't mean dinner sometime, that he meant much more than that. She didn't speak, but her faint smile reassured him. And that was enough for now.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Christina liked to walk in the rain, and when she learned at the garage that it would take half an hour to oil and grease her car, she started off to do some errands on foot. It was a soft, warm rain that fell gently on the thick leaves of the elms, and that lay in pearly drops on her tweed jacket. She got some books for Anson at the library, and then, remembering that she had tried unsuccessfully to get Leona Collier by telephone that morning, she decided to walk around to what she still thought of as the Blake house.
Going up the drive, she thought the house looked deserted; perhaps Leona had gone to Deanebury with Dan. Then she saw Pete Roman's truck standing near the gardener's cottage, and she thought, I'll ask him if anyone is at home. But just then the rain began to fall harder, so she went quickly up the steps of the big house and rang the bell.
There was no answer; she would leave a message with Pete. As she turned from the door, she heard his voice: "Hello. Mrs. Collier's home."
He was standing at the foot of the steps, the rain dripping from the brim of his old felt hat. Christina smiled at him. "Not much of a day for gardening."
"I'm cleaning the cellar. Fenn and his men left a pile of stuff. Ring again. She's in."
"Perhaps she's taking a nap."
He smiled-ironically, for Pete. "Could be. They had quite a party last night, I heard. Dan's gone to Boston, but some of the company's still around, that Hunt fella for one. I heard his voice a while ago."
Christina hesitated. "I don't want to disturb her," she said. But she pressed the bell again, while Pete stood watching.
In the silence, they both heard Leona Collier's voice. "Oh, for heaven's sake! Why can't people leave you alone?" Impatient footsteps crossed the hall, and then the door was jerked open. Christina wondered how she ever could have thought Leona was pretty; now, frowning with annoyance, her face pale and her dark hair tumbled, she looked decidedly plain. "Oh!"
The frown vanished, but there was constraint in her voice as she said, "Hello."
"I won't keep you," Christina said hurriedly. "I stopped by for only a moment to ask-"
Leona interrupted. "Come in-don't stand there in the rain!" But when her guest was in the hall, she didn't suggest her coming into the living room. "You wanted to ask me something?" she said.
"Yes, to help at my table at the church fair. It's Tuesday, a week from tomorrow."
"Which church?"
"The one on the Green."
"Oh." Leona regarded her curiously. "I should think you'd go to the one in the village."
Christina said evenly, "My husband's father was a deacon of the Congregational Church."
"All right," Leona said briefly. "I'll help you."
"That's awfully nice of you. A week from tomorrow, at two." In the silence that followed, Christina was aware of two things: one was the sound of subdued music, as if a radio was turned very low, and the other was the presence of someone in the living room. It wasn't just the smell of fresh cigarette smoke; it was something subtler, yet more definite, the feeling of a person standing in the next room, waiting for Leona to come back, listening.
As if she read Christina's mind, the girl said quickly, "I hope you'll forgive me for not asking you to come in. But we had weekend guests, and one or two of them are staying on because the weather's so rotten." She laughed, shortly. "None of us feel very bright or I'd make you stay for tea or something."
She looked tired, Christina thought; she was very pale-or was it the bright green sweater?-and there were dark lines under her eyes. She narrowed them at Christina. "Don't look so disapproving," she said.
"Was I?" Christina said. "I didn't mean to."
"Oh, I'm sorry." Again that uncomfortable little laugh. "I suppose," she added defiantly, "that you'll tell Dan."
Christina said gently, "My dear child, it's not my business what you do when Dan's away."
"So you know he's in Boston," Leona said. "I suppose he told you he was going, the other day."
Christina stared. "When?"
"The day you met him by the river. You did, you know. I saw you."
So that was who had driven in and turned around! "We simply happened to meet there," she began, and then she stopped. She didn't owe Dan's wife an explanation of her actions, and if Dan thought he did, that was his own affair.
Leona was still watching her, her eyes glittering like topazes in her pale face. Christina felt a curious sense of shock. The girl was jealous-jealous, and angry. More, she was frightened. Christina said quietly, ""I'm very sorry if you think-"
A man's voice cut through her words: "Leona, for God's sake, stop whispering with that gardener of yours and come on back! Johnny and I are both ... Oh, excuse me!"
Christina saw a tall young man standing in the living room doorway. She recognized him. It was Alan Hunt, who taught at the school. She couldn't tell whether or not he recognized her; he merely bowed with exaggerated formality, and disappeared.
The interruption seemed to restore Leona's poise, though two red spots burned her cheeks. "My guests are getting a bit out of hand," she said. "So, if you'll excuse me-I'll come next Tuesday." She added, with a queer smile, "If you still want me."
"Of course I want you. Tuesday, at two."
Leona didn't answer, and Christina went out, as quickly, she thought, as she had left this house a winter day years ago when she had come here with an order from the drugstore. The door closed heavily behind her and the damp air was cool on her face.
She was halfway down the driveway when Pete Romano's truck stopped beside her. "I'll take you to wherever you're going. Did you find her in and the boy friend, too?"
She said, "You mean her guest from New York?"
"Yes, and the Hunt fella. He's getting some competition now. He used to drive over, now he walks. I suppose he don't want people to see his car."
Christina turned to him. "Pete-"
He slowed the truck obediently. "Yes?"
"You don't want to upset Dan, do you?" He shook his head. "Well, then, keep everything you see and hear at his house to yourself."
"Sure." His dark eyes looked a little hurt. "I know what you mean. I was only kidding."
"I know you were. But she's just a child, and-"
"And Dan's a nice fella. I know. Trouble with her, she ain't got enough to do. When my wife was her age, she had three kids."
"Children aren't always the answer, Pete," Christina said.
"Sure, I know," he said. "I like her, though. She's a nice girl, Dan's wife."
"And Windover's a small town."
Pete laughed shortly. "You're telling me? Don't you worry, Christina." They had reached the garage, and he stopped the car. His eyes were thoughtful under the sodden hat brim. "I'll keep my mouth shut," he said. "Don't you worry about anything. You've got enough to think about, or so I hear. So take it easy, will you?"
"I'll try to," she said. "Good-bye, and thanks for the lift."
She drove home slowly. So that was what Dan had meant when he said nothing was the matter-yet. And Leona had seen them together at the river. Remembering her narrowed, glittering look, Christina's cheeks burned again; then her anger was lost in a rush of sympathy for Dan. She's too much for him, she thought. Too young, too spoiled, too passionate and jealous. He asked me to help him, but how can I? I don't want to make things worse between them ... what can I do?
CHAPTER NINE
Alan Hunt felt depressed.
Perhaps it was the deadly grind of teaching that was getting to him. Alan wasn't sure what it was. Small-town life was a problem as well. Everyone knew everyone else's business, and the young bachelor found that to be a bore.
A meeting with the headmaster had been a disaster. The old boy, hardly equipped to deal with scandal, chose his words all too carefully, but the meaning was nevertheless clear: Alan Hunt was to curtail his activities at the Colliers', if you please. The town was talking, and the school wouldn't allow itself to become part of a sensational marital mess.
A young instructor had to be careful, the. head-master said. His career was to be considered. A wise man listens to reason and conforms his actions to its dictates.
Afterward Hunt drove directly to Deanebury. It wasn't much, but at times it seemed almost cosmopolitan compared to Windover. Besides, there was an attractive waitress that Alan Hunt had noticed the last time he was in town. She worked in a dimly-lit, rowdy steak and chop house, as they were called. The food was plentiful and the drinks strong. The name of the place was Reilly's, and Alan Hunt had noticed the young blonde the last time he'd been in for a few whiskeys and something to eat.
Now he hungered for something else, but it was to Reilly's he was going. The young blonde had noticed Alan that night, and she seemed susceptible to the arrogant charm that he affected. It was going to be just what he needed, he thought.
Alan Hunt parked two blocks away from the restaurant-he had taken the headmaster's lecture more to heart than he thought. All I need now, Alan thought as he walked to Reilly's, is to be reported carousing in a place like this!
Inside Reilly's, the dim lights and delicious smells put Alan Hunt at ease. He sat in a booth in the section that was serviced by the young blonde, and lighted a cigarette. Within a few minutes she presented herself for his order.
"A Scotch to start with," Alan said, scanning the menu. "Then a sirlion, thick, rare, and a good salad with it. Another Scotch as well when you bring the steak." He closed the menu and handed it back. Pinned to her shirt was a name tag: Kathy.
"Kathy, what time do you get off?" Alan asked, flicking ashes in the general direction of the ashtray.
Kathy's smile was more of a smirk. She was young, perhaps twenty years old, but her expression showed. "About ten," Kathy asked, a coy look in her eyes. "You got something in mind?"
Alan almost laughed in her face. "I do," he said, "if you're available."
"I can probably manage it." she answered. "I'll bring you that drink now." As she walked off Alan noticed a thick-set young man approaching the table. He stopped Kathy out of Alan's earshot, and, after directing a dirty look Alan's way, said something harsh to Kathy.
But Kathy wasn't going to let the husky young man have the last word. She said something to him, then gave Alan Hunt a sidelong glance that conveyed enough defiance to send the bachelor into an erotic fantasy. There was no doubt that she was going to meet him later on, no matter what her no-neck tormentor thought about it.
Kathy said nothing to Alan when she placed his Scotch on the table before him, but her eyes spoke plenty. Alan chuckled to himself, imagining the busboy's discomfort as his best girl coolly dated up one of the customers. It wasn't his concern, Alan thought. He'd had enough of true love long ago. It always left you in embarrassing positions, making a public spectacle of yourself. He felt nothing for the young man who was so put out by Kathy's actions. He just made sure that he never found himself in a situation like that.
Alan was waiting for Kathy when she walked out of Reilly's precisely at ten o'clock. He had found a parking space directly in front of the restaurant, and as she slid into the passenger's seat, they both felt the excitement beginning to build.
"Want to go somewhere for a drink?" Alan suggested, gunning the engine and setting off toward the highway out of town. There were plenty of motels out there that never asked questions. Alan knew all about them, and he suspected Kathy did as well.
"Why don't we just buy something to drink and go somewhere private?" Kathy suggested in return. Alan grinned and nodded at her response.
A quick stop at a run-down liquor store produced a bottle of decent Scotch, a bag of ice cubes, plastic cups, and two packs of cigarettes.
Ten minutes later, Alan Hunt pulled into the courtyard of Vic's Motor Lodge, a place with which he had had a few dealings. Vic was behind the counter in the manager's office and he smiled when Alan walked in.
"Never knew a man did as much traveling as you do," Vic said. "Stayin' the whole night this time?"
Alan grinned. "Let's hope for the best," he said. He quickly signed in, paid in advance, and picked up the key to room 101.
Alan Hunt parked directly in front of the room and escorted the giggling Kathy inside. "It's so clean!" she exclaimed as she tossed her coat onto the chair by the writing desk. "I've never been in a motel room before!"
Alan opened the bottle of Scotch and mixed two drinks-strong, with much ice. He handed Kathy a glass then raised his own in a toast. "To romance," Alan said. "It makes life worthwhile!"
Kathy clinked her glass against Alan's and took a healthy swig. "Wheww!" Kathy said, placing her glass on the end table by the bed. "You sure mix a strong drink!"
Alan chuckled. "Just to make you relax," he said. "Say-you want to get out of those clothes?"
"Sure," Kathy said. "But I'd like to shower first."
"Before you undress?" Alan could barely repress his contempt.
Kathy laughed. "No, you silly thing! Before we get into bed!"
Alan finished his whiskey and poured another. "Great idea. I'll join you, as a matter-of-fact."
But first, he suggested another drink. By the time Kathy finished her second whiskey, she was ready for anything, which was what Alan liked in a woman.
Alan watched Kathy as she put down her empty glass, then turned to face him. She pulled off her sweater over her head, and Alan felt the first hot surge of excitement as her breasts, still encased in a soft white bra, came into view. She had large, full breasts, and when she unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it Alan saw that Kathy's legs were long and slim, with a muscular look that he liked.
She stood before him, clad only in her bra and panties. Her smile was seductive, and she knew what he wanted to see. She reached behind her and unfastened her bra, and as she removed it, allowing her beautiful pink-tipped breasts to bounce free, Alan sucked in his breath with excitement.
"Like what you see?" Kathy asked.
Alan could not even reply. He walked to her and hugged her tightly, allowing her to feel the answering hardness between his thighs. She pressed her pelvis against him, grinding, and he stepped back and smiled.
Alan was out of his clothes in thirty seconds, and he followed her happily into the shower.
Alan's excitement was growing steadily, and Kathy's warm, wet, sudsy hands ensured his arousal. The warm water beat a sensuous tattoo on their bodies as Kathy knelt in the shower stall and soaped his long, thick tool.
Then she carefully allowed the warm water to rinse over him as she cupped his scrotum in her hand. To encourage her, Alan held her head between his hands and gently guided her mouth to his cock, easing it in, loving the feel of her warm lips encircling his flesh.
Then she was on her own, loving it, working him deeper and deeper. Alan felt like fainting from the pleasure of it but he held on, allowing Kathy to bring him to the point of orgasm before roughly withdrawing from her mouth.
Still kneeling, the buxom girl looked up at Alan with wonder on her face. "Is everything all right? Did I hurt you?"
Alan smiled. "Let's get to bed," he said.
She was fantastic. Alan's arousal had been so complete that he required a cooling-off period, and he accomplished this by slowly kissing every available inch of her warm, fresh body, paying special attention to her full breasts. When he had worked her nipples into two throbbing centers of pleasure, erect and reddened, he moved down to the curly nest between her legs, holding a thigh in each hand. Her legs were relaxed and smooth in his grip and he applied his tongue to her center slowly and lovingly, thrilled as she squirmed and moaned with hot, wet pleasure.
Kathy was out of her mind with hot, raw heat, and Alan knew that the time was right.
He mounted her slowly, edging between her long legs, smiling down at her.
Kathy was eager, impatient with Alan. She grabbed his erect tool and hungrily thrust it between her outstretched legs. Alan felt the soft, wet penetration and pushed forward, entering Kathy completely.
She sighed and he felt her body relax momentarily as he began to thrust expertly, and her hips and pelvis answered his every hot stroke.
Alan had never been with a woman so eager and so expert in her every move. Kathy was young and beautiful, but filled with sexual experience.
She was groaning now, humping hard against him, begging for more. Her lewd talk inflamed Alan and he stroked harder, making her feel every hard inch. She giggled and stroked his head and wrapped her legs around his back and dug her heels in, and Alan lost control and felt the hot surge of orgasm sweeping up from his loins and pouring forth, and her answering pulsations were all he needed. They came together, locked into it, fierce and hot, and later, while Alan smoked and Kathy slept, he thought about how it would be with Leona.
CHAPTER TEN
The little bar was deserted when Leona and Alan Hunt went in. "What is this place, anyway?" Leona asked. "I've never been here before."
"That's why we came," Alan told her. "You must have passed it in the spring when it was an ice-cream stand. Now it's had a second blooming, liquor license and all. Did you ever see so much knotty-pine paneling, or so many knots?"
"Never. Between them and the checked curtains, I have spots before my eyes." She smiled, slipping into a corner booth. "It's terribly empty," she said, looking around. "Almost sinister."
"The Windover Tavern is much more sinister, especially after the movies. We'd meet the school janitor, and Pete Romano, and all the local characters."
Leona said, "You could have had a drink at my house."
"With your husband out "of town?" Alan smiled again. He wasn't handsome, but there was something remarkably attractive about his narrow brown face with the dark, quick eyes, the half-sweet, half-mocking smile. He was so expressive, so completely the opposite of Dan ... he was going on: "After all, my child, Dan must be rather tired of me in the role of the man who came to cocktails. Other people are, too-I'm beginning to hear rumors." Leona frowned. "What kind of rumors?"
"Oh, Millie Pearson dropped a hint the other day." Mrs. Pearson was the wife of the school's headmaster. "I don't remember her exact words, but the general idea was that she'd be better pleased, and so would her husband, if the faculty bachelors stayed on the reservation, especially during the so-called social season."
"She's jealous," Leona said lightly. "The faculty bachelors must be quite a temptation to a woman who's at the dangerous age."
"Do you know how old Millie is?" Leona shook her head. "About ten years older than you-thirty-three, or so. Of course she's gray, but it's rather becoming, don't you think-prematurely white hair and a young face?"
"She looks like an Afghan hound," Leona said. "If you like them, I'm sure she's frightfully attractive."
Alan laughed. "Who did you say was jealous, darling?" She bit her lip as he went on smoothly, "What will you have to drink? Apparently this is self-service. No, sit still and I'll get it. Beer? That's safe, but fattening."
She told him, rather sharply, that she didn't need to worry about her figure-yet-and he went off. She lit a cigarette and leaned back against the wooden bench. Dan had gone to Boston that morning for the second time in two weeks, something about the building whose construction he was overseeing. He had explained it to her, but she had hardly listened. It was better, she thought, not to know too much about your husband's business, and Dan's brand of engineering struck her as peculiarly dull. If he were building a bridge in the Andes, she might get excited, but an electrical plant in New England bored her to death.
"Why don't you come with me?" he had suggested last night. "There's nothing much for you to do here in this vile weather."
Leona shivered. "Think how much viler it will be in Boston, with the east wind. Besides, I promised to do something about the flower show for your friend Mrs. Harwood." She hadn't committed herself about that yet, but she knew the prospect would please Dan. "And anyway," she added, "you won't be away more than a day or two."
"Two days and a night, if I can see the people I want. But I don't like your staying here alone. Can you get Rosa to sleep in the house?"
"Of course. I'll ask her."
But she hadn't asked Rosa, which was just as well, she reflected now. There was no need for the whole town to know that she was out with Alan Hunt, even though the movies in Deanebury were innocent enough and so was a nightcap in a place like this.
He was coming back with their drinks. "The whiskey here is probably poisonous, but I thought I'd try it." He did, and raised his eyebrows. "Not bad at all. Well, this is cozy, isn't it? I wish we'd left that movie sooner-it was pretty awful." Leona nodded, and he said, "You're very silent tonight. Did I upset you, quoting Millie Pearson? Don't mind her-when she came here, she probably had ideas about holding a salon that would be the intellectual and social center of Windover. Though how she dreamed she could, with a stupid athlete like Sam-"
"Is that the way to talk about the man who gave you your job?"
"Millie thinks she did. But don't worry-I'm diplomatically polite, and that's all. Speaking of women who are at the dangerous age," Alan went on cheerfully, "what about the perfect Nordic type who's so devoted to your husband?"
Leona shot him a glance. "I don't know who you mean. Mrs. Barr?"
Alan burst out laughing. "Those two sentences are something of a non sequitur, especially with your expression. Yes, of course-the tall, blonde Mrs. Barr. I'd hardly call her beautiful, though, unless one likes the type, and, apparently, Dan does."
"Oh." Leona drank some beer and managed to speak casually. "He's known her for ages."
"Of course. And her husband is an invalid. A perfect arrangement."
Her flare of anger was at Dan, but she turned it on Alan. "Don't be hateful. You know all about Christina. You've met her at our house. I don't know why you're suddenly trying to create a situation."
"Relax," he said. "It's all created. At least," he added, his dark eyes fixed on her mockingly, "it seemed to be, this morning."
She felt as if someone had struck her. "What about this morning? Dan went to Boston, very early."
"And I went down to the garage very early, to leave my car for the brakes to be taken up. Just as I got there, your husband passed me, apparently headed for the Post Road. Christina was with him."
Leona sat still, a queer coldness gathering in her chest. The other day they had been together at the river, and now this. And in between, Christina's ill-timed call on her, the day they were having drinks in the living room-she and Johnny Parsons, and, of course, Alan. The business about the church fair was an excuse, Leona thought. She was only trying to sound me out, to find how much I knew, or perhaps what I was up to myself. And Dan-the coldness turned into a swelling tide of anger. Dan told me not to overdo certain people, while all the time he....
She didn't finish the thought because she couldn't, not yet. It was bad enough that he had warned her about seeing too much of Alan, blamed her for being indiscreet, while he himself ... her resentment rose higher. Christina probably told him some lurid story about finding the house full of people drinking at three o'clock in the afternoon. Heaven only knows what she told him! And Pete, too-but Pete was nice-easygoing, like most Latins. He was her friend; she trusted him. Christina was different, dangerous. Even Alan, who hardly knew her, had seen that she was devoted to Dan.
Alan was watching her over his empty glass. "You are in a state," he said. "I'm sorry, darling, really. I didn't mean to start anything."
She shrugged. "You didn't. This is an old story-a hangover from a crush Dan had when he was about eighteen. And, speaking of hangovers, do you think it would hurt me to change my mind and have a real drink with you?"
She watched him stroll across to the bar, tall and slim in his flannels and gray tweed jacket. Yes, he was very attractive. I'm glad I went out with Alan tonight, she thought defiantly.
She had a real drink while Alan had two more, and she felt better and better. The tide of anger was still there, but it only lifted her spirits, the way, she thought, a high tide lifts surface waves, tossing them about gaily. She was full of nonsense; she said outrageous things about people that she and Alan knew and they grew hilarious in their corner. As they were laughing together, a party of people came in. Alan gave them a quick look and muttered something under his breath. "What is it?" Leona asked.
"For a minute I thought it was someone from the school. I must be seeing things. Let's have another drink."
"I can't," she said, "and I don't think you ought to, either. It's getting late."
"Just one for the road." When he looked at her that way, he was hard to resist. "Besides, you don't need to get home. Dan's in Boston."
"So he is," she said, as if she had forgotten it, as if the realization didn't make her heart drop sickeningly. "All right, another drink for you, but it's the last. Then we really must go."
She was nervous, and she kept glancing over her shoulder at the people at the big table. Hadn't she seen that blonde, very tanned woman on the golf course? And the gray-haired man looked familiar. Alan drank his drink with irritating slowness. She wished she were at home. And then, as she remembered the empty house, and Dan, she didn't know what she wished. "Come, Alan, do pay the check and let's get along!"
It was raining when they went outside, but not hard enough to dispel the mist that had hung over the countryside all day. She looked at Alan, and said lightly, "I've had only one drink. Will you let me drive?"
"I never let anyone drive my car," he said. "Not even me?"
"Not even you." To emphasize his statement, he leaned over and kissed her. He had kissed her before, but not like this. This was a light kiss, but it was possessive. As if, Leona thought, with a queer little excitement, he were taking more for granted.
Aloud she said, "Then do drive carefully, my dear. It would be horrid to have a smash, tonight of all nights."
Afterward, she wondered if her warning had made him nervous, of if it had simply been coincidence. What happened came suddenly, yet with the horrible inevitability of a nightmare. The queer part of it was that Alan wasn't driving really fast. They were two or three miles from Windover, where the road swung in a long, slow curve downhill to the river. It was very dark; the headlights hardly seemed to penetrate the curtain of rain and fog. Leona sat tensely, her eyes fixed on the half-circle of glass swept clean by the windshield-wiper on her side of the car. Then, out of the darkness came a yellow glow, magnified and diffused by the fog-headlights bearing straight down on them. Alan wrenched the wheel to the right; then, as the other car roared by, he stepped on the brake-too hard, for his big convertible slid sideways in a sickening, front-wheel skid. Leona clenched her hands. The next instant she had pitched forward into solid blackness that exploded into a thousand dazzling flares.
She opened her eyes to a dim world that spun and settled into a steady ache-the pounding in her head. She turned, painfully. Alan was slumped over the wheel, his hands still gripping it. She touched his arm. "Alan."
But he didn't move; the motor had stopped, and there was no sound at all except for the drumming of the rain on the canvas top. Leona looked around. The car seemed to be tipping to the right, but not very sharply; it might be safe to get out. Cautiously she felt for the door handle and stepped into the darkness. It was raining so hard that the beam from the left headlight-the only one still burning-seemed to shine on a stream of tiny bullets. The car, she saw, had swerved to the right, knocked down a state road fence post, snapped the wire cable that formed the top rail, and stopped, its fender and lamp smashed against a telegraph pole. She looked back. The road was dark and apparently empty; the other car must have gone on. She drew a long, quivering breath. At least they hadn't hit anyone. No one was hurt, unless Alan....
She groped her way around to the other side of the car and opened the door, remembering to pull up the emergency brake, for there was a sheer drop on their right. As she put her wet handkerchief to his forehead, Alan stirred, muttered, and sank down again. Panic gripped her. Suppose he was badly hurt-a fractured skull, or a concussion. She must get help somehow. She peered through the rain and saw nothing, not a light or a sign of a house. She thought, I'll have to walk to the village, but I oughtn't to leave Alan.
She didn't know how long she had been standing there, but her flannel topcoat was drenched when she turned, quickly. There had been a sound-a car, overtaking them. Yes, there were lights, coming slowly through the rain. She stepped recklessly into their path, waving her handkerchief. "Stop, please stop!" The lights swung to the far side of her, and for a dreadful moment she thought they were going by. Then the car slowed, a window was lowered, and a man's voice called out, "What's the trouble?"
"We've had an accident."
The door opened and a man got out, followed by a second, shorter man, who came up to her and then stopped abruptly. "Well, for the love of-it's the Collier child! Fancy meeting you here!"
She knew that nasal voice and that small, gnomish figure. It was Philip Malone, the writer, the newcomer to Windover whom Dan hadn't liked. But at least it's someone, she thought, following the men to Alan's car. "And Alan Hunt!" Phil was saying. "What goes on?"
"We turned out for a car and skidded. Alan's knocked out."
"Or passed out," said Malone's friend. "Let's see."
She said nervously, "We ought to get a doctor. It may be dangerous to move him."
But Alan was moving, trying to sit up, muttering, "Leona, what happened? Are you all right?"
"Of course, just a bump. Oh," as he raised his head, and blood ran down his face, "you're hurt."
He tried to grin. "Just another bump. Hello, Malone, where did you drop from?"
After that, things seemed to happen very quickly. Before Leona knew it, Alan was in the back seat of Phil Malone's car and she was in the front between the two men. Phil drove rapidly but skillfully. "We'll have the doctor take a look at you both, and then get you home. I'll call the garage. It's Alan's car, isn't it?"
"Yes. And my house is on the way to Dr. Loring's. I don't need to see him, so if you could drop me first-"
She felt Malone's quick glance. "Afraid young Dan will be worried?"
"Oh, he's away," she said lightly, and instantly regretted having said it. Philip Malone didn't answer, but when they reached her house, he insisted on coming in with her. "Are you sure you'll be all right?" he said. "Your eye'll be black tomorrow."
"That's nothing. I can't thank you enough for rescuing us." She was grateful to him, but she wished he would go; her head ached unbearably; the excitement of the evening and of the accident had worn off, and she felt utterly exhausted.
But Malone lingered, looking down at her quizzically. "Don't worry," he said. "Your secrets are safe with me."
Her cheeks grew hot. "Don't be ridiculous."
He went on, smiling. "It's lucky I came along. It might' so easily have been one of the peasantry, and how they love to talk! Your husband wouldn't like that. I'm afraid he won't, anyway. You'll have to explain your black eye. Tell him I hit you, if you like."
Her flush deepened. "You'd better get Alan to the doctor," she said, "and then to bed."
He nodded, still with that unpleasant little smile. "Bed is a problem, but I think I'll take him out to my house. The headmaster, and his wife, too, will agree with Dan's opinion of this evening's fun. Well, Dan may be lenient. Good night, my child. I hope you won't have too much of a headache, literally and figuratively."
Mechanically, she closed the door after him, locked it, and stood looking around the hall. She pushed her tumbled hair back and winced, touching the lump over her right eye. Phil Malone was right. Dan would be furious. But it was lucky Phil had come along. She thought, He's not small-town-he won't talk. Of course there's his friend, and Dr. Loring, and the garage man who comes for Alan's car. And of course the school....But she couldn't worry about it now; she was too tired. As for Dan, she'd decide what to say to him in the morning.
In spite of a sedative, she slept badly, and woke to realize that she had dreamed of the stone mask that formed the fountain in her mother's garden-a satyr, smiling, or leering, that looked like Phil Malone. She lay remembering the evening before, and fighting down a sense of panic. Nothing was wrong, no matter how it looked. I oughtn't to have let Alan drive, but I couldn't argue with him.
And you didn't want to, she answered herself. After he kissed you, you gave up. You simply let things happen.
Yes, and she had been very foolish, but nothing more. And Dan would understand-he must. Especially, she thought bitterly, when he's probably been foolish himself. Anger made her head ache harder than ever. Dan-Alan-Phil Malone-Millie Pearson-Christina-everyone and everything she thought of made her feel more wretched. There was no comfort anywhere.
Presently, through her trance of misery, she was aware of the sound of a lawn mower. Pete was here, the rain must have stopped. If she talked to him, she might feel more like herself. She got up, did what she could with ice water, makeup, and dark glasses, and went down to the kitchen. She was trying to drink some coffee when the back door opened and Pete's voice said cheerfully, "Hi, Mrs. Collier. Nice day. Say! Who hit you?"
"No one," she said. "I just ran into something."
"In your car?"
She shook her head, silently thanking heaven that they hadn't taken her car. "No. It was a-a sort of accident."
His dark eyes were amused, yet concerned. "What happened to the other fellow?"
She tried to smile back. "He probably looks worse than I do."
"You ought to let Doc Loring take a look at you." He crossed to the sink, ran a glass of water and drank it, watching her reflectively. "Sometimes a bang like that can be pretty bad. You know-concussion. Dan would want you to get it looked after."
"I'll wait until he gets home tonight," she said.
Pete shrugged. "Suit yourself, but you look kinda tough to me."
He started out, and suddenly Leona felt that she couldn't bear to be left alone. She must detain him somehow ... she managed to laugh. "Beefsteak's the thing for a black eye, isn't it? Will you stop at the butcher's when you go home to lunch?"
Pete smiled, but mechanically. He suspects something, she thought. He's disapproving. His manner had changed; he was perfectly respectful and friendly, but there was a difference. She hunted for something to say. "Pete," she said, "can you be confidential? I mean really?"
"You mean keep a secret? Sure. Go ahead."
Encouraged by the warmth in his voice, she said, "What do you think of Christina Barr? I promise it won't go any further, but I have a reason for wanting to know-an important reason. I can't explain, but I wish you'd give me your honest opinion of her."
Pete waited, looking at her thoughtfully. When he spoke there was a trace of his new reserve in his voice. "I'll tell you, Mrs. Collier. I like Christina a lot. Now there are some people in this town-a few of the Italians, and some of the old Yankee families-that don't like the Swedes. I do. I think they're fine people. And there are some Swedes in town who didn't like Christina's pa, Axel Edgren. I did. Maybe," he smiled slightly, "it was because I got to know him back in prohibition days when my old man and I made wine. Anyway, I always had a good time with him. We'd drink it and tell stories and sing, me and my old man and Axel. Christina's different from her pa, but she's a nice girl, friendly and decent, good-looking, too. Anson Barr would never have married her if she hadn't been O.K. People in this town think a lot of Anson, and even the ones who didn't get on with Axel Edgren can't find fault with Christina. She's all right."
"But-" She stopped, biting her lip.
"I will say this," Pete went on. "She's kinda hard to get acquainted with. But when you know her, there's no one nicer. She don't talk too much-she keeps to herself, and that's a rare thing in a woman. Yeah, she's a fine girl." He started for the door.
The finality in his voice and manner angered her. "I don't think she's so fine," she said.
He turned. "Christina didn't give you that black eye, did she?" he asked whimsically. "No, I thought not. Well, Mrs. Collier, you got a right to your own opinion. Never argue with women, is my rule. When Tonia and I got married, I made it, and I've stuck to it, and it works fine. So if you think different from me, go right ahead and think it. Well, I got to get after that grass-it's like hay, with all the rain. See you later."
She sat still, struggling with angry tears. Even Pete, whom she had worked with all summer, whom she had liked, had deserted her. And mingled with her anger was a new and frightening loneliness. Never in all her life had she felt so lost, so miserable. And Dan would be of no help. When she thought of him, she was torn between desire to tell him she had been a fool, to ask him to forgive her, and a wild impulse to rush to the attack, to face him down, and force the truth out of him.
She sat still for a long time. Her tears dried, but her eyes burned. She poured a second cup of tepid, bitter coffee and drank it. Then she put the cup down with a little click, got up, and went into the hall. Her hands were steady, picking up the telephone and dialing a number. But her heart was beating fast as she listened to the buzzing of the bell at the other end of the line. It rang and rang. At last the receiver was lifted and a man's voice, low and toneless, said, "Yes?"
"Is Mrs. Barr there? Oh, Mr. Barr, this is Leona Collier. When do you expect her back? I hate to bother you, but-"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Anson hung up the telephone. The effort of getting to it had exhausted him, as any effort did, nowadays. Martha Johnson was staying with him while Christina was away, and Anson hadn't wanted her to answer it, for it might be Christina. Now he was even more relieved that she hadn't. He looked around the quiet, shabby study; then, with the help of his heavy cane, he dragged himself to the old leather couch and lay down on it. There was no sound in the house, nothing but the voice echoing in his ears. It wasn't the voice he had just heard on the telephone. It was his own. So that's it. That's why she went. She went with him. I ought to have known ... no, I did know.
Two days before, Christina had told him that if he didn't mind, she thought she'd run up to Boston for a night. He had been surprised, for she never went away. He started to ask her why she was going and then thought better of it. If her trip had anything to do with the doctor that Bill Loring had mentioned, he didn't want to hear about it; if it were something else, she would tell him in her own good time. So he was silent, and after a moment Christina said, "I may get back the same night, but I've asked Martha Johnson to get your meals and stay here."
"I don't need anyone," he said. "I can sleep in the study." He glanced at her clear, remote profile, and then looked away, closing his lips firmly.
"It's a stupid sort of trip," she said. "Family business."
Anson remembered that an uncle of hers, her father's brother, lived near Boston. Perhaps he was in trouble, or ill. He might even have died. She was always reticent about her family's affairs; even when a letter came from her mother in Wisconsin, she rarely told him what was in it. Probably she didn't want to bother him now.
She left early the next morning. Anson heard her get up and dress, but he pretended to be asleep; She went downstairs, and later, for he must have dosed, he heard the car go out. She must be driving to Deanebury; a train left there for Boston at eight or eight-thirty.
Without her, the day seemed endless. Martha Johnson, who got his meals and tidied the house, was in her forties; her fiance had been killed in Korea, and she spent her time nursing, working in the library, and doing all the thankless tasks of a small community. Today, she seemed as glad of Anson's silence as he was of hers. He read, wrote a little in the journal he had started two years ago, and stayed indoors, for it was cold and wet. He was reluctant to go to bed, for Christina had said she might be back, and it was late when he sent Martha up to the guest room and lay down on the study couch. Finally he gave up all thought of sleeping and lay listening to the rain and wondering about Christina. The car's brakes were old-she might have had an accident. But in that case she would have telephoned. He slept at last, heavily, woke to a bright day, feeling tired and listless. And then the Collier girl telephoned.
In the beginning, it had seemed like a perfectly innocent call. She simply wanted to tell Christina she was sorry not to have been able to help her at the church fair the week before.
Christina was away? When did he expect her back? Today, Anson said.
"How exciting! She doesn't get away often, does she? Where did she go?"
"To Boston."
He thought the girl caught her breath, but perhaps he was mistaken. "Really? How amusing! My husband went to Boston yesterday, too. You don't suppose they went together by any chance?"
"No, I don't," Anson said stiffly. "My wife went on family business."
"Oh. Did she drive, or take the train?"
"I believe she drove to Deanebury." He checked himself; there was no reason why he should explain Chris to this girl. "Excuse me, but you seem very much interested in my wife's actions."
"Yes," Leona Collier said coolly, "I am. You see, I know that she and my husband left Windover together yesterday."
The pulses were pounding in his temples as if he had just made a tremendous physical effort. But when he spoke, his voice was as cold as hers. "You are entirely mistaken. Good-bye."
It was the first time in his life that he had ever hung up on anyone, but he couldn't be ashamed of his rudeness. He put a hand to his forehead, and was surprised to find it wet. After a time he got up, groped his way to the couch, and lay down, while the voice that was his own echoed again and again: I ought to have known she was with him. I did know....
His mind felt almost as numb as his muscles, but slowly, painfully, he forced it back over the past weeks to the night when he had first felt that new stab of jealousy-the night of the Colliers' housewarming, nearly two months ago. Had Christina been seeing Dan in those weeks? She had told Anson once that she had run into him somewhere-was it in the village?-and Anson had surprised himself by saying, "Why don't you ask them to supper, the Colliers, I mean?"
"I will, if you like. But I thought people tired you too much."
He managed to smile at her. "What if they do? You don't want to live in a prison, or a hospital."
She looked at him without speaking. Then she touched his hand quickly, almost shyly. "I want what you want," she said. "You know that."
"Well, then, ask them."
But the Colliers, it seemed, couldn't come, and apparently Christina didn't try again. But one hot Sunday afternoon Anson awoke from a nap to hear a car driving off. When Christina's footsteps sounded in the hall, he called, "Who was that?"
"Dan Collier stopped to see if I wanted to go swimming. I didn't." Her voice was completely frank and natural, but Anson lay tensely, wondering, Did he come alone? How long was he here?
He thought now, as he watched the brilliant slit of sky between the curtains, There must have been something between them that summer-something terribly real, if it could last seven years-if it could come between Dan and his young wife. But was it true? Had Christina really come between Dan and his wife? How could he know, with nothing to go on but the word of a spoiled, angry girl, and his own invalid fantasies?
Whatever the last were, fantasies or facts, they had distressed him more in the past weeks than he could have believed possible. He was nearly helpless physically; even with two canes he could scarcely drag himself around the house. But his bodily suffering was as nothing compared to his inner turmoil. He couldn't remember a time in his life when he hadn't been the master of his emotions; now he seemed to be at their mercy, and he felt ashamed, as if he had yielded to some unknown enemy. He tried all sorts of mental disciplines; he tried to live in memory, as old people do; he read New England history and biography, and he wrote in his journal about happenings of his boyhood. But there was little help in the past; it was gone, and he was glad. As for the future, it seemed more and more unbearable. He forced himself to read scientific books that required all his attention; but no matter how he struggled to concentrate, he always came back to the present-to Christina, for she was his present. Hearing her as she went about the house, he would wonder what she was thinking and feeling. Was she counting every moment until she could see Dan Collier again? Did she meet him when she went to the village? She used to go in the morning; now she seemed to prefer the late afternoon. When Anson remarked on that, she told him that in the mornings the stores were too crowded with summer people.
"At four or five in the afternoon they're playing tennis or swimming or having cocktail parties, and it's much easier to shop. You don't mind my going then, Anson?"
"Of course not," he said. She was standing with her head a little bent, her eyes absent. He thought-or was he imagining?-that the creamy warmth of her skin had paled lately. Certainly there were blue shadows under her eyes. "Chris," he said, "are you-do you feel all right?"
She turned quickly. "Of course. Why?"
"No reason, except that you look rather white."
"You know I never tan. And it's been hot, lately."
"You must get out more. Have the Colliers asked you to go swimming again?"
"Once, in the evening. Don't you remember-they telephoned? But I don't like swimming at night. It frightens me."
That was odd, he thought; he had never known her to be afraid of anything. But what did he know? Lately he had begun to feel sure of nothing. At times he felt such hopelessness of confusion that he wondered if the disease were progressing from the nerves of his spine upward, to his brain. He thought, I can't lose my reason; that will be too much for Chris to bear. I won't. But what if I do? What if I'm losing it now, and don't realize it? And how will it all end-and when?
At such moments of panic he almost wished he had gone to see the famous neurosurgeon in Boston, who, Dr. Loring was convinced, could answer that question. But he knew the answer himself without being told. Christina mustn't know it; that was the thought he clung to throughout the summer nights when he lay, too tense for sleep, and when he knew that she, too, was sleepless. If she knew, and loved Dan Collier, she would be hopelessly torn. Everything in Anson shrank from that picture: Christina nursing him, assuming a solicitude she couldn't possibly feel, and Dan in the background, waiting. He imagined what they would say to each other at their brief, stolen meetings: "How is he today?"
"Just the same," she would answer. And Dan, clenching his hands, "This mustn't go on. I can't bear it for you."
And Anson Barr couldn't bear it for himself. His death was his own affair. No one must intrude on it, not even the woman whom he loved and had married. And if, on the other hand, she weren't in love with Dan, if, as Anson had always believed, she really loved him, she would be too unhappy knowing the truth. The solution was simple: she must never know. He thought, I've kept my own knowledge for months, and I can go on keeping it, even if she and Dan are in love with each other.
Even. She and Dan were together now, if that girl, Dan's wife, was right. She must have left the car in the village and driven to Boston with him. He frowned at the ceiling. It was unlike Christina to go away like this, no matter how she felt. She rarely did things on impulse; she was so calm, so clear-minded, so wonderfully sane. Anson thought, Suppose I've simply built up the whole thing; suppose she really has gone to see her uncle. Perhaps Dan met her in the village, discovered that she was going to Boston, and offered to drive her. Yes, that's possible. But why didn't she tell me, if it was an innocent plan? I could bear anything, if I knew-anything at all.
But the other half of his mind answered: If she came and told you she loved Dan, could you bear it? Isn't that the one thing you'd rather not know?
"Yes." He spoke aloud. "Yes, it's the only thing, because I've faced everything else. But I must face this, too."
He didn't know how long he lay there. The room, the house, the outside world, were wrapped in stillness. He felt the noon sunlight stealing between the drawn shades, and he heard a humming of bees in the late-flowering vine outside the window. It was August; already the grass was dusty and the thick leaves of the elms were changing color. The year was turning; the world was going on. Those trees had stood since long before he was born; they would stand long after he died. What did the death of one man-what did his loves and his griefs, his hopes and sufferings, his desires and dreams-what did they matter? Nature endured, and, as he had always known, nature wouldn't fail him. She would give him strength to die when the time came.
He must have slept, for when he opened his eyes he felt relaxed, even happy. Some weight had been lifted. He felt as if he had traveled a million miles while he slept, beyond jealousy, beyond possessive love, even beyond pain. It was as if he stood on a hilltop....
Footsteps sounded in the hall; it must be Martha Johnson bringing his lunch. For a moment he was annoyed; he didn't want this mood to be broken. Then he felt ashamed, thinking of how good Martha was, and what a deadly life she had, and he turned his head to speak to her.
He couldn't believe his eyes. "Chris! When did you-"
She smiled at him serenely over the laden tray. "Just a few minutes ago. I took Martha home-she said you were asleep-and came back. She'd left lunch ready, except the soup. I'd forgotten to tell her you liked something hot."
She spoke as matter-of-factly as if she had seen him ten minutes before, as if she had never been away. He pulled himself up on the couch, his eyes still on her face. "Chris," he said. "Chris-"
"What's the matter, Anson? Have you been dreaming?"
"Yes," he said slowly. "Perhaps I have."
While he ate his lunch she sat in the little rocking chair that had been his grandmother's. She had changed back into her country clothes; she wore a blue cotton dress, and her slim legs were bare. She said how warm it had grown since the rain, and asked if Martha had taken good care of him. She seemed neither abstracted nor keyed up; she was utterly quiet and natural. But when he finished, instead of taking his tray out to the kitchen, she put it on the old desk and sat down again. "Anson," she said, "I want to tell you something."
It was coming, everything he had feared. Yet, apart from the first involuntary stiffening, he felt no pain. The strange calmness with which he had awakened still held him. "Yes, Chris?"
"I didn't tell you the truth about my trip to Boston. I let you think I was going to see Uncle Magnus, but instead I went to see the surgeon Bill Loring told us about-Dr. Mark Sanderson."
A week ago, no, this very morning, Anson would have been swept with conflicting feelings-anger at her for going against his wishes; relief that she had gone; and perhaps fear. Now he felt only a strange detachment that must, he thought, be very like Christina's own. Or was it? He was silent, looking at his wife as if seeing her for the first time.
She went on: "I've been wanting you to see him. You are worse, you know, and lately I've been so worried that sometimes-well, sometimes I thought I couldn't bear it. But you wouldn't go to Boston and I didn't want to nag you about it. So when I found out that Dan Collier knew Dr. Sanderson's son, and had roomed with him in college, I decided to go myself, to ask him if he would come to see you." She stopped, drew a breath and went on. "I didn't tell you because I was afraid you would be angry. Perhaps you wouldn't have been, but I couldn't risk your refusing to let me go. I had to see him."
"And did you?"
"Yes, yesterday afternoon at five. It was too late to get back, so I stayed with my cousins."
"But Dan Collier drove you over?"
"Yes. How did you know? I suppose someone saw us. I didn't tell you he was driving me, because I know how you hate to have people talk about your affairs. But I can trust Dan not to speak. He promised not to tell anyone I was seeing Dr. Sanderson, not even his wife."
Anson frowned, remembering Leona Collier's telephone call. But he didn't speak; there was no need to bother Chris about that. Let Dan handle his own wife, if he could.
Christina was going on: "I left the car at the garage-it needed some repairs, you know-and Dan drove me all the way. I came back this morning by the first train, the one that reaches Deanebury at half-past twelve, took the bus to Windover, picked up the car, and," she smiled, "here I am."
"You don't look as if you'd been three hundred miles in thirty hours," he said. Nor did she look, he added silently, like a woman who had been away with a man she loved. She looked as rested and refreshed as a child.
"I like traveling by train," she said. "It's such fun to watch people, especially on early trains like that one."
"What happened to Collier?"
"I didn't see him after he took me to Dr. Sanderson's office and introduced me. He said that if he finished his work he would drive back sometime this afternoon. But of course I couldn't wait."
"Didn't you want to?" The words were out before he could check them.
"Stay on in Boston? Oh no. I wanted to get home. I was worried about you. Martha Johnson is a nice lady, but her cooking-" She wrinkled her nose. "From the smell in the kitchen, I could tell that your breakfast coffee was bitter."
"It was," he admitted, smiling. And suddenly, he wanted to do more than smile; he wanted to roar with a tremendous, Jovian mirth. Christina was amazing. She loved early-morning trains; she wanted to get home because she was afraid his breakfast coffee had been bitter. He thought, Does a woman talk that way to her husband when she's in love with another man-I'm damned if I know. And I'm damned if I'll ever know Christina, even if I live to be ninety. But I don't ask to. All I ask is to love her.
She was looking at him with her faint, questioning smile. "You must feel better," she said. "Your sleep did you good." Then her face changed. "Anson, will you let him come?"
"The surgeon?" He sobered. "I don't know. What is he like? Did he agree to come here?"
"Yes. Of course, he would rather see you in Boston, in the hospital, but there are some tests he can make here. I'm supposed to telephone him if you want to see him. He has a vacation soon, and he can drive up here." She added, seriously, "He's a wonderful man, Anson. Small and gray and quiet, not at all like a great doctor. He seemed almost shy of me. But he listened to everything I told him, and he promised to come, if you'll let him. Will you?"
Their eyes met. And under her calm gravity, he saw a look he had never seen in Christina's eyes before, a flash of fear, almost of desperation. It was as if she were saying: "I can't bear this alone, Anson. You must help me."
He answered that silent plea. "Yes, Chris. Tell the doctor to come whenever he can-whenever you like."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dan turned from the driveway and went up the front steps-slowly, for he wanted to put off being alone with Leona as long as possible. He knew there would be a scene. It was surprising that she hadn't made one ten minutes ago, in front of the Harwoods'. Perhaps she had been too shocked into silence by what she had overheard Mrs. Harwood say to Dan; perhaps, in spite of her anger and hurt, she had been childishly fascinated by seeing a woman of sixty blush scarlet, and seeing her husband, who, with Leona, had come in from the garden in time to catch his wife's last sentence, even more upset. Watching them, Leona might have forgotten her own feelings. But only for a moment, because Mrs. Harwood had by no means struck her colors. She had turned to Leona, her brown eyes steady in her flushed face, and said, "I've been giving Dan a little advice, my dear. I'm sure he'll tell it to you tactfully, and that you'll both forgive me."
"Come, Marian." Of the two, John Harwood was the more embarrassed. "We really must go." He turned quickly to Leona. "Thank you for showing me your beautiful garden. Good night."
She gave him her hand mechanically, and stood perfectly still as Mrs. Harwood said, "Good night, Leona. I've known Dan since he was a child. That's one reason I've spoken so frankly. The other-but I'm sure you'll understand."
"Dan may," Leona said in a small, cold voice. "I shan't, but that won't matter to you, will it?"
Both the Harwoods were silent as Dan walked with them to the car, but before she got in, Mrs. Harwood pressed his hand and murmured, "I'm so sorry, Dan."
"Please don't be-it's all right."
But, but it wasn't all right. The minute he went into the house he would be plunged into a quarrel worse than any of the arguments that had raged intermittently ever since the night he got back from Boston, to find Leona walking up and down the living room, white with suspicion and jealous anger. He had reminded himself then that it was unheard-of luck she hadn't been hurt in Alan Hunt's car. Still, with all the self-control and tact he could summon, it had been a bad evening.
This one would be worse. He smoked a cigarette and cursed Mrs. Harwood silently to himself. If she had wanted to discuss Leona's shortcomings with him, she could have done it privately, in her own house. But she had come to call, with her husband, for the obvious purpose of a talk with Dan, and she had managed it so crudely.
"Leona, do show John your garden! Your zinnias are too lovely!" And the moment her husband and Leona were out of sight, she had begun, and hadn't stopped until thay were outside the French doors, and well within hearing. Poor Leona, Dan thought. I don't blame her for being upset and angry. Even if she had been riding for a fall all summer ... I wish I knew the best way to help her.
He lingered outside, breathing the night air that smelled of damp earth and dead leaves. Tomorrow was Labor Day; the summer was over. And tomorrow, Christina had told him, Dr. Sanderson was coming to see Anson. This time tomorrow she would know the truth-if anyone could know. He tried to think about Christina, to imagine how she would handle Leona if she were here now. On their drive to Boston he had talked to her a little about his difficulties, and she had said, "Just don't fight, Dan. Simply refuse to quarrel with her." And he had told her rather wryly that she didn't know Leona. Christina had answered, "Maybe I know her better than you think," and he had wondered what she meant.
Well, he must go in. He found Leona walking around the living room, emptying ashtrays and rearranging pillows with impatient, jerky motions. Her face was white, her lips compressed. Dan thought, Maybe we can skip the whole thing. If I talk about something else....
But she had swung around and was looking at him, her tawny eyes bright with anger. "Well? Let's have it. And don't ask me what I mean, because you know perfectly well. I want the rest of that woman's attack on me. I heard enough to know that she must have said a lot more."
Dan took out a cigarette. "How much did you hear?" he asked quietly.
"The last two-and-a-half sentences." She imitated Mrs. Harwood's italics. " 'At heart, I'm sure she's a nice child, and I'm only telling you this for your own protection-and hers. After all, I introduced her to Windover, and I feel responsible-" She broke off, abruptly, then she flung out, "What was she telling you for your own good-and mine?"
He sat down on a corner of the sofa. "Oh, you can imagine, darling. She thought you were rather indiscreet in seeing so much of Alan Hunt."
Leona cut in impatiently. "I've seen him exactly once in the last ten days. He came to say good-bye before he went away for his vacation. What else did she say? Go on!"
"Well," he said carefully, "she spoke of the accident, of course, but she admitted that it could have happened to anyone."
"Kind of her," Leona snapped. "What else?"
"She-Oh, Leona, why do we have to go into all this? It's over and done with."
"Apparently it isn't," she said grimly, "if that old harridan is still gossiping about me."
"Darling," he said, "she's been trying to stop the gossip. Maybe she isn't succeeding, but that's what she told me. Philip Malone made ' quite a story out of finding you and Alan in the ditch, and so did the man who towed the car away and-"
"Who else?"
"Well, Pearson, the head of the school, was rather upset." He hesitated, studying the end of his cigarette. I suppose she'd better hear it from me, he thought.
But she was rushing on. "Upset! He's an old woman! Anyone could skid on a wet road and hit a telephone pole!"
"Of course," he agreed. "Pearson is probably a fool. But he's decided to replace Alan on the faculty this fall."
Leona's face grew even paler; then hot color rushed into her cheeks. "You mean because of that stupid accident?"
"It wasn't just the accident. It was-remember, you asked for this-it was the fact that he'd been neglecting his work, seeing too much of a married woman. And it's true," Dan said slowly. "He has been here all summer, playing tennis with you, swimming, having cocktails. Pearson wanted to speak to him about it before, but didn't, and then came the accident. And he was tight, Leona. You told me so that night."
"He'd been drinking, but I wouldn't have let him drive if he'd been really-Oh," she went on, her voice shaking with anger, "it's the most outrageous treatment I've ever heard of! To dismiss him for a little thing like that."
"He wasn't publicly dismissed," Dan said. "Pearson is announcing that he's on a leave of absence and that his place is being filled by a former faculty member."
"I see. And Mrs. Harwood came here tonight to warn you about your wife-to make sure she didn't lead any more young men astray. Was that it?"
"No," Dan said. "Not really. She-oh, Leona, you know all about a woman like that. She's lived here forever, and she thinks-"
"She's the Dowager Duchess of Windover, and the self-appointed guardian of its morals. She's responsible for us because she gave a stuffy cocktail party last spring and got me to do a lot of deadly garden club stuff." She stood still, her eyes blazing, red spots flaring in her white cheeks. "And what did you have to say about it all?"
"I told her that you and I had seen a lot of Alan, and that we were all three good friends, and that any gossip she had heard had no foundation. I said the accident was simply one of those things."
She broke in, her voice rising, "Did you tell her that it was disgraceful that I should be talked about? Did you tell her that the head of the school was a self-righteous fool and that his wife was a jealous harpy, and that it was none of their business-and certainly none of Mrs. Harwood's-what I did or whom I saw? Did you?"
"Not in so many words," he said dryly. "But I made it fairly clear."
"No," she insisted, "but what did you say?" Before he could answer, she went on: "I suppose you explained to her that I was young and flighty, but that from now on you'd try to keep me in hand. Was that it?"
"Listen, Leona, we've talked enough about this."
But she wouldn't be stopped; she was working herself into a blind, hysterical rage. "You couldn't defend me, I suppose," she said. "You couldn't tell that-that woman to mind her own business. No, you had to make excuses for me, as if I'd done something really wrong. When all the time you-you-" She choked and stopped.
He asked, very quietly, "What about me?"
She faced him, her eyes blazing. "You haven't managed to avoid gossip yourself, you know. You've been seen everywhere with Christina Barr. The whole town is talking about your not-so-secret trip to Boston."
"Leona." The harshness in his voice surprised him. "I told you all about that when I got back. I drove Christina to Boston on private business of her own, business that I knew nothing about. I left her there, and she took the train back."
"But why didn't you tell me you were going? Why were you so, so furtive about it?"
"I've explained that about four times," he said wearily. "Christina didn't like to bother Anson with her private affairs. He's ill, as you know. She didn't want to worry him."
"I should think," Leona said, "that it would worry him a good deal more to have her meet you at seven in the morning. I told you that you were seen in the village, but I won't tell you who saw you. You went off with her openly, and yet you lecture me about being indiscreet!" A fresh gust of anger shook her. "How you dare, and how that Harwood woman dared! She came here to our house to criticize me, and you let her. You let her call your wife an immoral little beast."
"Leona, she didn't"
"You didn't even try to stop her! I know you-you hate fights and arguments. Anything to stay out of trouble. Well," Leona said, "that's not my way. I'm a fighter. I ought to have had it out with that woman tonight, and I'm going to tomorrow."
"You're going to do nothing of the kind."
"Really?" She challenged him, a slim, furious figure. "What do you suggest?"
"That we act as if nothing had happened-go about our business, meet our friends-yes, friends, Leona. Go to the Labor Day dance at the club tomorrow night together."
"Yes," she said bitterly. "Make a public announcement that I'm forgiven, that you're willing to be seen with me, that you're making an honest woman out of me! So that's your idea! Well, it isn't mine."
"Then you're more of a fool than I thought," he said curtly. "It's the only way to kill the gossip about you and Hunt."
"And what of the gossip about you and Christina Barr? Alan's going away, but Christina is still here." Leona drew a breath and spoke deliberately. "You can keep me in order," she said, "but Anson Barr is an invalid. He doesn't know what his wife is up to."
"Leona!" Until this moment, his anger had been under control; now he was on fire with rage that he had never felt toward anyone before. There was something glorious, almost exalted, about such anger. He didn't want to control it. But habit, some discipline deeper than his will, made him speak quietly. "Leona, you are not to say one word against Christina Barr, to anyone. If you do-" He stopped.
"And if I do?" She mocked him. "I suppose you'll divorce me and marry her. It would be convenient if her husband died, wouldn't it? Wonderfully convenient."
He clenched his hands. "You are not to talk like that, Leona," he repeated stonily.
"Is that your last word?" He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. The silence was like steel, like a sword between them. "I see," she said. "You've made it all beautifully clear. And this is my last word. Would you like to hear it?"
"Certainly."
Her eyes gleamed, but coldly now, and her voice was dangerously calm. "If you don't defend me, if you don't go to Mrs. Harwood and tell her that she is an interfering old woman who must keep out of my life and yours; if you don't go to the head of the school and tell him the same thing, if you don't go on a regular crusade telling Windover the truth about me, I shall leave you. I mean it, Dan. I'll leave you tomorrow."
He knew that in spite of her momentary calm, she was hysterical with rage and hurt pride; he knew that she was an overwrought child and that he ought to quiet her, even comfort her. But her words about Christina still echoed in his ears, holding him silent and motionless.
"Well?" Her words were like acid, biting into the stillness. "Will you do what I ask, Dan? Will you defend me?"
"No," he said. "Not that way."
She looked down at him, her face hardening. Then without another word, she turned and went out of the room. He heard her high-heeled sandals cross the floor, go up the stairs and along the upper hallway.
His anger had ebbed, and he felt nothing but a sick weariness. He got up at last, turned out the lights, and went upstairs. He heard her walking about, then again on the stairs.
It had all turned sour and Dan felt powerless in the face of it. He could live with the rumors and the scandal as long as he believed that it was the product of provincial narrow-mindedness. But this was something else. Leona had changed, slowly, but dramatically.
She was vile most of the time. Bitter and sniping, not at all herself. Or was this the real Leona, Dan wondered, the Leona he would have to live with the rest of his life?
She entered the room and stood in front of him, her hands on her hips-her usual pose. "Well?" she asked.
Dan felt exhausted. "Well, what?"
"Have you made up your mind?"
"About what?"
Her anger was a visible, ugly thing. "About defending your own wife to that shrew!" Leona screamed at him.
Suddenly, for the first time in his life, Dan slapped her. He stood up, dropped the book he had been reading to the floor, and slapped her hard across the face. Leona reeled back, her expression a mix of anger, surprise, and pain.
"How's that?" Dan asked crisply. He advanced toward her and she squealed and ran for the bedroom.
Leona tried to lock the door before he got there but she failed and he pushed in angrily. She ran around to the other side of the bed, trying to think how to handle him.
"Get in bed, "he said.
"Are you crazy?" Leona asked.
"Stupid maybe, but not crazy," Dan answered. She tried to run around the bed but he caught her and threw her onto the bed.
Leona was gasping for breath. She had never seen Dan like this. She feared that he had lost his mind. Even the expression on his face was different. Fierce, angry, filled with emotion. She wanted to escape any way that she could.
He began to undress.
Leona bit her lip. There was no doubt about it. He must have lost his mind, she thought. He had never acted like this in all the years she'd known him.
Still, there was an odd excitement to it, a warm feeling that Leona enjoyed.
She watched as he stepped from his pants and pulled down his shorts. His erect cock popped forth from its nest of curls.
Leona smiled. She could handle him if that was all he wanted, she thought.
He slapped her again, sending her tumbling across the bed. The suddenness of the blow-the surprise of it-made it hurt even more than the first. Groggy now, Leona turned to him and saw that he was grinning.
"Strip," he said quietly.
She opened her mouth to say something, but then thought better of it. There was no reasoning with him now, Leona could see that.
"I said strip!" Dan screamed. Leona scurried to the far side of the bed.
Dan started after her. "OK," Leona said quickly. She stood up and began taking off her clothing. Dan watched with a smirk on his face. "Hold it, "he said.
Dan walked to the bedroom radio and turned it on. He tuned it a station playing loud, raucous music. "Just something to add more color to the moment," he said, a leering grin on his face.
Leona was watching him carefully. It was the most bizarre situation she had ever encountered. Especially with Dan, that paragon of normal, clear-headed behavior. She almost wanted to tell him that she liked him this way, but it might prove to be too much.
She listened to the music, getting the hard, fast rhythm down, then began moving with it, tossing her hips, shaking her full breasts as the beat got to her.
Dan watched, enjoying the spectacle of his wife doing exactly as he said. It gave him a feeling of power, of domination, and he liked it.
He liked the raw, hot feeling of it, the imposition of his will on her. In a way he was ashamed of himself and he knew that he would feel guilty about it later. But for now he was going to enjoy it and he didn't much care if Leona did or not.
She had never enjoyed oral sex, and Dan knew it. He knew that the only reason she did it was to please him, and then only when he was the passive partner. She had never allowed Dan to pleasure her.
Tonight was going to be different.
Leona was naked now, still dancing, a lewd, wanton exhibition of her inner soul. She was breathtaking, a perfect whore about it, Dan thought. Still, it was tremendously sexy and it was driving him crazy.
He knew that in the privacy of her mind Leona was dancing for other men, loving their arousal, taking delight in their moans of pleasure.
He could see it on her face. She was lost, somewhere else, safe from him. He walked around the bed and grabbed her by the arm and led her to the easy chair.
It snapped her out of it. She looked at him with a question in her eyes. He turned her around and pushed her down into the soft velvet chair.
"Put your legs on the arm rests," he said. "I want to see you!"
She smiled coyly, and it only added to Dan's considerable heat. She placed her legs over the armrests and slid down in the chair.
Dan could see that she was already aroused and ready.
He knelt before her and when she tried to her legs close he grasped each thigh in his hands and ducked his head between her legs, licking avidly, probing her flesh, loving the manner in which Leona threw back her head in sudden hot pleasure. She loved it and Dan knew she would. She was eager for it now, humping forward, anxious to garner as much of his tongue as possible.
She climaxed loudly, trying to force her legs closed but still restrained by Dan's strong hands. She locked her fingers in his thick hair and urged him on, pushing herself against his mouth.
But he had had enough.
He stood and when she leaned forward, eager to orally satisfy him, hungry for his orgasm, he pushed her back and told her to stand up.
Then he walked her around the velvet easy chair and bent her forward, and, gripping her hips, plunged into her from behind.
She gasped as he entered, then furiously pushed back against him, eager to get it all. He sank his fingers into the flesh of her hips and pulled her back to him, feeling the satisfaction of deep, throbbing penetration.
She was moaning, deep in her orgasms, unaware of where she was or who was with her. He savaged her, a series of powerful strokes that made her legs tremble and wobble, but still she hung on, ready for the rest of it.
And then Dan was lost in it himself, his mouth open, his loins hot and churning. His orgasm was copious, soothing and easing the terrible burning between Leona's legs.
They did not speak for the rest of the night.
Leona did not sleep much either. She was thinking, thinking so hard she was forced to get up once and take a couple of aspirins, to drive the headache away. She returned to the guest room.
She knew what she had to do, but she didn't know if she had the courage to do it. She must bluff him ... leave him ... and make him come to her on his knees.
But what if he called her bluff?
Well, what will be will be, she had decided before dawn. Either she was going to run this game or there wasn't going to be a game! She'd been through these kind of crises in her younger life, often. And she had always won out. She always got her way. And she would this time, too.
In the morning, waking to a silent house, he remembered that it was a holiday. Leona was probably asleep. They'd poured out their anger, Dan thought, and now she could relax. He hoped that was what Leona was doing.
But when he left his room he saw that the guest room door was open and the bed made. She must be up. Then, halfway downstairs, he saw her note-a sheet of paper propped up on the hall table. He knew what it would say before he read it.
After last night, I can't stay in Windover any longer. You can't expect me to. I have gone to my family's house in Edgartown. You can reach me there when you have decided what to do. You know what I want, and I haven't changed my mind.
Leona.
I have taken the small car.
He read the note through twice, put it in his pocket, and went to the telephone. "Christina? Would it bother you if I ran out for a moment? I won't keep you long."
Twenty minutes later, he had described the evening briefly, and had shown her Leona's note. As she read it, the liquid September sunlight touched her bright hair and her face, which was thinner than it used to be, its high cheekbones more sharply defined. When she looked up, he asked, "Well-what shall I do?"
She said slowly, "I should do nothing. She expects you to follow her, to beg her to come back. She's like a child that wants to be teased out of its corner. I wouldn't do it, Dan."
"But her family-"
Christina shrugged. It was the most nearly cynical gesture he had ever seen her make. "If you're afraid of what she'll tell them, go after her. But I wouldn't. She's a spoiled child, and you've helped to spoil her. I'd leave her alone."
He said, thinking aloud, "But if she doesn't come back-"
"Do you want her to?" she asked unexpectedly. "Do you love her, Dan? I've never been quite sure."
"I'm not sure, either," he said. "Sometimes I love her very much. But when she's like this-" He frowned.
Christina's eyes were on him. "She won't always be like this. It depends on you."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you sometime. But now I must go to Anson. This is the day Dr. Sanderson is coming."
"Christina!" He felt ashamed of his selfishness. "I'd forgotten. You shouldn't have let me come."
She smiled, giving him the note. "I'm glad you wanted to, Dan."
"Wanted to! If you knew-" He stopped, and went on in another tone, "You're right about Leona. I won't follow her to her family's. She'll come back, and if she doesn't-" He left the sentence hanging in the air.
But she didn't finish it for him. She only said, "I think she'll come back."
Afterward, driving home, he remembered the note in her voice when she had said that. It had held a queer finality, almost a sadness. He wanted, suddenly, to turn around and go back, to ask if he might sit in her garden, not bothering her or talking, simply being there, near her. But that was impossible; she had too much already, with Anson, and with the doctor's coming. His mouth tightened. On the drive to Boston she had told him about Anson's illness-not much, but enough to make him see what she had gone through in the last three years. And the amazing thing was that with it all she hadn't changed; she hadn't become embittered or hard or martyred, or even painfully good. She had simply stayed herself, the same person he had known seven years ago, with the same wonderful sanity, the same gift of accepting life. And death, too. For she knew that it might be death. During that drive, so like their old drives together, yet so strangely different, Dan realized that she had faced the future, no matter what it would bring. Well, today she would know.
He thought, Thank God for Mark Sanderson! At least that was one thing I could do for her-take her to see him, and persuade him to come here. If only I could do more. But there's nothing now but to wait, as she is waiting, and Anson, too.
But Leona did not come back, and in a way, Anson never did either. Just a week after Leona's departure, Anson's heart gave out-from the strain of dragging himself around so long, the doctor said-and at the funeral Dan stood by Christina's side, for all the town to see.
Life has a way of timing things. It was the very moment that Dan returned home from the funeral that the process server arrived and presented him with Leona's divorce papers.
Christina and Dan had dinner together that evening.
