When Tom died, Mildred suffered the tortures of the damned, alone ... but not for long. Vance Hager saw to that, persuading her to marry him; to be a mother to his two children, and to share all her delights with Vance. Even that was not enough for the torrid Mildred ... so she found Rafe, of the dark, brooding eyes, alone in the wild forest, little suspecting that Vance, too, was finding outside degradation with Nela Varese, in the seclusion of her wanton apartment. Then Rafe takes Mildred on a tour of Cow Hollow, the disgusting tar paper slum that leads them to the deserted mansion where they find bliss amid the ghostly shadows ... while only Armand Beck watches, quietly and unseen. Then, due to a misunderstanding on Verne's part, all hell breaks loose and the wantons, one by one, find the hounds of the devil waiting to claim their vengeance from each shame drifter ... with blood and death their symbol of shame....
CHAPTER ONE
Spring came late to Garns county that year. There were cold snaps in early April. Then greenup occurred almost overnight, the eager earth straining to keep its annual appointment with spring.
Mildred Hager thrilled to the sudden change and allowed restlessness to take over and send her wandering. On this particular day in mid-April, the sky was a heart-breaking shade of deep blue and a soft, warm breeze was blowing out of nearby Connecticut.
Mildred's restlessness was mental, but also a physical thing that twanged at her nerve-ends and filled her mind with uneasy thoughts:
He has not touched me for three months. What does that mean? Perhaps nothing. This could be a natural lull in a husband-wife relationship after eighteen married months. This could mean nothing or this could be the beginning of the end.
Mildred Hager jerked angrily at her mind and broke that train of thought. She was a tall, graceful woman, long-legged, erect, nothing fragile about her. A green scarf now covered her wealth of rich, coppery hair. It had been touched up, but what didn't come out of a bottle these days? Hair coloring, panaceas for losing and gaining weight, formulas for the eternal battle against age-
Yes, and moral codes, too; social patterns expertly manufactured and well advertised. Read the labels and take your choice.
Mildred Hager stopped to take a deep breath and let the soft wind blow on her face. She'd hiked out into the rough, rocky, wooded section of Garns County east of Warrenton and Rebel Hill and now she was facing a steep bluff.
Her deep breath may have been in preparation for the climb, but the pause was to wonder if her thinking had grown morbid. And as she stoop there pondering the point, she made an arresting picture.
Mildred was thirty-eight years old but her true physical age was closer to thirty. She was a woman whose prime had spanned a longer than usual period. There were no lines in the rich, faintly tanned skin of her face and neck. There were no sags or telltale droopings of flesh.
How had Tim put it that day in New Orleans? "The years will never touch you, my darling. Your vitality is too much a part of you."
She had been Mildred Bendixon then, with life a wild, carefree, infinitely wonderful thing. They had had a night of love in that quaint French hotel, a Friday with a football game coming the next afternoon, a game Tom would watch from the press box while he shaped his story for the New York Sunday Dispatch.
After saying that, Tom had taken her in his arms again and she'd cried and said, "Tom, oh, Tom, you've spoiled me for any other man." A stupid thing to say, because there would never be any further need of men. But blindly prophetic, too, because now Tom was gone and that life was gone, its wonder ended; nothing now but a memory of a long-gone dream.
She'd fought that memory valiantly and had been sure of a victory. But now it was suddenly clear again.
Yes, Mildred told herself firmly. Her thinking was morbid. It somehow smacked of infidelity, because she was now Mildred Hager and she had a husband and two ready-made children and a life far richer and more satisfying than the old one.
But ordering thoughts away and forcing them from her mind was the difference between the intellectual and the emotional. They returned lik mocking ghosts.
"You're a volcano, a lovely volcano, that needs exploding at regular intervals."
Tom had said that, too.
Mildred fought the memory, more fiercely now since it would not leave of its own accord. And she discovered that during the skirmish, she'd climbed the hill and was now standing at the edge of the sharp precipice on the far side. Again, she breathed deeply, drawing her diaphragm in; lifting her breasts high; lowering them slowly.
The climb had not tired her. Except for aching calves there had been no physical reaction. And she was no longer morbid because the breathtaking view drove everything else from her mind.
Below, just visible above the new spring green, were the steeples and spires of Warrenton, Garn's County's "typica!" town. Seventy-odd miles north of Manhattan, rooted deep in the flat channel of the Harlem Valley, it was locked tight in a stiff, unyielding tradition that dated back to the Revolution and before. The area was thick with green and yellow Historical Society signs. These noted events and incidents generally forgotten but all splendidly heroic.
Sybil Ludington had ridden through Garns County to rally a rebel army against the British. If Sybil had had a Longfellow to pen her some immortal lines, she would have gleamed brighter than Paul Revere. There was Enoch Crosby, the Nathan Hale of local lore; a hero deprived only of capture and execution to set his star into glowing brightness.
Mildred Hager turned slowly, her eyes, like the eye of a lighthouse, going full circle. A lush country this, still relatively untouched by the population push up through Westchester and Putnam Counties; an area marked by striking contrasts. There were the fine country estates on exclusive Rebel Hill on the one side, and filthy, illiterate communities like Spanish Swamp and Cow Hollow on the other; places from which nothing was expected in the way of ambition, energy, or morals; only the total vote duly delivered on election day.
But an ex-governor had a place on Rebel Hill. Its roster also boasted a nationally-known news commentator, a world-famous violinist, a top-drawer television comedian.
Mildred drew a final deep breath and felt it tingle down into her toes as she surveyed the countryside. This vista was the gift of a prefabricated heritage that Vance Hager had given her as a wedding present.
She turned again to face the cliff, moving forward until the tips of her shoes were on its exact edge. She leaned over and peered down.
A sudden voice warned:
"Hey, lady! Get back! What are you trying to do? Kill yourself?"
Mildred stepped quickly away from the edge, her retort sharp. "Of course not!"
The intruder was a young man. He wore a red hunting jacket and carried a .22 caliber rifle, the barrel of which was pointed correctly downward. As Mildred turned, he changed from an angry would-be rescuer into an embarrassed youth.
"Oh, it's you, Mrs. Hager." He snatched off his cap and took a backward step. "I'm sorry. I thought for a minute-well-finding someone up here all alone leaning over the cliff-"
Mildred laughed, "Hello, Rafe."
Rafe Kolsky gestured. "I really am sorry I startled you, Mrs. Hager, but I would stand back away from the edge if I were you."
He was below her and now he climbed up to her level, concern mirrored in his face.
"But I have no suicidal intent whatever, Rafe."
"It's that surface you're standing on. Treacherous. It's nothing but shale--layers of slate on top of one another. They could slide you right over the edge."
"But I'm not on the edge now."
There was a stubborn streak in him for all his embarrassment. "Bat you're a little too dose for comfort."
"Your comfort, Rafe?"
"Call it that if you want to."
The admiration in his eyes was not lost on Mildred. But she was used to admiration from men. In Rafe's case it was refreshing, however; and it boosted her ego whether she admitted it or not. The age difference was probably the motivating factor. Rafe was no jaundiced professional cocktail party wolf. His admiration was genuine.
"I'm sorry Rafe. And a little chagrined, I guess. You may not believe it but I climbed the Matterhorn once"
He shook his head doubtfully. "Even so, experts get killed too, if they get careless."
He was a singularly humorless boy; well-bred, serious-minded, and totally genuine. Mildred knew that he was not just being polite to the mother of one of his friends.
Rafe Kolsky was twenty-three now, Mildred thought. The son of a syndicated news columnist highly respected in political circles, Rafe had gone through school a year ahead of his age group. Then, after college, he had gone immediately into his two-year service period. Now he had returned to Rebel Hill.
Thus Mildred had not seen a great deal of him. She recalled him favorably though, as one of Jimmie's group; in and out of the house, up and down the roads in their hot rods and sports cars, noisy and restless at country club affairs; recalled him as one of the less boisterous-the exact opposite of the Lazer twins for instance; a solemn lad with perhaps a touch of wistfulness in him from not being able to mix well with others of his own age.
This was strange, too, because he made a very favorable appearance; a dark, handsome youth with broad shoulders that should have done him credit in athletics. But his inclinations pointed elsewhere; in intellectual directions as evidenced by the work he'd done on high school and college magazines and newspapers....
"Did you lose you way, Mrs. Hager?"
"Oh, no. Not at all. I roam these hills quite often." She glanced at the rifle. "Rabbits?"
He pursed his lips; a rather attractive mannerism, Mildred thought. "I suppose so," he said. "If one of the little rodents walked up and insisted on getting shot. It's more for hiking though." He favored her with one of his rare smiles. "When I was a little boy I used to scout this range for Indians. I never found any, but I guess the rifle got to be a habit."
"Did your father allow a small son to carry one?"
It occurred to Mildred that she thought of Rafe in relation to his paternal parent although the boy lived with his mother, a semi-invalid, while his father visited Rebel Hill only upon the rarest of occasions. Bernard Kolsky led a life completely alien to that of his wife and son, although there had never been a divorce. Kolsky was in too vulnerable a position for that. He lived a grim, proper life in Washington D.C. and kept his mistress well hidden in Baltimore....
"No," Rafe said "In those days my gun was a stick with a bayonet carved on the end. Actually, I think this rifle is just to keep me from looking peculiar."
Mildred laughed, "An interest in the out-of-doors isn't peculiar, Rafe."
"I guess not. But who knows? Maybe I will meet up with an Indian someday."
"You must know the country pretty well."
"Amen to that. Just about every bush and stone, I guess."
"I wish I knew it better. As I said, I roam around a lot, but my perimeter has been rather narrow."
"Have you ever been to the Cutoff?"
"No-no, I haven't. I've heard it referred to though."
"The Cutoff's a real weird place. A twenty-room house, stables, a running track, a custom-built lake-the whole place just as it was-standing there deserted for over forty years."
"It sounds fascinating. The old Uphouse estate, wasn't it?"
"That's right. Old Barney Uphouse built it years and years ago. He made his money in crooked stock deals back around the turn of the century. Back when it was still legal to steal people blind. You could be a thief then and still stay respectable. I guess old Uphouse liked Garns County. It was a real wilderness then."
"Some of it is still pretty wild. Someday, I suppose, they'll put a road into that Cutoff area and start modernizing it."
"The Causeway Reservoir blocked the entrance, of course. A mile-long bridge would be about the only answer."
"I'd like to see the old Uphouse estate sometime." This seemed to alarm him. "It's a very hard place to reach."
Mildred was amused. "I'm a very good swimmer."
"Oh, there's another way in-a path on the other side-but it's rugged."
Mildred's amusement changed to mild annoyance and she said, "Good heavens, Rafe. You youngsters seem to think anybody approaching forty is a doddering old...."
His dark, long-lashed eyes jerked away from her face and he gulped. "I'm-I'm sorry, Mrs. Hager. I wasn't referring to your age. It was just that-"
"I'm sorry too, Rafe. Perhaps we oldsters are a little sensitive."
"But you don't look forty, Mrs. Hager. Not anywhere near it. Why, you look-young-you-"
Mildred hid the little surge of pleasure behind a quick briskness. "Well, I'm late, that's certain. I came too far. I'll have a family howling for dinner."
Rafe Kolsky hesitated briefly. Then, as though to make amends for what he considered his boorishness, he said, "I'd like to take you to Full Moon, Mrs. Hager. I'd be honored to guide you."
"Then we'll definitely go sometime. Old Barney Uphouse must have been a romanticist to give his estate a name like that."
"My father wrote a column on old Barney once. A comparison thing. The old robber barons and the new. Maybe you'd like to read it."
"I certainly would. Your father is a famous man. You must be proud of him."
"I wish I could see him oftener."
"Washington isn't too far away."
"I know. But my mother needs me."
"Well, I must be getting back down the hill. My ravenous family."
"May I help you down?"
"You may not. I left my crutches at the bottom of the slope but I'll reach them on my own power if it takes all summer."
"I didn't mean-"
"Rafe! Don't be so deadly serious all the time. I was only joking."
He gulped and blushed. "Well, good-bye Mrs. Hager. I'm going to angle down the slope toward the creek."
"Goodbye. If you meet an Indian, give him my regards."
"I will. And say hello to Jimmie for me."
"I'll do that...."
Mildred's thoughts did not turn morbid on the way home. Meeting Rafe Kolsky had brightened her day.
There had been so much talk, so much concern, about juvenile deliquency that it was refreshing to meet and talk to a young man of Rafe's obvious caliber.
Not that the juveniles of Rebel Hill and Warren-ton were problem children. There had been episodes of course; restless spirits breaking through a few fights in the taverns along Barrett Road when the Connecticut kids came gunning over in their sports cars. But no real viciousness.
But Rafe still stood out. He was a cut above the careless happy-go-lucky youths that made up Jimmie's crowd.
Mildred wished Donna would get interested in Rafe. He would be very good for her....
CHAPTER TWO
Vance Hager, account executive at Hall Parnell & Wayne, was happy to discover that Nela Varese, HP&W's strikingly attractive art director, had not come to work that morning.
With this in mind, he quickly cleared up his important items of the day and called Nela a little before noon.
"Nela, honey. I hear you're a little under the weather."
"Yes, I thought I'd take the day."
Nela didn't sound at all under the weather. She sounded vital, warm, and languorously cordial.
"Shall I come over and stroke your fevered brow?"
"I think that would be wonderful."
"Fine. I'll be there before one."
"Can't you make it earlier, darling?"
"I'll try."
On the way to the upper East Side along traffic-choked streets, Vance pondered this odd relationship that had been dropped into his lap.
The affair had been going on for six months now and had started about a year after his marriage to Mildred.
A blazingly beautiful Hungarian woman of thirty-five, Nela had shucked her husband in Europe and had never remarried. Still, she was pretty much of a one-man woman and Vance was sure he was the only man with whom she had an understanding.
Nela needed a man for only one reason-to go to bed with. Otherwise, she was totally self-sufficient and required no male shoulder to lean on.
Essentially, Vance had been the negative element in the relationship. The whole thing began one night after an emergency conference on the Blair Chemical account. The meeting broke up about nine o'clock and Vance, with a train to wait for, asked Nela to join him for a quick cocktail. He'd had absolutely no ulterior motive at the time and did not quite know how he had ended up in Nela's apartment.
Later, during a lull in one of their bouts, she told him.
"I've had my eye on you for several weeks, darling."
He'd tickled the ample nipple on her left breast and asked, "But why me? There are a dozen more attractive men in the office."
"You underestimate yourself, Vance. In plain truth, you're the most physically attractive man I've ever met. I was certain from the first that you would not be disappointing in bed."
Vance was forty-one. Entirely without conceit, he was only vaguely aware of his dark, slim good looks. And so far as his passionate skill was concerned, he viewed that with abstract satisfaction. He was glad he pleased women.
"You're a flatterer," he said.
"No, I-not Nela," she replied. "But that was only a part of the attraction. There was more."
"What else?"
"You seemed so safe."
"By that you mean-"
"First, I wanted a married man. That way there is less chance of complications. I was not looking for a brief affair. I was only looking for what every normal woman needs and is entitled to."
Thus she set the ground rules. That was the only time he had ever met Nela after five, this being what might have been called an afternoon affair.
"I am not taking you away from your wife," Nela had said. "I merely borrow you for a few hours when the urge gets strong. At night, you should be home with your family."
As his driver honked senselessly at Fifty-seventh Street and Park Avenue, Vance Hager smiled at those memories. Nela was tremendous in bed. She reminded him of both Grace-before she fell ill-and Mildred, in their avid, uninhibited demand for love.
He considered himself very lucky at having found women of this type, especially when he heard other men moan about the indifference of their wives. It was not luck of course. His success in this direction resulted from his own lack of aggressiveness. He had never stalked a woman in his life. He would not have known how to go about talking a woman to bed. Thus, he had known intimately only those women who functioned aggressively in this area.
Vance Hager would always find good bed partners.
So, all in all, the relationship was an excellent one, he thought. His feeling for Mildred remained the same. He was not in love with Nela and never would be. So no one was being hurt.
Mildred was being hurt, however, and his unawareness of this perhaps reflected a subconscious conceit. It had never occurred to him that he could not amply satisfy two women. Thus, he'd attached no great importance to the three inactive months he and Mildred had gone through. That was a matter of no vital concern. After all, they'd been married a year and a half. In the beginning their bedroom relationship had been fantastic in its ecstatic heights. He had literallv devoured Mildred and had been devoured in return.
But a good marriage does not hinge completely on bed. The fires reduce themselves to sensible proportions after the first flurries of delight, and bed assumes its rightful place. He and Mildred were merely in a period of lull; of adjustment to sleeping with each other every night.
Thus did he rationalize the situation, refusing to believe that his needs and desires in the physical realm were being efficiently served by Nela ..
He found her wearing the transparent black gown she received him in when pure sensuality dominated her mood. This meant that she wanted to get down to business, that she did not want to spend precious time building sharp desire; that desire was already there.
"You're totally lovely, darling."
"That's from anticipating you, Vance. Waiting was difficult. Would you like a drink?"
"I think not, thanks. I've been breaking myself of the midday habit."
"How are things at the office. Mad as usual?"
He was enthralled by the regal grace of her carriage, by her obvious pride in the body she was about to give him. "They would miss you if you were only gone an hour."
Nela turned, naked except for the thinly transparent gown, and allowed the light from the window to reveal her lush contours in detail. There was ho danger of peepers. Nela's apartment was a luxurious three-room showplace on the twenty-second floor of an expensive co-op.
Vance Hager's desire flared at the sight of her naked loveliness. They had a potent chemical affinity for each other to which they both responded instantly.
Nela's legs were long, the ankles slim, but above the knees they curved out into ample fullness leading to her broad hips. Her narrow waist in turn flowed upward into breasts that were in complete accord with her other specifications.
She approached him gracefully and he caught the exciting allure of her. This had always seemed strange to him-that what would have disgusted him with the average woman, struck him like the bouquet of a fine wine with Nela.
Once, in a high moment of wild, unbridled passion, he'd described this to her in terms that were justified only under such specific conditions:
"You're a kind of madness I don't understand. You make a man burn until the fire has to be put out."
She'd gasped her reply as though choking. "Don't talk so much. Put the fire out."
A few moments later, he'd made her scream.
But at this stage, their conversation was always deceptively impersonal. He removed his shirt.
"We're going to lose the Bender account I think," Nela said.
Tossing the shirt on a chair, he asked, "What makes you think so?"
"Kellman is after them."
Nela picked the shirt up, folded it, and moved toward the bedroom.
"I know that," Vance said, "but Parnell is handling Bender personally."
"What makes you think Parnell is such a wizard? I don't believe he impresses Bender in the least."
They were in the bedroom now and Vance removed his undershirt and Nela came forward to run light hands down his chest.
"Parnell's a high-pressure boy. He built the agency."
"He's lost accounts before."
His clothing disposed of, he cupped her face in his hands and brushed her lips lightly with his own. "At least, it's Parnell's responsibility. He won't be able to blame this on some poor account exec."
Nela laughed deep in her throat, a musical laugh, as she ran her palms tantalizingly over him. That was a gesture of studied sensuality and Vance got the odd impression of a storm gathering, the restraint of pent-up power waiting for the moment of release.
He'd often wondered where Nela had acquired such practiced loving skills. No, that was not the word; amorous skills, because there was very little love to what they did together. There was only passion for the pleasure involved.
"The things men do on Madison Avenue to make a living," she mumured. "The pressures they take in order to win the wherewithall for the good life."
Vance slipped his shoes off and peeled away his socks. As he did so, his head was lowered and he was close to Nela and the intoxication of her pent-up need and desire totally prepared him for what lay ahead.
Nela raised her eyes as he straightened. She looked into his and laughed softly; a chuckling laugh that ran up his spine. She moved backward slowly, drawing him with her toward the bed.
"You will not go back this afternoon."
"No."
"You didn't make an appointment?"
"No."
She laughed again, her teeth gleaming. "Once you made a three o'clock appointment. Was that in self-defense?"
"That doesn't matter. Not now."
Her eyes turned shaded and sensual. "Hello, Vance Hager."
"Hello Nela Varese."
Their mouths met. He felt her lips open and he knew she would have bitten him if he'd given her the chance. But he jerked his head back the instant he felt the touch of her teeth.
They stood by the bed, close together. She whispered against his ear.
"You're all-man, Vance."
"I'm flattered."
Her breast was pressing against him and she drew him toward the bed and again sought his lips. Then she went slowly backward, pulling him with her, holding him close, keeping the pressure of his body against hers.
"More. Oh, more, darling!" She whispered the demand through clenched teeth with her head now thrown back and her neck muscles taut.
He controlled his desire to take her with violence and abandon. Complete release would come later. At the moment the delight was in knowing the great mutual need and holding that in check behind a wall of will power as water is held by the wall of a dam. Pressing her mouth cruelly, he allowed his own mouth to move tight across her cheek until he found her ear. The resulting shudder wracked through her whole body. Her hands on his back became claws.
But the pain was good. In reflexive response, he jerked her hair and drew a wordless "aargh" from her tight throat.
There was a grimace of impersonal hatred on her face as she retaliated with her fingernails, driving them deep into his back.
But she did not rake them through his flesh. Even with their instinctive desire to destroy each other, she could not become reckless. She had explained this earlier in their affair. "I'd love to mark you up, darling, but I've got to remember that you're borrowed property."
For some strange reason, he'd resented that. "I'm glad the same doesn't apply to you. Or is there someone who might object if I left scars?"
She'd been angered in turn, her reply a question. "Do you think we actually hate each other?"
"I've heard it said that love and hate are shades of the same color."
"You put that so beautifully."
But now there were no such philosophical wonderings. Gritting his teeth, he applied himself to the task of satisfying his own needs and hers. Up to this moment, she had dominated the relationship. But now the leadership changed hands as Vance asserted his heritage as the male of the species. His actions became vicious.
After a while, she cried. "No! No more! Not now! I can't stand that!"
Thenceforth, the episode took on a semblance of rape. Nela struggled and twisted. Vance increased the force and ferocity of his rising passion. That was as thought he were punishing her for her sins; as though he were exacting mad vengeance for wrongs she had done him.
They were approaching the breaking point. Sweat poured out of him and dripped from her own overheated body. Her eyes became set and wild.
Soon the scream would be ripped from her.
That happened as she pulled his head down and put her open mouth against his. She screamed against his teeth, her wracking, agonized breath rasping harshly as she gasped.
The mutual finish was almost unbearable. Afterward, he collapsed beside her wet body and it was a long time before either of them moved.
But this was only the beginning. When their strength was restored, there was much more; many varieties of love-making, various techniques expertly applied. Until, shortly after five o'clock, they'd made the full circle. And that was over....
Nela discarded the black transparent gown for a green robe that gave her a regal appearance, and when she saw Vance to the door, there was no kiss, there were no sentimental endearments. Nela extended her hand.
Vance took it. Her fingers were firm and cool. Her smile reflected complete self-control, almost a reserve.
"This afternoon was nice, Vance."
He hesitated. "What will you do this evening?"
That could have meant several things-a reluctance to leave her, the dawning of jealous possession, or merely a hope that she had something to occupy her pleasantly.
He never knew how she interpreted his question but her reaction was always definite and positive. She squeezed his hand slightly and then dropped it.
"You get on home to your wife and kids," she said. "They'll be expecting you."
These were her words but they obviously meant: Let's not let this get out of hand. Everything's working fine. Let's keep things that way.
And Vance Hager was quite content to do so....
CHAPTER THREE
"Hi, honey. How goes it?" Vance Hager's voice, light and cheerful, went out from Grand Central to the pleasant ranch-style home on the north slope of Rebel Hill where the Hager family breathed and lived and had its being.
"Fine, darling. Are you at the station?"
"Uh-huh. I'll get the five forty-three."
"I'll have dinner ready."
"Let's skip it and go to the club. The hell with dishes and that jazz."
"Well, if you like."
"Well have a quick drink at home and then run over. Want to phone ahead and make sure we don't have to wait?"
"It might be a good idea."
"The kids home?"
"Donna is, Jimmie's away somewhere."
"They ought to go with us."
There was no specific reason for that. Donna and Jimmie could easily have had other plans. If that turned out to be the case, Vance would accept it. So the statement was a vague gesture toward family solidity that did not have much meaning.
"I'll ask Donna-And Jimmie will probably be home."
"See that they both dress decently."
He was referring mainly to Jimmie, having little patience with the tight pants, wild shirts, and black leather jackets that were the featured young male attire.
"I'll tell him."
"Okay. I've got to ran...."
Vance Hager hung up and walked briskly toward las train. He felt exceptionally good. There was spring in his step and there were pleasant thoughts in his mind. He had none of the restlessness of the confirmed Manhattan laggard. He loved his home and found security in the routine of the commuting pattern even though he rebelliously voiced the usual commuter's complaints about bad service, poor equipment, and outrageous fares.
If he'd cared to analyze, he would have discovered that he alway felt good after a visit to Nela's apartment. He never came away feeling drained or exhausted. This was reflected in the fact that he found Mildred's voice particularly warming and compelling over the phone.
They would make love tonight, he told himself. That had been quite a while; high time he took care of his marital duties. And he did not look on them as burdensome. He anticipated Mildred's passion with eagerness.
All in all, it was a good life. Not that he hadn't worked for it. But still, he was luckier than a lot of them. You had to feel sorry for most of those tight, tension-ridden slobs. No confidence in themselves. That was the trouble. You had to expect success, demand it, before it would come your way.
This brought Jimmie to mind. Jimmie was eighteen, now. A little wild, but all kids these days had the wild streak. A good thing, too. It reflected spirit. Jimmie wasn't at the top of his class at school, but there were other factors to be considered in the balanced personality. Jimmie was far better off than, say Rafe Kolsky. Of course there were others in the high-mark, solemn-determination class. The type that never smiled much; that always seemed to hang on the edge of the group.
Jimmie wasn't like that, thank God. When he got out into the business world, he would be a take-charge guy and that was the kind they wanted these days.
Jimmie would do all right.
Vance Hager smiled briefly Then he settled back in his seat, opened his paper, and prepared for the hour-and-twenty-minute ride to Warrenton where Mildred would be waiting with the car....
At the exact moment that Vance Hager's train pulled out, Jimmie Hager was occupied with throwing a beer can at a squirrel. He had a good arm and an accurate eye and if the squirrel hadn't lunged away it would have been soundly thumped by the can.
Quite a few cans had been emptied and thrown during the beer bust that was taking place at the old picnic grounds on the far side of Rebel Hill. Their number was impressive.
The rolling stock that stood waiting in the narrow, rutted roadway was impressive too. It indicated the higher-than-standard income level of the people involved.
There was Armand Beck's Corvette, Jimmie Hager's MG, and the Buick with the special motor that the Lazer twins owned and were eternally fighting over.
The ages of the youths ran from the Lazers, seventeen, to Armand Beck, a few weeks short of twenty-three.
Armand Beck had brought the beer, a half-dozen six-packs, and was busy collecting pro rata shares. He counted the take and pointed to Paul Lazer.
"You shorted me, squirt. Another buck."
"I paid for Dave and me!"
"Uh-huh. Just you."
Dave Lazer scowled at his brother. "I gave you my buck."
"I gave him the two."
"Are you calling me a liar?" Armand demanded. "I swear I paid!"
The twins bore little resemblance. Paul was slight, but fortunately, very quick. Thus, he had a defense against this chunkier brother. Caught now in trying to hold out the dollar, he said, "Okay-I forgot," and handed it over.
Jimmie Hager and a boy named Norman Zeller were sprawled by the MG with open cans. "Where's Rafe Kolsky?" Norm asked.
"He bad to work," Jimmie said.
"Work hell! I saw him cutting out across Dean's Slip with a .22 in his mitts." This from Armand Beck, who emptied his can and looked at Jimmie Hager. "Do you like that jerk?"
"He's a good kid."
"He's a jerk."
"He doesn't drink much. Maybe that's why he didn't come."
Paul Lazer punctured a new can and threw the opener toward Lew Freeman, a tall, well-built lad whose father was a railroad worker but who was accepted on Rebel Hill because of his athletic ability. A high school senior, he'd been named All-State end in his sophomore year.
"Rafe's got a rough deal," Lew Freeman said. "His mother's an invalid and his father's big-an old man who'll be hard to follow."
Paul Lazer gurgled beer as he laughed explosively. "That's not how it is with my old man. He's easy to tail. My old lady's got a detective following him all over New York."
"Shut your fat mouth!" Dave Lazer exploded. He snatched a rock and hurled it at his brother.
Paul dodged, estimated that he was far enough away to elude Dave and sneered, "Get lost, punk!"
Dave decided he couldn't reach Paul and subsided.
"One thing I wish," Dave Lazer said. "I wish I had my two years behind me like he's got. My two in service."
"Nuts," Jimmie Hager snorted. "Your old man'll get you out of it. He got Senator van Arden elected-showed the old goat how to look good on TV and snatch the female vote. A word from your old man and you'll get a soft thing somewhere."
The Lazer twins had been sired by a television producer highly regarded in Washington. His specialty was keeping political aspirants from looking ridiculous over the air.
"Don't think I won't take it, either," Dave Lazer said. "I should sweat when there isn't even a war? Maybe I will get in touch with the old man."
The twins hadn't seen their father for a long time. He and their mother were separated but Mrs. Lazer was manipulating for a better financial settlement. Thus the divorce proceedings hung fire.
Armand Beck threw an empty beer can at a nearby tree. He opened another one. "You still making out with Francis Baylor, Dave?"
"Hell no."
Paul Lazer showed immediate interest. "Why didn't you tell me? I'd like to make out with that chick myself."
Lew Freeman laughed. "Wait till you grow up, kid. She figures both of you as brats."
Paul turned sullen. "Okay-so I'm not All-State. How does it feel to have all the chicks you want parked on your porch?"
"You're jumping to conclusions."
"It doesn't matter about Francie anyhow," Dave said gloomily. "She's dating some Harvard senior now."
"Honest, Dave," Jimmie Hager asked. "Did you really get to her?"
Dave grinned. He seemed a little embarrassed. "Let's just say she was no push-over."
"She held still for LeRoy Sutter."
"Did he say that?"
Lew Freeman, effortlessly dominating the group, said, "LeRoy's a nice guy. A little like Rafe Kolsky. Serious. He wouldn't take anything that wasn't offered. Besides, he's got a yen for Delia Buckley."
"He's dead there. You go to see Delia and you take a financial statement to show her father."
Paul Lazer had finished his third can of beer and was growing restless. "I feel like a trip to Cow Hollow. Who'll go with me?"
Armand Beck grinned. "Is that what you held out the buck for?"
"I got my own money."
Dave Lazer scowled. "A couple of cans of beer and he's wilder than a bull."
Jimmie Hager glanced at the sun. "I'm supposed to be home. My old man usually wants to eat at the club on Fridays."
"Skip it," Dyland Walsh said. "The food is lousy."
He was the seventh of the group, a Rebel Hill youth with a problem he'd been mulling over. He'd smashed his Ford on a boulder the day before and had not as yet told his father. It was his second crackup and he expected trouble.
"He'll be sore if I don't go," Jimmie said.
The beer had vanished quickly. There was one can left all around. "Day like this," Armand Beck complained, "the stuff goes right on out through your pores."
"How about it, you guys? Who's for Cow Hollow?"
Lew Freeman reacted with disgust. "Oh, for God's sake! Stay away from there."
"Okay-so I'm real hard up."
The reference was to the eighteen-year-old mentally retarded daughter of a Cow Hollow native, Verne Getchall. Verne lived with his completely toothless wife and some of his eleven offspring in a two-room hovel with a dirt floor. Most of his children had been taken away from him by the Welfare people and placed in foster homes. Others had become self-supporting in one way or another and gone off by themselves. The oldest child still under his dubious roof was the daughter, Bonnie, a tragic case. She lived in her restricted world with a bleak past and no visible future.
Lew Freeman said, "Some of those Cow Hollow people aren't the slobs Verne is."
"Then why the hell do they live there?"
"I'm not saying they're top-bracket. But some of their homes are neat and clean."
Dyland Walsh grunted. "They don't even make their kids go to school."
"Some do, some don't."
"Spanish Swamp is worse," Dave Lazer said.
"They poach more deer in Cow Hollow."
"It's all some of them have to eat all winter."
"Maybe that's why they leave them alone. It takes that much of the load off the Welfare Department."
"A lot of them have their pride," Lew Freeman said.
Jimmie Hager got to his feet. "I'm cutting out. Anybody want a ride?"
"I'll go with you," Lew Freeman said.
The rest were in no hurry. Armand Beck, stretched lazily against a tree, watched Jimmie Hager climb in behind the wheel. "Hey, Jim. If you see my dad at the club give him a message for me, will you?"
"Sure--what?"
Armand Beck stuck out his tongue and blew expertly. The resulting noise was satisfactorily crude. "Tell him that."
"Okay." Jimmie gunned the MG brutally until it disappeared around a bend in the narrow road. Those remaining eyed the spot morosely. "I should have gone with them," Norman Zeller said.
Dyland Walsh's smile was close to a sneer. "Tell me this, Norm. Is it true what they say?"
"What do they say?"
"That if Lew Freeman stopped quick you'd bust your nose banging against him?"
"You lousy big-mouth!"
Dyland Walsh had made a slight mistake. Norman Zeller was quiet and easy going, but he could change with three beers under his belt. Dyland broke off as Norm lunged at him. But Dave Lazer's foot got in the way and Norm fell headlong. He came up in a crouch, his eyes darting angrily.
"You Rebel Hill snobs! You, stick together, don't you?"
"I never thought about it before," Dave Lazer said "but maybe it isn't a bad idea."
"I don't like being called a snob," Paul Lazer announced.
Encouraged by the joint stand against the remaining Warenton boy, Paul moved in on Norm Zeller. As the latter came to his feet, Paul hit him from behind-a glancing blow just under the ear.
Norm staggered. He went to one knee and came up again. He took a quick step and slugged Paul in the stomach. Paul gasped and bent double. Norm tried to circle away, but Dyland Walsh came in behind him and locked his arms. As Norm bucked and struggled, Paul stepped in and hit him flush on the nose.
Blood spurted. Norm kicked out and Paul let out a how! as he went down clutching his ankle. Then Norm jerked free and whirled and threw a punch at Dyland Walsh but Dyland backed away quickly.
Dave Lazer stepped in now and hit Norm on the left ear, staggering him backward. Norm recovered quickly and circled away.
Now all three foes were in front of him-only two, actually, because Paul Lazer was still down on one knee nursing his bruised shin.
"Okay," Norm said, wiping blood from his face. "Come on-you crumbs. You hear what I said? You crumbs."
His courage seemed to daunt them somewhat but Dave Lazer took a step forward. Dyland Walsh reached for a stone.
At this point, Armand Beck spoke up. He'd stayed where he was, sprawled against a tree. "It's none of my business, you guys, but you might be lining yourselves up for some real lumps."
Dyland straightened up leaving the stone where it was. Dave Lazer hesitated. They were both grateful for an excuse to break up the fight.
"What do you mean?" Dave asked.
"Lew Freeman might not like his buddy ganged up on.
"Him Lew's buddy? That's a laugh."
"They're both from Warrenton. You can't exactly say how Lew might take it." Armand Beck's tone reflected detached interest. He implied that he had no great personal concern. He hadn't beaten up anyone.
Paul Lazer hopped up and down on one leg. "He kicked me! He kicked your brother!" This last was an appeal to Dave; a rather ridiculous one as Paul should have known and no doubt did.
Dave looked at his twin in disgust. "Why didn't you keep your stupid ankle out of the way? You started all this in the first place."
"I started it! He called us names!"
Dave walked over and clouted Paul with a stinging open hand. Paul forgot his ankle and began nursing his cheek. His eyes blazed. "A fine brother you are! Try that once more! Just once more. Come on! I dare you!" But at the same time Paul was backing away, his narrowed eyes carefully checking escape routes. His glare became all-inclusive. "Nuts to all you rats. I'm going to Cow Hollow."
"You're never been there in your life."
"You're a liar."
"Well then, only to look."
Paul's anger pushed him close to tears. "A lot you know about it."
He strode off into the woods.
Armand Beck shook his head in mock sadness. "A crazy mixed-up kid. Will he really go to Cow Hollow?"
Dave sneered. "He'll go home-where he always goes"
Thus it was generally acknowledged that talk of visiting Cow Hollow was nothing more than that-talk The rumors about the loose morals of the lower settlements such as Spanish Swamp and Cow Hollow were gestures of contempt from the irresponsible elements of Rebel Hill and Warrenton coming from adult element more than from the younger set. The youths had repeated only what they'd heard.
Armand Beck turned his attention to Norm Zeller who stood off to one side wiping the blood from his face with an already crimsoned handkerchief.
"I'm heading out. I'll drive you home, Norm."
The battered youth did not reply. He turned and walked sullenly into the forest.
"You really think he'll blow to Lew?" Dyland Walsh asked.
"Are you afraid of Lew?"
"No. I just don't like trouble."
"Who does?" Armand Beck asked the question as he climbed into his Corvette. "See you guys."
Dave Lazer and Dyland Walsh left a few minutes later and the haven that had once known the tread of Seneca Indians was left with its memories and its empty beer cans....
CHAPTER FOUR
When Mildred Hager had arrived home earlier that afternoon, she'd felt much better. She'd merely been in a low mood, she told herself. And she should have been ashamed. She had a fine husband, a fine home, two wonderful children.
What more did a woman need?
It had been a long, severe winter, and with spring late, she'd needed that walk to get her mind back into proper perspective.
Setting her thoughts firmly upon her many blessings, she stopped at the mail box and found a letter the sight of which instantly lifted her spirits.
Jean Bellamy! Mildred tore the envelope open and read the cryptic message:
Darling:
I've wrestled with the characters and they are mine. Another triumph after a bloody battle. I'll be back in Manhattan almost any time. Brace yourself for a call.
-Love, Jean
The letter bore a Los Angeles postmark. But that did not necessarily indicate an interval before Jean's call. She might have posted the letter and ridden across the country on the same plane. Jean was that way.
Mildred thrust the letter into her pocket and laughed. It made the day perfect. She'd been thinking of Jean that very afternoon and had yearned to see her.
Three months wasn't a long time, really....
She entered the house through the patio and called from the living room: "Anybody home?"
"I'm here, Mom." The answer came faintly from upstairs, faintly, but clear and warm in Mildred's heart. The casual, affectionate Mom. Only a word, but it meant acceptance when Mildred had prayed desperately to be accepted. In five full years she still hadn't come to the point where she could take it as casually as it was tossed her way. Although her outward appearance denied it, Mildred Hager was a deeply emotional and sentimental person. So much so that when Jimmie and Donna had truly welcomed her to Rebel Hill, she had gone to her room and cried for half an hour. And for quite some time afterward she had had to be careful not to let her gratitude show. They would have probably thought it quite maudlin.
"Where have you been Mom?"
"Taking a walk, dear."
Donna was in her room, probably cutting more pictures out of one of those weird hootenanny magazines. Her walls were covered with young male faces that all looked the same to Mildred's impartial eye.
As Mildred climbed the stairs, she remembered Vance's words. He'd seen no problem whatever.
"The kids? They'll love you."
"I'm not so sure. It may be difficult."
"Mildred, they aren't tots any more. They missed their mother, certainly, but they're a couple of young realists. A little selfish if you want the truth but maybe that's good. It was roughest on Donna of course. Took some forgetting of course, but then it was over...."
"Grace must have been a wonderful mother."
"And another thing, Mildred. There is nothing in you to remind them of her. She was ill for a long time. Their memory is that of an invalid. There was no drama of sudden tragedy for young minds to latch onto...."
And it had worked out as Vance had predicted. There hadn't been even shyness, only friendly curiosity at the beginning, an impudent wolf-whistle from Jimmie that shocked Mildred a little until she realized it was a compliment. Then a quick settling into family life.
There had been a single incident with Donna and that came so long after Mildred's entrance into the Hager circle that it surprised her. She had entered Donna's room one night to find her crying into her pillow, the brash, sophisticated young modern in a sudden reversion to little-girl misery.
"Would you like to tell me, dear?"
"It just came over me-all of a sudden. How she looked lying there. Mom. My-my real Mom, I mean. It was the last time I saw her alive. So fragile. So tired. She died that night."
Mildred sat down on the bed and stroked the dark, shining hair. Donna took her hand and squeezed it convusively.
"There is nothing anyone can say," Mildred told her. "I never knew your mother of course-only that she was a fine and wonderful woman-but I thought about her a great deal before your father and I were married. And I'm afraid I've been a little selfish about the whole thing since I came here."
"Selfish?"
"I loved your father very much and felt it was honest for me to do so. I was sure, though, that you and Jimmie would not realize how desperately I wanted you to accept me because you two were really the keys to my chance of happiness with your father. I knew I could never take your mother's place so I decided it would be a mistake to try. So I never made any attempt to mother you for fear you would resent it. Perhaps I should have taken that chance though. No doubt I could have done at least a little something to fill the lonely places. It was selfish of me not to." Mildred caught a sliding tear with the tip of her finger. "I'm very sorry, dear."
"Don't be-please. You were-swell."
"I'm glad you feel that way. And now-would you like me to sleep with you tonight?"
"I'd like that."
Mildred got into bed and held Donna in her arms. Donna cuddled there and cried for quite a while. Then in the morning she was far over on her side of the bed curled in a ball like a kitten and that was the last of her tears and grief so far as Mildred was ever able to learn.
And there had been no trouble whatever with Jimmie. He had accepted Mildred so casually that she wondered if he had ever greatly cared for his mother. He was a young counterpart of Vance, with the same realistic approach to life. Sane. Normal. The direct, logical approach at all times. Great enthusiasms, but never any depth of true sentimentality. Life would hold few surprises for Jimmie. He would take it in stride. Not as a gift but as something due him....
The phone rang.
Mildred, halfway up the stairs, returned to the living room to take it. It would be Vance at the club, checking as to whether they would be on time for dinner as scheduled....
"Hello, dear."
"Well hello dear yourself. It's certainly nice to be anticipated."
"Jean! Jean Bellamy! For heaven's sake! Don't tell me you've finally paroled yourself out of jail."
"A full pardon."
"The book's finished then?"
"Practically. A once-over lightly and then to the typist."
"Wonderful. When will I see you?"
"When can you come to the city?"
The thought of running down to Manhattan, seeing Jean Bellamy again, was exciting. "How about next Monday?"
"Fine. Where?"
"The Three G's?"
"One o'clock?"
"Perfect Tell me, sweet, is it a good book?"
Jean Bellamy's wordless exclamation was a sffft over the phone. "Who knows? They keep on giving me money. I keep on writing the things."
"And they get more than they pay for, yon can be sure of that. Monday then?"
"Right, darling. And give my love to that handsome husband of yours."
Mildred put the phone down and searched for the overtones in Jean's last words, hunted for sarcasm, dislike, resentment. Perhaps they'd been there, or perhaps Jean had stopped actively disliking Vance and was now only passively negative toward him....
"Who was that on the phone, Mom?"
Passing Donna's room, Mildred stopped to took in. Donna was sitting cross-legged on the bed sorting phonograph records.
"Jean Bellamy, dear. I'm having lunch with her next Monday."
"Is she coming here?"
"No, I'm going into the city. Would you Eke to go with me?"
Donna considered the invitation. She was small-boned, dainty, petitory pretty. She had a tilted nose, brown eyes, and a flawless skin. She looked nothing Eke Vance and had probably taken after her mother although Mildred could not be sure. She'd never seen a really good picture of Grace Hager.
"No," Donna said finally. "I've got a date to go swimming with the kids Monday. Thanks just the same, Mom."
"I'm sure you'll have more fun."
"I would like to meet Jean Bellamy though. She's the kooky one-the writer-isn't she?"
"Kooky? Well, let's just say she's quite a positive person."
"The one Daddy doesn't like."
"I'm sure be doesn't dislike her. He-"
"Yes he does. That's why she never visits you. They can't stand each other. Once I heard him call her that Village screwball with the monkey."
"I'm sure he didn't mean it the way it sounded."
"Where's she been? She hasn't called for quite a while has she?"
"She had trouble with her latest book."
Donna made a wry face. "I read one of her books once. Real junk."
The opinion was logical coming from Donna. Jean Bellamy wrote a popular type of light, breezy love story-the same one every time, was the way she put it-and Donna had quite sophisticated leanings where literature was concerned. She got more out of the New Yorker than anyone else in the house and could discuss writers like Kafka most ably.
"When Jean has trouble with a book," Mildred said, "she goes into seclusion on a farm in California-locks herself up with her typewriter and-" Jean Bellamy's own explanation was-"and let the damned thing seduce me into giving it the ending it wants"-but Mildred said, "and works like a demon until she licks it."
Donna wasn't listening. She said, "I think I'll trade Paul Anka. He's beginning to bore me."
"I'm going to dress for dinner, dear. We're meeting your father at the club. Remember?"
"I'll be ready."
"Have you seen Jimmie?"
"Not lately."
"When be comes in, tell him. And answer the phone if it rings, will you dear? I might be in the tab."
"All right, Mom...."
Mildred looked at the clock in the bedroom and saw that she would have ample time for a rest and a leisurely bath before Vance got home. So she undressed and stretched out under the spread.
But her body refused to relax. Not that she was overly tense. She didn't need the rest, she realized, and this was a point of satisfaction to her. After a walk like that, she was still fresh.
She got up and went into the bathroom where she turned on the shower. She slipped off her robe and stood looking at herself in the mirror, at her body.
A body that showed no wear; neither from the liquor nor the love.
Thus she indirectly faced that period of her life she had pretty well blocked out, the time after Tom's death when she'd gone adrift.
How many trips into the bottle seeking oblivion?
How many pairs of male arms in how many beds seeking the ghost of what she and Tom had had?
How true Jean Bellamy's searing words?
Here, she blocked the recollections. She could not face a recall of the words as they had been thrown at her, nor the hurt of Jean's belief that she could not possibly have been true to Tom. Jean had never stated this directly but that had been there in her eyes.
Mildred ran her hands lightly down her sides. Her reaction to her physical self was something of a paradox. She was grateful for her perfection and her vitality. But her latent appetitites, her need of an abnormal amount of satisfaction was a curse.
She concentrated her attention on her face; a rather remarkable face in that the mouth was too large and too sensuous, the nose too classically imperious. Her cheekbones were high, far higher than an artist with any sense of proportion would have placed them. And her eyes were all wrong too. They were clear, hazel, and piercing, but too large.
Yet this group of misfit features, in assembly, blended to give Mildred Hager a face of arresting beauty.
That had been Vance's unqualified appraisal the day he had first met her. This had been at a Manhattan cocktail party on the afternoon of a singular triumph, the awarding of the Penrose Soap account to Vance's agency. He was exuberant, and understandably so. Also, a little drunk.
He'd looked across at her and let his eyes move on. Then he'd done a double take and they'd snapped back. He'd walked to her m a direct line, stopped in front of her, and said. "You're the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life. Do you come with the soap?"
The time and the place had charged it off as cocktail talk and that was how Mildred had responded.
"No, Mr. Hager. The Penrose girl on the wrapper has been doing a fine job all by herself."
That or some other casual reply. Friendly, but wary. You had to be a little careful with friendly drunks at cocktail parties, all single girls should be.
And Mildred Hager-lovely volcano-or-more so....
Mildred came out of her reverie to find herself gently stroking her breasts. She turned quickly, got in under the shower, and began briskly soaping herself. When she finished, she turned the water into as cold a spray as she could stand. Then she got out and toweled herself violently.
Twenty minutes later, perfectly groomed, extremely beautiful, she left the bedroom and went down to make the drinks before she drove to the station after Vance.
Donna was ready also.
Jimmie had not come home yet....
The evening at the dub was pleasant even though Vance got annoyed at Jimmie and refused to wait for him. He arrived halfway through dinner. He bent down to kiss Mildred on the cheek by way of apology and she reacted with mock sternness.
"You've been drinking, young man."
He grinned engagingly. "One short beer, Mom."
His attempt to ingratiate himself was lost on Donna who used her look of special disdain. "With a whiskey chaser no doubt. You smell like a brewery."
"Quiet, squirt."
"Don't talk that way to your sister, Jimmie."
"Sorry."
Vance was frowning at his son. "You know we usually eat here at the ckib on Fridays. Is keeping in touch too much to ask?"
"No, Dad-but-"
"No buts. Family obligations come first. Remember that, young man."
"Okay, Dad. I said I was sorry."
"I didn't hear you," Donna said smugly.
Jimmie stiffened his lips as he dropped into his chair. Donna grinned wickedly and pursued her advantage.
"You might follow Rafe Kolsky's example," she said primly. Rafe and his mother were seated at a table across the room. Donna caught his eyes and smiled sweetly. "He escorted his mother in like a perfect gentleman."
Throwing a dash of acid at Donna with his eyes, Jimmie got up and stood behind Mildred. "Mom, would you mind getting up so I can pull your chair out and push it in for you?"
Vance spoke sharply. "Stop being ridiculous."
"She bugs me."
"Sit down and drink your tomato juice."
Striving to achieve a truce, Mildred said, "The thermometer is due to reach seventy tomorrow. There will be swimming soon."
"He'd rather drag race on the other side of the Hill."
"Will you ease off?" Jimmie demanded.
Donna dodged a kick under the table and stuck out her tongue.
"Why don't you two call it a draw?" Vance asked wearily.
"I'll second that," Mildred said.
Neither of them were in favor of the idea and when Vance asked Mildred if she wanted to dance, Jimmie missed a genuine opportunity to be gallant and let his father draw Mildred's chair back.
During his courting days Vance had danced a lot with Mildred but his interest had gradually declined over their married months until a turn on the floor was now quite rare. As his arm went around her waist, Mildred remembered another night they'd danced. But she put that out of her mind quickly and concentrated on following his lead. This proved to be in the direction of a table across the floor where Tom Colby sat with his wife, Carey.
They were a morose twosome, Tom and Carey, seemingly cut from the same mold. They'd lived together too long, someone had once said-had used the same mirror too often.
There were quite a few married look-a-likes in Gams County, but it could usually be traced to relationship-earlier marriages of cousin to cousin and other far closer unions carefully deleted from family histories.
The marks remained, though, stubbornly perpetrating themselves down through the guiltless generations; identifications such as the invariable buck teeth of the Sachet clan, the characteristic popped eyes of the Remys-the hunched appearance of every Mantee shoulder.
But the resemblance of Tom and Carey Colby was purely coincidental. Carey had been a southern belle, coming to Garns County with the smell of magnolia still in her dark hair.
Carey looked up at Mildred with her "isn't it awfu!" expression as Vance steered toward the Colby table and stood by Tom's chair shuffling to the rhythm of the music.
"Any reaction on that Tad Beck business?" Tom asked.
"Something new? I hadn't heard."
"You will."
"Whatever it is," Vance said, "I'm with you."
"Will you be around tomorrow? The weather's easing. They're going to have the pool ready."
"A little early isn't it?"
"For sensible people, yes. But the kids are howling for it."
"If there's a chance for a little sun, I'll be up. How about some golf?"
Tom Colby appeared to regard the idea dismally. "I'M meet you m the bar."
Mildred gave up trying to follow Vance's shuffling. She stopped and stepped slightly away from him and smiled at Carey.
She always felt a little ill-at-ease with the native element of Rebel Hill-the people who traced their lines back into the distant past.
It was probably her imagination, she conceded, but they always seemed conscious of their geneological advantage. It seemed to Mildred that they regarded those with less than twenty years residency as upstart newcomers. Carey's homely regard seemed baleful and she hunted for something to say.
"Spring has been so terribly late this year. I was beginning to reconcile myself to snow on the Fourth of July"
"Ain't it been awful?" Carey agreed. "Tom's winter cold hangs on like a plague."
"Don't sign no petitions 'til we talk," Tom said.
Vance nodded and danced Mildred away-Back in the middle of the floor, he made a wry face. "Hon-mind if we cut out as Jimmie would say. My feet hurt."
Mildred laughed. "All that agony. Wouldn't it have been simpler just to walk over and talk to Tom Colby?"
"Maybe you're right, hon. I never was much of a dancer."
"That's ridiculous. You're marvelous on your feet."
* * *
Vance was ready to leave by ten. They looked for Donna and found her dancing with Dyland Walsh who promised to have her home by midnight.
"Okay," Vance said, "but don't make a racket. I'll be in the sack. Had a rough day at the office."
Dyland Walsh laughed politely and guided Donna off across the floor. "They make a nice-looking couple," Mildred said.
"Standard cliche for the occasion. I'll bring the car around."
But Mildred did not release his arm. "I can survive a walk to the parking lot. I'm not that old...."
There was a moon and as they crossed the shadow-dappled lawn, Mildred said, "I remember another night like this, darling."
"That so?"
"You should remember too. Another night we danced together. And then we were hurrying up Fifth Avenue. We didn't even wait for a cab. We-"
"You should have slapped my face."
"But the truth was, I-"
Vance patted her hand. He seemed uneasy-almost embarrassed. "We did crazy things in those days, didn't we?" He turned his head to run an eye along the forest line beyond the lawn. "A good, lush spring even if it is late. We'll have misquitoes as big as Polaris missiles."
"Do you remember our first spring together? It was wet and rainy, but it was the most beautiful spring I've ever known."
She found his hand and took it in hers but they reached the car just then and he freed himself to open the door for her. Then he was behind the wheel saying, "Hon, will you see if I left some cigarettes in the glove compartment?"
Mildred could have cried easily at this point, but she squeezed back the stupid tears as she fumbled with the catch. She was being ridiculous-idiotically tense and over-sensitive. She found a pack of cigarettes and tore it open blindly. She pushed the lighter and took out a cigarette while it was heating. She lit the cigarette and held it within the arc of Vance's vision. "Here you are, dear."
But at that moment a match flared as Vance lit his own, dexterously manipulating the match pack with one hand. He glanced over. "Oh, sorry. I found one in my jacket pocket. Didn't know I had it."
Mildred's throat caught and then she realized how she was weighing his every word, magnifying even his gestures. The word again was ridiculous. But it seemed that she could not help it. An inner dread was forcing her into nonsensical behavior.
"Here," she said. "Take the pack, dear. You'll need it...."
When they got home, Vance dropped her at the front door and drove on back to the garage. She was in the bathroom when he came in and she called, "Would you like a nightcap, dear?"
He entered the bedroom yawning. "Not me. I'm bushed. Me for the sack."
She was preparing carefully for bed, taking a second quick shower. Perfume lightly applied. Her hair just right.
"What was Tom talking about, dear?"
"Huh? Oh, Tad Beck's stirring up trouble, I guess."
"Tad seems to consider himself the club's arbiter."
"Trouble is, nobody wants an arbiter."
Tad Beck was repulsive Mildred conceded; a huge, slack-mouth toad of a man who dominated the politics of the club. A man everyone feared, he'd appointed himself the dictator of protocol, social acceptance, and promoter of all that tended to maintain the snobbish restrictive barriers that walled both the club and the Hill away from the surrounding areas.
"Beck and Wellington make a real team," Vance said.
Ralph Wellington, a fifty-year-old juvenile, was from one of Games county's oldest families. There was still some money, but land and ancestoral prestige was the bulk of his heritage.
"Why is Ralph so slavishly devoted to Tad?"
"Because Beck holds the line. Ralph is a part of the decayed past that Tad protects and fosters."
"Do you think the rules of admittance are too strict?"
"That's a tough question. We need new blood but there doesn't seem to be any place to get it."
"I'm sure everything will work out all right," Mildred said.
Another minute or two and she was ready. She wore sheer black nightgown that reached only to above her knees, the kind that had once-by his own admission-driven Vance slightly mad, the perfume that used to send him nuzzling into her hair.
She moved to the doorway and stood there with the bathroom light behind her. A scant year ago, he would have caught his breath. She would have heard him whisper: "Don't move. Don't even breathe. Just stand there and let me get the picture I want to remember forever...."
Only a year ago. One turn of the earth. Could a thing so wonderful die in so short a time?
"You are completely and totally adorable...."
It seemed an age since she'd heard those words.
"Stay just that way-on your hands and knees. Of course that's all right. You're lovely that way-so very lovely...."
"Are you awake, Vance?"
"Humphf?"
Once his voice would have choked: "Why did you take so long in the bathroom...?"
"Oh, Mildred-Mildred-you stupid sentimentalist!"
Thus she castigated herself as she looked down at him.
"Have I told you lately that I love you very much?" she whispered. "Humphf?"
Perhaps it was the wistful misery in her voice that caught him and brought him back from sleep. He turned over and opened his eyes and smiled up at her. "Guess I've been a little careless on that score myself."
She moved close to the bed and his hand came out to touch her. He ran his hand down her arm and she pressed against him. But the hand stopped short of what she thought might be its goal. Vance patted her in comradely fashion.
"You're a knockout in that thing Millie. I sure am a lucky guy."
In her heart and in her mind, then, she knelt and kissed him and drew his hands to her body in the manner of a lover's hands. In the wishful world within her, he responded and drew her down and took her in the old wild way.
But only in her mind; only in her heart. In reality, she stood stiff and miserable, waiting for what was not going to happen; waiting and asking herself why:
Why can't I show him how I really feel? Why can't I make love to him the way he used to make love to me? Why are things so different between us? So different than they used to be with Tom? Whence this stupid, unyielding pride? Am I afraid of being rejected? He would not reject me. But-
Wasted questions. She knew the answers so well. The panic did not stir for this night or tomorrow night or next week or next month or next year.
The panic was for all the tomorrows to come and the hunger he knew nothing about.
The answer had been given her long ago by Jean Bellamy the day Jean had hunted her out in that horrid little cocktail lounge on Third Avenue, after she'd had a year of nasty little cocktail lounges. Jean had sat down across from her and said, "Listen precious, don't you think this nonsense has gone about far enough?"
"Go away. Let me alone. Tom is dead. I want to die too."
"Oh, my aching back! Will you cut it out? Tom's been dead for a year. Will you quit using him as an alibi? It was a good marriage, yes, but it wasn't any deathless passion. Why won't you face the truth?"
"The truth was that-"
"-that he was a guy who could take care of you. You hit the jackpot when you married Tom Bendixon. He was just what you needed-an overactive dynamo who could match you move for move and make you yell uncle."
"You're being obscene! We loved each other!"
"Sure you did, you idiot. But perfect understand-mg and an unlimited mutual drive were the keys. Can't you understand that? Baby! You're talking to Jean, now, and there aren't any secrets. We both know that if Tom had been an ordinary male your marriage would have conked out in six months. Let's get honest again, precious. Let's recap all the things we threshed out together. By whatever fancy name you want to call that, you need men. You chew men up and spit them out like a meat grinder. You wear out men like I wear out shoes. You've got to have men."
"Shut up! Shut up! I'll throw this gin in your face!"
"Sure you will. But you won't face the truth. You'll go right on lying to yourself-telling yourself your sliding nobly to hell on a toboggan of grief when all you've really done is quit like a yellow dog."
"Go away! Let me alone!"
"Tell me, precious, how many understanding bums have you sobbed out your loneliness to? Bums you met in bars and ended up sleeping with?"
"Jean-please! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!"
"Honey, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm only trying to snap you out of it. You're too valuable to be thrown away like this."
"Jean-I'm so miserable!"
"Well I'd think you would be. How long since you've had a square meal...?"
Mildred had passed out in the cab on the way to Jean Bellamy's apartment that night. Jean had called a doctor. He put Mildred under sedation and when she awoke, forty-eight hours later, with Jean stroking her forehead, she saw those months after Tom's death as an impossible nightmare-unreal time spent in some phantom world that no longer existed.
Mildred bent down quickly and kissed Vance. "Would you like a little company, mister?" she asked softly.
"Sure-sure thing, hon." He lifted the covers and made room for her beside him.
She lay down and pressed her long body close to his. He smiled sleepily and formed a cradle for her in the crook of his arm. She kissed his ear as she took his free hand and laid that on her breast. She shivered in response to his movement.
But that was movement without passion. He was merely getting comfortable. His eyes half opened. "You forgot to turn out the light, Millie...."
She lay motionless for a long time feeling the beat of his heart as that slowed down and became the faintest of vibrations. His breathing was even and measured, his hand inert as he ignored the hard rise of the nipple against his palm.
After a while she got up and went and sat on the window seat. Outside the moon was round and bright.
"By whatever fancy name you want to call that, you've got to have men...."
By whatever fancy name. Nymphomania: A female's morbid preoccupation with love. That was fancy enough.
She left the window and turned out the dressing room light and got into bed again. She lay very still and realized after a time that she was in the formal position of death-rigid, her hands folded-needing only the casket and the mourners around her looking down.
A premonition?
Like New Orleans?
She slept
CHAPTER FIVE
Memory.
Premonition. Death.
Mildred lay motionless, on her back, as though in a coffin. Beside her, Vance lay deep in sleep, his breath coming evenly. His back was touching her but he was a world away.
Mildred Hager-in the half world between waking and sleeping.
Remembering....
How had it been? Oh, yes, the bowl game. There'd been the bowl game there in New Orleans. The bowl game and Tom's desperate mood ... Yes, yes ... Tom wanted something more than sports. He'd wanted the world, not a small, unimportant segment of it. He'd demanded the Tokyo assignment. He'd been optimistic. Drunk the night before, he'd sent off the wire and they were waiting ... like a couple of kids. So sure. So positive the wire would do it....
The answering wire ... Quote: Leave the political stuff to Murrow and Sevareid. You stick to sports, Unquote....
Tom's shattering disappointment. His anger. That last night coming on....
The cheap, smug son-of-a-gun! Never mind, darling....
He'd put his anger into the love they made to the wild beat of all that crazy music out in the street. Oh, yes ... Savage love with the rage and the street and the mixed mad brasses and woodwinds and percussions blending into an answer to all the namelessness within her. But a wordless answer blown out of many horns by other nameless unfortunates seeking their answer also. A wordless answer turning into vapor like yes yes like the smoke of a predawn cigarette alive with the oneness and the clinging of two people. Filled with the honesty of her mouth and the truth of his body and the flame of their need. Filled with all that had been there with them and as a result of them and all that would be. Yes all like a strong warm hand on a naked breast and lips brushing absently between passion and passion. Like that but nothing to hold and cling to, nothing, the smoke and the magic gone and nothing left. Only a cold butt in the ash tray of all the gray rainy mornings that ever were or ever will be. Like that. Oh, yes, so very, very often. But the night in New Orleans different ... Oh yes, very....
Clutching at the answer. Sinking down down down into endless deep sleep. The answer slowly slipping away....
But to awaken....
With the music changed....
To a slow, sad beat....
The same brasses and woodwinds and percussions but wailing now. Wailing out the terrifying answer that was a great judgement. Saying, have done with dreams and illusions. This is about what it comes to in the end....
This and nothing more....
And she knew even as she got out of bed and ran to the window yes yes she knew....
The slow step ... the sad faces ... the mourners.. the beat ... the beat ... the beat....
The awful finality of the beat. .
The black casket....
Tom up and looking over her shoulder, yawning...."It must be almost noon...."
"Yes.."
With his anger of the night gone from his eyes into the night's rage of love....
"Id's a Negro funeral, hon...."
"Yes...."
"Those people are wonderful. They sense the unity in all things. The oneness. Joy and sorrow, life and death. Not separate. All one....
No. Death is separate because it separates. Death is the ravenous terror stalking the nameless. Death takes to itself and never gives back....
His hand felt the fear in her heart flowing out through her breast....
"A funeral frightens you ..
"No ... not the funeral. Not death. Only to be separated from you ... to live on as half a person. When you die I must die...."
"Tears! Millie! You're a sentimental idiot!"
"Yes.
"Come back to bed. We don't leave until midnight...."
"Yes.. "
They made love again while that casket went down into the ground and her cries whfle he took her were a farewell to a nameless stranger who had passed under her window to the relentless beat of terrifying music; music she tried to hide from with the comfort of Tom's body....
A premonition? That or a ghastly emotional coincidence.
Because five hours later, Tom was dead ... And now, lost m another Hie, Mildred's heart and soul cried out to him in her sleep....
Vance Hager spent Saturday at the club. The weather was as promised-. warm and balmy--but any previous agreements that involved physical exercise went by the board.
Thus, Vance lay on an inflated rubber mat near the pool. And his mood was such that he wondered why he'd come. You worked like a coolie and earned a day off and looked forward to spending it at the club-among congenial friends-bat you were invariably disappointed. How could you keep forgetting what a bore the place really was?
Or maybe not the place.
Maybe just the people.
Tom Colby lay beside Vance, looking like a melancholy scarecrow in his purple trunks. What Vance had told himself didn't go for Tom. Vance liked him. Tom had an earthy, reassuring outlook on life. Eternally alcoholic, grimly sour, dyspeptic and cynical, he was a ratifying constant to cling to in a changing world. In plain terms, he didn't give a damn about anything. Vance had to admit that he envied Tom Colby.
But the other two members of the poolside quartet-you could have them. The third was Ralph Wellington. Peering idly at Ralph from under the lower edge of his dark glasses, Vance idly wondered during which year of his young manhood he'd learned to eat by himself. He closed his eyes and got a ridiculous but curiously satisfying picture of Ralph's wife, slope-shouldered Jenny Wellington leading him to the table, tying on his bib, and saying, "Now, dear-there on the table."
The fourth man was more to be reckoned with. Tad Beck. He sprawled like a great toad in a deck chair that did its appointed job stoically although it squeaked every time he moved a muscle.
Tad Beck. Huge, shapeless, ugly.
The man they were all afraid of.
But why? Vance asked himself. Because Beck was vkaous and vindictive? He doubted it. This might have caused some of the Rebel Hill Country Club members to quake. But there were many members who scored well in that department themselves, men who had bat-fled up to money the hard way.
Then again, maybe he'd misnamed the attitude toward Tad. Maybe a snob club needed a man like Tad Beck, one not averse to going on record in favor of the restrictions they all wanted but didn't care to openly advocate.
Vance rolled over and reached for the moisture-beaded glass beside his pad. As he rolled back, Tad Beck cleared his throat and rumbled, "Vance-I've been hoping for the opportunity to include you in one of our little chit-chats."
"That so?" Vance's reply was guardedly noncommittal.
Ralph Wellington cocked his head with a show of obedient alertness. Tom Colby scratched his rear and grunted.
"Calling attention to certain club laxities isn't always pleasant," Tad said, "but if we want to maintain standards here on Rebel Hill, I guess someone has to watch out for the interests of the conservative elements."
"What seems to be the problem, Tad?" Vance asked.
"I might as well speak plainly-"
"By all means," Tom Colby growled lazily. "Let's not beat about the bush."
Tad Beck hardly noticed. He'd grown used to Tom Colby's disapproval. It was static, and as long as it remained that way, it didn't bother Tad Beck.
"In plain terms, the membership committee is getting pretty lax "
"How so?"
"Let me put it this way. Have you seen Arthur Crale's wife?"
"Who's Arthur Crale?"
"I forgot you haven't been to many of the winter affairs, Vance. Crale is a new member."
"And his wife's a blonde dish," Tom Colby added. "On two occasions, she's been drunk in the dining room."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Tom objected. "High-a little high."
"All in all, I'd say her conduct is objectionable."
Vance tried to hide his disgust but it was difficult "Suppose she were brought up for suspension, Tad, what would your charges be?"
"My charges? Now wait a minute, Vance."
"Weren't you making specific charges?"
"Of course not. I'm not on the membership committee."
"Then exactly what are you getting at?"
"I'm saying that the membership itself dictates the kind of a club it wants."
"And there's something wrong with this one?"
"I think you're deliberately misunderstanding me "
"So far, you haven't given me anything to understand. You appeared to make a charge against a member. Then you went into generalities."
Tom Colby regarded his Scotch glass with abstract disgust. His reason for this was obvious. The glass was empty. He raised it and called, "Here-lad!"
Immediately, Rafe Kolsky looked up from serving old Mrs Penner a lemonade and came forward. He took Tom's glass.
"A refill, son," Tom said. He glanced at Vance. "You ready?"
"I guess so. Another bourbon and ginger ale, Rafe."
The fact that Tom ignored the other two may or may not have been significant. Tad Beck noticed it, however. He scowled and said nothing until Rafe had taken several steps toward the clubhouse. Then he called out.
"Here, boy! Aren't you being pretty lax?"
Rafe turned. "I'm sorry, Mr. Beck. I didn't know you were ready. Another?"
"You might have asked."
"A whiskey sour, wasn't it?"
He took Tad Beck's glass and looked inquiringly at Ralph Wellington. Ralph shook his head.
As Rafe walked away, Tom Colby grunted. "You ought to be a little careful with the bar boys. They can walk out on us if they feel like it." Thus Tom made it plain that he considered the delivery of his drinks a more important subject than Mrs. Crale's conduct. He was referring to the "honorary" system of recruiting certain types of help at the Rebel Hill Country Club-a system initiated by Tad Beck himself. It consisted of appointing the younger generation-sons and daughters of members-as bar boys caddies, waitresses, and so on. These short-term appointments were regarded as honors-but only by the older members. The younger set did not seem to regard them so highly, and service often came grudgingly.
Tad Beck had snorted at Tom Colby's warning "Those jobs are about the only discipline our juveniles get," he said. "Work builds character."
"Saves the club money, too," Tom said.
"You can bet my Armand doesn't gold-brick when he's doing his stint."
Staring pensively into the sky, Vance wondered if bucking Tad Beck was worth it. You couldn't dent the louse with logic or reason. It was smarter to walk away from the whole thing and let Tad beat his own brains out.
Instead, he chose to go back to the original issue. "Okay, Tad. About this membership thing. What have you got in mind?"
"I thought the responsible members of the club might start thinking along the lines of tightening the rules of conduct-goin over the old list-" He turned his gross head in Ralph Wellington's direction. "Ralph agrees with me."
Ralph Wellington nodded automatically
"Then why don't you get on with it?" Vance said.
"I was sure you'd go along with the idea. I have a little more member canvassing to do and then-"
"I didn't say I went along with it at all. I just suggested that if you're interested in the project you ought to get on with it."
Tad scowled and Ralph Wellington looked uneasy.
"Do you mean we haven't got your support?" Tad asked.
"I mean I'm satisfied with things as they are."
"You can include me out, too," Tom Colby yawned. He slanted his eyes at Vance. "Let's go into the bar where it's cooler. Sun and Scotch don't mix with me."
"Okay," Vance said.
And the two of them got up and left without a nod or a good-bye. Vance felt Tad Beck's angry eyes boring into his back. He enjoyed it. Baleful glares from Tad Beck felt good
"He won't forget that," Tom said. "He hates your guts."
"Are you including yourself out of that too?"
"Hell, he's hated me for years but I'm not important. Nobody expects anything of me. I insult everybody, but your insults are special. They mean something. Tad won't forget that one."
Tom Colby's denial of involvement amused Vance; nor was he frightened by having earned Tad Beck's enmity
"If that guy liked me," he said, "I'd begin to worry about my personality."
"Oh, hell, you've got to have one in every club. They come with the franchise."
"Hard to figure what motivates a man like Beck. Sometimes you get the idea he wants to be unpopular."
"He's vicious," Tom said. "Do you really want some golf?"
Vance laughed. "Let's watch baseball on TV."
"Now you're talking," Tom said fervently. "I knew there was some reason I liked you. You're as kuy as I am."
Vance felt a sudden surge of comfortable well-being; a warmth toward the good people of Rebel Hill and the adjoining village of Warrenton. There were a few confirmed snobs like Tad Beck but not many. Most of them were sincere, hard-working, decent people ..
"Hello Rafe."
Rafe Kolsky had braked his jeep uncertainly. Mildred Hager, hiking that Saturday afternoon down Cornwall Road, had heard the chugging of the jeep behind her and had stepped off the narrow, two-rutted road to let it pass. Rafe had come alongside, looked at her doubtfully, and come finally to a halt a few feet beyond.
"I thought you might like a ride, Mrs. Hager. Then I thought maybe you were just out walking and wouldn't want one. I-"
He stopped to gulp and Mildred moved closer to the jeep and laughed. She instinctively warmed to Rafe, to his sincere, wistful uncertainty in the presence of older people. It spoke well for his upbringing, she thought, and for his character as a person.
"I was hiking. I'm afraid you'll think I'm pretty much of a gypsy," Mildred said.
"Oh, I wouldn't think that. I hike a lot myself. I think it's a shame people don't get out more and use their muscles."
"I agree with you thoroughly."
Mildred smiled and let the conversation gap a little as she noticed what fine eyes Rafe had. Their clear, dark-blue depths were fringed by long lashes. Yet there was nothing feminine about his appearance. A fine sensitivity was reflected in his quick change of expression, his almost lunging eagerness to please.
Mildred could see why he would not be in the forefront of leadership when other boys were concerned, but it seemed strange to her that the girls of Rebel Hill were not terribly interested in him. She thought he should have been very attractive to the other sex.
"Do you know where I'm going?" he said shyly.
"No, Rafe. Where?"
"To a graveyard."
"To a graveyard! What on earth for?"
"To get some epitaphs."
Mildred laughed. It seemed so easy, so natural to laugh with Rafe. "That's certainly a likely place to find them, but what on earth do you want with epitaphs?"
He glanced away, ill-at-ease. "I'm trying to do a little writing-an article I might sell to a national magazine."
"I think that's wonderful."
"I haven't even submitted it yet, but I think the idea is good. It will be humorous. A story on the funny things you find on old tombstones."
Again, Mildred wanted to laugh. She didn't, but Rafe-so solemn, so deadly serious about everything
-writing humorous material struck her as funny.
"Why, I think that's wonderful. I'll be able to say know a real selling author."
"But I haven't sold anything yet."
"I'm sure you will."
He paused, looking quickly into Mildred's face and then dropping his eyes again.
"This graveyard I'm going to. It's not far from Cow Hollow. It's very old-abandoned now. Some of the stones date back to 1760. Ah-would you like to go with me?"
"I'd love to," Mildred said. Rafe breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. Evidently he'd been afraid of being turned down. Mildred climbed into the jeep. "If I bounce out, don't go off and leave me." She was wearing a heavy tweed skirt and she pulled it tight over her knees. Her long legs were cramped.
Rafe glanced down and swallowed quickly. "There isn't much room in a jeep."
"It's fine," Mildred assured him.
The jeep climbed steadily, following a rising curve around Rebel Hill. Rafe stared straight ahead, giving rigid attention to his driving.
Mildred turned her eyes and studied his clean, classic profile. He was an extremely handsome youth, no doubt about that. But he had much more. He was far too serious and he obviously thought too much. He would be lonely
"Do you have a girl friend, Rafe?"
He smiled shyly. "Girls don't go much for me."
"Do you give them a chance?"
"I-well, I-"
Mildred laughed. "Young man, I think someone ought to take you in hand. I think you're probably the despair of many lovely girls."
"Girls nowadays are interested in such silly things."
"Like getting married and raising a family?"
"Oh, maybe the right girl will come along some time-"
Mildred realized she was embarrassing him and hunted for another subject.
"Tell me about Cow Hollow."
She'd picked the subject out of thin air and for a few moments she thought she'd made another mistake.
But then Rafe said, "I have a friend down there. A man named Verne Gethall."
"I've heard of him. He does odd jobs up on the Hill, doesn't he?"
"Yes. Verne is a pretty smart man. He speaks four languages."
Mildred stared at Rafe in wonder "Are you serious?"
"He's a college graduate."
"Then what on earth is he doing in Cow Hollow?"
"I realize that's hard to understand. You'd have to know Verne. Very few people on Rebel Hill do."
"I understand he has a retarded daughter."
"Bonnie? Yes. She's just about Verne's whole life."
"Can't something be done for her?"
"No. She's a moron. That's the eight-to-twelve-year-old level of intelligence. Too bad, too, because she's a pretty girl, physically normal in every way."
"I'd like to meet Verne Getchall sometime."
She knew Rafe was going to protest-that he felt a visit to Cow Hollow would contaminate her. He did not voice this however.
"The back path I told you about to Full Moon starts over there near the shacks."
"You promised to guide me to Full Moon sometime. Do you remember?"
"Yes."
Again, she sensed his embarrassment. It tended to annoy her a little. She saw no reason for his sudden plunge into childish uncertainty.
"What do you hear from your father, Rafe?"
"He's fine. Wants me to come down to Washington to visit him but I don't think I'll be able to make it for a while."
Mildred tucked in a strand of coppery hair and was now amused at Rafe's efforts to keep from touching her. He pressed tight into the corner on the driver's side and held his leg at an unnatural angle.
He turned to her suddenly, gulped, and said, "You-You have lovely hair, Mrs. Hager." When she didn't answer instantly he looked frightened. "You don't resent my saying that, do you?"
"Good heavens. Why should I resent it? I'm complimented."
"I thought you might think I was fresh."
"A woman always likes a compliment, Rafe." Mil-red spoke lightly just a trifle uneasy herself, but without any conscious reason for being so.
Again, she sought a new subject. "What are your plans for the future, Rafe?"
He seemed to be weighing his answer carefully. "I don't quite know, yet. I think I'd like to teach."
"You'd make a fine teacher."
"I'd need some specialized education."
Mildred turned her head to regard him thoughtfully. He turned also. His eyes met hers but fell away instantly.
"You're a strange boy, Rafe."
"How do you mean-strange?"
"You take things so seriously."
"Is that bad?"
"It's neither good nor bad. It's a trait. I commented on it because most of the boys around you here on Rebel Hill are only interested in a good time."
"I have a good time."
"I think the young people around here bore you. I honestly do."
He flushed. "That's another way of saying I'm a snob."
Instead of answering, he braked the jeep and pointed. "There it is."
Mildred looked and saw nothing but a small field of high weeds.
"It's all grown over of course. Nobody's been buried there for fifty years."
He climbed out and came around to help Mildred. She'd stood up preparing to step down herself, but he was there and he reached up and eased her down with a hand under each of her arms. He did it slowly, gently, and she realized he was remarkably strong.
He looked down at her nylon-clad ankles and calves. "There will be stickers in there."
"I'll survive."
They moved off the narrow road and into the high grass. Rafe walked ahead, opening a sort of path for her and when they got into the graveyard proper, she could see the sunken graves and the worn, corroded, tombstones, some tilted wearily, some lying flat on the ground.
Mildred shivered and laid a quick hand on Rafe's shoulder. "What a spooky place." She glanced quickly upward. "The sun is shining. It's broad daylight. Yet this place is still spooky."
"It's the silence, I guess. I feel it too. We both must be sensitive to such things."
He reached back and she took his hand and they again moved through the high grass.
"These epitaphs you want. You didn't explain-"
"They're funny-a lot of them. That's the slant of my article. Funny epitaphs. I was up here once before but I didn't take any of them down."
He turned and dropped to his knees and pushed the grass back off a tombstone that lay flat across a grave.
"Here's one. I can just about make it out. Carl Henderson. 1791-that's when he was born. He died in eighteen-the year is worn away."
Mildred bent down behind him and peered over his shoulder. She leaned closer.
He said, "The epitaph reads, 'He was peaceful and gentle and never raised hell. But he died at the bottom of a ten-foot-' I can't make out that last word."
"I suppose it's well."
"There are lots funnier ones around. Well have to hunt."
He started to rise and Mildred's face was suddenly against his, the move having come abruptly. He jerked his face around and she got a flash of the look in his eyes. It was a look she would never be able to describe. Fear, fascination, the dawning of something behind them.
Brat she didn't get a chance to grope for a description because a choked cry came from his throat and he seized her.
She'd been squatting behind him and his movement pushed her off balance. She fell back, her arms going out instinctively as she sought to regain her balance.
"Rafe!"
The crying out of his name was a warning, a protest, but that came from her lips in a blur because his mouth was on hers as he bore her down. His kiss was desperate and wild and unskilled, his body full of new passion that cried for release.
"Mrs. Hager-Mrs. Hager! You're a goddess I I love you!"
"Rafe! For heaven's sake!"
Mildred pushed his face away, but that was like trying to hold off destiny.
"I love you! I love you!"
In undisciplined frenzy, his hands were upon her, pawing, searching, finding. His eyes were wild. Desperately, she tried to struggle out from beneath his weight.
"Rafe! You're out of your mind!"
Then he jerked his face away from hers and his body formed a straining arc. The muscles of his neck corded and his face was a mask of surprise and shame.
His was the face of a man caught suddenly by exploding passion he could not control.
His eyes widened as from some great inner revelation. A cry ripped from his throat.
He appeared to have forgotten Mildred as the reactions of his own body preoccupied and held him. Then his eyes focused and saw her.
Sanity returned. The horror of what he'd done dawned on him.
"Rafe! You're hurting me!"
He realized where his hands were, how cruelly he was holding her, and he jerked them away as though pulling them out of quicklime again hurting Mildred in the process.
He got to his feet with a choked sob and ran blindly away.
Mildred could not honestly say later whether she was frightened or not. Certainly the surprise of the attack stunned her. Now she sat up, looking after him in dazed wonder.
At the edge of the cemetery he called back. "I'm sorry! You drive this jeep back! I'm so sorry!"
She sat for a while, then struggled to her feet. Dully, she looked down to assess the damage. She saw the state of her clothing and instinctively glanced around. But she was quite alone. There were no witnesses to her semi-nudity.
She examined her body and found two red gashes where his fingernails had scratched.
She drew a finger through the blood and a quick chill brought goose pimples.
Then she laughed. There was hysteria in the laughter but she controlled it instantly. This was rank foolishness. An inexperienced youth had lost his head. That was no reason for her to lose hers.
"Poor Rafe!"
She whispered the words as she wiped the blood away with a fold of her skirt.
Mildred's hands trembled as she readjusted shamefully disarrayed clothing. How on earth had he managed to create such havoc in so short a time?
She had to practically undress in order to get her garments back where they belonged. When this was accomplished, she retrieved the comb that had fallen from her jacket pocket and went to work on her hair.
It took five minutes to comb the dead grass and twigs out of it because, at the high of his frenzy, Rafe had literally ground her against the thick grass.
As she worked, Mildred tried also to reassemble her thoughts. What would this do to Rafe? He was so highly strung, so terribly sensitive. Had this been her fault? Had she tempted him? Could anything she'd done have been construed as teasing?
She thought not. Still, she could have been a little more perceptive.
As she put the comb back into her pocket, the aloneness of the place suddenly struck her. The utter silence. The dead quiet all around her.
She shuddered without knowing why. There was nothing ghostly here. The sun was high and spring was breaking out of the earth.
Then why did she hear again the mournful beat of a Negro funeral procession in far-off New Orleans?
As she walked toward the road, she deliberately filled her mind with the question as to whether she could turn the jeep around in the narrow ruts.
After several twists and turns, she succeeded.
But she did not escape unobserved. As she bounced off the mountain road back onto the smoother blacktop, three figures confronted her, three youths in red sport shirts, corduroy pants, and high boots standing at the edge of the high forest growth. Mildred recognized them even as she fervently wished they'd picked some other place to do their hunting.
The Lazer twins and Armand Beck.
She had to come almost to a complete halt as she made the sharp turn and they were too close to ignore.
She smiled.
"Hello, boys. Looking for rabbits?"
Dave Lazer answered. "Uh-huh. What are you doing way out here, Mrs. Hager?"
"A little exploring, Dave. You boys don't appear to have had too much luck."
"I missed one," Paul said.
"We killed a skunk a couple of miles back." Armand Beck said.
"And ran like crazy," Paul grinned.
Mildred had never liked the Lazer twins. She considered them ill-mannered and vulgar, but she made allowances. Their home life had been broken up. They had been left pretty much to themselves.
She liked Armand Beck even less. He was a rather handsome boy, bearing no resemblance to his repulsive-looking father. But there was an arrogance in his manner that grated. Once he'd knocked over a plant in the living room when he was there with Jimmy's group, and had walked away without a word of apology.
"What's to explore out here?" Paul asked.
"There's a great deal, Paul. I found an old abandoned cemetery back in the woods."
"What's in an old cemetery?"
"Forgotten tombstones. A lot of history."
Having run out of words, they stared blankly, stares that infuriated Mildred, senselessly, perhaps. She hid her anger behind a smile and threw the jeep into gear.
After she'd passed them, she looked back through the rear view mirror. She saw the expression on Armand Beck's face, saw his lips move, knew the question he was asking:
"What's she doing in Rafe Kolsky's jeep?"
What was she doing in Rafe's jeep? Why had she driven it home? The question hit forcibly as she turned into the drive and approached Jimmy who was stand-mg by the kitchen door eating an apple.
He was understandably mystified. "Did you break down, Mom?"
Obviously she hadn't. Her Impala stood by the garage.
"I was hiking and I met Rafe on the road. He had his rifle with him and wante to do some hunting."
"So-?"
"So I told him I'd drive his jeep back for him. He can pick it up later."
Jimmy ripped a huge bite out of his apple. He appeared to believe the explanation. Actually, there was no reason for any suspicion.
He frowned. "Why can't that jerk take care of his own crate?"
He did not speak with any hostility, however. It was merely a comment.
Jimmy crossed the walk and collapsed on the lawn under a tree. He stared up into the sky and could have been pondering the ultimate fate of mankind. Or his mind could have been a total blank. A sophomore at Grenville College across the line in Connecticut, he bordered on the brilliant, and neither he nor Donna, a senior at Warrenton High, had ever been problems scholastically. Donna carried a straight A average and Jimmy skated comfortably along in the B level. Vance was proud of their records. "Good minds-both of them," he often commented smugly.
But as Mildred climbed out of the jeep, she was thinking of something else-something that was not a source of pride.
It was the first time that she had ever lied to a member of her family.
Upstairs in the bedroom, Mildred let go. Quite suddenly, as soon as she'd closed the door, her hands ached from gripping the wheel of the jeep. Only then did she realize she'd been fighting reaction all the way home.
She stretched out on the bed and tried to bring her thoughts into some semblance of order. She had to consider and evaluate the graveyard incident.
But stubbornly or fearfully, she refused to give it mind space. It was too early to pass judgment or make decisions. Tomorrow perhaps-unless Rafe Kolsky did something foolish and forced an earlier consideration.
So she opened her mind to random thoughts, guarding it only against the stricken look on Rafe's face when his passion had exploded spontaneously there in the graveyard.
She did not want to think about that. She wanted to think about-
-Jean Bellamy.
Jean Bellamy ... Jean's ridiculous monk ... the leash and the gold collar Jean used to lead the monkey around Washington Square ... Vance ... He disliked Jean ... I'll swear that monk writes the book while she sits on the floor and eats peanuts ... Vance had to dislike Jean. And he would not know why. Vance, so worldly, so sophisticated, yet so innocent. He would not recognize a Lesbian but he would instinctively dislike one ... Vance's arms ... , Vance's lips ... So earthy, so sensual ... But so clean ... Darling, the rest of my life isn't worth living if you aren't with me ... Vance ... Vance ... love you so much ... Don't drift away from me . .
Jean, who knew her secret ... If you're sure he's what you want, Milly. But don't kid yourself. You can love ... oh, sure. You can love, a man. But not without bed. You've got to have that. You've got to have that all the time and lots of that. Tom knew that. Tom could give that to you. Can Vance? Maybe. But if not, you're in trouble....
Oh, Jean ... You lie! ... You lie! ... I'm not like that at all I'm responsible I know my weakness. So I avoid the occasion of sin....
Oh, no,-baby. When you need, the opportunity makes itself. That pops right out of the woodwork....
Sleep ... sleep ... closer ... now ... slower ... random thoughts. Let the guard down. Relax. Rafe Kolsky's smile like a promise of spring high on a windy hill. Tom ... Vance ... Vance ... Rafe....
But tins isn't sleep. This isn't even the bed. This is the bathtub filled with warm, sensual, caressing, exciting water. How did I get here? When did I leave the bed and come in here and run a tub of water? Did I know all the time I was going to do this? Did I know I would have to do this when Rafe was with me and I knew the desperate animal warmth of him?
Hands ... hands moving. Sensuous surrender. Soft lazy capitulation to the inevitable. The fire demanding release. Lower, lower, into the water. Under the water ... Let the water flow and cool the fire that Tom could cool, that Vance could cool, that many men in hotel bedrooms cooled....
Rafe....
Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was slightly open. Her hand ran lightly over her lips. There was a smile of sensual joy on her face. Her hands, faster and faster, magic. Her body heaved from the water, straining. The phantom man ... the savage, brutal man who despoiled her in a savage, phantom world.
Mildred Hager lay beaten. She cried softly until the water cooled and chilled her. Then she arose from the tub and dried herself, the guilt heavy to her.
CHAPTER SIX
"Darling! Baby! Sweet!"
Jean's arrival, as usual, was like a sudden storm blowing across the room. Every eye in the Three G's turned in her direction. All conversation stopped for a moment. Everyone saw a chunky, not-too-attractive woman somewhere in her forties who had an obviously aggressive personality and who rode an equally obvious crest of vitality.
Then they all went back to their own problems and Jean dropped into a chair. "Milly! You look wonder-ful!"
Mildred laughed. "Jean! That's my line! I was here first."
"All right. I'm fine! Healthy as a horse."
"You'll drink Scotch of course."
"Without a doubt, honey."
Her eyes on Mildred, keen, searching, Jean's light manner faded quickly. There were a few more frothy exchanges and then Jean said, "What's the problem, baby?"
"What makes you think there's a problem?"
"Hold it, precious. You're talking to Jean, remember?"
"Was it a good book?"
Jean accepted Mildred's gesture toward slowing her down. "You asked me that over the phone and it's a silly question. None of them are good but all of them are commercial. I write for money."
Quick, warm thoughts flowed through Mildred's mind. Jean. Wonderful friend. How strange that her Lesbianism had never stood between them. They'd discussed that along with about everything else under the sun. But that had never been an issue with them.
Or had that?
At times, Mildred got the uncomfortable feeling that she had blocked out much of her past. Much of it had to be blocked out, or she could not have lived with herself. For instance, all the men she'd been with after Tom, in petulant anger, had gotten into the car that morning in New Orleans and driven too fast and too recklessly.
And they had told her she no longer had a husband.
But the blocking out business. It was very strange. Jean was a wonderful, close friend and Mildred needed her and wanted her. Jean-eager to help and to be a friend.
The drinks came and Jean's bright blue eyes again cut across Mildred's face.
"Baby, you are in trouble."
"Not really."
"I sensed it over the phone, so let's stop the nonsense and get down to facts. What is it? That brute of a hundred of yours?"
"Jean! He's not a brute!"
"I'll bet he's with his lover right now."
"Why how can you say such a thing!"
"Honey, I know men. He's a man. So he's no different from the rest."
Mildred could cut too, when she herself was sliced at. She said, "You know men? How could you. You've never been around any."
Jean revealed her hard shell by reacting with amusement. "Touche, darling. I apologize. Now let's get into your problem."
Mildred forgave Jean instantly, according to her nature, and said, "It's the old thing building up again. That sense of dread. It sounds ridiculous to say I feel insecure with such a fine husband and a good home and children."
"The answer to that is simple, Milly. You're dealing in illusions. You live with Vance, but he's not your husband, Tom was. Vance's wife was a woman named Grace who is now dead. Jimmie and Donna are Grace's children, not yours."
Mildred felt a chill. Was that true? Was her whole marriage to Vance nothing but an illusion?
"Jean, you're so cruel."
"Honesty is always cruel, but in a way, it's kind. It forces you to face reality and in the end everyone has to do that."
Jean buttered a roll. Mildred watched her. "I suppose you're right, Jean, but it's only from your point of view. Why should I assume that you have a copyright on truth? There is truth in what Vance and I have. Jimmie and Donna are truth."
"We're dealing in semantics now. Nothing but abstracts. The point is, how does that truth apply to you?"
"What would you suggest?"
"Go to Mack Penrose. Try to get your old job back."
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"We don't need the money. Vance earns a good living. It would certainly reflect on him-his wife working."
"You're dreaming. Many women get married and still carry on their careers."
"Yes, if you put it that way. But-"
"Baby. You're vegetating up in those hills. That's what's basically wrong. You're not the type. You need action. You need people."
Mildred looked Jean squarely in the eye. Obviously, what she was going to say came hard.
"Jean, there was only one period in my life when I was-promiscuous."
"Baby, you take things too serious."
"Stop saying that," Mildred retorted with annoyance. "I'm trying to find some sort of reassurance for myself."
"I'm sorry, sweetie. But what's the use of digging all that up. You were true to Tom, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"And you have been true to Vance."
"Yes."
"All right. Why lash yourself with what went on while you were a free agent?"
"I don't know. I-"
"You're afraid of yourself, isn't that it? You're afraid you will stop being true to Vance."
"I don't know. But for the sake of argument, let's assume that."
"All right," Jean said cheerfully. "Let's assume it. So that's what makes you afraid of New York and your old job. You'll come in contact with Mack Penrose again-"
Mildred cringed inwardly at the sound of the name.
"You'll be around people and be in contact with men. That frightens you because it looks like the logical path toward marital infidelity."
"Isn't it?"
Jean leaned forward and patted Mildred's hand. "Sweetie, there are men everywhere. If you're going to be unfaithful to Vance, the seeds are already planted right up in those hills. The man is already there and waiting."
"That's ridiculous."
Jean shrugged. "Perhaps. But do me one favor. Go and see Mack Penrose. Drop in on him. That can't hurt anything."
Mildred pondered. Jean was right. There was no harm in calling on an old friend.
She laughed quite suddenly. The pressure and the worry had at least temporarily abated. This was Jean of course. You couldn't be around Jean very long without having your spirits lifted. Not that Jean was a Pollyanna. Far tram it. But there was a refreshing hit in her reality, in her realistic approach to life as it was, in her sensible compromises with it.
"Let's talk about something else," she said. "How about you? What are your plans? When are you going to write the big one?"
There was talk along those lines, but it didn't last long. Jean had never been inclined to talk about herself or her personal life. That was her own. She would dwell on the superficialities of it, make light conversation, but that was as far with Jean as anyone ever got. And anyone who assumed they'd gone deeper was in the realm of delusion.
So the luncheon broke up shortly afterward.
"I'll be in touch, sweetie. I'm staying in New York for quite a while. I'm back in my old digs in the Village. The phone will be connected shortly."
After she left Mildred, Jean walked down Fifth Avenue occupied with her own personal thoughts. Mildred was such a little fool. That terrible guilt complex, her inability to see what she was and live with it and make the most of it.
It had taken quite a while for Jean to actually believe that Mildred really blocked things out of her mind, severed, in certain instances, the line between consciousness and memory.
But now she knew Mildred did not remember the four days they'd spent together after Jean had found her again. Jean had gone to New Orleans and had been a wonderful friend. They had brought Tom back to Albany his native town, for burial, and Mildred had leaned on Jean the whole time.
Then Jean had been called away. She had signed a contract for a travel book that required a trip to Europe. When she returned some months later, Mildred had vanished.
Jean found her in terrible shape, plummeting down toward disintegration. She took her in hand, nursed her and brought her back.
Even Jean was not enough of a realist to admit to herself her own motivation. Or perhaps it was better called a hope, that certain tendencies she'd seen in Mildred, latent and deeply hidden, would rise out of the chaos and become a potent part of Mildred's regeneration.
Jean would have nursed her regardless, but the four days of Lesbian love with which she had been rewarded were tremendously gratifying.
But they had turned out to be only an incident. Mildred had what might have been called a relapse immediately afterward. And the intimacy was never repeated.
Jean had often asked herself why. The relationship had seemed so perfect, Mildred's logical answer. There had been no traumatic realization of what she'd done on Mildred's part. She'd bounced back quickly after her second minor regression and become quite herself again.
The circumstances for a continuation of their Lesbian relationship had never seemed quite right. From being a warm and ardent lover, Mildred had suddenly become quite the opposite, a friend, and Jean had never pressed.
She'd gotten the uncomfortable feeling later that Mildred had not actually been in her arms at all, that so far as Mildred was concerned, hers had been the arms of Tom or Mack Penrose or perhaps a montage of men who stood out in her memory.
At any rate, the affair ended but the friendship remained.
And now there was hope again. At least Jean saw it that way. And perhaps this time, with a little more firmness on her part, she could break up the silly marriage Mildred had stumbled into and bring her permanently over to where she belonged.
It was worth a try, anyhow.
The Penrose Company was on upper Madison Avenue in one of the huge glass buildings that spelled glamour at its best.
Mildred rode a luxurious self-service elevator up to the twentieth floor and asked the blonde receptionist for Macklin Penrose. The girl, a little out of sorts that day, was somewhere short with her, "Do you have an appointment?"
"Well, no, I haven't. But you might tell him Mrs. Hager is here. If he has a few minutes he might be-able to see me."
The girl's expression said she doubted it very much but she put word through the intercom and changed magically. Her smile became brilliant.
"Of course, Mrs. Hager. Through that door at the end of the corridor. Mr. Penrose is waiting."
Mack Penrose had not waited. He met Mildred halfway down the corridor with out stretched hands.
"Milly! This is wonderful. How have you been? How is Vance?"
He was a tall, handsome man with rich gray hair he used effectively in his grooming. The gray motif carried through from head to foot, made him a dashing figure.
But there was no insincerity in Mack Penrose. He was a good and understanding friend. His relationship with Mildred had been sophisticated at one point, but only accidently so, and he'd never taken advantage of that.
Nor did he think the less of Mildred because of the incident.
"Golly, it's like old times, Milly, seeing you again."
"You're such a flatterer, Mack. But this office. It awes me. You've really come into your own."
He shrugged. "I fooled them good, didn't I?" His grin was warm and confidential and it made Mildred laugh.
"No, Mack. You fooled yourself if you think you fooled them. They know a good man when they see one."
"It's Vance down there at the agency who's making me look good, Milly. Hard punching advertising copy. Sales skyrocketing."
"They say that's the mark of a genius-finding good men."
"Then I'm a genius because I found one...."
A little later he got a little more personal. "Are you all right, Milly? You don't look well."
"I'm fit as a fiddle. I was never in better health."
He regarded her thoughtfully from behind his sleek, modern desk upon which he'd casually placed one foot. "Oh, I can see that. You've never been so lovely. It's something else. Something in your eyes." He paused to regard her for a few moments. "I know it's been a long time, Milly, but we had a pretty good rapport. We don't have to waste time. What's on your mind?"
Mildred laughed but there were uneasy undertones. She'd wondered whether or not she would be embarrassed in Mack's presence. Not that there was any need to be. But of course both their minds had to go back to that night when the ultimate in rapport had been established.
"Honestly, Mack, there's nothing. I just dropped in to see an old friend. This is old friend day for me. I just had lunch with Jean."
"Jean Bellamy?"
"Is there any other?"
"No I guess there isn't. How is she?"
"Fine. You know Jean. She's the rock all the waves hit and break up on."
"She's a remarkable woman."
The statement was potent for what it left unsaid Mack Penrose disliked Jean Bellamy the way a thoroughly normal man can dislike a Lesbian. But such was his poise and self-presence that neither Jean nor Mildred had the least idea of this.
"She thinks I ought to ask you for my old job back," Mildred said.
"Oh? And are you going to?"
"Mack! You know better than that. I'm a happily married woman. There isn't a better man on earth than Vance-nor a more wonderful husband. I'm the happiest woman on earth, if you'll pardon the cliche."
"I imagine you're tremendously thrilled at the good news."
"What good news?"
"Vance's elevation to the top level. His vice-presidency."
Mildred said nothing, but she was unable to hide her amazement. Mack Penrose frowned in spite of himself.
"Gosh! I didn't realize they hadn't told him yet I mean, I assumed they had. I've put my foot in it."
"No, Mack. Not at all. But he doesn't know or of coarse he'd have told me."
"Then you'd better let him do it. He'd never forgive either of us. It would look too much like a conspiracy."
Mildred eyed him levelly. "You had something to do with it, Mack."
"Only as a part of Penrose Soap. He's done a terrific job for us. We didn't hand him anything. It's to our interests also."
"I'm very grateful, nonetheless."
"There was so much in Vance's favor. A beautifully balanced picture." Mack Penrose paused for the barest moment here, put the faintest of inflections on his next words: "A solidly established family man. Highly respected in his community." Then, to take any possible sting out, he smiled warmly. "A beautiful wife who will make him terribly envied at organizational affairs and get-togethers."
"I really didn't rate Vance," Mildred said.
Mack got briskly to his feet. "Now let's not have any of that. You know darned well he didn't rate you. Have you got time to run down for a quick cocktail? I'd like to show you off in the lounge."
"Thanks, Mack. You're so wonderful for a woman's ego. But I've got to run. I'm a suburbanite remember."
He walked her to the door and down the corridor and she looked at him in genuine admiration. "Mack, how long are you going to keep on being cruel to women? Isn't it about time you did your bit for the cause-selected one and made her supremely happy?"
"You and your cliches," he laughed. "If you ever did come back to work, you'd have to take a refresher course in copy writing."
After he'd returned to his office, he found no taste for his work, for what he'd been doing when Mildred was announced. Instead of going back to it, he put both feet on his desk and surrendered to recollection.
"Why didn't I marry her myself?" he murmured.
But he knew very well why he hadn't. Too many danger signals.
His first contact with Mildred had been through Jean Bellamy. Not that they had been in any sense friends, but Jean knew people in the agency and she'd put out feelers on Mildred's behalf. The applicant appeared to qualify in the area of Mack's jurisdiction at that time-copy-and so Mildred had been sent his way.
He'd been drawn to her from the first moment; she'd been interesting enough to make him look twice and see that something was wrong. Emotional trouble.
But she seemed to be able to handle it all right. She had been hired and had done good work. Macklin Penrose watched her and the next thing he noticed was that fact she put too much into it, went at it so intensely that she was obviously using it as a defense against the other thing, her husband's tragic death, no doubt.
He had a strict policy, so far as he himself was concerned, of no office entanglements. He made his attachments, social and otherwise, outside the office.
So his only contact with Mildred had been during office hours. They'd had a few talks and found a ground of common liking.
But he was still surprised when she arrived, without even an advance phone call, at his apartment one night. She explained not calling.
"I've got to talk to someone, Mack, and if I'd called I wouldn't have been able to come."
He invited her in of course. "What's the big problem, Mildred?"
"I'm going to quit."
"In heaven's name why? You're doing fine. We like you. I thought you liked us?"
"I do like you. You've all been wonderful to me."
At that precise moment, he used bad judgment. He'd thought about it afterward and could not honestly say that he was sorry. The experience had been so unique; the only contact he'd ever had with a passion and a need so driving that that overshadowed all else in woman. That had been like the sudden smashing of a dam.
He stepped close to her, put his hands on her shoulders, and said, "Tell me about it, Mildred."
Then she was in his arms, suddenly, overwhelming.
"Oh, Mack! Love me! Hold me! Take me!"
He thought later, somewhat wryly and perhaps by way of self-justification, that it would have been impossible not to comply. Mildred was the frantic aggressor. He had a dressing gown on over his pajamas and the dressing gown was torn away, then the pajamas, even before he could reorientate himself.
She was in his arms and there was no time for a bed but the floor was there and the carpet was thick and soft enough.
His own passion fired quickly to match Mildred's and he revealed the hunger and eagerness she gave him. He took advantage of that and the experience was new and novel. He had never before loved a woman who sobbed with hunger for him even as he began, who hungered for him so avidly that he climbed to magnificent heights in order to serve her.
The next hour was a paradox. He could not remember that but he would never forget that. His own response began automatically, rose to a crest, and was fulfilled. But hers was not and her hunger had ways of holding out for more, enticing him, luring him, rebuilding the passion again and again.
Until she was done, until her final cry of delight faded into sobs and she lay in his arms.
He held her quietly, his mind again in the grip of reason and logic. There was a long silence before he spoke.
"Mildred."
"Yes?"
"What will you do now?"
"I'll go away. You won't see me again."
"I thought that was in your mind, but you mustn't do that."
"I couldn't face you again. I'd die of shame."
"You can. And you will. This happened. This was an incident. This is over and we're both intelligent adults. So we face things intelligently."
"I couldn't possibly-"
"You can and you will. This will never be repeated. I'm no wolf who's found himself an opportunity. I'll never remind you of this again and you'll never speak of this."
"I won't be at the office tomorrow."
"You'll come to work as usual. It's vitally important to your own welfare that you do. I'm your friend. I'll remain your friend. Tonight will be wiped off the books."
He hadn't really expected her, but she came. They avoided contact with each other for two days. Then, gradually, warily, communication was reestablished.
He watched Mildred closely and saw her emotional ups and downs. He knew the times when her demon gnawed at her vitals and he hoped she would come to him even knowing he would have to refuse. Then, when the fires had again been squelched, he wondered about the man and wanted to offer protection from any aftermath.
But that was impossible also and he was glad when Vance Hager came into the picture.
It occurred to him later that he had given no thought to Vance's welfare. He would have had to warn a close friend. But he was interested in Mildred's salvation. Marriage could save her. So he merely congratulated Vance when the wedding was announced and wondered if he would have to go out and get drunk on the wedding night.
He did not find it necessary and after that test, he knew. Mildred was a friend and it would never be any different.
But now, the life of Mildred Hager had reached another crisis and he pondered it deeply. She was in trouble again. Evidently, Vance Hager had not proved himself to be the man Tom Bendixon had been. Either that, or Tom had died before the crisis in that marriage could develop.
How would it be with Mildred now? Would there be a scandal? Would she turn to him again as she had before? He doubted it. Time had changed things.
Also, he debated the development in relation to Vance's promotion. His thinking was a little different in this direction. Business was involved and there was no room for sentiment.
Penrose Soap could make or break Vance. So far, it had made him, but perhaps further confidence had better be withheld, at least temporarily. Macklin Penrose told himself this regretfully. He was sorry things had worked out this way. But he wag a realist.
Being a realist, he turned from Mildred Hager and her problems to things of his own concern. The one that occupied him at the moment involved calling Hall Parnell & Wayne, the advertising agency that had been slated to change its name shortly to Hall Parnell, Wayne & Vance; a change that would now be delayed.
There were direct wires from Penrose Soap's offices to those of its advertising agency, but Macklin Penrose used an outside wire:
"Nela?"
Nela Varese's voice came back warm and reassuring.
"Mack-darling."
"Are you free tonight?"
"I'm always free for you. What did you have in mind?"
"Oh, dinner. Then a show perhaps. Then I thought I might have another try at persuading you to marry me."
Nela laughed. "Please do, darling. You always put me on clouds when you propose."
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Hello, Rafe."
Rafe Kolsky jerked around suddenly. His expression become a montage of embarrassment, fear, and confusion. He would have no doubt fled off through the forest if Mildred hadn't put a quick hand on his arm.
She'd been worried about the boy. He had come late at night for his jeep, slipped in and driven it away like a thief without a word to anyone.
Then a week passed and Mildred could well imagine the agony he'd gone through. When indirect inquiry proved that he'd dropped out of sight completely, she had been tempted to call on his mother by way of investigation.
The whole episode had been nonsensical of course. Rafe had lost his head, and that was Mildred's fault. She realized that. She should have seen the signs and staved off the possibility of the incident. An intelligent woman is able to do this, she realized full well, and she wondered if it hadn't been her vanity, pleasure from Rafe's admiration, that had made her ignore the danger.
At any rate, she had to repair the damage she'd done, put Rafe on a firm footing again, and now chance gave her the opportunity.
Hiking along up Rebel Hill Road, she'd turned a corner and found the jeep pulled of the side of the road. At first, she thought it was abandoned there. Then she saw Rafe's red jacket. He was crouched at the roadside pulling foliage away from some kind of a plant.
The danger of flight averted, he pointed vaguely at the ground and said, "Poison oak. Worse than poison ivy. Every time I see the stuff I stop and pull it up."
"You must be pretty busy," Mildred said. "There's an awful lot of it."
"It could be a lot worse."
He straightened and turned back toward the car, glancing at Mildred uneasily. "You're out hiking?"
"Yes, getting a little exercise."
They walked toward the road. "It's a beautiful day," Rafe said.
"Yes. You haven't been at our house lately, Rafe. I see the other boys, but not you."
"Oh, I've been pretty busy."
Mildred groped around for a way to open the subject that had to be opened. She could not let this opportunity get by. There seemed no way but to plunge in.
"That's not the reason at all, is it?"
"No, I guess not."
"Rafe, you're being foolish. I know what's been going on in your mind. You've got to forget it."
His hand was on the steering wheel and he seemed anxious to get into the jeep and drive away.
"That's pretty hard to do."
"For a boy of your character, it would be, but you've got to be sensible. That can never happen again. We both know that. So why should that break up a friendship?"
His look was doubtful. "A friendship?"
"Don't you consider me your friend?"
"Of course. It's just that-"
"I'm aware of all the facets involved. But you mustn't let them bother you. They're to be forgotten."
He kicked at the dust in the road and Mildred saw him as a little boy. It gave her a warm feeling.
"I was on the way over to Cow Hollow to see Verne Getchall--take him some money."
"You promised to take me to Cow Hollow sometime."
"It's an awfully dirty place."
Mildred smiled. "I think we went through all that before. I'm not fragile."
"All right," Rafe said, making up his mind suddenly.
Mildred sensed resignation in his voice but she felt that she could lift his spirits and get him back to normal in the time the trip would take.
He helped her into the jeep and gripped the wheel tight while he drove in silence and Mildred again found herself in search of something to talk about.
"Rafe the other day you mentioned your writing.
I doubt if you take it very seriously, though. You said you'd never submitted anything."
"Dad's the writer in the family, I'm afraid."
"That's no attitude to take. Are you afraid you can't measure up to him?"
"Maybe."
"But why don't you think of him as a challenge rather than a barrier?"
Rafe's hand slid nervously along the wheel. "That's pretty easy to say."
"And it's not hard to do."
"I'd-I'd like to write poetry."
"Then why don't you?"
"There's no market for it."
"Frost and Housman and even Ogden Nash did all right."
"Yes, but the medium in general is ignored."
"Great poets are still honored."
"Great ones-yes."
Mildred should have been annoyed with him. She realized this, but compassion and sympathy predominated. He needed help more than criticism. He needed someone to draw him out of himself.
"I like languages," he said with a little more enthusiasm. "What I'd like to do in this world is to hit at all the misunderstandings. I think they all come from lack of the ability to communicate. There ought to be a universal language."
"That's quite true. People get wrong meanings even in their own language." Mildred smiled briefly. "You and I are good examples."
Again, Rafe gave Mildred that odd impression of his being terribly frightened, almost as though he wanted to jump out and run away.
But this did not become an issue because Rafe had turned into a road even more narrow and impossible than the previous one and now, quite suddenly, Cow Hollow lay just below them.
It was situated in a ten or twelve acre saucer surrounded by trees and rocks.
"Good lord," Mildred gasped. "It looks like a municipal dump!"
Rafe grinned, happy now at having shocked Mildred. "A lot of the building material came from dumps."
The buildings-the shacks and hovels-Mildred thought, looked like refuse in a dirty ash tray the morning after a party. None, so far as she could see, had been finished. Some had front doors without porches, some without even steps up to hip-high doorsills, leaving thresholds that tenants would literally have to jump out of.
Tar paper fastened on with slats and boards was the prevailing style for outer walls. Three of the shacks within sight were roofed over with dirt and sod.
In most cases it appeared that the occupants had labored to a point of bare livableness and had then stopped.
Incredibly dirty children played here and there in the mud and dirt. Dogs of bewildering variety as to shape, size and breed infested the place, more dogs than Mildred had seen in one place since she'd attended the Westminster Kennel Club show.
Slovenly, snaggle-toothed women, weird witch-creatures, eyed the approaching jeep from windows and doorways. They were all silent, their faces devoid of all expression except stupid curiosity.
All along the approach, the dogs set up a racket and charged the jeep like a nondescript rabble-army resisting invasion. The larger beasts appeared ready to eat the jeep and its occupants. Mildred looked fearfully at Rafe, but he remained calm so she decided they were not going to be torn to pieces.
"It's-it's incredible," Mildred gasped.
"At least it proves that the south doesn't have a monopoly on shiftless populations."
"They not only live here but they'd be highly insulted if they heard you call it that."
Mildred realized now that she'd seen some of these people before, in Warrenton in front of the stores and taverns. They came in battered old cars filled with ragged children. They cashed their relief checks and bought beer, whiskey, and groceries and disappeared again, back into the hills.
Rafe pulled up in front of one of the hovels-a standout in the community in that it was the largest residence. It had three rooms strung together with the improbable precision of three huge boxes dropped end to end and nailed together.
Rafe killed the motor and yelled, "Hey, Verne!"
Immediately, a huge, forbidding figure appeared in one of the three doorways. He was a giant of a man with red hair and a weather-beaten face, a Norseman who had gotten landlocked for some reason or other.
This impression hit Mildred as a girl appeared in a second doorway. And at that same instant, the third one was filled by a woman.
The dramatic contrast froze Mildred in her seat; the mother-toothless, shapeless, filthy; the girl-clean, pretty, bright-haired.
And between them, the dominating giant of a father.
"I brought your money, Verne. You didn't wait for it the other day."
The giant strode forth. He scowled down at Rafe's right front wheel. He kicked it and rumbled. "That tire's ready to go."
His demeanor and tone of voice awed Mildred. It was as though he were giving the tire permission.
Now he turned his attention to Rafe. "There was no charge," he said.
"But it was a lot of work. You fixed the lawn mower and the pump and-"
"The books you gave me last month were payment enough." His deepening scowl indicated that Rafe was under censure for some transgression.
"You haven't introduced the lady."
Rate gulped guiltily. "Oh, I'm sorry. This is Mrs. Vance Hager. Mrs. Hager, I'd like you to meet Mr. GetchaO, a friend of mine."
The giant bowed as though he wore the raiment of a more gallant age and stood in the midst of great lords and ladies.
"I'm honored, Mrs. Hager. Let me help you down."
It was ridiculous, a lampoon on good manners, as Verne Getchall handed her out of the jeep amid the blank stares of the squalid Cow Hollow natives.
Rafe glanced fearfully at Mildred, trying at the same time to hide the look from Verne Getchall. Obviously, he regretted having been talked into this. "We can't stay long," he said.
Mildred pitied him. "Rafe picked me up on the road and gave me a lift. I was out hiking and strayed too far from home."
The words were inconsequential, Mildred knew that, but it was difficult to know what to say in this strange situation.
"You can come in for a few moments," Verne Getchall assured them.
Resigned to the inevitable, Mildred laid a hand on his arm and they approached the hovel as though it were the Palace of Versailles.
The place wasn't really so bad inside, but Mildred was able to arrive at this conclusion only by way of comparison; in relation to what she'd expected. The main room into which Getchall ushered them was musty and untended rather than dirty. It was a place of books. Books on shelves, books piled on the floor, books in open boxes, books in the way to a point where care had to be exercised in crossing the room.
"This is my wife," Verne Getchal said with a careless wave of his hand and while his contempt was obvious, Mildred felt there was nothing personal in it.
The crone simpered and grinned, showing a toothless maw. Then she appeared to go back into neutral semi consciousness.
"My daughter, Bonnie."
Verne Getchall's contrasting manner was dramatic. As he spoke, his eyes adored her, but far back behind the adoration, Mildred glimpsed pain.
Bonnie smiled and extended a clean, well-kept hand. It was flaccid in Mildred's grasp.
The girl had a pretty face, marred by an expression of child-like simplicity. This was all the more tragic when contrasted with her voluptuous, woman's body.
"Do you like my dress?" Bonnie asked.
"I think it's very nice."
"I made it myself," the girl answered, and the pride in her voice was that of a child seeking praise for having drawn an acceptable picture with colored crayons.
But the simple shift she wore was spotless, as clean as her visible skin, as neat as the short, chic hair in which her father's Nordic red predominated.
Verne Getchall turned his scowl on Rafe. "Those two books were interesting, but they were a lot of trash," he stated.
Rafe was not offended but he did put up a mild defense.
"Ellis is the latest thing in psychology and psychiatry," he said.
Getchall snorted. "He would be. He advocates everything the modern world wants to be told."
"I have another you might be interested in. It's a penetrating study of Freud."
Getchall's scowl turned into a sneer. "A study in depth and breadth, no doubt."
"Well-"
"The whole field of modern psychiatry is a device. People want to be excused for their weaknesses. They want someone to tell them that what they do is all right. Psychiatry tells them this."
Mildred could not help being impressed by this man. At the very least, he was a person of positive convictions. Whatever he believed, right or wrong, he believed whole-heartedly.
There was more talk along this line and Mildred was given a glass of not-too-bad wine.
Then the place became stifling. She had to leave.
"Rafe told me about an old estate called Full Moon that sounded quite fabulous. I persuaded him to show it to me. He said the trail into the Cutoff starts in this neighborhood."
Verne Getchell's glance was piercing but unreadable. He seemed about to reply, but when he did speak, Mildred was sure his tack had changed.
"The way hi is rough. Ace you sure you can make it?"
Mildred laughed. "It took me quite a while to persuade Rafe that I could."
You had better get started then. It will be harder coming back-when you're worn out."
Mildred wanted to make the same protest she'd made to Rafe. She resented being considered an old woman. But she shrank from making the issue with Verne Getchall.
"Perhaps you're right," she said.
When they were back in the jeep, Verne Getchall's imperious eyes on them from the doorway, Rafe said, "We can go another mile before we have to walk."
And Mildred felt a great sense of relief when Cow Hollow vanished into the forest behind them.
"That girl," she said. "I never saw a more pathetic case in my life."
Rafe, immersed in the subject, forgot to be self-conscious. "She's a big problem to Verne."
"You can see that he adores her."
"In a way it's a pretty terrible situation. It's even difficult to talk about-the way he has to watch Bonnie. She's so pathetically innocent. He can't let her wander away into the woods or anything like that."
"You mean she could get lost?"
"Oh, Verne could always find her, but-well, let's face it. There are some pretty scaly characters in Garns County, types who would be willing to take a chance."
"I don't understand-"
Rafe's self-consciousness almost returned but not quite. "If a man found Bonnie alone in the woods, she'd be defenseless. Of course, if Verne ever caught one, he'd kill him. But as I said, Bonnie's a beautiful girl."
Mildred wondered about her own innocence. How could she possibly have been so dense? Why had Rafe had to spell k oat for her?
"Why doesn't Verne Getchall take her away? I'd think he'd try to do something for her."
Rafe shrugged. "Who knows about things like that? Maybe it uncovers a weakness in Verne. He's a very proud man. You can love someone and be ashamed of them at the same time. I think that's how it is with Verne. He's giving his life to Bonnie, but he still hides her from the world."
Mildred looked at Rafe, regarding him suddenly in a new light. "You're very adult."
"In some ways maybe." He braked the jeep. "It's time to walk."
Armand Beck was also roaming the woods that day. Armand was a secretive youth, not given to talking much about what he considered his own private life.
This was logical. He'd learned as a small child that lying to his father was safer than telling the truth. Not that he avoided punishment that way, but he was able to keep better control of things and reduce whippings to a minimum.
So his journeys into the Garns County woods, journeys that always led him toward Cow Hollow, were not generally known about.
These hikes had rewarded him with one exciting incident. On one occasion, he'd been lucky enough to meet Bonnie Getchall.
But he had not had the courage to take advantage of the situation, although his animal desires were strong and she was a beautiful girl with whom preliminaries would not be necessary, a gorgeous partner waiting to be taken.
The urge was strong but fear of Verne Getchall stood in the way. Armand had the awareness to know that a slip could be fatal. A mention of his name afterward would turn Verne into an avenging madman. Armand could have used a fictitious name in his beguilement of Bonnie; he could have called himself Prince Charming so far as her gullibility was concerned.
But Verne was smart as Satan. He might discover the truth.
So Armand, even while cursing his own chicken-heartedness, let the opportunity slip by. But perhaps next time, he'd told himself, it would be different. And with the vision of Bonnie deep in his fantasy-world, he returned again and again to the area, not really looking for her, telling himself, rather, that he liked solitude and liked to hike.
But his aimless route always took him in that direction. And he was always listening hopefully for the sound of Bonnie's voice singing some nursery rhyme that her father had taught her.
But now, on this particular day, he heard a sound off through the trees.
And his hopes arose.
The way to Full Moon was hard indeed. Rafe had to help Mildred over several of the rough spots. Once he had to put his arm around her and steer her through a swamp that could have swallowed both of them.
But they made it, and so far as Mildred was concerned, the trip was well worth-while.
Quite suddenly Rafe had pushed a bush aside and said, "There it is. Full Moon."
The effect was eerie. The sun had dropped westward, there was a moon in the sky and the feeling Mildred got was one of melancholy desertion and loneliness.
"It's fantastic," she breathed.
The overall effect having been gotten, she began seeing it part by part; the huge, brooding manor house, long unpainted, its walls colorless with graying age; the artificial lake, its surface like dark glass behind the man-made wall that imprisoned its waters; the riding stable, a long lonely-looking, low-roofed building that seemed to be waiting patiently for the earthy sounds of the life it once had known; a pathetic little summer-house crouching sadly at the far side of a vast, overgrown lawn.
Mildred reached out unconsciously and grasped Rafe's wrist. "So eerie! So terribly eerie!"
Then her hand was warm in his and the closeness brought her comfort.
"I thought you'd like it," he said.
"Let's explore."
They moved forward across the lawn and Mildred felt as though a thousand eyes were upon her, the eyes of many ghosts from long ago.
"The house first?"
"Yes. You've been here before. You'll have to guide me. I probably wouldn't have the courage to go in alone."
"The front door is unlocked."
"It-it all seems to be alive!"
"Do you get that impression too? My first feeling was that dozens of people were hiding here, peeking out the windows, looking at me over the stone walls."
"Are you sure there aren't?"
"The place is absolutely deserted."
"Doesn't anyone ever come here?"
"Occasional hunters and hikers come through. Every time I expect the place to be gone."
"What could happen to it?"
"Fire. But it seems to bear a charmed life. Watch those steps. They haven't been inspected lately."
The steps creaked, the front door creaked, and Mildred cried, "They left most of the furniture!"
"A lot of it. Nobody wants the stuff."
It was a dark, baronial hall; a huge tapestry, ragged and weary, still dominated the brooding loneliness.
"What do you think of that staircase?"
"It's magnificent."
"It will still hold our weight. Let's go up."
The impact of the unusual dulled from repetition; room after room added bizarre, deserted individuality to the total picture; impression after impression, until they all blended back into the overall impression and Rafe said, "We'd better start back. We don't want it to get dark on us."
"I suppose so."
They turned with one motion and looked at each other. And at that moment there was nothing between them, no difference in age, no husband, no families, no yesterday or tomorrow as the blocks between them vanished.
Their cry of need seemed to come on the same breath.
"Rafe! Oh, Rafe! My darling!"
Rafe's cry was choked and desperate. "Mrs. Hager! You're-you're a goddess!"
He fell to his knees, his arms around her, his face buried against her skirt. She could feel his warm breath through the cloth.
"No, Rafel No!"
But she was not denying him. She was merely saying: Not like a bewildered child; like a man, on his own two feet, taking his woman as she wanted to be taken.
She pulled him up and they were in each other's arms, their lips meeting.
"I fought," Rafe sobbed against her lips. "I fought, but I wanted you so bad."
"I fought too, darling, but that's over now. Love me! Love me-please!"
And he became a man. They started to sink to the floor but this time he held her erect. He drew her toward a canopied bed that dominated the room. The bedding was still there, dirty and fragile from years of disuse. But that was not the problem. The bed itself. Would that hold them?
If the bed had crashed they probably would not have noticed. On the bed they were two frantic, twisting lovers, in the grip of overwhelming passion and need.
But there was a frustration that Mildred realized first, realized with a laugh of gladness because that gave her an opportunity to serve him.
"Gently, darling, gently."
"But I want you! I want you!"
That was the mixed demand of a child and a man; a man who wanted a manly thing but knew of that only in the terms of a child.
"Gently. This way, darling."
She guided him, retarded and disciplined his passion, showed him how to do the things that had to precede the ultimate delight. She worked carefully and there was glory in the restraint she had to enforce upon herself in order to enforce that upon him.
She resolved that he must not suffer the humiliation of premature love that had embarrassed him so terribly in the graveyard.
In the graveyard. The words rang in her consciousness. Somehow, the somber mood of the word always touched a response within her.
Rafe! The assurance of his clean, strong body against hers. The indescribable delight of their passion.
Tom Bendixon.
Macklin Penrose.
Vance Hager.
The nameless ones known only in the hunger; those who had arrived at sundown to depart at dawn.
But all one, now. None of them husbands or friends or strangers.
Only the man in her arms a tie to reality, The past a fantasy.
Reality only in this mounting ecstasy.
"Oh, my darling-my darling!"
Their mingled cries of unbearable fulfillment, the only true sound in the universe....
"It's dark."
"Yes."
"We should have started out a long time ago." She reached out to the warmth of him with her hand, added that to the warmth of his total closeness. "Yes."
He laughed and touched her lips with a fingertip. "Is that all you can say?"
"Yes."
He kissed her. "I know where there are some candles."
"It's so dark. Can you find them?"
"I think so. I'll try. Don't go away."
"If you leave I'll vanish in a puff of smoke."
"Not without your clothes. I'll take them with me."
"I'll float out the window wrapped in this sheet."
"I'll pull the sheet off. You'd be a nude ghost. Very embarrassing."
He went and found candles and brought them back and lit them. The shadows were eerie but their mood of closeness, of love, cancelled out all else.
Back on the bed, he kissed her.
She turned her head. "That shadow-the tall one. It looks mad."
"It looks like an old man who doesn't approve of love."
"Move the candle and he'll disappear."
Rafe obeyed and she lunged across his body to catch the burning taper.
"Rafe! You'll burn the place down."
"Wouldn't that be wonderful? We could both go to glory in a flaming pyre."
"Don't say a thing like that!"
He was all penitence as he kissed her. "I'm sorry. Forgive me!" He held her close. "Love me."
Her arms went around him. He laughed.
"I'm going to love you. I'm going to perform for my teacher. I want to show you what you taught me!"
"You're crazy...."
Later, exploding with energy, he thought of something else. He sprang off the bed, grabbed a candle, and left the room.
Mildred was frightened. "Where are you going?"
He didn't answer.
A few minutes later, he came back lugging all sorts of things.
"Rafe! What on earth?"
"I'm going to build our bower-our haven-a place only for us. A place we'll return to again."
"You're mad!"
She watched as he rushed around the room. "An alter for my love goddess. A shrine to worship her in!"
And when he was through, it was a room for people instead of an unreal sanctuary for ghosts.
Perhaps that was what brought the sting of uneasiness to Mildred. "Rafe," she said, "we've got to go. We can't stay here all night."
He looked around at his handiwork. "I suppose so. But well come back."
"What time is it?"
He had not removed his watch. It was all he wore and he laughed when he realized this. "Not late. Just going on eleven."
Mildred's eyes jerked toward the window. "But it's light out there. I had no idea-"
"That's the moon."
A chill drenched Mildred. The moon. The night. The sad beat of a funeral march in New Orleans so long ago. A nameless body sinking into a deep, deep grave.
"Rafe! Take me out of here."
The moonlight was helping Armand Beck, too. He'd heard that sound telling him someone else was in the forest and his imagination had given that someone a name.
Bonnie Getchall.
But his searching had been fruitless. He'd been able to locate no one although a few times he had heard, or thought he had heard, a voice that might have been a simple-minded girl singing. At least that was the slant his hope gave it.
But if it was Bonnie, she was too illusive. He did not make contact. The search carried him farther than he'd expected to go, onto an old path, the one that led to the deserted mansion at the Cutoff.
That gave him an idea. Maybe that was where Bonnie went. It was the kind of setup that might attract a half-wit, a place where she could weave all kinds of childish dreams.
He moved on. He got lost and found his way again. He became frightened but then he saw the moon and it gave him the thin edge of courage he needed to continue.
And he finally came upon the place where the path fed onto the lawn of the mansion. He peered out.
It was spooky, so ghostly that his ardor for Bonnie was dampened somewhat. This was hardly a place where a guy could concentrate on things like that.
But then he saw the light and he got a genuine ghost-shock; a light flickering eeriely in one of the windows of a house reputed to be haunted. Of course he didn't believe in rot like that, but it still hit hard-seeing the light.
He didn't turn and run. He was too grown-up for childish fears of that sort. But neither did he venture on in. He waited in the shelter of the trees, knowing the light was real and that something would have to happen eventually.
Then the light moved away from the window. It was coming downstairs.
Armand got flashes of it through the unearthly windows of the lower hall. He waited. The door opened.
Two people came out.
He was disappointed. He hadn't actually expected Bonnie to be in there alone, but he could hope.
That possibility dashed, he became curious. Who were the two? What were they doing there? The candles had been snuffed out and Armand peered through the pale light as the two figures moved toward him. They became people halfway across the lawn. They came closer. Perhaps one was Bonnie.
He identified them.
He crouched there, frozen, as they passed within three feet of him and moved on along the path.
After they were gone he still remained frozen, his mind in a whirl from what he'd discovered.
Could it be possible? He'd heard rumors, whispered accounts of some of the things that went on in Warren-ton and on Rebel Hill. This man and that woman; this husband and that wife.
But he had never really believed the stories.
After a while, he got up and followed Rafe and Mildred toward home. And his reaction was one of supreme envy. That lucky dog! Having a woman like Mrs. Hager to play around with!
He thrilled at his secret knowledge.
But it was far too early to decide what to do with it. Enough to play with it, to roll it around in his mind.
Enough to know that he held the key to a scandal that would rock the Hill.
Armand almost enjoyed the return trip. He stayed far enough back to remain out of earshot, going carefully so as not to blunder onto their heels.
He came out at the logical place, timing it so perfectly that he heard the motor of Rafe's jeep just dying out on the road that led into Cow Hollow and the Cutoff exit.
He walked carefully around Cow Hollow, not wanting to be seen in the neighborhood.
But he'd almost forgotten about Bonnie. Who was interested in a half-wit when there was a woman like Mrs. Hager in the picture?
The possibilities the question brought to the fore frightened Armand. He wasn't of the caliber needed to function as a blackmailer.
But the possibility still existed.
There was no harm in thinking about it.
Thus the situation stood; one that quite possibly would not have taken an explosive turn. Armand Beck had lethal knowledge but he probably would never have had the courage to use it.
But destiny took a hand.
Destiny touched Bonnie Getchall the next morning and sent her wandering off into the woods.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning Mildred Hager awoke late. This was unusual. She was a chronically early riser and enjoyed the early-morning duties of family life, making coffee and bringing Vance the first cup before his eyes were open, getting the kids off to school, and during vacation time, having their orange juice and eggs ready when they came down.
So it was with quick panic that she came back into the conscious world that morning. The house was silent.
She got up and threw on a robe, unable to believe what the bedside clock said: nine twenty. She hurried downstairs and found the same empty silence.
She felt a little weak and sat down.
Then she saw the note on the kitchen table and picked it up:
Honey: You looked so peaceful this morning I let you sleep. Home as usual tonight. Want to eat out?-Vance.
Mildred's smile was an outward mark of her sudden, inner relief from the guilt-sense. Her conscience. It had seen the ordinary as a disaster. Vance had tiptoed out and not disturbed her. Jimmie and Donna had read the note and gone on about their own affairs.
It had been as simple as that.
But that hadn't been simple at all. Not so far as Mildred was concerned. In her private world, the time had come to face the reality of what had happened.
There had been no comment on her late return the previous evening. Vance had also been late. He'd phoned and gotten no answer and had commented on it, nothing more. The kids had also straggled in late. So her guilt upon awakening had been totally unfounded in fact.
But she had slept late because her conscious mind dreaded awakening to face the truth.
But the moment had come. She was a cheat. She had been untrue to her husband. She had proven herself unworthy of the faith and trust he'd placed in her.
What was she going to do about it?
She went into the living room and sat down on the lounge and put a cigarette and prepared to face it squarely.
But she was uncomfortable there. Things weren't quite right. She put the cigarette out and went into the patio and stretched out on a chaise length. There, she would face things and make her decision. Should she leave Vance?
The god-like young face of Rafe Kolsky superimposed itself across her consciousness. Rafe laughed. Rafe kissed her. She was in Rafe's arms.
Her mood was close to turning sensuous when she caught herself and dashed the image to bits. She got up and went to her bedroom and dressed, putting the matter out of her mind in the process. She would get dressed and go out into the yard and face things there. She always thought better on her feet.
In the yard, she carefully pulled the weeds from two of the flower beds and then straightened and looked out at the still forest line.
Should she confess to Vance? Would it be best to make a clean breast of the whole incident?
The phone rang. She ran into the house like a condemned prisoner fleeing the death house, as though her answer awaited her there.
And, weirdly enough, it did. She picked up the phone and said hello. But almost before Jean Bellamy could identify herself, Mildred blurted, "Oh, darling, I'm so glad you called. There's something I want to tell you. I've been thinking it over and I decided to take your advice. I'm going to ask Mack for my old job back."
There was amusement in Jean's voice. "Take it easy, honey. You sound as though someone just left you a fortune. Simmer down."
"But the decision is such a relief. I mean now that it's made."
"You've been wanting to get back to Manhattan for a long time, haven't you?"
"I didn't realize it, but I guess I must have."
"Of course. It's time you started living again. What did Vance say?"
"I haven't told him yet." Jean whistled softly. "Better be ready for squalls."
"Oh, Vance will understand."
"I wonder if he will?"
"You never liked Vance, did you, Jean?" This had been understood between them for quite some time, but Jean Bellamy was surprised by this blunt reference to the schism.
"He never liked me very much."
"He never objected to our friendship."
"Mildred, what is this? Summing-up day?"
"I'm sorry. But I sometimes get the feeling you see me as Vance's property or something. We're husband and wife. It's an equal relationship."
"I never denied it."
Mildred laughed. "Never mind. I guess I just didn't sleep very well last night. There's nobody home and I was looking for a hostility outlet."
"I forgive you, sweetie. But when am I going to see you?"
"Let's make it next week. I'll call you."
"Good. I'll be here."
Mildred put the phone down, her spirits a little higher. There was no need to battle with herself any longer. The problem was solved. She would go back to work.
She went resolutely out to straighten up the kitchen, stubbornly refusing to entertain a question that tried to intrude itself:
How had the problem been solved?
Had she considered the possibilities of further infidelities.?
Had she decided whether or not to tell Vance?
Had she given thought to Rafe Kolsky?
None of these questions got through. A decision had been made. That was enough....
Then, five minutes later, one of these questions, the most important one, was suddenly hurled into her face. The phone rang. She answered it. A fragile vtoice came over the wire.
"This is Mrs. Kolsky calling."
The panic hit Mildred squarely in the stomach. Her knees weakened.
"Why, yes, Mrs. Kolsky."
"I was wondering if you might be so gracious as to have tea with me tomorrow afternoon?"
"Why, I-"
"It is short notice, I realize. But I have so few good days and-"
"I'd be delighted, Mrs. Kolsky."
"Thank you so much," the dreadful voice said pleasantly. "Tomorrow at three, then?"
"I'll be there."
Mildred was numb as she put the phone down. Tomorrow at three. How could she live out those long hours of suspense? Not knowing. Wondering what Rafe, an emotional, inexperienced boy, had said to his mother.
Perhaps her world had already fallen to pieces.
Mildred followed an aimless path through the house, the kitchen forgotten. Something had to be done. She could not just sit back and wait for the roof to fall in.
She had to get in touch with Rafe.
But how? She could keep calling his home until he answered, hanging up each time someone else picked up the phone. That hardly seemed practical.
She could start walking and trust to chance, hoping she would bump into him on the road. That made less sense.
There was a compromise on the last idea. Get into her car and drive to Warrenton. Move around. Do some shopping. There would be more chance of finding Rafe that way.
Then, if she failed, she could try calling his home later in the afternoon.
She went out and got into her Impala and gunned it out onto the road....
Other strands in the web were being woven that day, one of these by Jean Bellamy, who did some clear thinking after she talked to Mildred. Convinced that Mildred's marriage to Vance Hager was headed for the rocks anyhow, Jean was quite satisfied with her decision to return to her old job. Once Mildred was back among people, things would change for her. She would move in new directions. And Jean knew where she wanted one of those directions to lead.
In the end, that would be better for Mildred, she told herself virtuously.
This thought led to another. Perhaps she could help things along. When Mildred had said Jean disliked Vance Hager, Mildred had been right. But it was not mere dislike.
Jean hated Vance Hager, because she knew Vance had contempt for her. She knew he was aware of her Lesbian weaknesses. So, knowing where the power lay relative to Vance's career, she saw no reason why she should not use some information that had long been in her secret mental locker. Vance Hager, she'd known for quite a while, was not the upstanding character he purported to be. Nor had he changed after his marriage to Mildred.
Jean would never have been so crude or cruel as to relay certain facts to Mildred. But there were other people who might be interested, important people.
Perhaps, she decided, it was time to settle an old grudge. The decision made, she picked up the phone and called the Penrose Soap Company and asked for an appointment with Mack Penrose....
Penrose was not in a happy frame of mind. Two days earlier, he'd suddenly realized something; he was in love with Nela Varese.
He'd known Nela, comfortably, for over three years. All in all, it had been a slow-moving relationship; a month between their first dinner date; then a few phone calls, and their dates becoming weekly meetings with interludes when Mack had to go out of town.
All in all, indeed a satisfactory friendship, with Mack Pernor never having gotten more intimate than a good night kiss.
His love had dawned on him when he suddenly asked himself why he hadn't ever gotten further. Nela was beautiful. She was desirable. She had everything a man could ever want in a woman.
He decided he'd left things as they'd been because he respected her. But that was no reason to go on leaving them that way.
They had dinner together the next evening and when he took Nela back to her apartment he told her how he felt.
Nela laughed. "Please, Mack-not tonight."
"I know we've kidded around about this, Nela, but this is different. I'm serious. I'm in love with you and I want to marry you."
She respected Mack also, and didn't take his offer lightly. "I believe you are in love with me, Mack."
"It's really been that way for a long time. I just didn't realize it until now."
She took his hand in hers and kissed it before she patted it gently. "I'm flattered, darling. You know that. And perhaps I'm in love with you too, I don't know. I like to be with you. You're easy to be around and you don't bore me. But-I don't know. I'm just happy with things as they are."
He did not try to hide his disappointment. "Somehow, I thought you'd say yes. Was that because I'm conceited?"
She kissed him swiftly and drew back. "No, Mack. You had every right to think that."
"But you haven't led me on in any way."
"Marriage would be so right for us. But the way things are now is right for me. I hope you understand."
"Of course, Nela."
"Ask me again sometime, will you Mack?"
"Probably every day from now on," he said gallantly.
But as the hours went by, his disappointment had deepened. He began to realize what he'd lost. He was sure that if he'd shown more interest in the beginning, things would have been different.
So that had been on his mind, and he was not particularly interested in coming face to face with a woman he disliked.
But he showed Jean in and tried to look agreeable.
Jean came right to the point. "Did Mildred Hager call you, Mack?"
"She dropped in," he replied guardedly.
"Oh, I'm so glad, I had lunch with her and perhaps I did you a favor in trying to talk her into coming back to work for you."
"Very considerate of you," Mack said with slight acid in his voice. "But where did you get the idea Mildred would be interested?"
Jean smiled inwardly. Mack made it so easy. He took the bait beautifully and asked exactly the right questions.
"I tried to persuade her for her own sake. I happen to know Vance is carrying on with another woman. It hasn't been two years yet, but I think he's losing interest in Mildred. She's not the kind of a woman to accept indifference from her husband."
Mack Penrose regarded his visitor with a distaste he made no great effort to hide. "Jean," he said coldly, "why don't you try minding your own business?"
Jean Bellamy, in turn, was satisfied with the reaction she'd produced and spoke quite cheerfully. "But Mildred is my business. She's a very dear friend. I'm sure you feel the same way about her."
"I consider her a friend, yes, but I'm not intruding into her private life."
"I'm sure you don't want Vance to humiliate her."
"Jean! For heaven's sake! Live your own life! Let Vance and Mildred live theirs!"
"Mildred turns to me every time she gets into trouble."
"And you diagnose the situation and prescribe."
When Jean smiled calmly, Mack diagnosed his own situation and prescribed self-control. He got up from his desk and walked to the window in order to hide his reaction. What was behind this outrageousness? What was Jean Bellamy after? Was she merely trying to stir up trouble?
He considered this while he studied a traffic jam down in the street and then turned sharply.
"Your altruism is commendable, Jean, but honestly-I'm not interested."
"Not even in the name of the woman Vance is playing house with?"
"No. And now, I'm in the midst of a busy day-"
Jean was not in the least offended. She got up from her chair and gave Vance that maddeningly smug smile. "I'm sure you are. And it was sweet of you to spare me a little of it. I'll run along now. We must get together for a drink sometime."
"By all means," Mack said. He added, "Cyanide," under his breath, and after Jean left, he tried to get back to his work. But he was no longer in the mood. Jean had effectively ruined the day for him.
He cursed the miserable Lesbian and made himself a drink.
Verne Getchall did not find Bonnie. She came home that morning after having been away all night and Verne returned to Cow Hollow to find her singing to herself as she combed the long yellow hair of her favorite doll.
He approached her gently.
"Hello, Daddy."
"Hello Bonnie."
"Give me a kiss."
Getchall kissed his daughter on the forehead. He looked into her eyes and stroked her cheek. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"What did you do last night?"
"I went way out in the woods."
"Did you meet anyone?"
"I met my friend."
"You have many friends, haven't you?"
"Yes. I met Sir Lancelot. I rode on his horse."
Verne Getchall wondered if he'd been wise in filling Bonnie's pathetic mind with so many dream characters. It hadn't seemed unwise, giving her a world of her own. But perhaps he should have at least tried to point her in the direction of reality.
"He took me to a big house in the forest. It was where King Arthur lives and we had a banquet."
"A big house?"
"A beautiful big palace."
"Which way did you go?"
"Out that way." Bonnie waved a vague hand in the direction of the Cutoff.
"You mustn't do that again, Bonnie. It's dangerous out there. Swamps. Sharp rocks."
"Oh, there was no danger. We found a path. Then there was this big, empty house."
Verne Getchal turned on the crone who appeared from the next room. "Why don't you watch her?" he asked. His voice was gentle because Bonnie was present, but there was a vicious loathing in it that the crone cringed from.
Verne Getchall stared at her, symbolic as she was of all the tragedy in his life. She was a local woman he'd picked up to keep house and tend Bonnie, because you couldn't bring a decent woman to a place like this.
"I think you ought to take a nap now," he told Bonnie. "You must be tired."
"Oh, no. When I got tired out in the woods, Sir Lancelot took me to a room in the big house and guarded me while I slept."
"Of course, dear. But you'd better take a little nap anyhow."
Bonnie went obediently to bed and Verne Getchall stood looking down at her. Sir Lancelot. King Arthur's palace. The place she described sounded a lot like the old deserted estate in the Cutoff. Full Moon, he believed it was called. But Bonnie could never have made that difficult trip.
At least, she could not have made it alone As he turned away, his mind was troubled.
CHAPTER NINE
Before Mildred located Rafe, she met other peo-ple and was seen by still others. She was seen by the Lazer twins, under a truce at the moment.
They were lounging in the Buick in front of the Warrenton Theater waiting for someone to come along or something to happen, and saw Mildred's Impala roll into the square.
"She's driving her own car today," Paul said. "Uh-huh. The jeep must have been too bumpy."
"What was she doing with Rafe's jeep?"
"How do I know? What difference does it make?"
"None I guess, but-"
"But what?"
"I saw Armand Beck yesterday. He brought it up."
"What's he say?"
"Nothing, but-"
"Will you get the meal out of your mouth? He said something or he didn't."
"He just mentioned it. But there was a funny grin on his puss. It was like he knew something."
"That guy's for the squirrels. He don't know anything."
"But he had a funny look."
"You got a funny look, too," Dave said with disgust."
"Okay-okay."
Paul got up and climbed out of the car. He knew from experience the truce was about over and he wanted freedom in case Dave decided to clout him.
She met Tad Beck and his shadow, Ralph Wellington, as she crossed the square toward the supermart. Tad Beck said hello with the scant civility for which he was noted and Ralph smiled and bobbed his head.
After Mildred had passed, Tad gave her a quick backward look and said, "That woman gads around a lot."
Even Ralph had to object to this criticism. "She's going to the store. There's no law against that."
"I mean up on the Hill-in the woods. She's always out alone tramping around. Armand saw her the other day driving the Kolsky jeep."
"I didn't know she was friendly with Mrs. Kolsky, but I guess there's nothing wrong with that."
Tad replied darkly. "There's something wrong with a woman who gads around alone. You hardly ever see her with Vance. I wander if maybe there's trouble between them."
Then Mildred saw Rafe and it was like snatching salvation out of thin air. He pulled into the square, saw her Impala, and cut sharply in beside it.
Fortunately, she was going that way, so she didn't have to change her direction, and possibly promote comment by going back to the car to intercept him.
Such was the state of her tension and guilt-sense as she put her packages on the seat and smiled at him.
"Hello Rafe."
"Hello, Mrs. Hager."
At least he hadn't called her Mildred, or darling, but she wished his expression hadn't reflected quite so much pleasure.
"I heard from your mother."
"Uh-huh," Rafe said happily. "I told her to call."
Mildred was frightened. Rafe had changed. The shyness was gone. He glowed with new life and vitality.
"What did you tell her?" Mildred asked, trying to keep her expression pleasant and casual.
"I told her to have you over for tea. I want you to see our place."
"Rafe. I've got to talk to you. You're being very foolish."
"I want to talk to you, too. Shall we go to Full Moon?"
"Good heavens, no! I just want a few words with you. We can meet somewhere."
"Not around here. How about the old picnic grounds on the far side of Rebel Hill? Nobody goes there much."
"All right."
"An hour?"
"I'll be there."
Mildred turned away with a pleasant good-bye. Then, because someone was passing close by, she called, "Tell your mother I'll see her tomorrow afternoon."
She started the motor. An hour. It would seem like a year.
There were other strands in the fast-tightening web: At about that same time, Mack Penrose was entering a Madison Avenue cocktail lounge to keep a date with Nela Varese. He hadn't been able to work. He'd sat all afternoon at his desk thinking. He'd thought a lot about Nela and what Jean had said, and his newly born jealousy had brought the two images together.
What, he'd wondered, was so good about Nela's life? Why was it so satisfactory to her? Seeing her with new eyes, he now looked cm her as a healthy, passionate woman. Yes, passionate! He could see that now, Nela was the kind of woman who needed love.
All right. Where was she getting love?
He waited impatiently at a table until she arrived. As he seated her, she looked at him curiously.
"Mack-you're upset. What's the trouble?"
"There's no use beating around the bush."
"Of course not. Out with it-whatever it is."
"There's another man in your life, isn't there?"
Nela appeared to be deciding whether to be angry or amused. She decided in Mack's favor and smiled. "Isn't all this a little too dramatic for words? Your cryptic phone call-this must be something of tremendous importance."
Mack realized he was making a fool of himself but he couldn't help it He'd never been in love before and hadn't learned how to control that potent emotion.
"I suppose it is, but I've got to know. And I think I'm entitled to know."
Nela's smile vanished. "Just a minute, Mack. We've been good friends, that I grant, but-"
"That's all changed as far as I'm concerned. I'm in love with you, Nela. That gives me some rights."
"This is all very sudden."
"You knew about it last night."
"You asked me to marry you, yes."
"And I meant it. If I want something, I'm not die kind of man who stands by and lets it slip away."
"That's all very commendable, but I suggest you take your hobnailed boots off and walk a little more softly. Your voice is rising, too. Please keep it down."
Mack had been unaware of his surroundings. He glanced around and lowered his voice as he said, "You're sleeping with someone, aren't you, Nela?"
She did not answer him. He waited. Her face was composed and there was no anger or anything else in her eyes. Then she spoke.
"Mack, if you had any idea about marrying me, you killed it dead with that question."
But her calm exterior was a blind. There was outrage underneath. And it was far closer to the surface than it appeared to be.
"It's Vance Hager, isn't it?"
Mack threw the question very suddenly, straight and hard.
And Nela's mask cracked.
"Yes. It's Vance Hager. Now I'm leaving. And I suggest that you never call me again...."
Macklin Penrose sat staring into his glass for a long time after Nela left. A thousand thoughts rammed through his brain. They were mainly self-condemning. He'd acted like a high school boy talking to his first love. The realization of what he'd done shook him deeply and put a lot of common sense back into his head. Perhaps he hadn't been in love with Nela at all. Maybe he was reacting like any other fall guy. A man didn't like to discover he'd been shaking hands with a beautiful woman at her door while another man walked in later and made love to her.
Resolutely, he cleared his mind. This was ridiculous. He wouldn't call Nela again. In fact, he didn't think he wanted to. This wasn't a certainty, but something else was.
He hated Vance Hager with the worst kind of hatred, the kind generated by jealousy.
But he couldn't do anything about it. He'd been Vance's backer. He'd pushed Vance into success. He could block the vice-presidency, but that was all. He could not turn on a dime and rip the foundations out from under him. By doing that he would be admitting his own judgment had been wrong originally.
He could only sit back and hope that Vance's luck would run out.
He could only wait and hope.
Mildred Hager reached the picnic ground first. She was almost tearfully grateful that it was deserted and she begged all the gods to keep it that way.
She got out of the car and paced about for a time among the empty beer cans. Then she got back into the car and tapped the wheel with impatient fingers. Why didn't he come?
Forcing her mind to quiet down, she turned it upon the incidents that had brought this crisis into being, the evil luck that had pursued her.
But had it been luck at all? Had she merely been fooling herself? This pattern of seeming chance-where had it brought her? At a time when her love life was in trouble, she had been guided straight and sure into the arms of another man.
Had she known it from the beginning? Had her conscious interests in Rafe been mere camouflage?
Had she known from the first moment that she was going into his arms?
She squeezed her eyes tight shut, symbolical of squeezing the terrible thoughts from her mind.
Then the sound of a motor rode the still air and she sat frozen, every muscle tense, until she saw the jeep come into view.
Relief swept through her. She felt suddenly weak, and dropped her head into her arms as they lay across the steering wheel.
The jeep rolled in and stopped. Mildred did not move, dreading to raise her eyes to look at him. She felt his aura as he approached. He opened the car door. She heard his whisper: "Darling, I could hardly wait."
Mildred was pulled out of the car into Rafe's arms. His mouth found hers as she struggled.
"No, Rafe! No! You're insane!"
"Insane with love! I've been going crazy for you!"
"I came here to talk!"
"Later. I want you. I want you so bad that I can't stand waiting!"
"Stop this! We've got to talk. I've got to know what you told your mother."
Mildred had gone to her knees in the struggle. Rafe was on his knees also, nuzzling at her throat.
"Oh, my darling!" he choked. "I can't wait 'til you divorce Mr. Hager and marry me!"
Mildred felt as though she'd walked into the center of a crazy nightmare. She tried to push Rafe away but now she was prone on the hard ground, his weight was against her, and his kisses were filled with frantic hunger.
"Rafe! You've gone crazy! Not here! Not here in the open!"
"We'll go into the trees then?"
He was bargaining with her and there seemed nothing she could do but fight for time by bargaining back. In another few moments he would have her undressed.
"Yes-all right-but not here!"
He got up and lifted her to her feet. "Over there," he said. "There is thick grass behind those bushes. Hurry!"
He began dragging her along and he staggered as she walked.
He was not the same Rafe she'd met on the hill nor the one who had loved her at Full Moon. This new Rafe was all lust, all desire. There was no tenderness or consideration in him. So far as he was concerned, he owned her now. She was his to use.
Mildred felt a surge of relief as they went into the bushes. She'd been deathly afraid out there that someone would walk into the picnic grounds.
That terror abated, she turned to the one at hand. She backed away from Rafe with a pleading gesture.
"No, Rafe. We must talk. This mustn't happen. The other was an accident. This can't go on."
"Well talk afterward," he choked and pushed her hands away. "I can't wait."
"Rafe! Stop!"
He forced her to her knees and his face was close to hers. He looked into her eyes. "You want this as bad as I do. You know that's true!"
"Of course, but-"
She hadn't meant to say that. They were only words. But they'd been said and they were surrender so far as Rafe was concerned.
"Afterward," he whispered. "Then we'll talk."
Sobbing, Mildred did surrender.
Her mind stopped working coherently during the next few moments. Rafe was there and she was there and there was no resistance left for her.
At Full Moon, there had been a fire ignited by two people. There, that had been mutual; a flame of mutual love.
This was different. While Mildred did not resist, there was no answering fire for her and Rafe treated her like an unresisting doll.
The grass was soft and cushiony under her body. She was aware of her total nakedness and the roughness of his partially clad form on her skin.
But mainly, she was aware of his ravenous, insatiable young lust, his frantic haste to fulfill himself before he was too late, before he suffered the humilating defeat of the cemetery.
He was in time and Mildred responded in spite of herself, surrendered to the savage possessiveness with which he took her.
Then he lay exhausted, his breath rasping against her throat.
An apology now, she thought miserably. Now he would turn into the shy, stricken little boy and beg her forgiveness.
But he didn't. He recovered quickly and spring to his feet and looked at her. He laughed happily. "You look wonderful that way, darling. Just looking at you drives a man crazy."
"Please. Give me my clothes."
He kept on laughing and looked at her impudently. "No. I'm going to keep them. I'm not going to let you dress."
As she reached out, he lunged past her hands and snatched up her clothes and danced away.
"I'll never let you dress again. I'll make you walk around that way, so I can adore all of you."
"Rafe, please! I'm begging you!"
"Why are you so lovely?"
Mildred sat naked on the grass and began to cry.
He was contrite instantly. He rushed to her side and dropped to his knees. "I'm sorry, darling! I didn't mean to shame you. It's just that you're so lovely. Here-let me help you dress."
Mildred wanted to dress herself, but it was easier to let him help than to go on battling with him.
When he lifted her to her feet, the gaiety went out of him. He was like a child after a party.
"And now we have to talk, I suppose."
"Yes, Rafe. Why did you bring my name up to your mother?"
"Because I want you to see where I live. I want to show you my room-the things I have."
"Are you out of your mind? I can't go into your home on those terms. You must be crazy!"
"You keep calling me mad and crazy. Well, maybe I am. With love. When two people are in love they want to show that to the world, don't they?"
"But I'm a married woman. I have a husband. I have a son and a daughter almost your age!"
"But they aren't really yours."
"No, but-"
"You will have children though." He seized her hand and dropped to his knees as he kissed her palm. "We'll have beautiful children, you and I."
"We'll have no such thing!"
"Do you mean you don't love me?"
Mildred jerked her hand away. "Rafe! That was only an incident. I loved you yes. I wanted you, I was hungry for you. But we can't let that ruin both our lives!"
"A love like ours is everything!"
Mildred dropped to the grass. What was the use? She was defeated. How could she talk to him? How could she make him understand?
He was on the grass beside her, reaching for her. She jerked away violently and got to her feet.
"Oh, no, you don't! We've had enough of that!"
"Until next time."
"There'll be no next time!"
She stood there for a long moment fighting for expression, looking for words to say. But she couldn't find them.
"Rafe! Just leave me alone!"
And she turned and fled.
She ran blindly to the Impala and plunged in behind the wheel. "Mrs. Hager!"
Mildred laughed hysterically. It was so funny. The boy knew her. She had given herself to him totally.
And still he called her Mrs. Hager.
She jerked the wheel around and gunned the motor. The Impala rocketed out of the picnic grounds and almost turned over as it veered into the road.
Behind Mildred, a stricken voice was calling. "Mrs. Hager! Please come back."
And again the strands of the web tightened: Verne Getchall had been uneasy all the morning, and by mid-afternoon, he knew he had to settle the matter. He had to destroy or verify the thing that was gnawing at him. So he started out toward Full Moon.
He was a skilled woodsman and had no difficulty in finding and following the path. But as he progressed, he kept telling himself that Bonnie could not possibly have done that alone. Continually reassuring himself of this, he moved fast and made the trip in less than an hour.
The melancholy mood of the place meant nothing to him. He hardly looked at the forlorn buildings as he approached the mansion and went in the front door.
He covered the first floor, still fighting with the thing that was in his mind. He tried to tell himself that he was wrong. He realized the forest did not frighten Bonnie, but as far as Verne knew, she had never wandered this far. And he reaffirmed his conviction-Bonnie would not have traveled alone from Cow Hollow to this forlorn place called Full Moon.
He found the room a few minutes later. He stood in the middle of it looking about, not daring to examine his own feelings.
The room had been used, and recently. Someone had made a grotesque attempt to make it habitable. He looked at the bed, the draperies, the furniture that had been lugged in.
Verne Getchall spent ten minutes in the room. Then he strode downstairs and out of the house and back through the woods to Cow Hollow.
Bonnie was coloring a picture in a book when he got back. She smiled and held her work up for Verne's inspection.
"It's very nice, honey, but I want you to put the book away and listen to me."
"I'm listening, Daddy."
"I want you to tell me again about the place you went."
"The old house?"
"Yes."
"I told you, Sir Lancelot took me there. It was King Arthur's court."
"But it wasn't just make-believe. There actually was a house-and a room upstairs."
"Yes."
"And a real man took you there. Not a make-believe man."
Bonnie looked up at her harrassed father. She was confused. "But you told me about Sir Lancelot and King Arthur yourself."
"Yes, and it's all right for you to play with them, but sometimes we have to think hard and remember what really happened. That's what I want you to do."
His gravity frightened her and even though he had never been other to her than the spirit of kindness, she cowered.
"I just walked to the old house. I found a path. It was strange and quiet there and I went upstairs and lay on the big bed."
"But who was with you? Who took you there?"
He refused to believe that Bonnie could have made the trip alone. Someone had taken her to that place. And he had to know who it was.
Bonnie began to cry.
Patiently, Verne took her in his arms and cradled her. "It's all right, honey. I'm not scolding you. I just want to know. Someone took you to that house, didn't they? And it wasn't Sir Lancelot. Someone took you up into that room."
She wanted so much to please him. He was all she had and at times she dreamed that he had gone away and those dreams were awful. Somehow she realized she was a trial to him and that bothered her too. And she was afraid now that he would get angry with her and go away.
She nodded mutely, studying his face. What did he want of her? What did he want her to say? "Who took you there, Bonnie?"
"I don't know."
"But you can remember if you try real hard. Was it a man?"
Bonnie nodded. "Yes, Daddy. It was a man."
"But not Sir Lancelot."
"No."
They were on the right track now. Bonnie knew that they were. She gave no thought to the truth-that she had indeed found her way to Full Moon and back all by herself. That didn't matter. It was what her Daddy wanted that mattered.
"Was he an old man or a young man?"
Bonnie guessed. "He was a young man."
"Tell me what he looked like."
"He was tall and handsome and he rode a white horse."
"No, dear, not Sir Lancelot. The young man who took you to the old house. Tell me about him."
Bonnie searched her poor mind for a young man. The one that came to the house to see Daddy? No. He wouldn't believe that one. Bonnie did not remember his name anyhow.
"Who did you meet in the woods, Bonnie?"
She remembered a young man she'd met. Yes, she remembered. He'd talked to her and said funny things and then he'd gone away.
"He had black hair."
"How old was he?"
"I don't know. About as old as the boy that was here with the lady."
"Was he fat or thin?"
"He wasn't fat, but he wasn't thin, either."
"What did he say to you?"
"He said he had an automobile and he'd take me for a ride."
"Did he say what kind of an automobile?"
"No, but once when we went to town I saw him in it."
"What did it look like?"
"It was red and didn't have a top." Bonnie was thinking hard now. "He said the name! He said the name! It was a Corvette!"
Verne Getchall smoothed Bonnie's hair back off her forehead. He ran gentle, loving fingers over her cheeks. "That's fine, honey. You did fine. I'm proud of you."
She was still troubled. "Daddy, is it still all right to ride with Sir Lancelot on his white horse?"
"Yes, dear. It's all right."
Bonnie kissed him. "I'm glad."
"Why don't you go to bed now? It's getting late and I've got some things to do."
"All right, Daddy. Will you stay with me 'til I go to sleep?"
"Yes, honey. I'll stay until you go to sleep."
Verne waited until Bonnie was deep in her child's dreams and then left Cow Hollow. He had no car He walked; down the winding road, striding along like a grim giant; into the first tavern he came to; into a telephone booth.
CHAPTER TEN
When the phone rang, Rafe Kolsky leaped across the room to answer it. It had to be Mrs. Hager because, after she fled from the picnic grounds, she would never have been able to leave things that way.
This was what his suddenly rose-colored perspective told him. It was a wonderful perspective. He was like a man who'd spent his life in the shade and had suddenly come out into the sun.
He could think of nothing but Mrs. Hager's beautiful body; her warm, hungry lips, her soft, husky, tender voice telling him of love and the new world she had ushered him into.
After he got home, he thought of calling her, but he remembered what she'd said. She was timid. She was afraid to let the world know about their love. So he might have embarrassed her by calling. That was why he'd waited, alert for the ringing of the telephone.
And here it was.
His disappointment was so deep at hearing Verne Getchall's bass rumble come back over the wire that he was almost uncivil.
"What do you want, Verne?"
"A little information. I want to ask you about one of your friends."
"All right-ask away."
Rafe had scarcely heard Verne. He was wondering about Mildred Hager. Was it possible that she wouldn't call?
"What's the matter, Rafe? Are you all right?"
"Of course I'm all right."
"I thought you'd hung up."
"Why would I do that? You said you wanted some information. Go ahead. What's your question?"
"I just asked you. Which of the young louts around Rebel Hill drives a Corvette sports car?"
"A Corvette? Oh. The only one I know is Armand Beck."
"Are you sure?"
Verne could be so irritable when he wanted to be. Rafe wished he'd do his snooping elsewhere. "Of course I'm sure."
"No other Corvette's around?"
"Look, Verne. You asked me something and I told you. If there were another one around I'd know about it. They're not easy cars to overlook."
"Armand Beck, eh? Is he a black-haired character
-slim-fairly tall?"
Verne began to get through Rafe's preoccupation. Why all these questions about Armand?
"That about tags him. Why? What did he do?"
Rafe waited. "Verne-what do you want to know about Armand for? What's he been up to?"
There was still no answer. After a while, Rafe realized that Verne Getchall had hung up.
Then he was glad it had worked out this way. It gave him an excuse to do what he wanted to do. He cleared the phone and called the Hager residence.
While the connection was being made, he thought swiftly. Maybe Mrs. Hager would answer. If not, he would ask for Jimmie first. He had something to talk to Jimmie about. Then, after a reasonable time with Jimmie he would-
"Hello."
"Donna-how are you. This is Rafe Kolsky."
"Hi, Rafe. You're quite a stranger. To what do I owe this honor?"
Rafe tried to hide his annoyance. Donna would of course assume that the call was for her. He said, "That's not fair. I gave up calling because you're always so busy."
Rafe writhed at having to go through this maddening preliminary. But he'd managed to keep his impatience from showing in his voice.
Donna laughed. "Listen to him! He's taken a course in how to influence people."
The trivialities went on until Rafe thought it safe to ask, "By the way, is your wild brother around?"
"No, he's never around."
"There was something I wanted to ask him."
"Maybe I can help."
"No, it's strictly man talk. I was wondering if he'd seen Armand Beck lately."
"That character? What's he been doing-stealing hub caps?"
"Oh, nothing like that. I-"
Then chance negated all Rafe's silly little maneu-verings. Donna said, "Jimmie's not here, but my mother wants to talk to you."
Rafe's heart jumped as he waited. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe she was ready to tell the world about their love.
Then, still waiting, Rafe Kalsky suffered the shock of a sharp reverse. He was frightened. The fright came so suddenly that for a moment he couldn't trace its source.
Then he knew! And he thought, lord, what if she does tell the world? What would my father say?
Mildred came on the phone. "Rafe?"
If she had expected a violent protestation of love, it was not forthcoming.
Rafe's "Yes?" was timid and doubtful.
"I wonder if you would give your mother a message for me. I have to cancel our luncheon appointment because of something that came up. I'll be in New York City all day tomorrow."
"I'll tell her."
And that was all. But a sudden distance as wide as the stars now separated them.
Rafe put the phone down. It was strange, stunning. He knew that under no circumstances would he ever be able to touch Mrs. Hager again.
He had learned something.
But what?
He groped for the concept and finally rationalized it bleakly. He'd been taken. His first experience with love had been an illusion. That hadn't been spiritual at all. That had been intoxicatingly physical.
He would dream about Mrs. Hager's kiss for a while. On quiet nights he would feel her arms around him and taste her passion on his lips.
But she was nothing you ruined your life over.
He shuddered at how close he'd come to making a fool of himself, but now that he'd grown up-now that his common sense had come to the rescue-there had been no damage done.
That would be forgotten.
Fortunately, things had not passed the point of no return, and for that he was grateful.
But things passed the point of no return an hour later. At about that time, Verne Getchall walked up the drive to Tad Beck's front door and rang the bell.
Nothing happened. He waited. He rang again. The door opened. A black-headed youth eyed Verne questioningly.
"Are you Armand Beck?"
"Yes-"
Verne hit him. He lashed out his great ham of a right fist and smashed it against Armand's mouth.
Armand back-pedalled wildly, seeking to hold his balance. Verne Getchall followed him. He hit Armand again, a blow that hammered into his chest and made him gasp for the breath it took to howl.
His squall of protest was mainly from terror. A madman had invaded the house and was killing him. He saw death in Verne Getchall's eyes and in his hate-twisted face.
"You scum!" Verne rumbled as he drove his fist again into Armand's face.
Armand went over a chair and fell to the floor and Verne reached down and lifted him by his sweater and shirt.
He was holding him thus, his fist raised, when Tad Beck lumbered into the reception hall.
Beck could have been called many things, but coward was not one of them. Seeing his son in the grip of an obvious maniac, he lunged forward and threw his own bulk at Verne Getchall. Tad was pathetic as a fighter. All he had was his sprawling weight. But with Verne Getchall concentrating on Armand, that weight became effective. Off balance, Verne staggered away as he dropped Armand.
Armand had the presence of mind to crawl away, and when Verne Getchall turned after falling to one knee, he found enemies at two points on his perimeter.
He was a madman at this point, and perhaps he would have killed in his rage, but Tad Beck was not helpless. He wrenched a sword from a decorative plaque on the wall, a full-length, curved saber that had been crossed with another. Without hesitating, he drove straight at Getchall until the lethal point touched Verne's chest.
Neither man could have been called cowardly, so it was probably the sobering effect of the sword rather than fear of it that brought Verne to heel.
Keeping his eyes on Verne, Tad Beck gestured in Armand's direction.
"Call the State Police Barracks. Get a car over here."
Verne Getchall spat toward Armand in supreme contempt. "Do that, you hoodlum. They can take us both in."
Tad Beck hadn't been shocked into unclear thinking. His ugly little eyes narrowed. "Why my son? What would the charge be?"
"Rape."
"What are you talking about?"
"Assault on a mentally incompetent girl. What would you call that?"
Tad Beck lowered the sword and again waved at Armand. "Hold that call. Now let's get some sense into this mess. What girl are you talking about? In fact, who are you? What's your name?"
Verne appeared to want to renew his assault on the cowering youth whose fright-filled eyes were glued pleadingly on his father.
"My name is Getchall. Verne Getchall."
"Oh. I've heard of you. You're the eccentric who lives in Cow Hollow."
"What I am is none of your business. But you're going to wish you'd never heard my name. I'm going to drag yours through the mud!"
"Would it be too much to ask that you give me the details?"
"Ask that sneaking degenerate there. Make him tell you how he lured my daughter to the deserted house on the Cutoff; how he fixed up a room to take her into!"
Armand, his mind in panic, forgot his pain and the blood running from his face. He was a pathetic figure as he held out pleading hands and cried. "I didn't! I didn't!"
"Are you claiming that you don't know my daughter Bonnie? That you've never seen her?"
"I know her! I've seen her. I saw her once, in the woods but-"
"Be quiet, Armand. Get a towel. Wipe the blood off your face. Then we'll talk this over. And you'll tell me the truth."
Verne Getchall refused an invitation to sit down. He refused a drink. He refused to have any conversation with Tad Beck until Armand returned.
Then Tad Beck took up the questioning.
"Where did you see Mr. Getchall's daughter, Armand?"
"In the woods when I was hiking. It was near Cow Hollow I-well, I just met her. I asked her what her name was and she told me and that was all."
"When was this?"
"Late last fall."
"And you haven't seen her since?"
"No."
"Have you ever been to the Cutoff? The place Mr. Getchall mentioned?"
Armand seemed pathetically eager to tell the truth in meticulous detail.
"Yes, I've been there. All the guys around Warren-ton have been there at one time or another."
"When were you there last?"
"A-a few days ago."
Tad Beck's eyes turned even more grim. "But yon did not take Mr. Getchall's daughter there with you?"
"No! No, I didn't. I wouldn't do a thing like that."
"You know nothing about a room fixed up in the old house?"
"I've never seen it, but I know it's there."
"Explain yourself."
"I saw a light in there one night. And then I saw two people come out."
"Was one of them Mr. Getchall's daughter?"
"No."
A huge, unconscious sigh of relief shuddered through Tad Beck's ugly body.
"Did you recognize the people?"
"Yes."
Tad turned his eyes on Verne Getchall as he asked the next question. "Who were they?"
"Rafe Kolsky and Mrs. Hager."
Tad stared at his son. "Are you serious?"
"I'm telling the truth. Rafe and Mrs. Hager came out of that house together. They'd been in there a long time-up in that room."
Tad Beck believed Armand, and not from the biased viewpoint of a father. He knew Armand would not have dreamed up a scandal of that magnitude and palmed it off as a lie. He might have blamed two unidentified people, but he would not have named them.
And Verne Getchall also, was having his moment of truth. He had more reason to believe Armand than Tad Beck. He had seen Rafe and Mrs. Hager start off toward Full Moon, and he wondered why he had not thought of that before.
He realized there were two reasons. He had been thinking in terms of rape and seduction and the guilty pair didn't fit into this category. Nor did Bonnie's descriptions point his thinking in that direction.
He had been looking for one man who he believed had molested his daughter, and his fury had demanded a culprit upon whom to vent itself. He'd acted foolishly.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Tad Beck, in command now, let his contempt pour out full force. "I'm not used to having irresponsible swamp characters invade my house and assault my son. Saying you're sorry doesn't quite absolve you. I take a more serious view of the matter."
Verne Getchall's contempt was as obvious. "All right. Do what you like. I'll wait here while you call the State Troopers and make charges. And I won't deny them."
Tad Beck had hoped for the pleasure of seeing this man crawl. He felt he was entitled to that much. But Verne Getchall had no intention of doing so.
Tad scowled, his flabby lips sullen. "I suppose there's no point in making a complaint. You did have a motive of sorts. Let's just say you were stupid and let it go at that."
"You know where to find me if you change your mind," Verne said. He still refused to bend, and strode out of the house with his shoulders back and his head held high.
When the door closed, Tad Beck turned on Armand. "Have you told anybody else about this?"
"No."
"You haven't referred to it in any way?"
"Well, the other day the Lazer twins and I saw Mrs. Hager driving Rafe's jeep. It looked kind of funny. I brought it up to them after I saw Rafe and Mrs. Hager coming out of the house at Full Moon, but I didn't really tell them anything."
"See that you don't. I'll handle it myself. Just be ready in case I need you."
"My nose hurts."
Tad Beck peered into his son's face. "Wash it first. You look a mess. Then put a cold cloth on it. If it still hurts in the morning, go down and have it x-rayed.
"How'll I say I got it?"
"Oh, tell the doctor you ran into a door," Tad said with annoyance. He walked past Armand and back into his study. He was muttering to himself. "Imagine that woman. Carrying on a shoddy affair right under our noses. Did she think she could get away with that?"
Mildred Hager wasn't going to get away with anything. Not with Tad Beck watching out for the morals of Rebel Hill. But how could he best handle it? The matter had to be approached carefully. The scandal must not become public property.
Tad did not try to delude himself into believing he would proceed with regret. The exact opposite was true. He would do his duty to the club and to the community with zest and determination. He'd taken enough of Vance Hager's contempt. Why, the man had been openly insulting during their last contact. He would change his tune when he was brought before the membership committee.
There was a preliminary move Tad had to make first, however. A matter of strategy. In affairs of this kind it paid to enlist powerful allies.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bernard Kolsky was taking a day off. That meant he'd disappeared from his usual haunts in Washington and was not available except in extreme emergencies.
In case of something that wouldn't wait twenty-four hours, his secretary had a private number where he could be reached. But even the secretary did not know the Baltimore address to which it connected her.
She seldom called the number, but on this occasion, she thought it best.
When the phone rang in the secluded Baltimore apartment, Bernard Kolsky was startled. He was a big man with a Lincolnesque face that made people trust him. When he wrote on things of national and international importance, the people read and the people were impressed.
They always had a mental image from Kolsky's publicity pictures a man with a homely, sad, thoughtful face who usually wore dark, somber clothing.
So they would have been quite startled to see him as he was at the moment-clad in a Chinese robe that blazed in half a dozen gaudy colors.
They would have been doubly startled at sight of his companion, a blonde so stunning she might well have come straight off the cover of one of the national glamour magazines.
Kolsky let the phone ring three times before he got up off the bed and crossed over to it.
"Hello."
He listened, his expression indicating that he did not intend to be particularly cordial.
"Mr. Beck? I don't believe I know you."
The blonde, dazzlingly attractive in her semi-nudity, exercised a prerogative she obviously possessed and was sure of by getting up from the bed and sauntering to the phone. She put her beautiful head close to that of Bernard Kolsky and heard a male voice say:
"I'm moved mainly by a responsibility to my community."
The blonde raised questioning eyebrows and Kolsky covered the mouthpiece and growled, "Rebel Hill. It's something about Rafe. It's a man named Tad Beck."
"If you would state the situation more clearly, Mr. Beck."
"In plain terms, your son has been seduced by a married woman, the wife of one of our most successful Rebel Hill neighbors."
"Would you object to naming names?"
"Not at all. The woman's name is Hager-Mildred Hager. She is the wife of Vance Hager, an account executive with the advertising firm of Hall Parnell & Wayne in New York City."
"Has this situation exploded into a scandal?"
"No, but it could at any moment. That's why I'm calling you, Mr. Kolsky. I'm hoping a scandal can be averted. I thought you might exert parental influence on your son."
Bernard Kolsky was a dangerous man, but he was also a cautious one. He said, "You realize of course that you are putting yourself in great danger if the charges can't be proven, Mr. Beck."
"I'm well aware of that, sir," Tad Beck replied crisply. "I have my facts well substantiated."
Bernard Kolsky continued to scowl at the blonde. Tad Beck went on.
"Aside from the danger of scandal here at Rebel Hil, it seemed to me that there is your importance as a national figure to be considered."
"You're very kind," Bernard Kolsky replied with just the ghost of a sneer in his voice.
"What with gossip columnists and men who are no doubt your enemies, a scandal could also damage you."
"Again-thank you. You can be sure I'll move on the matter immediately."
With that, Kolsky practically hung up on his informant. He took the cigarette the blonde was offering him.
"What is it?" she asked. "Blackmail?"
"I don't think so. It's a nasty situation. Rafe's got himself mixed up with a married woman."
"I got that much. Who's this Tad Beck?"
"I don't know. He sounds like a local busybody."
"What's his motive for bringing you into it?"
"Sincere, I hope. He may be honestly worried about the impact of a scandal on Rebel Hill. They're a bunch of the most unregenerate snobs in the business up there. I've got to check into this immediately."
"What will you do?"
"Send for Rafe the first thing. It's time I got the boy out of there anyhow. He's vegetating up in that backwoods country. I haven't really taken the interest in him that I should have."
The blonde ran a light finger along Kolsky's aging chin. "Will that mean you'll have less time for me?"
"Let's not ask for trouble. Let's wait and see what happens."
Kolsky tapped the telephone with nervous fingers. "I'll pull the boy out of there the first thing."
"What do you suppose this Tad Beck person will do?"
"Nothing, I hope. I'm more interested in what the woman will do."
"What can she do?"
"That's hard to say. It depends on how far the thing's gone. Maybe I'd better take out a little insurance against her."
"How will you do that?"
"By giving her something more important to occupy her time."
"Such as-?"
"Explaining to her husband what she's been doing."
"You're going to confront him with it?"
"No, of course not. But Hall Parnell & Wayne have a very good reputation. I think someone in the agency might speak to him. They've got a reputation to protect, too."
"I wonder who his accounts are?"
"I intend to find out."
"It seems a rather small thing to interest the agency. I'm sure most of their executives are sleeping with their secretaries."
"Perhaps, but you can be sure they're being discreet about it. The thing about scandals, doll, is never let them start because nobody knows who'll get burned."
"Like forest fires."
He was seated on the edge of the bed and she pulled him down beside her.
"Why have you always been so sure I'd never cause you any trouble, darling?
"For two reasons. First, I know you."
"And second?"
"I'd probably kill you if you did. And I think you know that."
"I know it," the blonde said huskily. "And now do you have time to kiss me before you go out to rescue your son?"
* * *
Spencer Penrose was a benevolent giant; or at least he thought of himself as such. He was seventy-four years old and his earliest memory had to do with soap. He loved soap, thought soap, and sold soap. It was his prime preoccupation and out of it had come the Penrose Soap Company. Because giants built only giant structures, Penrose Soap towered in its field.
Spencer Penrose's secondary preoccupation was his family, and his classification of family extended as far as second cousins. He brought them in out of the rain and allowed them to prosper under the umbrella of his own financial security.
It gave him the privilege of also running their lives, an inconvenience most of them accepted cheerfully as a small price to pay for the return involved.
And it was to Spencer's office that Macklin Penrose was called that afternoon.
Spencer Macklin functioned from a luxurious office, but he still used the same desk from which Penrose Soap had been launched in 1902. So he cut a rather ludicrous figure as looked up at his nephew.
But Macklin didn't laugh. He sat down politely and said, "You wanted to see me, Uncle Spencer?"
"Yes-yes, Macklin. A point has been brought to my attention that I must pass on to you."
"Please do."
"I'm sure you are aware of the high regard in which I hold you. And of the responsibility I have placed in your hands."
Good lord, Macklin thought. It's one of those. He didn't like the copy in an ad. Or maybe the model's dress was too short.
"I carry that responsibility with me night and day."
"I'm sure you do. I'm sure you check and double-check the people around you, because you are as sensitive about our reputation as I am. But perhaps you didn't look quite far enough."
For heavens sake! Let's have it! Macklin would have loved to put those thoughts into words, but you waited upon Uncle Spencer's pleasure in situations like this. You let him have his fun.
"If I overlooked anything-"
"I think it is more a case of allowing yourself to be biased by personal friendship."
"You're referring to someone I hired?"
"In a sense. Someone you've backed very strongly. Our account executive-Vance Hager."
Macklin almost said that Vance was doing a fine job and always had. But he held his peace. And during the long moment his uncle eyed him with the benign good will of a fond uncle regarding a six-year-old, Macklin wondered if his prayer had been answered. Had Vance thrown a shoe?
"A very highly placed Washington person came directly to me," Spencer Penrose said. "He came with a very delicate matter."
"What was it?"
Spencer Penrose realized he'd squeezed the situation of all its juice so he became a shade more stern and said, "His wife has gotten herself involved in a very smelly liaison with the son of the person I mentioned. A sad situation."
And I was supposed to have foreseen that possibility? Macklin asked that question mentally even as he looked startled and wondered what deep end Mildred had gone off now.
"I'm horrified," he said, simply.
"I was shocked. The person who called me was Bernard Kolsky, the political commentator. His son's name is Rafe. He sets great store by the boy."
"I don't doubt it."
"You may feel that this matter is quite distant from us. It might seem to you that I'm overly cautious in referring it to you."
"Oh, no, Uncle Spencer. Not by a long shot. When I said I was horrified, I meant it."
"I'm glad we think alike."
"I'm sorry for Vance Hager," Macklin said with an inward gloat. "But there is ne room for sentiment in things of this sort."
After he left his uncle's office, Macklin Penrose spent a little tkne being sorry for Mildred. He'd considered himself her friend and would have helped her if he could have done so.
But then he faced himself squarely. Would he have sacrificed his vengeance on Vance Hager? He didn't think so.
The mental struggle sent him to a bar where he had three drinks. The issue had never been in doubt, however, and the three drinks were more of a celebration than anything else.
Also, they put him in the mood for what he'd visualized doing.
They gave him the courage.
When Nela Varese got home from work that afternoon, she found Macklin Penrose standing by her door. "Mack. What are you doing here?"
"Didn't we have a date?"
"Not that I recall."
His grin was out of character and she thought he acted a little odd.
"I was sure we did. My mistake. But as long as I'm here you might buy me a drink."
Nela glanced uneasily about. This was quite a proper building she lived in and she didn't want to be seen talking to a man in the corridor. Otherwise she would have objected.
"All right. Come in."
Macklin Penrose followed her inside and looked around with satisfaction.
"Nice place you have here."
"I like it." She studied Mack levelly. He didn't seem drunk. But there was something odd about him, a grim undertone to his lightness.
"Would you like Scotch?"
"Yes. But I'd rather have you."
He took Nela in his arms so quickly and unexpectedly that she was stunned. For a long moment, she did not resist. When she regained the use of her muscles his mouth was hard against hers.
Nela jerked her face away. "Mack! Have you gone out of your mind?"
"No. In fact, I've just come to my senses. Let's go into the bedroom."
Nela, thoroughly outraged, twisted away hard and drew back her hand to slap him. But he had far more strength than she and was ready to use his advantage. He seized her wrist and used that as a lever to bend her backward.
"Vance Hager doesn't get slapped, does he?" Nela's face was a mask of rage. "Mack! I'll-I'll kill you!" lie held her quite easily and sneered into her eyes. "Temper, temper," he laughed. "Vance would love your one-man loyalty. But Vance isn't around now. He's got troubles of his own."
Under normal circumstances, that would have brought a question from Nela. But it went past her as her eyes blazed at Macklin Penrose.
"What is this, Mack?" she demanded. "Rape?"
"Call this what you want to. But the handshake-at-the-door bit is over."
"I'll-fight-you!"
"Go ahead and fight. That'll make this more exciting."
He lifted her, carried her, struggling, into the bedroom. He threw her roughly onto the bed. She came to her knees and tried to crawl away, but he callously grabbed her ankles and pulled her back.
Face down, her position rendering her comparatively helpless, Nela clawed at the covers. Then she doubled her fists and pounded the bed savagely in frustration.
"I'll have you arrested. I'll bring criminal charges against you."
"Go ahead, baby. I'll call Vance Hager as a witness-a character witness that is. I'll have my attorney ask him whether you rape hard or easy."
He wasn't playing for laughs any more. That stage was over. His tone was stinging and contemptuous now and he gave the impression this was more an act of vengeance than of pleasure. His injured ego was more in command than uncontrollable desire.
Nela twisted over onto her back and saw his face and was suddenly frightened. His was the face of a man who, for one reason or another, was not going to be denied.
She kicked out at him, but more with reflex movement than viciousness.
"Stop that," he grated. "Or I'll tie you up."
Nela's rage died. It was all right to be indignant, but it was foolish to get hurt. And Mack was in a mood to hurt if he had to.
She went limp.
"That's better."
He let go of the ankle he was holding and stood poised, alert. Their eyes met, and Nela knew that resistance would bring a renewed attack.
"All right. Get this over with."
Nela's submission was frigid, contemptuous, but Mack Penrose did not seem to mind. His treatment of her was equally contemptuous, but determined and competent.
For a few moments, near the finish, Nela responded with what could have been emotional acceptance. But the time of this was brief and she consciously held herself against that.
When that was over, she lay watching him. "I hope you had fun."
He did not answer and she could see that none of his anger or bitterness had been burned out of him. If anything he was more grim, more hostile.
When he was ready to leave, he turned and looked at her.
"Why don't you cover yourself up?"
"I would, if you created anything for me but disgust."
"You're making your point well. But I think I made mine, too. You can have Vance Hager now. You deserve each other. I hope you'll both be very happy."
Nela frowned. "You said something when you came in."
"What?"
"I don't quite recall. Something about Vance having his own troubles."
He looked at her coldly and did not reply. She heard the door close but she did not move. She lay as she was, staring at the ceiling. What strange creatures men were.
She smiled lazily. It was good to be a woman. It was good to have men want you, to see their need of you in their eyes.
Perhaps that was why she'd never gotten married; because the need of one man would never haw been enough.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The first small cloud in Vance Hager's sky Appeared to have nothing to do with a storm. Nevertheless, it touched a nerve in his finely tuned business sensibilities and made him wonder.
His status as an almost-partner put him above the level of ordinary formalities. When he wanted to speak to anyone he dialed interoffice direct or went straight in past secretaries.
He wanted to talk to Parnell that morning, and dialed the senior partner's direct wire. Ordinarily, there would have been a click and then Parnell's crisp voice. But instead, there was "Mr. Parnell's office," in the cool tones of his secretary.
"Oh, Marge. This is Vance Hager. I called Parnell direct."
"I'm screening all Mr. Parnell's calls this morning."
"Oh, I see. Put me through, will you?"
"I'm sorry. Mr. Parnell is busy. He can't be disturbed."
"Marge! I don't want more than a minute of his precious time."
"I'm sorry. Mr. Parnell cannot be disturbed."
Vance slammed the phone down. What was the matter with that girl? Had she gone off her skull? He fumed for a while, wondering where his own secretary was. He dialed the switchboard.
"Did Vivian call in?"
"Why yes, Mr. Hager," the girl replied. "She has permission to take the day off."
"Who gave it to her?"
"Why, I supposed you did."
Vance caught himself quickly. You didn't put yourself at a disadvantage with a switchboard girl.
"Oh yes, I recall now. It slipped my mind."
He put the phone down. What in blazes had happened to Vivian, pulling a stunt like that? A secretary was accountable to her boss and to no one else. There bad certainly been some kind of a misunderstanding.
Angry, Vance picked up the phone and called Sam Wayne.
"I'm sorry. Mr. Wayne will not be in today."
Vance dialed again and discovered that Jack Hall would not be in either. That was exceptional, but not unheard of.
Vance picked up the phone again and got through to the art department. Vince Kagan answered, sad little subservient Vince who always broke an ankle with eagerness when an executive or a top-level man called.
"Vince, I'd like to see those new Penrose roughs. Will you bring them in?"
"They're not ready yet."
"Not ready! You told me yesterday they were practically finished and they'd be ready this morning."
"I had some other work to do."
Vance knew when and how to put a man in his place. "Vince, how would you like to be looking for a job this afternoon?"
"I wouldn't like that."
Everyone had gone crazy. Vince's voice was all wrong. It was close to arrogant.
"Well, get those roughs in here in ten minutes or you will be."
"I can't. I've got some work to do for Mr. Parnell."
Slamming down the phone was getting to be a way of life for Vance. He did it again, his face dark. Parnell! Who did he think he was? What kind of an act was he trying to stage? And being the sort of man who believed in meeting problems head-on, Vance got up and went down the corridor and into Parnell's office.
Parnell's secretary, a sleek, competent blonde girl, looked at him as though he'd come to collect past-due rent and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Parnell can't be disturbed."
Vance growled and walked on through into Parnell's private office. Parnell was alone. He looked up from his desk, smiled warmly, and said, "Oh, Vance. I'm glad you dropped in. There's something I want to talk to you about"
"I've got a thing on my mind too. I want to know what goes on around here. Why the exclusive bit?"
Parnell couldn't have been more surprised. "Exclusive?"
"I had to fight my way in here past your secretary."
Parnell shrugged. "She must have gotten her signals crossed. You know how secretaries are sometimes."
Something was wrong. Vance knew that now. This was not a string of amazingly coincidental blunders.
It was the freeze.
The freeze, in the upper echelons of business, is a cruel and seemingly unnecessary process. Its reasons for being are obscure, but it happens when, by some interoffice magic, the staff learns that an executive is on his way out; that baiting him is not only safe but sadistically encouraged.
"All right, let's have it," Vance said quietly.
"There's no use making a big production out of this, Vance. Neither of us believes in hedging."
"I don't anyhow."
"Then here it is. The partnership has decided that it may well be time for you to seek your fortunes else-where "
"just like that?"
"If you choose to put it in those terms-just like that."
"Would it be out of line to ask the reason?"
"Shall we say for the good of the company?"
"Let's be a little more realistic. If I go, Penrose Soap goes with me."
Parnell pursed his lips and appeared to be considering all the aspects of that possibility.
"You've anchored yourself into that deal pretty firmly, then?"
"I'm not a fool."
Parnell seemed a little sad. "I suppose there's nothing we can do about that. Accounts have been known to change agencies before. I presume they will continue to do so."
Vance groped blindly for a lead. "Do you doubt my ability to take the account with me?"
Parnell shrugged. "You're a good man, Vance. I'd be a fool to second-guess you."
I'll clear my desk."
Parnell relaxed visibly. His easy smile came back. He had won.
"Vance! Take it easy. There's no rush. Consider the place yours. I'll push the financial arrangements through. In the meantime, if there's anything I can do-any favor-I'll be hurt if you don't ask me."
Vance left....
Two minutes later, he was in Nela Varese's office.
Nela was working at her drawing board. She looked up, smiled, and went on with her work. The greeting had been neither abrupt nor overly cordial but Vance was sure he detected something off-beat.
"You've heard the news, Nela?"
"What news is that, Vance?"
"I'm being frozen out."
"That's ridiculous."
"So you're playing it cozy."
"I don't know what you mean."
"The rest of the art department does. The switchboard girl does. My ex-secretary was briefed."
"Your ex-secretary?"
"Oh, stop it! You've had the word. I'm coming to you as a friend, and I thought I could depend on you." Nela put her pencil down. "Honestly, Vance.
You're talking in circles. What happened?"
"I'm leaving the agency."
"Vance! I'm so sorry."
"Would you like to go with me?"
Nela spread her palms in appeal. "Where to, Vance? You come at me so suddenly with all this."
"I don't know, yet. But you've done great work on the Penrose Soap account and I'm going to need you."
"Frankly, Vance, I don't think I want to break in at another agency. I'm established here-"
"I see," Vance said with what might have been termed pleasant coldness. "I just felt that I should make the offer."
"You're taking Penrose with you?"
"Of course."
"Good luck to you."
"Good luck to you, Nela...."
There was a call waiting when Vance got back to his office. It was Mildred.
"Darling. I hoped I could catch you. We can ride home together."
"I didn't know you were downtown."
"But I told you. I came down to see Jean."
"You were down to see her not long ago."
"So I came down again. Vance-is anything wrong?"
"I'm a little involved this afternoon. You'd better go on home. I'll be along."
"All right, darling. Will you be late?"
"I don't know," Vance replied, not trying very hard to keep annoyance out of his voice.
"The reason I asked-you got a call before I left the house. Tad Beck wants you to call him if you get back to Warrenton before nine."
"Just like that, eh? Who does Tad Beck think he is?"
"Vance-I'm sorry. I'm only relaying the message."
"He didn't say what he wants?"
"No."
"All right. I'll see you tonight."
Vance put the phone down and took a deep breath. It was time to face the issue. He'd skirted it long enough. Time now to check and see where the power lay.
He picked up the phone.
But then he put it down again and left the office and twenty minutes later, he opened the door on Macklin Penrose's secretary.
She was a small brunette and his arrival always brought a smile of welcome to her face. It brought no smile now.
Vance carefully shaped his own smile. "The boss in?"
"I'm sorry-"
She was going to say he was busy, but Vance didn't give her a chance. "I'll announce myself," he said and repeated his earlier performance in Parnell's office.
And again he found his man alone. Again, his man said, "I'm glad you dropped in, Vance. There's something I'd like to tell you."
But there was a difference. Macklin Penrose seemed to mean it.
"Maybe you can straighten me out, Mack. There have been some strange things happening at the office."
"I heard something about it."
"Maybe you can brief me."
"That all depends. What happened?"
At this point, Vance Hager made one of the greatest efforts of his life. He smiled warmly at Macklin Penrose and shrugged with a certain sadness. The twin gestures brought out the best in his personality.
"It seems they've gone crazy at the agency. They don't want the Penrose Soap account any more."
"Did Spencer say he was dropping it?"
"No. But they're freezing me out. It's the same thing."
"Is it?"
"Isn't it?"
"I'm afraid not. We're quite happy with the agency."
"But Mack! You're my account. I've worked my heart out for you."
"You've done a fine job, but there are other considerations. Spencer got a phone call from Washington."
"From Washington! What's that got to do with me?"
"Did you ever hear of a man called Bernard Kolsky?"
"No. I can't say that I have."
"He's evidently heard of you."
"Oh, yes. The political commentator. I've seen his name of course. Who hasn't? But I never met the man."
"He has a son and wife in your community. They live on Rebel Hill, I believe."
"I think you're right. But I still don't see-"
"It really doesn't matter, I guess. The whole point is that Spencer made a decision. He thinks that for the good of the company-"
"I got that from Parnell! For the good of the agency!"
"It follows."
"Mack! You can't do this to me! We've been friends!"
"Have we?"
"I've worked hard for you."
"You've worked hard for a good salary. If you're in a spot now where you need a shoulder to cry on, why don't you try Nela Varese?"
This was what Macklin Penrose had been wanting-needing-and he let his hatred blaze out at the man he considered his betrayer.
"Nela Varese! What's she got to do with it?"
"Nothing at all, actually. Why don't you go home to your wife and kids? Maybe tomorrow will be a better day."
"Mack!"
"I'm busy, Vance. I've got work to do. Give me a ring sometime. We'll have a drink...."
Vance was sure now that the world had gone mad. He left the Penrose Soap Company and hit the first bar he came to. Three stiff drinks did not make him drunk but they blurred his mind so that the new, crazy world he'd stepped into didn't seem quite as incredible.
He tried to sleep on the train, tried in that way to heal the emotional impact of the last few hours. He; could not sleep but he managed to doze with his mind in such a state that some of the cryptic declarations of the day began to lock together. They didn't make any more sense, but at least they added up to more clear-cut questions.
Bernard Kolsky. He'd called Spencer Penrose. He had a son and a wife who lived on Rebel Hill. Mildred said Tad Beck had been trying to get in touch with him. Tad Beck lived on Rebel Hill.
Was there any connection?
He glanced at his watch. The train would get in at eight forty-in ten minutes. It was exactly on time and Vance went straight to the booth at the end of the depot and phoned Tad Beck.
"You wanted me to call you?"
"I'd like you to drop up here, Vance."
Normally, Vance would have told him what he could do with his likes, and his dislikes too, for that matter. But it had been a rough day. Vance's fighting spirit was punched out.
"Okay," he said. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
Miserable wasn't quite the word for Mildred's state of mind. She'd been going through purgatory and had developed a headache that aspirin could not remedy. Her remorse had been towering and she had desperately needed the talk with Jean Bellamy. It had been a good talk and it had crystalized her resolutions. She had failed Vance. So she would go back to work.
Fortunately, he hadn't been damaged by her rash interlude. He would never know. Nor would the children, thank heaven. They really didn't need her. Perhaps they had never needed her. They would accept her departure from the close family circle as realistically as they had accepted her entrance into it.
She would not leave abruptly, she told herself. But gradually Vance would understand that the marriage was ill-advised.
Thus Mildred rationalized the situation and made compromises in exchange for a dubious peace of mind. And all the while she resolutely destroyed images of Rafe. They kept rising to glow like beautiful rainbows; the warmth, the excitement, the fragile glory of those moments.
But she had a weapon against these images-the terror of falling in love with Rafe. That must not be. That could not be.
She was preparing to move into a new and different life. This one was over.
Rafe could not, in any way, be a part of that new life.
"It is to the advantage of the community and all others concerned that this thing does not erupt into a scandal."
"What are you talking about? Are you as nuts as everybody else?"
Vance Hager had been seated opposite Tad Beck in the latter's luxurious living room. But now he sprang to his feet and faced Beck, not realizing how he would nave appeared to an objective observer-as a prisoner before a judge, as a defendant pleading with a stern accuser.
But Tad Beck was well aware of this and it gave him immense satisfaction.
"Why don't you sit down Vance?"
Beck's tone was that of a compassionate man soothing an emotionally disturbed visitor.
Vance dropped automatically into his chair. He groped for control. "All right. Tell me."
"There is much we have to ignore in a community of this type," Beck said. "We have to take reasonable attitudes geared to today's morals. But a married woman instigating an affair with an inexperienced, impressionable youth of impressive background sets up a situation that has to be dealt with."
More double talk. Vance continued to grope. What was the man saying? What was he driving at? The other day he'd referred to a situation involving Mrs. Crale. This must be the same deal.
Vance suddenly went cold as the only obvious inference came to him. Jimmie!
Was that it? Was Jimmie involved with a married woman?
"It's not true! Not a word of it. My son wouldn't be stupid enough to do a thing like that!"
"I didn't say anything about your son." Tad Beck's eyes glowed. This was food and drink to him, the ultimate in vengeance. This was the same man who had publicly insulted him, who'd shown open contempt that afternoon in front of Tom Carey and Ralph Wellington.
Now payment was being exacted. "I was referring to your wife, Vance." One shock after another all day, each piled brutally on the one before, had dulled Vance. His reactions were blurred and fuzzy.
"What about my wife?"
"In plain terms-words I shrink from using-Mrs. Hager has been carrying on an extramarital affair with a boy named Rafe Kolsky-you no doubt recall him."
"That's impossible."
"I wish it were. They rendezvous in an old deserted mansion up in the Cutoff. They have been seen entering and leaving. There are several entirely reliable witnesses. As a result of this affair, my son, in no way involved, was murderously assaulted by a man who lives in Cow Hollow. There has already been violence. There could be more. Word of the affair has already gotten around."
Vance Hager sat there stunned. It was as though he were another person, one who had been handed the key piece to a puzzle. He'd dropped that piece into place and the other mysterious pieces now meshed into an overall picture.
The call from Bernard Kolsky to Spencer Penrose ... Kolsky's motives could not be known, but they fitted a pattern. When a man of Kolsky's caliber is menaced, he strikes back with every weapon at his command.
"Who contacted Bernard Kalsky?"
"I did." Tad Beck's voice turned righteous and self-justifying. "It seemed to me Mr. Kolsky had to be given the opportunity to protect his reputation. My calling him, too, I thought, might serve a double purpose. He will probably see to it that his son leaves Rebel Hill. That will at least put an end to the affair and give gossip a chance to die out."
Vance was again on his feet. He was not the same as he had been. His face had turned pale. It was set and cold. When he spoke he moved only his lips and this, it appeared, with great effort.
"You sanctimonious hypocrite! You deliberately wrecked my life!"
"Now just a minute! I had every right to do what I did!"
"You swine!"
Vance Hager spoke as though he were seeing something loathsome for the first time.
"A man has a right to protect himself and his community."
"You're like something that just crawled out from under a rock."
"Were you doing anything to protect your standing in the community? No. Were you-"
"You destroyed my home. You ruined my children's chances!"
"You're hedging, Vance. You're alibiing yourself. If a man doesn't know what his own wife is-"
Vance Hager lunged at Beck. Murderous fingers closed over Beck's throat and clawed into the deep folds of flesh.
"Hager! You're mad-!"
Vance now spoke from between clenched teeth.
"You're not fit to live! You're a menace to every decent person on Rebel Hill!"
Beck, overwhelmed by the murderous attack, twisted away and went to the floor. Vance drove a knee into his bulging stomach, using it as leverage for the grip on Beck's throat.
His hands went deeper. Beck's arms flailed and his eyes bulged in pain and terror.
"Vance! Hager! Stop it! Stop, man!"
Beck's voice was a croak. Then, with strength born of sheer desperation, he hurled Vance off. He gasped for breath as Vance came staggering to his feet.
Beck managed to get to his knees in time to meet Vance's next lunge. But instead of throttling this tormentor, Vance smashed a fist straight into his face. Beck squalled and went over on his back. Stunned, he kicked out in blind desperation and caught Vance in the kneecap with a flailing foot.
Vance reacted to the pain. He staggered, and it was probably this reaction that kept him from being a murderer. He dropped astride Beck's vast bulk and began hitting him in the face, smashing his fists into the ugly symbol of his own destruction.
But the killer urge had been broken. With a final sob of frustration and rage, he arose from his crouch and staggered away.
Beck sat up, pawing at the blood on his face. "You murderer," he slobbered. "You killer!"
Vance Hager looked at him as though he were a piece of furniture. Then he staggered from the house-a man who had no place to go.
After Vance had gone, Tad Beck went through his bitterest hour. It had turned out wrong. He'd visualized Hager as a man who would come begging for forgiveness; a victim upon whom he could heap a full measure of revenge.
As he wiped blood from his face and lumbered toward the telephone, he wondered how he could have been so mistaken. He'd usually been such a good judge of people.
It made no difference, though. He'd see Vance in jail for assault with intent to kill.
But he did not pick up the phone. He stared at it for a full minute. Then he knew he was not going to use it. He was not going to do anything.
He was afraid to. He no longer wanted to be part of something that had gotten out of control.
He sat down heavily and tried to think. Was he vulnerable? Could Vance get back at him? He tried to analyze the situation logically, but he was not up to it at the moment.
He needed rest.
He sat there alone, searching for the fruits of vengeance in order to enjoy them. But they eluded him and after a while he got up and went to bed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME, Mildred?"
"Vance-please-I-"
"Did a few dirty hours with a lover mean that much to you? Was that important enough to destroy me for?"
"That wasn't like that, Vance! I mean-I didn't know-"
Vance Hager had finally come home. He'd stopped off for a few more drinks on the way. In fact he hadn't merely stopped off. He'd called a taxi and gone down off the Hill to a tavern near Warrenton.
The drinks hadn't helped. That hadn't dulled the panic or stilled the anger. They'd made his eyes red and left him a mess and when he entered the house Mildred saw what was close to an apparition.
He had net slapped her. He had not touched her physically. But his eyes and his voice were rapiers with which he ran her through and through.
"Tell me about that. How was that? Did you get a big bang out of seducing a child?"
"But Rafe isn't a child!"
"Oh, I see. That made this all right. That gave you the privilege of defiling your marriage, ruining me in business, and above all, smashing the children's futures!"
"Vance! Be fair. I admit that I failed you. But there was only a single incident. That and one other time when-"
"Give me the details, baby. Go ahead! Relive that all. I'll get a big kick out of hearing about that."
"I didn't mean that. Please listen to me, Vance. I'm a human being too. I at least deserve some consideration."
"Of course, pet. I'm only sorry I didn't have two careers for you to destroy. I'm sorry I couldn't provide you with four children to disgrace."
"What I mean is-yes, I was untrue to you. But why should all these things have happened? How could that secret incident have destroyed you and your career? That doesn't make sense."
"The incident wasn't secret. That was like a public performance. The reviews were read as far away as Washington D. C."
"But why?"
Vance could not lash at her any more. All his rage had been poured out. He was empty.
"I don't know why. I just know what happened."
He looked at Mildred. Somehow, facing her had been only anticlimax. What could he say to her? What could he do? It had been said. It had been done. And that was that.
"I'm tired, Millie. I'm dead tired."
"Take a hot bath, Vance. Go to bed."
He moved his hand in a vague gesture of weariness.
"I'm sorry, Vance."
"Never mind, Millie. We'll talk about things in the morning."
"I'll leave, of course."
"In the morning."
He went upstairs without saying good night.
Nela Varese sat looking out the window of her apartment high over Manhattan. She had come home in a pensive mood and she was trying to find the reason for it.
Vance Hager's bad luck? She wondered. She tried to judge exactly what Vance had meant to her. A good bed relationship had been the key. This had given her a sense of security.
But had there been more to the affair than that? She'd suffered no great reaction upon hearing about his fall, beyond an honest regret for Vance. But she'd had no trouble turning a hard shoulder when he'd appealed to her.
She thought about Mack Penrose, his indignation at what he thought had been unfair treatment, and also his conduct after practically breaking into her apartment.
It appeared that Mack had been in love with her. But there was no real proof of this.
Nela's mind dwelt on the vengeance he'd taken. She smiled. He hadn't been bad, really. If her attitude had been a little different, that would have been as satisfactory as any of her sessions with Vance.
Mack had possibilities-definite possibilities. Of course, love complicated things. Love could be a definite barrier.
But she could handle that when and if the necessity arose.
She picked up the phone and dialed Macklin Penrose.
"Mack? This is Nela...."
"I've been thinking about you...."
"I think we should talk ... "
"Why don't I come over...?"
"Do come. You might be delighted with what you find...."
Nela put the phone down and thought of Vance Hager and her thoughts were by way of farewell. There had been other men in the past. There would be other men in the future. That was life, at least hers, as she chose to live it.
She got up from her chair and went into the bathroom to prepare for the arrival of Macklin Penrose.
Mildred wasn't thinking very well. It was as though her mind refused to accept what had occurred. It was impossible that an indiscreet act performed in the privacy of an abandoned house in an almost impenetrable section of a sparsely settled county could have such a devastating effect.
There had been other factors involved. There had to be. But she would proably never know what they were, nor was it important that she should.
She only knew that she felt alone and deserted and filled with panic. The walls around her suddenly became the walls of a prison. She had to get out where she could breath, out under the dark night sky. She wanted to drive. She wanted the feel of power under her. She had to move.
She had reached the garage door when she realized that there was something else she had to have.
Rafe.
She had to see him once more, to talk to him, to perhaps touch him.
She wanted Rafe at that moment more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.
Throwing all caution away, she went in and dialed the Kolsky number. If his mother answered she would ask for Rafe.
But he answered himself.
"Rafe. I want to see you. I-"
There was so much she wanted to tell him at that moment. She wanted to say she loved him, she was sure he loved her, and they had that at least even though that would never come to anything, even though the love that had been given them was at the same time forbidden.
She waited for the warm tones of his voice.
But his voice was not warm. It was gay, and light and excited.
"Gosh, Mrs. Hager. I'm afraid I haven't got time, so glad you called. I wanted to tell you of the news."
"What news, Rafe?"
"I'm going to Europe."
"Europe?"
"Yes. It's the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. Dad called. He's going to Europe te do some political research and he wants me to go with him. Five or six countries. A wonderful trip. Then maybe I'll take up something and stay there for awhile, perhaps for several years."
"What about your mother?" Mildred asked dully.
"She's going to visit my aunt in Florida. They want her. We'll probably sell this place. It's about time. Dad said I'd been vegetating in these hills."
"I think he was right, Rafe. I really think he was right."
"Uh-huh. Well, I guess it's good-bye then, and good luck."
A last word from a boy who had forgotten her. The voice of a shy stranger.
No. He would remember. There would be nights when he would remember Full Moon and the first woman he'd known.
He would remember her as in a dream.
"I'm delighted for you, Rafe. Good-bye, and good luck."
The wind feeding in through the open windows was cool to Mildred's face. The night was dark and as the car rushed up the highway it seemed to be hurtling into a long white tunnel created by the headlights.
Mildred pressed down on the accelerator. The powerful motor responded. Faster-faster. The wind began to whine.
There was nothing in sight. She was alone.
One long quiet sob blended with the wind and was lost in it.
"Tom!"
The high whine of rubber on the pavement.
"Tom!"
Mildred reached down and snapped off the lights. The white tunnel vanished. There was only the empty darkness.
"Tommy darling. Hold out your arms to me. Touch me! Guide me!"
