Answer as a Man

  Where else, going back now years, had she had whiskey? Who had slyly given it to her? What had anyone to gain by this? Patricia had no secrets; she knew nothing much of her father’s or husband’s affairs so that she could be induced to babble them. She was a gossip, but all women were gossips, and she was too ignorant of the world to absorb the low degradations to which so many could descend. But some people had been cruel enough to do this to her. Evil was not always directed at importance. It was banal, small, too. She had been given whiskey frequently, at least twice a week lately. But why, in the name of Christ, why?

  “I hate you, I hate you!” she was sobbing. “I’ll never forgive you!”

  Poor girl, he thought with pity, but without his usual urge to appease her. I’ll get to the bottom of this!

  She fought him as he carried her upstairs to her bedroom. She tried to get off the bed on which he had gently laid her, then suddenly collapsed, bubbles gathering at the corners of her mouth. But a moment later she was heaving and he ran to the bathroom for a basin. He was just in time; she was leaning over the edge of the bed and retching. Chewed food and wine poured out of her, and now the stink of whiskey was stronger. There had been more than sherry in those glasses. Two? Perhaps she had had more. When he was talking to Chauncey, Lionel had been busy refilling glasses, and Jason had not even noticed when his own was refilled. Lionel was deft.

  Lionel. Jason held his wife’s struggling head; her hair was damp, and so was her forehead. Her slight body was convulsed. Jason wanted to kill whomever was responsible. “There, there, dear,” he said. “I’ll get a wet cloth.” She had fallen back on her pillows, panting, her eyes bloodshot and suffused.

  He wiped her mouth. “Oh, God,” she groaned. “It was that … awful corned beef; it always makes me sick. Joan knows I hate it. She should have had something else for me.”

  “Yes,” said Jason, watching her. His grief and fear sickened him. Somebody would pay for all this. He recalled being awakened at night in his own room next door, hearing something like moans from Patricia’s, and then the running of water. This was not new.

  Patricia abruptly fell asleep, her mouth sagging open. Jason removed her dress and her slippers. How thin her body was, even more so than after the twins had been born.

  Jason felt rage and terror, but no longer tenderness. He was never to feel tender toward Patricia again, only pity and the solicitude of a friend who no longer loves but because of past affection offers compassion in sorrow and loss.

  As Chauncey and his wife, Anita, drove home from Lionel’s house, Anita said, “Well, dearie, your charm didn’t accomplish anything tonight, did it?”

  “Not directly, pet, not directly. But I learned something. I learned that Garrity can’t be made to do anything just for money. He’s like a rock. So … I will have to use other means, more strenuous ones, ones he’ll never know about until it’s too late.” Chauncey laughed. “And then he’ll wonder what has hit him.”

  “You really are a very naughty boy, sweetheart,” said Anita, and laughed fondly. He patted her hand, and she moved against him and put her head on his shoulder.

  “And you’re a naughty girl, and a very lovely one, and I love you, love you,” he murmured, and made his voice low and husky, and Anita shivered and snuggled closer to him. How she loved him, the dear pet, so handsome, so engaging, so full of charm. She held his hand tightly before releasing it and after kissing him strongly on the mouth.

  He smiled to himself. He had outmaneuvered men like Garrity before, and had reduced them to bewildered bankruptcy. It had been all their fault, not his, the idiots. He only wanted to make his fortune—and theirs, if they were willing. Their rejection was their own doing. Life had no place in it for men of principle and conscience.

  He had no resentment toward Jason, no animosity. Jason had had his chance and had refused it, unlike Chauncey’s friends in New York and Boston who were as wily and conscienceless as he, Chauncey, and knew good chances when they saw them and expressed their gratitude by putting more opportunities in his hands.

  “You never did tell me how you found out about who owned that property you want,” Anita said.

  “Well, I’m not sure, myself. But I’ll find out pretty soon. It’s probably Garrity and Mulligan. In fact, it’s almost certain. I watched Garrity when I mentioned the land. He’s easy to read; his face changed in a way I’m familiar with. Don’t worry, sweetheart.”

  “The only thing I worry about, dearest, is that perhaps you might stop loving me.”

  He made an incredulous sound, and laughed. “Stop loving you, Anita? Why, dammit, you’re my whole life! If there was a God, I’d thank him for letting me find you, you silly little girl. You’ve made my whole existence,” and his voice broke most sincerely.

  They reached their house, which was partway up one of the mountains, a new house and a splendid one, that Anita had furnished with the help of an interior decorator from Philadelphia. People now called it “a showcase.” Chauncey looked up at Ipswich House. It was late, but almost all the windows shone with light. A splendid place. A model for other hotels. Chauncey’s handsome mouth literally watered for it, and he nodded and smiled to himself.

  When he and Anita were up in their lavish gold-colored bedroom, he said, “I’ll give you your nightcap, sweetheart. You look a little tired.”

  She was disappointed, but she knew that disappointment made her look older and gave her lines. Chauncey yawned. “And I’m tired myself.”

  He went into the bathroom, opened the cabinet, and took out a packet of sleeping powders. Anita often had headaches, but she would not wear her glasses when with other people, nor would she wear them regularly in front of him. He poured one of the powders carefully into a glass, opened another powder and put it into the glass, too. He watched it fizz, then carried it into the bedroom. Anita was already in her most seductive nightgown, and he said admiringly, “That’s lovely, beautiful! Is it new?” Her flesh bulged against the silk and lace and ribbons.

  “Yes. I’m glad you like it, dearest.”

  He bent and kissed her fully on the mouth, and she put up her arms and clung to him. Her perfume was stale. She had removed her cosmetics, and the web of little lines on her babyish face was very visible.

  Chauncey kissed her again, even more soundly. “Well, drink this up, sweetheart, and sweet dreams!”

  Her infatuated and enchanted eyes stared at him, and her heart filled with love and gratitude that he was hers and that he loved her. Still looking at him, she obediently drank the draft to its dregs. She made a coy face and said, “What a terrible taste. But it does help me sleep.”

  Chauncey stood near her, smiling. He had removed his clothes and had put on a silk nightshirt and a crimson satin robe. He glanced at himself in the mirror, winked at his image, and ran his hand over his abundant crisp brown hair. His heart began to boat with a familiar excitement.

  He lay down beside his wife. He put his arm under her and drew her head to his shoulder. He yawned very widely and rubbed his eyes. Then he turned his head and kissed Anita deeply. She was already half-asleep. He stroked her hair and cheek, and she sighed happily and held his hand.

  He waited half an hour, impatiently. Finally Anita, drugged heavily, fell asleep. Her mouth opened; she began a soft snoring. Carefully, inch by inch, he withdrew his arm, lifted her head from his shoulder, and slowly laid it on her pillow. He turned off the bedside lamp. He slipped even more carefully from the bed. He stood up. At the door he paused to listen. The snoring was louder. He opened the door and crept out, closing it after him. Again he waited for a murmur or movement. It did not come.

  He walked lightly down the long hall, and his excitement grew, but he did not hurry. He tapped on a closed door. It opened.

  Elizabeth, with her pretty face and long fair hair, stood before him, clad in a nightgown the color of diaphanous moonlight and a robe of light silk embroidered in silver. She smiled radiantly at him, and without a word he entered her room. Sh
e closed the door.

  She put her arms about his neck and clung to him, and he held her almost savagely and rubbed his body against hers. Her flesh was warm and sweet. She held up her face to him, and they kissed long and with rising passion. “Oh, my God,” Elizabeth whispered against his mouth, and kissed him again. She smelled of violets.

  He carried her to her bed and lay down with her. He turned off the lamp and took her in his arms.

  Jason could not sleep. He finally got up and moved silently into Patricia’s room. She was as he had left her, in a drunken stupor, snoring, and motionless. She had a night light oh, for since childhood she had been afraid of the dark; it was a feeble yellowish light, but adequate for what he felt he must do.

  Hardly making the whisper of a sound, and always listening for a break in the heavy snoring, he opened drawer after drawer in her dresser and dressing table. The old furniture did not creak; the drawers moved as if on water. There were her lacy drawers, her petticoats of satin or light creamy wool, her nightgowns in silken envelopes, her corsets stiff with bone and dripping with cords, her camisoles with all their ribbons. To Jason, they had a sort of innocence, a naiveté, and for a few minutes he felt he was violating something childlike and undefended. But he went on, grimly searching. He opened closet doors to peignoirs, to flannel gowns, to rows of slippers and hats. The dressing table was full of her scents and powders, and, hidden in one drawer, some tiny pots of paste rouge. For some reason this seemed to him the saddest of all.

  He did not find what he was looking for, though he searched under the cushions of chairs, on the backs of shelves, under the bed. He opened empty traveling cases, found a huge unlocked wardrobe trunk and looked in every crevice and in all the drawers. Nothing. He felt behind draperies and over valences. Nothing but dust. He saw his ghostly face in a long mirror, its haggard lines, its anxious eyes, and the hard set of his mouth. He went back to the bed and stood looking down at Patricia. “What is it, dear?” he asked her in his mind. “Who’s done this to you, and why?” Her eyelashes flickered as if she had heard him. Then she moaned and said faintly, “My darling, my darling.” There was agony in her muttered voice. She moved restlessly, and moaned again.

  Jason frowned. Not for an instant did he think she was addressing a man. Nor, he thought, was she speaking to him. One of the children? Yes, little Nick, her favorite. Jason wanted to kiss her cheek, touch her hand. His deep and incredible love for her had gone forever, and he knew it. It was replaced now with a protective affection, the love of a brother involved with her well-being but not with her emotions. There was an emptiness, yes, but not a desolate one. Jason felt stronger for the release, yet very alone.

  He went downstairs into the dining room and to the liquor cabinet. There were wines there, Patrick’s, but the compartment that held whiskey was surely locked, padlocked, in fact, for, as Patrick had often said, “Servants go for the hard stuff, not the tasty ones.” Jason knew that only he and Patrick had the keys to the musty cellar, where extra supplies of liquors were kept. Patricia had never gone down there in her life, for she was terrified of spiders and mice and webs and dead flies.

  Jason, dusty and exhausted, went back upstairs. So Patricia was not getting any whiskey in this house. Where was she getting it, then? At the homes of friends. Jason cursed under his breath. Why? But he knew why—the pointless but boundless malevolence of humanity, the mindless malice which sought only to hurt, to mock, to ridicule. Da had been quite right: man was not worthy to live. Someone had secretly put whiskey into Patricia’s sherry, first as a joke, perhaps, to have revenge on her prissiness or to punish her for her arrogance, or perhaps even in envy. Her susceptibility had then been discovered, and her trustingness, and so the giggling and delighted whisper had spread. Patricia, under the influence, would reveal titillating tidbits of her personal life and the life of her family. Jason felt his face burn with wrath; and he clenched his hands and his breath came fast.

  Lionel had heard of Patricia’s misfortune. He would not think it a misfortune—he would think it amusing. He had never liked Patricia, and had always, until Jason had married her, ridiculed her lightly even to him. He had actually turned white when Jason told him of the marriage. He had stared at Jason strangely. Then he had said, “No, no,” in an odd voice. But he had made himself smile, and shaken hands with Jason, and had congratulated him. However, for some weeks thereafter his manner had been guarded, and Jason often found Lionel looking at him with an expression of mingled affection and dismay. Lionel had attended the reception after the church wedding, and Jason had caught him staring at him from a distance, as at a beloved brother who has been betrayed or injured.

  As Jason finally undressed, very slowly and wearily, he remembered these things. Lionel knew of Jason’s love for Patricia; he would not willingly hurt Patricia, for that would hurt his friend. Lionel was naturally malicious, but it was a light and jesting malice. He was not one to play practical jokes just for his own amusement. That he was capable of malignancy, Jason had long suspected, but he had not as yet shown it. Lionel certainly had no reason to hate Patricia; even if he had, he would not attack his best friend through her. Besides his friendship for Jason, Lionel would also remember that Patricia was his employer’s daughter. Yet, he had given her whiskey tonight. And he had brought the Schofields to meet them. Were the two connected? He, Jason, would find out, and his thoughts about Lionel were for the first time both anguished and vengeful. He lay awake until it was time to get up. He listened at Patricia’s door. There was no sound but that of snoring.

  Patrick had left for his office at the Inn-Tavern. Jason went into the hall telephone closet, carefully shut the door, and called his father-in-law. He said, “Mr. Mulligan. I’ve got to see you and Daniel in your office the very first thing this morning. In an hour. Would you call him for me, please? It’s a matter of extreme importance.”

  20

  “It’s a grand girl, our Molly,” said Patrick Mulligan to his nephew Daniel. His voice was fond. “Severe, and sharp-tongued, and no-nonsense. It’s happy I am that she comes here every week to look over the work and see the girls are not lying down on the job and that every file is in place.”

  “Something of a slave driver, Molly,” said her husband, also fondly. “And a big conscience. She feels that if she isn’t supervising your office, and you, too, Uncle Pat, everything will collapse and you’ll be robbed of your last dollar. She hasn’t much faith in men’s intelligence, thinks we’re lackadaisical.”

  Patrick sighed. “Ah, if you had a son! A fine broth of a boy he’d be with Molly as his mum and you as his dada. Well, then. With all the debt we’re in, Molly has the right to be worried about us.”

  Daniel laughed. “Molly would rather starve than go into debt. I constantly tell her money doesn’t grow by hiding it in a mattress—or in a bank, for that matter. I wanted her to go to New York last week for some new clothes; she hasn’t bought even a pair of shoes since we ‘ran into debt and into the hands of the money lenders,’ as she calls it. I keep reassuring her that we are doing splendidly, paying off the mortgages, and that, in fact, the Inn-Tavern is mortgage-free. That doesn’t satisfy her enough. There’s Ipswich House, still, and the new hotel we have under way. Anyway, she refused to buy clothes she badly needs. She mends her stockings, too, and her drawers, and I found her patching the elbows of an old coat. Don’t laugh, Uncle Pat. I’m serious, even if I’m laughing myself. Dear Molly.”

  “Dear Molly,” echoed Patrick. “But she is right. We’re still heavily in debt, even if struggling well with it.”

  “Well, Molly’s no advertisement of our solvency and success,” said Daniel. “I tell her to keep out of sight of our bankers, or they might call in their notes. When she went to Sunderland’s first grandchild’s baptism party last week, she wore a dress five years old, and far out of style. It was clean and pressed, but that is all you could say about it. I was embarrassed.”

  “Still,” said Patrick cheerily, “that will s
how the bankers that we’re not profligate with their damned money.”

  “Then,” said Daniel, laughing again, “I undermined their confidence. I myself was dressed even more splendidly than Lionel Nolan, that rascal. And Joan looked impossibly exquisite, as usual, and as transcendent as a saint in stained glass. And Patty, as usual, was … stylish. Why weren’t you and Jason there, too?”

  “We had work to do. An emergency,” said Patrick with virtue.

  “What emergency?”

  Patrick scratched a pink ear. “I don’t remember me, just now. But, sure and it was an emergency. What else?”

  Daniel leaned back in his chair and carefully lit one of his expensive cigars after giving one to his uncle. His eyes, looking even more like bright brown marbles than they, had six years ago, musingly fixed themselves on Patrick. He was still solidly handsome, if losing some of his hair, and he gave the impression of alert strength and agility. He said, “I wonder why Jason is in such a sweat, wanting to see us this morning.”

  “Now, then, I don’t know. It isn’t like Jason to get his bowels all stirred up like a silly woman. I’ve tried to think what it is.” Patrick spread out his hands. “If it was something about Patricia, he wouldn’t ask that you be here too, Danny. So it’s nothing personal.”

  Daniel thoughtfully watched a coil of blue smoke rise toward the ceiling; it coiled sluggishly, for the day was quite hot and the little office was steamy with heat and smelled even more strongly of dust than usual, and was far more untidy than when Molly was the “typewriter.” Only one change had been made: the files, growing all the time, had been removed to another room, as well as the two stenographers of whom Molly did not entirely approve. “I did all the work myself,” she often told them, her honey-colored eyes cold and rebuking, “and now there are two of you, and you are always complaining there is too much work. The trouble is that you work only nine hours a day and a half a day Saturday, while I worked ten hours and all day Saturday for half of what you each get now.”