Whispers

  And she gave Robert a terrible look. She wanted to say, So, this explains a good deal about Annie, doesn’t it?

  But instead she whispered, summoning the top of her strength, “You’re my darling. So will you do something for me and go up with Eudora? Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the dream, about everything.”

  “Come, Annie,” said Eudora, “come up and help give Bobby his bottle. I’m going to sleep on a cot in your room with you. I’m staying here tonight.”

  Annie raised her head, and Lynn, too miserable to speak, gave the child a look of appeal.

  “Juliet has to sleep in my room too.”

  “Of course she will,” said Eudora.

  And the little group shuffled out, the woman holding the baby and the girl, for comfort, holding on to the dog.

  And we were sure, thought Lynn, silent in bitter grief, that we had kept the children from knowing.

  The doorbell rang just as Eudora started up the stairs.

  “That’s Tom Lawrence,” Bruce said. “I called him.”

  “What? He has no business here. Don’t open the door, Eudora,” commanded Robert.

  Bruce countermanded the order. “Yes, please open it, Eudora. I’d do it myself, only I don’t want to step away from Mrs. Ferguson.”

  “What in blazes—” said Tom. Stunned, he stood in the doorway and stared at the scene. “What in blazes—”

  He walked over and looked down at Lynn, grimaced, shut his eyes for an instant from the sight, and turned to Robert.

  “So, you bastard, it’s finally happened. It took a while coming, but I knew it would. You ought to be strung up.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about! We had some upset here, an argument, and I only meant—”

  The words diminished and faded. As shocked and foggy as Lynn’s brain was then, still there came a lucid thought: He is considering that Tom is a lawyer, and he’s scared.

  “You ‘only’ nothing, Ferguson.” Tom walked toward Robert, who drew back. It was strange to see him drawing back from a man whose head barely reached past his shoulder. “I’m calling the police.”

  Lynn struggled up against the pillows. Her eye throbbed. When her tongue touched her front teeth, one moved. She tried again. Definitely, it had been loosened. And she spoke through swollen lips.

  “No. No police. Please, Tom.” She wanted him to understand that Annie had already seen horror enough. “All I want is for—him,” she said, motioning toward Robert, “for him to get out.” She lay back again. “I’m so dizzy.”

  “Ah, you see? Even Lynn doesn’t want the police,” said Robert.

  “I’d like to overrule you, Lynn,” Tom said gravely. “This is a public matter now. A man can’t be allowed to get away with this kind of thing.”

  “Stay out of it, Lawrence,” Robert said. “Nobody invited you here.”

  Bruce jumped to the attack. “I invited him. Lynn needs friends, and she needs legal advice, which I can’t give.”

  “My advice again is to call the police,” Tom urged. “They need only to take one look at her, and it’ll be worth a thousand words for future use.”

  Robert pounced. “Future use?”

  “It would be in the newspapers,” Lynn murmured. “My children have been hurt badly enough without that too.”

  “You’re not thinking,” Bruce said quietly. “Everyone knows about it, anyway. In the office now—”

  At that Robert shouted out. “In the office? Yes, yes, do you think I don’t know about the lies you’ve spread? You wanted to tear me down, you wanted to take my place.”

  Bruce pointed to Lynn. “Lies? Look at your wife’s face. If I had talked, and I never did, which you know quite well, there would have been no lies. No. Robert, if I had ever wanted to talk, I could have done it long ago, that morning in Chicago, or maybe even before that, and you would never have gotten as far as New York. Let alone Europe,” he shouted. His rage and contempt had set him on fire. “You aren’t fit to live, after what you’ve done here tonight. You ought to be taken out and shot.”

  I’m not here, Lynn was saying to herself. All this has nothing to do with me. It’s not happening to me.

  Tom took her hand, which was cold, as one chill after another began to shake her.

  “What do you want us to do, Lynn? Tell us. There’s no point in arguing who said or did not say what. You’re too exhausted.”

  She answered him softly, as if she feared Robert’s wrath if he should overhear. “Just make him go. I don’t want to see him ever, ever, ever.”

  But Robert had heard. “You don’t mean that, Lynn,” he cried. “You know you don’t.”

  Tom gave an order. He was a small, active terrier badgering a Great Dane. “You heard what she said. Go! Get your coat and get out.”

  Robert, clasping his hands, beseeched her. “Lynn, hear me. These people, these strangers, are egging you on. I’ll spend the rest of my days making up to you for this, I swear I will. And telling me to go is no solution. These people—it’s no business of theirs.”

  “Tom and Bruce, whom you call ‘these people,’ are my friends,” she answered, finding voice. “I wanted them here. I need them. And I want you to go. It’s I who want it. I.”

  He beat his clenched hands on his breast. “You and I have lived a life together. Can any third person know what we have had, you and I? The things that have been between us? I’ll change. I’ll go anywhere you want, talk to anyone you want, take any counsel. I promise, I swear.”

  “Too late,” she cried. “Too late.”

  “I beg you, Lynn.”

  His shame and his agony were contagious; absurd as it was, as her intelligence told her it was, he could still elicit pity. It was odd that when he was angry, he could seem so tall; now between the other two men, pleading, he shrank.

  Bruce held out his hand, commanding, “Give me your house keys, Robert. Does he have duplicates?” he asked Lynn.

  Still overcome with the shame of this, she told him, “In the drawer of the table behind you.”

  “I’ll take them.” Bruce put them in his pocket. “I’ll throw them out when I get home. You’ll change your locks tomorrow. Now get out of here, Robert. Now. This minute.”

  “You may come back tomorrow morning at nine o’clock for your clothes,” Tom said. “But you heard Bruce, so go, and hurry up about it. Lynn needs rest and attention.”

  “I want to hear that from Lynn,” Robert answered.

  His face had gone gray. She thought: He knows I pity him, even now. But I am not wavering. If I had any tendency to do it, and I do not, the thought of Annie alone would stop me.

  And drawing herself upright, she said sternly, “I will tell you, Robert. Leave now, or weak as I am, I shall take Annie and Bobby and sit at the airport until the first plane leaves for my sister’s in St. Louis, and you’ll have the damned house to yourself.”

  Tom cried, “Oh, no! This house is yours as much as his. You’ll stay in it until your lawyer says you may leave it. I’m getting a fine Connecticut lawyer for you tomorrow. And you had better get going, Ferguson,” he threatened. “Otherwise, no matter what Lynn says, I’ll have the police here in ten minutes.”

  The two men stood side by side in front of Robert. He looked them up and down, then looked at Lynn for so long that she had to shut her eyes. His face was like that of a man who has come upon a ghastly slaughter and is helpless. She supposed that her expression might be the same. Then he turned on his heel and went rapidly from the house.

  The door closed. There was the sound of wheels on the gravel drive, and then nothing.

  The two men took charge. First came a doctor, a friend of Tom’s who, in a situation like this one, was willing to make a house call.

  Bruce explained. “Mrs. Ferguson doesn’t want to press charges, and if she goes to the hospital—”

  The doctor understood. “There would be questions. As long as there’s no damage to the retina, I think we’ll be able to manage here at hom
e.” Plainly shocked, he bent over Lynn and flashed a light into her eye. “No, there’s not. You’re lucky. It almost—” And he shook his head.

  When he had gone, Tom and Bruce made decisions for the morning. New door locks must be installed. Appointments with a dentist and an attorney must immediately be made. Bruce would talk to Annie and assess the damage to her.

  “I’m staying all night,” he said. “I can stretch out on the sofa in the den.”

  He would certainly not stretch out on this one. Lynn’s blood had ruined the moss-green damask, ruined it forever. And Robert had always worried about their guests’ palms on the armrests.

  “Your flight’s tomorrow night. You need some sleep,” she protested.

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s no sleep in me now, anyhow. I’ll make up for it on the plane.”

  Until long past midnight they talked. Bruce wanted to know what had led to such horror, and she told him everything, starting with the painting, which still, in its innocence, lay wrecked on the floor.

  His comment, when she had finished, was thoughtful and sorrowful. “He was afraid that, after what you had heard, you would leave him. He was terrified. Don’t you see?”

  “I see that he went into an insane rage. It was unimaginable,” she said, shivering again. “He could have killed me.”

  Bruce said grimly, “He might well have if Eudora hadn’t been here.”

  “Such rage! I can’t comprehend such rage.”

  Bruce shook his head. “You have to look deeper. Robert has always been filled with fear. He’s one of the most fearful people I’ve ever known.”

  “Robert?”

  “Oh, yes. He doesn’t think much of himself. That’s why he has always had to be the dominant one.”

  She thought. Doesn’t think much of himself? But it was I who looked to him! I who always felt, so secretly that I could hardly acknowledge it even to myself except in a pensive moment now and then, that I was never quite good enough, neither accomplished nor beautiful enough for him.

  “Have you just thought of this now, Bruce? Tell me.”

  “No, it was clear a long time ago, almost at the beginning.”

  She raised her swollen, tired eyes to Bruce and asked him quietly, “So that’s what you saw in Robert. What did you see in me?”

  “That you were always too terribly anxious to please. That you deferred to him. It was plain to see, if one looked only a little beneath the surface.”

  “And you looked.”

  “No, strictly speaking it was Josie who looked and saw. I learned from her. I learned a great many things from Josie.”

  “Did she think it would ever come to what happened here tonight?”

  “We both feared it very much, Lynn.”

  “And yet you must have seen so many of our happy times, our good times.”

  Lamplight struck her ring when she moved her hand, so that the diamond came to life; absently, nervously, she twirled it around and around her finger, playing, as was her habit, with needles and sparks of light. Good times and undercurrents … Annie playing duets with Robert and Annie having nightmares, concealing her nightmares …

  “What is to become of Annie?” she asked, lifting her eyes from the ring. “I am so afraid, so worried about her.”

  “I think now you really must take her for counseling. I have always thought so, anyway. You know that.”

  “Yes, but will you talk to her too?”

  “In the morning, I told you.”

  “We shall all miss you so, Bruce.”

  “I’ll miss you too.” And in a familiar gesture he pushed his glasses up into his hair. “But I’m ready to go, Lynn. I couldn’t even wait to get the furniture out of the house. The chairs she sat in, the address book in her handwriting, everything—I can’t look at the things.”

  It would be years before he got over Josie, if ever. But I, too, Lynn thought, in my very different way I, too, face loss. I am opening a door and stepping into darkness, to a flight of stairs and a fall into darkness.

  “I have lost my courage,” she said suddenly. “This morning I still had it, and now it’s gone.”

  “And no wonder. But you haven’t really lost it. You’ve been under attack. Your good mind will recover and pull you through. I know it will.” He stood up. “Go on to bed, Lynn. It’s late. Do you need help up the stairs?”

  “Thanks, I’ll manage.” Stretching her sore cheeks, she tried to smile. “I must look awful. I’m afraid to look in the mirror.”

  “Well, you certainly don’t look your best. But you’ll mend. By the way, you should sleep in some other room, in Emily’s. He’ll be coming for his clothes, and they’re probably in your room, aren’t they? I want to keep him out of your way. And, oh, yes, you should take a sleeping pill. Are there any in the house?”

  “Robert kept them for the times when he felt keyed up. But I’ve never taken one.”

  “Well, take one tonight.”

  Painfully, she pulled herself upstairs and got into bed. It crossed her mind, as some hours later she fell into the mercy of sleep, that she had quite forgotten to be ashamed before Bruce.

  A stream of sunlight had already crossed the room at a noontime angle when Lynn awoke. Groggy and unwashed, she had fallen into bed, and now, still groggy and unwashed, she got up to go to the mirror.

  The sight stunned her. She could hardly bear to look, and yet she had to keep on looking. That a human being could do this to another human face! One’s identity, one’s face that is like no other among all the billions on the earth! This violation of the most intimate property—it’s rape in a dark alley, it’s a sleeping household entered through a broken window, it’s a freight car filled with half-crazed refugees, a prisoner led to a torture cell, it’s every hideous thing that men do to one another.

  She sobbed: Oh, my life … I wanted to make everything so beautiful for all of us. I did. I tried. I did.…

  And then, a terrible fury took over. If he had been in the room and she had had a knife, she would have plunged it into his heart. Thank God, then, that he wasn’t there, for she must preserve herself, get well, and be strong. She had brought three dependent lives into the world. She had. Not he. She, alone now. He had forfeited those lives, whether he knew it or not, had given them up forever. And Lynn gritted her teeth on that.

  Then she ran the shower. Gingerly she cleansed her swollen, livid face of the blood that had dried black around her lips and nostrils. Carefully she pried open the eye that was half shut and bathed it. Then she powdered herself all over, put on scent, and fastidiously cleaned her nails. Let the body, at least, be presentable, even if the face was not. This was a question of self-respect.

  When she came out into the bedroom, Eudora was straightening the bed. Most tactfully, she did not focus upon Lynn, but reported instead the events of the household.

  “Mr. Lehman said to tell you good-bye. He had a long talk with Annie before he left, I didn’t hear it, but Annie was willing to go to school, I didn’t think she would be, but she was, and he drove her himself. Mr. Lawrence phoned, the doctor’s coming again this afternoon, unless you need him sooner, then Mr. Lawrence will send a cab to take you to the office. Bobby’s fine, he’s already had his lunch, and I put him down for his nap. And Emily’s on the way, she phoned from the airport, Annie called her last night, I couldn’t stop her. So I guess that’s about all.”

  “Oh, dear. She’s in the middle of exams.”

  “Well, they’ll wait. You’re her mother,” Eudora said firmly.

  The house trembled when Emily arrived. The front door banged, and feet clattered up the stairs; she plunged into the room and, halfway toward Lynn, stopped.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered, and began to cry.

  “Oh, don’t,” said Lynn.

  Poor child. She shouldn’t have come, shouldn’t see this.

  “Emily darling, don’t cry so. It looks worse than it is. Honestly.”

  “You would say that! I don’t bel
ieve you. What are you doing, protecting him again?”

  “No, no. That’s over.”

  “Oh, my God, this is a nightmare! But it was only to be expected. It was only a question of time.”

  “Was it? I suppose so.”

  “Oh, Mom, what are you going to do?”

  Emily sat down on the edge of the bed. There was such anguish in her question that for an instant Lynn had to turn away without answering.

  “Do? Many things. My head’s swimming with all I have to do.”

  “How did it happen? What led to it this time?” Emily asked, emphasizing this time.

  “I’ll tell you the whole thing, but first tell me how you came to that place. I was there too. I bought a picture, and she told me about you. You were in New York without letting me know. What happened? Why?”

  So many secrets. So much going on behind each other’s back.

  “You knew what my thoughts have been, Mom. Suddenly I wasn’t able to rest any longer while they were whirling in my head. So I took a plane to New York, spent a couple of hours, and flew right back.”

  “Whatever was in your mind when you went there? What did you expect to learn?”

  “Maybe I felt there was some dark secret, I don’t know. I was curious about Jeremy, though, and there wasn’t any other way to find out about him.”

  “Well, did you find out anything?”

  “He lives in England, and in a nice enough way, terse but still nice, she made it clear that he should be let alone. Obviously she doesn’t want Dad to learn where he is. But who knows? Maybe someday—or maybe never—he’ll want to know Annie and Bobby and me.”

  The winter afternoon was closing in and Lynn pulled the lamp cord to lighten the gloom.

  “You’re wondering what brought me there,” she said, conscious that each of them had avoided saying the name “Querida.” “When I considered what you had learned through Aunt Jean—it took me a while—I knew I had to reach back into the past. I had deliberately closed my mind. I realize that. And so I had to open it. Perhaps,” Lynn said ruefully, “perhaps in a way I hoped, when I went in, that the woman would turn out not to be—to be Querida, and then I would not have to face facts. If there were any facts. And of course there were.”