After the Fire (40 page)

“Yes, it's who you think it is,” she cried. “What are you doing to me? Does it make you happy to torment me? Do you know you're a devil?”

There came the voice, the rich, melodious voice that had once enthralled her. “A devil? I don't know about that. Isn't it a matter of opinion?”

Smooth, he was, and ever so slightly amused besides. If he had been in the room now, she would have struck him.

“Does it makes you happy to keep my children away from me? They're mine, do you hear? It's I who gave them birth. I nursed them, and you—you—” She was unable to finish.

Gerald's deep sigh came over the wire. She knew it well; it represented exasperation and sophisticated patience.

“You are, as I've said many times, Hyacinth, an over-emotional woman, given to hysteria. I do not keep the children away from you. You have nothing to complain about. You say I torment you. Why? Because of a change in vacation plans?”

“That's not the whole of it. Not nearly. Those disgusting women you have—”

“Disgusting? Who tells you that?”

She had no intention of betraying Arnie, her benefactor, her lifeline. “Emma and Jerry,” she said, “mostly Jerry. Do you know, does anyone know or care, that he watches pornography on cable television late at night? Did you know that?”

“No, I didn't, and I'll certainly look into it. You might remember that I have a busy practice and I can't be everywhere at once.”

“I'm busy, too, and I—”

He interrupted. “I've heard about your success, and I'm impressed, but—”

She interrupted. “Success or not, I would manage to watch my children. That's why they belong with me.”

“The children aren't suffering, Hyacinth. They're healthy and cared for. Take a look. Anybody can see it.”

“They are suffering, Gerald. They are. They want to live with their mother, as most children do.”

“Well, these children can't, and there's no sense in going all over that again. You signed something voluntarily, the price you paid for my silence.” Now the mellow voice turned harsh. “You should be grateful, because I didn't have to do it that way. I didn't have to return the evidence to you after I found it on the lawn.”

“What kind of a world is this where there's no forgiveness and no understanding?” she screamed. “There should be some way, some human being who can get at you—”

He did not allow her to finish, but thrusting his words upon her with a force almost physical, retorted, “ ‘Get at me’? Just try to take legal means. You know what'll happen to you.”

Who of them hung up first, Hyacinth did not know. She knew only that her head was bursting with a rage so anguished that she might have been close to a stroke. In a flood of tears, she threw herself down upon the bed.

When, hours later the doorbell rang, she was still lying there, quiet now and exhausted. Only when the ringing persisted did she remember that Francine was
coming to spend the night. And getting up, she stumbled to the door.

There stood her mother, trim in a proper travel suit with her neat suitcase in hand and a look of absolute horror.

“What in the name of God is the matter?” she cried.

“It's nothing. I've been crying.”

“I can see that, can't I? What's happened? Look at yourself!”

Out of the mirror in the hall there stared a sorry, pale face between straggled ropes of ink-black hair.

“I talked to Gerald just now,” she said.

“Well? Well, what?”

“I want my children, and he won't listen to me.” She was too tired to speak. “That's all there is. Please don't ask me any more. You know it all, anyway.”

Francine went into her usual room, where in her tidy fashion she removed her jacket and arranged her few possessions for the night. When she reappeared a few minutes later, Hyacinth had lain down on the sofa and was staring at the ceiling. Francine sat down nearby and with troubled eyes regarded her daughter.

“Of course there's no use in asking you for the thousandth time to explain this to me.”

Hyacinth looked up into the troubled eyes. The pity in them brought a fresh surge of tears. If Emma were feeling the pain that I am feeling now, she thought, it would be unbearable for me. What would I not do to take my daughter's pain away? And here my mother is begging me with her pity.

But no, it is impossible….

Francine inquired, “Does anything hurt you beside your heartache?”

“My head. It feels twice its size.”

“That's tension. Sit up a little, and let me rub your neck.”

The fingers were cool and strong. And as they soothed, queer thoughts passed through Hyacinth's sick head: She used to annoy me, she was not serious enough, she said foolish things, I loved Granny much more than I loved her, she must have known it, she did know it, and she forgave it. I was arrogant and young for my age. She is the only one who foresaw what Gerald would finally do. No, not finally. Not all of it.

“Just try to take legal action. You know what'll happen to you.”

Felony-murder, second degree.

Tears slid down her cheeks and under her collar.

“Oh, what is it?” cried Francine. “I can't bear this anymore. Do you hear me? I can't.”

And Hyacinth heard her. Lying back on the pillow, she closed her eyes and whispered. “Don't look at me. Just listen.”

It was almost midnight, and they were still sitting up. Francine, with a ghastly face, was staring at the wall.

“Now I feel better, but you feel worse,” said Hyacinth.

“That's true. I would feel better if I could think of something to do, but I can't seem to think of anything.”

“Because there is nothing.”

“You couldn't tell Will,” Francine murmured, as if thinking aloud.

“And bring as my dowry,” Hyacinth said in mockery, “a threat hanging over my head? Don't you see?”

“Yes…, ” Francine said reluctantly. “Yes, even if he were willing, no man, lover or not, no man with any brain, no man you'd want, would undertake it. Yes, I see.”

And then, after a silence, she said suddenly, “No man except Arnie. Do you realize how exceptional he is?”

“Of course I do. I always tell him how grateful I am.”

“He wants more than gratitude.”

“I know that, too.”

“Is there no chance for him?”

Hyacinth smiled sadly. “You want to see your daughter securely settled, and I understand. It's only natural.”

“So you're still thinking of Will?”

Thinking? Remembering. Longing. In an elevator the other day, I heard his voice, and I didn't dare turn around until I saw that it wasn't him. Every time the telephone rings, my hand trembles when I pick it up, although I know it won't be Will.

“I'm sorry, Hyacinth. You need some peace.”

“I need some sleep. Right now I want to go to bed.”

Whether for good or ill, she had spoken; she had revealed everything to Francine, and now it was too late to take anything back. Like an incoming wave, a tremendous tiredness swept over her.

A
t the lunch table on the hotel's terrace, Hyacinth, looking about at her family, saw new light in their faces. These few days of Florida sunshine together had been like medicine.

The wait for February had been daunting, as each succeeding day seemed longer than the one before it. The children had been waiting for her, too. They had clung to her and again, to her despair, had been asking when she was going to take them back with her.

But at this particular moment, all was well. Emma was fascinated by the charms on Francine's bracelet. Jerry was talking baseball with Arnie, who had come this noon to join them at lunch; his loud, authoritative manner was amusing Arnie.

Happiness is only an atmosphere created by your mind, she thought. This grass is brilliant; this sky is as blue as a robin's egg; the fruit on the platter shines like porcelain; and all the laughter ripples. When she caught
Francine's glance, it told her that a day like this was worth ten times more than the trip to London that Fran-cine had given up for this visit to her grandchildren.

There were only two more days before school would start here, and the spring collection would call Hyacinth back to work. But she must not think of that. Think, rather, of the here and now. At long last she had begun some riding lessons, which had delighted her children. They had all played ball on the beach, had gone deep-sea fishing, swum in the pool, eaten enormous meals, and not wasted a minute.

“What are we doing this afternoon?” asked Jerry. “Are you going riding with us, Mom?”

Hyacinth was about to say yes, when Arnie spoke.

“I was going to ask you to do me a little favor, Hy. Maybe sometime today while the folks here go out to the stables, you would spare a couple of hours to go along while I look for some property that's for sale? Maybe give your opinion? Would you mind?”

“I don't know the first thing about real estate,” she replied.

“I'll take my chances on that. You've never seen this part of the state before. It'll be interesting. No beaches and no tourists.”

It did not need a detective to see that something more personal than real estate was on Arnie's mind. There was no mistaking what it was. Francine's expressive eyebrows had risen in pleased surprise, and there was no mistaking that, either.

“I want to come, too,” cried Emma.

“Not today, dear. Some other day,” Arnie said.

His gentle tone, along with the child's ready acceptance of his direction, affected Hyacinth. He really was fatherly, no doubt of it. It was a pity that he had never had children.

“Let me run upstairs to get a hat and my sunglasses, Arnie, and I'll be with you,” she said.

To anyone accustomed to packed commercial highways or to royal palms on a pastel oceanfront, the landscape was unrecognizable. Flat as a tabletop lay the fields on which the sugarcane grew; there was not a tree in sight and in the hot air, no breeze stirred. Irrigation canals at intervals cut through the fields, and at longer intervals, wherever roads met, a shabby, unpainted hamlet would cluster around a filling station and a soft-drink stand.

Arnie was being instructive. “These fields go on for miles. This is one of the largest cane areas in the country. I'll bet you didn't know that.”

These remarks were so unlike him, who rarely spoke in general terms, that Hyacinth wondered how long it would take for him to get to the reason for this rather aimless expedition. It did not take very much longer because, at sight of a soft-drink stand, he stopped the car.

“I could use a Coke. How about you?”

“Yes, thanks.”

The owner of the stand, having accepted his pay, went into his house and slammed the door, leaving them to stand beneath his single sparse tree drinking the Cokes in a total silence. Hyacinth's tingling nerves caused her to break it by saying something, anything. “You surely
aren't looking at any properties out here, are you, Arnie?”

“No. I only wanted to get away with you where there was nobody and nothing.”

He was looking not at her but away down the vacant black tar road. Free then to look intently at him, she did so. What she saw was the same familiar figure, dapper and confident. Yet at this moment, there was something else; perhaps it was his stance, or the pose of his head, that brought to her mind with a shock that evening at the hotel where the bed, turned down for the night, was on view beyond the door.

Suddenly he turned and spoke. “I've been waiting for you, for the time when you'd be ready. I hoped—I was pretty sure I wouldn't have to wait too much longer. So how about it, Hy? We aren't gonna live forever.” And with a strangely old-fashioned gesture, taking hold of both her hands, he made his appeal. “Marry me, Hy. I've wanted you almost from the time I first saw you.”

She was helpless, held by his hands and by his eyes, which were glistening with emotion.

“You'll be safe and loved. I'll give my part of the practice to Gerald in return for that paper you signed. He'll take it. It's worth a fortune.”

“You'd actually give it to him, Arnie? That doesn't make any sense.”

“Why not? I'm very well fixed. Plenty of great real estate and plenty of ready cash, too. I can retire, take you and the kids anyplace in the world. You just name the place.”

“I didn't—didn't expect—” she began.

“Yes, you did, Hy. Don't play with me. You knew I'd be asking you soon. Listen to me: Could it be any nicer? These few days—why, we've been like a family, you, and the kids, and even your mother. Ask her what she thinks of me, especially now that you've told her the whole story. She'll be the first to say, ‘Go to it, take the guy.’ I know she will. ‘He's smart, he's not bad-looking,’ she'll tell you; ‘he's good to your kids, and he's crazy about you. What more do you want?’ ”

His questions pounded her. His hands still gripped her, and he kept on pounding.

“I'm no womanizer like Gerald. You know that. You'll be able to count on me. You'll have a steady life instead of running around trying to make yourself fall in love with some man who'll only bring you the same problem you had with that fellow Will.”

Releasing her hands, he put his arms around her, and as if he sensed that she was not ready for anything more, he kissed her forehead and her cheeks with great tenderness.

“I'd really like to set us up in France. You love France, and you'd be out of harm's way over there with the children if anything should turn up.”

“Turn up? Oh, God. Is this to go on forever?”

“You can never be sure, Hy. We've talked about that often enough, haven't we?”

The chronic fear was weakening her legs so that she needed to sit down. “I want to get back into the car,” she said. “I don't feel well.”

Alarmed at once, Arnie opened the car door and helped her in. “We'll head right back. Oh, I'm sorry, I
didn't mean to upset you. Are you all right? Are you sure?”

“It's a headache, a thunderclap—so much all at once, this whole lovely week, and now these thoughts starting up again.”

“Lay your head back,” Arnie commanded. “We won't talk. You'll be all right. I'll take the short way this time.”

She gave him a faint smile. “So there is a shorter way?”