The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (60 page)

 

 

Cynthia sighed. "It's a crazy world, isn't it, Yale?" She looked more
closely at his face. "You haven't changed much. You've got a shorter
haircut. You look like a Harvard man." She grinned a little when he
blushed. "But you're still Yale Marratt!"

 

 

Yale tried not to stare at her uplifted breasts, and the slight curve
of her stomach beneath her skirt. There was a saying he had heard in
the Army: "good tits . . . no hips . . . good hips . . . no tits" --
but Cynthia belied the saying. Who was the famous painter who had looked
for a model with a "pear-shaped ass"? Cynthia had it, plus full excellent
breasts all molded by her skirt and sweater.

 

 

She caught his glance. "Am I showing already?" She tried to make her voice
light and humorous.

 

 

Yale looked puzzled.

 

 

"I'm pregnant, Yale. I thought maybe you noticed."

 

 

Yale thought, Good God! -- No! Cynthia couldn't be pregnant! What an
ironic twist of fate. Pregnant! Mat dead? She was kidding . . . playing
for sympathy. "You don't look very pregnant to me," he said hollowly.

 

 

He could see her stiffen a little with anger. "You never were one for
social amenities, were you, Yale?"

 

 

"Look who is talking," Yale said angrily. "I can't remember you gracefully
saying good-bye to me. There must have been some nicer 'social' way of
kissing me off. I don't remember any amenities at all."

 

 

Cynthia sat down on the bed; tears in her eyes. "Yale, let's not shout
at each other. I am sorry . . . sorry to the very core of my being.
It was rotten, terrible . . . but it had to be done," she whispered.

 

 

"I didn't come here to make you cry," Yale said, feeling his stomach
twist. I'm a sap, he thought, she can still make me feel badly for
her with just a facial expression. "I'm still a little stunned.
I don't mean because you are going to have a kid, although that's really
bad luck . . . but at Mat being dead." He paused, "Oh, hell, Cindar.
You're pregnant. Mat got the prize. I should hate the bastard . . .
be glad he is dead." Yale saw Cynthia wince. " . . . but I don't . . .
in fact, for several months in India we were very close. When I think
about him seriously it's with a great deal of admiration." Yale walked
over to the bed. He looked at Cynthia. "I'm sorry for you, too mostly,
I guess I'm sorry for myself."

 

 

He sat down beside her, and noticed that she was still wearing the ring
he had given her.

 

 

"Yes, I'm still wearing it, Yale. Mat knew that you gave it to me."
She smiled through her tears at his puzzled expression. "You must never
blame Mat for what I did. He had nothing to do with it. He was a fine,
good person. I'm glad I'm going to have his baby. . . ." She noticed the
strange expression on Yale's face, and said sadly, "Don't you understand,
Yale? Even though I loved you, we never could have been married. I'm
Jewish . . . Jewish Jewish. Isn't that clear enough?" She hissed the
words at him and then dropped back on the bed, sobbing.

 

 

Yale looked at her, bewildered. He was struck again with the classic
beauty of her face, wide-spaced eyes, and high cheek bones descending
in perfect curves to a well-formed chin. He felt a resurgence of desire
for her that was overwhelming.

 

 

"God-almighty, Cindar. I must be stupid but I simply don't understand you.
I loved you."

 

 

"You're lucky not to have been involved with me. Now -- you are married
to a girl your father couldn't object to."

 

 

Yale stared at her, astonished by her statement. "What do you know about
Anne?" he demanded. "Have you seen her?"

 

 

"I never met her, Yale. Mat told me that she is lovely." Cynthia looked
at him solemnly. "He told me about your marriage."

 

 

"Did he tell you why Anne came back to the States so suddenly? Did he tell
you where she is now?"

 

 

Cynthia's face showed her surprise. "She was pregnant, Yale. Mat thought
you knew! Oh, God, don't tell me you didn't know! I'm sure Mat thought
you were well aware of what happened."

 

 

Yale told her quickly that he hadn't seen Anne since the previous July.
He told her how he had been searching for her . . . using a detective
agency. Cynthia listened, amazed. "I can't understand it, Yale. I'm sure
that she wrote Mat. I remember his reading her letter saying that you
were excited and pleased with the idea of her having a baby. I think she
was in Paris when Mat got the letter. She said that she was coming back
to the States, to wait for you until the war was over."

 

 

"I had absolutely no idea that she was pregnant," Yale said, stunned.
It suddenly occurred to him that if Anne had been pregnant in Paris she
must have known it when they were in India. The baby must already be
born! Somewhere his child was living. My God, he thought, why had Anne
done this? Or maybe there was no child. Maybe she had come home and had
an abortion. That must be it! She had hated the idea of being pregnant
by him. That was the whole answer; the end of a love.

 

 

He told Cynthia his thoughts. She shook her head.

 

 

"It doesn't seem logical, Yale. Of course, I don't know. All I do know
is that Mat was happy that you had found her. He was sure she was deeply
in love with you."

 

 

Yale rubbed his hand against his face in a gesture of despair. "Oh,
I've known two very logical women, haven't I, though? One leaves me
because she's Jewish, and one because she's pregnant."

 

 

"I'm sorry, Yale." She sighed, thinking that whatever motivated Anne to
leave Yale certainly couldn't have been as terrible as that awful day
in Pat Marratt's office.

 

 

"Forget it. . . ." Yale said. "The problem is what are you going to do?
Why are you living in a dump like this? Didn't Mat have any insurance?
You better bring me up to date."

 

 

"It's not your worry, Yale. I'll get along all right."

 

 

"Look, stupid, I have money, I can help you."

 

 

Cynthia replied as if she hadn't heard Yale. She stared at the ceiling,
seeing disjointed pictures of the past five years flickering on its
yellowed surface.

 

 

"I didn't love Mat at first, Yale. He was older like a father . . . and
good . . . a refuge." Yale leaned over her as she talked. . . . He watched
her brown eyes, her full lips, her tear-stained cheeks, and he knew that
his feeling for her hadn't changed.

 

 

" . . . but when he came back from India, I knew that I had missed
him. In the few months we had left together we really discovered each
other. Mat had changed . . . the fire-eating, Bible-thumping evangelist
had disappeared. He was more human somehow . . . still out to change
the world but on a quieter basis. The 'Seek-the-True-Love' days were
over. He had written a book in India and was determined to find a
publisher." Cynthia smiled. "I guess somehow I had finally made up my
mind that Mat was really going to be my life. That's when we decided to
have a baby.

 

 

"We bought a small development house in Swampscott. Mat had been promised
a church of his own in a nearby town . . . in about a year . . . when
the present minister retired. The money Mat had accumulated from the
'Seek-the-True-Love' venture, even the donated money which amounted
to nearly ten thousand dollars and which Mat had tried to put into a
special fund, was gobbled up by creditors.

 

 

"Neither of us was very practical. You see, Mat had borrowed most
of the money for the tent. It was second hand but it cost a fabulous
amount. Then we had to have a trailer. . . ." Cynthia shrugged. "Anyway,
we were pretty much broke. Even the money Daddy left me vanished. Mat
had gone to Evans Academy to apply for a teaching job the day he was
killed. They called me from the Melrose Hospital. He was dead before
I got there. It was a stupid accident. His car skidded, went over an
embankment. His neck was broken. . . ."

 

 

"How much money have you got?" Yale asked. He tried to keep his voice
matter-of-fact, not wishing Cynthia to know how much he wanted to brush
the tears from her eyes.

 

 

"Yale, there was nothing until a month ago. That's why I sold the house.
We had no equity in it. I got a job in Jordan's during the Christmas rush,
and then I was laid off. Last month I got Mat's G.I. insurance money.
I have a little over ten thousand dollars. So you see I'm all right."

 

 

Yale was silent -- wondering what the future would have in store for her.
Ten thousand dollars wouldn't last long. A few years. She would have to
work and support her child. Probably she would marry again. With Cynthia's
face and body it shouldn't be difficult.

 

 

"I suppose now . . . I could marry you," Yale said bitterly. "It's
obvious that Anne was just another dream I cooked up for myself.
So there's nothing in the way. . . ."

 

 

"I'll never marry you, Yale." Cynthia's face was tight with repressed
tears. "And I'll forgive the rotten way you have asked me."

 

 

Yale pulled her toward him. He held her, tense and reluctant in his arms.
"I'm sorry, again, Cindar. I just can't help but feel that you have
messed up our lives. I want to help you. I have to do that much for
myself. But you've got to tell me what happened. What did I do?"

 

 

Nervously, she kissed his cheek. She jumped up quickly from the bed.
"Yale, it's three o'clock. I'm starved. Take me out for a sandwich and
a cup of coffee. Will you?" It was apparent that she was trying to keep
him from questioning her further.

 

 

They ate in a small restaurant near her room. He sat opposite her in
a booth. They tried to pick up the threads of the past, clutching
pathetically at memories. As they talked they carefully avoided
the years they had been separated, and confined their discussion to
Midhaven Colege. Unexpressed was a if-we-could-only-turn-back-the-clock
feeling, but inexorably the memory would recur to Yale of the day before
graduation. And Cynthia remembered her fatal meeting with Pat. It was
settled . . . over. The fleeting idea of trying to recapture the love
they had known was forever squelched. As a person grows older the endless
possibilities of youth narrow to a series of "it might have beens."

 

 

Through the window they watched the snow whipping furiously along the
cobbled streets. It was only four o'clock, but it was already dark. They
had covered their Midhaven memories. The surface ones . . . not the deep
feeling memories of young love and excitement and discovery . . . memories
they dared not say aloud . . . so their words vanished, paralyzed by
things too deep for tears, even.

 

 

"Are you going back tonight?" Cynthia asked, breaking the silence.
She wondered what he was thinking. Could she say to him that it would be
all right to stay? They had slept together . . . had intercourse together
. . . many times. She felt a longing to have a man with her. Someone . . .
tender . . . understanding . . . to break the loneliness of her dismal room.
But it was crazy. She couldn't ask Yale and then repulse him again.
She couldn't say I want your body close to me tonight, Yale. Not for
passion but because I'm scared. I'm going to have a baby -- and I'm
alone and frightened. If she said it -- even implied it -- it would be
as if she asked him to marry her. She would have to explain what had
happened. How could she explain? Too many years had passed. It was too
late. How could she evoke for Yale her fright and fear of Pat so many
years ago? Now it seemed silly. She should have told Yale that day. They
would have overcome Pat's hatred. Somehow. Even if they hadn't . . .
they had their love for each other. But what would it accomplish now?
She was pregnant -- and not by Yale. Yale was married to someone else.
The future held no possibilities for them.

 

 

Yale was deep in melancholy. Why had he come to Boston? If he hadn't
come the memories of Cynthia would have fallen into perspective. But now
it was so very clear. Anne hadn't wanted him, either. She had gotten rid
of the baby. Why . . . God . . oh, why had he made the only two loves he
had known his religion? Why couldn't he have accepted Cynthia and Anne as
normal average women and not enmeshed himself with the Universe? Right
now he had a set-up. Play it easy and he could have Cindar back in her
room in bed in no time. Screw her good . . . dispassionately to see what
it would be like, and then leave her in the morning. Tell her he would
be in touch with her and then disappear entirely. Tell her anything,
and then to hell with her. It's funny, he thought, I can think these
thoughts but they are not me. Cindar -- get the hell out of my life,
he thought, I'm confused enough.

 

 

He said, "I've got to get back. Come on." He held her arm and guided her
along the snow-covered sidewalk. In the front hall that seemed to smell
even more violently of unwashed baby diapers and stale cooking odors,
he gave her a quick, awkward hug.

 

 

"I'll be back in a few days," he said. "I'll help you get another place.
You can't live here. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

Yale glanced at the dashboard clock. It was ten-thirty. He should be
almost at the entrance to the Marratt Estate. He must stop thinking
about Cynthia and Anne and concentrate on the road. It was impossible
to drive faster than twenty miles an hour. Ordinarily, he would have
recognized every turn, but tonight the edges of the road had disappeared
in a swirling plain of snow that extended as far as his headlights
could penetrate.