The Towers of Love (25 page)

“I'll be retaining counsel,” Hugh said.

“Good. It's up to you. Sherman's suggested, of course, Reno. I mean, in cases like this one, the quicker the better. But I wanted to get one thing straight with you, Hugh. A divorce is an unpleasant and sordid business, even in a case like this one where it's the only possible solution. And divorce is just as distasteful to Mrs. Cromwell and me as it is to you and as it must be to your family.”

“Yes,” Hugh said.

“I've always had the highest regard for your mother and father, Hugh.”

“Thank you.”

“But the point is, none of us are going to want a whole lot of this ugly business dragged out in court. We don't want a big court fight with a lot of dirty linen washed in public, and a lot of stuff in the newspapers. Nor do you.”

“That's right,” he said.

“So what we expect is a very quick and quiet divorce without a lot of fuss or muckraking. I just wanted to make that one point clear.”

“I understand.”

“Good. And do you agree?”

“I agree,” he said. “Very quick and quiet and nice.”

“That's the spirit! And, of course, as regards the—ah, financial settlement—that's something that will be worked out between the lawyers. But I want to make it clear to you that I expect you to do the gentlemanly thing, Hugh, even though you may not always have done the gentlemanly thing in the past.”

“I intend to do the gentlemanly thing,” he said.

“Good. Naturally, Anne's demands aren't going to be excessive. She has no intention of making any excessive financial demands. After all, there are no children involved and perhaps, the way things have turned out, that's a blessing. But there will be demands of course, and her demands will be perfectly fair demands. And I shall expect you to do the fair thing in answering those demands.”

“I shall try,” he said, “to be as fair as it's possible to be.”

“Good. I'm glad you take that attitude. After all, the poor girl has sacrificed a number of years of her life on this thing, and those years are worth something, moneywise.”

“I understand.”

“Good. I just wanted to make that very clear to you. As Anne puts it, she wants to part friends. She doesn't want any unpleasantness on the subject of money. After all, the poor girl has suffered enough.”

“I know,” he said. “She's suffered enough.”

“Well, that's all I wanted to say. I just wanted to make that clear. As for me, as for where I stand, I'm sorry this had to happen, but from all Annie's told me, it was inevitable. I mean, she told me about things like your behaviour in France. And I mean, fella, that's inexcusable!”

“I know,” he said.

“So I say, when things like this happen the best thing to do is to try to make the best of a bad deal. Check?”

“Check,” he said. “And double-check.”

“Well, that's all I had on my mind. Anne sends her best. She's a good little sport, you see.”

“Yes,” he said. “Well, send my best back to her.”

“Fine. I'll do that. I'm glad we had this little chat, Hugh. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” he said, and hung up the telephone.

After a while, he stood up and went slowly up the stairs to his mother's room. He knocked on her door.

“Come in!” she cried.

She was standing in the middle of the room in a suit and hat and, all across her bed, dresses lay, and open suitcases stood on chairs and on the floor.

“My God,” he said. “What're you doing, Sandy?”

“Please,” she said. “Please help me. Get Reba on the phone, will you?”

“Don't tell me what's happened,” he said. “Let me guess. You've chartered the
Caronia
to take you to the Vale of Kashmir.”

“Please don't make jokes!” she said. “Something terrible has happened—a terrible emergency. I'm in a dreadful hurry. My plane leaves in just two hours. Please see if you can get Reba on the phone.”

“What has happened?” he asked her as she moved quickly back and forth between her closet and the open suitcases, bearing clothes on hangers. “It can't be too dreadful an emergency—you seem to be taking five evening dresses.”

“Don't talk. Don't argue. Get Reba. It
is
dreadful.”

“Will you just tell me what it is?”

“
This
,” she said, and she picked up a yellow telegram that lay on the bed and handed it to him.

He read it very quickly. It said:

Bless me mummy I am a bride

Very happy Love Patsy

“I don't understand,” he said, staring at the telegram. “What's she done?”

“I should think it would be very clear,” his mother said. “She's married.”

“But where is she? This thing was sent from Colorado Springs.”

“That's where she
is
, silly!” his mother said. “Where else would she be? Where do you think I'm going?”

“But what happened? Did Austin go out there and—”

“What's
Austin
got to do with it?” his mother asked. “She hasn't married Austin! That's the trouble. Oh, how could Pansy do a thing like this to me?”

“But who
has
she married?”

“Somebody,” she said. “Just—somebody. She told me his name, but I've forgotten it already. Naturally, I telephoned her the minute I got the wire. It's someone she met when she was out there with the Gibbses at Christmas-time. Well, she can't do it. That's all there is to it.”

“Well, it looks to me, Sandy,” he said, “as though she's already done it.”

“Well,” his mother said, bearing another armload of dresses from the closet, “she may have done it, but that doesn't mean that it can't be undone.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going
out
there, of course! I'm on a one o'clock plane. I'm going out there and put an end to it and bring her right back home.”

He sat down in an empty chair. “The poor little kid,” he said.

She looked at him. “The poor little
kid
?” she cried. “What about poor little
me
? She can't do this! She can't do it to me, and she can't do it to Austin. Have you forgotten that she's
engaged
to Austin? She's engaged to him, and she happens to be going to marry him.”

“But don't you think—”

“I don't
think
, I
know
,” she said. “She can't do this. Besides, the whole thing isn't legal to begin with, so there'll be no trouble getting it annulled. Please see if you can get Reba on the phone.”

“Why isn't it legal?” he asked her.

“Well, it may be legal,” she said. “But it's certainly going to be easy enough to get it stopped. If they found out about it, he'd be fired out of the academy. That's my ace in the hole.”

“Fired out of what academy?”

“The
Air Force
Academy. He's a cadet there. He's due to graduate in June, and cadets aren't supposed to get married. If he's due to graduate in June, I shouldn't imagine he'd like to be fired out of the academy now, would he?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“That's why it's all supposed to be a secret. Well, if he gives me any trouble about bringing Pansy home, I shall simply pick up the telephone and call the commandant.”

“My God,” he said. “You really would do that, wouldn't you?”

“Of course,” she said. “What choice do I have? My hands are tied. There's nothing else I could do. He's all wrong, of course. He's nobody. He's two years younger than Pansy. He's nothing but an oversexed teenager, I'm sure, who's looking around trying to marry a silly girl who's got some money.”

“Poor little kid,” he said again.

“Hugh, I
do
wish you wouldn't keep saying that,” she said. “She's not a poor little kid at all. She's just a flighty and impulsive girl who's done something very silly and foolish that she'll be sorry for the minute she stops to think about it. You know how Pansy is. She probably did this as a lark, as much as anything else.”

“Don't you think you ought to look a little deeper into it?” he asked her. “After all; she just might be in love with him.”

“She couldn't be,” she said. She turned and faced him. “I love my children, Hugh,” she said, “with a love that borders on passion. Call that foolish, if you will, but it's true. I'm willing to do anything to see to it that my children have absolutely nothing but the best, the very best there is, always. I'll go to any lengths to see to that. I don't expect you to understand what a mother's love is like, but it's a very fierce and protective and primitive thing. And I'll do anything, I'll lie down and die, to see to it that my children never make mistakes that will make them unhappy.”

“Well,” he said, “it's really kind of ironic.”

“It's not ironic. It's nature; it's the way a woman is.”

“No, I didn't mean that,” he said. “The ironic thing is that I came up here, just now, to tell you that Anne and I are getting a divorce.”

“Oh,” she said, and she sat down very hard and quickly on the bed, her hand at her throat. “
Oh, no!
”

“Yes,” he said. “It's ironic, isn't it? To-day one of us announces that she's married, and other announces that he's getting a divorce.”

She looked very small sitting on the bed among the piles of clothes. “Oh, God!” she whispered. “Oh, dear God!”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “But Anne and I were never very happy.”

“How much more,” she said in a flat voice, “how much more must I be expected to endure before I've earned my place in heaven?”

“I'm very sorry.”

“I can't—can't believe it.”

“I know,” he said. “I know you liked Anne.”

“It isn't that,” she said, shaking her head slowly back and forth. “It isn't that I liked Anne. I've never liked Anne particularly. But I thought that Anne was so perfect for you.”

“Well,” he said, “she wasn't.”

“Oh, God,” she said again. Then she slowly stood up. “Well, I can't do anything about it now,” she said. “I can't even think about it now. Pansy comes first. I can't do everything. I can't be in two places at once. You'll simply have to tell Anne—you'll simply have to tell her that her problem will have to wait until I have this thing with Pansy settled. I cannot work out two marriage problems at the same time, and Anne's divorce will have to wait until this is over. I'm not superhuman. I can't manage both things at the same time.”

“Mother,” he said, “there's really nothing for you to do. No one will ask you to manage anything.”

“But how can we have two divorces at the same time? We can't have two divorces in the family in the same
week
, can we? No, Anne will have to wait until this is over. You'll have to tell her that. She'll have to wait her turn. It's simply too much for me to cope with both.”

He watched her as she moved about the room, lifting clothes from one pile to another.

“I have Pansy and me booked on a flight home to-morrow,” she said. “We should be back here in the early afternoon.”

“Sandy,” he said, “you can't do this.”

She turned and raked him with her eyes. “What do you mean I can't? I already have my tickets.”

“You can't do this to my sister.”

She continued to look at him. “She's my daughter,” she said at last. “She belongs to me. You have nothing to do with this.”

“I don't care who she is,” he said. “You can't do this to another human being.”

“Now, baby—”

“And don't call me baby.”

“But you are my baby. And so is she. I have to do what I have to do.”

“I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let you.”

She stood very still. “You're not going to
let
me?” she repeated.

“No.”

Suddenly she laughed. “But darling—how do you propose to stop me? Are you going to
manacle
me? Knock me down? Tie me to the bed-post?”

“Is it a question of that?”

“
Isn't
it? You see, my sweet, I'm going. How
are
you going to stop me?”

“I'm asking you not to do it. That's all.”

“And I'm telling you that I'm doing it anyway!”

They stood, facing each other;

“Sandy,” Hugh said, “Pansy's life doesn't belong to you. You can't interfere like this, without—”

“You!” she said. “You're the one who's interfering! She may be your sister, but she's my child. And that's quite a different thing. If you'd ever managed to have a child of your own you'd know what I mean!”

He turned away from her. “I wish—” he began.

“What do you wish?”

He said nothing. There seemed no point, any more, in trying to tell her all the things that he was wishing.

“I'm doing the necessary thing, the
practical
thing,” she said, and she returned to the closet.

“How can you?” he asked softly.

“Easily!”

He sat down in a chair and watched her for a while, his chin resting on his laced fingers.

Once, bearing more laden hangers from the closet, she stopped in the centre of the room and cried, “Why are you staring at me like that! You're making me terribly nervous.”

“I'm trying to figure out what makes you tick,” he said.

“If you don't know now, you never will,” she said.

Then, a few minutes later, he said, “If you're only going to be gone for overnight, why do you need to take so many dresses?”

“Oh, don't be absurd!” she said. “I'm not going to take them all!” There were tears in her eyes. “I'm simply trying to
decide
. How do I know what the weather will be like in Colorado Springs in April? How am I supposed to know all these things? That's why I need Reba. I need help. Won't you please help me? Won't you please,
please
get me Reba on the phone? I helped you once, when you needed help! Why can't you help me now?”