The Unsuspected (3 page)

Jane felt a little shock. "They say—I mean, there wasn't anyone but Oliver.”

"They're so wrong," said Francis softly. He kept his head up. She saw his nostrils quiver. "How old was Mathilda?"

"Twenty-two."

"That's fine. I think I'll be Mathilda's boy friend, all upset because she's drowned."

"But Fran-"

"When did she sail on this fatal ship?"

"In January."

"From New York? Alone?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then she met me in New York. I'm a new boy friend."

"But, Fran, she went off with a broken heart. You can't pretend—"

He wasn't listening. He went ahead. "Was she here in the city long before she sailed? How long, Jane?"

"Three days."

"All that time?" said Francis, in a pleased way. "And she was alone?"

"She was alone. Don't you see, it must have been that she ran away from the situation. There was that newly married pair moving in. Althea'd copped off her man. It must have been a hideous blow."

He didn't say anything. Jane, watching him, suddenly remembered the time he'd gone out and bet his allowance on a horse race, and won enough to buy his mother a wildly extravagant bracelet for Christmas. He had just that crazy gleam, that funny high-sailing

look, as if now he wasn't going to bother to use the ground. He was going to take to the air. His spurning look. He'd get these reckless streaks, as if something in his will, or something mysteriously lucky, or some fantastic kind of foresight, would signal to him. He'd scare everybody to death. Then it would come out all right. This was the old Fran, the one she loved, with that leaping look.

"By gum, why didn't I marry the girl?" he asked, as if this were a reasonable question.

Her heart turned over. "Marry what girl?"

"Mathilda. Obviously, I married Mathilda."

"No! Fran!"

"Now, wait. Think about it. Be logical."

"Logical!" said Jane. "Oh, gosh! Logical!" She hung on to the table. "Now, just a min—"

"But that does it! She's the one with the money. See here, Jane, sooner or later won't they have to presume she's not coming back from her watery grave? Ah-ha, but when she married me, you know, she technically got control of her own money. So I'm the guy that'll be right there, asking bright, intelligent questions, when the books are opened."

Jane stuttered, "She w-willed it to Grandy."

"Never mind " He brushed her off. “I'll fix that. I'm an interested party. That's enough. That'll do it And besides—look, honey. I go up there. Most natural thing in the world. My God, my bride! I'm all upset. I want to be with her nearest and dearest. Don't I? So I talk about her. So I talk. I talk to everybody. I talk to Althea. I'm a tragic figure. Althea's going to be powerful sorry for me" His eyebrows flew up. He looked full of the devil.

"But, Fran-"

"Don't say 'But, Fran.' Ask questions. Be helpful."

"No, no. Listen." Jane struck the table with her fist. "Don't underrate that man! Don't dare! Please don't try anything half-baked. He's too smart, too terribly smart! This isn't any parlor game. You can't just go and tell a plain lie and expect him to swallow it. You said it yourself. Assume he's guilty. Then he's bound to check. He'll be very wary."

"Let him check," said Francis coldly. "Let him be wary."

Jane closed her eyes. She heard bis voice go on, now quick and excited.

"What you do is, you go back. Send me her handwriting. All you can find. Steal it. Send me pictures of her. Good ones.”

"But, Fran-"

"Got to have them. Think about it."

"There's a roll," said Jane slowly, as if he had hypnotized her, "that Althea had in her camera. She had them developed last week and they all cried over the ones with Mathilda."

“Those are the ones I want."

"But, Fran-"

“Don't 'but.'"

“Fran, you're crazy!" She opened her eyes.

"Am I?" said Francis quietly. "O.K. The point is, I intend to get in there and find out what happened to Rosaleen. Because if anybody hurt her, he will get hurt. I don't mind what methods I use, or what trouble I take, or what lies I tell, or bribes I have to pay. If this is the way you get in and find out, then this is the way I go. You can't stop me. I don't think you want to, really. You might as well help, don't you think?"

"I'd h-help," she stammered. "But, Fran, Mathilda could not have—"

"You don't understand her psychology," he said whimsically.

"But, Fran!"

"But what?"

"But everything!" she wailed.

Francis leaned back. He was smiling. She thought,
He's lost ten years.
He looked like a man who contemplated moving heaven and earth with bright, interested eyes. "Ask me something I can't answer," he challenged, "so I can fix up some answers."

Chapter Three

The April morning was sunny, cool and clear. Down in her stateroom, the girl with the green eyes took a last look at herself in the mirror door. Her old tweed suit was, she thought, respectable enough. She was lucky to have found it, forgotten, in the Bermuda clothes closet. The black shoes weren't quite right, but they would have to do. She had no hat. The scarf she'd knotted around her head like a turban had blown away one day on deck. She wore her gold-brown hair very plain. It was clean and shining. For the first time in her life, she hadn't felt able to spend the money to have her hair done, so she had washed it herself, carefully. A good job, she thought. No gloves. Just this old brown-and-white summer bag. She picked it up.

Her luggage had already gone, such as it was. One nightgown, one toothbrush and a bag of very expensive Dutch chocolates rattling lonesomely in the clumsy suitcase. She'd spent half of what she had left for the chocolates; each one of them was just about worth its weight in gold. Well, but he loved them so. He must have them. It would make him so happy.

She smiled, and saw herself smile in the glass. Yes, she thought, she must remember to smile. Her face had grown thinner. It was bonier than ever now. Better smile. It wouldn't do to look woebegone or exhausted. She wasn't really, except for reasons that had nothing to do with what they would want to know. Not that they wouldn't love to know the real reasons.

She turned for a last look at her stocking seams. She felt very calm. She knew exactly how to behave. She opened the door of her stateroom and walked down the corridor.

An officer spoke to her. "They're waiting for you."

"Thank you."

Be a lady. Smile. Be pleasant. Be sweet and dull.
She remembered her lessons.

The officer took her into the room where they were—several men and one girl. Their eyes licked at her.

The officer said, "This is Miss Mathilda Frazier."

She said quietly and in a friendly fashion, "How do you do?"

The cameras popped off like a quick lightning storm. They flashed one after another. Mathilda stood still, her lips curved pleasantly and a little shyly.

Grandy'd told her long ago, "Tyl, you're an heiress and, for various reasons deeply ingrained in the fundamentals of human nature, my dear, that fact makes what you do several times as interesting as what other girls do. Now, Althea, being penniless, doesn't have quite the same problem. Yet Althea, with her great beauty, has her own trouble."

She shook off the memory of Grandy, sitting in his favorite chair. Never mind Althea now. The point was, he'd taught her how to handle this. Dear Grandy, he'd taught her so much. Her heart felt warm when she thought of him.

The men of the press took an impression that she was well-bred, that she was shy. One or two of them approved of her ankles. It was the female among them who realized that, although her clothes were dull, this girl was beautifully made and essentially lovely. One

of them suggested that she might like to tell her story in her own way.

"Never give them an emotion? Grandy used to say. "Look placid, dear. Placid as a milkmaid. That's the way.”

"I was reading in my room when the ship caught fire," she began. "There was an alarm, of course. I took my coat and went up to my boat station. They lowered the boat almost immediately. It was all very orderly."

She stopped and smiled the shy little smile. But it was too brief, too bare. They began to question.

"Were you hurt, Miss Frazier?" someone said warmly.

"No, not at all"

"Did you see the fire?"

"No," she said. "I couldn't see anything."

"No smoke? No flames?"

"It must have been at the other side of the ship," she said in her clear, gentle voice.

"Were the passengers scared? Any panic?"

"Not that I saw," she answered. Better leave out about Doctor Phillips, praying so loud, arguing with the Lord under the stars. And how surprised he was when his prayer was so promptly and practically answered. He'd even, she remembered, seemed a little

disappointed and thwarted, as if he d had a lot of prayer in him yet, O Lord. "We were picked up in only two hours " she said.

"Who was in your lifeboat?"

"There were twelve of us passengers, and three crew members."

"Was it cold? Was the weather bad? Did you suffer?"

"It was quite warm," said Mathilda. "It was a lovely night."

One of the newsmen was a little redheaded fellow, a fidgeter. "O.K., so you got picked up."

"The S.S.
Blayne,
" said one of them. Somebody sighed impatiently.

"How come they took you all the way to Africa?"

"I don't know," said Mathilda.
Never guess when you don't know.
 

"Did you realize that no message came through from you?"

"We couldn't be sure" she said a little too quickly.
Be careful. Don't say too much.
She went on more slowly, with a little frown, as if she were taking pains. "Of course we tried. But they wouldn't use the ship's radio. And the port where we were taken was quite con-

fused."

She looked straight at the female one. They would have no way to guess how she'd felt about it, how she hadn't really made much of an effort to get a message through. Mathilda knew now that it had been childish, that mood of not trying, that babyish, rebellious

thought.
Let him think I died. Then he'll he sorry.
Her heart bounced, as it always did with the thought of Oliver or even at a hint that she was about to think of him.
Push it down.
 

"What happened there?" somebody was asking.

"At the African port, you mean? Why, just waiting, really. You see, although we had to wait so long for a returning ship, we never knew but what we might be sailing the next morning. So we were busy waiting."
Watch it. Don't be colorful.
 

"Where did you stay?"

"At a very nice little hotel." She saw it vividly—more vividly, almost, than she could see anything else in her memory. It was brilliant in the sun, that terrible aching sunlight that had poured over everything. And she could smell it. But she mustn't say so. Nor must

she give them any hint of the brooding pain that filled all her days there under that brutal sun, the headache and the heartache all mingled together.

"But what did you do with yourselves?"

"Do?" she repeated slowly.
Take your time.
 

"Yes, while you waited."

"We tried to be patient/' she said gently. "Sometimes we played cards. There wasn't much to read."

Their faces were getting bleaker and bleaker. She knew they wanted adventure. And yet, she thought, honestly there hadn't been anything adventurous. Or if there had, she hadn't recognized it. Maybe someday, when she was old and looked back, details such is flies and headaches would have faded out; maybe it would look like an adventure then.

"Weren't there any interesting people?" asked the one who was a girl.

"Very nice people," said Mathilda primly. "There was Doctor Phillips and his wife. He is a clergyman. There were Mr. and Mrs. Stevens—"

"No men?"

"Oh, yes."

"Young men?"

"N-no," said Mathilda. "At least not younger than about forty." Mr. Boyleston had been forty. He had only one eye, but better not say so.

"No natives?"

"Of course there were natives" said Mathilda. "Although we didn't see very much of them."

Something eager was dying out of their faces. They were giving her up. All except the red-haired man, who still watched her face as if he were searching for signs.

"But finally you got a ship, huh?"

"Yes, finally we did" she said brightly. "It took us to Buenos Aires."

"That message gave the whole country a thrill. In fact, you made Page One."

Mathilda smiled politely and moistened her lips.
Was it thrilling to Oliver?
she wondered with the familiar sickening lurch of her heart.