Chapter XX

HE STARTED TO RISE.

“Wait a minute,” said the bus driver. “Listen, kids …”

“Yes, Lee?” said Mrs. Boatright alertly.

“We got our hair down, all of us. Hey? Let’s not skim the surface here. Don’t go, Gibson. Yet. I want to know the answer to one question that’s been worrying me. Rosemary …”

“Yes, Lee?”

Mr. Gibson sat down. He trembled. This bus driver was a shrewd man, in his own way.

“Now, this Ethel, she decides your subconscious wants to get rid of him. That’s right, isn’t it? Tell me, what reason did she decide your subconscious had for this?”

Rosemary flushed.

“She’d figured out a reason?”

“Yes,” said Rosemary. “Of course she had.” Her fingers turned her glass. “These marriages never work, you know,” said Rosemary almost dreamily. “Kenneth is twenty-three years older than I. Isn’t that terrible! Ethel thinks that subconsciously …” she went on very quiet and yet defiant and brave, “I must wish I had a younger mate.”

“Like who? Hey?” said the bus driver, his eyes lively, his sandy lashes alert. The painter sat up. Mrs. Boatright looked suddenly very bland and supercalm.

“Like Paul,” said Rosemary.

“Now we’re getting to the bottom,” said the bus driver with satisfaction.

“Aha!” said the painter.

“Oh now, look, Rosie,” said Paul, crimson. “Now you know …”

“I thought I knew,” said Rosemary, and smiled at him.

“If our hair is down,” said Jeanie bluntly, “all right. I’ll tell you something. She is too old—for Daddy.”

Mr. Gibson felt a wave of shock ripple through him. Rosemary! Too old!

“He likes them rather plump, about five years older, and two inches shorter, than me,” said Jeanie impudently, “as far as I can figure on the basis of experiments, so far.”

“Now you … just be quiet, please,” said Paul, much embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Rosie, but after all you are his wife. I certainly …”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Rosemary gently. Her face became very serene as she lifted it. “You’ve been kind, Paul. You’ve tried to comfort me. You’ve told me not to worry. But I am too old for you, of course. Just as you are … forgive me, dear Paul … just a bit too dull for my taste. You see, I like a seasoned man.”

“Good for you,” said Theo Marsh complacently. “Intelligent woman.”

“Ethel just can’t seem to believe,” said Rosemary, calm and sad, “anything so simple. The fact is, I married the man I love.”

Mr. Gibson, looking at his glass, could see her fingers, slim and fair, upon her own.

“However,” said Mr. Gibson out of a trance, able to speak quite coolly, although somewhat jerkily, “it is still possible that, as Ethel says, I am, for Rosemary, a father-image.”

Rosemary looked at him with mild astonishment. “Not my father,” she said calmly. “My father, since the day I was born, was mean and didactic and unjust and petty and spoiled and childish. I don’t like to sound disloyal, but that’s the truth. Kenneth isn’t anything like my father,” she explained graciously to them all.

“It is a little ridiculous, though,” said Mr. Gibson chattily. (This was the strangest party!) “I am fifty-five years old, you see. For me to be so deep in love, for the first time in my life, is quite … comical. Somehow. It makes everybody smile.”

“Smile?” said Virginia. “But of course! It’s nice! It’s pleasant to see.”

“I should have said … snicker,” revised Mr. Gibson.

“Who,” growled the bus driver, “does it make snicker?”

“Not at all,” said the artist. “I was in love last winter. If anyone had snickered at me, I’d have spit in their eye.” He would have. Everyone believed this.

“How come this Ethel put the Indian sign on the both of you?” asked the bus driver. “How come she shook you? Anybody can see you two are in love.” He was a gentle ruthless man.

“I was a rabbit,” said Rosemary. “I should have spit in her eye.” She was sitting very straight. “I am to blame.”

Mr. Gibson felt exhausted and also very peaceful. “I, too,” he said. “But I am old, lame, unsure … and extremely stupid. I permitted her to upset me. My fault. My blame.” He wanted to cry. He drank thirstily.

“Whereas, our Paul,” said the painter, “is as handsome as the hero in a slick magazine. And as good as he is beautiful. No offense. No offense. Sex, I presume?” He crossed his yellow socks and tried to look innocent. “According to lethal Ethel?”

“Lethal Ethel, that’s good,” said the bus driver angrily. “That’s apt, that is.”

Virginia said, “Surely people know when they’re in love …” and bit her lips.

Rosemary leaned back with a little smile gentle on her face. “Do you know something? There is a fact they never take account of—in a magazine story or the movies either … that I ever saw. Why is it you … want to be where someone is? Why?” She looked at Virginia. “It can’t be just because he’s good-looking. (Although Kenneth is, very.) It certainly can’t be just because somebody is young. To me,” she continued to the lamp beside the sofa, “the most important thing of all is how much fun you have together, and I don’t mean sex. Although—” Rosemary gulped and went on. “Do you understand me? I mean—just enjoying each other’s company. We had such good times … as I had never known. We laughed,” said Rosemary. She leaned forward with sudden vehemence. “Why don’t people talk about that as if it were attractive? It is. It’s powerfully attractive. I think it’s the most powerful attraction of all.”

“The most permanent,” said Mrs. Pyne, softly.

“Absolutely,” said Mrs. Boatright. “Or the race could not endure. All beloved wives, for instance, are not size twelve.” She rocked a little indignantly on her great haunches.

“Hm,” said the artist, “my fourth wife now … I had a most delightful companionship with that one, all around the clock. And although her ankles were not perfect, she is the one I mourn … it’s a fact.” He looked mildly astonished.

“I … agree,” breathed Virginia. The bus driver slid his eyes under his lashes.

Mr. Gibson, with joy shooting in his veins … and shame and sorrow, too, but with an iron resolve that the rest of this was his own private business however much he loved—Yes, he did!—all of them … took Rosemary’s hand and got to his feet He said with a simplicity that achieved privacy with one stroke, “Thank you all very much for everything you have done and said. But we must go now.”

To Mrs. Pyne he said, “If you will pray for us—that the poison be found …”

“I will,” she vowed.

Paul said shyly, nervously, “Sure hope it works out O.K.”

Jeanie said, “Oh, we all hope so!”

Mrs. Boatright said, “The police may still find it. Mustn’t underestimate the organization.”

The painter said, “It could be on a dump heap, right now and you will never know … never hear … You realize?”

The nurse said, “Oh, please … be happy.” Her whole cool responsible little person was dissolving in sentimental tears.

The bus driver said earnestly, “Lots of good books been written in jail; I mean to say, ‘Stone walls do not …’”

“I’ll remember that, Lee,” said Mr. Gibson affectionately. For this man was the one who had set the fashion, the one who had decreed, in the beginning, that there would be no candy. He offered none now, really.

Mr. Gibson slipped one arm around Rosemary’s waist and guided her out of the house.

They left seven people.

“He’s a darling,” sobbed Virginia. “She’s a dear.… Can’t we save them? Think, everybody!”

Then the seven were silent in that room—silent and sad and still fighting.

Mr. Gibson and his wife, Rosemary, walked rather slowly and quite silently along the terrace to its end and down the steps and across the double driveway. It was a quarter of six o’clock. A sweet evening coming. They passed the shining garbage cans. Beyond the steps to the kitchen there grew a shrub, and Mr. Gibson pulled his wife gently to the far side of this friendly green mass where no window overlooked them.

He took her in his arms and she came close. He kissed her gently and then again, less so. Her head came upon his shoulder.

“You do remember the restaurant, Kenneth?”

“I do. I do.”

“How we laughed! I thought after you were hurt, that you couldn’t, didn’t remember.”

But remembered woe was far away. She only sighed.

“I remember the fog, too,” he murmured. “We said it was beautiful.”

“We didn’t—altogether—mean the fog?”

“No.” He kissed her, once more, most tenderly. “It’s an old-fashioned plot, mouse. Isn’t it? A misunderstanding. But then, I am an old-fashioned man.”

“I love you so,” said Rosemary. “No matter what—don’t leave me.”

“No matter what,” he promised. He was a criminal. He might leave her, although not “really.” There was bitter. There was sweet.

In a few minutes, he turned her gently, and they began to go up the steps to the kitchen door.