Fourteen

Austin Callender was waiting for him in the library, looking sad and tired and anxious, and he jumped to his feet when Hugh came into the room.

“Hugh,” he said, holding out his hand. “Good to see you, Hugh.”

“Good to see you, Austin,” Hugh said. They shook hands.

“I came as fast as I could,” Austin said. “As soon as I got your call. I drove up as fast as I could, but the traffic on Route Seven was terrible.”

“I didn’t really mean for you to come, Austin,” Hugh said. “But I did think you ought to know about it.”

“Oh, of course,” Austin said. “Thank God you called and told me. And—well, I’m sorry, but I just had to come.”

“Sure,” Hugh said.

“I thought—I thought perhaps there was something I could do.”

“Sure, Austin,” Hugh said. “Let me fix you a drink.”

“Is she—is she here yet?”

“Yes, she’s here,” he said. “She’s upstairs.”

Austin sat down quickly in a chair. “I just don’t understand it,” he said. “I just don’t understand it at all. I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”

“I know.”

“I just can’t believe it. I just can’t seem to get it through my head. It’s just impossible to believe.”

“Can I fix you a drink, Austin?”

“All right. Just a very light one, please.”

Hugh crossed the room to the cellarette. “Sure you want it very light?” he asked him.

Austin laughed weakly. “No, I guess I didn’t mean that,” he said. “Make it a very strong one, Hugh, please.”

Hugh fixed drinks for them both.

“Have you—have you talked to Pryor, Hugh?” Austin asked him.

“Just for a few minutes.”

“How—how is she?”

“She’s tired, and—well, I guess, naturally a little upset.” He handed Austin his glass. “Well, cheers,” he said.

“Yes. Ha-ha. Cheers,” Austin said. “Cheers is what I need. Was she—crying, Hugh?”

“A little, perhaps.”

“Oh, God,” Austin said. “Poor Pryor. Poor little thing.”

“Yes.”

“But if she’s crying—that could mean that she’s sorry, couldn’t it? That she’s sorry about the whole thing?”

“I suppose it could.”

“Did she mention—me?”

“No, I don’t think she did.”

“Well, that could mean—that could mean that she’s so sorry that she can’t even bear—can’t even bear to think about me at this point, couldn’t it?”

“Perhaps,” Hugh said.

“Oh, God,” he said again. “I just don’t understand it. I simply can’t understand it at all. What’s the fellow’s name?”

“His name is Lord, James Lord. Junior.”

“James Lord, Junior,” Austin repeated, shaking his head. “I’ve never heard of him. Who is he? Where’s he from? Did she just meet him—or what? I’ve never heard her mention such a name. It seems funny that if she knew him, and even liked him a little bit, that she wouldn’t mention his name to me. Doesn’t it? I mean, has she ever mentioned this fellow James Lord to you?”

“Never.”

“Well, who is he? Where does he come from? How did she meet him?”

“Well, you know she went out to Colorado at Christmas-time to visit her friend Joanne Gibbs. And she apparently met him then. He’s at the Air Force Academy. He’s from somewhere in the South—South Carolina, I think.”

“South Carolina? Charleston?”

“I don’t know what town in South Carolina.”

“Christmas-time. January, February, March. She’s known him three months—exactly three months. And in all those three months she’s never once mentioned that name to me.” He took a deep swallow of his drink. “Oh, God,” he said, and put his hand across his eyes. “Why? Why would she do such a thing? How could she do such a thing?”

“I’m very sorry, Austin.”

“You know,” he said, “coming up here in the car and thinking about it—my God, what else could I think about?—I came up with only one possible theory that might explain it.”

“What’s that?”

“He doped her. He must have doped her. He must have put some kind of dope in her food.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“He must have. I mean I thought, you know, he might have got her drunk, but Pryor doesn’t ever drink much. I’ve never known her to have more than one cocktail at a party, so I just don’t see how he possibly could have got her drunk. But dope—he could give her dope without her knowing about it. He could sprinkle some dope in something she was eating while she wasn’t looking—and that would make her do it.”

“Well, I suppose it’s a possibility,” Hugh said.

“It’s the only possible explanation,” Austin said. “I mean, why else would she do a thing like this if she wasn’t doped? There is a kind of dope, you know—you’ve probably heard about it, Hugh—a kind of dope that will make a girl do things and be—you know—compliant.”

“Perhaps,” Hugh said.

“I’m just sure of it. I’m just sure we’ll find that dope is the answer. I mean, I know her, Hugh. I know Pryor. She wouldn’t do a thing like this of her own free will. I mean, look, I’ve been dating her—taking her out all these past months and she’s never mentioned to me the name of any other guy.”

“No. But then I wouldn’t have expected that she would, Austin,” Hugh said.

“But it isn’t just that, Hugh,” Austin said. “What I mean to say is that I know her. I know Pryor. And all these months she’s been so—well, so affectionate and so warm, and so loving, and devoted—talking about when we were going to get married, and all that. I just know she wasn’t thinking about any other guy.”

“Well, I don’t know, Austin,” Hugh said.

Austin set down his glass and slammed a fist hard into his palm. “Damn him!” he said. “God damn him! That dirty bum. That dirty bastard. Jesus, if he was here, Hugh, I’d settle with him fast enough, the bastard. I’ve got half a mind to fly out there myself and settle with him personally. I’d kill the bastard, the damn’ narcotics peddler!”

“Have another drink, Austin,” Hugh said.

“Thanks,” Austin said, handing Hugh his glass. And while Hugh went to the cellarette again, Austin said, “I mean, what kind of an academy is it out there, anyway? It’s that new thing, isn’t it. Air Force Academy! Whoever heard of it! I mean it’s not like Annapolis or something, is it? I mean, you just don’t get the class of people in the god-damned Air Force that you do in the Navy. Those Air Force guys are a pretty grubby lot, aren’t they? They’re just a bunch of hopped-up sex maniacs.”

“I don’t know, Austin,” Hugh said, handing him his drink.

“It’s true,” he said. “I’ve seen them. I know what those Air Force guys are like. They’re just the kind who would take some nice girl out and put dope in her food to make her do whatever’s on their dirty minds. Bums—they’re all bums. I mean, Hugh, I’ve seen them, and I know. Right on the streets of New York City—I’ve seen them. I’ve seen them right on Fifth Avenue. Just the other day, right in New York City, right on Fifth Avenue, there were a couple of them. You should have seen them, Hugh. They looked like bums. Their hats were all on crooked, their uniforms looked as if they hadn’t been pressed for a week, their brass needed polishing—they needed shaves. There they were, walking along, bold as life, staggering along, stinking drunk or all doped up, I don’t know which, walking along in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue as if they owned the place, with a couple of slutty-looking girls—they were singing and carrying on, trying to grab the girls—real slutty-looking girls, too, just their speed—and, well, that’s the United States Air Force for you, Hugh.”

“I don’t know much about the Air Force, I’m afraid,” Hugh said.

“Well,” Austin said, glaring darkly at his brown drink, “I do. I know what they’re like.” Then he said, “Hugh, do you suppose—do you think I could see Pryor now?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She was resting when I came down.”

“Well, do you think she might have waked up by now, Hugh? Do you think so?”

“Well, I could go up and see,” he said.

“Could you? Would you go up and see if she’s awake? And ask her if she’ll see me—just for a minute? I want to see her so badly, Hugh. I just want to tell her—oh, I won’t say anything to upset her, Hugh, of course. I’m not going to scold her. After all, how could I scold her? It wasn’t her fault. She’s not the one to blame for anything. And there’s going to be the annulment and everything. So all I want to say to her is that I forgive her. That I don’t blame her for anything. I’ve come up here to tell her I forgive her, you see. And I want to tell her that I feel the same as always, that my feelings haven’t changed, and that when this whole thing is over, everything’s going to be all right. Just the same as always.”

“I’ll see if she’s awake,” Hugh said. He went out of the room and mounted the stairs to his sister’s room.

Pryor Carey—whom the family had always called Pansy—lay on her bed in the room that was growing darker as the sky outside darkened. Her hair was light brown and it lay in a little circle around her head against the white pillow sham, and she was wearing the little black suit that she had worn for travelling, and she was in her stocking feet—she had kicked off the black shoes and they lay on the floor beside the bed—and for a moment, standing at the door, looking at her dim face against the pillow, Hugh could not tell whether she was awake or not.

Then, “Hallo, Hugh,” she said.

“Hallo, Pansy,” he said. He closed the door behind him, and came and sat down beside her on the bed. He took her hand. “How’re you feeling now?” he asked her.

“Rotten,” she said. Then she smiled at him. “No,” she said. “I guess I feel all right.”

“Good,” he said.

She squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you’ve come back in,” she said. “You’re the only one. You’re the only one I want to see.”

“Austin’s downstairs,” he said. “He wants to see you.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to see Austin. Only you.”

“He’s in quite a state,” Hugh said. “But he wants to tell you that he still feels the same way about you. He forgives you, he says.”

She smiled again. “Tell him,” she said, “that I’m very grateful. I’m very grateful to have his forgiveness.”

“Poor guy,” he said. “I really kind of like him. He loves you so damn’ much.”

“I know,” she said. “I know he does. But I can’t help it, can I, if I don’t love him back?”

“You could do a lot worse than Austin,” he said.

“I know that. I know I could do a lot worse than Austin. But I guess I just wanted to do a little better.”

“He’s got it all figured out that you were doped,” he said. “He’s convinced that you were given dope and taken against your will.”

She laughed softly. “Poor Austin,” she said. “Poor, poor little boy. Well, if you think it will make him feel any better, tell him that is what happened. I was doped and kidnapped.”

“You still don’t want to see him?”

“No.”

They sat in silence for a while. Then he said, “Tell me something about this other boy.”

“Jimmy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Jimmy,” she said. “How shall I describe him? Well, he’s little. He’s little—like me. In fact, when I’m in high heels, we’re just about the same height.”

“Yes,” he said. “Go on.”

“But he’s very—he’s very strong,” she said. “He has a very muscular build. He used to lift weights, the way you used to. Remember, Hugh, when you used to lift all those weights?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I told him about you, and about how you used to lift weights, too. He liked that. He said he thought he was going to like you, and I told him that—that he would. And he said you both could have a weight-lifting contest some time.”

“Yes,” he said.

“And let’s see—what else can I say about him? Handsome? I don’t know whether you would really call him handsome. But he’s nice-looking—yes. And he has this very soft, Southern voice that I just—that I just—”

“Yes.”

“That I just love! And I guess—well, I guess that’s all there is to say about him. He’s very kind and sweet and gentle.”

“And he loves you, and you love him.”

“Yes. And—oh, he wants to fly jets. He’s just crazy to fly jets! He wants to live in the sky.”

“Did he—” he began. “Didn’t he put up any sort of fight to keep you?” he asked. “I was hoping, you know, when Sandy said she was going—that perhaps, if he really loved you, he’d put up a good fight.”

“How could he?” she asked. “She threatened to call the commandant. It was supposed to be a secret, you see. But it isn’t a secret any longer.”

“I see.”

“And now,” she said, “she’s told the commandant anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“She told him. She wrote him a long and very specific letter—all about Jimmy and me.”

“God, why would she do that?”

“That’s what I asked her. I asked her why she would have done that. But it was too late. She’d already mailed the letter. And so that’s that. He’ll be dismissed, and that’s the end of his career. No more jets. No more sky.”

“Why would she do it? Just out of spite?”

“Spite? I don’t know. Anger, perhaps? Revenge? What difference does it make? She did it when she found out, when Jimmy told her—”

“Told her what?”

“Hugh,” she said, “I’m going to have a baby. I’m going to have his little baby.”

“Oh, Pansy. Pansy-face.”

“So there we are,” she said. “Oh, don’t cry, Hugh. Crying doesn’t help. I’ve cried myself dry. It doesn’t help.”

“Pansy, Pansy …”

“Oh, how I’ve always hated that name!” she said. “Hated it, hated it, hated it.”

“I didn’t know.”

“But it’s all right if you call me that, Hugh. I don’t mind it if you call me Pansy. I don’t want you to call me anything else.”

After a while, he said, “What are we going to do?” The room was very dark now, and she was only a faint shadow against the bed.

“What is there to do?” she said. “There’s nothing to do. We’re caught in a trap, you see. Caught in a trap. You tried to get away, tried to escape once, but see? Here you are, back again. I tried to get away too, but see? Here I am, back again. We’re both of us caught—for ever.”

They sat very still, not moving, saying nothing.

“Listen to that damn’ waterfall!” she said. “It never stops. Out in the mountains, I still used to hear it in my dreams. I couldn’t escape from it, even there. Part of the trap. Isn’t it funny?”

And then she said, “Hugh, she told me about you and Anne. I’m sorry about that, Hugh. But isn’t it funny? It’s just the same thing, isn’t it? Part of the trap that keeps us here.”

“What is it that Sandy always says? You know—how, with her children, she’s never believed in letting there be any silver cord?”

“Yes. Well, in a way, she’s right, isn’t she? It isn’t a silver cord, is it? It’s a—it’s a steel cable!”

“That’s—that’s really very witty,” he said, trying to keep his voice from breaking.

“It’s true. Part of the trap.”

After a while, he stood up. “I’ve got to go down and get rid of Austin,” he said. “He’s waiting down there.”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell him—tell him I’m very grateful. Be nice to him. He’s really a nice person. Just—so very young.”

“I will,” he said. “And we’ll talk about this whole thing some more. To-morrow, perhaps.”

“Yes,” she said. “To-morrow. But I don’t see what good there will be in talking. We’re just—just caught in a trap.”

He bent and kissed her forehead. “Get some rest, Pan,” he said.

He went to the door and opened it, and in the square of light that flooded in from the hall, he looked back at her. Her hand shielded her eyes. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Close the door for just a minute, Hugh.”

He closed the door and leaned against it.

“I can always think better in the dark,” she said. “I haven’t told you quite everything.”

“What else is there, Pan?”

“I haven’t told you the most awful part. The most awful part is me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t ask me what I did,” she said. “You didn’t ask me whether I put up any fight or not. Was that because you already knew the answer?”

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “Oh, it was really a very pleasant little scene, of course—when she came to the motel where we were staying, on Jimmy’s little week-end pass. She was her charming self. Oh, overpowering, of course—but charming. Nobody screamed, there weren’t any tears or hysterics or accusations. Everything was—just very civilised.”

“I can imagine,” he said.

“Yes. And when she threatened—oh, threatened in the most charming and indirect way, of course—to tell the commandant about what we’d done, when she said that she might just be forced to report it all if Jimmy didn’t let her take me home, Jimmy said—”

“What did he say?”

“He said very quietly, ‘All right.’ He said, ‘Do whatever you want, we don’t care.’ And he turned to me and said, ‘Pryor, we don’t care, do we? The two of us are more important than the old Air Force, aren’t we?’ And I said—I said—”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘No, you can’t let her do this to you. You’re to graduate in June,’ I said. And then Sandy said, ‘Of course, that’s the only sensible way to look at it,’ or something like that. And I said, ‘Yes, let me go home now—just until June. As long as we aren’t going to be able to really live together anyway,’ I said, ‘why not let me go home with her now, Jimmy, as she says. And then, in June, when you’ve graduated and have your commission, then I’ll come back—or go wherever you go—and we’ll work everything out from there.’ And then I made Sandy promise that she wouldn’t do anything until then, that she wouldn’t tell the commandant, that she wouldn’t do anything between now and then to try to break up the marriage, that she’d let us work things out on our own after that. And she promised to do that, and Jimmy agreed to let me go on those conditions, and that was the bargain that the three of us made.”

“I see,” he said.

“And then, when we were in the plane this morning, flying home—up in the sky, over the mountains—she said to me, ‘Well, my dear, that’s the last you’ll ever see of him.’ And then she told me that she’d written to the commandant anyway.”

“She broke her promise.”

“Yes. Broke her promise, broke the bargain—the bargain that I helped make. You see how it is? What will he ever think of me now, when he finds out—he’ll find out to-morrow, you see—that we’ve broken the bargain, the bargain that I helped make. There wouldn’t have been any bargain if it hadn’t been for me. I suggested it. He didn’t want it. So what does that make me?”

“Maybe,” he said, “maybe we could work something out.”

“No,” she said. “Because I see now the kind of person I am. I’m not a person at all. I’m a non-person. I’m just a part of her. Part of the trap. The trap is me. And I pulled him into it.”

“You mustn’t think that, Pansy.”

“It’s true. The trap is me. You see, what I realise now is that if it hadn’t been for the baby coming, if it hadn’t been for that, I would have married Austin, just as she wanted. I would have come right back and married Austin, whether I loved him or not. What kind of a person would do that? I thought, when I found out about the baby, that that might be the single little thing that would save me, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough. Just a poor little baby isn’t enough.”

“Pansy …”

“You know, he was really very nice,” she said. “About the baby, I mean. I think you’d like this about him, Hugh, because—when I found out about the baby—I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t sure how he’d be. When I told him, I wasn’t sure what he’d say. I’d heard stories, of course, about how men sometimes are—some men—when girls tell them things like that, and I was a little frightened. I thought: Will he just say, ‘Well, that’s your tough luck’? But when I told him, he said—without even hesitating for a moment, he said—‘Then we’re going to get married right away.’ I was so grateful. Don’t you think that was nice of him, Hugh?”

“Yes, it was,” he said.

“I was so happy. I thought: At last I don’t have to marry Austin.”

“If only you hadn’t sent that telegram, Pansy.”

“No, I don’t think that mattered,” she said. “She’d have had to find out about it sooner or later, wouldn’t she? The telegram just made it all happen quicker, and perhaps, now that it’s happened, it’s better that it happened quicker.”

“What are you going to do about the baby?” he asked her.

“Do? I don’t think she’s decided yet,” she said. “She says there’s plenty of time to decide that. The baby makes it hard to get an annulment, of course, so she thinks perhaps a Mexican divorce. But as for the baby, she hasn’t decided—you know, whether to let me have the baby, and if I have it, whether to let me keep it. But she’ll decide all those things.”

“Sometimes she’s so—”

“But she’s right, isn’t she? After all, what possible right do I have to bring a child into the world—a weakling like me? No, she’s right. The baby must go—somehow.”

“But you don’t always have to be a weakling, do you? Do you?”

“Yes, because it’s what I am! It’s funny, but I don’t blame her any more. I just blame myself. Because I see now the sort of person I am, and I’m nothing. I never have been anything. Do you remember all the sorts of things we used to want to be when we were children?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to be a model, remember? Remember? I had an offer once from a modelling agency when I got out of college. Remember that? I know I’m not very brainy, but I thought I could be a model. I thought it would be fun. I thought it would be fun to work in New York—and live in the Village and wear sandals and let my hair grow long. I really wanted to do that. Remember? But I didn’t, I couldn’t. She didn’t want me to, and I wasn’t strong enough to do it by myself. So all I’ve done since college is to go to parties with people like Austin. And the point is, that’s all I ever could do. Because that’s all the person I am. Just nothing.”

“You’re not just nothing, Pansy.”

“Oh, yes I am, Hugh. And what about you, Hugh?”

“Am I just nothing too?” he asked her.

“Hugh, I love you so much,” she said. “But look at us. We’re both the same. We’re both in the same trap, and part of the trap is us. Look at you. Your life is nearly half over, and what have you had?”

“I’ve had a job that I really loved,” he said quietly.

“Yes, but where is that now? And you’ve had Anne. And where is that now? There was someone else you loved once, wasn’t there?”

“Yes,” he said, “I guess there was.”

“It was Edrita, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was Edrita.”

“But you didn’t marry Edrita, did you, and Edrita didn’t marry you. You married Anne, and Edrita married someone else. No, Hugh, the trap is us. The trap is us.”

“But we’re human beings. We can do what we want,” he said.

“Are we? I don’t think so—not any more. Maybe you still are, Hugh, but I don’t think so. And as for me, I know I’m not. As I said, I’m just a non-person. A ghost.”

“You’re not a ghost, Pansy,” he said.

“Oh, Hugh,” she said. “You’re always so nice to me. You’d better go now and tell Austin.”

“We’ll talk about this to-morrow,” he said. “I want to do whatever I can. I want to see if we can’t work this out some way.”

From the darkness where she was, she said nothing now.

“Get some rest, Pansy,” he said. “Get some rest and we’ll talk to-morrow.”

“Yes, I am tired,” she said. “Good night, Hugh.”

“Can I bring you anything?”

“No,” she said. “And please—don’t let anybody else come in to see me to-night—Sandy or Reba or anybody. I don’t want to talk to anybody for a while.”

“All right,” he said. “Good night.”

He went out and closed the door and went slowly down the brightly lighted stairs.

Austin Callender jumped up quickly again when Hugh came into the room. “You were gone so long,” Austin said, “I got kind of nervous.”

“I’m sorry, Austin,” he said. “But she just doesn’t want to talk to anybody right now. She’s exhausted, you see, and—”

“But that bears out my dope theory, doesn’t it?” Austin said. “The fact that she’s exhausted? Why else would she be exhausted unless she’s suffering from the after effects of some kind of dope? Don’t you think?”

“Well, maybe that’s what it is,” Hugh said.

Austin stood hesitantly in the middle of the room, shifting his feet, unwilling to go. “What do you think, Hugh?” he asked. “Do you think that she’d be feeling well enough to see me tomorrow?”

“I’d give her a day or so,” Hugh said. “Call her in a day or so, Austin, and see how she’s feeling.”

Austin’s face fell. “Well,” he said. “All right, if that’s what you think is best. I’ll wait a day or so, Hugh, and then call her.”

“Good boy.”

“Well, good-bye, then,” Austin said, trying, without much success, to trace a smile on his face.

“Good-bye, Austin.”

“And thanks for the—you know, all the encouragement, Hugh. I really needed it.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Good-bye.”

Hugh followed Austin across the black and white marble squares of the hall to the front door, and they shook hands. The night outside was chilly. Austin put on his blue cashmere scarf, grey chesterfield coat, his grey hat, and his grey mocha gloves. Thus transformed, and armoured in his outerwear, he gave Hugh a little wave of his hand and went down the white stone steps to his car, clean-cut, square-shouldered, erect, responsible and confident, the light from the doorway glinting on his well-shined shoes.

Alone in her room, Pryor Carey Lord lay for a long time on her quiet bed. Then she got up and crossed the room, and turned on one of the pair of lamps on her writing-table. She stood for a time at the window, looking out at the darkness that contained all that she knew from memory—the terrace and the fountain and the pear tree in the corner beside the stone bench. But all of these were invisible now, and hidden, in the night. There was not a single light anywhere, not a pinprick to reveal any familiar thing, or any area of landscape which she knew was there. The only sound in the night was the waterfall that poured incessantly in her mind, and she turned away from the window.

Then she sat down at the little writing-table. From a drawer she withdrew a single pale-pink sheet of stationery, and smiled at the words “Rampanaug Towers” that were emblazoned across it. She picked up a pen from the desk. “My darling—” she began. She wrote a few more words.

Then she stood up and lighted a cigarette. She filled her lungs a few times with smoke, then stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray. She wondered suddenly where her father was. When she was a child he had been the one who had lifted her up on to her horse, handed her the reins, adjusted the stirrups for her feet. Summers at the Cape, he had taught her to swim, and she had always known, when the combers began lapping over her head, that he would seize her beneath the armpits and lift her out. But he was not here now. There was no one anywhere who would help her now.

And all at once there seemed nothing else in the world to do, and she turned quickly and went into the bathroom. She put on fresh lipstick in front of the mirror and ran a hairbrush several times through her hair. Then she filled a water-glass and took the little bottle of yellow tablets from the shelf in the medicine cabinet and emptied its contents into her cupped palm. She swallowed them then, as many at a time as it was possible to swallow. When they were gone, she looked at her face one more time in the mirror.

Then, feeling young and cheated and alone and, at the same time, queerly triumphant, she went back into her bedroom and put on the little black kid shoes that lay on the floor by her bed. They were a very special pair of shoes, they were good-luck shoes. Then, wearing the special shoes, she lay down across the bed again, reaching for the satin comforter that was folded at the foot of the bed and, pulling it up around her, tucked it in tightly on all sides, tucked it close under her chin, and said a little prayer.

Hugh’s father came home a few minutes after eight o’clock. “Pansy here yet?” he asked.

“Yes, she’s upstairs taking a rest. You know about it then.”

“Your mother phoned me at the office. I had a couple of things to clear up. I couldn’t get home right away.”

“Well, Pansy’s here,” Hugh said.

“I think I’ll go up to see her,” his father said. “Just to sort of say hallo.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you, Dad,” he said. “She told me she doesn’t want to talk to anybody yet.”

“Oh.” His father looked disappointed. “Well, how’s she taking it, Hugh?”

“She’s taking it,” Hugh said. “I guess that’s all that can be said about it, Dad. She’s taking it.”

“Oh,” he said again. “Well, it’s too bad. It’s a tough thing to take. But—well, in time she’ll get over it. Everything will be all right.”

“Yes, perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps everything will be all right, Dad.”

“Where’s Sandy?”

“She’s in her room. Reba’s with her.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll go up and see what she wants to do about dinner,” his father said.

“Dad,” Hugh said, “I called your office around half past three. They said you’d left for the day.”

“Oh,” his father said. “Well, I’ve been in and out—in and out—most of the day. That Hartford client still. If you wanted to talk to me, why didn’t you leave a message? You know I always call in to the office to see if there are any messages.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Hugh said, “as long as Sandy got hold of you.”

“Yes, she got hold of me. She left a message. So—well, I’ll go up and see what she wants to do about dinner,” he said again.

At about eight-fifteen the telephone rang in the library, and Hugh picked it up in the middle of the first ring. “Hallo?” he said.

“Ready with your call to Colorado Springs, sir,” the operator said.

And when the other man’s voice came on the phone, Hugh said, “Jim? Jim, this is Pryor’s brother Hugh. Jim, I want to know if you can come East right away. Can you get a leave or something? It’s very important that you try to come East right away. Do you need money? Because if you do, please tell me and I can wire you some …”

And from nearly two thousand miles away he heard the quiet voice of the young man he had never met saying, “Don’t worry about that, sir. If Pryor needs me, sir, I’ll be there as fast as I can. You see, sir, she’s my wife …”

And Hugh had felt so jubilant, so sure suddenly that he was, through some ingenuity of his own, managing to steer his family narrowly from the very brink of tragedy, that he could only say, “Good … good …”

At half past eight, when Pappy came up to Pansy’s room with a plate of supper on a tray, and when he tapped on her door and there was no answer, he opened the door a little way and peeked inside. And she looked so peaceful sleeping there in the light from the single lamp that he hated to disturb her, and so he entered the room quietly, placed the supper tray on the table beside her bed, and tiptoed out again.