The house was set in the middle of a tiny walled garden on Kasmir Street in Westwood. An engraved card in a slot above the doorbell read, Mrs. Annabel Merrick, Miss Evelyn Merrick.
The house needed paint, the woman who answered Blackshear’s ring did not. She looked like a farmer’s wife, plump and tanned and apple-cheeked, but her clothes were city clothes, a smart black-and-white striped suit that hinted at severely disciplinary garments underneath.
“Mr. Blackshear?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Annabel Merrick.” They shook hands. “Come in, won’t you? I’m just making breakfast. If you haven’t had yours, I can pop another egg in the pan.”
“I’ve eaten, thank you.”
“Some coffee then.” She closed the front door after him and led the way through the living-room into the kitchen. “I must say I was surprised by your early phone call.”
“Sorry if I got you out of bed.”
“Oh, you didn’t. I work, you know. In the flower shop of the Roosevelt Hotel. Sure you wouldn’t like an egg?”
“No, thanks.”
“I’ve been divorced for several years, and of course alimony payments don’t rise with the cost of living, so I’m glad to have a job. Somehow it’s not so much like work when you’re surrounded by flowers. Delphiniums are my favorite. Those blues—heavenly, just heavenly.”
She brought her plate of eggs and toast to the table and sat down opposite Blackshear. She appeared completely relaxed, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to entertain strange men before eight o’clock in the morning.
“Blackshear, that’s an odd name. Do people ever get mixed up and call you Blacksheep?”
“Frequently.”
“Here’s your coffee. Help yourself to cream and sugar. You didn’t tell me what business you were in.”
“Stocks and bonds.”
“Stocks and bonds? And you want to see Evelyn? Heavens, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Neither of us is in a position to invest a nickel. As a matter of fact, Evelyn’s out of a job right now.”
“It won’t hurt to talk to her.”
“I guess not. As I told you on the phone, she’s not here at the moment. She’s spending two or three days with a friend whose husband is out of town. The friend hates to stay alone at night and Evelyn’s always anxious to oblige. She’s that kind of girl, she’d do anything for a friend.”
Her tone was proud and maternal and Blackshear deduced from it that Mrs. Merrick was as blind about her daughter as Verna Clarvoe was about her son. He said, “May I have this other woman’s name and address?”
“Certainly. It’s Claire Laurence, Mrs. John Laurence, 1375 Nessler Avenue, that’s near U.C.L.A. Evelyn won’t be there during the day, she’s looking for a job, but she’ll arrive around dinner-time, I expect.”
“What kind of job is she looking for? I might be able to help.”
“I’m afraid stocks and bonds aren’t in Evelyn’s line.”
“What is her line, Mrs. Merrick. Is she stage-struck? Does she want to be a model, or something like that?”
“Good heavens, no! Evelyn’s a sensible and mature girl. What on earth gave you the idea she might want to be a model?”
“A lot of pretty girls do.”
“Evelyn’s pretty enough, but she’s not vain, and she has far too many brains to enter a profession that’s so temporary. Evelyn wants a future. More coffee?”
“No, thank you.” But she didn’t seem to hear him. She poured more coffee into his cup, and he noticed that her hand was trembling.
He said, “I hope I haven’t upset you in any way, Mrs. Merrick.”
“Perhaps you have. Then again, perhaps I was upset to begin with.”
“Are you worried about Evelyn?”
“What else does a mother worry about, especially when there’s only one child? I want Evelyn to be happy, that’s all I ask for her, that she be happy and secure.”
“And isn’t she?”
“I thought she was, for a while. And then she changed. Ever since her marriage she’s been different.” She looked across the table with a bleak little smile. “I don’t know why I should tell you that. You said on the phone you didn’t even know Evelyn.”
“I don’t. I’ve heard of her, though, through the Clarvoes.”
“The Clarvoes are friends of yours?
“Yes.”
“You know about the marriage, then?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you’re here? Did Verna send you to make amends?”
“No.”
“I thought perhaps—well, it doesn’t matter now. It’s over. Spilled milk and all that.” She took her empty plate to the sink and began rinsing it under the tap. “My own marriage failed. I had high hopes for Evelyn’s. What a fool I was not to see.”
“See what, Mrs. Merrick?”
“You know what.” She turned so suddenly that the plate fell out of her hands and crashed in the sink. She didn’t even notice. “My daughter married a pansy. And I let her. I let her because I didn’t know it, because I was blind, I was taken in, the way Evelyn was, by his gentleness and his pretty manners and his so-called ideals. I thought what a kind and considerate husband he would make. Do you begin to see the picture Evelyn had of him?”
“Yes, clearly.”
“I guess it’s happened to other girls, getting tied up with a pansy, but it wouldn’t have happened to Evelyn if I hadn’t been divorced, if her father had been here. He’d have known right away that there was something wrong with Douglas. As it was, we had no hint, no warning at all.
“They went to Las Vegas for their honeymoon. I had a postcard from Evelyn saying she was fine and the weather was beautiful. That was all, until the doorbell rang one night a week later, and when I opened the door there was Evelyn standing on the porch with her suitcases. She didn’t cry or make a fuss, she just stood there and said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘He’s a pervert’.
“It was a terrible shock, terrible. I kept asking her if she was sure, I told her some men were like that at first, timid and embarrassed. But she said she was sure, all right, because he had admitted it. He had apologized. Can you beat it?—he apologized for marrying her!
“Evie left her suitcases out on the porch, wouldn’t even let me bring them into the house, and the next day she took them down to the Salvation Army, her whole trousseau, wedding dress and all. When she came back about around lunch-time she looked so pale and exhausted my heart turned over with pity, yes, and guilt, too. I should have known. I’ve been around. I was responsible.”
Mrs. Merrick turned back to the sink, gathered up the bits of broken plate and tossed them into the trash-can. “A plate breaks and you throw it away. A person breaks and all you can do is pick up the pieces and try to put them together the best way you can. Oh, Evelyn didn’t break, exactly. She just—well, sort of lost interest in things. She’s always been an outgoing and lively girl, very quick to express her opinions or her feelings. On the night she came home she should have made a fuss, I ought to have encouraged her to talk out and cry out a little of the hurt. But she was withdrawn, detached....”
“Evelyn, dear, did you have dinner?”
“I think so.”
“Let me heat up a little soup for you. I made some chowder.”
“No, thank you.”
“Evelyn—Baby—”
“Please don’t get emotional, Mother. We have to make plans.”
“Plans?”
“I’ll get an annulment, I suppose. Isn’t that what I’m entitled to when the marriage wasn’t consummated, as they say?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll see a lawyer tomorrow morning.”
“There’s no need for such haste. Give yourself a chance to rest up.”
“Rest up from what?” Evelyn said with a wry smile. “No. The sooner, the better. I’ve got to shed that name Clarvoe. I hate it.”
“Evelyn. Evelyn dear. Listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“He didn’t—mistreat you?”
“In what way?”
“He didn’t, well, make any indecent advances?”
“I did the advancing.”
“Well, thank God for that.”
“For what?”
“That he didn’t mistreat you.”
“You have,” Evelyn said distinctly, “quite the wrong picture. I’ll give you the right one, if you like.”
“Not unless you feel like it, dear.”
“I don’t feel one way or the other. I just don’t want you to get the idea in your head that I was physically abused.” As she talked she rubbed the third finger of her left hand, as if massaging away the marks of her wedding ring. “It began on the plane when he became sick. I thought at the time it was airsickness, but I realize now he was sick with fear, fear of being alone with me, of having to do something that was repugnant to him. When we arrived at the hotel, he went into the bar while I unpacked. He stayed in the bar all night. I waited for him, all dressed up in my flossy nightgown and negligée. Around six o’clock in the morning two of the bellboys brought him up and poured him out on the bed. He was snoring. He looked so funny, yet so pathetic, too, like a little boy. As soon as he began to show signs of waking up, I went over and spoke to him and stroked his forehead. He opened his eyes and saw me bending over him. And then he let out a scream, the queerest sound I ever heard, an animal sound. I still didn’t know what the trouble was, I thought he merely had a hangover.” Her mouth twisted with distaste and contempt. “Well, he had a hangover, all right, but the party had been years and years ago.”
“Oh, Evelyn. Baby—”
“Please don’t fuss.”
“But why, why in heaven’s name did he marry you?”
“Because,” Evelyn said dryly, “he wanted to prove he wasn’t a fairy.”
Blackshear listened, pitying the woman, pitying them all: Evelyn waiting in her flossy nightgown for the bridegroom, Douglas sick with fear, Verna trying desperately to hide the truth from herself.
“Yesterday,” Mrs. Merrick continued, “Evelyn met me downtown at noon to do some shopping. For the first time since the wedding, we saw Verna Clarvoe. I was quite upset. I could think of nothing but the bitter things to say. But Evelyn was perfectly controlled. She even asked about Douglas, how he was and what he was doing and so on, in the most natural way in the world.
“Verna went into that spiel of hers—Dougie was fine, he was taking lessons in photography, and doing this and doing that. It seemed to me that she was trying to start the whole business over again, trying to whip up Evelyn’s interest. And then it struck me for the first time, she doesn’t know, Verna still doesn’t know, she still has hopes, doesn’t she?”
“I think she has.”
“Poor Verna,” she said quietly. “I feel especially sorry for her today.”
“Why especially?”
“It’s his birthday. Today is Douglas’ birthday.”