The Just And The Unjust (27 page)

'O.K.,' said Abner. Starting the car, he said, 'I don't know how Cousin Mary's going to like it; but some day fairly soon I'll lick the tar out of that brat.'

'It wouldn't do any good.'

'It would do me good,' said Abner. 'Mind the Black Cat?'

'I don't mind anything,' Bonnie said. She lay back in the seat, her legs stretched tense and straight in front of her; the warm air, rushed to a wind, catching at her hair. 'Or at least it takes a good deal. Something I minded happened this afternoon. I don't know why exactly; but I got such a shock.'

'What was it?'

'Do you mind my confiding in you?' she said. 'Poor Ab! You don't have much choice, do you?'

'I would be much offended if you didn't,' Abner said. He put out a hand and patted her arm. The affection he felt for her made him suddenly awkward, and to cover it, he added, 'Don't forget I'm one of the county's public confidants. The things that have been confided in me! You'd be surprised. Interested, too, I daresay.'

'Well, this will be another one you mustn't tell anyone; because I oughtn't to, really. It's not very nice of me; but it made me feel so funny. I couldn't even tell Inez.'

'I see. Now, if you'll just sit down — it's Miss Drummond, isn't it? — and tell me in your own words what happened, I think we can —' But, imitating his own office voice, Abner disconcertingly remembered (at some point, it must have been during Cousin Mary's recital; he really had forgotten all about it) that he was through with the district attorney's work. 'In short, go on,' he said.

'Well, I don't know whether you've met him or not; this cousin of Inez's who's been staying up at the Ormsbees' for a couple of weeks. His name is Lawrence Harper. I suppose I've seen him half a dozen times —'

'I know,' said Abner. 'A little skinny fellow. He was playing tennis out at the club last week. Johnny introduced me to him. He's supposed to be a chemist. What is he really, a foreign agent?'

'He's a chemist, all right,' Bonnie said. 'He invented something, some process, and got an awful lot of money for it. He said it was really just an accident.'

'Is that what shocked you?'

'No,' said Bonnie. 'I believed that.' She laughed. 'The truth is, I didn't pay much attention to him. He was such a mousey little man — or boy, I guess. He helped Inez a lot in the garden; and one day last week, the day it was raining, he spent practically the whole afternoon helping us sort out and copy about a thousand old recipes.'

'You mean that in spite of his unexpectedly gained fortune, all his wealth and fame, he is just simple and natural?'

'Yes, he's simple, all right,' Bonnie said. She drew a breath. 'Well, I was home alone this afternoon. As a matter of fact, I was trying to get this dress finished. Mother and the kids had gone to the movies; and I heard someone knock, and it was this Larry —'

'Go on,' said Abner, sobering. His pleasantry of a moment ago lost its pleasantness. Stories that began like that he had, indeed, heard several times, the office door closed, the strained and anxious faces fixed on him. The difference was that actors in them had always been strangers to him; and facts about strangers, however disagreeable, could be examined dispassionately. Bonnie said, 'This is a little embarrassing. I —'

'Go on,' Abner said. His mind had set itself in a grimness that did not have much to do with equal justice under law. 'What did he want?'

'He wanted to ask me to marry him,' Bonnie said.

'Oh,' said Abner. The reaction of relief left him without any words. To the first relief, that nothing had happened to her, the cooling and clearing of his mind added a second. To Abner in his anger, and to the law, too, it would have been simple enough — a man annoying her; but to Childerstown it would have been Inez Ormsbee's cousin. 'Well, I hope you didn't say you would,' Abner said.

'I, simply didn't know what to say. I couldn't say anything for a moment. Then I told him — I was so stunned I must have sounded like an idiot — that I couldn't possibly do that; that I was very much complimented, of course —'

She paused, raising her hands and pressing them to her blowing hair. 'But I can tell you I wasn't!' she said. 'I was simply furious! I don't know why, except, I suppose, the idea that he must have thought I'd say yes, just like that. I mean, he'd have to think I was crazy! You know, I thought afterwards, that if he'd just tried to kiss me or something, I wouldn't have liked it; but I wouldn't have been nearly so mad. I think he must be insane.'

'What did he say when you told him that you couldn't possibly?'

'Oh, he said he didn't suppose I could; but he thought he'd ask me; and he hoped I wasn't offended. That he really meant it; and he was perfectly serious — I suppose that was what made me maddest of all! But I did hang on to myself somehow; and I told him I was sorry, but it was absolutely out of the question. I can't tell you what a fool I felt. So then he took his hat and left. He's going away to-morrow, thank God! Don't you think that's funny?'

'Yes,' said Abner, 'and no.'

That anyone, even someone who must be insane, someone with no chance of being taken seriously, should presume to have designs on Bonnie created in Abner's mind not amusement but indignation. That this little squirt Harper should have the impudence in his imagination to make free with Bonnie, and to consider her as a girl he would like to have — but ordering and censoring other people's thoughts was clearly impractical, even for the jealous heart. Moreover, along with indignation, Abner could not help feeling a certain sympathy for Harper. You would not like to be the man who, misjudging so badly how he stood, brought down on himself a humiliation in which he was left not only bereft but ridiculous.

'I shouldn't have told you,' Bonnie said. 'I thought you'd think it was funny. I'm sorry.'

Abner said, 'What I meant was —'

He had been about to say that it was funny enough; only nobody else was going to marry her and people who attempted it failed to amuse him. The difficulty, coming up before, and always when it would do the most harm, was a sort of awkwardness; the difficulty of a change in attitude. Harper, because he knew Bonnie so little, could make her feel like a fool by attempting gallantries for which she wasn't ready; but Abner, knowing her all her life, was hardly any better off. His gallantries, too, must have something blundering in them. When he came to see her, or take her out to dinner, was it as her lover, or as her old and familiar acquaintance? And, if both, when and where did one become the other? The fact of the matter — that it was her old acquaintance to whom she told her story in confidence, but it was her lover who warmed with irritation and jealousy to think of another man in her life — meant that he must show her, by the change, that his ardour was intermittent, that he courted her in his spare time. This was, of course, the case; since neither Abner nor any male, unless he was a semi-professional lover or a schoolboy (in either event, with no other real work), could spend all, or even much, of his time thinking of his beloved. Every woman naturally knew it; but it was one of the numerous facts of life and love that she did not care to be reminded of. She did not feel, as a man felt, that any neglect was repaired by the vehemence of a man's feelings when he got around to them. Abner saw that he had better not explain what he meant.

'Look,' said Abner, 'when are you going to marry me?'

'Oh, Ab!' Bonnie said. Her voice rose in exasperation. She clenched her hands and said, 'What's the use? You say something like that every now and then, as if you were doing something. And then, if I don't marry you to-morrow, it's my fault; so you can just —' To his consternation she began to cry; but with anger, grinding the knuckles of one clenched hand into her cheek.

The car had just gone through the crossroads — a store and a dozen houses called Saratoga — where they turned left to go down to the Black Cat. Drawing off the road Abner stopped the car under a group of big sycamores. He put an arm around her, and she said, 'Oh, don't! I'm not going on like this. I just can't!'

'Now, what are we arguing about?' Abner said. Sitting up, she worked loose, freeing her shoulder from bis fingers and pushing his arm back. There was a shining line of tears down her cheek, but she had stopped crying. 'Ab,' she said, 'what were you and Mother talking about before I came down?'

'A private matter,' Abner said.

'I'll tell you how private it was. She was trying to get some money out of you, wasn't she?'

'Absolutely not,' said Abner.

'Why do you say that? Mr. Stayman got tired of waiting and spoke to me about it. You don't have to do anything. It's paid. I paid it this morning. I didn't tell her because I just couldn't argue. She said she took care of it months ago. I gave her the money to, then.'

'Nevertheless, it is a fact that she did not ask me for any money,' Abner said. 'And where did you get the money to pay it with now?'

'I had some saved. I had enough.'

'And now you haven't any,' Abner said. 'I don't need any. I'd rather not have any than —' Abner supposed that she really would rather not have any money. It was a temperament or turn of mind that would strip itself of everything for the satisfaction of pride. Presumably there was no pleasure for her in new clothes if someone like Mr. Stayman could see her wearing them and be able to think that there went his bill. This was pride, of course; not any exalted principle; and the privation and sacrifice it entailed was accepted not for principle, but for Bonnie's satisfaction and self-gratulation — still, among the various expressions of pride, among the things people found satisfaction in doing, were so many worse ones, that Abner could not find much fault with it. When you thought of what it cost her — the yellow-sprigged dress looked nice to him and became her; but Abner dared say that any other female would know at a glance that she made it herself, and there could not be a woman born who enjoyed such glances.

'Ab, please,' Bonnie said. 'I'm sorry. Let's go on. I'm starved to death. It's probably what's wrong with me.'

'There's nothing wrong with you,' Abner said. Touching her chin to turn her face, he kissed her mouth. At the instant, the air was shattered by a horn blast. Jerking his head up, Abner was in time to see Harry Wurts, grinning from ear to ear. He was driving his new red convertible coupé, an expensive and flashy job. It went by with a glitter and rush. The top was down, and Harry held up and wagged an admonitory finger.

'Hell!' said Abner; for Harry's sense of humour might make it a long time before Abner heard the last of how he had been caught kissing his girl in a parked car — to Harry, a kiss was a kiss, and a girl was a girl, and if you tried to get highfalutin about it, Harry would really go to work on you; which you would either have to take, or be prepared like a couple of school kids to exchange punches in the nose. 'Who was that with him?'

'Margaret Coulter, I think,' Bonnie said with composure. 'Now, I will have to marry you, I guess,' Abner said.

'Notas far as Margaret is concerned.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Oh!' said Bonnie. 'I wonder!' She began to laugh. 'Ab, if you could see yourself,' she said. 'Is it injured innocence? Darling, did you think I never knew about her, or about Dotty Wellman, or about your girl in Boston?'

'Well, now, I don't remember mentioning them to you,' Abner said. Though somewhat embarrassed, he was obliged to smile. 'What do little pitchers have, big ears?'

'They have eyes,' said Bonnie, 'and I could name a couple more, too.'

'No. Don't do that,' Abner said. Her change in mood bewildered him;

but even in his ill-ease, the implication was plain enough, and moving.

Ab,' she said, 'I don't mind.' Her voice, like the impulsive touch of a hand, was charged with meaning; at once pitying and placating.

'Don't you?'

'Not really. Not much.' She stopped. 'I don't mind now. But don't think I didn't mind! Oh, how I minded!' Still more moved, Abner said, 'Why, you weren't more than —'

'When Dotty nearly got her eyes scratched out, you mean. She'll never know how close she came. Now, you know something you didn't know before, don't you?'

Abner was not sure that he hadn't always known it; but in a vague general way, the idea deprecated, pushed back in his mind. If you had seen one or more of those fatuous boobs who believed that girls silently and secretly loved them, you took care to be more modest, or at least, to require irrefragable evidence. Given the irrefragable evidence — no doubt, in her life, Bonnie had said untrue things; but Abner had never happened to hear her say one — it was affecting to think back; to see again the slight, adolescently gawkish, yet always attractive young girl, silent in the background, her shy but clear brown eyes big in her undeveloped face. 'Well,' he said, 'I don't mind either. Not really. Not much.'

'You'd better not! Now, hurry up and buy me a drink before I'm sorry I said it.'

She had flushed; and feeling the impulse to kiss her again, Abner put his arm around her. Bonnie said, 'No; don't maul me!' But she kissed him; short, direct, and vehement. 'And why did you say it?' said Abner.

'I said it because you're such an oaf, you might think I was one of your Dottys or Margarets, and you could ditch me when you got ready. So there!'

'Ah!' said Abner, 'you think I thought that, do you?' He started the car. 'Well, I'll get an application for a licence from Hermann Mapes to-morrow; and he'll tell everyone; and that'll fix you.' The car moved faster, the warm air stirring again. 'And you might as well have a ring,' he added. 'For reasons of an official nature, you'll have to have it from Wells'. If the Chamber of Commerce saw one on you that came from the city —'

The thought in his mind had been that old Wells would do him on the diamond —not that Mr. Wells was dishonest or over-grasping; but for the reason, too familiar in towns like Childerstown, that prices were higher than city prices because there were not so many people to buy. Because Mr. Wells sold less, he had to charge more; and because he charged more, he sold less still. There could, of course, be only one end for Mr. Wells; but until the end came those who got money from the public payroll were well-advised to support local enterprises, which, it would be claimed, provided the payroll. Recognizing the expediency, and resigned to it, Abner abruptly remembered that to him it no longer applied. If he did not plan to be a candidate for public office, he was as free as other citizens to make purchases with an eye to his money's worth, rather than to currying local favour.