The Lady and Her Doctor (34 page)

But
would
Day say this any longer? Day hadn't wanted her to be alone with the good doctor. Day said he preferred it when the good doctor gave her the back of his hand. Perhaps, Amory thought, watching Milton, perhaps Day wouldn't attribute his desire not to have a third person in the car to anything as innocent as social climbing. Once the car started, she would be locked into the tonneau of the Cadillac by the motion; the tonneau in motion was a black steel room. She would be locked in here alone in this black padded steel room with Dr. Fell during the long ride to the cemetery. The chauffeur would be behind thick glass, his eyes would be front, on the road. She recalled, trembling, the etiquette of funeral processions. No cars would pass them because one did not break up funeral processions. It was not done.

Amory, fumbling, her fingers stiff and clumsy with panic, thought that the door was locked already, that it was already too late; but it was only fear which locked the door. She could get out. She was out, on the sidewalk with both Dr. Krop and the woman staring at her.

The woman, she found, was Dr. Krop's sister-in-law, Mrs. Krop. “But Mrs. Krop should be riding with you, she is your side of the family,” she heard herself saying, as if this were a wedding. “Mrs. Krop takes precedence over me, I believe.” But he would not allow his sister-in-law in the car with them and Amory would not go alone with him. Impasse. The three of them were locked on the sidewalk; then Amory saw Dr. Krop's face disintegrate. He gasped and swallowed. He wet his lips.

“O.K., O.K.,” he said, shouting, “you two go together, O.K.!”

Amory noticed how for one moment he turned to his sister-in-law and searched her face longingly. Longing for what? For reassurance. Reassurance about what? Reassurance that it would be safe to have the two of them locked together in the black steel padded room of the car. Amory turned to the sister-in-law but she seemed to be merely bewildered by the sudden switch. As Dr. Krop began to move off, leaving them together, Mrs. Krop stretched out her hand to stop him.

“Milt! Where you going, Milt?”

Dr. Krop didn't answer his sister-in-law and the two of them watched him hurry to where an old shabby woman was standing alone. Both of them saw the doctor take the old woman's elbow and hurry her toward the big car. Amory could feel the pressure of his fingers on her own elbow and knew how insistently he was bundling the old woman along. His face was so set, his determination was so obvious that both she and the sister-in-law stepped out of the way. The old woman was, as far as possible, hanging back and both Amory and her companion had a good look at the old face as Dr. Krop unceremoniously shoved her into the first Cadillac, got in after her and, ignoring the chauffeur, pulled the door to. Amory turned to Jenny. “Well! Mrs. Krop, is that Dr. Krop's mother?” Jenny shook her head in a dazed way. “His aunt? Who?”

“I'm Milt's only blood relative here; that old lady is the maid.”

“The maid? Sloane's maid? I didn't know she had a maid, I thought there was only the cook.”

Jenny was blinking after the first car. “That's what I said, the maid.”

“But I thought the cook was in his pocket—”

“You thought what?” A second Cadillac drew up, a chauffeur stepped out and held the door for them. Jenny climbed in first and when Amory followed, she repeated, “You thought what?”

Amory was trying to collect her wits. She had imagined such a different kind of servant, the kind Mother used to call “ungrateful, impertinent, overdressed chits,” but this one with the decent black, the thick silk stockings, the Queen Mary hat, was old school tie—yet the look she had given the doctor wasn't old school tie one bit! For a servant of that type to glare with such unmistakable hate at the master meant something. Yes. Yes!

“What do you mean, ‘in his pocket'?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“In his pocket” means on his side, Jenny decided. On Milt's side. If she didn't mean something she'd have told me what she meant.

“I didn't think anyone but a relative could glare that way at anyone, that's all.”

“A glare,” Jenny said, but she was shaken, too.

“Now why do you suppose Dr. Krop chose to ride with the cook, Mrs. Krop?” The car moved off smoothly.

“Why not? Milt's democratic. This happens to be a democracy, in case you didn't know.” Her uncertainty made her belligerent.

“Oh? Well, cook certainly didn't want to ride with him, did she? Perhaps cook isn't democratic.”

“What kind of crack is that, Lady—Look, if you don't mind,
I'm
democratic and that Lady business just goes against the grain.”

“Won't you call me Amory, Janey?”

“Jenny is the name, plain Jenny, and over here when we want to find something out we ask the person who knows. Ask the maid these questions, not me.”

“Now that's an idea,” Amory said. She was positive from Jenny's tone that she was wondering about the hate on the old woman's face and that she had noticed how frightened of her Dr. Krop had been. Amory badly wanted a cigarette but she didn't want to offend any prejudices Jenny might have. She wanted Jenny to talk, to say the magic wordie. “Why do you think? Why do you think she hates Dr. Krop, Jenny?”

“Ask her.”

“I don't think Dr. Krop is going to give me the chance.” She sighed. “Alas.”

“Alas! My God! You're very curious, aren't you?” Curious—on the edge of the seat with curiosity, Jenny thought. (Me, too, she thought, only Milt's a damn fool not to tell
me!
) Then it occurred to her that the Duchess might be curious also about why Milt wouldn't let her, Jenny, ride along with them. “You'll have to ask the maid about her, but in case you're interested, I can tell you why he didn't want
me
riding with him.”

“Do,” Amory said. “Please do.”

“There's no need for you to make a mystery about that. Milt's sore at me, is all. Because of Sunday. When she died. Milt gave me hell, let me tell you. I'm in the doghouse, but good! You'd think I was responsible personally, you'd think I personally killed your sister. Didn't he tell you about it?”

“No.”

“I thought he might have told you—It would be like Milt to blame it on me; everything is Jenny's fault! Anyhow, he told me. Plenty. You see, we had it fixed for me to call him Sunday morning. I was supposed to say my Bud was sick and I needed Milt. The thing was he wanted to come and talk to me and Bud was the excuse. He wanted to talk to me about your sister—he was worried, with reason, it turns out! I'm an R.N. in case you didn't know and in the past I've had plenty of experience on the psycho wards, more than Milt, really, and he wanted to ask my opinion before he went over her head and called in a psychiatrist. As we know now your sister had the delusion she had killed your poor mother and Milt couldn't knock it out of her head, no matter what. I didn't know this was the way it was with her until after she killed herself, of course. Well, it so happens that weekend it was all fixed for us to go to Connecticut, the kids and me. It was all set—you know how kids set their heart on things? Well, I couldn't bear to spoil their good time—they don't have many, let me tell you—so I didn't get back in time Sunday and that's why Milt's so sore he wouldn't ride in the same car with me. So now you know.” She looked out of the window. The car stopped for a traffic light and a middle-aged woman standing at the curb whipped her hands behind her back as she sighted the hearse. Jenny thought of her mother who had had the same superstition. She sighed.

“So that is why he didn't want you riding with him!”

“The one time I fail Milt—The once I put my kids first before Milt a thing like this happens! Isn't that life for you? Naturally, if I'd known—if I had an
inkling
—Was I supposed to know that on that particular day your sister would—” She turned to the Duchess for acquiescence, for comfort, and the Duchess was staring, her mouth had dropped wide open. What did I say? Jenny thought; she pressed her palms together. I didn't say anything much. Of course not.

Day had insisted that it could not possibly have been murder because a murder would have to have been planned for that evening. Day had insisted that since we knew my being with him then had been such a matter of pure chance that Sloane's death couldn't have been anything but suicide! So was this the magic wordie? Was
substitute
the magic wordie? (How right I was to come! Amory thought.) Substitute, understudy? If she had merely been this Jenny's understudy, if she had merely been a stand-in for the sister-in-law, called in at the last moment only because at the last moment the star—the star witness—had failed to show up for the performance? Amory's eyes were caught by the movement of Jenny's hands, the way she was grinding her palms together, and she knew that if she wanted to hear any more she better reassure the poor creature. “You mustn't blame yourself, Jenny. You and I both know that nothing and nobody can prevent an insane person from doing away with herself, if that is what she wants to do.” Amory knew, from the way Jenny threw her head up, from the worried flicker of her lashes, that she had not put this strongly enough, that she had woven doubt into her words, but because she was so sure now that she was getting somewhere at last, that was how the sentence came out.

The sentence did have Jenny worried. “If” is a big word, Jenny thought. “
If
that is what she wants to do,” the Duchess had put it. “Nobody can prevent an insane person from doing away with herself
if
—” That wasn't saying her sister had been psycho and that even if Jenny had been there she couldn't have saved her!
If!
Jenny saw that the Duchess was spying on her grinding palms and pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose so as to give her hands something to do. She didn't like the way the Duchess was waiting, almost smiling. Waiting. Say something: Milt. What a good guy, always, from way back. Respected. How good to her and the kids, always. The Duchess looked as if she was chewing on something she, Jenny, had given her, and as if it was good to the taste. Jenny went over what she had said: There was no mystery why Milt hadn't wanted her in his car; he'd been sore because she hadn't helped out his wife. That was nothing against Milt, that went to Milt's credit or she wouldn't have said it. She couldn't explain to the Duchess why the maid hated Milt so she had told her why Milt had her, Jenny, in the doghouse. Surely that could only prove to the Duchess how much Milt had wanted to help his wife? For a moment Jenny wavered, wondering miserably whether she shouldn't have stood in bed, kept her two cents out of it, but then, sneaking another look at the younger woman from behind her busy handkerchief, she decided better her here than Milt here; any man sitting in a car next to that one in that kind of black dress, that kind of hat and shoes, seeing those legs, wouldn't keep his mind on his business. Better her than Milt, Jenny decided, putting the handkerchief away, snapping her purse closed. She began to talk more easily. “If anyone could have stopped your sister doing what she did, Milt was the one. Milt took care of her like a baby, hanging over her all the time. He didn't stir from her side. I didn't know why, of course, and I admit I was kind of sore about it, you know how it is. We'd always lived so close and then when he married your sister—pffft—I didn't see him from one week to the next! It hurt me that he dropped me and the kids like hot potatoes. I admit I thought maybe now we're not good enough for Milt, marrying into the Four Hundred, but I should have known my Milt! He couldn't come round the old place because your sister was psycho. I tell you Milt's the world's best! Everyone loves Milt!”

“Everyone but the old cook,” Amory said softly. She leaned toward Jenny. “Ah, Jenny, you saw it! You were shocked, too. You wondered!”

“Wondered! The maid was the one testified about how your sister tried once before, did you know that? Did you see that? She was the only one living in the house with the two of them and if she hated Milt she could have made him plenty of trouble, but did she? She did not! She was the one wrote a sworn statement how your sister wanted to end it all, how Milt stopped her, et cetera, et cetera. Do you think if she had anything against Milt she would testify like that?”

“She would testify to what she had seen,” Amory said. “She would tell the truth as she had seen it.”

And that was another funny way of putting it! Oh, God, Jenny thought, she believes Milt killed her sister, murdered her sister in cold blood, that's what she means! And what do I believe? Jenny wondered. No. She told herself, no, he hadn't. Never. Not Milt! She left a suicide note, didn't she? She killed her own self because of thinking she murdered her mother!

And because of Cissie, Jenny thought. She killed herself because of Cissie! Jenny deliberately turned toward the car window and stared out to keep from talking before she thought it out. Should she tell the Duchess about Cissie? That Sloane had found out about Cissie and jealousy had been the last straw that broke the camel's back? Plenty wives,
plenty
wives killed themselves because they found out one fine night there was another woman. Should she tell the Duchess about Cissie so that she would know posi
tively
her sister took her own life? Or should she make her take pity on Milt by telling her how long he had to live? But if she told about Cissie and the blood pressure, wouldn't she think that was the motive? That Milt had wanted out? That he wanted her sister's money but without her sister because he was in love with Cissie and had only so long to live?

Amory said softly, “A penny for your thoughts.”

Jenny shot around and faced the Duchess formidably. “My thoughts are you must have bats in your belfry. My thoughts are it must run in the family!”

Amory laid her narrow hand in its fine black glove on Jenny's black glove. “But I will never kill myself,” she whispered. “Remember that whatever happens. I will never commit suicide!”