Маргарет Миллар - The Iron Gates [= Taste of Fears]

“I think I... I heard it somewhere.”

“Really?”

“Of course, so did I,” Edith said hurriedly. “Though I prefer to call it ‘furlough.’ It sounds so much more important, Polly. Why Andrew and Martin insist on driving out with you I don’t know.”

“They want to look him over first,” Polly said, “and then if he doesn’t measure up they can dispose of the body some place and bring me on home, teary but intact.”

Edith tried to look shocked. “I’m sure such an idea never entered Andrew’s head.”

“I was joking, darling.”

“What a way to joke!”

“But the main idea, I suppose, is to give Giles the impression of male solidarity behind me. ‘None of your funny work, Frome, or else...’ ‘Be good to our little Polly’ — that sort of thing.”

“I consider it quite touching,” Edith said.

“Yes, isn’t it? And so redundant. They both know that since I have decided on Giles, nothing in this world can stop me from marrying him.” She glanced briefly at Lucille.

“I’m glad you feel like that,” Lucille said quietly. “It’s bad policy to interfere with marriages.”

The girl flushed and turned away again.

“There’s altogether too much fuss made about marrying,” Edith said. “When I was young I naturally had some experience with moonlight and roses, but the roses nearly all turned out to be the crepe-paper ones from the dime store, and the moonlight no better than a street lamp, not so good for seeing purposes.” She smiled affectionately at Polly’s back. “But I expect you’ve known that for years.”

“Off and on,” Polly said. “I lapse. This is my nicest lapse.”

“I’m really very anxious to see him,” Edith said with a break in her voice. “It’s so hard to believe you’re old enough to be getting married. It seems like yesterday...”

“I never thought you’d get sentimental about me.”

“As if I’d ever get sentimental,” Edith said and briskly pushed back her chair. “I’m going up to hurry Andrew along. If he looks for the scarf much longer he’ll have the whole house torn up.”

She went out in a flutter of silk and sachet.

Left alone with her stepmother Polly came back to the table and poured herself another cup of coffee.

Because she felt embarrassed with Lucille she focused her eyes carefully on the objects on the table, examining and appraising them as if she were at an auction — the silver coffee urn with the little gas flame under it, the red cups on white saucers, the remains of Edith’s breakfast, two pieces of toast sagging against the toast rack, a bald and imperturbable boiled egg in a red bowl, and a corner of Lucille’s blue sleeve.

“I’m glad Giles could get his... his furlough,” Lucille said politely.

Polly did not look up. “So am I, naturally.”

“Three weeks, is it?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re being married on Friday — five more days.”

“We have to wait for the license. Then we’ll go down to the registry office and get the mumbo-jumbo over with and be off.”

“Where are you going?”

Polly shrugged. “Here or there. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, I guess not,” Lucille said, and the two were silent again.

In the hall there were sounds of laughter and running footsteps, and a few seconds later Martin came bursting into the room. His hair was rumpled and his tie wasn’t tied but he had the self-assurance and smiling arrogance of a man who has achieved success early and easily. He had had his back broken when he was a child and sometimes his walk was stiff and painful; but he never talked about it and he was almost always smiling, and if he lived a secret bitter life of his own behind the smile he never let on.

He looked so much like his father that Lucille’s lips curved involuntarily when she saw him and her eyes were soft as a lover’s.

“Edith just flung me down the stairs,” Martin said cheerfully. “What in hell’s the hurry? It’s only nine-thirty and the Big Four don’t meet until noon.”

He pulled out a chair and sat down, and ran his two hands over his hair to smooth it. In the process he knocked over a cup on the table and narrowly missed Polly’s head with his elbow.

“I don’t think Giles is going to like you, Martin,” Polly said crisply. “You’re too violent.”

“Of course Giles will like me. I’m going to give him lots of advice. I’ll tell him everything a young man in his condition should know.”

“He’s twenty-nine, darling. A year older than you are.”

“But totally lacking in experience.”

Polly made a face at him.

So far Martin hadn’t even looked at Lucille but she knew the omission was not deliberate as it would have been in Polly’s case.

She did not want to call attention to herself by speaking, so she watched the two of them in silence, forgetting Mildred and taking pride in the fact that these were Andrew’s children and both of them so good-looking and dark and clever. Martin was literary editor of the Toronto Review , and very young for his job. Polly had taken her degree in sociology at the university, and for four years had worked in various settlement houses doing everything from investigating cases to helping deliver babies.

“Is that my egg?” Martin said, pointing to the red bowl.

“Nobody can own an egg,” Polly said. “They’re so impersonal.”

“I can.”

“Don’t take it,” Lucille said, laughing. “It’s not very warm. Annie will make you another.”

But Martin had already sliced the top off the egg, and was choosing a piece of stale toast from the rack. Lucille poured his coffee for him and then rose to leave. She would have liked to stay on at the table as she usually did on Sundays, but she knew she’d be in the way. Martin and Polly were already deep in a discussion of how Martin should and should not behave to Giles.

“Do not be funny,” Polly said. “And above all do not slap him on the back or ask him what his officer’s swagger stick is for. Everyone asks him that and it’s very embarrassing because he doesn’t know. And above all...”

Lucille closed the door softly behind her.

She stood for a moment in the hall, uncertain of herself and her position, not sure what to do or where to go. She had a sudden shock of recognition.

I’ve been here many times before, she thought. Alone in a hall with the doors closed against me, a stranger, a tramp.

She had a vision of herself, her body bent forward in lines of furtiveness like a thief about to tiptoe past a sleeping policeman.

Then from upstairs she heard Edith’s voice raised in angry solicitude, “I do believe you’ve given yourself a fever, Andrew!” and abruptly everything became normal again, the policeman woke, the thief was caught and put neatly behind bars, and Lucille’s thoughts folded and packed themselves into their proper files.

“My dear Edith.” Andrew’s voice was raised too, and he sounded nervous and irritable. He doesn’t want Polly to get married, Lucille thought. He still thinks of her as a little girl. “How can anyone give himself a fever?”

“You know very well that I meant,” Edith said. “You’re coming down with a cold, and it’s a lot of nonsense anyway, this dashing out into the snow to meet...”

“My dear Edith. I am not dashing out into the snow. I intend to conduct myself in a dignified manner in a closed car with a heater , providing...”

“You know very well...”

“...providing I am allowed enough privacy to get dressed.”

“All right, get double pneumonia.”

“Dear heaven!” Andrew said, and a door slammed.

Lucille walked down the hall, thinking, with a smile, of Edith. Poor Edith, she thrives on imminent catastrophes and likes to think of herself as the great Averter of them... I could do the menus and make out the shopping list for tomorrow... I wonder if Giles is allergic to anything...