Midge Gette - The more the sexier

"So I've noticed." He looked tired for a moment, but brightened. "Well, we won't worry about it. I thought I'd take a walk and see how the work on our cottage is going. Want to come along?"

"Gosh, yes. Another thing. I was thinking Mr. and Mrs. Harrow might be feeling lonesome tonight with Doc gone. Maybe they would like some company."

"I meant to tell you. Beth wants us for dinner."

"Great! All right, let's go." She whirled away, came to a halt by the bookshelves. "Would you mind if I borrowed one?" she asked.

"Help yourself. You like poetry, too?"

"Love it." She chose a volume, held it up. "This Arthur Davison Ficke is new to me. All right?"

"Of course. He's not a new poet, my dear. And not read as much as he deserves. A great favorite of mine. Take it along. I'll just wash up a bit and be right with you."

She carried the slim volume along to her own room, opening it to the flyleaf as she went. To dear Nate,' she read.

With heartfelt gratitude and love. Louise.

Sharon stared at the delicate, spidery handwriting. Who was Louise? The woman Uncle Nate had loved: She turned the pages, was caught by two lines underlined, and read:

My humors and my madness, fierce or cold,

I have told you all: my love I have not told.

A little shiver went^through her. But it was not of Uncle Nate or the stranger, Louise, that she thought. Winging into her mind without warning came a face, star-tlingly clear, squarish, and brown-eyed. She put the book down quickly.

Gosh, Doc, she thought.

Lorraine Talmadge Parker looked away from the thin, harassed face of Herman Carlson, who sat across the room from her with tortured eyes that begged her for help.

"I had to talk to someone, Lorraine," he had said in explaining his unexpected visit. "And since your husband is my wife's twin brother, I thought you might understand-"

She understood all too well, but she did not wish to be drawn into it. Even thinking about it hurt; it brought home to her toosharply her own position. It was better not to think about things too much, better to just let the days flow over one, and accept what could not be changed. But now Hermie had told her something too shocking to be believed. She could not escape it. For if Hermie was distraught, he was also incapable of dissembling.

"I figured you didn't know," he said a little sternly. "Lorraine, do you understand what it means? I know you love Dwayne just as I love my wife, but even more than I, you have been shutting your eyes to some pretty harsh truths."

"He loves me, Hermie; I know he does. Don't ask me to believe Dwayne would be so cruel. He knows anything I have is his for the asking."

Hermie took no pleasure in hurting her. He had come here, after long deliberation, to help her as much as to be helped. "But," he told her, "what he wants you have no power to give, Lorraine. Oh, you could forbid the sale of the stock you hold. You could do that, I suppose, but if the corporation that holds the controlling interest in Talmadge's should decide to sell out, and Dwayne raises the necessary funds to buy, you must see that he would then be in a position to turn his back on you. Lorraine, I don't want to hurt you, but I know about this. My wife told me. I'm breaking a promise to her in telling you, but things have come to such a pass in my own marriage that I just can't go on pretending I don't see what is happening. I like you. I think you deserve better at your husband's hands. As for my own marriage-" his thin, rather high-pitched voice broke a little-"I'm doing the only thing I know how to bring Debbie to her senses-or lose her completely."

For all his appearance of hollow-eyed suffering, he was, Lorraine felt, much stronger than she was. "I love him," she said helplessly. "I know he loves me."

Hermie ran his fingers through his long dark hair, his mind picking up the idle thought that he had not yet remembered to get a haircut. "Well, I had to tell you. I'm sorry to have hurt you, Lorraine, but it didn't seem fair to leave you in the dark and unprepared if Dwayne manages to enlist Uncle Nate's help."

Her tiredness weighed upon her. She did not want to believe him, but too many little things had been happening of late for a flat denial. The odd way Dwayne looked at her at times, even the way he kissed her. She had always tried to deny to herself a certain coldness about him and the impossibility of really reaching him. Oh, she was so dreadfully tired. The doctor said anemia, but it was more than that. The moments of breathlessness did not worry her so much as the moments of painless inertia in her very soul.

"It can't be," she said faintly. "I can't lose him. He's all I have. Without him, I just couldn't-couldn't live."

Her pallor and the great tragic eyes smote Hermie's conscience. He had felt she should know what he himself had known for some time. Now he wondered if he had been wrong to make her face the truth about Dwayne Parker.

He stood up and went to her. "Are you all right?" he asked, troubled. "Should I call your maid? You look ill, Lorraine."

She smiled, and it was worse, he thought, than if she had broken down in sobs. "I'm just tired," she said. "If you'll excuse me now, Hermie, I think I'll lie down." Her eyes roved over his face as she got to her feet. "Don't feel bad," she said. "I understand. You're a kind man, Hermie, and I know it wasn't easy for you-" She turned away, then back. "Why do we love them?" she asked. "Why, Hermie?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. They're not bad. In a way-I've sometimes thought-they have been victimized by Mrs. Parker. And she herself often seems a victim of her own strange worship of them. I don't know, Lorraine. I just know I can't live with it anymore-and have any self-respect left. For over six years I've drifted-even at our happiest, there was always Mrs. Parker. The unbreakable trinity." He laughed bitterly. "I'm getting out before it breaks me."

"Oh, no. Debbie needs you." A spark of life flared for a moment in her eyes. "Dwayne needs me. Don't you see, Hermie? We mustn't let go. We must keep believing it will all come out right."

His pity for her overwhelmed him. "Let me call Mattie," he begged, frightened at the way she looked. "You're ill, Lorraine. Have you seen a doctor?"

"Oh, yes, it's nothing. Just go now, Hermie. And thank you. I know you meant well. I appreciate-" She turned as a stout, matronly-looking woman came in without knocking. "Oh, Mattie," Lorraine smiled. "Mr. Carlson is just leaving. She takes such good care of me, Hermie, and scolds me-"

"It's time for your nap," the woman said as though to a naughty child, but her eyes examined the pallor, saw the trembling of the hands, then lifted sharply to the man. "She must rest, Mr. Carlson," she snapped.

"Yes, I agree." Hermie frowned at Mattie worriedly. "I had no idea," he said. "Does Dwayne realize?"

"Goodbye, Hermie," Lorraine said sharply.

Mattie shook her head at him briefly behind Lorraine's back as she led her mistress away, and signaled him to wait. Hermie moved restlessly about the room, not sure he had read her signal right, but reluctant to leave without easing his own sense of nagging guilt.

Mattie came back presently. "Mr. Carlson, she's lying down. I wanted to talk to you-someone in the family-about her. I'm very worried about her, and for all her look of compliance, she has a stubborn streak where her husband is concerned. She refuses to allow me to talk to him. Dr. Welles has wanted to consult with Mr. Parker for some time, but she will not permit it. Oh, Mr. Carlson, it just breaks my heart the way she taxes her strength to appear well for her husband. And he's so blind-"

Hermie looked angry. "Nobody could be that blind! Just what's wrong with her, Mattie? She looks terrible."