Джеймс Кейн - Root of His Evil [= Shameless]

“No — just been getting arrested.”

He looked up and stared at me, trying to make up his mind if I was kidding. “...For what?”

“Embezzlement.”

He put up his book then and came over to me and I told him briefly what happened, omitting, however, anything about my talk with Mr. Holden. But I was casual about it and when I got through he couldn’t seem to think of anything to say. After a few moments he turned away and remarked: “Well — we haven’t had that dinner yet.”

I went out to the pantry, looked in the icebox and came back. “If you can wait a few minutes you can have exactly what I had.”

“Oh — you’ve eaten?”

“Yes — since you seemed to be more concerned about your mother than about me I thought it advisable to have a little something. I had bacon and eggs. Just have a seat in the breakfast room and yours’ll be ready in a little while.”

I made him bacon, eggs, buttered bread and coffee, and served them to him there in the dining room. He ate the first two eggs I made him but still looked hungry, so I gave him three more and some extra bacon and poured a glass of milk for him. During all this I don’t think three words were spoken, but when he had finished he appeared to be in a more amiable humor. But when I was about through washing the dishes the phone rang and he went in the bedroom to answer it. He came back as I was hanging up the dish towel and his face was white. “Carrie — mother’s just been taken to the hospital. I’ll have to go over there.”

He dashed out of the kitchen and I heard him go in the bedroom. I went in there. He was taking off the smoking jacket he had on when I came home and changing into his street coat. I closed the door and put my back against it. “Where did you say you were going?”

“To mother — they’ve just taken her over to Polyclinic.”

“Very well — then I’m going over to the Wakefield Hotel, where a gentleman has just invited me to live with him.”

“What?”

“Grant, perhaps you’ve forgotten. This is our wedding night. You stay with me or I leave.”

I opened the door and stepped away from it. “Take your choice. It’s her or me.”

He stood staring, his face working as though the door were some frightful object. Then he closed it, turned around and stared at me as though I were some frightful object. Then he broke into sobs, fell on the bed and buried his face in the pillow. I turned away, as it made me sick to look at him. Then I snapped the switch and turned out the light.

The next day was one long nightmare of reporters, phone calls, photographers and more reporters. The desk kept sending up stacks of papers as soon as they would come out, and it appeared that his family had now decided to talk and that his uncle, sisters and various relatives all agreed that whom he married was up to Grant. They also agreed, apparently, that while it was his own affair, he had disgraced them pretty thoroughly.

In addition to the interviews there was an item about his mother’s being in Polyclinic. After breakfast he went over to see her and to this I made no objection. When he came back I tried to find out what had passed between them, but he was extremely evasive. He pretended to tell me everything, said his mother had assured him that if he loved me there was only one thing for him to do and he had done it and she would have been distressed if he had done anything else. Later I realized that this was probably true. But it was only half true, and Grant, although he tried to conceal it from me, was in more of a turmoil inside, if that was possible, than he had been before. As to the peculiar ways in which she was able to torture him while saying the sweetest things, I cannot explain in a few words, so you will have to let me make this clear when I come to it.

About four-thirty the house phone rang, and I answered. “Mrs. Bernard Hunt and two other ladies in the lobby, calling on Mr. Harris.”

“Will you tell them that Mr. Harris is indisposed at the moment and ask them if they would care to see Mrs. Harris?”

“Just a moment, Mrs. Harris.”

By that time Grant had come into the foyer of the apartment where the house phone was, looking very puzzled. “There’s nothing the matter with me. Who is it?”

“I think it’s your sisters. I’m just giving them a little lesson in manners. Funny, considering their position in society they wouldn’t know about such things themselves.”

The desk was on the line again, then: “Mrs. Harris?”

“Yes?”

“They’ll be right up.”

He didn’t make any sense out of it, but I pushed him into the bedroom and told him to wait five minutes before he came out. The buzzer sounded then. I counted three slowly and in between kept saying to myself: “Don’t talk about the weather! — Don’t talk about the weather! — Don’t talk about the weather!” — Then I opened the door. The three of them were standing there and at once I had a chilly feeling because written all over them, with a big S, was Society. That is, with the exception of the one that turned out to be Mrs. Hunt, who had at least something else besides that. She was not as tall as the other two, who looked like blobby imitations of Grant, and she was a little better-looking and had more shape and zip. I found out later she slightly resembled her mother, and while she was the snootiest of the three, she did seem to have some little spark of humanness, or humor, or whatever you would call it. I tried not to overdo it. I merely looked pleasant, glanced from one to the other, and said: “Mrs. Hunt?”

“I am Mrs. Hunt.”

“I’m the new Mrs. Harris, and I think you must be Grant’s sister. I’ve heard him speak of you a number of times.”

I held out my hand and she took it, and then introduced the other two, whose names were Elsie and Jane, but I was careful to address them as “Miss Harris.” Mrs. Hunt’s name turned out to be Ruth, but again I called her Mrs. Hunt. By that time I had got them into the living room and all four of us had said we were so glad to meet each other, which certainly was not true on my part and I don’t think it was true on theirs, but I had tried to get them into a position where there was nothing else they could say. I asked them to sit down but at once Mrs. Hunt turned to me and burst out: “But how is poor Grant? My dear, don’t tell me it’s made him — really ill?”

“Oh, he’s all right. I’ll tell him you’re here. I only said he was indisposed so you’d have to call on me instead of him.”

That one landed between her eyes just where I aimed it. She blinked, then laid her hand on my arm. “My dear — of course, of course! But the papers said something about your being employed, and it didn’t occur to me you’d be home.”

That one landed between my eyes, and I half admired the fast way in which she had come back at me. But I laughed very gaily and said: “Oh, I’m employed, but we’re on strike.”

“Oh, how thrilling!”

It come like a chorus from all three of them and on that we sat down. I had an awful second when I didn’t know what I was going to talk about next, but my eye happened to catch the arrowheads and I began to gabble as fast as I could about the strange Indian collection I had come to live with, and this had a most unexpected result. They all chimed in about how stupid the Indian idea was and how I had to cure Grant of it, and this was not at all what I thought, but I thought it advisable to say it was all so unfamiliar to me I didn’t know how I felt about it, and about that time Grant came in.

They all jumped up and I think they had expected to throw their arms around him and offer condolences for the terrible thing that had happened in his life, but as he looked just as big and healthy as ever and merely said hello, without any particular fuss, they sat down again and it was a little flat. So I thought perhaps as I had put them in their places a little, at least to my own satisfaction. I had better set out a little hospitality. I got up and asked: “May I give you some tea?”