“But why, will you tell me that?”
“To get back at me. At my father. At the world. At everything. You noticed what she said to me? With her that meant an obsession that I was set to ruin Charles, and if I was, then they would strike first, that’s all. Charles was completely under her, and she’s bad. Really, I’m not sure she’s quite sane.”
“What a thing to call a sweetie.”
“I think that was part of the hold she had on him. He wasn’t a very masculine man. With me, I think he felt on the defensive, though certainly I never gave him any reason to. But with her, with that colorless, dietician nature that she had — I think he felt like a man. I mean, she excited him. Because she is such a frump, she gave him something I could never give him.”
“I begin to get it now.”
“Isn’t that funny? He was my husband, and I don’t care whether he’s alive or dead — I simply don’t care. All I can think of is that little thing down there—”
“What do the doctors say?”
“They don’t know. It’s entirely her constitution and how it develops. It was through her abdomen, and there were eleven perforations, and there’ll be peritonitis, and maybe other complications — and they can’t even know what’s going to happen for two or three days yet. And the loss of blood was frightful.”
“They’ll give her transfusions.”
“She had one, while they were operating. That was what they were waiting for. They didn’t dare start till the donor arrived.”
“If blood’s what it takes, I’ve got plenty.”
She started to cry, and caught my arm. “Even blood, Dave? Is there anything you haven’t given me?”
“Forget it.”
“Dave?”
“Yes?”
“If I’d played the cards that God dealt me, it wouldn’t have happened. That’s the awful part. If I’m to be punished — all right, it’s what I deserve. But if only the punishment — doesn’t fall on her!”
XIII
The newspapers gave Sheila a break, I’ll say that for them, once the cops exonerated her. They played the story up big, but they made her the heroine of it, and I can’t complain of what they said about me, except I’d rather they hadn’t said anything. Church took a plea and got sent over to Tehachapi for a while. She even admitted she was the one that brought in the spider. All the money was there, so Dr. Rollinson got his stake back, and the bonding company had nothing to pay, which kind of eased off what had been keeping me awake nights.
But that wasn’t what Sheila and I had to worry about. It was that poor kid down there in the hospital, and that was just awful. The doctors knew what was coming, all right. For two or three days she went along and you’d have thought she was doing fine, except that her temperature kept rising a little bit at a time, and her eyes kept getting brighter and her cheeks redder. Then the peritonitis broke, and broke plenty. For two weeks her temperature stayed up around 104, and then when it seemed she had that licked, pneumonia set in. She was in oxygen for three days, and when she came out of it she was so weak you couldn’t believe she could live at all. Then, at last, she began to get better.
All that time I took Sheila in there twice a day, and we’d sit and watch the chart, and in between we’d talk about what we were going to do with our lives. I had no idea. The mess over the bond was all cleared up, but I hadn’t been told to come back to work, and I didn’t expect to be. And after the way my name had been plastered on the front pages all over the country, I didn’t know where I could get a job, or whether I could get a job. I knew a little about banking, but in banking the first thing you’ve got to have is a good name.
Then one night we were sitting there, Sheila and myself, with the two kids on the bed, looking at a picture book, when the door opened, and the Old Man walked in. It was the first time we had seen him since the night he danced with Sheila, just before he sailed for Honolulu. He had a box of flowers, and handed them to Sheila with a bow. “Just dropped in to see how the little girl is getting along.”
Sheila took the flowers and turned away quickly to hide how she felt, then rang for the nurse and sent them out to be put in water. Then she introduced him to the children, and he sat on the bed and kidded along with them, and they let him look at the pictures in the picture book. The flowers came back, and Sheila caught her breath, and they were jumbo chrysanthemums all right. She thanked him for them, and he said they came from his own garden in Beverly. The nurse went and the kids kind of quieted down again, and Sheila went over to him, and sat down beside him on the bed, and took his hand. “You think this is a surprise, don’t you?”
“Well, I can do better.”
He dug in his pocket and fished up a couple of little dolls. The kids went nuts over them, and that was the end of talk for about five minutes. But Sheila was still hanging on to the Old Man’s hand, and went on: “It’s no surprise at all. I’ve been expecting you.”
“Oh, you have.”
“I saw you were back.”
“I got back yesterday.”
“I knew you’d come.”
The Old Man looked at me and grinned. “I must have done pretty well in that dance. I must have uncorked a pretty good rhumba.”
“I’d say you did all right.”
Sheik laughed, and kissed his hand, and got up and moved into a chair. He moved into a chair too, and looked at his chrysanthemums and said, “Well, when you like somebody you have to bring her flowers.”
“And when you like somebody, you know they’ll do it.”
He sat there a minute, and then he said, “I think you two are about the silliest pair of fools I ever knew. Just about the silliest.”
“We think so too.”
“But not a pair of crooks... I read a little about it, in Honolulu, and when I got back I went into it from beginning to end, thoroughly. If I’d been here, I’d have let you have it right in the neck, just exactly where Lou Frazier let you have it, and I haven’t one word of criticism to offer for what he did. But I wasn’t here. I was away, I’m glad to say. Now that I’m back I can’t find it in me to hold it against you. It was against all rules, all prudence, but it wasn’t morally wrong. And — it was silly. But all of us, I suppose, are silly now and then. Even I feel the impulse — especially when dancing the rhumba.”
He stopped and let his fingertips touch in front of his eyes, and stared through them for a minute or so. Then he went on:
“But — the official family is the official family, and while Frazier isn’t quite as sore as he was, he’s not exactly friendly, even yet. I don’t think there’s anything for you in the home office for some little time yet, Bennett — at any rate, until this blows over a little. However, I’ve about decided to open a branch in Honolulu. How would you like to take charge of that?”
Brother, does a cat like liver?
So Honolulu’s where we are now, all five of us: Sheila, and myself, and Anna, and Charlotte, and Arthur, a little number you haven’t heard about yet, that arrived about a year after we got here, and that was named after the Old Man. They’re out there on the beach now, and I can see them from where I’m writing on the veranda, and my wife looks kind of pretty in a bathing suit, if anybody happens to ask you. The Old Man was in a few weeks ago, and told us that Frazier’s been moved East, and any time I want to go back, it’s all clear, and he’ll find a spot for me. But I don’t know. I like it here, and Sheila likes it here, and the kids like it here, and the branch is doing fine. And another thing: I’m not so sure I want to make it too handy for Sheila and the Old Man to dance the rhumba.