She sounded genuine. She seemed thinner and paler, as if waiting had caused her severe strain. That was the trouble with her act. She believed it; consequently, its effects upon her were real. The fact that it was an act now seemed to Jimmie a very great tragedy. Tragic, because the sight of her made him realize how extraordinary she would be if only she were sincere and unselfish.
Jimmie ignored her words about waiting. “I got to know your dad—a little—hanging around here.”
“You did? You mean, he talked to you?” She thought for a moment. “What did he want? It must have been something.”
“Wanted to know about life—and death—in the RAF.”
He had expected that she would understand. Instead, she frowned. “He did? That’s odd! Indulging the more carnivorous side of his nature, I guess. Some people have no scruples!”
“He wasn’t carnivorous. He was charming.”
“Oh, he can be charming. He has a hideous facility for reading people. And, once read, he analyzes them—and uses their vanities and their avarices to manipulate them.
People usually mistake that process for charm.”
“Mmmm. He was upset though. On account of your brother.”
She drew a violent breath. “My—brother!”
Then Jimmie was startled. “You didn’t know?”
“What about my brother? Has Larry turned up? Have they—?”
Jimmie told her.
When he finished, she was crying. “I’m so glad,” she said. “So glad! Even if he—well, even if we don’t ever see him again. We’ll at least know. He would be a pilot! He would be a night fighter, too. The very most formidable thing he could find to do. He was a great kid, Jimmie. He was capricious and vain, in a way, and ferocious. But he had a will like the current in a magnet. Once he switched it on it never stopped or weakened and it snapped up everything that came near. That was why he—left—so young. I suppose he went on in school. He’d do that, too! I never thought he would—because he was young, and because my family assumed so automatically that he would go to hell. You know. It poisons you. And some people—most people—believe that everyone who turns from their chosen course is rotten and crazy. Father believes that, especially. Jimmie! You can imagine how glad I am!”
He could see how glad she was. False and theatrical though she might be about herself and about him, she was undeniably honest about her brother.
“I can see, Audrey. What I can’t understand is, why your father didn’t tell you what he had found out.”
“Jimmie. Go get me that magazine! I can’t bear not to know right now how he looks!”
He brought the magazine from the library. Audrey had removed the traces of her tears and moved their chairs arm to arm. For a long time she stared at the photograph of
“Lawrence Wilton.” It was not large, but the features were quite clear. “It is Larry, all right,” she said slowly. “Only—he’s changed. He looks—softer. Not in character, but in his feelings.”
“Why,” Jimmie repeated, “didn’t your father tell you? He was tremendously moved that night.”
“No doubt. One decent hour with his conscience—alone. Oh, he didn’t tell Mother, I suppose, because he can get a certain revenge on her that way. Revenge for her endless nagging and irritability. And, I suppose, he didn’t like his mental picture of the swoon she’d go into. Mother would probably try to get the governor to get the State Department to get Larry right straight out of the RAF.”
“I don’t know your mother.”
“She’s been ill. Not faking, I believe.” Audrey shrugged. “How is it with you, Jimmie?”
He told her. Told her about his father, and Biff, and Sarah. He found that telling her was like putting down a painfully heavy load and resting. She listened with such concentration, such changes of expression, and yet with such complete and uninterrupting attention, that Jimmie described his inward life, explored it, complained about it, for almost half an hour in a single stretch.
At the end she said, “No wonder you’re low!” She smiled. “I heard about the great toss-out-the night it happened. A man who was there came over to Dan and Adele’s—”
“It wasn’t on a Wednesday! Or a Friday, either!”
Audrey’s eyes shone briefly. “No. I’m over there a lot—now. Anyhow, this man repeated most of your eloquence. I didn’t know, Jimmie, that you’d been—wounded.”
“Let’s skip that part.”
“Can’t I even see?”
That was like the more familiar Audrey. “No.”
“All right.” She performed an exorbitant pout, and dissolved it. “You’ve made me very happy anyhow—about Larry. Very happy. It was worth all the weeks I’ve been through. Just that, alone. Let’s talk about something different. Biff, for example. He is a cad, you know.”
“I’m beginning to think so.”
Audrey nodded, slowly, up and down. “Yep. Cad. The very kind the lady novelists write about. A hero—also. The novelists seldom stop to think that, in the case of superheroism—” she barely glanced at him—“there is a compensatory caddishness.
Generated, at times, by doting women. At other times, by too much adrenaline in the pride.”
“Damn it, you sound like Willie!”
“Oh,” she responded equably. “Willie said that first.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Frequently. I’d about die if I didn’t. He’s my second love—next to you.”
“He hasn’t said anything to me about seeing you.”
“Of course not, you thickhead! I forbade him.”
“Oh.”
There was a pause. Audrey ended it. “I hear your dad has squabbled with your mother. Things are messy at your house. Biff’ll be home in a day or two—in good condition. Sarah’s in the dumps again. Quite a little party. It shows, according to Willie, that your family regrets pushing you off the threshold.”
“I didn’t want to go—entirely. I was just beginning to hope that they were still human. Then—whammo!”
“I know. Biff’s a cad about women, but someday he’ll give his time to some noble, if flashy, cause. Your father is really a good egg. Bank-struck. It’s like being stage-struck—only, with different boards.”
“So your father said.”
She assented with a grim nod. “Oh, he can recognize homely virtue. Just—never achieve it. Too complex. Sarah—I dunno. She’s a gorgeous, miserable creature. She must have been terrific the day she read my diaries—”
Jimmie started. “Willie told you that!”
“We have no secrets. He told me also you threatened the—the”—she was mocking—“extreme penalty to shut her up. Very chivalrous. Never had the male of my species offer to kill for me, before. I was positively touched. And greatly relieved, believe me!”
“I was out of my head with rage—”
“—and acted very—what we call ‘British,’ no doubt. I recall Sarah’s Harry. A merry-eyed, curly-haired youth with a fine figure, if a girl may say so, and a talent for staying violently alive all night long. What did Sarah have to say on the angle that he was part Jewish? News, incidentally, to me.”
“Sarah didn’t have anything to say. Never mentioned it. Mother told me.”
Audrey nodded again. “I remember, too, your mother, in the period when she was pouring ice water on that romance. Buckets of it. I thought, then, that she was going to unscrupulous lengths. She practically locked Sarah in the house, and she tore around Muskogewan grafting little abscesses on the reputation of the boy. At the time I presumed the tales were true. Musicians have a way of getting around—too much. Maybe they weren’t, though. He didn’t have that roving look. Or the sultry one, like Biff. Just—gay. I—” She broke off.