Some Came Running (151 page)

Oh, she knew who he was trying to imitate: Old Al Dorner who had made all that oil money and installed his mistress in a house of her own; and Tony Wernz, whose mistress had an apartment in the best apartment house in town. And what did they have? Both of their wives hated their guts. God! Righteous outrage filled her.

But down underneath all this rage and mental tirade, was still the pain: the throbbing, aching, pain—that he would have done this to her, when they had been so close, and so happy. And had, in fact, actually started it even before they had been that happy. He had killed it. Before it even started. That pain was in her. And she knew it was something she would never, ever, get over.

Sitting at her secretary, still looking down at Georgia Sheldon’s letter, her eyes full of tears of rage and misery and humiliation, Agnes suddenly got up from the secretary, leaving the letter lying there, and walked shakily out into the dining room and sat down at the table.

Well, there was nothing else for it. She’d have to accost him with it—with her proof—with the letter.

It never occurred to her that he would not give his mistress up. Agnes had done this same thing many times before. It always worked. Once she confronted him with incontrovertible proof—material, solid proof—he always dropped them as if he had hold of a hot brick. And then, eventually, guiltily returned to the fold. Well, there would be no returning to
her
fold this time. She was through. There would be no more of this “year of happy love” stuff—while all the time he was slipping out with some other woman behind her back. She would break him loose from his mistress; she had to do that; and she would remain his wife. But that was all, and damn him. Never again would Agnes be able to trust her husband. Not after this one.

Already she was beginning to feel sick, just at the thought of accosting him. But, by God, she would do it. And just go ahead and get sick. She knew he really got his pleasure from them, from these clandestine affairs, not out of the women themselves so much, as from the knowledge that he was putting something over on her, his wife, Agnes. Oh, my God! she thought suddenly, agonizingly, how he must hate me! to do these things to me after all I’ve done for him. How he must
hate
me! Well, other people could hate, too, Agnes thought coldly, and locked her mind down tight: The first thing she would do would be to break him loose from this little chit of a girl-whore, and let him sit and stew in his own damned juices.

But then, sitting there at the dining room table, for the first time it occurred to her that Frank might refuse to give her up. Might just
refuse
to give up his mistress. He never had before. But things had changed so much lately, in the last year or so, what with all the money he was getting and the shopping center becoming the big thing it was.

Everything had changed. Agnes felt almost as if she were in entirely new, and strange, surroundings. Where she did not know the predictable workings of things, any more. What if he did refuse? What if he looked her in the eyes and just flatly refused to give up his little mistress?

Well, she thought, and she made her mind up coldly and indomitably: Well, if he refused, she would leave him. She would take little Walter and she would leave him. Go so far away he would never see either one of them again. That would
really
hurt him: to take little Walter away from him. He loved little Walter—and the damned pompous smugness that it gave him—more than he had ever loved her. If he had ever loved her at all. But to take little Walter away from him; that would cook him. And then let him live here, alone, and with his damned low-class mistress. Let him
marry
her, if he wanted to. Agnes knew him too well to believe that he would ever do that. He was too much of a damned snob.

Having made up her mind, Agnes got back up from the table, wearily, and went back to the secretary. She read the information in the letter over once more, then she carefully filed it away where she would have it when he came home and went into the bathroom and vomited up her breakfast. Then she went to bed.

Already, she was sick all over. And it was not make-believe. It always did this to her when these things happened. She was really sick. Weakly, she reached over for the phone and called Doc Cost.

The big man arrived soon, his little MG sputtering up into the drive outside. As he always did, he only rapped lightly and came on in, right on into the bedroom where she was with just a sheet over her nightgown, carrying that same old, battered old black bag. As he bent over her, the smell of the whiskey on his breath wafted about the room. And Agnes breathed it in comfortingly.

“Well, it looks like you really got it bad this time, Agnes,” he said, after he had checked her pulse and temperature. “Little fever. Bones ache? Nose plugged up. Looks like you might have a touch of that summer flu that’s been going the rounds.” He reached for his black bag and handed her some pills, then he stood up and in that characteristic way he had, folded his big arms and looked down at her shrewdly.

“Frank out of town again?” he said.

Agnes only nodded.

For a moment, he stood looking down at her, this big man who always instilled such reassurance in you that you actually felt he might be God, then he smiled affectionately.

“I have a pain right here in my side, too,” Agnes said weakly.

“Right side?” He leaned over her and pressed her side just below the ribs. “Here?” he said, and straightened back up. “Might be having a little trouble with your gall bladder. Been eating a lot of greasy foods lately?”

“No,” Agnes said, weakly, a curious peace creeping over her.

“I’ll go out the kitchen get you a glass of water for those pills,” Doc Cost said and turned around and ambled out through the door.

Agnes listened to his footsteps going away toward the kitchen comfortably. Nothing ever seemed so bad when Doc Cost was around. All the genuine sympathy, the unspoken understanding, the
caring,
that she never seemed to get anywhere else in her life seemed to emanate to her from this big awkward sorrowful-looking man. Doc Cost. Suddenly, Agnes wished she could just cuddle up against him, and have him stroke her head and tell her it would be all right like her father used to do. She could cry and tell him what the
real
trouble was. There was so much kindness, so much real tenderness in him. What any woman, like that first wife of his: Louise, would want to leave him and run off with some other man for, Agnes couldn’t understand. He came back through the door carrying a glass of water that looked midget-sized in his big hand.

“Here now,” he said gently, and handed it to her. “Take one of those every four hours or so. The other envelope is sedatives if you need them.” He stepped back again, and folded the big arms, and smiled at her. “I expect you’ll be all right in a day or two.”

“I hope so,” Agnes said weakly. “I have to take care of little Walter, you know.”

“Do you want me to send you out a girl?” Doc said. “I can send you out a private nurse for a couple days,” he offered, “if you want.”

“No,” Agnes said. “I guess I’ll be all right.”

Silently, his big arms still folded, he continued to stand, smiling down at her—and suddenly, for the first time in her life, Agnes realized with a kind of inward start that he was—available, she thought, if she wanted him. Not out of lust, or salaciousness, or anything like that, but kindly, and affectionately, because he liked her, and had sympathy for her, and because he thought she was attractive. Doc Cost was—available.

For a moment, she actually toyed with the idea. He was a handsome man; not handsome like a movie star, but attractive in his bigness. And he was kind and tender. And suddenly, Agnes realized that there were probably a large number of women in this town that Doc Cost had been to bed with in his career; just how many she would probably never know. Nor would anybody else. He was discreet, Doc Cost. And he was a man who understood—and sympathized with—women. A whole lot of women, probably. Not out of conquest, not out of lust, just out of simple friendliness and sympathy and liking. The thought astounded her; and even almost embarrassed her. And for a moment, she toyed with it. Why not? It certainly couldn’t be said that she would be doing any injury to Frank that he did not deserve. But then, she had never been that kind of woman. Even though this, with Doc Cost, would not be that way, would only be friendly, and warm, a kind of comforting of each other by two human people. But she had always believed in loving one man only. And because of this, after toying with it for several moments, she rejected it.

As if he read the look on her face, Doc Cost unfolded his big arms and smiled at her, and picked up his bag.

“Well, Agnes,” he said, “I’ll stop back out tomorrow and have another look at you.”

From the bed, impulsively, Agnes extended her hand to him. Doc Cost, smiling stepped forward and leaned over and took it.

“Thanks so much for coming out, Doc,” Agnes said.

“Think nothing of it, Agnes,” he said. And then he left.

Already feeling much better, and also feeling more attractive than she could remember having felt in years, Agnes rolled over and smiled at the wall. By noon, she was able to get up and fix Walter’s lunch for him.

But after that, after she had fed him and sent him out to play, she could not sustain the sense of feeling better; and the old depressive sickness came back over her again in waves and she went back to bed. The momentary feeling of attractiveness, and the kindness of Doc Cost, was not enough to erase what Georgia Sheldon’s letter had printed on her mind. The one man in the world she loved—
had
loved, she amended—the man she was married to, did not find her so very attractive, apparently; and she lay in the bed, bitterly facing this fact. After a while, she took another sedative. That made two already she had had today; and neither one of them had affected her a bit. She got no rest out of either one of them. As she lay in the bed, restlessly, she heard young Walter come back in from outside and come toward the bedroom. Oh, God, she thought wearily, what does he want now? Was she going to have to get up and do something else for him?

Walter, as if he had sensed in his perceptive way that something was wrong, his solemn little old man’s face distressed looking, came to the side of the bed and stood looking down at her; and suddenly, Agnes’s eyes filled with tears again.

“Mother, are you sick?” Walter said.

“No, honey,” she said, “just tired. You go on back out and play.”

Suddenly, Walter leaned forward and put his arms around her and put his cheek against hers. He did not say anything.

Despairfully, Agnes put her own arms around his little body and squeezed him. “Your mother loves you, Walter,” she said tearfully. “Don’t you ever forget that. You’re my son. Whatever else happens, you’re
my
son.”

Walter still did not say anything, and after a moment he stood back up, his little old man’s face solemn and worried. “Please don’t be sick,” he said tremulously. “Please don’t die.”

“Oh, honey!” Agnes cried. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m all right.”

Walter stared at her a moment longer, not saying anything, and then turned and went slowly out, and Agnes rolled back over in the bed, her face hardening at the thought of Frank.

She was ready for him when he came home from Springfield the next day. More than ready for him. She had only got out of bed when she had to fix Walter’s meals, and the rest of the time she spent in the bed planning savoringly just exactly how she was going to cut Frank up into little pieces.

He came in the house happily, carrying his bag, but when he found she was in bed, he stopped short..

“Why, honey!” Frank said. “What’s the matter? Are you sick?” He laid the bag down, almost fearfully, on his own bed. He knew. He knew she knew.

“Just tired,” Agnes said, and got up and put on her wrapper. “I’ve got something I want to show you,” she said, and went to the secretary and got the letter.

As he read it, at first perplexed at why she should be showing him one of her newsy women’s letters, and then guiltily when he came to the passage with the information, Agnes watched him coldly. Guilt seemed to roll down over his face like a curtain. If there had ever been any doubt in her mind, the look on his face erased it. He did not finish the letter.

“Well!” he said hollowly. “Well! This is interesting. But why show it to me?”

“The girl works for you, doesn’t she?”

“Well,” Frank said, guilt actually appearing to drip down his face, “yes; she works for me. But what has that to do with this? Apparently, Old Janie didn’t really have much insurance. So Edith must have got the house some other way.”

“Maybe some man got it for her.”

“Well! I never thought of that,” Frank said.

“Do you want a girl like that working for you?”

“Well, her private life isn’t of any concern to me, honey. She’s an efficient girl.”

“Yes, I’ll bet she’s efficient! I’ll bet she’s very efficient!” Agnes said, twisting the word around.

Frank stared at her, trying to look puzzled by her implication, but the guilt on his face so strong that his attempted puzzled look hardly got through. Agnes stared back at him coldly. What a
poor
liar! What a cheap, sneaking, sniveling, little bad-liar.

“Well, she is,” Frank said finally, still trying to pull off his act of puzzlement.

“You’re a poor liar,” Agnes said coldly. “Did you notice the name of the company that paid her such a large check?”

“Why, yes,” Frank said. “That’s one of the Greek’s outfits.”

“And he did it for you, didn’t he? It was
you
who bought her that damned house, wasn’t it?” Agnes smiled. It was a very nearly murderous-looking smile.

“Who?” Frank said. “Me?” He laughed hollowly, guilt all over his face. “My God! The Greek handles all kinds of business for all kinds of people. He might have handled somethin like that for anybody here in Parkman. Hell, maybe it’s even Clark Hibbard who’s keeping her! Who knows?”

“I know,” Agnes said, in a clear—but low—voice. “And you’re going to admit it! You’re going to admit it to me!”