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  Melinda was still not at home when Vic arrived at a quarter to seven that evening. Trixie had been home since four-thirty, and Vic asked her if she had heard from her mother.

  "Nope," Trixie said indifferently. She was lying on her stomach on the floor, reading the funny paper page of the 'New Wesleyan'.

  Trixie was used to her mother's being out at odd times. She had had it for the better part of her life.

  "How about a game of Scrabble?" Vic asked her.

  Trixie looked up at him, thinking it over. Her little oval, sun-kissed face reminded Vic suddenly of an acorn, a shiny, brand-new acorn just dropped from a tree, with a pointed tip that was Trixie's chin and a cap that was her straight bangs and the straight-down hair that had just been cut so that it reached the middle of her ears. "All right!" Trixie said finally, and jumped up and got the Scrabble box from a bookshelf.

  The phone rang and Vic answered it. It was Melinda.

  "I'll be home around eight, Vic. Go ahead and eat if you want to, but I'm bringing somebody by for a drink—if you don't mind," she added heavily, and he could tell she had had a few drinks already. "Okay?"

  "Okay," he said. He knew whom she was bringing, too. "Okay, I'll be seeing you."

  "Bye-bye."

  He hung up "Mommie won't be home for about an hour, shug," Vic said. "Are you getting hungry?"

  "I'm not hungry," Trixie said.

  Trixie loved to eat with them. She would wait hours—though Vic's deadline for her was nine so that she could have her dinner when they had theirs. Usually they ate at about eight-thirty. They wouldn't tonight, Vic thought. He forced himself to concentrate on the game. He and Trixie played with her making two moves to his one in order to even out the score a little. Trixie was already a better speller than her mother, Vic thought, though he did not think it diplomatic to tell Trixie so. Vic had taught her to read when she was three. They were well into their second game, Trixie had eaten a chocolate doughnut with ketchup, and it was growing very dark before he heard the sound of two cars coming up the driveway.

  Trixie heard it, too, and cocked her head. "Two people coming," she said.

  "Your mother's bringing a guest." "Who?"

  "I don't know. She just said somebody. Your play, Trix."

  He heard Melinda's slurring, low-pitched voice, her step on the stone walk, then she opened the door.

  "Hi!" Melinda called. "Come on in, Charley. Vic, I'd like you to meet Charley De Lisle. Charley, my husband." She gestured perfunctorily.

  Vic had risen to his feet. "How do you do?"

  Charley mumbled something and nodded. He looked embarrassed. He was about thirty-five, slight and not very tall, with close-set and rather furtive eyes over which his dark eyebrows grew together.

  "Charley's the pianist at the Lord Chesterfield," Melinda said.

  "Yes, I know Well, how do you like our town?" Vic asked pleasantly.

  "I like it fine," Charley said.

  "Sit down, Charley. Aren't you going to make us a drink, Vic? What'll you have?"

  Charley mumbled that he supposed he'd have rye and water. Vic went off to the kitchen to make the drinks. He made Charley's drink and then two Scotch and waters for himself and Melinda. He poured an orange juice for Trixie. When he went back into the living room Trixie was still standing in the middle of the floor, staring with a neutral, fixed curiosity at Charley De Lisle. Vic passed the drinks around on a tray.

  "I had a call about you today, a telephone call," Vic said to Charley.

  Charley looked up at him, blank and surprised.

  "A real estate agent wanted to know if I knew you. I'm afraid I couldn't give him much of a reference." Vic's smile was friendly.

  "Oh, lord, did they call 'you'?" Melinda laughed." Sorry, Vic, 'I'll' call them tomorrow," she said boredly. "But Charley's already got his home. He's moving in tomorrow. It's a wonderful cottage in the woods. Do you know that little house off fifteen about two miles south of East Lyme? I thought I once drove you up the road to show it to you. I've noticed it was vacant since spring, and I thought Charley would like it better than a hotel, because he's going to be here another six weeks, so I found the real estate agency that handles it—finally—and I got it for him. Charley adores it." Melinda was picking out records to play.

  "That sounds very nice," Vic said. Melinda must have driven up the road to show it to somebody else, he thought. Two miles south of East Lyme made it just two miles closer to Little Wesley than he had thought it would be. Then he tried to neutralize his thoughts, tried very hard. He had no reason to feel hostile towards Mr. De Lisle. Mr. De Lisle looked as if he were afraid of his own shadow.

  Melinda had chosen piano records, and she was playing them a bit loud. When a second record dropped down, she asked Charley if he knew who the pianist was. Charley knew.

  Vic fixed another drink for himself and Melinda. Charley was only sipping at his. When he came back into the room, Melinda was saying to Trixie, "Why don't you go and play in your room, darling? You're making an awful mess there."

  Trixie was absently building something with the Scrabble counters on the floor in front of the fireplace. Now she gave a sigh and slowly began to replace the counters in the box, at a rate that would keep her there twenty minutes.

  "That drink isn't poisoned, you know," Melinda said to Charley.

  "I know" He smiled. "I have to watch out for the ulcer. Also I've got to work tonight."

  "I hope you'll stay for dinner, though. You don't have to work till eleven. You can get to Ballinger in six minutes from here."

  "Maybe by rocket," Vic said, smiling. "He'd better give himself twenty minutes if he wants to stay alive."

  "Charley works at the Hotel Lincoln in Ballinger from eleven to midnight," Melinda announced to Vic. Her nose could have used some powder, but she looked very well with her dark-blond hair loose and flowing back, the way the wind had left it, her smooth, slightly freckled face aglow with suntan and with animal good spirits now. She had not had enough to drink to begin wilting. Vic could see why men found her charming, even irresistible, when she looked this way. She leaned toward Charley, putting a hand on his sleeve. "Charley—stay for dinner?" And without waiting for his answer, she jumped up. "My gosh, I left the steak in the car! I've got the most beautiful steak, hand-picked from Hansen's!" She ran out of the house.

  Charley absolutely refused to stay for dinner, however. "I've got to be going," he said as soon as he had finished his first drink.

  "Well, you're not going to leave without playing something!" Melinda said.

  Charley got up docilely, as if he knew it was of no use to argue with Melinda, and sat down at the piano."Anything in particular?" he asked.

  Melinda was propping up the piano top. "Whatever you like."

  Charley played "Old Buttermilk Sky." Vic knew it was one of Melinda's favorites, and Charley must have known it, too, because he had winked at her as he struck the first notes.

  "I wish I could play like that," she said when he had finished. "I play it, but not like that."

  "Show me," Charley said, getting up from the bench.

  She shook her head. "Not now. Do you think you can teach me to play it like that?"

  "If you play at all—sure," Charley said bluntly."I'll be taking off." Vic got up. "Very nice meeting you," he said.

  "Thanks. Same here." Charley picked up his raincoat.

  Melinda went out with him to his car. She stayed about five minutes. When she came in, neither of them said anything for a while.

  Then Melinda said, "Anything new with you today?"

  "Nope," Vic said. She would not have heard him if he had told her about anything that was new. "I think it's high time we ate, don't you?"

  Melinda was more than usually pleasant the rest of the evening. But the next day she was again not home at one o'clock, and again not home until nearly eight. Charley De Lisle was giving her piano lessons in the afternoons, she said.

  Chapter 8

  Vic knew wha
t was happening, and he tried to make Melinda admit it and stop it before it got all over town. He simply told her, in a quiet way, that he thought she was seeing too much of Charley De Lisle.

  You're imagining things," she said. "The first person I've been able to talk to in weeks without being treated like a pariah, and you hate it. You don't want me to get any fun out of life, that's all!"

  She could say things like that to him as if she really meant them. She could actually stymie him and make him wonder if she really believed what she said. In an effort to be fair with her, he tried to see it the way she told it, tried to imagine that it was impossible that she could be attracted to a greasy, sick-looking nightclub entertainer. But he couldn't see it that way. She had made the same denials in regard to Jo-Jo, and Jo-Jo had been equally repellent from Vic's point of view, and yet 'that' had happened. Jo-Jo had been so amusing, a laugh a minute. He'd been so nice to Trixie. Now Charley De Lisle was such a wonderful piano player. He was showing her how to improve her playing. He came over a couple of afternoons a week now, after three when Vic had left the house, and he gave Melinda a lesson until five when he had to go to work at the Lord Chesterfield. Trixie was generally home in the afternoons, so what was the harm in his coming over? But sometimes Melinda wasn't home for lunch, and sometimes they didn't play the piano in the afternoon, because an ashtray that Vic had seen on the keyboard at two o'clock would be there when he got home at seven. Sometimes they were up at Charley De Lisle's house, where there wasn't a piano.

  "Just what do you expect me to think about this?" Vic asked her.

  "Nothing! I don't know what you're up in the air about!"

  Useless to point out to her that she hadn't seen or talked about anybody else but Charley De Lisle for two weeks. Useless and embarrassing to tell her that even Trixie was aware of it, and was practically taking it for granted now In the second week of Mr. De Lisle, Vic had come home one evening when Melinda hadn't been in, and Trixie had said, very casually, "I guess she's up at Charley's house. She wasn't home when I got home." That had hurt him, even worse than the way Trixie had looked at Charley that first evening had hurt him. Vic remembered walking into the living room with a couple of fresh drinks and seeing Trixie perched on the arm of the armchair, staring at Charley with a wide-eyed, apprehensive, yet completely helpless curiosity, as if she had known then that she was looking at the man who was going to take Ralph's place, that she was going to be seeing him very often from now on whether she liked him or not, whether he was nice to her or not. The memory of Trixie looking at Charley from 'the' armchair haunted Vic. He felt that that was the first instant that his suspicion had become an absolute certainty. He felt that Trixie in her innocence had known intuitively what he had only suspected at that time.

  Vic said in a light, joking tone, "It's too bad I'm married to you, isn't it? I might have a chance with you if I were a total stranger and met you out of the blue. I'd have money, not be too bad looking, with lots of interesting things to talk about—"

  "Like what? Snails and bed bugs?" She was dressing to go out with Charley that afternoon, fastening around her waist a belt that Vic had given her, tying around her neck a purple and yellow scarf that Vic had chosen carefully and bought for her.

  "You used to think snails were interesting and that a lot of other things were interesting, until your brain began to atrophy."

  "Thanks. I like my brain fine and you can have yours."

  It was Sunday. Vic had wanted to drive up to Bear Lake with Melinda and Trixie and row around a little while—he and Melinda in a rowboat and Trixie in her canoe. Weekends were the only time Trixie could go up to the lake, and she loved it. So had Melinda enjoyed it, until two or three weeks ago. But she was going out with Charley, and they were just going to drive around in the country, Melinda had said, but she wasn't taking Trixie with her.

  "I may not be here when you get back," Vic said.

  "Oh? Where're you going?"

  "I thought Trixie and I might go down to see Blair Peabody."

  "Oh," she said, and he felt she hadn't even heard him. "Well, so long, Vic," she said as she passed him in the hall. "Have fun with Blair."

  Vic stood in the living room, listening to her car's motor fading down the lane. He shouldn't have said that about her brain atrophying, he thought. It wouldn't do any good to insult her. He was sorry he had. Better to take it lightly and casually, as if he didn't resent anything, as if there were nothing to resent, and she might tire of Charley in another week or so. If he showed his dislike of Charley, that was sure to make her go after him, just out of contrariness. He ought to reverse his tactics completely, be a good egg and all that. From Melinda's point of view, Vic knew De Lisle was neither handsome nor entertaining, except on the piano. But he had to admit that being a good egg with Jo-Jo and with Ralph Gosden hadn't got him anywhere. And the thought of Melinda dragging Charley to parties at the Cowans' and the Mellers'—she hadn't done it yet, but it was coming, he knew—the shame of endorsing socially a guttersnipe like Charley De Lisle seemed more than he could bear. And everybody would know that Melinda had picked up the first man she could find after the McRae story had exploded. Everybody would know now that he was disgusted and helpless to combat it, however indifferent he pretended to be, because obviously he had made an effort to hold off Melinda's lovers by telling the story about McRae.

  He tried to pull himself together. What was the alternative to treating Mr. De Lisle in a courteous and friendly manner? Debasing himself by showing that Mr. De Lisle was worth his irritation. Debasing himself by trying to derive satisfaction from stopping the affair. Those weren't his methods and never had been. No, the proper attitude was to be courteous and civilized, no matter what happened. He might lose that way, might be scoffed and laughed at, but he would certainly lose the other way, lose Melinda's respect and his self-respect, whether he stopped the affair or not.

  He did not go to see Blair Peabody. Janey Peterson called up Trixie and asked to come over, and Trixie seemed just as happy to play around the house if Janey came over, so Vic decided to spend the afternoon reading about Tiberius.

  Janey's father drove her over, and Vic chatted with him on the front lawn for a few minutes. He was a strongly built, fair-haired man with a pleasant air of frankness and modesty about him. He had a bag of fresh homemade doughnuts with him, and Janey and Trixie took a couple and dashed off, and Vic and Peterson stood there munching and talking about the hydrangea bushes on the front lawn that were now in full bloom. Peterson said his were new young plants and evidently too young to bloom this year, because they hadn't.

  "Take a couple of ours," Vic said. "We've got more than we need."

  Peterson protested, but Vic went to the garage, got the pitchfork and a couple of burlap bags, and dug up two of the bushes. There were four hydrangea bushes, scattered in no particular pattern on the lawn, and Vic happened to detest hydrangeas. At least he did that afternoon. Their big pastel pompoms of blossoms looked tawdry and insipid. He presented the two bushes, their roots wrapped in burlap, to Peterson with his greetings to Mrs. Peterson.

  "She'll be tickled pink with these," Peterson said. "It'll certainly improve the lawn. Give my regards to your wife, too. Is she here?"

  "No. She's out visiting a friend," Vic answered.

  Peterson nodded.

  Vic was not sure, but he thought Peterson had looked a little embarrassed when he asked about Melinda. Vic waved at him as his car pulled away, then turned back toward the house. The lawn looked as if two small bombs had hit it. He left it that way. Melinda came in at a quarter to seven. Vic heard her car, and after a few moments went from his room through the garage into the living room, ostensibly to get a few sections of the 'Times'. He half expected to find De Lisle with her, but Melinda was alone.

  "No doubt you've been imagining me in the depths of iniquity this afternoon," she said, "but we went to the trotting races. I won eight bucks. What do you think of that?"

  "I didn't imagine
anything," Vic said, with a smile, and turned the radio on. There was a news commentator he wanted to hear at seven o'clock.

  Janey Peterson stayed for dinner with them, and then Vic drove her home. He knew that Melinda would call Charley while he was out of the house. Charley had had a telephone installed almost immediately, because Melinda had used all the influence she had—or rather that the name Van Allen had—to get the company to put the phone in without the usual two or three weeks' delay. Vic wished she hadn't said that about the "depths of iniquity." He wished she weren't quite so crude. She hadn't always been so crude. That was the fault of the company she kept, of course. Why had she said anything at all if she hadn't done anything with De Lisle or didn't intend to? When a woman as attractive as Melinda handed it to them on a platter, why should a man like De Lisle resist? The morals to resist didn't come very often any more. That was for people like Henri III of France, after his wife the Princesse de Conde died. There was devotion, Henri sitting in his library the rest of his life, with his memories of the Princesse, creating designs of skulls and crossbones for Nicolas Eve to put on book covers and title pages for him. Henri would probably be called psychotic by modern psychiatrists.

  Charley De Lisle came twice to the house for dinner during the following week, and one evening the three of them went to an outdoor concert at Tanglewood, though Charley had had to leave before it was over in order to be at the Hotel Lincoln by eleven. One of the evenings he dined with them was a Monday, when he didn't work and could stay later than eleven, and Vic obligingly said good night around ten o'clock, went to his own room, and did not come back. Charley and Melinda had been sitting at the piano, but the piano stopped, Vic noticed, as soon as he left. Vic finally went to bed and to sleep, though the sound of Charley's car leaving awakened him, and he looked at his wristwatch and saw that it was a quarter to four.

  The next morning Vic knocked on Melinda's door at about nine o'clock, carrying a cup of coffee for her. He had had a call from Stephen a few minutes before, saying that his wife was not feeling well and that he didn't want to leave her alone. Stephen had asked if Melinda could possibly come and spell him, because two other women he might have called on were out of town with their husbands on vacation. Melinda didn't answer his knock, and Vic pushed the door open gently. The room was empty. The beige cover on the bed looked unusually taut and smooth. Vic carried the coffee back to the kitchen and poured it down the sink.