Catch-As-Catch-Can Page 7

  Pearl said, “I thought better of Dee. I warned her. I warned her that Laila could be hurt. It is guilt, Mr. Breen.”

  “What do you mean?” Clive looked startled.

  “Talbot’s guilt. Talbot’s temptation, which he resents. He takes his own guilt out on that lovely child.”

  “Lousy break for the poor kid,” muttered Clive.

  Pearl turned and took strides. “Laila,” she boomed, “would you like to go with Pearl to the sea?”

  “Oh Pearl, please! Oh Pearl, could we?” The small face brightened.

  “Estelle,” said Pearl to that stiffening body, “will you protect me?” Estelle’s head cocked. “We shall go for a day,” boomed Pearl. “One day. We shall watch the sun rise and the sun cross and the sun go down. And one cycle later, I’ll bring her back to the city and I will myself return to you, Estelle, if you will have me.”

  “Dearest Pearl! You are always welcome here! This is your home!” Estelle was all beam and pleasure, now.

  So Pearl smiled in benediction and swung around to Clive, who was looking very nervous. “I know what you are thinking.” Pearl bent her brow upon him. “You are thinking of the law and Dr. Stirling. The law says he is her guardian. But he guards her from nothing! The little heart must steady. She must have peace.”

  “Well, I … uh … think so, too,” said Clive weakly.

  “Heaven will not grudge us one day,” cried Pearl. “Nor shall they! Estelle.…”

  “Dearest?”

  “You will not say to anyone whether I came or went or with whom. I know I can trust you.”

  “Always—always.” The birdlike little woman was pleased.

  “Can I trust you?” Pearl inquired of Clive.

  “To … to do wh—what?” he stammered.

  “To tell Stirling she is safe with me, but not where.”

  “Look, I … I sympathize. I think probably you can help her a lot, but.…” He was jittering. “Why couldn’t you call up and leave a message at the house and leave me out of it entirely?”

  The heavy face despised him.

  “I was going to ask Laila not to say I had anything to do … Dee’ll blow her top. She’d get it all out of me and I know it.”

  “Are you afraid?” said Pearl Dean. “There is nothing to fear.”

  He began to look less afraid. “Dee’ll have a fit,” he insisted, “and listen, Laila’s a minor, I suppose. You know what the law might say.”

  “I have no fear,” said Pearl sternly. “I don’t take her against her will. I don’t take her for long. I, myself, limit the time. Even Dr. Stirling will have to take my word. And Dee would not, believe me, start that kind of public trouble.”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “I have the courage to do,” said Pearl sonorously, “what I know is best for her at whatever risk to myself.”

  “Well, that’s up to you. I’d trust you. But, I’d rather … I don’t even want to know where you’re going.”

  “You’ll not know,” said Pearl in her measured boom. “Only that we go to the sea. And we shall go, and quickly.” The big woman ruminated. “I shall ask Estelle,” she pronounced, “to telephone the house when we are well away.”

  “Of course, Pearl,” chirped Mrs. Fleming. “I’ll do exactly as you say. Can I help you get your things together?”

  “My dear!” said Pearl.

  “You won’t need much, Pearl, if you are coming back.”

  “Not much at all,” said Pearl comfortingly.

  She stood with her fat heels heavy and she rolled her eyes. All things were arranged to her satisfaction. Now she could see that her highest duty coincided with her desire. Estelle was placated. Clive did not really count. The lovely child’s face was lifted to her. A malleable child. Pearl was fond of malleable people. They fed her. They nourished something. And she loved this child, the sweet, teachable child. She had long yearned to have her—both for the child’s dear presence and the link she was to the remembered warmth and strength of the man, Jonas Breen. She touched Laila’s hair.

  “Lie back, little darling,” she soothed. “Do as Pearl has taught you. I won’t be long.”

  Laila lay back.

  “Mr. Breen?”

  “Yes, Miss Dean?”

  “Do you understand how a trailer hitch operates?”

  “I think so.”

  “Would you please …?”

  “G—glad to,” said Clive. He stood on a brink. His nerves were dancing. Nobody here knew anything about poison! If that Lorraine had got the facts straight and if Laila were lost for one more whole day …!

  He turned mechanically to oblige. He opened the glass door. Laila was lying back, her face composed. Pearl leaned over and touched something on the table. “There,” she said. “Breathe, darling. Renew yourself. Fix your inner eye on beauty.”

  Clive stumbled out into the yard.

  In the sun porch, near Laila’s ear, soft music began.

  CHAPTER 9

  Dee was saying, earnestly, “We are so sorry, but, you see, we were in the most awful rush when we.…”

  Joe’s face got a hurt look. “No need to be stiff about it, lady,” he interrupted. “Neighborly. Only neighborly.”

  “It’s not that we don’t appreciate …” she clasped her hands. She turned her beauty on, full stream. The man must understand. She was hoping he was the kind of man who would see and believe and conceded that she had a line of attention of her own.

  “I don’t suppose you need any nylons, hey?” the man muttered resentfully. “You got dozens, hey? Not like some ladies.…”

  Dee’s breath sighed in. Well, this was a kind of person. There were persons to whom physical beauty was an affront, a piece of gorgeous luck that they resented. She had guessed wrong.

  “How about that gas,” said Andy pleasantly.

  “Look, I’m going to put gas in. You came in for some gas. You’ll get gas.”

  “We’ll come back a million times,” said Dee, smiling desperately, “if you’ll just let us go, now.”

  “You’ll get gas, neighbors,” the man muttered. “I’ll tell Ray to give it to ya. Check your oil, neighbor?”

  “Don’t bother.…” Andy glanced at Dee.

  “Joe’s service, you know,” the man glowered.

  “O.K.” Andy nodded. He said in muted reproach, “We’ll never get out of here, now he’s got his feelings hurt. Only been fifteen minutes, that’s really all, Dee. So be quiet?”

  She twisted away. “Let him take his time,” she said forlornly. “Sorry.”

  Clive found the keys in the little coupe and he backed it into position. He dropped the hitch mechanism over the knob on the back of the car. There was also a chain. He knew what it was for so he unwound it and slipped the hook at the end of it over the bumper. Now Pearl’s aluminum house was on her back, you might say. They might go anywhere.

  He thought, with a sudden sickness of the nerves, No, no. I’d better see that they call the house right away. Then he thought, I can’t do that. Because I don’t know any reason. The resolution to wipe away forever even his own knowledge that he had overheard anything hardened in his mind. Estelle would call the house, anyhow, a little later.

  He thought, The sea? My God, there’s a whole coast line!

  He thought, Will Pearl tell Estelle just where they’re going? He thought not. Anyhow, this Estelle was such a daffy character.

  He thought, But the cops will pick up Pearl, if Stirling’s got the cops.… There’s no use kidding my.…

  He thought, But how soon?

  Finally, he thought, Who knows how it will work out? It’s out of my hands.

  He shrugged and turned away and something was thinking,… “even after taxes”.…

  He found he had walked back to the house and he opened the glass door once more. It would be only decent to say Good-by (and say once more in Laila’s ear, “Don’t mention me”). Peering in, he stiffened. Laila was sitting upright, pawing at the little white r
adio beside the couch. She said, “Oh, Clive!”

  Clive hurried across. “You want it off?” All he heard was a part of a sentence. “… asked to look out for this girl and call Madison 7911 or.…” The voice died.

  He could hear Pearl’s voice booming softly somewhere else in the house. He said, numbly, “What’s the matter?”

  Laila threw her arms out. Her eyes were so nakedly young and transparent that he squinted, as if against a painful light. “I am not ill, Clive! I am not! I am perfectly well!”

  He said automatically, “Ssh.…” He moistened his mouth. “What do you mean, ill, honey? You look O.K.”

  “You can see that, can’t you, Clive? Why do they tell people to look out for me? I don’t want to be watched for. I don’t want to go the hospital.”

  “What’s that?” he mumbled. “What about a hospital?”

  “Oh, Clive, call Pearl.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “I don’t get this,” He sat down beside her and took her hand and caressed it nervously. “Tell Clive.”

  “I won’t go to Dr. Stirling’s hospital,” she said with pink spots in her cheeks. “I do not want to go there. Because Jonas.…” She bent over. Her black hair fell around her cheeks.

  “Ssh … tell Clive, now, honey.…”

  “I told you already.”

  “No, you didn’t, honey.” Clive was honestly bewildered.

  “When I saw what Dr. Stirling did, when Jonas died.”

  “What did he do?” Clive was startled almost out of his wits. “Wait a minute. You said they were killing Jonas. What made you think that?”

  “They were! With a—thing … a needle in a glass.…”

  “Hypodermic.” There was a sudden trace of satisfaction in Clive’s voice. Now he knew what he had not known before. Here was the secret and silly reason for Laila’s dislike of Dr. Stirling. She had seen the doctor try some last measure to keep the heart going, and she didn’t know anything. She had not understood.

  “Will I be locked up?” Laila. “I don’t care if I am.”

  “Oh gosh,” he groaned, “honey, I’m sorry. I should have listened to you that day. I was so upset myself. I—tell me, now. Where were you? What did you see?”

  “I was there, in the room. They didn’t see me. The nurse looked at the doctor and he.… Clive, what did it mean?”

  Clive drew in his chin. “I don’t know,” he said stiffly. His thoughts scrambled busily, whirling and wavering. “A needle, you say?”

  Laila said, wildly, “What can he want me at the hospital for? I’m not ill. You know that I’m not. Why is that said on the radio?”

  “What was on the radio, honey?”

  “A man said people must look for me and send me to the hospital.”

  “You!” he said. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “And you don’t feel sick or anything?”

  “No. No. No.”

  He said, “Well, I can’t understand it, Laila. Maybe you didn’t hear.…”

  Laila was not the adept at half-hearing that he was. She said, “I did hear it I heard my name.”

  His face got brick red. “We’d better call up the hospital and see what this is,” he began thickly.

  “No, please.” She had her hands clasped as if she were praying and he looked at her. “Don’t tell them where I am yet. Ask Pearl, first, what we must do.”

  He said, looking stupid, “You’re not thinking it’s a trick?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Dirty trick,” Clive said violently, “if they’re just trying to find you. You really do feel all right?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “You don’t look ill,” he muttered. He chewed on his mouth.

  “Pearl will know. If Pearl thinks it’s a trick or some bad thing, then Pearl will help me.”

  “You mean Pearl might … take you to the sea, anyway?”

  “Won’t she?” said Laila.

  He got up and stood rubbing his head. He could feel a deep quaking in his body. “Pearl doesn’t put much faith in Stirling,” he murmured.

  “She thinks doctors are narrow and blind. She says they use knives when they ought not to, Clive. And lots of then pills and medicines are just superstitions.”

  “Do you think that?” said Clive.

  Laila threw back her head. Her eyes were perfectly innocent. “Jonas died,” she said.

  Clive dropped back beside her and put his head in his hands. It wouldn’t be hard to sway her. Not hard at all.

  “You are upset, Clive, I can tell,” she said kindly. Laila rose in her fluid grace. “But Pearl will know.”

  Suddenly Clive could not bear to let her run and tell.

  “Pearl must take you to the hospital,” he said flatly.

  Laila turned, light as air. “I don’t understand, Clive.”

  “Honey, you can’t ask Pearl to bide you from the police.”

  “I … I wasn’t.… What do you mean?”

  “If she finds out about that broadcast and she doesn’t take you back, why she may be letting herself in for trouble.”

  Laila’s face was flushing. “I wasn’t thinking,” she said in a low voice. She sat down. “I understand. I never think. Pearl will want to take me to the sea, where I want so much to go. But I must not let her, must I? I must not be trouble. I must learn that.”

  Clive shifted and cleared his throat.

  “I would have put it all on Pearl,” Laila said in a sad voice. “Will I always be a nuisance, Clive? Will I ever begin to think? For myself?”

  “Someday you’ll kinda have to …” Clive muttered.

  “That’s what Andrew said.”

  Clive gnawed his mouth. “If Pearl didn’t know,” he murmured, “nobody could blame her if she hadn’t heard.…”

  “If we don’t tell her at all!” Laila raised her clasped hands. “Then she will take me as she plans.”

  “Well,” he said, “it looks to me like that’s the only way to make it your own decision.”

  Her head tilted proudly. Then she turned on him that naked gaze. “But won’t you be in trouble, then?” asked Laila with searing kindness.

  He writhed. “Oh I … I could just be out of it. You could keep me out of it, that’s all. It won’t work, though, honey. I just happened to think … Pearl’s got a radio in her car.”

  “I know,” Laila’s eyes implored him.“I don’t understand radios, do you, Clive?”

  He couldn’t look at her.

  “Clive, must I decide to go back? When I don’t want to?”

  He heard himself muttering craftily. “You actually saw Stirling use a hypodermic the day Jonas died …?”

  Laila gave him one tearful look, put her hands over her face and began to cry. “I wish I was home again. Wish I was home. I’m afraid. I’m afraid. I’m afraid. I don’t understand it. I am not ill at all. I only want to go with Pearl to the sea, and be quiet. Oh, I wish I could go into the sea and cross the sea and be home and never come back and never come back.…”

  He stared at her black head. He felt pity.

  “Clive, you’ve been so good and kind. Is there no way?”

  He said, with a sudden release, as if he saw in some crooked corner of his soul, the way to be kindest of all. “Maybe I could. If I could fix that radio in her car so it won’t play.…”

  “Oh, please!” cried Laila.

  He said, “I will if you say so. But honey, you’ve got to promise me … if you should start feeling bad.…”

  “How could that be?” she cried impatiently.

  He knew how it could be. He sat there with that quaking going on inside of him. It was madness to be kind to Laila, now.

  Laila said, “Andrew was right. I must look after myself. But I don’t know how to … to fix a radio. Clive, if you will do that much for me, truly, I’ll never tell.” She looked earnestly into his face. “You do trust me?”

  Squinting against the light in her eyes that he could not meet,
Clive said solemnly, “Of course I do.”

  CHAPTER 10

  When Pearl Dean, carrying her black suitcase, crossed the yard with Estelle fluttering after, Clive stepped to take the suitcase. “Miss Dean, Laila wants to ride in the trailer. It might not be a bad idea.”

  The bare dome of Pearl’s forehead creased faintly. “It’s not a comfortable way to travel, pet.”

  “Oh, Pearl, please!” Laila was standing in the trailer’s door. “It’s so darling inside, a baby house. Shall I put the suitcase under the cupboard?” She vanished.

  Clive said hoarsely, “It won’t make much difference. Even if she is hidden, the cops will pick you up as soon as they’re told she’s with you.”

  The big woman turned. “You mentioned this before. Why do you say ‘cops’?”

  “Don’t you realize? Dee, and especially Dr. Stirling, will try everything to find her.”

  “Not when they know she is with me,” said Pearl regally.

  “You don’t think so?” said Clive.

  “What have they said about me?” Pearl was instantly suspicious.

  Clive squirmed. “I hate to say this. It could be that Dr. Stirling won’t think you’re very good for Laila.”

  The woman swelled with a vision of future anger. “If they do that,” she said, containing her anger, keeping her voice low so that it would not carry through the thin tin walls of the trailer, “then I shall raise, I promise you, such a row as was never seen before. The law is the law, but it is supposed to protect this child, not persecute her. If Dr. Stirling dares set police on me and subjects this brokenhearted girl to any such brutal and bruising experience, I shall then fight him for her custody in every way I know.” She panted heavily. “He will not dare,” she said at last.

  “Pearl?” Laila, lips parted, stood in the door. “May I? Please. It’s so cozy and small.…”

  Pearl’s face was grim. “As you wish, little darling,” she said gently. “Come, then, in with you. Quickly. Be happy, Laila. I shall drive slowly.”

  Pearl closed the trailer’s door. “One hour,” she said to Estelle and Estelle cocked her head at her wristwatch. “I wish no clash. Better, far better, to avoid a clash. We must not tear that child to pieces between us. But once I am away, they know not where, then the gauntlet is thrown. Do you see?” She didn’t listen to Clive’s answer, which barely came. “Yes, I shall go, peacefully, ostensibly alone, for the one hour. After that, when they know I have her, let them dare!”