Show 4 no DIV GWEN ft altie STORY THUS FAR spratt herlong a motion picture producer had married elizabeth alter after he her r first husband was reportedly killed in W world orld war L I 1 they had three children dick cherry and brian dick was 17 and would soon be available tor for service whenever elizabeth thought of dick entering the service the old agony of her first husbands death would return she was determined to face ace it bravely returning from a luncheon appointment with her husband elizabeth lound found cherry dick and their friends julia and pudge at the swimming pool cherry and dick shook down some lemons and brought them into the house to make some ade CHAPTER III in one corner stood her radio so she could listen to the programs she 61 W zed ed without interruption and in anler anjier corner the desk and wastebasket that spratt called her office since it was there that she wrote letters paid bills jotted household memoranda and took care of the various other tasks that had to be performed with pen and paper by a window was her chaise longue and on the table beside it lay the book she was reading her cigarettes a desk calendar her private telephone and notebook of unlisted numbers though the windows were usually open her room always had a faint fragrance of its own compounded co m of toilet soap and the lotions she used to protect her skin from the dryness of the air when j ever she came inside and the fa scent greeted her elizabeth felt delightfully welcome for a moment she stood turning the radio knob the radio mourned that there were no flowers in its garden of love offered her a remedy for acid indigestion and inquired persuasively if she was troubled by nagging pains in the small of her back with a wrinkling of her nose elizabeth switched off the voices and decided to read until it was time to get out the makings of the dinner cocktails if she started now she could probably finish her novel stretching out on the chaise longue she took up the book and found the place where she had left off last night it was not an intellectual treat but it was interesting after reading AU all this and heaven too she had learned that the english C 17 7 author luthor who wrote under the pseudo ym rm of joseph shearing had published several years before another version of the praslin braslin murder and elizabeth was wen well enough acquainted with the sinister shearing heroines to be sure that the governess as portrayed here would not be a fit companion for children she had not been disappointed having begun an e vil evil career on page one the damsel was now behaving most wickedly demure in her bonnet and shawl while she dreamed up yet more sins absorbed in the ladys iniquity she was annoyed when she heard the buzz of her telephone this phone was not connected with the others in the house and its number was known only to her best friends so the call could be tor for nobody but herself she pulled her attention a jut ut of the book put her cigarette into the ashtray and reached reluctantly for the phone voice greeted her elizabeth are we having anybody to dinner tomorrow night no do you want to bring in somebody kessler ive just been talking to him hes got an idea for clearing up this story so dont have anybody else around I 1 want to go into it with him after dinner all tell him tomorrow at seven thirty has he got hollywood ulcers or aan can he eat anything he can eat anything so far as I 1 know ihnow but remember what I 1 told you only one hand have something that wont be JQ awkward oh yea im glad you reminded me soup to ta tart start with and what about chicken patties then he wont have to use a knife and fork at once sounds fine to me and one thing more has he got abife a wife or anything that I 1 should call up and invite with him no wife come to think ot of it though I 1 did hear him mention a daughter but I 1 dont know how old she is ill find out if ashes grown and let you know better tell dick to stay around and take her out of the way after dinner so kessler and I 1 can talk oh dear exclaimed elizabeth oh dear does the girl speak english ive no idea spratt laughed penitently tell him my heart bleeds for him but this is the way I 1 make a living for my family and theres no way out better start your heart bleeding for me im the one have to break the news to him all ali right ill do my best dinner dick and everything 1 I know you will ive got to go now three people waiting for me thanks said spratt and hung up elizabeth screwed up her face as she reached for her desk calendar to make a note of tomorrows dinner she did not mind it for she was used to entertaining colleagues but she felt sorry for dick he could take the girl to a show if she understood the language well enough she ought to spratt had said something at lunch about kesslere Kess lers having been two or three years in this country elizabeth hoped miss kessler would at least be pretty flipping the leaves of the calendar she tried to remember what the date was sunday monday tuesday today was monday so here was the page for tomorrow blank but for a note reminding herself of an appointment with the hairdresser she was scribbling kessler to dinner when the date at the bottom of the page leaped up at her and struck her and glared at her and made her start backward to put the calendar down quickly but she could still see the date and she put her arm over her eyes as though by doing that she could shut it out of sight of her mind october 6 1942 her imagination was making such a fierce effort to adjust itself that even with her eyes covered she could still see it october 6 1942 for though the figures did not resemble each other there had been a fraction of a second when by some trick of the light or of her own mind it had looked like october 6 1918 and now all her power of will and reason was insufficient to hold her back from the shadow into which she was slipping into which she still went down once every two or three years in spite of her full life and happy marriage impelled each time by some trivial incident that had no connection with the pain it brought october 6 1942 october 6 1918 twenty four years she tried to stop it but nothing she had learned in her lifetime could stop this darkness once it began to close around her she was remembering that day and nothing she could do or think of could make her stop remembering it was just about this time in the afternoon and the autumn sun coming in by the front door glittered through the hall and fell on the yellow telegram she held in her hand with its letters blue black against the shining sheet of paper re grets to inform you sergeant arthur kittredge killed there was no reason for this ellzabeth elizabeth was telling herself angrily she had fought and conquered it years ago she had rebuilt her life in the knowledge that she had conquered it she was a perfectly rational woman and a very happy one there was no reason why every now and then some incident of no importance should strike her down and leave her as she was now quivering under an assault of pain lying on the chaise longue her arms crossed over her eyes and her hands pressing against her temples she fought it with au all the strength she had but 4 A I 1 t k and then she saw that it came from the war department it did no good and she had known it would not she might as well have tried to argue with an earthquake as with these rare but terrible re livings of the days when she had been put to the torture every time she thought it would be the last but a year later or two or three years later some occurrence too small to be otherwise noticed would stir up the fire that she had been so sure was finally out there was no escaping it that day came back as it had been that day and not this that she was living in im it was such a cool shining day the trees reddening and it seemed that nearly every house in tulsa had a flag rippling from its front porch after spending the day rolling bandages at the red cross headquarters elizabeth came home with her knit ting bag on her arm there was very little she could do to win the war but lt if knitting sweaters and rolling miles of bandage was of any value she was glad to do it anything that might shorten the war by five minutes would bring arthur back that much sooner and for five minutes more of his presence she would give up all the years she had to spend without him she ran up the steps singing it was a silly song but everybody was singing it about that time id like to see the kaiser with a lily in his hand their little house welcomed her brightly as she ran in she and arthur had lived here for the year before he went to the army and she now shared it with a girl friend who was releasing a man for war by working for the telephone company As she opened the door the sun fell I 1 in a long rectangle on the floor of the hall dropping her knitting bag on a chair elizabeth turned by eager habit to look at the table where the colored maid always put the mail arthur wrote her often but the ships from france were noi not regular sometimes she would go weeks without a letter and then get a pile of them at once wonderful letters he wrote mirthful even in the blood and dirt of the trenches telling her very little about the awfulness of the war but describing every amusing incident he had observed and only now and then changing to wistfulness when he told her how much he missed her only once when she wrote to him saying the war could not be only what he told her he answered please elizabeth dont ask me to write about what ive seen when I 1 write to to you I 1 can forget for awhile that ive seen it let me keep it like that I 1 love you so you got any new pictures of yourself she sent the pictures but never suggested again that he write her anything but what he wanted to there were no letters on the table today nothing but the telegram she picked it up and slit it open wondering vaguely who could have anything to say to her important enough to be sent by wire and then she saw that it came from the war department part ment the message was mercifully brief it merely told her that arthur was dead she did not know then that he had died of wounds received at chateau thierry they told her that later in a letter from the red cross she did not understand even the little they had told her she stood still staring at the sheet of paper in her hand all her instincts of self protection rising up to prevent her understanding what it said it enough to have lived through this once twice ten times elizabeth tried to think of something else tried so hard that the palms of her hands were damp with the ff effort lurt but she lived through I 1 it again helplessly she folded up the telegram and put it into her purse she picked up a vase of flowers on the table and straightened the cloth under it looked at the picture on the cover of a magazine lying near by brushed a speck of dust from a chair picked up her knitting bag and went upstairs to the bedroom she had shared with arthur before he joined the army the windows were open to the afternoon sun arthur had said lets find a house that has the bed room on the west side theres no sense in inviting the sun to come in and wake us up at four or five all summer long any time we have to get up at dawn we can use an alarm clock so why not let ourselves sleep late when we have a chance elizabeth had never thought about it but once he called her attention to it she wondered why everybody make allowance for such an obvious fact it was odd she had thought at first that arthur should be so much interested in dwellings for he knew nothing about architecture he be was a research chemist employed by one of the oil companies but arthur was interested in everything he had never been bored in his life and never understood how anybody could be with a perpetually fascinating world to be enjoyed and the longest lifetime too short to enjoy all of it even in this ordinary little house he had arranged their room perfectly the bookshelves within reach of the bed the light excellently placed tor for reading her dressing table be tween the windows the lon long mirror so she could see herself from hat to shoes when she got dressed you have s such u ch fine ankles he said to herb her imagine your having to dress in a room where you a chance to see whether or not your stockings are on straight he had planned everything for her she had let him do it without realizing that sin since ce they could not afford everything he would get what she needed and take what was left so she had not noticed until later that his ing glass did not turn properly and he had to stretch his neck to get at those hairs around the angle of his chin she was saving part of her army allowance now to buy him a new mirror when he came back and a better light for his writing table though she was going to let him pick out the latter for himself arthur was not thank heaven a sentimental ti timen lal goose he might 0 have worn wom a hideous necktie if she had given him one but if she should give him an inadequate gadget for his work he would not use it any longer than it took to buy a better one so she was going to give him the money she had saved for the lamp and let him select it as soon as he came back and got to work again A hundred hammers started to beat on her head she dropped her knitting bag in the middle of the floor and grabbed at the catch ot of her purse to get out that thing inside which she seemed to remember had said what it could not possibly say but it did say just what she recalled it told her arthur was dead then all of a sudden sadden she knew what had happened the purse dropped out of her hand and fell softly on the half made army sweater that was tumbling out of her bag the telegram dropped with it and a little wind from outside picked it up and began blowing it merrily around the room her legs went down lille like strips of macaroni she caught at the nearest solid object which happened to be the bed and then at the nearest object on that which happened to be a pillow and she clamped the corner comer of the pillow between her teeth and heard herself making fierce choking noises down in her throat like an animal strangling at first she was not thinking of anything the world was simply full of a wild pain that had clamped on her and crushed out of her everything but consciousness of the pain itsell itself then after awhile she began to recall everything she had read or heard about what those explosions did to men in battle she wondered if it had hurt him very much it did not seem possible that anything could have hurt him he was never sick he never complained of anything arthur was strong as an athlete she could remember his arms around her and herself saying arthur youre hurting mel me and when he said im sorry dearest and relaxed his grip she was sorry she had spoken none of this was possible to understand that any man so alive could be blown out like a match could be annihilated TO BE CONTINUED Z SS 17 I 1 |