Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [104]
By now the reality behind this visit was beginning to dawn on Mildred, and she became calm, cold, calculating. Looking up, she saw Arline at her dusting again, her ears bigger than ever. Calling her, she told her to straighten the chairs at the next table, and as she approached, turned pleasantly to Mrs. Lenhardt. "I beg your pardon. For a moment I wasn't listening."
Mrs. Lenhardt's voice rose to a scream. "I say if there are any more threats, any more officers at my door, any more of these tricks she's been playing—I shall have her arrested, I shall have her prosecuted for blackmail, I shall not hesitate for one moment, for I've quite reached the limit of my patience!"
Mrs. Lenhardt, after panting a moment, got up and swept out. Mildred looked at Arline. "Did you hear what she said?"
"I wasn't listening, Mrs. Pierce."
"I asked if you heard what she said?"
Arline studied Mildred for a cue. Then: "She said Veda was trying to blackmail her boy into marrying her and if she kept it up she'd have the law on her."
"Remember that, in case I need you."
"Yes'm."
That night Mildred didn't go to Laguna or to Beverly. She stayed home, tramping around, tortured by the fear that Arline had probably told everybody in the restaurant by now, by uncertainty as to what dreadful mess Veda had got herself into, by a sick, nauseating, physical jealousy that she couldn't fight down. At eleven, she went to her room and lay down, pulling a blanket over her but not taking off her clothes. Around one, when Veda's car zipped up the drive, she took no chances on a locked door, but jumped up and met Veda in the kitchen. "Mother! . . . My, how you startled me!"
"I'm sorry, darling. But I have to talk to you. Something has happened."
"Well—at least let me take off my hat."
Mildred went to the den, relieved that she had smelled no liquor. In a minute or two Veda came in, sat down, lit a cigarette, yawned. "Personally, I find pictures a bore, don't you? At least Nelson Eddy pictures. Still, I suppose it's not his fault, for it isn't how he sings but what he sings. And I suppose he has nothing to do with how dreadfully long they are."
Miserably, Mildred tried to think how to begin. In a low, timid voice, she said: "A Mrs. Lenhardt was in to see me today. A Mrs. John Lenhardt?"
"Oh, really?"
"She says you're engaged to marry her son, or have some idea you want to marry him, or—something."
"She's quite talkative. What else?"
"She opposes it."
In spite of her effort, Mildred had been unable to get started. Now she blurted out: "Darling, what was she talking about? What does it all mean?"
Veda smoked reflectively a few moments, then said, in her clear, suave way: "Well, it would be going too far to say it was my idea that Sam and I get married. After the big rush they gave me, with Pa breaking his neck to get me a screen test and Ma having me over morning, noon and night, and Sonny Boy phoning me, and writing me, and wiring me that if I didn't marry him he'd end his young life—you might say it was a conspiracy. Certainly I said nothing about it, or even thought about it, until it seemed advisable."
"What do you mean, advisable?"
"Well, Mother, he was certainly very sweet, or seemed so at any rate, and they were most encouraging, and I hadn't exactly been happy since—Hannen died. And Elaine did have a nice little apartment. And I was certainly most indiscreet. And then, after the big whoop-de-do, their whole attitude changed, alas. And here I am, holding the bag. One might almost say I was a bit of a sap."
If there was any pain, any tragic overtone, to this recital, it was not audible to the ordinary ear. It betrayed regret over folly, perhaps a little self-pity, but all of a casual kind. Mildred, however, wasn't interested in such subtleties. She had reached a point where she had to know one stark, basic fact. Sitting beside Veda, clutching her hand, she said: "Darling, I have to ask you something. I have to, I have