Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [7]
Mildred closed her eyes and listened, and Mr. Pierce sucked his pipe, and put in melancholy remarks of his own. It was all about Mrs. Biederhof, and in a way this was a relief. But then a sense of vague apprehension stirred within her. This evening, she knew, was important, for what was said now would be written indelibly on the record. For the children's sake, if no other, it was vital that she give no word of false testimony, or omit words essential to a fair report, or in any way leave a suspicion of untruthfulness. Also, she felt a growing annoyance at the facile way in which everything was being blamed on a woman who really had very little to do with it. She let Mom run down, and after a long silence, said: "It's not Mrs. Biederhof."
"Who is it, then?"
"It's a whole lot of things, and if they hadn't happened, Bert wouldn't any more have looked at her than he would have looked at an Eskimo woman. It's—what happened to Bert's business. And the awful time we had getting along. And the way Bert got fed up. And—"
"You mean to tell me this is Bert's fault?"
Mildred waited a minute, for fear the rasp in Mom's voice would find an answering rasp in her own. Then she said: "I don't say it was anybody's fault, unless it was the Depression's fault, and certainly Bert couldn't help that." She stopped, then doggedly plowed on with what she dreaded, and yet felt had to be said: "But I might as well tell you, Bert wasn't the only one that got fed up. I got fed up too. He didn't start this thing today. I did."
"You mean—you put Bert out?"
The rasp in Mom's voice was so pronounced now, her refusal to admit basic realities so infuriating, that Mildred didn't trust herself to speak at all. It was only after Mr. Pierce had interposed, and a cooling five minutes had passed, that she said: "It had to come."
"It certainly did have to come if you went and put that poor boy out. I never heard of such a thing in my life. Where's he at now?"
"I don't know."
"And it's not even your house."
"It'll be the bank's house pretty soon if I don't find a way to raise the interest money."
When Mom replied to that, Mr. Pierce quickly shushed her down, and Mildred smiled sourly to herself that the barest mention of interest money meant a rapid change of subject. Mr. Pierce returned to Mrs. Biederhof, and Mildred thought it diplomatic to chime in: "I'm not defending her for a minute. And I'm not blaming Bert. All I'm trying to say is that what had to come had to come, and if it came today, and I was the one that brought it on, it was better than having it come later, when there would have been still more hard feelings about it."
Mom said nothing, but the swing continued to squeak. Mr. Pierce said the Depression had certainly hit a lot of people hard. Mildred waited a minute or two, so her departure wouldn't seem quite so pointed, then said she had to be getting the children home. Mr. Pierce saw her to the door, but didn't offer a ride. Falteringly, he said: "You need anything right now, Mildred?"
"Not yet a while, thanks."
"I sure am sorry."
"What had to come had to come."
"Goodnight, Mildred."
Shooing the children along, Mildred felt a hot resentment against the pair she had just left, not only for their complete failure to get the point, but also for their stingy ignoring of the plight she was in, and the possibility that their grandchildren, for all they knew, might not have anything to eat. As she turned into Pierce Drive the night chill settled down, and she felt cold, and swallowed quickly to get rid of a forlorn feeling in her throat.
After putting the children to bed she went to the living room, pulled a chair to the window, and sat there in the dark looking out at the familiar scene, trying to shake off the melancholy that was creeping over her. Then she went to the bedroom and turned on the light. It was the first time she had slept here since Bert started his attentions to Mrs. Biederhof; for several months, now, she had been sleeping in the children's room, where she had moved one of