Reflections in a Golden Eye - Carson McCullers [11]
'Weldon!' called out the Major suddenly, 'your wife is cheating! She peeked under the card to find if she wanted it.'
'No, I didn't. You caught me before I had a chance to see it. What have you got there?'
'I'm surprised at you, Moms,' said Captain Penderton. 'Don't you know you can never trust a woman at cards?'
Mrs. Langdon watched this friendly badinage with an on the defensive expression that is often seen in the eyes of persons who have been ill for a long time and dependent upon the thoughtfulness, or negligence, of others. Since the night she had rushed home and hurt herself, she had felt in her a constant, nauseous shame. She was sure that everyone who looked at her must be thinking of what she had done. But as a matter of fact the scandal had been kept quite secret; besides those in the room only the doctor and the nurse knew what had happened and the young Filipino servant who had been with Mrs. Langdon since he was seventeen years old and who adored her. Now she stopped knitting and put the tips of her fingers to her cheekbones. She knew that she should get up and leave the room, and break with her husband altogether. But lately she had been overcome by a terrible helplessness. And where on earth would she go? When she tried to think ahead, weird fancies crept into her mind and she was beset by a number of nervous compulsions. It had come to the point where she feared her own self as much as she feared others. And all the time, unable to break away, she had the feeling that some great disaster was in wait for her.
'What's the matter, Alison?' Leonora asked. 'Are you hungry? There's some sliced chicken in the icebox.' For the past few months Leonora often addressed Mrs. Langdon in a curious manner. She worked her mouth exaggeratedly to form the words and spoke in the careful and reasonable voice that one would use when addressing an abject idiot. 'Both white meat and dark. Very good. Mmmmh?'
'No, thank you.'
'Are you sure, darling?' the Major asked. 'You don't want anything?'
'I'm quite all right. But would you mind ? Don't tap your heel like that on the floor. It bothers me.'
'I beg your pardon.'
The Major took his legs from under the table and crossed them sideways in his chair. On the surface the Major naively believed that his wife knew nothing about his affair. However, this soothing thought had become increasingly more difficult for him to hold on to; the strain of not realizing the truth had given him hemorrhoids and had almost upset his good digestion. He tried, and succeeded, in looking on her obvious unhappiness as something morbid and female, altogether outside his control. He remembered an incident that had happened soon after they were married. He had taken Alison out quail shooting and, although she had done target practice, she had never been hunting before. They had flushed a covey and he remembered still the pattern of the flying birds against the winter sunset. As he was watching Alison, he had only brought down one quail, and that one he insisted gallantly was hers. But when she took the bird from the dog's mouth, her face had changed. The bird was still living, so he brained it carelessly and then gave it back to her. She held the little warm, ruffled body that had somehow become degraded in its fall, and looked into the dead little glassy black eyes. Then she had burst into tears. That was the sort of thing the Major meant by 'female' and 'morbid'; and it did a man no good to try to figure it all out. Also, when the Major was