The Unsuspected by Charlotte Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page B

believed it?"
     
    "Yes," said Francis gently. "Yes, of course. But I didn't take it to him until late in February. You see, the news about your disappearance came while I was still at camp. I got out of there so fast the red tape is still bleeding where I cut it" He grinned.
     
    Her heart jumped. The grin was more terrifying than anything else he'd said or done, somehow. She realized that this was a man of great force, very much alive, a strong man, a consequential human factor. And here he was, claiming to have let his life and affairs
    revolve around her. Nor could she imagine any reason for it.
     
    "I was frantic. I couldn't find you. Look, Tyl," he said boyishly, "what else could I do? I had to go where Grandy was, because if by any miracle you did turn up, you'd let him know. And listen, my darling—"
     
    "I have been listening " said Mathilda. She raised her head. "Have I heard it all?" She stood up. "I don't know how you managed that letter," she said steadily, "but it's all lies, just the same." Fight him, her instinct said. "And I would like to see," she said boldly, "if you please, the man who married us."
     
    He had been watching her intently. Now, when she lashed out, he didn't flinch. Instead, his face softened. "Good," he said. "I'll have the bags sent over to the station. We may just have time."
     
    A maid in the corridor called her "Mrs. Howard." Mathilda stammered something. The clerk downstairs leaned across to say in a warm undertone, "Welcome back, Mrs. Howard."
     
    Francis led her across the lobby. He was looking down, smiling a little, a smile not exactly triumphant, but rather as if he hoped she wouldn't be angry that he was right.
     
    "You're very thorough," she said stiffly. But she was scared.
     
    The headwaiter?" he asked. "Shall we find him? Or shall we go into the bar?"
     
    "No," she said. "No more, not these. ... It was a minister?"
     
    "It was a minister."
     
    "I want to see him."
     
    "I'd better phone," he said, and left her. The lobby floor was billowing a little under her feet. She thought, He couldn't bribe a minister or make him lie.  
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
    When Grandy opened the door of his study to go forth, Jane could see from her desk down the long room to where Althea was languidly dusting the floor. Althea wore a blue denim coverall and her silver-blond hair was tied up in a blue scarf. She wore gloves—dainty ones, too—and now Jane saw her fold her hands around the handle of the dust mop and lean picturesquely on it. Althea dusting the living-room floor was something to watch, a picture. Althea made the most of her opportunities in Grandy's servantless house. She never missed an opportunity to be a picture.
     
    And Grandy, thought Jane, with his dramatic sense. It was like living in the middle of a movie all the time, to be in this house with the pair of them. The way he opened the door of the study. Not merely so that he could go through it into the next room. No, there had to be a flourish, a significant sweep. He opened the door as if he were blowing a fanfare for himself.
     
    "Mathilda is in New York," he chanted, "even now." He seemed to be tasting each word. "I spoke to her on the telephone." The way he said it, the warmth and wonder he could pour out with that voice of his, made you reflect what a miracle the telephone was, pay mental tribute to Alexander Graham Bell, realize the strides of modern civilization, all in a flash, and then go on to consider the infinite pathos of human affection, and, somehow or other, also the gallantry of the human spirit in die face of the infinite.
     
    Althea said, "Was Francis with her?" She had a clear, high voice. She articulated well through her pretty, small mouth, with a precise, rather strong-minded effect.
     
     Grandy put his ten fingertips together in pairs, tapped his mouth with the long triangle of his forefingers. "Oh, yes," he said, "and I think . . . spaghetti!" The lines around his eyes crinkled up