Seed on the Wind

He stood an instant, intently and silently regarding her, then turned abruptly and started for the vestibule, and she followed. “You wouldn’t like my room,” he went on, as he got into his coat, “it smells of garlic, I think they must have rubbed it into the walls. Besides, it’s barely possible we might be interrupted. There seems to be a lot of extra keys.”

“Oh. Well... somewhere else then...”

“No, it will be all right, we’ll barricade the damn thing. But I’d better meet you at Grand Central. Around three, in the waiting room?”

He was on the terrace, and she was standing on the threshold of the open door. She nodded.

“Yes. A little after.”

XVIII

Breakfast was over, and Lillian was clearing the table. Roy and Panther and Morris had departed for school. Ordinarily, at this juncture, Lora went upstairs to make the beds in her room and Morris’s and Julian’s, for Lillian couldn’t do everything, and Lora preferred to take a share of the work for herself rather than bother with a second maid. Roy and Panther made up their own beds and tidied up their rooms before coming down to breakfast. After the bed-making and a few miscellaneous chores Lora would usually select one room, downstairs or up, for a thorough going-over; she had no schedule for this, but followed her fancy and the pressure of circumstances. The living room and the kitchen were the only ones left to Lillian. Lora didn’t mind her household tasks; quite the contrary; she went about them rapidly and methodically and effectively and was always finished by the time the children arrived for lunch. Julian would usually help her with the beds, standing on one side and smoothing and straightening each cover as she manipulated it into place; sometimes she would flip a sheet right over his head, making a tent-pole of him, and he would shout with glee, jerking his arms frantically up and down; the sheet had become an ocean and he was making waves. Morris had taught him how.

But this morning Lora put Julian’s sweater on him and sent him outdoors to Stan. She wanted to be alone; she didn’t feel like making oceans out of sheets. Indeed there was a doubt whether she would ever feel like that again; it seemed to her improbable. But everything seemed improbable, the past as well as the present. During the night she had dreamed of her father lying on the floor with a hole in his head and blood coming out of it; her mother stood beside him with lowered head, and when Lora asked her why she didn’t cry and her mother lifted her head Lora saw that she had no face to cry with. Nevertheless she knew it was her mother. The dream had been very vivid when she awoke; now it was receding into vagueness. She wished she had asked Pete whether her father had actually shot himself in the head.

She was going to Pete. Or was she? Yes. He could have had her last night if he had held her down a moment when she slipped out from under his hands, out of the chair. She had got away by a miracle, not wanting to get away at all; and then had surrendered. Not, not surrender, it was no triumph for him, it was what she wanted that mattered, and that was plain enough. She wanted to say again the strong short words he had taught her so long ago, she wanted to do all those things again, she wanted to feel him and make him feel her; it was an inescapable necessity. She whispered the words to herself, one after the other, all she could remember of them, but they weren’t right that way, though they did quicken her blood a little and bring a flush to her face; with him, saying and doing them at once, there was something indescribably exciting about them, about all that business...

Arranging the things on Morris’s little desk, she saw that her hands were unsteady. Good lord, she thought scornfully, you might think I was a schoolgirl bride, I can wait till I get there, can’t I?

She must ask Pete about her father, to see if her dream was right. Anyway she wanted to know. Perhaps he couldn’t tell her. She could write to Cecelia, or her mother... no, not her mother...

Pete was to telephone Lewis this morning, to make an appointment to arrange about the money. If the appointment was this afternoon or this evening — but it wouldn’t be, for he was just as anxious as she was. She knew the signs in men much better than she had twelve years ago. Ha, that would be one for you! Pete would get the money from Lewis and carry her off with it; they would go somewhere, anywhere. Lewis would have plenty of sons on his hands then. Albert would probably take Panther... But that brought a smile. She could hardly imagine Albert taking Panther; or, if he did, poor Panther would have a time of it. Lewis would take all of them, draw up contracts, probably...