Hilary’s brow darkened, but very effortfully. “I thought if you were sick you wouldn’t want to be bothered so I was going to say you were out.”
“But then when . . .” It wasn’t worth it, not with Hilary. Congestion in her lungs, Wimple had said; was that the pressure she felt low between her shoulder-blades, like a balled fist driving in? She could understand Cornelia’s submissiveness now. “Is there anything you’d like before I lie down for a while?”
“Lena’s here,” said Hilary contentedly, and then as Margaret reached the door, “Do you really think Cornelia’s sick again?”
In some way the question completely undid Margaret, or perhaps the full realization of Cornelia’s situation hadn’t penetrated before. She said with unaccustomed gentleness, “No. She’s fine. She’ll be—home soon,” and escaped before Hilary could see her cry.
The bending of her mouth into tears was nonsense, and she blew her nose fiercely, swallowed another aspirin with difficulty, and lay down to huddle under her coverlet again. Instinct told her not to get undressed and between the sheets her body longed for. You were so helpless in a nightgown.
Not that she could help anyway. Even if she and Hilary weren’t sick, even if she didn’t have to monitor the telephone for a possible call from Cornelia, she had no car and only a limited amount of funds. Given both, she was completely lost in a strange part of the country. She had heard vaguely about the immensity of the Southwest, but it took maps and mileage distances to give even a small indication of the vastness.
But if Cornelia died, she would always wonder what it was that she had left undone.
She lay quietly, breathing shallowly over the pain in her back, and gradually Cornelia presented herself in the short ice-green silk dress and wreath of pale pink roses she had worn as flower girl at the wedding of somebody or other. She had a Dutch bob, like a lot of children her age, but hers was shiningly fair. She was endearingly plump; Margaret, inheriting the dress, had looked like a twig in a tent.
Bangs, plumpness . . . Cornelia turned disconcertingly into Mrs. Foale, saying beseechingly, “No, don’t— don’t. . .”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Lena apologetically, “but I brought the newspaper, and I have to go now.”
The high windows behind the dimity curtains were almost dark. Margaret struggled awake, caught in the half-panic of her dream, and said, “Lena, you couldn’t possibly stay tonight? Not to do anything, just so there’d be someone in the house?”
Lena was sorry, but she was taking care of her sister’s children while her sister was in Juarez.
The darkening windows should not have struck her with such dread. “Is there someone else you know of, who might come in just for the night?”
Lena thought, and shook her small neat head regretfully. She said she had given Hilary her dinner; would Margaret like something before she left?
Dinner. Margaret thought a little wildly of the Frenchman who, queried as to whether he had lunched while crossing the English Channel, had replied, “Am contraire.” She said she would get something later, and went with Lena to the door.
She hadn’t realized, until the house closed silently in around her and Hilary, how comforting the girl’s presence had been. The details of her dream had vanished but the dangerous atmosphere remained, almost bewitched, as though the night-blackened windows and door panels, the shadowy vigas, the great areas of darkness left by thrifty Lena, would be willing props for a re-enactment; were, in fact, waiting.
Drivenly, feeling as vulnerable on all sides as on the night Julio Garcia had gone weaving off into the dark, Margaret switched on lamps, took another of her capsules and settled down to wait.
Even with her whole being concentrated on the telephone she made herself comb the newspaper for any mention of Garcia. There was none. He had apparently been in trouble locally before, and certainly on his first appearance at the house he had been drinking heavily. His wavy stance, his shiny eyes and heavy breathing, his slurry words: “Missa Foale . . .”
Mrs. Foale? Or Mr. Foale, the only designation he could find for Philip?
Chances were the police would assume a brawl, in the course of which somebody had produced a gun, at some time before the hit-and-run accident. And it was just possible, Margaret reminded herself, staring blindly at the newspaper, listening for the telephone. It was possible, too, that both of Philip’s previous wives had died of natural causes, that he had no designs on Cornelia’s life, that they would both drive up in a day or two, tanned and rested and cheerful.
Tomorrow, she realized shockedly, gazing at the paper’s date. Philip, waving from the driveway, had called, “See you on the twentieth,” and tomorrow was the twentieth.
Wasn’t this when it would happen, if it were going to happen? The vacation as planned, interrupted by tragedy just as the happy couple neared home: it appeared in the newspapers so often that it bore the stamp of truth.
The telephone rang, and Margaret reached it before it could ring again.
Fourteen
CORNELIA and Philip had registered at the Alvarado less than an hour ago. The desk man had told Kincaid that he believed Mrs. Byrne was lying down in her room, but after a brief off-telephone conversation with somebody else it was established that the Byrnes had gone out to dinner. After consideration, Kincaid had not left a message; instead, he had gotten a list of dining places from the desk man. Stagerock wasn’t large, and the list was short. He was about to start calling, but had wanted to let Margaret know.
Leaning on the pantry counter, she felt spineless and light-headed with relief. The mere fact that Philip had taken
