She sat down on a white leather sofa, drawing her legs up under her, while he went to the table and poured a martini from the pitcher. After adding an olive, he went and sat beside her on the sofa, half-turned to face her directly.
“What did Nettie want, exactly?” she asked.
“I got the impression that she wanted to accuse me of making things difficult in your little family.”
“That’s absurd. Cory doesn’t suspect a thing. You’re just a good neighbor, darling.”
“Oh, it apparently has nothing to do with you and me. It’s strictly between Cory and Nettie. She hates him, you know.”
“I know. But how are you involved?”
“I’m not really. Nettie only thinks I am. She has a wild notion that I have somehow contributed to the hostility.”
“I’ve sometimes felt myself that you incite Nettie to be a little more intractable than she might otherwise be.”
“Not intentionally, I assure you. If I’m an innocent but unfortunate catalyst of some kind, perhaps the solution would be for me to stay away. Is that what you want?”
“No. I couldn’t bear that. The truth is, I should never have married Cory.”
“Of course you shouldn’t have. You should have waited and married me.”
“Darling, I hope you don’t mind being next.”
“Not I. I’m planning on it. First, however, there’s the small matter of a divorce. Preferably obtained by you on favorable grounds.”
She leaned over and kissed him, and he patted one of her exposed butterscotch knees and continued to cup it intimately in his hand after the kiss was finished.
“I don’t think that will be a prolonged problem,” she said. “Nettie’s taking care of it.”
“Is the feeling between Nettie and Cory actually so strong?”
“Stronger. She hates him intensely, and he, for his part, is afraid of her.”
“Afraid of a child? You must be exaggerating.”
“I’m not. She threatened to kill him the other night.”
“When I was a kid, as I recall, I threatened to kill several people at various times. It’s merely a manner of expression.”
“Nettie is no ordinary child. If she made her threats in a fit of hysterical anger, you could discount them. But she doesn’t. She is perfectly calm and deadly. It’s quite frightening, really, and I can’t say that I blame Cory for being impressed. He wants to send her off to school.”
“Will you permit it?”
“No. Cory and I have had an ugly scene about it.”
“I still say that there’s something ludicrous about a man being afraid of a young girl.”
“Nevertheless, the relationship between them has become almost intolerable. Be patient a little longer, darling. Nettie will solve our problem for us in good time.”
“You think she’ll force a separation?”
“Yes. And a divorce will follow. No one can blame a mother for refusing to desert her child.”
“Where is Cory now?”
“He drove into the village. He should be back any moment.”
“Too bad. I was hoping for a little more free time. Oh, well, everything in its own time and place, I suppose. How about another martini now?”
She held out her glass, and he carried it and his over to the table. Bending slightly over the pitcher as he poured, his eyes had a speculative expression, as if he were considering an idea hitherto neglected.
* * * *
There was a knock on the door of her room, and Stella, without turning away from her reflection in the mirror of her dressing table, called out an invitation to enter. In the glass, she watched the door open and Cory come in. He closed the door and leaned against it, both hands clutching the knob behind him. He was a small man with fine blond hair brushed neatly from the side across a thin spot on the crown. In her year of marriage to him, Stella had learned that he was, although generous and kind, a man of precarious disposition, subject to a kind of irrational and free-floating anxiety. In his eyes now, as he looked across the room to intercept in glass her reflected observation of him, there were shadows of worry.
“Come in, darling,” she said, still not turning. “I’ve been having a nap. Is it getting quite late?”
“Not late.” He left the door and came over to sit on the edge of the bed, her eyes following him in the mirror. “About five.”
“That’s all right, then. Dinner’s early tonight, but we’ll have plenty of time for cocktails.”
She began again to brush her hair, interrupted by his entrance, and she picked up the count immediately where she had left it, forming the sounds of the numbers with her lips in a rather absurd little ritual, as though a few strokes more or less made any difference. But it created diversion.
“Have you had the .22?” he asked abruptly.
“The what?”
“The .22 caliber rifle. It was in the rack in the library.”
“Of course not. You know that I never touch your firearms.”
“It’s gone.”
“Are you sure you didn’t take it out and leave it lying somewhere? You must admit, Cory, that you’re rather forgetful.”
“I haven’t touched it in weeks. I thought you might have loaned it to Gavin or someone.”
“Well, I didn’t. I wouldn’t loan your rifle to Gavin or anyone else.”
“Someone has taken it. I wonder who.”
“Nonsense.” She laid her brush on the dressing table and spun half around, back to the glass, to look at him directly. “Be reasonable, Cory. Who on earth would take your rifle?”
“Someone.” His voice had suddenly a petulant, fearful quality. “Where’s Nettie?”
“She’s in her room, I think. Why? Surely you don’t suspect Nettie of taking your rifle.”
“It would do no harm to ask her.”
“On the contrary, it might do a great deal of harm. The constant tension between you and Nettie is becoming unendurable.”
“Am I to blame? I’ve done everything possible to make myself acceptable to her.”
“She resented our marriage. You will simply have to be patient with her.”
“My patience is rather strained these days. Nettie should go away to school. It would give her a chance to adjust.”
“We’ve been over that. It would simply be evading
