If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

6

BILL MACPHERSON HESITATED as he gazed through the windshield at his mother’s new home. “I didn’t expect to see so many cars here. Do you think I’m dressed properly for the occasion?” he whispered to his sister. He fingered his second-best necktie and attempted to look at his reflection in the rearview mirror of his car.

“Oh, I don’t think anyone will take much notice of you, Bill,” Elizabeth MacPherson murmured sweetly.

“That’s a great dress,” he said generously. “It looks like a party frock. It’s stylish. Basic black, right? I mean, it makes your point without being obtrusive.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “If you mean that I’m not wearing jet beads, elbow-length black gloves, and an opaque veil, then, yes, in a simple black dress I’m not being obtrusive. It doesn’t matter to me whether anyone knows that I’m wearing black for mourning. I know.”

“Sorry I mentioned it,” muttered Bill. “You won’t brood about it all evening, will you?”

“I never brood.” Elizabeth made a mental note to disparage Bill at her next session with Dr. Freya.

They had driven out from town to attend their mother’s Saturday dinner party at the home of her new roommate, Casey. Elizabeth had described it to Bill as a get-acquainted party, arranged to introduce Margaret MacPherson’s family to her new set of friends. She had not managed to be more specific than that about the nature of their mother’s new life, so Bill was happily unaware of anything unusual. He’s so amazingly dim in social matters that he may not even notice, Elizabeth told herself. She resolved to keep a watchful eye on him, though, for the duration of the evening.

Margaret MacPherson’s hand-drawn map had led them down a pleasant country road into the rolling green hills of the county, and finally up a long, graveled drive to a two-story white farmhouse, gleaming in the last rays of the evening sun. “This looks quite homey,” Bill remarked as he maneuvered the car onto the grass beside half a dozen vehicles belonging to the other dinner guests. “Very nice. Two women on a farm, managing on their own. Reminds me of a book by somebody or other.”

“D. H. Lawrence?” Elizabeth suggested.

“No, that wasn’t it,” said Bill, frowning with the effort of recollection. “I think it was a chapter in Huckleberry Finn. Or was it Anne of Green Gables?”

“Never mind,” said Elizabeth. “It isn’t a working farm, anyhow. Mother says they plan to have a small herb-and-vegetable garden, and maybe a few free-run chickens, but nothing in the way of major crops or livestock.”

“Good, because Mother never took any agriculture courses at the community college, did she? Just conversational Spanish and macramé.”

“I believe she’s been branching out lately,” murmured Elizabeth, thinking of the unfortunate white-water rafting episode the previous spring.

“But not into farming, I hope,” said Bill. “I was afraid that sooner or later we might be invited to a barn raising.”

“No,” said Elizabeth. “Since Phyllis Casey is an English professor, specializing in nineteenth-century literature, I doubt you’re qualified to give her any help whatsoever.”

They got out of the car and walked to the front porch. “Maybe we should have brought a house-warming gift,” Elizabeth murmured, with a last anxious glance at the lawn full of strange cars.

“I have some root beer in the trunk,” said Bill. “Some pork and beans, too. Actually, I forgot to unload the groceries this morning.”

Elizabeth shuddered. “Never mind. We’ll bring flowers next time.”

“Okay. Well, is there anything else I should know about this party?”

Elizabeth’s hand froze in midair on its way to the door knocker. “Why? What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know. Taboo subjects? Is the new roomie a Republican, or a vegetarian, or a fan of pro wrestling? Any conversational hints?”

His sister shrugged. “I’ve never met her,” she said truthfully. She hit the knocker against the brass plate. “You might not want to say anything caustic about k.d.lang. Otherwise, just be your usual charming self.”

Bill was still trying to place k.d.lang within the ranks of nineteenth-century authors when, moments later, the door opened, and a beaming Margaret MacPherson ushered them in. “Just in time!” she said. “The hors d’oeuvres have just come out of the oven. Come in and meet everybody.”

She led them into a cozy parlor with a freshly polished pine floor, overstuffed sofas covered in rose chintz, and a collection of large, well-tended plants, all of which were visible only in glimpses around various clumps of people. The guests were congregated in groups of three and four, laughing and talking over Celtic harp music in stereo, most of them holding glasses of white wine or balancing paper plates on their laps.

“Do you know anybody?” Bill whispered to Elizabeth.

“No,” she hissed back through an unmoving smile. “Just wing it.”

“There certainly are a lot of women here,” Bill muttered. “You don’t think Mother’s trying to match me up with someone, do you?”

“I think it’s… unlikely,” Elizabeth assured him.

A hasty round of introductions told them that the guests were all members of the college English department or professors from neighboring colleges or local artists. Elizabeth tried to keep track of the names and faces as they gathered around while her mother plowed through the traditional sound-bite resumes of such gatherings. “Bill and Elizabeth, my children-everybody. He’s a lawyer, and she’s a forensic anthropologist, currently unemployed.”

“Mother!”

“But she has a Ph.D. Bill, Elizabeth, I’d like you to meet Megan Holden-McBryde, of the English department. She’s working on feminist critical theory in the works of Jack London, and this is her husband, Skip Holden-McBryde, who is a poet.”

Elizabeth shook hands with the willowy couple in matching running suits. “Ah. A poet,” she murmured, hoping that he was in the dormant phase of the condition.

“Here are Sadie Patton and Annie Graham-Robeson, feminist deconstructionists.” She nodded toward two heavyset women in their early fifties.

“Architects!” said Bill with a happy smile.

There was a brief pause while everyone tried to think of a quick way to explain literary theory on a third-grade level. Simultaneously, everyone gave up. “Something like that, dear,” said his mother, shrugging. “Miriam Malone, a kinetic sculptor. She does the most marvelous things with bathtub toys floating in blue mouthwash. And Tim Burruss, who coaches wrestling. They’re not together-his lover can’t be with us this evening.”

Elizabeth was about to mention her own bereavement-presumptive, when Tim said, “He’s driving a stock car at the speedway tonight. I said, ‘You can break your neck if you want to, but don’t expect me to go and watch.’”

“-And this is Virgil Agnew, who’s in theatre and dance.”

“He’s our token heterosexual,” said Sadie (or possibly Annie).

“I’m in therapy for it, though,” Virgil informed them. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his tweed jacket and frowned at nothing in particular.

Elizabeth ignored Bill’s elbow in her ribs. “Token hetero-wait!” she exclaimed. “I thought you said Megan and Skip were married.”

Megan Holden-McBryde nodded happily. “We are. But actually I am a gay man trapped in a woman’s body. I had past life regression and discovered that I used to be a medical student in turn-of-the-century London. I was a friend of Oscar Wilde. It explained so much.”

Skip put his arm around his spouse’s shoulders. “So we feel that we really count as a gay couple.”

After a short, leaden silence, Annie (or Sadie) remarked to Bill, “I have a son who practices law.”

“You have a son?” Since Bill’s brain was completely occupied in reformatting a mental image of his mother, he was in no condition to think before he spoke.

“Oh, yes. And two grandchildren.”

“Three if you count the step-grandchildren from your third marriage,” her partner observed.

“Third marriage?”

She nodded. “Sadie and I have only been together two years. Between us, we’ve had five husbands.”

“Political lesbians?” asked Elizabeth, who thought she was beginning to get it all sorted out.

“No. That would be D. J. Squires, over by the fireplace, talking to Barnie Slusher, the chemistry professor.” She nodded toward a scowling young woman with close-cropped blonde hair, a leather biker’s outfit, and riding boots. She looked like the title character in a postmodern production of Shaw’s Saint Joan. “D.J. is a feminist historian, and she said that when she realized as an undergraduate that all seductions are a form of rape, and that marriage would mean sleeping with the enemy, she just broke off her engagement to the star quarterback. She contends that she’s never looked back.”

“It has done wonders for her career,” Tim Burruss remarked. “She’ll be one of the youngest tenured professors ever. If she makes it, I mean.”

“She’d better make it,” grunted Sadie. “The university couldn’t afford to fight the discrimination suit she’d bring if they turned her down.”

“And this is Casey,” said Margaret MacPherson, with an air of saving the best for last.

Phyllis Casey, who had just come in from the kitchen, was a small, tanned woman who appeared to be in her late forties, handsome in a well-scrubbed and athletic way. She was wearing a tunic and long skirt of natural linen, and her long hair was woven into a thick braid.

She set down the tray of canapés, and gave Bill and Elizabeth each a hug. “Margaret’s children. So nice to finally meet you.”

Bill kept trying to make eye contact with Elizabeth, but she was studiously avoiding him. “Nice to meet you, too,” he said with an anxious smile.

“It’s a lovely house,” said Elizabeth.

“Yes, it has a lot of space. Margaret and I have turned the spare bedrooms into home offices.”

Before Bill could figure out where the conversation was going next, someone tapped him on the arm.

“Your mother said that you are a lawyer,” said the earnest-looking young woman. She had long, crinkly brown hair, adorned with a white flower over one ear and dangling earrings in the shape of dolphins nose to nose.

“A lawyer. That’s right,” said Bill, with an inward groan. He hoped that the inevitable legal question was going to be one that he could answer with some measure of confidence. He balanced his paper plate on one palm, in case she was the earnest handshaking sort. “And you are…?”

She blushed. “Oh, my name is Miriam Malone. I’m called Miri. I’m from Florida, but I’ve moved up here to teach in the art department. I sculpt. Didn’t your mother mention me? I thought she might have.”

Bill shook his head, wondering if he had time to eat a stuffed mushroom before he had to speak again. He risked it.

“I wanted to consult you, in a general sort of way, about a legal matter. Your mother suggested it, actually. She says you’re a specialist in family law. Would you like to go out into the garden?”

What Bill truly wanted was to stay close to the refreshment table-and to rely upon the adage of safety in numbers. He thought briefly of clutching the piano leg to keep from being dragged away into the silent, threatening garden by this earnest and humorless Amazon, but a glance around at the chattering guests, oblivious to his plight, told him that it was no use. He might as well go bravely to the doom his mother had obviously arranged for him, and get it over with. “Certainly,” he said, feeling like the pig at the luau.

She led him through the kitchen, out the back door, and onto a wooden deck surrounded by scraggly rosebushes. Bill wished he’d had the presence of mind to remember his drink. He leaned against the wooden railing of the deck and gave her his most attentive and professional young-attorney smile. “What can I do for you?”

“I want to get married,” said Miri Malone.

“Where is Bill?” asked Margaret MacPherson. “I’ve hardly seen him since he got here.”

“Mingling, I expect,” said Elizabeth, without any noticeable concern for her missing sibling. “I hope he’s remembering to pass out business cards.”

“Well, perhaps he’s enjoying himself. I think it’s going rather well, don’t you?”

“It is,” said Elizabeth, glancing around the room. “It’s certainly different from the get-togethers you and Dad used to host. All the men would congregate around a televised football game, or else they’d take over the living room and fill it with smoke and loud guffaws.”

Her mother nodded sadly. “Yes, and the women would gather in the kitchen and talk about the children, or the weather, or linoleum-God knows what we talked about. I don’t know that I was listening.”

“Were you unhappy?” asked Elizabeth, surprised at this revisionist account of her childhood. “I thought you all were incredibly boring, but I didn’t know that you minded.”

“Perhaps I didn’t at the time,” said Margaret thoughtfully. “I didn’t have much to compare it with. Men don’t generally talk to women, you know. They simply listen until they can figure out what one sentence will end the discussion. Then they say, ‘Buy it,’ or ‘Take another aspirin,’ or ‘Whatever you decide will be fine, dear.’ That said, they dismiss you from the universe entirely, and go back to the newspaper, or the instant replay, or whatever constitutes reality to them at the moment.”

“And now you have someone who will talk to you?”

“Well… there is always something to talk about in new relationships, so I can’t be sure that things will turn out differently this time, but it’s all very interesting.” She wandered away then, picking up empty glasses and exchanging a word or two with each guest as she passed.

Elizabeth began to mingle, or at least she stood hesitantly on the fringe of one group after another, trying to find a conversational opening. Most of it, though, escaped her completely. Barnie Slusher was telling Virgil Agnew and Annie Graham-Robeson about his difficulties in getting anyone to install asymmetrical slate flooring in his newly redecorated kitchen. The Holden-McBrydes and Sadie Patton were debating the merits of the Montessori school versus home teaching; and D. J. Squires and Tim Burruss had taken beers and a basket of tortilla chips into the other room to watch a Cincinnati Reds game on television. Everyone else was talking about university politics. Elizabeth sat down on the sofa and began to leaf through the latest issue of Vanity Fair.

“Married,” said Bill, clutching the railing of the deck for support. “Yes, well, that’s refreshing, but… you see…”

“Not to you.” Miri Malone rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I wanted to consult with you about it. You do specialize in family law, don’t you?”

“I don’t seem to be able to escape from it,” said Bill. “What did you have in mind? Prenuptial agreements? Community property laws?”

“It isn’t a question of money,” the young woman said. “We love each other and we want to get married. But some states have laws against it.”

“Interracial laws?” said Bill. “Not anymore. Those statutes were done away with years ago. Loving v. The Commonwealth of Virginia was the Supreme Court decision making that discrimination illegal. So you and your fiancé-er, your fiancé is male, isn’t he?”

Miri smiled. “Very much so.”

“And you are female?” The Crying Game had taught Bill that it isn’t safe to make any assumptions, regardless of what common sense tells you.

“Yes, I’m definitely female. Would you like to see my driver’s license?”

“I’m not sure the DMV is in a position to testify on the matter,” murmured Bill. “Well, never mind. So he’s male, and you’re female.” Another thought struck him. Not the Morgan Family Trio again! “He’s not already married, is he? And planning to stay that way?”

“No. He’s a dolphin. I met him when I was living in Florida.”

“Great!” said Bill. “Do you think they’ll make the play-offs this year? Does he know Larry Czonka?”

Miri’s stare was withering. “Not a Miami Dolphin,” she said. “A delphinidae dolphin.”

“You mean like Flipper?”

“That’s a demeaning stereotype. Dolphins are extremely intelligent and sensitive. They have a spiritual nature which is quite beautiful. They are not, of course, vegetarians, but aside from that they are in perfect harmony with our New Age philosophies of ecology and sharing the planet.”

“Well-can’t you just be friends?” stammered Bill.

“Why can’t I marry a dolphin?” she demanded.

Bill smiled. That was an easy one. “He can’t walk. He can’t talk. And he can’t sign the papers.”

“Neither can Stephen Hawking, but you’d let me marry him.”

Bill was shocked at her flippancy toward the disabled physicist. “Oh, look here, you mustn’t-”

“Don’t be so patronizing,” she said. “Anyhow, let me tell you about Stephen Hawking. I know he’s paralyzed with ALS and for the past decade he has only been able to move the little finger of his left hand. But a couple of years ago, he left his wife for another woman!”

“How?” said Bill, momentarily diverted from the legal problems of maritime mammals.

She threw up her hands. “How should I know! He just rolled away. He took off with his nurse. It was in Discover magazine a while back. When I read about that, I said: this is absolutely the last straw! If you can’t trust a man even when he’s paralyzed from the neck down, you don’t have a cat’s chance of getting any of them to be faithful. I said to hell with it, and I decided that if feminists can become political lesbians, then an animal-rights person like myself ought to be able to become a political delphinogamist. Human males are no damned good.”

“Now you’re stereotyping my species.”

“Oh, rubbish. It’s a fact. Men remind me of those poor male spiders who keep trying to mate even after their heads have been bitten off. I mean, it is your entire raison d’être. No, I’m through with Homo sapiens. From now on, give me a dolphin.”

Bill was beginning to conclude that modern relationships for men very much resembled trying to mate while having your head bitten off, but he wisely returned to the original topic. “Even so, I’m afraid you can’t marry a dolphin. Not legally anyhow. I suppose you could get a scuba-diving Unitarian to come to the holding tank and-”

“I want it to be legal. It’s a matter of principle.”

“But dolphins aren’t intelligent. I mean, they sort of are, but-”

“Marie Osmond is married, isn’t she?” snapped Miri. They both laughed. “And all joking aside, intelligence is not a criterion for matrimony.”

“Good thing, or none of us would be here,” said Bill.

“I mean, learning-disabled people can marry, can’t they? Even if they can’t read or write?”

“Yes, all right, I concede that point,” said Bill. He was beginning to think that the law had lost a great trial attorney when Miri Malone took up art with bathtub toys. “But there are laws, you know, against having sex with a helpless creature. I know there are statutes on the books concerning sheep, and chickens, and who-knows-what-else. I think those proscriptions could apply to dolphins.”

She let out a whoop of laughter. “You don’t know much about dolphins, do you?”

“Not a great deal, no. But my brother-in-law is- was-a marine biologist.” For more reasons than one, Bill wished that Cameron Dawson were present. He was running short of arguments, and he had exhausted his limited supply of knowledge about seagoing mammals.

“Ask your brother-in-law then,” said Miri. “It’s common knowledge. Dolphins are notorious for trying to mate with their trainers at marine parks like Sea World. Believe me, it wouldn’t be rape. In fact, our whole relationship was originally Porky’s idea.”

“Porky?”

“My intended. It was just a physical thing on his part at first, but I was able to learn some of his language, and so our relationship progressed into a much deeper friendship.”

Bill knew that if the words Free Willy flashed into his mind one more time, he would fall to the floor, shrieking helplessly. A movement from the kitchen doorway caught his attention, and he turned to see his sister, beckoning for him to come back inside. Bill reached in his pocket and drew out a business card. “Here’s where to find me,” he told Miri. “I charge sixty bucks an hour. If you really want to pursue this matter legally, give me a call.”

“Thanks for rescuing me,” he said to Elizabeth as he closed the door behind him. Miri was walking in the garden. “I seem to attract them. That woman wants to marry a dolphin.”

“I expect she’s a Pisces,” said Elizabeth. “But I don’t know that I’ve rescued you. Edith is on the phone. She said that A. P. Hill asked her to call you.”

“That’s odd,” said Bill. “They’re never that anxious to reach me. I gave them this number in case of some emergency. We’ve never had one, but Powell is always prepared for every contingency. What does she want?”

“Well, she asked if I could interview some witnesses tomorrow for A.P.’s murder case, but that wasn’t the main reason she called. Ask her yourself.” She handed Bill the telephone and went back to join the party.

“Edith?” said Bill, half expecting to hear the crackle of flames in the background. “What’s wrong?”

“Calm down,” said his secretary. “Nobody is repossessing the copy machine. A.P. asked me to phone because there has been a development in one of your cases.”

“Which one?”

“The Morganatic Marriage case.”

“Not another wife!” wailed Bill. “Listen, I’ve had a very trying day here, and-”

“A trying day is exactly what your partner reckons you’re in for. You see, the old buzzard himself, Chevry Morgan, keeled over dead last night, and wife number one says the police are asking all sorts of awkward questions about it. They seem to think it’s a case of murder. Your client is understandably nervous about the implications of that.”

“How did he die?”

“They’ve pumped for poison,” said Edith. “He’s been sent off for an autopsy. Wonder if they’ll find a brain?”

“Now, Edith, the man is dead.”

“Yeah. This time I believe he did get a message from the Lord. But apparently the Almighty had a little help in deporting old Chevry from the world.”

“They think somebody deliberately poisoned Mr. Morgan? They haven’t charged Donna Jean, have they?”

“No. She’s at home, but we got the impression that she’d be awfully glad to see you.”

“I’m on my way,” said Bill.

After delegating the tracking down of Bill MacPherson to the secretary, A. P. Hill had set off to Roanoke to interview a possible character witness in the Royden murder case. Most of the Royden acquaintances she would leave for Elizabeth MacPherson, but she wanted to hear firsthand what Marizel Farrell had to say about her former best friend.

At Eleanor Royden’s suggestion-grudgingly given-A. P. Hill had contacted Marizel Farrell by phone. After endless reassurances of confidentiality, Mrs. Farrell had provided the attorney with directions to her home in Chambord Oaks. The upscale subdivision was much as A. P. Hill expected. A bronze sign in Old English lettering mounted on one of the stone pillars marked the entrance to the development. The two-story brick houses all looked as if they had been designed by the same architect, differing only in the placement of the Palladian windows, or in the facade: phony Colonial, sham Tudor, or faux chateau.

Marizel Farrell’s house turned out to be a white brick faux chateau, set among clumps of azaleas and strategically placed dogwood trees. A bas-relief of mallards in flight graced the simulated wood mailbox. A. P. Hill pulled into the drive, vowing for the umpteenth time in her life that suburbia would never take her alive. She retrieved her briefcase from the backseat and went up the patterned brick walkway to interview the murderess’s best friend.

Marizel Farrell did not seem altogether impressed by the diminutive young attorney standing on her doormat. Powell Hill was wearing low-heeled shoes, no makeup, and tiny pearl earrings. “You’re Eleanor’s lawyer?” Mrs. Farrell said doubtfully, as if she suspected that the leather attaché was a sampler case of Girl Scout cookies. “Well, come in, then, Ms.-er-Hill. Sorry,” she said, with an anxious smile, “I was kind of expecting a grown-up.”

Women twenty years older than A. P. Hill might have taken this feeble witticism as a compliment, but tributes to Powell’s youthfulness were wasted on a woman who took offense at waiters who requested an ID before bringing her a glass of wine. She knew better than to antagonize a potential witness, however; so she managed a semblance of pleasantry as the slender, blonde woman in the Donna Karan suit led her into the house.

“I just can’t believe that Eleanor actually did it,” said Marizel Farrell, after they had settled in the white-and-gold living room. “Shot Jeb, I mean.”

“Why can’t you believe it?” asked A. P. Hill, noting the date and time at the top of her yellow legal pad. She also wrote down Mrs. Farrell’s name and address, estimating her age at an accurate, but unflattering fifty-five.

Marizel spread her hands in a helpless little shrug. “Well, because it’s such a trashy thing to do. I mean, people shoot each other in trailer parks, for God’s sake, not in Chambord Oaks.”

“I see,” said A. P. Hill, deciding to forgo the lecture in sociology that was probably called for. “Tell me about them as a couple. How did you meet them?”

“How does one meet anyone?” said Marizel Farrell with her wide-eyed stare. “Our husbands were not colleagues. Jeb was a lawyer; Arthur is a surgeon. But we were in that professional social set-in some ways, Roanoke is a very small town. I suppose we attended the same dinner party, or got put at the same table at a charity event. I can’t really remember. We’ve known them for a dozen years at least.”

A. P. Hill’s eyebrows maintained a steadfast neutrality. “Eleanor Royden says that you were her closest friend.”

“How terribly sad,” said Marizel Farrell, shaking her head, more in anger than in sorrow. “You know, she was once quite a nice person, always fun to be around, and very energetic. We cochaired a couple of symphony fund-raisers together back in the mid Eighties, and at the Homeless Shelter Gala, we shared a table with the Roydens. Let me see… and bridge and tennis. I mean, I saw a lot of Eleanor, you know-the way one does; that is, until lately, when she had to get a job, and became very arch and brittle about her reduced circumstances, and then, of course, one simply had to stop seeing her. One was embarrassed.”

A. P. Hill looked up from her notes. “So she didn’t confide in you about her frustration over the divorce?”

“I’d hardly call it confiding,” said Marizel Farrell with a little laugh. “She certainly complained about it constantly to anyone who would listen. And she tried to be amusing about it. I’ll give her that. But, really, what could one do? She didn’t belong to the club anymore, and she couldn’t afford the usual outings of the old set, and her job kept her from the women-only socializing in the daytime. I went to lunch with her a couple of times downtown when she started working, and once I took her to the ballet on Arthur’s ticket when he had an emergency at the hospital, but I felt quite awkward around her. What could one say to her? Of course, we all thought Jeb’s behavior was dreadful.”

“I understand that it was a bitter divorce.”

“Oh, it was! But Eleanor was partly to blame for that, too. Jeb Royden was a cold, calculating attorney who had gotten his own way all his life. He could be completely charming as long as no one stood in his way. And of course he had a fling with a younger woman. I mean, it’s utterly commonplace. Men are quite childlike, really. The minute their hair starts thinning out and their eyes require reading glasses, they start looking for Band-Aids for the ego. You just ignore it as long as you can and hope it wears off. We tried to tell Eleanor that at first! Much good it did.”

A. P. Hill, who came from a different generation than Mrs. Farrell, was privately in sympathy with Eleanor Royden’s attitude. In fact, she thought, her own behavior in similar circumstances could be used as a training film for terrorists; wisely, she refrained from expressing this opinion. “So you all thought that Mr. Royden would have his fling without resorting to divorce?”

“Well, they usually do,” said Marizel. “I got a new Mercedes after Arthur’s little indiscretion, but then I earned it. I was sweet as pie the entire time and I never once reproached him or let him see me cry.”

This was Martian to A. P. Hill, but she merely nodded for Mrs. Farrell to continue.

“I told Eleanor not to throw tantrums over it. We all learned how to suffer in silence, but, oh no!- Miss High-and-Mighty Eleanor was too proud to be sensible. She made scenes in public. She confronted the bimbo and she screamed at Jeb and argued with him, until he had to leave her. Jeb Royden wasn’t the sort of man to let his wife tell him what to do. She made him furious and he walked out.” Marizel Farrell shrugged. “Then, of course, he set out to punish Eleanor with the divorce court’s version of the siege of Leningrad.”

“So you thought that Mrs. Royden’s ex-husband was being vindictive?”

“My dear, he was! Jeb wanted to have his own way, without any arguments, and when Eleanor wouldn’t agree to that, he set out to destroy her for being uppity. They’re all like that. Anybody could have told her. Of course, he thought he would ruin her financially, and send her off to work as a waitress and live in a trailer, while he built a palace for the new playmate. I suppose he underestimated Eleanor, though.”

A. P. Hill nodded, suppressing a smile. “She refused to take the thunderbolt lying down.”

“Yes-and of course, we’re all terribly sympathetic with poor Eleanor, even though she brought it on herself. At first we thought of having a benefit luncheon at the club to raise money for her defense fund, but then we were afraid that our husbands might not care for the idea. You will give her my best, though, won’t you, dear?”

“I’ll give her my best,” said A. P. Hill.