The Accused, Harold R. Daniels [read out loud books txt] 📗

the books except the poetry volume she left in the living room; that one she took to her bedroom.

Music, too, was culture, and here she had weapons of her own. She had been brought up in a home where arias were sung before breakfast; she had absorbed Verdi and Rossini with the air she breathed when this had been a happy house. Old Attilio had records of a great many of the operas, and Dominick had bought the old man a good record player.

There remained the matter of dinner. She solved it by buying steaks and a packaged salad. They would have wine, of course; there was plenty of it in the house.

The final problem was her father. Dominick was out of town and the other brothers were married and living in homes of their own. She could send the old man to spend the night with any of them or she could let him stay, which would be more in keeping with the impression of chasteness that she wished to create. She studied him objectively. He was withered and old, but with his immaculate white mustache and his silky white hair he was not undistinguished looking. Nothing to be ashamed of. And he could be an asset in conversation if the talk turned—and she would see that it did—to music. Early enough she could send him off to bed.

On Christmas day she bathed and dressed carefully. She put on a new girdle that bound her thickening hips and stomach—and after some thought took it off again. In case it became necessary to use her ultimate weapon, she wanted her body to seem soft and desirable. She put on a black dress that accented her white skin and complemented her thick black hair.

She had an alert mind and a retentive memory when she chose to use them. When she was dressed she picked up the volume of poems and rimed the pages until she found one that appeared to be shorter than most of the others. She lit a cigarette and began reading the poem half aloud. When she had finished it, she read it again, glancing away from the page from time to time. At the end of an hour she could recite it verbatim from memory.

She memorized the name of the poet and looked in the table of contents for additional poems by him; the names of these she also memorized. She looked at the clock on her dresser. It was six o’clock. She was thoroughly bored with the poem but she could relax. She did not delude herself that she could carry on the deception for long. She did not intend that it should take long. She had already decided that she would marry Morlock, and she had dedicated herself to the project with all the skill she had.

Morlock threaded his way along sidewalks still crowded with displays of Christmas trees and greenery. A light snow was falling and carols echoed from loudspeakers in a dozen cafes. He had started out to keep his appointment with Louise Palaggi primarily from a sense of obligation—she had been very understanding—secondarily from a desire to escape Dodson who had, in his own words, scored with the woman he had picked up at the dance, and who was at this moment happily getting ready to go out with Snapper and try to duplicate the feat. Morlock could barely remember what Louise looked like. Now, with the old familiar nostalgia of the carols in his ears, he was rather happy that he actually had a date; that he would spend an evening with a woman who apparently liked him and who was obviously not cheap. Hadn’t she refused him her body? Still, he felt a faint embarrassment at the prospect of facing her after the episode in the hotel room.

The Palaggi house was high and square and homely with its icing of fretwork—a three-decker, they called such houses on Federal Hill. There was a lamp in the window with a red silk shade. It made a warm glow in the darkness. Morlock rang the bell and Louise Palaggi opened the door.

“You’re just on time,” she said.

Morlock stamped his feet to rid them of loose snow and followed her into the house, making some inane comment about the weather.

Louise took his coat and introduced him to her father, trying at the same time to put him at ease. She asked the old man if he wouldn’t play some records, knowing that he would play some of his operas. Culture. She excused herself to bring wine and again to start dinner so that Morlock’s impression was that she was a domestic woman making a fuss over him.

He was naive, but not a fool. Looking about the room he saw the books, recognized the second-hand look of library property and glanced at the library form in the back of several of the books which showed that they had been withdrawn that same day. A score or a hundred students had tried variations of the same strategy. Morlock, recognizing the transparent little scheme, found it touching and pathetic rather than sneaking and hypocritical, and he was rather nattered that she had gone to such lengths to make a good impression on him. (He was to wonder, much later, if she had actually anticipated this reaction, if she had plotted such a double trap.)

She wasted little time, when dinner was over, in sending the old man off to bed. She had managed, by this time, to augment the impression planted the night she met Morlock that she had spent most of her youth caring for her father. Old Attilio, dazed with happiness at the sudden warmth in this cold and empty house, left them willingly enough.

When they were alone in the living room, she came over to sit beside him on the lumpy old couch. The lamp with the red shade was at her left shoulder. It softened the lines of her face and flattered her; she was conscious of this. Morlock, watching her as she crossed the room, was aware of the womanliness of her body. He was by now full of a sense of well-being and he felt sorry for Dodson who was undoubtedly drunk by this time.

“About the other night,” he said. “I hope you weren’t offended.”

She was surprised again by her own tenderness for Morlock. “Don’t feel bad about it,” she said. “You had a lot to drink. I suppose I asked for it, going up to your room with you like that. You must have thought I was pretty easy.”

He protested that he hadn’t thought anything of the kind.

Louise would have liked to keep the conversation revolving about what had happened that night because of the relationship it established; but she realized he actually meant it, that he was genuinely ashamed of his actions, and she shifted the subject adroitly.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t have invited your friend tonight,” she apologized. She added, after a swift analysis of Morlock’s shame balanced against the certain factor that Dodson would not have been ashamed at all, “You don’t seem at all like him.” She left it hanging-. If Morlock wanted to make something of it, it was there.

She was growing more confident. What little self-conscious awe she had felt over the fact that he was a college graduate and a professional man had dissolved completely.

Morlock, caught between a vague sense of loyalty to Dodson and a human desire to accept the implied compliment, wavered. “We’re not very great friends,” he explained. “We both happened to have no plans for the holidays so we came in to Providence together.” He felt somewhat a Judas, until he reflected that Dodson was probably quite happy with whatever he was doing at the moment.

After Dodson had been dismissed, Morlock found himself enjoying his date with Louise Palaggi immensely. She had spent her adult life catering to men; tougher men, more sophisticated men than Morlock whom she found very easy to please. When, after quite a lot of wine, he awkwardly put his arms around her she yielded briefly before she pulled away.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to, Al,” she said. “We’re both grown up. But I’m not cheap and I don’t want you to think that I am.”

Morlock was—later—more pleased than displeased by the refusal. Going back to the hotel when the evening was over, with his footstep* ringing in the cold air, he reflected that for all the pretense with the library books she was really very intelligent, very good company. And she had had to take care of the old man all these years. She, like himself, had missed something out of life.

In the days that followed he saw her almost constantly. He met her brother Dominick and had the impression that Dominick was being put on parade for his inspection. He liked Dominick, who had a reserve that matched his own. When the thought came to him that his company was being taken for granted, he was rather grateful for the sense of belonging.

They did not go out with Dodson and Rosie again. Morlock was embarrassed about this but Dodson was unconcerned. “If you’ve got something lined up,” he said, “good luck.” He stopped laughing and said seriously, “Don’t get in over your head, Al. Rosie’s told me things about that Palaggi woman.”

They spent most of their evenings in the living room. Dominick was seldom home and they had the crowded old room to themselves after the old man was sent off to bed. Morlock came to look forward to the long evenings, feeling pride in being eagerly welcomed, basking in the attention she paid him when he read to her.

Outside of the one poem which she had recited for him (she introduced it by saying, “This is my favorite, Al, by the author of…” just like a movie credit), she had nothing to contribute except her attention, but she made the most of this. She had a trick of resting her chin on her infolded hands and watching his face while he read or talked of what he had read. This, after the long years of bored and indifferent student audiences, was hardly short of intoxicating to Morlock, even while he guessed that her interest was at least partially a pose.

It even occurred to him from time to time that her objective almost had to be marriage. He did not run from the thought. It was almost enough to be wanted that much—on any terms.

Louise, after several evenings of this, was bored with Morlock’s company in spite of her fondness for him. On New Year’s Eve she sent him away early, letting him guess that she was sick. (He was shyly pleased with the delicate intimacy of the hinted revelation and the close relationship the very revelation itself implied.) He left� feeling quite gallant. When he was safely gone, she changed her dress and called a cab. Far enough from Federal Hill she allowed herself to be picked up in a cafe and thereafter surrendered herself to drinking and to her companion with complete abandon. It was the last time, she promised herself. Afterward she would be faithful to Morlock. After they were married. It did not occur to her that he might not ask her.

*

Gurney: That will be all for now, Mr. Dodson.

Cameron: Does the defense wish to question witness further?

Liebman: Not at this time.

Gurney: We would now like to introduce two documents which I will ask the Court to admit in evidence as exhibits A and B. I show them to counsel for the defense.

Liebman: I don’t need to see them. I’ve already examined them.

Gurney: The documents, Your Honor, are a true copy of a marriage certificate issued in East Providence, Rhode