Chapter 15
Not even Sue herself nor her mother could have ordered built to their most exacting specifications a more perfect day than the one delivered for Sue's wedding. When Gayle awoke it was mid-morning and brilliant sunlight spilled through the wide, open windows, and the air was fragrant with the scent of flowers. Only the best, most expensive and most carefully tended, of course, would be allowed to bloom in the Leslies' heavily formal garden! The birds were singing their silly heads off, too, and Gayle would gladly have traded all the melody, so highly thought of by some fools, for the raucous squawk of just one New York taxi horn.
The door opened to reveal the maid who always brought her breakfast and Gayle watched her derisively as the girl put down the tray and went into the bathroom to draw her bath.
"Livin' in a great big way!" Gayle told herself derisively.
Well, this time tomorrow she would be well on her way back to New York. She thought, with swift nostalgia, of her apartment. She even thought kindly of Harlan. Good stupid, dull old Harlan! He was quite a guy, at that! And she would be so damned sweet to him that he'd shower her with luxuries. She'd never let him get bored with her again. Her eyes narrowed a little at the thought. Women in her position could ill afford the boredom of the men who provided them with their luxurious necessities of life. Harlan wasn't a bad old guy-just dull. But, hell, a man as rich as Harlan, as generous as Harlan-well, being dull wasn't a crime. Don Randolph had been the most exciting, the most thrilling man she had ever known-and the thought of him was a bitterness in her heart that she knew now she would never be quite able to get rid of.
There was a subdued hum of activity all over the house and the maid hurried out as soon as she had performed the most necessary services for Gayle.
Gayle had her bath and came back into the bedroom and settled down to the beautifully iced grapefruit, with a fat, self-satisfied looking scarlet strawberry centered in its middle; the tall yellow pottery pot of coffee with the matching creamer and sugar bowl, and the mound of toast kept hot beneath a silver cover.
"Pretty damned fancy," Gayle derided mockingly. "I don't suppose there's any danger of a dose of arsenic in the coffee-but, oh, brother, wouldn't Sue love to add it-only she hasn't the guts!"
She chuckled a little as she sipped the coffee and smoked the first cigarette of the day and put the finishing touches on her plan to make this a wedding Claresville would not soon forget. In that, at least, she was working hand-in-glove with Mrs. Leslie and the thought was one that amused her vastly.
The wedding was set for four o'clock in the largest and most fashionable church in Claresville. Gayle assured herself drily that the Leslies would not be caught dead in any other kind of church!
She managed to keep out of the way of hurried, harried servants and the family, being the perfect house guest-out of the way when she wasn't needed, on hand when she was expected to be and that thought amused her, too.
She had finished her packing and had left out only the suit in which she would travel back to New York, and the filmy, foamy green and silver gown in which she would be "maid of honor" at the wedding. And a little before four, she stood before the full-length mirror in her room, eyeing her reflection in the mirror, knowing that she looked more beautiful than she had ever looked before in all her life-probably more so than she would ever look again! The pale green frock with its scattered silver-threaded lilies, the wide, mm-brimmed horse-hair hat with its one pink calla lily weighting the brim, the tall-heeled silver sandals had cost far more than she had been able to afford. But on her arrival in town, when Sue had taken her to the shop for its fitting and had asked anxiously if it was "all right" (Gayle had known, with a thinning of her mouth that Sue had meant "can you afford it?" and she would have hocked her immortal soul, provided she had one, which she strongly doubted, rather than say no!) Gayle had assured her blithely that it was exactly what she would have chosen if she had had the choice. The bridesmaids' gowns were made exactly like it only their's were a delicate pale pink, and Gayle had been secretly delighted to discover just how unbecoming the shade was to some of the bridesmaids. Custom said this was the bride's day, and custom seemed to say the attendants should look their worst, to "point up" the bride's loveliness; but Sue had been obviously a little disturbed to realize how exquisitely becoming the green gown was to Gayle.
There was a gentle knock at the door and she turned swiftly to find Mrs. Leslie there, looking white and harried beneath her careful make-up, looking older than she should have looked in the silvery gray gown with its shoulder spray of purple orchids.
"It's a tradition, Gayle," said Mrs. Leslie almost curtly, "that the maid of honor adjust the bride's veil, so if you are ready-"
"Of course, Mrs. Leslie," said Gayle in her sweetest, most lady-like accent and moved gracefully forward.
"You look very nice, Gayle," said Mrs. Leslie politely and Gayle knew the woman loathed her and the necessity of offering such polite comment.
"Thank you, Mrs. Leslie-it's such a lovely frock-dear Sue has such exquisite taste. I couldn't possibly have chosen anything so nice," she said happily.
Mrs. Leslie's mouth thinned a little as she led the way along the corridor to where the door stood open into Sue's room. Sue was a devastatingly lovely vision in the inevitable white satin and priceless lace and her wedding bouquet of white orchids (what else would the only child of a wealthy family use for a wedding bouquet, Gayle asked herself acidly) laid ready for her. She was surrounded by a chattering bevy of girls all in identical pale pink frocks, and there was a mound of pink and lavender gladioli, extravagantly tied with silver ribbons, on the bed.
The town's most fashionable dressmaker stood a little at one side eying Gayle with cold dislike, as Gayle lifted the bridal veil and dropped it over Sue's head, stepping politely aside for the dressmaker to rearrange it according to her own taste.
"You look lovely, darling," cooed Gayle sweetly.
Sue's eyes were darkly blue and wary.
"Thanks," she said briefly. "You look nice, too."
"In this old thing?" Gayle was gay, carefree as her hand touched the green frock in polite disparagement. "It's just a little something I ran up on my old sewing machine out of a bathroom rug and an old lace curtain."
Somebody twittered a little laugh and was instantly grave as though having laughed in the wrong place.
Mrs. Leslie, like the accomplished field marshal she was, said quickly, "The cars are waiting, girls. If you'll run along, I'd like to have a moment or two with my one little chick, before she becomes Clyde's bride."
Gayle shot her a swift look, but the old gal was deadly serious and there was even a mist of tears in her eyes, and Gayle wondered how corny you could get?
The girls fluttered out and Gayle followed them and at the foot of the stairs, Mr. Leslie stood waiting to usher them out to the waiting limousines. Only three girls to a car, he insisted, and made some heavy-handed compliment about "mustn't crush all the fine feathers."
The two bridesmaids who shared a car with Gayle talked brightly and gaily across her, while Gayle looked straight ahead and hummed the wedding march under her breath and grinned a little, a grin that made her two companions a little uneasy though neither of them could have said why.
There was-there would be, of course!-an awning across the sidewalk from the church door to the curb; there was a red carpet reaching from the steps to the curb; there were ropes to hold back the crowd-and Gayle was startled and secretly delighted to see how the large crowd was pressing against the ropes on either side of the red carpet, held in order by several stalwart, harassed-looking policemen.
The girls fluttered out, making an entrance, being self-consciously gay and laughing, tossing their heads in elaborate pretense of ignoring the crowd, putting on an act-the poor saps! Gayle followed them demurely and the first person she saw as she entered the church was Don. For a moment, her cockeyed heart did a nip-up at sight of him, so very good-looking in his well-groomed arrogantly self-assured way. But she slapped it down with a vicious reminder of the scene last night, and met his eyes coolly and sweetly.
Don's good-looking face darkened as he saw her, and he made his way unobtrusively towards her, his jaw set and hard.
"I thought you'd gone," he said in her ear.
She gave him her sweetest smile, carefully iced.
"And spoil the wedding? Oh, Don, how could you think I'd do a thing like that to my dear, sweet little pal, Susie?" she purred gently.
Don studied her, his eyes shrewd and angry.
"I'll have my eye on you every minute," he promised her, his voice low-pitched but savage. "And you lift one finger-just one-and I'll smack you flat."
Gayle put her pretty head on one side and surveyed him mockingly.
"That ought to be fun," she said with poisonous sweetness. "At least it would make this a wedding long to be remembered-or would it?"
"Don't be smart-"
"Oh, I haven't been-not a damned bit! You told me, yourself, that I hadn't been-remember?"
There was a little commotion of noise outside and Sue, bright-eyed and flushed, came up the church steps beside her father, and an usher took charge of Mrs. Leslie, who gave Sue a dewy-eyed, tremulous smile before she trotted off behind the usher to the pew reserved for her down front.
The syrupy strains of "Oh, Promise Me" that had been pealing forth from the giant organ melted away into silence, and Don vanished to follow his allotted task of seeing that the bridegroom reached the altar on time, and all in one piece. But as he departed he gave Gayle a long, level look that, could looks have killed, would have left her dead on the floor, but she only gave him a sweet smile and turned away.
Now the organ had swung into the wedding march and the fluttering maids formed into the carefully rehearsed march, and two by two floated down the aisle. As Gayle swung into step behind them, the aisle seemed a mile long, but at its foot she saw Clyde, looking pale and unhappy, the cynosure of all eyes in the crowded church, at least until the bride came into view.
Pacing slowly, with what she privately considered the necessary "hop-skip-and-jump" made necessary if one meant to keep in step with that damned tune pealing forth from the organ, Gayle had a wild, almost irresistible impulse to break into a very wild cha cha; even more, to lift her filmy skirts above her hips; and do an abandoned "can-can." She could do it, too-she had learned a long time ago in her early life as a burlesque dancer a version of the "can-can" that would have set the crowd in the church on its ear, bug-eyed with excitement. She fought down the temptation, but the effort at fighting it down brought a wicked gleam to her eyes and a little quirk to her lovely mouth that made Don, standing beside Clyde, watch her with frozen anxiety as she came closer and closer.
Behind her, Sue, looking like every man's dream of the Ideal Girl come true, was appropriately modest and dewy-eyed, clinging to her father's arm, even allowing a small quiver to be seen in the armful of white orchids that she carried.
Don relaxed ever so little when the bridal party formed itself before the altar and the minister, quite aware of his importance in the scene before him, looking very distinguished in what were undoubtedly his very best vestments, cleared his throat a little and swung a swift, admonitory eye over the bridal party.
Sue turned, smiling sweetly and handed her white orchids to Gayle, who accepted the bouquet gaily, and grinned a little as she saw the anxiety in Sue's eyes, before she turned back to face the minister and slipped her hand into Clyde's at the minister's low-toned words.
"Dearly beloved," the minister's voice rolled out into the vast church, crowded and now quite silent, "we are gathered here in the sight of God and of man to join together in the holy bonds of matrimony this man and this woman...."
Almost dreamily, with an almost academic interest, Gayle listened to the sonorous phrases, hearing them for one of the few times in her life-and then only in the movies, for "the holy bonds of matrimony" were rarely, if ever discussed in the circles in which she lived.
And then she heard the words for which she was waiting, and tensed.
"Do you, Clyde, take this woman...." began the minister solemnly.
And then Gayle went into action.
She gave a low, heartbroken cry of protest that rang out with an almost obscene force in that place, and flung both bouquets violently from her and hurled herself forward, between the startled and thunderstruck bride-and groom-to-be. She flung herself upon Clyde, clinging to him with wild abandon, crying out loudly, her voice sharp with dawning hysteria, "Oh, no, Clyde-no-no-no-you can't Clyde-you can't marry her, when it's really me you love. Clyde, you can't do this to me-after all that we have been to each other-after you promised me that if I'd let you-if I'd let you-love me, you'd break up with her-no-no-no-" Her voice was swallowed in broken, heart-rending sobbing as she clung to Clyde, pressing herself against him, her arms holding him so tightly that Clyde's efforts to free himself looked as though his arms were holding her, too.
For a stunned, incredulous moment the church was as silent as though not a soul breathed in all its great space. Even the organ, that had been throbbing very softly, with a muted undercurrent of melody, ceased for an instant. In the gallery, crowded with the family servants and their families and friends, there was a gasp, and then below them, a well-bred rustling of shock and horror and dismay as the other guests came to themselves.
The minister was all but gibbering in his shock and consternation and Don, tight-lipped, his eyes blazing, moved forward to wrench Gayle free of Clyde, who looked as though he would consider an earthquake that would swallow him from sight forever would be an inestimable boon.
"Clyde-no-no-no-oh, darling, don't let them separate us-we love each other-you said you loved me-" Gayle was babbling wildly, even while Don, his face as white as its sunburn would allow, his eyes blazing with wrath, gave her what amounted to a bum's rush up the aisle and through the outraged, scandalized crowd that was on its feet now, craning, staring, murmuring against this outrageous thing that had happened.
Gayle let her sobbing wail die out as Don thrust her violently through the door into an unused Sunday school room and stood over her, shaking her so that her teeth rattled.
"Let me go, damn you," snarled Gayle, whipping herself free of him and putting a table between them.
"You slut!" said Don, when he could trust himself to speak. "You filthy tramp-"
Gayle tipped back her head and a joyous laugh rang out.
"I'll bet it will be a long time before Claresville forgets this wedding," she said happily. "If, of course, there is a wedding."
Don glared at her, and opened the door and stepped outside where he could look down the long church aisle to the altar, where a very much flustered minister was trying hard to find his place in the prayer book, and Sue was holding out her hand to Clyde, with a smile that pronounced her complete faith and confidence in him.
When Don came back into the small Sunday school room and closed the door behind him, he drew out his handkerchief and mopped his damp brow.
"There is a wedding," he stated harshly.
Gayle's eyebrows went up a little in delicate surprise and glee.
"Oh, well, she's been sleeping with him for months," she said airily. "I suppose she's afraid that she may have to marry him-"
"Don't!" said Don huskily, fighting so hard to resist the almost unbearable temptation to take her lovely throat between his hands and twist the throbbing life out of it that he scarcely dared trust himself in the same room with her. "I'm doing my damnedest not to kill you-"
Gayle grinned wickedly at him.
"Oh, you haven't the guts to do that," she derided mockingly. "It would only get you hanged-I wouldn't mind, if I could stick around to see it done, but that's not very practical, is it?"
Don drew a deep breath and unclenched his hands with such an effort that he absently massaged the knuckles of one hand with the palm of the other as though to restore circulation.
"I never dreamed," he said at last, huskily, his voice raw and shaking, "that any living creature could be so-vile!" She laughed at him.
"Didn't you? Then you aren't as experienced as I thought you-don't you remember that ditty-'Hell hath no fury-'-Well, I'm the fury which has no comparison!" She told him gaily.
He took a step towards her, and Gayle watched him with interest and without drawing back a step.
"If you'd like to sock me," she invited pleasantly, "by all means do. Black my eye if you like-because then I can go to the police and swear out a warrant for your arrest, claiming assault and battery, and it might be in all the papers-my picture, maybe-that would be fun."
Don straightened as though that had set him back on his heels a bit. He was, when he had long ago thought she could never surprise him again, a little surprised at her unconcealed venom.
"You'd like that?" he asked uncertainly.
"I'd love it!" she told him quite honestly. "Oh-I don't like being hurt-but in such a good cause-a good, old-fashioned beating at the hands of the best man-why, it ought to make headlines as far away as-well, not New York, of course, but-do they have tabloids in Atlanta? It would be a perfect set-up for a tab story-"
Suddenly the theme of the organ changed and now it was triumphal, and loud, and Don turned swiftly to the door, listening. Then he turned the key in the lock and took a single stride towards her, looming menacingly above her.
"The wedding is over and they are leaving the church," he told her, his voice low pitched, ominous. "And if you open your mouth-"
She grinned at him wickedly.
"Oh, I haven't anything more to say-I've said it-and it will be a long, long time before anybody in Claresville ever forgets it, bub!"
Don studied her for a long moment and she had never seen such disgust, such loathing in a man's eyes. Remembering for the brief flicker of an instant the way his eyes had glowed with desire when he had held her hard against him, remembering the magic enchantment of his passionate caresses, she went a little sick inside. But the next moment she had herself in hand and could give him back bitter look for bitter look. Just as madly and crazily as she had loved him for a little while, now she loathed and hated him with a fury that shook her violently.
She moved to the window, more to escape the fury in his eyes than because of any curiosity about what was going on outside. But as she stood there she saw the bride and groom come down the church steps. Sue's head was high and her eyes were straight ahead. In one arm she carried the sheaf of white orchids and at this distance Gayle could not be sure whether the bouquet had suffered any damage by the violence with which she had thrown it from her when she had flung herself upon Clyde, but she devoutly hoped that it had been smashed. She saw the tender, anxious gentleness with which Clyde put his bride into the limousine and followed her and as the car crept away from the curb, avoiding the avid crowd that had flowed into the street, her hands clenched until her nails bit sharply into her pink palms.
She stood there until the last of the wedding party had been whisked away from the church, and watched while little knots of those left lingered, their heads close together. And a gleam of malicious amusement twinkled in her eyes and her lovely mouth was an ugly leer as she turned to face Don.
"There'll be a lot of dirty dishes left in the sink tonight while women gossip about what happened today," she told him with such wicked satisfaction that Don had to control himself by an heroic effort to keep from smashing his clenched fist straight into that ugly smile. But that, of course, was what she wanted. She would be willing to sacrifice her beauty, at least-.temporarily, and to suffer the pain of a beating-and he knew that if once he struck her he would go on striking her and the thought of what that would mean brought a bitter taste into his mouth. She would welcome any violence on his part because she would be able to go straight to the police and swear out a warrant for his arrest. She would like nothing better. She hoped it would happen. And so he controlled himself as best he could and when at last he could speak, his voice was dry and husky.
"Come on, we can make it now," he said savagely.
She smiled sweetly at him and swept forward with a delicate swish of her filmy frock and as she brushed past him the scent of the perfume she used was heady in his nostrils.