Savage bride Read online

  Chapter One

  His name was Lawrence Kingsley Jones. He was just like any man, like you, like me; and yet, this is what happened to him:

  In the room, just darkness, broken by the squared outline of a moonlit window, with its spectral complement lying flat upon the floor beneath it. Outside, silence, a countryside asleep under a star-punctuated sky. Inside and out, both, tension, a brooding hush, as if action were being held in check, waiting for some given signal to start.

  SUiouetted against the window was a girl's hand, holding pinned to one side a curtain that was like smoky chiffon shadow. Just under the hand, the curve of a shoulder could be detected; just over it, the profile of a watching face. But nothing moved, neither hand nor shoulder nor face; they were all motionless, waiting for the signal that had been promised, that was to come.

  Suddenly it came. The signal had been given. A car horn blatted just once, in curt interrogation, from the roadway out in the middle distance that ran past the grounds of the house. A splash of yellow, rayed out by 9ie swerving of a pair of headlights, flickered briefly across the darkness in a semicircle, and went out again.

  The pane slipped upward, tempered to a stealthy little squeak, softer than a mouse would make. Outside there was a faint crunching footfall on gravel. Then, directly below the window, a man's voice sounded in cautious query. "Ready?"

  The figure in the window square spoke for the first time. "I can't get out. He locked the door of my room. I heard him turn the key in it. He's downstairs in the back, someplace. They've both been watching me like hawks all day, as though they suspected something." "Where's the other one?"

  "Cotter? He's not here right now. He took their car and went somewhere about nine. He hasn't come back yet."

  Her whisper became unsteady, shook all over "Larry, Larry, I'm so frightened. I'll never be able to."

  "You still want to, don't you?"

  "More than anything I know. Don't leave me here, don't leave me."

  "There must be some way of getting you out of there. I'll see if I can find a ladder."

  "There's one the gardener uses. You know where that greenhouse is, around at the back?"

  Grass-blurred footsteps drew away around the turn of the house, died out. The figure at the window pivoted around to face the room behind her, stood there tautly listening to the inner sounds of the house. A little bureau clock went tick, tick, tick in the darkness near her, as if to say: "Get out, get out, get out while you can."

  There was a smothered clout, as of a pole striking lightly against the clapboard just below the window.

  She whirled around in terrified urgency. "He's coming up! Oh, Larry, what'll we do? I hear him. He's locking up for the night down there."

  The man spoke steadyingly, reassuringly, from the foot of the ladder he had now reared. "Don't lose your head. We'll make it. Throw your things down first. I'll carry them over to the car."

  "I haven't anything. Just take me, just me myself!" "All right, easy now. Sit on the sill and swing yourself over to this side. I'm holding it steady for you. That's it. Now reach down backward with your foot. There's the top rung right under you."

  Her second foot came to rest beside the first. "He's on the stairs already! He's coming up! I can hear his hand slapping on the rail!"

  "Sh-h-h," he urged her soothingly. "Don't stand there listening. You're out. Another one. Now just one more. That's the lady. You're down. You're in my arms."

  She turned as they closed about her and buried her face against him in frightened relief.

  "You're safe," he whispered consolingly. "You're free. I've got you."

  He led her across the black, moon-frosted grass; out through an iron-barred gate left narrowly ajar between two granite plinths that broke a high-topped iron picket fence, close-set and forbidding. He hurried her down the road a few yards, to where a gently slimmering roadster stood waiting, over to one side. He armed her protectively into the seat, got in after her. The door made a sturdy, defiant thud. "They'll never get you back again now."

  As he floored the accelerator, and the night swept back behind their ears, he turned to her without a word and blotted out her mouth in a long-drawn kiss. "Our wedding kiss," he murmured.

  The house he had stolen her from was pulled out of sight behind them, like something jerked on lead strings. The road ahead swirled toward them like a tracer bullet. Her unbound hair streamed out behind her over the back of the seat, like something impregnated with electric current, alive, crackling, with their fugitive speed.

  The whole night was in a hurry, rushing past them. Only the stars and moon held steady, weren't running away.

  She looked back once. She said above the wind, "When Cotter gets back, they may come after us and—and try to-"

  "Let them," he said tersely. "They'll never catch us. You're mine for keeps now."

  "Larry," she said presently, glancing at him wonder-ingly. "What's the world like?"

  "You're going to see it. I'll show it to you." He snapped on the car radio. Pulsing, brassy music welled up into their faces. "That's the world, hear it?" He gave the dial a twist. Laughter flooded out, an audience roaring at something funny that had just been said. "And that's the world." He twisted it a second time. A woman's scream winged out like a knife slashing between them, punctuated by two or three hollow-sounding revolver shots. He quickly clicked the radio off. "And that's the world, too," he muttered in an unwilling undertone.

  Chapter Two

  A FANLIGHT Overhead lighted up murkily at the continued thumping. There was a juggling with the bolt, and the door opened. A silver-haired man, with rimless glasses and pendulous red turkey-gobbler throat, stood looking at the two men.

  "Land sakes, couldn't you hold your horses?" he said querulously.

  "Has there been a young couple here tonight?" the older of the two fired at him.

  "There've been several. I'm a justice of the peace." He smiled deprecatingly.

  "Dark-haired girl, olive-skinned. And the man with her was fair-haired. Giving the names of Mitty Fredericks and Lawrence Jones?"

  "Yep, they were," the justice nodded. "Not more than three quarters of an hour ago. Fact, they were the last ones here tonight."

  "And you—you did it? It's already over?"

  "I married them, yes," the justice told him succinctly. "That's what I'm here for."

  The older one turned and gave his companion a look of utter calamity. "Too late," he said dismally. "It's already been done."

  The second one stirred his breath with an expressive, long-drawn whistle.

  The justice looked troubled, plucked at his wattled throat. "Nothing wrong, is there? Are you two relatives?"

  "In a way," said the older man limply. "I'm-4*rofessor Fredericks. She was my ward."

  The justice plucked some more. "Their license seemed to be in order," he said defensively. "Took it out in Baltimore two or three days ago, waited the required length of time. I didn't see any reason not to accommodate them."

  "Baltimore, did you say?" the younger of the two repeated sharply. He turned his eyes inscrutably toward Fredericks for a moment.

  "That's right. I can only go by what documents are shown to me. I ain't no mind reader, you know, mister." The justice seemed more and more unsure of himself in the face of their accusing silence. He had shifted his plucking now to the topmost button of his bathrobe. "She gave her age as eighteen," he added in final, faltering vindication.

  A hiccup of morbid derision sounded in Fredericks' throat.

  "Eighteen," he repeated.

  Cotter slapped their car to a collision-like stop. They flung out of it as though the jolt itself had hurled them forth, leaving the doors gaping open on both sides.

&nbs
p; They ran into the pier building, through its walled-in forepart, and down toward the far end, where gaps showed at the side, as if a long row of sliding doors had been left open. Opposite these, close enough to touch, a hue of portholes studding weather-beaten iron hull plates was creeping unnoticeably along, like something on a moving belt. The ship was still so close alongside its berth it was hard to tell whether it was actually under way or not. The water strip between was still so narrow it was invisible from above.

  The newly retracted gangplank was still partially in position, but now it led off into vacancy. Cotter had leaped up on it and covered half its distance before he was collared and hauled back by two or three of the pier crew. "Hey, there, mister," one of them grinned, "what you trying to do, dunk yourself?"

  "Quit it, you fool," Fredericks advised him from below. "It's no use any more."

  They finished rolling the mobile structure back out of the way. Cotter stepped down and rejoined Fredericks. "Look at it," he fumed. "Still close enough to touch!"

  "Two minutes sooner," Fredericks agreed bitterly. "Maybe that last traffic light did it. Or maybe that wrong turn you started to make, on the way down."

  "There comes the name," Cotter said. He started to spell it out in reverse as the letters cleared the pier hatch one by one. ''A-I-L—Santa Emilia. Do you see them? Maybe they're not on it after all."

  Fredericks grabbed him by the arm suddenly. "There they are! Look, up there, on the second deck. In a straight line over that rust streak on the hull."

  They were standing there in a long line of others lining the rail. The man was hatless, tow-haired, everyday-looking; they probably wouldn't have recognized him on his own account. But the girl next to him, nestled within the protective curve of his arm, would have stood out even at a greater distance. Black-haired, dark-eyed, with high cheekbones; there was something oddly exotic about her. Byzantine or Polynesian.

  "Here goes; this is our last chance," Cotter said grimly. He cupped his hands like a funnel out before his mouth. The taut line of his throat quivered with the volume of voice he was forcing out. But not a sound could be heard, even by Fredericks, at his very elbow.

  For at that instant, with perfect synchronization, an abysmal, long-drawn blast sounded from the ship's siren, drowning out everything in a tornado of din.

  The man and the girl were slowly borne past. They were both looking up, in the direction the blast was coming from. The girl stuck a fingertip into each ear and shuddered. The man laughed. Then the two of them turned inward toward the deck. An empty space was all that remained to show where they had been, and even that didn't last long.

  The ship continued to glide past with mocking, trance-like slowness.

  Cotter lit a cigarette, "No Smoking" signs papering the pier shed notwithstanding, and blew a shaft of smoke dejectedly down his shirtfront. A peculiar sort of fatalism seemed to have taken possession of him. "We know," he said sepulchrally. "But they don't. He doesn't. Even she doesn't herself. Maybe knowledge is the only real danger in this case. Why don't we let them alone, let them work it out for themselves?"

  Fredericks turned on him fiercely. "Do you know what you're saying? Marriage is a sacrament. Any man who takes a woman to be his wife* I don't care who he is, is entitled to—"

  "To what?" asked Cotter presently, with a flicker of mordant amusement. "Entitled to what?"

  Fredericks didn't answer that.

  "Come on," he said in an oddly quiet voice, turning away. "We're going to send a wire to San Francisco, to be delivered to him when the ship docks there, after it's run up from the Canal."

  "Why not at sea?" Cotter queried. "Why not a radiogram while they're still at sea, right now?"

  "Because while they're still at sea, he can't get away from her. Once they've docked at San Francisco, he can."

  "If," said Cotter sardonically, "he wants to. He just now married her, remember? They go bhnd in the heart when they do that."

  "He's got to be given the chance," Fredericks fumed. "He's got to be told. They've got to be separated."

  Cotter snapped his half-finished cigarette into the mucous eddy the ship had left in its wake, and watched it go around in insane circles.

  "Whom God hath joined together," he murmured half audibly, "let God have mercy on. They're going to need it."

  Chapter Three

  Two A.M. The ship lay at rest now, anchored in Havana harbor. The stateroom was lighted, but no one was in it. The stewardess had turned back the covers of the double berth, awaiting occupancy for the night. On one side lay a pale pink nightdress, on the other a pair of pajamas.

  Outside somewhere there were the lights of Havana, sprinkled on the black surface of the harbor like nuclei of colored confetti soaking in the stagnant water. Morro Castle was like a stubby stick of gray chalk poised against the blackboard of the sky. A blue diamond near its tip twinkled, then dimmed, twinkled, then dimmed; over and over.

  A key turned in the stateroom door. He came in backward, pushing the door inward with his shoulder. He was holding, her in his arms, like a groom is supposed to carry his new-made bride. He was in white evening jacket, she was in black lace.

  He was smiling. She wasn't. Her eyes were downcast, as if there were fear hiding in them and she didn't want him to see it. She even held her head a little averted.

  He backed the door closed with his heel. He released her, and she dropped to her own feet, the black lace settling about her like a puff of black smoke.

  "What a town!" he exhaled. "You don't need alcohol in yoiu: drinks here—the town itself supplies the lift." He yanked out his tieknot.

  She was very quiet; she didn't say anything. He glanced over at her, as if for the first time noticing that her mood didn't match his. The black evening gown fell to the floor. He saw her hang her head a little.

  "Tired?" he asked gently.

  She shook her head, but without lifting it. It was so low he could see the part in her hair now, the gardenia she wore at the back. She sat down, pulled off one of her dancing shoes. Then the other.

  He wasn't smiling now any more, himself. He was thoughtful, downcast. "I know," he told her quietly. "You're frightened. Still frightened."

  She incHned her head still more abjectly forward, but didn't answer.

  "But we were married Tuesday. This is Friday. How long . . . ?" Then he didn't finish it. He shrugged his coat back on again. He went over toward the door.

  While his back was turned, there was the silken sound of her slip, and the pink nightdress was suddenly whisked from the bed, spilled itseff over her, like some kind of rosy foam.

  "Do you want me to go outside for a while again?" he asked her. "Like the other nights?"

  She wouldn't answer, or she couldn't.

  "What is it? Don't you love me?"

  She raised her head suddenly. She forced herself to. He could see that she was trembling a little, although the night temperature ashore in Havana was eighty degrees. "I love you, but I'm afraid of love. I'm both at once," she said in a low, muffled voice at last.

  "Then why did you marry me? You knew what marriage was, didn't you?"

  "All day in the sunshine, I'm not afraid. You are my love. Then the night comes, a drum beats low, deep in my heart . . ."

  "What is this fear? Love doesn't hurt you." He came back toward her and crouched down beside her, taking her hands in his.

  "Doesn't it?" she quavered uncertainly, like a child asking something of a teacher in school. "Then what—what does it do?"

  He groped for words. "You can't be told of it. You can only—live it."

  Her eyes were like two dark haunted pools.

  "Where were you," he asked her sadly, "that you never learned about love?"

  "In that house there, where you found me."

  "Won't you trust me?" he pleaded gently. "Can't you look at me and see that I'd never hurt you? Won't you— take a chance with me?"

  She was still trembling. Slowly her arms opened. She drew them back
in a gesture of passivity, of acceptance. A switch snapped, and the stateroom became a square of perfect darkness, a pall, an undeveloped photographic plate. . . .

  Then later, in the nothingness, her voice spoke, low, troubled.

  "Have I displeased you?"

  There was no answer.

  The switch ticked once more, the light went on, and they were far apart. It was her hand that had touched it. He was across at the other side of the stateroom from her, standing near the dresser, his back turned her way. Sweat traced an erratic satiny track here and there down his face. A forelock of hair overhung his forehead like a scythe.

  "Why do you leave me this way?"

  On the floor, petals of a disintegrated gardenia had fallen, as though a storm had buffeted it. The gardenia that had been in her hair. One petal was clinging to his shoulder. He raised his hand and flicked it off impatiently.

  "Please tell me. Please. What have I done?"

  He didn't answer. The hand that took up one of the black-filled Cuban cigarettes wasn't steady.

  "What is it, what did I do?"

  His voice was husky. "Nothing. Don't notice me. I had too many drinks ashore, maybe, at Sans Souci and Bajo la Luna."

  "You didn't drink at all. I watched you. Only coffee."

  He sensed by way of the mirror, without seeing it, her intention to move, to join him. His arm gestured her back. "Stay there. For just a minute. For just a minute, let me stand away from you."

  "Won't you tell me?"

  "First I frightened you; now your passion has frightened me." He opened one of the drawers, dredged up a bottle of straw-colored Cuban rum. He passed the back of his hand across his forehead, as if trying to erase or stifle some emotion churning within it. "It was like holding onto something that—that suddenly becomes a tigress in your arms. I don't know how to say it. Not just a girl. Some jungle thing. That's why I jumped away like that. Do you—know what you did just now?"

  He brought his other hand out before him, eyed it, red threads of blood snaking across its back. He took a pocket handkerchief, saturated it in rum from the bottle, held it to it. And then to his cheek, where there was an angry red diagonal traced. Then finally he tied it around his hand.