Radio mirror (July-Dec 1943)

he adored her while she was alive. There was a special reason for it, I think," she added thoughtfully. "I believe that Rand had been seriously ill before he met her— paralysis, I think. He was sick a long' time, and the effects lingered — that's undoubtedly the reason why he's not in the Army. He must have loved Agnes all the more because she clung to him, depended upon him, as he'd had to depend upon others. She was a slender, delicate thing — too delicate to live." AUNT KAY crossed over to me, put her hands on my shoulders. "We all love Rand, Janet," she said softly. "There are some people who are more capable of loving than others, just as some people are unusually strong, or unusually intelligent. Rand, I think, is one of those who loves deeply, completely, if he loves at all. That ability to care is a wonderful thing, but it could hurt him, too; it could make it much harder for him to forget his loss. And Janet, whatever you do, remember that there's no rival as formidable as a dead rival— if she still lives in a man's heart." I saw Rand often in the next few weeks, and in time I almost forgot the story Aunt Kay had told me. I forgot that he was eight years older than I, and that in those years he had loved another woman and had suffered from the loss of her. I forgot it in the eagerness of his eyes when he saw me, of his arms that reached out to me, in the quick, hard way his lips— lips that were strong, sharply cut, but almost too sensitive fpr a man's — sought mine. I don't remember when we first said we loved each other. Saying it wasn't important. We had known that we belonged together from the very beginning. If there was a shadow on his heart, he never, let me see it. There were a few nights when he neither called nor came to see me, but the next evening he would be doubly happy that I was with him, doubly anxious to please me. Once he broke a date, but he gave me a valid excuse — that he had to work late — and the next day he left the office early to take me driving. We didn't take our usual road that afternoon, toward the country or toward the lake. Instead, Rand turned into one of the newer suburbs and 38 "Love Is A Living Tiling" was adapted from an original story, "The Bride Came Home," heard on My True Story, broadcast daily at 3:15 P.M., EWT, over the Blue Network. drove through the streets slowly, aimlessly-I thought. "Would you like to see my house?" he asked sudden^ The unexpectedness of tne question and the tautness of his voice startled me but I tried to answer naturally. "Of course, Rand." He turned a corner, stopped the car, and pointed across the street. "There it is. An English cottage, wide and low, sheltered by several magnificent old elms, stood toward the back of a beautifully-kept lawn. "It's beautiful, Rand. "I built it for my wife." His voice was still taut, and he spoke doggedly, as if he'd rehearsed a speech many times and was determined to get it said aloud. "You know, I suppose, that I was married, and that iny wife died." He was trying too hard to — sound as if it no longer mattered. I did my best to help him. "I could hardly help knowing, in a town the size of Amity." But my lightness fell flat, and I knew _ that I couldn't go on any longer without being sure how he felt about those years of his life in which I'd had no part. "Rand," I began, "don't you think — " In one of those moments of insight which often told each of us what the other was thinking, he must have guessed what I was about to say. He turned the switch and started the car. "That's all past," he said. "But, Rand—" "It's all past," he insisted. "Let's drive." A week later when he asked me to marry him, I accepted. Perhaps I wouldn't have been strong enough to refuse him under any circumstances, but I felt that he had as much as promised me that the past would not come between us. The kind of wedding he wanted reassured me, a regular wedding with everyone we knew in Amity present, with me in a white dress and a white veil, as if there had been no other marriage and no other bride for Rand. And in the kiss he gave me after the ceremony there was something of finality and something of a salute — as if he had come home, at last, after a long, lonely journey. Rand was quiet during the drive to the inn at which we were to spend our honeymoon, but he held my hand most of the way, and I took his silence to be a sign of the same deep sweet contentment which filled me It was late when we reached the inn A sleepy porter admitted us, checked our reservations, and led us up the curving staircase to our room. I unpacked our bags while Rand went downstairs to put the car away, and then I picked VLm13'»?Vernl£h^ case and retired to the little curtained alcove off the bedroom. Rand had been pleased to see me in the white satin and the veil of traditional bridal clothes; now * wanted to appear before him m « gown Aunt Kay had made for me, i » the swirling skirt of white chiffon anu the fragile lace bodice, in the ". full-sleeved negligee. I heard JM» come in, and I hurried to my dressy expecting at any moment to hear call out to me. When I had giver » hair a quick brushing so that 11 " j soft and shining to my shouiaei , stepped out into the room. in(joW, Rand was standing at the w his back toward me. I cros,se° his over to him, put my hands shoulders. "Rand—" tiirnM' Without speaking, without w. There was a lUfle smile on his lips. He looked happier fhan he had eyer been in my company. he reached back his arm and pulled me to him, holding me close and hard against him — desperately hard. I was conscious suddenly of the thin layers of cloth which covered me, defensively aware of my body as I had never been aware of it in all of the time Rand courted me, in all of the times I had rested securely in his arms. At that moment it was if a stranger had touched me in my near-nakedness. Then he turned his head and looked <iown at me, and I saw his face in we lamplight. I'd heard of people S°mg to pieces, but I'd never realized mat the phrase could be literally true. ™»d wasn't Rand any longer; he was distorted pieces of himself— tortured eyes, twisted mouth, hands that held ™ nurtingly hard and then pushed ™e roughly away. His voice wasn't nancts voice; it was a ragged thing, d. n out °f him and flung at me. "Now "you see what I am, Janet? Do you got?" a wreck °t a husband you've Parab"1^'4 answer My throat felt had h ' my head as numb as if it wall n Struck hard against a stone m a great pretender," he cried harshly. "I walk around like other men. I go to work, and to dinner, and to parties. I see others laughing and talking, and I laugh and talk with them. And it's pretense,^ every motion I make, every sound—" "You made love to me. Was that a pretense, too?" The question asked itself. . , , The fierceness left him, and he looked like Rand again— miserable, ashamed, but Rand. "No, Janet, he said humbly, "that wasn't pretense. From the very first I wanted you. You were a whole person, a happy person There was a glow about you that warmed even me. Then I fell L in love with you. I don't know when. At times It seems I'd always loved yo^ T do love you, Janet, but— His voice hardened and he put out his hand and stepped back, as if to keep me from going to him. "You must understand fw I've tricked you. I've let you nfnk'that fetid oe : happy with yo. Perhaps I can. But Im «*»»*^ gambled your happiness for the sake ^dnTsee him leave the : room My at the nothing that was left of everything I'd thought I had. I felt a great hurt and a great humiliation, and a kind of shamed loathing of myself. I felt the soft stuff of my gown, saw its filmy folds, and I wanted to tear it from me, to rip the frail cloth shred from shred. And I would have torn it, if I hadn't remembered the loving care Aunt Kay had put into the making of it, the hundreds of tiny, patient stitches she'd taken. The thought of her gave me what I needed then, the things Aunt Kay herself was — sanity and common sense. I began to think, to really think about Rand instead of myself and my hurt. He loved me. He'd said he loved me, even while he put me from him. And more, I felt that he loved me— the thing that had drawn us together from the start was stronger than any words could affirm or deny. He'd admitted that he'd gambled with my happiness, but without him I'd never have known the highest happiness, the miracle of being with him. Loving him, I had to be big enough to gamble, too. I went to the window and saw a dark figure (Continued on page 56) 89