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"Crafty, Crafty," cried Pat as she saw me enter the room. Her two roommates
had poisonous expressions on their faces. She was trying to get out of the
bed, clutching her tummy. I pushed her back, shoved her legs horizontal and
yelled at the nurse to get the hell in there with the hypo.
"Crafty," sobbed Pat in weeping distress, "you can't imagine the horrible
things she said. She didn't give me a chance to say anything. I don't think
she wanted a logical explanation. She hates Peter! She hates him! She hates
Cecily for being so happy with him. And she despises you for giving Cecily her
children. I've never seen anyone so full of hate. She must know the children
aren't mine and Peter's, but that's what she said. And she kept on saying it,
and saying it" - Pat was covering her ears to shut out the sound of that
vengeful slander - "and everybody heard it. It's ghastly, Crafty. Oh, Crafty,
what will Cecily do?"
I swabbed her arm and gave her the sedative as she was talking - rather,
babbling. I also gave orders for her to be moved to a private room. Pat's
words became incoherent as the drug took effect. Even as I was pushing her bed
toward the private room, I thought of how very characteristic of Pat to worry
about Cecily rather than the equivocal position into which Cecily's mother had
put herself and her brother. I do not recall ever before being so consumed
with anger as I was at that hour in my life. Had I known where Louise Baxter
could be found, I think I would have strangled her with my bare hands.
Talk of feathers in the wind, there was no way of stopping the slander. It was
obviously all over the hospital and would undoubtedly precede us back into
town. I was in such a state of impotent wrath that it was all I could do to
keep from lashing out at the floor nurse and the orderly, to wipe the smug
expressions from their faces as we shifted Pat. Pat was mumbling herself into
a drugged slumber, and the floor nurse was fussing unnecessarily about the
room, when Chuck came stalking through the hall.
"All that fuss because Pat's brother and his wife are helping the girl cover
an indiscretion," he said with commendable poise. "What some people will
think!" He shook his head over the frailties of mankind and then imperiously
gestured the nurse out of the room.
When she'd left he indulged himself in a spate of curses as inventive as they
were satisfying, and all relative to the slow and painful demise of one Louise
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Baxter.
"You've sedated her?" he asked, feeling for Pat's pulse and then stroking her
disordered hair back from her face. "Let her sleep."
He turned from the bed and perched his rump against the windowsill, trying to
light a cigarette with shaking hands. He finally got it lit and inhaled
deeply.
"Is that what you told Avery? That Pat was indiscreet?"
"No, I told him the truth. I've a hunch it might be important later. I can't
say he believed me," and Chuck let out a harsh snort of laughter, "but I've
convinced him that the charge of - ha! - incestuous fornication is the
accusation of a psychotic. He's quite ready to believe that, judging from the
way Her Ladyship Baxter carried on. He does think, and he subscribes to making
it informally the truth, that we're covering up an illegitimate birth and that
Peter and Cecily are going to adopt the children. He's a good man, Avery, but
I'm afraid our revolutionary and irreligious fact is beyond his
comprehension."
"Illegitimacy is a lot more palatable than" - I couldn't even say it - "the
other."
"Our public fiction depends on a cooperative grand-mother, and I can't see the
likes other cooperating with you or me, or the Kelloggs. Christ, how I'd love
to get my hands on her. I'd have her committed so fast ... But Avery will
handle matters here - neurotic grandmother, hates to admit her age - he's
smooth as silk. He's having a long talk with that floor supervisor - one for
letting Baxter in, two for not shutting her up the moment she started, and
three for half believing her." He walked back to Pat, feeling her abdomen.
"No, it's hard," I said.
"I'd like to move her out of here, quickly."
"Will Avery let Esther stay on as special?" I asked.
"You just bet he will," said Esther from the door, grim- lipped. She was in
her whites, starched and ready for action. I was inordinately relieved. "What
else do you expect from provincial hospitals?" She checked Pat, smoothed the
bed-clothes unnecessarily, and began checking the room's equipment, as if she
hoped to find fault with it. "They don't have rooming in or I'd bring the
babies right here. But she's all right with me. You'd better get back to the
cottage. Oh, and Dr. Craft, I administered a strong sedative to Cecily before
I came out. You look as if you need one, too, Allison," she added and then
settled herself on the chair by the sleeping Pat.
As we passed Avery's office on the way out, we heard him administering quite a
lecture to some unfortunate person.
Wizard's angry barking alerted us before we turned off the main road into the
lane that led to the cottage. Two of the group hovering by the path evidently
had urgent business somewhere else.
"My God! People! I hate 'em," muttered Chuck, staring belligerently back at
the four hangers-on as we parked the car.
"Don't go in there," one of the men told Chuck. "That dog's dangerous!"
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"Is he?" asked Chuck with innocent mildness, and we walked right past the
snarling dog. "Howd'ya like that?" someone muttered.
Peter was in the shadows of the small screened porch.
"Esther gave Cecily something. She'd made herself ill with weeping," he said.
"Is Pat all right?"
"Esther's with her. Avery's handling the hospital staff." Chuck wearily combed
his hair back from his forehead. "He doesn't believe in exogenesis, but the
notion that you and Cecily are going to adopt your sister's indiscretion is
acceptable."
"What?"
Perhaps it was a trick of the sun, but I thought I saw a glint of anger in
Peter's dead eyes.
"How long do Pat and the babies have to stay here?"
"We'll leave as soon as Pat can stand the trip," I said, sagging against the
wall.
Chuck sort of maneuvered me into the nearest chair, but it faced the pathway
and the curious faces parading by. I tried to tell myself it was reaction to
the whole nasty scene, but I was depressed by the notion that if Louise Baxter
had spread her filth this fast in a small vacation village, she'd sure as hell
go on to pollute the more rewarding atmosphere of our university town. Though
what she stood to gain by such slander, I couldn't understand.
Before we all got very drunk. Chuck sat me down at the dining-room table, and
we wrote up our notes on the delivery. I could see that they were going to be
very important documents, but the clinical reportage sure as hell took the
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