Tags:
Fiction,
Literary,
General,
Psychological fiction,
Romance,
Classics,
Southern States,
Domestic Fiction,
Married People,
Military Bases,
Military spouses
Langdon said, 'And let me tell you one thing it's
not worth it. Your health comes first because where would you be if you lost it? Leonora,
do you want another card?'
As Captain Penderton poured Mrs. Langdon's drink, he avoided her eyes. He loathed her so
much that he could scarcely bear to look at her. She sat very quiet and stiff before the
fire and she was knitting. Her face was deadly pale and her lips were rather swollen and
chapped. She had soft, black eyes of feverish brilliance. She was twenty nine years old,
two years younger than Leonora. It was said that she once had had a beautiful voice, but
no one on this post had ever heard her sing. As the Captain looked at her hands, he felt a
quiver of nausea. Her hands were slender to the point of emaciation, with long fragile
fingers and delicate branchings of greenish veins from the knuckles to the wrist. They
were sickly pale against the crimson wool of the sweater she was knitting. Frequently, in
many mean and subtle ways, the Captain tried to hurt this woman. He disliked her first of
all because of her total indifference to himself. The Captain despised her also for the
fact that she had done him a service she knew, and kept secret, a matter which if
gossiped about could cause him the most distressing embarrassment.
'Another sweater for your husband?'
'No,' she said quietly. 'I haven't decided just what I mean to do with this.'
Alison Langdon wanted terribly to cry. She had been thinking of her baby, Catherine, who
had died three years before. She knew that she should go home and let her houseboy,
Anacleto, help her get to bed. She was in pain and nervous. Even the fact that she did not
know for whom she was knitting this sweater was a source of irritation to her. She had
taken to knitting only when she had learned about her husband. At first she had done a
number of sweaters for him. Then she had knitted a suit for Leonora. During the first
months she could not quite believe that he could be so faithless to her. When at last she
had scornfully given up her husband, she had turned desperately to Leonora. There began
one of those peculiar friendships between the wife who has been betrayed and the object of
her husband's love. This morbid, emotional attachment, bastard of shock and jealousy, she
knew was unworthy of her. Of its own accord it had soon ended. Now she felt the tears come
to her eyes and she drank a little whiskey to brace herself, although liquor was forbidden
her because of her heart She herself did not even like the taste of it. She much preferred
a tiny glass of some syrupy liqueur, or a little sherry, or even a cup of coffee if it
came to that. But now she drank the whiskey because it was there, and the others were
drinking, and there was nothing else to do.
'Weldon!' called out the Major suddenly, 'your wife is cheating! She peeked under the
card to find if she wanted it.'
'No, I didn't. You caught me before I had a chance to see it. What have you got there?'
'I'm surprised at you, Moms,' said Captain Penderton. 'Don't you know you can never trust
a woman at cards?'
Mrs. Langdon watched this friendly badinage with an on the defensive expression that is
often seen in the eyes of persons who have been ill for a long time and dependent upon the
thoughtfulness, or negligence, of others. Since the night she had rushed home and hurt
herself, she had felt in her a constant, nauseous shame. She was sure that everyone who
looked at her must be thinking of what she had done. But as a matter of fact the scandal
had been kept quite secret; besides those in the room only the doctor and the nurse knew
what had happened and the young Filipino servant who had been with Mrs. Langdon since he
was seventeen years old and who adored her. Now she stopped knitting and put the tips of
her fingers to her cheekbones. She knew that she should get up and