The Accused - Harold R. Daniels (best novels for students TXT) 📗

enter, Cory was talking to the class, telling some dirty story. Morlock said, “That will do, Cory. You can return to your seat.”

Cory stood up indolently. “Alla right, teach’,” he said in the same moronic affectation of an accent. Morlock, infuriated, shouted, “Oh, for God’s sake, Cory, stop being a jackass.”

His glance was turned toward the class when he called out to Cory. He was surprised to see among the sly, anticipatory smirks a few smiles of congratulation, admiration, perhaps. He assigned a chapter for study and forgot the incident in planning what he would say, to Louise—or Lolly, as she called herself. It was not in him to rail at her or to demand any explanations; he accepted this at the same time that he admitted there was no other way to reach her short of physical violence. He had tried sarcasm and it had withered in the face of her stupendous lack of sensitivity. And Morlock was disarmed by his own sense of guilt. He had known—or at least he should have known, he reflected in the drowsy classroom—that she was incapable of handling money or any responsibility. But in the first days of marriage he had tried to see her irresponsibility as a rather charming naivete. When he could no longer maintain the absurdity that she was naive, he had still hesitated to destroy the illusion, and with it his marriage that he had counted on so heavily. He had once thought, a little desperately, that she would gain a sort of assurance through his trust in her. And now with that hope gone, he could not bring himself to ask her why she had not paid the bills, why she had not told him of the dunning letters. She would react in one of two ways. She would become sly and sullen, probing to find out how much he knew. Or—and this was much worse—she would become kittenish._ Daddy is mad at mother for spending his money?_

Morlock remembered quite clearly the circumstances surrounding her assumption of the family funds. Three days after they were married he had handed her a check—it amounted to seventy dollars—and asked her to cash it for him on the following morning. When he came home from the college on the next day she handed him some bills.

“I paid another week on the rent,” she said brightly. “And I have to do some grocery shopping tomorrow. Do you want to give me the money now?”

The marriage was new enough so that this seemed a kind of sharing and a bond. He had meant to give her a few dollars for housekeeping expenses but he kept only a few dollars for himself and handed the rest back to her. “You might as well pay all the bills,” he said. It was this demonstration of faith that he hated to take back in spite of a growing distrust.

Dismissing his thoughts of Lolly, Morlock decided that he would have to stop at the appliance store and find out exactly how much he owed—which brought up another problem. Somehow he would have to get money. From a bank, perhaps, although he did not have the slightest idea of how money was borrowed from banks. Or from one of those companies that advertised in the papers interminably:_ Pay your bills. The money you need in one hour._ Morlock resolved to stop at the appliance store and then at the bank. But he would not tell Lolly. He felt a moment’s panic at the thought that there were probably other creditors besides the utility companies. The grocer. The butcher. He reassured himself that she would have kept those paid, otherwise they would have no service, but he did not make a convincing case of it.

*

Prosecution Attorney Gurney: You have given your name as George Gorham and your occupation as being Dean of Ludlow College. What relationship did you have with the accused?

Gorham: As an instructor in English Literature he was under my administration.

Gurney: He wasn’t a professor?

Gorham: Mr. Morlock did not have enough academic credits to qualify for the title.

Gurney: I see. Did you consider him competent?

Gorham: I considered him competent, yes.

Gurney: Competent for Ludlow College, you mean?

Gorham: I fail to see—

Gurney: Isn’t it a fact that Ludlow College barely meets the minimum standards for recognition by the National Board of Regents?

Defense Counsel Liebman: Objection, Your Honor. The status of Ludlow College is irrelevant.

Presiding Justice Cameron: Sustained.

Gurney: Let it go. This backwater college, then—

Cameron: That will be enough, Mr.: Gurney.

Gurney: Mr. Gorham, as Dean of the college did you ever receive requests from Morlock’s creditors asking you to make him pay his bills?

Gorham: I did receive such letters.

Gurney: Did he pay his bills?

Gorham: I assume that he did.

Gurney: The letters stopped coming?

Gorham: Yes.

Gurney: Then you had the right to assume that he had paid them. Do you know where he got the money?

Liebman: Objection.

Cameron: On what grounds, Mr. Liebman? I would think the subject pertinent.

Gurney: I will be glad to rephrase the question, Your Honor. Mr. Gorham—should I refer to you as Dean Gorham, by the way?

Gorham: The title is an academic courtesy only.

Gurney: Dean Gorham, then. Is it a fact that Ludlow College carries a family life insurance policy on each of its instructors?

Gorham: It is not. The firm that carries the college’s large policies makes available a small policy at low rates to faculty members. The college shares the cost with the individual faculty members.

Gurney: Did Alvin Morlock have such a policy on his life and that of his wife?

Gorham: He did.

Gurney: What was the face value of the policy?

Gorham: One thousand dollars.

Gurney: Do you know how much money Morlock owed at the time of his wife’s death?

Gorham: Certainly not.

Gurney: But you do know that he was heavily in debt and that he was being hounded by his creditors.

*

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Alvin Morlock. Direct testimony of George Gorham.

It was only half-past two when Morlock stopped in front of the immaculately gleaming facade of the appliance store. Embarrassment and shame waited for him in the building, and he hesitated before he entered. He had been here once before when Lolly had picked out a television set and a refrigerator and a stove. In that order, he remembered wryly. And the largest television set, the smallest refrigerator and stove.

He shook his head silently at the clerk who came to meet him and walked toward the back of the store where a green neon script sign marked the credit department. A fat woman with a sour expression came to her side of the waist-high counter. When he gave his name she said, “Just a moment, please,” and went into a tiny cubicle of an office. She did not come out again. Instead, a tall, very thin man came out and walked to the counter.

The thin man said disapprovingly, “I’m the credit manager, Mr. Morlock. I’ve been waiting for you to come in about your account.”

Morlock knew instinctively that this man would not make or permit any face-saving pretenses. He was holding a manila folder with the word_ Delinquent_ stamped on it in red ink, holding it in such a manner that the letters leaped flamboyantly to the eye. Morlock had half planned some evasive explanation, but he said instead, “I’m here. How much do I owe you, please?”

The credit man had expected the evasion, the lie. There was a routine to affairs such as this, Morlock supposed. The deliberate display of the red brand on the folder. The calculated air of disapproval. Next would come hinted threats. The credit man frowned at the folder.

“You realize, of course, that since you are delinquent the entire balance is due. We are prepared to forgo immediate payment of the whole amount if you bring your payments up to date, Mr. Morlock.”

What dignity Morlock could now salvage depended on liquidating the entire bill. He plunged ahead obstinately. “The total, please.”

The credit man opened the folder. “Two months delinquent,” he said. “The balance due as of today, with interest, amounts to seven hundred and sixty dollars.”

Lolly had made no payments whatsoever, then. Morlock, with no head for figures, remembered vaguely that the original total had been something over eight hundred dollars of which he had paid ten per cent at the time of the purchase. He had been appalled at the amount then; he was overwhelmed now by the prospect of the immediate payment of such a large amount of money. There had been, in his youth, no money for luxuries. The salary he received from Ludlow College had seemed like a great deal of money after the long years of privation when macaroni and cheese had been a dinner and hamburger a banquet. He had even been able to save a little before his marriage. What, in God’s name, had she done with it?

“I’ll be back in the morning,” he said to the thin man, and left the store.

He had walked home after convincing himself that it was too late to stop at the bank, and found that Lolly was not home.

At four o’clock she had still not returned and Morlock went into the bathroom to shower and shave, finding a kind of peace in the rituals of habit. She had still not returned when he finished dressing and he wandered into the living room, picking up a book. It did not hold his interest, and he heard her footsteps in the hall before she slammed the kitchen door behind her.

Lolly came to the door of the living room and stood silently looking at him. He had had enough practice in the last few weeks to enable him to gauge her condition with a nice precision. Her face was slightly flushed but placid enough at first glance. On closer inspection, there was a strained tightness to the muscles of her jaw and chin and the pupils of her brown eyes were contracted. He didn’t overlook the slight swaying of her body.

“Hello, Daddy,” she said archly. There was a bright fleck of saliva at the corner of her mouth.

“Hello, Louise,” Morlock said. He decided against bringing up the matter of the unpaid bills now. Her present mood was as unstable as it was unpredictable. She might interpret the most innocent phrase, the most meaningless gesture, as a slight. When that happened she was capable of flying into a murderous fury, beating him down with obscenities. Lately he had begun to wonder if the violences were genuine, but whatever they were, he had no stomach for them.

She walked carefully into the room. “I was downstairs with Anna,” she said lightly. “Does Daddy want his supper now?”

He shook his head. “I’m not very hungry,” he said. “I’ll get something for myself by and by.”

She said, “Oh.” And, after a moment, “I think I’ll go back down and see Anna then. Maybe we’ll go to a show.”

After she had left, Morlock went to the kitchen. He heated water in the kettle and rinsed the sink with part of it. He poured the remainder into a dishpan, adding soap powder and cold water from the tap. He then cleared the messy table and began washing the dishes, remembering how it had been in the days before Louise. He had had two rooms then and he had kept them immaculate. There had even been a sort of lonesome pleasure in coming home to the two rooms, in cooking his own meals. When the kitchen was clean he set a place for himself at the table and cooked eggs and toast and made coffee, welcoming the quiet of the tenement.