Black Diamond Read Online Free Page B

slip through. She could also use William’s stamped and cancelled envelopes sent genuinely from the West Indies; a single numeral altered the box number. And she brought the affair to an end quickly. She sent Jean a letter that described William going to a party given by friends of his parents. These friends had a daughter he’d met years ago when they were children. He couldn’t believe now, the letter said, how much they had in common. Although he’d always be fond of Jean, he thought they’d better both admit everything between them had been a big mistake. He felt pretty upset, but he had to be honest and say he wanted to do lots of things in life – starting with college and law school – that wouldn’t be possible with a wife and child. He’d come to believe, from hearing some interesting theories on the subject recently, that it was better in every way not to start having children till you were about twenty-eight. He did realize, naturally, that in a certain sense he was to blame. But she couldn’t deny that she’d said yes in the first place, and nice girls didn’t – he knew that now: they just hadstrong principles about the right way to behave in life. You had to have those high standards in order to become a mature human being. Of course he still liked her, but he thought she’d better take her parents’ advice, except not about trying to get money out of his father, because that could land them in a lot of trouble, she’d better believe that.
    The letter ended,
So
I guess this is goodbye.
    Jean wrote back. She pleaded with him. She thought that he couldn’t have meant to send her a letter like that. She asked him to read it over, and to think about what he felt, and to try to remember the way he’d known her. She enclosed his letter. She said she loved him; she’d wait for an answer.
    He didn’t answer. He hadn’t seen her letter. She wrote again, almost immediately, telling him that her parents were taking her out of school for the rest of the year and sending her to live with her maiden aunt in the next state. She was going to have the baby there. She gave him the address and begged him to help her: if he didn’t help, they could take the baby away from her as soon as it was born. That was what they wanted – for the baby to be adopted by somebody, so then nobody would know she’d had an illegitimate child.
    William still knew nothing. His mother had written him a masterpiece of a letter, filled with accusation, silliness and platitudes. It also compared parents, saying that her father had worked all his life, which was more than you could say for his father, who spent all his time swindling people and called it big business: she didn’t know why he was so stingy, either: William was going to be just the same when he grew up, which would probably be never. And she was taking her parents’ advice, by the way, and having an operation because she didn’t want to have anything more to do with him: she was hoping to get a steady job some day and meet a real man: and she was staying away from home for good, so he didn’t need to write any more dumb letters to her.
    A key was enclosed. His mother had had duplicates made. She hadn’t worked out the details of her scheme at the beginning, but everything had seemed to go very well. She stopped writing anyletters herself. She merely collected and read theirs. At any moment she expected to find that William had written to Jean’s parents – that would have spoiled everything: but he’d lost his trust in them. He stopped sending letters. He’d come to the conclusion, suddenly, that it was over between him and Jean. He hadn’t done anything, or been able to do anything, to make a difference. She had changed; she was sorry about what had happened. She hadn’t loved him, after all.
    His Uncle Bertram said over the phone that William was desolate: he swam, and he went out in the boat with the rest of the gang, but he was so unhappy it was pitiful