The Wycherly Woman Read Online Free Page B

Crank letters. They came last year before the divorce, when Phoebe was home from Stanford for Easter vac. She opened the first one herself. It said some awful things about her mother.”
    “What things?”
    The girl said solemnly: “That she had committed adultery. The way Phee talked, she seemed to believe what the letters said. She said another thing that I didn’t understand. She said the letters were her fault, and they were what broke up her parents’ marriage.”
    “She didn’t mean that she wrote them herself?”
    “She couldn’t have meant that. I don’t know what she meant. I tried to get her to talk about it some more, but she went into a tizzy. I brought up the subject again in the morning, and she pretended that she hadn’t said
any
thing.” A queer expression crossed her face. “I don’t know if I should be telling you all this.”
    “If you don’t, Dolly, who will? When did this conversation occur?”
    “The week before she took off. I remember she was talking about her father’s trip the same night.”
    “How did she feel about her father’s trip?”
    “She resented it. She wanted to go along, but not with him.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “It’s simple enough. She wanted to take a slow boat to China, all by herself alone. But she didn’t.”
    “How do you know she didn’t?”
    “Because she planned to come back and finish her senior year. It was very important to her, to get a degree and get a job and stand on her own two feet and not have to take money from anybody.”
    “Anybody like her father, you mean?”
    “Yes. Besides, a girl doesn’t go away for a long trip and leave all her best clothes behind—her formais, and her Italian sweaters and simply piles of shoes and bags and coats. She even left her blond sheared beaver coat, and it’s worth a fortune.”
    “Where is it?”
    “With the rest of her things, in the basement. I didn’t want them put there, but Mrs. Doncaster said it would be all right.” Dolly twisted uncomfortably, wrestling with her knees. “It seemed so heartless, moving her things out. But what could I do? After Phoebe’s rent ran out, I couldn’t afford to pay the rent for both of us. I had to find myself another roommate. And Mrs. Doncaster had me convinced for a while that Phoebe had simply pulled up stakes and gone away with her father. I didn’t really know different until yesterday.”
    “Where did Mrs. Doncaster get that idea?”
    The girl hesitated. “She just had it, I guess.”
    “It must have come from somewhere.”
    After further hesitation, she said: “I suppose it was wish-fulfillment. She didn’t really want Phoebe to—No,” Dolly broke in on herself. “I don’t mean that the way it sounds.”
    “You don’t mean that Mrs. Doncaster didn’t want Phoebe to come back?”
    “No. I mean, she didn’t want anything to
happen
to her. But she was just as satisfied when she
didn’t
come back. She wanted to think that Phoebe had gone for good. I mean, she kept telling me that one of these days we’d hear from Phoebe.She’d send for her things, from New Zealand or Hong Kong or who knows where, and that would be that. But it isn’t, is it?”
    “I don’t understand Mrs. Doncaster’s motive. Does she dislike your roommate?”
    “She hates her. It’s nothing personal. I’m not trying to say that Mrs. Doncaster had anything to do with it.”
    “It?”
    “Whatever happened to Phoebe. She isn’t dead, is she?”
    “I don’t know. We still haven’t got to the bottom of Mrs. Doncaster.”
    “It’s simple enough.” To Dolly, everything was very simple or very complicated. “I didn’t want to drag his name into it—he’s a nice boy—but Bobby Doncaster had a crush on Phoebe. A heavy crush. He used to hang around with his tongue hanging out a yard, panting. Mrs. Doncaster didn’t like the idea at all.”
    “Was it a two-way crush?”
    “I guess so. Phee didn’t wave her torch around the way Bobby did. But as a matter