Married People: A Collection of Short Stories

By Mary Roberts Rinehart

Ten tales of married life: happy, sad, and blood-soaked
Clarke Wellington supposes it’s time he murdered his wife. Dolly isn’t a promiscuous woman, and she isn’t violent, but she is stingy, petty, and cruel, and she runs her household with a tyranny that has turned her husband into a mouse and her children into frightened little automatons. Of course, it’s easy to make this kind of decision, but much harder to follow through. When a man hasn’t stood up for himself in years, how can he possibly learn to kill?
“The Man Who Killed His Wife” is just one in this sterling collection of short stories by a master of the classic mystery novel. Rinehart tells her tales one couple at a time, from the Wellingtons to the Bryces to the Chisholms. In some of their houses is physical violence, and in some, the torment is purely emotional. Not until death will these happy couples part, but that day is coming sooner than some of them think. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Aug 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781480409194

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Often referred to as the American Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American journalist and writer who is best known for the murder mystery The Circular Staircase—considered to have started the “Had-I-but-known” school of mystery writing—and the popular Tish mystery series. A prolific writer, Rinehart was originally educated as a nurse, but turned to writing as a source of income after the 1903 stock market crash. Although primarily a fiction writer, Rinehart served as the Saturday Evening Post’s correspondent for from the Belgian front during the First World War, and later published a series of travelogues and an autobiography. Roberts died in New York City in 1958.

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Married People

A Collection of Short Stories

Mary Roberts Rinehart

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Contents

ONE: THE BRYCES

TWO: THE LIVINGSTONES

THREE: THE GORDONS

FOUR: MISS ALLISON

FIVE: OFFICER HOGAN

SIX: THE BARSTOWS

SEVEN: THE WELLINGTONS

EIGHT: THE ROSSITERS

NINE: THE ARMISTEADS

TEN: THE CHISHOLMS

ONE

THE BRYCES

Experiment in Youth

ALLISON BRYCE WAS HAPPY when Bill got married. She was a little emotional in the church, of course, but nothing to speak of, and she knew that she looked almost young and not an ounce over her one hundred and forty pounds. Certainly she was much slimmer than Blanche Henderson across the aisle, who was the mother of the bride and openly jittery, and not at all—Allison felt—like the mother of a son who was standing up by the altar in his first morning coat and striped trousers, trying to look older than his age, which was twenty-four, and to steady his knees, which were undeniably shaking.

When the wedding march began and they all stood up, Harry slid his hand over and caught hers, and she held onto it with a queer feeling that he was now all she had, and she must hold him forever and ever, amen. He had not changed a great deal in the twenty-five years since she had dragged four yards of white satin train up that same aisle. As he stood, there was a small but definite protuberance starting just below his breastbone, and his neck had a tendency to cascade over the edge of his stiff collar. Otherwise he was just Harry, fiftyish but still handsome, who had planted a foot firmly on her train that day twenty-five years ago.

She jerked herself together. Good heavens, Bill was getting married! Here was Elinor on Gus Henderson’s arm, in white satin and carrying white orchids, and from the side looking as though she had never eaten a square meal in her life; and followed by her bridesmaids in pale pink and blue, who also gave the same strange impression of length and breadth and no thickness.

She felt a small tinge of resentment. Thirty feet of intestines somewhere—and other things, of course—and they looked as though a single hard-boiled egg would have made a bump in them. She pulled in her own stomach sharply, but as it gave no indication of touching her backbone she drew a long breath and let it out again.

The party had reached the front of the church, and Gus, shining with perspiration and a hard job well done, had stepped out of the limelight and was mopping his face.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God …

Suddenly she felt middle-aged and overweight and low in her mind. All she could really see of Bill was the back of his neck, which still looked incredibly like the neck she used to wash when the nurse was out, and his ears, which were never washed at all without a battle. That baby—getting married! For just a minute she could not bear it.

Then it was over. Bill and Elinor had gone, the ushers were taking down the ribbons, and she was standing slightly dazed, ready to leave. All at once, in the twinkling of an eye, so to speak, she had passed a milestone. Well, life did queer things to women. In due time, she supposed, she would be a grandmother, and after that she would sit and knit bootees and life would go past her like a river and no amount of astringent and skin foods and stooping twelve times to touch her toes would put her anywhere but on the bank, watching it.

She was smiling gaily under her frivolous hat as she went down the aisle on the usher’s arm, and the usher—who used to throw peas all over the dining room when Bill had a birthday party—was frightfully dignified and exuded a slight aroma of Scotch whisky. Look like a bride yourself, Mrs. Bryce.

I feel like Mrs. Methuselah.

Oh, now, see here! That’s not fair to Harry, is it?

The Harry startled her until she remembered that he was Harry to a good many people, and that there was a freemasonry among men which didn’t exist among women. They met at golf or bridge or at their clubs, and age seemed to make no difference. Nevertheless, she gave Harry a quick look when she found him waiting at the curb for the car. There was a sort of perennial youth about him, standing there in his top hat. Bill’s marriage was no milestone to him. It was just a rather boring business to be gone through, and to be followed by champagne—which disagreed with him—later. And in the car he leaned back and drew a long breath. Well, thank God that’s over! he said. Now we can go back to normal living again.

She considered that. Normal living to Harry was his business, golf on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and on most days a game of bridge at the club before dinner, and Harry would grumble while he dressed, and shout over his necktie, and then be the life of the party later. But coming home in the car he would grunt and thank God—as now—that that was over.

Normal living, without Bill!

Later, at the Hendersons’, Allison’s depression continued. She stood in line, and a sort of tidal wave of rejoicing swept past her, a tidal wave largely of youth. Most of them she could remember in their perambulators, and fairly unattractive at that. Now here they were, acting as though the earth was theirs and she and Harry and the Hendersons and all the rest of the adult world were merely a shadowy background for them.

Afternoon, Mrs. Bryce. Lovely wedding, wasn’t it?

Lovely.

But it was purely perfunctory. They scarcely knew she was there. They passed on, laughing and talking, to hunt for champagne or to plot in a corner to make the departure as sensational as possible.

She fought as long as she could. Bit by bit she was forced back into a corner, as if the insurging tide of youth had simply tossed her aside; and it was there that Gus found her in a chair, because her high heels hurt her, and brought her a glass of wine.

Well, Allie, he said, I guess this dates us all right. We aren’t any older, but we’ll feel older. Not that you look it, he added gallantly. Remember that wedding of yours? You were as pretty as a picture that day. Well, here’s to them, God bless them!

I hope they’ll be happy, Gus.

Sure they’ll be happy.

She felt better after the champagne, and she and Blanche took a final look at the wedding gifts while Elinor and Bill were changing their clothes. She saw that four more silver after-dinner coffee sets had come in, making seven in all, and three additional cocktail shakers. Also she saw that Blanche, who weighed almost two hundred pounds, and was almost two hundred pounds of quivering emotion, stared at the gifts without seeing them.

Elinor’s always been so popular, she said, looking at Allison with red-rimmed eyes. And Bill too, of course. I—I hope they have a family, Allie. These days, when there are so many divorces …

Of course, Blanche would speak of having a family! It was more delicate than talking about babies. Allison gave herself another jerk. What in the world was wrong with her today?

It’s a little early to worry about that, Blanche, she said. After all, they are just married—if that.

At which Blanche gave her a startled look and began in a hurry to count the dozens of place plates.

Then Bill and Elinor were gone. A redheaded chit named Barry had caught the bride’s bouquet as she threw it, and there was a general exodus of youth from the house to dance in the marquee on the lawn. The house was suddenly quiet, if messy, and, searching for Harry, Allison found him at the extemporized bar, having had rather more than enough champagne.

What’s the hurry, m’dear, he said thickly. Ole Bill doesn’t get married every day.

She got him home finally; then went into the bathroom and determinedly mixed him some bicarbonate of soda and hot water. He took it under protest, but after it was down—and not so ghastly as he had expected it to be—he leaned over and patted her shoulder.

If only they’re as happy as we’ve been, my dear—, he said, and choked, partly with the results of the soda and partly with emotion.

She reached up and kissed him. He was all she had now. She must hold on to him, always, forever. Never mind the bulge below his breastbone, and his tendency to fuss over bills, and the fact that he was losing his hair. He was hers and she loved him. There was no Bill any more to call her old girl and tell her how young and pretty she was. When Harry did it it was with a vague sort of surprise, that at her age she looked so well; but with Bill it was real and spontaneous. Come on, old girl. How about a time tonight?

With all the pretty girls simply waiting to be asked, Bill?

Hell with pretty girls. I’m asking the prettiest woman I know.

She went into her room and slowly removed her wedding finery. She felt tired and strangely alone, for all of Harry, and with her dress off she stood and inspected herself in the mirror. She was plump rather than heavy, but there was nothing girlish about her as she stood there. She was even less girlish when she unhooked the heavy corset she called her girdle, and took a long breath of sheer relief. And again she saw Elinor going up the aisle, slim and flagrantly ungirdled, and with her small young breasts delicately outlined.

She liked Elinor. She had wanted the marriage. But that night she felt resentful of all youth, taking its slimness for granted, its bright young hair, its clear skin and clear outlines. She sat in front of her mirror for a long time, doing her neck exercises and then using a good skin food. After that she went to bed. There was no need to lie awake now, listening for Bill’s car to come in. No need to worry any more about that pain now and then which might be his appendix. He had someone else to do that now. Or had he?

She was almost asleep when Harry came in to go to bed, but she was aware of an unaccustomed tenderness in his good-night kiss. Well, he said jocularly, I suppose I’m now the man of the house again.

She thought that over after he was in bed. For the first time she wondered if Harry hadn’t been just a little jealous of Bill. That was ridiculous, of course, but it might be. She sat up in bed to tell him so. Harry, she said.

Harry was sound asleep and snoring, a familiar crescendo rising to a grand climax and followed by a long silence before it began again. But she had slept to it for many years. Now she turned on her pillow and closed her eyes.

Bill and Elinor came home at the end of a month. The interval had been quiet. On the nights when they had stayed at home Harry had dozed as usual in his chair until time for bed, and she had read or sewed. Now and then, of course, they went out. They had always belonged to what, for some reason, was called the young married set, although the ages ranged from thirty to fifty, but now she thought that their status was somewhat altered. The older group—fifty to seventy—was asking them more and the others less.

Harry did not notice it, apparently, or that the talk was mostly of Bill and Elinor.

What do you hear from the youngsters?

They’re in Bermuda, having a wonderful time.

Well, time flies, doesn’t it?

It had flown a long way for some of them. Toupees now, and obvious dentures, and men watching their blood pressure.

How’s the arthritis, Sam?

"It’s fine. Why don’t you ask me how I am?"

Allison kept herself busy. The children were to live with them for a time anyhow, and she was preparing for their return; talking over new recipes with Eliza, her cook since Bill was born, and getting herself a new permanent and a new negligee. True, Bill’s old bedroom looked queer done at Elinor’s suggestion in blue and silver, and with a taffeta-draped toilet table and two beds instead of one; and his old nursery, adjoining it, had lost its pennants and college pictures and an ancient football and become a frivolous boudoir, with cushions and smart little chairs and tables and lamps. But there was one place behind a door which she had not had painted. That was where each year on his birthday they had stood Bill up with a ruler on top of his head and Harry had made a pencil mark of his height. Bill, aged six. Bill, aged twelve. And the very high one which was Bill aged twenty-one.

On the last day she called Harry in and showed him those marks. Harry was not sentimental over them. God, how he grew out of his pants! he said, and stood gazing at them as though remembering all the trousers and shoes Bill had grown out of, and the money they had cost.

The children came home before dinner that evening. The house looked lovely, filled with flowers and lamplight and the odor of good food cooking, and the children themselves looked happy, sunburned and excited.

Bill! Come up here quick and look at these lovely rooms!

And Bill in the doorway. "Great Scott, mother, do I have to live with ruffles?"

He was pleased and proud, however. He put his arms around her and kissed her, and told her how pretty she was. She is lovely, isn’t she, Elinor?

She’s elegant, said Elinor, in the new-old slang of her generation. Look here, Bill, what do I call her? Mother?

You are young in years but old in life, darling. Why not call her Allison? That’s her name.

She stood by, smiling fixedly. Bill as he grew up had generally called her hey, varied by old girl, an occasional good old egg and once in a while a reversion to his childish name for her, which was mummy. This last, however, was only in moments of extreme weakness, as when he was recovering from the mumps. This situation was out of her hands, however.

I think I’ll call you ‘mother,’ if you don’t mind, said Elinor, after consideration. You see, I call my own mother ‘mums.’

Well, that was that, and Elinor kissed her. You’ve been perfectly grand, mother, she said, and a feeling of age and everything overness began at Allison’s toes and swept in a wave of pure anility over her entire body.

This was not lessened by Elinor’s decision after due thought to call Harry Harry. Bill looked amused, but Harry looked complacent.

After all, why not? Elinor said. You are Harry to everybody. You always have been. And I can’t call you ‘dad,’ like Bill. I call Father that.

Well, that was that too. Harry was Harry to everyone, young and old, so why not to Elinor? But what a queer thing life was anyhow? Girls inevitably grew into women, but something of the boy persisted in every man.

Allison dressed for dinner that night in a state of mixed emotion. Comparing herself before her mirror with Elinor, she felt about the shape and general sightliness of an apple dumpling. And the dinner that night did not help matters.

Eliza had insisted on starting with a mushroom soup with whipped cream on top, and Elinor had merely looked apologetic and not touched it. She ate a mouthful of broiled chicken, a spoonful of peas and all of her salad, having carefully removed the mayonnaise. And when the ice cream came on she refused it entirely.

Allison, plodding through her meal systematically, had finally seen what was happening. My dear, she said, I’m so sorry. If there is anything you would like—

Elinor had flushed, but Bill had burst into a shout of laughter. Anything she’d like! he said. She’d like the whole darned meal and then some. She’s famishing. If you’d seen her face when that soup came in!

Aren’t you well, Elinor?

I’m all right, said Elinor, and it looks like a delicious dinner. But I put on two pounds in Bermuda, and I’ve got to take them off.

Both Harry and Bill thought it funny, but Allison suddenly pushed her ice cream aside. It was peach, which she liked, and she always felt a little empty if she had no sweet at dinner, but this stern example was too much for her.

Later on, drinking black coffee in the library, she looked ahead drearily and saw day after day of nonfattening foods, and wondered if she could bear it. Or Eliza. Eliza with her hot breads and her rich iced cakes and her reputation of using more cream and butter than any other cook in town.

Yet Allison liked Elinor; and Bill was happy. He glowed with it that night. It overflowed, even to the kitchen and Eliza herself, sulking there. "Listen, Eliza! All my wife eats is a little canary seed and water, varied by an olive or two. Stick in that lip and try to bear it. You’re not married to her, you know."

Why, Mr. Bill, to hear you—

That’s all right, Eliza. I’m crazy about her. But her stomach’s her own, and it hasn’t had a square meal since it can remember.

The evening was not over, of course. At nine o’clock, when Harry was yawning and they had heard a lot about Bermuda, the doorbell rang and a dozen young people blew in. In a moment they had taken possession of the house, turned back the rugs and turned on the radio, and were dancing. And Harry, who had been more than ready for his bed, was dancing too. He was a good dancer, and Allison was forced to stand by and see a lot of flibbertigibbets whom she remembered in their cradles shamelessly importuning him.

Listen, it’s my turn for Harry, Dorothy. You’ve had him long enough. Come on, Harry. Let’s go.

Allison stood in the doorway. She had got Eliza out of bed to make sandwiches, and she herself had fixed the tray of drinks, but she had a strange feeling that this was not her house; as though Harry belonged in it but she did not. And she must watch Harry. If he got all heated up dancing and then drank iced whisky and soda …

Once she caught his eyes and beckoned to him, but he merely cut an extra agile figure and grinned at her. She resumed her fixed smile and began picking burning cigarettes off the piano and other furniture.

At one o’clock, having given up all idea of seeing either Harry or the party out, she went slowly upstairs to her room. There were two young things sitting on her bed and holding hands, so she retired to the sewing room, and she was still there when the noise below gradually ceased, and she heard Elinor’s voice. Where’s Mother, Bill? I want to say good night, and thank her again for everything.

She got up heavily and slipped her feet into her pumps. Every vestige of youth had gone out of her.

Back in their room Harry in front of his chiffonier was taking off a wilted collar and grinning complacently. Still pretty spry for an old man, eh? he inquired genially.

I hope you won’t be stiff tomorrow.

Stiff! Nonsense. I needed some exercise, and I got it.

You certainly got it, she said dryly.

The last thing he said before he crawled into bed was that there was a hell of a mess downstairs, but that it was a good thing to have some young life in the house. Then he yawned and got into his bed. For the first time in their married life he forgot to kiss her good night.

That was the beginning. She was still fond of Elinor, who was thoughtful and amiable. It was certainly not her fault that she made Allison feel old and stodgy. If the meals now contained a balanced percentage of calories and what not rather than butter fats, and if Allison sometimes had to slip down to the refrigerator at night to allay a gnawing which kept her awake, no one noticed it except Eliza, who was threatening to leave. Both Harry and Bill ate lunch downtown, and could have all the starches they wanted.

The real change was in Harry. He had gone in for youth in a big way. He was frankly bored at their parties now, and no longer the life of them. Coming back in the car she would look at him, big and handsome and silent. Rather nice evening, I thought.

God! Do you call that a nice evening? It was deadly.

He had not gone over to youth entirely, of course. Old habit was still strong in him. The frankness of Elinor and her friends about their bodies rather shocked him, and once he found Elinor in the hall practically unclad, and told Bill for God’s sake to see that his wife kept herself covered in public. But shortly after that he watched Allison dressing one night and asked her if she wasn’t putting on weight.

I’ve weighed the same for five years, she said sharply, and if you think anybody could get fat on the kind of food we have nowadays—

I never said you were fat, he said, and kissed her by way of apology.

The plain truth was that she had not lost either by Elinor’s diet or by her example, and she knew it. She went out to luncheons and teas and being half famished, she would eat everything in sight. The result was that not long after that, dancing with Harry at the country club after he had been dancing with some of the youngsters, she saw a faint look of surprise in his face as he put his arm around her; she almost burst into tears.

She tried hard to adjust herself to this reborn Harry, so to speak, and to having a young woman in the house. But she knew little about the modern young woman. It was different with Bill. He was a male, for one thing; and then he had not dawned on her suddenly. With Bill it was rather like the man who had learned to carry a bull by starting when it was a calf. With Elinor she could not escape a feeling of competition, in spite of the fact that that young woman had innocently relegated her to the shelf. Do let me get you a cushion, mother.

I don’t want a cushion.

Elinor would get the cushion nevertheless. There, isn’t that better?

And she could not be angry with Elinor, slightly flushed with good works, and really concerned with Allison’s forty-three-year-old bones. Nor could she resent Elinor’s friends, the slender bits of girls who seemed to be always in and out of the house, and who smoked instead of eating. When she gave her first luncheon for Elinor’s friends the food was scarcely touched, and Harry that night found her almost tearful.

No wonder they look like bed slats, she said indignantly. They have no stomachs and no bowels. If you’d seen the food that went out!

Harry seemed to think this rather indelicate. He was not quite so serene, however, when, after a late party, he heard Bill and Elinor creeping up the stairs, and Bill’s cautious warning not to wake the old folks. He had been rubbing hair tonic on his hair, and he marched into Allison’s room and told her. Old folks! he said. What does he think I am? King Solomon?

I suppose we are pretty middle-aged to them.

He merely snorted, but he evidently remembered it, for his answer to it was to buy himself a new suit the next day, rather more jaunty than usual, and several resplendent ties, and to dance more than ever when he had the chance.

It was innocent enough. Elinor and her friends—outside of keeping thin—were as unconscious of their bodies as young puppies, and actually hilarious about the facts of life. Not with Allison, of course, and probably not with Harry, but certainly frank enough in all conscience.

One night at dinner Elinor looked up calmly from her plate of clear soup and said, How soon do you people think I should have a baby?

Bill only grinned, but Harry dropped his soup spoon. I do wish, he said, that you would at least reserve such discussions for times when the servants are not around.

Don’t be silly, Harry, said Elinor calmly. I dare say Minnie is a virgin, but I doubt if she believes in the stork.

Allison listened with a sharp contraction of the heart. She had had a facial that day and had put on a gay and festive pinkish tea gown, and up to that moment she had recovered a bit of youth. And here was this clear-eyed and honest little creature threatening to destroy even what she had left.

A baby! she managed finally. Well, isn’t it a little soon to think of that?

That’s what Bill says. I just thought maybe you’d like one.

So that was it! She was too old to have any life of her own, so Elinor was offering her this sop. She didn’t want a baby in the house. She didn’t want to be a grandmother. She simply wouldn’t be a grandmother. Fortunately Harry had recovered his aplomb and his soup spoon, and began at once to talk about taxation, which was at least sexless.

But she felt a sharp tremor of fear. Harry, for all his occasional outbursts, had gone over body and soul to youth, and how was she to hold him? Then one night, with the usual dancing going on downstairs and Harry in the thick of it, she happened to see him in the hall below with the redheaded Barry girl, who was asking him to kiss her!

Harry hesitated, looking down at her. Then he stooped and gave her a hasty peck on the cheek.

Do you call that a kiss? she demanded. If that’s the best you can do—

Harry stood very still, and Allison held her breath. That chit! That bold little hard-faced baby! If he fell for that …

Harry