Native Son - Richard Wright [58]
“…you mean the car stayed out all night in the driveway?”
“Yes; he said she told him to leave it there.”
“What time was that?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Dalton. I didn’t ask him.”
“I don’t understand this at all.”
“Oh, she’s all right. I don’t think you need worry.”
“But she didn’t even leave a note, Peggy. That’s not like Mary. Even when she ran away to New York that time she at least left a note.”
“Maybe she hasn’t gone. Maybe something came up and she stayed out all night, Mrs. Dalton.”
“But why would she leave the car out?”
“I don’t know.”
“And he said a man was with her?”
“It was that Jan, I think, Mrs. Dalton.”
“Jan?”
“Yes; the one who was with her in Florida.”
“She just won’t leave those awful people alone.”
“He called here this morning, asking for her.”
“Called here?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“He seemed sort of peeved when I told him she was gone.”
“What can that poor child be up to? She told me she was not seeing him any more.”
“Maybe she had him to call, Mrs. Dalton….”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, mam, I was kind of thinking that maybe she’s with him again, like that time she was in Florida. And maybe she had him to call to see if we knew she was gone….”
“Oh, Peggy!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, mam…. Maybe she stayed with some friends of hers?”
“But she was in her room at two o’clock this morning, Peggy. Whose house would she go to at that hour?”
“Mrs. Dalton, I noticed something when I went to her room this morning.”
“What?”
“Well, mam, it looks like her bed wasn’t slept in at all. The cover wasn’t even pulled back. Looks like somebody had just stretched out awhile and then got up….”
“Oh!”
Bigger listened intently, but there was silence. They knew that something was wrong now. He heard Mrs. Dalton’s voice again, quavering with doubt and fear.
“Then she didn’t sleep here last night?”
“Looks like she didn’t.”
“Did that boy say Jan was in the car?”
“Yes. I thought something was strange about the car being left out in the snow all night, and so I asked him. He said she told him to leave the car there and he said Jan was in it.”
“Listen, Peggy….”
“Yes, Mrs. Dalton.”
“Mary was drunk last night. I hope nothing’s happened to her.”
“Oh, what a pity!”
“I went to her room just after she came in…. She was too drunk to talk. She was drunk, I tell you. I never thought she’d come home in that condition.”
“She’ll be all right, Mrs. Dalton. I know she will.”
There was another long silence. Bigger wondered if Mrs. Dalton was on her way to his room. He went back to the bed and lay down, listening. There were no sounds. He lay a long time, hearing nothing; then he heard footsteps in the kitchen again. He hurried into the closet.
“Peggy!”
“Yes, Mrs. Dalton.”
“Listen, I just felt around in Mary’s room. Something’s wrong. She didn’t finish packing her trunk. At least half of her things are still there. She said she was planning to go to some dances in Detroit and she didn’t take the new things she bought.”
“Maybe she didn’t go to Detroit.”
“But where is she?”
Bigger stopped listening, feeling fear for the first time. He had not thought that the trunk was not fully packed. How could he explain that she had told him to take a half-packed trunk to the station? Oh, shucks! The girl was drunk. That was it. Mary was so drunk that she didn’t know what she was doing. He would say that she had told him to take it and he had just taken it; that’s all. If someone asked him why he had taken a half-packed trunk to the station, he would tell them that that was no different from all the other foolish things that Mary had told him to do that night. Had not people seen him eating with her and Jan in Ernie’s Kitchen Shack? He would say that both of them were drunk and that he had done what they told him because it was his job. He listened again to the voices.
“…and after a while send that boy to me. I want to talk to him.”
“Yes, Mrs. Dalton.”
Again he lay on the bed. He would have to go over his story and make it foolproof. Maybe he had done wrong in taking that trunk? Maybe it would have been better to have carried Mary down in his arms and burnt her? But he had put her in the trunk because of the fear of someone