He did not hope nor intend to avoid that responsibility.
It was just to give himself and her time to be shocked and surprised.
He tells it quietly, fumbling, his face lowered, in his flat, inflectionless voice, while across the desk Hightower watches him with that expression of shrinking and denial.
They reached the boarding house at last and entered it.
It was as though she felt foreboding too, watching him as they stood in the hall, speaking for the first time:
“What is it them men were trying to tell you?
What is it about that burned house?”
“It wasn’t anything,” he said, his voice sounding dry and light to him. “Just something about Miss Burden got hurt in the fire.”
“How got hurt?
How bad hurt?”
“I reckon not bad.
Maybe not hurt at all.
Just folks talking, like as not.
Like they will.” He could not look at her, meet her eyes at all. But he could feel her watching him, and he seemed to hear a myriad sounds: voices, the hushed tense voices about the town, about the square through which he had hurried her, where men met among the safe and familiar lights, telling it.
The house too seemed filled with familiar sounds, but mostly with inertia, a terrible procrastination as he gazed down the dim hall, thinking Why don’t she come on.
Why don’t she come on Then Mrs. Beard did come: a comfortable woman, with red arms and untidy grayish hair.
“This here is Miz Burch,” he said.
His expression was almost a glare: importunate, urgent. “She just got to town from Alabama.
She is looking to meet her husband here.
He ain’t come yet.
So I brought her here, where she can rest some before she gets mixed up in the excitement of town.
She ain’t been in town or talked to anybody yet, and so I thought maybe you could fix her up a place to get rested some before she has to hear talking and ...” His voice ceased, died, recapitulant, urgent, importunate.
Then he believed that she had got his meaning.
Later he knew that it was not because of his asking that she refrained from telling what he knew that she had also heard, but because she had already noticed the pregnancy and that she would have kept the matter hidden anyway.
She looked at Lena, once, completely, as strange women had been doing for four weeks now.
“How long does she aim to stay?” Mrs. Beard said.
“Just a night or two,” Byron said. “Maybe just tonight.
She’s looking to meet her husband here.
She just got in, and she ain’t had time to ask or inquire—” His voice was still recapitulant, meaningful.
Mrs. Beard watched him now.
He thought that she was still trying to get his meaning.
But what she was doing was watching him grope, believing (or about to believe) that his fumbling had a different reason and meaning.
Then she looked at Lena again.
Her eyes were not exactly cold.
But they were not warm.
“I reckon she ain’t got any business trying to go anywhere right now,” she said.
“That’s what I thought,” Byron said, quickly, eagerly. “With all the talk and excitement she might have to listen to, after not hearing no talk and excitement ...
If you are crowded tonight, I thought she might have my room.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Beard said immediately. “You’ll be taking out in a few minutes, anyway.
You want her to have your room until you get back Monday morning?”
“I ain’t going tonight,” Byron said.
He did not look away. “I won’t be able to go this time.” He looked straight into cold, already disbelieving eyes, watching her in turn trying to read his own, believing that she read what was there instead of what she believed was there.
They say that it is the practiced liar who can deceive.
But so often the practiced and chronic liar deceives only himself; it is the man who all his life has been selfconvicted of veracity whose lies find quickest credence.
“Oh,” Mrs. Beard said.
She looked at Lena again. “Ain’t she got any acquaintances in Jefferson?”
“She don’t know nobody here,” Byron said. “Not this side of Alabama.
Likely Mr. Burch will show up in the morning—”
“Oh,” Mrs. Beard said. “Where are you going to sleep?” But she did not wait for an answer. “I reckon I can fix her up a cot in my room for tonight.
If she won’t object to that.”