Authors: William March
Why the youngest child had been spared was anybody’s guess.
There was a story which still cropped up occasionally that Ada Gustafson had loved Christine more than the others, and fearing what might happen, she’d sent her to a neighboring farmhouse for the night; but there were no facts to support the story. Richard Bravo was of the opinion that Christine had been spared because the mother considered her too young to understand what had happened, or to testify against her later. Alice Olcott Flowers believed Bessie Denker expected, with the narcissistic arrogance of her kind, to outwit her pursuers and make good her escape. She’d probably want to start all over again some place, and she’d saved Christine for that future just as she might have conserved any other asset. After all, the child was an insurable piece of property that could be realized on later for working capital.…
Mrs. Penmark closed her eyes and said, “No. It didn’t happen that way. They’re all wrong.… I wasn’t asleep when she hit Sonny with the hatchet; I saw her do it, and I ran out and hid back of the barn in the weeds. It was dark there, and she couldn’t find me. When she’d killed the others, she came to look for me. She called me and called me. She said she wouldn’t hurt me if I came to her. But I’d watched through the window while she killed the others, and I wouldn’t answer her.”
Mrs. Penmark fell into the habit, immediately after breakfast, of dressing herself and the child and riding aimlessly about the countryside. On these trips they rarely spoke, as though, understanding each other so completely now, there was no longer reason
for communication. Sometimes, when she did not feel like driving her car, Mrs. Penmark and Rhoda took bus rides that had no definite destination. To see them, sitting in separate seats, one would not have thought they were together, except that the child turned from time to time to watch her mother, as though awaiting the signal that would reveal to her the thing they were to do next.
In the center of the town, there was a square filled with azalea bushes, camellias, and live oaks. There was a big iron fountain with four graduated basins beneath to catch the cascading water from the top of the structure, to hold it a moment, and to pass it at last to the circular moat below. There was always a breeze at that place, and sometimes she’d take the child to the square, knowing they’d not be likely to meet anyone but strangers in such a public place. They’d sit on the iron benches, while Christine looked vacantly about her, and Rhoda, on a separate bench, would go on with her needlework.
The park was the haven of the rootless stranger who had no other place to go; but one afternoon Christine looked up and saw Miss Octavia Fern approaching. The old lady stopped in doubt, then nodded, as if still not sure of herself. She said, “You’re Christine Penmark, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, of course, Miss Fern.”
“I thought you must be, but I wasn’t too positive. Then I saw Rhoda sitting across the walk and, of course, I knew.”
Christine smiled gently, but she neither answered, nor asked the old lady to sit down.
“I remember our morning at Benedict so well, with so much pleasure,” said Miss Fern after a moment. “It was a charming day, really. The oleander cuttings rooted easily, and I transplanted two of them to our back garden just the other day.”
Mrs. Penmark nodded in recognition that she heard, and Miss Fern went on. “I’d hoped you’d find time to visit me, but I know
how occupied you must be these days.” She paused again, feeling as though she addressed a stranger, as though she’d ineptly trespassed on the privacy of others, as though her presence in the park were a thing of others, as though her presence in the park were a thing to be explained and condoned. She said hurriedly, “I rarely come through the square; but Burgess is waiting for me down the street, and this was a shortcut.”
She moved away, caught Rhoda’s eye, and waved; but the child ignored her with a placid disinterest. Miss Fern stood in uncertainty, as though undecided what to do next, how to get herself in motion once more. She gave the impression that she was about to sit on the bench beside Mrs. Penmark; and then, as though the impulse were canceled at the instant the movement was contemplated, she fumbled in her handbag needlessly, as though searching for a card to give a stranger, and said, “We must have our visit sometime soon.… But I mustn’t keep Burgess waiting. She fidgets so when she’s kept waiting.”
Late one afternoon, after she’d returned with Rhoda from the square, Mrs. Penmark’s doorbell rang, and she went to answer it. She found Hortense Daigle in the hall. Mrs. Daigle came into the living-room, embraced Christine, and said, “I’ve been wanting to return your visit for such a long time; but I’ve been in mourning. But I said to Mr. Daigle this morning, ‘What do you suppose Christine thinks of me? I must go see her today without fail.’ ”
She was a little drunk, and Mrs. Penmark placed a chair for her. She sat down, and seeing Rhoda reading beside the window, she said, “So this is your little girl? What’s your name? Claude spoke of you so often, and in such high terms. You were one of his dearest friends, I’m sure. He said you were so bright in school.”
“My name is Rhoda Penmark.”
“Come let me look at you, Rhoda.… Now, how about giving your Aunt Hortense a big kiss? You were with Claude when he had his accident, weren’t you, dear? You’re the little girl who was so sure she was going to win the penmanship medal, and worked so hard. But you didn’t win it after all, did you, darling? Claude won the medal, didn’t he? Now, tell me this—would you say he won it fair and square, or that he cheated? These things are so important, now that he’s dead. I’ve called Miss Octavia Fern on the telephone a dozen times, but she just gives me the brush-off. She—”
Christine disengaged her child from the hot, damp arms of the visitor, saying, “It’s time for you to visit Mrs. Forsythe. She’s looking forward to seeing you. You mustn’t disappoint her.”
Mrs. Daigle straightened in her chair. “Go, by all means. I mustn’t keep you from your social duties, I’m sure. Even my husband tells me I’m tiresome. Why don’t you come out in the open and say so?”
Rhoda gave the woman a shrewd, amused look, smoothed down her bangs, and went through the door. Mrs. Daigle said, “Have you got anything to drink in the house? Anything at all. I’m not the fussy type. I prefer bourbon and water, but anything will do.” Mrs. Penmark went to the kitchen and began taking out ice cubes. She put a bottle of bourbon and one glass on a tray, and Hortense, following her into the kitchen, said, “Aren’t you going to join me, Christine? An old gentleman, a friend of Mr. Daigle’s, has some sort of a heart condition; and you know what—the doctor said for him to take three drinks a day. It’s supposed to relax your arteries. Only this old gentleman was a strict prohibitionist and said no, he wouldn’t do it.”
She staggered, lost her balance, and bumped against the wall. She said, “As though three drinks a day was any trouble. Three drinks a day isn’t what I call trouble. Talking about trouble, what would he do if his little boy got drowned, and then was beaten
against pilings? Now, you may disagree, but that’s what I call trouble; not having to take three drinks of whisky a day.” She laughed loudly, pushing her hair up, and said, “When Mr. Daigle told me, I laughed until my sides ached.”
Christine put a bowl of ice cubes on the tray and brought it into the living-room. Mrs. Daigle downed a drink of straight bourbon, took a swallow of water, and went on. “What I came here for was to have a little chat with Rhoda; but, of course, I didn’t know she had all these social obligations. I thought she was like any other little girl that stayed home and minded her mother, and didn’t go traipsing over town to see people just before suppertime. I’m sorry I interfered with Rhoda’s social life. I hope you’ll pardon me, Christine. I offer you my deepest apologies. I’ll apologize to Rhoda, too, when she comes back.”
“Are you comfortable?” asked Mrs. Penmark. “Shall I turn the fan more in your direction?”
“I’ve talked to so many people about Claude’s death. I wanted to talk to Rhoda, too. There’s nothing wrong about that, is it? She must know something she hasn’t told; maybe something she thought wasn’t important, and forgot. But everything that has to do with Claude is important to me. I wasn’t going to contaminate her in the slightest degree, I assure you. I was just going to rock her in my arms, and ask her a few simple questions.”
“Perhaps another time would be better.”
“I’m not intoxicated in the slightest degree. Kindly don’t talk down to me, Mrs. Penmark. I’ve been through enough without that.… But Rhoda knows more than she’s told anybody, if you’ll pardon me for being so presumptuous as to disagree with you. I talked to that guard, remember. It was a long, interesting conversation, and he said he saw Rhoda on the wharf just before Claude was found among the pilings. She knows something she hasn’t told, all right.”
The telephone rang, and Christine answered it. She heard
Mr. Daigle’s worried voice. He wanted to know if his wife was there. He’d been phoning all over town, trying to find her. Mrs. Penmark said she was, and he promised to come at once and pick her up. Mrs. Daigle, hearing the conversation, said, “Did you tell him I was drinking and making a spectacle of myself? Did you tell him to call the patrol wagon, dear Christine?”
“You heard what I said. I only said you were here.”
“That’s what you said
aloud
—yes. But what were you thinking? You were thinking, ‘How can I get rid of this pest?’ That’s what you were really thinking.… For your private information, let me tell you something. I don’t care what you think of me. Understand? I don’t know who you think you are, being so high and mighty, and thinking you’re better than other people. You may fool some with that mealy mouth, but you look like ‘Ned in the Primer’ to me.”
“If that’s what you really think, perhaps you’d better not come here again.”
“I wouldn’t come here again for a million dollars laid out in a line. I wouldn’t have come this time, if I’d known about Rhoda’s social life. I didn’t live on Easy Street when I was growing up, the way you did. I lived on the Road of Hard Knocks, as the fellow says.” She poured herself another drink, downed it, and continued. “You think you’re important, don’t you? Going around being
kind
to people. Nobody asked you to come to my house the night Claude was killed. Nobody asked you to come that second time, either. I wondered ever since why you came that second time. You had something on your mind, but didn’t say what it was. I said the same to Mr. Daigle, but he said I was out of my mind.”
She got up, and stood swaying beside her chair, steadying herself, with her index finger pressed against the upholstery. “I won’t wait for Mr. Daigle,” she said. “I’ll go home by myself. I know where I’m not wanted, and I’m not wanted in a place
where people have all these social obligations, if you get what I mean.”
“Please sit down, Mrs. Daigle. Your husband said he was leaving at once. He’ll be here any moment.”
“ ‘Let her come around and snoop as much as she wants to,’ I said to Mr. Daigle. ‘Let her be kind, too, if that suits her. Christine’s got everything coming her way,’ I said. ‘She’s the lucky one.’ ”
“I don’t consider myself the lucky one. Please believe me.”
Mrs. Daigle said, “Pardon my mentioning it, because I know personal remarks aren’t considered good form, but you’re not looking well. You’re looking sort of—well, sick and
sloppy,
if you know what I mean. Come over to my house and I’ll give you a free beauty treatment, if you’re pressed for ready cash. Call me up sometime this week, and we’ll get together. I don’t charge my friends anything. It won’t cost you a nickel.”
The doorbell rang again, and this time Dwight Daigle was there. He said, “Come, Hortense. It’s time to go home.”
Hortense wept noisily. She came up to Mrs. Penmark and embraced her, resting her head on her shoulder. She said, “You know something! You know something, and you won’t tell me!”
Mrs. Penmark said she would not go to the library again, that there was little left for her to learn about her mother, but next morning she woke wanting to know the details of Mrs. Denker’s electrocution. She did not return this time to the garden and the pergola; she went into one of the small rooms reserved for the research worker and took out the daily newspapers that covered the period she sought to know about. She read steadily for the next few hours.… Her mother’s death in the chair had been a sensation that had been featured everywhere. There was a photograph of her mother at the moment of her death. A reporter had
smuggled in a camera, concealed somehow behind a button, and at the instant the current hit Bessie Denker and hurled her against the straps, the picture was snapped.
She studied the picture with concentrated attention. Everything was there for the eye to see—the black mask that covered her mother’s face; the bound hands raised from the wrist, trembling and out of focus from movement; the fingers spread apart like the talons of a predatory bird; the thick, dead-white, hairless legs, strapped down and bulging outward under the power of the current.…
She sat for a long time, the picture before her eyes.… She had been foolish to wonder what Rhoda’s end would be. She knew now, for Rhoda, unless something were done, would repeat the idiotic pattern of her grandmother’s life, making the necessary allowance for time and circumstances. She, too, for Rhoda was very clever indeed, would escape for a long time; but she would be caught and destroyed at last.… And in that interval between accomplishment and detection, she would destroy everything she touched; she, too, would end up in a blare of publicity and sentiment—in the gas chamber, at the end of a rope, or lunging forward as the current struck her and hurtled through her blood. Clearly, at that instant, she saw the picture of her daughter’s end, and, covering her face, she turned away and murmured, “God have mercy on us!”
Now she no longer wanted to read, or even to think about her mother, and she returned the old papers to their custodian. She got her things together in preparation for departure; but Miss Glass came into the room and said, “I’ve been thinking about your book—particularly the end. Have you decided yet?”