What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (21 page)

“Your sister, Miss Hudson…” the officer was saying. “Will you show us where she is?”

Jane nodded. “Yes,” she said. She turned and looked down toward the beach. “She’s down there… She’s sick… awfully sick… we must hurry!…”

She led them in a diagonal path across the beach, moving along rapidly, the three of them close behind her. On all sides heads turned with quick curiosity as they passed.

“You’re not sure exactly where you saw them, Mr. Singer?” the officer said behind her.

“I—no—just the general area. It’s too hard to tell when the fog’s shifting like that.”

Jane moved swiftly on through the sea of turning heads. The officer, coming up beside her, touched her arm.

She smiled at first and turned to him. But then, seeing that he was a stranger, she started in fright and whirled away. A hand closed quickly over her arm and pulled her back.

“Your sister, Miss Hudson,” the man said, bringing his face down close to hers. “Are you sure you know where she is?”

She looked up at him in blank bewilderment. Why was he after her like this? And why did he—and the other two behind him—keep looking at her in that funny way? A quick feeling of terror stirred deep inside her, and her brow puckered in a prelude to tears. With an expression of concern, the man let go of her arm.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

She turned then and looked at the others, the vast stretch of staring, waiting faces. The young faces, and the old ones, staring, staring… But what did they want of her? What were they looking for so expectantly? Her face felt so warm. Feverish. Why was the light so hot on her face? If she told Daddy…

“Miss Hudson… your sister!…”

All at once it all came back to her, in a whole and perfect memory, and it was as if she had finally managed to rouse herself from a deep and troubled sleep. She felt quite, quite wonderful and intensely alive. Turning, she looked about at the hundreds and hundreds of staring faces.

“… your sister is ill and helpless…”

Bowing deeply, holding her head at just the right angle, she straightened and picked up her skirts. Careful to arch her hands at the wrists, just as Daddy had shown her, she began, very prettily, to dance.

“Slips, chances, hopes, and especially encompassing fears are Mr. Farrell’s province and he rules with authority.”

—
New York Herald Tribune

“This gothic tale of chilling suspense and horror will leave readers limp.”

—
Saturday Review

“A skin-prickler this, with monstrous malevolence.”

—
Kirkus

“A shocker.”

—
New York Times Book Review

Charlotte knew the moment she heard the sound of the bulldozer bearing down on Hollis house that the battle was at hand. She woke up and saw a roaring, rending, futuristic monster of gross unremitting steel, a huge wrecking machine, approaching the ornate and imposing precincts of the Old Hollis Place.

It clawed its way forward from a Dali-esque landscape of torn earth and mangled vegetation, hurling dust, disorder and ruin before it in all directions. Its intended victim, the Hollis house itself, a fanciful two-story structure girded with wide verandas and balconies, stood as a decaying relic of a Southern way of life now extinct. In its present state of neglect, however, the house seemed a poor match indeed for the remorseless machine, that fact becoming apparent as Charlotte watched from the vantage point of one of the crumbling balconies as it met a long abandoned outbuilding at the outer boundary of the rose garden and toppled it with neither ceremony or hesitation, leaving it behind a splintered, flattened matchbox.

But Charlotte knew that the spirit of the Hollis house was made of considerably more resilient stuff than was in its crumbling masonry. Indeed, it embodied the strength of the frail but determined person of Charlotte Hollis herself, heir, owner, and
protector of all the now embattled Hollis property. Charlotte, though no longer young, had always been and remained a most arresting woman, for there blazed in her the dedicated zeal of the fanatic, harboring a long cherished idée fixe. Once strikingly pretty, there was still about her traces of the aura of a lively beauty that in the distant year of her coming-out made her one of the most celebrated debutantes in the country—and perhaps even the world. Also from the volatility of her manner, one could well imagine that she might once have been the catalyst for both passion and scandal—and, yes, even tragedy. This last characteristic was at that moment in vivid ascendancy as her fine, well-bred features melded into a crush of passion as she carried her father’s old hunting rifle swiftly through the upper hallway and out into the glare of the balcony, where she appeared precipitously before the rising clouds of dust as a vengeful Fury.

Lofting the rifle so as to take reckless aim on the monster machine and its operator, she pitted her voice vainly, though stridently, against the thunderous noise.

“Get back from my land!” she screamed. “Get that thing out of here and away from my father’s house or—God help you—I’ll shoot!”

That’s when Velma suddenly appeared in the doorway behind Charlotte, wearing a solid, makeshift uniform, the badge of her status of a day nurse, distinguishing her from the more degrading position of cleaning woman. But she also appeared as a thin-nosed slattern who embodied all the worst traits that were usually attributed to Southern white trash.

Velma observed the melodramatic scene before her, not with alarm, but with a kind of wry, boneless indolence.

“With your eyesight, you could hurt somebody with that thing.”

But, accustomed to ignoring Velma, Charlotte only tried to take more careful aim. Below, the operator, intent on his job, remained unaware.

But then the foreman, who was busy directing the clean-up
crew, happened to look up and see Charlotte leveling the rifle toward them. With a cry of warning he hurled himself forward toward the machine. It was in this same moment that Charlotte, knowing her command had been disregarded, fired. The shot struck with a smart cracking sound against the flank of the wrecker and ricocheted carelessly into the distance. On the balcony, a bit of the crumbling masonry beneath a heavy stone urn decorating one of the corners fell away.

The operator, startled, brought the machine to an idling stop, and, looking around at the foreman, followed his gaze up toward the house, the balcony, and Charlotte. Charlotte, herself, had been momentarily distracted by the falling stone, but her gaze went back to the scene below as the foreman, made incautious by anger, strode forward across the lawn and up to the terrace.

“Charlotte Hollis,” he yelled up at her, “now you got yourself into real trouble! Doing a thing like that! I’m going directly to the law!”

“Who cares where you go,” Charlotte yelled back, “So long as you go! And take that machine with you and those men! This is my land.”

“No more, it ain’t. This land belongs to the county—all of it—and you know it!”

Charlotte was totally deaf to this argument. “I’m telling you to get off,” she yelled back, “and you better mind!”

The foreman, who had started away, turned back.

“I got more right here’n for you,” Charlotte continued, almost as if this were a contest between children.

“You’s suppose to clear outa here three months ago. You had your orders!”

From the distance the operator saw that the stone urn, undermined, had begun to list; and now it was his turn to call out a warning. The foreman, hearing the call and seeing the urn, quickly moved back and away, as the urn, listing still further, toppled and smashed down upon the stone floor of the terrace.

The foreman and Charlotte, in the backwash of silence, exchanged glances, he one of frustration and increased anger, she one of faint amusement. Then the foreman, seizing the excuse to make a retreat, turned on his heel and stalked off. Signaling to the operator to stop his machine and leave, he slammed into his pickup truck and drove furiously away.

Charlotte, her triumph complete, turned, handed Velma the rifle and swept into the house, becoming for a moment the youthful Southern beauty of the past in all her glory. Velma, unable to refuse the rifle, cast her a spiteful glance.

“Now you really got yourself in a fix.”

When Charlotte didn’t bother to answer, she followed after her. “Think I’d be satisfied jest havin’ folks throwin’ rocks at the house to drive you out.” Charlotte, still ignoring her, went into her room; but Velma, not so easily put off, followed after her for one parting shot. “They’re beginnin’ to call me names too—jest for workin’ for a woman like you. They say you’ll have to move off and let them build the project only for me comin’ out here to do for you…”

At last Charlotte turned to face the woman and with a look of utmost scorn slammed the door shatteringly in her face. Velma stood there with the gun in a state of total rage just wishing she had the nerve to use it.

That evening the old Hollis Place, bathed in the light of a witch’s moon, stood as a hulking palace of terror against the night. At least it seemed that way to the small boy of nine or ten who edged toward the house from the unkempt protection of the shadows.

“Go on. The window’s open there… easy as pie…”

“But if she catches me…”

“You want to be a Charioteer—like me and Buzz? Then you get in there—and get what you’re supposed to.”

The boy considered it and nodded in frightened determination
and turned back toward the terrace and French windows as one of his companions hissed, “It’s got to be somethin’ she touched with her own hands!”

Nodding again and trying hard to swallow down his terror, the boy moved slowly up the steps. Then, thinking he heard something, he stopped and looked back in bleak longing toward the hedge, then to the house which seemed to tower over him with a physical threat. Committed now, he forced himself to the open window, looked inside, hesitated, and climbed in and entered the foreboding darkness of the house.

He made his way through the room of formidable shadows and clutter, into the hallway, peering at whatever object came to his attention, uncertain about taking anything. He paused and looked out into the hallway, unwilling to press any further than he needed. Hearing a rustling sound of movement, he whirled about, eye torn wide with terror. But there was nothing. He peered into another room and for a moment he thought he saw someone standing there staring at him. But then he saw that it was only a large portrait and moved on to another doorway and looked in to be confronted with a profusion of images… of himself in mirrored panels. But then before him on a table bathed in moonlight he saw the tea service for one, obviously the remains of an afternoon tea.

He crossed carefully on tip toe and hooked his finger through the handle of a delicate tea cup, pausing to look around. Everything was still, so holding his breath against his own fright, he started back the way he came, making his way to the hallway and into the room where he entered.

He moved rapidly now, anxious to be out of the house, and headed for the open window. But it was just at that last moment as success seemed assured that a wraith-like figure rose up in bright moonlight before him—a fierce creature with glittering, murderous eyes and outstretched talon-like hands. With a strangled cry of terror, the boy leapt through the window, still clinging tenaciously
to the cup, and raced across the terrace and down stairs to the hedges, where he tripped and fell, landing at the feet of his companions, the precious teacup smashed to bits before him.

Inside the house, Charlotte, still standing in the flood of moonlight, looked after the departed figure, and grinned a good natured grin. That’s when she heard a chorus of childish voices singing faintly in the night:

With that, the smile faded from her face. For a moment a look of sadness threatened, but then it disappeared as one of prideful determination possessed her features.

“Thieves!” she shrieked suddenly into the night. “Get away before I set the dogs on you!”

The next day the commissioner, accompanied, no doubt for protection, by the foreman, approached the broad front terrace of the old house. They were hesitant but dogged, knowing that they had a job to do.

Charlotte, observing their approach from inside the house, motioned Velma down the stairs to hold them off. At the landing, she paused to listen, at the ready to get her gun if need be.

“We’re here to talk to Miss Charlotte,” said the commissioner with strained forcefulness.

“Well,” Velma drawled blank faced, “you can’t. She told me to say she’s sick in bed. She can’t see nobody.”

“Velma Cruthers,” the foreman said, “you know good and well that ain’t so.”

Velma shrugged. “She said to say…”

Meanwhile Charlotte was creeping down the stairs to hear better, but could be glimpsed through the open door by the commissioner. She drew back hastily out of sight, but the commissioner, given a way out, made the pronouncement he’d come to make, assured Charlotte would hear it.

“Well, then, you just give Miss Charlotte a message from me. And this is official. What she did yesterday changed this from a civil matter to a criminal one—if we so choose to bring suit against her. Now we don’t want to do that—but she was supposed to vacate here more’n a month ago, and we’ve given in to her all we’re going to. Her waving a gun at people is one thing, but firing it is something else. It’s coming to a weekend, so that’s in her favor. So she’s got until Tuesday morning to vacate in person and another day to remove her effects. After, I’ll have no choice. I’ll be forced to take action whether I want to or not.”

Velma took all of this in with some amusement. She liked excitement, especially the kind could still catch Miss Charlotte at a disadvantage.

“Whoo-ee,” she commented. “I don’t know how she’s going to take that.”

“Maybe she’d like a stretch in the county jail,” the commissioner said, loudly enough to be sure Charlotte heard. “You can tell her that too.”

Velma nodded. “Okay. She’s gonna have a fit.”

“That’s your problem,” the foreman intruded, stepping toward Velma. “You want to work for her…”

The commissioner put out a hand to stop him, motioning him to move away. “Come on, Bob…”

They turned and left, but not without an apprehensive backward glance from the commissioner.

Slyly amused, Velma went into the house and closed the door. At a groan from the direction of the stairs, she looked up to see Charlotte collapsed on the landing, clutching her side. With no perceptible change of expression, Velma went up to help her.

“Oh, God!” moaned Charlotte. “The persecution… it’ll never end ’til they put me in my grave.”

“I expect not,” Velma said, dragging Charlotte roughly to her feet.

For all of her helplessness Charlotte shook herself free of Velma, slapping her hands away. “And as if it weren’t enough,” she snarled furiously, “I’m left with you—a white trash slut!” Tears of vast self-pity formed in her eyes. “I need my own people—my own kind—my own kin! I’m alone—alone! Call Doctor Bayliss! Go on, go on—do it. Well, go…!”

She watched furiously as Velma, imperturbable as ever, moved off down the stairs.

“Tell him I want Miriam!” she yelled after her. “Tell him I want her to come back!”

A country taxi made its way along the road with no great haste. Its passenger, Miriam Hollis, looked out at the passing scene with a kind of wry impassiveness. Miriam was a woman of “achieved chic,” which is to say that she was noticeably smart, compellingly turned out, commandingly beautiful—a kind of woman to be seen in all the smart restaurants, clubs and hotels in all the great cities of the world. She seemed entirely out of place in her present surroundings.

The view from the taxi window, for the moment, was one of calm and quiet rusticity. The road, lined with trees was warm, lush, and deep—after all, it was the “deep” South. Miriam’s eyes were caught by a pair of large stone gate posts, the entryway, she could not doubt, to a sprawling Southern “plantation.” Metal
plaques on the posts rather ostentatiously announced the name “Mayhew.” Miriam leaned forward just a bit to peer into the drive, but she drew back again and made her face impervious when she noticed that she was being observed by the driver.