What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

by Henry Farrell

  Blanche nodded. “Yes.”

  Jane reached out and helped her gently into a sitting position against the pillows. Blanche studied her sister’s face with a faint expression of incredulity. In Jane’s lowered gaze and meek demeanor was a touch of saintliness that, under different circumstances, might have been very close to comic.

  “It—it seems a little cooler—today,” Blanche managed in a hoarse rasp.

  Jane nodded, and if she was aware that these were the first words Blanche had actually spoken aloud since her liberation, she gave no sign. “I’ll get your robe,” she said.

  When she had helped Blanche into the robe, she retreated to the bathroom and brought a warm cloth and, again, bathed Blanche’s face. That done, she placed the breakfast tray on the swiveled invalid’s table and swung it forward across Blanche’s lap. Retreating to the door, she paused to look back.

  “I’ll be back when you’re done—to clean up.”

  Blanche nodded. “Thank you, Jane.”

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  Blanche looked after Jane’s departing figure with a frown of troubled speculation. This mild, pious tone, this self-effacing manner—neither of these was natural to Jane; it hardly seemed possible that they could be genuine. But if Jane was shamming, what purpose could there be in it? Blanche picked up a piece of toast, took a bite from it and absently began to chew. But her gaze remained on the open doorway.

  Jane returned half an hour later to straighten the room and carry the tray back down to the kitchen. Again there was the air of calm restraint, of concentrated subservience, and again Blanche suffered a curious reaction of apprehension. As Jane started from the room, Blanche remembered about the drapes. She started to call out, but she had only managed to speak Jane’s name when her gaze fell to the hallway carpet and the words died abruptly in her throat.

  “Yes?” Jane asked, turning back in the doorway. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  The sight of the stain on the carpet had stunned Blanche into a paralyzed silence. The thing that had remained obscured in the dimness at the back of her mind was suddenly thrust forward into the blinding light of complete recall. Angry voices echoed clearly against the inner ear of her memory; and the figure was there again before her, silhouetted sharply in the doorway. And then there was a second figure, holding something in its hand, raising the thing and bringing it down viciously upon the head of the other. The rest was as it had been before. The first figure fell. The second stepped forward and slammed the door.

  “Blanche? What’s the matter?”

  Blanche looked up, drawing her gaze by force from the carpet. “Nothing,” she said quickly. Her breath, though, was so constricted in her lungs she could hardly get the words out. “I—I just had an attack of dizziness. It’s nothing. I’m all right now.”

  But Jane lingered in the doorway, one hand on the knob, watching her with a strange air of indecision. She remained a moment longer, then finally turned away and pulled the door closed after her.

  Blanche sat staring into the shadows, thoughts of feverish, remembered terror winging through her mind like screaming black devils. I didn’t mean to kill her, Jane had said. Kill… Blanche brought her hand up to her mouth against an inadvertent sob of anguish. She knew now who the figure in the doorway was. She knew—that Jane had killed Edna Stitt.

  Miss Blanche, I just worry about you. I get to thinking about what could happen… and I lay awake at night.

  Mrs. Stitt had tried to warn her, and she hadn’t listened. Tears of remorse burned her eyes and she let her hand fall away. All these years she had gambled blindly. And she had thought herself so wise. Now she saw that her blindness had destroyed two precious lives—that of the person who had served her all these years—Jane—and that of the one who had tried to save her—Edna Stitt. The guilt, then, was hers just as much as Jane’s.

  So Jane’s present mood of contrition was explained; she was trying, in her own pathetic way, to atone. For murder. It was too horrible, too ugly.… Blanche wanted to cry out against the nightmare she now shared with Jane, but she forced herself to be still. Evidently Jane’s crime had not been discovered; she must have managed somehow to conceal Mrs. Stitt’s body. Perhaps in this very house. Blanche shuddered as with a sudden chill. The police had to be told at once. Whatever the consequences, there was no alternative.

  Blanche stopped, forced all at once to the realization that she was no less at Jane’s mercy now than before. Possibly Jane still controlled the telephone from downstairs. Her gaze lifted to the closed door. If anything, she was more helpless; even if the phone were available, she was too weak to reach it. Slowly the old panic began to build up inside. She had to get out… had to find some way to reach help.…

  Her gaze came to rest on the draped window. Before she had started to drop a note to the woman next door. Mrs. Bates. Perhaps, if she could only manage to get out of bed and across the room… Guided by the memory of her previous effort, she reached into the pocket of her robe, found the piece of paper that she sought and pulled it out.

  Mrs. Bates: This is from your neighbor, Blanche Hudson…

  Thank heaven Jane hadn’t found it; it was a sign perhaps from divine providence. Blanche read the note over carefully. It would serve.

  At the sound of footsteps out in the hall, she hastily thrust the note beneath the covers. Pretending to have fallen asleep, she dropped her head to the pillow and closed her eyes. Outside, mercifully, Jane passed her closed door and moved on without interruption down the hall. Blanche opened her eyes again and simply lay there listening.

  After an interval, when Jane had returned downstairs, she retrieved the note from under the covers and sat up again. Despite her present state of physical depletion, she was filled with the urgent conviction that she must act at once before the chance was lost. Taking a deep breath, she shoved back the covers and turned to the curtained window.

  Frightened determination became fearful doubt. She could never make it that far; she simply hadn’t the stamina. Still she looked around for some source of help. Her wheel chair was there against the wall just beyond the bedside table, just out of reach.

  She had to get to the window; she had to think of a way. In a surge of frantic determination, she reached up to the lifting bar, grasped it with both hands and this time, with the advantage of being propped up on the pillows, managed to pull herself up into a sitting position.

  She returned her attention to the chair. It was so terribly far away. But then, catching a glint of light reflected from some polished, curved surface just behind the bedside table, she remembered her cane and brightened. Bracing herself with one hand, she reached out and drew the cane out of its hiding place.

  That done, she began to inch herself around on the bed. Using the lifting bar to keep herself upright, shifting so that she moved just a bit at a time, she angled herself around until she faced the wheel chair. When she had finally achieved this, she brought her hands down carefully beside her. Clinging to the edge of the mattress, she swung her numbed legs out and down.

  Fighting down a new feeling of dizziness, she turned her attention to the bedside table and reached out for the cane, drawing it up close beside her. Then, sucking in another deep breath, she extended her arms before her and leaned forward.

  Her hands struck against the top of the table joltingly, but her arms held. The dizziness came again, worse than before, but she refused to give in to it.

  After a moment, she removed her left arm from the table, reached back for the cane and extended it toward the arm of the wheel chair. She was able to reach the chair easily. Hooking the handle of the cane in place, she pulled. The chair remained stubbornly immobile exactly where it was, and with a sinking sense of disappointment she realized the brake was set.

  For a moment she panicked, but then she began to see a way around this obstacle. Drawing the cane back to the table, reversing it, she aimed it at the foot lever that operated the brake and pr
odded.

  It took several tries before the brake finally gave. Breathless from the exertion, Blanche lowered her arms to the table and leaned forward to rest. When she felt better, she pushed herself back again into a sitting position. Then, reaching out with the cane, she hooked it around the arm of the chair again and pulled. The chair moved easily forward.

  When she had teased the chair into position, she looked down at her dangling legs, wondering if the right one still contained its fraction of strength and would support her for the instant needed to see her safely from the edge of the bed into the chair. She paused, listening; Jane seemed to still be moving about down in the kitchen.

  When she felt steady enough, she reached out with the cane, jabbed at the brake and set it again. Bracing herself with one hand on the arm of the chair, she brought the cane down to the floor and lowered her feet to the footrest. Moving quickly, she threw herself bodily forward.

  Using her arms to support and guide herself, she swung out for a moment into space, rested her weight for one instant on her right leg, twisted about as best she could, and fell back into the chair. She landed with a jolt, sharply aware of the edge of the chair biting into her flank, but breathless with triumph. She had made it! Gripping the arm of the chair, she pushed up with the cane and tried to improve her purchase on the seat. Then, all at once, she collapsed and fell back, the darkness billowing up around her with cruel swiftness. She fought as a swimmer fights the sucking tide to bring herself back from the dark depths, up again into the air and the light.

  She remained quite still for several minutes, becoming slowly aware of an ominous silence from downstairs. She looked toward the door, straining for any disruption at all in the still pulse of the house. The last few minutes Jane could easily have come up the stairs without her knowing. She reached out to the footrest where the cane lay at an angle across her legs; it would serve as a weapon of defense, if need be. But then, there was a sound quite distinctly from below, and she leaned back with a sigh of relief. After a moment, taking a firm grip on the wheel, she turned around toward the window.

  At the drapes, putting her hand to the center where they divided, she lifted the nearest, held it as far as possible away from her chair and, moving forward, let it fall behind.

  The bright sunlight assaulted her eyes painfully, and for a moment she was blinded. Unseen, the eucalyptus plucked at the grille, scraped back out of the way. Blanche opened her eyes slowly giving them time to adjust. She pulled out the other drape and swung it behind to join the other. She sat for a moment listening to the stillness outside.

  The sky, though incredibly blue, was dashed across here and there with wispy white clouds. In the distance the top plumage of another eucalyptus undulated under the erratic persuasion of a gusting breeze.

  Reaching out to the clasp, Blanche opened the window and drew it back. The breeze hurled itself in upon her face, stirred her hair, then fell away into an abrupt and complete stillness. The branch close outside reappeared, slapped against the grille, vanished.

  Revived, Blanche stretched her hand out, grasped the grille and using her cane as a brace, pulled herself up. Straining forward, she peered down into the garden below. It was deserted and utterly still. She managed to cling a moment longer, then let go and fell back again into her chair.

  She turned her gaze back to the sky, trying to guess the time of day by the slant of the sunlight; it was possible that Mrs. Bates had made her first visit of the day already, which could mean a long and disastrous wait.

  She seemed to sit there in an island of silence, and there rose again in her mind the fear that Jane would come into the room and find her. She made herself listen all the harder.

  When at last a sound came, she recognized it instantly; even without seeing she was able to trace Mrs. Bates’s progress as she opened one of the French doors, came out onto the walk, took up the hose and turned on the water. Taking the note tremblingly from her pocket, she reached out to the grillwork and drew herself up.

  Yes, she was there! Mrs. Bates, wearing her smock and her big floppy hat, had already started along the flower beds at the side of the lawn beneath the hedge. Blanche put down forceably an impulse to cry out, fearful of what unknown horror might befall her if Jane should hear and come upstairs. She let go and dropped back into her chair; she needed to conserve her waning strength until the sound of the water told her that Mrs. Bates was directly below.

  The waiting was nearly unbearable. Reaching back, she parted the drapes and listened. She thought she heard a sound from downstairs, but at the same moment the eucalyptus slapped suddenly against the window making her uncertain. She turned back again. Gradually the sound of the water came nearer, until she was certain Mrs. Bates had reached the corner nearest the window. She reached up to the grille.

  Mrs. Bates was almost exactly where she had guessed. As the woman rounded the corner, Blanche strained anxiously forward. Holding herself close to the grille she tried to attract Mrs. Bates’s attention by waving the sheet of paper between the bars. Mrs. Bates, however, her face totally hidden beneath the wide brim of her hat, remained concentrated on her chores. Again Blanche needed to restrain herself from crying out.

  “Oh, hurry!” she whispered to herself. “Hurry!”

  Mrs. Bates’s next move brought her almost precisely into position beneath the window. More than ever, though, her face was hidden beneath the brim of her hat. Blanche pressed forward, totally unaware of the cold bite of the bars against her cheek. Reaching the note out as far as she could into the open, she released it.

  And then she knew that she would cry out, knew that she must; now that Mrs. Bates had the note it couldn’t really matter. She parted her lips. But she did not speak. Instead, hearing a sound close behind her, she whirled about, her face taut with fright.

  A hand tore at the drapes, stirring them into violent life, hurling them back. Blanche dropped into her chair, fumbling frantically for her cane.…

  Mrs. Bates, catching a flash of something white, looked down, saw the note and stooped to pick it up. As she did so she had an impression of a childish scrawl. She started to smooth it out in her hand, but then, hearing her name shouted from somewhere in the direction of the house, she turned, still holding it, and started in that direction.

  “Out here, Harriett!” she called.

  As she approached the house, Harriett Palmer appeared on the walk and, waving something before her, hurried forward.

  “Have you seen this?”

  Arriving at Mrs. Bates’s side just as she straightened from turning off the water, Harriett held out the paper. Folding it quickly back to the second page, she pointed to a photograph in the upper left hand corner.

  “Look at that!”

  Mrs. Bates stared at the picture. It was of a woman, a woman in middle years evidently, angular-faced and for the purpose of the picture stiffly smiling. A pleasant-looking woman, actually, but by no means pretty. The reproduction, though, was a poor one and as far as Mrs. Bates could tell it might have been a picture of almost anyone. Aware of Harriett’s eyes fast upon her, she frowned in a further effort at recognition.

  “Don’t you see who that is?”

  Slowly Mrs. Bates shook her head. “I—no, I don’t think so.” As she spoke, though, her gaze fell to the caption beneath the picture: MURDER VICTIM. “Oh, no!” she breathed, repelled at the very thought that anyone of her acquaintance could ever meet with a violent or newsworthy death. “This—this isn’t someone we know?”

  “Yes,” Harriett assured her, “yes, it is. Just look again. Don’t you see? It’s the woman who cleans for the Hudson girls. There’s her name—see—Stitt, Mrs. Edna Stitt. Every Friday for three years now I’ve seen her walking up the hill to their house.”

  Gazing down at the picture with reluctant recognition, Mrs. Bates nodded. “Terrible,” she murmured, “terrible…”

  Harriett nodded in the direction of the Hudson house. “Do you suppose they know yet? They just found he
r this morning—the police—in a ditch over in the park. They said she’d probably been there a couple of days.”

  Mrs. Bates shook her head; she felt suddenly empty and cold inside. It was hard for her to believe that people could really do such terrible things to each other. Murder…

  “I just don’t know…” she said vaguely.

  “I never noticed whether they get the early edition or not.” Harriett glanced down at the paper again. “Gives you a funny feeling, doesn’t it? She was a widow, too, poor thing.”

  Mrs. Bates, making a brief clucking sound, let her gaze lift across the length of the garden to the Hudson house and the window at the center of the second story. Curiously, she had the impression that only a moment before the window had been open and the drapes pulled back. But now it was closed.

  “What’s the matter?” Harriett asked.

  Mrs. Bates looked around. “Nothing,” she said “nothing.” She forced her lips into a smile. “Come on in and we’ll have a cup of hot tea. It’s kind of windy.”

  Harriett nodded in quick agreement; the subject of Mrs. Stitt’s mysterious demise had yet to be fully explored. “I’d love it.”

  Mrs. Bates crossed to the open French door, motioning Harriett into the house ahead of her. As she paused to take off her hat, she looked back again in the direction of the Hudson house. Then, remembering, she glanced down at the piece of note paper still clutched in her hand. Crumpling it into a tight ball, she thrust it into the pocket of her smock and hurried inside.

  14

  She stood before the mirrored wall, close to the windows where the light was harshest, looking at herself with a steady, troubled stare. Frightened at the slowly admitted and slowly emerging spectre of herself there in the mirrors, she moved back a bit into the shadows. Lifting her skirt slightly in a dainty gesture, she placed one foot before the other and pointed the toe at an angle. Then quickly, with a small moan of pain, she turned away. The reality, now that it had fully emerged, would not be dimmed by mere shadow. She saw clearly now that the finer, better self that had always awaited her just beyond the horizon of the next moment did not exist, had never existed and never would. The things she had done, the person she had become, could not be altered by mere wishing.