Seventeen Widows of Sans Souci

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “What tools do you mean, sir?”

  “Mrs. Rogan’s bathroom door.”

  So Morgan Lake went, heart quaking, and punched the elevator button, and Kelly Shane gathered up certain tools very quickly, for he understood.

  Out in the lobby, Rose Lake stood behind the counter, within the office. She was saying to Winnie on the phone, “Shut off the oven, sweetheart?”

  “O.K., Mom.”

  “Good evening,” a voice said, and Rose looked up.

  “Oh, Mrs. Robinson.”

  “I’m a day later than I had planned,” said Daisy Robinson. “I was involved in a bit of a collision.”

  Daisy Robinson had had a shock. No intelligent person ought to take a metal monster out upon the streets without the mind being present and alert. Obviously. Now that she had seen the obvious, Daisy Robinson would have to practice the reform she perceived to be necessary. The car had been repaired. She was home safely. But Daisy was not quite herself.

  “Too bad.” Rose Lake only mimicked sympathy.

  “Not at all,” said Daisy. “It could have been worse and I think I have had a timely lesson. My key? My mail?”

  Rose Lake handed Daisy her key and her mail.

  Morgan Lake and Kelly Shane went gliding past the lobby floor in the little elevator. On the upper floor, they stepped fast down the east wing. Morgan Lake got out his pass key.

  In the bathroom of 201, Nona said, “Listen!”

  Tess Rogan said, quick as a wink, “Don’t frighten anyone.”

  The world turned right over. They were as good as rescued and they must take care; they must consider the feelings of whoever this might be whose movements within the apartment they could now gratefully hear.

  So Nona’s voice, calling from behind the wooden door, came to the ears of Kelly Shane and Morgan Lake with a gay and unalarming quality. “We’re all right. We’re just locked in here. Will you try to get us out, please?”

  Kelly Shane surged to the door. His hands, and the tools in them, attacked with sure speed. Wood splintered.

  Morgan Lake, however, clasped both hands to his breast and moved slowly, feebly, as bent as an octogenarian. He put his rump on the edge of one of the beds. He sat still, there, trying to still the uproar of his sickly heart.

  Five minutes before five o’clock, Kelly Shane pulled powerfully at the damaged door and managed to scrape it open. Nona Henry and Tess Rogan were on their feet, inside, waiting to be released. They were both smiling.

  At six minutes before five o’clock, Daisy Robinson, about to reach her own apartment door, paused to look and to listen. Something was out of order. Tess Rogan’s door was standing wide open and, from within, Daisy could hear something being broken.

  She put down her suitcase and stuck an inquisitive nose in. Daisy had resolved to be more alert to things going on around her. She followed her nose and was at the bedroom door in time to see Nona Henry and Tess Regan, looking strange, wearing smiles that were exalted in a curious way, coming slowly past a crooked door. Kelly Shane rolling his eyes. Morgan Lake sitting on the edge of a bed, holding his breast.

  “What’s going on?” demanded Daisy.

  Nona Henry interrupted and canceled, in herself, the delicious weakness of relief. She said to Morgan Lake, “We are quite all right.”

  She said to Kelly Shane, “Thank you.” She said to Daisy Robinson, “Daisy, come help me in the kitchen, will you?”

  Tess Rogan let go Nona’s shoulder and sat herself down upon the other of the two beds. She smiled Tess Rogan’s own wide smile at Morgan Lake. “No harm,” she said. “Nothing terrible. Oh, my, how nice, to sit on something soft!”

  Morgan Lake was, then, able to move his trembling lips. “So sorry … so sorry … my fault!”

  It was Nona Henry who turned to say, “Now, that’s nonsense, Mr. Lake. It just happened.”

  Tess twinkled at her.

  As for Kelly Shane, he expressed himself by another whack or two at the bathroom door.

  Nona Henry found she was well able to cancel that longed-for and most welcome weakness. She walked, instead, to where Daisy stood, clutched her and turned her. They stumbled across Tess Rogan’s living room and around the half-wall into the kitchen.

  “Open some soup,” said Nona. “Heat it, could you please? We haven’t had anything to eat …”

  She let go of Daisy and Daisy, with a look of frantic appeal for explanation, yet began to bang and fumble around the kitchen, blindly opening cupboard doors.

  Nona herself reached for a box of Saltines. “I’ll go back and see to them,” she said. “Please, Daisy, could you also phone the doctor?”

  “Doctor?” said Daisy thickly.

  “Dr. O’Gara. His number’s in Tess’s little book.”

  “What is all this?” Daisy’s brain cried out, it starved, it thirsted, for information.

  “Just call the doctor. Fix the soup,” said Nona. “She’s not very young. No food since Thursday. I’m afraid for Mr. Lake, too. Tell the doctor it’s an emergency.”

  Nona herself, clutching the box of soda crackers (as plain food as could be), went, on her own feet, back into the bedroom.

  Daisy Robinson, her brain awhirl and fiercely resenting its own condition, staggered to the phone. Daisy almost never acted without thinking. She scarcely knew how. No, this was not true. She drove a car without thinking, and she had resolved to try to be alert to the physical present. Now, she must do as she had been told. She didn’t understand. It was all so bewildering and upsetting. Everything went too fast!

  Tess was resting against the headboard. Morgan Lake still sat on the other bed. Kelly Shane had knocked the door as far open as it could possibly go.

  “Leave it alone, Kelly,” said Nona. “It’s all right, now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Nona sat down by Tess and undid the cardboard lid and held out the box of crackers. Tess took one. Nona took one. She looked at it curiously. She did not particularly want to put it into her mouth. But, when she did, it was ambrosia.

  Down in the lobby, Oppie Etting had come in. (Three minutes before five o’clock.) He was inside the counter, holding the flap for Rose to go forth.

  Winnie Lake had come into the lobby.

  Winnie Lake had had a Monday! All the hours at school, she had not been able to think about classes or listen to the kids or notice what was happening around her. She thought about her appointment with Dr. Huffman on the Tuesday. She thought about something that she ought to do.

  The idea had come to her, so strongly, almost as if Mrs. Henry had told her in her ear. After school, she had kept turning it and turning it in her mind. It seemed to Winnie Lake that she ought to tell her mother everything, right now. There was something right about doing that. Not to wait any longer. Not to go alone. Let Rose Lake know what was hanging on this visit to the doctor. Give her own mother, the one who loved her, such a one’s right to go with Winnie to that fateful appointment. Whether Rose Lake herself could bear it did not really matter. There were other considerations. Things right and things wrong.

  But Winnie had not yet been able to open her mouth and do this right and proper thing.

  Totally absorbed in her own problem, she had drifted out to the place where her mother was. Winnie had a feeling that there was not much time. If she were going to do it, and tell her, best do it before her stepfather was present. Let the worst be over. He wasn’t well. Spare him some of it. Winnie knew that, whatever Rose would do, it was going to be unpleasant. A shock? A screaming? An uproar? Yet Winnie could not get it out of her head that she ought to tell.

  She stood there in the lobby, looking at her mother.

  Rose Lake said to Oppie Etting, not pleasantly, “Well, I’m glad to see you. I’ve got my dinner to fix.”

  “Sure, Mrs. Lake,” said Oppie. “Go ahead.”

  A light came upon the switchboard and Oppie, taking over, plugged in.

  Daisy Robinson’s agitated voice was audible to all.
“Get me Sycamore 23332. This is an emergency.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Oppie did the proper things with the plugs and the dial. He did not cut himself out. It was not in his nature.

  Rose Lake could hear as well as he. Some girl said, “Dr. O’Gara’s office.”

  “This is an emergency. Tell him to come, at once, to Mrs. Rogan’s apartment at Sans Souci.”

  The girl’s voice said, “Who is calling, please?”

  “Mrs. Robinson. On Mrs. Rogan’s account. Mrs. Rogan and Mrs. Henry. Tell him, two patients. No, three. No, two …” Daisy was getting all mixed up. She said loudly, “It is a matter of life or death,” grimly and deliberately using a cliché;. Then Daisy banged down her instrument.

  In the lobby they heard the girl’s voice: “I’ll have him there as soon as …” Then she was gone.

  Oppie Etting’s very ears turned red with excitement. His eyes bulged. The hours with Harriet Gregory, their many words, overpowered any discretion he might have possessed. “What’s she done!” he cried. “That Mrs. Henry! That murderess!”

  “That what?” Rose Lake grabbed for the counter.

  “That’s right. That’s what she is!” gasped Oppie Etting, carried completely away. “She was on trial for murder! Long time ago. Some woman, friend of her husband …”

  “What are you talking about?” Rose Lake hung there.

  “Everybody knows,” cried Oppie. “Oh my God, what did she do to poor old Mrs. Rogan!”

  “What’s the matter with you?” said Winnie Lake in her young clear voice. “You can’t say things like that about Mrs. Henry. What’s the matter with you?”

  Rose Lake, clutching the counter, turned her head.

  Winnie had her hands clenched, her arms stiff at her sides. Her face had a look of singularly pure and exalted anger. “Mrs. Henry is just wonderful! You must be crazy! Don’t you say things like that!”

  “I guess you never did hear,” said Oppie. He spoke to Rose. “We knew for a long time there was a murderess here in the building. Well, I mean, of course, she got off. Changed her name and all … but honest, they tried her for murder!”

  “You’re wrong!” blazed Winnie Lake beside them. “That’s just impossible. Not Mrs. Henry! I don’t care what you think you know. She couldn’t—” Winnie was shaking. “What do you mean? Mrs. Henry would never, never have anything to do with anything dirty or horrible or bad. Not for one minute! You’re just crazy! Not Mrs. Henry!”

  “She isn’t Mrs. Henry,” said Oppie. “Her real name is Mrs. Quinn.”

  Rose Lake let go of the counter and slowly straightened her body. She turned it and took some steps.

  “I hope … I hope the doctor gets here.” Oppie jittered. “Mrs. Rogan’s probably dying, up there. And maybe Mrs. Henry, too!” He was dancing where he stood with excitement.

  Rose Lake was no longer listening. She walked toward her own door.

  Winnie Lake was not listening, either. Winnie followed her mother. They moved like a pair of dancers in the same figure, both shocked, both tranced.

  When they were inside the apartment Winnie half-closed the door. “Mom?” The one syllable asked for everything.

  Rose Lake stood still, her head lowered a little, looking up from under her handsome eyebrows.

  Rose Lake could have given Winnie the truth and then the lie. She could have said, “Yes, Winnie, yes, I was tried for murder once. But, darling, it was all because I loved you so. Your father got to running around and I fought him, not for myself, but on account of what he was doing to you. I fought him, and fought her, so that when she fell by accident one day, he blamed me. He suspected me. I didn’t hurt her. All I did do—all my fight, all the trouble I got into—was for your sake, because I loved my baby.”

  Or Rose Lake could have given Winnie the truth and then the truth. “Yes, Winnie, yes, I was tried for murder once. And it was all because of you. Your father was very young. When he got to running around I fought him and fought her because I was very young and I wanted to run around, too. When she fell he blamed me. Well, I didn’t hurt her, but I would have liked to hurt her. I hated her for being free, when I was tied down. I hated you! I was young and full of fun as well as they. But you wrecked my life, being born so soon.”

  Mercifully, Rose Lake gave Winnie nothing. She kept her mystery.

  She said, “Excuse me a minute …”

  Winnie said, “Mom, what was he saying?”

  “Just a minute,” Rose said. She gave Winnie a strange smile … a smile that might have come from a stranger. Then Rose went into the bathroom of 103 (an interior bathroom), and she locked the bathroom door.

  It was five o’clock, exactly.

  Locked within, Rose opened the medicine cabinet. No use. No good. There was no more fooling to be done. Morgan Lake had tablets for his heart and Rose knew what they were. Rose Quinn had been dead for fourteen years. Nothing was any fun or ever would be. There was no fooling Rose Lake any more. Married to a man who gave her nothing but kindness; this was intolerable. Winnie was lost, no matter. For fourteen years, the woman playing the tiger-mother had been not Rose. Not the real Rose, but a crushing burden. Yet without that—what was she?

  Rose put all the tablets into her mouth. A glass of water. A motion of the throat; then no more to bear.

  Chapter 34

  Three minutes after five o’clock. The phone in Tess Rogan’s apartment rang. Daisy Robinson, spattered with tomato soup because her body, lurching about trying to be helpful, still had no guidance from her painfully confused mind, went to pick up the phone. “It’s for you, Nona,” she croaked.

  Nona Henry had eaten three soda crackers and felt a supernatural strength flowing into her. She rose and went into the living room to the phone. “Who in the world? I wonder if it’s my daughter …” (Should she tell Dodie about this adventure?)

  “Mrs. Henry?” It wasn’t Dodie.

  “Yes?” She caught the identity. “Winnie?”

  “I’m so scared.” The girl’s voice shook. “I don’t know what to do. Please …”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My mother’s locked in the bathroom. She won’t answer when I call …”

  “Won’t answer?” Nona lowered her voice and looked behind.

  “I’m afraid for my dad … he’s not here. But I can’t call him. I know she fell. I could hear it. I think … I’m afraid … and I’m bleeding,” said Winnie, “I’m bleeding, Mrs. Henry, just terribly.”

  “Try to be quiet.” Nona’s mind was supernaturally clear. “Your father is here, and all right. Just be quiet. I’ll come myself. We’ll see.”

  She hung up and saw Kelly Shane standing there, still waiting to be helpful. “Kelly, get those tools. Don’t say anything to Mr. Lake. But then, you come with me.”

  She said to Daisy Robinson, “Give her the soup and be quiet. Don’t say I’ve gone.”

  Daisy dithered.

  “Mr. Lake’s heart’s not strong,” said Nona. “Take care.”

  “The doctor …” Daisy mewed. If only all this were printed in a book!

  “Yes, he’s coming. Kelly, you help me.”

  “Sure will, Mrs. Henry.”

  So Nona clung to his young arm and they went out of 201 and down the corridor.

  Lo, Agnes Vaughn stood in her wide-open door. Agnes Vaughn must have had extrasensory perception. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

  “I’m not quite sure,” said Nona coolly. She looked at the dumpy little woman propped up on inadequate little feet. “There is nothing you can do.”

  Then, to Kelly, she said, “We had better take the stairs. I’m hoping we will meet … ah! Doctor!”

  Young crew-cut Dr. O’Gara was pounding around the corner, having run up the stairs.

  “They are all right, for the moment,” Nona said to him quickly. “Doctor, I think you had better come with us.”

  So the three of them got into the little elevator, leaving Agnes Vaughn frozen where she stood. (Nobod
y knew better than Agnes that there was nothing she could do. Agnes Vaughn had high blood pressure. She had better not do, physically. She could guess, quite clearly, how she would die, someday. She knew her limitations and her fate.)

  In the same cage rode the young colored man, very steady and quick to obey, and the young doctor, reading emergency and ready for it. Neither of them blurted out agitated questions. There was Nona Henry, who said to them calmly, “Mrs. Lake is locked in her bathroom and has fallen.” She nearly fell, herself. They quickly steadied her. “I have had three soda crackers to eat since Thursday’s dinner,” she said giddily.

  The doctor’s fingers went to her wrist. “You are fine,” he said. “I’ll look at that hand …”

  “No, it’s fine.” she said.

  Kelly Shane said warmly, “Yes, sir. Mrs. Henry, she’s fine!”

  Nona scarcely heard.

  They got out at the lobby floor. Oppie Etting was still dancing where he stood. “What is it? What’s happening?”

  Not one of the three so much as glanced at him. Nona, peering, said, “The door seems to be open.”

  So they crossed the lobby to the door of the Lakes’ apartment and Kelly Shane pushed it wider.

  The place was very still. Then a little whimper led them. Winnie Lake was in her own bedroom, sitting on the bed, so white in the face that for the first time Nona noticed four freckles along her cheekbone.

  Nona said, “All right, Winnie.” She sank down beside her. “Kelly, you had better open that bathroom door. Doctor, meantime, this girl …”

  The doctor took in what was the matter with Winnie, at once. He pushed her back gently so that she was lying flat. They could hear Kelly Shane calling, “Mrs. Lake? Mrs. Lake?” The apartment was very still. Then, they could hear wood splitting.

  The doctor poked a bit and said something reassuring. He fished into his bag for a pill. He glanced at the two females and rose, himself, to go to the kitchen for some water.

  Nona touched the girl’s cheek.

  Kelly Shane made a strange moaning, keening sound.… The doctor darted in, handed Winnie a glass of water, and went back into the hall.