Leave Her to Heaven

by Ben Ames Williams

  So now her part must be that of the affectionate and sympathetic wife, grieving for Danny but more concerned to comfort Harland in his deeper grief, bravely forgetting her own sorrow in her effort to assuage his. She hurried ahead to the cabin and held the door for them; she moved on to turn back the covers on Danny’s bed so Harland could lay him there; and when he had done so, Leick standing silently, she put her arms around Harland’s neck, drew his face down, kissed him, said like a pledge:

  ‘I’ll take care of him, Richard. I’ll do everything.’ She told Leick: ‘Take Mr. Harland outside. Be good to him.’

  Harland submitted, and Ellen closed the door behind them; and now at last alone she fought for self-control, her hands pressing her cheeks, shivering as though she were cold. Then, dreading what Leick might say to Harland, she hastily opened the door again; but she saw Harland on the veranda, heard Leick busy in the kitchen. She went to the sink to dip water into a basin; and she was tensely armed to meet Leick’s accusing word. But he did not speak and she took basin and cloth and returned to bathe Danny. Sand and spruce spills had adhered to the vaseline on his body during those hours while Harland tried to bring him back to life; and she cleansed him, forcing herself to the shuddering task. She put fresh sheets on his bed, and ordered his stiffening limbs and his countenance, and so at last covered him over and left him.

  Harland was still on the veranda. Leick said supper was ready; but she begged time, since she still wore her bathing suit, to change. In their room she saw her father’s field kit, which Leick had brought from Bar Harbor that day, set on her bed; and she remembered the arsenic in it. If Richard had denounced her to Leick she would have been glad now to have the poison at her command; but he had not, so she could live.

  When she joined Richard at the table, he was already seated; and she went behind his chair, taking his cheeks between her hands, turning his face up to meet her kiss.

  ‘I know your grief, Richard,’ she whispered. ‘But we’ll make it up to you, baby and I.’

  His arm after a moment encircled her waist, and she read his thoughts. He must be gentle with her, gentle and tender, always remembering the burden of another life which she bore. To make his rôle clear to him she said in his ear: ‘I blame myself so terribly, Richard. I shouldn’t have let him try it, but he was so happy, wanting to surprise you. I’ll never forgive myself. Please be good to me!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he told her heavily. ‘Just one of those things.’

  ‘You’re so sweet to me.’

  They ate little, and almost in silence. When they were done, Leick spoke to them. ‘I thought I’d go out to Joe Severin’s tonight,’ he explained. ‘Telephone to Cherryfield, have someone come in, first thing in the morning.’

  Harland did not reply. Ellen hesitated, half dreading to be alone with Richard; but then she said, eager to separate these two:

  ‘Yes, Leick. Go tonight. We’ll expect you early in the morning.’ And since Harland did not raise his head, she caught Leick’s eye and led him outside. ‘He’s dreadfully broken, just now,’ she said sorrowfully. ‘You and I must attend to whatever is to be done. I think we’ll plan to take Danny to Boston. Find out about trains, Leick. Make all the arrangements.’

  Leick spoke without expression. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he agreed, not meeting her eyes. ‘I’ll start soon as I’ve cleaned up the supper things.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ she assured him. ‘You go along while there’s still light enough to see the trail.’

  So Leick departed, and Ellen and Harland were left alone. He went out to sit on the rock wall beside the path, and she busied herself in the kitchen; but she saw the glow of his cigarettes, lighted one after another in swift succession, gleaming in the increasing darkness. Before she finished, he came in again and set the lamp going and went to the small room where Danny lay; and she did not disturb him there. Instead she turned to their own room, and at once she prepared for the night, brushing her hair long and carefully to steady her hand, to quiet her throbbing pulses. When she was ready, she lay down; but since Richard did not come to her she went at last to him.

  She found him sitting by Danny’s bed, and she stood behind him and drew his head against her breast. ‘I know! I know, my darling,’ she murmured. ‘I know, my dear.’ He was passive in her arms, and she asked: ‘Darling, are you blaming me? I can’t stand it if you are!’

  He did not look up at her, his eyes on Danny, his word a hard challenge. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘You told me not to let him try it unless you were along. But he wanted to surprise you, Richard! He was so happy, planning to surprise you. Yet I shouldn’t have let him do it! I’ll always blame myself!’

  His lungs filled with a long breath of resignation, and he shook his head. ‘No, no,’ he said, and she felt his surrender. ‘It’s all right, Ellen. You couldn’t do anything.’

  ‘It was terrible,’ she cried wretchedly. ‘Without any warning at all, he was just gone. He’d been all right a second before, and I was watching the eagle flying over, and when I looked back, Danny was gone, Richard!’ Her teeth began to chatter. ‘He never came up even once, no cry, no struggle. I took a quick pull at the oars, and one of them slipped out of the oarlock, and I dropped it and almost fell backward in the boat, and I couldn’t reach the oar, so I had to paddle, and I must have gone to the wrong place, because when I dove down he wasn’t there! Oh Richard! Richard! I’ll never forgive myself.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘I could have made him wait,’ she insisted, ‘But he was so sweet, wanting to surprise you.’ She shivered at a sudden memory. ‘When I found him, on the bottom, he put his arms around me. He seemed to be trying to tell me how glad he was I had come, and that he loved me, and forgave me. Do you forgive me, Richard? Do you love me?’

  He nodded, still not looking at her. ‘Of course I do.’

  She tugged at his arm. ‘Come to bed, my darling. You must sleep. Come, let me give you sleep and rest and peace.’

  ‘I guess I’ll stay with him,’ he said heavily.

  ‘You mustn’t! You needn’t stay here. He’ll always be with us, now.’ And she said: ‘We need you, too, you know. Baby and I.’ And when he rose, holding him close, pressing close to him, she whispered: ‘We need each other now, Richard. We’ve nobody but each other now.’ While he stood passive in her arms she urged: ‘Life never ends, darling. Danny’s gone, but our own baby’s coming. There’s always a new life, to fill the empty place. They go together, death and birth, my dear.’

  He let her lead him away, and while he undressed, she went back to turn down the lamp in Danny’s room so that it would burn all night. Returning, she found Richard in bed, and she extinguished their lamp and came to his side.

  ‘Make a place for me, darling,’ she whispered, and he obeyed. She lay down beside him in the sultry night, her body along his, and she began to shake with silent sobs. Tears filled her eyes and overflowed, till he said at last, helplessly:

  ‘It’s all right, Ellen. Don’t cry.’

  She clung to him. ‘We loved him so, Richard.’

  ‘Don’t, Ellen. Please!’

  ‘You’re blaming me,’ she wailed. ‘It was my fault!’

  ‘Hush, dear.’

  ‘It was! It was! It was! I can feel you blaming me!’ She entwined her arms around him hungrily. ‘But oh, Richard, I need you so! I need you so! Don’t ever let me go.’

  ‘I never will.’

  Her lips, wet with tears, found his beseechingly. ‘Hold me tight, Richard! I’m afraid, afraid!’ Even while she played her part she thought exultantly that she need not guard her tones. Danny, though he lay so near, could never hear her now.

  7

  HARLAND during these hours had been driven near madness by what he saw from the lookout above the cabin, rendered for a few seconds actually unconscious by the blow he suffered when the motorboat crashed into the ledge, physically exhausted by the long struggle to recover Danny’s body and t
hen to revive him, overwhelmed at last by the knowledge that Danny was dead and that Ellen had let him drown. But when Ellen said they were to have a baby, her words were like a dash of water in his face. They began to bring him back to sensibility again.

  Still half dazed, he did passively what she bade him; but while he rowed the laden skiff slowly around the point and turned down the pond toward the home cove, he groped toward comprehension. The motorboat, cocked on the ledge, gave his thoughts — as mariners say — a true departure; and he remembered, little by little, all that had happened before, and after, and so came back to the inescapable fact. Ellen, whom he had held so high, had let Danny drown.

  But even though he knew this was true, yet it was still incredible, till remembrance came to him. Women in their first pregnancy might — so he had read, or heard — suffer psychological changes so that for a while they were completely irresponsible; and he clung to this suggestion and even welcomed it, because it was in some slight degree not only an explanation but a justification.

  For certainly — he was from the moment of Ellen’s revelation clear on this — no matter what she had done, he must for her sake and for the sake of their baby keep her blameless before the world.

  So when they came back to the boathouse, he told Leick that tale of Danny’s circling in the motorboat: yet he saw less than full belief in Leick’s eyes, and recognized the flaws in the fable he had contrived. Leick, after his return from Joe Severin’s, would have gone up to the cabin, so he must know that they had eaten no lunch; and he knew they would not have set out for an afternoon at the far beach without eating. Also, Harland had said that the motorboat when it hit the ledge was empty, running wild; but if Leick went up to the point, his woodsman’s eye would mark where Harland had waded ashore, dripping blood upon the strand, and he would see where Harland had crossed the point and so would know that Harland had been in the motorboat, would know he lied.

  Those betraying traces must be removed before the other found and read them; so when Leick departed for Joe Severin’s, Harland was relieved. But he could not do his errand at the point in darkness. It must wait till morning. He and Ellen were left alone at the cabin, and at her insistence he assumed the part he would henceforward play; but at first gray dawn he left her sleeping and took a canoe and paddled swiftly up the lake.

  The wrecked motorboat was fast on the ledge, and he loosed the clamps which held the motor in place and transferred it to the canoe; then, stepping out in the shallow water, he lifted the boat free, and although since the bow was smashed it filled quickly, he towed it to the near-by shore and beached it there. In the dimness of early dawn he found drops of dried blood and his own tracks in the sand, and he obliterated the brown stains and smoothed out the footprints and sprinkled spruce spills over them till he was sure that not even Leick could read the story which had been so plain.

  Then he paddled back to camp again. It was still early, and the bright hues of coming day tinted the whole dome of the sky. Unready as yet to face Ellen, he climbed to his workroom over the boathouse and watched the sun lift above the wooded ridges to the east, and the mist rising from the lake assumed a golden hue as it began to thin and disappear. The sun was a red ball still sufficiently veiled so that the eye could look upon it boldly, and it laid a red ribbon on the water, and the lake was so calm that the edges of this ribbon, broken by no least ripple, were straight as ruled lines.

  Harland watched this spectacle unseeingly. Danny was dead, and Ellen had let him drown, and Back of the Moon, which had been so beautiful, was become an accursed place which after today he would never see again. He could turn his back on it forever; but he could not turn his back on Ellen — and on their baby which she would bear. While he watched the sunrise, he remembered how persistently she had sought to persuade him to leave Danny at Warm Springs, or at Bar Harbor with Ruth. If he had yielded, Danny would be alive today; and Harland grimly blamed himself because he had not yielded, blamed himself for marrying Ellen, blamed himself for disregarding Glen Robie’s unspoken warnings, and Mrs. Robie’s. appraisal of Ellen, and his own instinct to escape from her.

  He shook his head, staring at the angry ribbon of the sun’s reflection in the water. Blame was useless now. To blame himself — or to blame Ellen — would not bring Danny back to life. He began even to defend Ellen, fighting for her against himself, arguing that she had acted from a primitive instinct to prepare in the world a welcome for this child she was to bear. She had let Danny die because he filled a place in Harland’s life, and even in her own, which she wished to pre-empt for the child which was to come.

  He found excuses for her; and yet he knew that regardless of excuses, he must — if only for their baby’s sake — protect and shield her and keep her blameless before the world. He could never say in years to come to that child yet to be born: ‘Yes, your mother murdered my brother.’ He alone in the world knew this was true, and — not even Ellen must ever know he knew.

  Thus he set his life in order, accepting the future which she imposed upon him; and when from the cabin above he heard her call his name, he answered and went back up the trail — to bondage.

  – II –

  Ellen — Harland thought wonderingly that she was this morning more beautiful than he had ever seen her, as bright and fair as the dewy dawn itself, with radiant cheeks and eyes washed clear — prepared their breakfast. Before they rose from the table, Leick and Joe Severin arrived, with a hush-voiced man whom Leick had summoned from Bar Harbor and who would do for Danny all that was needed now.

  ‘And I telephoned your house, ma’am,’ Leick soberly reported. ‘I thought probably you’d want they should know. I talked to your sister.’

  Ellen thanked him and turned to Harland. ‘There’s nothing we can do here, Richard,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we start before it gets too warm, leave them to follow us to Bar Harbor?’

  ‘I’d like to stay.’

  ‘I wish we needn’t, darling.’ Her eyes touched Leick. ‘It’s hard for me.’

  So he yielded, thinking he must always yield to her now. They set out at once, leaving the others here, following the trail through the silent forest; and the brook that was the outlet of the pond chuckled over its small cascades beside them. Where the path was narrow, Ellen went ahead, striding easily, grace and beauty in her every movement; and Harland watched her, his eyes searching her from crown to heel, remembering that whatever she had done, she bore within her slim body their child who would one day assume form and flesh and features, with the gift of laughter and of love. Just as she had taken life — for she had killed Danny as truly as though she had beaten him under with an oar — so was she giving life as well; and he knew wonderingly that even now he loved her for her partnership with him in this task of reproduction.

  They came to the beginning of the wood road and saw Joe Severin’s cart there, the horses contentedly switching flies; and they went on, now side by side, and they spoke sometimes of the things they saw by the road — an occasional wild flower, the track of a coon in a wet spot in the ruts, the porcupine that watched them from a hemlock as they passed, the moss carpet on a sloping ledge. So they arrived at Joe Severin’s farm — Harland was grateful to find the house deserted — and took the car and drove on.

  When they reached Bar Harbor, Ruth met them at the door; and though she said nothing, Harland felt her fine unspoken sympathy. Ellen asked where her mother was, and Ruth said: ‘I’ve kept her abed today. She’s not so well, this summer, and I make her rest as much as she will.’

  They went to see her. The old woman gripped both Harland’s hands in hers, looking up at him, saying crisply: ‘Don’t try to say anything, and neither will I. I don’t know what happened and I don’t want to know.’

  Ellen bent to kiss her dry cheek, and Harland saw Mrs. Berent’s eyes blaze with anger under that caress; and he felt the breath of danger and spoke in quick precaution.

  ‘It was tough on Ellen,’ he said loyally. ‘It was she who found
him.’ Despite the old woman’s prohibition he explained, wishing to be sure Ellen would remember this story to which they must hold: ‘He was cutting circles with the outboard in the middle of the lake and it threw him out. He went down before we could get to him.’ And he added: ‘We kept diving — it wasn’t very deep — till Ellen found him, but we were too late.’

  Mrs. Berent had not released his hand, and her clasp tightened now as though she knew the truth, knew Ellen’s guilt and was grateful to him for protecting her daughter. Then Ruth led them away, suggesting that they rest. Ellen went with her, but Harland walked down to the shore; and he was for a while alone, with the slow beat of the sea on the rocks below him, and the deep rhythm of the surges entered into him in ponderous, clumsy comforting. When Ruth came down the lawn to summon him to lunch, they stayed a moment in quiet talk together, and he felt understanding in her, and solicitude, and affection, and was heartened and made strong.

  – III –

  Mrs. Berent was not well enough to go with them to Boston, and Ruth must stay with her; so it was only Harland and Ellen and Leick, who had loved Danny almost as well as Harland himself, who made that sombre journey. Afterward Ellen wished to stay on in Boston; but Harland decided to go once more to Back of the Moon with Leick to pack their belongings. She protested with a surprising urgency that Leick needed no help, could do whatever needed doing; and when Harland held stubbornly to his purpose, she said she would accompany them. But at Bar Harbor she tried again to dissuade him. ‘You’ll only torture yourself, going back there,’ she pleaded, and at the last she clung to him, crying: ‘Please, Richard! Please! I won’t go with you!’