Leave Her to Heaven

by Ben Ames Williams

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she confessed. ‘But neither of us ever betrayed Ellen in even the smallest thought.’

  ‘She accused me once of being in love with you.’

  ‘She accused me of loving you,’ Ruth assented. ‘But it wasn’t true of either of us, Dick. She was wrong. If she were still alive — we’d never have come to love each other now.’ She touched his hand, clasped it strongly, full of a high pride.

  He spcke again of that day beside the river and they relived it, remembering each incident. ‘We’ll go back there, some day,’ he said at last. ‘After the young green has had a chance to hide the waste left by the fire; next year, perhaps, or the year after.’ His eyes lighted. ‘We might buy that land and build a home there, as we planned that day.’

  ‘That would be fine,’ she agreed. ‘You like solitudes — and with you I’d never feel solitary.’ The thought pleased her, and she spoke more eagerly. ‘And we’d be too busy to be lonely, anyway; you working in the morning, and me — and you in the afternoons — busy with our farming and our flowers.’

  ‘And our dogs and horses,’ he amended. ‘We’ll keep a dozen dogs, and a horse apiece, and some sheep and cows.’

  She said doubtfully: ‘That sounds sort of — permanent! Or would we take them in every spring and out every fall? We’d need a regular Noah’s ark to carry them up the river.’

  ‘And the animals would go aboard two by two!’ He laughed. ‘I suppose we’ll have to keep the menagerie in bounds. Unless we could get a farmer to stay there the year round and take care of them.’

  ‘Would Leick?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never reached the bottom of Leick’s resources; never yet wanted anything he couldn’t do.’ And he said: ‘See here, this thing is getting hold of me. Suppose we go up there this summer and have the place surveyed, see what shape it’s in, maybe even buy the land and build a temporary camp there anyway.’

  ‘What about the book?’

  He said grimly: ‘I’m near a dead end on that. After we’re married, we’ll take the car and go wandering for a couple of weeks — unless there’s something you’d rather do?’

  ‘No, I like just wandering with you.’

  ‘Then I’ll come back and take another look at it, and if it still seems as empty as it does now, I’ll give it up.’ He grinned. ‘I like my next idea better anyway.’

  ‘You’ve put so much work on this one.’

  He chuckled. ‘I know. I’m a thrifty soul, too. But I’ve learned a lot, stewing and fussing over it. I’ve had my money’s worth out of it in experience.’

  So they were married and departed, leaving no forwarding address; and the fortnight Harland had planned extended itself. At first they drove leisurely westward, avoiding resorts and cities, never hurrying, stopping to admire every pleasing prospect, lingering in talk with farmers by the roadside and with housewives from whom they begged a drink of water and with merchants where they made purchases and with the keepers of the small hotels where they preferred to stay. Since these lodgings were often unattractive, Harland bought sleeping bags and cooking dishes, and they acquired provisions at need, and when the nights were fine they were apt to find some contenting spot and sleep in the open air. The byroads which they followed led them sweetly on, and each day was an adventure, and the world was friendly and serene; and Ruth one night, clinging to him in a soft swift passion, cried:

  ‘Oh Dick, Dick, I’ve never guessed two people could be as happy as we are; as happy as you and I.’ And, begging for reassurance, she asked: ‘Will it last, my dearest? Will it always be like this?’

  He said, confident and proud: ‘Of course. Why not?’

  ‘I hate going back to the everyday world again.’

  ‘There’ll never be an everyday world for you and me. There’ll always be new wonders to see and to admire.’

  On Sundays — this was at her suggestion, but he willingly agreed — they often sought out some small village church and joined the congregation which sat stiff and uncomfortable in unaccustomed ‘Sunday clothes,’ the men smelling faintly of moth balls, their womenfolk, before the services began, nodding and smiling and whispering, and gathering afterward in chattering groups outside the church doors.

  ‘Why is it I enjoy these churches?’ Harland asked one day as they drove away. ‘That preacher was just a boy, and his Adam’s apple fascinated me, and his sermon was nothing but a collection of familiar quotations. But I liked it.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s what you get out of church,’ she suggested.

  ‘It’s what you take into it. But — especially in these little churches — I’m always conscious of the congregations which have sat there in the past, the old people now buried in the churchyards. I feel them around me in the pews; and I picture their strong, kindly, simple, decent faces. The world is so darned full of nice, ordinary people, Dick, doing their daily jobs. They may be tricky or cruel or something during the week, but they turn to church on Sunday.’

  ‘Why do they do it?’

  ‘It must give them something they want, something they can’t put into words. Probably in church they feel themselves in a great communion with millions of others like themselves, all over the world.’

  ‘Then why don’t more people go to church?’

  ‘I think perhaps it’s because they’re in-betweens, either too intelligent or else not intelligent enough. I think the little people and the big ones are alike very simple. It’s the in-betweens who have lost their simplicity. Cars and radios and rapid communication have enlarged their world — and made it thin and diffuse. There are so many things in their world, and so many ideas in their minds, that they’re forever pulled this way and that, have no rock of simple conviction on which they can stand firm. They hear statements made one day and denied the next, so they learn disbelief rather than belief, and fall into the pit of believing nothing. But in the old little world where your farthest horizon was only a day’s horse and buggy ride away, the church was the center, and the minister was the fountain of truth, and your life instead of being diffused and confusing was concentrated and simple and comforting.’

  He said smilingly: ‘Such ministers as we’ve been hearing certainly weren’t fountains of eternal truth! And yet if you just let go and relax and submit, you come out of their churches feeling rested and — well, as though you’d made friends with something fine.’

  They had, during these weeks together, long hours of contenting talk; and even though they seldom drove great distances in any one day, they went as far west as Wisconsin before turning homeward. The weather was hot, so they swung northward into Canada, and eastward and then south into Maine. From Skowhegan they wired Mrs. Huston to expect them; and Harland telegraphed to Leick — he had written him before they set out, bidding him make plans — that by the first of August they would be ready to go back to the river to undertake that project of creating a home in the wilderness which now more and more clearly took shape in their minds.

  When they arrived at the house on Chestnut Street, Harland swept Ruth up in his arms and carried her across the threshold. Mrs. Huston showed him a pile of unopened letters on his desk, and Ruth promised to help him answer them tomorrow.

  ‘I’m going to be your secretary, you know,’ she reminded him. ‘We’ll turn them off in no time.’

  But those letters would wait long for answers. Mrs. Huston reported that Quinton had telephoned that morning.

  ‘I said I expected you home in time for dinner,’ she explained, ‘and he said he’d come this evening to see you.’ Harland started to protest and she said: ‘I told him you wouldn’t want to see anyone your first night at home, but he said this couldn’t wait. He said it was important.’

  Ruth saw that Harland was puzzled and disturbed. ‘Wonder what that’s all about?’ he asked her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She too was perplexed, full of a reasonless concern.

  Harland laughed. ‘Oh well, let him come. He won’t s
tay long,’ he said.

  12

  HARLAND had instructed Mrs. Huston to arrange during had instructed Mrs. Huston to arrange during their absence that all Ruth’s more personal possessions should be brought from her apartment to the Chestnut Street house; and when now he carried their bags upstairs, the old woman came to show proudly how she had disposed Ruth’s garments in bureau drawers and closets, and Ruth approved all she had done, and after Mrs. Huston had gone to set their dinner on, Ruth gave Harland a happy hug and a kiss.

  ‘She worships you, doesn’t she?’ she said. ‘I’ll have to be good to you, or she’ll scratch my eyes out.’

  He chuckled. ‘If she tries to discipline you, you just get sick,’ he advised. ‘No matter what you do to me, she’ll forgive you if you’re sick enough.’

  They made a merry hour of their first dinner at home together, and Harland fought out of his mind the frightening wonder why Quinton was here, refusing to remember Danny’s death and what the State Attorney’s coming might foreshadow. But almost at once after they went into the living room the doorbell rang. Mrs. Huston was busy in the kitchen, so Harland himself, saying impatiently, ‘Drat it, that must be Quinton,’ went to answer.

  When he opened the door he saw that Quinton was not alone. A man and a woman stood beside and behind him. Quinton stepped briskly into the hall, and the others pressed on his heels, so that Harland felt himself crowded back. Quinton said, with importance in his tone: ‘Good evening, Mr. Harland. This is Deputy Sheriff Hatch, and my secretary, Mrs. Parkins.’

  Harland, feeling a cold touch on his spine, took the deputy’s soft hand, bowed to Mrs. Parkins. Ruth came to greet them, acknowledging Quinton’s introductions, bidding them into the living room. She seemed to find nothing unusual in this visitation; but Harland knew she must be as disturbed as he, and he crossed to stand by her side at the hearth, watching Quinton and these others with a wary eye. Deputy Hatch, a large fat man who, it was clear, habitually ate too much, sat down on the couch, turning his hat over and over on his knees, looking all around, obviously impressed. by his surroundings. Mrs. Parkins, a grim young woman with a tight mouth, watched to see what Quinton would do; and when he chose a straight chair at one end of the table she drew up another and seated herself beside him, stripped off her gloves, took from her handbag a stenographer’s notebook and a pen, and sat waiting expectantly.

  Their movements were ominous, but Ruth said in a pleasant tone: ‘You’re our first callers. We only just got home.’

  Harland tried to laugh. ‘You were practically sitting on the doorstep.’

  Quinton cleared his throat. ‘We’re here on business,’ he said impressively. ‘I want to ask you some questions. Your lawyer would advise you not to answer. I warn you that Mrs. Parkins here will take down whatever you say and it may be used in evidence against you.’

  Harland, sure now that Quinton had somehow stumbled on the truth about Danny’s death, saw Mrs. Parkins’s pen begin to race across the first page of her notebook. His palms were moist and he felt a damp coolness on his brow, and his voice when he tried to speak caught in his throat. He asked hoarsely, pretending an uncertainty he did not feel:

  ‘What the Hell are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m not answering questions,’ Quinton told him. ‘I’m asking them. Mind you, you can refuse to answer; but your refusal will be noted.’

  Ruth, beside Harland near the hearth, said seriously: ‘Aren’t you being unnecessarily mysterious? What is it? We’ll gladly answer any questions you care to ask, I’m sure.’ Harland remembered that she — since she did not know Ellen’s part in Danny’s drowning — had nothing to hide; but guilt lay heavy on his shoulders, and he tried to guess how much Quinton knew — and how he had discovered it. Certainly not from Leick, who though he had seen the truth from the beginning would never speak. Yet Quinton must know, or at least suspect. There was no other possible explanation for his coming tonight.

  Harland was so sure of this that the other’s first word came as relief and reassurance, for it did not concern Danny at all. ‘I want to ask you, Mrs. Harland,’ the State Attorney explained, ‘about that picnic the day your sister died.’

  Ruth echoed in bewilderment: ‘About the picnic?’ Harland was as surprised as she; and he was for the moment so grateful to find Danny’s death was not in question that his thoughts failed to focus.

  ‘Yes,’ said Quinton. ‘Guess you haven’t forgotten it.’ There was something so derisive in his tone that Harland, his fears now banished, spoke in quick anger.

  ‘What’s the idea?’ he demanded.

  Quinton told him, as one silences an obstreperous child: ‘Now, now, Mr. Harland! We’ll get along faster if you speak when you’re spoken to. I want Mrs. Harland to do the talking. ’

  Ruth touched Harland’s arm to quiet him. ‘What is it you want to know?’ she asked Quinton.

  ‘Well, let’s start at the beginning,’ he proposed. ‘Whose idea was that picnic, anyway?’

  ‘Why, I don’t remember,’ Ruth confessed. She looked at Harland. ‘Mr. Harland’s, I think. He wanted to see Leick, and we decided to take our lunch over to Leick’s farm, that’s all.’

  ‘Did your sister like the idea?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  In the brief silences after Ruth’s every answer, Mrs. Parkins’s pen made a slight scratching sound; and Harland, frowning in a strained attention, could hear the deputy’s heavy breathing, as though the fat man were on the verge of a snore.

  ‘What did you take to eat?’

  Ruth hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. Potato salad, or possibly potato chips, and some bread and butter sandwiches, and I think some of Mrs. Freeman’s chocolate doughnuts, and thermos bottles full of coffee. I don’t remember anything else. Oh, we had ice cream, too.’

  ‘Lobsters?’

  ‘Leick was to have some ready for us.’

  Deputy Hatch made an audible digestive sound, his eyes opening wide; and Quinton looked sharply toward him and he mumbled something apologetic.

  ‘Who put up the lunch?’ Quinton asked.

  ‘Mrs. Freeman and I.’

  ‘How’d you carry it?’

  ‘In one of those fitted hampers,’ Ruth said, and then, remembering: ‘It was the one you once gave Ellen, Mr. Quinton.’ She added: ‘And we took lemons, and mustard, and Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper. I always make a tamale sauce for lobsters, and I did that day.’

  ‘Take along sugar and cream for the coffee?’

  ‘None of us used cream. I took some sugar for Ellen.’

  ‘She’d lost the sugar canister out of that hamper, the time we used it.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘Yes. I put some in an envelope.’

  ‘She was the only one put sugar in their coffee?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Harland watched and listened, his eyes swinging with each question and answer from Quinton to Ruth and back again, as a spectator at a tennis match watches the ball dart to and fro.

  ‘She used the sugar out of that envelope you put it in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘After you’d eaten lunch, what did you do?’

  ‘Ellen and I went up the bank and lay on the grass. Mr. Harland and Leick stayed by the fire.’

  ‘How long was it after lunch till Ellen took sick?’

  Ruth’s eyes closed for a moment. ‘Quite late in the afternoon,’ she said then.

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘Up on the bank with me.’

  ‘What’d you do?’ The questions were coming sharply now.

  ‘Why, Mr. Harland and Leick tried to carry her to the house, sitting on their hands; but she was so sick she couldn’t sit up, and Leick went to get a door to carry her on, like a stretcher. Then Mr. Harland and I put her to bed while Leick went for the doctor.’

  ‘What time did she die?’

  ‘Toward morning.’

  ‘You were with her right along?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ha
rland, remembering those hours of Ellen’s agony and his, for a little ceased to listen. Quinton had asked some question about Ellen’s earlier, similar attacks, and Ruth answered him at length, while Harland lived through again that night of Ellen’s suffering and death.

  ‘When did you decide Dr. Seyffert wasn’t doing her any good?’ Quinton asked at last.

  ‘I don’t know. It was late, long after she was taken sick.’

  ‘Did you try to get another doctor?’

  ‘It would have taken hours. I didn’t know who to get, nearer than Bangor. Our doctor at Bar Harbor had gone home, gone back to New York.’

  Quinton harshly repeated his question. ‘Did you try to get another doctor?’

  ‘No.’ Ruth’s color rose at his tone.

  Quinton looked at Harland. ‘Did you?’ he challenged.

  Harland shook his head. ‘Damn it, I was distracted!’ he cried. ‘We all were. We knew Ellen was dying. What’s this all about, anyway?’

  ‘You knew she was dying,’ Quinton said implacably, ‘and you let her die.’

  ‘What’s back of all this?’ Harland insisted. ‘Come out with it, man!’

  Quinton said flatly: ‘Keep your shirt on, Mr. Harland.’ He turned to Ruth again. ‘Your father used to kill birds and stuff them.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Had a workshop at Bar Harbor, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, and one in our house in Boston, too.’

  ‘You’ve cleared his stuff out, made his study and workshop into a cottage for yourself, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I hoped to rent the big house, planned to live in the cottage.’

  ‘What did you do with your father’s things?’

  ‘I gave some to the Museum of Natural History, here in Boston; packed some and stored them.’

  ‘Throw anything away?’

  ‘Things for which I could see no use, yes.’

  Quinton hesitated. Then he asked: ‘When he killed these birds, how’d he preserve the skins?’