Black Widow

by Patrick Quentin

  I glanced up at Iris. She was still standing there holding the other letters. My mouth felt dry and sour. I thought: And I was figuring what to do about today as if something new was beginning. I’d imagined the past had done its worst, that the dreadful voice from the morgue had spoken for the last time.

  I went on reading.

  Iris, I’m not going to tell you all the details. They are terribly, beautifully important to me, but to you they’d seem banal, tawdry, unattractive, perhaps. It’s just the core of it that I want you to know. Peter and I fell in love. Oh, I fell in love. Falling! What a funny word, when really it’s rising, soaring. Rising in love, they should say. I rose in love with Peter—the first moment we met. And, I think, in his way, he rose in love with me, too. Oh, I’m not going to pretend it was as deep a love as mine. Men aren’t like us, are they? I think maybe he was lonely without you, maybe he was a little flattered that I was younger. I think there were all sorts of other factors with him. But it happened quickly, magically, just like that. And, for a while, a wonderful while, both of us were able to forget about you. Half able, I should say, because I know that often I used to think of you at the strangest moments, with a kind of awe and a kind of love, a kind of anguished tenderness as if you’d been my very best friend instead of someone I had never even met.

  And it’s you, Iris dear, who has won in the end. That’s why I’m writing this, of course. Because Peter and I are both of us decent people. Whatever we may have thought about ourselves, we’ve discovered that now. Suddenly, without any warning, it came to us both at the same time. IRIS. Even in that, you see, we had a strange sort of mutuality as if his thoughts and mine were the same. Perhaps that was why it could never really have been right between Peter and me. We were too nearly the same person. Abiding love needs a contrast, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it? That’s what I’m telling myself now that I’m so full of unhappiness, anxiety and torment for what I have decided must happen.

  Because it was I, Iris, who actually decided we must break. Peter probably felt it, too, but just because he’s Peter, he couldn’t have found enough courage to hurt me by bringing it up himself. It was last night when we were talking about Martin. Funny, isn’t it, that it was Martin who really brought you and Peter back together again? I thought of all you’d been through in Mexico. I thought of how much you must have struggled to get back together in confidence and repaired love and I thought: I’m not going to be another Martin. Life can’t be that cheap and spiteful. It shouldn’t make you “pay” in a corny Biblical sense for what you made Peter suffer in the past.

  So there it is. It’s over. I’m never going to see Peter again. I’m not fighting you. I’m not, not a rival. He’s yours. And I feel, I know, I’m certain that it is you he really belongs to. You must make him believe it.

  This is the hardest letter I have ever written, and I know that Peter will never forgive me for it. But may I end—with my love?

  Nanny Ordway

  I looked up from the letter. It was so much worse than anything I could have imagined. It didn’t sound mad; it didn’t sound vindictive; it sounded like the sincere, heartbreaking confession of a very nice girl.

  And, of course, beyond everything, it sounded true.

  I knew I would have to fight this dreadful “sincerity” with a weapon that was equally strong. But the great crises never seem to bring the right moods. I felt weak and sick as if the poison of the letter had entered my veins.

  I said, “It’s all a pack of crazy lies.”

  “Lies.” Iris’s voice was very soft. “Lies, lies, lies. Miss Amberley’s lying, Lucia’s lying. Nanny Ordway’s lying. Everyone’s lying except—”

  She broke off. I longed to cross to her and take her in my arms. The physical feeling between us might still have saved the situation. But I knew now, from looking at her white, set face, that she wouldn’t let me touch her. “Iris, baby, listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “She was crazy. We know that now. She’s hounding me. She’s making me pay.”

  “For what?”

  “God, if I knew. Maybe for not falling in love with her.”

  “But you said she wasn’t in love with you.”

  “I thought she wasn’t.”

  “Thought!”

  There was a moment of silence, terrible to me as an explosion. Why did I still feel guilty? What was this monstrous power in Nanny Ordway that could always half convince me of my culpability? Did I want to be a victim? Was that why I stood there, watching Nanny’s poison do its work on Iris, watching with no power to produce an effective antidote?

  “Iris.”

  “And Martin.” She turned suddenly. “How did she know about Martin?”

  It was all too confused in my mind now for me to remember anything coherently.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “You must have talked to her about Martin.”

  “Maybe I did. Yes, that’s right. One evening, we were talking. I mentioned his name.”

  “You mentioned his name! There you were sitting quietly with your quiet little protégé, chatting, oh, so innocently, and you just happened to mention Martin. By the way, my wife had a lover once. It would amuse you to hear about him.”

  “It wasn’t like that. I forget just how it was, but—” She crossed to a chair and sat down. She brought up her hands to cover her face. That classic gesture of suffering gave me a kind of courage. I went to her and dropped down at her side.

  “Baby—”

  My hand touched her arm. She shook it off savagely.

  “No, Peter—”

  “We were talking about love. Just a stupid, kiddish talk about people and the way they love each other, how they could fall out of love and in again and—and I just mentioned Martin to prove—”

  My self-defense trailed off. It had died of anemia. How could I possibly have spoken to Nanny Ordway about Martin? I no longer could understand. That it had seemed natural and blameless at the time, I was sure. But I could never make that sound convincing now.

  “Iris, don’t you see? She’s twisted everything. She’s used every little thing that happened and misconstrued it. I don’t know why. I can’t imagine why. But that’s what she’s done.”

  I stayed there at her side as if being a little nearer to her physically could somehow help diminish the distance between us.

  “I love you, baby. I swear I love you.”

  “No, Peter. Please, please no—”

  “But, Iris—”

  “I tried,” she said. “God knows, I tried.”

  There was no mistaking the finality in her voice. It was someone speaking about the past. I felt cold and hollow.

  I said, “You’re not going to try any longer?”

  She took her hands from her face and looked at me. It wasn’t a look of hatred or anger. It was worse. It was a look of despair.

  “I can’t stay here, Peter.”

  What was the use of arguing? When you’re knocked out, you’re knocked out. You don’t get up again after the count and start to fight again.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I don’t accuse you of anything. I—I don’t feel hateful. It’s just that I can’t stay.”

  I no longer seemed to have any personal emotions. All I felt was pity and tenderness for her.

  “Honey, you do what you think’s best.”

  “If I could help you, I’d stay. I would. But—but you see I can’t help just now. I—It would only make it worse for you, my being here—now. It would. It—”

  “Baby, don’t beat yourself up about it. Please.”

  She rose. “I’ll be all right later, I’m sure. Just—if I go away for a while. Maybe I’ll be able to see more clearly. I’ll take the letter with me. I’ll try to understand.”

  “Why don’t you go to Miss Mills?”

  “I’d rather be alone.”

  The back-door buzzer sounded from the kitchen. Iris started and glanced around desperately.
/>   “Please, Peter, you answer it.”

  I went out into the kitchen and opened the door. Lucia was standing there in her black work coat and black work hat. She looked awkward and unhappy.

  “I got my key but I figured I’d ring. I figured—maybe you wouldn’t want me to work here no more, not after all the trouble. I figured—”

  “It’s all right, Lucia.” Why take it out on her? “Of course we want you to go on working.”

  Her face broke into a shy smile. “That’s fine, Mr. Duluth. I just finished up to Miss Marin’s. I thought—Gee, I feel terrible. I wouldn’t ever—”

  She slipped her large black purse down her arm, opened it, fumbled in it, and brought out a ten-dollar bill. She held it out to me.

  “Here, Mr. Duluth. I want you to take this back.”

  I looked at the bill.

  “The ten bucks you give me. I’m not going to keep it. Not after what I done.”

  “That’s okay, Lucia.”

  “It isn’t okay, Mr. Duluth. I wouldn’t feel right. You’ve always been good to me.” She thrust the bill stubbornly forward. “I want you to have it. I’m serious. I’m not going to keep it.”

  I took the bill and put it in my pocket. “All right. Thanks a lot, Lucia.”

  I left her in the kitchen, taking off her coat, and went back to the living-room. Iris wasn’t there. I found her in the bedroom. A suitcase was open on the bed and she was packing it.

  “It was Lucia,” I said. “She didn’t know whether we’d want her any more or not. I said yes.”

  “I’m glad.”

  She went on packing.

  “You don’t want to talk to her? Ask her about what she saw? Maybe—”

  “No, Peter. No. I don’t think so. Not now.”

  I’d reached the nadir of unhappiness. Nothing could make it worse.

  “Where are you going?” I said.

  “To some hotel—some little hotel. I’ll not use my name. No one need know. It needn’t make any fuss in the papers.”

  “I’ll go with you in the taxi.”

  There was a framed photograph of me on a table by the window. She went to it, picked it up, and put it on top of her clothes. Then she shut the suitcase.

  We stood looking at each other. Above us was the chandelier.

  “If I wasn’t so mixed up, Peter—”

  “I know.”

  “You’ll be all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “I—know I’ll be back soon.”

  “I know.”

  I picked up the suitcase. In the kitchen, I could hear Lucia clattering dishes. We went down to the street. It was a bright morning with the air clean as country air. A taxi took us to a small uptown hotel where Iris’s mother sometimes stayed.

  I left Iris at the entrance and took the same taxi home.

  In the cab I started to feel again. The anesthesia was wearing off. Iris said she’d be back soon. Why would she be back soon? How was she ever going to make herself believe that black was white?

  Nanny Ordway had lost me my wife.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHEN I LET MYSELF into the apartment, Lottie was in the living-room. Oh, no, I thought. No. Anyone in the world but Lottie. She was wearing her morning lounging pajamas—shrill red, shrill chartreuse, pagodas.

  She came bustling toward me.

  “Where is she? Where’s Iris? Lucia says you went out with a suitcase. Where is she?”

  I felt weak in the knees. I sat down on the arm of a chair. “She’s gone away.”

  “Oh! So she took my advice.”

  “She didn’t take your goddam advice. She’s just gone away for a while.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Why didn’t she come to us—to Brian and me?”

  “Because she didn’t want to.”

  “But that’s absurd. Of course she’d want to. The poor, poor darling. Tell me where she is. I must call at once. I must—”

  I got up from the chair. I said, “You’re going to leave her alone.”

  “Alone? Leave the poor darling alone without anyone to comfort her?”

  I looked at her. That energy! That vitality! That bulldozer dressed as a woman! I made a gesture of disgust with my hand and crossed to the bar. I didn’t really want a drink but I knew it would make her mad. That’s what I wanted her to be.

  I picked up a bottle of rye. She ran to me, catching at my sleeve.

  “Peter, Peter, darling, how terrible you must feel.”

  “That’s right.”

  She took the bottle away from me and put it down again on the bar. Her hands came up to my arms. They were small hands, like little white birds. On the stage Lottie gave the impression of being frail, but she’s like steel, really. The hands were fluttering up and down my arms. Her face was all puckered with concern.

  “Peter, don’t take it so hard.”

  “Okay.”

  “Darling, I’m so sorry.”

  “Gee, that’s fine.”

  “Aren’t I your friend? Aren’t I your best friend?”

  “Sure. There’s nothing like a best friend for busting up marriages.”

  “Peter, how can you say that?”

  “Hell,” I said

  “Peter, dearest, you must understand.” Her voice was honeyed, wheedling. “I’m Iris’s friend, too. When a thing like this happens, I have to think of Iris first. I have to think of the innocent one. I have to see that she does the right thing for herself. But that doesn’t mean—Peter, you darling, that doesn’t mean I would turn against you. I was saying to Brian only just now—That’s why I came down. I was saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be better for Peter to come up to us? Iris can stay in the apartment. Iris is strong. She can look after herself. But Peter’ll be jittery, all shot. He needs his friends. He really needs his friends.’ I said—”

  She went on yakking. I supposed she probably meant it all. It wasn’t any moment to plumb the depths of Lottie’s peculiar affections for Iris and me. I didn’t care whether she meant it or not. I just knew I didn’t want that insistent voice, I didn’t want that insistent face, I didn’t want that insistent body in the room. I wanted to be alone, or dead.

  I swung around to her. “Get out of here, Lottie. Get out and stay out.”

  “But, Peter—”

  “I’m fed up with your meddling. I’m fed up with you pushing your nose in where you don’t belong. You’re a stupid, messy woman, and I don’t give a damn if I never see you again. Now get out.”

  “Peter!” Her face crimsoned with shock, astonishment, outraged sentiment. “Really, after all I’ve done for you!”

  “After all you’ve done for me?” I laughed at her full in the face. “What the hell have you done for me? What—Oh, skip it. Who cares?”

  “Skip it? Don’t worry. I’ll skip it. If you don’t have the decency to recognize a kind impulse when you see it—I wash my hands. I just wash my hands.” She stamped her foot. “I would have thought a man who’d betrayed his wife, seduced a young girl, driven her to suicide—might have been a little grateful that his friends were ready to stand by him. That’s what I thought. I was wrong, as usual, of course. I suppose I’m wrong about everything. I suppose you’re as innocent as a fleecy white lamb. I suppose someone murdered the wretched girl, dragged her in here, and tied her to your chandelier just to vex you. You poor misjudged creature!”

  She flounced to the door, tugged it open, and then turned back. The old, outworn Lottie device.

  “I’ve done my best, Peter. This is the end. And you’d better watch out or, contract or no contract, I walk right out of the play—never to come back.”

  The door slammed. I sat down on the couch. My head was aching. I put my face in my hands and, as I did so, I thought: Now I’m doing it, too. When things get really bad, you slip into the cliché. I must remember that next time I’m directing a play.

  Lucia came in from the bedroom with the vacuum clea
ner.

  “She gone—Miss Marin gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you pay no attention to her, Mr. Duluth. Blow, blow, blow. I never pay her no attention.”

  “Thanks, Lucia.”

  “I’m through in the bedroom. Okay if I start in here with the cleaner?”

  “Okay.”

  She came toward me, gripping the cleaner in a large hand. Awkwardly, she said, “Mrs. Duluth ain’t walked out on you, has she?”

  “I suppose she has—for a while.”

  “Not on account of what I said?”

  “There were a lot of other things.” I glanced at her and asked, not that it mattered now, “Just what did you see that day, Lucia?”

  I could tell that she wanted to talk about it and get it off her chest. “It was just like what the detective said, Mr. Duluth. I came down from Miss Marin’s. I let myself in with my key like always. The other times, the girl, she was always there at the desk, beating that typewriter. But that day she wasn’t. I said to myself: Where is she? Maybe she ain’t coming no more. I went into the bedroom to fix the bed. There she was—sound asleep in the bed.”

  I could see it all as if I were the one walking into the bedroom.

  “Did she wake up?”

  “No, sir. No sooner I seen her, I skipped out again real quiet and went into the kitchen and started clattering the dishes around. She must have woke up right quick and snapped into it. When I was through in the kitchen and come in here, there she was just like always beating away at the typewriter, calling out, ‘Good morning, Lucia,’ just like there’d been nothing different. Later I found the pajamas. They were put away in a drawer, all folded real neat. If it wasn’t for the wrinkles in the pants legs, you’d never have told anything. It was almost like I’d made it all up in my mind.”

  But she hadn’t. “That day, did you come down from Miss Marin’s any earlier than usual?”

  “No. Just about the same time, I guess. Ten-thirty—eleven.”