Louie puzzled about this until her head ached. Then she began to worry about the children. First: Ernie would go to the grandmother, Evie and the twins, for a short time to Aunt Hassie, Tommy to Aunt Eleanor, and Hazel Grey in Charles-town would take the baby. She would go to Harpers Ferry, or Auntie Jo’s, or Miss Aiden’s, preferably the last, to finish her education. She must be very careful about her attitude—let it be sullen, stupid, she had better say she had been badly beaten the night before and did not remember much: “They were always quarreling.” Louie saw herself in court and began to sweat, for surely the lawyers smart as foxes would see through her transparent lies, her miserable devices. “But then,” thought Louie, “I am still a schoolgirl—my confusion will be put down to trouble: who will suspect me?” Then she thought that perhaps a lot of people thought she was a very wicked, lying child, believing Henny’s tales (what she believed to be Henny’s tales), and that the finger of suspicion would veer to her in no time. She could not sleep but, after tossing for a long time in her bed, got up and sat by the window, thinking this thing over. Only one thing was certain: it must be done, to save the children. “Who cares for them but me?” she thought coldly. “Those two selfish, passionate people, terrible as gods in their eternal married hate, do not care for them; Mother herself threatened to kill them. Perhaps she would: at any rate, their life will be a ruin even if they are allowed to go on living. There is no question of it: I have the will, I must have the firmness to get rid of the two parents.” She no longer thought of Sam as her father: she had not thought of him as anything but a mouthy jailer for months; as for Henny, she did not see how her fate would be better if she went on living. Louie had doubts of herself that made her sweat cold again. She had brought so little to fruit in her life: she sometimes thought she had dementia praecox, and at other times thought she was a terrifying genius, and at other times again thought she was one of those pitiful sham-talents which glitter in youth and dance in maturity and are malicious apes, sometimes suicides later on in the dread arctic of age, around forty.
Now she thought of these three possibilities and turned from one to the other like a weathercock; but it was only because she doubted her ability to do the deed and fool people afterwards. She never once doubted that the right thing to do was to use cyanide tomorrow morning, or that she must liberate the children: it fell to her, no one else would do it or understand the causes as she did. Then she would at once be free herself. She made up her mind to do it at last. She planned the few simple motions necessary to get the cyanide, take out a little (with gloves on), put it in a small pillbox that she had in her drawer (no, false move—in a pillbox she would take from Henny’s drawer tomorrow morning or next time Henny went down in this infernal night), and so on. Let the rest take care of itself, thought Louie: “I am sure to cry, that will help me out a lot: they won’t question a child deprived of its parents in a morning, and there will be the children to get breakfast for.” She saw, with free lungs and a regularly beating heart, that this was the right thing to do: she should have done it before but had not had the insight nor the will. Everything was will: “The world stands aside to let the man pass who knows whither he is going!” Louie fell into a light refreshing sleep but woke up soon after, and was able to steal into Henny’s room to get the pillbox, during one of Henny’s trips downstairs. The quarrel raged again. This she did with perfect ease, and even pushed her self-assurance so far as to go downstairs where the unhappy pair were and noticed that her mother was eating one of her nervous meals-tea, almost black, with toast and mustard pickles.
“What are you wandering about for, looking like a boiled owl?” Henny demanded harshly. Louie looked at her for a while calmly, thinking, “Perhaps I won’t see her alive again”; and then she turned, humping her shoulders as she passed her father, not even looking at him, her flesh revolting at his nearness. He said nothing to her, but when she was on the stairs, she heard Henny snarl, “Why don’t you go to bed: you see the children can’t sleep? Are you going to stay up all night to pick on me?” Louie heard her father creak heavily into a chair. “Yes,” thought Louie, “I won’t have any peace with their squabbles.”
5 Monday morning.
Henny slept very little, in a restless rage, and got up at five to sort the washing. The fish smell had by this time seeped into everything in the lower house, it seemed: and Henny hung over the basket, cursing like a fishwife indeed. An electric storm threatened again. Henny always hated them and felt ready for a fight before them; but this was the sort of weather that suited Louie best—she always felt lithe, vigorous, and calm before a storm. The weather had been electric for some time, the skies unusual, and the winds various. They all felt certain by their own animal symptoms of the approach of big weather. The sky was barred with cloud, and the trees were uneasy. Sam felt qualmish, with a slight fever this morning, and lay late in bed, calling to the children to get up, and to Evie to come and stroke his head. It reminded him of Singapore. He kept the Venetian blind down and in a weak, sick voice kept making his little jokes, calling his syce, wishing, with all its faults, that for a moment he were back in dear old Singapura. “A man should travel,” he told Evie suddenly: “home deadens a man’s wits: I’m a better man away from home”—but scarcely were these words out of his mouth than he regretted them, dark treachery to his home, his native land, and his loved ones!
“Looloo,” he called, feebly. “Dotta det up, Loogoobrious: maka da tea.”
She woke up and thought at once, “This is the morning, and I slept late!” She put on her dressing gown, took the little box, and with a stern strut went downstairs, not replying to the few remarks addressed to her on the way. She thought, “This is the hour: soon it will be all over.” She put on the kettle, began to arrange the cups fussily, making a noise about it, when there were yet some cups to get down, slipped into the boys’ room, which opened on to the kitchen, and into the darkroom. The boys were both up. Ernie had left a pile of clothes, his pajamas, perhaps, ready for the wash, through the bars of the bottom of his bed, but there was no one in the room. But her hand trembled, and she was only just putting some grains of cyanide into the box when she heard a noise and saw Henny in the kitchen.
“What are you messing in there for at this time of the morning when we’re all so late?” called Henny. “Give me a cup of tea before I pass out. Every rotten thing in the place is alive with his fish oil; I’m nearly going mad with headache.”
With a scarlet blush that covered her entire body, Louie came out of the darkroom, but Henny did not see her—she was already bustling back to the washhouse with a pile of kitchen towels. “God,” thought Louie (the first time she ever used that word), “Oh, God, I nearly was caught.” Her heart began to beat so heavily that she could hardly stand. She was now afraid that she would never have the strength to do it, with her blood beating so madly. She made the tea in a convulsion of trembling, and when it was made, a nausea of fear and doubt came over her—was she doing the right thing? To settle it, she slid the grains of cyanide all into one large breakfast cup, holding the box through her apron meanwhile, blew the grains off her apron into the cup, and threw the box into the garbage pail. At this moment she heard her father thumping cheerfully downstairs and talking to Evie. “I can never do it,” thought Louie and turned round, to back up against the table on which the cup stood. There stood Henny.
“My womb is tearing,” said Henny, holding her body, “with the weight of the great lolloping sheets. I am in such agonies that I don’t know how to bear it. How can this go on another week? He takes no notice; I know my insides are torn to pieces—” She stopped and examined Louie, “What are you staring at me like that for? What is the matter with me? Don’t stare at me!” Louie had lost all power of speech. Henny now recollected something, “What did you do? I saw you doing something!” Louie opened her mouth but only like a fish taking in air: she was struck dumb. She pointed to her mouth, the cup, shook her head. At this moment, Sam came into the ki
tchen, bringing with him the little carved wooden chest in which were the six tiny cups made from carved wood and lined with soft silver.
“Daforno,” said Sam, gently ignoring Henny, “daforno, we is going to hev our tea in poor Lai Wan Hoe’s beautiful little gift to his god-master—no, he had too much brains to think I was a god.” He planted the little chest tenderly on the pine table and, pointing to the big cups, said “Frow dat out, Looloo, we goin to hev Chinese tea daforno: it’s so hot I reckon we ought always to have it, anyhow.”
Louie looked from one to the other, waiting for what she could not imagine to open before her; but she was unable to speak a word: she just shook her head to them, to herself. Henny, with blazing black eyes, was looking wildly at the child; she raised her hand and pointed at her but said nothing. Then she said slowly, “You beast, you pair of beasts, my womb is torn to pieces with you—the oil is everywhere and your dirty sheets falling on to me to suffocate me with the sweat, I can’t stand it any more—she’s not to blame, she’s got guts, she was going to do it-she’s not to blame, if she were to go stark staring mad—your daughter is out of her mind—” Sam looked at Henny with hatred. “All right,” said Henny, “damn you all!”
She snatched the cup and drank it off quickly, a look of horror filling her as if she would have stopped herself but could not arrest the motion. She made a few steps with the cup, while Sam said, very puzzled, “What is this? What is going on?” Louie tried to explain but could only shake her head: even in her mind she could not think of any words. At the outer door of the kitchen leading to the glassed-in porch, Henny stopped, turned round, and then fell straight towards them, to her full length along the new cement floor.
This time Sam was shocked, for Henny had fallen face forwards and met the pavement with a heavy crack. The cup smashed. Louie still stood staring, with rather an amiable expression (for she was trying to say something), at her father, mother, and Evie. Evie had already run for the cushions and was trying to stick them under her mother’s head; and, for once, Sam helped her. He said anxiously, “I think Mothering is rather badly hurt, we must get her to bed.”
Louie came forward, and Sam, taking her quietness for disobedience, frowned at her but said nothing. He called Ernie but couldn’t get any of the boys. They staggered with her to the boys’ room and laid her on Ernie’s bed. Sam kept whistling for the boys, and now they heard the cries coming running, “Yippo! Yippills! Yes, Pad!”
Henny’s forehead and nose were bruised and cut. “Get some water and peroxide,” said Sam irritably, “you ought to know what to do.”
Louie gave a deep sigh and said slowly, with a clogged tongue, “Whatever is this?” She tried to pull the bundle of Ernie’s clothes off the bottom of the bedstead. He had stuffed two dirty pillowcases inside his pajamas; two corners of one protruded from the top like ears. The funny little shawl that Louie had knitted for Tommy, yellow wool with a face in red wool, and that Tommy took to bed for a comforter, had been fixed over this end of the pillow slips to make a face. A piece of string round “the neck” attached this manikin to the bed. She pulled at the knot.
“Get the water and a sponge,” said Sam irritably.
Louie left the manikin and started to the door, but there she stopped and said, “I think she’s dead.”
“Don’t be a goat.”
“I think she’s dead, Dad.”
“ ‘Dead, Dad, Dead Dad,’ ” he said: “go and do what you’re told.”
Louie turned round, saying in a deep rebellious tone, “What’s the use? You’d better call a doctor, or you’ll be in trouble.”
Sam was astonished at this, and, pulling Henny’s sleeve, said gently, “Henny? Henny? Pet?” He said to Evie, who looked worried, “I think Mothering’s got concussion.”
Louie returned with the little basin of water, which she put down beside the bed on a chair littered with boys’ clothes. The children, who had stayed outside, to hear from her about their mother’s accident, now came peeping, tiptoeing round the door, like birds creeping back to spy on a motionless man in a clearing. Tommy laughed suddenly, a laugh clear as summer river babble, “Look, there’s Ermy!” Ernie frowned. Tommy giggled, “Ermy hanged himself: he jacked himself up.” He pointed to the thing hanging on the bottom of the bed. “Look, he-he, he took my shawl for his face.” Sam’s face browned with its flush, “What are you talking about, you dope?” Tommy suppressed his laugh, “That’s Ermy. He said he hanged himself!” Sam’s eyes wandered back anxiously to Henny. Louie was bending over her listening; she got up, with unmoving face, “You see, you listen! Her heart isn’t beating.” Sam started with an expression of terror, and bent over. He jumped back, “First aid, kids, clear out! Get the doctor, Louie.” Louie half smiled, “I told you she was dead.”
Ernie rushed past the knot of children and threw himself on his mother, pulling at the bosom of her dressing gown, disarranging it wildly, screaming, “Mother, Mother, you aren’t dead? Is she dead? Is she dead? She isn’t dead!” He began to moan, saying, “Mother” and a moan. The children stood stricken in the doorway. Sam, after a queer movement of his chin, looking round as it were for help on all sides, strode through and over the huddled children and rushed to the telephone. Louie patiently came up and began sponging the forehead. “Let me do it,” said Ernie excitedly, and he began pasting away at the forehead, thinking that was a way to cure her. The children began to break down, each in his own way, and Chappy, sitting on the porch, who had just been bitten by an ant, began to yell for assistance. They heard Sam talking into the telephone, and then his quick tread. He began to question them, “What was Mother doing?” And the scene he had witnessed came to his mind: “What were you and Mother quarreling about?”
“Nothing,” said Louie, “only the dirty clothes; then Mother said she would take poison, and she drank a cup of tea full of cyanide.”
Sam thundered, “What?”
“She had it in a little pillbox,” faltered Louie; “she threw it in the garbage can!”
Sam rushed to the photographic chamber. They heard him running out verifying, saying aloud, “This is terrible! Oh, God, what a terrible thing! I never thought she meant it. God above, Louie, Louie!”
Tommy came out with great round black eyes, Henny’s eyes, and, tiptoeing up to his raging father, whispered, “Pad, will we go to school today?”
At this moment, the front-door bell rang. Louie, thinking it was the doctor, ran to open the door and saw standing there a middle-aged woman, with streaky black hair, a puffy, good-natured face, and brown eyes, in a go-to-meeting straw hat and a speckled silk dress. She looked at her for a minute without recognition and then saw it was Tommy’s teacher, Miss Wilson. Miss Wilson seemed embarrassed but said stiffly, “Is your mother in?”
“No,” said Louie, “that is—she’s sick.”
“I’m sorry,” said the woman stiffly, “I tried to get her yesterday on the phone and Saturday too, but either she wasn’t in all the week end, or she wouldn’t answer me. It’s very important.”
“What is it? What is it?” cried Sam testily, “What is it? You must go away. There has been a dreadful accident.”
“I’m Miss Wilson, Tommy’s teacher,” said the woman. “I’m at the school; I wanted to see Mrs. Pollit about the money.”
Sam looked confused, and the woman had to keep on explaining to him how important it was, that it was urgent about the money.
“Money, what money?” Sam asked confusedly again.
“It’s the money: the piano’s no good to me,” said the woman, anxiously. “What can I do with a grand piano? I let her give me that security. I’m sorry if she’s sick. I really am. I know she’s a good woman. I like Mrs. Pollit. I respect her. But it’s just now, I’ve got to pay some things, my taxes were so high—”
Sam said, “Mrs. Wilson, will you come back? Mrs. Pollit has had a bad accident. I don’t know if she will live,” and he sobbed.
“Oh,” cried the woman, “Oh! Oh, no! Oh, I di
dn’t mean—oh, about the money. I’ll manage somehow—but when can I come to see you? I wouldn’t trouble her for the world, only—” Suddenly she began to cry too and asked for a glass of water, so that they had to take her into the common room while the children began to gather slowly round her; and, between crying and drinking her water, and wiping her eyes, she gabbled some story about lending Henny one hundred dollars at six per cent, against the grand piano, though she knew you could hardly sell such things nowadays when the rage was for little pianos: but that as Henny was the sister-in-law of Miss Josephine Pollit, such a splendid woman, and Mr. Pollit too, everyone knew him, but now she found out that Mrs. Pollit had borrowed too from the teacher of the twins and from Ernie’s teacher, and she had been to the high school and taken fifteen dollars for clothing from Louie’s teacher, and now she heard that Mr. Lomasne, that horrible man, a dreadful usurer who lent fifty dollars and then you owed him money for the rest of your life, and she didn’t know what else, and she was afraid she would never see her money again. She was a poor woman. She didn’t grudge Mrs. Pollit the money—she was a good woman, a wife and mother, but she had to have it: she had a mother to keep herself and an old father-she sobbed and sobbed till she became inarticulate.
At this moment, the doctor arrived. Miss Wilson waited passionately to hear what was the matter with Mrs. Pollit and when she heard that she was dead, she let out a dreadful cry and threw her arms round Tommy, calling him her “poor dear little darling, how dreadful for the baby!” At last she went, but at the door she stopped and asked Louie, very low and ashamed, if she thought she would get her money. “I’m so ashamed, dear, but I’m a poor woman myself, and I’m getting on,” she said. Then she nodded and walked away with a tottering gait, till she got to the avenue and was lost to view.
Louie turned back to give the children some breakfast.
The Man Who Loved Children Page 58