The 2nd Golden Age of Mystery and Crime MEGAPACK ™: Ruth Chessman

by Ruth Chessman

  Letty didn’t see how Mrs. Sturgess’ calm utterances could fail to reach Hilda, but she only grew stormier. When Janice appeared, pale and scared-looking, she was instantly infected by Hilda’s hysterics. Mrs. Sturgess and the Matron, with Letty tugging at Hilda, separated the devoted mother from her daughter, but even after Janice had left, Hilda kept sobbing extravagantly.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” Mrs. Sturgess said, just as if Hilda were calmly listening.

  “Don’t go, Letty!” Hilda shrieked. She said through her sobs, “I’m not ashamed to have anyone hear a thing you say. Whatever you may think, Mrs. Sturgess, I’ve been a good mother to my baby!”

  “You’re a frightened mother right now,” Mrs. Sturgess said kindly. “I don’t see how you could help that. But when we tell you what we hope to accomplish for Janice, I hope you’ll begin to feel better about it.”

  Eventually Hilda grew quiet enough so that Mrs. Sturgess could arrange for a regular appointment. “You will see me a number of times before your first visit to Collingsworth,” Mrs. Sturgess explained, setting off a new deluge of tears.

  Because of the way Hilda carried on, it took longer than they had expected for the interview, so that Letty got back to the house only seconds before Kenny arrived for lunch. Ellen of course ate at the high school cafeteria.

  Letty prided herself on preparing hot, nourishing meals for her family, and she hated to give Kenny a sandwich even this once. Maybe if Hilda had been as conscientious—I must not judge Hilda! she kept telling herself sternly. Yet Hilda had been so inexcusably selfish in that parting scene with Janice, indulging in such theatrical hysteria—she might at least have tried to lend a little dignity and courage to the terrified girl. And calling that fifteen-year-old bandit “my baby!”

  But just the same, it wasn’t fair to keep criticizing Hilda this way, because, as Mrs. Sturgess had said, the one thing you could honestly call Hilda was “frightened,” and who are you, Letty Windsor, to say how you would act if it were your daughter going off to Collingsworth! But of course that was a rhetorical question.

  She simply could not picture Ellen breaking rules, drinking, or—or any of it. Ellen would simply not show her rebellion in such ugly ways. Ellen would—What would Ellen do? Why, Ellen would do nothing! Ellen was the ideal teen-ager. She did adequate work at school; she was co-operative at home and, except for those moods of hers, was a pleasant child. An earnest, willing girl!

  Letty tried for a moment not to think of Ellen’s nail-biting, but of course she realized almost at once that she was simply evading what might be a pertinent fact, and forced herself to face it. Yet, in the end, even that one little bad habit turned out to be a pointer to Ellen’s good qualities, she decided with a lifting of her spirits. You had only to watch Ellen make the mental effort to keep her fingers away from her mouth, and you’d see how hard she tried to please, knowing both her parents disapproved of her nail-biting. No, a child like that would not revolt so shamefully—even, Letty inserted hastily, if she had anything to revolt against.

  Ellen came home promptly after school—as always. You could set a clock by her, Letty thought fondly.

  “Janice got sent up,” Ellen said over cookies and milk. She spoke somewhat importantly, and added quickly at Letty’s look of disapproval, “Mom, it’s all over the school. Every time I passed a crowd of the kids, that’s all they were talking about.”

  “I hope you didn’t repeat anything you heard from Hilda.” Letty admonished. “She spoke as freely as she did only because she knew she was among friends.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ellen said, carrying her glass to the sink and washing it. “I’m not in one of those goony gangs.”

  “Aren’t you?” Letty asked, surprised. “I thought you and Irene Shell—”

  “Irene!” Ellen shrugged, but did not turn from the sink. She kept rinsing her glass over and over. “She’s always hanging out at the Drink Shop like all the rest.”

  “I suppose they have fun there,” Letty offered hesitatingly.

  “Real rah-rah fun,” Ellen said, and drifted off.

  Letty looked blankly after her, not worrying—not worrying, of course. Nevertheless, she wished—suddenly she found herself wishing she could hear Ellen laugh out loud. She wished she could hear her rave about a boy at school, or the handsome new French teacher, or the latest rock singer.

  “Do you think Ellen’s too quiet?” she asked Peter that night.

  “No, I don’t!” he retorted emphatically, just as she had hoped he would. When he said a thing like that, so confidently, so sure of himself, it made her sure too. “A kid’s entitled to her own personality,” he went on. “Do you want her carrying on the way Janice always did? You see where that got her.”

  She did so want him to be right. And after all people’s personalities really were different, she reassured herself. Ellen had always been a quiet one.

  But—oh, so quiet! Was it right for her to be so acquiescent, so uncomplaining, no matter what came? Wouldn’t it have been natural for her to resent, for instance, the unthinking way Peter invited Kenny to the ballgame that Sunday without once pausing to learn if Ellen had any feelings about going too? One of Peter’s clients had given him two tickets, and he and Kenny departed in high spirits. Ellen seemed hardly to notice that they had left, but was that the best way?

  “Too bad there weren’t three tickets,” Letty said experimentally.

  “You don’t think I’d want to go to a goony ballgame, do you?” Ellen asked. As far as Letty could see, she was sincere. Just the same, she decided daringly on an outright criticism of Peter. He had been wrong. Ellen ought to have been given the right to refuse. That would have been treating her as an individual with wishes entitled to respect.

  At her first opportunity that evening she said boldly, “You do things with Kenny all the time.”

  “He’s a boy!” Peter said.

  “Ellen’s a girl!” Letty retorted, defeating her attempt at lightness with an unexpected catch in her voice. “Peter, I think she’s unhappy without showing it—about many things.” Peter did not answer immediately, but Letty knew he was not doubting his own position. He was simply displeased at her unusual persistence. He wanted to end it and bring back her customary submissive agreeableness.

  “Ellen has a perfectly good head on her shoulders!” he said finally. “If she doesn’t like the way I act let her speak up for herself. You’re making noises like a domineering wife, Letty. It doesn’t become you.”

  It was crushing. What answer could she give, she wondered miserably. If she were really interfering, nagging, then she’d only do harm. And of course, she concluded prayerfully, the chances were all that she was wrong. Ellen would probably come out of her shell in her own good time anyway. She would have to be patient, just wait and see. Wait and see! The phrase sounded vaguely familiar; then with a pang of compassion she recalled Hilda using it. Poor Hilda, suspecting something was wrong, yet waiting—waiting to see. Somehow remembering about Hilda lifted the worry from her shoulders more effectively than anything Peter could say, because Janice was so different from Ellen. Rowdy, noisy, rebellious Janice was poles apart from Ellen.

  Hilda kept her appointments with Mrs. Sturgess regularly, but only on condition that Letty come with her and sit beside her.

  “Is this really doing Hilda any good?” she asked Mrs. Sturgess at the close of what seemed like the usually unproductive session. “Wouldn’t it be better for her if I waited outside?”

  “Don’t leave me, Letty,” Hilda pleaded fearfully.

  “Mrs. Perrice is working on this just as hard as she can right now,” Mrs. Sturgess said. “The time will come when you’ll feel strong enough to see me alone, Mrs. Perrice, believe it or not.”

  “I’m only here because you told me I can help my Jan by coming,” Hilda said sulkily. “I’ll never want to come.”

  Hilda wouldn’t even go by herself for the first visit to Collingsworth early in May. Letty accompanied
her and waited downstairs in the lobby. Even from there she could hear the crash, the screams, the buzz of excitement. Hilda joined her much too soon. Her face was fiery, her eyes snapping with rage.

  “Wait till I see that Mrs. Sturgess!” she stormed. “I’ll get my kid out of here—or else!”

  Janice had taken offense at something Hilda said. “I might have been a teeny bit tactless.” Hilda admitted with pathetic understatement. “But she didn’t need to throw a chair at me! If it had hit me! After all. I’m her mother! And she never threw anything at me until she came here to be helped. They sure helped her, all right.”

  She was so furious that she telephoned Mrs. Sturgess as soon as she could reach a phone, demanded and was given an immediate appointment, and went off by herself to keep it. “This isn’t going to be fit for your dainty shell-like ears,” she muttered grimly to Letty.

  She did not reveal what came of the interview. Naturally Janice did not leave Collingsworth. The only observable change was that Hilda now went by herself for her sessions with Mrs. Sturgess.

  “She’s changed,” Letty told Peter one night several weeks later. “She’s—subdued. I guess is the word.”

  “That I must see,” Peter replied, and when he did see admitted, “Our Hilda may be growing up.”

  “How remarkable it all is,” Letty said half enviously. “A miracle! Mrs. Sturgess has given her so much. It makes me wonder—”

  “Don’t go getting ideas,” Peter said jokingly, as if to warn her that he knew she couldn’t be serious. “People like us don’t need people like that.”

  “Well, I was only wondering,” she said defensively. Then adding quickly at the unrelenting look on his face, she said, “Of course we don’t need that sort of thing. We’re so normal it hurts.”

  That pleased Peter and brought the atmosphere right back to normal. I’m being very silly, she told herself disapprovingly. It must be some crazy feeling of guilt I have! No wonder I keep thinking poor Hilda’s to blame for Janice. It’s just my way of saying everything must be all right with Ellen because I’m so different a mother from Hilda. And yet if there’s any trouble in Ellen’s life I’d be just as much at fault because it could happen through not standing up to Peter for Ellen, maybe, or it might come about because I’ve brought her up to be so clean and good and submissive.

  She couldn’t dismiss it as all nonsense, the way Peter could, but she could reckon up all the good things—and what a comfort that was. There was a faithful, good-provider husband, a contented, domestic-type wife, two non-delinquent kids. What was there to worry about when you added that all up?

  Nothing, of course. Or, at any rate, only small normal worries. Like the very Saturday following. She drove both children to the Conservatory for their piano lessons, then took the two hours for some hasty shopping. At the teen-age dress department she met Irene Shell and her mother. Irene was posing daintily in a pink formal, and Letty stopped to admire.

  “Mom, I’d simply perish if I turned up all childishly sweet, while the other kids—” Irene broke off dramatically. “I just remembered! Joyce is wearing a black sheath!”

  “I don’t care if she’s wearing a leopard skin,” Mrs. Shell answered decisively. She turned to Letty. “It’s only Irene’s birthday. We decided to let her have a dinner-dance—but you have no idea how carried away the girls—” She halted abruptly, appearing suddenly to recall that Irene and Ellen had once been “best friends,” then concluded lamely, “It’s quite small of course—only ten couples—we didn’t want it to get too big—” Letty kindly recalled that she must be running, the children would be finished by now. She was beside herself with vicarious agony at what Ellen must be enduring. But when she mentioned the meeting with careful casualness. Ellen said off-handedly, “Oh, that goony dance!”

  “I’m sorry, darling,” I city said. “I know how it hurts to be left out.”

  Ellen might not have heard for all the answer she gave.

  “I just about died when a girl I thought was my best friend left me out of her party,” Letty went on.

  Ellen not only did not answer, her face was so inscrutable that it was impossible to push the subject any further. Letty was left with a dreary feeling she couldn’t analyze, and which took the whole of a quiet, pleasant Sunday to dissipate. But Sunday did cheer her. No girl who studied so industriously, who went so sedately to church, who helped her mother so willingly, who fell in with family plans so uncomplainingly, could have anything troubling her. By Monday morning, Letty could look after her departing daughter and be positive her concern was a maternal vapor, nothing more.

  That same Monday evening Hilda phoned. “I thought you might have tried to reach me, and you won’t find me at home any more daytimes.” she explained, adding airily. “I’m back at school.”

  “School?”

  “Secretarial school,” Hilda explained proudly. “I’m going to get a job to keep me out of mischief, but it’s got to be just part time so I’ll be home before school’s out. No more running around daytimes for me.”

  “Oh—then Janice is coming home!” Letty exclaimed. “How wonderful!”

  “Well, not all that soon. But—oh. Letty, I’m so hopeful!” She spoke with a sincerity very unlike the old Hilda. “Jan will be home by September, I hope—if she goes on as well as she is. It can’t be till then, anyway, because I won’t feel ready to be a real mother before then, and I guess neither will she be ready for her part. I’ve put the house up for sale, too, so if you hear of anyone—! Oh, yes, we’re going to move out of Cedar Acres. I think Jan and I will have it hard enough just living, without having to live it down. But, oh, we’re so lucky. I never thought I’d be grateful Jan was arrested, but now we both feel it’s saved our lives.”

  When Letty repeated this to Peter, he replied, “There you are. Janice was screaming for help. So—she got it!”

  “What about the ones who don’t scream?” Letty asked slowly.

  “They simply don’t need help. People ask for what they need.” That ended the subject as far as he was concerned he switched on T.V. and sat down to smoke and watch. Letty, although her eyes were on the screen, did not follow the story. Right down deep inside her where the real feelings were, she was knowing one thing for sure. Peter was too casual about it all!

  “Peter—” He turned unwillingly from the screen to listen. “Maybe we ought to talk it over with an expert, the way Hilda does—about Ellen, I mean—”

  “Letty, Letty!” he chided her, as if she were ten years old and had just come out with something precociously outrageous. She had a moment of indignation at being treated like his child bride, but the combination of wanting to be reassured and Peter’s unshakable self-confidence worked their usual magic. Measured by any standards she knew, Ellen was indeed a model child. Then what did she really believe was wrong? She forced herself again to review the behavior that was causing her this ridiculous anxiety.

  Was it the way Ellen seemed to live apart from other girls? That was a pretty slight problem when you admitted also that it must be by Ellen’s choice—otherwise, pretty and yielding as she was, she’d fit in anywhere. Yet—was it normal for a girl her age to keep so to herself? Then, another thing, Ellen revealed so little feeling, you would think she had none! Now that was something you couldn’t just wave off! Why were all her thoughts so hidden, so secret? And another thing still—let’s face it all!—if Ellen were as content as her placid exterior seemed to promise, why, in spite of all her efforts, were those pretty nails always chewed down to the quick?

  Now she began to console herself. Many kids bite their nails, she reminded herself. And she remembered how often other mothers bad told her, “I’d give anything if my kid acted half as well as your Ellen.”

  She thought of that particularly next day as she watched the way Ellen acted after school. She was quiet, pleasant as usual, putting her books away neatly, and came into the kitchen for her afternoon snack. Why, she’s a wonderful child! Letty scolded hers
elf.

  They chatted lightly, and then suddenly they were not chatting at all. Is this the way it always is? Letty asked herself. Do we always talk about nothing, or not talk at all? She turned and looked at Ellen, at the even-featured face with its lovely skin, at the clear eyes, and she thought to herself. Once and for all, slop looking for trouble!

  Ellen said unexpectedly, “Irene’s party is Friday night.”

  Letty was looking at her anyway.

  “Oh, Ellen!” she burst out tenderly.

  Ellen looked surprised.

  “I don’t care. Mom!” she said pettishly. She really believes that, Letty thought, her throat aching with pity. She’s hidden her real feelings so deep that she doesn’t know herself she has them. But I know! There was no more see-sawing between truth and self-deception. She knew as surely as if Ellen’s pain and anger had shown in a tantrum you could touch. Ellen was screaming too, just like poor Janice, but silently, silently, and who was to say which girl’s agony was the greater?

  Nobody would understand, if she tried to explain, Peter wouldn’t believe it. She winced, thinking of how he would resist the idea. But, oh, yes, there was someone who would understand, who would know how she could find help for Ellen. Her hands trembled over the phone hook, over the dial, but she clung determinedly. Peter would try to hold her back; he would fight her every step of the way, she knew—but only until she found a way to make him see their child’s need. But nothing, not Peter’s anger, not her own fear, nothing could stop her. She finished dialing, and listened to the ringing, holding her breath.

  It was like a cry of hope, that simple, questioning “Hello?”

  It was like a giant step into a terrifying, wonderful future to answer, “Mrs. Sturgess?”

  THE CRIME THAT DID NOT FOLLOW

  Originally published in Four Quarters #11, Nov. 1961

  Mrs. Brace was a slight woman with brown hair and a brisk, slim figure. She had a mental agility far above average and admitted it unhesitatingly on those not infrequent occasions when the subject came up. Nevertheless, she had no glimmer of a suspicion that she was about to embark on a conversation of fateful impact.