The Innocent Flower

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “Who?”

  “That white rose.”

  Duff bent to sniff a yellow flower. “That’s Mrs. Pierre S. Dupont,” said Mary.

  “Where!”

  “Right under your nose.” She was laughing.

  “My word!” said Duff. “Are flowers people?”

  “It’s funny, sometimes. When it comes to tulips …! I’ve got the Reverend Ewbank and Ellen Willmott in the same … bed.” Mary buttoned her lips together, and the thin dimple trembled in and out of her cheek.

  “Mary,” he said.

  Mary tipped her head to listen, but he had nothing to add and her eyes fell. “Look, if you’re going to take to calling me Mary,” she said, and the blue gaze was back, “as you have, you know, what shall I call you? Mac?” She wrinkled her nose.

  Dinny, whom they had forgotten, rolled over. “Jean Barney’s got a scotty dog. She calls him DougaL He’s awful cute.”

  “Dinny!” Mary blushed. But Duff, being himself again, showed no sign of embarrassment. He stood beside her, a tall man with a quiet certainty, an easy balance about him. He looked sidewise at Dinny, meeting her dark defiant eyes under the white wild mop of her hair.

  Then his rare smile transformed his long, wise, and rather melancholy face into one gayer and younger and, as he looked down at Mary again, quite reckless with affection. “Call me anything you like,” he said. “Hey you, will do. But no six children or wild horses, either, are going to keep me from thinking ‘Mary,’ or saying why, someday.”

  He saw Dinny put her under lip over her upper lip so that her fat face looked as if it were locking in an explosion.

  “Will you stay for supper?” Mary murmured to a rosebush.

  “Gladly.”

  “Will you … be at the doctor’s tonight?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dinny got up with elaborate grace. She stood still a moment, then swept back her hair with her arm, bent at the elbow. She swayed, giving for a moment the illusion of slenderness, of woe. Then Duff could have sworn that the eyes under the bare arm, although they were wide open, nevertheless winked at him. She slipped off toward the stable.

  Duff stood alone with Mary among the flowers.

  Davey fell in.

  Taffy danced on the grass, Mitch, landing on her toes and bouncing like a soap bubble, fell out of the apple tree, followed more clumsily by her friend. Paul, Dinny, and Alfie came tearing around from the stable, uttering false cries of concern. None of these three big ones looked at MacDougal Duff.

  They all fished Davey out and hung him on the terrace to dry. Mary took his shoes off, although Davey said he liked them squilchy, and besides, he felt a fish in one and wouldn’t it die? Mary said if there were a fish it might, but there was no fish.

  Mitch and her friend drifted, in little impulsive rushes, back to their tree. But Paul and the twins did not disappear about their business. The scene became a little unreal. Taffy and Davey, unself-conscious, deep in the golden “now” of childhood, discussed the ways of fish, and Mary seemed to be listening with a dreamy smile. Neither Dinny nor Paul moved at all, but Alfie spoke as suddenly as if they had nudged him.

  “Hey, Mr. Duff,” he cried in his bubbling way, “listen, there is a picture of Dad. Up in the turtle-back trunk. Upstairs.”

  “Is there?” said Mary slowly, looking up.

  “That’s right!” said Dinny in slow surprise. “Sure there is.”

  Followed a little silence. Water dripped off Davey on the stones. Nobody said, “I’ll get it, shall I?” It was a curious little omission. Duff had seen these kids eager to fetch and carry for their mother. Their normal sunny willingness seemed muffled.

  Duff lay low.

  Mary said, at last “That’s right, maybe there is.” She turned to Duff. “Do you want to see it, now?”

  “Why, yes, we might go and see if it’s there,” he said lazily.

  “All right,” said Mary.

  So they climbed the stairs, and the kids let them go, remaining quietly below. They reached the third-floor hall, to which no light came save through the open door to the boys’ room. Mary put her hand on the door to the middle storeroom, opened it.

  She screamed.

  Duff pressed behind her, and his arms went out. She turned in his arms and he held her, looking over her shoulder at the rocking chair.

  It was rocking.

  Alone, by itself in the gloom, it was rocking violently, as if someone had only just got up and that quickly. “Someone’s up here! Someone in the house!” Mary trembled.

  Duff held her closer and put his chin gently down on her dark hair. “Hush,” he soothed. “It’s nothing.”

  “N-nothing! But …”

  “Hush. It’s only a ghost. Don’t be afraid.” She turned her mouth against his shoulder, whimpering. Duff moved his hand on her back in the gentlest caress.

  The big kids were banging up the stairs behind them. Duff didn’t turn. He held onto Mary. “Only the Hessian ghost,” he said cheerfully. “Probably was sitting there rocking his head to sleep. Or didn’t they chop his head off, Dinny? I forget”

  Mary wiggled away. He let her go. The rocking chair was trembling to repose. Mary’s face was a study in pink bewilderment. The kids were looking very blank. Nobody said a word. They were suspended in silence. The chair settled and was still.

  Then from below, Mitch yelled, “Mommy. Companee!”

  Her healthy shout broke the spell. Mary looked wildly at her children’s faces, put her head down, and ran for the stairs.

  CHAPTER 15

  The doctor was saying, “Let’s not go, darling, I’ll call her up. A doctor never has to keep social engagements. Please ೐”

  “I’m sure I don’t care about going,” said Constance coolly. She stood in the middle of Mary’s living room with an air of faint disdain, as if she saw no chair quite worth sitting in. “You accepted for us, Norry. If you can make an excuse,” she shrugged. “It isn’t necessary to offend the woman.”

  “She won’t be offended,” began the doctor, “she …” Mary stood in the arch. “Ah, Mary. Is Mr. Duff here?”

  Mary nodded.

  “He left a message. We came right over.”

  “Aren’t you going to Eve’s?”

  “Frankly, I just don’t feel like it,” said the doctor. “Damned if I do. I’m more interested to know what Duff wants. Do you know?”

  Mary said to Mitch, “Run upstairs and tell Mr. Duff the doctor’s here to see him, will you, hon?” She looked at her jeans. “If you’re not going, then it isn’t a party. I think I’ll run over a minute, just as I am.”

  “You explain, then,” said Dr. Christenson quickly. “Tell her none of us can come. Say Duff wants us, eh?”

  “I’ll tell her you just don’t feel like it,” said Mary casually.

  “Don’t let her do that!”

  “Why?” said Mary, turning and looking into Constance’s face. “It isn’t necessary to lie to her.”

  “Tell her anything,” said the doctor desperately, “but get out of it and come back and let’s see what Duff has on his mind.” He ran a hand through his thin hair. “Will you, Mary?”

  Mary cocked an ear toward the stairs and flew.

  The doctor sat down. Constance looked at him with vague displeasure. Then she, too, sat down in her decorous well-bred way, gracefully erect, the ankle neatly placed. She was in ice blue today.

  Duff bowed.

  The kids blew by in the hall, behind him. The garden door slammed.

  “I got your message,” the doctor began.

  Duff glanced at his watch. “It’s early,” he murmured. “Pring won’t be here until five.”

  “Well,” said the doctor, “shall we—er—wait? Or what?”

  “What are we waiting for?” said Constance crisply.

  Duff stood by a table, turning over the leaves of a nurseryman’s catalogue. “I had some things to say,” he stated mildly.

  “To me?” Her lip curled.


  Duff didn’t answer. He was looking down at the colored pictures under his hand.

  The doctor said, “It must be important,” as if to soothe his lady. Then to Duff, “Is there anything you can tell us before the rest—er—?”

  “Oh, yes, I think so.” Duff was annoyingly vague and dawdling.

  “What’s in your mind?” said the doctor. He folded his hands over his stomach, elbows on their chair arms. He leaned back. “‘Lay on, Mac Duff; and damn’d be him that first cries, Hold, enough!’ Eh?”

  Constance took out her compact and studied her eyes.

  Duff raised his head and something in the quiet of his pose caused her to snap the compact shut and put it away.

  “There’s a better quotation from the same play,” said Duff, soberly. “‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.’”

  “Act I, Scene 5,” said Constance glibly with an insulting effect. “Lady Macbeth, isn’t it?”

  Duff pushed the open catalogue away. “Did you know there was a pink rose called, of all things, the Doctor?” Dr. Christenson’s eyebrows flew. “That’s an omen, perhaps. Dr. Christenson, you had a motive, you know. The fattest motive I have found, so far.”

  “I had!”

  “Oh, yes, to murder Brownie.” Duff turned to the woman who hadn’t moved or spoken. “I wonder,” he said, “if, yesterday, when you spoke so vigorously about bad blood, as you called it … Did you then know that Mrs. Meredith’s own aunt had died in an asylum?”

  “No,” said Constance. Then, belatedly, “Did she, really?”

  Duff said,’ “Dr. Christenson wants very much to marry you.”

  “Why, I assume as much,” she said, brushing her skirt The doctor said, “Look here …”

  Duff held up his hand. “I found an old album,” he said dreamily, “and I read quite a lot on one of its pages. On an old page. For instance, there was Aunt Edie, the one who went mad, y’know. In a jabot she was. And Uncle Arthur, too. Her husband. Arthur Christopher Suns, his name. There were two other pictures, taken that very day. I know, because the same perambulator was in two of them, behind the parents, behind the nurse. The same fringed blanket, falling out in the same folds. And the nurse, mind you, sat on the grass, in front of a round flower bed. A round flower bed.

  “The flowers spoke. The daisies told. Don’t you see? The flowers were in a certain stage of development that day, that year. Also, the shadows fell the same, in that hour.

  “But the fourth picture, the one of the baby, taken then and there, you see, because of the flower bed, was gone. It was gone because Brownie stole it, Sunday afternoon. Oh, yes. I have it here. The police let me take it. You can see where those black corners have been stuck across. Look. Out of no box of old stuff, doctor. But out of Eve’s album.

  “Yes, that’s little Edarth. Sentimental, eh? To make up such a name. Child of Edith and Arthur.” Duff tapped the picture. “Quaint” He dropped his dreamy manner. “But you say this is a picture of yourself, Dr. Christenson?”

  The doctor barely looked at it. “Yes. Yes, I … But she had my picture a long time. You must be …”

  “Not mistaken,” said Duff. “The flowers, you see? Those four pictures made a perfect chain. Even the sisters, did I tell you? Eve’s mother and her aunt, own sisters. So much alike. No, Dr. Christenson, it’s clear enough. You are, in fact little Edarth.

  “Yes, I think you are Arthur’s son. You made it Christopher’s son, or Christenson. More sentiment, I sup-pose. Was your second name Norden? Norris is dose.” Duff skipped a beat “And then, of course, you are Edie’s son, too, are you not? And Edie, as they used to say, went mad.”

  No one spoke.

  So Duff went on.

  “Brownie knew all about Edie. Indeed, she’d used the same scandalous story once before. I can imagine, when she went to Eve’s house Sunday for the ice collar, and, waiting there in the sitting room, picked up the album, blew off the dust, and opened it, with what surprise she found your picture. Oh, she knew that picture. She had another copy of it, herself. In New York now. Yes, it’s there.

  “Now, therefore, she would know at sight of it that you must be Eve’s first cousin, and also what your heritage must be.”

  Duff put the picture in his pocket as if he had ended that chapter.

  “Brownie rather fancied you, didn’t she, doctor? Wasn’t she a little possessive, shall we say? She’d loaned you money—oh, no, it wasn’t the money that mattered to either of you—but she’d been the old friend, good sport, comrade. Oh, I can imagine. But now you were going to introduce your fiancée, the wealthy and beautiful Miss Avery.

  “And you didn’t think Brownie could resist telling your fiancée all about Aunt Edie.”

  Silence.

  “Well, I think you were right about that,” Duff said. “Sounds like a typical reaction. Although I don’t suppose Brownie knew as well as you do Miss Avery’s very decided views on that subject. Did she tell you, upstairs, in Mary’s room? Brownie. Did she say that she’d found out? Did she say, ‘So you’re Eve’s cousin, Norry! Why ever didn’t you tell me?’”

  The doctor groaned.

  “You knew it would lose you Constance, whom you love and want, and lose you her money and her prestige as well.”

  “Thats’ not …” The doctor choked.

  Duff closed his eyes a moment. “Of course you did try to telephone and call off the evening. But she was busy with the henhouse. So it had to be tragedy.”

  Constance had not moved yet.

  “I suppose you have a good reason,” said Dr. Christenson humbly, “for doing this to me.”

  “Sufficient reason,” Duff said.

  He flipped the catalogue closed. He did not look at the woman.

  “It was tragedy, you know, in the real sense,” he said quietly. “Because if you’d understood, you needn’t have done it”

  Constance said, her voice ringing out, “Norry, don’t worry. I shan’t believe any of this, of course.”

  “You see?” said Duff softly.

  “See? See what?” The doctor’s eyes were wild behind his glasses.

  “She doesn’t wish to believe it,” said Duff. “Miss Constance Avery. And she wouldn’t have believed it or been lost, at all. As a matter of fact, Doctor, you are her last hope. But you didn’t know that You couldn’t see Miss Constance Avery for what she is, a singularly unattractive woman, Doctor, from whom, I imagine, men have run like steers in the past, in spite of her money. She is … deficient. She has no appeal. There is a certain coldness. Oh, she knows. She has become, if you can see beyond that front, a little bit desperate. You are the only man left, I daresay, whom she can persuade to accept her on her own terms, as if she were the exclusive, persnickety, fastidious prize.”

  Duff paused. Then he burst out, as if this were too obvious, “Why, good Lord, the woman’s an old maid, as they used to say. Born to it, too. Some women are.”

  Constance’s pale face was pale no longer. She looked like a Fury, sitting there in ice blue, her hands shaking in rage. But a rage terribly controlled.

  “She lets you worship,” said Duff. I’ve noticed. But have you ever felt the slightest warmth? Can’t you tell that her desire for a husband is conventional, not real, not of the earth? Oh, it’s a desire. It’s a rebellion. It denies her own lack. That’s why it’s so strong. That’s why she’ll never let you go. Even now. Will you, Miss Avery?”

  Constance said nothing.

  But the doctor began to laugh.

  “Norry!” said Constance, like a whiplash. Then suddenly she wailed like a child. “Norry …”

  The doctor laughed so hard he nearly choked. “Oh, God,” he said, “maybe I should have let her go to the tea party. Oh, God …”

  Duff lost all languor. “Where’s Mary!” But Constance was looking at the doctor as if she would have killed him, had she the means, in this moment. Her eyes were narrow, her teeth bared. She was not pretty.

  “Where’s
Mary!”

  Duff was out on the terrace somehow with no sensation of having moved at all.

  “Where’s Mary!”

  Dinny said, “Mother’s gone over to Aunt Eve’s.”

  Duff began to run.

  “Please have some coffee with me, Mary. We’ll have it iced. It’s warm, isn’t it? Or am I just upset?”

  “Did Mr. Duff upset you?” Mary sat down on a porch chair and lit a cigarette.

  “Well, he did and he didn’t,” Eve said. “I’ll tell you.” She went into the kitchen. Mary smoked and looked across the garden. Eve came back with a tray, two tall glasses, a plate of little cakes, sugar and cream.

  “I wasn’t going to have anything fancy. That cream’s frozen, of all things. So they couldn’t come? I’ll bet they didn’t want to come.” Her auburn eyes were shrewd.

  Mary said carelessly, “Oh, Mr. Duff wanted to talk to them.”

  “He scared me,” said Eve. “He really did, Mary. I thought he was dead. He was sitting there like a dead man. Honestly. Finally I couldn’t stand it. I shook him. He came out of it all right.”

  “What was the matter? Was he … thinking, you mean?”

  “Maybe. But he looked dead!” Eve twitched. “I never saw anybody sit so still. Not living. The coffee will be through in a minute. Then he took my album.”

  “He did? Why?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t imagine.” Eve gnawed her fingers. “I’m just as glad she didn’t come here today.”

  “I wouldn’t weep, if I were you,” said Mary.

  Eve’s lids fell. “You knew about Aunt Edie, didn’t you?”

  Mary flicked ashes, said quietly, “Yes. I couldn’t help knowing. My mother and your mother …”

  “You never spoke of it?”

  “No. Never.”

  Eve sucked her breath in.

  “I didn’t think you wanted it talked about,” Mary said. “Besides, there wasn’t anything to say. Just something that happened quite a while ago. I won’t ever talk about it, Eve. You can be sure.”

  “Yes,’ said Eve, “I know you won’t, Mary.” Her eyes flashed. “You do see why, don’t you? It’s because Ralph mustn’t ever know! He doesn’t need to, Mary. Why should he? I’ve watched him. He’s all right. I even had him examined twice, when he was littler, without … you know … I pretended I just thought it was wise. And he’s fine.’ As long as nobody tells him … He is really just as strong and steady … He needn’t ever have to worry, so why should I tell him when he’d be sure to worry then? Just as those doctors would have found something if they’d known … if I’d put it in their heads. I don’t believe a lot of what they say. Oh, I’ve worried, God knows. And then, sometimes I think what if the things he’s got to go through now … what if he can’t stand them?” She sobbed, and Mary touched her shoulder.