The Bad Seed

by William March

  She paused and glanced at Christine, and Mrs. Penmark, who had heard little that she said, smiled obediently, and said, “Yes, indeed, Monica. That’s so very true, isn’t it?” She looked down again, thinking that if she confessed, and the authorities took Rhoda away and put her in some semi-penal institution, there would inevitably be publicity, and stories in the papers. Perhaps the situation would be considered unusual enough for printing everywhere, in newspapers all over the country.… She frowned, seeing in her mind’s eye the headlines that inevitably announced the story: Bravo Granddaughter Double Murderer, or: Tot Kills Two. Once she had put the machinery in motion, there’d be no way of avoiding the usual publicity. Monica and Emory and the Fern sisters—everybody in town, in fact—would know, and pity herself and Kenneth, a thought that she found unendurable. Her husband’s career would be brought to an end once more; they’d be forced to leave this place, to find another haven for themselves. Were they, then, to be forever on the run, to have no peace for themselves? Must they always be the victims of their child’s avarice?…

  Mrs. Breedlove paused uncertainly, and then said, “My mother, who didn’t have any backbone at all—she was like all the women of her day, I suppose—who agreed with everything others suggested, particularly if that other person were a man, said, ‘Yes, it’s certainly an asset for a boy to be brainy.’ And then the visitor said, ‘All a girl needs to get by is to be pretty. It’s important for girls to be pretty.’ And when the visitor said that, I made up my mind I wasn’t going to be pretty, even if it turned out that way naturally, which, of course, it didn’t.”

  She giggled, tossed her pebble over her shoulder, and looked anxiously at Mrs. Penmark, whose face was set automatically in a smile of placating falseness. She was not even aware for a moment that Mrs. Breedlove regarded her with such searching interest, for she was thinking that the exposure of her child’s crimes would not only destroy herself and Kenneth, it would inevitably bring destruction to Kenneth’s mother and unmarried sisters, too. They were all conventional and prudish, with no understanding of others who differed from themselves, with no forgiveness in their hearts. They’d never be able to accept the reality of a criminal Penmark; they’d blame her for the child’s abnormality. She could endure that, although the knowledge would be bitter; but her husband’s situation would be even more difficult than her own. He was tied to the stodginess of his family in ways he neither realized nor admitted. His family had disliked her from the beginning; they’d made no secret of their resentment at his marriage. Would he not, then, after the acceptance of their joint tragedy, look at her with more appraising eyes, would he not wonder if his mother and sisters had not been right in their objections, after all?… She sighed again, shaking her head in helplessness.

  “And so I said to myself,” continued Mrs. Breedlove, “ ‘I’m going to be as smart as any man alive, and on his terms, too.’ ” She moved restively, and went on. “I said to myself, ‘What do men think they are, anyway? Going around like the Lords of Creation! I’ll show them where to get off,’ I said.”

  Christine nodded in absent-minded agreement. The more she considered matters as they were, the less she could see how any benefit could be had from the child’s exposure at this time. Even if she were committed to a reform school, what would be accomplished, in the long run, by such an act? If what she’d heard about such institutions were true, the school no doubt would only serve as the final background of the child’s corruption, if, indeed, there was a final corruption for her to achieve.… Then, looking up, feeling that something was expected of her, she smiled again, made an unintelligible sound with her lips, and said at length, “Yes. Yes, I’m sure that’s true, Monica.”

  Mrs. Breedlove talked for a minute more, her voice getting less and less decisive; and then, coming to the end of her involved reactions to the perfection of men, she raised her eyes and stared searchingly at Mrs. Penmark; and seeing that her friend no longer made even a pretense of listening to her, she said with humorous petulance, “What’s the matter with you today? You look pale and distraught. You’re definitely worried about something. Who’s been hurting your feelings, dear Christine? Who’s been treating you badly?”

  She moved in her chair, and thrust her legs straight before her, her knees tilted outward and outlined under her summer dress, the rims of her shoes resting at an ungraceful angle on the rug. Then, speaking in the high, artificial voice one uses in placating a difficult child, she said, with real concern in her voice, “I’m going to be quite frank with you, dear Christine. Emory and I are concerned about you these days. We were discussing you last night at dinner, and we came to the conclusion you’ve not been yourself of late. Won’t you tell me what’s troubling you? Won’t you let me help?”

  Christine laughed disarmingly, and protested in a voice which she knew fooled nobody, “It’s nothing, Monica. I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Perhaps it’s the heat. I’m not as used to it as you and Emory, you must remember. I’m just not feeling up to par. Please don’t worry about me.”

  “You haven’t been quite the same since the day of the Fern picnic,” said Monica. “Emory said that last night. At first I didn’t agree with him, but when I look back, I think it’s true.” She waited, and then added cheerfully, “Oh, well, if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t want to tell me.” She got up to leave, saying, “Take your time, my dear. I’m sure you’ll tell me when the right moment comes.”

  Christine said, “There’s nothing to tell. Nothing at all.”

  She talked gaily for a time, as though in denial of Mrs. Breedlove’s words that she’d changed; but all the time she was smiling and asking questions, she kept shaking her head inwardly and saying to herself, “You’re wrong. I’ll never tell you or anybody else about Rhoda. How could I possibly tell anyone else such things?”

  Mrs. Penmark remained awake that night for a long time, turning nervously from side to side; but toward morning she fell into unquiet sleep, into a troubled dream. She was alone in a white city where nobody lived, although the city was full of people. A menacing sky stretched over her, a sky with strange, slipper-shaped clouds lying motionless at the horizon. She went about peering into the small houses where people lived, and yet did not live, and said, “I am lost. Will somebody show me the way out of this cold place?” And then the city was full of people. She walked through them as easily as they walked through her. They would not speak to her, or acknowledge her existence, and she said, “I am one of them, but they do not know it yet.”

  She was tired and depressed, and she stood weeping before one of the houses which she knew to be her own. Then she began to run, knowing at last that she was nothing, that she was only an insubstantial ghost like the others, until she reached a little hill beyond the city, and resting there on top of the hill, trembling with fear, she saw a house shaped like a shoe, with the name Christine Denker written across its face in Rhoda’s neat hand, collapse into nothingness, with only gray dust rising and settling slowly to show where the house had been. She was close to waking at that moment, and she said, “She will destroy us all. I did not escape, either. She will destroy us all, in time.”

  She awoke with her hands trembling, her nightgown wet with sweat. She got up, lit a cigarette, and stood in the dark smoking it. Then, suddenly, cocks were crowing in the backyards of the poor, unpainted shacks a few blocks away, and she knew it was close to dawn. She went to her window and looked at the sky turning pink and pearl-gray above the bayous, and the intricate pattern of rivers and bays to the east. She wept suddenly, her palms on the wide ledge of red brick outside her window, and the dew that had collected there broke under her hands like blisters. Then, coming into her living-room, she turned on her reading lamp, the light from the globe dispelling the unreal half-light of dawn.

  She closed the door to her daughter’s room, so that the typewriter would not disturb her, and then, sitting at her desk, she wrote again to her husband, one of the detailed, impassioned lette
rs she had no intention of sending him. In it, she confessed her anxiety and despair; she had insisted on knowing the truth, and now that she knew it, she could not see how this matter with Rhoda was to end; the only comfort she could take in her knowledge was the fact that she could no longer shatter her mind with doubt. But at this moment, she said, she wished that she did not know, that she could go on believing, in spite of her average common sense, in the off-chance of her child’s innocence.

  The problem that she and Kenneth now faced—a problem she knew in its entirety, but he, as yet, did not know—was one so difficult that it seemed impossible of satisfactory solution. What was to be their duty in future both to their child, and to the society in which they lived?

  She wrote: If you were only with me, my darling. If you were only here at my side to sustain me, to advise me what to do. But you are not here, and I must manage as best I can until your return. I must try to believe that Rhoda is too young to understand the things she’s done, and yet other children no older than she is understand these things very well. Do you think, as I try to think, that she’s learned her lesson, and that she’ll never do such things again? I’m determined to think of the things I now know as little as possible. I must go on hoping that matters will somehow work themselves out in the end.

  I am almost lost, my darling. What shall I do now? Come back to me quickly! I want you with me now. I need you so badly. Come back to me! For God’s sake, come back to me quickly! I’m not nearly so brave as I pretend to be.

  When her letter was finished, she put it with the others in her locked drawer. It was now light outside, with the sun well risen, and she made coffee for herself, and sat drinking it, a strange, contemplative look on her face, while her mind moved restlessly in its unbroken circle of thought.… She was foolish and rather presumptuous to assume that she alone must make the necessary decisions concerning her child, as though only her opinions had value.… No, that was not true; responsibility for the child was a joint one that she shared equally with Kenneth; and when his work was wound up, and he was with her again, they’d talk the matter over in calmness; they’d draw strength from each other; they’d decide together what they must do.

  But the fact remained, no matter what the child had done, that she was their own flesh and blood, and plainly it was their duty to protect her against the cruelty of the world. She did not know how Kenneth would feel when he, too, knew beyond doubt the things Rhoda had done; but insofar as she was concerned, she was going to protect her child as best she could. Of course, she’d look out for the welfare of others, too; she’d constantly watch her child to see that she harmed nobody else. But perhaps she was distressing herself needlessly in going over and over these matters; perhaps such a thing would not happen again, now that she knew what Rhoda had done, and Rhoda was aware that she knew. But no matter what the little girl was now, or became in future, she was going to protect her. That much was certain. It was her duty to protect her child. What kind of monster would she be if she betrayed and destroyed her own child? The idea was unthinkable, and shaking her head in despair, she spilled coffee in her saucer, and cried out involuntarily, “What else can I do? My God, what else can I do but protect her?”

  She took her cup to the kitchen and put it on the drain board; she returned to her chair and took up the cases again, although they both repelled and frightened her. She told herself that she did not really want to read them, but now that she’d begun them, she felt a compulsive need to continue. She told herself in justification of her continued reading that she’d lived in ignorance long enough; perhaps if she’d faced reality sooner, she might have understood Rhoda better, and at a much earlier time; but even then, somewhere in her mind, she knew her facile explanations to herself were only partly true, that they were not even the most important truth, for she read the cases now, in spite of the fact that she told herself she did not want to learn more, with a reluctant eagerness, as though knowing that one of them, if she persisted in her efforts, would reveal not only the true enigma of her daughter’s mind, but would clarify much that was hidden in herself, as well. Then, sighing a little, she began to read, to search diligently for the particular case she looked for, the case she had not as yet encountered.

  The alarm, which she’d set for eight, went off at that moment in her bedroom, and, waking her daughter, she went about her preparations for breakfast. From her kitchen window, she saw Leroy coming to work. When he reached the garage doors, he yawned, scratched himself, snickered, and looked up at Rhoda’s window. He stood under the window and whispered, “Rhoda! Little Rhoda, you up yet?”

  Mrs. Penmark drew back into the room, so that he could not see her, and then Leroy, looking cautiously from side to side, said softly, “Rhoda! Rhoda! Tell me one thing—you found what you been looking for yet?” The child gave no sign of his presence under her window, and he turned away, laughing his muted, triumphant laugh. He said, “If you haven’t found it so far, you better look harder. One thing’s sure. I better not find it first.” He spoke in a high whisper, one finger raised coyly to his lips; and then, resting against the steps, his eyes still fixed on the child’s window, he said, “Z-z-z-z! Z-z-z-z! You know what that means, now don’t you? If you don’t know, you sure better find out.” He laughed again, and continued, “Z-z-z-z! Z-z-z-z!” He turned toward his basement room, adding, “I know you’re listening to me back of that curtain. I know you heard everything I said to you.”

  When the child came into the breakfast room, Christine said, “I heard you and Leroy talking together. What did he mean by that peculiar sound he kept making?”

  “You didn’t hear us talking together,” said the child primly. “You heard Leroy talking to me. I don’t talk to Leroy.”

  “What did he mean by that hissing noise he made?”

  “I don’t know what he meant. Leroy’s a silly man. I don’t listen to Leroy more than half the time.”

  She sat at the table and unfolded her napkin, her face rested and untroubled, sleep still in her eyes. Then she yawned, covered her mouth daintily with her palm, and picked up her spoon. Christine, looking at her, thought: She has no capacity for either remorse or guilt. She’s entirely untroubled. And afterward, when Rhoda was in the park, Mrs. Penmark went on with the cases. She paused from time to time to speculate on the odd mind of the criminal, to discover the lesson each taught for her own guidance. She wondered what force had caused these unusual people to become what they were. Was it the result of faulty training? Was it bad environment? Or was it some inborn, predestined thing which could at best be modified only a little?

  These speculations so occupied her mind that later in the morning she telephoned Reginald Tasker for his opinion. Reginald said that for years he’d read, collected, annotated, and digested cases of the type in which they were now both interested, and it seemed to him that environment had little to do with its persistent appearance, although, conceivably, environment might modify its outward aspects. The simplest way to understand the type was to regard them as the normal human beings of fifty thousand years ago, before man began his task of civilizing himself, or built his code of axioms into the moral codes that govern us all.

  In other words, most of us were able somehow, under the molding force of precept and example, to develop the strange thing we call conscience, to acquire a reasonably acceptable moral character; but others did not have this ability at all, no matter what benign influences they were subjected to. They were not even able to love another except in the crudest manifestations of the flesh. They had a mental understanding of the shadings of right and wrong, but none of them had the same moral understanding of these things. They were the true, inborn criminals that can neither be changed nor modified.…

  When she turned from the telephone, Mrs. Penmark took up the folders and read again. She read on and on, but at last she came to a case marked in Reginald’s hand, The Unparalleled Bessie Denker. She held the folder limply in her hands, frowned, and shook her head in puz
zlement at the insistent familiarity of the name. The story was by Madison Cravatte, whose name was familiar to her by this time, and who wrote with that special sort of tittering wit so typical of his specialty.

  He began: Now, if I were commanded to pick my favorite murderess from the army of her talented sisters, it would not be the bleached Eva Coo, whose name was so soft, and whose heart was so hard; it would not be that simpering chocolate drinker, Miss Madeleine Smith, whom the British so wildly adore. It wouldn’t be our equally loved Lizzie Borden, who is now immortalized in doggerel, and who is said to have perfected her technique with the hatchet through chopping off the heads of her pet kittens; it wouldn’t be the handsome Lyda Southard, a lady who’s never received the plaudits due her from an unbelieving public; it wouldn’t be saintly Anna Hahn, who, in addition to a free use of arsenic, sleeping pills, and strychnine, introduced a new lethal agent into American letters: croton oil, of all things, my dears!

  No, it would be none of these artistes in the art of murder, talented though they were. My choice for first place would be the unrivaled Bessie Denker, queen of them all: Bessie Denker, who had a built-in icebox for a heart, a steel rod for a spine, an instrument as accurate and impersonal as a comptometer for a brain. I make no secret of my admiration for this endearing lady. Bessie Denker was tops in my book. We’re going steady now. Bessie Denker is my sweetheart, and I don’t care who knows it.

  At this point Mrs. Penmark made a gesture of distaste, put aside the folders, and went about her usual tasks. That afternoon, feeling a need to clear her mind, she took Rhoda to a movie. She sat in the darkened theater, trying to concentrate on the shallow story, but she could not. Afterward she and the little girl went to a pastry shop for ice cream and cakes. She did not look at the cases again until that night when Rhoda was asleep; then, turning quickly to the Denker case once more, she continued to read its dreadful details.