“I don’t see a happy ending, not with that setup.”
“It can’t be a happy ending. No. I see that, too.”
Miss Glass paused with her coffee cup half raised to her mouth, narrowed her eyes, and bent forward as though somebody inside the library had called her name; then, sure that nobody had, she said, “The only way to end the book is for the mother to shoot the child before she grows up and really goes to work on the neighbors.”
“Oh, no!” said Christine quickly. “Oh, no!”
Miss Glass seemed surprised at her vehemence. She said, “I don’t see what else the mother can do. That one’s really got a package of trouble on her hands if you ask me.”
“Oh, no! She couldn’t possibly do anything to harm her child. It wouldn’t be in keeping with her character. She’s a weak woman who just drifts along. She lacks the power to make decisions.”
“You can let her ‘rise to the occasion’ as you writers put it.”
“Oh, no. My heroine, if you can call her that, couldn’t survive a thing of that sort. She wouldn’t have the strength. It’s impossible.”
“But you’ve considered that ending, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” said Christine. “I’ve considered it over and over. But it’s not possible.”
“Well, I guess you’re right,” said Miss Glass. “When I think of it, killing the child seems more the beginning of a novel than the ending of one—unless you’re figuring on something the size of Gone With the Wind. If your heroine killed her child, she’d have to go on living with her guilt; she’d have to face her husband, and all sorts of complications are possible there. She’d have to make a thousand new adjustments, she’d have to start a new life—assuming of course that the cops didn’t find out first, and hang her.”
Christine said, “I don’t know. I don’t know— But I must decide soon. Something must be done soon.”
Miss Glass gathered up the paper and the crusts of her sandwich; she thrust the empty Thermos under her arm and started back to her work; then, pausing, she said, “Your idea interests me. I’m going to think about it when I get home.”
With her reading, her housework, her supervision of her child, her long, regular letters to her husband, Mrs. Penmark achieved a sort of lethargic resignation at last. Monica telephoned at intervals to see that she was all right, and one evening she said in excitement that there’d been a cancellation at her hotel. She knew that the management of other peoples’ affairs was one of her more repulsive qualities—heaven knows she ought to, Emory told her often enough—but she’d been thinking of Christine and Rhoda so much, she’d missed them so greatly, that she’d taken the liberty of picking up the reservation, in their name. She hoped Christine would pardon her presumptuousness, but as a special favor to herself and Emory, wouldn’t she make the effort—wouldn’t she come to the inn for ten days? Then, not waiting for Mrs. Penmark’s decision, she went on. “Everything’s been arranged. Emory’ll pick you up tomorrow about six, after he finishes up at the shop. Now, dear Christine, come with him! If you don’t feel up to packing, say so; and I’ll drive over in the morning and pack for you.”
Mrs. Penmark said she could manage by herself, and the following afternoon she and Rhoda were ready. She enjoyed her stay at the hotel. In the mornings she lay with Rhoda on the beach, or wandered with her in the woods beyond. In the evening she played canasta with Emory, or contract with Monica and her friends. Rhoda behaved perfectly; the guests at the inn made much over her. She smiled, she curtseyed, she deferred to her elders, she showed her shallow dimple.… When Mrs. Penmark and her daughter returned to town on the first day of August, she felt that many of her tensions had left her. She began to hope again, to trust in the future.
On the next afternoon, when they were settled again to the familiar routine they’d known before, Rhoda went to the park to crochet under the pomegranate tree; and after a time Leroy approached her. He said, “I know why you begged your mamma into taking you to the bay. You wanted to go there to look for that stick. Now tell me one thing, just between you and I—did you find that stick?”
Without raising her eyes, giving no outward sign she was speaking to him, Rhoda said, “She’s by the window watching me. If you want to talk to me, stand by the bridal-wreath bush. She can’t see you there.”
He moved to the place she mentioned, snickering and saying, “Z-z-z-z!” to himself. He started to repeat the sound, since it had for him unlimited possibilities of wit; and then in sudden revelation, as though seeing the importance at last of facts which had always been at the back of his mind, he rubbed his cheek, and said, “What happened to that heavy pair of shoes you used to wear? I’m talking about them shoes that went tap-tap-tap on the walk. You wore them shoes to the picnic that day, but I don’t believe you’ve worn them since.”
“You’re silly. I never had a pair of shoes like that.”
“You had a pair of shoes like that, all right! They went tap-tap-tap when you walked. I remember how they used to sound. I didn’t like the way they sounded. I said to myself that day of the picnic when you went down the front walk, ‘I don’t like that tap-tap-tapping, and I’m going to wet them shoes.’ That’s the reason I turned the hose on them.”
“They hurt my feet. So I gave those shoes away.”
Leroy said, “You know one thing? You didn’t hit that boy with no stick. You hit him with them shoes, that’s what you hit him with. There never was no stick, and that’s why you didn’t worry about it. Ain’t I right this time?”
“You’re silly. That’s all I can say.”
“You didn’t hit him with no stick. You hit him with your shoe. You didn’t have to hunt no stick to hit him with. You had that shoe with them iron cleats handy to hit him with.”
“Don’t talk to me any more. You’re a silly man.”
“I’m not silly. It’s you that’s silly. You’re so dumb you thought I meant it when I said you hit him with a stick; but all I was doing then was trying to make you say, ‘No, Leroy. I didn’t hit him with no stick. I hit him with my shoe that’s got them iron cleats on the heel.’ I said stick at first just to worry you. But I knew all the time what it was you hit him with.”
Rhoda sat perfectly still, her mouth opened a little, her hands automatically practicing the stitch she was learning. She said, “You tell stories all the time. When you die, you’re going to the bad place.”
Leroy knelt, in an effort to simulate industry in the event anyone passed and saw him, at the base of the bridal-wreath bush, and examined its foliage. He said, “Now, let me tell you something else about them shoes. While you and your mamma was over at that hotel skylarking and carrying on, I found me a key to your front door. And you want to know what I done when I found me that key? I went in your apartment and started looking, that’s what I done! That’s the way I found them shoes and took them away with me. I got them shoes hid out safe right now. I got them hid out where nobody’ll ever find them but me. You sure better treat me pretty from now on. You better mind me, and do what I tell you to do. If you keep on acting uppity, I’m going to hand them shoes over to the policemen, and tell them what to look for on them. I’m going to say, ‘Little Claude Daigle’s blood’s on them shoes. Now you go ahead and find it.’ ”
Rhoda said contemptuously, “You tell lies all the time. You haven’t got those shoes. I put those shoes in the incinerator and burned them up. I’d be afraid to tell lies the way you do.”
Leroy laughed his silent laugh, waited a moment, and then said, “You mean you thought you burned up them shoes. Now, I’m not saying you didn’t burn them a little, but you didn’t burn all of them up like you wanted to.”
A strange, waiting look came into the child’s eyes. She put her needlework on the bench beside her. She stared at the man with a frightening stillness. “Yes?” she said. “Yes?”
“Now, listen to this,” said Leroy, “and then figure out which is the silly one—you, or me.” He snickered in triumph and continue
d. “I was in the basement resting, and I heard something come rattling down the pipe. So I said to myself, ‘What’s that rattling down the pipe? It sure sounds like a pair of shoes with cleats in the heels,’ I said. So I opened the incinerator door quick, and there they lay on top of the coals, only smoking the least little bit. Oh, they was scorched some; I’ll admit they were scorched. But there was plenty left to turn blue and show where blood was. There’s plenty left to put you in the electric chair.”
He threw back his head, and in triumph laughed his shrill, foolish laugh, watching the child out of the corners of his eyes.
Rhoda got up thoughtfully and went to the lily pond, standing there with one foot on the rim of the basin; and then, convinced this time that Leroy told the truth, she said calmly, “Give me those shoes back!”
“Oh, no! Not me, Miss Rhoda Penmark! I got them shoes hid out where nobody but me can find them. I’m keeping them shoes to make you act better from here on.”
He went into the courtyard. The situation had become too delightful for him to endure. He sat down on the back steps, rocking from side to side. The child followed him. She said patiently, “You’d better give me those shoes. They’re mine. Give them back to me.”
Leroy said, “I’m not giving those shoes back to nobody, see?” He gasped with delight, holding his face in his hands. Then, something in the child’s fixed, cold stare caused his laughter to die away. He looked down uneasily at his own shoes and said, “I’m keeping them shoes until—” His voice broke off suddenly. He no longer wanted to play this game with the little girl. He got up from his seat and walked away nervously.
“Give me those shoes back. Give me my shoes back.”
She followed him wherever he went, repeating her demand; and then he turned and said, “Now listen, Rhoda, I just been fooling around and teasing you about them shoes. I got my work to do. Why don’t you go on about your business and leave me alone?”
He walked faster, but she caught at his sleeve, pulling him up short. “You’d better give me my shoes back,” she said.
He turned in exasperation and said, “Quit talking loud. Everybody can hear what you’re saying.”
The child said, “Give me my shoes. You’ve got them hid, but you better find them and give them back to me.”
“Listen, Rhoda! I haven’t got nobody’s shoes. I was just teasing you. Don’t you know when anybody is teasing you?”
He went in the direction of the park again, but the child followed him insistently, saying softly, “Give me my shoes. Give them back.” He picked up his broom where he’d left it leaning on the lily pond, and said plaintively, “Why don’t you let me alone? What makes you keep bothering me?” But she would not leave him. She kept tugging at his sleeve and repeating her demand until Leroy said, “I was just fooling at first about you killing that boy; but now I believe you did. I believe you really did kill him with your shoe.” He moved away once more, and once more she followed him; and then Leroy, as though he were about to stamp his foot in exasperation, said shrilly, “Go inside and practice your piano lesson! I haven’t got nobody’s shoe, I keep telling you!”
He went to the front of the house, where he was sure she would not follow him. He stood under the camphor tree alone, saying to himself in amazement, “I really believe she killed that little boy!” Then suddenly he said to himself, “I don’t want to have nothing more to do with her. If she speaks to me again, I’m not even going to answer back.” He’d thought at first how interesting the story of the retrieved shoes would be for Thelma that night when he got home; but now he knew he’d never tell it to her or anyone else.
He was afraid of the child. He came to work next day determined to avoid her; to his relief, she did not come into the park that morning; but looking up from time to time, he saw her at her window. All that morning, he was conscious that she followed his movements with her eyes, her head turning from side to side; and once, looking up quickly, their glances met. He turned uneasily away, aware of the unconcealed fury, the cold, calculating anger in the little girl’s face. At twelve he ate his lunch on the bench beside the lily pond; at half past twelve he went to the basement room for his customary nap.
Not long afterward the ice-cream man, trundling his bell-decked cart, came into the street and drew up beside the park gate to sell his wares to the neighborhood children. A flock gathered quickly around him, leaving the park and the courtyard deserted for a time. Rhoda, seeing him there, asked her mother for money to buy an ice-cream stick, and Mrs. Penmark gave it to her. She started for the stairs, and then, as though having made up her mind at last, she turned and went into the kitchen; and Christine watched what she did there. She saw Rhoda take three big kitchen matches from the box above the stove. She held them a moment in her hand, as though debating a point, and then, deciding three matches were too many, she returned one of them to the box. She went slowly down the back stairs, bought her ice-cream stick, and sat on the steps near the basement to enjoy it, eating the stick with little mincing bites, listening with approval to Leroy’s snores in the room beyond her.
Mrs. Penmark had moved to the kitchen window to watch, wondering what the child intended doing with the matches she’d taken; she did not have long to wonder, for Rhoda, looking cautiously from side to side to see that no eye observed her, went, her face bland and innocent again, to the basement door. She paused at the door and struck one match on the cement wall, shielding the flame with her palm. She disappeared for a moment from her mother’s sight as she went on tiptoes into the basement room. When there, she stooped quickly and touched the match to the excelsior and piled papers of Leroy’s makeshift bed. She came out of the basement quietly, closing the door behind her. She slipped the flimsy bolt that held the door shut when wind blew, and banged it about; then, sitting again in her original place, she nibbled her ice-cream stick, the burned match still held in her disengaged hand.
The thing had happened with such casual efficiency, with such sureness of purpose, that Mrs. Penmark—although part of her mind must certainly have known—had not been able to accept in actuality the event that had happened before her eyes. She stood as though paralyzed beside her concealing curtain; and at the instant she began to scream, she heard Leroy’s fainter, answering screams coming like echoes from the other side of the basement door. Smoke rolled out of the barred windows on either side of the door. He threw his weight against the door, but for a time the bolt held. Then his face appeared at one of the windows. He saw Rhoda enjoying her ice-cream stick. He said in a desperate, coaxing voice, “Unlock the door, Rhoda! I’m not mad at you!”
The child laughed charmingly, and shook her head from side to side.
He knew then, in those dreadful moments before death, precisely what had happened to him. He screamed again, a long, wailing note of despair, and said, “I haven’t got them shoes! I was only teasing you a little! I don’t know nothing about them shoes!”
Rhoda bent her head rhythmically to her ice-cream stick with delicate, miserly bites, her eyes interested and lifted upward. “You know,” she said gently. “You know where they are.”
Leroy threw his weight against the door time and time again; and at last the bolt gave way. He ran out into the courtyard. His clothing had burned away, and clung to his blackened body in long, fiery rags. Even his shoestrings were burning, even his hair was ablaze. He screamed, “I wasn’t going to tell on you! I don’t know nothing about nothing you done!”
Rhoda’s pink darting tongue touched her treat for a final time; then lifting her head, pressing her palms together, she laughed the lovely, tinkling laugh of childhood and said, “You’re silly.”
She got up from the steps, straightened her frock, and put both stick and waxed paper in the garbage can under the stairs. She stood there smiling and nodding her head, as though in genial approval of a scene planned to divert her, as Leroy ran in flames toward the lily pond. But when his hand was on the knob of the gate, he shuddered and swayed backward; then, s
till clutching the gate, he sagged down to the cement, released his grip, and died there.
Mrs. Penmark turned from her window, saying to herself, “I’m not going to faint. This is an emergency. It’s necessary for me to keep calm.”
She went toward her bedroom with the intention of lying down a moment, but she did not reach her bed. Against her will, her knees buckled beneath her, and there was the terrible singing of blood in her ears. She lost consciousness for a time, and then, although she never knew how it happened, she was going down the back stairs, holding onto the railing for support, calling in a frantic voice, “Rhoda! Rhoda! Rhoda!”
The courtyard was full of people—people from the apartment house itself, neighbors from across the street, and strangers who had been passing, and had seen the flames from the basement. She went at once to the park fence, and stood beside her daughter, looking down at the dead man at her feet.…
There was somebody screaming somewhere, and she kept wondering who it could be. She turned to the people who watched her and said in a lost, chiding voice, “Quit screaming, please! Screaming doesn’t help!” She closed her eyes and leaned against the fence; and then she knew the person screaming was herself.
Already men had formed a bucket line, and were passing water from one hand to another, or dragging, piece by piece, the burning junk from the cement of the basement to the cement of the courtyard. Then the fire engines were there; then the ambulance that took Leroy’s body away.… Next, she was lying on the grass inside the park, and somebody bathed her face with water from the lily pond that Leroy had never reached. Mrs. Kunkel from across the street was standing over her and saying impatiently, “Stop that screaming! Stop it! Stop it!”
“You must try to control yourself,” said Mrs. Forsythe.
Christine said, “I saw it! I saw it this time! I saw him as he came out of the basement! I saw him die at the gate!”
“You must control yourself,” said Mrs. Forsythe. “You must make an effort to control yourself.” She pressed cool water once more to her friend’s face and continued. “You must take Rhoda as an example. Rhoda isn’t upset at all. She’s behaving like a seasoned little trouper.”
The Bad Seed Page 19