Hangman's Whip

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  Her cheeks felt hot, her pulse quick. She sat down in the shadow of the heavy wisteria vine and leaned her head back against the cushions of the great wicker chair.

  A hurricane lamp, its flame golden and tranquil, stood on the table before Diana. The small silver coffee-pot winked in the light.

  “One lump, isn’t it, Search?” said Diana and handed the tiny cup to Richard. He came to Search, looking very tall, and bent to give her the cup. Her fingers touched his as she took it. He smiled quietly at her in the twilight and turned and went back to Diana.

  Search put the cup down and reached for a cigarette on a table near her. Abruptly she was at the end of the almost feverish gaiety that had caught them all during dinner. And it was absurd, but the brief cool touch of his fingers seemed to linger on her own.

  She lighted the cigarette, and as she did so a maid came to call Diana to the telephone.

  “It must be Calvin,” said Diana, rising. “Excuse me, will you?” She made a gesture toward Search but looked at Richard, and then trailed away into the house, following the maid who closed the screened door gently behind them both.

  It was very quiet on the long veranda. Richard was still standing beside the little coffee table. He was looking at her, and she was aware of it. And it was absurd, thought Search again, that she couldn’t look at him.

  But she did. She turned and began, trying to resume the light tone of the dinner talk: “Do you remember” and was stricken dumb. (Remember what? She wondered, and then caught at the first memory that offered itself.) “Do you remember my debut party and your Southern belle? And how the Botwick boy got tight and had to be taken home?”

  He still looked at her above the little flame of the hurricane lamp. How clearly she remembered the clean curve of his cheek. The yellow candle flame cast a shadow around his eyes so she could feel the steadiness of his look rather than see it.

  He did not answer. Did not smile, as she had expected him to do. Instead quite suddenly he bent over the hurricane lamp; she had an instant’s clear picture of his face, the strength and the tenderness of his lips. Then he blew out the flame in the lamp and came toward her.

  But instead of coming as far as her chair, there in the shadow, he stopped at the railing and looked out over the broad lake away below them.

  “Come here,” he said.

  Nothing of which her will was capable could have stopped her just then from rising. Her sandals tapped lightly, almost gently, along the floor, and she reached the railing and stood beside him—poignantly aware of his tall figure beside her—his shoulder in its dark flannel jacket touching her own, the white oval of his face.

  “Same old moon,” he said.

  She looked too; the moon was yellow and full, still low enough to lay a path of light across the lake. The shadow where they stood was soft and deep in contrast.

  Richard said: “It’s nice to stand here—the two of us—in the dark. Watching the moon again. Like this.”

  She was very still; everything about her seemed to wait. And Richard said suddenly, almost quietly: “I remember too much. God, how much I’ve wasted. Search—oh, Search—”

  He turned toward her then. And abruptly, as if he couldn’t help it, as if he had to do it, took her in his arms.

  He held her tight and close and hard as a man may hold to life itself. And after a moment, blindly, so his mouth moved across her cheek, he found her lips.

  She’d been wrong; she’d fought a losing battle to deceive herself. She knew that then.

  Life to her was Richard; for three years she’d been a doll, wound up and set on a determined course. Now she was alive again and so deeply and intensely aware of it that it was as if for the first time the moon shone and the earth turned and a man took a woman in his arms.

  It was like a tremendous gift. And it brought with it, in his arms, a kind of realm of safety and warmth from which loneliness was forever barred.

  The silvery glow on the lake became the beginning of a path, leading upward to the sky.

  Richard lifted his head. He held her and looked down through the darkness, searching her face. He said huskily, shaken and trembling as she was trembling: “Search—come with me—before Diana gets back. I’ve got to talk to you. Come—”

  Chapter 3

  THEY WENT DOWN TO the pier.

  They went almost guiltily, listening behind them for the click of the screened door or Diana’s little peal of silvery laughter.

  The steps wound steeply downward, turning often through shadowy shrubs that grew tall and thick along it.

  Presently, thought Search, she would wake up. All this dream would pass—the warm darkness, the scent of roses blooming somewhere near, the lap of the water’s edge they were approaching. Even the sound of her slippers walking lightly along the wooden pier was part of the dream. The path of the moon, broad and golden across the lake, was a dream too.

  Even when they found the old bench at the end of the pier, and somebody had actually been fishing that day, with a crooked old bamboo rod, and had left the rod, its line carefully wound around it, braced and held by the bench, that was like a dream too, because it was deceptively circumstantial. Presently she would waken.

  Richard moved the rod and she sat down and he sat be side her. And said: “Look, dear. I’ve got to—to tell you. I’m not going to touch you again for a minute. I didn’t mean to then. I haven’t any right—” He stopped and after a moment said rather harshly: “Cigarette?”

  She shook her head. She had a curious feeling that if she moved, if she spoke, the dream would shatter itself.

  He said: “Oh, Search, where did things go wrong? It was all clear sailing at first. There we were together—nothing to keep us apart. All prospects fair. Then—then things happened. Now everything’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong—nothing ever again.” It was a whisper, so soft he didn’t hear it above the gentle lap of the water against the bank and around the posts of the old wooden pier. He went on, locking his hands together around his knee, staring out at the light upon the lake.

  “I’ve loved you—always. You were part of my life—part of—part of me, Search. So much a part of me that I didn’t know it until it was too late. Search—” He turned suddenly, facing her, almost desperately seeking her eyes through the light. “Search, you’ve got to believe; I never loved anyone else. It was always you. But I didn’t know until—”

  “Until when, Richard?”

  There was a little silence. Then he said unevenly, almost grimly: “Until you stood there, in your blue dress and hat— holding pink roses, looking down so I—I could just see your mouth and chin below the curve of your hat. You stood beside Eve. And all at once I—I realized what I was doing; that I was marrying Eve and that—that it ought to have been you.”

  “I loved you then too, Richard. I loved you. It was harder for me. She was your wife.”

  He did not speak for a moment. Then he said: “No. You’re quite wrong there, Search. But that’s over; that’s done with. I was a fool. Well, I’ve paid for it. And it’s all over. Did Diana tell you?”

  “That Eve’s gone? Yes; it is past and done with, Richard. Forever, now.”

  “I’ve got to talk about it for a minute, Search; I want you to know that Eve and I have been separated, really—oh, for a long time. Eve has gone now to get a proper divorce. It was a mistake from the beginning. Eve knew it; she never loved me either. I didn’t know that then; I—I felt guilty as hell—there at first. Before I knew why she’d married me. But that’s all past now; I only wanted you to know the truth; I had to tell you. Eve’s gone. But—but I’ve got no job, you know, Search. I’ve got nothing to offer you. And that isn’t all. I— oh God, listen—I’ll tell you from the beginning.”

  “Nothing matters now. So long as we are together.” She put her hand on his arm; she had to touch him, to convince herself that it wasn’t a dream.

  “Search.” Richard turned again and took her into his arms again and said
, his mouth against her face: “But I’ll make things right. I was going to wait until I had—so I could have something to offer you. But I’ve been so hellish afraid there’d be some other man. And when you came tonight and put out your hands and smiled a little—sort of gravely—exactly as I remembered—Search—”

  It wasn’t a dream. His arms around her, his mouth hard and warm and urgent on her own. Dreams were all in the past and this was real; this was her place, her special niche in the vast mysterious whirl of things called life.

  After a moment he lifted his head. Again she was aware of the shadowy line of trees along the shore rustling a little; the soft lap of water, the great golden moon. And then Diana’s voice called impatiently, as if repeating itself, from somewhere in the shadows along the shore. “Search—where are you? Richard …”

  “Oh, damn,” said Richard. “Oh, damn and blast.”

  “Richard …”

  They both rose from the bench and turned to look toward the shore end of the pier. Thus they both saw, emerging from the fringe of willows and into the bright moonlight, that it was not only Diana. Another woman was with her—a small woman in a dark short traveling dress with a demure white collar from which rose her soft white neck; she walked quickly, swaying a little, gracefully; the moon shone full upon her small oval face and bare golden hair. She quickened her steps when she neared them and said softly: “Richard …”

  Richard didn’t move or speak. Through the sudden painful clamor in Search’s heart she heard Diana’s voice, cool and a little resentful.

  “She just arrived. On the night train. She taxied out from the station. Search, you remember Eve. Richard’s wife …”

  Eve did not look at Search or seem to be aware of her.

  The moonlight was so clear that Search could see the soft shadow of Eve’s long eyelashes; her great blue eyes looked confidingly up at Richard.

  “Darling,” she said, “don’t look like that. I’ll say it here—so everybody can hear.” She made a pretty gesture toward Search and Diana. “I’m sorry, Richard darling. I’m sorry about everything. So I’ve come back to stay.” She put her arms upward around him, lifting her face. “We’ll try again to make our marriage a success.”

  Richard turned then and looked at Search. There was decision and demand in his look, and Search replied to it. “Yes. Tell her.” She said it low, almost with her lips alone. He understood; his eyes held her own an instant longer—intently, reminding her of the promises they had made—then he turned back to Eve. She was talking quickly, patting the lapels of his coat with her soft little hands. She had not seen or heard that brief exchange. She was saying:

  “And wait till you hear everything. I’ve decided not to get a divorce. I’ve decided to come back and to be—to be a good and loving wife. As I’ve always been. Aren’t you going to kiss me, Richard?”

  He reached up then and took her arms from him. His face was in the shadow, but the light fell brightly upon Eve.

  “You are wrong, Eve,” he said. “It’s no go this time. Our marriage is ended. You wanted it that way and so do I. That was settled once and now “

  She interrupted; she turned to Diana. “Diana dear, do you mind? I’d like to talk to my husband alone.”

  Diana said, her voice shaken with anger: “If you want money, Eve—”

  “Diana!” Eve’s tone was not indignant; it was instead merely gentle and reproachful. “You’ve never liked me, have you, Diana? How can you be so unkind?”

  “Unkind!” cried Diana, and Richard said quickly: “That’s all right, Diana. Will you and—and Search—go on up to the house? I’ll join you there—later. I want to tell Eve something.”

  Diana hesitated; Search, without looking at Richard, said: “Come along,” and put her arm through Diana’s.

  Dreams ended then; but it was still like a dream when she and Diana, their slippers light on the wooden planks of the pier, walked through that white moonlight away from the two figures standing there at the end of it, silhouetted against silvery water, outlined sharply in the moonlight. She glanced back once, for Diana turned when they reached the willows, and Eve’s voice, surprisingly distinct for all its gentleness, came across the distance between them.

  “Just put my bags in Richard’s room,” she said. “Thank you, Diana.”

  Diana whirled again toward the steps, giving Search’s arm a vicious jerk, and the shadow of the willows closed momentarily around them.

  “I hope he drowns her,” said Diana and then paused and added thoughtfully as if she had really considered it: “Unfortunately she’s a strong swimmer. The trouble with Richard is, he’s chivalrous and she knows it. She’s always got around him that way. She looks so little and gentle; he couldn’t bear to hurt her. And she’s really—” Diana stopped abruptly, locking her lips together.

  It was as if another person, someone who knew all about Search but wasn’t Search, walked up the twisting steps beside Diana.

  They reached the porch.

  “I’m—going to see Aunt Ludmilla,” she said and so escaped Diana’s thin face, white and blanched in the moonlight, and her watchful, alert eyes.

  She went into the house and upstairs.

  It would be better not to stop, not to allow herself to think. Except she and Richard belonged together. This time they were wiser. This time they knew more of love—yes, and of heartbreak too.

  A drowning man clings to a straw. But she had a rock now to cling to.

  But again it was better not to think; Eve was still his wife, and Search was honest in her thinking. She went to Ludmilla’s door and knocked.

  There was a slight stir and motion from the other side of the door. Then Ludmilla’s voice said, a little breathlessly from immediately behind the panels:

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Search.”

  “Oh.” There was the turn of a key. The door opened and Ludmilla—short and plump, her curly fair hair pulled anyhow back of her ears, her eyeglasses in one plump hand—drew her inside the big crowded room, closed the door and kissed her all in one movement.

  “Search,” she said. “Oh, my dear. I did want you. Come in—come over here to the chaise longue. There now …”

  She sat down and drew Search down beside her. She had been reading; magazines and books were on the floor beside the chaise longue. And Ludmilla looked sick. She was pale; there were hollows under her china-blue eyes; her lips were purple and trembled a little.

  Anxiety caught at Search quickly and sharply, so for a moment Richard and Eve were out of her mind and consciousness. She leaned over toward Ludmilla.

  “Darling, what’s wrong? You’re not well. Tell me—”

  “Search …” Ludmilla’s fat little hand clasped her own feverishly. She glanced at the door which was closed. She leaned over toward Search and whispered:

  “I had to send for you. Search—listen. I—I’m being poisoned. Yes—yes, really, dear; don’t look at me like that, I’m perfectly well and perfectly sane. But I—I didn’t know what to do. So I sent for you. It—it’s really true, dear. You see, I had the doctor. It’s arsenic. Poison.”

  Chapter 4

  THE THIN WHITE CURTAINS over the bay window beside them stirred gently and blew outward a little and then settled back into place.

  Ludmilla Abbott at sixty-five was, in a curious way, childish. Her plump face showed lines, but they were placid, smiling lines. Her china-blue eyes were candid and guileless.

  In spite of the years between, she was remarkably like a picture of herself at twenty—plump and fair and smiling, with a basket of highly artificial roses beside her—that hung in the formal drawing room downstairs. But, then, her life had been singularly uneventful.

  She had painted water colors and china; she had embroidered and could still play “The Scarf Dance” in a very spritely way on the old square piano. For years she had kept up all the family correspondence. She had never married and had devoted herself to Search and Diana, both orphaned, and (af
ter her older brother John Abbott married Isabel Bohan) she had taken Richard, too, under her wing. They all had loved her dearly and, in an odd way, had humored her—her childishness, her occasionally sharp little tongue, her loving but (still) fussy small air of authority.

  But Search said now: “Dear, that—that isn’t possible! You mustn’t imagine—”

  Swiftly and rather horribly she thought of something—what was it called?—persecution mania?

  Ludmilla shook her head.

  “It isn’t imagination. It happened three times. The first time I didn’t know; I was just sick; I thought I’d eaten something. The second time it—it puzzled me. I had the old doctor’s book; you know; I brought you children up on it. So I got it out and read it. And I had symptoms of arsenic poisoning. But then I got better. I decided I was wrong. I had to be wrong—I thought then. But if it happened again, I was going to call a doctor—somebody from the city. And it—it did happen again and I did call a doctor from Chicago and he called another in consultation. And—you can see for your self—” She gave Search’s hands a kind of pat as if Search mustn’t mind too much and rose and went to a bird’s-eye maple desk across the room. It was closed and locked; she reached for a key, hidden under a Dresden clock that stood upon it, unlocked the desk and dropped the lid. It revealed an interior bulging with papers, with blotters and pens and inkwells; probably Ludmilla had never thrown out anything in all her sixty-five years of life. But she was orderly too; she reached directly for an envelope, typewritten with a printed return address.

  “It’s here,” she said. “Read it—it’s the doctor’s report.”

  Search read the letter; doubting her eyes, she read it again. It stated simply and directly that Miss Abbott had had arsenic poisoning; their laboratory tests had proved it. It named the tests briefly and technically and the probable amount of arsenic she had “accidentally consumed.” It was really merely a laboratory report put into a letter. There was only one sentence which in any way indicated a certain doubt or alarm on the part of the doctor. “Inasmuch,” he wrote succinctly, “as another such attack might prove fatal, I feel it my duty to strongly advise you to take every precaution against a recurrence of accidental poisoning.”