The Bad Seed (27 page)

“Yes, I think so.”

Miss Glass smiled in a self-deprecatory way, and said she had a confession to make, an apology to offer. She’d done a thing which, now that she thought it over, she saw clearly she should
not
have done. She knew how jealously authors must guard their plots, but she’d been so interested in Mrs. Penmark’s situation that she’d told it to others. It had happened this way: her sister, with whom she lived, had strong literary feelings, and there was a little group to which they both belonged that met each week to ponder trends in writing. Now, at this last meeting, she’d outlined Mrs. Penmark’s plot, since it illustrated a point which had been raised. It was an indiscretion beyond doubt, although she was sure none of the people present would be dishonest enough to use it for their own.

At any rate, to make a long story short, she’d spoken of the author’s difficulty in finding an ending for the novel, and the group had discussed every possible solution. It had been like a jury discussing an actual case, really. They’d debated the possibilities of psychiatric treatment, reform school, or blind faith in the future; and in the end they’d taken a vote. It had been unanimously decided that the only possible way to end the book was for the mother to keep her secret, kill the child, and then commit suicide.

She ended, “I hope I wasn’t indiscreet in repeating what you told me; but after all you didn’t say you were speaking in confidence.”

“It doesn’t matter at all. That ending had occurred to me, too. Perhaps it’s the one I’ll have to use.”

That night Mrs. Penmark made a holograph will, as follows:

Upon my death, I leave my jewelry and my 1912 Utrillo landscape to my friend Monica W. Breedlove as a memento of my constant affection. To my husband, Kenneth Penmark, whom I’ve loved to the exclusion of all other men, I return the Modigliani drawing he once gave me with the earnest wish that he find a more worthy recipient for it; that he forgive me if he can, and marry again. My bank balances,
my stocks, my bonds, and all other property I possess at my death, I leave to Thelma Jessup, widow of Leroy Jessup, who lives at 572 General Jackson Street.

She dated the will August 3rd, 1952, signed it, and put it in the drawer of her desk that she kept locked, saying to herself, “It’s all I can do in atonement.”

When she’d finished the will, she sat for a long time thinking. She knew now what she was going to do; the conflicts that had torn her apart so long were stilled at last. There remained only to do it as sensibly, as simply as she could. She walked about the apartment, thinking out her moves with the same dispassionate concern that she’d once brought to the balancing of a family budget. Everything must be done in calmness, and with discretion; each detail worked out in advance.… Insofar as she was concerned, it did not matter too greatly; but Rhoda must not suffer, and she must not be afraid; she must not even be aware of what awaited her.…

She unlocked the drawer of her desk and read parts of the sick, imploring letters she’d written her husband; she burned the letters in the fireplace; she shoveled up the ashes and flushed them down the drain. She went through her papers methodically, tearing up old letters and photographs which she’d once thought of saving for Rhoda’s amusement or instruction when the child was older, and could appreciate them; and when she’d obliterated her past as best she could, she smoked a cigarette and went to bed, her mind at peace once more. She awoke refreshed and serene, and looking into the hand mirror on her dressing-table, she was appalled at the things that had happened to her.

That morning she left the child with Mrs. Forsythe—it could hardly matter now, since the work of Bessie Denker was to be wound up so soon—and went to the beauty shop near the square. It was there, smiling vaguely to herself under the dryer, that she worked out her final plans, and fixed the day for the death of
herself and her daughter. When she came back to her apartment, there was a letter in the box from her husband; she read it over and over, knowing it would be her last contact with him. Things were shaping up nicely, he said. He hoped to be home around the middle of August. He missed his wife and child, and could hardly wait to see them again. He hoped he’d not have to leave them again for a long time. To Christine he sent his undying love.

She took his photograph, brought it to the light, and looked at it for a long time. “That’s such a
nice
thing to say!” she said in a sweet, detached voice. “It’s such a
pleasant
thing to say!” She touched his lips with her own, and then, sighing with a sort of impersonal regret, she went on with her plans.

She had known from the beginning that she could neither use physical violence on the child, nor mutilate her in any way. The sensible thing to do, then, was to give the child the sleeping pills that Mrs. Breedlove and the doctor had prescribed for her own discomfort, but which she had not taken, as though she’d always known they’d fit somehow into her emergency. But it would be difficult to get Rhoda to take the pills without suspecting her motive in tendering them, for Rhoda had the same primitive instinct for avoiding danger, the same ability to sniff out and avoid the set trap, that animals possess.

She considered and discarded several plans to get the child to take her death potion without suspicion or anxiety; and at last, to lend normal credibility to her design, she took the little girl to a doctor for an examination. The child’s appetite was not good; she’d seemed listless and pale of late; she wondered if there were anything the matter with her. The doctor examined the little girl, and later, when he was alone with Mrs. Penmark, he said her daughter was as healthy as a child could be.

On their way home, Christine said, “The doctor thinks you need vitamin tablets. We’ll stop here and get them.”

She bought the tablets in the child’s presence. Later, she took
the tablets from their container and substituted the sleeping pills. That night when Rhoda was in bed, she said, “I suppose you may as well take the tablets now. This is as good a time as any.”

But when Rhoda saw the number of tablets her mother had measured in her palm, she said, “You don’t take all those at one
time,
do you?”

“I asked the doctor that. I didn’t know, either. He said you usually took them one at a time, after meals; but your condition was a little different, and he thought it better to take them all at once.”

Rhoda said, “Let’s see the bottle, Mother.”

Mrs. Penmark gave her the bottle, and after the child had examined it, read the label, and verified the fact that the tablets in her mother’s hand were identical with those still in the bottle, she said, “Well, all right, Mother,” and took the first of the pills.

After each tablet, she took a small swallow of water; and Christine said, “These will make all the difference. They’ll solve everything for you.… Now, you must take them every one. There are only a few left, now. You must try and take them all.”

Then, when the child had swallowed the last of the sleeping tablets, Christine sat beside her. “Do you want me to read to you?” she asked.

The child nodded. She was in the middle of
The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew,
and her mother, finding the proper place, read softly. She thought the child would never sleep; she wondered how long she could keep up her manner of deceptive calmness; then, after a long time, the eyes of the child inevitably closed.

She sat beside her daughter a long time, watching the soft, placid signs of her breathing, thinking how innocent the child looked, how free of the dark, terrible instincts that were in her;
then all at once she felt these things were not true, that the things the child had done could exist only in her own imagination; but she pulled herself up sternly and said, “I’m imagining nothing. It is all true.”

She bent above her husband’s photograph, and looked at it with love and great longing. His face brought back so many memories, the knowledge of so much they’d shared together, that she feared she’d break down in tears and wild anxieties again; but she did not, and saying aloud to him, “She is not going to destroy you, as she’s destroyed me. And she’s not going to die publicly as my mother did, with millions reading of her last words, her last thoughts, her last gestures of pain, with their morning coffee. That is not going to happen. That can never happen now.” Then touching the photograph with her fingers, turning away in regret, she said in a soft, placating voice, “If you knew, I’m sure you’d forgive me in time.”

She kissed the child once on her brow. She unlocked the drawer of her desk for a final time. She stood with the pistol in her hand, inspecting it idly, as though she did not understand its purpose. And then, standing before the mirror in her bedroom, she raised the pistol and put a bullet through her brain.

Mrs. Breedlove, playing contract with her brother and two others, strangers they had just met, laid down her cards, and said for the third time, “I’m worried about Christine. You can say what you please, Emory, but there’s something wrong. I’ve called her a number of times tonight, and her phone doesn’t answer.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to answer her phone. Maybe she’s gone to the movies. Why don’t you quit worrying and let poor Christine mind her own business?”

“Christine
always
answers her phone. And she doesn’t go out any more at night alone. You know that as well as I do.… No, Emory: there’s something odd about it.”

“Who is this Christine you’re talking about?” asked Mrs. Price. “Is she a relative?”

“She’s a neighbor,” said Mrs. Breedlove. “But I’m fond of her, and of her little girl, too. She’s such a lovely woman—so gentle and simple; so completely unaffected.”

She shuffled the cards, and when she’d dealt, she said stubbornly, “If she went out, as Emory suggests, Mrs. Forsythe, who lives across the hall from her, would know. I’m going to telephone her this minute.”

Emory laughed indulgently and said, “What do you do with women like that? She’s been that way ever since I can remember.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Angeline Price. “I think she ought to call Mrs. Forsythe.” She looked at Mrs. Breedlove, and they nodded in agreement. Emory glanced at his watch and said, “It’s eleven o’clock. If you’re going to catch her before she goes to bed, you’d better hurry and do it.” But Mrs. Forsythe said she hadn’t seen Christine or Rhoda since just before suppertime. They had not gone out. Of that she was positive. But perhaps they’d just gone to bed early.

Monica said, “Will you ring her doorbell? I’ll wait here until you do.”

When Mrs. Forsythe returned, she said she’d rung the bell repeatedly. She’d also pounded on the door, and had called Christine’s name; but there had been no response at all. “Is there anything wrong?” she asked. “Do you want me to do anything?”

Mrs. Breedlove turned back to the card table; but after a little while, she threw down her hand and said, “I’m going over there and find out what’s the matter.” Turning to Emory, she added, “If you don’t want to come, you can stay where you are. But I’m worried and I’m going to find out.”

Emory said, “You know I’m not going to let you drive to town by yourself this time of night.” Then, laughing self-consciously, he added, “Let’s get started if we’re going.”

As they approached the apartment house, Johnnie Kunkel, who had to be home by twelve, was pulling up to the curb across the street, having just taken his date home. Mrs. Breedlove called him, and he joined them on the walk. They went first to the front door, and Mrs. Breedlove knocked and rang the bell. Mrs. Forsythe joined them, clutching her kimono to her throat.

Monica said, “Johnnie, do you think you can climb up to the back balcony and get in the kitchen? Break the window if it’s locked. Then go straight through the house, and unlock the door for us.”

He opened the door at length, and Monica called out in a frightened voice, “Christine! Christine! Is everything all right?”

They went first to Mrs. Penmark’s bedroom, where a light still burned, and huddled together at the door; then they backed away, turning on lights all over the apartment. Mrs. Forsythe ran to the child’s bedroom, and when the others joined her, she said, “Rhoda is still alive, but we must get help quickly.” To Johnnie Kunkel, who stood with his mouth half open, she said impatiently, “Pick up Rhoda and take her to the hospital in your car. Drive as quickly as you can. I think there’s time to save her, but we must hurry.” Then she added, “Wait! Wait! I’ll come with you!”

After the funeral, Kenneth Penmark sat in Mrs. Breedlove’s living-room. Rhoda was out of the hospital, and was staying with Mrs. Forsythe until arrangements could be made for her future. She’d said that morning at the funeral that she’d keep Rhoda as long as necessary, for this particular emergency, or forever, if Kenneth would agree. He told her his mother and sisters
were to arrive next day, and no doubt Rhoda would go back with them. But now, sitting beside Monica’s big fan, he said, pressing his nervous hands against his head, “Why did she do it? Why, in God’s name, did she do such a thing?” He turned to Monica and said, “She was closer to you than anyone. Did she say anything to you that would give you an idea why she did it? There must have been some reason.”

Mrs. Breedlove said, “I don’t know why she did it. I’ve thought of it until I’m almost prostrated. I can only say I don’t know. I’ve retraced everything she did, and everything I know. I talked to Reginald Tasker and Miss Octavia Fern, and they haven’t any idea, either.”

“There was a reason. Christine didn’t do things without a reason. I can’t understand it. I can’t—”

“I think she stumbled onto something too terrible to endure. When she was at the hotel with me, I begged her to let me cable you to come home, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said it didn’t concern you at all. She seemed to be so much better these last days. But I shouldn’t have left her alone. I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have.”

“Do you think she was insane?” asked Kenneth.

“No, I do not. I most emphatically do not.”

“Christine wasn’t crazy,” said Emory. “She was worried sick.”