Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

A Bottle of Wine by Borden Deal

“When Grace and I were married,” the judge explained to his wife’s lover as they sat imbibing the fine topaz liquid, “we felt that a touch of illicitness was desirable.” This sounds very sophisticated and placid, now doesn’t it? The truth of the matter is that one of these charming characters is about to have his head blown off...

The judge sat in a chair where he could see the door entering into the hall from outside. He was waiting. His wife had phoned fifteen minutes ago and he knew that in any minute up to the next ten he would see her again. He sat stiffly, rigidly, as though he were sitting behind his bench downtown, and his mind was as frozen and hard as his face.

The Judge was a big man. His heavy frame gave majesty to his grave demeanor and his craggy, lined face forbade human approach. His hair was white, not full-white but grizzled with the crow’s-wing black it had once been. It was not whiter than it had been the day he had married the woman he was waiting for now.

The house was silent around him. It was a two-story, white clap-boarded, set back from the street in old trees. It was comfortable and worn, like the chair he was sitting in, the upholstery faded, the cloth fringing over the round of wood at the sides. It was a house that had been here in this land for a long time for it had been built and furnished by his father, the old judge.

He heard the sound of a motor. He did not move, but there was a hardening in him. His mind followed the motor to a stop beside the house, listened to the click of heels on the porch, felt the unhesitating turn of the doorknob. I knew she would come back, he thought. I knew I would see: her one more time. Just once.

The door was open, then, and she was looking at him. “Hello, Judge,” she said.

He listened to her voice carefully. It was not strained. It was not her bright, careless voice either. It was just a carrier for the noncommittal words.

“Hello, Grace,” he said, wondering how his own voice sounded. He couldn’t tell. He watched for its effect in her face but he could see none. It wore the bright, varnished look she took to bridge parties and wives’ committees, as though her features, her expression, her eyes, had been sprayed with the fixing preparation she used on her hair.

Now at last, he thought, I know for a truth that you are a bitch. I’ve suspected it almost all the years of our marriage. But now I know. And a vain one, too... she couldn’t go away forever without all the expensive clothing in the closets upstairs. Vain and practical, torturing a man for a few bright rags of shaped cloth.

“I came to get my clothes,” she said, the voice still as neutral as sunshine. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Then you’re going,” he said. “You’re really going, after all.”

She moved toward him, put a foot on the first riser of the stair. “Of course,” she said. “You’ve known. You’ve known for a week now.” She stopped, watching him. Then she went on. “I’ll get them. It won’t take me long and then...”

“Your friend,” he said. “Where is he? Waiting in a motel somewhere?”

She did not stop this time. She dropped the neutral, emotionless words down the stairs almost carelessly. “He’s waiting in the car. I needed someone to help with the luggage.”

He was alone again now. I didn’t think she’d do that, he told himself painfully. He stood up, lifting the tail of the light linen coat he wore even in the summer heat, and took the .38 pistol from his hip pocket. He looked at it thoughtfully for a moment. Then he put it back into his hip pocket and walked to the door.

When he opened it the outside heat blasted at him, slapping him in the face like a hand. Even the big trees did not stop it. He thought of the sun baking on the concrete streets downtown and felt the sweat start on his forehead in tiny beads.

He went to the end of the porch and looked at the young man sitting in the car. The man’s face turned toward him in sudden startlement and The Judge saw clinically that he was very good-looking and probably younger than Grace. He walked down the steps and leaned on the window-rim of the car, looking in.

“I’m Grace’s husband,” he said unnecessarily. “You must be Wallace.”

He studied the wariness in the young, smooth face, waited patiently until it went away, until Wallace decided there was no danger of violence or harsh words. It must have taken some doing, The Judge thought, for him to come out here in the first place.

“Come on in the house and wait,” he said. “This heat will kill you, sitting out here in the car.”

The young man hesitated, then opened the door on his side and got out. He was rangy and tanned and beside The Judge’s harsh grayness he looked very young. Grace picked well, The Judge thought ungrudgingly. I wonder if he has money, too. Yes, he must have money.

Wallace came around the front of the car toward The Judge, his eyes studying The Judge’s face. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I didn’t want to come...”

“But Grace must have someone to help with the luggage,” The Judge said gently. “You can’t expect a lady to wrestle luggage in this heat. And I’m an old man...”

He took Wallace’s arm and urged him toward the house, talking about the thick walls that insulated against the sun, how pleasant the house always was in the summertime even though it was hard to heat in winter. He mentioned how thin the walls of modern homes are now, as thin as cracker boxes, and how it takes air-conditioning to make them livable this far south.

“But they keep on building them that way,” he said thoughtfully. “Sometimes I think there’s nothing as bullheaded and grasping as the building industry. Nothing at all.”

They were in the living room now, without the young man having to talk under the casual flow of The Judge’s words, and it was cooler here. The Judge could feel the momentary sweat evaporating, aerating his shirt under the linen coat, and for a moment he chilled until his body adjusted to the changed condition.

“Sit down,” he said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

He went into the kitchen, leaving Wallace alone. He stood at the back stairs before going down into the cellar, listening, but he could hear nothing of her movements. The cellar was cool, too, and dark, and he had to grope for the light cord dangling somewhere in the middle of the space. He found it, then he went unerringly to the shelf he sought, feeling far back for the bottle in the wicker basket.

He looked at it, the tactile touch of dust and cobwebs on his hands. For ten years it had lain here, gathering dust, waiting in just the way The Judge had waited previously, upstairs. Except that this bottle could not wait long enough. Not now.

He turned out the light and groped blindly toward the steps, finding them at last with his seeking feet and then letting them lift him toward light again. He paused in the kitchen for full-bellied glasses and a corkscrew and put his shoulder against the door into the living room. He turned and let the door slide shut behind him, seeing Wallace again, still standing uncertainly in the middle of the room. Like a deer, The Judge thought, feeling the wind for danger. Young and rangy and quick to run away and very beautiful in the youngness.

“Sit down, man,” he said. He smiled. “I know Grace. It’ll be a while before she’s ready to use you.” He motioned with the bottle. “I thought we’d have a little sherry while we waited.”

The young man did not move but The Judge ignored him while his old, wrinkled hands deftly set and twisted the corkscrew, lifting the rotten cork with one easy movement as he grasped the bottle between his knees.

He eased into his comfortable leather chair and looked up to see that the young man had not yet relaxed. “Wallace,” he said. “This is a small town. I’ve lived here all my life, and my father and grandfather before me. I’ve been a lawyer here, and a judge. I’ve been The Judge for a long time.” He stopped, looking down at the sherry bottle for a moment.

“I know this town,” he said thoughtfully. “I know the South. I could shoot you and get off scotfree. You made yourself fair game the first time you put your arms around my wife. You may not have known that, since you’re not local. But you couldn’t find twelve men among our ten thousand who’d convict a husband for shooting his wife’s lover. That’s not the law, you understand — that’s just the way it is.”

Wallace did not move, but The Judge could feel the tightening against danger in him. He was afraid now, very afraid. I’m a terrifying old man, he thought with a touch of sadness. I never knew I’d live to a terrifying old age.

“For a long time I believed I would kill you,” he said. “If I ever laid eyes on you for one instant. I love my wife. I’m an old man with a young wife and I love her with the foolishness that the young never know. They know delirium, they know passion, they know desire. But they never know the wondrous foolishness of an old man in love for the first time.” He shook his head. “No, the young never know. They never understand.”

He lifted his head. “So I was sure I’d shoot you.” He stopped, brooding for a moment. He sighed, as though the remembering were a burden, too. “But I’m a law man, a lawyer and a judge. I’ve never believed in violence, seeing how it breeds hate and more violence, judging the results of violence every day in my court.”

He leaned and carefully lifted the old bottle with both hands. He tilted it and poured lightly into his own glass, just a splash to give himself the floating bits of cork, then poured the young man’s glass full. He finished filling his own.

“Sit down,” he said mildly. “This is very good wine. You’ll never taste the like again.”

Wallace moved then, jerkily as a marionette, and sat. He lifted the glass and The Judge knew he wanted to gulp courage and assurance from the glass. He filled his mouth and then he stopped, tasting the old smooth richness of the wine, and a look of surprise crossed his face.

“Yes,” The Judge said. “It is good. It’s very old. We were saving it for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.”

Wallace stopped in the act of lifting the glass to his lips again. There was shock on his face.

“Go ahead,” The Judge said. “Drink it.” His lips twisted. “There’ll be no better time than now.”

He leaned back in his chair, cradling the full-bellied coldness of the glass in both his palms. He swirled the liquid thoughtfully, looking down into the hypnotic topaz swirl.

“When Grace and I were married,” he said. “We went to France for our honeymoon. It was... one of her conditions. She had never traveled, and she wanted to. We crossed over into Spain, and when we returned, we brought this bottle of rare old amontillado with us. Grace smuggled it through customs with the bottle taped to her body. We felt that a touch of illicitness was necessary and desirable. We planned to open it on our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. We have saved it until now. Saved it for ten years.”

Wallace lifted his glass again. He gulped this time, then he involuntarily sipped, tasting the autumn smoothness of the wine savoring the last few drops in his glass.

The Judge leaned to pour again. “Drink it slowly,” he said. “It deserves to be appreciated. I have waited ten years to taste our illicit wine, and expected to wait for fifteen more. But it is right that we should drink it now, waiting for Grace. Don’t you feel that it’s right?”

“Sir,” Wallace said. “I shouldn’t have come. I know that, now and I’m...”

The Judge moved a hand. “I’m glad you did, Wally. I needed someone to talk to... and who better than the man she loves now? Who in the wide South would listen with more attention? And talk is a necessity of age... for talk is all that is left.”

He stopped again, and there was silence in the room. He looked at the bottle and it was half-empty. Half-gone. The wine was bright and warm in him and he felt comfortable, sitting in his accustomed leather chair. There was still silence upstairs. It would take her a long time to pack with care, he thought. And Grace would pack that way — efficient as she was. We have time for a bottle of wine, he thought. Plenty of time.

“I was fifty years old when I met Grace,” he said. “And, incredibly enough, I had never been in love, I don’t know why. I had dated and danced and even kissed, though that was not as prevalent in my time as now. But — I had never loved.”

He stopped, frowning into his glass. He looked at Wallace, saw his glass was still supplied, and went on. His voice rolled soft and slow in the still, cool air, Wallace sitting forward in his chair listening, and The Judge knew that he was no longer afraid.

“Grace was my secretary,” he said. She was young and very efficient and as beautiful as dawn and old brandy. I didn’t know her folks, for she was new-people in town. But within a week I had fallen in love with her. Before Grace I would have said that such a thing was impossible.

“But Grace was very smart, as well as beautiful. She knew the usual relationship between a confirmed old bachelor and his secretary. She wasn’t having any of that.” He paused, adding the new words carefully. “I didn’t know at the time that she was sleeping with a young clerk who worked down the hall. Of course, even if I had known, I don’t think it would have mattered to me then.”

He saw the shock in Wallace’s face, saw him start to rise. “I don’t want to listen to...” Wallace said stiffly.

He waved him down. “She’s not like that any more,” The Judge said. “She’s changed and learned in ten years. God, how she’s changed and learned. And she was never a slut.”

There was silence again while he thought, remembered. Wallace sat back in his chair now, his momentary anger quelled, waiting for The Judge to continue. The Judge drank thoughtfully, tastefully, from his glass of old wine.

“It was pretty bad for me,” he said. “I loved her. I lusted after her. I was old and incredible and crazy. I wanted her any way I could take her. And she was bright and efficient in fending me off. I groveled, almost, in her tracks for one willing smile from her lips. I gave her raises in pay and paid vacations.” He paused, sighing. “It went on for a year that way. A full year — an interminably long time, to me.”

He took the bottle again and lifted it to the light and watched the amber liquid sparkle. Then he poured the glasses full again and listened up the stairs. This time he heard a thump and a rustle.

“It won’t be too long now,” he said. “Before she’s ready. You see, she knew what she wanted. Marriage. To me... fifty years old. But there was money, not much money but enough, and the good name. She was new in town, and I never knew where her family came from. She’ll never tell you. I doubt if she even knows herself any longer. Women can forget at will things like origins and birthdays.

“Age? It didn’t matter. I doubt if she ever saw me as a man, with passion in my body. I was The Judge, I was Carter, I was Cartersville. She loved me, not for me but for the freedom from her past. And I loved her though she had no pity for my love.”

He frowned. “I didn’t know this then, understand. I learned it slowly and painfully over the years and she will still deny every word of it. I won’t tell you how we agreed to marry... it was an afternoon in my office that I still don’t like to remember and certainly not discuss. She waited a full year, moving her womanness before me every day, and then she ruthlessly closed her bargain.”

He saw Wallace watching him. “You find it hard to believe, don’t you?”

The young man’s voice was uncertain. “It’s different...”

“Yes,” The Judge cut in. “She is different now. She was desperate then, you understand. She was twenty-five, and that clerk is still a clerk. She knew then he would always be a clerk. She’s not desperate any more. She hasn’t been desperate for a long time.”

“But you had ten years,” Wallace said, his voice brave in the silence. “You think of her now with bitterness and anger but you had ten years.”

“Bitterness?” The Judge said. He smiled. “Anger? She made her bargain and she fulfilled it. She was mine, all mine and all the time, and I did not share her with anybody, not for years. She gave me the love my old heart and body wanted, in full measure and running over. She even gave me a son...”

Wallace moved in surprise. It was apparent that this fact was something Grace hadn’t told him.

“You didn’t know she had a son? Yes. His name is Bobby. He’s away in school now. I wanted a son and we had one, though she insisted on a Caesarean. Just one. And now I am sixty, and she is going away.”

“I do love her,” Wallace said. “You may not be able to understand it or believe it, but I love her like I—”

“Of course,” The Judge said. “Grace is all woman, and she can use all of it. I knew that you loved her. And you’re not the first.” He stopped again and looked at the bottle. This time Wallace handed him his glass without waiting for invitation.

“There’s just enough for one more,” The Judge said. “She should be through by then. Drink it slowly, for there’s no other wine like this. No other wine at all.”

He poured gracefully, ceremoniously, his dark, craggy face stooped over the glasses. They were both leaning forward watching the topaz richness flow in a live stream, then pool into beauty again in the glasses.

The Judge sat back and lifted his glass. “She began to drift about two years ago,” he said. “I was fifty-eight then. I saw it coming and there was no way of stopping it. I knew it would come to this when she found the right one. I have been waiting for you, Wally.” He looked at him over the rim of his glass. “I wonder what it is you have that she wants, Wally. I wonder.”

Wallace was watching him, holding his glass still. His handsome face was as still as his hands, watching the old Judge, not knowing exactly what to say. And so he said nothing, waiting for The Judge to go on.

“And I believe I know,” The Judge said. He laughed, a startling sound in the hushed, cool room. “It’s youth, Wally. She wants the youngness of you, just as I wanted her youngness a long time ago. How old are you, Wally? She’s thirty-five.”

Wally moved. The Judge knew his words had touched him, stirred him. “I love her, sir. You know that. I love her. Whatever I’ve got, I’ll give her. Youth or money or...”

“Yes,” The Judge said softly. “Yes, I know you do. I know you will.”

Wally straightened his young body. “I’m glad I came now,” he said. “I’m glad I talked to you. I was afraid. Any man would be, in a situation like this. Not physically, but of a scene. Now that I’ve seen your reasonableness, your intelligent approach...”

The Judge listened critically to the young, fumbling words. The fast-drunk wine was strong in Wallace. The Judge did not feel it at all. “You don’t have to say it,” he said. “I know what you mean. You’re trying to say that we needed to drink a bottle of old wine between us.” He lifted his glass and swallowed. “Drink up. There’s just a taste of it left. Just a taste of illicit wine, after ten years.”

Wallace lifted the glass and drank. While he did it, The Judge shifted his weight off the 38 in his hip pocket. He shot Wallace in the head as he put his glass down, empty. There was a momentary surprise on Wallace’s face at the impact of the bullet, a shocked surprise as he looked at The Judge, and saw, and slumped forward on the old, worn rug between the two friendly chairs.

The Judge was surprised, too. He hadn’t believed he was going to do it until the last moment, until he saw the last drop of old wine disappear down the young man’s throat.

The single shot echoed wildly, reverberatingly, in the old house. The sound filled the house like the cry of a baby, and he knew that Grace had heard. He rose and picked up the wine bottle in his left hand, still holding the gun with the other.

He moved toward the stairs, hearing the sudden hysterical flurry of her footsteps in the hall. He looked up into her downward-peering face, white and stricken. Even in the dimness of the stairwell he could see the harsh stricken lines there. Yes, he thought. Now you’re thirty-five.

“Judge!” she said, her voice almost a scream. The polish was gone now, the hard sleekness in which she wrapped herself. “Judge! What did you do!”

“Grace,” he said. “We killed the bottle of old wine we were saving. We killed it between us.”

He dropped the warm pistol, then, from his right hand. It thudded on the floor. He watched her eyes for a moment. Then he turned away toward the telephone in the hall.

As he made the call, he still held the bottle in his other hand. It was empty now, and ordinary; just old glass, without the magic of old wine within it.