Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 25, No. 7, July, 1980

The Maiden Aunt by Patricia L. Schulze

Belle was the last of a vanishing breed...

I have never heard the organ in church rolling out that one special march just for me. Never held a child of my own close to my breast in the still hours of the night and calmed its fretful cries with gentle croons. Never suffered the joys, fears, and sorrows of being a wife or of motherhood. I have devoted my life to serving others and been much too busy for such selfish things.

For a few short years I served by teaching school, but long before either parents or school board discovered my inadequacy I gave up the toil of trying to implant knowledge in unreceptive, unwilling young minds and took myself back to the home of my parents.

It was there, in the midst of my loving family, that I drifted into what was to become my lifelong profession.

I was born early in my parents’ marriage and had lived my childhood as an only child, a situation I found no great hardship — indeed, it was much to my liking. Then, shortly before my sixteenth birthday, my parents unthinkingly discovered some untapped fount of fertility and I was avalanched by six siblings in six years. It was perhaps to escape the noise and chaos of a house full of infants that I conceived my short-lived teaching career.

When I returned to my family at the age of twenty-six, the youngest, my brother George, was already five and the rest of the children were in school. For many years I helped out at home, my mother being a little overwhelmed by her enlarged family and, perhaps for the first time, grateful for my physical attributes. I had a face so plain as to be called homely by the unkind and a more-than-slight tendency toward plumpness, which guaranteed that I would not be tempted from her side by ardent suitors.

I found my real role in life when my sister Julie was married. Completely bemused by the miracle of newfound love, Julie was clearly not up to planning the kind of wedding the town would expect for a Whitlow daughter, and Momma was equally flustered by what seemed to her an insurmountable task. Quickly and efficiently I took matters into my own hands.

The wedding was a complete success and firmly established my reputation as an organizer. When my brother Harold took it in mind to take a wife, to whom should the family of the bride turn to smooth out the rough spots but his dear sister Belle?

It was Julie, again, who established me in my new life and gave a name to my profession. She was soon in what she liked to call “an interesting condition” and in short order was delivered of an eight-pound, fourteen-ounce baby boy, which act so depleted her delicate strength that it was only natural that Aunt Belle should move in for the first weeks of adjustment to care for both mother and child.

A few more weddings, a few more births, the unfortunate death of my youngest sister Claire and the resulting funeral which I handled with near perfection, and I was well launched as the family’s maiden aunt.

I continued living in my parents’ home, though I wasn’t often there. Even with Claire’s death I had three brothers and two sisters remaining, and the seemingly endless arrival of young nephews and nieces called for frequent absences.

My joy in this riot of fecundity was marred but once, and then only briefly, by the passing away of Momma and Papa within a few weeks of each other. I was cheered up when the will was read and I learned that my dear parents had left me the old family home and enough money to run it comfortably. My brothers and sisters were completely satisfied with the arrangement. It was now accepted that I would probably never marry, and they didn’t really want me to live with any of them on a permanent basis.

The only problem with being a maiden aunt is that at some point in one’s career one reaches a hiatus — a brief period when no demands are being made. As we all grew older, the members of my family finally outgrew the need to reproduce themselves with such frequency, and the next generation was a few years removed from weddings as yet. In fact, for a long time the only duty I performed was a funeral for the oldest son of my middle brother, Jack. The poor boy misjudged the grade of a curve he was rounding on a stolen motorcycle at one o’clock in the morning.

But for several years my services were not much needed, and as they grew greyer and began to fear old age, my brothers and sisters began to discuss with some concern who should be responsible for me when I was no longer able to care for myself.

My parents had left a few investments which assured me of a small income — enough, provided I could always care for myself — but my younger siblings seemed to think they detected signs of approaching weakness. In truth, they had nothing to fear. I had made provision for the future many years before, but for reasons of my own I chose not to enlighten them. I rather enjoyed the consternation they tried to hide around me, the suddenly hushed conversations when I entered the room. I delighted in imagining the frantic discussions between husbands and wives late at night. Who would get stuck with Aunt Belle?

Actually, I was in better health than any of them and perfectly content to sit out the lull and wait for the next generation to grow to the age of weddings and birthings...

If I have one complaint with young people today it is that they have no regard for tradition. There I sat, surrounded by nieces and nephews, waiting for them to call on my services. But do you think one of them called?

Those who married did so in forest glades, at the bottom of the ocean, or on horseback. The rest preferred more casual living arrangements which needed no helping hand of a maiden aunt. As for the babies born of these unorthodox unions, they seemed to be born one day and traipsing across mountains or through Europe in backpacks the next. Not one of my nieces had the decency to have a delicate delivery or an extended recovery.

I finally realized that what I had considered a predictable and temporary lull in my working life had become permanent. I had only two choices — to sit around and try to outlive my brothers and sisters so that I would be needed to arrange funerals, or to put my retirement plan into action.

I chose the latter.

When I was a young child, long before the days of brothers and sisters, I had a maiden aunt, one of my father’s older sisters. I still remember the softness of her voice, the coolness of her touch when she nursed me through my childhood bout of chicken pox. She was a fixed point in my childhood, someone who would always be there. Then one day she wasn’t, and no explanations were ever given. Through the years my memory of her faded until the time when I followed in her footsteps, so to speak. Then the memory returned and I asked my father what had happened to her.

It seems she too had reached that hiatus, but rather than ride out this quiet time she decided to fill in the gap. It was after the unexpected and unexplained deaths of my father’s two younger sisters that the family decided Aunt Sadie must be quickly and quietly put away, both for her own good and their own safety.

The memory was painful for my father, and it was with the greatest reluctance he’d admitted that Aunt Sadie was still alive and gave me the address of the institution that was now her home.

I thought it my duty to pay her a family visit. That visit was an important event in my life and many more followed. Aunt Sadie herself was the sprightly little woman I had remembered, and I soon fell in love with Sunnyvale, her new home.

It was warm and homey, the inmates living in small cottages rather than the sterile institutional buildings I had expected. The grounds were extensive and well cared for. The staff was admirable in their attention to and attitude toward the inhabitants. Because this was a home for the hopelessly insane, no annoying interrupting attempts were made at therapy or cure.

The cost of all this comfort was so modest that my small income would cover it nicely. I decided it was the ideal place for me in my retirement. The only problem was that in order to be committed to a home for the hopelessly insane one needs to be hopelessly insane, but I knew I could take care of that detail when the time came.

Now, it seemed, was that time.

To carry out my plan I needed a confederate. I had chosen my youngest brother, George, for this role. George had always seemed more intelligent than the others, and he most closely resembled my father in delicacy of family feeling. A few hints, once I had put my plan into action, a subtle mention of Sunnyvale, and he would see to my quiet and dignified commitment.

I chose my brother Harold for my first victim. (Jack’s wife still needed him, having never completely recovered from the death of their son.) Harold was a weekly visitor, more for the attraction of my liquor cabinet than for any interest in my conversation. His wife kept all spirits under lock and key at home. Also, Harold had a heart condition, and a maiden aunt picks up a certain amount of medical knowledge through the years. Once he’d passed out in my living room it was no problem at all giving him the injection that sped him out of this life. Our family doctor wrote out the death certificate without a blink.

My sister Julie was the next most expendable. I waited only two weeks before I lured her to the house on the pretext of trying out a new dessert. She spent most of her waking hours eating chocolates and watching soap operas and game shows. I wasn’t even sure her husband would notice she was gone. I chose a quick push down the stairs for her and the death was recorded as accidental — indeed, in view of her massive girth, almost inevitable.

At Julie’s funeral I drew George aside and dropped a hint.

“I feel so guilty about this. I feel I’m responsible for poor Julie and Harold.”

“Nonsense,” George snorted. “Why should you feel responsible?”

“Well, after all, they were both at my house when they died.”

I went home and waited in vain for George to become suspicious. I had just decided that he was not as intelligent as I had thought and had selected Jack as my next victim — his wife would just have to learn to get along without him — when George called, pleading an urgent need to talk to me.

When I opened the door I noticed at once that George looked years older, very grey, and drawn at the mouth.

“I had to talk to you, Belle,” he said. “No one knows I’m here; I haven’t even told Beatrice yet. I don’t want to upset her.”

I had to stifle a laugh. George’s wife, Beatrice, was about as flappable as a sheet of solid steel, but maybe the knowledge that her sister-in-law was a mass murderer would disturb even her equanimity.

I showed George in and poured him a glass of wine, the Concord grape that I kept as fitting to the image of a maiden aunt. He drained it at one gulp.

“I want to talk to you about Harold and Julie,” he said when I had refilled his glass and we were settled comfortably before the fireplace. “Their deaths have started me thinking.”

“I know what you’re thinking, George, and I’ll spare you the distaste of saying it. You’re right. I did it.”

He looked startled and leaned forward in his chair.

“Did what, Belle?”

“I killed them.” The look on his face made me pause. “Isn’t that what you thought? Why you wanted to talk to me?”

“Not at all,” he sputtered, searching for words. “Now, Belle, I know what you’re feeling. We were all shocked by their deaths. It brings it home to all of us that we aren’t getting any younger. We all feel a little guilty too, but that’s only natural, not because we think we’re responsible but because we can’t help feeling a little twinge of relief that it was them and not us. But you mustn’t start blaming yourself.”

God save me from amateur psychologists. George was smarter than the rest, but as the poet said, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” I saw I was going to have to spell it out for him. I told him in brutal detail how I had pushed Julie down the stairs and how I had helped Harold to his end.

“Jack was to be the next one,” I said. “Just a little arsenic — the kind you can find lying around any house — in his wine.” I gave a significant nod at the empty wine glass in George’s hand.

George dropped the wine glass and staggered to his feet, his face even greyer, his lips turning blue. He clutched wildly at his chest.

“Take it easy, George — there was nothing in your wine,” I said. “I wouldn’t do anything to you. I need your help!”

Gurgling, George staggered across the room, tripped over the coffee table, and hit his head a nasty crack on the fireplace as he fell.

I rushed over to him just in time to hear him say, “Not poison. Heart.” I felt around for a pulse, listened for a heartbeat, but George was gone forever.

So it was not suspicion that had caused the change in him but worry about his heart. That was what he had wanted to tell me, and I had got him excited enough to bring on the attack he feared.

I was devastated by this abrupt end to my well laid plans, but I managed to pull myself together. I couldn’t leave him lying there. And someone would have to tell Beatrice.

I had actually reached for the phone before my good sense returned and I realized George might still be put to some use.

The room was already in a mess, thanks to George’s dying struggle. I just added a few more touches and it was ready. I took the poker from the fireplace and used it to enlarge the wound on his head, getting plenty of blood on one end and my fingerprints on the other. Then I called the police and turned myself in.

In the normal course of things, if three sudden and suspicious, not to mention violent, deaths occur in a short time in the same place, with only one other person present each time, and that person confesses to all three murders, the police arrest that person for murder. Then a smart lawyer pleads his client innocent for reasons of insanity, the judge and jury agree, and the guilty person is committed to, if not Sunnyvale itself, someplace quite like it. At least, so I thought.

Unfortunately, the County Coroner also happened to be our family doctor. He had already signed the first two death certificates, was fully aware of George’s heart condition, and quickly ruled out the head injury as the cause of death. The Chief of Detectives was a college graduate who had at sometime in his life wandered into a psychology class and thought he had learned something. My confession was brushed aside as the illogic of overwhelming grief; I was sedated and handed over to the care of my family.

That meant Beatrice. Beatrice, whom George had been so anxious to protect. She came through as I could have predicted and handled both the funeral arrangements and the plans for my future with no-nonsense efficiency.

Their oldest daughter, Serena, had come home for her father’s funeral. Beatrice chose her as the ideal person to move into my house and care for me until I came to my “senses.” After a brief stint in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan and two years of tramping the Apennines with her latest boy friend, Serena declared herself through with public service and men forever and only too happy to take over my care. In fact, she vowed, it was just the role she would have chosen and she intended to pattern her life after mine.

And here she has been ever since. I’m not sure how it will all work out. Serena is very easy to live with and seems to enjoy being helpful, but she’s really quite pretty. In time she may lose some of her disgust for men.

I’ll just have to see. If in a few years she still seems sincere in pursuing this career, I’ll have to tell her about Aunt Sadie and Sunnyvale. Some of the children of my nieces and nephews are growing up and, looking them over, I can see it’s possible that Serena and I are the last of a vanishing breed.