Do Evil In Return

19

Nine o’clock. An offshore wind was blowing and the palm trees cringed and leaned away from it, waving their frantic arms.

The Ballard house couldn’t be seen from the street. It appeared suddenly, at a curve in the cypress-lined walk, a handsome house of oiled redwood set in a formal garden. Charlotte had always disliked this garden. The flower beds were too meticulously planned; they seemed to have no connection with nature any more. They were Gwen’s and not the earth’s. The lawn, too, was so immaculate that it was impossible to imagine real people walking on it.

And real people never did, Charlotte thought. The lawn wasn’t to be walked on, but to be admired from the dining alcove or from the picture window in the living room. Even the collies, whom Gwen loved best, were not allowed on the grass. They had their own yard behind the house, fenced runways and miniature houses and a brooder for the bitches with new pups.

A light was kept on for them all night. Charlotte could see several of the dogs watching her cautiously through the wire fencing, their tails half raised, as if they weren’t sure yet that she was a friend.

She spoke to them softly and one of the tails began to wag, slowly, with dignity, like a feathered fan waved by a condescending duchess.

The other dogs, Gwen’s three favorites, were upstairs with her in her bedroom. They lay beside her bed, a protective phalanx. Gwen had told them to lie down and they had obeyed; but their eyes were restless, they followed Charlotte’s every move, they searched Gwen’s face for reassurance, and now and then the big sable-colored male let out a whimper like a child.

“Doctor... doctor, I can’t breathe.”

“You’re trying too hard. Relax.”

“I will. I’ll relax. I won’t — choke?”

“No. The attack’s nearly over. See for yourself. Put your fingers here on your wrist. There, feel your pulse?”

“I guess so.”

“It’s not much faster than mine.”

“It isn’t?”

“Of course not.”

Gwen’s breathing had steadied as soon as her attention was no longer focused on the necessity of breathing. Charlotte often encountered the same reaction in children who were afraid to go to sleep because they might stop breathing.

Gwen’s head sank back among the lace-trimmed pillows. Charlotte saw, then, the bruise on the side of her neck, a recent bruise, still blue, about the size of a thumbnail.

Gwen saw her staring at the bruise, and she touched it with her finger, gently. “He tried to kill me. He said he would, some day, and now he’s tried. But he got frightened, perhaps the dogs frightened him with their growling. He let go of me suddenly and went up to his room and I haven’t seen him since. It was the night before last, just about this time.”

“The bruise isn’t serious,” She thought, not as serious as the bullet holes in Eddie’s forehead, the acrid choking water that Violet had swallowed in her fight for air. No, the bruise wasn’t serious, but the intent behind it was. She remembered what Lewis had said the last time she’d seen him: “I haven’t been drinking. Or at least only enough for medicinal purposes, to keep me from strangling my wife.” She wanted to say something to reassure both herself and Gwen, but all she could think of was, “People do odd things in moments of anger.”

“He wasn’t angry. I did nothing to make him angry. He came home that night, and I said, ‘Hello darling, where have you been?’ And he said, ‘In hell, I’ve been in hell.’ I was so surprised. Lewis always tells me where he’s been.”

No, he doesn’t, you fool, you pathetic fool. You make me hate myself, hate Lewis, hate life itself.

Gwen said softly, “You know my husband.”

“Yes.”

“You know him as he appears to you, but you can’t know him as he is. He’s a cruel man. He has no feelings. Other people are stones to him; he can pick them up or toss them aside or kick them around. He never thinks they’re human and can feel pain and despair just as he can.”

He’s not like that, Charlotte wanted to protest. He’s a good man, but he’s been warped by your narrowness, soured by your eternal sweetness. Don’t blame Lewis, or yourself either. It’s nobody’s fault. Fate tricked you both, and me, and even Easter. A four-ply trickery.

Gwen’s tiny mouth was twisted in perplexity. “It’s such a funny kind of cruelty he has. The more I do to please him, the more he despises me. He looks at me across the table at dinner and my heart turns cold. I try to be bright and amusing the way wives are supposed to. I even read a book about little stories to tell and interesting facts and things like that. But”... One slender arm rose and fell, in a gesture of futility. “The funny things I say aren’t funny, and the stupid things sound so much stupider when he’s watching me like that — as if I were a worm he’d like to crush under his heel.”

“You’ve never told me any of this before.”

“I have my pride,” Gwen said stiffly, “my reputation.”

“Of course.”

“No one will ever take that away from me, though Lewis tries.” She fussed with the pillows; they were tiny, scaled to her size, like everything else in the room. A little girl’s room, Charlotte thought, looking at the teddy bear propped on the chifforobe, the smiling French doll sitting at the window. The years were passing, but the little girl was afraid to grow up. Here, in her own room, she was immune to time. Though she no longer played with the teddy bear, it was there ready to be picked up, its soft furry body a comfort, a symbol of security and innocence. But the little girl was ageing, and with age came fear. Fear of the dark, fear of stopping breathing; other nameless fears that her heart knew — and it beat in futile frenzy like the heart of a frightened bird.

“I know you don’t believe that Lewis tried to kill me,” Gwen said. “But he did, and I know why. He has another woman. Why, you look surprised, Dr. Keating, almost as surprised as I was when I found out. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. It happens in the best of families. The husband gets tired of the wife and takes up with anyone he can find, a waitress or a shop girl or any kind of cheap slut with no more morals than a cat.”

Charlotte’s face was like stone.

“Do I sound bitter, Dr. Keating? Well, I am. It’s terrible, it’s a terrible thing knowing about this woman, yet not knowing who she is so I could go and talk to her, make her realize.”

“Realize what?”

Gwen blinked. “What? Well, that she’s breaking up a home, a marriage.”

She’s not, I’m not, breaking up anything, Charlotte thought. The home belongs to you and the dogs, and the marriage was broken long before you introduced me to Lewis, here in this very house. Nor am I a slut. I’m a respectable woman; I work hard, and when I’m lucky I even do some good.

“I think that’s where he is now,” Gwen said. “With her. I didn’t tell the police that when I called this morning. I was ashamed to. I just told them that my husband was missing. Then, late this afternoon, a policeman came here to the house. He said he wanted to look around, to see if he could find any evidence of where Lewis might have gone. He had an unusual name — Easter. Do you know anything about police work, Dr. Keating?”

“Very little.”

“I just wondered. It seemed to me that this policeman behaved very oddly. He went up to Lewis study and I heard him typing. Isn’t that odd? Why would he want to use Lewis’ typewriter?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte said. But he had a reason, he always has a reason.

“Then when he came downstairs again he asked me all kinds of funny questions.”

“Funny?”

“I thought they were. He asked about any trips that Lewis and I have taken since Christmas. Well, of course, I don’t take trips. There’s my heart, for one thing, and for another, I love my little home. I’m happy here. I don’t need the excitement that Lewis seems to crave... I told the policeman that. He said he wanted to know about the little trips and holidays that Lewis took because Lewis might have gone to one of the same places again. People repeat themselves, he said.” She twisted a strand of her fair hair with thin, nervous fingers. “I didn’t tell him that Lewis choked me. I have my pride.”

There was a long silence. Charlotte thought of Easter, prowling around Lewis’ study, his eyes sharpened by hate... Easter, waiting for her at home, perhaps wandering out to the kitchen and from there seeing the light in the garage.

“If I knew where he is,” Gwen said, “I could sleep, I could stop worrying like this. But he’s been acting so strange nearly all week. The last dinner we had together two nights ago he hardly spoke at all. I was trying to make conversation so that Mrs. Peters wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong — she’s the cook and she loves to gossip. Well, I’d just read in the paper about that girl who drowned herself and I mentioned it to Lewis because I thought he’d be interested, but he told me to shut up, right in front of Mrs. Peters... That was a terrible thing, about the girl.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder, did she — suffer?”

“She must have.”

“But it was quick, wasn’t it? Of course. It must have been. Very quick. Oh, I hate to see things suffer. I could never be a doctor, like you. But I guess doctors get used to seeing suffering and death.”

“In a sense.”

“I never could. I’m too sensitive.” Her lower lip began to tremble. “At least the girl is dead. She’s out of things now. She has no more troubles. Oh, I’m so tired. So awfully tired.”

“I’ll give you a sleeping capsule.”

Gwen’s eyes widened in quick panic. “No. No, I won’t take anything. I must be alert, in case he comes back, in case he tries...”

“There’s little danger of that. But I could call Mrs. Peters and ask her to stay with you for tonight.”

“No. She has her own family, her own worries. Doctor — Dr. Keating, what would you do if you were in my place?”

“I don’t know. Go to a hotel, perhaps.”

“But the dogs. There’s no one to look after them.”

“I can’t advise you anyway,” Charlotte said slowly. “Personal problems can’t always be worked out by objective reasoning. What I would do might be the opposite of what would be good for you to do.”

“That’s right, isn’t it? My, you’re so sensible and intelligent! I wish you knew my husband better. He likes intelligent women, maybe because I’m so stupid.” One corner of her mouth curved in a sad little smile. “I wish I had everything under control in my private life, the way you must have. I bet you have no problems at all.”

For Charlotte, it was the final irony. She looked at the French doll on the window seat. Its painted smile was knowing.