Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 47, No. 4. Whole No. 269, April 1966

Jane Speed As the Wheel Turns

In her own way, Paula was a patron of the arts; and she was willing to prove it — in her own peculiar way...

Paula Thorpe drank three cups of coffee, slowly, without being interrupted by so much as a glance from her two breakfast companions. There they sat, the pair of them: Howard, her husband of six months, poring over Art Treasures of Ancient Syria; and his mother, a fat little mountain of a woman squeezed into a wheel chair, applying herself assiduously to the one pursuit which fully engaged her interest — eating.

Paula slammed her empty cup down into its saucer. Mother Thorpe lifted her head at the sound like a startled rabbit and hastily snatched the last blueberry muffin from the bun warmer. Howard merely shifted in his chair and murmured, without looking up, “Excellent breakfast, my dear.”

Paula sighed, gathered up a stack of dishes, and carried them out to the kitchen.

From earliest memory Paula had yearned for the company of artists. She had not been able to coax forth any noticeable talent of her own, so she had set her sights on what seemed the next best means of entry into the charmed circle — to be the guiding genius of some creative spirit.

And then, at a cocktail party last fall, she met Howard Thorpe. His gaunt, tousle-haired good looks and his habit of protracted, brooding silences made him appear a romantic figure of Byronic proportions. And when Paula learned that his field was art (he “earned his bread and butter” by teaching art at a small New England college) and that he was in New York to discuss the possible publication of a book he was working on, she could hardly be blamed for feeling that here indeed was the embodiment of the chance she’d been looking for.

They were married quietly in New York the day after Thanksgiving and set out immediately for his home in Vermont. Howard’s teaching schedule and his modest Assistant Professor’s salary precluded any honeymoon, but Paula didn’t mind in the least. She had embarked on this marriage willing, even eager, to starve in a garret (or the small college-town equivalent) for the sake of her very own struggling artist.

She had plunged with fanatical zeal into her new role. His mother’s welfare seemed a matter of prime importance with Howard, therefore it became so with Paula, too. Great plans were afoot for the celebration of the good lady’s sixty-fifth birthday which was to occur late in the spring, and Paula fell in with these plans enthusiastically, adding many small refinements of her own to make the occasion more festive.

And every clear day since the first real thaw she had dutifully pushed Mother Thorpe in her rickety wheel chair to the fat little woman’s favorite spot, the top of a steep rise which commanded an impressive view of the neat, stonewalled campus. Here, beneath the shade of an ancient elm, Paula, who didn’t trust the brake on the venerable contraption, carefully settled one wheel of the chair into a rut. Then she sat patiently while the old woman droned on and on until she finally talked herself into her morning nap.

Mother Thorpe was touched by Paula’s devotion and often in her rambling monologues she reiterated her regret that she couldn’t do more for her dear Howard and his dear wife. Howard’s father, she would explain vaguely, though a dear man, had been a bit of an eccentric and had tied up his sizeable fortune in a complicated trust fund which she herself didn’t altogether understand.

“But never you mind, dear,” went her favorite refrain as she patted Paula’s shoulder with her pudgy hand, “you shall have it all one day, and soon.”

But the days dragged into weeks and the weeks into months, and Paula found herself pinning her hopes increasingly on her mother-in-law’s words. For the harsh truth was, there was very little else to pin them on.

It had by this time become painfully clear that the perpetual frown which drew Howard’s brows down at his nose in such a devilishly attractive way was not a sign of the outrage of a gifted rebel but of a mildly fussy disposition; he was essentially a silent man for the simple reason that he had very little to say; and his teaching of art history at this small college was not a means to the end of being recognized in his field, but rather an end in itself. In short, Howard was not an artist, but a schoolmaster.

And the book? Paula had clung to this long after her other illusions about Howard were dashed. True, it was to be a scholarly text, hardly destined for a place on the bestseller lists. Still Paula had rather counted on being able to refer casually to “Howard’s book” when she wrote to her friends back in New York. But just yesterday had come a letter from the publisher informing Howard that another house was bringing out a work on substantially the same subject and therefore it would be inadvisable to go ahead with the tentatively proposed publication. So even that satisfaction was to be denied her.

“Well, dear,” said Howard, appearing at the kitchen door, “I’m off to the wars.” Paula offered her cheek for his husbandly peck — and waited. Without fail, he added, “Lovely day.” And then, as though a bright new thought had just occurred to him, “Why don’t you take Mother up to the hill this morning?”

But you know I take her every day, Paula opened her mouth to protest. Then she closed it. What was the use? He’d say the same thing tomorrow anyhow. She merely nodded silently and went on with the dishes.

Half an hour later she was trundling the old lady up the hill. She settled the chair into its accustomed place and flung herself down on the ground nearby. The view of the well-trimmed campus surrounded by its stone wall seemed to Paula like nothing so much as a neat, orderly trap. She paid even less attention than usual to her mother-in-law’s monotonous prattle, catching only, “You shall have it all one day, and soon.”

The familiar words made Paula ache with restless longing. If only “soon” could be right now. Money, she had always piously maintained, wasn’t important; and yet, when one had nothing else—

With enough money she could pry Howard out of his narrow little life; a year in Paris, then perhaps Rome; maybe they could finally live in Switzerland as so many people were doing. It just might make all the difference. There might still be some hidden spark to be struck in Howard if only he could be freed from the deadening influence of this dismal town and its suffocating college.

A gentle snoring from the wheel chair brought Paula rudely back to reality. Not a chance, she thought bitterly. The famous sixty-fifth birthday was only a week away, and the old woman, sleeping peacefully in the shade, looked fit for another fifteen years at least. Oh, it just wasn’t fair!

Paula yanked her sleep-numbed leg out from under her and extended it sharply. Her foot accidentally struck the wheel of the chair. She gasped as the chair, loosened from its place, rolled forward a few feet and came to a stop precariously near the beginning of the long downward slope.

For a few seconds Paula sat rigid, hardly able to breathe. And through it all, like an idiotically benign counterpoint, the snoring continued unbroken. The old woman apparently slept as wholeheartedly as she ate. Paula relaxed at last, exhausted from fear. What a close call!

And then, insidiously, a second thought crept into her consciousness. How easy it had been. Almost before she realized what was happening, Paula found herself sliding forward along the ground. She stretched her leg out cautiously, and with her foot gave the chair another shove. It moved only a few inches this time and then held, caught by a rut at the very edge.

Again Paula waited, her heart pounding. And again there was no sound except the snoring, and no movement from the woman in the wheel chair.

Paula rose silently. She seemed to have lost all sense of what it was she was trying to do and was filled only with a determination to accomplish it. She grasped the back of the chair with both hands. Gently she eased the front wheels and then the back ones over the obstructing spot. Then with a strong thrust she sent the chair forward.

It started down the grade slowly, then gained momentum. The fat little woman, squeezed in so tightly, didn’t even waken fully enough to cry out. There was scarcely any sound at all till the distant, splintering thud as the chair with its heavy passenger crashed into the solid stonewall...

It was more than three hours later when Howard finally came out of his mother’s room. Paula, sitting in the hall outside, knew by his face that the old woman was dead. The tension in which Paula had spent the intervening hours broke suddenly and she gave way to hysterical sobbing.

“Oh, dear,” murmured Howard, distressed. He came to her quickly and sat beside her. “Paula, you mustn’t... Don’t blame yourself, my dear. It was a dreadful accident, that’s all.” Then, as her sobbing continued unabated, he went on nervously. “Please, dear, try to look at it this way. These last few months have been the happiest Mother has ever known, thanks largely to you. Really, she remarked many times about your great kindness to her.”

Paula buried her face even deeper in her hands to hide the blush that flared up in her cheeks. It was several painful minutes before she could control her sobs enough to mumble, “She didn’t even get to have her birthday party.”

“That’s true,” said Howard with a sad smile. “Poor Mother. That would be her only regret, I think. She had so counted on being able to turn over Father’s money to us.”

Paula lifted her head at this and stared at Howard through a blur of tears. “What do you mean?” she asked finally.

“Why — didn’t Mother explain to you about Father’s will?”

“Not — very clearly,” Paula managed to say. Her mouth felt dry.

“Well,” Howard began, settling comfortably into his classroom manner, “although Father became quite a wealthy man in his lifetime, he always retained a strong Yankee fear of the corrupting influence of money not earned. He felt that Mother spoiled me and that if he left the money to her outright she’d turn it over to me immediately and I’d become a wastrel. And he may have been right, you know. Dear Mother, she found it very hard to deny me anything. At any rate, Father made out a will leaving the money in trust, allowing Mother only a monthly income until she should reach the age of sixty-five.”

“Sixty-five?” Paula echoed stupidly.

“I don’t know why sixty-five exactly. Perhaps he felt that by that time I’d be forty and have acquired the habit of earning my own keep.”

“But—” Paula was struggling to make sense of Howard’s words. “But how could he be sure she’d live to be sixty-five?”

“He couldn’t, of course. And,” he added with a sigh, “as it turned out, she didn’t.”

Paula closed her eyes. She could hardly bring herself to ask it. “What... what happens to the money now?”

“Oh — that.” Howard frowned in an effort to recall the exact wording. “In the event of her death before attaining the age of sixty-five,” he recited with maddening accuracy, “the money automatically goes to the college.” Here he permitted himself a dignified chuckle. “Like so many people with very little formal schooling, Father had the greatest respect for institutions of higher learning.”

Up to this point Howard had fastidiously avoided looking directly at his wife, on the charitable assumption that her initial excessive outburst had been as embarrassing to her as it was to him. As he turned to face her now, he was shocked to see the crushing effect his words had been having on her.

“Oh, my dear Paula,” he hastened to reassure her. “Surely you don’t think I mind about the money? How can I miss something I’ve never had? We lived very frugally even when Father was alive. Why, I have my work, a good wife, our little home — what more could I possibly want? You’ll see, my dear, our life will go on quite as usual. Except that poor Mother is no longer with us, nothing has changed at all.”