What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

by Henry Farrell

  Edwin waved a hand. “Sure,” he said grandly. “You can tell me anything you want—any time you want. You don’t have to hold back; just get it off your chest.”

  Jane’s eyes searched his face. “You promise?”

  “Promise?”

  “Not to—to stop being my friend?”

  “Yes, sure, I promise.”

  Jane Hudson spread her hands in a gesture of finality upon the table, and when she looked up at him her eyes seemed to hold an expression of absolute sobriety. In preparation for what she was about to say, she moistened her lips nervously with her tongue. And then, in that moment, it came. The crash. A calamitous, smashing sound almost directly above them. Edwin, startled, leaped to his feet, knocking his chair over behind him. For a moment he stared at the ceiling, then looked down into Jane’s pale, upturned face.

  “Holy smoke!” he said, “what was that?”

  15

  Jane shook her head, seemingly without comprehension.

  “What happened?” Edwin swung loosely around toward the hallway. “Who’s up there?”

  “No one! Edwin!…”

  In an instant she was there beside him, holding tightly to his arm. He looked down into her ashen face, felt a tremor pass through her body. Some very urgent and terrible communication seemed to pass between them. What was it she had been about to tell him just before the crash? Had she been on the verge of some sort of confession? Turning away to the darkened hallway, he pulled free of her.

  “I’m going up and have a look.”

  “No!” After a moment’s hesitation, she followed quickly after him. “No! Edwin… it’s nothing!”

  He moved on through the hallway, lumbering through the darkness to the living room and across to the bottom of the stairs, his footsteps made heavy with the drink. Jane hurled herself after him, catching again at his sleeve.

  “Edwin—listen!”

  Goaded on rather than deterred by her objections, he grasped the handrail and pulled himself forward. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and waited for her to come up beside him.

  “Edwin…”

  “Turn on the lights.”

  “Edwin, please, listen to me.…”

  “Turn them on,” Edwin said with a rough authority born largely of the liquor. “Turn them on, dammit!”

  She moved away from him then, obediently, and there was the click of a switch. The flame-shaped bulbs in the wrought-iron brackets, twins to those in the rehearsal room, came alight with a dusty orange glow. Along the wall the paintings shone with a wettish, oily sheen. Jane Hudson turned back to him, and in the pall her face looked yellow and sickly.

  “Go back down,” she pleaded. “Please… let me tell you first…”

  He turned to her threateningly, enjoying her reaction of fright. “What’s going on around here?” he said. Following the direction of her glance, he moved toward the entrance to the hallway.

  “Edwin!”

  There was such urgency in her cry that he stopped, and with a faint feeling of dismay, looked back at her. For a moment their eyes met and held, and then Jane shook her head in mute desperation. In that moment Edwin wished that he had not come here, that he had not insisted on climbing the stairs. And then the words came spilling from her mouth, in a tide that would not be stopped.

  “She was going to put me out—out of the house—out alone…” She had begun to sob, as if telling him of some terrible grief. “I—I didn’t know what to do. She hates me! She thinks I don’t know, but I do. She always did hate me—even when we were little—when we were children. All these years——” She stopped suddenly, staring at him, blinking back her tears. “Edwin?——”

  Edwin nodded back toward the hallway. “Your sister?”

  For a moment longer she continued to stare and then, defeated, she nodded. “Yes. Blanche—She’s in there.… But it’s all right——”

  “In there?” Compelled now, even against his will to play out this moment to its end, Edwin moved off into the dimness, in the direction of the closed door.

  “But it’s all right now,” Jane said. “You don’t understand…”

  Edwin reached out to the door, tried it. “It’s locked,” he said. He turned to her, looked down into her frightened face. “You’ve locked her in, haven’t you?”

  Jane nodded. “You said you’d be my friend.… You promised.…”

  Abruptly, Edwin held out his hand. “Where’s the key?”

  Jane took a faltering step backward. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No!…”

  Edwin stared at her, thinking how much she looked like Del there in the dimness, with that expression of hurt bewilderment on her silly, old face. In a red burst of sick anger he suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and began to shake her. “Give it to me!” he yelled. “Give it to me!” As in a nightmare he watched her head bobbing there before him, heard the choking gasp of her voice.

  “Edwin—don’t!”

  He let go of her and again held out his hand. “Give it to me!”

  Jane nodded, still gasping for breath. “Yes,” she whispered. “It’s in my room.…”

  He followed her, watching from the doorway as she took the key from the drawer of the desk and brought it back to him.

  “All right.” His anger was suddenly gone, leaving him empty and ill. Still, now that he had the key, he had to go through with it. “All right,” he repeated, and turned back down the hall.

  At the first sound of the key touching the lock, Blanche strained upward in the darkness, struggling to face the door. She had won! Her heart beat wildly with the wonderful certainty that she had managed to bring help at last. A moment before, listening breathlessly to the voices outside her door, she had only been able to pray and hope. But now she knew!

  The key turned in the lock and the door swung open. Still struggling, she was only obliquely aware of a dim fan of light upon the carpet, broken by a large stretching shadow. But then she looked up and saw him there in the doorway in silhouette, stout, towering, enormous. She had to speak; she had to make him know what it meant to her that he had come.

  “Thank God!” There in the darkness her voice was only a dry whisper, so weak she wasn’t at all certain that he heard. “Thank God you’ve come.…”

  Uncontrollably, tears began to stream down her face, tears of gratitude and relief. The figure in the doorway swayed slightly. But it made no move to come forward.

  With a first faint tremor of misgiving, Blanche brought her hand up to her breast, watching.… A moment passed, and then the man moved again, reaching out to the wall in search of the panel that contained the light switches. When he found it, there was a faint click, and a harsh flood of light came down upon the room from the ceiling, forcing Blanche to close her eyes. There was a beat of silence and then, from the man, a sharp grunt of dismay.

  Opening her eyes against the glare, Blanche looked up at him. He was there just inside the doorway, staring down at her with an expression of glazed horror. Blinking furiously against the brightness, she had only a vague impression of what he looked like; he was stout, his forehead glistened with perspiration. She struggled to prop herself up on her elbows.

  “Take me—away—away from here…” she panted. “Please… please!”

  She waited, but he still did not come to her. As her vision cleared, she looked more closely into his face and saw that he was immobilized by shock. But then his expression changed and became one of sick revulsion. He took a faltering step backward toward the hall, and his hand reached out again, mechanically, to the light switch.

  “Please!” Blanche whispered in fright. “Oh, please!”

  The switch clicked, and the darkness was upon her with the numbing impact of a physical blow. The man in the doorway was once again only a faceless, hulking silhouette.

  “No!” she cried. “No!” She tried vainly to pull herself forward across the bed. “Don’t leave me here! Don’t!——”

  For a moment longer the man l
oomed there in the doorway, as if torn with indecision. And then, with a sound like that of retching, he turned and reached for the door.

  “No!” Blanche cried, her voice no more than a faint gasp now, even to herself. “Oh, no! You can’t!”

  Abruptly the door closed and he was gone, and in his place was only the darkness and the stinging shock of what had happened. She remained for another moment straining toward the door, and then she turned, pressing her face down hard into the tangled bedclothes.

  “Oh, please!” she sobbed, “please… please!”

  Trembling, Edwin moved back from the door and reached out a hand to the wall. For a moment he was beyond any further movement or speech. It was a nightmare past all imagining, the sudden glimpse of that pallid, wasted face with its streaming, sunken eyes, its matted white hair, its bluish, lifeless lips pulled back upon the teeth in a horrible grimace of pleading. And the twisted, emaciated body in its tangle of nightdress. And the dry, whispering voice… the voice of a dead person… or of someone close to death…

  He could not have looked at her another moment. He could not have gone to her and touched her if his very life had depended upon it. It was too horrible, too repugnant. He turned, seized by a new wave of nausea, and made his way out to the gallery. Footsteps sounded behind him, and he looked around to see Jane Hudson emerging from the shadows.

  “I couldn’t trust her,” she said unevenly. “I’ve taken care of her all these years—all these years… and she only wanted—she wanted to get rid of me—get away from me.… It’s only for a few days more—until tomorrow—or the next day…”

  Edwin turned from her, moved away. Crossing to the top of the stairs, he gripped the newel post for support. The sweat on his forehead, capturing the light from the orange globes, glistened like beads of polished bronze. He stood there, waiting for the sickness to pass. All he wanted now was to be away from here, away from the awful, crushing reality of the horror he had just seen in that room. He faced around to Jane, his eyes dark with loathing.

  “Your own sister!” he managed to say.

  “You don’t understand!”

  “It’s awful—awful !”

  Jane put her hand out to him. “Don’t,” she implored him. “Don’t take her side. Everybody always, always does. You don’t know…”

  Edwin straightened, looking down at her with fixed wonder. “You’re insane,” he breathed. “You’re mad.…”

  Jane shook her head. “You’re my friend,” she protested, “mine—and you promised!…”

  Shuddering, Edwin turned back toward the stairs. “I want out of here.” Avoiding her outstretched hand, he moved off down the steps.

  “Where are you going?” She moved close after him, following. “Edwin?…”

  Impervious, he continued down to the living room and across to the front door.

  “Don’t leave me here alone!” she cried. “I can’t stand it if you do! Edwin—you can’t leave me alone, you can’t! I mustn’t be alone now—you don’t know…”

  He opened the door, and then as she reached out to him, stopped and looked back at her.

  “Get away from me,” he said with quiet horror. “Get—away !”

  Even after he had gone Jane stood staring at the closed door in stunned disillusionment. He had pretended to be so good, so nice; he had pretended to be her friend. It came to her in a rush; she hated him—hated him! Whirling about, she hurled her gaze up the stairs, toward the gallery and the darkened hallway. Her face contorted and then, with a small, strangled sob, she began to cry.

  The weeping, however, lasted for only a moment, for then, all at once, she saw the terrible danger in what had happened. Edwin had seen—he knew—and he would tell! He was probably on his way to the police at this very moment! She made a small whimpering sound of terror. She had to stop him! She had to go after him and find him.… She started convulsively toward the door.

  She had only touched the knob when she pulled back again. He had been gone too long now; she would never be able to catch up with him on foot. She would be safer taking the car. If she could just find him and make him understand—if she could just persuade him to come back to the house with her… The key. The key to the car was in her room upstairs. She would have to run… hurry!…

  Edwin, leaving the Hudson house, made his way blindly down the street, past the suspended light at the intersection and into the darkness beyond. Passing a number of houses, he came to a second lighted intersection, started to follow the street into a sharp, descending curve. Overcome, at that moment, with a sweeping feeling of weakness, he stopped. Making his way over to the short stone protective barrier that stretched around the length of the curve, he sat down.

  Absently, he looked down into the black abyss beyond the wall. Never had he suffered a shock such as this one; never had he been brought up so sharply against stark, hideous reality. As Blanche Hudson’s gaunt, pleading face appeared again in his mind, he strove to blot it out. He would not think of it again. He couldn’t bear to—not yet.

  He sat there staring down into the descending darkness, his thoughts wildly mixed and uncertain. For the moment he knew only one thing; from this night forward he would never be able to think of Jane Hudson or her sister without experiencing all over again the same awful, retching sickness that he felt now.

  16

  Jane’s gaze darted out through the windshield following the forward thrust of the headlights. At the same time she consciously resisted the impulse to drive more swiftly, fearful that she might miss him in the dark. He might be hidden in the deep shadows at either side of the street, trying to elude her. She leaned forward over the wheel, her eyes sharp for the first glimpse of his graceless, lumbering figure.

  And then, as she passed beneath the second street light and guided the car into the bend, she saw him. He was seated on the wall, slouched to one side, facing away from the street. His hands rested flat on the wall, bracing himself, and his head was lowered into the outer darkness. Jane felt again the quick inner twisting that had come with his betrayal back at the house; her vision blurred with anger, and her foot, almost of its own volition, pressed down on the accelerator. Centered now upon Edwin’s huddled figure, the headlights stabbed sharply forward.

  At the sound of the motor, the whine of its sudden acceleration, Edwin looked around. Jane saw that even as he wheeled about his eyes were wide with alarm. He blinked furiously against the jutting glare and she wondered if he realized what was about to happen to him. His lips parted in a fruitless attempt to cry out; for the moment he was obviously paralyzed with terror.

  And then he bolted into convulsive action. Lurching backward, he scrambled onto the wall, a fat, graceless child pulling away instinctively from danger. Jane pressed her foot down even harder on the accelerator, and the car seemed to spring forward almost directly upon him. He looked back in fright and in that instant, even through the intervening glare, their eyes seemed to meet. But then another face seemed to rise before her, a face similarly drained with terror, caught in the onrushing flash of another pair of headlights. The gates were suddenly there, looming in front of her, the tall intricately designed gates—the deadly gates.… With a stifled cry, she jammed her foot down hard on the brake.

  With the scream of the brakes wild in her ears, she saw Edwin scramble back still farther on the wall, his eyes staring and enormous. And then it all changed. The brakes were silent now, but the sound of screaming went on. Only now it was coming from Edwin. And he was falling, his arms thrown wide against the night. He seemed almost to hang suspended there upon the darkness for a moment, and then he plunged down and out of sight beyond the wall. After that there was a silence so complete it seemed for a moment the whole world had gone still.

  She simply sat there, staring incredulously at the place in the darkness where Edwin had last been. She couldn’t believe it had really happened. She hadn’t meant for it to happen; she knew that now. No matter how angry or frightened she had been, she had
n’t really wanted to hurt him. A sound came from somewhere behind, a shout, the slam of a door. She turned looking back through the rear window, tense with alarm. A porch light went on, a figure appeared in a lighted doorway. There was the sound of voices, enquiring, concerned.

  Realizing that she had killed the engine, she quickly set the gear and pressed the starter. It took three tries to get it going and by that time she could see figures beginning to materialize dimly on the street behind. She backed off, then shot the car forward and away from the wall in a tight, screaming turn. In response, a voice shouted from somewhere behind, and when she glanced into the mirror she saw a man running after her waving his hand.

  The headlights, stabbing down into the dark, picked up the form of a woman hurrying up the hill. As the car hurled itself forward, the woman pressed back hastily to the curb and waited for it to pass. To Jane, in her present state of panic, the woman’s face was only a whitish, featureless blob that appeared suddenly out of the darkness and then returned to it in a streaking blur.

  She made her way past the Hudson house and into the circle of light at the intersection, and hearing voices from down below, looked in that direction. She saw a man emerge onto the street a few yards ahead and start down toward the curve.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Bates called out. “What’s happened?”

  The man stopped and looked back. It was Mr. Junquist, the contractor who lived nearby. “Don’t know,” he replied. “An accident, from the way it sounded. Down on the bend. That’s a bad spot. We had a crack-up there just less than a year ago.”

  “Oh, dear!” Mrs. Bates said, coming up beside him. “Then it must have been Miss Hudson.…”

  As they started down the hill together, Mr. Junquist looked around at her. “Jane Hudson?” he asked. “How so?”

  Mrs. Bates avoided his gaze in sudden embarrassment: she didn’t want him to think she spent her time spying on her neighbors. Actually it was only by the merest chance that she had seen the Hudson coupé move away across the intersection in the direction of the curve; she had gone over to Harriett’s, and finding that Harriett had already gone out for the evening, had just been returning home at the time.