Leave Her to Heaven

by Ben Ames Williams

  ‘Was that the summer you cleaned out your father’s workshop at Bar Harbor?’

  ‘No, I did that after Ellen died.’

  ‘About the bottle. What was in it?’

  ‘It was a bottle of bath salts. I used them once or twice, left the bottle at Bar Harbor when we went home to Boston. In the cabinet in my bathroom.’

  ‘When did you see it again?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I came to Bar Harbor in August, the year Ellen died, about two weeks before Ellen and Mr. Harland came. I don‘t remember seeing the bottle then, but I might have forgotten. I don’t remember seeing it till I saw it here in court.’

  ‘When did you first miss it?’

  ‘I never missed it.’

  ‘Did you use some other bath salts?’

  Ruth smiled. ‘I never had used any before, largely because I normally take a shower. I used these once or twice, as one does, to show my appreciation of the gift; but then I forgot them.’

  ‘When did you last touch this bottle?’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing it since the year before Ellen died.’

  On this point Quinton hammered at her; but Ruth remained calm and unshaken. Then he turned to the day of the picnic, leading her to recite her every action that day.

  ‘You took two thermos bottles full of coffee?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How well did you know Leick Thorne before that day?’

  ‘As well as I do now. I’ve barely seen him since.’

  ‘You became acquainted where?’

  ‘Mostly on our fishing trip up in Canada.’ .

  ‘Did you notice on that trip that he never drank coffee?’

  ‘Yes. The other guides drank coffee for breakfast, but even for breakfast he drank tea.’

  ‘Did he use sugar in his tea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you take tea for him to drink that day?’

  ‘I forgot it.’

  ‘Are you always so forgetful of those who serve you?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘By neglecting to take tea, you made sure he would not use sugar that day?’

  ‘I thought nothing about it. I forgot the tea, that’s all.’

  ‘But if you had thought about it, you would have known, would you not, that since you took along no tea, and he did not drink coffee, he would use no sugar?’

  ‘I presume so.’

  ‘Mrs. Harland, when your sister, at the point of death, tried to tell you that she had been poisoned, why did you not try to save her?’

  Ruth’s tones strengthened. ‘I do not believe she tried to tell us anything of the sort. And in any case, we tried in every way to save her.’

  ‘You heard her pathetically gasp out the dreadful word “poison”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you believe she meant?’

  ‘I did not think.’

  ‘I see. You thought nothing about the fact that Leick would not use the poisoned sugar, and you thought nothing about your sister’s statement that she was poisoned.’

  ‘I did not know the sugar was poisoned.’

  Harland, listening, seeing how steadily she met every barb, felt his throat swell with tender pride. Then Quinton shifted his attack, demanded:

  ‘Mrs. Harland, do you love Mr. Harland?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You first met him in New Mexico?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it love at first sight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You spent two weeks with him then?’

  ‘We were in the same party for two weeks.’

  ‘At the end of those two weeks, did you love him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You next saw him — where?‘

  ‘At Sea Island.‘

  ‘Did you love him there?’

  ‘No.’

  Harland, his fists clenched and a sick rage shaking him, spoke to Mr. Pettingill, whispering over the other’s shoulder. ‘Damn it, can’t you make him stop that?’

  Quinton asked: ‘When you next saw him, at Bar Harbor, did you love him then?’

  Mr. Pettingill rose slowly. ‘Your Honor,’ he suggested. ‘I don’t want to hinder Brother Quinton from doing the best he can with what he’s got to work with; but it strikes me he’s asking for an opinion, and that’s not competent.’

  Quinton addressed the bench. ‘Your Honor, love is not an opinion. It’s a physical reaction. It’s a fact. At one time this defendant did not love Mr. Harland. At some later time, she did. I want to fix the time when the change occurred.’

  Judge Andrus allowed the question; but Quinton for the moment turned back to the sale of the Boston house, making Ruth describe again the disposal of the arsenic there. In the middle of this interrogation he asked sharply:

  ‘Mrs. Harland, when you learned Danny was dead, did you love Mr. Harland?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When you comforted Mr. Harland after the birth of his stillborn child, did you love him then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did you comfort him?’

  Harland‘s breath caught, but Ruth answered simply and straightforwardly: ‘I tried to find words. I put him to bed, made him rest and sleep.’

  ‘Where did you put him to bed? Whose bed? How? Did you undress him?’ The questions pounded quick and hard; but Ruth’s quiet answers robbed them of their sting. He went back to the matter of the bath salts, broke off that line of questioning to demand: ‘The day Ellen died, did you love him then?’ Harland, watching Ruth, saw her color slowly fade, and knew how weary she must be; and he urged Mr. Pettingill to ask a recess so that she might have a respite; but the lawyer whispered:

  ‘She’s doing all right. She’s licking him.’

  Harland began, as time passed, to see that this was true. Quinton skipped back and forth over the whole fabric of Ruth’s testimony, attacking with a question here, another there, like a trapped animal seeking some weak spot in the pen in which it is confined, and he pounded hard always on the point of her love for Harland. ‘Do you love him now? Did you love him when you married him? Did you love him a week before you married him? A month before? A year before?’ Ruth’s very serenity drove him to helpless fury. He was red and perspiring, his voice high and shrill. At the constantly reiterated question there were occasional titters from the tense-strung spectators, till Judge Andrus warned them to silence. The newspaper men and women at their long table finally stopped trying to record the testimony, watching Quinton’s labors with a dry, amused scorn, till at last he cried:

  ‘Now see here, Mrs. Harland. You’ve dodged long enough. You can answer a simple question, and I demand that you do so. just when did you fall in love with Mr. Harland?’

  Ruth hesitated, and suddenly she smiled. ‘If you had ever loved anyone finely and cleanly, Mr. Quinton,’ she said in clear tones, ’you would know how impossible any answer is. Love is not an explosion, an impact, a blow. It begins slowly, in little sweet ways, continuing to grow through many hours and days, continuing through long happy lifetimes to grow and to develop and to become stronger and more beautiful all the time. I love Dick more today than I ever did, and I shall love him more and more every day until I die.’

  Quinton was beaten, and he had the wit to know it; yet he could not resist one last word. ‘Then you began to love him long ago,‘ he said, and before she could speak, he added quickly: ‘That’s all!’

  Ruth looked inquiringly at Mr. Pettingill; and he came to meet her and to escort her back to her chair again. The deference in his movements was eloquent beyond any words, and every eye followed Ruth till she was seated. Then Mr. Pettingill turned and said quietly:

  ‘Mr. Harland, will you take the stand?’

  – IV –

  Harland was surprised at the brevity of his direct testimony. Mr. Pettingill let him speak only a little of his marriage to Ellen, of their year together before Danny’s death, of the months of her pregnancy
.

  ‘Were your relations during that whole period before your baby died pleasant or otherwise?’ he asked.

  Harland, remembering the months when the memory of Danny’s death lay like a naked sword between them, hesitated; but of Danny he would not speak unless he must. He said:

  ‘Yes, normal and happy.’

  ‘Did those normal and happy relations continue until her death?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Harland was shaken by a deep dismay. In their private conversations, the lawyer had never pushed his questions on this point, accepting Harland’s evasions; and Harland wondered resentfully why the other now insisted. ,

  ‘Well, we were at odds,’ he said slowly, groping for words.

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘Why, before the baby died, we began to occupy separate rooms, and we continued to live apart afterward.’

  ‘Did you never again share the same room?’

  ‘No, except at Bar Harbor on our last visit there.’

  ‘Did she or did you originate this arrangement of separate rooms?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘By the way, did you ever discuss the question of having another baby?’

  ‘She told me we couldn’t have any more.’

  Quinton started to rise, then seemed to change his mind; and Mr. Pettingill asked: ‘This arrangement for separate rooms which she originated, did she insist on maintaining it?’

  Harland filled his lungs deeply, his hands tightening on the railing of the witness box in which he stood. A grim anger filled him; and it sounded in his tone. ‘She did not,’ he said hoarsely, damning Mr. Pettingill for his question.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then this regime, separate rooms, living apart, was originally at her suggestion; but you persisted in it?’

  ‘Yes.’ He spoke curtly.

  ‘Did she ask you to return to her room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You refused to do so?’

  ‘Yes.’ Harland began belatedly to understand. If they were to contend that Ellen had killed herself, they must affirm that she did so because Harland no longer loved her. He had not till now appreciated what this affirmation would require of him, had not realized that he would appear in a sorry light before the crowded courtroom and the world; and for a moment he rebelled. But then, remembering that for Ruth‘s sake the truth must be told, he welcomed the ordeal, and his voice strengthened.

  ‘Why?’ asked Mr. Pettingill.

  ‘I was unwilling. I no longer loved her.’ He knew, seeing the racing pencils of the reporters, how contemptible his words must sound; yet since it was for Ruth, he accepted this ignominy with a high pride.

  ‘I get a picture,’ the lawyer suggested, ’of a situation in which Mrs. Harland wished to resume wifely relations with you and you refused.’

  ‘Yes, that is correct.’

  ‘Were others aware of this?’

  ‘No. We were superficially friendly.’

  ‘Were your servants aware of the fact that you occupied separate rooms?’

  ‘Yes, we told my housekeeper that Mrs. Harland’s health made it necessary.’

  ‘How long did Mrs. Harland continue her efforts to secure a reconciliation with you?’

  ‘Till the day she died.’

  ‘Did you always refuse?’

  Harland said explicitly: ‘I never gave her a flat and final refusal until that day. We had discussed it more than once. I hoped — we both hoped — that — things would somehow straighten out between us.’ He remembered that day, driving from Boston to Bar Harbor, when on the bank above the inlet Ellen had been so completely lovely and enticing. ‘I thought things — my own feeling — might change,’ he said.

  ‘Did you ever give up that hope?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The morning before the picnic, the day she died. I told her that morning that I had decided to leave her.’ He winced inwardly at his own words, at the role he thus assumed; the character of a man who by a stubborn refusal of his affection drove his wife to suicide.

  ‘Did she express, reproachy or distress, or despair?’

  ‘No, she didn’t express anything.’

  ‘When had she known of your antagonistic feeling toward her?’

  ‘Months before.’

  ‘Months before she died?’

  ‘Yes. Since a few weeks after the baby died.’

  ‘Could she have foreseen your eventual decision?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t sure of it myself.’

  ‘Did you ever — half-surrender, give her any hope?’

  ‘No.’ Harland hesitated. ‘No,’ he repeated.

  ‘Was Mrs. Harland subject to fits of depression?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Moody? Sullen? Tearful?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Did you have quarrels?’

  ‘Rarely. They were unimportant.’

  ‘Did she ever threaten to leave you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she ever threaten to kill herself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she ever refer to the possibility of her death?’

  ‘Yes, several times.’

  ‘Any you recall?’

  ‘I remember her saying once that she didn’t want to live to be old. And once she made me promise to sprinkle her ashes at Back of the Moon when she died. And she used to say, laughingly, that if I didn’t do something or other she’d haunt me, but she was joking.’

  ‘Joking? In this trial, is she not in fact making good that threat? Is she not haunting you?’

  But before Harland could reply, Quinton was on his feet with a furious protest; and Mr. Pettingill withdrew the question. He asked instead: ‘When she died, had you any suspicion that her death was not natural?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you grieved by her death?’

  ‘I was sorry I’d made her unhappy that morning.’

  ‘Unhappy? I understood you to say a while ago that she expressed no emotion.’

  ‘I knew what she felt.’

  Mr. Pettingill looked inquiringly at Quinton; but Quinton, his countenance bleak and stony, made no move, and Pettingill went on: ‘After her death, a few days after, what did you do?’

  ‘Went away, to Europe and on around the world.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I never wanted to see a familiar face again.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I was — I hated to think Ellen was dead.’

  ‘Were you in love with the present Mrs. Harland?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When did you realize that you were in love with her?’

  Harland’s glance touched Ruth. ‘I’m realizing it more completely every day,’ he said.

  ‘How long after your return to Boston did you realize your affection for her?’

  ‘Not till a few days before we were married.’

  The clock was on the tick of the hour for noon recess. Mr. Pettingill nodded. ‘That is all,’ he said.

  Harland drew a deep breath, but before Judge Andrus could speak, Quinton came quickly to his feet. ‘Your Honor, we’ve half a minute,’ he cried. ‘I’d like to put two questions.’ He strode toward Harland, came face to face with him.

  ‘Now, Mr. Harland,’ he said sharply. ‘Do you mean us to understand that when she died, your wife loved you, and that you did not love her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you boast that your refusal to accept her pitiful efforts to be reconciled with you drove her to suicide?’

  Harland wetted his dry lips. He tried to speak, cleared his throat; but before he could reply, Quinton with a gesture of scorn turned to the bench. ‘Your Honor, I’ll reserve further questions,’ he said.

  Judge Andrus hesitated, looking at Harland; then he nodded. Court adjourned.

  – V –

  Harland, when he stepped down, found hi
s knees unsteady, his vision confused. Quinton’s question had made clear to him the ordeal he must now prepare to face; and he wished for any catastrophe which would make it impossible or unnecessary for him to go on. Ruth gave him one quick handclasp before they parted, and then Pettingill and Roger Pryde hurried him back to the hotel; and Mr. Pettingill when they were alone said reassuringly: ‘That was all right.’

  ‘It was hell!’ Harland declared. ‘Did you have to put me in this position?’

  Pettingill looked at him quietly. ‘Mr. Harland,’ he said. ‘The State has made a strong circumstantial case on the theory that Mrs. Harland poisoned Ellen. Unless we present an alternative theory which fits the facts as well as or better than theirs, a conviction is possible. Our theory is, in plain words, that Ellen killed herself because you no longer loved her. You are the only one who can make the jury believe that. For Ruth’s sake, I had to ask those questions. Frankly, I was surprised that Quinton did not prevent my doing so; but perhaps, feeling as he does toward you, he’s glad to see you put in an ugly position. He’ll make you look even worse this afternoon; but the more he persuades the jury that you treated Ellen badly, the more readily they’ll believe that she killed herself.’

  Harland nodded in reluctant acceptance of this fact. ‘I see what you mean,’ he admitted. They were silent while their lunch was served, but when the waiter had left the room, as though there had been no interruption, Mr. Pettingill told him gravely:

  ‘Keep it in mind. Remember, Ruth is in real danger; but the more despicable you appear, the safer she becomes. And another thing. Before the jury accepts the suicide theory, they will want to know why Ellen, planning to kill herself, should try to throw the blame on Ruth. They’ll ask themselves — what incredible sort of woman was she to write such a letter as that which they have heard read in court? They’ve been told the letter’s not evidence — I’m afraid it was a mistake to let it be read, but we won’t cry over spilled milk — but they’ll remember it, and half believe what it says. So we’re in a position where it is necessary to discredit Ellen, Mr. Harland. Quinton will go after you hard, this afternoon, demanding the cause of your estrangement. I didn’t press you on that point this morning, but he will. You’ve never told me. He’ll hammer at you till he gets it.’