Chocolate Cobweb

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “Mmmmmm, see …” she could say, to the police, of course. There would be police, she supposed. A nuisance.

  Still, there had been police the other time, too, and it hadn’t made any difference. All had gone well.

  She would say that Thone asked her for the sleeping medicine. Asked at her door, late, as they went down to bed. This was safe, because Tobias slept above, here on the top floor, while her room and Thone’s were one flight down. And alone there. Elsie and her husband, Burt, were still a flight lower. Yes, she could safely say it. And it was her own prescription; she would say so. She’d had these pills almost a year. She didn’t share Tobias’ habit of taking chloral. No, these were a barbiturate, not so depressing.

  But, in quantity, dangerous.

  No, she would not attempt to say she’d given him the envelope. She would describe how she had shaken a few out into his hand and he’d said, “More,” until she’d given them all.

  The envelope was in her pocket. She would remember to crumple it up and throw it into the wastebasket in her room. His fingerprints would not be on the envelope, naturally.

  Everything must be as natural as possible, under the circumstances.

  Elsie must be the one to take the thermos jug down to his room. She herself would not enter that room until morning. Because, naturally, she never did enter it. (Not with Belle hanging there on his wall, she thought parenthetically.)

  Now, why would she be going there in the morning? Ah, she’d remember, when they asked this question, how Thone had looked at her oddly, as he took the pills, and asked her, so oddly, to wake him early. She would pretend to see, too late, what was in his mind. That he had wanted her, his stepmother, to be the one. Not to shock his father … not to shock poor Elsie, who adored him … She, Ione, least close to him …

  So she would go to his room, early, obligingly, and find him. But first, she would take the thermos jug into his bathroom and wash it out and …

  Detail.

  It was important to keep the necessary impression clearly in mind or one might overlook details.

  She tasted the chocolate again, measured the quantity with her eyes, and nodded. “It’s hot enough, I think, Elsie,” she said fussily. “It mustn’t boil. Will you put about—oh, two cups—into the thermos, please?”

  Ione herself turned off the flame, went to look into the icebox. Her voice went on smoothly about leftovers and tomorrow’s problems. Elsie silently measured two cups into the thermos jug.

  A little prick of impatience pierced Ione. What were they talking about, in there, in the studio? If Thone was telling them his plans—if, for instance, he were engaged, or looking forward too much—then it wouldn’t wash.

  Ah, no, she thought bitterly. They’ll be in the past, yet, with Belle.

  Sometimes, as now, if didn’t seem that Belle was really dead.

  She thought, and the thought was bitter and very clear, Belle still lives if the child of her body lives in the world anywhere! Child of Belle’s body, and Tobias’ body! Which was mine! thought Ione. She felt herself swell with the old familiar feeling. She, Ione, endured beyond anything. She was founded on a rock and the rock was her own will, and nothing, nobody, could move her. What was hers was forever hers. Forever and ever. Amen. Yes, amen. Time could not wear her brand away. She was not like other people. Belle would see! For ah, when the child was gone, then Belle was finished and wiped away and gone from the world at last!

  “Elsie,” she said quietly, “these vegetables from Thursday. Can’t we clear them out?”

  “If you’re not going to use ’em.” Elsie took up the sack of refuse, as Ione knew she would, and dumped old vegetables with it, carried it off. Oh, she knew Elsie, knew her grooves and how she ran in them.

  Ione lifted the cork of the thermos and dropped in the pills with dainty care. She put the stopper back and dusted her palm. She could hear Elsie slamming can covers out where the refuse went.

  If she were quick …! She snatched an empty cream bottle and poured into it a little of the chocolate left in the pan. She moved to the door to the hall and bent over and stood the bottle on the floor in shadow behind a screen. When Elsie came in, Ione had a cup to her lips.

  “Very good, Elsie,” she said primly, and set it down. Now Elsie wouldn’t notice that any chocolate had gone. She would think Ione had tasted it from this quickly soiled cup. There was only the bare fleeting unimportant chance that she’d notice a vanished cream bottle. But it couldn’t seem significant.

  In the morning, after she’d used it, she’d wash the cream bottle, too, and put it back in some obscure kitchen corner. Detail. The thermos jug must be found innocently stained with undrugged chocolate. And so it would be found. It would be arranged. Quite so.

  “Will you put the thermos in Mr. Thone’s room, Elsie, please, and take a clean cup down?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ione, the little chatelaine, moved off into the hall. Elsie’s back could not see her stoop to pick up the bottle. She went down to her own room. It was safe to go down, since the thermos jug was still in the kitchen. The cream bottle would be safest and handiest down there on a shelf in her closet. If the chocolate it held were cold or even soured, it wouldn’t matter. The stopper must be found out of Thone’s thermos jug. Detail.

  She threw the envelope into her basket, remembered to do that. She put on a little powder. She felt the good solidity, the pleasing sensation of being in control of her world. As was necessary. Ah, yes, one kept one’s own counsel. One managed. And here on the spinning planet burned one spot of power.… She closed her fingers on her palm. Spin … spin … but I keep … In spite of everything. Yes, in spite of Belle.

  When she came into the long studio that lay off to the east along the canyon rim, upstairs, she knew they’d been at it. Talking about her. Because they were silent.

  She said, picking up her knitting basket, smiling, “Elsie made you some chocolate, Thone, for later.”

  “Why, thanks, Ione.”

  What if he weren’t so avid for milk and chocolate as he had been that first visit after the Army? What if he didn’t take any? She put on her glasses. Gold-rimmed, they rode her small nose. Her jolly little face was placid. Ah, well, then, another time.… Lamplight fell on her rosy, busy little hands.

  Amanda, driving in the spring dark along Linda Vista, with the Arroyo falling off at her right, felt the lingering sick taste of her departure from home. Didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.

  Still, one couldn’t say, even to so generally swell a mother as Kate, “Mother, I’ve laid eyes on a man and I don’t know why, but I must investigate. I’m attracted, damn it. And I am off, deviously, in a thoroughly snide and female manner, to wangle his acquaintance. To give myself a chance … because I’ve got to know what this amounts to.”

  So she’d said it was her art. She’d said this artist was important. She’d held out bait. Maybe if she talked to him about her ambitions, he would discourage her, and Kate would like that. She’d said it was a wonderful introduction and she meant to use it. She’d said she didn’t think it was in bad taste. She’d said he was probably interested in young artists anyhow. He ought to be. He’d looked very nice and kind, she’d said. And really, it wouldn’t take long, from North Hollywood to the hills back of Pasadena. She’d be back early. Tell Gene to wait. “Oh, Mother, don’t be stuffy!”

  But Kate hadn’t been stuffy. And it hurt. And Amanda didn’t like it.

  But when she thought of where she was going, she was almost unbearably excited. It had been easy to find out where to go. She’d telephoned the galleries and they’d told her.

  She rehearsed again her little speech. It wasn’t a speech to be said over the telephone, nor could she make an appointment to say it. No, she must just go, just barge in.…

  Take her courage in her hand. Courage? Crust, thought Amanda. Oh, well, blame it on Art. She wanted to paint, ergo, she was a little bit crazy.

  The car buzzed on. She looked
to her left for the ascending road, found it, and was glad to have to concentrate on coaxing the car up and around the sudden mountain.

  She parked as close to the wall as she could. Her palms held a dampness that wouldn’t rub off. She crossed the shallow courtyard, stabbed at the bell. There. Now it was too late to hesitate.

  CHAPTER 4.

  “Mr. Garrison?”

  The old woman who opened the door had a dour and unresponsive face. “I’ll see. What is the name?”

  “Amanda Garth.”

  “Will you wait, please?” It was perfectly mechanical. The woman, a housekeeper, Mandy guessed, went off to the right, stepped down one step through a wide opening.

  Amanda looked around the almost square hall in which she stood. At the very center, steps went down. The hole in the floor through which they descended was round and railed with wrought iron. To her left a screen half hid a room that she guessed to be the kitchen, since it had a linoleum floor covering. There were other doors, all closed. Off to the right was lamplight and the murmur of voices.

  Amanda stood still. Then up through the flat archway swung the young man, Thone, and behind him the old servant crossed the hall to the kitchen.

  “I am Mr. Garrison’s son. Can you tell me what it’s about?” He was cool and polite.

  “No. I’m afraid I can’t,” said Amanda, as cool as he. “If Mr. Garrison is busy will you ask him when I may see him?”

  He looked down at her with a faint smile, a remote, impersonal, patient smile. Then with a little shrug he turned and was gone through the arch. She could hear what he said, in there. It seemed to her that he meant her to hear. His voice was not loud but it had a carrying ring to it, as if he sent it back to her deliberately.

  “It’s the short-haired girl who was watching us down at the galleries today,” Thone told his father. “Probably an art student. Do you want to bother, Dad?”

  She didn’t get the murmured reply. She fought off emotions that swarmed like bees. Anger, embarrassment, a little surprise that she had been noticed at all. The short-haired girl? Ah, so?

  He came back, beckoning with a slow sweep of his arm. She walked past him with her chin up and he caught her arm quickly. “Whoops, the step!”

  “Thank you,” said Amanda. The place where he touched her was too vivid a mark. Amanda cut off her arm with a quick slash of inattention, and looked about her.

  This big room was the artist’s workroom. But around a fireplace there was a nookish arrangement of sofas and chairs. These were modern pieces with a built-in look. Mrs. Garrison, still in her gray, was knitting on something blue. She was at home in a corner of the sofa, cozy and passive. She wouldn’t help. Her eyes, over her spectacles, were merely calm.

  Tobias Garrison, one thin thigh over the other, dangled a foot to the fire. He did not rise. His sad eyes wavered nervously across his caller’s face. “Yes?”

  Thone, behind her, was silent. Amanda opened her lips and nothing happened. It was perfectly awful!

  “Speak your lines, child,” said Fanny Austin briskly. Next to Tobias, her ugly little face was bright and interested and not unkind.

  Amanda felt the paralysis leaving her. She smiled at Fanny, threw “Thank you” with an eyebrow. She said, “I am an art student, Mr. Garrison. And I haven’t quite as much n-nerve as I thought I had. I came because we’ve met before.”

  “Is that so?” Tobias’ voice was smoother than she would have expected it to be. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you. Perhaps you’ll remind me?”

  Something touched the backs of her legs. Thone had brought her an armless chair. Amanda sat down with quite successful steadiness. She kept her back straight and leaned forward- “It was a long time ago, sir.”

  His head cocked politely.

  She said, “Isn’t it true, Mr. Garrison, that when your son was born, they showed you the wrong child?”

  He straightened, where he sat, with shock. “That’s so,” he said. His eyes held hers now and she was aware of nothing else.

  “I am the wrong child,” said Mandy. “So you see, we have met, although I don’t remember you, either.”

  “Well, mercy on us!” crowed Fanny, at last. “Please tell us more.” Some tension of shock collapsed with her frank display of curiosity.

  “Hence all that interest this afternoon,” said Thone lightly. He moved in, near Fanny, and sat at the other side of a small round-topped table.

  Amanda didn’t look at him. “Of course I was interested,” she admitted readily. “I only heard about it this morning. I went right down and stared as hard as I could.”

  Tobias gave her a rather shaky smile.

  “Because you think perhaps we were swapped in the cradle?” Thone’s voice was still light. Whether he was angry or amused, she couldn’t tell.

  “Did you know about it?” Amanda turned and looked straight at him.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Know what?” said Ione. Her hands had let the knitting fall. It lay tangled. “I don’t understand.…”

  “Oh, Mrs. Garrison,” said Mandy, with a swift turn toward her, “I don’t mean to come in here and pretend to think you’re my mother. I don’t think that at all. I—”

  “I am no one’s mother,” said Ione shortly. Her eyes were very dark and had a rather blind and hostile look.

  “Wait, wait,” cried Fanny. “Tobias, tell us!”

  “It was nothing,” said Tobias. “But we have met before, true enough.”

  “That’s right,” said Amanda. “That’s all.”

  Tobias smiled. “I must say I wouldn’t have known you, my dear. I saw you this afternoon, of course. You made a nice bit of color.” He was very kind. “But I do remember. It was a stupid mistake at the hospital, Fanny. I thought for a little while that I had a daughter. I take it this is she, grown up.”

  “You had a son,” said Ione with some intensity.

  “Of course, my dear.”

  “But how …?” Her small hands looped the yarn furiously.

  “It’s nothing to be upset about,” said Thone lazily. His head lay back on the chair. He was looking down his handsome nose. His forefinger played with the tabletop. It was on a swivel, somehow. It moved as he touched it.

  Amanda was furious. “Of course it’s nothing to be upset about. I … My father and mother are very … dear to me. I’m sorry I came. I thought,” she spoke to Tobias, “if you remembered, perhaps you’d tell me some things I need to know about my work.”

  “For auld lang syne,” said Fanny, nodding.

  Amanda’s anger died. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said, in distress. “I never thought you’d think I thought … Yes, for auld lang syne, of course. That’s all I meant.”

  “How is your father, my dear?” asked Tobias blandly. “He struck me as a very fine man indeed. John Garth. That’s right?”

  “He … isn’t living. Not for twelve years.”

  “Ah, too bad. I never met your mother.”

  “Mother’s fine,” said Amanda. An expression of bewilderment possessed her face. “Was it your first wife, then?” she blurted.

  “I am Mr. Garrison’s first wife,” said Ione, with odd finality.

  And the silence rang.

  “Oh, mercy on us, Ione!” cried Fanny. “Don’t let the poor child imagine …” She bent to Mandy. “This Mrs. Garrison is both the first and the third, my dear. Your mother—I mean the wife who might have been your mother—was Belle. Belle Thone.”

  “‘Belle in the Doorway’?” Amanda gasped. “Oh, I can’t tell you … how that painting … struck me. It almost made me cry!” She was giving herself away, somehow. But she couldn’t help it. It seemed important to tell the artist.

  There was another awful silence.

  “Belle herself never cared for that picture,” said Thone, rather dryly and steadily, “did she, Dad?” Perhaps he was inviting his father to ride out emotion with chatter. Tobias didn’t answer. His eyes were sunken. His face was drawn.

  Am
anda looked desperately about her. “Yes. She’s dead,” snapped Fanny. And Thone stirred in his chair. For a moment, wildly, Mandy saw herself being picked up and thrown out of this house. She started to get up. She was frightened.

  But Ione said, pleasantly. “Perhaps you’d be interested in another portrait of Belle, Miss … Garth, is it? Would you mind, Thone, if I took her down to see it?”

  “No, no,” said Thone with a sharp movement of his hand. His eyes were on his father. “Show her. Go ahead. Take her down.”

  Take her away, thought Amanda. She followed the plump little lady up the step, then to the descending stairs that went down the middle of the house. Followed numbly, grateful to escape from something she’d caused and regretted and didn’t understand.

  Fanny thought it was rather decent of Ione to get the girl out of the room for a minute. “Toby, darling,” she said aloud, “I’m sorry. Somebody had to tell her.”

  “Dad, if she’s going to make you feel bad, let me ease her out. You needn’t see her again, you know.”

  Tobias roused himself. “I’m all right. All right now. She … thrust me back.” He crossed his legs the other way and let his head rest. “Seems a nice girl. Lovely face.” Thone grunted. “You must remember,” said Tobias gently, “that I was a pretty excited father that morning after you were born. You must try to understand this. I’m afraid I was full of high and exalted thoughts and feelings. I’m afraid I looked very hard and very long and greedily at the wrong little face. It robbed you of nothing. Never feel that it did. Yet … don’t you see? That girl … We have met before.”

  “Of course I see,” said Thone, just as gently.

  The stairs went on down, but Ione led Mandy away from them at the first level they came to. She hadn’t said a word. But at last, as she threw open a door at the end of the rectangular carpeted passage, she spoke. “This is Thone’s room.”

  Mandy’s heart thudded heavily. Ione reached within and found the switch. Lamps bloomed. Then Ione said, more a statement than a question, watching the girl’s face in the new light, “You believe, perhaps, there was a real error in that hospital?”