Chocolate Cobweb

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Somebody rang the doorbell. Fanny patted Amanda’s shoulder and went to let in a man. Amanda never knew his name. Fanny had poured out all she had to say. For her, their private talk had reached an end. Amanda let it go.

  She sat a minute more and rose to leave.

  Belle was at rest. Fanny remembered her alive. Fanny was reconciled. Amanda wouldn’t meddle with that.

  She must, however, warn Thone, who was safe for a little while only, in the confusion.

  It was a bad night. She tried to telephone again. She had missed him. Thone had been in and gone out again for the evening.

  Gene telephoned in dismay. Frank Mitchell had ignored the note he’d left on a scrap of paper, come into his laboratory, and burned what to him looked like an old rag. Mandy said it didn’t matter. She fended Gene off. She said she thought it was all right. She understood it, now. She hoped … she was pretty sure …

  And then there was Kate, asking no questions. So Mandy tried to chatter and describe that place and how people had looked. She had, also, to excuse herself for playing hookey to see Miss Austin. The celebrated Miss Austin. It tasted bad in her mouth.

  It hadn’t gone well, either. She wasn’t telling Kate enough and she knew Kate knew this. But Kate’s first reaction, she also knew, would be to leap and stand between Mandy and any evil thing.

  No one could stand between. She had to do this herself. Warn him. Tomorrow. Tomorrow was an eternity away.

  She lay in bed and told herself doubts. Gene wasn’t used to that kind of chemical test. Maybe he was mistaken. But then would come the memory of Ione demanding her handkerchief. Why? Because she knew. She knew, because the poison was there, and it was there, because she knew.… Mandy sat up and rubbed her head.

  She went over and over all Fanny had told her. She found herself seeing Belle. From the portraits, and all the little mannerisms Fanny had shown her, how she looked, what she wore, her clothes …

  No matter what Fanny thought, Thone was like his mother. Or why did she feel herself going, going toward him, helplessly, although he stood and made no sign and was himself quite free.

  She lay back and a sick fear shook her. What if it should happen tonight? What if all she imagined and thought she could guess was wrong? Wrong! What if only the fact—poison in his room, waiting for him—what if that was all she ought to believe? She was only guessing who and why and why not! She didn’t know. But poison in his room had waited once. It might wait again.

  She writhed on the bed. Telephone? No, you can’t telephone in the night. And who is to guarantee that evil itself wouldn’t answer?

  Mandy rolled. She began to repeat, “Now I lay me …”

  As early as she dared, she telephoned to confirm her appointment. The housekeeper’s voice was placid. No, nothing had happened during the night, or surely no such placid voice would answer. Mandy put her head on her arms, and Kate, coming through the room to breakfast, saw, hesitated, bit her lip, went on.

  CHAPTER 7.

  IONE, SNUG AND PROPER IN HER three-piece black, zipped expertly through traffic while the white lace fluttered on her hat. She drove with the top down. People nudged each other and said, “Oh, look! How cute! Look at that dear little old lady in the swanky car. Isn’t she wonderful?” She drove very well. She loved expensive automobiles. Tobias had grown to like them, too. He’d had a Cadillac, the year Belle died. Such a quiet engine. Idling, one could scarcely tell it was running.…

  Six years ago. And yet, this Tuesday morning, here she was, driving herself in this direction on this errand because of Belle’s vivid presence in her house. There was nothing else to do. She couldn’t question Toby too intensely. She’d go and see this woman and find out. And get rid of her own phrase that kept haunting her: Belle still lives if the child of her body …

  A notion, she knew. It was Thone who invoked the woman’s presence, because, blood or no blood, she lived in his memory. Yet, here came this girl to re-create Belle twice over in Toby’s mind, to raise her from the dead all over again. What would be the use? she thought impatiently.

  Well, she would see what it amounted to. She would then know what had to be done. It had been many years ago that she had first seen what had to be done.

  Belle, one terrible afternoon, with that maddening carelessness, that odd surrender to Fate, had made it clear. Oh, yes; Belle, saying with that searing pity, “Ione, if it hurts too much, we needn’t … I can do without. I can go away. I will go.”

  For just a moment it was clear that Ione could have held on, could have insisted, could have kept him. There need have been no divorce. “He can’t bear this!” she’d said, that Belle.

  Nor could he bear that! Ione had seen. She saw through Belle’s eyes, queerly, how it was with Toby. And in that moment she had known that no matter whether she kept the shell or let it go, Toby was never to be hers again unless Belle was not in the world. Anywhere. Until Belle died!

  So she had seen what had to be done. Belle herself had shown her. Seen it hard and clear and locked the knowledge away. Belle must die and Ione must live.

  So one must plan a little.

  And then, stupidly, so lost she’d been in that resolve, in that grim need, she’d walked heedlessly into the path of a car and been hurt, and had had to wait.

  Wait a long, long time.

  But she’d leaned on her fierce inner purpose. No one knew what propped her up. It was not necessary to confide in anyone. Not for her. She fed on her own thoughts. Proudly. Then and always. Never, never, no matter how long, would she have surrendered the dark source of her strength in those days. She hadn’t been idly dreaming. To dream it were done would have weakened the doing. She guarded against that. She dreamed how she would do it … only how. And at last they’d drifted back within her reach.

  It hadn’t been difficult.

  She went to call. Waited to be announced. Gleaned what she could, there alone in the hall. The hall of the canyon house. It was hers, now. Not then. She had refused it because it was only half hers, in those early days. But she’d gone through it, all the same, after she had recovered and they were gone, in the East. She had taken a hard and icy satisfaction in combing out of it all those things that were hers alone. Every tiniest thing. Including the small foot-square painting Tobias was so fond of. He had called it hers one day, and she chose to consider it her property, taking his careless words literally, although she knew how much he cared for it. She had never confessed that seizure. He’d thought it lost or stolen.

  It had been useful.

  Odd, now, how she couldn’t remember what she’d seen in the canyon house that day, or taken, except those things that later had been useful. She’d looked in the drawer and known where to find the extra set of keys for his car, and the spare garage key, too, there in the same spot, tucked far back, where they’d kept such things of old habit. She’d snatched up the blue scarf—Belle’s, of course—stuffed in there, and hidden it in her bag. What else? There must have been something else. But these were all she had really needed.

  Then she’d been summoned to the studio to meet a thinnish restless boy with his foot in a cast, to endure Tobias’ inquiring looks, to note he was getting one of his heavy colds, to hear that he was back at his chloral. To endure Belle’s quiet presence (sitting there with her arms around her knees like a schoolgirl!). To say to Elsie, as she went away with bits of a plan already whirling in her head, “Elsie, I wondered if you could clean for me, some Thursday.” And Elsie had said, “We’re off around one o’clock, ma’am, same as always.”

  So Thursday had come along.

  The telephone call at the lonely outdoor booth near the gas station, only a short way from the mountain road. Her handkerchief over the mouthpiece, blurred voice, hinting of a conscience-stricken thief. She’d said she was in Long Beach. She’d meet them halfway. Named a drugstore, one of a bright busy chain. Belle mustn’t be afraid to come. Hinted that they were leaving the state, this muffled-voiced female and her mythical t
hieving husband. Hinting that the impulse to return the picture would last only a little while.

  Thone couldn’t come. Burt wasn’t there. Belle wouldn’t let Toby do it, with his cold and his chloral. She’d take a cab, naturally. Ione knew, because she’d watched. Belle rarely drove the car and then not far.

  So … quick … up the mountain and her own car hidden at the turn-around place, facing down. She’d crossed the road and stood in the shadow of the deodar tree. All of it was so tentative. Until the very last, the way was open to go back.

  If Belle came out of the house before the cab, why, another time …

  But the cab came first.

  She’d pulled Belle’s blue scarf over her hair and around her face and stepped out of the shadow and called to him. She’d given him money. Said she’d changed her mind. She’d told him to go on up and around the canyon. He could get down the other side.

  Then stuffed the scarf away, quickly, and when Belle came out, they’d met at the gate.

  “I wanted to talk to you. Are you going out?”

  “My cab …”

  “I just saw a cab. I wonder if he’s lost. He went on up the road. Let me drive you.”

  “Too far,” she’d said.

  “Then just down the mountain to a cab stand. Please. I do want to talk to you … about Toby. I’m worried. Isn’t he well?”

  Belle had pity. That was her weak spot.

  “I have no child,” Ione had said. So Belle had gone with her to the car. Still, the way back was open.

  She’d pulled up under the tree in the darkest spot at the drive-in stand. Thirsty. Belle must have something too. In a hurry? Oh, then Ione would fetch them something quickly. She’d left the car and fetched them soft drinks. Asked for a double dose of sirup, she remembered. Easy to put the chloral in one of them. She’d had it ready, of course.

  It would have been simpler, in a way, to give her too much chloral and let it go at that. But she had thought it all out. If one gave Belle a lethal dose and put her in a cab, how could one be sure that the cabby wouldn’t get her to a hospital … too soon? And Belle, saved, could say too much. So, if one had to take her to a lonely spot anyhow, why imperil the impression of an accidental drugging? One paper of the stuff by accident, yes. But hardly several. So she’d used just Toby’s normal portion.

  And then, she remembered, made a little emotional scene so that Belle, eager to escape, would down even this bitter drink quickly, to get it over.

  Then, stalling, pretending to be on the way to a cab stand, a little driving, until she slept.

  And still, she wasn’t dying. Oh, yes, better this way, much better. A way back could have been found, even yet, had there been anything wrong. If, for instance, there had been any lovers parked in the lower canyon road

  But there hadn’t been anyone there.

  So, to creep, without light, up the bottom of the canyon, to take Belle’s shoes and slip them on her own feet, her little feet. To unlock the doors of the garage (a padlock, not a bar inside, as now). To walk in, remembering to make a pattern with her footprints, in case. Start the motor, the quiet expensive motor. Walk backward to the steps that came down from the garden, the lowest terrace. Take the steps themselves backward, two feet to a step on alternate steps and then down again, two feet on each skipped step. (Belle would have come down so gingerly.) Then out to the street where the car, pulled close, was not even visible from the big house hanging above.

  Then the brink. The final leap over. After this, there was no way back.

  To lift, with the strength one can find if one has to, with care lest she wake, oh, with soft strong care, Belle’s body from the car. To leave it on the floor. Shoes returned to the proper feet. Blue scarf knotted around Belle’s neck. Belle’s flashlight from her purse on the floor near her hand. Doors left as if they’d fallen shut.

  A moment to work at the hooks, to make them slippery and insecure by a little bending. Her whiskbroom on the concrete apron, a handful of dust. The car started softly, steering wheel not turned. Who could say that it had stopped? A swing around the dead end of the canyon, back, out, away.

  Home. Where her light had burned all evening in her sitting room, behind drawn blinds. Softly, softly, into the alley.

  And to wait.

  How full of strength and calm she’d been for Toby!

  So many boys had been killed in the war!

  But one can’t just hope, she thought impatiently.

  She began to peer about for the building she sought. Yes, there it was. Callahan’s Sons, Fine Fabrics, Los Angeles.

  CHAPTER 8.

  TOBIAS WAS AT HER SERVICE, AMANDA found. He was alone in the long room. He was waiting for her. This hour was hers.

  The house was very quiet and it had an empty ring to it. Light in the studio was abundant and calm and the northern glass showed, on this clear day, the mountains in a high band across the sky. There was peacefulness here that penetrated to her taut nerves, plucked at tight strings so that she could almost hear them twang.

  She felt shaky. She put down her two canvases that she’d brought. Her hand was moist and she was ashamed of it. She thought he must read in her face the frightful hours of the night behind her.

  Tobias himself was at ease and prepared to be very sweet to her. His deep-set eyes were steady with kindness. He had her sit down; he asked her questions about the school and the courses she was taking. She found herself describing Miss Alice Anderson and seeing that fervid soul with a new eye, the eye of his maturity, so that Miss Anderson’s passion was put in a new proportion.

  “Has she seen your pictures?” he asked.

  “Yes, but she …” Mandy struggled, “she looks right over my head. I know I can’t paint very well. I haven’t had enough practice. But even so, isn’t it possible to tell whether I have any right to try? I know,” she went on boldly, “that most people can’t help feeling they have something important in themselves. That what they see or feel has a deep and special meaning. And I know, sometimes, it isn’t important at all, and the one who feels it is the last to realize … how commonplace it is.”

  He was smiling at her. “That’s not a common remark, young lady. So far, so good. Now come … let me see.”

  She said, still hesitating, “I really want you to tell me.”

  “I may not be able to tell you,” he warned. “There’s a great deal outside my range, you know.”

  “You say what you think,” said Mandy with a comical air of indulgence with which she laughed with him in a warm glow, as if they were queerly and exhilaratingly equals now, because each was humble in his own place.

  She’d brought a little landscape, a spare thing, a limited vista, a piece of the garden wall, the texture of the walk, bark on the tree trunk. It was too difficult for her. Yet she felt it would show her desire.

  He looked, silently.

  The other one was a glimpse past Kate’s cheek and the nape of her neck at still life on a table. Mandy felt for the hundredth time that it really wasn’t very good, and yet there had been something she’d been after.

  Tobias looked, silently.

  Amanda was lost, cased in a trance of wondering, of not unpleasant suspense. She’d forgotten all about anxiety or evil, past or present. Her mind marched with the artist’s, or at least limped behind. The tumultuous world of other people was far away.

  Thone came upon them so. She heard him and looked up and her mood burst into fragments of emotion.

  He advanced to a spot behind his father’s shoulder. Tobias knew his step and his presence without turning. “What about these?” he asked.

  Thone said, instantly, of the landscape, “That’s good.” And of the other, “That’s bad.”

  Tobias smiled at Mandy’s astonished face. “His opinion. Quite worthless,” he said, half humorously. He let the still life fall and studied the other. “So muted?” he said. “I miss some color.”

  “But I saw it like that,” insisted Mandy. “I wanted …” S
he didn’t go on.

  He murmured, “Yes.”

  “I like it very much,” said Thone firmly.

  “Yes.” Tobias moved a brow. “You would. I see that you would.”

  “She’s surrounded a piece of air. She painted a hunk of space. She coralled it.”

  Mandy, with saucer eyes, felt her heart go down on figurative knees.

  “Ye-es,” said Tobias. He took up the other. “In this there is a little more finesse.”

  “Not much,” said Mandy cheerfully.

  “It’s gooey,” pronounced Thone. “Sentimental.” He grinned at her. “Not that you asked me.”

  “I’m not against sentiment,” said Amanda stoutly, and she closed her lips on the rest of her thought.

  Tobias shook his head. “The point is, my dear, if you want to paint pictures, you will paint pictures. If you like the feel of doing it, if you get lost in it, then, good or bad, you’ll paint them. What you want from me is the promise of a career? Of value to the world, shall we say?” She nodded. “Shall you go head over heels into this, and drop everything else?” He cocked his head.

  Mandy got up and touched her pictures as if to lay them ready for departure. “I needn’t have asked you or anyone,” she said. “Because I know exactly what I’ll do. I’ll paint for fun. For my own best fun. And if anything comes of that, let it. But I wouldn’t dare go head over heels, as you say. It’s too presumptuous. I couldn’t do it. Not,” said Mandy with great firmness, “at my age.”

  Tobias dissolved into tender laughter. Thone stood with his hands in his pockets, smiling at his father’s pleasure. And it was wonderful! Amanda felt herself to be, for once, perfectly happy.

  Elsie poked her head in. “Mr. Peck is on the phone, sir.”

  And suddenly the older man had gone. She and Thone were alone together and the ripples of her happiness widened and lessened and faded into calm and then calm shattered with the upthrust of fear and the necessity and the opportunity for what she must do. Now! Now, she must tell him.