A dram of poison

by Charlotte aut Armstrong; Internet Archive

  "A leech and a bloodsucker." said Mrs. Boatright calmly.

  "Well, money is a serious matter," said Theo with a pout, as if nobody would talk seriously. "So naturally, I wondered. Is he broke?"

  "No," said Rosemary shortly.

  "In some kind of way," said Lee Coffey, with his keen ears stretched backward, "he was broke . . ."

  "I assume," said Theo Marsh loftily, "that something bothers him. Want to know what, that's all."

  "He won't say," said Mrs. Boatright, "but perhaps he can't . . ."

  "Yes, he can," said Theo Marsh. "He's articulate. And I'm listening. It interests me."

  "Oh, it does?" said Mr. Gibson spitefully. He felt Rosemary's body tensing.

  "Shall I guess?" said she, in a brave voice that was full of fear. "He married me ten weeks ago ... to s-save me. He likes to help waifs and strays, you see. It's his hobby. But when I got well . . . there he was, still stuck with me."

  "What!" cried Mr. Gibson, outraged. He grabbed her with both arms as if she might fall with his agitation. "No. No!"

  "Well, then?" she trembled. "I don't know why you wanted to do it, Kenneth. I only guess . . . it's something Ethel put in your head." She leaned forward, far away from him, and put her hands on the front seat and laid her face on her forearm. "I'm afraid—it's something about me." And Mr. Gibson's heart ached terribly.

  "We don't know," said Lee mournfully, over his shoulder. "Nope, we still don't know what it was that shook him."

  Virginia said, "I should think you might tell us. We've been so close. Please tell us." Her little face was a moon setting on the horizon of the back of the seat. Her hand came up and touched Rosemary's hair compassionately. "It would be good for you to tell us,"

  Mrs. Boatright said with massive confidence. "He will, in a minute."

  Paul said, "You can take a short cut up Appleby Place."

  "I'm way ahead of you," said Lee, "and Lavinia's had them on the phone by now."

  "Lavinia!" spat Paul. "That girl with no clothes!" He evidently couldn't imagine being both naked and reliable.

  Marsh said airily in his high incisive voice, "I guess Gibson likes his secret reason; hugs it to his bosom. Won't show it to us. Oh, no, we might spoil his fun."

  "Don't talk like that!" cried Rosemary, straightening up. "You sound like Ethel."

  So everybody talked at once, telling the painter who Ethel was.

  "An amateur," the painter groaned. He had one foot up against the seat ahead. His socks were yellow. "How I loathe and despise these amateurs! These leaping amateurs! Amateur critics." He uttered a long keen. "Amateur psychologists are among the worst. Skim a lot of stuff out of an abbreviated article in a twenty-five-cent magazine . . . and then they know. So they treat their friends and neighbors out of their profundity. They put their big fat clumsy hands in where the daintiest probe can't safely go, and they rip and they tear. Nothing so cruel as an amateur, doing good. I'd like to strangle the lot of them."

  Mr. Gibson stirred. "No," he said. "No, now I want you

  to be fair to Ethel. I'll have to try to make you understand. It's just that . . . perhaps Ethel made me see it . . . but it's the doom." There. He had told them.

  "Doom?" said Mrs. Boatright encouragingly.

  He would have to explain. "We aren't free," he said earnestly. "We are simply doomed. It . . . well, it just suddenly hit me very hard. To realize ... I mean to believe and begin to apply—the fact that choice is only an illusion. That we are at the mercy of things in ourselves that we cannot even know. That we are not able to help ourselves or each other . . ."

  They were all silent, so he pressed on.

  "We are dupes, puppets. What each of us will do can be predicted. Just as the bomb ... for instance ... is bound to fall, human nature being what it . . ."

  "Baloney," groaned the painter. "The old sad baloney! Predict me —Gibson. I dare you! You mean to say you got yourself believing that old-fashioned drivel?" he sputtered out.

  But Rosemary said, "Yes, I see. Yes, I know. Me, too."

  Then everybody else in the car, except Paul, seemed to be talking at once.

  The bus driver's voice emerged on top. "Lookit!" he shouted. "You cannot, from where you sit, predict! I told you. Accidents! There's the whole big fat mixed-up universe . . ."

  "What if I can't predict?" said Mr. Gibson, somewhat spiritedly defending his position. "An expert . . ."

  "No, no. We are all ignorant," cried the nurse. "But it's the experts who know that. They know we're guessing. They know we're guessing better and better, because they're trying to check up on the guesses. You have to believe that, Mr. Gibson."

  Mr. Gibson was suddenly touched. His heart quivered as if something had reached in and touched it.

  Mrs. Boatright cleared her throat. "Organized human effort," she began.

  "This is not the PTA, Mary Anne," the artist said severely. "This is one simple intelligent male. Give me a crack at him." He had come so far forward to peer at Mr. Gibson that he seemed to be crouching, angular as a cricket, on air. "Listen, Gibson. Take a cave man."

  "Yes," said Mr. Gibson, helplessly, with a kind of melting feeling. "I'm taking one."

  "Did he foresee his descendants flying over the North Pole to get from here to Europe tomorrow?"

  "Of course not."

  "So . . . how can you be as narrow-minded as a cave man?"

  "Narrow?"

  "Certainly. You extrapolate a future on what's known now. You extend the old lines. What you don't take into account are the surprises."

  "Hey!" said the bus driver. "Hey! Hey!"

  "Every big jump is a surprise, a revelation," lectured the artist, "and a tangent off the old. Penicillin. Atom splitting. Who guessed they were coming?"

  "Exactly," cried Virginia. "Or the wheel? Or television? How do we know what's coming next?" She was all excited. "Maybe some whole vast opening up in a direction we've hardly thought of . . ."

  "Good girl," said Theo Marsh, "Have you ever done any modeling?"

  "Of the spirit, too," boomed Mrs. Boatright. "Of the mind. Men have developed ideals undreamed in antiquity. You simply cannot deny it. Would your cave man understand the Red Cross?"

  "Or the S.P.C.A.," said the bus driver, "him and his saber-toothed playmates. Doom—schmoom. Also, if you gotta, you very often do. Take a jump, I mean. I'm talking about the bomb . . ."

  "So the bomb might not fall," said Rosemary. She lifted her clasped hands in a kind of ecstasy, "because men might find something even better than common sense by tomorrow morning. Who knows? Not Ethel! Ethel is too—"

  "Too rigid, I expect," said the painter. "Death is too rigid. Rigor is mortis. Keep your eyes open. You'll be surprised!" This was his credo. Mr. Gibson found himself stretching the physical muscles around his eyes.

  "It's gonna fall if you sit on your fanny and expect it," the bus driver said, "that's for sure. But everybody isn't just sitting around, telling themselves they are so smart they can see their fate coming. Lookit, we'll know the latest news today, when we look backward from fifty years. Not before. The present views with alarm. It worries. It should. But these trends sneak up like a mist that you don't notice."

  "Righto!" shouted the artist. ''You don't even see what's already around you in your own home town."

  "People can, too, help each other," said Rosemary. She was sitting on his lap yet turned in facing him. "And I'm the living proof. You helped me because you wanted to, Kenneth. There wasn't any other reason."

  "The ayes have it," the painter said. (Perhaps he said "eyes.") "You are overruled, Gibson. You haven't got a leg to die on. You can't logically kill yourself on that silly old premise." He drew back upon the seat and crossed his legs complacently.

  The bus driver said dubiously, "However, logic . . ."

  The nurse suddenly put her forehead against his arm.

  Mrs. Boatright said firmly, "If you see that you were wrong, now you must admit it That is the only way to progress."
r />   And then they waited.

  Mr. Gibson's churning mind settled, sad and slow as a feather. "But in my error," he said quietly, "I may have caused a death."

  Paul said uncontrollably, "If anything happened to Mama or Jeanie, I'll never forgive you."

  "Don't say 'never,' " said Virginia, raising her head and speaking gently.

  "It ain't scientific to say 'never,' hey?" said the bus driver, and leaned and kissed her ear.

  The car shot off the boulevard upon a short cut.

  Everyone was silent. The excitement was over. The poison was still lost. They hadn't found it.

  And if in error there was learning and if in blame there was responsibility and if in ignorance there was hope—and if in life there are surprises—and if in doom there were these cracks—still, they had not put their hands upon a little bottle full of death, and innocently labeled olive oiL And it was no illusion.

  Chapter XIX

  TVIr R. GffisoN sat holding his wife in his lap, and this was -LVl bitter-sweet. "Rosemary," he said softly in a moment, almost whispering, "why did you say you hadn't run the needle into your finger . . . when you had?"

  "Why do I think I said it?" But her face softened and she discarded the bitterness. "I just didn't care to have Ethel know ..." Her breath was on his forehead.

  "Know what, mouse?"

  "How much," said Rosemary. She drew a little away to look down into his eyes. "I loved our cottage," she said. "My—sentiments. She hasn't any sympathy with sentiment. I suppose it was sentimental, but I didn't want to go away."

  Mr. Gibson squeezed his own eyes shut.

  "But you went away, Kenneth. Ever since the accident," she whispered into his hair. "What did Ethel say to you?" He hid his face against where her heart was beating. "I' thought maybe you agreed," she said, "with her that I tried to be rid of my bargain. You would have been kind to me, even so. I couldn't tell."

  "That was an accident," he murmured. "Mouse, I told you ..."

  "I told you things . . . you didn't seem to believe," she said. "She is your sister, you do respect her. I thought you believed her, and you said you couldn't remember—I was afraid. . . . She had me so confused."

  Paul said loudly, "Turn right, here. That's it. The third driveway." Paul, who was single-minded now. Paul, who said "Don't worry" when everyone did. But who urged them to worry when they seemed not to. Paul—who was so young—under whose genial good manners lurked a rather sulky boy.

  "Ethel will be there now, I guess," said Rosemary, sucking in breath.

  She moved, increasing the distance between them. The car stopped. Mr. Gibson opened his eyes. He saw the little cottage's roof on his left with its vines. It looked like home. But home was not for him . . . not any more. He had been confused and in hopeless confusion, he sadly surmised, he had doomed himself.

  He limped badly, getting up on Paul's front terrace.

  Jeanie Townsend, alive and strong, opened the door and cried eagerly, "Oh, did you find it?"

  "She's not the one," croaked Theo Marsh. "I didn't think so."

  Paul grabbed her in both his arms. "I was so scared, baby," he panted. "I thought maybe you'd got on the same bus ... I thought maybe you had that poison."

  "Oh, for Heaven's sakes, Daddy!" Jeanie wiggled indignantly to get away from him. "How dumb do you think I am?"

  "How's Mama?" Paul let her go and rushed past her.

  Obviously, there was no poison here.

  Jeanie looked at the crew of them . . . half a dozen suddenly drooping people on the doorstep. "Won't you come in?" she snapped, the polite child struggling with the angry one.

  "Did Lavinia call?" asked Lee Coffey. "Hey, Jeanie?" He had exactly the same air with the young girl as he had with the elders.

  "Somebody called. Was that Lavinia? We knew already. It was on the radio." Jeanie tossed her cropped head. She had on a red skirt and white blouse and a little red latticework on her bare feet for shoes. "When I went down to the mailbox—oh, a long time ago—I heard it on Miss Gibson's radio. So I turned on ours." She looked very haughty as if of course she would know what was going on in the world.

  Mr. Gibson looked at Rosemary and she at him. "Then Ethel knows," he murmured. -He could not see an inch into the future. Rosemary moved until their shoulders touched.

  "Well, I guess she mightn't know it was you" said Jeanie, backing inward, "because it didn't give your name on the radio. Grandma guessed that part of it."

  "And you didn't run over and tell this Ethel or hash it out with her, neighborly? Hey?" asked the bus driver curiously.

  "No," said Jeanie. She looked a little troubled about this but she didn't rationalize an excuse. Obviously she hadn't felt like hashing things out with Ethel Gibson. "Aren't you all coming in?"

  They all came in.

  Paul was in the living room and down on his knees beside old Mrs. Pyne's chair, and his handsome head was bowed. It was a strange position for him . . . theatrical, corny.

  Mrs. Pyne was saying, as to a cliild, "But Paul, dear, you needn't have had a moment's worry about Jeanie or me ..."

  Paul said, "You'll never know . . ." He sounded like a big ham.

  Jeanie's eyes flashed. "What makes you think I'd eat any old food I found lying around or feed it to Grandma? Don't you think I know better? Honestly, Daddy!"

  But Paul knelt there.

  Now Mrs. Pyne smile around at them all, and her smile plucked out Mr. Gibson. "I'm so glad to see you," said the old lady. "I've been praying for you constantly since last I saw you."

  Mr. Gibson moved toward her and took her frail dry hand. It had strength in it. He wanted to thank her for her prayers, but it seemed awkward, like applauding in church. She was a perfect stranger to him, anyhow, now that he saw her as the core of this house.

  "Say, excuse me," said Theo Marsh, in a businesslike way, "are you interested in modeling?" Mrs. Pyne looked astonished.

  "My name is Helen Pyne," said the old lady with spunk in her voice. "Who are you, sir?"

  "Theodore Marsh, a humble painter." This Theo was part clown. He made "a leg. "Always looking for good faces."

  "Humble, hey?" murmured the bus driver comically. "I'm Lee Coffey. I drive the bus."

  "I'm Virginia Severson. I was a passenger."

  "I am Mrs. Walter Boatright," said that lady, as if this sufficed. She stood, like the speaker of the evening, thoughtfully organizing her notes in her mind.

  But it was Rosemary who burst out to Theo Marsh . . . "If it wasn't Jeanie you saw . . . then we don't know . . ."

  "It wasn't Jeanie," said the artist. He had cocked his head as if to see Mrs. Pyne upside down. Mr. Gibson suffered an enlargement. He, too, saw the old lady's face, the sweetness around the eyes, the firmness of her dainty chin. Mrs. Pyne was not only more beautiful, she was even prettier than Jeanie.

  "Then who? Then who?" Rosemary implored.

  "I have great confidence in the police department," said Mrs. Boatright decisively, and took a throne. Rosemary stared at her and ran for the telephone.

  Paul came out of his trance or prayer or whatever it was. "How did you know so much about what was going on?" he asked his mother-in-law adoringly.

  "I knew it was bad, of course," the old lady said soberly, "when I heard Rosemary call. When Jean turned on the

  radio, I knew at once who had left the bottle on the bus. I had just seen such trouble in his face, you know. Although there was nothing I- could do."

  "Mrs. Pyne," said Mr. Gibson impulsively, "what you said made it impossible. I don't think I would have done it. But, of course, by then the trouble was different. I had already lost the poison."

  "And haven't found it," she said sadly.

  "No." He met her eyes. He accepted his gmlt and her mercy.

  "We must all pray," said Mrs. Pyne.

  "Trouble?" said the bus driver. His eyes slewed around to Virginia. "Trouble and logic . . . how do they jibe? I don't think we got to the bot—"

  Virginia seeme
d to shush him.

  Rosemary wailed on the phone, "Nothing? Nothing at all?" She hung it up. She walked back toward them. "Nothing. No news of it at all," she said and twisted her hands.

  "No news is good news," said Paul.

  But they all looked around at each other.

  "A dead end, hey?" said the bus driver. "Ring around a rosy and no place to go from here." Fumes of energy boiled out of him and curled back with no place to go.

  "Think!" said Virginia fiercely, "rm trying to think. Think, Mrs. Boatright." The little nurse shut her eyes.

  Mrs. Boatright shut her eyes but her lips moved. Mr. Gibson realized that Mrs. Walter Boatright was importuning a superior in heaven, on his account.

  But they-had come to an end. There was no place else to go.

  He had rocked to his own feet now. It was time he took over. He said vigorously, "You have all done so much. You have done wonders. You must all go about your business, now, with my grat—my love," he said loudly. "It's on Gk)d's knees ... I guess, after all." (Was this the same as doom, he wondered?) "Rosemary and I must go across to Ethel." This was his duty.

  "Yes," Rosemary agreed somberly.

  "Ethel's hard by here?" said Theo Marsh with a wicked gleam in his eye.

  "Theo," said Mrs. Boatirght warningly.

  Paul Townsend was himself again, and host in this

  house. "How about a drink first?" he said cordially. "I think we need one. Don't worry, Gibson . . ." He stopped himself cold.

  "Wurra, wurra," said the bus driver. "Each for his own. That's what makes the mare go." He took a gloomy bite of his thumbnail.

  Paul said, "I guess I dragged you all here for nothing." He looked boyishly penitent.

  "A little drink won't do me any harm," said Lee. "Virginia would like one, too."

  Theo Marsh perched like a restless bird on the edge of a table. "Thirsty as the desert in August, myself," he admitted. "What's to do now?" He cracked a knuckle.

  Mrs. Boatright said, "We don't seem to have any clear course of procedure." She assembled her will. "I will call home and have a car sent, to take any of you wherever you wish. But first I would enjoy a rather weak drink, Paul. Thank you. Meantime, we may think of something." Mrs. Boatright was not accustomed to being beaten by circumstance.