Dram of Poison

by Charlotte Armstrong

  She would neither hurt him nor break her obligations. She would freeze in loyalty and cheat herself. It was possible she did not know (or let herself know) why she had gone so naturally into Paul’s arms.

  The more he thought about Paul and his virtues, which were many, the more Mr. Gibson felt sure that Ethel was right. Rosemary had fallen, or was going to fall, in love with him, who could not possibly represent her father, but was of her own generation, virile, charming, good and kind. She could not help it.

  He perceived that Rosemary had better never know a thing about his foolishness, for what would be the good if she knew? Pity did not interest Mr. Gibson in the. least. He wanted none of it. So he banished his love, exiled it forever from his heart. He would think no more about that.

  He retreated deliberately. He seemed to absorb himself in reading and writing. He tried not to notice … which might help him not to care … where Rosemary was or what she was doing. If he felt depressed, he told himself this was nobody’s fault but his own and it would pass.

  One day he found a stanza:

  The gentle word, the generous intent

  The decent things that men can do or say

  All these to gladden her I freely spent

  But could not touch her when she turned away.

  He shut up the book. Catullus was also a fool. That was the only meaning of it. And a whiner, too. Mr. Gibson resolved to be no whiner. He read no more poetry.

  His depression did not pass. It deepened. Night and day he lived with it and forgot how it felt to be without it. He began to assume that this was what one got used to, as one grew old.

  But a change was coming. The day was coming upon which the women were going, as Mr. Gibson had once put it, into trade. They were going on the same morning, and Mr. Gibson, in his misery, did not bewail the coincidence, for he no longer yearned to be alone with Rosemary.

  Ethel, accomplished secretary that she was, had gotten herself a plum of a job that let her off at four in the afternoons. This, she explained with satisfaction, would permit her to be the cook at dinner time.

  Rosemary’s hours were a little longer. She was going to assist the proprietor of a small dress shop, helping with the stock at first and looking forward to becoming a saleslady. It was an excellent beginning.

  In further coincidence, the same day would see the last of Mrs. Violette. Mr. Gibson was going to be alone.

  On the eve of this day, the three of them sat in the living room according to habit. Music was playing low from the radio for a cultural background. Rosemary was basting white collar and cuffs upon a navy-blue dress against tomorrow. Ethel was knitting, a thing she did with uncanny skill. (Hours and hours she had sat knitting before her radio, listening to music, to political speeches, to educational programs. She preferred a radio to a record player. She’d never had a record player). Mr. Gibson was turning the pages of a book sometimes two at a time. His face was calm and benign. The scene was domestic and harmonious, but his sense of it was not … for this was the end of his experiment. And now all fell to dust. Rosemary was not only well, she was about to go forth and earn. She needed nothing he could give her, but much that he could not. So now he would let her go … he agreed in his heart … the sooner the better.

  Imagination had painted his future before him. He could see himself and his sister Ethel, mutually helpful and devoted, in some smallish apartment near the college, at work by day until they faltered, and every evening Ethel knitting, the radio on. He said to himself that he could make-do. He had done with much less than a devoted sister at his side. He really did not know why he should feel so disheartened, so desperately unhappy about it.

  “It all ought to work out very nicely,” said Ethel, “although I do dread the bus ride. To be at the mercy of those buses, thirty minutes each way. A waste, really. Mightn’t it be wise to move a little nearer in to town?”

  Rosemary’s hands and head jerked. “Move?” she murmured.

  “After all,” said Ethel, “this is pleasant of course, but when you are working, Rosemary, you won’t have the daylight hours … Did you prick your finger, dear?”

  Rosemary said quietly, “No, Ethel. I did not.”

  “Ah … well.” Ethel smiled indulgently. “We ought to think of Ken, too. Will it be wise for him to ride the buses in the fall—with that leg?”

  “I hadn’t thought …” said Rosemary in a rush, and her face came up.

  “I should think I could ride on a bus,” said Mr. Gibson, “without …” His voice caught, because he could see very plainly the red smear of Rosemary’s blood on the white of the collar in her hands.

  “You did run that needle into your finger, dear,” said Ethel chidingly. “Just look at the stain. On your business clothes, too …”

  “It will wash,” said Rosemary faintly, and rose; and, walking stiffly, she bore her work toward the kitchen.

  Mr. Gibson wondered what it meant. “I suppose,” he said, staring at the cold grate and feeling frozen, “she pricked her finger and stained the collar because she doesn’t want to go to business tomorrow.”

  He waited timidly for Ethel to agree.

  But Ethel smiled. “I don’t think so,” she said, “for why should she tell a lie about that?” (Mr. Gibson faced it. Rosemary had lied.) “It happened, of course,” said Ethel lowering her voice, “when I spoke of leaving here.”

  “Leaving—?”

  “Leaving him, I imagine,” said Ethel, sotto. “How she gives herself away!”

  He heard her sigh, but inside himself he was collapsing and shrinking with distaste. Given that nothing is what it seems; even so, he couldn’t guess what it really was. In the old poems, man was captain of his soul, and he, so steeped in them, would never learn. How could he learn? He was old. His heart sank. Mr. Gibson felt solid, felt treason, too—he couldn’t help it—and he hated it. He turned his eyes back into the book and did not look up as Rosemary returned.

  “Did you use cold water?” Ethel fussed.

  “Of course,” said Rosemary softly. “It’s nothing.” She was taking up her needle, as Mr. Gibson could see through his temple somehow out of the side of his averted face. Did Rosemary know why she had run a needle into her flesh? It made him sad to think, Not necessarily.

  “Now, Ken, you will be all right tomorrow?” his sister asked fussily. “Mrs. Violette will be in to finish up your snirts, you know, and she could stay and fix your lunch.”

  “No, no,” he said. He didn’t want Mrs. Violette. He looked forward to being alone.

  “You do feel all right’’ said Rosemary timidly anxious. “Nothing’s bothering you, Kenneth, is it? You don’t look as well as you did, somehow. Do you think so, Ethel?”

  “I wonder if I’m not missing my work,” he said resettling his shoulders. “I’m used to working …”

  Rosemary’s head bent over her sewing. He wrenched his gaze from her hair.

  “You mustn’t give me a thought,” he said. “In the first place, I have lived alone a matter of nearly hah a century, in my day … and secondly, the Townsends are right next door, and Paul is around.” He despised himself for throwing out Paul’s name.

  “That’s so,” said Ethel. “Their new cleaning woman won’t be in ’til Friday, and of course Mrs. Violette will be gone. Paul, unless he can shitt the load onto Jeanie, is going to be stuck right here with old Mrs. Pyne.” She seemed to take a laint malicious satisfaction from this.

  “Paul is very good to the old lady,” said Mr. Gibson (for jealousy he would not descend to, generous and just he would be). “I think it’s extraordinary.”

  Rosemary looked up with a flashing smile. “I think so too,” she said warmly.

  Mr. Gibson turned a page, which was ridiculous. He had not even seemed to read it.

  “I’ve wondered,” said Ethel with that shrewd little frown of hers. “Are you sure that this property isn’t Mrs. Pyne’s property? I suppose Paul is her heir.”

  Rosemary said, smiling, “Som
etimes you sound terribly cynical, Ethel.”

  “Not at all. I am only a realist,” said Ethel smugly. “At least I like to think I can face a fact.”

  “But can’t a man oe simply good and kind?” Rosemary inquired. “Really?”

  Mr. Gibson’s heart seemed to swoon.

  “And also good-looking?” said Ethel with a grin. ‘I suppose it’s possible. Perhaps he is as good as he is beautiful.’ She cocked her head and counted stitches.

  “But Paul has a prosperous business, hasn’t he, Kenneth?” insisted Rosemary. “He makes money.”

  “He is a chemical engineer,’ said Mr. Gibson. ‘Yes …” (All of a sudden he saw Paul’s laboratory like a vision before him and a row of Dottles in a cupboard. The vision flickered and went away.)

  “So he doesn’t need Mrs. Pyne’s money—if she has any,” said Rosemary. “I just don’t think he s mercenary.”

  “Nor do I,’ said Mr. Gibson, valiantly.

  Ethel said, “Of course he isn’t, as far as he knows. Lots of people never admit the most oasic facts. However, almost everyone will do an awful lot for materia. advantage.… Oh, we can kid ourselves, can’t we, that it’s for some fancy other reason. But whether you at, whether you’re comfortable, whether you feel secure, counts. Indeed it does. And all the time.”

  “I suppose it does,” said Rosemary flushing. She oent over her handiwork. She seemed defeated.

  Mr. Gibson found himself fearing what might be in her mind. Rosemary had come to him for material comfort, for security.… Oh, she could not have helped herselt—but she knew this now. And so did he. He had urged it. He had meant it to be so.

  “Naturally it counts,” he said aloud gently. “Quite naturally so.…” He turned a page.

  Ethel said with a little snort, “What do you think a baby yells for? He yells to be warm and fed, and that is all. Let me turn to the weather. I wonder if it will be hot tomorrow.”

  Mr. Gibson thought to himself. To be warm, fo be fed, for me to be comfortable.… Is that what’s in the iceberg? All of our icebergs? Do none of us know why we do anything? Because we won’t admit that we are animals? Ah, but what are we here for, then? Are we compelled, always, and every time? In all this fluid busyness, has each of us his private doom?

  He disliked the idea. He tried to face it. Ethel faced it She was strong enough. He wouldn’t hide from a fact either … not any more. Was it this fact that depressed him so? He seized upon it.

  On the air they were talking about a bomb test, with pious hope that the terrible power would never be unleashed against fellow men.

  Ethel listened and Ethel said, “Of course they’ll unleash it.”

  “The bomb?” Rosemary was startled.

  “Do you think they won’t?”

  “I … hope they won’t,” said Rosemary with wide eyes.

  Ethel shook her graying head. “Be sure they will.”

  “How can you …?” Rosemary gasped.

  “It’s just a question of noticing,” said Ethel, “that human beings are what they are. And believe me, a weapon in the hand is as good as thrown. Don’t you know—in cold fact—that anything could cause it to fall? Human beings are so primitive … essentially. They don’t mean to be. You can’t call it their fault, but their nature. For which none of us are to blame. But they get angry; once angry, they begin to call the other side a monster. There seems no reason why it is not fine and honorable and brave and good to slaughter a monster. They do not wait and try to understand or to reason differences away. They simply do not. And even if they were to try—human reason is so pitifully new and such a minor factor.… People will always act from the blood and the animal residue.”

  “How do you face a fact like that?” asked Mr. Gibson quietly.

  “The bomb falling?” she said, misunderstanding. “As far as I am concerned, I’ll stay put and be blown up with the world I know. I don’t even want to survive. Don’t tell me you do!” She looked as if he could not possibly be so childish, could he?

  “No,” said Mr. Gibson thoughtfully. “No … not especially. But then, I am old.”

  Doom, he thought. Well, then, we are doomed. He wasn’t thinking about the bomb.

  “I don’t see,” said Rosemary to Ethel, “how you have the courage to think the way you do.”

  “Courage,” said Ethel, “is about the only useful trait. The best we can do is hang onto our nerves and try to understand.

  What good is it to understand, thought Mr. Gibson, if we are doomed anyhow? “Then all our pretty intellectual toys …” he said, seeing the words he had lived by go sliding into limbo.

  “‘Toys’ is good,” said Ethel appreciatively. “Enjoy your poetry while you may, Ken. When or if anyone survives,” she shrugged, “be sure there won’t be much time for poetry. Now, it hasn’t fallen yet,” she nodded as if to reassure them, “and I’d like to live out my allotted time just as you would. We have a built-in wish to survive that operates, this side of catastrophe.” She smiled. “So let us hope,” she said.

  “You have no children,” said Rosemary in a low voice.

  “Neither have you, and let us thank God,” said Ethel.

  But Mr. Gibson thought, It is true. We are doomed. And the doom is in the iceberg, the undersea part of it. None of us have ever known why we do what we do. We only have the illusion of knowing, the illusion of choice. We are really at the mercy of dark things, unknown propulsions. We are blind dupes. That’s what Ethel means by reality. Oh yes, and it is true. Mrs. Violette had to break the vase. Paul must marry someone. Rosemary must fall in love with Paul. And I made a fool of myself. But I had to. It wasn’t my fault. My choices were all made by the genes I got from my mother. Ethel took more from Pa and so is different … but she is clearheaded, she at least can see.

  My whole life has been an illusion. Everyone’s life is an illusion. We are at the mercy of what’s unknown and cannot be known either. One day we will blow it all up, knock the earth off its orbit, possibly, as surely as Rosemary will go to Paul, as I will send her.…

  He sunk his head upon his breast, Paul, who was a widower, a chemist, a Catholic … Paul was doomed, too. Doomed to be happy and make Rosemary happy, for a little while, before the world blew up.

  While he, Kenneth Gibson, would live with his sister and grow older … limp out fifteen or twenty years. Not so!

  There was one rebellious act he could think of. Just one. He received a tremendous heartening lift of his spirits. A little spunk—he could escape.

  And he could remember the number on the bottle.

  He slept a little toward morning. When he woke he knew this was the day. He would be alone.

  Chapter XII

  THE MORNING was bustle. Rosemary, neat and excited, in the navy frock with the white, went first away.

  Mr. Gibson followed her to the door. He was wearing his robe of small-figured silk, and in it, he felt the same small neat and decent man he had ever been. He did not know how white and ill he looked.

  “Goodbye,” she said. “Oh, please, Kenneth, take care …! You worry me. I almost wish …”

  “No, no, you must not worry.” His eyes devoured her. “Goodbye, Rosemary. You must remember … this was what I wanted for you.”

  “To see me well? she asked, “and able? Is that what you mean?”

  He didn’t answer. He was looking at her face very carefully, since it would be the last time he would see it. He was so very fond of her. She was his, in a way.

  “Is that all?” she said suddenly.

  Mr. Gibson tried to remember what he had just said. “By no means,” he answered steadily. “I want you to be happy, too.” He smiled.

  “Yes, well … I …” Her eyes fled and came back. “What can I do to make you happier?” she cried. “I’m so—I love you, Kenneth. You know that, don’t you?”

  It was odd that in this last moment they seemed closer, as he recognized her old familiar passion of gratitude. “I know,” he told her gently, “
dear girl. I am as happy as I can be,” he said with reassuring accents.

  Rosemary shook herself and jerked away. He watched her, so straight, so lithe, so healthy—so youthful—down the drive.

  Paul Townsend was on the porch sniffing the morning. He waved, but Rosemary didn’t see him there. Mr. Gibson was just as glad.

  Her loyal nature would doom her to endure.

  Ethel went next. “Ken, when you walk to market, pick up a head of lettuce, too? There’s a good man.”

  “I will,” he promised.

  “And pay Mrs. Violette off …”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’ll be back, four-ish …”

  “Yes, Ethel. Goodbye, dear. Good luck. You have been—perfectly fine.”

  “Pish tush,” said Ethel. “Of course. Well, I’m off.”

  Mr. Gibson closed the door.

  He went into the living room and sat down. Mrs. Violette was ironing. He would not, of course, kill himself until she had gone.

  He was a fastidious and thoughtful man. (He could not help it.) There would be no mess about this. Nothing distressing for anyone to clean up. Nothing horrible. He knew where he would go and what he would take. It was quick and surely neat. He would be found lying in full decorum on his bed, in all peace. They would think, for a while, that he slept. The shock would thus be graduated and as gentle as he could make it.

  But he must leave a letter. The letter must be just so. It must set everything as free as could be.

  His blood felt cold. He must try not to be sentimental. This was a choice he was making, icy and clear. He didn’t fear the dying. He tried to look beyond.

  He had no insurance to be affected by a suicide. Rosemary would have his few bonds his bank account. Yes, a letter to that effect, too. She’d be all right. Paul would stand by. (She would be free.) Ethel of course was self-sufficient. Ethel would help Rosemary to understand—what he chose they should understand. There was absolutely nothing to worry about.

  Except the bomb which would blow up their world one day, but this he could not help.