Black Widow

by S. Fowler Wright

  Any circumstances in which she could contemplate such a crime? Circumstances had arisen already in which she had not merely contemplated—or, rather, without contemplating—she had killed two men. Yet the thought had been genuine; it seemed natural still. Was it that she was not a murderess by instinct? Was she not different from her kind, from a million others who had not been tried in the same way? Or who would have come through differently, not from any nobler qualities, but because they were inferior in courage, in resolution, in clear-sighted recognition of consequences, to that which she might happen to be?

  It was a fact, at least, that she was not conscious of any change, any degradation, even of any depth of iniquity in herself, since she had done those deeds—those crimes as the law would say—these sins as she did not doubt that they were. Was it that no one did? Or that human retributions were the controlling dread? Or, more probably, that character and circumstance varied in such myriad ways that no two cases could be alike in a million years?

  She felt no change in herself—but only that she must face the facts, must measure what she had done, must understand all it was, all it implied, and decide how, and how far she could put it by. And the letters were ashes now.

  Her mind, delaying to face the central facts which it had so nearly approached, wandered back into Dorset woods, and heard the voice of a dead man praising her hair, as Daniel had never done. And so she came through the ended familiar grief to the comfort of sleep.

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  She waked to the sounds of Pauline’s light movements beside the bed, and of sugar falling into the cup. She was aware at first of a vague sense of sorrow and loss, for which she could remember no cause till recollection returned to her wakening mind. Then the sight of a firelit room sinking to darkness, as the ashes of burnt paper blackened within the grate, came back to her mind, and a desolation therewith that was not lessened, though it may not have increased, with fuller realization of all the sombre happenings of the last three weeks.

  But the mood of introspection had passed; and grief and memory were put firmly aside as the practical question arose of whether the last scrap of paper had been consumed, or would be liable to be read by Pauline’s loyal but intelligent eyes. She had an impulse to say that Mabel had better do the grate in her room this morning, knowing that, even if she could read them, any still legible words would be of no meaning to her incurious eyes. But the habit of courage and common sense altered her words to: “I shan’t need the fire in my own room much before lunch, so you’d better do upstairs first. I’m going into the garden to see Bulger, after I’ve finished with Cook this morning.”

  Pauline said, “Yes madam,” in her deferential routine way and went out. Lady Denton did not propose to risk being seen raking over the ashes, but she resolved that she would be back in her own room before Pauline would reach the task of clearing the grate. It would be done under her own eye, and she would be able to make some casual remark about the mess she had caused by the burning of papers she had been sorting out, so that it would be evident that it was not a matter to which any secrecy was attached.

  As to Bulger, she had told him yesterday that she would be coming out this morning to decide the fate of certain poultry of advancing age, and delinquent fruit trees which he wished to destroy, but which she was anxious to save, and she knew the battle would not be easy to win. There were times when Mr. Bulger was very deaf.

  Mr. Bulger’s brother-in-law kept a poultry farm on the Highcombe road, and held a strong opinion, which had Mr. Bulger’s steady support, that the fowl pens of Bywater Grange required a fresh supply of laying pullets in the autumn of each year, for which those birds that occupied the pens already must be ruthlessly sacrificed. It was a question that usually had to be faced at a somewhat earlier date, but the occurrences of the last three weeks had caused even Bulger to recognize the expediency of deferring it until his mistress could give sufficient attention to what they both knew would be a strenuous conflict.

  Had he had his own way, there would not be a bird at any autumn left alive for a second year. Had she had hers, there would have been little, if any, change in the pens, beyond the replacements required by accidental or natural deaths. As it was, she knew that there would be drastic weeding-out, and an order for Mr. Bulger’s relative of at least half what he would have liked it to be.

  Yet she had her own way in part, for there were birds which had won her favour by beauty of appearance, or conspicuous feats of laying, which had been there for five years, if not more, and which annoyed Mr. Bulger, as they would have annoyed the loyal brother-in-law of any poultry farmer, by declining to exhibit signs of senile decay, or noticeable falling off in the quantity of the eggs they laid.

  Lady Denton grew fond of the birds that it was her custom to feed in the summer evenings when Mr. Bulger’s departure took place at too early an hour, but she did not use an argument which would have been foolish in the gardener’s ears. She answered his stout assertions that only pullets could be relied upon to lay in the winter months with the practical objection that, even if it were partly true, the extra eggs which the change would bring would be far less in value than the cheque which Highcombe Poultry Farm would receive; and with the still more indisputable fact that pullets lay smaller eggs than those which come from mature fowl.

  She had an argument this morning of the usual length, leading to the usual compromise. There was a further skirmish respecting the destruction of an aged pear tree, from which she finally withdrew with little hope that Mr. Bulger had consented to hear her instructions. For, as there was no question in regard to the tree of a cheque having to be signed by her, he felt freer to exercise the full prerogative of his deafness in that direction.

  She forgot, for the time, in the interest of this annual conflict, both the major shadows that vexed her mind, and her intention of being in her own room when the grate was cleared. But she returned in time to see Pauline commencing the task; and Mr. Bulger proceeded to the prompt irrevocable slaughter of as many hens as his conscience would allow him to misunderstand that Lady Denton had permitted him to destroy. “The Lord,” he said, in substantially accurate quotation, “giveth us dominion over them,” which the victims might not have considered disputable had they understood it, with all the theological implications attached thereto.

  They went to their appointed end, which was that of being sold to a local poulterer for a fifth of the sum which the new pullets would cost. And Lady Denton, hearing the distant squawking of individual protest, which went on for some time as the gardener caught and slew them, was led to wish that the world were made in a better way. And, thinking this, she was led to another thought which might have shocked Mr. Bulger more even than if he had known how Gerard Denton descended the quarryside (though he would have been greatly surprised by that), for she considered that she would not like to be God, on whom the ultimate responsibility must surely rest, for every act of cruelty, every misery of man or beast, that the earth has known, if He have the power to stay it, and remains still. She was even led to wonder whether we pay Him a compliment when we postulate His omnipotence, and whether we could not render an easier loyalty if we supposed Him to be first, and yet finite in power, as she had been in her skirmish with Mr. Bulger on behalf of the hens that were dying now.

  Then her mind startled itself with the incongruity of the idea that she, the treacherous murderer of two of the inmates of her own home, even of the husband that she had married and once thought she loved, should be vexed by such thoughts as these. She thought again, as she had done in the night, that she must resolve, for her own peace, what she was, and what she had really done, lest this shadow should darken and bear her down. And if it should continue restlessly beneath the surface of all she thought, as it did now, there would be a real con­tinual risk that she would say some time, with the frankness which was her natural mood, perhaps at dinner among her friends: “But it’s strange that I should feel like that,” or “You oughtn’t to
ask me that, when you remember how I killed Daniel and Gerard.”

  She was getting to hate the dining table, where she now had her meals alone, and had been accustomed to having one of them on either hand. There had been an evening when she had genuinely forgotten, and sat a moment waiting for them to enter, in the normal way. She supposed that her mind was so wearied with continual thoughts on these subjects that it tried to put recollection aside. Even as she paused thus, it seemed that it made a conscious effort again, as though reality itself could be thrust away. It was too mons­trous for belief. Surely she would wake from an evil dream.

  “Pauline,” she said, “I won’t lunch in the dining room. You can bring me a tray here. And after that I’ll lie down, and I shan’t want to be disturbed. Not by anyone.”

  She was aware that she had almost added, “Unless the police come,” although she supposed that that nightmare had left the house.

  Certainly she must face a mood which must be destroyed, lest it destroy her in the end.

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  The cook had called to her as she left the kitchen, “If you please, ma’am,” and she had turned back for a moment, and said that she would telephone Porson to send the suet before ten in the morning—it had all turned upon that, at the last. If the cook had not spoken, or she had ignored her call, she would have intercepted the postman, and Redwin’s letter would have come to her own hand. Had it done so, it is certain that it would have gone no further. She had been alone in the hall, and the letter had been so obvious in its bulk, and the undisguised handwriting of its address, that she had guessed what it was, even as she had seen it thrust through the letter box flap (for the door had been standing wide, as she would often have it on sunny days, being one who loved light and air, and was ill-content with a dusky hall). She could have stayed it, even then, with an undignified haste, or a quick word. It was too late to regret that now. So it had been. Blind chance, or settled destiny, or the malice of some spirit of evil, had tipped the scale to that end. The handwriting had been clear through the little disc of glass which enabled anyone to see whether the box were empty or not.

  From that point, every word, every movement, almost every thought, was clear in memory, as though photographed indelibly on her mind. She had known that the moment for decision was short, for the postman must have passed in front of the study window as he came up the drive, and Daniel (who was there) would almost certainly have seen or heard him, in which case he would be likely to come out almost at once. And the mood that he was in—that he had been in for the whole day—could not have been worse for the reception of such a packet. Indeed, there had been few happy natural words between them since the quarrel about the cook. She was not exactly afraid of what would follow if he learned of her infidelity in such a manner, but she was resolved that it should not be.

  The sudden realization that she had been too confident, too contemptuous, in dismissing the possibility that Redwin would fulfil his threat, and that it was that spirit of overconfidence which had led her to an inadequate watchfulness, produced a resolution, both fierce and cold, that he should not shame her, should not succeed. The letters, by whatever means, should be kept from Sir Daniel’s hands.

  She had looked at the little disc of glass and would have smashed it instantly and drawn out the packet, leaving it to the future to find excuse, had she not seen that it was too large to come through the hole. She would not risk the ignominy of being found by her husband vainly trying to pull it out, for him to understand at last what she had been attempting to do.

  As she hesitated, she had heard the opening of the study door and had turned away. She had passed him in the hall, and gone into the study herself, as he stooped to unlock the box. He would not stop to open, or even to look at the letters in the hall. She was sure of that, knowing his ways.

  Memory came so vividly that, as she lay on the couch in the darkened room, she lived those moments again as actually, as inevitably, as they had first been.

  It was in a folly of desperation, as she looked round the study while she waited to face him there, and to demand the absurdity that his own letter—and one in a hand he knew—should be handed unopened to her, that her eyes fell on the drawer where the pistol lay. She had time for decision, but not for thought. Quickly, resolutely, she reached the drawer, took out the pistol, and—of course—closed it again. (She should not—not have hesitated about that. It showed how delicately a lie must be nursed, if it is to live.)

  She stepped back to the side table, which was against the wall facing the window, with the door on her left hand, so that when Sir Daniel stood at his desk he would have his back to her. She laid the weapon down among papers and books. She did not exactly hide it, but it lay so that it would not be seen without a near look. She had no thought to use it, except as a threat, and then only in last resort if all else should fail. She meant to use the fiction of her sister’s letters before that, to induce him to give her the packet without looking at its contents.

  He came in with the letters in his hand and his eyes on them. He walked to his desk without noticing that she was there. He stood looking through them, and laid two down, they doubtless being addressed to other members of the household. Perhaps he would give his first attention to others, letting Redwin’s lie for a time where she could come forward and pick it up. She could talk with more assurance of success if it were in her own hands. But he did not do this. He laid others down, keeping the bulkier packet in his hand. It was evidently that which engaged his curiosity first.

  She came forward then. “Daniel, don’t open that, please.”

  She was not normally deficient in self-control, and she made her voice as casual as she could, and spoke with as much of the confident familiarity which there should be between husband and wife as she could contrive to feign, their recent relations having been what they were. Had Daniel been different to her during the last week, it would have been a so much easier thing! It might even have seemed more nearly possible to have faced the truth. (But he could not guess that his temper would cost his life.)

  Control her voice as she might, he must have heard the tension with which she spoke. He turned round, the unopened letter in his hand. He stared at her in an irritated surprise.

  “I did not know you were there. What on earth is the matter now? Do you mean this? It’s from Redwin Not open it? Why?”

  “Daniel, if you’d listen to me a moment.”

  “Do I appear deaf?”

  “I mean, I want to explain. There are some letters in there that are mine—I mean that Freda left them with me to keep for her.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He stole them from me when he left.”

  “And he’s sending them back now? How have you made him do that?”

  “He’s not—I mean he’s doing it in the hope of making trouble between us.”

  It was not the wisest thing to have said, or the clearest explanation to have made. His words, and still more his manner, irritable and half incredulous, drew her to foolish words, as they often would when they contended for lighter stakes. A puzzled suspicion came into his eyes as he answered: “You mean he’s sending them to me—whatever they are—not to you? I think I’d better see what there is here, and we can discuss it better when we both know.”

  He tore the envelope open as he spoke, turning away from her.

  “Daniel,” she said, “please. They are private letters that Freda had from John.”

  “Well,” he said, “what’s the fuss if they are?”

  She saw that he was drawing them out, and a sudden realization came that she had made it worse than it might have been by a useless lie. In another moment he would know that they were not what she had said. And with this thought there came a passionate determination that, even though she might tell him what they were, even though it might break them apart from that hour, the sacred, foolish words of a dead love should not come to be read by his contemptuous eyes. She picked up the p
istol, and advanced toward him, divided between thoughts of threat, appeal, and belated confession, but resolved that he should first lay the packet down, at whatever cost. And then, though she stood at his back, she looked into his eyes.

  Reflected clearly in the glass of the half-opened window, against the dark shadow of the rhododendrons, their glances met. She had not known—could not do more than guess, even now—whether he had seen what her hand held. But suspicion changed to accusation, and accusation to certainty, and certainty to a contemptuous condemnation in his eyes, in a moment’s space. He might not guess what the letters were, but he knew she lied, and she knew that, in that certainty, there was not the faintest hope that he would resign the packet to her till he had probed what it might reveal. She did not consciously shoot. She would always be sure of that. Certainly she did not aim with intent to kill. But her hand tightened in an involuntarily physical response to the fierce resolution that those letters should not be read. And as he drew them out the deafening explosion filled the room, and in the same second he had collapsed, between her and the desk, like an emptied sack.

  Up to that point her memory was so clear and exact that she had lived through the scene again as she had gone over it in her mind. But whether it called her murderess she could not be sure. Had she aimed with intent to kill, she felt that she must have done something better than that clumsy upward shot. Yet why was such a weapon within her grasp? Why had she taken it first? To threaten only? Then what of those stubborn resolutions that he should never read what the packet held? That Redwin should never boast that he had brought her to public shame?

  Even for herself it was hard to say, and how—had she been accused—could a jury have judged more surely than she, when they would know so little of motive and impulse, and must guess the facts that were known to her? Well, it would not come to that now, and that certainty (as it seemed) had made it imperative that she should be cleared or condemned in the tribunal of her own mind. She saw at last that, to the point of the fatal shot, it might have happened a dozen times, in a dozen ways, that would not have ended thus. But there was little comfort in that, which is always true. The game of life must be played with no rehearsals at all.