The first time I ever saw Michael's sister, Coralie, she held it in her hand. It was early morning and she was in bed, propped up among a number of tiny, lacy pillows. The sun was streaming brilliantly through the white Venetian blinds, and Coralie was holding the goblet between herself and the light, regarding the effect in the mirror opposite her bed.
"Look, Michael!" she cried as we came in. The goblet threw a roseate glow over her pallor. "Look how disgustingly pink and healthy I've grown while you've been Away!'"
Coralie's laughter was as crystal clear as the stem of the cranberry goblet. Michael grimicd, and I was smiling as he drew me nearer the bed. "This is Ann, Coralie," he said.
Her swift turquoise glance took in aH
3—3 Jt
that there was of me to see in one brief instant— brown hair, brown eyes, the plain blue suit I'd been married in. Then she held wide her arms like a child, and cried, "Ann, dear!"
I was quite prepared to love her. In the hectic week I'd known Michael at the lake, there'd been room only for this wonderful thing that had happened so suddenly. Our falling in love. It wasn't until we'd made our hasty decision to marry, and were driving in Michael's car to the nearest justice of the peace, that he'd turned to me and said, "I have a sister, Ann. An invalid since she was a child. She'll have to live with us."
The wind had feathered his brown hair down over his tanned forehead. His dark blue eyes were worried. I never loved him so much as at that moment. "Where else would she live?" I smiled.
He gave a sigh of relief at that, but the little furrow still remained between his brows. "You see, she's badly spoiled, I'm afraid. 1 *
So that was it He thought she'd be jealous of me. But, "I'll spoil her, too (" I promised recklessly.
And now here she was, not at all alarmed, kissing my cheek with cool lips, seeming not to resent me at all. Looking like a fragile angel among her pillows, with her turquoise eyes and pale gold hair.
THE CRANBERRY GOBLET
Michael was beaming suddenly, too, and looking oddly relieved. It was only then I realized he'd been wearing a worried frown ever since sending the telegram to Coralie announcing our sudden marriage. Men! I thought in fond despair. What had he expected us to do —claw each other's eyes out? It was absurd. As if I could help feeling fond at first sight of this sister of his—so child-like, so appealing.
'T'HERE was some mix-up about our ■** luggage. Before attending to it, Michael stayed until Coralie had filled the cranberry goblet with water from a silver carafe on the bedside table, dropped in a capsule which dissolved instantly, and swallowed the colorless mixture. Something wrong with her heart, Michael had said. From where I was standing I could see the box from which she'd taken the capsule, could even read the underscored warning, printed in red One capsule only, mornings.
I went with Michael to the door, and when he was gone I turned back to the bed. To Coralie. To shocked surprise.
Gone were the soft eyes, the dimples, the child-like air. She lay back among her pillows, and over her face was a blank expresslonlessness, infintely cold.
"We can talk now, without pretending," she said.
"Pretending?"
"You heard me." Stiff-armed, she thrust herself up to a sitting position. "You're not so naive as to think I intend to share Michael with you? He's my brother. In the past, all his attention has been for me. It's going to continue that way. You don't count at all."
She was a child, after all, I thought. Smiling. I went over-'Und sac on the edge
of the bed. "Coralie, listen to me. There's room for both of us—"
But she wasn't listening. Her eyes held that blank look of an ego turned In upon itself, and her voice was hot with resentment. "No doubt you think you'll have an easy time of it, winning him away from me. But you won't. Maybe I'm helpless, but I'm clever, too. I'll never rest till I drive you out."
An infantile threat, surely. I don't know why I took it seriously. Yet her anger was contagious. I found myself losing my temper, "And do you think I'll stand by, doing nothing, if you try it? I started for the door, determined to get out before I made an exhibition of myself.
"You won't do anything, you won't do anything," she taunted in a chant that followed me across the room. "No matter what you do, I'll win. Because—" Her voice fluttered uncertainly. "Because—''
Curious, I looked back. Her eyes were fixed, not on me, but upon the cranberry goblet. Slowly, as I watched, they turned to me. And surely that was fear lurking in their depths?
"Because," she said in a whisper now, "even if I lose I'll win."
A strange thing for her to say. It's only now that I know just how strange. But certainly, for a minute there, she must have seen the fate of the three of us in the cranberry goblet?
rTTrlERE were weeks, then, in which I ■*■ learned just how clever Coralie could be. And it took me weeks to learn. I don't know how I could have been so stupid, so blind. By the time I saw the way_ things were going, it was too late for
THE CRANBERRY GOBLET
ordinary measures. The damage was done.
In the beginning, every morning after Michael had left for the office, 1 would knock at Coralie's door eager to make amends, to try to get off on the right foot with her. But I was never permitted to enter. Mrs. Dunnigan, our housekeeper (and Coralie's willing slave), would open the door the merest slit. And her thin-lipped mouth would open the merest slit, too, in her hard, set face.
Miss Coralie was resting. Miss Coralie didn't feel well enough this morning for visitors. No, there was nothing you could do. Yes, Mrs. Whirtington, I'll let you know if she asks for you.
Days of this. Until, after a time, I stopped trying to be friendly. Perhaps she'd get over it faster if I left her alone.
Then Michael, one morning at breakfast, said mildly. "Why don't yon ever go in to see Coralie?"
I looked at him in blank amazement. Surely he must know how Coralie felt about me? "But, Michael dear, I've tried. She doesn't want to see me. I can never get in."
Mrs. Dunnigan, pouring coffee, sniffed audibly. And her narrow, black hack somehow managed to convey eloquent disbelief for Michael's "benefit. Before I could say anything, Mrs. Dunnigan was asking Michael's advice about something, so that her insinuation that I was lying was left dangling in the air until it became, somehow, truth.
What Michael believed I do not know. But he must have said something to Coralie. And always, after that, I visited her room with him in the morning before he went to work. True, between Coralie and me there was nothing more than an
exchange of polite insincerities. But she didn't dare deny me entrance—not with Michael at my side. Nor could she any longer accuse me to him of neglect.
But Coralie wasn't finished. It wen'., on. Michael's friends, who'd welcomed me so gladly at first, slowly began to withdraw, and to eye me with suspicion and dislike when we did meet. It hurt me, at first, and bewildered me, but gradually I began to understand. Their coldness always seemed to coincide with their visits to Coralie.
Whai was she saying to them about me? That I was mean, cold, heartless? Perhaps that I'd married Michael only for his money, and wanted to drive Coralie out? However she was knifing me, she was gaining her effect. She was ill, lovely, pathetic; I was well, presumably at an advantage. It's only natural that the sympathies of Michael's friends go to her.
Even by the time I grew morally certain of just how she was accomplishing her ends, it was too late to do any tiling. I couldn't go to Michael's friends and ask theni, for they would only deny it strenuously, misguidedly thinking that in so doing they were only protecting Coralie from further abuse. I most certainly wouldn't go to Coralie and tax her with what she was doing. Accuse her, and know that all the while, behind her bland surprise and pitying denial, she'd be laughing at me delightedly. She wanted me to suspect what she was doing. She just didn't want me to get any proof.
My only defense was to withdraw more and more into the shell of pretended indifference.
Then Coralie for days would be gay and kind and friendly, until I began to doubt my own suspicions. Eagerly I'd make friendly overtures in
THE CRANBERRY GOBLET
return, only to be rebuffed. It was all nicely calculated to drive a sensitive person to the verge of insanity. Tt was all done so subtly that even now I despair of making anyone see just how she gained her ends.
And Michael ? What did he see ? What was he thinking? It was impossible for me to guess. His face was blank most of the time, his manner that of a polite stranger. Gradually a rift appeared between us. Gradually it widened. I couldn't be sure what Coralie was saying to him. I grew more and more uncertain of myself, more and more withdrawn.
While I watched in a sort of sick despair, I saw him grow first wary, then cold, then indifferent to me. I still retained enough reason to blame Coralie for what was happening. But I had no proof. For she was never crude, or careless, or even explicit. There'd be a sly insinuation here, a subtle suggestion there. To Michael. About me. Anything to create doubt.
But Michael, I thought, would never understand this, never blame Coralie for what was happening. Men, they say, are by nature more open, more direct If I went to him, telling him what I suspected, I felt he'd only regard Coralie as misunderstood, and myself as jealous, suspicious—at best, a whining martyr.
Coralie, I knew, was relying on this.
My hands were hopelessly tied. It was impossible to combat her tactics.
1%JY DECISION to kill Coralie was -*-*- not a sudden thing. I think it had been growing on me for weeks. Perhaps in the beginning my mind had rejected the idea in horror, but in the end I grew to accept it. I don't think I was entirely
sane by that time, living as I had been in an atmosphere of suspicion, intrigue, and distrust. But perhaps I was sane enough. Perhaps I'm only trying, now, to rationalize my guilt.
I remember the night my purpose crystallized. It was after a climactic quarrel with Michael. We'd been quarreling frequently, our nerves rubbed raw. But tonight we shouted like drunken tenement dwellers, and at the last I slapped him stingingly. Strange that I can't remember the source of our quarrel. It was like that, those days. We were fighting about nothing at all.
But I can remember thinking how glad Coralie was going to be when she learned of it, as I knew she very shortly would. Mrs. Dunnigan always went to her immediately, I was sure, carrying stories.
Michael slammed out of the house finally, and I dragged myself to the bedroom, and threw myself across one of the twin beds, sobbing stormily. Until at last I grew quieter, and my emotions played themselves out, and I could think.
Was this the way it was going to end? The marriage I'd entered with such high hope? Once I'd loved Michael, and he'd loved me. Somewhere still, I felt the seed of that love yet existed. But unless I did something, soon, even that would be gone.
And I thought, I must kill Coralie. Now. Before it is too late.
TT LOOKS so dreadfully melodramatic as I set it down. / must kill C-erolie. But I felt calm, even happy, at the time. I rationalized. Coralie had been an invalid for years. It would be a mercy-death, really, not murder. I was only sacrificing one for the happiness of two.
THE CRANBERRY GOBLET
I knew just how I must go about it. The capsule Coralie took every morning. One capsule only. I could see those red letters plainly, here on the wall of my darkened bedroom. Every morning Michael and I were in Coralie's room as she took her capsule. It would be so easy for me to drop two of them beforehand into the cranberry goblet. And they left no betraying trace.
"TJOCTOR HADDON—Peter Haddon, ■*-"^ Michael's good friend—was not suspicious. He straightened up from where he'd been bending over Coralie's body, lying there so still among the laces and ruffles of the bed-covering. He stood there a moment, looking down at her, and his dark eyes seemed sad.
Coralie once again looked like the fragile angel I'd first seen upon coming to this house. Except for a thin line of dried saliva running from mouthto chin, she was lovely as a bit of Venetian glass.
I felt no pity. I had no regrets.
Dr. Haddon turned to Michael, who was looking so stricken. (Oh, I'd make it up to him! I would!)
"I'm sorry, Michael," Peter said gently. "I know there's nothing I can say, but— she hadn't much of a life, you know, chained to this bed as she was."
Michael mumbled something. Then, "Will you show Peter out. Ami? I'd like to he alone—with her—for a while."
Out in the ball, Peter drew me away from the door we'd closed behind us. "I'm not saying any tiling to Michael, Ann, but there's something—"
He was suspicious! My heart lurched sickeningly. My hand trembled as it went to my lips.
Peter's face softened. "I know this has been a shock for you, too. But I
thought I'd better tell you. Coralie took an overdose of those capsules."
I breathed again. "Over-dose ?"
He patted my shoulder. "Deliberately, I'm afraid. But no one need ever know. And I thought it was kinder not to tell Michael- We can avoid an inquest—I'll take care of everything. Poor Coralie—"
Luckily, Peter had been away for months, Coralie had never poisoned his mind against me.
But when he was gone, and all during that time until the funeral, I watched Michael walking around like a man in a daze, and wondered if I'd only made everything worse.
But once the funeral was over, I knew that I had not. It was as if a miasma were suddenly lifted from the apartment and both of us in it. Only Mrs. Dunni-gan walked around numbly, watching me covertly.
I'll always remember those two days after the funeral. The happiest days I've ever known. Once more, Michael and I were as we had been that first week we'd met at the lake. All the bitterness and distrust had gone with C«ralie.
And then, on the third morning, happened the first of those weird occurrences that were to follow so frighteningly.
T'D DECIDED, and Michael agreed, that we should dismantle Coralie's bedroom and turn it into a game room. The day before I'd gone in there to see what needed to be done, and the first thing that met my eyes was the cranberry jjoblet.
It seemed to hit me with the force of a blow, glowing there so redly in the sunlight. I didn't want to touch it. I didn't want to remember those two capsules sliding so stealthily from my hand into
THE CRANBERRY GOBLET
its bowl. I didn't want to be reminded of Coralie, and the goblet was a symbol of her.
Perhaps I was being fanciful, but to me the goblet was Coralie. Outwardly she appeared like its stem, pure and white and crystal-clear; but at the core, I'd always believe, she was scarlet as its bowl.
I didn't touch the thing. I called Mrs. Dunnigan and I pointed to it. "Wash that, please, then put it away. We shan't be using it ever again."
I thought the woman looked at me queerly, but she only said, "Yes, Mrs. Whittington," and bore it away.
But now, on this third morning after the funeral, as I went into the room with the man who'd come to measure for the new linoleum floor, 1 saw the cranberry goblet glowing at me again from its place on the bedside table.
I waited till the man had done his measuring and gone before I called Mrs. Dunnigan. "I wanted you to put the goblet away," I said mildly. "Not return it to where it was."
She frowned at it. "But I did, Mrs. Whittington. I put it in the pantry, and I'm sure I don't know—" She picked it up. "Why, it's full of water!"
She brought it to me so that I could see the clear liquid lapping gently against the square sides of the glass. That was the way it had looked the morning Coralie died. When I'd dropped those capsules—
I turned away, feeling a little sick. "Empty it and lock it in the court cabinet m the dining room."
Michael kept his liquors in the cabinet and always locked the door—though this was a gesture, merely, since the key remained in the lock.
The men came just then to remove the
furniture from Coralie's room and I busied myself with other t
hings, forgetting about the goblet
OUT the next morning, when I awoke, -*-^ I was angry. And, I thought, enlightened.
For the first thing I saw was the cranberry goblet on my bedside table. I didn't get up, but by stretching I could see that it was full of colorless liquid.
I thought I had the explanation right away. Mrs. Dunnigan was doing this. I didn't knew what she suspected, or what she hoped to gain, but it seemed obvious she was leaving this reminder constantly about.
I rang for the housekeeper.
*'I thought I told you to lock that in the cabinet," I said, when she was standing before me.
She seemed genuinely surprised when she saw the goblet. I hadn't thought she'd be so good an actress. "I did put it away, Mrs, Whittington. And locked the door."
"You're lying to me," I said flatly.
She opened her mouth, perhaps to deny the charge, then closed it, trap-like. Her eyes seemed to be appraising me shrewdly, and I didn't like the calculating look that flitted across her hard face. I'd had enough of the woman. There had always been veiled insolence in her manner to me.
"I'm giving you two weeks' notice," I said, "With the help shortage what it is, you should be able to find something else by then."
She drew Herself up. "If you'll give me two weeks' salary, I'll leave today. I've not been satisfied here since Miss Coralie—"
I nodded, j
THE CRANBERRY GOBLET
Mrs. Dunnigan went out. "I did lock that goblet away."
"I don't believe you.'*
She continued. "But why does the goblet bother you so much, Mrs. Whit-tington? Do you think it's strange that it's always full of liquid? / do."
"Keep still!"
"Perhaps Miss Coralie is putting it there," she said hastily. "Perhaps she wants you to drink—"
Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 Canadian Page 5
