Evan Hunter - Lizzie

The man’s obstinance. Her failure at yet another drugstore. The intolerable heat of Fall River yesterday, a century ago. The same interminable heat today, and the same persistent feeling of helplessness and dread. He’d been here again last night, pounding on the lumber pile out back. The same pale young man she’d seen at least a dozen times before, outside the house, in hurried conversation with Maggie. Just after her sister left for Fairhaven, he’d been here again, a shadow on the side steps. She’d seen no skirts; it had to have been a man.

She was suddenly confused again.

Her hands hovered over the bowl of water.

She splashed soap from her face, getting some in her eyes, reaching for a towel, her eyes stinging and beginning to tear. And suddenly there were real tears, mingling with the harsher caustic flow, and she buried her face in the towel and murmured aloud, “Oh, dear God, help me,” and knew He would not hear, knew He would not answer, for whatever codicil she had made with Him long ago had been destroyed forever on that Sunday morning in Cannes. “But I loved her,” she moaned into the towel, and silently begged God to understand that the secret she shared in this house was not the same at all, was instead carnal and base, lustful and degrading, and prayed for His forgiveness and His guidance, prayed He would deliver her from the flames into which she had thrust a tentative hand last March, when in her loneliness, longing and grief she had reached out to — Oh, help me, dear Cod, she thought, oh, please, dear God, I beg of you, and stood quite still by the dresser, the towel covering her face.

“Well, I’ll be on my way then.”

Uncle John’s voice, downstairs.

“What time is it?” her stepmother asked.

“Twenty of,” Uncle John said.

“Will you be back for dinner?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “count on me.”

“Bridget, have you finished the dishes?”

“Almost, ma’am.”

Her voice.

“Have you anything to do this morning?”

“No, not particular, ma’am, if you have anything to do for me.”

The Irish lilt of it.

“When you’ve finished setting the table, I want the windows washed.”

“Yes, ma’am. How, ma’am?”

“Inside and out both. They’re very dirty.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She lowered the towel and looked at her tear-stained face in the mirror over the dresser.

Are there no looking glasses in all of Fall River then?

She had gained far too much weight this past year; her face looked bloated, her eyes puffed and swollen from the tears.

Plump? No, no. You’re what my mother might have called wöllustig.

She looked at her skin, far too pale, the fiery coloration of her hair contrasting violently with its ghostly pallor and the lifelessness of her eyes, red from her tears but drained of all other color.

How shall I face each morning without my dearest child to greet me with those pale gray eyes in her round pale face?

She dried her face and her hands, and then sighed deeply and forlornly, and put the towel back onto its rack, and stood uncertainly in the center of the room, as though not knowing what she wished to do next, or where she chose to go. She sighed again, and went at last to the door, opening it and looking out onto the landing to make certain no one was about.

In her nightdress she stepped outside and went to the large clothespress at the top of the stairs. There were nearly a score of dresses in the closet, winter- and summer-weight both. A single, green, summer-weight dress belonging to her stepmother hung at the very front of the closet, but the rest of the garments were hers and Emma’s, most of them hers and most of them blue; she favored the color; Alison said it complemented her hair and her eyes. This morning she didn’t care what she put on. The dress she took down from one of the hangers was a simple ready-made wrapper, fashioned of chintz and printed with a tiny gold floral figure on a black ground, lightweight enough for the sweltering day. She carried it back into her room, and closed the door behind her again. Moving slowly, as though pushing her way through the miasma of clinging heat, she took off her nightdress, examined it for bloodstains, and then dropped it in the hamper alongside the dresser.

From the bottom drawer of the dresser, she removed a fresh menstrual towel, unfastened the safety pins on her bellyband, front and behind, and then dropped the soiled, blood-soaked cloth into the slop pail she’d had no need to use during the night. She secured the fresh towel, hoisted the bellyband higher on her waist, and then removed from her dresser the fresh underclothing she would wear. A pair of muslin underdrawers. A white petticoat. A white chemise. It was too hot for stockings, and she did not in any event plan to go out today. She dressed hastily, slipping on the chintz wrapper, buttoning it behind and then putting on her combing cape — Alison’s fingers untying the ribbons, the cape falling soundlessly to the grass buzzing with hidden bees.

She brushed her hair without interest, tucked back a stray wisp, put down the brush and then stood uncertainly again, fearful of going downstairs, knowing she should talk to Maggie, ask her for answers to the questions that were hounding her, and yet fearful of a confrontation, delaying, making up her bed, folding her nightdress and putting it under her pillow, gathering up the undergarments she’d worn yesterday, placing them in the hamper, closing the shutters. There were some handkerchiefs she planned to iron today. She took them from the dresser top, surveyed the room and finally picked up the slop pail containing her soiled menstrual towel. She was almost to the door when she remembered that she was barefooted. She was tempted to go downstairs just this way, but she could visualize her father’s raised eyebrows, her stepmother’s silent look of disapproval. She found a pair of scuffed felt slippers — the last time she’d worn them had been at the farm — put them on, picked up the slop pail and handkerchiefs again and went out onto the landing.

The door to the spare room across the hall was open. The room empty and tidy, the bed made, the shutters closed. She was passing the open door when she glimpsed the candlestick on the dresser near the bed. She went into the room. It seemed cooler in here, the shutters closed, this side of the house facing north, away from the sun. She stood looking at the candlestick, remembering. And some of them rather old. One particularly handsome one used to belong to my mother’s mother. We keep it in the spare room across the hall. Emma says it’s eighteenth century. I would suppose it came from England.

She had never known her grandmother.

She did not remember her mother at all.

She picked up the candlestick.

There was a fresh white taper in it, and it almost toppled from its socket. She pressed it down firmly, impaling it more securely on the pricket. The antique brass felt silky to her touch, somehow soothing. There was solidity and weight to the long stem and the square beveled base; in a poignant rush, she recalled London again — and Alison. Fresh tears welled into her eyes.

She stood staring at the candlestick for what seemed a long while and then, sighing, put it back on the dresser. Turning toward the door, she stood uncertainly for a moment, forgetting where she’d put down the slop pail and the handkerchiefs, coming dangerously close to tears again. She found the handkerchiefs on the bed, and the slop pail where she’d left it, just inside the door. Sighing again, she went out of the room.

Her father was in the sitting room downstairs, slouched in the large chair near the mantelpiece, reading the morning newspaper. He looked up when she came into the room.