Richard Matheson - The Gun Fight

“But my dear, this is—”

Her skirt rustled noisily as she hurried up the counter, trying vainly to keep the hot tears from spilling any faster across her flushed cheeks.

“Aunt . . . A-Agatha,” she sobbed.

Agatha Winston looked up suddenly, face a blank of consternation.

“What on earth . . .” she started, then stopped, her dark eyes staring at Louisa’s anguished face.

“ Please ,” Louisa begged, “I . . . I . . .” She couldn’t finish.

Agatha Winston glanced up at the customer, then back at her trembling niece. “Go in the back room,” she said. “ Quickly. ”

As Louisa stumbled away, cutting off a choking sob, Miss Winston moved in firm strides down the counter.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Cartwright,” she said in a politely brittle voice. “Now what were we looking at?”

Mrs. Cartwright glanced back toward where Louisa was entering the back room.

“What did I say?” she asked. “My dear Miss Winston, I had no intention of—”

“It’s nothing, nothing,” Miss Winston assured hastily, plucking up the shirtwaist. “She’s just a little upset. Is this what we’re interested in today? Now this material is woven by the finest New England lo—”

She stopped talking and glared at Mrs. Cartwright who was looking toward the back of the shop again and acting upset.

“Mrs. Cartwright?” she asked.

The large woman looked at her, head shaking sadly. “Oh, my dear Miss Winston,” she proclaimed, “my heart goes out to that poor girl.”

Miss Winston stiffened. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

Again, Mrs. Cartwright glanced toward the back room. Then she leaned over the counter.

“Do you really think she should . . . wait counter when . . .” She gestured futilely. “Well . . .”

“Mrs. Cartwright, I’m afraid I do not know what you are talking about,” Miss Winston enunciated slowly, torn between rising anger and the unquestioning demeanor she believed all customers merited.

Mrs. Cartwright looked unhappy. “Oh, my dear,” she said in a sort of joyous agony at being involved in this moment. “We’re all lambs in the Lord’s flock. When one of us is led astray . . .”

She didn’t finish. Lambs ?—Miss Winston thought—led astray ? Her eyes grew harder still behind her forgotten spectacles.

“Mrs. Cartwright, I’ll thank you for an—”

“Oh, my dear Miss Winston. I feel nothing but sympathy for your poor dear niece. I would not for the world—”

“Mrs. Cartwright, what are you talking about?” Miss Winston demanded, putting aside, for the moment, the role of courteous vendor.

Mrs. Cartwright put her ample hand on the unresponsive fingers of Miss Winston.

“I know all about it,” she whispered. “And it has made my heart go out to that poor, dear girl.”

“What, exactly, do you know?” Miss Winston asked, face beginning to go slack now with the rising fear that she did not know everything.

Mrs. Cartwright looked around, looked back.

“About the baby,” she whispered. “The—”

“What!” Miss Winston’s virginal body lurched in shock, her fingers jerking out from beneath the moist warmth of Mrs. Cartwright’s hand. “What are you talking about! Are you intimating that Louisa is—”

Her hands jerked into bone-jutting fists. “Oh!” she said, absolutely dumbfounded.

Mrs. Cartwright drew back in alarm. “What have I—?”

“I don’t know where you heard this vicious gossip, Mrs. Cartwright!” Agatha Winston said, eyes burning with vengeful light, “but, let me end it now—right this very moment! It is not true, Mrs. Cartwright, it is not true at all! I’m shocked that you should believe such a terrible thing of my niece! Shocked, Mrs. Cartwright, shocked !”

“Oh, my dear Miss—”

“No. No. I don’t want to hear anymore!” Miss Winston blinked as a wave of dizziness rushed over her. Her hands clutched at the counter edge. “Please leave,” she muttered. “Please, leave my shop.”

“ Oh . . .” Miss Cartwright moaned, face a wrinkle of dismay.

Miss Winston turned away. “Please,” she begged. “ Please. ”

When a shaken Miss Cartwright had retreated from the shop, an equally shaken Miss Agatha Winston found her unsteady way to the rear of the shop, throat constricted, eyes stark with premonition.

Louisa drew back in fright when she saw her aunt’s face.

“Aunt Agatha,” she whispered.

She gasped aloud as the clawing hand of her aunt clamped over her wrist.

“Tell me!” commanded Agatha Winston, her face terrible. “Is it true?”

Louisa shrank back. “What?” she asked, weakly.

“You had better tell me the truth!”

Louisa started sobbing again. “What?” she asked. “ What , A-Aunt Agatha?”

Agatha Winston spoke slowly, teeth clenched. “ Are you with child? ”

Louisa gasped and stared blankly at her aunt, a heavy throbbing at her temples, legs shaking. She cried out suddenly as her aunt’s hard fingers dug into her wrist.

“Answer me!” Agatha Winston cried, almost hysterically, her face mottled with an ugly rage.

“No!” Louisa sobbed. “No, I’m not. I’m not!”

A moment more did the two look at each other.

“Is that the truth?” Agatha Winston demanded tensely.

“Yes,” Louisa insisted, tearfully. “ Yes. ”

Miss Winston released her niece’s wrist and sank down weakly on a stool, chest heaving with breath, in her lap, her hands trembling impotently.

“Dear Lord,” she muttered hoarsely. “ Dear Lord ,” her gaunt throat moving as she swallowed.

Louisa stood nearby, her body twitching with deep, unheard sobs. She wanted to run away but she was afraid to. Her mind swam with confused fears. With child? —she thought in a panic. Dear God, what was happening ? She felt as if she were lost and helpless in a strange pit of terrors.

“Someone will pay for this,” she heard her aunt muttering to herself. “Someone will pay. ”

That was when they heard bootfalls in the shop entrance.

Louisa glanced over her shoulder to see who it was. Abruptly, she shrank back, eyes stark with fright, a gasp clutching at her throat. Instinctively, she drew to one side, away from the back room doorway.

Agatha Winston looked up, nerves about unstrung. “What is it now?” she hissed.

“It’s . . . it—it’s him !” Louisa whispered frantically.

Agatha Winston stood up quickly and stepped to the doorway.

Her thin nostrils flared, a calcification of outrage ran down her back. Hurriedly, she stepped away from the doorway.

“Stay back here,” she ordered. “Don’t move.” Her agitated hands flew to her gray hair, to her skirt.

“Stay here,” she said again, then moved out of the room and went behind the counter.

John Benton took off his hat as she approached him. He nodded his head politely and waited until she’d reached him.

“Afternoon, ma’m,” he said then. “Are you Miss Winston?”

Her face was like stone. “I am,” she said, controlling herself.

“My name is John Benton,” he told her. “I—”

“I know your name,” she said, coldly, wondering why she didn’t erupt in his face. She would not admit nor even recognize the fact that she was afraid.

“You’re Louisa Harper’s aunt, aren’t you?” Benton asked.

She said nothing. She swallowed the lump in her throat and stared at him, a trembling in her. She couldn’t say anything but she wouldn’t answer his questions anyway.

The politeness seemed to drift from Benton’s face like a veil of smoke. His smile faded. “I’d like to speak to your niece,” he said, softly.