to her apartment. It was almost five o’clock, and Rhoda should be returning from the playground soon. She called out to Monica that she was leaving, and Mrs. Breedlove, abandoning her friends in the library, came back into the living-room at once.
“Aren’t you afraid, a pretty little thing like you, to live on the first floor without a man to protect you?” asked Reggie.
“It isn’t really the first floor,” said Monica. “Those front stairs rise quite a bit, if you’ll notice. And underneath there’s an enormous basement that’s mostly aboveground. Christine’s window is about ten feet from the ground, really.”
“I’m not at all afraid,” said Christine. “Kenneth bought a pistol for me, and I know how to use it, incidentally.” She smiled and said, “I was surprised that anyone can have a pistol here, if he wants it. In New York, having a pistol is one of the worst things you can possibly do.”
“You have to have a permit,” said Emory. “That is, everybody but the crook that shoots you has to have one. Now, we’re more civilized in this state; we believe in giving the victim a chance, too.”
Mrs. Penmark came into her apartment and stood there idly. She kept repeating under her breath, as though her denials were a charm to save her, “Everything is all right. There’s absolutelynothing to worry about. I’m making a lot out of nothing at all, as I usually do. I’m being quite silly.” It was getting dark in the rooms that faced the east, and she turned on the light, thinking:
My mother used to laugh and say I could make a mountain out of a molehill without half trying. I remember once in a hotel in London, my mother was talking with some people she knew and she put her arms around my skinny shoulders—my mother was always such an affectionate, gentle woman—and said, “Christine bothers about the strangest things!”… I don’t remember what she was referring to now, but I did know at the time, of course.
She went about her house, performing the usual automatic tasks of late afternoon, and then, standing still in her living-room, she shook her head stubbornly and thought:
There’s no reason to think Rhoda had anything to do with the death of the little Daigle boy. There’s no real evidence against her at all. I don’t know why I’m behaving so strangely. You’d think I was trying to build up a damaging case against my own child out of nothing but my own silliness.…
Suddenly she sat down, as though too weak to stand any more, and rested her head on the arm of her chair, for she knew then that the thing she had determined never to remember again—that affair with its mysterious overtones which she’d never brought herself to face honestly—had entered her mind once more, despite all her resistances. Oh, no! It was not alone the unexplained death of the little boy that had so greatly disrupted the attitude of poised serenity which she had with such difficulty established for herself; it was really the unexplained death of the boy added to another most peculiar death, a death also unexplained, which, too, had involved her daughter—the only person to witness it. Either instance, taken alone, could probably be dismissed as one of those unfortunate but unavoidable accidents that happen everywhere, to everyone; but taken together, with the similarities of their mysteries combined, theeffect was more compelling, more difficult to explain away with casual reasoning.…
The first death had taken place in Baltimore more than a year ago, when Rhoda was just seven. At that time, there had been living in the same apartment house with them a Mrs. Clara Post, a very old woman, and her widowed daughter, Edna. The old lady had become inordinately attached to Rhoda (It was strange, Mrs. Penmark thought, how greatly Rhoda was admired by older people, when children her own age could not abide her.) and when she came home from school in the afternoon, she often went up to visit her ancient
“Aren’t you afraid, a pretty little thing like you, to live on the first floor without a man to protect you?” asked Reggie.
“It isn’t really the first floor,” said Monica. “Those front stairs rise quite a bit, if you’ll notice. And underneath there’s an enormous basement that’s mostly aboveground. Christine’s window is about ten feet from the ground, really.”
“I’m not at all afraid,” said Christine. “Kenneth bought a pistol for me, and I know how to use it, incidentally.” She smiled and said, “I was surprised that anyone can have a pistol here, if he wants it. In New York, having a pistol is one of the worst things you can possibly do.”
“You have to have a permit,” said Emory. “That is, everybody but the crook that shoots you has to have one. Now, we’re more civilized in this state; we believe in giving the victim a chance, too.”
Mrs. Penmark came into her apartment and stood there idly. She kept repeating under her breath, as though her denials were a charm to save her, “Everything is all right. There’s absolutelynothing to worry about. I’m making a lot out of nothing at all, as I usually do. I’m being quite silly.” It was getting dark in the rooms that faced the east, and she turned on the light, thinking:
My mother used to laugh and say I could make a mountain out of a molehill without half trying. I remember once in a hotel in London, my mother was talking with some people she knew and she put her arms around my skinny shoulders—my mother was always such an affectionate, gentle woman—and said, “Christine bothers about the strangest things!”… I don’t remember what she was referring to now, but I did know at the time, of course.
She went about her house, performing the usual automatic tasks of late afternoon, and then, standing still in her living-room, she shook her head stubbornly and thought:
There’s no reason to think Rhoda had anything to do with the death of the little Daigle boy. There’s no real evidence against her at all. I don’t know why I’m behaving so strangely. You’d think I was trying to build up a damaging case against my own child out of nothing but my own silliness.…
Suddenly she sat down, as though too weak to stand any more, and rested her head on the arm of her chair, for she knew then that the thing she had determined never to remember again—that affair with its mysterious overtones which she’d never brought herself to face honestly—had entered her mind once more, despite all her resistances. Oh, no! It was not alone the unexplained death of the little boy that had so greatly disrupted the attitude of poised serenity which she had with such difficulty established for herself; it was really the unexplained death of the boy added to another most peculiar death, a death also unexplained, which, too, had involved her daughter—the only person to witness it. Either instance, taken alone, could probably be dismissed as one of those unfortunate but unavoidable accidents that happen everywhere, to everyone; but taken together, with the similarities of their mysteries combined, theeffect was more compelling, more difficult to explain away with casual reasoning.…
The first death had taken place in Baltimore more than a year ago, when Rhoda was just seven. At that time, there had been living in the same apartment house with them a Mrs. Clara Post, a very old woman, and her widowed daughter, Edna. The old lady had become inordinately attached to Rhoda (It was strange, Mrs. Penmark thought, how greatly Rhoda was admired by older people, when children her own age could not abide her.) and when she came home from school in the afternoon, she often went up to visit her ancient
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