Charlotte had backed away quietly, leaving the two of them facing each other, Gwen, like a doll suddenly endowed with a voice and blurting out anything and everything that had been stored up in its stuffed head during the years of silence; and Easter, a giant by contrast, cunning, dispassionate.
“And the big revenge?” he said.
“Gwen,” Lewis said. “I warn you, anything you say now will be used...”
“I...” She tossed her head contemptuously: “I don’t take advice from a lecher. The big revenge, well, don’t you think it was a big revenge, Mr. Easter?”
“I’m not sure yet what it was, or how you managed it.”
“You can’t be very clever.”
“I’m not.”
“You could at least try to guess. You’ll never get ahead in your work if you don’t try.”
“I’ll try.”
“Well, I should think so. Go on.”
“My guess is that Violet came here last Monday afternoon to see your husband. She saw you instead.”
“That’s right. You remember Violet, don’t you, Lewis?”
Lewis didn’t look at her. “I... yes.”
“Well, you should. She was carrying your baby, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it funny, you gave her a baby but not me, not me, and I’m the one who wanted it!”
“I’m sorry.”
“There isn’t any baby now, is there, Lewis?”
“No — no!”
“And no Violet either. You and Charlotte killed her.”
“No!”
“Well, morally you did. I was only the instrument. You and Charlotte are the real murderers.”
“Leave Charlotte out of it.”
“Why should I? I put her in. I sent the girl to her. You hear that, Lewis? I sent her! I thought what a wonderful thing it would be to bring your two trollops together.”
The room was cooling as the fire died.
“Such a good idea, I thought. But it didn’t work out as I planned. I wanted Charlotte to find out what kind of man Lewis really was. And I wanted, too, for her to get rid of Violet’s baby, to spare me the disgrace and scandal of her bringing suit against Lewis, dragging my good name through the courts and the newspapers. But Charlotte refused. And that night after dinner Violet came back to me again. I was in the garden... Have you seen my garden, Mr. Easter?”
“Yes.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Very beautiful.” Flowers beaten to the ground, wind-stripped trees, broken cypress. “Was she alone when she came the second time?”
“Two men drove her here in a car. The little one brought her across the lawn to where I was sitting on the swing. He said he was Violet’s uncle and he thought Violet and I should talk about terms while we were waiting for Lewis. That was the word he used — terms. He left her there with me. She began to cry. Tears don’t affect me any more — I’ve cried too much myself — but I was kind to her. I was brought up to be kind to everyone, especially my inferiors.”
“Did she mention money?”
“No, I did. I asked her how much she’d take to leave town and never come back. She got hysterical then. She kept saying over and over again that Voss was trying to force her to take money but she didn’t want any money. All she wanted was to get rid of the baby, to be ‘ordinary’ again, she called it. She talked as if the baby was a terrible disease.”
Charlotte remembered the scene Violet had made in her office, the way she’d struck her thighs with her fists and cried: “I’ll kill myself!.. I don’t even want money. I only want to be the way I was before, with nothing growing inside me.”
Gwen’s hands were fidgeting with the lace around her throat. “She asked to see Lewis, and when I said he wasn’t here she accused me of lying, of trying to protect him. I told her I wasn’t lying, that Lewis had gone on a fishing trip. She misunderstood what kind of fishing trip it was, and she threatened to go down to the wharf and wait for him. I said, ‘All right, I’ll go with you.’”
“And you did,” Easter said.
“I did? Yes, I must have. I don’t know how, though. Do you think we walked?”
“It’s not far.”
“Yes, I guess we walked. I’m not a very good driver. It was cold and foggy down there and there was a bad smell. I can’t stand it,” she kept saying, ‘I’ll kill myself.’ And she did. She did kill herself.
“No.”
“She must have. I can’t remember.”
“Try.”
“I won’t try. I don’t want to remember. Lewis, Lewis, help me! Don’t let him make me remember! Lewis — Daddy!”
“It’s all right,” Easter said. “You don’t have to remember if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t?”
“No. Forget Violet.”
“Yes. Yes, I think I’ll forget all about her. She was an ignorant girl with no manners.”
“You don’t mind remembering about Voss though, do you? You don’t like Voss. He swore at you.”
“Yes, he did. He swore at me.”
“You saw him again later that night?”
“I think so. I think it was that night. He came to call for Violet, and I told him she was on her way home.” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m... I’m getting confused. I shouldn’t be telling you all this, should I? Lewis is looking at me funny. Stop, Lewis, stop looking at me like that.”
“I... all right, Gwen,” Lewis said. “All right.”
“You’re mad at me for borrowing your gun.”
“No, I’m not, Gwen. You couldn’t help it.”
“That’s right, I really couldn’t. There wasn’t any other gun and I had to have one to protect myself.”
“Mrs. Ballard,” Easter said. “On Monday night when Voss came to get Violet, did he believe you when you told him she was on her way home?”
“No. He said he’d been here earlier and when no one answered the door he drove around a little while, and then he — he saw me walking with Violet down towards the wharf. He said he waited and watched, and I came back alone. He accused me — he said bad things...”
“That’s when you gave him money?”
“I had to. All the money I had, the housekeeping money and the six hundred dollars I’d gotten on Saturday for the pair of blue merles I sold, and two rings and a necklace. He promised he’d keep quiet and go away and not come back.”
“But he came back,” Easter said.
“Yes, early this morning. Very early. It was still almost dark. Lewis hadn’t phoned or anything. I was worried and couldn’t sleep. I heard the car and looked out the window and saw them, Voss and the other man, walking across the driveway. I put on my shoes and coat, and then I went into Lewis’ study and got one of the guns and hid it in the pocket of my coat.
“I went downstairs and opened the front door. I said, what do you want? And Voss said something new had come up, that he and Eddie needed more money so they could get out of the country for good. ‘We can’t talk here,’ I said, ‘Lewis is upstairs in bed, he’ll hear us.’ “
Charlotte looked across the room at Lewis, and she knew from the tragic regret in his eyes that his thoughts were like her own: he should have been upstairs in bed that early morning and he should have been at home when Violet first came. If he had been, all four of them would still be alive, still have a future, Eddie and Violet and Voss, and Gwen herself. For Gwen the road ahead was dark and twisted, with here and there a patch of light and an arrow pointing back, back, back to the gay parties, to Daddy and the teddy bear and the smiling French doll, back to the kinder years, further back, and further, until the end of the road was the beginning.