The Bad Seed (12 page)

She walked to the window and stood there, hearing the voices of her daughter and the Kunkel children raised in shrillness across the street. A sense of petulant sadness came over her, a feeling that she was being most unjustly treated, was being wrongfully punished for things she had not done.…

What was the matter with Rhoda, anyway? Why couldn’t she behave like other girls of her age? What was the basis of her strange, unsocial conduct? She looked back, reviewing the little girl’s life from its beginning, in an effort to see how she had gone wrong in training or affection, to find the mistakes she had made—for it was plain, now, that she had made many mistakes—eager to blame herself, in this moment of self-abasement, for any omission, any error in judgment, no matter how tiny, no matter how innocently done; but she could find nothing of any true importance.

She was still standing there by the window, undecided as to what she must do now, her hands opening and closing in little spasms of anxiety and doubt, when Monica rang the bell. At once she opened the door and gave Monica the locket. Monica
was in one of her more jovial moods; she talked about the locket and the memories it had once held for her, as though she were still on the couch of Dr. Kettlebaum, and associated freely for him.

Christine smiled, listened, and nodded, but her mind took in little that was said. She thought:
Rhoda has been given love and security from the beginning. She was never neglected, and she was never spoiled. She was never unjustly treated. Kenneth and I always made it a point to see that she felt important to us, and wanted. I don’t understand her mind or her character. I do not understand it.

Mrs. Breedlove said, “My own monogram was never on the locket, but I think I’ll have Rhoda’s engraved on the reverse side, if you’re agreeable.”

Whatever the trouble is,
thought Christine, nodding and saying absently, “Yes, yes, of course,” and then half turning and resting her forehead against the panel of the door:
I don’t believe environment had much to do with it. It must be something deeper than that.
She sighed, raised her head, and looked at Mrs. Breedlove once more, thinking:
It was something dark. Something dark and unexplainable.

“Has Rhoda a middle initial?” asked Monica gaily. “It’s odd, but I never thought to inquire before.”

Christine came back to reality and said the child’s full name was Rhoda Howe Penmark. She’d been named for Kenneth’s mother, a formal woman of unbridled respectability. The elder Mrs. Penmark had opposed her son’s marriage into the Bravo family with considerable heat. They were, she said, a family of international vagabonds who had never taken root anywhere; they were dissident Bohemians, or at least Richard Bravo, the father, seemed to be, if one could judge from his writings, and it was only fair to assume his family would be like him, forever taking issue with the fundamental and established order of things, the things that more stable people revered and perpetuated from
generation to generation. She had predicted the direst consequences if her son persisted in “this mad folly”; she wanted to be put on record that she, at least, had seen clearly, and had done her duty—had warned him in advance, no matter how painful the issuance of the warning had been to her, no matter how deeply her forced disapprobation had hurt her mother’s heart. Rhoda had been named for the jealous old lady as a sop to her vanity, in an effort to win her tolerance and good will—an effort which had never been entirely successful.

Monica took the locket, dropped it in her bag, and said, “Oh, that New
England
type. I know it so well, my dear.”

When she had gone, Christine sat by her window that overlooked the park, her forefinger absently moving along the arm of the chair. She thought about her child, and wondered what course she must take now. Then, all at once, she had a sense of weary familiarity, as though she’d been over these things before, and had got nowhere, just as she would get nowhere this time, too. Again she felt self-pity. Her husband had never said so, but she knew the death of the old woman in Baltimore, and the subsequent expulsion of the child for theft from the progressive school, had been the true reasons he’d asked for a transfer from his position there, to this, in a way, lesser position, where he would be among complete strangers.… But when she had pitied herself enough, when she had exhausted the possibilities of how unjustly she was treated, when compared with happier women, women whose children were ordinary and predictable, her sense of proportion returned to her, and with it, hope and something of her normal good nature.

She would no longer jump to unsupported conclusions. Perhaps Rhoda had a truthful and logical explanation for having the penmanship medal. Perhaps she’d been too frightened to admit its possession, with the Fern sisters badgering her in a body, and asking her all those shaped, pointed questions. At least, she had
not lied this time, except indirectly, of course, for nobody, so far as she now knew, had thought to ask the child if she had the medal herself, or knew where it was.

She washed her face in cold water, put on new lipstick, and sat for ten minutes to compose herself; then, crossing the street, she went to the Kunkels’ backyard and told Rhoda to come with her. When they were home again, she got the medal from its hiding place and put it on the table before them. Rhoda’s eyes opened wide in alarm, and then, glancing from side to side, she closed them warily.

“How did the penmanship medal happen to be in your dresser drawer?” said Christine. “Tell me the truth, Rhoda.”

Rhoda took off one of her shoes, examined it slowly, and put it on again, but she did not answer at once. Then, smiling a little, dancing away from her mother in a gesture which others had always found so charming, she said, to gain time, “When we move into our new house, can we have a scuppernong arbor, too? Can we? Can we, Mother?”

“Answer my question, Rhoda! But remember I’m not as innocent about what went on at the picnic as you think. Miss Octavia Fern told me a great deal when I went to see her. So please don’t bother to make up a story for my benefit this time.”

But the child remained silent, her mind working, waiting shrewdly for her mother to continue talking, and betray the answer she expected; but Christine, as though aware of her child’s intention, and repelled by her calculated but clumsy efforts at evasion, only said, “How did Claude Daigle’s medal get in your dresser drawer? It certainly didn’t get there by itself. I’m waiting for your answer, Rhoda.”

She got up from her chair and walked about the room, a sense of anger suddenly burning in her. The child should be thoroughly spanked, she felt. She’d never been spanked in her life, and perhaps that was the real trouble with her now. She should be thoroughly
and efficiently spanked; she should be taught, without further delay, a lesson in kindness and consideration for other people. But her anger died quickly, and she knew she could never bring herself to hurt the child, no matter what she’d done. Perhaps Rhoda knew that, too. Perhaps it was really the strength of her polite, unyielding stubbornness.

“I don’t know how the medal got there, Mother,” said Rhoda, her eyes wide with innocence. “How should I know how the medal got there?”

“You know. You know quite well how it got there.”

She seated herself again, and, continuing in a softer voice, she said, “The first thing I want to know is this: did you go out on the wharf at any time—any time at all—during the picnic?”

“Yes, Mother,” said the child hesitantly. “I went there once.”

“Was it before or after you were bothering Claude?”

“I didn’t bother Claude, Mother. What makes you think that?”

“When did you go out on the wharf, Rhoda?”

“It was real early. It was when we first got there.”

“You knew you were forbidden to go on the wharf, didn’t you? Why did you do it?”

“One of the big boys said there were little shells that grew on the pilings. I didn’t believe that shells grew on wood, and I wanted to see if they did or not.”

Christine nodded, and said, “I’m glad you admit being on the wharf, at least. Miss Fern told me one of the guards saw you coming off the wharf. He said it was much later than you claim, though. He said it wasn’t long before lunchtime.”

“He’s wrong, though. I told Miss Fern that, too. It happened like I said it did.” Then, as though feeling she’d won the initial point, she said, “The man hollered at me, and told me to come off, and I did what he said. I went back to the lawn, and that’s where I saw Claude. But I wasn’t bothering Claude. I was just talking to him.”

“What did you say to Claude?”

“I said that if I didn’t win the medal, I was glad he won it. So Claude said I was sure to win it next year, as the medal wasn’t ever given twice to the same pupil.”

Christine shook her head wearily. “Please! Please, Rhoda! This isn’t a game. I want the truth.”

“But it’s all true, Mother,” said Rhoda earnestly. “Every word I tell you is true.”

Christine was silent for a short time, and then she said, “Miss Fern told me about one of the monitors who saw you try to take the medal off Claude’s shirt. Did the girl really see what she said she did?”

“That big girl was Mary Beth Musgrove,” said Rhoda. “She told everybody she saw me; even Leroy Jessup knows she saw me.” She paused, and then went on, her bright eyes opened wide, as though complete candor were now the only course open to her. “Claude and I were playing a game we made up. He said if I could catch him in ten minutes, and touch the medal with my hand—it was like prisoners’ base, or something—he’d let me wear the medal for an hour. How can Mary Beth say I took the medal? I didn’t.”

“Mary Beth didn’t say you took the medal. She said you grabbed at it, and tried to take it. She said Claude ran away down the beach when she called to you. Did you have the medal even then?”

“No, Mother. Not then.”

She was becoming more sure of herself under the questioning, and convinced at last that her mother knew little, or nothing at all, she came to her, put her arms about her neck, and kissed her cheek with such ardor that her mother was now the passive, patient one.

At last Christine said, “How did you get the medal, Rhoda?”

“Oh, I got it later
on.
”

“I want to know how you got possession of the medal, Rhoda.”

“When Claude went back on his promise,” said Rhoda, “I followed him up the beach. Then he stopped and said I could wear the medal all day if I gave him the fifty cents you gave me for spending money.”

“Is that the truth, my darling? Is that really true?”

Rhoda said, a slight contempt in her voice at her easy victory, “Yes, Mother. That’s just what happened. I gave him the fifty cents, and he let me wear the medal.”

“But if you paid him to wear the medal, why didn’t you tell Miss Fern that when she questioned you? Why did you keep quiet about it all this time?”

The child began to whimper, to glance about her with a simulated apprehension. “Miss Fern doesn’t like me at all. She doesn’t, Mother! She really doesn’t! I was afraid she’d think bad things about me if I told her I had the medal.” She rushed to her mother, embraced her, and rested her head against her shoulder, cutting her eyes up expectantly, as though awaiting some cue.

“You knew how much Mrs. Daigle wanted the medal, didn’t you? You knew she paid those men to go down in the water and look for it; we discussed that once before. You knew she held the funeral up, hoping the medal would be found in time, so that Claude could be buried with it. You knew all these things, didn’t you, Rhoda?”

“Yes, Mother. I guess I did.”

“If you knew how anxious she was to find the medal, why didn’t you give it to her? If you were afraid to take it back, I would have done it for you.”

The child said nothing; she merely made placating noises in her throat, and stroked her mother’s neck softly. Christine waited, closed her eyes, and said, “Mrs. Daigle is heartbroken over Claude’s death. It’s almost destroyed her. I don’t think she’ll ever recover from it, at least not completely.” She disengaged her
child’s arms, and, holding her away from her, she said, “Do you understand what I’m talking about? Do you understand at all, Rhoda?”

“I suppose so, Mother. Well, I guess so, Mother.”

But Christine sighed and thought:
She doesn’t understand at all. She hasn’t the least idea of what I mean.

Rhoda shook her head, and said stubbornly, “It was silly to want to bury the medal pinned on Claude’s coat. Claude was dead, wasn’t he? Claude wouldn’t know whether he had the medal pinned on him or not.”

The child felt her mother’s sudden, and, to her, inexplicable, disapproval; and then, as though to win back the ground she had lost, she kissed her mother’s cheek with little hungry kisses. “Oh, I’ve got the
sweetest
mother!” she said. “I tell everybody I know I’ve got the sweetest mother in the world!”

But Christine pulled away from her daughter, and sat alone by the window, looking out at the tree-lined street; then Rhoda, feeling her tested approach, which had always worked so well in the past when she wanted her way, had mysteriously failed her this time, tilted her head sidewise and said, “If Claude’s mother wants a little boy that bad, why doesn’t she take one out of the Orphans’ Home?”

In a feeling of sudden revulsion, Christine pushed the child from her, a thing she’d never done before, and said, “Please go away! Don’t talk to me any more! We have nothing to say to each other.”

Rhoda shrugged and said patiently, “Well, okay. Okay, Mother.”

She sat at the piano and began working on the piece her teacher had given her the week before; she practiced with earnest concentration, her tongue sticking out between her teeth, and when she struck a wrong note, she sighed, shook her head in disapproval, and began the piece all over again.

Christine, not long afterward, went about preparing lunch. When she and her daughter had eaten, and she was putting away the last washed dish, she glanced out of the kitchen window and saw Leroy in the courtyard below. He smirked, showing his stained, irregular teeth, rolled his eyes in invitation, and turned away. He had been out the night before drinking beer with his wife, and he still had a slight hang-over. That trough-fed, pink Christine Penmark, he thought. That dizzy blonde! That one didn’t have enough sense to come in when it rained. That blonde was sure dumb. That dumb Christine let Rhoda put it over on her all the time.