Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories of Shirley Jackson (27 page)

These words the book had ordered me to speak, and as my lips formed the unholy syllables, the room rocked and a great thundering roll came from the walls and the ceiling, and from a cloud before the fire where lay my deadly potion stepped the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

Aghast, I let my hand fall from the book, and I stared at this image in wonder and delight. Elizabeth? She was forgotten, and my father, and my vengeance, and the devil himself, for I had found a way to greater joy than either vengeance or love could bring. I felt myself drawn forward to the figure that stood so silently, regarding me, and I took a half step toward her. Then she held up her hand warningly.

“Walk carefully,” she said. “Come not too close to
me.”

Recklessly I ran to her, and seized her hand. “Is there any danger in you that I would not willingly embrace?” I demanded, and came ever closer to her. With this, however, she laughed, and leaned her head back to look at me. “You are brave indeed…” she said.

No more than that shall I say of my lady of the fire. Let it be enough to add that for many nights, while Nicholas laughed at my anxiety, I locked myself again in the great study and from my father’s book repeated the spell that had brought her to me at first. I cannot say how the love of a being such as this will affect a man; I know only that I was mad, and, being mad, knew my madness and deliberately sought it out. No word of my father passed, those days, between Nicholas and me—everything was forgotten before the dreams of the image which came to me from the fire. Ardently as I implored her not to leave me, to stay or to take me with her, she would always reply, half smiling: “You will be with me soon enough, and we shall never be parted then.”

Such things, I know, lead to desperate deeds in a man, and yet it was Elizabeth, weary of her prison, who led me to my last disaster. For one golden afternoon, as I lay in the garden dreaming of my love, Nicholas came to me, and spoke softly and quickly: “I have given orders, half brother, that Elizabeth be released from the tower.”

Angrily, I half rose. “Who are you to be giving orders in my home?” I demanded first, and then: “And Elizabeth? Has she repented?”

“I give orders because I, too, am lord here,” Nicholas said quietly, “and Elizabeth—has repented.”

I could not speak before the mockery in his eyes. What would I have to do with Elizabeth, who was nothing before my lady from the flames? And Nicholas—he would be driven away, half brother or no, and I would have no rivals in my home.

But Nicholas said: “Elizabeth has repented, and yet, despairing of your love, she has turned her heart another way… to one not, perhaps, as wealthy, but of as noble blood.” And he made a gallant bow.

Then I was on my feet, hating him and seeing how surely he had stolen my life while I had lain idly under the curse of my spells. And I reached for my sword, but it lay in the study, by the fire, where I had cast it off and forgotten it, to kneel at the feet of my lady.

Then, afraid, I saw that I had been tricked, and that while Nicholas had stolen my life, my fair lady had held me bound in witchcraft. And I turned from Nicholas and went to the study, and, for the last time, spoke the words that brought my lady to me. And then, when she came, I did not go to her, but stood safely within the compass of my charmed circle, knowing now that to leave it was death, and I watched her, standing lovely before the fire, and I said:

“Did you, then, betray me?”

She laughed. “Are you afraid to come closer to me and ask that?”

I nearly went over to the fire when she spoke, because the enchantment in her voice was enough to turn any man’s head, except if he had in him, as I did, the warm memory of betrayal.

“I want to come no closer to you than I now know I can stand with safety,” I said.

“You will be with me soon enough.”

“And you and Nicholas…” I said. “What have I left now?”

She laughed again. “Even as I betrayed your father,” she said.

And now I knew that I could still be revenged.

“He bade you stay in peace,” she added, “and leave him in his grave!”

And then I thought, and, crying aloud to her, I made the sign of the cross, again and again, and watched her stand untouched before me. “You have no contact with the powers of good now,” she said. “Why do you invoke them against me?”

And I fell on my knees and covered my head, and she whispered: “You will be with me soon, my love, for I will be here. I will be waiting for you to come.” And when I looked up she had gone.

Then, indeed, I came out from my charmed circle, and raged as a madman at the walls and the fire, seeking her to destroy her. All the curses and invocations I could find in my mind I employed against her, and still found myself only raging against stone. And then I remember my crying: “Then I shall destroy you, if you are here, if I must destroy the whole world around you!”

And I ran into the darkness of the night outside, and knew only that there was a flaming torch in my hand, but the castle was old and the trees were dry, and there was more wood than stone that had gone to make up my home….

And as I ran down the road crying aloud, with the flames from the hill close on my heels, I thought I heard a voice crying from the tower, and I thought of Elizabeth and nearly turned back. But then, seeing the castle where it stood, a thing of flame, I fell instead on my knees and thought of Elizabeth, and called her name, and tried to return again from the powers of darkness and ask a kinder Lord to forgive me. And it was there that they found me, the villagers, and dragged me away, still crying out among themselves at my madness.

And so I die, as did my father, for the crimes of witchcraft and murder, for Elizabeth lay in the ruins of the castle. And for a day only I lay in my jail, watching the scaffold outside, and I wondered long about the madness that will take a man.

And then, with day, and as I stood (like my father so long ago; like my father!) at the foot of the scaffold and heard the crowd cry out against me, the ranks of them parted, and Nicholas came up to me where I stood.

“Ah, half brother!” he cried gaily. “You have made a pretty revenge for your father!”

But I asked him only: “How did you escape the flames in the castle?”

“My mother brought me out safely,” Nicholas said.

“Your mother?”

“Yes,” said Nicholas. “She whom you saw each night in the fire—she who betrayed our father, half brother!”

And he started away, laughing, but then he turned and came to me, and his deep eyes were serious. “Half brother,” he said, “I have one further thing to give you.” He lifted my hand as he spoke, and held it tight between his own. A wild, desperate hope leaped up within me, and I cried, thinking I might yet save myself from death: “Nicholas, help me now! What will you give me?”

“Oh, half brother,” Nicholas sighed mockingly, “how eager you are!” And he lifted my helpless hand and slipped my ring, and my father’s ring, the signet ring of our house, off my finger. “I give you your freedom, brother of my house,” he said, and he gestured at the gallows.

Then, laughing still, he turned again and went through the crowd, as I cried after him, and raged at my bonds to escape and be on him, but the crowd roared me back and the jailers forced me up the steps of the scaffold. And from the height, I saw one thing. I saw Nicholas, on his way home, as he turned and waved at me; and then, as I saw him ride alone, up the long road to the smoldering embers of my house, I buried my head in my hands and knew cruelly that now, indeed, the devil held the hill.

W
HAT A
T
HOUGHT

D
INNER HAD BEEN GOOD
; Margaret sat with her book on her lap and watched her husband digesting, an operation to which he always gave much time and thought. As she watched he put his cigar down without looking and used his free hand to turn the page of his paper. Margaret found herself thinking with some pride that unlike many men she had heard about, her husband did not fall asleep after a particularly good dinner.

She flipped the pages of her book idly; it was not interesting. She knew that if she asked her husband to take her to a movie, or out for a ride, or to play gin rummy, he would smile at her and agree; he was always willing to do things to please her, still, after ten years of marriage. An odd thought crossed her mind: She would pick up the heavy glass ashtray and smash her husband over the head with it.

“Like to go to a movie?” her husband asked.

“I don’t think so, thanks,” Margaret said. “Why?”

“You look sort of bored,” her husband said.

“Were you watching me?” Margaret asked. “I thought you were reading.”

“Just looked at you for a minute.” He smiled at her, the smile of a man who is still, after ten years of marriage, very fond of his wife.

The idea of smashing the glass ashtray over her husband’s head had never before occurred to Margaret, but now it would not leave her mind. She stirred uneasily in her chair, thinking: what a terrible thought to have, whatever made me think of such a thing? Probably a perverted affectionate gesture, and she laughed.

“Funny?” her husband asked.

“Nothing,” Margaret said.

She stood up and crossed the room to the hall door, without purpose. She was very uneasy, and looking at her husband did not help. The cord that held the curtains back made her think: strangle him. She told herself: it’s not that I don’t love him, I just feel morbid tonight. As though something bad were going to happen. A telegram coming, or the refrigerator breaking down. Drown him, the goldfish bowl suggested.

Look, Margaret told herself severely, standing just outside the hall door so that her husband would not see her if he looked up from his paper, look, this is perfectly ridiculous. The idea of a grown woman troubling herself with silly fears like that—it’s like being afraid of ghosts, or something.
Nothing
is going to happen to him, Margaret, she said almost aloud;
nothing
can happen to hurt either you or your husband or anyone you love. You are perfectly safe.

“Margaret?” her husband called.

“Yes?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, dear,” Margaret said. “Just getting a drink of water.”

Poison him? Push him in front of a car? A train?

I don’t
want
to kill my husband, Margaret said to herself. I never
dreamed
of killing him. I want him to live. Stop it, stop it.

She got her drink of water, a little formality she played out with herself because she had told him she was going to do it, and then wandered back into the living room and sat down. He looked up as she entered.

“You seem very restless tonight,” he said.

“It’s the weather, I guess,” Margaret said. “Heat always bothers me.”

“Sure you wouldn’t like to go to a movie?” he said. “Or we could go for a ride, cool off.”

“No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll go to bed early.”

“Good idea,” he said.

What would I do without him? she wondered. How would I live, who would ever marry me, where would I go? What would I do with all the furniture, crying when I saw his picture, burning his old letters. I could give his suits away, but what would I do with the house? Who would take care of the income tax? I love my husband, Margaret told herself emphatically; I
must
stop thinking like this. It’s like an idiot tune running through my head.

She got up again to turn the radio on; the flat voice of the announcer offended her and she turned the radio off again, passing beyond it to the bookcase. She took down a book and then another, leafing through them without seeing the pages, thinking: It isn’t as though I had a motive; they’d never catch me. Why would I kill my husband? She could see herself saying tearfully to an imaginary police lieutenant: “But I loved him—I can’t
stand
his being dead!”

“Margaret,” her husband said. “Are you worried about something?”

“No, dear,” she said. “Why?”

“You really seem terribly upset tonight. Are you feverish?”

“No,” she said. “A chill, if anything.”

“Come over here and let me feel your forehead.”

She came obediently, and bent down for him to put his hand on her forehead. At his cool touch she thought, Oh, the dear, good man; and wanted to cry at what she had been thinking.

“You’re right,” he said. “Your head feels cold. Better go on off to bed.”

“In a little while,” she said. “I’m not tired yet.”

“Shall I make you a drink?” he asked. “Or something like lemonade?”

“Thank you very much, dear,” she said. “But no thanks.”

They say if you soak a cigarette in water overnight the water will be almost pure nicotine by morning, and deadly poisonous. You can put it in coffee and it won’t taste.

“Shall I make
you
some coffee?” she asked, surprising herself.

He looked up again, frowning. “I just had two cups for dinner,” he said. “But thanks just the same.”

I’m brave enough to go through with it, Margaret thought; what will it all matter a hundred years from now? I’ll be dead, too, by then, and who cares about the furniture?

She began to think concretely. A burglar. First call a doctor, then the police, then her brother-in-law and her own sister. Tell them all the same thing, her voice broken with tears. It would not be necessary to worry about preparations; the more elaborately these things were planned, the better chance of making a mistake. She could get out of it without being caught if she thought of it in a broad perspective and not as a matter of small details. Once she started worrying about things like fingerprints she was lost. Whatever you worry about catches you, every time.

“Have you any enemies?” she asked her husband, not meaning to.

“Enemies,” he said. For a moment he took her seriously, and then he smiled and said, “I suppose I have hundreds. Secret ones.”

“I didn’t mean to ask you that,” she said, surprising herself again.

“Why would I have enemies?” he asked, suddenly serious again, and setting down his paper. “What makes you think I have enemies, Margaret?”

“It was silly of me,” she said. “A silly thought.” She smiled and after a minute he smiled again.

“I suppose the milkman hates me,” he said. “I always forget to leave the bottles out.”

The milkman would hardly do; he knew it, and he would not help her. Her glance rested on the glass ashtray, glittering and colored in the light from the reading lamp; she had washed the ashtray that morning and nothing had occurred to her about it then. Now she thought: It ought to be the ashtray; the first idea is always the best.

She rose for the third time and came around to lean on the back of his chair; the ashtray was on the table to her right, now, and she bent down and kissed the top of his head.

“I never loved you more,” she said, and he reached up without looking to touch her hair affectionately.

Carefully she took his cigar out of the ashtray and set it on the table. For a minute he did not notice and then, as he reached for his cigar, he saw that it was on the table and picked it up quickly, touching the table underneath to see if it had burned. “Set fire to the house,” he said casually. When he was looking at the paper again she picked up the ashtray silently.

“I don’t want to,” she said as she struck him.