Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams 1953(7)

“Well, there are actually several things. One is that
I wouldn’t marry you on a bet. I’ve already been
married to one big-hearted girl who couldn’t
remember where she lived, and once around the
course is enough for any man. But the big thing I
had in mind is that you’ve already got a husband.
Remember? Or do you, very often?”
“Probably as often as you do. But never mind
about him. He got everything he paid for.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know why we came back from Galveston
today?”
I’d forgotten about that. “No. How could I?”
“He had a heart attack.”
“What!”
“It was the second one.”
“Where is he now?”


“At home. He wouldn’t stay in the hospital.”
“When was it?”
“Let’s see. It was Monday afternoon I got him to
call the Sheriff up here, wasn’t it? So it was Tuesday
morning.”
“How did it happen?”
“He was fighting a big shark, trying to keep it from
getting the line around the anchor or something, and
swearing at the boatman at the same time, and he
just fell over. We brought him in to the hospital. He
almost didn’t make it.”
“What did the doctors say?” I knew I was in a
funny position to be feeling concerned for him, but I
did.
“If he has another one, it may kill him.”
“Why wouldn’t he stay in the hospital?”
“He hates ‘em. And he never pays any attention to
Hell Hath No Fury — 125
doctors. But they warned him he’d better this time.
He has to cut out that fishing, and the cigars. And
not do any work for several months, and only a little
then. Nothing that will excite him. You know what
that means?”
“Sure. Just what you said. No more big-game
fishing. No more blowing his top over business and
government forms and taxes.”
“It means more than that. Remember, I told you
he’d had two? Well, he wasn’t fighting a shark when
he had the first one.”
Hell Hath No Fury — 126
14
I was dead the next day; it was worse than a
hangover. Even after I’d gone home I couldn’t sleep.
I kept thinking of her and what she could do to me,
and for some reason I couldn’t get Harshaw out of
my mind. It didn’t make much sense. Why should I
worry about him? But every time I’d close my eyes
and try to sleep the whole thing would start around
again, his lying there alone in the dark listening to it
like a mechanic to a missing engine and knowing
that when it started to go away again he was done
because there wasn’t anybody to do anything or
even to be there when he left, while all the time the
two of us were out there wallowing in our own
cheapness. It was a little hard to sleep with.
I was so filled with disgust I didn’t even go across
the street to see Gloria. I didn’t know whether I
could face her. The news was out, and everybody
was talking about Harshaw’s heart attack.
The following day I began to feel a little better. It
was Saturday, and we were pretty busy. Around
noon the telephone rang.
“Mr. Madox?”
What now? I thought. “Yes. Speaking.”
Hell Hath No Fury — 127
“This is Mrs. Harshaw. George asked me to call
you. He isn’t feeling well enough to come down to
the office, you know. I guess you’ve heard about it
—?” She let it trail off.
“Yes,” I said. “I hated to hear it. How is he now?”
“He’s a little better. That’s the reason I’m calling.
He’d like to have you come out to the house tonight
to talk over some business details. Do you think you
could make it, around seven o’clock?”
“Sure,” I said.
“That’ll be fine, then. And would you mind telling
the girl in the loan office, Miss—ah—“
“Harper,” I said. The lousy tramp. She just
couldn’t resist it.
“Yes. That’s it. Miss Harper. He wants her to come
too.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll tell her.”
I went across the street. She was busy with a
Negro who was making a payment on his loan. When
she saw me waiting she waved the pencil at me and
her eyes crinkled up in a smile. In a minute the
Negro said, “Thank you, Miss Gloria,” and went out.
“Hello,” she said.
“You’re looking very pretty.” I paused. We were
both always just a little awkward with each other
when we first met.
“Do you like my new dress?”
I looked at it. It was blue with white sort of ruffles.
‘Yes,” I said. “Very much.”
She smiled. “It isn’t new. You’ve seen it four
times.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never seen it at all.”
“You’re nice.” Then her face became serious and
she said quietly, “It’s so awful about Mr. Harshaw,
isn’t it?”
“Yes. But I just talked to Mrs. Harshaw, and I think
he’s a little better. He wants us to come out there
tonight. Something about the business. If you can
make it, I’ll pick you up a little before seven.”
Hell Hath No Fury — 128
“All right, Harry. But he shouldn’t be trying to
think about business now. What do you suppose he
wants?”
“Probably just a report,” I said. “But there’s no
telling. Maybe he’s going to sell out and retire.”
She didn’t answer for a minute. Then she asked,
“Do you really think he will?”
Something in her voice made me turn and look at
her. It still puzzled me after I left. She had seemed
almost afraid. But why should she be? Even if she
lost her job, which was unlikely, there were plenty of
others.
It was dusk when I drove over to pick her up. She
wasn’t quite ready, and I waited, talking about cars
with the Robinsons on the front porch. When she
came out she was very lovely in a white skirt and
dark, long-sleeved blouse, and as we went down the
walk and I helped her into the car I was conscious of
a faint fragrance about her in the air.
The street going up past the filling station was
deserted in the twilight, and just as we came to the
oaks I stopped the car.
“Did you forget something, Harry?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t forget it. This is just the first
chance I’ve had to do it.” I took her face in my hands
and kissed her.
When her eyes opened they smiled at me. There
was just enough light to see them. They were
enormous. “You mustn’t get lipstick on you. We’re
going to a business conference.”
“The devil with business conferences. I just
wanted to tell you something. Maybe I never told
you before. You’re lovely; and you’re wonderful.”
“Now you’re making me lose interest in business.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “We’ll sneak out right
after we’ve voted our stock.”

She laughed. And then, as I started the car again,
she said soberly, “I do hope he’s better, Harry. It’s
so awful thinking of him that way.”
Hell Hath No Fury — 129
He was sitting up in a big chair in the living room,
wearing pajamas and a seersucker robe. He looked
old somehow. His face was a dirty gray and seemed
thinner, though that might have been just
imagination. The only things unchanged about him
were the eyes. They were as frosty and tough as
ever, and you somehow got the impression that his
heart might kill him but it’d never scare him worth a
damn.
She let us in. She was wearing a white summer
dress and every ash-blonde curl was in place. Her
face was heavily made up, but it didn’t quite cover
up the faint shadows under the eyes. Climbing that
sawdust pile was rough medicine, but apparently it’d
worked. She was a tough baby. I saw her giving
Gloria the inventory. No doubt she’d seen her
before, but now she was putting her through the
assay office a piece at a time. There was a thirtylooking-
at-twenty-one appraisal in her eyes and she
didn’t quite cover up all the hardness in them.
“You know Miss Harper, don’t you? And Madox?”
he asked her. I was surprised at his voice. It was a
little shaky, and it had lost most of that paradeground
bark.
“Oh, yes, of course. Won’t you sit down?” And then
she murmured to Gloria, “That’s a lovely blouse. I
like it.”
She excused herself after a fill-in on how he was
feeling and said she’d go out in the kitchen and fix
some drinks. When she was gone, Harshaw asked,
“How’s it going?”
“Pretty good,” I said. I told him how many cars
we’d sold and about a couple we’d taken in on
trades.
“You think the ad did any good?”
“Sure. I’ve got another one in this week’s paper.”
He grunted. “O.K. I’ll tell you what I asked you
over here for, but before I do, how’d you get crossed
up with that Sheriff?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. For one thing, I was
Hell Hath No Fury — 130
new here. And according to that cashier the robber
was a big man.”
“It’s lucky for you Dolly saw you over there at the
fire. I know that bird. In two days he can make you
believe you’re guilty yourself.” He stopped to take a
deep breath. He didn’t have much strength. “But
never mind that. Here’s what I’ve got in mind—”
Just then she came out of the dining room and
interrupted him. “It’s those darn ice-cube trays,
George. They’re stuck again. Maybe Mr. Madox—“
“Sure,” I said, getting up. “Excuse me.”
The little witch, I thought; when she wants to
throw ‘em at somebody they’re not stuck. I followed
her through the dining room and out into the
kitchen. She watched me as I opened the
refrigerator and took the trays out.
“That’s funny,” she said, smiling. “I couldn’t budge
‘em.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Well, you could put the cubes in the glasses if
you’d like.”
I put them in four glasses. She poured whisky and
soda in three of them and plain soda in the fourth.
Then she began stirring, making a lot of noise. With
the other hand she caught my lapel, and jerked her
head for me to come nearer.
She looked up at me, still with that hard smile on
her mouth. “Very pretty, isn’t she?” she asked, not
whispering, but keeping her voice low. Her nostrils
dilated a little as she sniffed. “And you can tell the
angel-faced little bitch to quit leaving her tracks on
you. I can smell her all over you.”
“You’re crowding your luck,” I said. “Don’t go too
far.”
“Maybe you thought I was joking. You’d better
keep it in mind.”
“I’ve told you once,” I said. “Don’t threaten me.” I
caught the arm that was stirring, pried the spoon
out of her fingers, and threw it on the drainboard.
“Shall we take the drinks in?”
Hell Hath No Fury — 131
We went in and passed the drinks around and sat
down. Gloria glanced at me with her eyes shining.
“Madox, I’ve just been telling Miss Harper,” he
said. “Here’s the deal. I’m going to have to quit
trying to work, at least for a long time. So I want you
to take charge of everything down there. She’ll
continue to run the loan office, just as she has been,
but you’ll be responsible for the whole works. I’ll pay
you a salary, plus your own commissions and the
sales-manager’s take on what Gulick sells. You ought
to be good for around six thousand a year. Do you
want it?”
Did I? I thought. It was a terrific break, and it took
me a little by surprise. I didn’t understand it. We’d
always fought like a couple of sore-headed bears.
“Sure,” I said, trying to get my breath. “Of course I
do. But why me? I mean, Gulick’s the senior man—“
He gestured curtly. There was still a little of the
old Harshaw there. “Gulick can’t handle it,” he
grunted. “He hasn’t got the drive. I know you have,
and you’re too disagreeable to be crooked, so it’s
yours if you want it.”
Sure, I thought. I’m not crooked. Besides
betraying him with his wife, all I’ve done lately is
steal twelve thousand dollars. It was a little hard to
look at him.
It didn’t take long to straighten out the details.
Just before we left she had to go with Gloria to show
her where the bathroom was, and as they went out
of the room he looked after them. It was the first
time I’d ever seen anything gentle in his face. I
wondered which one he was looking at.
“That’s one of the finest girls who ever lived,” he
said. And then I knew. He was speaking of Gloria.
“You won’t have to pull any of your hardboiled stuff
on her. So don’t, or you won’t be there.”
As soon as we were out in the car she said simply,
“I’m so happy for you, Harry. I think it’s wonderful.”
I turned south on Main Street and drove down the
highway. Without conscious thought I made the turn
on to the road going up past the abandoned
Hell Hath No Fury — 132
farmhouses. We were both silent now, as the road
wound into the river bottom. It was black here in the
timber. In a few minutes we came to the river. I
stopped the car off the road at the end of the bridge
and turned off the lights. The night closed in around
us. I got out and went around the car to her door
and opened it and helped her out.

When my eyes became accustomed to the darkness
I could see the river, the stars reflected on the
surface like silver dust across a mirror, and the
ghostly outline of the bridge. We walked out on to it,
her high heels rapping on the planks. We stopped
and stood at the railing, looking down into the
blackness and the water. I turned and I could see
her face in the faint light here in the open between
the walls of trees. The eyes were dark, looking
quietly up at me, and there was just a whisper of
that fragrance about her. I reached out and put my
arms around her.
For a long time there were no words. I was kissing
her and then holding her, like something very
precious that might fly away, holding her with my
face down against her cheek. Then she stirred a
little and moved back and as my arms relaxed she
took both of my hands and lifted them up against her
face.
“The way you did before,” she said softly. “It’s
crazy, isn’t it, but I love for you to kiss me that way.
Maybe it’s because that was the way it was the first
time you kissed me. Do you remember that, Harry?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve forgotten it entirely. It was just a
little thing, like having a house fall on you.” I held
her face that way and bent down until I was just
touching her lips. “I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too, Harry.”
“You do?”
“Yes. It’s kind of funny. I’ve known you only about
a month, but I can’t seem to remember what it was
like when I wasn’t in love with you. I guess I ought
to die of shame for telling you, but you’ll never know
how much I was hoping you’d kiss me that night
Hell Hath No Fury — 133
when you brought Spunky home.”
“You’re a crazy kid,” I said. “And wonderful.”
We were silent again, and after a while she asked
softly, “What are you thinking about?”
“I was just wondering how we happened to come
to this place. I think I knew right from the minute we
left Harshaw’s that I was going to ask you if you’d
marry me, and I just drove out here without even
thinking about it. And I was remembering something
he said when you were out of the room.”
“What was that, Harry?”
“It’s a little funny now. He said he’d fire me if I
didn’t treat you right. On the job, he meant. You
know he’s pretty crazy about you, too. He said you
were the finest girl he’d ever seen.”
“Don’t say that, Harry!” She tightened up suddenly
in my arms, and I could hear the beginnings of panic
in her voice. “Don’t say anything. Just hold me.”
I held her, but it wasn’t any good. I could feel her
going to pieces. And then she was crying, not
silently as she had before but with a shaken
hopelessness that tore me up. There wasn’t anything
I could do until she quietened. It was an awful
feeling.
It was a long time. When she was still at last I took
out my handkerchief and mopped away the tears,
and then I got hold of her arm and led her back to
the car. We got in and I lighted a cigarette and held
it for her while she puffed at it.
“All right,” I said, “start at the beginning. We’ve
got all night, and we’re not going to leave here till
you tell me. Something’s hurting you, and it’s gone
far enough. So let’s have it.”
“All right, I’ll tell you, Harry,” she said dully. “I
can’t stand it any more. I’ve got to tell you. And I’ll
have to tell him, too. That’s the awful part of it. After
the way he’s treated me, how can I tell—Harry, how
can I?”
“Tell who?” I asked.
“Mr. Harshaw.” Her voice began to tighten up
Hell Hath No Fury — 134
again. “I’ve been stealing from him, Harry. I’ve
stolen nearly two thousand dollars from him.” It
caught up with her again.
It’s fine, I thought. It’s wonderful. Harshaw should
write a book about his faith in the human race. His
wife’s a tramp, I’ve been helping her with it, and
now this. And then I knew it didn’t fit. Two of us
were guilty, but Gloria didn’t belong in the crowd.
There was nothing to do until she recovered, and
then I said gently, “All right, baby. You just tell me
what it is. We’ll straighten it out. There are two of us
now.” I lighted her another cigarette and pulled her
back to where she could rest her head against my
arm.
“I’m sorry, Harry. But I think I’m all right now. I
don’t think I can make you understand why I did it,
because you’re not the kind of coward I was, but I’ll
tell you the best I can. It’s been going on for nearly a
year now. I keep paying the money back, but I can’t
catch up with it because of the interest—“
She’s unique, I thought. She tells me she’s a thief,
but still she’s paying interest on the money she
stole.
“I won’t try to tell you what it’s like,” she went on
quietly, with that hopelessness in her voice. “Just
trying to keep going, I mean, trying to keep the
books straight, paying back a few dollars here and a
few there, and then having to write out another fake
note to cover one that has to be paid. It all comes to
over fifteen hundred dollars, and the interest on it
takes up nearly half of what I can pay back out of my
salary each month. And then there’s always more.
Something new. Another twenty or thirty or fifty
dollars. But I guess I’d better tell you where it all
went, where it goes—“
“That I already know, honey,” I said. “What I want
to find out before I go to talk to him is why.”
She shook her head with frantic entreaty. “No,
Harry. No! Don’t you see that’s one reason I haven’t
told you before? I mean, for fear of what you’d do.
He might hurt you, or you might get into trouble
Hell Hath No Fury — 135
over it.”
“You can tell me, baby.” I said. “And don’t worry
about it. We’ll just have a little talk. It’s just possible
I speak his language a little better than you do.”
She hesitated a minute and then she said
unhappily, “All right. But there isn’t anything we can
do. Except to go and tell him. Mr. Harshaw, I mean.
Once I can get up the courage to do that... but I
might as well start at the beginning. It’s about a girl,
or a woman rather, who came hereabout this time
last year. Her name was Irene Davey. She was a
teacher. She’d been hired to teach high-school
maths—algebra and plane geometry, I think—and to
coach the girls’ basketball team. School didn’t start
until September, of course, but she came along late
in August to find a place to live. I met her on the
tennis court one day just after she came.
“She was several years older than I was—I guess
she was twenty-six or twenty-eight—but she was
very good at sports. She was crazy about all kinds of
games. She could always beat me at tennis without
even trying, and kept asking me about places to
swim around here. I understood she had been on the
swimming team in college, and had won a number of
diving competitions. She seemed to take a great
liking to me right from the first. She called me a
couple of times and asked me to go to the show with
her. I introduced her to a few boys I knew, but she
didn’t seem to be much interested in them.”
She stopped, and then she said, “This is a lot of
explanation, Harry, but I have to tell you all of this
before you’ll understand what happened. It was
awful. But I didn’t know—“
No, I thought, she probably didn’t. I was beginning
to have an odd feeling about it, a kind of
premonition. What I was remembering was the
scene that Sunday morning when they had me
trapped up there in that old barn.
Hell Hath No Fury — 136
15
She went on. “Anyway, Miss Davey came by the
house one Saturday afternoon when I was home
alone and wanted to go swimming. I told her I didn’t
like the idea of swimming in the river because it had
snags in it and there might be snakes, but she
seemed so anxious to try it I finally gave in. I put my
bathing suit on, with slacks over it, left a note telling
my sister where I’d gone, and we started down here.
We went in her car. I thought about this place
because I remembered there was a pool just below
the bridge.
“When we got here it was still early in the
afternoon and the sun was awfully hot. We took off
the clothes we had on over our swim-suits, but she
didn’t seem to be nearly as eager to swim as she had
been. She wanted to talk. We sat in the car and
smoked a cigarette, almost in this same spot we’re
in now, and she told me how much she appreciated
my being so nice to her and that she liked me very
much. It was a little embarrassing, but I just thought
she was lonely and eager to make friends here and I
didn’t want to be too stand-offish and rude and hurt
her feelings. But then she started telling me I was
very pretty, and how I looked in a bathing suit—“
Hell Hath No Fury — 137
She broke off then. I could feel her shudder
slightly. “It’s awfully hard to tell you this, Harry,”
she said hesitantly.
“It’s all right, honey,” I said. “You can skip most of
it if you want to. There’s nothing new about it, and I
can guess the rest.”
“I’m glad you understand,” she said. “I—I guess I
was awfully naive. I was just uncomfortable and
wanted to get out of the car because some of the
things she was saying were so personal. And then—
It was horrible. She was trying to kiss me. I was so
absolutely frozen with terror I couldn’t do anything
at first, and then I tried to get out. She was talking
to me and trying to hold me back, and I began to
fight at her. She was terribly strong. I was crying by
this time and trying to get the door open and push
her away all at the same time when suddenly she
stopped and looked around the other way, out of the
window on her side. There was a man standing there
in the road. I didn’t know him then, but it was Mr.
Sutton.
“He looked just the way he did that time we saw
him out at the oil well. He hadn’t shaved, and he had
the gun in his arm and was carrying a dead squirrel
by the tail.
“He stood there looking at us for a minute with
that awful, filthy grin, and then he said, ‘Well, girls,
a little lovers’ spat, huh?’
“I couldn’t do or say anything. I wondered if I was
going to faint or be ill right there in the car. And
then she tore into him, cursing just like a man. I
don’t think I’ve ever heard such things as she called
him. And all the time he just stood there and
grinned. Then he said, ‘Well, girls, I won’t interrupt
you. You go ahead and kiss and make up.’ And then
he walked on away.
“I don’t know yet how I got away. I must have just
grabbed my things and run, out into the timber. The
next thing I knew I was all alone, lying in some
leaves with my slacks and things in my arms,
sobbing for breath. After a while I got up and put
Hell Hath No Fury — 138
them back on over my bathing suit and started
walking. I found the road all right, and a Negro
woman in an old Ford came along and gave me a
ride to town. When I got home Sister still hadn’t
returned, so I tore up the note I’d left. I would never
tell anybody about it.”
“And that was all?” I asked. “I mean, until he came
and looked you up?”

“No.” She shook her head. “That was just the
beginning. The terrible part was the next day, and
Monday. She didn’t come back to town that night.
Somebody at the boarding-house notified the
Sheriff’s office that she was missing, and late
Sunday afternoon Sutton came to town and reported
the car had been parked there in the river bottom all
night. He apparently didn’t say anything about
having seen it before or knowing whose it was, or
anything. They went out there, and when they found
her slacks and shoes in the car they decided she
must have gone swimming, and had drowned. They
started looking for her in the river.
“I was scared, Harry. I was scared to death. Twice
I tried to get up the nerve to go to the Sheriff and
tell him about it, but I just couldn’t do it. How could
I explain why I’d run off and left her? And then early
Monday morning they found her. Right in that pool
below the bridge. Only they didn’t think she had
been drowned. They said she might have been killed
by a blow on the head.”
I whistled softly. It was a mess, an ugly one. “Did
they find out who did it?”
“No,” she said. “Of course, I was frantic by then.
Now I couldn’t tell them I’d been down there. But
nobody knew about it—except Sutton. Around noon
on Monday, after they’d brought her to town, he
came into the office. Mr. Harshaw was out and I was
there alone. He pretended he didn’t know who I was
at first, and just said he wanted to borrow five
hundred dollars. I was so scared I didn’t know what I
was doing, but I did ask him the usual questions,
about security and co-signers, and so on, and got out
Hell Hath No Fury — 139
the forms. And all the time he was watching me, as if
he couldn’t remember where he’d seen me before.
Somehow—I’ll never know how—I got the papers
ready for him to sign. And that was when he did it.
“Just as he picked up the pen, he pretended to
recognize me. ‘Now, I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘I knew I’d
seen you somewhere before, and I couldn’t figure
out how I’d forget a pretty girl like you.’ You know
that awful grin he has. ‘It’s too bad about your lady
friend, isn’t it? I wonder if they’ll ever find out who
did it?’
“Harry, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t think. I
had to hold on to the counter to keep from falling, I
was so weak. He said, ‘But I’ll tell you something
that’s a scream. They’re looking for a man. Ain’t that
a laugh, baby?’
“Then he put down the pen, without signing the
papers, and said, ‘I’ll tell you what, honey. All this
paper work looks too complicated for an old country
boy like me, what with all this fine print and stuff, so
why don’t you just give me the money now and you
can fix up the fiduciaries and the hereinbefores
yourself, like the smart little cookie you are. You see,
I want to get out of town before that dam’ Sheriff
drives me crazy. Just because I live down there he
keeps pestering me with a bunch of silly questions
about whether I saw anybody else or another car,
until honestly I’m just in a pet about it.’ Then he
winked at me and said, ‘How about it, sweetie-pie?
You’d do that for a nasty old man, wouldn’t you?’“
She stopped and ran a hand across her face.
I’d told her I wasn’t going to do anything except
talk to him, but now I could feel a cold and terrible
rage churning around inside me. I wanted to get my
hands on him so bad they hurt.
“So he went out without signing it?” I asked. “And
he got the money?”
“Yes. I told you I was a coward, Harry. I was in
such a panic I couldn’t think. So I had to falsify the
books, to cover it up. Naturally, I didn’t have that
much money myself. But it was all right. I’d pay it
Hell Hath No Fury — 140
back a little at a time, until I got it paid off.”
“And then, the very next day, the Sheriff’s office
said they were convinced it was just an accident.
They found a big snag in the pool under the bridge,
just under the surface, and they believed she had
dived off the bridge railing and hit it. It had either
killed her outright or knocked her unconscious and
she’d drowned. You see, they’d performed an
autopsy Monday afternoon, and found a little water
in her lungs. If she’d been dead when she fell into
the water there probably wouldn’t have been any.”
She stopped.
“Well, look,” I said, “then there isn’t anything
Sutton can do. The whole thing was an accident—“
She shook her head wearily. “You don’t know
Sutton, Harry. He came back a week later and got
two hundred dollars more. Don’t you see? He knew
it wasn’t my money I’d given him the first time, so
now he had me there too.
And he was sure I was coward enough to keep on
paying him to keep that ugly story from coming out.
Don’t you see the suspicion there’d always be if
people knew? Maybe it was an accident. And maybe
it wasn’t.”
She was right. It was sweet, and it was murder.
Sutton had it figured from start to finish. And now
he’d gouged her for over fifteen hundred dollars,
adding a little at a time, so she could never get it all
paid back. The only way she could cover it up was
with phony loans which called for interest, so trying
to whittle down the actual shortage, with this
interest and Sutton’s continued bites, was like trying
to swim upstream over Niagara.
I gathered her up and kissed her. “All right, you
can quit worrying about it. There won’t be any more
‘loans’ to Sutton. And between the two of us we can
put every nickel of it back and have the books
straight in less than three months.”
I wasn’t as optimistic about it as I sounded, but I
wanted to get the load off her mind right then, so
she could get some rest.
Hell Hath No Fury — 141
“But, Harry, I’ve got to go to Mr. Harshaw—“
“No, honey,” I said. “You can’t. Don’t you see, with
his heart in the shape it’s in, you can’t tell him
anything like that now? When it’s all over and we’re
square with the world you can tell him if you want,
but I don’t see any sense in it. Actually, he’ll have
been making money on it at around three per cent
per month for a year, so he should kick.”
“But—“ she protested, “there isn’t any reason for
you to get mixed up in it—paying it back, I mean.”
“Yes,” I said. “I can think of one. Maybe I
mentioned it before. I’m in love with you.”
For the first time, she smiled. It wasn’t much, and
she had to work at it awfully hard, but it was there
and to me it looked like the sun coming up.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s look for tear stains. I’m
going to take you home, and I don’t want your sister
to think I’ve been beating you.”
I switched on the light, and she repaired the
damage.
While she was poking around in her purse,
something fell out of it, bounced once on the seat,
and fell on to the floor mat. I groped around for it
and found it for her. It was a money clasp,
apparently of sterling silver and made in the shape
of a dollar sign.

“Say that’s a pretty thing,” I said.
“My mother gave it to me when I graduated from
high school.”
I handed it back to her and she dropped it into her
purse. “We can be married any time,” I said. “We’ve
already got our silver started.”
She laughed, and finished rubbing out the tear
stains. She felt a lot better, and I kept on clowning
so she wouldn’t know the way I was raging inside.
* * *
When I left her at the gate it was like pulling off an
arm to let her go, but I was anxious to get started
before she thought to ask me what I was going to do.
Hell Hath No Fury — 142
I didn’t want to lie to her any more than I had to,
and I knew she’d be frantic and try to make me
promise if she got an inkling of what was going on in
my mind.
When I got over on Main I stopped under a street
light and got out and opened the trunk. I found what
I was looking for, and threw them in the front seat.
They were a pair of leather gloves I’d won on a
punchboard one time and kept in the car for
changing tires. They were leather all over, very thick
and tough. For a job like this they’d save your hands
almost as well as having them taped.
I was doing seventy by the time I got out of town.
I’d forgotten about Tate and the Sheriff and the fact
that they were still keeping an eye on me. If they
tried to follow me, they got lost. I had to slow down
when I left the highway, but I was crowding it all the
way across the sandhills and through the river
bottom. I went up over the second ridge bucking
along like a madman in the uneven ruts, and when I
hit the clearing I drove right up in his yard. And he
wasn’t home.
The car was gone, and in the beams of the
headlights I could see the cabin door was closed. I
sat there cursing for two or three minutes before I
remembered it was Saturday night. A big sport like
Sutton would be in town, or even in the county seat.
He had to spend all that easy money some way.
There was no use going back and looking for him
around the beer joints and pool halls. The only thing
to do was wait. I looked at my watch. It was a little
after eleven.
I waited until twelve. And then it was one a.m.
Somewhere far off a train whistled for a crossing,
and once in a while a little night breeze would rustle
through the oaks around the clearing. What was the
use of hanging around any longer? He was probably
bedded down somewhere by this time and wasn’t
coming back.
I gave it up finally at two-thirty and went back to
town. I took a shower and lay down in the darkness
Hell Hath No Fury — 143
with an all-night pass on the merry-go-round. The
ash-tray on the floor beside the bed filled up and
overflowed, and the sheets stuck to me every time
I’d turn. I’d think of him, not satisfied with
squeezing her dry with blackmail but having to dress
it up with that crawling joke of his and humiliate her
for his own particular brand of laughs, and the anger
would come boiling up and choke me.
When was it going to end, and where? If I got him
stopped, how about Dolores Harshaw? The whole
thing was changed now. I wanted to stay here, and I
wanted to marry Gloria. So then she’d just wish us
luck, and that Sheriff would get off my back and take
up raising orchids? There wasn’t any way to guess
what she was going to do.
I must have dropped off to sleep sometime towards
dawn, for the next thing I knew it was ten-thirty and
I could hear church-bells ringing. Sutton was back in
my mind with the opening of my eyes, as if he’d
never been gone, and even while I was looking at my
watch I was rolling out of bed. I dressed and went
downtown. Sunlight was brassy in the streets,
stabbing at my eyes. Only a few people were in the
restaurant. I ordered orange juice and coffee, and
while I sat drinking it a man in a white hat came in
and sat down at the second stool on my left. It was
Tate. He nodded.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“All right, I guess.”
“Anything new in the bank deal?”
“No,” he said. “We’re still waiting.” He looked at
me, the level gaze devoid of any expression at all,
and then went back to the newspaper, “just
waiting.”
I finished the coffee and put some change on the
counter. “See you around,” I said, and went out. I
could feel him there behind me. Waiting, I thought.
They’d wait a long time. I threw my cigarette
savagely into the street and headed for the car,
forgetting them. He ought to be home by now.
When I crossed the bridge over the river I thought
Hell Hath No Fury — 144
of last night, and of her telling me, and began to ride
the accelerator. And then when I hit the clearing I
could see the car parked near the porch. He was
home. I rolled to a stop in the front yard, grabbed
the leather gloves off the seat, and got out.
I went up on the front porch and in the door
without knocking. He wasn’t there. I stood in the
middle of the room, looking around, feeling the
wicked proddings of impatience and baffled rage. It
looked about the same as it had that other time,
when I’d come out here with Gloria, the bed unmade
and dirty dishes sitting on the table by the rear door.
Maybe he’d gone hunting. I turned, looking along
the walls. The .22 rifle was lying in a rack near the
front door and just above it was a pump shotgun. He
couldn’t have gone far. A sudden thought occurred
to me and I went over and checked the guns. The .22
was empty, but when I worked the action on the
shotgun it was loaded. I jacked the three shells out
on to the floor, picked them up, and threw them
under the bed.
I sat down on the bed and leaned back against the
wall. Outside I could hear a woodpecker hammering
on a tree. The air was dead and very hot and I could
feel sweat breaking out on my face. And then I heard
him coming. He was climbing out of the ravine
behind the house. I sat there as he appeared in the
rear door, carrying a bucket of water in each hand.
He was wearing overalls, but no shirt, and the
black hair on his arms and chest glistened with
sweat. The smooth moon face split open with a grin
that didn’t get as far as his eyes.
“Come in,” he said. “Make yourself at home.”
“Sure,” I said. I pulled a foot back and put it
behind the edge of the small table beside the bed
and shoved. It shot across the room and crashed into
the kitchen table. An ashtray rolled, spilling butts,
and the kerosene lamp hit the floor and shattered.
Oil spilled down between the planks. “Sit down,” I
said.
He looked at the mess. “Tough, huh?” He set the
Hell Hath No Fury — 145
buckets of water on a bench by the door.
“Yes,” I said. “Tough.”
His eye drifted towards the shotgun.
“It’s not loaded,” I said.
“Well, what’ll they think of next?” He looked at
me.
“What are we going to talk about? Not that I’m
nosey, you understand—“
“Gloria Harper. You’ve been on her back a little
over a year now—“
“And you came all the way out here to tell me to
get off? Is that it?”
“I’m going to do better than that,” I said. “I’m
going to help you off.”
I got up off the bed and started for him. He waited,
not even putting his hands up. I walked in on him,
watching the hands, and when they did move at last,
the left feinting at my face, I turned sharply on my
left-foot and took the knee against my thigh. Maybe
he was expecting somebody from the Golden Gloves,
I thought, swinging very low and hard into his belly
and moving in with it at the end. He bent over,
sucking for air and sick, and I put the glove in his
face and twisted it. He groped for me with a left, and
I hooked a right to his face which spilled him on to
the edge of the kitchen table. The legs caved in on
one end and he slid down it, getting mixed up with
the plates and a bottle of syrup. He tried to get up,
the wind roaring in his throat, and I dropped him
again. It was five times before he stayed down. I was
winded and my hands hurt, and sweat ran down my
face like rain. I got him by the bib of the overalls and
hauled him up against the slant of the table-top with
my knee in his belly and bounced his head against it
three times more for a sales talk and then let him
slide down and roll around in the dishes. He was a
mess to look at. I went over to the water buckets,
fighting to get my breath, and poured water over the
gloves to get the blood off, then took one of his
shirts off the wall and dried them, and threw it on
Hell Hath No Fury — 146
the floor. I poured the rest of the bucket of water in
his face.