The Bad Seed Read Free Page B

of as “Rhoda’s acquisitive look.” She stood obediently while Mrs. Breedlove adjusted the glasses, then turning, she examined herself in the mirror. Monica stood back, clasped her hands together, and cried out in an enraptured voice, “Now, who
is
this glamorous Hollywood actress? Can it really be little Rhoda Penmark who lives with her delightful parents on the first floor of my apartment house? Is it possible that this lovely, sophisticated creature is the little Rhoda Penmark that everybody loves and admires so greatly?”
    She paused for effect, and then, continuing in a lower key, she went on. “And now for the second prize, which is from
me
.” She took from her purse a gold heart with a finely wrought chain attached to it. She explained that the locket had been given her when she, too, was eight; and it had waited all these years in her jewelry case just for this occasion. The locket had been a birthday present originally, and in one side of the heart there was set a garnet, which was her birthstone, since she’d been born in January. At the first opportunity, she meant to take the locket tothe jeweler and have the garnet taken out and a turquoise, which was Rhoda’s own birthstone, put in instead. She planned, too, to have the locket cleaned and the little chain fixed; the clasp didn’t seem to be as firm as it should be, which was hardly surprising when you considered that she, Mrs. Breedlove, had had the locket for more than fifty years.
    “Can I have both stones?” asked Rhoda. “Can I have the little garnet, too?”
    Christine smiled, shook her head disapprovingly, and said, “Rhoda! Rhoda! How can you say such a thing?”
    But Mrs. Breedlove went into peals of pleased, hysterical laughter. “But of
course
you may! Why,
certainly,
my dearest!” She seated herself, and went on. “How wonderful it is to meet such a
natural
little girl. Why, when I was given that same locket by my uncle Thomas Lightfoot, I just stood tongue-tied in the parlor and twisted my plaid dress, a quivering little mass of anxiety and frustration.”
    The child went to her, put her arms around her neck, and kissed her with an intensity that seemed to engage all her consciousness. She laughed softly and rubbed her cheek against the cheek of the entranced woman. “Aunt Monica,” she said in a sweet, shy voice, drawing the name out slowly, as though her mind could not bear to relinquish it. “Oh, Aunt
Monica.
”
    Christine turned and went into the dining-room. She thought, half-amused, half-concerned:
What an actress Rhoda is. She knows exactly how to handle people when it’s to her advantage to do so.
    When she returned to the living-room, Mrs. Breedlove was inspecting the child’s dress. “You look like you’re going to a fashionable afternoon tea, not to a picnic at the beach,” she said gaily. “I know I’m behind the times, but I thought children wore coveralls and playsuits to picnics. But you, my love, look like a princess in that red-and-white dotted-Swiss dress you’re wearing.Now, tell me, aren’t you afraid you’ll get it dirty? Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall down and scuff those new shoes?”
    “She won’t soil the dress, and she won’t scuff the shoes,” said Christine. She waited a moment, as though debating with herself, and then added, “Rhoda never gets anything dirty, although I don’t know how she manages it.” Then, seeing the question in Mrs. Breedlove’s eyes, she said, “I wanted her to dress like the other children, but she felt so strongly about it that—well, if she wanted to wear one of her best dresses, I didn’t see any real objection.”
    “I don’t like coveralls,” said Rhoda in an earnest, hesitant voice. “They’re not—” She waited, as though unwilling to finish her sentence, and Mrs. Breedlove laughed with pleasure, and said, “You mean coveralls aren’t quite
ladylike,
don’t you, my darling?” She embraced the tolerant child once more, and said in a