Free Better to Eat You by Charlotte Armstrong

I’ll tell you a secret. I am not so helpless as people think, eh?”
    Sarah felt he was happy to be fussing over her. She thought to herself suddenly, Yes, I will collapse. I will break down. It went against her grain to make such a resolution, but she made it. Because then David would go away and get another girl to help him. And he would be out of reach of the incomprehensible doom that haunted her.
    â€œYou should have a coverlet,” the old man fussed. “I’ll send Mrs. Monteeth. Now rest, sleep. And the headache will go away, I promise you.” He stroked her hair.
    â€œSo good …” murmured Sarah and tears came into her eyes.
    She thought bitterly it would be better to escape in sleep than be waiting superstitiously for the cry, the news, the rising up of shock out of this golden day. It was difficult to focus on her panic or her resolutions either, lying there. She did began to fall away from consciousness, very swiftly indeed. For while she yet heard him moving about in the toolroom, looking for that trowel, Grandfather’s pills were already putting her to sleep. Sarah let herself fall.
    Fox, in the toolroom, was not looking for a trowel. He arranged the cotton waste as he wished, down between the cans of paint and varnish. He took care to slop a little varnish out of one opened can. Then he took Sarah’s own cigarette lighter, held carefully so as to leave no fingerprints but her own on its metal surfaces. He lit it and, with some difficulty, for it was a breeze-proof type, he got the flame to go out. Open, then, but unlit and harmless, he dropped it among the debris.
    He sighed and tipped and peered and saw Sarah’s eyes closed and heard the quality of her breathing. Then he set the very small candle down among the inflammables, just so. Then he lit the candle with a match.
    He went, swiftly for an old man, up the short walk to the kitchen. Moon was not there but Mrs. Monteeth was, as he knew. “Dear ma’am,” said Fox, “Sarah has fallen asleep in the studio. Take her a coverlet, please do. Quickly, quickly, because Gust and I need you at once out on the sea side.”
    He watched her scurry into her room off the kitchen, snatch up an afghan from her bed. Mrs. Monteeth did, always, just as she was told. She vanished into the toolroom and he stooped and rubbed his varnish-tainted hands into the soil deeply several times. Then he scooped up with those hands a small plant, roots and all. Mrs. Monteeth came out of the toolroom. Grandfather sighed deeply. He was a master of timing, this little man—given a cast of people who would obey him.
    â€œSound asleep,” said Mrs. Monteeth, smiling her rather vacant smile. “Snorin’.”
    Grandfather nodded. “Poor little Sarah,” he said. They walked together through his house and came out again upon the sea side of it. Gust was there, digging a narrow strip of soil along the house wall. Mrs. Monteeth took up and held obediently a string stretched tight to make a guide for Gust’s spade.
    â€œNow, this,” the old man said, offering the plant. “I thought the color …”
    â€œThat?” said Gust. “Won’t stand the wind, sir.” He was used to the old man. There wasn’t much sense telling him this. The old man would have the plant he wanted. No matter what anyone said. The old man always thought he was smarter and his way was right. And you didn’t want to argue with him if you’d keep the job. Nobody really argued with him. Unless it was Moon. But then, nobody knew for sure what Moon was saying. Gust looked over his shoulder at the brilliance behind him, where the cliff fell away as the ledge stopped. This sea walk was no more than eight feet wide.
    â€œThere is, ” said Fox with satisfaction, “quite a brisk breeze today.”
    Sarah turned and her breath moaned. The candle burned rapidly. Flame ate upon the waste. Smouldering,