Thelma Jessup

Thelma Jessup, Leroy Jessup’s wife and the mother of their three children, is one of the few people who sees that his pursuit of Rhoda Penmark could have serious consequences. Her warnings go unheeded; after Leroy’s death, Christine Penmark offers to pay for his funeral, and later names Thelma as the recipient of her remaining property in a will she describes to herself as atonement.

Family Life and Warnings

After supper, Leroy tells Thelma about his exchanges with Rhoda. Their three children sit outside beneath an althea bush, stringing four-o’clock flowers onto grass, so Thelma lowers her voice to keep them from hearing. She tells Leroy she had already warned him to leave Rhoda alone and predicts that continuing to provoke the child will get him into serious trouble.

Leroy dismisses the risk: he says he likes teasing Rhoda and believes she is now listening to him. Thelma answers that Rhoda’s silence does not mean the matter will remain secret. She points out that Mrs. Penmark nearly heard him and had threatened to report him to the police; if the police take him in, she warns, he could be badly beaten. Leroy laughs off her concern and insists he is not a fool. The exchange establishes Thelma as a clear-eyed counterweight to his confidence, but it does not give her power to stop him.

After Leroy’s Death

After a fire kills Leroy, Christine tells Monica W. Breedlove that the damage was limited and that Leroy was thought to have fallen asleep with a lighted cigarette in his hand. At dusk, Christine takes a taxi to the Jessup home on General Jackson Street. The house is full of people, but she remains at the doorway, unable to go inside.

Summoned from the house, Thelma sits with Christine beneath the blossoming althea tree near the porch. Christine identifies herself and tells Thelma to arrange the funeral as she wishes, assuring her that she will pay the bills. Thelma stares at Christine in astonishment. Christine repeats that the undertaker and others can telephone her, then leaves for the waiting taxi. The visit turns Christine’s private response to Leroy’s death into direct material assistance for his widow, without suggesting that Thelma knows more about the fire than Christine has told her.

Christine’s Bequest

On August 3, 1952, Christine makes and signs a holographic will. She leaves her jewelry and a 1912 Utrillo landscape to Monica W. Breedlove, and returns a Modigliani drawing to her husband, Kenneth Penmark, with the wish that he find a more worthy recipient and marry again. She leaves her bank balances, stocks, bonds, and all her other property to Thelma, identifying her as Leroy’s widow and recording her address as 572 General Jackson Street.

Christine locks the will in her desk and calls the bequest the only thing she can do in atonement. The document links Thelma to Christine’s attempt to answer the consequences of Rhoda’s violence: the woman whose husband Christine had just promised to help bury is made the beneficiary of her entire remaining estate. Thelma’s role is brief, but her warnings and the later bequest trace a line from recognizing danger to the material cost of its aftermath.