Rhoda’s killing of the Baltimore woman

Rhoda’s killing of the Baltimore woman is disclosed rather than enacted on the page: after Christine learns the truth about Claude Daigle’s death, Rhoda admits that she caused the older woman’s death by pushing her. The confirmation turns Christine’s uneasy suspicions into knowledge and makes her daughter’s secret a question of parental and social responsibility.

Background and Suspicion

Before she knows the truth, Christine is unsettled by Hortense Daigle’s grief and her insistence on her son’s devotion. After a frightening dream, Christine feels calmer and decides she wants to visit Benedict, including its woods, house, bay, and old wharf. Her thoughts about Rhoda remain divided: she recalls the child’s many good qualities while treating her troubling behavior as an isolated quirk.

On the way to Benedict with Octavia Fern, Christine tries to reassure herself that Rhoda’s account should be trusted. She tells herself there is no reason to connect the death of the Baltimore woman with Claude Daigle’s death. That effort to preserve uncertainty ends when Christine learns what Rhoda has done.

The Disclosure

After the truth about Claude’s death is known, Christine asks Rhoda how she managed the killing of the Baltimore woman. Rhoda answers that she shoved the woman. The disclosure is brief and matter-of-fact; the evidence supplies no further circumstances of the act, and the event itself is not presented as a scene. Its importance lies in the confirmation: Rhoda was responsible for the older woman’s death as well as Claude’s.

Christine has asked because, now that she knows so much, she feels another answer will not add greatly to her burden. Rhoda appears amused by her mother’s warning not to tell anyone, since Christine recognizes that her daughter has no need to reveal her actions carelessly. The exchange exposes the imbalance between Christine’s alarm and Rhoda’s composure.

Christine’s Response and Its Consequences

Once Rhoda leaves, Christine is alone with what she has learned. She understands that she must keep the secret for the time being and tries to hope for the best, although she wants to confide in someone. She makes an indirect, partial confession to Reginald Tasker by describing the criminal child at the center of her novel, rather than openly identifying Rhoda.

In a private letter she does not intend to send to Kenneth Penmark, Christine records the dilemma more directly. She wonders whether Rhoda is too young to understand what she has done, while acknowledging that children of the same age can understand such acts. She also hopes Rhoda has learned from them and will not repeat them. The letter frames the consequence of the disclosure as an unresolved duty: Christine and Kenneth must consider their responsibility both to their child and to society.

Narrative Significance

The killing’s significance comes from its delayed confirmation. Christine first treats the Baltimore death and Claude’s death as unrelated possibilities; Rhoda’s admission makes that separation untenable. The understated account of the act contrasts with the scale of Christine’s moral crisis: what Rhoda reports in a few words becomes knowledge Christine cannot comfortably share or dismiss.