Bedelia (23 page)

She poured the soup into bowls and put them on a tray, which Charlie carried into the dining-room. She followed with another tray on which there was a covered dish.

“Guess what's in here,” she commanded as she set it on the table.

“What?”

“A surprise for you, dear. One of your very favorite dishes,” Bedelia said, and lifted the cover.

The French toast was done to perfection, its golden surface liberally sprinkled with powdered sugar.

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING A WAGON, THE FIRST TO pass since the snowstorm, rattled down the road. A little while later Mary trudged the mile from the streetcar terminal. She pushed through the drifts that surrounded the house, let herself in the back way, took off her mittens, and with her stiff fingers managed to light the stove. After she had warmed herself and put the kettle on, she wondered how late the Horsts would sleep. She had news for Hannah, but she could not use the telephone while her bosses were still in bed.

At half-past eight Mary went upstairs. Usually at this hour Mr. and Mrs. Horst had finished breakfast and Mary was almost through with her dishes. The house was deadly quiet. Mary tapped timidly at their bedroom door.

“Come in,” Mrs. Horst called. She was standing at the window in the blue dressing-gown with the rose-colored ribbons. Her hair hung in braids over her shoulder.

“I got back,” Mary announced.

“I'm glad, Mary.”

“I hope you're not mad at me, Mrs. Horst. I got snowed in.” “So were we.”

Mary looked around the room. She felt vaguely that something was missing, but could not say what it was.

“I hope you got along all right without me.”

“Poor Mr. Horst had to do all the work. I've been in bed with a bad cold.”

Mary's eyes rested on the bed. Only one side had been slept in. She knew then what was missing. “Where's Mr. Horst?”

“We were afraid that he'd catch my cold, so he's been sleeping in the other room.”

“Should I wake him up? I've got the coffee on and the oatmeal's made, you could have breakfast in five minutes.”

“No, let him sleep.”

“Won't he be late to work?”

“He'll have to clean the driveway. He can't get the machine out until he's got it cleared.”

“He could walk to the streetcar.”

“Never mind, Mary. Don't disturb him.”

“Will you have breakfast now?”

“No. I'll wait for him.”

Mary waited there, rubbing the toe of one foot against the other ankle. She had news of her own. With a broken giggle she told Bedelia that she had got herself engaged to Hen Blackman.

Bedelia beamed approval. “Perhaps the blizzard was a blessing in disguise, Mary. I told Mr. Horst the other day that if you were half the girl I thought you were, you'd take advantage of this opportunity.”

Mary, flattered because Mrs. Horst had talked about her, could hardly get over her giggles. She told in full detail how Hen had popped the question. “You know about it before Hannah,” she said, conferring honor upon her boss.

“As soon as Mr. Horst is up and you've given us breakfast, you can phone and tell her,” Bedelia said.

Mary was still giggling as she started for the kitchen. Her laughter ceased suddenly and she screamed. She had seen some disembodied white thing floating toward her on the back stairs.

“Did I frighten you, Mary? I'm sorry.” Charlie ascended out of the shadows. He had on dark trousers and a white shirt.

“I thought you were a ghost,” she said.

His felt carpet slippers slid across the floor soundlessly. Bedelia did not hear him as he entered the bedroom. At his “Good morning, dear,” she jerked around.

“I seem to be scaring all the ladies this morning,” Charlie said.

“Martin's beer truck passed,” she told him.

“Yes, I heard it. But I was too lazy to get up. I didn't fall asleep until dawn.”

Bedelia looked around the room, letting her eyes rest for a second on this or that piece of furniture and then examining the next, and going on until she had studied everything carefully. Was she thinking of other rooms she had left, comparing this with them, wishing she might stay here with the drapes she had made on her sewing machine, the colors she had chosen, and the bed in which she had slept with Charlie? Did she mourn the husbands along with all the other things she had left behind, the furs and pretty dresses, the copper pots, the casseroles, the ingenious egg-beaters, and can-openers?

The black pearl meant more to her than Jacobs. She would want to keep it to show off at the Casino in Monte Carlo. Would she keep the garnet ring that Charlie had given her for Christmas?

“Are you still thinking of Europe?” he asked.

She seemed not to have heard. Charlie wondered if he ought to repeat the question. He did not want to lose his temper, but he could not help resenting her indifference.

“It doesn't matter whether you're thinking about it or not. Because we're not leaving. We're going to stay here and fight it out.”

Bedelia smiled at her husband shyly. “Oh, Charlie, dear, you're so good. I don't believe there's another man alive as good and sweet as you are.” She gave him her most enchanting smile.

“Did you hear what I said, Bedelia?” He tried to sound stern,
but his voice was unsteady. “We're going to stay here and fight it out.”

“I knew that.”

“How did you know?”

“You said so last night. You always mean what you say, don't you?' She offered this tranquilly, without bitterness. “Don't worry, Charlie, dear. I'll do whatever you want. I love you so much, anything you do seems right to me.”

Her serenity bewildered Charlie. She had everything to lose, her reputation, her freedom, possibly her life. The simple faith with which she gave herself into his keeping struck him as false. She went about her tasks calmly, opened drawers, chose clean underclothing, examined ribbons and embroidery.

“This is serious . . .” he began.

Bedelia's cough interrupted. Her body shook and she staggered toward the bed, holding her hands over her mouth. Tears filled her eyes.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered in a husky voice.

“You're not well yet,” Charlie said. “I should never have let you get up yesterday. Better stay in bed this morning.”

Weak, grateful for his solicitude, and as docile as a child, Bedelia crept into bed. The mood of humility continued. Mary brought her breakfast and, although Bedelia complained that she had no appetite, she obeyed Charlie and ate the good hot food.

“Are you going to clear the driveway now?” she asked, watching him over her cup of coffee as Charlie put on his hunting boots.

“Yes, but only to get it cleared. We're not leaving.”

“You said that before, dear.”

“I don't mean to be arbitrary, but we can't go on treating this as trivial. You may not realize the importance of my decision, Bedelia, but the future depends . . .”

“Why don't you call me Biddy any more?”

The triviality of the interruption angered him. He wondered whether she was purposely keeping him from talking about the future. A glance at her softened him. Sitting up against the
cushions in that large, solid bed, Bedelia seemed far too frail, resigned, and patient to cause him the slightest anxiety. He wished that he, too, might thrust aside his fears and give his attention fully to toast and plum jam.

Bedelia was spreading her toast with jam carefully so that she should not soil her fingers. As Charlie watched her enjoy the jam, pour cream over her oatmeal, measure sugar into her coffee, she seemed so innocent, so sweet and sane that he was ready to discredit everything Ben had told him, and to forget the curious contradictions in her stories and behavior.

“You mustn't worry about anything, Charlie. Leave it to me. There's always a way.”

Charlie's hand was stayed on its journey with the bootlace. Probably Annabel McKelvey had been as mild while she was planning to serve fish at dinner; Chloe had smiled gently upon Jacobs when she knew him to be against her; Maurine's sweet ways had lured Will Barrett toward the pier.

He hurried out of the room. His excuse was a journey to the attic to find his sealskin cap. It was kept in a cedar chest with folded travel blankets, his mother's Jaegers and her mink stole. The smell of mothballs brought back the past and, holding the stole in his hands, he could see it as his mother had worn it, thrown over a bony shoulder with her lean face between it and a velvet toque. “Duty,” his mother had always told him, “duty comes first, Charles.”

Laughter greeted his return to the bedroom. Mary had come upstairs for Bedelia's tray and was talking again about her engagement. It all had to be repeated for Charlie.

“You needn't worry about help in the house,” Mary said, “I'm not getting married till June, so you needn't think about getting another girl for a while yet, and there's my little sister Sarah, she'll be looking for a place soon.”

“Before you do anything else, Mary, phone Montagnino. We've been cleaned out of everything. Bring me the pad and pencil, please.”

Charlie lingered in the bedroom. His spirit was soothed by the quality of Bedelia's voice as she said, “I was thinking of
pork roast, Mary. Mr. Horst is so fond of it and after the pot luck he's been having for the last few days and the pap we gave him while he was ill, he deserves something good. And don't forget apples . . .”

“We got plenty of apples in the cellar.”

“How often do I have to tell you, Mary, that I don't make apple sauce with Macintoshes? Order greenings.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Mary was sullen.

Charlie stayed on to hear Bedelia and Mary argue about the order. What could be wrong in a house where such passion went into a controversy over apples, where carrots and cabbage and kohlrabi were so earnestly compared? Let Barrett come! What better assurance had Charlie of the man's impotence than Bedelia's prodigal grocery order? Ten pounds of sugar, Mary, two of butter, six cans of tomatoes, five pounds of spaghetti—the narrow, mind you, not that broad macaroni—five pounds store cheese to be dried and grated, a peck of onions, two dozen eggs. A good housewife would never order so lavishly unless she was sure of the day after tomorrow.

In the midst of it Bedelia coughed again. Fierce tremors shook her. She lay back upon the pillows, utterly exhausted.

“You're not to get out of bed today,” Charlie said. “Promise me you'll take care of that cough.”

“Yes, of course, Charlie, I'll do whatever you say.”

The telephone rang. Mary ran for it. Charlie tried not to listen, but he could not help overhearing her tell the news of her engagement.

“How happy she is!” Bedelia exclaimed, smiling with the complacence that women always show over a marriage or engagement. “We must give her a nice present.”

“It was Hannah,” Mary said as she bounced back into the bedroom. “They got their phone connected at last. They're almost out of food. They'd have starved if the Keeleys hadn't sent over some bread and eggs and bacon. Their road's blocked up, there's no way of them getting their groceries, only Hannah's thought of a way. Montagnino's sending their order out with ours, and the Keeley boys are coming down with their sled
to get it. Hannah wanted to know if you'd mind us taking their order and I said it'd be all right.”

“Of course,” Bedelia said.

“Montagnino's sending the wagon out early, Hannah needs the stuff for lunch. They're having company.”

Bedelia coughed.

“It's that gentleman that didn't come last week. He's coming today.”

Charlie said, “That's not possible, Mary. Their road's blocked, no one can get there.”

“Mr. Chaney's going on snowshoes to meet the gentleman up to the Wilton Station,” Mary explained. “He's coming on the twelve-ten and going straight to Wilton. Mr. Chaney's taking a pair of snowshoes for him. They fixed it up on the phone, this gentleman; he called Mr. Chaney from New York on the long distance, Hannah told me.”

Charlie let down the flaps of his sealskin cap and tied them under his chin. He looked at the wallpaper, the furniture, Bedelia's silver toilet set, at everything except his wife.

Mary went on, panting with excitement. “That's why Hannah's so set on getting her groceries on time. It's not a hard lunch to fix, but Mr. Chaney says it won't take no more than fifteen minutes on snowshoes from the Wilton Station and he wants lunch right away when they get back. Montagnino's sending up their order with ours and the Keeley boys are coming down . . .”

Given the chance Mary would repeat a fact five or six times. Bedelia cut her off. “You'd better hurry and get our order in, Mary.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Charlie hurried out of the bedroom. He did not want to be alone with Bedelia to talk about Ben Chaney's guest. He took the shovel off its nail in the shed and went out to clear the driveway. The air was like a tonic. He felt the way a prisoner must feel after years in a cell. The sky was a hard blue arch, the sun warm, and the snow had a crisp crust that broke under his feet.