The Mulberry Bush (8 page)

Bruce came and stood beside her.

“Would you like to walk over with me to see my mother? I usually go on Sundays—it's only a little way. I'd like her to know you.”

“I'd love it—only my shoes—” Virginia looked do at them ruefully.

“Avis will lend you some overshoes. You'd better get a raincoat, too, Avis; the woods will be drippy.”

Avis's raincoat flapped down to Virginia's ankles and the overshoes were too large, but she tied a scarf over her hair and went out, laughing at the scarecrow figure she made.

The autumn woods smelled pungently of dead oak leaves, lying light and new-fallen under the trees an in the path.

“Inevitably,” Bruce said, “all this will be cut into streets and built up with suburban houses, but we are postponing the evil day as long as possible. But if the tax assessments keep on rising, we may have to give it up.”

“You own this?” Virginia looked into the high, quiet, naked boughs, etched into individual angles by the clear light that follows a rain. “It seems a pity to spoil it.”

“Once this was a farm—the old Meredith place. My mother was born in the old house where she still lives. Then the city came out and surrounded it. My mother made money, selling lots when the fields were cut up, but the improvements were expensive—paving and other things. We've hung on to this piece of woodland up to now. I hope we can manage to hold it as long as Mother lives—and till Merry grows up.”

They emerged from the grove into an orchard, gnarled and old, and beyond that was a garden with grapevines on a trellis, a chicken yard to one side, and in the middle a stone-walled well with a great sweep.

“It's lovely.” Virginia saw the mossy roof of the low, white house through the bare, lifting boughs of a row of pear trees. “No wonder you want to keep it.”

“It's distinctly un-American to cling to what is old,” Bruce said. “The English do it, and Americans spend money to go over there and see their lanes and hedges and the cottages where four or five generations have grown up. Then they come home and tear down places like this to build modernistic white houses with glass walls, or awful Spanish affairs with one cactus and one red olla for atmosphere, and wonder why in this country there's a feeling of restlessness and temporariness.”

“And why their children have no special affection for the old home,” Virginia added, feeling somehow disloyal to Mike, who had not lived in a house since he could remember, and who had thought the idea of owning a place of his own slightly amusing. But this was the day she was not going to think about Mike. She shut her heart up tight like a fist, untied the scarf and shook her head to free her bright hair, as Bruce Gamble opened a gate that entered upon a sunken brick walk.

Pinks and day lilies, frost-browned now, bordered the path, and at the end of it was the old, white house with a narrow porch on two sides and old-fashioned dormer windows in the roof. Wood-smoke drifted from the chimney, and there was a smell of rainwater and of decaying wood—old, old smells, the smells of home.

A Negro man, white-haired, stooped, and voluble, opened the door, limped about eagerly helping them with their raincoats, insisted on kneeling and removing Virginia's overshoes, though his ancient knee creaked and he had difficulty in rising again.

“Miss Sally—she's sittin' by the fire,” he announced “You-all go right in.”

“She's so tiny!” was Virginia's first thought, as she met Bruce's mother. So little and frail to be the mother of tall Bruce and big-boned Avis, and the grandmother of husky Meredith.

But though Mrs. Gamble was small, she was very erect and her back was straight as a ramrod, her white head held very high. And though she sat in a low rocker, surrounded by comfortably shabby Victorian furniture, with yellowing portraits framed in walnut on the walls, she wore a well-cut blue frock and she marked her place in one of the more modern novels, as she rose to greet them.

“Nice of you to come on this soggy day,” she said. “I was resigned to spending the afternoon with this book. I was not feeling sorry for myself. Have this chair, Miss Warfield. Bruce, that one squeaks—push it back and pull up another. Bruce tells me you are a businesswoman?”

“I'm with a tour bureau. It's quite interesting. We haven't expanded yet as much as Teresa Harrison hopes to. We've invaded Europe, but now she has her eye on Africa—the Nile and the South Seas.”

“I've never seen anything,” sighed Sally Gamble, “and now I'm too old and stiff to venture. So I sit by my fire and toast my swollen joints and let people who write show me the places I was too timid in my youth to explore for myself. And I raised two children who are as much vegetables as I was.”

“But—I thought you liked staying at home, Mother?” Bruce said.

“I do like staying at home. A good thing, now, since I can't go down three steps without grunts of misery. But if I were young again—like you,” she turned her bright gaze upon Virginia, “I'd marry a rover and see the world!”

Almost Virginia laughed aloud. Almost she cried out, “But I did marry a rover—and here am I, and he goes roving.” But she caught herself in time and said something polite instead, something about Mrs. Gamble's ideas fitting in beautifully with Teresa's business, while Bruce filled his pipe and blew smoke into the fire and said nothing at all.

Julius, the old servant, brought wine, in priceless little shoe-peg glasses, on a silver tray, and hard biscuits that Virginia tried to bite without much success.

“Don't do that—dip them like this.” Sally Gamble snapped a biscuit and soaked half of it in her wine. “Easy to see you weren't born in Maryland. Where were you born, anyway? You talk like a southerner.”

“In Tennessee.” Virginia soaked her biscuit obediently, thinking that they were tasteless things anyway and why bother? But the wine was very good.

“I make it myself,” said the little old lady. “It's elderberry—and I use a big crock with a plate over it and a brick on top of that. Keep out the gnats—that's the important thing. What's Avis doing—playing the piano?”

“She did play for us. She plays beautifully.”

“She could have toured Europe in concert—and she married a college professor.” Mrs. Gamble bit a biscuit almost viciously. “And now—if Bruce would only stir himself and get another wife, she'd like to marry a fellow who works in a bank—who'll put her in a brick house with a car to drive and nothing to do but go to luncheons and play bridge and let her brain dry-rot forever!”

“Oh, but look here, Mother,” Bruce protested, “I'm not interfering with Avis's life. She hasn't made up her mind about Dan Thomas, anyway. And do you have to marry me off so precipitately?”

“You're no earthly good the way you are,” snapped his mother, setting her glass down with a clink. But she gave Virginia an impish, wise smile, and Virginia felt her prickling uneasiness returning again.

The feeling of being on guard increased when they had said goodbye to Mrs. Gamble and started back through the damp orchard and the grove where already blue shadows of dusk were beginning to gather. Bruce held her arm to help her over rough places and then he slowed suddenly, and Virginia felt the clasp of his fingers tighten.

“My mother,” he said suddenly, “likes being outrageous now and then. But aside from that she's a very wise woman.”

“She's a love,” said Virginia, maintaining a casual air. “I wish I had known her when she was younger.”

“She's a clever woman—because she sees that I'm in love with you,” Bruce went on, standing still now, keeping his hold on her arm. “I wonder if you've seen it, too?”

“Oh—but, please, Bruce—I can't— Can't we, be friends?” she asked unhappily.

“Do you want me for a friend?” he countered, his brown face set, his lips very straight.

“I do want you, Bruce. This has been such a nice day—knowing you—you and Avis and Merry—and your mother—”

“You've been happy today?”

“But—of course. I feel so at ease—as if I were at home.” And that, she knew instantly, was the wrong thing to say.

For Bruce was quick. “You feel at home because this is where you belong—you're a home person, Virginia. You belong on a hearth—just as a yellow kitten belongs. You're a woman made for loving and cherishing—not for haranguing hotel men and whatever else it is that Teresa Harrison makes you do.”

“Oh, but I liked haranguing those hotel men. I got a thrill out of it. And I like my job, too, Bruce—”

“And you don't like me? Is that it?”

“How ridiculous! Of course I like you. But I've known you only a little while—and I can't fall in love—with anyone, Bruce. I'm sorry—but I can't.”

He released her, and she began to walk away, Bruce following closely. The rain had begun again, softly, a small, teary rain, sad and thin and slow with the dying of the day.

He said, “Is there someone else, Virginia? You needn't answer unless you feel like it. I have no right to ask.”

She hesitated and her throat ached with a sharp, cramping pain. Her voice came, low and harsh, so that Bruce had to lean forward a little to hear.

“Yes,” the word was little more than a breath, “there is someone else, Bruce.”

“I'm sorry.” He walked a few steps his hands thrust into his pockets. “I didn't know, of course—”

“No—you didn't know. But—we don't have to change—do we, Bruce? We needn't spoil—what we
have?”

“I can't change, Virginia, I can't stop loving you—merely because you happen not to care—now. I'm not giving up, you know. I'm going on—loving you—even if you'd rather I didn't talk about it.”

“Thank you, Bruce—I'd be so glad if you didn't talk about it. And—I think the woman who could love you will be very lucky.”

“I'm not going to stop hoping,” he said firmly. “I'm not giving you up—not so long as there is a ray of hope.”

This was cruel and unfair, she hated herself for doing it—for not speaking frankly, but pride—was it pride or merely vanity that kept her silent? No, it was hurt pride—a stiff sort of pride that would not let her admit, even to herself, that she had married a rover who loved his roving best, who had, so it appeared, loved her so casually and so lightly that only a few miles, only a few days, could make him forget!

They strove, as polite people do, to recapture old ground, to be as before. But Virginia caught Avis Andrews' eyes upon them once, sharply, saw her mouth twist a little and then straighten into a dry, thin smile.

“They all know—and they've been waiting—and they're such nice people,” she thought unhappily.

She wondered, as they drove back to Washington through the gathering darkness, if she could have loved Bruce if she had never met Mike. No two men could be more unlike; Bruce, quiet, tall, gentle, a trifle grave; Mike so impulsive, so volatile, so effervescent. But Mike could be tender, too—tender and sweet. Suddenly her heart went wailing through the empty void of sky and earth and sea—crying as the curlew cries, seeking what it may not find, in the hollow twilight.

“Oh, Mike—come back to me! Come back to me—and love me again!”

And only the rain answered, dripping from the naked trees like tears.

At Teresa's door, Bruce helped her out, holding an umbrella carefully, over her hat, till she was under the shelter of the marquee. She put out her hand.

“Goodbye, Bruce. Thanks for a lovely day.” And impulsively she added, smiling a little, “Goodbye, friend.”

Bruce took her hand, and did not let it go.

“Virginia,” he said, “I'm older than you—much older, undoubtedly—”

“I'm twenty-five—not adolescent, you know, Bruce—”

“I'm thirty-eight—and to thirty-eight, twenty-five is youth—beautiful, lost youth. Promise me that if ever things—change, if ever you change, Virginia—you'll let me know.”

“I'll promise that. I'm sorry I can't care, Bruce—I do admire you and—”

“Promise something else,” he cut in hoarsely. “Promise me that if you need me—ever—no matter why or how—you'll tell me that, too?”

“I promise, Bruce.”

“Goodbye, Virginia.” He bent and kissed her gently on the forehead and hurried away.

The usual Sunday-night brawl, as Mike had called it, was going on in Teresa's apartment when Virginia let herself in.

Teresa, wrapped in a velvet housecoat, her hair elaborately done, her arms jingling with heavy bracelets, was lying on the chaise longue that had been dragged into the drawing room.

Her injured leg, in the heavy white cast, was lying out straight, and a hilarious group were gathered around—five men and two women, glasses in hand, most of them sitting on the floor.

Teresa gave a yelp of welcome as Virginia entered. Her eyes were feverish, her voice shrill.

“She's been drinking again,” thought Virginia wearily. “She knows she shouldn't and she does it anyway.”

“Look, darling,” screamed Teresa, gesturing, “I'm collecting autographs on my cast. Isn't it precious? I'm going to keep the darn thing forever. Look here, Sam—you're writing that upside down. I can't read it up here where I am. Make him write it so I can read it, Virginia. I'm missing all the fun.”

Sam Hinchey, hunkered down on the floor, was scribbling on the white plaster with a fountain pen; the others leaned near to watch and screamed with laughter when he had finished. Obviously, from the noisy mirth, Sam had written something ribald, and Teresa fumed loudly that someone must read it to her, but they all rocked with tipsy merriment and refused.

“You villains!” raged Teresa. “Now I'll have to make the nurse read it—and she's a pure soul, she'll be shocked into a coma. Read it, Virginia—read what Sam wrote.”

“Don't do it, Virginia. Keep her guessing.”

“Let the doctor read it. Those boys have seen everything.”

Virginia went into Teresa's bedroom and closed the door. The nurse was there, sitting very straight by the window, looking tired and pale and rigid with disapproval.

“How long has this been going on?” Virginia pulled off her gloves and folded them carefully.

“Since three o'clock. They come and go,” said the nurse tonelessly. “And when I took her blood pressure at noon it was a hundred and eighty. I don't know what to do!” she worried. “I suppose I should call the doctor.”

“That would be no use,” Virginia said. “Teresa would offer him a highball and jeer at any advice he gave her. I'm going to the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee, I think you need one, too.”

“I'm awfully tired,” sighed the nurse. “I had to lift her—she would get up.”

Virginia slipped through the living room, already blue with smoke, and into the quieter white kitchen, but here, too, was confusion. The maid had left without clearing up. Teresa's luncheon tray was still piled with soiled dishes and broken food, all the ice trays had been emptied and not refilled and they were heaped in the sink, while the porcelain counter was littered with bottle tops and empty soda bottles.

The nurse surveyed the wreckage dismally. “I'm not paid to do this,” she said, collecting the fragments. “Heavens, the garbage pail is running over. That girl simply walked out, but I don't blame her. I'd like to walk out myself.”

“Put everything on the dumb waiter and ring the bell. I'll wash up—I can't endure a mess.” Virginia pinned a dish towel over her dress and got out the dishmop and soap.

“Neither can I. I'll help you. But let's make the coffee first, shall we? My head is splitting. For goodness sake, don't go away on Sunday again. She will listen to you, now and then, but she only hoots at me.”

They brewed a potful of stiff coffee, and Virginia poured two cups.

“No cream.” The nurse explored the refrigerator, “I hope they don't smell this in there, they'll all be crashing out. I hate coffee black, but there's no help for it.”

They sat perched on the one stool and the edge of the kitchen table, and the hot, fragrant coffee revived Virginia a little, made life look a little less bleak. They washed the dishes and set the kitchen in order, while the bedlam in the front of the apartment went on beyond the pantry doors. The blue, drained look went out of the little nurse's face, and she was chattering volubly, drying the dishes, when the pantry door slammed open, and Sam Hinchey came out.

“Look!” he gestured with an empty glass. “All the beautiful gals hiding out in the kitchen. What's the matter? Don't you like the party?”

“Frankly, we do not,” Virginia said. “I'm sorry—there isn't any ice. Not till it freezes.”

“You mean,” Sam took a seat upon the table coolly, “you've been here—looking right at that refrigerator all this time, and it isn't frozen yet? And I'm an icicle—anyway halfway an icicle—already!”

“I wish you'd persuade those people to leave.” Virginia hung up the dishmop and dried her fingers. “Teresa isn't well. This is very bad for her.”

“I can't persuade them to leave. They wouldn't go. They'd just laugh and yell for more drinks. You go tell 'em. Give 'em the stony eye and order 'em out.”

“Unfortunately, this is not my house. I merely work for Teresa Harrison. I can't order her guests to leave, much as I'd like to.”

“You go in and feel her pulse and look solemn,” Sam instructed the nurse. “Maybe that will scare 'em out.”

“I'm going to telephone the doctor if they're not gone in half an hour.” The nurse set her prim cap straight and pulled down her cuffs. “He'll have some authority. They'll listen to him.” She marched out with her heels clicking, and Virginia removed the dish-towel apron, smoothed back her hair, and was starting to follow when Hinchey said bluntly, “Wait a minute, Red-top.”

“Excuse me, please,” Virginia began coldly, but Sam reached and caught at her skirt.

“Slow down a minute, Miss Iceberg. I want to talk to you. About Mike Paull.”

Virginia stopped, looked at him. His face had lost its look of half-drunken silliness. He put down the glass.

“I'm waiting,” said Virginia quietly.

“Sit down—over there. You don't like me very much—and that's all right.”

“I hardly know you, Mr. Hinchey.”

“I'm a friend of Mike Paull's,” he said. “Have you heard from him lately? Where is he?”

“He's in South America.” She did not sit down.

“You're a friend of Mike's, too,” he went on. “I've seen you with him. Mike's a good fellow—crazy as the devil, but—he's a good fellow.”

“I'm a friend of Mike's—and I do not discuss my friends, Mr. Hinchey.”

“Wait a minute. The name is Sam, Red. Plain old Sam. And Mike's my friend. We went through that Bethlehem strike together and it was hot—plenty hot. They were all after us—union guys and strike-breakers, too. We got teargas and brickbats, and a couple of cameras were smashed. It was a sweet brawl. Mike I pulled me out of a few holes and I pulled him out of a couple—we're still friends, and I know you're Mike's friend, too. That's why we ought to talk to Mike—you ought to talk to him—somebody ought to.”

“About what, particularly?”

“About acting like a heel!” he said bluntly.

“Perhaps you'd better explain,” Virginia said frigidly, cold anger stinging her. After all, Mike was her husband. He was hers to defend, even though this blear-eyed young man was unaware of it.

“Sit down,” Hinchey said again. “I know he's been taking you places—that's all right. Mike has a right to live—but he ought not to be an absolute heel—he ought not to treat any nice girl the way he's treating Harriet.”

So—this was it! Virginia felt her knees turning fluid under her. She sat down abruptly on the stool because she could no longer stand.

“And who is Harriet?” Was that her voice, so thready, so wan?

Sam Hinchey looked at her sharply.

“Why—Harriet's Mike's girl. And she's a nice girl, too, a smart girl. She works on the
Tribune
—and
does a darned good job. Mike's my friend—but he ought not to cheat on a girl like that. Not that I blame him—you're pretty swell yourself—you're a fine person—that's why I'm talking to you like this. You can understand—you're fine and you'd want Mike to be square. You wouldn't want a friend who wasn't square, I know.”

“I see,” said Virginia, her throat tight and dry, her eyes feeling as though they would burst if she did not relent and let the tears fall. But she held herself erect, feeling stony and hollow and cold. “I did not know about Harriet. No one told me. She has another name, I suppose?”

“Hillery—Harriet Hillery. You've seen her stuff in the paper. She gets bylines on a lot of it. And she's a hard-working kid. She took care of a sick mother till she died, and helped her kid sister through school—she's swell!”

“You still haven't told me—just what is Harriet Hillery—to Mike?”

Sam Hinchey looked a little bewildered. “Why, she's going to marry Mike. It's been settled—for years! She's stuck to Mike when a lot of girls would have thrown him out—Mike off to Poland and Spain—a lot of women wouldn't have stuck, but she did. That's why I hate to see her get a shabby deal—that's why I'm talking to you. I saw you with Mike. I could see he was sort of—fascinated. Mike's that way—some fellows are. See a new girl—a pretty one—and they're off. But I knew you weren't the sort to hand another woman a wallop—not a swell girl like Harriet—so I thought, well, maybe she'll get sore at me, but I'm going to talk to her anyway. You aren't sore, are you?”

“No—I'm not sore.” She stood up, but the queer, dazed blindness did not lessen. She groped with an uncertain hand for the wall, for the door. Then, dragging up strength from some inner place, deeper than this stunned shell of a creature that was Virginia Warfield, she said in an odd, dead voice, “Thank you, Mr. Hinchey, I have no intention of cheating anyone.”

“I knew you were like that. I knew you'd be swell about it—” he began, voluble with relief.

But she did not listen. She went through the living room, hardly seeing the people there, ignoring Teresa and the girl who was playing the piano. In the bedroom she got her coat, hat, and purse.

“You're going out?” asked the nurse anxiously.

“Yes, I'm going.”

“I called the doctor. He's coming at nine. He'll put an end—to this!” snapped the nurse.

Virginia did not hear. She crossed the living room again, and Teresa demanded shrilly, “Where in the world are you going?” But Virginia did not answer. She had not heard. She could not hear because she was hearing that voice, that young voice blurred by alcohol, “Mike's that way—a new girl, a pretty one—Mike's that way—”

A cab slowed, and she got in.

“Where to, lady?”

“Georgetown.” What was her number? What was her street? Oh, stop—stop, I heard you, Sam Hinchey! Mike's a heel—Mike's that way—a pretty girl—she got control of herself with a rending effort, made her numb brain function, remember. A number and a street. A high, old house, two flights of stairs, a gas stove, a rubber apron—steak broiling— Oh, please God, let it stop!

If she could cry—but she could not cry. The pain was too deep. It was a drug, slowing her heart, making her feet cold and wooden. She dropped her purse, fumbled for her money, a coin went rolling off across the street.

“Tight!” muttered the driver, and she was too dulled to be offended.

The house looked lonely, all those upper windows dark. One flight, two flights; the hall was dark. Once it had been dark—her clothes wet, her shoes making little squishy sounds. That was the night—she would not remember, she would not think at all. Her key—where was her key—open it with a bottle opener—.

Warm darkness inside, smelling of dust, face powder, smelling of mice a little—she stumbled across the room, dropped her hat and purse, and sank into a deep chair. She did not turn on a light. Somehow she felt that she could not endure looking at those familiar walls—not yet.

A wind came and mourned around the eaves and rattled the window sashes, and rain fell again, hushed and hesitant, on the roof. How long she sat there, she did not know. Long enough for pain to stop burning her heart, and a slow, cold anger and disgust at herself to chill in its place.

“You fool! You weak, hysterical fool—to let a man—to let any man break you like this!”

She spoke the words aloud, and the rain answered with a beating deluge against the windows.

She turned on the light, drew off her gloves, and hung her coat on its hanger.

Then a white oblong caught her eye, lying just inside the door; a letter, lying where it had fallen through the slot.

She picked it up in cold fingers. It was very thick and had a long row of foreign stamps. It was postmarked “Lima, Peru.”