Bedelia (19 page)

“Good God!” Charlie exclaimed as he saw the irony of her situation.

“Darling, why are you staying down there such a long time?” called his wife.

“I'll be right up,” he promised.

He did not return immediately to the bedroom. He had to examine his thoughts and review the situation. For a moment he had admitted the possibility of his wife's guilt. Suppose she
were proven innocent; could he, like the old doctor, drop the belief as neatly as the knife is dropped after the operation is over?
Your wife's a healthy woman . . . you ought to have two or three more.
Could you, during Christmas week, suspect a woman of giving her husband poison, and in the first week of the new year offer your blessing to the virtuous wife and mother? Should Ben Chaney's story be proven untrue next week, could Charlie shed suspicion with the same ease?

Suppose Ben had made a mistake, followed the wrong clue, suspected an innocent woman? Suppose poor Bedelia was the victim of a monstrous practical joke? Ben might not be a detective at all; he might be a clever lunatic.

For thirty seconds these happy hopes dwelt in Charlie's heart. He breathed freely and started up the stairs to the room where his dear wife waited. In the shadows at the turn of the stairs, Will Barrett accosted him, a cynical smile curving his wet lips, a warning light in his drowned eyes.

YEARS AGO CHARLIE had taught himself to clean his mind of worry just as he brushed his teeth before going to bed. He was proud of his ability to banish business cares at night and often boasted that he slept most soundly during critical situations. Tonight, as he undressed, cleansed his mouth with an antiseptic solution, and made his round of the house, turning off radiators and switching out the lights, he had resolved to dismiss Barrett, Jacobs, and McKelvey with the same steely firmness.

Sleep was impossible. But Charlie would not admit that horror kept him awake nor allow the three ghosts to enter his bedroom. From somewhere inside the house came a clatter insidious because its rhythm was perfect three-four time. “The cellar door,” Charlie whispered to the darkness. “I forgot to fasten it. I remember that I forgot.” He was not at all certain of this, but his bed was warm, the halls drafty, and at the thought of a journey into the cellar, goose pimples came out on his arms and legs.

He decided to turn on the light, to dispel the illusions that thrive in darkness, to forget the clatter by giving his attention
to reality. He was sleeping in his old bedroom, and it seemed, as his eyes became accustomed to the light, that he had never deserted this single brass bed to sleep in the cherrywood four-poster with a wife. On the opposite wall hung an etching he had bought during his junior year at Yale. A flock of wild ducks flew eternally to the left. “It has movement,” Charlie had explained as his mother watched him hang it.

The cellar door kept up its clatter. Charlie's eyes roved from the flight of ducks to the books on the bed table. As he read the titles the sense of the past was shed, and Charlie knew his mother had been dead these eight months and that his wife, Bedelia, had chosen these books. Bedelia's taste was hideous. Charlie had tried to wean her away from Laura Jean Libbey by reading aloud to her from Carlyle's
French Revolution
. She had listened dutifully at the beginning, but, later, had confessed that good books put her to sleep.

Charlie opened the first book. It was just what he had expected. A beautiful heroine with windswept locks was caught in the jungle. In the distance, tomtoms. The black chieftan was just about to drag Lady Pamela from the compound when Cyril arrived to rescue her from a fate worse than death. Single-handedly, the hero fought and conquered the savage horde, love triumphed, and in Cyril's manly arms, Lady Pamela laughed away the memory of that quarrel which had separated them at the tennis party given by the false Rosamund.

Charlie was moved, not by their extraordinary virtues and tribulations, but by their Christian names, Pamela, Cyril, Rosamund. Never Mary nor Bill nor Pete nor Jane.

Maurine. Chloe. Annabel.

What about
Bedelia
?

The name of her father was
Courtney Vance
.

She had often entertained Charlie with amusing or dramatic accounts of her experiences. Now, as he tried to put her stories in chronological order, he realized that she had never told her life-story consecutively, but always in bits and pieces. His eyes fixed on the flight of wild ducks, he saw the child Bedelia, Bedelia Vance, with the dark curls down her back as sedately
she followed her governess down the steps of the mansion in San Francisco. Her father had been an English gentleman, but his father had been a younger son without fortune and had come to California during the gold rush. Her mother's people were Irish, good blood, but ruined by their love of horses and the ingratitude of the peasantry. But the grandfather had struck gold, dinners for twenty-four had been set on gold plate in a dining-room with stained-glass windows, music had floated up to the nursery where the child, Bedelia, slept in a nightgown of the finest French flannel, hand-stitched by the family seamstress. The earthquake of 1906 cost them their fortune and the girls at the boarding-school, who had slavishly followed Bedelia's every whim, turned against her and made her so miserable that she had to run away. Orphaned, poverty-stricken, with only her pride to sustain her, Bedelia had found a situation as companion to a wealthy, irascible old lady who had treated her miserably at first, but later learned to love her like a daughter. At a fashionable resort in the East . . . Asbury Park, it was . . . the youthful companion had met and loved a young millionaire who had wanted to marry her and endow her with his fortune, but had been kept from happiness by his people who were against that girl because she was poor and had to work for her living. The young millionaire had died of tuberculosis and shortly afterward the no-longer irascible old lady had passed on, too, leaving Bedelia a legacy which had resulted in a lawsuit by the old lady's relations, who were greedy people and naturally against a girl who had won the love and affection which they had sought in vain. Rather than demean herself by fighting for money in a public court, she had fled to Chicago, where she had tried to earn an honest living in a shirtwaist factory, a sweatshop it really was, but she would have been content to work there humbly had not she been forced to flee the proprietor's evil advances. It was during this flight that she had met
Raoul Cochran
.

This was the first time Charlie had considered his wife's history as a whole and he saw it as unadulterated Laura Jean Libbey. The separate stories told at different times had seemed
quite real to him. There had been no reason to distrust the warm voice nor to seek deceit in those dark eyes. Why should he, who had been captivated by her, doubt the passion of the consumptive millionaire, the gratitude of the irascible old lady, the advances of the shirtwaist manufacturer?

The three-four clatter continued. Charlie turned out the light, resolved that he would fall asleep immediately. The cellar door became the tomtoms that Lady Pamela had heard in the jungle, and Charlie felt himself turn cold all over, moistly cold as if the water were closing over him. He struggled in the dark, trying to extricate himself from the thick weeds and to find the posts of the pier.

McKelvey had died of ptomaine poisoning after a fish dinner. His wife had eaten a warmed-over chop that night because she disliked fish. “Bedelia,” Charlie said as he stumbled through the dark to discover the source of the clatter, “Bedelia is fond of fish. Particularly fresh-water fish like trout and perch. And also of shellfish, clams, oysters, crabs, and lobster.”

The cellar door was not guilty. It had been fastened with a sound new catch. Charlie, usually so keen at locating sounds in the night, was baffled by it. He was not even sure that it was real. His nerves were unsteady, his imagination working overtime. Just as he had made up his mind that there had never been a clatter, it started again.

He shuffled up the attic stairs in his loose slippers and stretched out his hand to find the light bulb hat hung from a twisted cord in the center of the bewildering blackness. His coming disturbed the mice who wintered there. He heard the swift, dainty scraping of their feet and felt something cold scratch across his bare instep.

Jacobs had been a Jew, one of those devoted husbands, probably the sort who brings his wife flowers on Saturday and takes out more life insurance than he can afford. How does one go about drowning a man in the bathtub? Had Jacobs been drugged, too, or was he taken by surprise, tickled and teased until two frail hands were able, gently, to push him under? The water had been warm, sea green against the white tub, the bathroom
had smelled of moisture and scented soap, and circles of water had formed about the dark head.

“Christ! I'm going crazy!”

He spoke aloud. His oath echoed in the dark attic. His hand found and lost the light. He groped for it and the dark was water closing over his head. Quite out of breath, he resolved to give up, but grew angry, stamped on the floor, and reached out again for the light. At length he found it, turned the switch, was assaulted by the sudden burst of brightness, saw the lean rafters and dense attic shadows, shuffled over to a window, opened it, shivered in the wind and felt for the hooks of the shutters. This he did four times until he made certain that every shutter was secure. As he started back and raised his hand to switch off the light, he hesitated, fearing the journey of a few feet to the attic stairs. He might have let the light burn, saved his nerves, and come upstairs in the morning to switch it off. But that was not Charlie Horst, who had been taught good sense and thrift when he was young and despised himself for knowing fear. He turned out the light and descended the stairs apprehensively while the three-four clatter pursued him.

Safe in bed again, he asked himself indignantly what sort of man would take a stranger's word before his wife's and allow his imagination to be inflamed by a cheap love-story. Tomorrow in honest daylight he would sift all the facts, separate truth from fantasy, weigh evidence, and face honestly whatever he came to believe. In the meantime he would forget the whole thing and refresh himself with a night's sleep.

Damn Ben Chaney! Charlie had been happy until he came along, had considered himself the luckiest man in the world. If Ben had never come to the gate that October afternoon, asking if they knew of a house that he might rent in the neighborhood! If Charlie had not been rash and profligate with his money, taking out more insurance than was reasonable for a man of his income! If his stomach had not gone back on him last week and brought about the situation that had caused all this trouble! If McKelvey had not sighed when the bedsprings creaked, if Jacobs had not groaned with every tick of the clock, if Barrett
had not stood guard over his bed, blowing his cold breath on Charlie's face!

There was only one way to solve the problem. That was the straight way, the shortest distance between two points of view. Charlie must face his wife with it and say, “Bedelia, my dearest love, Ben has told me an absurd story. Naturally I don't believe a word, the man must be mad, and I understand why feminine instinct has warned you against him, but since his story concerns you, it's better that you know it.” He heard his voice repeating Ben's story, telling her about Maurine Barrett and the man on the boat who had greeted her as Mrs. Jacobs. He saw Bedelia's face as she listened, courteously but without much concern.

The vision was comforting. Strengthened by good common sense, he resolved to speak of it frankly in the morning. The scene might cause her pain, but it would put an end to all doubts. Firm in the belief that the night's phantoms would be dissolved by honest daylight, Charlie fell asleep.

“CHARLIE, DEAR,” BEDELIA SAID. IT WAS ALMOST eleven o'clock and Charlie had not yet carried out his resolution to tell her Ben Chaney's story. He had not forgotten it nor changed his mind. His first thought on opening his eyes that morning had been of his vow. But Bedelia had slept late. Charlie had done all the housework while he waited for her to awaken. The tasks had become irksome. He had been fidgety, aware of every passing minute, every thought that entered his mind, every movement of his muscles. Yet he wanted the house clean before he faced her with his questions. He did not wish to create a disorder of the emotions before there was order in his house. For then there would never be any tidiness to steady him.

At half-past ten she had called him to say that she was awake and ready for her breakfast. Her fever was down, but she was coughing badly and Charlie thought it better that she remain in the bedroom that day. She wore a handsome gown of green
serge with bell-shaped sleeves that were embroidered in gold, black, and red.

“Charlie, dear, I think I should like an egg this morning.”

“Yes, dear.”

When he returned with the breakfast tray, she had made up the bedroom. The rose-colored moiré spread lay smooth upon the bed, and the pillows were tucked into the bolster. The room was like a stage set for the big scene. Charlie decided that he would let her eat her breakfast before he began his inquisition. He set the tray upon a small table by the window and lined the upholstered chair with cushions for her. Bedelia ate slowly, looking out of the window and dreaming between sips of coffee.

Outside the window the world shone. Clean, unbroken snow stretched to the horizon. On each side of the river the dark rocks were bearded with icicles; and icicles, catching the sunlight and sending off rainbows, hung from the roof and window-frames.