Bedelia (6 page)

Bedelia set down her sherry with an abrupt movement. Some of the wine spilled. She smiled ruefully.

“Is anything wrong?”

Her eyes narrowed and she hung her head.

“Aren't you feeling well?” Ben persisted.

“I got a bit of a chill. Perhaps someone was walking over my grave.” She straightened and gave Ben a reassuring smile to show that the spilled sherry and her sudden alarm meant nothing.

The room was still for a few seconds and then Abbie broke the silence, shrilly. “Who was this guest?”

“Does it matter, since he's not coming?” asked Ellen.

“We might at least have the pleasure of knowing what we've missed,” Abbie answered with unnecessary venom.

“A friend of mine,” Ben said.

“An artist, too?”

“No, he's in business. Owns a store, two stores, in fact.” Ben's restless glance had circled the room. His eyes were fixed on Bedelia's face again.

“How do you like my new dress?” she cried. The subterfuge was not wholly successful. Everyone could see that she had wanted, desperately, to change the subject.

“Stunning,' said Abbie, “looks like Paris.”

“I made it myself.”

“No!”

“Yes, she did,” said Charlie, who had been informed of the fact this evening while they dressed.

Abbie shook her head. “You're a marvel, Bedelia. I'd swear it was an import.”

“Thank you.” Bedelia took another sip of sherry.

“That's how you must sit for your portrait, Bedelia. I want you to wear that dress,” Ben said.

“A portrait of Bedelia!” exclaimed Charlie.

“You don't mind if she sits for me, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh, Ben,” Bedelia shook her head at him. “Why did you mention it? You've spoiled the surprise.”

“I'm sorry.”

“A surprise for me?” asked Charlie.

“For your birthday, dear.”

“Nothing would please me more.” To the others he said, “You know I have no picture of her, not even a snapshot.”

“Mr. Chaney oughtn't to paint Bedelia!” Ellen said.

“Why not?” Charlie demanded. “Why shouldn't he paint Bedelia's picture?”

“Have you
seen
his paintings?”

“Often. Why are you so disapproving?”

Ellen kept them waiting while she thought about it. Finally she said, “Bedelia's pretty and he seems interested only in making things ugly.”

“That's unjust. I told you I try to paint as I see, honestly.”

“He could never see anything ugly in Bedelia,” Charlie stated flatly.

“Have you seen what he did with the red barn? He's even succeeded in finding evil in that picturesque spot.”

Hannah said dinner was ready.

“You can't find evil where it doesn't exist,” Charlie argued. “I've no fear of letting him paint Bedelia's portrait.”

“I shall be interested in seeing the finished work,” Ellen said.

“You'll be the first to have a chance to criticize it,” Ben said, as he rose and led the way to the dining-room.

The meal began, as Mary had informed Bedelia, with clams. Bedelia had already warned Charlie against the first course. He nibbled a dry cracker.

Ellen, who was sitting next to him, asked why he wasn't eating. “Not dyspepsia again, Charlie?”

“I'm not hungry.” Hoping to avoid any more discussion of the loathed subject, he said, “You're looking unusually well tonight. What have you done to yourself, Nellie?”

Ellen's fair skin turned scarlet. Long ago, when Charlie had taught her tennis and sat next to her on hayrack rides, his name for her had been Nellie.
Seeing Nellie Home
, he used to sing out of tune but cheerfully. She felt the heat of the blush and feared that her burning cheeks must reveal her shame. But the flush
was becoming. Abbie had lent her a dress of gray wool bound in cerise silk.

“What's the secret, Nellie? Is it love that's causing you to bloom?”

Hannah thrust a plate of hot biscuits between them. Ellen buttered hers with an air of severity. Chilled by her extraordinary tension, Charlie gave ear to the conversation between Ben and Abbie.

Bedelia was listening but taking no part in it.

“At first,” Ben told Abbie, “I'd thought of painting her as she looked to Charlie that day on the hotel veranda. All in black, the widow. As background the stony peaks of the Rockies to show the cruelty and indifference of Nature, and the harshness of the world against which a frail woman must battle.”

“It sounds stunning. Why have you changed your mind?”

“The obvious lack of mountain scenery.”

“Couldn't you do it from photographs?”

“That's not the way I work. Moreover, my model would no longer be the slender and ardent widow pursued by our friend Charlie from the hotel salon to the veranda. I found the story romantic when I first heard it and was tempted to work from imagination rather than reality.”

“But the story is true.”

“The subject had changed. Instead of that pensive widow we see a buxom wife. The lines are no longer angular but . . .” he carried out the idea with his hands. “This is to be the portrait of a woman who's satisfied with her life because she's succeeded at a woman's most fundamental job, which is to make a man comfortable.”

“Very flattering,” said Charlie.

“You smug thing!” cried Abbie, playing with the East Indian bangle which she wore over her tight black satin sleeve.

Ben saw that his guests were through with the clams, and he rang the bell for Hannah. Then he turned to Bedelia and said, “When you sit for your portrait, you must wear the black pearl.”

“Black pearl!” exclaimed Abbie, looking at Bedelia with new respect. “Don't tell me you own a black pearl.”

Bedelia glanced at Charlie. It was fortunate, her eyes seemed to be saying, that she had had her own way about Abbie's gift. Ben might have embarrassed them by remarking that he had seen Bedelia wear the ring. “Oh, it's not real,” she explained. “I picked it up in a novelty shop in New York. It cost five dollars. Charlie thought it looked cheap, but I'm so ignorant that it looked like a real one to me.”

“A remarkable imitation,” Ben said. “I'm no judge of jewelry, but when I first saw it I thought the platinum and diamonds genuine, and that the pearl might be worth a thousand dollars.”

Abbie played with the bangle. “It sounds stunning. Why don't you wear it, Bedelia?”

“My husband doesn't approve of artificial stones.” Bedelia spoke without resentment, simply stating fact.

“I'm sorry I noticed the ring that night,” Ben said. “If I hadn't admired it quite so much, Charlie would probably never have noticed it.”

“Not notice a black pearl!” cried Abbie as if she were speaking of mortal sin.

Charlie wished they would quit talking about it.

“I'm sure he noticed,” Bedelia said. “It was much too conspicuous for him not to. But he didn't want to hurt my feelings by criticizing my taste, so he controlled his own, although he detested the ring.”

Charlie sighed.

“My sensitive ear perceives the overtones of a domestic quarrel,” Abbie said brightly.

“Charlie and I never quarrel, do we, dear?”

Again Ellen felt, as she always felt when people were oversweet or used too many pet names, that underneath the sugar frosting the cake was sour.

Hannah passed roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings. Charlie barely touched the food and only wet his tongue with Burgundy. His head had begun to pound. “Nerves,” he told himself disapprovingly, “nothing but nerves.” Instead of the round table set with Mrs. Bennett's second-best dishes, he saw a square corner table at Jaffney's Tavern, and Ben as
host again. The picture in Charlie's mind was like one of those Impressionist things, all angles and disharmony; a gleaming tablecloth, a long-necked bottle of Rhine wine, Bedelia's hand stretched across the table over a platter of lobster and wedges of lemon, resting in Ben's swarthy hand, and Ben bending over to examine the black pearl. Charlie, usually observant, could have sworn he had never noticed the ring until that night, but Bedelia had assured him that she had been wearing it all that week. Charlie had reflected upon the scene, analyzed his emotions and blamed his bad temper upon the flash of jealousy which burned when he saw his wife's hand in Ben's.

“What a prig you are,” Abbie said, not knowing she salted a wound. “And how like my dear Aunt Harriet. I can just hear your mother, Charlie. ‘I do not like to see a member of my family decked out in artificial jewelry.'” The mockery was precise. Abbie had caught the quality which had made the late Mrs. Horst such an annoying woman.

“All right, I'm a prig. I acknowledge it and I'm sorry.”

“You were right,” Ellen said. “I detest artificiality in anything.”

“Of course he was right,” Bedelia added. “Everyone has a right to his own taste, and Charlie's is so much better than mine that I could never be comfortable wearing anything he dislikes.”

“Bravo!” Abbie shouted. “A truly feminine speech, and how much more successful”—she addressed this to Ellen—“than any of your feminist attitudes.”

“My wife is an unusual woman,” Charlie boasted. “Instead of reproaching me, as most wives would, she gave the ring away.”

“Gave it away! Not really!” shrilled Abbie.

Ben's face tightened.

“Gave it away because I didn't like it,” Charlie said.

Bedelia lowered her eyes modestly.

Abbie said, “I'd never have given it away. But that's the difference, I suppose, between a successful wife and a failure like me. If I ever marry again, I'll come to you for advice, Bedelia.”

“Thank you, Abbie.” Bedelia straightened her ruffles. On her
right hand gleamed Charlie's Christmas gift, the gold ring set with garnets.

For dessert they had mince pie. Charlie was not given any; Hannah brought him a custard. That, of course, was Bedelia's doing. She had heard the menu from Mary and told her to let Hannah know that Mr. Horst must have a simple dessert.

He ate only a small portion of the custard and felt worse than before. The pain in his head had become a dull beat. When Hannah brought around the cheese, he put a little on his plate. Bedelia shook her head at him.

“Not Gorgonzola, Charlie.”

It was a half-whisper, but everyone heard and laughed. Later, after Charlie was stricken, they remembered Bedelia's solicitude.

The party broke up early. It had not been a very successful evening. The dinner had been too heavy and the guests were dull. Charlie and Bedelia left at half past ten. It was fortunate that they did not stay longer. Otherwise Charlie would have suffered his attack at Ben's house and there would have been no end to the confusion.

He had not been home for more than ten minutes when it happened. Bedelia had gone upstairs ahead of him because Charlie never went to bed without trying all the locks and taking a final look at the furnace. When he came into the bedroom, she was standing before the pier glass in her black silk corset. Charlie thought this the most seductive garment he had ever seen and, whenever Bedelia wore it, he wanted to make love to her.

She saw his face in the mirror. Whirling around she cried, “Oh, Charlie, darling, you're not going to be ill, are you?”

“I'm all right,” he said.

“You felt sick at Ben's house, I know you did. That's why I suggested coming home early. You look awful.”

The creature who stared back at Charlie from the pier glass had sunken eyes, colorless lips, and a pistachio green complexion. But Charlie was determined not to be ill and he squared his shoulders and began briskly to undress.

Bedelia mixed him a sedative. Her hand trembled as she poured the powder from one of the blue packets into the tepid water. “Drink it fast, you won't notice the taste,” she said. As he drank the foaming stuff, she watched him anxiously. “Feel better now, honey?”

At that moment he did feel better. He watched Bedelia loosen the laces of her corset. “If you weren't my wife, I'd say that corset looked fast.”

She was hurt. “If that's the way you feel about it, I'll never wear it again.”

“Don't be so sensitive, Biddy. I meant it as a compliment. A woman who has had two husbands should know that a touch of suggestiveness is appealing to the masculine eye. As Herrick put it, ‘A sweet disorder in the dress kindles in . . .'”

That was as far as he ever got with Herrick. Bedelia, who had gone to the closet for her nightgown, heard him gasp the last word. She turned quickly and saw that he had begun to vomit. He was bent over, steadying himself against the footboard of the bed. She saw him stagger backwards, let go of the footboard, and fall.