The Mulberry Bush (14 page)

They stood, a little stunned, looking at each other. Teresa was dead. For a moment Virginia was overwhelmed by this sudden calamity. Mike had come home—and now Teresa was dead. Oscar Harrison's sensitive face was twitching and she saw that his hands trembled.

“We'll have to go,” Virginia said dazedly. “There's no one else.”

“You think—you think I should go?” he asked hesitantly.

“Of course. You're the only family she has. I—I'd like to telephone first—my husband is in town.”

She dialed the number quickly, then dialed again but there was no answer, Mike must have tired of waiting, he might be on his way to the office now. She felt a pang of unease, wondering what Avis might have said to him. Avis had been so changed and strange in her anger. But she could not wait, she had to go to Teresa. There was no one else to take charge.

“I'll leave a note for Mike,” she decided. She typed a few lines on a sheet of paper, folded it and wrote his name on the outside, fastened it to the door with a thumbtack.

Oscar Harrison buttoned his overcoat. He looked somehow smaller, grayer. She held to his elbow as they went down in the elevator.

He loved Teresa, she was thinking. She had been cruel and unfair to him, but he never stopped loving her. He looked bereft. He said in a flat, dazed voice, “Thirty years—since I married Teresa.”

Virginia had grown to like the quiet little man. He had been a tower of strength to her in this last frantic week, competent and quick in carrying out the work she had asked him to do, and the plans for the Cuban trip were completed. She had felt an increasing feeling of reproach against Teresa, but now that feeling was oddly and quickly ended.

Strange how death changed the perspective, softened all the harsher outlines with the pale mist of pity. To be dead was to be swiftly forgiven for all things, to be justified, to be in need of championing. Death took a ruthless advantage of the finer impulses in people who were fortunate enough to be living. It wiped out errors and left only pathos and uncertainty. Was it because, as Bruce Gamble had said, there were no endings? Only an abrupt breaking of a chain, the sudden obliteration of a picture, for which no one was ever ready?

Clever, not too scrupulous, remorseless when anything blocked her path, Teresa had made her way. And now, suddenly, that way was ended. Teresa had met an opposing force her vivid, aggressive nature could not down.

Virginia rode through the dim streets with Oscar Harrison sitting silently by her side, and the knowledge that Mike had come home and that she could not go flying to him, tore at her. All her doubts and anxieties were suddenly dwindled to mere shamed memories. Mike had come home—to her. He had gone to the apartment first of all, gone expecting to find her there. He was hers—she let her heart sing a little, forgot for a little to feel sorrow for poor Teresa, dead.

Only an hour or two—the sad routine of affairs that death necessitated, to be gotten over—and then she would fly to Mike. And forget, when she crept into his arms that there had been nights of tormented wretchedness and days of dragging worry, nights and days that had made her heart sore and heavy.

The night nurse was waiting anxiously when they arrived at Teresa's apartment. The doctor, she said, had come and gone.

“There was nothing for him to do,” the nurse said. “It was just a quick collapse—no pain, she just drifted away. I didn't call anyone but you. I thought you would want to attend to everything. I'll stay if you want me.”

“I'll be grateful if you will stay,” Virginia said. “This is Mr. Harrison. He will make the arrangements.”

“Oh,” said the nurse, hiding surprise under her quick professional manner. “I fixed her up a little—if you want to see her.”

Oscar Harrison went into the bedroom alone. He stayed for a long time and Virginia waited, setting the living room to rights, discarding faded flowers and the stacks of newspapers that had accumulated. She telephoned her own apartment again, but there was still no answer.

Then Oscar Harrison came out, looking shrunken and pathetic, and there was on his face an incredulous and troubled look, as though the things the years had done to Teresa had shocked him. To him, in this last hour, Virginia suspected, Teresa had still been the vital, animated, and sparkling girl he had married thirty years before. He sank into a chair and his hands were still tremulous.

“You—take care of, things,” he said to Virginia. “You'll know whom to call. I want her to have the best. The best of everything. She earned it.”

No lingering resentment. He was now only a broken and aging man who had lost his wife, had looked on her drained and sharpened features and seen there the finality that awakens the old dread in every breast.

There was a great deal to do. Quiet men came, and Teresa was taken away.

“I had better telephone the newspapers,” Virginia remembered. “She had so many friends.”

So she called Sam Hinchey and the morning paper, giving them what facts she had, which were not many. Even Teresa's husband did not know her age.

“She was past twenty when we were married,” he said, “but she never told me exactly. She'd been teaching, school quite a few years—”

“She was older than he or she would have told,” Virginia decided. Poor Teresa, clinging desperately, with devices like hair dye and massages and grim corseting, to youth. Her hair had showed white at the roots, lately.

“I think I'll go now,” Virginia told Oscar Harrison when all the arrangements had been finished. “That is—if you will stay. They'll bring her back later—and I don't like to leave her alone.”

He looked around the apartment a bit vaguely.

“I don't know—she might not want me to stay,” he faltered. “Even now—I wouldn't like to do anything that would have annoyed her.”

“I think—that if she were here now, she would want you,” Virginia said. “I'm sure you are the one person in all the world that she would want beside her.”

He brightened a little at that. “I'd better bring my things over from the hotel, then.”

“I'll go to my apartment,” she said. “I'll write the number here, in case you want me. And I'll come back the first thing in the morning. But just now I do want to see my husband.”

Riding through the silent streets of Georgetown, it came to her that now there would be changes. She knew little of the status of the business, of the agreement between the Harrisons. Perhaps this would mean the end of Harrison Tours, the end of her job. But that was not now the dreary prospect it might have been, for Mike had come back. The money Mike had given her was safe in the bank, and perhaps now there would be the little house and the washing machine and the lawnmower—safety and peace and no more roving— Oh, please God, she shut her eyes and her fingers tight in pleading fervor, please God, let there be no more roving! No more wild places calling to Mike's restless spirit, no more wars, no more of this terrible, straining loneliness!

The apartment was dark when she arrived at the house, but she went up the two flights of stairs light-footed. Mike would come back. Sooner or later, when he had sought her without finding her, he could come back.

She flicked on the light—and there was the little table set for two!

“Oh, Mike—darling—”

In the kitchen, the steak lay ready on oiled paper with bits of butter over it, the salad was made, the coffee in the pot. She jerked off her street clothes quickly, put on the housecoat Mike had bought for her in New York, a soft, gray, clinging, lovely garment with touches of hyacinth-purple at the neck and hem. She put on the little apron and lighted the broiler again. Any minute now, he would come. He had brought flowers! She buried her face in the soft pink blooms. How cheap, how silly to have doubted him ever! She repaired her make-up carefully, brushed her hair to a shine, then, deciding that the apron spoiled the effect, she took it off.

Anxiously, she watched at the window. Surely he would come soon! He'd go to Teresa's probably, but she had told the night nurse that she was going home, and the nurse had promised to stay till Oscar Harrison returned.

At last a taxi came charging up the hill, and Virginia held her breath, her hands at her throat, her heart pounding, till it stopped in front of the house. She drew back from the window and stood waiting, a little dismayed to feel herself shaking from head to foot.

Steps on the stairs—she knew how many, how many on the second-floor landing. And now he was outside the door—knocking, she flew to open it.

“Hello, Red-top,” said Sam Hinchey.

Almost she wept. “Oh—” she said, confused, knowing that her face was burning, sick with disappointment. “Oh—how do you do? Will you come in?”

He stepped inside, looked around uncertainly.

“Pretty late to come calling,” he laughed a little, “but I wanted a few more facts about Miss Harrison. The boss thinks she rates a half-column with pictures—successful businesswoman—all that stuff.” He got out the inevitable pad of folded newsprint paper, leaned against the doorframe.

“I'll give you what I know,” said Virginia patiently, “It isn't extensive—Teresa was rather a lone wolf. But her husband is at the apartment—he could give you dates, beginnings—things like that.”

“I didn't know she had a husband.”

“Neither did I, till just lately.” She told him what he wanted to know, hurriedly, nervously, praying that he would go before Mike came. She did not want to be embarrassed by the presence of an outsider when first she saw Mike.

At last he folded the paper, clipped his pencil to his pocket again, shrugged up the collar of his overcoat.

“Oh, by the way—I saw Mike Paull today,” he remarked.

“You saw him—today?” she tried to keep her tone casual.

“Saw him in New York. I flew up—on that new clipper they're putting into transatlantic service. Saw Mike—but he didn't see me. But from what I saw—well, everything's all right again. You must have done a good piece of work. I knew—when I told you about Harriet that you'd do it.”

“About Harriet?” The pain that was sudden and keen colored her voice, in spite of all she could do.

“He was with her—and it looked to me as if everything had been fixed up fine. Swell job—I know it wasn't easy for you to do. Well, much obliged. Good night.”

He pounded down the stairs, but she stood where she was, stunned and cold, unable to move.

Harriet Hillery! She had put the thought of Harriet Hillery away, brusquely, with all the other doubts that had rocked her. She had been so sure!

And now, here it was again—this prowling specter, this black-haired girl, thrusting in again between herself and Mike.

She shut the door slowly, moved like an automaton into the room, stood there looking at the little table, at the flowers looking at their own bright faces in the mirror. Nothing was settled. All the wretchedness, the sick unhappiness was back again—so much more poignant now from having been ignored for a brief hour.

She did not hear the footsteps on the stairs.

But she saw the doorknob turn, and braced herself, cold as ice. This was what dying was like, this freezing pain.

There was Mike, holding out his arms. Mike crying, “Ginny!”

But she could not move. And for a moment she could not speak.

Mike said, “Ginny?” again, looking at her with bewilderment in his face. Then, slowly, he closed the door.

He said, “Well, I'm back!” and then tried to grin, not doing very well at it. Then he took off his hat and tossed it on the table, and came a little nearer. “Well, Ginny?” he said, and there was a defensive uncertainty in his voice.

She dragged sounds from her tight throat. She said, “Hello, Mike.”

Mike came closer, but she drew away. He must not touch her, he must not kiss her—not yet.

He said, “Mad at me, Ginny?” something wistful in the words that caught her heart and tore it. That charm of his—that boyish, young, and tender thing— Oh, that was the way it was, that was what had destroyed her, that little appealing way Mike had—with women.

She said slowly, “No—I'm not angry.”

“Then come here, beautiful, and kiss your wandering black sheep.” He had his hands on her shoulders, but she pulled away, walked away, stood beside the little table picking a fork up, putting it down.

She said hoarsely, “Mike, Sam Hinchey was here—”

“Oh, was he? How's old Sam?”

“He came—to ask about Teresa. She died tonight.”

“I know. I went there. Too bad—poor old Teresa loved to live. Who's the little old chap I saw there?”

“Her husband. Oscar Harrison.”

“Gee whiz! She fooled everybody, didn't she? Ginny, angel—don't feel too bad about Teresa. She lived her life—”

“I'm not upset about Teresa. I knew—days ago—that there was very little hope. It's about—us, Mike—”

“Ginny, I was a dog not to write oftener. I feel low about it.”

“That isn't the important thing. I—Mike, Sam Hinchey saw you—in New York this morning.”

“Oh—” slowly, “he did, did he?”

She sat down. Her legs felt fluid, her body felt numb. Her hands, twisting together to stop their trembling, were cold as ice.

“He saw you—with Harriet Hillery,” she said levelly.

Mike strode across the room, his brows drawn in angrily, his face dark.

“So—he saw me up there—having lunch with a girl and two other newspaper boys. He didn't mention those fellows, I suppose? He just came running to tell you he'd seen me with a girl I've known all my life—a girl I've worked with—”

“The girl you were going to marry, Mike, before you met me,” she added quietly.

The anger went out of Mike, deflating him swiftly; his face sagged, his eyes moved nervously over the room, avoiding her grave gaze.

“So—he told you that, too, did he?” he asked resentfully.

“I've heard it—from several sources—but not from you, Mike. You did not tell me.”

“Because there was nothing to tell. It was all over—. My Lord, Ginny—I love you! I married you! I married you because I loved you—”

She did not relent. Something had turned to stone within her, all the tenderness, all the yielding turned to flint.

“Did she know—that it was over—when you married me?”

A trapped, harried look drew his face to a sharp edge. His eyes narrowed and he grew paler. He said, desperately, “Look here, Ginny, we don't need this post-mortem, this—autopsy—on what's over and done with! It's over, I tell you! I talked to her—today.”

“It's over now—when we've been married almost six weeks. But it was not over on the first day of October. That's the way of it, isn't it, Mike?”

“Virginia, you're my wife. And I swear to you that no other woman has any claim on me—not even the vaguest shadow of a claim. You're mine—God knows why, because I certainly don't deserve a girl like you—and there's no other woman that I want—or care about.”

“You were engaged to her, Mike? You gave her a ring?”

He flared again. “Well, call it an engagement if you want to split hairs about it! You know how it is in a gang—especially a newspaper crowd. Two people get paired off, and then the rest of the bunch assume that it's serious and nobody horns in, and so it goes along for a while, and after a while the two people themselves sort of—accept the situation and so it goes. It could happen to anybody.”

“But—you were definitely engaged to her.” It was a statement rather than a question. “And you gave her a ring.”

“So you read that piece of tripe, did you? And you believed it!”

“I'm ready to believe you, Mike.”

“I did give her a ring. It was a little ring I picked up in Russia—the old Jew who sold it to me said it had been stolen from the Czarina, but that was a lie, of course. It was an emerald ring, and she liked emeralds—Ginny, what the devil is this third degree, anyway? I'm not in love with Harriet Hillery. I'm in love with you. Harriet's a swell girl—she was darned swell when I saw her today. She didn't make any fuss—dig up old bygones and harp about them. She was swell. I did take her to lunch—I met her at Bill Foster's place, but there was a gang around—” his look sharpened and darkened. “Maybe you've gone out to lunch with somebody while I've been away. What of it? I'm not getting green-eyed and putting you over the jumps, am I? I'm not saying a word about that orchid I found here in your room. If some man gave you an orchid, that's fine. I didn't lock you up in solitary when I married you. I left you free.”

“Mike, we aren't getting anywhere, walking around the main issue like this. I'm not angry because you took Harriet Hillery to lunch. What I have to know—even if it breaks my heart to hear you say it—is this: you were engaged to her when you met me, weren't you? And you didn't take the trouble—or you didn't have the courage to end the affair before you married me? That's the truth, isn't it, Mike?”

“All right,” he said sullenly, “if you've got to have it—that's the truth.”

“And she went on believing—believing in you, till she saw that piece in that horrible column, or till someone told her,” she went on in the same dull, toneless voice. “You didn't write to her—or send her any message?”

“No, I didn't write to her. I didn't have time.”

“You didn't write to me, either—only one letter in five weeks—”

“Ginny, I was on the run every minute. And Bill had to have two thousand words a day. I'm sorry as the devil—I'll crawl, I'll do anything you ask to make it up to you, Ginny darling.”

She rose and walked to the window and stood looking out, seeing nothing. What was the use of this, her heart pleaded with her? What use digging into the past? Mike loved her, it was in his eyes, in his hoarse voice, he had come back to her. One look, one word from her, one yielding gesture, and she would be in his arms and all the wretchedness forever ended! But would it be ended? Would this small, sharp fear ever go out of her heart, would she ever be able to—believe, deep in her soul?

She said, breaking a dragging silence, not looking at him, “Even if you could make it up—to me, Mike, could you ever make it up to her—to her—or to yourself?”

“Good Lord, Ginny—haven't I been telling you that she doesn't care—she doesn't care—a darn! She showed me that—today. She's all excited about getting a job with Bill Foster. She's carried away by her work. She wants a big success—she, isn't interested in any man, not that way. I stopped in New York with the definite intention of seeing her—explaining, apologizing—and she didn't give me a chance.”

“Just how were you going to explain, Mike?”

“Easy enough. I was going to tell her about you—how swell you were, how I knew I was gone the minute I looked at you! Harriet's a modern woman. She knows—how things happen, things like that. She's a free soul. She wouldn't cling to any man—she's got pride—”

Now it had to be said. Now it could no longer be kept pressed down, gnawing and burning, this bitter, small fear that would not die. She winced away from it, as though she held a weapon in her hand, sharp and cruel, with which something lovely and tender must be slain. She cringed away from dealing the blow, but the terrible forthrightness within her drove her on. She had to do it—she had to know, or never would she have peace again, ever.

She looked at him levelly. Her eyes were dark wells of agony, but she did not know that. She was holding to a frigid calm, as she might have clung to a rock while winds roared around her and a rip tide swirled below.

She said, “Is that the way you're going to explain to me, Mike—when the next girl sweeps you off your feet?”

He did not move so much as an eyelash for an instant. He turned slowly white, and then his face darkened again and a bitter line hardened around his mouth.

“So—that's it, is it?” he said harshly. “So that's what you're thinking. I'm a heel—I'm the low kind of hound who would marry it woman—and then ditch her!”

“I'm asking you, Mike—if you're that kind of a person. Oh, Mike,” her voice broke desperately, “can't you see? It isn't Harriet Hillery. I'm not just a jealous wife—prying into your past. You may have loved a hundred women—and I might have been in love with dozens of men—but that wouldn't matter—not to us, now. It's—honor that matters!”

“So—I'm dishonorable, am I?”

She drew a long breath. She was like a flame, poised there, hair kindled by the light, eyes burning with that awful, inward fire.

“Well—what do you think?”

The dark flush that ran over his features warmed her somehow, made her glad. She swayed toward him a little, then his voice struck back at her like a lash across her face.

“So—that's what you think of your husband, is it?” She recoiled a little, holding her hands tight at her sides, bracing herself against him. This could not be Mike—and this could not be she, Virginia Paull—these two iron people standing here, with eyes meeting like blows, with drawn, bitter lips—this was a frightful nightmare, and presently she would waken, chilled and sickened, and shivering with thankfulness that it was a dream!

She said woodenly, “I'm still asking you what you think, Mike.”

He turned and, with a savage, childish gesture, picked up a book and threw it on the floor.

“I'll tell you what I think!” he barked. “I think this is all a lot of melodramatic rot! I've explained—everything. I've told you that Harriet Hillery means nothing at all to me. And I've told you that I love you—I always will love you—and if that isn't enough for you—”

She waited before she spoke again, and her voice had a flat overtone of terrible, stony patience, as though not her lips were speaking, but some inward, inexorable thing that had possession of her, some strange and terrible force that she could not control.

“I'm sorry, Mike—it isn't enough. You loved her, didn't you?”

“Haven't I told you—over and over—that that's all ended?” he demanded, stiff with fury.

“If it ended—like that—it could end again, couldn't it? Oh, Mike—can't you see—it's my life! I love you—no, wait—I have to say this. I can't go on—loving you and being—unsure. These last weeks—you say you love me, and yet you went away and—if I was in your mind at all, I was—just something holding you, something that irked you a little—knowing that you ought to write, knowing I was here, lonely and waiting—knowing that you were not quite—free! It was in your letter—that one letter. I could read it between the lines—you had to write and you were worried—and annoyed. You weren't free. And—I think you will always have to be free. I told you that—remember?”

His face had changed again, relented. He put out his hands in a wistful gesture.

“Ginny, sweetheart—I don't want to be free! Never free from you! I'll—crawl, darling! I'll own everything—admit everything. I'm a dog—a mangy cur dog—but I do love you. I'll do anything you ask—if only you'll love me again—”

She wavered for a breath. She was so tired, so spent with emotion—and to yield would be so easy—and so sweet! To be swept away, forgetting everything except that here was Mike, here was her dear lover, and here was life ahead, going on—going
where
?
Not along a serene path—not while this doubt walked with her—she fought the rigid pressure in her breast, fought to melt the steel that her heart had turned into— Oh God, why did you make me like this? Why did you make me—so grim, so far-seeing, so dependent upon honor?

She said presently, “You say that you'll do anything, Mike. Will you go to Harriet Hillery—and tell her—what you've told me? Will you go—and be honest and try to explain the wrong you did? Even if she doesn't care anymore—you owe that much, to yourself—and to me.”

He stared at her in amazement, and then with returning anger.

“You want me—to humiliate myself—”

“I want you to justify yourself. Be square with yourself, get your self-respect back—and my respect—and hers. Don't you see—that it has to be that way—it has to be! If we go on—from here, from this moment, there will be things unsaid—things we'll both remember—things that will poison love and kill it.”

His eyes hardened, his face seemed to close against her like an iron door.

“You think that's love, Ginny—that because you love me you can ask that of me? Ask me to go back—and make a fool of myself—to a girl who's through with me? You think that is love? Well, it isn't. It's vanity—and jealousy.”

“Jealousy?” she heard her own shrillness and could not control it. “You think—that I'd be jealous—of you?”

He shrugged a little and picked up his hat.

“This is getting us nowhere,” he said. “I've explained—I've apologized. If that isn't enough—well, when you think things over, Ginny—when you decide that love is too important to be cut up into pieces and looked at through a microscope for flaws and spots—when you calm down and see how foolish all this is—let me know!”