The Mulberry Bush (10 page)

“Let it run itself for one night. You need diversion. Also a square meal. Your face is thin—and I propose doing something about it. I'll come for you about seven.”

“I'll be ready. At my own apartment,” Virginia said because she was too tired to think up an argument. And being with Bruce was restful. He was, she decided, one of the most restful people that she knew.

She went back to Georgetown and got out a dress that would do for dinner in town. A black frock with a pleated skirt and a little jacket that had a pattern of green sequins on the sleeves.

There was a knock at the door, as she was brushing the small black hat that matched the dress, and she opened to a florist's boy, who presented a square box.

Within was one green orchid, and on the card was written: “Just a friendly gesture—from a friend.”

She had never had an orchid before, except on her wedding day. Mike had bought three that day, lovely, fragile things with wings of mauve and hearts of mother-of-pearl. She had kept them fresh for two days in a glass on the hotel windowsill, and Mike had said, “Where I'm going, they grow on the trees. I'll send you a bushel of them.” She wondered if he remembered? Probably not. More than likely he had forgotten within an hour. Mercurial as the wind, blithe ideas drifted through Mike's mind as butterflies drift on a wind, making the world bright for a moment before they blow away again.

She was continually troubled by her feeling about Mike. It had dulled to apathy now, to a waiting patience, tinged with vague stabs of irritation and brief, wincing twinges of pain. She was trying to be generous and calm, to wait—but waiting wore on the heart and nerves and only the anesthesia of dullness made it endurable. That and driving her body and brain till she was too weary to lie awake at night, thinking.

At seven, promptly, Bruce Gamble knocked.

“Is it proper to come in?” he asked, smiling at her as she opened the door.

“Perfectly proper. And my friends are admitted. The owners of this house are satisfied that I am a perfect lady. They checked on all my references carefully.”

“I see I'm not the only man who is allowed in—or—don't tell me you use this?” Bruce picked up a pipe from the table—Mike's old brown pipe. He had left it there on the night of the storm, the night that still made Virginia's blood spin and her cheeks burn when she thought about it.

She said, looking into the mirror, steadily, “That has been here a long time. The man who owned it forgot it and left town.”

“Looks like an old-timer. I'll bet he misses it. It takes a lot of smoking to mellow a pipe like this.” Bruce turned it in his hands, sniffed at it. “I'd feel that I'd lost an old friend if I lost this pipe.”

“I'm ready,” Virginia said abruptly. “Oh, yes—thanks for the posy. I feel very elegant and expensive, wearing it. Shall we go?”

“Thank the girl in the shop. I asked her for a flower to suit a girl with hair like new pennies. She picked that one.”

“It matches exactly—not the hair but the dress. It's perfect.”

“Any special place you'd like to go?” he asked, as he started the car.

“I think I'd like a gay place. Music, and dressed-up people, and a lot of noise and laughter. I've had so much lately of the other kind of thing—hypodermics and nurses going around on tiptoe, and at the office, Mary Gargan's everlastingly melancholy face.”

“She's still pining?”

“It gets worse, I think. Why can't people put away hopeless things—pick up their lives and go on? Why do they cling, when clinging is torment?”

“Probably,” Bruce said, “because no one of us will admit that hope can die—because we all have an innate fear of finality, of a definite ending. The psychologists would tell you that it goes back to the old dread of death, that there are no endings in life, only interruptions. Even death is an interruption. Mary won't give up, just as I won't give up— Oh, I'm not going to talk about it, so don't begin to stiffen. This is merely a philosophical discussion of the stubbornness that is in all of us.”

“In you, perhaps, and certainly in Mary. But I think that if ever I knew—definitely—that something was hopeless—over—I'd walk away—with my head up and my spine as straight as a poker.” Virginia knew that she was speaking more to her own troubled mind than to Bruce Gamble, that she was hoping desperately that if need came, she would have the courage to walk away, proudly, head high.

“You're an escapist—the other extreme. You give up—turn and run.”

“Oh, no, I refuse to run. But I would depart with hauteur and no backward looks.”

“And no regrets? No midnight twinges in that place where your heart is supposed to be?”

“My heart isn't supposed to be—it is. But, can't you have a heart and a little common sense along with it?”

“The answer is no. Not if your heart is any good. The minute your heart takes over, common sense goes out on its ear. That's the reason they keep on building little cottages with roses over the door, and bigger and bigger schoolhouses. That's the reason the boys who sell wedding rings stay out of the hands of the receivers. Because no science and no philosophy has ever been able to make a heart behave. Three whiffs of orange blossoms and a little soft music and moonlight, and off it goes like a runaway comet, burning up the universe and scattering contemptuous sparks.”

“But that,” she said, “is merely the old biological trick.”

“It's a pretty good trick. Anyway it works. It has kept the world turning around, and men sailing ships, and armies marching, for a few thousand years.”

“I refuse to be beaten flat by a pat argument. I still say that if Mary Gargan had any sense, she'd buy a new lipstick and a red hat and look around for another beau.”

“I accept that argument. And probably if I had any sense, as you put it, I'd be taking out some gay young widow, with an avid eye and some bonds in the bank, instead of a girl with red hair who smiles at me vaguely, while she's thinking about some other man. But Mary Gargan and I have no sense. We merely have hearts that go on hoping. Are you still in love with that chap, by the way? You haven't changed?”

“No—I haven't changed.”

I'll never change, her heart said fiercely. I'll never change, no matter how many bright, brittle things I say, no matter what my pride makes me do. I'll still love Mike, forever.

Bruce chose a Russian place, up a flight of red-carpeted stairs, where the music was good, the lights rose-shaded and dim and the food excellent.

“A filet with mushrooms for you,” he said, “you look undernourished.”

“Am I being taken out for charity, pray tell? Is this a missionary expedition or a festive affair?”

“When you laugh like that it's a festive affair. So laugh some more. What vegetables do you yearn for? The Lima beans are healthy.”

“Stop talking to me like a husband. I want every foolish and indigestible thing on the menu. This is a party.”

“All right—let's dance then.”

He danced well, his tallness, his broad shoulders and the gray in his hair made him a distinguished and handsome figure. He would be good to a woman, Virginia was thinking, and then she put the thought away swiftly, a little startled and shamed that it had crept into her mind.

But this break in the strained monotony of her days was doing her good. She felt light-hearted, light on her feet. There was a shine in her eyes, though she was not aware of it. But Bruce Gamble saw it across the table, and his heart grew a little lighter, too.

“Would you mind dropping me at our office for just a moment?” she asked, as they started home, a little after ten o'clock. “There's a paper there that needs Mrs. Harrison's signature. If I can get it tonight, the night nurse will let her sign it. The other two are adamant and entirely immovable when it comes to business affairs, but it is important that I have that paper signed quickly.”

“I'll go up with you,” he said, as he stopped the car in front of the building. “That place looks pretty dark.”

“I've worked there till midnight many times. I'm not afraid. Our office is around on the avenue side.”

“Just the same, I'll go with you.”

Just so, Patty Gamble had been cared for and cherished, no doubt—and poor little Patty had died.

The elevator went up slowly, run by a sleepy Negro boy. The upper hall was dark, but Bruce found the switch, and Virginia hunted her keys, only to discover that there was a key in the lock.

“How stupid of Mary,” she exclaimed. “She must have come back for something and forgotten to lock the door—and she left the lights on, too,” she added, as she opened the door on the warm, steamy, outer office. “The paper should be here, on her desk—she was finishing typing it when I left.”

She saw the telephone first. It dangled by the wire, fallen from the desk, the receiver lying on the floor. Then, as she walked around the wide desk, she gave a little terrified cry.

“Bruce—quick!”

Mary Gargan lay on the floor behind the desk. She lay in a crumpled heap, as she had fallen, her head bent at an awkward angle, her mouth open, her hands lying palms upward, pitifully. She was breathing slowly and heavily, in dragging gulps, and her hands and face were damp and blue.

Bruce straightened her body, let her head down, picked up the empty bottle that had fallen on the rug.

“Laudanum,” he said, sniffing at it.

He hung the receiver on the hook, but the telephone was dead. He jiggled the hook in vain.

“Disconnected temporarily—because the receiver was down,” he said. “I can carry her—we'll get her to the hospital in my car. Open the door for me and ring for the elevator.”

“Poor little thing—poor Mary—” Virginia's tears were running unashamed down her cheeks.

Mary looked so small and childish when Bruce lifted her. Her hands hung down, colorless, ringless, her feet had a little, helpless look.

“She talked to someone on the telephone—and then swallowed the stuff—or she may have drunk it first. It works slowly,” Bruce said, breathing gustily as he carried Mary down the hall. “I don't think she got a lot of it, from the size of that bottle. They may be able to save her.”

The elevator boy's eyes bulged as they carried Mary into the car.

“Poison,” said Bruce, curtly. “How long has she been up there, do you know?”

“No, suh—I been on here since seven o'clock and she ain't went neither up nor down with me.”

“Get to a telephone, quick. Call Emergency Hospital and tell them we are on the way.”

They laid Mary on the back seat of the car, and Virginia covered her with the robe. The car leaped forward, then Bruce slowed at a corner where a policeman was ringing a signal box.

“Attempted suicide here, officer,” he said, as the officer came over in answer to his signal.

The policeman swung his flashlight into the car, then jumped on the running board.

“Okay,” he said, “step on it.”

They tore through the late, thin traffic, and whirled under the ambulance entrance of the hospital. The elevator boy had done his part. White-coated men were waiting with a wheeled stretcher.

Bruce helped Virginia out and went with her into the waiting room, a wan and unfriendly looking room now, with only one high light burning, and a few worried-looking people sitting about on the stiff chairs and settees. Bruce found a chair for her, and sat down beside her without comment or argument. He knew that she wanted to be with Mary and he settled himself quietly to stay with her.

“Don't worry,” he said, “they'll probably bring her around soon. But it was a lucky break for her that you went back there.”

“If I had gone back sooner—I can't bear to remember that I was dancing and enjoying myself, and poor Mary was lying up there.”

“Don't think about it. You did what you could.”

“But if I had had a chance to talk to her, perhaps— Something must have happened. She was quite calm when I left at six o'clock. But—she must have planned it, Bruce, if she had that bottle.”

“We can't live other people's lives for them, Virginia. It's a tragic truth—but it is a truth.”

He looked up as a man came rushing into the room and stood looking around wildly. Virginia recognized him and rose and went to him.

“Come in, Mr. Ryder. We're waiting—”

“Where is she?” The little printer's face was very white. He was breathing in gusts, as though he had run a long way. “Is she—”

“They're working over her now. I'm sure they'll bring her out of it. We got there in time, I hope,” Virginia said, “This is Mr. Ryder, Bruce—the man that Mary—”

“She called me up.” Mr. Ryder swallowed desperately. “She said my wife had gone there—and that she couldn't stand it any longer— I hurried down there as fast as I could, but I live away over in the northeast and my wife had my car. Her voice sounded so desperate, I knew she meant to do—something—and then the elevator boy told me you'd brought her over here.” He dropped into a chair, shaking, his head in his hands.

“What time was it when she telephoned?” Bruce asked.

“It was about half past nine. I was just going to bed—”

“She hadn't had the stuff long, then. That gives her a better chance.”

Mr. Ryder looked up at them, his throat palpitating, a sort of frenzy in his eyes.

“I've thought about—killing that woman!” he said with pitiful ferocity, “Sometime—I'm afraid I'll do it.”

“Wouldn't just leaving her be simpler,” Bruce said, “less tragic for everyone? Had you thought about that?”

“Yes, I've thought about it. I've lain awake nights trying to make myself believe that it would be—fair and decent. She can work—she was a good stenographer when I married her. But she says she won't work. She says she'll ruin—both of us—she wants to keep my nose to the grindstone—and then sneer at me, abuse me—it will take me years just to pay up what she owes!”

“Patience and chivalry seem to have been a trifle strained in your case,” Bruce said. “There are times when a man has to be ruthless—to save his self-respect. Yes, doctor?” An intern had appeared at the door.