Mrs. Bridge (14 page)

“You’re frequently mad,” Carolyn responded.

“Nobodyll find out/’ Duchesne answered.

“You’re an ogre/’ said Carolyn.

Duchesne didn’t think that was a good reason.

“Then, because/’ said Carolyn.

“Why, because?” inquired Duchesne.

“Because, that’s why.”

“Because why?”

After this had gone on for several minutes Carolyn said her mother wouldn’t approve. Duchesne apparently was thinking this over because his chewing gum snapped inces-santly; then he muttered something Mrs. Bridge could not hear.

“But of course not!” Carolyn sounded shocked. “Are you mad?”

“Aw, why not?” Duchesne bleated. “Don’t be a duchess.”

In a very superior tone, then, Carolyn said distinctly, “Because, that’s all. We won’t discuss it any further. And besides, don’t be excruciating/

Duchesne, sounding uncommonly like a musical saw, was heard to say, “Awwwww, awwwww, jeez!”

“I feel terribly sorry for you,” Carolyn said with unnatural compassion. ‘Td like to, you know. Really, really 1 would, don’t you know? So terribly, terribly much, you mad child. Because you’re good/* she said earnestly, “Good!” And Mrs. Bridge, puzzled, tried to recall that particular Inflection because it did sound familiar. She wondered If Carolyn was running her fingers through Duchesne’s hair, or, considering how short It was, over the top. He was working on the chewing gum again. Mrs. Bridge sensed that Carolyn had him on the defensive.

“I am fond of you, Jay. Dreadfully so. I ache, actually. But but “

“Listen, Cork/’ growled Duchesne, man of action, and his big feet scraped on the doorsill. “You want to be a virgin forever?”

“Silly!” said Carolyn.

Mrs. Bridge, clutching the banister In horror, was gathering strength to speak out when the door bumped shut and Carolyn sighed, clearly alone. A moment later the engine roared and the tires squealed out of the driveway. Carolyn went Into the kitchen. Mrs. Bridge, folding her robe more tightly, stood In the upper hall trying to regain her composure. If anyone had asked her such a question she was positive she would have slapped the boy with all her strength, but a moment afterward she thought of the night some twenty years ago when she had barely resisted the pleas of a boy whose very name she had long since forgotten. It was the moonlight that had weakened her, the moonlight and her own desire.

“Carolyn?” she called very softly through the silent house.

The refrigerator door closed. Carolyn walked into the downstairs hall and gazed upward.

“Are you all right, dear?”

“Natch/’

“Did you have a good time?**

“So-so.”

“That’s nice,” Mrs. Bridge said absently, drew the robe more tightly around herself, and started back to bed.

“Mother?”

“Yes, dear?”

“We’re all out of peaunt butter.”

“Oh, thank God!” whispered Mrs. Bridge. Aloud, softly so as not to waken her husband, she called, “I’ll tell Harriet to order some in the morning. Don’t stay up too late/’

When Harriet, who was at times inclined to insubordination, brought in the breakfast tray Mrs. Bridge exclaimed, “For Heaven’s sake! What on earth happened to you?”

“Couperin,” said Harriet, grinning.

“Oh, goodness! Is he the one with the motorcycle?’

“No, ma’am,” said Harriet vehemently. “I took my last ride on a motorcycle, believe me. Approximately eight or ten weeks back.” She began to feel tenderly about her jaw, on which there was a large purple bruise.

“I certainly hope this was an accident,” said Mrs. Bridge.

“It came about,” Harriet replied with regal poise, “because only last evening it so happened that I and that Couperin had a grave dispute. Couperin, he got the worst.”

The evidence seemed to indicate Couperin had spoken the final word, but Mrs. Bridge decided not to get involved.

“What does he do?” she inquired, to change the subject.

“He is associated with the collection bureau of this city.”

“Tax collectors, or “

“Bureau of rubbish and trash. Then, too, he plumbs a bit. When he is Inclined.”

Mrs. Bridge, beginning to sense this would be one of Harriet’s Insolent days, sipped at the orange juice and then started to butter a slice of toast.

“Last evening,” Harriet continued, wetting a finger and touching up her eyebrows, “I received his proposition/’

This obviously demanded some sort of acknowledgment, even though Couperin or one of the other suitors proposed every Thursday night. “What jarred Mrs. Bridge as much as anything was Harriet’s referring to It as a proposition Instead of a proposal, and every Friday when the subject was mentioned she was about to point out the difference.

“I hope you didn’t accept/ she said, pouring some cream in the coffee.

“Frankly, I was tempted/* said Harriet. “However I declined, as you say. The reason being he chooses to get disgustingly drunk following on the heels of his pay check. I disapprove of that, don’t you?”

“I most certainly do/* agreed Mrs. Bridge, busying herself at the table somewhat more than necessary. Then, as Harriet appeared to be reflecting on the previous evening, she said, “Isn’t that a new hair-do?”

“Well, It Is, yes/’ Harriet pushed It lightly with her fingertips, “I believe It will prove suitable/*

“You look very chic/*

“Well, I find it pays to keep up appearances/*

Mrs. Bridge had the feeling she was about to pull out a cigarette. “Perhaps you’d better look In the refrigerator and see If we’re going to have enough whipping cream for the week end/*

Harriet, holding her braised jaw, turned to go Into the kitchen.

Mrs. Bridge, who was very thankful that Carolyn had no Couperin to contend with, said,
4 1 hope you won’t be seeing him any more/”

“I believe not until next week on the customary evening,” replied Harriet.

Every Wednesday the laundress arrived, and as the bus line was quite a few blocks distant from the Bridge home someone would usually meet her bus in the morning. For years the laundress had been a withered old colored woman named Beulah Mae, who wore a red bandanna, a ragged velvet dress split at the seams, and a pair of tennis shoes with the toes cut out because her feet hurt. Mrs. Bridge was very fond of Beulah Mae, speaking of her as “a nice old soul” and frequently giving her extra money or an evening dress that had begun to look dated, or perhaps the cookies that she was obliged to buy from the Girl Scouts. But there came a day when Beulah Mae had had enough of laundering, extra gifts or no, and without a word to any of her clients she boarded a bus for California to live out her time on the seashore. Mrs. Bridge was therefore without a laundress for an Interval of several weeks, during which the work was taken to an establishment, but at last she got someone else, an extremely large, doleful Swedish woman named Ingrid, who said while being interviewed in the kitchen that for eighteen years she had been a masseuse on the island of Got-land and wished she had stayed there.

When Mrs, Bridge arrived at the bus line the first morning Ingrid saluted her mournfully and got laboriously into the front seat. This was not the custom, but such a thing was difficult to explain because Mrs. Bridge did not like to hurt anyone’s feelings, so she said nothing about it and hoped that by next week some other laundress in the neighborhood would have told Ingrid.

But the next week she again climbed in front, and again Mrs. Bridge pretended everything was satisfactory. However, on the third morning while they were riding up Ward Parkway toward the house Mrs. Bridge said, “I was so attached to Beulah Mae. She used to have the biggest old time riding in the back seat.”

Ingrid turned a massive yellow head to look stonily down on Mrs. Bridge. As they were easing into the driveway she spoke. “So you want I should sit in the back.”

“Oh, gracious! I didn’t mean that/ Mrs. Bridge answered, smiling up at her* “You’re perfectly welcome to sit right here if you like/*

Ingrid said no more about the matter and next week with the same majestic melancholy rode in the rear.

The elegant Lincoln her husband had given her for her birthday was altogether too long, and she drove it as prudently as she might have driven a locomotive. People were always sounding their horns at her, or turning their heads to stare when she coasted by. Because the Lincoln had been set to idle too slowly, the engine frequently died when she pulled up at an intersection, but as her husband never used the Lincoln and she herself assumed it was just one of those things about automobiles, the idling speed was never adjusted. Often she would delay a line of cars while she pressed the starter button either too long or not long enough. Knowing she was not expert she was always quite apologetic when something unfortunate happened, and did her best to keep out of everyone’s way. She shifted into second gear at the beginning of every hill and let herself down the far side much more slowly than necessary.

Usually she parked in a downtown garage where Mr. Bridge rented a stall for her. She had only to honk at the doors, which would soon trundle open, after which she coasted inside, where an attendant would greet her by name, help her out, and then park the formidable machine. But in the country-club district she parked on the street, and if there were diagonal stripes she did very well, but if parking was parallel she had trouble judging her distance from the curb and would have to get out and walk around to look, then get back in and try again. The Lincoln’s cushions were so soft and Mrs. Bridge so short that she was obliged to sit erect in order to see whatever was going on ahead o her. She drove with arms thrust forward and gloved hands firmly on the wheel, her feet just able to depress the pedals. She never had serious accidents, but was often seen here and there being talked to by patrolmen. These patrolmen never did anything, partly because they saw immediately that it would not do to arrest her, and partly because they could tell she was trying to do everything the way it should be done.

When parking on the street it embarrassed her to have people watch, yet there always seemed to be someone at the bus stop or lounging in a doorway with nothing to do but stare while she struggled with the wheel and started jerkily backward. Sometimes, however, there would be a nice man who, seeing her difficulty, would come around and tip his hat and ask if he might help.

“Would you, please?” she would ask in relief, and after he opened the door she would get out and wait on the curb with an attentive expression while he parked the car. It was then a problem to know whether he expected a tip or not. She knew that people who stood around on street corners did not have much money; still she did not want to offend any-one. Sometimes she would hesitantly ask, sometimes not, and whether the man would accept a quarter or not she would smile brightly up at him, saying, “Thank you so much/’ and having locked the Lincoln’s doons she would be off to the shops.

She gasped when she saw the evening paper. On the front page was a picture of Tarquin Leacock taken a few minutes after he had been captured. The Leacocks had moved away from Kansas City about two years ago and no one had heard anything from them since that time. Every once in a while someone would ask what had become of them, for they had been such a remarkable family that it seemed they must be making news wherever they were. Now indeed they were.

“I saw it,*’ Mr. Bridge said when he got home that night. He had been working late again; it was nearly midnight when his Chrysler turned in the driveway, but she had waited up,

“I simply can’t believe it,” she said.

“I can,” said Mr. Bridge as he took off his overcoat. “You remember I warned you about that kid/*

“Oh, yes, I know/’ she said faintly, “but this!”

He hung his coat in the closet, placed his Homburg atop the briefcase and returned to the living room, where he glanced with no particular interest at the picture of Tarquin, who had developed into a surly, hulking youth.

“Well/’ said Mr. Bridge quietly, and tapped the newspaper with his index finger, “I am sorry about this, but on the other hand those people had no one to blame but themselves. This doesn’t surprise me in the least. They should have taught that youngster there are other people in the world besides himself/* He shook his head and took off his glasses, as he did whenever he was exhausted. “It gets worse every day. These psychologists have bluffed parents into thinking nothing Is more Important than a child’s right to assert himself. Lord knows where It will end. But 111 tell you this: Douglas is going to learn he’s not the supreme authority. His personality can go to pot, so far as that’s concerned, but my son Is not going to run around pulling stunts like this!”

With which Mr. Bridge again tapped the paper, significantly, and headed for the kitchen. Mrs. Bridge followed him and began to warm the supper that Harriet had prepared and covered with oil paper and left on the drainboard, for it was Thursday night and she had stepped out with Gouperin.

“Really, it just makes me III to think about it/* Mrs. Bridge said, and she lighted the oven and placed his supper in to warm.

‘Society gets the crime It deserves,” Mr. Bridge remarked with indifference. “I’ll never forget that kid calling his parents by their first names.”

“No, I don’t approve of that either,” she said.

Tarquin, having had a bellyful of psychology, or, perhaps, only feeling unusually progressive, had entered the bedroom of his parents while they were asleep and had shot them dead.

Tarquin Leacock preyed on her mind and she therefore took to observing her son more closely, wondering if he, too, might unexpectedly go berserk. He was now in high school, and so far as she could tell he was less of an Apache than most of his companions, for which she was grateful, but he did be-come unpredictable, given to fits of introspection during which he dressed quite formally and stalked about with hands behind his back, followed by a grandiose kind of good-fellowship, and it was in this latter mood that the battle of the hat took place.