Mrs. Bridge (23 page)

Naturally no one believed Dr. Foster would decide in favor of the negative, yet Mrs. Bridge could not help being irked when Grace whispered that she could hardly wait to find out. In a few minutes Dr. Foster appeared and ascended to the pulpit. He was growing more stout and more dignified every year. Solemnly he gazed down upon the congregation. At such times Mrs. Bridge thought he looked every inch the Man of God. She remembered seeing him one day on the Plaza; he had been studying himself in the mirror of a cigarette machine and she thought she had never seen him look more impressive. It was only at cocktail parties that he seemed unable to avoid little belches, after which he would stare with severity at the sandwich or cocktail in his hand.

“Should we go to church?” asked Dr. Foster of his audience. He allowed a few seconds for everyone to ponder. ”Should we go to church?” he repeated. He cleared his throat, placed his hands on the sides of the lectern, and began.

The sub-title of the sermon was “Unexplored Warehouses of the Cliff Dwellers.” The parable had to do with the fact that in plentiful years the Mesa Verde Indians stored part of their harvest in cliff houses and in time of famine they ate what they had saved.

A few minutes after noon Dr. Foster was winding it up. “We, of this more enlightened age, can surely benefit from the wisdom of those ancient savages. They learned to store their surplus against the time of dire necessity, and so it is when we go to church. …”

A few minutes later he descended and strode magnificently through the swinging doors. The last they saw of him was the tail of his black and royal purple cassock. To Mrs. Bridge he had seemed unusually eloquent and moving, and it was very strange, she thought, that throughout the sermon Grace was inattentive and listless. Afterward, on the steps, they talked for a little while.

“Grace,” Mrs. Bridge said impulsively, and took her by the hand, “is something troubling you?”

“No,” she whispered, with her eyes tightly shut. “No, no, no!”

“There is!” cried Mrs. Bridge. “I know there is!” But at this point they were interrupted by the arrival of the men and whatever might have been revealed was lost.

That evening, while preparing for bed, Mrs. Bridge suddenly paused with the fingertips of one hand just touching her cheek. She was seated before her dressing table in her robe and slippers and had begun spreading cold cream on her face. The touch of the cream, the unexpectedness of it for she had been thinking deeply about how to occupy tomorrow the swift cool touch demoralized her so completely that she al-most screamed.

She continued spreading the cream over her features, steadily observing herself in the mirror, and wondered who she was, and how she happened to be at the dressing table, and who the man was who sat on the edge of the bed taking off his shoes. She considered her fingers, which dipped into the jar of their own accord. Rapidly, soundlessly, she was disappearing into white, sweetly scented anonymity. Gratified by this she smiled, and perceived a few seconds later that beneath the mask she was not smiling. All the same, being committed, there was nothing to do but proceed.

She was wakened by the chimes of the grandfather clock in the hall. It was three or four in the morning. Her husband was sleeping easily, but gravely, as though exhausted. She awoke simultaneously with the knowledge of one morning many years before when she had been dusting the bookcase and came across an old, old red-gold volume. Taking it down she found on the flyleaf in dry, spidery script the name of Shannon Bridge, who was the uncle of her husband an unambitious, taciturn man who had married a night-club entertainer and later died of a heart attack in Mexico, and upon whose death they had inherited a few books and charts. She had no idea what the charts were about, for she had not unrolled them, only stored them in the attic, and then one day, absently, since they were useless, she had discarded them; and as for the books, no one had read them, so far as she knew, though later she found Douglas examining them, and now at four in the morning she was lying completely awake, thinking of the time she had taken a book down from a shelf and had begun turning the brittle, yellowed pages. She stood beside the bookcase for quite a while, growing absorbed in what she read, and wandered, still reading, into the living room, where she did not look up from the book until someone called her, because she had come upon a passage which had been underlined, no doubt by Shannon Bridge, which observed that some people go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain; and this passage she had read once again, and brooded over it, and turned back to it again, and was thinking deeply when she was interrupted.

And Mrs. Bridge remembered now that she had risen and had said, “Yes, all right, I’m on my way/’ and had placed the book on the mantel, for she had intended to read further. She wondered what had interfered, where she had gone, and why she had never returned.

Mabel Ong was going to an analyst. Mrs. Bridge was surprised to learn this because Mabel in her tailored suits and with her authoritative masculine manner had always seemed the very picture of confidence. At luncheon club not long after Dr. Foster’s eloquent sermon on church attendance she found herself sitting next to Mabel, and by the time luncheon was over Mrs. Bridge was convinced that she, too, needed analysis. She had, in fact, privately thought so long before her talk with Mabel. More and more it had occurred to her that she was no longer needed. Ruth was gone, so very gone even her letters said so little and Carolyn was almost gone, and Douglas, though still at home, was growing so independent, more like his father every year. Soon he too would be leaving home. What would she do then? It had been a long time, she felt, since her husband truly needed her. He accepted her, and he loved her, of this she had never had a doubt, but he was accustomed to and quite unconscious of love, whereas she wanted him to think about it and to tell her about it. The promise of the past had been fulfilled: she had three fine children and her husband was wonderfully successful. But Mrs. Bridge felt tired and ill. She wanted help.

She surmised her husband would not be sympathetic to her idea of being psychoanalyzed, so, for a number of weeks before mentioning it, she planned the conversation. She meant to open with the direct, positive, almost final statement that she was going downtown the first thing in the morning to arrange a series of appointments. That certainly ought to settle the matter he ought to be able to understand the situation. Possibly he was going to inquire how much it would cost, and she was uneasy about this, suspecting it was going to be expensive, with the result that she avoided finding out what it would cost. After all, in spite of his complaints, she knew, and he was aware that she knew, that they had plenty of money.

She tried to imagine all his objections to her idea, but really there was nothing he could say. He would simply be forced to agree. It had been years since she had asked him for anything, no matter how slight; indeed, every once in a while he would inquire if there wasn’t something she wanted anything for the house, or for herself. No, there was nothing. It was difficult to find things to buy. She had the money, but she had already bought everything she could use, which was why she often spent an entire day shopping and came home without having bought anything except lunch, and perhaps some pastry dur-ing the afternoon.

Having solved whatever objection he might make in regard to the expense, she concluded that all she had to do was let him know her intention. She kept putting it off. She rehearsed the scene many times and it always came out satisfactorily.

The difficulty lay in finding the opportunity to begin. So it was that several weeks slipped away, then one evening after supper, as they were settling themselves in the living room, she with a bag of knitting and he with the stock-market page of the newspaper, she knew the time had come. She pretended to be straightening her knitting, but she was greatly occupied with marshaling her thoughts. He always got to the heart of a matter at once, wasting no energy on preliminaries, and she had to be ready for this. Just then he lowered the paper and she was terrified that somehow he had been reading her mind. Quite often he could, and this more than anything else was the reason she found it exceedingly difficult to defend her ideas. He was glaring at the newspaper.

“Listen to this: The Central has asked the ICC to investigate the circumstances of the sale of eight hundred thousand shares of stock, owned by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, to Murchison and Richardson last week/’ He looked across the paper at her as if she were responsible.

“Well!” said Mrs. Bridge in what she thought an appropriate tone. It would be unwise to annoy him at this point, but until he made it clear whose side he was on she could not say anything specific. Her expression remained intent and neutrally expectant, as though she wanted to hear more.

“What in God’s name do those people think they’re doing?” he demanded sharply.

“It certainly doesn’t seem right/’ she answered, still not certain whether the scoundrels were Central, or Chesapeake and Ohio, or Murchison and Richardson. Or, of course, he could be angry with the newspaper for having publicized it.

Mr. Bridge had taken off his glasses and was staring at her.

“I don’t know a thing in the world about it, of course,” she added hastily.

He resumed reading. A few minutes later he said, “Allied Chemical: up fourl Great Lord! What’s going on here?” After this he was quiet for a long time, coughing once, shaking the paper into shape. Mrs. Bridge, having noted it was almost time for bed, decided she must speak.

“Walter/* she began in a tremulous voice, and went on rapidly, “I’ve been thinking it over and I don’t see any way out except through analysis/’

He did not look up. Minutes went by. Finally he muttered, “Australian wool is firm/’ And then, roused by the sound of his own voice, he glanced at her inquisitively. She gave him a stark, desperate look; it was unnecessary to repeat what she had said because he always heard everything even when he failed to reply.

“What?” he demanded. “Nonsense/’ he said absently, and he struck the paper into submission and continued reading.

The following day being Thursday, Harriet’s day off, Mrs. Bridge prepared supper for herself and her husband. Douglas had telephoned a few minutes after school let out to say he was at a fraternity meeting and that as soon as it was over he and a couple of friends were going to get a hamburger somewhere and then were going downtown to a track meet in the municipal auditorium.

“What about your homework?” she asked.

“Homework/’ he replied, giving a very final opinion of it.

“Well, I don’t think you should stay out late,” she answered. “After all, it’s a week night/’

He said he would be home early, but early could mean any hour.

”All right now, don’t forget/’ she said. “Your grades haven’t been worth boasting about.”

“I’ll get by,” said Douglas. “Holy Cow!”

“Yes, well you just might Holy Cow yourself right out of graduating.”

With that the conversation ended and she went into the kitchen to start preparing a casserole, as she had done many, many times before. She moved around the kitchen slowly. She had plenty of time. The house was so quiet that she began to think of how noisy it had been when all the children were there, how very much different everything had been, and presently, remembering the days when she used to cook the meals, she went to the cupboard where the old recipe books were stored. Harriet occasionally referred to them, but otherwise they had lain untouched for years. Mrs. Bridge began looking through them, seeing pencil notations in her own handwriting, scarcely legible any more. Her husband liked more pepper in this, no bay leaves in that-whatever he wanted and whatever he did not like was expertly registered in the margins, and as she turned through these recipes she thought how strangely intimate the faded penciled notes remained; they brought back many scenes, many sweet and private memories; they brought back youth.

Mrs. Bridge grew thoughtfully excited. A glance at the electric clock on the stove panel told her there might be time enough to alter her plans for supper. She was thinking of fixing spaghetti for him, with the special sauce he had so often said was the best in the world. She had not fixed it for years. Harriet could not sense just how long to let it simmer, and without that particular flavor to the sauce there was not much point in eating spaghetti. A quick search of the refrigerator and of the cupboards disclosed there were not the right ingredients. She found some canned sauce and thought about improvising from it, but it would not be the same. He would taste the difference. And so, regretfully, she admitted it was going to be the casserole again. Next week they would have spaghetti. A little sadly she turned on through the cookbooks, and once more she had an idea. She had come across the recipe for pineapple bread and there was time for that and she was certain they had the ingredients not only the pineapple but the chipped pecans, the raisins yes, yes, she could do it.

She carried the bread to the table wrapped in a towel because it was still hot from the oven, and Mr. Bridge, who, as he unfolded his napkin, had been looking at the casserole with resignation, now glanced with puzzled interest at what she was bringing him. His expression began to brighten. He smiled.

“Oh-ho!” said Mr. Bridge, rubbing his hands together, “What have we here?”

She placed it before him, too thrilled to speak, and hurried back to the kitchen for the bread knife.

“Well, welir said he, accepting the knife, and he smacked his lips and shut his eyes for a moment to inhale the fragrance of the small plump loaf.

“Go ahead and cut it,” she said to him intensely, and waited beside his chair.

The first slice fell down like a corpse and they saw bubbles of dank white dough around the pecans. After a moment of silence Mrs. Bridge covered it with the towel and carried it to the kitchen. Having disposed of the bread she untied her little ruffled apron and waited quietly until she regained control of herself.