Mrs. Bridge (26 page)

He was to leave from the Union Station at four o’clock the next afternoon, but a few minutes after three the telephone rang. It was Mr. Bridge’s office and the secretary was on the phone. Mr. Bridge was dead. He had hurried into the office immediately after lunch and resumed work with a dictaphone. Sometime after that he rolled out of his swivel chair and sprawled on the carpet as dead as he would ever be. When the dictaphone cylinder was played they heard him say, “It appears, therefore, the defendant ” and the squeak of the swivel chair.

“It was awfully good of you,” Mrs. Bridge said, standing at the half-open door, telling each visitor good-by. “Everyone has been so kind.”

Douglas, having exchanged telegrams with the commandant of his camp, remained in Kansas City till after the funeral. Ruth had flown home from New York and Carolyn had driven up from Parallel; both of them were struck by the change in Douglas. Ruth had no difficulty accepting him as the new head of the family, though he was nearly five years younger than she. Carolyn challenged him once or twice, half-heartedly. Neither of them expected their mother to make decisions. And to Mrs. Bridge herself it seemed natural that he should become the authority. Harriet, keenly attuned to every situation, asked Douglas if she could have a raise; he said no. From that moment on she stopped calling him by his first name and referred to him as Mr. Bridge, and his mother, hearing this for the first time, began to weep.

Soon, like birds abandoning a tree, they flew off in different directions. Ruth went back to New York, Carolyn to southern Kansas, and Douglas to the Army. The functions of the house were carried on by Harriet, and Mrs. Bridge was left alone. She often went to Auxiliary meetings, and she went shopping downtown, and to the Plaza for luncheon, and to a number of parties, but she could no longer lose herself in these activities; the past was too much with her, and so she was frequently content to stay at home, waiting for the mail, or waiting for someone to call, remotely conscious of the persistent roar of the vacuum cleaner, no longer car-ing if Harriet smoked in the kitchen.

When she received the first letter Douglas wrote after returning to camp she thought how intimately it resembled the letters her husband used to write when he was out of town on business. There had been something quaint about her husband, an old-fashioned inclination which had caused him to begin his letters to her with, “My dear wife …”

How strange that Douglas should write:

My dear Mother,

My father loved you above all else, and if he was apt to be rude or tyrannical it was because he wanted to protect you. He wanted so much for us all. He did not ever realize that what we needed was himself instead of what he could give us. On more than one occasion he and I discussed the family and its problems and in these talks I felt his constant preoccupation with your welfare after he was gone. I guess he knew he was not going to live much longer. He said he had never told you about the trouble with his heart.

There is nothing at all for you to worry about. You made him very happy during his life. I am quite certain that never once was he interested in another woman. My love to you, Mother, and to both my sisters. Tell Ruth when next you write her that I am anxious to hear from her.

Well, we have to go out on maneuvers now, but I’ll write you again pretty soon.

With love, as always,

Douglas

Not long after this she was window-shopping on the Plaza when a young man in civilian clothes stopped and addressed her by name. At first she did not know him; then she saw it was Jay Duchesne.

“Why, I thought you were in service!” she said with a smile. Then she noticed he was missing an arm.

“I was/’ he said, shrugging the shoulder where the arm had been.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Jay. I must have been asleep.”

“That’s all right/ 1 he answered cheerfully, and after a pause he said with a rueful grin, “I’m one of the clowns you read about in the comics the ones who never do anything right. I was always clumsy/’ He took a package of cigarettes from his pocket, expertly shook one between his fingers and lighted it. “How’s old Red Dog these days?’* he asked, blowing a stream of smoke.

“How is who?”

“Old Red Dog Doug. Gosh, I haven’t seen the bum in years. What a character he is!”

“Why, he’s in the Army/’ she replied. She was disconcerted by the news that Douglas was a character; he had al-ways seemed very normal to her, though a little more laconic than most boys.

“They bagged him, too? No kidding?” Duchesne laughed, puffed on his cigarette, and said, “He’ll give ‘em fits/’

“He seems to enjoy it and he’s doing quite well.” She was positive Duchesne was about to say he never heard of anybody doing well in the Army.

“Kidding aside,” he said. “How times change. What about Mr. Bridge? Dead and gone these many years, or still raking in the jack?”

“Mr. Bridge passed away not long ago,” she replied stiffly.

Duchesne observed her for a minute, smoke curling from his nostrils. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said finally. “He was a nice guy once you got underneath the crust he was a real soft touch. Is Ruth still in the big city?”

“Yes. She’s been there quite a while and is doing very well.”

“I can believe it. I always figured she’d wind up in Hollywood. She was sort of a glamour type, you know, but mysterious, like in these secret-agent movies.”

“Oh?”

Duchesne studied his cigarette. “Look, Mrs. Bridge, how’s Cork?”

“Why, she’s just fine.”

“Still married?”

“Of course!” Mrs. Bridge laughed in displeasure. She noticed that Duchesne seemed rather disappointed.

“Why should you ask, Jay?”

“No reason,” he said, flipping the cigarette in the street. “I think about her a lot, that’s all. Tell her hello for me.”

“I certainly will. It’s been nice seeing you again, Jay. You’re looking quite well.”

“Things could be worse, Mrs. B. In the hospital I couldn’t go for it, but I know better now.” He took a deep breath and straightened up. “So, anyhow,” he added, just before walking away, “do give her the word.”

Her album provided many comforting hours. There she could find her children once again, and her husband, too. He was standing in bright sunshine with one hand on the fender of the new Reo and Carolyn was sitting on his shoulders. There was Douglas showing off the baseball bat they had given him for his birthday. And there was Ruth in her first high heels, standing pigeon-toed and earnestly determined not to fall on her face. There, too, were her friends Grace Barron waving from the high diving board at the country-club pool, Mabel Ong outside the Auxiliary clubhouse with hands thrust in the side pockets of her tweed jacket, Madge one snowy day in a Persian lamb coat with her galoshes unzipped, and Lois Montgomery looking presidential. Mrs. Bridge wished she had taken more snapshot^.

She had quite a few of the European trip. She had spent more than one enjoyable morning with a damp sponge on which to wet the mounting corners, the huge album lying open on the writing desk and the carpet all around her feet littered with negatives and with yellow drugstore envelopes. In went Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly, the Thames, the changing of the Guard, and the ravens she had seen at the Tower of London. In went the Seine, the Arch of Triumph, an awning of Maxim’s, Notre Dame, and Mr. Bridge buying the Herald Tribune in front of the American Express. The pictures of the Riviera had not turned out well, though she could not imagine why, unless the light meter had not been working properly; the Riviera, whenever she thought about it, seemed so foreign, really more foreign to her way of life than Paris had been. Often she remembered the cliffs, the harbor, and the shining sea.

“I don’t know whether this would interest you or not,” she would say to guests, picking up the album in both hands, and as she deposited it on her visitor’s lap she would say, “Now, just look at them until you get bored, but for heaven’s sake don’t feel obliged to go through them all.” And she would then hover nearby, anxious to know which pictures were being looked at. Often she would be unable to sit still; she had to look over the visitor’s shoulder, reaching down now and then to say, “That’s the famous old cathedral you’re always hearing about,” Or, “That’s the ocean, of course.” Or, “This was taken from the steps of the National Gallery, and right there directly behind the man on the bicycle is where we ate lunch.”

But the pictures to which she returned most often for her own pleasure were those of her family: they evoked what she had known most intimately, and all she had loved most profoundly.

One December morning near the end of the year when snow was falling moist and heavy for miles all around, so that the earth and the sky were indivisible, Mrs. Bridge emerged from her home and spread her umbrella. With small cautious steps she proceeded to the garage, where she pressed the button and waited impatiently for the door to lift. She was in a hurry to drive downtown to buy some Irish lace anti-macassars that were advertised in the newspaper, and she was planning to spend the remainder of the day browsing through the stores because it was Harriet’s day off and the house was empty so empty.

She had backed just halfway out of the garage when the engine died. She touched the starter and listened without concern because, despite her difficulties with the Lincoln, she had grown to feel secure in it. The Lincoln was a number of years old and occasionally recalcitrant, but she could not bear the thought of parting with it, and in the past had resisted this suggestion of her husband, who, mildly puzzled by her attachment to the car, had allowed her to keep it.

Thinking she might have flooded the engine, which was often true, Mrs. Bridge decided to wait a minute or so.

Presently she tried again, and again, and then again. Deeply disappointed, she opened the door to get out and discovered she had stopped in such a position that the car doors were prevented from opening more than a few inches on one side by the garage partition, and on the other side by the wall. Having tried all four doors she began to understand that until she could attract someone’s attention she was trapped. She pressed the horn, but there was not a sound. Half inside and half outside she remained.

For a long time she sat there with her gloved hands folded in her lap, not knowing what to do. Once she looked at herself in the mirror. Finally she took the keys from the igni-tion and began tapping on the window, and she called to anyone who might be listening, “Hello? Hello out there?”

But no one answered, unless it was the falling snow.