Bedelia Read online

  A small, rose-shaded lamp shed light in a cone on the carpet. The furniture of the bedroom was real and assuring. Above the mantel hung a portrait of Charlie’s mother at seventeen, a righteous girl, her lips tight with disapproval. And Charlie would assure himself that it was for his wife’s sake that he had turned on the light. In this way he was arming himself against the scorn of weakness which had been planted in him by his mother.

  “You’re so good, so thoughtful, such an unusual man,” Bedelia whispered. “I’m sure it’s hard for you to sleep with the light on.”

  “Oh, I’m getting used to it,” Charlie answered, feeling the chill thaw out of his cramped limbs as he studied his wife’s fair flesh, rosy lips, and the curves of her cheeks.

  2

  “WHY DO YOU LIVE WAY UP HERE IN THE WOODS? Are you hiding?”

  That was Abbie and typical of her insolence. Ellen, disapproving, moved to the farthest corner of the cold leather seat. Ben had driven into town to fetch the girls and was driving them back to his house in his automobile. Their coast collars were turned up, their hands tucked in their muffs, their legs wrapped in blankets, but it was still torture to be speeding at twenty miles an hour through the country.

  Abbie’s question echoed the curiosity of the town. Why had a man who could afford to live comfortably close to his neighbors chosen a house in the woods for the winter months?

  “A whim,” Ben said. “I wanted to try painting the country at its bleakest.”

  “But why do you have to live in the wilderness? Couldn’t you paint just as well if you were comfortable?”

  “I couldn’t be more comfortable in a New York apartment,” Ben said. And this was true. While his house was remote, it was a modern building equipped with a hot-air furnace and a water-heater. He rented it from Judge Bennett, whose family lived there from the first of June until the Tuesday after Labor Day when they moved back to their stone mansion opposite the Walkers’ house in the center of town.

  “I’m off the main road,” Ben continued, “but with a machine it doesn’t make much difference. Asa Keeley and his boys cut my wood and do my errands.”

  “Besides,” put in Ellen, “he’s got Charlie and Bedelia as his closest neighbors.”

  “And Hannah,” Ben said, smiling. “Hannah gives me more news of the town than I get from your paper, Miss Walker.”

  “I believe that,” Ellen said. “And I hope you’ve no skeletons in your closet, because Hannah and her sisters and cousins work in half the houses in town, and no secret’s safe. She’s cousin of the Horsts’ Mary, you know?”

  “Don’t I, though? I’m sure that whenever a button pops off my shirt, Hannah phones Mary about it. Mary tells Bedelia and the next time I see her, I catch her counting buttons.” Ben paused while the girls laughed. “The latest is the cigar situation,” he confided. “It seems that Bedelia threw away the cigars I gave Charlie for Christmas. She’d heard somewhere that cigars are bad for the digestion and didn’t want him to smoke them. Hannah said he made Bedelia promise not to let me know about it, so that my feelings won’t be hurt.”

  “I think Bedelia’s splendid,” Ellen said. “She takes such good care of Charlie.”

  The Horst house was just off the highway at the junction with the side road that led to the Bennett place. As they turned, they all looked at the Horst house and saw that lights were burning in the front bedroom.

  “They’ll be over a bit later,” Ben told the girls. “I told them to come at half-past six. I want to show you my paintings before dinner.”

  “Won’t they want to see them, too?” Abbie asked.

  “No doubt Bedelia’s seen them already,” Ellen remarked tartly.

  If her legs had not been secured by blankets, Abbie would have kicked Ellen’s shin.

  “She’s seen them often,” Ben remarked, apparently unmoved by Ellen’s insinuations. “She’s an excellent critic.”

  Ben seemed anxious to show off his work. He hardly gave the girls time to take off their coats and hats before he rushed them into the north bedroom which he used as a studio. Except for an easel, a stool, and a paint-stained table, the room was bare. No canvas had been hung, but a number were stacked along the walls. “I’m sorry you have to see my work by artificial light, but I’m not offering any excuses,” Ben said as he tilted the lampshade so that full light should fall upon the easel. He showed his paintings, one by one, standing by patiently until his guests had enough of each picture.

  His work was crude, but not without a certain forcefulness. The paintings revealed characteristics that his amiable manners concealed. He was shrewd and ruthless and saw deeply below the surface.

  “You’re fauve, aren’t you?” inquired Abbie.

  “Not by intention. It’s probably my nature.”

  “After seeing your work, I’m rather afraid of you.”

  He turned to Ellen. “Do you think I’m dangerous?”

  Ellen lowered her eyes so that she need not look any longer at the painting on the easel. It was of a red barn on the Silvermine River, a favorite subject with the artists who came to Southern Connecticut. Ellen had seen many versions of it. The work of a famous magazine illustrator had been used on the calendar distribution at Christmas by the insurance company for which Wells Johnson worked. Ellen had always thought this a tranquil scene, but in Ben’s picture the red barn seemed to be crumbling, the water choked with weeds, and in the flame of autumn foliage there was sense of winter’s bitterness.

  “It’s daring.” Abbie spoke, although she knew it was Ellen’s opinion he sought.

  “At first it shocks you, but after you’re used to it, you find that you rather like it. Like Stravinsky.”

  “I’m sure I’d never grow to like it.”

  Ellen spoke her mind freely. If she had deliberately set about antagonizing Ben Chaney, she could not have found a more effective method. Abbie tried to signal with her eyebrows.

  “At first,” Ellen went on, ignoring Abbie’s frantic signals, “I thought I disliked your work because you deliberately chose ugly things to paint, like slum scenes and garbage cans. But now I see you can also make a beautiful scene hideous.”

  “I try to paint what I see. And to see things as they are.”

  “Then you find truth ugly when others see beauty in it.”

  He shrugged. “You may be right. I’m not sentimental.”

  They heard Charlie’s Oakland car puff up the hill. Ben said, “You’ve probably seen enough,” and led them out of the studio.

  Ellen was glad to return to the glow of the gas logs. She pulled her chair close to the hearth and shivered as if she had just come in out of the cold.

  Ben and Charlie drank cider brandy while the ladies sipped sherry. Bedelia was wearing a dress of black crepe de chine, draped at the hips and narrow at the hem. The bodice was cut low, but filled with ruffles of white lace. The dress was both decorous and daring. No woman could criticize, no man fail to notice.

  “I’m sorry we’re one man short tonight,’ Ben explained. “My friend, whom I’d wanted you to meet, didn’t get here after all.”

  “So Mary told us,” said Bedelia.

  “There are blizzards in the Middle West,” Ben went on. “No trains moving. I thought he’d arrived in New York this morning, and then I got a wire saying he hadn’t left St. Paul.”

  Bedelia set down her sherry with an abrupt movement. Some of the wine spilled. She smiled ruefully.

  “Is anything wrong?”

  Her eyes narrowed and she hung her head.

  “Aren’t you feeling well?” Ben persisted.

  “I got a bit of a chill. Perhaps someone was walking over my grave.” She straightened and gave Ben a reassuring smile to show that the spilled sherry and her sudden alarm meant nothing.

  The room was still for a few seconds and then Abbie broke the silence, shrilly. “Who was this guest?”

  “Does it matter, since he’s not coming?” asked Ellen.

  “We might at le
ast have the pleasure of knowing what we’ve missed,” Abbie answered with unnecessary venom.

  “A friend of mine,” Ben said.

  “An artist, too?”

  “No, he’s in business. Owns a store, two stores, in fact.” Ben’s restless glance had circled the room. His eyes were fixed on Bedelia’s face again.

  “How do you like my new dress?” she cried. The subterfuge was not wholly successful. Everyone could see that she had wanted, desperately, to change the subject.

  “Stunning,’ said Abbie, “looks like Paris.”

  “I made it myself.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, she did,” said Charlie, who had been informed of the fact this evening while they dressed.

  Abbie shook her head. “You’re a marvel, Bedelia. I’d swear it was an import.”

  “Thank you.” Bedelia took another sip of sherry.

  “That’s how you must sit for your portrait, Bedelia. I want you to wear that dress,” Ben said.

  “A portrait of Bedelia!” exclaimed Charlie.

  “You don’t mind if she sits for me, do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Oh, Ben,” Bedelia shook her head at him. “Why did you mention it? You’ve spoiled the surprise.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “A surprise for me?” asked Charlie.

  “For your birthday, dear.”

  “Nothing would please me more.” To the others he said, “You know I have no picture of her, not even a snapshot.”

  “Mr. Chaney oughtn’t to paint Bedelia!” Ellen said.

  “Why not?” Charlie demanded. “Why shouldn’t he paint Bedelia’s picture?”

  “Have you seen his paintings?”

  “Often. Why are you so disapproving?”

  Ellen kept them waiting while she thought about it. Finally she said, “Bedelia’s pretty and he seems interested only in making things ugly.”

  “That’s unjust. I told you I try to paint as I see, honestly.”

  “He could never see anything ugly in Bedelia,” Charlie stated flatly.

  “Have you seen what he did with the red barn? He’s even succeeded in finding evil in that picturesque spot.”

  Hannah said dinner was ready.

  “You can’t find evil where it doesn’t exist,” Charlie argued. “I’ve no fear of letting him paint Bedelia’s portrait.”

  “I shall be interested in seeing the finished work,” Ellen said.

  “You’ll be the first to have a chance to criticize it,” Ben said, as he rose and led the way to the dining-room.

  The meal began, as Mary had informed Bedelia, with clams. Bedelia had already warned Charlie against the first course. He nibbled a dry cracker.

  Ellen, who was sitting next to him, asked why he wasn’t eating. “Not dyspepsia again, Charlie?”

  “I’m not hungry.” Hoping to avoid any more discussion of the loathed subject, he said, “You’re looking unusually well tonight. What have you done to yourself, Nellie?”

  Ellen’s fair skin turned scarlet. Long ago, when Charlie had taught her tennis and sat next to her on hayrack rides, his name for her had been Nellie. Seeing Nellie Home, he used to sing out of tune but cheerfully. She felt the heat of the blush and feared that her burning cheeks must reveal her shame. But the flush was becoming. Abbie had lent her a dress of gray wool bound in cerise silk.

  “What’s the secret, Nellie? Is it love that’s causing you to bloom?”

  Hannah thrust a plate of hot biscuits between them. Ellen buttered hers with an air of severity. Chilled by her extraordinary tension, Charlie gave ear to the conversation between Ben and Abbie.

  Bedelia was listening but taking no part in it.

  “At first,” Ben told Abbie, “I’d thought of painting her as she looked to Charlie that day on the hotel veranda. All in black, the widow. As background the stony peaks of the Rockies to show the cruelty and indifference of Nature, and the harshness of the world against which a frail woman must battle.”

  “It sounds stunning. Why have you changed your mind?”

  “The obvious lack of mountain scenery.”

  “Couldn’t you do it from photographs?”

  “That’s not the way I work. Moreover, my model would no longer be the slender and ardent widow pursued by our friend Charlie from the hotel salon to the veranda. I found the story romantic when I first heard it and was tempted to work from imagination rather than reality.”

  “But the story is true.”

  “The subject had changed. Instead of that pensive widow we see a buxom wife. The lines are no longer angular but . . .” he carried out the idea with his hands. “This is to be the portrait of a woman who’s satisfied with her life because she’s succeeded at a woman’s most fundamental job, which is to make a man comfortable.”

  “Very flattering,” said Charlie.

  “You smug thing!” cried Abbie, playing with the East Indian bangle which she wore over her tight black satin sleeve.

  Ben saw that his guests were through with the clams, and he rang the bell for Hannah. Then he turned to Bedelia and said, “When you sit for your portrait, you must wear the black pearl.”

  “Black pearl!” exclaimed Abbie, looking at Bedelia with new respect. “Don’t tell me you own a black pearl.”

  Bedelia glanced at Charlie. It was fortunate, her eyes seemed to be saying, that she had had her own way about Abbie’s gift. Ben might have embarrassed them by remarking that he had seen Bedelia wear the ring. “Oh, it’s not real,” she explained. “I picked it up in a novelty shop in New York. It cost five dollars. Charlie thought it looked cheap, but I’m so ignorant that it looked like a real one to me.”

  “A remarkable imitation,” Ben said. “I’m no judge of jewelry, but when I first saw it I thought the platinum and diamonds genuine, and that the pearl might be worth a thousand dollars.”

  Abbie played with the bangle. “It sounds stunning. Why don’t you wear it, Bedelia?”

  “My husband doesn’t approve of artificial stones.” Bedelia spoke without resentment, simply stating fact.

  “I’m sorry I noticed the ring that night,” Ben said. “If I hadn’t admired it quite so much, Charlie would probably never have noticed it.”

  “Not notice a black pearl!” cried Abbie as if she were speaking of mortal sin.

  Charlie wished they would quit talking about it.

  “I’m sure he noticed,” Bedelia said. “It was much too conspicuous for him not to. But he didn’t want to hurt my feelings by criticizing my taste, so he controlled his own, although he detested the ring.”

  Charlie sighed.

  “My sensitive ear perceives the overtones of a domestic quarrel,” Abbie said brightly.

  “Charlie and I never quarrel, do we, dear?”

  Again Ellen felt, as she always felt when people were oversweet or used too many pet names, that underneath the sugar frosting the cake was sour.

  Hannah passed roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings. Charlie barely touched the food and only wet his tongue with Burgundy. His head had begun to pound. “Nerves,” he told himself disapprovingly, “nothing but nerves.” Instead of the round table set with Mrs. Bennett’s second-best dishes, he saw a square corner table at Jaffney’s Tavern, and Ben as host again. The picture in Charlie’s mind was like one of those Impressionist things, all angles and disharmony; a gleaming tablecloth, a long-necked bottle of Rhine wine, Bedelia’s hand stretched across the table over a platter of lobster and wedges of lemon, resting in Ben’s swarthy hand, and Ben bending over to examine the black pearl. Charlie, usually observant, could have sworn he had never noticed the ring until that night, but Bedelia had assured him that she had been wearing it all that week. Charlie had reflected upon the scene, analyzed his emotions and blamed his bad temper upon the flash of jealousy which burned when he saw his wife’s hand in Ben’s.

  “What a prig you are,” Abbie said, not knowing she salted a wound. “And how like my dea
r Aunt Harriet. I can just hear your mother, Charlie. ‘I do not like to see a member of my family decked out in artificial jewelry.’” The mockery was precise. Abbie had caught the quality which had made the late Mrs. Horst such an annoying woman.

  “All right, I’m a prig. I acknowledge it and I’m sorry.”

  “You were right,” Ellen said. “I detest artificiality in anything.”

  “Of course he was right,” Bedelia added. “Everyone has a right to his own taste, and Charlie’s is so much better than mine that I could never be comfortable wearing anything he dislikes.”

  “Bravo!” Abbie shouted. “A truly feminine speech, and how much more successful”—she addressed this to Ellen—“than any of your feminist attitudes.”

  “My wife is an unusual woman,” Charlie boasted. “Instead of reproaching me, as most wives would, she gave the ring away.”

  “Gave it away! Not really!” shrilled Abbie.

  Ben’s face tightened.

  “Gave it away because I didn’t like it,” Charlie said.

  Bedelia lowered her eyes modestly.

  Abbie said, “I’d never have given it away. But that’s the difference, I suppose, between a successful wife and a failure like me. If I ever marry again, I’ll come to you for advice, Bedelia.”

  “Thank you, Abbie.” Bedelia straightened her ruffles. On her right hand gleamed Charlie’s Christmas gift, the gold ring set with garnets.

  For dessert they had mince pie. Charlie was not given any; Hannah brought him a custard. That, of course, was Bedelia’s doing. She had heard the menu from Mary and told her to let Hannah know that Mr. Horst must have a simple dessert.

  He ate only a small portion of the custard and felt worse than before. The pain in his head had become a dull beat. When Hannah brought around the cheese, he put a little on his plate. Bedelia shook her head at him.

  “Not Gorgonzola, Charlie.”

  It was a half-whisper, but everyone heard and laughed. Later, after Charlie was stricken, they remembered Bedelia’s solicitude.

  The party broke up early. It had not been a very successful evening. The dinner had been too heavy and the guests were dull. Charlie and Bedelia left at half past ten. It was fortunate that they did not stay longer. Otherwise Charlie would have suffered his attack at Ben’s house and there would have been no end to the confusion.