The Mulberry Bush Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    â€œGee gosh, Ginny—get those wet things off, quick!”
    â€œHow on earth,” demanded Virginia angrily, “did you get in?”
    â€œNo trouble.” He laid two knives and two forks out on the card table. “These old locks—open ’em with a bottle opener. That’s what I did. Change your clothes before you take cold. Why didn’t you take a taxi?”
    â€œThe rain began just as I left the bus. Mike—can’t you see that you mustn’t do things like this? What will the people in the house think? They’ll think I gave you a key.”
    â€œDidn’t see a soul. Nobody saw me come in. Stop paging Emily Post and Mrs. Grundy, Ginny, and get those wet shoes off. We have steaks and mushrooms and mock turtle soup. You should have seen me carrying up groceries like a well-tamed husband.”
    â€œOh, Mike—what am I going to do with you?”
    â€œI could answer that, but it would be the same old answer. Hurry up—I’m putting the steaks to broil.”
    She shut herself in the bathroom and sank on the edge of the tub, leaning her forehead on the cold porcelain of the washbowl. Her brain was throbbing, her heart hurt to agony. She did love Mike. If she sent him away, she knew her heart would go, aching, after. That only a shell of her would be left—a brittle, wooden thing that would go on hollowly, saying, “Yes, Teresa. No, Teresa”; go on folding circulars and addressing envelopes and writing alluring sales letters to Oklahoma oil people and the deans of girls’ schools, go on being bereft and dead forever and ever!
    Mike shouted, “Hey, there—get a move on!” and she got up stiffly and shed her sodden garments and hung them on the shower rod to dry. Then she scrubbed her chilled flesh with a towel, put on some boyish pajamas of yellow silk and a green-flannel robe and slippers—and opened the door.
    And there stood Mike. Without the absurd apron, with his coat on and his hair brushed back.
    He opened his arms and in a choked, shaken voice, said, “Oh, Ginny! Oh, Ginny!”
    Blindly, heedlessly, knowing that this was madness, this was sweet danger, and not caring at all, Virginia went into his arms.
    After an interval that never came quite clear in Virginia’s mind later, they ate the steaks, and the soup that had simmered until there was only a scant bowlful left, drank the coffee and looked at each other with eyes that were still a little dazed. And then Mike, gathering Virginia up in his arms, rocking her in a big chair with her head tucked down against the hard feel of his collarbone, told her his news.
    â€œI have to go to South America, Ginny. Bill telephoned this morning—Bill Foster, my boss—syndicate manager. I’ll have to go. And I can’t take you with me. But I’ll have three days in New York and I can take you there. Three days, Ginny darling—a three-day honeymoon!”
    â€œBut Mike—South America! You’ll be gone—how long?”
    â€œOnly God and Bill Foster know—and I’m not sure that Bill knows. But the minute I’m free I won’t wait for a boat—I’ll come flying back to you.”
    The minute he was free! Mike, who had always been free. Who was holding tight to his freedom now—she shut her heart grimly against the sour, stern pessimism of common sense.
    She packed a bag and wrote a note to Teresa—a vague sort of note telling Teresa that some family matters had called her away for a few days. She could not bring herself to tell Teresa the truth. She had to come back and face Teresa’s eyes and hear her carping voice. And after all, marrying Mike
was
a family affair—so she had told the truth. Mike would be her family—legally and forever she would belong to Mike, And no one, not even Teresa, not even Bill Foster, could undo it.
    So she married Mike in the little church, with the first thin sun of