A MORNING TALK
Miss Lizzie Bettie Pryor lifted the heavy black veil with which
her face was covered and looked up and down the long dusty street,
half asleep in the full heat of a July day. Then she walked up the
steps of Mrs. Deford's house and into the hall, the door of which
was open. From the porch at the back she could hear voices, and for
a moment she hesitated. The requirements of custom were punctiliously
observed by Miss Lizzie Bettie, and though two months had passed since
the death of her father she had paid no visits to friends or relatives,
and this first one was now being made in the expectation of a talk
alone with Mrs. Deford. Everybody had been kind and everything had
been done that could be done, but people were doubtless tired of coming
to see six black crows sitting in a darkened parlor, and had stopped
doing it, with the result that she did not know what was going on as
fully as she should, and it was time to find out.
She put down her parasol and walked to the end of the hall. In the
door she stood a moment, looking at the south end of the long porch,
then advanced slowly toward it. Miss Georganna Brickhouse and Lily
Deford were nearest the railing, and near them were the latter's mother
and Miss Puss Jenkins. Annie Steele, her little boy on her lap, was
listening with her left ear--her right being deaf--to something Mrs.
Deford was saying, and, as Miss Lizzie Bettie came nearer, jumped as
if caught in an unrighteous act.
"Good gracious, Lizzie Bettie, you frightened me nearly to death!"
Mrs. Deford got up and pushed her chair forward. "You came up like
a black ghost. Do pray take that heavy veil off. It makes me hot
just to look at you!"
"Then don't look." Miss Lizzie Bettie's voice was huffy. She had
expected a different greeting. For weeks she had not been outside
of her house except on business and to church and the cemetery, and
now to be spoken to as if she'd been over every day was a jar. She
did not like it.
"I can't help looking if you sit in front of me. It's a heathenish
custom, this shrouding of one's self in black, and so unbecoming.
Lily, get Lizzie Bettie a glass of iced tea, or would you rather
have lemonade?" And Mrs. Deford stopped fanning long enough to put
her lorgnette to her eyes and look at her latest visitor critically.
She had on a new dress and looked better in it then anything she had
ever seen her wear before. She wondered where it came from.
"I don't care for tea or lemonade either." Miss Lizzie Bettie unpinned
her hat and veil and laid them on the chair behind her, drew off her
gloves and, opening her bag of dull jet beads, took from it a
handkerchief with a heavy black border, and wiped her lips with
careful deliberation. "How are you, Miss Puss? I heard you were
going away."
"I did expect to, but I've had dyspepsia so bad in my left foot that
I haven't been able to finish my sewing. When I have dyspepsia in my
foot this way it feels like it hasn't a bit of feeling in it, and
makes me so nervous I'm not fit for a thing. It's a great deal worse
than gout. I have gout in my right foot and can put my finger on the
spot, but when you feel bad and can't exactly find the place that
hurts and haven't any name to call it by it gets on your nerves so
that--"
"Everybody runs when they see you coming. For goodness' sake don't
get on nerves, Puss. Where are you going?" Mrs. Deford looked up.
Lily, her daughter, was trying to get by.
"I want to see Sarah Sue Moon about something," she said. "I promised
to be there by twelve and it's nearly half-past. Excuse me, Miss
Georganna! Did I step on your toe? Good-bye." She nodded to the
others and went into the hall, and her mother, getting up, took
the chair she had left and drew it a little apart from her guests.
"Lily doesn't look well, Laura." Miss Georganna Brickhouse, who
always talked through her nose and seemingly with it, owing to
the nervous twitching of her nostrils, looked at Mrs. Deford.
"You ought to take her away."
"Ought I? If you had a daughter eighteen who didn't want to go
away how would you make her do it? Up to this summer we've never
had any discussions on the subject. She has always done as I said
and gone where I decided, but this year she persists in staying
in this dead-and-buried place, and says she don't want to go away.
She is very well, but she's got to go the first of August."
"Where are you going? Certainly do wish I had somebody to make me
do things. Every time I make up my mind to do this, I wish I'd made
it up to do that. But I'm like Lily. I'm more comfortable at home
then anywhere else, and I don't think Yorkburg's dead and buried.
Things are moving too fast for me. I wish I could make them stop
and let it stay just like it is forever and ever. Where are you
going in August?"
Mrs. Deford turned and looked at Miss Puss, her lorgnette at a
withering angle. "We are going to the coast of Maine." She took
up her embroidery and held it off at arm's-length to get its
effect. "How is your mother, Lizzie Bettie?"
"Very well, thank you, though she thinks she's sick. I want
mother to go away. I wish she and Maria could go to the coast
of Maine. Maria's as nervous as a cat, and if she don't go
somewhere we'll all be to pieces before the summer's over.
Where will you stay, Laura? Is it very expensive? I've heard
some places up there are very cheap."
"Cheap? Nothing's cheap after you leave Washington. But we are
not going to a hotel. We are going to visit friends."
"Must be ashamed of them, as you don't mention their names.
Wouldn't have asked if I'd known it was a secret." And Miss Lizzie
Bettie took the fan out of Miss Georganna Brickhouse's hands and
began to use it as if hot with something more than summer heat.
"You needn't get so mad about it." Mrs. Deford threaded her
needle deliberately with a strand of scarlet silk. "And if
you are so very anxious to know where we are going I don't
mind telling you. We are to be Mrs. Maxwell's guests for the
month of August."
"So she's asked you at last, has she? Knew you were terribly
afraid she wouldn't?" Miss Puss Jenkins put the gouty foot on
the dyspeptic one and rubbed it vigorously. "I heard Mrs.
Maxwell's father left her barrels of money and she's rich even
for New York. Is she? You visit her and ought to know. Somebody
was telling me her house is magnificently furnished, and she
tried footmen and butlers in livery, but she couldn't keep that
up. John made such a fuss she had to stop. Mrs. Maxwell always
was the most pretentious, ostentatious sort of person, and I never
could understand how her son could be such a natural kind of a
fellow with such a mother. He's like his father. They say his
father's family was rather plain once, but his mother comes of very
good New Jersey stock. Mr. Maxwell was a fine man, which is more
than you can say of his wife, and I never did have any use for her.
But I suppose if she invited me to spend a month with her in her
summer home I'd go. Didn't somebody tell me John had gone to
Europe?"
Mrs. Deford turned quickly. "Who said so?"
Miss Puss looked at Mrs. Steele, whose little boy, now on the grass
playing with the dog, was satisfactorily disposed of. "Who told us,
Annie? Oh yes, I know. It was Miss Gibbie Gault. We met her in the
library yesterday morning and she said she and Mary Cary were going
away on the twenty-first of this month and stay until the middle of
September. I asked her where John was going. A blind man could see
he is in love with Mary, and I thought he'd be with them, but Miss
Gibbie said he was going to Norway, or was it Russia, Annie? I
declare I haven't a bit of memory. But, anyhow, he was going
somewhere and wasn't to be with Miss Gibbie this summer. I wonder
if Mary has kicked him!"
"Kicked him?" Mrs. Deford's lips twisted in an up-curling movement
and her eyebrows lifted, ridging her forehead in fine furrows. Again
she held off her embroidery and looked at it. "Mary Cary will never
have the chance to discard John Maxwell. He is sorry for her and is
very kind to her. He knew her when she was in the asylum here, but
he has about as much idea of marrying her as of marrying--"
"Lily. That's just what I was saying the other day," and Miss
Georganna Brickhouse took off her spectacles and wiped them. "Some
one told me he heard John and Lily were engaged, but I knew it
wasn't so. A man can't even be polite to a girl these days without
somebody gobbling him up and telling him he's done for. I told
whoever it was told me I knew John's mother had her eye on something
better known in the newspapers than Lily or Mary, either, and she'd
never let him marry in Yorkburg if she could help it. Everybody says
he's a fine man and a girl would do well to catch him, but--"
"He'll never be caught by Mary Cary. She's tried hard enough. It's
a pity somebody don't tell her how it looks to be seen going about
with him as she does. She hardly lets him get out of her sight when
he's in town. I invited them to tea the last time they were here and
she wouldn't let him come; kept him at her house, made some flimsy
excuse, and had the evening with him to herself. She's tried her
best to get him, but--"
Miss Lizzie Bettie Pryor took up her gloves and pulled out each
finger separately. "She's done nothing of the kind, Laura, and you
know it. I've got no sympathy with some of the things she's doing
here, but Mary's not trying to marry anybody. I'll say that much
for her. I'm surprised to hear John is going to Europe again. People
step over there now just like it was across the street."
Mrs. Deford looked Miss Lizzie Bettie in the face, and this time
her head was not on the side. "John Maxwell has no idea of going
to Europe. I am better qualified to speak of John's movements
than Miss Gibbie. I have very good reasons for being better
qualified." She hesitated, tapped her lips significantly with her
lorgnette, and smiled mysteriously. "Poor Miss Gibbie! It won't be
her fault if Mary Cary don't marry John. She's done her best to
run him down."
"Miss Gibbie may be a crank all right, but when she says a thing
is so, it is so." Miss Lizzie Bettie's gloves came down with emphasis
on the palm of her right hand. "And if she says John is going abroad,
he is certainly going. I don't think it is very polite of him if his
mother has invited you and Lily to spend August with her, but I never
saw a man in my life who had good manners when they interfered with his
pleasure. It was your brother who told me he'd heard John and Lily were
engaged"--she turned to Miss Georganna Brickhouse--"and, like you, I
told him I didn't believe there was a word of truth in it. But if Laura
doesn't deny it, maybe there is."
Mrs. Deford got up and shook her skirt. "Do any of you see my needle?
I've dropped it somewhere. Where did Miss Gibbie say she and Mary
were going, Puss? She gives much information about others, but never
about herself. Where are they going?"
"Here's your needle." Mrs. Steele held it toward Mrs. Deford. "She
didn't say just where they were going, did she, Miss Puss?" Mrs.
Steele, who talked little and agreed always with the last one who
spoke, looked at the lady rubbing the foot that felt as if it had
no feeling in it, and nodded toward her. "She said something about
Nova Scotia, I believe, and Boston in September, as Mary wanted to
see some schools up there, but she didn't mention just where they
were going."
"Of course she didn't. And if Yorkburg knew what was good for it,
all these Yankee ideas Mary Cary is bringing down here would be
stopped. She spends money in every direction, sends this person
away and that one away, and gives picnics and parties to people
nobody ever heard of until lately. People of that class are ruined
by having the things done for them that she is doing. After awhile
they'll be wanting to move up on King Street and expect us to speak
to them as if they were our friends."
"She says they are hers."
"Perhaps they are." Mrs. Deford's lips again made their favorite curve.
"She evidently has a strong leaning toward poor whites. But there is
one direction in which she will lean in vain, and that is--Oh, well--"
She put her head on the side and shrugged her shoulders. "I really
feel very sorry for her, but a girl can't make a man love her just
because she wants him to."
"And a woman can't make a man marry where she'd like him to." Miss
Lizzie Bettie pinned on her hat hurriedly. "That's a black cloud
coming toward us. If we don't look out we'll get caught in a storm.
When congratulations are in order let us know. Good-bye. Come on,
Miss Puss." And without further waste of words she was gone.
In the street she and Miss Puss hurried in one direction, Mrs.
Steele and Miss Georganna in another, and half-way home the rain
began to fall. The one parasol was hastily opened and held close
down over their heads, so close that a couple coming toward them
with umbrella held in the same position as theirs bumped into them.
With a hurried apology they passed on, but not before Miss Lizzie
Bettie had seen who they were.
She turned and looked behind and then at Miss Puss. "A new way to
come from Sarah Sue Moon's house," she said. "That's the second
time this week I've seen them together."
"Who is it?" Miss Puss pulled her skirts up higher and stepped
carefully aside from a puddle of water. "I can't see a thing
with your parasol right over my face. Who was it?"
"Lily Deford and that Pugh boy. The one who stays in the bank."
"What!" Miss Puss stopped in the now pouring rain. "In broad
daylight? I've heard they've been seen together several times
lately in the evenings. His father keeps a livery stable and his
father before him! Do you suppose Laura knows?"
"Of course she doesn't! Lily's soul doesn't belong to her, and
if her mother knew this boy was in love with her--well, she
mightn't kill him, but he'd be safer out of sight. Of all the
ambitious mothers I've ever seen--Do pray hurry, Miss Puss!
We'll be drenched if you don't walk faster!"