Mrs. Bett had been having a "tantrim," brought on by nothing definable.
Abruptly as she and Ina were getting supper, Mrs. Bett had fallen
silent, had in fact refused to reply when addressed. When all was ready
and Dwight was entering, hair wetly brushed, she had withdrawn from the
room and closed her bedroom door until it echoed.
"She's got one again," said Ina, grieving; "Dwight, you go."
He went, showing no sign of annoyance, and stood outside his
mother-in-law's door and knocked.
No answer.
"Mother, come and have some supper."
No answer.
"Looks to me like your muffins was just about the best ever."
No answer.
"Come on--I had something funny to tell you and Ina."
He retreated, knowing nothing of the admirable control exercised by this
woman for her own passionate satisfaction in sliding him away
unsatisfied. He showed nothing but anxious concern, touched with regret,
at his failure. Ina, too, returned from that door discomfited. Dwight
made a gallant effort to retrieve the fallen fortunes of their evening
meal, and turned upon Di, who had just entered, and with exceeding
facetiousness inquired how Bobby was.
Di looked hunted. She could never tell whether her parents were going to
tease her about Bobby, or rebuke her for being seen with him. It
depended on mood, and this mood Di had not the experience to gauge. She
now groped for some neutral fact, and mentioned that he was going to
take her and Jenny for ice cream that night.
Ina's irritation found just expression in office of motherhood.
"I won't have you downtown in the evening," she said.
"But you let me go last night."
"All the better reason why you should not go to-night."
"I tell you," cried Dwight. "Why not all walk down? Why not all have ice
cream...." He was all gentleness and propitiation, the reconciling
element in his home.
"Me too?" Monona's ardent hope, her terrible fear were in her eyebrows,
her parted lips.
"You too, certainly." Dwight could not do enough for every one.
Monona clapped her hands. "Goody! goody! Last time you wouldn't let me
go."
"That's why papa's going to take you this time," Ina said.
These ethical balances having been nicely struck, Ina proposed another:
"But," she said, "but, you must eat more supper or you can _not_ go."
"I don't want any more." Monona's look was honest and piteous.
"Makes no difference. You must eat or you'll get sick."
"No!"
"Very well, then. No ice cream soda for such a little girl."
Monona began to cry quietly. But she passed her plate. She ate, chewing
high, and slowly.
"See? She can eat if she will eat," Ina said to Dwight. "The only
trouble is, she will _not_ take the time."
"She don't put her mind on her meals," Dwight Herbert diagnosed it. "Oh,
bigger bites than that!" he encouraged his little daughter.
Di's mind had been proceeding along its own paths.
"Are you going to take Jenny and Bobby too?" she inquired.
"Certainly. The whole party."
"Bobby'll want to pay for Jenny and I."
"Me, darling," said Ina patiently, punctiliously--and less punctiliously
added: "Nonsense. This is going to be papa's little party."
"But we had the engagement with Bobby. It was an engagement."
"Well," said Ina, "I think we'll just set that aside--that important
engagement. I think we just will."
"Papa! Bobby'll want to be the one to pay for Jenny and I--"
"Di!" Ina's voice dominated all. "Will you be more careful of your
grammar or shall I speak to you again?"
"Well, I'd rather use bad grammar than--than--than--" she looked
resentfully at her mother, her father. Their moral defection was evident
to her, but it was indefinable. They told her that she ought to be
ashamed when papa wanted to give them all a treat. She sat silent,
frowning, put-upon.
"Look, mamma!" cried Monona, swallowing a third of an egg at one
impulse. Ina saw only the empty plate.
"Mamma's nice little girl!" cried she, shining upon her child.
The rules of the ordinary sports of the playground, scrupulously
applied, would have clarified the ethical atmosphere of this little
family. But there was no one to apply them.
* * * * *
When Di and Monona had been excused, Dwight asked:
"Nothing new from the bride and groom?"
"No. And, Dwight, it's been a week since the last."
"See--where were they then?"
He knew perfectly well that they were in Savannah, Georgia, but Ina
played his game, told him, and retold bits that the letter had said.
"I don't understand," she added, "why they should go straight to Oregon
without coming here first."
Dwight hazarded that Nin probably had to get back, and shone pleasantly
in the reflected importance of a brother filled with affairs.
"I don't know what to make of Lulu's letters," Ina proceeded. "They're
so--so--"
"You haven't had but two, have you?"
"That's all--well, of course it's only been a month. But both letters
have been so--"
Ina was never really articulate. Whatever corner of her brain had the
blood in it at the moment seemed to be operative, and she let the matter
go at that.
"I don't think it's fair to mamma--going off that way. Leaving her own
mother. Why, she may never see mamma again--" Ina's breath caught. Into
her face came something of the lovely tenderness with which she
sometimes looked at Monona and Di. She sprang up. She had forgotten to
put some supper to warm for mamma. The lovely light was still in her
face as she bustled about against the time of mamma's recovery from her
tantrim. Dwight's face was like this when he spoke of his foster-mother.
In both these beings there was something which functioned as pure love.
Mamma had recovered and was eating cold scrambled eggs on the corner of
the kitchen table when the ice cream soda party was ready to set out.
Dwight threw her a casual "Better come, too, Mother Bett," but she shook
her head. She wished to go, wished it with violence, but she contrived
to give to her arbitrary refusal a quality of contempt. When Jenny
arrived with Bobby, she had brought a sheaf of gladioli for Mrs. Bett,
and took them to her in the kitchen, and as she laid the flowers beside
her, the young girl stopped and kissed her. "You little darling!" cried
Mrs. Bett, and clung to her, her lifted eyes lit by something intense
and living. But when the ice cream party had set off at last, Mrs. Bett
left her supper, gathered up the flowers, and crossed the lawn to the
old cripple, Grandma Gates.
"Inie sha'n't have 'em," the old woman thought.
And then it was quite beautiful to watch her with Grandma Gates, whom
she tended and petted, to whose complainings she listened, and to whom
she tried to tell the small events of her day. When her neighbour had
gone, Grandma Gates said that it was as good as a dose of medicine to
have her come in.
Mrs. Bett sat on the porch restored and pleasant when the family
returned. Di and Bobby had walked home with Jenny.
"Look here," said Dwight Herbert, "who is it sits home and has _ice_
cream put in her lap, like a queen?"
"Vanilly or chocolate?" Mrs. Bett demanded.
"Chocolate, mammal" Ina cried, with the breeze in her voice.
"Vanilly sets better," Mrs. Bett said.
They sat with her on the porch while she ate. Ina rocked on a creaking
board. Dwight swung a leg over the railing. Monona sat pulling her skirt
over her feet, and humming all on one note. There was no moon, but the
warm dusk had a quality of transparency as if it were lit in all its
particles.
The gate opened, and some one came up the walk. They looked, and it was
Lulu.
* * * * *
"Well, if it ain't Miss Lulu Bett!" Dwight cried involuntarily, and Ina
cried out something.
"How did you know?" Lulu asked.
"Know! Know what?"
"That it ain't Lulu Deacon. Hello, mamma."
She passed the others, and kissed her mother.
"Say," said Mrs. Bett placidly. "And I just ate up the last spoonful o'
cream."
"Ain't Lulu Deacon!" Ina's voice rose and swelled richly. "What you
talking?"
"Didn't he write to you?" Lulu asked.
"Not a word." Dwight answered this. "All we've had we had from you--the
last from Savannah, Georgia."
"Savannah, Georgia," said Lulu, and laughed.
They could see that she was dressed well, in dark red cloth, with a
little tilting hat and a drooping veil. She did not seem in any wise
upset, nor, save for that nervous laughter, did she show her excitement.
"Well, but he's here with you, isn't he?" Dwight demanded. "Isn't he
here? Where is he?"
"Must be 'most to Oregon by this time," Lulu said.
"Oregon!"
"You see," said Lulu, "he had another wife."
"Why, he had not!" exclaimed Dwight absurdly.
"Yes. He hasn't seen her for fifteen years and he thinks she's dead.
But he isn't sure."
"Nonsense," said Dwight. "Why, of course she's dead if he thinks so."
"I had to be sure," said Lulu.
At first dumb before this, Ina now cried out: "Monona! Go upstairs to
bed at once."
"It's only quarter to," said Monona, with assurance.
"Do as mamma tells you."
"But--"
"Monona!"
She went, kissing them all good-night and taking her time about it.
Everything was suspended while she kissed them and departed, walking
slowly backward.
"Married?" said Mrs. Bett with tardy apprehension. "Lulie, was your
husband married?"
"Yes," Lulu said, "my husband was married, mother."
"Mercy," said Ina. "Think of anything like that in our family."
"Well, go on--go on!" Dwight cried. "Tell us about it."
Lulu spoke in a monotone, with her old manner of hesitation:
"We were going to Oregon. First down to New Orleans and then out to
California and up the coast." On this she paused and sighed. "Well, then
at Savannah, Georgia, he said he thought I better know, first. So he
told me."
"Yes--well, what did he _say_?" Dwight demanded irritably.
"Cora Waters," said Lulu. "Cora Waters. She married him down in San
Diego, eighteen years ago. She went to South America with him."
"Well, he never let us know of it, if she did," said Dwight.
"No. She married him just before he went. Then in South America, after
two years, she ran away again. That's all he knows."
"That's a pretty story," said Dwight contemptuously.
"He says if she'd been alive, she'd been after him for a divorce. And
she never has been, so he thinks she must be dead. The trouble is," Lulu
said again, "he wasn't sure. And I had to be sure."
"Well, but mercy," said Ina, "couldn't he find out now?"
"It might take a long time," said Lulu simply, "and I didn't want to
stay and not know."
"Well, then, why didn't he say so here?" Ina's indignation mounted.
"He would have. But you know how sudden everything was. He said he
thought about telling us right there in the restaurant, but of course
that'd been hard--wouldn't it? And then he felt so sure she was dead."
"Why did he tell you at all, then?" demanded Ina, whose processes were
simple.
"Yes. Well! Why indeed?" Dwight Herbert brought out these words with a
curious emphasis.
"I thought that, just at first," Lulu said, "but only just at first. Of
course that wouldn't have been right. And then, you see, he gave me my
choice."
"Gave you your choice?" Dwight echoed.
"Yes. About going on and taking the chances. He gave me my choice when
he told me, there in Savannah, Georgia."
"What made him conclude, by then, that you ought to be told?" Dwight
asked.
"Why, he'd got to thinking about it," she answered.
A silence fell. Lulu sat looking out toward the street.
"The only thing," she said, "as long as it happened, I kind of wish he
hadn't told me till we got to Oregon."
"Lulu!" said Ina. Ina began to cry. "You poor thing!" she said.
Her tears were a signal to Mrs. Bett, who had been striving to
understand all. Now she too wept, tossing up her hands and rocking her
body. Her saucer and spoon clattered on her knee.
"He felt bad too," Lulu said.
"He!" said Dwight. "He must have."
"It's you," Ina sobbed. "It's you. _My_ sister!"
"Well," said Lulu, "but I never thought of it making you both feel bad,
or I wouldn't have come home. I knew," she added, "it'd make Dwight feel
bad. I mean, it was his brother--"
"Thank goodness," Ina broke in, "nobody need know about it."
Lulu regarded her, without change.
"Oh, yes," she said in her monotone. "People will have to know."
"I do not see the necessity." Dwight's voice was an edge. Then too he
said "do not," always with Dwight betokening the finalities.
"Why, what would they think?" Lulu asked, troubled.
"What difference does it make what they think?".
"Why," said Lulu slowly, "I shouldn't like--you see they might--why,
Dwight, I think we'll have to tell them."
"You do! You think the disgrace of bigamy in this family is something
the whole town will have to know about?"
Lulu looked at him with parted lips.
"Say," she said, "I never thought about it being that."
Dwight laughed. "What did you think it was? And whose disgrace is it,
pray?"
"Ninian's," said Lulu.
"Ninian's! Well, he's gone. But you're here. And I'm here. Folks'll feel
sorry for you. But the disgrace--that'd reflect on me. See?"
"But if we don't tell, what'll they think then?"
Said Dwight: "They'll think what they always think when a wife leaves
her husband. They'll think you couldn't get along. That's all."
"I should hate that," said Lulu.
"Well, I should hate the other, let me tell you."
"Dwight, Dwight," said Ina. "Let's go in the house. I'm afraid they'll
hear--"
As they rose, Mrs. Bett plucked at her returned daughter's sleeve.
"Lulie," she said, "was his other wife--was she _there_?"
"No, no, mother. She wasn't there."
Mrs. Bett's lips moved, repeating the words. "Then that ain't so bad,"
she said. "I was afraid maybe she turned you out."
"No," Lulu said, "it wasn't that bad, mother."
Mrs. Bett brightened. In little matters, she quarrelled and resented,
but the large issues left her blank.
Through some indeterminate sense of the importance due this crisis, the
Deacons entered their parlour. Dwight lighted that high, central burner
and faced about, saying:
"In fact, I simply will not have it, Lulu! You expect, I take it, to
make your home with us in the future, on the old terms."
"Well--"
"I mean, did Ninian give you any money?"
"No. He didn't give me any money--only enough to get home on. And I
kept my suit--why!" she flung her head back, "I wouldn't have taken any
money!"
"That means," said Dwight, "that you will have to continue to live
here--on the old terms, and of course I'm quite willing that you should.
Let me tell you, however, that this is on condition--on condition that
this disgraceful business is kept to ourselves."
She made no attempt to combat him now. She looked back at him,
quivering, and in a great surprise, but she said nothing.
"Truly, Lulu," said Ina, "wouldn't that be best? They'll talk anyway.
But this way they'll only talk about you, and the other way it'd be
about all of us."