With this Lulu had no idea how to deal, and merely looked at her
helplessly. Mrs. Bett, who was lacing her shoes, now said casually:
"No need to wait till then. Her and Bobby were out in the side yard
sitting in the hammock till all hours."
Di had no answer save her furious flush, and Mrs. Bett went on:
"Didn't I tell you? I knew it before the company left, but I didn't say
a word. Thinks I, 'She's wiggles and chitters.' So I left her stay where
she was."
"But, mother!" Lulu cried. "You didn't even tell me after he'd gone."
"I forgot it," Mrs. Bett said, "finding Ninian's letter and all--" She
talked of Ninian's letter.
Di was bright and alert and firm of flesh and erect before Lulu's
softness and laxness.
"I don't know what your mother'll say," said Lulu, "and I don't know
what people'll think."
"They won't think Bobby and I are tired of each other, anyway," said Di,
and left the room.
Through the day Lulu tried to think what she must do. About Di she was
anxious and felt without power. She thought of the indignation of Dwight
and Ina that Di had not been more scrupulously guarded. She thought of
Di's girlish folly, her irritating independence--"and there," Lulu
thought, "just the other day I was teaching her to sew." Her mind dwelt
too on Dwight's furious anger at the opening of Ninian's letter. But
when all this had spent itself, what was she herself to do? She must
leave his house before he ordered her to do so, when she told him that
she had confided in Cornish, as tell she must. But what was she to _do_?
The bakery cake-making would not give her a roof.
Stepping about the kitchen in her blue cotton gown, her hair tight and
flat as seemed proper when one was not dressed, she thought about these
things. And it was strange: Lulu bore no physical appearance of one in
distress or any anxiety. Her head was erect, her movements were strong
and swift, her eyes were interested. She was no drooping Lulu with
dragging step. She was more intent, she was somehow more operative than
she had ever been.
Mrs. Bett was working contentedly beside her, and now and then humming
an air of that music of the night before. The sun surged through the
kitchen door and east window, a returned oriole swung and fluted on the
elm above the gable. Wagons clattered by over the rattling wooden block
pavement.
"Ain't it nice with nobody home?" Mrs. Bett remarked at intervals, like
the burden of a comic song.
"Hush, mother," Lulu said, troubled, her ethical refinements conflicting
with her honesty.
"Speak the truth and shame the devil," Mrs. Bett contended.
When dinner was ready at noon, Di did not appear. A little earlier Lulu
had heard her moving about her room, and she served her in expectation
that she would join them.
"Di must be having the 'tantrim' this time," she thought, and for a time
said nothing. But at length she did say: "Why doesn't Di come? I'd
better put her plate in the oven."
Rising to do so, she was arrested by her mother. Mrs. Bett was eating a
baked potato, holding her fork close to the tines, and presenting a
profile of passionate absorption.
"Why, Di went off," she said.
"Went off!"
"Down the walk. Down the sidewalk."
"She must have gone to Jenny's," said Lulu. "I wish she wouldn't do that
without telling me."
Monona laughed out and shook her straight hair. "She'll catch it!" she
cried in sisterly enjoyment.
It was when Lulu had come back from the kitchen and was seated at the
table that Mrs. Bett observed:
"I didn't think Inie'd want her to take her nice new satchel."
"Her satchel?"
"Yes. Inie wouldn't take it north herself, but Di had it."
"Mother," said Lulu, "when Di went away just now, was she carrying a
satchel?"
"Didn't I just tell you?" Mrs. Bett demanded, aggrieved. "I said I
didn't think Inie--"
"Mother! Which way did she go?"
Monona pointed with her spoon. "She went that way," she said. "I seen
her."
Lulu looked at the clock. For Monona had pointed toward the railway
station. The twelve-thirty train, which every one took to the city for
shopping, would be just about leaving.
"Monona," said Lulu, "don't you go out of the yard while I'm gone.
Mother, you keep her--"
Lulu ran from the house and up the street. She was in her blue cotton
dress, her old shoes, she was hatless and without money. When she was
still two or three blocks from the station, she heard the twelve-thirty
"pulling out."
She ran badly, her ankles in their low, loose shoes continually turning,
her arms held taut at her sides. So she came down the platform, and to
the ticket window. The contained ticket man, wonted to lost trains and
perturbed faces, yet actually ceased counting when he saw her:
"Lenny! Did Di Deacon take that train?"
"Sure she did," said Lenny.
"And Bobby Larkin?" Lulu cared nothing for appearances now.
"He went in on the Local," said Lenny, and his eyes widened.
"Where?"
"See." Lenny thought it through. "Millton," he said. "Yes, sure.
Millton. Both of 'em."
"How long till another train?"
"Well, sir," said the ticket man, "you're in luck, if you was goin' too.
Seventeen was late this morning--she'll be along, jerk of a lamb's
tail."
"Then," said Lulu, "you got to give me a ticket to Millton, without me
paying till after--and you got to lend me two dollars."
"Sure thing," said Lenny, with a manner of laying the entire railway
system at her feet.
"Seventeen" would rather not have stopped at Warbleton, but Lenny's
signal was law on the time card, and the magnificent yellow express
slowed down for Lulu. Hatless and in her blue cotton gown, she climbed
aboard.
Then her old inefficiency seized upon her. What was she going to do?
Millton! She had been there but once, years ago--how could she ever
find anybody? Why had she not stayed in Warbleton and asked the sheriff
or somebody--no, not the sheriff. Cornish, perhaps. Oh, and Dwight and
Ina were going to be angry now! And Di--little Di. As Lulu thought of
her she began to cry. She said to herself that she had taught Di to
sew.
In sight of Millton, Lulu was seized with trembling and physical nausea.
She had never been alone in any unfamiliar town. She put her hands to
her hair and for the first time realized her rolled-up sleeves. She was
pulling down these sleeves when the conductor came through the train.
"Could you tell me," she said timidly, "the name of the principal hotel
in Millton?"
Ninian had asked this as they neared Savannah, Georgia.
The conductor looked curiously at her.
"Why, the Hess House," he said. "Wasn't you expecting anybody to meet
you?" he asked, kindly.
"No," said Lulu, "but I'm going to find my folks--" Her voice trailed
away.
"Beats all," thought the conductor, using his utility formula for the
universe.
In Millton Lulu's inquiry for the Hess House produced no consternation.
Nobody paid any attention to her. She was almost certainly taken to be a
new servant there.
"You stop feeling so!" she said to herself angrily at the lobby
entrance. "Ain't you been to that big hotel in Savannah, Georgia?"
The Hess House, Millton, had a tradition of its own to maintain, it
seemed, and they sent her to the rear basement door. She obeyed meekly,
but she lost a good deal of time before she found herself at the end of
the office desk. It was still longer before any one attended her.
"Please, sir!" she burst out. "See if Di Deacon has put her name on your
book."
Her appeal was tremendous, compelling. The young clerk listened to her,
showed her where to look in the register. When only strange names and
strange writing presented themselves there, he said:
"Tried the parlour?"
And directed her kindly and with his thumb, and in the other hand a pen
divorced from his ear for the express purpose.
In crossing the lobby in the hotel at Savannah, Georgia, Lulu's most
pressing problem had been to know where to look. But now the idlers in
the Hess House lobby did not exist. In time she found the door of the
intensely rose-coloured reception room. There, in a fat, rose-coloured
chair, beside a cataract of lace curtain, sat Di, alone.
Lulu entered. She had no idea what to say. When Di looked up, started
up, frowned, Lulu felt as if she herself were the culprit. She said the
first thing that occurred to her:
"I don't believe mamma'll like your taking her nice satchel."
"Well!" said Di, exactly as if she had been at home. And superadded: "My
goodness!" And then cried rudely: "What are you here for?"
"For you," said Lulu. "You--you--you'd ought not to be here, Di."
"What's that to you?" Di cried.
"Why, Di, you're just a little girl----"
Lulu saw that this was all wrong, and stopped miserably. How was she to
go on? "Di," she said, "if you and Bobby want to get married, why not
let us get you up a nice wedding at home?" And she saw that this sounded
as if she were talking about a tea-party.
"Who said we wanted to be married?"
"Well, he's here."
"Who said he's here?"
"Isn't he?"
Di sprang up. "Aunt Lulu," she said, "you're a funny person to be
telling _me_ what to do."
Lulu said, flushing: "I love you just the same as if I was married
happy, in a home."
"Well, you aren't!" cried Di cruelly, "and I'm going to do just as I
think best."
Lulu thought this over, her look grave and sad. She tried to find
something to say. "What do people say to people," she wondered, "when
it's like this?"
"Getting married is for your whole life," was all that came to her.
"Yours wasn't," Di flashed at her.
Lulu's colour deepened, but there seemed to be no resentment in her. She
must deal with this right--that was what her manner seemed to say. And
how should she deal?
"Di," she cried, "come back with me--and wait till mamma and papa get
home."
"That's likely. They say I'm not to be married till I'm twenty-one."
"Well, but how young that is!"
"It is to you."
"Di! This is wrong--it _is_ wrong."
"There's nothing wrong about getting married--if you stay married."
"Well, then it can't be wrong to let them know."
"It isn't. But they'd treat me wrong. They'd make me stay at home. And I
won't stay at home--I won't stay there. They act as if I was ten years
old."
Abruptly in Lulu's face there came a light of understanding.
"Why, Di," she said, "do you feel that way too?"
Di missed this. She went on:
"I'm grown up. I feel just as grown up as they do. And I'm not allowed
to do a thing I feel. I want to be away--I will be away!"
"I know about that part," Lulu said.
She now looked at Di with attention. Was it possible that Di was
suffering in the air of that home as she herself suffered? She had not
thought of that. There Di had seemed so young, so dependent,
so--asquirm. Here, by herself, waiting for Bobby, in the Hess House at
Millton, she was curiously adult. Would she be adult if she were let
alone?
"You don't know what it's like," Di cried, "to be hushed up and laughed
at and paid no attention to, everything you say."
"Don't I?" said Lulu. "Don't I?"
She was breathing quickly and looking at Di. If _this_ was why Di was
leaving home....
"But, Di," she cried, "do you love Bobby Larkin?"
By this Di was embarrassed. "I've got to marry somebody," she said, "and
it might as well be him."
"But is it him?"
"Yes, it is," said Di. "But," she added, "I know I could love almost
anybody real nice that was nice to me." And this she said, not in her
own right, but either she had picked it up somewhere and adopted it, or
else the terrible modernity and honesty of her day somehow spoke through
her, for its own. But to Lulu it was as if something familiar turned its
face to be recognised.
"Di!" she cried.
"It's true. You ought to know that." She waited for a moment. "You did
it," she added. "Mamma said so."
At this onslaught Lulu was stupefied. For she began to perceive its
truth.
"I know what I want to do, I guess," Di muttered, as if to try to cover
what she had said.
Up to that moment, Lulu had been feeling intensely that she understood
Di, but that Di did not know this. Now Lulu felt that she and Di
actually shared some unsuspected sisterhood. It was not only that they
were both badgered by Dwight. It was more than that. They were two
women. And she must make Di know that she understood her.
"Di," Lulu said, breathing hard, "what you just said is true, I guess.
Don't you think I don't know. And now I'm going to tell you--"
She might have poured it all out, claimed her kinship with Di by virtue
of that which had happened in Savannah, Georgia. But Di said:
"Here come some ladies. And goodness, look at the way you look!"
Lulu glanced down. "I know," she said, "but I guess you'll have to put
up with me."
The two women entered, looked about with the complaisance of those who
examine a hotel property, find criticism incumbent, and have no errand.
These two women had outdressed their occasion. In their presence Di kept
silence, turned away her head, gave them to know that she had nothing to
do with this blue cotton person beside her. When they had gone on, "What
do you mean by my having to put up with you?" Di asked sharply.
"I mean I'm going to stay with you."
Di laughed scornfully--she was again the rebellious child. "I guess
Bobby'll have something to say about that," she said insolently.
"They left you in my charge."
"But I'm not a baby--the idea, Aunt Lulu!"
"I'm going to stay right with you," said Lulu. She wondered what she
should do if Di suddenly marched away from her, through that bright
lobby and into the street. She thought miserably that she must follow.
And then her whole concern for the ethics of Di's course was lost in her
agonised memory of her terrible, broken shoes.
Di did not march away. She turned her back squarely upon Lulu, and
looked out of the window. For her life Lulu could think of nothing more
to say. She was now feeling miserably on the defensive.
They were sitting in silence when Bobby Larkin came into the room.
Four Bobby Larkins there were, in immediate succession.
The Bobby who had just come down the street was distinctly perturbed,
came hurrying, now and then turned to the left when he met folk, glanced
sidewise here and there, was altogether anxious and ill at ease.
The Bobby who came through the hotel was a Bobby who had on an
importance assumed for the crisis of threading the lobby--a Bobby who
wished it to be understood that here he was, a man among men, in the
Hess House at Millton.
The Bobby who entered the little rose room was the Bobby who was no less
than overwhelmed with the stupendous character of the adventure upon
which he found himself.
The Bobby who incredibly came face to face with Lulu was the real Bobby
into whose eyes leaped instant, unmistakable relief.
Di flew to meet him. She assumed all the pretty agitations of her rôle,
ignored Lulu.
"Bobby! Is it all right?"
Bobby looked over her head.
"Miss Lulu," he said fatuously. "If it ain't Miss Lulu."
He looked from her to Di, and did not take in Di's resigned shrug.
"Bobby," said Di, "she's come to stop us getting married, but she
can't. I've told her so."
"She don't have to stop us," quoth Bobby gloomily, "we're stopped."
"What do you mean?" Di laid one hand flatly along her cheek, instinctive
in her melodrama.
Bobby drew down his brows, set his hand on his leg, elbow out.
"We're minors," said he.
"Well, gracious, you didn't have to tell them that."
"No. They knew _I_ was."
"But, Silly! Why didn't you tell them you're not?"
"But I am."
Di stared. "For pity sakes," she said, "don't you know how to do
anything?"
"What would you have me do?" he inquired indignantly, with his head held
very stiff, and with a boyish, admirable lift of chin.
"Why, tell them we're both twenty-one. We look it. We know we're
responsible--that's all they care for. Well, you are a funny...."
"You wanted me to lie?" he said.
"Oh, don't make out you never told a fib."
"Well, but this--" he stared at her.
"I never heard of such a thing," Di cried accusingly.
"Anyhow," he said, "there's nothing to do now. The cat's out. I've told
our ages. We've got to have our folks in on it."
"Is that all you can think of?" she demanded.
"What else?"
"Why, come on to Bainbridge or Holt, and tell them we're of age, and be
married there."
"Di," said Bobby, "why, that'd be a rotten go."
Di said, oh very well, if he didn't want to marry her. He replied
stonily that of course he wanted to marry her. Di stuck out her little
hand. She was at a disadvantage. She could use no arts, with Lulu
sitting there, looking on. "Well, then, come on to Bainbridge," Di
cried, and rose.
Lulu was thinking: "What shall I say? I don't know what to say. I don't
know what I can say." Now she also rose, and laughed awkwardly. "I've
told Di," she said to Bobby, "that wherever you two go, I'm going too.
Di's folks left her in my care, you know. So you'll have to take me
along, I guess." She spoke in a manner of distinct apology.
At this Bobby had no idea what to reply. He looked down miserably at the
carpet. His whole manner was a mute testimony to his participation in
the eternal query: How did I get into it?
"Bobby," said Di, "are you going to let her lead you home?"
This of course nettled him, but not in the manner on which Di had
counted. He said loudly:
"I'm not going to Bainbridge or Holt or any town and lie, to get you or
any other girl."
Di's head lifted, tossed, turned from him. "You're about as much like a
man in a story," she said, "as--as papa is."
The two idly inspecting women again entered the rose room, this time to
stay. They inspected Lulu too. And Lulu rose and stood between the
lovers.
"Hadn't we all better get the four-thirty to Warbleton?" she said, and
swallowed.
"Oh, if Bobby wants to back out--" said Di.
"I don't want to back out," Bobby contended furiously, "b-b-but I
won't--"
"Come on, Aunt Lulu," said Di grandly.
Bobby led the way through the lobby, Di followed, and Lulu brought up
the rear. She walked awkwardly, eyes down, her hands stiffly held. Heads
turned to look at her. They passed into the street.
"You two go ahead," said Lulu, "so they won't think--"
They did so, and she followed, and did not know where to look, and
thought of her broken shoes.
At the station, Bobby put them on the train and stepped back. He had, he
said, something to see to there in Millton. Di did not look at him. And
Lulu's good-bye spoke her genuine regret for all.
"Aunt Lulu," said Di, "you needn't think I'm going to sit with you. You
look as if you were crazy. I'll sit back here."
"All right, Di," said Lulu humbly.
* * * * *
It was nearly six o'clock when they arrived at the Deacons'. Mrs. Bett
stood on the porch, her hands rolled in her apron.
"Surprise for you!" she called brightly.
Before they had reached the door, Ina bounded from the hall.
"Darling!"
She seized upon Di, kissed her loudly, drew back from her, saw the
travelling bag.
"My new bag!" she cried. "Di! What have you got that for?"
In any embarrassment Di's instinctive defence was hearty laughter. She
now laughed heartily, kissed her mother again, and ran up the stairs.
Lulu slipped by her sister, and into the kitchen.
"Well, where have _you_ been?" cried Ina. "I declare, I never saw such
a family. Mamma don't know anything and neither of you will tell
anything."
"Mamma knows a-plenty," snapped Mrs. Bett.
Monona, who was eating a sticky gift, jumped stiffly up and down.
"You'll catch it--you'll catch it!" she sent out her shrill general
warning.
Mrs. Bett followed Lulu to the kitchen; "I didn't tell Inie about her
bag and now she says I don't know nothing," she complained. "There I
knew about the bag the hull time, but I wasn't going to tell her and
spoil her gettin' home." She banged the stove-griddle. "I've a good
notion not to eat a mouthful o' supper," she announced.
"Mother, please!" said Lulu passionately. "Stay here. Help me. I've got
enough to get through to-night."
Dwight had come home. Lulu could hear Ina pouring out to him the
mysterious circumstance of the bag, could hear the exaggerated air of
the casual with which he always received the excitement of another, and
especially of his Ina. Then she heard Ina's feet padding up the stairs,
and after that Di's shrill, nervous laughter. Lulu felt a pang of pity
for Di, as if she herself were about to face them.
There was not time both to prepare supper and to change the blue cotton
dress. In that dress Lulu was pouring water when Dwight entered the
dining-room.
"Ah!" said he. "Our festive ball-gown."
She gave him her hand, with her peculiar sweetness of expression--almost
as if she were sorry for him or were bidding him good-bye.
"_That_ shows who you dress for!" he cried. "You dress for me; Ina,
aren't you jealous? Lulu dresses for me!"
Ina had come in with Di, and both were excited, and Ina's head was
moving stiffly, as in all her indignations. Mrs. Bett had thought better
of it and had given her presence. Already Monona was singing.
"Lulu," said Dwight, "really? Can't you run up and slip on another
dress?"
Lulu sat down in her place. "No," she said. "I'm too tired. I'm sorry,
Dwight."
"It seems to me--" he began.
"I don't want any," said Monona.
But no one noticed Monona, and Ina did not defer even to Dwight. She,
who measured delicate, troy occasions by avoirdupois, said brightly:
"Now, Di. You must tell us all about it. Where had you and Aunt Lulu
been with mamma's new bag?"
"Aunt Lulu!" cried Dwight. "A-ha! So Aunt Lulu was along. Well now, that
alters it."
"How does it?" asked his Ina crossly.
"Why, when Aunt Lulu goes on a jaunt," said Dwight Herbert, "events
begin to event."
"Come, Di, let's hear," said Ina.
"Ina," said Lulu, "first can't we hear something about your visit? How
is----"
Her eyes consulted Dwight. His features dropped, the lines of his face
dropped, its muscles seemed to sag. A look of suffering was in his eyes.
"She'll never be any better," he said. "I know we've said good-bye to
her for the last time."
"Oh, Dwight!" said Lulu.
"She knew it too," he said. "It--it put me out of business, I can tell
you. She gave me my start--she took all the care of me--taught me to
read--she's the only mother I ever knew----" He stopped, and opened his
eyes wide on account of their dimness.
"They said she was like another person while Dwight was there," said
Ina, and entered upon a length of particulars, and details of the
journey. These details Dwight interrupted: Couldn't Lulu remember that
he liked sage on the chops? He could hardly taste it. He had, he said,
told her this thirty-seven times. And when she said that she was sorry,
"Perhaps you think I'm sage enough," said the witty fellow.
"Dwightie!" said Ina. "Mercy." She shook her head at him. "Now, Di," she
went on, keeping the thread all this time. "Tell us your story. About
the bag."
"Oh, mamma," said Di, "let me eat my supper."
"And so you shall, darling. Tell it in your own way. Tell us first what
you've done since we've been away. Did Mr. Cornish come to see you?"
"Yes," said Di, and flashed a look at Lulu.
But eventually they were back again before that new black bag. And Di
would say nothing. She laughed, squirmed, grew irritable, laughed again.
"Lulu!" Ina demanded. "You were with her--where in the world had you
been? Why, but you couldn't have been with her--in that dress. And yet
I saw you come in the gate together."
"What!" cried Dwight Herbert, drawing down his brows. "You certainly did
not so far forget us, Lulu, as to go on the street in that dress?"
"It's a good dress," Mrs. Bett now said positively. "Of course it's a
good dress. Lulie wore it on the street--of course she did. She was gone
a long time. I made me a cup o' tea, and _then_ she hadn't come."
"Well," said Ina, "I never heard anything like this before. Where were
you both?"
One would say that Ina had entered into the family and been born again,
identified with each one. Nothing escaped her. Dwight, too, his intimacy
was incredible.
"Put an end to this, Lulu," he commanded. "Where were you two--since you
make such a mystery?"
Di's look at Lulu was piteous, terrified. Di's fear of her father was
now clear to Lulu. And Lulu feared him too. Abruptly she heard herself
temporising, for the moment making common cause with Di.
"Oh," she said, "we have a little secret. Can't we have a secret if we
want one?"
"Upon my word," Dwight commented, "she has a beautiful secret. I don't
know about your secrets, Lulu."
Every time that he did this, that fleet, lifted look of Lulu's seemed to
bleed.
"I'm glad for my dinner," remarked Monona at last. "Please excuse me."
On that they all rose. Lulu stayed in the kitchen and did her best to
make her tasks indefinitely last. She had nearly finished when Di burst
in.
"Aunt Lulu, Aunt Lulu!" she cried. "Come in there--come. I can't stand
it. What am I going to do?"
"Di, dear," said Lulu. "Tell your mother--you must tell her."
"She'll cry," Di sobbed. "Then she'll tell papa--and he'll never stop
talking about it. I know him--every day he'll keep it going. After he
scolds me it'll be a joke for months. I'll die--I'll die, Aunt Lulu."
Ina's voice sounded in the kitchen. "What are you two whispering about?
I declare, mamma's hurt, Di, at the way you're acting...."
"Let's go out on the porch," said Lulu, and when Di would have escaped,
Ina drew her with them, and handled the situation in the only way that
she knew how to handle it, by complaining: Well, but what in this
world....
Lulu threw a white shawl about her blue cotton dress.
"A bridal robe," said Dwight. "How's that, Lulu--what are _you_ wearing
a bridal robe for--eh?"
She smiled dutifully. There was no need to make him angry, she
reflected, before she must. He had not yet gone into the parlour--had
not yet asked for his mail.
It was a warm dusk, moonless, windless. The sounds of the village
street came in--laughter, a touch at a piano, a chiming clock. Lights
starred and quickened in the blurred houses. Footsteps echoed on the
board walks. The gate opened. The gloom yielded up Cornish.
Lulu was inordinately glad to see him. To have the strain of the time
broken by him was like hearing, on a lonely whiter wakening, the clock
strike reassuring dawn.
"Lulu," said Dwight low, "your dress. Do go!"
Lulu laughed. "The bridal shawl takes off the curse," she said.
Cornish, in his gentle way, asked about the journey, about the sick
woman--and Dwight talked of her again, and this time his voice broke. Di
was curiously silent. When Cornish addressed her, she replied simply and
directly--the rarest of Di's manners, in fact not Di's manner at all.
Lulu spoke not at all--it was enough to have this respite.
After a little the gate opened again. It was Bobby. In the besetting
fear that he was leaving Di to face something alone, Bobby had arrived.
And now Di's spirits rose. To her his presence meant repentance,
recapitulation. Her laugh rang out, her replies came archly. But Bobby
was plainly not playing up. Bobby was, in fact, hardly less than glum.
It was Dwight, the irrepressible fellow, who kept the talk going. And it
was no less than deft, his continuously displayed ability playfully to
pierce Lulu. Some one had "married at the drop of the hat. You know the
kind of girl?" And some one "made up a likely story to soothe her own
pride--you know how they do that?"
"Well," said Ina, "my part, I think _the_ most awful thing is to have
somebody one loves keep secrets from one. No wonder folks get crabbed
and spiteful with such treatment."
"Mamma!" Monona shouted from her room. "Come and hear me say my
prayers!"
Monona entered this request with precision on Ina's nastiest moments,
but she always rose, unabashed, and went, motherly and dutiful, to hear
devotions, as if that function and the process of living ran their two
divided channels.
She had dispatched this errand and was returning when Mrs. Bett crossed
the lawn from Grandma Gates's, where the old lady had taken comfort in
Mrs. Bett's ministrations for an hour.
"Don't you help me," Mrs. Bett warned them away sharply. "I guess I can
help myself yet awhile."
She gained her chair. And still in her momentary rule of attention, she
said clearly:
"I got a joke. Grandma Gates says it's all over town Di and Bobby Larkin
eloped off together to-day. _He_!" The last was a single note of
laughter, high and brief.
The silence fell.
"What nonsense!" Dwight Herbert said angrily.
But Ina said tensely: "_Is_ it nonsense? Haven't I been trying and
trying to find out where the black satchel went? Di!"
Di's laughter rose, but it sounded thin and false.
"Listen to that, Bobby," she said. "Listen!"
"That won't do, Di," said Ina. "You can't deceive mamma and don't you
try!" Her voice trembled, she was frantic with loving and authentic
anxiety, but she was without power, she overshadowed the real gravity of
the moment by her indignation.
"Mrs. Deacon----" began Bobby, and stood up, very straight and manly
before them all.
But Dwight intervened, Dwight, the father, the master of his house. Here
was something requiring him to act. So the father set his face like a
mask and brought down his hand on the rail of the porch. It was as if
the sound shattered a thousand filaments--where?
"Diana!" his voice was terrible, demanded a response, ravened among
them.
"Yes, papa," said Di, very small.
"Answer your mother. Answer _me_. Is there anything to this absurd
tale?"
"No, papa," said Di, trembling.
"Nothing whatever?"
"Nothing whatever."
"Can you imagine how such a ridiculous report started?"
"No, papa."
"Very well. Now we know where we are. If anyone hears this report
repeated, send them to _me_."
"Well, but that satchel--" said Ina, to whom an idea manifested less as
a function than as a leech.
"One moment," said Dwight. "Lulu will of course verify what the child
has said."
There had never been an adult moment until that day when Lulu had not
instinctively taken the part of the parents, of all parents. Now she saw
Dwight's cruelty to her as his cruelty to Di; she saw Ina, herself a
child in maternity, as ignorant of how to deal with the moment as was
Dwight. She saw Di's falseness partly parented by these parents. She
burned at the enormity of Dwight's appeal to her for verification. She
threw up her head and no one had ever seen Lulu look like this.
"If you cannot settle this with Di," said Lulu, "you cannot settle it
with me."
"A shifty answer," said Dwight. "You have a genius at misrepresenting
facts, you know, Lulu."
"Bobby wanted to say something," said Ina, still troubled.
"No, Mrs. Deacon," said Bobby, low. "I have nothing--more to say."
In a little while, when Bobby went away, Di walked with him to the gate.
It was as if, the worst having happened to her, she dared everything
now.
"Bobby," she said, "you hate a lie. But what else could I do?"
He could not see her, could see only the little moon of her face,
blurring.
"And anyhow," said Di, "it wasn't a lie. We _didn't_ elope, did we?"
"What do you think I came for to-night?" asked Bobby.
The day had aged him; he spoke like a man. His very voice came gruffly.
But she saw nothing, softened to him, yielded, was ready to take his
regret that they had not gone on.
"Well, I came for one thing," said Bobby, "to tell you that I couldn't
stand for your wanting me to lie to-day. Why, Di--I hate a lie. And now
to-night--" He spoke his code almost beautifully. "I'd rather," he said,
"they had never let us see each other again than to lose you the way
I've lost you now."
"Bobby!"
"It's true. We mustn't talk about it."
"Bobby! I'll go back and tell them all."
"You can't go back," said Bobby. "Not out of a thing like that."
She stood staring after him. She heard some one coming and she turned
toward the house, and met Cornish leaving.
"Miss Di," he cried, "if you're going to elope with anybody, remember
it's with me!"
Her defence was ready--her laughter rang out so that the departing Bobby
might hear.
She came back to the steps and mounted slowly in the lamplight, a little
white thing with whom birth had taken exquisite pains.
"If," she said, "if you have any fear that I may ever elope with Bobby
Larkin, let it rest. I shall never marry him if he asks me fifty times a
day."
"Really, darling?" cried Ina.
"Really and truly," said Di, "and he knows it, too."
Lulu listened and read all.
"I wondered," said Ina pensively, "I wondered if you wouldn't see that
Bobby isn't much beside that nice Mr. Cornish!"
When Di had gone upstairs, Ina said to Lulu in a manner of cajoling
confidence:
"Sister----" she rarely called her that, "_why_ did you and Di have the
black bag?"
So that after all it was a relief to Lulu to hear Dwight ask casually:
"By the way, Lulu, haven't I got some mail somewhere about?"
"There are two letters on the parlour table," Lulu answered. To Ina she
added: "Let's go in the parlour."
As they passed through the hall, Mrs. Bett was going up the stairs to
bed--when she mounted stairs she stooped her shoulders, bunched her
extremities, and bent her head. Lulu looked after her, as if she were
half minded to claim the protection so long lost.
Dwight lighted the gas. "Better turn down the gas jest a little," said
he, tirelessly.
Lulu handed him the two letters. He saw Ninian's writing and looked up,
said "A-ha!" and held it while he leisurely read the advertisement of
dental furniture, his Ina reading over his shoulder. "A-ha!" he said
again, and with designed deliberation turned to Ninian's letter. "An
epistle from my dear brother Ninian." The words failed, as he saw the
unsealed flap.
"You opened the letter?" he inquired incredulously. Fortunately he had
no climaxes of furious calm for high occasions. All had been used on
small occasions. "You opened the letter" came in a tone of no deeper
horror than "You picked the flower"--once put to Lulu.
She said nothing. As it is impossible to continue looking indignantly at
some one who is not looking at you, Dwight turned to Ina, who was horror
and sympathy, a nice half and half.
"Your sister has been opening my mail," he said.
"But, Dwight, if it's from Ninian--"
"It is _my_ mail," he reminded her. "She had asked me if she might open
it. Of course I told her no."
"Well," said Ina practically, "what does he say?"
"I shall open the letter in my own time. My present concern is this
disregard of my wishes." His self-control was perfect, ridiculous,
devilish. He was self-controlled because thus he could be more
effectively cruel than in temper. "What excuse have you to offer?"
Lulu was not looking at him. "None," she said--not defiantly, or
ingratiatingly, or fearfully. Merely, "None."
"Why did you do it?"
She smiled faintly and shook her head.
"Dwight," said Ina, reasonably, "she knows what's in it and we don't.
Hurry up."
"She is," said Dwight, after a pause, "an ungrateful woman."
He opened the letter, saw the clipping, the avowal, with its facts.
"A-ha!" said he. "So after having been absent with my brother for a
month, you find that you were _not_ married to him."
Lulu spoke her exceeding triumph.
"You see, Dwight," she said, "he told the truth. He had another wife. He
didn't just leave me."
Dwight instantly cried: "But this seems to me to make you considerably
worse off than if he had."
"Oh, no," Lulu said serenely. "No. Why," she said, "you know how it all
came about. He--he was used to thinking of his wife as dead. If he
hadn't--hadn't liked me, he wouldn't have told me. You see that, don't
you?"
Dwight laughed. "That your apology?" he asked.
She said nothing.
"Look here, Lulu," he went on, "this is a bad business. The less you say
about it the better, for all our sakes--_you_ see that, don't you?"
"See that? Why, no. I wanted you to write to him so I could tell the
truth. You said I mustn't tell the truth till I had the proofs ..."
"Tell who?"
"Tell everybody. I want them to know."
"Then you care nothing for our feelings in this matter?"