Zona Gale

“ 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. ”

“ Warbleton was one of the prettiest little towns that he had ever seen. He liked the people—they seemed different. He was sure to like the place, already liked it. Lulu came to the door in Ninian's thin black-and-white gown. She shook hands with the stranger, not looking at him, and said, "Come to supper, all." Monona was already in her place, singing under-breath. Mrs. Bett, after hovering in the kitchen door, entered; but they forgot to introduce her.
"Where's Di?" asked Ina. "I declare that daughter of mine is never anywhere." ”

“ How much, Dwight?"
"Now isn't that like a woman. Isn't it?"
"I thought he was from a good family," said Ina.
"My mercenary little pussy!"
"Well," she said with a sigh, "I shouldn't be surprised if Di did really accept him. A young girl is awfully flattered when a good-looking older man pays her attention. Haven't you noticed that?"
Dwight informed her, with an air of immense abstraction, that he left all such matters to her. Being married to Dwight was like a perpetual rehearsal, with Dwight's self-importance for audience.
A few evenings later, Cornish brought up the music. ”

“ Lulu said, twisting her smile.
"Why, my land, I love her," Mrs. Bett explained, "but she wiggles and chitters."
Cornish never made the slightest effort, at any time, to keep a straight face. The honest fellow now laughed loudly.
"Well!" Lulu thought. "He can't be so very much in love." And again she thought: "He doesn't know anything about the letter. He thinks Ninian got tired of me." Deep in her heart there abode her certainty that this was not so.
By some etiquette of consent, Mrs. Bett cleared the table and Lulu and Cornish went into the parlour. ”

“ My dear Lulu, you know how I hate having my mail interfered with."
She might have said: "Small souls always make a point of that." She said nothing. She watched them set off, and kept her mind on Ina's thousand injunctions.
"Don't let Di see much of Bobby Larkin. And, Lulu—if it occurs to her to have Mr. Cornish come up to sing, of course you ask him. You might ask him to supper. And don't let mother overdo. And, Lulu, now do watch Monona's handkerchief—the child will never take a clean one if I'm not here to tell her...." ”

“ 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." ”

“ Cornish cried, and he kissed her.
"And now," said Dwight, "nobody must mind if I hurry a little wee bit. I've got something on."
He and Ina and Monona were at dinner. Mrs. Bett was in her room. Di was not there.
"Anything about Lulu?" Ina asked.
"Lulu?" Dwight stared. "Why should I have anything to do about Lulu?"
"Well, but, Dwight—we've got to do something."
"As I told you this morning," he observed, "we shall do nothing. Your sister is of age—I don't know about the sound mind, but she is certainly of age. If she chooses to go away, she is free to go where she will." ”

“ Cornish said feebly: "Oh, well...."
Before she willed it, she was telling him:
"He didn't. He didn't leave me," she cried with passion. "He had another wife." Incredibly it was as if she were defending both him and herself.
"Lord sakes!" said Cornish.
She poured it out, in her passion to tell some one, to share her news of her state where there would be neither hardness nor censure.
"We were in Savannah, Georgia," she said. "We were going to leave for Oregon—going to go through California. We were in the hotel, and he was going out to get the tickets. He started to go. Then he came back. ”

“ She clasped her arms tightly, awkwardly, and stepped about the floor, her broken shoes showing beneath her cotton skirt.
"When a family once gets talked about for any reason——" said Ina and shuddered.
"I'm talked about now!"
"But nothing that you could help. If he got tired of you, you couldn't help that." This misstep was Dwight's.
"No," Lulu said, "I couldn't help that. And I couldn't help his other wife, either."
"Bigamy," said Dwight, "that's a crime."
"I've done no crime," said Lulu.
"Bigamy," said Dwight, "disgraces everybody it touches."
"Even Di," Lulu said. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Monona, you take Grandma Gates a baked apple—no. You shan't go till you drink your milk."
"I don't want it."
"Drink it or mamma won't let you go."
Monona drank it, made a piteous face, took the baked apple, ran.
"The apple isn't very good," said Ina, "but it shows my good will."
"Also," said Dwight, "it teaches Monona a life of thoughtfulness for others."
"That's what I always think," his Ina said.
"Can't you get mother to come out?" Dwight inquired.
"I had so much to do getting dinner onto the table, I didn't try," Ina confessed.
"You didn't have to try," Mrs. Bett's voice sounded. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Beyond open doors, Mrs. Bett listened, sang, it may be, with them; for when the singers ceased, her voice might be heard still humming a loud closing bar.
"Well!" Cornish cried to Lulu; and then, in the formal village phrase: "You're quite a musician."
"Oh, no!" Lulu disclaimed it. She looked up, flushed, smiling. "I've never done this in front of anybody," she owned. "I don't know what Dwight and Ina'd say...." She drooped. ”

“ Could Dwight and Ina come to her while she was still able to visit? If he was not too busy....
Nobody saw the pity and the terror of that postal card. They stuck it up by the kitchen clock to read over from time to time, and before they left, Dwight lifted the griddle of the cooking-stove and burned the postal card.
And before they left Lulu said: "Dwight—you can't tell how long you'll be gone?"
"Of course not. How should I tell?"
"No. And that letter might come while you're away."
"Conceivably. Letters do come while a man's away!" ”

“ So at last Dwight said tentatively at lunch:
"What if I brought that Neil Cornish up for supper, one of these nights?"
"Oh, Dwightie, do," said Ina. "If there's a man in town, let's know it."
"What if I brought him up to-night?"
Up went Ina's eyebrows. To-night?
"'Scalloped potatoes and meat loaf and sauce and bread and butter," Lulu contributed.
Cornish came to supper. He was what is known in Warbleton as dapper. This Ina saw as she emerged on the veranda in response to Dwight's informal halloo on his way upstairs. She herself was in white muslin, now much too snug, and a blue ribbon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Aren't you going to sing?"
"What?" Dwight used the falsetto. "Lulu sing? Lulu?"
She stood awkwardly. She had a piteous recrudescence of her old agony at being spoken to in the presence of others. But Di had opened the "Album of Old Favourites," which Cornish had elected to bring, and now she struck the opening chords of "Bonny Eloise." Lulu stood still, looking rather piteously at Cornish. Dwight offered his arm, absurdly crooked. The Plows and Ina and Di began to sing. Lulu moved forward, and stood a little away from them, and sang, too. She was still holding Ninian's picture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the 'bus Dwight leaned forward:
"See that you play post-office squarely, Lulu!" he called, and threw back his head and lifted his eyebrows.
In the train he turned tragic eyes to his wife.
"Ina," he said. "It's ma. And she's going to die. It can't be...."
Ina said: "But you're going to help her, Dwight, just being there with her."
It was true that the mere presence of the man would bring a kind of fresh life to that worn frame. Tact and wisdom and love would speak through him and minister.
Toward the end of their week's absence the letter from Ninian came. ”

“ She said: "Lots of men don't."
"Could you risk it with me?" Cornish asked her. "There's nobody I've seen," he went on gently, "that I like as much as I do you. I—I was engaged to a girl once, but we didn't get along. I guess if you'd be willing to try me, we would get along."
Lulu said: "I thought it was Di that you——"
"Miss Di? Why," said Cornish, "she's a little kid. And," he added, "she's a little liar." ”

“ Di got them all. But of course the crest of Ina's responsibility was to marry Di. This verb should be transitive only when lovers are speaking of each other, or the minister or magistrate is speaking of lovers. It should never be transitive when predicated of parents or any other third party. But it is. Ina was quite agitated by its transitiveness as she took to her husband her incredible responsibility.
"You know, Herbert," said Ina, "if this Mr. Cornish comes here very much, what we may expect."
"What may we expect?" demanded Dwight Herbert, crisply. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Di's profile again, and her pleased voice saying that this was the very one she had been hoping to hear him sing.
They gathered for "My Rock, My Refuge."
"Oh," cried Ina, at the conclusion of this number, "I'm having such a perfectly beautiful time. Isn't everybody?" everybody's hostess put it.
"Lulu is," said Dwight, and added softly to Lulu: "She don't have to hear herself sing."
It was incredible. He was like a bad boy with a frog. About that photograph of Ninian he found a dozen ways to torture her, called attention to it, showed it to Cornish, set it on the piano facing them all. ”