OCR Text |
Show MISS LULU BETT VI Continued. 13 Next day then; came a message from that woiiuin who had brought up Dwight "ninth: him wtui t Ik; was," ho often eomplacenl ly accused Ikt. It Was a note on a ptlal rani .she hail Often written n few linen on a postal card to say that .she had sent the maple sugar, or ton Id Inn Ret her some samples. Now -she vrote a few lines on n poslal card to say that she Mis going to die with cancer. Could Dwight and Ina come to her while she was still able to visit? If he was not too hnsy. . . . Mobody saw the pity and the terror of that postal curd. They stuck It up by the kitchen clock to read over from time to time, anil liefore they left, Dwight lifted the griddle of the cooking cook-ing stove and burned the postal card. Anil 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 I" "Dwight I thought If you wouldn't Inlnd If I opened it " "Opened It?" "Yes. You see, It'll bo about nie mostly" "I should have said that It'll be about my brother mostly." "lint you know what I mean. You wouldn't mind If I (lid open it?" "I'.ut you say you know what'll be In It." "So I did know till you I've got to see that letter, Dwight." "And so you shall. Tut not till I show It to you. My dear Lulu, yon know how I hate having my mall interfered in-terfered wilb." .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 thou-sand Injunctions. "Don't let Di see much of Bobby I.arkin. 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 moth-er overdo. And, Lulu, now do watch Monona's handkerchief the child will never take a clean one If I'm not here to toll her. ..." She breathed injunctions to the very slop of the 'bus. In the 'bus Dwight leaned forward: "See that you play post olliee squarely, Lulu!" he called, and threw back his head and lifted his eyebrows. In the train he turned tragic eyes to his wfie. "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, Lwight, 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 ab-sence the letter from Ninian came. Lulu took it from the post office when she went for the mail that evening, eve-ning, dressed in her dark red gown. There was no other letter, and she carried car-ried that one letter in her hand all through the streets. She passed those who were surmising what her story might be, who were telling one another anoth-er what they had heard. But she knew hardly more than they. She passed Cornish in the doorway of his little music shop, and spoke with him ; and there was the letter. It was so that Dwight's foster mother's postal card might have look?d on its way to be mailed. Cornish stepped down and overtook her. "Oh, Miss Lulu. I've got a new song or two " She said abstractedly: "Do. Any night. Tomorrow night could you " It was as if Lulu were too preoccupied to remember to be ill at ease. iVruisli (lushed with pleasure, said that be could indeed. "Come for supper," Lulu said. Oh, eotikl he? Wouldn't that be . . . Well, say ! Such was his acceptance. accept-ance. Lie came for supper. Ami Di was I'.ot at home. She hnd gone off In the cuntry with Jenny and Bobby, and t'.:ey merely did not return. Mrs. Lett and Lulu and Cornish and Monona supped alone. All were at vase, now that they were alone. I"s-; I"s-; '?ciall.v Mrs. Lett was at ease. It be- ;"tue one of her young nights, her alive and lucid nights. She was there. sat in Dwight's chair and Lulu .- ;t in Ina's chair. Lulu bad picked .'.jwers for the table a task coveted ' y her but usually performed by Ina. I.u'u had now picked Sweet William r.::d had filled a vase of silver gilt T.kcn from the parlor. Also, Lulu' : a l made ice cream. "I don't see what Di can be thinking think-ing of," Lulu said. "It seems like asking ask-ing you under false " She was afraid of "pretenses" and ended without It. Cornish savored his steaming beef pie, with sage. "Oh, well!" he said, contentedly. "Kind of a relief, I think, to have her gone," said Mrs. Bett, from the fullness of something or other. "Mother!" Lulu said, twisting her smile. "Why, my land, I love her." Mrs. Bett explained, "but she wiggles and clutters." Cornish never made the slightest effort, ut any time, to keep a straight face. The honest fel'jw now laughed loudly. "Well !" Lulu thought, "He can't be so very much In love." And again she thou&lit: "lie doesn't know any- " By ZONA GALE Copyright bj D. Apiileton & Cumpauy thing about the letter. He thinks Ninian Nin-ian got tired of me." Deep down 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 parlor. There lay the letter on the drop-leaf side-table, side-table, among the shells. Lulu had carried car-ried it there, where she need not see it at her work. The letter looked no more than the advertisement of dental olliee furniture beneath it. Monona slood indifferently lingering both. "Monona," Lulu said sharply, "leave them be !" Cornish was displaying his music. "Cot uji finite attractive," he said it was his formula of praise for his music. "I'.ut we can't try It over," Lulu said, "if Di doesn't come." "Well, say," saitl Cornish shyly, "you know I left that Album of Old Favorites here. Some of them we know by heart." Lulu looked. "I'll tell you something," some-thing," she said; "there's some of these I can play with one hand by ear. Maybe " "Why, sure!" said Cornish. Lulu sat at the piano. She had on the wool chally, long sacred to the nights when she must combine her servant's estate with the quality of being be-ing Ina's sister. She wore her coral beads and her cameo cross. In her absence she bad caught the trick of dressing her hair so that it looked even more abundant but she hail not dared to try it so until tonight, when Dwight was gone. Her long wrist was curved high, her thin hand pressed and fingered awkwardly, and at her mistakes her head dipped and strove to make all right. Her foot .continuously .con-tinuously touched the loud pedal the blurred sound seemed to accomplish more. So she played "How Can I Leave Thee," and they managed to sing It. So she played "Long, Long I 1 "Oh, No," Lulu Disclaimed It. She Looked Up, Flushed, Smiling. Ago," and "Little Nell of Narragan-sett Narragan-sett Bay." Beyond open doors, Mrs. Bett listened, sang, it may be, with them ; for when the singers ceased, her voice might be heard still humming hum-ming a loud closing bar. "Well !" Cornish cried to Lulu ; and then, in the formal village phrase: "You're quite a musician." "Oil, no!" Lulu disclaimed it. She looked op. flushed, smiiio.ir. "I've never done this in front of anybody," she owned. "I don't know what Dwight and Ina'd say. . . ." She drooped. They rested and, miraculously, the air of the place had stirred and quickened, quick-ened, as if the crippled, halting melody had some power of its own, and poured this forth, even thus trampled. "I guess you could do 'most anything any-thing you set your hand to," said Cornish. "Oh, no," Lulu said again. "Sing and play and cook " "But I can't earn anything. I'd like to earn something." But this site had not meant to say. She stopped, rather frightened. "You would! Why, you have it fine hero. I thought." "Oh, fine. yes. Dwight gives me what I ha'-e. And I do their work." "I see," said Cornish. "I never thought of that," he added. She caught his speculative look he bad heard a tale or two concerning her return, re-turn, as who in Warbleton had not heard? "You're wondering why I didn't stay with him!" Lulu said recklessly. This was no less than wrung from her, but its utterance occasioned iu her an unspeakable relief. "Oh. no," Cornish disclaimed, and colored and rocked. "Yes, you are," she swept on. "The whole town's wondering. Well, I'd like 'em to know, but Dwight won't let me tell." Cornish frowned, trying to understand under-stand " 'Won't let you !' " he repeated. "I should say that was your own affair." Not when Dwight gives me all I bav.- "Oh, that " said Cornish. "That's not rlgh." . "No. But there It is. It puts me you see what it does to rue. They think they all think my husband left me." It was curious to hear her bring out that word tentatively, deprecating- ly, like some one daring u foreign phrase without warrant. 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 an-other wife." Incredibly it was as if she were defending both him and herself. her-self. "Lord sakes '." said Cornish. She poured it out, in her passion to tell some one, to share her news of her state w here 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. Califor-nia. We were in the hotel, and he was going out to get the tickets. He started to go. Then he came back. I was sitting the same us there. He opened the door again the; same as here. I saw he looked different and lie said quick: 'There's something you'd ought to know before we go.' And, of course, I said, 'What?' And he said it right out how he was married-eighteen married-eighteen years ago and in two years she ran away and sne must be dead, but he wasn't sure. He hadn't the proofs. So, of course, I came home. But it wasn't him left me." "No, no. Of course he didn't," Cornish said earnestly. "But, Lord's sakes " he said again. lie rose to walk about, found It impracticable and sat down. "That's what Dwight don't want me to tell lie thinks It Isn't true. Ho thinks he didn't have any other wife. He thinks he wanted " Lulu looked up at him. "You see," she said, "Dwight thinks he didn't want me." "But why don't you make your husband hus-band I mean, why doesn't he write to Mr. Deacon here, and tell him the truth "' Cornish burst out. Under tills implied belief, she relaxed re-laxed and into her face came its rare sweetness. "He has written," she said. "The letter's there." He followed her look, scowled at the two letters. "What'd he say?" "Dwight don't like me to touch his mail. I'll have to wait till he comes back." "Lord sakes !" said Cornish. This time he did rise and walk about. He wanted to say something, wanted it with passion, ire paused beside Lulu and stammered: "You you you're too nice a girl to get a deal like this. Darned if you aren't." To her own complete surprise Lulu's eyes filled with tears, and she could not speak. She was by no means above self-sympathy. "And there ain't," said Cornish sorrowfully, sor-rowfully, "there ain't a tiling I can do." And yet he was doing much. He was gentle, he was listening, and on his face a frown of concern. His face continually surprised her, it was so line and alive and near, by comparison with Ninian's loose-lipped, ruddy, impersonal im-personal look and Dwight's thin, high-boned high-boned hardness. All the time Cornish gave her something, instead ot drawing draw-ing upon her. Above all, he was there, and she could talk to him. "It's it's funny," Lulu said. "I'd be awful glad if I just could know for sure that the other woman was alive if I couldn't know she's dead." This surprising admission Cornish seemed to understand. "Sure you would." he said briefly. "Cora Waters," Lulu said. "Cora Waters, of San Diego, California. And she never heard of me." "Xo," Cornish admitted. They stared at each other as across some abyss. In the doorway Mrs. Bett appeared. "I scraped up everything," she remarked, re-marked, "and left the dishes set." "That's right, mamma," Lulu said. "Come and sit down." Mrs. Bett entered with a leisurely air of doing the thing next expected of Iter. "I don't hear any more playin' and singin'," she remarked. "It sounded real nice." "We we sung all I knew how to play, I guess, mamma." "I use' to play on the melodeon," Mrs. Bett volunteered, and spread and examined her right band. "Well"' said Cornish. She now told thv.ni about her log-bouse log-bouse in a New England clearing, when she was a bride. All her store of drama and life came from her. She rehearsed it with far eyes. She laughed at old delights, drooped at old fears. She told about her little daughter who had died at sixteen a tragedy sueh as once would have been renewed in a vital ballad. At the end she yawned frankly as if, in some terrible ter-rible sophistication, she had been telling tell-ing the story of some one else. "Give us one more piece," she said. "Can we?" Cornish asked. "I can play 'I Think When I Read That Sweet Story of Old.'" Lulu said. "That's the ticket!" said Cornish. They sang It. to Lulu's right hand. "That's the one you picked out when mil was a little girl, Lulie," cried Mrs. Bett. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |