Chapter 8

"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?"

She looked at him now. "Your feeling?"

"It's nothing to you that we have a brother who's a bigamist?"

"But it's me--it's me."

"You! You're completely out of it. Just let it rest as it is and it'll drop."

"I want the people to know the truth," Lulu said.

"But it's nobody's business but our business! I take it you don't intend to sue Ninian?"

"Sue him? Oh no!"

"Then, for all our sakes, let's drop the matter."

Lulu had fallen in one of her old attitudes, tense, awkward, her hands awkwardly placed, her feet twisted. She kept putting a lock back of her ear, she kept swallowing.

"Tell you, Lulu," said Dwight. "Here are three of us. Our interests are the same in this thing--only Ninian is our relative and he's nothing to you now. Is he?"

"Why, no," said Lulu in surprise.

"Very well. Let's have a vote. Your snap judgment is to tell this disgraceful fact broadcast. Mine is, least said, soonest mended. What do you say, Ina--considering Di and all?"

"Oh, goodness," said Ina, "if we get mixed up with bigamy, we'll never get away from it. Why, I wouldn't have it told for worlds."

Still in that twisted position, Lulu looked up at her. Her straying hair, her parted lips, her lifted eyes were singularly pathetic.

"My poor, poor sister!" Ina said. She struck together her little plump hands. "Oh, Dwight--when I think of it: What have I done--what have _we_ done that I should have a good, kind, loving husband--be so protected, so loved, when other women.... Darling!" she sobbed, and drew near to Lulu. "You _know_ how sorry I am--we all are...."

Lulu stood up. The white shawl slipped to the floor. Her hands were stiffly joined.

"Then," she said, "give me the only thing I've got--that's my pride. My pride--that he didn't want to get rid of me."

They stared at her. "What about _my_ pride?" Dwight called to her, as across great distances. "Do you think I want everybody to know my brother did a thing like that?"

"You can't help that," said Lulu.

"But I want you to help it. I want you to promise me that you won't shame us like this before all our friends."

"You want me to promise what?"

"I want you--I ask you," Dwight said with an effort, "to promise me that you will keep this, with us--a family secret."

"No!" Lulu cried. "No. I won't do it! I won't do it! I won't do it!"

It was like some crude chant, knowing only two tones. She threw out her hands, her wrists long and dark on her blue skirt. "Can't you understand anything?" she asked. "I've lived here all my life--on your money. I've not been strong enough to work, they say--well, but I've been strong enough to be a hired girl in your house--and I've been glad to pay for my keep.... But there wasn't anything about it I liked. Nothing about being here that I liked.... Well, then I got a little something, same as other folks. I thought I was married and I went off on the train and he bought me things and I saw the different towns. And then it was all a mistake. I didn't have any of it. I came back here and went into your kitchen again--I don't know why I came back. I s'pose because I'm most thirty-four and new things ain't so easy any more--but what have I got or what'll I ever have? And now you want to put on to me having folks look at me and think he run off and left me, and having 'em all wonder.... I can't stand it. I can't stand it. I can't...."

"You'd rather they'd know he fooled you, when he had another wife?" Dwight sneered.

"Yes! Because he wanted me. How do I know--maybe he wanted me only just because he was lonesome, the way I was. I don't care why! And I won't have folks think he went and left me."

"That," said Dwight, "is a wicked vanity."

"That's the truth. Well, why can't they know the truth?"

"And bring disgrace on us all."

"It's me--it's me----" Lulu's individualism strove against that terrible tribal sense, was shattered by it.

"It's all of us!" Dwight boomed. "It's Di."

"_Di?_" He had Lulu's eyes now.

"Why, it's chiefly on Di's account that I'm talking," said Dwight.

"How would it hurt Di?"