Blue Ruin (6 page)

“He isn’t even your own
cousin
!” she added viciously. “It’s a pity you wouldn’t remember that! He has no obligation whatever to come home from anything he wishes to do, silly or not, to take his own car, which he had washed and had to pay for, at
your request
, to go after
your
company! But he said he would do it, and he will! He never failed to keep his word, did he? Answer me that! Did you ever know him to fail to be on time when he promised? You know that’s one of his almost failings, to be exactly on time and no more. He says it’s a sin to waste time unnecessarily!”

“H’m!” sniffed Justine. “A sin! When he’s been wasting a whole day dawdling after a girl in the woods!”

“And you want him to go dawdling after another!” said his mother with a pin between her lips while she energetically reached behind her ample waist for the belt of her clean apron which she was preparing to pin over her best black and white voile dress. “Oh, you’re the most consistent person I know! And he
ought
to be late just to punish you for not trusting him. Did you ever find him untrustworthy? Answer me that!”

“Well, yes, I did!” declared Justine angrily facing about toward Amelia with fire in her eye. “Yes, I certainly did!”

“You
did?”
roared Dana’s mother turning almost white with rage.

“I
did!
“

“When?”

“Once when I gave him a letter to mail. He carried it in his sweater pocket for a whole week and wore it all out so I had to rewrite it. It was an important letter, too!”

“Humph!” sniffed Amelia with a flirt of her head turning toward the dining table and flinging the clean cloth deftly over the table pad as if the conversation had become too trivial to be worthy of her further attention.

“Ten years ago! Dana was nothing but a child then. You never will forget that. You do hold grudges a long time, don’t you? Holding a grudge against a child! And I remember that letter. I found it myself in his pocket when I went to mend the sweater. It was some ridiculous answer to a fake ad, something about removing wrinkles and making you look young again. Important! Fool nonsense! There comes Dana now! I
knew
he would be here on time!”

“Well, he’s a half a minute behind,” said Justine severely, consulting the watch, “and he isn’t here yet! Besides he’s got to walk down to the garage after the car. I doubt if he can make it. He better phone for a cab.”

“Justine, you certainly are the most aggravating person alive! What’s half a minute? Your watch is probably fast anyway. You always keep it that way.”

“A half a minute is a long time when one has to wait on a strange platform in a strange city,” whined Justine petulantly. “And just look at Dana! He’ll have to change his clothes. He can’t wear a sweater and a soft collar to meet my friends from New York! And the creases are all out of his trousers! I don’t see how he is going to make that train in time! And he’ll have to wash! He looks a mess!”

“For pity’s sake do shut up!” said Amelia, riled beyond further endurance. “If he hears you he won’t go at all, and then where will you be?”

“You don’t seem to realize that it is almost time for the train to be coming in now, Amelia!”

But Amelia had slammed out into the kitchen and was slatting pots and pans around in a manner that showed she would stand no more nonsense.

The old lady in her armchair cackled. She knew that Justine would not dare resent that cackle, for was not Justine expecting company who would perhaps stay the whole summer? And the small sum they were to pay for presence in the house. The old lady wondered under her grim smile why she had told Justine she might bring them there anyway? Had it been mere pity for her lonely dependent, or a desire to stir up her daughter-in-law to further good works? She was not sure. At any rate, the visit ought to be good for a little amusement for herself, and there had been precious little of that coming her way for many a long year, especially since she had been crippled.

Deep down in her heart perhaps the old lady had longed for the voice of a child in the house. “Her little girl,” had been the vague way that Justine had spoken of the offspring of her old friend. But what was this that Amelia had said about Justine wanting Dana to dawdle around after another girl? Was the child grown up? Had Amelia been finding out things?

“Justine, how old is that child that’s coming?” she suddenly asked, so crisply that Justine started and almost dropped her watch.

She carefully snapped it shut after a final squint at the second hand that she might give Dana the benefit of the last quarter of a second, and then looked up.

“Why, I’m not just sure,” she answered nervously. “Excuse me, Grandma, I must let Dana know the time. He can’t realize—”

“Nonsense!” said the old lady with annoyance. “Dana has a watch and you may be sure he thinks it’s right. Come back here and tell me about that child! I ought to have asked you before!”

But Justine was off down the flower-bordered flagging to meet Dana.

“Oh, Dana, deah,” she called eagerly, in the ingratiating tone she affected when she wished to show her superior culture.

They came in together a moment later, Dana loftily and leisurely, Justine talking vivaciously.

“And I told her to weah a white flowah in her buttonhole,” she said with an affected giggle, “so you would know her at once. I thought it would be so awkward for you both. And you’re sure you won’t have any difficulty about getting the trunks up at once? She’ll want to dress for dinnah. You know they always dress for dinnah in New Yawk. Dana, deah, you’re a little mussed, did you know it? Would you like me to get you a whisk broom? There’s dust on the cuff of your trouser, deah. Where have you been? You must have been sitting on the ground. Are you suah it was quite dry?”

“Yer Granny!” blurted the old lady half under her breath. “Justine, stop worrying Dana and come here! I want to know how old that child is!”

“Oh, Grandma!” giggled Justine nervously. “I really don’t know. She’ll be here in a few minutes and you can see for yourself. Let me see, when did I come heah, what yeah? It was the yeah, no two yeahs after than, that Ella Smith was married. No—I don’t know just when it was. I can run up and look over my file of letters if you must know, Grandma,” she said indulgently, with an anxious eye on the clock.

“Yer Granny!” said the old lady quite loud this time. “You’ve got something up your sleeve. Justine, I don’t know what it is, but you lick your lips like a cat that had just been tasting the cream. I’ve always noticed that you have something up your sleeve, Justine, when your mouth gets that sleek look. But whatever it is it’ll come out soon enough I suppose. Let well enough alone. Aren’t you going to help Amelia in the kitchen? She sounds as if she had just broken the stove down and was trying to set it up. For mercy’s sake go and stop that clatter!”

Justine gave a furtive look at Grandma as she started toward the door.

“You’re being unkind to me, Grandma,” she said in her humbly gentle tone that always riled the old lady. “But it doesn’t mattah. I’ll try to bear it sweetly. Amelia, deah, is there anything that I can do to help down heah? What’s the mattah? Have you got behind in the dinnah?”

“No I haven’t got behind the ‘dinnah,’ nor anything else, but I’d like to get behind
you
and find out what you’re up to now,” said the irate mother. “There’s nothing the
mattah
, and you needn’t come around
heah
calling me
deah
! Go on upstairs and keep out from underfoot, for pity’s sake, till the dinner’s on the table. You make me
sick
!”

Justine vanished up the back stairs, shedding a bitter tear vindictively as she closed the door with a gentle emphasis. She was anxious to find out if Dana had left yet and whether he had changed his clothes before he went. This trying to have company in a house that was not your own was difficult business, but Justine had always felt that right made might, and she meant to have everything right for her friends. If things went the way she hoped—But she must not even think about that.

“Amelia, how old is that child that’s coming?” asked Madame Whipple.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Amelia angrily. “She’s no child though, I can tell you that, if she
has
got bobbed hair and wears her skirts up to her knees.”

“How do you know that, Amelia?”

“Well, because I saw her photograph, if you must know. It was lying on Justine’s bureau when I stepped in to put the clean clothes on her bed. It said underneath it, ‘This is the dear child’s latest picture, just a snapshot, but it will help you to recognize us at the train.’”

“H’m!” said Madame Whipple with a grim twinkle. “You must have good eyesight to read all that across the room.”

“I had to go over to pick up some papers that had blown down into the wastebasket when I opened the door. The window was open and it made a draft. I was afraid something Justine wanted to keep would be thrown way if I didn’t rescue them. You can believe that or not as you like, but it’s
true
. I may have a bad temper but I don’t pry into even my enemy’s private affairs.”

“Oh, I never said you did,” said Grandma twinkling. “But Amelia, did you want the best napkins used, or the second best?”

“Well, I suppose, since Justine’s been to so much trouble, you might use the best ones just for once.”

“Where are you going to seat her? Next to Dana, or opposite?”

“I’m sure I hadn’t thought,” said Dana’s mother looking more and more like a thundercloud.

“If you put her beside him he can’t see her quite so well as across. You might wait to see if she’s good looking,” teased Grandma.

Amelia cast her a withering glance and slammed out into the kitchen. It beat all how keen Grandma was! What one thought in one’s secret chamber, Grandma Whipple snatched out and shouted from the housetop. There really was not a flicker of an idea safe from her eagle clutch. Amelia’s big, not unhappy body quivered as from a chastisement as she jerked the potato pot over to one side where it could not boil so hard and turned almost too fast, and she felt all sore and hot around her eyes and throat as if she would like to put her head down and cry hard. Then Grandma’s voice crooned out.

“Amelia!”

Amelia dabbed her eyes hastily with the corner of her apron and put her head in at the door.

“Did you call, Mother?” Her voice had an annoyed tone.

“Yes,” said the old lady with alacrity. “I forgot to tell you there’s some flour on your face. Better wipe it off before the company comes. They might get an idea you’re worldly.”

Amelia shut the door sharply, but even through the heavy wood she thought she heard the old lady’s cracked cackle.

Amelia went to the window and leaned her hot forehead against the frame, letting the afternoon breeze fan her wet, tired eyes and brow. She cast a wistful glance up the road to the old gray house standing back from the street behind tall elm trees. Was that Lynette sitting on the porch, or her mother? Lynette never taunted like that. She always had a pleasant smile of greeting and never seemed to be trying to say mean things and get the better of people. Perhaps, after all, there might be a day coming when she would have a refuge, and smiles instead of hard words. She drew a deep sigh and turned back to her cooking, thinking for the thousandth time that she had never expected such a life when she left a good home and got married. What fools girls were to leave home! Here she was the slave of her mother-in-law and bound to take what was given her because had no other place to go! Would it always be this way? Would life never hold any of the bright dreams she had had when she was young? Would it be just this dull, heavy existence full of work, and no love or joy, on to the end and the grave?

Other people lived through their children. She had heard them say so. And she had always supposed that when Dana got old enough to earn a living she would go and live with him and they would have a servant and she would be a lady at last. But there was Lynette! Dana wouldn’t be hers! He would belong to Lynette. She could see that plain as day. In fact she had been seeing it for three or four years back, and hoping against hope that perhaps her son would have a little time for her before he got married. But now since he had come home this last time he had made her realize most forcefully that he had no such idea in mind.

She could see most plainly that he considered her an old woman, quite out of date, and not at all fit to be presented to a congregation as a permanent head of the minister’s home. Indeed he had spoken quite openly about the near approach of the time when he would be going away “for good,” and made suggestions to his grandmother about several fine old pieces of furniture that he would like to take with him, adding carelessly, “You and mother won’t need them when I am gone. The house is stuffed full to overflowing now.”

There had not been time for the hard-worked woman to stop to brood over this since it happened, for she had been rushed to death getting ready for Justine’s company, but it had stayed in her heart like a poisoned barb and festered. Now, as she leaned her hot forehead against the cool windowpane, she seemed to be pressing against the poisoned throb of it, and the string drove into her soul like a keen, hot instrument of torture.

Oh, of course Lynette was well enough, pretty and well connected, and sweet and pleasant to her. She had no complaint to make about the way she had always treated her, but one could see it was only for Dana’s sake. Of course she had no love for her. She was not her kind. And never would she consent to go and live in a home with Lynette, not with Lynette as housekeeper. That was not to be tolerated. If the children would consent to let her be housekeeper and they board with her something might work out, she doubted it. But they never would of course. Every girl wanted her own domain, and to be the boss of it. Well, she would
never
go to live with them, even if Dana got around to want it, which her heart told her he never would. Why, Lynette had been taught to wash dishes with two pans, one for washing and one for rinsing! Such folly! A perfect waste of time and material to say nothing of hot water. A great deal better to pile them in the sink after the washing and pour a little hot water over them. Lynette said her grandmother had taught her that the dishes did not get thoroughly rinsed unless they were entirely immersed in water. H’mph! The Whipple dishes were just as clean as anybody’s dishes, and as smooth and shiny. And she never used a rinsing pan. That was the difference between the Whipples and Brookes anyway; the Brookes thought they were too good for other folks. They thought she didn’t wash dishes clean. They thought she was
dirty
.