Blue Ruin (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill
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. NoI 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