Miss Lulu Bett | Page 8

sun shining across the

threshold, Lulu was paring something at the kitchen table. Mrs. Bett
was asleep. ("I don't blame you a bit, mother," Lulu had said, as her
mother named the intention.) Ina was asleep. (But Ina always took off
the curse by calling it her "si-esta," long i.) Monona was playing with a
neighbour's child--you heard their shrill yet lovely laughter as they
obeyed the adult law that motion is pleasure. Di was not there.
A man came round the house and stood tying a puppy to the porch post.
A long shadow fell through the west doorway, the puppy whined.
"Oh," said this man. "I didn't mean to arrive at the back door, but since
I'm here--"
He lifted a suitcase to the porch, entered, and filled the kitchen.
"It's Ina, isn't it?" he said.
"I'm her sister," said Lulu, and understood that he was here at last.
"Well, I'm Bert's brother," said Ninian. "So I can come in, can't I?"
He did so, turned round like a dog before his chair and sat down
heavily, forcing his fingers through heavy, upspringing brown hair.
"Oh, yes," said Lulu. "I'll call Ina. She's asleep."
"Don't call her, then," said Ninian. "Let's you and I get acquainted."
He said it absently, hardly looking at her.
"I'll get the pup a drink if you can spare me a basin," he added.
Lulu brought the basin, and while he went to the dog she ran tiptoeing
to the dining-room china closet and brought a cut-glass tumbler, as
heavy, as ungainly as a stone crock. This she filled with milk.
"I thought maybe ..." said she, and offered it.
"Thank you!" said Ninian, and drained it. "Making pies, as I live," he

observed, and brought his chair nearer to the table. "I didn't know Ina
had a sister," he went on. "I remember now Bert said he had two of her
relatives----"
Lulu flushed and glanced at him pitifully.
"He has," she said. "It's my mother and me. But we do quite a good
deal of the work."
"I'll bet you do," said Ninian, and did not perceive that anything had
been violated. "What's your name?" he bethought.
She was in an immense and obscure excitement. Her manner was
serene, her hands as they went on with the peeling did not tremble; her
replies were given with sufficient quiet. But she told him her name as
one tells something of another and more remote creature. She felt as
one may feel in catastrophe--no sharp understanding but merely the
sense that the thing cannot possibly be happening.
"You folks expect me?" he went on.
"Oh, yes," she cried, almost with vehemence. "Why, we've looked for
you every day."
"'See," he said, "how long have they been married?"
Lulu flushed as she answered: "Fifteen years."
"And a year before that the first one died--and two years they were
married," he computed. "I never met that one. Then it's close to twenty
years since Bert and I have seen each other."
"How awful," Lulu said, and flushed again.
"Why?"
"To be that long away from your folks."
Suddenly she found herself facing this honestly, as if the immensity of

her present experience were clarifying her understanding: Would it be
so awful to be away from Bert and Monona and Di--yes, and Ina, for
twenty years?
"You think that?" he laughed. "A man don't know what he's like till he's
roamed around on his own." He liked the sound of it. "Roamed around
on his own," he repeated, and laughed again. "Course a woman don't
know that."
"Why don't she?" asked Lulu. She balanced a pie on her hand and
carved the crust. She was stupefied to hear her own question. "Why
don't she?"
"Maybe she does. Do you?"
"Yes," said Lulu.
"Good enough!" He applauded noiselessly, with fat hands. His diamond
ring sparkled, his even white teeth flashed. "I've had twenty years of
galloping about," he informed her, unable, after all, to transfer his
interests from himself to her.
"Where?" she asked, although she knew.
"South America. Central America. Mexico. Panama." He searched his
memory. "Colombo," he superadded.
"My!" said Lulu. She had probably never in her life had the least desire
to see any of these places. She did not want to see them now. But she
wanted passionately to meet her companion's mind.
"It's the life," he informed her.
"Must be," Lulu breathed. "I----" she tried, and gave it up.
"Where you been mostly?" he asked at last.
By this unprecedented interest in her doings she was thrown into a
passion of excitement.

"Here," she said. "I've always been here. Fifteen years with Ina. Before
that we lived in the country."
He listened sympathetically now, his head well on one side. He
watched her veined hands pinch