Blue Ruin (2 page)

There was nothing left to be done to the lunch basket except to tuck in a bottle of olives and the salt and pepper. Lynette had not forgotten anything. She folded the waxed paper over the whole and smoothly covered it with an old piece of tablecloth she kept for such occasions, which could be turned into a towel after the picnic when they went down to the brook to wash their hands. Then as if to make up for her sad thoughts of a few minutes before, she slipped out of the back door and, stooping, picked a few stalks of cool, waxen lilies of the valley from the lush green leaves that grew by the old doorstep. Coming in quickly with a Madonna look upon her face she tucked them down against the snowy cloth, half hidden by a sheathing leaf. Her child must not go forth today without her blessing even though her soul shrank back with premonitions. Lynette would understand. She always had understood.

She watched the two as they went forth happily carrying the basket between them, Lynette insisting upon talking her share, their hands together on the willow handle, her face looking up laughing, all the dimples playing shyly, a sparkle in her eyes; his eyes smiling down. Did he see how lovely Lynette was? Yes, he seemed to. There was deep admiration, almost reverence—
almost
reverence in his eyes. Why was it she was possessed to put that
almost
in? Was it just that a mother could never be quite satisfied—satisfied for such a girl as Lynette at least? And what more could she desire? How utterly silly and foolish of her!

“What’s become of Dana’s fine new car they’ve talked so much about?” It was the fragile little grandmother’s spritely voice, as the old lady stood just behind her daughter looking out after the two.

Mrs. Brooke turned with a start.

“Why, Mother, are you here? I thought you were still asleep!”

“You wouldn’t expect me to stay asleep on Lynnie’s birthday, would you?” she asked playfully.

“Oh,” said the daughter self-reproachfully, “she wanted to come in and kiss you good-morning, but I wouldn’t let her. I told her you had sat up so late last night waiting for her to arrive, that you ought to sleep. I’m sorry I didn’t let her come anyway.”

“That’s all right,” said the little old lady with a cheery smile. “I’ll see her when she gets back. Why didn’t Dana take his grand new car? I’ve been trembling all the week thinking Lynnie had to go out in it with him driving. He ought to get used to it before he takes her out. She’s too precious. I hate those automobiles anyway. The papers are just full of accidents. I believe they’re a device of the devil.”

Her daughter smiled.

“Oh, Mother, you and I will have to get used to the modern things. You know our fathers felt just that way about riding on the steam cars.”

“That was different,” said the old lady with dignity. “But why didn’t Dana take it? Seems as if he ought to when he had it.”

“Why, I heard him say something about its being at the garage being fixed some way, or washed or something. They’re having company down at Whipples’ this afternoon, and oh, yes, that was it, he said his aunt wanted it washed before they came. He did suggest that he and Lynnie wait till it came home about ten o’clock, but Lynnie said she would rather walk this time; it would be more like old times.”

The old lady smiled a quivering smile.

“Old times!” she said half jocosely. “They’re gone!” Then in a change of tone, “But of course, if Aunt Justine wanted the car washed it had to be washed even if it was Lynnie’s birthday and she just home from college! It’ll always be that way. So many to please! That’s what I don’t like about it. But I’m glad they didn’t go in the car. I won’t have to worry about that anyway.”

“No, Mother, let’s not worry about anything!” said the daughter with a wistful smile. “Let’s just be glad. Lynnie’s home! Come, sit down and eat your breakfast now, I’ll bring it right in. There are some of those little honey peaches you like so much, and the coffee is on the back of the stove nice and hot.”

She bustled about, glad to have something to do just now to keep the feeling of tears out of her throat, unaccountable, glad tears that choked her while she could not explain them.

There were eager rushing steps outside, and Elim Brooke burst into the kitchen, a fishing pole in his hand.

“Muth, where’s Lynn? Isn’t she up yet?”

“Yes, up and gone. She and Dana went off on a hike, Elim. What became of you, son? We tried to wait breakfast, but Dana telephoned and Lynnie had to hurry.”

“Shucks!” said the boy, the light of eagerness suddenly going out of his eyes. “That Dana makes me tired! What does
he
always have to be around for? I was going to take Lynn out fishing. I been down to the store to get a new line. The old one broke. I got Lynn’s line all fixed up, too. Gee! I didn’t think she’d go off like that! The first day!
Gee
! Now I s’pose it’ll always be like that, won’t it? A fella can’t have his own sister, ever fer a day. Not even fer her birthday! Gee, I’d like to wring his neck!”

“Why son! That’s terrible language! I thought you liked Dana.”

“Oh, I useta! Before he went off and got ta high-hatting! He makes me tired! Met me down by the garage last night, and when I yelled at him he turned around with that weary air he puts on sometimes and gave me the once over before he spoke, and then he said, just as if I was a toad in the mud he hadn’t noticed before, ‘H’warya, Brooke,’ as cool as an icicle. Aw, he’s a pain in the neck! I don’t see what Lynn sees in him! Did he take her in the car?”

“No, they wanted to walk,” said the mother, feeling a sudden necessity of defending Dana. “Lynn thought it would be nice. The car is down at the garage being washed, and they would have had to wait for it.”

“Wait! What for? Why’n’t Dana get up early and wash it himself? I ask you, why did he hafta
send
it to the garage to be
washed?
They gotta hose downta Whipples’. He oughtta wash his own car himself. He hasn’t got too lily-fingered for that, has he? Isn’t it respectable for a preacher to wash his own car? I’ll bet Dana
suggested
they walk. I’d be willing to bet my last cent on that and win!”

“Why, Elim! You distress me!” said his mother anxiously. “You don’t sound like yourself. You shouldn’t be so hard on people. You must remember that Dana is growing up. It isn’t in the least likely he realized he was speaking that way to you. He has always been very fond of you. You know how he used to play ball with you when you were a little fellow.”

“Aw, bah, that was nothing! He wanted to keep in practice during vacation that was all! I don’t see why Lynn wanted to go off with him the first day anyway. When I gave up the tournament just to take her off fishing and show her the new swimming hole, and a lot of things. I thought it was her birthday and I oughtta kinda make her have a good time.”

The boy’s face was all aquiver with disappointment and anger.

“Well, there, son, that’s too bad, and if Lynnie had dreamed you had any such plan she’d have fixed it, I know. She’d have asked you to go with them—or—”

“Go
with
’em! You suppose I’d go
with
’em! Not on yer life! I don’t care fer kid-glove expeditions. Fat chance I’d have fer a good time with that Dana Whipple along! Last time I went along with those two all he did was
read poetry
! Never again fer mine! Got any cake? I’ll go get Pard Wilkins. You tell Lynn I’m off her fer life!” And he dove into the pantry and came out with his hands and his mouth full of gingerbread and disappeared out the back door across the lot toward Pard Wilkins’ house.

His mother looked up to see her mother standing in the kitchen door with pitiful eyes.

“It’s too bad,” she said, looking suddenly frail and tired. “It’s hard to grow up. If they only didn’t have to get separated!”

“Yes,” sighed the mother, “it’s hard to see it. They were always so close to each other—I wonder—” But she did not say what she wondered.

Chapter 2

T
here were other eyes watching the two as they started out for their holiday.

Down at the Whipple house with its wide east window looking toward the mountains, sat old Mrs. Whipple, Dana’s grandmother, in her padded chair with her crutch by her side, her sharp little black eyes losing nothing that went on up the road. She had been cripple for three or four years, the result of a broken hip and rheumatism, but she was nonetheless the head of the house which she owned and bossed as much as when she was on her feet and about.

In the background, behind the old lady’s chair, watching furtively while she dried a handful of silver hot from its rinsing bath after being rubbed in silver suds, stood Amelia Whipple, Dana’s mother. There was a belligerent pride in her heavy, handsome face as she watched her boy swing along by the girl’s side, grace in every line of his body, every movement he made. They were a handsome couple, nobody could deny that, Amelia told herself. Back in her heart was a latent grudge against Lynette’s mother and aristocratic old grandmother, with her cameo face framed in fine old laces and her soft old-fashioned gray silk gowns. She was almost sure that they looked down just the least bit on Dana.
Dana
who had gone to the most expensive schools and the finest college in the country, while Lynette had had to be content with a little inconspicuous denominational institution in an out-of-the-way place presumably because they couldn’t afford to send her to a larger college. Lynette who lived in a house that had long needed paint! Oh—Amelia
liked
Lynette well enough, knew she was good looking and sweet and even stylish in her way, though she hadn’t bobbed her hair when everybody else did—but perhaps it was just as well for a minister’s wife to be conservative, and of course everybody said that bobbing was going to go out pretty soon. But then, land sakes alive, Lynette’s folks had no call to look down on her
Dana
! She watched them swing away into the blue of the day with a growing flush of pride while she wiped and wiped over and over again an old Whipple fork that had been in the family for a century or more.

But it was Justine Whipple in a prim, high-necked sweeping apron and cap, her hair in old-fashioned crimpers beneath, who stood in the foreground by Grandmother Whipple’s armchair, feather duster in hand, and regarded the revelers with open disapproval. The excursion was to her a personal offense.

Miss Whipple was called “Aunt Justine” by courtesy, but she was really only a cousin distantly removed, being the daughter of a cousin of old Grandfather Whipple. Grandmother Whipple had taken pity on her and given her a home when she was left alone in the world at the age of thirty-five, with only a mere pittance upon which to live. She had accepted the home as her natural right and referred to the pittance as “my property,” but she had been a fixture now so long in the family that no one realized that she had not been born into it. Old Madame Whipple goaded her with sarcasm and scornful smiles, but bore with her from a grim sense of duty. The rest of the family tolerated her and quarreled with her, but she maintained her own calm attitude of superiority and continued to try to set them all right.

Aunt Justine was the first one to speak.

“It seems a pity that those two can’t grow up! I should think Lynette would have a little sense by this time, if that was any kind of college at all that she went to. To think that she would take a whole perfectly good day right out of the week to go off like a child on a picnic! Her first day home, too! Of course Dana felt he had to do what she asked him. She leads him around by the nose. I should think Dana would rebel, now he’s grown up and finished his education. It’s time he was warned that that is no way to manage women, letting them have their own way in everything! I told him this morning that there was no earthly reason why he should not tell her that it wasn’t convenient for him to go today. They could have put it off until another time just as well as not, and when I’m having guests come and there is so much extra to be done. But no! He didn’t think he could tell her to change it. He didn’t think it would be gallant, he said. Well, I say gallantry begins at home. I declare that girl just flings herself at Dana’s head, and I should think it would disgust him. Why don’t you speak to him, Amelia, and open his eyes? It’s your place as his mother to help him to understand women.”

Justine turned her cold gray eyes on her cousin-in-law and looked at her reprovingly from under the long, straight black fringes of her blunt eyelashes that were so straight and blunt they seemed to have been cut off with the scissors and a ruler.

“Well, I should say it wasn’t your place, at least, Justine!” replied Amelia witheringly. “Dana has a mind of his own, and I’m sure he has more education than all of us put together. Besides, you’re talking in a very strange way about the girl he is engaged to. Why shouldn’t he want to do what she wants, I should like to know?”

“Oh! So they’re engaged, are they? That’s the first time you ever admitted that! You’ve always said it was only a boy and girl friendship. I thought you’d find out someday to your bitter sorrow! So he’s confided in you at last has he? Well, I’m glad we know where we stand, at least.”

“Really!” said Amelia, flashing angry by this time. “No, he hasn’t confided in me! But I’ve got eyes in my head if you haven’t. But what business is it of yours I should like to know? What difference does it make where you stand? You’re standing right here in Mother Whipple’s kitchen, where you’ve been standing for the last fifteen years if I haven’t missed count, and it doesn’t behoove you to stick your nose into the business of any other members of the family that I see. I didn’t know you had any doubts about where you’ve stood, all these years, or I’d have tried to enlighten you. Besides, I don’t quite understand what you mean by bitter sorrow. You didn’t suppose I had any objection to Lynette Brooke did you? I’d have made it manifest long ago if I had. There isn’t a finer family in this country than the Brookes, and as for the Rutherfords, they belong to the cream of the land! Old Mrs. Rutherford was one of the first members of the DAR in this state, and I’ve heard say that her husband owned—”