Just Around the Corner: Romance en casserole
yesterday we were going down to work together! She always liked to walk
next to the curb, 'cause she said that's where the oldest ought to
walk."
"'In the midst of life we are in death,'" said Mr. Lux. The wind
stiffened and blew more sharply still. "Lemme raise that window, little
missy. It's gettin' real Novembery--and you in that thin jacket and all.
Hadn't we better stop off and get you a cup of coffee?"
"When I get home I'll fix it," she said. "When--I--get--home." She
lowered her faintly purple lids and shivered.
"Poor little missy!"
Toward the close of their long drive a heavy dusk came early and shut
out the dim afternoon; the lights of the city began to show whimsically
through the haze.
"We're almost--home," she said.
"Almost; and if you don't mind I ain't going to leave you all alone up
there. I'll go up with you and kinda stay a few minutes till--till the
newness wears off. I know what them returns home mean. I'd kinda like to
stay with you awhile, if you'll let me, Miss Prokes."
"Oh, Mr. Lux, you're so kind and all; but some of the girls from the
store'll be over this evening--and Mame and George."
"I'll just come up a minute, then," said Mr. Lux, "and see if the boys
got all the things out of the flat. Only last week they forgot and left
a ebony coffin-stand at a place."
The din of the city closed in about them: the streets, already lashed
dry by the wind, spread like a maze as they rolled off the bridge; then
the halting and the jerking, the dodging of streetcars, and finally her
own apartment building.
Mr. Lux unlocked the door and held her arm gently as they entered. The
sweet, damp smell of carnations came out to meet them, and Tillie swayed
a bit as she stood.
"Oh!--oh!--oh!"
"Easy there, little one. It'll be all right. It's pretty bleak at first,
but it'll come round all right." He groped for a match and lit the gas.
"There--you set a bit and take it easy."
A little blue-glass vase with three fresh white carnations decorated the
center of the small table.
"See!" said Mr. Lux, bent on diverting. "Ain't they pretty? A gentleman
friend, I guess, sent them to cheer you up--not? My! ain't they pretty,
though?"
"Just think--Mame doin' all that for me! Straightening up and going out
and getting me them flowers before she went to work! And--and Angie not
here!"
"Little missy, you need to drink somethin' hot. Ain't there some coffee
round, or somethin'?"
"Yes," she said; "but I--I got to get used to bein' here--bein' here
without Angie--oh!"
"Come now--the carriage is downstairs yet, and there's a little
bakeshop, with a table in the back, over on Twentieth Street. If you'll
let me take you over there it'll fix you up fine, and then I'll bring
you back; and by that time your friends'll be here, and it won't be so
lonesome-like."
She rose to her feet.
"I wanna go," she said. "I don't wanna stay here."
"That's the way to talk!" he said, smiling and showing a flash of
strong, even teeth. "We'll fix you up all right!"
She looked up at him and half smiled.
"You're so nice to me and all," she said.
He felt of her coat-sleeve between his thumb and forefinger.
"Ain't you got somethin' warmer? It's gettin' cold, and you'll need it."
"Yes; but not--not mournin'."
"It's the crape of the heart that counts," he repeated.
"All right," she said, like a child. "I'll wear my heavier one." And she
walked half fearfully into the little room adjoining.
When she returned her face was freshly powdered and the pink rims about
her eyes fainter. Her tan jacket was buttoned snugly about her. She
stood for a moment under the bracket of light and smiled gratefully at
him.
"I'm ready."
Mr. Lux stepped toward her and hooked his arm, like a cotillion leader
asking a debutante into the dinner-hall; then stopped, took another
step, and paused again. A quick wave of red swept over his face.
"Why!" he began; "why! Well!"
She looked down at her skirt with a woman's quick consciousness of self.
"I told you," she said, with her words falling one over the other; "I
told you it wasn't mournin'! I--I--"
She followed his gaze to her coat-lapel and to the magenta bow. A hot
pink flowed under her skin.
"Oh!" she cried. "Ain't I the limit? That--that bow was on, and I
forgot--me wearin' a red bow on poor Angie's funeral day! Me--oh--"
Her fingers fumbled at the bow, and smarting tears stung her eyes. But
Mr. Lux stepped to the blue-glass vase on the table, snapped a white
carnation at the neck, and stuck it in his left coat-lapel; then he tore
off a bit of fern and added it as a lacy background. His deep-set eyes
were as mellow as sunlight.
"Hello!" he whispered, extending both hands and smiling at her until all
his teeth showed. "Hello!"
"Hello!" she said, like one in a dream.
THE SQUALL
Lilly raised the gas-flame beneath the coffee-pot and poked with a large
three-pronged fork at the snapping chops in the skillet. The spark-spark
of frying and the purl of boiling water grew madder and merrier, and a
haze of blue smoke and steam rose from the little stove.
"I don't see why you can't stay for supper, Loo."
Miss Lulu Tracy opened her arms wide--like Juliet greeting the lark--and
yawned.
"What's the use stickin' round?" she said, in gapey tones. "What's the
use stickin' round where I ain't wanted? Charley ain't got no use for
me, and you know it. I'll go over to the room and wait for you."
"Well, I like that! I guess I can have who I want in my own flat; he
isn't bossin' me round--let me tell you that much." But she did not urge
further.
"Oh, my feelin's ain't hurt, Lil. I jest dropped in on my way home from
the store to see how things was comin' with you."
Lilly banged the little oven door shut with the toe of her shoe and,
holding her brown-checked apron against her hand for protection, drained
hot water from off a pan of jacketed potatoes--a billow of steam mounted
to the ceiling, enveloping her.
"I've made up my mind, Loo. There's a whole lot of sense in what you've
been saying--an' I'm going to do it."
"Now remember, Lil, I ain't buttin' in--I ain't the kind that butts into
other people's business; but, when you come down to the store the other
day and I seen how blue you was I got to talkin' before I meant to.
That's the way with me when I get to feelin' sorry for anybody; I ain't
always understood."
"You're just right in everything you said. It ain't like I was a girl
that wasn't used to anything. If I do say so myself, there never was a
more popular girl in the gloves than I was--you know what refined and
genteel friends I had, Loo."
"That's what I always say--some girls could put up with this all right;
but a person that had the swell time an' friends you did--to marry an'
have to settle down like this--it just don't seem right. I always said,
the whole time we was chumming together, you was cut out for a society
life if ever a girl was. Of course, I ain't saying nothing against
Charley, but no fellow can expect a girl like you to stick to this."
Miss Tracy fanned herself with a folded newspaper; her large,
even-featured face glistened with tiny globules of perspiration; her
blond hair had lost some of its crimp.
"Nobody can say I haven't done my duty by Charley, Loo. If ever a girl
had a slow time it's been me; but I have been holdin' off, hoping he
might get into something else. He ain't never wanted to stick himself;
but it just seems like poundin' ragtime is all he's cut out for."
"A girl's gotta have life--that's what I always say. Just because you're
married ain't no sign you're an old woman; but I don't want to poke into
your business. If you make up your mind just you come over tonight after
he leaves, and you can bunk with me in the old room, just like we used
to. Lordy! wasn't them good old times?"
"Don't be surprised to see me, Loo. I ain't never let on to Charley, but
it's been in my head a long time. I'd a whole lot rather be back in the
department again than watchin' these four walls--I would."
"It's a darn shame! Why, I'd go clean daffy, Lil, if I had to stick
round the way you do. What's the use o' bein' married, I'd like to
know!"
"It won't be so easy to get back in the department, I'm afraid."
"Easy? Why, you can get your old job back like that!" Miss Tracy snapped
her fingers with gusto. "It was only yesterday that an ancient dame with
a glass eye bought a pair of chamois and asked for you--and Skinny heard
her, too. He knows you had a good, genteel trade--and watch him grab you
back! You ain't no dead one if you have been buried nearly two years."
"Ain't it so, Loo? Here I have been married going on two years! I ain't
never let on even to you what I've been through. Charley's all right,
but--"
"Yes, but I could tell. You can ask any of the girls down at the store
if I wasn't always sayin' it was a shame for a girl with your looks to
'a' throwed herself away."
Lilly dabbed and swabbed at the inside of a stew-pan; the irises of her
eyes were unnaturally large--a wisp of hair, dry and electric, drifted
across her face. She blew at it, pursing out her lower lip.
"I've been a fool!" she said.
"There's Maisie--been married just as long as you; and honest, Lil, I
ain't been to a dance that I ain't seen her and Buck. Of course, Buck
has got his faults, but when he's sober there ain't nothin' he won't do
to give Maisie a swell time."
Lilly bristled. "One thing I will say for Charley--I believe in givin'
everybody his dues--Charley's never laid a hand on me; and that's more'n
Maisie Cloot can say!" She finished with some asperity.
"I guess there ain't none of them perfect when it comes right down to
it--ain't it so? I seen Maisie the week after she had that bad eye, and
I never see a sweller seal-ring than she was wearin'. Buck's rough, but
he tries to make up for it--not that I got anything against Charley."
Miss Tracy took a few steps that were suggestive of departure.
"I always say, Lil, it ain't so much the feller as how he treats you. It
ain't none of my put-in, but I'd like to see the man that could make me
sit at home alone seven nights in the week--that's what I would!"
"Well, if you gotta go, Loo, you gotta go. I'm so excited-like I kind o'
hate to have you leave."
"There's nothin' to get excited about. It's just like you say: you've
been thinkin', and now you've made up your mind. Now all you got to do
is act--you got the note written, ain't you?"
Lilly took a small square of yellow paper from her blouse and passed it
to her friend.
"Are you sure it reads all right, Loo?"
Miss Tracy read carefully:
DEAR CHARLIE,--You do not need to come after me,
as I am not coming back. I could not stand it--no girl could.
Yours truly,
LIL.
"Yes; that's great. So long as you ain't sore at him for no other
reason, there ain't no use kickin' up. That just shows him where he
stands. There ain't no use fightin'--just quit!"
Lilly slipped the bit of paper back into her blouse.
"I'll see you later," she said, with new determination.
"Now don't let me influence you. Make up your mind and do what you
think is best. Then don't be a quitter--when I start a thing I always
see it through. Give me a girl with backbone every time. I glory in your
spunk!"
"Oh, I got the spunk, all right, Loo." They linked arms and went through
the little bedroom into the parlor. At the door Miss Tracy lingered.
"Your flat's got the room beat by a long shot; but I always say it don't
make no difference whether you live in a palace or a cottage, just so
you're happy. Gimme one room and what I want, and you can have all your