Star-Dust Part 20

"But I'm not going."

"Why?"

"I--don't know. Too hot, I guess."

He looked at her rather intently.

"That's right, Lilly," he said, his eyes, with something new in them, roving over her figure; "if you don't feel up to the mark, just you take care of yourself. Jove!" he repeated. "Jove!" kissed her again, and went down the front steps, whistling.

CHAPTER XII

At eleven o'clock Mrs. Becker, hatted, crossed the sun-bleached street, carrying outheld something that wetted through the snowy napkin that covered it. At the door she surrendered it to Lena.

"Put this in the ice box for Mr. Albert's supper. It's some of my coldslaw he's so fond of, and a pound of sweet b.u.t.ter, I took from my dairyman. See that Miss Lilly never uses it for cooking, Lena; the salt b.u.t.ter I brought yesterday is for that."

"Yes'm."

"And, Lena," drawing a palm across the banister and showing it up, "look. That isn't nice. In my house I go over every piece of woodwork from top to bottom on my hands and knees. You mustn't wait for Miss Lilly to tell you everything. Where is she?"

"Upstairs, ma'am."

She ascended to a jeremiad of the cardinal laws of housekeeping, palm still suspicious. Her daughter rose out of a low mound beside the window.

"Good morning, mamma."

"Lilly, you should help upstairs wash days with the housework. Eight o'clock and my house is spick span, even my cellar steps wiped down.

Take off that pink thing and I'll help you make the bed. It was all right to wear it around the first week for your husband, but now one of your cotton crepes will do. Come, help turn the mattress."

"Oh, mamma, Lena will make the bed."

"Who ever heard of not doing your upstairs work on wash day? Really, Lilly, I was ignorant as a bride, too, but I wasn't lazy. I wouldn't give a row of pins for--"

"Please, mamma--don't begin."

"Well, it's your house. If it suits your husband, it suits me."

"Well, it does suit him."

"Not if I judge him right. Albert likes order. I went over his socks the other day, and he kept them matched up as a bachelor just like a woman would. He's methodical."

"Don't lift that heavy mattress alone, mamma. Here, if you insist upon doing it, I'll help."

They dressed the bed to its snowy perfection, a Honiton counterpane over pink falling almost to the floor.

"Well, that's more like it." Her face quickly moist from exertion, Mrs.

Becker regarded her daughter across the completed task.

"Now for the carpet sweeper."

Lilly returned to her chair, lying back to fan her face with a lacy fribble of pocket handkerchief. "You can wear yourself out if you insist, mamma, but I can't see any reason for it. I'm--tired."

Mrs. Becker sat down, hitching her chair toward her daughter's.

"Lilly," she paid, eagerly forward and a highly specialized significance in her voice, "don't you feel well--baby?"

"Of course I feel well, mamma. As well as anyone can feel in this heat.

If only you wouldn't hara.s.s me about this--old house."

Mrs. Becker withdrew, her entire manner lifting with her shoulders.

"Well, if that's the way you feel about it, you need not be afraid that I'm going to interfere. That's one thing I made up my mind to from the start, never to be a professional mother-in-law in my daughter's home.

The idea!"

"Mamma, I didn't mean it that way, and you know it. I realize that you mean well. But I suppose many a family skeleton rattles its bones to the tune of 'they meant well.'"

"Lilly, you're not yourself. I'm sure you don't feel well. Baby, you mustn't be bashful with your own mother."

"Please, please don't ask me that again in--in that voice. You know I always feel well."

"We're both married women now, Lilly. If--if there's anything you want to say--"

"No."

"I always say, a single woman doesn't know she's on earth. Isn't it so, Lilly?"

Suddenly Lilly shot her hand out to her mother's arm, her fingers digging into the flesh.

"You should have told me something--beforehand!"

"I'd have cut out my tongue sooner. What kind of a mother do you think I am? Shame!"

"It's wicked to rear a girl with no conception of life."

"You're no greener than I was. That's what a man wants in the girl he marries. Innocence."

"Ignorance."

"It all comes naturally to a woman after she's married, life does."

"I--I hate life."

"Lilly!"

"I do! I do! I do!"

"You poor child!" said Mrs. Becker, stroking her hand, and her voice pitched to a very private key. "Life is life and what are you going to do about it?"