Just Around the Corner Part 69

They buried Angie on a modest hillside, where the early sun could warm her and where the first spring anemones might find timid place. The soggy, new-turned earth filled up her grave with m.u.f.fled thumps that fell dully on Tillie's heart and tortured her nerve-ends.

"Oh! oh! oh!" Her near-the-surface tears fell afresh; and when the little bed was completed, and the pillow of peace placed at its head, she was weak and tremble-lipped, like a child who has cried itself into exhaustion.

"Ah, little missy!" said Mr. Lux, breathing outward and pa.s.sing his hand over his side-swept hair. "Life is lonely, ain't it? Lonely--lonely!"

"Y-yes," she said.

The rain had ceased, but a cold wind flapped Tillie's skirts and wrapped them about her limbs. They were silhouetted on their little hilltop against the slate-colored sky, and all about them were the marble monoliths and the Rocks of Ages of the dead.

"Goodbye, Angie!" she said, through her tears. "Goodbye, Angie!" And they went down the hillside, with the wind tugging at their hats, into their waiting carriage, and back as they had come, except that the hea.r.s.e rolled swifter and lighter and the raindrops had dried on the gla.s.s.

"Oh-ah!" said Mr. Lux, breathing outward again and blinking his deep-set eyes. "Life is lonely--lonely, ain't it?--for those like you and me?"

"Lonely," she repeated.

He patted her little black handbag, that lay on the seat beside her, timidly, like a man touching a snapping-turtle.

"You poor, lonely little missy--and, if you don't mind my saying it, so pretty and all."

"My nose is red!" she said, dabbing at it with her handkerchief and observing herself in the strip of mirror.

"Like I care! I've seen a good many funerals in my day--and give me a healthy red-nose cry every time! I've had dry funerals and wet ones; and of the two it's the wet ones that go off easiest. Gimme a wet funeral, and I'll run it off on schedule time, and have the horses back in the stable to the minute! It's at the dry funerals that the wimmin go off in swoons and hold up things in every other drug store. I'm the last one to complain of a red nose, little missy."

"Oh," she said, catching her breath on the end of a sob, "I know I'm a sight! Poor Angie--she used to say a lot of women get credit for bein'

tender-hearted when their red noses wasn't from cryin' at all, but from a small size and tight-lacin'. Poor Angie--to think that only day before 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-gla.s.s 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 c.r.a.pe 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 b.u.t.toned 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.