SHOPPING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
Early in their second week at Woodsedge it became evident that someone
would have to go to the city to do some very necessary shopping, and a
great gloom descended and enwrapped the Lawtons in consequence. The
ancient legend says that the prospect of a shopping expedition ever
fills the female soul with wild, unreasoning joy, which is a too general
and too positive prediction. But that is the trouble with most legends,
composed as they are of a little truth, much imagination, and more
sweeping assertion; and I have no doubt this last irritating quality has
caused the destruction of many a legend that was both beautiful and
poetic. Now, fable to the contrary notwithstanding, shopping is not an
unalloyed joy--always fatiguing--often a positive penance. It is
sometimes a pleasure, and on rare occasions it may become an absolute
delight, say, for instance, when a woman is young and pretty and has a
full purse. The knowledge of her own beauty and her ability to adorn it
will make the selecting, the choosing, the trying, the adapting, the
decision, the retraction, the fluttering, and the hesitating--all
delightful. Or when a woman who has herself passed the period of
coquettish dressing shops from a full purse for those she loves, whose
tastes and desires she knows perfectly, with what beaming eyes she will
hover over the best, the rarest, comparing, selecting without a thought
of price, only seeking beauty and quality--such shopping is unqualified
pleasure.
But the gates of this shopping Paradise were closed against the Lawtons,
and Sybil and Dorothy, like two made-over, rebound, cotton-backed little
Peris, stood and wept as they shook vainly at the bars. Mr. Lawton had
in all good faith offered to go to the city and do their errands for
them, but his services had been promptly declined, though with many
qualifying pats and strokes from Sybil and a violet boutonniere from
Dorothy, who had remarked, as she tied it with a blade of grass: "Poor
papa--he would come home with barely half the list filled."
"Worse than that," said Sybil. "Poor papa would have come home plucked
bare to his innocent old breast."
"Yes!" sighed Dorothy, "someone would surely swindle him out of part of
his money, if he went down by his tempting old self."
It was very difficult for the sisters to go out together, because of the
lack of appropriate clothing, yet neither one wished to have Mrs. Lawton
as a shopping companion. Not that they were lacking in affection for
their mother--far from it; but, truth to tell, she was a very silly old
person, who, like a certain royal house of France, never learned
anything and never forgot anything; and when she walked through the
shopping district with her girls, she invariably made them wish they
had never been born. She had such a dreadful habit of stopping before
some show window and remarking, in a high shrill voice: "Yes, that's
fairly good, but it's not to be compared with what I had when," etc.,
etc. Or she would sit at a counter, and, with eye-glasses on nose,
carefully examine forty-cent pairs of cotton stockings, describing
meantime to the clerk the exact style of silk stockings she used to wear
years before, closing the incident with a condescending: "You may give
me three pairs of these--though, to confess the truth, my foot has never
yet become accustomed to such coarse web." Small wonder the girls did
not care to shop with their mamma.
Therefore, they had spent an entire day making the preparations that
were necessary if they were to go to the city together. Dorothy had
pulled apart a black velvet bow from an old hat, steamed it free of
wrinkles, and had made a fairly decent belt, and hours had gone to the
minute stitching of her gloves; while Sybil's wrath had been aroused by
the necessity of inking her purplish boot heels.
"No other shoes but mine go like that," she grumbled. "One would suppose
my skirts had teeth to gnaw my heels," and at Dorothy's quick laughter
Sybil attacked her with her inky bit of cotton, and their wild struggle
so aroused Yellow Dick that he instantly assumed the horrid front of
war--quivering his drooping wings, extending his neck, with wee beak
open an eighth of an inch wide, and fierce crest rising and lowering
rapidly. He felt himself to be a terrifying object, and nothing short
of three fat hemp seeds, held to him between the lovely lips of Sybil
could induce him to accept peace.
"What a quick-tempered little wretch Dick has become of late," said
Dorothy.
"Oh, well--never mind his small tantrums, so long as he doesn't begin to
tell about what a splendid cage he used to have."
"He can't," laughed Dorothy, "for he was hatched as well as brought up
in this old cage--he doesn't know any other."
"Thank Heaven for that!" responded Sybil, who then ran to the window,
crying:
"There she goes, Dorrie!" and her sister understood at once that "she"
was that actress-neighbor of whom Sybil dreamed at night and talked by
day. For of late the girl's desire to go upon the stage had developed
into a passion. Ardent, romantic, and imaginative as she was, the
sweetness of a life of ease and pleasure would probably have smothered
the ambition that sharp necessity was now rapidly developing. For it is
the almost sterile soil of poverty that oftenest produces the
cactus-like plant of Ambition, whose splendid and dazzling flowers are,
alas, so often without perfume.
And now Dorothy had John Strange Winter and The Duchess quite to herself
evenings, while Sybil thumbed the family Shakspere--a dreadful edition
of the fifties, all aflaunt with gilt edges and gilt lettering on the
outside, and sprinkled through with most harrowing pictures and
libellous and defamatory portraits of Forrest, Cushman, and the
rest--for the steel engraver too "loveth a shining mark."
Looking once at a picture of the "Merry Wives of Windsor"--a blowsy,
frowsy, dreadfully decollete couple--Dorothy had deprecatingly
exclaimed: "Oh, Syb, dear! You won't ever have to look like that, will
you, if you become an actress?"
"Good heavens, no! Don't be such a goose, Dorrie! Can't you see these
are not actresses at all? They are just imaginary pictures of Mrs. Ford
and Mrs. Page, drawn by some stupid, coarse-minded man!"
And Dorrie, properly snubbed, went back to "Molly Bawn," and left Sybil
to rumple her hair and grow very red-cheeked over her study of
Juliet--for where is the stage-struck girl who begins with any lesser
character? Then, while they brushed their hair and plaited it a la
Chinoise for the night, Sybil laid before her sister some wildly
impossible plan for making the immediate acquaintance of Claire Morrell,
and Dorothy listened to her continual harping on that one string with a
gentle patience that was wonderful in one so young. But Dorrie had a
firm faith in God's promise to His people--His people being, in her
eyes, those who loved Him; and from that faith came the patience that
was her strength, and that often supported older members of the family
through trying hours.
All being in readiness, it did not take long for the girls to dress for
breakfast and for an early start cityward. So, carrying down their hats
and gloves and the sunshade they had borrowed over night from Mrs.
Lawton, they came laughing into the dining-room, to find that lady
trussed up in her street gown, instead of the usual breakfast jacket,
and heard her sharply announce: "I, too, am going to the city this
morning!"
"W--why, mamma!" faltered both girls, and then Dorothy turned her blue
eyes away, that the rising tears might not be seen.
"But--but I thought everything was all settled last night?" quavered
Sybil.
"I can't help last night!" snapped Mrs. Lawton. "This is to-day, and
I've got to go down town. Time was when I had not to account for every
movement to my own children--when my husband would have risen in his
place and forbidden such a humiliating action----"
Now to be just, one must admit that, though very garrulous, Letitia
Lawton was not an ill-tempered woman, and this unusual sharpness of tone
and word brought utter amazement into the eyes of her daughters. John
Lawton's slippered feet shifted uneasily beneath the table: "I'm afraid
your coffee will grow cold, my dear!" he murmured.
Sybil ventured to suggest that the shopping list, though long, was
simple enough for a child to manage successfully, and just then both
girls became aware of something unusual in their mother's appearance--of
a sort of toning down--a--a lessening of color--a--not a pallor exactly,
but a--why? As they turned troubled, bewildered eyes toward each other,
Lena, who always left them to wait upon themselves at breakfast, while
she played femme de chambre upstairs, came stumbling down, volubly
defending herself in advance from some unspoken charge and holding
something in her closed wet hand: "I no have done dot ting! no, I neffer
make mit dot ting! No, neffer! My Miss Ladies! Vunce--youst vunce--I
touch dot cork to de tongue--youst dot I see if it vas beet juice
alretty, und it vasn't--und I ain't broke nottings! No, my Herr
Mister--nottings!"
"In other days," groaned Mrs. Lawton, "this girl would only have known
my scullery!"
"Why, Lena," said Dorothy, "nothing has been broken--so, of course, you
cannot be blamed."
"Oh!" cried Lena, desperately, "der mistress's red-cheeks bottle is
broked, und I don't do it!"
"Lena!" ejaculated Mrs. Lawton, "leave the room!"
"I show first, den I leave der rooms!" said Lena, tearfully. "See you
here, my Miss Ladies," said she, opening her hand. "I find him in der
slops-jar--but, I don't neffer break der lady's cheeks-bottle--neffer!--
no!"
There, on the wet palm, lay the half of a tiny bottle, whose contents
had been red, and on its front still clung the legend "Rouge-Vinaigre."
The girls' eyes sank, their faces flushed red all over. This explained
the unusual paleness of their mother, the sudden necessity for visiting
the city, and the spoiling of their day. A painful silence, broken only
by Lena's snuffle, held them for a moment; then Mr. Lawton spoke, almost
sternly: "You may go, Lena--I know all about who broke the toilet
bottle. Give me my coffee, Letitia."
And then Sybil gave unconscious proof of an ability to act. For,
conquering her shamed surprise at learning that her mother painted, she
raised calm eyes, and said, in a perfectly matter-of-course way: "Oh,
mamma, it's a shame not to feel more sorry for your accident, but I was
always a selfish little wretch, and I know right where that lovely store
is where all the imported toilet articles are on sale--and oh, dear
mamma! if you will only trust me to get your 'vinaigre de toilette' I
shall have a chance of seeing all those exquisite shell ornaments, and
the Rhinestone hair-pins, and the newest models for hair dressing.
Indeed, Dorrie and I might pick up some very useful ideas there."
Mrs. Lawton hesitated. Sybil's manner of accepting the mortifying
discovery as a mere matter of course was certainly comforting, but she
"did not think it proper," she said, "for young girls to go into a store
and buy r--r--that is, vinaigre de toilette."
"But," urged Sybil, who knew her mother, enjoying perfect health, dearly
loved to be treated as an invalid, "the day is going to be a warm one,
and the first heat is very trying to one inclined to be delicate."
Mrs. Lawton sighed, and unconsciously drooped a little. Sybil continued:
"And bonnet and gloves and corset and walking-boots and all the harness
a well-dressed woman has to carry are so fatiguing. And the car-ride
after the shopping--you will be used up, mamma!"
And in a burst of self-pity mamma concluded she would best serve the
family by conserving her own poor strength. And Dorrie, meantime, under
cover of following the flight of an oriole past the window, had dried
the shamed tears from her eyes, and her father, cup in hand, discoursing
upon the superiority of the Baltimore over the orchard oriole, had
screened her from the other two, and had left a pitying kiss on the
crown of her bonnie head. And so at last they started for what Sybil
called their day of "ninety-nine-and-a-half-cent" shopping.