education," said Mrs. Leigh. "One never heard such talk when I was
young. Then we had plenty of servants, and there was always some man
to attend to business. After the war I asked our old Malinda one day
how she liked freedom. 'Well, Miss Sally,' she said, 'I likes it, and
I don't like it. I tell you what, Miss Sally, freedom's monstrous
industrious.' That is what I think about these times,--'they's
monstrous industrious.' Goodness, I have gone and told a story!"
"I shall have to take you home before you transgress again," said her
niece, rising.
"Don't go. We haven't decided what we must do," urged Miss Virginia.
"What do you think, Mrs. Millard?" asked Madelaine, with an upward
glance, and flattering emphasis.
Mrs. Millard caressed the hand that lay on her lap as she replied, "My
own feeling is that we should refuse our patronage--not that they are
likely to have anything we'd care to buy--and use our influence
against it."
"Well, I for one shan't make any promises; if I need a spool of thread
and can save a walk, I shall go over there to get it," Miss Sarah
announced positively.
"You might add that your patronage is not likely of itself to save the
shop from bankruptcy," put in her nephew.
Everybody seemed to be going. Charlotte tucked her history under her
arm and ran upstairs. As she went to the window to draw the curtain a
bright light shone from the shop across the street.
"I wonder if you'll be sorry you came here?" said Charlotte to
herself.
CHAPTER SEVENTH
A SPOOL OF TWIST
The shop windows on the opening day proved most alluring to Miss
Virginia. There were two,--one overlooking the square of lawn on the
Terrace, the other, Pleasant Street. Between them, placed across the
corner, was the door.
The Terrace window was full of plants, while on the Pleasant Street
side there was a tempting display of color. Miss Virginia hunted up
her distance glasses, which she seldom used, in order the better to
view it; but she failed to make out anything in particular. Her ardor
might have suggested an archæologist over a cuneiform inscription, as
she tried to decide whether a certain patch of blue and white was a
pillow or a table-cover.
Charlotte openly stopped to view the window on her way home from
school, and Miss Virginia, observing it, privately questioned her.
[Illustration: SECURELY ENTRENCHED BEHIND THE LACE CURTAIN SHE
LEVELLED HER GLASS]
"You ought to go over and look in, Aunt Virginia," she said. "There
are the prettiest baskets you ever saw."
Miss Virginia adored baskets.
"And there is the dearest sofa pillow."
She had decided on a pillow for Caroline's birthday.
"And, Aunt Virginia, there are the cunningest little collars with
cuffs to match," Charlotte continued with mischievous eyes.
Miss Virginia grew impatient. It was out of all reason that such
desirable things should be brought almost to her door and yet be
beyond her reach.
"It wouldn't be giving them much encouragement just to look in the
window," observed Charlotte. "I'll tell you," she cried the next
minute, "opera glasses!"
"My _dear_, look at my neighbors through an opera glass?"
"But they _want_ to be looked at," insisted Charlotte, with
unanswerable logic.
Miss Virginia allowed herself to be persuaded, and, securely
entrenched behind the lace curtain, she levelled her glass. As is ever
the case with one who dallies with temptation, the result was an
increased desire to have that pillow in her hands.
Standing absorbed in contemplation, she suddenly, without intending
it, turned her gaze upon one of the upper windows; and as she did so
the muslin draperies parted and a pair of merry eyes belonging to a
pretty face looked straight into hers.
"I beg your pardon," cried Miss Virginia, dropping her glass and
sinking into a chair, "I shall be ashamed of this to my dying day,"
she groaned, while Charlotte went off into fits of laughter.
It was some time before she could be brought to realize she had not
been seen. "Not that that makes it much better," she added contritely.
"And, Charlotte, don't mention it to your Aunt Caroline. I think my
ideas of propriety are as strict as hers, but I do not succeed so well
in living up to them. I fear I am, as she says, childish."
"I shall not say anything about it, and I am sure I think you are very
nice, Aunt Virginia," answered Charlotte, still laughing.
The suspicion that Charlotte liked her better than she did Caroline
was a secret pleasure to Miss Virginia, and she flushed prettily as
she said, "Thank you, dear; I am far from what I should be."
Charlotte went to take her music lesson; Mrs. Millard was attending a
club meeting; the house was very quiet as Miss Virginia sat down to
her embroidery. While she worked, the face so vividly imprinted on her
memory in that moment's view continued to rise before her. She began
to feel something like sympathy for its owner. She had not supposed it
would be such an attractive shop. What possible harm could there be in
going over just to look? She might even go in and explain to the
proprietor that she had made a mistake in coming into the
neighborhood. It would be a kindness. She could use a spool of
buttonhole twist as an excuse. She really needed it.
Then she saw the foolishness of all this and tried to think of
something else. She worked another scallop, and concluded to go for a
walk.
When she stepped out of the gate, she turned her back upon the shop
and walked in the opposite direction, but a quarter of an hour later
she might have been seen approaching it by way of Pleasant Street.
It was a beautiful October day; there was a suggestion of autumn in
the maples, but the air was soft as spring. As she stood before the
door her heart beat guiltily; her own home across the way wore an
oddly unfamiliar look.
Being a shop one was, of course, expected to open the door and walk
in. Miss Virginia did so, and for a bewildered moment felt she had
made a mistake, for there was nothing in the room she entered that
seemed to bear any relation to a shop.
In the window, where the ferns and palms were, three persons sat, two
young women and a small boy in socks. One of the three rose and came
to meet her. The identity of the face with the one she had seen
through the opera glass so recently, added to her confusion.
"Can I show you something?"
Miss Virginia gazed at the speaker despairingly. "I have forgotten
what I came for," she stammered.
It might have been an everyday occurrence to have customers who had
forgotten what they wanted, for anything the manner of the young woman
showed. She smiled indeed, but sympathetically, saying she often
forgot things herself; and, pushing forward a willow chair, added,
"Won't you sit down and let me show you some of our things?"
Not seeing her way clear to escape, Miss Virginia accepted the chair.
There were other chairs of the same variety, some of them supplied
with cushions; around the olive-tinted walls were low cases which
might hold books or anything; there was a table with a lamp and
magazines upon it, and in the corner fireplace a low fire flickered.
The most businesslike piece of furniture was the long table upon which
the young woman was laying out a bewitching assortment of collars and
cuffs of a daintiness that went to the heart. Miss Virginia forgot her
embarrassment in her pleasure at the array of pretty things.
The small boy crossed the room, and depositing a gray flannel donkey
on the table leaned upon Miss Virginia's chair. He was a pretty child,
and she smiled at him as he lifted his serious brown eyes.
"Jack likes to see what you are doing, but you mustn't sell him by
mistake, Miss Norah," he said.
"Is this your little boy?" she asked.
"No, James Mandeville is a neighbor and very good friend of ours.
Aren't you, Infinitesimal James?"
He nodded emphatically, and continued to look on with interest while
Norah hung soft-tinted fabrics over a convenient rack, and brought out
baskets of all colors and shapes.
It was clearly James Mandeville's fault that Miss Wilbur was unable to
preserve that distant manner which was the only proper attitude toward
this objectionable shop. When he laid his plump hand on hers and
looked up at her in silent good fellowship, she felt a thrill of
pleasure. Could any one refuse a child's offer of friendship? Not Miss
Virginia, certainly. She bent and touched his cheek with her lips.
James Mandeville, moved to further demonstration, brought the donkey
and laid him on her lap.
"Don't show me anything more," she said, patting the donkey.
"Everything is beautiful. I really didn't come expecting to buy, but
I must have one of these collars." She laid a bit of embroidery
against her sleeve and looked down at it thoughtfully.
The sunlight fell slantingly across the room, gleaming in James
Mandeville's short curls and emphasizing all the cosiness and
pleasantness of her surroundings. The spirit of friendliness grew
strong in Miss Virginia. She felt in no haste to leave.
While Norah searched for something in one of the cases, Miss Wilbur
peeped around the chair back at the occupant of the window who was
employing herself with knitting. She was not--so Miss Virginia
thought--as attractive as her associate, although she could not be
called ordinary. Meanwhile James Mandeville investigated her shopping
bag with absorbed interest.
The opening of the shop door interrupted her thoughts, and before she
had time to push aside the draperies which, disposed upon the rack,
intervened between her and the door, she heard a cool, clear voice
announce, "I wish a spool of twist--black if you please."
Miss Virginia gazed wildly toward the door at the other end of the
room, her first impression being that Caroline had come in search of
her. The next moment she realized with surprise and amusement that her
sister had come altogether on her own account and had asked for the
very same thing she herself had thought of purchasing. Miss Virginia
braced herself for the inevitable encounter, and when Miss Norah
returned, thanked her for her kindness in showing so many of her
wares, and selected one from the collars before her. The while she
heard her sister's voice.
"Do you consider this a good locality for a shop?" Mrs. Millard asked.
"It seems to me quite otherwise, and I think it the only proper course
to tell you that the neighborhood strongly objects to such an
intrusion."
Miss Virginia felt her face grow hot.
"Isn't it a little late to tell us this?" The tall young woman who had
put down her knitting to serve the newcomer seemed not a whit abashed
at Mrs. Millard's manner. If anything, she was the more queenly of the
two, and might have been bestowing a favor as she handed back the
change.
Norah's sunny face intervened, "We are very sorry if you don't want
us," she said, "for we shall have to stay for the present. We think we
are quite as nice as a drug store, and perhaps we shall be able to
convince you of it before long."
Could Caroline hold out against such winning address? What she might
have said or done was never known, for James Mandeville, desiring to
see what was going on, and attempting to crawl under the rack with its
burden of fabrics, precipitated it upon himself and was lost in the
ruins, while Miss Virginia was revealed in all her ignominy, with a
flannel donkey in her lap, to the eyes of her relative.
"Virginia! I am astonished!"
Miss Wilbur rose to the occasion. "So am I, Caroline. I, too, came to
get a spool of twist." There is good authority for the assertion that
one may smile and be a villain, but hitherto such depths of perfidy
had been unsuspected in Miss Virginia.
The united efforts of the shopkeepers were required to disentangle
James Mandeville and quiet his cries of alarm. In the struggle Miss
Wilbur's bag suffered a complete upturn, and her small change was
scattered to the four corners of the room.
Mrs. Millard stood apart looking on in disdain at the confusion, when
again the shop door opened, this time to admit Miss Sarah Leigh who
advanced and addressed her, fumbling in her pocket-book meanwhile and
not lifting her eyes. "I want a spool of twist," she said, producing a
sample of blue silk. "Why, Caroline Wilbur!" and she stared in
amazement.
Norah who had set James Mandeville, still weeping, out of harm's way
on the table, met Miss Sarah's bewildered gaze with a frank smile, as
if she appreciated the joke.
"Do you call this a shop?" Miss Sarah demanded; adding, "Well, if
there isn't Virginia! Are Judge Russell and Mr. Goodman hiding
somewhere? Is this a conspiracy?"
"I'll explain later," said Mrs. Millard, with dignity. "Virginia, are
you ready?"
As they crossed Pleasant Street together, Miss Sarah was disposed to
make merry at Mrs. Millard's expense, but that lady's haughtiness was
extreme. There was nothing funny in her actions. She had gone to the
shop with a purpose, thinking it only the part of fairness to tell
them frankly they were not wanted in the neighborhood.
"That is what I thought of doing," said Miss Virginia. But who can
blame her sister for looking incredulous.
"Well, I'm going again," said Miss Sarah, pausing at the gate. "It is
an interesting place."
Miss Virginia agreed with her, and yet she was beginning to feel a
little doubtful about her own behavior this afternoon. She feared she
had not been quite dignified.
"Sarah Leigh was never a person of very strong convictions," her
sister remarked, as they waited at the door.
"Why, I don't know, Caroline,--perhaps they are just different."
"Really, I don't understand you, Virginia," was Mrs. Millard's
response, nor did she manifest any desire for enlightenment.
Miss Virginia felt that her conduct that afternoon was embraced in her
sister's remark, and that it would be quite hopeless to try to
explain.
CHAPTER EIGHTH
A MATTER OF LOYALTY
Mrs. Millard's irritation was not long in bearing fruit. On the hall
table lay a card, and pausing on her way upstairs she examined it
through her jewelled lorgnette. Charlotte, halfway down, leaned over
the rail and watched her, admiring the sweep of her gown, the
perfection of the gloved hand that held the card.
One might object to Aunt Caroline's methods and rebel against her
mandates, and yet not be blind to the exquisite perfection of her
appearance and belongings. Charlotte had privately borrowed one of
Aunt Virginia's skirts, and practised before the cheval glass, but the
flowing lines that so much pleased her she found unattainable.
"Miss Lucile Lyle," Mrs. Millard read aloud.
"It is for me, Aunt Caroline," said Charlotte, from above. "I have
been walking with Miss Alex and missed her."
"Which is rather fortunate than otherwise; for," Mrs. Millard tapped
the card with her glass, "I desire you not to make a friend of this
young lady."
Charlotte sat down on the step. "Does that mean I am to be rude to
her?"
"Certainly not. There are ways of letting people know you do not care
for their society without being rude."
"I don't see how you can do it without being unpleasant," argued
Charlotte; "and I like Lucile."
"That last fact has nothing to do with it. It is important at your age
to form proper friendships. This I do not consider desirable, and I
expect you to be guided by me."
"What am I to do?" Charlotte persisted.
"I see no occasion to do anything."
"She will think it rude if I do not go to see her."
"What she thinks is of little moment. You can say your aunt does not
care to have you make visits while you are occupied with your
studies."
"But she knows I have been to see the Mays."
"Well, really, Charlotte, I cannot argue the question further. I
simply expect to be obeyed in the matter." With this final utterance
Mrs. Millard swept past her.
Charlotte had come in from her walk in good spirits. She felt it an
honor to be chosen as a companion by a grown young lady, and Miss Alex
had been very entertaining as they walked about the park under the
beech trees. In these days Charlotte's ideals were in an unstable
state. On the one hand, she admired Lucile, longed to be Carlotta and
the heroine of romantic adventures. On the other, she recognized a
certain distinction in Alexina's severe style, and felt proud of her
notice.
This afternoon Alex's influence had been in the ascendant. She had
shown a flattering interest in all Charlotte told about her life at
Aunt Cora's and the Landors'. She had read some of Cousin Frank's
stories and poems and admired them, making Charlotte proud of being
even distantly related to him.
"It must be splendid to do things," Alex said. "To feel that you have
your own special work to do in the world."
"I should love to write stories or paint pictures," agreed Charlotte.
"Any sort of useful work,--work there was a demand for, and that I
could do better, or at least as well as any one else, would satisfy
me," said Alex.
Alexina had gone on to give Charlotte a great deal of good advice
about making the most of her opportunities. She listened gravely to
the story of the borrowed novel Aunt Caroline had taken away; and
while she acknowledged it was trying, she pointed out that it was a
foolish story, and not worth reading.
When Charlotte went on to describe Lucile, Alex did not seem
impressed, only saying, "I wonder who the Lyles are; I never heard of
them. Of course they may be nice people, but Lucile Lyle is such a
silly name."
"I think it is beautiful," cried Charlotte, wondering what Miss Alex
would think of Carlotta Creston.
"No," the young lady said, as if replying to her thought, "I prefer
plain names. For instance, if you should turn out to be a brilliant
beauty and all that, there is nothing inappropriate in your name,
Charlotte Creston. You can glorify it; but if you are only an ordinary
person, you are made absurd by a name you cannot live up to."
This was a new view to take of it. Charlotte wavered, and really
Lucile's influence was a little on the wane when the encounter with
Aunt Caroline gave it new life. At school next day Charlotte came
again under her spell.
Lucile was undeniably pretty and almost as grown up in appearance as
Miss Alex, though only fifteen. She was intensely romantic, her own
personal experiences at this early age would have supplied several
novels, and her manner toward Charlotte was caressing and flattering.
Charlotte was one of the few who understood her, she said. They were
kindred souls.
Lucile wrote verses which seemed to Charlotte quite as good as Cousin
Frank's, and she could sing any number of love-songs charmingly. The
girls would gather about the piano at recess and beg her to sing. The
favorite was one beginning:--
"Teach, oh, teach me not to love thee!
Turn those beauteous eyes away,"
and Lucile always bent a soulful gaze upon Charlotte when she sang it.
Charlotte wondered if her eyes were beauteous.
"When are you coming to see me Carlotta?" Lucile asked one day.
They were walking home from school, and had paused on the corner where
their ways divided.
"I don't know. They don't like me to go out alone," was the answer,
given with a flushed face.
"But the cars bring you almost to our door. I shall be terribly hurt."
Charlotte looked gloomy. "I can't come if they won't let me. You don't
know. They think I am six years old."
"You don't love me. I see it plainly." With a tragic gesture Lucile
drew a ring from her finger and held it out. "Take it back," she said.
In the first ardor of their friendship they had exchanged rings,
Charlotte feeling a little mortified at the time that Lucile's was so
much handsomer than hers, and she had kept it carefully turned in to
avoid comment. But after all it was not giving up the ring she minded.
Lucile's apparent distress touched her affectionate heart.
"Don't say that!" she entreated, drawing back. "I do love you, and I
will come to see you whether they let me or not." In the glow of her
devotion she felt like a heroine in one of Lucile's favorite tales. It
was a question of loyalty now. She had promised to be friends before
Aunt Caroline issued her commands. So they parted with renewed vows,
and Charlotte's assurance that she would come that very afternoon on
her way from her music lesson, if she could escape unobserved.
Charlotte had very imperfectly learned the lesson of obedience to
higher powers, and it was not difficult to convince herself that she
was justified. It did seem a little underhand, this was all that
troubled her.
Aunt Virginia, who was going down town in the carriage, offered to
take her to her lesson; adding, "You can find your way back, I
suppose."
"I should think so, after so many times," Charlotte answered, feeling
guilty.
Aunt Virginia was particularly agreeable and funny that afternoon.
Charlotte was really becoming very fond of her. She was a merry
companion; she liked foolish things, such as soda-water and candy, and
was even willing to stop and watch a circus parade.
"If it is cool when you leave, be sure to put your jacket on," was her
parting injunction.
"And if it rains, I'll put up my umbrella," Charlotte called after
her, saucily. At the same time she felt ashamed of what she had
planned to do. If it had not been for the memory of Lucile's
reproaches, she would have given it up.
It must have been the thought of Aunt Virginia that kept the call from
being the pleasure she had expected. Lucile was very glad to see her,
and took her over the large, showy house, which seemed exactly suited
to the large blond woman with a complexion of pinkish lavender, whom
she introduced as her mother. Mrs. Lyle wore a costume of black and
white, in broad stripes, and a wonderful, black plumed hat, which
brought to mind Aunt Cora's poster room.
She was most gracious, complimenting Charlotte's eyes, and asking if
she did not find the Terrace dreadfully far down town. She also asked
about the Russells; said Alexina was odd and Madelaine a beauty, and
that it was a great pity the judge had not known how to keep his
money,--all of which seemed strange to Charlotte, when she remembered
Alex's question, "Who are the Lyles?"
Lucile seemed proud of the house and told the cost of a good many
things. She wanted to know why Charlotte's aunts did not sell their
house in the Terrace and build out on the Avenue.
"I don't believe they want to," Charlotte answered; "and I think the
Terrace is very nice," she added, feeling Lucile was rather too
complacent.
"Why, they are beginning to put up stores there!" Lucile exclaimed.
Charlotte had herself freely criticised the Terrace, but this did not
keep her from resenting Lucile's remarks, and she carried away with
her a consciousness of the friction. As she walked home, she felt a
vague dissatisfaction with life in general, and heartily wished she
had not gone. She could not help seeing, just a little, why Aunt
Caroline did not care for the Lyles.
Charlotte had a strong impulse to confess, and say she was sorry for
what she had done; but the right moment did not come. Aunt Caroline
was out that evening and Aunt Virginia in one of her shy, elusive
moods. She got as far as "Aunt Virginia, I want to tell you,--I did
something dreadful to-day--" when a visitor was announced. Her aunt
looked relieved.
"Never mind, my dear; if you are sorry, I have no doubt it will be all
right," she said, rising hastily. "Go to bed early."
How could you tell people things if they did not want to listen? At
any rate she would not go to the Lyles' again, and she gave herself to
her studies with a new earnestness born of repentance.
CHAPTER NINTH
IN THE SHOP
The opposition of the neighborhood resulted in advertising the shop to
some extent. Whoever saw the odd little place was certain to tell some
one else; and this person and that, dropping in out of curiosity to
look, remained to buy, if only a trifle.
The wares were novel and attractive, the prices reasonable, and the
shopkeepers themselves afforded food for speculation. Like their
wares, they were unusual,--considered as shopkeepers, that is. To all
appearances ladies, their manner of speech betrayed they were not
Southern; yet they did not single out the letter _r_ as worthy of
peculiar emphasis,--a thing the Terrace could not tolerate.