A SHOPPING EXPEDITION
"_O Richard, O mon roi_," I carolled this morning, but I confess that
I carolled it as much in an undertone as the unfortunate aristocrats
had to employ when they chose to give vent to their feelings by
singing that song during the Reign of Terror.
I was up-stairs in my own room at Cousin Eunice's, brushing, shaking,
smoothing, folding, and now and then mending a little ripped place in
my clothes, for, during the last four weeks I have done nothing but
wear them. Early in the morning, all through the day, and late at
night, I have lived to maltreat those clothes. And they are showing
signs of being weary and wounded.
It is a good thing, possibly, that mother and Cousin Eunice would not
let me have the black spangled net that my soul yearned for, else
there would not have been a spangle left to tell the tale by this
time.
Cousin Eunice was in the next room throughout the time I was thus
employed--that is, she was in and out, hence the undertone in my
singing.
"Ann," she finally called in a vexed tone, after a period of silence,
"you'll live to learn, after you're married, that a man and his
poll-tax receipt are soon parted."
"It's a registration certificate," I amended softly.
"Well, what if it is? It's eternally lost when they want it."
She had spent the morning emptying bureau drawers, scratching through
piles of old papers, peering under the clock, into a cracked vase,
moving the piano and searching in the dusty lint beneath, and dazzling
her eyesight by a scramble through a five-years' accumulation of pink
electric light bills--but no sign of the registration certificate.
Toward luncheon time Rufe called her up and said he hoped she had not
put herself to any trouble, for he forgot to tell her early this
morning that he had already found the missing paper in his
pocket-book.
"They have to register before they can vote, don't they?"
I knew that they did, but I was in a mood to talk politics this
morning.
"Yes. This is just a measly little municipal election, however."
"Oh, I know that it is not gubernatorial."
"I observe that you have improved your store of knowledge
mightily--since that day we sat under the althea hedge." She came into
my room as she spoke, and sat down on the side of the bed.
"Yes, I feel that I know all about the state of affairs now."
"Then I wish you would tell me, so I can tell Rufe." She was tired out
from her strenuous morning, and her head fell over among the pillows.
I laid down the skirt I had been brushing and seated myself on the
foot of the bed.
"What's the trouble?" I asked. "I thought the matter was very simple."
"You thought the matter was simple, you dear little goose, because our
favorite piece of gubernatorial timber has showered you with devoted
attentions this past month. It seems that he has declared his
intentions toward you--so far as looks and acts go--but he is backward
about his political doings."
"Then you have just not listened to what he has said," I denied
stoutly, the spirit of the game strong within me, and the spirit of my
admiration for him much stronger. "Nobody could denounce Appleton
more entirely than he does!"
"Oh, Appleton!" There was infinite scorn in her tone. "What decent
person doesn't denounce him?"
"Then, what's the trouble?" I asked again. "Appleton stands for
whisky; we stand for water--the affair seems quite clear to me."
"And Jim Blake stands for whisky _and_ water--with a goodly dash of
sugar. He's a kind of toddy for our split Democracy."
"But what has _he_ to do with Richard Chalmers?" I asked, an uneasy
fear clutching at my gay spirits.
"That's just what we want to know--before the _Times_ can rally to the
support of Chalmers."
"The _Times_!" I was genuinely aroused now. "Why, I thought the
_Times_ had virtually _made_ Richard Chalmers."
"Well, the paper has boomed him because he has always stood for the
right principles heretofore. But there is a grave complication about
to set in now, it seems. Of course the people of this state are not
going to stand for Appleton again--we are not Hottentots, and either a
strong Democrat must come out, and stand on a strong platform, else we
are going to have a Republican for governor."
"Well?"
"Well, the law-abiding faction is ready to support Richard Chalmers,
so long as he does not compromise, but at the first evidence of
weakening on his part--the vote goes to some _clean_ Republican."
"And you are afraid that he will join Blake--in some way?"
"In a very clearly defined way. Blake is the most popular man in the
state. He could put up a good fight for anything he wanted here--and
he could throw his influence to Chalmers."
I traced the pattern of the counterpane with the end of the
clothes-brush which I was still holding in my hand.
"I don't know a thing about it," I said finally, my tone and feelings
far different from what they were but a few minutes before, when I had
declared confidently that I knew all about it. "He has never once
mentioned politics to me these last few weeks."
"Well, I dare say not," she said, straightening up and smoothing back
her hair. "Imagine a man talking politics before Mrs. Chalmers and
Evelyn! And they have been with you every minute that you and he have
been together."
It was true. These last few weeks had brought about a delightful
state of closer personal contact between Richard Chalmers and me, a
condition which he has seemed determined to make stronger and more
pronounced by every means in his power--and he has the most charming
means--but always under the supervision of his mother and sister.
Supervision? Good heavens, what an absurd word to use in connection
with either one of those women where Richard is concerned, for they
are truly as much slaves to him as if he had chains around their
wrists and ankles. A worshipping slave is his mother, while Evelyn is
so timid and fearful in his presence that she appears to be much
stupider than she really is, which is stupid enough, in all
conscience!
When I first discovered this mighty reverence in them for the man who
is so kingly to me I felt that they must recognize in him that
wonderful _regal_ attribute, which so irresistibly attracted me. But I
soon learned, for we were together constantly, that Evelyn fears and
dislikes him, and the only time during those weeks of companionship
that she displayed the slightest eagerness over anything was when she
was urging me to accompany them on some pleasure party, where, unless
I should go along with them, they would be left solely to the
companionship of her august brother.
"He's so much nicer when you're around," she explained to me one time
with a look of pleading candor, when she was insisting that I go to
dinner with them that evening. I had received pressing invitations
from the three members of the family, but was hesitating on account of
Mammy Lou's slogan.
Evelyn is an intensely inane girl, but not bad at heart, and it had
not occurred to her that she was saying the wrong thing. Her mother,
who is much more acute, came forward with a flurried palliation for
Evelyn's thoughtless words. Richard is so dignified that Evelyn has
never grown to _know_ him, she explained, with what impressed me as
undue haste; he is so much older than she, and has been away from home
so much of recent years.
"It doesn't make me think any less of him to know that you are both
deadly afraid of him," I smiled to myself as I ran up-stairs to change
my dress. "But I am not in the least afraid of him."
His women are not at all like Richard, even in so far as length,
breadth and thickness go. The quality in him which results in simply a
splendid physique, in them tends toward heaviness, and I have heard
from his own lips that he "hates dumpy women." Yet he cares extremely
for the handsome appearance which they make in their expensive
clothes, and his cold dignity finds a pleased echo in their studied
correctness.
Correct they both are, and stylish and _orthodox_, church and clothes
being the alpha and omega of their conversation.
They are conventionally polite, whereas he is always superbly
courteous; and Mrs. Chalmers can invariably be depended upon to do and
say exactly the right thing. Evelyn passes muster all right, because
she never does or says anything.
While Richard's mother can describe to the turning of a milliner's
fold the latest foibles of fashion's fancy, she is complacently
old-fashioned in her notions about other things, maintaining the faith
in which she was brought up, namely, that all children should be
whipped and all husbands watched, while women should say their prayers
regularly and see that their corsets suit their figure. She quotes the
Bible unendingly and is so morbidly "proper" and ladylike that I am
sure she thinks, if she ever thought about it at all, that being
burned at the stake was no more than Joan of Arc deserved for being
so immodest as to ride cross-saddle before all those fast and loose
Frenchmen.
It fell to Cousin Eunice's lot to go shopping with Mrs. Chalmers and
Evelyn; and to the hair-dressers, and to the thousand and one other
places that out-of-town women always feel that they must visit when
they are in a city for a little while. I usually fight shy of this
phase of getting acquainted, not because, as you may think, that
Richard was never along, for he was frequently; but simply because I
_hate_ shopping.
One morning, only a little while before they were to go back to
Charlotteville, they asked Cousin Eunice to meet them in the city as
they had some rather important purchases to make and desired her
judgment on the matter. Cousin Eunice has known Richard's family ever
since he shot up so suddenly on the political firmament, and she had
shopped with them before, so she fortified herself for this occasion
by putting on her most comfortable shoes and arranging her hair to
stand the strain of a day's long crusade away from a mirror.
I had been invited to lunch with Ann Lisbeth that day, for there had
been killed a fatted calf to glorify Alfred's birthday, and I pleaded
this engagement when I was politely urged to join, at least for a
while, the shopping expedition.
"I wish you would come on in and see that coat I'm worried over,"
Evelyn rather insisted, as I was about to make my adieus at the
entrance of one of the big shops, without even glancing at the
bewildering array of new fall goods displayed in the windows.
Clearly Evelyn considered my seeming indifference to fashionable
apparel a pose, for she continued, looking at me slightly aggrieved:
"You evidently must be interested in your own clothes. Richard said
last night that you were a feast for an artist."
My face turned a little red, but I meekly followed them on into the
place. I might have told her that, while to _her_ clothes were an end,
to me they were a means--and no one is ever deeply interested in a
mere means. Yet when the end is such a speech as _that_ from such a
man as that, it stands one in hand to take a little interest in the
means. This brought about the frenzied overhauling of raiment which I
instituted this morning.
Although it was still warm weather, the autumn stock of furs was
already on exhibition, and Evelyn's attention had been particularly
attracted by a coat of short, glossy, and very expensive fur. One
more sight of the attractive garment decided her.
"Well, I'm certainly glad you've made up your mind," Mrs. Chalmers
said, as she opened her shopping-bag and drew out her check-book. She
was busily filling out the blank after "Pay to the order of" when she
suddenly stopped and looked up at Evelyn.
"I wish I could get this cashed somewhere else," she said in a low
voice, "for Richard will criticize our taste unmercifully when he
learns that this amount of money has been paid for that coat. He
always looks over my returned checks."
"Oh, we'll just tell him that this was the entire amount of our
shopping bill at this store," Evelyn answered easily, as if such a
deception might be an every-day affair with them. "If he asks me I'll
tell him that the coat cost only half of what it did."
"That's true, we can do that," Mrs. Chalmers said, looking relieved
and going on with her writing. "But don't you forget to back me up in
whatever I tell him."
After she had handed the check to the gratified saleswoman and again
given directions about a slight alteration in the set of the collar
she turned to Cousin Eunice and said a word or two in explanation.
"Richard is such a critic," she stated rather absently, her eyes fixed
on a handsome evening wrap hanging in a case close by; "when he knows
we have paid a good deal for our clothes it seems to give him real
pleasure to criticize them. He says Evelyn and I will buy anything a
shop-girl shows us if she will only flatter us enough. So I am in for
doing anything that will keep the peace. I consider it one of the
first duties of a Christian."
Her mouth closed primly for a moment after her last sentence, but
opened again almost immediately, for her eyes were still fascinated by
the beauty of the delicate-colored wrap.
"Mrs. Clayborne, _do_ you think I am too stout for one of those loose
cloaks?"
I stood for a moment looking at the group and fingering the handle of
my shopping-bag nervously. I was glad that my opinion of the evening
wrap was not asked, for I should have given a random answer. I was
wondering so many things in so short a space of time that my brain
could not find room for words just then. Of all the different kinds of
lies that one meets up with in life it has always seemed to me that
the lies women tell about the cost of clothes are the lowest class.
What a deplorable lack of understanding must exist between members of
a family when such lying is deemed necessary! I imagined mother or me
trying to lie to father--about the cost of clothes!
The bewitching evening wrap was brought forth from its case and Mrs.
Chalmers and Evelyn trailed away after the shop-woman to the
dressing-room. Cousin Eunice and I sat down to wait for them. She
looked at her watch, stifled a yawn, and then turned to me rather
hesitatingly.
"I wonder if our friend, Mr. Chalmers, is a domestic tyrant?" she
said.
I started, for this phase of the matter had not presented itself to my
mind.
"He doesn't seem to be," I answered, with as much nonchalance as I could
muster. "Of course every one can see that they both stand in awe of him;
but I thought that must be because he is so extraordinarily--clever."
She laughed, then she looked at me more seriously.
"If it were only his cleverness they would not be hypocritical with
him. And tyrants _do_ breed hypocrites."
"Not unless there is hypocritical material--to start out with."
"I--don't know! If you loved a tyrant, and desired above everything
else to please him, it might mean the ultimate ruin of even _your_
frank character."
"I couldn't love a tyrant," I argued.
"You might not recognize the tyrant in him--until after you had
married him," she said.
The same uneasy feeling that again came over me when I discussed his
political prospects took possession of me then, and I started to ask
her frankly what she had in mind, when Evelyn came up and said that
her mother wanted Cousin Eunice to come and see her with the wrap on.
So she passed on back to the dressing-room to help decide the
momentous question, while Evelyn and I sat there and discussed the
good points of the coat she had just bought.
* * * * *
Ann Lisbeth was sweet and wholesome when I met her an hour or two
later--an admirable antidote to the disagreeable feeling I had brought
away from the shops.
"Alfred doesn't know you're coming," she said with a bright smile,
"he'll be so pleased!"
As is usual when the fatted calf is killed for a medicine man he takes
that occasion to be an hour late--an emergency case at the last
minute, or some one at the office that it took an unreasonable time to
get through with. I hardly heard the excuse which Alfred made when he
came in, but I knew it was true, whatever it was, and, as Doctor
Gordon was not going to be able to come at all, we three went in and
gave ourselves up to the joy of the occasion.
I was absently eating everything that was brought to me, and was
thinking all the while how perfectly preposterous it was that Richard
Chalmers--a man like Richard Chalmers--should have such weak-minded
females attached to him; and I had just reached the conclusion that
there could never, _never_ be anything like friendship between us, no
matter what there might be as an occasion for friendship, when the
dessert was brought in, and with it a great, beautiful cake, iced in
forget-me-nots.
"Now, don't you think I'm sentimental?" Ann Lisbeth asked with a
smile, after we had used up all the adjectives that we had at our
command. "You see, I thought maybe Alfred's next birthday might be
spent in London, or Vienna, or somewhere far away--and I knew that I
was going to have you here to-day, Ann--so I told the woman who made
the cake to be sure and use forget-me-nots. So when he thinks of us on
his next birthday he will have to remember how much we all love him!"
All of a sudden I had that uncomfortable feeling that comes in my
throat sometimes when I don't want it to, and I realized that if
something did not happen to divert my mind I should certainly cry.
Ever since his graduation Alfred had been trying to devise means for
this course of study abroad, and I had known how much better his
practice had been lately, but somehow, I had not thought of his going
so far away so _soon_. Suppose Mammy Lou should have gall-stones
again!
I wrestled for a moment with that awful lump in my throat; then I
spoke, and my voice was natural again.
"Is this sudden 'wanderlust' the outcome of collecting all those
nickels?" I asked with a laugh.
After we left the table Alfred and I went into the library for a
while, and Ann Lisbeth stayed in the dining-room to keep her husband
company while he ate, for he had come in just as we were finishing,
and declared that he was starved.
"Ann, I have a surprise for you," Alfred said, springing up from the
big leather chair into whose depths he had lazily thrown himself a
moment before. He sometimes took a short nap after luncheon, when he
had been out all the night before, and I had picked up a magazine to
amuse myself with in case he deserted me in favor of his siesta.
"A surprise?" He had given me a surprise the last time I spent the day
at the Gordons'.
"A bully one. I found it down home the other day--last week when I was
out there--while I was rummaging in a box of ancient books and papers.
Wait, I'll run up-stairs and get it."
He returned almost immediately with a book in his hand, a ponderous
old tome it was, with yellowed edges and time-stained leather covers,
but I saw a name on the back which sent my pulses throbbing with
pleasure.
"Moore's _Life of Byron_," I said, reaching out for it eagerly. Alfred
had known that I wanted the book for years, and whenever he had been
in a big city for any length of time he had always searched about for
it, but had never come across a copy.
"It isn't Moore's _Life_," he said, sitting down beside me on the
couch, "but from what I have been able to gather, by glancing through
it, it seems to be a rather more intimate affair than even that.
Besides the poems, there are a lot of letters and extracts from his
journal; the entire correspondence for several years between him and a
fellow whom he calls his 'dear Murray.' Guess you know who his dear
Murray is--I'm sure I don't. Then there are some letters to the
Countess G-u-i-c--"
"Oh, Alfred! Guiccioli! I'm so glad to get my hands on this book. You
are a darling to think about bringing it up for me to read!"
"Oh, I brought it up for you to keep. It belonged to my grandfather,
and I can give it to any one I want to."
I laughed a little at his simplicity.
"But surely you would not be such a barbarian as to let a book like
this go to any one outside of your family. Boy, this is an heirloom! I
never heard of just this edition before. The engravings in it are
wonderful. It is a very valuable book. I couldn't think of letting you
give it to me!"
Ann Lisbeth had come into the room for a moment, but as she saw us
sitting together on the leather couch and absorbed in the book, she
had hastily left the room, closing the door behind her.
As I finished speaking Alfred glanced at the closed door then
deliberately reached over and caught both my hands as they fluttered
about over the leaves of the book. In my surprise they struggled a
moment, but he held them--he has such big, warm, _capable_ hands; no
wonder people are trusting as to their ability--and thus it was, with
our heads bent close together and our hands pressing down upon the
passionate poems of the greatest passion poet, that I received my
first declaration of love.
"Don't you know that there is nothing in the world I own or could get
too valuable for me to give to you, Ann?" he said, in low, tense tones
that I had never heard from him before. "Surely you know what you are
to me! The greatest privilege I could ask is to give you everything I
have or shall have--a life of devotion--a heart, darling, that has
always been yours! A world of _love_!--"
He came closer still, and in another moment he would have had his arms
around me, carried away as he was by the force of his own feelings,
but I drew back and he was arrested by the look on my face. His own
went white with sudden misery.
"Ann! Surely you don't mean to tell me that I am already too late?"
"Too late?"
"That you love some one else!"
His face, pale and drawn, looked strangely unlike my genial,
even-tempered Alfred. He was capable of great depth of feeling,
then--besides being so strong, so fine! I had always had an infinite
respect for him, and admiration, and affection! I had known that the
strength of his nature had been tested and found _there_; and it was
like the strength of oak, sturdy, deep-rooted, indomitable.
"I _so nearly_ love _you_, Alfred," I cried, struggling between the
pain I felt at his hurt and the bewilderment of my own confused
feelings.
For the face of Richard Chalmers was between us, and his face, too,
spoke strength. Strength of steel, cold, inflexible, even cruel,
perhaps--yet holding such a potent attraction.
"--But you _quite_ love some one else?" His voice was calm, although
his face was even whiter than a moment before.
"I don't know--I only know that I am oh, so sorry for you--and for
myself, too!"
He was still holding my hands in his strong clasp, and they felt so
wonderfully at home there that I never thought to move them--if I had
never known that other man I should have loved _him_ so!
"Ann, is it Chalmers?"
The question was frankly put, and as frankly answered.
"Yes.--But there is nothing yet--nothing has been _said_--still, I
know--"
"Ah, I was afraid of that! That was what overpowered my determination
not to speak of my love until I came back from Europe! I noticed
something that first time I met him--then the Gordons told me of his
attentions to you."
"Yes," I said. "But he has never told me that he cares."
"He will. And I congratulate him."
Alfred arose, as he spoke, and I laid my hand on his arm.
"This is not going to make any difference between us?" I asked
appealingly. I felt that I could not lose my friend.
"Not in my feeling for you," he answered, looking down at me with a
look that I hated to see in his brown eyes--they usually met the world
with such a level, untroubled glance. "If you should ever change, or
ever need me--you know that I will be there. But, dear, it will be
painful to go on meeting you. I'm going away in a few weeks, perhaps,
but until then--"
"I know. I'll stay out of your way," I promised humbly.
He leaned over suddenly and caught my face between his hands. He
brushed his lips lightly against the coils of my hair.
"Good-by, _darling_," he said. Then he went out softly and closed the
door.