CHAPTER IX

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.