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CHAPTER IX
CHARITY sat before the mirror trying on a hat which
Ally Hawes, with much secrecy, had trimmed for her. It
was of white straw, with a drooping brim and cherry-
coloured lining that made her face glow like the inside
of the shell on the parlour mantelpiece.
She propped the square of looking-glass against Mr.
Royall's black leather Bible, steadying it in front
with a white stone on which a view of the Brooklyn
Bridge was painted; and she sat before her reflection,
bending the brim this way and that, while Ally Hawes's
pale face looked over her shoulder like the ghost of
wasted opportunities.
"I look awful, don't I?" she said at last with a happy
sigh.
Ally smiled and took back the hat. "I'll stitch the
roses on right here, so's you can put it away at once."
Charity laughed, and ran her fingers through her rough
dark hair. She knew that Harney liked to see its
reddish edges ruffled about her forehead and breaking
into little rings at the nape. She sat down on her bed
and watched Ally stoop over the hat with a careful
frown.
"Don't you ever feel like going down to Nettleton for a
day?" she asked.
Ally shook her head without looking up. "No, I always
remember that awful time I went down with Julia--to
that doctor's."
"Oh, Ally----"
"I can't help it. The house is on the corner of Wing
Street and Lake Avenue. The trolley from the station
goes right by it, and the day the minister took us down
to see those pictures I recognized it right off, and
couldn't seem to see anything else. There's a big
black sign with gold letters all across the front--
'Private Consultations.' She came as near as anything
to dying...."
"Poor Julia!" Charity sighed from the height of her
purity and her security. She had a friend whom she
trusted and who respected her. She was going with him
to spend the next day--the Fourth of July--at
Nettleton. Whose business was it but hers, and what
was the harm? The pity of it was that girls like Julia
did not know how to choose, and to keep bad
fellows at a distance....Charity slipped down from the
bed, and stretched out her hands.
"Is it sewed? Let me try it on again." She put the hat
on, and smiled at her image. The thought of Julia had
vanished....
The next morning she was up before dawn, and saw the
yellow sunrise broaden behind the hills, and the
silvery luster preceding a hot day tremble across the
sleeping fields.
Her plans had been made with great care. She had
announced that she was going down to the Band of Hope
picnic at Hepburn, and as no one else from North Dormer
intended to venture so far it was not likely that her
absence from the festivity would be reported. Besides,
if it were she would not greatly care. She was
determined to assert her independence, and if she
stooped to fib about the Hepburn picnic it was chiefly
from the secretive instinct that made her dread the
profanation of her happiness. Whenever she was with
Lucius Harney she would have liked some impenetrable
mountain mist to hide her.
It was arranged that she should walk to a point of
the Creston road where Harney was to pick her up and
drive her across the hills to Hepburn in time for the
nine-thirty train to Nettleton. Harney at first had
been rather lukewarm about the trip. He declared
himself ready to take her to Nettleton, but urged her
not to go on the Fourth of July, on account of the
crowds, the probable lateness of the trains, the
difficulty of her getting back before night; but her
evident disappointment caused him to give way, and even
to affect a faint enthusiasm for the adventure. She
understood why he was not more eager: he must have seen
sights beside which even a Fourth of July at Nettleton
would seem tame. But she had never seen anything; and
a great longing possessed her to walk the streets of a
big town on a holiday, clinging to his arm and jostled
by idle crowds in their best clothes. The only cloud
on the prospect was the fact that the shops would be
closed; but she hoped he would take her back another
day, when they were open.
She started out unnoticed in the early sunlight,
slipping through the kitchen while Verena bent above
the stove. To avoid attracting notice, she carried her
new hat carefully wrapped up, and had thrown a long
grey veil of Mrs. Royall's over the new white
muslin dress which Ally's clever fingers had made for
her. All of the ten dollars Mr. Royall had given her,
and a part of her own savings as well, had been spent
on renewing her wardrobe; and when Harney jumped out of
the buggy to meet her she read her reward in his eyes.
The freckled boy who had brought her the note two weeks
earlier was to wait with the buggy at Hepburn till
their return. He perched at Charity's feet, his legs
dangling between the wheels, and they could not say
much because of his presence. But it did not greatly
matter, for their past was now rich enough to have
given them a private language; and with the long day
stretching before them like the blue distance beyond
the hills there was a delicate pleasure in
postponement.
When Charity, in response to Harney's message, had gone
to meet him at the Creston pool her heart had been so
full of mortification and anger that his first words
might easily have estranged her. But it happened that
he had found the right word, which was one of simple
friendship. His tone had instantly justified her, and
put her guardian in the wrong. He had made no allusion
to what had passed between Mr. Royall and himself, but
had simply let it appear that he had left because
means of conveyance were hard to find at North Dormer,
and because Creston River was a more convenient centre.
He told her that he had hired by the week the buggy of
the freckled boy's father, who served as livery-stable
keeper to one or two melancholy summer boarding-houses
on Creston Lake, and had discovered, within driving
distance, a number of houses worthy of his pencil; and
he said that he could not, while he was in the
neighbourhood, give up the pleasure of seeing her as
often as possible.
When they took leave of each other she promised to
continue to be his guide; and during the fortnight
which followed they roamed the hills in happy
comradeship. In most of the village friendships
between youths and maidens lack of conversation was
made up for by tentative fondling; but Harney, except
when he had tried to comfort her in her trouble on
their way back from the Hyatts', had never put his arm
about her, or sought to betray her into any sudden
caress. It seemed to be enough for him to breathe her
nearness like a flower's; and since his pleasure at
being with her, and his sense of her youth and her
grace, perpetually shone in his eyes and softened
the inflection of his voice, his reserve did not
suggest coldness, but the deference due to a girl of
his own class.
The buggy was drawn by an old trotter who whirled them
along so briskly that the pace created a little breeze;
but when they reached Hepburn the full heat of the
airless morning descended on them. At the railway
station the platform was packed with a sweltering
throng, and they took refuge in the waiting-room, where
there was another throng, already dejected by the heat
and the long waiting for retarded trains. Pale mothers
were struggling with fretful babies, or trying to keep
their older offspring from the fascination of the
track; girls and their "fellows" were giggling and
shoving, and passing about candy in sticky bags, and
older men, collarless and perspiring, were shifting
heavy children from one arm to the other, and keeping a
haggard eye on the scattered members of their families.
At last the train rumbled in, and engulfed the waiting
multitude. Harney swept Charity up on to the first car
and they captured a bench for two, and sat in happy
isolation while the train swayed and roared along
through rich fields and languid tree-clumps. The
haze of the morning had become a sort of clear tremor
over everything, like the colourless vibration about a
flame; and the opulent landscape seemed to droop under
it. But to Charity the heat was a stimulant: it
enveloped the whole world in the same glow that burned
at her heart. Now and then a lurch of the train flung
her against Harney, and through her thin muslin she
felt the touch of his sleeve. She steadied herself,
their eyes met, and the flaming breath of the day
seemed to enclose them.
The train roared into the Nettleton station, the
descending mob caught them on its tide, and they were
swept out into a vague dusty square thronged with seedy
"hacks" and long curtained omnibuses drawn by horses
with tasselled fly-nets over their withers, who stood
swinging their depressed heads drearily from side to
side.
A mob of 'bus and hack drivers were shouting "To the
Eagle House," "To the Washington House," "This way to
the Lake," "Just starting for Greytop;" and through
their yells came the popping of fire-crackers, the
explosion of torpedoes, the banging of toy-guns, and
the crash of a firemen's band trying to play the Merry
Widow while they were being packed into a
waggonette streaming with bunting.
The ramshackle wooden hotels about the square were all
hung with flags and paper lanterns, and as Harney and
Charity turned into the main street, with its brick and
granite business blocks crowding out the old low-
storied shops, and its towering poles strung with
innumerable wires that seemed to tremble and buzz in
the heat, they saw the double line of flags and
lanterns tapering away gaily to the park at the other
end of the perspective. The noise and colour of this
holiday vision seemed to transform Nettleton into a
metropolis. Charity could not believe that Springfield
or even Boston had anything grander to show, and she
wondered if, at this very moment, Annabel Balch, on the
arm of as brilliant a young man, were threading her way
through scenes as resplendent.
"Where shall we go first?" Harney asked; but as she
turned her happy eyes on him he guessed the answer and
said: "We'll take a look round, shall we?"
The street swarmed with their fellow-travellers, with
other excursionists arriving from other directions,
with Nettleton's own population, and with the
mill-hands trooping in from the factories on the
Creston. The shops were closed, but one would scarcely
have noticed it, so numerous were the glass doors
swinging open on saloons, on restaurants, on drug-
stores gushing from every soda-water tap, on fruit and
confectionery shops stacked with strawberry-cake,
cocoanut drops, trays of glistening molasses candy,
boxes of caramels and chewing-gum, baskets of sodden
strawberries, and dangling branches of bananas. Outside
of some of the doors were trestles with banked-up
oranges and apples, spotted pears and dusty
raspberries; and the air reeked with the smell of fruit
and stale coffee, beer and sarsaparilla and fried
potatoes.
Even the shops that were closed offered, through wide
expanses of plate-glass, hints of hidden riches. In
some, waves of silk and ribbon broke over shores of
imitation moss from which ravishing hats rose like
tropical orchids. In others, the pink throats of
gramophones opened their giant convolutions in a
soundless chorus; or bicycles shining in neat ranks
seemed to await the signal of an invisible starter; or
tiers of fancy-goods in leatherette and paste and
celluloid dangled their insidious graces; and, in one
vast bay that seemed to project them into exciting
contact with the public, wax ladies in daring
dresses chatted elegantly, or, with gestures intimate
yet blameless, pointed to their pink corsets and
transparent hosiery.
Presently Harney found that his watch had stopped, and
turned in at a small jeweller's shop which chanced to
still be open. While the watch was being examined
Charity leaned over the glass counter where, on a
background of dark blue velvet, pins, rings, and
brooches glittered like the moon and stars. She had
never seen jewellry so near by, and she longed to lift
the glass lid and plunge her hand among the shining
treasures. But already Harney's watch was repaired,
and he laid his hand on her arm and drew her from her
dream.
"Which do you like best?" he asked leaning over the
counter at her side.
"I don't know...." She pointed to a gold lily-of-the-
valley with white flowers.
"Don't you think the blue pin's better?" he suggested,
and immediately she saw that the lily of the valley was
mere trumpery compared to the small round stone, blue
as a mountain lake, with little sparks of light all
round it. She coloured at her want of discrimination.
"It's so lovely I guess I was afraid to look at
it," she said.
He laughed, and they went out of the shop; but a few
steps away he exclaimed: "Oh, by Jove, I forgot
something," and turned back and left her in the crowd.
She stood staring down a row of pink gramophone throats
till he rejoined her and slipped his arm through hers.
"You mustn't be afraid of looking at the blue pin any
longer, because it belongs to you," he said; and she
felt a little box being pressed into her hand. Her
heart gave a leap of joy, but it reached her lips only
in a shy stammer. She remembered other girls whom she
had heard planning to extract presents from their
fellows, and was seized with a sudden dread lest Harney
should have imagined that she had leaned over the
pretty things in the glass case in the hope of having
one given to her....
A little farther down the street they turned in at a
glass doorway opening on a shining hall with a mahogany
staircase, and brass cages in its corners. "We must
have something to eat," Harney said; and the next
moment Charity found herself in a dressing-room all
looking-glass and lustrous surfaces, where a party of
showy-looking girls were dabbing on powder and
straightening immense plumed hats. When they had gone
she took courage to bathe her hot face in one of the
marble basins, and to straighten her own hat-brim,
which the parasols of the crowd had indented. The
dresses in the shops had so impressed her that she
scarcely dared look at her reflection; but when she did
so, the glow of her face under her cherry-coloured hat,
and the curve of her young shoulders through the
transparent muslin, restored her courage; and when she
had taken the blue brooch from its box and pinned it on
her bosom she walked toward the restaurant with her
head high, as if she had always strolled through
tessellated halls beside young men in flannels.
Her spirit sank a little at the sight of the slim-
waisted waitresses in black, with bewitching mob-caps
on their haughty heads, who were moving disdainfully
between the tables. "Not f'r another hour," one of them
dropped to Harney in passing; and he stood doubtfully
glancing about him.
"Oh, well, we can't stay sweltering here," he decided;
"let's try somewhere else--" and with a sense of relief
Charity followed him from that scene of inhospitable
splendour.
That "somewhere else" turned out--after more hot
tramping, and several failures--to be, of all things, a
little open-air place in a back street that called
itself a French restaurant, and consisted in two or
three rickety tables under a scarlet-runner, between a
patch of zinnias and petunias and a big elm bending
over from the next yard. Here they lunched on queerly
flavoured things, while Harney, leaning back in a
crippled rocking-chair, smoked cigarettes between the
courses and poured into Charity's glass a pale yellow
wine which he said was the very same one drank in just
such jolly places in France.
Charity did not think the wine as good as sarsaparilla,
but she sipped a mouthful for the pleasure of doing
what he did, and of fancying herself alone with him in
foreign countries. The illusion was increased by their
being served by a deep-bosomed woman with smooth hair
and a pleasant laugh, who talked to Harney in
unintelligible words, and seemed amazed and overjoyed
at his answering her in kind. At the other tables
other people sat, mill-hands probably, homely but
pleasant looking, who spoke the same shrill jargon, and
looked at Harney and Charity with friendly eyes; and
between the table-legs a poodle with bald patches
and pink eyes nosed about for scraps, and sat up on his
hind legs absurdly.
Harney showed no inclination to move, for hot as their
corner was, it was at least shaded and quiet; and, from
the main thoroughfares came the clanging of trolleys,
the incessant popping of torpedoes, the jingle of
street-organs, the bawling of megaphone men and the
loud murmur of increasing crowds. He leaned back,
smoking his cigar, patting the dog, and stirring the
coffee that steamed in their chipped cups. "It's the
real thing, you know," he explained; and Charity
hastily revised her previous conception of the
beverage.
They had made no plans for the rest of the day, and
when Harney asked her what she wanted to do next she
was too bewildered by rich possibilities to find an
answer. Finally she confessed that she longed to go to
the Lake, where she had not been taken on her former
visit, and when he answered, "Oh, there's time for
that--it will be pleasanter later," she suggested
seeing some pictures like the ones Mr. Miles had taken
her to. She thought Harney looked a little
disconcerted; but he passed his fine handkerchief over
his warm brow, said gaily, "Come along, then," and
rose with a last pat for the pink-eyed dog.
Mr. Miles's pictures had been shown in an austere
Y.M.C.A. hall, with white walls and an organ; but
Harney led Charity to a glittering place--everything
she saw seemed to glitter--where they passed, between
immense pictures of yellow-haired beauties stabbing
villains in evening dress, into a velvet-curtained
auditorium packed with spectators to the last limit of
compression. After that, for a while, everything was
merged in her brain in swimming circles of heat and
blinding alternations of light and darkness. All the
world has to show seemed to pass before her in a chaos
of palms and minarets, charging cavalry regiments,
roaring lions, comic policemen and scowling murderers;
and the crowd around her, the hundreds of hot sallow
candy-munching faces, young, old, middle-aged, but all
kindled with the same contagious excitement, became
part of the spectacle, and danced on the screen with
the rest.
Presently the thought of the cool trolley-run to the
Lake grew irresistible, and they struggled out of the
theatre. As they stood on the pavement, Harney pale
with the heat, and even Charity a little confused
by it, a young man drove by in an electric run-about
with a calico band bearing the words: "Ten dollars to
take you round the Lake." Before Charity knew what was
happening, Harney had waved a hand, and they were
climbing in. "Say, for twenny-five I'll run you out to
see the ball-game and back," the driver proposed with
an insinuating grin; but Charity said quickly: "Oh, I'd
rather go rowing on the Lake." The street was so
thronged that progress was slow; but the glory of
sitting in the little carriage while it wriggled its
way between laden omnibuses and trolleys made the
moments seem too short. "Next turn is Lake Avenue,"
the young man called out over his shoulder; and as they
paused in the wake of a big omnibus groaning with
Knights of Pythias in cocked hats and swords, Charity
looked up and saw on the corner a brick house with a
conspicuous black and gold sign across its front. "Dr.
Merkle; Private Consultations at all hours. Lady
Attendants," she read; and suddenly she remembered Ally
Hawes's words: "The house was at the corner of Wing
Street and Lake Avenue...there's a big black sign
across the front...." Through all the heat and the
rapture a shiver of cold ran over her.
Content of CHAPTER IX [Edith Wharton's novel: Summer]
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