第25章

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.