X
Fanny's Friends.
It was on the day following Hosmer's visit, that Mrs. LorenzoWorthington, familiarly known to her friends as Belle Worthington, wasoccupied in constructing a careful and extremely elaborate streettoilet before her dressing bureau which stood near the front window ofone of the "flats" opposite Mrs. Larimore's. The Nottingham curtainscreened her effectually from the view of passers-by without hinderingher frequent observance of what transpired in the street.
The lower portion of this lady's figure was draped, or better,seemingly supported, by an abundance of stiffly starched whitepetticoats that rustled audibly at her slightest movement. Her neckwas bare, as were the well shaped arms that for the past five minuteshad been poised in mid-air, in the arrangement of a front ofexquisitely soft blonde curls, which she had taken from her "topdrawer" and was adjusting, with the aid of a multitude of tinyinvisible hair-pins, to her own very smoothly brushed hair. Yellowhair it was, with a suspicious darkness about the roots, and astreakiness about the back, that to an observant eye would have morethan hinted that art had assisted nature in coloring Mrs.Worthington's locks.
Dressed, and evidently waiting with forced patience for thetermination of these overhead maneuvers of her friend, sat Lou,--Mrs.Jack Dawson,--a woman whom most people called handsome. If she werehandsome, no one could have told why, for her beauty was a thing whichcould not be defined. She was tall and thin, with hair, eyes, andcomplexion of a brownish neutral tint, and bore in face and figure, astamp of defiance which probably accounted for a certain eccentricityin eschewing hair dyes and cosmetics. Her face was full of littleirregularities; a hardly perceptible cast in one eye; the nose drawn abit to one side, and the mouth twitched decidedly to the other whenshe talked or laughed. It was this misproportion which gave a piquancyto her expression and which in charming people, no doubt made thembelieve her handsome.
Mrs. Worthington's coiffure being completed, she regaled herself witha deliberate and comprehensive glance into the street, and the outcomeof her observation was the sudden exclamation.
"Well I'll be switched! come here quick Lou. If there ain't FannyLarimore getting on the car with Dave Hosmer!"
Mrs. Dawson approached the window, but without haste; and in no wisesharing her friend's excitement, gave utterance to her calm opinion.
"They've made it up, I'll bet you what you want."
Surprise seemed for the moment to have deprived Mrs. Worthington offurther ability to proceed with her toilet, for she had fallen into achair as limply as her starched condition would permit, her face fullof speculation.
"See here, Belle Worthington, if we've got to be at the 'Lympic at twoo'clock, you'd better be getting a move on yourself."
"Yes, I know; but I declare, you might knock me down with a feather."
A highly overwrought figure of speech on the part of Mrs. Worthington,seeing that the feather which would have prostrated her must have meta resistance of some one hundred and seventy-five pounds of solidavoirdupois.
"After all she said about him, too!" seeking to draw her friend intosome participation in her own dumbfoundedness.
"Well, you ought to know Fanny Larimore's a fool, don't you?"
"Well, but I just can't get over it; that's all there is about it."And Mrs. Worthington went about completing the adornment of her personin a state of voiceless stupefaction.
In full garb, she presented the figure of a splendid woman; trim andtight in a black silk gown of expensive quality, heavy with jets whichhung and shone, and jangled from every available point of her person.Not a thread of her yellow hair was misplaced. She shone withcleanliness, and her broad expressionless face and meaningless blueeyes were set to a good-humored readiness for laughter, which would bewholesome if not musical. She exhaled a fragrance of patchouly orjockey-club, or something odorous and "strong" that clung to everyarticle of her apparel, even to the yellow kid gloves which she wouldnow be forced to put on during her ride in the car. Mrs. Dawson,attired with equal richness and style, showed more of individuality inher toilet.
As they quitted the house she observed to her friend:
"I wish you'd let up on that smell; it's enough to sicken a body."
"I know you don't like it, Lou," was Mrs. Worthington's apologetic andhalf disconcerted reply, "and I was careful as could be. Give you myword, I didn't think you could notice it."
"Notice it? Gee!" responded Mrs. Dawson.
These were two ladies of elegant leisure, the conditions of whoselives, and the amiability of whose husbands, had enabled them todevelop into finished and professional time-killers.
Their intimacy with each other, as also their close acquaintance withFanny Larimore, dated from a couple of years after that lady'smarriage, when they had met as occupants of the same big up-townboarding house. The intercourse had never since been permitted to dieout. Once, when the two former ladies were on a visit to Mrs.Larimore, seeing the flats in course of construction, they were atonce assailed with the desire to abandon their hitherto nomadic life,and settle to the responsibilities of housekeeping; a scheme whichthey carried into effect as soon as the houses became habitable.
There was a Mr. Lorenzo Worthington; a gentleman employed for manyyears past in the custom house. Whether he had been overlooked, whichhis small unobtrusive, narrow-chested person made possible--or whetherhis many-sided usefulness had rendered him in a manner indispensableto his employers, does not appear; but he had remained at his postduring the various changes of administration that had gone by sincehis first appointment.
During intervals of his work--intervals often occurring of afternoonhours, when he had been given night work--he was fond of sitting atthe sunny kitchen window, with his long thin nose, and shortsightedeyes plunged between the pages of one of his precious books: a smallhoard of which he had collected at some cost and more self-denial.
One of the grievances of his life was the necessity under which hefound himself of protecting his treasure from the Philistine abuse andcontempt of his wife. When they moved into the flat, Mrs. Worthington,during her husband's absence, had ranged them all, systematicallyenough, on the top shelf of the kitchen closet to "get them out of theway." But at this he had protested, and taken a positive stand, towhich his wife had so far yielded as to permit that they be placed onthe top shelf of the bedroom closet; averring that to have them layingaround was a thing that she would not do, for they spoilt the looks ofany room.
He had not foreseen the possibility of their usefulness being atemptation to his wife in so handy a receptacle.
Seeking once a volume of Ruskin's Miscellanies, he discovered that ithad been employed to support the dismantled leg of a dressing bureau.On another occasion, a volume of Schopenhauer, which he had been atmuch difficulty and expense to procure, Emerson's Essays, and twoother volumes much prized, he found had served that lady as weights tohold down a piece of dry goods which she had sponged and spread to dryon an available section of roof top.
He was glad enough to transport them all back to the safer refuge ofthe kitchen closet, and pay the hired girl a secret stipend to guardthem.
Mr. Worthington regarded women as being of peculiar and unsuitableconformation to the various conditions of life amid which they areplaced; with strong moral proclivities, for the most part subservientto a weak and inadequate mentality.
It was not his office to remodel them; his role was simply to endurewith patience the vagaries of an order of human beings, who after all,offered an interesting study to a man of speculative habit, apart fromtheir usefulness as propagators of the species.
As regards this last qualification, Mrs. Worthington had done lessthan her fair share, having but one child, a daughter of twelve, whosetraining and education had been assumed by an aunt of her father's, anun of some standing in the Sacred Heart Convent.
Quite a different type of man was Jack Dawson, Lou's husband. Short,round, young, blonde, good looking and bald--as what St. Louis manpast thirty is not? he rejoiced i
n the agreeable calling of atraveling salesman.
On the occasions when he was at home; once in two weeks--sometimesseldomer--never oftener--the small flat was turned inside out andupside down. He filled it with noise and merriment. If a theater partywere not on hand, it was a spin out to Forest park behind a fast team,closing with a wine supper at a road-side restaurant. Or a card partywould be hastily gathered to which such neighbors as were congenialwere bid in hot haste; deficiencies being supplied from his largecircle of acquaintances who happened not to be on the road, and who atthe eleventh hour were rung up by telephone. On such occasions Jack'svoice would be heard loud in anecdote, introduced in some such wise as"When I was in Houston, Texas, the other day," or "Tell you what itis, sir, those fellers over in Albuquerque are up to a thing or two."
One of his standing witticisms was to inquire in a stage whisper ofBelle or Lou--whether the little gal over the way had taken the pledgeyet.
This gentleman and his wife were on the most amiable of termstogether, barring the small grievance that he sometimes lost money atpoker. But as losing was exceptional with him, and as he did not makeit a matter of conscience to keep her at all times posted as to thefluctuations of his luck, this grievance had small occasion to showitself.
What he thought of his wife, might best be told in his own language:that Lou was up to the mark and game every time; femininecharacteristics which he apparently held in high esteem.
The two ladies in question had almost reached the terminus of theirride, when Mrs. Worthington remarked incidentally to her friend, "Itwas nothing in the God's world but pure sass brought those two fellersto see you last night, Lou."
Mrs. Dawson bit her lip and the cast in her eye became moreaccentuated, as it was apt to do when she was ruffled.
"I notice you didn't treat 'em any too cool yourself," she retorted.
"Oh, they weren't my company, or I'd a give 'em a piece of my mindpretty quick. You know they're married, and they know you're married,and they hadn't a bit o' business there."
"They're perfect gentlemen, and I don't see what business 'tis ofyours, anyway."
"Oh that's a horse of another color," replied Mrs. Worthington,bridling and relapsing into injured silence for the period of tenseconds, when she resumed, "I hope they ain't going to poke themselvesat the matinee."
"Likely they will 's long as they gave us the tickets."
One of the gentlemen was at the matinee: Mr. Bert Rodney, but hecertainly had not "poked" himself there. He never did any thing vulgaror in bad taste. He had only "dropped in!" Exquisite in dress andmanner, a swell of the upper circles, versed as was no one better inthe code of gentlemanly etiquette--he was for the moment awaitingdisconsolately the return of his wife and daughter from Narragansett.
He took a vacant seat behind the two ladies, and bending forward beganto talk to them in his low and fascinating drawl.
Mrs. Worthington, who often failed to accomplish her fierce designs,was as gracious towards him as if she had harbored no desire to givehim a piece of her mind; but she was resolute in her refusal to makeone of a proposed supper party.
A quiet sideward look from Mrs. Dawson, told Mr. Rodney as plainly aswords, that in the event of his _partie-carree_ failing him, he mightcount upon her for a _tete-a-tete_.