The Pleasant Street Partnership Part 7

"I should love to write stories or paint pictures," agreed Charlotte.

"Any sort of useful work,--work there was a demand for, and that I could do better, or at least as well as any one else, would satisfy me," said Alex.

Alexina had gone on to give Charlotte a great deal of good advice about making the most of her opportunities. She listened gravely to the story of the borrowed novel Aunt Caroline had taken away; and while she acknowledged it was trying, she pointed out that it was a foolish story, and not worth reading.

When Charlotte went on to describe Lucile, Alex did not seem impressed, only saying, "I wonder who the Lyles are; I never heard of them. Of course they may be nice people, but Lucile Lyle is such a silly name."

"I think it is beautiful," cried Charlotte, wondering what Miss Alex would think of Carlotta Creston.

"No," the young lady said, as if replying to her thought, "I prefer plain names. For instance, if you should turn out to be a brilliant beauty and all that, there is nothing inappropriate in your name, Charlotte Creston. You can glorify it; but if you are only an ordinary person, you are made absurd by a name you cannot live up to."

This was a new view to take of it. Charlotte wavered, and really Lucile's influence was a little on the wane when the encounter with Aunt Caroline gave it new life. At school next day Charlotte came again under her spell.

Lucile was undeniably pretty and almost as grown up in appearance as Miss Alex, though only fifteen. She was intensely romantic, her own personal experiences at this early age would have supplied several novels, and her manner toward Charlotte was caressing and flattering.

Charlotte was one of the few who understood her, she said. They were kindred souls.

Lucile wrote verses which seemed to Charlotte quite as good as Cousin Frank's, and she could sing any number of love-songs charmingly. The girls would gather about the piano at recess and beg her to sing. The favorite was one beginning:--

"Teach, oh, teach me not to love thee!

Turn those beauteous eyes away,"

and Lucile always bent a soulful gaze upon Charlotte when she sang it.

Charlotte wondered if her eyes were beauteous.

"When are you coming to see me Carlotta?" Lucile asked one day.

They were walking home from school, and had paused on the corner where their ways divided.

"I don't know. They don't like me to go out alone," was the answer, given with a flushed face.

"But the cars bring you almost to our door. I shall be terribly hurt."

Charlotte looked gloomy. "I can't come if they won't let me. You don't know. They think I am six years old."

"You don't love me. I see it plainly." With a tragic gesture Lucile drew a ring from her finger and held it out. "Take it back," she said.

In the first ardor of their friendship they had exchanged rings, Charlotte feeling a little mortified at the time that Lucile's was so much handsomer than hers, and she had kept it carefully turned in to avoid comment. But after all it was not giving up the ring she minded.

Lucile's apparent distress touched her affectionate heart.

"Don't say that!" she entreated, drawing back. "I do love you, and I will come to see you whether they let me or not." In the glow of her devotion she felt like a heroine in one of Lucile's favorite tales. It was a question of loyalty now. She had promised to be friends before Aunt Caroline issued her commands. So they parted with renewed vows, and Charlotte's a.s.surance that she would come that very afternoon on her way from her music lesson, if she could escape un.o.bserved.

Charlotte had very imperfectly learned the lesson of obedience to higher powers, and it was not difficult to convince herself that she was justified. It did seem a little underhand, this was all that troubled her.

Aunt Virginia, who was going down town in the carriage, offered to take her to her lesson; adding, "You can find your way back, I suppose."

"I should think so, after so many times," Charlotte answered, feeling guilty.

Aunt Virginia was particularly agreeable and funny that afternoon.

Charlotte was really becoming very fond of her. She was a merry companion; she liked foolish things, such as soda-water and candy, and was even willing to stop and watch a circus parade.

"If it is cool when you leave, be sure to put your jacket on," was her parting injunction.

"And if it rains, I'll put up my umbrella," Charlotte called after her, saucily. At the same time she felt ashamed of what she had planned to do. If it had not been for the memory of Lucile's reproaches, she would have given it up.

It must have been the thought of Aunt Virginia that kept the call from being the pleasure she had expected. Lucile was very glad to see her, and took her over the large, showy house, which seemed exactly suited to the large blond woman with a complexion of pinkish lavender, whom she introduced as her mother. Mrs. Lyle wore a costume of black and white, in broad stripes, and a wonderful, black plumed hat, which brought to mind Aunt Cora's poster room.

She was most gracious, complimenting Charlotte's eyes, and asking if she did not find the Terrace dreadfully far down town. She also asked about the Russells; said Alexina was odd and Madelaine a beauty, and that it was a great pity the judge had not known how to keep his money,--all of which seemed strange to Charlotte, when she remembered Alex's question, "Who are the Lyles?"

Lucile seemed proud of the house and told the cost of a good many things. She wanted to know why Charlotte's aunts did not sell their house in the Terrace and build out on the Avenue.

"I don't believe they want to," Charlotte answered; "and I think the Terrace is very nice," she added, feeling Lucile was rather too complacent.

"Why, they are beginning to put up stores there!" Lucile exclaimed.

Charlotte had herself freely criticised the Terrace, but this did not keep her from resenting Lucile's remarks, and she carried away with her a consciousness of the friction. As she walked home, she felt a vague dissatisfaction with life in general, and heartily wished she had not gone. She could not help seeing, just a little, why Aunt Caroline did not care for the Lyles.

Charlotte had a strong impulse to confess, and say she was sorry for what she had done; but the right moment did not come. Aunt Caroline was out that evening and Aunt Virginia in one of her shy, elusive moods. She got as far as "Aunt Virginia, I want to tell you,--I did something dreadful to-day--" when a visitor was announced. Her aunt looked relieved.

"Never mind, my dear; if you are sorry, I have no doubt it will be all right," she said, rising hastily. "Go to bed early."

How could you tell people things if they did not want to listen? At any rate she would not go to the Lyles' again, and she gave herself to her studies with a new earnestness born of repentance.

CHAPTER NINTH

IN THE SHOP

The opposition of the neighborhood resulted in advertising the shop to some extent. Whoever saw the odd little place was certain to tell some one else; and this person and that, dropping in out of curiosity to look, remained to buy, if only a trifle.

The wares were novel and attractive, the prices reasonable, and the shopkeepers themselves afforded food for speculation. Like their wares, they were unusual,--considered as shopkeepers, that is. To all appearances ladies, their manner of speech betrayed they were not Southern; yet they did not single out the letter _r_ as worthy of peculiar emphasis,--a thing the Terrace could not tolerate.

To those who often pa.s.sed the shop, James Mandeville became a familiar figure; for from the first he elected to bestow upon its proprietors his unqualified friendship, and a day rarely went by without a visit from him. He quickly learned to adapt himself to the rule that he must not finger things, nor interrupt when customers were present. He usually brought some plaything with him,--most frequently the flannel donkey,--and amused himself quite happily, with an occasional appeal to the sympathy of his companions.

His new friends began to look forward each day to his coming and to the invariable piece of news with which he entered.

"Miss Norah, what do you think?" he exclaimed one morning. "The moon's awake and it's daytime!" and drawing her to the door he pointed out the misty phantom in the southwestern sky, with the air of a discoverer.

On another occasion, "Miss Norah, I can't stay very long to-day, 'cause my geranium is going to bloom."

It developed that James Mandeville's mother was ill in a sanitarium, his father absorbed in business, and his only guardian an old colored woman, known as Mammy Belle. Mammy Belle was of the type fast disappearing. She wore head handkerchiefs of bright colors, and her purple calicoes were stiff with starch and spotlessly neat. She possessed the peculiar dignity that accompanied a faithful, unquestioning acceptance of her station in life.

Mammy had sole charge of the Norton household, and no doubt it was a relief to her to know that her charge had found so safe an asylum; but on the occasion of her first visit the shopkeepers felt they were being weighed in the balance. Her manner was apologetic and reserved, as she stood, her hands folded on her white ap.r.o.n.

"'Tain't possible to keep dat chile at home," she explained. "Yes'm. I takes keer of him. Miss Maimie, she's in a hospital, an' dey ain't n.o.body to raise James Mandeville but his old mammy."