The Purple Heights Part 16

"The sooner the better. I think we'd better have it here, in our sitting-room, say at noon on Wednesday. Don't be seared," he added, kindly. "All you have to do is just to stand still and say, 'I will,' at the right moment."

"An'--an' then?"

"My nephew's boat sails at about two. He drives to the pier. You and I go to our apartment, until our own house is ready for us. You see how nicely it's all arranged."

"I ain't--I mean, I don't have to see him nor talk to him before, do I?" She looked panic-stricken. "Because I won't! I can't! There's some things I just can't stummick, an' meetin' that feller before the very last minute I got to do it, is one of 'em."

"Of course, of course! You sha'n't meet him until the very last minute. Though he's a mighty nice chap, my nephew Peter is--a mighty nice chap."

"He must be! We're both of us a mighty nice pair, ain't we? Him goin' one way an' me goin', another way, all by our lonesomes!"

"The arrangement does not suit you?" he inquired politely.

"Oh, it suits me all right," she said, after a moment. "I said I'd do what I was told, an' I'll do it--I ain't the sort backs down. But I ain't none too anxious to get any better acquainted with this feller than what I am right now. I ain't stuck on men, noways."

"You are only sixteen, my dear," he reminded her.

"Women know as much about men when they're sixteen as they do when they're sixty," said she, coldly. "There ain't but one thing to believe about 'em--an' that is, you best not believe any of 'em."

"I hope," said he, stiffly, "that you have no just cause to disbelieve me, Nancy? Have I been unkind to you?"

"It ain't _me_ you're either kind or yet unkind to," she told him.

"It's Aunt Milly's niece: you're a little crazy on that head, I guess. It's Aunt Milly's niece you aim to marry to that nephew of yours. If I was just me myself without bein' any kin to her, you wouldn't wipe your old shoes on me." She gave him a clear, level look. "Let's don't have any lies about this thing," she begged. "I'm a poor hand for lies. I know, and I want you should know I know, and deal with me honest."

She surprised him. Her next question surprised him even more.

"What about my weddin'-dress?" she demanded. "I got nothin' fittin'

to be married in."

"I should think a plain, tailored suit--" he began.

"Then you got another think comin' to you," she said, in a hard voice. "I got nothin' to do with pickin' out the groom: you fixed that to suit yourself. But I don't let no man alive pick out my dress. I want a weddin'-dress. I want one I want myself. I want it should be white satin' an' real bride-like. I've saw pictures of brides, an' I know what's due 'em. I ain't goin' to resemble just me myself, standin' up to be married in a coat-suit you get some floor-walker to pick out for me. White satin or nothin'. An' a veil and white satin slippers."

He looked at her helplessly. "White satin, my dear? And a veil?"

"Yes, sir. An' a shower bokay," said she, firmly. "I got to insist on the shower bokay. If I got to be a bride I'll be my kind of bride and not yours."

"My dear child, of course, of course. You shall choose your own frock," said he, hastily. "Only--under the circ.u.mstances, I can't help thinking that something plain, something quite plain and simple, would be more in keeping."

"With me? 'T wouldn't, neither. It'd be something fierce, an' I won't stand for it. I don't mind bein' buried in somethin' plain, but I won't get married in it. Ain't it hard enough as it is, without me havin' to feel more horrid than what I do already? I want something to make me feel better about it, and there ain't anything can do that except it's a dress I want myself."

Mr. Champneys capitulated, horse and foot.

"We will go to some good shop immediately after lunch, and you shall choose your own wedding-dress," he promised, resignedly, marveling at the psychology of women.

It was a very fine forenoon, with a hint of coming autumn in the air. Even an imminent bridegroom couldn't altogether dampen the delight of whizzing through those marvelous streets in a taxi. Then came the even more marvelous world of the department store, which, "by reason of the mult.i.tude of all kind of riches, in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel," put one in mind of the great fairs of Tyre when Tyre was a prince of the sea, as set forth in the Twenty-seventh Chapter of Ezekiel.

Nancy would have been tempted to marry Bluebeard himself for the sake of some of the "rich apparel" that obliging saleswomen were setting forth for her inspection. Getting married began to a.s.sume a rosier aspect, due probably to the reflection of the filmy and lacy miracles that she might have for the mere choosing. She would almost have been willing to be hanged, let alone married, in a pink-silk combination.

The saleswomen scented mystery and romance here. The girl was no beauty, but then, she was astonishingly young; and the old gentleman was very distinguished-looking--quite a personage. They thought at first that he was the prospective bridegroom; learning that he wasn't deepened the mystery but didn't destroy the romance.

Americans are all but hysterically sentimental. Sentimentality is a national disease, which rages nowhere more virulently than among women clerks. Would they rush through the necessary alterations, set an entire force to work overtime, if necessary, in order to have that girl's wedding-dress at her hotel on time? _Wouldn't_ they, though! And they did. Gown, gloves, veil, shoes, fan, everything; all done up with the most exquisite care in reams of soft tissue paper.

She was to be married on the noon of Wednesday. On Tuesday night Nancy locked her door, opened her boxes, and spread her wedding finery on her bed. The dress was a magnificent one, as magnificent a dress as a great store can turn out; its lines had been designed by a justly famous designer. There was a slip, with as much lace as could be put upon one garment; such white satin slippers as she had never hoped to wear; and the texture of the silk stockings almost made her shout for joy. Achilles was vulnerable in the heel: fly, O man, from the woman who is indifferent to the lure of a silk stocking!

Nancy got into her kimono and turned on the hot water in her bath.

At Baxters' there had never been enough hot water with which to wash the dishes, not to mention Nancy herself. Here there was enough to scald all the dishes--and the people--on earth, it seemed to her.

She could hardly get used to the delight and the luxury of all the hot water and scented soap and clean towels she wanted, in a bath-room all to herself. Think of not having to wait one's turn, a very limited turn at that, in a spotted tin tub set in a five-by-seven hole in the wall, with an unshaded gas-jet sizzling about a foot above one's head! The shower-bath was to her an adventure--like running out in the rain, when one was a child. She couldn't get into the tub, and slide down into the warm, scented water, without a squeal of pleasure.

She skipped back to her bedroom, red as a boiled lobster, a rope of damp red hair hanging down her back, sat down on the floor, and drew on those silk stockings, and loved them from a full heart. She wiggled her toes ecstatically.

"O Lord!" sighed Nancy, fervently, "I wish You'd fix it so's folks could walk on their hands for a change! My feet are so much prettier than my face!"

Slipping on the satin slippers, she teetered over and reverently touched the satin frock. All these glories for her, Nancy Simms, who had worn Mrs. Baxter's wretched old clothes cut down for her!

She was afraid to refold the dress, almost afraid to touch it, lest she rumple it. It looked so shining, so l.u.s.trous, so fairy-like and glorious and almost impossible, glistening there on her bed!

Carefully she smoothed a fold, slightly awry. Reverently she placed the thin tulle veil beside it, as well as the rest of her Cinderella finery, including the satin slippers and the fine silk stockings which her soul loved.

She took the two pillows off her bed, secured two huge bath-towels from her bath-room by way of a mattress and a coverlet; and with a last pa.s.sionate glance at the splendors of her wedding-frock, and never a thought for the unknown groom because of whom she was to don it, the bride switched off her light, curled herself up like a cat, and in five minutes was sound asleep on the floor.

CHAPTER X

THE DEAR DAM-FOOL

"Dis place," said Emma Campbell, as the snaggle-toothed sky-line of New York unfolded before her staring eyes, "ain't never growed up natchel out o' de groun'; it done tumbled down out o' de sky en got busted uneven in de fall."

Clinging to the bird-cage in which her cat Satan crouched, she further remarked, as the taxi snaked its sinuous way toward the quarters which a friendly waiter on the steamship had warmly recommended to her:

"All I scared ob is, dat dis unforchunit cat 's gwine to lose 'is min'. Seein' places like dis is 'nough to make any natchel cat run crazy."

Whereupon Emma relapsed into a colossal silence. She was fed up on surprises and they were palling upon her palate, which fortunately wasn't down. Things had been happening so fast that she couldn't keep step with them. To begin with, Peter had preferred to come north by sea, and although Emma had been raised on the coast, although she was used to the capricious tide-water rivers which this morning may be lamb-like and to-night raging lions, although she had crossed Caliboga Sound in rough weather and been rolled about like a ninepin, that had been, so to speak, near the sh.o.r.e-line.

This was different: here was more water than Emma had thought was in the entire world; and she had been a.s.sured that this wasn't a bucketful to what she was yet to see! Emma fell back upon silent prayer.

Then had come this astounding city jutting jaggedly into the clouds, and through whose streets poured in a never-ceasing, turgid flow all the peoples of the earth. And, more astounding than waterful sea and peopleful city, was the last, crowning bit of news: _Peter was going to be married_! And he didn't know the young lady he was to marry, except that she was a Miss Anne Simms. He knew no more about his bride than she, Emma, knew.

That was all Emma needed to reduce her to absolute befuddlement.

When food and drink were placed before her, she partook of both, mechanically. If one spoke to her, she stared like a large black owl. And when Peter had driven away in the taxi, leaving her for the time being in the care of a highly respectable colored family, whose children, born and raised in New York, looked upon the old South Carolina woman as they might have looked upon a visitor from Mars, Emma shut and locked her door, took the cat out of his cage, cuddled him in her arms, tried to projeck,--and couldn't. The feel of Satan's soft, warm body comforted her inexpressibly. He, at least, was real in a shifting universe. She began to rock herself, slowly, rhythmically, back and forth. Then the New York negroes heard a shrill, sweet, wailing voice upraised in one of those speretuals in which Africa concentrates her ages of anguish into a half-articulate cry. In it were the voices of their fathers long gone, come back from the rice-fields and the cane-brakes and the cotton-rows, voices so sweet and plaintive that they were haunted.

"I we-ent out een de wilderness, En I fell upon--mah--knees, En I called upon--mah--Savior, Whut sh-all I do--for--save?

He replied: _Halleluian!_ Sinnuh, sing!

_Halleluian!_ Ma-ry, Mar-tha, _halle_-- _Hallelu_-- _Halleluian_!"

"Good Lord!" breathed the oldest boy, who was a high-school scholar.

"How weird and primitive!" said the daughter, who was to be a teacher.