6
Simpson Street was always crowded of a Saturday morning with thoughtful housewives. The grocers and butchers bustled about. The rows of display racks along the sidewalk were heaped with fresh vegetables and fruits.
The majority of the shoppers came afoot, but the kerb was lined with buggies, surries, neat station wagons and dog-carts, crowded in between the delivery wagons. Sunbury boasted, as well, a number of Stanhopes, a barouche or two, and several landaus. The Jenkins family, among its several members, had a stable full of horses and ponies. William B. Snow owned a valuable chestnut team with silver-mounted harness. Here and there along the street one might have seen, on this occasion, several vehicles that might well have been described as smart.
But Sunbury had never seen anything like the equipage that, at a quarter to twelve—a little late for selective shopping in those days—came rolling smoothly, silently, on its rubber-shod wheels across the tracks and past the post-office, Nelson's bakery, the Sunbury National Bank, Duneen's and Donovan's to Swanson's flower shop.
Never, never had Sunbury seen anything quite like that. Mr Berger, hurrying through to the front of his store, stopped short, stared out across the street and after a breathless moment breathed the words, 'Holy Smoke!' Women stood motionless, holding heads of lettuce, boxes of raspberries and what not, and gazed in an amazement that was actually long minutes in reaching the normal mental state of critical appraisal.
The carriage was a Victoria, hung very low, varnished work glistening brilliantly in the sunshine. It was upholstered conspicuously in plum colour. The horses were jet black, glossy, perfectly matched, checked up so high that the necks arched prettily if uncomfortably; and they had docked tails. The harness they wore was mounted with a display of silver that made the silver on William B. Snow's team, standing just below Donovan's, look outright inconspicuous.
Leaning back in luxurious comfort as the carriage came so softly along the street, holding up a parasol of black lace, overshadowing her niece, pretty little Cicely Hamlin, who sat beside her, Madame Watt, her large person dressed with costly simplicity in black with a touch of colour at the throat, square of face, with an emphatic chin, a strongly hooked nose, penetrating black eyes, surveyed the street with a commanding dignity, an assertive dignity, if the phrase may be used. Or it may have been that a touch of self-consciousness within her showed through the enveloping dignity and made you think about it. Certainly there was a final outstanding reason for self-consciousness, even in the case of Madame Watt; for on the high box in front visible for blocks above the traffic of the street, sat, in wooden perfection as in plum-coloured livery, side by side, a coachman and a footman.
At Swanson's the footman leaped nimbly down and stood rigid by the step while Madame heavily descended and passed across the walk and into the shop.
The street lifted. Women's tongues moved briskly. Trade was resumed.
A pretty girl in the most wonderful carriage ever seen—a new girl, at that, bringing a stir of quickened interest to the younger set—is a magnet of considerable attracting power. Young people appeared—from nowhere, it seemed—and clustered about the carriage. Two couples hurried from the soda fountain in Donovan's. The de Casselles boys were passing on their way from the Country Club courts (which were still on the old grounds, down near the lake) in blazer coats and with expensive rackets in wooden presses. Alfred Knight was out collecting for the bank, and happened to be near. Mary Ames and Jane Bellman came over from Berger's, where Mary was scrutinising cauliflowers with a cool eye.
It was at this moment that Henry reached the corner by Berger's, paused, hopelessly, confused and torn in the swirl of success and disaster that marked this painful day, fighting down that mad impulse to talk out loud his resentments in a passionate torrent of words, saw the carriage, the girl in it and the crowd about it in one nervous glance, then, suddenly pale, lips tightly compressed, moved doggedly forward across the street.
He had nearly reached the opposite kerb—not turning; with the ugly little note that was clasped in his left hand, he could not trust himself to bow, he felt a miserable sort of relief that the distance might excuse his appearing not to see; and there had to be an excuse, or it would look to some like cowardice—when an errant summer breeze wandered around the corner and seized on his straw hat.
He felt it lifting; dropped his stick; reached then after both hat and stick and in doing so nearly dropped the paper. In another moment he was to be seen, desperately white, stick in one hand, a slip of paper in the other, running straight down Simpson Street after his hat, which whirled, sailed, rolled, sailed again, circled, and settled in the dust not two rods from the Watt carriage. The street, as streets, will, turned to look.
Henry lunged for the hat. It lifted, and rolled a little way on. He lunged again. It whirled over and over, then rolled rapidly straight down the street, just missing the hoofs of a delivery horse, passing under Mr George F. Smith's buggy without touching either horse or wheels, and sailed on.
Henry fell to one knee in his second plunge. And his pallor gave place to a hot flush.
Laughter came to his ears—jeering laughter. And it came unquestionably from the group about the Watt carriage. The first voices were masculine. Before he could get to his feet one or two of the girls had joined in. In something near despair of the spirit, helplessly, he looked up.
The whole group, still laughing, turned away. All, that is, but one. Cicely was not laughing. She was leaning a little forward, looking right at him, not even smiling, her lips parted slightly. He was too far gone even to speculate as to what her expression meant. It fell upon him as the final blow. He ran on and on. In front of Hemple's market a boy stopped the hat with his foot. Henry, trembling with rage, took it from him, muttered a word of thanks, and rushed, followed by curious eyes, around the corner to the north.