200CHAPTER XIX
HEREIN CAPTAIN MORTON FALLS UNDER SUSPICION AND HENRY FENN FALLS FROM GRACE
On Market Street nearly opposite the Traders’ National Bank during the decades of the eighties and nineties was a smart store front upon which was fastened a large, black and gold sign bearing the words “The Paris Millinery Company” and under these words in smaller letters, “Mrs. Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop.” If Mr. George Brotherton and his Amen Corner might be said to be the clearing house of public opinion in Harvey, the establishment of Mrs. Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop., might well be said to be the center of public clamor. For things started in this establishment–by things one means in general, trouble; variegated of course as to domestic, financial, social, educational, amatory, and at times political. Now the women of Harvey and South Harvey and of Greeley county–and of Hancock and Seymour counties so far as that goes–used the establishment of “The Paris Millinery Company, Mrs. Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop.,” as a club–a highly democratic club–the only place this side of the grave, in fact, where women met upon terms of something like equality.
And in spring when women molt and change their feathers, the establishment of “Mrs. Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop.” at its opening rose to the dignity of a social institution. It was a kind of folk-mote. Here at this opening, where there was music and flowers and bonbons, women assembled en masse. Mrs. Nesbit and Mrs. Fenn, Mrs. Dexter and Violet Hogan, she that was born Mauling met, if not as sisters at least in what might be called a great step-sisterhood; and even the silent Lida Bowman, wife of Dick, came 201from her fastness and for once in a year met her old friends who knew her in the town’s early days before she went to South Harvey to share the red pottage of the Sons of Esau!
But her friends had little from Mrs. Bowman more than a smile–a cracked and weather-beaten smile from a broken woman of nearly forty, who was a wife at fifteen, a mother at seventeen, and who had borne six children and buried two in a dozen years.
“There’s Violet,” ventured Mrs. Bowman to Mrs. Dexter. “I haven’t seen her since her marriage.”
To a question Mrs. Bowman replied reluctantly, “Oh–as for Denny Hogan, he is a good enough man, I guess!”
After a pause, Mrs. Bowman thought it wise to add under the wails of the orchestra: “Poor Violet–good hearted girl’s ever lived; so kind to her ma; and what with all that talk when she was in Van Dorn’s office and all the talk about the old man Sands and her in the Company store, I just guess Vi got dead tired of it all and took Denny and run to cover with him.”
Violet Hogan in a black satin,–a cheap black satin, and a black hat–a cheap black hat with a red rose–a most absurdly cheap red rose in it, walked about the place picking things over in a rather supercilious way, and no one noticed her. Mrs. Fenn gave Violet an eyebrow, a beautifully penciled eyebrow on a white marble forehead, above beaming brown eyes that were closed just slightly at the moment. And Mrs. Van Dorn who had kept track of the girl, you may be sure, went over to her and holding out her hand said: “Congratulations, Violet,–I’m so glad to hear–” But Mrs. Denny Hogan having an eyebrow to spare as the gift of Mrs. Fenn passed it on to Mrs. Van Dorn who said, “Oh–” very gently and went to sit on a settee beside Mrs. Brotherton, the mother of the moon-faced Mr. Brotherton and Mrs. Ahab Wright, who always seemed to seek the shade. And then and there, Mrs. Van Dorn had to listen to this solo from Mrs. Brotherton:
“George says Judge Van Dorn is running for Judge again: really, Laura, I hope he’ll win. George says he will. George says Henry Fenn is the only trouble Mr. Van Dorn will have, though I don’t see as Henry could do 202much. Though George says he will. George says Henry is cranky and mean about the Judge someway and George says Henry is drinking like a fish this spring and his legs is hollow, he holds so much; though he must have been joking for I have heard of hollow horn in cattle, but I never heard of hollow legs, though they are getting lots of new diseases.”