Aunt Crete's Emancipation (5 page)

"Nothing that would be quite suitable, I'm afraid, in silks. But we'll go and see what there is in stock," said the assistant with skilful eye, taking in Aunt Crete's smiling, helpless face, lovely white hair, dumpy, ill-fitted figure, and all. "There might be
a gray
voile that would suit her. In fact, I saw one this morning, very simple and elegant, lined with gray silk, and trimmed with lace dyed to match. It is a beauty, and just reduced this morning to thirty dollars from sixty. I believe it will fit her."

Aunt Crete gasped at the price, and looked at Donald; but he seemed pleased, and
said:
"That sounds good.
Let's
go and see it.
We'll
have a gray—what was it you called it—voile? Remember that name, Aunt Crete.
You're
going to have a gray voile.
But
we want the silk too. Do they make things here? We want to go away in a few days, and would like to take them with us."

"O, yes, they'll make anything to order; and this time of year we're not so busy. I guess you could get a 'hurry-up' order on it, and have it done in a couple of days; or it could be forwarded to you if it was not quite finished when you left."

They stepped into the elevator, and in a trice were ushered into the presence of the rare and the imported.
Aunt Crete stood in a maze of
delight and wonder. All this was on exhibition just for her benefit, and she was Alice in Wonderland for the hour. Donald stood back with his arms folded, and watched her with satisfaction. One thing alone
was wanted
to complete it. He would have liked to have Luella up in the gallery somewhere watching also.
But
that he held in anticipation. Luella
should be made
to understand that she had done wrong in underrating this sweet, patient soul.

The gray voile was entirely satisfactory to the two shoppers. Donald recognized it as the thing many women of his acquaintance wore at the receptions he had attended in university circles. Aunt Crete fingered it wistfully, and had her inward doubts whether anything so frail and lovely, like a delicate veil, would wear; but, looking at Donald's happy face, she decided not to mention it. The dress was more beautiful than anything she had ever dreamed of possessing. "But it won't fit me," she sighed as she and Miss Brower were on the way to the "trying-on" room, where the garment was to be fitted to her. "I'm so dumpy, you know, and Luella always says it's no use to get me anything ready-made."

"O, the fitter will make it fit," said Miss Brower
convincingly; and then, with a glance at the ample waist, whose old-fashioned lines lay meekly awry as if they were used to being put on that way and were beyond even discouragement: "Why don't you wear one of those stiffened waists?
There's
a new one on sale, has soft bones all around, and is real comfortable. It would make your dresses set a great deal better. If you like,
I'll
go get one, and you can be fitted over it. You don't like anything very tight, do you?"

"No," said Aunt Crete in a deprecatory tone, "I never could bear anything real tight.
That's
what puts Luella out so about me.
But
, if you say there's a waist that's comfortable, I should be so obliged if you'd get it. I'd be willing to pay any price not to look so dumpy."

She felt that if it took the last cent she possessed, and made all her relatives angry
with
her, she must have something to fit her once.

Miss Brower, thus commissioned, went away, and returned very soon with the magical waist that was to transform Miss
Lucretia's
"
figger
." If Donald could have seen his aunt's face when she was finally arrayed in the soft folds of the gray voile and was being pinned up and pinned
down and pinned in
and pinned out, he would have been fully repaid. Aunt Crete's ecstasy
was marred
only by the fact that Luella could not see her grandeur. Actually
being fitted
in a department
store to a "real imported" dress! Could mortal attain higher in this mundane sphere?

When the fitting was pronounced done and Aunt Crete was about to don her discouraged shirt-waist once more, Miss Brower appeared in the doorway with a coat and skirt suit over her arm, made of fine soft black taffeta.

"Just put this on and let the gentleman see how he likes it," she said. She had been out to talk over matters with Donald and have an understanding as to what was wanted. She had advised the taffeta coat and skirt for travelling, with an extra cloth coat for cool days. Aunt Crete, with the new dignity that consciousness of her improved figure gave her, rustled out to her nephew looking like a new woman, her face beaming.

That was a wonderful day. Aunt Crete retired again for the black taffeta to
be altered
a little, and yet again for a black and white dotted
swiss
, and a white linen suit, and a handsome black crepe de chine, and then to have the measure taken for the silver-gray silk, which the head dressmaker promised could be hurried through. They bought
a black chiffon waist and some filmy, dreamy white
shirt-waists
, simple and plain in design, with exquisite lace simply applied, fine hand-made tucks, and finer material. Miss Brower advised white linen and white lawn for morning wear at the seashore, and gave Aunt Crete confidence, telling how she had a customer, "a woman about as old as you, with just such lovely white hair," who but yesterday purchased a set of white dresses for morning wear at the seashore. This silenced the thoughts of her sister's horror at "White for you, Crete! What are you thinking of?" Never mind, she was going to have one good time, even if she had to put all her lovely finery away in a trunk afterwards, and never bring it out again, or— dreary thought — were made to cut it over for Luella sometime. Well, it might come to that, but at least she would enjoy it while it was hers.

Two white linen skirts, a handsome black cloth coat, several pairs of silk gloves, black and white, some undergarments dainty enough for a bride, a
whole
dozen pairs of stockings! How Aunt Crete rejoiced in those! She had been wearing stockings whose feet
were cut
out of old stocking legs for fifteen years. She
couldn't
remember when she had had a whole new pair of stockings all her own.
And then
two new bonnets.

All these things
were acquired
little by little. It was while they were in the millinery department, and Miss Brower had just set a charming black lace bonnet made on a foundation of white roses on the white hair, that Donald decided she was one of the most beautiful old
ladies
he had ever seen. The drapery was a fine black lace scarf, which swept around the roses and tied loosely on the breast; and it gave the quiet little woman a queenly air. She was getting used to seeing her own face in strange adornments, but it startled her to see that she really looked handsome in this bonnet. She stood before the transformation in the mirror almost in awe, and never heard what Miss Brower was saying:

"That's just the thing for best, and there's a lovely lace wrap in the cloak department she ought to have to go with it. It would be charming."

"Get it," said Donald with respectful brevity. He was astonished himself at the difference mere clothes made. Aunt Crete was
fairly impressive
in her new bonnet.
And
the lace wrap proved indeed to be the very mate to the bonnet, hiding the comfortable figure, and making her look "just like other people," as she breathlessly expressed it after one glance at herself in the lace wrap.

They bought a plain black bonnet, a sweet little gray one, a fine silk umbrella, a lot of pretty belts and handkerchiefs, some shoes and rubbers, a hand-bag of cut steel, for which Luella
would have bartered her conscience—what there was left of it; and then they smiled good-by at Miss Brower, and left her for a little while, and went to lunch.

Such a lunch!
S
oup, and fish, and spring lamb,
and fresh peas, and new potatoes, and two kinds of
ice-cream
in little hard sugar cases that looked like baked snow-balls. Aunt Crete's hand trembled as she took the first spoonful. The wonders of the day had been so great that she
was fairly worn out,
and two little bright red spots of excitement had appeared in her cheeks, but she was happy!
Happier than she remembered ever to have been in her life before.
Her dear old conscience had a moment of sighing that Luella could not have been there to
have enjoyed
it too, and then her heart bounded in wicked gleefulness that Luella was not there to stop her nice time.

They went into a great hall in the same store, and sat among the palms and coolness made by electric fans, while a wonderful organ played exquisite music, and Aunt Crete felt she certainly was in heaven without the trouble of dying; and she never dreamed, dear soul, that she had been dying all her life that others might live, and that it is to such that the reward is promised.

They went back to Miss Brower later; and behold!
the
silver-gray silk had been cut out, and was ready to fit. Aunt Crete felt it was fairy
-
work, the whole of it, and she touched the fabric as if it
had been made
by magic.

Then they went and bought a trunk and a handsome leather satchel, and Donald took a notion that his aunt must have a set of silver combs for her hair such as he saw in the hair of another old
lady
.

"Now," said Donald reflectively, "we'll go home and get rested, and to-morrow we'll come down and buy any things we've forgotten."

"And I'm sure I don't see what more a body could possibly need," said Aunt Crete, as, tired and
absolutely contented
, she climbed into the train and sat down in the hot plush seat.

The one bitter drop in the cup of bliss came the next morning—or rather two drops—in the shape of letters.
One from Aunt Carrie for Donald was couched in stiffest terms, in which she professed to have just heard of his coming, and to be exceedingly sorry that she was not at home, and was kept from returning only by a sprained ankle, the doctor telling her that she must not put her foot to the ground for two or three weeks yet, or she would have to suffer for it.

The othe
r letter was for Aunt Crete, and was a rehash of the telephone message, with a good sound scolding for having gone away from the telephone before she finished speaking. Luella had written it herself because she felt like venting her temper on some one. The young man that had been so attentive to her in town had promenaded the piazza with another young woman all the evening before. Luella hoped Aunt Crete would put up plenty of gooseberry jam. Aunt Crete put on her double V as she read, and sighed for a full minute before Donald looked up amused from his letter.

"Now, Aunt Crete, you look as if a mountain had rolled down upon you. What's the matter?"

"O, I'm just afraid, Donald, that I'm doing wrong going off this way, when Carrie expects me to do all this canning and sewing and cleaning. I'm afraid she'll never forgive me."

"Now, Aunt Crete, don't you love me? Didn't I tell you
I'd
stand between you and the whole world? Please put that letter up, and come and
help me pack your new trunk. Do you want
that gray silk put in first, or shall I put the shoes at the bottom?
Don't
you know you and I are going to have the time of our lives?
We're
going to run away from every care. Do you suppose your own sister would want you to stay here roasting in the city if she knew you had a nephew just aching to carry you off to the ocean?
Come
,
forget it
. Cut it out, Aunt Crete, and
let's
pack the trunk. I'm longing to be off to smell the briny deep."
And
laughingly he carried her away, and plunged her into thoughts of her journey, giving her no time the rest of the day to think of anything else.