CHAPTER XII
THE PURPLE STOCKING
There was unaccustomed silence for a time after the Porter finishedspeaking. He left the car at once, perturbed, it may be, by his owndisclosure of his condition and emotions. Those who had listened to him,whatever may have been their views concerning one of the great problemsof the age, could not but feel a certain sympathy for the man condemnedto be thus isolated--the man without a race. That his case might besomewhat exceptional detracted in no way from its curious pathos. It wasrecognized as one of the tragedies of human life as it is, and therecital had induced a thoughtful mood among the Porter's audience. Whatshould be the attitude of the ordinary man or woman in a case like this?And, seeking honestly in their own minds, those pondering could notanswer the question satisfactorily, either to judgment or to conscience.By what law should they be guided?
The Colonel was among the thinkers, but he rose superior, as usual.That gilded optimist wanted not even reflection among the snowbound. Hadhis company been of males exclusively he might even have been tempted tointroduce the flowing bowl, but for his knowledge of the inevitabledepressing aftermath. He wanted but carelessness and distraction andforgetfulness until the time of pale monotony should end. Now he wastempted to an act most ruthless and unconjugal.
His glance was toward his wife, whom he adored openly, and toward whomhe, at all times, showed the greatest consideration, but who, throughsome prescience, was fidgeting a little.
"Madam," he began pompously, slapping his hand upon his chest, "thehusband is the head of the family--he really isn't," he added in anaudible aside, "but we'll assume it for the present. Madam, he is thehead of the family and must be obeyed. I order, command and direct youto tell a story; if need be I will even abdicate for the moment and sofar humiliate myself as to implore you to tell a story. Tell about thataffair which took place at the Grand Cattaraugus, when we were stoppingthere last summer."
The pleasant-faced lady appeared hesitant: "But it's almost a naughtystory," she protested; "it's about a stocking, and, oh dear! there'ssomething about a"--and she blushed prettily, as is always the case whena middle-aged woman thus demeans herself, "there's an ankle in it, too."
"Nonsense," retorted the Colonel. "Do you mean in the story or in thestocking? In either case an ankle is all right. Go ahead, my dear."
Mrs. Livingston yielded: "After all," she said, "it's not so very wickedand the story is chiefly about matching colors, which is a subject notunlikely to interest ladies. Anyhow, it interested me in this instance.I know all the shocking circumstances, and, since I've gone so far I mayas well be reckless. I suppose the story might be called
THE PURPLE STOCKING
Maxwell, a gentleman stopping at the hotel, was bored. There existed noparticular excuse for his frame of mind, but the fact remained. He hadfairly earned a vacation, but when the time came for escape from themidsummer heat of his offices he had found himself with no well-definedidea of where his outing should be spent. Circumstances rendered itnecessary that it should be a brief one this time, else he would haveknown what to do with himself, for the man knew the Rocky Mountains. Asit was, he had but taken train for one of the nearby summer resorts,where the Grand Cattaraugus caravansary, consisting, as those places do,of an enormous piazza with a hotel attached to its rear, loomed upbeside and overlooked the pretty hill-surrounded lake with its bluewaters, narrow beach and many pleasure boats. It was not a bad place andMaxwell had decided that it would be endurable for a week or two,especially after the arrival of his friend, Jim Farrington, who hadpromised to follow and loaf genially with him.
But first impressions are not always final. Maxwell found the hotel fullof people, mostly women. It was a fashionable place, and the women werefair to look upon, but there were not men enough to go round. There weretwo or three dowagers who knew Maxwell and, seek to avoid it as hemight, he was soon generally introduced and his eligibility made widelyknown. Then came monotonous attention and, for his own peace, the man,who hadn't come after women, was driven to daily exile either to hisroom or to the lake or hills. The elder ladies with daughters hunted himas hounds might hunt a rabbit. He resolved promptly upon escape and,within a week, an afternoon found him engaged in packing for thatpurpose.
His laundry had just come in and among the articles he picked up firstwere a lot of blazing silken handkerchiefs. Colored silk handkerchiefswere a fad of his in summer. He tossed them idly into his valise whenthe color of one of them attracted his attention.
"I never owned a handkerchief like that," he muttered.
He raised the article to examine it more closely, and to his amazementit unfolded and lengthened out. It was not a handkerchief at all. It wasa lady's stocking--a brilliant purple stocking!
Maxwell wondered. "Washing's been mixed," he said, and then devotedcloser and more earnest attention to his prize. It was a charmingaffair, small of foot but not too small otherwise, and possessed,somehow, an especial symmetry, even in its present state.
"It's number eight--number three shoe," thought Maxwell, "and it's theprettiest stocking I ever saw."
His comment was fully justified. The stocking was a dream in itsdepartment of lingerie. The purple was relieved, from the ankle upward alittle way, by a clocking of snow-white sprays of lilies-of-the-valley,and the purple itself was of such a hue as to send one dreaming of theglories of the ancients. It was a wonderful stocking, a fascinatingstocking. It lured like a will-o'-the wisp.
Maxwell abandoned his packing and sat stroking and admiring thehypnotizing object. He became vastly interested. "I wonder whom itbelongs to?" he mused. Then--there's no explaining it with authority,and discreetly--a sudden fancy seized upon him. "I'll not leaveto-night!" he said, "I'll find the owner of that stocking! It will giveme something to do and add a little zest to things. Might as well bestocking-hunting as anything else. By Jove, what a neat little foot shemust have!"
The packing was left undone. The man had an object now, one which mighthave seemed trivial to the bloodless and unimaginative, but which to himbecame a serious matter. Talk about the Round Table fellows after theHoly Grail or Diogenes after an honest man, they were not in it withMaxwell! He dawdled and mooned over that stocking and made and unmadeplans. He bribed a gentleman, youthful and dirty, connected with thelaundry department of the hotel, and it came to naught. His gaze wasever downward. He appeared more frequently on the piazza among thescores of "porchers" engaged in idle converse there. He strolled alongthe little beach, ever with furtive eyes on twinkling feet, and neatones he saw galore and stockings rainbow-hued galore, but never a purpleone among them.
It was the quality of the purple, he decided, which must have soenthralled him in the first place. He had never seen a purple like it.He read up on purples. He learned that royal purple is made up offifty-five parts red, twelve parts blue and thirty-three parts black,and concluded that the stocking must be almost a royal purple, sowonderfully did the white lilies show out against its richness. Tyrianpurple he rejected as being too dull for the comparison. Then heconsidered the purple of Amorgos, the wonderfully brilliant colorobtained from the seaweed of the Grecian island, and this met withgreater favor in his eyes. He decided, finally, that the hue of thestocking was between the royal and the purple of Amorgos, and thisrelieved his mind. But this didn't help him to find the girl--and howvain a thing is even the most beautiful stocking in the world without agirl attached!
Then the unexpected happened as usual. There came a lapse in the search.The cure for Maxwell's dream was homeopathic. Like cures like. One girlblighted most of interest in the vague search for another. Maxwell wascaught by the concrete. Miss Ward, a guest of the hotel, in company withher aunt, was not, Maxwell decided, like any of the other women. She wasdignified, but piquant, pretty, certainly, and well educated. Likewise,she had self-possession and much wit. Maxwell enjoyed her society andthey became close friends. He began to feel as if the world, if hollow,had at least a substantial crust. He was no longer bored and thestock
ing fancy was put aside.
Then came Farrington. Farrington had spirits. He lightened up the hotelpiazza and flirted with every one, from dowagers down to the littlegirls to whom he told liver-colored stories as evening and the gloomcame. He was deeply interested when Maxwell told him of the stockingand the marvel. He became full of ardor.
"Don't give up the search!" he expostulated. "Such a stocking as thatmust belong to the one woman in four hundred and eighty-three thousand.Why, it's like finding a nugget in a valley! There's bound to be gold inthe mountains!"
So the interest of Maxwell became largely revived and his mind was onstockings when he was not in the company of Miss Ward. One day aninspiration came to him with the gentle suddenness of a love pat. Hetook Farrington into his confidence. That evening on the piazza thatgifted friend adroitly turned the conversation to the subject ofmatching goods and colors.
The debate became most animated. The ladies, one and all, declared thatin the matter of matching things men were scarcely above the beasts thatperish, while as for themselves, there was not a woman, young or old,among them who was not an adept. Maxwell, who had seemed at firstuninterested, broke into the conversation.
"I'm not ungallant," he asserted as a preliminary. "When it comes togallantry I'll venture to say I'd outdo any medieval troubadour, if Icould only sing and twang a harp, but, though angels can do almostanything, to tell the truth I'm a shade doubtful concerning theirabsolute infallibility in matching hues and fabrics. I've a piece ofsilk I'd like matched for my sister, and I hereby, in the presence ofall witnesses, offer a prize of one box of gloves to any lady who willmatch it for me within a week," and he produced about six inchessquare--thirty-six square inches--of splendid purple silk.
As the war horse snuffeth the battle and says "Ha! ha!" to the trumpets;as the sea mew rises from the waves to riot in the spindrift; as theneedle to the pole; as the river to the sea or the cat to the catnip inwild enthusiasm--so rose the ladies to the silken lure. Match the silk?Why, the gloves must be distributed among the score!
And then ensued a busy week. The sample, divided into thirty-six piecesan inch square, was surrendered. There were trips to the nearest cityand, as excitement grew, even to the metropolis. The afternoon for thetest arrived and Maxwell, seated judicially beside a table on the piazzaand provided with another sample of his silk, awaited with manlydignity the onslaught of the gathered contestants.
One by one they came and laid down their little pieces of purple silk;one by one the samples were compared by the judge with the piece held inhis hand, and, one by one, he passed them back with a regretful andunnecessarily audible sigh. Last of all came Miss Ward, who had not beento town and who had, apparently, taken slight interest in thecompetition. It was too trivial for her, had been Maxwell's firmconclusion. Now she approached the table and laid down, as had theothers, a piece of purple silk. Maxwell's heart thumped. There was nomistaking that wondrous hue!
"Miss Ward has won the gloves," he said.
There were congratulations and any amount of fun and curiousspeculation.
That evening Maxwell caught Miss Ward upon the piazza and induced her tosit with him awhile, to improve his mind, he said. They chattedindifferently until he took occasion to compliment her upon her successin matching the purple silk. "You have a wonderful sense of color," hedeclared.
She answered that she had always enjoyed matching things, and then heventured to expatiate a little on the particular silk which had beenmatched: "What pretty trimming for a hat, or what pretty stockings itwould make," he said.
She asked him why the nighthawks circling overhead and about gaveutterance to their shrill cries so frequently, and he said he didn'tknow. Then they talked about the coming boat race.
For a week Maxwell's chief occupation was what Farrington described as"concentrated musing." He walked much. One afternoon he was strollingalong the narrow beach, which lay, a sandy stretch, between the waterand a tree-grown grassy ledge, about fifteen feet in height, which was afavorite place of rest and outlook for the hotel guests. He was lookingdownward, but there came a moment when the heavens fell. Chancing tolook upward to determine if any of the usual idlers there were of acompanionable sort for him, he saw that which turned aside the currentof his life as easily as an avalanche may turn a rivulet.
There, projecting a little beyond the crest-crowning grass and greeneryof the ledge above, was something trim and gloriously purple andgloriously perfect. The tan of the neatest of number three shoes blendedupward into the purple paradise, and from the tan seemed growing a snowyspray of lilies-of-the-valley. Delicate is the subject, but it must betreated. Delicate is the making of a watch, but we must have watches;eggs are delicate, but we must eat them; goldfish are delicate, but wemust lift them by hand occasionally. Duty first!
Perfect the exterior of that wondrous stocking, perfect, absolutely so,but its contour and its contents! Ah, me! The flat, thin ankle--letArabian fillies hide their heads! The even upward swell--just fullenough, just trim enough, revealed, but not in view, as one sees thingsby starlight. Ah, me!
Maxwell's eyes dimmed and he reeled. What is known as locomotor ataxiasmote him there suddenly in his prime and pride of life. Then after amoment or two a degree of health came back and he turned and retracedhis steps, feebly at first, then more rapidly, and then as hies theantlered stag. He gained the ledge and followed it and found Miss Wardseated demurely at its very crest and surrounded by a group of friends.
Within three months he owned, after the wedding, not merely what wasleft of one, but two similar purple stockings, and their contents,together with, all and singular, the hereditaments and appurtenancesthereunto belonging or in anywise appertaining.
The Cassowary; What Chanced in the Cleft Mountains Page 12