The Gun Fight

story was forgotten. She didn’t like people staring at her like that. It was terrible the way people gossiped and talked. All Louisa wanted to do was keep out of everyone’s way until things were back to normal again.

Louisa started suddenly at the footsteps in the doorway and her body tightened apprehensively as she turned to see who it was.

Mrs. Alma Cartwright came waddling to the counter, hurriedly erasing from her plump face the curious look that had crossed it when she saw Louisa standing there.

“How are you, my dear?” she asked.

Louisa smiled faintly. “Well, thank you,” she said.

“And your dear mother?” Mrs. Cartwright asked, sheep eyes looking quizzical.

Louisa swallowed and managed another smile. “Well,” she said, “thank you, Mrs. Cartwright.”

Mrs. Cartwright looked toward the back of the shop with forced casualness. “Oh, there’s your aunt,” she said, obviously disappointed that she wasn’t alone with Louisa. “How do, Miss Winston.”

Agatha Winston raised her head, smiled a merchant-to-buyer smile, nodded once, then returned grimly to her figures.

“May I . . . help you?” Louisa asked.

The gaze of her customer stabbed back at her. A smile was arranged on Mrs. Cartwright’s puffy lips.

“I’d like to get a shirtwaist, my dear,” she said. “Silk. For my girl. She’s sixteen next week, you know.”

“Oh,” Louisa said, trying to sound pleasantly surprised.

She could almost feel the portly woman’s eyes on her back as she fingered through the stack of shirtwaists in the drawer. A prickling sensation coursed her back, making her shudder. She drew in a quick breath and turned.

“No silk, Mrs. . . . Cartwright,” she finished weakly as the older woman forced the look of a buying customer on her face again.

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” said Mrs. Cartwright. “Well . . . perhaps . . . cotton?”

Louisa put the shirtwaist on the counter and stood there restively while the woman fingered it distractedly.

“This is the f-inest type sold in the market,” Louisa said without expression. “You’ll . . .”

She stopped as Mrs. Cartwright looked at her. The plump woman couldn’t hide the look in her eyes. Aware of it, she stopped trying. She directed a furtive glance at Miss Winston, then smiled sadly.

“My dear girl,” she said, behind the sympathy a probing inquisitiveness, “I’ve heard about this . . . terrible thing and I’m . . . I’m so shocked.”

Louisa couldn’t speak at first. She felt the heat licking up her cheeks again and had to press her lips together to keep them from shaking. She wanted to turn and run away but she knew she couldn’t so she just stood there staring wordlessly, feeling Mrs. Cartwright’s beady eyes on her, attempting to reflect compassion but conveying only a hungry curiosity.

“I’ll ask my . . . my aunt to ah-show you another kind of—” she faltered, then turned away abruptly.

“But my dear, this is—”

Her skirt rustled noisily as she hurried up the counter, trying vainly to keep the hot tears from spilling any faster across her flushed cheeks.

“Aunt . . . A-Agatha,” she sobbed.

Agatha Winston looked up suddenly, face a blank of consternation.

“What on earth . . .” she started, then stopped, her dark eyes staring at Louisa’s anguished face.

“Please,” Louisa begged, “I . . . I . . .” She couldn’t finish.

Agatha Winston glanced up at the customer, then back at her trembling niece. “Go in the back room,” she said. “Quickly.”

As Louisa stumbled away, cutting off a choking sob, Miss Winston moved in firm strides down the counter.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Cartwright,” she said in a politely brittle voice. “Now what were we looking at?”

Mrs. Cartwright glanced back toward where Louisa was entering the back room.

“What did I say?” she asked. “My dear Miss Winston, I had no intention of—”

“It’s nothing, nothing,” Miss Winston assured hastily, plucking up the shirtwaist. “She’s just a little upset. Is this what we’re interested in today? Now this material is woven by the finest New England lo—”

She stopped talking and glared at Mrs. Cartwright who was looking toward the back of the shop again and acting upset.

“Mrs. Cartwright?” she asked.

The large woman looked at her, head shaking sadly. “Oh, my dear Miss Winston,” she proclaimed, “my heart goes out to that poor girl.”

Miss Winston stiffened. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

Again, Mrs. Cartwright glanced toward the back room. Then she leaned over the counter.

“Do you really think she should . . . wait counter when . . .” She gestured futilely. “Well . . .”

“Mrs. Cartwright, I’m afraid I do not know what you are talking about,” Miss Winston enunciated slowly, torn between rising anger and the unquestioning demeanor she believed all customers merited.

Mrs. Cartwright looked unhappy. “Oh, my dear,” she said in a sort of joyous agony at being involved in this moment. “We’re all lambs in the Lord’s flock. When one of us is led astray . . .”

She didn’t finish. Lambs?—Miss Winston thought—led astray? Her eyes grew harder still behind her forgotten spectacles.

“Mrs. Cartwright, I’ll thank you for an—”

“Oh, my dear Miss Winston. I feel nothing but sympathy for your poor dear niece. I would not for the world —”

“Mrs. Cartwright, what are you talking about?” Miss Winston demanded, putting aside, for the moment, the role of courteous vendor.

Mrs. Cartwright put her ample hand on the unresponsive fingers of Miss Winston.

“I know all about it,” she whispered. “And it has made my heart go out to that poor, dear girl.”

“What, exactly, do you know?” Miss Winston asked, face beginning to go slack now with the rising fear that she did not know everything.

Mrs. Cartwright looked around, looked back.

“About the baby,” she whispered. “The—”

“What!” Miss Winston’s virginal body lurched in shock, her fingers jerking out from beneath the moist warmth of Mrs. Cartwright’s hand. “What are you talking about! Are you intimating that Louisa is—”

Her hands jerked into bone-jutting fists. “Oh!” she said, absolutely dumbfounded.

Mrs. Cartwright drew back in alarm. “What have I—?”

“I don’t know where you heard this vicious gossip, Mrs. Cartwright!” Agatha Winston said, eyes burning with vengeful light, “but, let me end it now—right this very moment! It is not true, Mrs. Cartwright, it is not true at all! I’m shocked that you should believe such a terrible thing of my niece! Shocked, Mrs. Cartwright, shocked!”

“Oh, my dear Miss—”

“No. No. I don’t want to hear anymore!” Miss Winston blinked as a wave of dizziness rushed over her. Her hands clutched at the counter edge. “Please leave,” she muttered. “Please, leave my shop.”

“Oh . . .” Miss Cartwright moaned, face a wrinkle of dismay.

Miss Winston turned away. “Please,” she begged. “Please.”

When a shaken Miss Cartwright had retreated from the shop, an equally shaken Miss Agatha Winston found her unsteady way to the rear of the shop, throat constricted, eyes stark with premonition.

Louisa drew back in fright when she saw her aunt’s face.

“Aunt Agatha,” she whispered.

She gasped aloud as the clawing hand of her aunt clamped over her wrist.

“Tell me!” commanded Agatha Winston, her face terrible. “Is it true?”

Louisa shrank back. “What?” she asked, weakly.

“You had better tell me the truth!”