| "Miss Foxworth," he said.
"How can I help you? Little Christmas something for your dad?"
"No," Lulu said. "A tuxedo for Mr.
Parmenter here, Armitage. Something plain and traditional, but maybe
with a tartan cummerbund or something. He'll wear it mainly in the
country."
"Of course," the young man said smoothly.
"Would you step this way, sir? We have some nice things from
England this year."
Walter's face was flushed red and his nostrils were
pinched and white. Emily sidled away. She knew that look.
But all he said was "Thank you," and glared
once at Lulu, and followed the young man back into the dim, wood-smelling
reaches of the store. Lulu and Emily sat down in herringbone armchairs
to wait. Another young man brought them tea in thin white cups,
and shortbread.
"You must come here all the time," Emily
said, feeling, in her jeans and barn jacket, like a farmhand in
a palace. Lulu, who wore exactly the same clothes, looked just like
what she was, a wealthy planter's daughter in her afternoon casualwear.
"Mother and I used to come a lot," she
said. "Grand, too. None of the Foxworth men have ever willingly
come down to King Street, even to be fitted. The store usually sends
somebody out to Maybud and we corner them while he fits them."
"Daddy is going to just hate this," Emily
said.
And perhaps he did, but when Walter Parmenter walked
out of the fitting room in a tuxedo of thin lustrous wool, with
a snowy, pleated front shirt and black bow tie and cummerbund of
discreet brick-and-moss plaid, they sat in silence. Then Lulu clapped
her hands in mock applause and laughed aloud with glee.
"You look absolutely fabulous," she said.
"You could be a model for Ralph Lauren, if you weren't so obviously
a dog breeder. Nobody at this hunt is going to come anywhere near
comparing to you. Have you looked at yourself?"
Emily simply stared. Walter Parmenter was transformed
by fabric and alchemy into someone she had never seen, an elegant,
attenuated man in evening clothes, his blond, silvering hair shining
in the overhead light, his thin-featured face thrown into blade-fine
half-shadow, his leathery countryman's tan as smooth and as golden
as Lulu's. He turned to look at them and his eyes were the blue
of a noon October sky in the store's flattering low light. Emily's
breath stopped for a moment in her chest. She knew she was looking
at the young man Caroline Carter had seen on a summer day long ago
and promptly brought all her guns to bear on capturing him from
her sister. For just that moment, she could see why. Beside her,
Lulu made a small, happy sound in her throat."
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