The Family at Misrule/Chapter 10

NIP, snip. Bits of silesia and common red cashmere worked their way to the edge of the table, and from there dropped to the floor where there was a glorious litter. Buzz, buzz, bang against the window-panes went the body and wings of a great "meat" fly. Whirr, whirr, the sewing-machine fled frantically over the silesia in the places where the scissors had gone snip, snip. From the trees across the road came the maddening sound of many locusts; the great fly on the hot window-glass was half killing itself in the effort to outdo them in noise.

"What ever was she?" sighed Miss Mabelle Jones.

She got up from the machine with a length of grey webbing in her hand, and looked absently about for a few minutes. She had written the measurement of a customer's waist on the back of a card of buttons, she remembered; but the question was, where were the buttons?

"If only he had money of his own now," she said aloud, which had no apparent connection with waist measurements, but showed that dressmakers' thoughts occasionally run on other things besides gatherings, crossway flounces, and boned bodices. Then she found the card in the leaves of the Young Ladies' Journal; and the comment, "Thirty-five inches, fat old thing," had a connection.

She held the webbing against the tape measure, and cut it off at thirty-five with quite a vicious little snip.

"Stuck up things," she muttered. "I wouldn't be seen in the plain, common dresses they wear for anything—no style at all. Why, Miss Woolcot's at church on Sunday was just fourpence-ha'penny print, and nothing else."

Then she gasped, and put down the underskirt she was making in a great hurry. Just outside the window stood Miss Woolcot herself, looking half-hesitatingly at the fly-spotted card that said "Miss Mabelle Jones, Costumiere and Modiste." The next minute the knocker sounded.

The father of Miss Mabelle Jones, as mentioned before, earned an honest livelihood by vending tea and sugar, wax candles, and such—not to speak of sardines. There were great white letters on his window that asked, for the benefit of humanity, "Who brought down Sydney prices?" and vivid red ones that answered boldly and with generous flourishes, "Why, Thomas Jones of course, the People's Friend. One pound of fine white sugar given away with every pound of tea."

The shop was at the corner. The little side-door and window had been given to Miss Jones when she had set up for herself and lengthened her baptismal name by two letters.

Good Mrs. Jones was cutting up carrots for haricot mutton in the back kitchen, when her daughter burst in upon her.

"Go and let that young lady in; say I'll be down presently—say I'm engaged for a bit," she said, pulling off as she spoke the housewifely apron that protected the front of her mother's dress.

But "Bless us, girl" was Mrs. Jones's rather aggrieved reply; "you always see folks in that dress, and you always let 'em in yourself. This 'arryco won't be fit for pa if I go and leave it."

"It isn't ordinary folks—it's a real swell; it's—it's his sister, the eldest one," said Miss Jones, in great agitation. "There, she's knocked again; oh, for goodness' sake be quick, ma! The room's all in a mess too."

Mrs. Jones with a sigh set aside her toothsome "'arryco" and proceeded to the door.

"Can I see Miss Jones?" asked the pale young lady on the doorstep.

And "She'll be down presently; she's cleanin' herself," answered Mrs. Jones, leading the way into Mabelle's room, and moving a heap of work off a chair.

"Sit down, miss, and I'll go and 'urry her up. You can be lookin' at the fashun plates; they're the latest styles in London"; and she kindly put a heap of coloured supplements, depicting ladies' fearfully and wonderfully arrayed, at Meg's elbow.

It was more than a quarter of an hour before Miss Jones made her appearance, and oh, what a change was there!

She wore a "costume" of bright terra-cotta poplin, with insertion bands of black lace over pink ribbon at intervals up the skirt and round the body.

The sleeves were enormous—gigot shape; there were numberless gold and silver bangles at her wrists, several brooches at her neck, and a gold-headed pin was stuck through her hair. She had white canvas shoes with tan bands.

That she was pretty there was no doubt. She had a bright complexion, scarlet lips, and large heavily lashed brown eyes, very soft and beautiful; her hair, which was much frizzed, was black and silky.

"I regret that circumstances over which I had no control compelled me to keep you waiting so long; but I was engaged with some one who was in a great hurry," she said, which sounded very well, for she had composed it while she curled her hair.

Only she accented the second half of "circumstances," and deprived her poor little last word of its rightful "h."

"I have plenty of time," Meg said. "It does not matter at all." Then she paused, and in the little space of clock-ticking Miss Jones examined her.

Meg's dress was one of the despised prints—a tiny blue spot on a white ground, very clean and fresh. There was a band of blue belting at her waist, and one on her sailor-hat. Her shoes were very neat, black with shining toe-caps; her gloves fitted without a crease, and were beyond reproach.

No jewellery at all, as Miss Jones noted, but a little gold-bar brooch fastening her spotless collar. A lady every inch, though the dress was home-made and had cost under five shillings.

In a vague, slow way Miss Jones felt the difference and was dissatisfied. She almost wished she had not put on her best dress, as it was only early morning.

"You want to see me; is it about a dress?" she asked; for Meg had half unconsciously picked up one of the magazines and opened it at "The Latest in Skirts."

"No," said Meg. "It is about my brother Philip I have come." She put the paper down; and Miss Jones, somewhat overawed by the quiet dignity of her manner, had small idea of the way her heart was beating.

"By an accident it came to my knowledge that you and my brother were thinking of an immediate marriage," Meg said; "and I came to have a quiet talk to you, Miss Jones, because I felt sure you could not know quite all the unhappiness such a course would bring."

Miss Jones's fine eyelashes were lying on her cheek; her face glowed a little with sudden colour. Pip had not been to see her the night before, as Meg knew; he had had an engagement that she took care he should not break, and now this early morning visit anticipated him.

"He told you?" she asked in a low tone.

"Yes, when I had found out everything," Meg answered. Then she leaned a little more towards the pretty dressmaker.

"Miss Jones, he is such a boy, poor Philip. Since you love him so much, how can you bear to spoil his future?"

Miss Jones lifted her eyes and bridled a little.

"Of course, I knew you wouldn't think me good enough," she said.

"But," said Meg simply, "how could I think so? I do not know you. What I mean is, marriage with any one till he is older would be ruin to him. Surely you must see the unhappiness it would bring upon you both. In the first place, what could you live upon?"

Miss Jones was silent a minute.

"He could work like other people, I suppose," she answered; "he said he could, and I wouldn't mind going on sewing too for a bit."

"Oh, he would be willing to work, I know," Meg said; "but what could he do? It is harder in the present state of things for sons of gentlemen to find anything to do than labouring men. And he is not half educated yet. Now, in a few years he will be, I trust, in very different circumstances, and able to support a wife in comfort."

"I don't mind being rather poor," Miss Jones replied; "and I'm not going to give him up just because you don't think me fine enough for you."

Meg looked at her steadily. "Of course," she said, "now I have found it out, there is no possibility of a marriage for two years. My brother is not of age, and my father naturally will forbid it."

Then she softened again, for the girl's eyes had an unhappy look in them. "I expect I seem severe to you, Miss Jones; but, indeed, all I am thinking of is my brother's happiness. If I thought it would truly be for his good, I would not say a word. And you—you love him too—won't you show your love by not standing in his light?"

"You seem to think it's as easy to give him up as drop your 'andkerchief," said Miss Jones, in a voice that shook a little. "If you'd a young man, how d'you think you'd feel if any one came to you and said as you couldn't make him happy because you wasn't as fine as him?"

"If I had a lover," Meg said softly, "I would not bring unhappiness upon him for all the world. If I had a lover, and thought my love could only do him harm, I would never see him again."

"Oh-h-h," said Miss Jones,—"oh-h dear!"

Some tears gathered on her black lashes, and slipped slowly down her cheeks. They were clear tears too, and the lashes had not changed colour. Meg remembered Nellie's accusation and blushed.

"W-what is it you want me to do?" the young dressmaker said. "Oh-h, you are cruel."

Meg felt she was, but kept telling herself she must save Pip. Still, the girl's tears and large, beautiful eyes touched her tender heart. She put out her hand impulsively and took the one with needle-marked fingers; she held it in hers while she talked to her gently and wisely and firmly. She spoke of Pip's extreme youth, of his penniless condition, his dependence on the Captain. "My father is a hard man, and a poor man. I don't think he would ever forgive or recognise my brother again as long as he lived," she said. "Then again, Philip has been used to comfort and certain luxuries all his life—to mixing in good society. He would be miserable, and make you miserable too, to go to such utterly changed conditions. Not one unequal marriage in fifty is happy—it is almost impossible they should be; and think how young he is."

"I 'adn't quite made up my mind," Miss Jones said, feeling she needed some justification. "Yes, I know he'd got the ring—he bought it as soon as I said yes; and at first I thought as it would be nice to be married straight off, but often when he wasn't here I used to think as I wouldn't after all."

"That was very wise of you," said Meg fervently, "very good of you. Oh, I knew I should only have to represent things to you a little for you to see how unwise it would be."

Miss Jones looked a little gratified, though still somewhat mournful. She felt very much like one of the heroines in her favourite Bow Bells or Family Novelettes, sacrificing herself in this noble manner for the good of her lover. But secretly, like Pip, she too felt a trifle relieved.

All her life she had been used to poverty. Things had been a little more "genteel" with them since she had been earning money of her own; but still there was the never-ending struggle of trying to make sixpence buy a shillingsworth. And, from all accounts, it would only be intensified by marriage with this handsome youth she had been so taken with lately. She thought of a certain faithful ironmonger whose heart had been half broken lately by her coldness to him. He was spoken of already as a "solid" man—a shilling need only do its legitimate work if she yielded to his entreaties and married him. Perhaps, after all, it was unwise for a girl in her position to think of a "gentleman born"; and yet Pip's way of speaking, his nice linen cuffs and gold links, his well-cut serge suits, had been a great happiness to her.

"Well?" said Meg softly, breaking in at length upon her train of thought.

"Oh, I s'pose I'll give him up," she answered, somewhat ungraciously.

"How good you are!" Meg said.

"Of course it's 'ard and all that; but I don't want to make him un'appy and his family set against him—I'd rather sacrifice myself." Miss Jones cast down her lashes and looked heroic. "I suppose, though, I'll have a fine piece of work with him when he comes."

Meg had no doubt of it.

"But you will be very firm, won't you?" she said anxiously. "Remember, you have promised me to leave him quite free—to refuse to be even engaged for at least two years."

"Oh, I'll manage him, someway; but I quite expect he will want to shoot either himself or me," was the dressmaker's answer, spoken with a certain melancholy enjoyment.

Then Meg shook hands with her warmly, affectionately even—she felt she almost loved her—and took her departure.

"But Pip will never forgive me," she said to herself, as she walked home again. "Oh, never, never, never!"