Part 8 (1/2)
Mrs. Ledwith's nerves had extended since we saw her as a girl; they did not then go beyond the floating ends of her blue or rose-colored ribbons, or, at furthest, the tip of her jaunty laced sunshade; now they ramified,--for life still grows in some direction,--to her chairs, and her china, and her curtains, and her ruffled pillow-shams. Also, savingly, to her children's ”suits,” and party dresses, and pic-nic hats, and double b.u.t.ton gloves. Savingly; for there is a leaven of grace in mother-care, even though it be expended upon these. Her friend, Mrs. Inchdeepe, in Helvellyn Park, with whom she dined when she went shopping in Boston, had _nothing_ but her modern improvements and her furniture. ”My house is my life,” she used to say, going round with a Canton c.r.a.pe duster, touching tenderly carvings and inlayings and gildings.
Mrs. Megilp was spending the day with Laura Ledwith; Glossy was gone to town, and thence down to the sea-sh.o.r.e, with some friends.
Mrs. Megilp spent a good many days with Laura. She had large, bright rooms at her boarding-house, but then she had very gristly veal pies and thin tapioca puddings for dinner; and Mrs. Megilp's const.i.tution required something more generous. She was apt to happen in at this season, when Laura had potted pigeons. A little bird told her; a dozen little birds, I mean, with their legs tied together in a bunch; for she could see the market wagon from her window, when it turned up Mr. Ledwith's avenue.
Laura had always the claret pitcher on her dinner table, too; and claret and water, well-sugared, went deliciously with the savory stew.
They were up-stairs now, in Laura's chamber; the bed and sofa were covered with silk and millinery; Laura was looking over the girls'
”fall things;” there was a smell of sweet marjoram and thyme and cloves, and general richness coming up from the kitchen; there was a bland sense of the goodness of Providence in Mrs. Megilp's--no, not heart, for her heart was not very hungry; but in her eyes and nostrils.
She was advising Mrs. Ledwith to take Desire and Helena's two green silks and make them over into one for Helena.
”You can get two whole back breadths then, by piecing it up under the sash; and you _can't_ have all those gores again; they are quite done with. Everybody puts in whole breadths now. There's just as much difference in the _way_ of goring a skirt, as there is between gores and straight selvages.”
”They do hang well, though; they have such a nice slope.”
”Yes,--but the stripes and the seams! Those tell the story six rods off; and then there _must_ be sashes, or postillions, or something; they don't make anything without them; there isn't any finish to a round waist unless you have something behind.”
”They wore belts last year, and I bought those expensive gilt buckles. I'm sure they used to look sweetly. But there! a fas.h.i.+on doesn't last nowadays while you're putting a thing on and walking out of the house!”
”And don't put in more than three plaits,” pursued Mrs. Megilp, intent on the fate of the green silks. ”Everything is gathered; you see that is what requires the sashes; round waists and gathers have a queer look without.”
”If you once begin to alter, you've got to make all over,” said Mrs.
Ledwith, a little fractiously, putting the scissors in with unwilling fingers. She knew there was a good four days' work before her, and she was quick with her needle, too.
”Never mind; the making over doesn't cost anything; you turn off work so easily; and then you've got a really stylish thing.”
”But with all the ripping and remodelling, I don't get time to turn round, myself, and _live_! It is all fall work, and spring work, and summer work and winter work. One drive rushes pell-mell right over another. There isn't time enough to make things and have them; the good of them, I mean.”
”The girls get it; we have to live in our children,” said Mrs.
Megilp, self-renouncingly. ”I can never rest until Glossy is provided with everything; and you know, Laura, I _am_ obliged to contrive.”
Mrs. Megilp and her daughter Glaucia spent about a thousand dollars a year, between them, on their dress. In these days, this is a limited allowance--for the Megilps. But Mrs. Megilp was a woman of strict pecuniary principle; the other fifteen hundred must pay all the rest; she submitted cheerfully to the Divine allotment, and punctually made the two ends meet. She will have this to show, when the Lord of these servants cometh and reckoneth with them, and that man who has been also in narrow circ.u.mstances, brings his nicely kept talent out of his napkin.
Desire Ledwith, a girl of sixteen, spoke suddenly from a corner where she sat with a book,--
”I do wonder who '_they_' are, mamma!”
”Who?” said Mrs. Ledwith, half rising from her chair, and letting some breadths of silk slide down upon the floor from her lap, as she glanced anxiously from the window down the avenue. She did not want any company this morning.
”Not that, mamma; I don't mean anybody coming. The 'theys' that wear, and don't wear, things; the theys you have to be just like, and keep ripping and piecing for.”
”You absurd child!” exclaimed Mrs. Ledwith, pettishly. ”To make me spill a whole lapful of work for that! They? Why, everybody, of course.”
”Everybody complains of them, though. Jean Friske says her mother is all discouraged and worn out. There isn't a thing they had last year that won't have to be made over this, because they put in a breadth more behind, and they only gore side seams. And they don't wear black capes or cloth sacks any more with all kinds of dresses; you must have suits, clear through. It seems to me 'they' is a nuisance.
And if it's everybody, we must be part, of it. Why doesn't somebody stop?”
”Desire, I wish you'd put away your book, and help, instead of asking silly questions. You can't make the world over, with 'why don'ts?'”
”I'll _rip_,” said Desire, with a slight emphasis; putting her book down, and coming over for a skirt and a pair of scissors. ”But you know I'm no good at putting together again. And about making the world over, I don't know but that might be as easy as making over all its clothes, I'd as lief try, of the two.”