Part 11 (1/2)
”Yes; your telling her about our making our own dresses. Nan, you are right: needlework is our forte; nothing is a trouble to us. Few girls have such clever fingers, I believe; and then you and Dulce have such taste. Mrs. Paine once told me that we were the best-dressed girls in the neighborhood, and she wished Carrie looked half as well. I am telling you this, not from vanity, but because I do believe we can turn our one talent to account. We should be miserable governesses; we do not want to separate and seek situations as lady helps or companions; we do not mean to fail in letting lodgings; but if we do not succeed as good dressmakers, never believe me again.”
”Dressmakers!” almost shrieked Dulce. But Nan, who had expressed herself willing to take in plain needlework, only looked at her sister with mute gravity; her little world was turned so completely upside down, everything was so unreal, that nothing at this moment could have surprised her.
”Dressmakers!” she repeated, vaguely.
”Yes, yes,” replied Phillis, still more eagerly. The inspiration had come to her in a moment, full-fledged and grown up, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. Just from those chance words of Nan's she had grasped the whole thing in a moment. Now, indeed she felt that she was clever; here at least was something striking and original; she took no notice of Dulce's shocked exclamation; she fixed her eyes solemnly on Nan. ”Yes, yes; what does it matter what the outside world says? We are not like other girls; we never were; people always said we were so original. Necessity strikes out strange paths some times. We could not do such a thing here; no, no, I never could submit to that myself,” as Nan involuntarily shuddered; ”but at Hadleigh, where no one knows us, where we shall be among strangers. And then, you see, Miss Monks is dead.”
”Oh, dear! oh, dear! what does she mean?” cried Dulce, despairingly; ”and what do we care about Miss Monks, if the creature be dead, or about Miss Anybody, if we have got to do such dreadful things?”
”My dear,” returned Phillis, with compa.s.sionate irony, ”if we had to depend upon you for ideas----” and here she made an eloquent pause.
”Our last tenant for the Friary was Miss Monks, and Miss Monks was a dressmaker; and, though perhaps I ought not to say it, it does seem a direct leading of Providence, putting such a thought into my head.”
”I am afraid Dulce and I are very slow and stupid,” returned Nan, putting her hair rather wearily from her face: her pretty color had quite faded during the last half-hour. ”I think if you would tell us plainly, exactly what you mean, Phillis, we should be able to understand everything better.”
”My notion is this,” began Phillis, slowly: ”remember, I have not thought it quite out, but I will give you my ideas just as they occur to me. We will not say anything to mother just yet, until we have thoroughly digested our plan. You and I, Nan, will run down to the Friary, and reconnoitre the place, judge of its capabilities, and so forth; and when we come back we will hold a family council.”
”That will be best,” agreed Nan, who remembered, with sudden feelings of relief, that d.i.c.k and his belongings would be safe in the Engadine by that time. ”But, Phillis, do you really and truly believe that we could carry out such a scheme?”
”Why not?” was the bold answer. ”If we can work for ourselves, we can for other people. I have a presentiment that we shall achieve a striking success. We will make the old Friary as comfortable as possible,” she continued, cheerfully. ”The good folk of Hadleigh will be rather surprised when they see our pretty rooms. No horse-hair sofa; no crochet antimaca.s.sars or hideous wax flowers; none of the usual stock-in-trade. Dorothy will manage the house for us; and we will all sit and work together, and mother will help us, and read to us. Aren't you glad, Nan, that we all saved up for that splendid sewing-machine?”
”I do believe there is something, after all, in what you say,” was Nan's response; but Dulce was not so easily won over.
”Do you mean to say that we shall put up a bra.s.s plate on the door, with 'Challoner, dressmaker,' on it?” she observed, indignantly. A red glow mounted to Nan's forehead; and even Phillis looked disconcerted.
”I never thought of that: well, perhaps not. We might advertise at the Library, or put cards in the shops. I do not think mother would ever cross the threshold if she saw a bra.s.s plate.”
”No, no; I could not bear that,” said Nan, faintly. A dim vision of d.i.c.k standing at the gate, ruefully contemplating their name--her name--in juxtaposition with ”dressmaker,” crossed her mind directly.
”But we should have to carry parcels, and stand in people's halls, and perhaps fit Mrs. Squails, the grocer's wife,--that fat old thing, you know. How would you like to make a dress for Mrs. Squails, Phil?”
asked Dulce, with the malevolent desire of making Phillis as uncomfortable as possible; but Phillis, who had rallied from her momentary discomfiture, was not to be again worsted.
”Dulce, you talk like a child; you are really a very silly little thing. Do you think any work can degrade us or that we shall not be as much gentlewomen at Hadleigh as we are here?”
”But the parcels?” persisted Dulce.
”I do not intend to carry any,” was the imperturbable reply, ”Dorothy will do that; or we will hire a boy. As for waiting in halls, I don't think any one will ask me to do that, as I should desire to be shown into a room at once; and as for Mrs. Squails, if the poor old woman honors me with her custom, I will turn her out a gown that shall be the envy of Hadleigh.”
Dulce did not answer this, but the droop of her lip was piteous; it melted Phillis at once.
”Oh, do cheer up, you silly girl!” she said, with a coaxing face.
”What is the good of making ourselves more miserable than we need? If you prefer the two little rooms with mother, say so; and Nan and I will look out for old ladies at once.”
”No! no! Oh, pray don't leave me!” still more piteously.
”Well, what will you have us do? we cannot starve; and we don't mean to beg. Pluck up a little spirit, Dulce; see how good Nan is! You have no idea how comfortable we should be!” she went on, with judicious word-painting. ”We should all be together,--that is the great thing.
Then we could talk over our work; and in the afternoon, when we felt dreary, mother could read some interesting novel to us,”--a tremulous sigh from Nan at this point.