MATTIE'S NEW DRESS.
The remainder of the week passed harmlessly and without any special
event to mark it, and, thanks to Nan's skilful management and
Phillis's pride, there were no further _contretemps_ to shock Mrs.
Challoner's sense of propriety. The work progressed with astonishing
rapidity: in the mornings the young dressmakers were sufficiently
brisk and full of zeal, and in the afternoons, when their energies
flagged and their fingers grew weary, Dulce would sing over her task,
or Mrs. Challoner would read to them for the hour together; but,
notwithstanding the interest of the tale, there was always great
alacrity manifested when the tea-bell gave them the excuse for putting
away their work.
On one or two evenings they gardened, and Mrs. Challoner sat under the
mulberry-tree and watched them; on another occasion they took a long
country walk, and lost themselves, and came back merry and tired, and
laden with primrose-roots and ferns: they had met no one, except a
stray laborer,--had seen glow-worms, picked wild flowers, and declared
themselves mightily refreshed. One evening Phillis, who was not to be
repressed, contrived a new amusement.
"Life is either a mill-pond or a whirlpool," she said, rather
sententiously: "we have been stagnant for three days, and I begin to
feel flat. Races are tabooed: besides, we cannot always leave mother
alone. I propose we go out in the garden and have a game of battledore
and shuttlecock;" for this had been a winter pastime with them at the
cottage.
Nan, who was always rather sober-minded now, demurred to this. She
would have preferred gardening a little, or sitting quietly with her
mother under the mulberry-tree; but Phillis, who was in a wild mood,
overruled all her objections, and by and by the battle began, and the
shuttlecocks flew through the air.
The week's work was finished, and the three dresses lay in their
wrappers, waiting for Dorothy to convey them to their several owners.
Nan who was really an _artiste_ at heart, had called her mother
proudly into the room to admire the result of their labors. Mrs.
Challoner was far too accustomed to her daughter's skilfulness to
testify any surprise, but she at once pronounced Miss Drummond's dress
the _chef-d'oeuvre_. Nan's taste was faultless; and the trimmings she
had selected harmonized so well with the soft tints of the silk.
"They are all very nice; and Mrs. Trimmings will be charmed with her
blue silk," observed Mrs. Challoner, trying to throw a little interest
into her voice, and to suppress a sigh; and then she helped Nan to
adjust the wrappers, and to pin the neatly-written bills inside each.
"I am sure that is business-like," said Nan, with a satisfied nod, for
she never could do anything by halves; and she was so interested in
her work that she would have been heart-broken if she thought one of
the dresses would be a misfit; and then it was that Phillis, who had
been watching her very closely, brightened up and proposed a game.
It was a very pretty sight, the mother thought, as she followed her
girls' movements; the young figures swayed so gracefully as they
skimmed hither and thither over the lawn with light butterfly
movements, the three eager faces upturned in the evening light, their
heads held well back.
"Two hundred, two hundred and one, two hundred and two--don't let it
drop, Dulce!" panted Phillis, breathlessly.
"Oh, my darlings, don't tire yourselves!" exclaimed Mrs. Challoner, as
her eyes followed the white flutter of the shuttlecocks.
This was the picture that Mr. Drummond surveyed. Dorothy, who was just
starting on her round, and was in no mood for her errand, had admitted
him somewhat churlishly.
"Yes, the mistress and the young ladies were in; and would he step
into the parlor, as her hands were full?"
"Oh, yes, I know the way," Mr. Drummond had returned, quite undaunted
by the old woman's sour looks.
But the parlor was empty, save for Laddie, who had been shut up there
not to spoil sport, and who was whining most piteously to be let out.
He saluted Archie with a joyous bark, and commenced licking his boots
and wagging his tail with mute petition to be released from this
durance vile.
Archie patted and fondled him, for he was good to all dumb creatures.
"Poor little fellow! I wonder why they have shut you up here?" he
said; and then he took him up in his arms, and stepped to the window
to reconnoitre.
And then he stood and looked, perfectly fascinated by the novel sight.
His sisters played battledore and shuttlecock in the school-room
sometimes, or out in the passages on a winter's afternoon. He had once
caught Susie and Clara at it, and had laughed at them in no measured
terms for indulging in such a babyish game. "I should have thought
Dottie might have played at that," he had said, rather contemptuously.
"I suppose you indulge in skipping-ropes sometimes." And the poor
girls had paused in their game, feeling ashamed of themselves. Archie
would think them such hoydens.
He remembered his reprimand with a strange feeling of compunction, as
he stood by the window trying vainly to elude Laddie's caresses. What
a shame of him to have spoiled those poor children's game with his
sneer, when they had so little fun in their lives! and yet, as he
recalled Clara's clumsy gestures and Susie's short-sighted attempts,
he was obliged to confess that battledore and shuttlecock wore a
different aspect now. Could anything surpass Phillis's swift-handed
movements, brisk, graceful, alert, or Nan's attitude, as she sustained
the duel? Dulce, who seemed dodging in between them in a most
eccentric way, had her hair loose as usual, curling in brown lengths
about her shoulders. She held it with one hand, as she poised her
battledore with the other. This time Archie thought of Nausicaa and
her maidens tossing the ball beside the river, after washing the
wedding-garments. Was it in this way the young dressmakers disported
themselves during the evenings?
It was Phillis who first discovered the intruder. The shuttlecocks had
become entangled, and fallen to the ground. As she stooped to pick
them up, her quick eyes detected a coat-sleeve at the window; and an
indefinable instinct, for she could not see his face, made her call
out,--
"Mother, Mr. Drummond is in the parlor. Do go to him, while Dulce puts
up her hair." And then she said, severely, "I always tell you not to
wear your hair like that, Dulce. Look at Nan and me; we are quite
unruffled; but yours is always coming down. If you have pretty hair,
you need not call people's attention to it in this way." At which
speech Dulce tossed her head and ran away, too much offended to
answer.
When Archie saw Mrs. Challoner crossing the lawn with the gait of a
queen, he knew he was discovered: so he opened the window, and stepped
out in the coolest possible way.
"I seem always spoiling sport," he said, with a mischievous glance at
Phillis, which she received with outward coolness and an inward
twinge. "Bravo, Atalanta!" sounded in her ears again. "Your maid
invited me in; but I did not care to disturb you."
"I am glad you did not open the window before," returned Nan, speaking
with that directness and fine simplicity that always put things to
rights at once: "it would have startled us before we got to the five
hundred, and then Phillis would have been disappointed. Mother, shall
we bring out some more chairs instead of going into the parlor? It is
so much pleasanter out here." And as Mrs. Challoner assented, they
were soon comfortably established on the tiny lawn; and Archie, very
much at his ease, and feeling himself unaccountably happy, proceeded
to deliver some trifling message from his sister, that was his
ostensible reason for his intrusion.
"Why does she not deliver her messages herself?" thought Phillis; but
she kept this remark to herself. Only, that evening she watched the
young clergyman a little closely, as though he puzzled her. Phillis
was the man of the family; and it was she who always stood upon guard
if Nan or Dulce needed a sentinel. She was beginning to think Mr.
Drummond came very often to see them, considering their short
acquaintance. If it were Miss Mattie, now, who ran in and out with
little offerings of flowers and fruit in a nice neighborly fashion!
But for this very dignified young man to burden himself with these
slight feminine messages,--a question about new-laid eggs, which even
Nan had forgotten.
Phillis was quite glad when her mother said,--
"You ought to have brought your sister, Mr. Drummond: she must be so
dull all alone,"--forgetting all about the dressmaking, poor soul! but
Phillis remembered it a moment afterwards, with a rush of bitter
feeling.
Perhaps, after all, that was why he came in so often, because he was
so sorry for them, and wished to help them, as he said. A clergyman
has more privileges than other men: perhaps she was wrong to suspect
him. He might not wish his sister to visit them, except in a purely
business-like way; but with him it was different. Most likely he had
tea with Mrs. Trimmings sometimes, just to show he was not proud; he
might even sit and chat with Mrs. Squails, and not feel compromised in
the least. Oh, yes! how stupid she was to think he admired Nan,
because she had intercepted a certain glance! That was her mania,
thinking every one must be after Nan. Things were different now.
Of course he would be their only link with civilized society,--the
only cultivated mind with which they could hold converse; and here
Phillis ceased to curl her lip, and her gray eyes took a sombre
shade, and she sighed so audibly that Archie broke off an interesting
discussion on last Commemoration, and looked at her in unfeigned
surprise.
"Oh, yes! we were there," returned Nan, innocently, who loved to talk
of those dear old times; "and we were at the _fête_ at Oriel, and at
the concert at Magdalen also. Ah! do you remember, Dulce?" And then
she faltered a little, and flushed,--not because Mr. Drummond was
looking at her so intently but at certain thoughts that began to
intrude themselves, which entwined themselves with the moonlighted
cloisters.
"I was to have been there too, only at the last moment I was
prevented," replied Archie; but his tone was inexplicable to the girl,
it was at once so regretful and awe-struck. Good heavens! if he had
met them, and been introduced to them in proper form! They had
mentioned a Mr. Hamilton: well, Hamilton had been a pupil of his; he
had coached him during a term. "You know Hamilton?" he had said,
staring at her; and then he wondered what Hamilton would say if he
came down to stay with him next vacation.
These reflections made him rather absent; and even when he took his
leave, which was not until the falling dews and the glimmer of a late
dusk drove Mrs. Challoner into the house, these thoughts still pursued
him. Nothing else seemed to have taken so strong a hold on him as
this.
"Good heavens!" he kept repeating to himself, "to think that the
merest chance--just the incidental business of a friend--prevented me
from occupying my old rooms during Commemoration! to think I might
have met them in company with Hamilton and the other fellows!"
The sudden sense of disappointment, of something lost and irremediable
in his life, of wasted opportunities, of denied pleasure, came over
the young man's mind. He could not have danced with Nan at the
University ball, it is true: clergymen, according to his creed, must
not dance. But there was the _fête_ at Oriel, and the Magdalen
concert, and the Long Walk in the Christchurch meadows, and doubtless
other opportunities.
He never asked himself if these girls would have interested him so
much if he had met them first in ordinary society: from the very first
moment they had attracted him strangely. Had he only known them a
fortnight? Good heavens! it seemed months, years, a lifetime! These
revolutions of mind are not to be measured by time. It had come to
this that the late fellow of Oriel, so aristocratic in his tastes, so
temperate in his likings, had entered certain devious paths, where
hidden pitfalls and thorny enclosures warn the unwary traveller of
unknown dangers, and in which he was walking, not blindfold, but by
strongest will and intent, led by impulse like a mere boy, and not
daring to raise his eyes to the future. "And what Grace would have
said!" And for the first time in his life Archie felt that in this
case he could not ask Grace's advice. He was loath to turn in at his
own gate; but Mattie was standing there watching for him. She ran out
into the road to meet him, and then he could see there were letters in
her hand.
"Oh, dear, Archie, I thought you were never coming home!" she
exclaimed. "And I have such news to tell you! There is a letter for
you from Grace, and mother has written to me; and there is a note from
Isabel inside, and she is engaged--really and truly engaged--to Mr.
Ellis Burton; and the wedding is to be in six weeks, and you and I are
to go down to it, and--oh, dear----" Here Mattie broke down, and began
to sob with excitement and pleasure and the longing for sympathy.
"Well, well, there is nothing to cry about!" returned Archie, roughly;
and then his manner changed and softened in spite of himself; for
after all, Isabel was his sister, and this was the first wedding in
the family, and he could not hear such a piece of news unmoved. "Let
me hear all about it," he said, by and by; and then he took poor
hysterical little Mattie into the house, and gave her some wine, and
was very kind to her, and listened to his mother's letter and Isabel's
gushing effusion without a single sneer. "Poor little Belle; she does
seem very happy!" he said, quite affectionately, as he turned up the
lamp still more, and began Grace's letter.
Mattie sat and gazed at him in a sort of ecstasy; but she did not
venture to ask him to read it to her. How nice he was to-night, and
how handsome he looked! there never was such a brother as Archie. But
suddenly, as though he was conscious of being watched, he sat down by
the table, and shaded his face with his hand.
No, Mattie, was right in her surmise: he would not have cared to show
that letter to any one.
The first sheet was all about Isabel. "Dear little Isabel has just
left me," wrote Grace. "The child looks so pretty in her new
happiness, you would hardly know her. She has just been showing me the
magnificent hoop of diamonds Ellis has given her. She says we must all
call him Ellis now. 'Chacun a son gout:' Poor Ellis is not very
brilliant, certainly: I remember we used to call him clownish and
uncultivated. But he has a good heart, and he is really very fond of
Isabel; and as she is satisfied, I suppose we need not doubt the
wisdom of her choice. Mother is radiant, and makes so much of the
little bride-elect that she declares her head is quite turned. The
house is quite topsy-turvy with the excitement of this first wedding
in the family. Isabel is very young to be married, and I tell mother
six weeks is far too short for an engagement; but it seems Ellis will
not listen to reason, and he has talked mother over. Perhaps I am
rather fastidious, but, if I were Isabel, I should hate to receive my
trousseau from my lover; and yet Ellis wants his mother to get
everything for his _fiancee_. I believe there is to be a sort of
compromise, and Mrs. Burton is to select heaps of pretty
things,--dresses and mantles and Paris bonnets. They are rolling in
riches. Ellis has taken a large house in Sloane Square, and his father
has bought him a landau and a splendid pair of horses;
everything--furniture, plate and ornaments--is to be as massive and
expensive as possible. If I were Isabel I should feel smothered by all
these grand things but the little lady takes it all quite coolly.
"When I get a moment to myself I sit down and say, 'In six weeks I
shall see Archie!' Oh, my darling! this is almost too good news to be
true! Only six weeks, and then I shall really see you! Now do you
know, I am longing for a good clearing-up talk? for your letters
lately have not satisfied me at all. Perhaps I am growing fanciful,
but I cannot help feeling as though something has come between us. The
current of sympathy seems turned aside, somehow. No, do not laugh, or
put me off with a jest, for I am really in earnest; and but for fear
of your scolding me I should own to being just a little unhappy.
Forgive me, Archie, if I vex you; but there is something, I am
thoroughly convinced of that. You have some new interest or worry that
you are keeping from me. Is this quite in accordance with our old
compact, dear? Who are these Challoners Mattie mentions in her
letters? She told me a strange rigmarole about them the other
day,--that they were young ladies who had turned dressmakers. What an
eccentric idea! They must be very odd young ladies, I should think, to
emancipate themselves so completely from all conventionalities. I wish
they had not established themselves at Hadleigh and so near the
vicarage. Mattie says you are so kind to them. Oh, Archie! dear
brother! do be careful! I do not half like the idea of these girls;
they sound rash and designing, and you are so chivalrous in your
notions. Why not let Mattie be kind to them instead of you? In a
parish like Hadleigh you need to be careful. Mother is calling me, so
I will just close this with my fondest love.
"GRACE."
Archie threw down the letter with a frown. For the first time he was
annoyed with Grace.
Nan and her sisters rash and designing! "Odd young ladies"! She was
sorry they had established themselves at Hadleigh! It was really too
bad of Grace to condemn them in this fashion. But of course it must be
Mattie's fault: she had written a pack of nonsense, exaggerating
things as much as possible.
Poor Mattie would have had to bear the brunt of his wrath as usual,
only, as he turned to her with the frown black on his forehead, his
eyes caught sight of her dress. Hitherto the room had been very dimly
lighted; but now, as he looked at her in the soft lamplight, his anger
vanished in amazement.
"Why, Mattie, what have you done to yourself? We are not expecting
company this evening: it is nearly ten o'clock."
Mattie blushed and laughed, and then she actually bridled with
pleasure:
"Oh, no, Archie; of course not. I only put on my new dress just to see
how it would fit; and then I thought you might like to see it. It is
the one uncle gave me; and is it not beautifully made? I am sure Mrs.
Cheyne's dresses never fit better. You and Grace may say what you like
about the Challoners, but if they can make dresses like this, it would
be tempting Providence not to use such a talent, and just because they
were too fine ladies to work."
"I do believe you are right, Mattie," returned Archie, in a low voice.
"Turn round and let me look at you, girl. Do you mean--that she--that
they made that?"
Mattie nodded as she slowly pivoted on one foot, and then revolved
like the figures one used to see on old-fashioned barrel-organs; then,
as she stood still, she panted out the words,--
"Is it not just lovely, Archie?" for in all the thirty years of her
unassuming life Mattie had never had such a dress, so no wonder her
head was a little turned.
"Yes, indeed; I like it excessively," was Archie's comment; and then
he added, with the delicious frankness common to brothers, "It makes
you look quite a different person, Mattie: you are almost nice-looking
to-night."
"Oh, thank you, dear!" cried poor Mattie, quite moved by this
compliment; for if Archie thought her almost nice-looking he must be
pleased with her. Indeed, she even ventured to raise herself on tiptoe
and kiss him in gratitude, which was taking a great liberty; only
Archie bore it for once.
"She really looked very well, poor little woman!" thought Archie, when
Mattie had at last exhausted her raptures and bidden him good-night.
"She would not be half so bad-looking if some one would take her in
hand and dress her properly. The women must be right, after all, and
there is a power in dress. Those girls do nothing by halves," he
continued, walking up and down the room. "I would not have believed
they had made it, if Mattie had not told me. 'Rash and designing,'
indeed! just because they are not like other girls,--because they are
more natural, more industrious, more courageous, more religious in
fact." And then the young clergyman softly quoted to himself the words
of the wise old king, words that Nan and her sisters had ever loved
and sought to practise:
"Whatsoever thy hands findeth to do, do it with thy might."