MARGERY AND THE PEOPLE.
Margery was a success in Merrivale as a dressmaker, at least. Mrs. Lydia
had done very well, it is true. Her work was always neatly finished and
her prices satisfactory, but she never went farther from home than
Springfield or Worcester, so that there was a sameness and stiffness in
her styles wholly unlike the beautiful garments which came from
Margery’s skillful hands, no two of which were alike, and each one of
which seemed prettier and newer than its predecessor, so that in less
than two weeks her rooms were full of work, and her three girls busy
from morning till night, and she had even proposed to Miss Anna to help
her a few hours each day during the busy season. But Anna spurned the
proposition with contempt, saying her days of working for people and
being snubbed by them on account of it were over.
When Queenie heard of this she laughed merrily, and went herself into
Margery’s workshop and trimmed Hattie Granger’s wedding-dress with her
own hands and promised to make every stitch of Anna’s should she succeed
in capturing the major, as she seemed likely to do; but Anna answered
that her wedding-dress, if she ever had one, would not be made in the
country, and so that point was settled.
From the first Margery’s great beauty attracted unusual attention but
upon no one did it produce so great an effect as upon Grandma Ferguson,
who first saw the girl the Sunday after her arrival in Merrivale.
Reinette had told the sexton to give Miss and Mrs. La Rue a seat with
her in the Hetherton pew, describing the two ladies to him so there
could be no mistaking them. But Margery came alone, and whether it was
that the old sexton’s mind was intent upon a short woman in black, or
whether something about Margery herself carried him back to the Sundays
of long ago, when a girlish figure used to glide up the aisle to John
Ferguson’s pew, he made a mistake and Grandma Ferguson had just settled
herself on her cushion and adjusted her wide skirts about her, when a
rustling sound caught her ear, and turning her head she saw a face which
made her start suddenly with a great throb of something like fear as a
tall young girl, simply but elegantly attired in black silk and white
chip bonnet, with a wreath of lilacs around it, took a seat beside her.
Mrs. Rossiter had seen something in the French girl’s face which puzzled
and bewildered her. And grandma saw it, too, and defined it at once, and
drew a long breath as she gazed at the face so like the face of her
Margaret dead over the sea. Who was she, grandma asked herself and
forgot to say her prayers or listen to the sermon, as she wondered and
watched. Others had seen only a likeness to Margaret Ferguson, but the
mother who could never forget saw more than that; she saw her dead child
repeated in this beautiful young girl, who grew restless and nervous
under the scrutiny of the eyes she knew were fastened so constantly upon
her, and was glad when the sermon was over and she could thus escape
them.
Reinette, who occupied the Hetherton pew, had turned once, and seeing
where Margery was, had nodded to her, and the moment church was over she
came down the aisle, tossing her head airily, and with the strange
witchery and magnetism of her smile and wonderful eyes, throwing into
the shade the fair blonde whose beauty had been noted by the people as
something remarkable. And how unlike they were to each other,
golden-haired, blue-eyed, rose-tinted Margery, so tall, and quiet, and
self-possessed, and dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-faced Reinette, petite
and playful, and restless as a bird, with a flash in her brilliant eyes,
before which even Margery’s charms were, for the time, forgotten.
“Who is she, Rennet?” grandma whispered, catching her granddaughter’s
arm as she came near, and pointing toward Margery. “Who is she, with a
face so like your mother’s that for a minute I thought it was my
Margaret come back again.”
“Like my mother? Oh, I am so glad, for now I shall love her more than
ever,” Reinette replied; then, touching Margery, she presented her to
her grandmother, saying, as she did so: “She thinks you look like my
mother, and perhaps you do, for I am sure you are more like a Ferguson
than I am.”
The next day grandma went to the cottage, ostensibly to make some
inquiries with regard to a dress, but really to see again the girl who
was so like her daughter, and who was very kind and gentle with her, and
said to her so sweetly:
“I am glad if I am like Mrs. Hetherton, for she was Reinette’s mother,
and I am sure you will like me for it. I want people to like me.”
And in this wish Margery was gratified, for from the first she became
very popular and took her place among the best young ladies in town. For
this she was in part indebted to Reinette, who insisted that she should
be noticed, and who, if she saw any signs of rebellion or indifference
on the part of the people, opened her batteries upon the delinquents,
and brought them to terms at once.
When the grounds were completed at Hetherton Place, she gave a garden
party to which all the desirable people in Merrivale were bidden. It was
in honor of Margery, she said, and she treated the young girl as a
subject would treat a queen, and made so much of her, and talked of her
so much, that Mr. Beresford said to her as they were standing a little
apart from the others, and she was asking if he ever saw any one as
beautiful as Margery:
“Yes, she is very pretty and graceful and all that, but she cannot have
had the training which you did. Her early associates must have been very
different from yours, and I am somewhat surprised at your violent fancy
for her.”
Then Reinette turned upon him hotly, and he never forgot the look of
scorn in her blazing eyes, as she said:
“I know perfectly well what you mean, Mr. Beresford, and I despise you
for it. Because Margery _works_—earns her own living—is a
dressmaker—you, and people like you, look down upon her from your lofty
platform of position and social standing, and I hate you for it; yes, I
do, for how are you better than she, I’d like to know. Aren’t you just
as anxious for a case to work up as she for a dress to make, and what’s
the difference, except that you are a _man_ and she a _woman_, and so
the more to be commended, because she is willing to take care of herself
instead of folding her hands in idleness. I tell you, Mr. Beresford, you
must do better, or I’ll never speak to you again. There’s Margery now,
over there by the summer-house, talking with Major Rossiter, and looking
awfully bored. Go and get her away, and dance with her. See, they are
just forming a quadrille there in the summer-house;” and she pointed to
the large, fanciful structure on the plateau, which, with its
manycolored lights, was much like the gay restaurants on the Champs
d’Elysees in Paris. Indeed the whole affair bore a strong resemblance to
the outdoor fetes in France, and the grounds seemed like fairy-land,
with the flowers, and flags, and arches, and colored lights, and groups
of gayly-dressed people wandering up and down the broad walks and on the
grassy terraces, or dancing in the summer-house, near which the band was
stationed.
Mr. Beresford never danced; he was too dignified for that, but he
carried Margery away from the major, and walked with her through the
grounds, and wondered at her refinement and lady-like manners, which
seemed so natural to her. Mr. Beresford was an aristocrat of the deepest
dye, and believed implicitly in family and blood, and as Margery had
neither, he was puzzled, and bewildered, and greatly interested in her,
and thought hers the most beautiful face he had ever seen, excepting
Reinette’s, which stood out distinct among all the faces in the world.
Reinette was at her best that night, and like some bright bird flitted
here and there among her guests, saying the right word to the right
person, and doing the right thing in the right place, and so managing,
that when at a late hour the festivity was at an end, and her guests
came to say good-by, it was no fashionable lie, but the truth they spoke
when they assured her that evening had been the most enjoyable of their
lives, and one never to be forgotten.