The next morning Peggy and Eunice converted the library into a work-
room, and cut out their blouses by the aid of paper patterns borrowed
from Mrs Saville's maid. This dignitary had made several offers of
help, which had been courteously but firmly refused, for the two new
hands were determined to accomplish their task unaided, and thereby to
secure the honour and glory to themselves.
"The first step is easy enough. Any baby could cut out by a pattern!"
Peggy declared, but an hour's work proved that it would have required a
very intelligent baby indeed to have accomplished the feat. It was
extraordinary how confusing a paper pattern could be! The only thing
that seemed more confusing than the pattern itself was the explanation
which accompanied it. Peggy tossed the separate pieces to and fro, the
while she groaned over the mysterious phrases. "`Place the perforated
edge on the bias of the cloth!' Which is the perforated edge? Which is
the bias? `Be careful to see that the nicked holes come exactly in the
middle of--' I don't know in the least which they call the `nicked
holes!' I can't think what is the use of half these silly little
pieces. If I couldn't cut out a pattern better than that, I'd retire
from the business. Why can't they tell you plainly what you have to
do?"
So on she stormed, prancing from one side of the table to the other,
shaking the flimsy sheets in an angry hand, and scattering pins and
needles broadcast on the carpet, while Eunice, like the tortoise, toiled
slowly away, until bit by bit the puzzle became clear to her mind. She
discovered that one piece of the pattern stood for half only of a
particular seam, while others, such as collar and cuffs, represented a
whole; mastered the mystery of holes and notches, and explained the same
to Peggy, who was by no means too grateful for her assistance.
"Well, I'll take your word for it," she said. "I myself can make
nothing out of an explanation so illogical and lacking in common-sense.
I'll cut the stupid thing out as you say, and see what comes of it.
Here goes--"
Her scissors were in the silk before Eunice had time to protest, and
away she hacked, with such speed and daring that she had finished the
cutting out before the other had finished her careful preparation of the
first seam.
"Now then for the tacking!" she cried, and for five minutes on end there
was silence, until-- "Dear me!" quoth Miss Peggy in a tone of dismay,
and peaked solemn brows over her work.
"What is the matter? Has something gone wrong?"
"Um--yes! Seems to have done. The stupid old silk must have got
twisted about somehow, when I was cutting out this back. The roses are
all upside down!" She spoke in a studiedly careless manner, but
Eunice's face was a picture of woe. To her orderly mind the accident
seemed irretrievable; and yet how was it to be remedied, when
extravagant Peggy had used every fragment of her material? Her face
fell, her voice thrilled with horror.
"Never! You don't mean it! How dreadful! What will you do? Oh,
Peggy, take mine, do, and let me buy something else for myself."
"Not an inch! It's no use, Eunice, I will not do it! We are going to
have blouses alike, and that's settled. That's the worst of these
flower patterns, they do cut out so badly: but it is no use grieving
over what cannot be cured. Go on with your work, my dear, and don't
mind me."
"But what will you--"
"Sew it up as it is! I'm not sure that it won't look better, after all.
More Frenchy!" and Peggy pinned the odd pieces together, and smiled at
the effect with a complacency which left the other breathless with
astonishment. She seemed oblivious of the fact that she had made a
mistake, and utterly unconcerned at the prospect of wearing a garment in
which the pattern reversed itself in back and front. Such a state of
mind was inconceivable to the patient toiler, who rounded every corner
with her scissors as carefully as if an untoward nick meant destruction,
and pinned and repinned half-a-dozen times over before she could satisfy
herself of the absence of crinkles. Peggy was ready to be "tried on"
before Eunice had half finished the first process, and though she went
obediently at the first call, the ordeal was a painful one to all
concerned. Eunice was so nervous and ignorant that she dare hardly make
an alteration, for fear of making bad worse, while Peggy wriggled like
an eel, turning her head now over this shoulder, now over that, and
issued half-a-dozen contradictory orders at the same moment.
"The shoulder creases--put the pins in tighter! The back is too wide--
take a great handful out of the middle seam. Why does it stick out like
that at the waist, just where it ought to go in? Oh, the fulness, of
course, I forgot that. Leave that alone then, and go on to the neck.
Put pins in all round where the band ought to go."
"Tryings on" were numerous during the next few mornings; but, while
Eunice's blouse gradually assumed a trig and reputable appearance,
Peggy's developed each time a fresh set of creases and wrinkles.
Neither girl was experienced enough to understand that carelessly cut
and badly tacked material can never attain to a satisfactory result, nor
in truth did they trouble very much over the deficiency, for Peggy no
sooner descried a fault, than her inventive genius hit on a method of
concealing it. Revers, niches, and bows were tacked on with a
recklessness which made Eunice gasp with dismay, but she could not deny
that the effect was "Frenchy" and even artistic, for, whatever might be
Miss Peggy's shortcomings as a plain sew-er, she had a gift of graceful
draping which amounted almost to genius. After the first day's
experience Peggy had readily consented to her friend's plea for a week's
preparation, and well it was that she had done so, for it was five good
days before the bodices were sufficiently finished to allow the sleeves
to be taken in hand. Oh, those sleeves! Who would ever have believed
that it could be so difficult to fit such simple things, or to persuade
them to adapt themselves to holes expressly provided for their
accommodation? The girls spent weary hours turning, twisting, pleating
in, letting out, tacking, and untacking, until at length Peggy's long-
worn patience gave way altogether, and she vowed that not once again
should the blouse go on her back until she donned it for the evening's
exhibition.
"If they are not right this way, they will have to be wrong! I can't
waste all my life fussing over a pair of sleeves. What can it matter
whether they are put an inch one way or the other? They have just not
to settle down and be happy where I put them, for I'm not going to move
them any more!"
She frowned as she spoke and drew an impatient sigh, which did not
altogether refer to the work on hand. There was a weight on her heart
which refused to be conjured away even by the presence of Arthur and
Eunice, and the interests and occupations which they brought with them.
Rob was angry--no, what was even worse, he was not angry, but, with a
stupid masculine blindness, had taken for granted that his company was
no longer desired. Nearly a fortnight had passed since that miserable
afternoon, and not once had he been inside the gates of Yew Hedge. She
had met him twice, and each time had come home from the interview
feeling more miserable, as Rob elaborately sustained his old friendly
manner. To cry, "Hallo, Peggy!" on meeting; to discuss the doings of
the neighbourhood in an easy-going fashion, as if no cloud hovered
between them, and then to march past the very gates without coming in,
refuse invitations on trumpery excuses, and attend a church at the
opposite end of the parish--such behaviour as this was worse than
inconsistent in Peggy's eyes, it approached perilously near hypocrisy!
"I don't care!" she told herself recklessly; but she did care all the
same, and her heart gave a throb of relief when on the morning of what
had come to be known in the family as "Blouse day," Arthur announced his
intention of asking both the Darcy brothers to dinner.
"After your hard work you ought to have an audience to admire and
applaud," he said, "and I shall tell them we want them particularly.
They were asking how your dressmaking was getting on the other day, so I
am sure they will be glad to accept. You won't want an answer, I
suppose, Mistress Housekeeper? They can return with me or not, as the
case may be?"
"Certainly! Certainly! It makes no difference," said Peggy loftily;
and thus it happened that the girls went upstairs to dress that evening
without knowing who would be waiting to receive them when they made
their entrance into the drawing-room. The blouses were laid out in the
dressing-room which connected the two bedrooms, and to a casual glance
there was no doubt which was the more successful. The one could boast
no remove from the commonplace, the other was both artistic and
uncommon, a garment which might have come direct from the hands of a
French _modiste_. Eunice's face fell as she looked, and she breathed a
sigh of depression.
"Oh, Peggy, how horrid mine looks beside yours! What a mean, skimpy
little rag! I am ashamed to appear in it. You will look beautiful,
perfectly beautiful! You have done it splendidly."
Peggy gave a murmur of polite disclaimer, and pursed in her lips to
restrain a smile.
"Wait until they are on, dear. You can never tell how a thing looks
until it is on," she said reassuringly; but alas, for Peggy, little did
she dream how painfully she would discover the truth of her own words.
A quarter of an hour later Eunice was hooking the front of her bodice,
when the door burst open and in rushed Peggy, red in the face, gasping
for breath, her neck craned forward, her arms sticking out stiffly on
either side, for all the world like a waxen figure in a shop window.
"My neck!" she gasped. "My sleeves! They torture me! My arms are
screwed up like sausages. The collar band cuts like a knife. I'm like
a trussed fowl--I'll burst! I know I shall! I'll die of asphyxiation.
What shall I do? What shall I do? What can have happened to make it
like this?"
"Oh dear! oh dear! You do look uncomfortable. It was big enough when
you tried it on last. You must have drawn in the arm-holes while you
were sewing them. Yes, you have! I can see the puckers, and the
sleeves are stretched so tight too. You didn't take them in again,
surely?"
"Just a tiny bit. They looked so baggy. But the collar, Eunice, the
collar! For pity's sake take it off! I shall be raw in a moment. Take
the scissors, pull--tug! Get it off as quick as you can."
"Take it off! But then what will you--" pleaded Eunice; but Peggy's
eyes flashed at her with so imperious a command that she began to snip
without further protest. The band came off easily--astonishingly
easily, and Peggy heaved a sigh of relief, and flapped her arms in the
air.
"When! That's better. I can breathe again. I could not have borne it
another moment. Now I should be fairly comfortable, if only--only--the
sleeves were a little bigger! It is too late to let them out, but just
round the arm-holes, eh? A little tiny snip here and there to relieve
the pressure?"
She put her head on one side in her most insinuating fashion, but Eunice
was adamant. Never, she protested, would she consent to such a step.
No seam could be expected to hold, if treated in such fashion. How
would Peggy like it if her sleeve came off altogether in the course of
the evening? There would be humiliation! Better a thousand times a
trifling discomfort than such a downfall as that!
"Trifling!" echoed Peggy sadly. "Trifling indeed. Shows all you know.
I am suffering tortures, my dear, and you stand there, cool and
comfortable, preaching at me!" She paused for a moment, and for the
first time stared scrutinously at her friend. Eunice looked charming,
the simplicity of her dress giving a quaint, Quaker-like appearance to
the sweet face. Plain as her blouse was, it was a remarkable success
for a first effort, and though it had necessarily a dozen faults, the
whole effect was neat and dainty.
"What did I tell you?" groaned Peggy dismally. "Who looks better now,
you or I? I look `beautiful,' don't I, perfectly beautiful! It's so
becoming to have no collar band, and one's arms sticking out like
flails! I sha'n't be able to eat a bite. It's as much as I can do to
sit still, much less move about. I'll put on a fichu, and then I can
leave some hooks unfastened, to give myself a little air."
It seemed, indeed, the best solution, since somehow or other it was
necessary to conceal the jagged silk round the neck. Peggy pinned on a
square of chiffon; but the numerous trimmings over which it lay gave a
clumsy appearance to her usually trim little figure, while discomfort
and annoyance steadily raised the colour in her cheeks. She was
conscious of appearing at her worst, and for one moment was tempted to
throw aside her plan, and take to ordinary evening-dress. Only for one
moment, however, for the next she decided roundly against so mean a
course. What if she had failed? her guest had succeeded, and why rob
her of praise well-earned? After all, would she not have been a hundred
times more distressed if positions had been reversed, and Eunice was
suffering her present discomfort? The cloud left her brow, and she led
the way downstairs with a jaunty air.
"Come along, come along! I've always vowed that I enjoyed a good
beating, and now I've got a chance of proving the truth of my words.
You are a born dressmaker, my dear, and the sooner I retire from the
business the better. You will be the hero of the occasion, and I shall
be the butt; but don't look so remorseful, I implore you. It has been a
great joke, and some day--years hence!--I may even see some humour in
the present condition of my arms. I'm accustomed to being teased, and
don't care one little bit how much they deride me!"
A moment later, as the drawing-room door opened, she realised indeed how
little she cared, for Rob was not there. His excuses had evidently
already been made, for no allusion was made to his absence, while her
own appearance with Eunice was the signal for a general rising, every
one exclaiming and applauding, and walking round in admiring circles.
Eunice was overwhelmed with congratulations, while Peggy had to run the
gauntlet of remorseless family banter.
Only one voice was raised in her behalf, but Hector Darcy declared with
unblushing effrontery that he voted in her favour, and held to his
decision, in spite of all that the others could say. Peggy deplored his
want of taste, yet felt a dreary sense of comfort in his fealty. It
soothed the ache at her heart, and made her so unconsciously gentle in
return that the major's hopes went up at a bound.
After dinner, chairs were carried into the verandah, and Peggy made no
demur when Hector set her seat and his own at a little distance from the
rest. Perhaps at heart she was even a little grateful to him for being
so anxious to enjoy her society, for no one else seemed to desire it for
that moment. Colonel and Mrs Saville were talking contentedly
together, Arthur was engrossed with Eunice, Rob--ah, where was Rob? Had
he made up his mind never to enter Yew Hedge again? Peggy turned her
conversational gift to account, and led the subject so subtly in the way
she would have it go, that presently Hector found himself explaining the
cause of his brother's absence, believing that that explanation was
entirely of his own offering.
"Rob is busy writing a paper for some magazine or review, and can think
of nothing else. You know what he is when he once gets mounted on his
hobby! He would have thought it a terrible waste of time to have left
his papers to come out to dinner."
Well, well, the time had been when Rob would not have thought it waste
of time to spend an evening with his friend; when not even an article
for a review would have prevented him from witnessing the completion of
an enterprise in which his partner was interested.
It was a very woe-begone Peggy who crept into bed that evening. Her
arms were stiff and sore from their long pressure, there were the deep
red marks on her shoulders where the seams had pressed into the flesh,
but the ache in her heart was worse to bear than either one or the
other. She burrowed her little brown head into the pillow, and the salt
tears trickled down her nose.
"Nobody loves me!" she sobbed. "Nobody loves me! Mellicent was right.
He loves beetles better than me!"