Chapter Twenty Four.
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!”