IT was whispered that the Misses Coxen, or at least the Miss Coxens' parents, had seen better days, and that they themselves had been by no means originally intended for dressmakers.
If it were so, they had, like a wise pair of little women, settled down cheerily into the position where they found themselves; and after thirty years of dressmaking in Old Maxham, they had probably ceased to wish very keenly for anything more distinguished in the way of a career. A small annuity, left to each of them by a thoughtful relative, had lately placed them both, after years of struggling, in a position of comparative ease. Dressmaking was still to some extent necessary, or at least desirable; but they now sewed for butter and jam to their bread, not for the bread itself, which makes all the difference in the world. They might safely indulge in many a peep out of the front window, or even in an occasional whole holiday, instead of having to toil with might and main to hold soul and body together.
"It seems such a Providence, you know," Miss Coxen would remark to her friends, "such a Providence, the money coming just when it did, when my sight had begun to fail a little—only just a little, of course—and when poor dear Sophy getting so rheumaticky in her hands. It really seemed quite a special Providence to us both; I am sure I hope we are properly grateful. I am sure we try to be."
The pair talked much of their legacy, and always carefully avoided stating the amount which they had received. Reports therefore varied much, Mrs. Mokes setting down the annual sum-total as £40 or £50, while Miss Perkins believed it to be at least £60 or £70.
"Of course we shouldn't like not to work, you know," Miss Sophy would chime in mildly. "It would be so bad for us to be idle, and such an example, too, to the neighbourhood! And then dresses have got to be made, and there isn't a single person here who knows how to do it properly, except sister and me. I suppose if her sight quite went, and my hands too,—I mean if they got so rheumaticky that I couldn't work,—why, then I suppose Providence would send another dressmaker to Old Maxham. Things generally come when they are wanted, you know,—" which axiom would, perhaps, not be fully endorsed by everybody.
The two sisters were good little women after their kind; but they had odd impersonal ideas on the subject of "Providence," as of some hidden machine, which kept matters going, and supplied people's needs.
"And that will not be yet, I hope," Miss Coxen would add. "At present we get along pretty well—on the whole pretty well—though somehow we don't seem able to work so hard as we used to do."
On this particular afternoon they did not work hard at all. It became evident that something unwonted was stirring the air of the village, over and above the gale that had hitherto kept the sisters prisoners in fear of possible chills.
Nobody had happened to call and to tell them what had befallen the place. They saw Jessie Perkins arrive, breathless and troubled, to vanish inside the opposite door. And they saw Mrs. Groates, resolved and pale, come out; and a minute later they saw Mr. Groates himself hasten away in rear of his wife. At this, the Miss Coxens exchanged glances full of meaning.
The elder sister, who was bony and thin, with corkscrew curls and blank eyes, murmured, "Dear me! Dear me! What can it mean?"