This letter was received by the dressmaker on the following morning. She read it in great amazement, she pondered over it for some time, she said to herself, “No, no, no, I won’t do that; no, I won’t do that.” Then she went out and took a walk. She came in after a long walk, still murmuring to herself, “No, I won’t do it.”
As the day wore on, she began to feel a certain weakening of her resolution, and she murmured once, “Poor child; after all, it would be a frightful thing for her, and she’s very pretty; and, after all, twenty pounds would be a great help to me. People think that dressmakers make no end of money; but if they knew the expenses they have, and what a long, long time they’re left out of their money, they’d say differently. Anyhow, it would be an awful thing to lose Mr. Dodd’s custom, and he does pay so sharp to the very day; although people say that he was a poor man, as I am a poor woman, yet he does pay up, I will say that.”
CHAPTER XIX.
“I’LL GIVE HER A CHANCE.”
There is an old saying that when a person begins to hesitate that person is lost. Certainly such was the case with Miss Weston—Miss Clarissa Weston, of the High Street, Gable End, called thus, doubtless, on account of its proximity to The Red Gables. The town was pretty and bright, and very nice people lived in the neighbourhood; and in consequence Clarissa Weston had quite a nice little business. She and a certain Miss King vied with each other in supplying the young ladies at The Red Gables with their dresses. Miss King was a much cheaper dressmaker than Miss Weston; and, in consequence, it was to her that several of the girls went for their odds and ends of clothing. The Wyndhams were supplied entirely from home; but Alison Maude employed Miss Weston, and so did Bridget O’Donnell; whereas Priscilla, Rufa, and Hannah got what small things they required at Miss King’s. But of all the young ladies who bought smart frocks at Gable End there were none to compare with the Misses Dodd—the Misses Dodd and Miss Kitty Merrydew. Whatever the school suspected, none of them knew that Kitty’s smart clothes were put down to the Dodds’ account. Kitty showed off her finery to such great advantage—whereas the Dodds, however expensively they were clothed, did not show it off at all—that Miss Weston would almost have dressed her for nothing. Had she not—by means of Kitty’s charming appearance in church, in her crimson frock and squirrel-fur jacket and cap—obtained the custom of two ladies of title who lived not far from Gable End; and did not the blue velvet, with its shady hat and long, long ostrich feather secure for Miss Weston the custom of another large family who lived about a mile away from Gable End at the other side? They were nouveaux riches, just the people Miss Weston delighted in; and when they saw Kitty at a bazaar in her blue costume they managed to find out who had dressed her, and went straight to Miss Weston to order four velvet frocks and four velvet hats for their own commonplace girls, to be made up exactly like Miss Kitty Merrydew’s. Yes, yes, Clarissa could not lose Miss Merrydew.
A couple of days later Miss Weston’s bill arrived at Hillside. Anne recognised the writing, and felt that her very heart stood still. They were all collected round the breakfast-table; the snow lay white and pure on the ground outside; to-morrow would be Christmas Day. The girls were going immediately after breakfast to motor down to the village church in order to help to decorate, but Anne could scarcely break her toast or crack her new-laid egg. Mrs. Dodd took the head of the table, and began to pour out tea and coffee; Dodd was in what he called his “rollicking humour,” fit to shout with laughter and to joke with and at everybody.
“Now, papa, here comes your precious letter,” said his wife.
“My precious letter? Why, what do you mean, duckydums?”
“Oh the one you’re hankering after, the full and detailed account of our girlies’ little bits of finery.”
“Oh that!” cried Mr. Dodd. “Remind me, Mary Anne, to send the dressmaker a cheque to-day; I hate to keep poor people waiting for their money, and it Christmas-time and all.”
“Well, then, John, you may as well take the letter at once,” said Mrs. Dodd. “It’s your account, after all, not mine.—Pass that letter along to your father, Anne, my darling. Anne, child, how cold your hand is! Aren’t you well?”