“Oh!” said Mrs. Hesketh again, with her countenance falling. She was not a selfish or a scheming woman; but she had a romantic imagination, and it was so easy an exercise of fancy to think of this girl, who had evidently conceived such a friendship for herself, as “left” rich and solitary at the death of her delicate father, and adopting her Alfred and herself as companions and guardians. It was a sudden and passing inspiration, and the young woman meant no harm, but there was a visionary disappointment in her voice.
“But,” said Dora, with the impulse of a higher cultivation, “it is a much better thing to work than to do nothing. When father is at home for a few days, unless we go away somewhere, he gets restless; and if he were always at home he would begin some new study, and work harder than ever.”
“Ah, not with folks like us, Miss Dora,” said Mrs. Hesketh. Then she added: “A woman has always got plenty to do. She has got her house to look after, and to see to the dinner and things. And when there are children——” Once more she paused with a blush to think over that happy prospect. “And we’d have a little garden,” she said, “where Alfred could potter about, and a little trap that we could drive about in, and take me to see places, and oh, we’d be as happy as the day was long!” she cried, clasping her hands. The clock struck as she spoke, and she hastily put away her sewing and rose up. “You won’t mind, Miss Dora, if I lay the table and get things ready for supper? Alfred will soon be coming now.”
“Oh, I like to see you laying the table,” said Dora, “and I’ll help you—I can do it very well. I never let Jane touch our nice clean tablecloths. Don’t you think you want a fresh one?” she said, looking doubtfully at the somewhat dingy linen. “Father always says clean linen is the luxury of poor people.”
“Oh!” said little Mrs. Hesketh. She did not like criticism any more than the rest of us, nor did she like being identified with “poor people". Mr. Mannering’s wise yet foolish aphorism (for how did he know how much it cost to have clean linen in Bloomsbury—or Belgravia either, for that matter?) referred to persons in his own condition, not in hers; but naturally she did not think of that. Her pride and her blood were up, however; and she went with a little hurry and vehemence to a drawer and took out a clean tablecloth. Sixpence was the cost of washing, and she could not afford to throw away sixpences, and the other one had only been used three or four times; but her pride, as I have said, was up.
“And where are the napkins?” said Dora. “I’ll lay it for you. I really like to do it: and a nicely-laid table, with the crystal sparkling, and the silver shining, and the linen so fresh and smooth, is a very pretty object to look at, father always says.”
“Oh dear! I must hurry up,” cried Mrs. Hesketh; “I hear Alfred’s step upon the stairs.”
Now Dora did not admire Alfred, though she was fond of Alfred’s wife. He brought a sniff of the shop with him; which was disagreeable to the girl, and he called her “miss,” which Dora hated. She threw down the tablecloth hurriedly. “Oh, I’ll leave you then,” she cried, “for I’m sure he does not like to see me here when he comes in.”
“Oh, Miss Dora, how can you think such a thing?” cried her friend; but she was glad of the success of her expedient when her visitor disappeared. Alfred, indeed, did not come in for half an hour after; but Mrs. Hesketh was at liberty to make her little domestic arrangements in her own way. Alfred, like herself, knew that a tablecloth cost sixpence every time it went to the wash—which Dora, it was evident, did not do.
Dora found her father reading in exactly the same position as she had left him; he had not moved except to turn a leaf. He raised his head when she came in, and said: “I am glad you have come back, Dora. I want you to get me a book out of that bookcase in the corner. It is on the third shelf.”