“Oh, you may make yourself quite easy, Mr. Lawrence,” said Polly, with a toss of her elaborately dressed head. “He don’t meddle with you. The Captain is a man of taste, he ain’t a boy, like some folks. He knows what’s what, the Captain does. Other girls may have their fancies; I don’t say anything against that, but give me a man as knows the world, and knows what he wants. That’s the sort for me.”
“She gets more insufferable than ever. I wonder how you can put up with her,” said Law under his breath.
“Doesn’t she,” said Emma in a whisper. “I wish she had never come into our workroom; but she has taste, mother says, and we have to put up with it. Everything has to give way to the work,” the girl added, threading her needle; and as she made a knot upon the end of the new thread, she shook her head with a sigh.
Everything has to give way to the work! Law could not but smile, feeling the superiority of his gentlemanhood. With him it was the work that gave way to everything. “Poor little Em!” he said, with a little laugh. She was only seventeen, a year younger than he was; her forefinger was seamed into furrows with her needle, and sometimes bled, which called forth no sympathy, but only scoldings, from the forewoman or her mother, when an unlucky red mark appeared on a hem. Emma did not very much mind the scoldings, which came natural to her, and she never made any comparison of herself with Law. He was a gentleman, that made all the difference. And it was a great deal nicer, and much more important, to have such a fine fellow to keep company with, than a young painter or carpenter, or even a tailor, which was what ’Liza had to be content with. Mr. Despard was a very different sort of person. As Law whispered to her, Emma felt her heart swell with pride. She went on with her work all the same, sometimes threatening to prick him with the needle which was at the end of that long thread. Emma was only “running a skirt,” not trusted as yet with the more difficult parts of the work, and she pointed her needle at Law’s nose when he came too close. But it was very sweet to her to have him there. Polly might brag as she pleased of the Captain—the Captain was old, and what was the good of him? He did nothing but puff Polly up with pride, the younger girls thought, and nothing would ever come of it. But Law was young, and there was no telling what might come of that. Emma threatened him with her needle, but in her heart was very proud of him. And there he sat and talked to her, while Lottie was having her little triumph among all the fine people at the Rectory. The Welting girls were all pleased to have Law there. They liked to talk of Mr. Despard, “from the Abbey,” and how they “could not keep him out of their workroom.” By and by they began to joke about his idleness, the only idle one among so busy a company. “Can’t you give him something simple to do—a skirt to run up or a long hem?” “Oh, yes,” said Emma. “Do, Polly, he bothers me so I can’t get my skirt done.” Polly opened her drawer, and drew out from it the current number of a distinguished periodical, which all these young women admired.
“I’ll tell you what he can do,” she said, “and make himself useful—for we’ve got to sit up all night a’most, and there’s nothing makes work go like reading out loud. Mr. Lawrence, if you want to be as good as your professions, and help us young ladies on, as are far harder worked than the like of you knows of even, there’s the last number of the Family Herald, and we’re all that anxious, we don’t know how to bear it, to hear how Lady Araminta got on——”
“Oh, give it me,” said Emma, with her eyes sparkling. “Oh, give it me! Oh, you nasty cruel creature, to have it in your drawer all the time, and never to tell!”
“I’ll give it to Mr. Despard,” said Polly, “and we’ll all be done half as soon again if he’ll read it out loud.”
“Give it here,” said Law with lordly good-nature, and he began at once upon his task. How the needles flew as he read! Lady Araminta was a wonderful heroine. She wore nothing less than velvet and satin, and carried her diamonds about with her wherever she went, and the title deeds of her estate in the bosom of her dress. Law leaned his long arm on the table, sometimes pausing to take breath and playing with Emma’s pins and cotton. He would thus tantalise them now and then when the story grew most exciting and his auditors most breathless. He was bon prince among them all, very good-natured and willing to please them, though Emma had his special vows. His head was not so much turned as was the head of virtuous Lottie, listening to the applause of Mr. Rollo Ridsdale, but he was very happy with this little court about him all the same.
CHAPTER VII.
A NEW LIGHT.
It was late before Law got home. In the first place he read the Family Herald through to his interested and busy auditors. Their needles flew like lightning along the lengthy seams; trimmings were as nothing to them, and even a hem became interesting as he read. When he had pursued Lady Araminta to the end of this little portion of her history, showing how she refused that wicked Duke who was at the bottom of all her troubles, and whose expedients to get her into his power were so manifold, he began the next story—and so on till all was finished. It took some time to get through the delightful pennyworth. What good it did to the poor girls at their work! They were not patient, superior, noble-minded needlewomen, pensively bearing up against the privations of their lot, but very commonplace girls, grumbling at their privations frankly, yet sitting up half the night over wedding finery or funeral robes, without any very clear idea that it was a hardship, or indeed more than an inevitable feature of “the dressmaking.” It was under this simple matter-of-fact aspect that their vigil appeared to them now, and they did not feel it any very great grievance; but, such as it was, it was infinitely lightened by Law and the Family Herald. He was, to tell the truth, a little bit interested himself in the stories. He thought them very finely written. He liked the bits about Araminta’s true, but alas! poor and unfortunate lover. This lover was tall and strong, interesting and clever beyond description. He could do whatever he tried to do, and managed to live comfortably upon nothing at all. Law had a half notion that this elegant and perfect being was like himself. He would not have breathed it to anyone, but yet he thought so. And when one story was finished he began another. He did not mind whether it was the beginning, or the middle, or the end of the tale; all was the same to Law; he went stoutly on, and read the whole number through—poetry, answers to correspondents, and all. It was not very fine literature perhaps, or, rather, it was very superfine literature, with nobody below the rank of a baronet in the leading stories; but what it did for these poor dressmaking girls! They followed Lady Araminta through every turn of her wonderful fortunes, with eyes that glowed and shone over their needlework. They identified themselves with her, exclaiming, “That’s just what I’d have done!” and, “No, I wouldn’t have had him, not I, if he’d been fifty dukes!” with true enthusiasm. Their needles flew, and the work got on as by magic; their excitement showing itself in the speed with which they worked. The wedding things were done an hour sooner than they would otherwise have been done, under this stimulus, and it was little more than twelve o’clock when Polly, after folding up the last dress, in readiness to be sent home first thing in the morning, said, “Now, Mr. Lawrence, you’ve been a deal of use. If you like, you can see me home!”