“I have only come about your dress, Mrs. Trimmings,” returned Phillis, in a very small voice; and then she tried not to laugh, as Mrs. Trimmings regarded her with a broad stare of 165 astonishment, which took her in comprehensively, hat, dress, and neat dogskin gloves.
“You might have taken up my pen and knocked me down with it,” was Mrs. Trimmings’s graphic description of her feelings afterwards, as she carved a remarkably fine loin of veal, with a knuckle of ham and some kidney-beans to go with it. “There was the colonel standing by the desk, Andrew; and he turned right round and looked at us both. ‘I’ve come about your dress, Mrs. Trimmings,’ she said, as pertlike as possible. Law, I thought I should have dropped, I was that taken aback.”
Phillis’s feelings were none of the pleasantest when Colonel Middleton turned round and looked at her. There was an expression almost of sorrow in the old man’s eyes, as he so regarded her, which made her feel hot and uncomfortable. It was a relief when Mrs. Trimmings roused from her stupefaction and bustled out of the desk.
“This way, miss,” she said, with a jerk of her comely head. But her tone changed a little, and became at once sharp and familiar. “I hope you understand your business, for I never could abide waste; and the way Miss Slasher cut into that gray merino,—and it only just meets, so to say,—and the breadths are as scanty as possible; and it would go to my heart to have a beautiful piece of silk spoiled, flve-and-sixpence a yard, and not a flaw in it.”
“If I thought I should spoil your dress I would not undertake it,” returned Phillis, gently. She felt she must keep herself perfectly quiet with this sort of people. “My sister and I have just made up some very pretty silk and cashmere costumes, and they fitted as perfectly as possible.”
“Oh, indeed!” observed Mrs. Trimmings, in a patronizing tone. She had no idea that the costumes of which Phillis spoke had been worn by the young dressmakers at one of Lady Fitzroy’s afternoon parties. She was not quite at her ease with Phillis; she thought her a little high-and-mighty in her manner. “A uppish young person,” as she said afterwards; “but her grand airs made no sort of difference to me, I can assure you.”
There was no holding pins or picking up scissors in this case. On the contrary, Mrs. Trimmings watched with a vigilant eye, and was ready to pounce on Phillis at the least mistake or oversight, seeing which Phillis grew cooler and more off-hand every moment. There was a great deal of haggling over the cut of the sleeve and arrangement of the drapery. “If you will kindly leave it to me,” Phillis said once; but nothing was further from Mrs. Trimmings’s intention. She had not a silk dress every day. And she had always been accustomed to settle all these points herself, while Miss Slasher had stood by humbly turning over the pages of her fashion-books, and calling her, at every sentence, “Ma’am,” a word that Phillis’s lips had not yet uttered. Phillis’s patience was almost tired out, when she was at last allowed to depart with a large brown-paper parcel under her 166 arm. Mrs. Trimmings would have wrapped it up in newspaper, but Phillis had so curtly refused to have anything but brown paper that her manner rather overawed the woman.
Poor Phillis! Yes, it had really come to pass, and here she was, actually walking through Hadleigh in the busiest time of the day, with a large, ugly-looking parcel and a little black bag! She had thought of sending Dorothy for the dress, but she knew what a trial it would have been to the old woman to see one of her young ladies reduced to this, and she preferred ladening herself to hurting the poor old creature’s feelings. So she walked out bravely in her best style. But nevertheless her shapely neck would turn itself now and then from side to side, as though in dread of some familiar face. And there were little pin-pricks all over her of irritation and mortified self-love. “A thing is all very well in theory, but it may be tough in practice,” she said to herself. And she felt an irresistible desire to return the offending dress to that odious Trimmings and tell her she would have nothing to do with her,—“a disagreeable old cat,” I am afraid Phillis called her, for one is not always charitable and civil-spoken in one’s thoughts.
“We are going the same way. May I carry that formidable-looking parcel for you?” asked a voice that was certainly becoming very familiar.
Poor Phillis started and blushed; but she looked more annoyed than pleased at the rencontre.