’I’ll guarantee you the same income you’re
getting now—if that will satisfy you.
I’ve been looking round, and making inquiries,
and I’ve got to know a bit about the profits
of big dressmakers. We should start in Camberwell,
or somewhere about there, and fish in all the women
who want to do the heavy on very little. There
are thousands and thousands of them, and most of them’—she
lowered her voice—’know as much about
cut and material as they do about stockbroking.
Do you twig? People like Mrs. Middlemist and Mrs.
Murch. They spend, most likely, thirty or forty
pounds a year on their things, and we could dress
them a good deal more smartly for half the money.
Of course we should make out that a dress we sold
them for five guineas was worth ten in the shops, and
the real cost would be two. See? The thing
is to persuade them that they’re getting an
article cheap, and at the same time making money out
of other people.’
Thus, and at much greater length, did Miss. French
discourse to her attentive sister. Forgetful
of the time, Fanny found at length that it would be
impossible to meet Horace Lord as he came out of church;
but it did not distress her.
CHAPTER 3
Nancy Lord stood at the front-room window, a hand
grasping each side of her waist, her look vaguely
directed upon the limetree opposite and the house
which it in part concealed. She was a well-grown
girl of three and twenty, with the complexion and
the mould of form which indicate, whatever else, habitual
nourishment on good and plenteous food. In her
ripe lips and softlyrounded cheeks the current of life
ran warm. She had hair of a fine auburn, and her
mode of wearing it, in a plaited diadem, answered
the purpose of completing a figure which, without
being tall, had some stateliness and promised more.
Her gown, trimmed with a collar of lace, left the neck
free; the maiden cincture at her waist did no violence
to natural proportion.
This afternoon—it was Monday—she
could not occupy or amuse herself in any of the familiar
ways. Perhaps the atmosphere of national Jubilee
had a disturbing effect upon her,—in spite
of her professed disregard for the gathering tumult
of popular enthusiasm. She had not left home
to-day, and the brilliant weather did not tempt her
forth. On the table lay a new volume from the
circulating library,—something about Evolution—but
she had no mind to read it; it would have made her
too conscious of the insincerity with which she approached
such profound subjects. For a quarter of an hour
and more she had stood at the window, regarding a
prospect, now as always, utterly wearisome and depressing
to her.
