Читать книгу Within the Precincts онлайн

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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!”