A Complete Story

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 21, 31 May 1923, Page 9

A Complete Story

Miss Anastasia (By W. M. Letts, in the London Month.) Miss Anastasia and Miss Mary were dressmakers. They had been dressmakers as long as the young women of Glaskenny could remember. Early and late the two Miss Gilligans stitched and fitted and pinned and cut. .The whirr of the machine scarcely ceased from dawn till midnight in the little house at the corner. The Miss Gilligans were respectable. Who could doubt it who saw their clean curtains, their artificial plant in the window, their case of wax fruit in the parlor? The parlor was the fitting room. Its windows were never opened, so it retained an antique smell that mingled with the newer scents of lining and serge and print. Miss Mary made skirts and Miss Anastasia bodices. They worked so hard and so long that they had grown thin and rather red-eyed, but they held their own against everything. When the new drapers’ shop came with its readymade costumes the Miss Gilligans felt as though a death knell had sounded, but they worked a Ittle harder and reduced their prices by a fraction.

They could by this persistent toil hold their own, but there was no margin. There was not time nor money to be ill or to take a holiday. Their only indulgence was to put by a little towards the inevitable day when they must lay down their needles and lie dressed by others for that final journey that is taken by queens and dressmakers alike. “To live respectable and be buried respectable” was the sum of the Miss Gilligans’ ambition. But one more desire remained to Miss Anastasia, Miss '‘Stasia as she was generally called. This was not a. romantic desire, perhaps, but it was the dream of her life. It was, in fact, a set of teeth.

Now the dentist who had extractedwithout gas in the interest of economy — ’Stasia’s own teeth had declared that a suitable and trustworthy set would cost five pounds. Nothing under this price would be reliable.

The matter was a subject of daily consideration to the two women, but at last Miss ’Stasia had scraped by little and little her five pounds. She did not forget, perhaps, that she had been the beauty of her family. Her dark eyes were too big now and their rims were often red, but in her day she had seen heads turned to look after her. Like all beauties, she had felt the waning of her looks sorely. Without her teeth she was on old woman, but with a fine new set she would be able to hold 'her head erect, to talk and smile without that self-consciousness that made her turn her head aside when she spoke. She had determined that on the very' morning that she could be spared she would pay down her money and put the matter in hand. Just at this time, however, a mourning order had kept the dressmaker busy nil day and half the night. On this autumn evening they were stitching busily so that Miss Mary might take up the box to their customers. Miss Mary spoke without looking up. “Lizzie Kilfoyle will be likely round this evening about her dress, and not a stitch more in it! She’ll have the life of us. The likes of Lizzie now to be married in white serge. Cock her up! and her Granny married in a wincey,gown.” ’Stasia lifted her large mournful eyes for a moment. “Isn’t she young yet, God help her? Why wouldn’t she look her best?” “What value is there in white stuff she’ll be mucking up in a minyit. You’d think she was the king’s own daughter the way she goes on about the set an’ the cut an’ her panels and her pleats.” At this moment there was a knock at the door. Anastasia finished her work and bit off her thread. “That’s done,” she said. Again the insistent knock. “It’s Lizzie, go let, her in,” said Mary. A minute after Lizzie walked into the workroom. She was a showily dressed young woman of a class inferior to that of the Miss Gilligans. She wore cheap rings and bangles, was profusely scented’ and 'practised a style in hairdressing that was flamboyant. .

•‘Good evening, Miss Mary,” she said cheerfully, “that’s the lovely night.” • “It’s soft, I’m thinking. I,wonder will I get up to Mrs. O’Neill’s with the mourning gown.” “ Twixt hoppin’ an’ trottin’ maybe you will, Miss Mary. But you’ve a right to finish my wedding gown.” “It’s not so easy waiting to be buried as it is to be married,” said Miss Mary grimly. “Is it wait? Me that’s called an' all an’ Jimmy with the ring bought, an’ he pawning his Sunday suit the way he’d pay the last half-crown.” Lizzie laughed boisterously while Miss ’Stasia walked round her with pins and yard measure. Presently she stood clothed in white serge, a stiff figure trying to see herself in a cracked little glass. “Now that’s lovely you’ll be a picture, Lizzie Killoyle, said Anastasia. “Ah! don’t be talking, Miss ’Stasia,” Lizzie exclaimed in shy pleasure. “You will so. liaise your arms now and try can you breathe.” ( ' . f “I feel quare and tight. I hope I'll not be bursting an I standing before the priest.” “1 can give you a quarter of. an inch morethere!” “The skirt’s a bit wide, Miss ’Stasia. They’re all narrow now. They say the ladies of London do hop with their two feet together, they’re that tight. s Mary rose and began folding the mourning clothes to put them into a box. “Kilt we are making that lot,” she said as she put on her bonnet. ■ “Why do you do it at all?” asked Lizzie cheerfully. “Because we’re not people to be bogging our bread, my girl, or being beholden’ to anyone. Dacintly we were born and rared an’ dacintly, please God, we’ll die and be buried if it’s no eyes we have left and our ten fingers worked to the bone.” , “Well! I’d rather be married than that,” said Lizzie, trying to see her round and rosy face in the glass. Mary turned and looked at the girl, a grim smile on her face. “Would you so?” she asked, “with a baby coming home - each year an’ you not knowing how to put food in its mouth or clothes on its back, an’ the young ones with their legs getting crooked because you can’t mind them. That’s a fine life for a young girl ! And herself standing at the washtub early and late, sick or sorry, and getting that bad that v she must needs go to the hospital for the great doctors to be operating on her.” “God help us!V cried" ’Stasia, “will you whisht, Mary, and not be scaring the wits out of the girl?” Mary took her parcel and went out, bidding Lizzie goodnight. Lizzie sighed heavily and there was a crack when a pin had flown. “Miss Mary has a quick tongue,” she said, “you’d know she’d never had a. companion of her own, she’s that crot- * chety. I’m thinking you were the best looking, Miss ’Stasia, I wonder now you never got married.” “What’s putting that into your head. Try this waistband now.” i “You’ll have me cut in two halves, Miss ’Stasia. But I’m wondering now you never had a comrade, my mother said there was a young lad used to be after you, what’s this his name was?” “Whist! Lizzie, hold up your arm and don’t talk.” “And in the heel o’ the hunt he married another — that’s what she said. He was not good enough, maybe?” “In my young days it was the parents made the matches,” said Miss ’Stasia severely, “and wasn’t it better so? Where’d I be with a man spending his money* at the public house and having me bet at home. That’s no life for a decent woman.” “They’re bad when they’ve drink taken,” Lizzie- admitted philosophically, “but there’s some would only drink too much at a wedding. My Jimmy’s one o’ that lot, and when the missioners de be preaching about Hell fire down in the chapel he gets off the drink altogether for two months or three.” “But Mary’s right that a big family hacks a woman out terrible quick,” said Anastasia-. “Maybe so,” Lizzie answered, “but you wouldn’t mind with the childher playing about you. There’s great diver-

sion in them and when they grow they’ll keep you out of the Workhouse itself.” “Or have you ruinated — or the other.” “Well, if it’s God’s will. Miss ’Stasia, it’s got to be. An’ I’d rather that than living alone all my mortal days. It must be lonesome here with no man in it to be telling you the news and smoking his pipe, or takng you to the Pictures or some place on a. Bank Holiday.” Miss Anastasia made a sound of protest as she detached the white garment from Lizzie’s person. ■•Now,” she said, “I’ve done with you.” “Tell me about that lad, Miss ’Stasia, is he old now?” “God be good to us! What’s come to the girl,” said Anastasia sharply. “I. never give him a. thought. Will von quit talking, of what’s dead and gone these thirty years.” Lizzie laughed. ‘'‘You won’t go back on me about the dress, Miss ’Stasia. Saturday night now.” “Maybe . . . and I sitting lip all night to do it,” she mumbled. Lizzie smiled broadly while Anastasia considered her. “Them’s lovely new teeth you have in your mouth,” she remarked candidly. “They are so. A power of money they werefour pounds.” “H’m, but they’re a bit brittle-looking. For five pounds you’d get better value. You’d tell them at a glance.” Lizzie looked a little crest-fallen. “You’ll be gettin’ yours, I suppose,” she said; “it’s wonderful the difference they do make.” She bade the dressmaker farewell and went out into the darkness, where a young man, who had evidently been languishing against a neighboring wall, met her and went Oil' with her. Anastasia heard their laughter and sighed. She went back into the little quiet dull house. When she had made a cup of tea, she sat down at the sewing machine. It was some time before she heard a faint tapping at the door. With a murmur of vexation she rose and opened it. A young girl stood before her, a girl almost speechless with timidity. Anastasia spoke sharply. ’ “Who is it at all?” she asked. “It’s Delia McKenna,” came the answer. “I don’t rightly know you. 'What McKenna is it, an’ where are you from?” “I’m Joe McKenna’s daughter from Murphystown.” Anastasia hardened for a moment. “What is it you want with me?” “It’s a message from my father. He bid me ask for Miss ’Stasia.” There was a moment of silence. The elderly dressmaker stood there rigidly while she considered. The wind was cold and the girl coughed. “Come in anyway,” said Anastasia, “it’s strange you coming this night, for your father was in my mind.” She led the way into the work-room, and bid the girl sit down. Then she looked at her keenly. Delia McKenna sat on the edge of her chair; her big hazel eyes were . '’V anxious. Miss ’Stasia had once looked into eyes exactly like hem. She believed that she had forgotten those foolish days. She believed, too, that as a thoroughly respectable woman she had also forgotten Joe McKenna," who had ' i . been married for long, and who was a widower of a year’s standing. As a matter of fact the real Joe of the present, with his straggling grey beard, his untidy clothes and his taste for drink, left Anastasia coldly indifferent. She could echo her parents’ verdict that he was not good enough for her and never would be. But the old romance she still cherished. At the bottom of her heart she loved the image of a young man with hazel eyes and long black lashes: a gallant, improvident, romantic young man who once had talked fine talk to her in moments snatched as best he could when her parents were not watching. “I’d know you for your father’s daughter,” she said abruptly; “you’d best have some tea.” , * Delia coughed again and said “thank you” shyly. “So you’ve lost your mother?” “We have, Miss ’Stasia, she died on us a year ago.” ‘‘Does your father mind himself these times?” Delia nodded.

“Most times, Miss ’Stasia, it’s .the company he does keep that puts it in his mind.” Anastasia looked the girl straight in the eyes. “And what does your father want with me?” she asked. Delia’s face was crimson. “It’s this way, Miss ’Stasia, it’s about me brother Joe. He’s been idle this long time, bein’ in he building and no work doing. And now he’s had a letter from Paddy Doyle that went to America last year, saying he’d find him work with him sure, and certain if he’d come out. But how would he go widout the money, Miss ’Stasia, an* we finding it hard to live these times at all. And wouldn’t it be the njaking of him going out there? There’s a girl he’s walking with, Biddy Quinn, that’s going out in the Spring. He’d give the whole world an’ all to go out too,' Miss ’Stasia, if there was but someone who’d lend us the money for a short while.” Anastasia smiled bitterly. “So your father thought of me, did he?” “He said you had the kind, good, Christiauable heart, Miss ’Stasia, from when you were a. girl.” “An’ what money is he after wanting?” “We’d raise something here and there, we’d maybe, got five pound if there was hut one that could lend us another five.” “There’s a lot of saving in five pound, my girl, tell your father that. It’s your eyesight and your health and your sleep that goes to the saving of five pound. It bread and tea and everything you want goes into five pound. Oh! there’s a power of life goes before you’ll get that saved.” Delia nodded. She was certain of failure. “But he’d pay it back,” she said. “He might an’ he mightn’t. Once you part with money it’s long before you meet it again.” Delia rose. “Thank you for the tea, Miss ’Stasia. 111 be going now.” She stood there in the lamplight, her pale face- illumined. Anastasia wondered how she would have felt had the girl been her own daughter. She would have thought her pretty and been anxious about her cough. Then Delia remembered something. She fumbled in her pocket and produced a little worn faded photograph. “My father bade me show you that, Miss ’Stasia, he had it this long whiles.” Anastasia picked up the photograph. She held it near the lamp and saw a curious little picture of a girl with smooth hair and a very full skirt, leaning on a pillar. It was herself. She turned it over. On the back was written “Anastasia” in faded ink. Delia prepared to go. Miss ’Stasia opened the door for her and let. her out, but all the time her mind was back in the days when the photograph had been smuggled into Joe McKenna’s keeping and he, for the first and —as it proved— the last time, had kissed her. It was the one romantic kiss of her life, and it cost her five pounds. “Come back,” she said quickly; “come in out o’ that again.” Delia followed her back meekly to, the workroom. “Wait,” said ’Stasia breathlessly. She climbed on to a chair and took a small teapot from a, bracket. This she placed on the table. “It was for my teeth,” she explained vaguely. “God knows when I’ll get them now while that young lad is stravaging over the seas. Look at here ‘now, four golden sovereigns and two golden half-sovereigns. Take it quick before God sends me sense to take it back from you.” Delia, clutching the gold in a screw of newspaper, ' found herself pushed into the darkness, and she heard the door slam behind her. Then she took to her heels and ran. . Anastasia went back to the workroom. She sat down feebly before the dim tire. “Without a tooth in my head for the sake of that lad!” she murmured. ' Then she wiped her eyes and went back to the sewing machine.