Ten mil make a cent,
And if that ain’t spent,
Add another nine
To see a florin shine.
And if nine more florin can be found,
Pat your back. You’ve made a pound!
Barter being the chief mechanism of trade with the Outland, the exchange of commodities between parties within the Dell absent a mutual circulating medium, continues, as well, to receive measurable application.
Chapter the Eleventh. Tuesday, June 24, 2003
othing was learnt from Muntle’s trip to the Summit of Exchange. One of the tradesmen had thought at first that he had seen a boy off in the distance standing isolate in a field, but it was merely a scarecrow drest in old, ragged and fluttering clothes, animated by the wind.
This was all that was said.
Muntle had come to deliver his discouraging report to my lodgings above Mrs. Lumbey’s Ladies’ Fine Dress Shop late the previous night and we had reluctantly taken the news to Gus and Charlotte. Each had received it none too well and Charlotte had slipped from the room, nursing another headache, to complete her packing, for she was to spend a few days with a consoling childhood friend in Hungerford. Charlotte had sought Alice’s companionship there as well (hoping for some form of reconciliation between mother and the daughter who now, in all likelihood, constituted Charlotte’s only surviving offspring). Alas, my sister-in-law had received in exchange for her maternal overture to the sulky and stony-faced thirteen-year-old a harsh rebuff, delivered in the girl’s wonted insolent fashion: “Sit for several days betwixt you and your damask-nosed crony Miss Snigsworth? Watch the two of you tossing off your gallipots of grog as if it were some ancient nepenthe? Pardon me if I decline the invitation this week or any other week, Mama, but I would rather have sharp iron nails driven into my skull.”
It was then and there that Alice had decided to spend days commensurate with her mother’s sojourn as guest of her dearest friend Cecilia Pupker. It was a far preferable course of action than being left alone with a “whimpering willow of a father who could hardly be tolerated for a day, let alone a week.”
The hour was late when I finally returned to my rooms to retire for the night.
I slept until nearly nine o’clock next morning and then drest and dragged myself down the stairs for a late breakfast of tea and toast and jam in Mrs. Lumbey’s dining parlour, and then peeped into the showroom of my landlady’s shop where her young apple-faced assistant Miss Casby was modeling a dress that Mrs. Lumbey had just made: a lemon-coloured flannel lackaday frock with a generous number of pockets.
“What do you think, Frederick? It’s a house frock for the woman who wishes to remain in retirement for the day. And then when night is come, the whole outfit reverses to become a flannel sleeping gown.”
“Yes, I see. The flannel on the outside then becomes a flannel lining for the inside.”
“It does indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Lumbey proudly. “I have created it for the economical young woman of the house who would like to reduce her time at the washboard.”
“It’s really quite ingenious, Estella.”
“And economical,” repeated Mrs. Lumbey, stepping back to give herself the full view of the double-purposed dress.
“But does the flannel not make the dress a little too warm?” I asked of the slightly uncomfortable-looking young woman who was wearing it.
“A little warm, yes,” replied the oppressively shy Miss Casby with a blush (for it was a rarity that she should be directly addressed by her employeress’s arguably good-looking male boarder).
“I should put it directly in the window,” said Mrs. Lumbey, darting a glance at the large display window that overlooked the street, “but I would not wish your friend Miss Bocker to see it and make some ungenerous comment about it.”
“And what sort of comment would that be?”
“That I continue to run a slop shop and here is my newest sartorial abomination. I should not care in the least what she thinks, but I don’t wish to have customers driven away before I’m even able to shew them how a dress magically becomes a sleeping gown.”
I sighed. “I don’t think that my friend Miss Bocker is as disparaging of your shop and of your skills as dressmaker as you make her out to be. You do her a disservice by characterising her in such a fashion.”
Estella Lumbey made no reply. Instead, she turned to her assistant and said, “Run along now, Amy, and change out of the reversible dress. I should like to see you in that new gown of your own making. You told me yesterday that it is nearly finished.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Amy Casby, dropping a complaisant curtsey and betraying with a wide grin her eagerness to show off her latest accomplishment.
After Miss Casby had removed herself from the room, tugging a bit upon the heavy flannel that hotly swaddled her neck and arms, Mrs. Lumbey said, “I will have the last laugh, mark me, Frederick. For once word is out that for a reasonable price my customers will be able to purchase a frock that astounds and amazes, there will be a run upon the shop. You will see. Someday I will put that coarse and offensive woman out of business — or at least out of the dressmaking and millinery line. She can sell all of the candles and stationery and cigars she pleases. I’ll wager she smokes the nasty things herself, like some boorish wash-house laundress.”
I could not help smiling at my friend’s sudden agitation over something that lived only in her own fancy.
“Smokes the cigars or the candles?” I chuckled.
“You’re making sport of me, aren’t you?”
“Estella, I really wish that you and Antonia would make a better effort to get along. I’m fond of the both of you in equal measure, and it troubles me that you’re so frequently at odds.”
“Need I remind you, Frederick, who it was who started the two of us down this adversarial path? Who it was who opened a dress emporium when a small and humble shop in the very same neighbourhood was serving quite sufficiently the needs of its female residents? She advances herself by breaking every rule of deference and common courtesy in the marketplace, and frankly, I cannot see at all how your society with her serves to your benefit.”
“Nor do some people understand why I allow you to continue to be my landlady when you’re forever caviling and carping and rattling pots and pans early of a morning when I’m trying to sleep.” I tried my best to say this without the smile that contradicted the hard sentiment, but could not.
“If you wish to go and live under some other roof, be gone and good riddance, you troublesome ingrate!” Here my landlady could not withhold her own smile. “But mind: no one will feed you better or keep you in fresher linens or listen to your philosophies at two o’clock in the morning. You would be lost without me, Frederick, and I dare you to try it.”
I enveloped my friend and landlady in an affectionate embrace, for her knitted brow seemed to require some manner of genial appeasement. She hugged me in return and patted me and then chided me for sleeping so late.
“Last night’s late hours were spent in the company of my brother and Sheriff Muntle,” I remonstrated.
“I thought you were at the play.”
“I gave my ticket away. I didn’t feel up to watching the protracted death of little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop. A comedy would have served me better.”
“At all events, I thought that you’d taken one of the young women who write articles for the Delver with you. You once told me how fond you are of each of them.”
I nodded. “I enjoy their company, Estella — most certainly I do — but it is not my season for finding a young woman to whom I should make love. My heart simply isn’t in it these days.”