A Good Girl
Written for Waen.
She was a good girl, everyone knew. She dressed decently and fixed her hair modestly, and if she was vain, she never let on by staring in shop windows. In the mornings she went off to do her teaching, and afterwards she hurried home to help her mother. She was well-mannered and good-humoured with the lodgers, and if they were too forward, she blushed and retreated politely. She had one close friend, a dressmaker named Lucy Fisher, whom she visited on Thursdays when her work was done, and it could only be assumed that they sat together and discussed simple, feminine things over an unextravagant tea. Yes, indeed, Maria Mason was a good girl, and her mother should be proud of her.
However, this was highly unlikely, for--as everyone knew--Mrs. Mason was not the proper mother for a good girl, what with drinking away the money her daughter earned and looking at folk so haughty, as though she were better than they, when she most certainly wasn't. It was something of a wonder Maria had turned out so well, everyone agreed.
It never occurred to everyone that perhaps Mrs. Mason was a perfectly fine mother for her girl, or that Maria had not, as far as they would be concerned, turned out so well.
~~~
"Hello, Maria! How are you to-day?"
Lucy smiled and shook the pins in her lap back into the wooden box. Then she got up off her knees, and stepped back to look at the dress she'd been working on. She was hemming the little lace ruffle at the bottom.
"How are you?" Maria hugged her warmly and kissed her cheek, then made a small noise of surprise as she found herself impaled.
"Oh!" With a laugh, Lucy quickly pulled something out of her dress. "I'm sorry; I must've missed a pin," she said contritely. "There," and she dropped it into the box with its fellows. "How is your mother, Maria?"
"She's all right."
"Is there anyone interesting staying with you now?" Lucy was still smiling. She always smiled, so her face was perpetually wide and her nose generally a bit scrunched. She always dressed prettily, too, because from all the dresses she made she had leftover bits of fabric, and she sewed herself somewhat patchworked clothes that Maria nonetheless loved.
Once, she promised to make Maria a wedding dress of the same fashion for when she married. But Maria had laughed, and said that was quite all right, but her mother wouldn't hold with it. Later she wished she hadn't said that. It was true, but she would have loved a patchwork wedding dress.
"Well--yes. There's a Captain, Lucy, a naval Captain named Horatio Hornblower, and he's late on his rent, but he's ever so handsome, and he's very kind to me."
"Handsome and kind and late on his rent. And named Hornblower! He sounds dreadful," said Lucy cheerfully, pausing to stick a pin in the waist of the dress. "He'll be the sort that gets a girl in trouble and then goes off and gets killed."
"Mother says that too."
"You're much better off with me, beloved. Does she say that?"
Maria laughed as Lucy wrapped one arm around her and kissed her cheek, and didn't mind the sharp prick of the second stray pin in the slightest. They'd had conversations like this before, because lodgers usually were very kind to Maria, and many of them were handsome, and she had a bad habit of admiring them more than she ought. But such conversations always ended the same way; with an amused, disguised admonishment and an affectionate kiss from Lucy.
They knew that one or both of them would marry sometime, likely soon, and Maria accepted it, and Lucy always said she did, but she curled her arm around Maria's waist and held Maria's hand a little more tightly than was usual.
Maria understood.
"There now," Lucy said, as Maria went to sit on the windowsill and watch her. "What do you think of it? It's for a lady in London, where they're fashionable. Doesn't it make you pity us? I never feel so truly dowdy as when I'm looking at the dresses I'm making for fine women."
The dress was cut low around the collar and trimmed with lace at the cuffs, collar and hem. It was a pale greenish-blue colour, and Maria thought it very pretty indeed.
"It's lovely," she said sincerely.
"Shall I make you one just like it? You can go to parties looking like you're from London, too, and all the boys will want to dance with you." Lucy smiled and took Maria's hands playfully. "All the girls will, too, but of course they won't let on."
"Oh, no," said Maria, blushing. "It wouldn't suit me."
"Nonsense! I'd make you one in blue, so it went with your hair. Red hair always goes with blue. And you could have a little silver ruffle and tucks on the sleeves."
Maria protested. "Lucy! Mother would think it extravagant and I wouldn't have anywhere to wear it. It would be beautiful and I'd have to leave it folded away."
"All right, if your heart is set against it--I shall make you a calico dress for summer! You can't argue about that. Summer's coming soon, and no girl should have to face it wearing her winter clothes. A calico dress with the sleeves short, because you have pretty arms. You do," Lucy added, touching Maria's arm gently.
"Oh--"
"Perhaps I'll give it to you as a gift. Then your mother can't call it extravagant. Your birthday is in April, isn't it? We'll have a little party for ourselves here, and I'll buy cakes, and you can wear your dress." She smiled with pride, and Maria found herself longing for everything Lucy had described, and the pleasure it would give her.
"Perhaps we could do that."
"Silly girl; of course we can." Lucy pulled her off the windowsill and danced her about the room lightly. "You shall be very happy, and utterly lovely."
"Oh, thank you!" Maria had paused, and flung her arms about Lucy. "It's a wonderful idea, and I shall be very happy!"
"There!" Lucy kissed her hair. "Now, beloved, please hold these pins for me while I finish the hem. It's a pity, really. Dreadful Lady Danvers can't look half so nice in this dress as you would."
Of course, Maria didn't believe her at all, but she felt proud just the same.
~~~
That was in January. By the end of February, the Captain, Mr. Hornblower, had gone, and Maria and her mother were in the debtors' prison.
Lucy came, once, smiling and comforting through the bars, but she could do nothing, and they weren't let out until the Captain came back and arranged it, and gave them money to pay the debts. Then he went again, off to sea, and Maria wept because he was a good man, and if he were killed, she would never have thanked him. Besides, she had grown fond of him while he lodged with them. The fondness was rather confused and complicated, but it came down to one thing: she didn't want him to leave.
While he was gone, she visited Lucy often, and Lucy played with her hair, saying wise, sympathetic things to make her feel better.
According to Lucy, a Captain who was that kind and that merciful--and a man who was clever and experienced enough to be a Captain--would certainly have not only his own talents to help him, but also God to watch over him. He would certainly return.
Maria believed her.
~~~
She wore her calico dress when Captain Hornblower returned.
Lucy ended up having to make the sleeves long, because it was dreadfully cold in April, but it was still beautiful as far as Maria was concerned. Her birthday was two days before, and it was wonderful, just as Lucy promised. They had sweet rolls from the baker's shop and Lucy gave her the dress and they read poetry aloud from a little book, and Maria thought she might be happy even if Captain Hornblower never came back.
Then he came in the door of the lodging-house and smiled and nodded and said wasn't it good to be home. Maria found herself speechless. Lucy was right. He was back, and she could thank him at last, and all would be well--
And he wanted her to marry him.
There were, of course, things leading up to it. He offered her money first, for the rent, money she knew she couldn't take. She told him so, and he didn't seem to understand, and when he did, he went out. She heard voices in the hall.
Her mother must have caught him, but Maria was too distraught to care what she was saying. Instead, she wept on her beautiful calico sleeves and wondered what she would do. She had angered him before she had ever been able to thank him, and she really had liked him and been glad he was back, and certainly never meant to make him angry. But what she said was the truth. A woman didn't accept money from a man. Her mother or Lucy would have understood.
Then the Captain came back in and asked her to marry him.
And Maria realised she understood now quite a few of the things she'd found confusing before. So she said yes, and hugged him with all the love she'd hugged Lucy with two days ago.
That was when she suddenly began wondering how she would tell Lucy.
~~~
"Lucy," Maria said softly as she opened the door.
"Beloved! Do come in; I'm just added a little bit of fringe to this delightful new fancy of Lady Danvers." Lucy smiled, and stuck a pin in the blue satin waist of the elegant dress.
"Lucy, he's come back. Captain Hornblower."
"I told you he would," said Lucy, pleased. "I hope he was glad to see you."
"He was. --Oh, Lucy, he's asked me to marry him! And I said yes!"
There was a silence, and Lucy murmured something that sounded like, "oh," as she carefully stepped around the dress and adjusted the fringe in the back. Finally she said, "You did very well, Maria. He's a good man from what you've told me. If he makes you unhappy or hits you or turns out to be dreadful, you can come back to me."
"Well, I'll still see you, of course!"
"No, no, Maria. I don't think that's wise."
"But, Lucy, I love you, and you are my dearest friend. I wanted you to come to the wedding, and I wanted the dress to be one you made. I thought--"
"I shall make you the dress. But I don't think I can come to the wedding, Maria, and I don't think I should see you any longer. It's just not wise," said Lucy, putting another pin meticulously into the dress. "It's not good for me, or for you. You won't have time for it when you're married."
"I'd always have time for you."
"No," said Lucy firmly.
So Maria nodded, and hugged her once more for remembrance's sake, and left Lucy's little shop. Lucy already had her measurements for the wedding dress, from before, so there need be no bother about that. Well. That had all--
When Maria returned home, she went to her room and cried.
~~~
It was a beautiful wedding, and everyone agreed the bride was perfectly delightful, smiling and looking at her husband with appropriate feminine adoration. But then, Maria Mason had always been a good girl who knew how to behave and did it with the utmost sincerity.
And the dress! She had had it made by her dear friend, Lucy Fisher, and it was lovely!--but everyone wondered about the small patch tucked into one of the folds near the waist; a small patch that was calico, blue, and lavender fabric neatly sewn in. They noticed that the bride occasionally fingered it during the ceremony, and they decided it must be a little good luck charm.
And yet, that was understandable. With a seaman for a husband, a girl could use all the luck she could manage to hold him to her and keep him from dying one of the many deaths possible in battle or the ocean.
Yes, all in all--it was agreed on--a good girl like Maria Mason deserved a beautiful wedding like this, and it would have been perfect if the poor child hadn't had her mother make such a spectacle of herself going after that poor Lieutenant. As it was, all was well.
In the usual fashion, everyone neglected to notice Lucy Fisher sitting in the church long after the ceremony was over, staring at the alter and weeping, only to brush the tears away with her calico sleeves.
Back to the Index.