Dickens's Goods and Bads

Needlework

"Hello Mary! It's nice to see you again. Pray, how long has it been? 3 years?" cried Charles Dickens, as the scullery maid let Mary Hogarth into the house. The maid nodded and smile politely as Mary let herself in.

Mary Hogarth was a 16 year old girl who had just moved into her sister Catherine Dickens and her husband Charles Dickens' house. Mary was the younger sister of Catherine and had only moved in because it was a Victorian tradition for a younger sister to move in with the eldest, in order to learn on how to become a proper lady.

"Why, yes Charles, it's been a long 3 years. How very nice to see you again, and hopefully I shall enjoy moving in with my dear sister Catherine as well." Mary replied politely and calmly, without exaggerating as she was certainly not as an exaggerated character as Charles!

Charles nodded eagerly, smiled with his teeth and showed her inside as he pointed his hand to the living room.  "Sit down here" he offered as he told the maid to start warming up the oven for tonight's meal.

Mary sat down on the vivid couch, legs crossed and pointed her dainty toes to the floor as she rested her arm in her lap.
"What a nice Christmas tree!" She beamed, seeing a large forest green tree decorated with shiny ornaments and silver tinsel. Her smile quickly turned to pursed lips; frowning, as she realised her sister was not there.
"Where is darling Catherine?" She asked. "I would love to tell her I am here now."

Charles scrambled into the room, also frowning, and brushed down his waistcoat and hair, as he sat down next to the beautiful Mary.
"Catherine will come up shortly; she is finishing a letter to our good friend and then she will join us. But, for now, let us talk about you, shall we?" he replied, slightly disappointed that that was the first thing she had asked him, but perfectly covering it up with a proper posture while sitting with Mary.

Mary nodded, and looked around the room, commenting in every delightful thing in the room as Charles explained each decoration in full standards. But there was a nice furnished piano in the room and Charles commented that Catherine played it very well and especially when guests were over. He seemed to be appreciative of this but his lips curled downwards and frowned slightly when he mentioned the name Catherine. At the time Mary thought nothing of this.

Soon  Catherine came up and Mary squealed in delight as she hurried to her sisters arms and smiled widely.
"Hello Mary! I hope moving in here will help you become a lady, and I pray that I will do a good job." She politely answered. But Catherine then frowned as she saw Charles staring at Mary eagerly.
"I see that Charles here has got you feeling like home, so why don't we go upstairs?" She said calmly but through gritted teeth, pretending to smile while eyeing Dickens with a look of disgust.
Mary followed her elder sister automatically but before Charles got up, Catherine stopped him and told him he should relax after a long day of writing. He reluctantly agreed and sat back down, picking up his newest draft to read over.

Mary and Catherine hurried up the stairs, holding there puffy dresses in their hands, before going into Catherine's living room, where she also did needlework and wrote letters.

"Pray, Mary, dear, please wait here for me as I have to give this to the maid so she can ship it to our dear friend." Catherine requested.

"Of course, Catherine! A proper lady must always do what she is told, unless she is higher-class and has to order around the staff in a nice manner." Mary accepted.
As Catherine folded up her card, Mary noticed that she had cross-hatched the writing (a very common thing to do in Victorian times) which means that because the paper was so expensive, she would overlap the writing sideways on the same page. Then Catherine poured some wax onto the paper and stamped it with a family ring, before hurrying downstairs to tell the other maid.

As Catherine was gone, Mary had a chance to look at her sister's living room. It was decorated quite nicely with suitable carpet and chairs and there was a beautiful portrait of Catherine sitting on the wall with her holding some needlework she did.
It looked like this (actual photo):

Mary beamed at how gorgeous her sister was in her tight,velvet, forest green dress and her pale, soft, dainty fingers wrapped around her beautifully decorated project.

Catherine soon came back and started immediately opening her polished brown wood drawer to get her sister started on some needlework. "This is very important- you need a talent" she warned. "If this doesn't work we will need to find something else."

Once she had gotten out her needles and wool she passed some to Mary before demonstrating on how to knit. Mary studied very closely; she desperately wanted to become a lady and was as eager as one could be to master this strength and talent. She had learnt a bit about knitting from their mother but it was very small.
She started off quite well, and that continued throughout the process as she learnt more and more from her elder sister Catherine.

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Authors notes
Hey guys! I hoped you enjoyed the first chapter; I certainly enjoyed writing it! I did as much research as I could, as well as visiting one of Charles Dickens' actual houses! I really wanted to write a story related to this. But, please, any of this information is factually incorrect, let me know! I tried my best to make the actual people, items, houses and speech what it would've been like in the Victorian Era, but if you know I did it wrong then I am begging you to let me know. Any suggestions would be appreciated, as well writing critiques. I strive to become a better writer everyday, and the story of Charles Dickens' life has really fascinated me. If you read my description, you would see that this information of the actual plot is not historically accurate; but the characters are and so are things like Mary Hogarth moving in at age 16 to become a lady. Thank you for reading this chapter and I would love if you added this to your reading list to come back to it- (I am adding another chapter very soon)- but I hope you have a fantastic day/night and goodbye my loves :)