Little Sparrow

Chapter Twenty-One

I spent the rest of the day doodling and trying to come up with some designs.

In the end, I settled on a few flowers that I would sew onto the skirt when the main body of the dress had been sewn together. Mrs Atkinson asked about the dress at supper, but I offered a few sparing details as I wanted the finished dress to be a surprise for everyone including her. In truth, I did not want to promise something that I did not end up doing because I did not have the skill needed to stitch the flowers onto the skirt. If it did not work out the way I wanted it to, then I did not have anyone to disappoint.

After supper, I returned to my room and measured my dress against the sketch I had done earlier that day. My measurements and sketch had not been that far off the original, but I ended up extending the bottom of the dress a little more just in case I grew a little. I did not expect that to happen since I had always been on the small side but having some extra room for growing certainly helped a little. When I went to bed that evening, I left the fabric rolled up in the corner of my room, so I knew where it was in the morning.

The next morning, I woke up and instantly checked to see that the fabric had not been stolen in the night; it had not. I dressed quickly, ran the brush through my hair and then headed downstairs to breakfast where William sat tucking into a plate that he had already stacked up with bacon and the occasional sausage. He looked up and smiled at me when I walked in, but Mr Atkinson did not even look up from his paper, it seemed that breakfast was dedicated to the newspaper and nothing more.

"Any plans for today, you two?" Mrs Atkinson asked, slicing her knife through her scrambled eggs.

"Studying," William said, pouting a little. He did not look too happy to be spending the day studying.

"Good. And you, Lizzie?"

I shrugged. "Working on my dress, I suppose."

"Ah, excellent. I look forward to seeing it when it is completed. I have some errands to attend to today and your father will be joining me. Will two be alright on your own for a few hours?"

"Perfectly fine, Mother."

"Good. No trouble."

"I get it."

William looked at me and rolled his eyes before smiling a little. I expected he got bored of being told to stay out of trouble as much as he does, but there had to have been a reason for it and I expected I would find out what that reason was soon enough. He turned back to his stack of bacon and sausages and started to eat, somehow managing to spit pieces of bacon all over the table which offered him a glare from Mrs Atkinson and not even a flinch from her husband.

I tucked into the breakfast in front of me, putting a small selection of bacon, sausages and eggs onto my plate. The Atkinsons ate in silence which was a big difference to how mealtimes at the orphanage went due to the number of us. Although I preferred the selection of food the Atkinson had to offer, I hated the silence that came with it and wished to be back in the orphanage dining hall with all the other girls talking loudly.

The only sound that filled the room would be the occasional turn of the newspaper by Mr Atkinson and the scraping of cutlery against the plate as people ate. One thing I did notice, perhaps more than anything else, was how Mr Atkinson did not eat a single thing for the entirety of breakfast. He did not even put anything on his plate, just read his newspaper and sipped at his coffee without saying a word. In fact, he did not appear to speak all that much in general, but I doubt he had a specific reason for it.

After breakfast, Mr and Mrs Atkinson headed out to complete their errands with William retreated upstairs to his room where I expected he would not be doing any studying at all. I returned to my room and gathered up the cloth, the thread and a pair of scissors before returning to the dining room and spreading the fabric out on the table. Once it had been spread out, I took a look at the sketch from the night before, deciding I could do nothing more with it and grabbed the scissors.