Читать книгу Phemie Frost's Experiences - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 13

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ALPACA does make a first-class dress for our social gatherings and literary circles in Sprucehill, and when puffed out behind, and trimmed promiscuously with flutings, it sometimes has a sumptuous appearance elsewhere; but for a ball, in which one aims to dance with a great grand Archduke of all the Russias—excuse me for saying it, but alpaca is not quite the thing. Doubtful of my own imperfect judgment, I asked a fashionable dress-maker in the Third Avenue, who had "Madame" spelt with an E on her tin sign at the door, and she said: "It wasn't the thing for a lady entirely, by no manner of means," and her tongue had a rich roll to it, which satisfied me that Ireland had sympathized with France in her troubles, to the extent of getting the language a little mixed.

"No," says she, a leaning both elbows on her counter, and a looking at me from head to foot. "Madame should have a robe de silk, very complete, with flowers in her hair entirely, and an overskirt to the fore, garnitured with Limerick point."

"An overskirt before," says I, lifting both hands, satchel and all. "Why, every skirt that I've seen in the street, or anywhere else, was puckered and bunched up behind," says I. "Excuse me, but I really couldn't think of wearing 'em in any other way."

The French dress-maker—I know she was French by the letter E after Madam, and because the sign said she was from Paris. Well, she colored up, and looked every which way at first, but then she gave a skimping laugh, and said that I didn't understand French. I—I didn't understand French! I who had studied "French without a Master" as a speciality, with the most intelligent member of our circle, and conversed in the language as directed by that excellent book so fluently that the pronunciation sounded almost like English nipped off a little! This was too much.

The clear grit, which lies at the bottom of every New England woman's heart, riled up in mine when that cherished accomplishment was cast into disrepute.

"Madame," says I, putting a keen emphasis on that E, "I came here to inquire about the most fashionable way of making a dress, not to give or take a lesson in the languages. Permit me to say I never could submit to wear an overskirt in the way you speak of—wrong side before—why, it would look dreadfully."

"But Madame does not understand; I speak English so much in this country that my own language gets knocked into smithereens. I beg pardon—into confusion. Madame must be very perfect herself to detect it."

I felt a smile creeping over my lips. Really, sisters, I had been too hard on the poor woman. It was not her fault if my ear was so very correct that nothing but the purest accent could satisfy me. She saw this look dawning upon my face, and I knew that she felt relieved by the way her elbows settled down on the counter again.

"If madame will take a chair—that is, repose herself. Madame—"

"Excuse me," says I, benignly, for I didn't want to hurt her feelings again. "Mademoiselle, if you please."

"Pardon me," says she, humbly.

"Just so," says I, benignly. "Now supposing we go on about this ball-dress. How much silk will it take?"

The woman sat and thought to herself ever so long. Then she counted her fingers over once or twice. Then she said she didn't exactly know how much, which is the way with dress-makers all over the world, I do believe.

"But one won't buy a dress without knowing how much to ask for," says I. "Say twelve yards now?"

The woman lifted herself right off from the counter, and sat staring at me.

"Twelve!" says she, "eighteen at the least."

I felt as if some one had struck me. Eighteen yards for a dress, and gored all to pieces at that!

"Some of your dress-makers in Broadway would want more than that!" says she, "and send for more and more after that."

I made no answer, but took up my satchel and walked straight out of the door.

Eighteen yards of silk for a dress! The thought of it kept me awake all night.

The next morning I went right up to the palatial residence of my cousin, Emily Elizabeth Dempster, feeling that she would expect me to enter on that subject about bringing up children, which was my duty; but I was so down in the mouth about that dress, that everything like a moral idea had just swamped itself in those eighteen yards of silk; and instead of giving advice, I went into that house to beg for it, feeling all the time as if somebody had dumped me down from a mighty high horse onto that stone doorstep, and left me to travel home afoot. In fact, I felt as if coming to that house to ask about ball-dresses, instead of giving instruction, was a mean sort of business. But the ambition of a great, worldly idea was burning in my bosom, and I resolved to press forward to the mark of the prize of the high calling.

Mercy on me! it is a ball-dress, not a class-meeting, that I am writing about. Oh, my sisters! is it true that black angels and white angels ever do get to fighting in a human soul, just as they do down South? If so, they had a tussle in my bosom that morning, and the black fellow came out best, with a gorgeous silk dress a-floating and a-rustling out from his triumphant right hand, and the splendid shadow of a great Grand Duke following after.

Cousin Emily Elizabeth was just coming downstairs, flounced and puffed and tucked up about the waist, till she was all over in a flutter of silk, and lace, and black beads, with a dashing bonnet on her head high enough for a trooper's training-cap, all shivery with lace and bows, with one long feather curling half way round it, and a white tuft sticking up straight on the top, looking so 'cute and saucy.

Emily Elizabeth looked a little scared when she saw me coming in with my satchel; but when I told her what I wanted, her eyes brightened up, and she laughed as easy as a blackbird sings. "Oh, is that all!" says she. "I thought it was about the children. I'll give you a note to my dress-maker. Styles all French, and so recherché." Look in the dictionary, sisters, and you will discover that this means something first-class.

She took out a pencil and a square piece of paper with her name printed on it, and wrote something French, with the number of a house, which I won't give, not wanting any of my friends to be talked out of a year's growth, as I was.

"There," says she. "The cream-on-cream all go to her. She'll fit you out splendidly. Leave it all to her. Good-morning, cousin; I must go; but my daughter is in the drawing-room—she will entertain you."

"Just so," says I, putting the card in my satchel, and making swift tracks for the out-door; "but I haven't time to be entertained."