XVIII

There was little variation to the life Mimi led. She paid occasional visits to her Aunt Sophie or Mrs. Rogers came down town for a hasty luncheon or a leisurely dinner with her. She told her aunt glowingly of the progress she was making, gave her vivid little pictures of her life at Francine’s, of the girls with whom she worked. Once or twice a year, she went to Baltimore and spent a few days with Jean. These visits cheered, saddened and comforted her. She treasured each minute spent with him, watching with eager eyes the rapid growth of the infant into a sturdy, intelligent child. He had Mimi’s reddish hair and her brown eyes. His mouth was sensitive like Carl’s but the chin was that of his maternal grandfather. The authorities gave excellent reports of him though they hinted broadly that Jean was⁠—well, inclined strongly towards mischief. Mimi’s passionate sadness on leaving him was tempered always with the assurance he was being cared for as well as could be hoped for in such surroundings and she always returned to New York filled with determination to work twice⁠—three times as hard as ever until she could bring Jean back with her and care for him properly. She was reaching the point where she could take care of his immediate wants from her earnings. But she knew it was best she let him remain there until she could more nearly assure that he could be taken care of even if she herself should get sick or die.

Of social relations she had none. Sylvia invited her frequently to go to Coney Island, to the movies, to dances, but these Mimi always declined. She liked Sylvia very much as an individual but she was always afraid she would not like the young men and women of Sylvia’s set. Having been all her life unsuccessful at dissembling or pretence, Mimi was certain Sylvia would detect any dislike of Sylvia’s friends and she did not want this possible breach between them.

But this was not the deeper reason for Mimi’s refusal nor was even she aware of the cause of her abstention from all relations other than those of her work and school. As a girl Mimi had had a fragile, flowerlike beauty. The hardships she had undergone⁠—the agonies of flesh and spirit⁠—had not coarsened or embittered her. Instead they had given her an air of hard brilliancy like the glistening surface of porcelain, beautiful, alluring but chilling to the touch⁠—and as impenetrable. Men instinctively turned and looked at her again as they passed her on the street. She was, of course, not unaware of these attentions nor did they altogether displease her. But her experiences with men, the disastrous one with Carl, the unpleasant ones in Germantown and New York, had made her frankly sceptical of men and their motives. She was frankly repelled by the contacts she had had with men and she had definitely vowed that she would concentrate on her work and Jean’s future to the exclusion of everything else. She was strengthened in this vow by the realization that she would never be able to give up Jean and that his existence with the necessity of explanation of his existence would mean almost inevitably the rupture of any friendship other than a most casual one which she might form.

So year after year Mimi went ploddingly along the way she had laid out for herself. One by one girls left Francine’s employ, some to get married, some to work elsewhere, some because they were discharged. Yet others, usually very pretty ones who had served as mannequins or in other ways had come in contact with men who had accompanied customers to Francine’s, left mysteriously. Some of these paid visits later at Francine’s as customers themselves or visited the workrooms clad in expensive furs and gowns, wearing beautiful jewels. Sylvia too left in time to open a shop in upper Broadway, somewhere in the Nineties. “I’ll start in the K.W. neighbourhood⁠—there’s more money there when you’re beginning,” she told Mimi. “I wish you’d come along as I begged you and go in partnership with me.” But Mimi preferred to stay on at Francine’s where she was sure of putting aside each week money for Jean.

The years of the war rolled by. In time khaki-clad Americans marched up Fifth Avenue and were whisked mysteriously away. The war became a grim, horrible reality and its influence was felt in time even in the quietude of Francine’s. Mimi worked on uncomplainingly, steadily, intelligently. She loved to handle the delicate fabrics, especially those of brilliant colours. To her the filmy stuffs were embodiments of a land far, far away from harsh realities. When no one was looking she would run through her fingers a fragile bit of silk or chiffon, smoky blue or icy green, as a miser would his gold. Most of all she loved the passionate reds, the vivid blues, the more pronounced shades. In a world of indefinite gropings they were to her positive, real things instead of the vaporous and lighter shades. She often laughed at her foolish dreams interwoven with these fabrics⁠—the little glamorous stories she made up for her own amusement to relieve the tedium of endless rows of threads and bastings. Yet, they gave her comfort and she continued to dream.⁠ ⁠…

Her skill and her inventiveness in time penetrated even to that sacred, dread room on the third floor where Madame Francine herself sat in stately splendour when she was at the shop. Mimi had been at work there for nearly a year when she had been made a draper’s assistant. Her time had stretched into a year and a half when she had become a draper. Soon after America had entered the war, when wives whose husbands had become enormously rich overnight began to hear for the first time that it was “the thing to do” to have Lucile or Frances or Bendel or Francine make their clothes for them, Mimi had become a fitter with some thirty girls under her. She had purchased a few Liberty Bonds. Some more money she had put into certain stocks which gave promise of yielding comfortable returns. In time she hoped to put some money into real estate where she could be sure Jean would be provided for, whatever happened to her.

More often now did she come into direct contact with the customers. Of them all, there was none so hard to satisfy as the queenly querulous Mrs. Bennett, wife of him whose name was synonymous with wealth and social position. Because Mrs. Bennett was so hard to please, Madame Francine had asked Mimi always to attend to that grand dame’s wishes. When one day no design submitted to Mrs. Bennett was satisfactory, Mimi asked her to leave the matter in her hands.

“… Yes⁠—yes. I’ll do it, for I’ll scream if I have to worry over getting a simple evening gown a minute longer. Besides, I’m late already to a luncheon engagement. But remember, Miss Daquin, this is a very, very important occasion and my gown must be perfect. If it isn’t⁠—well⁠—” and Mrs. Bennett’s voice trailed off into a silence many times as expressive as any spoken words might have been.

The result of Mimi’s labours, a creation of green charmeuse and silvery ornaments, made Mrs. Bennett beyond all doubt the most strikingly gowned woman at the dinner to the British nobleman who spoke approvingly of her beauty many times to her during that memorable evening. And Mrs. Bennett enjoyed no less the poorly concealed envious looks which came from her friends as the Englishman hovered near her. Nor did Mrs. Bennett fail to tell Francine how pleased she was with Mimi’s creation nor to recommend Mimi to all her friends. And Francine began to watch Mimi and her work as she herself found that the years she had given in building her establishment were beginning to take their toll.⁠ ⁠…

A cold and nasty November day, with icily grey clouds and nipping breezes, brought a summons to Mimi from Madame Francine herself. One year had passed since the war had ended. New York and Paris again were busying themselves with the making of fine raiment⁠—almost forgotten already were the days of terror and sorrow.

She was perturbed by the summons though common sense told her that the great Francine herself never condescended to perform so vulgar an act as that of discharging an employee. Yet, Mimi feared with the unreasoning fear of the unknown, the unfortellable, the indefinite. Hastily she went over in her mind the events of the past few months. The mistakes she had made had not seemed to her so terrible at the time. Had she offended some customer of wealth, of power? She could think of none who might have complained. Suppose, she reflected wretchedly, I should be discharged just when I am beginning to get on my feet, to see clear sailing ahead? But that’s silly, she sought to comfort herself, I’ve done nothing so terrible that I need get scared like a baby in the dark. All this ran through her head as she made her way to Madame Francine’s office.

“You’ve been with me how many years?” the imposing creature asked Mimi.

“Six years⁠—next spring.”

“I hear you’ve made a number of interesting new designs since you’ve been a fitter?”

“I don’t know how much they are worth⁠—but I have done one or two things⁠—” Mimi answered, somewhat embarrassed. This was reassuring. At any rate, whatever came out of the interview, she wasn’t to lose her job, not immediately, anyhow.

“Ah⁠—modest, eh? Well, I like that in you⁠—swelled heads don’t go very far with me. Oh, excuse me! Sit down, won’t you?”

Mimi sat. The request was more a demand. She poised on the edge of the blue and gold chair as though she was not at all sure it would sustain her weight. Must learn something about furniture, she resolved. This room’s Louis XIV, I think, she thought to herself, as she gazed around the room with quick glances while waiting for Madame Francine to continue.

“How’d you like to go with me to Paris next month to get new styles?”

Mimi came back to the subject at hand with a start. She gasped.

“Go with you to France?” she echoed.

“Certainement!” came the answer as Madame Francine remembered her French. “You speak French, don’t you? And you’ve a keen eye. And you can use your own head⁠—your imagination. I’m not so young as I once was. It’s a real bother for me to chase around as I must⁠—going to the shops, the races, the theatres and the opera, the smart hotels and restaurants, everywhere I can pick up ideas. You see, my dear, I always carry an artist with me who’s got a mind like the sensitive, so sensitive plate of a camera⁠—he sees a gown or a hat and he never forgets a single detail until he has sketched it on paper.”

“I see,” murmured Mimi, though she didn’t see at all. Her mind was too filled with the prospect of going to Paris. But she must have made her reply sound interested and intelligent enough, for Francine went on.

“Only the department stores and wholesalers buy models⁠—we only absorb ideas and then develop them ourselves. That’s why we can ask and get two hundred dollars and up for a gown while the department stores sell theirs for seventy-five.” In her voice there was a tinge, faint but unmistakable, of scorn when she spoke of “wholesalers” and “department stores.” So might have Marie Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting have spoken of the common people. Or so might one of the war millionaires have spoken of one of his victims. Or an Englishman of anyone not an Englishman.

“We’ll sail the last week in December and we’ll be in Paris six weeks. I make two trips a year⁠—June and December. I’ll introduce you over there and if you make good, I’ll let you go over for me at least once a year alone.⁠ ⁠…”

On and on she talked, of models and commissionaires, of going into some of the Paris shops as a potential purchaser to see all the models, remembering the best of them minutely for later reproduction or amplification. Usually the latter, for representatives of other New York establishments use the same tactics. She told of other tricks of the trade while Mimi devoted half of her mind to absorbing the flow of words and the other half to a study of Madame Francine.

This was the first time she had ever had time to gaze upon this magnificent, awe-inspiring creature so close at hand. Mimi, with her usual irreverence for the majestic, before which most others bowed the knee abjectly, could not refrain from the inward comment that Madame Francine, if subjected to a psychological test, would assay about forty percent sheer bluff, thirty percent knowledge of her business, and thirty percent sound common sense. She was tall, slender, simply clad in a close-fitting gown of grey. A string of amber beads and a touch of colour at the wrists accentuated the greyness of the dress and made its simple dignity all the more impressive. Her skin was of a milky whiteness, her eyes large and brown and placid, her hair of a rich brown beginning to fleck with grey. Exquisite, exuding elegance that made many of her customers of better birth feel at times awkward and boorish.

Only the nervous little jerks of her fingers revealed that her calm air was an acquired one, indicated the abundance of nervous energy beneath that calm which had enabled Madame Francine, who had been born Margaret O’Donnell, to reach the heights she had attained. But the Madame Francine who sat opposite Mimi had travelled a long way from the Irish immigrant girl who had looked with startled eyes upon the expanse of New York bay as she clutched feverishly the hand of her squat and unimaginative father. She must be fifty if she’s a day, Mimi reflected. No, that can’t be so. She’s been in business for over thirty years⁠—she must be sixty. Anyway, the old girl’s certainly taken care of herself, Mimi decided, as she gave polite and reassuring answers to the questions which occasionally interrupted the even flow of Madame Francine’s narrative.⁠ ⁠…

“In the meantime, you’ll give up your workroom and spend most of your time with me. There are a lot of little points about the business you need to learn⁠—I need a pair of strong, young shoulders on which to rest a part of my burdens”⁠—here Madame Francine gave a gentle upward motion of her shoulders that would have convinced even a Parisian of her Gallicism⁠—“and from all I can see, you’re the best one here to share these burdens with me.”⁠ ⁠…

For six weeks while the shops above them rushed through young mountains of work, making creations of all sorts for the Palm Beach migration of the socially and financially elect, Mimi and Madame Francine spent several hours together each day in the sheltered quietness of Madame Francine’s private office⁠—“my studio” she called it. Mimi saw and met and heard about women and men whose names she had seen in society columns and in the smartest magazines but whom she had never seen in the flesh. She heard of the idiosyncrasies, the foibles, and the predilections of each of them. She learned the things each liked to hear. More important, she memorized the things they did not like to hear. She listened to lengthy accounts of the business routine until her head swam and she felt sure she could never by any means digest a tenth of it.

And there were other things she learned too⁠—phases of the business which she had never suspected before, marooned as she had been in the workrooms. Had she gossiped more with the girls, she reflected, she would have known these things sooner. She learned the names of the men customers whose wives and whose mistresses both purchased their gowns at Francine’s. And she was properly impressed with the necessity of never⁠—never⁠—permitting any mix-ups in the delivery of gowns or hats. She learned the necessary precautions in advising the bookkeepers about the bills for these goods⁠—which bill was to be sent to the man’s home and which to his office, marked “Personal.”

Too, she was admitted to the secret of the victimizing of these men both by their wives and their mistresses. She heard Madame Francine explain suavely how many of the wives, permitted unlimited charge accounts at as many shops as they chose, were given little cash by their husbands. Madame Francine answered Mimi’s guileless question why husbands with money to give did not give it to their wives with a knowing little laugh. “Wives with too much money to spend might⁠—with interesting young men around⁠—well, they might forget they’re wives.” Mimi listened with amazement as Madame Francine told her how the wives⁠—and the mistresses⁠—frequently came and bought gowns costing three hundred dollars for which a bill was sent to the man for four hundred.

“And what becomes of the extra hundred?” Mimi asked.

“We give that in cash to the customer, little innocent!⁠ ⁠… What will happen if we don’t? They’ll go to another shop and we’ll have lost a customer.”

Despite all she had undergone, Mimi realized that she knew pitifully little about the ways of the world. Duplicity, deceit, lying, dishonesty, all around her and she had never even suspected it. I am a silly little innocent, she mused. In a flash Whitman’s lines came back to her:

“Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself for ever reproaching myself (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)⁠ ⁠…”

She was faithless and foolish. If she weren’t she’d drop the whole thing and get herself a job scrubbing floors, washing dishes, anything rather than be a willing part of this sort of trickery. But even as she scourged herself and despised herself for her weakness, she knew she wouldn’t scrub floors or wash dishes. There’s Jean to think of, was her dominant thought. But she resolved she’d get out of the whole business and work at home when she had earned and saved the money she must have. Miss Lawrence had done it and some of her customers had followed her all the way to Negro Harlem. She could do it too⁠—perhaps open a shop of her own as Sylvia had done.

She was glad she had done nothing so foolish when a few days after Christmas she stood on deck and watched the serrated skyline of New York, clad mistily in a blanket of snow that fell like a great celestial curtain, drop silently in the distance. The thrill and mystery of departure no longer of interest to her, Madame Francine had already gone to her stateroom, while Percival Edwards, the sketch artist, had fallen an easy victim to seasickness before the hawsers had been cast off and the huge ship had nosed its way from its slip. The long, dark pier with its distinctive odour of things nautical, the crowds of passengers and of others who had come to bid them a snowy and chilly farewell, the trim officers of the luxurious vessel that seemed so immense⁠—Mimi felt an immediate sense of security replacing her fear of the sea, all these excited and delighted Mimi. Only in short trips of a few hours on the Gulf of Mexico before they had left New Orleans had Mimi ever before been on a ship. Those little boats of her childhood could have been stored away and forgotten in the hold of this huge boat, she reflected, as the shore became fainter and fainter in the greyish white curtain of snowflakes. She drew her shoulders deeper into the collar of her fur coat until there was but a thin slit of creamy flesh visible between the collar and the tight-fitting little toque that covered her head. This is life, she thought comfortably. A big liner, Paris, the boulevards, the shops, the theatres, the opera, the restaurants, all the life of la plus belle ville du monde⁠—the phrase came to her from the textbook she had used but a short time before.⁠ ⁠…

Even Madame Francine’s at times crotchety querulousness and Percival Edward’s effeminacy could not ruffle her spirits in Paris⁠—it was all too marvellous, too intoxicatingly beautiful, that she was at last in the one place she had always dreamed of visiting. The torn and unkempt streets could not destroy her happiness⁠—“c’est la guerre,” she heard on every side, but for her there was no destroyed beauty⁠—she saw beyond the disorder and envisioned the city as it was before shells and neglect had ruffled its beauty. She loved the reviving splendour and gaiety of fashionable life, loved it so well that Madame Francine was forced several times to remind her not too gently that she was in Paris for work and not as a lady of leisure. These reminders brought her back to herself for a time but soon her thoughts were again far from sketching frocks or absorbing ideas. All too soon for her the six weeks one by one began and ended, one after the other. She did not want to return to America. She wanted to stay forever in Paris. She would do it, she promised herself, with the recklessness of those infatuated with the charm of a place when leaving it. She would bring Jean to France, educate him there, and blot from her memory and his all the dark days in their own America. This dream remained with her for a long time after they returned to New York.⁠ ⁠…

“My dear, I’m an old woman now and I can’t make the trips I used to,” Madame Francine told Mimi after they had made their second trip to Paris. “It’s nice of you to deny my age,” she smiled at Mimi’s eager protestations that she was not old. “But it’s true, nevertheless, and I’ve got to shift even more of the burdens on you. Do you think you could go without me to Paris next time?”

With a woman’s eye for such signs, Mimi had noticed the telltale wrinkles in Madame Francine’s chin which, despite massages and all the other means she had used to retain her youth, had become each year more evident until now when she held her head at a certain angle they reminded Mimi of the neck of a plucked hen. Under Madame Francine’s eyes hung revealing pouches that of mornings were dark and wrinkled. Francine had had a desperate struggle to establish and maintain her position⁠—the competition had been cruelly keen, any lessening of her efforts would have meant the swift relegation of the business she had built to a place in the rear of the procession. This strain was now telling on her. She was weary. She no longer was able to drive herself and those under her at high speed. Only the will to make Francine’s the place where smart New York came for its clothes remained. She would always keep a supervisory eye on the shop. But she was glad she had Mimi. Under her direction the pace would be maintained, Francine’s name would not die out, Francine’s gowns would yet be known as the last word in feminine circles.

Closely she had watched Mimi and she had been satisfied. She had given the younger woman many useful hints and her delight had known no bounds when these hints had been taken, elaborated, overhauled and embellished in such fashion the books had shown a decided increase in business transacted. Francine was forced to admit, though her confessions were rueful ones and kept to herself, that Mimi’s tactful handling of several wealthy customers who had been wont to buy the bulk of their wares at other modistes’ had resulted in the transfer of practically all their business to her own place. And there were, she noted, a number of women with wealth and little else, who under no circumstances would permit any other individual to advise with them on colours and fabrics and designs save Mimi. Madame Francine was content⁠—Mimi would do. Someday, who knows but Mimi will be able to take her own place and she could with satisfied mind retire for the long rest and the leisurely life she had always promised herself?