Phemie Frost's Experiences Part 7

VIII.

THE GENUINE MADAME.

Well, I went straight down to that dress-maker's house, and handed the square paper cousin had written on to a lady who was fluttering round among a lot of girls, all hard at work sewing, like b.u.mble-bees in a rose-bush.

She looked at the paper; then she gave my alpaca dress an overhauling with her scornful eyes. Then she began to talk; but, my goodness, her French was awful. I couldn't understand a word of it. Once in a while she would chuck an English word in, and rush on again like a mill-dam.

When I tried to put in a word of genuine French or pure English, she lifted her hands, hitched up her shoulders, and seemed as if she was swearing at me one minute and wanted to kiss me the next. I couldn't stand that.

"How much will you ask--how many yards will it take. _La pre la pre?_"

says I, bursting into French.

The woman looked around on her girls, spread her hands as if praying for help, and then, all red in the face, she burst into English. Then I knew she did not understand her own native tongue, and gave her a sarcastic smile.

"I find everything. How many yards? Oh, that depends on the idea, the invention. I have it here growing in my brain. The price? Ah, I cannot tell. When the work is complete then we know. There will be crepe and point--"

"But I don't want points," says I. "Talk in English if you don't understand your own language. The price, the price!"

"Oh, very well, it shall be to your own satisfaction--perfect," says she, and then the creature shook out her hands as if she was shewing chickens from a corn-crib, and before I could say another word she shewed me on to the steps and shut the door.

Well, I went back to my boarding-house, beat out and worried almost to death. Figures are satisfactory to the New England mind; but when you have only a whirlpool of broken words, ending with satisfaction, with a woman's hands spread out on her bosom, and nothing more, it is tantalizing. But I reckon the figures will come by and by, only I _should_ like to have an idea of what they will count up to.

As I was saying in the beginning of my report, ten thousand anxious female bosoms thrilled with expectations every night, and existence dragged wofully in literary and fas.h.i.+onable circles until that auspicious moment arrived when the son of an Imperial Emperor cast refulgence on our Western Hemisphere. But the waiting of us young girls was lonesome, very.

I had done my best. For the first time in my life I had twisted my front hair into little wire tongs they call crimping-pins; maybe it was their tightness that held my eyes so wide open last night. I was trying with all my strength to shut them, when the sound of a cannon, ever so far off, brought me up in the bed, with my hand clasped and the heart in my bosom trembling like a frightened chicken.

"He has come," says I to myself. "Alexis has come. To-morrow we shall see him--handsome, young, filled with Imperial royalty from the crown of his n.o.ble head to the soles of his patent-leather boots. But will he wear his crown in the procession, or only keep it for the grand ball.

What if he should rest that crown on the head of some distinguished American, selecting a literary lady?" This thought impressed me; both hands went up to my lofty brow. Alas! they only sent the crimping-pins ploughing across my head with a th.o.r.n.y sharpness that filled my throat with screeches.

My dress has come home--I am stunned:

Thirty yards of silk, $10 per yard $300.00 One piece French c.r.a.pe 25.00 Ten yards Brussels point 100.00 Linings 10.00 Making 50.00 Materials 35.00 Silk b.u.t.tons 12.00 Pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie, etc. 15.50 ------- $547.50

I have just recovered from a long fainting fit. They have taken the crimping-pins out of my hair and deluged it with crystal water. I am lying on my couch faint and exhausted. Oh, my sisters, the paths of royalty are beautiful, but full of thorns. That bill has been enough to destroy all my pleasure in the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis.

IX.

READY TO LAND.

The great Grand Duke of all the Russias has been thrown upon our sh.o.r.e by an upheaving of the mighty deep, and is now rocking at his ease in the iron-clad cradle of a great nation. Oh, he had a terrible time.

Winds tossed him, storms pitched that n.o.ble vessel end foremost into the very bowels of the sea, then hove it up on great mountain waves, where it rocked and tottered and trembled, while the rain washed its decks--rendering mops useless--and the lightning got so tangled in the spars and rigging that you couldn't tell which was rope and which was fire.

Out of all this danger the great Grand Duke was blown upon our sh.o.r.e, with a good deal less fuss than Jonah had when he took to his life-boat with fins and tail, and discharged cargo on a desert sh.o.r.e, without the first chance of an imperial reception, and nothing but an upstart guard to offer him the hospitalities of the country.

Before daylight, Sunday morning, the vessel which bore that n.o.ble youth, all weather-beaten as a rusty potash kettle, but grand and majestic after its tussle with the storms, shot out her anchor in the lower bay--for New York has two bays, and two fine old rivers empty into them.

The squadron--which means three or four other s.h.i.+ps from Russia--had been waiting there till their great iron hearts nearly burst with fear that the imperial vessel had foundered; and when they saw it careering in amongst 'em, they set up a shout that made the very fishes in the bay rest on their fins and wonder what it could mean, for they had never heard Russians before, and it seemed as if the alphabet had been shaken ten thousand times over from as many pepper-boxes, and rained down on the water in one great shout.

n.o.body has told me yet how his imperial dukes.h.i.+p took this, and I haven't liked to inquire too closely. Supposing him asleep in the sweet privacy of his own upper berth, it wouldn't be quite proper, you know, but it must have been soul-stirring to hear those native syllables raining down blessings like tacks and brad-awls on his n.o.ble head.

How our imperial guest spent the Sabbath-day is a mystery that Russia and the Russians only can solve. But I am credibly informed that ten thousand upper-crust females betook themselves to secret devotions in their own rooms, in crimping-pins and curl papers, the moment we got news that he was here.

As for myself, I confess--no, our Society is not a confessional, and the secrets of a lady's get-up don't belong to a report for the public eye.

So I say nothing on that point.

Sunday night I couldn't sleep a wink; my heart was full of n.o.ble aspirations, and it seemed as if some wild Indian of the forest had got his grip in my hair and might scalp me any minute, everything was twisted so tight in that direction. In fact, to say nothing of sleeping, I couldn't have winked to save my life. But I bore it with Christian fort.i.tude, determined to press forward to the mark of the prize. Oh, dear! will I ever remember that this report isn't a cla.s.s-meeting confession? Well, the morning came, and oh, my sisters, it was pouring cats and dogs. When I heard this, I rose up in bed, covered my face with both hands, and just boo-hooed out a crying. I knew well enough that ten thousand other young girls were weeping like the skies; but that only made me feel worse and worse, for mine has always been a sympathetic heart, and I felt for them--I did indeed.

I did not know what on earth to do. Cousin Emily Elizabeth Dempster had promised to come and take me down to the _Mary Powell_, a steamboat which the committee had engaged to take itself and all its wives and their friends, down to welcome the great Grand Duke, and bring him up to the city.

Cousin Emily Elizabeth's husband was a head c.o.c.kalorum in this committee, which being the _creme on creme_--excuse French, it will break in somehow in spite of me--well, which being the _creme on creme_ that had skimmed itself off from all the common milk of New York society, puffed Cousin E. E. up like--like a ripe b.u.t.ton-ball.

Since my reports have appeared in what the newspapers call the world of letters--I say it modestly, but truth is truth--Cousin E. E. has been sweet as maple-sugar to me, I can tell you. She had her eye teeth cut in Vermont, and understood that Queen Victoria knew there was one notch above the crown when she took to writing books. I say nothing; but there is an aristocracy that cuts its own way through all social flummery, like an eagle among chippen birds. That is real live genius; and if New England hasn't got her share of that, I don't know where its head-quarters are.

Well, I and the clouds shed tears together for a good while; then I started up. "What if it does pour?" says I to myself; "the Grand Duke has been in storms before this; he ain't sugar nor salt, to melt at anything less than the glance of a loving eye. What's the good of being down in the mouth about a little rain? I'll get up--I'll unskewer my hair--I'll put on _that dress_, if I die for it." I started out of bed; I stood before the looking-gla.s.s; I began to untwist, to unroll; I did the corkscrew movement; I jerked--I shook my hair out--ripple, ripple, ripple, it fell over my shoulders. Then I rested awhile, and winked my eyes with exquisite satisfaction--for freedom is sweet both to the head and heart.

I felt like a new creature--a delicious looseness settled on my temples--a feeling of feminine triumph swelled my soul. Could he resist the fleecy softness of that hair--the thousand ripples breaking up the suns.h.i.+ne--only there wasn't any suns.h.i.+ne to break. Not a silver thread was visible; if there had been several the night before, it was n.o.body's business but my own. My arms were tired with continual undoing; but, sisters, am I one to faint by the way? No, no, a thousand times no.

I began to roll, to braid, to puff; I planted hair-pins in my head as thick as bean-poles in a garden. Heavy braids--expensive but lovely--fell down the back of my head; fluff on fluff shaded my lofty forehead. I say nothing; but my literary success, great as it is, has not been more satisfactory than this.

I put on that dress in a great hurry, for Cousin E. E. was at the door in her carriage. How it glistened in the gla.s.s! How it swept out on the carpet, a peac.o.c.k's tail is a trifle compared to it! I tucked it up; I turned the lining inside out, pinned it, puckered it round the waist, and then put on my new bonnet, which looked like a black beehive with a bird perched on the top. Then, with a burning heart, that fairly turned against it, I put on my waterproof cloak and pulled the hood over my poor bonnet.

I opened my cotton umbrella, and went down. Cousin E. E. was waiting, and a tall fellow in half regimentals held the door open. I jumped in as spry as a cricket, and away we went.

X.

DOWN THE BAY.

The _Mary Powell_ lay huddled up close to the wharf, with a great white flag crossed with blue stripes at one end, and the glorious old star-spangled banner at the other. In fact, she was all dressed out in flags. They were soaked through and through till their slimpsiness was distressing. In fact, the steamboat looked like a draggled rooster with no fence or cart to hide under.

The committee were all there, with a whole swarm of ladies in waterproof cloaks, huddled together like chickens in a coop. There were generals, too, with gold epaulets on their shoulders: one that I'd heard of in the war, General McDowell, and some others, that lighted up the deck a little with their gold lace and sword-handles.

She moved--I mean the _Mary Powell_. The sea was gray, the sky was black. Now and then I saw a flag fluttering by on some vessel, like a poor frightened bird searching for shelter, and pitied it. Then all at once bang went a gun. I hopped right up, and screamed out:

"What's that?"

"The salute," says a gentleman close by me. "A salute for the Grand Duke."

I sat down astonished.

"Sir," says I, "I can't believe it. I--I've been saluted myself before this, and I know what it is. No human lips could have made that noise."