Thus her passing from the race seemed to Mimi persecution greater than any white people had ever visited upon coloured people—the very intolerance of her own people had driven her from them. And in the deception she would have to practise as one ostensibly white, she felt she was doing a mean and dishonourable thing. She would do so, she determined, for there was no other course open to her. But in her new life she missed the spontaneity, the ready laughter, the naturalness of her own. She saw morose, worried faces. Here there was little of that softness of speech to which she was accustomed. Here there was an obsession with material things that crowded out the naturalness that made life for her tolerable. I’ve made my bed now, she reflected, and there’s nothing for me to do except lie in it. …
She did not experience the difficulty in securing employment that she had feared. There had been vague rumblings of discord and war in Europe, but all that seemed very far away, too distant ever to affect America. The mad rush that ushered in Easter and spring, the return like homing pigeons of the wealthy from Palm Beach, the momentary pause in New York before taking wing again for Europe or the mountains or the seashore, taxed to the limit the shops of the modistes and milliners, the makers of boots and gowns and habiliments of a thousand kinds for those vaguely classed as “society.”
Deft fingers flew, the needles of sewing-machines flashed in and out like pelting raindrops of silver in a summer shower. Yards and bolts and tons of filmy silks and crêpes de Chine and organdie turned overnight into dainty dresses. A long, nastily cold winter was gasping its last long breath and little wisps of softer breezes fanned the cheeks of the scurrying throngs, telling them spring was near.
The unforeseen demand for new and more clothes brought with it the need of workers. Mimi, having set her face on the new life she had chosen, determined she would start at the smartest places in seeking employment and work gradually downwards until she had gained what she wished. She knew the names and addresses of the most exclusive modistes, the shops where gowns and frocks were purveyed to the smartest-dressed women of New York and Oshkosh and Sioux City. To her surprised delight she was successful at the first place to which she applied—at Francine’s—known wherever the best women’s clothes were known.
Francine’s name was greeted with that tone of respectful homage granted only to the names of Paquin and Lucile and Worth and Bendel and Jean Patou and Frances. At Francine’s one entered into an atmosphere where milady’s attire, the choice of material and model, the selection of millinery, was raised to the plane of a religious ceremony. Soft-voiced priestesses respectfully assisted in the rites, making suggestions in tones which were not too respectful nor yet too haughty. Purchasers of models from Francine, even though they had bought there for many years, were never allowed to forget through subtle yet unmistakable means that they were after a fashion being shown especial favour when they were permitted to enter Francine’s door.
Madame Francine herself was the high priestess of the temple of feminine adornment. Only the most favoured customers saw her or were served by her after their first visit. If that customer were of great distinction either through family connections or wealth, she might be allowed the honour of Madame’s personal service. But if she were of less than the topmost bough of society or if the wealth she represented was expressed in less than seven figures, then she never saw Madame Francine after her initial entrance into the temple.
For Madame Francine knew the value of a stage setting much better than most of the theatrical producers whose lights flashed nightly a few blocks westward. She knew that the place for her temple was then to be only in the upper Thirties or lower Forties, just a step from the Avenue. She knew the supreme importance of keeping from the transaction of bartering every least suggestion of buying and selling. She knew the necessity of proper first impressions upon the purchaser, and of maintaining that impression.
One entered her place after a magnificently apparelled doorman had opened one’s carriage or motorcar door. Inside, one found oneself in what in reality was a salon, free of course from every tiniest suspicion of vulgarity, of trade. The carpet was of black and grey, the woodwork of a grey in which there was the faintest suggestion of tan, the draperies were of grey and mulberry. The shaded lights from the wall sconces and ceiling gave no harsh glare, the illumination furnished being only just enough to combine the needed air of respect for the wonders beyond and above and the light necessary for the rites of conversation in lowered tones. Chairs and couches of delicate build matched or purposely contrasted with the colours in rug and draperies. Soft-voiced, slim and perfectly gowned priestesses glided noiselessly forward to greet one and inquire one’s wants as though being welcomed into the home of the priestess—welcomed, perhaps, not by the mistress of the home, but by a poorer relation of the mistress who lived there. On an onyx table there was perhaps a hat perched upon a stand. Or in a softly lighted built-in case there rested a rarely exquisite and beautiful purse. Or a bottle, richly carved, of perfume. Or a bit of gold or silver filigree, of amber and lapis
