Chapter II: Guinevere's Gown

Aristocratic Adelaide was now as deeply attached to "that little witch" Winnie as she had been prejudiced against her, and Winnie, who had hitherto spoken of her new friend as "that stuck-up Armstrong girl," was now her devoted admirer.

Although this state of affairs was perfectly agreeable to the Amen Corner, it was not equally so to the Hornets. They had endured Winnie's removal as a piece of Madame's tyranny, had looked upon their Queen as a martyr, and had taken it for granted that we would make things extremely uncomfortable for her. They perceived, with astonishment, that we welcomed her heartily, and when it dawned upon them by degrees that Winnie was herself happy in the change, that she actually promenaded in the corridor with an arm lovingly twined about the waist of that odious Tib Smith, that the placard "Engaged" appeared as frequently on the outer door of the Amen Corner, and that Winnie's lessons and behavior improved so much that she was actually becoming a favorite with the teachers instead of their special torment--the indignation of the Hornets' Nest knew no bounds.

It showed itself in a practical joke originated by Cynthia, which might have been very amusing had it not been spiced with malice. I have spoken of our literary society and its projected entertainment. We were to have a series of tableaux; among others, Guinevere kneeling before an altar. Milly had been chosen to represent Guinevere on account of her beautiful hair, and because she spent her Saturdays and Sundays at home, and could have any costume arranged for herself. What was our disappointment, one Monday morning, to receive a note from Milly saying that she would not be able to take part in the entertainment, as her mother was going to Washington for a fortnight, and had decided that, as Milly looked pale, a little outing would do her good. This note was read to the literary society amid groans from the members. "We can't give up that tableau." "Adelaide, _you_ take the part." "Can't; my hair is as black as a crow's wing. Tib's hair is lovely when it is down. It falls to her knees, and it has the sheen of molten gold. Girls, you must see it," and Adelaide proceeded to pull my braids apart; I protesting all the time that it was absurd to have a freckled Guinevere who was as homely as a hedge fence.

"Granted," replied Witch Winnie, "but nobody is going to see your face, child; you pose with your back to the audience, and as none of the girls know what regal hair you have, it will be such fun to have them guess who it is."

All of the other girls joined in persuading me, excepting one of the Hornets, who lifted her voice in favor of Cynthia Vaughn.

"But, girls, what am I to do for a costume?"

"Why didn't Milly think to send hers along?" said Adelaide. "We might write her."

"No, there's no time; she leaves this morning on the 'limited.'"

"If you would like, I'll take the part," Cynthia Vaughn suggested. "I've all that canton flannel ermine, and the ruff made out of the old window curtains, which I wore when I was Queen Elizabeth."

"That ruff would be a frightful anachronism," said Emma Jane Anton.

"And the ermine has served three times already. Thank you, we'll manage somehow," Witch Winnie asserted, confidently.

We retired to the Amen Corner to talk it over. "If worse comes to worst," said Witch Winnie, "I know I can make a magnificent train out of the plush table-cloth in Madame's library."

"But how will you ever get it?"

"Emma Jane must ask her to lend it to us; she'll do anything for Emma Jane."

"Emma Jane declines to act in this emergency," said Miss Anton, firmly.

"You wouldn't be so mean!"

"But I would; Adelaide, please read Milly's letter again; I didn't half hear it."

"I must have dropped it in the Society hall; I will get it after dinner. If she had thought that Tib might be chosen to take her place, she would have done anything for the honor of the Amen Corner."

Here some one tapped at the door, and announced, "A letter for Miss Armstrong."

"It's from Milly!" exclaimed Adelaide, "and it looks as if it had been opened, and pasted up again."

"I thought Madame boasted that she never submitted her young ladies to that sort of espionage," said Witch Winnie.

"Girls, girls!" Adelaide fairly shrieked; "just listen to this! Milly writes--

"'I forgot to say in my last that mamma's maid is putting the
finishing touches to my costume, and Gibson will bring it around
to-morrow. The dress (purple velvet) is one which mamma wore last
summer when she was presented to the Queen. The lace which trims it
was made to order from a pattern of her own selection in Brussels.
You may keep the crown, for the gems in it are only Rhinestones.
Aunt Fanny wore it at a costume ball, and they sparkle like the
real thing. Be careful of the lace, for mamma prizes it highly.

'Yours, Milly.

'P. S.--I've coaxed papa to lend you a silver chatelaine, old
French repousse, linked with emeralds, which he keeps in his
cabinet of curiosities. It shows finely against the velvet.'"

How we all exclaimed and chattered! "Now what will the Hornets' Nest say to that?"

"Canton flannel ermine indeed!"

"I should like to see them bring on their old mosquito-netting ruff!"

"Real emeralds! A diadem flashing with diamonds!"

"Don't tell them a word about it until Tib dawns on them in all her glory on Wednesday night."

It was hard to keep this resolution, but we did. The Hornets were giggling and whispering among themselves as we marched in to dinner, with all the importance given by the possession of a state secret. The other girls relapsed into silence as we took our seats, and watched us with strange, significant looks.

"I've been looking up the matter in Racinet's work on Costume," remarked Cynthia Vaughn, "and I find you were right, Miss Anton; ruffs did not come in until long after Arthur's reign."

"I would like to consult the book," Emma Jane replied, "unless you can tell me whether chatelaines were worn at that period."

Here a small Hornet was seized with strangulation, and had to be vigorously thumped upon the back by her friends.

"Oh, I think so," Cynthia replied, sweetly, disregarding her friend's condition. "Wouldn't it be sweet to have Guinevere wear one? Miss Smith is so artistic, I'm sure she could cut one out of gilt paper."

Adelaide scouted the idea. "Whatever we get up for that costume," she said, "I am determined shall be _real_, no _imitation_ chatelaines, or anything else."

Cynthia lifted her eyebrows. "Perhaps you will secure one of Queen Victoria's court robes?" she remarked, icily.

It was on Adelaide's lips to reply that we might have a robe which had figured at a court reception of the English Queen, but she felt Witch Winnie's foot upon hers, and replied that in undertaking this tableau the Amen Corner felt confident that they could carry it through creditably, and we therefore begged to be excused from the dress rehearsal that afternoon. We left the dining-room in a body, and the Hornets laughed aloud before we closed the door. "'They laugh best who laugh last,'" said Witch Winnie. "Won't those girls fairly expire when they see Tib in her grand role!"

Tuesday was a long and weary day for us. We started at every knock, expecting a summons to the janitor's room to receive a package, but none came. We retired much disappointed; and we held a council of war before breakfast. The Roseveldts' butler had evidently proved false to his trust, and the costume was waiting for us at the family mansion on Fifth Avenue.

"I will ask Madame at breakfast to excuse me from my morning lessons to do an important errand," said Witch Winnie; "I will tell her the entire story, and I know that, rather than disappoint us all, she will let us go to the Roseveldts' for the things."

Madame proved to be in good-humor, and on reading Milly's letter readily gave Winnie and me the desired permission, sending for a hansom to take us to our destination. All of the Hornets at the lower end of the table heard this conversation, and Adelaide thought that Cynthia Vaughn turned green with envy. An hour later, as we came down the front stairs to take our hansom, Cerberus popped his head from his office to tell us that a package had just been received for Miss Adelaide Armstrong. "Come back, girls!" Adelaide cried excitedly; "here is the costume. It can be nothing else. My, what a big bundle!"

We carried it between us in triumph up the staircase. The Hornets were clustered on the very top landing; their faces peered over the balustrade, and as they caught sight of our procession a peal of derisive laughter echoed through the hall as they scuttled away to their nest under the eaves.

"Those Hornets have certainly gone crazy," Emma Jane remarked, practically. She was carrying her corner of the package, and was as interested as the rest of us in the arrival of the costume. We entered our study-parlor in suppressed excitement, and impatiently cut the knots, and tore open the wrappings, when, behold! another package, scrupulously tied. This paper removed revealed another, then another, and another, and the fact slowly dawned upon us that we had been victimized. "Girls!" exclaimed Witch Winnie, sitting down on the floor in despair, "it's a wicked sell of those Hornets: there is nothing here."

Emma Jane Anton kept on methodically removing the wrappers and folding them neatly. "Perhaps," suggested Adelaide, "they have merely arranged this hoax to fool us, and the costume is still at the Roseveldts'."

"It's just like that Cynthia Vaughn to do such a thing; we'll go, all the same," Witch Winnie replied, rising hopefully and tying on her veil. At this juncture Emma Jane reached a pasteboard box marked "Violet velvet court dress." Lifting the lid discovered a quantity of trash. An empty sardine-box bore the label "Diamond Crown;" a dilapidated bustle was marked "Brussels point lace;" a mixed-pickle bottle was filled with apple-parings and labeled "Old repousse chatelaine, reign of Arthur I.; the _real_ article; must be returned."

A howl of mingled laughter and dismay rose from our corner. "Cynthia Vaughn wrote that letter which purported to be from Milly. Well, it's a real good practical joke, anyway," said Witch Winnie; "better than I thought the Hornets could get up without my help. Let us show them that we can take a joke, and good-naturedly acknowledge ourselves sold."

"And in the mean time what am I to do for a costume? You know the tableaux come off to-night."

"That puts another face on the matter."

"I suppose Cynthia would be only too glad to take the part even now."

"After all we have said, and your name printed on the programme--never!" This from Adelaide.

"I'll tell you what we will do," suggested Winnie; "the hansom is still waiting at the door; Tib and I will drive to a costumer's and hire something. I found the address of a place on the Bowery the other day and fortunately saved it. Hold your heads up high; we will not acknowledge ourselves defeated yet."

As Witch Winnie and I sped out of the quiet square and down the great teeming thoroughfare, the Elevated trains jarring overhead and the motley crowd surging about us, a misgiving of conscience swept over me. What would Madame say? This was not what we had obtained permission to do. This was very different from Fifth Avenue, and not at all a quarter of the city in which young ladies should be wandering without chaperons.

We were quite desperate, however, and it seemed too late to turn back. The hansom stopped before a Hebrew misfit clothing store where dress suits were announced as on hire by the evening. Flaunting placards above told that costumes for the theatrical profession and for fancy balls were to be let in the fourth story. We climbed a dirty staircase, and after knocking by mistake at an intelligence office for _Dienst Maedchen_, a hair-dyeing and complexion-enameling rooms, a chiropodist's, and a clairvoyant's, we found ourselves in a room piled from floor to ceiling with costumes. A fat German, who looked as if he were some second-hand piece of furniture, very much soiled as to his linen, and the worse for wear as to his physical mechanism, admitted us and did the honors of the establishment. I glanced around at the motley objects which filled the wareroom; gaudy spangled dresses, with a sprinkle of saw-dust (suggestive of the arena) clinging to the worn cotton velvet, many-ruffled shockingly brief skirts of rose-colored gauze that had spun like so many teetotums behind flaring foot-lights, tinfoil suits of armor that had come in all mud-besplashed from parading the streets at the last grand procession, the faded banners which flapped above them so jauntily, drooping wearily now from the rafters, covered with dust and festooned by the spiders. A row of dominoes dependent from a neighboring clothes-line rustled with an air of mystery, and a heap of masks upon the floor seemed to leer and wink from their eyeless windows.

"I am afraid," said Winnie, drawing nearer the door, "that you haven't anything so nice as I want."

"I haf effery dings, effery dings," replied the ponderous costumer; "you don't t'ink I keeps dose fine procade for the costume ball out here in te tust, ain't it?"

"I wanted something for a school entertainment," Winnie explained.

"So, so; I haf effery dings, I tole you, for de school. Ya, from dose Kindergarten to dot universities. Dings for little peebles and dings for big peebles."

"I should like to know what kind of big people patronize your establishment?"

"Sometimes dose ladies who make de church fair. I have some angel wing for de Christmas mystery, de mask for de Muzzer Goose pantomine. Sometimes dose fine ladies dey make some peesness mit me. When de shentlemen step on dose trail or spill coffee on dot tablier, den I buys dot dress, and my designer she make it all new again. I haf one ferry nice designer; she haf many times arrange ze historical costume for dose grand painting what make ze artists."

"Then I think I would like to talk with her," said Winnie.

"Ya, ya, dat vas right. Here, Mrs. Halsey, Mrs. Halsey! Perhaps you petter go in de sewing-room, ain't it?"

He opened the door into a back room where a sweet pale-faced woman sat sewing little bells on a jester's cap.

We were struck from the outset with Mrs. Halsey's refined appearance, and we were not surprised when she showed, by her complete understanding of what we required, that she had read Tennyson and had some idea of historical periods in costume. She drew a purple velvet robe from a great bundle. I exclaimed in disapproval as I noticed a horrid crimson border.

"But this is coming off," said the little woman, using her scissors briskly, "and instead, I will stitch some gold braid applique in a lily design. See, how do you like this effect?" and her deft fingers flew, coiling and twisting the gilt braid until a really regal combination was produced.

"Then we will have it open at the side to show a white satin petticoat, also laced with gold, and the sleeves can be puffed and slashed with white satin. I arranged a costume like that for Mary Anderson."

"Is it possible that such a noted and successful actress gets her costumes at a place like this?" asked Witch Winnie.

"Oh, no," replied Mrs. Halsey, with a sigh; "when I made Miss Anderson's dresses I was designer for Madame Celeste's establishment. I should be there now if it were not for Jim."

She was fitting the dress to me, and as this would take several minutes, Winnie asked,

"Who is Jim?"

"Jim is my son; he is twelve years old, and the brightest little fellow, for his age, you ever saw. He leads his classes at the public school, has a record of 100 in mathematics, for all that he has such a poor chance at preparing his lessons."

"How does that happen?" It was I who inquired this time.

"Jim is an ambitious boy; ambitious to help me as well as to keep a place in his class, and a milkman pays him a dollar a week for driving his cart over to Jersey City to meet the milk train and fill his cans for him every morning."

"That is very nice."

"If it did not break so cruelly into the poor boy's hours for sleep. In order to dress and snatch a bite before he goes down to the stable and harnesses, he has to rise at 3 o'clock. This enables the milkman to sleep until Jim arrives with the milk at 6 o'clock, in time to begin the morning rounds. I make the boy take an hour's sleep after this, but it is not enough."

"He ought to go to bed very early."

"Yes, but the lessons; when are they to be learned? He shouts them out in his sleep. 'If I gain seven hundred dollars from a rise of 2-1/2 per cent. in Pennsylvania Railroad stock, what was my original investment?' He has his father's quickness for figures. Bless his heart! he never had any money to invest in railroad stocks, and by heaven's help he never will."

"I am not so sure about that," said Witch Winnie. "How did it happen that you lost your position at Madame Celeste's on account of Jim?" She had finished the fitting and was removing the pins from her mouth, but Winnie drew on her gloves very slowly; we were both interested.

"Madame kept me for such late hours that I did not reach home until Jim was asleep, and at last she proposed to raise my salary, but said that I must sleep in the establishment, so as to be on hand to open early in the morning. This was after Madame's very successful winter, when she bought a house out of town, and did not find it convenient to come in until late in the day. I told her that I would accept her offer if Jim could be with me; but there was no room for him, and we thought it best to stick together. I get through here at 6 o'clock, and can cook Jim's dinner. But it's hard for the boy. If I could only afford to let him have his entire time for his study--but his dollar a week half pays our rent."

"Wouldn't it have been better for you both if you had remained at Madame Celeste's, and had sent Jim to boarding-school? There are such nice cadet schools up the Hudson."

A faint smile overspread the woman's face. "Madame always insisted that her employees should dress well. I know exactly what it cost me. It would have left just a dollar and a half a week for Jim. Do you know of any boarding-school that would have taken him at those rates?"

Winnie sorrowfully confessed that she did not, and we reluctantly took our leave, Mrs. Halsey promising to finish the costume immediately, and to send it by Jim in ample time for the evening's performances.

Our escapade lay heavily upon my conscience in spite of our success in obtaining the costume, but I felt still more troubled for poor Mrs. Halsey and her overworked boy. "I wonder," I said to Winnie, "if Madame could not make him useful here at the school, and let him work for his board, tend furnace and run errands."

"You could not tell her about him without confessing our lark, and don't you do that for the world!"

"No," I promised, against my will, "of course not, unless you consent; the secret is half yours, but I really think it would be the best way."

Adelaide was greatly interested in our report. "I am to have my violin dress for the concert made at Madame Celeste's," she said, "and I mean to ask her about this Mrs. Halsey."

Jim came with the package while we were at supper, and Adelaide ran down to the office to receive it. She told us that he was an undersized, stoop-shouldered boy, with a cough which she fancied he had contracted by driving in the early morning mists. He took off his hat like a little gentleman, however, and his finger-nails and teeth were clean. Any clown might wear good clothes, Adelaide insisted, but these little details marked the gentleman. He had at first declined the dime which Adelaide proffered, but accepted it on her insistence that it was only for car-fare and it was raining. He put it away carefully in a little worn purse which contained just one cent, at the same time remarking, "I don't mind the rain, and I can get Ma the quinine the doctor says she ought to be taking."

"That's the boy for me," Witch Winnie remarked; "he's got clear grit, and tenderness for his mother besides."

And Guinevere's gown? It was a beauty. The golden lilies gave it a sumptuous effect, and it fulfilled almost exactly the promises of the forged letter; there was even a _riviere_ of fish-scale pearls and glass beads down the side, which really resembled a chatelaine. The Hornets were overcome with amazement--simply dazzled and dazed. According to Adelaide--who always resorted to French to express her superlatives, and, when that language proved inadequate, pieced it out with translations of American slang or coinage of her own--they were "_Completement bouleversees, stupefiees, mortifiees, et frappee plus haute q'un--q'un--kite_!"