Cheryl, who had stretched out across the bed, rose up with a shriek. She was not disagreeing with Karen's remarks, but reacting to the Schiaparelli Karen held.
"Oh, Lord, it's the most beautiful thing I ever saw! Is that real mink?"
"Try it on," Karen invited.
"Could I? Oh, no, I shouldn't. It's too delicate-"
She allowed herself to be persuaded. The dress was too big for her, but as she pirouetted and turned in front of the mirror her face shone with delight. "I never in my life wore anything this classy," she breathed. "I never expected I would. How much is it worth?"
"A thousand dollars, maybe more. A Vionnet sold at auction a few years ago for about eight thousand."
Cheryl's eyes grew round as silver dollars. "Jeesus! Here, get it off me."
"Don't be silly. Everything has to go to the cleaner before it's sold; they've all been hanging in an attic for decades. Actually," Karen added, "I'm glad you inspired me to get these things out. According to the books I've been reading, some of them shouldn't be on hangers. See here, on this Poiret, how the weight of the beaded skirt has pulled the threads loose."
"If you can't hang them up, how do you store them?"
"Lying flat, and unfolded. They ought to be wrapped in cotton or acid-free paper, because regular tissue contains chemicals that will eventually damage the fabric. I got out some old muslin sheets of Ruth's-she saves everything!-to put around them, but I just haven't had time."
"Can I help? Please?"
"Twist my arm," Karen said, smiling.
As they folded and wrapped the dresses, Cheryl said hesitantly, "I'm awfully dumb. I never heard of Vionnet or some of those other people."
She stumbled a little over the name. Karen didn't correct her. "I'd never heard of them either, until I started reading. Oh, I knew a few names-don't ask me how, I guess if you like clothes you absorb some information without realizing it. Worth, for instance; he was the first of the great designers. An Englishman, surprisingly enough; we think of haute couture as French. He did open his salon in Paris, and most of his successors were French. Paul Poiret, Callot Soeurs-they really were sisters-and Jeanne Lanvin were among the first. Madeleine Vionnet was another great designer who wasn't really successful until the twenties, but she has been called 'the architect among dressmakers.' Her clothes looked soft and flowing, but they were so cleverly constructed that they emphasized all the wearer's good points and glossed over the defects. This is one of hers; isn't it a lovely blue? Supposedly the color was her own special discovery."
Much as she admired the designer clothes, it was the "whites" that pleased Cheryl most. "They're more my kind of clothes. Simple cottons and crochet, like my grandma used to do. I don't feel as if I was a bird in borrowed feathers."
"They look good on you," Karen said, admiring the sleeveless camisole and full, ruffled petticoat Cheryl was modeling. "I think it's because you have the right kind of figure."
"Big boobs and a fat tush," said Cheryl, making a face.
"The Edwardians wouldn't have put it that way. An hour-glass figure, madam, nicely rounded as a woman should be. Now I look ridiculous in clothes of that period. I'm too tall and I'm practically flat fore and aft, with no visible waistline."
"This is your style." Cheryl held up a shimmering peach nightgown, cut low in front and clinging across the hips. "What do you call it?"
"It's a bias-cut satin nightgown from the thirties. The Jean Harlow look. I might have been able to wear it once…"
"Try it on. Come on, you have to play too."
Karen had to tug the gown down over her hips, but it was something of a boost to her ego that she could get it on at all. "If I don't breathe I'm all right," she said, sucking in her stomach.
"You look absolutely super. That's your style all right, lean and slinky. You know, you may have something with this idea of analyzing women's figures according to historical periods. Maybe we-I mean, you-could start a fashion-guidance salon, like the color-analysis business. You know, winter, spring, fall, summer colors?"
"The world is full of opportunities," Karen said ironically, peeling the nightgown cautiously over her head.
Later, as she sat cross-legged on the bed watching Cheryl rummage through a box of odds and ends, she was still thinking about what she had said, and regretting her lapse into cynicism. Cheryl had not complained or asked for sympathy, and heaven knew she had a right. She had obviously been deeply in love, and to lose a young husband so unexpectedly, to find herself poor and untrained, with a child to support, was a much more difficult situation than Karen had to face.
"Some of these things are awful dirty," Cheryl remarked, still rummaging.
"They aren't as bad as the lot I acquired last night. I dropped a few off at the cleaners today, but I doubt he can do much with them."
"This would be real pretty if it was clean."
"Let's see."
Cheryl tossed it to her-a lavender crepe-de-chine blouse with cap sleeves and a scalloped hem.
"I'll try washing it," Karen said doubtfully. "Some silks wash in cold water and turn out well, but in this case the fabric is so worn it will probably tear. What's that one?"
Cheryl straightened, holding a short jacket with leg-o'-mutton sleeves and a high collar. The fabric was silk taffeta with tiny black-and-white checks, and a complex scrolled pattern of black braid edged the lapels and waistline. From top to bottom the entire garment was cut by parallel slashes. Only the stitching at the shoulder and around the hem held them in place; they fluttered like strips of bunting as Cheryl lifted the garment.
"That's beyond repair," Karen said. "Too bad; it was a pretty thing once. Shattered silk."
"Shattered? It looks like it had been slashed by a knife."
Karen laughed. "Nothing so dramatic. It's a condition you sometimes find in silks from around the turn of the century, when manufacturers used a finishing process to weight the fabric and improve its appearance. The substance contained metallic salts; eventually they rotted the fabric, but only along the warp-hence the parallel tears."
"Can't it be repaired?"
"According to one of my books, 'there is no remedy.'"
"What a sad phrase!"
"It is, rather. True, though. Just toss it into the wastebasket."
"You're going to throw it away?"
"Might as well. 'There is no remedy.'"
"Can I have it?"
"Why… Of course you can. Though what you are going to do with it-"
"The trimming can be salvaged," Cheryl said, examining the jacket with a pensive expression. "The braid and the cute little buttons."
"You're welcome to it. It's of no use to me."
From Cheryl's grateful thanks one would have thought she had had a Chanel gown bestowed upon her. She really does love these things, Karen thought.
"I guess I'd better get going," Cheryl said reluctantly. "Mark said to call him when I was ready to leave…"
She looked doubtfully at Karen, who said calmly, "That's a good idea. It's not easy to get a cab on Saturday night."
But the suggestion had cast a slight air of constraint, and when they went downstairs to wait for Mark, Cheryl was obviously ill at ease. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in going to an auction tomorrow," she said.
"An auction?"
"Yes, up in central Maryland. You mentioned you'd have to start finding other sources of merchandise and I just thought… But I don't suppose you want to."
Karen had not realized until that moment how much she had dreaded the long Sunday alone. "That sounds like fun."
Cheryl's eyes lit up. "Does it really? Would you really like to go? I'm crazy about auctions, but it's not so much fun going alone. I've been buying some things for Mark. You wouldn't believe the junk that boy has, and a man in his position needs classy furniture, don't you think? And I've seen old clothes-what do you call them, vintage?-at auctions, and you said you'd be needing jewelry and other things too- Oh, that's great. I hate Sundays, there's nothing to do except study, and I've already done my next assignment. I'll see if Mark needs the car."