SOCIETY IN CLOTH
This is a short story I wrote. It is a fanfic of sorts, done for an English project, incorporating female characters from several books we read throughout the year and centralized on the theme of the importance of clothing in depicting a character's personality.

Please read and review!
Or comment? n____n

Characters (Name / Literary Reference, Author)
Gwendolen Fairfax / The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
Cecily Cardew / The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
Elizabeth Jane Farfrae nee Newson nee Henchard (or something to that effect) / The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
Nora Hemler / A Doll's House
Ismene / Antigone, Sophocles
The Little Chinese Seamstress / Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie
Viola/Cesario / Twelfth Night
Olivia / Twelfth Night
Cosette / Les Miserables

Day 1
Shop grand opening.
6 customers.
Recognized: 2 (Gwendolen Fairfax & Cecily Cardew, approx. 2 hours)
Unknown: 4
Items Sold

• Tiara of Flowers: 1 (Ceciliy Cardew)
  Cigarette Case: 1 (Unknown Gentleman #1)

Gwendolen clasped her gloved hands over Cecily’s perfectly manicured ones excitedly. “We’re finally going back to the city!”

Cecily pushed her long, golden tresses back from where they had fallen astray and remarked in that particularly smart voice of hers, “I don’t see why we have to leave the country. It is so romantic.”

Gwendolen paused, looking at the soft, thin hands of Cecily. “Gloves are a necessity to proper womanly attire. You lack them, and must remind you that in town, a woman’s hand is to be covered?”

“And this is why I don’t want to go to town,” Cecily murmured, staring out her side of the window of the carriage. They passed a tall woman in rags, hair tied up in a bun, walking with her head down, skirts rustling as though a child was grabbing at them, clinging on tight.

Cecily shuddered.

“So poor, you begin to feel sorry for them at one point,” Gwendolen remarked over her shoulder, “I suppose that was why charity was invented. If you’re feeling inclined to do so, perhaps we shall toss them some of our old fineries. Whether the very worst or the very best it does not matter; they’d reduce them to rags, anyways, regardless of how fine the material started out with.”

Elizabeth Jane kept a little logbook that was plain in color and even plainer inside. She used a Bic ballpoint pen (newly invented; Farfrae had greeted it in town like an old friend) of black ink and discovered that it seemed as though no matter how much she wrote the pen never ran out and faded across the page. Rather, it seemed as though she ran out of things to say.

Nonetheless, Donald insisted that she keep an accurate account of the store, and she obliged. She ought to get hired help in here, to help with the cleanings after the store closed and assist the customers if she wanted to get back home in time to have dinner with Donald (although she secretly thought that was his motive: to get rid of her). She sighed. Having someone to talk to other than this idle book would be nice, too.

She contemplated this with much caution, before idly fixing the heavy apron – off-white in color – and getting up from behind the counter.

There was a cemetery at the edge of town. Old Lady Ismene tended it with a mournful eye, as though washing the graves with her own tears. Not a single person in the entire town had heard her speak before, but Nora imagined it to be low and rough.

Nora bent down before a cool slab of stone. It was the grave of her youngest child, smooth and cool under her fingertips, as though it was his forehead, cool with sleep, that she was caressing. She wondered what it was like if she had never left her safe house, her billowing skirts and clean bonnets. She wondered if her freedom was worth the rags she was forced to wear now, and the death of her youngest. But sometimes, all she wished for was the soft touch of a child’s skin to hers.

She looked up and saw Old Lady Ismene staring in to her eyes, as though saying, “You’ll never find what you’re looking for here. You’re going to have to move on.”

She nodded, standing up and stepping away. Perhaps she’d visit Kristine before going home to a silent one-room apartment that she called her own.

Elizabeth Jane interviewed three women that day under the watchful eye of her husband. At the end, they (or rather, he) chose the woman who could barely speak English and wore long, black pants and a silken shirt with odd knots down the front. It certainly was not the person that she had wanted, the one that could talk to her about odd gossip in a slightly British accent, but with one last lingering look at the girl and her swinging braid, she knew she could grow tolerant of her like she did with everyone else. Perhaps she may even grow to like her, someday.

“Where you want put?” the Little Chinese Seamstress asked Elizabeth Jane in her funny accent and serious expression.

“Oh. Anywhere you think it would look nice,” Elizabeth Jane waved off sun-and-flowers motif that was grasped tightly in the girl’s hands. The girl nodded once in understanding and soon enough the entire store was rearranged with great precision, the racks of clothes sorted by color, style, and size.

“Would you like to try on any of these clothes?” Elizabeth Jane asked kindly after the day was over.

The girl threw her a dark look. “Chairman Mao says that Western clothes are old and must be ridden of!”

Elizabeth Jane raised an eyebrow. Perhaps liking the girl was now out of the question… well, at least she did not like the frivolous clothes that the aristocrats liked to wear, so the chances of her shoplifting greatly decreased.

She looked at her barren, cardboard-covered logbook and decided that maybe adding a few decorations to the cover wouldn’t hurt anyone.

One woman and one man entered Lady Farfrae’s Boutique. Elizabeth Jane recognized them immediately as Cesario and Olivia but the Little Chinese Seamstress had given them both and odd look before turning and going back to her work. She was like that; Elizabeth Jane didn’t think the Little Chinese Seamstress spoke more than three sentences a day. And yet, this time she spoke:

“Something tuna about man.”

Elizabeth Jane rolled her eyes inside but did not bother to correct her on her improper usage of the English language. Instead, she said, “Oh? And what is that? Cesario is a respected man in town.”

“Not only cause your put on trousers mean you are man!”

Elizabeth Jane rolled her eyes and paid no further heed towards the Chinese woman. At times, her ideology got the better of her. Just because she wore pants didn’t mean she was a girl because she had long hair, of course.

The bell twinkled and Cecily and Gwendolen stepped inside as well, arguing over something. They pause in front of the counter, and ask, “Do you need gloves to be a lady of the city?”

Elizabeth Jane pondered over the question before replying, “Yes. You may remove them only when in the presence of solely yourself.” She this recited from Miss Prism’s Book of Etiquette, her present this last Christmas from Donald.

Just then, a pretty lady with short hair and an old, long dress on stepped out from the dressing rooms. “Hello, Viola!” Elizabeth Jane called, “Olivia and Cesario are already here.”

Viola nodded, smiling widely before twirling around and stalking back to Olivia. Where did Cesario disappear of to? Elizabeth Jane stood perplexed for a brief second before turning her attentions back to the two socialites.

“As we were saying,” the blonde one began again, “Do you have a charity bin in here?”

“A charity bin?” Elizabeth Jane asked curiously. The socialite’s clothing was always so beautiful. She really wished that maybe she could wear it too. But no, she ran the store; she wasn’t supposed to want to wear anything from it. She was content with her plain smock and her plain logbook where she kept figures and not personal thoughts.

“Haven’t you heard of charity bins? It’s where one could dump one’s old clothes so that someone else – a poor someone else, mind you – can have it for free. So they have something to wear and won’t freeze at night, at least.”

Elizabeth Jane was suddenly filled with a longing to steal whatever dress they donate for her own, but then she remembered who she was talking to. Quid pro quo. There had to be a catch to this. “Why are you doing this?”

Gwendolen stated stiffly, “Because Cecily is a bleeding heart, and I have something to prove.”

Cesario appeared at the register with some girlish clothing in his hand to purchase, all smiling and mischievous.

“Where have you been?” Elizabeth Jane asked curiously. She heard no twinkling of bells…

“I haven’t left at all!”

“Really,” Elizabeth Jane stated suspiciously before pushing the thought to the back of her mind and adding, “Thank you for shopping here!”

When Cesario and Olivia finally left, she turned back to the whispering two ladies. “Well, what do you two have in mind?”

“Just a bin. Or we could just hand them out directly outside, see if anyone would like them,” Gwendolen chirped.

“No, but then nobody would take one. Girls are more self-conscious than guys in that way, impoverished or not,” Cecily quickly added in before Elizabeth Jane could reply, “Maybe a trashcan shaped object, with big bold writing on it?”

Elizabeth Jane thought for a moment, looked at the purchases in their hands, and stated, “Alright.”

“Alright!” Cecily squealed, “We’ll be back tomorrow!”

Nora approached the bin cautiously. She hadn’t ever collected clothing from one of those bins before, but the clothing was just so beautiful. Little Cosette, the phantom child who had shown her face to Nora last night, clung to her feet like a little breeze.

“You think I should get it?” she asked, “Where clothes like how I used to wear them?”

Cosette did not respond.

“I suppose I could, at least try them on,” Nora reasoned with herself, “It wouldn’t hurt, now would it?”

When she finally stole them, she stole them quickly and ran off as though to prevent someone else from stealing it, and to prevent everyone from seeing her.

Standing before the mirror in her bathroom, she realized the clothing did not fit well. It stretched too tight where it shouldn’t and not enough in other places. But she didn’t care – she took a shower and used up several days’ worth of soap and wore the dress the next day. At least it wasn’t rags. At least –

Cosette looked at her with a childish disbelief in her translucent eyes, and she found her heart breaking.

True to their word, Cecily and Gwendolen were back at the boutique bright and early on the next day, and the days after that, waiting to see if that woman wore their clothes. There wish was finally granted one day, and everyone in the boutique squealed and cowered around the window to look.

“There she is!” Viola (hadn’t Cesario walk in?) spoke, pointing anxiously, “Oh my, she isn’t very pretty, is she?”

“She’s poor, and trying to look pretty by wearing a pretty dress!” Gwendolen cackled, and Olivia chuckled along.

“I think she’s brave, like war torn princess waiting too long for her prince to come home,” Cecily whispered, hands clasped over her heart and her eyes partially glazed over.

“Well, there you have it!” Gwendolen finally declared, hands on her hips and eyes fierce and bold, bright like whenever she argued with her mother.

“Have what?” Elizabeth Jane wondered absentmindedly.

“My thesis! No matter how fine the clothing is, the poor always wear it like rags. The poor, those of those lower classes, of course wear clothing that is just despicable. Those who serve others, such as shopkeepers, dress plainly but rather immaculately and while do not flourish in silks still look quite smart in their clothing. But we those of pleasure, those who do not work at all and have time for everything else such as clothing can wear the finest silks and best-tailored clothing. We have the figure. And when we walk down that street at night, people can always tell from what class we come from.”

“Hardy har har!” Olivia lifted up her fist.

Elizabeth Jane pursed her lips and wondered if it was true, but did not protest.

The Little Chinese Seamstress was most amiable when it was closing time and everything needed to be put back in place. She said “It feel good put back,” and somehow Elizabeth Jane understood that exact feeling. So everyday for a while, Elizabeth Jane would talk and try to coax a few words out of the Little Chinese Seamstress.

“I thought the dress wasn’t half bad on her.”

“Did you see that fancy man that walked in? He had on stockings and the most outrageous clothing yet! I felt so sorry for Olivia, who had to hide in the dressing stall with Cesario the entire time he was here. What an annoying man!”

“I don’t seem to get Cesario, one moment he’s there and one moment Viola’s there I just don’t know how to explain it!”

And finally, the Little Chinese Seamstress spoke up, “Wear pants. Girls can wear pants too.”

Girls can wear pants too. She had said that before, about the same topic. Elizabeth Jane thought hard, thinking of all the possibilities of that statement. And then it clicked.

“You mean to say that Cesario and Viola is the same person?”

She nodded, not looking in to her eyes.

“It… oddly makes sense,” Elizabeth Jane thought out loud, “Whenever she wore a dress I thought she was Viola, and whenever she wore pants I thought she was Cesario. How shallow we are without even intending to be so!” she chuckled, “Perhaps Gwendolen was right after all.”

The Little Chinese Seamstress smiled.

Day 253522 - No, In Which This Turns in to a Journal of Some Sort

The Little Chinese Seamstress gave me a packet of gel pens and some sequins and rhinestones and we decorated this cover to make it a bit more fanciful. So I guess people can change at some point, right? To a higher class? Oh, who am I kidding. The cover to this looks ridiculous, and Gwendolen would most probably laugh at how childish and immature it is and then pull out her diamond-studded diary for all to see. Cecily probably has one too, but I imagine it to be covered with fantastic creations and romantic fairy tales. Oh, to be young!

Donald says that I look more alive than ever. I think this s a good sign, because Donald has always had the tendency to look at other girls. He did marry me when I had no class (and shamed, of all things as well) which is still absolutely awkward at times when the subject is brought up.
I will have to get him to wear one of those new smart silken suits and ties to work. Although I may be plain and serve other people, he gives commands to others to do his bidding, so it is only right for him to be dressed majestically.

Clothing does really make the woman. It defines who you are. I still haven’t figured out what type of person the Little Chinese Seamstress is yet based on her foreign clothing, but I’m getting there, slowly. She talks a bit more now, with a lesser accent as well.

That’s enough for today. At this rate, my pen would run out of ink before I know it!

Forever,
Eliza Jane

Okay, I'm finished, please read and review!