A LITTLE INNOCENT.
[Illustration]
Every house has its skeleton in it somewhere, and it may be a comfort
to some unhappy folks to think that the luckiest and most wealthy of
their neighbors have their miseries and causes of disquiet. Our little
innocent muse of a Blanche, who sang so nicely and talked so sweetly,
you would have thought she must have made sunshine where-ever she went,
was the skeleton, or the misery, or the bore, or the Nemesis of
Clavering House, and of most of the inhabitants thereof. As one little
stone in your own shoe or your horse's, suffices to put either to
torture and to make your journey miserable, so in life a little obstacle
is sufficient to obstruct your entire progress, and subject you to
endless annoyance and disquiet. Who would have guessed that such a
smiling little fairy as Blanche Amory could be the cause of discord in
any family?
"I say, Strong," one day the baronet said, as the pair were conversing
after dinner over the billiard-table, and that great unbosomer of
secrets, a cigar; "I say, Strong, I wish to the doose your wife was
dead."
"So do I. That's a cannon, by Jove. But she won't; she'll live
forever--you see if she don't. Why do you wish her off the hooks, Frank,
my boy?" asked Captain Strong.
"Because then, you might marry Missy. She ain't bad-looking. She'll have
ten thousand, and that's a good bit of money for such a poor old devil
as you," drawled out the other gentleman. "And gad, Strong, I hate her
worse and worse every day. I can't stand her, Strong, by gad, I can't."
"I wouldn't take her at twice the figure," Captain Strong said,
laughing. "I never saw such a little devil in my life."
"I should like to poison her," said the sententious baronet; "by Jove I
should."
"Why, what has she been at now?" asked his friend.
"Nothing particular," answered Sir Francis; "only her old tricks. That
girl has such a knack of making every body miserable that, hang me, it's
quite surprising. Last night she sent the governess crying away from
the dinner-table. Afterward, as I was passing Frank's room, I heard the
poor little beggar howling in the dark, and found his sister had been
frightening his soul out of his body, by telling him stories about the
ghost that's in the house. At lunch she gave my lady a turn; and though
my wife's a fool, she's a good soul--I'm hanged if she ain't."
"What did Missy do to her?" Strong asked.
"Why, hang me, if she didn't begin talking about the late Amory, my
predecessor," the baronet said, with a grin. "She got some picture out
of the Keepsake, and said she was sure it was like her dear father. She
wanted to know where her father's grave was. Hang her father! Whenever
Miss Amory talks about him, Lady Clavering always bursts out crying;
and the little devil will talk about him in order to spite her mother.
To-day when she began, I got in a confounded rage, said I was her
father, and--and that sort of thing, and then, sir, she took a shy
at me."
"And what did she say about you, Frank?" Mr. Strong, still laughing,
inquired of his friend and patron.
"Gad, she said I wasn't her father: that I wasn't fit to comprehend her;
that her father must have been a man of genius, and fine feelings, and
that sort of thing: whereas I had married her mother for money."
"Well, didn't you?" asked Strong.
"It don't make it any the pleasanter to hear because it's true, don't
you know," Sir Francis Clavering answered. "I ain't a literary man and
that; but I ain't such a fool as she makes me out. I don't know how
it is, but she always manages to--to put me in the hole, don't you
understand. She turns all the house round her in her quiet way, and
with her confounded sentimental airs. I wish she was dead, Ned."
"It was my wife whom you wanted dead just now," Strong said, always in
perfect good humor; upon which the baronet, with his accustomed candor,
said, "Well, when people bore my life out, I _do_ wish they were dead,
and I wish Missy were down a well, with all my heart."
Thus it will be seen from the above report of this candid
conversation that our accomplished little friend had some peculiarities
or defects of character which rendered her not very popular. She was
a young lady of some genius, exquisite sympathies and considerable
literary attainments, living, like many another genius, with relatives
who could not comprehend her. Neither her mother nor her step-father
were persons of a literary turn. Bell's life and the Racing Calendar
were the extent of the baronet's reading, and Lady Clavering still wrote
like a school girl of thirteen, and with an extraordinary disregard to
grammar and spelling. And as Miss Amory felt very keenly that she
was not appreciated, and that she lived with persons who were not her
equals in intellect or conversational power, she lost no opportunity to
acquaint her family circle with their inferiority to herself, and not
only was a martyr, but took care to let every body know that she was
so. If she suffered, as she said and thought she did, severely, are we
to wonder that a young creature of such delicate sensibilities should
shriek and cry out a good deal? Without sympathy life is nothing; and
would it not have been a want of candor on her part to affect a
cheerfulness which she did not feel, or pretend a respect for those
toward whom it was quite impossible she should entertain any reverence?
If a poetess may not bemoan her lot, of what earthly use is her lyre?
Blanche struck hers only to the saddest of tunes; and sang elegies over
her dead hopes, dirges over her early frost-nipt buds of affection, as
became such a melancholy fate and muse.
Her actual distresses, as we have said, had not been, up to the present
time, very considerable; but her griefs lay, like those of most of us,
in her own soul--that being sad and habitually dissatisfied, what wonder
that she should weep? So Mes Larmes dribbled out of her eyes any day at
command: she could furnish an unlimited supply of tears, and her faculty
of shedding them increased by practice. For sentiment is like another
complaint mentioned by Horace, as increasing by self-indulgence (I am
sorry to say, ladies, that the complaint in question is called the
dropsy), and the more you cry, the more you will be able and desirous
to do so.
Missy had begun to gush at a very early age. Lamartine was her favorite
bard from the period when she first could feel: and she had subsequently
improved her mind by a sedulous study of novels of the great modern
authors of the French language. There was not a romance of Balzac and
George Sand which the indefatigable little creature had not devoured by
the time she was sixteen: and, however little she sympathized with her
relatives at home, she had friends, as she said, in the spirit-world,
meaning the tender Indiana, the passionate and poetic Lelia, the amiable
Trenmor, that high-souled convict, that angel of the galleys--the fiery
Stenio--and the other numberless heroes of the French romances. She had
been in love with Prince Rodolph and Prince Djalma while she was yet at
school, and had settled the divorce question, and the rights of woman,
with Indiana, before she had left off pinafores. The impetuous little
lady played at love with these imaginary worthies, as a little while
before she had played at maternity with her doll. Pretty little poetical
spirits! it is curious to watch them with those playthings. To-day the
blue-eyed one is the favorite, and the black-eyed one is pushed behind
the drawers. To-morrow blue-eyes may take its turn of neglect: and it
may be an odious little wretch with a burned nose, or torn head of hair,
and no eyes at all, that takes the first place in Miss's affection, and
is dandled and caressed in her arms.
As novelists are supposed to know every thing, even the secrets of
female hearts, which the owners themselves do not, perhaps, know, we
may state that at eleven years of age, Mademoiselle Betsi, as Miss
Amory was then called, had felt tender emotions toward a young Savoyard
organ-grinder at Paris, whom she persisted in believing to be a prince
carried off from his parents; that at twelve an old and hideous
drawing-master--(but, ah, what age or personal defects are proof against
woman's love?) had agitated her young heart; and that, at thirteen,
being at Madame de Caramel's boarding-school, in the Champs Elysees
which, as every body knows, is next door to Monsieur Rogron's (Chevalier
of the Legion of Honor) pension for young gentlemen, a correspondence,
by letter, took place between the _seduisante Miss Betsi_ and two young
gentlemen of the College of Charlemagne, who were pensioners of the
Chevalier Rogron.
In the above paragraph our young friend has been called by a Christian
name, different to that tinder which we were lately presented to her.
The fact is, that Miss Amory, called Missy at home, had really, at the
first, been christened Betsy--but assumed the name of Blanche of her own
will and fantasy, and crowned herself with it; and the weapon which the
baronet, her step-father, held in terror over her, was the threat to
call her publicly by her name of Betsy, by which menace he sometimes
managed to keep the young rebel in order.
We have spoken just now of children's dolls, and of the manner in
which those little people take up and neglect their darling toys, and
very likely this history will show that Miss Blanche assumed and put
away her live dolls with a similar girlish inconstancy. She had had
hosts of dear, dear, darling friends ere now, and had quite a little
museum of locks of hair in her treasure-chest, which she had gathered in
the course of her sentimental progress. Some dear friends had married:
some had gone to other schools: one beloved sister she had lost from
the pension, and found again, O, horror! her darling, her Leocadie,
keeping the books in her father's shop, a grocer in the Rue du Bac:
in fact, she had met with a number of disappointments, estrangements,
disillusionments, as she called them in her pretty French jargon, and
had seen and suffered a great deal, for so young a woman. But it is
the lot of sensibility to suffer, and of confiding tenderness to be
deceived, and she felt that she was only undergoing the penalties of
genius, in these pangs and disappointments of her young career.
Meanwhile, she managed to make the honest lady, her mother, as
uncomfortable as circumstances would permit; and caused her worthy
step-father to wish she was dead. With the exception of Captain Strong,
whose invincible good humor was proof against her sarcasms, the little
lady ruled the whole house with her tongue. If Lady Clavering talked
about sparrowgrass instead of asparagus, or called an object a hobject,
as this unfortunate lady would sometimes do, Missy calmly corrected her,
and frightened the good soul, her mother, into errors only the more
frequent as she grew more nervous under her daughter's eye.
It is not to be supposed, considering the vast interest which the
arrival of the family at Clavering Park inspired in the inhabitants
of the little town, that Madame Fribsby alone, of all the folks in
Clavering, should have remained unmoved and incurious. At the first
appearance of the Park family in church, madame noted every article of
toilet which the ladies wore, from their bonnets to their brodequins,
and took a survey of the attire of the ladies' maids in the pew allotted
to them. We fear that Doctor Portman's sermon, though it was one of his
oldest and most valued compositions, had little effect upon Madame
Fribsby on that day. In a very few days afterward, she had managed for
herself an interview with Lady Clavering's confidential attendant in the
housekeeper's room at the Park; and her cards in French and English,
stating that she received the newest fashions from Paris, from her
correspondent Madame Victorine, and that she was in the custom of making
court and ball dresses for the nobility and gentry of the shire, were in
the possession of Lady Clavering and Miss Amory, and favorably received,
as she was happy to hear, by those ladies.
Mrs. Bonner, Lady Clavering's lady, became soon a great frequenter of
Madame Fribsby's drawing-room, and partook of many entertainments at the
milliner's expense. A meal of green tea, scandal, hot Sally-Lunn cakes,
and a little novel reading, were always at the service of Mrs. Bonner,
whenever she was free to pass an evening in the town. And she found much
more time for these pleasures than her junior officer, Miss Amory's
maid, who seldom could be spared for a holiday, and was worked as hard
as any factory girl by that inexorable little muse, her mistress.
The muse loved to be dressed becomingly, and, having a lively fancy and
a poetic desire for change, was for altering her attire every day. Her
maid, having a taste in dress-making--to which art she had been an
apprentice at Paris, before she entered into Miss Blanche's service
there--was kept from morning till night altering and remodeling Miss
Amory's habiliments; and rose very early and went to bed very late, in
obedience to the untiring caprices of her little task-mistress. The
girl was of respectable English parents. There are many of our people,
colonists of Paris, who have seen better days, who are not quite ruined,
who do not quite live upon charity, and yet can not get on without it;
and as her father was a cripple incapable of work, and her return home
would only increase the burthen and add to the misery of the family,
poor Pincott was fain to stay where she could maintain herself, and
spare a little relief to her parents.
Our muse, with the candor which distinguished her, never failed to
remind her attendant of the real state of matters. "I should send you
away, Pincott, for you are a great deal too weak, and your eyes are
failing you, and you are always crying and sniveling and wanting the
doctor; but I wish that your parents at home should be supported, and
I go on enduring you for their sake, mind," the dear Blanche would say
to her timid little attendant. Or, "Pincott, your wretched appearance
and slavish manner, and red eyes, positively give me the migraine;
and I think I shall make you wear rouge, so that you may look a little
cheerful;" or, "Pincott, I can't bear, even for the sake of your
starving parents, that you should tear my hair out of my head in that
manner; and I will thank you to write to them and say that I dispense
with your services." After which sort of speeches, and after keeping her
for an hour trembling over her hair, which the young lady loved to have
combed, as she perused one of her favorite French novels, she would go
to bed at one o'clock, and say, "Pincott, you may kiss me. Good night.
I should like you to have the pink dress ready for the morning." And
so with a blessing upon her attendant, she would turn round and go to
sleep.
The muse might lie in bed as long as she chose of a morning, and
availed herself of that privilege; but Pincott had to rise very early
indeed to get her mistress's task done; and had to appear next day with
the same red eyes and the same wan face, which displeased Miss Amory
by their want of gayety, and caused the mistress to be so angry, because
the servant persisted in being and looking unwell and unhappy. Not
that Blanche ever thought she was a hard mistress. Indeed, she made
quite a friend of Pincott, at times, and wrote some very pretty verses
about the lonely little tiring-maid, whose heart was far away. Our
beloved Blanche was a superior being, and expected to be waited upon
as such. And I do not know whether there are any other ladies in this
world, who treat their servants or dependents so, but it may be that
there are such, and that the tyranny which they exercise over their
subordinates, and the pangs which they can manage to inflict with a soft
voice, and a well-bred simper, are as cruel as those which a slave-driver
administers with an oath and a whip.
But Blanche was a muse--a delicate little creature, quite tremulous
with excitability, whose eyes filled with tears at the smallest emotion;
and who knows, but that it was the very fineness of her feelings which
caused them to be _froissed_ so easily? You crush a butterfly by merely
touching it. Vulgar people have no idea of the sensibility of a muse.
So little Pincott being occupied all day and night in stitching,
hemming, ripping, combing, ironing, crimping, for her mistress; in
reading to her when in bed--for the girl was mistress of the two
languages, and had a sweet voice and manner--could take no share in
Madame Fribsby's soirees, nor indeed was she much missed, or considered
of sufficient consequence to appear at their entertainments.
But there was another person connected with the Clavering establishment,
who became a constant guest of our friend, the milliner. This was the
chief of the kitchen, Monsieur Mirobolant, with whom Madame Fribsby soon
formed an intimacy.
Not having been accustomed to the appearance or society of persons
of the French nation, the rustic inhabitants of Clavering were not so
favorably impressed by Monsieur Alcide's manners and appearance, as
that gentleman might have desired that they should be. He walked among
them quite unsuspiciously upon the afternoon of a summer day, when his
services were not required at the house, in his usual favorite costume,
namely, his light green frock or paletot, his crimson velvet waistcoat,
with blue glass buttons, his pantalon Ecossais, of a very large and
decided check pattern, his orange satin neckcloth, and his jean-boots,
with tips of shiny leather--these, with a gold embroidered cap, and a
richly-gilt cane, or other varieties of ornament of a similar tendency,
formed his usual holiday costume, in which he flattered himself there
was nothing remarkable (unless, indeed, the beauty of his person should
attract observation), and in which he considered that he exhibited the
appearance of a gentleman of good Parisian ton.
He walked then down the street, grinning and ogling every woman he met,
with glances, which he meant should kill them outright, and peered over
the railings, and in at the windows, where females were, in the tranquil
summer evening. But Betsy, Mrs. Pybus's maid, shrank back with a Lor
bless us, as Alcide ogled her over the laurel bush; the Miss Bakers, and
their mamma, stared with wonder; and presently a crowd began to follow
the interesting foreigner, of ragged urchins and children, who left
their dirt-pies in the street to pursue him.
For some time he thought that admiration was the cause which led
these persons in his wake, and walked on, pleased himself that he
could so easily confer on others so much harmless pleasure. But the
little children and dirt-pie manufacturers were presently succeeded
by followers of a larger growth, and a number of lads and girls from
the factory being let loose at this hour, joined the mob, and began
laughing, jeering, hooting, and calling opprobrious names at the
Frenchman. Some cried out, "Frenchy! Frenchy!" some exclaimed "Frogs!"
one asked for a lock of his hair, which was long and in richly-flowing
ringlets; and at length the poor artist began to perceive that he was
an object of derision rather than of respect to the rude, grinning mob.
It was at this juncture that Madame Fribsby spied the unlucky gentleman
with the train at his heels, and heard the scornful shouts with which
they assailed him. She ran out of her room, and across the street to the
persecuted foreigner; she held out her hand, and, addressing him in his
own language, invited him into her abode; and when she had housed him
fairly within her door, she stood bravely at the threshold before the
gibing factory girls and boys, and said they were a pack of cowards to
insult a poor man who could not speak their language, and was alone
and without protection. The little crowd, with some ironical cheers and
hooting, nevertheless felt the force of Madame Fribsby's vigorous
allocution, and retreated before her; for the old lady was rather
respected in the place, and her oddity and her kindness had made her
many friends there.
Poor Mirobolant was grateful indeed to hear the language of his
country ever so ill spoken. Frenchmen pardon our faults in their
language much more readily than we excuse their bad English; and will
face our blunders throughout a long conversation, without the least
propensity to grin. The rescued artist vowed that Madame Fribsby was his
guardian angel, and that he had not as yet met with such suavity and
politeness among _les Anglaises_. He was as courteous and complimentary
to her as if it was the fairest and noblest of ladies whom he was
addressing: for Alcide Mirobolant paid homage, after his fashion, to all
womankind, and never dreamed of a distinction of ranks in the realms of
beauty, as his phrase was.
A cream, flavored with pine-apple--a mayonnaise of lobster, which he
flattered himself was not unworthy of his hand, or of her to whom he had
the honor to offer it as an homage, and a box of preserved fruits of
Provence, were brought by one of the chef's aids-de-camp, in a basket,
the next day to the milliner's and were accompanied with a gallant note
to the amiable Madame Fribsbi. "Her kindness," Alcide said, "had made
a green place in the desert of his existence--her suavity would ever
contrast in memory with the _grossierete_ of the rustic population,
who were not worthy to possess such a jewel." An intimacy of the most
confidential nature thus sprang up between the milliner and the chef
of the kitchen; but I do not know whether it was with pleasure or
mortification that madame received the declarations of friendship which
the young Alcide proffered to her, for he persisted in calling her
"_La respectable Fribsbi_," "_La vertueuse Fribsbi_,"--and in stating
that he should consider her as his mother, while he hoped she would
regard him as her son. Ah! it was not very long ago, Fribsby thought,
that words had been addressed to her in that dear French language,
indicating a different sort of attachment. And she sighed as she looked
up at the picture of her Carabineer. For it is surprising how young some
people's hearts remain when their heads have need of a front or a little
hair-dye--and, at this moment, Madame Fribsby, as she told young Alcide,
felt as romantic as a girl of eighteen.
When the conversation took this turn--and at their first intimacy Madame
Fribsby was rather inclined so to lead it--Alcide always politely
diverged to another subject: it was as his mother that he persisted
in considering the good milliner. He would recognize her in no other
capacity, and with that relationship the gentle lady was forced to
content herself, when she found how deeply the artist's heart was
engaged elsewhere.
He was not long before he described to her the subject and origin of his
passion.
"I declared myself to her," said Alcide, laying his hand on his heart,
"in a manner which was as novel as I am charmed to think it was
agreeable. Where can not love penetrate, respectable Madame Fribsbi?
Cupid is the father of invention!--I inquired of the domestics what were
the _plats_ of which mademoiselle partook with most pleasure; and built
up my little battery accordingly. On a day when her parents had gone to
dine in the world (and I am grieved to say that a grossier dinner at a
restaurateur, in the Boulevard, or in the Palais Royal, seemed to form
the delights of these unrefined persons), the charming Miss entertained
some comrades of the pension; and I advised myself to send up a little
repast suitable to so delicate young palates. Her lovely name is
Blanche. The vail of the maiden is white; the wreath of roses which she
wears is white. I determined that my dinner should be as spotless as the
snow. At her accustomed hour, and instead of the rude _gigot a l'eau_,
which was ordinarily served at her too simple table, I sent her up a
little _potage a la Reine--a la Reine Blanche_ I called it--as white
as her own tint--and confectioned with the most fragrant cream and
almonds. I then offered up at her shrine a _filet de merlan a l'Agnes_,
and a delicate _plat_, which I have designated as _Eperlan a la
Sainte-Therese_, and of which my charming Miss partook with pleasure.
I followed this by two little _entrees_ of sweet-bread and chicken; and
the only brown thing which I permitted myself in the entertainment was a
little roast of lamb, which I laid in a meadow of spinaches, surrounded
with croustillons, representing sheep, and ornamented with daisies and
other savage flowers. After this came my second service: a pudding _a la
Reine Elizabeth_ (who, Madame Fribsbi knows, was a maiden princess); a
dish of opal-colored plover's eggs, which I called _Nid de tourtereaux
a la Roucoule_; placing in the midst of them two of those tender
volatiles, billing each other, and confectioned with butter; a basket
containing little _gateaux_ of apricots, which, I know, all young ladies
adore; and a jelly of marasquin, bland, insinuating, intoxicating
as the glance of beauty. This I designated _Ambroisie de Calypso a la
Souveraine de mon Coeur_. And when the ice was brought in--an ice of
_plombiere_ and cherries--how do you think I had shaped them, Madame
Fribsbi? In the form of two hearts united with an arrow, on which I
had laid, before it entered, a bridal vail in cut-paper, surmounted by
a wreath of virginal orange-flowers. I stood at the door to watch the
effect of this entry. It was but one cry of admiration. The three young
ladies filled their glasses with the sparkling Ay, and carried me in
a toast. I heard it--I heard miss speak of me--I heard her say, 'Tell
Monsieur Mirobolant that we thank him--we admire him--we love him!'
My feet almost failed me as I spoke.
"Since that, can I have any reason to doubt that the young artist has
made some progress in the heart of the English Miss? I am modest, but
my glass informs me that I am not ill-looking. Other victories have
convinced me of the fact."
"Dangerous man!" cried the milliner.
"The blond misses of Albion see nothing in the dull inhabitants of
their brumous isle, which can compare with the ardor and vivacity of the
children of the south. We bring our sunshine with us; we are Frenchmen,
and accustomed to conquer. Were it not for this affair of the heart, and
my determination to marry an Anglaise, do you think I would stop in this
island (which is not altogether ungrateful, since I have found here
a tender mother in the respectable Madame Fribsbi), in this island,
in this family? My genius would use itself in the company of these
rustics--the poesy of my art can not be understood by these carnivorous
insularies. No--the men are odious, but the women--the women! I own,
dear Fribsbi, are seducing! I have vowed to marry one; and as I can
not go into your markets and purchase, according to the custom of the
country, I am resolved to adopt another custom, and fly with one to
Gretna Green. The blonde Miss will go. She is fascinated. Her eyes have
told me so. The white dove wants but the signal to fly."
"Have you any correspondence with her?" asked Fribsby, in amazement, and
not knowing whether the young lady or the lover might be laboring under
a romantic delusion.
"I correspond with her by means of my art. She partakes of dishes which
I make expressly for her. I insinuate to her thus a thousand hints,
which, as she is perfectly spiritual, she receives. But I want other
intelligences near her."
"There is Pincott, her maid," said Madame Fribsby, who, by aptitude or
education, seemed to have some knowledge of affairs of the heart, but
the great artist's brow darkened at this suggestion.
"Madame," he said, "there are points upon which a gallant man ought to
silence himself; though, if he break the secret, he may do so with the
least impropriety to his best friend--his adopted mother. Know then,
that there is a cause why Miss Pincott should be hostile to me--a cause
not uncommon with your sex--jealousy."
"Perfidious monster!" said the confidante.
"Ah, no," said the artist, with a deep bass voice, and a tragic accent
worthy of the Porte St. Martin and his favorite melo-drames. "Not
perfidious, but fatal. Yes, I am a fatal man, Madame Fribsbi. To inspire
hopeless passion is my destiny. I can not help it that women love me. Is
it my fault that that young woman deperishes and languishes to the view
of the eye, consumed by a flame which I can not return? Listen! There
are others in this family who are similarly unhappy. The governess of
the young Milor has encountered me in my walks, and looked at me in a
way which can bear but one interpretation. And Milady herself, who is
of mature age, but who has oriental blood, has once or twice addressed
compliments to the lonely artist which can admit of no mistake. I avoid
the household, I seek solitude, I undergo my destiny. I can marry but
one, and am resolved it shall be to a lady of your nation. And, if her
fortune is sufficient, I think Miss would be the person who would be
most suitable. I wish to ascertain what her means are before I lead her
to Gretna Grin."
Whether Alcide was as irresistible a conqueror as his namesake, or
whether he was simply crazy, is a point which must be left to the
reader's judgment. But the latter, if he has had the benefit of much
French acquaintance, has perhaps met with men among them who fancied
themselves almost as invincible; and who, if you credit them, have made
equal havoc in the hearts of _les Anglaises_.