Mr. Ruck distinguished me, as the French say. He honoured me with his
esteem, and, as the days elapsed, with a large portion of his confidence.
Sometimes he bored me a little, for the tone of his conversation was not
cheerful, tending as it did almost exclusively to a melancholy dirge over
the financial prostration of our common country. “No, sir, business in
the United States is not what it once was,” he found occasion to remark
several times a day. “There’s not the same spring—there’s not the same
hopeful feeling. You can see it in all departments.” He used to sit by
the hour in the little garden of the pension, with a roll of American
newspapers in his lap and his high hat pushed back, swinging one of his
long legs and reading the _New York Herald_. He paid a daily visit to
the American banker’s, on the other side of the Rhône, and remained there
a long time, turning over the old papers on the green velvet table in the
middle of the Salon des Étrangers, and fraternising with chance
compatriots. But in spite of these diversions his time hung heavily upon
his hands. I used sometimes to propose to him to take a walk; but he had
a mortal horror of pedestrianism, and regarded my own taste for it as’ a
morbid form of activity. “You’ll kill yourself, if you don’t look out,”
he said, “walking all over the country. I don’t want to walk round that
way; I ain’t a postman!” Briefly speaking, Mr. Ruck had few resources.
His wife and daughter, on the other hand, it was to be supposed, were
possessed of a good many that could not be apparent to an unobtrusive
young man. They also sat a great deal in the garden or in the salon,
side by side, with folded hands, contemplating material objects, and were
remarkably independent of most of the usual feminine aids to
idleness—light literature, tapestry, the use of the piano. They were,
however, much fonder of locomotion than their companion, and I often met
them in the Rue du Rhône and on the quays, loitering in front of the
jewellers’ windows. They might have had a cavalier in the person of old
M. Pigeonneau, who possessed a high appreciation of their charms, but
who, owing to the absence of a common idiom, was deprived of the
pleasures of intimacy. He knew no English, and Mrs. Ruck and her
daughter had, as it seemed, an incurable mistrust of the beautiful tongue
which, as the old man endeavoured to impress upon them, was pre-eminently
the language of conversation.
“They have a _tournure de princesse_—a _distinction supreme_,” he said to
me. “One is surprised to find them in a little pension, at seven francs
a day.”
“Oh, they don’t come for economy,” I answered. “They must be rich.”
“They don’t come for my _beaux yeux_—for mine,” said M. Pigeonneau,
sadly. “Perhaps it’s for yours, young man. Je vous recommande la mère.”
I reflected a moment. “They came on account of Mr. Ruck—because at
hotels he’s so restless.”
M. Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod. “Of course he is, with such a wife
as that—a _femme superbe_. Madame Ruck is preserved in perfection—a
miraculous _fraïcheur_. I like those large, fair, quiet women; they are
often, _dans l’intimité_, the most agreeable. I’ll warrant you that at
heart Madame Ruck is a finished coquette.”
“I rather doubt it,” I said.
“You suppose her cold? Ne vous y fiez pas!”
“It is a matter in which I have nothing at stake.”
“You young Americans are droll,” said M. Pigeonneau; “you never have
anything at stake! But the little one, for example; I’ll warrant you
she’s not cold. She is admirably made.”
“She is very pretty.”
“‘She is very pretty!’ Vous dites cela d’un ton! When you pay
compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck, I hope that’s not the way you do it.”
“I don’t pay compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck.”
“Ah, decidedly,” said M. Pigeonneau, “you young Americans are droll!”
I should have suspected that these two ladies would not especially
commend themselves to Madame Beaurepas; that as a _maîtresse de salon_,
which she in some degree aspired to be, she would have found them wanting
in a certain flexibility of deportment. But I should have gone quite
wrong; Madame Beaurepas had no fault at all to find with her new
pensionnaires. “I have no observation whatever to make about them,” she
said to me one evening. “I see nothing in those ladies which is at all
_déplacé_. They don’t complain of anything; they don’t meddle; they take
what’s given them; they leave me tranquil. The Americans are often like
that. Often, but not always,” Madame Beaurepas pursued. “We are to have
a specimen to-morrow of a very different sort.”
“An American?” I inquired.
“Two _Américaines_—a mother and a daughter. There are Americans and
Americans: when you are _difficiles_, you are more so than any one, and
when you have pretensions—ah, _per exemple_, it’s serious. I foresee
that with this little lady everything will be serious, beginning with her
_café au lait_. She has been staying at the Pension Chamousset—my
_concurrent_, you know, farther up the street; but she is coming away
because the coffee is bad. She holds to her coffee, it appears. I don’t
know what liquid Madame Chamousset may have invented, but we will do the
best we can for her. Only, I know she will make me _des histoires_ about
something else. She will demand a new lamp for the salon; _vous alles
voir cela_. She wishes to pay but eleven francs a day for herself and
her daughter, _tout compris_; and for their eleven francs they expect to
be lodged like princesses. But she is very ‘ladylike’—isn’t that what
you call it in English? Oh, _pour cela_, she is ladylike!”
I caught a glimpse on the morrow of this ladylike person, who was
arriving at her new residence as I came in from a walk. She had come in
a cab, with her daughter and her luggage; and, with an air of perfect
softness and serenity, she was disputing the fare as she stood among her
boxes, on the steps. She addressed her cabman in a very English accent,
but with extreme precision and correctness. “I wish to be perfectly
reasonable, but I don’t wish to encourage you in exorbitant demands.
With a franc and a half you are sufficiently paid. It is not the custom
at Geneva to give a _pour-boire_ for so short a drive. I have made
inquiries, and I find it is not the custom, even in the best families. I
am a stranger, yes, but I always adopt the custom of the native families.
I think it my duty toward the natives.”
“But I am a native, too, _moi_!” said the cabman, with an angry laugh.
“You seem to me to speak with a German accent,” continued the lady. “You
are probably from Basel. A franc and a half is sufficient. I see you
have left behind the little red bag which I asked you to hold between
your knees; you will please to go back to the other house and get it.
Very well, if you are impolite I will make a complaint of you to-morrow
at the administration. Aurora, you will find a pencil in the outer
pocket of my embroidered satchel; please to write down his number,—87; do
you see it distinctly?—in case we should forget it.”
The young lady addressed as “Aurora”—a slight, fair girl, holding a large
parcel of umbrellas—stood at hand while this allocution went forward, but
she apparently gave no heed to it. She stood looking about her, in a
listless manner, at the front of the house, at the corridor, at Célestine
tucking up her apron in the doorway, at me as I passed in amid the
disseminated luggage; her mother’s parsimonious attitude seeming to
produce in Miss Aurora neither sympathy nor embarrassment. At dinner the
two ladies were placed on the same side of the table as myself, below
Mrs. Ruck and her daughter, my own position being on the right of Mr.
Ruck. I had therefore little observation of Mrs. Church—such I learned
to be her name—but I occasionally heard her soft, distinct voice.
“White wine, if you please; we prefer white wine. There is none on the
table? Then you will please to get some, and to remember to place a
bottle of it always here, between my daughter and myself.”
“That lady seems to know what she wants,” said Mr. Ruck, “and she speaks
so I can understand her. I can’t understand every one, over here. I
should like to make that lady’s acquaintance. Perhaps she knows what _I_
want, too; it seems hard to find out. But I don’t want any of their sour
white wine; that’s one of the things I don’t want. I expect she’ll be an
addition to the pension.”
Mr. Ruck made the acquaintance of Mrs. Church that evening in the
parlour, being presented to her by his wife, who presumed on the rights
conferred upon herself by the mutual proximity, at table, of the two
ladies. I suspected that in Mrs. Church’s view Mrs. Ruck presumed too
far. The fugitive from the Pension Chamousset, as M. Pigeonneau called
her, was a little fresh, plump, comely woman, looking less than her age,
with a round, bright, serious face. She was very simply and frugally
dressed, not at all in the manner of Mr. Ruck’s companions, and she had
an air of quiet distinction which was an excellent defensive weapon. She
exhibited a polite disposition to listen to what Mr. Ruck might have to
say, but her manner was equivalent to an intimation that what she valued
least in boarding-house life was its social opportunities. She had
placed herself near a lamp, after carefully screwing it and turning it
up, and she had opened in her lap, with the assistance of a large
embroidered marker, an octavo volume, which I perceived to be in German.
To Mrs. Ruck and her daughter she was evidently a puzzle, with her
economical attire and her expensive culture. The two younger ladies,
however, had begun to fraternise very freely, and Miss Ruck presently
went wandering out of the room with her arm round the waist of Miss
Church. It was a very warm evening; the long windows of the salon stood
wide open into the garden, and, inspired by the balmy darkness, M.
Pigeonneau and Mademoiselle Beaurepas, a most obliging little woman, who
lisped and always wore a huge cravat, declared they would organise a
_fête de nuit_. They engaged in this undertaking, and the fête developed
itself, consisting of half-a-dozen red paper lanterns, hung about on the
trees, and of several glasses of _sirop_, carried on a tray by the
stout-armed Célestine. As the festival deepened to its climax I went out
into the garden, where M. Pigeonneau was master of ceremonies.
“But where are those charming young ladies,” he cried, “Miss Ruck and the
new-comer, _l’aimable transfuge_? Their absence has been remarked, and
they are wanting to the brilliancy of the occasion. _Voyez_ I have
selected a glass of syrup—a generous glass—for Mademoiselle Ruck, and I
advise you, my young friend, if you wish to make a good impression, to
put aside one which you may offer to the other young lady. What is her
name? Miss Church. I see; it’s a singular name. There is a church in
which I would willingly worship!”
Mr. Ruck presently came out of the salon, having concluded his interview
with Mrs. Church. Through the open window I saw the latter lady sitting
under the lamp with her German octavo, while Mrs. Ruck, established,
empty-handed, in an arm-chair near her, gazed at her with an air of
fascination.
“Well, I told you she would know what I want,” said Mr. Ruck. “She says
I want to go up to Appenzell, wherever that is; that I want to drink whey
and live in a high latitude—what did she call it?—a high altitude. She
seemed to think we ought to leave for Appenzell to-morrow; she’d got it
all fixed. She says this ain’t a high enough lat—a high enough altitude.
And she says I mustn’t go too high either; that would be just as bad; she
seems to know just the right figure. She says she’ll give me a list of
the hotels where we must stop, on the way to Appenzell. I asked her if
she didn’t want to go with as, but she says she’d rather sit still and
read. I expect she’s a big reader.”
The daughter of this accomplished woman now reappeared, in company with
Miss Ruck, with whom she had been strolling through the outlying parts of
the garden.
“Well,” said Miss Ruck, glancing at the red paper lanterns, “are they
trying to stick the flower-pots into the trees?”
“It’s an illumination in honour of our arrival,” the other young girl
rejoined. “It’s a triumph over Madame Chamousset.”
“Meanwhile, at the Pension Chamousset,” I ventured to suggest, “they have
put out their lights; they are sitting in darkness, lamenting your
departure.”
She looked at me, smiling; she was standing in the light that came from
the house. M. Pigeonneau, meanwhile, who had been awaiting his chance,
advanced to Miss Ruck with his glass of syrup. “I have kept it for you,
Mademoiselle,” he said; “I have jealously guarded it. It is very
delicious!”
Miss Ruck looked at him and his syrup, without any motion to take the
glass. “Well, I guess it’s sour,” she said in a moment; and she gave a
little shake of her head.
M. Pigeonneau stood staring with his syrup in his hand; then he slowly
turned away. He looked about at the rest of us, as if to appeal from
Miss Ruck’s insensibility, and went to deposit his rejected tribute on a
bench.
“Won’t you give it to me?” asked Miss Church, in faultless French.
“J’adore le sirop, moi.”
M. Pigeonneau came back with alacrity, and presented the glass with a
very low bow. “I adore good manners,” murmured the old man.
This incident caused me to look at Miss Church with quickened interest.
She was not strikingly pretty, but in her charming irregular face there
was something brilliant and ardent. Like her mother, she was very simply
dressed.
“She wants to go to America, and her mother won’t let her,” said Miss
Sophy to me, explaining her companion’s situation.
“I am very sorry—for America,” I answered, laughing.
“Well, I don’t want to say anything against your mother, but I think it’s
shameful,” Miss Ruck pursued.
“Mamma has very good reasons; she will tell you them all.”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t want to hear them,” said Miss Ruck. “You have
got a right to go to your own country; every one has a right to go to
their own country.”
“Mamma is not very patriotic,” said Aurora Church, smiling.
“Well, I call that dreadful,” her companion declared. “I have heard that
there are some Americans like that, but I never believed it.”
“There are all sorts of Americans,” I said, laughing.
“Aurora’s one of the right sort,” rejoined Miss Ruck, who had apparently
become very intimate with her new friend.
“Are you very patriotic?” I asked of the young girl.
“She’s right down homesick,” said Miss Sophy; “she’s dying to go. If I
were you my mother would have to take me.”
“Mamma is going to take me to Dresden.”
“Well, I declare I never heard of anything so dreadful!” cried Miss Ruck.
“It’s like something in a story.”
“I never heard there was anything very dreadful in Dresden,” I
interposed.
Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. “Well, I don’t believe _you_ are a good
American,” she replied, “and I never supposed you were. You had better
go in there and talk to Mrs. Church.”
“Dresden is really very nice, isn’t it?” I asked of her companion.
“It isn’t nice if you happen to prefer New York,” said Miss Sophy. “Miss
Church prefers New York. Tell him you are dying to see New York; it will
make him angry,” she went on.
“I have no desire to make him angry,” said Aurora, smiling.
“It is only Miss Ruck who can do that,” I rejoined. “Have you been a
long time in Europe?”
“Always.”
“I call that wicked!” Miss Sophy declared.
“You might be in a worse place,” I continued. “I find Europe very
interesting.”
Miss Ruck gave a little laugh. “I was saying that you wanted to pass for
a European.”
“Yes, I want to pass for a Dalmatian.”
Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. “Well, you had better not come home,”
she said. “No one will speak to you.”
“Were you born in these countries?” I asked of her companion.
“Oh, no; I came to Europe when I was a small child. But I remember
America a little, and it seems delightful.”
“Wait till you see it again. It’s just too lovely,” said Miss Sophy.
“It’s the grandest country in the world,” I added.
Miss Ruck began to toss her head. “Come away, my dear,” she said. “If
there’s a creature I despise it’s a man that tries to say funny things
about his own country.”
“Don’t you think one can be tired of Europe?” Aurora asked, lingering.
“Possibly—after many years.”
“Father was tired of it after three weeks,” said Miss Ruck.
“I have been here sixteen years,” her friend went on, looking at me with
a charming intentness, as if she had a purpose in speaking. “It used to
be for my education. I don’t know what it’s for now.”
“She’s beautifully educated,” said Miss Ruck. “She knows four
languages.”
“I am not very sure that I know English.”
“You should go to Boston!” cried Miss Sophy. “They speak splendidly in
Boston.”
“C’est mon rêve,” said Aurora, still looking at me.
“Have you been all over Europe,” I asked—“in all the different
countries?”
She hesitated a moment. “Everywhere that there’s a _pension_. Mamma is
devoted to _pensions_. We have lived, at one time or another, in every
_pension_ in Europe.”
“Well, I should think you had seen about enough,” said Miss Ruck.
“It’s a delightful way of seeing Europe,” Aurora rejoined, with her
brilliant smile. “You may imagine how it has attached me to the
different countries. I have such charming souvenirs! There is a
_pension_ awaiting us now at Dresden,—eight francs a day, without wine.
That’s rather dear. Mamma means to make them give us wine. Mamma is a
great authority on _pensions_; she is known, that way, all over Europe.
Last winter we were in Italy, and she discovered one at Piacenza,—four
francs a day. We made economies.”
“Your mother doesn’t seem to mingle much,” observed Miss Ruck, glancing
through the window at the scholastic attitude of Mrs. Church.
“No, she doesn’t mingle, except in the native society. Though she lives
in _pensions_, she detests them.”
“Why does she live in them, then?” asked Miss Sophy, rather resentfully.
“Oh, because we are so poor; it’s the cheapest way to live. We have
tried having a cook, but the cook always steals. Mamma used to set me to
watch her; that’s the way I passed my _jeunesse_—my _belle jeunesse_. We
are frightfully poor,” the young girl went on, with the same strange
frankness—a curious mixture of girlish grace and conscious cynicism.
“Nous n’avons pas le sou. That’s one of the reasons we don’t go back to
America; mamma says we can’t afford to live there.”
“Well, any one can see that you’re an American girl,” Miss Ruck remarked,
in a consolatory manner. “I can tell an American girl a mile off.
You’ve got the American style.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the American _toilette_,” said Aurora, looking at
the other’s superior splendour.
“Well, your dress was cut in France; any one can see that.”
“Yes,” said Aurora, with a laugh, “my dress was cut in France—at
Avranches.”
“Well, you’ve got a lovely figure, any way,” pursued her companion.
“Ah,” said the young girl, “at Avranches, too, my figure was admired.”
And she looked at me askance, with a certain coquetry. But I was an
innocent youth, and I only looked back at her, wondering. She was a
great deal nicer than Miss Ruck, and yet Miss Ruck would not have said
that. “I try to be like an American girl,” she continued; “I do my best,
though mamma doesn’t at all encourage it. I am very patriotic. I try to
copy them, though mamma has brought me up _à la française_; that is, as
much as one can in _pensions_. For instance, I have never been out of
the house without mamma; oh, never, never. But sometimes I despair;
American girls are so wonderfully frank. I can’t be frank, like that. I
am always afraid. But I do what I can, as you see. Excusez du peu!”
I thought this young lady at least as outspoken as most of her
unexpatriated sisters; there was something almost comical in her
despondency. But she had by no means caught, as it seemed to me, the
American tone. Whatever her tone was, however, it had a fascination;
there was something dainty about it, and yet it was decidedly audacious.
The young ladies began to stroll about the garden again, and I enjoyed
their society until M. Pigeonneau’s festival came to an end.