“She has demanded a new lamp; I told you she would!” This communication
was made me by Madame Beaurepas a couple of days later. “And she has
asked for a new _tapis de lit_, and she has requested me to provide
Célestine with a pair of light shoes. I told her that, as a general
thing, cooks are not shod with satin. That poor Célestine!”
“Mrs. Church may be exacting,” I said, “but she is a clever little
woman.”
“A lady who pays but five francs and a half shouldn’t be too clever.
C’est déplacé. I don’t like the type.”
“What type do you call Mrs. Church’s?”
“Mon Dieu,” said Madame Beaurepas, “c’est une de ces mamans comme vous en
avez, qui promènent leur fille.”
“She is trying to marry her daughter? I don’t think she’s of that sort.”
But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her idea. “She is trying it in her
own way; she does it very quietly. She doesn’t want an American; she
wants a foreigner. And she wants a _mari sérieux_. But she is
travelling over Europe in search of one. She would like a magistrate.”
“A magistrate?”
“A _gros bonnet_ of some kind; a professor or a deputy.”
“I am very sorry for the poor girl,” I said, laughing.
“You needn’t pity her too much; she’s a sly thing.”
“Ah, for that, no!” I exclaimed. “She’s a charming girl.”
Madame Beaurepas gave an elderly grin. “She has hooked you, eh? But the
mother won’t have you.”
I developed my idea, without heeding this insinuation. “She’s a charming
girl, but she is a little odd. It’s a necessity of her position. She is
less submissive to her mother than she has to pretend to be. That’s in
self-defence; it’s to make her life possible.”
“She wishes to get away from her mother,” continued Madame Beaurepas.
“She wishes to _courir les champs_.”
“She wishes to go to America, her native country.”
“Precisely. And she will certainly go.”
“I hope so!” I rejoined.
“Some fine morning—or evening—she will go off with a young man; probably
with a young American.”
“Allons donc!” said I, with disgust.
“That will be quite America enough,” pursued my cynical hostess. “I have
kept a boarding-house for forty years. I have seen that type.”
“Have such things as that happened _chez vous_?” I asked.
“Everything has happened _chez moi_. But nothing has happened more than
once. Therefore this won’t happen here. It will be at the next place
they go to, or the next. Besides, here there is no young American _pour
la partie_—none except you, Monsieur. You are susceptible, but you are
too reasonable.”
“It’s lucky for you I am reasonable,” I answered. “It’s thanks to that
fact that you escape a scolding!”
One morning, about this time, instead of coming back to breakfast at the
_pension_, after my lectures at the Academy, I went to partake of this
meal with a fellow-student, at an ancient eating-house in the collegiate
quarter. On separating from my friend, I took my way along that charming
public walk known in Geneva as the Treille, a shady terrace, of immense
elevation, overhanging a portion of the lower town. There are spreading
trees and well-worn benches, and over the tiles and chimneys of the
_ville basse_ there is a view of the snow-crested Alps. On the other
side, as you turn your back to the view, the promenade is overlooked by a
row of tall, sober-faced _hôtels_, the dwellings of the local
aristocracy. I was very fond of the place, and often resorted to it to
stimulate my sense of the picturesque. Presently, as I lingered there on
this occasion, I became aware that a gentleman was seated not far from
where I stood, with his back to the Alpine chain, which this morning was
brilliant and distinct, and a newspaper, unfolded, in his lap. He was
not reading, however; he was staring before him in gloomy contemplation.
I don’t know whether I recognised first the newspaper or its proprietor;
one, in either case, would have helped me to identify the other. One was
the New _York Herald_; the other, of course, was Mr. Ruck. As I drew
nearer, he transferred his eyes from the stony, high-featured masks of
the gray old houses on the other side of the terrace, and I knew by the
expression of his face just how he had been feeling about these
distinguished abodes. He had made up his mind that their proprietors
were a dusky, narrow-minded, unsociable company; plunging their roots
into a superfluous past. I endeavoured, therefore, as I sat down beside
him, to suggest something more impersonal.
“That’s a beautiful view of the Alps,” I observed.
“Yes,” said Mr. Ruck, without moving, “I’ve examined it. Fine thing, in
its way—fine thing. Beauties of nature—that sort of thing. We came up
on purpose to look at it.”
“Your ladies, then, have been with you?”
“Yes; they are just walking round. They’re awfully restless. They keep
saying I’m restless, but I’m as quiet as a sleeping child to them. It
takes,” he added in a moment, drily, “the form of shopping.”
“Are they shopping now?”
“Well, if they ain’t, they’re trying to. They told me to sit here a
while, and they’d just walk round. I generally know what that means.
But that’s the principal interest for ladies,” he added, retracting his
irony. “We thought we’d come up here and see the cathedral; Mrs. Church
seemed to think it a dead loss that we shouldn’t see the cathedral,
especially as we hadn’t seen many yet. And I had to come up to the
banker’s any way. Well, we certainly saw the cathedral. I don’t know as
we are any the better for it, and I don’t know as I should know it again.
But we saw it, any way. I don’t know as I should want to go there
regularly; but I suppose it will give us, in conversation, a kind of hold
on Mrs. Church, eh? I guess we want something of that kind. Well,” Mr.
Ruck continued, “I stepped in at the banker’s to see if there wasn’t
something, and they handed me out a Herald.”
“I hope the Herald is full of good news,” I said.
“Can’t say it is. D—d bad news.”
“Political,” I inquired, “or commercial?”
“Oh, hang politics! It’s business, sir. There ain’t any business. It’s
all gone to,”—and Mr. Ruck became profane. “Nine failures in one day.
What do you say-to that?”
“I hope they haven’t injured you,” I said.
“Well, they haven’t helped me much. So many houses on fire, that’s all.
If they happen to take place in your own street, they don’t increase the
value of your property. When mine catches, I suppose they’ll write and
tell me—one of these days, when they’ve got nothing else to do. I didn’t
get a blessed letter this morning; I suppose they think I’m having such a
good time over here it’s a pity to disturb me. If I could attend to
business for about half an hour, I’d find out something. But I can’t,
and it’s no use talking. The state of my health was never so
unsatisfactory as it was about five o’clock this morning.”
“I am very sorry to hear that,” I said, “and I recommend you strongly not
to think of business.”
“I don’t,” Mr. Ruck replied. “I’m thinking of cathedrals; I’m thinking
of the beauties of nature. Come,” he went on, turning round on the bench
and leaning his elbow on the parapet, “I’ll think of those mountains over
there; they _are_ pretty, certainly. Can’t you get over there?”
“Over where?”
“Over to those hills. Don’t they run a train right up?”
“You can go to Chamouni,” I said. “You can go to Grindelwald and Zermatt
and fifty other places. You can’t go by rail, but you can drive.”
“All right, we’ll drive—and not in a one-horse concern, either. Yes,
Chamouni is one of the places we put down. I hope there are a few nice
shops in Chamouni.” Mr. Ruck spoke with a certain quickened emphasis,
and in a tone more explicitly humorous than he commonly employed. I
thought he was excited, and yet he had not the appearance of excitement.
He looked like a man who has simply taken, in the face of disaster, a
sudden, somewhat imaginative, resolution not to “worry.” He presently
twisted himself about on his bench again and began to watch for his
companions. “Well, they _are_ walking round,” he resumed; “I guess
they’ve hit on something, somewhere. And they’ve got a carriage waiting
outside of that archway too. They seem to do a big business in archways
here, don’t they. They like to have a carriage to carry home the
things—those ladies of mine. Then they’re sure they’ve got them.” The
ladies, after this, to do them justice, were not very long in appearing.
They came toward us, from under the archway to which Mr. Ruck had
somewhat invidiously alluded, slowly and with a rather exhausted step and
expression. My companion looked at them a moment, as they advanced.
“They’re tired,” he said softly. “When they’re tired, like that, it’s
very expensive.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Ruck, “I’m glad you’ve had some company.” Her husband
looked at her, in silence, through narrowed eyelids, and I suspected that
this gracious observation on the lady’s part was prompted by a restless
conscience.
Miss Sophy glanced at me with her little straightforward air of defiance.
“It would have been more proper if _we_ had had the company. Why didn’t
you come after us, instead of sitting there?” she asked of Mr. Ruck’s
companion.
“I was told by your father,” I explained, “that you were engaged in
sacred rites.” Miss Ruck was not gracious, though I doubt whether it was
because her conscience was better than her mother’s.
“Well, for a gentleman there is nothing so sacred as ladies’ society,”
replied Miss Ruck, in the manner of a person accustomed to giving neat
retorts.
“I suppose you refer to the Cathedral,” said her mother. “Well, I must
say, we didn’t go back there. I don’t know what it may be of a Sunday,
but it gave me a chill.”
“We discovered the loveliest little lace-shop,” observed the young girl,
with a serenity that was superior to bravado.
Her father looked at her a while; then turned about again, leaning on the
parapet, and gazed away at the “hills.”
“Well, it was certainly cheap,” said Mrs. Ruck, also contemplating the
Alps.
“We are going to Chamouni,” said her husband. “You haven’t any occasion
for lace at Chamouni.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear you have decided to go somewhere,” rejoined his
wife. “I don’t want to be a fixture at a boarding-house.”
“You can wear lace anywhere,” said Miss Ruck, “if you pat it on right.
That’s the great thing, with lace. I don’t think they know how to wear
lace in Europe. I know how I mean to wear mine; but I mean to keep it
till I get home.”
Her father transferred his melancholy gaze to her elaborately-appointed
little person; there was a great deal of very new-looking detail in Miss
Ruck’s appearance. Then, in a tone of voice quite out of consonance with
his facial despondency, “Have you purchased a great deal?” he inquired.
“I have purchased enough for you to make a fuss about.”
“He can’t make a fuss about that,” said Mrs. Ruck.
“Well, you’ll see!” declared the young girl with a little sharp laugh.
But her father went on, in the same tone: “Have you got it in your
pocket? Why don’t you put it on—why don’t you hang it round you?”
“I’ll hang it round _you_, if you don’t look out!” cried Miss Sophy.
“Don’t you want to show it to this gentleman?” Mr. Ruck continued.
“Mercy, how you do talk about that lace!” said his wife.
“Well, I want to be lively. There’s every reason for it; we’re going to
Chamouni.”
“You’re restless; that’s what’s the matter with you.” And Mrs. Ruck got
up.
“No, I ain’t,” said her husband. “I never felt so quiet; I feel as
peaceful as a little child.”
Mrs. Ruck, who had no sense whatever of humour, looked at her daughter
and at me. “Well, I hope you’ll improve,” she said.
“Send in the bills,” Mr. Ruck went on, rising to his feet. “Don’t
hesitate, Sophy. I don’t care what you do now. In for a penny, in for a
pound.”
Miss Ruck joined her mother, with a little toss of her head, and we
followed the ladies to the carriage. “In your place,” said Miss Sophy to
her father, “I wouldn’t talk so much about pennies and pounds before
strangers.”
Poor Mr. Ruck appeared to feel the force of this observation, which, in
the consciousness of a man who had never been “mean,” could hardly fail
to strike a responsive chord. He coloured a little, and he was silent;
his companions got into their vehicle, the front seat of which was
adorned with a large parcel. Mr. Ruck gave the parcel a little poke with
his umbrella, and then, turning to me with a rather grimly penitential
smile, “After all,” he said, “for the ladies that’s the principal
interest.”