LA MARQUISE.
"_La Marquise d'Ochtè_ is attending _Madame Brune_ in the _salon au
cinquième étage_," announced a very excited little housemaid, who was
supposed to speak English for the benefit of the American pensionnaires
at _Maison Pace_. "_Madame Pace_ is some time gone at the _boucher_, not
expecting callers at so early _heur_. _La Marquise_ demanded not _Madame
Pace_; but said very _distinctment 'Madame Brune et sa fille'_."
"Very well, Alphonsine, thank you so much. My daughter and I will come
down immediately," said Mrs. Brown, smiling at the agitation of the
little maid. Mrs. Pace had evidently given her servants to understand
the importance her pension gained from the visits of a marchioness.
"Milly, Milly, how I have longed to see you," and the Marquise d'Ochtè
rose from her seat and clasped her one-time friend and beloved cousin in
a warm embrace. "And this is your daughter? Goodness, child, you look
like me,--at least, like me when I was young!"
Molly knew in the first second of greeting that she was going to like
this cousin, and Mrs. Brown was delighted to see in the marchioness the
same Sally Bolling of thirty years ago. She was like Molly in a way, but
it was hard to realize that Molly could ever be quite so buxom as this
middle-aged cousin. She was a very large woman with an excellent figure
for her weight, and hair a little darker than Molly's with no silver
threads showing so far.
"I pull 'em out if they dare to so much as show their noses. They say
forty will come in when you pull out one, but then I'll make my maid
pull out forty, if it kills me in the pulling," she declared when Mrs.
Brown remarked on it in the course of their inventory of each other. "My
Jean declares he got caught in my hair and could not get away, and I
mean still to keep him."
"I am afraid I would snatch myself bald-headed if I tried to pull all of
my gray hairs out," laughed Mrs. Brown; "but, Sally, you are exactly the
same girl who left Kentucky ages ago; there is just a little more of
you."
"A little more of me, indeed! There is about twice as much of me as
there used to be. But, Milly, you are exactly the same; there is not
even any more of you. You look much more like a member of the French
nobility than I do."
The marchioness did not look in the least French, but more like a
well-groomed English woman. Her dark brown suit was very simple and well
made, and her shoes bore the earmarks of an English boot maker, fitting
her perfectly but with low heels, broad toes and heavy soles. Her hat
was the only French touch about her, and that could have been concocted
in no spot in the world but Paris, so perfectly did it blend with her
hair and furs.
"Now tell me all about yourselves and what you are going to do with your
winter, and we can 'reminisce' another time. We must hurry before Henny
Pace gets back from market. I came early so as to avoid her and see you
a moment alone. She is a kind, good soul and I am really very fond of
her for auld lang syne, but you might as well try to hold a conversation
with a bumping bug in the room as Henrietta. Firstly, do you mean to
stay here?"
Molly and her mother laughed outright at the bumping bug comparison. It
was very apt.
"Why, Cousin Sally, we could not think of spending the winter being
coerced at every turn," returned Molly. "We were hardly in the house
before Mrs. Pace actually took Mother's clothes off and put her to bed,
and last night at dinner she refused to let me have any coffee. She said
it would ruin my complexion!"
The marchioness roared with laughter. "How like old Henny that is! She
always was a boss, but I don't blame you for objecting. I let her seem
to boss me just for the fun of it. I have known her since first coming
to Paris and understand how good she is at bottom, but wild horses could
not drag me to spend a night in her house. I ask her to _la Roche Craie_
every year and try to give her a rest, (she really works awfully hard,)
but she is so busy there trying to change my housekeeper's methods and
rearrange the linen presses that she gets very little rest after all.
Jean cannot stand her, but my son Philippe sees the good in her that I
have brought him up to see; and then he clings to any and everything
American. I am anxious for you to know my husband and son and for them
to meet you. Do you know French?"
"Mother speaks better French than I do in spite of my work at college,"
confessed Molly.
"Well, I studied French with the old time method more as we study Latin,
and while my accent is vile, my verbs are all right. I am going to try
to brace up in accent, and Molly and Judy are endeavoring to perfect
themselves in grammar. But you have not met our friend Judy, Miss Julia
Kean," said Mrs. Brown.
"No, I have not, but from all the complaints Henny Pace has made of her,
I know she must be charming. When Henny gives a boarder a good
character, I know without meeting her that she is some spineless old
maid who is afraid to call her soul her own, or that she is a hypocrite
like me who wants peace at any price. Now she tells me that Miss Kean is
head-strong, self-willed, flippant, slangy, ill-bred, inconsiderate----"
"Oh, how could she tell such things?" interrupted Molly. "Why, Cousin
Sally, Judy is splendid! She is independent and knows her own mind, and
all of us are a little slangy, I am afraid; but she is very well-bred
and Mother says the most considerate visitor she has ever had."
"Well, child, her report of your friend had no effect on me but to make
me want to meet the young lady, so I can judge for myself. I want you
and your mother to come and dine with us this evening at six-thirty and
to bring Miss Kean with you. We will go to the opera to hear _Louise_.
It is wonderful and I know you will like it," and la Marquise d'Ochtè
smiled on her young Kentucky cousin and pressed her hand, pleased to see
how she could speak up for her friend.
"We shall be delighted to come," said Mrs. Brown, "and I know Judy will
appeal to you. She is a dear child and as free from affectation as you
yourself. Now, Sally, tell me how we must go to work to find an
apartment and where we should settle ourselves. We are far from affluent
and want something inexpensive but, of course, respectable. Judy is to
be with us; also a Miss Elise O'Brien, whose acquaintance we made on the
steamer. You know so many persons, I wonder if you ever met her mother:
she was a Miss Lizzie Peck, who married a young artist, George O'Brien,
some twenty-five years ago here in Paris. At his death she married Mr.
Huntington."
"Know Lizzie Peck? I should say I did,--the outrageous piece! You see,
before Jean succeeded to the estate and before I had my windfall from
Aunt Sarah Carmichael, we lived in a very small way and our principal
society was in Bohemia. At that time Lizzie Peck was the beauty of the
Latin Quarter. She was supposed to be studying art, and indeed she was
quite clever. But she was such a belle and so busy drawing young men to
her, that she did not give much time to any other drawing. George
O'Brien was much too good for her in every way. He was one of the
wittiest men I ever knew and good nature itself. It is to be hoped that
the daughter Elise inherited a disposition from him and not from the
flirtatious Lizzie. Jean always insisted that there was an understanding
between Tom Kinsella and Lizzie, but I hardly think a man as keen as Tom
could ever have been taken in by the likes of Lizzie," and the
marchioness got up preparatory to making her departure.
"Why, Mother, to think of Cousin Sally's knowing Mr. Kinsella, too! You
liked him, didn't you, Cousin Sally?" asked Molly eagerly. "He was on
our steamer and so kind to us."
"Yes, my dear, I liked him very much and should like to see him again,
and so would my Jean. I fancy a great many persons are kind to my little
cousin," and she pinched Molly's blushing cheek. "Now, Milly, don't
worry for one moment about an apartment as I am almost sure I know of a
place that will just suit you. It is a studio apartment on the Rue Brea,
just across the Luxembourg Garden from here. It belongs to an American
artist named Bent. He and his wife are going to Italy for the winter and
would be delighted to rent it furnished, I am sure. It is very superior
to many of the studios in the Latin Quarter as it has a bathroom. But I
am not going to tell you any more about it until I find out if you can
get it, what the price is, and just what sleeping accommodations it has.
I have my limousine at the door and shall go immediately to the Rue
Brea, and to-night when you come to us for dinner I can tell you more.
_Au revoir_, then, my long lost cousin," and she kissed Mrs. Brown on
both cheeks.
"That is the first Frenchy thing she has done yet," thought Molly; and
then when the elevator had slowly descended out of hearing distance she
remarked to her mother: "How could anyone live in a foreign country for
almost thirty years and stay so exactly like 'home folks'? Cousin
Sally's accent is much more southern than yours and mine. Did you notice
her 'sure' was almost 'sho' and she spoke of Lizzie Peck's dra-a-win'
young men? I love her for keeping the same. And oh what fun to be going
there to dinner! I can hardly wait for Judy to come home from the studio
to tell her."
Mrs. Brown was equally pleased with her cousin's having remained so
unaffected and looked forward with much pleasure to renewing the
girlhood intimacy, and also to meeting the Marquis d'Ochtè, of whom his
wife spoke so enthusiastically as "my Jean," and the son Philippe. She
had some misgivings about the son because the literature of the day does
not paint a young Frenchman in particularly desirable colors as the
companion of girls; but she hoped that the mother's innate good sense
had served to bring up the boy in the proper way. Then Molly and Judy
could meet him as they would any young man from their own country, and
he would understand their easy freedom of manner and of speech,
different, she well knew, from that of the unmarried French girl. She
determined to say nothing to the girls of the difference, as she did not
want them changed or embarrassed by self-consciousness, and she felt
sure of their having breeding and _savoir faire_ to carry them through
any situation with flying colors.
As the marchioness had indicated, she had married before Jean had
succeeded to the estates and indeed before he had any idea of being the
heir presumptive. His uncle, the Marquis d'Ochtè, was at the time a
comparatively young man, a widower with a son of twelve; and everyone
expected that he would marry again and perhaps have other sons. Jean
d'Ochtè, when she met him, was a rising young journalist, making,
however, but a meager salary. His father was dead. His mother, Madame
d'Ochtè, was a very superior woman and recognized Sally Bolling's worth
in spite of the fact that she had but a tiny dot to bestow at her
marriage. She saw her son's infatuation for the American girl and gave
her consent to the marriage, without which, as is the law in France,
they could not have been wed. Sally's alliance gave her the _entrée_
into the most exclusive homes of the Faubourg St. Germain but she was
not a whit impressed by it. She took her honors so simply and naturally
that she won the hearts of all her husband's connection and they ended
by applauding the leniency of Madame d'Ochtè in permitting the match,
which they had formerly condemned as sentimental.
Jean and his wife spent their first married years living in the simplest
style and Sally learned the economy for which the French are famous.
Then came the windfall of fifty thousand dollars from Aunt Sarah
Carmichael, which reconciled the exclusive Faubourg more than ever to
the match; and then the death of the little cousin of Jean's, making him
his uncle's heir; and finally the death of the uncle, which gave Jean
the title of Marquis d'Ochtè. It meant giving up his profession, to
which he was much attached; but the estates had to be looked after and
the dignity of the title maintained; and now there was leisure for the
reading and writing of plays, which had been his secret ambition.
Sally made a delightful marchioness. She had been accustomed to the best
society in Kentucky and she declared good society was the same all over
the world; as far as she could see the only way to get on was just to be
yourself and not put on airs. She was very popular in the select circle
to which the title of Marquise d'Ochtè admitted her but she did not
confine herself to that circle; she knew all kinds and conditions of
people, and never forgot a friend, no matter how humble.
Judy was very much excited at the prospect of dining with a live member
of the old nobility, but her excitement was nothing to that of Mrs.
Pace. That lady, when she received the message from Mrs. Brown telling
her they would not be at home for dinner as they would dine out,
immediately climbed to the seventh story to find out where they were to
dine, and on being informed of their destination, she went off into
transports of delight. Her ardor was somewhat dampened when it was
divulged that Judy was to be one of the party.
"Sally is very good natured but entirely too democratic for her position
as the wife of one of the very oldest of the nobility in France. Of
course she asked Miss Kean because of her friendship with your
daughter," panted the irate dame, out of breath from her climb up two
flights.
"I don't believe that was the only reason," said Molly, rather glad to
give Mrs. Pace a dig after her report of her darling Judy. "Cousin Sally
said she had been anxious to meet Miss Kean from what you had told her
of my friend; so you are really responsible for the pleasure in store
for her."
"Well, I only hope she appreciates the honor done her," spluttered Mrs.
Pace. "What are you going to wear? A dinner in the Faubourg and the
Opera afterward calls for the very best in your wardrobe."
"Perhaps you had better advise us about our clothes," said Mrs. Brown
sweetly, remembering what her cousin had said of Mrs. Pace's kind heart
and how she humored her by seeming to let her boss her. "I have a very
pretty black crêpe de Chine. I think I am too old to go décolleté, but I
am sure this is suitable, especially as I have nothing else."
"It is perfectly suitable, and if you take my advice you will wear it
and leave the neck exactly as it is with that lovely old lace finishing
it off in a V. For pity sakes, don't tell Sally you are too old for low
necks as she is about your age and wears décolleté gowns on every
occasion where one is warranted," said Mrs. Pace, much pleased at being
taken into anyone's confidence on the subject of clothes or anything
else.
Molly, taking her cue from her mother, then got out her dress and showed
it to the eager landlady.
"It is lovely and just your color. Sally used to be given to that blue
when she was young, but she says now she is too big and red to wear
anything but brown or black. You must have a taxi to go in. I will
attend to it for you. I hope Miss Kean will not do herself up in any
fantastic, would-be artistic get-up, but will do you and your daughter
credit, to say nothing of me, after I have got her this invitation," and
Mrs. Pace bustled off, filled with importance.
Mrs. Brown and the girls, left alone at last, dressed themselves with
the greatest care for the occasion, realizing what it meant to dine with
the nobility and then go to the far-famed Opera.
"Only think, the tomb of Napoleon, dinner with a marquis and the Opera,
all in one day! I almost wish we had put off the tomb until to-morrow.
Our impressions are coming too fast," exclaimed Molly.