THE POSTSCRIPT.
The Bents' studio apartment proved to be exactly the thing for Mrs.
Brown and the girls, and arrangements were made with the artist and his
wife to have it turned over to them in ten days, which would just fill
out their time at _Maison Pace_.
The apartment consisted of a large studio, kitchenette and two small
bedrooms. The plan was for Mrs. Brown to have one of the bedrooms and
Elise O'Brien the other, while Molly and Judy, to their unbounded
delight, were to sleep in a balcony that ran across one end of the
studio. The Marquise d'Ochtè explained to them that this was quite
customary in Bohemia, and that she and her husband had occupied a
similar roost for several years during their early married life.
"I am versed in many a makeshift and this minute could come to live in
the Latin Quarter on half of what you, with your extravagant American
notions, will spend," declared the marchioness, as she showed our
friends over the apartment. "Now this is my advice for the conducting of
your _ménage_, Milly, but I am not like Henny Pace to get riled if you
do not take it. Get your own breakfast, which is a simple matter in
France, having fresh rolls and butter sent in every morning and making
your own coffee or chocolate; take your _déjeuner à la fourchette_, I
mean your luncheon at a restaurant; and then leave your dinners to
circumstances, sometimes having them at home or going out as the
occasion offers.
"Get a servant to come in and clean for you every morning by the hour,
but do not have a regular _bonne_. It would be a useless expense and
then there is no sense in your having to slave over housekeeping. The
way for foreigners to become acquainted with Paris is to see the
restaurants, and there are so many you need not get tired of the cooking
in any one. All I ask of you is to have a regular Kentucky supper for me
some night with----but never mind what with, it will be sure to be what
I want if Molly cooks it."
Molly was busy inspecting the kitchenette, which Mrs. Bent was showing
with much pride as it was quite unique in the Latin Quarter. There was a
tiny gas range, a convenience not often enjoyed as gas was a luxury not
as a rule afforded in Bohemia. The floor was of octagonal, terra cotta
tiles and there was a high mullioned window over the infinitesimal sink.
Long-handled copper skillets and stew pans were ranged along the walls,
suspended from hooks; and a strangely colored china press filled with an
odd assortment of dishes was at one side.
Mrs. Bent laughed when she saw Molly examining the press. "That is
inherited from Mr. Bent's student days. It is a plain deal closet,
colored with palette scrapings. It is always a great stunt with students
to make something like this. Mr. Bent has long ago outgrown it as a
studio furnishing and will have nothing short of mahogany around him,
but it is too roomy and useful for me to give up, so it is banished to
the limbo of the kitchen. I have known students to clean their palettes
many times a day just to get a little more scrapings on their presses."
The effect was a peculiarly deep, rich tone and Judy declared that she
liked it.
"It looks like the shadows in some of Monet's landscapes, dark, but
clear, with light all through them. Some day I am going to make a press
just like this one if I have to clean my palette a hundred times a day
to get scrapings."
The apartment was on the ground floor and one entered across a very
pretty paved court which had green tubs of evergreens here and there
along the wall. The indoor studio balcony, where Judy and Molly were to
sleep, had a long casement that opened on a tiny iron balcony which
overhung the court. There were four similar balconies belonging to the
neighboring studios and all had porch boxes filled with ivy or
chrysanthemums, making a wonderful effect of color.
Judy was Judy-like, entranced. She stepped upon the balcony and holding
out her arms to the tubbed spruce trees, exclaimed in a melodramatic
voice:
"'O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name:
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.'"
Suddenly what should she see, from the open door of the opposite studio,
but the faun-like face of Pierce Kinsella, grinning delightedly at the
unexpected encounter. He proved himself equal to the occasion and said
in a low and feeling voice:
"'Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?'"
And Judy came back with:
"'How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.'"
And Pierce answered:
"'With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.'"
By this time Mr. Kinsella had come out into the court and Molly, hearing
the spouting of so much poetry, joined Judy on the balcony to see what
was going on. She and Mr. Kinsella applauded loudly until the windows of
the two other balconies opened, and from one the head of a long-haired
man and from the other that of a short-haired woman were poked out.
"Poetry aside, Mr. Kinsella, what are you and Pierce doing here in the
Rue Brea?" called Judy.
"We are looking at a studio that is for rent. And what are you doing
here, please?"
"Sitting under our own vine and fig tree, sir! At least, it will be ours
in about ten days," answered Molly.
"You don't mean it! Well, if this isn't luck! Pierce, I'll go back and
sign up with the concierge immediately. Such neighbors as these would
make the meanest studio desirable and, after all, these are pretty good
rooms. We could hardly do better in the Quarter."
Pierce was pleased to have the matter settled, as he felt himself to be
among friends and had visions of many good times in store for him after
working hours with the three bright girls and Mrs. Brown, who was even
more attractive to him than the girls. Mr. Kinsella had assured Mrs.
Brown that Elise would be sure to fall in with any plans that good lady
may have made for her, and he answered for Mrs. Huntington's
acquiescence in any arrangements he saw fit to bring about for her
daughter. She had really washed her hands of the matter, and had given
him to understand that since he had interfered and insisted upon Elise's
having a chance to go on with her much interrupted art studies, he could
go ahead and place her where he chose. For her part, she declared, it
made no difference one way or the other. She had seen too much of
Bohemia in the old days to want ever to cross the borderland again. Mr.
Kinsella felt sure she had secretly hoped that Mrs. Brown would want
Elise with her, and he only awaited their arrival from Brussels to let
them know of the studio apartment in the Rue Brea and of the cordial
welcome Elise O'Brien would have from all three of the ladies concerned.
The next ten days were very busy and exciting ones. Judy and Pierce
plunged into their drawing with renewed zest. Pierce was at Julien's,
too, but as the men's school is in an entirely different part of Paris
from the women's, he and Judy saw each other only in picture galleries
or on the delightful jaunts that the whole crowd took. The _Maison Pace_
was not a very pleasant place to make a call, as there was always a
bunch of snuffy old maids huddled together in the parlor, knitting
shawls and swapping tales of the good and bad pensions they had
encountered in their travels. When a caller braved the ordeal, they
always stopped knitting and talking and sat spellbound, intent on not
losing one word of the visitor's conversation.
Mr. Kinsella and Pierce made one essay, but the occasion was so stiff
and formal and Mrs. Pace so monopolizing that they determined never to
repeat it, but to wait until their friends were installed in their own
apartment. That longed-for time arrived quickly enough for Molly and her
mother, who were sight-seeing in a most systematic manner, with
Baedecker in one hand and Hare's "Walks in Paris" in the other. They
would come home tired and footsore but very happy and enthusiastic.
Molly wrote Professor Green that she felt like the little girl at the
fair, who, when her mother noticed she lagged behind and asked her if
she were tired, said: "My hands and feet are tired, but my face isn't."
"We do become weary unto death but each morning we get up with renewed
zest," she wrote, "with so many wonderful things to see before
nightfall. One thing that bothers us is having to dress and sit through
a formal dinner with the eagle eye of Mrs. Pace upon us. We are looking
forward to the time when we shall be in our own apartment, where we need
not dress for dinner unless we have a mind to. My Cousin Philippe
d'Ochtè declares that already my mother and I know more about Paris than
he does. We are trying to be systematic in our sight-seeing and not to
hurry, as we have the winter before us, but at every corner and square
there is something interesting to find out about.
"Philippe is very kind to us and ready to escort us through any parts of
the city where he thinks it best for women not to go alone. For my part,
I think we could go anywhere we wished. The Parisians are so obliging
and courteous, and so far no one has been the least rude to us. The old
maids in our pension have many tales to tell of the encounters they have
had with impertinent men, and one lady declares that she never goes on
the street without being insulted. But I agree with Mr. Kean who says:
'If you have some business to attend to--and attend to it, you women can
go anywhere in the world you want to in perfect safety.'
"I have not begun my studies yet, as my time has been so taken up with
seeing the places of interest, but Philippe is going to see that I am
put in the proper class in French Lit. at the Sorbonne where he has
obtained a very important degree. He says there are several English and
American women there, so I shall not feel strange.
"I am so glad your orchard home is coming on so well. Kent writes us
that it is already beginning to look like a house. The rough stone
chimneys and foundations are lovely, I know, and will make such a
beautiful support for English ivy.
"We are looking forward to Christmas with great eagerness. This is the
first Christmas I have had with my mother for five years and the first
one she has spent away from all of her other children ever. I shall have
to make a noise like seven Browns to keep her from being homesick."
Here Molly stopped and reflected that some of those five Christmases she
had spent in the company of Professor Edwin Green and she wondered if he
would remember it, too; and if he would miss her as she felt she was
missing him, in spite of all the delightful things she was doing and
seeing. "I know he is not thinking of me at all and I am a goose to
waste any sentiment on him. I have never had a single letter from him I
could not show mother and Judy. When Judy gets a letter from Kent she
never shows it to us, but takes it to her own room and evidently gets
great satisfaction from its perusal, as she always comes out beaming. Ah
me! I am sure I shall die an old maid,--but anyhow I do not intend to
knit shawls and sit around a boarding house talking about the food!"
When poor Professor Green received the letter, part of which is given
above, he, too, was plunged into sad reflections. He reached for a
pretty azure paper weight that always stood on his desk and reminded him
of a certain pair of blue, blue eyes, and looking into it as though he
were crystal-gazing, he shook his head mournfully and said: "Ah, Molly,
you little know how you hurt me! And still, what right have I to expect
anything else from you? I see you now being conducted around Paris by
your Cousin Philippe. I'll be bound he thinks you need a courier even
when you go to a Duval restaurant, the sly dog. I know his type: small
and dark, with a pointed beard and insinuating manner.
"Here I am tied to Wellington and these hated classes and lectures, when
I hoped to be in Paris acting courier for Molly instead of this
disgusting foreigner, who won't know how to appreciate her----But what
an ass I am! I don't know that Philippe is disgusting, and from what
Miss Molly says of his mother, the marchioness, she must be charming.
"I do wish she would not write so coolly of my 'orchard home.' I should
think she would know by telepathy that I always think of it as 'Molly
Brown's Orchard Home.' I was a fool to take Mrs. Brown's advice and not
tell Molly of my love. It may be too late now, and then what shall I
do?"
The distinguished professor of English at Wellington College groaned
aloud. His housekeeper, who was bringing in his tea, heard him and
almost dropped the tray in her alarm.
"And is it the schtomic ache ye be ahfter havin'?"
"No, Mrs. Brady, it is higher up than the stomach. I am glad to see my
tea. 'The beverage which cheers but does not inebriate' may make me feel
better."
"Phwat ye need is a wife to look ahfter ye and keep ye straight.
Schmokin', schmokin' all the time an' brroodin' over the fire is not
good for a young gintleman. An' your disk and floor littered up wit'
paaperrs and ashes."
The kindly old soul began to clear off the untidy desk and stooped to
pick up a piece of paper that had fallen from Molly's letter without
Professor Green's having read it or noticed its existence. She started
to put it in the waste basket, but the professor noticed the action,
being, like most scholars, impatient of having his books and papers
touched. In fact, he had over his desk a framed rubbing of Shakespeare's
epitaph which he had once confided to Molly he kept there especially to
scare Mrs. Brady and make her let his things alone:
"Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare
To digg ye dust encloased heare
Bleste be ye man yt spares the stones
And curst be he yt moves my bones."
"Wait, my good Mrs. Brady! What is that you are throwing away?"
"Nawthin' but a bit o' blue paaperr, Profissorr. To be shure there's a
schrap o' writin' on the back. Blue things always brring to me mind the
swate eyes o' Miss Molly Brown, the saints protict her" and she handed
the stray piece of thin, blue, foreign letter paper to the eager young
man, who clutched it and smoothed it out and read the following
postscript:
"My cousins, the d'Ochtès, have been very anxious to get up a party and
take us to Fontainebleau to see the palace and then drive through the
forest; but I have done everything to keep from going and I hope the
scheme has fallen through. You have told me so much of the wonderful
forest and the walk from Fontainebleau to Barbizon that I am hoping to
see the place for the first time with you. The spring is the time to see
it, anyhow, I am sure, and perhaps by then you can find a suitable
substitute and have a holiday."
Professor Green looked up from the perusal of the little half sheet of
paper with his face beaming. What can't a woman put in a postscript? The
pain, which he had confessed to Mrs. Brady was a little higher up than
his stomach, had entirely disappeared. He was no longer jealous of "any
little, black, dried-up Frenchman." That is the way he thought of
Philippe; and it was certainly well for the young American's peace of
mind that he did not know that Molly and Judy always spoke of Philippe
d'Ochtè as "the Adonis."
"Mrs. Brady, your good, strong, hot tea has done wonders for me. I am
feeling so much better, I am going to take your advice and go for a long
walk and not sit over the fire any longer."
He accordingly unwound his long legs, put the little blue letter with
its health-giving postscript carefully in his breast pocket, (right over
the spot of the vanished pain!) and went for one of his fifteen-mile
tramps, humming sentimentally, "When the robins nest again, and the
flowers are in bloom."
Mrs. Brady looked after him and smilingly shook her head: "He may say
it's the tay, but there was some preschription in that bit o' blue
paaperr I was ahfter destroyin' that was the pain-killer this toime for
the poor young gintleman. Me prrivit opinion is that he, too, is
a-missin' the swate eyes o' Miss Molly Brown!"
Professor Edwin Green came home from his long walk in an excellent frame
of mind, happy and tired; but he was not too tired to write to Molly a
letter that somehow she forgot to read to her mother and Judy.