"LITTLE PIGLETS OF ENGLISH"
I doubt if even a universal _entente cordiale_ will ever make the
French mind and the English mind think alike.
Now it happened before Regina and her husband left Paris that Madame de
la Barre intimated through the girls that she would like to have a
little confidential chat with her pupils' mother.
"Mother," said Julia to Regina, "Madame wants to see you."
"She has seen me," said Regina.
"Yes, yes, mother, but she wants to see you _toute seule_. I suppose she
wants to tell you some delinquencies of ours, or something."
"I hope not," said Regina.
"Well, dear, you must expect us to be human, like other girls. We have
never been in any trouble since we came here, and I don't know why she
wants to see you, but, anyway, she asks if you will do her the favor of
taking tea with her to-morrow afternoon at four o'clock."
"I will," said Regina.
"She doesn't speak one word of English, you know," said Julia.
"We shall communicate somehow," said Regina, with a superb air.
"I don't know how," said Julia, "since you can't speak two words of
French--"
"_Excuse_ me," said Regina, pointedly.
"Well, excuse me too, mother--I didn't mean to be rude. But your French
isn't equal to your Latin, is it?"
"I will be there," said Regina, with a distinct accession of dignity.
And so, punctual to the moment, Regina appeared in the _salon_ of the
schoolmistress. Their mode of communication was original, it was also
a little difficult, but both being determined women, they overcame the
difficulties of the situation with a supreme indifference to the effect
the one might have upon the other. As a matter of fact, Julia had been
a little wide of the mark when she had declared to her mother that
Madame did not speak one word of English. Madame spoke a little more
English than Regina spoke French, and by a series of contortions,
gesticulations, and other efforts which I need not attempt to reproduce
here, Madame de la Barre contrived to make known to Mrs. Whittaker her
object in seeking for the interview. And her object in seeking the
interview was that she should explain to her that she considered the
taste in dress of the demoiselles Whittaker to be something too
atrocious for words.
"_C'est affreux! c'est affreux_," she exclaimed, when she found that
Regina was a little dense of understanding. "Horreeble--horreeble!"
"I have never," said Regina, speaking very slowly and distinctly, and
with an indulgent air as if she were communicating with someone a little
short of being an idiot, "I have never trained my children to care about
those matters."
"But they are young ladies! It is most important," Madame exclaimed,
with quite a tragic air.
"It will come," said Regina, waving her substantial hand with a vast
gesture, as if good taste in dressing was likely to drop from the
clouds, "it will come. I never worry about things that are not
essential."
"But it is essential for a young lady--a demoiselle--it is--it is for
her life."
Poor Madame de la Barre! She tried very hard indeed to explain that the
many purchases made by the young ladies were not such as should have
been made by young girls not yet entered into the great world. She made
no impression upon Regina.
"These are small matters," she said, with a magnificent air; "not
essentials in any way. They will make mistakes at first--I don't doubt
it, Madame--we have all done it in our day, but they will learn, oh,
they will learn."
Madame shrugged her shoulders. She felt that she was dealing with a fool
of the first water, upon whom valuable breath was wasted. After all,
these were _English_ girls. What did it matter? They were going to live
in a land where it is the rule for women to make themselves such objects
as Madame Whittaker herself. It is no exaggeration to say that when
Mrs. Whittaker had finally swept out of the schoolmistress's presence,
Madame de la Barre sat down and closed her eyes with a genuine shudder.
"What does it matter, these pigs of English, what they wear? Thou art
too good-natured, Heloise," she went on, apostrophizing herself. "Thou
canst forbid these little piglets of English from wearing their too
disgraceful garments. What happens to them after they have left thy roof
is no concern of thine. Thou art too good-natured, Heloise!"
So the "little piglets of English" continued unchecked in their career
of vicious millinery, and when the time came for them to return to the
paternal roof, they went, taking with them a stock of garments
calculated to make the Park, as they put it, "sit up."
And truly the Park did sit up, for the appearance of Regina's two girls
was something quite out of the common.
"It is the latest fashion," said Regina, with an air of conviction to a
neighbor who remarked that Maudie's hat was a little startling. "The
girls brought all their things from Paris. It is the seat of good
dressing."
You will observe that Regina never left any doubt in expressing her
opinions. Hers was a positive nature. She would say, "My daughters _are_
beautiful, my daughters _are_ elegant, my daughters attract an enormous
amount of attention," but never "I _think_ my daughters are"--this,
that, or the other.
So she gave forth, with the air of one whose fiat could not be
questioned, the intimation that as Maudie and Julia's things had come
from Paris, they must be the _dernier cri_.
And the Park thought they were horrid.
Poor Regina! She was very happy in the return of her girls, so happy
that she took a little holiday from her public work, and spent a whole
week in talking things over, in arranging and rearranging their rooms,
in examining all their purchases, in discussing what kind of life they
should live in the immediate future.
"Now, what are your own ideas?" she demanded, on the second day after
the return home of the girls, when they had settled down to tea and
muffins.
Maudie looked at Julia. As usual, Julia answered for Maudie. Regina
herself was full of suppressed eagerness.
"Well, if you really wish us to tell you exactly what we do want,
mother," said Julia, "we will put it in a nutshell. We want father to
give us an allowance."
"A decent allowance," put in Maudie.
"Yes, yes, dears; yes, yes," murmured Regina, who had prepared herself
for an unfolding of great schemes, such as would have swayed her at her
girls' age.
"The kind of allowance," Julia went on, "that he ought to give to
girls of our age and position--that is to say, of _our_ age and _his_
position. Then we sha'n't go making sillies of ourselves; we shall know
how to cut our coat according to our cloth."
"And how much do you think such an allowance ought to be?" Regina
inquired.
"Oh, about a hundred a year each," said Julia.
"A hundred a year? That's a very ample allowance. I never spend more
than that myself."
"Well, mother, it just depends on what you want us to be. If you want
us to be smart, well-dressed girls with some position in the world, we
couldn't do it under. We have talked it over thoroughly with French
girls who know what society is, and with English girls of the same sort,
and they all say that a hundred a year is the least a girl can dress
herself decently on."
"And that would include--?" Regina questioned.
"It would include our clothes, our club subscriptions--"
"Your what?"
"Our club subscriptions."
"Oh, you are going to join a club, are you?"
"Of course. You have a club, mother. We want some place where we can
rest the soles of our feet when we are in London. It isn't as if you
lived right in Mayfair, you know."
"No, no; you are quite right. I have no objection to your joining a
club, or doing anything else that is reasonable. So it would include
your club subscriptions?"
"Oh yes, it would have to do that. And our personal expenses. We
shouldn't have to look to father for any money other than an occasional
present which he might like to give us if we were good, or if he could
afford it; or on some special occasion."
"I see."
"Then we should like to have--er--er" and here Julia stopped short
and eyed her mother with a certain amount of apprehension.
"Well, go on, my darling. You would like to have what?"
"We should like to have a sitting-room of our own."
"Oh!"
"To which," Julia went on, emboldened by her mother's mild expression
of face, "to which we could ask our friends without upsetting the house,
and--and--and--"
"Go on," said Regina.
"Well, you see, most girls nowadays have an At Home day of their
own--just for their own friends, irrespective of their mothers."
"I haven't time for an At Home day," said Regina. "I used to have one,
but I gave it up when you went to Paris."
"I think that was rather foolish of you, mother," said Julia. "A woman
is nothing nowadays if she doesn't have an At Home day. I don't quite
see myself what all your work brings you."
"Brings me?" echoed Regina.
"Yes, brings you. What's the good of working day and night, toiling into
the small hours of the morning for a lot of other people? What do they
ever do for you, mother?"
"Do for me?" Regina seemed suddenly to have become an echo of her own
daughter. "I don't know that anybody does anything for me."
"No, it is always Mrs. Albert Whittaker toiling and fagging and slaving
for other people's glorification. I don't see the force of it. It seems
to us," she went on, with a certain air of severity which ought to have
amused Regina, but did nothing of the kind, "it seems to us that you get
the worst of it in every way. We think, mother, that you ought to be
very glad that we have come home to take care of you."
"Oh! Then you," said Regina, with a tinge of sarcasm in her tones, "you
and Maudie are to have all the independence, and I am to be taken care
of? That is very kind of you. Now, once for all let me speak, and then
for ever after hold my peace. I give you, as long as you remain in your
father's house, I give you the same amount of liberty that I had in mine
and which I wish to have for myself now, but I give it you on one
condition, which is that you never abuse it. If ever you should
disappoint me by doing so--which not for one moment do I anticipate--I
should instantly withdraw that free gift of liberty. But I want you to
remember that while you have your liberty, I still need and require
mine. One is so apt to forget, and particularly when one is devotedly
attached to anyone, the rights and liberties of others. You are quite
welcome, my children, to have your day at home, and your father will
certainly not wish to curtail you in the matter of provision therefor. I
shall not expect that your little entertainments will come out of your
own personal income. At any time that you seek my advice on any matter,
it will be there ready for your use. I shall never give it to you
unsought, unless I should see you going absolutely wrong. I will only
ask you to remember that before all things I have striven, since you
were tiny babies, first and foremost to preserve the originality of your
minds. The more original you are, the more completely will you please
me. There is so much in the circumstances and in the lives of women that
tend to trammel and to stifle their better judgment and their better
selves, that they have but little chance of letting any originality of
mind which they may possess have fair play. You are singularly blessed
in having an enlightened father and mother, who wish you to be in most
respects as free as air. Take care, therefore, children, that you don't
lose sight of this precious opportunity. Let honor and originality go
hand in hand. With your gifts and your beauty, you must land yourselves
upon the very crest of the wave. There," she went on, letting the
tension of her feelings find relief in a little laugh, "there ends my
little homily!" And she stretched forth her firm white hand and helped
herself to the last piece of muffin in the dish.