MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
Madame Raoul Palffy would, in all probability, have been intensely
surprised and entirely incredulous had any one informed her that hers
was an irritating personality. But the fact remained. She was flagrantly
complacent, and her placidity enraged one immeasurably, and goaded
nervous temperaments to the verge of frenzy. Tradespeople had been known
to grit their teeth and swear almost audibly at her, and at least two
guards upon the Metropolitain had lost their positions because her
leisurely manner of locomotion had moved them irresistibly to breaches
of the courteous treatment enjoined upon them by the General Manager's
notice to the public.
Madame Palffy was a large, florid person with a partiality for jet and
crimson velvet, and whose passing, much in the manner of a frigate under
full sail, was apt to be fatal to fragile ornaments standing unwarily
too near to table-edges. About her there was always a suggestion of
imminent explosion, due to her chronic shortness of breath, the extreme
snugness of her gowns, and the fashion in which her pudgy palms,
unmercifully compressed into white gloves two sizes too small, crowded
desperately out of the little ovals across which the top buttons yearned
toward their proper holes. Harmoniously, her face was fat, and dappled
all over with ruddy pink, with the eyes, nose, and mouth crowded
together in the centre, as if for sociability's sake, or in fear of
sliding off the smooth slopes of her cheeks and chin. Her hair, with its
variety of puffs and curls, appeared to have been laid out by a
landscape gardener.
As for Raoul Palffy, all that one was apt to remember about him was the
fact that he had married a Miss Barrister of Worcester. He was as
completely eclipsed by this injudicious proceeding as if he had been
elected Vice-President of the United States. He closely resembled a frog
on the point of suffocation. With a loyalty worthy of a better cause, he
imbibed vast quantities of the wine of his native Bordeaux, and became
each year more shockingly apoplectic in appearance. Out of his wife's
sight, he swelled magnificently, like a red balloon, and, between
ignorance and exaggeration, was hardly on bowing terms with veracity: in
her presence, he was another man. It was more than anything as if some
one had taken a pin to the red balloon. As a natural result of their
relative assertiveness, the couple moved, for the most part, not in the
French society to which Monsieur Palffy's connections warranted their
aspiring, but in that of the Colony, where his wife's pretensions and
her deplorable mismanipulation of her adopted tongue were less
conspicuously burlesque. After twenty years of Paris, Madame Palffy
still said _nom de plume_ and _cafe noir_.
It was to renew acquaintance with parents so curiously contrasted that
Margery Palffy had returned from ten years of almost continuous
residence in the States. To say that she proved a surprise to them would
be to do but faint justice to the mental perturbation with which they
surveyed this tall, self-possessed young person, who was, in practically
every particular, a total stranger. Her father, with his characteristic
lack of enterprise, had promptly given her up. He had neither the
faculty of rendering, nor that of inspiring, affection; and this his
daughter seemed, from the very outset, to understand, and tacitly to
accept. They rarely met, except at dinner, and then with such a
desperate lack of common interests as prevented any interchange of
conversation beyond the merest commonplaces. Madame Palffy, on the
contrary, made an earnest, if inept, attempt to fill, in her daughter's
life, a place which she had long since forfeited; and, to the best of
her ability, Margery strove to meet her half-way. But the gap made by
their years of separation was now too wide to be effectually bridged.
Madame Palffy was artificial from the summit of her elaborate _coiffure_
to the tips of her inadequately ample shoes: her daughter, in every
detail of her sound and sensible make-up, was a convincing product of
all that is best, sincerest, and most wholesome in American education.
The two could no more mix than oil and water. It was to Mrs. Carnby and
her husband that Margery turned for sympathy, with an instant
recognition of qualities appealingly akin to her own: and these two
received her with open arms. For them, three months had sufficed to
render Margery Palffy indispensable, and the same period served to prove
to the girl, not only her need of friendship, but that here lay the
means of its satisfaction. As Madame Palffy complacently observed to
Mrs. Carnby.
"I think that Margery feels that there's no place like home."
And as Mrs. Carnby replied, with extreme relish:
"I'm sure of it. It must be a most comforting conviction!"
Margery Palffy, whose attitude toward the society to which she was a
comparatively recent recruit was sufficiently indicated by her desire to
be called "Miss" instead of "Mademoiselle," was accustomed to reserve
her Sunday afternoons for Mr. Carnby. They would go to the Bois, to walk
and watch the driving, or take a _bateau mouche_ to Suresnes and return,
or even slip out to Versailles or St. Germain. Jeremy was a man of small
enthusiasms, but he shared with his wife a profound affection, of the
type which is always pathetic in the childless, for this tall, slender
girl, as fresh and sweet as a ripe fig, grown on the family thistle of
the Palffys. An impulse, which, in the light of its results, could only
be regarded as an inspiration, had prompted Madame Palffy to send her
daughter, at the age of nine, to be educated in the States. A sound and
rational school in Connecticut, and ten vacations in the superbly
invigorating air of the North Shore under the care of a sensibly
indulgent aunt, had forthwith performed a miracle. A thin, brown child,
with an affected lisp, was now grown straight and tall, with an eye to
measure a putt or a friend, a hand which knew the touch of a tiller and
a rein, and a voice to win a dog, a child, or a man. Margery Palffy was
very beautiful withal, with her russet-brown hair, her finely chiselled
features, and her confident smile. She impressed one immediately as
having arranged her hair herself--by bunching it all up together, and
then giving it one inspirited twist which accomplished more than all the
system in the world. Some one--not her mother!--knew what kind of gown
she ought to wear, but--what was more important--she knew how to wear
it. One would have said that her eyes were by Helleu and her nose by
George du Maurier. Men looked to their hearts when her mouth was open,
and to their consciences when it was closed--tight-closed! A laugh to
make them worship her, a frown to make them despise themselves, a
suggestion that she was capable of giving all she would expect from
another, a somewhat stronger suggestion that she would be apt to expect
a considerable deal, very clean-cut, very sane, very good form--such was
Margery Palffy at what might be called her worst. As for Margery Palffy
at her best, as yet even the most casual of Colony gossips had never
more than hinted at a love-affair.
Madame Palffy having attended two church services, and observed with
gratification that her new bonnet was far more imposing than the
bonnets, old and new, of her fellow worshippers, had now sought the
seclusion of her Empire boudoir. She was, above all things, consistent.
In this sacred spot she ventured to lay aside her society manner, but,
beyond this, she made no concessions to privacy. Her lounging-gown would
have been presentable at a garden-party, and she devoted five minutes to
rearranging her hair, before sinking massively upon the _chaise-longue_,
and giving her thoughts free rein.
An unusually brilliant week had drawn to a close the evening before.
Madame Palffy's dinner-table had groaned beneath its burden of silver
and chiselled glass, and her box at "Louise" had presented to the
auditorium such a background of white linen and vicuna as had sent
poisonous darts to the hearts of a dozen ambitious and observant
mothers.
The reason was not far to seek. From the moment of her _debut_, two
months before, Margery Palffy had been a tremendous success. Her beauty,
her novelty, her shrewd wit and unfailing gaiety had swept through the
Colony as a sickle through corn. Madame Palffy smiled to herself as she
reviewed the past few weeks. Her daughter's had been a name to conjure
with.
But, almost immediately, the smile became a sigh. Beneath her
satisfaction in Margery's triumph, the ambitious lady felt that there
was something lacking--and that something was a complete understanding
of the girl herself. Since her return from the States, her mother had
been slowly and reluctantly forced to the conviction that there was that
in her nature which it was beyond one's power to grasp, and her apparent
frankness and simplicity made the failure to read her doubly hard to
analyze. Her interest in life and the society world about her was
unquestionable. Fresh and unspoiled, she trod the social labyrinth
undeviatingly, received the flatteries, even the open devotion, of half
a hundred men with caution, and remained--herself. And Madame Palffy, to
whom social success was a guarantee of a status so little lower than the
seraphim as to make the difference unworthy of consideration, looked
with growing admiration upon that of her beautiful daughter, and
treasured every evidence thereof deep in her pompous heart. The
difficulty lay in the fact that Margery impressed not only the world in
general by her dignity, but abashed her ambitious parent as well. Madame
Palffy was content to have her daughter talk in parables, if she would,
and be as impartial as justice itself, but afterwards, when the lights
were out and the guests had departed, she wanted the parables explained
and the preferences laid bare. And this was precisely the confidential
relation which she had never been able to establish. In public she
figured naturally as Margery's confidant and mentor. In private she was,
in reality, hardly nearer to her than was the newest of her new
acquaintances.
In this state of affairs Madame Palffy distinctly perceived all the
elements of a dilemma. As was naturally to be expected, her daughter had
no sooner been restored to her, than the ambitious lady's mind began to
wrestle with the problem of a suitable marriage--or "alliance," as she
preferred to think of it. To this intent, she had selected the Vicomte
de Boussac, whom she was wont to call, for no apparent reason, "one of
her boys." Nothing was further from the Vicomte's intention than a
marriage _a la mode_, imbued as he was with the national predilection
for marriage _au mois_, but he had a habit--had De Boussac--of
describing himself as _enchante_ with whatsoever might be proposed to
him by one of the opposite sex. He was _enchante_ to meet Madame's
beautiful daughter, _enchante_ to act as their escort on any and every
occasion, _enchante_, above all, at Madame's disregard of
conventionality, whereby he was permitted to enjoy frequent
_tete-a-tetes_ with Margery. But he had an eye for the boundary-line. He
smiled with inimitable charm at Madame Palffy's transparent hints,
derived considerable diversion from her daughter's society, and,
throughout, behaved in a manner nothing short of exemplary. At the end
of three months, during which Margery's _debut_ had come and gone, the
wistful matchmaker was frankly in despair.
A beneficent Providence had begrudged Madame Palffy a very liberal
allowance of diplomacy, and, this failing, she was now resolved upon a
desperate move, nothing less than a complete revelation of her plans,
and an appeal to Margery for confirmation of her hopes. Whenever she
considered this approaching ordeal, she seemed suddenly to lose a
cube-shaped section of her vital organs. Just now the sensation was
oppressive: for she had taken the decisive step that very morning, and
requested Margery to attend her at five o'clock; and, over there on the
mantel, the hands of her little ormolu clock were galloping
inconsiderately over the last quarter before the fatal hour. Even as she
glanced apprehensively at its face, the tinkle of the five strokes broke
the silence, and she had barely time to secure the lavender salts from
her dressing-table, when there came a tap at the door.
"_Entrez!_"
Margery had been walking, and with her entrance into the room came an
indescribable suggestion of the open air. Her face was radiant, and the
violets at her belt, brought suddenly from the slight chill without into
the warmth of her mother's boudoir, seemed to heave a perfumed sigh of
relief. The girl's brown eyes, aglow with youth and health, the proud
poise of her head, and her firm hands, ungloved and guiltless of rings,
were all in marked contrast to the heavy woman throned upon the divan,
and languidly sniffing at her salts. It was a confronting of nature and
art, unmistakably to the latter's disadvantage. Somehow, the
hopelessness of her self-appointed task was more than ever apparent to
the ambitious Madame Palffy.
"And where do you suppose I've been?" began Margery.
"Not to church, I know," said her mother. "I half expected to see you,
but I was alone in the pew."
"No, not to church. Once a day is enough, surely. I've been with Mr.
Carnby to the Jardin d'Acclimatation."
"Good gracious, my dear, what a plebeian expedition! What _were_ you
doing--visiting the _serres_?"
"Nothing half so dignified. We were at the menagerie, feeding the
monkeys with gingernuts."
Madame Palffy simply gasped. There are some situations with which words
are impotent to deal.
"Monkeys," continued Margery, "are adorable. They are sufficiently human
to be typical, and then there's the advantage that one can stare at them
to one's heart's content, without being thought ill-mannered. I saw lots
of our friends--Mr. Radwalader, for instance, as vain as life and twice
as loquacious; and one haughty young creature who held himself aloof,
despising the rest, and taking no pains to conceal it. That was Monsieur
de Boussac. His manner was so unmistakable that I actually found myself
bowing, as our eyes met."
"Margery!"
"It's the solemn truth, mother; the Vicomte has a dual existence."
"But my dear child--the monkey-house! What _could_ Jeremy Carnby have
been thinking of, to take you to such a place?"
"He didn't. I took him."
"But one never knows what one might catch there--typhoid--or--or fleas,
my dear!"
Madame Palffy shuddered, and returned to her salts.
"Fleas, mother? I never thought of that possibility, but if I had, it
would only have been an added inducement. Never having met a flea, I am
sure I should enjoy the experience. You know what somebody says?
'Incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God.' And, above all
things, I adore courage."
Here was an auspicious beginning to a serious conversation! In sheer
desperation, Madame Palffy assumed her society manner.
"Margery," she said, "you're quite old enough to take care of yourself;
though, to speak frankly, you have a somewhat peculiar method of doing
so. Let us abandon the monkeys for the present. I have something to say
to you. I--I--"
She hesitated for an instant, and then proceeded resolutely.
"I've been thinking of you a great deal, of late, and you must forgive
me if I speak unreservedly to you. It's because of my affection for you,
and my deep interest in your welfare."
She did not see the slight contraction of her daughter's eyebrows, and
it was well for her peace of mind that she did not. It argued ill for a
sympathetic reception of her carefully formulated appeal.
"I'm sure, my dear mother, that it's very far from my desire to resent
anything you say. Why should I? Has any one a better right to
speak--er--unreservedly?"
"I've been more than proud of you always," continued Madame Palffy,
"_more_ than proud, my dear. You've been a great comfort to me, and, if
I do say it, a wonderful success in the Colony. I remember no
_debutante_ in ten years who has received so much attention, and the
fact that it has not spoiled you shows how worthy of it all you are. And
now," she added, with an uneasy smile, "for _la grande serieux_."
Again that curious drawing together of Miss Palffy's eyebrows.
"_Le grand serieux?_" she repeated. She detested feeling her way in the
dark, and now groped dexterously for a clue. "That's usually taken to
mean something quite alien to our present conversation."
"Not at all," said her mother, catching at this opening, "not at _all_
alien, my dear. In fact, Margery, what I want to ask you is this.
Er--have you ever thought of marrying?"
"Yes--often," said Margery promptly.
The two words were characteristic of their curious relations, as Madame
Palffy realized, with a little inward sigh of despair. They answered her
question fully, and they answered it not at all.
"You don't understand me, perhaps," she went on. "I mean, have you ever
seen--here in Paris, for instance--any particular man whom it has seemed
to you you might--er--love? Now--there is De Boussac--"
"Ah!"
"Wait a moment, my dear. Let me finish. I'll not conceal from you that
it has been a dear wish of mine to see you married to him. I've known
him since he was a baby. He's titled, rich, very talented, and more than
moderately good-looking. His position is irreproachable, and his family
goes straight back indefinitely."
She stopped nervously. The speech which she had mentally prepared,
descriptive of De Boussac's desirability, had been some ten times this
length. In some fashion, Margery's eyes had shorn it of verbiage, and
reduced it, as it were, to its lowest terms.
"But, my dear mother, this is the first inkling I've had of any such
idea. I can't imagine that Monsieur de Boussac has ever breathed a word
on the subject. Don't you think the first mention should come from him?
I've no reason to suppose that he cares a straw for me."
"He does--I know he does," broke in Madame Palffy eagerly. "You're quite
wrong in supposing he's never spoken of it. Remember, these things are
managed differently over here. You have the American idea. In Paris one
speaks first to the girl's parents."
Margery shrugged her shoulders. A kind of instinct told her that she
must ask no questions if she would be told no lies.
"And there's another objection," she said. "I don't _want_ to marry him.
He may have money, but money isn't everything. Indeed, it's entered very
near the foot of my list of the things to be desired in life. As to
position, my own is sufficiently good to make his immaterial. We go back
indefinitely ourselves, you know; although, to be sure, I've found some
things in the family records which seemed to suggest that it might have
been better not to have gone back so far. Last, but very far from least,
I don't love him, and, in view of the fact that, if he really had the
slightest feeling for me, I should, in all probability, have known of it
long ago, I must say, my dear mother, that your suggestion strikes me as
having all the elements of a screaming farce."
At this point Madame Palffy applied a minute handkerchief to her eyes,
and began to weep softly.
"How cruelly you speak!" she moaned, "and I--I meant it all for the
best."
Fortunately, Mrs. Carnby had never seen Madame Palffy cry. As it was,
she imagined that nothing about that lady could be more irritating than
her smile. But Margery, under whose faultlessly-fitting jacket beat the
tenderest and most considerate of hearts, was moved. She watched her
mother in silence for a moment, and then went across to the divan, and,
kneeling beside it, took Madame Palffy's available hand in hers.
"I did speak cruelly," she said, "and I'm sorry. Let me see if I can't
put it more considerately, so that you'll understand. Love is--has
always been--to me the most sacred thing on earth. I've watched, as
every girl must watch, for its coming, believing that its touch would
transform all life. There can be, it seems to me, but one man in the
world able to do that, and I'm content to wait for him, without trying
to hurry the future, or aid fate or Providence, whichever it may be, in
the disposal of my heart. I've been glad all my life that we were not
rich enough for our means to be an object. Of course, poverty has barred
many out from happiness, but it pleases me to think that when a man
seeks me, there can be no doubt that it is for myself alone. Not only
that, but I've hoped that he would be poor as well, and it's been my
pride that, when I searched my heart, I found that wish deep within it,
without affectation, without a hint of uncertainty. I'm old-fashioned, I
suppose, and out of touch with the times, but I hold the faith that was
before riches or social position came into the world--I hold to love,
the love of a strong man for a pure woman, the love of a good woman for
an honest man! Let me but start honestly, with no motive that I am
ashamed to tell, no thought governing my action save reverence for those
three great responsibilities--love, marriage, and motherhood, and I have
no fear of what may come."
As the girl was speaking, Madame Palffy's sobs grew fainter, and finally
she forgot to dab at her eyes with the morsel of lace. She was
interested.
"It's this great reverence which I have for love," continued Margery,
"that prompted me to answer impatiently when you spoke of Monsieur de
Boussac. You didn't mean to hurt me, of course: I know that. But, to me,
it was as if you'd torn away the veil before my holy of holies, and cast
out the image I had cherished there, and were thrusting a grinning
golden idol in its place. I want love to come into my life freely--not
to be invited to dinner, and announced by the butler. There will be no
question in my mind when it has really come, no measuring of the man
with a yardstick. I shall feel that he is for me, even before he asks me
to be his. Above all, the question must come from his lips, and the
answer be for his ears alone. No man loving me as I would be loved would
be content to employ an ambassador."
Here Madame Palffy came to herself, and moaned again.
"I don't mean to reproach you, mother. I believe, and I'm very glad to
believe, that you've always had my happiness in view. But, in the nature
of things, there are many points upon which our ideas are bound to
differ, and this is one. You thought it best that I should be educated
in America, and you mustn't be surprised to find me American as a
result. Look back. Do you realize that I've not spent six full months in
Paris since I was a little girl? Now that I've come back to you, I can't
readjust all my ideas in a moment. I want to please you, dear, in any
way I can, but I'm an American all through, and you--well, perhaps
you're more French than you realize, yourself. We must try to grow
together, but in many ways it will not be easy. We must be patient with
each other, dear."
"I see what you mean," said Madame Palffy mournfully. "We're as far
apart as the poles."
"Not quite that, I think," answered Margery, with a smile, "but, in some
respects, three thousand miles. Let us try to remember that: it will
make things easier."
"It's a terrible disappointment to me," came lugubriously from the
handkerchief.
"I'm sorry," answered Margery, "very sorry. But I'm sure that I could
never love Monsieur de Boussac, and sure that I could never even believe
in his love unless he himself should tell me of it. I think we
understand each other now, mother. If I'd had any idea of this before, I
might have spared you this talk. But, painful as it has been, it has, at
all events, brought us nearer together. Don't let us speak of it
again."
Then Madame Palffy unaccountably touched her zenith.
"No," she agreed, rising majestically from the divan, "no, we'll not
speak of it again. It must make no change between us. I love you very
dearly, Margery, and I wish I could have seen you his wife, but if it
cannot be, that's all there is to it. Let's dress for dinner, my dear,"
and, bending over, she kissed the air affectionately, a half-inch from
her daughter's cheek. "You're a strange girl," she added, "and I don't
pretend to understand you. But choose your own husband. I shall like him
for your sake."
As Margery left the room, Madame Palffy turned to the mirror, and
surveyed with a sigh the ravages which this emotional half-hour had made
in her appearance. For the three following days she was a mute martyr,
and relished the _role_ immeasurably.
Margery, dressing for dinner, hummed softly to herself, smiling as no
one of her Paris friends had ever seen her smile.
"'Ah, Moon of my Delight, that knows no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again'"--
Andrew Vane had played an accompaniment to that a hundred times, in her
aunt's big shore house at Beverly.