MADAME AURORE
Madame Aurore was little and wasted and shrill.
She had deep scars in her neck, and dead-looking yellow hair.
She was drenched in cheap scent.
Her untidy, helter-skelter dress gave no hint of the admirable taste she
lavished upon others.
She saw at once what we ought to have, and she talked about our clothes
with an enthusiasm as great as Betty's own.
"Ah, but _Madame_!" she remonstrated dramatically, when my mother showed
her the new white satin, which was for me, and a creamy lace gown which
was to be modernised for Bettina--"not _boet_ vhite!"
My mother explained that my gown was to have rose-coloured garnishing.
"Mais non! mais _non_!" Madame must pardon her for the liberty, but she,
Madame Aurore, could not bring herself to see our chief advantage thrown
away.
What, then, was our chief advantage? Betty demanded.
What indeed, but the contrast between us. The moment she laid eyes on
the hair of Mademoiselle Bettina she had said to herself: the frock of
Mademoiselle Bettina should be that tender green of tilleul--with just a
note of bleu de ciel. Oh, a dress of spring-time--an April dress, a gay
little dress, for all its tenderness! A dress to make happy the heart of
all who look thereon.
But "green!" We had sent all the way to London for the white satin, and
we had no green.
Then 'twas in truth une bonne chance that Madame Aurore _had_! She often
bought up bargains and gave her clients an opportunity to acquire them.
She rushed out of the room, and returned with a piece of silk chiffon of
the most adorable hue. She showed us the effect over white satin. My
satin. But then, as Madame Aurore said, we could so easily send to Stagg
and Mantle's for more.
She looked at me out of snapping black eyes--eyes like animated
boot-buttons. "Yes, yes; for you, Mademoiselle, ze note sall be serenite
... hein? Zis priceless old lace over ivory satin. Ah...." She struck
an attitude. "I _see_ it. So ... and so. A ceinture panne, couleur de
feuille d'automne touched with gold broderie. Hein? Oh, very distingue,
hein?"
"It must not be expensive"; we had to say that to Madame Aurore all that
first day, at regular intervals. But she had her way. She sewed hard,
and she chattered as hard as she sewed.
Bettina ran across her in the passage that first evening as Madame
Aurore came up from supper. And they began instantly on the fruitful
theme of "green gown." My mother called out to Bettina that she had
talked enough about clothes for one day, and in any case she had left us
to go early to bed. Bettina regretted her rash promise--wasn't the least
tired, and could have talked clothes till cock-crow! There was some
argument on this head at the door, in which Madame Aurore joined, with
too great a freedom, and an elaborate air of ranging herself on my
mother's side. This pleased, least of all, the person Madame Aurore
designed to propitiate.
Madame Aurore, I am sure, had not been in the house an hour before she
had taken the measure of our main preoccupation. Mademoiselle Bettina
ought to be grateful, she said, to have a mother so devoted, so
solicitous. Standing near the open door, she piled up an exaggerated
case of maternal love. There was nothing in life like the love between
mother and child. Ah, didn't she know! Her own little girl----
My mother said she must have the door shut now, and I was sent to undo
Betty's gown.
Bettina thought it angelic of Madame Aurore not to resent our mother's
lack of interest in the small Aurore. According to Bettina, Madame
showed a wonderfully nice disposition in not withdrawing her interest
from us after that. She seemed rather to imply: very well, you don't
care about my child ... but I am still ready to care about yours.
"Parfaitement!" ... the little dressmaker remembered Bettina's passing
Dew Pond House the summer before. It was true what Hermione had
reported. Madame Aurore had leaned out of the window to watch Bettina.
She had even expressed the wish that she might have the dressing of
cette jolie enfant.
Oh, but life was a droll affair!
Bettina thought it entirely delightful. She went about the house
singing. The first time Madame Aurore heard Bettina she arrested the
rapid stab of her basting needle: "Who ees dat?"
"That is my youngest daughter."
"She tink to go on ze stage?"
"Oh, no."
"Not? It ess a vast, zat."
* * * * *
She was always cold.
Whenever we were out of the morning-room she piled on the coal. On the
second day I remonstrated. Fuel, I explained, was very expensive so far
from the coal-fields. She smiled. "You are ze careful one, hein?" and
she looked at me in a way which made me uncomfortable.
But I did not feel about the poor little creature as my mother did.
My mother went so far as to wish we had not sent for her. She would
never have allowed her to come if she had seen her first. I thought my
mother severe.
Everybody else, including the servants, liked Madame Aurore. No wonder.
She spent her life doing things for people. Sewing for us all day like
mad, so that our two best frocks might be finished in spite of the
shortness of the time; and still ready at nightfall to show the cook how
to make p'tite marmite, or sauce a la financiere--equally ready to
advise the housemaid how to give the Bond Street, not to say the Rue de
la Paix, touch to her Sunday alpaca, and chic to old Ransom's beehive
hat.
If she asked them one and all more questions in a minute than they could
answer in a month, what did that show but the generous interest she took
in her fellow-beings?
Bettina, with her little air of large experience, said that Madame
Aurore was the most "sympathetic" person she had ever met. Madame
Aurore's benevolent concern about our clothes, our soups, sauces, and
servants, and everything that was ours, extended to our friends and
relations and everything that was theirs. She had never, she said, known
people--let alone such charming people as we--with so few acquaintances.
Bettina thought Madame Aurore was sorry for us.
She asked a great deal about the Helmstones. "Ze only friends and zey
are avay for seex mont!" Ah, it was well we were going to London. We
should die, else, of aloneness. Aunt Josephine plainly was the one ray
of light in our grey existence. Where did she live? Lowndes Square! Ah,
but a very expensive and splendid part of London! No news to us, who had
our own private measure for social altitudes. Bettina had looked out
Lowndes Square on our faded map of London. Aunt Josephine was only a
private person, but she lived nearer the King and Queen than the
Helmstones did.
And for all her being a Biosophist she had asked us to stay for the
Coronation. Bettina frequently led the conversation to the great event
of June. But this queer little Frenchwoman was more interested in Aunt
Josephine than she was in the King and Queen. Here was distinction for
an Aunt!
And what was she like--this lady? We must have a picture of our only and
so valuable relation.
Bettina went and rooted about in the deep print and photograph drawer,
till she brought Aunt Josephine to light. Very faded and old-fashioned
looking, but Madame Aurore regarded the face with a respectful
enthusiasm. "Oh, une grande dame! une vraie grande dame!" Madame Aurore
understood better now what was required.
We repudiated, on our aunt's behalf, the idea that she was so much
grande dame as philanthropist, thinker, recluse. We did not deny her
grandeur. We but clarified it; or, at least, Bettina did.
"Bettina talks too much to that woman," my mother said to me privately.
She sent for Bettina and told her she was not to speak to Madame Aurore
about anything except her work.
Bettina thought to interpret this order literally would be inhuman.
Besides, she considered it very nice of Madame Aurore to take such an
interest in us. "_I_ am grateful when people take an interest," said
Bettina with her air of superiority.
When my mother heard that Bettina had been discussing Aunt Josephine,
and had unearthed the photograph to show to Madame Aurore, she was
annoyed. "Go and bring me the picture," she said.
Bettina went into the morning-room, and looked about for some minutes.
The little dressmaker sat there, in a litter of white and green, sewing
furiously. Bettina said at last that she hated most dreadfully to bother
Madame Aurore, but where was that old photograph?
Madame Aurore looked up absently. "Had Mademoiselle Bettina not taken it
out?"
"Perhaps I did----" Bettina scoured the house.
Aunt Josephine's photograph was never found.
* * * * *
I was glad our mother did not know that Bettina had told Madame Aurore
about the pendant and the diamond star. Bettina excused herself by
saying Madame Aurore had been so certain a lady like our mother must
have jewels, and that she would lend them to her daughters, in order to
put the finishing touch of elegance to our toilette. Betty had felt it
due to our mother to acknowledge that a part, at least, of this exalted
expectation was not so wide of the mark. And Bettina endorsed Madame
Aurore's opinion that a diamond star certainly _would_ "light up" my
ivory satin and old lace. Also--but no, we must do without.
* * * * *
The green frock was all but finished. We had brought the cheval glass
out of my mother's room. She was "not strong enough to stand the
patchouli," so she missed the great moment of the final trying on.
Bettina stood before the glass, looking somehow more childish than ever,
or rather seeming less of common earth and more of fairyland, in the
tunic-frock of green, her short curls on her neck.
My fancy that she was like somebody out of "The Midsummer Night's
Dream," was set to flight by Madame Aurore's shower of couturiere's
compliment, mixed with highly practical considerations, such as: "See
how it falls when you sit down. Parfaitement! And can you valk in it?
But _wis grace_!" Bettina proved she could. "A merveille! Sapristi!
Mademoiselle Bettine would see the sensation she was going to create in
London. Could she lift ze arm--hein?" Mais belle comme un ange!--many
makers of quite beautiful gowns studied the effect seulement en repos.
Mademoiselle Bettine would, without doubt, dance in that frock. Let us
see, did it lend itself? Bettina moved about the morning-room to waltz
time--laughing at and with Madame Aurore; stopping to make court
curtsies; watching in the glass if green frock had pretty manners.
One thing more, its maker said, and behold Perfection! It needed ... it
cried aloud for a single jewel.
"Ah, yes." Bettina's look fell. No doubt the finishing touch would have
been a pearl and emerald pendant. But----
Madame Aurore struck in with a torrential rapture, drowning explanation
and regret. Life, Madame Aurore shrilled, was for ever using her, humble
instrument though she was--for the working out of these benevolences.
There had she--but three days ago--all innocent, unknowing--tossed that
piece of chiffon tilleul into her trunk. Or rather, not her hand
performed the act--not hers at all. The hand of Fate! And now, _The
Finger!_ ... pointing straight at the pearl and emerald pendant. But,
instantly, must Mademoiselle Bettine go and get the ravishing jewel--the
diamond star, as well, while she was about it.
Then poor Betty had to say these glories were no more.
Madame Aurore snapped her boot-button eyes, and rolled them up. Our
poor, _poor_ mother! Deeply, ah! but profoundly, Madame Aurore
commiserated une dame si distinguee, si elegante, being in straitened
circumstances. Ah, Madame Aurore understood! She would be most
economical with the coals.
All the same she wasn't.
But what did it matter! since she turned us out dresses that we were
sure Hermione, herself, would have characterised as "Dreams." Bettina
went about the house, singing:
"'Where are you going to, my pretty maid?'
'Going to London, Sir,' she said...."
* * * * *
Madame Aurore even managed to put the finishing touches to the two
frocks made in the village, which Bettina called our Coronation
robes--just white muslin, but not "just muslin" at all, after they had
passed through Madame Aurore's hands. She listened indulgently while
Bettina wondered how the young Princes would like driving through London
in a gold coach, and above all how the little Princess would feel; and
how she would look; and how did Madame Aurore think she would do her
hair?
"I don't like that woman," my mother observed pointedly to Bettina.
"Oh, dearest, she feels it. I know from something----"
"I do not object to her knowing. But I am not interested in Madame
Aurore." My mother dismissed her.
The fact was that none of the torrent of talk (carried on now in a
whisper, with elaborate deference to the chere malade)--none of it had
to do with Madame Aurore herself. We had had to ask her all of the
little we came to know about her. She had no regular business in London.
Ah, no, she was too often ill. She merely went out to work when she was
"strong enuss."
"Zen too, ze leedle gal. I haf to sink about her." The thought seemed
one to harass. All would be different if Mme. Aurore had a shop.
We agreed that to have a shop full of lovely French models, would be
delightful. And by-and-by the little Aurore would help in the shop.
"_Nevair!_" said Mme. Aurore with sudden passion. She knew all about
being in shops. It was to prevent her daughter from knowing, too, that
Mme. Aurore must make money. The little Aurore should go to the Convent
school--which seemed somehow an odd destination for the daughter of
Madame Aurore. She spoke of it as a far dream, beckoning.
"Nossing--but _nossing_ can be done in zis world vidout monny." And what
people will do for money--oh, little did we know! But the world was like
that. Eh bien, Madame Aurore had not made it. _Had_ she done so, it
would be a better place.
Betty and I smiled at the pains taken to make this clear. Madame Aurore
professed herself revolted by an arrangement which made "ze goodness or
ze badness of a pairson" dependent upon where you happened to find
yourself.
"Par example you can be extremement good _here_." More. She would go so
far as to say you must be a genius to discover how to be bad here.
Through Betty's laughing protest, the little woman went on with
seriousness to assure us it was "une chose bien differente dans ..." she
checked herself, bit off the end of her thread, and spat it out.
"It is different, you mean, in Crutchley Street?" Betty asked. And,
though she got no answer, I think we both understood the anxious mother
to be thinking of the small Aurore left all alone in one of the world's
Mean Streets. Perhaps the reason Betty got no answer to her question was
that she had slightly raised her voice in putting it, and I had said,
"Sh!"
"What ees it?" Madame Aurore demanded, looking round.
"I was only reminding Betty," I said. "We mustn't disturb my mother."
Hah! naturally not. _Whatever_ happened, she was not to be disturbed!
I was afraid, from the tone in which Madame Aurore said this, that she
thought I had been reproving her. And, to divert her thoughts, I asked:
"Who takes care of her--the little daughter--while you are away?"
Again she bit viciously at the thread. "Not motch 'care'!" The small
eyes snapped as she drew the thread through the needle's eye. I had
never seen even her hands fly so fast, or her whole feverish little body
attack the basting with such fury of energy as after that reference to
the child left behind in Crutchley Street.
Bettina said soothingly: "I suppose you left her with some good friend?"
"Ze best I haf."
The admission was made in an accent so coldly hopeless that Bettina,
round-eyed, said: "Oh, dear, isn't she a nice friend?"
"She is like ozzers. She is as nice as she can afford." Madame Aurore
had recovered her shrill vivacity. She had not, after all, taken to
heart my hint about keeping our voices down. "In some parts of ze
vorld," she went on, in that raised, defiant note, "you might be quite
good for a week; wis luck for a few months; but you could not be good
from year's end to year's end."
"Why was that?" Bettina asked softly.
Madame Aurore laughed out. "Ze climat!" she said, in a voice that must
certainly have penetrated the next room. "Somesing in ze air." Then
lower, with a tigerish swiftness: "I shall not ron ze risk for _my_
liddle gal! _Non!_" She tossed the satin on the machine, thrust it under
the needle, and seemed to work the treadle by dint of compressing lips
and knitting brows.
Bettina and I agreed we would not talk to her any more about her
daughter, since, unlike most mothers, the thought of her child did not
soften Madame Aurore, but made her hard and angry.
We put this down to wounded feelings at my mother's curt dismissal of
the theme.
Surreptitiously--for she knew leave would be refused--Bettina gave
Madame Aurore some of our old toys, and other little gifts, to take home
to her daughter.
I did not prevent this, for I, too, felt uneasily that we ought somehow
to make up for our mother's nervous detestation of Madame Aurore.
Had this, as the little dressmaker hinted, something of sheer sickness
in it--an invalid's caprice? Bettina said lightheartedly: "Oh, it's only
because Aurore is a foreigner. Mother admits she never did like
foreigners."
After the first day there was almost no personal interchange between
Madame Aurore and her employer. Yet I had a queer feeling that a silent
drama was being played out between those two who, without meeting, were
acting and reacting upon each other.
Madame Aurore asked each day, How was madame? in a voice of extremest
solicitude--nay, of gloomiest apprehension.
I found myself wrestling with an uncomfortable feeling that this
hopeless view of my mother's health was somehow prompted by a desire "to
get even" with the one unresponsive member of our little circle--to get
even in the only way open to Madame Aurore. I knew she advised the
housemaid to look out for another place, and offered to find her one in
London, where she would be paid double, and have almost nothing to do.
The housemaid was greatly tempted, but I was told she said she wouldn't
go till her mistress was better.
"Bettair! She vill not last a mont!" said Madame Aurore.
At first such echoes as reached me of these prognostications made me
merely angry. But I could not quite cast them aside. I began to wonder
miserably if there were anything in this view. After all we, too--even
Eric--had held it ourselves, only such a little while before!
I wrote to Aunt Josephine to say that if my mother were not better by
Monday morning, I should bring Bettina as arranged; but I would stay
only one night and go home the next day.
The question rose on Friday as to whether Madame Aurore should return
to London on Saturday night, or some time on Sunday.
"Saturday night," said my mother with decision.
Bettina ventured to urge the Sunday alternative. "The poor little thing
is so tired after sewing all day----"
To which my mother responded by ordering the cart for Saturday evening.
"I cannot sleep with that woman in the house."
. . . . .
Bettina ran in to say Madame Aurore was ready to say good-bye. To our
embarrassment, our mother would not permit Madame Aurore to enter the
room, even for the purpose of taking leave.
We went out and did what we could to soften the refusal. "She has not
been sleeping...." "She is trying to rest...." "She is so much obliged
to you...."
Ah, Madame Aurore understood. Our poor, poor mother was undoubtedly
failing. We were adjured to take every care. Certainly we should not
both leave the poor lady.
We told Madame Aurore that we should never forget her. "I shall take
good care of the address," Bettina said.
No, Madame Aurore would send us a new address. She was looking for
larger rooms. She believed she was going to be stronger now. She meant
to take on two or three hands. In that case, she would not be able to go
out any more to people's houses. She would let us know....
She filled the hall with her patchouli and shrill vivacity, and
presently was gone.
When we went back into my mother's room, we found her telling the
housemaid to hang our gowns in a draught "to purify them."
Betty was moved to some final remonstrance.
My mother cut her short: "That was a horrible woman!"
"Well, well," I said, "she's gone."
"Yes. That is the best that can be said of Madame Aurore. We are done
with her for ever."