_Paris_
CORNED BEEF HASH
Steamship and steamer friends had been left behind. Paris was ahead,
closer now with every minute, every hurrying second. The little French
girl who had kept on her hat and gloves and had read, in silence, a
paper covered copy of Anatole France all the way from Cherbourg, let
down the window, leaned out to wave a beckoning hand, and shouted,
“_Porteur! Porteur!_”
Cynthia waited patiently, but as the other seemed in no haste to
relinquish her place at the window, the American finally leaned over
the French girl’s shoulder and beckoned in similar fashion. The long
train slid gently to a stop and a score of stout little blue smocked
men seemed to spring from the ground and began taking baggage from the
open windows, loading it on wide straps over their sturdy shoulders.
Cynthia captured the eye of number 972; a beady eye above a red nose
and a moustache that would have graced a member of the Beggar’s Opera.
She gulped, “Taxi!”--thank goodness, there was a word that meant the
same in several languages, at which he grinned cheerfully and slung her
heavy suitcase and her paint box in one huge paw. The other grasped her
neighbor’s bags and the whole strange and unwieldy combination lumbered
off down the platform. Was he gone for good? Better follow that French
girl, Cynthia decided. She seemed unconcerned. Oh, one had to give up
the ticket here, and there was the porter again. No more customs, that
had all been cleared at the quay, earlier in the morning.
The street met her with a blast of warm July air, a dazzle of summer
sunlight and such a medley of strange noises: taxis hooting in a new,
high key; shrill-pitched voices, mingled shouts and confusion, that she
stood for a moment bewildered and lost. Horrid luck that no one she
knew from the boat had been coming to Paris on this train!
Then Cynthia saw that her bag and paint box had been piled into a
taxi like a shiny black beetle and the blue smocked one waited for
his _pourboire_. She tipped him ten francs. Was that too much, or too
little? She had been warned that, in either case, he would glare, but
this one smiled, muttered, “_Merci!_” and departed. The hotel address
was written on a card and Cynthia had only to show that to the driver,
hop in, and they were off.
“Well!”
“Well, so this is Paris!”
“Well ...,” Cynthia giggled nervously. To be really here. To have
arrived safely, all by herself. Well, that was something. “Paris!”
She sighed, relaxed back against the cushions and closed her eyes for a
moment. Oh, the taxi was stopping. Her eyes popped open. Just a little
policeman in a toy soldier cape and a white stick with which he seemed,
miraculously, to hold up this mad traffic. Off again. She shut her eyes
once more. New smells, hot asphalt, violets, damp warm air, something
cooking, other things. She just couldn’t keep her eyes shut.
The car was running along gray cobbles between gray houses high and
incredibly ancient. Tall, plane trees leaned out over gray walls that
held in a silvery stream. The Seine! A little gay colored steamer, like
a miniature ferry-boat, hooted and put off from a landing. Cynthia
wanted to hug it all at once, to pinch herself to be sure she was here.
How she wished Judy could see it, and Chick, dear Chick. This was to
have been their honeymoon. He’d be over shortly, a few weeks at the
most. And meanwhile there was work to be done; a language to learn,
Nancy and Mrs. Brewster to see, and covers to be done for _Little One’s
Magazine_.
Was that, could that possibly be, Notre Dame over there to the left?
And the Eiffel Tower clear ahead, misty against sunny sky? She had seen
it as they came in on the train. Really Paris!
“Not a motion picture!” chuckled Cynthia. And tomorrow she could go and
see it all for herself.
Then a second bridge, Place St. Michel. And a swift turn to the left
into a narrow street where noises echoed back from the high stone
houses to right and left. They drew up before a door and a boy, in a
horizontal striped waistcoat and white shirt sleeves, came out from
the hotel entrance. Here was her home in Paris.
Inside, at the little brass-railed desk, they had a key for her room
and a letter from Mrs. Brewster, who had made her reservation for her.
There was a little cage-like elevator into which one squeezed, barely
avoiding the folding doors, and then up, up, like a wobbly balloon. A
hallway musty and dark, and at last a tall room with two high French
windows opening on to a small balcony.
“Yes, this will do nicely,” said Cynthia in her best French, and so
moved into Paris.
When the door closed, Cynthia sat down to catch her breath. So much had
happened in the last half hour, she had seen so much that was new, and
strange, and lovely. “I suppose there are people that live in Paris all
the time and take it as a matter of course,” she told herself. “And, I
suppose, I shall get to take it that way too, after a bit. But now it’s
all rather frightening. I wonder if I can make myself understood, I
wonder if I shall get lost, I wonder ... oh goodness, how shall I order
meals? But perhaps menu French is the same everywhere.”
Mrs. Brewster’s letter was reassuring. She seemed to think Cynthia
would find everything very simple and easy. “But I am giving you the
address of a little French girl, who speaks excellent English, she was
a governess in London for some years. If you get lonely, or wish to
improve your accent,” ha, _accent!_ “don’t hesitate to look her up.”
Enclosed was also a note from Nancy.
“Do come to Conquet,” she begged. “Mother and I are both painting here.
It’s all pearly gray mists and long, empty beaches and sabots, and fish
and steep streets and old houses. And you can find lots of children to
pose for your covers.”
It did sound fun. But Paris seemed quite enough adventure for the
moment. And Cynthia’s purse was very flat. She must first see Mr.
Culbert, who was over here now, and was the editor of the magazine for
which she had a contract for a dozen covers, see if she couldn’t get an
advance on the first order, and if he could put her in touch with a way
to get models. Just at the moment she hadn’t the slightest idea how to
go about getting one for the painting she must do.
She sat down and wrote to Nancy, planning to mail the letter when she
went out to dinner. Then leaning out on the little balcony, she watched
the light fade in the street below, listening to the sounds of Paris
echo up between the ancient, stained, backward sloping housefronts.
What, she wondered, with a little pang of homesickness, were they doing
now at home? Six o’clock ... but no, time was different. Was it three
over there, or nine, now? The mental gymnastics made her head reel and
she decided that she was hungry. But plenty of time yet. Cynthia hated
to admit to herself that she dreaded that first meal alone, doubted her
ability to order food, even to find her way home again, once she had
set her foot off the hotel doorstep. It was after eight o’clock when
she finally tore herself away from the window and summoned courage to
go out for dinner. “You can’t starve till morning, idiot!” she told
herself severely. “Just walk downstairs, and out the door. There must
be lots of places to eat within the next two blocks. Why, France is a
nation of cooks!”
A short way up the Boule’ Miche’, she found a little place with pretty
red-and-white checked table cloths on the iron topped tables, behind
dusty box hedges in their wooden boxes. This was pleasantly removed
from a small band that was playing lustily, and not too melodiously, on
the street corner. Funny about those bands. She had passed three in the
short distance from the hotel and another had begun playing beneath her
window just as she went out.
No one else seemed to be eating. Perhaps French people dined later
than this. The menu was as much an enigma as she had expected. It was
written in a flowing Spencerian hand, in dim violet ink on a limp and
food-stained bit of paper. Hardly a word seemed legible, and none of it
was intelligible. “Goodness,” murmured Cynthia, and looked about her.
Could she get up and leave, and try another place? But the waiter had
already placed a napkin beside her, fork and knife beside the napkin.
Cynthia decided she hadn’t the moral courage to rise and depart. Well,
here goes!
“Bring me some of that, and that, and that,” she directed and pointed
near the center of the page. The main body of a meal always came near
the middle of the menu, didn’t it?
The waiter, who wore a spotty black dinner jacket and a white apron,
broke into a voluble explanation of some sort. Evidently they were out
of this, would mademoiselle not prefer that? Mademoiselle nodded in
agreement. Yes, anything. _Oui, oui, oui!_ The waiter departed on swift
feet. Cynthia wondered what he would bring.
What he brought was a strange piece of pink meat swimming in a
cold bath of oil. This she poked about with a fork, wondering what
particular portion of what animal it might be. It hardly seemed edible,
and certainly though she was hungry, she was not yet hungry enough for
that. After a long time the waiter seemed to appreciate that she had
finished with that course, and brought her some hot boiled potatoes.
These were more palatable. And bread helped too. Then came a small
white something wrapped in tin foil, and served with a large salt
shaker.
But the foil proved to contain a small roll of really delicious cream
cheese, and eaten with sugar, which came from the large salt shaker,
and more of the crisp French bread. It served to round off the simple
meal.
“I suppose I have eaten,” thought Cynthia as she wandered home again.
“I wish I weren’t still so hungry. At least that meal was cheap,
and that’s important at the moment.” But she continued to think of
hot beefsteaks, and hot muffins, and hot chicken pies, and what she
wouldn’t do to a big plate of ham and eggs. ... Oh dear! But tomorrow
she’d try another place. Perhaps that wasn’t a really good example of
French cooking.
As she strolled slowly back towards the hotel all the little bands
were going full force. Cynthia noticed that people were beginning to
dance, under the lights, on the hard cobbled pavements to the jiggling,
monotonous tunes. She leaned for a while against the closed iron
shutter of a shop, and watched the gay crowds gather. They seemed very
happy. Was it some celebration, she wondered, or did French people
always dance like this in the evening? The musicians beneath her
window were in fine fettle, tootling, sawing, and bumping away at no
particular tune, but just a sort of penny whistle noise with a strongly
marked rhythm for the dancers.
She sat in her window watching them till she got so sleepy she could
no longer keep her eyes open, then deciding they’d probably keep it up
pretty late, till ten or maybe eleven, crawled into bed. It had been a
long day since Cherbourg that morning, and in spite of the band, which
surely must stop before midnight, she thought she could sleep.
But the monotonous, tuneless sound seemed to go round, and round, and
round inside her head. She dreamed that she was waltzing rapidly with
the _garçon_ of the striped waistcoat, with Madame in her black taffeta
dress and wide gold chain, with the black cat of the restaurant. Then
woke to hear the band still scraping, and bumping merrily. Foggily
she struggled out of bed and closed first the heavy wooden shutters,
then the window and went back to sleep with her head hot under the
bedclothes. Twice she woke again at odd hours, but always that rhythm
penetrated the darkness.
Then she woke again. Surprisingly all was still. How blissful that
was! She was sure the musicians had stopped only a short time ago,
and waited tensely to see if they would start again. But there was no
sound. Then rolling over with aching head she saw that light streamed
from between the chinks of the shutters, and that her watch said seven
o’clock.
She opened her window, went back to bed and slept till nine. Then she
wandered out to find breakfast. Only a gnawing hunger had made her get
up at all.
Strangely enough none of the restaurants seemed to be open. She peered
in at two, between drawn net curtains, to see chairs piled on empty
tables, and boys washing down the floors. Then rounding a corner
Cynthia came full on the Seine, between its gray stone banks, and a
gray stone bridge beyond which loomed, full in the summer sunlight, the
twin towers of Notre Dame de Paris. Oh lovely!
Along the embankment were the tiny stalls of the booksellers, all
closed now. Didn’t Paris people go to work until noon, she wondered?
Then at the end of the block, facing a small open square she saw a
sign which read “_Café, Chocolat_.” Here, perhaps, she could get some
sort of meal. Outdoors, under a gay striped awning she found a little
wicker table with a red and white top, and wicker chairs. A big black
cat with a white bib, and green eyes gave her welcome with purrs and
ankle rubbings. This was going to be jolly. She stammered her desire
for chocolate, and learned that “little breads,” and butter could also
be procured, and that little breads were really crisp warm rolls.
Notre Dame faced her, serene, solid, impregnable. When breakfast was
over she’d go across and visit the church, and stroll along by the
river. This must be the famous Left Bank, where all the artists and
students lived.
The cat rubbed, purring, about the table, and a small boy with eyes
as softly dark as the cat’s fur, and clad in a diminutive smock of
black, with a small black beret perched on his dark curls came out to
stare solemnly at this stranger. Cynthia buttered a piece of roll, and
offered it to him. With a shy, “_Merci!_” muttered in an oddly deep
voice he took it, bolted it, and watched for the next mouthful. Cynthia
grinned at him, ate a bit herself and gave him, thereafter, alternate
bites. By the time two rolls were finished, and the big pitcher of hot
chocolate was drained to the last sweet drop, the small boy had smiled
also, had told her that his name was Nono, and that he lived here. Here
at last was a friend. Tomorrow she’d bring a sketchbook to breakfast.
When tomorrow came Nono appeared, along with his black cat, for more
bits of warm roll. But this time he smiled immediately, crinkling
his dark eyes with an amused and delightful welcome. When his father
brought the chocolate, he said something in brief reproof, but Cynthia
protested. “Let him stay,” she begged and displayed her sketchbook.
The man grinned and nodded. He knew about artists, and explained to
the boy that he must sit still for mademoiselle. Whereat Nono climbed
into one of the café chairs, and grasping firm hold of the huge and
somewhat reluctant cat, proceeded to demonstrate that he was born to be
an artist’s model.
Oh, this was glorious. Cynthia’s fingers flew to get it all down before
it could dissolve, and when the cat finally went calmly to sleep, Nono
continued to sit immovable, wide eyed, minutes on minutes. Cynthia got
more and more thrilled. It was going to be a honey of a sketch. She
wondered if, maybe, colors tomorrow. ...
At last she nodded to the child. He laughed and stretched, and dumped
the sleeping cat from his knees. Cynthia put two francs in his small
hand. Was that, she wondered, too much, or too little? It was what her
breakfast had cost her. Apparently, by his reception, it was all right.
“Tomorrow?” she asked in French, and pointed toward the chair again.
“_Oui, oui, Demain_,” agreed Nono. Then he must know that artists
sometimes wanted one to pose again.
That was on Sunday. Saturday had not been strikingly successful. For
some reason, perhaps because it was Saturday, everything, banks and the
Express Company, Mr. Culbert’s office and most of the museums Cynthia
wished to visit, had been closed. Monday, of course, they would be open
again, and she could get in touch with Mr. Culbert. Cynthia’s money was
running low and she must ask for an advance on the first cover, and
must find some way to get in touch with models to work from.
But Monday was no better than Sunday, nor than Saturday had been.
The band, for the third time, had played all night, and Cynthia had
slept fitfully, hot and miserable in the closed, noisy room. She awoke
feeling as though she could sleep for a week. Then she remembered Nono.
Here at last was one bright spot in Paris. She hurried out to breakfast
with her large sketch pad and her color box under her arm.
Nono was waiting for her, and so was the black cat. Cynthia was
ravenously hungry. A continental breakfast wasn’t enough food to last
one through a day of sightseeing, and so far she had found no good
place to eat. Hastily she drank her chocolate, shared a double order of
rolls and butter with the somewhat greedy little Nono. She herself was
anxious to get to work on this color sketch.
Nono, complete with the large sleepy cat, clambered into his wicker
chair. The sunlight reflected warm and yellow beneath his chin and his
eyes were half closed, amusingly, in the glare. The black smock seemed
almost a dark green in contrast to the cat’s soft fur, and beyond them
was the red and white ruffle of the awning, a brilliant splash of warm
color. Cynthia asked to have her little painting pail filled with
water, sketched in the brief outline of her composition, and slashed
happily into color. Once she said, mechanically “Rest!” and found that
the boy understood. In a few minutes he returned to his place. The
cat was a little different, but Cynthia had allowed for that, and now
sketched him in and completed that part of the drawing all in one pose.
The drawing was emerging with both charm and strength. Black, red and
warm flesh tones accented with the green of the cat’s eyes, and one
white paw lifted to rest against Nono’s black smock. This, thought
Cynthia, was one of the nicest things she had ever done. Even fatigue
and hunger seemed to have added to her ability since her senses seemed
sharpened, nerves tautened by the past two days.
She had decided to go that afternoon and find the little French girl
Mrs. Brewster had recommended for language lessons. Her visit to the
Express Company, and to the office where she had hoped to find Mr.
Culbert were as unsuccessful as Saturday’s visits. Everything was still
closed tight.
Cynthia was beginning to worry. She had only a few hundred francs,
about fifteen dollars, left in her purse and there was no telling how
long this celebration might last. It puzzled her. She had asked Madame
at the desk and had learned that it was the “Fourteenth of July,”
whatever that was! But Friday had been the fourteenth. Surely they
didn’t celebrate America’s Fourth of July over here, did they? Foggily
she tried to connect it with Lafayette and the two Revolutions, but
couldn’t make it out. Everywhere the little street bands continued to
play and people continued to dance in the streets.
Still pondering on this mystery she found the house on the Boulevard
St. Michel that bore the address of the Mademoiselle Menard. Mrs.
Brewster had explained that she lived on the fifth floor and that “in
France the first floor is not the ground floor, nor the next, which is
called the entresol. You have to go up two flights to get to the first
floor and then begin to count from there!” They were long flights,
too, and Cynthia had begun to feel a little faint by the time she
reached the top. When she found Mr. Culbert, if she ever did, she would
certainly beg him to take her out for a real dinner!
Cynthia put her finger on the large white push button and a bell pealed
somewhere way off inside. But no one answered it. After a bit she tried
again, and then again. What should she do next? She already had visited
Notre Dame, and knew the Cluny and Luxembourg Gardens, for the past two
days, as well as the palm of her hand. Besides she still felt strangely
faint. She leaned against the heavy stone balustrade and looked down.
Suddenly up through the hallway, wafted from below came the most
glorious and enchanting odor. Cynthia closed her eyes. It made her
think of home, of a loaded dinner table with big plates of corned-beef
hash, with an egg on top, slabs of bread and butter, and a thick slice
of apple pie with cheese. Oh dear!
Like a good little hound following the scent, Cynthia, hypnotized by
that delicious smell, stepped down, step after step, to the floor
below. Still that beckoning, delightful odor. Another flight. It was
stronger now, over the banisters.
“Heavens!” thought Cynthia. “How can I ever stand this?”
Here was the door and she had tracked it to its lair. A door, heavy
and thick and solid, like those above. It was open just a crack, which
was why the lovely smell had wandered out. Cynthia leaned against the
doorpost. There were tears of hunger and of homesickness in her eyes as
she sniffed ... and sniffed. Onions in that hash, too! No calves head
in cold oil here, no tough thin steaks that might, or might not, be
horsemeat!
Then the door opened with a _whoosh_ and Cynthia almost fell through it
into the hall beyond.
“_’Ello!_” said a cheery voice in French. Another girl, shorter than
Cynthia but about her own age, with an amusing long nose, twinkly brown
eyes, her hair covered by a chic little straw hat with a red quill, a
white wool dress embroidered in red.
The girl continued to chatter something in French. Cynthia looked as
blank as a brick wall; she had been wrenched all too suddenly from
that corned-beef-hash day-dream.
“Say!” cried the girl suddenly. “You’re an American, too, aren’t you?”
Cynthia could have hugged her, right then and there. Why she hadn’t
heard a word of English for three whole days.
“Oh, _yes!_” she almost shouted. “And oh, is that hash you are cooking?”
The girl giggled, then sniffed appreciatively. “Does smell good,
doesn’t it? Mother’s a swell cook. Look here ...” she opened the door
that had half closed behind her. “Hey, Mums, have we got enough for a
guest?” and before Cynthia could object, had shoved her ahead, down the
hallway, into a wide room lit by late sunlight.
“Take off your mittens and bonnet and shawl,” laughed the girl. “You’re
invited to dinner ... that is if you can stay. Mums, this is Miss
America, winner of all beauty prizes to date, isn’t she pretty? ...”
Heavens how the girl did rattle on, thought the amused Cynthia. ... “I
found her fainting on our doorstep and brought her in.”
“Mums” was wide and comfortable looking in a huge white apron and
carried a turning-spoon in her hand. She seemed unperturbed by her
daughter’s nonsense.
“My name’s Wanstead, Cynthia,” explained the owner of that name. “And
I do hope you will forgive me. I sniffed your delicious cooking two
flights up.”
“Good grief, I must have left that door open again!” rattled the girl.
“We’d just about lose our French lease if they sniff our cooking in the
hall. Oh, I forgot, my name is Murchison. This is Mrs. Murchison, my
honored parent. ... Listen I’ve got to run out with some letters for
the post. Sit still and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Cynthia was only too glad to sit. Normally she would have protested
more strongly against their forced hospitality, but today, homesick and
genuinely hungry and considerably worried about the future, she found
this American household irresistible. Mrs. Murchison puttered into the
room and out again murmuring absentmindedly: “Father loves corn-beef
hash. ... Can’t get French cook to make it properly. ... Marie, our
cook, gone home for the holidays ...” and still murmuring disappeared
at last in the direction of the kitchen.
Over the delicious dinner Cynthia heard the story of the mysterious
holiday. “It’s the Jour de Bastille,” Alice explained to her, “in
celebration of the destruction of that beastly prison. The French never
have a half-holiday. They save it up and make four days of it. Father’s
in the consular service and had to be home for tomorrow morning, but
most Americans who live here plan to stay out of Paris during these
four days, they’re so noisy. Our cook won’t be worth her salt for the
next week, she’ll be so sleepy. If you ask me, you look half asleep.”
“I’ve had one of those bands under my window for the past three
nights,” apologized Cynthia. “Please, can I have some more hash?”
“Save room for real American ice cream,” advised her hostess, and, when
dinner was over, “I’m going to tuck you into bed right away, you poor
thing. It’s only seven and you can sleep till ten or eleven. Then I’ll
wake you to go home. Come on, my room is at the back, on the garden,
you won’t hear a single drum or whistle or even a taxi horn.”
Cynthia was too weary to utter more than a feeble protest. “It seems
kind of funny to break into a stranger’s house, eat their hash and go
to sleep in their bed,” she murmured as she slipped off her shoes.
“Take off your dress. That’s right. I’ll just throw a blanket over you
and open this window a little. Sleep _doucement!_”
Cynthia started to call, “Don’t fail to wake me,” but must have been
asleep before she could speak the words. At least when she awoke an
apparent few minutes later the sentence still hung unuttered, in her
mind. She stretched, blinked, fumbled for her thoughts, then glared at
the window. It was full daylight!
Frantically she bent to look at her watch. It had stopped. Then it
_was_ next day? The little clock on the bureau said “eight o’clock” and
then Alice, tousle headed, in bright pink candy-striped pyjamas peeped
round the edge of the door.
“Hello you! Gosh how you did sleep! Are you by any chance a descendant
of the Sleeping Beauty? I phoned your hotel so they wouldn’t think you
had got run over, and went in to sleep with Mother.”
She pranced into the room and perched on the foot of the bed. “It’s a
swell day. And things started to move again today. You’ll find your
little editor chap, no doubt. Will you have your breakfast on a tray in
here, milady, and go back to sleep again?”
“Goodness no! Oh, I feel fine.” Cynthia swung her feet out of bed.
It was nearly noon, however, when Cynthia sent her name to Mr. Culbert,
the editor of _Little Ones’ Magazine_. He came out immediately, a plump
little man with a round jolly face and held out both hands, beaming his
welcome.
“Such a shame you landed here in the middle of the holiday. I was down
in the south of France with the owner of the magazine, but got back
last night. Now, my dear child, about those covers of yours, I suppose
you want to get right at them. About models ... that’s going to be a
bit difficult. Children, you know. ...”
“Not a bit difficult.” Cynthia’s eyes were dancing. “I’ve been
working,” she said demurely.
“What, not already? Well, you are a wonder! Oh, you’ve got something
there? Come into the office, will you? This is just a borrowed place
and I hate it. Drat these French chairs. I like a good old swivel chair
I can lean back in. Shall be glad to get back to the States myself. Now
let’s see. ...”
He had chatted incessantly as he led the way into a room resembling
more a window display of a decorator’s shop than an office. Cynthia
perched on the corner of the elaborate inlaid desk and slipped the
wrapper off her drawing, the one Nono, over her second breakfast, had
finished posing for, just a half hour ago.
“Here you are.” She knew it was good. Would he think so too? Gosh, he
liked it! She could tell by his face.
“Sa ... ay, that’s fine. My dear child, you have certainly surpassed
anything you have done yet.” He set it on the floor, propped against
the wall and leaned back to squint at it.
It was nice to be praised and Cynthia felt herself getting warm and
pink cheeked. Yes, she knew Nono had been her best effort ... to date.
“There’ll be better ones, though,” she told the little editor. “I’m
going to Brittany next week to join the Brewsters, and to paint. I’ll
do you a Breton child for the issue after this one.”
Mr. Culbert got up and took her arm. “Now we’ll go and get a check
made out for this. I know you can always use money in Paris. And then
how about a celebration dinner tonight, some place where they have
marvelous French cooking?”
Cynthia laughed. “I can do better than that, I’ve got an invitation for
you, instead. We’re both invited to a really American meal. Please,
_do_ you like corned beef hash?”