Chapter 6

Almost all our _veuves_ had children and grandchildren in Paris, and we were continually surprised to see the mundane elegance of these younger branches of our withered old trees. It showed the usual history, however, of _bourgeois_ parents who had worked steadily, lived humbly and economically, to gather _dots_ for their daughters and open careers for their sons, to see them thus rise to positions in life far above their parents. Every day some of these younger branches came to our house in handsome carriages and toilets; and indeed on some days the number of elegant visitors who rang at our door gave the impression of a gay reception _a la mode_ rather than of the ordinary visitors of a _pension bourgeoise_ at Saint-Maude.

One of our Relicts was decidedly less _bourgeoise_ and more _paysanne_ than any of the rest. She was round as a ball, seventy years of age, and dressed always in short gray petticoats, black short-gown, and close white cap. Madame Boulanger kept close watch upon her, and tried to confine her to the sunny, high-walled garden set with a number of round little iron tables, where our Relicts took their after-_dejeuner cafe_ on sunny days. But Madame Boulanger was not Argus-eyed, and thus we often saw Madame Leroy escape through the front door and roll like a huge balloon along the boulevard, bent on what she called "collecting her rents." The way she did it was to enter every open door and accost every grown person she saw with the stern reproach that he was behind-hand with his rent, and if he did not pay up by to-morrow she would send the _huissier_ to sell him out. The poor creature was so well known in the neighborhood that she never received rough treatment, and was generally so thoroughly tired out by her rent-collecting as to be quite ready to return without resistance whenever one of our servants sought her. When she did not escape, and mingled with the conglomerate widowhood of the garden (she was never permitted in the _salon_, and went to bed with the chickens), her time was spent, hour after hour, day after day, month after month, going from Relict to Relict, telling always the same story,--always the same, and always a true one:

"Are you in trade? I am. My husband and I came to Paris from Normandy fifty years ago, on foot, with one hundred francs. We kept a green-grocery on Rue des Saints-Peres. When my husband died he left me one hundred thousand francs. I go to collect my rents: will you go? Are you in trade? I am. My husband and I came to Paris on foot," etc., etc., etc.

One of the most elegant of all our visitors was to this poor old Madame Leroy. She always came in an elegant landau, with liveried coachman and footman. Her toilets were of incomparable luxury, but likewise of restrained and cultured taste, being usually of black velvet, duchess-like laces, and queenly furs. She always went directly to this old peasant-woman's handsomely-furnished rooms, and we never saw her except as she descended from her carriage before the windows at which we sat. She was a tall, finely-formed, aristocratic-looking brunette of thirty-five or forty, artistically gotten up as to complexion and hair, and always smiling affectionately at the tea-kettle old figure waiting at the door to greet her. This aristocratic lady was known in the house as Madame la Princesse, and was the daughter of our ancient _paysanne_ and green-grocer, whom a Slav noble had taken from a _cafe chantant_ in Constantinople to endow with his name and fortune.

Another of our _veuves_ filled her private _salon_ with cats. There were seven of them, and the odor of her premises was ancient and cat-like. Three of these cats were sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything, and had lived with their mistress in these very rooms years before, when booming shells sped hot over the house, and fell sometimes close beside it, during the siege of Paris.

"How did you manage to feed them?" we asked.

"I bought slices of cat in the market and stewed them in wine," answered Madame Pognon. "Wine and rice were the only things we were not stinted in. Thus I could always make a ragout for Pierre, Jean, and Jacques, and they throve on it. But I had to keep them shut up, or they would have made ragouts instead of eaten them."

A characteristic of our Relicthood _en bloc_ was its idleness. I never saw one of them with a piece of knitting or any other work in her hands during all the weeks we were there. In fine weather they loitered and basked in the garden, gossiping or amusing themselves with novelettes cut from the penny papers and passed from one to the other in turn. The front door stood almost always open, and the suburban neighborhood about it was during pleasant days largely flecked by the grave gowns and white caps belonging to our _pension_. Nearly all were Bonapartists (for was not trade good during the Empire?) and found the present times sadly out of joint. Nearly all had stood behind counters or at cashiers' desks, and had thus never learned more strictly feminine employments, and now, retired upon their _rentes_, they found time heavy upon their hands. None were conspicuously _devote_: they had never been so in their younger days, and they were not of natures to be spiritualized by long familiarity with life. Death could not be far off from most of them, but they never spoke of it, never seemed to think of it; and, although life was dull, they clung to it as by monotonous habit that _is_ but knows not why.

* * * * *

Still another of our well-remembered _pensions_ was on the bright Vesuvian Bay. The flaming mountain overlooked us, Naples floated beyond us like a dream-city, before us the Mediterranean shimmered and shone like a sultana's satin tunic. We could drop a stone from our windows into the sea; we ran dripping from our sea-baths up long stairs, across tiled balconies, into our vast rooms; all day and all night the swish and lisp of the soft tides mingled with our voices and dreams.

As somebody said of us that summer, we were a "cosmopolitan mess," a hotch-potch of nationalities, such as is always found in so general a rendezvous as Italy. We were rather less of a hotch-potch, however, than in London, but somehow it seemed to us that our peculiarities were more salient than they could ever appear in proper and conventional Bloomsbury. We were largely German, as the travelling population of Italy is. In Bloomsbury our medium of expression was the English language, and English was the language at table, no matter how foreign our company. But in this Italian _pensione_, where the faces were continually changing, the languages changed as often. One day only English was the rule, and those who could not unite with the majority remained mute. Another day, with a tremendous incursion of Teutons, who always seem to travel in hordes, only German gutturals held the table, and we who had no facility with them muttered meek French or sullen English to our neighbors. The next day French would be the rule, and Teuton must mumble in it and Anglo-Saxon stammer or hold its peace. Curiously enough, although we were in Italy, Italian was rarely, almost never, spoken among us, our only use of it being in orders to the servants. Our landlady was English, with an Italian husband, but they both held only upper menial places in the establishment, and never dreamed of sitting at table with us or of meeting us upon any terms of equality. This want of familiarity with Italian proves how little mere travellers and haunters of _pensioni_ ever know of the middle-class inhabitants of the country. The Italians themselves stir from home very seldom; they almost never admit foreigners into their own houses, and when forced abroad seek cheap Italian inns rather than the innumerable boarding-houses infested by the outer barbarian. Italian peasant life is open to all foreigners, but not that of the middle classes.

Our landlord had a daughter whose cheek was pale and whose garments hung loosely upon her. When first we remarked this and her heavy eye, everybody laughed.

"The usual story,--loves and rides away," was remarked in various languages.

It was heartless to laugh, but we could not help it. For wan and drooping landlords' daughters had become so familiar to us in Italian _pensioni_ that we needed only to glance at the set of each one's gown and the tint of her cheek to know if HE were still present and wooing or had faithlessly ridden away. The race, however, was not always to the rider.

One evening under our window, when the air swooned with languid scent of lemon- and orange-blossoms, we heard a sobbing and a sighing that reminded us of the Mock Turtle in "Alice in Wonderland." Glancing out, by the soft light of the summer moon, enhanced by the shimmering water, we saw two persons who seemed to be weeping in each other's arms under a shuddering ilex. The stouter one--he was not the taller--we recognized as a young Teuton for whose sake we had seen a gown very loose and a cheek very wan afar off among the Alban Hills only a month before.

"I love you, Tita, I love you. I have thought I loved a dozen times before, but I was mistaken. I never loved any girl before," he boohooed.

"_Dio mio!_" laughed the girl. "All the _Tedeschi_ say that who come here. I wonder they are not tired of the old tune. I--I am _fiance_ to a _bel Espagnol_ who rode away a month ago, and who ought to have been back before now."

We found our Teuton fellow-_pensionnaires_ to have tastes more unnatural than for landlords' daughters. One of them we had remarked for his extreme beauty, not entirely of feature and rich olive hue, but of pathetic, dreamy expression,--as we said, like an ideal St. John. At first we never spoke of him except as "St. John." We gradually ceased to call him so, however, when we had seen him several times at table, and we grew finally so coarsely irreverent as to call him "_Mange-tout_."

Our meat was brought from distant Naples, making the journey without ice, under a broiling Italian sun. Often it came to table so shorn of its pristine freshness that not the hungriest of us could condone its odor. One sultry night everybody's plate went away untouched, save two or three. Flesh and fowl were "high,"--yea, "twice high," as the British gourmet prefers his game. St. John's plate was _not_ sent away. That ideal being was served three times, after which he rose and helped himself from the side-table, remarking half apologetically as he did so, "The cook has really surpassed himself to-day!"

"Ja! ja!" echoed our Teutons.

We saw our St. John next morning sucking raw eggs before his coffee.

"Because the _nourriture_ is poor. I do it to strengthen me," he explained.

"When I am well I eat all I can hold," he confidentially imparted to the _table-d'hote_. "When I am ill I eat more than I do when I am well."

One of our _pensionnaires_ was a swarthy Brazilian, living upon a colossal and mysteriously-begotten fortune and spending what remained to him of life upon the Mediterranean shores. He knew every _pensione_ of the whole wide region, and in strident, barbaric tones--continually reminding us of the savage aboriginal blood betrayed by narrow eyes and high cheek-bones--flooded our _table-d'hote_ with the gossip of _pensioni_ at Capri, Castellamare, Pompeii, Sorrento, and Salerno,--the giddiness of all the widows, the cunning of the young girls, the wickedness of the wives, and the barefaced or clever intriguing of husband-hunting mammas. All that year, as we quietly slipped from one Mediterranean _pensione_ to another, we met and recognized the heroes and heroines of our Brazilian's _chroniques scandaleuses_, and we breathed many a thanksgiving that we were slipping east while he slipped west and thus were not known of name and evil fame in advance of our coming.

Our Brazilian was a devout Catholic, which led to his giving great offence at our table. Nobody could endure to pass him anything or to take anything from him, and the hideous bird-of-prey-like rattling of his right hand at any service turned many a delicate appetite away and made our Brazilian of almost Gorgon-like effect upon all new-comers. The finger-nails of his right hand were vowed to the Virgin: for two years they had been uncut, and now, like fiendish claws, extended two inches beyond the withered and dusky fingers.

"Why am I not liked by _ces belles dames_?" he asked one day. "They never ask me to their excursions; they seem to shrink from taking my hand."

"Because of your talons," somebody ventured to explain.

"Oh, no! the Blessed Virgin would never allow _that_," he asserted confidently.

Before the end of the summer, however, he seemed to lose confidence in the Virgin's tampering with natural law for his sake. One day we saw that the talons were sacrificed, and were told that the Mother of God had announced to our Brazilian in a dream that she would accept a vow never to cut his hair in place of the devoted nails.

A few days later our _divoto_ came upon the loggia, where sat a bevy of ladies of many nations, in a screeching aboriginal rage.

"I sacrificed my vow to you _belles dames_, although I refused it to Madame la Duchesse de B----," he screamed, "and yet you avoid me. Am I not an _homme fait_" (certainly our sixty-year-old Brazilian had never read "Pendennis"), "and better than any of these boys you admire? Do you imagine the Blessed Virgin will not pay you off for this? Do you think she will go back on a man like me,--of whom Victor Emanuel himself was jealous when I rode on the Pincian with Madame la Princesse della Gr----?"

* * * * *

We thus found many peculiar people in the varied experiences of _nos pensions_. We found often learning and often culture, but more vulgarity than we did refinement, more splendor than delicacy of habit, more blatant ignorance than culture, more _sans gene_ than dignity of manners and character. It is always thus in any mere "cosmopolitan mess," any "hotch-potch of nationalities." For the eccentric and obnoxious types are always and everywhere those most largely _en evidence_, while the gentle and refined nestles closest to the cool, still, mossy ground, leaving sunny flaunting to wider blooms and stronger perfumes.

A RANDOM SHOT.

An existence, if even a dull one, in a large and busy city full of life, when contrasted in the mind of a romantic young lady of eighteen summers with an enforced captivity in an isolated cottage by the sea-shore, grows to possess charms and an excitement which, until so considered, may have remained totally unappreciated.

Could anything be more depressing than the knowledge that this latter condition must be endured with no other companion than a hypochondriacal papa, whose ailings so monopolized his time and attention that a daughter's happiness sunk into insignificance? Little wonder that she should melt into tears at so undesirable a prospect, that she should pity herself and her luckless fate, and that, when fully realizing the depths of loneliness into which she was to be precipitated for five long, weary months, she should jump at the dismal conclusion that her doll was stuffed with the most inferior variety of saw-dust and wish with lachrymose sincerity that she were dead and buried and out of this world of sorrow. Papa might then wish that he had been more considerate. Perhaps; but at that particular moment he was contemplatively assimilating his fish, and that process admitted of no consideration whatever beyond that of the fish itself. So when his daughter raised her tearful eyes to his saffron countenance across the board she found no signs in it of the sympathy she felt so much need of. What could she expect, anyway? Dr. Nevercure had been consulted, and this time felt that something desperate must be done. His patient had persistently refused to pronounce himself in any degree benefited by the long course of physic which he had prescribed, and in fact had become an elephant upon his professional hands; and thus, as a last resort, he had recommended an entire change of air and perfect quiet, with a periodical harmless dose for the sake of appearances. Nevercure must be obeyed; the patient himself, since it seemed to be his delight to fancy himself an invalid, must naturally be supposed to find a pleasure in the remedies for his sufferings, and therefore evinced no regret whatever at the leaden prospects, but, on the contrary, made a most exasperating exhibition of saintly resignation, very galling to the young lady, who considered herself the only one really injured.

"And when must we go?" she asked, continuing a series of questions which her sudden burst of tears had interrupted.

"Friday morning," replied Mr. Moreley curtly.

"Friday morning! And this is Tuesday night! Why, papa, I--"

"Mabel, I said Friday morning. My arrangements are made, and I will not hear another word about it."

And he didn't. Mabel left the table as soon as decorum would permit, and betook herself up-stairs to her own sanctum to nurse her grief in solitude.

She sat long by the open window, pondering over her hapless lot, her chin upon her hand, her dark eyes far away in thought,--sad thought, judging from their expression,--the wind playing in her light, wavy hair, her full red lips parted slightly, showing the interest which her theme awakened, and the fresh bloom upon her cheeks now going, now coming, following in some subtile way the quick movements of her mind. An hour slid by, and then she started from her revery with a sudden thought. The sadness in her eyes gave way to mirth and a twinkle of fun; the color came faster, the lips broke into a most roguish smile.

"I'll do it!" she whispered. "I _will_!" she added, with convincing emphasis and a countenance brimming over with mischief.

It was a foolish project,--a most insane and inexcusable one. It had, however, the spice of romance, and it might afford her some amusement and a little excitement during the coming months of misery. It was suggested by some demon of mischief, and was all the more attractive coming from such a source. It came about naturally enough, too. On the morning of that same day her particular intimate, Anna Desbrough, and she had fallen upon the college catalogue which Anna's brother Tom had sent for to guide him in his preparatory studies. The names of the students had proved interesting reading-matter, and the two girls had speculated as to the probable appearance of this one and that, and had even gone so far as to select the one whom they thought they would prefer among those mentioned. They had indulged in a vast deal of imaginative nonsense, and had finally thrown the book aside and returned to more rational topics; but the recollection of the morning's pastime had not quite faded from Mabel's mind. The name was still fresh in her memory,--Mortimer Granville Dudley: how grand! how musical!

"I will!" she had exclaimed, with determination; and, being a young lady of her word, she hastily collected pen, ink, and paper to carry out her threat.

"MY DEAR MR. DUDLEY," she wrote (she had hesitated long between "Mr. Dudley" and plain "Mort," with the result shown), "how long ago it seems since those days when we were playmates together! I hardly think it probable, though, that you can have forgotten me. My position would certainly be a very awkward one if you had. But, remembering as I do so well those happy times, and particularly your juvenile vows of constancy at the moment of our parting, I cannot believe that I am mistaken in trusting in their sincerity and truth.

"By a mere accident I heard the other day of your whereabouts, and, as I for one still feel the same interest in my playmate that I used to, I resolved, I think I may say courageously, to discover whether he still gave promise of fulfilling all the hopes I then entertained for him.

"I wonder if some of our early experiences are still as fresh in your mind as they are in mine! Do you remember that day you made me stand guard while you 'blew' old Jones's eggs in retaliation for his having turned informer against you? I think it was the time he told about your having promoted a fight between two dogs. And do you remember the day on the skating-pond when you broke through the ice and frightened me into fits by disappearing three times below the surface, while all the time you were standing, as you afterward confessed, on solid bottom? I thought then I should never forgive you for causing me in that unguarded moment to betray my feelings. And then the telegraph scheme by which we communicated that time I had the measles. It all seems to have occurred in some other world, looking back at it now; and yet what happy times those were! I believe I could go on forever with these reminiscences; but perhaps they are not as sweet to you as they are to me; perhaps I am only boring you with them. It would be a great disappointment to me, though, to know that you never looked back with a sigh to those days and never gave a thought to your once so devoted playmate.

"I am going to a place called Stillton this summer. I dare say you never heard of it: it is in Maine; and I must confess I anticipate a very stupid time there. Perhaps I shall have nothing else to do but reflect upon the days of my early youth. Am I _quite_ forgotten?

"Your playmate of old,

"JANE JENNINGS.

"BOSTON, June 10, 188-."

The _nom de plume_ was borrowed from Mabel's faithful servant,--nurse in earlier days, a description of maid now,--and was a safe one, as old Jane proper was never known to receive letters, and, moreover, could not have deciphered her own name on the envelope had one arrived for her.

The conflict on the following morning as to whether it should be sent or destroyed, the tremble of the little hand that finally dropped it irrevocably into the iron post-box, the vain reproaches and unanswered longings for its return, the subsequent prayers that it might by some providential interference be intercepted or miscarry, all followed in due course, as well as later a revulsion of feeling and an anxious watching for the mails, hope deferred, and sickness of heart.

Friday came. The journey, miserable as was its object, was accomplished, and Stillton, in all its tomb-like silence and drowsy do-nothingness, with its few glaring white houses and its one dusty road, offering no apology or explanation whatever for its purposeless existence, at last was reached, and Farmer Galusha Krinklebottom, in accordance with Dr. Nevercure's arrangements, met the jaded travellers at the station in his rickety shay, prepared to take them over to the cottage.

"'Tain't more'n three mile," he said consolingly. "The roads ain't none too good this season, an' Kittie--that's _her_" (pointing to his mare)--"don't feel over-skittish; she's nigh onter fourteen year, an' right smart, too, fur her age, but sorter broken-winded latterly; but I guess we'll make it afore dark.--Go 'long, Kittie!"

The ancient mare started off. Her fore-legs were stiff and jointless, her hip-bones painfully prominent, her ribs sadly bare, and her nose hung dejectedly toward the ground; but she still possessed some mechanical power of locomotion, and the "shay" began to squeak and rattle in her wake. Galusha was proud of his native hamlet. "That there's our meetin'-house," he said, but its whitewash and green blinds did not seem to excite the travellers' admiration. "An' that longish house yonder's Pincus's."

"Pincus's?" asked Mabel, with a yawn.

"Pincus Sass's, mum. 'Tis the hotel, mum. That's him in the door. Hulloa, Pincus!" he shouted, shooting a line of tobacco-juice over the dash-board.