"Grand Hôtel, Paris.
"Grand Hôtel, Paris.
"Dearest Emmy—They are all out shopping, so here's a long letter. I haven't patience with the men. I am sure we have had enough abuse in our own country, without travelling all the way to Paris for it; and yet the first paper I take up in the reading saloon of the hotel, contains a paragraph headedLe Beau Sexe en Angleterre. The paragraph is violent. The writer wants to know what demon possesses the Englishwomen at this moment. I might have been sure it was translated from anEnglish paper. The creature wants to know whether the furies are let loose, and is very clever about Lucretia Borgia, and Mary Manning, and Mary Newell! One would think English mothers were all going to boil their children. This is just what has happened about everything else. In certain English circles slang is talked: therefore women have become coarse and vulgar. The Divorce Court has been a busy one of late; and scandals have been 'going round' as the American ladies in this hotel say; therefore there are to be no more virtuous mothers and sisters presently. Upon my word, the audacity of this makes my blood boil. Here the ladies paint, my dear, one and all. Why, the children in the Tuileries gardens whisk their skirts, and ogle their boy playmates. Vanity Fair at its height is here—I am not going to dispute it. Nor will I say papa is quite in the wrong when he cries shame on some of the costumes one meets on the Boulevards. My dear, short skirts and grey hair donotgo welltogether. I cannot even bear to think of grand-mamma showing her ankles and Hessian boots! But what vexes and enrages me is the injustice of the sudden outcry. Where has the slang come from? Pray who brought it into the drawing-room? How is it that girls delight in stable-talk, and imitate men in their dress and manners? We cannot deny that the domestic virtues have suffered in these fast days, nor that wife and husband go different ways too much: but are we to bear all the blame? Didwebuild the clubs, I wonder? Did you or I invent racing, and betting, and gambling? Doyoulike being lonely, as you are, my dear? When women go wrong, who leads the way? The pace is very fast now, and wedogive more time to dress, and that sort of thing than our mothers did. I own I'm a heavy hand at pastry, and mamma is a light one. I couldn't tell you how many shirts papa has. I should be puzzled to make my own dresses. I hate needlework. But are we monsters for all this? Papa doesn'tgrumbleverymuch. He has his pleasures, I'm sure. He dined out four times the week we came away. He was at the Casino in the Rue St. Honoré last night, and came home with such an account of it that I am quite posted up in the manners and costumes ofces dames, yes, and thelowerclass of them. The mean creature who has been writing in theSaturday Reviewgives us no benefit of clergy. We have driven our brothers out into the night; we have sent our lovers to Newmarket; we have implored our husbands (that is,wewho have got husbands,) not to come home to dinner, because we have more agreeable company which we have provided for ourselves. Girls talk slang, I know—perhaps they taught their brothers! I suppose mamma taught papa to describe a woman in theBoisas 'no end of a swell,' and when he is in the least put out to swear at her.
THE INFLEXIBLE MEESSES ANGLAISES.THE INFLEXIBLE "MEESSES ANGLAISES."They are not impressionable, but they will stoop to "field sports."
"Now, my dear, shall I give youmyidea of the mischief? Papa thinks I go about with myeyes shut; that I observe nothing—except the bonnet shops. I say the paint, the chignons, the hoops, and the morals—whatever they may be—start from here. My ears absolutely tingled the first evening I spent hereen soirée. Lovers! why the married ladies hardly take the trouble to disguise their preferences.
"I was at an embassy reception the other night. Papa said it was like a green-room, only not half so amusing. They talked in one corner as openly as you might speak of the Prince Imperial, about Mademoiselle Schneider's child. There were women of the company whoseliaisonsare as well known as their faces, and yet they wereparfaitement bien reçues! Theresa is to be heard—or was to be heard till she went out of fashion—in private salons, screaming her vulgar songs among the young ladies. When I turn the corner just outside the hotel, what do I see in one of the most fashionable print-shops? Why, three great Mabille prints of the shockingly indecent description—withladies and their daughters looking at them. Those disagreeable pictures in the Burlington Arcade are, my dearest Emmy, moral prints when compared with them. We have imported all this. Paris is within ten hours and a half of London, so we get French ways, as papa says, 'hot and hot.'"
ENGLISH VISITORS TO THE CLOSERIE.ENGLISH VISITORS TO THE CLOSERIE DE LILAS.—SHOCKING!
"Who admires domestic women now? Tell an Englishcrévéthat Miss Maria is clever at a custard, and he will sneer at her. No. She must be witty, pert; able to give him as good as he sends, as people say. Young Dumas has done a very great deal of this harm; and he has made a fortune by it. He has brought the Casino into the drawing-room, givences damesa position in society, and made hundreds of young men ruin themselves for the glory of being seen talking to a Cora Pearl.Nowwhat do you think he has done. He has actually brought out a complete edition of his pieces, with a preface, in which, Papa tells me, he plays the moralist. He has unfolded all the vice—crowded the theatres to see a bad woman in a consumption—painted thedemi-monde—with a purpose! All the world has laboured under the idea that the purpose was piles of gold. But now, the locker being full, and the key turned, and in the young gentleman's pocket, he dares to put himself in the robe of a professor, to say it was not the money he cared about—it was the lesson. He is a reformer—a worshipper of virtue! We shall have the author ofJack Sheppardstart as a penologist soon. My dear, the cowardice of men when dealing with poor women is bad enough; but it is not by half so repulsive as their hypocrisy. Ugh!
"Any news of the handsome Mr. Daker? It strikes me, dear Emmy, 'Uncle Sharp' didn't send him up from Maidstone with a letter of introduction to his niece for nothing.
"Your affectionate friend,
"Carrie C."
Lucy was privileged to read the following:—
Miss Carrie Cockayne to Miss Emily Sharp.
"Rue Millevoye, Paris.
"My Dearest Emmy,—I should certainly not venture to offer any remarks on taste to you, my love, under ordinary circumstances. But I am provoked. I have passed a severe round ofsoiréesof every description. Jaded with the fantastic activities of a fancy-dress genteel riot, I have been compelled to respond to the intimation of the Vicomtesse de Bois de Rose, that "on sautera." I have jumped with the rest. I have half killed myself withsirops, petit-fours, those microscopic caricaturesof detestable British preparation—sandwiches (pronouncedsonveetch),bouillon, and chocolate, in the small hours; ices in tropical heats;foie-grasand champagne about two hours after healthy bedtime, and tea like that which provoked old Lady Gargoyle to kick over the tea-table in her boudoir—in her eightieth year, too. The Gargoyles (I shall have much to tell you about them when we meet) were always an energetic race; and I feel the blood tingling in me while my eye wanders over the impertinences of the French chroniqueurs, when they are pleased to be merry at the expense ofla vieille Angleterre. I hold I am right; am I not?—that when even a chroniqueur—that smallest of literary minnows—undertakes to criticize a foreign nation, at least the equal of his own, he should start with some knowledge of its language, history, manners, and customs. But what do we find? The profoundest ignorance of the rudiments of English. The special correspondent sent to London by theFigaroto be amusing on our darker side,cannot spell the word theatre; but he is trenchant when dealing with what he saw at the AdelphiTheater. How completely he must have understood the dialogue, he who describes Webster as acomique de premier ordre!In the same paper the dramatic critic, after explaining that at the rehearsals ofL'Abime, the actors, who continually are complaining that they are ordered off on the wrong side, are quieted with the information that matters dramatic are managed in this way in bizzare England—prints in a line apart, and by way of most humorous comment, these words, 'English spoken here.' Conceive, my dear, an English humorous writer interlarding his picture of a French incident with the occasional interjection ofParlez-vous Français?Yet the comic writers of Paris imagine that they show wit when they pepper their comments with disjointed, irrelevant, and misspelt ejaculations in our vernacular. We have a friend here (we have made dozens) who has a cat she calls To-be—the godfather being 'To-be or not to be! 'All right'appears daily as a witticism; 'Oh, yes!' serves for the thousandth time as a touch of humour. The reason is obvious. French critics are wholly ignorant of our language. Very few of them have crossed the Channel, even to obtain a Leicester Square idea of our dear England. But they are not diffident on this account. They have never seen samples of the Britisher—except on the Boulevards, or whistling in the cafés—where our countrymen, I beg leave to say, do not shine; and these to them are representations of our English society. Suppose we took our estimate of French manners and culture from the small shopkeepers of the Quartier St. Antoine! My protest is against those who judge us by our vulgar and coarse types. The Manchester bully who lounges into the Café Anglais with his hat on the back of his head; the woman who wears a hat and a long blue veil, and shuffles in in the wake of themalhonnêteto whom she is married; again, the boor who can speak only such French as 'moa besoin' and 'j'avais faim,' represent English men and women just as fairly as the rude, hoggish, French egg-and-poultry speculators represent the great seigneurs of France.
SMITH BRINGS HIS ALPENSTOCK.SMITH BRINGS HIS ALPENSTOCK.
"I say I have, by this time, more than a tolerable experience, not only of Frenchsalons, but also of those over which foreign residents in Paris preside. I have watched the American successes in Paris of this season, which is now closing its gilded gates, dismissing the slaves of pleasure to the bitter waters of the German springs and gaming-tables. I have seen our people put aside for Madame de Lhuile de Petrole and the great M. Caligula Shoddy. The beauties of the season have been 'calculating' and 'going round' in the bestsalons, and they have themselves given some of the most successful entertainments we have had. Dixie's land has been fairyland. Strange and gorgeous Princesses from the East have entered mighty appearances. One has captivated the Prince, said to be the handsomest man in Paris. Russian and Polish great ladies have done the honours—according to the newspapers—with their 'habitual charm.' The Misses Bickers have had their beauties sung by a chorus of chroniqueurs. Here the shoulders of ladies at a party are as open to criticism as the ankles of a stage dancer. The beauties of our blonde Misses have made whole bundles of goose-quills tremble. Paris society is made up not even chiefly of Parisians; the rich of all nations flock to us, and are content to pay a few hundred pounds per month for a floor of glass and gilding. The Emperor has made a show capital as a speculation. All Europe contributes to the grandeur of the fashionable world of Paris. And suddenly what do we hear?
"That we, whose blood is good enough for England; whocanspeak a few foreign languages in addition to our own; who know our neighbours by having lived among them; who have travelled enough to learn that good breeding is not confined to England or to France, are accused of having destroyed the high tone of the Opera audiences in this city. We are good enough, as to manners, forHer Majesty's Theatre, but not for the Italiens. Tell Mrs. Sandhurst of this: she will besomad!
"A few nights before La Patti left us, to degrade herself by warbling her wood-notes in the ignorant ears of the Opera public whom Mr. Gye is about to assemble, and on whom the leadership of Costa is thrown away, an unfortunate incident happened at the Italiens. Patti had been announced, and Mdlle. Harris appeared instead. Whereupon there was an uproar that could not be stilled. La Patti wept; la Harris wept also. Finally, the spoilt child appeared, like Niobe, all tears. Who created the uproar? The French chroniqueur answers: a cosmopolitan audience—an audience from the Grand Hôtel. He is good enough not to pick us out, but we are included with the rest. The foreign residents have degraded the Opera. The audience which greets Patti is a rabble compared with that which listened to Sontag. 'The exquisite urbanity which is proverbially French,' and which was apparent at the Italiens fifteen or twenty years ago, has disappeared since Paris has become the world's railway terminus. M. Emile Villars, who is so obliging as to make the observation, proceeds to be very clever. Scratch the Russian, and you know what you will find. I answer, a gentleman uninfluenced by a stale proverb; we have a delightful specimen in this very house. M. Villars is great at scratching, since his readers are recommended to grate Peruvians and Javanese. Under the three articles, we are told, lies the one barbarous material! The ladies of these are charming, seductive, irresistible, but they wantton, and lack the delicacy of themonde. We foreigners are too proud of our beauty and our dollars, have an unquenchable thirst for pleasure, and we are socially daring. M. Villars is funny in the fashion of his class. He says that we English-speaking class of foreigners bear aloft a banner with the strange device 'All right.' M. Villars proceeds to remark, 'We take from foreigners what we should leave to them, theirfeet upon chairs, and their hats upon their heads, as at the Italiens the other night.' He finds that a cosmopolitan invasion has made French society less delicate, less gallant, less polite.
JONES ON THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.JONES ON THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.
"We are to blame! Belgravia is not refined enough for the Avenue de l'Impératrice. Clapham, I infer, would not be tolerated at Batignolles. I repeat, I have gone through some arduous times here, in the midst of the foreign invasion of polite society. I have scratched neither Russ, nor German, nor Servian, nor Wallachian. But I must be permitted to observe, that I have found their manners quite equal to any that were native. Shall I go further, Emmy, and speak all my mind? There is a race of the new-rich—of the recently honoured, here, who are French from their shoe-rosettes to their chignons. They come direct from the Bourse, and from the Pereire fortune-manufactory of the Place Vendôme. They bring noise and extravagance, but not manners. I have seen many of my countrymen in Parisian drawing-rooms, in the midstof Frenchmen, Russians, Princes of various lands; and, do you know, I have not seen anythingmuchbetter in the way of bearing, manners, and mental culture and natural refinement than the English gentleman. I feel quite positive that it is not he who has lowered the manners or morals of Napoleon the Third's subjects. I am bold enough to think that a probationary tour through some of our London drawing-rooms would do good to the saucy young seigneurs I see leaning on the balcony of the Jockey Club when we are driving past.
"I will remind M. Villars that his proverb has been parodied, and that it has been said, 'Scratch a Frenchman, and you find a dancing-master.' But I know this proverb to be foolish; and I am candid and liberal enough to say so.
"I hope you are not too lonely, and don't keep too much to your room. Now I know by experience what life in a boarding-house means. How must you feel, dearest Emmy, alone! Je t'embrasse. How gets on the German?
"We have such a specimen of the gandin here—the Vicomte de Gars. I think John Catt had better make haste over.
"Yours affectionately,
"Carrie."
Miss Carrie Cockayne to Miss Sharp.
"Rue Millevoye.
"My dearest Emmy,—No answer from you? How unkind! But still I continue to give you my ideas of the moment from this. What do we want? A writer in one of the frivolous sheets which are called newspapers on this side of the Channel, has been giving himself great airs; looking out of his window, with two or three touches of his pen he dismisses the poor women who pass under his balcony, and closes the casement with the conviction that woman's rights and wrongs are put away for another generation. Foolish women! They are plentiful enough, andthey muster in fair numbers at the Wauxhall meetings which have been going on here, to the infinite amusement of the superior creatures who drink absinthe, smoke cigars, and gamble, hours after we silly things have gone to bed. I am not writing to deny woman's weakness, nor her vanity, nor the ridiculous exhibition she makes of herself when she takes to "orating"—as the Yankees say—and lecturing, and dressing herself up in her brother's clothes. Do you think, my dear Emmy, there are many women foolish enough to applaud Dr. Mary Walker because she dresses like an overgrown school-girl, and shows her trousers? What is she like in society? Neither man nor woman. But how many have imitated her? How many women in England, France, and America have taken to the platform? One would think that all womankind was in a state of revolution, and about to make a general descent upon the tailors and tobacconists, turning over the lords of the creation to the milliners and the baby-linen warehouses. This is justthe way men argue, and push themselves out of a difficulty. This French philosophical pretender, who has been observing us from his window (I can't imagine where he lives), describes one or two social monstrosities—with false complexions, hair, figure,—and morals; brazen in manner, defiant in walk—female intellectual all-in-alls. His model drives, hunts, orates, passes resolutions, dissects—in short does everything except attend to baby. This she leaves to the husband. He takes the pap-bowl, and she shoulders the gun. He looks out the linen while she sharpens her razors. The foolish public laugh all along the boulevards, and say what a charming creature a woman will be when she drives a locomotive, commands a frigate, and storms a citadel!
"Every time a meeting is convened at the Wauxhall to consider how the amount of female starvation or misery may be reduced, the philosopher throws his window open again, and grins while he caricatures, or rather distorts and exaggerates topositive untruth. M. Gill gets fresh food. Thechroniqueursinvent a series of absurdities, which didn't happen yesterday, as they allege. I am out of patience when I see all this mischievous misrepresentation, because I see that it is doing harm to a very just and proper cause. We are arguing for more work for our poor sisters who have neither father, husband, brother, nor fortune to depend upon; and these French comic scribblers describe us as unsexed brawlers, who want top-boots. I want no manly rights for women. I am content with the old position, that her head should just reach the height of a man's heart; but I do see where she is not well used—where she is left to genteel dependence, and a life in the darkest corner of the drawing-room, upon the chair with the unsafe leg, over the plate that is cracked, in the bedroom where the visitor died of scarlet fever.
FRENCH RECOLLECTION OF MEESS TAKING HER BATH.FRENCH RECOLLECTION OF MEESS TAKING HER BATH.The faithful Bouledogue gazes with admiration at the performance of his Mistress.
THE BRAVE MEESS AMONG THE BILLOWS.THE BRAVE MEESS AMONG THE BILLOWS HOLDING ONBY THE TAIL OF HER NEWFOUNDLAND.
"She is not unsexed wearing her poor heart out against these bars; but she would be a free, bright,instructed creature, helping her rich sister, or a trusty counsellor when the children are ill. She would be unsexed issuing railway tickets or managing a light business; but she is truly womanly while she is helpless and a burden to others.
"Foolish women! Yes, very stupid very often, but hardly in hoping that the defenceless among us may be permitted to become, by fair womanly exertion, independent. I am directed to observe how amusing theFigarohas been recently at our expense, hoping to obtain the suffrages of the really thoughtless of our sex thereby. We are our own worst enemies and well do you men know it. The frivolous are an immense host, and these have reason to laugh at serious women who want to get a little justice and teaching for their dependent sisters—not manly avocations, nor masculine amusements. I go to the Wauxhall, my dear Emmy, not to help my sex to unsex itself, but, I must repeat, to aid my poor sisters who want to work, that, if left without the support of malekindred, they may lead honourable, independent lives; to this end they must have certain rights, and these, and no more, I advocate.
VARIETIES OF THE ENGLISH STOCK.VARIETIES OF THE ENGLISH STOCK.The Parent Flower and two lovely Buds.
COMPATRIOTS MEETING IN THE FRENCH EXHIBITION.COMPATRIOTS MEETING IN THE FRENCH EXHIBITION.Bar-maids in the English Department recognising a fellow-countryman.
"You see, the old story is told over again. We beg a little independence; and we are answered with ancient jests. You are quite as unjust, and not so amusing or clever in your injustice in England. They have not imitated the medical students in St. James's Hall at this Wauxhall. We have seen no such monstrous spectacle as a host of young men hooting and yelling at one poor, weak, foolish little woman in black pantalettes. Truly, you must be as tired of the comic view of the question as you are ashamed of your medical students. I know what the highly-educated English ladies think on the subject. They detest the orating, blustering, strangely-costumed advocates of woman's rights; but don't fall into the common error of believing that they are not earnest about many of the points we have been discussing here, in the midst of this mocking race. Depend upon it, we are not foolishenough—fond as you men are of crying 'foolish women!'—to unsex ourselves.
"The woman who wants to get into Parliament is, to my thinking, a monster; and I would sentence her to stocking-mending for life. The creature who appears before men in black pantalettes, and other imitations of his dress, should be rigorously held clear of decent houses, until she had learned how to dress herself modestly and becomingly. The Missy who talked about eating her way to the bar, I would doom to the perpetual duty of cooking chops for hungry lawyers' clerks.
"But you will have had enough of this.
"Not a word? and you promised so many. Somebody has whispered a name to me. It is Charles. Is that true? I will never forgive you.
"Ever yours,
"Carrie."
Emmy never answered, poor girl!
Lucy Rowe would have been fast friends with Carrie Cockayne during their stay in her aunt's house, had Mrs. Cockayne, on the one hand, permitted her daughter to become intimate with anything so low as "the people of the house," and had Mrs. Rowe, on the other, suffered her niece to "forget her place." But they did approach each other, by an irresistible affinity, and by the easy companionship of common tastes. While Sophonisba engaged ardently in all the doings of the house, and was a patient retailer of its scandals; and while Mrs. Cockayne was busy with her evening whist, and morning "looks at the shops"—quiet and retiring Theodosia managed to becomeseriously enamoured of the Vicomte de Gars, who visited Mrs. Rowe's establishment, as the unexceptionable friend of the Reverend Horace Mohun.
The young Vicomte was a Protestant; of ancient family and limited means. Where the living scions of the noble stock held their land, and went forth over their acres from under the ancestral portcullis, was more than even Mrs. Rowe had been able, with all her penetrating power in scandal, to ascertain. But the young nobleman was Mr. Mohun's friend—and that was enough. There had been reverses in the family. Losses fall upon the noblest lines; and supposing the Count de Gars in the wine trade—to speak broadly, in the Gironde—this was to his honour. The great man struggling with the storms of fate, is a glad picture always to noble minds. Some day he would issue from his cellars, and don his knightly plume once more, and summon the vulgar intruders to begone from the Château.
As for Mrs. Cockayne, to deny that she was highly contented at the family's intimacy with aViscount, would be to falsify my little fragmentary chain of histories. She wrote to her husband that she met the very best society at Mrs. Rowe's, extolled the elegant manners and enclosed the photograph of the Vicomte de Gars, and said she really began to hope that she had persuaded "his lordship" to pay them a visit in London. "Tell Mrs. Sandhurst, my dear Cockayne, that I am sure she will like the Vicomte de Gars."
The Vicomte de Gars was a little man, with long wristbands. Miss Tayleure described him as all eye-glass and shirt-front. Comic artists have often drawn the moon capering on spider-legs; a little filling out would make the Vicomte very like the caricature. He was profound—in his salutations, learned—in lace, witty—thanks to theFigaro. His attentions to Miss Theodosia Cockayne, and to Madame her mother, were of the most splendid and elaborate description. He left flowers for the young lady early in the morning.
It was very provoking that Theodosia hadconsented to be betrothed to John Catt of Peckham.
"Carrie, my dear," Mrs. Cockayne observed, having called her daughter to her bedroom for a good lecture, "once for all,I will nothave you on such intimate terms with the people of the house. What on earth can you be thinking about? I should have thought you would show more pride. I am quite sure the Vicomte saw you yesterday when you were sitting quite familiarly with Miss Rowe in the bureau.I will nothave it."
"Mamma dear, Lucy Rowe is one of the most sensible and, at the same time, best informed girls I ever knew; and her sentiments are everything that could be desired."
"I will not be answered, Carrie; mind that. I wonder you haven't more pride. A chit like that, who keeps the hotel books, and gives out the sugar."
"Her father was——"
"Never mind what her father was. What isshe? I wonder you don't propose to ask her home on a visit."
"She would not disgrace——"
This was too much for Mrs. Cockayne. She stamped her foot, and bore down upon Carrie with a torrent of reasons why Miss Rowe should be held at a distance.
"You wouldn't find Theodosia behaving in such a manner. She understands what's becoming. I dare say she's not so clever as you are——"
"Dear mamma, this is cruel——"
"Don't interrupt me. No, no; I see through most things. This Miss Howe is always reading. I saw her just now with some novel, I've no doubt, which she shouldn't read——"
"It was Kingsley's——"
"Hold your tongue, child. Yes, reading, and with a pen stuck behind her ear."
"She's so very lonely: and Mrs. Howe is so very severe with her."
"I have no doubt it's quite necessary; there, goand dress for the table d'hôte, and mind what I say."
Poor Lucy wondered what on earth could have happened that Carrie Cockayne avoided her: and what those furtive nods of the head and stolen smiles at her could mean? On the other hand, how had she offended Mrs. Cockayne? Happily, Mrs. Rowe was on Lucy's side; for it had pleased Mrs. Cockayne to show her social superiority by extravagant coldness and formality whenever she had occasion to address "the landlady." One thing Mrs. Cockayne admitted she couldnotunderstand—viz., Why Jane the servant took so much upon herself with her mistress; and what all the mystery was about a Mr. Charles, who seemed to be a dark shadow, kept somewhere as far as possible in the background of the house.
Mrs. Rowe, on her side, was amply revenged for Mrs. Cockayne's airs of superiority, when Mr. Cockayne arrived in the company of Mr. John Catt, the betrothed love of Theodosia.
"You must be mad, Mr. Cockayne," was his wife's greeting directly they were alone—"raving mad to bring that vulgar fellow John Catt with you. Didn't you get my letters?"
"I did, my dear; and they brought me over, and John Catt with me. I, at least, intend to act an honourable part."
"Perhaps you will explain yourself, Mr. Cockayne."
"I have travelled from Clapham for that purpose. Who the devil is this Viscount de Gars, to begin with?"
Mrs. Cockayne drew herself up to her full height, and looked through her husband—or meant to look through him—but just then he was not to be cowed even by Mrs. Cockayne.
With provoking coolness and deliberation over the exact relative quantities, Mr. Cockayne mixed himself a glass of grog from his brandy flask; while he proceeded to inform his wife that Mr. John Catt, who had been engaged, with their full consent, to their daughter, had, at his instigation, travelled to Paris to understand what all this ridiculous twaddle about Viscount de Gars meant.
"You will spoil everything," Mrs. Cockayne gasped, "as usual."
"I don't know, madam, that I am in the habit of spoiling anything; but be very certain of this, that I shall not stand by and see my daughter make a fool of a young man of undoubted integrity and of excellent prospects, for the sake of one of these foreign adventurers who swarm wherever foolish Englishwomen wake their appearance. I beg you will say nothing, but let me observe for myself, and leave the young people to come to an understanding by themselves."
In common with many Englishmen of Timothy Cockayne's and John Catt's class, Theodosia's father at once concluded that the poor polite little Vicomte de Gars was an adventurer, and that his coronet was pasteboard, and his shirt studs stolen. Mr. John Catt distinguished himself on his arrival byloud calls for bottled beer, the wearing of his hat in the sitting-room, and by the tobacco-fumes which he liberally diffused in his wake.
When the little Vicomte made his accustomed appearance in the drawing-room, after the table d'hôte, he offered the Cockayne ladies his profoundest bows, and was most reverential in his attitude to Mr. Cockayne, who on his side was red and brusque. As neither Mr. nor Mrs. Cockayne could speak a French word, and Mr. John Catt was not in a position to help them, and was, moreover, inclined to the most unfavourable conclusions on the French nobleman, the presentations were on the English side of the most awkward description. The demoiselles Cockayne "fell a giggling" to cover their confusion; and the party would have made a ridiculous figure before all the boarders, had not the Reverend Horace Mohun covered them with his blandness.
Mr. John Catt was not well-mannered, but he was good-hearted and stout-hearted. He was one ofthose rough young gentlemen who pride themselves upon "having no nonsense about them." He was downright in all things, even in love-making. He took, therefore, a very early opportunity of asking his betrothed "what this all meant about Monsieur de Gars?" and of observing, "She had only to say the word, and he was ready to go."
This was very brutal, and it is not in the least to be wondered at that the young lady resented it.
I am, as the reader will have perceived, only touching now and then upon the histories of the people who passed through Mrs. Rowe's highly respectable establishment while I was in the habit of putting up there. This John Catt was told he was very cruel, and that he might go; Mrs. Cockayne resolutely refused to give up the delights and advantages of the society of the Vicomte de Gars; the foolish girl was—well, just as foolish as her mamma; and finally, in a storm that shook the boarding-house almost to its respectable foundations, the Cockayne party broke up—not before the Vicomte and Miss Theodosia Cockayne had had an explanation in the conservatory, and Mrs. Cockayne had invited "his lordship" to London.
I shall pick up the threads of all this presently.
Poor girl! she was timid, frightened. I saw at once that the man with whom she was, and who packed her feet up so carefully in the travelling rug in her state cabin, was not of her class. She could not have been daintier in mien and shape than she appeared. Hands round and white as pearls, feet as pretty as ever stole from a man's hand to the stirrup; a sweet wee face, that had innocence and heart in it. Country bred, I thought: nested in some Kentish village: a childhood amid the hops: familiar with buttermilk and home-baked bread.
Who has not been blessed by looking upon such an English face: ruddy on the cheek, and whiteand pink upon the brow and neck: the head poised upon the shoulders with a wondrous delicacy? Such girls issue from honest Englishmen's homes to gladden honeymoon cottages, and perpetuate that which is virtuous and courageous in our Saxon race. She lay muffled in shawls, pillowed upon a carpet-bag, softened with his fur coat, frightened about the sea, and asking every few minutes whether we were near the port.
He fell into conversation with me before we were clear of Folkestone harbour. He was a travelled man, accustomed to do his journeying socially, and not in the surly, self-contained, and selfish manner of our countrymen generally. I confess—and it is a boldness, knowing all I do know now—that I was drawn towards Daker at the outset. He had a winning manner—just that manner which puts you on a friendly footing with a stranger before you have passed an hour in his company. He began, as though it was quite natural that we should become acquainted, in thetone your neighbour at dinner assumes, although you are unacquainted with his name. We were on an exact level: gentlemen, beyond fear or reproach. I repeat emphatically, I liked Daker's manner, for it was easy and polished, and it had—which you don't often get with much polish—warmth. I was attracted by his many attentions to his young wife. Who could be near her, and not feel the chivalry in his soul warm to such a woman? But Daker's attentions were idiosyncrasies. While he was talking to me at the cabin-door, he saw the fur coat slip, and readjusted it. He divined when she wanted to move. He fanned her; and she sought his eyes incessantly with the deep pure blue of hers, and slaked her ever-thirsty love with long, passionate gazing. She took no notice of me: he was all her world.
Daker was in an airy humour—a man I thought without guile or care, passing away from England to happy connubial times along the enchantingshores which the Mediterranean bathes. We fell, as fellow-travellers generally do, upon old stories of the ways of the world we had seen. He had taken wider ranges than my duties had ever entailed on me.
Autumn was cooling to winter; it was early November when we met.
"I have been," he said, "killing time and birds pleasantly enough in Sussex."
Mrs. Daker overheard him, and smiled. Then we shifted carelessly, as far as I was concerned, away. He continued—
"And now we're off on the usual tramp. My wife wants a warm winter, and so do I, for the matter of that."
"Nice?" I asked.
A very decided "no" was the answer.
"I shall find some little sleepy Italian country-place, where we shall lay up like dormice, and just give King Frost the go-by for once. Are you bound south?"
"Only to Paris—as prosaic a journey as any cotton-spinner could desire."
"Always plenty to be done in Paris," Daker said; "at least I have never felt at a loss. But it's a bachelor's paradise."
"And a wife's," I interposed.
"Not a husband's, you think?" Daker asked, turning the end of his moustache very tight. "I agree with you."
"I have no experience; but I have an opinion, which I have been at some pains to gather—French society spoils our simple English women."
"Most decidedly," said Daker.
"They are too simple and too affectionate for the artificial, diplomatic—shall I say heartless?—society of the salons. Their ears burn at first at the conversation. They are presented to people who would barely be tolerated in the upper circles of South Bank, St. John's Wood."
"You are right; I know it well," said Daker, very earnestly, but resuming his normal air of liveliness in an instant. "It's a bad atmosphere, but decidedly amusing. Theespritof a good salon is delicious—nothing short of it. I like to bathe in it: it just suits me, though I can't contribute much to it. We Englishmen are not alert enough in mind to hold our own against our nimble neighbours. We shall never fence, nor dance, nor rally one another as they can. We are men who don't know how to be children. It's a great pity!"
"I am not so sure of that," was the opinion I uttered. "We should lose something deeper and better. We don't enjoy life—that is, the art of living—as they do; but we reach deeper joys."
Daker smiled, and protested playfully—
"We are running into a subject that would carry us far, if we would let it. I only know I wish I were a Frenchman with all my heart, and I'm not the first Englishman who has said so. Proud of one's country, and all that sort of thing: plucky, strong, master race of the world. I know it. But I have seen bitter life on that side"—pointing to thefaint white line of Dover—"and I have enjoyed myself immensely on that"—pointing to the growing height of Cape Grisnez.
I thought, as he spoke, that he must be an ungrateful fellow to say one word against the country where he had found the sweet little lady whose head was then pillowed upon his rough coat. I understood him afterwards. He started a fresh conversation, after having made a tender survey of the wraps and conveniences of Mrs. Daker, who followed him with the deep eyes as he returned to my side with his open cigar-case, to offer me a cheroot.
"Do you know anything of Amiens?" he said. "Is it a large place—busy, thriving?"
I gave him my impression—a ten-year old one.
"Not a place a man could lose himself in, evidently," he joked; "and they've been mowed down rather smartly by the cholera since you were there."
I could not quite like the tone of this; and yet what tenderness was in the man when he turned to his young wife! "St. Omer, Abbeville, Montreuil,and the rest of the places on the line, are dreary holes, I happen to know. You have been to Chantilly, of course?"