"_Mon Dieu, madame, q"oui_," said the obedient tire-woman, sc.r.a.ping the very back of her throat in her zeal. "Madame Seymour has the real American _maigreur_. These thin women, madame, they have no substance; there is noting to them. For young girl, they are charming; but, as woman, they are just noting at all. Now, you will see, madame, what I tell you. In a year or two, people shall ask, "Was she ever handsome?"
But _you_, madame, you come to your prime like great rose! Oh, dere is no comparison of you to Mrs. John Seymour!"
And Therese found her words highly acceptable, after the manner of all her tribe, who prophesy smooth things unto their mistresses.
It may be imagined that the entertaining of d.i.c.k Follingsbee was no small strain on the conjugal endurance of our faithful John; but he was on duty, and endured without flinching that gentleman"s free and easy jokes and patronizing civilities.
"I do wish, darling, you"d teach that creature not to call you "Lillie" in that abominably free manner," he said to his wife, the first day, after dinner.
"Mercy on us, John! what can I do? All the world knows that d.i.c.k Follingsbee"s an oddity; and everybody agrees to take what he says for what it"s worth. If I should go to putting on any airs, he"d behave ten times worse than he does: the only way is, to pa.s.s it over quietly, and not to seem to notice any thing he says or does. My way is, to smile, and look gracious, and act as if I hadn"t heard any thing but what is perfectly proper."
"It"s a tremendous infliction, Lillie!"
"Poor man! is it?" said Lillie, putting her arm round his neck, and stroking his whiskers. "Well, now, he"s a good man to bear it so well, so he is; and they shan"t plague him long. But, John, you must confess Mrs. Follingsbee is nice: poor woman! she is mortified with the way d.i.c.k will go on; but she can"t do any thing with him."
"Yes, I can get on with her," said John. In fact, John was one of the men so loyal to women that his path of virtue in regard to them always ran down hill. Mrs. Follingsbee was handsome, and had a gift in language, and some considerable tact in adapting herself to her society; and, as she put forth all her powers to win his admiration, she succeeded.
Grace had done her part to a.s.sist John in his hospitable intents, by securing the prompt co-operation of the Fergusons. The very first evening after their arrival, old Mrs. Ferguson, with Let.i.tia and Rose, called, not formally but socially, as had always been the custom of the two families. d.i.c.k Follingsbee was out, enjoying an evening cigar,--a circ.u.mstance on which John secretly congratulated himself as a favorable feature in the case. He felt instinctively a sort of uneasy responsibility for his guests; and, judging the Fergusons by himself, felt that their call was in some sort an act of self-abnegation on his account; and he was anxious to make it as easy as possible. Mrs. Follingsbee was presentable, so he thought; but he dreaded the irrepressible d.i.c.k, and had much the same feeling about him that one has on presenting a pet spaniel or pointer in a lady"s parlor,--there was no answering for what he might say or do.
The Fergusons were disposed to make themselves most amiable to Mrs.
Follingsbee; and, with this intent. Miss Let.i.tia started the subject of her Parisian experiences, as being probably one where she would feel herself especially at home. Mrs. Follingsbee of course expanded in rapturous description, and was quite clever and interesting.
"You must feel quite a difference between that country and this, in regard to facilities of living," said Miss Let.i.tia.
"Ah, indeed! do I not?" said Mrs. Follingsbee, casting up her eyes.
"Life here in America is in a state of perfect disorganization."
"We are a young people here, madam," said John. "We haven"t had time to organize the smaller conveniences of life."
"Yes, that"s what I mean," said Mrs. Follingsbee. "Now, you men don"t feel it so very much; but it bears hard on us poor women. Life here in America is perfect slavery to women,--a perfect dead grind. You see there"s no career at all for a married woman in this country, as there is in France. Marriage there opens a brilliant prospect before a girl: it introduces her to the world; it gives her wings. In America, it is clipping her wings, chaining her down, shutting her up,--no more gayety, no more admiration; nothing but cradles and cribs, and bibs and tuckers, little narrowing, wearing, domestic cares, hard, vulgar domestic slaveries: and so our women lose their bloom and health and freshness, and are moped to death."
"I can"t see the thing in that light, Mrs. Follingsbee," said old Mrs.
Ferguson. "I don"t understand this modern talk. I am sure, for one, I can say I have had all the career I wanted ever since I married. You know, dear, when one begins to have children, one"s heart goes into them: we find nothing hard that we do for the dear little things. I"ve heard that the Parisian ladies never nurse their own babies. From my very heart, I pity them."
"Oh, my dear madam!" said Mrs. Follingsbee, "why insist upon it that a cultivated, intelligent woman shall waste some of the most beautiful years of her life in a mere animal function, that, after all, any healthy peasant can perform better than she? The French are a philosophical nation; and, in Paris, you see, this thing is all systematic: it"s altogether better for the child. It"s taken to the country, and put to nurse with a good strong woman, who makes that her only business. She just lives to be a good animal, you see, and so is a better one than a more intellectual being can be; thus she gives the child a strong const.i.tution, which is the main thing."
"Yes," said Miss Let.i.tia; "I was told, when in Paris, that this system is universal. The dressmaker, who works at so much a day, sends her child out to nurse as certainly as the woman of rank and fashion.
There are no babies, as a rule, in French households."
"And you see how good this is for the mother," said Mrs. Follingsbee.
"The first year or two of a child"s life it is nothing but a little animal; and one person can do for it about as well as another: and all this time, while it is growing physically, the mother has for art, for self-cultivation, for society, and for literature. Of course she keeps her eye on her child, and visits it often enough to know that all goes right with it."
"Yes," said Miss Let.i.tia; "and the same philosophical spirit regulates the education of the child throughout. An American gentleman, who wished to live in Paris, told me that, having searched all over it, he could not accommodate his family, including himself and wife and two children, without taking _two_ of the suites that are usually let to one family. The reason, he inferred, was the perfection of the system which keeps the French family reduced in numbers. The babies are out at nurse, sometimes till two, and sometimes till three years of age; and, at seven or eight, the girl goes into a pension, and the boy into a college, till they are ready to be taken out,--the girl to be married, and the boy to enter a profession: so the leisure of parents for literature, art, and society is preserved."
"It seems to me the most perfectly dreary, dreadful way of living I ever heard of," said Mrs. Ferguson, with unwonted energy. "How I pity people who know so little of real happiness!"
"Yet the French are dotingly fond of children," said Mrs. Follingsbee.
"It"s a national peculiarity; you can see it in all their literature.
Don"t you remember Victor Hugo"s exquisite description of a mother"s feelings for a little child in "Notre Dame de Paris"? I never read any thing more affecting; it"s perfectly subduing."
"They can"t love their children as I did mine," said Mrs. Ferguson: "it"s impossible; and, if that"s what"s called organizing society, I hope our society in America never will be organized. It can"t be that children are well taken care of on that system. I always attended to every thing for my babies _myself_; because I felt G.o.d had put them into my hands perfectly helpless; and, if there is any thing difficult or disagreeable in the case, how can I expect to _hire_ a woman for money to be faithful in what I cannot do for love?"
"But don"t you think, dear madam, that this system of personal devotion to children may be carried too far?" said Mrs. Follingsbee.
"Perhaps in France they may go to an extreme; but don"t our American women, as a rule, sacrifice themselves too much to their families?"
"_Sacrifice_"! said Mrs. Ferguson. "How can we? Our children are our new life. We live in them a thousand times more than we could in ourselves. No, I think a mother that doesn"t take care of her own baby misses the greatest happiness a woman can know. A baby isn"t a mere animal; and it is a great and solemn thing to see the coming of an immortal soul into it from day to day. My very happiest hours have been spent with my babies in my arms."
"There may be women const.i.tuted so as to enjoy it," said Mrs.
Follingsbee; "but you must allow that there is a vast difference among women."
"There certainly is," said Mrs. Ferguson, as she rose with a frigid courtesy, and shortened the call. "My dear girls," said the old lady to her daughters, when they returned home, "I disapprove of that woman. I am very sorry that pretty little Mrs. Seymour has so bad a friend and adviser. Why, the woman talks like a Fejee Islander! Baby a mere animal, to be sure! it puts me out of temper to hear such talk.
The woman talks as if she had never heard of such a thing as love in her life, and don"t know what it means."
"Oh, well, mamma!" said Rose, "you know we are old-fashioned folks, and not up to modern improvements."
"Well," said Miss Let.i.tia, "I should think that that poor little weird child of Mrs. Follingsbee"s, with the great red bow on her back, had been brought up on this system. Yesterday afternoon I saw her in the garden, with that maid of hers, apparently enjoying a free fight. They looked like a pair of goblins,--an old and a young one. I never saw any thing like it."
"What a pity!" said Rose; "for she"s a smart, bright little thing; and it"s cunning to hear her talk French."
"Well," said Mrs. Ferguson, straightening her back, and sitting up with a grand air: "I am one of eight children that my mother nursed herself at her own breast, and lived to a good honorable old age after it. People called her a handsome woman at sixty: she could ride and walk and dance with the best; and n.o.body kept up a keener interest in reading or general literature. Her conversation was sought by the most eminent men of the day as something remarkable. She was always with her children: we always knew we had her to run to at any moment; and we were the first thing with her. She lived a happy, loving, useful life; and her children rose up and called her blessed."
"As we do you, dear mamma," said Rose, kissing her: "so don"t be oratorical, darling mammy; because we are all of your mind here."
CHAPTER XVI.
_MRS. JOHN SEYMOUR"S PARTY, AND WHAT CAME OF IT_.
Mrs. John Seymour"s party marked an era in the annals of Springdale.
Of this, you may be sure, my dear reader, when you consider that it was projected and arranged by Mrs. Lillie, in strict counsel with her friend Mrs. Follingsbee, who had lived in Paris, and been to b.a.l.l.s at the Tuileries. Of course, it was a tip-top New-York-Paris party, with all the new, fashionable, unspeakable crinkles and wrinkles, all the high, divine, spick and span new ways of doing things; which, however, like the Eleusinian mysteries, being in their very nature incommunicable except to the elect, must be left to the imagination.
A French _artiste_, whom Mrs. Follingsbee patronized as "my confectioner," came in state to Springdale, with a retinue of appendages and servants sufficient for a circus; took formal possession of the Seymour mansion, and became, for the time being, absolute dictator, as was customary in the old Roman Republic in times of emergency.
Mr. Follingsbee was forward, fussy, and advisory, in his own peculiar free-and-easy fashion; and Mrs. Follingsbee was instructive and patronizing to the very last degree. Lillie had bewailed in her sympathizing bosom John"s unaccountable and most singular moral Quixotism in regard to the wine question, and been comforted by her appreciative discourse. Mrs. Follingsbee had a sort of indefinite faith in French phrases for mending all the broken places in life. A thing said partly in French became at once in her view elucidated, even though the words meant no more than the same in English; so she consoled Lillie as follows:--
"Oh, _ma chere_! I understand perfectly: your husband may be "_un peu borne_" as they say in Paris, but still "_un homme tres respectable_"
(Mrs. Follingsbee here sc.r.a.ped her throat emphatically, just as her French maid did),--a sublime example of the virtues; and let me tell you, darling, you are very fortunate to get such a man. It is not often that a woman can get an establishment like yours, and a good man into the bargain; so, if the goodness is a little _ennuyeuse_, one must put up with it. Then, again, people of old established standing may do about what they like socially: their position is made. People only say, "Well, that is their way; the Seymours will do so and so."
Now, we have to do twice as much of every thing to make our position, as certain other people do. We might flood our place with champagne and Burgundy, and get all the young fellows drunk, as we generally do; and yet people will call our parties "_bourgeois_" and yours "_recherche_", if you give them nothing but tea and biscuit. Now, there"s my d.i.c.k: he respects your husband; you can see he does. In his odious slang way, he says he"s "some," and "a brick;" and he"s a little anxious to please him, though he professes not to care for anybody. Now, d.i.c.k has pretty sharp sense, after all, or he"d never have been just where he is."
Our friend John, during these days preceding the party, the party itself, and the clearing up after it, enacted submissively that part of unconditional surrender which the master of the house, if well trained, generally acts on such occasions. He resembled the prize ox, which is led forth adorned with garlands, ribbons, and docility, to grace a triumphal procession. He went where he was told, did as he was bid, marched to the right, marched to the left, put on gloves and cravat, and took them off, entirely submissive to the word of his little general; and exhibited, in short, an edifying spectacle of that pleasant domestic animal, a tame husband. He had to make atonement for being a reformer, and for endeavoring to live like a Christian, by conceding to his wife all this lat.i.tude of indulgence; and he meant to go through it like a man and a philosopher. To be sure, in his eyes, it was all so much unutterable bosh and nonsense; and bosh and nonsense for which he was eventually to settle the bills: but he armed himself with the patient reflection that all things have their end in time,--that fireworks and Chinese lanterns, bands of music and kid gloves, ruffs and puffs, and pinkings and quillings, and all sorts of unspeakable eatables with French names, would ere long float down the stream of time, and leave their record only in a few bad colds and days of indigestion, which also time would mercifully cure.
So John steadied his soul with a view of that comfortable future, when all this fuss should be over, and the coast cleared for something better. Moreover, John found this good result of his patience: that he learned a little something in a Christian way by it. Men of elevated principle and moral honesty often treat themselves to such large slices of contempt and indignation, in regard to the rogues of society, as to forget a common brotherhood of pity. It is sometimes wholesome for such men to be obliged to tolerate a scamp to the extent of exchanging with him the ordinary benevolences of social life.
John, in discharging the duty of a host to d.i.c.k Follingsbee, found himself, after a while, looking on him with pity, as a poor creature, like the rich fool in the Gospels, without faith, or love, or prayer; spending life as a moth does,--in vain attempts to burn himself up in the candle, and knowing nothing better. In fact, after a while, the stiff, tow-colored moustache, smart stride, and flippant air of this poor little man struck him somewhere in the region between a smile and a tear; and his enforced hospitality began to wear a tincture of real kindness. There is no less pathos in moral than in physical imbecility.
It is an observable social phenomenon that, when any family in a community makes an advance very greatly ahead of its neighbors in style of living or splendor of entertainments, the fact causes great searchings of spirit in all the region round about, and abundance of talk, wherein the thoughts of many hearts are revealed.