Lady Barbarina, The Siege of London, An International Episode, and Other Tales

My companion laid her hand an instant on my arm.  “My dear young friend, I know America, I know the conditions of life there down to the ground.  There’s perhaps no subject on which I’ve reflected more than on our national idiosyncrasies.”

“To the effect, I see, of your holding them in horror,” I said a little roughly.

Rude indeed as was my young presumption Mrs. Church had still her cultivated patience, even her pity, for it.  “We’re very crude,” she blandly remarked, “and we’re proportionately indigestible.”  And lest her own refined strictures should seem to savour of the vice she deprecated she went on to explain.  “There are two classes of minds, you know—those that hold back and those that push forward.  My daughter and I are not pushers; we move with the slow considerate steps to which a little dignity may still cling.  We like the old trodden paths; we like the old old world.”

“Ah,” said I, “you know what you like.  There’s a great virtue in that.”

“Yes, we like Europe; we prefer it.  We like the opportunities of Europe; we like the rest.  There’s so much in that, you know.  The world seems to me to be hurrying, pressing forward so fiercely, without knowing in the least where it’s going.  ‘Whither?’ I often ask in my little quiet way.  But I’ve yet to learn that any one can tell me.”

“You’re a grand old conservative,” I returned while I wondered whether I myself might have been able to meet her question.

Mrs. Church gave me a smile that was equivalent to a confession.  “I wish to retain a wee bit—just a wee bit.  Surely we’ve done so much we might rest a while; we might pause.  That’s all my feeling—just to stop a little, to wait, to take breath.  I’ve seen so many changes.  I want to draw in, to draw in—to hold back, to hold back.”

“You shouldn’t hold your daughter back!” I laughed as I got up.  I rose not by way of closing our small discussion, for I felt my friend’s exposition of her views to be by no means complete, but in order to offer a chair to Miss Aurora, who at this moment drew near.  She thanked me and remained standing, but without at first, as I noticed, really facing her parent.

“You’ve been engaged with your new acquaintance, my dear?” this lady inquired.

“Yes, mamma,” said the girl with a sort of prompt sweet dryness.

“Do you find her very edifying?”

Aurora had a silence; then she met her mother’s eyes.  “I don’t know, mamma.  She’s very fresh.”

I ventured a respectful laugh.  “Your mother has another word for that.  But I must not,” I added, “be indigestibly raw.”

“Ah, vous m’en voulez?” Mrs. Church serenely sighed.  “And yet I can’t pretend I said it in jest.  I feel it too much.  We’ve been having a little social discussion,” she said to her daughter.  “There’s still so much to be said.  And I wish,” she continued, turning to me, “that I could give you our point of view.  Don’t you wish, Aurora, that we could give him our point of view?”

“Yes, mamma,” said Aurora.

“We consider ourselves very fortunate in our point of view, don’t we, dearest?” mamma demanded.

“Very fortunate indeed, mamma.”

“You see we’ve acquired an insight into European life,” the elder lady pursued.  “We’ve our place at many a European fireside.  We find so much to esteem—so much to enjoy.  Don’t we find delightful things, my daughter?”

“So very delightful, mamma,” the girl went on with her colourless calm.  I wondered at it; it offered so strange a contrast to the mocking freedom of her tone the night before; but while I wondered I desired to testify to the interest at least with which she inspired me.

“I don’t know what impression you ladies may have found at European firesides,” I again ventured, “but there can be very little doubt of the impression you must have made there.”

Mrs. Church got in motion to acknowledge my compliment.  “We’ve spent some charming hours.  And that reminds me that we’ve just now such an occasion in prospect.  We’re to call upon some Genevese friends—the family of the Pasteur Galopin.  They’re to go with us to the old library at the Hôtel de Ville, where there are some very interesting documents of the period of the Reformation: we’re promised a glimpse of some manuscripts of poor Servetus, the antagonist and victim, you know, of the dire Calvin.  Here of course one can only speak of ce monsieur under one’s breath, but some day when we’re more private”—Mrs. Church looked round the room—“I’ll give you my view of him.  I think it has a force of its own.  Aurora’s familiar with it—aren’t you, my daughter, familiar with my view of the evil genius of the Reformation?”

“Yes, mamma—very,” said Aurora with docility—and also, as I thought, with subtlety—while the two ladies went to prepare for their visit to the Pasteur Galopin.

VI

“She has demanded a new lamp: I told you she would!”  This communication was made me by Madame Beaurepas a couple of days later.  “And she has asked for a new tapis de lit, and she has requested me to provide Célestine with a pair of light shoes.  I remarked to her that, as a general thing, domestic drudges aren’t shod with satin.  That brave Célestine!”

“Mrs. Church may be exacting,” I said, “but she’s a clever little woman.”

“A lady who pays but five francs and a half shouldn’t be too clever.  C’est déplacé.  I don’t like the type.”

“What type then,” I asked, “do you pronounce Mrs. Church’s?”

“Mon Dieu,” said Madame Beaurepas, “c’est une de ces mamans, comme vous en avez, qui promènent leur fille.”

“She’s trying to marry her daughter?  I don’t think she’s of that sort.”

But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her idea.  “She’s trying it in her own way; she does it very quietly.  She doesn’t want an American; she wants a foreigner.  And she wants a mari sérieux.  But she’s travelling over Europe in search of one.  She would like a magistrate.”

“A magistrate?”

“A gros bonnet of some kind; a professor or a deputy.”

“I’m awfully sorry for the poor girl,” I found myself moved to declare.

“You needn’t pity her too much; she’s a fine mouche—a sly thing.”

“Ah, for that, no!” I protested.  “She’s no fool, but she’s an honest creature.”

My hostess gave an ancient grin.  “She has hooked you, eh?  But the mother won’t have you.”

I developed my idea without heeding this insinuation.  “She’s a charming girl, but she’s a shrewd politician.  It’s a necessity of her case.  She’s less submissive to her mother than she has to pretend to be.  That’s in self-defence.  It’s to make her life possible.”

“She wants to get away from her mother”—Madame Beaurepas so far confirmed me.  “She wants to courir les champs.”

“She wants to go to America, her native country.”

“Precisely.  And she’ll certainly manage it.”

“I hope so!” I laughed.

“Some fine morning—or evening—she’ll go off with a young man; probably with a young American.”

“Allons donc!” I cried with disgust.

“That will be quite America enough,” pursued my cynical hostess.  “I’ve kept a boarding-house for nearly half a century.  I’ve seen that type.”

“Have such things as that happened chez vous?” I asked.

“Everything has happened chez moi.  But nothing has happened more than once.  Therefore this won’t happen here.  It will be at the next place they go to, or the next.  Besides, there’s here no young American pour la partie—none except you, monsieur.  You’re susceptible but you’re too reasonable.”

“It’s lucky for you I’m reasonable,” I answered.  “It’s thanks to my cold blood you escape a scolding!”

One morning about this time, instead of coming back to breakfast at the pension after my lectures at the Academy, I went to partake of this meal with a fellow student at an ancient eating-house in the collegiate quarter.  On separating from my friend I took my way along that charming public walk known in Geneva as the Treille, a shady terrace, of immense elevation, overhanging a stretch of the lower town.  Here are spreading trees and well-worn benches, and over the tiles and chimneys of the ville basse a view of the snow-crested Alps.  On the other side, as you turn your back to the view, the high level is overlooked by a row of tall sober-faced hôtels, the dwellings of the local aristocracy.  I was fond of the place, resorting to it for stimulation of my sense of the social scene at large.  Presently, as I lingered there on this occasion, I became aware of a gentleman seated not far from where I stood, his back to the Alpine chain, which this morning was all radiant, and a newspaper unfolded in his lap.  He wasn’t reading, however; he only stared before him in gloomy contemplation.  I don’t know whether I recognised first the newspaper or its detainer; one, in either case, would have helped me to identify the other.  One was the New York Herald—the other of course was Mr. Ruck.  As I drew nearer he moved his eyes from the stony succession, the grey old high-featured house-masks, on the other side of the terrace, and I knew by the expression of his face just how he had been feeling about these distinguished abodes.  He had made up his mind that their proprietors were a “mean” narrow-minded unsociable company that plunged its knotted roots into a superfluous past.  I endeavoured therefore, as I sat down beside him, to strike a pleasanter note.

“The Alps, from here, do make a wondrous show!”

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Ruck without a stir, “I’ve examined the Alps.  Fine thing in its way, the view—fine thing.  Beauties of nature—that sort of thing.  We came up on purpose to look at it.”

“Your ladies then have been with you?”

“Yes—I guess they’re fooling round.  They’re awfully restless.  They keep saying I’m restless, but I’m as quiet as a sleeping child to them.  It takes,” he added in a moment dryly, “the form of an interest in the stores.”

“And are the stores what they’re after now?”

“Yes—unless this is one of the days the stores don’t keep.  They regret them, but I wish there were more of them!  They told me to sit here a while and they’d just have a look.  I generally know what that means—it’s their form of scenery.  But that’s the principal interest for ladies,” he added, retracting his irony.  “We thought we’d come up here and see the cathedral; Mrs. Church seemed to think it a dead loss we shouldn’t see the cathedral, especially as we hadn’t seen many yet.  And I had to come up to the banker’s anyway.  Well, we certainly saw the cathedral.  I don’t know as we’re any the better for it, and I don’t know as I should know it again.  But we saw it anyway, stone by stone—and heard about it century by century.  I don’t know as I should want to go there regularly, but I suppose it will give us in conversation a kind of hold on Mrs. Church, hey?  I guess we want something of that kind.  Well,” Mr. Ruck continued, “I stepped in at the banker’s to see if there wasn’t something, and they handed me out an old Herald.”

“Well, I hope the Herald’s full of good news,” I returned.

“Can’t say it is.  Damned bad news.”

“Political,” I inquired, “or commercial?”

“Oh hang politics!  It’s business, sir.  There ain’t any business.  It’s all gone to—” and Mr. Ruck became profane.  “Nine failures in one day, and two of them in our locality.  What do you say to that?”

“I greatly hope they haven’t inconvenienced you,” was all I could gratify him with.

“Well, I guess they haven’t affected me quite desirably.  So many houses on fire, that’s all.  If they happen to take place right where you live they don’t increase the value of your own property.  When mine catches I suppose they’ll write and tell me—one of these days when they get round to me.  I didn’t get a blamed letter this morning; I suppose they think I’m having such a good time over here it’s a pity to break in.  If I could attend to business for about half an hour I’d find out something.  But I can’t, and it’s no use talking.  The state of my health was never so unsatisfactory as it was about five o’clock this morning.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” I said, “and I recommend you strongly not to think of business.”

“I don’t,” Mr. Ruck replied.  “You can’t make me.  I’m thinking of cathedrals.  I’m thinking of the way they used to chain you up under them or burn you up in front of them—in those high old times.  I’m thinking of the beauties of nature too,” he went on, turning round on the bench and leaning his elbow on the parapet.  “You can get killed over there I suppose also”—and he nodded at the shining crests.  “I’m thinking of going over—because, whatever the danger, I seem more afraid not to.  That’s why I do most things.  How do you get over?” he sighed.

“Over to Chamouni?”

“Over to those hills.  Don’t they run a train right up?”

“You can go to Chamouni,” I said.  “You can go to Grindelwald and Zermatt and fifty other places.  You can’t go by rail, but you can drive.”

“All right, we’ll drive—you can’t tell the difference in these cars.  Yes,” Mr. Ruck proceeded, “Chamouni’s one of the places we put down.  I hope there are good stores in Chamouni.”  He spoke with a quickened ring and with an irony more pointed than commonly served him.  It was as if he had been wrought upon, and yet his general submission to fate was still there.  I judged he had simply taken, in the face of disaster, a sudden sublime resolution not to worry.  He presently twisted himself about on his bench again and began to look out for his companions.  “Well, they are taking a look,” he resumed; “I guess they’ve struck something somewhere.  And they’ve got a carriage waiting outside of that archway too.  They seem to do a big business in archways here, don’t they?  They like to have a carriage to carry home the things—those ladies of mine.  Then they’re sure they’ve got ’em.”  The ladies, after this, to do them justice, were not very long in appearing.  They came toward us from under the archway to which Mr. Ruck had somewhat invidiously alluded, slowly and with a jaded air.  My companion watched them as they advanced.  “They’re right down tired.  When they look like that it kind o’ foots up.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Ruck, “I’m glad you’ve had some company.”  Her husband looked at her, in silence, through narrowed eyelids, and I suspected that her unusually gracious observation was prompted by the less innocent aftertaste of her own late pastime.

Her daughter glanced at me with the habit of straighter defiance.  “It would have been more proper if we had had the company.  Why didn’t you come after us instead of sneaking there?” she asked of Mr. Ruck’s companion.

“I was told by your father,” I explained, “that you were engaged in sacred rites.”  If Miss Ruck was less conciliatory it would be scarcely, I felt sure, because she had been more frugal.  It was rather because her conception of social intercourse appeared to consist of the imputation to as many persons as possible—that is to as many subject males—of some scandalous neglect of her charms and her claims.  “Well, for a gentleman there’s nothing so sacred as ladies’ society,” she replied in the manner of a person accustomed to giving neat retorts.

“I suppose you refer to the cathedral,” said her mother.  “Well, I must say we didn’t go back there.  I don’t know what it may be for regular attendants, but it doesn’t meet my idea of a really pleasant place of worship.  Few of these old buildings do,” Mrs. Ruck further mentioned.

“Well, we discovered a little lace-shop, where I guess I could regularly attend!” her daughter took occasion to announce without weak delay.

Mr. Ruck looked at his child; then he turned about again, leaning on the parapet and gazing away at the “hills.”

“Well, the place was certainly not expensive,” his wife said with her eyes also on the Alps.

“We’re going up to Chamouni,” he pursued.  “You haven’t any call for lace up there.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’ve decided to go somewhere,” Mrs. Ruck returned.  “I don’t want to be a fixture at an old pension.”

“You can wear lace anywhere,” her daughter reminded us, “if you put it on right.  That’s the great thing with lace.  I don’t think they know how to wear lace in Europe.  I know how I mean to wear mine; but I mean to keep it till I get home.”

Mr. Ruck transferred his melancholy gaze to her elaborately-appointed little person; there was a great deal of very new-looking detail in Miss Ruck’s appearance.  Then in a tone of voice quite out of consonance with his facial despondency, “Have you purchased a great deal?” he inquired.

“I’ve purchased enough for you to make a fuss about.”

“He can’t make a fuss about that,” said Mrs. Ruck.

“Well, you’ll see!”—the girl had unshaken confidence.

The subject of this serenity, however, went on in the same tone: “Have you got it in your pocket?  Why don’t you put it on—why don’t you hang it round you?”

“I’ll hang it round you if you don’t look out!” cried Miss Ruck.

“Don’t you want to show it off to this gentleman?” he sociably continued.

“Mercy, how you do carry on!” his wife sighed.

“Well, I want to be lively.  There’s every reason for it.  We’re going up to Chamouni.”

“You’re real restless—that’s what’s the matter with you.”  And Mrs. Ruck roused herself from her own repose.

“No, I ain’t,” said her husband.  “I never felt so quiet.  I feel as peaceful as a little child.”

Mrs. Ruck, who had no play of mind, looked at her daughter and at me.  “Well, I hope you’ll improve,” she stated with a certain flatness.

“Send in the bills,” he went on, rising to match.  “Don’t let yourself suffer from want, Sophy.  I don’t care what you do now.  We can’t be more than gay, and we can’t be worse than broke.”

Sophy joined her mother with a little toss of her head, and we followed the ladies to the carriage, where the younger addressed her father.  “In your place, Mr. Ruck, I wouldn’t want to flaunt my meanness quite so much before strangers.”

He appeared to feel the force of this rebuke, surely deserved by a man on whom the humiliation of seeing the main ornaments of his hearth betray the ascendency of that character had never yet been laid.  He flushed and was silent; his companions got into their vehicle, the front seat of which was adorned with a large parcel.  Mr. Ruck gave the parcel a poke with his umbrella and turned to me with a grimly penitent smile.  “After all, for the ladies, that’s the principal interest.”

VII

Old M. Pigeonneau had more than once offered me the privilege of a walk in his company, but his invitation had hitherto, for one reason or another, always found me hampered.  It befell, however, one afternoon that I saw him go forth for a vague airing with an unattended patience that attracted my sympathy.  I hastily overtook him and passed my hand into his venerable arm, an overture that produced in the good old man so rejoicing a response that he at once proposed we should direct our steps to the English Garden: no scene less consecrated to social ease was worthy of our union.  To the English Garden accordingly we went; it lay beyond the bridge and beside the lake.  It was always pretty and now was really recreative; a band played furiously in the centre and a number of discreet listeners sat under the small trees on benches and little chairs or strolled beside the blue water.  We joined the strollers, we observed our companions and conversed on obvious topics.  Some of these last, of course, were the pretty women who graced the prospect and who, in the light of M. Pigeonneau’s comprehensive criticism, appeared surprisingly numerous.  He seemed bent upon our making up our minds as to which might be prettiest, and this was an innocent game in which I consented to take a hand.

Suddenly my companion stopped, pressing my arm with the liveliest emotion.  “La voilà, la voilà, the prettiest!” he quickly murmured; “coming toward us in a blue dress with the other.”  It was at the other I was looking, for the other, to my surprise, was our interesting fellow pensioner, the daughter of the most systematic of mothers.  M. Pigeonneau meanwhile had redoubled his transports—he had recognised Miss Ruck.  “Oh la belle rencontre, nos aimables convives—the prettiest girl in the world in effect!”  And then after we had greeted and joined the young ladies, who, like ourselves, were walking arm in arm and enjoying the scene, he addressed himself to the special object of his admiration, Mees Roque.  “I was citing you with enthusiasm to my young friend here even before I had recognised you, mademoiselle.”

“I don’t believe in French compliments,” remarked Miss Sophy, who presented her back to the smiling old man.

“Are you and Miss Ruck walking alone?” I asked of her companion.  “You had better accept M. Pigeonneau’s gallant protection, to say nothing of mine.”

Aurora Church had taken her hand from Miss Ruck’s arm; she inclined her head to the side and shone at me while her open parasol revolved on her shoulder.  “Which is most improper—to walk alone or to walk with gentlemen that one picks up?  I want to do what’s most improper.”

“What perversity,” I asked, “are you, with an ingenuity worthy of a better cause, trying to work out?”

“He thinks you can’t understand him when he talks like that,” said Miss Ruck.  “But I do understand you,” she flirted at me—“always!”

“So I’ve always ventured to hope, my dear Miss Ruck.”

“Well, if I didn’t it wouldn’t be much loss!” cried this young lady.

“Allons, en marche!” trumpeted M. Pigeonneau, all gallant urbanity and undiscouraged by her impertinence.  “Let us make together the tour of the garden.”  And he attached himself to Miss Ruck with a respectful elderly grace which treated her own lack even of the juvenile form of that attraction as some flower of alien modesty, and was ever sublimely conscious of a mission to place modesty at its ease.  This ill-assorted couple walked in front, while Aurora Church and I strolled along together.

“I’m sure this is more improper,” said my companion; “this is delightfully improper.  I don’t say that as a compliment to you,” she added.  “I’d say it to any clinging man, no matter how stupid.”

“Oh I’m clinging enough,” I answered; “but I’m as stupid as you could wish, and this doesn’t seem to me wrong.”

“Not for you, no; only for me.  There’s nothing that a man can do that’s wrong, is there?  En morale, you know, I mean.  Ah, yes, he can kill and steal; but I think there’s nothing else, is there?”

“Well, it’s a nice question.  One doesn’t know how those things are taken till after one has done them.  Then one’s enlightened.”

“And you mean you’ve never been enlightened?  You make yourself out very good.”

“That’s better than making one’s self out very bad, as you do.”

“Ah,” she explained, “you don’t know the consequences of a false position.”

I was amused at her great formula.  “What do you mean by yours being one?”

“Oh I mean everything.  For instance, I’ve to pretend to be a jeune fille.  I’m not a jeune fille; no American girl’s a jeune fille; an American girl’s an intelligent responsible creature.  I’ve to pretend to be idiotically innocent, but I’m not in the least innocent.”

This, however, was easy to meet.  “You don’t in the least pretend to be innocent; you pretend to be—what shall I call it?—uncannily wise.”

“That’s no pretence.  I am uncannily wise.  You could call it nothing more true.”

I went along with her a little, rather thrilled by this finer freedom.  “You’re essentially not an American girl.”

She almost stopped, looking at me; there came a flush to her cheek.  “Voilà!” she said.  “There’s my false position.  I want to be an American girl, and I’ve been hideously deprived of that immense convenience, that beautiful resource.”

“Do you want me to tell you?” I pursued with interest.  “It would be utterly impossible to an American girl—I mean unperverted, and that’s the whole point—to talk as you’re talking to me now.”

The expressive eagerness she showed for this was charming.  “Please tell me then!  How would she talk?”

“I can’t tell you all the things she’d say, but I think I can tell you most of the things she wouldn’t.  She wouldn’t reason out her conduct as you seem to me to do.”

Aurora gave me the most flattering attention.  “I see.  She would be simpler.  To do very simply things not at all simple—that’s the American girl!”