Pencil Sketches: or, Outlines of Character and Manners. Leslie Eliza
with the nasal sounds. He started back aghast, exclaiming —
"Ah! quelle friponnerie! la petite coquine! Voici un grand acte de fourberie et de méchanceté!46 So young and so depraved – ah! I fear, I much fear, she will grow up a rogue-a cheat – perhaps a thief. Je suis glacé d'horreur! Je tremble! Je frissonne!"47
"I'll tell you what," said Uncle Philip, laying down his newspaper, "you need neither tremble nor frisson, nor get yourself into any horror about it. The child's only a girl of five years old, and I've no notion that the little tricks, that all children are apt to play at times, are proofs of natural wickedness, or signs that they will grow up bad men and women. But to cut the matter short, the girl is too little to learn French. She is not old enough either to understand it, or to remember it, and you see it's impossible for her to give her mind to it. So from this time, I say, she shall learn no more French till she is grown up, and desires it herself. (Little Anne gave a skip half way to the ceiling.) You shall be paid for her quarter all the same, and I'll pay you myself on the spot. So you need never come again."
Mr. Ravigote was now from head to foot all one smile; and bowing with his hands on his heart, he, at Uncle Philip's desire, mentioned the sum due for a quarter's attempt at instruction. Uncle Philip immediately took the money out of his pocket-book, saying, "There, – there is a dollar over; but you may keep it yourself: I want no change. I suppose my niece, Kitty Clavering, will not be pleased at my sending you off; but she will have to get over it, for I'll see that child tormented no longer."
Mr. Ravigote thought in his own mind, that the torment had been much greater to him than to the child; but he was so full of gratitude, that he magnanimously offered to take the blame on himself, and represent to Mrs. Clavering that it was his own proposal to give up Mademoiselle Annette, as her organ of French was not yet developed.
"No, no," said Uncle Philip, "I am always fair and above-board. I want nobody to shift the blame from my shoulders to their own. Whatever I do, I'll stand by manfully. I only hope that you'll never again attempt to teach French to babies."
Mr. Ravigote took leave with many thanks, and on turning to bid his adieu to the little girl, he found that she had already vanished from the parlour, and was riding about the green on the back of old Neptune.
When Uncle Philip told Mrs. Clavering of his dismissal of Mr. Ravigote, she was so deeply vexed, that she thought it most prudent to say nothing, lest she should be induced to say too much.
A few days after this event, Madame Franchimeau sent an invitation, written in French, for Mrs. Clavering, and "Monsieur Philippe" to pass the evening at her house, and partake of a petit souper,48 bringing with them le doux Sammi, and la belle Fanchette.49 This supper was to celebrate the birthday of her niece, Mademoiselle Robertine, who had just arrived from New York, and was to spend a few weeks at Corinth.
Uncle Philip had never yet been prevailed on to enter the French house, as he called it; and on this occasion he stoutly declared off, saying that he had no desire to see any more of their foolery, and that he hated the thoughts of a French supper. "My friend, Tom Logbook," said he, "who commands the packet Louis Quatorze, and understands French, told me of a supper to which he was invited the first time he was at Havre, and of the dishes he was expected to eat, and I shall take care never to put myself in the way of such ridiculous trash. Why, he told me there was wooden-leg soup, and bagpipes of mutton, and rabbits in spectacles, and pullets in silk stockings, and potatoes in shirts.50 Answer me now, are such things fit for Christians to eat?"
For a long time Mrs. Clavering tried in vain to prevail on Uncle Philip to accept of the invitation. At last Dick suggested a new persuasive. "Mother," said he, "I have no doubt Uncle Philip would go to the French supper, if you will let us all have a holiday from school for a week."
"That's a good thought, Dick," exclaimed the old gentleman. "Yes, I think I would. Well, on these terms I will go, and eat trash. I suppose I shall live through it. But remember now, this is the first and last and only time I will ever enter a French house."
After tea, the party set out for Monsieur Franchimeau's, and were ushered into the front parlour, which was fitted up in a manner that exhibited a strange mélange of slovenliness and pretension. There was neither carpet nor matting, and the floor was by no means in the nicest order; but there were three very large looking-glasses, the plates being all more or less cracked, and the frames sadly tarnished. The chairs were of two different sorts, and of very ungenteel appearance; but there was a kind of Grecian sofa, or lounge, with a gilt frame much defaced, and a red damask cover much soiled; and, in the centre of the room, stood a fauteuil51 covered with blue moreen, the hair poking out in tufts through the slits. The windows were decorated with showy curtains of coarse pink muslin and marvellously coarse white muslin; the drapery suspended from two gilt arrows, one of which had lost its point, and the other had parted with its feather. The hearth was filled with rubbish, such as old pens, curl-papers, and bits of rag; but the mantel-piece was adorned with vases of artificial flowers under glass bells, and two elegant chocolate cups of French china.
The walls were hung with a dozen bad lithographic prints, tastefully suspended by bows of gauze ribbon. Among these specimens of the worst style of the modern French school, was a Cupid and Psyche, with a background that was the most prominent part of the picture, every leaf of every tree on the distant mountains being distinctly defined and smoothly finished. The clouds seemed unwilling to stay behind the hills, but had come so boldly forward and looked so like masses of stone, that there was much apparent danger of their falling on the heads of the lovers and crushing them to atoms. Psyche was an immensely tall, narrow woman, of a certain age, and remarkably strong features; and Cupid was a slender young man, of nineteen or twenty, about seven feet high, with long tresses descending to his waist.
Another print represented a huge muscular woman, with large coarse features distorted into the stare and grin of a maniac, an enormous lyre in her hand, a cloud of hair flying in one direction, and a volume of drapery exhibiting its streaky folds in another; while she is running to the edge of a precipice, as if pursued by a mad bull, and plunging forward with one foot in the air, and her arms extended above her head. This was Sappho on the rock of Leucate. These two prints Mr. Franchimeau (who professed connoisseurship, and always talked when pictures were the subject – that is, French pictures) pointed out to his visiters as magnificent emanations of the Fine Arts. "The coarse arts, rather," murmured Uncle Philip.
The guests were received with much suavity by the French ladies and the vieux papa; and Capt. Kentledge was introduced by Madame Franchimeau to three little black-haired girls, with surprisingly yellow faces, who were designated by the mother as "mon aimable Lulu, ma mignonne Mimi, and ma petite ange Gogo."52 Uncle Philip wondered what were the real names of these children.
After this, Madame Franchimeau left the room for a moment, and returned, leading in a very pretty young girl, whom she introduced as her très chère niece, Mademoiselle Robertine,53 orphan daughter of a brother of her respectable Alphonse.
Robertine had a neat French figure, a handsome French face, and a profusion of hair arranged precisely in the newest style of the wax figures that decorate the windows of the most fashionable coiffeurs.54 She was dressed in a thin white muslin, with a short black silk apron, embroidered at the corners with flowers in colours. Mr. Franchimeau resigned to her his chair beside Uncle Philip, to whom (while her aunt and the Ravigotes were chattering and shrugging to Mrs. Clavering) she addressed herself with considerable fluency and in good English. People who have known but little of the world, and of the best tone of society, are apt, on being introduced to new acquaintances, to talk to them at once of their profession, or in reference to it; and Robertine questioned Uncle Philip about his ships and his voyages, and took occasion to tell him that she had always admired the character of a sailor, and still more that
Ah! what roguery – the little jade! What an instance of imposture and wickedness!
I am frozen with horror! – I tremble! – I shiver!
A little supper.
The gentle Sammy and the lovely Fanchette.
Easy chair.
My lovely Lulu, my darling Mimi, and my little angel Gogo.
Her beloved niece, Miss Robertine.
Hair-dressers.