The Potiphar Papers Part 7

"Precisely, my dear," said poor papa, as if he rather dreaded it, but must consent to the hard necessity of fas.h.i.+on. "They say, Minna, that all the _parvenus_ are going this year, so I suppose we shall have to go along."

There was a blow! There was perfect silence for a moment, while poor pa looked amiable as if he couldn't help embellis.h.i.+ng his conversation with French graces. I waited in horror; for I knew that the girls were all t.i.ttering inside, and every moment it became more absurd. Then out it came. Nancy Fungus leaned her head on my shoulder, and fairly shook with laughter. The others hid behind their fans, and the men suddenly walked off to the windows and slipped on to the piazza. Papa looked bewildered, and half smiled. But it was a very melancholy business, and I told him that he had better go up and dress for dinner.

It was impossible to stay after that. The unhappy slip became the staple of Saratoga conversation. Young Boosey (Mrs. Potiphar's witty friend) asked Morris audibly at dinner, "Where do the _parvenus sit?_ I want to sit among the _parvenus_."

"Of course you do, sir," answered Morris, supposing he meant the circle of the _creme de la creme_.

{Ill.u.s.tration}

And so the thing went on multiplying itself. Poor papa doesn't understand it yet, I don't dare to explain. Old Fungus who prides himself so upon his family (it is one of the very ancient and honorable Virginia families, that came out of the ark with Noah, as Kurz Pacha says of his ancestors when he hears that the founder of a family "came over with the Conqueror,") and who cannot deny himself a joke, came up to pa in the bar-room, while a large party of gentlemen were drinking cobblers, and said to him with a loud laugh:

"So all the _parvenus_ are going to Newport: are they, Tattle?"

"Yes!" replied pa, innocently, "that's what they say. So I suppose we shall all have to go, Fungus."

There was another roar that time, but not from the representative of Noah's Ark. It was rather thin joking but it did very well for the warm weather, and I was glad to hear a laugh against anybody but poor pa.

We came to Newport, but the story came before us, and I have been very much annoyed at it. I know it is foolish for me to think of it. Kurz Pacha said:

"My dear Miss Minerva, I have no doubt it would pain you more to be thought ignorant of French than capable of deceit. Yet it is a very innocent ignorance of your father's. n.o.body is bound to know French; but you all lay so much stress upon it, as if it were the whole duty of women to have an 'air' and to speak French, that any ignorance becomes at once ludicrous. It's all your own doing. You make a very natural thing absurd, and then grieve because some friend becomes a victim. There is your friend Nancy Fungus, who speaks 'French as well as she does English.' That may be true; but you ought to add, that one is of just as much use to her as the other--that is of no use at all, except to communicate plat.i.tudes. What is the use of a girl's learning French to be able to say to young _Tele de Choux_, that it is a very warm day, and that will hardly be _spirituelle_ in her exotic French. It edge of French is going to supply her with ideas to express. A girl who is flat in her native English will hardly be _spirituelle_ in her exotic French. It is a delightful language for the natives, and for all who have thoroughly mastered its spirit. Its genius is airy and sparkling. It is especially the language of society, because society is, theoretically, the playful encounter of sprightliness and wit. It is the worst language I know of for poetry, ethics, and the habit of the Saxon mind. It is wonderful in the hands of such masters as Balzac and George Sand, and is especially adapted to their purposes. Yet their books are forbidden to Nancy Fungus, Tabby Dormouse, Daisy Clover, and all their relations.

They read _Telemaque_, and long to be married, that they may pry into _Leila and Indiana_: their French meanwhile, even if they wanted to know anything of French literature,--which is too absurd an idea,--serves them only to say nothing to uncertain hairy foreigners who haunt society, and to understand their nothings, in response. I am really touched for this Ariel, this tricksy sprite of speech when I know that it must do the bidding of those who can never fit its airy felicity to any worthy purpose. I have tried these accomplishel damsels who speak French and Italian as well as they do English. But our conversation was only a clumsy translation of English commonplace. And yet, Miss Minerva, I think even so sensible a woman as you, looks with honor and respect upon one of that cla.s.s. Dear me!

excuse me! What am I thinking of? I'm engaged to drive little Daisy Clover on the beach at six o'clock. She is one of those who garnish their conversation with French sc.r.a.ps. Really you must pardon me, if she is a friend of yours; but that dry gentlemanly fellow, D'Orsay Firkin, says that Miss Clover's conversation is a dish of _tete de veau farci_. Aren't you coming to the beach? Everybody goes to-day. Mrs. Gnu has arrived, and the Potiphars are here,--that is, Mrs. P. Old Pot. arrives on Sunday morning early, and is off again on Monday evening. He's grown very quiet and docile. Mrs. P. usually takes him a short drive on Monday morning, and he comes to dinner in a white waistcoat. In fact, as Mrs. Potiphar says, 'My husband has not the air _distingue_ which I should be pleased to see in him, but he is quite as well as could be expected.' Upon which Firkin twirls his hat in a significant way; you and I smile intelligently, dear Miss Minerva; Mrs. Green and Mrs Settum Downe exchange glances; we all understand Mrs. Potiphar and each other, and Mrs. Potiphar understands us, and it is all very sweet and pleasant, and the utmost propriety is observed, and we don't laugh loud until we're out of hearing, and then say in the very softest whispers, that it was a remarkably true observation. This is the way to take life, my dear lady. Let us go gently. Here we go backwards and forwards. You tickle, and I'll tickle, and we'll all tickle, and here we go round--round--roundy!"

And the Sennaar minister danced out of the room.

He is a droll man, and I don't quite understand him. Of course I don't entirely like him for it always seems as if he meant something a little different from what he says. Laura Larmes, who reads all the novels, and rolls her great eyes around the ball room,--who laughs at the idea of such a girl as Blanche Amory in Pendennis,--who would be pensive if she were not so plump,--who likes "nothing so much as walking on the cliff by moonlight,"--who wonders that girls should want to dance on warm summer nights when they have Nature, "and such nature" before them,--who, in fact, would be a mere emotion if she were not a bouncing girl,--Laura Larmes wonders that any man can be so happy as Kurz Pacha.

"Ah! Kurz Pacha," she says to him as they stroll upon the piazza, after he has been dancing (for the minister dances, and swears it is essential to diplomacy to dance well), "are you really so very happy?

Is it possible you can be so gay? Do you find nothing mournful in life?"

"Nothing, my best Miss Laura," he replies, "to speak of; as somebody said of religion. You, who devote yourself to melancholy, the moon, and the source of tears, are not so very sad as you think. You cry a good deal, I don't doubt. But when grief goes below tears, and forces you in self-defence to try to forget it, not to sit and fondle it,--then you will understand more than you do now. I pity those of your s.e.x upon whom has fallen the reaction of wealth,--for whom there is no career,--who must sit at home and pine in a splendid ennui,--who have learned and who know, spite of sermons and 'sound sensible view of things,' that to enjoy the high 'privilege of reading books,--of cultivating their minds; and, when they are married, minding their babies, and ministering to the drowsy, after-dinner ease of their husbands, is not the fulfilment of their powers and hopes. But, my amiable Miss Larmes, this is a cla.s.s of girls and women who are not solicitous about wearing black when their great-aunt in Denmark dies, whom they never saw, nor when the only friend who made heaven possible to them, falls dead at their sides. Nor do they avoid Mrs. Potiphar's b.a.l.l.s as a happiness which they are not happy enough to enjoy--nor do they suppose that all who attend that festivity--dancing to Mrs. P.'s hired music and drinking Mr. P.'s fines wines--are utterly given over to hilarity and superficial enjoyment. I do not even think they would be likely to run--with rounded eyes, deep voice, and in very exuberant health--to any one of us jaded votaries of fas.h.i.+on, and say, How can you be so happy? My considerate young friend, 'strong walls do not a prison make'--nor is a man necessarily happy because he hops. You are certainly not unhappy because you make eyes at the moon, and adjudge life to be vanity and vexation. Your mind is only obscured by a few morning vapors. They are evanescent as the dew, and when you remember them at evening they will seem to you but as pensive splendors of the dawn."

Laura has her revenge for all this snubbing, of course. She does not attempt to disguise her opinion that Kurz Pacha is a man of "foreign morals," as she well expresses it. "A very gay, agreeable man, who glides gently over the surface of things, but knows nothing of the real trials and sorrows of life," says the melancholy Laura Larmes, whose appet.i.te continues good, and who fills a large armchair comfortably.

It is my opinion, however, that people of a certain size should cultivate the hilarious rather than the unhappy. Diogenes, with the proportions of Alderman Gobble, could not have succeeded as a Cynic.

Here at Newport there is endless opportunity of detecting these little absurdities of our fellow-creatures. In fact, one of the greatest charms of a watering-place, to me, is the facility one enjoys of understanding the whole game, which is somewhat concealed in the city. Watering-place life is a full dress parade of social weaknesses. We all enjoy a kind of false intimacy, an accidental friends.h.i.+p. Old Carbuncle and young Topaz meet on the common ground of a good cigar. Mrs. Peony and Daisy Clover are intimate at all hours. Why? Because, on the one hand, Mrs. P. knows that youth, and grace and beauty, are attractive to men, and that if Miss Rosa Peony, her daughter, has not those advantages, it is well to have in the neighborhood a magnet strong enough to draw the men.

On the other hand, Daisy Clover is a girl of good sense enough to know--even if she didn't know it by instinct--that men in public places like the prestige of a.s.sociation with persons of acknowledged social position, which, by hook or by crook, Mrs. Peony undoubtedly enjoys. Therefore, to be of Mrs. P.'s party is to be well placed in the catalogue--the chances are fairer--the gain is surer. Upon seeing Daisy Clover with quiet little Mrs. Clover, or plain old aunt Honeysuckle,--people would inquire, Who are the Clovers? And no one would know. But to be with Mrs. Peony, morning, noon, and night, is to answer all questions of social position.

But, unhappily, in the city things are changed. There no attraction is necessary but the fine house, gay parties, and understood rank of Mrs. Peony to draw men to Miss Rosa's side. In Newport it does very well not to dance with her. But in the city it doesn't do not to be at Mrs. Peony's ball. Who knows it so well as that excellent lady?

Therefore darling Daisy is dropped a little when we all return.

"Sweet girl," Mrs. P. says, "really a delightful companion for Rosa in the summer, and the father and mother are such nice, excellent people. Not exactly people that one knows, to be sure--but Miss Daisy is really amiable and quite accomplished."

Daisy goes to an occasional party at the Peonys. But at the opera and the theatre, and at the small intimate parties of Rosa and her friends, the darling Daisy of Newport is not visible. However, she has her little revenges. She knows the Peonys well: and can talk intelligently about them, which puts her quite on a level with them in the estimation of her own set. She rules in the lower sphere if not in the higher, and Daisy Clover is in the way of promotion. Yes, and if she be very rich, and papa and mamma are at all presentable, or if they can be dexterously hushed up, there is no knowing but Miss Daisy Clover will suddenly bloom upon the world as Mrs. P.'s daughter-in-law, wife of that "gentlemanly" young man, Mr. Puffer Peony.

Naturally it pains me very much to be obliged to think so of the people with whom I a.s.sociate. But I suppose they are as good as any. As Kurz Pacha says: "If I fly from a Chinaman because he wears his hair long like a woman, I must equally fly the Frenchman because he shaves his like a lunatic. The story of Jack Spratt is the apologue of the world." It is astonis.h.i.+ng how intimate he is with our language and literature. By-the-bye, that Polly Potiphar has been mean enough to send out to Paris for the very silk that I relied upon as this summer's _cheval de bataille_, and has just received it superbly made up. The worst of it is that it is just the thing for her. She wore it at the hall the other night, and expected to have crushed me, in mine. Not she! I have not summered it at Newport for--well, for several years, for nothing, and although I am rather beyond the strict white muslin age, I thought I could yet venture a bold stroke. So I arrayed _a la_ Daisy Clover--not too much, _pas trop jeune_. And awaited the onset.

Kurz Pacha saw me across the room, and came up, with his peculiar smile. He did not look at my dress, but he said to me, rather wickedly, looking at my bouquet:

"Dear me! I hardly hoped to see spring flowers so late in the summer."

Then he raised his eyes to mine, and I am conscious that I blushed.

"It's very warm. You feel very warm, I am sure, my dear Miss Tattle,"

he continued, looking straight at my face.

"You are sufficiently cool, at least, I think," replied I. -- "Naturally," said he, "for I've been in the immediate vicinity of the boreal pole for half an hour--a neighborhood in which, I am told, even the most ardent spirits sometimes freeze--so you must pardon me if I am more than usually dull, Miss Minerva."

And the Pacha beat time to the waltz with his head.

I looked at the part of the room from which he had just come, and there, sure enough, in the midst of a group, I saw the tall, and stately, and still Ada Aiguille.

"He is a hardy navigator," continued Kurz Pacha, "who sails for the boreal pole. It is glittering enough, but s.h.i.+pwreck by daylight upon a coral reef, is no pleasanter than by night upon Newport shoals."

"Have you been s.h.i.+pwrecked, Kurz Pacha?" asked I suddenly.

He laughed softly: "No, Miss Minerva, I am not one of the hardy navigators; I keep close in to the sh.o.r.e. Upon the slightest symptom of an agitated sea, I furl my sails, and creep into a safe harbor.

Besides, dear Miss Minna I prefer tropical cruises to the Antarctic voyage."

And the old wretch actually looked at my black hair. I might have said something--approving his taste, perhaps, who knows?--when I saw Mrs. Potiphar. She was splendidly dressed in the silk, and it's a pity she doesn't become a fine dress better. She made for me directly.

"Dear Minna, I'm so glad to see you. Why how young and fresh you look to-night. Really, quite blooming! And such a sweet pretty dress, too, and the darling baby-waist and all--"

"Yes," said that witty Gauche Boosey, "permit me, Miss Tattle,--quite an incarnate seraphim, upon my word."

"You are too good," replied I, "my dear Polly, it is your dress which deserves admiration, and I flatter myself in saying so, for it is the very counterpart of one I had made some months ago."

"Yes, darling, and which you have not yet worn," replied she. "I said to Mr. P., 'Mr. P.' said I, 'there are few women upon whose amiability I can count as I can upon Minerva Tattle's, and, therefore, I am going to have a dress like hers. Most women would be vexed about it, and say ill-natured things if I did so. But if I have a friend, it is Minerva Tattle; and she will never grudge it to me for a moment.' It's pretty; isn't it? Just look here at this tr.i.m.m.i.n.g."

And she showed me the very handsomest part of it, and so much handsomer than mine, that I can never wear it.

"Polly, I am so glad you know me so well," said I. "I'm delighted with the dress. To be sure, it's rather _p.r.o.nonce_ for your style; but that's nothing."

Just then a polka struck up. "Come along! give me this turn," said Boosey, and putting his arm round Mrs. Potiphar's waist, he whirled her off into the dance.

How I did hope that somebody would come to ask me. n.o.body came.

"You don't dance?" asked Kurz Pacha, who stood by during my little talk with Polly P.

"Oh, yes," answered I, and hummed the polka.

Kurz Pacha hummed too, looked on at the dancers a few minutes then turned to me, and looking at my bouquet, said:

"It is astonis.h.i.+ng how little taste there is for spring-flowers."

At that moment young Croesus "came in" warm with the whirl of the dance, with Daisy Clover.