University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—A Chamber in Matthew Elmore's House, with preparations for a toilette.
Jenny discovered arranging the dressing-table, R.
Jenny.

Well! I like France—and so does my young
lady, Miss Margaret, too, I warrant! Why, though we
have been here only a couple of months, I feel just as if I
had been born a Frenchwoman—gentility comes so naturally
to me! In England, Tom the coachman used to call
me pretty Jenny Jarman. Poor Tom!—But Jenny Jarman!
What a horrid name! Now, Monsieur Friponneau,
the valet, whispers to me—Ah belle Anatole Charmant!
Charmant means charming, which he says I am, both by
name and by nature; and Anatole, he tells me, is the
French for Jenny. How much nicer it sounds!—Anatole
Charmant—Jenny Jarman! Oh there is no sort of comparison
between them!—But kark! I hear my young
lady's voice.—Ay, and there is Madame de Vermont with
her as usual. What a comfort it is to see a widow always
so gay and merry! really it is quite a temptation to marriage!

Enter Margaret and Herminie de Vermont, R. D. F.
Mar.
I have been idle, and the morning wears:
I shall be chid for my late toilette. Come,
We must make haste, good Jenny!

Jenny.

Anatole, if you please, Mamselle, from this out.—
I have been translated.

Mar.

Translated!

Jenny.

Yes. Anatole is the French for Jenny; and as
all our other English has to be translated, Monsieur Friponneau
has persuaded me to undergo the operation too.

Mar.
[Laughing.]
Beware, girl! for they teach false lessons here,
And we are too apt scholars.

Jenny.

Oh, but the masters are so pleasant!—And all
alike. Why, lovers in France are as plentiful as sprats at
Christmas; while England is like a ship on short allowance
—there is not one for half-a-dozen of us!

Mar.
Fie, fie, girl! To your task. I shall be late.
You know, my father's love, which makes of me
The unskilled mistress of his house, demands
I should receive his friends.

Her.
(L. C.)
Your father's friends!
Thou little hypocrite! Where did they hide
Before your father's daughter came? Till then
No man had fewer; but with Margaret
They flocked as thick as swallows with the summer;
Till, in a month, good, quiet, peaceful Elmore
Found himself master of the destinies
Of half the raving, moon-struck youths of Paris.
Thanks to that duteous daughter, whose sole care
Was—to do honour to her father's friends!

Mar.
Go to! You are an idle chatterer.

Her.
Do you weary of me?

Mar.
No—talk on—talk on—
I'll think of other things.

Enter Page, L.
Page.
Monsieur Lafont
Presents his humble duty to you, Madam,
And waits below.

Mar.
I am not ready yet
For visitors—so tell Monsieur Lafont.
[Exit Page, L.

Her.
Oh, my poor guardian!—Why, thou saucy girl,
So short an answer to so rich a wooer!

Mar.
Wooer!—Oh, wherefore will he thus persist
In this most monstrous suit?—Why haunt a house
Where no one welcomes him?

Her.
Two strong attractions,
Beauty and wealth. Lafont adores them both.
Besides, your father is his rival now
In trade; but this would make their interests one.
How they could play into each other's hands!
What snug monopolies! Oh, he will win you!
You are your father's goods—his stock in trade;
The merchant sells his wares to the best chapman—
And few can bid a price with Paul Lafont.
How I should like to hear them haggling for you!

Mar.
Stay, Herminie! I know you do but jest—
Yet there are themes on which a jest appears
A kind of irreligion. One of these
Is my dear father's name. Unworthy doubt
Never approached it—never! If his heart
Has any worship lower than the skies,
It is his honour; if he has a thought
Still dearer than that honour, 'tis his child.

Her.
Forgive me—I but jested on Lafont.

Mar.
Name him no more. I should despise him, were it
But for your own and for your brother's wrongs:
Yet in himself there's that—I scarce know what—
Which makes me shrink from him. His bonied sweetness
Moves my aversion—his eternal smoothness
Wakes my antipathy. I think I see
A coiled up serpent in his half closed eye:
It may be prejudice, yet, Herminie,
I'd rather meet my father's sternest frown,
Than Paul Lafont's smooth smile.

Her.
Come to my arms,
And let me kiss thee!

Re-enter Page, L.
Page.
Count D'Autun, my lady,
Tenders his service.

Mar.
I will come anon.

[Exit Page, L.
Her.
D'Autun. Now there's a gallant that is rich,
Generous, young, well featured, well proportioned—
A very pearl of men. How's the heart now?
Is there no palpitation?

Mar.
[Extending her arm.]
Feel my pulse.

Her.
[Taking it.]
One—two—three—four—a most provoking pulse!
Firm as a rock—dull as the step of time.
Oh, I am out of patience! Margaret,
Like a good girl, come, make a full confession!
I die to know the truth—who is the man?

Mar.
Psha! not a soul of them.

Her.
Stay—that's a fib!
I see a blush—a little crinkling smile!
Desanges?—still steady!

Mar.
Ay—or it beats false.

Her.
Rochard?—Now whip that little wrist of thine.
This is a piece of clockwork, not a pulse!
It stirs no more for the best men in Paris,
Than if I named my brother, poor Eugene—
Oh, mercy on us! what a leap was there!
And what a blush! You're ill—extremely ill!
My wicked brother! It was he—

Mar.
Go, madcap!
[Rising.
Girl, you have surely finished—

Jenny.
Oh, your hair—

Mar.
My hair is excellent, I have no doubt.

Jenny.
And that left sleeve—

Mar.
Quite right—the sleeve's perfection.
There—any thing will do! I am not used,
You know, to be fastidious in my dress.

Re-enter Page, L.
Page.
The Sieur Eugene, my lady, is below.

Mar.
[Eagerly.]
Ha! say I'm coming—that is, presently.
No—never mind. There, there—you need not wait.

[Exit Page, L.
Her.
My brother! Oh, you must not venture near him.
You know his very name alarmed you! Nay,
Indeed you must not—'twill be dangerous!
Stay where you are.

Mar.
[Going to a glass.]
Oh, you provoking girl!
How ill you've dressed me! never half so badly!
This hair is frightful—do it all again—
Yet that will take so long—

Her.
Nay, but you know,
“My hair is excellent!”

Mar.
And then this sleeve—
See how it hangs!

Her.
“The sleeve's perfection!”

Mar.
Psha!
Why, look yourself—the dress is all awry—
I cannot be seen thus!

Her.
“I am not used
To be fastidious in my dress!”—Dear Margaret,
I must embrace you! Nay, don't turn away!
Never did book delight me half so much,
As that most simple one in which I read
Thy heart!

Mar.
You are a simpleton yourself!
Like an ambitious child, who knows not yet
A single letter, you would seize the volume,
Turn the page upside down, and so pretend
To read its matter. Fiction—all pure fiction,
Framed out of your own brain! [To Jenny.]
—There, you may go, girl.

Jenny.
[Aside.]

Go!—yes, that's always the way, just
as the conversation is growing interesting! But as long as
doors are made with key-holes, I'll not be brought up in
ignorance!

[Flounces out, R.
Mar.
And I must hasten now to meet these people,
If but to 'scape from you. Ha! here's my father—
Now I shall have a champion!

Enter Matthew Elmore, L. D. F.
Elm.
[Entering.]
So thou shalt!
[Embraces her.
Why, what's the matter, girl? Why, Margaret!
As full of blushes as the morning, when
The sun peeps in through her half opened curtains,
And finds her sleeping! What has happened, child?
What have they done to thee?

Mar.
Oh, she torments me
With saucy jests, such as one's cheek can't choose
But tingle at. Forbid her!

Her.
[Laughing.]
Don't attempt it!
I will not be forbid—

Elm.
Yes, Herminie,
You will. You know the jealous care with which
I watch my budding rose—grown far away,
In bleak but wholesome air; transplanted now
Into this rank and doubtful soil of France,
Because my selfish fondness could not bear
That it should bloom away from me. I'd have her
Gay, happy, courted, and admired; but yet
I must not let you spoil my English girl!

Mar.
[Affectionately.]
Nor shall they, father! Am I not with you,
And is not that always to be at home?
The truant slip, that once was severed from you,
Now, grafted back into the parent stem,
Grows all again your own.

Elm.
[Regarding her earnestly.]
Art sure of that?
Art sure thou art not, like so many more,
A parasite, twining about my boughs,
Only to feed upon my sap?

Mar.
Oh, no!
I am your own true branch.

Elm.
Beware, beware!
This world we live in, child—'tis a strange world—
And, like a cur, will snap at the same hand
It licked an hour before. If this same world—
It is a giddy thing—which fawns so now,
Should one day turn on me—if it should find
My gold but tinsel—call my seeming virtue
Smooth-faced hypocrisy—brand my proud name
With its most damning marks—think'st thou, would still
Thy fond affection know no cooling?

Mar.
No!
If such could be—though such can never be—
Then I would fly that world with thee, and go
Where we would have no world but one another.
But why do you so often in your talk
Start off to doubts and questionings like these?

Elm.
Do I? I did not know it. 'Tis perhaps
That love is jealous—restless; not content
To be loved as we are, we seek assurance
We should be loved no less if we were other.
Love is not reason—yet I think thou lovest me?

Mar.
And I'll be sworn I do!

Her.
And I'll be sworn
She wishes you a thousand leagues away,
E'en while she tells you so! Have you forgot
What sighing suitors wait for her below?

Elm.
[Smiling.]
In truth I had! Well, child, thou hast the choice
Of some of the most gentle blood of France.

Her.
Choice! Give a maid a choice!—The good man doats!
Why, ev'n a widow scarcely gets as much!
Oh, this is heresy against all custom!

Elm.
Then we will make new customs, Herminie.
If I would buy my child a house, a horse,
A trinket, bauble—should I not consult
Her taste on what would pleasure her?—and yet
Might each be soon exchanged if she disliked it.
Or if I would bring home some youthful friend,
As her companion for a vacant hour,
Should she not have a voice in what should be
The character of that selected friend?
Yet might she snap at will the slender tie.
Then, when the question is of one to be
The partner of her life to its last breath,
The sharer of her heart's most sacred thoughts,
The breast in which her own should pour its joys,
Or rest its griefs—for grief will come to all—
The altar of her home—her other self—
The substitute for all the outer world,
For which the outer world must be resigned
Without a sigh: in such a gift as this,
Shall my girl have no voice?

Mar.
My own best father!

Elm.
Come! We will go and meet these wooers, child.
I'll ask no wealth but that more pure than gold—
An honest heart; and thou canst choose no other.

Her.
Be not too sure of that! Lovers are made
Like pastry—all with tempting outside crusts;
But what they have within we can but guess
Till we begin to taste—a privilege
Never allowed us till they're bought and paid for!

[Exeunt, L.