University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
KING-STREET SHOPPING, AND SHARP SHOOTING.

Paula Bonneau was as lovely a little brunette as the eye ever
rested upon with satisfaction. Her cheek glowed with the warm
fires of Southern youth; her eye flashed like our joyous sunlight;
her mouth inspired just the sort of emotion which one feels at
seeing a new and most delicious fruit imploring one to feed and
be happy; while her brow, full and lofty, and contrasting with
voluminous masses of raven hair, indicated a noble and intellectual
nature, which the general expression of her face did not contradict.
That was a perfect oval, and of the most perfect symmetry.
The nose, by the way, was aquiline, a somewhat curious
feature in such a development, but perfectly consistent with the
bright eagle-darting glances of her eye. Paula was, indeed, a

beauty, but I frankly confess quite too petite for my taste. Still, I
could admire her, as a beautiful study,—nay, knowing the amiable
and superior traits of her heart and character, I could love the
little creature also. She was, in truth, a most loveable little
being, and, though she did not inspire me with any ardent attachment—perhaps,
for the sufficient reason that I had fixed my
glances on another object—still, I felt no surprise at the passion
with which she stirred the blood in the bosom of my friend.

The contrast between herself, and her stately grand-dame, was
prodigious. One could hardly suppose that the two owed their
origin to a similar stock. Madame Girardin was tall beyond the
ordinary standards of woman, and very disproportionately slender
for her height. She was one of those gaunt and ghostly-looking
personages, who compel you to think of fierce birds of prey, such
as haunt the shores of unknown rivers or oceans, with enormous
long limbs, long beaks, red heads, and possibly yellow legs. Her
nose was long like her limbs, and tapered down to a point like a
spear head. Her lips were thin and compressed. She could not
well be said to show her teeth, whatever might be the fierceness
of her looks in general. Her eyes were keen and black, her eye
brows thick, furzy and pretty well grizzled, while her locks were
long, thin, grizzled also, and permitted rather snakily to hang
about her temples. The dear old grandmother was decidedly no
beauty; but she was noble of spirit, high-toned, and of that sterling
virtue and stern character, which constituted so large a portion
of our female capital in preceding generations. She had her
faults, no doubt, but she was a brave-souled, and generous woman.
Her great weakness was her family pride—vanity, perhaps,
we should call it—which made her overrate the claims of her own
stock, and correspondingly disparage those of most other households.
Like many other good people, who have otherwise very
good common sense, she really persuaded herself that there was
some secret virtue in her blood that made her very unlike, and

very superior to other people. Like the Hidalgos, she set a prodigious
value upon the genuine blue blood—perhaps, she even
esteemed hers as of a superior verdigris complexion, the result of
continued strainings and siftings, through the sixty millions of
generations from Adam. Had she been queried on this subject,
perhaps she might have admitted a belief that certain angels had
been specially designated, at the general dispersion of the human
family, at some early period, to take charge of the Girardins, and
to see, whenever the sons and daughters were to be wived and
husbanded, that none but a bonâ fidê first cousin should be found
to meet the wants of the parties to be provided. Enough of this.
It was her weakness—a little too frequent in our country, where
society is required of itself to establish distinctions of caste, such
as the laws do not recognize, and such as elsewhere depend upon
the requisitions of a court. The weaknesses of Madame Girardin,
as I have already said, did not prevent her from being a very
worthy old lady,—i. e., so long as you forebore treading upon the
toes of her genealogy.

Knowing her weaknesses, and forbearing, if not respecting
them, I was something of a favourite with the old lady, who received
me very cordially. Such also was my reception at the
hands of the young one,—possibly, because she knew the part
that I was likely to take in promoting the affaire de cœur between
herself and my friend. But I should not impute this selfishness
to her. Paula was a frank, gentle creature, who had no affectations—no
pretensions—and was just as sincere and generous as
impulsive and unaffected. We had been friends from childhood—
her childhood at least—had played a thousand times together in
the parish, and I had no reason to doubt the feeling of cordiality
which she exhibited when we met. My social position was not
such as to outrage the self-esteem of either. The Coopers of the
parish—an English cross upon a Huguenot stock,—seem not to
have inherited any prejudices of race from either the English or

French side of the house. We had consequently provoked none
of the enmities of either. In the case of our family, the amalgam
of the two had been complete, and we occupied a sort of neutral
place between them, sharing the friendship, in equal degree, of
the descendants of both. Hence, I was, perhaps, an equal favourite
of old Major Bulmer, Ned's father, and of Madame Agnes-Theresa,
Paula's grandmother.

But, to our progress. Of course, I took special care of the
grandmother during our morning call. By the most watchful
and—shall I say—judicious solicitude—I kept her busily engaged
on such parish topics as I knew to be most grateful to her pride
and prejudices. I got her so deeply immersed in these matters
that she entirely forget her duenna watchfulness over the two
other persons in the apartment. Of course, I took care not to
look towards them, as they sat together near the piano, at the
opposite side of the parlour, lest I should divert the eyes of the
grandmother in the same direction. And thus we chatted, Ned
making all possible amount of hay during the spell of sunshine
which he enjoyed, and Paula tacitly assisting him by never showing
any clouds herself. Time flew apace, and we had consumed
nearly an hour, when the old lady suddenly looked at her watch,
and exclaimed—

“Why, Paula, child, it is almost eleven. What have you been
talking about all this time?”

The good grandmother, like most other old ladies, never dreamt
that she herself had been doing any talking at all. Paula immediately
started, like a guilty little thing, and exclaimed artlessly—

“Dear me, mamma, can it be possible.”

“Possible, indeed!” responded the grandmother rather sharply.
“You young people seem never to think how time flies. But get
your bonnet, child. Mine is here.”

The maiden disappeared for a few moments, glad to do so, for

her cheeks betrayed a decided increase of the rich suffusion which
owes its fountains to the excited heart. While she was gone, Ned
was most profoundly courteous to the ancient lady, and she most
courteously cold. When Paula came back, I asked of Madame
Agnes-Theresa—

“Do you walk, Madame Girardin.”

“Yes; we have not far to go, only into King-street, where we
have some shopping to do.”

“If you will suffer me,” said I, “I shall be happy to accompany
you. I have quite a taste and a knack at shopping.”

A most deliberate lie, for which the saints plead, and the heavens
pardon me. I know no occupation that more chafes and
fatigues me; but Ned's affairs had rendered my tastes flexible and
my conscience obtuse.

“But it will be taking you from your business. You young
lawyers, Mr. Cooper, are said to be very ambitious and very close
students.”

I did not laugh at the old lady's simplicity, though I might
have done so; but answered with corresponding gravity—

“Very true, ma'am, but that is just the reason why we relish a
little respite, such as a morning's ramble in King-street promises.
Besides, I have really nothing just now to occupy me.”

And this said, too, while the Court of Common Pleas was in
session. Of course, I did not tell the good lady that I had not a
single case on the docket. I suppressed that fact for the honour of
the profession, and the credit of the community. The old lady
was fond of deference and attention, and, as old ladies are not
often so fortunate as to secure the chaperonage of handsome young
gentlemen, she was not displeased that I should urge upon her
my duteous attendance. My services were accepted, and, taking
my arm, only looking round to see that Paula did not take that
of Ned Bulmer, she led the way out of the parlour and into the

street. From Meeting to King, through Queen-street, was but a
step, and we were soon in our fashionable ladies' thoroughfare.

The day was a bright and mild one, just such as we commonly
experience in November,—cooler and more pleasant than usually
characterizes the present month of October. The street was
crowded with carriages, and the trottoir with fair and happy
groups all agog with the always grateful excitement—to the
ladies—of seeing one another, and—fancy dresses. Our country
cousins were encountered at every turning, and, between town and
country, we had to run the gauntlet of old acquaintance, and
often repeated recognition. It was quite delightful to see how my
dignified and venerable companion met and acknowledged the
salutations of those she knew. Her demeanour varied with strict
discrimination of the caste and quality of each acquaintance. She
was a sort of social barometer, exactly telling by her manner,
what sort of blood flowed in the veins of each to whom she
bowed or spoke. To some few she unbent readily, with a spontaneous
and unreserved and placid sweetness; to others she was
starch and buckram personified, and, to not a few, her look was
vinegar and vitriolic acid. Even where I myself did not know the
parties, personally, I had only to notice her manner as they approached,
to find their proper place, high or low, in the social circles
of town or country. Good, old, aristocratic Dame Girardin
was an admirable graduating scale, for determining the qualities
of the stock, and the colour of the blood, in the several candidates
for her notice, as we perambulated our Maiden Lane. See her in
contact with a person of full flesh—a parvenu, not yet denuded of
vigour by the successive intermarriages of cousins for an hundred
years—and the muscles of her face became corrugated like those of
an Egyptian mummy, who had been laid up in lavender leaves
and balsams, since the time of the Ptolomies;—but, the next
moment, you were confounded to see her melt into sunshine and
zephyr, as she encountered some dried-up, saffron-skinned atomy,

having legibly written on her cheeks, a parchment title to have
sate at the board of Methuselah. It was absolutely delightful.

Her comments upon the parties were equally rich and instructive.
A fine-looking, cheery lady, the well known and very
attractive Mrs. —, looked out from her carriage window, and
smiled and chirrupped to her as she drove slowly by.

“A vulgar creature!” exclaimed my ancient companion—
“what a coarse voice,—what a fat vulgar face she has. No delicacy.
But how should she have any? She pretends to be somebody
now, because she has a little money; but if I were to say
what she was—or rather what her grandfather was—I knew him
very well, and have bought my negro shoes from him a hundred
times. The upstart. Ah!”—with a deep sigh—“every thing
degenerates. Lord knows what we will come to at last. It is a
hard thing to find any body of pure blood in the city now! Such
a mingling of puddles! This trade! This commerce! I declare
it's the ruin of the country!”

Here I ventured to interpose a word for the fair woman thus
hardly dealt with—one of my own acquaintance, whom I had
every reason to esteem;—and I said—

“It's unfortunate, to be sure, that Mrs. —'s grandfather
dealt in negro shoes; but she seems to have got over the misfortune
pretty well. She is now every where acknowledged in the
best society.”

“The more's the pity. Best society, indeed. There are half a
dozen circles, calling themselves the best society in Charleston,
and don't I know that, in each, they are crowded with parvenus—
people of yesterday—without any claims to blood or family—descendants
of Scotch and Yankee pedlars,—mechanics—shopkeepers—adventurers
of all sorts, who have nothing but their impudence
and their money—made, heaven knows how—to help them
forward.”

“But,” continued I, “Mrs. —, is really a very charming

woman—she is very clever, very pretty, and is considered very
amiable.”

“It's impossible. As for pretty, that, I suppose, is a matter of
taste; and I can hardly allow even that. Mere health, and smooth
cheeks, and youth, are very far from constituting beauty. Beauty
depends upon delicacy, and symmetry, and—blood. As for
clever—I suppose you mean she's smart.”

“Yes!”

“Smartness is vulgar. Rank and family don't need to be
smart. Talent is necessary to poverty, or to inferiority of social
position, since it is, perhaps, necessary that there should be something,
by way of compensation, given to persons who are poor
and without family rank. But wealth, talent and beauty, even—
if all combined—can never supply those graces of manner and
character, which are the distinguishing qualities of high birth.”

“But successive generations in the possession of wealth and
talent, my dear madam,” I suggested, “must surely result in
those excellencies of manner, taste and character, which you properly
insist upon as so important.”

“Impossible! Let me warn you against any such conclusions,”
responded the old lady, with a parental shake of the head and
finger.

“But,” said I, “of course, even the most select stocks in the
world, must have had a beginning once, in some of the ordinary
necessities of life.”

“No, sir; no, Mr. Richard”—almost with severity—“certain
families have been always superior, from the beginning! Here
now, here comes Colonel —. He is one of those, whose
families were always, beyond dispute, in the highest circles. Ah!
the poor gentleman, how feeble he is—see how he walks, as if
about falling to pieces.”

“Yet he is scarcely more than fifty.”

“Ah! he is so wretched. He has no children, and he so longs
for a son, and his name will probably die out.”

“Yet, he has been thrice married.”

“Yes! yes! he first married Mary — then her sister Jane,
and lastly, her younger sister, Matilda;—and no children.”

“All were his cousins, I think?”

“Yes! and Matilda is even now, I hear, a dying woman! I'm
sure I pity him from the bottom of my soul. That such a family
should become extinct.”

“He is now poor, I am told. Has run through his fortune.”

“Run through his fortune, Mr. Cooper! I don't like the phrase.
He has lived like a gentleman and a prince, and has become impoverished
in consequence. He has erred, perhaps, by such extravagant
living; but I cannot think severely of a person who has
spent it in such a noble style of hospitality. My heart bleeds for
him!”

Here the person spoken of approached,—a person well known
about town,—one who had wasted his means like a fool, and had
not the soul to recover them like a man,—whose ancestors had
exhausted the physical vigour of the family by a monstrous succession
of intermarriages; and who had consummated the extreme
measure of their follies, by himself marrying three cousins in succession.
The natural consequence was physical and moral imbecility.
The race had perished, and it was, perhaps, just enough
that its possessions should disappear also. I confess that I felt but
little sympathy for such a person; and as he tottered up to us,
and smirked, and smiled, and sniggered, and talked with an inanity
corresponding exactly with his character, the pity which his
poverty and feebleness might have inspired, was all swallowed up
in the scorn which I felt for such equal impotence and vanity.

“Ah! it's melancholy,” said the old lady, as he left us; “such
a name, such a family, so reduced—reduced to one, and he, you
may say, already half in the grave.”

I had half a mind to ask the old lady, if she didn't think it
would have been preferable had his father married some vigorous
young woman of no family at all, and brought up his son to some
manly occupation; so that he himself might be now vigorous, with
sense enough to marry, in turn, some vigorous young woman, of
no family at all; having health all round, numerous children to
perpetuate the name, and energies sufficient to preserve the fortune;—but
I felt the danger to the cause of Ned Bulmer, of touching
upon ground so delicate; and, at this moment, the worthy
granddame looked about her for Paula and her companion. In
her disquisitions upon the new and vulgar people, and her long
talk with the dying Castilian of rare blue blood, she had quite forgotten
the young couple. They had enjoyed the field to themselves,
and were now not to be seen. The old lady took the alarm.
I told her they had probably popt into Kerrison's, and we went
back to look for them. There they were, sure enough, Paula
looking over silks and velvets—a wilderness of beauty, in the ample
world and variety of the accommodating house in question—
but with Ned Bulmer close to her side, whispering those oily delights
into her ear, with which young lovers are apt to solace
themselves and their companions, in this otherwise very cheerless
existence. It was evident to me, from the grave face of the damsel,
and the conscious one of Ned, that he had done a large
amount of haymaking that morning. Whether the old lady suspected
the progress which he had made or not, it was not easy to
determine. She did not show it, and was soon as much interested
in the examination of the various and gorgeous fabrics around
her, as any younger person in the establishment,—which, as usual,
was crowded like a ball-room. Kerrison's, indeed, is quite a lounge
for the ladies;—a place where, if you wish to find your friends
and acquaintance, without the trouble of looking them up,
you have only to go thither. The dear old grandmother soon
found sundry of hers, of town and country, and was again in little

while under full sail over the sea of social conversation—one of
those admirable seas, by the way, in which no one gets out of his
depth. Of course, when Madame Girardin got as deeply as she
could amidst the waters, Ned Bulmer resumed his toil upon the
meadows at the more sunny and profitable occupation. I loitered
at a convenient distance between the duenna and the damsel, contriving,
in the most unconscious manner in the world, to interpose
as a sort of shield for the protection of the latter from the occasional
glances of the former. When Madame seemed to have
bathed long enough, in her favourite streams, and turned again to
the counter, she found me promptly at her elbow turning over for
her inspection piles of changeable silk, chintzes of the finest patterns,
shawls and other stuffs, for which my experience in the dry
goods business is not sufficient to allow me to recall the proper
names. Fancy the dreariness of this employment—reviewing for
a mortal hour all sorts of fabrics, coarse and fine, silk and frieze,
cloths worthy of a nobleman, and cloths not unworthy of Sambo
and Sukey! Verily, friendship required of me great sacrifices
that day, and I inwardly swore that Ned should suffer, in a basket
of champagne at least, to be sent the very next day to my lodgings.
(Par parenthese, he did so—and helped me to drink it
too!) I even undertook, such was my good nature, to get the
good grandmother's orders for groceries supplied—listening patiently
to a volume of instructions touching the quality of raisins,
citron, almonds, and other matters, all portending cakes, pies, puddings,
and other Christmas essentials and essences. But this
aside.

From Kerrison's we sauntered off to Lambert's and Calder's,
the old lady being sworn to a new tapestry carpet, and being very
choice about colours and figures. The choice was made at last,
and after picking up some rings, chains, and other pretty trinkets
at Hayden's, intended for Christmas presents, dear little Paula
recollected that she required books; so we went to Russell's. Here

the stately grandmama, trained in the stiff old schools, recoiled
with a feeling akin to horror, as her eye rested on the exquisite
and elaborate busts of Psyche and the Greek Slave. I couldn't
persuade her to a second look at them.

“Such shows,” said she, “would not have been permitted in
my day. Powers, indeed! He must be a very bad person. But,
I have said already, I see what we're coming to. The good old
stocks die out, and every thing degenerates. Loose morals, vulgar
fashions, bad manners, and gross, coarse, nameless people, of
whom nobody even heard ten years ago.”

A large picture in front arrested her eye. Certain chubby angels,
suspended in air, were waiting for the escaping soul of a
dying martyr. The old lady seemed quite distressed about the
angels. Her criticism would, no doubt, have greatly afflicted
the artist.

“Why,” said she, “they look as if they were going to tumble
upon the heads of the people. And well they may; for the painter
has made them so fat and vulgar that no wings in the world
can keep them up. As if an angel should have fatness. They
look as if they fed upon pork and sausages. It's very shocking—
very vulgar. Why, Paula, those angels look for all the world like
the great-cheeked, troublesome fat boys of old Cargus,—only he
don't let em go quite so bare in cold weather.”

Russell nearly fainted at this criticism, but he did not despair of
the old lady, and modestly suggested that he could show her
something which he fancied would please her better.

“Only step back here, ma'am,” said he in his most courteous
manner. But the dear old Castilian grandmama was not to be
inveigled even by the profound bow and graceful smile of our
courtly Bibliopolist.

“No! sir!” quoth she with stately courtesy—“I thank you; I
have seen enough—quite enough. Such things are not grateful
to my eyes. I am only sorry that they should please any eyes.”

And she looked as if she were about to add—“I have lived only
too long.” And she nodded her head slowly several times, as if
over the wickedness of the modern Nineveh,—by which, of course,
you must understand, our poor little city of Charleston. Paula was
less sensitive, and of course more sinful. She looked with eager
eyes at the beautiful busts, hung upon the Psyche, much to the
disquiet of grandmama, even contemplated the picture of the hideous
looking saint, and the vulgarly fat little angels, and, following
Russell into the back room was startled into admiration by the exquisite
ideal of the Escaping Soul. I can't say that she was much
impressed by the Transfiguration—certainly not with the tributary
scene at the foot of the mountain. But we must stop. It was
three o'clock before we had finished the shopping ramble through
King-street. When we left the ladies again at the Mansion
House, Ned Bulmer was quite in high spirits, and full of commendations.

“You did the thing handsomely, Dick, and I flatter myself I
have done the thing handsomely too. Paula does not promise me
positively to run up the flag of independence; but she has suffered
me to see that she will never compel me to commit matrimony
with any body else, or suicide for the want of her. And now for
dinner. You take your soup with me to-day, of course.