University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
THE FOLLINGSBEES ARRIVE.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 706EAF. Page 161. In-line Illustration. Image of an older man and woman walking arm-in-arm and looking around them with wonder. A younger woman and a little girl are walking behind them. The caption reads, "The Follingsbees."]

NEXT week the Follingsbees alighted, so to speak,
from a cloud of glory. They came in their own

carriage, and with their own horses; all in silk and
silver, purple and fine linen, “with rings on their
fingers and bells on their toes,” as the old song has it.
We pause to caution our readers that this last clause
is to be interpreted metaphorically.

Springdale stood astonished. The quiet, respectable
old town had not seen any thing like it for many a long
day; the ostlers at the hotel talked of it; the boys
followed the carriage, and hung on the slats of the fence
to see the party alight, and said to one another in their
artless vocabulary, “Golly! ain't it bully?”

There was Mr. Dick Follingsbee, with a pair of
waxed, tow-colored moustaches like the French emperor's,
and ever so much longer. He was a little, thin,
light-colored man, with a yellow complexion and sandy
hair; who, with the appendages aforesaid, looked like
some kind of large insect, with very long antennæ.
There was Mrs. Follingsbee, — a tall, handsome, dark-eyed,
dark-haired, dashing woman, French dressed from
the tip of her lace parasol to the toe of her boot.
There was Mademoiselle Thérèse, the French maid, an
inexpressibly fine lady; and there was la petite Marie,
Mrs. Follingsbee's three-year-old hopeful, a lean, bright-eyed
little thing, with a great scarlet bow on her back
that made her look like a walking butterfly. On the
whole, the tableau of arrival was so impressive, that
Bridget and Annie, Rosa and all the kitchen cabinet,
were in a breathless state of excitement.

“How do I find you, ma chère?” said Mrs. Follingsbee,
folding Lillie rapturously to her breast. “I 've

been just dying to see you! How lovely every thing
looks! Oh, ciel! how like dear Paris!” she said, as she
was conducted into the parlor, and sunk upon the sofa.

“Pretty well done, too, for America!” said Mr. Follingsbee,
gazing round, and settling his collar. Mr.
Follingsbee was one of the class of returned travellers
who always speak condescendingly of any thing American;
as, “so-so,” or “tolerable,” or “pretty fair,” — a
considerateness which goes a long way towards keeping
up the spirits of the country.

“I say, Dick,” said his lady, “have you seen to the
bags and wraps?”

“All right, madam.”

“And my basket of medicines and the books?”

“O. K.,” replied Dick, sententiously.

“Oh! how often must I tell you not to use those
odious slang terms?” said his wife, reprovingly.

“Oh! Mrs. John Seymour knows me of old,” said
Mr. Follingsbee, winking facetiously at Lillie. “We 've
had many a jolly lark together; haven't we, Lill?”

“Certainly we have,” said Lillie, affably. “But
come, darling,” she added to Mrs Follingsbee, “don't
you want to be shown your room?”

“Go it, then, my dearie; and I 'll toddle up with the
fol-de-rols and what-you-may-calls,” said the incorrigible
Dick. “There, wife, Mrs. John Seymour shall
go first, so that you shan't be jealous of her and me.
You know we came pretty near being in interesting
relations ourselves at one time; didn't we, now?” he
said with another wink.

It is said that a thorough-paced naturalist can reconstruct
a whole animal from one specimen bone. In like
manner, we imagine that, from these few words of
dialogue, our expert readers can reconstruct Mr. and
Mrs. Follingsbee: he, vulgar, shallow, sharp, keen at a
bargain, and utterly without scruples; with a sort of
hilarious, animal good nature that was in a state of constant
ebullition. He was, as Richard Baxter said of a
better man, “always in that state of hilarity that another
would be in when he hath taken a cup too much.”

Dick Follingsbee began life as a peddler. He was
now reputed to be master of untold wealth, kept a
yacht and race-horses, ran his own theatre, and patronized
the whole world and creation in general with a
jocular freedom. Mrs. Follingsbee had been a country
girl, with small early advantages, but considerable
ambition. She had married Dick Follingsbee, and
helped him up in the world, as a clever, ambitious
woman may. The last few years she had been spending
in Paris, improving her mind and manners in
reading Dumas' and Madame George Sand's novels,
and availing herself of such outskirt advantages of
the court of the Tuileries as industrious, pains-taking
Americans, not embarrassed by self-respect, may
command.

Mrs. Follingsbee, like many another of our republicans
who besieged the purlieus of the late empire,
felt that a residence near the court, at a time when
every thing good and decent in France was hiding
in obscure corners, and every thing parvenu was

wide awake and active, entitled her to speak as one
having authority concerning French character, French
manners and customs. This lady assumed the sentimental
literary rôle. She was always cultivating herself
in her own way; that is to say, she was assiduous
in what she called keeping up her French.

In the opinion of many of her class of thinkers,
French is the key of the kingdom of heaven; and, of
course, it is worth one's while to sell all that one
has to be possessed of it. Mrs. Follingsbee had not
been in the least backward to do this; but, as to
getting the golden key, she had not succeeded. She
had formed the acquaintance of many disreputable people;
she had read French novels and French plays
such as no well-bred French woman would suffer in
her family; she had lost such innocence and purity of
mind as she had to lose, and, after all, had not got the
French language.

However, there are losses that do not trouble the
subject of them, because they bring insensibility. Just
as Mrs. Follingsbee's ear was not delicate enough to
perceive that her rapid and confident French was not
Parisian, so also her conscience and moral sense were
not delicate enough to know that she had spent her
labor for “that which was not bread.” She had only
succeeded in acquiring such an air that, on a careless
survey, she might have been taken for one of the demi-monde
of Paris; while secretly she imagined herself
the fascinating heroine of a French romance.

The friendship between Mrs. Follingsbee and Lillie

was of the most impassioned nature; though, as both
of them were women of a good solid perception in
regard to their own material interests, there were
excellent reasons on both sides for this enthusiasm.

Notwithstanding the immense wealth of the Follingsbees,
there were circles to which Mrs. Follingsbee
found it difficult to be admitted. With the usual
human perversity, these, of course, became exactly the
ones, and the only ones, she particularly cared for.
Her ambition was to pass beyond the ranks of the
“shoddy” aristocracy to those of the old-established
families. Now, the Seymours, the Fergusons, and the
Wilcoxes were families of this sort; and none of them
had ever cared to conceal the fact, that they did not
intend to know the Follingsbees. The marriage of
Lillie into the Seymour family was the opening of a
door; and Mrs. Follingsbee had been at Lillie's feet
during her Newport campaign. On the other hand,
Lillie, having taken the sense of the situation at
Springdale, had cast her thoughts forward like a discreet
young woman, and perceived in advance of her
a very dull domestic winter, enlivened only by reading-circles
and such slow tea-parties as unsophisticated
Springdale found agreeable. The idea of a long visit
to the New-York alhambra of the Follingsbees in the
winter, with balls, parties, unlimited opera-boxes, was
not a thing to be disregarded; and so, when Mrs. Follingsbee
“ma chèred” Lillie, Lillie “my deared” Mrs.
Follingsbee: and the pair are to be seen at this blessed
moment sitting with their arms tenderly round each

other's waists on a causeuse in Mrs. Follingsbee's dressing-room.

“You don't know, mignonne,” said Mrs. Follingsbee,
“how perfectly ravissante these apartments are! I 'm
so glad poor Charlie did them so well for you. I laid
my commands on him, poor fellow!”

“Pray, how does your affair with him get on?” said
Lillie.

“O dearest! you 've no conception what a trial it is to
me to keep him in the bounds of reason. He has such
struggles of mind about that stupid wife of his. Think
of it, my dear! a man like Charlie Ferrola, all poetry,
romance, ideality, tied to a woman who thinks of nothing
but her children's teeth and bowels, and turns the
whole house into a nursery! Oh, I 've no patience
with such people.”

“Well, poor fellow! it 's a pity he ever got married,”
said Lillie.

“Well, it would be all well enough if this sort of
woman ever would be reasonable; but they won't.
They don't in the least comprehend the necessities of
genius. They want to yoke Pegasus to a cart, you see.
Now, I understand Charlie perfectly. I could give him
that which he needs. I appreciate him. I make a
bower of peace and enjoyment for him, where his artistic
nature finds the repose it craves.”

“And she pitches into him about you,” said Lillie,
not slow to perceive the true literal rendering of all
this.

“Of course, ma chère, — tears him, rends him, lacerates

his soul; sometimes he comes to me in the most
dreadful states. Really, dear, I have apprehended
something quite awful! I shouldn't in the least be
surprised if he should blow his brains out!”

And Mrs. Follingsbee sighed deeply, gave a glance at
herself in an opposite mirror, and smoothed down a
bow pensively, as the prima donna at the grand opera
generally does when her lover is getting ready to stab
himself.

“Oh! I don't think he 's going to kill himself,” said
Mrs. Lillie, who, it must be understood, was secretly
somewhat sceptical about the power of her friend's
charms, and looked on this little French romance with
the eye of an outsider: “never you believe that, dearest.
These men make dreadful tearings, and shocking
eyes and mouths; but they take pretty good care to
keep in the world, after all. You see, if a man's dead,
there 's an end of all things; and I fancy they think of
that before they quite come to any thing decisive.”

“Chère étourdie,” said Mrs. Follingsbee, regarding
Lillie with a pensive smile: “you are just your old self, I
see; you are now at the height of your power, — `jeune
Madame, un mari qui vous adore,' ready to put all
things under your feet. How can you feel for a worn,
lonely heart like mine, that sighs for congeniality?”

“Bless me, now,” said Lillie, briskly; “you don't tell
me that you 're going to be so silly as to get in love
with Charlie yourself! It 's all well enough to keep
these fellows on the tragic high ropes; but, if a woman
falls in love herself, there 's an end of her power. And,

darling, just think of it: you wouldn't have married
that creature if you could; he 's poor as a rat, and
always will be; these desperately interesting fellows
always are. Now you have money without end; and
of course you have position; and your husband is a
man you can get any thing in the world out of.”

“Oh! as to that, I don't complain of Dick,” said
Mrs. Follingsbee: “he 's coarse and vulgar, to be sure,
but he never stands in my way, and I never stand in
his; and, as you say, he 's free about money. But still,
darling, sometimes it seems to me such a weary thing to
live without sympathy of soul! A marriage without
congeniality, mon Dieu, what is it? And then the
harsh, cold laws of human society prevent any relief.
They forbid natures that are made for each other from
being to each other what they can be.”

“You mean that people will talk about you,” said
Lillie. “Well, I assure you, dearest, they will talk awfully,
if you are not very careful. I say this to you
frankly, as your friend, you know.”

“Ah, ma petite! you don't need to tell me that. I
am careful,” said Mrs. Follingsbee. “I am always lecturing
Charlie, and showing him that we must keep up
les convenances; but is it not hard on us poor women
to lead always this repressed, secretive life?”

“What made you marry Mr. Follingsbee?” said
Lillie, with apparent artlessness.

“Darling, I was but a child. I was ignorant of the
mysteries of my own nature, of my capabilities. As
Charlie said to me the other day, we never learn what

we are till some congenial soul unlocks the secret door
of our hearts. The fact is, dearest, that American society,
with its strait-laced, puritanical notions, bears
terribly hard on woman's heart. Poor Charlie! he is
no less one of the victims of society.”

“Oh, nonsense!” said Lillie. “You take it too much
to heart. You mustn't mind all these men say. They
are always being desperate and tragic. Charlie has
talked just so to me, time and time again. I understand
it all. He talked exactly so to me when he came
to Newport last summer. You must take matters easy,
my dear, — you, with your beauty, and your style, and
your money. Why, you can lead all New York captive!
Forty fellows like Charlie are not worth spoiling
one's dinner for. Come, cheer up; positively I shan't
let you be blue, ma reine. Let me ring for your maid
to dress you for dinner. Au revoir.”

The fact was, that Mrs. Lillie, having formerly set
down this lovely Charlie on the list of her own adorers,
had small sympathy with the sentimental romance of her
friend.

“What a fool she makes of herself!” she thought, as
she contemplated her own sylph-like figure and wonderful
freshness of complexion in the glass. “Don't I
know Charlie Ferrola? he wants her to get him into
fashionable life, and knows the way to do it. To think
of that stout, middle-aged party imagining that Charlie
Ferrola 's going to die for her charms! it 's too funny!
How stout the dear old thing does get, to be sure!”

It will be observed here that our dear Lillie did not

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 706EAF. Page 171. In-line Illustration. Image of a man sitting in an easy chair with his legs crossed and a paper in his hands. The caption reads, "Mr. Charlie Ferrola."] want for perspicacity. There is nothing so absolutely
clear-sighted, in certain directions, as selfishness. Entire
want of sympathy with others clears up one's vision
astonishingly, and enables us to see all the weak
points and ridiculous places of our neighbors in the
most accurate manner possible.

As to Mr. Charlie Ferrola, our Lillie was certainly
in the right in respect to him. He was one of those
blossoms of male humanity that seem as expressly designed

by nature for the ornamentation of ladies' boudoirs,
as an Italian greyhound: he had precisely the
same graceful, shivery adaptation to live by petting and
caresses. His tastes were all so exquisite that it was
the most difficult thing in the world to keep him out of
misery a moment. He was in a chronic state of disgust
with something or other in our lower world from morning
till night.

His profession was nominally that of architecture
and landscape gardening; but, in point of fact, consisted
in telling certain rich, blasé, stupid, fashionable
people how they could quickest get rid of their money.
He ruled despotically in the Follingsbee halls: he
bought and rejected pictures and jewelry, ordered and
sent off furniture, with the air of an absolute master;
amusing himself meanwhile with running a French
romance with the handsome mistress of the establishment.
As a consequence, he had not only opportunities
for much quiet feathering of his own nest, but the
éclat of always having the use of the Follingsbees'
carriages, horses, and opera-boxes, and being the acknowledged
and supreme head of fashionable dictation.
Ladies sometimes pull caps for such charming individuals,
as we have seen in the case of Mrs. Follingsbee
and Lillie.

For it is not to be supposed that Mrs. Follingsbee,
though she had assumed the gushing style with her
young friend, wanted spirit or perception on her part.
Her darling Lillie had left a nettle in her bosom which
rankled there.

“The vanity of these thin, light, watery blondes!”
she said to herself, as she looked into her own great
dark eyes in the mirror, — “thinking Charlie Ferrola
cares for her! I know just what he thinks of her, thank
heaven! Poor thing! Don't you think Mrs. John Seymour
has gone off astonishingly since her marriage?”
she said to Thérèse.

“Mon Dieu, madame, q'oui,” said the obedient tire-woman,
scraping the very back of her throat in her
zeal. “Madame Seymour has the real American
maigreur. These thin women, madame, they have no
substance; there is noting to them. For young girl,
they are charming; but, as woman, they are just noting
at all. Now, you will see, madame, what I tell you.
In a year or two, people shall ask, `Was she ever handsome?'
But you, madame, you come to your prime
like great rose! Oh, dere is no comparison of you to
Mrs. John Seymour!”

And Thérèse found her words highly acceptable,
after the manner of all her tribe, who prophesy smooth
things unto their mistresses.

It may be imagined that the entertaining of Dick
Follingsbee was no small strain on the conjugal endurance
of our faithful John; but he was on duty, and
endured without flinching that gentleman's free and
easy jokes and patronizing civilities.

“I do wish, darling, you 'd teach that creature not to
call you `Lillie' in that abominably free manner,” he
said to his wife, the first day, after dinner.

“Mercy on us, John! what can I do? All the world

knows that Dick Follingsbee 's an oddity; and everybody
agrees to take what he says for what it 's worth.
If I should go to putting on any airs, he 'd behave ten
times worse than he does: the only way is, to pass it
over quietly, and not to seem to notice any thing he
says or does. My way is, to smile, and look gracious,
and act as if I hadn't heard any thing but what is
perfectly proper.”

“It 's a tremendous infliction, Lillie!”

“Poor man! is it?” said Lillie, putting her arm
round his neck, and stroking his whiskers. “Well,
now, he 's a good man to bear it so well, so he is; and
they shan't plague him long. But, John, you must
confess Mrs. Follingsbee is nice: poor woman! she is
mortified with the way Dick will go on; but she can't
do any thing with him.”

“Yes, I can get on with her,” said John. In fact,
John was one of the men so loyal to women that his
path of virtue in regard to them always ran down hill.
Mrs. Follingsbee was handsome, and had a gift in
language, and some considerable tact in adapting herself
to her society; and, as she put forth all her powers
to win his admiration, she succeeded.

Grace had done her part to assist John in his hospitable
intents, by securing the prompt co-operation of the
Fergusons. The very first evening after their arrival,
old Mrs. Ferguson, with Letitia and Rose, called, not
formally but socially, as had always been the custom
of the two families. Dick Follingsbee was out, enjoying
an evening cigar, — a circumstance on which John

secretly congratulated himself as a favorable feature in
the case. He felt instinctively a sort of uneasy responsibility
for his guests; and, judging the Fergusons by
himself, felt that their call was in some sort an act of
self-abnegation on his account; and he was anxious to
make it as easy as possible. Mrs. Follingsbee was presentable,
so he thought; but he dreaded the irrepressible
Dick, and had much the same feeling about him
that one has on presenting a pet spaniel or pointer in a
lady's parlor, — there was no answering for what he
might say or do.

The Fergusons were disposed to make themselves
most amiable to Mrs. Follingsbee; and, with this intent,
Miss Letitia started the subject of her Parisian experiences,
as being probably one where she would feel herself
especially at home. Mrs. Follingsbee of course
expanded in rapturous description, and was quite clever
and interesting.

“You must feel quite a difference between that country
and this, in regard to facilities of living,” said Miss
Letitia.

“Ah, indeed! do I not?” said Mrs. Follingsbee, casting
up her eyes. “Life here in America is in a state
of perfect disorganization.”

“We are a young people here, madam,” said John.
“We haven't had time to organize the smaller conveniences
of life.”

“Yes, that 's what I mean,” said Mrs. Follingsbee.
“Now, you men don't feel it so very much; but it
bears hard on us poor women. Life here in America is

perfect slavery to women, — a perfect dead grind. You
see there 's no career at all for a married woman in this
country, as there is in France. Marriage there opens a
brilliant prospect before a girl: it introduces her to the
world; it gives her wings. In America, it is clipping
her wings, chaining her down, shutting her up, — no
more gayety, no more admiration; nothing but cradles
and cribs, and bibs and tuckers, little narrowing, wearing,
domestic cares, hard, vulgar domestic slaveries:
and so our women lose their bloom and health and
freshness, and are moped to death.”

“I can't see the thing in that light, Mrs. Follingsbee,”
said old Mrs. Ferguson. “I don't understand
this modern talk. I am sure, for one, I can say I have
had all the career I wanted ever since I married. You
know, dear, when one begins to have children, one's
heart goes into them: we find nothing hard that we do
for the dear little things. I 've heard that the Parisian
ladies never nurse their own babies. From my very
heart, I pity them.”

“Oh, my dear madam!” said Mrs. Follingsbee, “why
insist upon it that a cultivated, intelligent woman shall
waste some of the most beautiful years of her life in a
mere animal function, that, after all, any healthy peasant
can perform better than she? The French are
a philosophical nation; and, in Paris, you see, this thing
is all systematic: it 's altogether better for the child.
It 's taken to the country, and put to nurse with a good
strong woman, who makes that her only business. She
just lives to be a good animal, you see, and so is a

better one than a more intellectual being can be; thus
she gives the child a strong constitution, which is the
main thing.”

“Yes,” said Miss Letitia; “I was told, when in Paris,
that this system is universal. The dressmaker, who
works at so much a day, sends her child out to nurse as
certainly as the woman of rank and fashion. There are
no babies, as a rule, in French households.”

“And you see how good this is for the mother,” said
Mrs. Follingsbee. “The first year or two of a child's
life it is nothing but a little animal; and one person
can do for it about as well as another: and all this
time, while it is growing physically, the mother has
for art, for self-cultivation, for society, and for literature.
Of course she keeps her eye on her child, and
visits it often enough to know that all goes right
with it.”

“Yes,” said Miss Letitia; “and the same philosophical
spirit regulates the education of the child throughout.
An American gentleman, who wished to live in Paris,
told me that, having searched all over it, he could not
accommodate his family, including himself and wife
and two children, without taking two of the suites that
are usually let to one family. The reason, he inferred,
was the perfection of the system which keeps the
French family reduced in numbers. The babies are
out at nurse, sometimes till two, and sometimes till
three years of age; and, at seven or eight, the girl goes
into a pension, and the boy into a college, till they are
ready to be taken out, — the girl to be married, and the

boy to enter a profession: so the leisure of parents for
literature, art, and society is preserved.”

“It seems to me the most perfectly dreary, dreadful
way of living I ever heard of,” said Mrs. Ferguson,
with unwonted energy. “How I pity people who
know so little of real happiness!”

“Yet the French are dotingly fond of children,” said
Mrs. Follingsbee. “It 's a national peculiarity; you
can see it in all their literature. Don't you remember
Victor Hugo's exquisite description of a mother's feelings
for a little child in `Notre Dame de Paris'? I never
read any thing more affecting; it 's perfectly subduing.”

“They can't love their children as I did mine,” said
Mrs. Ferguson: “it 's impossible; and, if that 's what 's
called organizing society, I hope our society in America
never will be organized. It can't be that children are
well taken care of on that system. I always attended
to every thing for my babies myself; because I felt God
had put them into my hands perfectly helpless; and, if
there is any thing difficult or disagreeable in the case,
how can I expect to hire a woman for money to be
faithful in what I cannot do for love?”

“But don't you think, dear madam, that this system
of personal devotion to children may be carried too
far?” said Mrs. Follingsbee. “Perhaps in France
they may go to an extreme; but don't our American
women, as a rule, sacrifice themselves too much to their
families?”

“Sacrifice!” said Mrs. Ferguson. “How can we?
Our children are our new life. We live in them a

thousand times more than we could in ourselves. No,
I think a mother that doesn't take care of her own baby
misses the greatest happiness a woman can know. A
baby isn't a mere animal; and it is a great and solemn
thing to see the coming of an immortal soul into it
from day to day. My very happiest hours have been
spent with my babies in my arms.”

“There may be women constituted so as to enjoy it,”
said Mrs. Follingsbee; “but you must allow that there
is a vast difference among women.”

“There certainly is,” said Mrs. Ferguson, as she rose
with a frigid courtesy, and shortened the call. “My
dear girls,” said the old lady to her daughters, when
they returned home, “I disapprove of that woman. I
am very sorry that pretty little Mrs. Seymour has so
bad a friend and adviser. Why, the woman talks like
a Fejee Islander! Baby a mere animal, to be sure! it
puts me out of temper to hear such talk. The woman
talks as if she had never heard of such a thing as love
in her life, and don't know what it means.”

“Oh, well, mamma!” said Rose, “you know we are
old-fashioned folks, and not up to modern improvements.”

“Well,” said Miss Letitia, “I should think that that
poor little weird child of Mrs. Follingsbee's, with the
great red bow on her back, had been brought up on
this system. Yesterday afternoon I saw her in the
garden, with that maid of hers, apparently enjoying a
free fight. They looked like a pair of goblins, — an old
and a young one. I never saw any thing like it.”

“What a pity!” said Rose; “for she 's a smart,
bright little thing; and it 's cunning to hear her talk
French.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Ferguson, straightening her back,
and sitting up with a grand air: “I am one of eight
children that my mother nursed herself at her own
breast, and lived to a good honorable old age after it.
People called her a handsome woman at sixty: she
could ride and walk and dance with the best; and
nobody kept up a keener interest in reading or general
literature. Her conversation was sought by the most
eminent men of the day as something remarkable.
She was always with her children: we always knew
we had her to run to at any moment; and we were the
first thing with her. She lived a happy, loving, useful
life; and her children rose up and called her blessed.”

“As we do you, dear mamma,” said Rose, kissing
her: “so don't be oratorical, darling mammy; because
we are all of your mind here.”