Catherine

“ SHE is neither young nor pretty, and site wears her foulard nearly down to her nose, but you will have more comfort with her and less responsibility than with a more attractive bonne.”

So spake the wise Englishwoman who presided over the pension where Miss James and Miss Rater spent the week of prospecting that preceded their memorable experiment of holiday housekeeping. That was thirty years ago, and the ladies were two Americans, by no means so immature as their follow-travelers and foreign mentors seemed determined to make them, and yet not fairly entitled to the immunities of un certain ège.

Being threatened with an acute stage of the disease now Formulated as “ Americanitis,” they voted Health, with a capital H, the one pearl of great, price, and went and sold all that they had and sought it afar in the ancient province of Bearn, within twenty miles of the Pyrenees. Several thousand pilgrims from all parts of Europe, having resolved upon the same quest, brought thither their coughs and their asthma and their rheumatic gout and offered them up to the genius loci, with the necessary accompaniment of pilgrim scrip in quantities varying according to the plumpness of the pilgrim wallet. There were Grand Hotels and Heau-Sejours, and fine appartements meublés for the easy and lavish, and a descending scale ol: pensions and a ppa elements for the limited and calculating. A day and a half of house-hunting down the hitter brought our ladies to a decision for a modest appartement au troisième, opposite La Place des Eeoles. True, the salon was somewhat barren, and the sofa and chairs were rather stiff; but it was an appartement an midi, and that meant sunshine and mountains whenever mountains and sunshine were to be had. Moreover, there were their own little personal effects for beautifying it, not to mention the count’s furnishings below. But we anticipate.

The rooms being secured, the good Englishwoman rendered her protegees a supreme service which they could not at once estimate, for they had nothing by which to measure it. She brought to their notice the Béarnaise bonne whose portrait is lightly sketched above. For thirty francs a month and her vin ordinaire they appropriated not a treasure, merely, but a bonanza whose wealth will never be exhausted “ while memory holds a seat.” From the triumphant moment when Catherine “settled with” the gareon who removed their luggage to number 84 till Ihe parting at the station, when she murmured her last tearful “ Pauvrines! ’ “Mademoiselle Raytaire” and “Mademoiselle Jhame” were her demoiselles, and she was their unfailing resource.

Catherine’s one word of English was “ mince-pie,” uttered with an accent and intonation which five months of diligent practice hardly sufficed to communicate to her teasing pupils. Yet “ French of Parys was to her unknown.” Her native language, the patois of Bèarn, she used in all intercourse with her compatriots, and her acquired French, learned as a part of her qualification for service, was a curious modification of the “ ahvong and bong tong ” method. Final consonants were pronounced ad libitum. verbs sometimes strayed from their lawful partners, and demonstrative and personal pronouns sported terminations which defied the Academy. No matter; it was a priceless opportunity for two eager learners to practice their French on her. They were keen at grammar, prompt in seizing the substance of conversation going on around them, and alternately rash and timid in launching their contributions to it. With Catherine there was nothing to fear, and much to hope. Faithful, shrewd, and humorous, she soon felt quite at home with her Américaines, and, within those well-defined limits which her training and her instinct equally forbade her to transgress, she coddled and scolded, admired and derided them in the most restful manner ; and had they not come to France to rest ?

Miss Pater had the larger endowment of executive ability, and Miss James the better practical knowledge of details; but it was agreed that the responsibility of the housekeeping should be shared by them, each taking it a week in turn, and the one out of office being quite ignorant of the plans of the other. From this arose daily confidences with Catherine, who never wearied of the delights of mystery, and never failed to announce to the outsider the close of the interview with a sly “"Nous souimes confesses.

If the pretended impatience of the excluded member led her to tap on the door of the audience chamber with an imperative “ Dépêchez-vous, eh? ” (which audacious words had once escaped Catherine’s lips under pressure of a domestic exigency), the glee of the old drôle was unbounded.

The odd misunderstandings and mistakes that arose in this unique menage added not a little to the general fund of gayety. If Miss James had a serious difficulty in making Catherine understand that she was to make a broth of the bone of the gigot, she surmounted it at last by inarching into the tiny kitchen and indicating with her forefinger the hone aforesaid.

“ Eh ! l’oss ! l’oss ! Et moi qui croyais que vous vouliez dire l’eau! ”

When she wished to have mashed potatoes, she carefully considered all the French words that might answer to the first term of the English expression, and then committed herself irretrievably by ordering pommes de terre écrasées.

But for Miss Pater was reserved the crowning feat of commanding a kilometre de bifleck. In her fertile brain, also, as the Lady from Philadelphia, was hatched the scheme that resulted in a grand patriotic surprise for the Lady from Boston ; no less than the apparition of codfish balls at breakfast. They were unusual in form, the minced codfish being placed by itself in the centre of a potato croquette. A hint from the other member of the firm modified this method for the next week, and thereafter the croquettes de morue became a matter of course.

Baked beans presented too many difficulties to this adventuresome spirit, but the recipe for their preparation as imparted to an inquisitorial British dame is worthy of preservation.

“ You take these white split beans and put the pork between ” —

“ Oh ! between the halves of the beans ? How curious ! ”

“ And then — and then you pour molasses over the top. Is n’t that it, Jeanie ? ”

The mirth in Jennie’s eyes and Miss Pater’s tardy realization of her own ignorance brought the lesson to an abrupt termination, leaving the candid inquirer in a state of “ stunning antithesis.”

The good cheer enjoyed by the holiday housekeepers was constantly enhanced by Catherine’s naive vauntings of her sharpness as purveyor. “ Moi, je suis fine,” was the burden of her discourse on market day, when luscious winter pears, rosy apples, and dainty choux de Bruxelles or tender frills of salading enriched her basket; but the small cost, the incredibly bon marché, was the joy of her life. A plump chicken or a fat capon was endeared to her heart by the dix sous de radio is that her oily tongue and determined aspect extorted from the paysan. When it was a question of a filet de bœuf for a little luncheon party, she sallied forth early in the morning to the hatcher’s, and, planting herself by his side, announced her intention of securing a certain cut located some slices in from the surface. Neither the gibes of the other customers nor the wheedling of the “ meat man could shake her purpose. Others might take what they could get.; she would have her piece or nothing. So when, in the course of traffic, it was reached, she bore it home in triumph.

One day, when a mysterious appendage to the tender little gigot excited the carver’s curiosity, she demanded an explanation of Catherine as she removed the second course.

“ What is this, Catherine ? ”

“ Why, the tail, mademoiselle. There are méchants who kill a kid and sell its leg for a gigot, mais, croyez-moi, the tail is not the same thing. Moi, je suis fine ! ”

When Catherine reappeared with the salad, the conversation was renewed thus : —

“ How many tails has a lamb in France, Catherine ? ”

“ Why, one. mademoiselle.”

“ Then how can the other people tell, who buy the gigot, without the tail ?

“ Tant pis pour ruses l 1 get the one with the tail.”

A strict inquiry having been made at first, by these pinks of housekeepers, into the antecedents of the fish provided for Friday’s dinner, a little comedy resulting therefrom was duly enacted every week.

Enter the fish.

Cath. Avez-vous entendu le tracas, mesdemoiselles ? Le poisson qni vonlait sauter de ma main! J’ai tenu lion en criant fort. Vous auriez dfi entendre tout ca jusqu’au salon.

Mlle. J. Et à présent ?

Cath. A present, je crois qu’il est vaineu.

Mile. P. Que vous etes vaillante, Catherine !

Every evening, at half past eight or nine o’clock, with noiseless tread, Catherine invaded the salon and placed herself before the housekeeper of the week. In gentle and measured accents she uttered the unvarying formula : —

“Voulez - vous compter, mademoiselle ? ”

Mademoiselle produced her book and pencil, and the recitative began : —

“ Deux sous lie salade. huit sons de legumes, treute-cinq SOILS de hifteck, vingt-huit sous de vin,”etc.

Francs were too bewildering to the native mind, and any reckoning with them brought a look of perplexity to the face of la fine ; but the footing of the day-book and the “ proof of the pudding” were both so satisfactory that the buying was left almost wholly in her hands. Miss Pater once yielded to an impulse, and, by way of distributing patronage, bought a demi-kilo of raisins of the grocer at the corner. Wizened fruit and enormous stems rewarded her enterprise, and never to Ihe end of the chapter did Catherine neglect a possible opportunity of referring to the misadventure, and always with the significant comment, " Rien que de jam-bes.”

It must be confessed that the nightly function referred to above, though introduced in such perfect form, seldom came to a conclusion without some hilarious incident, — some bit of news about the malade de la porte d’à côté, whose aunt was always sending in alarm for the pretelidu ; and then when he fame from England, noyez-voits, ce tenable Monsieur Vagnell, the English doctor, forbade his seeing the lady for several days, during which time he haunted the street, a prey to all the gossips in the neighborhood. Or she slyly intimated that monsieur le comte, au premier (who had had incredible difficulty in mounting his horse before their windows that morning, so that a large assistance of gamins and bourgeoisie gave him his final send-off), had come in unpeu souffrant after his ride, according to madame, la proprietmre. " II me fait que do betises, ce comte-là.”

Or madame with the cross husband, an second, had been heard to complain to the garden who brought their dinners from the hotel that it was “ ton joins do canard et du veau.”

“ At home this would be reprehensible gossip, Polly Pater, but here,” explained Miss Janies, “ it is improving conversation ; and as we do not know these interesting neighbors, and never publish Catherine’s tattle in regard to them, what harm does it do ? Besides, she enjoys it so much.”

With all Catherine’s “zeal for her demoiselles there was one indulgence she sternly refused them. If other sources of distraction failed, Miss James had only to prefer her oft-denied request, for a turkey, a dear little dindon à la hroche, and the flood-gates of eloquence were opened.

“ Never shall you have a turkey, mademoiselle, never! I, who bought a turkey for my Scotch young ladies, and it. lasted fifteen days, — fif-teen days!”

Then eamo the touching story of the three Kcossaises, all frail and failing in different degrees, with coughs and hectic cheeks, lint tres eharntantes, the eldest watching over the younger ones as a mother, and all shielded and cosseted by their devoted slave. That was two years before. Catherine had had a letter from them, which she showed with great pride. As its contents were wholly sealed to her, Miss Pater read it again for her, and she listened, alternately smiling and sighing “ Pauvrines! ” Evidently she had sustained much the same comfortable relation to them as that which she now held to their American cousins. But the conclusion of the whole matter ever was, “ Never a turkey, mademoiselle. Fif-teen days ! ”

“ What histories she will make about her Américaines. next year, Jeanie ! ”

“ Doubtless. One thing is certain, — she is n’t suffering much from oppression or repression, at present. What would that terrible invalid who so split Catherine’s head with her everlasting hell say to these easy times, I wonder ? ”

This malade imaginaire figured largely in the reminiscences of Catherine, who had been cook, housemaid, and nurse in her service; and it was always grumble, grumble, grumble, when the poor soul was in my lady’s chamber, and ring, ring, ring, when she was in the kitchen. In the end Catherine herself fell ill, and lay in a stupor, from which the English doctor said she would never arouse; but the French doctor knew better, as nies demoiselles could see for themselves. Since that memorable crisis she had been unable to swallow food in the morning. A small cup of black coffee, vo’do foot, till the second breakfast at noon. When Miss Janies reproached her with getting only two cutlets for that meal, Catherine retorted : “ Croyez - vous ? Would I put six sous in a cutlet for myself ? ”

When she retired very early on a cool evening, she reproved the levity of her laities thereupon by scorning to consume firewood for the likes of her.

The question of fuel soon became a burning one, indeed, between the lavish foreigners and their frugal monitor. Fight stores of wood, four for the salon and four for the kitchen, looked to Catherine like a generous supply for the season ; and when, on cloudy December afternoons, she found an empty wood-box in fhe salon, she pulled a long face and shook her head at such ruinous extravagance.

“ Mais, que voulez-vous, Catherine? That we carry our wood-pile home to America with us in our trunks ? ” demanded Miss Pater.

The flitting smile excited by this sally was followed by more portentous shakes of the head, and as near an approach to a grumble as was ever heard from herIn the middle of February an additional stère of parlor wood became a necessity, and ” Voyez-vous, mademoiselle,” was Catherine’s laconic admonition.

A part of the kitchen wood consisted of small branches of the natural length, which length was nearly equal to that of the kitchen floor. Catherine calmly poked the large end of the stick into the fireplace, and then pushed it up as it burned off.

No Aladdin’s oven will ever perform such miracles of frugality and toothsomeness combined as were daily wrought by the genius of Catherine with her two little braziers and her tin “kitchen” before the open lire: ambrosial omelets, cutlets of melting tenderness, juicy hiftcrks whose slight natural obduracy bad melted sous l’huile, filets de biruf mix champlynons, dainty little cpanics do vean, a lit farce, and a famous compote of pears whose “lucent syrup” lurked as a sweet surprise beneath a creamy custard. Not these alone, but the homely broye, or mush of pale Indian meal, the peasant’s coupe au chon, and the plain bouilli aux légumes brought with them such a relish from the fairy’s wand that a deepening of dimples and a heightening of roses on the cheeks of ces demoiselles made them more reproachably youthful than before.

Almost from the first a pretended preference for Miss James, the smaller and less striking of the pair, gave Catherine endless occasions of airing a sly malice toward her friend. If Miss Cater had called to pay the grocer’s hill, Catherine would announce the next day, in honeyed accents, that one had found mademoiselle tree charniuntc rhez I’epirier ; but in the next breath, “ Moi, j’ai dit, ‘ Si vous voyiez l’autre ! Elle est si mignonne! ’ ”

A traveling-dress of Miss Pater’s had undergone such a severe experience of Liverpool and Chester mud, in the early English days, that, alter being carefully dried, it was securely wrapped in papers and consigned to the bottom of a trunk for future reference. When the new life m the Basses-Pyrénées had settled into its cheerful routine, “ Why not make a nice warm wrapper of that Scotch plaid?” quoth Polly Pater one day. Down it came from the storeroom, and the first act in the drama was to have Catherine brush and clean the skirt. She took it with a grimace, and, with a shrug, returned it spotless and free from dust; hut that was not the last of it. Apropos of everything and of nothing, the bespattered gown and its luckless wearer enlivened the French conversation with endless quips and innuendoes. The charming good nature of the victim only encouraged the tormentor, till finally Miss Pater bethought herself to take refuge in the pity of her persecutor.

“ Why, Catherine, you ought rather to commiserate me that I landed on a foreign shore in such dreadful weather.”

Catherine retired in silence to the kitchen, and returned bearing the dessert and charged with a parting shot. With an impressive wave of the hand toward Miss Janies, she inquired, “ Where is the costume that mademoiselle wore in those days ? ”

During a brief but rather severe illness that prostrated the pseudo-favorite Catherine’s skill and devotion as nurse were beyond praise; hut an evasive answer proved that, as bonne Catholaque, she would assume no responsibility for her patient’s reception by St. Peter. Referring afterward to the night of a relapse, she exclaimed, " Ah, mademoiselle, vous aviez la figure de la mort! ”

“ And did you think my trials were nearly ended, Catherine?”

“ Moi, j’ai pense a l’autre. I wondered what she would do.”

This artless chronicle will he incomplete without a recital of Catherine’s exploitations of monsieur le comte, an premier. From the beginning she considered him her lawful prey in so far as site could abstract anything from his appartement for the use of her ladies.

The table of the salon au troisibme, which must do duty both as dining and centre table, was pronounced too large and clumsy by the fair occupants. “ Voyons,” mused Catherine. “ Provided monsieur le comte has a smaller one, it is the same thing to him. Je vais deiininder a inadame la proprietaire. And the next time her ladies came in from a walk the objectionable piece of furniture had been removed, and there was an oval table quite coniine il faut.

Next, there must be a fire laid in the long bedroom for these Sybarites to dress by on frosty mornings; but there were no andirons there. “ Eh bien, les chenets de monsieur le comte, c’est ca! I believe he has three pairs of them, — or two. N’importe. Je vais demander a madame la propriétaire.” And the next night, the andirons of monsieur le comte were duly charged with the three little billets of wood that Catherine allowed her spendthrifts. Never had they fell a more delicious sense of ease and protection than when she lighted that cheery blaze on the hearth for them, and ushered in the day by opening the shutters and pronouncing a grateful or satirical comment on the weather. “ Qu’il fait bean, mesdemoiselles! ” “Il a geld cette nuit.”

“ Quel vilain temps ! ”

“ Pleut-il. Catherine ? ” when something special was pending.

“ Il n’ose pas, mademoiselle.”

In March, as the white muslin curtains of the salon had become rather limp and dingy, the question of having them “done tip” was moved by the ladies. Catherine returned quite radiant from a tentative interview with inadame la proprietaire. Monsieur le comte had just persuaded the latter to buy him new curtains. Now, why should not cos demoiselles have those new curtains, and that blundering count get their old ones after they were laundered? But these virtuous ladies frowned on such duplicity, and expressed their entire satisfaction with the original plan. Catherine maintained an inscrutable aspect, and the curtains were to be washed the next week.

On Sunday, when Miss James came in alone from church, she was surprised to find Catherine in the salon for no apparent reason hut to welcome her ; and her bewilderment increased as the factotum lingered, with a smilingly conscious face, instead of returning to her own domain. At last, the innocence ol my lady being beyond all patience, the slyboots pointed triumphantly to the windows. Behold, unmistakably crisp and fresh, the count’s new curtains I “Oh, Catherine! What hare you done ? ”

“ Moi, je suis fine ! Madame la propridtaire had only to say to monsieur le comte, ’ Impossible to get the seamstress for the curtains before next week.’ Mo is, coyez-vous, by next week your old curtains will be quite the same thing for him. Madame et moi, we have done prodigies to hang the new ones this morning. Enfin, sont-ils jobs ? ’

“ But I am so sorry madame has lied to monsieur le comte.”

“ Eh ! qu’est-ce que cela me fait? ”

The mingled scorn and insouciance with which this question was delivered rendered further discussion useless. Whether the hapless scion of the noble house of Gramont was insensible to his losses, or whether his chivalry forbade remonstrance. will never he known; but his memory, inseparably linked with that of his wily defrauder, remains perennially green.

Anything that Catherine could get, out of anybody for ces demoiselles was simply their due and her delight. Miss Pater, having a parcel to send to Bugland, and lacking the proper wrappings, sent la fine with it to the stationer, near by, to see if he had anything that would answer. Back she came with a snug package in a stout black waterproof outside.

“ Oh, Catherine ! How lovely ! Did he do it up for you ? What did you do?”

“ Moi, j’ai dit, ‘ Merci. beaucoup.’ ” and it was with an ill grace that she returned to the stationer with the douceur upon which her mistress insisted.

“ Void des violettes, mademoiselle. Un garcon très charmant gave them to me.”

Ah! ah ! Catherine, you must not trifle with his affections,”was the mock remonstrance of incorrigible Polly Pater.

“ Why do you not keep the flowers yourself?

“ J’ai coiffe ma patronne.” ¹

Was there an unforgotten history in that simple reply ? A renunciation in the youthful days, when tlie furrowed face was fresh and fair, the gray eyes danced with a merry light, and a jaunty foulard crowned a wealth of dark hair?

The only time that Catherine’s cheerfulness quite forsook her was on the occasion of a grand trip to the mountains which her ladies undertook in March, The landau bowled along over the famous roads of the Basses-Pyrénées, with merry bells jingling on the horses. All nature was gay with opening spring. Peasants in blue bérets and in red basques were at work in the fields on the left. On the right, cascades of melting snow, emerald and white, were tumbling from giddy heights, and little Pyrenean shepherds and shepherdesses scrambled after their flocks along impossible paths. The air grew quite intoxicating at EauxBonnes, and the scenery from there to Eaux - Chaudes, and thence to Grab as, grew ever wilder, and the ladies ever more ecstatic, but Catherine was bored.

However, the silver lining was not absent from this cloud, for had she not clinched an unprecedented bargain for the remise and the cod ter for the two days ? And there were those royal pears that she had abstracted from the bountiful table spread at Louvie for the midday breakfast. There were only two of them, and the keen appetites that had attacked the mountain trout and veal cutlets with povnnes de terre an maitre d’hôtel called a halt before the beauteous tempters were reached. Catherine deftly repaired the neglect, and on the return home triumphantly produced her booty. “ Voila pour le dessert de dimanche ! ”

Her interest in the studies of her ladies was pathetically expressed at times. " Ah ! if I could do like that! ”

The dictionary, though in constant requisition, seemed to her never to get itself read, like the other books ; but once when Miss Pater was intent on the French equivalents of workmanship, she ventured to inquire if they had nearly finished le grand livre à present.

Once a prolonged discussion of all the aspects of some question of syntax with old mademoiselle, the French teacher, brought down a heavy weight of scorn and ire upon their devoted heads, for it encroached somewhat upon the dinner hour. In vain Miss James’s attempted explanation of the great importance of grasping the subject firmly.

“ Pour des choses comme ga! Fortunately it is cold roast for to-night, or I should have been enragee comme mi loup ! ”

As the end of holiday housekeeping drew near, Catherine more than once exclaimed : “ Je suis malheurense ! I am growing old, and no one will want me.”

Come to America with us, Catherine.”

“ I should be lost there.”

“ Poor thing, so she would,” murmured Polly Pater, “ If she were only younger! ”

At all events, we will have her photograph to take to America with us,” declared Miss James.

“ Oh, yes, the very thing ! ”

But they reckoned without their host.

When the proposition was made to the person most intimately concerned, she stubbornly refused.

“ Never ! I am too ugly.”

“ Oh, no, Catherine, how can une fine be ugly ? Besides, we want it so much, and we will keep it always, always; and you may have two for yourself, voyezvous ? ”

“ Non, non, et toujours non.”

Baffled and disappointed, her demoiselles departed, yet bearing each a picture and a memory that will hardly be effaced.

Mary J. Jacques.