Molly Brown's Orchard Home Part 6

While Mrs. Pace talked, she had plumped up their pillows and lowered the shade of the one large window, opened their suitcases and got out their kimonos and, despite their feeble protest, had actually undressed them and put them to bed! Then, forcibly ejecting Judy, she shut the door with admonitions for them to sleep until dinner at six-thirty.

Judy went very dutifully to her room until she heard the last of Mrs.

Pace's ponderous tread on the stairs; then she crept softly to the Browns' door and gently opened it to find Mrs. Brown and Molly rolling on the bed, overcome with laughter.

"Oh, oh, oh! She has taken at least forty-five years off of my age,"

giggled Mrs. Brown like a veritable boarding-school miss. "I have never in my life seen such a born boss as the redoubtable Mrs. Pace! Did you see her undo my belt and take off my skirt? I could not have felt more like a child if my waist had been a pinafore instead of a respectable black silk. And as for Molly, she was treated as though she were just about old enough to go into rompers." And they all went off into peals of laughter.

"Well, now is the time to take a stand or you will never be able to,"

said Judy. "I defied her from the first and she lets me alone wonderfully."

"Yes, I noticed how you withstood her authority when you were sent to your room!" grinned Molly, as she got back into the clothes that had been forcibly removed only five minutes before. "I see you have sneaked in our letters and I, for one, am going to read mine, and then if we can get down stairs without the dragon devouring us, let's take a walk. We shall have plenty of time before dinner."

They accordingly read their letters and crept down stairs and out on the street for a breath of air and a stroll in the Luxembourg Gardens. It was too late to try to see the pictures in the Gallery of the Luxembourg and, after all, they had the winter before them. And now that she was out on the street, having escaped the dragon, Mrs. Brown confessed to feeling a little mite tired, so they sat down on a bench in the Gardens and watched the children play.

"Poor Mrs. Brown, of course you are tired! That is the most irritating thing about Mrs. Pace: she is always right. 'It is best to rest after a trip whether you feel tired or not, as the reaction after a journey is obliged to come, and you pay up for it to-morrow if you do not rest to-day'," and Judy imitated Mrs. Pace to the life.

"Well, you may be sure, my dear girls, that wild horses will not drag the fact from me in the presence of the dragon, even if I am weary unto death. Does she coerce all her boarders as she did me, Judy?"

"Most of them are completely under her dominion, finding it easiest and best to take the course of least resistance. Some few rebel, but they usually end by moving on. If you stay at the Pension Pace and wish to "_requiescat in pace_," you do as she says to do. I have defied her from the first and now I am rated as an undesirable boarder. Had it not been that she was wild to have you with her because of your relationship to the Marquise d'Ochte, she would have raised some c.o.c.k and bull story about my room having been engaged by someone a year ago and, since her honor was at stake, she would have to ask me to vacate.

"I tell you she is a sly one. You must either have lots and loads of money, or you must do as she says, do--or die. Of course she has an excellent house in a most desirable quarter and she caters to Americans.

You will notice that the food is much more American than French; and after people have been knocking around the Continent, of course they are overjoyed to have some food that seems like home."

"But I don't want American food," wailed Molly. "I want French things, even snails; and I want to learn how to ask for these things in the most Frenchy style. What is the use in coming to Paris and staying with a stuffy old dame from Philadelphia and eating the things we have at home?"

"Oh, I am so glad you feel that way! How about you, Mrs. Brown? Papa and Mamma made me promise to do just as you thought best. They put me in Mrs. Pace's house and I have been determined not to worry them about changing, but I am 'most dead of her and her ways. Do say you think we ought to go to housekeeping or should get in a French family; anything to get out of the dragon's den," pleaded Judy.

"For how long did you engage our room?" asked Mrs. Brown, smiling at Judy's despair.

"One week; and mine, also, is taken by the week. She tried to make Papa sign for the whole winter, but he was on to her from the first and refused to do more than take it from week to week. He and Mamma stayed here a few days on their way to Turkey, and you would have died laughing if you had seen Mrs. Pace try to make Papa 'Fletcherize.' You know he always eats as though the train would not wait. At every meal she remarked on it and one day said at dinner: 'This is veal, Mr. Kean, and should be thoroughly masticated.' Whereupon he put down his knife and fork and, looking her solemnly in the eye, said: 'That is good advice no doubt for ordinary mortals, but after long years in railroad camps I have acquired a gizzard.' With that he took a great piece of _blanquette de veau_ and to all appearances swallowed it whole without changing his expression. I choked so I had to leave the table and I believe Mrs.

Pace, to this day, thinks that by a skillful legerdemain I swallowed the veal! Anyhow, Bobby ate to suit himself after that."

"Oh, Judy, how ridiculous you are! I wish I could have seen Mr. Kean execute his daring feat," laughed Molly. "Mother, let's look around for an apartment and go to housekeeping immediately. I am sorry we told Elise O'Brien about Mrs. Pace's. I can't bear for her to be anywhere that is not pleasant. She has had tribulations enough in her day."

Judy had not yet heard anything of their fellow pa.s.sengers, as they had been so occupied with Paris and the pension that they had had no time to tell her of their voyage and the pleasant people they had met. She was much interested in the fact that Miss...o...b..ien was to be at the art school for the winter and said she was a girl of undoubted talent. As for young Kinsella, he was the cleverest draughtsman at the League.

"Do you girls think you like Elise enough to have her come to live with us for the winter?" asked Mrs. Brown. "I feel sure the poor girl would be happy, and if you would all fit in together and be congenial, I really think it would be an act of charity to ask her. We must consider it from all sides before we rush into it, however."

"Mother, it would be splendid!" declared Molly. "I believe Mrs.

Huntington was dying for you to ask Elise, but of course had to wait for you to suggest it. We could divide the expenses into four parts and I know it would be cheaper than boarding and infinitely more agreeable."

"Mrs. Brown, I am sure we should get on like a house afire, and it does seem as though we might take Elise in and give her a pleasant home. I promise to be real good and get on with everybody, if I can only know I am to leave the _Maison Pace_ in peace," promised Judy.

So it was decided by these three impulsive souls to take in Elise O'Brien and to get a flat forthwith and leave the sheltering wing of the dragon. Mrs. Brown thought it best to stay a fortnight in their present quarters so they could look well about them; she also wanted to see her old friend and cousin, the Marquise d'Ochte, for if she were anything like the Sally Bolling of old, she felt sure she could depend on her for some a.s.sistance in the matter of getting settled.

"Of course, she may have changed so, after being married to a French n.o.bleman for some twenty-eight years, that I will hesitate to ask anything of her; but I have an idea old Sally could not change. I remember her as being a great harum-scarum but with the best heart in the world, and absolutely honest and unaffected. My experience is that honest, unaffected people do not change in the long run."

"What did she look like, Mother?" asked Molly.

"Well, when I come to think of it, she looked a little like you. She is only my second cousin, once removed, not such very close kin; but this red hair of yours comes cropping out in every generation or so in my family and the similar coloring makes one fancy a likeness even if there is none; but Sally had your eyes and your chin. She took life much more lightly than my Molly does, saw a jest where none was intended and sometimes cracked a joke when seriousness would have been in better taste. I have not seen her for many years and she stopped corresponding with all of us; not that there was any disagreement, but letter-writing simply died a natural death, as time went on. I am greatly interested in seeing her."

Mrs. Brown also decided to let Mr. Kinsella approach the O'Briens in regard to having Elise live with her. She was very well aware of Mrs.

Huntington's nature and felt that that lady would be fully capable of treating her as though Elise were necessary to the housekeeping scheme to help out the financial end; and Mrs. Brown was determined to have no one with her as a boarder, but to run the _menage_ on a co-operative principle, letting all of them share the expense.

Mrs. Huntington and Elise had stopped in Brussels for a visit with some friends and Mr. Kinsella and Pierce were still in Antwerp getting their fill of the pictures to be seen there. They were uncertain how long it would take them to grow tired of the interesting Belgian city and could not tell just when their friends might expect them in Paris.

When the three renegades returned from their walk in the Luxembourg Gardens, they hoped to reach their rooms without being seen by Mrs.

Pace, but that lady's motto was "Eternal Vigilance," and no one went out of her house or came in un.o.bserved. She met them as they stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor and gently but firmly admonished them for their disobedience. Molly noticed her mother's heightening color and her quivering nostrils and remembered with a smile what Aunt Mary, their old cook, always said to them when they were children: "Ole Miss is long suffrin' an' slow to anger but when her nose gits to wuckin', you chillun ought to learn that she done had 'nuf and you had better make yo'sefs scurse." Peace-loving Molly drew Mrs. Brown's arm through her own and gently pressing it, led her upstairs.

"Thank you, my dear, I was on the verge of attacking the dragon, and since we are to be here two weeks, I must not do anything to make it more difficult. But did you ever see anyone more impertinent?" asked Mrs. Brown, still sniffing the battle from afar.

"Never," sympathized Judy. "I wish you had said your say. I believe you could get ahead of the fabulous monster in open combat. She is, after all, a very flabby, fabulous monster and one p.r.i.c.k would do for her."

CHAPTER VI.

LA MARQUISE.

"_La Marquise d'Ochte_ is attending _Madame Brune_ in the _salon au cinquieme etage_," announced a very excited little housemaid, who was supposed to speak English for the benefit of the American pensionnaires at _Maison Pace_. "_Madame Pace_ is some time gone at the _boucher_, not expecting callers at so early _heur_. _La Marquise_ demanded not _Madame Pace_; but said very _distinctment 'Madame Brune et sa fille'_."

"Very well, Alphonsine, thank you so much. My daughter and I will come down immediately," said Mrs. Brown, smiling at the agitation of the little maid. Mrs. Pace had evidently given her servants to understand the importance her pension gained from the visits of a marchioness.

"Milly, Milly, how I have longed to see you," and the Marquise d'Ochte rose from her seat and clasped her one-time friend and beloved cousin in a warm embrace. "And this is your daughter? Goodness, child, you look like me,--at least, like me when I was young!"

Molly knew in the first second of greeting that she was going to like this cousin, and Mrs. Brown was delighted to see in the marchioness the same Sally Bolling of thirty years ago. She was like Molly in a way, but it was hard to realize that Molly could ever be quite so buxom as this middle-aged cousin. She was a very large woman with an excellent figure for her weight, and hair a little darker than Molly's with no silver threads showing so far.

"I pull 'em out if they dare to so much as show their noses. They say forty will come in when you pull out one, but then I'll make my maid pull out forty, if it kills me in the pulling," she declared when Mrs.

Brown remarked on it in the course of their inventory of each other. "My Jean declares he got caught in my hair and could not get away, and I mean still to keep him."

"I am afraid I would s.n.a.t.c.h myself bald-headed if I tried to pull all of my gray hairs out," laughed Mrs. Brown; "but, Sally, you are exactly the same girl who left Kentucky ages ago; there is just a little more of you."

"A little more of me, indeed! There is about twice as much of me as there used to be. But, Milly, you are exactly the same; there is not even any more of you. You look much more like a member of the French n.o.bility than I do."

The marchioness did not look in the least French, but more like a well-groomed English woman. Her dark brown suit was very simple and well made, and her shoes bore the earmarks of an English boot maker, fitting her perfectly but with low heels, broad toes and heavy soles. Her hat was the only French touch about her, and that could have been concocted in no spot in the world but Paris, so perfectly did it blend with her hair and furs.

"Now tell me all about yourselves and what you are going to do with your winter, and we can 'reminisce' another time. We must hurry before Henny Pace gets back from market. I came early so as to avoid her and see you a moment alone. She is a kind, good soul and I am really very fond of her for auld lang syne, but you might as well try to hold a conversation with a b.u.mping bug in the room as Henrietta. Firstly, do you mean to stay here?"

Molly and her mother laughed outright at the b.u.mping bug comparison. It was very apt.

"Why, Cousin Sally, we could not think of spending the winter being coerced at every turn," returned Molly. "We were hardly in the house before Mrs. Pace actually took Mother's clothes off and put her to bed, and last night at dinner she refused to let me have any coffee. She said it would ruin my complexion!"

The marchioness roared with laughter. "How like old Henny that is! She always was a boss, but I don't blame you for objecting. I let her seem to boss me just for the fun of it. I have known her since first coming to Paris and understand how good she is at bottom, but wild horses could not drag me to spend a night in her house. I ask her to _la Roche Craie_ every year and try to give her a rest, (she really works awfully hard,) but she is so busy there trying to change my housekeeper's methods and rearrange the linen presses that she gets very little rest after all.

Jean cannot stand her, but my son Philippe sees the good in her that I have brought him up to see; and then he clings to any and everything American. I am anxious for you to know my husband and son and for them to meet you. Do you know French?"

"Mother speaks better French than I do in spite of my work at college,"

confessed Molly.