Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848

Ignorant, however, of the disgust, in which her anticipated proximity was held, Mrs. Fairchild, in high spirits, bought the most beautiful of white satin Opera cloaks, and ordered the most expensive paraphernalia she could think of to make it all complete, and determined on sporting diamonds that would dazzle old acquaintances, (if any presumed to be there,) and make even the fashionables stare.

The first night opened with a very brilliant house. Every body was there, and every body in full dress. Mrs. Fairchild had as much as she could do to look around. To be sure she knew nobody, but then it was pleasant to see them all. She learnt a few names from the conversation that she overheard of the Ashfields and Harpers, as they nodded to different acquaintances about the house. And then, during the intervals, different friends came and chatted a little while with them, and the Bankheads leaned across and exchanged a few animated words; and, in short, every body seemed so full of talk, and so intimate with every body, except poor Mrs. Fairchild, who sat, loaded with finery, and no one to speak to but her husband, who was by this time yawning wearily, well-nigh worn out with the fatigue of hearing two acts of a grand Italian Opera.

As Mrs. Fairchild began to recover self-possession enough to comprehend what was going on among them, she found to her surprise, from their conversation, that the music was not all alike; that one singer was "divine," another "only so so;" the orchestra admirable, and the choruses very indifferent. She could not comprehend how they could tell one from another. "They all sang at the same time; and as for the chorus and orchestra, she did not know 'which was which.'"

Then there was a great deal said about "contraltos" and "sopranos;" and when her husband asked her what they meant, she replied, "she did not know, it was French!" They talked, too, of Rossini and Bellini, and people who read and wrote music, and that quite passed her comprehension. She thought "music was only played and sung;" and what they meant by reading and writing it, she could not divine. Had they talked of eating it, it would have sounded to her about as rational.

Occasionally one of the Hamiltons sat with some of the set, for it seemed they had no regular places of their own. "Of course not," said Mrs Fairchild, contemptuously. "They can't afford it," which expressive phrase summed up, with both husband and wife, the very essence of all that was mean and contemptible, and she was only indignant at their being able to come there at all. The Bankheads were bad enough; but to have the Hamiltons there too, and then to hear them all talking French with some foreigners who occasionally joined them, really humbled her.

This, then, she conceived was the secret of success. "They know French," she would reply in a voice of infinite mortification, when her husband expressed his indignant astonishment at finding these "nobodies" on 'change, "somebodies" at the Opera. To "know French," comprehended all her ideas of education, information, sense, and literature. This, then, she thought was the "Open Sesame" of "good society," the secret of enjoyment at the Opera; for, be it understood, all foreign languages were "French" to Mrs. Fairchild.

She was beginning to find the Opera a terrible bore, spite of all the finery she sported and saw around her, with people she did not know, and music she did not understand. As for Mr. Fairchild, the fatigue was intolerable; and he would have rebelled at once, if he had not paid for his places for the season, and so chose to have his money's worth, if it was only in tedium.

A bright idea, a bold resolution occurred to Mrs. Fairchild. She would learn French.

So she engaged a teacher at once, at enormous terms, who was to place her on a level with the best of them.

Poor little woman! and poor teacher, too! what work it was! How he groaned in spirit at the thick tongue that could not pronounce the delicate vowels, and the dull apprehension that knew nothing of moods and tenses.

And she, poor little soul, who was as innocent of English Grammar as of murder, how was she to be expected to understand the definite and indefinite when it was all indefinite; and as for the participle past, she did not believe any body understood it. And so she worked and puzzled, and sometimes almost cried, for a week, and then went to the Opera and found she was no better off than before.

In despair, and angry with her teacher, she dismissed him. "She did not believe any body ever learnt it that way out of books;" and "so she would get a French maid, and she'd learn more hearing her talk in a month, than Mr. A. could teach her, if she took lessons forever." And so she got a maid, who brought high recommendations from some grand people who had brought her from France, and then she thought herself quite set up.

But the experiment did not succeed. She turned out a saucy thing, who shrugged her shoulders with infinite contempt when she found "madame" did not comprehend her; and soon Mrs. Fairchild was very glad to take advantage of a grand flare-up in the kitchen between her and the cook, in which the belligerent parties declared that "one or the other must leave the house," to dismiss her.

In deep humility of spirit Mrs. Fairchild placed her little girl at the best French school in the city, almost grudging the poor child her Sundays at home when she must hear nothing but English. She was determined that she should learn French young; for she now began to think it must be taken like measles or whooping-cough, in youth, or else the attack must be severe, if not dangerous.

Mrs. Fairchild made no acquaintances, as she fondly hoped, at the Opera. A few asked, "Who is that dressy little body who sits in front of you, Mrs. Ashfield?"

"A Mrs. Fairchild. I know nothing about them except that they live next door to us."

"What a passion the little woman seems to have for jewelry," remarked the other. "It seems to me she has a new set of something once a week at least."

"Yes," said one of the Hamiltons, laughing, "she's as good as a jeweler's window. It's quite an amusement to me to see the quantity of bracelets and chains she contrives to hang around her."

"I would gladly have dispensed with that amusement, Ellen," replied Mrs. Ashfield, "for they have the places the Bankheads wanted; and he is so clever and well-informed, and she such a bright, intelligent little creature, that it would have added so much to our pleasure to have had them with us."

"Oh, to be sure! the Bankheads are jewels of the first water. And how they enjoy every thing. What a shame it is they have not those Fairchilds' money."

"No, no, Ellen, that is not fair," replied Mrs. Ashfield. "Let Mrs. Fairchild have her finery – it's all, I suppose, the poor woman has. The Bankheads don't require wealth for either enjoyment or consequence. They are bright and flashing in their own lustre, and like all pure brilliants, are the brighter for their simple setting."

"May be," replied the gay Ellen, "but I do love to see some people have every thing."

"Nay, Ellen," said Mrs. Ashfield, "Is that quite just? Be satisfied with Mrs. Bankhead's having so much more than Mrs. Fairchild, without robbing poor Mrs. Fairchild of the little she has."

Could Mrs. Fairchild have believed her ears had she heard this? Could she have believed that little Mrs. Bankhead, whose simple book-muslin and plainly braided dark hair excited her nightly contempt, was held in such respect and admiration by those who would not know her. And Bankhead, whom her husband spoke of with such infinite contempt, as having "nothing at all," "not salt to his porridge." And yet as Mrs. Fairchild saw them courted and gay, she longed for some of their porridge, "for they knew French."

And thus the season wore on in extreme weariness and deep mortification. The Fairchilds made no headway at all. She made no acquaintances at all at the opera, as she had fondly hoped. She even regretted that her husband had refused their seats to the Bankheads. Had he yielded them a favor may be they would have spoken to them.

Desperate, at last, she determined she would do something. She would give a party. But who to ask?

Not old friends and acquaintance. That was not to be thought of. But who else? She knew nobody.

"It was not necessary to know them," she told her husband. "She would send her card and invitations to all those fine people, and they'd be glad enough to come. The Bankheads, too, and the Hamiltons, she would ask them."

"You are sure of them, at any rate," said her husband contemptuously. "Poor devils! it's not often they get such a supper as they'll get here."

But somehow the Hamiltons and Bankheads were not as hungry as Mr. Fairchild supposed, for very polite regrets came in the course of a few days, to Mrs. Fairchild's great wrath and mortification.

This was but the beginning, however. Refusals came pouring in thick and fast from all quarters.

The lights were prepared, the music sounding, and some half dozen ladies, whose husbands had occasionally a business transaction with Mr. Fairchild, looked in on their way to a grand fashionable party given the same evening by one of their own clique, and then vanished, leaving Mrs. Fairchild with the mortified wish that they had not come at all, to see the splendor of preparations and the beggary of guests. Some few young men dropped in and took a look, and bowed themselves out as soon as the Fairchilds gave them a chance; and so ended this last and most desperate effort.

"My dear," said Mrs. Fairchild one day to her husband in perfect desperation, "let us go to Europe."

"To Europe," he said, looking up in amazement.

"Yes," she replied, with energy. "That's what all these fine people have done, and that's the way they know each other so well. All the Americans are intimate in Paris, and then when they come back they are all friends together."

Mr. Fairchild listened and pondered. He was as tired as his wife with nothing to do; and moreover deeply mortified, though he said less about it, at not being admitted among those with whom he had no tastes or associations in common, and he consented.

The house was shut up and the Fairchilds were off.

"Who are those Fairchilds," asked somebody in Paris, "that one sees every where, where money can gain admittance?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Miss Rutherford. "They traveled down the Rhine with us last summer, and were our perfect torment. We could not shake them off."

"What sort of people are they?" was the next question.

"Ignorant past belief: but that would not so much matter if she were not such a spiteful little creature. I declare I heard more gossip and ill-natured stories from her about Americans in Paris than I ever heard in all the rest of my life put together."

"And rich?"

"Yes, I suppose so – for they spent absurdly. They are just those ignorant, vulgar people that one only meets in traveling, and that make us blush for our country and countrymen. Such people should not have passports."

"Fairchild," said Mrs. Castleton. "The name is familiar to me. Oh, now I remember. But they can't be the same. The Fairchilds I knew were people in humble circumstances. They lived in – street."

"Yes. I dare say they are the very people," replied Miss Rutherford. "He has made money rapidly within a few years."

"But she was the best little creature I ever knew," persisted Mrs. Castleton. "My baby was taken ill while we were in the country boarding at the same house, and this Mrs. Fairchild came to me at once, and helped me get a warm bath, and watched and nursed the child with me as if it had been her own. I remember I was very grateful for her excessive kindness and attention."

"Well, I dare say," replied Miss Rutherford. "But that was when she was poor, and, as you say, humble, Mrs. Castleton. Very probably she may have been kind-hearted originally. She does love her children dearly. She has that merit; but now that she is rich, and wants to be fine and fashionable, and don't know how to manage it, and can't succeed, you never knew any body so spiteful and jealous as she is of all those she feels beyond her reach."

"Pity," said Mrs. Castleton almost sorrowfully. "She was such a good little creature. How prosperity spoils some people."

And so Mrs. Fairchild traveled and came home again.

They had been to Paris, and seen more things and places than they could remember, and did not understand what they could remember, and were afraid of telling what they had seen, lest they should mispronounce names, whose spelling was beyond their most ambitious flights.