The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 46, August, 1861

"And I shall give you the real Parisien tone, Mees Lucinda!" said he, proudly. "I shall be as if it were no more an exile when I repeat my tongue to you!"

And so it was settled. Why Miss Lucinda should learn French any more than dancing was not a question in Monsieur Leclerc's mind. It is true, that Chaldaic would, in all probability, be as useful to our friend as French; and the flying over poles and hanging by toes and fingers, so eloquently described by the Apostle of the Body in these "Atlantic" pages, would have been as well adapted to her style and capacity as dancing;—but his own language, and his own profession! what man would not have regarded these as indispensable to improvement, particularly when they paid his board?

During the latter three weeks of Monsieur Leclerc's stay with Miss Lucinda he made himself surprisingly useful. He listed the doors against approaching winter breezes,—he weeded in the garden,—trimmed, tied, trained, wherever either good office was needed,—mended china with an infallible cement, and rickety chairs with the skill of a cabinet-maker; and whatever hard or dirty work he did, he always presented himself at table in a state of scrupulous neatness: his long brown hands showed no trace of labor; his iron-gray hair was reduced to smoothest order; his coat speckless, if threadbare; and he ate like a gentleman, an accomplishment not always to be found in the "best society," as the phrase goes,—whether the best in fact ever lacks it is another thing. Miss Lucinda appreciated these traits,—they set her at ease; and a pleasanter home-life could scarce be painted than now enlivened the little wooden house. But three weeks pass away rapidly; and when the rusty portmanteau was gone from her spare chamber, and the well-worn boots from the kitchen-corner, and the hat from its nail, Miss Lucinda began to find herself wonderfully lonely. She missed the armfuls of wood in her wood-box, that she had to fill laboriously, two sticks at a time; she missed the other plate at her tiny round table, the other chair beside her fire; she missed that dark, thin, sensitive face, with its rare and sweet smile; she wanted her story-teller, her yarn-winder, her protector, back again. Good gracious! to think of an old lady of forty-seven entertaining such sentiments for a man!

Presently the dancing-lessons commenced. It was thought advisable that Miss Manners should enter a class, and, in the fervency of her good intentions, she did not demur. But gratitude and respect had to strangle with persistent hands the little serpents of the ridiculous in Monsieur Leclerc's soul, when he beheld his pupil's first appearance. What reason was it, O rose of seventeen, adorning thyself with cloudy films of lace and sparks of jewelry before the mirror that reflects youth and beauty, that made Miss Lucinda array herself in a brand-new dress of yellow muslin-de-laine strewed with round green spots, and displace her customary hand-kerchief for a huge tamboured collar, on this eventful occasion? Why, oh, why did she tie up the roots of her black hair with an unconcealable scarlet string? And most of all, why was her dress so short, her slipper-strings so big and broad, her thick slippers so shapeless by reason of the corns and bunions that pertained to the feet within? The "instantaneous rush of several guardian angels" that once stood dear old Hepzibah Pynchon in good stead was wanting here,—or perhaps they stood by all-invisible, their calm eyes softened with love deeper than tears, at this spectacle so ludicrous to man, beholding in the grotesque dress and adornments only the budding of life's divinest blossom, and in the strange skips and hops of her first attempts at dancing only the buoyancy of those inner wings that goodness and generosity and pure self-devotion were shaping for a future strong and stately flight upward. However, men, women, and children do not see with angelic eyes, and the titterings of her fellow-pupils were irrepressible; one bouncing girl nearly choked herself with her hand-kerchief trying not to laugh, and two or three did not even try. Monsieur Leclerc could not blame them,—at first he could scarce control his own facial muscles; but a sense of remorse smote him, as he saw how unconscious and earnest the little woman was, and remembered how often those knotty hands and knobbed feet had waited on his need or his comfort. Presently he tapped on his violin for a few moments' respite, and approached Miss Lucinda as respectfully as if she had been a queen.

"You are ver' tired, Mees Lucinda?" said he.

"I am a little, Sir," said she, out of breath. "I am not used to dancing; it's quite an exertion."

"It is that truly. If you are too much tired, is it better to wait? I shall finish for you the lesson till I come to-night for a French conversation?"

"I guess I will go home," said the simple little lady. "I am some afraid of getting rheumatism; but use makes perfect, and I shall stay through next time, no doubt."

"So I believe," said Monsieur, with his best bow, as Miss Lucinda departed and went home, pondering all the way what special delicacy she should provide for tea.

"My dear young friends," said Monsieur Leclerc, pausing with the uplifted bow in his hand, before he recommenced his lesson, "I have observe that my new pupil does make you much to laugh. I am not so surprise, for you do not know all, and the good God does not robe all angels in one manner; but she have taken me to her mansion with a leg broken, and have nursed me like a saint of the blessed, nor with any pay of silver except that I teach her the dance and the French. They are pay for the meat and the drink, but she will have no more for her good patience and care. I like to teach you the dance, but she could teach you the saints' ways, which are better. I think you will no more to laugh."

"No! I guess we won't!" said the bouncing girl with great emphasis, and the color rose over more than one young face.

After that day Miss Lucinda received many a kind smile and hearty welcome, and never did anybody venture even a grimace at her expense. But it must be acknowledged that her dancing was at least peculiar. With a sanitary view of the matter, she meant to make it exercise, and fearful was the skipping that ensued. She chassed on tiptoe, and balanced with an indescribable hopping twirl, that made one think of a chickadee pursuing its quest of food on new-ploughed ground; and some late-awakened feminine instinct of dress, restrained, too, by due economy, indued her with the oddest decorations that woman ever devised. The French lessons went on more smoothly. If Monsieur Leclerc's Parisian ear was tortured by the barbarous accent of Vermont, at least he bore it with heroism, since there was nobody else to hear; and very pleasant, both to our little lady and her master, were these long winter evenings, when they diligently waded through Racine, and even got as far as the golden periods of Chateaubriand. The pets fared badly for petting in these days; they were fed and waited on, but not with the old devotion; it began to dawn on Miss Lucinda's mind that something to talk to was preferable, as a companion, even to Fun, and that there might be a stranger sweetness in receiving care and protection than in giving it.

Spring came at last. Its softer skies were as blue over Dalton as in the wide fields without, and its footsteps as bloom-bringing in Miss Lucinda's garden as in mead or forest. Now Monsieur Leclerc came to her aid again at odd minutes, and set her flower-beds with mignonette borders, and her vegetable-garden with salad herbs of new and flourishing kinds. Yet not even the sweet season seemed to hurry the catastrophe that we hope, dearest reader, thy tender eyes have long seen impending. No, for this quaint alliance a quainter Cupid waited,—the chubby little fellow with a big head and a little arrow, who waits on youth and loveliness, was not wanted here. Lucinda's God of Love wore a lank, hard-featured, grizzly shape, no less than that of Israel Slater, who marched into the garden one fine June morning, earlier than usual, to find Monsieur in his blouse, hard at work weeding the cauliflower-bed.

"Good mornin', Sir! good mornin'!" said Israel, in answer to the Frenchman's greeting. "This is a real slick little garden-spot as ever I see, and a pootty house, and a real clever woman too. I'll be skwitched, ef it a'n't a fust-rate consarn, the hull on't. Be you ever a-goin' back to France, Mister?"

"No, my goot friend. I have nobody there. I stay here; I have friend here: but there,—oh, non! je ne reviendrai pas! ah, jamais! jamais!"

"Pa's dead, eh? or shamming? Well, I don't understand your lingo; but ef you're a-goin' to stay here, I don't see why you don't hitch hosses with Miss Lucindy."

Monsieur Leclerc looked up astonished.

"Horses, my friend? I have no horse!"

"Thunder 'n' dry trees! I didn't say you hed, did I? But that comes o' usin' what Parson Hyde calls figgurs, I s'pose. I wish't he'd use one kind o' figgurin' a leetle more; he'd pay me for that wood-sawin'. I didn't mean nothin' about hosses. I sot out fur to say, Why don't ye marry Miss Lucindy?"

"I?" gasped Monsieur,—"I, the foreign, the poor? I could not to presume so!"

"Well, I don't see 's it's sech drefful presumption. Ef you're poor, she's a woman, and real lonesome too; she ha'n't got nuther chick nor child belongin' to her, and you're the only man she ever took any kind of a notion to. I guess 't would be jest as much for her good as yourn."

"Hush, good Is-ray-el! it is good to stop there. She would not to marry after such years of goodness: she is a saint of the blessed."

"Well, I guess saints sometimes fellerships with sinners; I've heerd tell they did; and ef I was you, I'd make trial for 't. Nothin' ventur', nothin' have."

Whereupon Israel walked off, whistling.

Monsieur Leclerc's soul was perturbed within him by these suggestions; he pulled up two young cauliflowers and reset their places with pigweeds; he hoed the nicely sloped border of the bed flat to the path, and then flung the hoe across the walk, and went off to his daily occupation with a new idea in his head. Nor was it an unpleasant one. The idea of a transition from his squalid and pinching boarding-house to the delicate comfort of Miss Lucinda's ménage, the prospect of so kind and good a wife to care for his hitherto dreaded future,—all this was pleasant. I cannot honestly say he was in love with our friend; I must even confess that whatever element of that nature existed between the two was now all on Miss Lucinda's side, little as she knew it. Certain it is, that, when she appeared that day at the dancing-class in a new green calico flowered with purple, and bows on her slippers big enough for a bonnet, it occurred to Monsieur Leclerc, that, if they were married, she would take no more lessons! However, let us not blame him; he was a man, and a poor one; one must not expect too much from men, or from poverty; if they are tolerably good, let us canonize them even, it is so hard for the poor creatures! And to do Monsieur Leclerc justice, he had a very thorough respect and admiration for Miss Lucinda. Years ago, in his stormy youth-time, there had been a pair of soft-fringed eyes that looked into his as none would ever look again,—and they murdered her, those mad wild beasts of Paris, in the chapel where she knelt at her pure prayers,—murdered her because she knelt beside an aristocrat, her best friend, the Duchess of Montmorenci, who had taken the pretty peasant from her own estate to bring her up for her maid. Jean Leclerc had lifted that pale shape from the pavement and buried it himself; what else he buried with it was invisible; but now he recalled the hour with a long, shuddering sigh, and, hiding his face in his hands, said softly, "The violet is dead,—there is no spring for her. I will have now an amaranth,—it is good for the tomb."

Whether Miss Lucinda's winter dress suggested this floral metaphor let us not inquire. Sacred be sentiment,—when there is even a shadow of reality about it!—when it becomes a profession, and confounds itself with millinery and shades of mourning, it is—"bosh," as the Turkeys say.

So that very evening Monsieur Leclerc arrayed himself in his best, to give another lesson to Miss Lucinda. But, somehow or other, the lesson was long in beginning; the little parlor looked so home-like and so pleasant, with its bright lamp and gay bunch of roses on the table, that it was irresistible temptation to lounge and linger. Miss Lucinda had the volume of Florian in her hands, and was wondering why he did not begin, when the book was drawn away, and a hand laid on both of hers.

"Lucinda!" he began, "I give you no lesson to-night. I have to ask. Dear Mees, will you to marry your poor slave?"

"Oh, dear!" said Miss Lucinda.

Don't laugh at her, Miss Tender-eyes! You will feel just so yourself some day, when Alexander Augustus says, "Will you be mine, loveliest of jour sex?" only you won't feel it half so strongly, for you are young, and love is Nature to youth, but it is a heavenly surprise to age.

Monsieur Leclerc said nothing. He had a heart after all, and it was touched now by the deep emotion that flushed Miss Lucinda's face, and made her tremble so violently,—but presently he spoke.

"Do not!" said he. "I am wrong. I presume. Forgive the stranger!"

"Oh, dear!" said poor Lucinda again,—"oh, you know it isn't that! but how can you like me?"

There, Mademoiselle! there's humility for you! you will never say that to Alexander Augustus!

Monsieur Leclerc soothed this frightened, happy, incredulous little woman into quiet before very long; and if he really began to feel a true affection for her from the moment he perceived her humble and entire devotion to him, who shall blame him? Not I. If we were all heroes, who would be valet-de-chambre? if we were all women, who would be men? He was very good as far as he went; and if you expect the chivalries of grace out of Nature, you "may expect," as old Fuller saith. So it was peacefully settled that they should be married, with a due amount of tears and smiles on Lucinda's part, and a great deal of tender sincerity on Monsieur's. She missed her dancing-lesson next day, and when Monsieur Leclerc came in the evening he found a shade on her happy face.

"Oh, dear!" said she, as he entered.

"Oh, dear!" was Lucinda's favorite aspiration. Had she thought of it as an Anglicizing of "O Dieu!" perhaps she would have dropped it; but this time she went on headlong, with a valorous despair,—

"I have thought of something! I'm afraid I can't! Monsieur, aren't you a Romanist?"

"What is that?" said he, surprised.

"A Papist,—a Catholic!"

"Ah!" he returned, sighing, "once I was bon Catholique,—once in my gone youth; after then I was nothing but the poor man who bats for his life; now I am of the religion that shelters the stranger and binds up the broken poor."

Monsieur was a diplomatist. This melted Miss Lucinda's orthodoxy right down; she only said,—

"Then you will go to church with me?"

"And to the skies above, I pray," said Monsieur, kissing her knotty hand like a lover.

So in the earliest autumn they were married, Monsieur having previously presented Miss Lucinda with a delicate plaided gray silk for her wedding attire, in which she looked almost young; and old Israel was present at the ceremony, which was briefly performed by Parson Hyde in Miss Manners's parlor. They did not go to Niagara, nor to Newport; but that afternoon Monsieur Leclerc brought a hired rockaway to the door, and took his bride a drive into the country. They stopped beside a pair of bars, where Monsieur hitched his horse, and, taking Lucinda by the hand, led her into Farmer Steele's orchard, to the foot of his biggest apple-tree. There she beheld a little mound, at the head and foot of which stood a daily rose-bush shedding its latest wreaths of bloom, and upon the mound itself was laid a board on which she read,

"Here lie the bones of poor Piggy."

Mrs. Lucinda burst into tears, and Monsieur, picking a bud from the bush, placed it in her hand, and led her tenderly back to the rockaway.

That evening Mrs. Lucinda was telling the affair to old Israel with so much feeling that she did not perceive at all the odd commotion in his face, till, as she repeated the epitaph to him, he burst out with,—"He didn't say what become o' the flesh, did he?"—and therewith fled through the kitchen-door. For years afterward Israel would entertain a few favored auditors with his opinion of the matter, screaming till the tears rolled down his cheeks,—

"That was the beateree of all the weddin'-towers I ever heerd tell on.

Goodness! it's enough to make the Wanderin' Jew die o' larfin'!"