2 In Which We Meet Two Professional Ladies

A gust of October wind, a dash of October rain, a black, October sky, the smiling face of a stout little man, waiting on the threshold—these greet Jemima Ann as she opens the door. A carriage stands just outside, its twin lamps beaming redly in the blackness.

“Ah, Miss Jemima, good evening,” says this smiling apparition, “although it is anything but a good evening. A most uncommon bad evening, I should say, instead. How are you, and how is Aunt Hopkins, now that the supper and the six-and-twenty are off her mind? And is she in? But of course she’s in,” says Mr. Rogers, waiting for no answers. “Who would be out that could be in on such a night? Just tell her I’m here, Jemima Ann—come by appointment, you know; and there’s a lady in the hack at the door, and a little girl. You go and tell Mrs. Hopkins, Jim, my dear, and I’ll fetch the lady along to the parlor. One pair front, isn’t it? Thanks! Don’t mind me; I know the way.”

Evidently he does, and stands not on the order of his going.

“Run along, Jemimy,” he says, pleasantly, “and call the aunty. I’ll fetch the lady up stairs. Now, then, mademoiselle,” he calls, going to the door of the carriage; “and if you’ll be kind enough to step in out of the rain, I’ll carry Petite here. Up stairs, please. Wait a minute. Now, then, this way.”

All this time Jemima Ann stands, eyes and mouth ajar, looking, listening with breathless interest.

Mr. Rogers, gentlemanly proprietor of the Stars and Stripes Hotel, further down the street, assists a lady out of the chariot at the door, says “Come along, little ‘un,” lifts a child in his arms, and leads the way jauntily up to the “one pair front.”

“This is the place, Mademoiselle Mimi,” he says, somewhat suddenly, “Mrs. Hopkins’ select boarding house for single gentlemen.”

“Faugh!” says Mademoiselle Mimi, curling disgustedly an extremely pretty nose; “it smells of corned beef and cabbage, and all the three hundred and sixty five nasty dinners cooked in it the past year.”

And indeed a most ancient and cabbage-like odor does pervade the halls and passages of the Hotel Hopkins. It is one of those unhappy houses in which smells (like prayers) ascend, and the lodgers in the attic can always tell to a tittle what is going on in the kitchen.

“Mrs. Hopkins can get up a nice little dinner, for all that,” says Mr. Rogers. “She’s done it for me before now, when the cook has left me in the lurch. She’ll do it for you, Mam’selle Mimi. You won’t be served with boiled beef and cabbage while you’re here, let me tell you. And she’s as clean as silver. This is the parlor; take a chair. And this is Jemima Ann, Mrs. Hopkins’ niece, and the idol of six-and-twenty stalwart young men. Jemimy, my love, let me present you—Mademoiselle Mimi Trillon, the famous bare-back rider and trapeze performer, of whom all the world has heard, and La Petite Mademoiselle Trillon, the younger.”

Mr. Rogers waves his hand with the grace of a court chamberlain and the smile of an angel, and Mademoiselle Mimi Trillon laughs and bows. It is a musical, merry little laugh, and the lady, Jemima Ann thinks, in a bewildered way, is the most brilliant and beautiful her eyes have ever looked on. The Duchess Isoline herself was less fair! She feels quite dazzled and dizzy for a moment, anything beautiful or bright is so far outside her pathetically ugly life. She is conscious of a face, small, rather pale just now, looking out of a coquettish little bonnet; of profuse rippling hair of flaxen fairness waving low on a low forehead; of a dress of dark silk, that emits perfume as she moves; of a seal jacket; of two large blue-bell eyes, laughing out of the loveliness of that “flower face.”

“Oh!” she says, under her breath, and stands and stares.

Mlle. Mimi laughs again. Her teeth are as nearly like “pearls” as it is in the nature of little white teeth to be. She can afford to laugh, and knows it.

“Now, then, Jemimy!” cries the brisk voice of Mr. Rogers. “I know you are lost in a trance of admiration. We all are, bless you, when we first meet Mam’selle Mimi. Nevertheless, my dear girl, business before pleasure, and business has brought us here to-night. Call your aunt, and let us get it over.”

“Here is Aunt Samanthy ” responds Jemima: and at that moment enters unto them Mrs. Hopkins, her “‘stomach staid,” and considerably humanized by the mellowing influence of sundry cups of tea, and quantities of hot toast and broiled ham.

Mr. Rogers rises, receives her with effusion, presents to her the Mesdemoiselles Trillon, mother and daughter, and Mam’selle Mimi holds out one gray-gloved hand, with a charming smile, and says some charming words of first greeting.

Jemima Ann watches in an agony of suspense. She hopes—oh! she hopes Aunt Samantha will not steel her heart, and bolt her front door against this radiant vision of golden hair, and silk, and seal.

But Aunt Samantha is not impressionable. Long years of foundry hands, of struggles with her liver and other organs, of much taxes and many butcher bills, have turned to bitterness her natural milk of human kindness, and she casts a cold and disapproving glance on the blonde Mimi, and bobs a stiff little courtesy, and sits down severely on the extreme edge of a chair.

“So sorry to intrude,” says the sweet voice of Mlle. Mimi, in coaxing accents, “dear Mrs. Hopkins, at this abnormal hour. It is really quite too dreadful of me, I admit. But what was I to do? Mr. Rogers’ hotel is quite full, and even if it were not, there are reasons” a pause, a sigh, the blue-bell eyes cast a pathetic glance, first “at her child, then appealingly at Mr. Rogers, then more appealingly at frigid Mrs. Hopkins—” there is a person at the hotel with whom I cannot possibly associate. I am a mother, my dear Mrs. Hopkins; that dear child is my only treasure. In my absence there would be no one at the hotel to look after her. I can not leave her to the tender mercies of the ladies of our company. So I am here. You will take compassion upon us, I am sure “—clasping the gray-gloved hands—” and afford us hospitality during our brief stay in this town. Snow ball, come here. Go directly to this nice lady, and say, ‘How do you do?'”

“Won’t!” says Mlle. Trillon, the younger—she is a young person of some three or four years—in the promptest way; “her’s not a nice lady. Her’s a narsy, narsy lady!”

The child is almost prettier than the mother, if prettier were possible. She is a duplicate in little rose and lily skin, flaxen curls, blue-bell eyes, sweet little mouth, that to look at is to long to kiss.

A wild impulse is on Jemima Ann to snatch her up and smother her with kisses, but something in the blue bell eyes warned her such liberties would not be safe.

“For shame, you bad Snowball!” says Mlle. Mimi, shocked, while Mr. Rogers chuckles in appreciation of the joke, and Jemima Ann holds out a timid hand of conciliation, and smiles her most winning smile. The turquois eyes turn slowly, and scan her with the slow, steadfast, terrible look of childhood, from head to foot. Evidently the result is unsatisfactory. She, too, is a “narsy lady.” The disdainful sprite turns away with a little moue of disdain, and stands slim and silent at Mr. Rogers’ knee. For Jemima Ann, she had fallen in love at first sight, and from that hour until the last of her life is Mlle. Snowball’s abject slave.

“Now, don’t you think you can manage it, Mrs. Hopkins,” says, suavely, Mr. Rogers; “there’s such a lot of them at my place, and it may be only for a week; and, as Mlle. Mimi says, it is for the child’s sake. It won’t do to have her running about wild, while mamma is away at the circus, you know—eh, little Snowball? And here’s our Jemima can keep an eye to her just as well as not, while the other’s on the dinner. Not a mite of trouble, are you, Snowball? Quite a grown-up young lady in everything but feet and inches. Come, Mrs. Hopkins, say Yes.”

“And I will not stay in the same house with Madame Olympe!” exclaims, suddenly, Mlle. Mimi, her blue eyes emitting one quick, sharp, lurid flash. And here, at last, as it dawns on Mrs. Hopkins, is the “cat out of the bag;” the true reason of this late visit and petition. In the circus company are two leading ladies—Madame Olympe and Mlle. Mimi—and war to the knife has naturally, from first to last, been their motto. They are rivals in everything; they disagree in everything. They hate each other with a heartiness and vim that borders, at times, on frenzy! All that there is of the most blonde and sprightly is Mlle. Mimi; a brunette of brunettes, dashing, dark, and dangerous, is Madame Olympe. Mimi professes to be French, and was “raised” in the back slums of New York. Olympe is French-a soi-disant grisette of Mabille. Paris is written on her face. And two tomcats on the tiles, at dead of night, never fought for mastery with tongue and claws as do the lovely Mimi, the superb Olympe.

“Ladies! ladies!” the long suffering manager is wont to remonstrate, on the verge of bursting into tears, “how can you, you know? Your little hands were never made to tear each other’s eyes! Upon my soul I wonder at you—French and everything as you are. And I’ve always heard the French beat the d—l for politeness. But it ain’t polite to call each other liars and hussies, and heave hairbrushes at each other. Now, I’m blest if it is!”

All this time Mrs. Hopkins sits, upright, grim, rigid, virtuous, on the slippery edge of her horse-hair chair; “No,” written in capital letters in her eye of stone, on her brow of adamant, when suddenly, and most unexpectedly, the child with the odd name comes to the rescue. Snowball fixes her azure eyes on the frozen visage; some fascination is for her there surely, for out ripples all at once the sweet tinkle of a child’s merry laugh; she toddles over to her side, and slips her rose leaf hand into the hard old palm.

“Not a narsy lady. ‘Noball likes you. ‘Nobal seepy. Her wants to go to bed.” “Bless your pretty little heart!” exclaims Mrs. Hopkins, involuntarily. Even Achilles, it will be remembered, had a vulnerable spot in his heel. Whether Aunt Samantha’s is in her heels or in her heart, Snowball has found it. But then to find people’s hearts and keep them is a trick of Snowball’s all her life-long. “Seepy, seepy,” reiterates Snowball with pretty imperiousness. “Put ‘Noball to bed. Mamma, make her put ‘Noball to bed.”

” You must put us up, you see,” says mamma. “Come, my dear madam, it will be inhuman to refuse.” It will. Mrs. Hopkins feels she cannot say “No;” and Mrs. Hopkins also feels she will repent in wrath and bitterness, saying “Yes.” She casts one scathing glance at serene Mr. Rogers, and says, “Well, yes, then,” with the very worst grace in the world.

“Oh, I’m awful glad!” cries out Jemima Ann in the fullness of her heart. “Oh, you little darling, come to me, and let me get you ready for bed!”

“Go to the nice, nice girl, Snowball,” says Mlle. Mimi, “and tell her you will have some bread and, milk and your hair brushed before you go to sleep. Ever so many thanks, Mrs. Hopkins, though that yes had rather an uncordial tone. Rogers “—she uses no prefix—” the trunks are coming by express; you will find a valise and satchel in the cab. Send them up. I won’t trouble you for supper to-night, Mrs. Hopkins; we had a snack at the hotel! But get my room ready as soon as you can. There’s a good soul. We’ve been on the go all day, and I am dead tired.”

A swift and subtle change has come over Mlle. Mimi. Her pleading lady-like manner drops from her as a garment: her present tone has an easy ring of command, a touch of vulgarity, that Mrs. Hopkins is quick to feel and resent, but cannot define.

“Make up a bed for Snowball on a sofa or lounge near mine,” she says to Jemima Ann, “and don’t let her have too much milk. She is a perfect little pig for country milk, and I don’t want her to get fat. I hate flabby children. And I’ll lie on this couch while you’re getting my room ready, I really and truly am fit to drop. Good night, Rogers; tell Olympe, with my compliments, I hope she means to go to bed sober this first night.”

Her musical laugh follows Mr. Rogers down-stairs. Then she glides out of her seal-skin like a beautiful little serpent slipping its skin, throws off the coquettish bonnet, stretches herself on the sofa, and before her hostess or niece are fairly out of the room, is fast asleep.

“Well, I never!” says Mrs. Hopkins, drawing a long breath.” Upon my word and honor, Jemima Ann, I do assure you I never!”

“‘Noball seepy, ‘Noball hundry, want her bed and milk, want go to bed,” pipes plaintively the child.

Jemima gathers her up in her arms, and ventures to kiss the satin smooth cheek.

“You dear little pet,” she says, “you shall have your bread and milk, and go to bed in two minutes. Oh, you pretty little love! I never saw anything half so lovely as you in my life!”

“Land’s sake, Jemimy Ann, don’t spile the young one!” says, irritably, her aunt. “Handsome is as handsome does, is a true motto the world over, and if her or her mar does handsome, I’m a Dutchman. ‘Good night, Rogers, and tell Alimp to go to bed sober this first night;’ pretty sort o’ talk that for a temperance boardin’-house. There! get that sleepy baby somethin’ and put her to bed. I’ll go and fix Miss Flyaway’s room, before the men come in, and find her sleepin’ here and make fools of themselves.”

And so, still wrathful and grumbling, but in for it now, Mrs. Hopkins goes to put her best bedroom in order. Jemima carries Snowball down to the dining-room. The flaxen head lies against her shoulder, the drowsy lids sway over the sweet blue eyes, the very lips are apart and dewy. Oh! how lovely she is, how lovely, how lovely, thinks Jemima Ann, in a sort of rapture. Oh! if she could but keep this beautiful baby with her forever and ever!

At sight of the bread and milk, Snowball wakes up enough to partake of that refreshment. But she sleepily declines conversation, and the pretty head sways as the long light curls are being braided, and her clothes taken off, and she is sound again, when Jemima bears her tenderly up to the little extempore bed Aunt Samantha has prepared. She stands and gazes at her in a rapture as she sleeps.

“She looks like a duchess’s daughter! She looks like an angel, Aunt Samanthy!” she says, under her breath.

“Yas!” cries, Aunt Samantha, in bitter scorn. “I never see an angel-no more did you. And if you did, I don’t believe they’d a rid at a circus. Now go-down and shake up t’other angel in the parlor, and tell her she can tumble into bed as soon as she likes. And mark my words, Jemima Ann,” concludes Mrs. Hopkins, solemnly prophetic, “that woman will give us trouble, such as we ain’t had in many a long day, afore we’re rid of her!”