Chapter X: Madame Clarisse

Mrs. Stothard had been lucky in getting her daughter into such an unexceptionable establishment as that presided over by Madame Clarisse; at least, so everybody said who spoke to her on the subject, and, as we well know, what everybody says must be right. It does not detract from the truth of the assertion when it is confessed that very few people knew anything about Mrs. Stothard or her daughter; but the fact remains the same. Madame Clarisse was decidedly the milliner most in vogue during her day with the best--that is to say, the most clothes-wearing and most _cachet_-giving--section of London society; and any young woman who had the luck to learn her experience in such a school, and, after a few years, had the money to set up in business for herself, might consider her fortune as good as made.

No doubt that Madame Clarisse's position was not ungrudgingly yielded up to her, was not achieved, in fact, without an enormous amount of work, and worry, and industry, and self-negation on her part; without a proportionate quantity of jealousy and heart-burning, and envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, on the part of those engaged in the same occupation. Even in the very heyday of her success, when her workwomen were sitting up for forty-eight hours at a stretch (Madame Clarisse lived, it must be recollected, before the passing of any ridiculous Acts of Parliament limiting the hours for women's labour); when the carriages were in double rows before her door; and when, after a drawing-room or a court-ball, the columns of the fashionable journals were seething with repetitions of her name--there were some people who said that they preferred the Misses Block, and roundly asserted that the Misses Block's "cut" was better than Madame Clarisse's. The Misses Block were attenuated old maids, who lived in Edwards Street, Portman Square, in a house which was as old-fashioned as, Madame Clarisse used to declare, were its occupiers, and who had suddenly blossomed from the steady county connection which their mother bequeathed to them into a whirl of fashionable patronage, notwithstanding that they were "_bêtes--Dieu, comme elles sont bêtes!_" according to their lively rival's account.

Madame Clarisse was not _bête_. If she had been, she would never have made the fame or the money which she enjoyed, and which were entirely the result of her own tact, and talent, and industry. No mother had ever left her a snug business with a county connection. All that she recollected of a mother was a snuffy old person with a silk handkerchief tied round her head, who used to live on a fifth floor in a little street debouching from the Cannebière in Marseilles, and who used to whack her little daughter with a long flat bit of wood when she cried from hunger or other causes. When this mother died, which she was good enough to do at a sufficiently early period of the girl's life, Clarisse was taken in hand by her uncle, an _épicier_ and ship-chandler, who apprenticed her to a milliner in the town, and was kind to her in his odd way. The girl was sharp and appreciative, ready with her needle, readier with her tongue--she had a knack of conciliating obstreperous customers whose orders had been unduly delayed in a manner that delighted her mistress, a plain, blunt, stupid woman--readiest of all with her eyes. Not as regards _oeillades_, though that was a kind of sharpshooting in which she was not unskilled, but in the use of her eyes for business purposes. Mademoiselle Clarisse looked on and listened, and learned the world. No one came in or went out of the work-room or the showroom without being diligently studied and appraised by those sharp eyes and that quick brain. It was from her appreciation of the English character, as learned in the milliner's shop at Marseilles, that Mademoiselle Clarisse determined on seeking her fortune in our favoured land, should the opportunity ever present itself. Marseilles has a population of resident English--ship-owners, ship-captains, naval men connected with the great Peninsular and Oriental Company, many of whose vessels ply from that port--and these worthy people have for the most part wives and daughters, whose principal consolation in their banishment from England is that they are enabled to dress themselves in the French fashion, and at a much cheaper rate than they could were they at home. There is no gainsaying that the prices charged by the Marseilles milliner, even to the English ladies, were less than those which they would have been liable to in their native land; but these prices, which were willingly paid, were still so much in excess of those charged to the townspeople, that Mademoiselle Clarisse clearly saw that a country which produced people at once so rich and so simple was the place for her future action.

She was a clear-headed young woman, with simple tastes and an innate propensity for saving money; so that when her apprenticeship expired she had a sum laid by--small indeed, but still something--with which she determined to try her fortune in England. She had picked up a little of the language, and had obtained a few introductions to compatriots living in London; so that when she arrived, she was not wholly friendless or utterly dependent. Mademoiselle Anatole--born in Lyons, but long resident in London--wanted a partner; and after a very sharp wrangle, conducted by the ladies on each side with great skill and diplomacy, a portion of Mademoiselle Clarisse's savings was transferred to her countrywoman, and a limp and ill-printed circular informed Mademoiselle Anatole's patronesses that she had just received into partnership the celebrated Mademoiselle Clarisse from Paris, and that they hoped henceforth, etc.

Mademoiselle Anatole lived on the first floor of an old house in the Bloomsbury district, which had once been a fashionable mansion, but which was now let out in lodgings. Under the French milliner, a German importer of pipes and pictures and Bohemian glass had his rooms, and his name, "Korb," shone out truculently from the street-door jamb, towering above the milliner's more modest announcement of her residence. The entire neighbourhood had a foreign and Bohemian flavour. In an otherwise modest and British-looking house, Malmédie Frères announced in black-and-gold letters, much too slim and upright, that they kept an hotel "À la Boule d'Or." From the open windows in the summer-time poured forth, mixed with clouds of tobacco-smoke, waitings and roarings of the human voice, and poundings and grindings of pianos. The artists-colourmen had the street on their books (keeping it there as little as possible), canvases and millboards were perpetually arriving at one or other of the houses where the windows looking northward were run up into the next floor, and bearded men smoking short pipes pervaded the neighbourhood night and day.

Even the very house in which the milliners lived was not free from the Bohemian taint. On the second floor, immediately above the _magasin des modes_, and immediately under the private rooms of Mesdames Anatole and Clarisse, lived Mr. Rupert Robinson. Shortly after her arrival Mademoiselle Clarisse met on the stairs several times a middle-sized, middle-aged, jolly-looking gentleman, with bright roguish eyes and a light-brown beard, who bowed as he passed by, and gave her the inside of the staircase with much politeness, and with a "Pardon, ma'amselle," in a very good accent. Asked who this could be, Mademoiselle Anatole responded that it was probably "_ce_ Robinson:" asked what was _ce_ Robinson, Madamoiselle Anatole further replied that he was "_feuilletoniste, littérateur--je ne sais quoi!_" And Mademoiselle Anatole was not far out in her guess, to which she had probably been assisted by the constant sight of a grimy-faced printer's-boy peacefully slumbering on a stool specially placed for his accommodation outside Robinson's door. Those were the early days of cheap periodicals, and there were few newspaper-offices or publishers' shops where Mr. Rupert Robinson was unknown or where he was not welcome. He was a bright, genial, jolly fellow, with an inexhaustible stock of animal spirits and good-humour, with a keen appreciation of the ludicrous, and a singular power of hunting-out and levelling lance at small social shams and inflated humbugs of the day; and though he would not have used a bludgeon, and could not have wielded a cutlass, yet he made excellent practice with his foil, and when he chose, as it happened sometimes, to break the button off and set to work in earnest, his adversary always bore the marks of the bout. Generally, however, he kept clear of anything like heavy work, for which his temperament unsuited him, and confined himself to light literature, at which he was one of the smartest hands of the day; and, in addition to his journalistic and periodical work, he was one of the pillars of the Parthenon Theatre.

Those who only know the Parthenon in its present days--when it occasionally remains shut for months, to open for a few nights with "Herr Eselkopfs celebrated impersonation of the 'Jew whom Shakespeare drew,'" _vide_ public advertisement and, published criticism from _Berwick-on-Tweed Argus_; when it alternates between opera and burlesque or tragedy and breakdowns, but is always dirty, and dingy, and mouldy-smelling, and bankrupt-looking--can have little idea of what it was in the days of which we are writing, when Mr. and Mrs. Momus were its lessees, and when there was more fun to be found within its walls than in any other place in London, even of treble its size. The chiefs of that merry company are both dead; the belles whose bright eyes enthralled us then are portly matrons now, renewing their former beauty in their daughters; the walking gentlemen have walked off entirely or lapsed into heavy fathers; and the authors, who were constantly lounging in the greenroom, and convulsing actors and actresses with their audacious chaff, are some dead, and all who are left sobered and steadied and aged. But all were young, and jolly, and witty, and daring in those days; and foremost amongst them was Mr. Rupert Robinson, who was then just beginning to write burlesques in a style which his successors have spoiled and written out, and was dramatising popular nursery stories, and filling them with the jokes, allusions, and parodies of the day.

Although Mr. Rupert Robinson had been for some time domiciled under the same roof as Mademoiselle Anatole, he had made no attempt to cultivate the acquaintance of that lady, who was in truth a very long, very thin, very flat, very melancholy person, who had not merely _les larmes dans sa voix_, but seemed to be thoroughly saturated with misery. But soon after Mademoiselle Clarisse was added to the firm, the "littery gent," as Mrs. Mogg the landlady was accustomed to call her second-floor lodger, contrived to get up a bowing acquaintance, which soon ripened into speaking, and afterwards into much greater intimacy. Mademoiselle Anatole at first disapproved of the _camaraderie_ thus established; but she was mollified by the judicious presentation of unlimited orders for the theatres and the opera, and by other kindness which had more satisfactory and more enduring results; for Mr. Rupert Robinson, being of a convivial nature, was in the habit of frequently giving what he called "jolly little suppers" to certain select ladies of the _corps de ballet_ of the Parthenon; cheery little meals, where the male portion of the company was contributed by the Household Brigade, the Legislature, the Bar, and the Press, and where the comestibles were the succulent oyster opened in the room and eaten fresh from the operating knife, the creamy lobster, and hot potato handed from the block-tin repository presided over by a peripatetic provider known to the guests as "Tatur Khan." In his early youth Rupert had been a medical student at the Hôtel Dieu in Paris, and he strove, not unsuccessfully, to imbue these little parties with a spirit of the _vie de Bohème_ which rules the denizens of the Latin Quarter. The viands were very good and very cheap, and though there was plenty of fun and laughter, there was no license.

Soon after the establishment of his acquaintance with Clarisse, Rupert invited her and her partner to one of these banquets, and she soon became popular with the set who were admitted to them. Mademoiselle Anatole they did not think much of; indeed, Miss Bella Montmorency, one of the four leading _coryphées_ who at that time were creating such a sensation in the ballet of _Mustapha_ at the T.R.D.L, said all the use that that thin Frenchwoman could be made of was to replace the skeleton, a relic of Rupert's old surgical life, which he sometimes brought out of its box and seated at the table, crowned with flowers. But with Clarisse they were very different. She was bright and cheery, sang a pretty little song, and laughed a merry little ringing laugh at all the jokes, whether she understood them or not; and the ballet-girls liked her very much, and invited her to come and see them, and tried to help her in the world. They could not do much in that way themselves, for they made their own dresses of course, and when they had a present of a black-silk gown or a shawl, had no chance of recommending any particular vendor; but when they saw that the Frenchwomen were really excellent in their business, they spoke about them in the theatre so loudly, that the rumours of their proficiency reached the ears of Mrs. Lannigan and Miss Calverley, the two "leading ladies" of the theatre, and incited their curiosity. The crimson-slashed jackets and the lovely diaphanous nether garments, the Polish lancer-caps and the red boots with brass heels, which these ladies wore in the burlesques, were provided by the management and prepared by Miss Hirst, the wardrobe woman, a crushed creature with a pock-marked face and a wall-eye, who always had the bosom of her gown studded with pins, and her hair streaked with fluffy ends of thread. But when phases of modern life were to be represented, the ladies chose to find their own dresses; and hearing of the excellent "cut" and "fit" of Mademoiselles Anatole and Clarisse, were persuaded to give those young women a trial. The result was favourable, recommendation followed on recommendation, and the firm had as much work as it could possibly get through.

It was about this period of her life that Mademoiselle Clarisse, in her visits to the theatre, made the acquaintance of M. Pierre. It was not to be doubted that M. Pierre, as well as Mademoiselles Anatole and Clarisse, was in possession of a legitimate surname in addition to the _nom de baptême_ by which he was commonly known; but, following the custom of those of his class, he had suffered it to lapse on coming to England, and though known as "_ce cher_ Lélong" by his compatriots, called himself to his customers M. Pierre, and was so called by them. M. Pierre was a _coiffeur_ by profession--unfortunately, as he thought; for he lived at a time when that profession was rather at a discount. In his early youth, when the great ladies wore their own hair dressed in the most elaborate fashion, the _coiffeur_ was a necessary adjunct to every well-regulated establishment. Had he lived until now, when the great ladies wear other persons' hair dressed in the most preposterous manner, he would have found plenty to do, and would probably have invented various washes, which would have ruined the health of thousands of silly women and made the fortune of their concocter. But when M. Pierre was in the prime of his life, elaborate hair-dressing went out of fashion, and the simplicity of knots, bands, and ringlets, which could be intrusted to the maid or even executed by the fair fingers of the wearer, came in its stead. This was an awful blow to M. Pierre, whose experience was thus restricted to members of the theatrical profession, or to the occasional preparation of wigs and headdresses for a fancy ball; but he had saved a little money, and being a long-headed calculating man, he arranged to invest and reinvest it to great advantage. At the time that he was introduced to Mademoiselle Clarisse he was an elderly man, but he had lost none of his shrewdness and _savoir faire_. He saw at a glance that his countrywoman was not merely perfect mistress of her art, but generally a clever woman of the world; and after a little time he proposed to her that they should club their means and hunt the rich English in couples. He pointed out to her that his connection formerly lay among the very highest and best classes, many of whom recollected him, and would be glad to give anyone a turn on his recommendation; that he, as a man, had a much greater chance of buying merchandise good and cheap than any woman; finally, that he had capital, without which she could never do anything great, which he would put into the business.

Mademoiselle Clarisse took a week to think over all that Pierre had said to her before coming to any decision. Her ambition had increased with her success, and she had long since ceased to think very highly of the patronage of the theatrical ladies, to obtain which at one time she would have made any sacrifice. For some time she had been in business on her own account; Mademoiselle Anatole, so soon as she realised a sufficiency, having retired to Lyons, there to weep and grizzle and sniff, and make herself as uncomfortable and unpleasant-looking as the vast majority of French old maids. And Clarisse was fully aware of M. Pierre's talent, and believed in his fortune; and verging towards middle age, and having lost sight of Rupert Robinson, and others for whom she had had her _caprices_ after him, and having lost her zest for rollicking suppers and fun of that kind, thought she could not do better than settle herself in life, and accordingly accepted M. Pierre's proposal.

She soon found she had done rightly. Many of her husband's old patronesses consented to give her a trial for his sake, and were so pleased that they recommended her to all their friends. The establishment in George Street was then first opened, and M. Pierre not only did all he promised but a great deal more. For, being always a man of great taste, he turned his attention to the devising of special articles of millinery, then employed his manual dexterity in carrying out his ideas; and not suffering in any way from a sense of the ridiculous, he might be seen hour after hour in his sanctum, with his glasses on his nose and an embroidered skull-cap on his head, singing away some pastoral _chanson_ or drinking couplet, while his nimble fingers were busily engaged in stitching at a novel kind of headdress or in sketching out a design for an artistic bonnet. He was proud of his wife's appearance and pleased with her industry and success, and he enjoyed his married life very much for a couple of years, making a point of going to St. James's Street on drawing-room days, and to the Opera on great nights, to admire the results of his handiwork, but otherwise living very domestically and quietly; and then he died, leaving all his worldly possessions to his widow.

The success which had attended Madame Clarisse during her husband's lifetime continued after his death, and there was scarcely a house in the millinery business holding a higher reputation than hers. It was this reputation which induced Mrs. Stothard, ordinarily so quiet and self-contained, to make a great effort to get her daughter engaged as a member of Madame Clarisse's staff. Many young women of Daisy's position in life would have eagerly accepted such a chance; "From Madame Clarisse's," figuring on a brass door-plate in the future, being an excellent recommendation and an almost certain augury of success. The Frenchwoman was perfectly cognisant of this, and required a large premium with her apprentices. That once paid, the girls were turned into the workroom and left to "take it out" as best they might; unless, indeed, one of them showed exceptional talent and skill--qualities which were immediately recognised by their employer.

Daisy's promotion had, however, not been due to her possession of either of these qualities. She had one, a much rarer, which influenced her removal from the work-room to the showroom, and which led Madame Clarisse and all her customers to take notice of the girl--and that was the exceptional style of her beauty. Ladies young and old would call Madame to them, and in undertones ask her who was the "young person" with that wonderful complexion and that excellent manner. Was she not some one who--they meant to say--not born in that class of life, don't you know; so very bred-looking and _distinguée_, and that sort of thing? Some women would have been jealous of such compliments paid to their assistants, but Madame was far above anything of that kind. She used to bow and to invent any little nonsense as it occurred to her at the moment, enough to satisfy the querists without leading them to pursue their inquiries, and then would dismiss the subject from her thoughts. The girl was _asses gentille_, neat, and even elegant in her appearance, and of good address; looked well in the street, wore pretty gloves, Madame had noticed, in contradistinction to most Anglaises--"_qui sont ordinairement gantées comme les chats bottes_," as she would say with a shrug of horror--and walked well--in Madame's mind another unusual accomplishment in an Englishwoman. Altogether she was a credit to the establishment; and Madame began to take a little more notice of her, talk more confidentially of business matters to her, and leave her in charge of affairs when pleasure engagements, of which she had a great many, summoned her away. Under these different circumstances the girl became a different being in her employer's eyes. Hitherto Madame Clarisse had only seen her as a quiet impassive young woman doing her duty in the showroom; but when she came to know her, and to see how every feeling was reflected in her face--how the gray eyes could flash and the colour would rush into the pale cheek, heightened in its brilliancy by the creamy whiteness surrounding it--she allowed to herself that "Fanfan," as she now called her, was lovely indeed.

And then Madame Clarisse began to have new notions about Fanfan. The French milliner was not an exceptionally good woman, nor, indeed, ever thought of arrogating to herself the title. In the days of her youth she had not permitted any straitlaced notions of morality to interfere with her pleasures; and in her comfortable middle age she never neglected an opportunity of gratifying the two passions by which she was most swayed--money-making and good living. She cared very little as to what her young women might do during the few spare hours of their leisure; but it was a necessity of her business, that the assistants in the showroom should be presentable persons and of a certain staid demeanour. Fanfan's manners were admirably suited for her place--cold, respectful, and intelligent; but when Madame had discovered the existence of the volcano beneath the icy exterior, had learned, as she did quietly and dexterously, that, with all the good schooling she had gone through, and the restraint which she had brought to bear upon herself, the girl was full of feeling and passion, and that there was "a great deal of human nature" in her, she took a special and peculiar interest in Fanfan's future.

"To make herself a _modiste_ here in London without money is impossible," she mused. "To set up in Brighton or Tonbridge, to marry an _épicier_ or an _employé_--ah, my faith, she is too good for that! Is it that Madame Lobbia, that little dame, _mince_, and like to a white rabbit, who flies to and from Saint Jean's Woot at the great trot with her beautiful horses, and wears diamonds in full day; is it that Mdlle. Victorine, _feu écuyère_ at Franconi's, who leads Milor Milliken such a dance, throws his money to the winds, and laughs to his nose; is it that they are to be mentioned with Fanfan? And there are other Jews, merchants of diamonds, than M. Lobbia, and other milors as rich and as silly as Milor Milliken. Forward, my Fanfan! why this dull life to you? For me, do you ask, why I give myself so much trouble? Hold, I know nothing! In watching the progress of others one renews one's own youth, and to _exploiter_ so much grace and beauty would be interesting, and might be remunerative. _Et du reste_----" and Madame Clarisse paused for a moment, reflecting; then shrugged her shoulders slightly, and said, "_du reste, à la guerre comme à la guerre!_"

But whatever Madame's notions on the subject might have been, she kept them strictly to herself, never making any difference in her manner towards Daisy, save, perhaps, in being a little kinder and showing a little increased confidence in her. It was not until the evening after the day on which Fanny Stothard had written to her mother that Madame made any regular approach to familiarity with her assistant. They had had a long and busy and tiring day, for the end of the season was coming on, as it always does, with a rush, and people had neglected ordering their autumn clothes, as they always do, until the last, and the showrooms had been crammed for six hours with an impatient crowd, every component member of which desired to be served at once. Madame had given up any _réunions_ for that evening, and had taken her fair share of the work and supervised everything, remaining in the showroom until all the girls, except Daisy, had gone. Then she walked up to Daisy, and put one hand on the girl's shoulder, tapping her cheek with the other, and saying:

"_Enfin_, Mademoiselle Fanfan, this dreadful day has come to an end at last. You look worn and fatigued, my child. It's lucky that the end of the season is close at hand, or you would what you call 'knock-up,' without fail."

"Oh, I shall do very well, Madame, thank you," replied Daisy, a little coldly; "a night's rest will quite set me up again."

"Oh, but you must have something before your night's rest, Fanfan. You are _triste_ and tired; I see it in your eyes. You want a--_tiens!_ what is it that little _farceur_, the advocate Chose, calls it?--a peg. Ha, ha! that is it! You want a sherry peg or a glass of champagne. We will go up to my room, and have some Lyons _saucisson_ and some champagne."

At any other time Daisy would have declined this invitation; but partly because she really felt low and hipped and overwrought, and imagined that the wine would restore her, partly because she was afraid of appearing ungracious to her employer, whose increased kindness to her of late she had noticed, she now said she should be delighted, and followed Madame up the stairs.

Such a cosy little sitting-room was Madame's--low-ceilinged and odd-shaped, like an ordinary _entresol_ carried up a story; with French furniture in red velvet, with the walls covered with engravings and nicknacks and Danton's statuettes, and the tables littered "with scrofulous French novels" in their yellow paper covers. The room was lit by one large window and a half, the other half giving light to Madame's bedroom, which led out by a door, through which, when open, as it usually was, glimpses could be obtained of the end of a brass bedstead apparently dressed up in blue muslin. There was a cloth on the table, and Madame bustled about, and, assisted by her little French maid--the page-boy retired home after customers' hours--soon produced some sausage and the remains of a Strasbourg pie, bread, butter, and _fromage de Brie_, and from the cellar (which was a cupboard on the landing with a patent lock, where Madame kept a small stock of remarkably good wine) a bottle of champagne.

Daisy could not eat very much, she was over-tired for that; but the wine did her good, and she talked much more freely than was her wont.

Madame Clarisse was delighted with her; a certain bitterness in the girl's tone being specially appreciated by the Frenchwoman. After some little talk she said to her:

"You still live in the same apartment, Fanfan?"

"Yes, Madame--in the same garret."

"Garret!" echoed Madame Clarisse. "_Eh bien_, what does it matter? Garret or palace, it makes little difference when one is young.

'Bravant le monde, et les sots et les sages,
Sans avenir, fier de mon printemps,
Leste et joyeux je montais six étages--
Dans un grenier qu'on est bien à vingt ans.'"

And as she trolled out the verse in a rich voice, Madame's eyes looked very wicked, and she chinked her glass against her companion's.

"Perhaps it is because I only live on the third story--though there's nothing above it--but I certainly never feel _leste_ or _joyeuse_," said the girl.

"No?" said Madame interrogatively. "That's a sad thing to say. And yet you have youth and beauty, Fanfan."

"Youth and beauty!" cried the girl. "If I have them, what good are they to me? Can they drag me out of this life of slavery, take me from that wretched garret, give me gowns and jewels, and horses, and carriages, and a position in life?"

Daisy was full of excitement; the tones of her voice were thrilling, her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks were flushed. Madame Clarisse eyed her curiously.

"Yes," she said, after a minute's pause; "they can do all this, and"--taking Daisy's hand--"some day, Fanfan, perhaps they may."

"Perhaps they may," said Daisy.

She was thinking of the chance of her marrying Paul Derinzy, whom she knew as Mr. Douglas. But Madame Clarisse did not know Mr. Derinzy, so she was not thinking of Daisy's marrying him--or anybody else, as it happened.