I got very little, just enough for absolute necessity, and gave her a letter to my woman in Paris and another to one I could only afford occasionally, and told her to obey them and take what they gave her. She understood and promised not to buy what happened to strike her—this was necessary, for she begged piteously for a rose pink satin street dress and a yellow velvet opera cloak to wear on the boat! We had a terrible struggle over a corset—she screamed when the corsetière and I got her into one and slapped the poor woman in the face. It took all my diplomacy to cover the affair and I doubt if I could have done it, really, if Margarita herself had not suddenly begun to cry like a frightened baby and begged pardon so sincerely that the woman was melted and ended by offering her sister as a maid! The girl had the best of references, and as she must have someone and Elise has travelled extensively and seems very tactful, she is now (I trust) adjusting the elastic girdle her sister finally induced Margarita to wear.
I took her to my Sixth Avenue shoe place, and she was so ravished with a pair of pale blue satin mules I got her that she actually leaned down and kissed the clerk who was kneeling before her! Fortunately we were in a private room and he was the cleverest possible young Irishman, who winked gravely at me and took it as naturally as possible—he thought she was not responsible, you see, and assured me that he had an aunt in the old country who was just that way!
What a beautiful voice she has—have you ever heard it drop a perfect minor third? But what a strange, strange wife for Roger, of all men! I suppose she is the first thoroughly unconventional person he was ever closely connected with—in one way you would seem more natural with her—I suppose because you are more adaptable than Roger. With him, everybody must adapt. Will she! Voila l'affaire! I should say that the young woman would be likely to have great influence over other people's lives, herself. If she and Roger ever clash—! Ah, well, advienne que pourra, it's done.
I gave her for a wedding present that lovely little old daguerreotype of Roger at three years old. It was in an old leather frame, you know, and I had it taken out and put into a little band of steel pearls and hung on a small dark red velvet standard. No one could fail to know him from it—I think it is the most wonderful child portrait I ever saw. He seems to have always had that straight, steady look. There is a tiny curl of yellow baby hair in the back, which amused her very much. That is the only one of him at that age, you know—his mother gave it to me when we were engaged, and I always kept it.
I am forgetting to tell you about our visit to the Convent, and you must hear it. I love the old place and often go up there to see Mary, when things grow a little too unbearable. She is wonderful—so placid and bright, so somehow just like herself, when you expect something different! Why did she do it, I wonder? I was one of her best friends, and I never knew. Her great executive ability is having its reward, they tell me, and she is likely to be Mother Superior some day.
I had told her about Margarita and she was deeply interested in her, though the terrible state of the child's soul naturally alarmed her. When I told her that her sister-in-law had never been in a church, nor seen one, unless she had noticed those we passed in New York, she crossed herself hastily and such a look of real, heartfelt pain passed over her face!
Well, I got my charge safely up there, and everything interested her tremendously from the very beginning. It was the intermission demi-heure of the morning and the girls were all munching their gouter and playing about on the grass. I explained to her why they all wore the same black uniform, and why the honour girls, "les très-biens," wore the broad blue sashes under their arms, and why the Sisters kept on their white headdresses in the house, and why the girls all made their little révérence when Mother Bradley came out to meet us. She kissed Margarita so sweetly and held her in her arms a moment—I don't think Roger quite realised how his attitude hurts her: it is the only almost unjust thing I ever knew him to do. In the halls there is a great statue of Christ blessing the children, and Margarita stopped and stared at it several minutes, while we watched her. She seemed so rapt that Mary took my hand excitedly and whispered to me not to disturb her for the world, but wait for what she would say. After a while she turned to me.
MARGARITA STOPPED AND STARED AT IT SEVERAL MINUTES