The fortunes of Fifi

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“Cartouche!” cried Fifi, opening her eyes very wide indeed. “Why, Cartouche has done everything for me! He taught me all I know about acting, and he always carried my fagots upstairs, and showed me how to clean my white shoes when they became soiled, and—”

Fifi stopped. She could have told a great deal more: not only that Cartouche showed her how to clean her white shoes, but that he actually took the shoes off her poor little feet when she was so, so tired; and Cartouche must have been tired, too, having been on his legs—or rather his leg and a half—all the day and evening. These, and other reminiscences of Cartouche, in the capacity of lady’s maid, cook, and what not, occurred to her quick memory, almost overwhelming her. It seemed to her as if he had done all for her that her mother had once done, but she could not speak of it before Madame Bourcet, still less Louis Bourcet. Imagine the most correct young advocate in Paris taking Fifi’s shoes off, because she was tired! Louis would have let her die of fatigue before he would have committed this horrid crime, as he conceived it.

So Fifi checked the ebullition that was rising in her, and kept her head and held her tongue. But when she was once alone in her own large, solemn room, fitter for a dowager duchess than for little Fifi, she poured out her soul in a letter to Cartouche—thus:

“Cartouche—Why haven’t you been to see me? Cartouche, I believe you have forgotten me—that odious Julie Campionet has played me some trick, I know she has. Cartouche, having money is not all we thought it was. It is very dull being rich and certain of one’s dinner every day. Madame Bourcet and I went out yesterday and bought a gown. Cartouche, do you remember when I had saved up the thirty francs to buy a cloak, and bought Toto, my darling Toto, instead? And how angry you were with me? And then you gave me the cloak out of your own money? Don’t send Toto to see me—it would break my heart. The gown I bought yesterday is hideous. It is a dark brown with green spots. Madame Bourcet selected it. There was a beautiful pink thing, with a great many spangles, that I wanted. It is just like the stuff that Toto’s ballet skirt is made of. But the gown is for me to wear the day I am presented to the Holy Father, and Madame Bourcet said the pink spangled thing would not do. Then she bought me some black lace to wear over my head that day, and she paid a cruel price for it, but the shops where you get new things are very dear. Madame Bourcet will not let me go to the second-hand shops. Do you remember the blue silk robe that Monsieur Duvernet made me buy a year ago for forty francs, and how it turned out to have a big grease-spot in the back, and I was so afraid the spot would be seen, that it almost ruined my performance as Léontine in ‘Papa Bouchard’? And how do you get your costumes to hang together when I am not there to sew them? I know you are coming all to pieces by this time. Have you forgotten how I used to sew you up? Oh, Cartouche, have you forgotten all these things? I think of them all the time. I wake up in the night, thinking I hear Toto barking, and it is only Madame Bourcet snoring. Cartouche, if you don’t come to see me soon you will break my heart.

Fifi.”

Cartouche read this letter sitting on the edge of his poor bed. His eyes grew moist, and the foolish fellow actually kissed Fifi’s name; but he said to himself resolutely:

“No, I will not go to her. It will only make the struggle harder. She must separate herself from the old life, and the quicker, the better. The pain is sharp, but it will not last—for her.”

And he was such a fool that he read the letter aloud to Toto, who was huddled close to him: and then the two who loved Fifi so dearly—the man and the dog—rubbed noses, and mourned together, Toto uttering a howl of distress and longing that cut Cartouche to the heart.

“Come,” said he, putting the dog aside, and rising, “I can’t go on this way. One would think I was sorry that Fifi is better off than she ever hoped or dreamed.”

Then he went to his cupboard, and took out a little frayed white satin slipper—one of Fifi’s slippers—and held it tenderly in his hand, while his poor heart was breaking. Next day, came a letter of another sort from Fifi. She was very, very angry, and wrote in a large hand, and with very black ink.