Madame Mélanie was a milliner much affected in aristocratic and financial circles.
Finance sympathises with Hungary, Poland, and oppressed nationalities, and Mélanie appertained to this section of mortality. Moreover, she made dresses beautifully, and the employment of her gratified the double sentiments of charity and vanity.
Mélanie was the daughter of a French maid-servant, in the service of a Hungarian lady. Brought up in her maternal profession—for her sire was not known—she lived under the roof of her Hungarian mistress till what she was pleased to call the “Hongarian Strockle.” Of this event she narrated striking scenes. Assuming to herself the name of her mistress, whom she had betrayed, she told how Haynau had threatened her with chastisement, and how, barefooted, she had reached a place of safety. More than once she had been invited to publish her adventures, but she was far too wise. Her ancient nobility obtained for her much greater consideration as a seamstress, and a better livelihood than Kossuth himself could procure; and in the humility of her station she was more free from detection than in a more elevated sphere.
She had begun poorly enough—working away gradually, and accumulating capital by labour and saving, by gifts from her patronesses, and also by occasionally abstracting small pieces of jewellery and money from the aristocratic dressing-rooms to which, in her capacity as a distressed noblewoman, she obtained freer access than others of her equals. True, she soon gave up the latter pursuit. Not only was it dangerous, but increasing business, by removing her from want, enabled her to resist temptation. Still she derived considerable emolument from what Italian servants term “incerti.” She did not object, for a consideration, to usurp the office of the Postmaster-General, nor did she refuse the shelter of her roof when business or charity required an interview between opulent monades of opposite sexes. On the whole, Madame Mélanie is a deserving creature. The sums she spends in alms astound the more credulous of her customers. She has sent more than one packet of linen to the lying-in hospital of the parish, and the initial “M., through a friend,” for Garibaldi’s muskets, has been traced to the same benefic source. She will not marry again, for she never can forget the Count of her early days, when they lived and loved in Hungary; but a French courier, about three years younger than herself, dwells in her house under the designation of adopted son, keeps her accounts, and transacts business with her solicitor.
Such was the person let loose in her respectable household by that careful mother, Lady Coxe. ’Ungary has done much for many disreputable foreigners. The respectability of a few has floated the depravity of the many.
On the credit of a lying assumption, Madame Mélanie had access to the homes and toilet-tables of England which would be denied to any respectable Englishwoman of the same class, however deserving.
“Good morning, Mélanie,” said Lady Coxe, as she lay back in her chaise longue.
“Good morning, miladi—always so charmante and gracieuse.”
“Git along, Mélanie,” replied miladi, playfully: when away from her daughters she laid aside that staidness of demeanour maintained before them towards her inferiors.
“Mélanie, we are going to Lady Ilminster’s dejooner.”