Occasionally one of the Hamiltons sat with some of the set, for it seemed they had no regular places of their own. "Of course not," said Mrs Fairchild, contemptuously. "They can't afford it," which expressive phrase summed up, with both husband and wife, the very essence of all that was mean and contemptible, and she was only indignant at their being able to come there at all. The Bankheads were bad enough; but to have the Hamiltons there too, and then to hear them all talking French with some foreigners who occasionally joined them, really humbled her.
This, then, she conceived was the secret of success. "They know French," she would reply in a voice of infinite mortification, when her husband expressed his indignant astonishment at finding these "nobodies" on 'change, "somebodies" at the Opera. To "know French," comprehended all her ideas of education, information, sense, and literature. This, then, she thought was the "Open Sesame" of "good society," the secret of enjoyment at the Opera; for, be it understood, all foreign languages were "French" to Mrs. Fairchild.
She was beginning to find the Opera a terrible bore, spite of all the finery she sported and saw around her, with people she did not know, and music she did not understand. As for Mr. Fairchild, the fatigue was intolerable; and he would have rebelled at once, if he had not paid for his places for the season, and so chose to have his money's worth, if it was only in tedium.
A bright idea, a bold resolution occurred to Mrs. Fairchild. She would learn French.
So she engaged a teacher at once, at enormous terms, who was to place her on a level with the best of them.
Poor little woman! and poor teacher, too! what work it was! How he groaned in spirit at the thick tongue that could not pronounce the delicate vowels, and the dull apprehension that knew nothing of moods and tenses.
And she, poor little soul, who was as innocent of English Grammar as of murder, how was she to be expected to understand the definite and indefinite when it was all indefinite; and as for the participle past, she did not believe any body understood it. And so she worked and puzzled, and sometimes almost cried, for a week, and then went to the Opera and found she was no better off than before.
In despair, and angry with her teacher, she dismissed him. "She did not believe any body ever learnt it that way out of books;" and "so she would get a French maid, and she'd learn more hearing her talk in a month, than Mr. A. could teach her, if she took lessons forever." And so she got a maid, who brought high recommendations from some grand people who had brought her from France, and then she thought herself quite set up.
But the experiment did not succeed. She turned out a saucy thing, who shrugged her shoulders with infinite contempt when she found "madame" did not comprehend her; and soon Mrs. Fairchild was very glad to take advantage of a grand flare-up in the kitchen between her and the cook, in which the belligerent parties declared that "one or the other must leave the house," to dismiss her.
In deep humility of spirit Mrs. Fairchild placed her little girl at the best French school in the city, almost grudging the poor child her Sundays at home when she must hear nothing but English. She was determined that she should learn French young; for she now began to think it must be taken like measles or whooping-cough, in youth, or else the attack must be severe, if not dangerous.