So now when he shouted “Abyssinia!” the governess looked around at him in a very puzzled way, but she just said, “Au revoir” once again and departed.
At lunch, when the family was all together again, George couldn’t help complaining to Father. “Daddy, this governess doesn’t know very much. She doesn’t know cornflakes or ice-cream cones or anything. If we have to have one—”
“George,” Father began.
“His name is Shorsh,” put in Dumpling.
“Thank you, Dumpling,” said Father absent-mindedly. “Shorsh, I do not care if this woman does not know all about cornflakes and ice-cream cones. She knows French, and that is all that I require her to teach you. The important thing is this: did you learn any French this morning?”
“Le chat joue avec le ballon!” shouted the three children at once in such ringing voices that all the waiters looked pleased, and Jean Marie winked several times at them. Mother and Father seemed to feel satisfied.
As soon as Mademoiselle Beauregard arrived the next morning, she said to George, “What is it zat is zis Abyssinia, Shorsh? In ze dictionary I do not find.”
“It means the same as au revoir,” said George.
Susan tried to explain to Mademoiselle that it was really a kind of joke, but jokes apparently did not mean a great deal to Mademoiselle. She had George repeat “Abyssinia” a number of times until she was sure that she had it exactly.
Susan tried to explain about the country called Abyssinia, but it turned out that in French the name of the country was pronounced differently, and anyway, Mademoiselle did not get the connection between a country in Africa and a way of saying good-bye.
So, although the Ridgeway children learned in French about “the dog carries the basket, and the dog and cat play with the balls and carry the baskets,” they found that a large part of the morning was also taken up in teaching things to Mademoiselle. In fact, the more they saw of Mademoiselle, the more they saw that they would have to work hard to instruct her. Gradually they began to have a kind of affection for her, because there was so much that she did not know and that they were able to teach her.
Poor Madmuzelle, Susan wrote in her diary, she is very ignorant.
Rocks and a Princess
The first time that Mademoiselle came prepared to stay all day it was arranged that in the afternoon she should take the children to the beach. It was a long walk to the beach, but they were all delighted to go. Everybody carried something. They had bathing suits and towels, of course, and Susan had her Kodak and her paints, because she thought it would be nice to make a complete record of the wild sea waves. George had a couple of small boats. Dumpling had a pail and shovel and Irene. Irene had come out quite well after her bath. She was somewhat paler in complexion and lumpier in body, but then, she had never been a great beauty. The important thing was that Dumpling loved her.
“But I won’t let her bathe in the sea,” Dumpling said.
Mademoiselle carried a large red-and-green-plaid bag that mystified everybody.
“Is it your swimsuit, Mademoiselle?” asked Dumpling.
“No, Dumpling,” said Mademoiselle, “it is not my costume de bain.”
“Is it your towel?” asked George.
“No, Shorsh, it is not my trowel.”
“Is it your Kodak?” asked Dumpling.
Mademoiselle did not know what a Kodak was, so they had to show her Susan’s, and then she knew.
“No, it is not my apparatus of photography,” she said.
“Maybe she would rather not tell us,” Susan suggested tactfully.
“But we can make a game of it,” George said, “like Twenty Questions. We’ve already had three guesses. Four: Mademoiselle, is it your bathrobe?”
“Shorsh,” Mademoiselle said, “I do not bathe me on ze beach in ze public, but only in my privacy.”
“Five,” said Dumpling. “Is it the ballon that the chat plays avec?”
“No, no,” said Mademoiselle, “ce n’est pas le ballon du chat!”
“Is it something alive?” asked George.
“No, Shorsh,” replied Mademoiselle, “I am convince zat it no longer lives.”
But by this time they had reached the beach, and there were more interesting things to do than to play Twenty Questions. It was a very good beach with lots of waves and sand and sunshine. There were big rocks that could be used as dressing rooms for getting into their swimsuits. Susan took Dumpling behind one rock to change, while George went behind another. Mademoiselle stood guard, to warn them if anyone was coming.
Susan and Dumpling had just got into their suits when they heard George shouting for them in a very excited voice. “He’s found something alive, I guess,” said Dumpling.
“Oh dear,” said Susan, “I hope it isn’t too slimy or wriggling.”
But it turned out that what George had found was a little cove full of smooth stones of various colors and shapes. “Look here, what I’ve got for my collection!” shouted George. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!”
“But surely not all those, George,” said Susan anxiously, looking at the many different kinds of stones in the small cove. “You can’t carry all those back to the hotel.”
“Well, not this first time, of course,” said George sensibly. “But we can all carry quite a lot, and every time we come to the beach we can carry back more.”
George came staggering out of the cove with a large load of stones, which he piled carefully on the sand. “Look!” he cried happily. “This one is smooth and white like an egg. This one has green lines around it. This light one with the holes in it is probably a piece of tufa. Here’s a composite.”
“Leetle boys must not fling ze rocks on ze beach,” said Mademoiselle earnestly. It took them all some time to explain to her that George’s interest in rocks was scientific. This was difficult for Mademoiselle to understand, because she had never before known any “leetle boys” with scientific interests such as George’s.
After George had piled up as many rocks as he thought the four of them could carry back to the Grand Hotel and So Forth and So Forth, he began to notice the other things about the beach, such as the waves, the sand, the bits of seaweed, and the sea urchins and barnacles in the pools among the rocks. He was almost out of his mind, rushing from one delightfully scientific marvel to the next one. Susan busied herself with taking snapshots of the waves, and of Mademoiselle with her plaid bag, and of Dumpling digging in the sand, and of more waves, with George jumping up and down in them.
Other children came to the beach, too, until there was quite a crowd. The others all spoke French, which caused George to complain that it was a nuisance that French people insisted on speaking French.
“You find yourself now in France, Shorsh,” said Mademoiselle severely. But she was useful in translating into English for the Ridgeways what the French children said, and into French for the French children what the Ridgeways said. So they all got along pretty well together.
Before the afternoon was over, Dumpling had found another little girl with a sand pail and a doll, and they soon had built a wonderful sand house for their dolls and were getting along perfectly in sign language without any help from Mademoiselle. Whenever the little girl forgot and said something complicated in French, Dumpling replied gravely, “Le chat joue avec le ballon,” or else she said, “L’ascenseur ne marche pas.” The little girl laughed at first, but presently she understood that it was all in friendship. If Dumpling forgot and talked a lot of English, the little girl replied, “Tweenkle, tweenkle, leetle star,” which was obviously something she had learned out of a book and was all the English she knew.
About four o’clock in the afternoon the French children stopped playing and went to sit in groups around their mothers or grandmothers. The older people had brought bags with them. Out of the bags came pieces of bread or small dry cakes. Everyone began to eat with evident enjoyment. The Ridgeways found themselves deserted, and they realized suddenly that they were just as hungry as
the French children but that they didn’t have a thing to eat. They began to look around, and they could see Mademoiselle up the beach, making signs to them with her hands and arms.
“Now what?” said George crossly. He was likely to be cross when he was hungry, especially when he saw other people eating and he didn’t have anything.
“We’d better go,” Susan said. “She seems to want us. After all, she’s our governess.”
“Phooey!” said George.
But just then Dumpling, who had not strayed so far away from Mademoiselle, began to shout and wave her hands, too. “Hurry!” she called. “It’s the plaid bag. We never guessed after all. Hurry!”
So George and Susan hurried, and they saw that Mademoiselle was taking out of her bag a bottle of cold cocoa, four small cups, and four large pieces of French bread. There were also four very small paper napkins for holding the pieces of bread or for wiping them off if they happened to fall in the sand.
“Boy, oh boy!” cried George at the sight of food.
“Zis is ze goo-tay,” Mademoiselle said, and while they ate it she made them learn to spell it, because the word goûter certainly doesn’t look as it sounds. “But why,” she asked, “did Shorsh call it a boyoboy?” So, as they ate, they explained to Mademoiselle that “Boy, oh boy!” was a thing one said when he was happy or excited.
“Oh,” said Mademoiselle thoughtfully. “Boyoboy! I must remember zat, for when I am very happy or excite.”
French bread is crusty and good. One can eat it very well without butter, as French people usually do. Even the cold cocoa tasted wonderful. George’s bad temper vanished at once, and later Susan wrote in her diary, I believe there may be more to Madmuzelle than eyeglasses and a funny accent.
So they had a remarkably fine afternoon. The only difficulty was in getting back to the hotel again, loaded down as they were with George’s rocks. Mademoiselle carried some in her plaid bag along with the empty bottle and cups. Dumpling filled her sand bucket. George tied his two small boats—which he had scarcely used—together with string and hung them around his neck so his hands would be free to carry stones. Also, of course, he put stones in his pockets. Susan had to fold up the hem of her skirt and carry everything in her “lap” because, besides the rocks, she had the Kodak and the paints to carry home. Naturally they were all tired, and they had to keep sitting down on the curb to rest. It was inconvenient, to say the least, because this was a busy time of day and they had to go along a street where there were many shops.
When the three children sat down on a curbstone, Mademoiselle became very agitated, like a hen with ducklings. “Come, come!” she said. “You must not seat yourselves zus in ze public highway. Zis is unsinkable.”
“That’s the trouble,” Susan said. “We’re sinkable because we are loaded with rocks.”
“But I demand to know why,” cried Mademoiselle, “why it is necessary zat we must transport zese rocks?”
“It’s because George is making a collection,” Susan explained patiently. “Sometimes I wonder why myself, but it makes George happy.”
“But, Shorsh,” Mademoiselle persisted, “you are not happy at zis moment, Shorsh.”
“No,” George said, “but when I get the rocks to the hotel, I will be happy.”
Poor Mademoiselle had to give up trying to understand.
When they finally arrived at the Grand Hotel and So Forth, they found that the ascenseur was not “marching.” Everybody begged George to leave his rocks in the garden, for the time being at least, but he kept telling them that he really preferred to keep his collection under his bed.
“No, Shorsh,” Mademoiselle said firmly, “today it must be not in ze bed but under ze garden.” So finally George consented to leave the rocks in a pile beside one of the pine trees until some day when the ascenseur would “march” again and the rocks could all be carried up and stowed away in cardboard boxes under his bed.
“Children,” said Mother as soon as they had climbed all the steps and flopped, exhausted, into the gilt chairs in the salon, “I have the most wonderful news for you.”
“What is it?” they all wanted to know, beginning to revive again at once.
“You’ll never guess!” Mother said.
“Is it ice cream?” asked Dumpling.
“Is it alive?” asked George.
But Susan could tell that it was something quite different. She and her mother were both fond of making up stories and imagining romance, and they understood each other perfectly. So now Susan knew by the dreamy excitement on Mother’s face that this was not going to have anything to do with food or animals. “What is it, Mother?” she asked eagerly.
“Susan,” Mother said, “there’s a princess living in this hotel—a real, true princess!”
“But how do you know?” they all cried.
Father was smoking on the balcony, and now he came in and said to Mother, “For pity’s sake, darling, why do you try to give these honest, democratic American children ideas of old-world snobbery?”
“But, darling,” Mother said, “it’s not snobbish. It’s just romantic. Americans can get just as excited about movie stars, but a real princess is more of a novelty.”
“How do you know, Mother?” the children repeated. “Have you seen her?”
“No, I haven’t seen her,” Mother said, “but this is how I know. A little while ago the boy from the hotel office brought up some mail that had come for us, and in with our mail, where it had been put by mistake, was a circular addressed to the princess.”
“Where is it?” the children asked.
“I had Daddy take it right back to the hotel office, because I didn’t want the princess to be without it.”
“It was only an advertisement,” Father said, “and I expect the manager sends it around to all his guests with their mail, as if by mistake, so that everybody will know there’s a princess in the house.”
“Well, why not?” said Mother. “Even if the plumbing isn’t good and the elevator doesn’t work, it gives the guests their money’s worth to know that they’re living under the same roof with a princess.”
“What’s her name, Mother?” the children asked.
“I copied it off,” Mother said, “so that I’d be able to tell you.” She took a small piece of paper out of her pocket and read in an impressive voice, “Her Royal Highness, the Princess Adelaide Louisa von Mettnock-Hohenwürtzel.”
“Oh, Mother, how wonderful!” Susan said. “May I borrow the slip of paper and copy her name all out in my diary?”
“Of course, dear,” Mother said.
George did not know whether to say “Phooey!” of “Boy, oh boy!” So he just stood there with his mouth open. But Dumpling said, “I suppose she’ll be down to dinner, so we’ll see her.”
Everybody turned around and looked at Dumpling in surprise at this practical thought.
“Do you suppose she will?” asked Mother.
“Of course!” cried Susan.
“Why should she?” said Father. “She’ll probably dine in her room to save herself the embarrassment of being stared at. There aren’t so very many princesses left in Europe, now, you know.”
“That’s what makes it so strange and interesting,” Mother said.
After that they all began imagining what the princess would be like. Mother needed a young and beautiful princess for the book she was writing about Angus McAngus, the detective, and the International Spies. She thought that the Princess Adelaide Louisa would certainly be as young and happy and beautiful as the princess she needed.
“My writing was going very badly this morning,” she said, “but now I know what was the matter with it. All I needed was a lovely young princess like Adelaide Louisa von Mettnock-Hohenwürtzel to step in and liven things up. I already know just how my next chapter will start. I’m very grateful to the hotel management for sending around that circular!”
Mother’s eyes were still absent-minded and dreamy, and Father said, “I don’t be
lieve you’ll mind if you never really see her. You’ve got her fixed in your imagination now.”
But the children wanted to see the princess, and they thought she would certainly be even younger than the one in Mother’s book. They decided that her hair would be golden and would float about her shoulders like a cloud. Susan thought her eyes would be blue, but George and Dumpling thought brown.
“Well, that’s a detail we can leave until we see her,” Susan said, “but I expect she’ll be about thirteen, and although that’s my own age, I shall of course address her as ‘Your Majesty.’ ”
George thought she might be about eleven, and Dumpling preferred seven, but they were all agreed that she was probably an orphan and extremely rich.
“Still,” Susan said sensibly, “if she was so rich she would be staying at the Hotel Carlton or the Miramar instead of the Grand Hotel and So Forth and So Forth.”
“I expect the International Spies got her fortune,” George said, and Susan added, “Yes, she’s probably poor now, because the Fascists or the Communists or somebody took her throne away from her. She’s only waiting here until her loyal supporters can rise to her defense.”
“She’ll probably eat in her room for fear of assassins,” George said cheerfully.
“What are assassins?” Dumpling wanted to know.
“Mur-r-der-r-er-rs,” said George in a ghostly voice, rolling all his “r’s” in a terrifying way.
“Poor little girl!” said Dumpling.
“You may be right about her eating in her room,” Susan said, “but still, I think we’d better go and wash the sand off our feet and comb our hair very nicely and put on something clean before dinner.”
“I’ll wear my red hair ribbons,” Dumpling said, “and George ought to put on a necktie.”
“Oh no,” shrieked George, “not a necktie!”
“Absolutely!” Susan said firmly. “Dumpling is perfectly right, George. You must wear a necktie. You would look perfectly undressed to a princess without a necktie.”
Family Sabbatical (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries) Page 3
