Cousin Bette (57 page)

Note that, in matters involving courage at least, Poles can never be accused of empty boasting; they are so truly and unquestionably brave.

‘And Crevel is such an idiot, wanting to have a party and get full value for his money, as usual, in a big show at my wedding. He puts me in a fix that I don't know how to get out of!'

How could Valérie confess to the man whom she adored that Baron Henri Montès had, since Baron Hulot's dismissal, succeeded to the privilege of visiting her at any hour of the night, and that, for all her adroitness, she had still not managed to find a plausible pretext for a quarrel that would throw all the blame on the Baron? She was well aware of the primitive savage underlying the civilized veneer in the Baron, who in some ways was very like Lisbeth, and her thoughts about that Othello from Rio de Janeiro made her shudder.

At the sound of wheels, Steinbock took his arm from Valérie's waist, left her side, and picked up a newspaper. Crevel and Lisbeth found him absorbed in it, while Valérie's attention was concentrated on a pair of slippers that she was embroidering for her future husband.

‘How she's slandered!' whispered Lisbeth at Crevel's ear, on the threshold, pointing out this tableau to him. ‘Just look at her hair! Is there a hair out of place? To hear Victorin you might have expected to surprise a pair of nesting turtledoves.'

‘My dear Lisbeth,' replied Crevel, striking his pose, ‘take it from me that to turn Aspasia into Lucretia, one only has to inspire a passion in her!‘

‘Haven't I always told you,' said Lisbeth, ‘that women love fat libertines like you?'

‘She would be very ungrateful besides if she didn't love me,' Crevel went on, ‘considering all the money I have spent on this place. Only Grindot and I know how much!'

And he waved a hand in the direction of the staircase. In the planning of this house, which Crevel regarded as his own, Grindot had tried to rival Cleretti, the fashionable architect whom the Duc d'Hérouville had employed on Josépha's house. But Crevel, who had no capacity for appreciating the arts, had determined, in the fashion of all bourgeois patrons, to spend only a fixed sum, specified in advance. And Grindot, so limited, had found it impossible to realize his artistic conception of the whole.

To compare Josépha's house with the house in the rue Barbet was to understand the gulf between distinctive individual style and the vulgar taste. The admirable objects in Josépha's house were to be found nowhere else: those that caught the eye in Crevel's could be bought anywhere. These two different kinds of luxury are distinct and separate, and the river of a million reproductions flows between. A unique mirror is worth six thousand francs; the mirror designed by a manufacturer, who sells as many as he can, costs five hundred francs. A genuine boule lustre may fetch three thousand francs at a public auction: the same thing cast in a mould can be manufactured for ten or twelve hundred. Among antiques, the one holds the place of a Raphael in the world of art: the other is a copy. How much would you give for a copy of a Raphael? Crevel's house, in short, was a splendid illustration of a fool's idea of luxury, while Josépha's was a very fine example of an artist's work.

‘War is declared,' said Crevel, as he entered the room, to his future wife.

Madame Marneffe rang.

‘Go and fetch Monsieur Berthier,' she said to the footman, ‘and don't come back without him. If you had been successful, dear old thing,' she said, with a kiss, to Crevel, ‘we would have delayed my happiness, and had a dazzling reception; but when a whole family opposes a marriage, my dear, the only proper thing is to do it quietly without any fuss, expecially when the bride is a widow.'

‘Nonsense! What I want is to make a display in the Louis XIV style,' said Crevel, who for some time had been finding the eighteenth century cramping. ‘I have ordered new
carriages: there is a carriage for the bridegroom, and a carriage for the bride, two smart coupés, a barouche, and a coach made for state occasions with a superb seat on springs that shakes like Madame Hulot.'

‘Oh, so that's what
you want
!… So you're not my lamb any more? No, no, my pet, you'll do what I want. We'll sign our marriage contract here in private, this evening. Then on Wednesday we'll have the official marriage, as people really do marry, under the rose, as my poor mother used to say. We'll walk to the church, dressed quite simply, and there will be low mass. We'll have Stidmann, Steinbock, Vignon, and Massol for our witnesses. They're all lively spirits, who'll just happen to be there at the registrar's office at your Mairie, and they'll sit out a mass for our sakes. Your colleague will marry us, as a favour to you, at nine in the morning; mass at ten o'clock; and we'll be back here for lunch at half past eleven. I have promised our guests that we shan't rise from table until the evening.… We'll have Bixiou and your old companion at Birotteau's place, du Tillet, and Lousteau, Vernisset, Léon de Lora, Vernou, the brightest of the bright sparks, and they won't know we've been married. We'll mystify them, we'll get just a trifle tipsy, and we'll have Lisbeth with us. I mean her to learn what marriage is. Bixiou must make a pass at her and… and open her eyes.'

For a couple of hours Madame Marneffe prattled on in a stream of light-hearted nonsense that led Crevel to make this discerning reflection:

‘How could a woman so gay be depraved? Frivolous, yes! but perverse… what nonsense!‘

‘What did your children say about me?' Valérie asked Crevel at one point, as he sat beside her on her little sofa.

‘Lots of horrors?'

‘They declare,' he answered, ‘that you are an immoral woman, in love with Wenceslas – you who are virtue's own self!'

‘Of course I love him, my little Wenceslas!' cried Valérie, calling the artist to her, pulling down his head, and planting a kiss on his forehead. ‘Poor boy, with no one to help him and no cash, despised by a carrot-haired giraffe! What do you
think, Crevel? Wenceslas is my poet, and I love him openly by broad daylight as if he were my own child! These virtuous women see evil everywhere and in everything. Tell me, can they not be in a man's company without doing wrong? I can only speak for myself, and I'm like a spoiled child who has never been refused anything: bonbons don't tempt me any more. Poor women, I'm sorry for them!… And who was it that had such nasty things to say?'

‘Victorin,' said Crevel.

‘Well, why didn't you shut the poll parrot lawyer's mouth with the story of his mama's two hundred thousand francs?'

‘Oh, the Baroness had fled,' said Lisbeth.

‘Let them be warned, Lisbeth,' said Madame Marneffe, knitting her brows. ‘Either they'll receive me, and in proper fashion too, and call on their stepmother, all of them, or I'll set them lower than the Baron! Tell them I said so. I'll end by turning nasty, see if I don't! Upon my word, I think evil minds are like a scythe, perpetually cutting back the good.'

At three o'clock, Maître Berthier, Cardot's successor, read the marriage contract, after a short consultation with Crevel, for certain provisions had depended on the attitude adopted by Monsieur and Madame Hulot. Crevel settled on his future wife a fortune comprising, first, an income of forty thousand francs from certain designated securities; secondly, the house and all its contents; thirdly, a capital sum of three million francs. In addition, he made over to his future wife, by deed of gift, all that the law allowed; the money left to her was left unconditionally, and tax paid; and if the parties should die without issue, each made the other residuary legatee of all property, estates, and possessions. This contract reduced Crevel's fortune to a capital of two millions. If he had children by his new wife, Célestine's share was to be reduced to five hundred thousand francs, and Valérie would have a life interest in the remainder. This was about a ninth part of his entire fortune.

Lisbeth returned to dinner at the rue Louis-le-Grand with despair written on her face. She explained and commented upon the marriage contract, but found both Célestine and Victorin indifferent to the disastrous news.

‘You have set your father against you, my dears. Madame Marneffe has sworn that you shall receive Monsieur Crevel's wife, and call on her,' she said.

‘Never!' said Hulot.

‘Never!' said Célestine.

‘Never!' exclaimed Hortense.

The urge to take the proud Hulots down a peg got the better of Lisbeth.

‘She appears to hold a weapon against you!' she answered. ‘I don't yet know exactly what it is, but I'll find out.… She spoke vaguely of some story of two hundred thousand francs that concerns Adeline.'

The Baroness slid gently down on the divan where she was sitting, and was seized with appalling convulsions.

‘Go there, children!' she shrieked. ‘Receive that woman! Monsieur Crevel is abominable! No torture would be too vile.… Do what that woman wants.… Oh, he's a monster!
She knows everything
!'

After these words, uttered with tears and sobs, Madame Hulot had just sufficient strength to go up to her room, supported by her daughter and Célestine.

‘What's the meaning of all this?' exclaimed Lisbeth, left alone with Victorin.

The lawyer, standing nailed to the spot in understandable stupefaction, did not appear to hear her.

‘What is it, dear Victorin?'

‘I am appalled!' said the lawyer, with a dark and lowering face. ‘Let whoever threatens my mother beware! I have done with scruples! If I had the power, I would crush that woman like a viper. Ah! let her dare attack the life and honour of my mother!'

‘She said – don't repeat this, my dear Victorin – she said that she would see you all humbled and brought lower than your father. She sharply reproached Crevel with not having shut your mouths with this secret that seems to terrify Adeline so much.'

A doctor was sent for, as the Baroness's state grew worse. He prescribed a heavy dose of opium, and when she had taken it
Adeline fell deeply asleep; but the minds of the whole family were filled with dire forebodings.

Next day, the barrister left early for the law courts, and on his way called at the police headquarters, where he begged Vautrin, chief of the Sûreté, to send Madame de Saint-Estève to him.

‘We've been forbidden to concern ourselves with your affairs, Monsieur; but Madame de Saint-Estève is a free-lance, she's at your service,' the famous chief replied.

On his return home the unhappy lawyer heard that they feared for his mother's reason. Doctor Bianchon, Doctor Larabit, and Professor Angard, in consultation, had just decided to use drastic measures to draw away the blood flowing into the brain. As Victorin was listening while Doctor Bianchon enumerated the reasons he had to hope that the crisis might pass, although his colleagues were more pessimistic, the man-servant came to announce that the lawyer's client, Madame de Saint-Estève, was below. Victorin left Bianchon in mid-sentence and ran down the stairs like a lunatic.

‘Is there perhaps some contagious source of madness in this house?' said Bianchon, turning to Larabit.

The doctors departed, leaving a young doctor from the hospital, instructed by them, to look after Madame Hulot.

‘A life-time of virtue!' were the only words that the stricken woman had uttered since the catastrophe.

Lisbeth never left Adeline's bedside, sitting up all night with her. She was the admiration of the two younger women.

‘Well, my dear Madame de Saint-Estève!' said the lawyer, showing the horrible old hag into his study and carefully closing the doors. ‘How far have we got?'

‘Well, my dear friend,' she said, regarding Victorin with a coldly ironical eye, ‘so you have considered matters and made your little reflections?‘

‘Have you done anything?'

‘Will you give fifty thousand francs?'

‘Yes,' Hulot answered, ‘for we have to act. Do you know that with one single sentence that woman has endangered my mother's life and reason? So, proceed!'

‘We have proceeded!' replied the old woman.

‘Well?…' said Victorin, with an uncontrollable gesture.

‘Well, you don't stick at the expenses?'

‘Not at all.'

‘Because twenty-three thousand francs has already been spent.'

Hulot stared at Madame de Saint-Estève in amazement.

‘Ha! you are not a simpleton, are you? You, a leading light of the law courts! With that money we've bought a chambermaid's conscience and a picture by Raphael. That's cheap enough.…'

Hulot stood speechless, and could only stare.

‘Well,' the old woman went on, ‘we've bought Mademoiselle Reine Tousard. Madame Marneffe has no secrets from her.'

‘I see.…'

‘But if you're going to be tight-fisted, say so!'

‘I'll pay the money blind, don't worry,' he said. ‘My mother said that these people deserved the worst kind of torture.…'

‘We don't break people on the wheel now,' said the hag.

‘You guarantee success?'

'Leave it to me,' said the beldame. ‘Your vengeance is a brewing.'

She looked at the clock. It was six.

‘Your vengeance is preparing; the furnaces of the Rocher de Cancale are alight; the carriage horses stamp; my irons grow hot. Ah! I know your Madame Marneffe inside out. All is ready, ha! There is poisoned bait in the rat-trap. I'll tell you tomorrow if the mouse is taken. I think she will be! Good-bye, my son.'

‘Good-bye, Madame.'

‘Do you speak English?'

‘Yes,'

‘Have you seen
Macbeth
played in English?'

‘Yes,'

‘Well, my son, thou shalt be King hereafter! That is to say you shall inherit!' said that appalling witch, foreshadowed by Shakespeare, who apparently was acquainted with Shakespeare's works.