Cousin Bette (28 page)

‘Are you talking Greek?' said Madame Marneffe in reply, with a heart-rending expression on her face, of misunderstood love and fidelity.

‘And it's all on your account, my dear cousin; yes, it's your fault that I'm in such a state,' said Lisbeth, with some emphasis.

This accusation distracted the Baron's attention, and he stared at the old maid in complete surprise.

‘You have reason to know my devotion to you,' Lisbeth went on. ‘I am here – I need say no more than that. I wear out my strength and spend what's left of my life, here, watching over your interests by looking after our dear Valérie's. Her housekeeping costs only a tenth of what it would in any other household, run as well as hers. If it were not for me, Cousin, instead of two thousand francs a month, you would be paying out three or four thousand.'

‘I know all that,' replied the Baron impatiently. ‘You shelter and guard us in all sorts of ways,' he added, walking over to Madame Marneffe and taking her by the throat. ‘Doesn't she, my dear little beauty?'

‘Upon my word,' screamed Valérie, ‘I think you're mad!'

‘Well, you can't doubt my attachment,' said Lisbeth; ‘but I also love my Cousin Adeline, and I found her in tears. She hasn't seen you for a month! No, that's not right. You leave poor Adeline without any money. Your daughter Hortense nearly broke her heart when she heard that it was only thanks to your brother that we had a dinner to eat! There wasn't a crust of bread in your house today! Adeline has made up her mind like a heroine to do what she can for herself. She said to me, “I shall do as you have done!” That lay so heavy on my
heart, after dinner, that, thinking of what my cousin was in 1811, and what she is now, thirty years later in 1841, I could not digest my food. I did my best to fight off the attack; but when I got home, I thought I should die.…'

‘You see, Valérie,' said the Baron, ‘what my adoration for you has driven me to!… to crimes against my family.…'

‘Oh, how right I was to remain a spinster!' Lisbeth exclaimed with savage joy. ‘You are a good and fine man; Adeline is an angel – and look at the reward of blind devotion!'

‘An old angel!' said Madame Marneffe softly, casting a half-tender half-laughing look at her Hector, who was contemplating her like an examining magistrate considering the accused.

‘Poor woman!' said the Baron. ‘It's more than nine months since I had any money to give her, and I always find money for you, Valérie, and at such a cost! You will never be loved by anyone as I love you, and what unhappiness you give me in return!'

‘Unhappiness?' she said. ‘What do you call happiness then?'

‘I don't yet know what your relations have been with that alleged cousin, whom you never mentioned to me before,' the Baron went on, paying no attention to Valérie's exclamation; ‘but when he came in, it was like a knife-stab in my heart. I may be hoodwinked, but I am not blind. I read your eyes and his. Sparks flew from that gorilla's eyes, and you, your look… Oh! you have never looked at me like that, no, never! As for this mystery, Valérie, it must be cleared up. You are the only woman who has ever made me know jealousy, so you need not be surprised that I speak to you like this.… But there's another mystery, another cat has jumped out of the bag, and it seems disgraceful to me.'

‘Well, well,' said Valérie.

‘And it is that Crevel, the great gross idiotic lump, loves you, and you receive his gallantries so kindly that the fool displays his passion to the whole world.'

‘So that makes three! You can't find any more?' inquired Madame Marneffe.

‘There may be more!' said the Baron.

‘If Monsieur Crevel loves me, he's within his rights as a man. If I looked kindly on his passion, it would be the act of a coquette, or of a woman who had many shortcomings to forgive you.… Very well, love me as I am, or leave me. If you let me go, neither you nor Monsieur Crevel shall ever return here. I will take my cousin; since you accuse me of such charming habits I must do something to deserve my reputation. Good-bye, Monsieur le Baron Hulot.'

And she rose, but the Councillor of State seized her arm and forced her to sit down. The old man could never again replace Valérie; she had become more imperatively necessary to him than the necessaries of life, and he would rather remain in uncertainty than be given the faintest shadow of proof of Valérie's infidelity.

‘My dear Valérie,' he said, ‘do you not see how I am suffering? I am only asking you to tell me why… Give me some explanation…'

‘Well, go downstairs and wait for me there, for you don't want to stay and watch the treatment I have to give your cousin, I suppose.'

Hulot walked slowly to the door.

‘Old debauchee!' cried Cousin Bette. ‘You don't even ask for news of your children! What are you going to do about Adeline? What I'll do, for a start, is take her my savings tomorrow.'

‘A man owes his wife at least wheaten bread,' said Madame Marneffe, with a smile.

The Baron took no offence at Lisbeth's aggressive tone, although she was sending him about his business as roughly as Josépha had done, and slipped away like a man glad to evade an inconvenient question.

Once the door was bolted, the Brazilian appeared from the dressing-room where he had been waiting, his eyes full of tears, in a pitiable state. Montès had clearly overheard everything.

‘You don't love me any more, Henri, I can see,' said Madame Marneffe, hiding her face in her handkerchief and dissolving in tears.

It was a cry of real love. A woman's outburst of despair melts a lover's heart, and the forgiveness that he is secretly eager to give her is easily yielded, especially when the woman is young, beautiful, and wearing a dress so low cut that she could rise from the top of it in the costume of Eve.

‘But if you love me, why don't you leave everything for me?' the Brazilian demanded.

This son of America, logical like all children of nature, immediately took up the conversation at the point where he had left it, and seized possession again of Valérie's waist.

‘Why?' she said, raising her head and looking at Henri, her gaze so full of love that he was silent. ‘Because, my darling, I am married; because we're in Paris and not in the savannahs, or the pampas, or the wide, open spaces of America! Henri, my sweet, my first and only love, you must listen to me. This husband of mine, an ordinary under clerk at the War Office, is determined to be head clerk and an Officer of the Legion of Honour. Can I help his being ambitious? And so, for the same reason that he used to leave us entirely free (nearly four years ago, do you remember, wretch?…), Marneffe forces Baron Hulot on me now. I can't get rid of that frightful chief of his, who puffs like a grampus and has whiskers in his nostrils, and is sixty-three years old, and has aged ten in the last three years in his attempt to keep young. I detest him so much that when the day dawns that sees Marneffe head clerk and an Officer of the Legion of Honour…'

‘How much more will your husband be paid then?'

‘A thousand crowns.'

‘I will pay him that, as an annuity,' said Montès. ‘Let's leave Paris and go…'

‘Where?' said Valérie, pulling one of those charming pouting faces with which women challenge men of whom they are sure. ‘You know we could only be happy in Paris. I care too much for your love to want to watch it fade away when we found ourselves alone in a desert. Listen, Henri; you are the only man in the whole universe who means anything to me. Get that into your tiger's skull!'

Women always persuade men that they are lions, with a will of iron, when they are making sheep of them.

‘Now, listen to me! Marneffe has not five years to live. There is disease in the very marrow of his bones. Of the twelve months of the year, he spends seven drinking medicine and herb infusions; he lives wrapped in flannel. In fact, as the doctor says, he's ripe for the scythe at any moment. An illness that would be trifling to a healthy man will be mortal to him. His blood is infected, his life attacked at its source. In the past five years I have not let him kiss me once, for the man is pestilence! One day, and the day is not far distant, I shall be a widow. Well then, I declare to you – and I have already had a proposal from a man with sixty thousand francs a year, and I hold him in the hollow of my hand like this lump of sugar – I swear that if you were as poor as Hulot, as leprous as Marneffe, and beat me as well, you are the man I would choose for my husband; you are the only man I love, whose name I want to bear. And I am ready to give you any pledge of love you ask.'

‘Well then, tonight…'

‘But, dear child of Rio, my handsome jaguar come from the virgin forests of Brazil in search of me,' she said, taking his hand, kissing it, and caressing it, ‘have a little mercy on the creature you want to make your wife.… Shall I be your wife, Henri?'

‘Yes,' said the Brazilian, overwhelmed by her frank declaration of passion. And he fell on his knees.

‘Listen, Henri,' said Valérie, taking both his hands and looking steadily into the depths of his eyes; ‘do you swear to me here, in the presence of Lisbeth, my best and only friend, my sister, to take me for your wife at the end of my year of widowhood?'

‘I swear it.'

‘That's not enough! Swear by your mother's ashes and her eternal salvation; swear it by the Virgin and your hopes as a Catholic!'

Valérie knew that the Brazilian would keep that oath, no matter into what social mire she should have fallen. The Brazilian took the solemn oath, his face almost touching Valérie's white bosom, and his eyes held fascinated. He was as intoxicated as a man may be, seeing the woman he loves, once more, after a four-months' voyage!

‘Well, now you can be quite calm and happy. You must treat Madame Marneffe with the respect that's due to the future Baroness de Montejanos! Don't spend a farthing on me, I forbid you to. Wait here, in this room; you can rest on the sofa. I'll come myself and tell you when you can leave. Tomorrow we'll have lunch together, and you can depart about one o'clock, as if you had come to pay me a visit at twelve. Don't worry about anything; the porters are as devoted to me as if I were their daughter. And now I must go down to my own apartment to serve tea.'

She beckoned to Lisbeth, who went with her as far as the landing. There Valérie whispered in the old maid's ear:

‘This blackamoor has come back a little too soon! I'll die if I can't help you to your revenge on Hortense!'

‘Don't worry, my dear kind little demon,' said the old maid, kissing her on the forehead. ‘Love and vengeance, hunting together, will always strike down their prey. Hortense expects me tomorrow; she is in distress. Wenceslas needs a thousand francs and is ready to give you a thousand kisses for them.'

When he left Valérie, Hulot had gone down to the porters' lodge, taking Madame Olivier by surprise.

‘Madame Olivier!'

At this imperious call, noting the beckoning gesture with which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier left her lodge and followed the Baron to the court.

‘You know that if anyone can help your son to acquire a practice some day, I can. It's thanks to me that he is now third clerk in a solicitor's office and reading for the law.'

‘Yes, Monsieur le Baron. And Monsieur le Baron can count on our gratitude. There's not a day passes but what I don't pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness.'

‘Not so many words, my good woman,' said Hulot. ‘Deeds!'

‘What I am to do?' asked Madame Olivier.

‘A man came here tonight in a carriage. Do you know him?'

Madame Olivier had of course recognized Montès. How should she have forgotten him? In the rue du Doyenné house, Montès had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand
whenever he left a little too early in the morning. If the Baron had addressed himself to Monsieur Olivier, he might perhaps have learned the whole story. But Olivier was asleep. Among the lower classes, a man's wife is not only superior to the man, she is usually the dominant partner as well. Madame Olivier had long before made up her mind which side she should support if her two benefactors should come into collision; and she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power.

‘Do I know him?' she replied. ‘No, indeed. No, I've never seen him before!'

‘What! Madame Marneffe's cousin never came to see her when she lived in the rue du Doyenné?'

‘Ah! Was that her cousin?' exclaimed Madame Olivier. ‘He did come perhaps, but I didn't recognize him. The very next time he comes, Monsieur, I'll take a good look at him.'

‘He'll be coming down,' said Hulot sharply, cutting her short.

‘But he has gone,' replied Madame Olivier, understanding the situation now. ‘His carriage has left.…'

‘Did you see him go?'

‘As plain as I see you. He said to his man “To the Embassy!” he said.'

Her tone of conviction, the assurance she gave, drew a sigh of relief from the Baron. He took Madame Olivier's hand and pressed it.

‘Thank you, my dear Madame Olivier; but there's another thing.… What about Monsieur Crevel?'

‘Monsieur Crevel? What do you mean? I don't understand,' said Madame Olivier.

‘Listen to me! He's in love with Madame Marneffe.…'

‘That's not possible, Monsieur le Baron! Not possible at all!' she said, clasping her hands.

‘He's in love with Madame Marneffe!' repeated the Baron emphatically. ‘What's going on, I don't know; but I mean to know, and you must find out. If you can help me unravel this intrigue, your son shall be a solicitor.'

‘Monsieur le Baron, don't you fret and worry yourself like this,' said Madame Olivier. ‘Madame loves you and nobody
else; and well enough her maid knows it. We say to each other sometimes, just like that, that you're surely the luckiest man alive, because you know what Madame is… Ah! just perfection.… She gets up at ten o'clock every day; and then she has lunch; well. Then there's an hour it takes her to get dressed, and all that brings her to two o'clock. And then she goes to walk about in the Tuileries, in sight and nod of everyone, and is always back at four o'clock for when you come. Oh! she's that regular, she's like a clock. She has no secrets from her maid, and Reine has none from me. Well, naturally not. Reine couldn't have on account of my son, that she's a fancy for.… So you see very well if Madame had anything to do with Monsieur Crevel we couldn't not know about it.'