Part 45 (1/2)
”Lisbeth,” said the Baroness, ”I must find out what is wrong with Hector; I never saw him in such a state. Stay a day or two longer with that woman; he tells her everything, and we can then learn what has so suddenly upset him. Be quite easy; we will arrange your marriage to the Marshal, for it is really necessary.”
”I shall never forget the courage you have shown this morning,” said Hortense, embracing Lisbeth.
”You have avenged our poor mother,” said Victorin.
The Marshal looked on with curiosity at all the display of affection lavished on Lisbeth, who went off to report the scene to Valerie.
This sketch will enable guileless souls to understand what various mischief Madame Marneffes may do in a family, and the means by which they reach poor virtuous wives apparently so far out of their ken. And then, if we only transfer, in fancy, such doings to the upper cla.s.s of society about a throne, and if we consider what kings' mistresses must have cost them, we may estimate the debt owed by a nation to a sovereign who sets the example of a decent and domestic life.
In Paris each ministry is a little town by itself, whence women are banished; but there is just as much detraction and scandal as though the feminine population were admitted there. At the end of three years, Monsieur Marneffe's position was perfectly clear and open to the day, and in every room one and another asked, ”Is Marneffe to be, or not to be, Coquet's successor?” Exactly as the question might have been put to the Chamber, ”Will the estimates pa.s.s or not pa.s.s?” The smallest initiative on the part of the board of Management was commented on; everything in Baron Hulot's department was carefully noted. The astute State Councillor had enlisted on his side the victim of Marneffe's promotion, a hard-working clerk, telling him that if he could fill Marneffe's place, he would certainly succeed to it; he had told him that the man was dying. So this clerk was scheming for Marneffe's advancement.
When Hulot went through his anteroom, full of visitors, he saw Marneffe's colorless face in a corner, and sent for him before any one else.
”What do you want of me, my dear fellow?” said the Baron, disguising his anxiety.
”Monsieur le Directeur, I am the laughing-stock of the office, for it has become known that the chief of the clerks has left this morning for a holiday, on the ground of his health. He is to be away a month. Now, we all know what waiting for a month means. You deliver me over to the mockery of my enemies, and it is bad enough to be drummed upon one side; drumming on both at once, monsieur, is apt to burst the drum.”
”My dear Marneffe, it takes long patience to gain an end. You cannot be made head-clerk in less than two months, if ever. Just when I must, as far as possible, secure my own position, is not the time to be applying for your promotion, which would raise a scandal.”
”If you are broke, I shall never get it,” said Marneffe coolly. ”And if you get me the place, it will make no difference in the end.”
”Then I am to sacrifice myself for you?” said the Baron.
”If you do not, I shall be much mistaken in you.”
”You are too exclusively Marneffe, Monsieur Marneffe,” said Hulot, rising and showing the clerk the door.
”I have the honor to wish you good-morning, Monsieur le Baron,” said Marneffe humbly.
”What an infamous rascal!” thought the Baron. ”This is uncommonly like a summons to pay within twenty-four hours on pain of distraint.”
Two hours later, just when the Baron had been instructing Claude Vignon, whom he was sending to the Ministry of Justice to obtain information as to the judicial authorities under whose jurisdiction Johann Fischer might fall, Reine opened the door of his private room and gave him a note, saying she would wait for the answer.
”Valerie is mad!” said the Baron to himself. ”To send Reine! It is enough to compromise us all, and it certainly compromises that dreadful Marneffe's chances of promotion!”
But he dismissed the minister's private secretary, and read as follows:--
”Oh, my dear friend, what a scene I have had to endure! Though you have made me happy for three years, I have paid dearly for it! He came in from the office in a rage that made me quake. I knew he was ugly; I have seen him a monster! His four real teeth chattered, and he threatened me with his odious presence without respite if I should continue to receive you. My poor, dear old boy, our door is closed against you henceforth. You see my tears; they are dropping on the paper and soaking it; can you read what I write, dear Hector? Oh, to think of never seeing you, of giving you up when I bear in me some of your life, as I flatter myself I have your heart--it is enough to kill me. Think of our little Hector!
”Do not forsake me, but do not disgrace yourself for Marneffe's sake; do not yield to his threats.
”I love you as I have never loved! I remember all the sacrifices you have made for your Valerie; she is not, and never will be, ungrateful; you are, and will ever be, my only husband. Think no more of the twelve hundred francs a year I asked you to settle on the dear little Hector who is to come some months hence; I will not cost you anything more. And besides, my money will always be yours.
”Oh, if you only loved me as I love you, my Hector, you would retire on your pension; we should both take leave of our family, our worries, our surroundings, so full of hatred, and we should go to live with Lisbeth in some pretty country place--in Brittany, or wherever you like. There we should see n.o.body, and we should be happy away from the world. Your pension and the little property I can call my own would be enough for us. You say you are jealous; well, you would then have your Valerie entirely devoted to her Hector, and you would never have to talk in a loud voice, as you did the other day. I shall have but one child--ours--you may be sure, my dearly loved old veteran.
”You cannot conceive of my fury, for you cannot know how he treated me, and the foul words he vomited on your Valerie. Such words would disgrace my paper; a woman such as I am--Montcornet's daughter--ought never to have heard one of them in her life. I only wish you had been there, that I might have punished him with the sight of the mad pa.s.sion I felt for you. My father would have killed the wretch; I can only do as women do--love you devotedly!
Indeed, my love, in the state of exasperation in which I am, I cannot possibly give up seeing you. I must positively see you, in secret, every day! That is what we are, we women. Your resentment is mine. If you love me, I implore you, do not let him be promoted; leave him to die a second-cla.s.s clerk.
”At this moment I have lost my head; I still seem to hear him abusing me. Betty, who had meant to leave me, has pity on me, and will stay for a few days.