The little Baroness de Grangerie had thrown the book which she was reading on the sofa, and looked at Annette curiously. She was already laughing herself, and at last she asked:
"What have you been doing now?" "Oh! ... my dear!... my dear! it is too funny ... too funny.... Just fancy ... I am saved!... saved!...
saved!"... "How do you mean, saved!" "Yes, saved!" "From what?" "From my husband, my dear, saved! Delivered! free! free! free!" "How free? in what?" "In what? Divorce! Yes, a divorce! I have my divorce!" "You are divorced?" "No, not yet; how stupid you are! One does not get divorced in three hours! But I have my proofs that he has deceived me ... caught in the very act ... just think!... in the very act.... I have got him tight...." "Oh! do tell me all about it! So he deceived you?" "Yes, that is to say no ... yes and no ... I do not know. At any rate, I have proofs, and that is the chief thing." "How did you manage it?"
"How did I manage it?... This is how! I have been energetic, very energetic. For the last three months he has been odious, altogether odious, brutal, coa.r.s.e, a despot, in one word, vile. So I said to myself: This cannot last, I must have a divorce! But how? for it is not very easy? I tried to make him beat me, but he would not. He put me out from morning till night, made me go out when I did not wish to, and to remain at home when I wanted to dine out; he made my life unbearable for me from one week"s end to the other, but he never struck me.
"Then I tried to find out whether he had a mistress. Yes, he had one, but he took a thousand precautions in going to see her, and they could never be caught together. Guess what I did then?" "I cannot guess." "Oh!
you could never guess. I asked my brother to procure me a photograph of the creature." "Of your husband"s mistress?" "Yes. It cost Jacques fifteen louis, the price of an evening, from seven o"clock until midnight, including a dinner, at three louis an hour, and he obtained the photograph into the bargain." "It appears to me that he might have obtained it anyhow by means of some artifice and without ... without ...
without being obliged to take the original at the same time." "Oh! she is pretty, and Jacques did not mind the least. And then, I wanted some details about her, physical details about her figure, her breast, her complexion, a thousand things, in fact."
"I do not understand you." "You shall see. When I had learned all that I wanted to know, I went to a ... how shall I put it ... to a man of business ... you know ... one of those men who transact business of all sorts ... agents of ... of ... of publicity and complicity ... one of those men ... well, you understand what I mean." "Pretty nearly, I think. And what did you say to him?" "I said to him, showing the photograph of Clarisse (her name is Clarisse): "Monsieur, I want a lady"s maid who resembles this photograph. I require one who is pretty, elegant, neat and sharp. I will pay her whatever is necessary, and if it costs me ten thousand francs so much the worse. I shall not require her for more than three months.""
"The man looked extremely astonished, and said: "Do you require a maid of an irreproachable character, Madame?" I blushed, and stammered. "Yes, of course, for honesty." He continued: ... "And ... then ... as regards morals...." I did not venture to reply, so I only made a sign with my head, which signified: _no_. Then suddenly, I comprehended that he had a horrible suspicion and losing my presence of mind, I exclaimed: "Oh, Monsieur, ... it is for my husband, in order that I may surprise him...."
"Then the man began to laugh, and from his looks I gathered that I had regained his esteem. He even thought I was brave, and I would willingly have made a bet that at that moment he was longing to shake hands with me. However, he said to me: "In a week, Madame, I shall have what you require; I will answer for my success, and you shall not pay me until I have succeeded. So this is a photograph of your husband"s mistress?"
"Yes, Monsieur," "A handsome woman, and not too stout. And what scent?"
"I did not understand, and repeated: "What scent?" He smiled: "Yes, Madame, the perfume is essential to seduce a man, for it unconsciously brings to his mind certain reminiscences which dispose him to action; the perfume creates an obscure confusion in his mind, and disturbs and enervates him by recalling his pleasures to him. You must also try to find out what your husband is in the habit of eating when he dines with his lady, and you might give him the same dishes the day you catch him.
Oh! we have got him, Madame, we have got him."
"I went away delighted, for here I had lighted on a very intelligent man.
"Three days later, I saw a tall, dark girl arrive at my house; she was very handsome and her looks were modest and bold at the same time, the peculiar look of a female rake. She behaved very properly towards me, and as I did not exactly know what she was, I called her _Mademoiselle_, but she said immediately: "Oh! pray, Madame, only call me Rose." And she began to talk.
""Well, Rose, you know why you have come here?" "I can guess it, Madame." "Very good, my girl ... and that will not ... be too much bother for you?" "Oh! madame, this will be the eighth divorce that I shall have caused; I am used to it." "Why, that is capital. Will it take you long to succeed?" "Oh! Madame, that depends entirely on Monsieur"s temperament. When I have seen Monsieur for five minutes alone I shall be able to tell you exactly." "You will see him soon, my child, but I must tell you that he is not handsome." "That does not matter to me, Madame. I have already separated some very ugly ones. But I must ask you, Madame, whether you have discovered his favorite perfume?" "Yes, Rose,--verbena." "So much the better, Madame, for I am also very fond of that scent! Can you also tell me, Madame, whether Monsieur"s mistress wears silk underclothing and nightdresses?" "No, my child, cambric and lace." "Oh! then she is altogether of superior station, for silk underclothing is getting quite common." "What you say is quite true!"
"Well, Madame, I will enter your service." And so, as a matter of fact, she did immediately, and as if she had done nothing else all her life.
"An hour later my husband came home. Rose did not even raise her eyes to him, but he raised his eyes to her. She already smelt strongly of verbena, and in five minutes she left the room, and he immediately asked me: "Who is that girl?" "Why ... my new lady"s maid." "Where did you pick her up?" "Baroness de Grangerie got her for me with the best references." "Ah! she is rather pretty!" "Do you think so?" "Why, yes ... for a lady"s maid."
"I was delighted, for I felt that he was already biting, and that same evening Rose said to me: "I can now promise you that it will not take more than a fortnight. Monsieur is very easily caught!" "Ah! you have tried already?" "No, Madame, he only asked what my name was ... so that he might hear what my voice was like." "Very well, my dear Rose. Get on as quick as you can." "Do not be alarmed, Madame; I shall only resist long enough not to make myself depreciated."
"At the end of a week my husband scarcely ever went out; I saw him roaming about the house the whole afternoon, and what was most significant in the matter was, that he no longer prevented me from going out. And I, I was out of doors nearly the whole day long, ... in order ... in order to leave him at liberty.
"On the ninth day, while Rose was undressing me, she said to me with a timid air: "It happened this morning, Madame." I was rather surprised, or rather overcome even, not at the part itself, but at the way in which she told me, and I stammered out: "And ... and ... it went off well?"
"Oh! yes, very well, Madame. For the last three days he has been pressing me, but I did not wish matters to proceed too quickly. You will tell me when you want us to be caught, Madame." "Yes, certainly.
Here!... let us say Thursday." "Very well, Madame, I shall grant nothing more until then, so as to keep Monsieur on the alert." "You are sure not to fail?" "Oh! quite sure, Madame. I will excite him, so as to make him be there at the very moment which you may appoint." "Let us say five o"clock, then." "Very well, Madame, and where?" "Well ... in my bedroom." "Very good, Madame, in your bedroom."
"You will understand what I did then, my dear. I went and fetched Mamma and Papa first of all, and then my uncle d"Orvelin, the President, and Monsieur Raplet, the Judge, my husband"s friend. I had not told them what I was going to show them, but I made them all go on tiptoe as far as the door of my room. I waited until five o"clock exactly, and oh! how my heart beat! I had made the porter come upstairs as well, so as to have an additional witness! And then ... and then at the moment when the clock began to strike, I opened the door wide.... Ah! ah! ah! Here he was evidently, ... it was quite evident, my dear.... Oh! what a face!...
if you had only seen his face!... And he turned round, the idiot! Oh!
how funny he looked.... I laughed, I laughed.... And papa was angry and wanted to give my husband a beating.... And the porter, a good servant, helped him to dress himself ... before us ... before us.... He b.u.t.toned his braces for him ... what a joke it was!... As for Rose, she was perfect, absolutely perfect.... She cried ... oh! she cried very well.
She is an invaluable girl.... If you ever want her, don"t forget!
"And here I am.... I came immediately to tell you of the affair ...
directly. I am free. Long live divorce!"
And she began to dance in the middle of the drawing-room, while the little baroness, who was thoughtful and vexed, said:
"Why did you not invite me to see it?"
BELLFLOWER[17]
How strange those old recollections are which haunt us, without our being able to get rid of them!
This one is so very old that I cannot understand how it has clung so vividly and tenaciously to my memory. Since then I have seen so many sinister things, which were either affecting or terrible, that I am astonished at not being able to pa.s.s a single day without the face of Mother Bellflower recurring to my mind"s eye, just as I knew her formerly, now so long ago, when I was ten or twelve years old.
She was an old seamstress, who came to my parents house once a week, every Thursday to mend the linen. My parents lived in one of those country houses called _chateaux_, and which are merely old houses with pointed roofs, which are surrounded by three or four farms.
The village, a large village, almost a small market town, was a few hundred yards off, and lay closely round the church, a red brick church, which had become black with age.
Well, every Thursday Mother Bellflower came between half-past six and seven in the morning, and went immediately into the linen-room and began to work. She was a tall, thin, bearded or rather hairy woman, for she had a beard all over her face, a surprising, an unexpected beard, growing in tufts, in curly bunches, which looked as if they had been sown by a madman over that great face of a gendarme in petticoats. She had them on her nose, under her nose, round her nose, on her chin, on her cheeks; and her eyebrows, which were extraordinarily thick and long, and quite gray, bushy and bristling, looked exactly like a pair of moustaches stuck on there by mistake.
She limped, but not like lame people generally do, but like a ship at anchor. When she planted her great, bony, swerving body on her sound leg, she seemed to be preparing to mount some enormous wave, and then suddenly she dipped as if to disappear in an abyss, and buried herself in the ground. Her walk reminded one of a storm, as she balanced herself at the same time, and her head, which was always covered with an enormous white cap, whose ribbons fluttered down her back, seemed to traverse the horizon from North to South and from South to North, at each of her movements.
I adored Mother Bellflower. As soon as I was up I went into the linen-room, where I found her installed at work, with a foot-warmer under her feet. As soon as I arrived, she made me take the foot-warmer and sit upon it, so that I might not catch cold in that large, chilly room under the roof.
She told me stories, while mending the linen with her long crooked nimble fingers; her eyes behind her magnifying spectacles, for age had impaired her sight, appeared enormous to me, strangely profound, double.
She had, as far as I can remember, the things which she told me and by which my childish heart was moved, the large heart of a poor woman. She told me what had happened in the village, how a cow had escaped from the cowhouse and had been found the next morning in front of Prosper Malet"s mill, looking at the sails turning, or about a hen"s egg, which had been found in the church belfry without anyone being able to understand what creature had been there to lay it, or the story of Jean-Jean Pila"s dog, who had been ten leagues to bring back his master"s breeches, which a tramp had stolen while they were hanging up to dry out of doors, after he had been in the rain. She told me these simple adventures in such a manner, that in my mind they a.s.sumed the proportions of never-to-be-forgotten dramas, of grand and mysterious poems; and the ingenious stories invented by the poets which my mother told me in the evening had none of the flavor, none of the fullness nor of the vigor of the peasant woman"s narratives.
Well, one Thursday, when I had spent all the morning in listening to Mother Clochette, I wanted to go up stairs to her again during the day after picking hazelnuts with the manservant in the wood behind the farm.
I remember it all as clearly as what happened only yesterday.
On opening the door of the linen-room, I saw the old seamstress lying on the ground by the side of her chair, with her face to the ground and her arms stretched out, but still holding her needle in one hand and one of my shirts in the other. One of her legs in a blue stocking, the longer one, no doubt, was extended under her chair, and her spectacles glistened against the wall, as they had rolled away from her.
I ran away uttering shrill cries. They all came running, and in a few minutes I was told that Mother Clochette was dead.
I cannot describe the profound, poignant, terrible emotion which stirred my childish heart. I went slowly down into the drawing-room and went and hid myself in a dark corner, in the depths of a great, old armchair, where I knelt and wept. I remained there for a long time no doubt, for night came on. Suddenly somebody came in with a lamp, without seeing me, however, and I heard my father and mother talking with the medical man, whose voice I recognized.
He had been sent for immediately, and he was explaining the causes of the accident, of which I understood nothing, however. Then he sat down and had a gla.s.s of liquor and biscuit.
He went on talking, and what he then said will remain engraved on my mind until I die! I think that I can give the exact words which he used.
"Ah!" said he, "the poor woman! She broke her leg the day of my arrival here, and I had only not even had time to wash my hands after getting off the diligence before I was sent for in all haste, for it was a bad case, very bad.
"She was seventeen, and a pretty girl, very pretty! Would any one believe it? I have never told her story before, and n.o.body except myself and one other person, who is no longer living in this part of the country, ever knew it. Now that she is dead, I may be less discreet.
"Just then a young a.s.sistant teacher came to live in the village; he was good-looking and had the bearing of a sub-officer. All the girls ran after him, and he acted the disdainful, and besides that, he was very much afraid of his superior, the schoolmaster, old Grabu, who occasionally got out of bed the wrong foot first.
"Old Grabu already employed pretty Hortense, who has just died here, and who was afterwards nicknamed Clochette. The a.s.sistant master singled out the pretty young girl, who was no doubt flattered at being chosen by this impregnable conqueror; at any rate, she fell in love with him, and he succeeded in persuading her to give him a first meeting in the hay-loft behind the school, at night, after she had done her day"s sewing.
"She pretended to go home, but instead of going downstairs when she left the Grabu"s, she went upstairs and hid among the hay, to wait for her lover. He soon joined her, and he was beginning to say pretty things to her, when the door of the hay-loft opened and the schoolmaster appeared, and asked: "What are you doing up there, Sigisbert?" Feeling sure that he would be caught, the young schoolmaster lost his presence of mind and replied stupidly: "I came up here to rest a little among the bundles of hay, Monsieur Grabu."
"The loft was very large and absolutely dark, and Sigisbert pushed the frightened girl to the further end and said: "Go there and hide yourself. I shall lose my situation, so get away and hide yourself."