On the following Sunday Monsieur Rochefontaine was elected deputy; and Hourdequin having sent in his resignation to the prefect, to avoid being dismissed, Macqueron at last became mayor, and almost burst through the skin in his insolent triumph.
[CHAPTER VI.]
The week passed away, and Françoise still persisted in her refusal to return to her sister's house. There was a terrible scene one day on the road. Buteau, who was dragging the girl away by the hair, was obliged to let go on having his thumb severely bitten. Macqueron then became so alarmed that he turned the girl out of his house, saying that as he was the representative of the law he could not encourage her in her rebellion.
La Grande happened to be passing at the time, and she took Françoise home with her. The old woman was now eighty-eight years of age, but she never thought about dying except as a means of bequeathing to her heirs the worry of endless litigation in reference to her fortune. She had made an extraordinarily complicated will, mixing everything up with absolute delight; and, under the pretext of wronging no one, she had left such directions as would compel the heirs to devour one another. She had done this quite deliberately, feeling a satisfaction in the thought that although she could not take her property with her to the grave, she would at any rate go off with the consolation of having done her very best to set all her relations by the ears. Nothing gave her more pleasure than to see them quarrelling with one another, and this it was that prompted her to take her niece into her own house. Her natural stinginess made her hesitate just for a moment, but she came to a decision at the thought that she would get a large amount of work out of the girl in return for a small amount of food. That very evening, in fact, she made her wash the whole house. When Buteau made his appearance, she stood up and confronted him with her wicked-looking old nose which resembled the beak of some aged bird of prey; and he who had talked of smashing everything at the Macquerons' here began to tremble and stammer, too much paralyzed by the fear of losing his share of La Grande's property to dare to engage in a struggle with her.
"I want Françoise here," she said, "and I mean to keep her, since she is not comfortable with you. Besides, she is of age now, and you have certain accounts to render her. We shall have to talk about them."
Buteau went off in a furious frame of mind, alarmed at the trouble and annoyance which he realised were in store for him.
Just a week afterwards, indeed, about the middle of August, Françoise at last came of age. She was now her own mistress. By her change of residence, however, she had done little more than change her troubles, for she, also, trembled before her aunt, and was nearly killed by over-work in this cold, parsimoniously-managed house, where everything had to be made shiny without any expenditure upon soap or brushes. Cold water and elbow-grease had to suffice for everything. One day the girl almost got her head cut open by a blow from her aunt's stick, merely for forgetting herself so far as to give the fowls some grain.
Several of the neighbours said that, in her anxiety to spare her horse, La Grande harnessed her grandson Hilarion to the plough; and, even if that was an exaggeration, there was no doubt but that she did treat the lad like a beast of burden, beating him and almost killing him with work, abusing of his great strength to such a degree that he sank down quite worn out with exhaustion, and feeding him so miserably, with mere crusts and leavings, just as though he were a pig, that he was always on the verge of starvation, as well as being stupefied with fear. When Françoise discovered that she was meant to make up the second horse in the pair, her one thought was of how she might get away from the house; and then it was that she suddenly determined to marry.