“Upon my word, madame, he might pull through, especially with so conscientious a doctor as Poulain in attendance; for this friend of mine, madame, is simply an unconscious spy directed by me in your interests. Left to himself, he would save the old man’s life; but there is some one else by the sickbed, a portress, who would push him into the grave for thirty thousand francs. Not that she would kill him outright; she will not give him arsenic, she is not so merciful; she will do worse, she will kill him by inches; she will worry him to death day by day. If the poor old man were kept quiet and left in peace; if he were taken into the country and cared for and made much of by friends, he would get well again; but he is harassed by a sort of Mme. Evrard. When the woman was young she was one of thirty Belles Ecailleres, famous in Paris, she is a rough, greedy, gossiping woman; she torments him to make a will and to leave her something handsome, and the end of it will be induration of the liver, calculi are possibly forming at this moment, and he has not enough strength to bear an operation. The doctor, noble soul, is in a horrible predicament. He really ought to send the woman away—”
“Why, then, this vixen is a monster!” cried the lady in thin flute-like tones.
Fraisier smiled inwardly at the likeness between himself and the terrible Presidente; he knew all about those suave modulations of a naturally sharp voice. He thought of another president, the hero of an anecdote related by Louis XI., stamped by that monarch’s final praise. Blessed with a wife after the pattern of Socrates’ spouse, and ungifted with the sage’s philosophy, he mingled salt with the corn in the mangers and forbad the grooms to give water to the horses. As his wife rode along the Seine towards their country-house, the animals bolted into the river with the lady, and the magistrate returned thanks to Providence for ridding him of his wife “in so natural a manner.” At this present moment Mme. de Marville thanked Heaven for placing at Pons’ bedside a woman so likely to get him “decently” out of the way.
Aloud she said, “I would not take a million at the price of a single scruple.—Your friend ought to speak to M. Pons and have the woman sent away.”
“In the first place, madame, Messrs. Schmucke and Pons think the woman an angel; they would send my friend away. And secondly, the doctor lies under an obligation to this horrid oyster-woman; she called him in to attend M. Pillerault. When he tells her to be as gentle as possible with the patient, he simply shows the creature how to make matters worse.”
“What does your friend think of my cousin’s condition?”
This man’s clear, business-like way of putting the facts of the case frightened Mme. de Marville; she felt that his keen gaze read the thoughts of a heart as greedy as La Cibot’s own.
“In six weeks the property will change hands.”
The Presidente dropped her eyes.
“Poor man!” she sighed, vainly striving after a dolorous expression.