“Oh! if he chooses to apply his perverted powers to making his fortune, I have no doubt he will succeed: he is capable of everything; and such fellows go fast and far,” said Desroches.
“Why do you suppose that he will not succeed by honest means?” demanded Madame Bridau.
“You will see!” exclaimed Desroches. “Fortunate or unfortunate, Philippe will remain the man of the rue Mazarin, the murderer of Madame Descoings, the domestic thief. But don’t worry yourself; he will manage to appear honest to the world.”
After breakfast, on the morning succeeding the marriage, Philippe took Madame Rouget by the arm when his uncle rose from table and went upstairs to dress,—for the pair had come down, the one in her morning-robe, and the other in his dressing-gown.
“My dear aunt,” said the colonel, leading her into the recess of a window, “you now belong to the family. Thanks to me, the law has tied the knot. Now, no nonsense. I intend that you and I should play above board. I know the tricks you will try against me; and I shall watch you like a duenna. You will never go out of this house except on my arm; and you will never leave me. As to what passes within the house, damn it, you’ll find me like a spider in the middle of his web. Here is something,” he continued, showing the bewildered woman a letter, “which will prove to you that I could, while you were lying ill upstairs, unable to move hand or foot, have turned you out of doors without a penny. Read it.”
He gave her the letter.
My dear Fellow,—Florentine, who has just made her debut at the
new Opera House in a “pas de trois” with Mariette and Tullia, is
thinking steadily about your affair, and so is Florine,—who has
finally given up Lousteau and taken Nathan. That shrewd pair have
found you a most delicious little creature,—only seventeen,
beautiful as an English woman, demure as a “lady,” up to all
mischief, sly as Desroches, faithful as Godeschal. Mariette is
forming her, so as to give you a fair chance. No woman could hold
her own against this little angel, who is a devil under her skin;
she can play any part you please; get complete possession of your
uncle, or drive him crazy with love. She has that celestial look
poor Coralie used to have; she can weep,—the tones of her voice
will draw a thousand-franc note from a granite heart; and the
young mischief soaks up champagne better than any of us. It is a
precious discovery; she is under obligations to Mariette, and
wants to pay them off. After squandering the fortunes of two
Englishmen, a Russian, and an Italian prince, Mademoiselle Esther
is now in poverty; give her ten thousand francs, that will satisfy
her. She has just remarked, laughing, that she has never yet
fricasseed a bourgeois, and it will get her hand in. Esther is
well known to Finot, Bixiou, and des Lupeaulx, in fact to all our
set. Ah! if there were any real fortunes left in France, she would
be the greatest courtesan of modern times.
All the editorial staff, Nathan, Finot, Bixiou, etc., are now
joking the aforesaid Esther in a magnificent appartement just
arranged for Florine by old Lord Dudley (the real father of de
Marsay); the lively actress captured him by the dress of her new
role. Tullia is with the Duc de Rhetore, Mariette is still with
the Duc de Maufrigneuse; between them, they will get your sentence
remitted in time for the King’s fete. Bury your uncle under the
roses before the Saint-Louis, bring away the property, and spend a
little of it with Esther and your old friends, who sign this
epistle in a body, to remind you of them.
Nathan, Florine, Bixiou, Finot, Mariette,
Florentine, Giroudeau, Tullia
The letter shook in the trembling hands of Madame Rouget, and betrayed the terror of her mind and body. The aunt dared not look at the nephew, who fixed his eyes upon her with terrible meaning.
“I trust you,” he said, “as you see; but I expect some return. I have made you my aunt intending to marry you some day. You are worth more to me than Esther in managing my uncle. In a year from now, we must be in Paris; the only place where beauty really lives. You will amuse yourself much better there than here; it is a perpetual carnival. I shall return to the army, and become a general, and you will be a great lady. There’s our future; now work for it. But I must have a pledge to bind this agreement. You are to give me, within a month from now, a power of attorney from my uncle, which you must obtain under pretence of relieving him of the fatigues of business. Also, a month later, I must have a special power of attorney to transfer the income in the Funds. When that stands in my name, you and I have an equal interest in marrying each other. There it all is, my beautiful aunt, as plain as day. Between you and me there must be no ambiguity. I can marry my aunt at the end of a year’s widowhood; but I could not marry a disgraced girl.”
He left the room without waiting for an answer. When Vedie came in, fifteen minutes later, to clear the table, she found her mistress pale and moist with perspiration, in spite of the season. Flore felt like a woman who had fallen to the bottom of a precipice; the future loomed black before her; and on its blackness, in the far distance, were shapes of monstrous things, indistinctly perceptible, and terrifying. She felt the damp chill of vaults, instinctive fear of the man crushed her; and yet a voice cried in her ear that she deserved to have him for her master. She was helpless against her fate. Flore Brazier had had a room of her own in Rouget’s house; but Madame Rouget belonged to her husband, and was now deprived of the free-will of a servant-mistress. In the horrible situation in which she now found herself, the hope of having a child came into her mind; but she soon recognized its impossibility. The marriage was to Jean-Jacques what the second marriage of Louis XII. was to that king. The incessant watchfulness of a man like Philippe, who had nothing to do and never quitted his post of observation, made any form of vengeance impossible. Benjamin was his innocent and devoted spy. The Vedie trembled before him. Flore felt herself deserted and utterly helpless. She began to fear death. Without knowing how Philippe might manage to kill her, she felt certain that whenever he suspected her of pregnancy her doom would be sealed. The sound of that voice, the veiled glitter of that gambler’s eye, the slightest movement of the soldier, who treated her with a brutality that was still polite, made her shudder. As to the power of attorney demanded by the ferocious colonel, who in the eyes of all Issoudun was a hero, he had it as soon as he wanted it; for Flore fell under the man’s dominion as France had fallen under that of Napoleon.