The Lesser Bourgeoisie

“With your insolent wife, who has made me a scene; I am trembling all over.”

“Celeste make you a scene!” said Thuillier; “then it is the very first time in her life.”

“There’s a beginning to everything, and if you don’t bring her to order – ”

“But what was it about – this scene?”

“About madame’s not choosing that la Peyrade should marry her goddaughter; and out of spite, to prevent the marriage, she refused to give anything in the contract.”

“Come, be calm,” said Thuillier, not disturbed himself, the admission of the “Echo” into the polemic making another Pangloss of him. “I’ll settle all that.”

“You, Flavie,” said Brigitte, when Thuillier had departed to his wife, “you will do me the pleasure to go down to your own apartment, and tell Mademoiselle Celeste that I don’t choose to see her now, because if she made me any irritating answer I might box her ears. You’ll tell her that I don’t like conspiracies; that she was left at liberty to choose Monsieur Phellion junior if she wanted him, and she did not want him; that the matter is now all arranged, and that if she does not wish to see her ‘dot’ reduced to what you are able to give her, which isn’t as much as a bank-messenger could carry in his waistcoat pocket – ”

“But, my dear Brigitte,” interrupted Flavie, turning upon her at this impertinence, “you may dispense with reminding us in this harsh way of our poverty; for, after all, we have never asked you for anything, and we pay our rent punctually; and as for the ‘dot,’ Monsieur Felix Phellion is quite ready to take Celeste with no more than a bank-messenger could carry in his bag.”

And she emphasized the last word by her way of pronouncing it.

“Ha! so you too are going to meddle in this, are you?” cried Brigitte. “Very good; go and fetch him, your Felix. I know, my little woman, that this marriage has never suited you; it IS disagreeable to be nothing more than a mother to your son-in-law.”

Flavie had recovered the coolness she had lost for an instant, and without replying to this speech she merely shrugged her shoulders.

At this moment Thuillier returned; his air of beatitude had deserted him.

“My dear Brigitte,” he said to his sister, “you have a most excellent heart, but at times you are so violent – ”

“Ho!” said the old maid, “am I to be arraigned on this side too?”

“I certainly do not blame you for the cause of the trouble, and I have just rebuked Celeste for her assumption; but there are proper forms that must be kept.”

“Forms! what are you talking about? What forms have I neglected?”

“But, my dear friend, to raise your hand against your sister!”

“I, raise my hand against that imbecile? What nonsense you talk!”

“And besides,” continued Thuillier, “a woman of Celeste’s age can’t be kept in prison.”

“Your wife! – have I put her in prison?”

“You can’t deny it, for I found the door of her room double-locked.”

“Parbleu! all this because in my anger at the infamous things she was spitting at me I may have turned the key of the door without intending it.”

“Come, come,” said Thuillier, “these are not proper actions for people of our class.”

“Oh! so it is I who am to blame, is it? Well, my lad, some day you’ll remember this, and we shall see how your household will get along when I have stopped taking care of it.”

“You’ll always take care of it,” said Thuillier. “Housekeeping is your very life; you will be the first to get over this affair.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Brigitte; “after twenty years of devotion, to be treated like the lowest of the low!”

And rushing to the door, which she slammed after her with violence, she went away.

Thuillier was not disturbed by this exit.

“Were you there, Flavie,” he asked, “when the scene took place?”

“No, it happened in Celeste’s room. What did she do to her?”

“What I said, – raised her hand to her and locked her in like a child. Celeste may certainly be rather dull-minded, but there are limits that must not be passed.”

“She is not always pleasant, that good Brigitte,” said Flavie; “she and I have just had a little set-to.”

“Oh, well,” said Thuillier, “it will all pass off. I want to tell you, my dear Flavie, what fine success we have had this morning. The ‘National’ quotes two whole paragraphs of an article in which there were several sentences of mine.”

Thuillier was again interrupted in the tale of his great political and literary success, – this time by the entrance of Josephine the cook.

“Can monsieur tell me where to find the key of the great trunk?” she said.

“What do you want with it?” asked Thuillier.

“Mademoiselle told me to take it to her room.”

“What for?”

“Mademoiselle must be going to make a journey. She is getting her linen out of the drawers, and her gowns are on the bed.”

“Another piece of nonsense!” said Thuillier. “Flavie, go and see what she has in her head.”

“Not I,” said Madame Colleville; “go yourself. In her present state of exasperation she might beat me.”

“And my stupid wife, who must needs raise a fuss about the contract!” cried Thuillier. “She really must have said something pretty sharp to turn Brigitte off her hinges like this.”

“Monsieur has not told me where to find the key,” persisted Josephine.

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Thuillier, crossly; “go and look for it, or else tell her it is lost.”

“Oh, yes!” said Josephine, “it is likely I’d dare to go and tell her that.”

Just then the outer door-bell rang.

“No doubt that’s la Peyrade,” said Thuillier, in a tone of satisfaction.

The Provencal appeared a moment later.

“Faith, my dear friend,” cried Thuillier, “it is high time you came; the house is in revolution, all about you, and it needs your silvery tongue to bring it back to peace and quietness.”

Then he related to his assistant editor the circumstances of the civil war which had broken out.

La Peyrade turned to Madame Colleville.

“I think,” he said, “that under the circumstances in which we now stand there is no impropriety in my asking for an interview of a few moments with Mademoiselle Colleville.”

In this the Provencal showed his usual shrewd ability; he saw that in the mission of pacification thus given to him Celeste Colleville was the key of the situation.

“I will send for her, and we will leave you alone together,” said Flavie.

“My dear Thuillier,” said la Peyrade, “you must, without any violence, let Mademoiselle Celeste know that her consent must be given without further delay; make her think that this was the purpose for which you have sent for her; then leave us; I will do the rest.”

The man-servant was sent down to the entresol with orders to tell Celeste that her godfather wished to speak to her. As soon as she appeared, Thuillier said, to carry out the programme which had been dictated to him: —

“My dear, your mother has told us things that astonish us. Can it be true that with your contract almost signed, you have not yet decided to accept the marriage we have arranged for you?”

“Godfather,” said Celeste, rather surprised at this abrupt summons, “I think I did not say that to mamma.”

“Did you not just now,” said Flavie, “praise Monsieur Felix Phellion to me in the most extravagant manner?”

“I spoke of Monsieur Phellion as all the world is speaking of him.”

“Come, come,” said Thuillier, with authority, “let us have no equivocation; do you refuse, yes or no, to marry Monsieur de la Peyrade?”

“Dear, good friend,” said la Peyrade, intervening, “your way of putting the question is rather too abrupt, and, in my presence, especially, it seems to me out of place. In my position as the most interested person, will you allow me to have an interview with mademoiselle, which, indeed, has now become necessary? This favor I am sure will not be refused by Madame Colleville. Under present circumstances, there can surely be nothing in my request to alarm her maternal prudence.”

“I would certainly yield to it,” said Flavie, “if I did not fear that these discussions might seem to open a question which is irrevocably decided.”

“But, my dear madame, I have the strongest desire that Mademoiselle Celeste shall remain, until the very last moment, the mistress of her own choice. I beg you, therefore, to grant my request.”

“So be it!” said Madame Colleville; “you think yourself very clever, but if you let that girl twist you round her finger, so much the worse for you. Come, Thuillier, since we are ‘de trop’ here.”

As soon as the pair were alone together, la Peyrade drew up a chair for Celeste, and took one himself, saying: —

“You will, I venture to believe, do me the justice to say that until to-day I have never annoyed you with the expression of my sentiments. I was aware of the inclinations of your heart, and also of the warnings of your conscience. I hoped, after a time, to make myself acceptable as a refuge from those two currents of feeling; but, at the point which we have now reached, I think it is not either indiscreet or impatient to ask you to let me know plainly what course you have decided upon.”

“Monsieur,” replied Celeste, “as you speak to me so kindly and frankly, I will tell you, what indeed you know already, that, brought up as I was with Monsieur Felix Phellion, knowing him far longer than I have known you, the idea of marrying alarmed me less in regard to him than it would in regard to others.”

“At one time, I believe,” remarked la Peyrade, “you were permitted to choose him if you wished.”

“Yes, but at that time difficulties grew up between us on religious ideas.”

“And to-day those difficulties have disappeared?”

“Nearly,” replied Celeste. “I am accustomed to submit to the judgment of those who are wiser than myself, monsieur, and you heard yesterday the manner in which the Abbe Gondrin spoke of Monsieur Phellion.”

“God forbid,” said la Peyrade, “that I should seek to invalidate the judgment of so excellent a man; but I venture to say to you, mademoiselle, that there are great differences among the clergy; some are thought too stern, some far too indulgent; moreover, the Abbe Gondrin is more of a preacher than a casuist.”

“But, Monsieur Felix,” said Celeste, eagerly, “seems to wish to fulfil Monsieur l’abbe’s hopes of him, for I know that he went to see him this morning.”

“Ah!” said la Peyrade, with a touch of irony, “so he really decided to go to Pere Anselme! But, admitting that on the religious side Monsieur Phellion may now become all that you expect of him, have you reflected, mademoiselle, on the great event which has just taken place in his life?”

“Undoubtedly; and that is not a reason to think less of him.”

“No, but it is a reason why he should think more of himself. For the modesty which was once the chief charm of his nature, he is likely to substitute great assumption, and you must remember, mademoiselle, that he who has discovered one world will want to discover two; you will have the whole firmament for rival; in short, could you ever be happy with a man so entirely devoted to science?”

“You plead your cause with such adroitness,” said Celeste, smiling, “that I think you might be as a lawyer more disquieting than an astronomer.”

“Mademoiselle,” said la Peyrade, “let us speak seriously; there is another and far more serious aspect to the situation. Do you know that, at this moment, in this house, and without, I am sure, desiring it, you are the cause of most distressing and regrettable scenes?”

“I, monsieur!” said Celeste, in a tone of surprise that was mingled with fear.

“Yes, concerning your godmother. Through the extreme affection that she has for you she seems to have become another woman; for the first time in her life she has shown a mind of her own. With an energy of will which comes at times to those who have never expended any, she declares that she will not make her proposed liberal gift to you in the contract; and I need not tell you who is the person aimed at in this unexpected refusal.”

“But, monsieur, I entreat you to believe that I knew nothing of this idea of my godmother.”

“I know that,” said la Peyrade, “and the matter itself would be of small importance if Mademoiselle Brigitte had not taken this attitude of your godmother, whom she has always found supple to her will, as a personal insult to herself. Very painful explanations, approaching at last to violence, have taken place. Thuillier, placed between the hammer and the anvil, has been unable to stop the affair; on the contrary, he has, without intending it, made matters worse, till they have now arrived at such a point that Mademoiselle Brigitte is packing her trunks to leave the house.”

“Monsieur! what are you telling me?” cried Celeste, horrified.

“The truth; and the servants will confirm it to you – for I feel that my revelations are scarcely believable.”

“But it is impossible! impossible!” said the poor child, whose agitation increased with every word of the adroit Provencal. “I cannot be the cause of such dreadful harm.”

“That is, you did not intend to be, for the harm is done; and I pray Heaven it may not be irremediable.”

“But what am I to do, good God!” cried Celeste, wringing her hands.

“I should answer, without hesitation, sacrifice yourself, mademoiselle, if it were not that I should then be forced to play the painful part of victimizer.”

“Monsieur,” said Celeste, “you interpret ill the resistance that I have made, though, in fact, I have scarcely expressed it. I have certainly had a preference, but I have never considered myself in the light of a victim; and whatever it is necessary to do to restore peace in this house to which I have brought trouble, I shall do it without repugnance, and even willingly.”

“That would be for me,” said la Peyrade, humbly, “more than I could dare ask for myself; but, for the result which we both seek, I must tell you frankly that something more is needed. Madame Thuillier has not changed her nature to instantly change back again on the mere assurance by others of your compliance. It is necessary that she should hear from your own lips that you accede to my suit, and that you do so with eagerness, – assumed, indeed, but sufficiently well assumed to induce her to believe in it.”

“So be it,” said Celeste. “I shall know how to seem smiling and happy. My godmother, monsieur, has been a mother to me; and for such a mother, what is there that I would not endure?”

The position was such, and Celeste betrayed so artlessly the depth and, at the same time, the absolute determination of her sacrifice, that with any heart at all la Peyrade would have loathed the part he was playing; but Celeste, to him, was a means of ascent, and provided the ladder can hold you and hoist you, who would ever ask if it cared to or not? It was therefore decided that Celeste should go to her godmother and convince her of the mistake she had made in supposing an objection to la Peyrade which Celeste had never intended to make. Madame Thuillier’s opposition overcome, all was once more easy. La Peyrade took upon himself the duty of making peace between the two sisters-in-law, and we can well imagine that he was not at a loss for fine phrases with which to assure the artless girl of the devotion and love which would take from her all regret for the moral compulsion she had now undergone.

When Celeste went to her godmother she found her by no means as difficult to convince as she had expected. To go to the point of rebellion which Madame Thuillier had actually reached, the poor woman, who was acting against her instincts and against her nature, had needed a tension of will that, in her, was almost superhuman. No sooner had she received the false confidences of her goddaughter than the reaction set in; the strength failed her to continue in the path she had taken. She was therefore easily the dupe of the comedy which Celeste’s tender heart was made to play for la Peyrade’s benefit.

The tempest calmed on this side, the barrister found no difficulty in making Brigitte understand that in quelling the rebellion against her authority she had gone a little farther than was proper. This authority being no longer in danger, Brigitte ceased to be incensed with the sister-in-law she had been on the point of beating, and the quarrel was settled with a few kind words and a kiss, poor Celeste paying the costs of war.

After dinner, which was only a family meal, the notary, to whose office they were to go on the following day to sign the contract (it being impossible to give a second edition of the abortive party), made his appearance. He came, he said, to submit the contract to the parties interested before engrossing it. This attention was not surprising in a man who was just entering into business relations with so important a person as the municipal councillor, whom it was his interest to firmly secure for a client.

La Peyrade was far too shrewd to make any objections to the terms of the contract, which was now read. A few changes requested by Brigitte, which gave the new notary a high idea of the old maid’s business capacity, showed la Peyrade plainly that more precautions were being taken against him than were altogether becoming; but he was anxious not to raise difficulties, and he knew that the meshes of a contract are never so close that a determined and clever man cannot get through them. The appointment was then made for the signing of the contract the next day, at two o’clock, in the notary’s office, the family only being present.

During the rest of the evening, taking advantage of Celeste’s pledge to seem smiling and happy, la Peyrade played, as it were, upon the poor child, forced her, by a specious exhibition of gratitude and love, to respond to him on a key that was far, indeed, from the true state of a heart now wholly filled by Felix. Flavie, seeing the manner in which la Peyrade put forth his seductions, was reminded of the pains he had formerly taken to fascinate herself. “The monster!” she said, beneath her breath. But she was forced to bear the torture with a good grace; la Peyrade was evidently approved by all, and in the course of the evening a circumstance came to light, showing a past service done by him to the house of Thuillier, which brought his influence and his credit to the highest point.

Minard was announced.

“My dear friends,” he said, “I have come to make a little revelation which will greatly surprise you, and will, I think, prove a lesson to all of us when a question arises as to receiving foreigners in our homes.”

“What is it?” cried Brigitte, with curiosity.

“That Hungarian woman you were so delighted with, that Madame Torna, Comtesse de Godollo – ”

“Well?” exclaimed the old maid.

“Well,” continued Minard, “she was no better than she should be; you were petting in your house for two months the most impudent of kept women.”

“Who told you that tale?” asked Brigitte, not willing to admit that she had fallen into such a snare.

“Oh, it isn’t a tale,” said the mayor, eagerly. “I know the thing myself, ‘de visu.’”

“Dear me! do you frequent such women?” said Brigitte, resuming the offensive. “That’s a pretty thing! what would Zelie say if she knew it?”

“In the discharge of my duties,” said Minard, stiffly, provoked at this reception of his news, “I have seen your friend, Madame de Godollo, in company with others of her class.”

“How do you know it was she if you only saw her?” demanded Brigitte.

The wily Provencal was not the man to lose an occasion that fell to him ready-made.

“Monsieur le maire is not mistaken,” he said, with decision.

“Tiens! so you know her, too,” said Brigitte; “and you let us consort with such vermin?”

“No,” said la Peyrade, “on the contrary. Without scandal, without saying a word to any one, I removed her from your house. You remember how suddenly the woman left it? It was I who compelled her to do so; having discovered what she was, I gave her two days to leave the premises; threatening her, in case she hesitated, to tell you all.”

“My dear Theodose,” said Thuillier, pressing his hand, “you acted with as much prudence as decision. This is one more obligation that we owe to you.”

“You see, mademoiselle,” said la Peyrade, addressing Celeste, “the strange protectress whom a friend of yours selected.”

“Thank God,” said Madame Thuillier. “Felix Phellion is above such vile things.”

“Ah ca! papa Minard, we’ll keep quiet about all this; silence is the word. Will you take a cup of tea?”

“Willingly,” replied Minard.

“Celeste,” said the old maid, “ring for Henri, and tell him to put the large kettle on the fire.”

Though the visit to the notary was not to be made till two in the afternoon, Brigitte began early in the morning of the next day what Thuillier called her rampage, a popular term which expresses that turbulent, nagging, irritating activity which La Fontaine has described so well in his fable of “The Old Woman and her Servants.” Brigitte declared that if you didn’t take time by the forelock no one would be ready. She prevented Thuillier from going to his office, insisting that if he once got off she never should see him again; she plagued Josephine, the cook, about hurrying the breakfast, and in spite of what had happened the day before she scarcely restrained herself from nagging at Madame Thuillier, who did not enter, as she thought she should have done, into her favorite maxim, “Better be early than late.”

Presently down she went to the Collevilles’ to make the same disturbance; and there she put her veto on the costume, far too elegant, which Flavie meditated wearing, and told Celeste the hat and gown she wished her to appear in. As for Colleville, who could not, he declared, stay away all the morning from his official duties, she compelled him to put on his dress-suit before he went out, made him set his watch by hers, and warned him that if he was late no one would wait for him.

The amusing part of it was that Brigitte herself, after driving every one at the point of the bayonet, came very near being late herself. Under pretext of aiding others, independently of minding her own business, which, for worlds, she would never have spared herself, she had put her fingers and eyes into so many things that they ended by overwhelming her. However, she ascribed the delay in which she was almost caught to the hairdresser, whom she had sent for to make, on this extraordinary occasion, what she called her “part.” That artist having, unadvisedly, dressed her hair in the fashion, he was compelled, after she had looked at herself in the glass, to do his work over again, and conform to the usual style of his client, which consisted chiefly in never being “done” at all, a method that gave her head a general air of what is vulgarly called “a cross cat.”

About half-past one o’clock la Peyrade, Thuillier, Colleville, Madame Thuillier, and Celeste were assembled in the salon. Flavie joined them soon after, fastening her bracelets as she came along to avoid a rebuff, and having the satisfaction of knowing that she was ready before Brigitte. As for the latter, already furious at finding herself late, she had another cause for exasperation. The event of the day seemed to require a corset, a refinement which she usually discarded. The unfortunate maid, whose duty it was to lace her and to discover the exact point to which she was willing to be drawn in, alone knew the terrors and storms of a corset day.

“I’d rather,” said the girl, “lace the obelisk; I know it would lend itself to being laced better than she does; and, anyhow, it couldn’t be bad-tongued.”

While the party in the salon were amusing themselves, under their breaths, at the “flagrante delicto” of unpunctuality in which Queen Elizabeth was caught, the porter entered, and gave to Thuillier a sealed package, addressed to “Monsieur Thuillier, director of the ‘Echo de la Bievre.’ In haste.”

Thuillier opened the envelope, and found within a copy of a ministerial journal which had hitherto shown itself discourteous to the new paper by refusing the exchange which all periodicals usually make very willingly with one another.

Puzzled by the fact of this missive being sent to his own house and not to the office of the “Echo,” Thuillier hastily opened the sheet, and read, with what emotion the reader may conceive, the following article, commended to his notice by a circle in red ink: —