Sons of the Soil, Honoré de Balzac [epub read online books TXT] 📗

work in the cafe or billiard-room. This apron, with strings, was the badge of his functions. The fellow had been hired by Socquard at the last annual fair; for in this valley, as throughout Burgundy, servants are hired in the market-place by the year, exactly as one buys horses.

"What's your name?" said Rigou.

"Michel, at your service," replied the waiter.

"Doesn't old Fourchon come here sometimes?"

"Two or three times a week, with Monsieur Vermichel, who gives me a couple of sous to warn him if his wife's after them."

"He's a fine old fellow, Pere Fourchon; knows a great deal and is full of good sense," said Rigou, paying for his lemonade and leaving the evil-smelling place when he saw Pere Socquard leading his horse round.

Just as he was about to get into the carriage, Rigou noticed the chemist crossing the square and hailed him with a "Ho, there, Monsieur Vermut!" Recognizing the rich man, Vermut hurried up. Rigou joined him, and said in a low voice:--

"Are there any drugs that can eat into the tissue of the skin so as to produce a real disease, like a whitlow on the finger, for instance?"

"If Monsieur Gourdon would help, yes," answered the little chemist.

"Vermut, not a word of all this, or you and I will quarrel; but speak of the matter to Monsieur Gourdon, and tell him to come and see me the day after to-morrow. I may be able to procure him the delicate operation of cutting off a forefinger."

Then, leaving the little man thoroughly bewildered, Rigou got into the carriole beside Marie Tonsard.

"Well, you little viper," he said, taking her by the arm when he had fastened the reins to a hook in front of the leathern apron which closed the carriole and the horse had started on a trot, "do you think you can keep Bonnebault by giving way to such violence? If you were a wise girl you would promote his marriage with that hogshead of stupidity and take your revenge afterwards."

Marie could not help smiling as she answered:--

"Ah, how bad you are! you are the master of us all in wickedness."

"Listen to me, Marie; I like the peasants, but it won't do for any one of you to come between my teeth and a mouthful of game. Your brother Nicolas, as Aglae said, is after La Pechina. That must not be; I protect her, that girl. She is to be my heiress for thirty thousand francs, and I intend to marry her well. I know that Nicolas, helped by your sister Catherine, came near killing the little thing this morning. You are to see your brother and sister at once, and say to them: 'If you let La Pechina alone, Pere Rigou will save Nicolas from the conscription.'"

"You are the devil incarnate!" cried Marie. "They do say you've signed a compact with him. Is that true?"

"Yes," replied Rigou, gravely.

"I heard it, but I didn't believe it."

"He has guaranteed that no attacks aimed at me shall hurt me; that I shall never be robbed; that I shall live a hundred years and succeed in everything I undertake, and be as young to the day of my death as a two-year old cockerel--"

"Well, if that's so," said Marie, "it must be _devilishly_ easy for you to save my brother from the conscription--"

"If he chooses, that's to say. He'll have to lose a finger," returned Rigou. "I'll tell him how."

"Look out, you are taking the upper road!" exclaimed Marie.

"I never go by the lower at night," said the ex-monk.

"On account of the cross?" said Marie, naively.

"That's it, sly-boots," replied her diabolical companion.

They had reached a spot where the high-road cuts through a slight elevation of ground, making on each side of it a rather steep slope, such as we often see on the mail-roads of France. At the end of this little gorge, which is about a hundred feet long, the roads to Ronquerolles and to Cerneux meet and form an open space, in the centre of which stands a cross. From either slope a man could aim at a victim and kill him at close quarters, with all the more ease because the little hill is covered with vines, and the evil-doer could lie in ambush among the briers and brambles that overgrow them. We can readily imagine why the usurer did not take that road after dark. The Thune flows round the little hill; and the place is called the Close of the Cross. No spot was ever more adapted for revenge or murder, for the road to Ronquerolles continues to the bridge over the Avonne in front of the pavilion of the Rendezvous, while that to Cerneux leads off above the mail-road; so that between the four roads,--to Les Aigues, Ville-aux-Fayes, Ronquerolles, and Cerneux,--a murderer could choose his line of retreat and leave his pursuers in uncertainty.

"I shall drop you at the entrance of the village," said Rigou when they neared the first houses of Blangy.

"Because you are afraid of Annette, old coward!" cried Marie. "When are you going to send her away? you have had her now three years. What amuses me is that your old woman still lives; the good God knows how to revenge himself."


CHAPTER IV. THE TRIUMVIRATE OF VILLE-AUX-FAYES

The cautious usurer compelled his wife and Jean to go to bed and to rise by daylight; assuring them that the house would never be attacked if he sat up till midnight, and he never himself rose till late. Not only had he thus secured himself from interruption between seven at night and five the next morning but he had accustomed his wife and Jean to respect his morning sleep and that of Hagar, whose room was directly behind his.

So, on the following morning, about half past six, Madame Rigou, who herself took care of the poultry-yard with some assistance from Jean, knocked timidly at her husband's door.

"Monsieur Rigou," she said, "you told me to wake you."

The tones of that voice, the attitude of the woman, her frightened air as she obeyed an order the execution of which might be ill-received, showed the utter self-abnegation in which the poor creature lived, and the affection she still bore to her petty tyrant.

"Very good," replied Rigou.

"Shall I wake Annette?" she asked.

"No, let her sleep; she has been up half the night," he replied, gravely.

The man was always grave, even when he allowed himself to jest. Annette had in fact opened the door secretly to Sibilet, Fourchon, and Catherine Tonsard, who all came at different hours between eleven and two o'clock.

Ten minutes later Rigou, dressed with more care than usual, came downstairs and greeted his wife with a "Good-morning, my old woman," which made her happier than if counts had knelt at her feet.

"Jean," he said to the ex-lay-brother, "don't leave the house; if any one robs me it will be worse for you than for me."

By thus mingling mildness and severity, hopes and rebuffs, the clever egoist kept his three slaves faithful and close at his heels, like dogs.

Taking the upper-road, so-called, to avoid the Close of the Cross, Rigou reached the square of Soulanges about eight o'clock.

Just as he was fastening his rein to the post nearest the little door with three steps, a blind opened and Soudry showed his face, pitted with the small-pox, which the expression of his small black eyes rendered crafty.

"Let's begin by taking a crust here before we start," he said; "we sha'n't get breakfast at Ville-aux-Fayes before one o'clock."

Then he softly called a servant-girl, as young and pretty as Annette, who came down noiselessly, and received his order for ham and bread; after which he went himself to the cellar and fetched some wine.

Rigou contemplated for the hundredth time the well-known dining-room, floored in oak, with stuccoed ceiling and cornice, its high wainscot and handsome cupboards finely painted, its porcelain stone and magnificent tall clock,--all the property of Mademoiselle Laguerre. The chair-backs were in the form of lyres, painted white and highly varnished; the seats were of green morocco with gilt nails. A massive mahogany table was covered with green oilcloth, with large squares of a deeper shade of green, and a plain border of the lighter. The floor, laid in Hungarian point, was carefully waxed by Urbain and showed the care which ex-waiting-women know how to exact out of their servants.

"Bah! it cost too much," thought Rigou for the hundredth time. "I can eat as good a dinner in my room as here, and I have the income of the money this useless splendor would have wasted. Where is Madame Soudry?" he asked, as the mayor returned armed with a venerable bottle.

"Asleep."

"And you no longer disturb her slumbers?" said Rigou.

The ex-gendarme winked with a knowing air, and pointed to the ham which Jeannette, the pretty maid, was just bringing in.

"That will pick you up, a pretty bit like that," he said. "It was cured in the house; we cut into it only yesterday."

"Where did you find her?" said the ex-Benedictine in Soudry's ear.

"She is like the ham," replied the ex-gendarme, winking again; "I have had her only a week."

Jeannette, still in her night-cap, with a short petticoat and her bare feet in slippers, had slipped on a bodice made with straps over the arms in true peasant fashion, over which she had crossed a neckerchief which did not entirely hide her fresh and youthful attractions, which were at least as appetizing as the ham she carried. Short and plump, with bare arms mottled red, ending in large, dimpled hands with short but well-made fingers, she was a picture of health. The face was that of a true Burgundian,--ruddy, but white about the temples, throat, and ears; the hair was chestnut; the corners of the eyes turned up towards the top of the ears; the nostrils were wide, the mouth sensual, and a little down lay along the cheeks; all this, together with a jaunty expression, tempered however by a deceitfully modest attitude, made her the model of a roguish servant-girl.

"On my honor, Jeannette is as good as the ham," said Rigou. "If I hadn't an Annette I should want a Jeannette."

"One is as good as the other," said the ex-gendarme, "for your Annette is fair and delicate. How is Madame Rigou,--is she asleep?" added Soudry, roughly, to let Rigou see he understood his joke.

"She wakes with the cock, but she goes to roost with the hens," replied Rigou. "As for me, I sit up and read the 'Constitutionnel.' My wife lets me sleep at night and in the morning too; she wouldn't come into my room for all the world."

"It's just the other way here," replied Jeanette. "Madame sits up with the company playing cards; sometimes there are sixteen of them in the salon; Monsieur goes to bed at eight o'clock, and we get up at daylight--"

"You think that's different," said Rigou, "but it comes to the same thing in the end. Well, my dear, you come to me and I'll send Annette here, and that will be the same thing and different too."

"Old scamp, you'll make her ashamed," said Soudry.

"Ha! gendarme; you want your field to yourself! Well, we all get our happiness where we can find it."

Jeanette, by her master's order, disappeared to lay out his clothes.