The Lesser Bourgeoisie Part 42

Ever yours,

Theodose de la Peyrade.

Two hours later a servant, dressed in what was evidently the first step towards a livery, which the Thuilliers did not as yet venture to risk, the "male domestic," whom Minard had mentioned to the Ph.e.l.lions, arrived at la Peyrade's lodgings with the following note:--

Come to-night, without fail. We will talk over the whole affair with Brigitte.

Your most affectionately devoted Jerome Thuillier.

"Good!" said la Peyrade; "evidently there is some hindrance on the other side; I shall have time to turn myself round."

That evening, when the servant announced him in the Thuillier salon, the Comtesse de G.o.dollo, who was sitting with Brigitte, hastened to rise and leave the room. As she pa.s.sed la Peyrade she made him a very ceremonious bow. There was nothing conclusive to be deduced from this abrupt departure, which might signify anything, either much or nothing.

After talking of the weather and so forth for a time, as persons do who have met to discuss a delicate subject about which they are not sure of coming to an understanding, the matter was opened by Brigitte, who had sent her brother to take a walk on the boulevard, telling him to leave her to manage the affair.

"My dear boy," she said to Theodose, "it was very nice of you not to come here to-day like a _grasp-all_, to put your pistol at our throats, for we were not, as it happened, quite ready to answer you. I think,"

she added, "that our little Celeste needs a trifle more time."

"Then," said la Peyrade, quickly, "she has not decided in favor of Monsieur Felix Ph.e.l.lion?"

"Joker!" replied the old maid, "you know very well you settled that business last night; but you also know, of course, that her own inclinations incline her that way."

"Short of being blind, I must have seen that," replied la Peyrade.

"It is not an obstacle to my projects," continued Mademoiselle Thuillier; "but it serves to explain why I ask for Celeste a little more time; and also why I have wished all along to postpone the marriage to a later date. I wanted to give you time to insinuate yourself into the heart of my dear little girl--but you and Thuillier upset my plans."

"Nothing, I think, has been done without your sanction," said la Peyrade, "and if, during these fifteen days, I have not talked with you on the subject, it was out of pure delicacy. Thuillier told me that everything was agreed upon with you."

"On the contrary, Thuillier knows very well that I refused to mix myself up on your new arrangements. If you had not made yourself so scarce lately, I might have been the first to tell you that I did not approve of them. However, I can truly say I did nothing to hinder their success."

"But that was too little," said la Peyrade; "your active help was absolutely necessary."

"Possibly; but I, who know women better than you, being one of them,--I felt very sure that if Celeste was told to choose between two suitors she would consider that a permission to think at her ease of the one she liked best. I myself had always left her in the vague as to Felix, knowing as I did the proper moment to settle her mind about him."

"So," said la Peyrade, "you mean that she refuses me."

"It is much worse than that," returned Brigitte; "she accepts you, and is willing to pledge her word; but it is so easy to see she regards herself as a victim, that if I were in your place I should feel neither flattered nor secure in such a position."

In any other condition of mind la Peyrade would probably have answered that he accepted the sacrifice, and would make it his business to win the heart which at first was reluctantly given; but delay now suited him, and he replied to Brigitte with a question:--

"Then what do you advise? What course had I better take?"

"Finish Thuillier's pamphlet, in the first place, or he'll go crazy; and leave me to work the other affair in your interests," replied Brigitte.

"But am I in friendly hands? For, to tell you the truth, little aunt, I have not been able to conceal from myself that you have, for some time past, changed very much to me."

"Changed to you! What change do you see in me, addled-pate that you are?"

"Oh! nothing very tangible," said la Peyrade; "but ever since that Countess Torna has had a footing in your house--"

"My poor boy, the countess has done me many services, and I am very grateful to her; but is that any reason why I should be false to you, who have done us still greater services?"

"But you must admit," said la Peyrade, craftily, "that she has told you a great deal of harm of me."

"Naturally she has; these fine ladies are all that way; they expect the whole world to adore them, and she sees that you are thinking only of Celeste; but all she has said to me against you runs off my mind like water from varnished cloth."

"So, then, little aunt, I may continue to count on you?" persisted la Peyrade.

"Yes; provided you are not tormenting, and will let me manage this affair."

"Tell me how you are going to do it?" asked la Peyrade, with an air of great good-humor.

"In the first place, I shall signify to Felix that he is not to set foot in this house again."

"Is that possible?" said the barrister; "I mean can it be done civilly?"

"Very possible; I shall make Ph.e.l.lion himself tell him. He's a man who is always astride of principles, and he'll be the first to see that if his son will not do what is necessary to obtain Celeste's hand he ought to deprive us of his presence."

"What next?" asked la Peyrade.

"Next, I shall signify to Celeste that she was left at liberty to choose one husband or the other, and as she did not choose Felix she must make up her mind to take you, a pious fellow, such as she wants. You needn't be uneasy; I'll sing your praises, especially your generosity in not profiting by the arrangement she agreed to make to-day. But all that will take a week at least, and if Thuillier's pamphlet isn't out before then, I don't know but what we shall have to put him in a lunatic asylum."

"The pamphlet can be out in two days. But is it very certain, little aunt, that we are playing above-board? Mountains, as they say, never meet, but men do; and certainly, when the time comes to promote the election, I can do Thuillier either good or bad service. Do you know, the other day I was terribly frightened. I had a letter from him in my pocket, in which he spoke of the pamphlet as being written by me. I fancied for a moment that I had dropped it in the Luxembourg. If I had, what a scandal it would have caused in the quarter."

"Who would dare to play tricks with such a wily one as you?" said Brigitte, fully comprehending the comminatory nature of la Peyrade's last words, interpolated into the conversation without rhyme or reason.

"But really," she added, "why should you complain of us? It is you who are behindhand in your promises. That cross which was to have been granted within a week, and that pamphlet, which ought to have appeared a long time ago--"

"The pamphlet and the cross will both appear in good time; the one will bring the other," said la Peyrade, rising. "Tell Thuillier to come and see me to-morrow evening, and I think we can then correct the last sheet. But, above all, don't listen to the spitefulness of Madame de G.o.dollo; I have an idea that in order to make herself completely mistress of this house she wants to alienate all your old friends, and also that she is casting her net for Thuillier."

"Well, in point of fact," said the old maid, whom the parting shot of the infernal barrister had touched on the ever-sensitive point of her authority, "I must look into that matter you speak of there; she is rather coquettish, that little woman."

La Peyrade gained a second benefit out of that speech so adroitly flung out; he saw by Brigitte's answer to it that the countess had not mentioned to her the visit he had paid her during the day. This reticence might have a serious meaning.

Four days later, the printer, the st.i.tcher, the paper glazier having fulfilled their offices, Thuillier had the inexpressible happiness of beginning on the boulevards a promenade, which he continued through the Pa.s.sages, and even to the Palais-Royal, pausing before all the book-shops where he saw, shining in black letters on a yellow poster, the famous t.i.tle:--

TAXATION AND THE SLIDING-SCALE by J. Thuillier, Member of the Council-General of the Seine.

Having reached the point of persuading himself that the care he had bestowed upon the correction of proofs made the merit of the work his own, his paternal heart, like that of Maitre Corbeau, could not contain itself for joy. We ought to add that he held in very low esteem those booksellers who did not announce the sale of the new work, destined to become, as he believed, a European event. Without actually deciding the manner in which he would punish their indifference, he nevertheless made a list of these rebellious persons, and wished them as much evil as if they had offered him a personal affront.

The next day he spent a delightful morning in writing a certain number of letters, sending the publication to friends, and putting into paper covers some fifty copies, to which the sacramental phrase, "From the author," imparted to his eyes an inestimable value.

But the third day of the sale brought a slight diminution of his happiness. He had chosen for his editor a young man, doing business at a breakneck pace, who had lately established himself in the Pa.s.sage des Panoramas, where he was paying a ruinous rent. He was the nephew of Barbet the publisher, whom Brigitte had had as a tenant in the rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer. This Barbet junior was a youth who flinched at nothing; and when he was presented to Thuillier by his uncle, he pledged himself, provided he was not shackled in his advertising, to sell off the first edition and print a second within a week.

Now, Thuillier had spent about fifteen hundred francs himself on costs of publication, such, for instance, as copies sent in great profusion to the newspapers; but at the close of the third day _seven_ copies only had been sold, and three of those on credit. It might be believed that in revealing to the horror-stricken Thuillier this paltry result the young publisher would have lost at least something of his a.s.surance. On the contrary, this Guzman of the book-trade hastened to say:--