Cousin Betty

“But she knows nothing – not even what is wrong. Good Heavens! – Why do you not answer me?” said Madame Hulot, putting out her hand to take Atala’s.

Atala indignantly withdrew a step.

“You are an old fool!” said she. “Why, my father and mother had had nothing to eat for a week. My mother wanted me to do much worse than that, I think, for my father thrashed her and called her a thief! However, Monsieur Vyder paid all their debts, and gave them some money – oh, a bagful! And he brought me away, and poor papa was crying. But we had to part! – Was it wicked?” she asked.

“And are you very fond of Monsieur Vyder?”

“Fond of him?” said she. “I should think so! He tells me beautiful stories, madame, every evening; and he has given me nice gowns, and linen, and a shawl. Why, I am figged out like a princess, and I never wear sabots now. And then, I have not known what it is to be hungry these two months past. And I don’t live on potatoes now. He brings me bonbons and burnt almonds, and chocolate almonds. – Aren’t they good? – I do anything he pleases for a bag of chocolate. – Then my old Daddy is very kind; he takes such care of me, and is so nice; I know now what my mother ought to have been. – He is going to get an old woman to help me, for he doesn’t like me to dirty my hands with cooking. For the past month, too, he has been making a little money, and he gives me three francs every evening that I put into a money-box. Only he will never let me out except to come here – and he calls me his little kitten! Mamma never called me anything but bad names – and thief, and vermin!”

“Well, then, my child, why should not Daddy Vyder be your husband?”

“But he is, madame,” said the girl, looking at Adeline with calm pride, without a blush, her brow smooth, her eyes steady. “He told me that I was his little wife; but it is a horrid bore to be a man’s wife – if it were not for the burnt almonds!”

“Good Heaven!” said the Baroness to herself, “what monster can have had the heart to betray such perfect, such holy innocence? To restore this child to the ways of virtue would surely atone for many sins. – I knew what I was doing.” thought she, remembering the scene with Crevel. “But she – she knows nothing.”

“Do you know Monsieur Samanon?” asked Atala, with an insinuating look.

“No, my child; but why do you ask?”

“Really and truly?” said the artless girl.

“You have nothing to fear from this lady,” said the Italian woman. “She is an angel.”

“It is because my good old boy is afraid of being caught by Samanon. He is hiding, and I wish he could be free – ”

“Why?”

“On! then he would take me to Bobino, perhaps to the Ambigu.”

“What a delightful creature!” said the Baroness, kissing the girl.

“Are you rich?” asked Atala, who was fingering the Baroness’ lace ruffles.

“Yes, and No,” replied Madame Hulot. “I am rich for dear little girls like you when they are willing to be taught their duties as Christians by a priest, and to walk in the right way.”

“What way is that?” said Atala; “I walk on my two feet.”

“The way of virtue.”

Atala looked at the Baroness with a crafty smile.

“Look at madame,” said the Baroness, pointing to the stove-fitter’s wife, “she has been quite happy because she was received into the bosom of the Church. You married like the beasts that perish.”

“I?” said Atala. “Why, if you will give me as much as Daddy Vyder gives me, I shall be quite happy unmarried again. It is a grind. – Do you know what it is to – ?”

“But when once you are united to a man as you are,” the Baroness put in, “virtue requires you to remain faithful to him.”

“Till he dies,” said Atala, with a knowing flash. “I shall not have to wait long. If you only knew how Daddy Vyder coughs and blows. – Poof, poof,” and she imitated the old man.

“Virtue and morality require that the Church, representing God, and the Mayor, representing the law, should consecrate your marriage,” Madame Hulot went on. “Look at madame; she is legally married – ”

“Will it make it more amusing?” asked the girl.

“You will be happier,” said the Baroness, “for no one could then blame you. You would satisfy God! Ask her if she was married without the sacrament of marriage!”

Atala looked at the Italian.

“How is she any better than I am?” she asked. “I am prettier than she is.”

“Yes, but I am an honest woman,” said the wife, “and you may be called by a bad name.”

“How can you expect God to protect you if you trample every law, human and divine, under foot?” said the Baroness. “Don’t you know that God has Paradise in store for those who obey the injunctions of His Church?”

“What is there in Paradise? Are there playhouses?”

“Paradise!” said Adeline, “is every joy you can conceive of. It is full of angels with white wings. You see God in all His glory, you share His power, you are happy for every minute of eternity!”

Atala listened to the lady as she might have listened to music; but Adeline, seeing that she was incapable of understanding her, thought she had better take another line of action and speak to the old man.

“Go home, then, my child, and I will go to see Monsieur Vyder. Is he a Frenchman?”

“He is an Alsatian, madame. But he will be quite rich soon. If you would pay what he owes to that vile Samanon, he would give you back your money, for in a few months he will be getting six thousand francs a year, he says, and we are to go to live in the country a long way off, in the Vosges.”

At the word Vosges the Baroness sat lost in reverie. It called up the vision of her native village. She was roused from her melancholy meditation by the entrance of the stove-fitter, who came to assure her of his prosperity.

“In a year’s time, madame, I can repay the money you lent us, for it is God’s money, the money of the poor and wretched. If ever I make a fortune, come to me for what you want, and I will render through you the help to others which you first brought us.”

“Just now,” said Madame Hulot, “I do not need your money, but I ask your assistance in a good work. I have just seen that little Judici, who is living with an old man, and I mean to see them regularly and legally married.”

“Ah! old Vyder; he is a very worthy old fellow, with plenty of good sense. The poor old man has already made friends in the neighborhood, though he has been here but two months. He keeps my accounts for me. He is, I believe, a brave Colonel who served the Emperor well. And how he adores Napoleon! – He has some orders, but he never wears them. He is waiting till he is straight again, for he is in debt, poor old boy! In fact, I believe he is hiding, threatened by the law – ”

“Tell him that I will pay his debts if he will marry the child.”

“Oh, that will soon be settled. – Suppose you were to see him, madame; it is not two steps away, in the Passage du Soleil.”

So the lady and the stove-fitter went out.

“This way, madame,” said the man, turning down the Rue de la Pepiniere.

The alley runs, in fact, from the bottom of this street through to the Rue du Rocher. Halfway down this passage, recently opened through, where the shops let at a very low rent, the Baroness saw on a window, screened up to a height with a green, gauze curtain, which excluded the prying eyes of the passer-by, the words:

“ECRIVAIN PUBLIC”; and on the door the announcement:

BUSINESS TRANSACTED

Petitions Drawn Up, Accounts Audited, Etc

With Secrecy and Dispatch