第3章

She was very fond of her protegee--so much so that she would listen to her in affairs about the house when she would listen to no one else;--but Marie's prettiness and grace and sweetness as a girl had all been thrown away upon Maman Bauche,as Marie used to call her.

But unluckily it had not been thrown away upon Adolphe.He had appreciated,as it was natural that he should do,all that had been so utterly indifferent to his mother;and consequently had fallen in love.Consequently also he had told his love;and consequently also Marie had returned his love.

Adolphe had been hitherto contradicted but in few things,and thought that all difficulty would be prevented by his informing his mother that he wished to marry Marie Clavert.But Marie,with a woman's instinct,had known better.She had trembled and almost crouched with fear when she confessed her love;and had absolutely hid herself from sight when Adolphe went forth,prepared to ask his mother's consent to his marriage.

The indignation and passionate wrath of Madame Bauche were past and gone two years before the date of this story,and I need not therefore much enlarge upon that subject.She was at first abusive and bitter,which was bad for Marie;and afterwards bitter and silent,which was worse.It was of course determined that poor Marie should be sent away to some asylum for orphans or penniless paupers--in short anywhere out of the way.What mattered her outlook into the world,her happiness,or indeed her very existence?The outlook and happiness of Adolphe Bauche,--was not that to be considered as everything at Vernet?

But this terrible sharp aspect of affairs did not last very long.In the first place La Mere Bauche had under those green spectacles a heart that in truth was tender and affectionate,and after the first two days of anger she admitted that something must be done for Marie Clavert;and after the fourth day she acknowledged that the world of the hotel,her world,would not go as well without Marie Clavert as it would with her.And in the next place Madame Bauche had a friend whose advice in grave matters she would sometimes take.This friend had told her that it would be much better to send away Adolphe,since it was so necessary that there should be a sending away of some one;that he would be much benefited by passing some months of his life away from his native valley;and that an absence of a year or two would teach him to forget Marie,even if it did not teach Marie to forget him.

And we must say a word or two about this friend.At Vernet he was usually called M.le Capitaine,though in fact he had never reached that rank.He had been in the army,and having been wounded in the leg while still a sous-lieutenant,had been pensioned,and had thus been interdicted from treading any further the thorny path that leads to glory.For the last fifteen years he had resided under the roof of Madame Bauche,at first as a casual visitor,going and coming,but now for many years as constant there as she was herself.

He was so constantly called Le Capitaine that his real name was seldom heard.It may however as well be known to us that this was Theodore Campan.He was a tall,well-looking man;always dressed in black garments,of a coarse deion certainly,but scrupulously clean and well brushed;of perhaps fifty years of age,and conspicuous for the rigid uprightness of his back--and for a black wooden leg.

This wooden leg was perhaps the most remarkable trait in his character.It was always jet black,being painted,or polished,or japanned,as occasion might require,by the hands of the capitaine himself.It was longer than ordinary wooden legs,as indeed the capitaine was longer than ordinary men;but nevertheless it never seemed in any way to impede the rigid punctilious propriety of his movements.It was never in his way as wooden legs usually are in the way of their wearers.And then to render it more illustrious it had round its middle,round the calf of the leg we may so say,a band of bright brass which shone like burnished gold.

It had been the capitaine's custom,now for some years past,to retire every evening at about seven o'clock into the sanctum sanctorum of Madame Bauche's habitation,the dark little private sitting-room in which she made out her bills and calculated her profits,and there regale himself in her presence--and indeed at her expense,for the items never appeared in the bill--with coffee and cognac.I have said that there was never eating or drinking at the establishment after the regular dinner-hours;but in so saying Ispoke of the world at large.Nothing further was allowed in the way of trade;but in the way of friendship so much was now-a-days always allowed to the capitaine.

It was at these moments that Madame Bauche discussed her private affairs,and asked for and received advice.For even Madame Bauche was mortal;nor could her green spectacles without other aid carry her through all the troubles of life.It was now five years since the world of Vernet discovered that La Mere Bauche was going to marry the capitaine;and for eighteen months the world of Vernet had been full of this matter:but any amount of patience is at last exhausted,and as no further steps in that direction were ever taken beyond the daily cup of coffee,that subject died away--very much unheeded by La Mere Bauche.

But she,though she thought of no matrimony for herself,thought much of matrimony for other people;and over most of those cups of evening coffee and cognac a matrimonial project was discussed in these latter days.It has been seen that the capitaine pleaded in Marie's favour when the fury of Madame Bauche's indignation broke forth;and that ultimately Marie was kept at home,and Adolphe sent away by his advice.

"But Adolphe cannot always stay away,"Madame Bauche had pleaded in her difficulty.The truth of this the capitaine had admitted;but Marie,he said,might be married to some one else before two years were over.And so the matter had commenced.