At half past four the Baron went straight to Madame Marneffe’s. As he went upstairs his heart was beating like a young man’s, for he was mentally asking himself the question, ‘Shall I see her? Shall I not see her?’ How could he remember the morning scene when his weeping family was prostrate at his feet? Didn’t Valérie’s letter, placed for ever in a thin wallet next his heart, prove to him that he was loved more than the most lovable of young men?
After ringing the doorbell, the unfortunate Baron heard the shuffling slippers and loathsome cough of the invalid Marneffe. Marneffe opened the door, but only to take up a stance and show Hulot the staircase with a gesture exactly like the one with which Hulot had shown him the door of his office.
‘You are altogether too much Hulot, Monsieur Hulot!’ he said.
The Baron tried to push past him. Marneffe took a pistol out of his pocket and cocked it.
‘Monsieur le Conseiller d’Etat, when a man is as vile as I am—for you think me utterly vile, don’t you?—he would be the stupidest of galley-slaves if he didn’t get all the benefits of having sold his honour. You want war; it will be fierce and without quarter. Don’t come back again or try to get past me. I’ve informed the commissioner of police of my situation with regard to you.’
And taking advantage of Hulot’s dumbfounded amazement, he pushed him out and shut the door.
‘What an absolute scoundrel!’ Hulot said to himself as he went up to Lisbeth’s. ‘Oh, now I understand the letter. Valérie and I will leave Paris. Valérie is mine for the rest of my days; she will close my eyes.’
Lisbeth was not at home. Madame Olivier informed Hulot that she had gone to Madame la Baronne’s, thinking she would find Monsieur le Baron there.
‘Poor woman! I wouldn’t have believed she could be as cunning as she was this morning,’ the Baron said to himself, recalling Lisbeth’s behaviour as he walked from the Rue Vaneau to the Rue Plumet.
At the corner of the Rue Vaneau and the Rue de Babylone, he looked back at the Eden from which Hymen had banished him with the sword of the law in his hand.
Valérie, at her window, was following Hulot with her eyes. When he looked up she waved her handkerchief, but the disgusting Marneffe struck his wife’s cap and pulled her violently away from the window. Tears rose in the eyes of the Councillor of State.
‘To be so dearly loved! To see a woman ill-treated and to be nearly 70!’ he thought.
Lisbeth had come to tell the family the good news. Adeline and Hortense already knew that as he did not want to be dishonoured in the eyes of the whole Ministry by appointing Marneffe an office-manager, the Baron would be turned out by the husband who had become a violent Hulot-phobe.
And so Adeline, in her happiness, had given orders for a dinner that Hector would think better than those Valérie provided, and the devoted Lisbeth helped Mariette to achieve this difficult result.
Cousin Bette was looked up to as an idol. The mother and daughter kissed her hands; they had told her with touching joy that the Marshal agreed to have her as his housekeeper.
‘And from there, my dear, to becoming his wife, it’s only a step,’ said Adeline.
‘Anyway, he didn’t say no when Victorin spoke to him about it,’ added Countess Steinbock.
The Baron was received by his family with such charming, touching marks of affection, so overflowing with love, that he was forced to conceal his distress. The Marshal came to dinner. After dinner Hulot did not leave. Victorin and his wife came in. They all played whist.
‘It’s a long time since you’ve given us an evening like this,’ the Marshal said gravely.
This remark, coming from the old soldier who was so indulgent to his brother and who, in those words, implicitly rebuked him, made a deep impression. It revealed the long, deep wounds of a heart in which all the sorrows he had divined had found an echo.
At eight o’clock the Baron insisted on seeing Lisbeth home himself, promising to return.
‘Do you know, Lisbeth, he ill-treats her,’ he said to her in the street. ‘Oh, I’ve never loved her so much.’
‘Oh, I’d never have thought Valérie loved you so much,’ replied Lisbeth. ‘She’s frivolous and flirtatious; she likes to be courted, to have the comedy of love played out for her, as she puts it, but you are the only one to whom she’s really attached.’
‘What message did she give you for me?’
‘This,’ continued Lisbeth. ‘As you know, she has shown some favours to Crevel. You mustn’t hold that against her, for it’s put her beyond the reach of poverty for the rest of her days. But she detests him and it’s almost over. Well, she’s kept the key of some rooms.’
‘Rue du Dauphin!’ exclaimed Hulot, overjoyed. ‘For that alone, I’d forgive her Crevel. I’ve been there; I know …’
‘And here’s the key,’ said Lisbeth. ‘Have a duplicate made tomorrow, two if you can.’
‘And then?’ said Hulot eagerly.
‘Well, I’ll come to dinner with you again tomorrow. You’ll give me back Valérie’s key (for Père Crevel may ask back the one he gave her), and you’ll go and meet her the day after tomorrow. There you can lay your plans. You’ll be quite safe, for there are two exits. If by any chance Crevel, who, as he says, has Regency ways, were to come in by the passage, you would go out by the shop, and vice versa. Well, you old scoundrel, it’s to me that you owe all this. What will you do for me?’
‘Anything you like.’
‘Well, then, don’t oppose my marriage to your brother!’
‘You, the Maréchale Hulot! You, Comtesse de Forzheim!’ cried Hector in amazement.
‘Adeline is well and truly a Baroness,’ replied Bette in a sharp, formidable tone. ‘Listen, you old libertine. You know the state of your affairs. Your family may find itself starving and in the gutter …’
‘That’s what I dread,’ said Hector in alarm.
‘If your brother dies, who will support your wife and daughter? The widow of a Marshal of France can get a pension of at least six thousand francs, can’t she? Well, I want to marry only to make sure that your wife and daughter will have enough to eat, you old fool.’
‘I didn’t see it in that light,’ said the Baron. ‘I’ll talk to my brother, for we can rely on you. Tell my angel that my life is hers.’
And the Baron, having seen Lisbeth go into the house in the Rue Vaneau, returned to play whist and stayed at home.
The Baroness was overjoyed, since her husband seemed to have come back to family life. For about a fortnight he went to the Ministry at nine in the morning and was home at six for dinner; he spent the evening with his family. Twice he took Adeline and Hortense to the theatre.
The mother and daughter had three thanksgiving masses said and prayed God to preserve the husband and father he had restored to them.