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The story of the wonderful change in the Rouget household spread everywhere. The upshot of the conversations was the same on all sides, "What will happen at the banquet between Max and Colonel Bridau?" Philippe said but few words to the Vedie, "Six hundred francs' annuity, or dismissal." They were enough, however, to keep her neutral, for a time, between the two great powers, Philippe and Flore.
"Oh, dear! what have I done to displease her?" the old man asked himself that morning, as he got one of these rebuffs after calling for his shaving-water. "Vedie, take up the hot water," cried Flore. "Vedie!" exclaimed the poor man, stupefied with fear of the anger that was crushing him. "Vedie, what is the matter with Madame this morning?"
Vedie and Kouski, who came to listen, exploded in the kitchen, and as to Flore, she laughed convulsively. "Are you quite sure he has not made any other will since the one in which he left the property to you?" "He hasn't anything to write with," she answered. "He might have dictated it to some notary," said Max; "we must look out for that.
It appears the Rougets are highly flattered by the letter. Madame came and told me so. Oh! she had on such a dress! I never saw anything so handsome in my life. Two diamonds in her ears! two diamonds that cost, Vedie told me, three thousand francs apiece; and such lace! rings on her fingers, and bracelets! you'd think she was a shrine; and a silk dress as fine as an altar-cloth.
"Madame said like this," Kouski replied, " that I was to tell monsieur she had taken twenty thousand francs in gold from his drawer, thinking that monsieur wouldn't refuse her that amount as wages for the last twenty-two years." "Wages?" exclaimed Rouget. "Yes," replied Kouski. "Ah! I shall never come back," she said to Vedie as she drove away.
One of the officers was commander of a battalion, the other was a colonel. The former said: "I do not know you, sir. I am at a loss to know what you want of me." "Me like you much, Lieutenant Vedie, siege of Bezi, much grapes, find me." The officer, utterly bewildered, looked at the man intently, trying to refresh his memory. Then he cried abruptly: "Timbuctoo?"
When Flore, after employing the tenderest cajoleries, was unable to succeed, she tried rigor; she no longer spoke to her master; Vedie was sent to wait upon him, and found him in the morning with his eyes swollen and red with weeping. For a week or more, poor Rouget had breakfasted alone, and Heaven knows on what food!
Between you and me there must be no ambiguity. I can marry my aunt at the end of a year's widowhood; but I could not marry a disgraced girl." He left the room without waiting for an answer. When Vedie came in, fifteen minutes later, to clear the table, she found her mistress pale and moist with perspiration, in spite of the season.
Women are bad children; they are inferior animals to men; we must make them fear us; the worst condition in the world is to be governed by such brutes." It was about half-past two in the afternoon when the old man got home. Kouski opened the door in tears, that is, by Max's orders, he gave signs of weeping. "Oh! Monsieur, Madame has gone away, and taken Vedie with her!"
In the name of the two powers, Mere Cognette promised her an annuity of three hundred francs a year at the end of ten years, if she served them loyally, honestly, and discreetly. The Vedie, as she was called, was noticeable for a face deeply pitted by the small-pox, and correspondingly ugly. After the new cook had entered upon her duties, the Rabouilleuse took the title of Madame Brazier.
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