It is said that happy should be the bride the sun shines on, and in truth the Wednesday of Laurette's union with the patron of Languecuisse was a gloriously sunny, pleasantly warm day that drew all the villagers to Pere Mourier's church to witness the ceremony.
Laurette appeared down the aisle on the arm of her father, in his best suit. She, with her two golden braids falling to her waist, wore a humble cotton gown, with long skirt hiding her dainty ankles, widely flaring from her hips like a kind of hoop and thus disguising all the tempting young charms hidden under it. Her lovely blue eyes were red and swollen, for she had been weeping. She still mourned her lover Pierre Larrieu—I say her lover in spirit only, for you will recall that the unfortunate Pierre was thwarted at the most critical moment when he had hoped to pillage her maidenhead away from its lawfully intended possessor. Yes, she had been faithful to the ordainment which both Pere Mourier and Father Lawrence had imposed upon her: to hold no converse or meeting with the young rogue and to save herself chastely for Monsieur Claude Villiers.
I could hear her mother scolding her in whispers amid the bustle and the hum which prefaced the holy ceremony. Madame Boischamp was vexed that her daughter should put on so mournful and lugubrious a face on this the most glorious day of her entire young life. At one fell swoop, little Laurette was to be elevated to the estate of a great lady, the consort of the savior of the village itself; yet she wept. Was there ever a more unreasonable wench? It was only maternal pride, and to be sure, the greedy thoughts of how she and her husband would benefit from their own new status as relatives by marriage to Monsieur Villiers that had kept Madame Boischamp from taking a hickory switch to Laurette's tender virgin backside before the wedding.
The ceremony did not last long, and after the villagers had poured out into the churchyard, the beaming patron, in drab black suit which made him look more a scarecrow than ever, joyously proclaimed that there would be wine and freshly baked bread and cheese distributed as a gratuity to everyone in Languecuisse. His overseer Hercule would see to it. They were all to drink to his health and to wish him and his bride long life and many sons.
A cheer went up at the patron's generosity, but it drowned out many of the mocking and even scabrous jeers of the older women and the overworked and harassed elders, who wished Monsieur Villiers no joy whatsoever of his bride and who tauntingly predicted that he would leave her maidenhead intact for all his efforts this night of consummation.
Laurette Villiers, for such was her name now, took tearful leave of her good parents, and it must be said somewhat to their credit that even Madame Boischamp softened her matriarchal heart and sniffed as she bade her daughter be of good cheer and do her best to make the worthy patron a faithful and obedient wife. Then the elderly vintner helped his blushing bride up into the little carriage, and himself took hold of the reins and clacked the carriage whip so that the black mare might take them both safely back to his elegant house. Laurette looked back at the receding populace, straining her misty blue eyes for a last glimpse of the little cottage in which she had been born and which she was leaving for the very last time. Tonight she would sleep in a splendid bed, and there would even be servants to do her bidding. But her heart was heavy for she was undeniably thinking of what should precede the hour of conjugal repose. From time to time, along the route, the patron glanced covetously at his tender young bride, his eyes narrowing and glittering with an avid light. I perched upon his tophat, and I looked sympathetically down at the sweet, heartshaped, woefully saddened face of poor little Laurette. And all the compassion that is innate within the soul of a Flea was heavy within me.
At the door of Monsieur Villiers' elaborate mansion—for such it was with comparison with the humble cottages of his tenant farmers and vineyard workers—his housekeeper received them both. Her name was Victorine Dumady, and her face was downcast, too, out of spite and jealousy. She had been the patron's housekeeper for five years, and she had just reached her fortieth birthday. Seeing the charming young bride, she now knew that all her hope of ensnaring the patron had fled. I had heard gossip enough from the villagers on her account, this wily Victorine. Her face was homely, with the hint of a moustache on her upper lip, but her body was almost as voluptuously robust as that of Desiree. And she had used that body many a time to attempt to seduce the elderly patron into marriage. He had been, rumor had it, as impotent with her as with many damsels of tenderer age with whom he had essayed his best to prove that he was still a virile cocksmith.
He made the introduction of his new bride to Victorine with a certain sneering braggadocio, as much as to imply to her: “Do you not see what a toothsome young morsel I have brought to warm my bed? How can you dare expect me to content myself, discriminating roue that I am, with worn-out goods like you?”
But Laurette, with that seventh sense of intuition with which all females are apparently blessed, must have sensed the rancor in Victorine's heart; for she sweetly greeted the robust matron with a tender kiss upon the forehead and a promise that since her own knowledge of domesticity was so slight, she would never dare implore her will on Victorine as to the management of the kitchen or the household. Further, she asked if she might be shown to her room so that she might rest a little while, because the excitement of the ceremony and the parting from her parents had overwhelmed her.
Victorine's sour face at once brightened, and very tenderly she put an arm about Laurette's shoulder and gently offered to show her to her new chamber. Glancing back at her master, she added somewhat tartly, “You must allow Madame a little time to compose herself, sir, or you will have no joy with her tonight.”
The chamber to which Laurette was taken was exactly across the hall from that in which her virginity would be forfeit this very night. There was a little bed, a table with a mirror, a chest of drawers, and a spacious closet for the clothes which the patron had promised his new bride.
Laurette sighed as she inspected the elegant room with its shutters and its fine rug, such a far cry from the earthen floor of the humble little cottage where she had first seen the light of day. Then, her emotions assailing her, she put her hands to her face and began to weep silently. Victorine was touched. “Come now, Madame, it will not be so bad, I warrant you,” she soothed the charming virgin. “Now that my own hope of gaining that rank which you now hold is no more, I can be honest with you, my pretty child. His bark is worse than his bite, and his hopes are more valiant than his deeds when it comes to bedding a wench. I am more than twice your age, Madame, but he cannot even service me. You need have no fear, therefore. Oh, it is true that you will have to show your lovely person naked to him, but I wager that it will excite him so much that he will not even be able to break your hymen. Now do you lie down and calm yourself, and I shall presently bring you a little cordial.”
“You—you are very kind, Victorine,” Laurette faintly murmured.
“Not by nature, truly, Madame Villiers,” the robust matron candidly retorted, with a shrug of her ripe, round shoulders, “but I am a practical woman and, as you may well guess, I have had to put up with his foibles for numerous years. I know him as well as I know the back of my own hand. So do not fret, and tell yourself only that you must be brave for a little time when the bony old fool wishes to exact payment for having given you his name in holy matrimony.”
With this encouraging piece of advice, Victorine left the room, and Laurette flung herself down on the bed and sobbed aloud in her disconsolate state over being separated from Pierre Larrieu for what assuredly at this moment seemed forever.
I need not dwell upon the wedding supper which Victorine was obliged to serve, nor expatiate on the ludicrous and risible manner of the patron who fancied himself to be a very cavalier with the ladies and made all sorts of ribald and lewd quips on the approaching moment when he should be alone with his bride for the first time. Laurette, though a gentle virgin, was, as I have tried to imply already, a wise virgin also; she understood many of these bawdy references, though she pretended to be impervious to them. She toyed with her food, although it was the richest fare she had ever been privileged to sup upon, all in the hope of delaying that inexorable and inevitable hour. By contrast, however, she did help herself to three glasses of good Burgundy wine and two more of fine champagne which Victorine served. I do not know whether her mother had counseled her to seek solace in alcoholic spirits, just as a criminal condemned to the guillotine is often permitted absinthe to dull his terrors of execution. But I have no doubt that she imbibed these stimulants in the hope of making the forthcoming juncture between herself and the patron a less agonizing obligation.
Towards the end of the repast, I found it hard to check my own hilarity when I heard Monsieur Villiers ask several times, in his querulous voice, “Aren't you fatigued, my dear? Wouldn't you like to go to bed now?” In his role as patron of the village, having the droit de seigneur privilege over every damsel and matron in Languecuisse, it was not mandatory upon him to show the amorous gallantry of a courtier, for this after all was a simple peasant village in the heart of Provence. Nonetheless, a child could have seen through his bald hints, and Laurette did her level best to evade the issue. Victorine was a close ally in this regard, seeing to it that the new Madame Villiers had another little helping of mousse or another mint or another demitasse, while the unprepossessing visage of the patron grew
