One day the Countess, always very generous to her former lady’s maid, made Madame Moreau a present, as a souvenir perhaps, of a little traveling chaise of a past fashion, which Moreau had furbished up, and in which his wife drove out behind a pair of good horses, useful at other times in the grounds. Besides this pair, the steward had his saddle-horse. He ploughed part of the park land, and raised grain enough to feed the beasts and servants; he cut three hundred tons more or less of good hay, accounting for no more than one hundred, encroaching on the license vaguely granted by the Count; and instead of using his share of the produce on the premises, he sold it. He kept his poultry-farm, his pigeons, and his cows on the crops from the parkland; but then the manure from his stables was used in the Count’s garden. Each of these pilfering acts had an excuse ready.
Madame Moreau’s house-servant was the daughter of one of the gardeners, and waited on her and cooked; she was helped in the housework by a girl, who also attended to the poultry and dairy. Moreau had engaged an invalided soldier named Brochon to look after the horses and do the dirty work.
At Nerville, at Chauvry, at Beaumont, at Maffliers, at Préroles, at Nointel, the steward’s pretty wife was everywhere received by persons who did not, or affected not to know her original position in life. And Moreau could confer obligations. He could use his master’s interest in matters which are of immense importance in the depths of the country though trivial in Paris. After securing for friends the appointments of Justice of the Peace at Beaumont and at l’Isle-Adam, he had, in the course of the same year, saved an Inspector of Forest-lands from dismissal, and obtained the Cross of the Legion of Honor for the quartermaster at Beaumont. So there was never a festivity among the more respectable neighbors without Monsieur and Madame Moreau being invited. The Curé and the Mayor of Presles were to be seen every evening at their house. A man can hardly help being a good fellow when he has made himself so comfortable.
So Madame la Régisseuse—a pretty woman, and full of airs, like every grand lady’s servant who, when she marries, apes her mistress—introduced the latest fashions, wore the most expensive shoes, and never walked out but in fine weather. Though her husband gave her no more than five hundred francs a year for dress, this in the country is a very large sum, especially when judiciously spent; and his “lady,” fair, bright, and fresh-looking, at the age of thirty-six, and still slight, neat, and attractive in spite of her three children, still played the girl, and gave herself the airs of a princess. If, as she drove past in her open chaise on her way to Beaumont, some stranger happened to inquire, “Who is that?” Madame Moreau was furious if a native of the place replied, “She is the steward’s wife at Presles.” She aimed at being taken for the mistress of the château.
She amused herself with patronizing the villagers, as a great lady might have done. Her husband’s power with the Count, proved in so many ways, hindered the townsfolk from laughing at Madame Moreau, who was a person of importance in the eyes of the peasantry.
Estelle, however—her name was Estelle—did not interfere in the management, any more than a stockbroker’s wife interferes in dealings on the Bourse; she even relied on her husband for the administration of the house and of their income. Quite confident of her own powers of pleasing, she was miles away from imagining that this delightful life, which had gone on for seventeen years, could ever be in danger; however, on hearing that the Count had resolved on restoring the splendid château of Presles, she understood that all her enjoyments were imperiled, and she had persuaded her husband to come to terms with Léger, so as to have a retreat at l’Isle-Adam. She could not have borne to find herself in an almost servile position in the presence of her former mistress, who would undoubtedly laugh at her on finding her established at the lodge in a style that aped the lady of fashion.
The origin of the deep-seated enmity between the Reyberts and the Moreaus lay in a stab inflicted on Madame Moreau by Madame de Reybert in revenge for a pinprick that the steward’s wife had dared to give on the first arrival of the Reyberts, lest her supremacy should be infringed on by the lady née de Corroy. Madame de Reybert had mentioned, and perhaps for the first time informed the neighborhood, of Madame Moreau’s original calling. The words “lady’s maid” flew from lip to lip. All those who envied the Moreaus—and they must have been many—at Beaumont, at l’Isle-Adam, at Maffliers, at Champagne, at Nerville, at Chauvry, at Baillet, at Moisselles, made such pregnant comments that more than one spark from this conflagration fell into the Moreaus’ home. For four years, now, the Reyberts, excommunicated by their pretty rival, had become the object of so much hostile animadversion from her partisans, that their position would have been untenable but for the thought
