Even if Paul had not been in love with Mademoiselle Natalie, the world would have married them whether or no. The world, which is the cause of no good thing, is implicated in many disasters; then, when it sees the evil hatching out that it has so maternally brooded, it denies it and avenges it. The upper society of Bordeaux, supposing Mademoiselle Evangelista to have a fortune of a million francs, handed her over to Paul without awaiting the consent of the parties concerned—as it often does. Their fortunes, like themselves, were admirably matched. Paul was accustomed to the luxury and elegance in which Natalie lived. He had arranged and decorated his house as no one else could have arranged a home for Natalie. None but a man accustomed to the expenses of Paris life and the caprices’ of Paris women could escape the pecuniary difficulties which might result from marrying a girl who was already quite as much a Creole and a fine lady as her mother. Where a Bordelais in love with Mademoiselle Evangelista would be ruined, the Comte de Manerville, said the world, would steer clear of disaster.
So the affair was settled; the magnates of the tiptop royalist circle, when the marriage was mentioned in their presence, made such civil speeches to Paul as flattered his vanity.
“Everyone says you are to marry Mademoiselle Evangelista. You will do well to marry her; you will not find so handsome a wife anywhere, not even in Paris; she is elegant, pleasing, and allied through her mother with the Casa-Reals. You will be the most charming couple; you have the same tastes, the same views of life, and will keep the most agreeable house in Bordeaux. Your wife will only have to pack up her clothes and move in. In a case like yours a house ready to live in is as good as a settlement. And you are lucky to meet with a mother-in-law like Madame Evangelista. She is a clever woman, very attractive, and will be an important aid to you in the political career you ought now to aspire to. And she has sacrificed everything for her daughter, whom she worships, and Natalie will no doubt be a good wife, for she is loving to her mother.—And then, everything must have an end.”
“That is all very fine,” was Paul’s reply; for, in love though he was, he wished to be free to choose, “but it must have a happy end.”
Paul soon became a frequent visitor to Madame Evangelista, led there by the need to find employment for his idle hours, which he, more than other men, found it difficult to fill. There only in the town did he find the magnificence and luxury to which he had accustomed himself.
Madame Evangelista, at the age of forty, was handsome still, with the beauty of a grand sunset, which in summer crowns the close of a cloudless day. Her blameless reputation was an endless subject of discussion in the “sets” of Bordeaux society, and the curiosity of women was all the more alert, because the widow’s appearance suggested the sort of temperament which makes Spanish and Creole women notorious. She had black eyes and hair, the foot and figure of a Spaniard—the slender serpentine figure for which the Spaniards have a name. Her face, still beautiful, had the fascinating Creole complexion, which can only be described by comparing it with white muslin over warm blood-color, so equably tinted is its fairness. Her form was round, and attractive for the grace which combines the ease of indolence with vivacity, strength with extreme freedom. She was attractive, but imposing; she fascinated, but made no promises. Being tall, she could at will assume the port and dignity of a queen.
Men were ensnared by her conversation, as birds are by birdlime, for she had by nature the spirit which necessity bestows on intriguers; she would go on from concession to concession, arming herself with what she gained to ask for something more, but always able to withdraw a thousand yards at a bound if she were asked for anything in return. She was ignorant of facts, but she had known the Courts of Spain and of Naples, the most famous persons of the two Americas, and various illustrious families of England and of the Continent, which gave her an amount of information superficially so wide that it seemed immense. She entertained with the taste and dignity that cannot be learned, though to certain refined minds they become a second nature, assimilating the best of everything wherever they find it. Though her reputation for virtue remained unexplained, it served the purpose of giving weight to her actions, speech, and character.
The mother and daughter were truly friends, apart from filial and maternal feeling. They suited each other, and their perpetual contact had never resulted in a jar. Thus many persons accounted for Madame Evangelista’s self-sacrifice by her love for her daughter. However, though Natalie may have consoled her mother for her unalleviated widowhood, she was not perhaps its only motive. Madame Evangelista was said to have fallen in love with a man whom the second Restoration had reinstated in his title and peerage. This man, who would willingly have married her in 1814, had very decently thrown her over in 1816.
Now Madame Evangelista, apparently the best-hearted creature living, had in her nature one terrible quality which can be best expressed in Catherine de’ Medici’s motto, Odiate e aspettate—Hate and wait. Used always to be first, always to be obeyed, she resembled royal personages in being amiable, gentle, perfectly sweet and easygoing in daily life; but terrible, implacable, when offended in her pride as a woman, a Spaniard, and a Casa-Real. She never forgave. This woman believed in the power of her
