But extravagance was a vice to which Lisette was strange. The Senator was fond and generous. It was a source of satisfaction to him that Lisette began very soon to save money. She ran her apartment with thrift and bought her clothes at trade prices, and every month sent a certain sum home to her heroic father, who purchased little plots of land with it. She continued to lead a quiet and modest life and Monsieur Le Sueur was pleased to learn from the concierge, who had a son she wanted to place in a government office, that Lisette’s only visitors were her aunt and one or two girls from the shop.
The Senator had never been happier in his life. It. was very satisfactory to him to think that even in this world a good action had its reward, for was it not from pure kindness that he had accompanied his wife to the dressmaker’s on that afternoon when they were discussing the American Debt at the Senate and thus seen for the first time the charming Lisette? The more he knew her the more he doted on her. She was a delightful companion. She was gay and debonair. Her intelligence was respectable and she could listen cleverly when he discussed business matters or affairs of state with her. She rested him when he was weary and cheered him when he was depressed. She was glad to see him when he came, and he came frequently, generally from five till seven, and sorry when he went away. She gave him the impression that he was not only her lover but her friend. Sometimes they dined together in her apartment, and the well-appointed meal, the genial comfort, gave him a keen appreciation of the charm of domesticity. His friends told the Senator he looked twenty years younger. He felt it. He was conscious of his good fortune. He could not but feel, however, that after a life of honest toil and public service it was only his due.
It was thus a shock to him, after things had been proceeding so happily for nearly two years, on coming back to Paris early one Sunday morning unexpectedly after a visit to his constituency which was to last over the week-end, when he let himself into the apartment with his latchkey, thinking since it was the day of rest to find Lisette in bed, to discover her having breakfast in her bedroom tête-à-tête with a young gentleman he had never seen before who was wearing his (the Senator’s) brand new pyjamas. Lisette was surprised to see him. Indeed she gave a distinct start.
“Tiens,” she said. “Where have you sprung from? I didn’t expect you till to-morrow.”
“The Ministry has fallen,” he answered mechanically. “I have been sent for. I am to be offered the Ministry of the Interior.” But that was not what he wanted to say at all. He gave the gentleman who was wearing his pyjamas a furious look. “Who is that young man?” he cried.
Lisette’s large red mouth broke into a most alluring smile.
“My lover,” she answered.
“Do you think I’m a fool?” shouted the Senator. “I know he’s your lover.”
“Why do you ask then?”
Monsieur Le Sueur was a man of action. He went straight up to Lisette and smacked her hard on her right cheek with his left hand and then smacked her hard on the left cheek with his right hand.
“Brute,” screamed Lisette.
He turned to the young man, who had watched this scene of violence with some embarrassment, and, drawing himself to his full height, flung out his arm and with a dramatic finger pointed to the door.
“Get out,” he cried. “Get out.”
One would have thought, such was the commanding aspect of a man who was accustomed to sway a crowd of angry taxpayers and who could dominate with his frown an annual meeting of disappointed shareholders, that the young man would have made a bolt for the door; but he stood his ground, irresolutely it is true, but he stood his ground; he gave Lisette an appealing look and slightly shrugged his shoulders.
“What are you waiting for?” shouted the Senator. “Do you want me to use force?”
“He can’t go out in his pyjamas,” said Lisette.
“They’re not his pyjamas, they’re my pyjamas.”
“He’s waiting for his clothes.”
Monsieur Le Sueur looked round and on the chair behind him, flung down in a disorderly fashion, was a variety of masculine garments. The Senator gave the young man a look of contempt.
“You may take your clothes, Monsieur,” he said with cold disdain.
The young man picked them up in his arms, gathered up the shoes that were lying about the floor, and quickly left the room. Monsieur Le Sueur had a considerable gift of oratory. Never had he made better use of it than now. He told Lisette what he thought of her. It was not flattering. He painted her ingratitude in the blackest colours. He ransacked an extensive vocabulary in order to find opprobrious names to call her. He called all the powers of heaven to witness that never had a woman repaid with such gross deception an honest man’s belief in her. In short he said everything that anger, wounded vanity and disappointment suggested to him. Lisette did not seek to defend herself. She listened in silence, looking down and mechanically crumbling the roll which the Senator’s appearance had prevented her from finishing. He flung an irritated glance at her plate.
“I was so anxious that you should be the first to hear my great news that I came straight here from the station. I was expecting to have my petit déjeuner with you, sitting at the end of your bed.”
“My poor dear, haven’t you had your breakfast? I’ll order some for you at once.”
“I don’t want any.”
“Nonsense. With the great responsibility you are about to assume you must keep up your strength.”
She rang and when the maid came told her to bring in hot coffee. It was brought and Lisette poured it out. He would not touch it. She buttered a roll. He shrugged his shoulders and began to eat. Meanwhile he uttered a few remarks on the perfidy of women. She remained silent.
“At all events it is something,” he said, “that you have not the effrontery to attempt to excuse yourself. You know that I am not a man who can be ill-used with impunity. The soul of generosity when people behave well to me I am pitiless when they behave badly. The very moment I have drunk my coffee I shall leave this apartment for ever.”
Lisette sighed.
“I will tell you now that I had prepared a surprise for you. I had made up my mind to celebrate the second anniversary of our union by settling a sum of money on you sufficient to give you a modest independence if anything happened to me.”
“How much?” asked Lisette sombrely.
“A million francs.”
She sighed again. Suddenly something soft hit the Senator on the back of the head and he gave a start.
“What is that?” he cried.
“He’s returning your pyjamas.”
The young man had opened the door, flung the pyjamas at t he Senator’s head, and quickly closed it again. The Senator disengaged himself from the silk trousers that clung round his neck.
“What a way to return them! It is obvious that your friend has no education.”
“Of course he has not your distinction,” murmured Lisette. “And has he my intelligence?”
“Oh, no.”
“Is be rich?”
“Penniless.”
“Then, name of a name, what is it you see in him?”
“He’s young,” smiled Lisette.
The Senator looked down at his plate and a tear rose in his eyes and rolled down his cheek into the coffee. Lisette gave him a kindly look.
“My poor friend, one can’t have everything in this life,” she said.
“I knew I was not young. But my situation, my fortune, my vitality. I thought it made up. There are women who only like men of a certain age. There are celebrated actresses who look upon it as an honour to be the little friend of a Minister. I am too well brought up to throw your origins in your face, but the fact remains that you are a mannequin and I took you out of an apartment of which the rent is only two thousand francs a year. It was a step up for you.”
“The daughter of poor but honest parents, I have no reason to be ashamed of my origins, and it is not because I have earned my living in a humble sph
ere that you have the right to reproach me.”
“Do you love this boy?”
“Yes.”
“And not me?”
“You too. I love you both, but I love you differently. I love you because you are so distinguished and your conversation is instructive and interesting. I love you because you are kind and generous. I love him because his eyes are so big and his hair waves and he dances divinely. It’s very natural.”
“You know that in my position I cannot take you to places where they dance and I daresay when he’s as old as I am he’ll have no more hair than I have.”
“That may well be true,” Lisette agreed, but she did not think it much mattered.
“What will your aunt, the respectable Madame Saladin, say to you when she hears what you have done?”
“It will not be exactly a surprise to her.”
“Do you mean to say that worthy woman countenances your conduct? O tempora, o mores! How long then has this been going on?”
“Since I first went to the shop. He travels for a big silk firm in Lyons. He came in one day with his samples. We liked the look of one another.”
“But your aunt was there to defend you from the temptations to which a young girl is exposed in Paris. She should never have allowed you to have anything to do with this young man.”
“I did not ask her permission.”
“It is enough to bring the grey hairs of your poor father to the grave. Had you no thought of that wounded hero whose services to his country have been rewarded with a licence to sell tobacco? Do you forget that as Minister of the Interior the department is under my control? I should be within my rights if I revoked the licence on account of your flagrant immorality.”
“I know you are too great a gentleman to do a dastardly thing like that.”
He waved his hand in an impressive, though perhaps too dramatic a manner.
“Don’t be afraid, I will never stoop so low as to revenge myself on one who has deserved well of his country for the misdeeds of a creature my sense of dignity forces me to despise.”
He went on with his interrupted breakfast. Lisette did not speak and there was silence between them. But his appetite satisfied, his mood changed; he began to feel sorry for himself rather than angry with her, and with a strange ignorance of woman’s heart he thought to arouse Lisette’s remorse by exhibiting himself as an object of pity.
“It is hard to break a habit to which one has grown accustomed. It was a relief and a solace to me to come here when I could snatch a moment from my many occupations. Will you regret me a little, Lisette?”
“Of course.”
He gave a deep sigh.
“I should never have thought you capable of so much deception.”
“It is the deception that rankles,” she murmured thoughtfully. “Men are funny in that way. They cannot forgive being made fools of. It is because they are so vain. They attach importance to things that are of no consequence.”
“Do you call it a matter of no consequence that I should find you having breakfast with a young man wearing my pyjamas?” “If he were my husband and you were my lover you would think it perfectly natural.”
“Obviously. For then I should be deceiving him and my honour would be secure.”
“In .short, I have only to marry him to make the situation perfectly regular.”
For a moment he did not understand. Then her meaning flashed across his clever brain and he gave her a quick look. Her lovely eyes had the twinkle he always found so alluring and on her large red mouth was the suspicion of a roguish smile.
“Do not forget that as a member of the Senate I am by all the traditions of the Republic the authorized mainstay of morality and good behaviour.”
“Docs that weigh very heavily with you?” He stroked his handsome square beard with a composed and dignified gesture.
“Not a row of beans,” he replied, but the expression he used had a Gallic breadth that would perhaps have given his more conservative supporters something of a shock.
“Would he marry you?” he asked.
“He adores me. Of course he would marry me. If I told him I had a dot of a million francs he would ask nothing better.” Monsieur Le Sueur gave her another look. When in a moment of anger he told her it had been his intention to settle a million francs on her he had exaggerated a good deal in the desire to make her see how much her treachery was costing her. But he was not the man to draw back when his dignity was concerned. “It is much more than a young man in his position of life could aspire to. But if he adores you he would be always at your side.”
“Didn’t I tell you that he was a commercial traveller? He can only come to Paris for the week-end.”
“That of course is a horse of another colour,” said the Senator. “It would naturally be a satisfaction to him to know that during his absence I should be there to keep an eye on you.”
“A considerable satisfaction,” said Lisette.
To facilitate the conversation she rose from her scat and made herself comfortable on the Senator’s knees. He pressed her hand tenderly.
“I am very fond of you, Lisette,” he said. “I should not like you to make a mistake. Are you sure he will make you happy?”
“I think so.”
“I will have proper enquiries made. I would never consent to you marrying anyone not of exemplary character and unimpeachable morality. For all our sakes we must make quite sure about this young man whom we are preparing to bring into our lives.”
Lisette raised no objection. She was aware that the Senator liked to do things with order and method. He now prepared to leave her. He wanted to break his important news to Madame Le Sueur, and he had to get in touch with various persons in the parliamentary group to which he belonged.
“There is only one more thing,” he said, as he bade Lisette an affectionate farewell, “if you marry I must insist on your giving up your work. The place of a wife is the home, and it is against all my principles that a married woman should take the bread out of a man’s mouth.”
Lisette reflected that a strapping young man would look rather funny walking round the room, with his hips swaying, to show off the latest models, but she respected the Senator’s principles.
“It shall be as you wish, darling,” she said.
The enquiries he made were satisfactory and the marriage took place on a Saturday morning as soon as the legal formalities were completed. Monsieur Le Sueur, Minister of the Interior, and Madame Saladin were witnesses. The bridegroom was a slim young man with a straight nose, fine eyes and black waving hair brushed straight back from his forehead. He looked more like a tennis-player than a traveller in silk. The Mayor, impressed by the august presence of the Minister of the Interior, made according to French practice a speech which he sought to render eloquent. He began by telling the married couple what presumably they knew already. He informed the bridegroom that he was the son of worthy parents and was engaged in an honourable profession. He congratulated him on entering the bonds of matrimony at an age when many young men thought only of their pleasures. He reminded the bride that her father was a hero of the great war, whose glorious wounds had been rewarded by a concession to sell tobacco, and he told her that she had earned a decent living since her arrival in Paris in an establishment that was one of the glories of French taste and luxury. The Mayor was of a literary turn and he briefly mentioned various celebrated lovers of fiction, Romeo and Juliet whose short but legitimate union had been interrupted by a regrettable misunderstanding, Paul and Virginia who had met her death at sea rather than sacrifice her modesty by taking off her clothes, and finally Daphnis and Chloe who had not consummated their marriage till it was sanctioned by the legitimate authority. He was so moving that Lisette shed a few tears. He paid a compliment to Madame Saladin whose example and precept had preserved her young and beautiful niece from the dangers that are likely to befall a young girl alone in a great city, and finally he congratulated the happy pair on the honour that th
e Minister of the Interior had done them in consenting to be a witness at the ceremony. It was a testimony to their own probity that this captain of industry and eminent statesman should find time to perform a humble office to persons in their modest sphere, and it proved not only the excellence of his heart but his lively sense of duty. His action showed that he appreciated the importance of early marriage, affirmed the security of the family and emphasised the desirability of producing offspring to increase the power, influence and consequence of the fair land of France. A very good speech indeed.
The wedding breakfast was held at the Chateau de Madrid, which had sentimental associations for Monsieur Le Sueur. It has been mentioned already that among his many interests the Minister (as we must now call him) was interested in a firm of motor-cars. His wedding present to the bridegroom was a very nice two-seater of his own manufacture, and in this, when lunch was over, the young couple started off for their honeymoon. This could only last over the week-end since the young man had to get back to his work, which would take him to Marseilles,
Toulon and Nice. Lisette kissed her aunt and she kissed Monsieur Le Sueur.
“I shall expect you at five on Monday,” she whispered to him.
“I shall be there,” he answered.
They drove away and for a moment Monsieur Le Sueur and Madame Saladin looked at the smart yellow roadster.
“As long as he makes her happy,” sighed Madame Saladin, who was not used to champagne at lunch and felt unreasonably melancholy.
The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham - II - The World Over Page 53
