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 steadily dark as a thundercloud as his patience waned and his impatience to be at naked oneness with his tasty young virgin bride increased.
But finally there was no help for it; Laurette had taken the last morsel of food and the last sip of champagne that she could stomach, and now, alas, she had to stomach the patron himself. She finally rose, her face blushing in her sweet bridal confusion, and the old fool shoved back his chair and scurried to her to take her arm with his bony fingers and to declare in his ready voice, “Lean on me, my little pigeon. I shall conduct you to the nuptial chamber myself. You will see how tenderly I will care for you, my darling Laurette. You do not know how I have waited for this moment!”
Had he let it go at that, the old fool might possibly have roused in Laurette some vague tolerance of her elderly benedict. But the habits of a lifetime are difficult to curb. And, sure enough, no sooner had they passed the threshold of the dining room, then he surreptitiously groped with thumb and forefinger and pinched her tender bottom through her skirt and petticoat and drawers. Laurette started, turned scarlet, and uttered a startled gasp of overwrought embarrassment. She gazed at her husband reproachfully, two big tears forming in those glorious soft blue eyes. The patron of Languecuisse cackled with ribald merriment: “Eh, eh, my beauty, you did not think I was so spry at my age, I trow. I will surprise you this night, my plump little pigeon. You will fall back on your pillow and beg for mercy, I promise you. I will make you forget that rascally Pierre Larrieu before the sun rises in the heavens, of that you may be certain. Come, my little beauty, come to bed!”
Laurette allowed herself to be conducted to the bridal chamber. With ill-concealed lubricity, the patron flung open the door and triumphantly pointed towards the canopied four-poster bed which rose so imposingly and menacingly before the tender eyes of this beautiful peasant virgin. “Is that bed not magnificent, my dear little Laurette?” he cackled. “There are two mattresses, and they are packed with eiderdown to cradle your lovely flesh. Come, give me a tender kiss before you disrobe, a kiss that will tell me you are mine at last, my exquisite little pigeon!”
Laurette dutifully put her hands on his shoulders, closed her eyes, and gave him a peck on the cheek, which did not at all please him. “But that is no kiss at all, you teasing little vixen,” he snorted. “Do you not know that I am your proper husband now, with every right over you? You must obey my every wish, Laurette. That is the law, and Pere Mourier will tell you your duties if you do not know it already.” With this, he crushed his thin, dry lips upon her rosy mouth, and Laurette winced and shuddered, wishing that some miracle might whisk her away from this gaudy bedchamber and take her instead to a hayrick wherein she might lie naked in the embrace of sturdy, loving Pierre Larrieu.
But it was, alas, not to be.
Laurette, realizing that the frightful hour was here at last and that no one would break in to save her, not even her adored Pierre, blushingly petitioned her elderly husband to let her disrobe in privacy. But the patron was not to be put off so deviously. “Ah no, my little pigeon,” he slyly retorted, “I will not let you get out of my sight till I have had you and properly enjoyed your maiden treasure, which is my due because you are now my bride! I know your scheme, you sweet trickster, aye, I know it well. You would slip off to your room, promising to change into your nightshift, and then I should find you fled out to the fields with this rascally bastard who would usurp all my privileges!”
“Oh, no, no, Monsieur Villiers, how can you think such a thing of me? I am a good girl, a virgin, and I am dying of shame to think that now—I—I must take off my clothes and—and let you see me. At least, send Victorine in to me to help me prepare for bed.”
“There is no need for that, my beauty,” he greedily parried her last ruse. “As your husband, I will be your maid as well. And there is no need for shame now, my little pigeon, since we are man and wife. Come, quickly, take off your gown. I am longing to see your beautiful white skin, remembering how you looked in the cask when I let you win the contest!”