Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe Read Online Free Page B

an eye on the children to make sure they took off their muddy boots before walking on the carpet. “We went to church.” I knew that this explanation would please.
    “Is Grandpapa awake?” Hortense asked.
    “Go! Go, my pets! He’s been waiting for you both.” The children raced up the stairs, pushing and pulling at each other. I did not attempt to quiet them; I was relieved to hear them laughing.
    “I’ve been most anxious for your arrival, Rose,” my aunt said, gesturing to me to take a seat. “I have excellent news.” She perched on the edge of the green brocade sofa, nervously jiggling an enormous ring of iron keys.
    “Oh?” A sick feeling passed through me. I’d come with news myself, and I feared my aunt would not consider it in the least bit excellent. “My husband died!” she said, crossing herself.
    “Monsieur Renaudin?” I had no reason to regret the man’s passing. He and my aunt had separated before I’d even been born. Stories of the evil Monsieur Renaudin had excited my imagination as a child—stories of the man who had tried to poison my aunt, and who had (it was later discovered) been imprisoned for trying to poison his own father.
    “And so the Marquis has asked for my hand in marriage.” Aunt Désirée made this announcement with a girlish flutter of her eyelids.
    “That’s wonderful!” I said, repressing a smile. The Marquis was over eighty years old—my aunt, a quarter century younger—and I doubted that marriage was much on his mind. “And I take it you’ve consented?” My religious, proper and socially sensitive aunt had suffered, I knew, from living with the Marquis all these years without the Church’s blessing.
    “But Father Renard insists we wait a year—out of respect. I’m terrified the Marquis will die before he makes an honest woman of me,” she said, picking up the loose sofa pillows one by one, as if looking for something.She found a coin under one of the pillows and, frowning, put it back. (A test of her servants, I realized.) “So I told Father Renard I’d donate a new candelabra to the church and he finally agreed to six months. I know where I can get a used one for a fraction of what I’d pay in Paris. A good washing down with vinegar will make it like new.” The cushions back in place, she pulled a tangle of crumpled handkerchiefs from the depths of her bosom and set to work smoothing them out one at a time on her lap. “And so, Rose, tell me: how are you?”
    “Fine! I have news as well.” The words came out louder than I’d intended, and far bolder than I felt.
    “Has your cow calved, dear?” She put a pastel green handkerchief aside and stuffed the remaining ones back into the crevice of her ample bosom.
    “No,” I said, taken aback. “At least, not yet. No, I’ve …” My heart was pounding against my ribs! “I’ve married, Aunt Désirée,” I said finally.
    Aunt Désirée was holding the green handkerchief to the light, examining it for stains. “Did you say married, Rose?” she asked, turning toward me.
    I nodded, disquieted by her calm manner.
    “Why … that’s wonderful,” she said, crossing herself, “but to whom?” “To a military man by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. He’s—” “What type of name is that?” my aunt demanded, frowning suspiciously.
    “It’s a Corsican name, Aunt Désirée, and—”
    “You married a Corsican?” She reached for a brass bell and rang it vigorously. “But Rose, Corsicans are … they’re barbarians, they live like Gypsies. They steal, murder, lie —they have no morals whatsoever! And they don’t speak a proper language, you can’t understand a thing they say.”
    Fortunately, a parlour maid in a frilled cap appeared just then at the door. “Salts!” my aunt commanded.
    “We’re out of salts, Madame,” the maid stuttered, wiping her palms on her white bibbed apron. “But we do have hysteric water, Madame.” * Aunt Désirée snorted with impatience.
    “Aunt Désirée,