Of course, everybody was quite satisfied and easy. The young people
and the Baroness lauded the model father to the skies, forgetting the
death of the two uncles. Life cannot go on without much forgetting!
Madame Victorin, who managed this enormous household with great skill,
due, no doubt, to Lisbeth's training, had found it necessary to have a
man-cook. This again necessitated a kitchen-maid. Kitchen-maids are in
these days ambitious creatures, eager to detect the _chef's_ secrets,
and to become cooks as soon as they have learnt to stir a sauce.
Consequently, the kitchen-maid is liable to frequent change.
At the beginning of 1845 Celestine engaged as kitchen-maid a sturdy
Normandy peasant come from Isigny--short-waisted, with strong red
arms, a common face, as dull as an "occasional piece" at the play, and
hardly to be persuaded out of wearing the classical linen cap peculiar
to the women of Lower Normandy. This girl, as buxom as a wet-nurse,
looked as if she would burst the blue cotton check in which she
clothed her person. Her florid face might have been hewn out of stone,
so hard were its tawny outlines.
Of course no attention was paid to the advent in the house of this
girl, whose name was Agathe--an ordinary, wide-awake specimen, such as
is daily imported from the provinces. Agathe had no attractions for
the cook, her tongue was too rough, for she had served in a suburban
inn, waiting on carters; and instead of making a conquest of her chief
and winning from him the secrets of the high art of the kitchen, she
was the object of his great contempt.
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