THE WILL OF THE MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL
Tears of joy, tears which relieved her strained nerves and bathed
her in an immense peacefulness. The five men were greatly disturbed,
knowing neither what to do nor what to say.
"Mademoiselle?... What's the matter, mademoiselle?"
They seemed so staggered by her sobs and by their own presence
round her, that Dorothy passed suddenly from tears to laughter, and
yielding to her natural impulse, she began forthwith to dance, without
troubling to know whether she would appear to them to be a princess
or a rope-dancer. And the more this unexpected display increased the
embarrassment of her companions the gayer she grew. Fandango, jig,
reel, she gave a snatch of each, with a simulated accompaniment of
castanets, and a genuine accompaniment of English songs and Auvergnat
ritornelles, and above all of bursts of laughter which awakened the
echoes of Roche-Périac.
"But laugh too, all five of you!" she cried. "You look like five
mummies. It's I who order you to laugh, I, Dorothy, rope-dancer and
Princess of Argonne. Come, Mr. Lawyer," she added, addressing the
gentleman in the frock-coat. "Look more cheerful. I assure you that
there's plenty to be cheerful about."
She darted to the good man, shook him by the hand, and said, as if to
assure him of his status: "You are the lawyer, aren't you? The notary
charged with the execution of the provisions of a will. That's much
clearer than you think.... We'll explain it to you.... You are the
notary?"
"That is the fact," stammered the gentleman. "I am Maître Delarue,
notary at Nantes."
"At Nantes? Excellent; we know where we are. And it's a question of
a gold medal, isn't it?... A gold medal which each has received as a
summons to the rendezvous?"
"Yes, yes," he said, more and more flustered. "A gold medal--a
rendezvous."
"The 12th of July, 1921."
"Yes, yes--1921."
"At noon?"
"At noon."
He made as if to look at his watch. She stopped him:
"You needn't take the trouble, Maître Delarue; we've heard the Angelus.
You are punctual at the rendezvous.... We are too.... Everything is in
order.... Each has his gold medal.... They're going to show it to you."
She drew Maître Delarue towards the clock, and said with even greater
animation:
"This is Maître Delarue, the notary. You understand? If you don't, I
can speak English--and Italian--and Javanese."
All four of them protested that they understood French.
"Excellent. We shall understand one another better. Then this is Maître
Delarue; he is the notary, the man who has been instructed to preside
at our meeting. In France notaries represent the dead. So that since
it is a dead man who brings us together, you see how important Maître
Delarue's position is in the matter. You don't grasp it? How funny that
is! To me it is all so clear--and so amusing. So strange! It's the
prettiest adventure I ever heard of--and the most thrilling. Think now!
We all belong to the same family.... We're by way of being cousins.
Then we ought to be joyful like relations who have come together. And
all the more because--yes: I'm right--all four of you are decorated....
The French Croix de Guerre. Then all four of you have fought?... Fought
in France?... You have defended my dear country?"
She shook hands with all of them, with an air of affection, and since
the American and the Italian displayed an equal warmth, of a sudden,
with a spontaneous movement, she rose on tip-toe and kissed them on
both cheeks.
"Welcome cousin from America ... welcome cousin from Italy ... welcome
to my country. And to you two also, greetings. It's settled that we're
comrades--friends--isn't it?"
The atmosphere was charged with joy and that good humor which comes
from being young and full of life. They felt themselves to be really
of the same family, scattered members brought together. They no
longer felt the constraint of a first meeting. They had known one
another for years and years--for ages! cried Dorothy, clapping her
hands. So the four men surrounded her, at once attracted by her charm
and lightheartedness, and surprised by the light she brought into
the obscure story which so suddenly united them to one another. All
barriers were swept away. There was none of that slow infiltration of
feeling which little by little fills you with trust and sympathy, but
the sudden inrush of the most unreserved comradeship. Each wished to
please and each felt that he did please.
Dorothy separated them and set them in a row as if about to review them.
"I'll take you in turn, my friends. Excuse me, Monsieur Delarue, I'll
do the questioning and verify their credentials. Number one, the
gentleman from America, who are you? Your name?"
The American answered:
"Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia."
"Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia. You received from your father a
gold medal?"
"From my mother, mademoiselle. My father died many years ago."
"And from whom did your mother receive it?"
"From her father."
"And he from his and so on in succession, isn't that it?"
Archibald Webster confirmed her statement in excellent French, as if it
was his duty to answer her questions:
"And so on in succession, as you say, mademoiselle. A family tradition,
which goes back to we don't know when, ascribes a French origin to
her family, and directs that a certain medal should be transmitted
to the eldest son, without more than two persons ever knowing of its
existence."
"And what do you understand this tradition to mean?"
"I don't know what it means. My mother told me that it gave us a right
to a share of a treasure. But she laughed as she told me and sent me to
France rather out of curiosity."
"Show me your medal, Archibald Webster."
The American took the gold medal from his waistcoat pocket. It was
exactly like the one Dorothy possessed--the inscription, the size, the
dull color were the same. Dorothy showed it to Maître Delarue, then
gave it back to the American, and went on with her questioning:
"Number two--English, aren't you?"
"George Errington, of London."
"Tell us what you know, George Errington, of London."
The Englishman shook his pipe, emptied it, and answered in equally good
French.
"I know no more. An orphan from birth, I received the medal three days
ago from the hands of my guardian, my father's brother. He told me
that, according to my father, it was a matter of collecting a bequest,
and according to himself, there was nothing in it, but I ought to obey
the summons."
"You were right to obey it, George Errington. Show me your medal.
Right: you're in order.... Number three--a Russian, doubtless?"
The man in the soldier's cap understood; but he did not speak French.
He smiled his large smile and gave her a scrap of paper of doubtful
cleanliness, on which was written: "Kourobelef, French war, Salonica.
War with Wrangel."
"The medal?" said Dorothy. "Right. You're one of us. And the medal of
number four--the gentleman from Italy?"
"Marco Dario, of Geneva," answered the Italian, showing his medal. "I
found it on my father's body, in Champagne, one day after we had been
fighting side by side. He had never spoken to me about it."
"Nevertheless you have come here."
"I did not intend to. And then, in spite of myself, as I had returned
to Champagne--to my father's tomb, I took the train to Vannes."
"Yes," she said: "like the others you have obeyed the command of our
common ancestor. What ancestor? And why this command? That is what
Monsieur Delarue is going to reveal to us. Come Monsieur Delarue: all
is in order. All of us have the token. It is now in order for us to
call on you for the explanation."
"What explanation?" asked the lawyer, still dazed by so many surprises.
"I don't quite know...."
"How do you mean you don't know?... Why this leather satchel.... And
why have you made the journey from Nantes to Roche-Périac? Come, open
your satchel and read to us the documents it must contain."
"You truly believe----"
"Of course I believe! We have, all five of us, these gentlemen and
myself, performed our duty in coming here and informing you of our
identity. It is your turn to carry out your mission. We are all ears."
The gayety of the young girl spread around her such an atmosphere
of cordiality that even Maître Delarue himself felt its beneficent
effects. Besides, the business was already in train; and he entered
smoothly on ground over which the young girl had traced, in the midst
of apparently impenetrable brushwood, a path which he could follow with
perfect ease.
"But certainly," said he. "But certainly.... There is nothing else to
do.... And I must communicate what I know to you.... Excuse me.... But
this affair is so disconcerting."
Getting the better of the confusion into which he had been thrown, he
recovered all the dignity which befits a lawyer. They set him in the
seat of honor on a kind of shelf formed by an inequality of the ground,
and formed a circle round him. Following Dorothy's instructions, he
opened his satchel with the air of importance of a man used to having
every eye fixed on him and every ear stretched to catch his every
word, and without waiting to be again pressed to speak, embarked on
a discourse evidently prepared for the event of his finding himself,
contrary to all reasonable expectation, in the presence of some one at
the appointed rendezvous.
"My preamble will be brief," he said, "for I am eager to come to the
object of this reunion. On the day--it is fourteen years ago--on which
I installed myself at Nantes in the office of a notary whose practice
I had bought, my predecessor, after having given me full information
about the more complicated cases in hand, exclaimed: 'Ah, but I was
forgetting ... not that it's of any importance.... But all the same....
Look, my dear confrère, this is the oldest set of papers in the
office.... And a measly set too, since it only consists of a sealed
letter with a note of instructions, which I will read to you:
_Missive intrusted to the strict care of the Sire Barbier,
scrivener, and of his successors, to be opened on the 12th of
July, 1921, at noon, in front of the clock of the Château of
Roche-Périac, and to be read in the presence of all possessors
of a gold medal struck at my instance._
"There! No other explanations. My predecessor did not receive any from
the man from whom he had bought the practice. The most he could learn,
after researches among the old registers of the parish of Périac,
was that the Sire Barbier (Hippolyte Jean), scrivener, lived at the
beginning of the eighteenth century. At what epoch was his office
closed? For what reasons were his papers transported to Nantes? Perhaps
we may suppose that owing to certain circumstances, one of the lords
of Roche-Périac left the country and settled down at Nantes with his
furniture, his horses, and his household down to the village scrivener.
Anyhow, for nearly two hundred years the letter intrusted to the strict
care of the scrivener Barbier and his successors, lay at the bottom of
drawers and pigeon-holes, without any one's having tried to violate the
secrecy enjoined by the writer of it. And so it came about that in all
probability it would fall to my lot to break the seal!"
Maître Delarue made a pause and looked at his auditors. They were,
as they say, hanging on his lips. Pleased with the impression he had
produced, he tapped the leather satchel, and continued:
"Need I tell you that my thoughts have very often dwelt on this
prospect and that I have been curious to learn the contents of such
a letter? A journey even which I made to this château gave me no
information, in spite of my searches in the archives of the villages
and towns of the district. Then the appointed time drew near. Before
doing anything I went to consult the president of the civil court.
A question presented itself. If the letter was to be considered a
testamentary disposition, perhaps I ought not to open it except in
the presence of that magistrate. That was my opinion. It was not his.
He was of the opinion that we were confronted by a display of fantasy
(he went so far as to murmur the word 'humbug') which was outside the
scope of the law and that I should act quite simply. 'A trysting-place
beneath the elm,' he said, joking, 'has been fixed for you at noon on
the 12th of July. Go there, Monsieur Delarue, break the seal of the
missive in accordance with the instructions, and come back and tell me
all about it. I promise you not not to laugh if you come back looking
like a fool.' Accordingly, in a very sceptical state of mind, I took
the train to Vannes, then the coach, and then hired a donkey to bring
me to the ruins. You can imagine my surprise at finding that I was not
alone under the elm--I mean the clock--at the rendezvous but that all
of you were waiting for me."
The four young people laughed heartily. Marco Dario, of Genoa, said:
"All the same the business grows serious."
George Errington, of London, added:
"Perhaps the story of the treasure is not so absurd."
"Monsieur Delarue's letter is going to inform us," said Dorothy.
So the moment had come. They gathered more closely round the notary.
A certain gravity mingled with the gayety on the young faces; and it
grew deeper when Maître Delarue displayed before the eyes of all one
of those large square envelopes which formerly one made oneself out
of a thick sheet of paper. It was discolored with that peculiar shine
which only the lapse of time can give to paper. It was sealed with
five seals, once upon a time red perhaps, but now of a grayish violet
seamed by a thousand little cracks like a network of wrinkles. In the
left-hand corner at the top, the formula of transmission must have been
renewed several times, traced afresh with ink by the successors of the
scrivener Barbier.
"The seals are quite intact," said Monsieur Delarue. "You can even
manage to make out the three Latin words of the motto."
"_In robore fortuna_," said Dorothy.
"Ah, you know?" said the notary, surprised.
"Yes, Monsieur Delarue, yes, they are the same as those engraved on the
gold medals, and those I discovered just now, half rubbed out, under
the face of the clock."
"We have here an indisputable connection," said the notary, "which
draws together the different parts of the affair and confers on it an
authenticity----"
"Open the letter--open it, Monsieur Delarue," said Dorothy impatiently.
Three of the seals were broken; the envelope was unfolded. It contained
a large sheet of parchment, broken into four pieces which separated and
had to be put together again.
From top to bottom and on both sides the sheet of parchment was covered
with large handwriting with bold down-strokes, which had evidently been
written in indelible ink. The lines almost touched and the letters were
so close together that the whole had the appearance of an old printed
page in a very large type.
"I'm going to read it," murmured Monsieur Delarue.
"Don't lose a second--for the love of God!" cried Dorothy.
He took a second pair of glasses from his pocket and put them on over
the first, and read:
"'_Written this day, the 12th of July, 1721_ ...'"
"Two centuries!" gasped the notary and began again:
"'_Written this day, the 12th of July, 1721, the last day of my
existence, to be read the 12th of July, 1921, the first day of my
resurrection._'"
The notary stopped short. The young people looked at one another with
an air of stupefaction.
Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia, observed:
"This gentleman was mad."
"The word resurrection is perhaps used in a symbolic sense," said
Maître Delarue. "We shall learn from what follows: I will continue:
"'_My children_'...."
He stopped again and said:
"'_My children_'.... He is addressing you."
"For goodness sake, Maître Delarue, do not stop again, I beg you!"
exclaimed Dorothy. "All this is thrilling."
"Nevertheless...."
"No, Maître Delarue, comment is useless. We're eager to know, aren't
we, comrades?"
The four young men supported her vehemently.
Thereupon the notary resumed his reading, with the hesitation and
repetitions imposed by the difficulties of the text:
"'_My children_,
"'_On leaving a meeting of the Academy of the sciences of Paris, to
which Monsieur de Fontenelle had had the goodness to invite me, the
illustrious author of the "Discourses on the Plurality of Worlds,"
seized me by the arm and said:_
"'Marquis, would you mind enlightening me on a point about which,
it seems, you maintain a shrinking reserve? How did you get that
wound on your left hand, get your _fourth finger cut off at the
very root? The story goes that you left that finger at the bottom
of one of your retorts, for you have the reputation, Marquis, of
being something of an alchemist, and of seeking, inside the walls
of your Château of Roche-Périac, the elixir of life._'
"'I do not seek it, Monsieur de Fontenelle,' I answered, 'I possess
it.'
"'Truly?'
"'Truly, Monsieur de Fontenelle, and if you will permit me to put
you in possession of a small phial, the pitiless Fate will
certainly have to wait till your hundredth year.'
"'I accept with the greatest pleasure,' he said, laughing--'on
condition that you keep me company. We are of the same age--which
gives us another forty good years to live.'
"'For my part, Monsieur de Fontenelle, to live longer does not
greatly appeal to me. What is the good of sticking stubbornly to a
world in which no new spectacle can surprise and in which the day
that is coming will be the same as the day that is done. What I
wish to do is to come to life again, to come to life again in a
century or two, to make the acquaintance of my grandchildren's
children, and see what men have done since our time. There will be
great changes here below, in the government of empires as well as
in everyday life. I shall learn about them.'
"'Bravo, Marquis!' exclaimed Monsieur de Fontenelle, who seemed
more and more amused. 'Bravo! It is another elixir which will give
you this marvelous power.'
"'Another,' I asserted. 'I brought it back with me from India,
where, as you know, I spent ten years of my youth, becoming the
friend of the priests of that marvelous country, from which every
revelation and every religion came to us. They initiated me into
some of their chief mysteries.'
"'Why not into all?' asked Monsieur de Fontenelle, with a touch of
irony.
"'There are some secrets which they refused to reveal to me, such
as the power to communicate with those other worlds, about which
you have just discoursed so admirably, Monsieur de Fontenelle, and
the power to live again.'
"Nevertheless, Marquis, you claim----'
"'That secret, Monsieur de Fontenelle, I stole; and to punish me
for the theft they sentenced me to the punishment of having all my
fingers torn off. After pulling off the first finger, they offered
to pardon me, if I consented to restore the phial I had stolen. I
told them where it was hidden. But I had taken the precaution
beforehand to change the contents, having poured the elixir into
another phial.'
"'So that, at the cost of one of your fingers, you have purchased
a kind of immortality.... Of which you propose to make use. Eh,
Marquis,' said Monsieur de Fontenelle.
"'As soon as I shall have put my affairs in order,' I answered;
'that is to say, in about a couple of years.'
"'You're going to make use of it to live again?'
"'In the year of grace 1921.'
"My story caused Monsieur de Fontenelle the greatest amusement;
and in taking leave of me, he promised to relate it in his Memoirs
as a proof of my lively imagination--and doubtless, as he said to
himself, of my insanity."
Maître Delarue paused to take breath and looked round the circle with
questioning eyes.
Marco Dario, of Genoa, threw back his head and laughed. The Russian
showed his white teeth. The two Anglo-Saxons seemed greatly amused.
"Rather a joke," said George Errington, of London, with a chuckle.
"Some farce," said Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia.
Dorothy said nothing; her eyes were thoughtful.
Silence fell and Maître Dalarue continued:
"Monsieur de Fontenelle was wrong to laugh, my children. There was
no imagination or insanity about it. The great Indian priests know
things that we do not know and never shall know; and I am the
master of one of the most wonderful of their secrets. The time has
come to make use of it. I am resolved to do so. Last year, my wife
was killed by accident, leaving me in bitter sorrow. My four sons,
like me of a venturesome spirit, are fighting or in business in
foreign lands. I live alone. Shall I drag on to the end an old age
that is useless and without charm? No. Everything is ready for my
departure ... and for my return. My old servants, Geoffrey and his
wife, faithful companions for thirty years, with a full knowledge
of my project, have sworn to obey me. I say good-bye to my age.
"Learn, my children, the events which are about to take place at
the Château of Roche-Périac. At two o'clock in the afternoon I
shall fall into a stupor. The doctor, summoned by Geoffrey, will
ascertain that my heart is no longer beating. I shall be quite dead
as far as human knowledge goes; and my servants will nail me up in
the coffin which is ready for me. When night comes, Geoffrey and
his wife will take me out of that coffin and carry me on a
stretcher, to the ruins of Cocquesin tower, the oldest donjon of
the Lords of Périac. Then they will fill the coffin with stones and
nail it up again.
"For his part, Master Barbier, executor of my will and
administrator of my property, will find in my drawer instructions,
charging him to notify my four sons of my death and to convey to
each of the four his share of his inheritance. Moreover by means
of a special courier he will dispatch to each a gold medal which
I have had struck, engraved with my motto and the date the 12th of
July, 1921, the day of my resurrection. This medal will be
transmitted from hand to hand, from generation to generation,
beginning with the eldest son or grandson, in such a manner that
not more than two persons shall know the secret at one time. Lastly
Master Barbier will keep this letter, which I am going to seal with
five seals, and which will be transmitted from scrivener to
scrivener till the appointed date.
"When you read this letter, my children, the hour of noon on the
12th of July, 1921, will have struck. You will be gathered together
under the clock of my château, fifty yards from old Cocquesin
tower, where I shall have been sleeping for two centuries. I have
chosen it as my resting-place, calculating that, if the revolutions
which I foresee destroy the buildings in use, they will leave alone
that which is already a crumbling ruin. Then, going along the
avenue of oaks, which my father planted, you will come to this
tower, which will doubtless be much the same as it is to-day. You
will stop under the arch from which the draw-bridge was formerly
raised, and one of you counting to the left, from the groove of the
portcullis, the third stone above it, will push it straight before
him, while another, counting on the right, always from the groove,
the third stone above it, will do as the first is doing. Under this
double pressure, exercised at the same time, the middle of the
right wall will swing back inwards and form an incline, which will
bring you to the bottom of a stone staircase in the thickness of
the wall.
"Lighted by a torch, you will ascend a hundred and thirty-two
steps, they will bring you to a partition of plaster which Geoffrey
will have built up after my death. You will break it down with a
pick-ax, waiting for you on the last step, and you will see a small
massive door, the key of which only turns if one presses at the
same time the three bricks which form part of that step.
"Through that door you will enter a chamber in which there will be
a bed behind curtains. You will draw aside those curtains. I shall
be sleeping there.
"Do not be surprised, my children, at finding me younger perhaps
than the portrait of me which Monsieur Nicolas de Largillière, the
King's painter, painted last year, and which hangs at the head of
my bed. Two centuries' sleep, the resting of my heart, which will
scarcely beat, will, I have no doubt, have filled up my wrinkles
and restored youth to my features. It will not be an old man you
will gaze upon.
"My children, the phial will be on a stool beside the bed, wrapped
in linen, corked with virgin wax. You will at once break the neck
of the phial. While one of you opens my teeth with the point of a
knife, another will pour the elixir, not drop by drop but in a thin
trickle, which should flow down to the bottom of my throat. Some
minutes will pass. Then little by little life will return. The
beating of my heart will grow quicker. My breast will rise and
fall; and my eyes will open.
"Perhaps, my children, it will be necessary for you to speak in low
voices, and not light up the room with too bright a light, that my
eyes and ears may not suffer any shock. Perhaps on the other hand I
shall only see you and hear you indistinctly, with enfeebled
organs. I do not know. I foresee a period of torpor and uneasiness,
during which I shall have to collect my thoughts as one does on
awaking from sleep. Moreover I shall make no haste about it, and I
beg you not to try to quicken my efforts. Quiet days and a
nourishing diet will insensibly restore me to the sweetness of
life.
"Have no fear at all that I shall need to live at your expense.
Unknown to my relations I brought back from the Indies four
diamonds of extraordinary size, which I have hidden in a
hiding-place there is no finding. They will easily suffice to
keep me in luxury befitting my station.
"Since I have to take into consideration that I may have forgotten
the secret hiding-place of the diamonds, I have set forth the
secret in some lines enclosed herein in a second envelope bearing
the designation 'The Codicil.'
"Of this codicil I have not breathed a word, not even to my servant
Geoffrey and his wife. If out of human weakness they bequeath to
their children an account revealing my secret history, they will
not be able to reveal the hiding-place of those four marvelous
diamonds, which they have often admired and which they will seek
in vain after I am gone.
"The enclosed envelope then will be handed over to me as soon as I
return to life. In the event--to my thinking impossible, but which
none the less your interests compel me to take into account--of
destiny having betrayed me and of your finding no trace of me, you
will yourselves open the envelope and learning the whereabouts of
the hiding-place, take possession of the diamonds. Then and
thereafter I declare that the ownership of the diamonds is vested
in those of my descendants who shall present the gold medal, and
that no person shall have the right to intervene in the fair
partition of them, on which they shall agree among themselves, and
I beg them to make that partition themselves as their consciences
shall direct.
"I have said what I have to say, my children. I am about to enter
into the silence and await your coming. I do not doubt that you
will come from all the corners of the earth at the imperious
summons of the gold medal. Sprung from the same stock, be as
brothers and sisters among yourselves. Approach with serious minds
him who sleeps, and deliver him from the bonds which keep him in
the kingdom of darkness.
"Written by my own hand, in perfect health of mind and body, this
day, the 12th of July, 1721. Delivered under my hand and seal.
"Jean-Pierre-Augustin de la Roche, Marquis de ----"
Maître Delarue was silent, bent nearer to the paper, and murmured:
"The signature is scarcely legible: the name begins with a B or an
R ... the flourish muddles up all the letters."
Dorothy said slowly:
"Jean-Pierre-Augustin de la Roche, Marquis de Beaugreval."
"Yes, yes: that's it!" cried the notary at once. "Marquis de
Beaugreval. How did you know?"