While Ursula was playing variations on Weber’s “Last Thought” to her
godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults’ dining-room
which was destined to have a lasting effect on the events of this drama.
The breakfast, noisy as all provincial breakfasts are, and enlivened by
excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either from Burgundy
or Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zelie had sent for oysters,
salt-water fish, and other gastronomical delicacies to do honor to
Desire’s return. The dining-room, in the center of which a round table
offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an inn. Content
with the size of her kitchens and offices, Zelie had built a pavilion
for the family between the vast courtyard and a garden planted with
vegetables and full of fruit-trees. Everything about the premises was
solid and plain. The example of Levrault-Levrault had been a warning to
the town. Zelie forbade her builder to lead her into such follies. The
dining-room was, therefore, hung with varnished paper and furnished with
walnut chairs and sideboards, a porcelain stove, a tall clock, and a
barometer. Though the plates and dishes were of common white china, the
table shone with handsome linen and abundant silverware. After Zelie
had served the coffee, coming and going herself like shot in a
decanter,--for she kept but one servant,--and when Desire, the budding
lawyer, had been told of the event of the morning and its probably
consequences, the door was closed, and the notary Dionis was called upon
to speak. By the silence in the room and the looks that were cast on
that authoritative face, it was easy to see the power that such men
exercise over families.
“My dear children,” said he, “your uncle having been born in 1746, is
eighty-three years old at the present time; now, old men are given to
folly, and that little--”
“Viper!” cried Madame Massin.
“Hussy!” said Zelie.
“Let us call her by her own name,” said Dionis.
“Well, she’s a thief,” said Madame Cremiere.
“A pretty thief,” remarked Desire.
“That little Ursula,” went on Dionis, “has managed to get hold of his
heart. I have been thinking of your interests, and I did not wait until
now before making certain inquiries; now this is what I have discovered
about that young--”
“Marauder,” said the collector.
“Inveigler,” said the clerk of the court.
“Hold your tongue, friends,” said the notary, “or I’ll take my hat and
be off.”
“Come, come, papa,” cried Minoret, pouring out a little glass of rum and
offering it to the notary; “here, drink this, it comes from Rome itself;
and now go on.”
“Ursula is, it is true, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet;
but her father was the natural son of Valentin Mirouet, your uncle’s
father-in-law. Being therefore an illegitimate niece, any will the
doctor might make in her favor could probably be contested; and if
he leaves her his fortune in that way you could bring a suit against
Ursula. This, however, might turn out ill for you, in case the court
took the view that there was no relationship between Ursula and the
doctor. Still, the suit would frighten an unprotected girl, and bring
about a compromise--”
“The law is so rigid as to the rights of natural children,” said the
newly fledged licentiate, eager to parade his knowledge, “that by the
judgment of the court of appeals dated July 7, 1817, a natural child can
claim nothing from his natural grandfather, not even a maintenance.
So you see the illegitimate parentage is made retrospective. The law
pursues the natural child even to its legitimate descent, on the ground
that benefactions done to grandchildren reach the natural son through
that medium. This is shown by articles 757, 908, and 911 of the civil
Code. The royal court of Paris, by a decision of the 26th of January of
last year, cut off a legacy made to the legitimate child of a natural
son by his grandfather, who, as grandfather, was as distant to a natural
grandson as the doctor, being an uncle, is to Ursula.”
“All that,” said Goupil, “seems to me to relate only to the bequests
made by grandfathers to natural descendants. Ursula is not a blood
relation of Doctor Minoret. I remember a decision of the royal court at
Colmar, rendered in 1825, just before I took my degree, which declared
that after the decease of a natural child his descendants could no
longer be prohibited from inheriting. Now, Ursula’s father is dead.”
Goupil’s argument produced what journalists who report the sittings of
legislative assemblies are wont to call “profound sensation.”
“What does that signify?” cried Dionis. “The actual case of the bequest
of an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been presented for
trial; but when it is, the sternness of French law against such children
will be all the more firmly applied because we live in times when
religion is honored. I’ll answer for it that out of such a suit as I
propose you could get a compromise,--especially if they see you are
determined to carry Ursula to a court of appeals.”
Here the joy of the heirs already fingering their gold was made manifest
in smiles, shrugs, and gestures round the table, and prevented all
notice of Goupil’s dissent. This elation, however, was succeeded by deep
silence and uneasiness when the notary uttered his next word, a terrible
“But!”
As if he had pulled the string of a puppet-show, starting the little
people in jerks by means of machinery, Dionis beheld all eyes turned on
him and all faces rigid in one and the same pose.
“_But_ no law prevents your uncle from adopting or marrying Ursula,” he
continued. “As for adoption, that could be contested, and you would,
I think, have equity on your side. The royal courts would never trifle
with questions of adoptions; you would get a hearing there. It is
true the doctor is an officer of the Legion of honor, and was formerly
surgeon to the ex-emperor; but, nevertheless, he would get the worst of
it. Moreover, you would have due warning in case of adoption--but how
about marriage? Old Minoret is shrewd enough to go to Paris and marry
her after a year’s domicile, and give her a million by the marriage
contract. The only thing, therefore, that really puts your property in
danger is your uncle’s marriage with the girl.”
Here the notary paused.
“There’s another danger,” said Goupil, with a knowing air,--“that of
a will made in favor of a third person, old Bongrand for instance, who
will hold the property in trust for Mademoiselle Ursula--”
“If you tease your uncle,” continued Dionis, cutting short his
head-clerk, “if you are not all of you very polite to Ursula, you will
drive him into either a marriage or into making that private trust which
Goupil speaks of,--though I don’t think him capable of that; it is a
dangerous thing. As for marriage, that is easy to prevent. Desire there
has only got to hold out a finger to the girl; she’s sure to prefer a
handsome young man, cock of the walk in Nemours, to an old one.”
“Mother,” said Desire to Zelie’s ear, as much allured by the millions as
by Ursula’s beauty, “If I married her we should get the whole property.”
“Are you crazy?--you, who’ll some day have fifty thousand francs a year
and be made a deputy! As long as I live you never shall cut your throat
by a foolish marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs, indeed! Why, the
mayor’s only daughter will have fifty thousand a year, and they have
already proposed her to me--”
This reply, the first rough speech his mother had ever made to him,
extinguished in Desire’s breast all desire for a marriage with the
beautiful Ursula; for his father and he never got the better of any
decision once written in the terrible blue eyes of Zelie Minoret.
“Yes, but see here, Monsieur Dionis,” cried Cremiere, whose wife had
been nudging him, “if the good man took the thing seriously and married
his goddaughter to Desire, giving her the reversion of all the property,
good-by to our share in it; if he lives five years longer uncle may be
worth a million.”
“Never!” cried Zelie, “never in my life shall Desire marry the daughter
of a bastard, a girl picked up in the streets out of charity. My son
will represent the Minorets after the death of his uncle, and the
Minorets have five hundred years of good bourgeoisie behind them. That’s
equal to the nobility. Don’t be uneasy, any of you; Desire will marry
when we find a chance to put him in the Chamber of deputies.”
This lofty declaration was backed by Goupil, who said:--
“Desire, with an allowance of twenty-four thousand francs a year, will
be president of a royal court or solicitor-general; either office leads
to the peerage. A foolish marriage would ruin him.”
The heirs were now all talking at once; but they suddenly held their
tongues when Minoret rapped on the table with his fist to keep silence
for the notary.
“Your uncle is a worthy man,” continued Dionis. “He believes he’s
immortal; and, like most clever men, he’ll let death overtake him before
he has made a will. My advice therefore is to induce him to invest his
capital in a way that will make it difficult for him to disinherit you,
and I know of an opportunity, made to hand. That little Portenduere
is in Saint-Pelagie, locked-up for one hundred and some odd thousand
francs’ worth of debt. His old mother knows he is in prison; she is
crying like a Magdalen. The abbe is to dine with her; no doubt she wants
to talk to him about her troubles. Well, I’ll go and see your uncle
to-night and persuade him to sell his five per cent consols, which are
now at 118, and lend Madame de Portenduere, on the security of her farm
at Bordieres and her house here, enough to pay the debts of the prodigal
son. I have a right as notary to speak to him in behalf of young
Portenduere; and it is quite natural that I should wish to make him
change his investments; I get deeds and commissions out of the business.
If I become his adviser I’ll propose to him other land investments for
his surplus capital; I have some excellent ones now in my office. If his
fortune were once invested in landed estate or in mortgage notes in this
neighbourhood, it could not take wings to itself very easily. It is easy
to make difficulties between the wish to realize and the realization.”
The heirs, struck with the truth of this argument (much cleverer than
that of Monsieur Josse), murmured approval.
“You must be careful,” said the notary in conclusion, “to keep your
uncle in Nemours, where his habits are known, and where you can watch
him. Find him a lover for the girl and you’ll prevent his marrying her
himself.”
“Suppose she married the lover?” said Goupil, seized by an ambitious
desire.
“That wouldn’t be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss; the
old man would have to say how much he gives her,” replied the notary.
“But if you set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till
the old man died. Marriages are made and unmade.”
“The shortest way,” said Goupil, “if the doctor is likely to live much
longer, is to marry her to some worthy young man who will get her out
of your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orleans with a hundred
thousand francs in hand.”
Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelligent heads in the
company, exchanged four thoughtful smiles.
“He’d be a worm at the core,” whispered Zelie to Massin.
“How did he get here?” returned the clerk.
“That will just suit you!” cried Desire to Goupil. “But do you think you
can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?”
“In these days,” whispered Zelie again in Massin’s year, “notaries look
out for no interests but their own. Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula
just to get the old man’s business?”
“I am sure of him,” said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look
out of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, “because I
hold something over him,” but he withheld the words.
“I am quite of Dionis’s opinion,” he said aloud.
“So am I,” cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with
the clerk.
“My wife has voted!” said the post master, sipping his brandy, though
his face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a
notable quantity of liquids.
“And very properly,” remarked the collector.
“I shall go and see the doctor after dinner,” said Dionis.
“If Monsieur Dionis’s advice is good,” said Madame Cremiere to Madame
Massin, “we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every
Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us.”
“Yes, and be received as he received us!” cried Zelie. “Minoret and
I have more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our
invitations! We are quite his equals. If I don’t know how to write
prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he--I can tell him
that!”
“As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year,” said Madame
Massin, rather piqued, “I don’t want to lose ten thousand.”
“We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we
shall see how things are going,” said Madame Cremiere; “you’ll thank us
some day, cousin.”
“Treat Ursula kindly,” said the notary, lifting his right forefinger to
the level of his lips; “remember old Jordy left her his savings.”
“You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer
in Paris, could have done,” said Goupil to his patron as they left the
post-house.
“And now they are quarreling over my fee,” replied the notary, smiling
bitterly.
The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the
square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers
were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de
Portenduere on his arm.
“She dragged him to vespers, see!” cried Madame Massin to Madame
Cremiere, pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the
church.
“Let us go and speak to him,” said Madame Cremiere, approaching the old
man.
The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference)
did not escape Doctor Minoret. He tried to guess the reason of this
sudden amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to stop
and speak to the two women, who were eager to greet her with exaggerated
affection and forced smiles.
“Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?” said Madame
Cremiere. “We feared sometimes we were in your way--but it is such a
long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls are
old enough now to make dear Ursula’s acquaintance.”
“Ursula is a little bear, like her name,” replied the doctor.
“Let us tame her,” said Madame Massin. “And besides, uncle,” added the
good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy,
“they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are
very anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are inclined to take her
music-master for our children. If there were six or eight scholars in a
class it would bring the price of his lessons within our means.”
“Certainly,” said the old man, “and it will be all the better for me
because I want to give Ursula a singing-master.”
“Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Desire to
see you; he is now a lawyer.”
“Yes, to-night,” echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of these
petty souls.
The two nieces pressed Ursula’s hand, saying, with affected eagerness,
“Au revoir.”
“Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!” cried Ursula, giving him a
grateful look.
“You are going to have a voice,” he said; “and I shall give you masters
of drawing and Italian also. A woman,” added the doctor, looking at
Ursula as he unfastened the gate of his house, “ought to be educated to
the height of every position in which her marriage may place her.”
Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather’s thoughts evidently
turned in the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near
confessing to the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to
think about Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon him,
she turned aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of climbing
plants, on the dark background of which she looked at a distance like a
blue and white flower.
“Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes,
they were very kind,” she repeated as he approached her, to change the
thoughts that made him pensive.
“Poor little girl!” cried the old man.
He laid Ursula’s hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to
the terraces beside the river, where no one could hear them.
“Why do you say, ‘Poor little girl’?”
“Don’t you see how they fear you?”
“Fear me,--why?”
“My next of kin are very uneasy about my conversion. They no doubt
attribute it to your influence over me; they fancy I deprive them of
their inheritance to enrich you.”
“But you won’t do that?” said Ursula naively, looking up at him.
“Oh, divine consolation of my old age!” said the doctor, taking his
godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. “It was for her
and not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me live
until the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!--You
will see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets and
Cremieres and Massins will come and play here. You want to brighten and
prolong my life; they are longing for my death.”
“God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is--Ah! I despise them!”
exclaimed Ursula.
“Dinner is ready!” called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the
garden side, was at the end of the corridor.