Impunity, secrecy, and success increased Goupil’s audacity. He made
Massin, who was completely his dupe, sue the Marquis du Rouvre for
his notes, so as to force him to sell the remainder of his property to
Minoret. Thus prepared, he opened negotiations for a practice at Sens,
and then resolved to strike a last blow to obtain Ursula. He meant
to imitate certain young men in Paris who owed their wives and their
fortunes to abduction. He knew that the services he had rendered to
Minoret, to Massin, and to Cremiere, and the protection of Dionis and
the mayor of Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He resolved
to throw off the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the condition to
which he had reduced her to make any resistance. But before risking this
last throw in the game he thought it best to have an explanation with
Minoret, and he chose his opportunity at Rouvre, where he went with his
patron for the first time after the deeds were signed.
Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son
asking him for information as to what was happening in connection with
Ursula, information that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours
with the procureur du roi to place her under shelter from these
atrocities in the convent of the Adoration. Desire exhorted his father,
in case this persecution should be the work of any of their friends, to
give to whoever it might be warning and good advice; for even if the law
could not punish this crime it would certainly discover the truth and
hold it over the delinquent’s head. Minoret had now attained a great
object. Owner of the chateau du Rouvre, one of the finest estates in the
Gatinais, he had also a rent-roll of some forty odd thousand francs
a year from the rich domains which surrounded the park. He could well
afford to snap his fingers at Goupil. Besides, he intended to live on
the estate, where the sight of Ursula would no longer trouble him.
“My boy,” he said to Goupil, as they walked along the terrace, “let my
young cousin alone, now.”
“Pooh!” said the clerk, unable to imagine what capricious conduct meant.
“Oh! I’m not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick
chateau with the stone copings (which couldn’t be built now for two
hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park and
gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs. No,
I’m not ungrateful; I’ll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand francs,
for your services, and you can buy a sheriff’s practice in Nemours. I’ll
guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere’s daughters, the eldest.”
“The one who talks piston!” cried Goupil.
“She’ll have thirty thousand francs,” replied Minoret. “Don’t you see,
my dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a
post master? People should keep to their vocation.”
“Very well, then,” said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his hopes;
“here’s a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand francs;
I want the money in hand at once.”
Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which his
wife knew nothing. He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil was to
sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial fever on the
face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him an “au revoir,”
by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which would have made any
one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation of the magnificent
chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII., tremble in his
shoes.
“Are you not going to wait for me?” he cried, observing that Goupil was
going away on foot.
“You’ll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret,” replied Goupil,
athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the zigzags of
Minoret’s strange conduct.
Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula, a
prey to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in the
soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale, speaking
only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words; everything
about her, her glance of gentle indifference, even the expression of her
forehead, all revealed the presence of some consuming thought. She was
thinking how the ideal wreath of chastity, with which throughout all
ages the Peoples crowned their virgins, had fallen from her brow.
She heard in the void and in the silence the dishonoring words, the
malicious comments, the laughter of the little town. The trial was
too heavy, her innocence was too delicate to allow her to survive the
murderous blow. She complained no more; a sorrowful smile was on her
lips; her eyes appealed to heaven, to the Sovereign of angels, against
man’s injustice.
When Goupil reached Nemours, Ursula had just been carried down from her
chamber to the ground-floor in the arms of La Bougival and the doctor.
A great event was about to take place. When Madame de Portenduere became
really aware that the girl was dying like an ermine, though less injured
in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she resolved to go to her and
comfort her. The sight of her son’s anguish, who during the whole
preceding night had seemed beside himself, made the Breton soul of the
old woman yield. Moreover, it seemed worthy of her own dignity to revive
the courage of a girl so pure, and she saw in her visit a counterpoise
to all the evil done by the little town. Her opinion, surely more
powerful than that of the crowd, ought to carry with it, she thought,
the influence of race. This step, which the abbe came to announce, made
so great a change in Ursula that the doctor, who was about to ask for a
consultation of Parisian doctors, recovered hope. They placed her on
her uncle’s sofa, and such was the character of her beauty that she
lay there in her mourning garments, pale from suffering, she was
more exquisitely lovely than in the happiest hours of her life. When
Savinien, with his mother on his arm, entered the room she colored
vividly.
“Do not rise, my child,” said the old lady imperatively; “weak and ill
as I am myself, I wished to come and tell you my feelings about what is
happening. I respect you as the purest, the most religious and excellent
girl in the Gatinais; and I think you worthy to make the happiness of a
gentleman.”
At first poor Ursula was unable to answer; she took the withered hands
of Savinien’s mother and kissed them.
“Ah, madame,” she said in a faltering voice, “I should never have had
the boldness to think of rising above my condition if I had not been
encouraged by promises; my only claim was that of an affection without
bounds; but now they have found the means to separate me from him I
love,--they have made me unworthy of him. Never!” she cried, with a ring
in her voice which painfully affected those about her, “never will I
consent to give to any man a degraded hand, a stained reputation. I
loved too well,--yes, I can admit it in my present condition,--I love a
creature almost as I love God, and God--”
“Hush, my child! do not calumniate God. Come, my daughter,” said the old
lady, making an effort, “do not exaggerate the harm done by an infamous
joke in which no one believes. I give you my word, you will live and you
shall be happy.”
“We shall be happy!” cried Savinien, kneeling beside Ursula and kissing
her hand; “my mother has called you her daughter.”
“Enough, enough,” said the doctor feeling his patient’s pulse; “do not
kill her with joy.”
At that moment Goupil, who found the street door ajar, opened that of
the little salon, and showed his hideous face blazing with thoughts of
vengeance which had crowded into his mind as he hurried along.
“Monsieur de Portenduere,” he said, in a voice like the hissing of a
viper forced from its hole.
“What do you want?” said Savinien, rising from his knees.
“I have a word to say to you.”
Savinien left the room, and Goupil took him into the little courtyard.
“Swear to me by Ursula’s life, by your honor as a gentleman, to do by me
as if I had never told you what I am about to tell. Do this, and I
will reveal to you the cause of the persecutions directed against
Mademoiselle Mirouet.”
“Can I put a stop to them?”
“Yes.”
“Can I avenge them?”
“On their author, yes--on his tool, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because--I am the tool.”
Savinien turned pale.
“I have just seen Ursula--” said Goupil.
“Ursula?” said the lover, looking fixedly at the clerk.
“Mademoiselle Mirouet,” continued Goupil, made respectful by Savinien’s
tone; “and I would undo with my blood the wrong that has been done; I
repent of it. If you were to kill me, in a duel or otherwise, what good
would my blood do you? can you drink it? At this moment it would poison
you.”
The cold reasoning of the man, together with a feeling of eager
curiosity, calmed Savinien’s anger. He fixed his eyes on Goupil with a
look which made that moral deformity writhe.
“Who set you at this work?” said the young man.
“Will you swear?”
“What,--to do you no harm?”
“I wish that you and Mademoiselle Mirouet should not forgive me.”
“She will forgive you,--I, never!”
“But at least you will forget?”
What terrible power the reason has when it is used to further
self-interest. Here were two men, longing to tear one another in pieces,
standing in that courtyard within two inches of each other, compelled to
talk together and united by a single sentiment.
“I will forgive you, but I shall not forget.”
“The agreement is off,” said Goupil coldly. Savinien lost patience. He
applied a blow upon the man’s face which echoed through the courtyard
and nearly knocked him down, making Savinien himself stagger.
“It is only what I deserve,” said Goupil, “for committing such a folly.
I thought you more noble than you are. You have abused the advantage I
gave you. You are in my power now,” he added with a look of hatred.
“You are a murderer!” said Savinien.
“No more than a dagger is a murderer.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Savinien.
“Are you revenged enough?” said Goupil, with ferocious irony; “will you
stop here?”
“Reciprocal pardon and forgetfulness,” replied Savinien.
“Give me your hand,” said the clerk, holding out his own.
“It is yours,” said Savinien, swallowing the shame for Ursula’s sake.
“Now speak; who made you do this thing?”
Goupil looked into the scales as it were; on one side was Savinien’s
blow, on the other his hatred against Minoret. For a second he was
undecided; then a voice said to him: “You will be notary!” and he
answered:--
“Pardon and forgetfulness? Yes, on both sides, monsieur--”
“Who is persecuting Ursula?” persisted Savinien.
“Minoret. He would have liked to see her buried. Why? I can’t tell you
that; but we might find out the reason. Don’t mix me up in all this;
I could do nothing to help you if the others distrusted me. Instead of
annoying Ursula I will defend her; instead of serving Minoret I will
try to defeat his schemes. I live only to ruin him, to destroy him--I’ll
crush him under foot, I’ll dance on his carcass, I’ll make his bones
into dominoes! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and Fontainebleau and
Rouvre shall blaze with the letters, ‘Minoret is a thief!’ Yes, I’ll
burst him like a gun--There! we’re allies now by the imprudence of that
outbreak! If you choose I’ll beg Mademoiselle Mirouet’s pardon and tell
her I curse the madness which impelled me to injure her. It may do her
good; the abbe and the justice are both there; but Monsieur Bongrand
must promise on his honor not to injure my career. I have a career now.”
“Wait a minute;” said Savinien, bewildered by the revelation.
“Ursula, my child,” he said, returning to the salon, “the author of all
your troubles is ashamed of his work; he repents and wishes to ask
your pardon in presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all be
forgotten.”
“What! Goupil?” cried the abbe, the justice, and the doctor, all
together.
“Keep his secret,” said Ursula, putting a finger on her lips.
Goupil heard the words, saw the gesture, and was touched.
“Mademoiselle,” he said in a troubled voice, “I wish that all Nemours
could hear me tell you that a fatal passion has bewildered my brain and
led me to commit a crime punishable by the blame of honest men. What I
say now I would be willing to say everywhere, deploring the harm done
by such miserable tricks--which may have hastened your happiness,” he
added, rather maliciously, “for I see that Madame de Portenduere is with
you.”
“That is all very well, Goupil,” said the abbe, “Mademoiselle forgives
you; but you must not forget that you came near being her murderer.”
“Monsieur Bongrand,” said Goupil, addressing the justice of peace. “I
shall negotiate to-night for Lecoeur’s practice; I hope the reparation
I have now made will not injure me with you, and that you will back my
petition to the bar and the ministry.”
Bongrand made a thoughtful inclination of his head; and Goupil left
the house to negotiate on the best terms he could for the sheriff’s
practice. The others remained with Ursula and did their best to restore
the peace and tranquillity of her mind, already much relieved by
Goupil’s confession.
“You see, my child, that God was not against you,” said the abbe.
Minoret came home late from Rouvre. About nine o’clock he was sitting
in the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom
he was making plans for Desire’s future. Desire had become very sedate
since entering the magistracy; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely
that he would succeed the present procureur du roi at Fontainebleau,
who, they said, was to be advanced to Melun. His parents felt that they
must find him a wife,--some poor girl belonging to an old and noble
family; he would then make his way to the magistracy of Paris. Perhaps
they could get him elected deputy from Fontainebleau, where Zelie was
proposing to pass the winter after living at Rouvre for the summer
season. Minoret, inwardly congratulating himself for having managed his
affairs so well, no longer thought or cared about Ursula, at the very
moment when the drama so heedlessly begun by him was closing down upon
him in a terrible manner.
“Monsieur de Portenduere is here and wishes to speak to you,” said
Cabirolle.
“Show him in,” answered Zelie.
The twilight shadows prevented Madame Minoret from noticing the sudden
pallor of her husband, who shuddered as he heard Savinien’s boots on
the floor of the gallery, where the doctor’s library used to be. A vague
presentiment of danger ran through the robber’s veins. Savinien entered
and remaining standing, with his hat on his head, his cane in his hand,
and both hands crossed in front of him, motionless before the husband
and wife.
“I have come to ascertain, Monsieur and Madame Minoret,” he said, “your
reasons for tormenting in an infamous manner a young lady who, as the
whole town knows, is to be my wife. Why have you endeavored to tarnish
her honor? why have you wished to kill her? why did you deliver her over
to Goupil’s insults?--Answer!”
“How absurd you are, Monsieur Savinien,” said Zelie, “to come and ask us
the meaning of a thing we think inexplicable. I bother myself as little
about Ursula as I do about the year one. Since Uncle Minoret died I’ve
not thought of her more than I do of my first tooth. I’ve never said
one word about her to Goupil, who is, moreover, a queer rogue whom I
wouldn’t think of consulting about even a dog. Why don’t you speak up,
Minoret? Are you going to let monsieur box your ears in that way
and accuse you of wickedness that’s beneath you? As if a man with
forty-eight thousand francs a year from landed property, and a castle
fit for a prince, would stoop to such things! Get up, and don’t sit
there like a wet rag!”
“I don’t know what monsieur means,” said Minoret in his squeaking voice,
the trembling of which was all the more noticeable because the voice
was clear. “What object could I have in persecuting the girl? I may have
said to Goupil how annoyed I was at seeing her in Nemours. My son Desire
fell in love with her, and I didn’t want him to marry her, that’s all.”
“Goupil has confessed everything, Monsieur Minoret.”
There was a moment’s silence, but it was terrible, when all three
persons examined one another. Zelie saw a nervous quiver on the heavy
face of her colossus.
“Though you are only insects,” said the young nobleman, “I will make
you feel my vengeance. It is not from you, Monsieur Minoret, a
man sixty-eight years of age, but from your son that I shall seek
satisfaction for the insults offered to Mademoiselle Mirouet. The first
time he sets his foot in Nemours we shall meet. He must fight me; he
will do so, or be dishonored and never dare to show his face again. If
he does not come to Nemours I shall go to Fontainebleau, for I will have
satisfaction. It shall never be said that you were tamely allowed to
dishonor a defenceless young girl--”
“But the calumnies of a Goupil--are--not--” began Minoret.
“Do you wish me to bring him face to face with you? Believe me, you had
better hush up this affair; it lies between you and Goupil and me. Leave
it as it is; God will decide between us and when I meet your son.”
“But this sha’n’t go one!” cried Zelie. “Do you suppose I’ll stand
by and let Desire fight you,--a sailor whose business it is to handle
swords and guns? If you’ve got any cause of complaint against Minoret,
there’s Minoret; take Minoret, fight Minoret! But do you think my boy,
who, by your own account, knew nothing of all this, is going to bear
the brunt of it? No, my little gentleman! somebody’s teeth will pin your
legs first! Come, Minoret, don’t stand staring there like a big canary;
you are in your own house, and you allow a man to keep his hat on before
your wife! I say he shall go. Now, monsieur, be off! a man’s house is
his castle. I don’t know what you mean with your nonsense, but show
me your heels, and if you dare touch Desire you’ll have to answer to
_me_,--you and your minx Ursula.”
She rang the bell violently and called to the servants.
“Remember what I have said to you,” repeated Savinien to Minoret, paying
no attention to Zelie’s tirade. Suspending the sword of Damocles over
their heads, he left the room.
“Now, then, Minoret,” said Zelie, “you will explain to me what this all
means. A young man doesn’t rush into a house and make an uproar like
that and demand the blood of a family for nothing.”
“It’s some mischief of that vile Goupil,” said the colossus. “I promised
to help him buy a practice if he would get me the Rouvre property cheap.
I gave him ten per cent on the cost, twenty thousand francs in a note,
and I suppose he isn’t satisfied.”
“Yes, but why did he get up those serenades and the scandals against
Ursula?”
“He wanted to marry her.”
“A girl without a penny! the sly thing! Now Minoret, you are telling me
lies, and you are too much of a fool, my son, to make me believe them.
There is something under all this, and you are going to tell me what it
is.”
“There’s nothing.”
“Nothing? I tell you you lie, and I shall find it out.”
“Do let me alone!”
“I’ll turn the faucet of that fountain of venom, Goupil--whom you’re
afraid of--and we’ll see who gets the best of it then.”
“Just as you choose.”
“I know very well it will be as I choose! and what I choose first and
foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire. If anything happens to
him, mark you, I’ll do something that may send me to the scaffold--and
you, you haven’t any feeling about him--”
A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to
end without a long and angry strife. So at the moment of his
self-satisfaction the foolish robber found his inward struggle against
himself and against Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated
with a new and terrible adversary. The next day, when he left the house
early to find Goupil and try to appease him with additional money, the
walls were already placarded with the words: “Minoret is a thief.” All
those whom he met commiserated him and asked him who was the author of
the anonymous placard. Fortunately for him, everybody made allowance for
his equivocal replies by reflecting on his utter stupidity; fools get
more advantage from their weakness than able men from their strength.
The world looks on at a great man battling against fate, and does not
help him, but it supplies the capital of a grocer who may fail and lose
all. Why? Because men like to feel superior in protecting an incapable,
and are displeased at not feeling themselves the equal of a man of
genius. A clever man would have been lost in public estimation had he
stammered, as Minoret did, evasive and foolish answers with a frightened
air. Zelie sent her servants to efface the vindictive words wherever
they were found; but the effect of them on Minoret’s conscience still
remained.
The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent. Though
Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night before, he
now impudently refused to fulfil it.
“My dear Lecoeur,” he said, “I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up
Monsieur Dionis’s practice; I am therefore in a position to help you
to sell to others. Tear up the agreement; it’s only the loss of two
stamps,--here are seventy centimes.”
Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew
before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil
to buy his practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges
against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new position
he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also by his
respect for law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to treat him
well in future; assuring him he was a capital boxer, and would break his
leg at the first offence.
The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription; but the quarrel
between Minoret and his wife went on; and Savinien maintained a
threatening silence. Ten days after these events the marriage of
Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about
the town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowry of eighty thousand francs and
her own peculiar ugliness; Goupil had his deformities and his practice;
the union therefore seemed suitable and probable. One evening, towards
midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street as he was leaving
Massin’s house, gave him a sound beating, and disappeared. The notary
kept the matter a profound secret, and even contradicted an old woman
who saw the scene from her window and thought that she recognized him.
These great little events were carefully studied by Bongrand, who became
convinced that Goupil held some mysterious power over Minoret, and he
determined to find out its cause.