de Merret had appointed me her executor. She left all her property
to the hospital at Vendôme with the exception of a few individual
legacies. But these were her provisions with respect to La Grande
Bretèche: She directed me to leave her house, for fifty years from the
day of her death, in the same condition as at the moment that she died;
forbidding any person whatsoever to enter the rooms, forbidding the
slightest repairs to be made, and even setting aside a sum in order to
hire keepers, if it should be found necessary, to assure the literal
execution of her purpose. At the expiration of that period, if the
desire of the testatrix has been carried out, the house is to belong
to my heirs, for monsieur knows that notaries cannot accept legacies.
If not, La Grande Bretèche is to revert to whoever is entitled to it,
but with the obligation to comply with the conditions set forth in
a codicil attached to the will, which is not to be opened until the
expiration of the said fifty years. The will was not attacked; and
so----"
At that, without finishing his sentence, the elongated notary glanced
at me with a triumphant air, and I made him altogether happy by
addressing a few compliments to him.
"Monsieur," I said, "you have made a profound impression upon me,
so that I think I see that dying woman, paler than her sheets; her
gleaming eyes terrify me; and I shall dream of her to-night. But you
must have formed some conjecture concerning the provisions of that
extraordinary will."
"Monsieur," he said with a comical reserve, "I never allow myself
to judge the conduct of those persons who honour me by giving me a
diamond."
I soon loosened the tongue of the scrupulous Vendômese notary, who
communicated to me, not without long digressions, observations due
to the profound politicians of both sexes whose decrees are law in
Vendôme. But those observations were so contradictory and so diffuse
that I almost fell asleep, despite the interest I took in that
authentic narrative. The dull and monotonous tone of the notary, who
was accustomed, no doubt, to listen to himself, and to force his
clients and his fellow citizens to listen to him, triumphed over my
curiosity.
"Aha! many people, monsieur," he said to me on the landing, "would
like to live forty-five years more; but just a minute!" and with a sly
expression he placed his right forefinger on his nose, as if he would
have said: "Just mark what I say."--"But to do that, to do that," he
added, "a man must be less than sixty."
I closed my door, having been roused from my apathy by this last
shaft, which the notary considered very clever; then I seated myself
in my easy-chair, placing my feet on the andirons. I was soon absorbed
in an imaginary romance _à la_ Radcliffe, based upon the judicial
observations of Monsieur Regnault, when my door, under the skillful
manipulation of a woman's hand, turned upon its hinges. My hostess
appeared, a stout, red-faced woman, of excellent disposition, who had
missed her vocation; she was a Fleming, who should have been born in a
picture by Teniers.
"Well, monsieur," she said, "no doubt Monsieur Regnault has given you
his story of La Grande Bretèche?"
"Yes, Mother Lepas."
"What did he tell you?"
I repeated in a few words the chilling and gloomy story of Madame de
Merret. At each sentence my hostess thrust out her neck, gazing at me
with the true innkeeper's perspicacity--a sort of happy medium between
the instinct of the detective, the cunning of the spy, and the craft of
the trader.
"My dear Madame Lepas," I added, as I concluded, "you evidently know
more, eh? If not, why should you have come up here?"
"Oh! on an honest woman's word, as true as my name's Lepas----"
"Don't swear; your eyes are big with a secret. You knew Monsieur de
Merret. What sort of a man was he?"
"Bless my soul! Monsieur de Merret was a fine man, whom you never could
see the whole of, he was so long; an excellent gentleman, who came here
from Picardy, and who had his brains very near his cap, as we say here.
He paid cash for everything, in order not to have trouble with anybody.
You see, he was lively. We women all found him very agreeable."
"Because he was lively?" I asked.
"That may be," she said. "You know, monsieur, that a man must have had
something in front of him, as they say, to marry Madame de Merret,
who, without saying anything against the others, was the loveliest and
richest woman in the whole province. She had about twenty thousand
francs a year. The whole town went to her wedding. The bride was dainty
and attractive, a real jewel of a woman. Ah! they made a handsome
couple at that time!"
"Did they live happily together?"
"Oh dear! oh dear! yes and no, so far as any one could tell; for, as
you can imagine, we folks didn't live on intimate terms with them.
Madame de Merret was a kind-hearted woman, very pleasant, who had to
suffer sometimes perhaps from her husband's quick temper; but although
he was a bit proud, we liked him. You see, it was his business to be
like that; when a man is noble, you know----"
"However, some catastrophe must have happened, to make Monsieur and
Madame de Merret separate so violently?"
"I didn't say there was any catastrophe, monsieur. I don't know
anything about it."
"Good! I am sure now that you know all about it."
"Well, monsieur, I'll tell you all I know. When I saw Monsieur Regnault
come up to your room, I had an idea that he would talk to you about
Madame de Merret in connection with La Grande Bretèche. That gave me
the idea of consulting with monsieur, who seems to me a man of good
judgment and incapable of playing false with a poor woman like me, who
never did anybody any harm, and yet who's troubled by her conscience.
Up to this time I've never dared to speak out to the people of this
neighbourhood, for they're all sharp-tongued gossips. And then,
monsieur, I've never had a guest stay in my inn so long as you have,
and to whom I could tell the story of the fifteen thousand francs."
"My dear Madame Lepas," I said, arresting the flood of her words, "if
your confidence is likely to compromise me, I wouldn't be burdened with
it for a moment, for anything in the world."
"Don't be afraid," she said, interrupting me; "you shall see."
This eagerness on her part made me think that I was not the only one to
whom my worthy hostess had communicated the secret, of which I dreaded
to be the only confidant, and I listened.
"Monsieur," she began, "when the Emperor sent Spanish or other
prisoners of war here, I had to board, at the expense of the
government, a young Spaniard who was sent to Vendôme on parole.
In spite of the parole, he went every day to show himself to the
subprefect. He was a Spanish grandee! Nothing less! He had a name
in _os_ and _dia_, something like Bagos de Férédia. I have his name
written on my register; you can read it if you wish. He was a fine
young man for a Spaniard, who they say are all ugly. He was only five
feet two or three inches tall, but he was well-built; he had little
hands, which he took care of--oh! you should have seen; he had as many
brushes for his hands as a woman has for all purposes! He had long,
black hair, a flashing eye, and rather a copper-coloured skin, which
I liked all the same. He wore such fine linen as I never saw before
on any one, although I have entertained princesses, and among others
General Bertrand, the Duke and Duchess d'Abrantès, Monsieur Decazes,
and the King of Spain. He didn't eat much; but he had polite and
pleasant manners, so that I couldn't be angry with him for it. Oh! I
was very fond of him, although he didn't say four words a day, and it
was impossible to have the slightest conversation with him; if any one
spoke to him, he wouldn't answer; it was a fad, a mania that they all
have, so they tell me. He read his breviary like a priest, he went to
mass and to all the services regularly. Where did he sit? We noticed
that later: about two steps from Madame de Merret's private chapel.
As he took his seat there the first time that he came to the church,
nobody imagined that there was any design in it. Besides, he never
took his face off his prayer-book, the poor young man! In the evening,
monsieur, he used to walk on the mountain, among the ruins of the
château. That was the poor man's only amusement; he was reminded of his
own country there. They say that there's nothing but mountains in Spain.
"Very soon after he came here he began to stay out late. I was anxious
when he didn't come home till midnight; but we all got used to his
whim; he would take the key of the door, and we wouldn't wait for
him. He lived in a house that we have on Rue de Casernes. Then one
of our stablemen told us that one night, when he took the horses to
drink, he thought he saw the Spanish grandee swimming far out in the
river, like a real fish. When he came back, I told him to be careful
of the eel-grass; he seemed vexed that he had been seen in the water.
At last, monsieur, one day, or rather one morning, we didn't find him
in his room; he hadn't come home. By hunting carefully everywhere, I
found a writing in his table drawer, where there were fifty of the
Spanish gold-pieces which they call _portugaises_, and which were worth
about five thousand francs; and then there was ten thousand francs'
worth of diamonds in a little sealed box. His writing said that in
case he didn't return, he left us this money and his diamonds, on
condition that we would found masses to thank God for his escape and
his salvation. In those days I still had my man, who went out to look
for him. And here's the funny part of the story: he brought back the
Spaniard's clothes, which he found under a big stone in a sort of shed
by the river, on the château side, almost opposite La Grande Bretèche.
My husband went there so early that no one saw him; he burned the
clothes after reading the letter, and we declared, according to Count
Férédia's wish, that he had escaped. The subprefect set all the
gendarmerie on his track, but, bless my soul! they never caught him.
Lepas believed that the Spaniard had drowned himself. For my part,
monsieur, I don't think it; I think rather that he was mixed up in
Madame de Merret's business, seeing that Rosalie told me that the
crucifix that her mistress thought so much of that she had it buried
with her was made of ebony and silver; now, in the early part of his
stay here, Monsieur Férédia had one of silver and ebony, which I didn't
see afterwards.--Tell me now, monsieur, isn't it true that I needn't
have any remorse about the Spaniard's fifteen thousand francs, and that
they are fairly mine?"
"Certainly. But did you never try to question Rosalie?" I asked her.
"Oh! yes, indeed, monsieur. But would you believe it? That girl is like
a wall. She knows something, but it's impossible to make her talk."
After conversing a moment more with me, my hostess left me beset by
undefined and dismal thoughts, by a romantic sort of curiosity, a
religious terror not unlike the intense emotion that seizes us when
we enter a dark church at night and see a dim light in the distance
under the lofty arches; a vague figure gliding along, or the rustling
of a dress or a surplice; it makes us shudder. La Grande Bretèche and
its tall weeds, its condemned windows, its rusty ironwork, its closed
doors, its deserted rooms, suddenly appeared before me in fantastic
guise. I tried to penetrate that mysterious abode, seeking there the
kernel of that sombre story, of that drama which had caused the death
of three persons. In my eyes Rosalie was the most interesting person
in Vendôme. As I scrutinised her, I detected traces of some inmost
thought, despite the robust health that shone upon her plump cheeks.
There was in her some seed of remorse or of hope; her manner announced
a secret, as does that of the devotee who prays with excessive fervour,
or that of the infanticide, who constantly hears her child's last cry.
However, her attitude was artless and natural, her stupid smile had
no trace of criminality, and you would have voted her innocent simply
by glancing at the large handkerchief with red and blue squares which
covered her vigorous bust, confined by a gown with white and violet
stripes.
"No," I thought, "I won't leave Vendôme without learning the whole
story of La Grande Bretèche. To obtain my end, I will become Rosalie's
friend, if it is absolutely necessary."
"Rosalie?" I said one evening.
"What is it, monsieur?"
"You are not married?"
She started slightly.
"Oh! I sha'n't lack men when I take a fancy to be unhappy!" she said
with a laugh.
She speedily overcame her inward emotion; for all women, from the great
lady down to the servant at an inn, have a self-possession which is
peculiar to them.
"You are fresh and appetising enough not to lack suitors. But tell
me, Rosalie, why did you go to work in an inn when you left Madame de
Merret's? Didn't she leave you some money?"
"Oh yes! but my place is the best in Vendôme, monsieur."
This reply was one of those which judges and lawyers call dilatory.
Rosalie seemed to me to occupy in that romantic story the position of
the square in the middle of the chessboard; she was at the very centre
of interest and of truth; she seemed to me to be tied up in the clew;
it was no longer an ordinary case of attempting seduction; there was
in that girl the last chapter of a romance; and so, from that moment,
Rosalie became the object of my attentions. By dint of studying the
girl, I observed in her, as in all women to whom we devote all our
thoughts, a multitude of good qualities: she was neat and clean, and
she was fine-looking--that goes without saying; she had also all the
attractions which our desire imparts to women, in whatever station
of life they may be. A fortnight after the notary's visit, I said to
Rosalie one evening, or rather one morning, for it was very early:
"Tell me all that you know about Madame de Merret."
"Oh, don't ask me that, Monsieur Horace!" she replied in alarm.
Her pretty face darkened, her bright colour vanished, and her eyes lost
their humid, innocent light. But I insisted.
"Well," she rejoined, "as you insist upon it, I will tell you; but keep
my secret!"
"Of course, of course, my dear girl; I will keep all your secrets with
the probity of a thief, and that is the most loyal probity that exists."
"If it's all the same to you," she said, "I prefer that it should be
with your own."
Thereupon she arranged her neckerchief, and assumed the attitude of a
story-teller; for there certainly is an attitude of trust and security
essential to the telling of a story. The best stories are told at a
certain hour, and at the table, as we all are now. No one ever told
a story well while standing, or fasting. But if it were necessary to
reproduce faithfully Rosalie's diffuse eloquence, a whole volume would
hardly suffice. Now, as the event of which she gave me a confused
account occupied, between the loquacity of the notary and that of
Madame Lepas, the exact position of the mean terms of an arithmetical
proportion between the two extremes, it is only necessary for me to
repeat it to you in a few words. Therefore I abridge.
The room which Madame de Merret occupied at La Grande Bretèche was on
the ground floor. A small closet, about four feet deep, in the wall,
served as her wardrobe. Three months before the evening, the incidents
of which I am about to narrate, Madame de Merret had been so seriously
indisposed that her husband left her alone in her room and slept
in a room on the first floor. By one of those chances which it is
impossible to foresee, he returned home, on the evening in question,
two hours later than usual, from the club to which he was accustomed to
go to read the newspapers and to talk politics with the people of the
neighbourhood. His wife supposed that he had come home, and had gone to
bed and to sleep. But the invasion of France had given rise to a lively
discussion; the game of billiards had been very close, and he had lost
forty francs, an enormous sum at Vendôme, where everybody hoards money,
and where manners are confined within the limits of a modesty worthy of
all praise, which perhaps is the source of a true happiness of which no
Parisian has a suspicion.
For some time past, Monsieur de Merret had contented himself with
asking Rosalie if his wife were in bed; at the girl's reply, always in
the affirmative, he went immediately to his own room with the readiness
born of habit and confidence. But on returning home that evening, he
took it into his head to go to Madame de Merret's room, to tell her of
his misadventure and perhaps also to console himself for it. During
dinner he had remarked that Madame de Merret was very coquettishly
dressed; he said to himself, as he walked home from the club, that his
wife was no longer ill, that her convalescence had improved her; but he
perceived it, as husbands notice everything, a little late. Instead of
calling Rosalie, who at that moment was busy in the kitchen, watching
the cook and the coachman play a difficult hand of _brisque_, Monsieur
de Merret went to his wife's room, lighted by his lantern, which he had
placed on the top step of the stairs. His footstep, easily recognised,
resounded under the arches of the corridor. At the instant that he
turned the knob of his wife's door, he fancied that he heard the
door of the closet that I have mentioned close; but when he entered,
Madame de Merret was alone, standing in front of the hearth. The
husband naively concluded that Rosalie was in the closet; however, a
suspicion, that rang in his ears like the striking of a clock, made him
distrustful; he looked at his wife and detected in her eyes something
indefinable of confusion and dismay.
"You come home very late," she said.
That voice, usually so pure and so gracious, seemed to him slightly
changed. He made no reply, but at that moment Rosalie entered the room.
That was a thunderclap to him. He walked about the room, from one
window to another, with a uniform step and with folded arms.
"Have you learned anything distressing, or are you ill?" his wife
timidly asked him, while Rosalie undressed her.
He made no reply.
"You may go," said Madame de Merret to her maid; "I will put on my
curl-papers myself."
She divined some catastrophe simply from the expression of her
husband's face, and she preferred to be alone with him. When Rosalie
was gone, or was supposed to be gone, for she stayed for some moments
in the corridor, Monsieur de Merret took his stand in front of his
wife, and said to her coldly:
"Madame, there is some one in your closet?"
She looked at her husband calmly, and replied simply:
"No, monsieur."
That "no" tore Monsieur de Merret's heart, for he did not believe it;
and yet his wife had never seemed to him purer and more holy than she
seemed at that moment. He rose to open the closet door; Madame de
Merret took his hand, stopped him, looked at him with a melancholy
expression, and said in a voice strangely moved:
"If you find no one, reflect that all is at an end between us!"
The indescribable dignity of his wife's attitude reawoke the
gentleman's profound esteem for her, and inspired in him one of those
resolutions which require only a vaster theatre in order to become
immortal.
"No," he said, "I will not do it, Josephine. In either case, we should
be separated forever. Listen; I know all the purity of your soul, and I
know that you lead the life of a saint, and that you would not commit a
mortal sin to save your life."
At these words, Madame de Merret looked at her husband with a haggard
eye.
"See, here is your crucifix; swear to me before God that there is no
one there, and I will believe you; I will never open that door."
Madame de Merret took the crucifix and said:
"I swear it."
"Louder," said the husband, "and repeat after me: 'I swear before God
that there is no one in that closet.'"
She repeated the words without confusion.
"It is well," said Monsieur de Merret, coldly. After a moment's
silence: "This is a very beautiful thing that I did not know you
possessed," he said, as he examined the crucifix of ebony encrusted
with silver and beautifully carved.
"I found it at Duvivier's; when that party of prisoners passed through
Vendôme last year, he bought it of a Spanish monk."
"Ah!" said Monsieur de Merret, replacing the crucifix on the nail. And
he rang. Rosalie did not keep him waiting. Monsieur de Merret walked
hastily to meet her, led her into the embrasure of the window looking
over the garden, and said to her in a low voice:
"I know that Gorenflot wants to marry you, that poverty alone prevents
you from coming together, and that you have told him that you would not
be his wife until he found some way to become a master mason. Well, go
to him, and tell him to come here with his trowel and his tools. Manage
so as not to wake anybody in his house but him; his fortune will exceed
your desires. Above all, go out of this house without chattering,
or----"
He frowned. Rosalie started, and he called her back.
"Here, take my pass-key," he said.
"Jean!" shouted Monsieur de Merret in the corridor, in a voice of
thunder.
Jean, who was both his coachman and his confidential man, left his game
of _brisque_ and answered the summons.
"Go to bed, all of you," said his master, motioning to him to come
near. And he added, but in an undertone: "When they are all asleep,
_asleep_, do you understand, you will come down and let me know."
Monsieur de Merret, who had not lost sight of his wife while giving his
orders, calmly returned to her side in front of the fire, and began to
tell her about the game of billiards and the discussion at the club.
When Rosalie returned, she found monsieur and madame talking most
amicably. The gentleman had recently had plastered all the rooms which
composed his reception-apartment on the ground floor. Plaster is very
scarce in Vendôme, and the cost of transportation increases the price
materially; so he had purchased quite a large quantity, knowing that
he would readily find customers for any that he might have left. The
circumstance suggested the design which he proceeded to carry out.
"Gorenflot is here, monsieur," said Rosalie in an undertone.
"Let him come in," replied the Picard gentleman aloud.
Madame de Merret turned pale when she saw the mason.
"Gorenflot," said her husband, "go out to the carriage-house and get
some bricks, and bring in enough to wall up the door of this closet;
you can use the plaster that I had left, to plaster the wall." Then,
beckoning Rosalie and the workman to him, he said in a low tone: "Look
you, Gorenflot, you will sleep here to-night. But to-morrow morning
you shall have a passport to go abroad, to a city which I will name to
you. I will give you six thousand francs for your journey. You will
remain ten years in that city; if you are not satisfied there, you can
settle in another city, provided that it is in the same country. You
will go by way of Paris, where you will wait for me. There I will give
you a guarantee to pay you six thousand francs more on your return, in
case you have abided by the conditions of our bargain. At that price
you should be willing to keep silent concerning what you have done here
to-night. As for you, Rosalie, I will give you ten thousand francs,
which will be paid to you on the day of your wedding, provided that
you marry Gorenflot; but, in order to be married, you will have to be
silent; if not, no dower."
"Rosalie," said Madame de Merret, "come here and arrange my hair.
The husband walked tranquilly back and forth, watching the door,
the mason, and his wife, but without any outward sign of injurious
suspicion. Gorenflot was obliged to make a noise; Madame de Merret
seized an opportunity, when the workman was dropping some bricks, and
when her husband was at the other end of the room, to say to Rosalie:
"A thousand francs a year to you, my dear child, if you can tell
Gorenflot to leave a crack at the bottom.--Go and help him," she said
coolly, aloud.