Money, which nowadays has taken the place of the good fairies of former
times, had gratified M. Wilkie’s every longing in a single night.
Without any period of transition, dreamlike as it were, he had passed
from what he called “straitened circumstances” to the splendid enjoyment
of a princely fortune. Madame d’Argeles’s renunciation had been
so correctly drawn up, that as soon as he presented his claims and
displayed his credentials he was placed in possession of the Chalusse
estate. It is true that a few trifling difficulties presented
themselves. For instance, the old justice of the peace who had affixed
the seals refused to remove them from certain articles of furniture,
especially from the late count’s escritoire, without an order from the
court, and several days were needed to obtain this. But what did that
matter to M. Wilkie? The house, with its splendid reception-rooms,
pictures, statuary and gardens, was at his disposal, and he installed
himself therein at once. Twenty horses neighed and stamped in his
stables; there were at least a dozen carriages in the coach-house. He
devoted his attention exclusively to the horses and vehicles; but acting
upon the advice of Casimir, who had become his valet and oracle, he
retained all the former servants of the house, from Bourigeau the
concierge down to the humblest scullery maid. Still, he gave them
to understand that this was only a temporary arrangement. A man like
himself, living in this progressive age, could scarcely be expected to
content himself with what had satisfied the Count de Chalusse. “For I
have my plans,” he remarked to Casimir, “but let Paris wait awhile.”
He repudiated his former friends. Costard and Serpillon, pretended
viscounts though they were, were quite beneath the notice of a
Gordon-Chalusse, as M. Wilkie styled himself on his visiting cards.
However, he purchased their share of Pompier de Nanterre, feeling
convinced that this remarkable steeplechaser had a brilliant future
before him. He did not trouble himself to any great extent about his
mother. Like every one else, he knew that she had disappeared, but
nothing further. On the other hand, the thought of his father, the
terrible chevalier d’industrie, hung over his joy like a pall; and each
time the great entrance bell announced a visitor, he trembled, turned
pale, and muttered: “Perhaps it’s he!”
Tortured by this fear, he clung closely to the Marquis de Valorsay as if
he felt that this distinguished friend was a powerful support. Besides,
people of rank and distinction naturally exercised a powerful attraction
over him, and he fancied he grew several inches taller when, in some
public place, in the street, or a restaurant, he was able to call out,
“I say, Valorsay, my good friend,” or, “Upon my word! my dear marquis!”
M. de Valorsay received these effusions graciously enough, although,
in point of fact, he was terribly bored by the platitudes of his new
acquaintance. He intended to send him to Coventry later on, but just now
M. Wilkie was too useful to be ignored. So he had introduced him to his
club, and was seen with him everywhere--in the Bois, at the restaurants,
and the theatres. At times, some of his friends inquired: “Who is that
queer little fellow?” with a touch of irony in their tone, but when
the marquis carelessly answered: “A poor devil who has just come into
possession of a property worth twenty millions!” they became serious,
and requested the pleasure and honor of an introduction to this
fortunate young man.
So M. de Valorsay had invited Gordon-Chalusse to accompany him to Baron
Trigault’s approaching fete. It was to be an entertainment for gentlemen
only, a monster card-party; but every one knew the wealthy baron, and
no doubt with a view of stimulating curiosity he had declared, and
the Figaro had repeated, that he had a great surprise in store for his
guests. Oh! such a surprise! They could have no idea what it was! This
fete was to take place on the second day after Mademoiselle Marguerite’s
arrest; and on the appointed evening, between nine and ten o’clock,
M. de Valorsay and his friend Coralth sat together in the former’s
smoking-room waiting for Wilkie to call for them, as had been
agreed upon. They were both in the best of spirits. The viscount’s
apprehensions had been entirely dispelled; and the marquis had quite
forgotten the twinges of pain in his injured limb. “Marguerite will only
leave prison to marry me,” said M. de Valorsay, triumphantly; and he
added: “What a willing tool this Wilkie is! A single word sufficed to
make him give all his servants leave of absence. The Hotel de Chalusse
will be deserted, and Madame Leon and Vantrasson can operate at their
leisure.”
It was ten o’clock when M. Wilkie made his appearance. “Come, my good
friends!” said he, “my carriage is below.”
They started off at once, and five minutes later they were ushered into
the presence of Baron Trigault, who received M. Wilkie as if he had
never seen him before. There was quite a crowd already. At least three
or four hundred people had assembled in the Baron’s reception-rooms, and
among them were several former habitues of Madame d’Argeles’s house;
one could also espy M. de Fondege ferociously twirling his mustaches
as usual, together with Kami-Bey, who was conspicuous by reason of
his portly form and eternal red fez. However, among these men, all
noticeable for their studied elegance of attire and manner, and all
of them known to M. de Valorsay, there moved numerous others of very
different appearance. Their waistcoats were less open, and their clothes
did not fit them as perfectly; on the other hand, there was something
else than a look of idiotic self-complacency on their faces. “Who can
these people be?” whispered the marquis to M. de Coralth. “They look
like lawyers or magistrates.” But although he said this he did not
really believe it, and it was without the slightest feeling of anxiety
that he strolled from group to group, shaking hands with his friends and
introducing M. Wilkie.
A strange rumor was in circulation among the guests. Many of them
declared--where could they have heard such a thing?--that in consequence
of a quarrel with her husband, Madame Trigault had left Paris the
evening before. They even went so far as to repeat her parting words to
the Baron: “You will never see me again,” she had said. “You are amply
avenged. Farewell!” However, the best informed among the guests, the
folks who were thoroughly acquainted with all the scandals of the day,
declared the story false, and said that if the baroness had really fled,
handsome Viscount de Coralth would not appear so calm and smiling.
The report WAS true, however. But M. de Coralth did not trouble himself
much about the baroness now. Had he not got in his pocket M. Wilkie’s
signature insuring him upward of half a million? Standing near one of
the windows in the main reception-room, between the Marquis de Valorsay
and M. Wilkie, the brilliant viscount was gayly chatting with them,
when a footman, in a voice loud enough to interrupt all conversation,
suddenly announced: “M. Maumejan!”
It seemed such a perfectly natural thing to M. de Valorsay that
Maumejan, as one of the baron’s business agents, should be received at
his house, that he was not in the least disturbed. But M. de Coralth,
having heard the name, wished to see the man who had aided and advised
the marquius so effectually. He abruptly turned, and as he did so the
words he would have spoken died upon his lips. He became livid, his eyes
seemed to start from their sockets, and it was with difficulty that he
ejaculated: “He!”
“Who?” inquired the astonished marquis.
“Look!”
M. de Valorsay did so, and to his utter amazement he perceived a
numerous party in the rear of the man announced under the name of
Maumejan. First came Mademoiselle Marguerite, leaning on the arm of the
white-haired magistrate, and then Madame Ferailleur; next M. Isidore
Fortunat, and finally Chupin--Victor Chupin, resplendent in a handsome,
bran-new, black dress-suit.
The marquis could no longer fail to understand the truth. He realized
who Maumejan really was, and the audacious comedy he had been duped by.
He was so frightfully agitated that five or six persons sprang forward
exclaiming: “What is the matter, marquis? Are you ill?” But he made
no reply. He felt that he was caught in a trap, and he glanced wildly
around him seeking for some loophole of escape.
However, the word of command had evidently been given. Suddenly all the
guests scattered about the various drawing-rooms poured into the main
hall, and the doors were closed. Then, with a solemnity of manner
which no one had ever seen him display before, Baron Trigault took
the so-called Maumejan by the hand and led him into the centre of the
apartment opposite the lofty chimney-piece. “Gentlemen,” he began, in
a commanding tone, “this is M. Pascal Ferailleur, the honorable man who
was falsely accused of cheating at cards at Madame d’Argeles’s house.
You owe him a hearing.”
Pascal was greatly agitated. The strangeness of the situation, the
certainty of speedy and startling rehabilitation, perhaps the joy of
vengeance, the silence, which was so profound that he could hear his
own panting breath, and the many eyes riveted upon him, all combined to
unnerve him. But only for a moment. He swiftly conquered his weakness,
and surveying his audience with flashing eyes, he explained, in a clear
and ringing voice, the shameful conspiracy to obtain possession of the
count’s millions, and the abominable machinations by which Mademoiselle
Marguerite and himself had been victimized. Then when he had finished
his explanations he added, in a still more commanding voice, “Now look;
you can read the culprits’ guilt on their faces. One is the scoundrel
known to you as the Viscount de Coralth, but Paul Violaine is his true
name. He was formerly an accomplice of the notorious Mascarot; he is a
cowardly villain, for he is married, and leaves his wife and children to
die of starvation!” The Viscount de Coralth fairly bellowed with rage.
But Pascal did not heed him. “The other criminal is the Marquis de
Valorsay,” he added, in the same ringing tone. There was, moreover, a
third culprit who would have inspired mingled pity and disgust if any
one had noticed him shrinking into a corner, terrified and muttering:
“It wasn’t my fault, my wife compelled me to do it!” This was General de
Fondege.
Pascal did not mention his name. But it was not absolutely necessary
he should do so, and besides, he remembered Marguerite’s entreaty
respecting the son.
However, while the young lawyer was speaking, the marquis had summoned
all his energy and assurance to his aid. Desperate as his plight
might be, he would not surrender. “This is an infamous conspiracy,” he
exclaimed. “Baron, you shall atone for this. The man’s an impostor!--he
lies!--all that he says is false!”
“Yes, it is false!” echoed M. de Coralth.
But a clamor arose, drowning these protestations, and the most
opprobrious epithets could be heard on every side.
“How will you prove your assertion?” cried M. de Valorsay.
“Don’t try that dodge on us!” shouted Chupin. “Vantrasson and mother
Leon have confessed everything.”
“Who defrauded us all with Domingo?” cried several people; and, loud
above all the others, Kami-Bey bawled out: “To say nothing of the fact
that the sale of your racing stud was a complete swindle!”
Meanwhile, Pascal’s former friends and associates, his brother advocates
and the magistrates who had listened to his first efforts at the
bar, crowded round him, pressing his hands, embracing him almost to
suffocation, censuring themselves for having suspected him, the very
soul of honor, and pleading in self-justification the degenerate age in
which we live--an age in which we daily see those whom we had considered
immaculate suddenly yield to temptation. And a murmur of respectful
admiration rose from the throng when the excitement had subsided a
little, and the guests had an opportunity to observe Mademoiselle
Marguerite, whose eyes sparkled more brightly than ever through her
happy tears; and whose beauty acquired an almost sublime expression from
her deep emotion.
The wretched Valorsay felt that all was over--that he was irretrievably
lost. Seized by a blind fury like that which impels a hunted animal
to turn and face the hounds that pursue him, and bid them defiance, he
confronted the throng with his face distorted with passion, his eyes
bloodshot, and foam upon his lips; he was absolutely frightful in his
cynicism, hatred, and scorn. “Ah! well, yes!” he exclaimed--“yes, all
that you have just heard is true. I was sinking, and I tried to save
myself as best I could. Beggars cannot be choosers; I staked my all upon
a single die. If I had won, you would have been at my feet; but I have
lost and you spurn me. Cowards! hypocrites! that you are, insult me if
you like, but tell me how many among you all are sufficiently pure and
upright to have a right to despise me! Are there a hundred among you?
are there even fifty?”
A tempest of hisses momentarily drowned his voice, but as soon as the
uproar had ceased, he resumed, sneeringly: “Ah! the truth wounds you, my
dear friends. Pray, don’t pretend to be so distressingly virtuous! I
was ruined--that is the long and short of it. But what man of you is not
embarrassed? Who among you finds his income sufficient? Which one of you
is not encroaching upon his capital? And when you have come to your last
louis, you will do what I have done, or something worse. Do not deny it,
for not one among you has a more uncompromising conscience, more moral
firmness, or more generous aspirations than I once possessed. You are
pursuing what I pursued. You desire what I desired--a life of luxury,
brief if it must be, but happy--a life of gayety, wild excitement,
and dissipation. You, too, have a passion for pleasure and gambling,
race-horses, and notorious women, a table always bountifully spread,
glasses ever overflowing with wine, all the delights of luxury, and
everything that gratifies your vanity! But an abyss of shame awaits you
at the end of it all. I am in it now. I await you there, for there you
will surely, necessarily, inevitably come. Ah, ha! you will not then
think my downfall so very strange. Let me pass! make way! if you
please.”
He advanced with his head haughtily erect, and would actually have
made his escape if a frightened servant had not at that moment appeared
crying: “Monsieur--Monsieur le Baron! a commissary of police is
downstairs. He is coming up. He has a warrant!”
The marquis’s frenzied assurance deserted him. He turned even paler
than he already was if that were possible, and reeled like an ox
but partially stunned by the butcher’s hammer. Suddenly a desperate
resolution could be read in his eyes, the resolution of the condemned
criminal, who, knowing that he cannot escape the scaffold, ascends it
with a firm step.
He hastily approached Baron Trigault, and asked in a husky voice: “Will
you allow me to be arrested in your house, baron? me--a Valorsay!”
It might have been supposed that the baron had expected this reproach,
for without a word he led the marquis and M. de Coralth to a little room
at the end of the hall, pushed them inside, and closed the door again.
It was time he did so, for the commissary of police was already upon
the threshold. “Which of you gentlemen is the Marquis de Valorsay?” he
asked. “Which of you is Paul Violaine, alias the Viscount de----”
The sharp report of firearms suddenly interrupted him. Every one at once
rushed to the little room, where the wretched men had been conducted.
There extended, face upward, on the floor, lay the Marquis de Valorsay,
with his brains oozing from his fractured skull, and his right hand
still clutching a revolver. He was dead. “And the other!” cried the
throng; “the other!”
The open window, and a curtain rudely torn from its fastenings and
secured to the balustrade, told how M. de Coralth had made his escape.
It was not till later that people learned what precautions the baron
had taken. On the table in that room he had laid two revolvers, and
two packages containing ten thousand francs each. The viscount had not
hesitated.
* * * * *
Pascal Ferailleur and Mademoiselle Marguerite de Chalusse were married
at the church of Saint Etienne du Mont, only a few steps from the Rue
d’Ulm. Those who knew the mystery connected with the bride’s parentage
were greatly astonished when they saw Baron Trigault act as a witness on
this occasion, in company with the venerable justice of the peace. But
such was the fact, nevertheless. Treated more and more outrageously by
his daughter and her husband, separated from his wife, who had nearly
lost her reason, although her letters were saved, the baron has nowadays
found affection and a home with Pascal and his wife. He plays cards but
seldom now--only an occasional game of piquet with Madame Ferailleur,
and he amuses himself by making her start when she is too long in
discarding, by ejaculating, in a stentorian voice: “We are wasting
precious time!” Sometimes they go out together, to the great
astonishment of such as chance to meet the puritanical old lady leaning
on the baron’s arm. She often goes to visit and console the widow
Gordon, formerly known as Lia d’Argeles, who now keeps an establishment
near Montrouge, where she provides poor, betrayed and forsaken girls
with a home and employment. She has yet to receive any token of
remembrance from her son. As for her husband, she supposes he is dead or
incarcerated in some prison.
It is to Madame Gordon that the Fondeges are often indebted for bread.
Obliged to disgorge their plunder, and left with no resources save the
fifty francs a month allowed them by their son, who has been promoted
to the rank of captain, their poverty is necessarily extreme. Oh! those
Fondeges! M. Fortunat only speaks of them with horror. But he is loud
in his praises of Madame Marguerite, who repaid him the forty thousand
francs he had advanced to M. de Valorsay. He speaks in the highest terms
of Chupin also; but in this, he is scarcely sincere, for Victor, who
has been set up in business by Pascal, told him very plainly that he
was determined not to put his hand to any more dirty work, and that
expression, “dirty work,” rankles in M. Fortunat’s heart.
Chupin’s resolution did not, however, prevent him from attending the
trial of Vantrasson and Madame Leon--the former of whom was sentenced to
hard labor for life, and the latter to ten years’ imprisonment. Nothing
is known concerning M. de Coralth; but his wife has disappeared, to
the great disappointment of M. Mouchon. As a dentist, Dr. Jodon is
successful. As for M. Wilkie, you can learn anything you wish to
know concerning him in the newspapers, for his sayings, doings, and
movements, are constantly being chronicled. The reporters exhaust all
the resources of their vocabulary in describing his horses, carriages,
and stables, and the gorgeous liveries of his servants. His changes of
residence are always mentioned; his brilliant sayings are quoted. He
is a social success; he is admired, fondled, and flattered. He makes a
great stir in the fashionable world--in fact, he reigns over it like a
king. After all, assurance is the winning card in the game of life!