"A square-set man and honest."
_The Holy Grail_.
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Knots of people stood about the streets, all talking of the strange
event. Charville is rich in beauty, in picturesqueness, in its
magnificent Cathedral, but its events are few and orderly. People do
get killed every now and then, it is true: only a few months before,
young Jean Gouye had fallen from a scaffolding, and never spoken again.
But then everybody knew Jean Gouye, and all about him: there was no
mystery or room for speculation in his fate, poor fellow! This last was
a very different matter. Who were the strangers? Where did they come
from? Where were they going? What brought them to Charville? What
made him fall? Was he dead? Was mademoiselle in much grief? Each
person asked the other without much hope of finding out: it was
something to get hold of Nannon, and hear the little she had to tell.
There was no hurry of business to interfere with their curiosity.
Charville took life leisurely: if a house had to be built the masons
talked, laughed, joked with each other between laying on their stones;
the shoemakers gossiped with their neighbours; women brought their work
to the door, played with the children, scolded or chattered. It was an
easy, quiet, lounging sort of existence, without much distraction from
the outer world,--a magnified village life. Such an event as had
occurred that morning came upon them like a new sensation. Nannon had
never been made so much of. Veuve Angelin followed sulkily.
She would not accompany the triumphal progress to the door of the Cygne,
but turned down a narrow, ill-paved street, which branched off by the
Eveche, and ended in a small, modern square. M. Deshoulieres' house
stood in the midst of it, and she entered hastily, with some fears lest
he should be there, and angry at the delay of his breakfast. He was an
easy-going master, just the one that Veuve Angelin liked, too much
absorbed with his own thoughts and interests to interfere much with her
sovereignty; but every now and then he awoke sufficiently to make her
aware that she could not presume absolutely upon his absent ways. Even
when she ruled most despotically she was just a little afraid of him.
There was always a possibility that he might assert the prerogative of
having his own way. Now she was conscious that he would have a reason
for indignation, if he returned, hungry and weary, from his morning's
work, to find the house empty, no food prepared. "It is all the fault
of that gossiping old Nannon!" she said crossly, as she stopped, hot and
out of breath, to listen at the foot of the stairs for her master's
steps overhead. She heard nothing; but it was with the air of a martyr
that she mounted, prepared, if there was need, to expatiate upon her own
sufferings, and the inconveniences caused by the absence of Lisette, the
_fille_ who generally fetched the water. She need not have been afraid.
It was quite two hours afterwards--the things were set out in the
little _salon_, with its polished floor, its red curtains, its mirror,
its timepiece; in the kitchen, where Veuve Angelin also slept, little
pots and pans were simmering and bubbling over tiny hollows filled with
charcoal, scooped out of the brick arched stove--before the doctor and
little Roulleau, the notary, came round the corner with excited faces,
eagerly talking as they walked.
"Man's folly is never so apparent as in his last moments," the doctor
was saying cynically, as they turned in from the square, and began to
mount the bare, uncarpeted staircase.
Veuve Angelin, standing at the top, caught the words with a certain grim
satisfaction.
"So he is dead, after all, in spite of that old woman's obstinacy," she
said volubly. "I knew it from the first: what one sees one sees, and
what one hears one hears, and nobody can make it different. But as for
those creatures, bah! They are _imbecilles_, know-nothings: one might
as well waste one's breath upon a stone wall. Monsieur has no doubt
just come from the Cygne?"
"Hold your tongue, Marie," answered the doctor, shortly; "get us
something to eat, and do not kill my patients beforehand."
"Something has vexed him," reflected Marie, vanishing promptly. "Do
what one will for their comfort, those men are always ungrateful."
She would have made up for his want of communicativeness by listening to
the conversation as the two drank _vin ordinaire_, and munched radishes,
but M. Deshoulieres was exasperatingly silent. Two or three times the
notary glanced at him as if about to speak, but checked himself. He
looked troubled, gloomy, abstracted. The companions were very different
in appearance; M. Deshoulieres, unlike the conventional type of his
countrymen, largely built, with a massive head, a quantity of short
light hair, and thick moustaches, warmer in tint than his hair. He had
blue eyes, very blue, well-opened and quick; a finely shaped mouth; over
all a grave expression which somewhat alarmed people. I ought perhaps
to say, alarmed people who were well, the sick could never understand
their previous fears. He made enemies for himself by his want of
sympathy for imaginary complaints, he was too straightforward and
truth-telling ever to be entirely popular; but he had a little kingdom
of his own where he reigned triumphantly,--a sad little kingdom,
perhaps, one in which he was always fighting, helping, cheering,--out of
which had grown the grave expression, the abruptness of which others
complained, but one which had also its tributes and its victories and
its satisfactions, and which was dear to the man's good heart. In his
ears there sounded, it is true, a never-ending din of murmurs,
suffering, feeble moans: to balance these, there were glad, grateful
looks, patient thanks, a lighting up of faces at his step. Such a life
needs compensations, and he found them. He might come away, as I have
said, grave and absorbed; but he rarely looked as he looked when he sat
in his little _salon_ on this particular morning,--gloomy, worried, and
out of sorts.
Monsieur Roulleau noticed the change. Monsieur Roulleau noticed many
things for which no one credited his little half-hidden eyes. Somebody
once said of him that his face had not the resolution to show its
owner's character, you might look at it for so long a time without
finding any thing to read. It was answered that he was indeed a blank,
his wife ruled and treated him as a cipher. On the whole, he was
supposed to be a little, timid, good-natured creature, no one's enemy
but his own, and urged on to exertion by his wife. Charville half
pitied, half laughed at him. M. Deshoulieres had known the little man
for many years, and did him good turns when they lay in his power. He
looked upon him as something of a victim with this wife in the
background, and her terribly strong will. The doctor pushed away his
tumbler of wine, lit a cigar, and leaned back in his chair, thinking and
frowning with all his might. He was quite unconscious that M.
Roulleau, with his back to the window and the red curtains, was not
letting a look or a sign escape him; but he grew a little worried with
Veuve Angelin's ostentatious service.
"That will do, Marie," he said sharply. "You can leave us and close the
door."
Veuve Angelin went away in a fume. After enduring the dulness of these
men over their food, it was intolerable that she should be excluded from
the more sociable condition which cigars were likely to produce. She
slammed the door in token of wrath, and stayed close by it, picking up
stray words and disconnected sentences which had the effect of adding
rather to her bewilderment than her knowledge.
"Bear witness," said the doctor at length, abruptly, "bear witness
always, Roulleau, that I did my utmost to point out to Monsieur Moreau
the absurdities, the inconveniences, of such an arrangement."
The notary bowed and spread open his hands.
"There can be no occasion for M. Deshoulieres to speak of witnesses
when the world will have his own word."
"True," replied M. Deshoulieres, simply. "Nevertheless, we both know
enough of the world to be aware that it holds no prerogative so dear as
that of doubt. You and I understand the matter clearly: there may be a
dozen others in Charville who will trust me loyally, some will
comprehend the broad fact that, by the law, my quality as the doctor
attending M. Moreau in his last illness precludes my receiving any
benefit whatever under his will. But for the rest--"
"No one would be capable of cherishing thoughts so base, so detestable,"
exclaimed the notary, with a burst of enthusiasm.
"Bah! Nothing more is required for their fabrication than a little
ignorance and a little love of gossip. Are these so rare, my good M.
Roulleau?" The doctor made two or three vigorous puffs. Presently he
held his cigar in his hand, and broke out again: "What possessed the man
to dream of such a thing? He knows nothing of me, absolutely nothing.
I may forge, burn, steal, poison the young man, let the girl starve. Do
you mean to tell me that every thing is placed in my hands?"
"The will I have had the pleasure to frame under Monsieur Moreau's
instructions authorises Monsieur Max Deshoulieres as _depositaire_ to
receive all rents and moneys due to Monsieur Moreau or his heirs, and to
hold them in trust until the arrival of Monsieur Fabien Saint-Martin,
sister's son to Monsieur Moreau; always deducting a certain sum, named,
sufficient to maintain his wife's niece, Mademoiselle Therese Veuillot,
upon the condition only that she continues to reside in this town of
Charville--"
"Pardon," said the doctor, interrupting: "the sum assigned for this
purpose can hardly be called a maintenance."
Roulleau shrugged his thin shoulders.
"It is bare without doubt," he replied; "and I ventured to point out
this fact to Monsieur Moreau. But he was peremptory. He was peremptory
also in his provisions that you should deliver up the papers to no one
but Monsieur Saint-Martin in person. He is peremptory, it appears to
me, in all his expressions."
"Peremptory!" broke in M. Deshoulieres once more: "he is immovable--
made of adamant. Not one man in a thousand could have forced himself to
perpetrate all these absurdities in a condition like his. To have
opposed him further would have been to kill him. What creatures we are!
Here is a man, shrewd, keen-witted, prompt; an old man, whose hold on
life was palpably failing, who had but recently buried his wife, who
could not close his eyes to the fact that he was himself rapidly
approaching death. And yet this man makes no provision for the
inevitable. It finds him without so much as his earthly affairs
settled, clinging to a stranger for unwilling help."
The notary did not answer. Perhaps some shadow of the inevitable swept
also over him as the doctor spoke. His hand shook as he poured more
wine into his tumbler, and drank it thirstily. M. Deshoulieres sat
thinking. Outside sounded a measured tramp, tramp: a company of
soldiers were marching through the little Place. The children ran and
marched too, in imitation. The sun gleamed sharply on the bayonets the
men carried over their shoulders; the steps died away along a narrow
street. Presently M. Deshoulieres said in a musing tone,--
"There will surely be no difficulty in discovering this nephew?"
"One cannot tell. There are strange stories of disappearances. At all
events, if ten years elapse without his arrival, the property is
dispersed among charities. And his injunctions against advertising were
very strict."
"Strict? say fierce, _mon ami_. There is some motive we do not
comprehend underlying it all. From the bottom of my heart I believe he
is acquainted with his nephew's whereabouts, and would force him to
return voluntarily. But what have I done that I should be made a
cat's-paw?"
"Without doubt it is Monsieur's well-known honourable character which
influenced his choice." M. Deshoulieres made a gesture of impatience.
"Honourable character? Bah! The man knows nothing of my character or
my honour either. I wish I could honestly say he was not in his proper
senses. When I think of what has been done, it seems to me that he is a
madman and I am a fool; but I suppose the world will pronounce him a
fool and me--a knave. Stop, I know what you are going to say;
nevertheless, you will discover that I am right. If there was any good
to be gained by this ridiculous trust, one might endure it with
philosophy. As it is, I foresee nothing but annoyance, trouble, and
gossip."
"Monsieur alarmed with the prospect of gossip? I have always understood
that he despised it," said the notary, with a scarcely perceptible
sneer.
"That depends. The thing may sting although it is contemptible."
"Mademoiselle Veuillot will require a home," said M. Roulleau, after
another pause.
"There is no time to spend over new perplexities," answered M.
Deshoulieres, impatiently, jumping up and pushing back his chair. "I
must return. Come with me, Roulleau: there is just the possibility of
his having arrived at a more Christian state of mind, and agreeing to an
alteration."
"He must die, I presume?" remarked the notary.
"Die? Yes. No one but he could live through the night, but he will no
doubt do so--out of contrariety," added the doctor, under his breath.
The two men rose. Veuve Angelin had only just time to scurry into her
kitchen before they appeared, ran down the stairs, and into the little
square. There was a statue in the centre, of course, and trees planted
round it, with benches here and there for the idle. Nurses and their
charges strolled about, under the little patches of shade, a band played
lively airs from the last comic opera, two or three men sat outside a
cafe and smoked. M. Deshoulieres turned abruptly down the narrow lane
along which Veuve Angelin had carried her pitcher. Such contrasts--
outside, the sun shining, people laughing and amusing themselves;
inside, sorrow, and hush, and death--were too thoroughly matters of
course with him to be much noticed. Perhaps he had seen deeply enough
into life to know that, after all, the contrast is often superficial.
Not unfrequently the laughter would be tears, if it dared: the sharpest
grief is sometimes denied the luxury of a sign. Heaven help such poor
souls! Moreover, the contrast, such as it is, came before him every
day. It shocks us when we are suddenly brought out of the noise and
turmoil about us, face to face with that dread Angel whose step each
hour brings nearer to ourselves. But this man lived, as it were, in his
presence, and was not jarred by any discord between that consciousness
and the life of every day. Nevertheless, on this day there was a
strangeness about the event which impressed, him and made him impatient
of interruption to his thoughts. He was glad to leave the music and the
dancing children and the sunlight behind him, and to feel himself under
the shade of the great cathedral, though he did not put his fancy into
words, or acknowledge more than a pleasant friendliness as he looked up
at the beautiful spires, the firm up-springing lines, the lovely rose
windows, the noble portals, the thin solemn statues with folded hands
and serene attitudes,--the whole aspect of the building ever varying,
severe or tender, as the case might be, but always inconceivably
peaceful.
The little notary had hard work to keep pace with his companion's long
strides. They went round two sides of the Cathedral, then out of the
Place Notre Dame into another street, as narrow as the others, but
somewhat unlike them. The houses were not crowded together in so odd a
fashion. They had outside shutters, which were closed against the sun;
and high up were long rambling wooden balconies, over which green vines
clambered and tossed themselves. Further on, a house was being dug
out,--the house of some famous man: the workmen were a little excited
over a fresh discovery. M. Deshoulieres passed without a look, and
presently came upon the Cygne, standing in a triangular Place, set round
with sycamore-trees. At the door M. Roulleau ventured upon a remark.
"Do you intend to suggest any course of action to the young lady?" he
asked.
He received no answer. Just then the doctor was not thinking about the
young lady. He strode hastily up the stairs, through an atmosphere yet
heavy and sweet with its lingering cloud of incense, and into the room
where M. Moreau was doing battle with the last enemy he would have to
contend with. A girl stood by the side of the bed, looking down on the
dread struggle with pitiful eyes. Except now and then moistening the
poor parched lips or smoothing the tumbled pillow, there was nothing for
her to do but watch: all apparent consciousness was at an end; no sign
of recognition greeted the doctor. He also stood watching for a few
minutes before he turned to the girl.
"How long is it since this change came on, mademoiselle?"
"About a quarter of an hour. I think he hardly heard Monsieur le Cure's
last words," she added, under her breath. Her voice trembled: that
quarter of an hour had seemed very terrible to poor Therese. The
sunlight streamed in at the window, but, in spite of it, the room looked
dark and funereal: there was a heavy paper on the walls; stiff, solid
furniture; in one corner a huge black stove reared itself grimly towards
the ceiling. The women of the house would have stayed with her, but the
old man was impatient of their presence: almost his last word had been a
peremptory "Go!" still fierce enough to frighten them. It was not
likely that the consciousness of any person's presence would return, as
M. Deshoulieres quickly perceived. He took the little notary to the
door, and told him so.
"There is no possible use in your waiting, M. Ignace," he said. "I was
a fool, and must abide by the consequences. Nothing will ever be
changed now. What is the matter?--are you ill?" he went on, noticing
his pale face.
"For the moment,--only for the moment, M. Deshoulieres," answered the
little man, with a quavering voice. "It is so horrible, you know, to
see him like that. Will--will it be soon?"
"I do not know. It is what we must all come to," said the doctor,
sternly. He shut the door, and went back to the bedside. "That man is
a veritable coward," he said, half aloud, so that Therese might have
heard if she had not been busied with a vain attempt to soothe the
increasing restlessness of the dying man. Those two, and old Nannon,
who came in after a while of her own accord, watched together. It was
at an end before morning, as the doctor had foretold. When the grey
dawn broke over the old weird-looking houses, with the young
sycamore-trees standing sentinel-wise before them; when it touched the
beautiful stern lines of the Cathedral, and delicate carving blossomed
into distinctness, and light stole into the shadowy depths, and the
little lamp before the altar burned yellow, and the jackdaws woke up
screaming and busy, Monsieur Moreau lay with a quiet look upon his
features to which they had long been strangers, until it seemed as if
the day, which was bringing youth to all the earth, had brought it back
to him, and fixed it on his face for ever.