Part 9

To say that Miss de Genneville was eccentric was but to put it mildly; in the village she was generally thought to be quite mad. The Curé vaguely hinted that a tragic love story was at the bottom of all her eccentricities. Certain it is that, for no apparent reason, and when she was still a youngish woman, she had sold the Jersey business and realised the whole of her fortune. After two years of continuous travelling, she came to Brittany on a visit to her sister--the widowed Marquise de Terhoven, who owned a small property close to Porhoët, and lived there in retirement and poverty with her only son, Amédé.

Miss Angela de Genneville was agreeably taken with the beauty and quietude of this remote little village. The beautiful château of Porhoët being for sale at the time, she bought it, took out letters of naturalisation, became a French subject, and from that moment never went outside the precincts of her newly acquired domain.

She never returned to England, and, with the exception of the Curé and her own sister and nephew, saw no one beyond her small retinue of servants.

But the dear old Curé thought all the world of her, for she was supremely charitable to him and to the poor, and scarcely a day passed but he told us something either of her kindness or of her eccentric ways. One day he arrived at the convent at an unaccustomed hour; we had just finished our simple _déjeuner_ of steaming coffee and rolls when we saw him coming towards us across the garden.

That he was excited and perturbed was at once apparent by his hurried gait and by the flush on his kindly face. He bade us a very hasty “Good morning, my daughters!” and plunged abruptly into his subject. He explained with great volubility, which was intended to mask his agitation, that he was the bearer of an invitation to the charming English lady--a curious invitation, ah, yes! perhaps!--Mademoiselle de Genneville--very eccentric--but she is in great trouble--in very serious trouble--and very ill too, now--poor lady--half paralysed and feeble--yes, feeble in the brain--and then her nephew, the Marquis Amédé de Terhoven--such a misguided young man--has got into bad company in that den of wickedness called Paris--since then it has been debts--always debts--his mother is so indulgent!--too indulgent! but an only son!--the charming English ladies would understand. It was very sad--very, very sad--and no wonder Mademoiselle de Genneville was very angry. She had paid Monsieur le Marquis’ debts once, twice, three times--but now she will not pay any more--but she is in great trouble and wants a friend--a female friend, one of her own country, she declares--for he himself, alas! was only a poor _curé de village_, and did not understand great ladies and their curious ways. It would be true Christian charity if the charming English lady would come and see Mademoiselle.

“But her own sister, the Marquise?” suggested Lady Molly, breaking in on the old man’s volubility.

“Ah! her sister, of course,” he replied with a sigh. “Madame la Marquise--but then she is Monsieur le Marquis’ mother, and the charming English lady would understand--a mother’s heart, of course----”

“But I am a complete stranger to Miss de Genneville,” protested Lady Molly.

“Ah, but Mademoiselle has always remained an Englishwoman at heart,” replied the Curé. “She said to me to-day: ‘I seem to long for an Englishwoman’s handshake, a sober-minded, sensible Englishwoman, to help me in this difficulty. Bring your English friend to me, Monsieur le Curé, if she will come to the assistance of an old woman who has no one to turn to in her distress.’”

Of course, after that I knew that my dear lady would yield. Moreover, she was keenly interested in Miss de Genneville, and without further discussion she told Monsieur le Curé that she was quite ready to accompany him to the château of Porhoët.

2

Of course, I was not present at the interview, but Lady Molly has so often told me all that happened and how it happened, and with such a wealth of picturesque and minute detail, that sometimes I find it difficult to realise that I myself was not there in person.

It seems that Monsieur le Curé himself ushered my lady into the presence of Miss Angela de Genneville. The old lady was not alone when they entered; Madame la Marquise de Terhoven, an elderly, somewhat florid woman, whose features, though distinctly coarse, recalled those of her sister, sat on a high-backed chair close to a table, on which her fingers were nervously drumming a tattoo, whilst in the window embrasure stood a young man whose resemblance to both the ladies at once proclaimed him to Lady Molly’s quick perception as the son of the one and nephew of the other--the Marquis de Terhoven, in fact.

Miss de Genneville sat erect in a huge armchair; her face was the hue of yellow wax, the flesh literally shrivelled on the bones, the eyes of a curious, unnatural brilliance; one hand clutched feverishly the arm of her chair, the other, totally paralysed, lay limp and inert on her lap.

“Ah! the Englishwoman at last, thank God!” she said in a high-pitched, strident voice as soon as Lady Molly entered the room. “Come here, my dear, for I have wanted one of your kind badly. A true-hearted Englishwoman is the finest product of God’s earth, after all’s said and done. _Pardieu!_ but I breathe again,” she added, as my dear lady advanced somewhat diffidently to greet her, and took the trembling hand which Miss Angela extended to her.

“Sit down close to me,” commanded the eccentric old lady, whilst Lady Molly, confused, and not a little angered at finding herself in the very midst of what was obviously a family conclave, was vaguely wondering how soon she could slip away again. But the trembling hand of the paralytic clutched her own slender wrist so tightly, forcing her to sink into a low chair close by, and holding her there as with a grip of steel, that it would have been useless and perhaps cruel to resist.

Satisfied now that her newly found friend, as well as Monsieur le Curé, were prepared to remain by her and to listen to what she had to say, the sick woman turned with a look of violent wrath towards the window embrasure.

“I was just telling that fine nephew of mine that he is counting his chickens before they are hatched. I am not yet dead, as Monsieur my nephew can see; and I have made a will--aye, and placed it where his thievish fingers can never reach it.”

The young man, who up to now had been gazing stolidly out of the window, now suddenly turned on his heel, confronting the old woman, with a look of hate gleaming in his eyes.

“We can fight the will,” here interposed Madame la Marquise, icily.

“On what grounds?” queried the other.

“That you were paralysed and imbecile when you made it,” replied the Marquise, dryly.

Monsieur le Curé, who up to now had been fidgeting nervously with his hat, now raised his hands and eyes up to the ceiling to emphasise the horror which he felt at this callous suggestion. Lady Molly no longer desired to go; the half-paralysed grip on her wrist had relaxed, but she sat there quietly, interested with every fibre of her quick intelligence in the moving drama which was being unfolded before her.

There was a pause now, a silence broken only by the monotonous ticking of a monumental, curious-looking clock which stood in an angle of the room. Miss de Genneville had made no reply to her sister’s cruel taunt, but a look, furtive, maniacal, almost dangerous, now crept into her eyes.

[IMAGE: images/img144.jpg CAPTION: “Confronting the old woman, with a look of hate gleaming in his eyes”]

Then she addressed the Curé.

“I pray you pen, ink and paper--here, on this table,” she requested. Then as he complied with alacrity, she once more turned to her nephew, and pointing to the writing materials:

“Sit down and write, Amédé,” she commanded.

“Write what?” he queried.

“A confession, my nephew,” said the old woman, with a shrill laugh. “A confession of those little peccadilloes of yours, which, unless I come to your rescue now, will land you for seven years in a penal settlement, if I mistake not. Eh, my fine nephew?”

“A confession?” retorted Amédé de Terhoven savagely. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“No, my nephew, I take you for a wise man--who understands that his dear aunt will not buy those interesting forgeries, perpetrated by Monsieur le Marquis Amédé de Terhoven, and offered to her by Rubinstein the money-lender, unless that confession is written and signed by you. Write Amédé, write that confession, my dear nephew, if you do not wish to see yourself in the dock on a charge of forging your aunt’s name to a bill for one hundred thousand francs.”

Amédé muttered a curse between his teeth. Obviously the old woman’s shaft had struck home. He knew himself to be in a hopeless plight. It appears that a money-lender had threatened to send the forged bills to Monsieur le Procureur de la République unless they were paid within twenty-four hours, and no one could pay them but Miss de Genneville, who had refused to do it except at the price of this humiliating confession.

A look of intelligence passed between mother and son. Intercepted by Lady Molly and interpreted by her, it seemed to suggest the idea of humouring the old aunt, for the moment, until the forgeries were safely out of the money-lender’s hands, then of mollifying her later on, when perhaps she would have forgotten, or sunk deeper into helplessness and imbecility.

As if in answer to his mother’s look the young man now said curtly:

“I must know what use you mean to make of the confession if I do write it.”

“That will depend on yourself,” replied Mademoiselle, dryly. “You may be sure that I will not willingly send my own nephew to penal servitude.”

For another moment the young man hesitated, then he sat down, sullen and wrathful, and said:

“I’ll write--you may dictate----”

The old woman laughed a short, dry, sarcastic laugh. Then, at her dictation, Amédé wrote:

“I, Amédé, Marquis de Terhoven, hereby make confession to having forged Mademoiselle Angela de Genneville’s name to the annexed bills, thereby obtaining the sum of one hundred thousand francs from Abraham Rubinstein, of Brest.”

“Now, Monsieur le Curé, will you kindly witness le Marquis’ signature?” said the irascible old lady when Amédé had finished writing; “and you, too, my dear?” she added, turning to Lady Molly.

My dear lady hesitated for a moment. Naturally she did not desire to be thus mixed up in this family feud, but a strange impulse had drawn her sympathy to this eccentric old lady, who, in the midst of her semi-regal splendour seemed so forlorn, between her nephew, who was a criminal and a blackguard, and her sister, who was but little less contemptible.

Obeying this impulse, and also a look of entreaty from the Curé, she affixed her own signature as witness to the document, and this despite the fact that both the Marquise and her son threw her a look of hate which might have made a weaker spirit tremble with foreboding.

Not so Lady Molly. Those very same threatening looks served but to decide her. Then, at Mademoiselle’s command, she folded up the document, slipped it into an envelope, sealed it, and finally addressed it to M. le Procureur de la République, resident at Caen.

Amédé watched all these proceedings with eyes that were burning with impotent wrath.

“This letter,” now resumed the old lady, more calmly, “will be sent under cover to my lawyer, Maître Vendôme, of Paris, who drew up my will, with orders only to post it in case of certain eventualities, which I will explain later on. In the meanwhile, my dear nephew, you may apprise your friend, Abraham Rubinstein, that I will buy back those interesting forgeries of yours the day on which I hear from Maître Vendôme that he has safely received my letter with this enclosure.”

“This is infamous----” here broke in the Marquise, rising in full wrath, unable to control herself any longer. “I’ll have you put under restraint as a dangerous lunatic. I----”

“Then, of course, I could not buy back the bills from Rubinstein,” rejoined Mademoiselle, calmly.

Then, as the Marquise subsided--cowed, terrified, realising the hopelessness of her son’s position--the old lady turned placidly to my dear lady, whilst her trembling fingers once more clutched the slender hand of her newly found English friend.

“I have asked you, my dear, and Monsieur le Curé, to come to me to-day,” she said, “because I wish you both to be of assistance to me in the carrying out of my dying wishes. You must promise me most solemnly, both of you, that when I am dead you will carry out these wishes to the letter. Promise!” she added with passionate earnestness.

The promise was duly given by Lady Molly and the old Curé, then Mademoiselle resumed more calmly:

“And now I want you to look at that clock,” she said abruptly, with seeming irrelevance. “It is an old heirloom which belonged to the former owners of Porhoët, and which I bought along with the house. You will notice that it is one of the most remarkable pieces of mechanism which brain of man has ever devised, for it has this great peculiarity, that it goes for three hundred and sixty-six days consecutively, keeping most perfect time. When the works have all but run down, the weights--which are enormous--release a certain spring, and the great doors of the case open of themselves, thus allowing the clock to be wound up. After that is done, and the doors pushed to again, no one can open them until another three hundred and sixty-six days have gone by--that is to say, not without breaking the case to pieces.”

Lady Molly examined the curious old clock with great attention. Vaguely she guessed already what the drift of the old lady’s curious explanations would be.

“Two days ago,” continued Mademoiselle, “the clock was open, and Monsieur le Curé wound it up, but before I pushed the doors to again I slipped certain papers into the case--you remember, Monsieur?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle, I remember,” responded the old man.

“Those papers were my last will and testament, bequeathing all I possess to the parish of Porhoët,” said Miss de Genneville, dryly, “and now the doors of the massive case are closed. No one can get at my will for another three hundred and sixty-four days--no one,” she added with a shrill laugh, “not even my nephew, Amédé de Terhoven.”

A silence ensued, only broken by the rustle of Madame la Marquise’s silk dress as she shrugged her shoulders and gave a short, sarcastic chuckle.

“My dear,” resumed Mademoiselle, looking straight into Lady Molly’s eager, glowing face, “you must promise me that, three hundred and sixty-four days hence, that is to say on the 20th September next year, you and Monsieur le Curé--or one of you if the other be incapacitated--will be present in this room at this hour when the door of the clock will open. You will then wind up the family heirloom, take out the papers which you will find buried beneath the weights, and hand them over to Maître Vendôme for probate at the earliest opportunity. Monseigneur the Bishop of Caen, the Mayor of this Commune, and the Souspréfet of this Department have all been informed of the contents of my will, and also that it is practically in the keeping of le Curé de Porhoët, who, no doubt, realises what the serious consequences to himself would be if he failed to produce the will at the necessary time.”

The poor Curé gasped with terror.

“But--but--but----” he stammered meekly, “I may be forcibly prevented from entering the house--I might be ill or----”

He shuddered with an unavowable fear, then added more calmly:

“I might be unjustly accused then of stealing the will--of defrauding the poor of Porhoët in favour of--Mademoiselle’s direct heirs.”

“Have no fear, my good friend,” said Mademoiselle, dryly; “though I have one foot in the grave I am not quite so imbecile as my dear sister and nephew here would suggest, and I have provided for every eventuality. If you are ill or otherwise prevented by outside causes from being present here on the day and hour named, this charming English lady will be able to replace you. But if either of you is forcibly prevented from entering this house, or if, having entered this room, the slightest violence or even pressure is put upon you, or if you should find the clock broken, damaged and--stripped of its contents, all you need do is to apprise Maître Vendôme of the fact. He will know how to act.”

“What would he do?”

“Send a certain confession we all know of to Monsieur le Procureur de la République,” replied the old lady, fixing the young Marquis Amédé with her irascible eye. “That same confession,” she continued lightly, “Maître Vendôme is instructed to destroy if you, Monsieur, and my English friend here, and the clock, are all undamaged on the eventful day.”

There was silence in the great, dark room for awhile, broken only by the sarcastic chuckle of the enfeebled invalid, tired out after this harrowing scene, wherein she had pitted her half-maniacal ingenuity against the greed and rapacity of a conscienceless roué.

That she had hemmed her nephew and sister in on every side could not be denied. Lady Molly herself felt somewhat awed at this weird revenge conceived by the outraged old lady against her grasping relatives.

She was far too interested in the whole drama to give up her own part in it, and, as she subsequently explained to me, she felt it her duty to remain the partner and co-worker of the poor Curé in this dangerous task of securing to the poor of Porhoët the fortune which otherwise would be squandered away on gaming tables and race-courses.

For this, and many reasons too complicated to analyse, she decided to accept her share in the trust imposed upon her by her newly-found friend.

Neither the Marquise nor her son took any notice of Lady Molly as she presently took leave of Mademoiselle de Genneville, who, at the last, made her take a solemn oath that she would stand by the Curé and fulfil the wishes of a dying and much-wronged woman.

Much perturbed, Monsieur le Curé went away. Lady Molly went several times after that to the château of Porhoët to see the invalid, who had taken a violent fancy to her. In October we had, perforce, to return to England and to work, and the following spring we had news from the Curé that Mademoiselle de Genneville was dead.

3

Lady Molly had certainly been working too hard, and was in a feeble state of health when we reached Porhoët the following 19th of September, less than twenty-four hours before the eventful moment when the old clock would reveal the will and testament of Mademoiselle de Genneville.

We walked straight from the station to the presbytery, anxious to see the Curé and to make all arrangements for to-morrow’s business. To our terrible sorrow and distress, we were informed by the housekeeper that the Curé was very seriously ill at the hospital at Brest, whither he had been removed by the doctor’s orders.

This was the first inkling I had that things would not go as smoothly as I had anticipated. Miss de Genneville’s dispositions with regard to the sensational disclosure of her will had, to my mind, been so ably taken that it had never struck me until now that the Marquise de Terhoven and her precious son would make a desperate fight before they gave up all thoughts of the coveted fortune.

I imagined the Marquis hemmed in on every side; any violence offered against the Curé or Lady Molly when they entered the château in order to accomplish the task allotted to them being visited by the sending of the confession to Monsieur le Procureur de la République, when prosecution for forgery would immediately follow. Damage to the clock itself would be punished in the same way.

But I had never thought of sudden illnesses, of--heaven help us!--poison or unaccountable accidents to either the Curé or to the woman I loved best in all the world.

No wonder Lady Molly looked pale and fragile as, having thanked the housekeeper, we found our way back in silence to the convent where we had once again engaged rooms.

Somehow the hospitality shown us last year had lost something of its cordiality. Moreover, our bedrooms this time did not communicate with one another, but opened out independently on to a stone passage.

The sister who showed us upstairs explained, somewhat shamefacedly, that as the Mother Superior had not expected us, she had let the room which was between our two bedrooms to a lady visitor, who, however, was ill in bed at the present moment.

That sixth sense, of which so much has been said and written, but which I will not attempt to explain, told me plainly enough that we were no longer amidst friends in the convent.

Had bribery been at work? Was the lady visitor a spy set upon our movements by the Terhovens? It was impossible to say. I could no longer chase away the many gloomy forebodings which assailed me the rest of that day and drove away sleep during the night. I can assure you that in my heart I wished all eccentric old ladies and their hidden wills at the bottom of the sea.

My dear lady was apparently also very deeply perturbed; any attempt on my part to broach the subject of Miss de Genneville’s will was promptly and authoritatively checked by her. At the same time I knew her well enough to guess that all these nameless dangers which seemed to have crept up round her only served to enhance her determination to carry out her old friend’s dying wishes to the letter.

We went to bed quite early; for the first time without that delightful final gossip, when events, plans, surmises and work were freely discussed between us. The unseen lady visitor in the room which separated us acted as a wet blanket on our intimacy.

I stayed with Lady Molly until she was in bed. She hardly talked to me whilst she undressed, but when I kissed her “good-night” she whispered almost inaudibly right into my ear:

“The Terhoven faction are at work. They may waylay you and offer you a bribe to keep me out of the château to-morrow. Pretend to fall in with their views. Accept all bribes and place yourself at their disposal. I must not say more now. We are being spied upon.”

That my lady was, as usual, right in her surmises was proved within the next five minutes. I had slipped out of her room, and was just going into mine, when I heard my name spoken hardly above a whisper, whilst I felt my arm gently seized from behind.

An elderly, somewhat florid, woman stood before me attired in a dingy-coloured dressing-gown. She was pointing towards my own bedroom door, implying her desire to accompany me to my room. Remembering my dear lady’s parting injunctions, I nodded in acquiescence. She followed me, after having peered cautiously up and down the passage.

Then, when the door was duly closed, and she was satisfied that we were alone, she said very abruptly:

“Miss Granard, tell me! you are poor, eh?--a paid companion to your rich friend, what?”

Still thinking of Lady Molly’s commands, I replied with a pathetic sigh.

“Then,” said the old lady, eagerly, “would you like to earn fifty thousand francs?”

The eagerness with which I responded “Rather!” apparently pleased her, for she gave a sigh of satisfaction.

“You know the story of my sister’s will--of the clock?” she asked eagerly: “of your friend’s _rôle_ in this shameless business?”

Once more I nodded. I knew that my lady had guessed rightly. This was the Marquise de Terhoven, planted here in the convent to gain my confidence, to spy on Lady Molly, and to offer me a bribe.

Now for some clever tactics on my part.

“Can you prevent your friend from being at the château to-morrow before one o’clock?” asked the Marquise.

“Easily,” I replied calmly.

“How?”