Part 16
Landri had listened with, an indescribable mixture of fear and disgust--fear of betraying his excessive emotion, disgust at the infamy of which he was the helpless witness. This then was the ghastly means devised by Jaubourg to leave his whole fortune to his son! And should he, the son, permit that money to be accepted thus, with such touching and confiding gratitude, by that nobleman, so proud and of such magnificent moral integrity? If, by his silence concerning what he knew, he should make himself an accomplice in that final act of treachery, would he not cap the climax of the outrage by his false generosity? The cry of protest was on his lips, and he did not utter it. There was something more atrocious than the failure to warn that honorable and terribly abused man, and that was for his wife's child to tell him what that wife had been.
M. de Claviers had walked to the door. He seemed to await a word, a gesture, a glance; and Landri stood silent, with downcast eyes. The marquis himself started to turn back. Then, in face of the young man's obstinate immobility, his dense eyebrows contracted, his eyes became stern. He repeated:--
"Adieu. Do you understand that I am bidding you adieu?"
"Adieu," said Landri, without raising his eyes, while the dispenser of justice, with a shrug of his powerful shoulders, left the room to avoid giving way to the fresh wave of indignation that swept over his great heart.
[Footnote 5: In French law, a _sommation respectueuse_ is an extrajudicial document, which a young man of twenty-five or a young woman of twenty-one, proposing to marry without parental consent, is required to serve upon his or her parents, requesting advice concerning the marriage.]
[Footnote 6: Merlin, _Répertoire de Jurisprudence_, "Puissance Paternelle," Sect. III, § 1:--"Basset mentions a sentence pronounced by a father in person, by the advice of his family, against his son. He declared him to be unworthy to succeed, and sentenced him to the galleys for twenty years. The procureur-général of the Parliament of Grenoble appealed from this sentence as too light, and by decree of September 19, 1663, the son was sentenced to the galleys for life."]
VII
ALL SAVE HONOR
Four weeks had passed since the young man had listened to the Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp's wrathful stride through the reception-room of his apartment, without calling him back to cry out the truth, to prevent that deplorable injustice: the debts incurred by his imprudent but generous and chivalrous prodigality paid with the money of his wife's lover! After those twenty-nine days Landri found himself once more, in the same place and at the same hour, surrounded by the same familiar objects amid which his period of arrest had passed.
He was free now. On the preceding day he had been sentenced by the court-martial at Châlons, by five votes against two, to a fortnight's imprisonment, to date back to his original arrest. On his return from Châlons to Saint-Mihiel, he had found in his room an official communication, stating that "by presidential order, under date of this day, Lieutenant de Claviers-Grandchamp is retired from active service on half-pay." That sheet of paper was the veritable "Here lies" of the soldier, rather than the letter that he had received from the colonel on his return from the Hugueville expedition. Landri had crumpled it up and thrown it aside, paying no further heed to it. All his attention was given to a telegram which he read again and again, an indefinite number of times, seated, with his head in his hands, at the same table and in the same attitude as the marquis the other day, while his valet and the orderly went in and out, packing his trunks.
Landri was to return to Paris by the night train. The telegram in which he was so absorbed was from M. de Claviers' maître d'hôtel. It was a reply to the only letter that he had written the marquis since their interview. He had sent it on the adjournment of the court-martial, to inform him of the verdict. It contained a careful but very distinct allusion to his proposed marriage, and stated that he proposed to go to Paris unless his "father"--he continued to call him by that name--should see any objection to his doing so. He read and reread the despatch acknowledging the receipt of that letter.
"Monsieur le Marquis, being obliged to leave for Grandchamp, instructs me to say to Monsieur le Comte, in reply to his letter, that he will expect him at Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré to-morrow.
GARNIER."
That M. de Claviers had not put aside his severity, this missive, so deliberately impersonal and at such a time, was a sufficient proof.
"However, he is willing to see me!" said Landri to himself. "This interview will be another very painful one, but I must not shirk it."
Upon receipt of the despatch he had devoted all the energy of his mind to looking at the impending meeting from the point of view that he had constantly maintained during that month of almost absolute solitude. He had passed the whole of it in trying to define his duty, and he had always come at last to the twofold necessity: silence and separation, separation and silence. During those interminable hours of reflection he had not had one moment's doubt. Not for a moment, either, had he ceased to suffer at the thought of Jaubourg's will, of the shocking abuse of confidence committed for his benefit by his real father, and in which he could not avoid being an accomplice, rather than commit a still more shocking crime by breaking the heart of the most loyal of men, by dishonoring his own mother. His grief finally took the shape of remorse for his compulsory participation in this vilest of falsehoods. Every time that he had remembered, during those four weeks, the petrifying revelation, he had thought instantly of the method resorted to by the dead man to leave him his fortune, and had shuddered with impotent abhorrence.
Nothing that had happened had diverted his mind from that obsession: neither the questions asked during the official inquiry, nor the consultations with his counsel, nor his appearance before the judges, nor the manifestations called forth by his act. Expressions of sympathy had come to him by hundreds from every part of France, from superior officers and comrades, even from privates. He had received also a great number of letters and postal cards filled with low-lived insults. This was a proof that the Marquis de Claviers was right, and that the fine gesture of refusal before the door of the church to be burglarized, since it exasperated the enemies of the army, evidently answered a deep-rooted craving of the military conscience. But alas! it was only a gesture, only a pretence. The officer had obeyed a sentiment which none of his admirers or his insulters could even suspect. Praise and criticism affected him no more than other impressions of the external world. Madame Olier's letters alone had discovered the secret of communicating to him a little of their tenderness. He had received one each day. Evidently the dear woman realized that she had hurt him the first day by speaking of M. de Claviers. Never after that, in the course of those chats with pen in hand, did she so much as hint at the marquis's existence. "Somebody has told her about the legacy," was Landri's conclusion, "and she understands."
He had guessed aright. Madame Privat, who had come to Paris for Jaubourg's funeral, had paid Valentine a visit. She had told her, with the acerbity of a disinherited relation, about her cousin's will.
"You remember what I told you about his passion for Madame de Claviers-Grandchamp? Now he leaves Monsieur de Claviers all his property! Privat insists that he can't see anything wrong. He claims that it's the surest proof that nothing ever happened.--You must confess, my dear friend, that it has an evil look."
Madame Olier had made no reply. But her heart had overflowed with pity. She had seen Landri as he was at their last meeting, in turn paralyzed and convulsed by grief, and she had divined the terrible truth. Her affection had assumed a gentler, more caressing phase, across the distance, and on that afternoon preceding his return to Paris, as he bent over that enigmatical despatch, the certain precursor of fresh struggles, the convicted officer, to exorcise his troubles, evoked the image of his only friend, his betrothed and his comforter.
"I shall see her to-morrow," he said to himself. "I shall be able to keep the secret that honor commands me to keep, and she will read my heart and pity me. She loves me! _He_ is going to ask me to give her up. I had the strength to resist the first attack. I am sure of having still more against the second.--But is that really what he wants to talk to me about?--What else can it be?"
In this question which Landri asked himself, or rather, which asked itself in his mind, in his own despite, another supposition was comprised. If it were true that Madame Olier had heard of Jaubourg's attentions to Madame de Claviers,--and of that he had no doubt,--others must have heard of them, too, others would be talking of them. In the first shock of the revelation that had been the son's first thought. The reader will remember that, after he had started for his club on Rue Scribe, after the scene on Rue de Solferino, he had fled wildly, like a madman, with the terror of a culprit flying from a witness of his shame, simply because he saw a member of the club cross the threshold. Charles Jaubourg's will must have revived all the gossip, aroused anew the slumbering malevolence. Who could say that the marquis had not received anonymous letters, that his suspicions had not been awakened?
One fact had surprised Landri more than all the other incidents of those four weeks. As he dwelt upon the hidden meaning of the despatch, his mind reverted to that fact which suddenly assumed very great importance. How was it that M. de Claviers had done nothing in respect to one of the matters discussed in their interview--the choice of an advocate? The motives that made him irreconcilable on the subject of the marriage to Valentine were respect, worship, idolatry of his name. Would not those same motives naturally have led him to persevere in his original purpose? The heir to that name was summoned before a court-martial. That was a public fact which had no connection with their private disagreement. How was it that the "Émigré" had not insisted that the accused should be defended--that was his own word--on the ground of the principle to which he devoted his life: the honor of the noble? It was not necessary to communicate with his son for that. It would have been enough to send the young man a defender duly "instructed," according to another expression of his. He had not done so. Why? Landri had had to apply to Métivier the notary, who had sent down a kinsman of his, a distinguished practitioner, but purely professional. The marquis and the counsel had never met. Why? Did it mean that some new event had intervened? What was it? The awakening of suspicion? Or was the wrath of outraged paternal authority sufficient to explain his abstention?
Landri was so desirous to believe the latter that he went to the trunk in which his books were already packed, and took out the work wherein the marquis's ideas were collected and marshalled: "The History and Genealogy of the House of Claviers-Grandchamp." The mere title made Landri tremble, but he remembered having read a note, which he must find at any price. When he had found it, he spelled out all the syllables, word by word, in a low voice. He longed to read therein an explanation of the attitude of the Feudalist, thwarted in one of his most firmly rooted convictions. It was a fragment of a discourse delivered by the eloquent Duveyrier before the Parliament of Paris, in 1783. M. de Claviers had cited the passage apropos of the severity of one of his ancestors toward a younger son, with enthusiastic approval and emphasizing the last lines as if to make them his own.
In this argument Duveyrier was supporting a father's denunciation of his own daughter to the authorities.
"Can we," he said, "can we, without distress, reflect upon the immense interval that separates us from those who handed our laws down to us? By what steps of progressive enfeeblement we have substituted for that mental energy, for the power of genuine virtue, a factitious sensibility which takes fright at the slightest effort; not the healthy sensibility, inseparable from kindness of heart, which has compassion for the criminal while punishing the crime, but that flexibility of character, that flabbiness of heart which leads us to purchase the indulgence of others by our own indulgence, and which we call sensibility in order to legitimize our weakness, to ennoble it, indeed, if that were possible! In the last days of the Republic, when discord was ushering in depravity, Aulus Fulvius deserted Rome to follow Catiline. His father called him back. That citizen, a rebel against his country, was still a dutiful son. He obeyed. He submitted to the sentence of death pronounced by his father. Our ancestors admired this example of sublime virtue. We deem it harsh. Our grandsons will call it barbarous. _We are beginning to be surprised that a father should exercise the right that the law gives him, to avenge his betrayed honor, his contemned authority. We shall end by depriving him of that right. From the impossibility of punishing the children will result contempt for the father, insubordination rebellion, and universal anarchy_."
"That's his way of thinking, and he's profoundly in earnest about it," thought Landri, as he closed the bulky volume. "That's enough to make my opposition exasperate him, so that he won't have anything more to do with me until I have given way.--Where were my wits? He wants to see me to-morrow about those same matters that he had Métivier write me about. Must I imagine, too, that he has mysterious reasons for dividing our property? He told me in this very room of his purpose to do that. That alone proves how much weight he attaches to my offence against him. In his eyes it's a crime. I ought to congratulate myself that he is so rigid in his convictions."
This explanation was very plausible. But it did not allay the vague anxiety that the telegram had caused Landri. For this reason: Maître Métivier had sent him numerous papers to sign, about a fortnight before, accompanying them with a long letter, of a more personal sort. He said in it that he strongly approved of this segregation of the property of the father and son, and that he saw therein good augury for the future. He added that M. de Claviers had, upon his advice, entrusted the liquidation of his indebtedness to a former clerk of his, Métivier's, one M. Cauvet, an advocate who made a specialty of notarial practice. This Cauvet had discovered a serious irregularity almost immediately. Chaffin had been dismissed. "Perhaps Monsieur le Marquis was a little severe," observed the cautious Métivier. "Although the fraud was highly probable, it was not absolutely certain."
"So I was right," was Landri's instant thought, "Chaffin too was a traitor." And he had gone no farther. In his present reflections matters assumed a different aspect. Such violence under excitement was certainly a pronounced feature of M. de Claviers' temperament. No other reason was necessary to explain it than the discovery of a breach of trust. But the consequences? Landri remembered that the son of the steward thus summarily dismissed was Pierre Chaffin, the physician who had watched at the bedside of the dying Jaubourg. Suppose that that fellow had repeated to his father what he had unquestionably overheard? And suppose that the father, to revenge himself, had in his turn repeated that secret? Suppose that he had written to the person most interested?
"No," Landri answered his own questions, "Chaffin may have been tempted by the money that passed through his hands, and have become a thief. But he is not a monster. And Pierre is a physician. There are still some of them, yes, a great many, who keep professional secrets. No; nothing can have happened in that direction, nor in any other. Our conversation of the other day is quite enough."
Despite these arguments, the return to Paris, under such conditions and in obedience to that telegram, inspired the young man with an apprehension that he could not overcome.
"It's being shut up in this apartment, where I have too many sorrowful thoughts to disturb me," he said to himself; and he went out, to try to conquer his weakness by walking.
He employed the last hours of the afternoon in paying farewell visits. But they did not give him, after such a succession of violent shocks, the peace of mind which he was very near requiring physically. He might have measured the extent of the change wrought in him during those few weeks, by this trivial fact: during that last walk from one end to the other of the town where he had done his last garrison duty, he did not feel a moment's nostalgia for the profession to which he had been so attached. One anxiety overtopped everything else, of the same nature as that which he had undergone before the telegram came, and had tried to shake off: to ascertain whether the news of the infamous will had reached the ears of his comrades, and what they thought of it.
Landri had heard vaguely long ago that Major Privat was a distant cousin of Jaubourg. He had no sooner set foot on the sidewalk than he remembered it. That officer had retired the previous winter. He had certainly continued to correspond with some of his comrades in arms. Had he written them the news, and if so, with what comments? In that case what interpretation would those straightforward, simple hearts, whose uncompromising loyalty he knew, place upon M. de Claviers' acceptance?
Such an idea was not of the sort that permits the intrusion of others. In vain did the pictures of military activity on the streets of Saint-Mihiel multiply themselves about the cashiered lieutenant, as if to remind him of his youthful dreams and their destruction. He paid no heed to them. Thus he was able to pass, without being suffocated with despair, the headquarters gate, which he had entered only the other day with the firm determination to retain his uniform. He met, without a tearing at his heart-strings, several troopers of his former command, led by his successor, who was mounted on Panther herself, become in those few weeks a docile and spirited cavalry mare. He recognized Baudoin's insolent and sneering profile, and Teilhard's face, already less frank and open, evidently recaptured by anarchistic influences. That is one of the bitterest pangs that a real leader of men can feel,--to see the living tool that he has hoped, and has begun, to shape, go astray in other hands. Landri was hardly moved by it. On the other hand, he was intensely relieved to find that neither Despois nor Vigouroux, the first two officers whom he called upon, had the slightest suspicion of the legacy left to the Claviers by Privat's cousin. He had the courage to mention the former major's name to both of them. Plainly, they had not thought of him for months. They had many other cares in their heads, which they both poured into his ears, each after his manner.
"So you are lost to the army," said Despois. "Such an excellent officer--what a pity! I blame most the wretches who are governing us, for not understanding that, especially among us, a man cannot be replaced. A man! When they have one who wants to serve, they ought to do everything to keep him. In a campaign, one man is worth ten, twenty, thirty, a hundred, yes, a thousand others! One would think that our tyrants were afflicted with a vertigo that impels them to eliminate from the army the men of heart, that is to say, the loyalists, the men from whom their Republic has least to fear. The officer who refuses, as you did, to break down a chapel door, is the officer who doesn't conspire, because he has scruples, and those fools don't comprehend it!--I, too," he added, "I shall leave, and very soon. I don't think that I can stand it. Yesterday they made us march against the churches, to-morrow we shall be called upon for a campaign against the strikers. That is no more a soldier's work than the other. The army may be employed, in exceptional cases, to see that the laws are executed. But it must be one of the exceptional cases. The reason for the existence of the army is war, not police duty. Our politicians have a horror of war, of that manly and sanctified school of heroism. They have the degraded taste for armed demonstrations in the streets. Look you, they are talking of sending us next week to adjust matters at the forges of Apremont.--For heaven's sake, gentlemen, give us a policy of internal peace and of proud dignity externally!--Adieu, Claviers. I wish that we may meet again, you can guess where; foot to foot, charging the enemy. But will there still be any cavalry to follow us?--I am wrong. We have no right to despair, so near Vaucouleurs. What can you expect? It breaks your old captain's heart to see you go away."
"Well! so they've slit your ears, my dear Claviers!" Such was Vigouroux's first exclamation. "Ah! the--" And the lieutenant of dragoons, who adhered to the great traditions of the Klébers and Cambronnes, hurled a mess-room epithet at his comrade's persecutors. "Do you know that the same thing came near happening to me? And why? Because I exchanged two or three words with you when we dismounted on our return from Hugueville. Gad! they didn't waste any time. That same afternoon the colonel sent for me.--'Is it true that you congratulated Monsieur de Claviers in public?' he asked me.--'I did talk with Claviers,' I replied, 'but privately, when we were off duty; and if anybody claims to have been present at our interview, he lies.'--Charbonnier hesitated a moment. For all that he has the ideas that you know of, he's a good fellow. And then, Vigouroux, Charbonnier--those names have a similar sound, whereas Claviers-Grandchamp--However, 'I'll let it pass this time,' he said. 'But be less talkative, young man. You may fall in with another colonel than me.'--That's all there was to it. You see, two minutes' conversation, and we were spied upon. It poisons life. Claviers, to be surrounded by blackguards. It spoils the cooking at the mess, which really hasn't been so bad this year. I can't eat without talking, and no one dares to speak at the table now. If all the good men like you, the staunch ones, should disappear, what would become of us? But no matter, Charbonnier and his curs may say what they please, I congratulate you again, and I authorize you to say everywhere that Vigouroux cried 'bravo' twice over."
So Privat had not written! That was the whole significance, to their former comrade, of the words of the two officers, one so distinguished by nature, the other so simple-hearted, both equally attached to the service and wounded to the quick in their military honor by abominable orders. Later Landri was destined to see very often in his thoughts the sad and honest glance of Despois in its deeply lined mask, and the jovially disgusted lip--if one may say so--of the ruddy-visaged Vigouroux. At the moment there was no place in his heart for sensations of that sort.
His other visits passed off with the same alternations of painful curiosity and comparative--but only momentary--relief.