Part 17
The anticipation of the interview with M. de Claviers--the third since he had known what he knew--consumed him with too fierce a fever. It increased constantly as the minutes passed that brought him nearer to the time when he would find himself face to face with him. Again, as in the ride at the head of his dragoons to Hugueville-en-Plaine, he seemed to see him and only him--only him on the railway platform, where very few of his friends had the courage to come to bid him adieu; only him in the carriage, where, lulled by the monotonous rumbling of the train, he tried to imagine the words he was about to hear and those that he would say in reply, endlessly and anxiously; only him, finally, in Paris, where, as he stood in Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, before the door of their house, his suffering acquired fresh intensity. He had not crossed the threshold since the day when, coming from Saint-Mihiel by train, he had gone there to dress, before going to Valentine's to ask for her hand. That was the day before Charles Jaubourg's death!
Everything indicated that the manner of life in that seignorial mansion was still as he had always known it. The old concierge saluted him from his doorway with the same deferential and familiar expression. The same stablemen, with the same gestures, were splashing pails of water on the wheels of the same carriages. Garnier, the maître-d'hôtel, whose white hair gave him a powdered aspect, received him with the same ceremony at the top of the steps, when his arrival had been announced by the same bell.
"Is Monsieur le Marquis well?" Landri inquired; and his heart gave a great throb of relief, as on the day before with Despois and Vigouroux, when the servant replied:--
"Why, yes, Monsieur le Comte, very well. Monsieur le Marquis went to Grandchamp yesterday to hunt, with several friends."
"He hunts!" thought the young man. "Then nothing extraordinary is happening! Evidently I was right. He wishes to talk with me about money matters only." And he said, aloud: "Ask him if he can see me about ten o'clock."
This touch of ceremoniousness was no novelty in the relations between the father and son. Although the conventional courtesy which is traditionary in old-fashioned families creates something like embarrassment at certain times, at other times it reveals itself as singularly beneficent in its operation. It ensures anonymity, if necessary, when one is suffering. No one of the household suspected that there was impending between the marquis and Landri one of those scenes which mark a solemn epoch in two lives.
But did Landri himself suspect to what sort of an interview he was proceeding when, at the appointed hour, he went down from his apartment to the library, where M. de Claviers had sent word that he was awaiting him? That large, high-studded room was on the same level with the garden, which was fresh and bright-colored in summer, but so severely bare and leafless on that dark December morning. The gloomy setting was only too appropriate to the words that were to be exchanged there.
The marquis was standing in front of the vast fireplace, with his back to the fire, whose bright flame twined about a veritable tree-trunk. It was another of the old nobleman's manias, that huge fire of the olden time. Standing before that monumental chimneypiece, he was himself at that moment, despite his modern costume, more of an "ancient portrait" than ever. But it was the portrait of one who was living through hours of frightful martyrdom. The master of the hunt of the forest of Hez, whose tall erect figure Landri had so admired in the group of sportsmen watching the kill, was scarcely fifty years of age, despite the sixty-five years that the genealogical tree of the Claviers-Grandchamps gave him. The head of the family, who was at that moment awaiting the heir to his name in the immense room lined with wainscotings and books, was an old man. His ruddy complexion mottled with white spots, his heavy eyelids, the wrinkles on his brow, told the story of the long sleepless nights of those four weeks. The jovial gleam of his deep blue eyes was replaced by an expression of feverish ardor, wherein one could divine his secret agony--at that moment! For the undiminished pride of the whole physiognomy said plainly enough that the nobleman had not surrendered, and that before any other witness he would have found a way to conceal his wound.
What was the wound? To know, Landri had no need to question him. What he had foreseen had happened. M. de Claviers suspected the truth. To what extent? How had he been warned? The young man instinctively collected all his strength, in order to undergo without faltering an interview in which his own secret might escape him. He was about to realize once more the superiority of Race, and what a powerful and resolute character it bestows upon its authentic representatives.
M. de Claviers was infinitely affectionate and sensitive, but he was above all else a man. In him, character was in very truth nourished upon and permeated by those principles upon which he declaimed with a fervor which was sometimes so discordant, even--especially, perhaps--in his own circle. At supremely critical moments he was certain to manifest the energy born of an unchangeable resolution, which scorns equivocation, and which has the unswerving decision of the surgeon's knife. He, too, was unaware exactly how much his son--in name--knew of a situation of which he had never dreamed before he had had overwhelming and indisputable proof of it. He was justified in thinking that the young man was altogether ignorant. That was enough to justify, in a weaker nature, the temptation to hold his peace, which Landri assuredly would not have escaped. In the marquis's eyes one duty overshadowed everything else,--the duty of saving, in this shipwreck of all his confidence and all his affections, so much as he could save of the honor of the Claviers-Grandchamps. He was the depositary of the name, and he proposed to impose his will on the intruder,--justifiably, indeed,--without concern for aught save that honor. And so when the young man, immediately on entering the room, began to speak, alluding to their last interview, he cut him short with a word.
"I did not send for you," he said; and the failure to address him by the familiar _tu_ seemed strangely harsh in his mouth, for never before, since his childhood, had Landri known him to address him thus, even in his sternest moments;--"I did not send for you to resume a discussion which, henceforth, has no interest or even any pretext. Something has happened during the month since we last met. It is destined to change our relations forever, and in every respect. It has seemed to me that I owed it to myself and to you to make it known to you. Prepare to receive a very painful blow, as I received it, bravely."
"I am prepared, father, to receive anything from you," Landri replied, "for I am sure that you will never do anything except for what you believe to be my good."
This ambiguous sentence was a final effort to conceal--to what avail now?--what he on his side had learned. At the word "father" the marquis, firm as he was, could not help closing his eyes for a second. But his voice, full and deep, did not falter as he continued:--
"Look over those two letters first; then we will talk."
With outstretched finger he pointed to an envelope lying on the desk, unsealed. On opening it the young man saw that it did in fact contain two letters. One, type-written, was thus conceived:--
"Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp doubtless is unaware of the reasons that led one of his friends (?) very recently deceased, to make him his residuary legatee. The accompanying document will enlighten him. If Monsieur le Marquis is not satisfied, we have other documents to furnish him." And this denunciation was signed: "An admirer of the house of Claviers-Grandchamp"!
The other letter--Ah! his recognition of the handwriting stopped the beating of Landri's heart. The paper, slightly yellowed by time, still gave forth a vague, musty sweetness, the faint, evaporated odor of Geneviève de Claviers' favorite perfume,--the perfume that hovered about the kisses of which the child was born who unfolded the sheet with hands that trembled so that he tore it across the middle. It was a love letter, written without precaution, in the perilous sense of security which a long-continued liaison finally imparts even to those who are most closely watched. The first three words,--"My beloved Charles,"--the "tu" that came next--news of "our dear little Landri,"--and other phrases, no less explicit, would have made it impossible for the most obstinate to doubt.
From whom had the letter been stolen? From the lover after he received it? Or had villainous hands intercepted it, hands which the careless mistress deemed faithful? Why had they waited for years before using this formidable weapon, and why was it produced to-day, when the two culprits were protected forever by the tomb against the vengeance of the outraged husband? That the will which made M. de Claviers sole legatee had induced this revolting denunciation, the other letter needed not to assert with such insulting cynicism. It was sufficient evidence in itself. The motive was of little importance. The effect had been produced, as complete as the most implacable animosity could wish.
Landri stood as one stricken dumb before the man whose name he bore, by virtue of the sin of the dead woman who had insanely written those lines with her impassioned fingers. When he ventured at last to raise his eyes, he saw that the marquis pointed to the fire on the hearth. He threw the two papers, laden with deadly meaning, into the flames. A minute later a few charred fragments, whirling about in the smoke, alone testified that those letters had ever existed. Doubtless the young man's face had exhibited an extraordinary poignancy of suffering during that silent scene, for, even at that moment, M. de Claviers could not help pitying him.
"I could not perform the task incumbent upon me," he said, "except with your aid and with you aware of the facts."
"Do not reproach yourself, monsieur," said Landri. "Those letters have told me nothing. I knew it all before."
The blood rushed suddenly to the old man's face, attesting the burst of passion that this unexpected reply aroused in him. His blue eyes flashed fire, and as his former habit of speech returned to his lips in that explosion, he cried:--
"You (_tu_) knew it all! And you did not speak to me! You knew all, and your conscience didn't say to you: 'That man who brought me up, who has always loved me like the most affectionate of fathers, was betrayed in his conjugal honor! He is betrayed to-day in his probity! He accepts that abominable legacy in good faith! He is grateful for it! He is going to use it to pay his debts, to release his patrimony! His patrimony,'" he repeated. "'At any price I must prevent that!'--You knew all, and you allowed me to go away the other day without uttering the cry that you owed me! Yes, you owed it to me, for what I have given you with all my heart for so many years, for what I was still giving you a few moments ago.--I was just about to apologize to you for not being able to conceal the shameful truth from you! And you betrayed me, you, too! You made yourself an accomplice in the supreme outrage!--Ah! villain, you are indeed of their blood, the child of--"
He checked himself. Even in that outburst of his rage his great heart recoiled from the barbarity of insulting a mother, however unworthy, in the presence of a son. But the paroxysm was too violent to pass off thus. His clenched fists opened and closed. He seized the first thing that offered itself, a silver paper-knife lying on the table beside an uncut review. He broke in two the blade, which snapped like glass. Then, brought to himself by the very frenzy of the act, he addressed Landri again in a tone in which the tempest still rumbled:--
"But explain yourself, unhappy boy! Explain your silence! Why did you keep silent?"
"Because I loved you," said Landri, "and because my mother was concerned."
A heart-rending cry, so simple and poignant in its humanness, of the sort that the heart emits when it is touched to its lowest depths! M. de Claviers had loved the young man too long and too deeply, that affection was still too largely mingled in the horror which his existence inspired in him, for him not to be moved to the very entrails. He made a gesture which he instantly checked; and, as if he were angry with himself for that weakness, his face clouded anew as he inquired:--
"And from whom did you learn of this thing?"
"On Rue de Solferino--on that Tuesday. Oh! don't compel me to live through that frightful scene again!"
"He spoke to you!" roared M. de Claviers. "To you! to you! He dared!"
"He is dead," replied, nay, rather, implored the young man.
Again his innate generosity carried the day in the nobleman's heart; he placed his hand over his eyes, the same hand with which he had traced over the remains of his false friend the great sign of pardon. These sudden outbursts of his speech and his passion frightened him, no doubt. This interview which he had sought affected him too profoundly. He collected himself thus for a few seconds, and when he began again to speak his tone had changed. He uttered his words now with a sort of haughty coldness, hurried and harsh, which made his interlocutor feel even more keenly perhaps the utter hopelessness of their situation.
"It is useless to prolong an interview that must be as painful to you as to me. Listen to me, I beg, without interrupting me. In my capacity of head of the Claviers family, so long as you bear its name, I consider myself as having with respect to you both duties and rights. My duty is to treat you ostensibly as if you were my son!" His eyelids drooped once more over his eyes, as he said this. "I shall not fail in that duty.--My right is to demand that you abide by my decision in everything that concerns the defence of my family's honor. That honor is threatened. Such villainies as this are a sign." He pointed to the place on the desk where the envelope had been. He still saw it there! "They prove that people have talked about it, and that they are talking. We know enough of the world, you and I, to know that its fickleness exceeds its ferocity. We know, too, that it has, in spite of everything, a sort of justice of its own. There is nobody, I say nobody, who can honestly believe that Geoffroy de Claviers-Grandchamp accepted a legacy knowing it to be infamous. If, therefore, he retains it, it must be because he does not believe that it is infamous; because he is convinced that his wife has been slandered. I propose,--understand me,--I propose that people shall say, I propose that people shall think, that Madame de Claviers has been slandered. Consequently I shall not renounce this legacy after I have publicly agreed to accept it. Need I tell you that that money fills me with horror, and that I shall keep none of it? It is your money. I propose that you shall have it all. But this restitution must be made between you and me. Unfortunately I have already given orders that I cannot cancel without causing comment, to Métivier's man, Cauvet, that miserable Chaffin's successor. So that restitution cannot be made for some little time. In fact, I must have time to carry out my plans.--There's one point settled between us, is it not?"
"It is for you to command," said Landri, "and for me to obey."
"I come to the second point. We can no longer, I do not say live together, but see each other. We must part, and forever, while adhering faithfully to the programme I have outlined. The avowed reason must be one of those that our set will accept without looking beyond it. That reason is all ready--it is the mésalliance which you proposed to make and which you must make. A month ago the mere thought of it was intolerable to me. I showed you that plainly enough. To-day--" he shook his head with a bitter smile. "It is a horrible thing to me that the family you will found will bear the name of mine. But then I can do nothing. The Code would not allow me even to compel recognition of the circumstances. Besides, I have no right to demand that you should not make the most of your life. I cannot prevent that. I cannot prevent you from existing. No. You will marry therefore, ostensibly against my will. You will give me your word not to live in the same city with me, not to present your wife in our circle. I do not wish to meet you or to meet her.--Wait," he exclaimed imperiously, as Landri was about to reply. "If I were not certain, I say again, that people are talking, things would take care of themselves. You would leave this house this morning, never to return. But people are talking, and as neither you nor I have taken anybody into our confidence concerning our two discussions,--at Hez and at Saint-Mihiel,--the abrupt announcement of your marriage at this moment might be taken for a pretext. No matter how well everybody knows that I am not a man of these times, this theory of mésalliances is so weakened of late years, that people might say and would say: 'He has seized this opportunity; there's something else.'--Now, I propose that the reply shall be, as with one voice: 'No, there was nothing else.'--You have left the army under circumstances that have aroused the sympathy of everybody about you--about us, I should say, since no human power can prevent our interests being mutual. It is natural that I should take this time to receive, to bring people about you. I will receive--we will receive, together. I shall find the strength to maintain this attitude, and so will you. It will last as long as we make it, but we must arrange it so that, on the day when the news of your marriage and our rupture becomes known, everybody who is intimate with us shall say: 'Poor Claviers! he was so fond of his son!'--I doubt not that there will be those who will add: 'What a fool!'--One's vanity is not to be wounded when one thinks of honor, and the only way for me to defend Madame de Claviers' honor is to seem to believe in it. In that our interests are really mutual, with a mutuality which is not a falsehood. She was, she still is my wife, and she is your mother."
"I repeat that I will obey you in everything," said the young man.
"It remains for me to touch upon two other points," continued the marquis. "I have reflected much, during these last days, upon the character of the person you are going to marry. You love her. Yes, you must love her dearly to have spoken to me as you did when we were together at Saint-Mihiel. You see, I do not underrate your affection for me. You will be tempted to open your heart to her. If she doesn't deserve to be loved as you love her, do not do it; and if she does deserve it, do not do it. I ask you to give me your word that she shall never learn this ghastly secret from you."
"I give it to you, instantly," Landri replied. He added, in a low voice, so much in dread was he of another outburst of that rage which, he felt, was still smouldering: "But if I should allow myself to tell her the whole truth, I think--that I should tell her nothing new."
"You have spoken to her already!" ejaculated M. de Claviers in a threatening tone. "Confess it. Ah! if you have done that--"
"I have not done it," Landri protested; and with tears in his eyes, he added: "I entreat you, never believe that I could have acted otherwise than you have taught me to act all your life and are still teaching me at this moment. I will tell you everything. Then you can pass judgment on me."
And he began by describing the first indication--her sudden entreaty to him not to go up to the invalid's apartment on Rue de Solferino, on his way from Paris to Grandchamp; and how, after the visit to Jaubourg and the revelation, he had said to himself: "Madame Olier knows all,"--and in what a state of feverish excitement he had arrived at her house, and the horror he had had of speaking, and his silence in the face of her grief, and that grief itself, and their betrothal in that moment of supreme emotion. Then he told of the letter he had received from her immediately after the Hugueville affair, and of the others, in which she had not made a single allusion to M. de Claviers.
That gentleman listened to the confession with an impassive face, which did, however, betray something like wonder. Never had Landri opened his heart to him in this wise when he believed himself to be his son. Never had he ventured to show to his father that charming, quivering sensibility, so passionate and so delicate, so easily wounded and so loving. He disclosed himself in all the loyalty of his refined and affectionate nature, at the moment that the marquis and he were exchanging the words of their final conversation. What more could they say to each other? M. de Claviers felt that impossibility more than all the rest. His old love for his son stirred him anew, and the more it assailed him the more obstinately he stiffened himself against it. Furthermore, throughout that narrative he caught glimpses of Valentine's charming character, and it was intolerably bitter to him to recall another betrothal--his own--forty years before, so superb and splendid, to end in--what? In this heart-rending inquisition about a deadly shame!
"You are right," he said at last, "it is only too evident. She knows all. But how?" His features assumed an expression of deeper chagrin as he added: "For a month I have been constantly confronted by this question, without reaching even a suggestion of a reply: Who can have stolen those letters?--'We have other documents to furnish!'" He repeated the informer's words, in such a grief-stricken tone. "'Other documents!'--Is it the heirs? But I saw them at the funeral. There was an ex-major there, one Monsieur Privat, who spoke to me about you. I can never believe in such hypocrisy! They knew about the will, and they behaved admirably. No, the blow does not come from them. From a servant? With what object? Blackmail. Oh! let him unmask then! I will pay him whatever he wants for those other letters!--But no. A servant would never have devised the devilish irony of the signature: 'an admirer of the house of Claviers-Grandchamp'! That smells of the club, does that dastardly insult, of low-lived envy of those who do not palter with the cowardly customs of these days."--He uttered another roar. "Ah! If I could only find out who it was! If I could!" And, shaking his head: "This is not a question of myself at all. Once more I say, the honor of Madame de Claviers is at stake, and this is the last promise I propose to demand from you, that you would seek what I cannot seek--the hand that dealt the blow. You may find it and you may not. But you must try, so that they may not repeat it."
"Have you no suspicion of anybody?" inquired Landri, "Chaffin, whom you dismissed--"
"Chaffin? Why, I had had the letter ten days when I settled with him. No. Chaffin's a thief. He has never wanted anything but money. He'd have tried to sell the papers. Let us not go astray in suppositions as useless as my lamentations. Perhaps by questioning Madame Olier you may learn something. Too much, perhaps."--A pause.--"No. That is not possible, either."
What was the shocking idea to which that "No" was an answer, and the "But if it were?" that he added?
"You are aware of my desires now," he concluded.
"I will comply with them," said the young man. He had understood the wicked and atrocious suspicion that had suddenly suggested itself to the cruelly betrayed husband, and he pitied him the more for it. "I promise you."