Chapter 23
"My father stays quietly in Paris, devoted to his pursuits and usual pleasures. My mother has come down to Sauveterre. She is here now; and she has been told that I am at liberty to receive visitors: but in vain. I was hoping for her yesterday; but the wretch who is accused of a crime is no longer her son! She never came. No one came. Henceforth I stand alone in the world; and now you see why I have a right to dispose of myself."
M. Folgat did not think for a moment of discussing the point. It would have been useless. Despair never reasons. He only said,--
"You forget Miss Chandore, sir."
Jacques turned crimson all over, and he murmured, trembling in all his limbs,--
"Dionysia!"
"Yes, Dionysia," said the young advocate. "You forget her courage, her devotion, and all she has done for you. Can you say that she abandons and denies you,--she who set aside all her reserve and her timidity for your sake, and came and spent a whole night in this prison? She was risking nothing less than her maidenly honor; for she might have been discovered or betrayed. She knew that very well, nevertheless she did not hesitate."
"Ah! you are cruel, sir," broke in Jacques.
And pressing the lawyer's arm hard, he went on,--
"And do you not understand that her memory kills me, and that my misery is all the greater as I know but too well what bliss I am losing? Do you not see that I love Dionysia as woman never was loved before? Ah, if my life alone was at stake! I, at least, I have to make amends for a great wrong; but she--Great God, why did I ever come across her path?"
He remained for a moment buried in thought; then he added,--
"And yet she, also, did not come yesterday. Why? Oh! no doubt they have told her all. They have told her how I came to be at Valpinson the night of the crime."
"You are mistaken, Jacques," said M. Magloire. "Miss Chandore knows nothing."
"Is it possible?"
"M. Magloire did not speak in her presence," added M. Folgat; "and we have bound over M. de Chandore to secrecy. I insisted upon it that you alone had the right to tell the truth to Miss Dionysia."
"Then how does she explain it to herself that I am not set free?"
"She cannot explain it."
"Great God! she does not also think I am guilty?"
"If you were to tell her so yourself, she would not believe you."
"And still she never came here yesterday."
"She could not. Although they told her nothing, your mother had to be told. The marchioness was literally thunderstruck. She remained for more than an hour unconscious in Miss Dionysia's arms. When she recovered her consciousness, her first words were for you; but it was then too late to be admitted here."
When M. Folgat mentioned Miss Dionysia's name, he had found the surest, and perhaps the only means to break Jacques's purpose.
"How can I ever sufficiently thank you, sir?" asked the latter.
"By promising me that you will forever abandon that fatal resolve which you had formed," replied the young advocate. "If you were guilty, I should be the first to say, 'Be it so!' and I would furnish you with the means. Suicide would be an expiation. But, as you are innocent, you have no right to kill yourself: suicide would be a confession."
"What am I to do?"
"Defend yourself. Fight."
"Without hope?"
"Yes, even without hope. When you faced the Prussians, did you ever think of blowing out your brains? No! and yet you knew that they were superior in numbers, and would conquer, in all probability. Well, you are once more in face of the enemy; and even if you were certain of being conquered, that is to say, of being condemned, and it was the day before you should have to mount the scaffold, I should still say, 'Fight. You must live on; for up to that hour something may happen which will enable us to discover the guilty one.' And, if no such event should happen, I should repeat, nevertheless, 'You must wait for the executioner in order to protest from the scaffold against the judicial murder, and once more to affirm your innocence.'"
As M. Folgat uttered these words, Jacques had gradually recovered his bearing; and now he said,--
"Upon my honor, sir, I promise you I will hold out to the bitter end."
"Well!" said M. Magloire,--"very well!"
"First of all," replied M. Folgat, "I mean to recommence, for our benefit the investigation which M. Galpin has left incomplete. To-night your mother and I will leave for Paris. I have come to ask you for the necessary information, and for the means to explore your house in Vine Street, to discover the friend whose name you assumed, and the servant who waited upon you."
The bolts were drawn as he said this; and at the open wicket appeared Blangin's rubicund face.
"The Marchioness de Boiscoran," he said, "is in the parlor, and begs you will come down as soon as you have done with these gentlemen."
Jacques turned very pale.
"My mother," he murmured. Then he added, speaking to the jailer,--
"Do not go yet. We have nearly done."
His agitation was too great: he could not master it. He said to the two lawyers,--
"We must stop here for to-day. I cannot think now."
But M. Folgat had declared he would leave for Paris that very night; and he was determined to do so. He said, therefore,--
"Our success depends on the rapidity of our movements. I beg you will let me insist upon your giving me at once the few items of information which I need for my purposes."
Jacques shook his head sadly. He began,--
"The task is out of your power, sir."
"Nevertheless, do what my colleague asks you," urged M. Magloire. Without any further opposition, and, who knows? Perhaps with a secret hope which he would not confess to himself, Jacques informed the young advocate of the most minute details about his relations to the Countess Claudieuse. He told him at what hour she used to come to the house, what roads she took, and how she was most commonly dressed. The keys of the house were at Boiscoran, in a drawer which Jacques described. He had only to ask Anthony for them. Then he mentioned how they might find out what had become of that Englishman whose name he had borrowed. Sir Francis Burnett had a brother in London. Jacques did not know his precise address; but he knew he had important business-relations with India, and had, once upon a time, been cashier in the great house of Gilmour and Benson.
As to the English servant-girl who had for three years attended to his house in Vine Street, Jacques had taken her blindly, upon the recommendation of an agency in the suburbs; and he had had nothing to do with her, except to pay her her wages, and, occasionally, some little gratuity besides. All he could say, and even that he had learned by mere chance, was, that the girl's name was Suky Wood; that she was a native of Folkstone, where her parents kept a sailor's tavern; and that, before coming to France, she had been a chambermaid at the Adelphi in Liverpool.
M. Folgat took careful notes of all he could learn. Then he said,--
"This is more than enough to begin the campaign. Now you must give me the name and address of your tradesmen in Passy."
"You will find a list in a small pocket-book which is in the same drawer with the keys. In the same drawer are also all the deeds and other papers concerning the house. Finally, you might take Anthony with you: he is devoted to me."
"I shall certainly take him, if you permit me," replied the lawyer. Then putting up his notes, he added,--
"I shall not be absent more than three or four days; and, as soon as I return, we will draw up our plan of defence. Till then, my dear client, keep up your courage."
They called Blangin to open the door for them; and, after having shaken hands with Jacques de Boiscoran, M. Folgat and M. Magloire went away.
"Well, are we going down now?" asked the jailer.
But Jacques made no reply.
He had most ardently hoped for his mother's visit; and now, when he was about to see her, he felt assailed by all kinds of vague and sombre apprehensions. The last time he had kissed her was in Paris, in the beautiful parlor of their family mansion. He had left her, his heart swelling with hopes and joy, to go to his Dionysia; and his mother, he remembered distinctly, had said to him, "I shall not see you again till the day before the wedding."
And now she was to see him again, in the parlor of a jail, accused of an abominable crime. And perhaps she was doubtful of his innocence.
"Sir, the marchioness is waiting for you," said the jailer once more. At the man's voice, Jacques trembled.
"I am ready," he replied: "let us go!" And, while descending the stairs, he tried his best to compose his features, and to arm himself with courage and calmness.
"For," he said, "She must not become aware of it, how horrible my position is."
At the foot of the steps, Blangin pointed at a door, and said,--
"That is the parlor. When the marchioness wants to go, please call me."
On the threshold, Jacques paused once more.
The parlor of the jail at Sauveterre is an immense vaulted hall, lighted up by two narrow windows with close, heavy iron gratings. There is no furniture save a coarse bench fastened to the damp, untidy wall; and on this bench, in the full light of the sun, sat, or rather lay, apparently bereft of all strength, the Marchioness of Boiscoran.
When Jacques saw her, he could hardly suppress a cry of horror and grief. Was that really his mother,--that thin old lady with the sallow complexion, the red eyes, and trembling hands?
"O God, O God!" he murmured.
She heard him, for she raised her head; and, when she recognized him, she wanted to rise; but her strength forsook her, and she sank back upon the bench, crying,--
"O Jacques, my child!"
She, also, was terrified when she saw what two months of anguish and sleeplessness had done for Jacques. But he was kneeling at her feet upon the muddy pavement, and said in a barely intelligible voice,--
"Can you pardon me the great grief I cause you?"
She looked at him for a moment with a bewildered air; and then, all of a sudden, she took his head in her two hands, kissed him with passionate vehemence, and said,--
"Will I pardon you? Alas, what have I to pardon? If you were guilty, I should love you still; and you are innocent."
Jacques breathed more freely. In his mother's voice he felt that she, at least, was sure of him.
"And father?" he asked.
There was a faint blush on the pale cheeks of the marchioness.
"I shall see him to-morrow," she replied; "for I leave to-night with M. Folgat."
"What! In this state of weakness?"
"I must."
"Could not father leave his collections for a few days? Why did he not come down? Does he think I am guilty?"
"No; it is just because he is so sure of your innocence, that he remains in Paris. He does not believe you in danger. He insists upon it that justice cannot err."
"I hope so," said Jacques with a forced smile.
Then changing his tone,--
"And Dionysia? Why did she not come with you?"
"Because I would not have it. She knows nothing. It has been agreed upon that the name of the Countess Claudieuse is not to be mentioned in her presence; and I wanted to speak to you about that abominable woman. Jacques, my poor child, where has that unlucky passion brought you!"
He made no reply.
"Did you love her?" asked the marchioness.
"I thought I did."
"And she?"
"Oh, she! God alone knows the secret of that strange heart."
"There is nothing to hope from her, then, no pity, no remorse?"
"Nothing. I have given her up. She has had her revenge. She had forewarned me."
The marchioness sighed.
"I thought so," she said. "Last Sunday, when I knew as yet of nothing, I happened to be close to her at church, and unconsciously admired her profound devotion, the purity of her eye, and the nobility of her manner. Yesterday, when I heard the truth, I shuddered. I felt how formidable a woman must be who can affect such calmness at a time when her lover lies in prison accused of the crime which she has committed."
"Nothing in the world would trouble her, mother."
"Still she ought to tremble; for she must know that you have told us every thing. How can we unmask her?"
But time was passing; and Blangin came to tell the marchioness that she had to withdraw. She went, after having kissed her son once more.
That same evening, according to their arrangement, she left for Paris, accompanied by M. Folgat and old Anthony.
XVIII.
At Sauveterre, everybody, M. de Chandore as much as Jacques himself, blamed the Marquis de Boiscoran. He persisted in remaining in Paris, it is true: but it was certainly not from indifference; for he was dying with anxiety. He had shut himself up, and refused to see even his oldest friends, even his beloved dealers in curiosities. He never went out; the dust accumulated on his collections; and nothing could arouse him from this state of prostration, except a letter from Sauveterre.
Every morning he received three or four,--from the marchioness or M. Folgat, from M. Seneschal or M. Magloire, from M. de Chandore, Dionysia, or even from Dr. Seignebos. Thus he could follow at a distance all the phases, and even the smallest changes, in the proceedings. Only one thing he would not do: he would not come down, however important his coming might be for his son. He did not move.
Once only he had received, through Dionysia's agency, a letter from Jacques himself; and then he ordered his servant to get ready his trunks for the same evening. But at the last moment he had given counter-orders, saying that he had reconsidered, and would not go.
"There is something extraordinary going on in the mind of the marquis," said the servants to each other.
The fact is, he spent his days, and a part of his nights, in his cabinet, half-buried in an arm-chair, resting little, and sleeping still less, insensible to all that went on around him. On his table he had arranged all his letters from Sauveterre in order; and he read and re-read them incessantly, examining the phrases, and trying, ever in vain, to disengage the truth from this mass of details and statements. He was no longer as sure of his son as at first: far from it! Every day had brought him a new doubt; every letter, additional uncertainty. Hence he was all the time a prey to most harassing apprehensions. He put them aside; but they returned, stronger and more irresistible than before like the waves of the rising tide.
He was thus one morning in his cabinet. It was very early yet; but he was more than ever suffering from anxiety, for M. Folgat had written, "To-morrow all uncertainty will end. To-morrow the close confinement will be raised, and M. Jacques will see M. Magloire, the counsel whom he has chosen. We will write immediately."
It was for this news the marquis was waiting now. Twice already he had rung to inquire if the mail had not come yet, when all of a sudden his valet appeared and with a frightened air said,--
"The marchioness. She has just come with Anthony, M. Jacques's own man."
He hardly said so, when the marchioness herself entered, looking even worse than she had done in the prison parlor; for she was overcome by the fatigue of a night spent on the road.
The marquis had started up suddenly. As soon as the servant had left the room, and shut the door again, he said with trembling voice, as if wishing for an answer, and still fearing to hear it,--
"Has any thing unusual happened?"
"Yes."
"Good or bad?"
"Sad."
"Great God! Jacques has not confessed?"
"How could he confess when he is innocent?"
"Then he has explained?"
"As far as I am concerned, and M. Folgat, Dr. Seignebos, and all who know him and love him, yes, but not for the public, for his enemies, or the law. He has explained every thing; but he has no proof."
The mournful features of the marquis settled into still deeper gloom.
"In other words, he has to be believed on his own word?" he asked.
"Don't you believe him?"
"I am not the judge of that, but the jury."
"Well, for the jury he will find proof. M. Folgat, who has come in the same train with me, and whom you will see to-day, hopes to discover proof."
"Proof of what?"
Perhaps the marchioness was not unprepared for such a reception. She expected it, and still she was disconcerted.
"Jacques," she began, "has been the lover of the Countess Claudieuse."
"Ah, ah!" broke in the marquis.
And, in a tone of offensive irony, he added,--
"No doubt another story of adultery; eh?"
The marchioness did not answer. She quietly went on,--
"When the countess heard of Jacques's marriage, and that he abandoned her, she became exasperated, and determined to be avenged."
"And, in order to be avenged, she attempted to murder her husband; eh?"
"She wished to be free."
The Marquis de Boiscoran interrupted his wife with a formidable oath. Then he cried,--
"And that is all Jacques could invent! And to come to such an abortive story--was that the reason of his obstinate silence?"
"You do not let me finish. Our son is the victim of unparalleled coincidences."
"Of course! Unparalleled coincidences! That is what every one of the thousand or two thousand rascals say who are sentenced every year. Do you think they confess? Not they! Ask them, and they will prove to you that they are the victims of fate, of some dark plot, and, finally, of an error of judgment. As if justice could err in these days of ours, after all these preliminary examinations, long inquiries, and careful investigations."
"You will see M. Folgat. He will tell you what hope there is."
"And if all hope fails?"
The marchioness hung her head.
"All would not be lost yet. But then we should have to endure the pain of seeing our son brought up in court."
The tall figure of the old gentleman had once more risen to its full height; his face grew red; and the most appalling wrath flashed from his eyes.
"Jacques brought up in court?" he cried, with a formidable voice. "And you come and tell me that coolly, as if it were a very simple and quite natural matter! And what will happen then, if he is in court? He will be condemned; and a Boiscoran will go to the galleys. But no, that cannot be! I do not say that a Boiscoran may not commit a crime, passion makes us do strange things; but a Boiscoran, when he regains his senses, knows what becomes him to do. Blood washes out all stains. Jacques prefers the executioner; he waits; he is cunning; he means to plead. If he but save his head, he is quite content. A few years at hard labor, I suppose, will be a trifle to him. And that coward should be a Boiscoran: my blood should flow in his veins! Come, come, madam, Jacques is no son of mine."
Crushed as the marchioness had seemed to be till now, she rose under this atrocious insult.
"Sir!" she cried.
But M. de Boiscoran was not in a state to listen to her.
"I know what I am saying," he went on. "I remember every thing, if you have forgotten every thing. Come, let us go back to your past. Remember the time when Jacques was born, and tell me what year it was when M. de Margeril refused to meet me."
Indignation restored to the marchioness her strength. She cried,--
"And you come and tell me this to-day, after thirty years, and God knows under what circumstances!"
"Yes, after thirty years. Eternity might pass over these recollections, and it would not efface them. And, but for these circumstances to which you refer, I should never have said any thing. At the time to which I allude, I had to choose between two evils,--either to be ridiculous, or to be hated. I preferred to keep silence, and not to inquire too far. My happiness was gone; but I wished to save my peace. We have lived together on excellent terms; but there has always been between us this high wall, this suspicion. As long as I was doubtful, I kept silent. But now, when the facts confirm my doubts, I say again, 'Jacques is no son of mine!'"
Overcome with grief, shame, and indignation, the Marchioness de Boiscoran was wringing her hands; then she cried,--
"What a humiliation! What you are saying is too horrible. It is unworthy of you to add this terrible suffering to the martyrdom which I am enduring."
M. de Boiscoran laughed convulsively.
"Have I brought about this catastrophe?"
"Well then yes! One day I was imprudent and indiscreet. I was young; I knew nothing of life; the world worshipped me; and you, my husband, my guide, gave yourself up to your ambition, and left me to myself. I could not foresee the consequences of a very inoffensive piece of coquetry."
"You see, then, now these consequences. After thirty years, I disown the child that bears my name; and I say, that, if he is innocent, he suffers for his mother's sins. Fate would have it that your son should covet his neighbor's wife, and, having taken her, it is but justice that he should die the death of the adulterer."
"But you know very well that I have never forgotten my duty."
"I know nothing."
"You have acknowledged it, because you refused to hear the explanation which would have justified me."
"True, I did shrink from an explanation, which, with your unbearable pride, would necessarily have led to a rupture, and thus to a fearful scandal."
The marchioness might have told her husband, that, by refusing to hear her explanation, he had forfeited all right to utter a reproach; but she felt it would be useless, and thus he went on,--
"All I do know is, that there is somewhere in this world a man whom I wanted to kill. Gossiping people betrayed his name to me. I went to him, and told him that I demanded satisfaction, and that I hoped he would conceal the real reason for our encounter even from our seconds. He refused to give me satisfaction, on the ground that he did not owe me any, that you had been calumniated, and that he would meet me only if I should insult him publicly."
"Well?"
"What could I do after that? Investigate the matter? You had no doubt taken your precautions, and it would have amounted to nothing. Watch you? I should only have demeaned myself uselessly; for you were no doubt on your guard. Should I ask for a divorce? The law afforded me that remedy. I might have dragged you into court, held you up to the sarcasms of my counsel, and exposed you to the jests of your own. I had a right to humble you, to dishonor my name, to proclaim your disgrace, to publish it in the newspapers. Ah, I would have died rather!"
The marchioness seemed to be puzzled.
"That was the explanation of your conduct?"
"Yes, that was my reason for giving up public life, ambitious as I was. That was the reason why I withdrew from the world; for I thought everybody smiled as I passed. That is why I gave up to you the management of our house and the education of your son, why I became a passionate collector, a half-mad original. And you find out only to-day that you have ruined my life?"
There was more compassion than resentment in the manner in which the marchioness looked at her husband.
"You had mentioned to me your unjust suspicions," she replied; "but I felt strong in my innocence, and I was in hope that time and my conduct would efface them."
"Faith once lost never comes back again."
"The fearful idea that you could doubt of your paternity had never even occurred to me."
The marquis shook his head.