The Nabob Part 36

Le Merquier, and that, when I shall have convinced you, your word will be enough without forcing me to lay bare my distress to them all. You know the accusation--the most terrible, the most ign.o.ble. There are so many people who might be deceived by it. My enemies have given names, dates, addresses. Well, I bring you the proofs of my innocence. I lay them bare before you--you only--for I have grave reasons for keeping the whole affair secret."

Then he showed the lawyer a certificate from the Consulate of Tunis, that during twenty years he had only left the princ.i.p.ality twice--the first time to see his dying father at Bourg-Saint Andeol; the second, to make, with the Bey, a visit of three days to his chateau of Saint-Romans.

"How comes it, then, that with a doc.u.ment so conclusive in my hands I have not brought my accusers before the courts to contradict and confound them? Alas, monsieur, there are cruel responsibilities in families. I have a brother, a poor fellow, weak and spoiled, who has for long wallowed in the mud of Paris, who has left there his intelligence and his honour. Has he descended to that degree of baseness which I, in his name, am accused of? I have not dared to find out. All I can say is, that my poor father, who knew more than any one in the family of it, whispered to me in dying, 'Bernard, it is your elder brother who has killed me. I die of shame, my child.'"

He paused, compelled by his suppressed emotion; then:

"My father is dead, Maitre Le Merquier, but my mother still lives, and it is for her sake, for her peace, that I have held back, that I hold back still, before the scandal of my justification. Up to now, in fact, the mud thrown at me has not touched her; it only comes from a certain cla.s.s, in a special press, a thousand leagues away from the poor woman.

But law courts, a trial--it would be proclaiming our misfortune from one end of France to the other, the articles of the official paper reproduced by all the journals, even those of the little district where my mother lives. The calumny, my defence, her two children covered with shame by the one stroke, the name--the only pride of the old peasant--forever disgraced. It would be too much for her. It would be enough to kill her. And truly, I find it enough, too. That is why I have had the courage to be silent, to weary, if I could, my enemies by silence. But I need some one to answer for me in the Chamber. It must not have the right to expel me for reasons which would dishonour me, and since it has chosen you as the chairman of the committee, I am come to tell you everything, as to a confessor, to a priest, begging you not to divulge anything of this conversation, even in the interests of my case.

I only ask you, my dear colleague, absolute silence; for the rest, I rely on your justice and your loyalty."

He rose, ready to go, and Le Merquier did not move, still asking the green curtain in front of him, as if seeking inspiration for his answer there. At last he said:

"It shall be as you desire, my dear colleague. This confidence shall remain between us. You have told me nothing, I have heard nothing."

The Nabob, still heated with his burst of confidence, which demanded, it seemed to him, a cordial response, a pressure of the hand, was seized with a strange uneasiness. This coolness, this absent look, so unnerved him that he was at the door with the awkward bow of one who feels himself importunate, when the other stopped him.

"Wait, then, my dear colleague. What a hurry you are in to leave me! A few moments, I beg of you. I am too happy to have a chat with a man like you. Besides, we have more than one common bond. Our friend Hemerlingue has told me that you, too, are much interested in pictures."

Jansoulet trembled. The two words--"Hemerlingue," "pictures"--meeting in the same phrase so unexpectedly, restored all his doubts, all his perplexities. He did not give himself away yet, however, and let Le Merquier advance, word by word, testing the ground for his stumbling advances. People had told him often of the collection of his honourable colleague. "Would it be indiscreet to ask the favour of being admitted, to--"

"On the contrary, I should feel much honoured," said the Nabob, tickled in the most sensible--since the most costly--point of his vanity; and looking round him at the walls of the room, he added with the tone of a connoisseur, "You have some fine things, too."

"Oh," said the other modestly, "just a few canvases. Painting is so dear now, it is a taste so difficult to satisfy, a true pa.s.sion _de luxe_--a pa.s.sion for a Nabob," said he, smiling, with a furtive look over his gla.s.ses.

They were two prudent players, face to face; but Jansoulet was a little astray in this new situation, where he who only knew how to be bold, had to be on his guard.

"When I think," murmured the lawyer, "that I have been ten years covering these walls, and that I have still this panel to fill."

In fact, at the most conspicuous place on the wall there was an empty place, emptied rather, for a great gold-headed nail near the ceiling showed the visible, almost clumsy, trace of a snare laid for the poor simpleton, who let himself be taken in it so foolishly.

"My dear M. Le Merquier," said he with his engaging, good-natured voice, "I have a Virgin of Tintoretto's just the size of your panel."

Impossible to read anything in the eyes of the lawyer, this time hidden under their overhanging brows.

"Permit me to hang it there, opposite your table. That will help you to think sometimes of me."

"And to soften the severities of my report, too, sir?" cried Le Merquier, formidable and upright, his hand on the bell. "I have seen many shameless things in my life, but never anything like this. Such offers to me, in my own house!"

"But, my dear colleague, I swear to you----"

"Show him out," said the lawyer to the hang-dog servant who had just entered; and from the middle of his office, whose door remained open, before all the waiting-room, where the paternosters were silent, he pursued Jansoulet--who slunk off murmuring excuses to the door--with these terrible words:

"You have outraged the honour of the Chamber in my person, sir. Our colleagues shall be informed of it this very day; and, this crime coming after your others, you will learn to your cost that Paris is not the East, and that here we do not make shameless traffic of the human conscience."

Then, after having chased the seller from the temple, the just man closed his door, and approaching the mysterious green curtain, said in a tone that sounded soft amidst his pretended anger:

"Is that what you wanted, Baroness Marie?"

THE SITTING

That morning there were no guests to lunch at 32 Place Vendome, so that towards one o'clock might have been seen the majestic form of M.

Barreau, gleaming white at the gate, among four or five of his scullions in their cook's caps, and as many stable-boys in Scotch caps--an imposing group, which gave to the house the aspect of an hotel where the staff was taking the air between the arrivals of the trains. To complete the resemblance, a cab drew up before the door and the driver took down an old leather trunk, while a tall old woman, her upright figure wrapped in a little green shawl, jumped lightly to the footpath, a basket on her arm, looked at the number with great attention, then approached the servants to ask if it was there that M. Bernard Jansoulet lived.

"It is here," was the answer; "but he is not in."

"That does not matter," said the old lady simply.

She returned to the driver, who put her trunk in the porch, and paid him, returning her purse to her pocket at once with a gesture that said much for the caution of the provincial.

Since Jansoulet had been deputy for Corsica, the domestics had seen so many strange and exotic figures at his house, that they were not surprised at this sunburnt woman, with eyes glowing like coals, a true Corsican under her severe coif, but different from the ordinary provincial in the ease and tranquility of her manners.

"What, the master is not here?" said she, with an intonation which seemed better fitted for farm people in her part of the country, than for the insolent servants of a great Parisian mansion.

"No, the master is not here."

"And the children?"

"They are at lessons. You cannot see them."

"And madame?"

"She is asleep. No one sees her before three o'clock."

It seemed to astonish the good woman a little that any one could stay in bed so late; but the tact which guides a refined nature, even without education, prevented her from saying anything before the servants, and she asked for Paul de Gery.

"He is abroad."

"Bompain Jean-Baptiste, then."

"He is with monsieur at the sitting."

Her great gray eyebrows wrinkled.

"It does not matter; take up my trunk just the same."

And with a little malicious twinkle of her eye, a proud revenge for their insolent looks, she added: "I am his mother."

The scullions and stable-boys drew back respectfully. M. Barreau raised his cap:

"I thought I had seen madame somewhere."

"And I too, my lad," answered Mme. Jansoulet, who s.h.i.+vered still at the remembrance of the Bey's _fete_.

"My lad," to M. Barreau, to a man of his importance! It raised her at once to a very high place in the esteem of the others.