The Nabob Part 41

He said all this on his knees, before the sofa on which she had let herself fall, in a flood of tears, and the last painful sobs of her wounded pride. She wept thus for long, her child at her feet. And now the Joyeuse family, anxious because Andre did not come down, hurried up in a troop to look for him. It was an invasion of innocent faces, transparent gaiety, floating curls, modest dress, and over all the group shone the big lamp, the good old lamp with the vast shade which M. Joyeuse solemnly carried, as high, as straight as he could, with the gesture of a caryatid. Suddenly they stopped before this pale and sad lady, who looked, touched to the depths, at all this smiling grace, above all at Elise, a little behind the others, whose conscious air in this indiscreet visit points her out as the _fiancee_.

"Elise, embrace our mother and thank her. She has come to live with her children."

There she is, caught in all these caressing arms, pressed against four little feminine hearts which have missed the shelter of a mother's love for so long; there she is introduced, and so gently, into the luminous circle of the family lamp, widened to allow her to take her place there, to dry her eyes, to warm and brighten her spirit at this steady flame, even in this little studio near the roof, where just now the terrible storm blew so wildly.

He who breathes his last over there, lying in his blood-stained bath, has never known this sacred flame. Egoistical and hard, he has lived up to the last for show, throwing out his chest in a bubble of vanity. And this vanity was what was best in him. It alone had held him firm and upright so long; it alone clinched his teeth on the groans of his last agony. In the damp garden the water drips sadly. The bugle of the firemen sounds the curfew. "Go and look at No. 7," says the mistress, "he will never have done with his bath." The attendant goes, and utters a cry of fright, of horror: "Oh, madame, he is dead! But it is not the same man." They go, but n.o.body can recognise the fine gentleman who entered a short time ago, in this death's-head puppet, the head leaning on the edge of the bath, a face where the blood mingles with paint and powder, all the limbs lying in the supreme la.s.situde of a part played to the end--to the death of the actor. Two cuts of the razor across the magnificent chest, and all the fact.i.tious majesty has burst and resolved itself into this nameless horror, this heap of mud, of blood, of spoiled and dead flesh, where, unrecognisable, lies the man of appearances, the Marquis Louis-Marie-Agenor de Monpavon.

MEMOIRS OF AN OFFICE PORTER THE LAST LEAVES

I put down in haste and with an agitated pen the terrible events of which I have been the plaything for the last few days. This time it is all up with the Territorial and with my ambitious dreams. Disputed bills, men in possession, visits of the police, all our books in the hands of the courts, the governor fled, Bois l'Hery, the director, in prison, another--Monpavon--disappeared. My brain reels in the midst of these catastrophes. And if I had obeyed the warnings of reason, I should have been quietly six months ago at Montbars cultivating my vineyard, with no other care than that of seeing the cl.u.s.ters grow round and golden in the good Burgundian sun, and to gather from the leaves, after the dew, the little gray snails, so excellent when they are fried.

I should have built for myself with my savings, at the end of the vineyard, on the height--I can see the place at this moment--a tower in rough stone, like M. Chalmette's, so convenient for an afternoon nap, while the quails are chirping round the place. But always misled by deceiving illusions, I wished to enrich myself, speculate, meddle in finance, chain my fortune to the car of the conquerors of the day; and now here I am back again in the saddest pages of my history, clerk in a bankrupt establishment, my duty to answer a horde of creditors, of shareholders drunk with fury, who load my white hairs with the worst outrages, and would like to make me responsible for the ruin of the Nabob and the flight of the governor; as if I myself was not as cruelly struck by the loss of my four years of arrears, and my seven thousand francs which I had confided to that scoundrel of Paganetti de Porto-Vecchio.

But it is my fate to empty the cup of humiliation and degradation to the dregs. Have I not been made to appear before a Juge d'Instruction--I, Pa.s.sajon, former apparitor of the faculty, with thirty years of faithful service, and the ribbon of Officer of the Academy? Oh! when I saw myself going up that staircase of the Palace of Justice, so big, so conspicuous, without a rail to hold by, I felt my head turning and my legs sinking under me. I was forced to reflect there, crossing these halls, black with lawyers and judges, studded with great green doors behind which one heard the imposing noise of the hearings; and up higher, in the corridor of the Juges d'Instruction, during my hour's waiting on a bench, where the prison vermin crawled on my legs, while I listened to a lot of thieves, pickpockets, and loose women talking and laughing with the gendarmes, and the b.u.t.ts of the rifles echo in the pa.s.sages, and the dull roll of prison vans. I understood then the danger of "combinations," and that it was not always good to ridicule M. Gogo.

What rea.s.sured me, however, was that never having taken any part in the deliberations of the Territorial, I had no share in their dealings and intrigues. But explain this to me: Once in the judge's office, before that man in a velvet cap looking at me across his table with his little eyes like hooks, I felt so pierced through, searched, turned over to the very depth of my being, that, in spite of my innocence, I wanted to confess. Confess what? I don't know. But that is the effect which the law had. This devil of a man spent five minutes looking at me without speaking, all the while turning over a book filled with writing not unknown to me, and suddenly he said, in a mocking and severe tone:

"Well, M. Pa.s.sajon, how long is it since the affair of the drayman?"

The memory of a certain little misdeed, in which I had taken part in my days of distress, was already so distant that I did not understand at once; but some words of the judge showed me how completely he knew the history of our bank. This terrible man knew everything, down to the least details, the most secret things. Who could have informed him so thoroughly?

It was all very short, very dry, and, when I wished to enlighten justice with some wise observations, a certain insolent fas.h.i.+on of saying, "Don't make phrases," so much the more wounding at my age and with my reputation of a good talker; also we were not alone in his office. A clerk seated near me was writing down my deposition, and behind I heard the noise of great leaves turning. The judge asked me all sorts of questions about the Nabob--the time when he had made his payments, the place where we kept our books; and all at once, addressing himself to the person whom I could not see: "Show us the cash-book, _M. l'Expert_."

A little man in a white tie brought the great register to the table. It was M. Joyeuse, the former cas.h.i.+er of Hemerlingue & Sons. But I had not time to offer him my respects.

"Who has done that?" asked the judge, opening the book where a page was torn out. "Don't lie, now."

I did not lie; I knew nothing of it, never having had to do with the books. However, I thought it my duty to mention M. de Gery, the Nabob's secretary, who often came at night into the office and shut himself up for hours casting balances. Then little Father Joyeuse turned red with anger.

"That is an absurdity, M. le Juge d'Instruction. M. de Gery is the young man of whom I have spoken to you. He came to the Territorial as a superintendent, and thought too much of this poor M. Jansoulet to remove the receipts for his payments; that is the proof of his blind but thorough honesty. Besides, M. de Gery, who has been detained in Tunis, is on his way back, and will furnish before long all the explanation necessary."

I felt that my zeal was about to compromise me.

"Take care, Pa.s.sajon," said the judge. "You are only here as a witness; but if you attempt to mislead justice, you may return a prisoner"

(he, the monster, had, indeed, the manner of desiring it). "Come now, consider; who tore out this page?"

Then I very fortunately remembered that some days before he left Paris the governor had me made bring the books to his house, where they were all night. The clerk took a note of my declaration, after which the judge dismissed me with a sign, warning me to be ready when I was wanted. Then, on the threshold, he called me back: "Stay, M. Pa.s.sajon, take this away. I don't want it any more."

He held out the papers he had been consulting while he was questioning me; and judge of my confusion when I saw on the cover the word "Memoirs," written in my best round-hand. I, myself, had provided material to Justice--important details which the suddenness of our catastrophe had prevented me from saving from the police search of our office.

My first idea on returning home was to tear up these indiscreet papers; but on reflection, and after having a.s.sured myself that the Memoirs contained nothing that would compromise me, I have decided to go on with them, with the certainty of getting some profit out of them one day or another. There are plenty of novelists at Paris who have no imagination and can only put true stories in their books, who would be glad to buy a little book of incidents. That is how I shall avenge myself on this society of well-to-do swindlers, with which I have been mixed up to my shame and misfortune.

Besides, I must occupy my leisure time. There is nothing to do at the bank, which is completely deserted since the judicial inquiry began, except to arrange the bills of all colours. I have again undertaken the writing for the cook on the second floor, Mlle. Seraphine, from whom I accept in return some little refreshment, which I keep in the strong-box, once more become a provision safe. The wife of the governor is also very good to me, and stuffs my pockets each time I go to see her in her great rooms on the Chaussee d'Antin. There nothing has changed; the same luxury, the same comfort, also a three-months'-old baby--the seventh--and a superb nurse, whose Norman cap is the admiration of the Bois de Boulogne. It seems that once started on the rails of fortune, people need a certain time to slacken their speed or stop. Besides, this thief of a Paganetti had, in case of accident, settled everything on his wife. Perhaps that is why this rag-bag of an Italian woman has such an unshakable admiration for him. He has fled, he is in hiding; but she remains convinced that her husband is a little Saint-John of innocence, the victim of his goodness and credulity. One ought to hear her. "You know him, you Moussiou Pa.s.sajon. You know if he is scrupulous. But as true as there is a G.o.d, if my husband had committed such crimes as he is accused of, I myself--you hear me--I myself would put a blunderbuss in his hands, and would say to him, 'Here, Tchecco, blow out your brains!'"

and by the way in which she opens the nostrils of her little turned-up nose, her round eyes, black as jet, one feels that this little Corsican would have acted as she spoke. He must be very clever, this infernal governor, to deceive even his wife, to act a part even at home, where the cleverest let themselves be seen as they really are.

In the meantime all these rogues have good dinners; even Bois l'Hery has his meals sent in to the prison from the Cafe Anglais, and poor old Pa.s.sajon is reduced to live on sc.r.a.ps picked up in the kitchen. Still we must not grumble too much. There are others more wretched than we are--witness M. Francis, who came in this morning to the Territorial, thin, pale, with dirty linen and frayed cuffs, which he still pulled down by force of habit.

I was at the moment grilling some bacon before the fire in the board-room, my plate laid on the corner of a marqueterie table, with a newspaper underneath to preserve it. I invited Monpavon's valet to share my frugal meal; but since he has waited on a marquis he had come to think that he formed part of the n.o.bility, and he declined with a dignified air, perfectly ridiculous with his hollow cheeks. He began by telling me that he still had no news of his master; that they had sent him away from the club, all the papers under seal, and a horde of creditors like locusts on the marquis's small wardrobe. "So that I am a little short," added M. Francis. That is to say, that he had not the worth of a radish in his pockets, that he had been sleeping for two days on the benches in the streets, awakened at each instant by the police, obliged to rise, to pretend to be drunk so as to seek another shelter.

As to eating, I believe he had not done so for a long time, for he looked at the food with such hungry eyes as to wring one's heart, and when I insisted on putting before him a slice of bacon and a gla.s.s of wine, he fell on it like a wolf. All at once the blood came back to his cheeks and, still eating, he began to chatter.

"You know, _pere_ Pa.s.sajon," said he to me between two mouthfuls, "I know where he is. I have seen him."

He winked his eye knowingly. I looked at him in wonder. "Who is it you have seen, M. Francis?"

"The marquis, my master--over there in the little white house behind Notre-Dame." (He did not use the word morgue, it is too low.) "I was sure I should find him there. I went there first thing next morning.

There he was. Oh, well disguised, I tell you. Only his valet could recognise him. The hair gray, the teeth gone, the wrinkles showing his sixty-five years, which he used to hide so well. On the marble slab, with the tap running above, I seemed to see him at his dressing-table."

"And you said nothing?"

"No. I knew his intentions on the subject for long. I let him go away discreetly, without awakening attention, as he wished. But, all the same, he might have given me a crust of bread before he went, after a service of twenty years."

And on a sudden, striking the table with his fist with rage:

"When I think that if I had liked I might have been with Mora, instead of going to Monpavon, that I might have had Louis's place. What luck he has had! How many bags of gold he laid his hands on when his duke died!

And the wardrobe--hundreds of s.h.i.+rts, a dressing-gown of blue fox fur worth more than twenty thousand francs. Like Noel, too, he must have made his pile! He had to hurry, too, for he knew that it would stop soon. Now there is nothing to be got in the Place Vendome. An old policeman of a mother who manages everything. Saint-Romans is to be sold, the pictures are to be sold, half the house to be let. It is a real break-up."

I must confess that I could not help showing my satisfaction, for this wretched Jansoulet is the cause of all our misfortunes. A man who boasted of being so rich, who said so everywhere. The public bit at it like a fish who sees the scales s.h.i.+ne through the net. He has lost millions, I admit, but why did he make us believe he had more? They have arrested Bois l'Hery; they should have arrested _him_. Ah! if we had had another expert, I am sure it would have been done. Besides, as I said to Francis, you had only to look at this upstart of a Jansoulet to see what he was worth. What a head--like a bandit!

"And so common," said the ex-valet.

"No principles."

"An absolute want of form. Well, there he is on his beam-ends, and then Jenkins, too, and plenty of others with them."

"What! the doctor too? Ah! so much the worse. Such a polite and amiable man."

"Yes, still another breaking-up of his establishment. Horses, carriages, furniture. The yard of the house is full of bills, and it sounds as empty as if some one were dead. The place at Nanterre is on sale. There were half a dozen of the 'little Bethlehems' left whom they packed up in a cab. It is a break-up, I tell you, _pere_ Pa.s.sajon, a ruin which we, old as we are, may not see the end of, but it will be complete.

Everything is rotten, it must all come down!"

He was a sinister figure, this old steward of the Empire, thin, stubbly, covered with mud, and shouting like a Jeremiah, "It is the downfall!"

with a toothless mouth, black and wide open. I felt afraid and ashamed of him, with a great desire to see him outside, and I thought: "Oh, M.

Chalmette! Oh, my little vineyard of Montbars!"

_Same date_.--Great news. Mme. Gaganetti came this afternoon to bring me mysteriously a letter from the governor. He is in London, going to begin a magnificent thing. Fine offices in the best part of the town, a superb list of shareholders. He offers me the chance of joining him, "happy to repair thus the damage he has caused me," says he. I shall have twice my wages at the Territorial, be lodged comfortably, five shares in the new bank, and all my arrears paid. All I need is a little money to go there and to pay a few small debts round here. Good luck! My fortune is a.s.sured. I shall write to the notary of Montbars to mortgage my vineyard.

AT BORDIGHERA

As M. Joyeuse had told the Juge d'Instruction, Paul de Gery returned from Tunis after three weeks' absence. Three interminable weeks spent in struggling among intrigues, and traps secretly laid by the powerful hatred of the Hemerlingues--in wandering from hall to hall, from ministry to ministry through the immense palace of the Bardo, which gathered within one enclosure, bristling with culverins, all the departments of the State, as much under the master's eye as his stables and harem. On his arrival, Paul had learned that the Chamber of Justice was preparing secretly Jansoulet's trial--a derisive trial, lost beforehand; and the closed offices of the Nabob on the Marine Quay, the seals on his strong boxes, his s.h.i.+ps moored to the Goulette, a guard round his palace, seemed to speak of a sort of civil death, of a disputed succession of which the spoils would not long remain to be shared.

There was not a defender, nor a friend, in this voracious crowd; the French colony itself appeared satisfied with the fall of a courtier who had so long monopolized the roads to favour. To attempt to s.n.a.t.c.h this prey from the Bey, excepting by a striking triumph at the a.s.sembly, was not to be thought of. All that de Gery could hope for was to save some shreds of his fortune, and this only if he hurried, for he was expecting day by day to learn of his friend's complete ruin.