The Village Notary Part 72

"I do not care," replied he. "I have no fear of anybody."

"Do not let them impose upon you," said she. "I know they tell you there is no hope for you. They've told you so to make you confess; but I have it from the doctor that you are in no danger whatever. You're weak, that's all. Keep your own counsel, I entreat you! They tell me Mr.

Vandory called upon you; did he?"

The Jew groaned and laughed at the same time. He stretched his trembling arms and seized Lady Rety's hands.

"Ah!" said be, "that's what you come for? You want to know what I have said of the crimes which we have committed. Set your mind at rest. I've told them all--all--all! Do you understand me? I've told them every circ.u.mstance, from the first day that the attorney hired me to steal the papers, to the night you promised me your cursed money if I would kill the attorney. You said----"

"Silence, miscreant!" cried Lady Rety, striving to disengage her hands from the grasp of the Jew.

"Miscreant! Ay, indeed, miscreant!" retorted the Jew; "but how will they call _you_ who bribed me to these enormities?"

"Rascal of a Jew! who will believe you?"

"They are sure to believe me. Viola has said what I say, and n.o.body can doubt it!"

"You must revoke all you have said. I'll bring other witnesses to whom you must say that they bribed you to give false testimony."

"I will not revoke a word of what I have said--not a single word----"

"How dare you, Jew----"

"Don't threaten me! Your promises and threats cannot affect me now. This very night will remove me from your jurisdiction. But you," added he, with a convulsive effort--"You who seduced me and abandoned me to my despair--you, Lady Rety, will find your judge. I've dreamed of it. I see it now! I see you standing by the side of the executioner. He has a large glittering sword. Tzifra, too, is there, and Catspaw, and a crowd of people. They tie you down upon the chair----"

His voice sunk down to an indistinct murmur, and his hand, which still clasped Lady Rety's fingers, held them with a cold and clammy grasp. She tore it away, and, rus.h.i.+ng past the nurse, she hastened to her apartments.

She rang for her maid.

"Give me a gla.s.s of water!" said she.

Julia, the maid, was astonished and shocked to see her mistress look so pale.

"Are you ill, my lady?" asked she. "Shall I go for Dr. Letemdy?"

"No! Hold your tongue! Mind your own business!" said Lady Rety. "Give me a gla.s.s of water, and be off!"

Julia obeyed. Lady Rety locked the door after her.

It is easier to defeat the sympathy of mankind than to baffle their curiosity. Lady's maids in particular are always most eager to mind other people's business when they are told to go about their own. Julia had left the room, but she returned to the door and listened.

What she heard served still more to excite her curiosity. Lady Rety walked up and down. She sat down, arranged her papers and wrote. Again she got up, and tore some papers. Again she paced the room. She opened a drawer. Again she sat down, and Julia overheard a deep, deep sigh. Then again there was a sound as of something being stirred in a gla.s.s.

"She is ill!" thought Julia. "She's taking her medicine! I ought to call the doctor!"

She listened again, and heard the rattling of the gla.s.s as it was violently put down upon the table. This, it struck her, was a sign that her mistress was fearfully ill-tempered. She thought it more prudent not to go for the doctor. After a short time she heard deep groans. She knocked at the door, but she received no answer. This circ.u.mstance, and the moaning inside, which became more violent every moment, caused her to forget Lady Rety's ill-temper, and to hasten to the sheriff, whom she found closeted with Vandory.

Julia told them all she had heard when listening at her mistress's door.

"She has done the worst!" cried Vandory. "Let us make haste. Perhaps there is time to save her!"

They hurried to the room. They tried the lock. It resisted. A low moaning was heard from within.

"Break it open!" cried Vandory.

As the two men rushed against the door, it gave way. They entered.

It was too late.

The gla.s.s,--the poison,--the livid and distorted face of the wretched woman, showed them that there was no hope.

She looked at her husband, and made a violent effort to speak; but when he knelt down, and seized her hand, he felt it stiff and cold.

She heaved a long deep sigh.

"May G.o.d have mercy upon her soul!" said Vandory. "She is dead!"

CHAP. IX.

Even the humblest among us excites the interest of at least some of his fellow men, at the very time when he is removed beyond its sphere. The church bells toll for the poorest man, and, however lonely he may have been throughout life, people will a.s.semble round his coffin. Whatever may have been the obstacles that blocked up a man's path when alive, there are no impediments to the progress of his funeral procession; and the very beggar, who never had a crust or a rag which he could really call his own, comes into possession of a small freehold, which is given to him to hold, and to enjoy, till the day of judgment. A dead body is an object of interest and of awe. And why? Is it because respect is due to him who acts sensibly, and because the majority of mankind cannot do a more sensible thing than to die? Or is it because the dead have pa.s.sed through that arduous ordeal in which all of us are equally interested?

Death is indeed a capital teacher. Any one who has his doubts about the value of earthly things, and who would wish to know whether the objects he strives for are worth his trouble, can easily set his mind at rest by watching the death of any of his fellow-citizens. A funeral procession, a coat of arms, or a name on the coffin, and on the grave or mausoleum a marble column or a wooden cross; an after-dinner conversation, a score of mourning letters, a paragraph in the provincial papers, or at best a column in "The Times" or "La Presse," that is the _gloria mundi_! A c.r.a.pe hatband, and a suit of mourning; quarrels about the expense of the funeral, or the "cash he left behind him," is all that reminds us of the love and devotion of family life. And as for friends.h.i.+p--we all know its value and its duration!

We do not mean to plead in defence of the cynical views which we have just expressed. Bitter thoughts _will_ press to the surface of our heart when we ponder on the pride, pomp, and circ.u.mstance of life, and the utter oblivion to which we fall a prey after our surviving friends have paid us what they significantly call "the last honours." But still, as there is an exception to every rule, we must admit that the people of Dustbury were neither unmindful of Lady Rety's death, nor forgetful of it; at least not in the first fortnight after the event. The most n.o.ble the Lady Rety was a person of great importance. Her decease would have attracted attention under any circ.u.mstances. That a lady of rank and property, the head of an excellent table, and the owner of a splendid wardrobe, should depart this life, is shocking, even if she takes that step with all due formality, and with the a.s.sistance and advice of half-a-dozen physicians. But Lady Rety's case was far worse. Dr. Letemdy had indeed been called in, but at a time when his help and co-operation was quite out of the question; and his professional learning was of no avail, except in enabling him to protest that the most n.o.ble lady might have been saved, if greater despatch had been employed in soliciting his presence. Mr. Sherer, who was likewise on the spot, a.s.serted his conviction that the draught of which Lady Rety died must have been any thing but sugar water, and that almond milk might have saved her life, if she had not died before he could offer that miraculous medicine. But the fact remained unaltered. Lady Rety had taken poison. The medical men in the county of Takshony had a just t.i.tle to complain of this encroachment upon their legal sphere of action, and the people of Dustbury were equally justified in their laudable and charitable endeavours to discover the secret causes of this shocking occurrence.

Rety's family and friends would have it that the accident was occasioned by a mistake. Lady Rety, they said, was in the habit of taking magnesia, which she kept in a drawer where she had some time previously placed a bottle of a.r.s.enic for the purpose of killing rats. In the twilight of evening she had taken the poison instead of the drug; and this--the Retys protested--was the cause of the terrible catastrophe. But explanations of this kind are by no means palatable to the understanding of the crowd. The Dustbury gentry would not, and could not, credit any thing like a simple story. They all and each launched into the boundless realms of surmise and speculation, and in their praiseworthy endeavours to make out a substantial and shocking account of Lady Rety's death, they were eagerly a.s.sisted by Julia, who had been all but an eye-witness of the decease of her mistress. Julia gave so interesting an account of the sadness and despondency to which her lady had of late been a victim, and of her extraordinary behaviour on the last day of her life, that all her hearers relinquished any doubts which they might have entertained, for the firm and (under the circ.u.mstances) comfortable conviction of Lady Rety's suicide. But as for the cause of that step, it remained a secret and a mystery to the gossips of the town of Dustbury.

The sheriff made no allusion to the cause of his wife's death. The most watchful sympathy or curiosity could not trace home to him any word or action that could have strengthened or confirmed any of the various surmises and rumours which were afloat on the subject. The cause of Lady Rety's suicide remained an open question. Perhaps it was attributable to temporary insanity; perhaps she had been urged to that desperate step by the conviction of her inability to prevent her son's union with Vilma Tengelyi, and she preferred death to certain shame; or perhaps the sheriff had driven his wife to despair (the ladies of Dustbury were very eloquent on this last hypothesis) by a concentration of matrimonial brutalities; for what woman is a stranger to martyrdom? Certain it is that none of Mr. Rety's words or looks could be adduced as an authority for all or any of the above surmises. Still, those who knew him became aware of the deep impression which the death of his wife had made on his mind.

His sorrow was not indeed caused by a return to the old love of days long gone by. The flowers of love have indeed been known to luxuriate in the soil of a churchyard, especially in the case of couples whose matrimonial doings did not present that edifying spectacle of love, honour, and obedience, which is inculcated by, and which is so rarely to be met with out of, the catechism. Mr. Rety had had too deep an insight into his wife's character to lament his loss. His grief was the growth, not of affection, but of remorse. He accused himself for being the cause of the misfortunes he saw around him. A letter was found on her table, which the miserable woman had addressed to him; and in which she reproached him as the cause of her unfortunate life and wretched end.

And was not this accusation well-founded? Could Rety look back upon the past without feeling that the events to which his wife fell a victim, were brought about by his own culpable weakness. If he had candidly told her of his relations.h.i.+p to Vandory, she would perhaps have refused to marry him; or if she had, she would have been resigned to the idea that the curate was her husband's brother, but she never would have thought of committing the crime to which her evil spirit had urged her. Rety's weakness and indulgence had made her the woman she was; his dislike and aversion drove her to that desperate step which she would never have taken, if she could have hoped for the sympathy and protection of her husband. Thoughts like these filled Rety's mind with bitter grief, which not even Vandory's gentle words could a.s.suage.

The Jew's confession, which was the cause of Lady Rety's death, remained without any of those favourable results which it was expected to have.

It had no influence on Tengelyi's fate. Even before the Jew made his confession, there were few who doubted of Mr. Catspaw's having been implicated in the robbery of the doc.u.ments; but this very fact, when once established, strengthened the suspicions which were entertained against Tengelyi. If the doc.u.ments were in Mr. Catspaw's possession (and Jants.h.i.+'s evidence proved that they were), that fact alone was reason enough to induce Tengelyi to commit the crime of murder. The Jew's a.s.sertion, that it was Viola who killed Mr. Catspaw, was unsupported by the second witness, and inadmissible as evidence against the numerous and grave circ.u.mstantial evidence which was adduced against the notary.

His only hope of safety lay in the contingency of Viola's capture and confession of the murder. That hope was a vague one. It was now more than a fortnight since Janosh and Gatzi the Vagabond had left Dustbury in quest of Viola, and no news of their whereabouts and their chances of success had reached Vandory. It was scarcely reasonable to suppose that the old hussar should succeed in an undertaking, which had hitherto foiled the endeavours of Akosh, Kalman, and Volgyeshy, and, indeed, of all those who took an interest in Tengelyi's fate.

Peti, the gipsy, was indeed strongly suspected of being privy to the secret of Viola's retreat; but neither entreaties nor promises could induce him to answer young Rety's questions. As for the Gulyash of Kishlak, who was known to have received Viola's family, after the flight of the latter, into his tanya, and who had afterwards taken them away in his cart, he, too, gave none but unsatisfactory intelligence. He protested that he had taken Susi and her children to a Tsharda, at the distance of about three miles from Kishlak, where he had left her. He had not the least idea what could have become of her. Curses and entreaties, threats and promises, were alike in vain; it was evident that even the rack could not induce him to say more. The old woman, Liptaka, though devoted to the Tengelyi family, and especially to Vilma, was inexhaustible in excuses of her ignorance of Viola's whereabouts; until at last, wearied and perplexed by young Rety's questions, she protested that she would not betray Viola's confidence, even if she could; and when Akosh attempted to move her by his entreaties, she exclaimed:--

"No! no! Master Akos.h.!.+ You know I'm as fond of you as ever a nurse was of her own child; but do not--do not compel me to hate you! I'd lay down my life for Mr. Tengelyi; but I won't be a Judas, no! not even for _his_ sake! He has no end of friends; they'll liberate him, sooner or later; and even if he were to remain in prison, I know they keep him decently and comfortably, and his family is well provided for. But Viola can expect no mercy at the hands of the magistrates! To give him up to his enemies is to murder him and his family; and even if Susi were not my near relative, I'd rather tear my tongue out than betray her husband!"

What could Akosh do? Viola's friends were resolved to keep the secret; and, after a search of two weeks, old Janosh was still as much as ever in the dark as to the direction which the fugitive had taken.

Both Janosh and Gatzi the Vagabond were convinced that Viola was not hidden in any of the neighbouring counties. It was not indeed likely that he had left the kingdom of Hungary, as Gatzi was fond of a.s.serting; but even this reflection was but cold comfort to the two adventurers. In which of the fifty-two counties of Hungary were they to seek him? was indeed a question which sadly puzzled the tactics and the military experience of old Janosh.

"Viola is a devil of a fellow!" said he to his comrade. "He has retreated, and so cunningly too, that Satan's self would be at a loss to find him. Ej! what a general he would have been!"

"What does '_to retreat_' mean?" asked Gatzi, who listened to the tales of his companion with the greatest interest.