Chapter Fourteen.
What is Known!
The incident of the empty envelope had sent dreariest conviction home to M. Bourget. That he should have read black proof in it was not perhaps astonishing; yet he had so strong a sense of the code of honour which governed an ancient family like that of Beaudrillart, and so obstinate a belief in his own opinion, that the shock was staggering. Besides, it dealt a direct blow at his vanity. He felt with a shiver that his intimates at Tours would by their jeers revenge themselves for his boasting speeches which they had been forced to endure in silence. Already he saw the smiles, heard the gibes, and a cold sweat broke out as he pictured the secret glee with which Leroux, for instance, under pretence of sympathy, would hand him the local newspaper giving the fullest particulars of this extraordinary affair. Already the letters glared at him: “The Affair Beaudrillart—the Poissy Scandal.” The humiliation sent him hurrying along the straight, flat road as if he felt Fate at his heels, shouting mockery.
Now and then he broke out into a rage of denial. A man working in a way-side field was so amazed at the hoarse sound that he ran to the hedge to behold, as he thought, a short, stout, red-faced mad bourgeois, hastening along with violent gestures and clinched fists. The man stared after him, scratching his head and reflecting. He was a madman, no doubt; but if he were to attempt to secure him, he might very well get some injuries for his pains. Besides, he would have to run to overtake him, and if he stayed where he was, the keepers, who would probably soon come along, might give him a few sous for his information. So M. Bourget went on his excited way unmolested.
He did not think of Nathalie so much as of Raoul. Nathalie was a woman; her father, moreover, had often been annoyed at her failing to show sufficient interest in the great family in which he flattered himself he had placed her. The toppling down of that edifice would not break her heart. But Raoul—the boy whose inheritance should have come to him as his father received it, and who now ran the risk of being branded for a thief’s son—it was when he dwelt upon Raoul that the cry of rage escaped. The child’s unconsciousness made the sin against him the worse. Such a child, such a boy! Manly, daring, wilful, truthful—that he should be weighted with a burden of dishonour!
“When he gets to understand it, if it doesn’t kill him, it will ruin his life,” muttered his grandfather with a groan.
There was a further trial to his practical mind in being forced to remain quiet. If he could have run about from office to office, set lawyers at work, felt himself to be moving events, things would have been more endurable. But Mme. de Beaudrillart’s warning remained in his mind. She had said that by going to Paris he might very likely cause mischief, and he was sufficiently ignorant of the ways of the great city and the great world in it to accept her opinion as probable. At Tours, where he was known, he might browbeat his fellow-townsmen on any point wherein he and they differed; but in Paris, what was he? A unit in a position where his vanity did not care to picture himself.
He reached Tours weary and dusty, and felt the need for his usual cup of coffee at the café—perhaps greater need for the exercise of his usual self-assertion. On his way through the streets he met the doctor, who held up his hands.
“Are you off a journey, my good Monsieur Bourget? You have the air of a man who has been travelling all night.”
“And why should I not, if it pleases me?” demanded M. Bourget, with his most combative air.
“Why not? Why not indeed? Heaven forbid that I should be the one to prevent you!” returned the doctor, laughing. “I merely venture to remark that your journey, wherever it was, has apparently had the effect of causing you fatigue.”
“And you are quite wrong, monsieur, in both your suppositions. I have not had any journey at all, and I am not a bit more fatigued than ordinarily. I suppose I am not so infirm that a walk home from Poissy is likely to prove fatal?”
“Oh, Poissy, is it!” exclaimed the doctor, preparing to escape. “No, no, my good friend; on the contrary, you are quite right to keep up the habit of exercise. But I must not stay gossiping when I have a pressing case in the Rue Royale. Adieu, adieu!”
“Now what takes him off as if the devil himself were at his heels?” muttered M. Bourget, looking after him discontentedly. “A pressing case indeed! If anything serious were the matter in the Rue Royale, it is quite certain that I should have heard of it by this time. The man was fooling me. He didn’t wish to talk about Poissy. And why?”
He marched on, his eyes on the ground, his under-lip thrust out. For the first time for six years he turned into another street to avoid passing the photographer’s window. He reached the café in a bad humour, tired, moreover, in spite of his disclaimer to the doctor, and dropped into a solitary chair, where he sat frowning and facing the street. As he anticipated, before he had been there five minutes M. Leroux approached. M. Bourget thumped the table to draw his attention.
“If you are going to order this poisonous stuff,” he said, “one table will do for us both. Sit there.”
But Leroux, sharp enough to see that he was wanted, was also sharp enough to improve the opportunity. He shook his head.
“I can’t afford to swallow coffee at a café, with all those mouths at home, and that’s the truth,” he said.
“You can sit, I suppose,” growled M. Bourget.
“Oh, I can sit, certainly. But I find it makes me thirsty to look at others drinking, and, by your leave, I’ll not stop to-day.”
For answer M. Bourget rapped his cup with his spoon, and extracted two sous from his pocket.
“There!” He shot the word at the waiter. “If you call this stuff coffee, bring another cup. Now I suppose you’re satisfied,” he continued to Leroux.
“And I shall pay for it,” ejaculated the lawyer to himself. “Poissy, Poissy, Poissy, he is only waiting to be set off. Confound Poissy!” Aloud he said, “You were not at the meeting about the crèche, Monsieur Bourget.”
“Crèche? Absurdity! Why can’t the women mind their own babies?” grumbled the ex-builder. “No, monsieur. If I had been in the town and had attended, it would only have been for the purpose of seeing my fellow-townsmen make fools of themselves. As it was, I went early to Poissy.”
“Now it comes!” Leroux groaned, inwardly. “And what was going on at Poissy?”
“What should go on!” demanded M. Bourget, jealously. “What should go on?”
“Peste! how should I know? I suppose things happen there, as in other places?”
“No foolishness about crèches, at all events.”
His retort pleased him so much that he chuckled, and Leroux, not to be behindhand in civility, chuckled in company. But M. Bourget was too anxious to know whether anything had leaked out to be put off even by his own jests. He flung an elaborate veil of carelessness over his next question, crossing his legs and leaning back in his chair.
“You know most of the talk of the place, Leroux, and I have often thought of asking you—merely out of curiosity, you will understand—what is said of my son-in-law, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, in Tours? People don’t like to repeat anything to me, and naturally; but there must be opinions expressed, and it would amuse me to hear them.”
“Something is up,” reflected the little lawyer, rapidly. “He is uneasy. Has our fine son-in-law, perhaps, broken out again? What is said, Monsieur Bourget? Well, not so much now.”
“But what, what?” persisted the other.
“Well, for one thing, they say he is wiser than was supposed, and knows which side his bread is buttered.”
“And what may that mean?”
“That he has a solid father-in-law, whom it is just as well not to offend.”
Leroux said this with some malice, and expected an explosion. It surprised him that M. Bourget showed no sign of wrath. He jerked his head sideways, and flung open his hands.
“No more?”
“As to that,” said Leroux, spitefully, “there were enough disagreeables said about the Baron Léon about the time he married Mademoiselle Nathalie to serve for an ordinary lifetime.”
“Perhaps,” returned M. Bourget, tranquilly, “more has also been said about others in past years than they would care to have brought up against them.”
The lawyer darted an uneasy look, and his manner changed.
“Do not suppose that I am offering my own opinion. You wished to know what was said in the town, and I am trying to remember.”
“I understand perfectly. I should like to know what were some of these disagreeables to which you allude?”
But Leroux was alarmed.
“Ah, for that you must ask some one else. There is plenty of gossip running about the town, but I have not the time or the inclination to listen to it. Besides, what does it matter now! It is no longer a question of marrying Mademoiselle Nathalie. There she is, safe at Poissy, and there are you, father-in-law to a baron. What would you have more?”
M. Bourget brought his hand down so heavily on the little marble table that the cups jumped.
“What have I to do with it?” he asked, angrily. “Did I pay for your coffee that you might inform me what I want or what I don’t want? I ask a plain question, and you wander off to give an opinion on my concerns. Keep to your point. I suppose all you wiseacres had at least the sense to see that Monsieur de Beaudrillart had began to economise before I gave him my daughter? But perhaps they could give him no credit even for that?”
“Oh, they saw he had raised money somehow,” said Leroux, longing to thump the table himself, “and his credit was so low that they said he must have stolen it.”
M. Bourget’s face turned to a dull purple, his voice felt strangled, he leaned forward, and said, with difficulty:
“They are rascals, and you are a fool!”
Leroux jumped up, with a smile on his sharp face. He had merely spoken spitefully, and thought that his companion’s anger was due to the fact that any one should have dared to utter anything disrespectful of the master of Poissy.
“Ah, I dare say, I dare say, my dear Monsieur Bourget; I only tell you what is said, and you know best how much it is worth. A thousand thanks for the coffee, and let me advise you to go home and rest, for you don’t look yourself.”
“He knows more than he will say,” groaned M. Bourget, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, “otherwise he would never have ventured to repeat what he did. There is a report abroad; I know it, I feel it! It was evident enough that Dr Mathurin had heard something, for the very moment I mentioned Poissy, he looked embarrassed, and started away. Yes, yes, it has leaked out, it is in the air; and what wonder! A poor devil whom no one knows or cares anything about has twice the chance. But directly anything disgraceful happens to one of the noblesse, then every stone in the wall has a voice to cry it out. And to a Beaudrillart! No doubt all Paris has got hold of it I should not be surprised if it were in the papers already.”
A Figaro was lying on the table near him; M. Bourget, with a gleam of satisfaction that he had not to pay for it, took it up and hastily scanned its columns. He had just satisfied himself that the thing he dreaded was not there when he caught sight of an advancing figure.
“Monsieur Georges!”
“At your service, Monsieur Bourget.”
“You are the very man I want. I am going in your direction.”
“À la bonne heure. Permit me to venture to remark that you look a little upset—fatigued, Monsieur Bourget.”
“That is what every one finds it agreeable to say to me. Why should I be fatigued? I have only walked from Poissy.”
“Ah!” Across M. Georges’s small anxious face flitted a tremulous smile. Even he, politest of men, was aware of M. Bourget’s weakness. “They are all well there, I trust!”
His companion made no answer to the question. He said, abruptly:
“The baron is in Paris.”
“So I heard.”
“So he heard? Of course! Everything is known,” reflected M. Bourget, mopping his face with a red bandanna. “Have you heard anything else, monsieur?”
“No. Why should I!” returned the other, with surprise. “But to tell you the truth I have been a great deal taken up with my own affairs, for I have had the misfortune to lose my old grandfather at Nantes, monsieur; an excellent man, and an irreparable loss. As his only descendant I inherit a small estate, and I have had to come here on business connected with it. You will understand that this has occupied me.”
“A small estate!” repeated M. Bourget, gazing at him with a new respect. “Things are then looking up for you, Monsieur Georges! That is better than being intendant, even at Poissy. And I never thought the Baron Léon behaved well in that matter.”
M. Georges waved his hand gently.
“The baron was young, and his mother, if I might say so, a little masterful, although I admire her, I admire them all, immensely. People cannot be expected to feel very kindly towards those who are always prognosticating evil, still less when it comes true.”
“But Monsieur de Beaudrillart has managed to pull himself together, and to set the estate upon its legs again. How did he raise the money to do it?”
M. Georges looked at his companion and smiled.
“People would say you could best answer that question, Monsieur Bourget.”
“Not at all,” said the ex-builder, impatiently. “When my money went into the concern, everything was already in train, as you know very well. The crisis was past, and the estate saved. How, how! That is what I ask.”
“I believe,” said M. Georges, with a little surprise, “that the baron received a loan from Monsieur de Cadanet—at least that is what Mademoiselle de Beaudrillart gave me to understand.”
“Ah! Yes! Precisely.” M. Bourget hesitated. “You know nothing, then, yourself! Had Monsieur de Cadanet shown any interest in the family before coming to the rescue at that moment!”
“To my knowledge, no. But Mademoiselle de Beaudrillart, who is an exceedingly capable person, spoke of his having been indebted to the defunct baron, her father. That, I imagine, explains it.”
M. Bourget walked on without answering. His next remark appeared extremely irrelevant.
“Monsieur de Beaudrillart and my daughter are in Paris.”
“Indeed? Your daughter, too?”
“You had not heard it?” He turned to him with unmistakable relief.
“No, I have heard very little.”
“And yet of all the gossiping places—However, it is quite true there is nothing remarkable in a visit to Paris. Here we part, I imagine, Monsieur Georges. I begin to believe that what you have all insisted upon is correct, and that I am a little fatigued. You must go out to Poissy yourself. You have never seen the little baron? No? Then decidedly you must go.”
This conversation to a certain degree comforted M. Bourget, since it proved to him that M. Georges, at any rate, had no suspicions, and had accepted the De Cadanet loan as a matter of history. He felt very tired, owing no doubt to the unusual emotions which had been at work ever since he received his daughter’s letter, and he thought it advisable to report himself to Fanchon, who was naturally in a state of uneasiness at his sudden departure. He stopped her reproaches, however, abruptly, with an air of ill-temper which reduced her to silence, and sat down in his own room, desiring that he might be left in peace and not pestered with questions. Fanchon retired grumbling; but when M. Bourget was in this humour it was not safe to cross him, and she was obliged to satisfy her curiosity with such poor fare as could be supplied by her own imagination.
But, although M. Bourget lingered a little while with satisfaction on the thought that he had perhaps been mistaken in imagining that Tours was already greedily discussing the crime of M. de Beaudrillart, he soon came back to the conviction that M. de Beaudrillart was guilty. What M. Georges had said threw no fresh light upon the transaction. He believed what he had been told, and what no doubt the whole family at Poissy had believed. Only the young baron knew if any dark secret was connected with the money which had been procured so fortunately at the time of his greatest need. If it were so, circumstances had no doubt thrown the knowledge into the hands of a man—perhaps already an enemy—who had no scruple in using it for his own ends.
But what had Léon done with the money which he had ostensibly applied to the payment of the debt? M. Bourget groaned again over his own conviction, and wiped his forehead.
“It has gone as hush-money. This Lemaire has not waited six years without putting on the screw. No doubt Baron Léon kept it to hand over in instalments when matters grew desperate. Lemaire has had the last of it, and now advances more boldly. Yes, that is it. I understand perfectly. But what is to be done?”