Chapter Seventeen.
“I Love You!”
Léon’s mood changed like a weathercock on a gusty English day. Extreme wrath with Charles Lemaire alternated with the fancy that it was a foolish charge which no one in their senses would believe. Nathalie, by her sturdy faith, helped to keep him in this fools’ paradise; and in his indignation at the accusation that the money had not been repaid, he quite lost sight of what he had really done. He groaned with disgust at Lemaire’s falsity, and feeling himself a martyr to a false charge, looked at the matter from heights of virtuous probity.
His mother’s fears were in a measure quieted by the laughing explanation he gave of the envelope incident. There was no temptation to say anything but the truth, so that its probability impressed her, and only a latent uneasiness remained. M. de Cadanet had given no acknowledgment, and he was not the sort of man to worry on the subject. He did not want to press for it or to offend the old man. Mme. de Beaudrillart shook her head; but it was at the rashness, not its impossibility. Besides—and that there was a change in her was proved by this besides—if he had not felt secure he could not possibly have ventured himself on this action; nor would M. Rodoin have permitted it. She had a woman’s confidence in a lawyer’s far-sightedness.
M. Bourget remained sternly apart, making no sign. His daughter thought of him with trouble, but could not bring herself to face him again. His attitude cut her to the heart, for she felt as if, through her father’s distrust, she herself had done her husband wrong. As for changing his opinion, once it had gripped him, she knew she was powerless, and she remained undutifully pitiless, even when reflecting upon that changed desolate figure by the window, thinking only of him as one who had failed Léon at a time when he wanted support.
No one else had a thought to spare for anything except the vintage. There had been a threat of the fine weather breaking up, but the fear had passed, and the vines with their gnarled and twisted stems and transparent leaves, through which the sun struck golden, were gradually stripped, and the grapes carried off to the presses. There was a great deal of jollity and some drunkenness. All the talk was of the yield and condition of the vines. Bacchus reigned supreme.
Félicie, meanwhile, was in a bubble of small excitement, preparing for the bishop’s visit. Bushels of pink roses were stored in one of the deep cupboards in the old walls; ribbons were knotted, banners arranged for the procession, little framed coloured prints prepared; the cottas of the boys trimmed with fresh lace, the vestments all carefully shaken out and looked over for moth, the bishop’s room provided with a prie-dieu and crucifix. Nothing was wanting except the last stitches to the abbé’s new cope, at which Félicie was toiling from morning till night. Claire mocked at the abundance of detail, but was half envious of her preoccupation. Mme. de Beaudrillart encouraged it, perhaps with a feverish hope that so much piety might avert threatened disaster, and Nathalie was impatient that Félicie had no thought for any other subject. She was growing uneasy because no letter came from M. Rodoin. The tone of his last communication had not seemed to her satisfactory. He had said that, so far, the other side had made no sign, and he was evidently uneasy that their confidence appeared unshaken. If it was an attempt to extort money, a bold front and a threat set in action would have probably been enough to make them retreat. The lawyer begged M. de Beaudrillart to search his papers yet more carefully, on the chance of finding some mention of the loan in a letter from M. de Cadanet.
“But I have no letters from Monsieur de Cadanet!” cried Léon, pettishly tossing the letter to his wife.
He had got into the habit now of turning to her in perplexity, and more than once it had even crossed his mind whether it would not be the better plan to tell her exactly what had happened, and let her clear wits help him if difficulties thickened. But, as yet, the satisfaction of her entire belief in him being greater than his need, he clung to it and to silence.
She suggested that he should go to Paris, and see M. Rodoin.
“There is nothing more to say, and it is delightful here just now. No. Let them arrange it among themselves.”
Her strong convictions in the matter acquiesced in this, and then one morning he came to her, ghastly, an open letter in his hand, despair in his face.
“Rodoin throws it up!” he cried, flinging the letter on the table, and dropping into a chair.
“Léon!”
“Read for yourself. Don’t ask me to explain. Read, read!” He thrust his hands through his hair, and stared haggardly at the floor.
She took the letter. M. Rodoin wrote that he and Maître Barraud had been in daily consultation over M. de Beaudrillart’s case. He regretted exceedingly to inform him that they had arrived at the conclusion that it would be dishonest on their part to attempt to carry it on without more materials for the prosecution than were at their disposal. They had no evidence of any sort beyond the word of monsieur le baron, and satisfying as that would be to those who knew him, the courts would require further confirmation. The other side would plead that the libel was justified, and deeply as he lamented being obliged to point it out, if their plea could not be disproved the dismissal of the case would be followed by the immediate arrest of monsieur le baron, who would be placed in a worse position by the failure of his own case. M. Rodoin ventured to suggest that it might, under these circumstances, be advisable to attempt an amicable settlement with M. Lemaire, who undoubtedly had contrived to secure a strong position.
Read, Nathalie’s strong fingers closed vice-like round the letter, a slow fire mounting to her eyes threatened scorching. She raised her look with difficulty, letting it rest upon the crouching figure of her husband, and made an impatient step towards him.
“If one man has failed, we must find another. Let us go to Paris at once.”
He murmured an inarticulate sound.
“Do you hear, Léon? There is no time to lose. That Monsieur Rodoin has been half-hearted throughout; I saw it from the first. There are plenty of others—come.”
His murmur resolved itself into muttered despair. They would all be the same; he should give it up. She did not understand.
Curbing her impatience, she knelt down by his side, and brought her head on a level with his own.
“Dear, you are doing just what this Lemaire wishes you to do, when the only fatal thing would be to yield to him. Do not be disheartened. I am quite certain that we can easily find a more able lawyer. Look at me; I am smiling, I am not in the least alarmed, for I am quite certain that truth must be stronger than slander, and that we shall come out all right.”
He lifted a miserable face.
“How dare he say that it was not repaid?”
“Does he? I did not know that he said anything about the loan.”
“Oh, it is all mixed up,” said Léon, impatiently; “only there is no use in telling you, because you do not understand.”
“But, dear Léon, do you not think I could understand?” asked his wife, gently. “If I really do not, I think you would make me more useful by explaining it to me, and I would try very hard. Is there any point which might be more fully explained!”
He writhed uneasily in the chair, but the impulse to tell her was strong upon him, now that the lawyer’s letter had reduced him to helpless pulp. She waited, expectant of some detail, perhaps legal, which had been withheld from her.
“Well, you see,” he explained, running his hands again and again through his hair, “what was I to have done? Monsieur de Cadanet showed me the cheque done up, and then before my eyes directed it to that confounded villain. It was enough to make a man desperate—”
He stopped. Nathalie, all the blood out of her face, but fire in her eyes, had risen, and was staring down upon him.
“How can I explain to you if you look at me like that?” he said, pettishly. “You might guess what happened, and what ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have done, if they had had the chance. I had no thought of it till the thing was over, and I did not make any mystery about it, for I wrote and told the old count that I had taken the money as a loan. He had it all back again, with interest, and as for telling me that this scoundrel lost a penny by it—”
If she could have taken in these last words, the awful numbness in her heart might have yielded, but the first blow had stunned her, and she stood like a dead woman—blind, dumb, deaf. Once having broken the barrier, Léon found relief in rambling on, accusing Lemaire, excusing himself. A sigh broke from her at last, the sigh of returning consciousness, her heart sending it forth as a cry. Then she shivered violently, and became aware that her husband was speaking.
“Don’t, don’t!” she cried, thrusting out her hands.
“Don’t what?” he said, irritably. “Do you think it is agreeable for me to talk about it? I haven’t even told my mother, but you spoke as if you could help one out of the scrape, and now can only stand and stare.”
The blood surged violently into her face; she tottered, and mechanically caught at the table for support.
“Good heavens, say something or other! Where am I to turn? What am I to do? Why, if nothing is done, I may be arrested as a thief!” he cried, with gathering excitement, springing up and pacing the room. “Nathalie, do you hear! Speak! I—Léon de Beaudrillart—arrested! Do you hear!” And with a sudden change he flung himself into a seat, arms and head on the table, and wept like a child.
Nathalie shuddered. Then he began to moan:
“Why did I tell her! She cares nothing for me; just because I am in trouble she has not a word to fling. And this is my wife, who talks of loving me—”
“Oh, Léon, Léon, I love you!”
It came like a cry from a distance, from death itself. She knelt down and flung her arm around him, and strained him passionately to her—“I love you, I love you, do you hear!” He clung to her as if he had been a child.
“Help me, then, chérie, help me!”
“Yes, yes,” she murmured, “courage. We will bear it together.”
He went on, recovering himself as he spoke, and as buoyant as a bubble. “You are so clever, my Nathalie, your wits will certainly be able to think of some way out of it, and you cannot tell what a comfort it is to me that you should know all at last. A hundred times I have been on the very point of telling you, but there is something so disagreeable in explanations that my heart failed. Now you see the difficulty of the position, do you not! What do you think! Is there any use in applying to another lawyer!”
She shook her head.
“Still, one must do something. It is impossible to sit still and let that rascal come down on one. Something must be done. What, what?”
He waited, wanting the suggestion to come from her. As she was silent, knowing that what she had to say would wound him to the quick, he rushed his words.
“Money is all he is after, and I suppose we had better pay!”
She repressed her inclination to cry out, and said, softly: “But it is a fact, is it not, that you repaid the sum!”
“Every penny.”
“To pay would be to acknowledge that you had not done so.”
“That is true,” he said, gloomily.
“A bribe would tell fearfully against you, you may be sure, for even if it stopped him from taking proceedings, he would contrive that it should all leak out.”
He gazed at her bewilderingly. “But what else!—what remains? You are a poor comforter, Nathalie!”
“If only I could bear it for you!” she cried, passionately, her hands closing on his with strong support.
“Bear what? Bear what? What do you want me to do!”
“To tell them the truth.” She flung her head back and fastened imploring eyes on his. “Let them know that you took it. Oh, Léon, it is true.”
“Tell them!” He started back as if he had touched hot iron. Then he laughed. “Certainly this affair has turned your head.”
She pressed her words.
“It is the only noble, straightforward way, and all that you can do to atone. Shelter yourself behind the truth; it will not fail you. Then you can face the worst.”
Muttering, “She is mad!” Léon pushed her from him. “Do you in the least understand what you are suggesting? It means that I should have to plead guilty. How could I ever prove that the money was repaid? You want to ruin me.”
“You will be clear to your own soul, dearest—to your own soul, and to God.”
“What, you mean it? You see where it leads, and yet mean it! You must suppose you are talking to some little bourgeois instead of to a De Beaudrillart!” he cried, scornfully. “We are not used to bear disgrace tamely. There are other ways of avoiding it.”
She clasped him in her arms, terror clutching her heart. “Léon, Léon, not that! Promise me!”
His moods, always variable, now ran up and down the scale of emotion.
“Poor child,” he said, touching her cheek softly, “you mean well; but you don’t know the world. Perhaps my mother will be able to suggest something.”
“Yes, go,” she said, releasing him, and letting her arms drop by her side.
There was a clatter of small steps outside, an impatient rattle of the handle, and Raoul rushed in.
“Father, there’s a monkey—a real monkey—in the court! I’ve given him a piece of melon, and he’s eaten that, and a bunch of nuts, and he’s cracked them; and now I want a sou, and his master says he’ll make a bow for it. Oh, I do wish I might have a monkey!”
Léon, on his way to the door, pointed to the boy. “You propose that I should ruin him,” he said, and was gone.
Poor mother! She caught her child in her arms, while he struggled impatiently.
“Two sous, two sous, please, quick! Oh, it is the dearest little monkey! Don’t you think we could buy it? Jean could take care of it, and it could sleep in my bed.”
He went off with his two sous, and Nathalie dropped into a chair, the anguish of the moment in her eyes. What future lay before the boy? A tarnished name, a dishonoured father? Her thoughts travelled wildly round; she was like a wounded creature, seeking escape from the hunters. How confident she had been, how blind! Now the flitting distrust she had refused to see in the lawyer’s eyes stood before her alive and menacing. Was there any other way but that terrible one to which she had been forced to point? Could Léon ever endure it? What was it? What was it? She pressed her fingers on her quivering eyelids; trial, confession, perhaps a prison—the words printed themselves on her brain, and hung there like leaden weights. And she—oh, cruel, cruel!—she was the one to urge them upon him. God, must it be so? She slipped off the chair on her knees, her lips forming no petitions, because her whole being became a living prayer.
How long she lay she never knew, but there Claire found her at last. Claire was white, rigid, fiercely wroth. She had been with her mother when Léon rushed in, so taken up with the burden of his misery that he poured it all out without hesitation. His first cry had been: “I am lost! Rodoin says he can do nothing, and that villain Lemaire is determined to ruin me. I ask you whether, after all my father did for Monsieur de Cadanet, I had not a right to the loan? He flourished it in my face. I believe he meant me to take it. And if I had not repaid it, then they might have the right to say something; but every farthing went back. What am I to do? Mother, unless you can suggest something, I shall go mad!”
He might have rambled on, striking out blindly, if Claire had not angrily stopped him.
“Do you wish to kill your mother?” For Mme. de Beaudrillart’s usual pallor had changed to a dull grey, and her eyes were vacant. The sight instantly recalled him; he put his arm round her neck and kissed her.
“Don’t, mother! Don’t look like that!”
She did not utter one word of disbelief, conviction had battered at her heart from the moment when she saw it written in M. Bourget’s eyes, and she did not reproach him; only sobs of helpless misery broke from her as she clung. Claire was different. Her eyes were dry and fierce, her voice bitter.
“Do you mean that you have really done this shameful thing and brought all this disgrace upon us?”
“Hush, Claire, hush!” moaned her mother.
“No, mother, I shall speak; I have a right to speak. He has ruined us all. We can never face the world again. Oh, where can we hide ourselves? What will come next?”
Anger, misery, choked her. She rushed from the room, and paced up and down the picture-gallery, darting lightning reproaches at Léon, at his wife, at herself. Her brain was in a whirl. Félicie, who was on her way down-stairs, trailing pink wreaths behind her, stopped and peeped in at the door, hearing sounds. She would have retired, but that Claire seized her.
“Oh, Claire, gently, gently!” she cried, trying to shelter her precious roses. And then, to her horror, her sister snatched the wreath, tore it into fragments, and stamped on them.
“You will drive me mad, I believe!” she said, in a terrible voice. “Do you care for nothing but this frippery? Will it disturb you at all to hear that it is likely Léon will be arrested—arrested, do you hear?—and tried for stealing two hundred thousand francs? Yes, I am not mad, I am telling you the truth.”
“Léon! But what do you mean? I do not understand,” stammered poor Félicie, pale with dismay.
“How should you? All this goes on while you make your paper wreaths, and think of nothing else.”
“Oh, Claire, how cruel you are!” sobbed her sister. “You know I care for dear Léon as much as you—”
“Then you hate him!” interjected Claire. “I have never before heard of a seigneur of Poissy who was a thief. Every one will point at us—at us!”
“I do not think it can be possible,” said Félicie, drying her eyes, and mechanically trying to smooth out her damaged roses. Claire stood and stared at her; then flung herself away, and betook herself again to her passionate pacing. “No, I do not believe it, because you are always so violent when anything puts you out. What does mamma say? There is sure to be a mistake, for Léon has been so kind about the bishop that I am certain he could not have done the dreadful things you talk about. I dare say if he consults his Grandeur that he will give him some—”
She stopped. Claire had caught her wrists.
“If you speak about it to a soul, I shall kill you, Félicie. Do you hear!”
“Pray, be quiet, Claire!” whimpered the other; “it is very wrong to be so violent, and whether we tell him or not, I am sure the bishop will bring us a blessing. You will see that things will come right.”
“Oh, go away, go away!” cried her sister, pushing her. “Leave me in peace!”
“Perhaps it will be a lesson to Nathalie. I always felt afraid that some punishment would come to her for reading those books,” said Félicie, gathering up the last remains of her wreath and departing.
As her paroxysm of anger burned out into duller ashes of misery, Claire, at war with her sister, turned shudderingly towards Nathalie. She found herself wondering how the dreadful story affected her—what her intellect counselled. Suddenly she admitted her strength, and thought it possible that by her help means of extrication might be contrived. It might be he had not told her, from some weak notion of sparing her; Claire set her face like a rock against such mercy. From her she should know everything. Like an indomitable fate she walked towards her sister-in-law’s room, and there, as has been seen, found her unconscious on the floor. Nature forced her to go to her help, but as she knelt down she was full of contempt; for her own constitution was iron, and she held a collapse such as this a proof of miserable weakness. She read in it that Nathalie would never rise to the occasion, would suffer and make others suffer, and her own thoughts flew to plans for shielding Léon, or, at worst, of helping him to avoid the scandal.
Meanwhile, when Nathalie opened her eyes she saw no one at first, for Claire was kneeling behind. She had one minute of wondering reprieve before intolerable pain, rushed into possession. Words, looks, confronted her again; she moaned once, and then called upon her ebbing strength to meet its foes gallantly. Raising herself on an elbow, and pushing the hair back from her forehead with her other hand, a sound made her glance round, and she met Claire’s gaze. The two women eyed each other silently. Claire was the first to say, briefly:
“You know?”
“Yes, I know.”
They were mute again, each reflecting.
“And you fainted?” Mlle. de Beaudrillart uttered the words like a judge. Nathalie simply answered:
“I shall not do it again.”
Their words were few, like the first feints of fencers. Both rose and stood upright, and Claire felt a momentary vexation that Nathalie was the taller. She said, presently:
“There is no use in our talking. I shall never forgive Léon; but perhaps something can be arranged to hush it up, and prevent the disgrace becoming public. Whatever that costs, it must be done. I suppose money is always a strong weapon, and I imagine, under these circumstances, you cannot object to its being paid?”
To the tone Nathalie was indifferent to the point of unconsciousness. But to the suggestion she replied: “I should object with all my might. Forgive me if I oppose you.”
Claire flung out the taunt: “The sacrifice is too great?”
“What sacrifice? What I feel is that to sin, and then to bribe to escape its consequences, is to sin twice.”
The other stared at her.
“What will you do, then?”
Nathalie’s voice carried anguish. “I shall urge him to meet it.”
Claire made a step towards her. “Meet it? Do you mean own that he has done it?”
Nathalie encountered her eye, her voice, without quailing. She was vaguely sorry for these others who were suffering; but all her emotions fastened themselves upon her husband, and remembering some words he had let drop, she started. “Where is Léon?” she cried.
“With his mother. You need not be afraid for him,” said Claire, scornfully; “he has always taken care of himself, and he will do so to his dying day. I don’t know why I was such a fool as to be alarmed at hearing the advice you are going to bestow upon him, for Léon will never face a disagreeable so long as he can find a means of slipping round it. You may do your worst. Of course, you can’t be expected to feel what we feel: the disgrace—the horrible shame—the—” She stopped, choked. Nathalie looked at her, neither assenting nor denying, and, after a moment’s pause, the other began again:
“It must be crushed down, even if Poissy has to go. The name comes first. This man—it is true, is it not, that he will accept money!”
“Do you know what you are saying!” said her sister-in-law, speaking in a low, even voice. “If Léon did what you demand, he would be owning himself the thief they call him. He took the money, but it was not to keep; he wrote to Monsieur de Cadanet and told him what he had done, and promised to pay it back, and did it. He owes nothing.”
“You believe this!”
“Yes. He has told me all, now,” she answered, in the same tone. There was something in it which for the moment impressed Claire; but she presently returned to her conviction.
“If it is true, it is only a matter of degree,” she said, her eyes dilating.
“It is everything,” rejoined Nathalie, firmly.
“Take what comfort you can from it, then. What I think is that, true or not, unless Léon can prove it, it will be of no use in warding off the blow. That is the only thing which remains to us. It must not fall. Do you hear! It must not fall.”
“God knows!” She turned away with a sigh, but there was no irresolution in her face. The sun still shone outside; above the grey stone the clear blue was beginning to whiten; so high as to be mere specks, the swallows circled. Suddenly Claire broke into a laugh—a high-pitched laugh, not good to hear.
“A De Beaudrillart tried for theft!” she exclaimed. “In a common dock, I imagine! What a fine event for the world! Tours, too. Why, Tours would have something to talk about for quite a year.” Her voice changed again to something harsh, fierce. “You are not to tell your father, do you hear! Do you mean to say that you have done so already?”
Nathalie looked at her gravely.
“Hush!” she said. “There is no use in saying these things. My father has guessed it, and I think it is breaking his heart.”
“Oh,” cried Claire, wildly, “it only wanted this! Monsieur Bourget knows, and it is breaking Monsieur Bourget’s heart! We Beaudrillarts can bear it, but Monsieur Bourget’s heart is breaking! Do you suppose that we are going to endure this degrading pity? I tell you that anything—death itself—would be better!”
Her white face was distorted, changed; yet if any one had been there to make the comparison, they might have detected a deeper suffering behind Mme. Léon’s silence. She stood mute, her sad young eyes looking into the unknown, her delicate lips compressed. Claire suddenly felt the unconquerable power of calmness. Her taunts were useless. She turned and rushed from the room. Outside on the stairs were two men, and her first impression was that perhaps they were officers of justice come to seize Léon, until she saw that one was her brother himself and the other M. Georges.