IV.
PROXY.
Camille glided to the woman's side and laid a gentle yet commanding touch upon her.
"Come, there is not a moment to lose."
"What do you want?" asked Attalie. She neither rose nor turned her head, nor even let go the dead man's hand.
"I must make haste to fulfill the oft-repeated request of my friend here."
"Your friend!" She still knelt, and held the hand, but turned her face, full of pained resentment, upon the speaker behind her. He was calm.
"Our friend; yes, this man here. You did not know that I was his secret confidential adviser? Well, that was all right; I told him to tell no one. But now I must carry out his instructions. Madame Brouillard, this man wished to leave you every cent he had in the world."
Attalie slowly laid her lips on the big cold hand lying in her two hot ones and let the silent tears wet all three. Camille spoke on to her averted form:
"He may never have told you so till to-day, but he has often told me. 'I tell you, Camille,' he used to say, 'because I can trust you: I can't trust a white man in a matter like this.' He told you? Yes; then you know that I speak the truth. But one thing you did not know; that this intention of his was the result of my earnest advice.—Stop! Madame Brouillard—if you please—we have no time for amazement or questions now; and less than none for expressions of gratitude. Listen to me. You know he was always afraid he would die some day suddenly? Yes, of course; everybody knew that. One night—our meetings were invariably at night—he said to me, 'Camille, my dear friend, if I should go all of a sudden some day before I write that will, you know what to do.' Those were his exact words: 'Camille, my dear friend, you know what to do.'" All this was said to the back of Attalie's head and neck; but now the speaker touched her with one finger: "Madame, are your lodgers all up town?"
She nodded.
"Good. And you have but the one servant. Go tell her that our dear friend has been in great suffering but is now much better, quite free from pain, in fact, and wants to attend to some business. Send her to Exchange alley, to the office of Eugene Favre. He is a notary public"—He murmured some further description. "Understand?"
Attalie, still kneeling, kept her eyes on his in silence, but she understood; he saw that.
"She must tell him," he continued, "to come at once. But before she goes there she must stop on the way and tell three persons to come and witness a notarial act. Now whom shall they be? For they must be white male residents of the parish, and they must not be insane, deaf, dumb, blind, nor disqualified by crime. I will tell you: let them be Jean d'Eau—at the French market. He will still be there; it is his turn to scrub the market to-day. Get him, get Richard Reau, and old man Ecswyzee. And on no account must the doctor be allowed to come. Do that, Madame Brouillard, as quickly as you can. I will wait here."
But the kneeling figure hesitated, with intense distress in her upturned face: "What are you going to do, Michié Ducour?"
"We are going to make you sole legatee."
"I do not want it! How are you going to do it? How?"
"In a way which he knows about and approves."
Attalie hid her shapely forehead again on the dead hand. "I cannot leave him. Do what you please, only let me stay here. Oh! let me stay here."
"I see," said Camille, with cold severity, "like all women, you count the foolish sentiments of the living of more value than the reasonable wish of the dead." He waited a moment for these words to take effect upon her motionless form, and then, seeing that—again like a woman—she was waiting and wishing for compulsion, he lifted her by one arm. "Come. Go. And make haste to get back again; we are losing priceless time."
She went. But just outside the door she seemed to halt. Camille put out his freckled face and turtle neck. "Well?"
"O Michié Ducour!" the trembling woman whispered, "those three witnesses will never do. I am in debt to every one of them!"
"Madame Brouillard, the one you owe the most to will be the best witness. Well? What next?"
"O my dear friend! what is this going to cost?—in money, I mean. I am so afraid of lawyers' accounts! I have nothing, and if it turns out that he has very, very little—It is true that I sent for you, but—I did not think you—what must you charge?"
"Nothing!" whispered Camille. "Madame Brouillard, whether he leaves you little or much, this must be for me a labor of love to him who was secretly my friend, or I will not touch it. He certainly had something, however, or he would not have tried to write a will. But, my dear madame, if you do not right here, now, stop looking scared, as if you were about to steal something instead of saving something from being stolen, it will cost us a great deal. Go. Make haste! That's right!—Ts-s-st! Hold on! Which is your own bedroom, upstairs?—Never mind why I ask; tell me. Yes; all right I Now, go!—Ts-s-st! Bring my hat up as you return."
She went downstairs. Camille tiptoed quickly back into the death chamber, whipped off his shoes, ran to a small writing-table, then to the bureau, then to the armoire, trying their drawers. They were locked, every one. He ran to the bed and searched swiftly under pillows and mattresses—no keys. Never mind. He wrapped a single sheet about the dead man's form, stepped lightly to the door, looked out, listened, heard nothing, and tripped back again.
And then with all his poor strength he lifted the bulk, still limp, in his arms, and with only two or three halts in the toilsome journey, to dash the streaming sweat from his brows and to better his hold so that the heels should not drag on the steps, carried it up to Attalie's small room and laid it, decently composed, on her bed.
Then he glided downstairs again and had just slipped into his shoes when Attalie came up hastily from below. She was pale and seemed both awe-struck and suspicious. As she met him outside the door grief and dismay were struggling in her eyes with mistrust, and as he coolly handed her the key of her room indignation joined the strife. She reddened and flashed:
"My God! you have not, yourself, already?"
"I could not wait, Madame Brouillard. We must run up now, and do for him whatever cannot be put off; and then you must let me come back, leaving my hat and shoes and coat up there, and—you understand?"
Yes; the whole thing was heartless and horrible, but—she understood. They went up.