Ursule Mirouët (Tomlinson translation)/Part II/4
*
This authentic rendering of the account had been recommended by the justice of the peace, who dreaded the effects of Doctor Minoret’s death, and who, unfortunately, was right. The day following the acceptance of the guardian’s account which gave Ursule ten thousand six hundred francs and fourteen hundred francs a year, the old man was seized with an attack of faintness which compelled him to keep to his bed. In spite of the secrecy surrounding the doctor’s house, the rumor of his death spread over the town, where the heirs ran through the streets like the beads of a chaplet of which the string has broken. Massin, who came to inquire, was told by Ursule herself that the old man was in bed. Unfortunately, the Nemours doctor had declared that the moment at which Minoret should take to his bed would be that of his death. From that time, in spite of the cold, the heirs stood in the streets, in the market-place or on their doorsteps, busy chattering about this long-expected event, and watching for the moment when the curé should carry the Sacrament to the old doctor with all the array in use in provincial towns. And so, when, two days after, the Abbé Chaperon, accompanied by his curate and the choir boys, preceded by the sexton bearing the cross, crossed the Grand’ Rue, the heirs joined him in order to occupy the house, prevent all purloining and put their greedy hands on presumable treasures. When the doctor, through the clergy, perceived his kneeling heirs, who, far from praying were watching him with eyes as keen as the gleam of a taper, he could not restrain a malicious smile. The curé turned round, saw them, and then said the prayers very slowly. The postmaster was the first to leave his tiring position, his wife followed him; Massin, fearing lest Zélie and her husband should lay their hands on some trifle, joined them in the drawing-room, and soon all the heirs were assembled there.
“He is too honest a man to steal the extreme unction,” said Crémière, “so we can be quite easy.”
“Yes, we shall each have about twenty thousand francs a year,” replied Madame Massin.
“I have an idea,” said Zélie, “that, for three years, he did not invest any more; he loved to hoard—”
“The treasure is no doubt in his cellar?” said Massin to Crémière.
“Provided that we find something,” said Minoret-Levrault.
“But, after his declaration at the ball,” cried Madame Massin, “there is no longer any doubt about it.”
“In any case,” said Crémière, “how shall we manage? Shall we share? shall we have an auction? or shall we divide by lots? for after all we are all of age.”
A discussion, growing rapidly more and more bitter, arose about the manner of proceedings. At the end of half-an-hour, a noise of confused voices, amongst which Zélie’s shrill voice could be distinguished, resounded in the courtyard and reached the road.
“He must be dead,” then said the busybodies collected in the road.
This uproar reached the ears of the doctor, who heard these words:
“But the house, the house is worth thirty thousand francs! I take it, I do, at thirty thousand francs!” cried or rather bellowed by Crémière.
“Well, we will pay what it is worth,” sharply replied Zélie.
“Monsieur le Curé,” said the old man to the Abbé Chaperon, who stayed beside his friend after having administered to him, “arrange it so that I can die in peace. My heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximénès, are capable of pillaging my house before my death, and I have no monkey to set me up again. Go and tell them that I do not wish anyone to remain in the house.”
The curé and the doctor went down, repeated the dying man’s order, and in a fit of indignation, added strong words full of rebuke.
“Madame Bougival,” said the doctor, “shut the gate and do not let anyone in; it seems that it is impossible to die in peace. You will prepare poultices of ground mustard, in order to apply them to monsieur’s feet.”
“Your uncle is not dead, and may yet live a long time,” said the Abbé Chaperon, dismissing the heirs, who had brought their children with them. He implores the deepest silence and will have no one but his ward near him. What a difference between this young girl’s behavior and yours!”
“Old hypocrite!” cried Crémière, “I shall stand sentry. It is quite possible that there is some plot against our interests.”
The postmaster had already disappeared into the garden, intending to watch his uncle with Ursule, and to have himself admitted into the house as an assistant. He returned stealthily without making the least noise with his boots, for the corridor and stairs were both carpeted. He was then able to reach the door of his uncle’s room unheard. The curé and the doctor had gone, La Bougival was preparing the poultices.
“Are we quite alone?” said the old man to his ward.
Ursule stood on tiptoe to look into the courtyard.
“Yes,” she said, “Monsieur le Curé has shut the gate himself in going out.”
“My beloved child,” said the dying man, “my hours, my minutes even, are numbered. I have not been a physician for nothing; the doctor’s poultices will keep me alive till to-night Do not cry, Ursule,” he said, finding himself interrupted by his goddaughter’s tears, “but listen to me carefully; it is a question of marrying Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes up with the poultice, go down to the Chinese pavilion, here is the key; raise the marble top of the Boule sideboard, and under it you will find a sealed letter addressed to you; take it, come back and show it to me, for I shall not die peacefully unless I see it in your hands. When I am dead, you are not to tell it at once; but send for Monsieur de Portenduère, you will read the letter together, and you must swear to me in your name and his to fulfil my last wishes. When he shall have obeyed me, you will announce my death, and the heirs’ farce will begin. God grant that these monsters do not ill-treat you!”
“Yes, godfather.”
The postmaster did not listen to the rest of the scene; he scampered away on tiptoe, remembering that the study lock was on the side of the library. He had been present at the time of the discussion between the architect and the locksmith, who declared that, if anyone were to get into the house by the window looking on to the river, it would be more prudent to put the lock on the side of the library, the study being intended as one of the pleasure-rooms in summer. Dazzled by self-interest and with the blood tingling in his ears, Minoret unscrewed the lock with a knife with all a thief’s smartness. He entered the study, took the packet of papers without stopping to unseal it, re-screwed the lock, restored things in place, and went to sit down in the dining-room, waiting until La Bougival should have taken up the poultice before he left the house. He managed his flight all the more easily, as poor Ursule thought it more important to see the poultice applied than to obey her godfather’s orders.
“The letter! the letter!” cried the old man in dying tones, “obey me, here is the key. I want to see the letter in your hand.”
These words accompanied such an agonized look, that La Bougival said to Ursule:
“But do what your godfather wishes, or you will kill him.”
She kissed him on the forehead, took the key and went down; but, soon recalled by La Bougival’s piercing cries, she rushed back. The old man took her in at a glance, saw her empty hands, sat up, tried to speak, and died with a last terrible gasp, his eyes wild with terror. The poor little one, who had never seen death before, fell on her knees and burst into tears. La Bougival closed the old man’s eyes and arranged him in his bed. When, according to her expression, she had dressed the dead, the old nurse ran to tell Monsieur Savinien; but the heirs, who were at the end of the street, surrounded by on-lookers, just like crows waiting for the burial of a horse to come and scratch the earth and dig it out with their claws and beaks, ran up with the rapidity of birds of prey.
During these events, the postmaster had gone home to find out the contents of the mysterious package.
This is what he found:
“Nemours, January 15, 1830.
“MY LITTLE ANGEL,
“The old scoundrel!” cried the postmaster.
“Your adoption would have been the cause of a lawsuit. Finally, I have always shrunk from the idea of marrying you to transmit my fortune to you; for I might have lived a long time and disturbed your future happiness, which is only delayed by Madame de Portenduère’s life. These difficulties being thoroughly weighed, and wishing to leave you the fortune necessary to a happy life—
“The rascal, he has thought of everything!”
“Without injuring my heirs in any way—
“The Jesuit! as if he did not owe us all his fortune!”
“What depth of villainy!” cried the postmaster. “Ah! God will not allow me to be so defrauded.”
“Your godfather,
“DENIS MlNORET.”
“To this was subjoined, on a square piece of stamped paper, the following document:
THIS IS MY WILL.
“I, Denis Minoret, doctor of medicine, residing at Nemours, of sound mind and body, as is shown by the date of this will, do bequeath my soul to God, praying him to pardon my long errors in favor of my sincere repentance. Then, knowing that Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduère has a genuine affection for me, I leave him thirty-six thousand francs in bonds of the three per cents, to be taken out of my inheritance, in preference to all my heirs.
“Made and written from beginning to end by my hand, at Nemours, the 11th January, 1831.
“DENIS MINORET.”
Without hesitation, the postmaster who, in order to be quite alone, had shut himself into his wife’s room, looked for the tinder box, and received two warnings from Heaven by the extinction of two matches that successively refused to strike. The third caught fire. He burnt the letter and the will in the fireplace. With unnecessary caution, he buried the remains of the paper and wax in the ashes. Then, tempted by the idea of possessing the thirty-six thousand francs unknown to his wife, he returned at double quick speed to his uncle’s house, goaded by the only idea, a simple, clear idea, that could penetrate his thick skull. Seeing his uncle’s house invaded by the three families who had at last made themselves masters of the place, he trembled lest he should be unable to accomplish a plan about which he did not allow himself time to reflect, whilst only thinking of the obstacles.
“What are you doing here?” he said to Massin and Crémière. “Do you think we are going to leave the house and valuables to be plundered? We are three inheritors, we cannot encamp here! Crémière, do hurry to Dionis and tell him to come and testify to the decease. Although deputy-mayor, I cannot draw up my uncle’s certificate of death.—You, Massin, go and ask old Bongrand to affix the seals.—And you, mesdames, keep Ursule company,” he said to his wife, to Mesdames Massin and Crémière. “In this way nothing will be lost. Above all, shut the gate so that no one can go out!”
The women, who felt the propriety of this hint, ran to Ursule’s room and found this noble creature, already so cruelly suspected, on her knees praying to God, her face streaming with tears. Minoret, guessing that the three heiresses would not stay long with Ursule, and fearing the suspicion of his co-heirs, went into the library, found the book, opened it, took the three bonds and found thirty bank notes in the other. In spite of his coarse nature, the giant fancied he could hear a peal of bells in each ear, and the blood hissed in his temples as he accomplished this theft. In spite of the severity of the season, his shirt clung to his back; at last his legs trembled to such an extent that he sank upon one of the salon sofas, as if a club had struck him on the head.
“Ah! how an inheritance loosens the great Minoret’s tongue!” Massin said, as he rushed about the town. “Did you hear him?” he said to Crémière. “‘Go here! go there!’ as if he were drilling!”
“Yes, for a great big fool, he had a certain look—”
“Why,” said Massin, alarmed, “his wife is there, they are two too many! You do the commissions, I am going back.”
And so just as the postmaster was sitting down, he saw appearing at the gate the excited face of the justice’s clerk, who was returning with all a weasel’s speed to the dead man’s house.
“Well, what is the matter?” asked the postmaster, going to let in his co-heir.
“Nothing; I have come back for the seals,” replied Massin, darting the look of a wildcat at him.
“I wish they were already fixed, and we could all go home,” rejoined Minoret.
“Faith! we will place a watchman over the seals,” said the clerk. “La Bougival is capable of anything in the interests of the little humbug. We will get Goupil.”
“Goupil?” said the postmaster. “He will take the money-box and we shall see nothing of it.”
“Let me see!” rejoined Massin. “To-night, they will watch the dead, and we shall have finished affixing the seals in an hour’s time; and so our wives will themselves guard them. To-morrow, at midday we shall have the funeral. We cannot proceed to the inventory for eight days.”
“But,” said the giant, smiling, “we will make the little humbug pack off, and we will put the mayor’s drummer in charge of the seals and the house.”
“Very well,” cried the justice’s clerk, “you must undertake this expedition, you are head of the Minorets.”
“Mesdames, mesdames,” said Minoret, “will you all please remain in the salon; it is not a question of going to dinner, but of proceeding to the setting of the seals for the preservation of everybody’s interests.”
Then he took his wife aside to acquaint her with Massin’s ideas in relation to Ursule. The women, whose hearts were full of revenge and who were longing to turn the tables on the little humbug, at once welcomed with enthusiasm the plan of expelling her.
Bongrand appeared and was indignant at the proposal made him by Zélie and Madame Massin that, in his character of the deceased man’s friend, he should ask Ursule to leave the house.
“Go yourselves and turn her out of her father’s, her godfather’s, her uncle’s, her benefactor’s, her guardian’s house! Go, you who only owe your inheritance to her nobleness of mind, take her by the shoulders and thrust her into the street, in front of the whole town! You believe her capable of robbing you? Well then, place a guard over the seals, you will be within your rights. But first know that I will not fix seals on her room; she is in her own home, all that is in it is her own property; I shall inform her of her rights, and shall tell her to there collect all that belongs to her—Oh! in your presence!” he added, hearing growls from the heirs.
“Heyday!” said the tax-collector to the postmaster and to the women, who were stupefied at Bongrand’s choleric speech.
“There’s a magistrate!” cried the postmaster.
Seated on a small sofa, half fainting, her head thrown back her plaits undone, was Ursule, sobbing from time to time. Her eyes were dim, her lids swollen, in short, she was a prey to a moral and physical prostration which would have touched the most ferocious beings, except heirs.
“Ah! Monsieur Bongrand, after my birthday comes death and mourning!” she said, with the natural poetry of a beautiful mind. “You know what he was: for twenty years he never spoke a single impatient word to me! I thought he would live a hundred years! He has been a mother to me,” she cried, “and a good mother!”
These few uttered thoughts brought on floods of tears, broken by sobs; then she subsided into a heap.
“My child,” rejoined the justice of the peace, hearing the heirs on the staircase, “you have all your life before you for crying, and you have only a moment for your affairs; collect in your room all that belongs to you in this house. The heirs are forcing me to put seals—”
“Ah! the heirs can take everything,” cried Ursule standing up in a fit of savage indignation. “All that is most precious I have here,” she said, striking her bosom.
“And what is that?” asked the postmaster, who, with Massin, showed his dreadful face.
“The memory of his virtues, his life, of all his words, an image of his heavenly soul,” she said, her eyes and face flashing, while she raised her hand with a magnificent gesture.
“And you have also a key!” cried Massin, creeping like a cat and seizing a key which Ursule’s movement had dislodged from the folds of her bodice.
“That,” she said, reddening, “is the key of his study, he was sending me there at the moment he died.”
After having exchanged hideous smiles, the two heirs looked at the justice of the peace expressive of withering suspicion. Ursule, observing and guessing the meaning of this look, calculated with the postmaster, involuntary on the part of Massin, stood up on her feet, and turned as pale as if the blood were leaving her; her eyes darted that lightning which, it may be, only flashes at the cost of life, and she said, in a choking voice:
“Ah! Monsieur Bongrand, all that is in this room comes to me from my godfather’s kindness, they may take all, I have only the clothes upon me, I will go out and never re-enter it again.”
She went to her guardian’s room, from which no entreaties could move her, for the heirs were a little ashamed of their behavior. She told La Bougival to engage two rooms for her at the inn of La Vieille-Poste, until she should have found some lodging in town where they could both live. She went back to her room to fetch her prayer-book, and remained all night with the curé, the curate and Savinien, praying and weeping. The nobleman came after his mother had gone to bed, and knelt down without a word beside Ursule, who gave him the saddest smile while thanking him for so faithfully coming to share her sorrows.
“My child,” said Monsieur Bongrand, bringing Ursule a bulky packet, “one of your uncle’s heiresses has taken out of your cupboard all that you will want; for it will be a few days before the seals will be removed, and you will then recover whatever belongs to you. In your own interests, I have put the seals on your room.”
“Thank you, monsieur,” she replied, going to him and squeezing his hand. “Look at him once more; would you not think he was asleep?”
The old man at that moment had that bloom of transient beauty which rests on the faces of those who have died painlessly, he seemed radiant.
“Did he give you nothing secretly before dying?” whispered the justice of the peace to Ursule.
“Nothing,” she said, “he only spoke of a letter—”
“Good! it will be found,” rejoined Bongrand. “So it is very lucky for you that they insisted upon the seals.”
At dawn, Ursule bade farewell to this house in which her happy childhood had been spent, and especially to the modest room where her love had commenced, and which was so dear to her that in the midst of her dismal grief she shed tears of regret for this peaceful, sweet abode. After having, for the last time, alternately contemplated her windows and Savinien, she went out to go to the inn, accompanied by La Bougival, who was carrying her bundle, by the justice of the peace, who gave her his arm, and by Savinien, her gentle protector. And thus, in spite of the wisest precautions, the mistrustful lawyer found he was in the right; he was to see Ursule without a fortune and struggling with the heirs.
The next night, the whole town was present at the obsequies of Doctor Minoret. When the behavior of the heirs toward his adopted daughter was known, the great majority considered it natural and necessary; it was a question of an inheritance, the old man was close; Ursule might imagine she had rights, the heirs were defending their property, and besides, she had humiliated them enough during the life of their uncle, who used to receive them very badly. Désiré Minoret, who was not doing wonders in his situation, so said those who envied the postmaster, arrived for the service. Ursule was in bed, incapable of attending the funeral, the victim of a nervous fever caused as much by the insult of the heirs as by her deep affliction.
“Just look at that hypocrite crying!” said some of the heirs, pointing to Savinien, who was keenly grieved at the doctor’s death.
“The point is whether he has reason to cry,” observed Goupil. “Don’t be in a hurry to laugh, the seals are not removed.”
“Bah!” said Minoret, who knew what to think about that, “you have always frightened us for nothing.”
Just as the funeral left the church for the cemetery, Goupil had to swallow a bitter draught; he wanted to take Désiré’s arm, but, by refusing it to him, the deputy disowned his friend in the presence of all Nemours.
“I must not get angry, or I should not be able to avenge myself any more,” thought the head clerk, whose unfeeling heart swelled like a sponge in his bosom.
Before raising the seals and proceeding to the inventory, time was needed for the attorney for the crown, the legal guardian of orphans, to appoint Bongrand as his representative. The Minoret inheritance, which was talked about for ten days, was then examined, and was verified with all the strictness of legal formalities. Dionis got something by it, Goupil liked doing wrong well enough; and, as the speculation was a good one, the sittings multiplied. After the first sitting they nearly always breakfasted. The notary, the clerk, heirs and witnesses used to drink the rarest wines in the cellar.