The Money Master, Complete - Gilbert Parker
"What did you mean, then, by looking at him as you did; by whispering
together; by letting him hold your hand when he left, and him looking at
you as though he'd eat you up--without sugar!"
"I said I was not falling in love," she persisted, quietly, but with
characteristic boldness. "I am in love."
"You are in love with him--with that interloper! Heaven of heavens, do
you speak the truth? Answer me, Zoe Barbille."
She bridled. "Certainly I will answer. Did you think I would let a man
look at me as he did, that I would look at a man as I looked at him, that
I would let him hold my hand as I did, if I did not love him? Have you
ever seen me do it before?"
Her voice was even and quiet--as though she had made up her mind on a
course, and meant to carry it through to the end.
"No, I never saw you look at a man like that, and everything is as you
say, but--" his voice suddenly became uneven and higher--pitched and a
little hoarse, "but he is English, he is an actor--only that; and he is a
Protestant."
"Only that?" she asked, for the tone of his voice was such as one would
use in speaking of a toad or vermin, and she could not bear it. "Is it a
disgrace to be any one of those things?"
"The Barbilles have been here for two hundred years; they have been
French Catholics since the time of"--he was not quite sure--"since the
time of Louis XI.," he added at a venture, and then paused, overcome by
his own rashness.
"Yes, that is a long time," she said, "but what difference does it make?
We are just what we are now, and as if there never had been a Baron of
Beaugard. What is there against Gerard except that he is an actor, that
he is English, and that he is a Protestant? Is there anything?"
"Sacre, is it not enough? An actor, what is that--to pretend to be
someone else and not to be yourself!"
"It would be better for a great many people to be someone else rather
than themselves--for nothing; and he does it for money."
"For money! What money has he got? You don't know. None of us know.
Besides, he's a Protestant, and he's English, and that ends it. There
never has been an Englishman or a Protestant in the Barbille family, and
it shan't begin at the Manor Cartier." Jean Jacques' voice was rising in
proportion as he perceived her quiet determination. Here was something of
the woman who had left him seven years ago--left this comfortable home of
his to go to disgrace and exile, and God only knew what else! Here in
this very room--yes, here where they now were, father and daughter, stood
husband and wife that morning when he had his hand on the lever prepared
to destroy the man who had invaded his home; who had cast a blight upon
it, which remained after all the years; after he had done all a man could
do to keep the home and the woman too. The woman had gone; the home
remained with his daughter in it, and now again there was a fight for
home and the woman. Memory reproduced the picture of the mother standing
just where the daughter now stood, Carmen quiet and well in hand, and
himself all shaken with weakness, and with all power gone out of
him--even the power which rage and a murderous soul give.
But yet this was different. There was no such shame here as had fallen on
him seven years ago. But there was a shame after its kind; and if it were
not averted, there was the end of the home, of the prestige, the pride
and the hope of "M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe."
"What shall not begin here at the Manor Cartier?" she asked with burning
cheek.
"The shame--it shall not begin here."
"What shame, father?"
"Of marriage with a Protestant and an actor."
"You will not let me marry him?" she persisted stubbornly.
Her words seemed to shake him all to pieces. It was as though he was
going through the older tragedy all over again. It had possessed him ever
since the sight of Carmen's guitar had driven him mad three hours ago. He
swayed to and fro, even as he did when his hand left the lever and he let
the master-carpenter go free. It was indeed a philosopher under torture,
a spirit rocking on its anchor. Just now she had put into words herself
what, even in his fear, he had hoped had no place in her mind--marriage
with the man. He did not know this daughter of his very well. There was
that in her which was far beyond his ken. Thousands of miles away in
Spain it had origin, and the stream of tendency came down through long
generations, by courses unknown to him.
"Marry him--you want to marry him!" he gasped. "You, my Zoe, want to
marry that tramp of a Protestant!"
Her eyes blazed in anger. Tramp--the man with the air of a young
Alexander, with a voice like the low notes of the guitar thrown to the
flames! Tramp!
"If I love him I ought to marry him," she answered with a kind of
calmness, however, though all her body was quivering. Suddenly she came
close to her father, a great sympathy welled up in her eyes, and her
voice shook.
"I do not want to leave you, father, and I never meant to do so. I never
thought of it as possible; but now it is different. I want to stay with
you; but I want to go with him too."
Presently as she seemed to weaken before him, he hardened. "You can't
have both," he declared with as much sternness as was possible to him,
and with a Norman wilfulness which was not strength. "You shall not marry
an actor and a Protestant. You shall not marry a man like
that--never--never--never. If you do, you will never have a penny of
mine, and I will never--"
"Oh, hush--Mother of Heaven, hush!" she cried. "You shall not put a curse
on me too."
"What curse?" he burst forth, passion shaking him. "You cursed my
mother's baptism. It would be a curse to be told that you would see me no
more, that I should be no more part of this home. There has been enough
of that curse here. . . . Ah, why--why--" she added with a sudden rush of
indignation, "why did you destroy the only thing I had of hers? It was
all that was left--her guitar. I loved it so."
All at once, with a cry of pain, she turned and ran to the door--entering
on the staircase which led to her room. In the doorway she turned.
"I can't help it. I can't help it, father. I love him--but I love you
too," she cried. "I don't want to go--oh, I don't want to go! Why do
you--?" her voice choked; she did not finish the sentence; or if she did,
he could not hear.
Then she opened the door wide, and disappeared into the darkness of the
unlighted stairway, murmuring, "Pity--have pity on me, holy Mother,
Vierge Marie!" Then the door closed behind her almost with a bang.
After a moment of stupefied inaction Jean Jacques hurried over and threw
open the door she had closed. "Zoe--little Zoe, come back and say
good-night," he called. But she did not hear, for, with a burst of
crying, she had hurried into her own room and shut and locked the door.
It was a pity, a measureless pity, as Mary the Mother must have seen, if
she could see mortal life at all, that Zoe did not hear him. It might
have altered the future. As it was, the Devil of Estrangement might well
be content with his night's work.
CHAPTER XV
BON MARCHE
Vilray was having its market day, and everyone was either going to or
coming from market, or buying and selling in the little square by the
Court House. It was the time when the fruits were coming in, when
vegetables were in full yield, when fish from the Beau Cheval were to be
had in plenty--from mud-cats and suckers, pike and perch, to rock-bass,
sturgeon and even maskinonge. Also it was the time of year when butter
and eggs, chickens and ducks were so cheap that it was a humiliation not
to buy. There were other things on sale also, not for eating and
drinking, but for wear and household use--from pots and pans to
rag-carpets and table-linen, from woollen yarn to pictures of the Virgin
and little calvaries.
These were side by side with dried apples, bottled fruits, jars of maple
syrup, and cordials of so generous and penetrating a nature that the
currant and elderberry wine by which they were flanked were tipple for
babes beside them. Indeed, when a man wanted to forget himself quickly he
drank one of these cordials, in preference to the white whisky so
commonly imbibed in the parishes. But the cordials being expensive, they
were chiefly bought for festive occasions like a wedding, a funeral, a
confirmation, or the going away of some young man or young woman to the
monastery or the convent to forget the world. Meanwhile, if these
spiritual argonauts drank it, they were likely to forget the world on the
way to their voluntary prisons. It was very seldom that a man or woman
bought the cordials for ordinary consumption, and when that was done, it
would almost make a parish talk! Yet cordials of nice brown, of delicate
green, of an enticing yellow colour, were here for sale at Vilray market
on the morning after the painful scene at the Manor Cartier between Zoe
and her father.
The market-place was full--fuller than it had been for many a day. A
great many people were come in as much to "make fete" as to buy and sell.
It was a saint's day, and the bell of St. Monica's had been ringing away
cheerfully twice that morning. To it the bell of the Court House had made
reply, for a big case was being tried in the court. It was a
river-driving and lumber case for which many witnesses had been called;
and there were all kinds of stray people in the place--red-shirted
river-drivers, a black-coated Methodist minister from Chalfonte, clerks
from lumber-firms, and foremen of lumber-yards; and among these was one
who greatly loved such a day as this when he could be free from work, and
celebrate himself!
Other people might celebrate saints dead and gone, and drink to 'La
Patrie', and cry "Vive Napoleon!" or "Vive la Republique!" or "Vive la
Reine!" though this last toast of the Empire was none too common--but he
could only drink with real sincerity to the health of Sebastian Dolores,
which was himself. Sebastian Dolores was the pure anarchist, the most
complete of monomaniacs.
"Here comes the father of the Spanische," remarked Mere Langlois, who
presided over a heap of household necessities, chiefly dried fruits,
preserves and pickles, as Sebastian Dolores appeared not far away.
"Good-for-nothing villain! I pity the poor priest that confesses him."
"Who is the Spanische?" asked a young woman from her own stall or stand
very near, as she involuntarily arranged her hair and adjusted her
waist-belt; for the rakish-looking reprobate, with the air of having been
somewhere, was making towards them; and she was young enough to care how
she looked when a man, who took notice, was near. Her own husband had
been a horse-doctor, farmer, and sportsman of a kind, and she herself was
now a farmer of a kind; and she had only resided in the parish during the
three years since she had been married to, and buried, Palass Poucette.
Old Mere Langlois looked at her companion in merchanting irritably, then
she remembered that Virginie Poucette was a stranger, in a way, and was
therefore deserving of pity, and she said with compassionate patronage:
"Newcomer you--I'd forgotten. Look you then, the Spanische was the wife
of my third cousin, M'sieu' Jean Jacques, and--"
Virginie Poucette nodded, and the slight frown cleared from her low yet
shapely forehead. "Yes, yes, of course I know. I've heard enough. What a
fool she was, and M'sieu' Jean Jacques so rich and kind and good-looking!
So this is her father--well, well, well!"
Palass Poucette's widow leaned forward, and looked intently at Sebastian
Dolores, who had stopped near by, and facing a couple of barrels on which
were exposed some bottles of cordial and home-made wine. He was
addressing himself with cheerful words to the dame that owned the
merchandise.
"I suppose you think it's a pity Jean Jacques can't get a divorce," said
Mere Langlois, rather spitefully to Virginie, for she had her sex's
aversion to widows who had had their share of mankind, and were
afterwards free to have someone else's share as well. But suddenly
repenting, for Virginie was a hard-working widow who had behaved very
well for an outsider--having come from Chalfonte beyond the Beau
Chevalshe added: "But if he was a Protestant and could get a divorce, and
you did marry him, you'd make him have more sense than he's got; for
you've a quiet sensible way, and you've worked hard since Palass Poucette
died."
"Where doesn't he show sense, that M'sieu' Jean Jacques?" the younger
woman asked.
"Where? Why, with his girl--with Ma'm'selle." "Everybody I ever heard
speaks well of Ma'm'selle Zoe," returned the other warmly, for she had a
very generous mind and a truthful, sentimental heart. Mere Langlois
sniffed, and put her hands on her hips, for she had a daughter of her
own; also she was a relation of Jean Jacques, and therefore resented in
one way the difference in their social position, while yet she plumed
herself on being kin.
"Then you'll learn something now you never knew before," she said. "She's
been carrying on--there's no other word for it--with an actor fellow--"
"Yes, yes, I did hear about him--a Protestant and an Englishman."
"Well, then, why do you pretend you don't know--only to hear me talk, is
it? Take my word, I'd teach cousin Zoe a lesson with all her education
and her two years at the convent. Wasn't it enough that her mother should
spoil everything for Jean Jacques, and make the Manor Cartier a place to
point the finger at, without her bringing disgrace on the parish too!
What happened last night--didn't I hear this morning before I had my
breakfast! Didn't I--"
She then proceeded to describe the scene in which Jean Jacques had thrown
the wrecked guitar of his vanished spouse into the fire. Before she had
finished, however, something occurred which swept them into another act
of the famous history of Jean Jacques Barbille and his house.
She had arrived at the point where Zoe had cried aloud in pain at her
father's incendiary act, when there was a great stir at the Court House
door which opened on the market-place, and vagrant cheers arose. These
were presently followed by a more disciplined fusillade; which presently,
in turn, was met by hisses and some raucous cries of resentment. These
increased as a man appeared on the steps of the Court House, looked round
for a moment in a dazed kind of way, then seeing some friends below who
were swarming towards him, gave a ribald cry, and scrambled down the
steps towards them.
He was the prisoner whose release had suddenly been secured by a piece of
evidence which had come as a thunder-clap on judge and jury. Immediately
after giving this remarkable evidence the witness--Sebastian Dolores--had
left the court-room. He was now engaged in buying cordials in the
market-place--in buying and drinking them; for he had pulled the cork out
of a bottle filled with a rich yellow liquid, and had drained half the
bottle at a gulp. Presently he offered the remainder to a passing carter,
who made a gesture of contempt and passed on, for, to him, white whisky
was the only drink worth while. Besides, he disliked Sebastian Dolores.
Then, with a flourish, the Spaniard tendered the bottle to Madame
Langlois and Palass Poucette's widow, at whose corner of merchandise he
had now arrived.
Surely there never was a more benign villain and perjurer in the world
than Sebastian Dolores! His evidence, given a half-hour before, with
every sign of truthfulness, was false. The man--Rocque Valescure--for
whom he gave it was no friend of his; but he owned a tavern called "The
Red Eagle," a few miles from the works where the Spaniard was employed;
also Rocque Valescure's wife set a good table, and Sebastian Dolores was
a very liberal feeder; when he was not hungry he was always thirsty. The
appeasement of hunger and thirst was now become a problem to him, for his
employers at Beauharnais had given him a month's notice because of
certain irregularities which had come to their knowledge. Like a wise man
Sebastian Dolores had said nothing about this abroad, but had enlarged
his credit in every direction, and had then planned this piece of
friendly perjury for Rocque Valescure, who was now descending the steps
of the Court House to the arms of his friends and amid the execrations of
his foes. What the alleged crime was does not matter. It has no vital
significance in the history of Jean Jacques Barbille, though it has its
place as a swivel on which the future swung.
Sebastian Dolores had saved Rocque Valescure from at least three years in
jail, and possibly a very heavy fine as well; and this service must have
its due reward. Something for nothing was not the motto of Sebastian
Dolores; and he confidently looked forward to having a home at "The Red
Eagle" and a banker in its landlord. He was no longer certain that he
could rely on help from Jean Jacques, to whom he already owed so much.
That was why he wanted to make Rocque Valescure his debtor. It was not
his way to perjure his soul for nothing. He had done so in Spain--yet not
for nothing either. He had saved his head, which was now doing useful
work for himself and for a needy fellow-creature. No one could doubt that
he had helped a neighbour in great need, and had done it at some expense
to his own nerve and brain. None but an expert could have lied as he had
done in the witness-box. Also he had upheld his lies with a striking
narrative of circumstantiality. He made things fit in "like mortised
blocks" as the Clerk of the Court said to Judge Carcasson, when they
discussed the infamy afterwards with clear conviction that it was perjury
of a shameless kind; for one who would perjure himself to save a man from
jail, would also swear a man into the gallows-rope. But Judge Carcasson
had not been able to charge the jury in that sense, for there was no
effective evidence to rebut the untruthful attestation of the Spaniard.
It had to be taken for what it was worth, since the prosecuting attorney
could not shake it; and yet to the Court itself it was manifestly false
witness.
Sebastian Dolores was too wise to throw himself into the arms of his
released tavern-keeper here immediately after the trial, or to allow
Rocque Valescure a like indiscretion and luxury; for there was a strong
law against perjury, and right well Sebastian Dolores knew that old Judge
Carcasson would have little mercy on him, in spite of the fact that he
was the grandfather of Zoe Barbille. The Judge would probably think that
safe custody for his wayward character would be the kindest thing he
could do for Zoe. Therefore it was that Sebastian Dolores paid no
attention to the progress of the released landlord of "The Red Eagle,"
though, by a glance out of the corner of his eyes, he made sure that the
footsteps of liberated guilt were marching at a tangent from where he
was--even to the nearest tavern.
It was enough for Dolores that he should watch the result of his good
deed from the isolated area where he now was, in the company of two
virtuous representatives of domesticity. His time with liberated guilt
would come! He chuckled to think how he had provided himself with a
refuge against his hour of trouble. That very day he had left his
employment, meaning to return no more, securing his full wages through
having suddenly become resentful and troublesome, neglectful--and
imperative. To avoid further unpleasantness the firm had paid him all his
wages; and he had straightway come to Vilray to earn his bed and board by
other means than through a pen, a ledger and a gift for figures. It would
not be a permanent security against the future, but it would suffice for
the moment. It was a rest-place on the road. If the worst came to the
worst, there was his grand-daughter and his dear son-in-law whom he so
seldom saw--blood was thicker than water, and he would see to it that it
was not thinned by neglect.
Meanwhile he ogled Palass Poucette's widow with one eye, and talked
softly with his tongue to Mere Langlois, as he importuned Madame to "Sip
the good cordial in the name of charity to all and malice towards none."
"You're a bad man--you, and I want none of your cordials," was Mere
Langlois's response. "Malice towards none, indeed! If you and the devil
started business in the same street, you'd make him close up shop in a
year. I've got your measure, for sure; I have you certain as an arm and a
pair of stirrups."
"I go about doing good--only good," returned the old sinner with a leer
at the young widow, whose fingers he managed to press unseen, as he swung
the little bottle of cordial before the eyes of Mere Langlois. He was not
wholly surprised when Palass Poucette's widow did not show abrupt
displeasure at his bold familiarity.
A wild thought flashed into his mind. Might there not be another refuge
here--here in Palass Poucette's widow! He was sixty-three, it was true,
and she was only thirty-two; but for her to be an old man's darling who
had no doubt been a young man's slave, that would surely have its weight
with her. Also she owned the farm where she lived; and she was pleasant
pasturage--that was the phrase he used in his own mind, even as his eye
swept from Mere Langlois to hers in swift, hungry inquiry.
He seemed in earnest when he spoke--but that was his way; it had done him
service often. "I do good whenever it comes my way to do it," he
continued. "I left my work this morning"--he lied of course--"and hired a
buggy to bring me over here, all at my own cost, to save a fellow-man.
There in the Court House he was sure of prison, with a wife and three
small children weeping in 'The Red Eagle'; and there I come at great
expense and trouble to tell the truth--before all to tell the truth--and
save him and set him free. Yonder he is in the tavern, the work of my
hands, a gift to the world from an honest man with a good heart and a
sense of justice. But for me there would be a wife and three children in
the bondage of shame, sorrow, poverty and misery"--his eyes again
ravished the brown eyes of Palass Poucette's widow--"and here again I
drink to my own health and to that of all good people--with charity to
all and malice towards none!"
The little bottle of golden cordial was raised towards Mere Langlois. The
fingers of one hand, however, were again seeking those of the comely
young widow who was half behind him, when he felt them caught
spasmodically away. Before he had time to turn round he heard a voice,
saying: "I should have thought that 'With malice to all and charity
towards none,' was your motto, Dolores."
He knew that voice well enough. He had always had a lurking fear that he
would hear it say something devastating to him, from the great chair
where its owner sat and dispensed what justice a jury would permit him to
do. That devastating something would be agony to one who loved liberty
and freedom--had not that ever been his watchword, liberty and freedom to
do what he pleased in the world and with the world? Yes, he well knew
Judge Carcasson's voice. He would have recognized it in the dark--or
under the black cap. "M'sieu' le juge!" he said, even before he turned
round and saw the faces of the tiny Judge and his Clerk of the Court.
There was a kind of quivering about his mouth, and a startled look in his
eyes as he faced the two. But there was the widow of Palass Poucette,
and, if he was to pursue and frequent her, something must be done to keep
him decently figured in her eye and mind.
"It cost me three dollars to come here and save a man from jail to-day,
m'sieu' le juge," he added firmly. The Judge pressed the point of his
cane against the stomach of the hypocrite and perjurer. "If the Devil and
you meet, he will take off his hat to you, my escaped anarchist"--Dolores
started almost violently now--"for you can teach him much, and Ananias
was the merest aboriginal to you. But we'll get you--we'll get you,
Dolores. You saved that guilty fellow by a careful and remarkable perjury
to-day. In a long experience I have never seen a better performance--have
you, monsieur?" he added to M. Fille.
"But once," was the pointed and deliberate reply. "Ah, when was that?"
asked Judge Carcasson, interested.
"The year monsieur le juge was ill, and Judge Blaquiere took your place.
It was in Vilray at the Court House here."
"Ah--ah, and who was the phenomenon--the perfect liar?" asked the Judge
with the eagerness of the expert.
"His name was Sebastian Dolores," meditatively replied M. Fille. "It was
even a finer performance than that of to-day."
The Judge gave a little grunt of surprise. "Twice, eh?" he asked. "Yet
this was good enough to break any record," he added. He fastened the
young widow's eyes. "Madame, you are young, and you have an eye of
intelligence. Be sure of this: you can protect yourself against almost
anyone except a liar--eh, madame?" he added to Mere Langlois. "I am sure
your experience of life and your good sense--"
"My good sense would make me think purgatory was hell if I saw him"--she
nodded savagely at Dolores as she said it, for she had seen that last
effort of his to take the fingers of Palass Poucette's widow--"if I saw
him there, m'sieu' le juge."