Strange True Stories of Louisiana Part 23

Thence arose the other question--had the Englishman any money? And if so, was it much, or was it so little as to make it hardly worth while for the Englishman to die early at all? You can't tell just by looking at a man or his clothes. In fact, is it not astonis.h.i.+ng how quietly a man--of the quiet kind--can either save great s.h.i.+ning stacks of money, or get rid of all he makes as fast as he makes it? Isn't it astonis.h.i.+ng? Being a cotton buyer did not answer the question. He might be getting very large pay or very small; or even none. Some men had got rich without ever charging anything for their services. The cotton business those days was a perfectly lovely business--so many shady by-paths and circuitous labyrinths. Even in the law--why, sometimes even he, Camille Ducour, did not charge anything. But that was not often.

Only one thing was clear--there ought to be a written will. For Attalie Brouillard, f. w. c, could by no means be or become the Englishman's legal heir. The law mumbled something about "one-tenth," but for the rest answered in the negative and with a black frown. Her only chance--but we shall come to that.

All in a tremor one day a messenger, Attalie's black slave girl, came to Camille to say that her mistress was in trouble! in distress! in deeper distress than he could possibly imagine, and in instant need of that wise counsel which Camille Ducour had so frequently offered to give.

"I am busy," he said, in the Creole-negro _patois_, "but--has anybody--has anything happened to--to anybody in Madame Brouillard's house?"

"Yes," the messenger feared that "_ce Michie qui pote soulie jaune_--that gentleman who wears yellow shoes--is ill. Madame Brouillard is hurrying to and fro and crying."

"Very loud?"

"No, silently; yet as though her heart were breaking."

"And the doctor?" asks Camille, as he and the messenger are hurrying side by side out of Exchange alley into Bienville street.

"---- was there yesterday and the day before."

They reach the house. Attalie meets her counselor alone at the top of the stairs. "_Li bien malade_," she whispers, weeping; "he is very ill."

"---- wants to make his will?" asks Camille. All their talk is in their bad French.

Attalie nods, answers inaudibly, and weeps afresh. Presently she manages to tell how the sick man had tried to write, and failed, and had fallen back exclaiming, "Attalie--Attalie--I want to leave it all to you--what little--" and did not finish, but presently gasped out, "Bring a notary."

"And the doctor?"

"---- has not come to-day. Michie told the doctor if he came again he would kick him downstairs. Yes, and the doctor says whenever a patient of his says that he stops coming."

They reach the door of the sick man's bedchamber. Attalie pushes it softly, looks into the darkened chamber and draws back, whispering, "He has dropped asleep."

Camille changes places with her and looks in. Then he moves a step across the threshold, leans forward peeringly, and then turns about, lifts his ill-kept forefinger, and murmurs while he fixes his little eyes on hers:

"If you make a noise, or in any way let any one know what has happened, it will cost you all he is worth. I will leave you alone with him just ten minutes." He makes as if to pa.s.s by her towards the stair, but she seizes him by the wrist.

"What do you mean?" she asks, with alarm.

"Hus.h.!.+ you speak too loud. He is dead."

The woman leaps by him, slamming him against the banisters, and disappears within the room. Camille hears her loud, long moan as she reaches the bedside. He takes three or four audible steps away from the door and towards the stairs, then turns, and darting with the swift silence of a cat surprises her on her knees by the bed, disheveled, unheeding, all moans and tears, and covering with pa.s.sionate kisses the dead man's--hands only!

To impute moral sublimity to a white man and a quadroon woman at one and the same time and in one and the same affair was something beyond the powers of Camille's small soul. But he gave Attalie, on the instant, full credit, over credit it may be, and felt a momentary thrill of spiritual contagion that he had scarcely known before in all his days. He uttered not a sound; but for all that he said within himself, drawing his breath in through his clenched teeth, and tightening his fists till they trembled, "Oho-o!--Aha!--No wonder you postponed the writing of your will day by day, month by month, year in and year out! But you shall see, my fine Michie White man--dead as you are, you shall see--you'll see if you shan't!--she shall have the money, little or much! Unless there are heirs she shall have every picayune of it!" Almost as quickly as it had flashed up, the faint flicker of moral feeling died out; yet the resolution remained. He was going to "beat" a dead white man.

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 grat.i.tude. 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, Michie 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 Michie 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!