Ellery Queen's Blighted Dwellings, page 33
To round out the melancholy yet soothing thoughts which fill the mind, there is on one of the walls a sundial, embellished with this commonplace Christian inscription: ULTIMAM COGITA. The roof of the house is terribly dilapidated, the blinds are always drawn, the balconies are covered with swallows’ nests, the doors are never opened. Tall weeds mark with green lines the cracks in the steps; the ironwork is covered with rust. Moon, sun, winter, summer, snow, have rotted the wood, warped the boards, and corroded the paint.
The deathly silence which reigns there is disturbed only by the birds, the cats, the martens, the rats, and the mice, which are at liberty to run about, to fight, and to eat one another at their will. An invisible hand has written everywhere the word “mystery.”
If, impelled by curiosity, you should go to inspect the house on the street side, you would see a high gate, arched at the top, in which the children of the neighborhood have made numberless holes. I learned later that that gate had been condemned ten years before. Through these irregular breaches you would be able to observe the perfect harmony between the garden front and the courtyard front. The same disorder reigns supreme in both. Tufts of weeds surround the pavements. Enormous cracks furrow the walls, whose blackened tops are enlaced by the countless tendrils of climbing plants. The steps are wrenched apart, the bell-rope is rotten, the gutters are broken. “What fire from heaven has passed this way? What tribunal has ordered salt to be strewn upon this dwelling? Has God been insulted here? Has France been betrayed?” Such are the questions which one asks one’s self. The reptiles crawl hither and thither without answering. That empty and deserted house is an immense riddle, the solution of which is known to no one.
It was formerly a small feudal estate and bore the name of La Grande Bretèche. During my stay at Vendôme, where Desplein had left me to attend a rich patient, the aspect of that strange building became one of my keenest pleasures. Was it not more than a mere ruin? Some souvenirs of undeniable authenticity are always connected with a ruin, but that abode, still standing, although in process of gradual demolition by an avenging hand, concealed a secret, an unknown thought; at the very least, it betrayed a caprice. More than once, in the evening, I wandered in the direction of the hedge, now wild and uncared for, which surrounded that enclosure. I defied scratches and made my way into that ownerless garden, that estate which was neither public nor private, and I remained whole hours there contemplating its disarray. Not even to learn the story which would doubtless account for that extraordinary spectacle would I have asked a single question of any Vendômese gossip. Straying about there, I composed delightful romances, I abandoned myself to little orgies of melancholy which enchanted me.
If I had learned the cause of that perhaps most commonplace neglect, I should have lost the unspoken poesy with which I intoxicated myself. To me that spot represented the most diverse images of human life darkened by its misfortunes. Now it was the air of the cloister, minus the monks; again, the perfect peace of the cemetery, minus the dead speaking their epitaphic language; today, the house of the leper; tomorrow, that of the Fates; but it was, above all, the image of the province, with its meditation, with its hourglass life. I have often wept there, but never laughed. More than once I have felt an involuntary terror, as I heard above my head the low rustling made by the wings of some hurrying dove.
The ground is damp; you must beware of lizards, snakes, and toads, which wander about there with the fearless liberty of nature. Above all, you must not fear the cold, for after a few seconds you feel an icy cloak resting upon your shoulders like the hand of the Comendador on the neck of Don Juan.
One evening I had shuddered there; the wind had twisted an old rusty weather-vane, whose shrieks resembled a groan uttered by the house at the moment I was finishing a rather dismal melodrama by which I sought to explain to myself that species of monumental grief. I returned to my inn, beset by somber thoughts. When I had supped, my hostess entered my room with a mysterious air and said tome:
“Here is Monsieur Regnault, monsieur.”
“Who is Monsieur Regnault?”
“What! Monsieur doesn’t know Monsieur Regnault? That’s funny,” she said as she left the room.
Suddenly I saw a tall slender man dressed in black, with his hat in his hand, who entered the room like a ram ready to rush at his rival, disclosing a retreating forehead, a small pointed head, and a pale face, not unlike a glass of dirty water. You would have said that he was the doorkeeper of some minister. He wore an old coat, threadbare at the seams, but he had a diamond in his shirt-frill and gold rings in his ears.
“To whom have I the honor of speaking, monsieur?” I asked him.
He took a chair, seated himself in front of my fire, placed his hat on my table, and replied, rubbing his hands:
“Ah! It’s very cold! I am Monsieur Regnault, monsieur.”
I bowed, saying to myself:
Il Bondocani! Look for him!
“I am the notary at Vendôme,” he continued.
“I am delighted to hear it, monsieur,” I exclaimed, “but I am not ready to make my will, for reasons best known to myself.”
“Just a minute,” he rejoined, raising his hand as if to impose silence upon me. “I beg pardon, monsieur, I beg pardon! I have heard that you go to walk sometimes in the garden of La Grande Bretèche.”
“Yes, monsieur!”
“Just a minute,” he said, repeating his gesture. “That practice constitutes a downright trespass. I have come, monsieur, in the name and as executor of the late Madame Countess de Merret, to beg you to discontinue your visits. Just a minute! I’m not a Turk and I don’t propose to charge you with a crime. Besides, it may well be that you are not aware of the circumstances which compel me to allow the finest mansion in Vendôme to fall to ruin. However, monsieur, you seem to be a man of education and you must know that the law forbids entrance upon an enclosed estate under severe penalties. A hedge is as good as a wall. But the present condition of the house may serve as an excuse for your curiosity. I would ask nothing better than to allow you to go and come as you please in that house, but, as it is my duty to carry out the will of the testatrix, I have the honor, monsieur, to request you not to go into that garden again. Even I myself, monsieur, since the opening of the will, have never set foot inside that house, which, as I have had the honor to tell you, is a part of the estate of Madame de Merret. We simply reported the number of doors and windows, in order to fix the amount of the impost which I pay annually from the fund set aside for that purpose by the late countess. Ah! Her will made a great deal of talk in Vendôme, monsieur.”
At that, he stopped to blow his nose, the excellent man. I respected his loquacity, understanding perfectly that the administration of Madame de Merret’s property was the important event of his life—his reputation, his glory, his Restoration. I must needs bid adieu to my pleasant reveries, to my romances; so that I was not inclined to scorn the pleasure of learning the truth from an official source.
“Would it be indiscreet, monsieur,” I asked him, “to ask you the reason of this extraordinary state of affairs?”
At that question, an expression which betrayed all the pleasure that a man feels who is accustomed to ride a hobby passed over the notary’s face. He pulled up his shirt collar with a self-satisfied air, produced his snuffbox, opened it, offered it to me, and, at my refusal, took a famous pinch himself. He was happy; the man who has no hobby has no idea of the satisfaction that can be derived from life. A hobby is the precise mean between passion and monomania. At that moment I understood the witty expression of Sterne in all its extent, and I had a perfect conception of the joy with which Uncle Toby, with Trim’s assistance, bestrode his battle-horse.
“Monsieur,” said Monsieur Regnault, “I was chief clerk to Master Roguin of Paris. An excellent office, of which you may have heard? No? Why, it was made famous by a disastrous failure. Not having sufficient money to practice in Paris, at the price to which offices had risen in 1816, I came here and bought the office of my predecessor. I had relatives in Vendôme, among others a very rich aunt who gave me her daughter in marriage.
“Monsieur,” he continued after a brief pause, “three months after being licensed by the Keeper of the Seals I was sent for one evening, just as I was going to bed (I was not then married), by Madame Countess de Merret to come to her Château de Merret. Her maid, an excellent girl who works in this inn today, was at my door with madame countess’s carriage. But, just a minute! I must tell you, monsieur, that Monsieur Count de Merret had gone to Paris to die two months before I came here. He died miserably there, abandoning himself to excesses of all sorts. You understand?—On the day of his departure, madame countess had left La Grande Bretèche and had dismantled it. Indeed, some people declare that she burned the furniture and hangings, and all chattels whatsoever now contained in the estate leased by the said—
“What on earth am I saying? I beg pardon, I thought I was dictating a lease.—That she burned them,” he continued, “in the fields at Merret. Have you been to Merret, monsieur? No?” he said, answering his own question. “Ah! That is a lovely spot! For about three months,” he continued after a slight shake of the head, “monsieur count and madame countess led a strange life.
“They received no guests. Madame lived on the ground floor and monsieur on the first floor. When madame countess was left alone, she never appeared except at church. Later, in her own house, at her château, she refused to see the friends who came to see her. She was already much changed when she left La Grande Bretèche to go to Merret. The dear woman—I say ‘dear,’ because this diamond came from her, but I actually only saw her once—the excellent lady, then, was very ill; she had doubtless despaired of her health, for she died without calling a doctor, so that many of our ladies thought that she was not in full possession of her wits.
“My curiosity was therefore strangely aroused, monsieur, when I learned that Madame de Merret needed my services. I was not the only one who took an interest in that story. That same evening, although it was late, the whole town knew that I had gone to Merret. The maid answered rather vaguely the questions that I asked her on the road; she told me, however, that her mistress had received the sacrament from the cure of Merret during the day and that she did not seem likely to live through the night.
“I reached the château about eleven o’clock. I mounted the main staircase. After passing through diverse large rooms, high and dark and as cold and damp as the devil, I reached the state bedchamber where the countess was. According to the reports that were current concerning that lady—I should never end, monsieur, if I should repeat all the stories that are told about her—I had thought of her as a coquette. But, if you please, I had much difficulty in finding her in the huge bed in which she lay. To be sure, to light that enormous wainscoted chamber of the old regime, where everything was so covered with dust that it made one sneeze simply to look at it, she had only one of those old-fashioned Argand lamps. Ah! But you have never been to Merret. Well, monsieur, the bed is one of those beds of the olden time, with a high canopy of flowered material. A small night-table stood beside the bed and I saw upon it a copy of the Imitation of Jesus Christ, which, by the by, I bought for my wife, as well as the lamp. There was also a large couch for the attendant and two chairs. Not a spark of fire. That was all the furniture. It wouldn’t have filled ten lines in an inventory.
“Oh, my dear monsieur, if you had seen, as I then saw it, that huge room hung with dark tapestry, you would have imagined yourself transported into a genuine scene from a novel. It was icy cold, and, more than that, absolutely funereal,” he added, raising his arm with a theatrical gesture and pausing for a moment.
“By looking hard and walking close to the bed, I succeeded in discovering Madame de Merret, thanks to the lamp, the light of which shone upon the pillow. Her face was as yellow as wax and resembled two clasped hands. She wore a lace cap, which revealed her lovely hair, as white as snow. She was sitting up, and seemed to retain that position with much difficulty. Her great black eyes, dulled by fever no doubt and already almost lifeless, hardly moved beneath the bones which the eyebrows cover—these,” he said, pointing to the arch over his eyes. “Her brow was moist. Her fleshless hands resembled bones covered with tightly drawn skin; her veins and muscles could be seen perfectly.
“She must have been very beautiful, but at that moment I was seized with an indefinable feeling at her aspect. Never before, according to those who laid her out, had a living creature attained such thinness without dying. In short, she was horrible to look at; disease had so wasted that woman that she was nothing more than a phantom. Her pale violet lips seemed not to move when she spoke to me. Although my profession had familiarized me with such spectacles, by taking me sometimes to the pillows of dying persons to take down their last wishes, I confess that the families in tears and despair whom I had seen were as nothing beside that solitary, silent woman in that enormous château.
“I did not hear the slightest sound, I could not detect the movement which the breathing of the sick woman should have imparted to the sheets that covered her; and I stood quite still, gazing at her in a sort of stupor. It seems to me that I am there now. At last her great eyes moved, she tried to raise her right hand, which fell back upon the bed, and these words came from her mouth like a breath, for her voice had already ceased to be a voice: ‘I have been awaiting you with much impatience.’
“Her cheeks suddenly flushed. It was a great effort for her to speak, monsieur. ‘Madame,’ I said. She motioned to me to be silent. At that moment the old nurse rose and whispered in my ear: ‘Don’t speak; madame countess cannot bear to hear the slightest sound, and what you said might excite her.’ I sat down. A few moments later, Madame de Merret collected all her remaining strength to move her right arm and thrust it, not without infinite difficulty, beneath her bolster. She paused for just a moment, then she made a last effort to withdraw her hand, and when she finally produced a sealed paper, drops of sweat fell from her brow. ‘I place my will in your hands,’ she said. ‘Oh, mon Dieu! Oh!’ That was all. She grasped a crucifix that lay on her bed, hastily put it to her lips, and died. The expression of her staring eyes makes me shudder even now when I think of it. She must have suffered terribly! There was a gleam of joy in her last glance, a sentiment which remained in her dead eyes.
“I carried the will away; and when it was opened, I found that Madame de Merret had appointed me her executor. She left all her property to the hospital at Vendôme with the exception of a few individual legacies. But these were her provisions with respect to La Grande Bretèche: she directed me to leave her house, for fifty years from the day of her death, in the same condition as at the moment that she died, forbidding any person whatsoever to enter the rooms, forbidding the slightest repairs to be made, and even setting aside a sum in order to hire keepers, if it should be found necessary, to assure the literal execution of her purpose. At the expiration of that period, if the desire of the testatrix has been carried out, the house is to belong to my heirs, for monsieur knows that notaries cannot accept legacies. If not, La Grande Bretèche is to revert to whoever is entitled to it, but with the obligation to comply with the conditions set forth in a codicil attached to the will, which is not to be opened until the expiration of the said fifty years. The will was not attacked, and so—”
At that, without finishing his sentence, the elongated notary glanced at me with a triumphant air and I made him altogether happy by addressing a few compliments to him.
“Monsieur,” I said, “you have made a profound impression upon me, so that I think I see that dying woman, paler than her sheets; her gleaming eyes terrify me and I shall dream of her tonight. But you must have formed some conjecture concerning the provisions of that extraordinary will.”
“Monsieur,” he said with a comical reserve, “I never allow myself to judge the conduct of those persons who honor me by giving me a diamond.”
I soon loosened the tongue of the scrupulous Vendômese notary, who communicated to me, not without long digressions, observations due to the profound politicians of both sexes whose decrees are law in Vendôme. But those observations were so contradictory and so diffuse that I almost fell asleep despite the interest I took in that authentic narrative. The dull and monotonous tone of the notary, who was accustomed, no doubt, to listen to himself, and to force Tiis clients and his fellow citizens to listen to him, triumphed over my curiosity.
“Aha! Many people, monsieur,” he said to me on the landing, “would like to live forty-five years more. But just a minute!” And with a sly expression, he placed his right forefinger on his nose, as if he would have said: Just mark what I say. “But to do that, to do that,” he added, “a man must be less than sixty.”
I closed my door, having been roused from my apathy by this last shaft, which the notary considered very clever; then I seated myself in my easy-chair, placing my feet on the andirons. I was soon absorbed in an imaginary romance a la Radcliffe, based upon the judicial observations of Monsieur Regnault, when my door, under the skillful manipulation of a woman’s hand, turned upon its hinges. My hostess appeared, a stout red-faced woman of excellent disposition, who had missed her vocation: she was a Fleming, who should have been born in a picture by Teniers.
“Well, monsieur,” she said, “no doubt Monsieur Regnault has given you his story of La Grande Bretèche?”
“Yes, Mother Lepas.”
“What did he tell you?”
I repeated in a few words the chilling and gloomy story of Madame de Merret. At each sentence, my hostess thrust out her neck, gazing at me with the true innkeeper’s perspicacity—a sort of happy medium between the instinct of the detective, the cunning of the spy, and the craft of the trader.
“My dear Madame Lepas,” I added, as I concluded, “you evidently know more, eh? If not, why should you have come up here?”
