Part 23 (1/2)
He held out his hand in silence and took the paper from her. Putting his head a little on one side, he read it. At first he seemed hardly to get the formal language clear in his mind; however, or maybe his mind was still away in that abstraction into which he had whisked it when he began his reply to her fine offer; but he read it out aloud, first quickly, then very slowly, and he looked at the signature with a deeply meditative air.
”Virginie Poucette--that's a good name,” he remarked; ”and also good for two thousand dollars!” He paused to smile contentedly over his own joke.
”And good for a great deal more than that too,” he added with a nod.
”Yes, ten times as much as that,” she responded quickly, her eyes fixed on his face. She scarcely knew herself what she was thinking when she said it; but most people who read this history will think she was hinting that her a.s.sets might be united with his, and so enable him to wipe out his liabilities and do a good deal more besides. Yet, how could that be, since Carmen Dolores was still his wife if she was alive; and also they both were Catholics, and Catholics did not recognize divorce!
Truth is, Virginie Poucette's mind did not define her feelings at all clearly, or express exactly what she wanted. Her actions said one thing certainly; but if the question had been put to her, whether she was doing this thing because of a wish to take the place of Carmen Dolores in Jean Jacques' life she would have said no at once. She had not come to that--yet. She was simply moved by a sentiment of pity for Jean Jacques, and as she had no child, or husband, or sister, or brother, or father, or mother, but only relatives who tried to impose upon her, she needed an objective for the emotions of her nature, for the overflow of her unused affection and her unsatisfied maternal spirit. Here, then, was the most obvious opportunity--a man in trouble who had not deserved the bitter bad luck which had come to him. Even old Mere Langlois in the market-place at Vilray had admitted that, and had said the same later on in Virginie's home.
For an instant Jean Jacques was fascinated by the sudden prospect which opened out before him. If he asked her, this woman would probably loan him five thousand dollars--and she had mentioned nothing about security!
”What security do you want?” he asked in a husky voice.
”Security? I don't understand about that,” she replied. ”I'd not offer you the money if I didn't think you were an honest man, and an honest man would pay me back. A dishonest man wouldn't pay me back, security or no security.”
”He'd have to pay you back if the security was right to start with,”
Jean Jacques insisted. ”But you don't want security, because you think I'm an honest man! Well, for sure you're right. I am honest. I never took a cent that wasn't mine; but that's not everything. If you lend you ought to have security. I've lost a good deal from not having enough security at the start. You are willing to lend me money without security--that's enough to make me feel thirty again, and I'm fifty--I'm fifty,” he added, as though with an attempt to show her that she could not think of him in any emotional way; though the day when his flour-mill was burned he had felt the touch of her fingers comforting and thrilling.
”You think Jean Jacques Barbille's word as good as his bond?” he continued. ”So it is; but I'm going to pull this thing through alone.
That's what I said to you and Maitre Fille at his office. I meant it too--help of G.o.d, it is the truth!”
He had forgotten that if M. Mornay had not made it easy for him, and had not refrained from insisting on his pound of flesh, he would now be insolvent and with no roof over him. Like many another man Jean Jacques was the occasional slave of formula, and also the victim of phases of his own temperament. In truth he had not realized how big a thing M.
Mornay had done for him. He had accepted the chance given him as the tribute to his own courage and enterprise and integrity, and as though it was to the advantage of his greatest creditor to give him another start; though in reality it had made no difference to the Big Financier, who knew his man and, with wide-open eyes, did what he had done.
Virginie was not subtle. She did not understand, was never satisfied with allusions, and she had no gift for catching the drift of things.
She could endure no peradventure in her conversation. She wanted plain speaking and to be literally sure.
”Are you going to take it?” she asked abruptly.
He could not bear to be checked in his course. He waved a hand and smiled at her. Then his eyes seemed to travel away into the distance, the look of the dreamer in them; but behind all was that strange, ruddy underglow of revelation which kept emerging from shadows, retreating and emerging, yet always there now, in much or in little, since the burning of the mill.
”I've lent a good deal of money without security in my time,” he reflected, ”but the only people who ever paid me back were a deaf and dumb man and a flyaway--a woman that was tired of selling herself, and started straight and right with the money I lent her. She had been the wife of a man who studied with me at Laval. She paid me back every penny, too, year by year for five years. The rest I lent money to never paid; but they paid, the dummy and the harlot that was, they paid! But they paid for the rest also! If I had refused these two because of the others, I'd not be fit to visit at Neighbourhood House where Virginie Poucette lives.”
He looked closely at the order she had given him again, as though to let it sink in his mind and be registered for ever. ”I'm going to do without any further use of your two thousand dollars,” he continued cheer fully.
”It has done its work. You've lent it to me, I've used it”--he put the hand holding it on his breast--”and I'm paying it back to you, but without interest.” He gave the order to her.
”I don't see what you mean,” she said helplessly, and she looked at the paper, as though it had undergone some change while it was in his hand.
”That you would lend it me is worth ten times two thousand to me, Virginie Poucette,” he explained. ”It gives me, not a kick from behind--I've not had much else lately--but it holds a light in front of me. It calls me. It says, 'March on, Jean Jacques--climb the mountain.'
It summons me to dispose my forces for the campaign which will restore the Manor Cartier to what it has ever been since the days of the Baron of Beaugard. It quickens the blood at my heart. It restores--”
Virginie would not allow him to go on. ”You won't let me help you?
Suppose I do lose the money--I didn't earn it; it was earned by Pala.s.s Poucette, and he'd understand, if he knew. I can live without the money, if I have to, but you would pay it back, I know. You oughtn't to take any extra risks. If your daughter should come back and not find you here, if she returned to the Manor Cartier, and--”
He made an insistent gesture. ”Hus.h.!.+ Be still, my friend--as good a friend as a man could have. If my Zoe came back I'd like to feel--I'd like to feel that I had saved things alone; that no woman's money made me safe. If Zoe or if--”
He was going to say, ”If Carmen came back,” for his mind was moving in past scenes; but he stopped short and looked around helplessly. Then presently, as though by an effort, he added with a bravura note in his voice:
”The world has been full of trouble for a long time, but there have always been men to say to trouble, 'I am master, I have the mind to get above it all.' Well, I am one of them.”