The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (134 page)

On the previous day, Franz had been introduced to Mme de Saint-Méran, who had left her bed long enough for the introduction to take place, then immediately returned to it.

As one may well imagine, Morrel was in a state of agitation that could hardly be expected to escape an eye as perceptive as that of the count. Monte Cristo was consequently more affectionate towards him than ever, to such a point that two or three times Maximilien was on the verge of confessing everything to him. But he remembered his formal promise to Valentine and the secret remained sealed in his heart.

Twenty times during the day the young man re-read Valentine’s letter. This was the first time she had written to him – and in such circumstances! Each time he re-read it, Maximilien renewed his promise to himself that he would make Valentine happy. A girl who can take such a courageous decision acquires every right: is there any degree of devotion that she does not deserve from the person for whom she has sacrificed everything! To her lover, she must surely be the first and worthiest object of his devotion, at once the wife and the queen; no soul is vast enough to thank and to love her.

Morrel kept thinking, with unspeakable anxiety, of the moment when Valentine would arrive and say: ‘Here I am. Take me!’

He had prepared everything for the escape. Two ladders were concealed among the alfalfa grass in the field. A cab, which would take Maximilien himself, was waiting; there would be no servants and no lights, though, once round the first corner, they would light the lanterns, because it was essential that an excess of precautions should not lead them into the hands of the police.

From time to time a shudder passed right through Morrel’s body. He was thinking of the moment when he would be helping Valentine come down from the top of the wall and would feel this girl, whom he had not touched until then except to squeeze her hand and kiss the tips of her fingers, abandon herself, trembling, to his arms.

However, when the afternoon came and Morrel knew that the time was drawing near, he felt a need to be alone. His blood was boiling and the merest question, even the voice of a friend, would have irritated him. He shut himself up at home and tried to read, but his eyes slipped across the pages without taking anything in, and eventually he tossed the book aside and, for the second time, set about drawing his plan, his ladders and his field.

At last, the moment approached.

No man truly in love has ever let the hands of a clock go peacefully on their way. Morrel tortured his so much that finally they showed half-past eight at six o’clock; so he decided that it was time to leave, that nine o’clock might be the hour appointed for signing the contract, but that in all probability Valentine would not wait for this pointless ceremony. Leaving the Rue Meslay at half-past eight on his clock, Morrel went into the field just as eight o’clock was striking at Saint-Philippe-du-Roule. The horse and cab were hidden behind a little ruined hut in which Morrel himself was accustomed to hide.

Little by little, night fell and the trees in the garden merged into deep black clusters. Morrel came out of his hiding-place and, with beating heart, went to look through the hole in the fence. So far, there was no one there.

Half-past eight struck. Half an hour more went by in waiting. Morrel walked up and down; then, at increasingly frequent intervals, went over to press his face against the fence. The garden was growing darker and darker, but he looked in vain for the white dress in the blackness and listened in vain for the footfall on the path.

The house, which could be seen through the leaves, remained dark and there was nothing about it that suggested a house open to celebrate an event as important as the signing of a marriage contract. Morrel looked at his watch, which struck a quarter to ten; but almost at once the church clock, which he had heard already two or three times, corrected the mistake by striking half-past nine. This meant he had already been waiting for half an hour beyond the time Valentine herself had appointed: she had said nine o’clock, before rather than after.

This was the worst moment for the young man, on whose heart each second fell like a lead mallet.

The slightest rustling of the leaves or whisper of the wind would
catch his attention and make the sweat break out on his forehead. When he heard these sounds, shivering, he set up his ladder and, not to lose any time, put his foot on the bottom rung. While he was caught between these contraries of hope and despair, in the midst of these swellings and contractions of the heart, he heard ten o’clock strike on the church tower.

‘It’s impossible,’ Morrel muttered in terror, ‘that the signing of a contract should take so long, unless something out of the ordinary has happened. I’ve taken everything into account and worked out how long each part of the ceremony should take: something is wrong.’

Now, alternately, he paced feverishly in front of the gate and stopped to press his burning forehead on the icy metal. Had Valentine fainted after the contract? Had she been stopped while trying to flee? These were the only two conjectures that occurred to the young man, and each was horrifying. Eventually he fixed on the idea that Valentine’s strength had given way during her flight and she had fallen, senseless, in the middle of one of the garden paths. ‘And if that is so,’ he cried, hurrying to the top of the ladder, ‘I should lose her, and by my own fault!’

The demon which had whispered this idea to him would not leave him, buzzing in his ear with that persistence which rapidly ensures that some doubts, by the sole force of reasoning, become certainties. Seeking to penetrate the growing darkness, his eyes thought that they could detect something lying on the path under the trees. Morrel even ventured to call and thought he could hear a faint cry carried back to him on the wind.

At length half-past also struck. It was impossible for him to contain himself any longer. Anything might have happened. Maximilien’s temples were beating violently and a haze clouded his eyes. He swung his legs over the wall and jumped down on the far side.

He was in the Villeforts’ garden; he had just climbed over their wall. He was fully aware of what might be the consequences of such an action, but he had not come this far only to turn back. In a few seconds he had passed the clump of trees and reached a point from which he could see the house.

This confirmed one thing that Morrel had guessed in trying to peer through the trees, which was that instead of the lights that he expected to see shining from every window, as would be normal
on such an important occasion, he could see nothing except a grey pile, still further obscured by the great curtain of darkness cast by a huge cloud crossing in front of the moon. From time to time a single light flickered as it crossed in front of three first-floor windows, as if distraught. These three windows belonged to the apartment of Mme de Saint-Méran.

Another light remained motionless behind some red curtains. These were the curtains at the windows of Mme de Villefort’s bedroom.

Morrel guessed all these things. Often, trying to follow Valentine in his thoughts at all times of the day, he had asked her to make him a plan of the house, so that now he knew it, without ever having seen it.

The young man felt even more appalled by this darkness and silence than he had been by Valentine’s absence. Distraught, wild with grief and determined to brave all in order to see Valentine and discover what was wrong, whatever it might be, Morrel reached the edge of the trees and was about to start crossing the flower garden – as fast as he could, because it was entirely open – when a sound of voices, still quite distant, drifted across to him on the wind.

At this noise, he stepped backwards into the bushes from which he had already half emerged and, concealing himself entirely in them, remained there without moving or making a sound, buried in darkness.

He was now resolved. If it was Valentine alone, he would whisper to her as she went past; if Valentine was accompanied by someone else, he would at least see her and ensure that no misfortune had befallen her; if they were strangers, he might grasp some words of their conversation and manage to understand this mystery, which so far remained impenetrable.

The moon now came out from behind the cloud that had been concealing it and Morrel saw Villefort at the door leading into the garden, followed by a man in black. They came down the steps and began to walk towards where he was hiding. They had only taken a few paces when Morrel recognized the man in black as Dr d’Avrigny. Seeing them approach, he automatically shrank back until he came up against the trunk of a sycamore at the centre of the clump; here he was obliged to stop.

Very shortly afterwards, the sound of the two men’s footsteps left the gravel.

‘My dear doctor,’ the crown prosecutor said, ‘heaven is definitely looking with disfavour on my house. What a horrible death! What a terrible blow! Do not try to console me; alas, the wound is too fresh and too deep. Dead! She is dead!’

The young man burst out in a cold sweat and his teeth began to chatter. Who then had died in this house which Villefort himself described as accursed?

‘My dear Monsieur de Villefort,’ the doctor replied, in tones that only increased the young man’s terror. ‘I have not brought you here to console you. Quite the opposite.’

‘What do you mean?’ the crown prosecutor asked, appalled.

‘What I mean is that, behind the misfortune that has just befallen you, there may be another, still greater misfortune.’

‘My God!’ said Villefort, clasping his hands. ‘What more have you to tell me?’

‘Are we quite alone, my friend?’

‘Yes, quite alone. But why these precautions?’

‘Because I have a dreadful secret to impart to you,’ the doctor said. ‘Let’s sit down.’

Villefort fell rather than sat down on a bench. The doctor remained standing in front of him, one hand resting on his shoulder. Morrel, chilled with terror, was clasping one hand to his forehead, while the other was pressed against his heart, for fear that they could hear it beating.

‘Dead, dead!’ he repeated, his thoughts echoed by his heart. And he himself felt as though he would die.

‘Speak, doctor, I am listening,’ said Villefort. ‘Strike. I am ready for anything.’

‘Madame de Saint-Méran was certainly very old, but she enjoyed excellent health.’

Morrel breathed again for the first time in ten minutes.

‘Sorrow killed her,’ said Villefort. ‘Yes, doctor, sorrow. After forty years living with the marquis…’

‘It was not sorrow, my dear Villefort,’ the doctor said. ‘Sorrow can kill, though such cases are rare, but it does not kill in one day, in one hour, in ten minutes.’

Villefort did not answer, merely raising his head, which had been lowered until then, and looking at the doctor with terrified eyes.

‘Did you stay with her in her last moments?’ d’Avrigny asked.

‘Of course,’ the crown prosecutor answered. ‘You whispered to me not to go away.’

‘Did you notice the symptoms of the disease to which Madame de Saint-Méran succumbed?’

‘Certainly I did. Madame de Saint-Méran had three successive attacks, a few minutes apart, the intervals becoming shorter and the attacks more serious. When you arrived, Madame de Saint-Méran had already been gasping for breath for some minutes. Then she suffered what I took to be a simple nervous attack: I did not start to become seriously concerned until I saw her rise up in her bed, her limbs and her neck stiffening. At this point, I could see from her face that it was more serious than I had believed. When the crisis was over, I tried to catch your eye, but I could not. You were taking her pulse and counting it when the second crisis occurred, before you had turned in my direction. The second seizure was worse than the first, accompanied by the same convulsive movements, while the mouth contracted and turned purple. At the third crisis she expired. I had already recognized tetanus from the first attack, and you confirmed that opinion.’

‘Yes,’ said the doctor, ‘in front of everybody; but now we are alone.’

‘What do you have to tell me, doctor?’

‘That the symptoms of tetanus and poisoning by certain vegetable substances are precisely the same.’

M. de Villefort leapt to his feet; then, after standing for a moment in silence, he sat back down on the bench.

‘My God, doctor,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you really considered what you are saying?’

Morrel did not know if he was awake or dreaming.

‘Listen,’ the doctor said. ‘I know the significance of what I say and the character of the man to whom I have said it.’

‘Are you speaking to the magistrate or to your friend?’ Villefort asked.

‘To my friend, and to him alone at the moment. The similarity between the symptoms of tetanus and those of poisoning by certain extracts of plants are so similar that, if I had to put my hand to what I am telling you, I should be reluctant to do so. So, I repeat, I am addressing you as a friend, not as a magistrate. What I have to say to this friend is as follows: for the three-quarters of an hour that it lasted, I studied Madame de Saint-Méran’s agony, her
convulsions and her death. I am convinced, not only that Madame de Saint-Méran died of poisoning, but that I can say – I can actually say – what poison killed her.’

‘Monsieur!’

‘Look, it is all there: drowsiness, broken by nervous fits; over-excitement of the brain; sluggishness of the vital organs. Madame de Saint-Méran succumbed to a massive dose of brucine or strychnine, which was administered to her, no doubt by chance, perhaps by mistake.’