The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (84 page)

It was unheard of to question one of the count’s commands, so the steward followed his master, unprotesting. The latter got into the carriage and motioned to him to do likewise. The steward sat respectfully on the front seat.

Monte Cristo noticed that, as he came down the steps, Bertuccio crossed himself in the manner of the Corsicans, who make a cross in the air with their thumbs; and that when he took his place in the carriage he muttered a short prayer under his breath. A less curious man would have taken pity on the worthy steward in view of the extreme reluctance he had shown to the idea of a drive
extra muros
with the count; but it appeared that the man was too keen to discover the reason why for him to excuse Bertuccio their little journey.

In twenty minutes they had reached Auteuil. The steward’s anxiety had increased steadily. As they entered the village, Bertuccio, slumped in a corner of the carriage, began to study each of the houses that they passed with feverish attention.

‘Tell them to stop at number twenty-eight, Rue de la Fontaine,’ the count said, staring pitilessly at his steward while giving him this order.

A sweat broke out on Bertuccio’s face, but he obeyed and, leaning out of the carriage, called to the coachman: ‘Rue de la Fontaine, number twenty-eight.’

Number 28 was at the far end of the village. As they travelled, night had fallen; or, rather, a black cloud heavy with electricity gave the premature darkness the appearance and the solemnity of a dramatic event. The carriage stopped and the footman leapt down to open the door.

‘Well, now, Monsieur Bertuccio,’ said the count, ‘won’t you get down? Do you intend to stay in the carriage, then? What the devil is up with you this evening?’

Bertuccio hastened to the door and offered the count his shoulder. This time he put his weight on it and took the three steps out of the carriage one by one.

‘Knock,’ said the count, ‘and announce me.’

Bertuccio knocked, the door opened and the concierge appeared.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Your new master, my good man,’ said the footman, handing the concierge the letter of recommendation from the notary.

‘Is the house sold, then?’ asked the concierge. ‘And is this the gentleman who will live here?’

‘Yes, my friend,’ the count replied. ‘I shall try to ensure that you do not wish for your former master’s return.’

‘Oh, Monsieur,’ said the concierge. ‘I shan’t miss him a lot because we see him rarely enough. He has not been here for five years and I think he was right to sell a house that brought him nothing.’

‘What was your former master’s name?’ Monte Cristo asked.

‘The Marquis de Saint-Méran. He didn’t sell the house for what it cost him, I’ll be bound.’

‘The Marquis de Saint-Méran!’ Monte Cristo repeated. ‘Now, I feel sure I know that name: Marquis de Saint-Méran…’ He appeared to be searching his memory.

‘An old gentleman,’ the concierge went on. ‘A loyal subject of the Bourbons. He had an only daughter whom he married to Monsieur de Villefort, who was the king’s prosecutor in Nîmes and later in Versailles.’

Monte Cristo glanced at Bertuccio, to find him whiter than the wall against which he had leant to prevent himself falling.

‘And the daughter died, didn’t she?’ Monte Cristo asked. ‘I thought I heard something of the sort.’

‘Yes, Monsieur, twenty-one years ago, since when we have not seen the poor dear Marquis more than three times.’

‘Thank you, thank you,’ said Monte Cristo, judging from his steward’s prostrate appearance that he could not stretch that cord any tighter without breaking it. ‘Thank you, my good man. Give us some light.’

‘Does Monsieur want me to come with him?’

‘Don’t bother, Bertuccio will light my way.’

Monte Cristo accompanied these words with the gift of two gold pieces, which gave rise to an explosion of blessings and sighs.

‘Oh, Monsieur!’ said the concierge, after looking in vain on the mantelpiece and the surrounds. ‘I’m afraid I have no candles here.’

‘Take one of the lanterns from the carriage, Bertuccio, and show me the house,’ said the count.

The steward obeyed without a murmur but it was easy to see, from the trembling of the hand which held the lantern, how much it cost him to obey.

They entered a large ground floor consisting of a drawing-room, a bathroom and two bedrooms. Through one of the bedrooms you could reach a spiral staircase which led down to the garden.

‘Ah, here’s a stairway to the outside,’ said the count. ‘How convenient. Give me some light, Monsieur Bertuccio; lead the way and let’s see where this staircase will take us.’

‘Monsieur,’ said Bertuccio, ‘it goes to the garden.’

‘How do you know that, if you please?’

‘I mean, that is where it must go.’

‘Very well. Let’s find out.’

Bertuccio sighed and led the way. The staircase did, indeed, take them into the garden. The steward stopped at the outer door.

‘Carry on, Monsieur Bertuccio!’ said the count.

But the man to whom this injunction was addressed was dumbstruck, stupefied, crushed. His haggard eyes searched around him as if hunting for the traces of some awful event, and his clenched fists seemed to be warding off some frightful memory from the past.

‘Well?’ the count insisted.

‘No, no!’ Bertuccio cried, reaching out to the inside wall. ‘No, Monsieur, I will go no further. I cannot!’

‘What does this mean?’ Monte Cristo’s implacable voice demanded.

‘But, Monsieur, surely you can understand,’ cried the steward. ‘It isn’t natural! It’s not natural that, when you are to buy a house in Paris, you should choose to buy one in Auteuil, and that the one you buy in Auteuil should be number twenty-eight, Rue de la Fontaine! Oh, why didn’t I tell you everything before we set out, Sire. You would surely not have insisted that I come. I hoped that Monsieur le Comte’s house would be any house other than this one. As if there was no house in Auteuil, except the house of the murder!’

‘Ah, now!’ Monte Cristo said, stopping short. ‘That is an ugly word you have just spoken. By all the devils! Irredeemable Corsican – full of mystery and superstition! Come now, take the lantern and let’s have a look at the garden. You will not be afraid while you are with me, I hope.’

Bertuccio obediently picked up the lantern.

When they opened the door, it was to reveal a wan sky in which the moon struggled in vain to hold its own against a sea of clouds which poured dark waves across it, waves which it lit for a moment before they raced on, still darker than before, to lose themselves in the depths of infinity.

The steward tried to make off towards the left.

‘No, no, Monsieur,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘What is the point of following the paths? We have a fine lawn here: let’s go straight ahead.’

Bertuccio wiped the sweat from his brow, but he obeyed, while still veering towards the left. Monte Cristo, on the contrary, made for the right. Reaching a group of trees, he stopped. The steward could contain himself no longer.

‘Come away, Monsieur,’ he cried. ‘Come away, I beg you. You are on the very spot!’

‘What spot is that?’

‘The spot where he fell.’

‘My dear Monsieur Bertuccio,’ said Monte Cristo, laughing, ‘take a hold of yourself, I pray you. We are not in Sartène or Corte. This is not your Corsican bush, but a garden, in the English fashion, poorly enough kept, I grant you, but not to be insulted for all that.’

‘Monsieur, don’t stay there! I beg you, don’t stay there!’

‘I think you are going mad, Monsieur Bertuccio,’ the count said coldly. ‘If that is the case, please inform me and I shall have you confined to some lunatic asylum before any harm is done.’

‘Alas, Excellency,’ said Bertuccio, shaking his head and clasping his hands in an attitude that would have made the count laugh if he had not been seized by more urgent thoughts at that moment, which made him acutely responsive to the slightest movement of that timorous soul. ‘Alas, Excellency! The harm is already done.’

‘Monsieur Bertuccio,’ the count said. ‘I am pleased to tell you that, amid your gesticulations, you are twisting your arms and rolling your eyes like a man possessed of a devil which is unwilling to depart from his body. Now I have always observed that the devil which is least inclined to leave its post is a secret. I knew you to be a Corsican, I knew you to be sombre and I knew that you were always mulling over some old tale of a vendetta; and in Italy I forgave you that, because in Italy such things are acceptable. However, in France people usually consider murder to be in very poor taste: there are gendarmes to look after it, judges to condemn it and scaffolds to avenge it.’

Bertuccio clasped his hands – and since, while he was performing these various movements, he kept hold of the lantern, the light fell on his stricken face. Monte Cristo examined it with the same eye as he had turned, in Rome, on the execution of Andrea. Then, in a voice that sent a new shudder through the whole of the steward’s frame, he said: ‘So Abbé Busoni lied to me, then, after his journey to France in 1829, when he sent you to me with a letter of recommendation in which he assured me of your exceptional qualities. Well, I must write to the abbé. I hold him responsible for his protégé and he will no doubt tell me what all this business of murder is about. One thing, however, Monsieur Bertuccio: I warn you that when I visit a country, I am accustomed to conform with its laws and I have no wish to become embroiled with French justice for your sake.’

‘Oh, don’t do that, Excellency. I have served you well, have I not?’ Bertuccio cried out in despair. ‘I have always been a good man and I have even, as far as I was able, done good deeds.’

‘I don’t deny it,’ said the count. ‘So why the devil are you so agitated? It is a bad sign: a clear conscience does not put so much pallor on a man’s cheeks or so much fever in his hands.’

‘But, Monsieur le Comte,’ Bertuccio said, hesitantly, ‘did you not tell me yourself that Abbé Busoni, who heard my confession in prison at Nîmes, warned you, when he sent me to you, that I had a grave sin on my conscience?’

‘Yes, but since he sent you to me, telling me that you would make an excellent steward, I just supposed that you must have stolen something!’

‘Monsieur le Comte!’ said Bertuccio, with contempt.

‘Or that, being a Corsican, you had been unable to resist the temptation to “make your bones”, as they say there – by antiphrasis, when, on the contrary, they unmake some.’

‘Yes, Monseigneur! Yes, my good master, that’s it!’ Bertuccio cried, throwing himself at the count’s knees. ‘Yes, it was a vendetta, I swear it, a simple act of revenge.’

‘I understand. What I do not understand, however, is why this house in particular should have such an effect on you.’

‘But, Sire, it’s natural,’ Bertuccio went on, ‘since it was in this house that the revenge was carried out.’

‘What! In my house!’

‘Well, Sire, it was not yet yours at the time,’ Bertuccio replied naïvely.

‘Whose was it then? I believe the concierge said it belonged to Monsieur le Marquis de Saint-Méran; so what on earth grudge could you have against the Marquis de Saint-Méran?’

‘Not against him, Sire – against someone else.’

‘This is an odd coincidence,’ Monte Cristo said, as if giving way to his own thoughts, ‘that you should find yourself like this, by chance, with no prior knowledge, in a house which was the scene of an event that causes you such terrible remorse.’

‘Sire,’ said the steward, ‘I am sure that Fate is responsible for all this. First of all, you buy a house in Auteuil, and nowhere else, and this house is the one where I committed a murder; then you entered the garden by the very staircase that he came down; you paused at the very spot where he fell. Two steps away, under that
plane-tree, was the hole where he had just buried the child. All this is not chance because, if it were, then chance would be too much like Providence.’

‘Come now, come now, my Corsican friend, just imagine it was Providence – I always imagine what people ask me to; and in any case, one must make some allowance for a sick mind. So gather your wits and tell me all about it.’

‘I have only told the story once, and that was to Abbé Busoni,’ Bertuccio said, adding: ‘Such things can only be told under the seal of the confessional.’

‘In which case, my dear Bertuccio,’ said the count, ‘you won’t mind if I send you back to your confessor. You will become a Carthusian or a Benedictine, and chat about your secrets. However, it makes me anxious, having a guest who is terrified by such ghosts. I don’t like it when my people dare not walk around my garden at night. Then, I must admit to you, I should not be delighted by a visit from some police commissioner, because – mark this well, Monsieur Bertuccio – in Italy one only pays justice to keep quiet, while in France, on the contrary, one pays it when it speaks. Damn! I did think you a bit of a Corsican, a good deal of a smuggler and a very able steward, but I see that you have other strings to your bow. You are no longer one of my men, Monsieur Bertuccio.’

‘Oh, Monseigneur! Monseigneur!’ the steward cried, stricken with terror at this threat. ‘If that is the only thing that prevents me from remaining in your service, I shall speak. I shall tell all. Then, if I leave you, it will be to walk to the scaffold.’