“I feel that I have not so long to stay,” said the old man to the notary towards the end of the evening. “I beg you to come tomorrow to draw up the report and accounts I have to hand over to Ursule as her guardian, so as to avoid all complications after my death. Thank God, I have not robbed my heirs of a sou, and have spent nothing but my income. Messieurs Crémière, Massin, and my nephew Minoret are the family trustees appointed for Ursule, and they must be present at the auditing of the account.”
These words, overheard by Massin, and repeated in the ballroom, filled the three families with joy, after they had spent three years in constant alterations of feelings, believing themselves sometimes rich, and sometimes disinherited.
“It is a lamp flying out,” said Madame Crémière. (She meant dying out.)
When, at about two in the morning, no one remained in the room but Savinien, Bongrand, and the Abbé Chaperon, the old doctor said, as he pointed to Ursule, lovely in her ball-dress, having just said good night to the young Crémière and Massin girls:
“I place her in your hands, my friends. In a few days I shall be no longer here to protect her; stand between her and the world until she is married—I am afraid for her—”
These words made a painful impression. The account drawn up and read a few days later in the presence of a family council proved that Doctor Minoret was indebted to Ursule in the sum of ten thousand six hundred francs, partly as arrears of the shares bearing interest to the amount of fourteen thousand francs, which was accounted for by the investment of Captain de Jordy’s legacy, and partly as a small capital of five thousand francs derived from certain gifts made to his ward during the last fifteen years, on their respective birthdays or name-days.
This authenticated schedule of the account had been advised by the Justice, who feared what might be the result of the old man’s death; and, unhappily, not without reason. The day after the account was passed which made Ursule the mistress of ten thousand six hundred francs in shares and of fourteen hundred francs a year, the doctor had an attack of weakness which compelled him to keep his bed.
In spite of the caution which shrouded the house, a rumor spread in the town that he was dead, and the heirs flew about the streets like the beads of a rosary of which the thread is snapped. Massin, who came to inquire, heard from Ursule herself that the old man was in bed. Unfortunately, the town doctor had prognosticated that when Minoret took to his bed he would die at once. From that moment the whole family stood posted in the street, in the square, or on their front doorsteps, in spite of the cold, absorbed in discussing the long-expected event, and waiting for the moment when the curé should carry to the old man the last sacraments with all the ceremony usual in provincial towns. Hence, when two days later the Abbé Chaperon crossed the High Street, accompanied by his curate and the choir boys, the inheritors followed him to take possession of the house and prevent anything being removed, and to clutch with greedy hands all the imaginary treasure. When the doctor saw, beyond the clerics, all his heirs on their knees, and, far from praying, watching him with gleaming eyes as bright as the twinkling tapers, he could not repress a mischievous smile. The curé looked round, saw them, and read the prayers very slowly. The postmaster was the first to rise from his uncomfortable attitude, his wife followed his example; Massin, fearful lest Zélie and her husband should lay a hand on some little possession, went after them to the drawing-room, and there, a few minutes later, all the party had assembled.
“He is too honest a man to steal extreme unction,” said Crémière; “so we may be easy.”
“Yes; we shall each have about twenty thousand francs a year,” replied Madame Massin.
“I have got it into my head,” said Zélie, “that for the last three years he has not been investing; he liked to hoard the money—”
“The treasure is in his cellar no doubt?” said Massin to Crémière.
“If we are so lucky as to find anything at all!” observed Minoret-Levrault.
“But after what he said at the ball,” cried Madame Massin, “there can be no doubt.”
“Whatever there may be,” said Crémière, “how shall we proceed? Shall we divide? Or put it into the lawyer’s hands? Or distribute it in lots? For, after all, we are all of age.”
A discussion, which soon became acrid, arose as to the method of procedure. At the end of half an hour a noise of loud voices, above them all Zélie’s shrill tones, rang across the courtyard out into the street.
“He must be dead,” said the curious crowd that had collected there.
The uproar reached the doctor’s ears, who could hear these words:
“But there is the house; the house is worth thirty thousand francs!” shouted, or rather bellowed, by Crémière.
“Very well, we will pay for it as much as it is worth,” retorted Zélie sharply.
“Monsieur le Curé,” said the old man to the Abbé, who had remained with his friend after the sacrament, “let me die in peace. My heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximenes, are capable of pillaging my house before I am dead, and I have no monkey to make restitution. Go and explain that I will have no one in the house.”
The curé and the physician went downstairs and repeated the dying man’s orders, adding, in their indignation, some severe words of reproof.
“Madame Bougival,” said the town-doctor, “shut the gate, and let no one in; a man cannot even die quietly, it would seem.—Make a cup of mustard, to apply plasters to Monsieur Minoret’s feet.”
“Your uncle is not dead; he may live some time yet,” said the Abbé to the family
