PART III
ITHE COMPANION IN ARMS
WHEN Margaret Roquevillard came into her father’s study, as she did each day, to light the lamp and draw the curtains, and take up if she could some special share of his burdens for him, she found him gazing out of the window, watching the rapidly declining daylight.
“Is that you, Margaret?” he said. “There’s no light any more for working.”
He made excuses for his reverie as if it were a weakness in him, but Margaret knew the cause of this preoccupation, though he would not confess it.
“Those gentlemen have not come yet?” she asked.
“I expect them any moment now,” he said. “They were to see Maurice in prison this afternoon.”
“Who is going to make the main argument? Will it be Mr. Hamel?”
“No. Mr. Hamel is the president of the benchers in our order. Maurice being a member of the bar, I begged the president to conduct his case. It’s a tradition of the bar. Mr. Hamel will give us the prestige of his half a century of professional honour, but he thinks he is too old, and too much of a specialist in questions of civil law, to make the argument. He wants Battard to do that. Battard has the highest reputation of any member of our bar in jury trials.”
The young woman made a little face at the mention of Mr. Battard’s name.
“I’ve heard him, father. You speak much better than he does.”
But the old lawyer replied almost crossly: “I don’t speak well, little girl. I simply say what I have to say.”
“Why don’t you defend him yourself, father?”
“That wouldn’t do at all. Don’t you see it wouldn’t, Margaret?”
She came to him, and, putting a hand on his shoulder, leant her head against his breast.
“Father, have you forgiven Maurice?”
“He hasn’t asked me.”
“That’s because he feels so badly.”
“Yes, no doubt. Fate can give us cruel blows. He at least has been responsible for his own ill-luck.”
“Remember mamma.”
He bent down and kissed her on the forehead.
“Don’t ask me to be weak, Margaret. I have been to see him twice at the gaol. I found him walled up in his pride. He gave me no sign of regret for what he’d done, and all the woe he’s caused us. I am waiting only for one word from him to be ready to forgive him, yet we exchanged only a few insignificant remarks.”
“When I go to see him he cries about mother with me. He doesn’t dare with you.”
“It’s his place to speak first. I shall wait.”
Margaret could not see, with her head bent, the sweetly sad look that spread over his old face, and softened the severity of his words. She repeated:
“He feels very badly. He’s unhappy.”
“And aren’t we?” asked Mr. Roquevillard.
He raised the girl’s head gently.
“What have you been doing this afternoon, Margaret?” he asked in his turn, changing the subject.
“I took little Julian for a walk. Then I wrote a long letter to Hubert.”
“Ah, so did I.”
The fate of Hubert was still a source of some anxiety to them. The last letter from the Soudan had brought news that the young officer was down with fever, ill in an isolated cabin, without a doctor. He made light himself of this unlucky piece of work, not taking it seriously, but a certain note of detachment in his letter, contrasted with a more than ordinarily affectionate way of putting his good-byes, struck both father and sister, and deeply affected them. They were silent, their hearts shaken. Margaret lighted the lamp, to chase away the darkness that was so full of evil omens. As she drew the curtains together some one knocked at the door.
“It’s they,” said Mr. Roquevillard.
And the girl had just time to disappear through the door that led into the apartment as her father went forward to receive his visitors. Mr. Hamel came in first, followed by Mr. Battard.
The president of the benchers enjoyed a respect and esteem at the bar in Chambéry which were the natural deserts of great age, great knowledge of the law and a dignified private life. He was a man of seventy-five, so thin that he rattled round in his threadbare frock-coat, a garment which he used to declare obstinately would last as long as he did. In winter time he draped himself in an antiquated overcoat, never bothering to put his arms through the sleeves. Above his shaven face a crown of white hair stood out in disorder, and his colourless cheeks were almost transparently thin. His tall figure was bent like those too slender poplars that are twisted by the wind, but his character was upright and unbroken. Nothing could ever have swerved him from the lines of conduct which the traditions of his family, in the best sense of the word, and his firm convictions had laid down for him at an early age. Cold and distant in bearing, a man of few words, he showed as much rigidity in his principles as proud courtesy in the relations of his daily life, displaying his high-mindedness as much in the ordinary circumstances as in the more important matters of existence. Good fortune and bad he had met with an even temper. Yet he had known more of bad fortune than of good in his later years, at the end of his life’s journey, when a man deserves repose. The unfortunate speculations of a son had ruined him, but he had set himself again quite simply to the task of gaining his daily bread. Rarely appearing in court, he was the counsellor most sought for in delicate matters by those who expected what was equitable and right. One seldom saw him outside of his office, a poor and shabby room, where one went with special cases for arbitrage and settlement as to a sovereign judge. When he left his office it was always in the evening, to walk rapidly to church, his air chilly and hurried, indifferent to the world about him, listening only to the voice of God, whose summons he waited for with patience and resignation.
One of those ancient friendships, by which people sharing the same kind of life and trials are united as strongly as by the ties of blood, united the old lawyer and Mr. Roquevillard, despite the great disparity in their ages. He had watched over the professional début of Mr. Roquevillard, who in turn had looked out for him in the wreck that later overwhelmed his material fortunes, holding out against his creditors, obtaining delays, organising sales and payments to the best advantage. When the younger man was laid low in his turn the elder came out of his retreat, conscious though he was of the chill and feebleness of his years.
Mr. Battard, by his reputation, was a natural second. This young man—for thus the old man called him in spite of his forty-five years—always caused him some anxiety, by reason of a certain cynicism in his conversation, and a tendency to take up cases for the fees he could get from them; but at the bar he was as formidable as a host, by turns ironical and flowery, mocking and eloquent. He would modulate his voice like a tenor, posturing like a favourite actor, and took at once the chief rôle, showing off his fine beard, his regular features, his finely polished bald head as if they were insignia of rank, stirring things up, flinging himself about, dominating the whole stage, and finally, with the cleverness of a conjurer, sweeping up jury and opposing counsel at once in the folds of his robe, which he flourished round him like a battle standard. This incontestable superiority in the court-room must be taken account of, and Mr. Hamel, a humble follower of truth, who detested all the trappings of eloquence and declamation, stilled his personal preferences to make the acquittal of his friend’s son more sure.
Even though Mr. Roquevillard had always kept Mr. Battard at a distance, and in the court-room would pitilessly turn inside out all this cleverness and seductiveness, by simple tactics that consisted in going straight to the point of things with the swiftness of a charge of cavalry, such was the force of professional loyalty that Mr. Battard had eagerly accepted the defence of Maurice, and had already shown himself active and resolute in his plans for it.
After they had shaken hands the president summed up the situation in a few words:
“You see, my dear friend, that I have begged our learned brother Battard to come to our assistance. I am old, and I don’t know how to move people. He will make the argument and I shall assist him. We have studied the brief together and seen your son in prison. One difficulty presents itself.”
“What is that?” asked the anxious father.
“Battard can explain it to you better than I.”
This latter gentleman stirred his fine head importantly, but contented himself with a short and simple explanation, sensible enough to know that fine effects were useless outside the court-room.
“Yes, I’ve studied the brief. The material fact of abuse of confidence is shown by the notary’s declaration, and by the report of the commissioner of police. I have found no proofs against your son, but grave presumptions. He was aware of the deposit of the money, he was the last of them all to leave the office, and had got possession of the keys. He might have got the secret of the combination from the memorandum book, in which the head clerk had written it; he had not much in the way of personal resources, and he was bent on eloping with his chief’s wife. With this they have cooked up a regular accusation. Add his departure to a foreign country, his silence, his tardy return. The deposition of the said Philippeaux especially is full of malice. This boy must have been jealous of his more favoured colleague. I suspect him of an unfortunate passion for Mrs. Frasne. A dangerous woman, that. A little thin, but fine eyes. Not my type at all.”
A coarse strain in his make-up prevented him from realising that this reflection was misplaced, that the presence of the father of the accused should have made him more reserved in his remarks. He began again after a pause:
“It’s not enough to protest that he is innocent. The theft being admitted, the jury will look for a culprit. We must point one out to them. The offensive, I have often noticed, is more certain in results than the defensive. It distracts the jury’s mind, and fixes it somewhere else. I have tried it often with success. Now, in this kind of case, the true culprit is plainly designated.”
He spread out a code on the table, and turned over the leaves. His two hearers listened to him without interruption.
“Observe that Mrs. Frasne runs no risk. She is covered by Article 880:Abstractions committed by husbands at the expense of their wives, by wives at the expense of their husbands ... can give rise only to civil actions for damages.”
“We know that,” observed Mr. Hamel.
“Within the family there is no theft. To fix suspicion on Mrs. Frasne at the trial is not denouncing her. But there is something better still. My instinct rarely deceives me. I have seen the Frasnes’ marriage contract. I had a shrewd idea I should discover something there. Through the enterprise of an attorney at Grenoble, I arranged a little investigation, and I discovered there proof that Mrs. Frasne, in taking one hundred thousand francs from her husband’s safe, believed she was only taking what belonged to her.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mr. Roquevillard, interrupting.
“You’ll see what I mean. It’s so clear it blinds you. Her husband, in this marriage contract, agreed to a settlement of one hundred thousand francs.”
“In case of her survival?”
“No, immediate. But naturally it was revocable in case of divorce, and the husband retained control of it. The arrangement was for a separate maintenance account. Nevertheless, Mrs. Frasne, ignorant of the law, might have supposed that this money was actually hers, and that in leaving her husband’s household she had the right to take it away with her. It was an absurd way of looking at it, but for that very reason just the way a woman would have worked it out: in this way I explain to myself why the thief took particular pains to appropriate only one hundred thousand francs out of an envelope enclosing a deposit of one hundred and twenty thousand. That was not theft, it was reimbursement. Mrs. Frasne believed she was availing herself of her just rights.”
“Yes,” concluded Mr. Roquevillard, interested in so solid an argument, “the contract explains all.”
“And it is acquittal, certain and incontestable,” declared Mr. Battard, growing animated, and beginning to wave his long arms. “What jury would hold out against such a demonstration? I’ve very rarely held so many trump cards in my hand.”
“You don’t always defend the innocent,” insinuated the president.
“Innocent or guilty, it’s the proof which counts. Here we have it.”
The father of the accused, who wanted a complete rehabilitation, next took up the subject.
“The discovery of the contract is indeed a good point for the defence. Your eloquence, Battard, will make the best use of it, and we can count on ultimate success. But there is one thing I must ask you at once to bring out in your argument. Maurice did not go away with Mrs. Frasne without resources of his own. He had more than five thousand francs with him, borrowed for the most part from his two sisters, his great-uncle Stephen and his aunt Camille Roquevillard, who will testify to it if necessary. In the village of Orta, where they stayed, he received, further, a cheque for eight thousand francs remitted by the Society of Credit, from the Chambéry branch, who will produce the cancelled voucher for us. These explanations are indispensable from two points of view. In the first place, they anticipate a possible new accusation, which the plaintiff, abandoning Article 408 on the abuse of confidence, may base on Article 380in fine. Theft between married persons doesn’t come within the scope of the law, that’s understood; but the penal code adds: ‘With respect to all other individuals who shall have received or applied to their own use all or any part of the things stolen, they shall be punished as if guilty of theft.’ There must be nothing equivocal on this head. And this paragraph will not apply at all if my son is cleared from all suspicion of having lived with this woman at her expense. I hold this absolutely essential to the preservation of his honour.”
“Very good,” approved Mr. Hamel.
“Very good,” repeated Mr. Battard indifferently.
And Mr. Roquevillard, whose face had been glowing with excitement, grew serene again with the hope of passing safely through the test, and concluded in two words:
“Now we are armed, and victory is certain.”
The president’s eyes, pale blue and dim with age, were lifted sadly.
“My friend, haven’t you forgotten the difficulty I spoke of at the beginning of our interview?”
It was the old agony coming back again.
“What difficulty?”
Mr. Battard at once assumed the first place again, never having willingly given it up.
“There you are. Our fine plan, and I have not a single doubt of its success, collapses on account of your son’s obstinacy.”
“My son’s obstinacy?”
“Exactly. We have just explained to him in prison our plan to save him. Do you know what he said to us?”
“I’m afraid I can guess.”
“He said he formally objected to having Mrs. Frasne’s name mentioned in his defence, and that if it is, he will assume all the blame himself at once.”
“I was afraid of it,” muttered Mr. Roquevillard beneath his breath.
“I tried in vain to make him see the absurdity of this chivalry, to explain that he was not accusing anybody, since Mrs. Frasne was not punishable under the law. I told him that what his mistress had done could even be explained by her inexperience of business, her erroneous interpretation of her marriage contract. It was all useless. I ran against an invincible obstinacy.”
“Did he give you any reasons?”
“Just one—his honour.”
“Honour is one reason.”
“No, it’s only a sentiment. In courts of justice we must not take the point of view of honour, but of the law.”
The president, who did not approve this theory, presented the question in another form.
“It’s Mrs. Frasne’s honour especially that he takes into account. To save his own honour he must establish the fact that he has neither stolen a sum of money nor profited by the theft of some one else. He can prove the first by argument from Mrs. Frasne’s marriage contract, and the second by an affidavit from the International Bank of Milan, where Mrs. Frasne’s funds were deposited. But he objects categorically to this line of proof.”
“Did you speak of it to him yourself?”
“I did, and I told him that he was running a great danger to go before a jury thus unarmed.”
“What did he say to you?”
“That he would not let Mrs. Frasne be accused of anything whatsoever, and that he forbade his defender even to utter her name. We found him immovable. ‘Well, then,’ Mr. Battard objected to him, ‘how do you wish us to defend you?’ ‘How can any one think me guilty?’ he replied proudly. ‘Let them consider where I come from, and who I am. That ought to be enough.’”
“What a child!” began Mr. Battard, stroking his fine beard contentedly. “Undoubtedly an honourable family is a potent argument, and I count on making good use of it at the trial. But it is accessory to the main argument, as it were. It doesn’t go to the bottom of the matter. One doesn’t use parents for arguments. You might as well use dead ancestors.”
“They bear witness for our characters,” replied Mr. Hamel, not without some solemnity.
“There is a guilty party,” continued Mr. Battard. “Don’t let us forget that. Willingly or unwillingly, the jury will look for one. If it isn’t the lover it’s the mistress. If it isn’t the mistress it’s the lover. We have proofs that it is the mistress. Shall we refuse to produce them? There’s no sense in it. I warned your son, my good brother, that I could not consent to defend him on these conditions, and I have come to say the same to you. You know how warmly I should have undertaken it, that I should have brought to bear my utmost pains upon it. Tried on these lines, what can be done? As you see, I am deeply affected by this decision, but it is impossible for me to present myself in court thus bound.”
The unfortunate father of the accused held out his hand.
“I lose very valuable assistance,” he said; “perhaps even the boy’s safety. But the defence must not be fettered.”
Both lawyers were equally moved, despite the lack of mutual sympathy between them. One cannot share the same professional life, the same conflicts, the same mental preoccupations, without some trace of sympathy remaining.
“See him yourself,” said Mr. Battard again, rising. “Perhaps you can get him to consent where we have failed.”
“No, I am afraid not.”
“If you succeed in persuading him, I am at your service still, and you can count on my finest efforts. It’s nearly six now, so I must be excused. I’ve a business engagement that I must keep.”
Mr. Roquevillard went with him to the door, and thanked him again on the threshold.
“We have been on opposite sides sometimes, brother Battard, but I shan’t forget that in this most important matter of my life you unhesitatingly put your devotion and talent at my disposal.”
“No, no, not at all,” replied the great trial lawyer, astonished at his own good will; “I thought to come out of it better than this. It was a fine case. See if you can persuade your son. I’ll take it up again for you.”
When Mr. Roquevillard returned to his office Mr. Hamel had gone up to the fire and was poking the coals absent-mindedly. He sat down opposite to him, and both stayed there a long time thinking, saying nothing.
“My voice has never carried very far,” said the president, pursuing his inward reasonings, “and age has broken it. I’ve never known how to do anything but make things clear, not move people. However, I shall be on hand. I’ll say a few words about the family of the accused, and dwell on his own good character. But there must be some one else to make the argument. I can only be your assistant, my friend.”
He did not offer any opinion on Maurice’s attitude, perhaps did not explain it to himself. He maintained that defiant, not to say disdainful, attitude toward women which you find often in the latter days of an austere and well-disciplined life. The honour of a Mrs. Frasne did not seem to him worthy of so much consideration. There was a story told of him as illustrating the excess of this trait in him, namely, that he had bowed once to a lady of doubtful reputation on the street, and she had taken great credit to herself for it, since his respect carried such great weight everywhere; and that when he heard about it afterwards he never again saluted anybody in the city’s streets for fear of repeating his mistake.
“Will the jury guess the generous reason of his silence, do you think?” Mr. Roquevillard asked himself aloud, knowing his son better. “It isn’t likely.”
“It’s impossible,” declared Mr. Hamel plainly. “Your son will be lost, though there’s no reason for shielding this person. But haven’t we the right to defend him in spite of himself?”
“How do you mean?”
“A defence is obligatory at trials, as you know, as well as I. In default of a lawyer of the accused’s own choosing, the president appoints an official one for him. If Mr. Battard is officially appointed, and it will be enough if I, as president, mention him to the presiding judge, he will be completely at liberty again to make his argument. Yet he would run the risk of being repudiated by his client.”
“But such a repudiation would influence the jury unfavourably.”
“I don’t see any other way. At least——”
And the fine old man stopped talking, deaf to the repeated questions put to him by Mr. Roquevillard.
“The case is lost,” the latter murmured at last.
Then Mr. Hamel rose: “You believe in God, my friend, like me. Ask help from Him. He will give you inspiration. Your son is innocent. He must be acquitted. His real fault is not one that calls for man’s justice. It touches only himself, and unhappily his family.”
As he prepared to go, his face already toward the door, he turned back again, and all of a sudden held put his hands to his professional brother, an unusual gesture showing the tenderness that had lain concealed beneath this stiff energy of his for so many years. It was surprising and sweet, like an expression of freshness and purity on an old woman’s face, or flowers that go on blooming even after the snow has come. The two men embraced each other with emotion.
“You at least won’t abandon us,” said Mr. Roquevillard. “Thank you.”
“I don’t forget,” replied the old man.
And flinging his overcoat round his shoulders, its empty sleeves flapping, he went away hastily down the corridor, his host scarcely able to keep up with him and show him to the door.
Left alone, Mr. Roquevillard seated himself at his work-table, where so many difficulties, material and moral, had been worked out before, his head in his hands, seeking for some way in which to save his son, without whose safety the whole line of Roquevillards would be lost as well. He was less arbitrary, more indulgent, and more apt than Mr. Hamel to understand men and life, shut up as the latter had been with his transcendental prejudices as in a tower; and he recognised in Maurice’s resolution that tenacity and sense of responsibility which from generation to generation had created and maintained the strength of the Roquevillard family. That the boy was using this same force to destroy it was the pity of the thing. To create his individual happiness he had compromised the past and future of his people, though their distinctive traits, nevertheless, showed even in his faults. His father acquitted him of cowardliness and baseness, reflecting that the young man might maintain the family traditions at their right level, and use for their normal ends the faculties that he had so perverted, if he could only take again his proper place in his home and in society. At all costs he must be rescued and completely freed from this love that he would not repudiate.
“At least——” repeated Mr. Roquevillard, who had been struck by this mysterious phrase of Mr. Hamel. What had he meant by this reservation?
He raised his bent head, and, leaning back in his easy-chair, gazed straight in front of him. His eyes rested on the map of La Vigie hanging on the wall, outside the circle of the lamplight, and barely distinguishable in the shadow. It brought his land before him in the guise of ancestor and counsellor. And yet at the same time the cruel syllogisms of Mr. Battard echoed persistently in his mind.
“There has been a theft. Therefore, there is a guilty person. Who is it? If it isn’t the lover it’s the mistress. He won’t have the mistress accused, therefore it will be the lover. How could he reply to this argument in a way to convince the jury’s rustic brains?”
And suddenly, as he traced the blurred outlines of the map, he thought an idea broke forth in it, like a light in the darkness.
“If we suppress the fact of theft, then no one will be guilty. The jury will have to acquit him. How can we do away with the theft?”
And La Vigie spoke to him.
Some moments later Margaret knocked discreetly at his door.
“Come in,” he said. “I’m alone.”
“Well, father, what have you decided?”
He explained the new danger which arose from Maurice’s obstinacy. “Mr Battard gives us up. He declines to plead,” he said finally.
“Then who will defend him?” she asked, quite confused, “and how?”
“Don’t distress yourself yet, little girl,” he said. “I think I know a way.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you later. Let me stay here now and think it over. It will involve making a great sacrifice.”
“Make it quickly, father.”
The girl’s eyes burned with such a light that all her pure and generous soul shone through it.
“Dear little girl,” he murmured proudly.
She smiled at him, with the rare smile of those who have lived long with sorrow.
“Father,” she said, “I have always thought you would be the one to defend him.”