‘There are none left,’ Saccard replied brutally.
She realized she would learn nothing more from him, and it would be unwise to try anything. So that day, without giving him time to push her out, she moved to the door herself.
‘Why don’t you ask me for some shares for yourself?’ Saccard went on, intending to be offensive.
In her lisping voice, her shrill voice, with its mocking tone, she replied:
‘Oh, that’s not my style of business… I just wait.’
At that moment he caught sight of the huge, worn leather bag she always had with her and shuddered. On a day when everything had gone like clockwork, a day when he had been so happy to see the birth of the bank so long desired, was this rascally old woman to be the wicked fairy, the sort that casts spells on princesses in their cradles? He felt that bag of hers to be full of depreciated shares and unbankable bonds, that bag she had brought right into the offices of his newborn bank; and he somehow understood that she was threatening him, that she would wait as long as it took to bury his own shares in it when the bank collapsed. She was the crow, cawing as it sets off with the marching army and follows it to the evening of carnage, then hovers and swoops down, knowing there will be plenty of dead to eat.
‘Au revoir, Monsieur,’ said La Méchain as she left, breathless and perfectly polite.
CHAPTER V
A MONTH later, in early November, the installation of the Universal Bank was not yet completed. Carpenters were still busy on the woodwork, and painters were finishing the puttying of the enormous glass roof with which the courtyard was now covered.
The cause of the delay was Saccard, forever dissatisfied with the meanness of the establishment, and prolonging the work with his demands for luxury. Unable to push back the walls to satisfy his perpetual dream of hugeness, he had ended up losing his temper, leaving Madame Caroline with the task of getting rid of the contractors. So it was she who was supervising the placing of the last cash desks, of which there was an extraordinary number. The courtyard, now transformed into the central hall, was surrounded by cash desks: each had its own grille, severe and imposing, with its own brass plate inscribed in black. In short, the conversion, even if carried out in a rather limited space, was very well done: on the ground floor were those departments that needed to be in constant contact with the public, the various cash desks, issuing offices, all the day-to-day operations of the bank; and on the upper floor the bank’s internal mechanisms, management, correspondence, accounts, offices for staff and some for dealing with disputes. In all, within that limited space more than two hundred employees were at work. And what was striking, from the moment one entered, even in all the commotion of workmen hammering in the last of the nails, while gold tinkled in the tills, was that air of severity, an air of antique probity, vaguely reminiscent of a sacristy, that no doubt derived from the premises, from this old, dark, and silent house in the shadow of the trees of the next-door garden. It felt as if one were entering a house of religion.
One afternoon, coming back from the Bourse, Saccard himself felt this, much to his surprise. That consoled him for the lack of decorative gilding. He told Madame Caroline of his satisfaction:
‘Ah well, after all, for a beginning it’s quite nice. It has a homely feeling, it’s a real little chapel. Later on we’ll see… Thank you, my lovely friend, for all the trouble you’re taking while your brother’s away.’
And as it was a principle of his to make use of all unforeseen circumstances, he now devoted himself to developing the austere appearance of the establishment, demanding that his employees conduct themselves like young priests; they spoke only in measured tones, and received and paid out money with a quite clerical discretion.
In all his tumultuous life Saccard had never thrown himself so heartily into so much activity. From seven o’clock in the morning, before all his employees, even before the office-boy had lit the fire, he was in his office going through the mail, answering the most urgent letters. Then, until eleven o’clock it was one long gallop—of friends and important clients, stockbrokers, kerb traders, jobbers, a whole horde of financial agents, not to mention the procession of various department heads coming for orders. Saccard himself, as soon as he had a minute of respite, would get up and make a rapid inspection of the various offices, where employees lived in terror of these sudden appearances, which always happened at different times of the day. At eleven o’clock he went up to have lunch with Madame Caroline, ate heartily and drank similarly, with the ease of a thin man who could do so without any problem, and the full hour he spent there was not wasted, for this was the time when he, as he put it, quizzed his beautiful friend, that is, asked her opinion on men and on things, though he was rarely ready to profit by her great good sense. At midday he went out to the Bourse, as he liked to be one of the first there, to see people and chat. But he did not openly speculate, he was just there as if at a natural meeting-place, where he was certain to encounter clients of his bank. However, his influence was already perceptible, he had returned to the Bourse victorious, a man of substance, supported now by real millions; and those in the know spoke quietly to each other while looking in his direction, whispering outlandish rumours and predicting his imminent sovereignty. Towards half-past three he was always back at the bank, attending to the tiresome chore of signing, so practised now in this mechanical movement of his hand that his mind was left free, and he could talk as he wished, send for employees, give answers, and settle deals without ceasing to sign. Until six o’clock he went on receiving visitors, then finished off the day’s work and prepared that of the morrow. When he went back up to Madame Caroline it was for a meal more copious than the one at eleven o’clock, delicate fish and especially game, and his whims about the wine meant he dined with burgundy, bordeaux, or champagne in accordance with the fortunes of the day.
‘Just dare to say I’m not behaving myself!’ he would cry sometimes, with a smile. ‘Instead of chasing women and going to clubs and theatres, I live here at your side, like a good bourgeois… you must write and tell your brother, to reassure him.’
He was not quite as well-behaved as he claimed, since he had recently taken a fancy to a little singer at the Bouffes,* and he had even had his turn with Germaine Coeur who, however, had given him no satisfaction. The truth was that by the evening he was half-dead with fatigue. Anyway, he was living in such a state of desire and anxiety for success that his other appetites would remain diminished and paralysed until he could feel triumphant at having indisputably mastered fortune.
‘Bah!’ Madame Caroline would cheerfully answer. ‘My brother has always been so well-behaved that good behaviour for him is more a natural condition than a merit… I wrote to him yesterday that I had persuaded you not to regild the boardroom. That will please him more.’
It was on a very cold afternoon in the early days of November, when Madame Caroline was just giving the head painter the order simply to clean the paintwork of the boardroom, that a servant brought her a card, saying that the person concerned was very insistent on seeing her. The rather grubby card bore the crudely printed name of Busch. The name was unknown to her, but she gave the order for the visitor to be sent up to her brother’s study where she received callers.
If Busch had been patient for nearly six months, not using the extraordinary discovery he had made of Saccard’s natural son, it was mainly for the reasons he had foreseen, the rather poor result it would be to get only the six hundred francs from the notes given to the mother, and the extreme difficulty of blackmailing Saccard to get more, say a reasonable sum of some thousands of francs. A widower, with no encumbrances, no fear of scandal—how could one terrorize him? How make him pay dearly for this ugly gift of a natural child, raised in the midst of filth, and who could turn out to be a pimp or murderer? Of course La Méchain had laboriously drawn up a long list of expenses, amounting to about six thousand francs, consisting of several loans of twenty sous to her cousin Rosalie Chavaille, the boy’s moth
er, then the cost of the unfortunate mother’s illness, her burial, the care of her grave, and finally what she herself had spent on Victor since he had become her charge, his food and clothing, all sorts of things. But if Saccard turned out to be unsentimental about his fatherhood, wasn’t it likely that he would just send them packing? Nothing on earth could actually prove his paternity, except the child’s resemblance to his father; and all they would get from him then would be the money for the notes—and that only if he failed to declare them nullified by the lapse of time.
On the other hand, if Busch had waited so long it was because he had just endured some weeks of appalling anxiety looking after his brother Sigismond, now bedridden, laid low by consumption. Indeed, for a whole fortnight this bustling man of so many concerns had neglected everything, simply forgetting about all the myriad tangled trails he was following, not even appearing at the Bourse, not tracking down a single debtor, not once leaving the bedside of the sick man, watching over him, caring for him, and changing him, like a mother. For all his disgusting meanness Busch had become quite prodigal, sending for the best doctors in Paris and wanting to pay the pharmacist extra for the medicines, if this could make them more effective; and since the doctors had totally forbidden any work and Sigismond refused to obey, he kept hiding his papers and books. It had become a war of wiles between the two. As soon as his guardian fell asleep, overcome with fatigue, the young man, soaked in sweat and consumed by fever, would find a stub of pencil and the margin of a newspaper and go back to his calculations, distributing wealth in accordance with his dream of justice, granting everyone a share of happiness and life. And Busch, when he awoke, would get angry at finding him in a worse condition, broken-hearted to see him devoting to his dreams what little life was left to him. He had allowed him to play with these fantasies when he was well, as one allows a child to play with puppets; but for him to kill himself with his wild, impractical ideas was really lunatic! At last, having agreed out of affection for his brother to be more sensible, Sigismond had regained some strength and was beginning to spend some time out of bed.
It was then that Busch, getting back to work, declared it was time to settle the Saccard affair, all the more so since Saccard had returned to the Bourse victorious and was once more a person of unquestionable solvency. The report from Madame Méchain, whom he had sent to the Rue Saint-Lazare, was excellent. However, he was still hesitant about attacking his man directly, and was temporizing, still trying to think of a tactic that would defeat him, when a chance word of La Méchain about Madame Caroline, the lady who ran the household, whom all the local shopkeepers had mentioned to her, set him off on a new plan of campaign. Was this lady perhaps the real mistress, the one who held the keys not only of the cupboards but of the heart? Busch often obeyed what he called the flash of inspiration, giving way to a sudden intuition and setting off in full cry on the merest hint of a scent, ready to wait until later for facts to give him certainty and resolution. And so it was that he went to the Rue Saint-Lazare to see Madame Caroline.
Up in the workroom Madame Caroline was surprised to find herself facing this big, ill-shaven man with a dull, grubby face, dressed in a handsome, greasy overcoat, with a white cravat. He inspected her thoroughly, down to her very soul, finding her to be just what he had hoped for, so tall, so healthy-looking, with her wonderful white hair which seemed to light up her still-young face with a joyous sweetness; and he was particularly struck by the expression of her rather large mouth, an expression of such goodness that he made up his mind at once.
‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I was hoping to see Monsieur Saccard, but I was just told that he’s not here…’
He was lying, he had not even asked for him, for he knew perfectly well that Saccard was out, having waited for him to leave for the Bourse.
‘So I took it upon myself to call upon you, even rather preferring that, for I am not unaware of who it is I am addressing… This is a communication of such gravity and delicacy…’
Madame Caroline, who until then had not asked him to sit down, pointed him to a chair with uneasy haste.
‘Speak sir, I am listening…’
Carefully lifting the skirts of his coat as if fearful of getting it dirty, Busch put it to himself, as a point definitely established, that she was sleeping with Saccard.
‘The fact is, Madame, that this is not at all easy to say, and I confess that at the last minute I am still wondering whether I’m doing the right thing in telling you such a thing… I hope you will see, in this endeavour of mine, only the desire to allow Monsieur Saccard to repair the wrongs of the past…’
With a wave of the hand she set him at ease, having, for her part, realized what sort of person she was dealing with, and wanting to cut short the futile protestations. Anyway he did not insist, but related the old story in considerable detail: Rosalie seduced in the Rue de La Harpe, the child born after the disappearance of Saccard, the mother dying in debauchery and Victor left in the charge of a cousin too busy to look after him, growing up in the midst of total depravity. She listened, astonished at first at this tale she was not at all expecting, for she had imagined it was going to be about some shady financial affair; then she visibly softened, touched by the sad fate of the mother and the abandonment of the child, and deeply moved in her maternal feelings as a woman who had borne no children.
‘But Monsieur,’ she said, ‘are you certain of these things you’re telling me? Really strong proof is needed, absolute proof, in stories of this sort.’
He gave a smile.
‘Oh Madame, there is blinding proof in the extraordinary resemblance of the child to Monsieur Saccard… Then there are the dates, everything fits and proves the facts without the shadow of a doubt.’
She sat there trembling, and he observed her. After a silence he went on:
‘Now you understand, Madame, why I was so reluctant to address myself directly to Monsieur Saccard. For myself, I have no interest in the affair, I came only in the name of Madame Méchain, the cousin, who was placed on the track of the father by the merest chance; for, as I’ve mentioned, the twelve notes for fifty francs each, which were given to the wretched Rosalie, were signed with the name of Sicardot, a fact I do not presume to judge, quite excusable—my word!—in this awful life of Paris! Only, do you see? Monsieur Saccard might have misinterpreted the nature of my intervention… And that’s when I had the inspiration to come and see you first Madame, and leave it entirely to you to decide what should be done, knowing your concern for Monsieur Saccard… There! You have our secret, do you think I should wait for him and tell him everything today?’
Madame Caroline’s emotion was more and more evident.
‘No, no. Later.’
But given the strangeness of this revelation, even she didn’t know what to do. He continued to study her, pleased to see the extreme sensibility that put her in his power, and he was now adding the finishing touches to his plan, certain of getting more out of her than he would ever have got from Saccard.
‘The thing is,’ he murmured, ‘a decision has to be made.’
‘Well yes, I’ll go. Yes, I’ll go to this property of hers, I’ll go and see this Madame Méchain and the child… It is better, much better, that I should go and see things for myself.’
She was thinking aloud, and resolving to make a thorough investigation before saying anything to the father. Later, if she was convinced, there would be time enough to tell him. Wasn’t she there to watch over his house and peace of mind?
‘Unfortunately it’s quite urgent,’ Busch went on, leading her gently to where he wanted her to be. ‘The poor child is suffering, he is living in abominable surroundings.’
She had stood up. ‘I shall put on my hat and go this minute.’
He also now rose from his seat, and added casually:
‘I haven’t said anything about the little bill that will have to be settled. The child has involved expense of course, and there’s also the money lent to the mother while she
was alive—oh! I don’t know how much exactly. I didn’t want to be involved in any of that. All the papers are over there.’
‘Good, I shall see them.’
Then he seemed to be moved himself.
‘Ah, Madame, if you only knew all the peculiar things I see in the course of business! It’s the most honest people who have to suffer eventually for their passions, or even worse, for the passions of their relatives… I could even give you an example. Your unfortunate neighbours the Beauvilliers ladies…’
In a sudden move he had gone over to one of the windows and was directing his ardently curious gaze down into the next-door garden. He had no doubt been planning this bit of espionage ever since he came in, for he liked to know his battlegrounds. In the matter of the promissory note for ten thousand francs, signed by the Count for Léonie Cron, he had guessed right: information sent from Vendôme confirmed what he had imagined: the seduced girl, left without a sou after the death of the Count, with just her useless scrap of paper and consumed by longing to get to Paris, had ended up leaving the paper as a security with the usurer Charpier, for about fifty francs perhaps. But though he had found the Beauvilliers quickly enough, he had had La Méchain scouring Paris for six months without managing to get hold of Léonie. She had first found a job as a maid in the house of a bailiff, and he had been able to follow her through three other jobs; then, sacked for egregious misconduct, she seemed to disappear, and he had searched in vain through the gutters of the city. What exasperated him still more was that he could not try anything with the Countess until he had the girl, as a living threat of scandal. But he went on nursing the case, and he was happy to be standing there at the window, looking at the garden of the mansion, of which he had previously seen only the façade from the street.