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, doc
tor?’
‘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.’
Villefort grasped the doctor’s hand.
‘Impossible!’ he said. ‘My God, I must be dreaming! I must be dreaming! It is appalling to hear a man like yourself say such things. In heaven’s name, doctor, tell me you may be mistaken.’
‘Of course, I may, but…’
‘But?’
‘But I think not.’
‘Doctor, spare me. In the last few days, so many unheard-of things have been happening to me that I am beginning to believe in the possibility that I may be going mad.’
‘Did anyone apart from me see Madame de Saint-Méran?’
‘No one.’
‘Were any prescriptions sent out to the chemist’s that were not shown to me?’
‘None.’
‘Did Madame de Saint-Méran have any enemies?’
‘I know of none.’
‘Did anyone have an interest in seeing her dead?’
‘No, good heavens! My daughter is her sole heir. Valentine alone… Oh, but if I could ever entertain such a thought I should drive a dagger into my heart to punish it for conceiving the idea.’
‘Come!’ M. d’Avrigny exclaimed in his turn. ‘My dear friend, God forbid that I should accuse anyone; I am only speaking of an accident, you understand, a mistake. But whether accident or mistake, the fact is there, and it whispers to my conscience; so my conscience speaks aloud to you: make enquiries.’
‘Of whom? How? What about?’
‘Let’s see. Perhaps Barrois, the old servant, made a mistake and gave Madame de Saint-Méran a potion which had been prepared for his master.’
‘For my father?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how could a potion that had been prepared for Monsieur Noirtier poison Madame de Saint-Méran?’
‘Quite simply. As you know, in some illnesses, poisons become remedies; paralysis is one of those. About three months ago, after trying everything to restore the power of speech and movement to Monsieur Noirtier, I decided to resort to one final remedy; so, as I say, for the past three months I have been treating him with brucine. The last potion that I ordered for him contained six centigrammes. These six centigrammes had no effect on Monsieur Noirtier’s paralysed organs; he has in any case become accustomed to them by successive doses; but the same six centigrammes would be enough to kill anyone else but him.’
‘But my dear doctor, there is no direct access from Monsieur Noirtier’s apartment to that of Madame de Saint-Méran, and Barrois never used to go into my mother-in-law’s. So, even though I know you to be the most skilled and, above all, the most conscientious man in the world, and even though your words are on every occasion a guiding light to me, equal to that of the sun, well, doctor, even so and despite my belief in you, I must have recourse to the maxim: errare humanum est.’
‘Listen, Villefort,’ said the doctor, ‘is there any of my colleagues in whom you have as much confidence as you do in me?’
‘Why do you ask? What are you suggesting?’
‘Call him in; I shall tell him what I saw, what I observed, and we shall perform an autopsy.’
‘Will you find any traces of poison?’
‘No, not of poison, I’m not saying that, but we can establish the exasperation of the nervous system and recognize the obvious and undeniable signs of asphyxia, and tell you: my dear Villefort, if this was caused by negligence, take care for your servants; if by hatred, take care for your enemies.’
‘Good Lord, d’Avrigny, what are you suggesting?’ Villefort answered despondently. ‘If anyone apart from you were to be taken into our confidence, an enquiry would become necessary – an enquiry, in my house! Impossible! But of course,’ the crown prosecutor continued, pulling himself up and looking anxiously at the doctor, ‘of course, if you want it, if you absolutely insist, I shall have it done. Indeed, it may be my duty to pursue the matter; my character demands it. But you see me already overwhelmed with sadness: to start such a scandal in my house after such sorrow. It would kill my wife and daughter; and I, doctor, I… You know, a man does not reach my position, a man cannot be crown prosecutor for twenty-five years, without acquiring a fair number of enemies. I have many of them. If this affair were to come out, it would be a triumph that would make them leap for joy and cover me with shame. Forgive me these base thoughts. If you were a priest, I should not dare to say that to you, but you are a man and you know other men. Doctor, doctor, tell me: you have not told me anything, have you?’
‘My dear Monsieur de Villefort,’ the doctor replied, shaken, ‘my first duty is one of humanity. I would have saved Madame de Saint-Méran, if it had been within the power of science to do so, but she is dead and my responsibility is to the living. Let us bury this terrible secret in the depth of our hearts. If the eyes of anyone are opened to it, I shall allow my silence to be blamed on my ignorance. However, Monsieur, keep on looking, actively, because this may not be an end to it. And when you find the guilty party, if you find him, I shall say: you are the judge, do what you will!’
‘Thank you, doctor, thank you,’ Villefort said, with inexpressible joy. ‘I shall never have a better friend than you.’ And, as though afraid that Dr d’Avrigny might change his mind, he got up and led him back towards the house.
They vanished. Morrel, as if needing to breathe, put his head out of the arbour so that the moon shone on a face so pale that it might have been taken for that of a ghost.
‘God is protecting me, in an obvious but terrible way,’ he said. ‘But Valentine, Valentine, my poor friend! Can she withstand so much sorrow?’ And he looked alternately from the window with the red curtains to the three with the white ones.
The light had almost entirely disappeared from the red-curtained window. No doubt Mme de Villefort had just put out her lamp and only a night-light cast a flicker on the window-panes. But at the far end of the building he saw someone open one of the three windows with the red curtains. A candle on the mantelpiece cast a few rays of pale light outside and a shadow came and leant over the balcony. Morrel shuddered: he thought he had heard a sob.
It was not surprising that this soul, usually so strong and resolute, now tossed alternately up and down between the two most powerful of human passions, love and fear, should have been weakened to the point where he had begun to have hallucinations.
Although it was impossible for Valentine to see him where he was hiding, he thought he saw the shadow in the window motion to him: his troubled mind told him and his warm heart repeated this to him. The double error became a compelli
ng reality and, with one of those incomprehensible impulses of youth, he leapt from his hiding-place, at the risk of being seen, or of terrifying Valentine and raising the alarm, were she to give an involuntary cry. In two bounds he crossed the flower garden that seemed in the moonlight as broad and white as a lake and, beyond the row of orange trees planted in boxes in front of the house, he reached the steps, ran up them and pushed the door, which opened freely before him.
Valentine had not seen him. Her eyes were lifted upwards, following a silver cloud gliding in front of the deep blue sky, its shape like that of a ghost rising to heaven. Her romantic and poetic nature told her it was her grandmother’s soul.
Meanwhile Morrel had crossed the antechamber and found the banisters. A staircarpet muffled his steps. In any event, he had reached such a degree of exultation that not even the presence of M. de Villefort himself would have frightened him. Should M. de Villefort appear in front of him, he had decided what to do: he would go up to him and confess everything, begging his forgiveness and his approval of the love that bound Morrel to his daughter and vice versa.
Morrel was mad. Fortunately he did not see anyone.
Now, most of all, he found a use for Valentine’s descriptions of the internal layout of the house. He arrived safely at the top of the stairs and, once there, was taking his bearings when a sob, in tones that he recognized, showed him the way. He turned around. A half-open door gave out a shaft of light and the moaning voice. He pushed it and went in.
At the bottom of an alcove, under a white sheet covering its head and outlining its shape, lay the corpse, still more terrifying in Morrel’s eyes now that he had chanced on the secret of her death. Valentine was kneeling beside the bed, her head buried in the cushions of a broad-backed chair, shivering and heaving with sobs, her two hands stiffly joined above her head, which remained invisible.