The Money Master

Chapter 9

"MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE"

The air was like a mellow wine, and the light on the landscape was full

of wistfulness. It was a thing so exquisite that a man of sentiment like

Jean Jacques in his younger days would have wept to see. And the feeling

was as palpable as the seeing; as in the early spring the new life which

is being born in the year, produces a febrile kind of sorrow in the mind.

But the glow of Indian summer, that compromise, that after-thought of

real summer, which brings her back for another good-bye ere she vanishes

for ever--its sadness is of a different kind. Its longing has a sharper

edge; there stir in it the pangs of discontent; and the mind and body

yearn for solace. It is a dangerous time, even more dangerous than spring

for those who have passed the days of youth.

It had proved dangerous to Carmen Barbille. The melancholy of the

gorgeously tinted trees, the flights of the birds to the south, the smell

of the fallow field, the wind with the touch of the coming rains--these

had given to a growing discontent with her monotonous life the desire

born of self-pity. In spite of all she could do she was turning to the

life she had left behind in Cadiz long ago.

It seemed to her that Jean Jacques had ceased to care for the charms

which once he had so proudly proclaimed. There was in her the strain of

the religion of Epicurus. She desired always that her visible corporeal

self should be admired and desired, that men should say, "What a splendid

creature!" It was in her veins, an undefined philosophy of life; and she

had ever measured the love of Jean Jacques by his caresses. She had no

other vital standard. This she could measure, she could grasp it and say,

"Here I have a hold; it is so much harvested." But if some one had

written her a poem a thousand verses long, she would have said, "Yes, all

very fine, but let me see what it means; let me feel that it is so."

She had an inherent love of luxury and pleasure, which was far more

active in her now than when she married Jean Jacques. For a Spanish woman

she had matured late; and that was because, in her youth, she had been

active and athletic, unlike most Spanish girls; and the microbes of a

sensuous life, or what might have become a sensual life, had not good

chance to breed.

It all came, however, in the dullness of the winter days and nights, in

the time of deep snows, when they could go abroad but very little. Then

her body and her mind seemed to long for the indolent sun-spaces of

Spain. The artificial heat of the big stoves in the rooms with the low

ceilings only irritated her, and she felt herself growing more ample from

lassitude of the flesh. This particular autumn it seemed to her that she

could not get through another winter without something going wrong,

without a crisis of some sort. She felt the need of excitement, of

change. She had the desire for pleasures undefined.

Then George Masson came, and the undefined took form almost at once. It

was no case of the hunter pursuing his prey with all the craft and

subtlety of his trade. She had answered his look with spontaneity, due to

the fact that she had been surprised into the candour of her feelings by

the appearance of one who had the boldness of a brigand, the health of a

Hercules, and the intelligence of a primitive Jesuit. He had not

hesitated; he had yielded himself to the sumptuous attraction, and the

fire in his eyes was only the window of the furnace within him. He had

gone headlong to the conquest, and by sheer force of temperament and

weight of passion he had swept her off her feet.

He had now come to the last day of his duty at the Mill Cartier, when all

he had to do was to inspect the work done, give assurance and guarantee

that it was all right, and receive his cheque from Jean Jacques. He had

come early, because he had been unable to sleep well, and also he had

much to do before keeping his tryst with Carmen Barbille in the

afternoon.

As he passed the Manor Cartier this fateful morning, he saw her at the

window, and he waved his hat at her with a cheery salutation which she

did not hear. He knew that she did not hear or see. "My beauty!" he said

aloud. "My splendid girl, my charmer of Cadiz! My wonder of the Alhambra,

my Moorish maid! My bird of freedom--hand of Charlemagne, your lips are

sweet, yes, sweet as one-and-twenty!"

His lips grew redder at the thought of the kisses he had taken, his cheek

flushed with the thought of those he meant to take; and he laughed

greedily as he lowered himself into the flume by a ladder, just under the

lever that opened the gates, to begin his inspection.

It was not a perfunctory inspection, for he was a good craftsman, and he

had pride in what his workmen did.

"Ah!"

It was a sound of dumbfounded amazement, a hoarse cry of horror which was

not in tune with the beauty of the morning.

"Ah!"

It came from his throat like the groan of a trapped and wounded lion.

George Masson had almost finished his inspection, when he heard a noise

behind him. He turned and looked back. There stood Jean Jacques with his

hand on the lever. The noise he had heard was the fourteen-foot ladder

being dropped, after Jean Jacques had drawn it up softly out of the

flume.

"Ah! Nom de Dieu!" George Masson exclaimed again in helpless fury and

with horror in his eyes.

By instinct he understood that Carmen's husband knew all. He realized

what Jean Jacques meant to do. He knew that the lever locking the

mill-wheel had been opened, and that Jean Jacques had his hand on the

lever which raised the gate of the flume.

By instinct--for there was no time for thought--he did the only thing

which could help him, he made a swift gesture to Jean Jacques, a gesture

that bade him wait. Time was his only friend in this--one minute, two

minutes, three minutes, anything. For if the gates were opened, he would

be swept into the millwheel, and there would be the end--the everlasting

end.

"Wait!" he called out after his gesture. "One second!"

He ran forward till he was about thirty feet from Jean Jacques standing

there above him, with the set face and the dark malicious, half-insane

eyes. Even in his fear and ghastly anxiety, the subconscious mind of

George Masson was saying, "He looks like the Baron of Beaugard--like the

Baron of Beaugard that killed the man who abused his wife."

It was so. Great-great-grand-nephew of the Baron of Beaugard as he was,

Jean Jacques looked like the portrait of him which hung in the Manor

Cartier. "Wait--but wait one minute!" exclaimed George Masson; and now,

all at once, he had grown cool and determined, and his brain was at work

again with an activity and a clearness it had never known. He had gained

one minute of time, he might be able to gain more. In any case, no one

could save him except himself. There was Jean Jacques with his hand on

the lever--one turn and the thing was done for ever. If a rescuer was

even within one foot of Jean Jacques, the deed could still be done. It

was so much easier opening than shutting the gates of the flume!

"Why should I wait, devil and rogue?" The words came from Jean Jacques'

lips with a snarl. "I am going to kill you. It will do you no good to

whine--cochon!"

To call a man a pig is the worst insult which could be offered by one man

to another in the parish of St. Saviour's. To be called a pig as you are

going to die, is an offensive business indeed.

"I know you are going to kill me--that you can kill me, and I can do

nothing," was the master-carpenter's reply. "There it is--a turn of the

lever, and I am done. Bien sur, I know how easy! I do not want to die,

but I will not squeal even if I am a pig. One can only die once. And once

is enough. . . . No, don't--not yet! Give me a minute till I tell you

something; then you can open the gates. You will have a long time to

live--yes, yes, you are the kind that live long. Well, a minute or two is

not much to ask. If you want to murder, you will open the gates at once;

but if it is punishment, if you are an executioner, you will give me time

to pray."

Jean Jacques did not soften. His voice was harsh and grim. "Well, get on

with your praying, but don't talk. You are going to die," he added, his

hands gripping the lever tighter.

The master-carpenter had had the true inspiration in his hour of danger.

He had touched his appeal with logic, he had offered an argument. Jean

Jacques was a logician, a philosopher! That point made about the

difference between a murder and an execution was a good one. Beside it

was an acknowledgment, by inference, from his victim, that he was getting

what he deserved.

"Pray quick and have it over, pig of an adulterer!" added Jean Jacques.

The master-carpenter raised a protesting hand. "There you are mistaken;

but it is no matter. At the end of to-day I would have been an adulterer,

if you hadn't found out. I don't complain of the word. But see, as a

philosopher"--Jean Jacques jerked a haughty assent--"as a philosopher you

will want to know how and why it is. Carmen will never tell you--a woman

never tells the truth about such things, because she does not know how.

She does not know the truth ever, exactly, about anything. It is because

she is a woman. But I would like to tell you the exact truth; and I can,

because I am a man. For what she did you are as much to blame as she

. . . no, no--not yet!"

Jean Jacques' hand had spasmodically tightened on the lever as though he

would wrench the gates open, and a snarl came from his lips.

"Figure de Christ, but it is true, as true as death! Listen, M'sieu' Jean

Jacques. You are going to kill me, but listen so that you will know how

to speak to her afterwards, understanding what I said as I died."

"Get on--quick!" growled Jean Jacques with white wrinkled lips and the

sun in his agonized eyes. George Masson continued his pleading. "You were

always a man of mind"--Jean Jacques' fierce agitation visibly subsided,

and a surly sort of vanity crept into his face--"and you married a girl

who cared more for what you did than what you thought--that is sure, for

I know women. I am not married, and I have had much to do with many of

them. I will tell you the truth. I left the West because of a woman--of

two women. I had a good business, but I could not keep out of trouble

with women. They made it too easy for me."

"Peacock-pig!" exclaimed Jean Jacques with an ugly sneer.

"Let a man when he is dying tell all the truth, to ease his mind," said

the master-carpenter with a machiavellian pretence and cunning. "It was

vanity, it was, as you say; it was the peacock in me made me be the

friend of many women and not the husband of one. I came down here to

Quebec from the Far West to get away from consequences. It was expensive.

I had to sacrifice. Well, here I am in trouble again--my last trouble,

and with the wife of a man that I respect and admire, not enough to keep

my hands off his wife, but still that I admire. It is my weakness that I

could not be, as a man, honourable to Jean Jacques Barbille. And so I pay

the price; so I have to go without time to make my will. Bless heaven

above, I have no wife--"

"If you had a wife you would not be dying now. You would not then meddle

with the home of Jean Jacques Barbille," sneered Jean Jacques. The note

was savage yet.

"Ah, for sure, for sure! It is so. And if I lived I would marry at once."

Desperate as his condition was, the master-carpenter could almost have

laughed at the idea of marriage preventing him from following the bent of

his nature. He was the born lover. If he had been as high as the Czar, or

as low as the ditcher, he would have been the same; but it would be

madness to admit that to Jean Jacques now.

"But, as you say, let me get on. My time has come--"

Jean Jacques jerked his head angrily. "Enough of this. You keep on saying

'Wait a little,' but your time has come. Now take it so, and don't

repeat."

"A man must get used to the idea of dying, or he will die hard," replied

the master-carpenter, for he saw that Jean Jacques' hands were not so

tightly clenched on the lever now; and time was everything. He had

already been near five minutes, and every minute was a step to a chance

of escape--somehow.

"I said you were to blame," he continued. "Listen, Jean Jacques Barbille.

You, a man of mind, married a girl who cared more for a touch of your

hand than a bucketful of your knowledge, which every man in the province

knows is great. At first you were almost always thinking of her and what

a fine woman she was, and because everyone admired her, you played the

peacock, too. I am not the only peacock. You are a good man--no one ever

said anything against your character. But always, always, you think most

of yourself. It is everywhere you go as if you say, 'Look out. I am

coming. I am Jean Jacques Barbille.

"'Make way for Jean Jacques. I am from the Manor Cartier. You have heard

of me.' . . . That is the way you say things in your mind. But all the

time the people say, 'That is Jean Jacques Barbille, but you should see

his wife. She is a wonder. She is at home at the Manor with the cows and

the geese. Jean Jacques travels alone through the parish to Quebec, to

Three Rivers, to Tadousac, to the great exhibition at Montreal, but

madame, she stays at home. M'sieu' Jean Jacques is nothing beside

her'--that is what the people say. They admire you for your brains, but

they would have fallen down before your wife, if you had given her half a

chance."

"Ah, that's bosh--what do you know!" exclaimed Jean Jacques fiercely, but

he was fascinated too by the argument of the man whose life he was going

to take.

"I know the truth, my money-man. Do you think she'd have looked at me if

you'd been to her what she thought I might be? No, bien sur! Did you take

her where she could see the world? No. Did you bring her presents? No.

Did you say, 'Come along, we will make a little journey to see the

world?' No. Do you think that a woman can sit and darn your socks, and

tidy your room, and bake you pancakes in the morning while you roast your

toes, and be satisfied with just that, and not long for something

outside?"

Jean Jacques was silent. He did not move. He was being hypnotized by a

mind of subtle strength, by the logic of which he was so great a lover.

The master-carpenter pressed his logic home. "No, she must sit in your

shadow always. She must wait till you come. And when you come, it was

'Here am I, your Jean Jacques. Fall down and worship me. I am your

husband.' Did you ever say, 'Heavens, there you are, the woman of all the

world, the rising and the setting sun, the star that shines, the garden

where all the flowers of love grow'? Did you ever do that? But no, there

was only one person in the world--there was only you, Jean Jacques. You

were the only pig in the sty."

It was a bold stroke, but if Jean Jacques could stand that, he could

stand anything. There was a savage start on the part of Jean Jacques, and

the lever almost moved.

"Stop one second!" cried the master-carpenter, sharply now, for in spite

of the sudden savagery on Jean Jacques' part, he felt he had an

advantage, and now he would play his biggest card.

"You can kill me. It is there in your hand. No one can stop you. But will

that give you anything? What is my life? If you take it away, will you be

happier? It is happiness you want. Your wife--she will love you, if you

give her a chance. If you kill me, I will have my revenge in death, for

it is the end of all things for you. You lose your wife for ever. You

need not do so. She would have gone with me, not because of me, but

because I was a man who she thought would treat her like a friend, like a

comrade; who would love her--sacre, what husband could help make love to

such a woman, unless he was in love with himself instead of her!"

Jean Jacques rocked to and fro over the lever in his agitation, yet he

made no motion to move it. He was under a spell.

Straight home drove the master-carpenter's reasoning now. "Kill me, and

you lose her for ever. Kill me, and she will hate you. You think she will

not find out? Then see: as I die I will shriek out so loud that she can

hear me, and she will understand. She will go mad, and give you over to

the law. And then--and then! Did you ever think what will become of your

child, of your Zoe, if you go to the gallows? That would be your legacy

and your blessing to her--the death of a murderer; and she would be left

alone with the woman that would hate you in death! Voila--do you not

see?"

Jean Jacques saw. The terrific logic of the thing smote him. His wife

hating him, himself on the scaffold, his little Zoe disgraced and

dishonoured all her life; and himself out of it all, unable to help her,

and bringing irremediable trouble on her! As a chemical clears a muddy

liquid, leaving it pure and atomless, so there seemed to pass over Jean

Jacques' face a thought like a revelation.

He took his hand from the lever. For a moment he stood like one awakened

out of a sleep. He put his hands to his eyes, then shook his head as

though to free it of some hateful burden. An instant later he stooped,

lifted up the ladder beside him, and let it down to the floor of the

flume.

"There, go--for ever," he said.

Then he turned away with bowed head. He staggered as he stepped down from

the bridge of the flume, where the lever was. He swayed from side to

side. Then he raised his head and looked towards his house. His child

lived there--his Zoe.

"Moi je suis philosophe!" he said brokenly.

After a moment or two, as he stumbled on, he said it again--"Me, I am a

philosopher!"