“Mais oui, who is it? Enter!”
Jeanne came through the booming door, her hair impeccable, a fevered lion crouched in her stance, her eyes as lively and shameless as champagne.
“Good day, Mademoiselle. What is the envelope you have brought with you?”
“A communication from Charles, Counseil Judicaire!“
“What more can he have to say after yesterday’s midnight refusal of a forty-five franc advance on next month’s allowance? The terms of his inheritance have been completely settled between his mother, General Aupick, and himself. Not to mention the court of law.”
“Yes, M. Ancelle. This is all well known to Charles. I myself have been fully informed on these matters between his bitter mutterings, his rants against fate, and his incessant chattering in his sleep. The terms, you see, are a literal nightmare for him. Nevertheless, he has implored me to bring you this communique post-haste! What it may contain, I have not the slightest notion.”
“He dashed it off this A.M.?”
“No, he was up all night, leaving me in freezing sheets. He came back to the apartment last night from his visit with you, his brow contracted in pain, and sat lighting and snuffing a candle while contemplating the extinguished wick between ignitions.”
“Well, my dear, be that as it may be, please do sit down. Have a clove cigarette, they are most soothing. There are no night terrors at the accountant’s office, after all! This particular brand was recommended by Charles, and no doubt you will find them familiar enough.”
I accepted the letter from Mlle. Duval, a fat one, and broke the wax seal, which was very fresh. Evidently Baudelaire’s candle experiment had evolved into letter-writing at some point in the night. The scent of burning cloves was an anodyne to my mood, which, poor cat, had had no coffee applied to its incorrectly petted nap as of yet.
To say that the content of the transmission Mlle. Duval handed over was shocking is to say nothing at all. It was beyond brazen, past endurance, insufferable, and utterly unignorable all at once. I glanced up at Mlle. Duval; her haughty head was as wreathed with smoke as any Alpine mountain bastion.
“Mademoiselle, do not disturb yourself. I must find my man Gerard and send him on a minor errand, no more than that. I shall return in a moment. Some of M. Baudelaire’s note touches on yourself, and we can discuss the matter fully when I return. Gerard!!!”
Some fortunate angel had delayed Gerard from sousing himself into oblivion that particular morning, and he was able to be dispatched to Baudelaire’s rooms at once in an attempt to stop him from killing himself. For indeed, the contents of his missive were a last will and testament, and a declaration of suicide. He was anxious to provide for Jeanne–and, in my estimation, equally anxious to put a stake through the heart of his maman. The sacrilege! And after her endless pains to keep him from ruining himself financially so he could continue to play pat-a-cake with his poet and painter pals.
Still, he was as inconsolable as a kicked cur; and those overblown eyes told of his own immensities of suffering. Last night, begging for cash, he had had the haunted look of a petty burgher whose enterprise has been burned to its foundations by some uninsurable accident of lightning or riot. Who can judge another’s pain? Human nature is such a fist of vipers….
But first, he must survive.
“Gerard!”
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