Strange True Stories of Louisiana
Page 43
V.
THE NUNCUPATIVE WILL.
In their sad task upstairs Attalie held command. Camille went and came onshort errands to and from the door of her room, and was let in only onceor twice when, for lifting or some such thing, four hands wereindispensable. Soon both he and she came down to the door of the vacatedroom again together. He was in his shirt sleeves and without his shoes;but he had resumed command.
"And now, Madame Brouillard, to do this thing in the very best way I oughtto say to you at once that our dear friend--did he ever tell you what hewas worth?" The speaker leaned against the door-post and seemed to concernhimself languidly with his black-rimmed finger-nails, while in fact he waswatching Attalie from head to foot with all his senses and wits. Shelooked grief-stricken and thoroughly wretched.
"No," she said, very quietly, then suddenly burst into noiseless freshtears, sank into a chair, buried her face in her wet handkerchief, andcried, "Ah! no, no, no! that was none of my business. He was going toleave it all to me. I never asked if it was little or much."
While she spoke Camille was reckoning with all his might and speed: "Shehas at least some notion as to whether he is rich or poor. She seemed afew minutes ago to fear he is poor, but I must try her again. Let me see:if he is poor and I say he is rich she will hope I know better than she,and will be silent. But if he is rich and she knows it, and I say he ispoor, she will suspect fraud and will out with the actual fact indignantlyon the spot." By this time she had ceased, and he spoke out:
"Well, Madame Brouillard, the plain fact is he was--as you may say--poor."
She looked up quickly from her soaking handkerchief, dropped her handsinto her lap, and gazing at Camille through her tears said, "Alas! Ifeared it. That is what I feared. But ah! since it makes no difference tohim now, it makes little to me. I feared it. That accounts for his leavingit to me, poor _milatraise_."
"But would you have imagined, madame, that all he had was barely threethousand dollars?"
"Ah! three thousand--ah! Michie Ducour," she said between a sob and amoan, "that is not so little. Three thousand! In Paris, where my brotherlives, that would be fifteen thousand francs. Ah! Michie Ducour, I neverguessed half that much, Michie Ducour, I tell you--he was too good to berich." Her eyes stood full.
Camille started busily from his leaning posture and they began again to beactive. But, as I have said, their relations were reversed once more. Hegave directions from within the room, and she did short errands to andfrom the door.
The witnesses came: first Jean d'Eau, then Richard Reau, and almost at thesame moment the aged Ecswyzee. The black maid led them up from below, andAttalie, tearless now, but meek and red-eyed, and speaking low through theslightly opened door from within the Englishman's bed-chamber, thankedthem, explained that a will was to be made, and was just asking them tofind seats in the adjoining front room, when the notary, aged, bent,dark-goggled, and as insensible as a machine, arrived. Attalie's offers toexplain were murmurously waved away by his wrinkled hand, and the four menfollowed her into the bedchamber. The black maid-of-all-work also entered.
The room was heavily darkened. There was a rich aroma of fine brandy onits air. The Englishman's little desk had been drawn up near the bedside.Two candles were on it, unlighted, in small, old silver candlesticks.Attalie, grief-worn, distressed, visibly agitated, moved close to thebedside. Her sad figure suited the place with poetic fitness. The notarystood by the chair at the desk. The three witnesses edged along the wallwhere the curtained windows glimmered, took seats there, and held theirhats in their hands. All looked at one object.
It was a man reclining on the bed under a light covering, deep in pillows,his head and shoulders much bundled up in wrappings. He moaned faintly andshowed every sign of utmost weakness. His eyes opened only now and then,but when they did so they shone intelligently, though with a restlessintensity apparently from both pain and anxiety.
He gasped a faint word. Attalie hung over him for an instant, and thenturning quickly to her maid, who was lighting the candles for the notaryand placing them so they should not shine into the eyes of the man in bed,said:
"His feet--another hot-water bottle."
The maid went to get it. While she was gone the notary asked the butcher,then the baker, and then the candlestick-maker, if they could speak andunderstand English, and where they resided. Their answers weresatisfactory. Then he sat down, bent low to the desk, and wrote on a blankform the preamble of a nuncupative will. By the time he had finished, themaid had got back and the hot bottle had been properly placed. The notaryturned his goggles upon the reclining figure and asked in English, with astrong Creole accent:
"What is your name?"
The words of the man in the bed were an inaudible gasp. But Attalie benther ear quickly, caught them, and turning repeated:
"More brandy."
The black girl brought a decanter from the floor behind the bureau, and awine-glass from the washstand. Attalie poured, the patient drank, and themaid replaced glass and decanter. The eyes of the butcher and the bakerfollowed the sparkling vessel till it disappeared, and the maker ofcandlesticks made a dry swallow and faintly licked his lips. The notaryremarked that there must be no intervention of speakers between himselfand the person making the will, nor any turning aside to other matters;but that merely stopping a moment to satisfy thirst without leaving theroom was not a vitiative turning aside and would not be, even if done byothers besides the party making the will. But here the patient moaned andsaid audibly, "Let us go on." And they went on. The notary asked thepatient's name, the place and date of his birth, etc., and the patient'sanswers were in every case whatever the Englishman's would have been.Presently the point was reached where the patient should express hiswishes unprompted by suggestion or inquiry. He said faintly, "I will andbequeath"--
The servant girl, seeing her mistress bury her face in her handkerchief,did the same. The patient gasped audibly and said again, but more faintly:
"I will and bequeath--some more brandy."
The decanter was brought. He drank again. He let Attalie hand it back tothe maid and the maid get nearly to the bureau when he said in a low toneof distinct reproof:
"Pass it 'round." The four visitors drank.
Then the patient resumed with stronger voice. "I will and bequeath to myfriend Camille Ducour"--
Attalie started from her chair with a half-uttered cry of amazement andprotest, but dropped back again at the notary's gesture for silence, andthe patient spoke straight on without hesitation--"to my friend CamilleDucour, the sum of fifteen hundred dollars in cash."
Attalie and her handmaiden looked at each other with a dumb show oflamentation; but her butcher and her baker turned slowly upon hercandlestick-maker, and he upon them, a look of quiet but profoundapproval. The notary wrote, and the patient spoke again:
"I will everything else which I may leave at my death, both real andpersonal property, to Madame Attalie Brouillard."
"Ah!" exclaimed Attalie, in the manner of one largely, but not entirely,propitiated. The maid suited her silent movement to the utterance, and thethree witnesses exchanged slow looks of grave satisfaction. Mistress andmaid, since the will seemed to them so manifestly and entirely finished,began to whisper together, although the patient and the notary were stillperfecting some concluding formalities. But presently the notary began toread aloud the instrument he had prepared, keeping his face buried in thepaper and running his nose and purblind eyes about it nervously, like anew-born thing hunting the warm fountain of life. All gave close heed. Weneed not give the document in its full length, nor its Creole accent inits entire breadth. This is only something like it:
"Dthee State of Louisiana," etc. "Be h-it known dthat on dthees h-eighthday of dthee month of May, One thousan' h-eight hawndred and fifty-five,dthat I, Eugene Favre, a not-arie pewblic een and for dthe State ofLouisiana, parrish of Orleans, duly commission-ed and qualeefi-ed, wassue-mon-ed to dthe domee-ceel of Mr. [the Englishman's name], Number[so
-and-so] Bienville street; ...dthat I found sayed Mr. [Englishman]lyingue in heez bade in dthee rear room of dthee second floor h-of dtheesayed house ... at about two o'clawk in dthee h-afternoon, and beingueinformed by dthee sayed Mr. [Englishman] dthat he _diz_-i-red too makeheez weel, I, sayed not-arie, sue-mon-ed into sayed bedchamber of dthesayed Mr. [Englishman] dthe following nam-ed wit_nes_ses of lawfool h-ageand residents of dthe sayed cittie, parrish, and State, to wit: Mr. Jeand'Eau, Mr. Richard Reau, and Mr. V. Deblieux Ecswyzee. That there _up_-onsayed Mr. [Englishman] being seek in bodie but of soun' mine, which was_hap_parent to me not-arie and dthe sayed wit_nes_ses by heez lang-uageand h-actions then and there in dthe presence of sayed wit_nes_ses_dic_tated to me not-arie dthe following as heez laz weel and tes_tam_ent,wheech was written by me sayed not-arie as _dic_tated by the sayed Mr.[Englishman], to wit:
"'My name ees [John Bull]. I was born in,' etc. 'My father and mother aredade. I have no chil'ren. I have never had annie brawther or seester. Ihave never been marri-ed. Thees is my laz weel. I have never made a weelbefo'. I weel and _bick_weath to my fran' Camille Ducour dthe sawm offifteen hawndred dollars in cash. I weel h-everything h-else wheech I mayleave at my daith, both real and personal property, to Madame AttalieBrouillard, leevingue at Number,' etc. 'I appoint my sayed fran' CamilleDucour as my testamentary executor, weeth-out bon', and grant heem dtheseizin' of my h-estate, h-and I dir-ect heem to pay h-all my juz debts.'
"Thees weel and tes_tam_ent as thus _dic_tated too me by sayed _tes_tatorand wheech was wreeten by me notarie by my h-own han' jus' as _dic_tated,was thane by me not-arie rade to sayed Mr. [Englishman] in an au_dib_levoice and in the presence of dthe aforesayed three witnesses, and dthesayed Mr. [Englishman] _dic_lar-ed that he well awnder-stood me not-arieand per_sev_er-ed een _dic_laring the same too be his laz weel; all ofwheech was don' at one time and place weethout in_ter_'uption and weethoutturningue aside to other acts.
"Thus done and pass-ed," etc.
The notary rose, a wet pen in one hand and the will--with his portfoliounder it for a tablet--in the other. Attalie hurried to the bedside andstood ready to assist. The patient took the pen with a trembling hand. Thewriting was laid before him, and Attalie with a knee on the bed thrust herarm under the pillows behind him to make a firmer support.
The patient seemed to summon all his power to poise and steady the pen,but his hand shook, his fingers loosened, and it fell upon the document,making two or three blots there and another on the bed-covering, whitherit rolled. He groped faintly for it, moaned, and then relaxed.
"He cannot sign!" whispered Attalie, piteously.
"Yes," gasped the patient.
The notary once more handed him the pen, but the same thing happenedagain.
The butcher cleared his throat in a way to draw attention. Attalie lookedtowards him and he drawled, half rising from his chair:
"I t'ink--a li'l more cognac"--
"Yass," murmured the baker. The candlestick-maker did not speak, butunconsciously wet his lips with his tongue and wiped them with the back ofhis forefinger. But every eye turned to the patient, who said:
"I cannot write--my hand--shakes so."
The notary asked a formal question or two, to which the patient answered"yes" and "no." The official sat again at the desk, wrote a properstatement of the patient's incapacity to make his signature, and then readit aloud. The patient gave assent, and the three witnesses stepped forwardand signed. Then the notary signed.
As the four men approached the door to depart the baker said, lingeringly,to Attalie, smiling diffidently as he spoke:
"Dat settin' still make a man mighty dry, yass."
"Yass, da's true," said Attalie.
"Yass," he added, "same time he dawn't better drink much _water_ dat hotweader, no." The butcher turned and smiled concurrence; but Attalie,though she again said "yass," only added good-day, and the maid led themand the notary down stairs and let them out.