Respawned as The Count of Glow-Up-Chapter 255: The Magistrate’s Burden: I

After the deaths in the Villefort household, Abbé Busoni had remained alone with the old man Noirtier in the death chamber. The priest and the elderly man were the sole guardians of young Valentine’s body.

Perhaps it was the priest’s Christian counsel, his kind charity, or his persuasive words that restored courage to Noirtier. Ever since his conversation with the abbé, his violent despair had given way to a calm resignation that surprised everyone who knew his deep love for Valentine.

Villefort hadn’t seen his father since the morning of Valentine’s death. Everything in the household had changed, new servants everywhere, new faces for every position, from the lowest worker to the coachmen. These changes widened the division that had always existed between members of the family.

The upcoming trial was also approaching. Villefort locked himself in his office, working with feverish intensity on the case against Caderousse’s murderer. Like everything the Count of Monte Cristo touched, this affair caused a sensation in Paris.

The evidence wasn’t exactly ironclad, it rested mainly on a few words written by an escaped convict on his deathbed, someone who might have been motivated by hatred or revenge in accusing his companion. But Villefort’s mind was made up. He felt certain that Benedetto was guilty, and he hoped his skill in handling this high-profile case would satisfy his ego, about the only vulnerable point left in his frozen heart.

Villefort worked relentlessly on the case, wanting it first on the docket. He’d secluded himself more than ever to avoid the enormous number of requests from people seeking tickets to attend the trial. So little time had passed since poor Valentine’s death that the house was still shrouded in gloom. Nobody found it strange that the father was completely absorbed in his professional duties, the only way he had to escape his grief.

Only once had Villefort seen his father since Bertuccio’s second visit to Benedetto. The magistrate, exhausted and stressed, had gone down to his garden. In a dark mood, he began knocking dead rose branches off the bushes with his cane, like a man venting his fury on innocent plants.

More than once he’d reached the part of the garden where the famous boarded gate overlooked the deserted enclosure, always returning by the same path to begin his walk again. Then he accidentally turned his eyes toward the house, where he heard his son playing, the boy had returned from school to spend the weekend with his mother.

As he looked up, he saw Noirtier at one of the open windows. The old man had been placed there to enjoy the last rays of sun, which still provided some warmth and now shone on the dying flowers and red leaves of the creeper twining around the balcony.

The old man’s eye was fixed on something Villefort could barely make out. His gaze was so full of hate, ferocity, and savage impatience that Villefort turned from his path to see what was provoking such intensity.

Then he saw, beneath a thick clump of linden trees nearly bare of leaves, Madame de Villefort sitting with a book. She frequently interrupted her reading to smile at their son or throw back his ball, which he kept bouncing from the drawing room into the garden.

Villefort went pale. He understood the old man’s meaning.

Noirtier continued staring at the same object, but suddenly his gaze shifted from the wife to the husband. Villefort himself had to endure the searching investigation of those eyes, which, while changing direction and even language, had lost none of their menacing power.

Madame de Villefort, unaware of the passions burning over her head, was holding her son’s ball at that moment, making signs for him to come get it with a kiss. Edward resisted for a while, the maternal kiss apparently didn’t offer enough reward for the effort required. Finally he decided, leaped out the window into a cluster of flowers, and ran to his mother, forehead streaming with sweat.

Madame de Villefort wiped his forehead, pressed her lips to it, and sent him back with the ball in one hand and candy in the other.

Villefort, drawn by an irresistible pull, like a bird to a snake, walked toward the house. As he approached, Noirtier’s gaze followed him, and those eyes blazed with such intensity that Villefort felt them pierce to his heart’s depths. In that earnest look he could read both a deep reproach and a terrible threat.

Then Noirtier raised his eyes to heaven, as if reminding his son of a forgotten oath.

"It is well, sir," Villefort called from below. "Have patience just one more day. What I’ve said, I will do."

Noirtier seemed calmed by these words and turned his eyes indifferently aside. Villefort violently unbuttoned his coat, which seemed to strangle him, and passed his pale hand across his forehead before entering his study.

The night was cold and still. The family had all retired except Villefort, who worked alone until five in the morning, reviewing interrogations from the previous night, compiling witness statements, and putting the finishing touches on his accusation, one of the most powerful and well-crafted documents he’d ever written.

The next day, Monday, was the trial’s first session. Dawn broke dull and gloomy. Villefort saw the dim gray light shine on the lines he’d traced in red ink. He’d slept briefly while the lamp sent out its final flickers, and those flickers had woken him. His fingers were damp and purple, as though dipped in blood.

He opened the window. A bright yellow streak crossed the sky, seeming to divide the poplars standing in black relief on the horizon. In the fields beyond the chestnut trees, a lark climbed toward heaven while pouring out its clear morning song. The morning dew bathed Villefort’s head and refreshed his memory.

"Today," he said with effort, "today the man who holds the blade of justice must strike wherever there is guilt."

Involuntarily, his eyes wandered toward Noirtier’s window, where he’d seen him the night before. The curtain was drawn, yet his father’s image was so vivid in his mind that he spoke to the closed window as though it were open.

"Yes," he murmured. "Yes, be satisfied."

His head dropped to his chest, and in this position he paced his study. Then he threw himself, still fully dressed, onto a sofa, less to sleep than to rest his cold, cramped limbs.

Gradually everyone woke. From his study, Villefort heard the successive sounds of a house coming to life, doors opening and closing, Madame de Villefort’s bell summoning her maid, mingled with their son’s first shouts as he rose full of childish energy.

Villefort also rang. His new valet brought him papers and a cup of hot chocolate.

"What are you bringing me?" he asked.

"A cup of chocolate."

"I didn’t ask for it. Who thought of this?"

"Your wife, sir. She said you’d have to speak a great deal at the murder trial and should take something to keep up your strength."

The valet placed the cup on the nearest table, which like all the others was covered with papers, then left.

Villefort stared at it with a gloomy expression. Then suddenly, with a nervous motion, he grabbed it and swallowed the contents in one gulp. It almost seemed he hoped the drink would be poisonous, that he sought death to free him from a duty he’d rather die than fulfill.

He rose and paced the room with a smile that would have been terrible to witness.

The chocolate was harmless, Villefort felt no effects.

Breakfast time arrived, but Villefort didn’t come to the table. The valet returned.

"Madame de Villefort wishes to remind you, sir," he said, "that it’s just struck eleven o’clock, and the trial begins at noon."

"Well?" Villefort said. "What of it?"

"Madame de Villefort is dressed and ready. She wishes to know if she should accompany you, sir."

"Where?"

"To the courthouse."

"For what?"

"She very much wishes to attend the trial." 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"Ah," Villefort said with a startling tone. "She wishes that?" The servant stepped back. "If you wish to go alone, sir, I’ll tell her."

Villefort remained silent for a moment, digging his nails into his pale cheeks.

"Tell your mistress," he finally answered, "that I wish to speak to her. Ask her to wait for me in her room."

"Yes, sir."

"Then come help me dress and shave."

The valet reappeared almost instantly. After shaving his master, he helped him dress entirely in black. When finished, he said, "Your wife said she’ll expect you, sir, as soon as you’re ready."

"I’m going to her now."