The American, Henry James [top novels of all time .TXT] 📗

Cintré; “but when she does they are terrible.”

“She is ravishing,” the Marquise Urbain resumed, looking at her sister-in-law, with her head on one side. “Yes, I congratulate you.”

Madame de Cintré turned away, and, taking up a piece of tapestry, began to ply the needle. Some minutes of silence elapsed, which were interrupted by the arrival of M. de Bellegarde. He came in with his hat in his hand, gloved, and was followed by his brother Valentin, who appeared to have just entered the house. M. de Bellegarde looked around the circle and greeted Newman with his usual finely-measured courtesy. Valentin saluted his mother and his sisters, and, as he shook hands with Newman, gave him a glance of acute interrogation.

“Arrivez donc, messieurs!” cried young Madame de Bellegarde. “We have great news for you.”

“Speak to your brother, my daughter,” said the old lady.

Madame de Cintré had been looking at her tapestry. She raised her eyes to her brother. “I have accepted Mr. Newman.”

“Your sister has consented,” said Newman. “You see after all, I knew what I was about.”

“I am charmed!” said M. de Bellegarde, with superior benignity.

“So am I,” said Valentin to Newman. “The marquis and I are charmed. I can’t marry, myself, but I can understand it. I can’t stand on my head, but I can applaud a clever acrobat. My dear sister, I bless your union.”

The marquis stood looking for a while into the crown of his hat. “We have been prepared,” he said at last “but it is inevitable that in face of the event one should experience a certain emotion.” And he gave a most unhilarious smile.

“I feel no emotion that I was not perfectly prepared for,” said his mother.

“I can’t say that for myself,” said Newman, smiling but differently from the marquis. “I am happier than I expected to be. I suppose it’s the sight of your happiness!”

“Don’t exaggerate that,” said Madame de Bellegarde, getting up and laying her hand upon her daughter’s arm. “You can’t expect an honest old woman to thank you for taking away her beautiful, only daughter.”

“You forgot me, dear madame,” said the young marquise demurely.

“Yes, she is very beautiful,” said Newman.

“And when is the wedding, pray?” asked young Madame de Bellegarde; “I must have a month to think over a dress.”

“That must be discussed,” said the marquise.

“Oh, we will discuss it, and let you know!” Newman exclaimed.

“I have no doubt we shall agree,” said Urbain.

“If you don’t agree with Madame de Cintré, you will be very unreasonable.”

“Come, come, Urbain,” said young Madame de Bellegarde, “I must go straight to my tailor’s.”

The old lady had been standing with her hand on her daughter’s arm, looking at her fixedly. She gave a little sigh, and murmured, “No, I did not expect it! You are a fortunate man,” she added, turning to Newman, with an expressive nod.

“Oh, I know that!” he answered. “I feel tremendously proud. I feel like crying it on the housetops,—like stopping people in the street to tell them.”

Madame de Bellegarde narrowed her lips. “Pray don’t,” she said.

“The more people that know it, the better,” Newman declared. “I haven’t yet announced it here, but I telegraphed it this morning to America.”

“Telegraphed it to America?” the old lady murmured.

“To New York, to St. Louis, and to San Francisco; those are the principal cities, you know. To-morrow I shall tell my friends here.”

“Have you many?” asked Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone of which I am afraid that Newman but partly measured the impertinence.

“Enough to bring me a great many hand-shakes and congratulations. To say nothing,” he added, in a moment, “of those I shall receive from your friends.”

“They will not use the telegraph,” said the marquise, taking her departure.

M. de Bellegarde, whose wife, her imagination having apparently taken flight to the tailor’s, was fluttering her silken wings in emulation, shook hands with Newman, and said with a more persuasive accent than the latter had ever heard him use, “You may count upon me.” Then his wife led him away.

Valentin stood looking from his sister to our hero. “I hope you both reflected seriously,” he said.

Madame de Cintré smiled. “We have neither your powers of reflection nor your depth of seriousness; but we have done our best.”

“Well, I have a great regard for each of you,” Valentin continued. “You are charming young people. But I am not satisfied, on the whole, that you belong to that small and superior class—that exquisite group composed of persons who are worthy to remain unmarried. These are rare souls; they are the salt of the earth. But I don’t mean to be invidious; the marrying people are often very nice.”

“Valentin holds that women should marry, and that men should not,” said Madame de Cintré. “I don’t know how he arranges it.”

“I arrange it by adoring you, my sister,” said Valentin ardently. “Good-bye.”

“Adore someone whom you can marry,” said Newman. “I will arrange that for you some day. I foresee that I am going to turn apostle.”

Valentin was on the threshold; he looked back a moment with a face that had turned grave. “I adore someone I can’t marry!” he said. And he dropped the portière and departed.

“They don’t like it,” said Newman, standing alone before Madame de Cintré.

“No,” she said, after a moment; “they don’t like it.”

“Well, now, do you mind that?” asked Newman.

“Yes!” she said, after another interval.

“That’s a mistake.”

“I can’t help it. I should prefer that my mother were pleased.”

“Why the deuce,” demanded Newman, “is she not pleased? She gave you leave to marry me.”

“Very true; I don’t understand it. And yet I do ‘mind it,’ as you say. You will call it superstitious.”

“That will depend upon how much you let it bother you. Then I shall call it an awful bore.”

“I will keep it to myself,” said Madame de Cintré, “It shall not bother you.” And then they talked of their marriage-day, and Madame de Cintré assented unreservedly to Newman’s desire to have it fixed for an early date.

Newman’s telegrams were answered with interest. Having dispatched but three electric missives, he received no less than eight gratulatory bulletins in return. He put them into his pocket-book, and the next time he encountered old Madame de Bellegarde drew them forth and displayed them to her. This, it must be confessed, was a slightly malicious stroke; the reader must judge in what degree the offense was venial. Newman knew that the marquise disliked his telegrams, though he could see no sufficient reason for it. Madame de Cintré, on the other hand, liked them, and, most of them being of a humorous cast, laughed at them immoderately, and inquired into the character of their authors. Newman, now that his prize was gained, felt a peculiar desire that his triumph should be manifest. He more than suspected that the Bellegardes were keeping quiet about it, and allowing it, in their select circle, but a limited resonance; and it pleased him to think that if he were to take the trouble he might, as he phrased it, break all the windows. No man likes being repudiated, and yet Newman, if he was not flattered, was not exactly offended. He had not this good excuse for his somewhat aggressive impulse to promulgate his felicity; his sentiment was of another quality. He wanted for once to make the heads of the house of Bellegarde feel him; he knew not when he should have another chance. He had had for the past six months a sense of the old lady and her son looking straight over his head, and he was now resolved that they should toe a mark which he would give himself the satisfaction of drawing.

“It is like seeing a bottle emptied when the wine is poured too slowly,” he said to Mrs. Tristram. “They make me want to joggle their elbows and force them to spill their wine.”

To this Mrs. Tristram answered that he had better leave them alone and let them do things in their own way. “You must make allowances for them,” she said. “It is natural enough that they should hang fire a little. They thought they accepted you when you made your application; but they are not people of imagination, they could not project themselves into the future, and now they will have to begin again. But they are people of honor, and they will do whatever is necessary.”

Newman spent a few moments in narrow-eyed meditation. “I am not hard on them,” he presently said, “and to prove it I will invite them all to a festival.”

“To a festival?”

“You have been laughing at my great gilded rooms all winter; I will show you that they are good for something. I will give a party. What is the grandest thing one can do here? I will hire all the great singers from the opera, and all the first people from the Théâtre Français, and I will give an entertainment.”

“And whom will you invite?”

“You, first of all. And then the old lady and her son. And then everyone among her friends whom I have met at her house or elsewhere, everyone who has shown me the minimum of politeness, every duke of them and his wife. And then all my friends, without exception: Miss Kitty Upjohn, Miss Dora Finch, General Packard, C. P Hatch, and all the rest. And everyone shall know what it is about, that is, to celebrate my engagement to the Countess de Cintré. What do you think of the idea?”

“I think it is odious!” said Mrs. Tristram. And then in a moment: “I think it is delicious!”

The very next evening Newman repaired to Madame de Bellegarde’s salon, where he found her surrounded by her children, and invited her to honor his poor dwelling by her presence on a certain evening a fortnight distant.

The marquise stared a moment. “My dear sir,” she cried, “what do you want to do to me?”

“To make you acquainted with a few people, and then to place you in a very easy chair and ask you to listen to Madame Frezzolini’s singing.”

“You mean to give a concert?”

“Something of that sort.”

“And to have a crowd of people?”

“All my friends, and I hope some of yours and your daughter’s. I want to celebrate my engagement.”

It seemed to Newman that Madame de Bellegarde turned pale. She opened her fan, a fine old painted fan of the last century, and looked at the picture, which represented a fête champêtre—a lady with a guitar, singing, and a group of dancers round a garlanded Hermes.

“We go out so little,” murmured the marquis, “since my poor father’s death.”

“But my dear father is still alive, my friend,” said his wife. “I am only waiting for my invitation to accept it,” and she glanced with amiable confidence at Newman. “It will be magnificent; I am very sure of that.”

I am sorry to say, to the discredit of Newman’s gallantry, that this lady’s invitation was not then and there bestowed; he was giving all his attention to the old marquise. She looked up at last, smiling. “I can’t think of letting you offer me a fête,” she said, “until I have offered you one. We want to present you to our friends; we will invite them all. We have it very much at heart. We must do things in order. Come to me about the 25th; I will let you know the exact day immediately. We shall not have anyone so fine as Madame Frezzolini, but we shall have some very good people. After that you may talk of your own fête.” The old lady spoke with a certain quick eagerness, smiling more agreeably as she went on.

It seemed to Newman a handsome proposal, and such proposals always touched the sources of his good-nature. He said to Madame de Bellegarde that he should be glad to come on the 25th or any other day, and that it mattered very little whether he met his friends at her house or at his own. I have said that Newman was observant,