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

Newman returned to Paris the second day after his interview with Mrs. Bread. The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again the little document which he had lodged in his pocket-book, and thinking what he would do in the circumstances and how he would do it. He would not have said that Poitiers was an amusing place; yet the day seemed very short. Domiciled once more in the Boulevard Haussmann, he walked over to the Rue de l’Université and inquired of Madame de Bellegarde’s portress whether the marquise had come back. The portress told him that she had arrived, with M. le Marquis, on the preceding day, and further informed him that if he desired to enter, Madame de Bellegarde and her son were both at home. As she said these words the little white-faced old woman who peered out of the dusky gate-house of the Hôtel de Bellegarde gave a small wicked smile—a smile which seemed to Newman to mean, “Go in if you dare!” She was evidently versed in the current domestic history; she was placed where she could feel the pulse of the house. Newman stood a moment, twisting his moustache and looking at her; then he abruptly turned away. But this was not because he was afraid to go in—though he doubted whether, if he did so, he should be able to make his way, unchallenged, into the presence of Madame de Cintré’s relatives. Confidence—excessive confidence, perhaps—quite as much as timidity prompted his retreat. He was nursing his thunderbolt; he loved it; he was unwilling to part with it. He seemed to be holding it aloft in the rumbling, vaguely-flashing air, directly over the heads of his victims, and he fancied he could see their pale, upturned faces. Few specimens of the human countenance had ever given him such pleasure as these, lighted in the lurid fashion I have hinted at, and he was disposed to sip the cup of contemplative revenge in a leisurely fashion. It must be added, too, that he was at a loss to see exactly how he could arrange to witness the operation of his thunder. To send in his card to Madame de Bellegarde would be a waste of ceremony; she would certainly decline to receive him. On the other hand he could not force his way into her presence. It annoyed him keenly to think that he might be reduced to the blind satisfaction of writing her a letter; but he consoled himself in a measure with the reflection that a letter might lead to an interview. He went home, and feeling rather tired—nursing a vengeance was, it must be confessed, a rather fatiguing process; it took a good deal out of one—flung himself into one of his brocaded fauteuils, stretched his legs, thrust his hands into his pockets, and, while he watched the reflected sunset fading from the ornate house-tops on the opposite side of the Boulevard, began mentally to compose a cool epistle to Madame de Bellegarde. While he was so occupied his servant threw open the door and announced ceremoniously, “Madame Brett!”

Newman roused himself, expectantly, and in a few moments perceived upon his threshold the worthy woman with whom he had conversed to such good purpose on the starlit hill-top of Fleurières. Mrs. Bread had made for this visit the same toilet as for her former expedition. Newman was struck with her distinguished appearance. His lamp was not lit, and as her large, grave face gazed at him through the light dusk from under the shadow of her ample bonnet, he felt the incongruity of such a person presenting herself as a servant. He greeted her with high geniality and bade her come in and sit down and make herself comfortable. There was something which might have touched the springs both of mirth and of melancholy in the ancient maidenliness with which Mrs. Bread endeavored to comply with these directions. She was not playing at being fluttered, which would have been simply ridiculous; she was doing her best to carry herself as a person so humble that, for her, even embarrassment would have been pretentious; but evidently she had never dreamed of its being in her horoscope to pay a visit, at night-fall, to a friendly single gentleman who lived in theatrical-looking rooms on one of the new Boulevards.

“I truly hope I am not forgetting my place, sir,” she murmured.

“Forgetting your place?” cried Newman. “Why, you are remembering it. This is your place, you know. You are already in my service; your wages, as housekeeper, began a fortnight ago. I can tell you my house wants keeping! Why don’t you take off your bonnet and stay?”

“Take off my bonnet?” said Mrs. Bread, with timid literalness. “Oh, sir, I haven’t my cap. And with your leave, sir, I couldn’t keep house in my best gown.”

“Never mind your gown,” said Newman, cheerfully. “You shall have a better gown than that.”

Mrs. Bread stared solemnly and then stretched her hands over her lustreless satin skirt, as if the perilous side of her situation were defining itself. “Oh, sir, I am fond of my own clothes,” she murmured.

“I hope you have left those wicked people, at any rate,” said Newman.

“Well, sir, here I am!” said Mrs. Bread. “That’s all I can tell you. Here I sit, poor Catherine Bread. It’s a strange place for me to be. I don’t know myself; I never supposed I was so bold. But indeed, sir, I have gone as far as my own strength will bear me.”

“Oh, come, Mrs. Bread,” said Newman, almost caressingly, “don’t make yourself uncomfortable. Now’s the time to feel lively, you know.”

She began to speak again with a trembling voice. “I think it would be more respectable if I could—if I could”—and her voice trembled to a pause.

“If you could give up this sort of thing altogether?” said Newman kindly, trying to anticipate her meaning, which he supposed might be a wish to retire from service.

“If I could give up everything, sir! All I should ask is a decent Protestant burial.”

“Burial!” cried Newman, with a burst of laughter. “Why, to bury you now would be a sad piece of extravagance. It’s only rascals who have to be buried to get respectable. Honest folks like you and me can live our time out—and live together. Come! Did you bring your baggage?”

“My box is locked and corded; but I haven’t yet spoken to my lady.”

“Speak to her, then, and have done with it. I should like to have your chance!” cried Newman.

“I would gladly give it you, sir. I have passed some weary hours in my lady’s dressing-room; but this will be one of the longest. She will tax me with ingratitude.”

“Well,” said Newman, “so long as you can tax her with murder—”

“Oh, sir, I can’t; not I,” sighed Mrs. Bread.

“You don’t mean to say anything about it? So much the better. Leave that to me.”

“If she calls me a thankless old woman,” said Mrs. Bread, “I shall have nothing to say. But it is better so,” she softly added. “She shall be my lady to the last. That will be more respectable.”

“And then you will come to me and I shall be your gentleman,” said Newman; “that will be more respectable still!”

Mrs. Bread rose, with lowered eyes, and stood a moment; then, looking up, she rested her eyes upon Newman’s face. The disordered proprieties were somehow settling to rest. She looked at Newman so long and so fixedly, with such a dull, intense devotedness, that he himself might have had a pretext for embarrassment. At last she said gently, “You are not looking well, sir.”

“That’s natural enough,” said Newman. “I have nothing to feel well about. To be very indifferent and very fierce, very dull and very jovial, very sick and very lively, all at once,—why, it rather mixes one up.”

Mrs. Bread gave a noiseless sigh. “I can tell you something that will make you feel duller still, if you want to feel all one way. About Madame de Cintré.”

“What can you tell me?” Newman demanded. “Not that you have seen her?”

She shook her head. “No, indeed, sir, nor ever shall. That’s the dullness of it. Nor my lady. Nor M. de Bellegarde.”

“You mean that she is kept so close.”

“Close, close,” said Mrs. Bread, very softly.

These words, for an instant, seemed to check the beating of Newman’s heart. He leaned back in his chair, staring up at the old woman. “They have tried to see her, and she wouldn’t—she couldn’t?”

“She refused—forever! I had it from my lady’s own maid,” said Mrs. Bread, “who had it from