The American by Henry James (good inspirational books txt) 📖

Newman went the next morning to see Madame de Cintré, timing his visit so as to arrive after the noonday breakfast. In the court of the hôtel, before the portico, stood Madame de Bellegarde’s old square carriage. The servant who opened the door answered Newman’s inquiry with a slightly embarrassed and hesitating murmur, and at the same moment Mrs. Bread appeared in the background, dim-visaged as usual, and wearing a large black bonnet and shawl.

“What is the matter?” asked Newman. “Is Madame la Comtesse at home, or not?”

Mrs. Bread advanced, fixing her eyes upon him: he observed that she held a sealed letter, very delicately, in her fingers. “The countess has left a message for you, sir; she has left this,” said Mrs. Bread, holding out the letter, which Newman took.

“Left it? Is she out? Is she gone away?”

“She is going away, sir; she is leaving town,” said Mrs. Bread.

“Leaving town!” exclaimed Newman. “What has happened?”

“It is not for me to say, sir,” said Mrs. Bread, with her eyes on the ground. “But I thought it would come.”

“What would come, pray?” Newman demanded. He had broken the seal of the letter, but he still questioned. “She is in the house? She is visible?”

“I don’t think she expected you this morning,” the old waiting-woman replied. “She was to leave immediately.”

“Where is she going?”

“To Fleurières.”

“To Fleurières? But surely I can see her?”

Mrs. Bread hesitated a moment, and then clasping together her two hands, “I will take you!” she said. And she led the way upstairs. At the top of the staircase she paused and fixed her dry, sad eyes upon Newman. “Be very easy with her,” she said; “she is most unhappy!” Then she went on to Madame de Cintré’s apartment; Newman, perplexed and alarmed, followed her rapidly. Mrs. Bread threw open the door, and Newman pushed back the curtain at the farther side of its deep embrasure. In the middle of the room stood Madame de Cintré; her face was pale and she was dressed for traveling. Behind her, before the fire-place, stood Urbain de Bellegarde, looking at his finger-nails; near the marquis sat his mother, buried in an armchair, and with her eyes immediately fixing themselves upon Newman. He felt, as soon as he entered the room, that he was in the presence of something evil; he was startled and pained, as he would have been by a threatening cry in the stillness of the night. He walked straight to Madame de Cintré and seized her by the hand.

“What is the matter?” he asked commandingly; “what is happening?”

Urbain de Bellegarde stared, then left his place and came and leaned upon his mother’s chair, behind. Newman’s sudden irruption had evidently discomposed both mother and son. Madame de Cintré stood silent, with her eyes resting upon Newman’s. She had often looked at him with all her soul, as it seemed to him; but in this present gaze there was a sort of bottomless depth. She was in distress; it was the most touching thing he had ever seen. His heart rose into his throat, and he was on the point of turning to her companions, with an angry challenge; but she checked him, pressing the hand that held her own.

“Something very grave has happened,” she said. “I cannot marry you.”

Newman dropped her hand and stood staring, first at her and then at the others. “Why not?” he asked, as quietly as possible.

Madame de Cintré almost smiled, but the attempt was strange. “You must ask my mother, you must ask my brother.”

“Why can’t she marry me?” said Newman, looking at them.

Madame de Bellegarde did not move in her place, but she was as pale as her daughter. The marquis looked down at her. She said nothing for some moments, but she kept her keen, clear eyes upon Newman, bravely. The marquis drew himself up and looked at the ceiling. “It’s impossible!” he said softly.

“It’s improper,” said Madame de Bellegarde.

Newman began to laugh. “Oh, you are fooling!” he exclaimed.

“My sister, you have no time; you are losing your train,” said the marquis.

“Come, is he mad?” asked Newman.

“No; don’t think that,” said Madame de Cintré. “But I am going away.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the country, to Fleurières; to be alone.”

“To leave me?” said Newman, slowly.

“I can’t see you, now,” said Madame de Cintré.

“Now—why not?”

“I am ashamed,” said Madame de Cintré, simply.

Newman turned toward the marquis. “What have you done to her—what does it mean?” he asked with the same effort at calmness, the fruit of his constant practice in taking things easily. He was excited, but excitement with him was only an intenser deliberateness; it was the swimmer stripped.

“It means that I have given you up,” said Madame de Cintré. “It means that.”

Her face was too charged with tragic expression not fully to confirm her words. Newman was profoundly shocked, but he felt as yet no resentment against her. He was amazed, bewildered, and the presence of the old marquise and her son seemed to smite his eyes like the glare of a watchman’s lantern. “Can’t I see you alone?” he asked.

“It would be only more painful. I hoped I should not see you—I should escape. I wrote to you. Good-bye.” And she put out her hand again.

Newman put both his own into his pockets. “I will go with you,” he said.

She laid her two hands on his arm. “Will you grant me a last request?” and as she looked at him, urging this, her eyes filled with tears. “Let me go alone—let me go in peace. I can’t call it peace—it’s death. But let me bury myself. So—good-bye.”

Newman passed his hand into his hair and stood slowly rubbing his head and looking through his keenly-narrowed eyes from one to the other of the three persons before him. His lips were compressed, and the two lines which had formed themselves beside his mouth might have made it appear at a first glance that he was smiling. I have said that his excitement was an intenser deliberateness, and now he looked grimly deliberate. “It seems very much as if you had interfered, marquis,” he said slowly. “I thought you said you wouldn’t interfere. I know you don’t like me; but that doesn’t make any difference. I thought you promised me you wouldn’t interfere. I thought you swore on your honor that you wouldn’t interfere. Don’t you remember, marquis?”

The marquis lifted his eyebrows; but he was apparently determined to be even more urbane than usual. He rested his two hands upon the back of his mother’s chair and bent forward, as if he were leaning over the edge of a pulpit or a lecture-desk. He did not smile, but he looked softly grave. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “I assured you that I would not influence my sister’s decision. I adhered, to the letter, to my engagement. Did I not, sister?”

“Don’t appeal, my son,” said the marquise, “your word is sufficient.”

“Yes—she accepted me,” said Newman. “That is very true, I can’t deny that. At least,” he added, in a different tone, turning to Madame de Cintré, “you did accept me?”

Something in the tone seemed to move her strongly. She turned away, burying her face in her hands.

“But you have interfered now, haven’t you?” inquired Newman of the marquis.

“Neither then nor now have I attempted to influence my sister. I used no persuasion then, I have used no persuasion to-day.”

“And what have you used?”

“We have used authority,” said Madame de Bellegarde in a rich, bell-like voice.

“Ah, you have used authority,” Newman exclaimed. “They have used authority,” he went on, turning to Madame de Cintré. “What is it? how did they use it?”

“My mother commanded,” said Madame de Cintré.

“Commanded you to give me up—I see. And you obey—I see. But why do you obey?” asked Newman.

Madame de Cintré looked across at the old marquise; her eyes slowly measured her from head to foot. “I am afraid of my mother,” she said.

Madame de Bellegarde rose with a certain quickness, crying, “This is a most indecent scene!”

“I have no wish to prolong it,” said Madame de Cintré; and turning to the door she put out her hand again. “If you can pity me a little, let me go alone.”

Newman shook her hand quietly and firmly. “I’ll come down there,” he said. The portière dropped behind her, and Newman sank with a long breath into the nearest chair. He leaned back in it, resting his hands on the knobs of the arms and looking at Madame de Bellegarde and Urbain. There was a long silence. They stood side by side, with their heads high and their handsome eyebrows arched.

“So you make a distinction?” Newman said at last. “You make a distinction between persuading and commanding? It’s very neat. But the distinction is in favor of commanding. That rather spoils it.”

“We have not the least objection to defining our position,” said M. de Bellegarde. “We understand that it should not at first appear to you quite clear. We rather expected, indeed, that you should not do us justice.”

“Oh, I’ll do you justice,” said Newman. “Don’t be afraid. Please proceed.”

The marquise laid her hand on her son’s arm, as if to deprecate the attempt to define their position. “It is quite useless,” she said, “to try and arrange this matter so as to make it agreeable to you. It can never be agreeable to you. It is a disappointment, and disappointments are unpleasant. I thought it over carefully and tried to arrange it better; but I only gave myself a headache and lost my sleep. Say what we will, you will think yourself ill-treated, and you will publish your wrongs among your friends. But we are not afraid of that. Besides, your friends are not our friends, and it will not matter. Think of us as you please. I only beg you not to be violent. I have never in my life been present at a violent scene of any kind, and at my age I can’t be expected to begin.”

“Is that all you have got to say?” asked Newman, slowly rising out of his chair. “That’s a poor show for a clever lady like you, marquise. Come, try again.”

“My mother goes to the point, with her usual honesty and intrepidity,” said the marquis, toying with his watch-guard. “But it is perhaps well to say a little more. We of course quite repudiate the charge of having broken faith with you. We left you entirely at liberty to make yourself agreeable to my sister. We left her quite at liberty to entertain your proposal. When she accepted you we said nothing. We therefore quite observed our promise. It was only at a later stage of the affair, and on quite a different basis, as it were, that we determined to speak. It would have been better, perhaps, if we had spoken before. But really, you see, nothing has yet been done.”

“Nothing has yet been done?” Newman repeated the words, unconscious of their comical effect. He had lost the sense of what the marquis was saying; M. de Bellegarde’s superior style was a mere humming in his ears. All that he