The American by Henry James (good inspirational books txt) đ
- Author: Henry James
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âYou shouldnât have listened to that, sir.â
âPerhaps not. But I did listen, and I donât forget it. Now I want to know what it is they did.â
Mrs. Bread gave a soft moan. âAnd you have enticed me up into this strange place to tell you?â
âDonât be alarmed,â said Newman. âI wonât say a word that shall be disagreeable to you. Tell me as it suits you, and when it suits you. Only remember that it was Mr. Valentinâs last wish that you should.â
âDid he say that?â
âHe said it with his last breathââTell Mrs. Bread I told you to ask her.ââ
âWhy didnât he tell you himself?â
âIt was too long a story for a dying man; he had no breath left in his body. He could only say that he wanted me to knowâthat, wronged as I was, it was my right to know.â
âBut how will it help you, sir?â said Mrs. Bread.
âThatâs for me to decide. Mr. Valentin believed it would, and thatâs why he told me. Your name was almost the last word he spoke.â
Mrs. Bread was evidently awe-struck by this statement; she shook her clasped hands slowly up and down. âExcuse me, sir,â she said, âif I take a great liberty. Is it the solemn truth you are speaking? I must ask you that; must I not, sir?â
âThereâs no offense. It is the solemn truth; I solemnly swear it. Mr. Valentin himself would certainly have told me more if he had been able.â
âOh, sir, if he knew more!â
âDonât you suppose he did?â
âThereâs no saying what he knew about anything,â said Mrs. Bread, with a mild head-shake. âHe was so mightily clever. He could make you believe he knew things that he didnât, and that he didnât know others that he had better not have known.â
âI suspect he knew something about his brother that kept the marquis civil to him,â Newman propounded; âhe made the marquis feel him. What he wanted now was to put me in his place; he wanted to give me a chance to make the marquis feel me.â
âMercy on us!â cried the old waiting-woman, âhow wicked we all are!â
âI donât know,â said Newman; âsome of us are wicked, certainly. I am very angry, I am very sore, and I am very bitter, but I donât know that I am wicked. I have been cruelly injured. They have hurt me, and I want to hurt them. I donât deny that; on the contrary, I tell you plainly that it is the use I want to make of your secret.â
Mrs. Bread seemed to hold her breath. âYou want to publish themâyou want to shame them?â
âI want to bring them down,âdown, down, down! I want to turn the tables upon themâI want to mortify them as they mortified me. They took me up into a high place and made me stand there for all the world to see me, and then they stole behind me and pushed me into this bottomless pit, where I lie howling and gnashing my teeth! I made a fool of myself before all their friends; but I shall make something worse of them.â
This passionate sally, which Newman uttered with the greater fervor that it was the first time he had had a chance to say all this aloud, kindled two small sparks in Mrs. Breadâs fixed eyes. âI suppose you have a right to your anger, sir; but think of the dishonor you will draw down on Madame de CintrĂ©.â
âMadame de CintrĂ© is buried alive,â cried Newman. âWhat are honor or dishonor to her? The door of the tomb is at this moment closing behind her.â
âYes, itâs most awful,â moaned Mrs. Bread.
âShe has moved off, like her brother Valentin, to give me room to work. Itâs as if it were done on purpose.â
âSurely,â said Mrs. Bread, apparently impressed by the ingenuity of this reflection. She was silent for some moments; then she added, âAnd would you bring my lady before the courts?â
âThe courts care nothing for my lady,â Newman replied. âIf she has committed a crime, she will be nothing for the courts but a wicked old woman.â
âAnd will they hang her, sir?â
âThat depends upon what she has done.â And Newman eyed Mrs. Bread intently.
âIt would break up the family most terribly, sir!â
âItâs time such a family should be broken up!â said Newman, with a laugh.
âAnd me at my age out of place, sir!â sighed Mrs. Bread.
âOh, I will take care of you! You shall come and live with me. You shall be my housekeeper, or anything you like. I will pension you for life.â
âDear, dear, sir, you think of everything.â And she seemed to fall a-brooding.
Newman watched her a while, and then he said suddenly. âAh, Mrs. Bread, you are too fond of my lady!â
She looked at him as quickly. âI wouldnât have you say that, sir. I donât think it any part of my duty to be fond of my lady. I have served her faithfully this many a year; but if she were to die to-morrow, I believe, before Heaven I shouldnât shed a tear for her.â Then, after a pause, âI have no reason to love her!â Mrs. Bread added. âThe most she has done for me has been not to turn me out of the house.â Newman felt that decidedly his companion was more and more confidentialâthat if luxury is corrupting, Mrs. Breadâs conservative habits were already relaxed by the spiritual comfort of this preconcerted interview, in a remarkable locality, with a free-spoken millionaire. All his native shrewdness admonished him that his part was simply to let her take her timeâlet the charm of the occasion work. So he said nothing; he only looked at her kindly. Mrs. Bread sat nursing her lean elbows. âMy lady once did me a great wrong,â she went on at last. âShe has a terrible tongue when she is vexed. It was many a year ago, but I have never forgotten it. I have never mentioned it to a human creature; I have kept my grudge to myself. I dare say I have been wicked, but my grudge has grown old with me. It has grown good for nothing, too, I dare say; but it has lived along, as I have lived. It will die when I die,ânot before!â
âAnd what is your grudge?â Newman asked.
Mrs. Bread dropped her eyes and hesitated. âIf I were a foreigner, sir, I should make less of telling you; it comes harder to a decent Englishwoman. But I sometimes think I have picked up too many foreign ways. What I was telling you belongs to a time when I was much younger and very different looking to what I am now. I had a very high color, sir, if you can believe it, indeed I was a very smart lass. My lady was younger, too, and the late marquis was youngest of allâI mean in the way he went on, sir; he had a very high spirit; he was a magnificent man. He was fond of his pleasure, like most foreigners, and it must be owned that he sometimes went rather below him to take it. My lady was often jealous, and, if youâll believe it, sir, she did me the honor to be jealous of me. One day I had a red ribbon in my cap, and my lady flew out at me and ordered me to take it off. She accused me of putting it on to make the marquis look at me. I donât know that I was impertinent, but I spoke up like an honest girl and didnât count my words. A red ribbon indeed! As if it was my ribbons the marquis looked at! My lady knew afterwards that I was perfectly respectable, but she never said a word to show that she believed it. But the marquis did!â Mrs. Bread presently added, âI took off my red ribbon and put it away in a drawer, where I have kept it to this day. Itâs faded now, itâs a very pale pink; but there it lies. My grudge has faded, too; the red has all gone out of it; but it lies here yet.â And Mrs. Bread stroked her black satin bodice.
Newman listened with interest to this decent narrative, which seemed to have opened up the deeps of memory to his companion. Then, as she remained silent, and seemed to be losing herself in retrospective meditation upon her perfect respectability, he ventured upon a short cut to his goal. âSo Madame de Bellegarde was jealous; I see. And M. de Bellegarde admired pretty women, without distinction of class. I suppose one mustnât be hard upon him, for they probably didnât all behave so properly as you. But years afterwards it could hardly have been jealousy that turned Madame de Bellegarde into a criminal.â
Mrs. Bread gave a weary sigh. âWe are using dreadful words, sir, but I donât care now. I see you have your idea, and I have no will of my own. My will was the will of my children, as I called them; but I have lost my children now. They are deadâI may say it of both of them; and what should I care for the living? What is anyone in the house to me nowâwhat am I to them? My lady objects to meâshe has objected to me these thirty years. I should have been glad to be something to young Madame de Bellegarde, though I never was nurse to the present marquis. When he was a baby I was too young; they wouldnât trust me with him. But his wife told her own maid, Mamselle Clarisse, the opinion she had of me. Perhaps you would like to hear it, sir.â
âOh, immensely,â said Newman.
âShe said that if I would sit in her childrenâs schoolroom I should do very well for a penwiper! When things have come to that I donât think I need stand upon ceremony.â
âDecidedly not,â said Newman. âGo on, Mrs. Bread.â
Mrs. Bread, however, relapsed again into troubled dumbness, and all Newman could do was to fold his arms and wait. But at last she appeared to have set her memories in order. âIt was when the late marquis was an old man and his eldest son had been two years married. It was when the time came on for marrying Mademoiselle Claire; thatâs the way they talk of it here, you know, sir. The marquisâs health was bad; he was very much broken down. My lady had picked out M. de CintrĂ©, for no good reason that I could see. But there are reasons, I very well know, that are beyond me, and you must be high in the world to understand them. Old M. de CintrĂ© was very high, and my lady thought him almost as good as herself; thatâs saying a good deal. Mr. Urbain took sides with his mother, as he always did. The trouble, I believe, was that my lady would give very little money, and all the other gentlemen asked more. It was only M. de CintrĂ© that was satisfied. The Lord willed it he should have that one soft spot; it was the only one he had. He may have been very grand in his birth, and he certainly was very grand in his bows and speeches; but that was all the grandeur he had. I think he was like what I have heard of comedians; not that I have ever seen one. But I know he painted his face. He might paint it all he would; he could never make me like it! The marquis couldnât abide him, and declared that sooner than take such a husband as that Mademoiselle Claire should take none at all. He and my lady had a great scene; it came even to our ears in the servantsâ hall. It was not their first quarrel, if the truth must be told. They were not a loving couple, but they didnât
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