The American (29 page)

One afternoon, on his calling on Madame de Cintré, Newman was requested by the servant to wait a few moments, as his hostess was not at liberty. He walked about the room awhile, taking up her books, smelling her flowers, and looking at her prints and photographs (which he thought prodigiously pretty), and at last he heard the opening of a door to which his back was turned. On the threshold stood an old woman whom he remembered to have met several times in entering and leaving the house. She was tall and straight, and dressed in black, and she wore a cap which, if Newman had been initiated into such mysteries, would have been a sufficient assurance that she was not a Frenchwoman; a cap of pure British composition. She had a pale, decent, depressed-looking face, and a clear, dull, English eye. She looked at Newman a moment, both intently and timidly, and then she dropped a short, straight English curtsy.

“Madame de Cintré begs you will kindly wait,” she said. “She has just come in; she will soon have finished dressing.”

“Oh, I will wait as long as she wants,” said Newman. “Pray tell her not to hurry.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the woman softly; and then, instead of retiring with the message, she advanced into the room. She looked about her for a moment, and presently went to the table and began to arrange certain books and knick-knacks. Newman was struck with the
high respectability of her appearance; he was afraid to address her as a servant. She busied herself for some moments with putting the table in order and pulling the curtains straight, while Newman walked slowly to and fro. He perceived at last, from her reflection in the mirror, as he was passing, that her hands were idle and that she was looking at him intently. She evidently wished to say something, and Newman perceiving it, helped her to begin.

“You are English?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, please,” she answered quickly and softly; “I was born in Wiltshire.”

“And what do you think of Paris?”

“Oh, I don’t think of Paris, sir,” she said, in the same tone. “It is so long since I have been here.”

“Ah, you have been here very long?”

“It is more than forty years, sir. I came over with Lady Emmeline.”

“You mean with old Madame de Bellegarde?”

“Yes, sir. I came with her when she was married. I was my lady’s own woman.”

“And you have been with her ever since?”

“I have been in the house ever since. My lady has taken a younger person. You see I am very old. I do nothing regular now. But I keep about.”

“You look very strong and well,” said Newman, observing the erectness of her figure, and a certain venerable rosiness in her cheek.

“Thank God I am not ill, sir; I hope I know my duty too well to go panting and coughing about the house. But I am an old woman, sir, and it is as an old woman that I venture to speak to you.”

“Oh, speak out,” said Newman, curiously. “You needn’t be afraid of me.”

“Yes, sir. I think you are kind. I have seen you before.”

“On the stairs, you mean?”

“Yes, sir. When you have been coming to see the countess. I have taken the liberty of noticing that you come often.”

“Oh yes; I come very often,” said Newman, laughing. “You need not have been very wide awake to notice that.”

“I have noticed it with pleasure, sir,” said the ancient tirewoman
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gravely. And she stood looking at Newman with a strange expression of face. The old instinct of deference and humility was there; the habit of decent self-effacement and knowledge of her “own place.” But there mingled with it a certain mild audacity, born of the occasion and of a sense, probably, of Newman’s unprecedented approachableness, and, beyond this, a vague indifference to the old proprieties; as if my lady’s own woman had at last begun to reflect that, since my lady had taken another person, she had a slight reversionary property
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in herself.

“You take a great interest in the family?” said Newman.

“A deep interest, sir. Especially in the countess.”

“I am glad of that,” said Newman. And in a moment he added, smiling: “So do I!”

“So I supposed, sir. We can’t help noticing these things and having our ideas; can we, sir?”

“You mean as a servant?” said Newman.

“Ah, there it is, sir. I am afraid that when I let my thoughts meddle with such matters I am no longer a servant. But I am so devoted to the countess; if she were my own child I couldn’t love her more. That is how I come to be so bold, sir. They say you want to marry her.”

Newman eyed his interlocutress and satisfied himself that she was not a gossip, but a zealot; she looked anxious, appealing, discreet. “It is quite true,” he said. “I want to marry Madame de Cintré.”

“And to take her away to America?”

“I will take her wherever she wants to go.”

“The farther away the better, sir!” exclaimed the old woman with sudden intensity. But she checked herself, and, taking up a paper-weight in mosaic, began to polish it with her black apron. “I don’t mean anything against the house or the family, sir. But I think a great change would do the poor countess good. It is very sad here.”

“Yes, it’s not very lively,” said Newman. “But Madame de Cintré is gay herself.”

“She is everything that is good. You will not be vexed to hear that she has been gayer for a couple of months past than she had been in many a day before.”

Newman was delighted to gather this testimony to the prosperity of his suit, but he repressed all violent marks of elation. “Has Madame de Cintré been in bad spirits before this?” he asked.

“Poor lady, she had good reason. M. de Cintré was no husband for a sweet young lady like that. And then, as I say, it has been a sad house. It is better, in my humble opinion, that she were out of it. So, if you will excuse me for saying so, I hope she will marry you.”

“I hope she will!” said Newman.

“But you must not lose courage, sir, if she doesn’t make up her mind at once. That is what I wanted to beg of you, sir. Don’t give it up, sir. You will not take it ill if I say it’s a great risk for any lady at any time; all the more when she has got rid of one bad bargain. But if she can marry a good, kind, respectable gentleman, I think she had better make up her mind to it. They speak very well of you, sir, in the house, and, if you will allow me to say so, I like your face. You have a very different appearance from the late count; he wasn’t five feet high. And they say your fortune is beyond everything. There’s no harm in that. So I beseech you to be patient, sir, and bide your time. If I don’t say this to you, sir, perhaps no one will. Of course it is not for me to make any promises. I can answer for nothing. But
I think your chance is not so bad, sir. I am nothing but a weary old woman in my quiet corner, but one woman understands another, and I think I make out the countess. I received her in my arms when she came into the world, and her first wedding-day was the saddest of my life. She owes it to me to show me another and a brighter one. If you will hold firm, sir—and you look as if you would—I think we may see it.”

“I am much obliged to you for your encouragement,” said Newman heartily. “One can’t have too much. I mean to hold firm. And if Madame de Cintré marries me, you must come and live with her.”

The old woman looked at him strangely, with her soft lifeless eyes. “It may seem a heartless thing to say, sir, when one has been forty years in a house, but I may tell you that I should like to leave this place.”

“Why, it’s just the time to say it,” said Newman fervently. “After forty years one wants a change.”

“You are very kind, sir;” and this faithful servant dropped another curtsy and seemed disposed to retire. But she lingered a moment, and gave a timid joyless smile. Newman was disappointed, and his fingers stole half shyly half irritably into his waistcoat-pocket. His informant noticed the movement. “Thank God I am not a Frenchwoman,” she said. “If I were, I would tell you with a brazen simper, old as I am, that if you please, monsieur, my information is worth something. Let me tell you so in my own decent English way. It
is
worth something.”

“How much, please?” said Newman.

“Simply this: a promise not to hint to the countess that I have said these things.”

“If that is all, you have it,” said Newman.

“That is all, sir. Thank you, sir. Good-day, sir.” And having once more slid down telescope-wise into her scanty petticoats, the old woman departed. At the same moment Madame de Cintré came in by an opposite door.
She noticed the movement of the other
portière
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and asked Newman who had been entertaining him.

“The British female!” said Newman. “An old lady in a black dress and a cap, who curtsies up and down, and expresses herself ever so well.”

“An old lady who curtsies and expresses herself?…. Ah, you mean poor Mrs. Bread. I happen to know that you have made a conquest of her.”

“Mrs. Cake, she ought to be called,” said Newman. “She is very sweet. She is a delicious old woman.”

Madame de Cintré looked at him a moment. “What can she have said to you? She is an excellent creature, but we think her rather dismal.”

“I suppose,” Newman answered presently, “that I like her because she has lived near you so long. Since your birth, she told me.”

“Yes,” said Madame de Cintré, simply; “she is very faithful; I can trust her.”

Newman had never made any reflections to this lady upon her mother and her brother Urbain; had given no hint of the impression they made upon him. But, as if she had guessed his thoughts, she seemed careful to avoid all occasion for making him speak of them. She never alluded to her mother’s domestic decrees; she never quoted the opinions of the marquis. They had talked, however, of Valentin, and she had made no secret of her extreme affection for her younger brother. Newman listened sometimes with a certain harmless jealousy; he would have liked to divert some of her tender allusions to his own credit. Once Madame de Cintré told him, with a little air of triumph, about something that Valentin had done which she thought very much to his honour. It was a service he had rendered to an old friend of the family; something more “serious” than Valentin was usually supposed capable of being. Newman said he was glad to hear of it, and then began to talk about something which lay upon his own heart. Madame de Cintré
listened, but after awhile she said: “I don’t like the way you speak of my brother Valentin.” Hereupon Newman, surprised, said that he had never spoken of him but kindly.

“It is too kindly,” said Madame de Cintré. “It is a kindness that costs nothing; it is the kindness you show to a child. It is as if you didn’t respect him.”

“Respect him? Why, I think I do.”

“You think? If you are not sure, it is no respect.”

“Do you respect him?” said Newman. “If you do, I do.”

“If one loves a person, that is a question one is not bound to answer,” said Madame de Cintré.

“You should not have asked it of me, then. I am very fond of your brother.”

“He amuses you. But you would not like to resemble him.”

“I shouldn’t like to resemble anyone. It is hard enough work resembling oneself.”

“What do you mean,” asked Madame de Cintré, “by resembling oneself?”

“Why, doing what is expected of one. Doing one’s duty.”

“But that is only when one is very good.”

“Well, a great many people are good,” said Newman. “Valentin is quite good enough for me.”

Madame de Cintré was silent for a short time. “He is not good enough for me,” she said at last. “I wish he would do something.”

“What can he do?” asked Newman.

“Nothing. Yet he is very clever.”

“It is a proof of cleverness,” said Newman, “to be happy without doing anything.”

“I don’t think Valentin is happy in reality. He is clever, generous, brave—but what is there to show for it? To me there is something sad in his life, and sometimes I have a sort of foreboding about him. I don’t
know why, but I fancy he will have some great trouble—perhaps an unhappy end.”

“Oh, leave him to me,” said Newman jovially. “I will watch over him and keep harm away.”

One evening, in Madame de Bellegarde’s salon, the conversation had flagged most sensibly. The marquis walked up and down in silence, like a sentinel at the door of some smooth-fronted citadel of the proprieties; his mother sat staring at the fire; young Madame de Bellegarde worked at an enormous band of tapestry. Usually there were three or four visitors, but on this occasion a violent storm sufficiently accounted for the absence of even the most devoted habitués. In the long silences the howling of the wind and the beating of the rain were distinctly audible. Newman sat perfectly still, watching the clock, determined to stay till the stroke of eleven, but not a moment longer. Madame de Cintré had turned her back to the circle, and had been standing for some time within the uplifted curtain of a window, with her forehead against the pane, gazing out into the deluged darkness. Suddenly she turned round toward her sister-in-law.

“For heaven’s sake,” she said, with peculiar eagerness, “go to the piano and play something.”

Madame de Bellegarde held up her tapestry and pointed to a little white flower. “Don’t ask me to leave this. I am in the midst of a masterpiece. My flower is going to smell very sweet; I am putting in the smell with this gold-coloured silk. I am holding my breath; I can’t leave off. Play something yourself.”

“It is absurd for me to play when you are present,” said Madame de Cintré. But the next moment she went to the piano and began to strike the keys with vehemence. She played for some time, rapidly and brilliantly; when she stopped, Newman went to the piano and asked her to begin again. She shook her head, and, on his insisting, she said: “I have not been playing for you; I have been
playing for myself.” She went back to the window again and looked out, and shortly afterwards left the room. When Newman took leave, Urbain de Bellegarde accompanied him, as he always did, just three steps down the staircase. At the bottom stood a servant with his overcoat. He had just put it on when he saw Madame de Cintré coming towards him across the vestibule.