The American

by Henry James

  CHAPTER XXI

  There is a pretty public walk at Poitiers, laid out upon the crest ofthe high hill around which the little city clusters, planted with thicktrees and looking down upon the fertile fields in which the old Englishprinces fought for their right and held it. Newman paced up and downthis quiet promenade for the greater part of the next day and let hiseyes wander over the historic prospect; but he would have been sadlyat a loss to tell you afterwards whether the latter was made up ofcoal-fields or of vineyards. He was wholly given up to his grievance,of which reflection by no means diminished the weight. He feared thatMadame de Cintré was irretrievably lost; and yet, as he would havesaid himself, he didn’t see his way clear to giving her up. He foundit impossible to turn his back upon Fleurières and its inhabitants;it seemed to him that some germ of hope or reparation must lurk theresomewhere, if he could only stretch his arm out far enough to pluckit. It was as if he had his hand on a door-knob and were closing hisclenched fist upon it: he had thumped, he had called, he had pressedthe door with his powerful knee and shaken it with all his strength,and dead, damning silence had answered him. And yet something heldhim there--something hardened the grasp of his fingers. Newman’ssatisfaction had been too intense, his whole plan too deliberate andmature, his prospect of happiness too rich and comprehensive for thisfine moral fabric to crumble at a stroke. The very foundation seemedfatally injured, and yet he felt a stubborn desire still to try to savethe edifice. He was filled with a sorer sense of wrong than he had everknown, or than he had supposed it possible he should know. To accepthis injury and walk away without looking behind him was a stretch ofgood-nature of which he found himself incapable. He looked behind himintently and continually, and what he saw there did not assuage hisresentment. He saw himself trustful, generous, liberal, patient, easy,pocketing frequent irritation and furnishing unlimited modesty. To haveeaten humble pie, to have been snubbed and patronized and satirized andhave consented to take it as one of the conditions of the bargain--tohave done this, and done it all for nothing, surely gave one a right toprotest. And to be turned off because one was a commercial person! As ifhe had ever talked or dreamt of the commercial since his connection withthe Bellegardes began--as if he had made the least circumstance of thecommercial--as if he would not have consented to confound the commercialfifty times a day, if it might have increased by a hair’s breadth thechance of the Bellegardes’ not playing him a trick! Granted that beingcommercial was fair ground for having a trick played upon one, howlittle they knew about the class so designed and its enterprising wayof not standing upon trifles! It was in the light of his injury that theweight of Newman’s past endurance seemed so heavy; his actual irritationhad not been so great, merged as it was in his vision of the cloudlessblue that overarched his immediate wooing. But now his sense of outragewas deep, rancorous, and ever present; he felt that he was a good fellowwronged. As for Madame de Cintré’s conduct, it struck him with a kindof awe, and the fact that he was powerless to understand it or feelthe reality of its motives only deepened the force with which he hadattached himself to her. He had never let the fact of her Catholicismtrouble him; Catholicism to him was nothing but a name, and to expressa mistrust of the form in which her religious feelings had mouldedthemselves would have seemed to him on his own part a rather pretentiousaffectation of Protestant zeal. If such superb white flowers as thatcould bloom in Catholic soil, the soil was not insalubrious. But it wasone thing to be a Catholic, and another to turn nun--on your hand!There was something lugubriously comical in the way Newman’s thoroughlycontemporaneous optimism was confronted with this dusky old-worldexpedient. To see a woman made for him and for motherhood to hischildren juggled away in this tragic travesty--it was a thing to rubone’s eyes over, a nightmare, an illusion, a hoax. But the hours passedaway without disproving the thing, and leaving him only the after-senseof the vehemence with which he had embraced Madame de Cintré. Heremembered her words and her looks; he turned them over and tried toshake the mystery out of them and to infuse them with an endurablemeaning. What had she meant by her feeling being a kind of religion? Itwas the religion simply of the family laws, the religion of which herimplacable little mother was the high priestess. Twist the thing aboutas her generosity would, the one certain fact was that they had usedforce against her. Her generosity had tried to screen them, but Newman’sheart rose into his throat at the thought that they should go scot-free.

  The twenty-four hours wore themselves away, and the next morning Newmansprang to his feet with the resolution to return to Fleurières anddemand another interview with Madame de Bellegarde and her son. Helost no time in putting it into practice. As he rolled swiftly overthe excellent road in the little calèche furnished him at the inn atPoitiers, he drew forth, as it were, from the very safe place in hismind to which he had consigned it, the last information given him bypoor Valentin. Valentin had told him he could do something with it, andNewman thought it would be well to have it at hand. This was of coursenot the first time, lately, that Newman had given it his attention. Itwas information in the rough,--it was dark and puzzling; but Newman wasneither helpless nor afraid. Valentin had evidently meant to put him inpossession of a powerful instrument, though he could not be said tohave placed the handle very securely within his grasp. But if he had notreally told him the secret, he had at least given him the clew to it--aclew of which that queer old Mrs. Bread held the other end. Mrs. Breadhad always looked to Newman as if she knew secrets; and as he apparentlyenjoyed her esteem, he suspected she might be induced to share herknowledge with him. So long as there was only Mrs. Bread to dealwith, he felt easy. As to what there was to find out, he had only onefear--that it might not be bad enough. Then, when the image of themarquise and her son rose before him again, standing side by side,the old woman’s hand in Urbain’s arm, and the same cold, unsociablefixedness in the eyes of each, he cried out to himself that the fear wasgroundless. There was blood in the secret at the very least! He arrivedat Fleurières almost in a state of elation he had satisfied himself,logically, that in the presence of his threat of exposure they would, ashe mentally phrased it, rattle down like unwound buckets. He rememberedindeed that he must first catch his hare--first ascertain what there wasto expose; but after that, why shouldn’t his happiness be as good as newagain? Mother and son would drop their lovely victim in terror and taketo hiding, and Madame de Cintré, left to herself, would surely come backto him. Give her a chance and she would rise to the surface, return tothe light. How could she fail to perceive that his house would be muchthe most comfortable sort of convent?

  Newman, as he had done before, left his conveyance at the inn and walkedthe short remaining distance to the château. When he reached the gate,however, a singular feeling took possession of him--a feeling which,strange as it may seem, had its source in its unfathomable goodnature. He stood there a while, looking through the bars at the large,time-stained face of the edifice, and wondering to what crime it wasthat the dark old house, with its flowery name, had given convenientoccasion. It had given occasion, first and last, to tyrannies andsufferings enough, Newman said to himself; it was an evil-lookingplace to live in. Then, suddenly, came the reflection--What a horriblerubbish-heap of iniquity to fumble in! The attitude of inquisitor turnedits ignobler face, and with the same movement Newman declared thatthe Bellegardes should have another chance. He would appeal once moredirectly to their sense of fairness, and not to their fear, and if theyshould be accessible to reason, he need know nothing worse about themthan what he already knew. That was bad enough.

  The gate-keeper let him in through the same stiff crevice as before,and he passed through the court and over the little rustic bridge on themoat. The door was opened before he had reached it, and, as if to puthis clemency to rout with the suggestion of a richer opportunity, Mrs.Bread stood there awaiting him. Her face, as usual, looked as hopelesslyblank as the tide-smoothed sea-sand, and her black garments seemed ofan intenser sable. Newman had already learned that her strangeinexpressiv
eness could be a vehicle for emotion, and he was notsurprised at the muffled vivacity with which she whispered, “I thoughtyou would try again, sir. I was looking out for you.”

  “I am glad to see you,” said Newman; “I think you are my friend.”

  Mrs. Bread looked at him opaquely. “I wish you well sir; but it’s vainwishing now.”

  “You know, then, how they have treated me?”

  “Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Bread, dryly, “I know everything.”

  Newman hesitated a moment. “Everything?”

  Mrs. Bread gave him a glance somewhat more lucent. “I know at least toomuch, sir.”

  “One can never know too much. I congratulate you. I have come to seeMadame de Bellegarde and her son,” Newman added. “Are they at home? Ifthey are not, I will wait.”

  “My lady is always at home,” Mrs. Bread replied, “and the marquis ismostly with her.”

  “Please then tell them--one or the other, or both--that I am here andthat I desire to see them.”

  Mrs. Bread hesitated. “May I take a great liberty, sir?”

  “You have never taken a liberty but you have justified it,” said Newman,with diplomatic urbanity.

  Mrs. Bread dropped her wrinkled eyelids as if she were curtseying; butthe curtsey stopped there; the occasion was too grave. “You have come toplead with them again, sir? Perhaps you don’t know this--that Madame deCintré returned this morning to Paris.”

  “Ah, she’s gone!” And Newman, groaning, smote the pavement with hisstick.

  “She has gone straight to the convent--the Carmelites they call it. Isee you know, sir. My lady and the marquis take it very ill. It was onlylast night she told them.”

  “Ah, she had kept it back, then?” cried Newman. “Good, good! And theyare very fierce?”

  “They are not pleased,” said Mrs. Bread. “But they may well dislike it.They tell me it’s most dreadful, sir; of all the nuns in Christendom theCarmelites are the worst. You may say they are really not human, sir;they make you give up everything--forever. And to think of _her_ there!If I was one that cried, sir, I could cry.”

  Newman looked at her an instant. “We mustn’t cry, Mrs. Bread; we mustact. Go and call them!” And he made a movement to enter farther.

  But Mrs. Bread gently checked him. “May I take another liberty? I amtold you were with my dearest Mr. Valentin, in his last hours. If youwould tell me a word about him! The poor count was my own boy, sir; forthe first year of his life he was hardly out of my arms; I taught himto speak. And the count spoke so well, sir! He always spoke well to hispoor old Bread. When he grew up and took his pleasure he always had akind word for me. And to die in that wild way! They have a story thathe fought with a wine-merchant. I can’t believe that, sir! And was he ingreat pain?”

  “You are a wise, kind old woman, Mrs. Bread,” said Newman. “I hoped Imight see you with my own children in your arms. Perhaps I shall, yet.” And he put out his hand. Mrs. Bread looked for a moment at his openpalm, and then, as if fascinated by the novelty of the gesture, extendedher own ladylike fingers. Newman held her hand firmly and deliberately,fixing his eyes upon her. “You want to know all about Mr. Valentin?” hesaid.

  “It would be a sad pleasure, sir.”

  “I can tell you everything. Can you sometimes leave this place?”

  “The château, sir? I really don’t know. I never tried.”

  “Try, then; try hard. Try this evening, at dusk. Come to me in the oldruin there on the hill, in the court before the church. I will wait foryou there; I have something very important to tell you. An old womanlike you can do as she pleases.”

  Mrs. Bread stared, wondering, with parted lips. “Is it from the count,sir?” she asked.

  “From the count--from his death-bed,” said Newman.

  “I will come, then. I will be bold, for once, for _him_.”

  She led Newman into the great drawing-room with which he had alreadymade acquaintance, and retired to execute his commands. Newman waiteda long time; at last he was on the point of ringing and repeating hisrequest. He was looking round him for a bell when the marquis came inwith his mother on his arm. It will be seen that Newman had a logicalmind when I say that he declared to himself, in perfect good faith, asa result of Valentin’s dark hints, that his adversaries looked grosslywicked. “There is no mistake about it now,” he said to himself as theyadvanced. “They’re a bad lot; they have pulled off the mask.” Madamede Bellegarde and her son certainly bore in their faces the signs ofextreme perturbation they looked like people who had passed a sleeplessnight. Confronted, moreover, with an annoyance which they hoped they haddisposed of, it was not natural that they should have any very tenderglances to bestow upon Newman. He stood before them, and such eye-beamsas they found available they leveled at him; Newman feeling as if thedoor of a sepulchre had suddenly been opened, and the damp darkness werebeing exhaled.

  “You see I have come back,” he said. “I have come to try again.”

  “It would be ridiculous,” said M. de Bellegarde, “to pretend that we areglad to see you or that we don’t question the taste of your visit.”

  “Oh, don’t talk about taste,” said Newman, with a laugh, “or that willbring us round to yours! If I consulted my taste I certainly shouldn’tcome to see you. Besides, I will make as short work as you please.Promise me to raise the blockade--to set Madame de Cintré atliberty--and I will retire instantly.”

  “We hesitated as to whether we would see you,” said Madame deBellegarde; “and we were on the point of declining the honor. But itseemed to me that we should act with civility, as we have always done,and I wished to have the satisfaction of informing you that there arecertain weaknesses that people of our way of feeling can be guilty ofbut once.”

  “You may be weak but once, but you will be audacious many times, madam,” Newman answered. “I didn’t come however, for conversational purposes.I came to say this, simply: that if you will write immediately to yourdaughter that you withdraw your opposition to her marriage, I will takecare of the rest. You don’t want her to turn nun--you know more aboutthe horrors of it than I do. Marrying a commercial person is better thanthat. Give me a letter to her, signed and sealed, saying you retract andthat she may marry me with your blessing, and I will take it to her atthe convent and bring her out. There’s your chance--I call those easyterms.”

  “We look at the matter otherwise, you know. We call them very hardterms,” said Urbain de Bellegarde. They had all remained standingrigidly in the middle of the room. “I think my mother will tell you thatshe would rather her daughter should become Sœur Catherine than Mrs.Newman.”

  But the old lady, with the serenity of supreme power, let her son makeher epigrams for her. She only smiled, almost sweetly, shaking her headand repeating, “But once, Mr. Newman; but once!”

  Nothing that Newman had ever seen or heard gave him such a sense ofmarble hardness as this movement and the tone that accompanied it.“Could anything compel you?” he asked. “Do you know of anything thatwould force you?”

  “This language, sir,” said the marquis, “addressed to people inbereavement and grief is beyond all qualification.”

  “In most cases,” Newman answered, “your objection would have someweight, even admitting that Madame de Cintré’s present intentions maketime precious. But I have thought of what you speak of, and I have comehere to-day without scruple simply because I consider your brother andyou two very different parties. I see no connection between you. Yourbrother was ashamed of you. Lying there wounded and dying, the poorfellow apologized to me for your conduct. He apologized to me for thatof his mother.”

  For a moment the effect of these words was as if Newman had strucka physical blow. A quick flush leaped into the faces of Madame deBellegarde and her son, and they exchanged a glance like a twinkle ofsteel. Urbain uttered two words which Newman but half heard, but ofwhich the sense came to him as it were in the reverberation of thesound, “_Le misérable!_”

  “You show l
ittle respect for the living,” said Madame de Bellegarde,“but at least respect the dead. Don’t profane--don’t insult--the memoryof my innocent son.”

  “I speak the simple truth,” Newman declared, “and I speak it for apurpose. I repeat it--distinctly. Your son was utterly disgusted--yourson apologized.”

  Urbain de Bellegarde was frowning portentously, and Newman supposed hewas frowning at poor Valentin’s invidious image. Taken by surprise,his scant affection for his brother had made a momentary concession todishonor. But not for an appreciable instant did his mother lower herflag. “You are immensely mistaken, sir,” she said. “My son was sometimeslight, but he was never indecent. He died faithful to his name.”

  “You simply misunderstood him,” said the marquis, beginning to rally.“You affirm the impossible!”

  “Oh, I don’t care for poor Valentin’s apology,” said Newman. “It wasfar more painful than pleasant to me. This atrocious thing was not hisfault; he never hurt me, or anyone else; he was the soul of honor. Butit shows how he took it.”

  “If you wish to prove that my poor brother, in his last moments, wasout of his head, we can only say that under the melancholy circumstancesnothing was more possible. But confine yourself to that.”

  “He was quite in his right mind,” said Newman, with gentle but dangerousdoggedness; “I have never seen him so bright and clever. It was terribleto see that witty, capable fellow dying such a death. You know I wasvery fond of your brother. And I have further proof of his sanity,” Newman concluded.

  The marquise gathered herself together majestically. “This is toogross!” she cried. “We decline to accept your story, sir--we repudiateit. Urbain, open the door.” She turned away, with an imperious motionto her son, and passed rapidly down the length of the room. The marquiswent with her and held the door open. Newman was left standing.

  He lifted his finger, as a sign to M. de Bellegarde, who closed thedoor behind his mother and stood waiting. Newman slowly advanced, moresilent, for the moment, than life. The two men stood face to face. ThenNewman had a singular sensation he felt his sense of injury almostbrimming over into jocularity. “Come,” he said, “you don’t treat mewell; at least admit that.”

  M. de Bellegarde looked at him from head to foot, and then, in the mostdelicate, best-bred voice, “I detest you personally,” he said.

  “That’s the way I feel to you, but for politeness sake I don’t sayit,” said Newman. “It’s singular I should want so much to be yourbrother-in-law, but I can’t give it up. Let me try once more.” And hepaused a moment. “You have a secret--you have a skeleton in the closet.” M. de Bellegarde continued to look at him hard, but Newman could not seewhether his eyes betrayed anything; the look of his eyes was always sostrange. Newman paused again, and then went on. “You and your motherhave committed a crime.” At this M. de Bellegarde’s eyes certainly didchange; they seemed to flicker, like blown candles. Newman could seethat he was profoundly startled; but there was something admirable inhis self-control.

  “Continue,” said M. de Bellegarde.

  Newman lifted a finger and made it waver a little in the air. “Need Icontinue? You are trembling.”

  “Pray where did you obtain this interesting information?” M. deBellegarde asked, very softly.

  “I shall be strictly accurate,” said Newman. “I won’t pretend to knowmore than I do. At present that is all I know. You have done somethingthat you must hide, something that would damn you if it were known,something that would disgrace the name you are so proud of. I don’t knowwhat it is, but I can find out. Persist in your present course and I_will_ find out. Change it, let your sister go in peace, and I willleave you alone. It’s a bargain?”

  The marquis almost succeeded in looking untroubled; the breaking upof the ice in his handsome countenance was an operation that wasnecessarily gradual. But Newman’s mildly-syllabled argumentation seemedto press, and press, and presently he averted his eyes. He stood somemoments, reflecting.

  “My brother told you this,” he said, looking up.

  Newman hesitated a moment. “Yes, your brother told me.”

  The marquis smiled, handsomely. “Didn’t I say that he was out of hismind?”

  “He was out of his mind if I don’t find out. He was very much in it if Ido.”

  M. de Bellegarde gave a shrug. “Eh, sir, find out or not, as youplease.”

  “I don’t frighten you?” demanded Newman.

  “That’s for you to judge.”

  “No, it’s for you to judge, at your leisure. Think it over, feelyourself all round. I will give you an hour or two. I can’t give youmore, for how do we know how fast they may be making Madame de Cintréa nun? Talk it over with your mother; let her judge whether she isfrightened. I don’t believe she is as easily frightened, in general, asyou; but you will see. I will go and wait in the village, at the inn,and I beg you to let me know as soon as possible. Say by three o’clock.A simple _yes_ or _no_ on paper will do. Only, you know, in case of a_yes_ I shall expect you, this time, to stick to your bargain.” And withthis Newman opened the door and let himself out. The marquis did notmove, and Newman, retiring, gave him another look. “At the inn, in thevillage,” he repeated. Then he turned away altogether and passed out ofthe house.

  He was extremely excited by what he had been doing, for it wasinevitable that there should be a certain emotion in calling up thespectre of dishonor before a family a thousand years old. But he wentback to the inn and contrived to wait there, deliberately, for the nexttwo hours. He thought it more than probable that Urbain de Bellegardewould give no sign; for an answer to his challenge, in either sense,would be a confession of guilt. What he most expected was silence--inother words defiance. But he prayed that, as he imagined it, his shotmight bring them down. It did bring, by three o’clock, a note, deliveredby a footman; a note addressed in Urbain de Bellegarde’s handsomeEnglish hand. It ran as follows:--

  “I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of letting you know that I returnto Paris, to-morrow, with my mother, in order that we may see my sisterand confirm her in the resolution which is the most effectual reply toyour audacious pertinacity.

  “HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE.”

  Newman put the letter into his pocket, and continued his walk up anddown the inn-parlor. He had spent most of his time, for the past week,in walking up and down. He continued to measure the length of the little_salle_ of the Armes de France until the day began to wane, when he wentout to keep his rendezvous with Mrs. Bread. The path which led upthe hill to the ruin was easy to find, and Newman in a short time hadfollowed it to the top. He passed beneath the rugged arch of the castlewall, and looked about him in the early dusk for an old woman in black.The castle yard was empty, but the door of the church was open. Newmanwent into the little nave and of course found a deeper dusk thanwithout. A couple of tapers, however, twinkled on the altar and justenabled him to perceive a figure seated by one of the pillars. Closerinspection helped him to recognize Mrs. Bread, in spite of the factthat she was dressed with unwonted splendor. She wore a large blacksilk bonnet, with imposing bows of crape, and an old black satin dressdisposed itself in vaguely lustrous folds about her person. She hadjudged it proper to the occasion to appear in her stateliest apparel.She had been sitting with her eyes fixed upon the ground, but whenNewman passed before her she looked up at him, and then she rose.

  “Are you a Catholic, Mrs. Bread?” he asked.

  “No, sir; I’m a good Church-of-England woman, very Low,” she answered.“But I thought I should be safer in here than outside. I was never outin the evening before, sir.”

  “We shall be safer,” said Newman, “where no one can hear us.” And he ledthe way back into the castle court and then followed a path beside thechurch, which he was sure must lead into another part of the ruin. Hewas not deceived. It wandered along the crest of the hill and terminatedbefore a fragment of wall pierced by a rough aperture which had oncebeen a door. Through this aperture Newman passed and found h
imself ina nook peculiarly favorable to quiet conversation, as probably manyan earnest couple, otherwise assorted than our friends, had assuredthemselves. The hill sloped abruptly away, and on the remnant of itscrest were scattered two or three fragments of stone. Beneath, over theplain, lay the gathered twilight, through which, in the near distance,gleamed two or three lights from the château. Mrs. Bread rustled slowlyafter her guide, and Newman, satisfying himself that one of the fallenstones was steady, proposed to her to sit upon it. She cautiouslycomplied, and he placed himself upon another, near her.