The American

by Henry James

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Newman returned to Paris the second day after his interview with Mrs.Bread. The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over againthe little document which he had lodged in his pocket-book, and thinkingwhat he would do in the circumstances and how he would do it. He wouldnot have said that Poitiers was an amusing place; yet the day seemedvery short. Domiciled once more in the Boulevard Haussmann, he walkedover to the Rue de l’Université and inquired of Madame de Bellegarde’sportress whether the marquise had come back. The portress told him thatshe had arrived, with M. le Marquis, on the preceding day, and furtherinformed him that if he desired to enter, Madame de Bellegarde and herson were both at home. As she said these words the little white-facedold woman who peered out of the dusky gate-house of the Hôtel deBellegarde gave a small wicked smile--a smile which seemed to Newmanto mean, “Go in if you dare!” She was evidently versed in the currentdomestic history; she was placed where she could feel the pulse of thehouse. Newman stood a moment, twisting his moustache and looking at her;then he abruptly turned away. But this was not because he was afraidto go in--though he doubted whether, if he did so, he should be ableto make his way, unchallenged, into the presence of Madame de Cintré’srelatives. Confidence--excessive confidence, perhaps--quite as much astimidity prompted his retreat. He was nursing his thunderbolt; he lovedit; he was unwilling to part with it. He seemed to be holding it aloftin the rumbling, vaguely-flashing air, directly over the heads of hisvictims, and he fancied he could see their pale, upturned faces. Fewspecimens of the human countenance had ever given him such pleasureas these, lighted in the lurid fashion I have hinted at, and he wasdisposed 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 couldarrange to witness the operation of his thunder. To send in his card toMadame de Bellegarde would be a waste of ceremony; she would certainlydecline to receive him. On the other hand he could not force his wayinto her presence. It annoyed him keenly to think that he might bereduced to the blind satisfaction of writing her a letter; but heconsoled himself in a measure with the reflection that a letter mightlead to an interview. He went home, and feeling rather tired--nursing avengeance was, it must be confessed, a rather fatiguing process; ittook a good deal out of one--flung himself into one of his brocadedfauteuils, stretched his legs, thrust his hands into his pockets, and,while he watched the reflected sunset fading from the ornate house-topson the opposite side of the Boulevard, began mentally to compose a coolepistle to Madame de Bellegarde. While he was so occupied his servantthrew open the door and announced ceremoniously, “Madame Brett!”

  Newman roused himself, expectantly, and in a few moments perceived uponhis threshold the worthy woman with whom he had conversed to such goodpurpose on the starlit hill-top of Fleurières. Mrs. Bread had made forthis visit the same toilet as for her former expedition. Newman wasstruck with her distinguished appearance. His lamp was not lit, and asher large, grave face gazed at him through the light dusk from underthe shadow of her ample bonnet, he felt the incongruity of such a personpresenting herself as a servant. He greeted her with high geniality andbade her come in and sit down and make herself comfortable. There wassomething which might have touched the springs both of mirth and ofmelancholy in the ancient maidenliness with which Mrs. Bread endeavoredto comply with these directions. She was not playing at being fluttered,which would have been simply ridiculous; she was doing her best to carryherself as a person so humble that, for her, even embarrassment wouldhave been pretentious; but evidently she had never dreamed of its beingin her horoscope to pay a visit, at night-fall, to a friendly singlegentleman who lived in theatrical-looking rooms on one of the newBoulevards.

  “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 wantskeeping! 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 mybest gown.”

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

  Mrs. Bread stared solemnly and then stretched her hands over herlustreless satin skirt, as if the perilous side of her situation weredefining 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. Idon’t know myself; I never supposed I was so bold. But indeed, sir, Ihave gone as far as my own strength will bear me.”

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

  She began to speak again with a trembling voice. “I think it would bemore respectable if I could--if I could”--and her voice trembled to apause.

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

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

  “Burial!” cried Newman, with a burst of laughter. “Why, to bury you nowwould be a sad piece of extravagance. It’s only rascals who have to beburied to get respectable. Honest folks like you and me can live ourtime 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 yourchance!” cried Newman.

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

  “If she calls me a thankless old woman,” said Mrs. Bread, “I shall havenothing to say. But it is better so,” she softly added. “She shall be mylady to the last. That will be more respectable.”

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

  Mrs. Bread rose, with lowered eyes, and stood a moment; then, lookingup, she rested her eyes upon Newman’s face. The disordered proprietieswere somehow settling to rest. She looked at Newman so long and sofixedly, with such a dull, intense devotedness, that he himself mighthave had a pretext for embarrassment. At last she said gently, “You arenot looking well, sir.”

  “That’s natural enough,” said Newman. “I have nothing to feel wellabout. To be very indifferent and very fierce, very dull and veryjovial, very sick and very lively, all at once,--why, it rather mixesone up.”

  Mrs. Bread gave a noiseless sigh. “I can tell you something that willmake you feel duller still, if you want to feel all one way. AboutMadame 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 thedullness 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’sheart. He leaned back in his chair, staring up at the old woman. “Theyhave 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 my lady. To speak of it to such a person
my ladymust have felt the shock. Madame de Cintré won’t see them now, and nowis her only chance. A while hence she will have no chance.”

  “You mean the other women--the mothers, the daughters, the sisters; whatis it they call them?--won’t let her?”

  “It is what they call the rule of the house,--or of the order, Ibelieve,” said Mrs. Bread. “There is no rule so strict as that of theCarmelites. The bad women in the reformatories are fine ladies to them.They wear old brown cloaks--so the _femme de chambre_ told me--that youwouldn’t use for a horse blanket. And the poor countess was so fond ofsoft-feeling dresses; she would never have anything stiff! They sleep onthe ground,” Mrs. Bread went on “they are no better, no better,”--andshe hesitated for a comparison,--“they are no better than tinkers’wives. They give up everything, down to the very name their poor oldnurses called them by. They give up father and mother, brother andsister,--to say nothing of other persons,” Mrs. Bread delicately added.“They wear a shroud under their brown cloaks and a rope round theirwaists, and they get up on winter nights and go off into cold places topray to the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary is a hard mistress!”

  Mrs. Bread, dwelling on these terrible facts, sat dry-eyed and pale,with her hands clasped in her satin lap. Newman gave a melancholygroan and fell forward, leaning his head on his hands. There was a longsilence, broken only by the ticking of the great gilded clock on thechimney-piece.

  “Where is this place--where is the convent?” Newman asked at last,looking up.

  “There are two houses,” said Mrs. Bread. “I found out; I thought youwould like to know--though it’s poor comfort, I think. One is in theAvenue de Messine; they have learned that Madame de Cintré is there. Theother is in the Rue d’Enfer. That’s a terrible name; I suppose you knowwhat it means.”

  Newman got up and walked away to the end of his long room. When he cameback Mrs. Bread had got up, and stood by the fire with folded hands.“Tell me this,” he said. “Can I get near her--even if I don’t see her?Can I look through a grating, or some such thing, at the place where sheis?”

  It is said that all women love a lover, and Mrs. Bread’s sense of thepre-established harmony which kept servants in their “place,” evenas planets in their orbits (not that Mrs. Bread had ever consciouslylikened herself to a planet), barely availed to temper the maternalmelancholy with which she leaned her head on one side and gazed ather new employer. She probably felt for the moment as if, forty yearsbefore, she had held him also in her arms. “That wouldn’t help you, sir.It would only make her seem farther away.”

  “I want to go there, at all events,” said Newman. “Avenue de Messine,you say? And what is it they call themselves?”

  “Carmelites,” said Mrs. Bread.

  “I shall remember that.”

  Mrs. Bread hesitated a moment, and then, “It’s my duty to tell youthis, sir,” she went on. “The convent has a chapel, and some people areadmitted on Sunday to the mass. You don’t see the poor creatures thatare shut up there, but I am told you can hear them sing. It’s a wonderthey have any heart for singing! Some Sunday I shall make bold to go. Itseems to me I should know _her_ voice in fifty.”

  Newman looked at his visitor very gratefully; then he held out his handand shook hers. “Thank you,” he said. “If anyone can get in, I will.” A moment later Mrs. Bread proposed, deferentially, to retire, but hechecked her and put a lighted candle into her hand. “There are half adozen rooms there I don’t use,” he said, pointing through an open door.“Go and look at them and take your choice. You can live in the oneyou like best.” From this bewildering opportunity Mrs. Bread at firstrecoiled; but finally, yielding to Newman’s gentle, reassuring push, shewandered off into the dusk with her tremulous taper. She remained absenta quarter of an hour, during which Newman paced up and down, stoppedoccasionally to look out of the window at the lights on the Boulevard,and then resumed his walk. Mrs. Bread’s relish for her investigationapparently increased as she proceeded; but at last she reappeared anddeposited her candlestick on the chimney-piece.

  “Well, have you picked one out?” asked Newman.

  “A room, sir? They are all too fine for a dingy old body like me. Thereisn’t one that hasn’t a bit of gilding.”

  “It’s only tinsel, Mrs. Bread,” said Newman. “If you stay there a whileit will all peel off of itself.” And he gave a dismal smile.

  “Oh, sir, there are things enough peeling off already!” rejoined Mrs.Bread, with a head-shake. “Since I was there I thought I would lookabout me. I don’t believe you know, sir. The corners are most dreadful.You do want a housekeeper, that you do; you want a tidy Englishwomanthat isn’t above taking hold of a broom.”

  Newman assured her that he suspected, if he had not measured, hisdomestic abuses, and that to reform them was a mission worthy of herpowers. She held her candlestick aloft again and looked around the salonwith compassionate glances; then she intimated that she accepted themission, and that its sacred character would sustain her in her rupturewith Madame de Bellegarde. With this she curtsied herself away.

  She came back the next day with her worldly goods, and Newman, goinginto his drawing-room, found her upon her aged knees before a divan,sewing up some detached fringe. He questioned her as to her leave-takingwith her late mistress, and she said it had proved easier than shefeared. “I was perfectly civil, sir, but the Lord helped me to rememberthat a good woman has no call to tremble before a bad one.”

  “I should think so!” cried Newman. “And does she know you have come tome?”

  “She asked me where I was going, and I mentioned your name,” said Mrs.Bread.

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She looked at me very hard, and she turned very red. Then she bade meleave her. I was all ready to go, and I had got the coachman, who is anEnglishman, to bring down my poor box and to fetch me a cab. But when Iwent down myself to the gate I found it closed. My lady had sent ordersto the porter not to let me pass, and by the same orders the porter’swife--she is a dreadful sly old body--had gone out in a cab to fetchhome M. de Bellegarde from his club.”

  Newman slapped his knee. “She _is_ scared! she _is_ scared!” he cried,exultantly.

  “I was frightened too, sir,” said Mrs. Bread, “but I was also mightilyvexed. I took it very high with the porter and asked him by what righthe used violence to an honorable Englishwoman who had lived in the housefor thirty years before he was heard of. Oh, sir, I was very grand, andI brought the man down. He drew his bolts and let me out, and I promisedthe cabman something handsome if he would drive fast. But he wasterribly slow; it seemed as if we should never reach your blessed door.I am all of a tremble still; it took me five minutes, just now, tothread my needle.”

  Newman told her, with a gleeful laugh, that if she chose she mighthave a little maid on purpose to thread her needles; and he went awaymurmuring to himself again that the old woman _was_ scared--she _was_scared!

  He had not shown Mrs. Tristram the little paper that he carried inhis pocket-book, but since his return to Paris he had seen her severaltimes, and she had told him that he seemed to her to be in a strangeway--an even stranger way than his sad situation made natural. Had hisdisappointment gone to his head? He looked like a man who was going tobe ill, and yet she had never seen him more restless and active. One dayhe would sit hanging his head and looking as if he were firmly resolvednever to smile again; another he would indulge in laughter that wasalmost unseemly and make jokes that were bad even for him. If he wastrying to carry off his sorrow, he at such times really went too far.She begged him of all things not to be “strange.” Feeling in a measureresponsible as she did for the affair which had turned out so illfor him, she could endure anything but his strangeness. He might bemelancholy if he would, or he might be stoical; he might be cross andcantankerous with her and ask her why she had ever dared to meddlewith his destiny: to this she would submit; for this she would makeallowances. Only, for Heaven’s sake, let him not be incoherent. Thatwould be extremel
y unpleasant. It was like people talking in theirsleep; they always frightened her. And Mrs. Tristram intimated that,taking very high ground as regards the moral obligation which eventshad laid upon her, she proposed not to rest quiet until she should haveconfronted him with the least inadequate substitute for Madame de Cintréthat the two hemispheres contained.

  “Oh,” said Newman, “we are even now, and we had better not open a newaccount! You may bury me some day, but you shall never marry me. It’stoo rough. I hope, at any rate,” he added, “that there is nothingincoherent in this--that I want to go next Sunday to the Carmelitechapel in the Avenue de Messine. You know one of the Catholicministers--an abbé, is that it?--I have seen him here, you know; thatmotherly old gentleman with the big waistband. Please ask him if I needa special leave to go in, and if I do, beg him to obtain it for me.”

  Mrs. Tristram gave expression to the liveliest joy. “I am so glad youhave asked me to do something!” she cried. “You shall get into thechapel if the abbé is disfrocked for his share in it.” And two daysafterwards she told him that it was all arranged; the abbé was enchantedto serve him, and if he would present himself civilly at the conventgate there would be no difficulty.