by Henry James
CHAPTER XXV
Newman called upon the comical duchess and found her at home. An oldgentleman with a high nose and a gold-headed cane was just taking leaveof her; he made Newman a protracted obeisance as he retired, and ourhero supposed that he was one of the mysterious grandees with whom hehad shaken hands at Madame de Bellegarde’s ball. The duchess, in herarmchair, from which she did not move, with a great flower-pot on oneside of her, a pile of pink-covered novels on the other, and a largepiece of tapestry depending from her lap, presented an expansive andimposing front; but her aspect was in the highest degree gracious, andthere was nothing in her manner to check the effusion of his confidence.She talked to him about flowers and books, getting launched withmarvelous promptitude; about the theatres, about the peculiarinstitutions of his native country, about the humidity of Paris aboutthe pretty complexions of the American ladies, about his impressionsof France and his opinion of its female inhabitants. All this was abrilliant monologue on the part of the duchess, who, like many ofher country-women, was a person of an affirmative rather than aninterrogative cast of mind, who made _mots_ and put them herself intocirculation, and who was apt to offer you a present of a convenientlittle opinion, neatly enveloped in the gilt paper of a happy Gallicism.Newman had come to her with a grievance, but he found himself in anatmosphere in which apparently no cognizance was taken of grievance; anatmosphere into which the chill of discomfort had never penetrated,and which seemed exclusively made up of mild, sweet, stale intellectualperfumes. The feeling with which he had watched Madame d’Outreville atthe treacherous festival of the Bellegardes came back to him; she struckhim as a wonderful old lady in a comedy, particularly well up in herpart. He observed before long that she asked him no questions abouttheir common friends; she made no allusion to the circumstances underwhich he had been presented to her. She neither feigned ignorance of achange in these circumstances nor pretended to condole with him upon it;but she smiled and discoursed and compared the tender-tinted wools ofher tapestry, as if the Bellegardes and their wickedness were not ofthis world. “She is fighting shy!” said Newman to himself; and, havingmade the observation, he was prompted to observe, farther, how theduchess would carry off her indifference. She did so in a masterlymanner. There was not a gleam of disguised consciousness in thosesmall, clear, demonstrative eyes which constituted her nearest claim topersonal loveliness, there was not a symptom of apprehension that Newmanwould trench upon the ground she proposed to avoid. “Upon my word,she does it very well,” he tacitly commented. “They all hold togetherbravely, and, whether anyone else can trust them or not, they cancertainly trust each other.”
Newman, at this juncture, fell to admiring the duchess for her finemanners. He felt, most accurately, that she was not a grain less urbanethan she would have been if his marriage were still in prospect; buthe felt also that she was not a particle more urbane. He had come,so reasoned the duchess--Heaven knew why he had come, after what hadhappened; and for the half hour, therefore, she would be _charmante_.But she would never see him again. Finding no ready-made opportunity totell his story, Newman pondered these things more dispassionately thanmight have been expected; he stretched his legs, as usual, and evenchuckled a little, appreciatively and noiselessly. And then as theduchess went on relating a _mot_ with which her mother had snubbed thegreat Napoleon, it occurred to Newman that her evasion of a chapter ofFrench history more interesting to himself might possibly be the resultof an extreme consideration for his feelings. Perhaps it was delicacy onthe duchess’s part--not policy. He was on the point of saying somethinghimself, to make the chance which he had determined to give her stillbetter, when the servant announced another visitor. The duchess, onhearing the name--it was that of an Italian prince--gave a littleimperceptible pout, and said to Newman, rapidly: “I beg you to remain;I desire this visit to be short.” Newman said to himself, at this, thatMadame d’Outreville intended, after all, that they should discuss theBellegardes together.
The prince was a short, stout man, with a head disproportionately large.He had a dusky complexion and a bushy eyebrow, beneath which hiseye wore a fixed and somewhat defiant expression he seemed to bechallenging you to insinuate that he was top-heavy. The duchess, judgingfrom her charge to Newman, regarded him as a bore; but this was notapparent from the unchecked flow of her conversation. She made afresh series of _mots_, characterized with great felicity the Italianintellect and the taste of the figs at Sorrento, predicted the ultimatefuture of the Italian kingdom (disgust with the brutal Sardinian ruleand complete reversion, throughout the peninsula, to the sacred sway ofthe Holy Father), and, finally, gave a history of the love affairs ofthe Princess X----. This narrative provoked some rectifications on thepart of the prince, who, as he said, pretended to know something aboutthat matter; and having satisfied himself that Newman was in no laughingmood, either with regard to the size of his head or anything else, heentered into the controversy with an animation for which the duchess,when she set him down as a bore, could not have been prepared. Thesentimental vicissitudes of the Princess X---- led to a discussion ofthe heart history of Florentine nobility in general; the duchess hadspent five weeks in Florence and had gathered much information on thesubject. This was merged, in turn, in an examination of the Italianheart _per se_. The duchess took a brilliantly heterodox view--thoughtit the least susceptible organ of its kind that she had everencountered, related examples of its want of susceptibility, and atlast declared that for her the Italians were a people of ice. The princebecame flame to refute her, and his visit really proved charming. Newmanwas naturally out of the conversation he sat with his head a littleon one side, watching the interlocutors. The duchess, as she talked,frequently looked at him with a smile, as if to intimate, in thecharming manner of her nation, that it lay only with him to saysomething very much to the point. But he said nothing at all, and atlast his thoughts began to wander. A singular feeling came over him--asudden sense of the folly of his errand. What under the sun had he tosay to the duchess, after all? Wherein would it profit him to tellher that the Bellegardes were traitors and that the old lady, into thebargain was a murderess? He seemed morally to have turned a sort ofsomersault, and to find things looking differently in consequence. Hefelt a sudden stiffening of his will and quickening of his reserve. Whatin the world had he been thinking of when he fancied the duchess couldhelp him, and that it would conduce to his comfort to make her think illof the Bellegardes? What did her opinion of the Bellegardes matter tohim? It was only a shade more important than the opinion the Bellegardesentertained of her. The duchess help him--that cold, stout, soft,artificial woman help him?--she who in the last twenty minutes had builtup between them a wall of polite conversation in which she evidentlyflattered herself that he would never find a gate. Had it come tothat--that he was asking favors of conceited people, and appealing forsympathy where he had no sympathy to give? He rested his arms on hisknees, and sat for some minutes staring into his hat. As he did so hisears tingled--he had come very near being an ass. Whether or no theduchess would hear his story, he wouldn’t tell it. Was he to sitthere another half hour for the sake of exposing the Bellegardes? TheBellegardes be hanged! He got up abruptly, and advanced to shake handswith his hostess.
“You can’t stay longer?” she asked very graciously.
“I am afraid not,” he said.
She hesitated a moment, and then, “I had an idea you had somethingparticular to say to me,” she declared.
Newman looked at her; he felt a little dizzy; for the moment he seemedto be turning his somersault again. The little Italian prince came tohis help: “Ah, madam, who has not that?” he softly sighed.
“Don’t teach Mr. Newman to say _fadaises_,” said the duchess. “It is hismerit that he doesn’t know how.”
“Yes, I don’t know how to say _fadaises_,” said Newman, “and I don’twant to say anything unpleasant.”
“I am sure you are very considerate,” said the duchess with a smile; andshe gave him a little nod for go
od-bye with which he took his departure.
Once in the street, he stood for some time on the pavement, wonderingwhether, after all, he was not an ass not to have discharged his pistol.And then again he decided that to talk to anyone whomsoever aboutthe Bellegardes would be extremely disagreeable to him. The leastdisagreeable thing, under the circumstances, was to banish them from hismind, and never think of them again. Indecision had not hithertobeen one of Newman’s weaknesses, and in this case it was not of longduration. For three days after this he did not, or at least he tried notto, think of the Bellegardes. He dined with Mrs. Tristram, and on hermentioning their name, he begged her almost severely to desist. Thisgave Tom Tristram a much-coveted opportunity to offer his condolences.
He leaned forward, laying his hand on Newman’s arm compressing his lipsand shaking his head. “The fact is my dear fellow, you see, that youought never to have gone into it. It was not your doing, I know--it wasall my wife. If you want to come down on her, I’ll stand off; I give youleave to hit her as hard as you like. You know she has never had a wordof reproach from me in her life, and I think she is in need of somethingof the kind. Why didn’t you listen to _me?_ You know I didn’t believe inthe thing. I thought it at the best an amiable delusion. I don’t professto be a Don Juan or a gay Lothario,--that class of man, you know; but Ido pretend to know something about the harder sex. I have never dislikeda woman in my life that she has not turned out badly. I was not at alldeceived in Lizzie, for instance; I always had my doubts about her.Whatever you may think of my present situation, I must at least admitthat I got into it with my eyes open. Now suppose you had got intosomething like this box with Madame de Cintré. You may depend upon itshe would have turned out a stiff one. And upon my word I don’t seewhere you could have found your comfort. Not from the marquis, my dearNewman; he wasn’t a man you could go and talk things over with in asociable, common-sense way. Did he ever seem to want to have you on thepremises--did he ever try to see you alone? Did he ever ask you to comeand smoke a cigar with him of an evening, or step in, when you had beencalling on the ladies, and take something? I don’t think you would havegot much encouragement out of _him_. And as for the old lady, she struckone as an uncommonly strong dose. They have a great expression here, youknow; they call it ‘sympathetic.’ Everything is sympathetic--or oughtto be. Now Madame de Bellegarde is about as sympathetic as thatmustard-pot. They’re a d--d cold-blooded lot, any way; I felt it awfullyat that ball of theirs. I felt as if I were walking up and down in theArmory, in the Tower of London! My dear boy, don’t think me a vulgarbrute for hinting at it, but you may depend upon it, all they wantedwas your money. I know something about that; I can tell when peoplewant one’s money! Why they stopped wanting yours I don’t know; I supposebecause they could get someone else’s without working so hard for it. Itisn’t worth finding out. It may be that it was not Madame de Cintré thatbacked out first, very likely the old woman put her up to it. I suspectshe and her mother are really as thick as thieves, eh? You are well outof it, my boy; make up your mind to that. If I express myself stronglyit is all because I love you so much; and from that point of view I maysay I should as soon have thought of making up to that piece of palehigh-mightiness as I should have thought of making up to the Obelisk inthe Place de la Concorde.”
Newman sat gazing at Tristram during this harangue with a lack-lustreeye; never yet had he seemed to himself to have outgrown so completelythe phase of equal comradeship with Tom Tristram. Mrs. Tristram’s glanceat her husband had more of a spark; she turned to Newman with a slightlylurid smile. “You must at least do justice,” she said, “to the felicitywith which Mr. Tristram repairs the indiscretions of a too zealouswife.”
But even without the aid of Tom Tristram’s conversational felicities,Newman would have begun to think of the Bellegardes again. He couldcease to think of them only when he ceased to think of his loss andprivation, and the days had as yet but scantily lightened the weightof this incommodity. In vain Mrs. Tristram begged him to cheer up; sheassured him that the sight of his countenance made her miserable.
“How can I help it?” he demanded with a trembling voice. “I feel likea widower--and a widower who has not even the consolation of going tostand beside the grave of his wife--who has not the right to wear somuch mourning as a weed on his hat. I feel,” he added in a moment “as ifmy wife had been murdered and her assassins were still at large.”
Mrs. Tristram made no immediate rejoinder, but at last she said, witha smile which, in so far as it was a forced one, was less successfullysimulated than such smiles, on her lips, usually were; “Are you verysure that you would have been happy?”
Newman stared a moment, and then shook his head. “That’s weak,” he said;“that won’t do.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Tristram with a more triumphant bravery, “I don’tbelieve you would have been happy.”
Newman gave a little laugh. “Say I should have been miserable, then;it’s a misery I should have preferred to any happiness.”
Mrs. Tristram began to muse. “I should have been curious to see; itwould have been very strange.”
“Was it from curiosity that you urged me to try and marry her?”
“A little,” said Mrs. Tristram, growing still more audacious. Newmangave her the one angry look he had been destined ever to give her,turned away and took up his hat. She watched him a moment, and thenshe said, “That sounds very cruel, but it is less so than it sounds.Curiosity has a share in almost everything I do. I wanted very much tosee, first, whether such a marriage could actually take place; second,what would happen if it should take place.”
“So you didn’t believe,” said Newman, resentfully.
“Yes, I believed--I believed that it would take place, and that youwould be happy. Otherwise I should have been, among my speculations,a very heartless creature. _But_,” she continued, laying her hand uponNewman’s arm and hazarding a grave smile, “it was the highest flightever taken by a tolerably bold imagination!”
Shortly after this she recommended him to leave Paris and travel forthree months. Change of scene would do him good, and he would forget hismisfortune sooner in absence from the objects which had witnessed it. “Ireally feel,” Newman rejoined, “as if to leave _you_, at least, woulddo me good--and cost me very little effort. You are growing cynical, youshock me and pain me.”
“Very good,” said Mrs. Tristram, good-naturedly or cynically, as may bethought most probable. “I shall certainly see you again.”
Newman was very willing to get away from Paris; the brilliant streets hehad walked through in his happier hours, and which then seemed to weara higher brilliancy in honor of his happiness, appeared now to be inthe secret of his defeat and to look down upon it in shining mockery. Hewould go somewhere; he cared little where; and he made his preparations.Then, one morning, at haphazard, he drove to the train that wouldtransport him to Boulogne and dispatch him thence to the shores ofBritain. As he rolled along in the train he asked himself what hadbecome of his revenge, and he was able to say that it was provisionallypigeon-holed in a very safe place; it would keep till called for.
He arrived in London in the midst of what is called “the season,” andit seemed to him at first that he might here put himself in the wayof being diverted from his heavy-heartedness. He knew no one in allEngland, but the spectacle of the mighty metropolis roused him somewhatfrom his apathy. Anything that was enormous usually found favor withNewman, and the multitudinous energies and industries of England stirredwithin him a dull vivacity of contemplation. It is on record that theweather, at that moment, was of the finest English quality; he tooklong walks and explored London in every direction he sat by the hour inKensington Gardens and beside the adjoining Drive, watching the peopleand the horses and the carriages; the rosy English beauties, thewonderful English dandies, and the splendid flunkies. He went to theopera and found it better than in Paris; he went to the theatre andfound a surprising charm in listening to dialogue the finest pointsof which came
within the range of his comprehension. He made severalexcursions into the country, recommended by the waiter at his hotel,with whom, on this and similar points, he had established confidentialrelations. He watched the deer in Windsor Forest and admired the Thamesfrom Richmond Hill; he ate white-bait and brown-bread and butterat Greenwich, and strolled in the grassy shadow of the cathedral ofCanterbury. He also visited the Tower of London and Madame Tussaud’sexhibition. One day he thought he would go to Sheffield, and then,thinking again, he gave it up. Why should he go to Sheffield? He hada feeling that the link which bound him to a possible interest in themanufacture of cutlery was broken. He had no desire for an “inside view” of any successful enterprise whatever, and he would not have given thesmallest sum for the privilege of talking over the details of the most“splendid” business with the shrewdest of overseers.
One afternoon he had walked into Hyde Park, and was slowly threadinghis way through the human maze which edges the Drive. The stream ofcarriages was no less dense, and Newman, as usual, marveled at thestrange, dingy figures which he saw taking the air in some of thestateliest vehicles. They reminded him of what he had read of easternand southern countries, in which grotesque idols and fetiches weresometimes taken out of their temples and carried abroad in goldenchariots to be displayed to the multitude. He saw a great many prettycheeks beneath high-plumed hats as he squeezed his way through serriedwaves of crumpled muslin; and sitting on little chairs at the base ofthe great serious English trees, he observed a number of quiet-eyedmaidens who seemed only to remind him afresh that the magic of beautyhad gone out of the world with Madame de Cintré: to say nothing of otherdamsels, whose eyes were not quiet, and who struck him still more as asatire on possible consolation. He had been walking for some time, when,directly in front of him, borne back by the summer breeze, he heard afew words uttered in that bright Parisian idiom from which his ears hadbegun to alienate themselves. The voice in which the words were spokenmade them seem even more like a thing with which he had once beenfamiliar, and as he bent his eyes it lent an identity to the commonplaceelegance of the back hair and shoulders of a young lady walking in thesame direction as himself. Mademoiselle Nioche, apparently, had come toseek a more rapid advancement in London, and another glance led Newmanto suppose that she had found it. A gentleman was strolling beside her,lending a most attentive ear to her conversation and too entranced toopen his lips. Newman did not hear his voice, but perceived thathe presented the dorsal expression of a well-dressed Englishman.Mademoiselle Nioche was attracting attention: the ladies who passed herturned round to survey the Parisian perfection of her toilet. A greatcataract of flounces rolled down from the young lady’s waist to Newman’sfeet; he had to step aside to avoid treading upon them. He steppedaside, indeed, with a decision of movement which the occasion scarcelydemanded; for even this imperfect glimpse of Miss Noémie had excitedhis displeasure. She seemed an odious blot upon the face of nature;he wanted to put her out of his sight. He thought of Valentin deBellegarde, still green in the earth of his burial--his young lifeclipped by this flourishing impudence. The perfume of the young lady’sfinery sickened him; he turned his head and tried to deflect his course;but the pressure of the crowd kept him near her a few minutes longer, sothat he heard what she was saying.
“Ah, I am sure he will miss me,” she murmured. “It was very cruel in meto leave him; I am afraid you will think me a very heartless creature.He might perfectly well have come with us. I don’t think he is verywell,” she added; “it seemed to me to-day that he was not very gay.”
Newman wondered whom she was talking about, but just then an openingamong his neighbors enabled him to turn away, and he said to himselfthat she was probably paying a tribute to British propriety and playingat tender solicitude about her papa. Was that miserable old man stilltreading the path of vice in her train? Was he still giving her thebenefit of his experience of affairs, and had he crossed the sea toserve as her interpreter? Newman walked some distance farther, and thenbegan to retrace his steps taking care not to traverse again the orbitof Mademoiselle Nioche. At last he looked for a chair under the trees,but he had some difficulty in finding an empty one. He was about to giveup the search when he saw a gentleman rise from the seat he had beenoccupying, leaving Newman to take it without looking at his neighbors.He sat there for some time without heeding them; his attention was lostin the irritation and bitterness produced by his recent glimpse of MissNoémie’s iniquitous vitality. But at the end of a quarter of an hour,dropping his eyes, he perceived a small pug-dog squatted upon the pathnear his feet--a diminutive but very perfect specimen of its interestingspecies. The pug was sniffing at the fashionable world, as it passedhim, with his little black muzzle, and was kept from extending hisinvestigation by a large blue ribbon attached to his collar with anenormous rosette and held in the hand of a person seated next toNewman. To this person Newman transferred his attention, and immediatelyperceived that he was the object of all that of his neighbor, who wasstaring up at him from a pair of little fixed white eyes. These eyesNewman instantly recognized; he had been sitting for the last quarter ofan hour beside M. Nioche. He had vaguely felt that someone was staringat him. M. Nioche continued to stare; he appeared afraid to move, evento the extent of evading Newman’s glance.
“Dear me,” said Newman; “are you here, too?” And he looked at hisneighbor’s helplessness more grimly than he knew. M. Nioche had a newhat and a pair of kid gloves; his clothes, too, seemed to belong to amore recent antiquity than of yore. Over his arm was suspended a lady’smantilla--a light and brilliant tissue, fringed with white lace--whichhad apparently been committed to his keeping; and the little dog’s blueribbon was wound tightly round his hand. There was no expression ofrecognition in his face--or of anything indeed save a sort of feeble,fascinated dread; Newman looked at the pug and the lace mantilla, andthen he met the old man’s eyes again. “You know me, I see,” he pursued.“You might have spoken to me before.” M. Nioche still said nothing,but it seemed to Newman that his eyes began faintly to water. “I didn’texpect,” our hero went on, “to meet you so far from--from the Café de laPatrie.” The old man remained silent, but decidedly Newman had touchedthe source of tears. His neighbor sat staring and Newman added, “What’sthe matter, M. Nioche? You used to talk--to talk very prettily. Don’tyou remember you even gave lessons in conversation?”
At this M. Nioche decided to change his attitude. He stooped and pickedup the pug, lifted it to his face and wiped his eyes on its little softback. “I’m afraid to speak to you,” he presently said, looking over thepuppy’s shoulder. “I hoped you wouldn’t notice me. I should have movedaway, but I was afraid that if I moved you would notice me. So I satvery still.”
“I suspect you have a bad conscience, sir,” said Newman.
The old man put down the little dog and held it carefully in his lap.Then he shook his head, with his eyes still fixed upon his interlocutor.“No, Mr. Newman, I have a good conscience,” he murmured.
“Then why should you want to slink away from me?”
“Because--because you don’t understand my position.”
“Oh, I think you once explained it to me,” said Newman. “But it seemsimproved.”
“Improved!” exclaimed M. Nioche, under his breath. “Do you call thisimprovement?” And he glanced at the treasures in his arms.
“Why, you are on your travels,” Newman rejoined. “A visit to London inthe season is certainly a sign of prosperity.”
M. Nioche, in answer to this cruel piece of irony, lifted the puppy upto his face again, peering at Newman with his small blank eye-holes.There was something almost imbecile in the movement, and Newman hardlyknew whether he was taking refuge in a convenient affectation ofunreason, or whether he had in fact paid for his dishonor by the loss ofhis wits. In the latter case, just now, he felt little more tenderlyto the foolish old man than in the former. Responsible or not, he wasequally an accomplice of his detestably mischievous daughter. Newmanwas going to leave him ab
ruptly, when a ray of entreaty appeared todisengage itself from the old man’s misty gaze. “Are you going away?” heasked.
“Do you want me to stay?” said Newman.
“I should have left you--from consideration. But my dignity suffers atyour leaving me--that way.”
“Have you got anything particular to say to me?”
M. Nioche looked around him to see that no one was listening, and thenhe said, very softly but distinctly, “I have _not_ forgiven her!”
Newman gave a short laugh, but the old man seemed for the moment not toperceive it; he was gazing away, absently, at some metaphysical imageof his implacability. “It doesn’t much matter whether you forgive her ornot,” said Newman. “There are other people who won’t, I assure you.”
“What has she done?” M. Nioche softly questioned, turning round again.“I don’t know what she does, you know.”
“She has done a devilish mischief; it doesn’t matter what,” said Newman.“She’s a nuisance; she ought to be stopped.”
M. Nioche stealthily put out his hand and laid it very gently uponNewman’s arm. “Stopped, yes,” he whispered. “That’s it. Stopped short.She is running away--she must be stopped.” Then he paused a moment andlooked round him. “I mean to stop her,” he went on. “I am only waitingfor my chance.”
“I see,” said Newman, laughing briefly again. “She is running away andyou are running after her. You have run a long distance!”
But M. Nioche stared insistently: “I shall stop her!” he softlyrepeated.
He had hardly spoken when the crowd in front of them separated, as if bythe impulse to make way for an important personage. Presently, throughthe opening, advanced Mademoiselle Nioche, attended by the gentlemanwhom Newman had lately observed. His face being now presented to ourhero, the latter recognized the irregular features, the hardly moreregular complexion, and the amiable expression of Lord Deepmere. Noémie,on finding herself suddenly confronted with Newman, who, like M. Nioche,had risen from his seat, faltered for a barely perceptible instant. Shegave him a little nod, as if she had seen him yesterday, and then, witha good-natured smile, “_Tiens_, how we keep meeting!” she said. Shelooked consummately pretty, and the front of her dress was a wonderfulwork of art. She went up to her father, stretching out her hands for thelittle dog, which he submissively placed in them, and she began tokiss it and murmur over it: “To think of leaving him all alone,--whata wicked, abominable creature he must believe me! He has been veryunwell,” she added, turning and affecting to explain to Newman, with aspark of infernal impudence, fine as a needlepoint, in her eye. “I don’tthink the English climate agrees with him.”
“It seems to agree wonderfully well with his mistress,” said Newman.
“Do you mean me? I have never been better, thank you,” Miss Noémiedeclared. “But with _milord_”--and she gave a brilliant glance at herlate companion--“how can one help being well?” She seated herself in thechair from which her father had risen, and began to arrange the littledog’s rosette.
Lord Deepmere carried off such embarrassment as might be incidentalto this unexpected encounter with the inferior grace of a male anda Briton. He blushed a good deal, and greeted the object of his latemomentary aspiration to rivalry in the favor of a person other thanthe mistress of the invalid pug with an awkward nod and a rapidejaculation--an ejaculation to which Newman, who often found it hard tounderstand the speech of English people, was able to attach no meaning.Then the young man stood there, with his hand on his hip, and with aconscious grin, staring askance at Miss Noémie. Suddenly an idea seemedto strike him, and he said, turning to Newman, “Oh, you know her?”
“Yes,” said Newman, “I know her. I don’t believe you do.”
“Oh dear, yes, I do!” said Lord Deepmere, with another grin. “I knewher in Paris--by my poor cousin Bellegarde, you know. He knew her, poorfellow, didn’t he? It was she, you know, who was at the bottom of hisaffair. Awfully sad, wasn’t it?” continued the young man, talking offhis embarrassment as his simple nature permitted. “They got up somestory about its being for the Pope; about the other man having saidsomething against the Pope’s morals. They always do that, you know. Theyput it on the Pope because Bellegarde was once in the Zouaves. But itwas about _her_ morals--_she_ was the Pope!” Lord Deepmere pursued,directing an eye illumined by this pleasantry toward MademoiselleNioche, who was bending gracefully over her lap-dog, apparently absorbedin conversation with it. “I dare say you think it rather odd that Ishould--ah--keep up the acquaintance,” the young man resumed; “but shecouldn’t help it, you know, and Bellegarde was only my twentieth cousin.I dare say you think it’s rather cheeky, my showing with her in HydePark, but you see she isn’t known yet, and she’s in such very goodform----” And Lord Deepmere’s conclusion was lost in the attestingglance which he again directed toward the young lady.
Newman turned away; he was having more of her than he relished. M.Nioche had stepped aside on his daughter’s approach, and he stood there,within a very small compass, looking down hard at the ground. It hadnever yet, as between him and Newman, been so apposite to place onrecord the fact that he had not forgiven his daughter. As Newman wasmoving away he looked up and drew near to him, and Newman, seeing theold man had something particular to say, bent his head for an instant.
“You will see it some day in the papers,” murmured M. Nioche.
Our hero departed to hide his smile, and to this day, though thenewspapers form his principal reading, his eyes have not been arrestedby any paragraph forming a sequel to this announcement.
CHAPTER XXVI
In that uninitiated observation of the great spectacle of English lifeupon which I have touched, it might be supposed that Newman passed agreat many dull days. But the dullness of his days pleased him; hismelancholy, which was settling into a secondary stage, like a healingwound, had in it a certain acrid, palatable sweetness. He had company inhis thoughts, and for the present he wanted no other. He had no desireto make acquaintances, and he left untouched a couple of notes ofintroduction which had been sent him by Tom Tristram. He thought a greatdeal of Madame de Cintré--sometimes with a dogged tranquillity whichmight have seemed, for a quarter of an hour at a time, a near neighborto forgetfulness. He lived over again the happiest hours he hadknown--that silver chain of numbered days in which his afternoon visits,tending sensibly to the ideal result, had subtilized his good humor toa sort of spiritual intoxication. He came back to reality, after suchreveries, with a somewhat muffled shock; he had begun to feel the needof accepting the unchangeable. At other times the reality became aninfamy again and the unchangeable an imposture, and he gave himself upto his angry restlessness till he was weary. But on the whole he fellinto a rather reflective mood. Without in the least intending it orknowing it, he attempted to read the moral of his strange misadventure.He asked himself, in his quieter hours, whether perhaps, after all,he _was_ more commercial than was pleasant. We know that it was inobedience to a strong reaction against questions exclusively commercialthat he had come out to pick up æsthetic entertainment in Europe; it maytherefore be understood that he was able to conceive that a man might betoo commercial. He was very willing to grant it, but the concession, asto his own case, was not made with any very oppressive sense of shame.If he had been too commercial, he was ready to forget it, for in beingso he had done no man any wrong that might not be as easily forgotten.He reflected with sober placidity that at least there were no monumentsof his “meanness” scattered about the world. If there was any reason inthe nature of things why his connection with business should have cast ashadow upon a connection--even a connection broken--with a woman justlyproud, he was willing to sponge it out of his life forever. The thingseemed a possibility; he could not feel it, doubtless, as keenly as somepeople, and it hardly seemed worth while to flap his wings very hard torise to the idea; but he could feel it enough to make any sacrifice thatstill remained to be made. As to what such sacrifice was now to bemade to, here Newman stopped short befor
e a blank wall over which theresometimes played a shadowy imagery. He had a fancy of carrying out hislife as he would have directed it if Madame de Cintré had been left tohim--of making it a religion to do nothing that she would have disliked.In this, certainly, there was no sacrifice; but there was a pale,oblique ray of inspiration. It would be lonely entertainment--a gooddeal like a man talking to himself in the mirror for want of bettercompany. Yet the idea yielded Newman several half hours’ dumb exaltationas he sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched,over the relics of an expensively poor dinner, in the undying Englishtwilight. If, however, his commercial imagination was dead, he felt nocontempt for the surviving actualities begotten by it. He was glad hehad been prosperous and had been a great man of business rather than asmall one; he was extremely glad he was rich. He felt no impulse to sellall he had and give to the poor, or to retire into meditative economyand asceticism. He was glad he was rich and tolerably young; if it waspossible to think too much about buying and selling, it was a gain tohave a good slice of life left in which not to think about them. Come,what should he think about now? Again and again Newman could think onlyof one thing; his thoughts always came back to it, and as they did so,with an emotional rush which seemed physically to express itself in asudden upward choking, he leaned forward--the waiter having left theroom--and, resting his arms on the table, buried his troubled face.
He remained in England till midsummer, and spent a month in the country,wandering about cathedrals, castles, and ruins. Several times, takinga walk from his inn into meadows and parks, he stopped by a well-wornstile, looked across through the early evening at a gray church tower,with its dusky nimbus of thick-circling swallows, and remembered thatthis might have been part of the entertainment of his honeymoon. He hadnever been so much alone or indulged so little in accidental dialogue.The period of recreation appointed by Mrs. Tristram had at last expired,and he asked himself what he should do now. Mrs. Tristram had writtento him, proposing to him that he should join her in the Pyrenees; buthe was not in the humor to return to France. The simplest thing was torepair to Liverpool and embark on the first American steamer. Newmanmade his way to the great seaport and secured his berth; and the nightbefore sailing he sat in his room at the hotel, staring down, vacantlyand wearily, at an open portmanteau. A number of papers were lyingupon it, which he had been meaning to look over; some of them mightconveniently be destroyed. But at last he shuffled them roughlytogether, and pushed them into a corner of the valise; they werebusiness papers, and he was in no humor for sifting them. Then he drewforth his pocket-book and took out a paper of smaller size than those hehad dismissed. He did not unfold it; he simply sat looking at the backof it. If he had momentarily entertained the idea of destroying it, theidea quickly expired. What the paper suggested was the feeling thatlay in his innermost heart and that no reviving cheerfulness could longquench--the feeling that after all and above all he was a good fellowwronged. With it came a hearty hope that the Bellegardes were enjoyingtheir suspense as to what he would do yet. The more it was prolonged themore they would enjoy it! He had hung fire once, yes; perhaps, in hispresent queer state of mind, he might hang fire again. But he restoredthe little paper to his pocket-book very tenderly, and felt better forthinking of the suspense of the Bellegardes. He felt better every timehe thought of it after that, as he sailed the summer seas. He landedin New York and journeyed across the continent to San Francisco, andnothing that he observed by the way contributed to mitigate his sense ofbeing a good fellow wronged.
He saw a great many other good fellows--his old friends--but he toldnone of them of the trick that had been played him. He said simply thatthe lady he was to have married had changed her mind, and when hewas asked if he had changed his own, he said, “Suppose we change thesubject.” He told his friends that he had brought home no “new ideas” from Europe, and his conduct probably struck them as an eloquent proofof failing invention. He took no interest in chatting about his affairsand manifested no desire to look over his accounts. He asked half adozen questions which, like those of an eminent physician inquiringfor particular symptoms, showed that he still knew what he was talkingabout; but he made no comments and gave no directions. He not onlypuzzled the gentlemen on the stock exchange, but he was himselfsurprised at the extent of his indifference. As it seemed only toincrease, he made an effort to combat it; he tried to interest himselfand to take up his old occupations. But they appeared unreal to him; dowhat he would he somehow could not believe in them. Sometimes he beganto fear that there was something the matter with his head; that hisbrain, perhaps, had softened, and that the end of his strong activitieshad come. This idea came back to him with an exasperating force.A hopeless, helpless loafer, useful to no one and detestable tohimself--this was what the treachery of the Bellegardes had made of him.In his restless idleness he came back from San Francisco to New York,and sat for three days in the lobby of his hotel, looking out througha huge wall of plate-glass at the unceasing stream of pretty girls inParisian-looking dresses, undulating past with little parcels nursedagainst their neat figures. At the end of three days he returned to SanFrancisco, and having arrived there he wished he had stayed away. Hehad nothing to do, his occupation was gone, and it seemed to him thathe should never find it again. He had nothing to do _here_, he sometimessaid to himself; but there was something beyond the ocean that hewas still to do; something that he had left undone experimentally andspeculatively, to see if it could content itself to remain undone. Butit was not content: it kept pulling at his heartstrings and thumping athis reason it murmured in his ears and hovered perpetually before hiseyes. It interposed between all new resolutions and their fulfillment;it seemed like a stubborn ghost, dumbly entreating to be laid. Till thatwas done he should never be able to do anything else.
One day, toward the end of the winter, after a long interval, hereceived a letter from Mrs. Tristram, who apparently was animated by acharitable desire to amuse and distract her correspondent. She gavehim much Paris gossip, talked of General Packard and Miss Kitty Upjohn,enumerated the new plays at the theatre, and enclosed a note from herhusband, who had gone down to spend a month at Nice. Then came hersignature, and after this her postscript. The latter consisted of thesefew lines: “I heard three days since from my friend, the Abbé Aubert,that Madame de Cintré last week took the veil at the Carmelites. It wason her twenty-seventh birthday, and she took the name of her, patroness,St. Veronica. Sister Veronica has a lifetime before her!”
This letter came to Newman in the morning; in the evening he started forParis. His wound began to ache with its first fierceness, and during hislong bleak journey the thought of Madame de Cintré’s “life-time,” passed within prison walls on whose outer side he might stand, kept himperpetual company. Now he would fix himself in Paris forever; he wouldextort a sort of happiness from the knowledge that if she was notthere, at least the stony sepulchre that held her was. He descended,unannounced, upon Mrs. Bread, whom he found keeping lonely watch in hisgreat empty saloons on the Boulevard Haussmann. They were as neat as aDutch village, Mrs. Bread’s only occupation had been removing individualdust-particles. She made no complaint, however, of her loneliness, forin her philosophy a servant was but a mysteriously projected machine,and it would be as fantastic for a housekeeper to comment upon agentleman’s absences as for a clock to remark upon not being wound up.No particular clock, Mrs. Bread supposed, went all the time, and noparticular servant could enjoy all the sunshine diffused by the careerof an exacting master. She ventured, nevertheless, to express a modesthope that Newman meant to remain a while in Paris. Newman laid his handon hers and shook it gently. “I mean to remain forever,” he said.
He went after this to see Mrs. Tristram, to whom he had telegraphed, andwho expected him. She looked at him a moment and shook her head. “Thiswon’t do,” she said; “you have come back too soon.” He sat down andasked about her husband and her children, tried even to inquire aboutMiss Dora Finch. In the midst of this--“Do you know where
she is?” heasked, abruptly.
Mrs. Tristram hesitated a moment; of course he couldn’t mean Miss DoraFinch. Then she answered, properly: “She has gone to the other house--inthe Rue d’Enfer.” After Newman had sat a while longer looking verysombre, she went on: “You are not so good a man as I thought. You aremore--you are more--”
“More what?” Newman asked.
“More unforgiving.”
“Good God!” cried Newman; “do you expect me to forgive?”
“No, not that. I have forgiven, so of course you can’t. But you mightforget! You have a worse temper about it than I should have expected.You look wicked--you look dangerous.”
“I may be dangerous,” he said; “but I am not wicked. No, I am notwicked.” And he got up to go. Mrs. Tristram asked him to come back todinner; but he answered that he did not feel like pledging himself tobe present at an entertainment, even as a solitary guest. Later in theevening, if he should be able, he would come.
He walked away through the city, beside the Seine and over it, and tookthe direction of the Rue d’Enfer. The day had the softness of earlyspring; but the weather was gray and humid. Newman found himself in apart of Paris which he little knew--a region of convents and prisons, ofstreets bordered by long dead walls and traversed by a few wayfarers.At the intersection of two of these streets stood the house of theCarmelites--a dull, plain edifice, with a high-shouldered blank wallall round it. From without Newman could see its upper windows, its steeproof and its chimneys. But these things revealed no symptoms of humanlife; the place looked dumb, deaf, inanimate. The pale, dead, discoloredwall stretched beneath it, far down the empty side street--a vistawithout a human figure. Newman stood there a long time; there wereno passers; he was free to gaze his fill. This seemed the goal of hisjourney; it was what he had come for. It was a strange satisfaction, andyet it was a satisfaction the barren stillness of the place seemed tobe his own release from ineffectual longing. It told him that the womanwithin was lost beyond recall, and that the days and years of the futurewould pile themselves above her like the huge immovable slab of a tomb.These days and years, in this place, would always be just so gray andsilent. Suddenly, from the thought of their seeing him stand there,again the charm utterly departed. He would never stand there again; itwas gratuitous dreariness. He turned away with a heavy heart, but witha heart lighter than the one he had brought. Everything was over, and hetoo at last could rest. He walked down through narrow, winding streetsto the edge of the Seine again, and there he saw, close above him, thesoft, vast towers of Notre Dame. He crossed one of the bridges and stooda moment in the empty place before the great cathedral; then he wentin beneath the grossly-imaged portals. He wandered some distance up thenave and sat down in the splendid dimness. He sat a long time; he heardfar-away bells chiming off, at long intervals, to the rest of the world.He was very tired; this was the best place he could be in. He said noprayers; he had no prayers to say. He had nothing to be thankful for,and he had nothing to ask; nothing to ask, because now he must take careof himself. But a great cathedral offers a very various hospitality, andNewman sat in his place, because while he was there he was out of theworld. The most unpleasant thing that had ever happened to him hadreached its formal conclusion, as it were; he could close the book andput it away. He leaned his head for a long time on the chair in front ofhim; when he took it up he felt that he was himself again. Somewherein his mind, a tight knot seemed to have loosened. He thought of theBellegardes; he had almost forgotten them. He remembered them as peoplehe had meant to do something to. He gave a groan as he remembered whathe had meant to do; he was annoyed at having meant to do it; the bottom,suddenly, had fallen out of his revenge. Whether it was Christiancharity or unregenerate good nature--what it was, in the background ofhis soul--I don’t pretend to say; but Newman’s last thought was that ofcourse he would let the Bellegardes go.
If he had spoken it aloud he would have said that he didn’t want to hurtthem. He was ashamed of having wanted to hurt them. They had hurt him,but such things were really not his game. At last he got up and came outof the darkening church; not with the elastic step of a man who had wona victory or taken a resolve, but strolling soberly, like a good-naturedman who is still a little ashamed.
Going home, he said to Mrs. Bread that he must trouble her to put backhis things into the portmanteau she had unpacked the evening before. Hisgentle stewardess looked at him through eyes a trifle bedimmed. “Dearme, sir,” she exclaimed, “I thought you said that you were going to stayforever.”
“I meant that I was going to stay away forever,” said Newman kindly. Andsince his departure from Paris on the following day he has certainly notreturned. The gilded apartments I have so often spoken of stand ready toreceive him; but they serve only as a spacious residence for Mrs. Bread,who wanders eternally from room to room, adjusting the tassels of thecurtains, and keeps her wages, which are regularly brought her bya banker’s clerk, in a great pink Sèvres vase on the drawing-roommantelshelf.
Late in the evening Newman went to Mrs. Tristram’s and found TomTristram by the domestic fireside. “I’m glad to see you back in Paris,” this gentleman declared. “You know it’s really the only place for awhite man to live.” Mr. Tristram made his friend welcome, accordingto his own rosy light, and offered him a convenient _résumé_ of theFranco-American gossip of the last six months. Then at last he got upand said he would go for half an hour to the club. “I suppose a manwho has been for six months in California wants a little intellectualconversation. I’ll let my wife have a go at you.”
Newman shook hands heartily with his host, but did not ask him toremain; and then he relapsed into his place on the sofa, opposite toMrs. Tristram. She presently asked him what he had done after leavingher. “Nothing particular,” said Newman.
“You struck me,” she rejoined, “as a man with a plot in his head. Youlooked as if you were bent on some sinister errand, and after you hadleft me I wondered whether I ought to have let you go.”
“I only went over to the other side of the river--to the Carmelites,” said Newman.
Mrs. Tristram looked at him a moment and smiled. “What did you do there?Try to scale the wall?”
“I did nothing. I looked at the place for a few minutes and then cameaway.”
Mrs. Tristram gave him a sympathetic glance. “You didn’t happen to meetM. de Bellegarde,” she asked, “staring hopelessly at the convent wall aswell? I am told he takes his sister’s conduct very hard.”
“No, I didn’t meet him, I am happy to say,” Newman answered, after apause.
“They are in the country,” Mrs. Tristram went on “at--what is the nameof the place?--Fleurières. They returned there at the time you leftParis and have been spending the year in extreme seclusion. The littlemarquise must enjoy it; I expect to hear that she has eloped with herdaughter’s music-master!”
Newman was looking at the light wood-fire; but he listened to this withextreme interest. At last he spoke: “I mean never to mention the name ofthose people again, and I don’t want to hear anything more about them.” And then he took out his pocket-book and drew forth a scrap of paper. Helooked at it an instant, then got up and stood by the fire. “I am goingto burn them up,” he said. “I am glad to have you as a witness. Therethey go!” And he tossed the paper into the flame.
Mrs. Tristram sat with her embroidery needle suspended. “What is thatpaper?” she asked.
Newman leaning against the fireplace, stretched his arms and drew alonger breath than usual. Then after a moment, “I can tell you now,” hesaid. “It was a paper containing a secret of the Bellegardes--somethingwhich would damn them if it were known.”
Mrs. Tristram dropped her embroidery with a reproachful moan. “Ah, whydidn’t you show it to me?”
“I thought of showing it to you--I thought of showing it to everyone. Ithought of paying my debt to the Bellegardes that way. So I told them,and I frightened them. They have been staying in the country as you tellme, to keep out of the e
xplosion. But I have given it up.”
Mrs. Tristram began to take slow stitches again. “Have you quite givenit up?”
“Oh yes.”
“Is it very bad, this secret?”
“Yes, very bad.”
“For myself,” said Mrs. Tristram, “I am sorry you have given it up. Ishould have liked immensely to see your paper. They have wronged me too,you know, as your sponsor and guarantee, and it would have served for myrevenge as well. How did you come into possession of your secret?”
“It’s a long story. But honestly, at any rate.”
“And they knew you were master of it?”
“Oh, I told them.”
“Dear me, how interesting!” cried Mrs. Tristram. “And you humbled themat your feet?”
Newman was silent a moment. “No, not at all. They pretended not tocare--not to be afraid. But I know they did care--they were afraid.”
“Are you very sure?”
Newman stared a moment. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Tristram resumed her slow stitches. “They defied you, eh?”
“Yes,” said Newman, “it was about that.”
“You tried by the threat of exposure to make them retract?” Mrs.Tristram pursued.
“Yes, but they wouldn’t. I gave them their choice, and they chose totake their chance of bluffing off the charge and convicting me of fraud.But they _were_ frightened,” Newman added, “and I have had all thevengeance I want.”
“It is most provoking,” said Mrs. Tristram, “to hear you talk of the‘charge’ when the charge is burnt up. Is it quite consumed?” she asked,glancing at the fire.
Newman assured her that there was nothing left of it. “Well then,” shesaid, “I suppose there is no harm in saying that you probably did notmake them so very uncomfortable. My impression would be that since, asyou say, they defied you, it was because they believed that, afterall, you would never really come to the point. Their confidence, aftercounsel taken of each other, was not in their innocence, nor in theirtalent for bluffing things off; it was in your remarkable good nature!You see they were right.”
Newman instinctively turned to see if the little paper was in factconsumed; but there was nothing left of it.