Henry James - Henry James - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 10)

“We look at the matter otherwise, you know. We call them very hard terms,” said Urbain de Bellegarde. They had all remained standing rigidly in the middle of the room. “I think my mother will tell you that she would rather her daughter should become Soeur Catherine than Mrs. Newman.”

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

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

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

“In most cases,” Newman answered, “your objection would have some weight, even admitting that Madame de Cintre’s present intentions make time precious. But I have thought of what you speak of, and I have come here to-day without scruple simply because I consider your brother and you two very different parties. I see no connection between you. Your brother was ashamed of you. Lying there wounded and dying, the poor fellow apologized to me for your conduct. He apologized to me for that of his mother.”

For a moment the effect of these words was as if Newman had struck a physical blow. A quick flush leaped into the faces of Madame de Bellegarde and her son, and they exchanged a glance like a twinkle of steel. Urbain uttered two words which Newman but half heard, but of which the sense came to him as it were in the reverberation of the sound, “Le miserable!”

“You show little respect for the living,” said Madame de Bellegarde, “but at least respect the dead. Don’t profane — don’t insult — the memory of my innocent son.”

“I speak the simple truth,” Newman declared, “and I speak it for a purpose. I repeat it — distinctly. Your son was utterly disgusted — your son apologized.”

Urbain de Bellegarde was frowning portentously, and Newman supposed he was frowning at poor Valentin’s invidious image. Taken by surprise, his scant affection for his brother had made a momentary concession to dishonor. But not for an appreciable instant did his mother lower her flag. “You are immensely mistaken, sir,” she said. “My son was sometimes light, 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 was far more painful than pleasant to me. This atrocious thing was not his fault; he never hurt me, or any one else; he was the soul of honor. But it shows how he took it.”

“If you wish to prove that my poor brother, in his last moments, was out of his head, we can only say that under the melancholy circumstances nothing was more possible. But confine yourself to that.”

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

The marquise gathered herself together majestically. “This is too gross!” she cried. “We decline to accept your story, sir — we repudiate it. Urbain, open the door.” She turned away, with an imperious motion to her son, and passed rapidly down the length of the room. The marquis went with her and held the door open. Newman was left standing.

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

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

“That’s the way I feel to you, but for politeness sake I don’t say it,” said Newman. “It’s singular I should want so much to be your brother-in-law, but I can’t give it up. Let me try once more.” And he paused 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 see whether his eyes betrayed anything; the look of his eyes was always so strange. Newman paused again, and then went on. “You and your mother have committed a crime.” At this M. de Bellegarde’s eyes certainly did change; they seemed to flicker, like blown candles. Newman could see that he was profoundly startled; but there was something admirable in his self-control.

“Continue,” said M. de Bellegarde.

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

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

“I shall be strictly accurate,” said Newman. “I won’t pretend to know more than I do. At present that is all I know. You have done something that 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 know what 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 will leave you alone. It’s a bargain?”

The marquis almost succeeded in looking untroubled; the breaking up of the ice in his handsome countenance was an operation that was necessarily gradual. But Newman’s mildly-syllabled argumentation seemed to press, and press, and presently he averted his eyes. He stood some moments, 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 his mind?”

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

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

“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, feel yourself all round. I will give you an hour or two. I can’t give you more, for how do we know how fast they may be making Madame de Cintre a nun? Talk it over with your mother; let her judge whether she is frightened. I don’t believe she is as easily frightened, in general, as you; 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 with this Newman opened the door and let himself out. The marquis did not move, and Newman, retiring, gave him another look. “At the inn, in the village,” he repeated. Then he turned away altogether and passed out of the house.

He was extremely excited by what he had been doing, for it was inevitable that there should be a certain emotion in calling up the spectre of dishonor before a family a thousand years old. But he went back to the inn and contrived to wait there, deliberately, for the next two hours. He thought it more than probable that Urbain de Bellegarde would give no sign; for an answer to his challenge, in either sense, would be a confession of guilt. What he most expected was silence — in other words defiance. But he prayed that, as he imagined it, his shot might bring them down. It did bring, by three o’clock, a note, delivered by a footman; a note addressed in Urbain de Bellegarde’s handsome English hand. It ran as follows:—