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

She went in, and his half hour in the dusky lane seemed very long. But he had plenty to think about. At last the door in the wall opened and Mrs. Bread stood there, with one hand on the latch and the other holding out a scrap of white paper, folded small. In a moment he was master of it, and it had passed into his waistcoat pocket. “Come and see me in Paris,” he said; “we are to settle your future, you know; and I will translate poor M. de Bellegarde’s French to you.” Never had he felt so grateful as at this moment for M. Nioche’s instructions.

Mrs. Bread’s dull eyes had followed the disappearance of the paper, and she gave a heavy sigh. “Well, you have done what you would with me, sir, and I suppose you will do it again. You MUST take care of me now. You are a terribly positive gentleman.”

“Just now,” said Newman, “I’m a terribly impatient gentleman!” And he bade her good-night and walked rapidly back to the inn. He ordered his vehicle to be prepared for his return to Poitiers, and then he shut the door of the common salle and strode toward the solitary lamp on the chimney-piece. He pulled out the paper and quickly unfolded it. It was covered with pencil-marks, which at first, in the feeble light, seemed indistinct. But Newman’s fierce curiosity forced a meaning from the tremulous signs. The English of them was as follows:—

“My wife has tried to kill me, and she has done it; I am dying, dying horribly. It is to marry my dear daughter to M. de Cintre. With all my soul I protest — I forbid it. I am not insane — ask the doctors, ask Mrs. B——. It was alone with me here, to-night; she attacked me and put me to death. It is murder, if murder ever was. Ask the doctors.

“HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE”

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Newman returned to Paris the second day after his interview with Mrs. Bread. The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again the little document which he had lodged in his pocket-book, and thinking what he would do in the circumstances and how he would do it. He would not have said that Poitiers was an amusing place; yet the day seemed very short. Domiciled once more in the Boulevard Haussmann, he walked over to the Rue de l’Universite and inquired of Madame de Bellegarde’s portress whether the marquise had come back. The portress told him that she had arrived, with M. le Marquis, on the preceding day, and further informed him that if he desired to enter, Madame de Bellegarde and her son were both at home. As she said these words the little white-faced old woman who peered out of the dusky gate-house of the Hotel de Bellegarde gave a small wicked smile — a smile which seemed to Newman to mean, “Go in if you dare!” She was evidently versed in the current domestic history; she was placed where she could feel the pulse of the house. Newman stood a moment, twisting his mustache and looking at her; then he abruptly turned away. But this was not because he was afraid to go in — though he doubted whether, if he did so, he should be able to make his way, unchallenged, into the presence of Madame de Cintre’s relatives. Confidence — excessive confidence, perhaps — quite as much as timidity prompted his retreat. He was nursing his thunder-bolt; he loved it; he was unwilling to part with it. He seemed to be holding it aloft in the rumbling, vaguely-flashing air, directly over the heads of his victims, and he fancied he could see their pale, upturned faces. Few specimens of the human countenance had ever given him such pleasure as these, lighted in the lurid fashion I have hinted at, and he was disposed 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 could arrange to witness the operation of his thunder. To send in his card to Madame de Bellegarde would be a waste of ceremony; she would certainly decline to receive him. On the other hand he could not force his way into her presence. It annoyed him keenly to think that he might be reduced to the blind satisfaction of writing her a letter; but he consoled himself in a measure with the reflection that a letter might lead to an interview. He went home, and feeling rather tired — nursing a vengeance was, it must be confessed, a rather fatiguing process; it took a good deal out of one — flung himself into one of his brocaded fauteuils, stretched his legs, thrust his hands into his pockets, and, while he watched the reflected sunset fading from the ornate house-tops on the opposite side of the Boulevard, began mentally to compose a cool epistle to Madame de Bellegarde. While he was so occupied his servant threw open the door and announced ceremoniously, “Madame Brett!”

Newman roused himself, expectantly, and in a few moments perceived upon his threshold the worthy woman with whom he had conversed to such good purpose on the starlit hill-top of Fleurieres. Mrs. Bread had made for this visit the same toilet as for her former expedition. Newman was struck with her distinguished appearance. His lamp was not lit, and as her large, grave face gazed at him through the light dusk from under the shadow of her ample bonnet, he felt the incongruity of such a person presenting herself as a servant. He greeted her with high geniality and bade her come in and sit down and make herself comfortable. There was something which might have touched the springs both of mirth and of melancholy in the ancient maidenliness with which Mrs. Bread endeavored to comply with these directions. She was not playing at being fluttered, which would have been simply ridiculous; she was doing her best to carry herself as a person so humble that, for her, even embarrassment would have been pretentious; but evidently she had never dreamed of its being in her horoscope to pay a visit, at night-fall, to a friendly single gentleman who lived in theatrical-looking rooms on one of the new Boulevards.

“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 wants keeping! 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 my best gown.”

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

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

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

She began to speak again with a trembling voice. “I think it would be more respectable if I could — if I could”— and her voice trembled to a pause.

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

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

“Burial!” cried Newman, with a burst of laughter. “Why, to bury you now would be a sad piece of extravagance. It’s only rascals who have to be buried to get respectable. Honest folks like you and me can live our time out — and live together. Come! Did you bring your baggage?”