Джозеф Конрад - Suspense

She had heard footsteps outside the door. A moment after Count Helion came in and fixed his black glance on his wife and Cosmo. He did not open his lips, and remained ominously by the door for a time. The strain of the silence was made sinister by the stiff bearing of the man, the immobility of the carven brown face, crossed by the inky–black moustache in harsh contrast with the powdered head. He might have been a sergeant come at the stroke of the hour to tell those two people that the firing–squad was waiting for them outside the door. Madame de Montevesso broke the dumb spell.

“I did my best to entertain Mr. Latham, but we had given you up. He was just going.”

She glanced serenely at Cosmo, whom the sweetness of her tone, her easy self–possession before that barrack–room figure, stung to the heart. At that moment no words could have expressed the intensity of his hatred for the Count de Montevesso, at whom he was looking with a smile of the utmost banality. The latter moved forward stiffly.

“Your father hopes you will see him for a moment presently,” he said to his wife. “He has not gone to bed yet.”

“Then I will go to him at once.”

Madame de Montevesso extended her hand to Cosmo, who raised the tips of her fingers to his lips ceremoniously.

“I will see Mr. Latham out,” said the count, bowing to his wife, who went out of the room without looking at him. Cosmo, following her with his eyes, forgot Count Helion’s existence. He forgot it so thoroughly that it was with a perceptible start that he perceived the count’s eyes fixed on him in an odd way. “He will never look at ease anywhere,” thought Cosmo scornfully. A great part of his hatred had evaporated. “I suppose he means to be polite. I wonder how he looked on the back of an elephant.”

“It was very good of you to wait so long for my return,” said Count Helion. “I have been detained by an absurd discussion arising out of probably false reports.”

“The time passed quickly,” said truthful Cosmo; but before the black weary glance of the other, hastened to add with assumed care, “We talked of old times.”

“Old times,” repeated Count Helion, without any particular accent. “My wife is very young yet, though she must be older than you are. Isn’t she older?” Cosmo said curtly that he really did not know. When they were running about as children together she was the tallest of the three.

“And now,” took up the inexpressive voice of Count de Montevesso, “without her high heels she would be a little shorter than you. As you stood together you looked to me exactly the same height. And so you renewed the memories of your youth. They must have been delightful.”

“They were, no doubt, more delightful for me than they could have been for Madame la Comtesse,” said Cosmo, making a motion towards taking leave.

“A moment. Let me have the honour to see you out.” Count Helion walked round the room, blowing out the candles in three candelabras in succession, and taking up the fourth in his hand.

“Why take this trouble?” protested Cosmo; “I know my way.”

“Every light has been extinguished in the reception–rooms; or at least ought to have been. I detest waste of all kinds. It is, perhaps, because I have made my own fortune and, by God’s favour, it is so considerable in its power for good that it requires the most careful management. It is, perhaps, a peculiar point of view, but I have explained it to Madame de Montevesso.”

“She must have been interested,” muttered Cosmo between his teeth, following across the room and round the screen the possessor of these immensely important riches, who, candelabra in hand, preceded him by a pace or two, and threw open the door behind the screen. Cosmo crossing in the wake of Count Helion the room of the evening reception saw dimly the disarranged furniture about the mantel–piece, the arm–chair in which Lady William had sat, the great sofa in which little Countess Bubna had been shyly ensconced, the card–table with the chairs pushed back, and all the cards in a heap in the middle. The swaying flames of the candles leaping from one long strip of mirror to another preceded him into the next salon where all the furniture stood ranged expectantly against the walls. The next two salons were exactly alike, except for the colour of the hangings and the size of the pictures on the walls. As to their subjects, Cosmo could not make them out.

Not a single lackey was to be seen in the ante–room of white walls and red benches; but Cosmo was surprised at the presence of a peasant–like woman, who must have been sitting there in the dark for some time. The light of the candelabra fell on the gnarled hands lying in her lap. The edge of a dark shawl shaded her features, with the exception of her ancient chin. She never stirred. Count Helion disregarding her, as though she had been invisible, put down the candelabra on a little table, and wished Cosmo good–night with a formal bow. At the same time he expressed harshly the hope of seeing Cosmo often during his stay in Genoa. Then with an unexpected attempt to soften his tone, he muttered something about his wife—“the friend of your childhood.”

The allusion exasperated Cosmo. The more he saw of the grown woman, the less connection she seemed to have with the early Adèle. The contrast was too strong. He felt tempted to tell M. de Montevesso that he by no means cherished that old memory. The nearest he came to it was the statement that he had the privilege to hear much of Madame de Montevesso in Paris. M. de Montevesso, contemplating now the dark peasant–like figure huddled up on the crimson seat against a white wall, hastened to turn towards Cosmo the black weariness of his eyes.

“Madame de Montevesso has led a very retired life during the empire. Her conduct was marked by the greatest circumspection. But she is a person of rank. God knows what gossip you may have heard. The world is censorious.”

Brusquely Cosmo stepped out into the outer gallery. Listening to M. de Montevesso was no pleasure. The count accompanied him as far as the head of the great staircase, and stayed to watch his descent with a face that expressed no more than the face of a soldier on parade, till all at once his eyes started to roll about wildly as if looking for some object he could snatch up and throw down the stairs at Cosmo’s head. But this lasted only for a moment. He re–entered the ante–room quietly, and busied himself in closing and locking the door with care. After doing this he approached the figure on the bench and stood over it silently.

The old woman pushed back her shawl, and raised her wrinkled soft face, without much expression, to say:

“The child has been calling for you for the last hour or more.”

Helion de Montevesso walked all the length of the ante–room and back again; then stood over the old woman as before.

“You know what she is,” she began directly the count had stopped. “She won’t give us any rest. When she was little, one could always give her a beating, but now there is no doing anything with her. You had better come and see for yourself.”

“Very unruly?” asked Count de Montevesso.

“She is sixteen,” said the old woman crisply, getting up and moving towards the stairs leading to the upper floor. A stick that had been lying concealed in the folds of her dress was now in her hand. She ascended the stairs more nimbly than her appearance would have led one to expect, and the Count de Montevesso followed her down a long corridor where at last the shuffle of her slippers and the tapping of her stick ceased in front of a closed door. A profound silence reigned in this remote part of the old palace, which the enormous vanity of the upstart had hired for the entertainment of his wife and his father–in–law in the face of the restored monarchies of Europe. The old peasant woman turned to the stiff figure which, holding the candelabra and in its laced coat, recalled a gorgeous lackey.