Джозеф Конрад - Suspense

Bernard introduced the doctor into a comparatively small, well–lighted boudoir. At the same moment Madame de Montevesso entered it from her bedroom by another door. The doctor had an impression of a gown with a train, trimmed with ribbons and lace, surmounted by a radiant fair head. The face was pale. Madame de Montevesso had been up most of the night with her father. The marquis was too ill to see anybody.

The doctor expressed his regret in a formal tone. Meantime he took out of his pocket the memoir and begged Madame la Comtesse to keep it under lock and key till she could hand it over to her father. He was also in possession of information which, he said, would be of the greatest interest to the French Court; but he could disclose it only to the French king or to Monsieur de Jaucourt. He was ready to proceed to Paris should the marquis be impressed sufficiently by the memoir to procure for him a private audience from the king or the minister.

This curt, business–like declaration called out a smile on that charming face—just a flicker—a suspicion of it. He could not be offended with that glorious being. He only felt that he must assert himself.

“I cannot deal with lesser people,” he said simply. “This must be understood in Paris. I make my own conditions. I am not a hireling. Your father has known me for years. Monsieur le Marquis and I met in other, dangerous times in various parts of Europe. Each of us was risking his life.”

The marquis had often talked with his daughter of his past. She had heard from him of a certain agent Martel, a singular personage. Her curiosity was aroused. She said:

“I know. I believe he was indebted to you for his safety on one occasion. I can understand my father’s motives. But you will forgive me for saying that as to yours … ”

“Oh! It was not the love of absolutism. The fact is, I discovered early in life that I was not made for a country practice. I started on my travels with no definite purpose, except to do a little good—here and there. I arrived in Italy while it was being revolutionised by Jacobins. I was not in love with them either. Humane impulses, circumstances, and so on, did the rest.”

He looked straight at her. This tête–à–tête was an unique experience. She was a marvellous being, somehow, and a very great lady. And yet she was as simple as a village maid—a glorified village maid. The trials of a life of exile and poverty had stripped her of the faintest trace of affectation or artificiality of any kind. The doctor was lost in wonder. What humanising force there was in the beauty of that face to make him talk like that the first time he saw her! And suddenly the thought: “Her face has been her fortune,” came to him with great force, evoking by the side of her noble unconscious grace the stiff wooden figure of Count de Montevesso. The effect was horrible, but the doctor’s hard grey eyes betrayed neither his horror nor his indignation. He only asked Madame de Montevesso, who was locking up his memoir in the drawer of a little writing–table, if it would be safe there, and was told that nobody ever came into the room but a confidential mulatto maid who had been with the Countess for years.

“Yes, as far as you know,” the doctor ventured significantly. With this beginning he found no difficulty in discovering that Madame de Montevesso knew nothing of the composition of the household. She did not know how many servants there were. She had not been interested enough to look over the palazzo. Apart from the private apartments and the suite of rooms for small receptions, she had seen nothing of it, she confessed, looking a little surprised. It was clear that she knew nothing, suspected nothing, had lived in that enormous and magnificent building like a lost child in a forest. The doctor felt himself at the end of his resources, till it occurred to him to say that he hoped that she was not specially anxious about her father. No, Madame de Montevesso was not specially anxious. He seemed better this morning. Dr. Martel was very much gratified; and then by a sudden inspiration added that it would be a pleasure to give the good news to Mr. Latham, whom he hoped to see this evening.

Madame de Montevesso turned rigid with surprise for a moment at the sound of that name. “You have met Mr. Latham … ” she faltered out.

“Oh! By the merest chance. We are staying at the same inn. He shares my table. He is very attractive.”

Madame de Montevesso looked no longer as though she expected her visitor to go away. The doctor had just time to note the change before he was asked point–blank:

“Did Mr. Latham tell you that he was a friend of ours?”

He answered evasively that he knew very little about Mr. Latham, except what he could see for himself—that Mr. Latham was very superior to the young men of fashion coming over in such numbers from England since the end of the war. That generation struck him as very crude and utterly uninteresting. It was different as far as Mr. Latham was concerned. A situation had arisen which would make a little information as to his affairs very desirable.

“Desirable?” repeated Madame de Montevesso in a whisper.

“Yes, helpful … ”

The deliberate stress which he put on that word augmented Madame de Montevesso’s bewilderment.

“I don’t quite understand. In what way? Helpful for you—or helpful for Mr. Latham?”

“You see,” said the doctor slowly, “though our acquaintance was short, my interest was aroused. I am a useful person to know for those who travel in Italy.”

Madame de Montevesso sank into a bergère , pointing at the same time to a chair which faced it. But the doctor, after a slight bow, only rested his hand on its high back. At the end of five minutes Adèle was in possession of all the doctor knew about Cosmo’s disappearance. She sat silent, her head drooped, her eyes cast down. The doctor was beginning to feel restive when she spoke without looking up:

“And this is the real motive of your visit here.”

The doctor was moved by the hopeless tone. It might have been an attempt to appear indifferent, but, only in a moment, she seemed to have become lifeless.

“Well,” he said, “on the spur of the moment it seemed the only thing to do…. There is somebody in the next room. May I shut the door?”

“It’s only my maid,” said Madame de Montevesso. “She couldn’t hear us from there.”

“Well, then, perhaps we had better leave the door as it is. It’s best to avoid all appearance of secrecy.” The doctor was thinking of Count Helion, but Madame de Montevesso made no sign. The doctor lowered his voice still more.

“I wanted to ask you if you had seen him yesterday—last night. No? But he may have called without your knowledge.”

She admitted that it was possible. People had been sent away from the door on account of her father’s illness. There had been no reception in the evening. But Mr. Latham would have asked for her. She thought she would have been told. The doctor suggested that Mr. Latham might have asked for the count. Madame de Montevesso had only seen her husband for a moment in her father’s bedroom the day before, and not at all yet this day. For all she knew he may have been away for the day on a visit in the country. “But I know nothing of his interests, really,” she said in a little less deadened voice.

She could not explain to the doctor that she was a stranger in that house; an unwilling visitor with an unsympathetic host, whose motives one could not help suspecting. Beyond the time she spent by arrangement every year at Count de Montevesso’s country–house she knew nothing of his life. What could have been the motives which brought him to Genoa she had, and could have, not the slightest idea. She only felt that she ought not to have accepted his pressing invitation to this hired palazzo. But then she could not have come with her father to Genoa. And yet he could not have done without her. And, indeed, it seemed but a small thing. The alarming thought crossed her mind that, all unwittingly, she had taken a fatal step.