The American by Henry James (free e reader txt) 📕

“Tell me something about your sister,” Newman began abruptly.

Bellegarde turned and gave him a quick look. “Now that I think of it, you have never yet asked me a question about her.”

“I know that very well.”

“If it is because you don’t trust me, you are very right,” said Bellegarde. “I can’t talk of her rationally. I admire her too much.”

“Talk of her as you can,” rejoined Newman. “Let yourself go.”

“Well, we are very good friends; we are such a brother and sister as have not been seen since Orestes and Electra. You have seen her; you know what she is: tall, thin, light, imposing, and gentle, half a grande dame and half an angel; a mixture of pride and humility, of the eagle and the dove. She looks like a statue which had failed as stone, resigned itself to its grave defects, and come to life as flesh and blood, to wear white capes and long trains. All I can say is that she really possesses every merit that her face, her glance, her smile, the tone of her voice, lead you to expect; it is saying a great deal. As a general thing, when a woman seems very charming, I should say ‘Beware!’ But in proportion as Claire seems charming you may fold your arms and let yourself float with the current; you are safe. She is so good! I have never seen a woman half so perfect or so complete. She has everything; that is all I can say about her. There!” Bellegarde concluded; “I told you I should rhapsodize.”

Newman was silent a while, as if he were turning over his companion’s words. “She is very good, eh?” he repeated at last.

“Divinely good!”

“Kind, charitable, gentle, generous?”

“Generosity itself; kindness double-distilled!”

“Is she clever?”

“She is the most intelligent woman I know. Try her, some day, with something difficult, and you will see.”

“Is she fond of admiration?”

“Parbleu!” cried Bellegarde; “what woman is not?”

“Ah, when they are too fond of admiration they commit all kinds of follies to get it.”

“I did not say she was too fond!” Bellegarde exclaimed. “Heaven forbid I should say anything so idiotic. She is not too anything! If I were to say she was ugly, I should not mean she was too ugly. She is fond of pleasing, and if you are pleased she is grateful. If you are not pleased, she lets it pass and thinks the worst neither of you nor of herself. I imagine, though, she hopes the saints in heaven are, for I am sure she is incapable of trying to please by any means of which they would disapprove.”

“Is she grave or gay?” asked Newman.

“She is both; not alternately, for she is always the same. There is gravity in her gaiety, and gaiety in her gravity. But there is no reason why she should be particularly gay.”

“Is she unhappy?”

“I won’t say that, for unhappiness is according as one takes things, and Claire takes them according to some receipt communicated to her by the Blessed Virgin in a vision. To be unhappy is to be disagreeable, which, for her, is out of the question. So she has arranged her circumstances so as to be happy in them.”

“She is a philosopher,” said Newman.

“No, she is simply a very nice woman.”

“Her circumstances, at any rate, have been disagreeable?”

Bellegarde hesitated a moment—a thing he very rarely did. “Oh, my dear fellow, if I go into the history of my family I shall give you more than you bargain for.”

“No, on the contrary, I bargain for that,” said Newman.

“We shall have to appoint a special séance, then, beginning early. Suffice it for the present that Claire has not slept on roses. She made at eighteen a marriage that was expected to be brilliant, but that turned out like a lamp that goes out; all smoke and bad smell. M. de Cintré was sixty years old, and an odious old gentleman. He lived, however, but a short time, and after his death his family pounced upon his money, brought a lawsuit against his widow, and pushed things very hard. Their case was a good one, for M. de Cintré, who had been trustee for some of his relatives, appeared to have been guilty of some very irregular practices. In the course of the suit some revelations were made as to his private history which my sister found so displeasing that she ceased to defend herself and washed her hands of the property. This required some pluck, for she was between two fires, her husband’s family opposing her and her own family forcing her. My mother and my brother wished her to cleave to what they regarded as her rights. But she resisted firmly, and at last bought her freedom—obtained my mother’s assent to dropping the suit at the price of a promise.”

“What was the promise?”

“To do anything else, for the next ten years, that was asked of her—anything, that is, but marry.”

“She had disliked her husband very much?”

“No one knows how much!”

“The marriage had been made in your horrible French way,” Newman continued, “made by the two families, without her having any voice?”

“It was a chapter for a novel. She saw M. de Cintré for the first time a month before the wedding, after everything, to the minutest detail, had been arranged. She turned white when she looked at him, and white she remained till her wedding-day. The evening before the ceremony she swooned away, and she spent the whole night in sobs. My mother sat holding her two hands, and my brother walked up and down the room. I declared it was revolting and told my sister publicly that if she would refuse, downright, I would stand by her. I was told to go about my business, and she became Comtesse de Cintré.”

“Your brother,” said Newman, reflectively, “must be a very nice young man.”

“He is very nice, though he is not young. He is upward of fifty, fifteen years my senior. He has been a father to my sister and me. He is a very remarkable man; he has the best manners in France. He is extremely clever; indeed he is very learned. He is writing a history of The Princesses of France Who Never Married.” This was said by Bellegarde with extreme gravity, looking straight at Newman, and with an eye that betokened no mental reservation; or that, at least, almost betokened none.

Newman perhaps discovered there what little there was, for he presently said, “You don’t love your brother.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Bellegarde, ceremoniously; “well-bred people always love their brothers.”

“Well, I don’t love him, then!” Newman answered.

“Wait till you know him!” rejoined Bellegarde, and this time he smiled.

“Is your mother also very remarkable?” Newman asked, after a pause.

“For my mother,” said Bellegarde, now with intense gravity, “I have the highest admiration. She is a very extraordinary woman. You cannot approach her without perceiving it.”

“She is the daughter, I believe, of an English nobleman.”

“Of the Earl of St. Dunstan’s.”

“Is the Earl of St. Dunstan’s a very old family?”

“So-so; the sixteenth century. It is on my father’s side that we go back—back, back, back. The family antiquaries themselves lose breath. At last they stop, panting and fanning themselves, somewhere in the ninth century, under Charlemagne. That is where we begin.”

“There is no mistake about it?” said Newman.

“I’m sure I hope not. We have been mistaken at least for several centuries.”

“And you have always married into old families?”

“As a rule; though in so long a stretch of time there have been some exceptions. Three or four Bellegardes, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, took wives out of the bourgeoisie—married lawyers’ daughters.”

“A lawyer’s daughter; that’s very bad, is it?” asked Newman.

“Horrible! one of us, in the Middle Ages, did better: he married a beggar-maid, like King Cophetua. That was really better; it was like marrying a bird or a monkey; one didn’t have to think about her family at all. Our women have always done well; they have never even gone into the petite noblesse. There is, I believe, not a case on record of a misalliance among the women.”

Newman turned this over for a while, and, then at last he said, “You offered, the first time you came to see me to render me any service you could. I told you that some time I would mention something you might do. Do you remember?”

“Remember? I have been counting the hours.”

“Very well; here’s your chance. Do what you can to make your sister think well of me.”

Bellegarde stared, with a smile. “Why, I’m sure she thinks as well of you as possible, already.”

“An opinion founded on seeing me three or four times? That is putting me off with very little. I want something more. I have been thinking of it a good deal, and at last I have decided to tell you. I should like very much to marry Madame de Cintré.”

Bellegarde had been looking at him with quickened expectancy, and with the smile with which he had greeted Newman’s allusion to his promised request. At this last announcement he continued to gaze; but his smile went through two or three curious phases. It felt, apparently, a momentary impulse to broaden; but this it immediately checked. Then it remained for some instants taking counsel with itself, at the end of which it decreed a retreat. It slowly effaced itself and left a look of seriousness modified by the desire not to be rude. Extreme surprise had come into the Count Valentin’s face; but he had reflected that it would be uncivil to leave it there. And yet, what the deuce was