The American (36 page)

“It is a very pretty party,” said Mrs. Tristram, after they had walked awhile. “I have seen nothing objectionable except my husband leaning against the wall and talking to an individual whom I suppose he takes for a duke, but whom I more than suspect to be the functionary who attends to the lamps. Do you think you could separate them? Knock over a lamp!”

I doubt whether Newman, who saw no harm in Tristram’s conversing with an ingenious mechanic, would have complied with this request; but at this moment Valentin de Bellegarde drew near. Newman, some weeks previously, had presented Madame de Cintré’s youngest brother to Mrs. Tristram, for whose merits Valentin professed a discriminating relish and to whom he had paid several visits.

“Did you ever read Keats’ ‘Belle Dame sans Merci’?”
¹⁶
asked Mrs. Tristram. “You remind me of the hero of the ballad:

“If I am alone, it is because I have been deprived of your society,” said Valentin. “Besides, it is good manners for no man except Newman to look happy. This is all to his address.
¹⁷
It is not for you and me to go before the curtain.”

“You promised me last spring,” said Newman to Mrs. Tristram, “that six months from that time I should get into a monstrous rage. It seems to me the time’s up, and yet the nearest I can come to doing anything rough now is to offer you a
café glacé.
“
¹⁸

“I told you we should do things grandly,” said Valentin. “I don’t allude to the
cafés glacés.
But everyone is here, and my sister told me just now that Urbain had been adorable.”

“He’s a good fellow, he’s a good fellow,” said Newman. “I love him as a brother. That reminds me that I ought to go and say something polite to your mother.”

“Let it be something very polite indeed,” said Valentin. “It may be the last time you will feel so much like it!”

Newman walked away, almost disposed to clasp old Madame de Bellegarde round the waist. He passed through several rooms and at last found the old marquise in the first saloon, seated on a sofa, with her young kinsman, Lord Deepmere, beside her. The young man looked somewhat bored; his hands were thrust into his pockets and his eyes were fixed upon the toes of his shoes, his feet being thrust out in front of him. Madame de Bellegarde appeared to have been talking to him with some intensity and to be waiting for an answer to what she had said, or for some sign of the effect of her words. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was looking at his lordship’s simple physiognomy with an air of politely suppressed irritation.

Lord Deepmere looked up as Newman approached, met his eyes, and changed colour.

“I am afraid I disturb an interesting interview,” said Newman.

Madame de Bellegarde rose, and her companion rising at the same time, she put her hand into his arm. She answered nothing for an instant, and then, as he remained silent, she said with a smile: “It would be polite for Lord Deepmere to say it was very interesting.”

“Oh, I’m not polite!” cried his lordship. “But it
was
interesting.”

“Madame de Bellegarde was giving you some good advice, eh?” said Newman; “toning you down a little?”

“I was giving him some excellent advice,” said the marquise, fixing her fresh cold eyes upon our hero. “It’s for him to take it.”

“Take it, sir, take it!” Newman exclaimed. “Any advice the marquise gives you to-night must be good; for to-night, marquise, you must speak from a cheerful, comfortable spirit, and that makes good advice. You see everything going on so brightly and successfully around you. Your party is magnificent; it was a very happy thought. It is much better than that thing of mine would have been.”

“If you are pleased I am satisfied,” said Madame de Bellegarde. “My desire was to please you.”

“Do you want to please me a little more?” said Newman. “Just drop our lordly friend; I am sure he wants to be off and shake his heels a little. Then take my arm and walk through the rooms.”

“My desire was to please you,” the old lady repeated. And she liberated Lord Deepmere, Newman rather wondering at her docility. “If this young man is wise,” she added, “he will go and find my daughter and ask her to dance.”

“I have been endorsing your advice,” said Newman, bending over her and laughing, “I suppose I must swallow that!”

Lord Deepmere wiped his forehead and departed, and Madame de Bellegarde took Newman’s arm. “Yes, it’s a very pleasant, sociable entertainment,” the latter declared, as they proceeded on their circuit. “Everyone seems to know everyone and to be glad to see everyone. The marquis has made me acquainted with ever so many people, and I feel quite like one of the family. It’s an occasion,” Newman continued, wanting to say something thoroughly kind and comfortable, “that I shall always remember, and remember very pleasantly.”

“I think it is an occasion that we shall none of us forget,” said the marquise, with her pure, neat enunciation.

People made way for her as she passed, others turned round and looked at her, and she received a great many greetings and pressings of the hand, all of which she accepted with the most delicate dignity. But though she smiled upon everyone, she said nothing until she reached the last of the rooms, where she found her elder son. Then, “This is enough, sir,” she declared with measured softness to Newman, and turned to the marquis. He put out both his hands and took both hers, drawing her to a seat with an air of the tenderest veneration. It was a most harmonious family group, and Newman discreetly retired. He moved through the rooms for some time longer, circulating freely, overtopping most people by his great height, renewing acquaintance with some of the groups to which Urbain de Bellegarde had presented him, and expending generally the surplus of his equanimity. He continued to find it all extremely agreeable; but the most agreeable things have an end, and the revelry on this occasion began to deepen to a close. The music was sounding its ultimate strains and people were looking for the marquise, to make their farewells. There seemed to be some difficulty in finding her, and Newman heard a report that she had left the ball, feeling faint. “She has succumbed to the emotions of the evening,” he heard a lady say. “Poor, dear marquise; I can imagine all that they may have been for her!”

But he learned immediately afterwards that she had recovered herself and was seated in an armchair near the doorway, receiving parting compliments from great ladies who insisted upon her not rising. He himself set out in quest of Madame de Cintré. He had seen her move past him many times in the rapid circles of a waltz, but in accordance with her explicit instructions he had exchanged no words with her since the beginning of the evening. The whole house having been thrown open, the apartments of the
rez-de-chaussée
¹⁹
were also accessible, though a smaller number of persons had gathered there. Newman wandered through them, observing a few scattered couples to whom this comparative seclusion appeared grateful, and reached a small conservatory which opened into the garden. The end of the conservatory was formed by a clear sheet of glass, unmasked by plants, and admitting the winter starlight so directly that a person standing there would seem to have passed into the open air. Two persons stood there now a lady and a gentleman; the lady Newman, from within the room, and although she had turned her back to it, immediately recognised as Madame de Cintré. He hesitated as to whether he would advance, but as he did so she looked round, feeling apparently that he was there. She rested her eyes on him a moment, and then turned again to her companion.

“It is almost a pity not to tell Mr. Newman,” she said softly, but in a tone that Newman could hear.

“Tell him if you like!” the gentleman answered, in the voice of Lord Deepmere.

“Oh, tell me by all means!” said Newman, advancing.

Lord Deepmere, he observed, was very red in the face, and he had twisted his gloves into a tight cord as if he had been squeezing them dry. These, presumably, were tokens of violent emotion, and it seemed to Newman that the traces of a corresponding agitation were visible in Madame de Cintré’s face. The two had been talking with much vivacity. “What I should tell you is only to my lord’s credit,” said Madame de Cintré, smiling frankly enough.

“He wouldn’t like it any better for that,” said my lord, with his awkward laugh.

“Come; what’s the mystery?” Newman demanded. “Clear it up. I don’t like mysteries.”

“We must have some things we don’t like, and go without some we do,” said the ruddy young nobleman, laughing still.

“It is to Lord Deepmere’s credit, but it is not to every one’s,” said Madame de Cintré. “So I shall say nothing about it. You may be sure,” she added; and she put out her hand to the Englishman, who took it half shyly, half impetuously. “And now go and dance!” she said.

“Oh yes, I feel awfully like dancing!” he answered. “I shall go and get tipsy.” And he walked away with a gloomy guffaw.

“What has happened between you?” Newman asked.

“I can’t tell you—now,” said Madame de Cintré. “Nothing that need make you unhappy.”

“Has the little Englishman been trying to make love to you?”

She hesitated, and then she uttered a grave “No! he’s a very honest little fellow.”

“But you are agitated. Something is the matter.”

“Nothing, I repeat, that need make you unhappy. My agitation is over. Some day I will tell you what it was; not now. I can’t now!”

“Well, I confess,” remarked Newman, “I don’t want to hear anything unpleasant. I am satisfied with everything—most of all with you. I have seen all the ladies and talked with a great many of them; but I am satisfied with you.” Madame de Cintré covered him for a moment with her large, soft glance, and then turned her eyes away into the starry night. So they stood silent a moment, side by side. “Say you are satisfied with me,” said Newman.

He had to wait a moment for the answer; but it came at last, low yet distinct: “I am very happy.”

It was presently followed by a few words from another source, which made them both turn round. “I am sadly
afraid Madame de Cintré will take a chill. I have ventured to bring a shawl.” Mrs. Bread stood there softly solicitous, holding a white drapery in her hand.

“Thank you,” said Madame de Cintré, “the sight of those cold stars gives one a sense of frost. I won’t take your shawl, but we will go back into the house.”

She passed back and Newman followed her, Mrs. Bread standing respectfully aside to make way for them. Newman paused an instant before the old woman, and she glanced up at him with a silent greeting. “Oh yes,” he said, “you must come and live with us.”

“Well then, sir, if you will,” she answered, “you have not seen the last of me!”

N
ewman was fond of music and went often to the opera. A couple of evenings after Madame de Bellegarde’s ball he sat listening to “Don Giovanni,”
¹
having in honour of this work, which he had never yet seen represented, come to occupy his orchestra-chair
²
before the rising of the curtain. Frequently he took a large box and invited a party of his compatriots; this was a mode of recreation to which he was much addicted. He liked making up parties of his friends and conducting them to the theatre, and taking them to drive on high drags
³
or to dine at remote restaurants. He liked doing things which involved his paying for people; the vulgar truth is that he enjoyed “treating” them. This was not because he was what is called purse-proud; handling money in public was on the contrary positively disagreeable to him; he had a sort of personal modesty about it, akin to what he would have felt about making a toilet
⁴
before spectators. But just as it was a gratification to him to be handsomely dressed, just so it was a private satisfaction to him (he enjoyed it very clandestinely) to have interposed, pecuniarily, in a scheme of pleasure. To set a large group of people in motion and transport them to a distance, to have special conveyances, to charter railway-carriages and steamboats, harmonised with his relish for bold processes, and made hospitality seem more active and more to the purpose. A few evenings before
the occasion of which I speak he had invited several ladies and gentlemen to the opera to listen to Madame Alboni
⁵
—a party which included Miss Dora Finch. It befell, however, that Miss Dora Finch, sitting near Newman in the box, discoursed brilliantly, not only during the entr’actes,
⁶
but during many of the finest portions of the performance, so that Newman had really come away with an irritated sense that Madame Alboni had a thin, shrill voice, and that her musical phrase was much garnished with a laugh of the giggling order. After this he promised himself to go for awhile to the opera alone.

When the curtain had fallen upon the first act of “Don Giovanni,” he turned round in his place to observe the house. Presently, in one of the boxes, he perceived Urbain de Bellegarde and his wife. The little marquise was sweeping the house very busily with a glass, and Newman, supposing that she saw him, determined to go and bid her good-evening. M. de Bellegarde was leaning against a column, motionless, looking straight in front of him, with one hand in the breast of his white waistcoat and the other resting his hat on his thigh. Newman was about to leave his place when he noticed in that obscure region devoted to the small boxes which in France are called, not inaptly, “bathing-tubs,” a face which even the dim light and the distance could not make wholly indistinct. It was the face of a young and pretty woman, and it was surmounted with a
coiffure
of pink roses and diamonds. This person was looking round the house, and her fan was moving to and fro with the most practised grace; when she lowered it, Newman perceived a pair of plump white shoulders and the edge of a rose-coloured dress. Beside her, very close to the shoulders, and talking, apparently with an earnestness which it pleased her scantily to heed, sat a young man with a red face and a very low shirt-collar.
⁷
A moment’s gazing left Newman with no doubts; the pretty young woman was
Noémie Nioche. He looked hard into the depths of the box, thinking her father might perhaps be in attendance, but from what he could see the young man’s eloquence had no other auditor. Newman at last made his way out, and in doing so he passed beneath the
baignoire
⁸
of Mademoiselle Noémie. She saw him as he approached, and gave him a nod and smile which seemed meant as an assurance that she was still a good-natured girl, in spite of her enviable rise in the world. Newman passed into the
foyer
⁹
and walked through it. Suddenly he paused in front of a gentleman seated on one of the divans. The gentleman’s elbows were on his knees; he was leaning forward and staring at the pavement, lost apparently in meditations of a somewhat gloomy cast. But in spite of his bent head Newman recognised him, and in a moment sat down beside him. Then the gentleman looked up and displayed the expressive countenance of Valentin de Bellegarde.