Collected Stories by Henry James
In St John’s Wood the tide of human life flows at no time very fast, and in the first days of September Lyon found unmitigated emptiness in the straight sunny roads where the little plastered garden-walls, with their incommunicative doors, looked slightly Oriental. There was definite stillness in his own house, to which he admitted himself by his pass-key, having a theory that it was well sometimes to take servants unprepared. The good woman who was mainly in charge and who cumulated the functions of cook and housekeeper was however, quickly summoned by his step, and (he cultivated frankness of intercourse with his domestics) received him without the confusion of surprise. He told her that she needn’t mind the place being not quite straight, he had only come up for a few hours – he should be busy in the studio. To this she replied that he was just in time to see a lady and a gentleman who were there at the moment – they had arrived five minutes before. She had told them he was away from home but they said it was all right; they only wanted to look at a picture and would be very careful of everything. ‘I hope it is all right, sir,’ the housekeeper concluded. ‘The gentleman says he’s a sitter and he gave me his name – rather an odd name; I think it’s military. The lady’s a very fine lady, sir; at any rate there they are.’
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Lyon said, the identity of his visitors being clear. The good woman couldn’t know, for she usually had little to do with the comings and goings; his man, who showed people in and out, had accompanied him to the country. He was a good deal surprised at Mrs Capadose’s having come to see her husband’s portrait when she knew that the artist himself wished her to forbear; but it was a familiar truth to him that she was a woman of a high spirit. Besides, perhaps the lady was not Mrs Capadose; the Colonel might have brought some inquisitive friend, a person who wanted a portrait of her husband. What were they doing in town, at any rate, at that moment? Lyon made his way to the studio with a certain curiosity; he wondered vaguely what his friends were ‘up to’. He pushed aside the curtain that hung in the door of communication – the door opening upon the gallery which it had been found convenient to construct at the time the studio was added to the house. When I say he pushed it aside I should amend my phrase; he laid his hand upon it, but at that moment he was arrested by a very singular sound. It came from the floor of the room beneath him and it startled him extremely, consisting apparently as it did of a passionate wail – a sort of smothered shriek – accompanied by a violent burst of tears. Oliver Lyon listened intently a moment, and then he passed out upon the balcony, which was covered with an old thick Moorish rug. His step was noiseless, though he had not endeavoured to make it so, and after that first instant he found himself profiting irresistibly by the accident of his not having attracted the attention of the two persons in the studio, who were some twenty feet below him. In truth they were so deeply and so strangely engaged that their unconsciousness of observation was explained. The scene that took place before Lyon’s eyes was one of the most extraordinary they had ever rested upon. Delicacy and the failure to comprehend kept him at first from interrupting it – for what he saw was a woman who had thrown herself in a flood of tears on her companion’s bosom – and these influences were succeeded after a minute (the minutes were very few and very short) by a definite motive which presently had the force to make him step back behind the curtain. I may add that it also had the force to make him avail himself for further contemplation of a crevice formed by his gathering together the two halves of the portière. He was perfectly aware of what he was about – he was for the moment an eavesdropper, a spy; but he was also aware that a very odd business, in which his confidence had been trifled with, was going forward, and that if in a measure it didn’t concern him, in a measure it very definitely did. His observation, his reflections, accomplished themselves in a flash.
His visitors were in the middle of the room; Mrs Capadose clung to her husband, weeping, sobbing as if her heart would break. Her distress was horrible to Oliver Lyon but his astonishment was greater than his horror when he heard the Colonel respond to it by the words, vehemently uttered, ‘Damn him, damn him, damn him!’ What in the world had happened? why was she sobbing and whom was he damning? What had happened, Lyon saw the next instant, was that the Colonel had finally rummaged out his unfinished portrait (he knew the corner where the artist usually placed it, out of the way, with its face to the wall) and had set it up before his wife on an empty easel. She had looked at it a few moments and then – apparently – what she saw in it had produced an explosion of dismay and resentment. She was too busy sobbing and the Colonel was too busy holding her and reiterating his objurgation, to look round or look up. The scene was so unexpected to Lyon that he could not take it, on the spot, as a proof of the triumph of his hand – of a tremendous hit: he could only wonder what on earth was the matter. The idea of the triumph came a little later. Yet he could see the portrait from where he stood; he was startled with its look of life – he had not thought it so masterly. Mrs Capadose flung herself away from her husband – she dropped into the nearest chair, buried her face in her arms, leaning on a table. Her weeping suddenly ceased to be audible, but she shuddered there as if she were overwhelmed with anguish and shame. Her husband remained a moment staring at the picture; then he went to her, bent over her, took hold of her again, soothed her. ‘What is it, darling, what the devil is it?’ he demanded.
Lyon heard her answer. ‘It’s cruel – oh, it’s too cruel!’
‘Damn him – damn him – damn him!’ the Colonel repeated.
‘It’s all there – it’s all there!’ Mrs Capadose went on.
‘Hang it, what’s all there?’
‘Everything there oughtn’t to be – everything he has seen – it’s too dreadful!’
‘Everything he has seen? Why, ain’t I a good-looking fellow? He has made me rather handsome.’
Mrs Capadose had sprung up again; she had darted another glance at the painted betrayal. ‘Handsome? Hideous, hideous! Not that – never, never!’
‘Not what, in Heaven’s name?’ the Colonel almost shouted. Lyon could see his flushed, bewildered face.
‘What he has made of you – what you know! He knows – he has seen. Every one will know – every one will see. Fancy that thing in the Academy!’
‘You’re going wild, darling; but if you hate it so it needn’t go.’
‘Oh, he’ll send it – it’s so good! Come away – come away!’ Mrs Capadose wailed, seizing her husband.
‘It’s so good?’ the poor man cried.
‘Come away – come away,’ she only repeated; and she turned toward the staircase that ascended to the gallery.
‘Not that way – not through the house, in the state you’re in,’ Lyon heard the Colonel object. ‘This way – we can pass,’ he added; and he drew his wife to the small door that opened into the garden. It was bolted, but he pushed the bolt and opened the door. She passed out quickly, but he stood there looking back into the room. ‘Wait for me a moment!’ he cried out to her; and with an excited stride he re-entered the studio. He came up to the picture again, and again he stood looking at it. ‘Damn him – damn him – damn him!’ he broke out once more. It was not clear to Lyon whether this malediction had for its object the original or the painter of the portrait. The Colonel turned away and moved rapidly about the room, as if he were looking for something; Lyon was unable for the instant to guess his intention. Then the artist said to himself, below his breath, ‘He’s going to do it a harm!’ His first impulse was to rush down and stop him; but he paused, with the sound of Everina Brant’s sobs still in his ears. The Colonel found what he was looking for – found it among some odds and ends on a small table and rushed back with it to the easel. At one and the same moment Lyon perceived that the object he had seized was a small Eastern dagger and that he had plunged it into the canvas. He seemed animated by a sudden fury, for with extreme vigour of hand he dragged the instrument down (Lyon knew it to have no very fine edge) making a long, abominable gash. Then he pluck
The strangest part of all was – as will doubtless appear – that Oliver Lyon made no movement to save his picture. But he did not feel as if he were losing it or cared not if he were, so much more did he feel that he was gaining a certitude. His old friend was ashamed of her husband, and he had made her so, and he had scored a great success, even though the picture had been reduced to rags. The revelation excited him so – as indeed the whole scene did – that when he came down the steps after the Colonel had gone he trembled with his happy agitation; he was dizzy and had to sit down a moment. The portrait had a dozen jagged wounds – the Colonel literally had hacked it to death. Lyon left it where it was, never touched it, scarcely looked at it; he only walked up and down his studio, still excited, for an hour. At the end of this time his good woman came to recommend that he should have some luncheon; there was a passage under the staircase from the offices.
‘Ah, the lady and gentleman have gone, sir? I didn’t hear them.’
‘Yes; they went by the garden.’
But she had stopped, staring at the picture on the easel. ‘Gracious, how you ’ave served it, sir!’
Lyon imitated the Colonel. ‘Yes, I cut it up – in a fit of disgust.’
‘Mercy, after all your trouble! Because they weren’t pleased, sir?’
‘Yes; they weren’t pleased.’
‘Well, they must be very grand! Blessed if I would!’
‘Have it chopped up; it will do to light fires,’ Lyon said.
He returned to the country by the 3.30 and a few days later passed over to France. During the two months that he was absent from England he expected something – he could hardly have said what; a manifestation of some sort on the Colonel’s part. Wouldn’t he write, wouldn’t he explain, wouldn’t he take for granted Lyon had discovered the way he had, as the cook said, served him and deem it only decent to take pity in some fashion or other on his mystification? Would he plead guilty or would he repudiate suspicion? The latter course would be difficult and make a considerable draft upon his genius, in view of the certain testimony of Lyon’s housekeeper, who had admitted the visitors and would establish the connection between their presence and the violence wrought. Would the Colonel proffer some apology or some amends, or would any word from him be only a further expression of that destructive petulance which our friend had seen his wife so suddenly and so potently communicate to him? He would have either to declare that he had not touched the picture or to admit that he had, and in either case he would have to tell a fine story. Lyon was impatient for the story and, as no letter came, disappointed that it was not produced. His impatience however was much greater in respect to Mrs Capadose’s version, if version there was to be; for certainly that would be the real test, would show how far she would go for her husband, on the one side, or for him, Oliver Lyon, on the other. He could scarcely wait to see what line she would take; whether she would simply adopt the Colonel’s, whatever it might be. He wanted to draw her out without waiting, to get an idea in advance. He wrote to her, to this end, from Venice, in the tone of their established friendship, asking for news, narrating his wanderings, hoping they should soon meet in town and not saying a word about the picture. Day followed day, after the time, and he received no answer; upon which he reflected that she couldn’t trust herself to write – was still too much under the influence of the emotion produced by his ‘betrayal’. Her husband had espoused that emotion and she had espoused the action he had taken in consequence of it, and it was a complete rupture and everything was at an end. Lyon considered this prospect rather ruefully, at the same time that he thought it deplorable that such charming people should have put themselves so grossly in the wrong. He was at last cheered, though little further enlightened, by the arrival of a letter, brief but breathing good-humour and hinting neither at a grievance nor at a bad conscience. The most interesting part of it to Lyon was the postscript, which consisted of these words: ‘I have a confession to make to you. We were in town for a couple of days, the 1st of September, and I took the occasion to defy your authority – it was very bad of me but I couldn’t help it. I made Clement take me to your studio – I wanted so dreadfully to see what you had done with him, your wishes to the contrary notwithstanding. We made your servants let us in and I took a good look at the picture. It is really wonderful!’ ‘Wonderful’ was non-committal, but at least with this letter there was no rupture.
The third day after Lyon’s return to London was a Sunday, so that he could go and ask Mrs Capadose for luncheon. She had given him in the spring a general invitation to do so and he had availed himself of it several times. These had been the occasions (before he sat to him) when he saw the Colonel most familiarly. Directly after the meal his host disappeared (he went out, as he said, to call on his women) and the second half-hour was the best, even when there were other people. Now, in the first days of December, Lyon had the luck to find the pair alone, without even Amy, who appeared but little in public. They were in the drawing-room, waiting for the repast to be announced, and as soon as he came in the Colonel broke out, ‘My dear fellow, I’m delighted to see you! I’m so keen to begin again.’
‘Oh, do go on, it’s so beautiful,’ Mrs Capadose said, as she gave him her hand.
Lyon looked from one to the other; he didn’t know what he had expected, but he had not expected this. ‘Ah, then, you think I’ve got something?’
‘You’ve got everything,’ said Mrs Capadose, smiling from her golden-brown eyes.
‘She wrote you of our little crime?’ her husband asked. ‘She dragged me there – I had to go.’ Lyon wondered for a moment whether he meant by their little crime the assault on the canvas; but the Colonel’s next words didn’t confirm this interpretation. ‘You know I like to sit – it gives such a chance to my bavardise. And just now I have time.’
‘You must remember I had almost finished,’ Lyon remarked.
‘So you had. More’s the pity. I should like you to begin again.’
‘My dear fellow, I shall have to begin again!’ said Oliver Lyon with a laugh, looking at Mrs Capadose. She did not meet his eyes – she had got up to ring for luncheon. ‘The picture has been smashed,’ Lyon continued.
‘Smashed? Ah, what did you do that for?’ Mrs Capadose asked, standing there before him in all her clear, rich beauty. Now that she looked at him she was impenetrable.
‘I didn’t – I found it so – with a dozen holes punched in it!’
‘I say!’ cried the Colonel.
Lyon turned his eyes to him, smiling. ‘I hope you didn’t do it?’
‘Is it ruined?’ the Colonel inquired. He was as brightly true as his wife and he looked simply as if Lyon’s question could not be serious. ‘For the love of sitting to you? My dear fellow, if I had thought of it I would!’
‘Nor you either?’ the painter demanded of Mrs Capadose.
Before she had time to reply her husband had seized her arm, as if a highly suggestive idea had come to him. ‘I say, my dear, that woman – that woman!’
‘That woman?’ Mrs Capadose repeated; and Lyon too wondered what woman he meant.
‘Don’t you remember when we came out, she was at the door – or a little way from it? I spoke to you of her – I told you about her. Geraldine – Grenadine – the one who burst in that day,’ he explained to Lyon. ‘We saw her hanging about – I called Everina’s attention to her.’
‘Do you mean she got at my picture?’
‘Ah yes, I remember,’ said Mrs Capadose, with a sigh.
‘She burst in again – she had learned the way – she was waiting for her chance,’ the Colonel continued. ‘Ah, the little brute!’<
Lyon looked down; he felt himself colouring. This was what he had been waiting for – the day the Colonel should wantonly sacrifice some innocent person. And could his wife be a party to that final atrocity? Lyon had reminded himself repeatedly during the previous weeks that when the Colonel perpetrated his misdeed she had already quitted the room; but he had argued none the less – it was a virtual certainty – that he had on rejoining her immediately made his achievement plain to her. He was in the flush of performance; and even if he had not mentioned what he had done she would have guessed it. He did not for an instant believe that poor Miss Geraldine had been hovering about his door, nor had the account given by the Colonel the summer before of his relations with this lady deceived him in the slightest degree. Lyon had never seen her before the day she planted herself in his studio; but he knew her and classified her as if he had made her. He was acquainted with the London female model in all her varieties – in every phase of her development and every step of her decay. When he entered his house that September morning just after the arrival of his two friends there had been no symptoms whatever, up and down the road, of Miss Geraldine’s reappearance. That fact had been fixed in his mind by his recollecting the vacancy of the prospect when his cook told him that a lady and a gentleman were in his studio: he had wondered there was not a carriage nor a cab at his door. Then he had reflected that they would have come by the underground railway; he was close to the Marlborough Road station and he knew the Colonel, coming to his sittings, more than once had availed himself of that convenience. ‘How in the world did she get in?’ He addressed the question to his companions indifferently.