The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

  Isabel hesitated a moment.

  ‘‘Yes—a good deal.’’

  ‘‘I don’t mean for the worse, of course; and yet how can I say for the better?’’

  ‘‘I think I shall have no scruple in saying that to you,’’ said Isabel, smiling.

  ‘‘Ah well, for me—it’s a long time. It would be a pity that there shouldn’t be something to show for it.’’

  They sat down, and Isabel asked him about his sisters, with other inquiries of a somewhat perfunctory kind. He answered her questions as if they interested him, and in a few moments she saw—or believed she saw—that he would prove a more comfortable companion than of yore. Time had breathed upon his heart, and without chilling this organ, had freely ventilated it. Isabel felt her usual esteem for Time rise at a bound. Lord Warburton’s manner was certainly that of a contented man who would rather like one to know it.

  ‘‘There is something I must tell you without more delay,’’ he said. ‘‘I have brought Ralph Touchett with me.’’

  ‘‘Brought him with you?’’ Isabel’s surprise was great.

  ‘‘He is at the hotel; he was too tired to come out, and has gone to bed.’’

  ‘‘I will go and see him,’’ said Isabel, quickly.

  ‘‘That is exactly what I hoped you would do. I had an idea that you hadn’t seen much of him since your marriage— that in fact your relations were a—a little more formal. That’s why I hesitated—like an awkward Englishman.’’

  ‘‘I am as fond of Ralph as ever,’’ Isabel answered. ‘‘But why has he come to Rome?’’

  The declaration was very gentle; the question a little sharp.

  ‘‘Because he is very far gone, Mrs. Osmond.’’

  ‘‘Rome, then, is no place for him. I heard from him that he had determined to give up his custom of wintering abroad, and remain in England, indoors, in what he called an artificial climate.’’

  ‘‘Poor fellow, he doesn’t succeed with the artificial! I went to see him three weeks ago, at Gardencourt, and found him extremely ill. He has been getting worse every year, and now he has no strength left. He smokes no more cigarettes! He had got up an artificial climate indeed; the house was as hot as Calcutta. Nevertheless, he had suddenly taken it into his head to start for Sicily. I didn’t believe in it—neither did the doctors, nor any of his friends. His mother, as I suppose you know, is in America, so there was no one to prevent him. He stuck to his idea that it would be the saving of him to spend the winter at Catania. He said he could take servants and furniture, and make himself comfortable; but in point of fact he hasn’t brought anything. I wanted him at least to go by sea, to save fatigue; but he said he hated the sea, and wished to stop at Rome. After that, though I thought it all rubbish, I made up my mind to come with him. I am acting as— what do you call it in America?—as a kind of moderator. Poor Touchett’s very moderate now. We left England a fortnight ago, and he has been very bad on the way. He can’t keep warm, and the further south we come the more he feels the cold. He has got a rather good man, but I’m afraid he’s beyond human help. If you don’t mind my saying so, I think it was a most extraordinary time for Mrs. Touchett to choose for going to America.’’

  Isabel had listened eagerly; her face was full of pain and wonder.

  ‘‘My aunt does that at fixed periods, and she lets nothing turn her aside. When the date comes round she starts; I think she would have started if Ralph had been dying.’’

  ‘‘I sometimes think he is dying,’’ Lord Warburton said.

  Isabel started up.

  ‘‘I will go to him now!’’

  He checked her; he was a little disconcerted at the quick effect of his words.

  ‘‘I don’t mean that I thought so to-night. On the contrary, to-day, in the train, he seemed particularly well; the idea of our reaching Rome—he is very fond of Rome, you know—gave him strength. An hour ago, when I bade him good night, he told me that he was very tired, but very happy. Go to him in the morning; that’s all I mean. I didn’t tell him I was coming here; I didn’t think of it till after we separated. Then I remembered that he had told me that you had an evening, and that it was this very Thursday. It occurred to me to come in and tell you that he was here, and let you know that you had perhaps better not wait for him to call. I think he said he had not written to you.’’ There was no need of Isabel’s declaring that she would act upon Lord Warburton’s information; she looked, as she sat there, like a winged creature held back. ‘‘Let alone that I wanted to see you for myself,’’ her visitor added, gallantly.

  ‘‘I don’t understand Ralph’s plan; it seems to me very wild,’’ she said. ‘‘I was glad to think of him between those thick walls at Gardencourt.’’

  ‘‘He was completely alone there; the thick walls were his only company.’’

  ‘‘You went to see him; you have been extremely kind.’’

  ‘‘Oh dear, I had nothing to do,’’ said Lord Warburton.

  ‘‘We hear, on the contrary, that you are doing great things. Every one speaks of you as a great statesman, and I am perpetually seeing your name in the Times, which, by the way, doesn’t appear to hold it in reverence. You are apparently as bold a radical as ever.’’

  ‘‘I don’t feel nearly so bold; you know the world has come round to me. Touchett and I have kept up a sort of Parliamentary debate, all the way from London. I tell him he is the last of the Tories, and he calls me the head of the Communists. So you see there is life in him yet.’’

  Isabel had many questions to ask about Ralph, but she abstained from asking them all. She would see for herself on the morrow. She perceived that after a little Lord Warburton would tire of that subject—that he had a consciousness of other possible topics. She was more and more able to say to herself that he had recovered, and, what is more to the point, she was able to say it without bitterness. He had been for her, of old, such an image of urgency, of insistence, of something to be resisted and reasoned with, that his reappearance at first menaced her with a new trouble. But she was now reassured; she could see that he only wished to live with her on good terms, that she was to understand that he had forgiven her and was incapable of the bad taste of making pointed allusions. This was not a form of revenge, of course; she had no suspicion that he wished to punish her by an exhibition of disillusionment; she did him the justice to believe that it had simply occurred to him that she would now take a good-natured interest in knowing that he was resigned. It was the resignation of a healthy, manly nature, in which sentimental wounds could never fester. British politics had cured him; she had known they would. She gave an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to plunge into the healing waters of action. Lord Warburton of course spoke of the past, but he spoke of it without implication; he even went so far as to allude to their former meeting in Rome as a very jolly time. And he told her that he had been immensely interested in hearing of her marriage— that it was a great pleasure to him to make Mr. Osmond’s acquaintance, since he could hardly be said to have made it on the other occasion. He had not written to her when she married, but he did not apologize to her for that. The only thing he implied was that they were old friends, intimate friends. It was very much as an intimate friend that he said to her, suddenly, after a short pause which he had occupied in smiling, as he looked about him, like a man to whom everything suggested a cheerful interpretation: ‘‘Well now, I suppose you are very happy, and all that sort of thing?’’

  Isabel answered with a quick laugh; the tone of his remark struck her almost as the accent of comedy.

  ‘‘Do you suppose if I were not I would tell you?’’

  ‘‘Well, I don’t know. I don’t see why not.’’

  ‘‘I do, then. Fortunately, however, I am very happy.’’

  ‘‘You have got a very good house.’’

  ‘‘Yes, it’s very pleasant. But that’s not my merit—it’s my husband’s.’’

  ‘‘You mean that he has a
rranged it?’’

  ‘‘Yes, it was nothing when we came.’’

  ‘‘He must be very clever.’’

  ‘‘He has a genius for upholstery,’’ said Isabel.

  ‘‘There is a great rage for that sort of thing now. But you must have a taste of your own.’’

  ‘‘I enjoy things when they are done; but I have no ideas. I can never propose anything.’’

  ‘‘Do you mean that you accept what others propose?’’

  ‘‘Very willingly, for the most part.’’

  ‘‘That’s a good thing to know. I shall propose you something.’’

  ‘‘It will be very kind. I must say, however, that I have in a few small ways a certain initiative. I should like, for instance, to introduce you to some of these people.’’

  ‘‘Oh, please don’t; I like sitting here. Unless it be to that young lady in the blue dress. She has a charming face.’’

  ‘‘The one talking to the rosy young man? That’s my husband’s daughter.’’

  ‘‘Lucky man, your husband. What a dear little maid!’’

  ‘‘You must make her acquaintance.’’

  ‘‘In a moment, with pleasure. I like looking at her from here.’’ He ceased to look at her, however, very soon; his eyes constantly reverted to Mrs. Osmond. ‘‘Do you know I was wrong just now in saying that you had changed?’’ he presently went on. ‘‘You seem to me, after all, very much the same.’’

  ‘‘And yet I find it’s a great change to be married,’’ said Isabel, with gaiety.

  ‘‘It affects most people more than it has affected you. You see I haven’t gone in for that.’’

  ‘‘It rather surprises me.’’

  ‘‘You ought to understand it, Mrs. Osmond. But I want to marry,’’ he added, more simply.

  ‘‘It ought to be very easy,’’ Isabel said, rising, and then blushing a little at the thought that she was hardly the person to say this. It was perhaps because Lord Warburton noticed her blush that he generously forbore to call her attention to the incongruity.

  Edward Rosier meanwhile had seated himself on an ottoman beside Pansy’s tea-table. He pretended at first to talk to her about trifles, and she asked him who was the new gentleman conversing with her stepmother.

  ‘‘He’s an English lord,’’ said Rosier. ‘‘I don’t know more.’’

  ‘‘I wonder if he will have some tea. The English are so fond of tea.’’

  ‘‘Never mind that; I have something particular to say to you.’’

  ‘‘Don’t speak so loud, or every one will hear us,’’ said Pansy.

  ‘‘They won’t hear us if you continue to look that way: as if your only thought in life was the wish that the kettle would boil.’’

  ‘‘It has just been filled; the servants never know!’’ the young girl exclaimed, with a little sigh.

  ‘‘Do you know what your father said to me just now? That you didn’t mean what you said a week ago.’’

  ‘‘I don’t mean everything I say. How can a young girl do that? But I mean what I say to you.’’

  ‘‘He told me that you had forgotten me.’’

  ‘‘Ah no, I don’t forget,’’ said Pansy, showing her pretty teeth in a fixed smile.

  ‘‘Then everything is just the same?’’

  ‘‘Ah no, it’s not just the same. Papa has been very severe.’’

  ‘‘What has he done to you?’’

  ‘‘He asked me what you had done to me, and I told him everything. Then he forbade me to marry you.’’

  ‘‘You needn’t mind that.’’

  ‘‘Oh yes, I must indeed. I can’t disobey papa.’’

  ‘‘Not for one who loves you as I do, and whom you pretend to love?’’

  Pansy raised the lid of the tea-pot, gazing into this vessel for a moment; then she dropped six words into its aromatic depths. ‘‘I love you just as much.’’

  ‘‘What good will that do me?’’

  ‘‘Ah,’’ said Pansy, raising her sweet, vague eyes, ‘‘I don’t know that.’’

  ‘‘You disappoint me,’’ groaned poor Rosier.

  Pansy was silent a moment; she handed a tea-cup to a servant.

  ‘‘Please don’t talk any more.’’

  ‘‘Is this to be all my satisfaction?’’

  ‘‘Papa said I was not to talk with you.’’

  ‘‘Do you sacrifice me like that? Ah, it’s too much!’’

  ‘‘I wish you would wait a little,’’ said the young girl, in a voice just distinct enough to betray a quaver.

  ‘‘Of course I will wait if you will give me hope. But you take my life away.’’

  ‘‘I will not give you up—oh, no!’’ Pansy went on.

  ‘‘He will try and make you marry some one else.’’

  ‘‘I will never do that.’’

  ‘‘What then are we to wait for?’’

  She hesitated a moment.

  ‘‘I will speak to Mrs. Osmond, and she will help us.’’ It was in this manner that she for the most part designated her stepmother.

  ‘‘She won’t help us much. She is afraid.’’

  ‘‘Afraid of what?’’

  ‘‘Of your father, I suppose.’’

  Pansy shook her little head.

  ‘‘She is not afraid of any one! We must have patience.’’

  ‘‘Ah, that’s an awful word,’’ Rosier groaned; he was deeply disconcerted. Oblivious of the customs of good society, he dropped his head into his hands, and, supporting it with a melancholy grace, sat staring at the carpet. Presently he became aware of a good deal of movement about him, and when he looked up saw Pansy making a curtsy— it was still her little curtsy of the convent—to the English lord whom Mrs. Osmond had presented.

  39

  IT PROBABLY will not be surprising to the reflective reader that Ralph Touchett should have seen less of his cousin since her marriage than he had done before that event—an event of which he took such a view as could hardly prove a confirmation of intimacy. He had uttered his thought, as we know, and after this he had held his peace, Isabel not having invited him to resume a discussion which marked an era in their relations. That discussion had made a difference—the difference that he feared, rather than the one he hoped. It had not chilled the girl’s zeal in carrying out her engagement; but it had come dangerously near to spoiling a friendship. No reference was ever again made between them to Ralph’s opinion of Gilbert Osmond; and by surrounding this topic with a sacred silence, they managed to preserve a semblance of reciprocal frankness. But there was a difference, as Ralph often said to himself—there was a difference. She had not forgiven him; she never would forgive him; she believed she didn’t care; and as she was both very generous and very proud, these convictions represented a certain reality. But whether or no the event should justify him, he would virtually have done her a wrong, and the wrong was of the sort that women remember best. As Osmond’s wife, she could never again be his friend. If in this character she should enjoy the felicity she expected, she would have nothing but contempt for the man who had attempted, in advance, to undermine a blessing so dear; and if on the other hand his warning should be justified, the vow she had taken that he should never know it would lay upon her spirit a burden that would make her hate him. Such had been, during the year that followed his cousin’s marriage, Ralph’s rather dismal prevision of the future; and if his meditations appear morbid we must remember that he was not in the bloom of health. He consoled himself as he might by behaving (as he deemed) beautifully, and was present at the ceremony by which Isabel was united to Mr. Osmond, and which was performed in Florence in the month of June. He learned from his mother that Isabel at first had thoughts of celebrating her nuptials in her native land, but that as simplicity was what she chiefly desired to secure, she had finally decided, in spite of Osmond’s professed willingness to make a journey of any length, that this characteristic would best be preserved by their being married by the neares
t clergyman in the shortest time. The thing was done, therefore, at the little American chapel, on a very hot day, in the presence only of Mrs. Touchett and her son, of Pansy Osmond and the Countess Gemini. That severity in the proceedings of which I just spoke was in part the result of the absence of two persons who might have been looked for on the occasion, and who would have lent it a certain richness. Madame Merle had been invited, but Madame Merle, who was unable to leave Rome, sent a gracious letter of excuses. Henrietta Stackpole had not been invited, as her departure from America, announced to Isabel by Mr. Goodwood, was in fact frustrated by the duties of her profession; but she had sent a letter, less gracious than Madame Merle’s, intimating that had she been able to cross the Atlantic, she would have been present not only as a witness but as a critic. Her return to Europe took place somewhat later, and she effected a meeting with Isabel in the autumn, in Paris, when she indulged—perhaps a trifle too freely—her critical genius. Poor Osmond, who was chiefly the subject of it, protested so sharply that Henrietta was obliged to declare to Isabel that she had taken a step which erected a barrier between them. ‘‘It isn’t in the least that you have married—it is that you have married him,’’ she deemed it her duty to remark; agreeing, it will be seen, much more with Ralph Touchett than she suspected, though she had few of his hesitations and compunctions. Henrietta’s second visit to Europe, however, was not made in vain; for just at the moment when Osmond had declared to Isabel that he really must object to that newspaper-woman, and Isabel had answered that it seemed to her he took Henrietta too hard, the good Mr. Bantling appeared upon the scene and proposed that they should take a run down to Spain. Henrietta’s letters from Spain proved to be the most picturesque she had yet published, and there was one in especial, dated from the Alhambra, and entitled ‘‘Moors and Moonlight,’’ which generally passed for her masterpiece. Isabel was secretly disappointed at her husband’s not having been able to judge the poor girl more humorously. She even wondered whether his sense of humour were by chance defective. Of course she herself looked at the matter as a person whose present happiness had nothing to grudge to Henrietta’s violated conscience. Osmond thought their alliance a kind of monstrosity; he couldn’t imagine what they had in common. For him, Mr. Bantling’s fellow-tourist was simply the most vulgar of women, and he also pronounced her the most abandoned. Against this latter clause of the verdict Isabel protested with an ardour which made him wonder afresh at the oddity of some of his wife’s tastes. Isabel could explain it only by saying that she liked to know people who were as different as possible from herself. ‘‘Why then don’t you make the acquaintance of your washerwoman?’’ Osmond had inquired; to which Isabel answered that she was afraid her washerwoman wouldn’t care for her. Now Henrietta cared so much.