The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
‘‘That’s all that’s wanting—that you should take up her cause!’’ the Countess went on.
‘‘But to me—to me—’’ And Isabel hesitated, though there was a question in her eyes.
‘‘To you he has been faithful? It depends upon what you call faithful. When he married you, he was no longer the lover of another woman. That state of things had passed away; the lady had repented; and she had a worship of appearances so intense that even Osmond himself got tired of it. You may therefore imagine what it was! But the whole past was between them.’’
‘‘Yes,’’ said Isabel, ‘‘the whole past is between them.’’
‘‘Ah, this later past is nothing. But for five years they were very intimate.’’
‘‘Why then did she want him to marry me?’’
‘‘Ah, my dear, that’s her superiority! Because you had money; and because she thought you would be good to Pansy.’’
‘‘Poor woman—and Pansy who doesn’t like her!’’ cried Isabel.
‘‘That’s the reason she wanted some one whom Pansy would like. She knows it; she knows everything.’’
‘‘Will she know that you have told me this?’’
‘‘That will depend upon whether you tell her. She is prepared for it, and do you know what she counts upon for her defence? On your thinking that I lie. Perhaps you do; don’t make yourself uncomfortable to hide it. Only, as it happens this time, I don’t. I have told little fibs; but they have never hurt any one but myself.’’
Isabel sat staring at her companion’s story as at a bale of fantastic wares that some strolling gipsy might have unpacked on the carpet at her feet. ‘‘Why did Osmond never marry her?’’ she asked at last.
‘‘Because she had no money.’’ The Countess had an answer for everything, and if she lied she lied well. ‘‘No one knows, no one has ever known, what she lives on, or how she has got all those beautiful things. I don’t believe Osmond himself knows. Besides, she wouldn’t have married him.’’
‘‘How can she have loved him then?’’
‘‘She doesn’t love him, in that way. She did at first, and then, I suppose, she would have married him; but at that time her husband was living. By the time M. Merle had rejoined—I won’t say his ancestors, because he never had any—her relations with Osmond had changed, and she had grown more ambitious. She hoped she might marry a great man; that has always been her idea. She has waited and watched and plotted and prayed; but she has never succeeded. I don’t call Madame Merle a success, you know. I don’t know what she may accomplish yet, but at present she has very little to show. The only tangible result she has ever achieved— except, of course, getting to know every one and staying with them free of expense—has been her bringing you and Osmond together. Oh, she did that, my dear; you needn’t look as if you doubted it. I have watched them for years; I know everything—everything. I am thought a great scatterbrain, but I have had enough application of mind to follow up those two. She hates me, and her way of showing it is to pretend to be forever defending me. When people say I have had fifteen lovers, she looks horrified, and declares that quite half of them were never proved. She has been afraid of me for years, and she has taken great comfort in the vile, false things that people have said about me. She has been afraid I would expose her, and she threatened me one day, when Osmond began to pay his court to you. It was at his house in Florence; do you remember that afternoon when she brought you there and we had tea in the garden? She let me know then that if I should tell tales, two could play at that game. She pretends there is a good deal more to tell about me than about her. It would be an interesting comparison! I don’t care a fig what she may say, simply because I know you don’t care a fig. You can’t trouble your head about me less than you do already. So she may take her revenge as she chooses; I don’t think she will frighten you very much. Her great idea has been to be tremendously irreproachable—a kind of full-blown lily—the incarnation of propriety. She has always worshipped that god. There should be no scandal about Caesar’s wife, you know; and, as I say, she has always hoped to marry Caesar. That was one reason she wouldn’t marry Osmond; the fear that on seeing her with Pansy people would put things together—would even see a resemblance. She has had a terror lest the mother should betray herself. She has been awfully careful; the mother has never done so.’’
‘‘Yes, yes, the mother has done so,’’ said Isabel, who had listened to all this with a face of deepening dreariness. ‘‘She betrayed herself to me the other day, though I didn’t recognize her. There appeared to have been a chance of Pansy’s making a great marriage, and in her disappointment at its not coming off she almost dropped the mask.’’
‘‘Ah, that’s where she would stumble!’’ cried the Countess. ‘‘She has failed so dreadfully herself that she is determined her daughter shall make it up.’’
Isabel started at the words ‘‘her daughter,’’ which the Countess threw off so familiarly. ‘‘It seems very wonderful,’’ she murmured; and in this bewildering impression she had almost lost her sense of being personally touched by the story.
‘‘Now don’t go and turn against the poor innocent child!’’ the Countess went on. ‘‘She is very nice, in spite of her lamentable parentage. I have liked Pansy, not because she was hers—but because she had become yours.’’
‘‘Yes, she has become mine. And how the poor woman must have suffered at seeing me—!’’ Isabel exclaimed, flushing quickly at the thought.
‘‘I don’t believe she has suffered; on the contrary, she has enjoyed. Osmond’s marriage has given Pansy a great lift. Before that she lived in a hole. And do you know what the mother thought? That you might take such a fancy to the child that you would do something for her. Osmond, of course, could never give her a portion. Osmond was really extremely poor; but of course you know all about that. Ah, my dear,’’ cried the Countess, ‘‘why did you ever inherit money?’’ She stopped a moment, as if she saw something singular in Isabel’s face. ‘‘Don’t tell me now that you will give her a dowry. You are capable of that, but I shouldn’t believe it. Don’t try to be too good. Be a little wicked, feel a little wicked, for once in your life!’’
‘‘It’s very strange. I suppose I ought to know, but I am sorry,’’ Isabel said. ‘‘I am much obliged to you.’’
‘‘Yes, you seem to be!’’ cried the Countess, with a mocking laugh. ‘‘Perhaps you are—perhaps you are not. You don’t take it as I should have thought.’’
‘‘How should I take it?’’ Isabel asked.
‘‘Well, I should say as a woman who had been made use of.’’ Isabel made no answer to this; she only listened, and the Countess went on. ‘‘They have always been bound to each other; they remained so even after she became proper. But he has always been more for her than she has been for him. When their little carnival was over they made a bargain that each should give the other complete liberty, but that each should also do everything possible to help the other on. You may ask me how I know such a thing as that. I know it by the way they have behaved. Now see how much better women are than men! She has found a wife for Osmond, but Osmond has never lifted a little finger for her. She has worked for him, plotted for him, suffered for him; she has even more than once found money for him; and the end of it is that he is tired of her. She is an old habit; there are moments when he needs her; but on the whole he wouldn’t miss her if she were removed. And, what’s more, to-day she knows it. So you needn’t be jealous!’’ the Countess added, humorously.
Isabel rose from her sofa again; she felt bruised and short of breath; her head was humming with new knowledge. ‘‘I am much obliged to you,’’ she repeated. And then she added, abruptly, in quite a different tone— ‘‘How do you know all this?’’
This inquiry appeared to ruffle the Countess more than Isabel’s expression of gratitude pleased her. She gave her companion a bold stare, with which—‘‘Let us assume that I have invented it!’’ she cried. She too, ho
Isabel started a little; she turned away. But she felt weak, and in a moment had to lay her arm upon the mantel-shelf for support. She stood a minute so, and then upon her arm she dropped her dizzy head, with closed eyes and pale lips.
‘‘I have done wrong to speak—I have made you ill!’’ the Countess cried.
‘‘Ah, I must see Ralph!’’ Isabel murmured; not in resentment, not in the quick passion her companion had looked for; but in a tone of exquisite far-reaching sadness.
52
THERE was a train for Turin and Paris that evening; and after the Countess had left her, Isabel had a rapid and decisive conference with her maid, who was discreet, devoted, and active. After this, she thought (except of her journey) of only one thing. She must go and see Pansy; from her she could not turn away. She had not seen her yet, as Osmond had given her to understand that it was too soon to begin. She drove at five o’clock to a high door in a narrow street in the quarter of the Piazza Navona, and was admitted by the portress of the convent, a genial and obsequious person. Isabel had been at this institution before; she had come with Pansy to see the sisters. She knew they were good women, and she saw that the large rooms were clean and cheerful, and that the well-used garden had sun for winter and shade for spring. But she disliked the place, and it made her horribly sad; not for the world would she have spent a night there. It produced to-day more than before the impression of a well-appointed prison; for it was not possible to pretend that Pansy was free to leave it. This innocent creature had been presented to her in a new and violent light, but the secondary effect of the revelation was to make Isabel reach out her hand to her.
The portress left her to wait in the parlour of the convent, while she went to make it known that there was a visitor for the dear young lady. The parlour was a vast, cold apartment, with new-looking furniture; a large clean stove of white porcelain, unlighted; a collection of wax flowers, under glass; and a series of engravings from religious pictures on the walls. On the other occasion Isabel had thought it less like Rome than like Philadelphia; but to-day she made no reflections; the apartment only seemed to her very empty and very soundless. The portress returned at the end of some five minutes, ushering in another person. Isabel got up, expecting to see one of the ladies of the sisterhood; but to her extreme surprise she found herself confronted with Madame Merle. The effect was strange, for Madame Merle was already so present to her vision that her appearance in the flesh was a sort of reduplication. Isabel had been thinking all day of her falsity, her audacity, her ability, her probable suffering; and these dark things seemed to flash with a sudden light as she entered the room. Her being there at all was a kind of vivid proof. It made Isabel feel faint; if it had been necessary to speak on the spot, she would have been quite unable. But no such necessity was clear to her; it seemed to her indeed that she had absolutely nothing to say to Madame Merle. In one’s relations with this lady, however, there were never any absolute necessities; she had a manner which carried off not only her own deficiencies, but those of other people. But she was different from usual; she came in slowly, behind the portress, and Isabel instantly perceived that she was not likely to depend upon her habitual resources. For her, too, the occasion was exceptional, and she had undertaken to treat it by the light of the moment. This gave her a peculiar gravity; she did not even pretend to smile, and though Isabel saw that she was more than ever playing a part, it seemed to her that on the whole the wonderful woman had never been so natural. She looked at Isabel from head to foot, but not harshly or defiantly; with a cold gentleness rather, and an absence of any air of allusion to their last meeting. It was as if she had wished to mark a difference; she had been irritated then—she was reconciled now.
‘‘You can leave us alone,’’ she said to the portress; ‘‘in five minutes this lady will ring for you.’’ And then she turned to Isabel, who, after noting what has just been mentioned, had ceased to look at her, and had let her eyes wander as far as the limits of the room would allow. She wished never to look at Madame Merle again. ‘‘You are surprised to find me here, and I am afraid you are not pleased,’’ this lady went on. ‘‘You don’t see why I should have come; it’s as if I had anticipated you. I confess I have been rather indiscreet—I ought to have asked your permission.’’ There was none of the oblique movement of irony in this; it was said simply and softly; but Isabel, far afloat on a sea of wonder and pain, could not have told herself with what intention it was uttered. ‘‘But I have not been sitting long,’’ Madame Merle continued; ‘‘that is, I have not been long with Pansy. I came to see her because it occurred to me this afternoon that she must be rather lonely, and perhaps even a little miserable. It may be good for a young girl; I know so little about young girls, I can’t tell. At any rate it’s a little dismal. Therefore I came—on the chance. I knew of course that you would come, and her father as well; still, I had not been told that other visitors were forbidden. The good woman—what’s her name? Madame Catherine— made no objection whatever. I stayed twenty minutes with Pansy; she has a charming little room, not in the least conventual, with a piano and flowers. She has arranged it delightfully; she has so much taste. Of course it’s all none of my business, but I feel happier since I have seen her. She may even have a maid if she likes; but of course she has no occasion to dress. She wears a little black dress; she looks so charming. I went afterwards to see Mother Catherine, who has a very good room too; I assure you I don’t find the poor sisters at all monastic. Mother Catherine has a most coquettish little toilet-table, with something that looked uncommonly like a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. She speaks delightfully of Pansy; says it’s a great happiness for them to have her. She is a little saint of heaven, and a model to the oldest of them. Just as I was leaving Madame Catherine, the portress came to say to her that there was a lady for the signorina. Of course I knew it must be you, and I asked her to let me go and receive you in her place. She demurred greatly—I must tell you that— and said it was her duty to notify the Superior; it was of such high importance that you should be treated with respect. I requested her to let the poor Superior alone, and asked her how she supposed I would treat you!’’
So Madame Merle went on, with much of the brilliancy of a woman who had long been a mistress of the art of conversation. But there were phases and gradations in her speech, not one of which was lost upon Isabel’s ear, though her eyes were absent from her companion’s face. She had not proceeded far before Isabel noted a sudden rupture in her voice, which was in itself a complete drama. This subtle modulation marked a momentous discovery—the perception of an entirely new attitude on the part of her listener. Madame Merle had guessed in the space of an instant that everything was at end between them, and in the space of another instant she had guessed the reason why. The person who stood there was not the same one she had seen hitherto; it was a very different person—a person who knew her secret. This discovery was tremendous, and for the moment she made it the most accomplished of women faltered and lost her courage. But only for that moment. Then the conscious stream of her perfect manner gathered itself again and flowed on as smoothly as might be to the end. But it was only because she had the end in view that she was able to go on. She had been touched with a point that made her quiver, and she needed all the alertness of her will to repress her agitation. Her only safety was in not betraying herself. She did not betray herself; but the startled quality of her voice refused to improve— she couldn’t help it—while she heard herself say she hardly knew what. The tide of her confidence ebbed, and she was able only just to glide into port, faintly grazing the bottom.
Isabel saw all this as distinctly as if it had been a picture on the wall. It might have been a great moment for her, for it might have been a moment of triumph. That Madame Merle had lost her pluck and saw before her the phantom of exposure—this
‘‘I am come to bid Pansy good-bye,’’ Isabel said at last. ‘‘I am going to England to-night.’’
‘‘Going to England to-night!’’ Madame Merle repeated, sitting there and looking up at her.
‘‘I am going to Gardencourt. Ralph Touchett is dying.’’
‘‘Ah, you will feel that.’’ Madame Merle recovered herself; she had a chance to express sympathy. ‘‘Do you go alone?’’ she asked.