Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (104 page)

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Authors: Henry James

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Page 619
Mrs. Nettlepoint's goodwill being so satisfactorily settled and the meeting of the morrow at the ship so near at hand; and I went so far as to judge that their protracted stay, with their hostess visibly in a fidget, was a sign of a want of breeding. Miss Grace after all then was not such an improvement on her mother, for she easily might have taken the initiative of departure, in spite of Mrs. Mavis's imbibing her glass of syrup in little interspaced sips, as if to make it last as long as possible. I watched the girl with an increasing curiosity; I could not help asking myself a question or tow about her and even perceiving already (in a dim and general way) that there were some complications in her position. Was it not a complication that she should have wished to remain long enough to assuage a certain suspense, to learn whether or no Jasper were going to sail? Had not something particular passed between them on the occasion or at the period to which they had covertly alluded, and did she really not know that her mother was bringing her to
his
mother's, though she apparently had thought it well not to mention the circumstance? Such things were complications on the part of a young lady betrothed to that curious cross-barred phantom of a Mr. Porterfield. But I am bound to add that she gave me no further warrant for suspecting them than by the simple fact of her encouraging her mother, by her immobility, to linger. Somehow I had a sense that
she
knew better. I got up myself to go, but Mrs. Nettlepoint detained me after seeing that my movement would not be taken as a hint, and I perceived she wished me not to leave my fellow-visitors on her hands. Jasper complained of the closeness of the room, said that it was not a night to sit in a roomone ought to be out in the air, under the sky. He denounced the windows that overlooked the water for not opening upon a balcony or a terrace, until his mother, whom he had not yet satisfied about his telegram, reminded him that there was a beautiful balcony in front, with room for a dozen people. She assured him we would go and sit there if it would please him.
It will be nice and cool to-morrow, when we steam into the great ocean, said Miss Mavis, expressing with more vivacity than she had yet thrown into any of her utterances my own thought of half an hour before. Mrs. Nettlepoint replied
 
Page 620
that it would probably be freezing cold, and her son murmured that he would go and try the drawing-room balcony and report upon it. Just as he was turning away he said, smiling, to Miss MavisWon't you come with me and see if it's pleasant?
Oh, well, we had better not stay all night! her mother exclaimed, but without moving. The girl moved, after a moment's hesitation; she rose and accompanied Jasper into the other room. I observed that her slim tallness showed to advantage as she walked and that she looked well as she passed, with her head thrown back, into the darkness of the other part of the house. There was something rather marked, rather surprising (I scarcely knew why, for the act was simple enough) in her doing so, and perhaps it was our sense of this that held the rest of us somewhat stiffly silent as she remained away. I was waiting for Mrs. Mavis to go, so that I myself might go; and Mrs. Nettlepoint was waiting for her to go so that I might not. This doubtless made the young lady's absence appear to us longer than it really wasit was probably very brief. Her mother moreover, I think, had a vague consciousness of embarrassment. Jasper Nettlepoint presently returned to the back drawing-room to get a glass of syrup for his companion, and he took occasion to remark that it was lovely on the balcony: one really got some air, the breeze was from that quarter. I remembered, as he went away with his tinkling tumbler, that from
my
hand, a few minutes before, Miss Mavis had not been willing to accept this innocent offering. A little later Mrs. Nettlepoint saidWell, if it's so pleasant there we had better go ourselves. So we passed to the front and in the other room met the two young people coming in from the balcony. I wondered in the light of subsequent events exactly how long they had been sitting there together. (There were three or four cane chairs which had been placed there for the summer.) If it had been but five minutes, that only made subsequent events more curious. We must go, mother, Miss Mavis immediately said; and a moment later, with a little renewal of chatter as to our general meeting on the ship, the visitors had taken leave. Jasper went down with them to the door and as soon as they had gone
 
Page 621
out Mrs. Nettlepoint exclaimedAh, but she'll be a boreshe'll be a bore!
Not through talking too muchsurely.
An affectation of silence is as bad. I hate that particular
pose;
it's coming up very much now; an imitation of the English, like everything else. A girl who tries to be statuesque at seathat will act on one's nerves!
I don't know what she tries to be, but she succeeds in being very handsome.
So much the better for you. I'll leave her to you, for I shall be shut up. I like her being placed under my care.
She will be under Jasper's, I remarked.
Ah, he won't goI want it too much.
I have an idea he will go.
Why didn't he tell me so thenwhen he came in?
He was diverted by Miss Mavisa beautiful unexpected girl sitting there.
Diverted from his mothertrembling for his decision?
She's an old friend; it was a meeting after a long separation.
Yes, such a lot of them as he knows! said Mrs. Nettlepoint.
Such a lot of them?
He has so many female friendsin the most varied circles.
Well, we can close round her thenfor I on my side knew, or used to know, her young man.
Her young man?
The
fiancé,
the intended, the one she is going out to. He can't by the way be very young now.
How odd it sounds! said Mrs. Nettlepoint.
I was going to reply that it was not odd if you knew Mr. Porterfield, but I reflected that that perhaps only made it odder. I told my companion briefly who he wasthat I had met him in the old days in Paris, when I believed for a fleeting hour that I could learn to paint, when I lived with the
jeunesse des écoles,
and her comment on this was simplyWell, he had better have come out for her!
Perhaps so. She looked to me as she sat there as if she might change her mind at the last moment.
About her marriage?
 
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About sailing. But she won't change now.
Jasper came back, and his mother instantly challenged him. Well,
are
you going?
Yes, I shall go, he said, smiling. I have got my telegram.
Oh, your telegram! I ventured to exclaim. That charming girl is your telegram.
He gave me a look, but in the dusk I could not make out very well what it conveyed. Then he bent over his mother, kissing her. My news isn't particularly satisfactory. I am going for
you.
Oh, you humbug! she rejoined. But of course she was delighted.
II
People usually spend the first hours of a voyage in squeezing themselves into their cabins, taking their little precautions, either so excessive or so inadequate, wondering how they can pass so many days in such a hole and asking idiotic questions of the stewards, who appear in comparison such men of the world. My own initiations were rapid, as became an old sailor, and so it seemed were Miss Mavis's, for when I mounted to the deck at the end of half an hour I found her there alone, in the stern of the ship, looking back at the dwindling continent. It dwindled very fast for so big a place. I accosted her, having had no conversation with her amid the crowd of leave takers and the muddle of farewells before we put off; we talked a little about the boat, our fellow-passengers and our prospects, and then I saidI think you mentioned last night a name I knowthat of Mr. Porterfield.
Oh no, I never uttered it, she replied, smiling at me through her closely-drawn veil.
Then it was your mother.
Very likely it was my mother. And she continued to smile, as if I ought to have known the difference.
I venture to allude to him because I have an idea I used to know him, I went on.
Oh, I see. Beyond this remark she manifested no interest in my having known him.
That is if it's the same one. It seemed to me it would be
 
Page 623
silly to say nothing more; so I added My Mr. Porterfield was called David.
Well, so is ours. Ours struck me as clever.
I suppose I shall see him again if he is to meet you at Liverpool, I continued.
Well, it will be bad if he doesn't.
It was too soon for me to have the idea that it would be bad if he did: that only came later. SO I remarked that I had not seen him for so many years that it was very possible I should not know him.
Well, I have not seen him for a great many years, but I expect I shall know him all the same.
Oh, with you it's different, I rejoined, smiling at her.
Hasn't he been back since those days?
I don't know what days you mean.
When I knew him in Parisages ago. He was a pupil of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He was studying architecture.
Well, he is studying it still, said Grace Mavis.
Hasn't he learned it yet?
I don't know what he has learned. I shall see. Then she added: Architecture is very difficult and he is tremendously thorough.
Oh, yes, I remember that. He was an admirable worker. But he must have become quite a foreigner, if it's so many years since he has been at home.
Oh, he is not changeable. If he were changeable But here my interlocutress paused. I suspect she had been going to say that if he were changeable he would have given her up long ago. After an instant she went on: He wouldn't have stuck so to his profession. You can't make much by it.
You can't make much?
It doesn't make you rich.
Oh, of course you have got to practise itand to practise it long.
Yesso Mr. Porterfield says.
Something in the way she uttered these words made me laughthey were so serene an implication that the gentleman in question did not live up to his principles. But I checked myself, asking my companion if she expected to remain in Europe longto live there.
 
Page 624
Well, it will be a good while if it takes me as long to come back as it has taken me to go out.
And I think your mother said last night that it was your first visit.
Miss Mavis looked at me a moment. Didn't mother talk!
It was all very interesting.
She continued to look at me. You don't think that.
What have I to gain by saying it if I don't?
Oh, men have always something to gain.
You make me feel a terrible failure, then! I hope at any rate that it gives you pleasurethe idea of seeing foreign lands.
MercyI should think so.
It's a pity our ship is not one of the fast ones, if you are impatient.
She was silent a moment; then she exclaimed, Oh, I guess it will be fast enough!
That evening I went in to see Mrs. Nettlepoint and sat on her sea-trunk, which was pulled out from under the berth to accommodate me. It was nine o'clock but not quite dark, as our northward course had already taken us into the latitude of the longer days. She had made her nest admirably and lay upon her sofa in a becoming dressing-gown and cap, resting from her labours. It was her regular practice to spend the voyage in her cabin, which smelt good (such was the refinement of her art), and she had a secret peculiar to herself for keeping her port open without shipping seas. She hated what she called the mess of the ship and the idea, if she should go above, of meeting stewards with plates of supererogatory food. She professed to be content with her situation (we promised to lend each other books and I assured her familiarly that I should be in and out of her room a dozen times a day), and pitied me for having to mingle in society. She judged this to be a limited privilege, for on the deck before we left the wharf she had taken a view of our fellow-passengers.
Oh, I'm an inveterate, almost a professional observer, I replied, and with that vice I am as well occupied as an old woman in the sun with her knitting. It puts it in my power, in any situation, to
see
things. I shall see them even here and I shall come down very often and tell you about them. You

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