Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (113 page)

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Authors: Henry James

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Page 674
more than one of our picnics (it is ridiculous how many we had), and she was notably present on an important occasion, the last general meeting before our little colony dispersed. This was neither more nor less than a tea-partya regular five o'clock tea, though the fashion hadn't yet come inon the summit of Monte Cavo. It sounds very vulgar, but I assure you it was delightful. We went up on foot, on ponies, or donkeys: the animals were for the convenience of the ladies, and our provisions and utensils were easily carried. The great heat had abated; besides, it was late in the day. The Campagna lay beneath us like a haunted sea (if you can imagine thatthe ghosts of dead sentries walking on the deep) and the glow of the afternoon was divine. You know it allthe way the Alban mount slopes into the plain and the dome of St. Peter's rises out of it, the colour of the Sabines, which look so near, the old grey villages, the ruins of cities, of nations, that are scattered on the hills.
Wilmerding was of our party, as a matter of course, and Mrs. Goldie and the three girls and Montaut, confound him, with his communicative sense that everything was droll. He hadn't in his composition a grain of respect. Fortunately he didn't need it to make him happy. We had our tea, we looked at the view, we chattered in groups or strolled about in couples: no doubt we desecrated sufficiently a sublime historic spot. We lingered late, but late as it was we perceived, when we gathered ourselves together to descend the little mountain, that Veronica Goldie was missing. So was Henry Wilmerding, it presently appeared; and then it came out that they had been seen moving away together. We looked for them a little; we called for them; we waited for them. We were all there and we talked about them, Mrs. Goldie of course rather more loudly than the rest. She qualified their absence, I remember, as a most extraordinary performance. Montaut said to me, in a lowered voice: Diable, diable, diable! I remember his saying also: You others are very lucky. What would have been thought if it was I? We waited in a small, a very small, embarrassment, and before long the young lady turned up with her companion. I forget where they had been; they told us, without confusion: they had apparently a perfectly good conscience. They had not really been away long; but it so hap-
 
Page 675
pened that we all noticed it and that for a quarter of an hour we thought of it. Besides, the dusk had considerably deepened. As soon as they joined us we started homeward. A little later we all separated, and Montaut and I betook ourselves to our own quarters. He said to me that evening, in relation to this little incident: In my country, you know, he would have to marry her.
I don't believe it, I answered.
Well,
he
would believe it, I'm sure.
I don't believe that.
Try him and you'll see. He'll believe anything.
The idea of trying himsuch is the levity of youthtook possession of me; but at the time I said nothing. Montaut returned to Rome the next day, and a few days later I followed himmy
villeggiatura
was over. Our afternoon at Monte Cavo had had no consequences that I perceived. When I saw Montaut again in Rome one of the first things he said to me was:
Well, has Wilmerding proposed?
Not that I know of.
Didn't you tell him he ought?
My dear fellow, he'd knock me down.
Never in the world. He'd thank you for the hinthe's so candid. I burst out laughing at this, and he asked if our friend had come back. When I said I had left him at Frascati he exclaimed: Why, he's compromising her more!
I didn't quite understand, and I remember asking: Do you think he really ought to offer her marriage, as a gentleman?
Beyond all doubt, in any civilised society.
What a queer thing, then, is civilisation! Because I'm sure he has done her no harm.
How can you be sure? However, call it good if you like. It's a benefit one is supposed to pay for the privilege of conferring.
He won't see it.
He will if you open his eyes.
That's not my business. And there's no one to make him see it, I replied.
Couldn't the Honourable Blanche make him? It seems to me I would trust her.
 
Page 676
Trust her then and be quiet.
You're afraid of his knocking you down, Montaut said.
I suppose I replied to this remark with another equally derisive, but I remember saying a moment later: I'm rather curious to see if he would take such a representation seriously.
I bet you a louis he will! Montaut declared; and there was something in his tone that led me to accept the bet.
II.
In Rome, of a Sunday afternoon, every one went over to St. Peter's; I don't know whether the agreeably frivolous habit still prevails: it had little to do, I fear, with the spirit of worship. We went to hear the musicthe famous vesper-service of the Papal choir, and also to learn the news, to stroll about and talk and look at each other. If we treated the great church as a public promenade, or rather as a splendid international
salon,
the fault was not wholly our own, and indeed practically there was little profanity in such an attitude. One's attitude was insignificant, and the bright immensity of the place protected conversation and even gossip. It struck one not as a particular temple, but as formed by the very walls of the faith that has no small pruderies to enforce. One early autumn day, in especial, we crossed the Tiber and lifted the ponderous leather curtain of the door to get a general view of the return of our friends to Rome. Half an hour's wandering lighted up the question of who had arrived, as every one, in his degree, went there for a solution of it. At the end of ten minutes I came upon Henry Wilmerding; he was standing still, with his head thrown back and his eyes raised to the far-arching dome as if he had felt its spell for the first time. The body of the church was almost clear of people; the visitors were collected in the chapel where service was held and just outside of it; the splendid chant and the strange high voices of some of the choristers came to us from a great distance. Before Wilmerding saw me I had time to say to him: I thought you intended to remain at Frascati till the end of the week.
I did, but I changed my mind.
You came away suddenly, then?
 
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Yes, it was rather sudden.
Are you going back? I presently asked.
There's nothing particular to go back for.
I hesitated a moment. Was there anything particular to come away for?
My dear fellow, not that I know of, he replied, with a slight flush in his cheekan intimation (not that I needed it), that I had a little the air of challenging his right to go and come as he chose.
Not in relation to those ladies?
Those ladies?
Don't be so unnaturally blank. Your dearest friends.
Do you mean the Goldies?
Don't overdo it. Whom on earth should I mean?
It is difficult to explain, but there was something youthfully bland in poor Wilmerding which operated as a provocation: it made him seem imperturbable, which he really was not. My little discussion with Montaut about the success with which he might be made to take a joke seriously had not, till this moment, borne any fruit in my imagination, but the idea became prolific, or at least it became amusing, as I stood face to face with him on those solemn fields of marble. There was a temptation to see how much he would swallow. He
was
candid, and his candour was like a rather foolish blank page, the gaping, gilt-edged page of an album, presenting itself for the receipt of a quotation or a thought. Why shouldn't one write something on it, to see how it would look? In this case the inscription could only be a covert pleasantryan impromptu containing a surprise. If Wilmerding was innocent, that, no doubt, ought to have made one kind, and I had not the faintest intention of being cruel. His blandness might have operated to conciliate, and it was only the turn of a hair that it had the other effect. That hair, let me suppose, was simply the intrinsic brutalityor call it the high animal-spiritsof youth. If after the little experiment suggested by Montaut had fixed itself in my fancy I let him off, it would be because I pitied him. But it was absurd to pity Wilmerdingwe envied him, as I have hinted, too much. If he was the white album-page seductive to pointed doggerel he was unmistakably gilt-edged.
 
Page 678
Oh, the Goldies, he said in a momentI wouldn't have stayed any longer for
them.
I came back because I wanted toI don't see that it requires so much explanation.
No more do I! I laughed. Come and listen to the singing. I passed my hand into his arm and we strolled toward the choir and the concourse of people assembled before the high doorway. We lingered there a little: till this hour I never can recall without an ache for the old days the way the afternoon light, taking the heavenly music and diffusing it, slants through the golden recesses of the white windows, set obliquely in the walls. Presently we saw Guy de Montaut in the crowd, and he came toward us after having greeted us with a gesture. He looked hard at me, with a smile, as if the sight of us together reminded him of his wager and he wanted to know whether he had lost or won. I let him know with a glance that he was to be quiet or he would spoil everything, and he was as quiet as he knew how to be. This is not saying much, for he always had an itch to play with fire. It was really the desire to keep his hands off Wilmerding that led me to deal with our friend in my own manner. I remember that as we stood there together Montaut made several humorous attempts to treat him as a great conqueror, of which I think Wilmerding honestly failed to perceive the drift. It was Montaut's saying You ought to bring them backwe miss them too much, that made me prepare to draw our amiable victim away.
They're not my property, Wilmerding replied, accepting the allusion this time as to the four English ladies.
Ah,
all
of them,
mon cher
I never supposed! the Frenchman cried, with great merriment, as I broke up our colloquy. I laughed, toothe image he presented seemed comical thenand judged that we had better leave the church. I proposed we should take a turn on the Pincian, crossing the Tiber by the primitive ferry which in those days still plied at the marble steps of the Ripetta, just under the back-windows of the Borghese palace.
Montaut was talking nonsense just then, but
have
they refused you? I asked as we took our way long the rustic lane that used to wander behind the castle of St. Angelo, skirting the old grassy fortifications and coming down to the Tiber
 
Page 679
between market-gardens, vineyards and dusty little trellised suburban drinking-shops which had a withered bush over the gate.
Have
who
refused me?
Ah, you keep it up too long! I answered; and I was silent a little.
What's the matter with you this afternoon? he asked. Why can't you leave the poor Goldies alone?
Why can't
you,
my dear fellowthat seems to me the natural inquiry. Excuse my having caught Montaut's tone just now. I don't suppose you proposed for all of them.
Proposed?I've proposed for none of them!
Do you mean that Mrs. Goldie hasn't seemed to expect it?
I don't know what she has seemed to expect.
Can't you imagine what she would naturally look for? If you can't, it's only another proof of the different way you people see things. Of course you have a right to your own way.
I don't think I know what you are talking about, said poor Wilmerding.
My dear fellow, I don't want to be offensive, dotting my i's so. You can so easily tell me it's none of my business.
It isn't your being plain that would be offensiveit's your kicking up such a dust.
You're very right, I said; I've taken a liberty and I beg your pardon. We'll talk about something else.
We talked about nothing, however; we went our way in silence and reached the bank of the river. We waited for the ferryman without further speech, but I was conscious that a bewilderment was working in my companion. As I relate my behaviour to you it strikes me, at this distance of time, as that of a very demon. All I can say is that it seemed to me innocent then: youth and gaiety and reciprocity, and something in the sophisticating Roman air which converted all life into a pleasant comedy, apologised for me as I went. Besides, I had no vision of consequences: my part was to prove, as against the too mocking Montaut, that there would be no consequences at all. I remember the way Wilmerding, as we crossed, sat on the edge of the big flat boat, looking down at the yellow swirl

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