Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (38 page)

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Authors: Henry James

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not numerous enough (numerous as they were) to make up for his want of high relationships, and had she brought forth these cruel imputations to help her to her end? If she was prepared really to denounce the girl to Archie she would have to go very far to overcome the suspicion he would be sure to feel at so unnatural a proceeding. Was she prepared to go far enough? The answer to these doubts was simply the way I had been touchedit came back to me the next momentwhen she used the words, people like us. The effect of them was poignant. She made herself humble indeed and I felt in a manner ashamed, on my own side, that I saw her in the dust. She said to me at last that I must wait no longer; I must go away before the young people came back. They were staying very long, too long; all the more reason that she should deal with Archie that evening. I must drive back to Stresa or, if I liked, I could go on foot: it was not farfor a man. She disposed of me freely, she was so full of her purpose; and after we had quitted the garden and returned to the terrace of the hotel she seemed almost to push me to leave herI felt her fine hands, quivering a little, on my shoulders. I was ready to do what she liked: she affected me painfully and I wanted to get away from her. Before I went I asked her why Linda should regard my young man as such a
parti;
it did not square after all with her account of the girl's fierce ambitions. By that picture it would seem that a reigning prince was the least she would look at.
Oh, she has reflected well; she has regarded the question in every light, said Mrs. Pallant. If she has made up her mind it is because she sees what she can do.
Do you mean that she has talked it over with you?
Lord! for what do you take us? We don't talk over things to-day. We know each other's point of view and we only have to act. We can take reasons, which are awkward things, for granted.
But in this case she certainly doesn't know your point of view, poor thing.
Nothat's because I haven't played fair. Of course she couldn't expect I would cheat. There ought to be honour among thieves. But it was open to her to do the same.
How do you mean, to do the same?
 
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She might have fallen in love with a poor man; then I should have been done.
A rich one is better; he can do more, I replied, with conviction.
So you would have reason to know if you had led the life that we have! Never to have had really enoughI mean to do just the few simple things we have wanted; never to have had the sinews of war, I suppose you would call themthe funds for a campaign; to have felt every day and every hour the hard, monotonous pinch and found the question of dollars and cents (and so horridly few of them) mixed up with every experience, with every impulsethat
does
make one mercenary, it does make money seem a good beyond all others, and it's quite natural it should. That is why Linda is of the opinion that a fortune is always a fortune. She knows all about that of your nephew, how it's invested, how it may be expected to increase, exactly on what sort of footing it would enable her to live. She has decided that it's enough, and enough is as good as a feast. She thinks she could lead him by the nose, and I daresay she could. She will make him live here: she has not the least intention of settling in America. I think she has views upon London, because in England he can hunt and shoot, and that will make him let her alone.
It strikes me that he would like that very much, I interposed; that's not at all a bad programme, even from Archie's point of view.
It's no use of talking about princes, Mrs. Pallant pursued, as if she had not heard me. Yes, they are most of them more in want of money even than we are. Therefore a title is out of the question, and we recognised that at an early stage. Your nephew is exactly the sort of young man we had constructed in advancehe was made on purpose. Dear Linda was her mother's own daughter when she recognised him on the spot! It's enough of a title to-day to be an Americanwith the way they have come up. It does as well as anything and it's a great simplification. If you don't believe me go to London and see.
She had come with me out to the road. I had said I would walk back to Stresa and we stood there in the complete evening. As I took her hand, bidding her good-night, I exclaimed, Poor Lindapoor Linda!
 
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Oh, she'll live to do better, said Mrs. Pallant.
How can she do better, since you have described this as perfection?
She hesitated a moment. I mean better for Mr. Pringle.
I still had her handI remained looking at her. How came it that you could throw me oversuch a woman as you?
Ah, my friend, if I hadn't thrown you over I couldn't do this for you! And disengaging herself she turned away quickly and went back to the hotel.
VI
I don't know whether she blushed as she made this avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial and the real truth, as I permitted myself to believe; but I did, while I took my way to Stresait is a walk of half an hourin the darkness. The new and singular character in which she had appeared to me produced an effect of excitement which would have made it impossible for me to sit still in a carriage. This same agitation kept me up late after I had reached my hotel; as I knew that I should not sleep it was useless to go to bed. Long, however, as I deferred this ceremony Archie had not turned up when the lights in the hotel began to be put out. I felt even slightly nervous about him and wondered whether he had had an accident on the lake. I reflected that in this caseif he had not brought his companion back to BavenoMrs. Pallant would already have sent after me. It was foolish moreover to suppose that anything could have happened to him after putting off from Baveno by water to rejoin me, for the evening was absolutely windless and more than sufficiently clear and the lake as calm as glass. Besides I had unlimited confidence in his power to take care of himself in circumstances much more difficult. I went to my room at last; his own was at some distance, the people of the hotel not having been ableit was the height of the autumn seasonto place us together. Before I went to bed I had occasion to ring for a servant, and then I learned by a chance inquiry that my nephew had returned an hour before and had gone straight to his own apartment. I had not supposed he could come in without my seeing himI was wandering about the saloons
 
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and terracesand it had not occurred to me to knock at his door. I had half a mind to do so thenI had such a curiosity as to how I should find him; but I checked myself, for evidently he had not wished to see me. This did not diminish my curiosity, and I slept even less than I had expected. His dodging me that way (for if he had not perceived me downstairs he might have looked for me in my room) was a sign that Mrs. Pallant's interview with him had really come off. What had she said to him? What strong measures had she taken? The impression of almost morbid eagerness of purpose that she had given me suggested possibilities that I was afraid to think of. She had spoken of these things as we parted there as something she would do for me; but I had made the mental comment, as I walked away from her, that she had not done it yet. It would not really be done till Archie had backed out. Perhaps it was done by this time; his avoiding me seemed almost a proof. That was what I thought of most of the night. I spent a considerable part of it at my window, looking out at the sleeping mountains.
Had
he backed out?was he making up his mind to back out? There was a strange contradiction in it; there were in fact more contradictions than ever. I believed what Mrs. Pallant had told me about Linda, and yet that other idea made me ashamed of my nephew. I was sorry for the girl; I regretted her loss of a great chance, if loss it was to be; and yet I hoped that the manner in which her mother had betrayed her (there was no other word) to her lover had been thoroughgoing. It would need very radical measures on Mrs. Pallant's part to excuse Archie. For him too I was sorry, if she had made an impression on himthe impression she desired. Once or twice I was on the point of going in to condole with him, in my dressing-gown; I was sure he too had jumped up from his bed and was looking out of his window at the everlasting hills.
I am bound to say that he showed few symptoms when we met in the morning and breakfasted together. Youth is strange; it has resources that experience seems only to take away from us. One of these is simply (in the given case) to do nothingto say nothing. As we grow older and cleverer we think that is too simple, too crude; we dissimulate more elaborately, but with an effect much less baffling. My young
 
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man looked not in the least as if he had lain awake or had something on his mind; and when I asked him what he had done after my premature departure (I explained this by saying I had been tired of waiting for himI was weary with my journey and wanted to go to bed), he replied: Oh, nothing in particular. I hung about the place; I like it better than this. We had an awfully jolly time on the water.
I
wasn't in the least tired. I did not worry him with questions; it seemed to me indelicate to try to probe his secret. The only indication he gave was on my saying after breakfast that I should go over again to see our friends and my appearing to take for granted that he would be glad to accompany me. Then he remarked that he would stop at Stresahe had paid them such a tremendous visit; also he had some letters to write. There was a freshness in his scruples about the length of his visits, and I knew something about his correspondence, which consisted entirely of twenty pages every week from his mother. But he satisfied my curiosity so little that it was really this sentiment that carried me back to Baveno. This time I ordered a conveyance, and as I got into it he stood watching me in the porch of the hotel with his hands in his pockets. Then it was for the first time that I saw in this young man's face the expression of a person slightly dazed, slightly foolish even, to whom something disagreeable has happened. Our eyes met as I observed him, and I was on the point of saying, You had really better come with me, when he turned away. He went into the house as if he wished to escape from my call. I said to myself that Mrs. Pallant had warned him off but that it would not take much to bring him back.
The servant to whom I spoke at Baveno told me that my friends were in a certain summer-house in the garden, to which he led the way. The place had an empty air; most of the inmates of the hotel were dispersed on the lake, on the hills, in picnics, excursions, visits to the Borromean Islands. My guide was so far right as that Linda was in the summerhouse, but she was there alone. On finding this to be the case I stopped short, rather awkwardly, for I had a sudden sense of being an unmasked hypocritea conspirator against her security and honour. But there was no awkwardness about Linda Pallant; she looked up with a little cry of pleasure from
 
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the book she was reading and held out her hand with the most engaging frankness. I felt as if I had no right to touch her hand and I pretended not to see it. But this gave no chill to her pretty manner; she moved a roll of tapestry off the bench, so that I might sit down, and praised the place as a delightful shady corner. She had never been fresher, fairer, kinder; she made her mother's damning talk about her seem a hideous dream. She told me Mrs. Pallant was coming to join her; she had remained indoors to write a letter. One could not write out there, though it was so nice in other respects: the table was too rickety. They too then had pretexts between them in the way of letters: I judged this to be a token that the situation was tense. It was the only one however that Linda gave: like Archie she was young enough to carry it off. She had been used to seeing us always together and she made no comment on my having come over without him. I waited in vain for her to say something about it; this would only be naturalit was almost unfriendly to omit it. At last I observed that my nephew was very unsociable that morning; I had expected him to join me but he had left me to come alone.
I am very glad, she answered. You can tell him that if you like.
If I tell him that he will come immediately.
Then don't tell him; I don't want him to come. He stayed too long last night, Linda went on, and kept me out on the water till the most dreadful hours. That isn't done here, you know, and every one was shocked when we came backor rather when we didn't come back. I begged him to bring me in, but he wouldn't. When we did returnI almost had to take the oars myselfI felt as if every one had been sitting up to time us, to stare at us. It was very embarrassing.
These words made an impression upon me; and as I have treated the reader to most of the reflectionssome of them perhaps rather morbidin which I indulged on the subject of this young lady and her mother I may as well complete the record and let him know that I now wondered whether Lindacandid and accomplished maidenhad conceived the fine idea of strengthening her hold of Archie by attempting to prove that he had compromised her. Ah, no doubt that was the reason he had a bad conscience last evening! I ex-

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