Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (117 page)

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Authors: Henry James

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Page 698
apartment in Via Babuino. It struck me as characteristic of the Honourable Blanche that
she
had remained on the spot, as if to keep hold of dear Henry.
These announcements gave me, of course, my opening. Can't you see he is only going through with it as a duty? Do you mean to say you were not very much surprised when he proposed? I fearlessly demanded.
I maintained that it was
not
a dutythat Wilmerding had a morbid sense of obligation and that at that rate any one of us might be hauled up for the simple sociability, the innocent conviviality of youth. I made a clean breast of it and tried to explain the little history of my unhappy friend's mistake. I am not very proud of any part of my connection with this episode; but though it was a delicate matter to tell a lady that it had been a blunder to offer marriage to her daughter, what I am on the whole least ashamed of is the manner in which I fronted the Honourable Blanche. I was supported by the sense that she was dishonest in pretending that she had not been surprisedthat she had regarded our young man as committed to such a step. This was rubbishher surprise had been at least equal to her satisfaction. I was irritated by her quick assumption, at first, that if I wanted the engagement broken it was because I myself was secretly enamoured of the girl.
Before I went away she put me to the real test, so that I was not able to say afterwards to Mrs. Rushbrook that the opportunity to be fully heroic had not been offered me. She gave me the queerest look I had ever seen a worldly old woman give, and proffered an observation of which the general copious sense was this:
Come, I do see what you mean, and though you have made a pretty mess with your French monkey-tricks, it may be that if dear Henry's heart isn't in it it simply isn't, and that my sweet, sensitive girl will in the long run have to pay too much for what looks now like a tolerably good match. It isn't so brilliant after all, for what do we really know about him or about his obscure relations in the impossible country to which he may wish to transplant my beloved? He has money, or rather expectations, but he has nothing else, and who knows about American fortunes? Nothing appears to be settled or
 
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entailed. Take her yourself and you may have herI'll engage to make it straight with Mr. Wilmerding. You're impecunious and you're disagreeable, but you're clever and well-connected; you'll rise in your professionyou'll become an ambassador.
All this (it was a good deal), Mrs. Goldie communicated to me in the strange, prolonged, confidential leer with which she suddenly honoured me. It was a good deal, but it was not all, for I understood her still to subjoin: That will show whether you are sincere or not in wishing to get your friend out of this scrape. It's the only condition on which you can do it. Accept this condition and I will kindly overlook the outrage of your present intrusion and your inexpressible affront to my child.
No, I couldn't tell Mrs. Rushbrook that I had not had my chance to do something fine, for I definitely apprehended this proposition, I looked it well in the face and I sadly shook my head. I wanted to get Wilmerding off, but I didn't want to get him off so much as that.
Pray, is he aware of your present extraordinary proceeding? Mrs. Goldie demanded, as she stood there to give me my
congé.
He hasn't the faintest suspicion of it.
And may I take the liberty of inquiring whether it is your design to acquaint him with the scandalous manner in which you have betrayed his confidence? She was wonderfully majestic and
digne.
How can I? I asked, piteously. How can I, without uttering words not respectful to the young lady he now stands pledged to marry? Don't you see how that has altered my position? I wailed.
Yes, it has given you a delicacy that is wondrous indeed! cried my hostess, with a laugh of derision which rang in my ears as I withdrewwhich rings in my ears at this hour.
I went to the Villa Mondragone, and there, at the end of a quarter of an hour's quest, I saw three personstwo ladies and a gentlemancoming toward me in the distance. I recognised them in a moment as Mrs. Rushbrook, Veronica Goldie, and Wilmerding. The combination amused and even gratified me, as it fell upon my sight, for it immediately suggested that, by the favour of accident, Mrs. Rushbrook would
 
Page 700
already have had the advantage of judging for herself how little one of her companions was pleased with his bargain, and be proportionately stimulated to come to his rescue. Wilmerding had turned out to spend a perfunctory hour with his betrothed; Mrs. Rushbrook, strolling there and waiting for me, had met them, and she had remained with them on perceiving how glad they were to be relieved of the grimness of their union. I pitied the mismated couple, pitied Veronica almost as much as my more particular victim, and reflected as they came up to me that unfortunately our charming friend would not always be there to render them this delicate service. She seemed pleased, however, with the good turn she had already done them and even disposed to continue the benevolent work. I looked at her hard, with a perceptible headshake, trying to communicate in this way the fact that nothing had come of my attack on Mrs. Goldie; and she smiled back as if to say: Oh, no matter; I daresay I shall think of something now.
Wilmerding struck me as rather less miserable than I had expected; though of course I knew that he was the man to make an heroic effort not to appear miserable. He immediately proposed that we should all go home with him to luncheon; upon which Veronica said, hesitating with responsibility: Do you suppose, for me, mamma will mind? Her intended made no reply to this; his silence was almost a suggestion that if she were in doubt she had perhaps better go home. But Mrs. Rushbrook settled the question by declaring that it was, on the contrary, exactly what mamma would like. Besides, was not she, Mrs. Rushbrook, the most satisfactory of duennas? We walked slowly together to Wilmerding's villa, and I was not surprised at his allowing me complete possession of Veronica. He fell behind us with Mrs. Rushbrook and succeeded, at any rate, in shaking off his gloom sufficiently to manifest the proper elation at her having consented to partake of his hospitality. As I moved beside Veronica I wondered whether she had an incipient sense that it was to me she owed her sudden prospect of a husband. I think she must have wondered to what she owed it. I said nothing to awaken that conjecture: I didn't even allude to her engagementmuch less did I utter hollow words of congratulation. She had a
 
Page 701
right to expect something of that sort, and my silence disconcerted her and made her stiff. She felt important now, and she was the kind of girl who likes to show the importance that she feels. I was sorry for herit was not
her
fault, poor childbut I couldn't flatly lie to her, couldn't tell her I was delighted. I was conscious that she was waiting for me to speak, and I was even afraid that she would end by asking me if I didn't know what had happened to her. Her pride, however, kept her from this, and I continued to be dumb and to pity herto pity her the more as I was sure her mystification would not be cleared up by any revelation in regard to my visit to her mother. Mrs. Goldie would never tell her of that.
Our extemporised repast at Wilmerding's was almost merry; our sociability healed my soreness and I forgot for the moment that I had grounds of discomposure. Wilmerding had always the prettiest courtesy in his own house, with pressing, preoccupied, literal ways of playing the master, and Mrs. Rushbrook enjoyed anything that was unexpected and casual. Our carriage was in waiting, to convey us back to Albano, and we offered our companions a lift, as it was time for Wilmerding to take Veronica home. We put them down at the gate of Mrs. Goldie's villa, after I had noticed the double-dyed sweetness with which Mrs. Rushbrook said to Veronica, as the carriage stopped: You must bring him over to Albano to return my visit. This was spoken in my interest, but even then the finished feminine hypocrisy of it made me wince a little. I should have winced still more had I foreseen what was to follow.
Mrs. Rushbrook was silent during much of the rest of our drive. She had begun by saying: Now that I see them together I understand what you mean; and she had also requested me to tell her all I could about poor Wilmerdinghis situation in life, his character, his family, his history, his prospectssince, if she were really to go into the matter, she must have the facts in her hand. When I had told her everything I knew, she sat turning my instructions over in her mind, as she looked vaguely at the purple Campagna: she was lovely with that expression. I intimated to her that there was very little time to lose: every day that we left him in his predicament he would sink deeper and be more difficult to extricate.
 
Page 702
Don't you like himdon't you think he's worthy to marry some woman he's really fond of? I remember asking.
Her answer was rather short: Oh yes, he's a good creature. But before we reached Albano she said to me: And is he really rich?
I don't know what you call reallyI only wish I had his pocket-money.
And is he generousfree-handed?
Try him and you'll see.
How can I try him?
Well then, ask Mrs. Goldie.
Perhaps he'd pay to get off, mused Mrs. Rushbrook.
Oh, they'd ask a fortune!
Well, he's perfect to her. And Mrs. Rushbrook repeated that he was a good creature.
That afternoon I rode back to Rome, having reminded my friend at Albano that I gave her
carte-blanche
and that delay would not improve matters. We had a little discussion about this, she maintaining, as a possible view, that if one left the affair alone a rupture would come of itself.
Why should it come when, as you say, he's perfect?
Yes, he's very provoking, said Mrs. Rushbrook: which made me laugh as I got into the saddle.
IV.
In Rome I kept quiet three or four days, hoping to hear from Mrs. Rushbrook; I even removed myself as much as possible from the path of Guy de Montaut. I observed preparations going forward in the house occupied during the winter by Mrs. Goldie, and, in passing, I went so far as to question a servant who was tinkering a flower-stand in the doorway and from whom I learned that the
padrona
was expected at any hour. Wilmerding, however, returned to Rome without her; I perceived it from meeting him in the Corsohe didn't come to see me. This might have been accidental, but I was willing to consider that he avoided me, for it saved me the trouble of avoiding him. I couldn't bear to see himit made me too uncomfortable; I was always thinking that I ought to say something to him that I couldn't say, or that he would say
 
Page 703
something to me that he didn't. As I had remarked to Mrs. Goldie, it was impossible for me now to allude in invidious terms to Veronica, and the same license on his side would have been still less becoming. And yet it hardly seemed as if we could go on like that. He couldn't quarrel with me avowedly about his prospective wife, but he might have quarrelled with me ostensibly about something else. Such subtleties however (I began to divine), had no place in his mind, which was presumably occupied with the conscientious effort to like Veronicaas a matter of dutysince he was doomed to spend his life with her. Wilmerding was capable, for a time, of giving himself up to this effort: I don't know how long it would have lasted. Our relations were sensibly changed, inasmuch as after my singular interview with Mrs. Goldie, the day following her daughter's betrothal, I had scruples about presenting myself at her house as if on the old footing.
She came back to town with the girls, immediately showing herself in her old cardinalesque chariot of the former winters, which was now standing half the time before the smart shops in the Corso and Via Condotti. Wilmerding perceived of course that I had suddenly begun to stay away from his future mother-in-law's; but he made no observation about ita reserve of which I afterwards understood the reason. This was not, I may say at once, any revelation from Mrs. Goldie of my unmannerly appeal to her. Montaut amused himself with again taking up his habits under her roof; the entertainment might surely have seemed mild to a man of his temper, but he let me know that it was richer than it had ever been beforepoor Wilmerding showed such a face there. When I answered that it was just his face that I didn't want to see, he declared that I was the best sport of all, with my tergiversations and superstitions. He pronounced Veronica
très-embellie
and said that he was only waiting for her to be married to make love to her himself. I wrote to Mrs. Rushbrook that I couldn't say she had served me very well, and that now the Goldies had quitted her neighbourhood I was in despair of her doing anything. She took no notice of my letter, and I availed myself of the very first Sunday to drive out to Albano and breakfast with her. Riding across the Campagna now suddenly appeared to me too hot and too vain.

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