Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (57 page)

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Authors: Henry James

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of the operative blind. Her noble pagan head gave her privileges that she neglected, and when people were admiring her brow she was wondering whether there were a good fire in her bedroom. She was simple, kind and good; inexpressive but not inhuman or stupid. Now and again she dropped something that had a sifted, selected airthe sound of an impression at first hand. She had no imagination, but she had added up her feelings, some of her reflections, about life. Lyon talked of the old days in Munich, reminded her of incidents, pleasures and pains, asked her about her father and the others; and she told him in return that she was so impressed with his own fame, his brilliant position in the world, that she had not felt very sure he would speak to her or that his little sign at table was meant for her. This was plainly a perfectly truthful speechshe was incapable of any otherand he was affected by such humility on the part of a woman whose grand line was unique. Her father was dead; one of her brothers was in the navy and the other on a ranch in America; two of her sisters were married and the youngest was just coming out and very pretty. she didn't mention her stepmother. She asked him about his own personal history and he said that the principal thing that had happened to him was that he had never married.
Oh, you ought to, she answered. It's the best thing.
I like thatfrom you! he returned.
Why not from me? I am very happy.
That's just why I can't be. It's cruel of you to praise your state. But I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of your husband. We had a good bit of talk in the other room.
You must know him betteryou must know him really well, said Mrs. Capadose.
I am sure that the further you go the more you find. But he makes a fine show, too.
She rested her good gray eyes on Lyon. Don't you think he's handsome?
Handsome and clever and entertaining. You see I'm generous.
Yes; you must know him well, Mrs. Capadose repeated.
He has seen a great deal of life, said her companion.
 
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Yes, we have been in so many places. You must see my little girl. She is nine years oldshe's too beautiful.
You must bring her to my studio some dayI should like to paint her.
Ah, don't speak of that, said Mrs. Capadose. It reminds me of something so distressing.
I hope you don't mean when
you
used to sit to methough that may well have bored you.
It's not what you didit's what we have done. It's a confession I must makeit's a weight on my mind! I mean about that beautiful picture you gave meit used to be so much admired. When you come to see me in London (I count on your doing that very soon) I shall see you looking all round. I can't tell you I keep it in my own room because I love it so, for the simple reason And she paused a moment.
Because you can't tell wicked lies, said Lyon.
No, I can't. So before you ask for it
Oh, I know you parted with itthe blow has already fallen, Lyon interrupted.
Ah then, you have heard? I was sure you would! But do you know what we got for it? Two hundred pounds.
You might have got much more, said Lyon, smiling.
That seemed a great deal at the time. We were in want of the moneyit was a good while ago, when we first married. Our means were very small then, but fortunately that has changed rather for the better. We had the chance; it really seemed a big sum, and I am afraid we jumped at it. My husband had expectations which have partly come into effect, so that now we do well enough. But meanwhile the picture went.
Fortunately the original remained. But do you mean that two hundred was the value of the vase? Lyon asked.
Of the vase?
The beautiful old Indian vasethe Grand Duke's offering.
The Grand Duke?
What's his name?Silberstadt-Schreckenstein. Your husband mentioned the transaction.
Oh, my husband, said Mrs. Capadose; and Lyon saw that she coloured a little.
Not to add to her embarrassment, but to clear up the am-
 
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biguity, which he perceived the next moment he had better have left alone, he went on: He tells me it's now in his collection.
In the Grand Duke's? Ah, you know its reputation? I believe it contains treasures. She was bewildered, but she recovered herself, and Lyon made the mental reflection that for some reason which would seem good when he knew it the husband and the wife had prepared different versions of the same incident. It was true that he did not exactly see Everina Brant preparing a version; that was not her line of old, and indeed it was not in her eyes to-day. At any rate they both had the matter too much on their conscience. He changed the subject, said Mrs. Capadose must really bring the little girl. He sat with her some time longer and thoughtperhaps it was only a fancythat she was rather absent, as if she were annoyed at their having been even for a moment at cross-purposes. This did not prevent him from saying to her at the last, just as the ladies began to gather themselves together to go to bed: You seem much impressed, from what you say, with my renown and my prosperity, and you are so good as greatly to exaggerate them. Would you have married me if you had known that I was destined to success?
I did know it.
Well, I didn't.
You were too modest.
You didn't think so when I proposed to you.
Well, if I had married you I couldn't have married
him
and he's so nice, Mrs. Capadose said. Lyon knew she thought ithe had learned that at dinnerbut it vexed him a little to hear her say it. The gentleman designated by the pronoun came up, amid the prolonged handshaking for good-night, and Mrs. Capadose remarked to her husband as she turned away, He wants to paint Amy.
Ah, she's a charming child, a most interesting little creature, the Colonel said to Lyon. She does the most remarkable things.
Mrs. Capadose stopped, in the rustling procession that followed the hostess out of the room. Don't tell him, please don't, she said.
Don't tell him what?
 
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Why, what she does. Let him find out for himself. And she passed on.
She thinks I swagger about the childthat I bore people, said the Colonel. I hope you smoke. He appeared ten minutes later in the smoking-room, in a brilliant equipment, a suit of crimson foulard covered with little white spots. He gratified Lyon's eye, made him feel that the modern age has its splendour too and its opportunities for costume. If his wife was an antique he was a fine specimen of the period of colour: he might have passed for a Venetian of the sixteenth century. They were a remarkable couple, Lyon thought, and as he looked at the Colonel standing in bright erectness before the chimney-piece while he emitted great smoke-puffs he did not wonder that Everina could not regret she had not married
him.
All the gentlemen collected at Stayes were not smokers and some of them had gone to bed. Colonel Capadose remarked that there probably would be a smallish muster, they had had such a hard day's work. That was the worst of a hunting-housethe men were so sleepy after dinner; it was devilish stupid for the ladies, even for those who hunted themselvesfor women were so extraordinary, they never showed it. But most fellows revived under the stimulating influences of the smoking-room, and some of them, in this confidence, would turn up yet. Some of the grounds of their confidencenot all of themmight have been seen in a cluster of glasses and bottles on a table near the fire, which made the great salver and its contents twinkle sociably. The others lurked as yet in various improper corners of the minds of the most loquacious. Lyon was alone with Colonel Capadose for some moments before their companions, in varied eccentricities of uniform, straggled in, and he perceived that this wonderful man had but little loss of vital tissue to repair.
They talked about the house, Lyon having noticed an oddity of construction in the smoking-room; and the Colonel explained that it consisted of two distinct parts, one of which was of very great antiquity. They were two complete houses in short, the old one and the new, each of great extent and each very fine in its way. The two formed together an enormous structureLyon must make a point of going all over it. The modern portion had been erected by the old man when
 
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he bought the property; oh yes, he had bought it, forty years beforeit hadn't been in the family: there hadn't been any particular family for it to be in. He had had the good taste not to spoil the original househe had not touched it beyond what was just necessary for joining it on. It was very curious indeeda most irregular, rambling, mysterious pile, where they every now and then discovered a walled-up room or a secret staircase. To his mind it was essentially gloomy, however; even the modern additions, splendid as they were, failed to make it cheerful. There was some story about a skeleton having been found years before, during some repairs, under a stone slab of the floor of one of the passages; but the family were rather shy of its being talked about. The place they were in was of course in the old part, which contained after all some of the best rooms: he had an idea it had been the primitive kitchen, half modernised at some intermediate period.
My room is in the old part too thenI'm very glad, Lyon said. It's very comfortable and contains all the latest conveniences, but I observed the depth of the recess of the door and the evident antiquity of the corridor and staircasethe first short oneafter I came out. That panelled corridor is admirable; it looks as if it stretched away, in its brown dimness (the lamps didn't seem to me to make much impression on it), for half a mile.
Oh, don't go to the end of it! exclaimed the Colonel, smiling.
Does it lead to the haunted room? Lyon asked.
His companion looked at him a moment. Ah, you know about that?
No, I don't speak from knowledge, only from hope. I have never had any luckI have never stayed in a dangerous house. The places I go to are always as safe as Charing Cross. I want to seewhatever there is, the regular thing.
Is
there a ghost here?
Of course there isa rattling good one.
And have you seen him?
Oh, don't ask me what
I've
seenI should tax your credulity. I don't like to talk of these things. But there are two or three as badthat is, as good!rooms as you'll find anywhere.
 
Page 338
Do you mean in my corridor? Lyon asked.
I believe the worst is at the far end. But you would be ill-advised to sleep there.
Ill-advised?
Until you've finished your job. You'll get letters of importance the next morning, and you'll take the 10.20.
Do you mean I will invent a pretext for running away?
Unless you are braver than almost any one has ever been. They don't often put people to sleep there, but sometimes the house is so crowded that they have to. The same thing always happensill-concealed agitation at the breakfast-table and letters of the greatest importance. Of course it's a bachelor's room, and my wife and I are at the other end of the house. But we saw the comedy three days agothe day after we got here. A young fellow had been put thereI forget his namethe house was so full; and the usual consequence followed. Letters at breakfastan awfully queer facean urgent call to townso very sorry his visit was cut short. Ashmore and his wife looked at each other, and off the poor devil went.
Ah, that wouldn't suit me; I must paint my picture, said Lyon. But do they mind your speaking of it? Some people who have a good ghost are very proud of it, you know.
What answer Colonel Capadose was on the point of making to this inquiry our hero was not to learn, for at that moment their host had walked into the room accompanied by three or four gentlemen. Lyon was conscious that he was partly answered by the Colonel's not going on with the subject. This however on the other hand was rendered natural by the fact that one of the gentlemen appealed to him for an opinion on a point under discussion, something to do with the everlasting history of the day's run. To Lyon himself Mr. Ashmore began to talk, expressing his regret at having had so little direct conversation with him as yet. The topic that suggested itself was naturally that most closely connected with the motive of the artist's visit. Lyon remarked that it was a great disadvantage to him not to have had some preliminary acquaintance with Sir Davidin most cases he found that so important. But the present sitter was so far advanced in life that there was doubtless no time to lose. Oh, I can tell you all about him, said Mr. Ashmore; and for half an hour he told him a good deal.

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