by Henry James
“And what else is she worth?” Mr. Probert asked, after a momentary hesitation.
“How do you mean, what else?”
“Her immense prospects, that’s what Susan has been putting forward. Susan’s insistence on them was mainly what brought over Jane. Do you mind my speaking of them?”
Gaston was obliged to recognise, privately, the importance of Jane’s having been brought over, but he hated to hear it spoken of as if he were under an obligation to it. “To whom, sir?” he asked.
“Oh, only to you.”
“You can’t do less than Mr. Dosson. As I told you, he waived the question of money and he was superb. We can’t be more mercenary than he.”
“He waived the question of his own, you mean?” said Mr. Probert.
“Yes, and of yours. But it will be all right.” The young man flattered himself that that was as far as he was willing to go, in the way of bribery.
“Well, it’s your affair—or your sisters’,” his father returned. “It’s their idea that it will be all right.”
“I should think they would be weary of chattering!” Gaston exclaimed, impatiently.
Mr. Probert looked at him a moment with a vague surprise, but he only said, “I think they are. But the period of discussion is over. We have taken the jump.” He added, in a moment, as if from the desire to say something more conciliatory: “Alphonse and Maxime are quite of your opinion.”
“Of my opinion?”
“That she is charming.”
“Confound them, then, I’m not of theirs!” The form of this rejoinder was childishly perverse, and it made Mr. Probert stare again; but it belonged to one of the reasons for which his children regarded him as an old darling that Gaston could feel after an instant that he comprehended it. The old man said nothing, but took up his book, and his son, who had been standing before the fire, went out of the room. His abstention from protest at Gaston’s petulance was the more commendable as he was capable, for his part, of thinking it important that ces messieurs should like the little girl at the hotel. Gaston was not, and it would have seemed to him a proof that he was in servitude indeed if he had accepted such an assurance as that as if it mattered. This was especially the case as his father’s mention of the approval of two of his brothers-in-law appeared to point to a possible disapproval on the part of the third. Francie’s lover cared as little whether she displeased M. de Brécourt as he cared whether she displeased Maxime and Raoul. The old gentleman continued to read, and in a few moments Gaston came back. He had expressed surprise, just before, that his sisters should have found so much to discuss in the idea of his marriage, but he looked at his father now with an air of having more to say—an intimation that the subject must not be considered as exhausted. “It seems rather odd to me that you should all appear to accept the step I am about to take as a sort of disagreeable necessity, when I myself hold that I have been so exceedingly fortunate.”
Mr. Probert lowered his book accommodatingly and rested his eyes upon the fire. “You won’t be content till we are enthusiastic. She seems a good girl certainly, and in that you are fortunate.”
“I don’t think you can tell me what would be better—what you would have preferred,” said the young man.
“What I would have preferred? In the first place you must remember that I was not madly impatient to see you married.”
“I can imagine that, and yet I can’t imagine that, as things have turned out, you shouldn’t be struck with the felicity. To get something so charming, and to get it of our own species.”
“Of our own species? Tudieu!” said Mr. Probert looking up.
“Surely it is infinitely fresher and more amusing for me to marry an American. There’s a dreariness in the way we have Gallicised.”
“Against Americans I have nothing to say; some of them are the best thing the world contains. That’s precisely why one can choose. They are far from being all like that.”
“Like what, dear father?”
“Comme ces gens-là. You know that if they were French, being otherwise what they are, one wouldn’t look at them.”
“Indeed one would; they would be such curiosities.”
“Well, perhaps they are sufficiently so as it is,” said Mr. Probert, with a little conclusive sigh. “Yes, let them pass for that. They will surprise you.”
“Not too much, I hope!” cried the old man, opening his volume again.
It will doubtless not startle the reader to learn that the complexity of things among the Proberts was such as to make it impossible for Gaston to proceed to the celebration of his nuptials, with all the needful circumstances of material preparation and social support, before some three months should have expired. He chafed however but moderately at the delay, for he reflected that it would give Francie time to endear herself to his whole circle. It would also have advantages for the Dossons; it would enable them to establish by simple but effective arts the modus vivendi with that rigid body. It would in short help every one to get used to everything. Mr. Dosson’s designs and Delia’s took no articulate form; what was mainly clear to Gaston was that his future wife’s relatives had as yet no sense of disconnection. He knew that Mr. Dosson would do whatever Delia liked and that Delia would like to “start” her sister. Whether or no she expected to be present at the finish, she had a definite purpose of seeing the beginning of the race. Mr. Probert notified Mr. Dosson of what he proposed to “do” for his son, and Mr. Dosson appeared more amused than anything else at the news. He announced, in return, no intentions in regard to Francie, and his queer silence was the cause of another convocation of the house of Probert. Here Mme. de Brécourt’s valorous spirit won another victory; she maintained, as she informed her brother, that there was no possible policy but a policy of confidence. “Lord help us, is that what they call confidence?” the young man exclaimed, guessing the way they all looked at each other; and he wondered how they would look next at poor Mr. Dosson. Fortunately he could always fall back, for reassurance, upon that revelation of their perfect manners; though indeed he thoroughly knew that on the day they should really attempt interference—make a row which might render him helpless and culminate in a rupture—their courtesy would show its finest flower.
Mr. Probert’s property was altogether in the United States: he resembled various other persons to whom American impressions are mainly acceptable in the form of dividends. The manner in which he desired to benefit his son on the occasion of the latter’s marriage rendered certain visitations and reinvestments necessary in that country. It had long been his conviction that his affairs needed looking into; they had gone on for years and years without an overhauling. He had thought of going back to see, but now he was too old and too tired and the effort was impossible. There was nothing for it but for Gaston to go, and go quickly, though the moment was rather awkward. The idea was communicated to him and the necessity accepted; then the plan was relinquished: it seemed such a pity he should not wait till after his marriage, when he would be able to take Francie with him. Francie would be such an introducer. This postponement would have taken effect had it not suddenly come out that Mr. Dosson himself wanted to go for a few weeks, in consequence of some news (it was a matter of business), that he had unexpectedly received. It was further revealed that that course presented difficulties, for he could not leave his daughters alone, especially in such a situation. Not only would such a proceeding have given scandal to the Proberts, but Gaston learned, with a good deal of surprise and not a little amusement, that Delia, in consequence of peculiar changes now wrought in her view of things, would have felt herself obliged to protest on the score of propriety. He called her attention to the fact that nothing would be more simple than, in the interval, for Francie to go and stay with Susan or Margaret; Delia herself in that case would be free to accompany her father. But this young lady declared that nothing would induce her to quit the European continent until she had seen her sister through, and Gaston shrank from proposing that she too sh
ould spend five weeks in the Place Beauvau or the Rue de Lille. Moreover he was startled, he was a good deal mystified, by the perverse, unsociable way in which Francie asserted that, as yet, she would not lend herself to any staying. After, if he liked, but not till then. And she would not at the moment give the reasons of her refusal; it was only very positive and even quite passionate.
All this left her intended no alternative but to say to Mr. Dosson, “I am not such a fool as I look. If you will coach me properly, and trust me, I will rush across and transact your business as well as my father’s.” Strange as it appeared, Francie could resign herself to this separation from her lover—it would last six or seven weeks—rather than accept the hospitality of his sisters. Mr. Dosson trusted him; he said to him, “Well, sir, you’ve got a big brain,” at the end of a morning they spent with papers and pencils; upon which Gaston made his preparations to sail. Before he left Paris Francie, to do her justice, confided to him that her objection to going in such an intimate way even to Mme. de Brécourt’s had been founded on a fear that in close quarters she would do something that would make them all despise her. Gaston replied, in the first place, that this was gammon and in the second he wanted to know if she expected never to be in close quarters with her new kinsfolk. “Ah, yes, but then it will be safer—we shall be married!” she returned. This little incident occurred three days before the young man started; but what happened just the evening previous was that, stopping for a last word at the Hôtel de l’Univers et de Cheltenham on his way to take the night express to London (he was to sail from Liverpool), he found Mr. George Flack sitting in the red satin saloon. The correspondent of the Reverberator had come back.
IX
MR. FLACK’S RELATIONS WITH HIS OLD FRIENDS did not, after his appearance in Paris, take on that familiarity and frequency which had marked their intercourse a year before: he let them know frankly that he could easily see the situation was quite different. They had got into the high set and they didn’t care about the past: he alluded to the past as if it had been rich in mutual vows, in pledges now repudiated. “What’s the matter? Won’t you come round there with us some day?” Mr. Dosson asked; not having perceived for himself any reason why the young journalist should not be a welcome and congruous figure in the Cours la Reine.
Delia wanted to know what Mr. Flack was talking about: didn’t he know a lot of people that they didn’t know and wasn’t it natural they should have their own society? The young man’s treatment of the question was humorous, and it was with Delia that the discussion mainly went forward. When he maintained that the Dossons had “shed” him, Mr. Dosson exclaimed, “Well, I guess you’ll grow again!” And Francie observed that it was no use for him to pose as a martyr, inasmuch as he knew perfectly well that with all the celebrated people he saw and the way he flew round he had the most enchanting time. She was aware she was a good deal less accessible than she had been the previous spring, for Mesdames de Brécourt and de Cliché (the former much more than the latter) took a considerable number of her hours. In spite of her protest to Gaston against a premature intimacy with his sisters, she spent whole days in their company (they had so much to tell her about what her new life would be, and it was generally very pleasant), and she thought it would be nice if in these intervals he should give himself to her father and even to Delia as he used to do.
But the flaw of a certain insincerity in Mr. Flack’s nature seemed to be established by his present tendency to rare visits. He evidently did not care for her father for himself, and though Mr. Dosson was the least querulous of men she divined that he suspected their old companion had fallen away. There were no more wanderings in public places, no more tryings of new cafés. Mr. Dosson used to look sometimes as he had looked of old when George Flack “located” them somewhere; as if he expected to see their sharp cicerone rushing back to them, with his drab overcoat flying in the wind; but this expectation usually died away. He missed Gaston because Gaston this winter had so often ordered his dinner for him, and his society was not sought by the count and the marquis, whose mastery of English was small and their other distractions great. Mr. Probert, it was true, had shown something of a fraternising spirit; he had come twice to the hotel, since his son’s departure, and he had said, smiling and reproachful, “You neglect us, you neglect us!” Mr. Dosson had not understood what he meant by this till Delia explained after the visitor withdrew, and even then the remedy for the neglect, administered two or three days later, had not borne any particular fruit. Mr. Dosson called alone, instructed by his daughter, in the Cours la Heine, but Mr. Probert was not at home. He only left a card, on which Delia had superscribed in advance the words “So sorry!” Her father had told her he would give the card if she wanted, but he would have nothing to do with the writing. There was a discussion as to whether Mr. Probert’s remark was an allusion to a deficiency of politeness on the article of his sons-in-law. Ought not Mr. Dosson perhaps to call personally, and not simply through the medium of the visits paid by his daughters to their wives, on Messieurs de Brécourt and de Cliché? Once, when this subject came up in George Flack’s presence, the old man said he would go round if Mr. Flack would accompany him. “All right!” said Mr. Flack, and this conception became a reality, with the accidental abatement that the objects of the demonstration were absent. “Suppose they get in?” Delia had said lugubriously to her sister.
“Well, what if they do?” Francie asked.
“Why, the count and the marquis won’t be interested in Mr. Flack.”
“Well then, perhaps he will be interested in them. He can write something about them. They will like that.”
“Do you think they would?” Delia demanded, in solemn dubiousness.
“Why, yes, if he should say fine things.”
“They do like fine things,” said Delia. “They get off so many themselves. Only the way Mr. Flack does it—it’s a different style.”
“Well, people like to be praised in any style.”
“That’s so,” Delia rejoined, musingly.
One afternoon, coming in about three o’clock, Mr. Flack found Francie alone. She had expressed a wish, after luncheon, for a couple of hours of independence: she intended to write to Gaston, and having accidentally missed a post promised herself that her letter should be of double its usual length. Her companions respected her desire for solicitude, Mr. Dosson taking himself off to his daily session in the reading-room of the American bank and Delia (the girls had now a luxurious coach at their command) driving away to the dressmaker’s, a frequent errand, to superintend and urge forward the progress of her sister’s wedding-clothes. Francie was not skilled in composition; she wrote slowly and in addressing her lover had a painful sense of literary responsibility. Her father and Delia had a theory that when she shut herself up that way she poured forth wonderful pages—it was part of her high cultivation. At any rate, when George Flack was ushered in she was still bending over her blotting-book on one of the gilded tables and there was an inkstain on her pointed forefinger. It was no disloyalty to Gaston but only at the most a sense of weariness in regard to the epistolary form that made her glad to see her visitor. She didn’t know how to finish her letter; but Mr. Flack seemed in a manner to terminate it.
“I wouldn’t have ventured to propose this, but I guess I can do with it, now it’s come,” the young man announced.
“What can you do with?” she asked, wiping her pen.
“Well this happy chance. Just you and me together.”
“I don’t know what it’s a chance for.”
“Well, for me to be a little less miserable for a quarter of an hour. It makes me so to see you look so happy.”
“It makes you miserable?”
“You ought to understand, when I say something magnanimous.” And settling himself on the sofa Mr. Flack continued, “Well, how do you get on without Mr. Probert?”
“Very well indeed, thank you.”
The tone in which the girl spoke was not an encourage
ment to free pleasantry, so that if Mr. Flack continued his inquiries it was in a guarded and respectful manner. He was eminently capable of reflecting that it was not in his interest to strike her as indiscreet and profane; he only wanted to appear friendly, worthy of confidence. At the same time he was not averse to the idea that she should still perceive in him a certain sense of injury, and that could be indicated only by a touch of bitterness here and there. The injury, the bitterness might make her pity him. “Well, you are in the grand monde, I suppose,” he resumed at last, not with an air of derision but resignedly, sympathetically.
“Oh, I’m not in anything; I’m just where I’ve always been.”
“I’m sorry; I hoped you would tell me about it,” said Mr. Flack, gravely.
“You think too much of that. What do you want to know about it for?”
“Dear Miss Francie, a poor devil of a journalist who has to get his living by studying up things, he has to think too much, sometimes, in order to think, or at any rate to do, enough. We find out what we can—as we can.”