by Henry James
“Were they sent from her seat?” she asked. Then, before I could answer, “I am going to have some people to dinner to-day; they would look very well in the middle.”
“If you wish me to offer them to you, I really can’t; I prize them too much.”
“Oh, are they yours? Of course you prize them! I don’t suppose you have many.”
“These are the first I have ever received—from Mr. Caliph.”
“From Mr. Caliph? Did he give them to you?” Mrs. Ermine’s intonations are not delicate. That “you” should be in enormous capitals.
“With his own hand—a quarter of an hour ago.” This sounds triumphant, as I write it; but it was no great sensation to triumph over Mrs. Ermine.
She laid down the bouquet, looking almost thoughtful. “He does want to marry Eunice,” she declared in a moment. This is the region in which, after a flight of fancy, she usually alights. I am sick of the irrepressible verb; just at that moment, however, it was unexpected, and I answered that I didn’t understand.
“That’s why he gives you flowers,” she explained. But the explanation made the matter darker still, and Mrs. Ermine went on: “Isn’t there some French proverb about paying one’s court to the mother in order to gain the daughter? Eunice is the daughter, and you are the mother.”
“And you are the grandmother, I suppose! Do you mean that he wishes me to intercede?”
“I can’t imagine why else!” and smiling, with her wide lips, she stared at the flowers.
“At that rate you too will get your bouquet,” I said.
“Oh, I have no influence! You ought to do something in return—to offer to paint his portrait.”
“I don’t offer that, you know; people ask me. Besides, you have spoiled me for common models!”
It strikes me, as I write this, that we had gone rather far—farther than it seemed at the time. We might have gone farther yet, however, if at this moment Eunice had not come back with Mr. Caliph, who appeared to have settled his little matter of business briskly enough. He remained the man of business to the end, and, to Mrs. Ermine’s evident disappointment, declined to sit down again. He was in a hurry; he had an engagement.
“Are you going up or down? I have a carriage at the door,” she broke in.
“At Fifty-third Street one is usually going down”; and he gave his peculiar smile, which always seems so much beyond the scope of the words it accompanies. “If you will give me a lift I shall be very grateful.”
He went off with her, she being much divided between the prospect of driving with him and her loss of the chance to find out what he had been saying to Eunice. She probably believed he had been proposing to her, and I hope he mystified her well in the carriage.
He had not been proposing to Eunice; he had given her a cheque, and made her sign some papers. The cheque was for a thousand dollars, but I have no knowledge of the papers. When I took up my abode with her I made up my mind that the only way to preserve an appearance of disinterestedness was to know nothing whatever of the details of her pecuniary affairs. She has a very good little head of her own, and if she shouldn’t understand them herself it would be quite out of my power to help her. I don’t know why I should care about appearing disinterested, when I have in quite sufficient measure the consciousness of being so; but in point of fact I do, and I value that purity as much as any other. Besides, Mr. Caliph is her supreme adviser, and of course makes everything clear to her. At least I hope he does. I couldn’t help saying as much as this to Eunice.
“My dear child, I suppose you understand what you sign. Mr. Caliph ought to be—what shall I call it?—crystalline.”
She looked at me with the smile that had come into her face when she saw him give me the flowers. “Oh yes, I think so. If I didn’t, it’s my own fault. He explains everything so beautifully that it’s a pleasure to listen. I always read what I sign.”
“Je l’espère bien!” I said, laughing.
She looked a little grave. “The closing up a trust is very complicated.”
“Yours is not closed yet? It strikes me as very slow.”
“Everything can’t be done at once. Besides, he has asked for a little delay. Part of my affairs, indeed, are now in my own hands; otherwise I shouldn’t have to sign.”
“Is that a usual request—for delay?”
“Oh yes, perfectly. Besides, I don’t want everything in my own control. That is, I want it some day, because I think I ought to accept the responsibilities, as I accept all the pleasures; but I am not in a hurry. This way is so comfortable, and Mr. Caliph takes so much trouble for me.”
“I suppose he has a handsome commission,” I said, rather crudely.
“He has no commission at all; he would never take one.”
“In your place, I would much rather he should take one.”
“I have asked him to, but he won’t!” Eunice said, looking now extremely grave.
Her gravity indeed was so great that it made me smile. “He is wonderfully generous!”
“He is indeed.”
“And is it to be indefinitely delayed—the termination of his trust?”
“Oh no; only a few months, ‘till he gets things into shape,’ as he says.”
“He has had several years for that, hasn’t he?”
Eunice turned away; evidently our talk was painful to her. But there was something that vaguely alarmed me in her taking, or at least accepting, the sentimental view of Mr. Caliph’s services. “I don’t think you are kind, Catherine; you seem to suspect him,” she remarked, after a little.
“Suspect him of what?”
“Of not wishing to give up the property.”
“My dear Eunice, you put things into terrible words! Seriously, I should never think of suspecting him of anything so silly. What could his wishes count for? Is not the thing regulated by law—by the terms of your mother’s will? The trust expires of itself at a certain period, doesn’t it? Mr. Caliph, surely, has only to act accordingly.”
“It is just what he is doing. But there are more papers necessary, and they will not be ready for a few weeks more.”
“Don’t have too many papers; they are as bad as too few. And take advice of some one else—say of your cousin Ermine, who is so much more sensible than his wife.”
“I want no advice,” said Eunice, in a tone which showed me that I had said enough. And presently she went on, “I thought you liked Mr. Caliph.”
“So I do, immensely. He gives beautiful flowers.”
“Ah, you are horrid!” she murmured.
“Of course I am horrid. That’s my business—to be horrid.” And I took the liberty of being so again, half an hour later, when she remarked that she must take good care of the cheque Mr. Caliph had brought her, as it would be a good while before she should have another. “Why should it be longer than usual?” I asked. “Is he going to keep your income for himself?”
“I am not to have any till the end of the year—any from the trust, at least. Mr. Caliph has been converting some old houses into shops, so that they will bring more rent. But the alterations have to be paid for—and he takes part of my income to do it.”
“And pray what are you to live on meanwhile?”
“I have enough without that; and I have savings.”
“It strikes me as a cool proceeding, all the same.”
“He wrote to me about it before we came home, and I thought that way was best.”
“I don’t think he ought to have asked you,” I said. “As your trustee, he acts in his discretion.”
“You are hard to please,” Eunice answered.
That is perfectly true; but I rejoined that I couldn’t make out whether he consulted her too much or too little. And I don’t know that my failure to make it out in the least matters!
May 13.—Mrs. Ermine turned up to-day at an earlier hour than usual, and I saw as soon as she got into the room that she had something to announce. This time it was not an engagement. “He sent me a bouq
uet—Boston roses—quite as many as yours! They arrived this morning, before I had finished breakfast.” This speech was addressed to me, and Mrs. Ermine looked almost brilliant. Eunice scarcely followed her.
“She is talking about Mr. Caliph,” I explained.
Eunice stared a moment; then her face melted into a deep little smile. “He seems to give flowers to every one but to me.” I could see that this reflection gave her remarkable pleasure.
“Well, when he gives them, he’s thinking of you,” said Mrs. Ermine. “He wants to get us on his side.”
“On his side?”
“Oh yes; some day he will have need of us!” And Mrs. Ermine tried to look sprightly and insinuating. But she is too utterly fade, and I think it is not worth while to talk any more to Eunice just now about her trustee. So, to anticipate Mrs. Ermine, I said to her quickly, but very quietly—
“He sent you flowers simply because you had taken him into your carriage last night. It was an acknowledgment of your great kindness.”
She hesitated a moment. “Possibly. We had a charming drive—ever so far down-town.” Then, turning to Eunice, she exclaimed, “My dear, you don’t know that man till you have had a drive with him!” When does one know Mrs. Ermine? Every day she is a surprise!
May 19.—Adrian Frank has come back to New York, and has been three times at this house—once to dinner, and twice at tea-time. After his brother’s strong expression of the hope that we should take an interest in him, Eunice appears to have thought that the least she could do was to ask him to dine. She appears never to have offered this privilege to Mr. Caliph, by the way; I think her view of his cleverness is such that she imagines she knows no one sufficiently brilliant to be invited to meet him. She thought Mrs. Ermine good enough to meet Mr. Frank, and she had also young Woodley—Willie Woodley, as they call him—and Mr. Latrobe. It was not very amusing. Mrs. Ermine made love to Mr. Woodley, who took it serenely; and the dark Latrobe talked to me about the Seventh Regiment—an impossible subject. Mr. Frank made an occasional remark to Eunice, next whom he was placed; but he seemed constrained and frightened, as if he knew that his step-brother had recommended him highly and felt it was impossible to come up to the mark. He is really very modest; it is impossible not to like him. Every now and then he looked at me, with his clear blue eye conscious and expanded, as if to beg me to help him on with Eunice; and then, when I threw in a word, to give their conversation a push, he looked at her in the same way, as if to express the hope that she would not abandon him. There was no danger of this, she only wished to be agreeable to him; but she was nervous and preoccupied, as she always is when she has people to dinner—she is so afraid they may be bored—and I think that half the time she didn’t understand what he said. She told me afterwards that she liked him more even than she liked him at first; that he has, in her opinion, better manners, in spite of his shyness, than any of the young men; and that he must have a nice nature to have such a charming face;—all this she told me, and she added that, notwithstanding all this, there is something in Mr. Adrian Frank that makes her uncomfortable. It is perhaps rather heartless, but after this, when he called two days ago, I went out of the room and left them alone together. The truth is, there is something in this tall, fair, vague, inconsequent youth, who would look like a Prussian lieutenant if Prussian lieutenants ever hesitated, and who is such a singular mixture of confusion and candour—there is something about him that is not altogether to my own taste, and that is why I took the liberty of leaving him. Oddly enough, I don’t in the least know what it is; I usually know why I dislike people. I don’t dislike the blushing Adrian, however—that is, after all, the oddest part. No, the oddest part of it is that I think I have a feeling of pity for him; that is probably why (if it were not my duty sometimes to remain) I should always depart when he comes. I don’t like to see the people I pity; to be pitied by me is too low a depth. Why I should lavish my compassion on Mr. Frank of course passes my comprehension. He is young, intelligent, in perfect health, master of a handsome fortune, and favourite brother of Haroun-al-Raschid. Such are the consequences of being a woman of imagination. When, at dinner, I asked Eunice if he had been as interesting as usual, she said she would leave it to me to judge; he had talked altogether about Miss Condit! He thinks her very attractive! Poor fellow, when it is necessary he doesn’t hesitate, though I can’t imagine why it should be necessary. I think that au fond he bores Eunice a little; like many girls of the delicate, sensitive kind, she likes older, more confident men.
May 24.—He has just made me a remarkable communication! This morning I went into the Park in quest of a “bit,” with some colours and brushes in a small box, and that wonderfully compressible campstool which I can carry in my pocket. I wandered vaguely enough, for half an hour, through the carefully-arranged scenery, the idea of which appears to be to represent the earth’s surface en raccourci, and at last discovered a small clump of birches which, with their white stems and their little raw green bristles, were not altogether uninspiring. The place was quiet—there were no nurse-maids nor bicycles; so I took up a position and enjoyed an hour’s successful work. At last I heard some one say behind me, “I think I ought to tell you I’m looking!” It was Adrian Frank, who had recognised me at a distance, and, without my hearing him, had walked across the grass to where I sat. This time I couldn’t leave him, for I hadn’t finished my sketch. He sat down near me, on an artistically-preserved rock, and we ended by having a good deal of talk—in which, however, I did the listening, for I can’t express myself in two ways at once. What I listened to was this—that Mr. Caliph wishes his step-brother to “make up” to Eunice, and that the candid Adrian wishes to know what I think of his chances.
“Are you in love with her?” I asked.
“Oh dear, no! If I were in love with her I should go straight in, without—without this sort of thing.”
“You mean without asking people’s opinion?”
“Well, yes. Without even asking yours.”
I told him that he needn’t say “even” mine; for mine would not be worth much. His announcement rather startled me at first, but after I had thought of it a little, I found in it a good deal to admire. I have seen so many “arranged” marriages that have been happy, and so many “sympathetic” unions that have been wretched, that the political element doesn’t altogether shock me. Of course I can’t imagine Eunice making a political marriage, and I said to Mr. Frank, very promptly, that she might consent if she could be induced to love him, but would never be governed in her choice by his advantages. I said “advantages” in order to be polite; the singular number would have served all the purpose. His only advantage is his fortune; for he has neither looks, talents, nor position that would dazzle a girl who is herself clever and rich. This, then, is what Mr. Caliph has had in his head all this while—this is what has made him so anxious that we should like his step-brother. I have an idea that I ought to be rather scandalised, but I feel my pulse and find that I am almost pleased. I don’t mean at the idea of her marrying poor Mr. Frank; I mean at such an indication that Mr. Caliph takes an interest in her. I don’t know whether it is one of the regular duties of a trustee to provide the trustful with a husband; perhaps in that case his merit may be less. I suppose he has said to himself that if she marries his step-brother she won’t marry a worse man. Of course it is possible that he may not have thought of Eunice at all, and may simply have wished the guileless Adrian to do a good thing without regard to Eunice’s point of view. I am afraid that even this idea doesn’t shock me. Trying to make people marry is, under any circumstances, an unscrupulous game; but the offence is minimised when it is a question of an honest man marrying an angel. Eunice is the angel, and the young Adrian has all the air of being honest. It would, naturally, not be the union of her secret dreams, for the hero of those pure visions would have to be clever and distinguished. Mr. Frank is neither of these things, but I believe he is perfectly good. Of course he is weak—to come and take a wi
fe simply because his brother has told him to—or is he doing it simply for form, believing that she will never have him, that he consequently doesn’t expose himself, and that he will therefore have on easy terms, since he seems to value it, the credit of having obeyed Mr. Caliph? Why he should value it is a matter between themselves, which I am not obliged to know. I don’t think I care at all for the relations of men between themselves. Their relations with women are bad enough, but when there is no woman to save it a little—merci! I shouldn’t think that the young Adrian would care to subject himself to a simple refusal, for it is not gratifying to receive the cold shoulder, even from a woman you don’t want to marry. After all, he may want to marry her; there are all sorts of reasons in things. I told him I wouldn’t undertake to do anything, and the more I think of it the less I am willing. It would be a weight off my mind to see her comfortably settled in life, beyond the possibility of marrying some highly varnished brute—a fate in certain circumstances quite open to her. She is perfectly capable—with her folded angel’s wings—of bestowing herself upon the baker, upon the fish-monger, if she were to take a fancy to him. The clever man of her dreams might beat her or get tired of her; but I am sure that Mr. Frank, if he should pronounce his marriage-vows, would keep them to the letter. From that to pushing her into his arms, however, is a long way. I went so far as to tell him that he had my good wishes; but I made him understand that I can give him no help. He sat for some time poking a hole in the earth with his stick and watching the operation. Then he said, with his wide, exaggerated smile—the one thing in his face that recalls his brother, though it is so different—“I think I should like to try.” I felt rather sorry for him, and made him talk of something else; and we separated without his alluding to Eunice, though at the last he looked at me for a moment intently, with something on his lips, which was probably a return to his idea. I stopped him; I told him I always required solitude for my finishing-touches. He thinks me brusque and queer, but he went away. I don’t know what he means to do; I am curious to see whether he will begin his siege. It can scarcely be said, as yet, to have begun—Eunice, at any rate, is all unconscious.