by Henry James
“I don’t see why he shouldn’t—at the pace you go yourself. You say it to every one.”
“To every one? I say it to you and to George Littlemore—when I get nervous. I say it to you because I like you, and to him because I’m afraid of him. I’m not in the least afraid of you, by the way. I’m all alone—I haven’t got any one. I must have some comfort, mustn’t I? Sir Arthur scolded me for putting you off last night—he noticed it; and that was what made me guess his idea.”
“I’m much obliged to him,” said Waterville rather bewildered.
“So mind you answer for me. Don’t you want me to take your arm to go in?”
“You’re a most extraordinary combination!” he gave to all the winds as she stood smiling at him.
“Oh come, don’t you fall in love with me!” she cried with a laugh; and, without taking his arm, she passed in before him.
That evening, before he went to dress for dinner, he wandered into the library, where he felt certain he should find some superior bindings. There was no one in the room and he spent a happy half-hour among treasures of old reading and triumphs of old morocco. He had a great esteem for good literature, he held that it should have handsome covers. The daylight had begun to wane, but whenever, in the rich-looking dimness, he made out the glimmer of a well-gilded back, he took down the volume and carried it to one of the deep-set windows. He had just finished the inspection of a delightfully fragrant folio, and was about to carry it back to its niche, when he found himself face to face with Lady Demesne. He was sharply startled, for her tall slim figure, her preserved fairness, which looked white in the high brown room, and the air of serious intention with which she presented herself, all gave something spectral to her presence. He saw her countenance dimly light, however, and heard her say with the vague despair of her neutrality: “Are you looking at our books? I’m afraid they’re rather dull.”
“Dull? Why they’re as bright as the day they were bound.” And he turned on her the glittering panels of his folio.
“I’m afraid I haven’t looked at them for a long time,” she murmured, going nearer to the window, where she stood looking out. Beyond the clear pane the park stretched away, the menace of night already mantling the great limbs of the oaks. The place appeared cold and empty, and the trees had an air of conscious importance, as if Nature herself had been bribed somehow to take the side of county families. Her ladyship was no easy person for talk; spontaneity had never come to her, and to express herself might have been for her modesty like some act of undressing in public. Her very simplicity was conventional, though it was rather a noble convention. You might have pitied her for the sense of her living tied so tight, with consequent moral cramps, to certain rigid ideals. This made her at times seem tired, like a person who had undertaken too much. She said nothing for a moment, and there was an appearance of design in her silence, as if she wished to let him know she had appealed to him without the trouble of announcing it. She had been accustomed to expect people would suppose things, to save her questions and explanations. Waterville made some haphazard remark about the beauty of the evening—in point of fact the weather had changed for the worse—to which she vouchsafed no reply. But she presently said with her usual gentleness: “I hoped I should find you here—I should like to ask you something.”
“Anything I can tell you—I shall be delighted!” the young man declared.
She gave him a pleading look that seemed to say: “Please be very simple—very simple indeed.” Then she glanced about her as if there had been other people in the room; she didn’t wish to appear closeted with him or to have come on purpose. There she was at any rate, and she proceeded. “When my son told me he should ask you to come down I was very glad. I mean of course we were delighted—” And she paused a moment. But she next went on: “I want to ask you about Mrs. Headway.”
“Ah, here it is!” cried Waterville within himself. But he could show no wincing. “Ah yes, I see!”
“Do you mind my asking you? I hope you don’t mind. I haven’t any one else to ask.”
“Your son knows her much better than I do.” He said this without intention of malice, simply to escape from the difficulties of the situation, but after he had spoken was almost frightened by his mocking sound.
“I don’t think he knows her. She knows him—which is very different. When I ask him about her he merely tells me she’s fascinating. Sheis fascinating,” said her ladyship with inimitable dryness.
“So I think, myself. I like her very much,” Waterville returned cheerfully.
“You’re in all the better position to speak of her then.”
“To speak well of her,” the young man smiled.
“Of course—if you can. I should be delighted to hear you do that. That’s what I wish—to hear some good of her.”
It might have seemed after this that nothing could have remained but for our friend to break out in categoric praise of his fellow guest; but he was no more to be tempted into that danger than into another. “I can only say I like her,” he repeated. “She has been very kind to me.”
“Every one seems to like her,” said Lady Demesne with an unstudied effect of pathos. “She’s certainly very amusing.”
“She’s very good-natured. I think she has no end of good intentions.”
“What do you mean by good intentions?” asked Lady Demesne very sweetly.
“Well, it strikes me she wants to be friendly and pleasant.”
“Indeed she does! But of course you have to defend her. She’s your countrywoman.”
“To defend her I must wait till she’s attacked,” Waterville laughed.
“That’s very true. I needn’t call your attention to the fact that I’m not attacking her,” his hostess observed. “I should never attack a person staying in this house. I only want to know something about her, and if you can’t tell me perhaps at least you can mention some one who will.”
“She’ll tell you herself. Tell you by the hour!”
“What she has told my son? I shouldn’t understand it. My son doesn’t understand it.” She had a full pause, a profusion of patience; then she resumed disappointedly: “It’s very strange. I rather hoped you might explain it.”
He turned the case over. “I’m afraid I can’t explain Mrs. Headway,” he concluded.
“I see you admit she’s very peculiar.”
Even to this, however, he hesitated to commit himself. “It’s too great a responsibility to answer you.” He allowed he was very disobliging; he knew exactly what Lady Demesne wished him to say. He was unprepared to blight the reputation of Mrs. Headway to accommodate her; and yet, with his cultivated imagination, he could enter perfectly into the feelings of this tender formal serious woman who—it was easy to see—had looked for her own happiness in the observance of duty and in extreme constancy to two or three objects of devotion chosen once for all. She must indeed have had a conception of life in the light of which Nancy Beck would show both for displeasing and for dangerous. But he presently became aware she had taken his last words as a concession in which she might find help.
“You know why I ask you these things then?”
“I think I’ve an idea,” said Waterville, persisting in irrelevant laughter. His laugh sounded foolish in his own ears.
“If you know that, I think you ought to assist me.” Her tone changed now; there was a quick tremor in it; he could feel the confession of distress. The distress verily was deep; it had pressed her hard before she made up her mind to speak to him. He was sorry for her and determined to be very serious.
“If I could help you I would. But my position’s very difficult.”
“It’s not so difficult as mine!” She was going all lengths; she was really appealing to him. “I don’t imagine you under obligations to Mrs. Headway. You seem to me so different,” she added.
He was not insensible to any discrimination that told in his favour; but these words shocked him as if they had been an attempt at bribery
. “I’m surprised you don’t like her,” he ventured to bring out.
She turned her eyes through the window. “I don’t think you’re really surprised, though possibly you try to be. I don’t like her at any rate, and I can’t fancy why my son should. She’s very pretty and appears very clever; but I don’t trust her. I don’t know what has taken possession of him; it’s not usual in his family to marry people like that. Surely she’s of no breeding. The person I should propose would be so very different—perhaps you can see what I mean. There’s something in her history we don’t understand. My son understands it no better than I. If you could throw any light on it, that might be a help. If I treat you with such confidence the first time I see you it’s because I don’t know where to turn. I’m exceedingly anxious.”
It was plain enough she was anxious; her manner had become more vehement; her eyes seemed to shine in the thickening dusk. “Are you very sure there’s danger?” Waterville asked. “Has he proposed to her and has she jumped at him?”
“If I wait till they settle it all it will be too late. I’ve reason to believe that my son’s not engaged, but I fear he’s terribly entangled. At the same time he’s very uneasy, and that may save him yet. He has a great sense of honour. He’s not satisfied about her past life; he doesn’t know what to think of what we’ve been told. Even what she admits is so strange. She has been married four or five times. She has been divorced again and again. It seems so extraordinary. She tells him that in America it’s different, and I dare say you haven’t our ideas; but really there’s a limit to everything. There must have been great irregularities—I’m afraid great scandals. It’s dreadful to have to accept such things. He hasn’t told me all this, but it’s not necessary he should tell me. I know him well enough to guess.”
“Does he know you’re speaking to me?” Waterville asked.
“Not in the least. But I must tell you I shall repeat to him anything you may say against her.”
“I had better say nothing then. It’s very delicate. Mrs. Headway’s quite undefended. One may like her or not, of course. I’ve seen nothing of her that isn’t perfectly correct,” our young man wound up.
“And you’ve heard nothing?”
He remembered Littlemore’s view that there were cases in which a man was bound in honour to tell an untruth, and he wondered if this were such a one. Lady Demesne imposed herself, she made him believe in the reality of her grievance, and he saw the gulf that divided her from a pushing little woman who had lived with Western editors. She was right to wish not to be connected with Mrs. Headway. After all, there had been nothing in his relations with that lady to hold him down to lying for her. He hadn’t sought her acquaintance, she had sought his; she had sent for him to come and see her. And yet he couldn’t give her away—that stuck in his throat. “I’m afraid I really can’t say anything. And it wouldn’t matter. Your son won’t give her up because I happen not to like her.”
“If he were to believe she had done wrong he’d give her up.”
“Well, I’ve no right to say so,” said Waterville.
Lady Demesne turned away; he indeed disappointed her and he feared she was going to break out: “Why then do you suppose I asked you here?” She quitted her place near the window and prepared apparently to leave the room. But she stopped short. “You know something against her, but you won’t say it.”
He hugged his folio and looked awkward. “You attribute things to me. I shall never say anything.”
“Of course you’re perfectly free. There’s some one else who knows, I think—another American—a gentleman who was in Paris when my son was there. I’ve forgotten his name.”
“A friend of Mrs. Headway’s? I suppose you mean George Littlemore.”
“Yes—Mr. Littlemore. He has a sister whom I’ve met; I didn’t know she was his sister till to-day. Mrs. Headway spoke of her, but I find she doesn’t know her. That itself is a proof, I think. Do you think he would help me?” Lady Demesne asked very simply.
“I doubt it, but you can try.”
“I wish he had come with you. Do you think he’d come?”
“He’s in America at this moment, but I believe he soon comes back.”
She took this in with interest. “I shall go to his sister; I shall ask her to bring him to see me. She’s extremely nice; I think she’ll understand. Unfortunately there’s very little time.”
Waterville bethought himself. “Don’t count too much on George Littlemore,” he said gravely.
“You men have no pity,” she grimly sighed.
“Why should we pity you? How can Mrs. Headway hurt such a person as you?” he asked.
Lady Demesne cast about. “It hurts me to hear her voice.”
“Her voice is very liquid.” He liked his word.
“Possibly. But she’s horrible!”
This was too much, it seemed to Waterville; Nancy Beck was open to criticism, and he himself had declared she was a barbarian. Yet she wasn’t horrible. “It’s for your son to pity you. If he doesn’t how can you expect it of others?”
“Oh but he does!” And with a majesty that was more striking even than her logic his hostess moved to the door.
Waterville advanced to open it for her, and as she passed out he said: “There’s one thing you can do—try to like her!”
She shot him a woeful glance. “That would be—worst of all!”
VIII
GEORGE LITTLEMORE arrived in London on the twentieth of May, and one of the first things he did was to go and see Waterville at the Legation, where he mentioned that he had taken for the rest of the season a house at Queen Anne’s Gate, so that his sister and her husband, who, under the pressure of diminished rents, had let their own town residence, might come up and spend a couple of months with him.
“One of the consequences of your having a house will be that you’ll have to entertain the Texan belle,” our young man said.
Littlemore sat there with his hands crossed on his stick; he looked at his friend with an eye that failed to kindle at the mention of this lady’s name. “Has she got into European society?” he rather languidly inquired.
“Very much, I should say. She has a house and a carriage and diamonds and everything handsome. She seems already to know a lot of people; they put her name in the Morning Post. She has come up very quickly; she’s almost famous. Every one’s asking about her—you’ll be plied with questions.”
Littlemore listened gravely. “How did she get in?”
“She met a large party at Longlands and made them all think her great fun. They must have taken her up; she only wanted a start.”
Her old friend rallied after a moment to the interest of this news, marking his full appreciation of it by a burst of laughter. “To think of Nancy Beck! The people here do beat the Dutch! There’s no one they won’t go after. They wouldn’t touch her in New York.”
“Oh New York’s quite old-fashioned and rococo,” said Waterville; and he announced to Littlemore that Lady Demesne was very eager for his arrival and wanted his aid to prevent her son’s bringing such a person into the family. Littlemore was apparently not alarmed at her ladyship’s projects, and intimated, in the manner of a man who thought them rather impertinent, that he could trust himself to keep out of her way. “It isn’t a proper marriage at any rate,” the second secretary urged.
“Why not if he loves her?”
“Oh if that’s all you want!”—which seemed a degree of cynicism startling to his companion.
“Would you marry her yourself?”
“Certainly if I were in love with her.”
“You took care not to be that.”
“Yes, I did—and so Demesne had better have done. However, since he’s bitten—!” But Littlemore let the rest of his sentence too indifferently drop.
Waterville presently asked him how he would manage, in view of his sister’s advent, about asking Mrs. Headway to his house; and he replied that he would manage by simply not asking her. On this
Waterville pronounced him highly inconsistent; to which Littlemore rejoined that it was very possible. But he asked whether they couldn’t talk about something else than Mrs. Headway. He couldn’t enter into the young man’s interest in her—they were sure to have enough of her later without such impatience.
Waterville would have been sorry to give a false idea of his interest in the wonderful woman; he knew too well the feeling had definite limits. He had been two or three times to see her, but it was a relief to be able to believe her quite independent of him. There had been no revival of those free retorts which had marked their stay at Longlands. She could dispense with assistance now; she knew herself in the current of success. She pretended to be surprised at her good fortune, especially at its rapidity; but she was really surprised at nothing. She took things as they came and, being essentially a woman of action, wasted almost as little time in elation as she would have done in despondence. She talked a great deal about Lord Edward and Lady Margaret and such others of that “standing” as had shown a desire for her acquaintance; professing to measure perfectly the sources of a growing popularity. “They come to laugh at me,” she said; “they come simply to get things to repeat. I can’t open my mouth but they burst into fits. It’s a settled thing that I’m a grand case of the American funny woman; if I make the least remark they begin to roar. I must express myself somehow; and indeed when I hold my tongue they think me funnier than ever. They repeat what I say to a great person, and a great person told some of them the other night that he wanted to hear me for himself. I’ll do for him what I do for the others; no better and no worse. I don’t know how I do it; I talk the only way I can. They tell me it isn’t so much the things I say as the way I say them. Well, they’re very easy to please. They don’t really care for me, you know—they don’t love me for myself and the way I want to be loved; it’s only to be able to repeat Mrs. Headway’s ‘last.’ Every one wants to have it first; it’s a regular race.” When she found what was expected of her she undertook to supply the article in abundance—the poor little woman worked hard at the vernacular. If the taste of London lay that way she would do her best to gratify it; it was only a pity she hadn’t known before: she would have made more extensive preparations. She had thought it a disadvantage of old to live in Arizona, in Dakotah, in the newly-admitted States; but now she saw that, as she phrased it to herself, this was the best thing that ever had happened to her. She tried to recover the weird things she had heard out there, and keenly regretted she hadn’t taken them down in writing; she drummed up the echoes of the Rocky Mountains and practised the intonations of the Pacific slope. When she saw her audience in convulsions she argued that this was success: she inferred that had she only come five years sooner she might have married a Duke. That would have been even a greater attraction for the London world than the actual proceedings of Sir Arthur Demesne, who, however, lived sufficiently in the eye of society to justify the rumour that there were bets about town as to the issue of his already protracted courtship. It was food for curiosity to see a young man of his pattern—one of the few “earnest” young men of the Tory side, with an income sufficient for tastes more vivid than those by which he was known—make up to a lady several years older than himself, whose fund of Texan slang was even larger than her stock of dollars. Mrs. Headway had got a good many new ideas since her arrival in London, but she had also not lost her grasp of several old ones. The chief of these—it was now a year old—was that Sir Arthur was the very most eligible and, shrewdly considered, taking one thing with another, most valuable young man in the world. There were of course a good many things he wasn’t. He wasn’t amusing; he wasn’t insinuating; he wasn’t of an absolutely irrepressible ardour. She believed he was constant, but he was certainly not eager. With these things, however, she could perfectly dispense; she had in particular quite outlived the need of being amused. She had had a very exciting life, and her vision of happiness at present was to be magnificently bored. The idea of complete and uncriticised respectability filled her soul with satisfaction; her imagination prostrated itself in the presence of this virtue. She was aware she had achieved it but ill in her own person; but she could now at least connect herself with it by sacred ties. She could prove in that way what was her deepest feeling. This was a religious appreciation of Sir Arthur’s great quality—his smooth and rounded, his blooming lily-like exemption from social flaws.