by Henry James
XXV
THE voyage was indeed uncomfortable, and Catherine, on arriving in NewYork, had not the compensation of “going off,” in her father’s phrase,with Morris Townsend. She saw him, however, the day after she landed;and, in the meantime, he formed a natural subject of conversation betweenour heroine and her Aunt Lavinia, with whom, the night she disembarked,the girl was closeted for a long time before either lady retired to rest.
“I have seen a great deal of him,” said Mrs. Penniman. “He is not veryeasy to know. I suppose you think you know him; but you don’t, my dear.You will some day; but it will only be after you have lived with him. Imay almost say _I_ have lived with him,” Mrs. Penniman proceeded, whileCatherine stared. “I think I know him now; I have had such remarkableopportunities. You will have the same—or rather, you will have better!”and Aunt Lavinia smiled. “Then you will see what I mean. It’s awonderful character, full of passion and energy, and just as true!”
Catherine listened with a mixture of interest and apprehension. AuntLavinia was intensely sympathetic, and Catherine, for the past year,while she wandered through foreign galleries and churches, and rolledover the smoothness of posting roads, nursing the thoughts that neverpassed her lips, had often longed for the company of some intelligentperson of her own sex. To tell her story to some kind woman—at momentsit seemed to her that this would give her comfort, and she had more thanonce been on the point of taking the landlady, or the nice young personfrom the dressmaker’s, into her confidence. If a woman had been near hershe would on certain occasions have treated such a companion to a fit ofweeping; and she had an apprehension that, on her return, this would formher response to Aunt Lavinia’s first embrace. In fact, however, the twoladies had met, in Washington Square, without tears, and when they foundthemselves alone together a certain dryness fell upon the girl’s emotion.It came over her with a greater force that Mrs. Penniman had enjoyed awhole year of her lover’s society, and it was not a pleasure to her tohear her aunt explain and interpret the young man, speaking of him as ifher own knowledge of him were supreme. It was not that Catherine wasjealous; but her sense of Mrs. Penniman’s innocent falsity, which hadlain dormant, began to haunt her again, and she was glad that she wassafely at home. With this, however, it was a blessing to be able to talkof Morris, to sound his name, to be with a person who was not unjust tohim.
“You have been very kind to him,” said Catherine. “He has written methat, often. I shall never forget that, Aunt Lavinia.”
“I have done what I could; it has been very little. To let him come andtalk to me, and give him his cup of tea—that was all. Your Aunt Almondthought it was too much, and used to scold me terribly; but she promisedme, at least, not to betray me.”
“To betray you?”
“Not to tell your father. He used to sit in your father’s study!” saidMrs. Penniman, with a little laugh.
Catherine was silent a moment. This idea was disagreeable to her, andshe was reminded again, with pain, of her aunt’s secretive habits.Morris, the reader may be informed, had had the tact not to tell her thathe sat in her father’s study. He had known her but for a few months, andher aunt had known her for fifteen years; and yet he would not have madethe mistake of thinking that Catherine would see the joke of the thing.“I am sorry you made him go into father’s room,” she said, after a while.
“I didn’t make him go; he went himself. He liked to look at the books,and all those things in the glass cases. He knows all about them; heknows all about everything.”
Catherine was silent again; then, “I wish he had found some employment,”she said.
“He has found some employment! It’s beautiful news, and he told me totell you as soon as you arrived. He has gone into partnership with acommission merchant. It was all settled, quite suddenly, a week ago.”
This seemed to Catherine indeed beautiful news; it had a fine prosperousair. “Oh, I’m so glad!” she said; and now, for a moment, she wasdisposed to throw herself on Aunt Lavinia’s neck.
“It’s much better than being under some one; and he has never been usedto that,” Mrs. Penniman went on. “He is just as good as his partner—theyare perfectly equal! You see how right he was to wait. I should like toknow what your father can say now! They have got an office in DuaneStreet, and little printed cards; he brought me one to show me. I havegot it in my room, and you shall see it to-morrow. That’s what he saidto me the last time he was here—‘You see how right I was to wait!’ Hehas got other people under him, instead of being a subordinate. He couldnever be a subordinate; I have often told him I could never think of himin that way.”
Catherine assented to this proposition, and was very happy to know thatMorris was his own master; but she was deprived of the satisfaction ofthinking that she might communicate this news in triumph to her father.Her father would care equally little whether Morris were established inbusiness or transported for life. Her trunks had been brought into herroom, and further reference to her lover was for a short time suspended,while she opened them and displayed to her aunt some of the spoils offoreign travel. These were rich and abundant; and Catherine had broughthome a present to every one—to every one save Morris, to whom she hadbrought simply her undiverted heart. To Mrs. Penniman she had beenlavishly generous, and Aunt Lavinia spent half an hour in unfolding andfolding again, with little ejaculations of gratitude and taste. Shemarched about for some time in a splendid cashmere shawl, which Catherinehad begged her to accept, settling it on her shoulders, and twisting downher head to see how low the point descended behind.
“I shall regard it only as a loan,” she said. “I will leave it to youagain when I die; or rather,” she added, kissing her niece again, “I willleave it to your first-born little girl!” And draped in her shawl, shestood there smiling.
“You had better wait till she comes,” said Catherine.
“I don’t like the way you say that,” Mrs. Penniman rejoined, in a moment.“Catherine, are you changed?”
“No; I am the same.”
“You have not swerved a line?”
“I am exactly the same,” Catherine repeated, wishing her aunt were alittle less sympathetic.
“Well, I am glad!” and Mrs. Penniman surveyed her cashmere in the glass.Then, “How is your father?” she asked in a moment, with her eyes on herniece. “Your letters were so meagre—I could never tell!”
“Father is very well.”
“Ah, you know what I mean,” said Mrs. Penniman, with a dignity to whichthe cashmere gave a richer effect. “Is he still implacable!”
“Oh yes!”
“Quite unchanged?”
“He is, if possible, more firm.”
Mrs. Penniman took off her great shawl, and slowly folded it up. “Thatis very bad. You had no success with your little project?”
“What little project?”
“Morris told me all about it. The idea of turning the tables on him, inEurope; of watching him, when he was agreeably impressed by somecelebrated sight—he pretends to be so artistic, you know—and then justpleading with him and bringing him round.”
“I never tried it. It was Morris’s idea; but if he had been with us, inEurope, he would have seen that father was never impressed in that way.He _is_ artistic—tremendously artistic; but the more celebrated places wevisited, and the more he admired them, the less use it would have been toplead with him. They seemed only to make him more determined—moreterrible,” said poor Catherine. “I shall never bring him round, and Iexpect nothing now.”
“Well, I must say,” Mrs. Penniman answered, “I never supposed you weregoing to give it up.”
“I have given it up. I don’t care now.”
“You have grown very brave,” said Mrs. Penniman, with a short laugh. “Ididn’t advise you to sacrifice your property.”
“Yes, I am braver than I was. You asked me if I had changed; I havechanged in that way. Oh,” the girl went on, “I have change
d very much.And it isn’t my property. If _he_ doesn’t care for it, why should I?”
Mrs. Penniman hesitated. “Perhaps he does care for it.”
“He cares for it for my sake, because he doesn’t want to injure me. Buthe will know—he knows already—how little he need be afraid about that.Besides,” said Catherine, “I have got plenty of money of my own. Weshall be very well off; and now hasn’t he got his business? I amdelighted about that business.” She went on talking, showing a good dealof excitement as she proceeded. Her aunt had never seen her with justthis manner, and Mrs. Penniman, observing her, set it down to foreigntravel, which had made her more positive, more mature. She thought alsothat Catherine had improved in appearance; she looked rather handsome.Mrs. Penniman wondered whether Morris Townsend would be struck with that.While she was engaged in this speculation, Catherine broke out, with acertain sharpness, “Why are you so contradictory, Aunt Penniman? Youseem to think one thing at one time, and another at another. A year ago,before I went away, you wished me not to mind about displeasing father;and now you seem to recommend me to take another line. You change aboutso.”
This attack was unexpected, for Mrs. Penniman was not used, in anydiscussion, to seeing the war carried into her own country—possiblybecause the enemy generally had doubts of finding subsistence there. Toher own consciousness, the flowery fields of her reason had rarely beenravaged by a hostile force. It was perhaps on this account that indefending them she was majestic rather than agile.
“I don’t know what you accuse me of, save of being too deeply interestedin your happiness. It is the first time I have been told I amcapricious. That fault is not what I am usually reproached with.”
“You were angry last year that I wouldn’t marry immediately, and now youtalk about my winning my father over. You told me it would serve himright if he should take me to Europe for nothing. Well, he has taken mefor nothing, and you ought to be satisfied. Nothing is changed—nothingbut my feeling about father. I don’t mind nearly so much now. I havebeen as good as I could, but he doesn’t care. Now I don’t care either.I don’t know whether I have grown bad; perhaps I have. But I don’t carefor that. I have come home to be married—that’s all I know. That oughtto please you, unless you have taken up some new idea; you are sostrange. You may do as you please; but you must never speak to me againabout pleading with father. I shall never plead with him for anything;that is all over. He has put me off. I am come home to be married.”
This was a more authoritative speech than she had ever heard on herniece’s lips, and Mrs. Penniman was proportionately startled. She wasindeed a little awestruck, and the force of the girl’s emotion andresolution left her nothing to reply. She was easily frightened, and shealways carried off her discomfiture by a concession a concession whichwas often accompanied, as in the present case, by a little nervous laugh.