The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 2

by Henry James

  CHAPTER XLIX

  Madame Merle had not made her appearance at Palazzo Roccanera on theevening of that Thursday of which I have narrated some of the incidents,and Isabel, though she observed her absence, was not surprised by it.Things had passed between them which added no stimulus to sociability,and to appreciate which we must glance a little backward. It has beenmentioned that Madame Merle returned from Naples shortly after LordWarburton had left Rome, and that on her first meeting with Isabel(whom, to do her justice, she came immediately to see) her firstutterance had been an enquiry as to the whereabouts of this nobleman,for whom she appeared to hold her dear friend accountable.

  "Please don't talk of him," said Isabel for answer; "we've heard so muchof him of late."

  Madame Merle bent her head on one side a little, protestingly, andsmiled at the left corner of her mouth. "You've heard, yes. But you mustremember that I've not, in Naples. I hoped to find him here and to beable to congratulate Pansy."

  "You may congratulate Pansy still; but not on marrying Lord Warburton."

  "How you say that! Don't you know I had set my heart on it?" MadameMerle asked with a great deal of spirit, but still with the intonationof good-humour.

  Isabel was discomposed, but she was determined to be good-humoured too."You shouldn't have gone to Naples then. You should have stayed here towatch the affair."

  "I had too much confidence in you. But do you think it's too late?"

  "You had better ask Pansy," said Isabel.

  "I shall ask her what you've said to her."

  These words seemed to justify the impulse of self-defence arousedon Isabel's part by her perceiving that her visitor's attitude was acritical one. Madame Merle, as we know, had been very discreet hitherto;she had never criticised; she had been markedly afraid of intermeddling.But apparently she had only reserved herself for this occasion, sinceshe now had a dangerous quickness in her eye and an air of irritationwhich even her admirable ease was not able to transmute. She hadsuffered a disappointment which excited Isabel's surprise--our heroinehaving no knowledge of her zealous interest in Pansy's marriage; andshe betrayed it in a manner which quickened Mrs. Osmond's alarm. Moreclearly than ever before Isabel heard a cold, mocking voice proceed fromshe knew not where, in the dim void that surrounded her, and declarethat this bright, strong, definite, worldly woman, this incarnation ofthe practical, the personal, the immediate, was a powerful agent in herdestiny. She was nearer to her than Isabel had yet discovered, and hernearness was not the charming accident she had so long supposed. Thesense of accident indeed had died within her that day when she happenedto be struck with the manner in which the wonderful lady and her ownhusband sat together in private. No definite suspicion had as yettaken its place; but it was enough to make her view this friend with adifferent eye, to have been led to reflect that there was more intentionin her past behaviour than she had allowed for at the time. Ah yes,there had been intention, there had been intention, Isabel said toherself; and she seemed to wake from a long pernicious dream. What wasit that brought home to her that Madame Merle's intention had not beengood? Nothing but the mistrust which had lately taken body and whichmarried itself now to the fruitful wonder produced by her visitor'schallenge on behalf of poor Pansy. There was something in this challengewhich had at the very outset excited an answering defiance; a namelessvitality which she could see to have been absent from her friend'sprofessions of delicacy and caution. Madame Merle had been unwilling tointerfere, certainly, but only so long as there was nothing to interferewith. It will perhaps seem to the reader that Isabel went fast incasting doubt, on mere suspicion, on a sincerity proved by severalyears of good offices. She moved quickly indeed, and with reason, for astrange truth was filtering into her soul. Madame Merle's interest wasidentical with Osmond's: that was enough. "I think Pansy will tellyou nothing that will make you more angry," she said in answer to hercompanion's last remark.

  "I'm not in the least angry. I've only a great desire to retrieve thesituation. Do you consider that Warburton has left us for ever?"

  "I can't tell you; I don't understand you. It's all over; please let itrest. Osmond has talked to me a great deal about it, and I've nothingmore to say or to hear. I've no doubt," Isabel added, "that he'll bevery happy to discuss the subject with you."

  "I know what he thinks; he came to see me last evening."

  "As soon as you had arrived? Then you know all about it and you needn'tapply to me for information."

  "It isn't information I want. At bottom it's sympathy. I had set myheart on that marriage; the idea did what so few things do--it satisfiedthe imagination."

  "Your imagination, yes. But not that of the persons concerned."

  "You mean by that of course that I'm not concerned. Of course notdirectly. But when one's such an old friend one can't help havingsomething at stake. You forget how long I've known Pansy. You mean,of course," Madame Merle added, "that YOU are one of the personsconcerned."

  "No; that's the last thing I mean. I'm very weary of it all."

  Madame Merle hesitated a little. "Ah yes, your work's done."

  "Take care what you say," said Isabel very gravely.

  "Oh, I take care; never perhaps more than when it appears least. Yourhusband judges you severely."

  Isabel made for a moment no answer to this; she felt choked withbitterness. It was not the insolence of Madame Merle's informing herthat Osmond had been taking her into his confidence as against his wifethat struck her most; for she was not quick to believe that this wasmeant for insolence. Madame Merle was very rarely insolent, and onlywhen it was exactly right. It was not right now, or at least it was notright yet. What touched Isabel like a drop of corrosive acid upon anopen wound was the knowledge that Osmond dishonoured her in his words aswell as in his thoughts. "Should you like to know how I judge HIM?" sheasked at last.

  "No, because you'd never tell me. And it would be painful for me toknow."

  There was a pause, and for the first time since she had known her Isabelthought Madame Merle disagreeable. She wished she would leave her."Remember how attractive Pansy is, and don't despair," she saidabruptly, with a desire that this should close their interview.

  But Madame Merle's expansive presence underwent no contraction. She onlygathered her mantle about her and, with the movement, scattered upon theair a faint, agreeable fragrance. "I don't despair; I feel encouraged.And I didn't come to scold you; I came if possible to learn the truth. Iknow you'll tell it if I ask you. It's an immense blessing with you thatone can count upon that. No, you won't believe what a comfort I take init."

  "What truth do you speak of?" Isabel asked, wondering.

  "Just this: whether Lord Warburton changed his mind quite of his ownmovement or because you recommended it. To please himself I mean, or toplease you. Think of the confidence I must still have in you, in spiteof having lost a little of it," Madame Merle continued with a smile, "toask such a question as that!" She sat looking at her friend, to judgethe effect of her words, and then went on: "Now don't be heroic, don'tbe unreasonable, don't take offence. It seems to me I do you an honourin speaking so. I don't know another woman to whom I would do it. Ihaven't the least idea that any other woman would tell me the truth. Anddon't you see how well it is that your husband should know it? It'strue that he doesn't appear to have had any tact whatever in trying toextract it; he has indulged in gratuitous suppositions. But that doesn'talter the fact that it would make a difference in his view of hisdaughter's prospects to know distinctly what really occurred. If LordWarburton simply got tired of the poor child, that's one thing, and it'sa pity. If he gave her up to please you it's another. That's a pity too,but in a different way. Then, in the latter case, you'd perhaps resignyourself to not being pleased--to simply seeing your step-daughtermarried. Let him off--let us have him!"

  Madame Merle had proceeded very deliberately, watching her companion andapparently thinking she could proceed safely. As she went on Isabel grewpale; she clasped her hands more tightly in
her lap. It was not that hervisitor had at last thought it the right time to be insolent; for thiswas not what was most apparent. It was a worse horror than that. "Whoare you--what are you?" Isabel murmured. "What have you to do with myhusband?" It was strange that for the moment she drew as near to him asif she had loved him.

  "Ah then, you take it heroically! I'm very sorry. Don't think, however,that I shall do so."

  "What have you to do with me?" Isabel went on.

  Madame Merle slowly got up, stroking her muff, but not removing her eyesfrom Isabel's face. "Everything!" she answered.

  Isabel sat there looking up at her, without rising; her face was almosta prayer to be enlightened. But the light of this woman's eyes seemedonly a darkness. "Oh misery!" she murmured at last; and she fellback, covering her face with her hands. It had come over her like ahigh-surging wave that Mrs. Touchett was right. Madame Merle had marriedher. Before she uncovered her face again that lady had left the room.

  Isabel took a drive alone that afternoon she wished to be far away,under the sky, where she could descend from her carriage and treadupon the daisies. She had long before this taken old Rome into herconfidence, for in a world of ruins the ruin of her happiness seemed aless unnatural catastrophe. She rested her weariness upon things thathad crumbled for centuries and yet still were upright; she dropped hersecret sadness into the silence of lonely places, where its very modernquality detached itself and grew objective, so that as she sat in asun-warmed angle on a winter's day, or stood in a mouldy church to whichno one came, she could almost smile at it and think of its smallness.Small it was, in the large Roman record, and her haunting sense of thecontinuity of the human lot easily carried her from the less to thegreater. She had become deeply, tenderly acquainted with Rome; itinterfused and moderated her passion. But she had grown to think of itchiefly as the place where people had suffered. This was what came toher in the starved churches, where the marble columns, transferred frompagan ruins, seemed to offer her a companionship in endurance and themusty incense to be a compound of long-unanswered prayers. There wasno gentler nor less consistent heretic than Isabel; the firmest ofworshippers, gazing at dark altar-pictures or clustered candles, couldnot have felt more intimately the suggestiveness of these objects norhave been more liable at such moments to a spiritual visitation. Pansy,as we know, was almost always her companion, and of late the CountessGemini, balancing a pink parasol, had lent brilliancy to their equipage;but she still occasionally found herself alone when it suited hermood and where it suited the place. On such occasions she had severalresorts; the most accessible of which perhaps was a seat on the lowparapet which edges the wide grassy space before the high, cold frontof Saint John Lateran, whence you look across the Campagna at thefar-trailing outline of the Alban Mount and at that mighty plain,between, which is still so full of all that has passed from it. Afterthe departure of her cousin and his companions she roamed more thanusual; she carried her sombre spirit from one familiar shrine to theother. Even when Pansy and the Countess were with her she felt the touchof a vanished world. The carriage, leaving the walls of Rome behind,rolled through narrow lanes where the wild honeysuckle had begun totangle itself in the hedges, or waited for her in quiet places wherethe fields lay near, while she strolled further and further over theflower-freckled turf, or sat on a stone that had once had a use andgazed through the veil of her personal sadness at the splendid sadnessof the scene--at the dense, warm light, the far gradations and softconfusions of colour, the motionless shepherds in lonely attitudes, thehills where the cloud-shadows had the lightness of a blush.

  On the afternoon I began with speaking of, she had taken a resolutionnot to think of Madame Merle; but the resolution proved vain, and thislady's image hovered constantly before her. She asked herself, with analmost childlike horror of the supposition, whether to this intimatefriend of several years the great historical epithet of wicked wereto be applied. She knew the idea only by the Bible and other literaryworks; to the best of her belief she had had no personal acquaintancewith wickedness. She had desired a large acquaintance with human life,and in spite of her having flattered herself that she cultivated it withsome success this elementary privilege had been denied her. Perhaps itwas not wicked--in the historic sense--to be even deeply false; for thatwas what Madame Merle had been--deeply, deeply, deeply. Isabel's AuntLydia had made this discovery long before, and had mentioned it to herniece; but Isabel had flattered herself at this time that she had a muchricher view of things, especially of the spontaneity of her owncareer and the nobleness of her own interpretations, than poorstiffly-reasoning Mrs. Touchett. Madame Merle had done what she wanted;she had brought about the union of her two friends; a reflection whichcould not fail to make it a matter of wonder that she should so muchhave desired such an event. There were people who had the match-makingpassion, like the votaries of art for art; but Madame Merle, greatartist as she was, was scarcely one of these. She thought too ill ofmarriage, too ill even of life; she had desired that particular marriagebut had not desired others. She had therefore had a conception of gain,and Isabel asked herself where she had found her profit. It took hernaturally a long time to discover, and even then her discovery wasimperfect. It came back to her that Madame Merle, though she had seemedto like her from their first meeting at Gardencourt, had been doublyaffectionate after Mr. Touchett's death and after learning that heryoung friend had been subject to the good old man's charity. She hadfound her profit not in the gross device of borrowing money, but inthe more refined idea of introducing one of her intimates to the youngwoman's fresh and ingenuous fortune. She had naturally chosen herclosest intimate, and it was already vivid enough to Isabel that Gilbertoccupied this position. She found herself confronted in this manner withthe conviction that the man in the world whom she had supposed to be theleast sordid had married her, like a vulgar adventurer, for her money.Strange to say, it had never before occurred to her; if she had thoughta good deal of harm of Osmond she had not done him this particularinjury. This was the worst she could think of, and she had been sayingto herself that the worst was still to come. A man might marry a womanfor her money perfectly well; the thing was often done. But at leasthe should let her know. She wondered whether, since he had wanted hermoney, her money would now satisfy him. Would he take her money and lether go. Ah, if Mr. Touchett's great charity would but help her to-day itwould be blessed indeed! It was not slow to occur to her that if MadameMerle had wished to do Gilbert a service his recognition to her of theboon must have lost its warmth. What must be his feelings to-day inregard to his too zealous benefactress, and what expression must theyhave found on the part of such a master of irony? It is a singular, buta characteristic, fact that before Isabel returned from her silent driveshe had broken its silence by the soft exclamation: "Poor, poor MadameMerle!"

  Her compassion would perhaps have been justified if on this sameafternoon she had been concealed behind one of the valuable curtains oftime-softened damask which dressed the interesting little salon of thelady to whom it referred; the carefully-arranged apartment to whichwe once paid a visit in company with the discreet Mr. Rosier. In thatapartment, towards six o'clock, Gilbert Osmond was seated, and hishostess stood before him as Isabel had seen her stand on an occasioncommemorated in this history with an emphasis appropriate not so much toits apparent as to its real importance.

  "I don't believe you're unhappy; I believe you like it," said MadameMerle.

  "Did I say I was unhappy?" Osmond asked with a face grave enough tosuggest that he might have been.

  "No, but you don't say the contrary, as you ought in common gratitude."

  "Don't talk about gratitude," he returned dryly. "And don't aggravateme," he added in a moment.

  Madame Merle slowly seated herself, with her arms folded and her whitehands arranged as a support to one of them and an ornament, as it were,to the other. She looked exquisitely calm but impressively sad. "Onyour side, don't try to frighten me. I wonder if you guess some of mythoughts."

/>   "I trouble about them no more than I can help. I've quite enough of myown."

  "That's because they're so delightful."

  Osmond rested his head against the back of his chair and looked athis companion with a cynical directness which seemed also partly anexpression of fatigue. "You do aggravate me," he remarked in a moment."I'm very tired."

  "Eh moi donc!" cried Madame Merle.

  "With you it's because you fatigue yourself. With me it's not my ownfault."

  "When I fatigue myself it's for you. I've given you an interest. That'sa great gift."

  "Do you call it an interest?" Osmond enquired with detachment.

  "Certainly, since it helps you to pass your time."

  "The time has never seemed longer to me than this winter."

  "You've never looked better; you've never been so agreeable, sobrilliant."

  "Damn my brilliancy!" he thoughtfully murmured. "How little, after all,you know me!"

  "If I don't know you I know nothing," smiled Madame Merle. "You've thefeeling of complete success."

  "No, I shall not have that till I've made you stop judging me."

  "I did that long ago. I speak from old knowledge. But you expressyourself more too."

  Osmond just hung fire. "I wish you'd express yourself less!"

  "You wish to condemn me to silence? Remember that I've never been achatterbox. At any rate there are three or four things I should like tosay to you first. Your wife doesn't know what to do with herself," shewent on with a change of tone.

  "Pardon me; she knows perfectly. She has a line sharply drawn. She meansto carry out her ideas."

  "Her ideas to-day must be remarkable."

  "Certainly they are. She has more of them than ever."

  "She was unable to show me any this morning," said Madame Merle. "Sheseemed in a very simple, almost in a stupid, state of mind. She wascompletely bewildered."

  "You had better say at once that she was pathetic."

  "Ah no, I don't want to encourage you too much."

  He still had his head against the cushion behind him; the ankle of onefoot rested on the other knee. So he sat for a while. "I should like toknow what's the matter with you," he said at last.

  "The matter--the matter--!" And here Madame Merle stopped. Then she wenton with a sudden outbreak of passion, a burst of summer thunder in aclear sky: "The matter is that I would give my right hand to be able toweep, and that I can't!"

  "What good would it do you to weep?"

  "It would make me feel as I felt before I knew you."

  "If I've dried your tears, that's something. But I've seen you shedthem."

  "Oh, I believe you'll make me cry still. I mean make me howl like awolf. I've a great hope, I've a great need, of that. I was vile thismorning; I was horrid," she said.

  "If Isabel was in the stupid state of mind you mention she probablydidn't perceive it," Osmond answered.

  "It was precisely my deviltry that stupefied her. I couldn't help it; Iwas full of something bad. Perhaps it was something good; I don't know.You've not only dried up my tears; you've dried up my soul."

  "It's not I then that am responsible for my wife's condition," Osmondsaid. "It's pleasant to think that I shall get the benefit of yourinfluence upon her. Don't you know the soul is an immortal principle?How can it suffer alteration?"

  "I don't believe at all that it's an immortal principle. I believe itcan perfectly be destroyed. That's what has happened to mine, whichwas a very good one to start with; and it's you I have to thank for it.You're VERY bad," she added with gravity in her emphasis.

  "Is this the way we're to end?" Osmond asked with the same studiedcoldness.

  "I don't know how we're to end. I wish I did--How do bad peopleend?--especially as to their COMMON crimes. You have made me as bad asyourself."

  "I don't understand you. You seem to me quite good enough," said Osmond,his conscious indifference giving an extreme effect to the words.

  Madame Merle's self-possession tended on the contrary to diminish, andshe was nearer losing it than on any occasion on which we have had thepleasure of meeting her. The glow of her eye turners sombre; her smilebetrayed a painful effort. "Good enough for anything that I've done withmyself? I suppose that's what you mean."

  "Good enough to be always charming!" Osmond exclaimed, smiling too.

  "Oh God!" his companion murmured; and, sitting there in her ripefreshness, she had recourse to the same gesture she had provoked onIsabel's part in the morning: she bent her face and covered it with herhands.

  "Are you going to weep after all?" Osmond asked; and on her remainingmotionless he went on: "Have I ever complained to you?"

  She dropped her hands quickly. "No, you've taken your revengeotherwise--you have taken it on HER."

  Osmond threw back his head further; he looked a while at the ceilingand might have been supposed to be appealing, in an informal way, to theheavenly powers. "Oh, the imagination of women! It's always vulgar, atbottom. You talk of revenge like a third-rate novelist."

  "Of course you haven't complained. You've enjoyed your triumph toomuch."

  "I'm rather curious to know what you call my triumph."

  "You've made your wife afraid of you."

  Osmond changed his position he leaned forward, resting his elbows onhis knees and looking a while at a beautiful old Persian rug, athis feet. He had an air of refusing to accept any one's valuationof anything, even of time, and of preferring to abide by his own; apeculiarity which made him at moments an irritating person to conversewith. "Isabel's not afraid of me, and it's not what I wish," he saidat last. "To what do you want to provoke me when you say such things asthat?"

  "I've thought over all the harm you can do me," Madame Merle answered."Your wife was afraid of me this morning, but in me it was really youshe feared."

  "You may have said things that were in very bad taste; I'm notresponsible for that. I didn't see the use of your going to see her atall: you're capable of acting without her. I've not made you afraid ofme that I can see," he went on "how then should I have made her? You'reat least as brave. I can't think where you've picked up such rubbish;one might suppose you knew me by this time." He got up as he spoke andwalked to the chimney, where he stood a moment bending his eye, as ifhe had seen them for the first time, on the delicate specimens of rareporcelain with which it was covered. He took up a small cup and held itin his hand; then, still holding it and leaning his arm on the mantel,he pursued: "You always see too much in everything; you overdo it; youlose sight of the real. I'm much simpler than you think."

  "I think you're very simple." And Madame Merle kept her eye on her cup."I've come to that with time. I judged you, as I say, of old; but it'sonly since your marriage that I've understood you. I've seen better whatyou have been to your wife than I ever saw what you were for me. Pleasebe very careful of that precious object."

  "It already has a wee bit of a tiny crack," said Osmond dryly as he putit down. "If you didn't understand me before I married it was cruellyrash of you to put me into such a box. However, I took a fancy to my boxmyself; I thought it would be a comfortable fit. I asked very little; Ionly asked that she should like me."

  "That she should like you so much!"

  "So much, of course; in such a case one asks the maximum. That sheshould adore me, if you will. Oh yes, I wanted that."

  "I never adored you," said Madame Merle.

  "Ah, but you pretended to!"

  "It's true that you never accused me of being a comfortable fit," MadameMerle went on.

  "My wife has declined--declined to do anything of the sort," saidOsmond. "If you're determined to make a tragedy of that, the tragedy'shardly for her."

  "The tragedy's for me!" Madame Merle exclaimed, rising with a longlow sigh but having a glance at the same time for the contents of hermantel-shelf.

  "It appears that I'm to be severely taught the disadvantages of a falseposition."

  "You express yourself like a sentence in a copybook. We must l
ook forour comfort where we can find it. If my wife doesn't like me, at leastmy child does. I shall look for compensations in Pansy. Fortunately Ihaven't a fault to find with her."

  "Ah," she said softly, "if I had a child--!"

  Osmond waited, and then, with a little formal air, "The children ofothers may be a great interest!" he announced.

  "You're more like a copy-book than I. There's something after all thatholds us together."

  "Is it the idea of the harm I may do you?" Osmond asked.

  "No; it's the idea of the good I may do for you. It's that," MadameMerle pursued, "that made me so jealous of Isabel. I want it to beMY work," she added, with her face, which had grown hard and bitter,relaxing to its habit of smoothness.

  Her friend took up his hat and his umbrella, and after giving theformer article two or three strokes with his coat-cuff, "On the whole, Ithink," he said, "you had better leave it to me."

  After he had left her she went, the first thing, and lifted from themantel-shelf the attenuated coffee-cup in which he had mentioned theexistence of a crack; but she looked at it rather abstractedly. "Have Ibeen so vile all for nothing?" she vaguely wailed.