The Complete Works of Henry James

by Henry James

  “Ah no, it was n’t that! I know all about that look. It was something else—as if you knew something about me. I don’t know what you can have known. There was very little to know about me, except that I was intensely silly. Really, I was awfully silly that summer at Baden—you would n’t believe how silly I was. But I don’t see how you could have known that— before you had spoken to me. It came out in my conversation— it came out awfully. My mother was a good deal disappointed in Mrs. Vivian’s influence; she had expected so much from it. But it was not poor Mrs. Vivian’s fault, it was some one’s else. Have you ever seen the Vivians again? They are always in Europe; they have gone to live in Paris. That evening when you came up and spoke to Gordon, I never thought that three years afterward I should be married to him, and I don’t suppose you did either. Is that what you meant by looking at me? Perhaps you can tell the future. I wish you would tell my future!”

  “Oh, I can tell that easily,” said Bernard.

  “What will happen to me?”

  “Nothing particular; it will be a little dull—the perfect happiness of a charming woman married to the best fellow in the world.”

  “Ah, what a horrid future!” cried Blanche, with a little petulant cry. “I want to be happy, but I certainly don’t want to be dull. If you say that again you will make me repent of having married the best fellow in the world. I mean to be happy, but I certainly shall not be dull if I can help it.”

  “I was wrong to say that,” said Bernard, “because, after all, my dear young lady, there must be an excitement in having so kind a husband as you have got. Gordon’s devotion is quite capable of taking a new form—of inventing a new kindness— every day in the year.”

  Blanche looked at him an instant, with less than her usual consciousness of her momentary pose.

  “My husband is very kind,” she said gently.

  She had hardly spoken the words when Gordon came in. He stopped a moment on seeing Bernard, glanced at his wife, blushed, flushed, and with a loud, frank exclamation of pleasure, grasped his friend by both hands. It was so long since he had seen Bernard that he seemed a good deal moved; he stood there smiling, clasping his hands, looking him in the eyes, unable for some moments to speak. Bernard, on his side, was greatly pleased; it was delightful to him to look into Gordon’s honest face again and to return his manly grasp. And he looked well— he looked happy; to see that was more delightful yet. During these few instants, while they exchanged a silent pledge of renewed friendship, Bernard’s elastic perception embraced several things besides the consciousness of his own pleasure. He saw that Gordon looked well and happy, but that he looked older, too, and more serious, more marked by life. He looked as if something had happened to him—as, in fact, something had. Bernard saw a latent spark in his friend’s eye that seemed to question his own for an impression of Blanche— to question it eagerly, and yet to deprecate judgment. He saw, too—with the fact made more vivid by Gordon’s standing there beside her in his manly sincerity and throwing it into contrast—that Blanche was the same little posturing coquette of a Blanche whom, at Baden, he would have treated it as a broad joke that Gordon Wright should dream of marrying. He saw, in a word, that it was what it had first struck him as being— an incongruous union. All this was a good deal for Bernard to see in the course of half a minute, especially through the rather opaque medium of a feeling of irreflective joy; and his impressions at this moment have a value only in so far as they were destined to be confirmed by larger opportunity.

  “You have come a little sooner than we expected,” said Gordon; “but you are all the more welcome.”

  “It was rather a risk,” Blanche observed. “One should be notified, when one wishes to make a good impression.”

  “Ah, my dear lady,” said Bernard, “you made your impression— as far as I am concerned—a long time ago, and I doubt whether it would have gained anything to-day by your having prepared an effect.”

  They were standing before the fire-place, on the great hearth-rug, and Blanche, while she listened to this speech, was feeling, with uplifted arm, for a curl that had strayed from her chignon.

  “She prepares her effects very quickly,” said Gordon, laughing gently. “They follow each other very fast!”

  Blanche kept her hand behind her head, which was bent slightly forward; her bare arm emerged from her hanging sleeve, and, with her eyes glancing upward from under her lowered brows, she smiled at her two spectators. Her husband laid his hand on Bernard’s arm.

  “Is n’t she pretty?” he cried; and he spoke with a sort of tender delight in being sure at least of this point.

  “Tremendously pretty!” said Bernard. “I told her so half an hour before you came in.”

  “Ah, it was time I should arrive!” Gordon exclaimed.

  Blanche was manifestly not in the least discomposed by this frank discussion of her charms, for the air of distinguished esteem adopted by both of her companions diminished the crudity of their remarks. But she gave a little pout of irritated modesty— it was more becoming than anything she had done yet—and declared that if they wished to talk her over, they were very welcome; but she should prefer their waiting till she got out of the room. So she left them, reminding Bernard that he was to send for his luggage and remain, and promising to give immediate orders for the preparation of his apartment. Bernard opened the door for her to pass out; she gave him a charming nod as he stood there, and he turned back to Gordon with the reflection of her smile in his face. Gordon was watching him; Gordon was dying to know what he thought of her. It was a curious mania of Gordon’s, this wanting to know what one thought of the women he loved; but Bernard just now felt abundantly able to humor it. He was so pleased at seeing him tightly married.

  “She ‘s a delightful creature,” Bernard said, with cordial vagueness, shaking hands with his friend again.

  Gordon glanced at him a moment, and then, coloring a little, looked straight out of the window; whereupon Bernard remembered that these were just the terms in which, at Baden, after his companion’s absence, he had attempted to qualify Angela Vivian. Gordon was conscious—he was conscious of the oddity of his situation.

  “Of course it surprised you,” he said, in a moment, still looking out of the window.

  “What, my dear fellow?”

  “My marriage.”

  “Well, you know,” said Bernard, “everything surprises me. I am of a very conjectural habit of mind. All sorts of ideas come into my head, and yet when the simplest things happen I am always rather startled. I live in a reverie, and I am perpetually waked up by people doing things.”

  Gordon transferred his eyes from the window to Bernard’s face— to his whole person.

  “You are waked up? But you fall asleep again!”

  “I fall asleep very easily,” said Bernard.

  Gordon looked at him from head to foot, smiling and shaking his head.

  “You are not changed,” he said. “You have travelled in unknown lands; you have had, I suppose, all sorts of adventures; but you are the same man I used to know.”

  “I am sorry for that!”

  “You have the same way of representing—of misrepresenting, yourself.”

  “Well, if I am not changed,” said Bernard, “I can ill afford to lose so valuable an art.”

  “Taking you altogether, I am glad you are the same,” Gordon answered, simply; “but you must come into my part of the house.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  Yes, he was conscious—he was very conscious; so Bernard reflected during the two or three first days of his visit to his friend. Gordon knew it must seem strange to so irreverent a critic that a man who had once aspired to the hand of so intelligent a girl—putting other things aside—as Angela Vivian should, as the Ghost in “Hamlet” says, have “declined upon” a young lady who, in force of understanding, was so very much Miss Vivian’s inferior; and this knowledge kept him ill at his ease and gave him a certain pitiable awkwardness. Bernard’s sense of the
anomaly grew rapidly less acute; he made various observations which helped it to seem natural. Blanche was wonderfully pretty; she was very graceful, innocent, amusing. Since Gordon had determined to marry a little goose, he had chosen the animal with extreme discernment. It had quite the plumage of a swan, and it sailed along the stream of life with an extraordinary lightness of motion. He asked himself indeed at times whether Blanche were really so silly as she seemed; he doubted whether any woman could be so silly as Blanche seemed. He had a suspicion at times that, for ends of her own, she was playing a part—the suspicion arising from the fact that, as usually happens in such cases, she over-played it. Her empty chatter, her futility, her childish coquetry and frivolity—such light wares could hardly be the whole substance of any woman’s being; there was something beneath them which Blanche was keeping out of sight. She had a scrap of a mind somewhere, and even a little particle of a heart. If one looked long enough one might catch a glimpse of these possessions. But why should she keep them out of sight, and what were the ends that she proposed to serve by this uncomfortable perversity? Bernard wondered whether she were fond of her husband, and he heard it intimated by several good people in New York who had had some observation of the courtship, that she had married him for his money. He was very sorry to find that this was taken for granted, and he determined, on the whole, not to believe it. He was disgusted with the idea of such a want of gratitude; for, if Gordon Wright had loved Miss Evers for herself, the young lady might certainly have discovered the intrinsic value of so disinterested a suitor. Her mother had the credit of having made the match. Gordon was known to be looking for a wife; Mrs. Evers had put her little feather-head of a daughter very much forward, and Gordon was as easily captivated as a child by the sound of a rattle. Blanche had an affection for him now, however; Bernard saw no reason to doubt that, and certainly she would have been a very flimsy creature indeed if she had not been touched by his inexhaustible kindness. She had every conceivable indulgence, and if she married him for his money, at least she had got what she wanted. She led the most agreeable life conceivable, and she ought to be in high good-humor. It was impossible to have a prettier house, a prettier carriage, more jewels and laces for the adornment of a plump little person. It was impossible to go to more parties, to give better dinners, to have fewer privations or annoyances. Bernard was so much struck with all this that, advancing rapidly in the intimacy of his gracious hostess, he ventured to call her attention to her blessings. She answered that she was perfectly aware of them, and there was no pretty speech she was not prepared to make about Gordon.

  “I know what you want to say,” she went on; “you want to say that he spoils me, and I don’t see why you should hesitate. You generally say everything you want, and you need n’t be afraid of me. He does n’t spoil me, simply because I am so bad I can’t be spoiled; but that ‘s of no consequence. I was spoiled ages ago; every one spoiled me—every one except Mrs. Vivian. I was always fond of having everything I want, and I generally managed to get it. I always had lovely clothes; mamma thought that was a kind of a duty. If it was a duty, I don’t suppose it counts as a part of the spoiling. But I was very much indulged, and I know I have everything now. Gordon is a perfect husband; I believe if I were to ask him for a present of his nose, he would cut it off and give it to me. I think I will ask him for a small piece of it some day; it will rather improve him to have an inch or two less. I don’t say he ‘s handsome; but he ‘s just as good as he can be. Some people say that if you are very fond of a person you always think them handsome; but I don’t agree with that at all. I am very fond of Gordon, and yet I am not blinded by affection, as regards his personal appearance. He ‘s too light for my taste, and too red. And because you think people handsome, it does n’t follow that you are fond of them. I used to have a friend who was awfully handsome—the handsomest man I ever saw— and I was perfectly conscious of his defects. But I ‘m not conscious of Gordon’s, and I don’t believe he has got any. He ‘s so intensely kind; it ‘s quite pathetic. One would think he had done me an injury in marrying me, and that he wanted to make up for it. If he has done me an injury I have n’t discovered it yet, and I don’t believe I ever shall. I certainly shall not as long as he lets me order all the clothes I want. I have ordered five dresses this week, and I mean to order two more. When I told Gordon, what do you think he did? He simply kissed me. Well, if that ‘s not expressive, I don’t know what he could have done. He kisses me about seventeen times a day. I suppose it ‘s very improper for a woman to tell any one how often her husband kisses her; but, as you happen to have seen him do it, I don’t suppose you will be scandalized. I know you are not easily scandalized; I am not afraid of you. You are scandalized at my getting so many dresses? Well, I told you I was spoiled—I freely acknowledge it. That ‘s why I was afraid to tell Gordon— because when I was married I had such a lot of things; I was supposed to have dresses enough to last for a year. But Gordon had n’t to pay for them, so there was no harm in my letting him feel that he has a wife. If he thinks I am extravagant, he can easily stop kissing me. You don’t think it would be easy to stop? It ‘s very well, then, for those that have never begun!”

  Bernard had a good deal of conversation with Blanche, of which, so far as she was concerned, the foregoing remarks may serve as a specimen. Gordon was away from home during much of the day; he had a chemical laboratory in which he was greatly interested, and which he took Bernard to see; it was fitted up with the latest contrivances for the pursuit of experimental science, and was the resort of needy young students, who enjoyed, at Gordon’s expense, the opportunity for pushing their researches. The place did great honor to Gordon’s liberality and to his ingenuity; but Blanche, who had also paid it a visit, could never speak of it without a pretty little shudder.

  “Nothing would induce me to go there again,” she declared, “and I consider myself very fortunate to have escaped from it with my life. It ‘s filled with all sorts of horrible things, that fizzle up and go off, or that make you turn some dreadful color if you look at them. I expect to hear a great clap some day, and half an hour afterward to see Gordon brought home in several hundred small pieces, put up in a dozen little bottles. I got a horrid little stain in the middle of my dress that one of the young men—the young savants—was so good as to drop there. Did you see the young savants who work under Gordon’s orders? I thought they were too forlorn; there is n’t one of them you would look at. If you can believe it, there was n’t one of them that looked at me; they took no more notice of me than if I had been the charwoman. They might have shown me some attention, at least, as the wife of the proprietor. What is it that Gordon ‘s called—is n’t there some other name? If you say ‘proprietor,’ it sounds as if he kept an hotel. I certainly don’t want to pass for the wife of an hotel-keeper. What does he call himself? He must have some name. I hate telling people he ‘s a chemist; it sounds just as if he kept a shop. That ‘s what they call the druggists in England, and I formed the habit while I was there. It makes me feel as if he were some dreadful little man, with big green bottles in the window and ‘night-bell’ painted outside. He does n’t call himself anything? Well, that ‘s exactly like Gordon! I wonder he consents to have a name at all. When I was telling some one about the young men who work under his orders—the young savants—he said I must not say that— I must not speak of their working ‘under his orders.’ I don’t know what he would like me to say! Under his inspiration!”

  During the hours of Gordon’s absence, Bernard had frequent colloquies with his friend’s wife, whose irresponsible prattle amused him, and in whom he tried to discover some faculty, some quality, which might be a positive guarantee of Gordon’s future felicity. But often, of course, Gordon was an auditor as well; I say an auditor, because it seemed to Bernard that he had grown to be less of a talker than of yore. Doubtless, when a man finds himself united to a garrulous wife, he naturally learns to hold his tongue; but sometimes, at the close of one of Blanche’s dis
cursive monologues, on glancing at her husband just to see how he took it, and seeing him sit perfectly silent, with a fixed, inexpressive smile, Bernard said to himself that Gordon found the lesson of listening attended with some embarrassments. Gordon, as the years went by, was growing a little inscrutable; but this, too, in certain circumstances, was a usual tendency. The operations of the mind, with deepening experience, became more complex, and people were less apt to emit immature reflections at forty than they had been in their earlier days. Bernard felt a great kindness in these days for his old friend; he never yet had seemed to him such a good fellow, nor appealed so strongly to the benevolence of his disposition. Sometimes, of old, Gordon used to irritate him; but this danger appeared completely to have passed away. Bernard prolonged his visit; it gave him pleasure to be able to testify in this manner to his good will. Gordon was the kindest of hosts, and if in conversation, when his wife was present, he gave precedence to her superior powers, he had at other times a good deal of pleasant bachelor-talk with his guest. He seemed very happy; he had plenty of occupation and plenty of practical intentions. The season went on, and Bernard enjoyed his life. He enjoyed the keen and brilliant American winter, and he found it very pleasant to be treated as a distinguished stranger in his own land—a situation to which his long and repeated absences had relegated him. The hospitality of New York was profuse; the charm of its daughters extreme; the radiance of its skies superb. Bernard was the restless and professionless mortal that we know, wandering in life from one vague experiment to another, constantly gratified and never satisfied, to whom no imperious finality had as yet presented itself; and, nevertheless, for a time he contrived to limit his horizon to the passing hour, and to make a good many hours pass in the drawing-room of a demonstrative flirt.