The Complete Works of Henry James

by Henry James

  “It is seven miles and a half,” said Gertrude, softly. Now that this handsome young man was proving himself a reality she found herself vaguely trembling; she was deeply excited. She had never in her life spoken to a foreigner, and she had often thought it would be delightful to do so. Here was one who had suddenly been engendered by the Sabbath stillness for her private use; and such a brilliant, polite, smiling one! She found time and means to compose herself, however: to remind herself that she must exercise a sort of official hospitality. “We are very—very glad to see you,” she said. “Won’t you come into the house?” And she moved toward the open door.

  “You are not afraid of me, then?” asked the young man again, with his light laugh.

  She wondered a moment, and then, “We are not afraid—here,” she said.

  “Ah, comme vous devez avoir raison!” cried the young man, looking all round him, appreciatively. It was the first time that Gertrude had heard so many words of French spoken. They gave her something of a sensation. Her companion followed her, watching, with a certain excitement of his own, this tall, interesting-looking girl, dressed in her clear, crisp muslin. He paused in the hall, where there was a broad white staircase with a white balustrade. “What a pleasant house!” he said. “It ‘s lighter inside than it is out.”

  “It ‘s pleasanter here,” said Gertrude, and she led the way into the parlor,—a high, clean, rather empty-looking room. Here they stood looking at each other,—the young man smiling more than ever; Gertrude, very serious, trying to smile.

  “I don’t believe you know my name,” he said. “I am called Felix Young. Your father is my uncle. My mother was his half sister, and older than he.”

  “Yes,” said Gertrude, “and she turned Roman Catholic and married in Europe.”

  “I see you know,” said the young man. “She married and she died. Your father’s family did n’t like her husband. They called him a foreigner; but he was not. My poor father was born in Sicily, but his parents were American.”

  “In Sicily?” Gertrude murmured.

  “It is true,” said Felix Young, “that they had spent their lives in Europe. But they were very patriotic. And so are we.”

  “And you are Sicilian,” said Gertrude.

  “Sicilian, no! Let ‘s see. I was born at a little place— a dear little place—in France. My sister was born at Vienna.”

  “So you are French,” said Gertrude.

  “Heaven forbid!” cried the young man. Gertrude’s eyes were fixed upon him almost insistently. He began to laugh again. “I can easily be French, if that will please you.”

  “You are a foreigner of some sort,” said Gertrude.

  “Of some sort—yes; I suppose so. But who can say of what sort? I don’t think we have ever had occasion to settle the question. You know there are people like that. About their country, their religion, their profession, they can’t tell.”

  Gertrude stood there gazing; she had not asked him to sit down. She had never heard of people like that; she wanted to hear. “Where do you live?” she asked.

  “They can’t tell that, either!” said Felix. “I am afraid you will think they are little better than vagabonds. I have lived anywhere—everywhere. I really think I have lived in every city in Europe.” Gertrude gave a little long soft exhalation. It made the young man smile at her again; and his smile made her blush a little. To take refuge from blushing she asked him if, after his long walk, he was not hungry or thirsty. Her hand was in her pocket; she was fumbling with the little key that her sister had given her. “Ah, my dear young lady,” he said, clasping his hands a little, “if you could give me, in charity, a glass of wine!”

  Gertrude gave a smile and a little nod, and went quickly out of the room. Presently she came back with a very large decanter in one hand and a plate in the other, on which was placed a big, round cake with a frosted top. Gertrude, in taking the cake from the closet, had had a moment of acute consciousness that it composed the refection of which her sister had thought that Mr. Brand would like to partake. Her kinsman from across the seas was looking at the pale, high-hung engravings. When she came in he turned and smiled at her, as if they had been old friends meeting after a separation. “You wait upon me yourself?” he asked. “I am served like the gods!” She had waited upon a great many people, but none of them had ever told her that. The observation added a certain lightness to the step with which she went to a little table where there were some curious red glasses—glasses covered with little gold sprigs, which Charlotte used to dust every morning with her own hands. Gertrude thought the glasses very handsome, and it was a pleasure to her to know that the wine was good; it was her father’s famous madeira. Felix Young thought it excellent; he wondered why he had been told that there was no wine in America. She cut him an immense triangle out of the cake, and again she thought of Mr. Brand. Felix sat there, with his glass in one hand and his huge morsel of cake in the other—eating, drinking, smiling, talking. “I am very hungry,” he said. “I am not at all tired; I am never tired. But I am very hungry.”

  “You must stay to dinner,” said Gertrude. “At two o’clock. They will all have come back from church; you will see the others.”

  “Who are the others?” asked the young man. “Describe them all.”

  “You will see for yourself. It is you that must tell me; now, about your sister.”

  “My sister is the Baroness Munster,” said Felix.

  On hearing that his sister was a Baroness, Gertrude got up and walked about slowly, in front of him. She was silent a moment. She was thinking of it. “Why did n’t she come, too?” she asked.

  “She did come; she is in Boston, at the hotel.”

  “We will go and see her,” said Gertrude, looking at him.

  “She begs you will not!” the young man replied. “She sends you her love; she sent me to announce her. She will come and pay her respects to your father.”

  Gertrude felt herself trembling again. A Baroness Munster, who sent a brilliant young man to “announce” her; who was coming, as the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon, to pay her “respects” to quiet Mr. Wentworth—such a personage presented herself to Gertrude’s vision with a most effective unexpectedness. For a moment she hardly knew what to say. “When will she come?” she asked at last.

  “As soon as you will allow her—to-morrow. She is very impatient,” answered Felix, who wished to be agreeable.

  “To-morrow, yes,” said Gertrude. She wished to ask more about her; but she hardly knew what could be predicated of a Baroness Munster. “Is she—is she—married?”

  Felix had finished his cake and wine; he got up, fixing upon the young girl his bright, expressive eyes. “She is married to a German prince— Prince Adolf, of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein. He is not the reigning prince; he is a younger brother.”

  Gertrude gazed at her informant; her lips were slightly parted. “Is she a—a Princess?” she asked at last.

  “Oh, no,” said the young man; “her position is rather a singular one. It ‘s a morganatic marriage.”

  “Morganatic?” These were new names and new words to poor Gertrude.

  “That ‘s what they call a marriage, you know, contracted between a scion of a ruling house and—and a common mortal. They made Eugenia a Baroness, poor woman; but that was all they could do. Now they want to dissolve the marriage. Prince Adolf, between ourselves, is a ninny; but his brother, who is a clever man, has plans for him. Eugenia, naturally enough, makes difficulties; not, however, that I think she cares much— she ‘s a very clever woman; I ‘m sure you ‘ll like her— but she wants to bother them. Just now everything is en l’air.”

  The cheerful, off-hand tone in which her visitor related this darkly romantic tale seemed to Gertrude very strange; but it seemed also to convey a certain flattery to herself, a recognition of her wisdom and dignity. She felt a dozen impressions stirring within her, and presently the one that was uppermost found words. “They want to dissolve her marriage?” she asked
.

  “So it appears.”

  “And against her will?”

  “Against her right.”

  “She must be very unhappy!” said Gertrude.

  Her visitor looked at her, smiling; he raised his hand to the back of his head and held it there a moment. “So she says,” he answered. “That ‘s her story. She told me to tell it you.”

  “Tell me more,” said Gertrude.

  “No, I will leave that to her; she does it better.”

  Gertrude gave her little excited sigh again. “Well, if she is unhappy,” she said, “I am glad she has come to us.”

  She had been so interested that she failed to notice the sound of a footstep in the portico; and yet it was a footstep that she always recognized. She heard it in the hall, and then she looked out of the window. They were all coming back from church—her father, her sister and brother, and their cousins, who always came to dinner on Sunday. Mr. Brand had come in first; he was in advance of the others, because, apparently, he was still disposed to say what she had not wished him to say an hour before. He came into the parlor, looking for Gertrude. He had two little books in his hand. On seeing Gertrude’s companion he slowly stopped, looking at him.

  “Is this a cousin?” asked Felix.

  Then Gertrude saw that she must introduce him; but her ears, and, by sympathy, her lips, were full of all that he had been telling her. “This is the Prince,” she said, “the Prince of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein!”

  Felix burst out laughing, and Mr. Brand stood staring, while the others, who had passed into the house, appeared behind him in the open door-way.

  CHAPTER III

  That evening at dinner Felix Young gave his sister, the Baroness Munster, an account of his impressions. She saw that he had come back in the highest possible spirits; but this fact, to her own mind, was not a reason for rejoicing. She had but a limited confidence in her brother’s judgment; his capacity for taking rose-colored views was such as to vulgarize one of the prettiest of tints. Still, she supposed he could be trusted to give her the mere facts; and she invited him with some eagerness to communicate them. “I suppose, at least, they did n’t turn you out from the door;” she said. “You have been away some ten hours.”

  “Turn me from the door!” Felix exclaimed. “They took me to their hearts; they killed the fatted calf.”

  “I know what you want to say: they are a collection of angels.”

  “Exactly,” said Felix. “They are a collection of angels—simply.”

  “C’est bien vague,” remarked the Baroness. “What are they like?”

  “Like nothing you ever saw.”

  “I am sure I am much obliged; but that is hardly more definite. Seriously, they were glad to see you?”

  “Enchanted. It has been the proudest day of my life. Never, never have I been so lionized! I assure you, I was cock of the walk. My dear sister,” said the young man, “nous n’avons qu’a nous tenir; we shall be great swells!”

  Madame Munster looked at him, and her eye exhibited a slight responsive spark. She touched her lips to a glass of wine, and then she said, “Describe them. Give me a picture.”

  Felix drained his own glass. “Well, it ‘s in the country, among the meadows and woods; a wild sort of place, and yet not far from here. Only, such a road, my dear! Imagine one of the Alpine glaciers reproduced in mud. But you will not spend much time on it, for they want you to come and stay, once for all.”

  “Ah,” said the Baroness, “they want me to come and stay, once for all? Bon.”

  “It ‘s intensely rural, tremendously natural; and all overhung with this strange white light, this far-away blue sky. There ‘s a big wooden house— a kind of three-story bungalow; it looks like a magnified N; auuremberg toy. There was a gentleman there that made a speech to me about it and called it a ‘venerable mansion;’ but it looks as if it had been built last night.”

  “Is it handsome—is it elegant?” asked the Baroness.

  Felix looked at her a moment, smiling. “It ‘s very clean! No splendors, no gilding, no troops of servants; rather straight-backed chairs. But you might eat off the floors, and you can sit down on the stairs.”

  “That must be a privilege. And the inhabitants are straight-backed too, of course.”

  “My dear sister,” said Felix, “the inhabitants are charming.”

  “In what style?”

  “In a style of their own. How shall I describe it? It ‘s primitive; it ‘s patriarchal; it ‘s the ton of the golden age.”

  “And have they nothing golden but their ton? Are there no symptoms of wealth?”

  “I should say there was wealth without symptoms. A plain, homely way of life: nothing for show, and very little for— what shall I call it?—for the senses: but a great aisance, and a lot of money, out of sight, that comes forward very quietly for subscriptions to institutions, for repairing tenements, for paying doctor’s bills; perhaps even for portioning daughters.”

  “And the daughters?” Madame Munster demanded. “How many are there?”

  “There are two, Charlotte and Gertrude.”

  “Are they pretty?”

  “One of them,” said Felix.

  “Which is that?”

  The young man was silent, looking at his sister. “Charlotte,” he said at last.

  She looked at him in return. “I see. You are in love with Gertrude. They must be Puritans to their finger-tips; anything but gay!”

  “No, they are not gay,” Felix admitted. “They are sober; they are even severe. They are of a pensive cast; they take things hard. I think there is something the matter with them; they have some melancholy memory or some depressing expectation. It ‘s not the epicurean temperament. My uncle, Mr. Wentworth, is a tremendously high-toned old fellow; he looks as if he were undergoing martyrdom, not by fire, but by freezing. But we shall cheer them up; we shall do them good. They will take a good deal of stirring up; but they are wonderfully kind and gentle. And they are appreciative. They think one clever; they think one remarkable!”

  “That is very fine, so far as it goes,” said the Baroness. “But are we to be shut up to these three people, Mr. Wentworth and the two young women—what did you say their names were— Deborah and Hephzibah?”

  “Oh, no; there is another little girl, a cousin of theirs, a very pretty creature; a thorough little American. And then there is the son of the house.”

  “Good!” said the Baroness. “We are coming to the gentlemen. What of the son of the house?”

  “I am afraid he gets tipsy.”

  “He, then, has the epicurean temperament! How old is he?”

  “He is a boy of twenty; a pretty young fellow, but I am afraid he has vulgar tastes. And then there is Mr. Brand—a very tall young man, a sort of lay-priest. They seem to think a good deal of him, but I don’t exactly make him out.”

  “And is there nothing,” asked the Baroness, “between these extremes— this mysterious ecclesiastic and that intemperate youth?”

  “Oh, yes, there is Mr. Acton. I think,” said the young man, with a nod at his sister, “that you will like Mr. Acton.”

  “Remember that I am very fastidious,” said the Baroness. “Has he very good manners?”

  “He will have them with you. He is a man of the world; he has been to China.”

  Madame Munster gave a little laugh. “A man of the Chinese world! He must be very interesting.”

  “I have an idea that he brought home a fortune,” said Felix.

  “That is always interesting. Is he young, good-looking, clever?”

  “He is less than forty; he has a baldish head; he says witty things. I rather think,” added the young man, “that he will admire the Baroness Munster.”

  “It is very possible,” said this lady. Her brother never knew how she would take things; but shortly afterwards she declared that he had made a very pretty description and that on the morrow she would go and see for herself.

  They mounted, accordingly, i
nto a great barouche—a vehicle as to which the Baroness found nothing to criticise but the price that was asked for it and the fact that the coachman wore a straw hat. (At Silberstadt Madame Munster had had liveries of yellow and crimson.) They drove into the country, and the Baroness, leaning far back and swaying her lace-fringed parasol, looked to right and to left and surveyed the way-side objects. After a while she pronounced them “affreux.” Her brother remarked that it was apparently a country in which the foreground was inferior to the plans recules: and the Baroness rejoined that the landscape seemed to be all foreground. Felix had fixed with his new friends the hour at which he should bring his sister; it was four o’clock in the afternoon. The large, clean-faced house wore, to his eyes, as the barouche drove up to it, a very friendly aspect; the high, slender elms made lengthening shadows in front of it. The Baroness descended; her American kinsfolk were stationed in the portico. Felix waved his hat to them, and a tall, lean gentleman, with a high forehead and a clean shaven face, came forward toward the garden gate. Charlotte Wentworth walked at his side. Gertrude came behind, more slowly. Both of these young ladies wore rustling silk dresses. Felix ushered his sister into the gate. “Be very gracious,” he said to her. But he saw the admonition was superfluous. Eugenia was prepared to be gracious as only Eugenia could be. Felix knew no keener pleasure than to be able to admire his sister unrestrictedly; for if the opportunity was frequent, it was not inveterate. When she desired to please she was to him, as to every one else, the most charming woman in the world. Then he forgot that she was ever anything else; that she was sometimes hard and perverse; that he was occasionally afraid of her. Now, as she took his arm to pass into the garden, he felt that she desired, that she proposed, to please, and this situation made him very happy. Eugenia would please.