by Henry James
“As I?”
“My dear sir, you are stone blind. Poor Charlotte is dead in love with you!”
Mr. Brand said nothing for a moment; he breathed a little heavily. “Is that what you wanted to say to me?” he asked.
“I have wanted to say it these three weeks. Because of late she has been worse. I told you,” added Felix, “it was very delicate.”
“Well, sir”—Mr. Brand began; “well, sir”—
“I was sure you did n’t know it,” Felix continued. “But don’t you see—as soon as I mention it—how everything is explained?” Mr. Brand answered nothing; he looked for a chair and softly sat down. Felix could see that he was blushing; he had looked straight at his host hitherto, but now he looked away. The foremost effect of what he had heard had been a sort of irritation of his modesty. “Of course,” said Felix, “I suggest nothing; it would be very presumptuous in me to advise you. But I think there is no doubt about the fact.”
Mr. Brand looked hard at the floor for some moments; he was oppressed with a mixture of sensations. Felix, standing there, was very sure that one of them was profound surprise. The innocent young man had been completely unsuspicious of poor Charlotte’s hidden flame. This gave Felix great hope; he was sure that Mr. Brand would be flattered. Felix thought him very transparent, and indeed he was so; he could neither simulate nor dissimulate. “I scarcely know what to make of this,” he said at last, without looking up; and Felix was struck with the fact that he offered no protest or contradiction. Evidently Felix had kindled a train of memories—a retrospective illumination. It was making, to Mr. Brand’s astonished eyes, a very pretty blaze; his second emotion had been a gratification of vanity.
“Thank me for telling you,” Felix rejoined. “It ‘s a good thing to know.”
“I am not sure of that,” said Mr. Brand.
“Ah, don’t let her languish!” Felix murmured, lightly and softly.
“You do advise me, then?” And Mr. Brand looked up.
“I congratulate you!” said Felix, smiling. He had thought at first his visitor was simply appealing; but he saw he was a little ironical.
“It is in your interest; you have interfered with me,” the young clergyman went on.
Felix still stood and smiled. The little room had grown darker, and the crimson glow had faded; but Mr. Brand could see the brilliant expression of his face. “I won’t pretend not to know what you mean,” said Felix at last. “But I have not really interfered with you. Of what you had to lose—with another person—you have lost nothing. And think what you have gained!”
“It seems to me I am the proper judge, on each side,” Mr. Brand declared. He got up, holding the brim of his hat against his mouth and staring at Felix through the dusk.
“You have lost an illusion!” said Felix.
“What do you call an illusion?”
“The belief that you really know—that you have ever really known— Gertrude Wentworth. Depend upon that,” pursued Felix. “I don’t know her yet; but I have no illusions; I don’t pretend to.”
Mr. Brand kept gazing, over his hat. “She has always been a lucid, limpid nature,” he said, solemnly.
“She has always been a dormant nature. She was waiting for a touchstone. But now she is beginning to awaken.”
“Don’t praise her to me!” said Mr. Brand, with a little quaver in his voice. “If you have the advantage of me that is not generous.”
“My dear sir, I am melting with generosity!” exclaimed Felix. “And I am not praising my cousin. I am simply attempting a scientific definition of her. She doesn’t care for abstractions. Now I think the contrary is what you have always fancied— is the basis on which you have been building. She is extremely preoccupied with the concrete. I care for the concrete, too. But Gertrude is stronger than I; she whirls me along!”
Mr. Brand looked for a moment into the crown of his hat. “It ‘s a most interesting nature.”
“So it is,” said Felix. “But it pulls—it pulls—like a runaway horse. Now I like the feeling of a runaway horse; and if I am thrown out of the vehicle it is no great matter. But if you should be thrown, Mr. Brand”—and Felix paused a moment—”another person also would suffer from the accident.”
“What other person?”
“Charlotte Wentworth!”
Mr. Brand looked at Felix for a moment sidewise, mistrustfully; then his eyes slowly wandered over the ceiling. Felix was sure he was secretly struck with the romance of the situation. “I think this is none of our business,” the young minister murmured.
“None of mine, perhaps; but surely yours!”
Mr. Brand lingered still, looking at the ceiling; there was evidently something he wanted to say. “What do you mean by Miss Gertrude being strong?” he asked abruptly.
“Well,” said Felix meditatively, “I mean that she has had a great deal of self-possession. She was waiting—for years; even when she seemed, perhaps, to be living in the present. She knew how to wait; she had a purpose. That ‘s what I mean by her being strong.”
“But what do you mean by her purpose?”
“Well—the purpose to see the world!”
Mr. Brand eyed his strange informant askance again; but he said nothing. At last he turned away, as if to take leave. He seemed bewildered, however; for instead of going to the door he moved toward the opposite corner of the room. Felix stood and watched him for a moment—almost groping about in the dusk; then he led him to the door, with a tender, almost fraternal movement. “Is that all you have to say?” asked Mr. Brand.
“Yes, it ‘s all—but it will bear a good deal of thinking of.”
Felix went with him to the garden-gate, and watched him slowly walk away into the thickening twilight with a relaxed rigidity that tried to rectify itself. “He is offended, excited, bewildered, perplexed—and enchanted!” Felix said to himself. “That ‘s a capital mixture.”
CHAPTER XI
Since that visit paid by the Baroness Munster to Mrs. Acton, of which some account was given at an earlier stage of this narrative, the intercourse between these two ladies had been neither frequent nor intimate. It was not that Mrs. Acton had failed to appreciate Madame M; auunster’s charms; on the contrary, her perception of the graces of manner and conversation of her brilliant visitor had been only too acute. Mrs. Acton was, as they said in Boston, very “intense,” and her impressions were apt to be too many for her. The state of her health required the restriction of emotion; and this is why, receiving, as she sat in her eternal arm-chair, very few visitors, even of the soberest local type, she had been obliged to limit the number of her interviews with a lady whose costume and manner recalled to her imagination— Mrs. Acton’s imagination was a marvel—all that she had ever read of the most stirring historical periods. But she had sent the Baroness a great many quaintly-worded messages and a great many nosegays from her garden and baskets of beautiful fruit. Felix had eaten the fruit, and the Baroness had arranged the flowers and returned the baskets and the messages. On the day that followed that rainy Sunday of which mention has been made, Eugenia determined to go and pay the beneficent invalid a “visite d’adieux;” so it was that, to herself, she qualified her enterprise. It may be noted that neither on the Sunday evening nor on the Monday morning had she received that expected visit from Robert Acton. To his own consciousness, evidently he was “keeping away;” and as the Baroness, on her side, was keeping away from her uncle’s, whither, for several days, Felix had been the unembarrassed bearer of apologies and regrets for absence, chance had not taken the cards from the hands of design. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters had respected Eugenia’s seclusion; certain intervals of mysterious retirement appeared to them, vaguely, a natural part of the graceful, rhythmic movement of so remarkable a life. Gertrude especially held these periods in honor; she wondered what Madame M; auunster did at such times, but she would not have permitted herself to inquire too curiously.
The long rain had freshened the air, and twelve hours
’ brilliant sunshine had dried the roads; so that the Baroness, in the late afternoon, proposing to walk to Mrs. Acton’s, exposed herself to no great discomfort. As with her charming undulating step she moved along the clean, grassy margin of the road, beneath the thickly-hanging boughs of the orchards, through the quiet of the hour and place and the rich maturity of the summer, she was even conscious of a sort of luxurious melancholy. The Baroness had the amiable weakness of attaching herself to places—even when she had begun with a little aversion; and now, with the prospect of departure, she felt tenderly toward this well-wooded corner of the Western world, where the sunsets were so beautiful and one’s ambitions were so pure. Mrs. Acton was able to receive her; but on entering this lady’s large, freshly-scented room the Baroness saw that she was looking very ill. She was wonderfully white and transparent, and, in her flowered arm-chair, she made no attempt to move. But she flushed a little— like a young girl, the Baroness thought—and she rested her clear, smiling eyes upon those of her visitor. Her voice was low and monotonous, like a voice that had never expressed any human passions.
“I have come to bid you good-by,” said Eugenia. “I shall soon be going away.”
“When are you going away?”
“Very soon—any day.”
“I am very sorry,” said Mrs. Acton. “I hoped you would stay—always.”
“Always?” Eugenia demanded.
“Well, I mean a long time,” said Mrs. Acton, in her sweet, feeble tone. “They tell me you are so comfortable—that you have got such a beautiful little house.”
Eugenia stared—that is, she smiled; she thought of her poor little chalet and she wondered whether her hostess were jesting. “Yes, my house is exquisite,” she said; “though not to be compared to yours. “
“And my son is so fond of going to see you,” Mrs. Acton added. “I am afraid my son will miss you.”
“Ah, dear madame,” said Eugenia, with a little laugh, “I can’t stay in America for your son!”
“Don’t you like America?”
The Baroness looked at the front of her dress. “If I liked it— that would not be staying for your son!”
Mrs. Acton gazed at her with her grave, tender eyes, as if she had not quite understood. The Baroness at last found something irritating in the sweet, soft stare of her hostess; and if one were not bound to be merciful to great invalids she would almost have taken the liberty of pronouncing her, mentally, a fool. “I am afraid, then, I shall never see you again,” said Mrs. Acton. “You know I am dying.”
“Ah, dear madame,” murmured Eugenia.
“I want to leave my children cheerful and happy. My daughter will probably marry her cousin.”
“Two such interesting young people,” said the Baroness, vaguely. She was not thinking of Clifford Wentworth.
“I feel so tranquil about my end,” Mrs. Acton went on. “It is coming so easily, so surely.” And she paused, with her mild gaze always on Eugenia’s.
The Baroness hated to be reminded of death; but even in its imminence, so far as Mrs. Acton was concerned, she preserved her good manners. “Ah, madame, you are too charming an invalid,” she rejoined.
But the delicacy of this rejoinder was apparently lost upon her hostess, who went on in her low, reasonable voice. “I want to leave my children bright and comfortable. You seem to me all so happy here—just as you are. So I wish you could stay. It would be so pleasant for Robert.”
Eugenia wondered what she meant by its being pleasant for Robert; but she felt that she would never know what such a woman as that meant. She got up; she was afraid Mrs. Acton would tell her again that she was dying. “Good-by, dear madame,” she said. “I must remember that your strength is precious.”
Mrs. Acton took her hand and held it a moment. “Well, you have been happy here, have n’t you? And you like us all, don’t you? I wish you would stay,” she added, “in your beautiful little house.”
She had told Eugenia that her waiting-woman would be in the hall, to show her down-stairs; but the large landing outside her door was empty, and Eugenia stood there looking about. She felt irritated; the dying lady had not “la main heureuse.” She passed slowly down-stairs, still looking about. The broad staircase made a great bend, and in the angle was a high window, looking westward, with a deep bench, covered with a row of flowering plants in curious old pots of blue china-ware. The yellow afternoon light came in through the flowers and flickered a little on the white wainscots. Eugenia paused a moment; the house was perfectly still, save for the ticking, somewhere, of a great clock. The lower hall stretched away at the foot of the stairs, half covered over with a large Oriental rug. Eugenia lingered a little, noticing a great many things. “Comme c’est bien!” she said to herself; such a large, solid, irreproachable basis of existence the place seemed to her to indicate. And then she reflected that Mrs. Acton was soon to withdraw from it. The reflection accompanied her the rest of the way down-stairs, where she paused again, making more observations. The hall was extremely broad, and on either side of the front door was a wide, deeply-set window, which threw the shadows of everything back into the house. There were high-backed chairs along the wall and big Eastern vases upon tables, and, on either side, a large cabinet with a glass front and little curiosities within, dimly gleaming. The doors were open—into the darkened parlor, the library, the dining-room. All these rooms seemed empty. Eugenia passed along, and stopped a moment on the threshold of each. “Comme c’est bien!” she murmured again; she had thought of just such a house as this when she decided to come to America. She opened the front door for herself—her light tread had summoned none of the servants—and on the threshold she gave a last look. Outside, she was still in the humor for curious contemplation; so instead of going directly down the little drive, to the gate, she wandered away towards the garden, which lay to the right of the house. She had not gone many yards over the grass before she paused quickly; she perceived a gentleman stretched upon the level verdure, beneath a tree. He had not heard her coming, and he lay motionless, flat on his back, with his hands clasped under his head, staring up at the sky; so that the Baroness was able to reflect, at her leisure, upon the question of his identity. It was that of a person who had lately been much in her thoughts; but her first impulse, nevertheless, was to turn away; the last thing she desired was to have the air of coming in quest of Robert Acton. The gentleman on the grass, however, gave her no time to decide; he could not long remain unconscious of so agreeable a presence. He rolled back his eyes, stared, gave an exclamation, and then jumped up. He stood an instant, looking at her.
“Excuse my ridiculous position,” he said.
“I have just now no sense of the ridiculous. But, in case you have, don’t imagine I came to see you.”
“Take care,” rejoined Acton, “how you put it into my head! I was thinking of you.”
“The occupation of extreme leisure!” said the Baroness. “To think of a woman when you are in that position is no compliment.”
“I did n’t say I was thinking well!” Acton affirmed, smiling.
She looked at him, and then she turned away.
“Though I did n’t come to see you,” she said, “remember at least that I am within your gates.”
“I am delighted—I am honored! Won’t you come into the house?”
“I have just come out of it. I have been calling upon your mother. I have been bidding her farewell.”
“Farewell?” Acton demanded.
“I am going away,” said the Baroness. And she turned away again, as if to illustrate her meaning.
“When are you going?” asked Acton, standing a moment in his place. But the Baroness made no answer, and he followed her.
“I came this way to look at your garden,” she said, walking back to the gate, over the grass. “But I must go.”
“Let me at least go with you.” He went with her, and they said nothing till they reached the gate. It was open, and they looked down the road which was darkene
d over with long bosky shadows. “Must you go straight home?” Acton asked.
But she made no answer. She said, after a moment, “Why have you not been to see me?” He said nothing, and then she went on, “Why don’t you answer me?”
“I am trying to invent an answer,” Acton confessed.
“Have you none ready?”
“None that I can tell you,” he said. “But let me walk with you now.”
“You may do as you like.”
She moved slowly along the road, and Acton went with her. Presently he said, “If I had done as I liked I would have come to see you several times.”
“Is that invented?” asked Eugenia.
“No, that is natural. I stayed away because”—
“Ah, here comes the reason, then!”