by Henry James
It was doubtless not singular that the ladies from Merrimac Avenue should not feel that they were importunate: what was striking was that Mrs. Nettlepoint did not appear to suspect it. However, she would in any case have thought it inhuman to show that—though I could see that under the surface she was amused at everything the lady from the South End took for granted. I know not whether the attitude of the younger visitor added or not to the merit of her good-nature. Mr. Porterfield’s intended took no part in her mother’s appeal, scarcely spoke, sat looking at the Back Bay and the lights on the long bridge. She declined the lemonade and the other mixtures which, at Mrs. Nettlepoint’s request, I offered her, while her mother partook freely of everything and I reflected (for I as freely consumed the reviving liquid) that Mr. Jasper had better hurry back if he wished to profit by the refreshment prepared for him.
Was the effect of the young woman’s reserve ungracious, or was it only natural that in her particular situation she should not have a flow of compliment at her command? I noticed that Mrs. Nettlepoint looked at her often, and certainly though she was undemonstrative Miss Mavis was interesting. The candle-light enabled me to see that if she was not in the very first flower of her youth she was still a handsome girl. Her eyes and hair were dark, her face was pale and she held up her head as if, with its thick braids, it were an appurtenance she was not ashamed of. If her mother was excellent and common she was not common (not flagrantly so) and perhaps not excellent. At all events she would not be, in appearance at least, a dreary appendage, and (in the case of a person ‘hooking on’) that was always something gained. Is it because something of a romantic or pathetic interest usually attaches to a good creature who has been the victim of a ‘long engagement’ that this young lady made an impression on me from the first—favoured as I had been so quickly with this glimpse of her history? Certainly she made no positive appeal; she only held her tongue and smiled, and her smile corrected whatever suggestion might have forced itself upon me that the spirit was dead—the spirit of that promise of which she found herself doomed to carry out the letter.
What corrected it less, I must add, was an odd recollection which gathered vividness as I listened to it—a mental association which the name of Mr. Porterfield had evoked. Surely I had a personal impression, over-smeared and confused, of the gentleman who was waiting at Liverpool, or who would be, for Mrs. Nettlepoint’s protégée. I had met him, known him, some time, somewhere, somehow, in Europe. Was he not studying something—very hard—somewhere, probably in Paris, ten years before, and did he not make extraordinarily neat drawings, linear and architectural? Didn’t he go to a table d’hôte, at two francs twenty-five, in the Rue Bonaparte, which I then frequented, and didn’t he wear spectacles and a Scotch plaid arranged in a manner which seemed to say, ‘I have trustworthy information that that is the way they do it in the Highlands’? Was he not exemplary and very poor, so that I supposed he had no overcoat and his tartan was what he slept under at night? Was he not working very hard still, and wouldn’t he be in the natural course, not yet satisfied that he knew enough to launch out? He would be a man of long preparations—Miss Mavis’s white face seemed to speak to one of that. It appeared to me that if I had been in love with her I should not have needed to lay such a train to marry her. Architecture was his line and he was a pupil of the École des Beaux Arts. This reminiscence grew so much more vivid with me that at the end of ten minutes I had a curious sense of knowing—by implication—a good deal about the young lady.
Even after it was settled that Mrs. Nettlepoint would do everything for her that she could her mother sat a little, sipping her syrup and telling how ‘low’ Mr. Mavis had been. At this period the girl’s silence struck me as still more conscious, partly perhaps because she deprecated her mother’s loquacity (she was enough of an ‘improvement’ to measure that) and partly because she was too full of pain at the idea of leaving her infirm, her perhaps dying father. I divined that they were poor and that she would take out a very small purse for her trousseau. Moreover for Mr. Porterfield to make up the sum his own case would have had to change. If he had enriched himself by the successful practice of his profession I had not encountered the buildings he had reared—his reputation had not come to my ears.
Mrs. Nettlepoint notified her new friends that she was a very inactive person at sea: she was prepared to suffer to the full with Miss Mavis, but she was not prepared to walk with her, to struggle with her, to accompany her to the table. To this the girl replied that she would trouble her little, she was sure: she had a belief that she should prove a wretched sailor and spend the voyage on her back. Her mother scoffed at this picture, prophesying perfect weather and a lovely time, and I said that if I might be trusted, as a tame old bachelor fairly sea-seasoned, I should be delighted to give the new member of our party an arm or any other countenance whenever she should require it. Both the ladies thanked me for this (taking my description only too literally), and the elder one declared that we were evidently going to be such a sociable group that it was too bad to have to stay at home. She inquired of Mrs. Nettlepoint if there were any one else—if she were to be accompanied by some of her family; and when our hostess mentioned her son—there was a chance of his embarking but (wasn’t it absurd?) he had not decided yet, she rejoined with extraordinary candour—’Oh dear, I do hope he’ll go: that would be so pleasant for Grace.’
Somehow the words made me think of poor Mr. Porterfield’s tartan, especially as Jasper Nettlepoint strolled in again at that moment. His mother instantly challenged him: it was ten o’clock; had he by chance made up his great mind? Apparently he failed to hear her, being in the first place surprised at the strange ladies and then struck with the fact that one of them was not strange. The young man, after a slight hesitation, greeted Miss Mavis with a handshake and an ‘Oh, good evening, how do you do?’ He did not utter her name, and I could see that he had forgotten it; but she immediately pronounced his, availing herself of an American girl’s discretion to introduce him to her mother.
‘Well, you might have told me you knew him all this time!’ Mrs. Mavis exclaimed. Then smiling at Mrs. Nettlepoint she added, ‘It would have saved me a worry, an acquaintance already begun.’
‘Ah, my son’s acquaintances–-!’ Mrs. Nettlepoint murmured.
‘Yes, and my daughter’s too!’ cried Mrs. Mavis, jovially. ‘Mrs. Allen didn’t tell us you were going,’ she continued, to the young man.
‘She would have been clever if she had been able to!’ Mrs. Nettlepoint ejaculated.
‘Dear mother, I have my telegram,’ Jasper remarked, looking at Grace Mavis.
‘I know you very little,’ the girl said, returning his observation.
‘I’ve danced with you at some ball—for some sufferers by something or other.’
‘I think it was an inundation,’ she replied, smiling. ‘But it was a long time ago—and I haven’t seen you since.’
‘I have been in far countries—to my loss. I should have said it was for a big fire.’
‘It was at the Horticultural Hall. I didn’t remember your name,’ said Grace Mavis.
‘That is very unkind of you, when I recall vividly that you had a pink dress.’
‘Oh, I remember that dress—you looked lovely in it!’ Mrs. Mavis broke out. ‘You must get another just like it—on the other side.’
‘Yes, your daughter looked charming in it,’ said Jasper Nettlepoint. Then he added, to the girl—’Yet you mentioned my name to your mother.’
‘It came back to me—seeing you here. I had no idea this was your home.’
‘Well, I confess it isn’t, much. Oh, there are some drinks!’ Jasper went on, approaching the tray and its glasses.
‘Indeed there are and quite delicious,’ Mrs. Mavis declared.
‘Won’t you have another then?—a pink one, like your daughter’s gown.’
‘With pleasure, sir. Oh, do see them over,’ Mrs. Mavis continued, accepting from the young man’s hand a third
tumbler.
‘My mother and that gentleman? Surely they can take care of themselves,’ said Jasper Nettlepoint.
‘But my daughter—she has a claim as an old friend.’
‘Jasper, what does your telegram say?’ his mother interposed.
He gave no heed to her question: he stood there with his glass in his hand, looking from Mrs. Mavis to Miss Grace.
‘Ah, leave her to me, madam; I’m quite competent,’ I said to Mrs. Mavis.
Then the young man looked at me. The next minute he asked of the young lady—’Do you mean you are going to Europe?’
‘Yes, to-morrow; in the same ship as your mother.’
‘That’s what we’ve come here for, to see all about it,’ said Mrs. Mavis.
‘My son, take pity on me and tell me what light your telegram throws,’ Mrs. Nettlepoint went on.
‘I will, dearest, when I’ve quenched my thirst.’ And Jasper slowly drained his glass.
‘Well, you’re worse than Gracie,’ Mrs. Mavis commented. ‘She was first one thing and then the other—but only about up to three o’clock yesterday.’
‘Excuse me—won’t you take something?’ Jasper inquired of Gracie; who however declined, as if to make up for her mother’s copious consommation. I made privately the reflection that the two ladies ought to take leave, the question of Mrs. Nettlepoint’s goodwill being so satisfactorily settled and the meeting of the morrow at the ship so near at hand; and I went so far as to judge that their protracted stay, with their hostess visibly in a fidget, was a sign of a want of breeding. Miss Grace after all then was not such an improvement on her mother, for she easily might have taken the initiative of departure, in spite of Mrs. Mavis’s imbibing her glass of syrup in little interspaced sips, as if to make it last as long as possible. I watched the girl with an increasing curiosity; I could not help asking myself a question or two about her and even perceiving already (in a dim and general way) that there were some complications in her position. Was it not a complication that she should have wished to remain long enough to assuage a certain suspense, to learn whether or no Jasper were going to sail? Had not something particular passed between them on the occasion or at the period to which they had covertly alluded, and did she really not know that her mother was bringing her to his mother’s, though she apparently had thought it well not to mention the circumstance? Such things were complications on the part of a young lady betrothed to that curious cross-barred phantom of a Mr. Porterfield. But I am bound to add that she gave me no further warrant for suspecting them than by the simple fact of her encouraging her mother, by her immobility, to linger. Somehow I had a sense that she knew better. I got up myself to go, but Mrs. Nettlepoint detained me after seeing that my movement would not be taken as a hint, and I perceived she wished me not to leave my fellow-visitors on her hands. Jasper complained of the closeness of the room, said that it was not a night to sit in a room—one ought to be out in the air, under the sky. He denounced the windows that overlooked the water for not opening upon a balcony or a terrace, until his mother, whom he had not yet satisfied about his telegram, reminded him that there was a beautiful balcony in front, with room for a dozen people. She assured him we would go and sit there if it would please him.
‘It will be nice and cool to-morrow, when we steam into the great ocean,’ said Miss Mavis, expressing with more vivacity than she had yet thrown into any of her utterances my own thought of half an hour before. Mrs. Nettlepoint replied that it would probably be freezing cold, and her son murmured that he would go and try the drawing-room balcony and report upon it. Just as he was turning away he said, smiling, to Miss Mavis—’Won’t you come with me and see if it’s pleasant?’
‘Oh, well, we had better not stay all night!’ her mother exclaimed, but without moving. The girl moved, after a moment’s hesitation; she rose and accompanied Jasper into the other room. I observed that her slim tallness showed to advantage as she walked and that she looked well as she passed, with her head thrown back, into the darkness of the other part of the house. There was something rather marked, rather surprising (I scarcely knew why, for the act was simple enough) in her doing so, and perhaps it was our sense of this that held the rest of us somewhat stiffly silent as she remained away. I was waiting for Mrs. Mavis to go, so that I myself might go; and Mrs. Nettlepoint was waiting for her to go so that I might not. This doubtless made the young lady’s absence appear to us longer than it really was—it was probably very brief. Her mother moreover, I think, had a vague consciousness of embarrassment. Jasper Nettlepoint presently returned to the back drawing-room to get a glass of syrup for his companion, and he took occasion to remark that it was lovely on the balcony: one really got some air, the breeze was from that quarter. I remembered, as he went away with his tinkling tumbler, that from my hand, a few minutes before, Miss Mavis had not been willing to accept this innocent offering. A little later Mrs. Nettlepoint said—’Well, if it’s so pleasant there we had better go ourselves.’ So we passed to the front and in the other room met the two young people coming in from the balcony. I wondered in the light of subsequent events exactly how long they had been sitting there together. (There were three or four cane chairs which had been placed there for the summer.) If it had been but five minutes, that only made subsequent events more curious. ‘We must go, mother,’ Miss Mavis immediately said; and a moment later, with a little renewal of chatter as to our general meeting on the ship, the visitors had taken leave. Jasper went down with them to the door and as soon as they had gone out Mrs. Nettlepoint exclaimed—’Ah, but she’ll be a bore—she’ll be a bore!’
‘Not through talking too much—surely.’
‘An affectation of silence is as bad. I hate that particular pose; it’s coming up very much now; an imitation of the English, like everything else. A girl who tries to be statuesque at sea—that will act on one’s nerves!’
‘I don’t know what she tries to be, but she succeeds in being very handsome.’
‘So much the better for you. I’ll leave her to you, for I shall be shut up. I like her being placed under my “care.”’
‘She will be under Jasper’s,’ I remarked.
‘Ah, he won’t go—I want it too much.’
‘I have an idea he will go.’
‘Why didn’t he tell me so then—when he came in?’
‘He was diverted by Miss Mavis—a beautiful unexpected girl sitting there.’
‘Diverted from his mother—trembling for his decision?’
‘She’s an old friend; it was a meeting after a long separation.’
‘Yes, such a lot of them as he knows!’ said Mrs. Nettlepoint.
‘Such a lot of them?’
‘He has so many female friends—in the most varied circles.’
‘Well, we can close round her then—for I on my side knew, or used to know, her young man.’
‘Her young man?’
‘The fiancé, the intended, the one she is going out to. He can’t by the way be very young now.’
‘How odd it sounds!’ said Mrs. Nettlepoint.
I was going to reply that it was not odd if you knew Mr. Porterfield, but I reflected that that perhaps only made it odder. I told my companion briefly who he was—that I had met him in the old days in Paris, when I believed for a fleeting hour that I could learn to paint, when I lived with the jeunesse des écoles, and her comment on this was simply—’Well, he had better have come out for her!’
‘Perhaps so. She looked to me as she sat there as if she might change her mind at the last moment.’
‘About her marriage?’
‘About sailing. But she won’t change now.’
Jasper came back, and his mother instantly challenged him. ‘Well, are you going?’
‘Yes, I shall go,’ he said, smiling. ‘I have got my telegram.’
‘Oh, your telegram!’ I ventured to exclaim. ‘That charming girl is your telegram.’
He gave me a look, but in the dusk I could not mak
e out very well what it conveyed. Then he bent over his mother, kissing her. ‘My news isn’t particularly satisfactory. I am going for you.’
‘Oh, you humbug!’ she rejoined. But of course she was delighted.
II
People usually spend the first hours of a voyage in squeezing themselves into their cabins, taking their little precautions, either so excessive or so inadequate, wondering how they can pass so many days in such a hole and asking idiotic questions of the stewards, who appear in comparison such men of the world. My own initiations were rapid, as became an old sailor, and so it seemed were Miss Mavis’s, for when I mounted to the deck at the end of half an hour I found her there alone, in the stern of the ship, looking back at the dwindling continent. It dwindled very fast for so big a place. I accosted her, having had no conversation with her amid the crowd of leave-takers and the muddle of farewells before we put off; we talked a little about the boat, our fellow-passengers and our prospects, and then I said—’I think you mentioned last night a name I know—that of Mr. Porterfield.’