The Complete Works of Henry James

by Henry James

  “Very good then. He has promised me not to speak to her.”

  “Do you believe him?” Osmond asked absentmindedly.

  “Perfectly. Pansy has thought a great deal about him; but I don’t suppose you consider that that matters.”

  “I don’t consider it matters at all; but neither do I believe she has thought of him.”

  “That opinion’s more convenient,” said Madame Merle quietly.

  “Has she told you she’s in love with him?”

  “For what do you take her? And for what do you take me?” Madame Merle added in a moment.

  Osmond had raised his foot and was resting his slim ankle on the other knee; he clasped his ankle in his hand familiarly—his long, fine forefinger and thumb could make a ring for it—and gazed a while before him. “This kind of thing doesn’t find me unprepared. It’s what I educated her for. It was all for this— that when such a case should come up she should do what I prefer.”

  “I’m not afraid that she’ll not do it.”

  “Well then, where’s the hitch?”

  “I don’t see any. But, all the same, I recommend you not to get rid of Mr. Rosier. Keep him on hand; he may be useful.”

  “I can’t keep him. Keep him yourself.”

  “Very good; I’ll put him into a corner and allow him so much a day.” Madame Merle had, for the most part, while they talked, been glancing about her; it was her habit in this situation, just as it was her habit to interpose a good many blank-looking pauses. A long drop followed the last words I have quoted; and before it had ended she saw Pansy come out of the adjoining room, followed by Edward Rosier. The girl advanced a few steps and then stopped and stood looking at Madame Merle and at her father.

  “He has spoken to her,” Madame Merle went on to Osmond.

  Her companion never turned his head. “So much for your belief in his promises. He ought to be horsewhipped.”

  “He intends to confess, poor little man!”

  Osmond got up; he had now taken a sharp look at his daughter. “It doesn’t matter,” he murmured, turning away.

  Pansy after a moment came up to Madame Merle with her little manner of unfamiliar politeness. This lady’s reception of her was not more intimate; she simply, as she rose from the sofa, gave her a friendly smile.

  “You’re very late,” the young creature gently said.

  “My dear child, I’m never later than I intend to be.”

  Madame Merle had not got up to be gracious to Pansy; she moved toward Edward Rosier. He came to meet her and, very quickly, as if to get it off his mind, “I’ve spoken to her!” he whispered.

  “I know it, Mr. Rosier.”

  “Did she tell you?”

  “Yes, she told me. Behave properly for the rest of the evening, and come and see me to-morrow at a quarter past five.” She was severe, and in the manner in which she turned her back to him there was a degree of contempt which caused him to mutter a decent imprecation.

  He had no intention of speaking to Osmond; it was neither the time nor the place. But he instinctively wandered toward Isabel, who sat talking with an old lady. He sat down on the other side of her; the old lady was Italian, and Rosier took for granted she understood no English. “You said just now you wouldn’t help me,” he began to Mrs. Osmond. “Perhaps you’ll feel differently when you know—when you know—!”

  Isabel met his hesitation. “When I know what?”

  “That she’s all right.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, that we’ve come to an understanding.”

  “She’s all wrong,” said Isabel. “It won’t do.”

  Poor Rosier gazed at her half-pleadingly, half-angrily; a sudden flush testified to his sense of injury. “I’ve never been treated so,” he said. “What is there against me, after all? That’s not the way I’m usually considered. I could have married twenty times.”

  “It’s a pity you didn’t. I don’t mean twenty times, but once, comfortably,” Isabel added, smiling kindly. “You’re not rich enough for Pansy.”

  “She doesn’t care a straw for one’s money.”

  “No, but her father does.”

  “Ah yes, he has proved that!” cried the young man.

  Isabel got up, turning away from him, leaving her old lady without ceremony; and he occupied himself for the next ten minutes in pretending to look at Gilbert Osmond’s collection of miniatures, which were neatly arranged on a series of small velvet screens. But he looked without seeing; his cheek burned; he was too full of his sense of injury. It was certain that he had never been treated that way before; he was not used to being thought not good enough. He knew how good he was, and if such a fallacy had not been so pernicious he could have laughed at it. He searched again for Pansy, but she had disappeared, and his main desire was now to get out of the house. Before doing so he spoke once more to Isabel; it was not agreeable to him to reflect that he had just said a rude thing to her—the only point that would now justify a low view of him.

  “I referred to Mr. Osmond as I shouldn’t have done, a while ago,” he began. “But you must remember my situation.”

  “I don’t remember what you said,” she answered coldly.

  “Ah, you’re offended, and now you’ll never help me.”

  She was silent an instant, and then with a change of tone: “It’s not that I won’t; I simply can’t!” Her manner was almost passionate.

  “If you COULD, just a little, I’d never again speak of your husband save as an angel.”

  “The inducement’s great,” said Isabel gravely—inscrutably, as he afterwards, to himself, called it; and she gave him, straight in the eyes, a look which was also inscrutable. It made him remember somehow that he had known her as a child; and yet it was keener than he liked, and he took himself off.

  CHAPTER 38

  He went to see Madame Merle on the morrow, and to his surprise she let him off rather easily. But she made him promise that he would stop there till something should have been decided. Mr. Osmond had had higher expectations; it was very true that as he had no intention of giving his daughter a portion such expectations were open to criticism or even, if one would, to ridicule. But she would advise Mr. Rosier not to take that tone; if he would possess his soul in patience he might arrive at his felicity. Mr. Osmond was not favourable to his suit, but it wouldn’t be a miracle if he should gradually come round. Pansy would never defy her father, he might depend on that; so nothing was to be gained by precipitation. Mr. Osmond needed to accustom his mind to an offer of a sort that he had not hitherto entertained, and this result must come of itself—it was useless to try to force it. Rosier remarked that his own situation would be in the meanwhile the most uncomfortable in the world, and Madame Merle assured him that she felt for him. But, as she justly declared, one couldn’t have everything one wanted; she had learned that lesson for herself. There would be no use in his writing to Gilbert Osmond, who had charged her to tell him as much. He wished the matter dropped for a few weeks and would himself write when he should have anything to communicate that it might please Mr. Rosier to hear.

  “He doesn’t like your having spoken to Pansy, Ah, he doesn’t like it at all,” said Madame Merle.

  “I’m perfectly willing to give him a chance to tell me so!”

  “If you do that he’ll tell you more than you care to hear. Go to the house, for the next month, as little as possible, and leave the rest to me.”

  “As little as possible? Who’s to measure the possibility?”

  “Let me measure it. Go on Thursday evenings with the rest of the world, but don’t go at all at odd times, and don’t fret about Pansy. I’ll see that she understands everything. She’s a calm little nature; she’ll take it quietly.”

  Edward Rosier fretted about Pansy a good deal, but he did as he was advised, and awaited another Thursday evening before returning to Palazzo Roccanera. There had been a party at dinner, so that though he went early the company was already to
lerably numerous. Osmond, as usual, was in the first room, near the fire, staring straight at the door, so that, not to be distinctly uncivil, Rosier had to go and speak to him.

  “I’m glad that you can take a hint,” Pansy’s father said, slightly closing his keen, conscious eyes.

  “I take no hints. But I took a message, as I supposed it to be.”

  “You took it? Where did you take it?”

  It seemed to poor Rosier he was being insulted, and he waited a moment, asking himself how much a true lover ought to submit to. “Madame Merle gave me, as I understood it, a message from you— to the effect that you declined to give me the opportunity I desire, the opportunity to explain my wishes to you.” And he flattered himself he spoke rather sternly.

  “I don’t see what Madame Merle has to do with it. Why did you apply to Madame Merle?”

  “I asked her for an opinion—for nothing more. I did so because she had seemed to me to know you very well.”

  “She doesn’t know me so well as she thinks,” said Osmond.

  “I’m sorry for that, because she has given me some little ground for hope.”

  Osmond stared into the fire a moment. “I set a great price on my daughter.”

  “You can’t set a higher one than I do. Don’t I prove it by wishing to marry her?”

  “I wish to marry her very well,” Osmond went on with a dry impertinence which, in another mood, poor Rosier would have admired.

  “Of course I pretend she’d marry well in marrying me. She couldn’t marry a man who loves her more—or whom, I may venture to add, she loves more.”

  “I’m not bound to accept your theories as to whom my daughter loves”—and Osmond looked up with a quick, cold smile.

  “I’m not theorising. Your daughter has spoken.”

  “Not to me,” Osmond continued, now bending forward a little and dropping his eyes to his boot-toes.

  “I have her promise, sir!” cried Rosier with the sharpness of exasperation.

  As their voices had been pitched very low before, such a note attracted some attention from the company. Osmond waited till this little movement had subsided; then he said, all undisturbed: “I think she has no recollection of having given it.”

  They had been standing with their faces to the fire, and after he had uttered these last words the master of the house turned round again to the room. Before Rosier had time to reply he perceived that a gentleman—a stranger—had just come in, unannounced, according to the Roman custom, and was about to present himself to his host. The latter smiled blandly, but somewhat blankly; the visitor had a handsome face and a large, fair beard, and was evidently an Englishman.

  “You apparently don’t recognise me,” he said with a smile that expressed more than Osmond’s.

  “Ah yes, now I do. I expected so little to see you.”

  Rosier departed and went in direct pursuit of Pansy. He sought her, as usual, in the neighbouring room, but he again encountered Mrs. Osmond in his path. He gave his hostess no greeting—he was too righteously indignant, but said to her crudely: “Your husband’s awfully cold-blooded.”

  She gave the same mystical smile he had noticed before. “You can’t expect every one to be as hot as yourself.”

  “I don’t pretend to be cold, but I’m cool. What has he been doing to his daughter?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Don’t you take any interest?” Rosier demanded with his sense that she too was irritating.

  For a moment she answered nothing; then, “No!” she said abruptly and with a quickened light in her eyes which directly contradicted the word.

  “Pardon me if I don’t believe that. Where’s Miss Osmond?”

  “In the corner, making tea. Please leave her there.”

  Rosier instantly discovered his friend, who had been hidden by intervening groups. He watched her, but her own attention was entirely given to her occupation. “What on earth has he done to her?” he asked again imploringly. “He declares to me she has given me up.”

  “She has not given you up,” Isabel said in a low tone and without looking at him.

  “Ah, thank you for that! Now I’ll leave her alone as long as you think proper!”

  He had hardly spoken when he saw her change colour, and became aware that Osmond was coming toward her accompanied by the gentleman who had just entered. He judged the latter, in spite of the advantage of good looks and evident social experience, a little embarrassed. “Isabel,” said her husband, “I bring you an old friend.”

  Mrs. Osmond’s face, though it wore a smile, was, like her old friend’s, not perfectly confident. “I’m very happy to see Lord Warburton,” she said. Rosier turned away and, now that his talk with her had been interrupted, felt absolved from the little pledge he had just taken. He had a quick impression that Mrs. Osmond wouldn’t notice what he did.

  Isabel in fact, to do him justice, for some time quite ceased to observe him. She had been startled; she hardly knew if she felt a pleasure or a pain. Lord Warburton, however, now that he was face to face with her, was plainly quite sure of his own sense of the matter; though his grey eyes had still their fine original property of keeping recognition and attestation strictly sincere. He was “heavier” than of yore and looked older; he stood there very solidly and sensibly.

  “I suppose you didn’t expect to see me,” he said; “I’ve but just arrived. Literally, I only got here this evening. You see I’ve lost no time in coming to pay you my respects. I knew you were at home on Thursdays.”

  “You see the fame of your Thursdays has spread to England,” Osmond remarked to his wife.

  “It’s very kind of Lord Warburton to come so soon; we’re greatly flattered,” Isabel said.

  “Ah well, it’s better than stopping in one of those horrible inns,” Osmond went on.

  “The hotel seems very good; I think it’s the same at which I saw you four years since. You know it was here in Rome that we first met; it’s a long time ago. Do you remember where I bade you good-bye?” his lordship asked of his hostess. “It was in the Capitol, in the first room.”

  “I remember that myself,” said Osmond. “I was there at the time.”

  “Yes, I remember you there. I was very sorry to leave Rome—so sorry that, somehow or other, it became almost a dismal memory, and I’ve never cared to come back till to-day. But I knew you were living here,” her old friend went on to Isabel, “and I assure you I’ve often thought of you. It must be a charming place to live in,” he added with a look, round him, at her established home, in which she might have caught the dim ghost of his old ruefulness.

  “We should have been glad to see you at any time,” Osmond observed with propriety.

  “Thank you very much. I haven’t been out of England since then. Till a month ago I really supposed my travels over.”

  “I’ve heard of you from time to time,” said Isabel, who had already, with her rare capacity for such inward feats, taken the measure of what meeting him again meant for her.

  “I hope you’ve heard no harm. My life has been a remarkably complete blank.”

  “Like the good reigns in history,” Osmond suggested. He appeared to think his duties as a host now terminated—he had performed them so conscientiously. Nothing could have been more adequate, more nicely measured, than his courtesy to his wife’s old friend. It was punctilious, it was explicit, it was everything but natural—a deficiency which Lord Warburton, who, himself, had on the whole a good deal of nature, may be supposed to have perceived. “I’ll leave you and Mrs. Osmond together,” he added. “You have reminiscences into which I don’t enter.”

  “I’m afraid you lose a good deal!” Lord Warburton called after him, as he moved away, in a tone which perhaps betrayed overmuch an appreciation of his generosity. Then the visitor turned on Isabel the deeper, the deepest, consciousness of his look, which gradually became more serious. “I’m really very glad to see you.”

  “It’s very pleasant. You’re very kind.
”

  “Do you know that you’re changed—a little?”

  She just hesitated. “Yes—a good deal.”

  “I don’t mean for the worse, of course; and yet how can I say for the better?”

  “I think I shall have no scruple in saying that to YOU,” she bravely returned.

  “Ah well, for me—it’s a long time. It would be a pity there shouldn’t be something to show for it.” They sat down and she asked him about his sisters, with other enquiries of a somewhat perfunctory kind. He answered her questions as if they interested him, and in a few moments she saw—or believed she saw—that he would press with less of his whole weight than of yore. Time had breathed upon his heart and, without chilling it, given it a relieved sense of having taken the air. Isabel felt her usual esteem for Time rise at a bound. Her friend’s manner was certainly that of a contented man, one who would rather like people, or like her at least, to know him for such. “There’s something I must tell you without more delay,” he resumed. “I’ve brought Ralph Touchett with me.”