The Complete Works of Henry James

by Henry James

  “Yes, and there’s the fact that it killed him!”

  These words came out with a strange, quick, little flare of passion. They startled Grace Dormer, who jumped in her place and gasped, “Oh mother!” The next instant, however, she added in a different voice, “Oh Peter!” for, with an air of eagerness, a gentleman was walking up to them.

  “How d’ye do, Cousin Agnes? How d’ye do, little Grace?” Peter Sherringham laughed and shook hands with them, and three minutes later was settled in his chair at their table, on which the first elements of the meal had been placed. Explanations, on one side and the other, were demanded and produced; from which it appeared that the two parties had been in some degree at cross-purposes. The day before Lady Agnes and her companions travelled to Paris Sherringham had gone to London for forty-eight hours on private business of the ambassador’s, arriving, on his return by the night-train, only early that morning. There had accordingly been a delay in his receiving Nick Dormer’s two notes. If Nick had come to the embassy in person—he might have done him the honour to call—he would have learned that the second secretary was absent. Lady Agnes was not altogether successful in assigning a motive to her son’s neglect of this courteous form; she could but say: “I expected him, I wanted him to go; and indeed, not hearing from you, he would have gone immediately—an hour or two hence, on leaving this place. But we’re here so quietly—not to go out, not to seem to appeal to the ambassador. Nick put it so—’Oh mother, we’ll keep out of it; a friendly note will do.’ I don’t know definitely what he wanted to keep out of, unless anything like gaiety. The embassy isn’t gay, I know. But I’m sure his note was friendly, wasn’t it? I daresay you’ll see for yourself. He’s different directly he gets abroad; he doesn’t seem to care.” Lady Agnes paused a moment, not carrying out this particular elucidation; then she resumed: “He said you’d have seen Julia and that you’d understand everything from her. And when I asked how she’d know he said, ‘Oh she knows everything!’”

  “He never said a word to me about Julia,” Peter Sherringham returned. Lady Agnes and her daughter exchanged a glance at this: the latter had already asked three times where Julia was, and her ladyship dropped that they had been hoping she would be able to come with Peter. The young man set forth that she was at the moment at an hotel in the Rue de la Paix, but had only been there since that morning; he had seen her before proceeding to the Champs Elysées. She had come up to Paris by an early train– she had been staying at Versailles, of all places in the world. She had been a week in Paris on her return from Cannes—her stay there had been of nearly a month: fancy!—and then had gone out to Versailles to see Mrs. Billinghurst. Perhaps they’d remember her, poor Dallow’s sister. She was staying there to teach her daughters French—she had a dozen or two!—and Julia had spent three days with her. She was to return to England about the twenty-fifth. It would make seven weeks she must have been away from town—a rare thing for her; she usually stuck to it so in summer.

  “Three days with Mrs. Billinghurst—how very good-natured of her!” Lady Agnes commented.

  “Oh they’re very nice to her,” Sherringham said.

  “Well, I hope so!” Grace Dormer exhaled. “Why didn’t you make her come here?”

  “I proposed it, but she wouldn’t.” Another eye-beam, at this, passed between the two ladies and Peter went on: “She said you must come and see her at the Hôtel de Hollande.”

  “Of course we’ll do that,” Lady Agnes declared. “Nick went to ask about her at the Westminster.”

  “She gave that up; they wouldn’t give her the rooms she wanted, her usual set.”

  “She’s delightfully particular!” Grace said complacently. Then she added: “She does like pictures, doesn’t she?”

  Peter Sherringham stared. “Oh I daresay. But that’s not what she has in her head this morning. She has some news from London—she’s immensely excited.”

  “What has she in her head?” Lady Agnes asked.

  “What’s her news from London?” Grace added.

  “She wants Nick to stand.”

  “Nick to stand?” both ladies cried.

  “She undertakes to bring him in for Harsh. Mr. Pinks is dead—the fellow, you know, who got the seat at the general election. He dropped down in London—disease of the heart or something of that sort. Julia has her telegram, but I see it was in last night’s papers.”

  “Imagine—Nick never mentioned it!” said Lady Agnes.

  “Don’t you know, mother?—abroad he only reads foreign papers.”

  “Oh I know. I’ve no patience with him,” her ladyship continued. “Dear Julia!”

  “It’s a nasty little place, and Pinks had a tight squeeze—107 or something of that sort; but if it returned a Liberal a year ago very likely it will do so again. Julia at any rate believes it can be made to—if the man’s Nick—and is ready to take the order to put him in.”

  “I’m sure if she can do it she will,” Grace pronounced.

  “Dear, dear Julia! And Nick can do something for himself,” said the mother of this candidate.

  “I’ve no doubt he can do anything,” Peter Sherringham returned good-naturedly. Then, “Do you mean in expenses?” he inquired.

  “Ah I’m afraid he can’t do much in expenses, poor dear boy! And it’s dreadful how little we can look to Percy.”

  “Well, I daresay you may look to Julia. I think that’s her idea.”

  “Delightful Julia!” Lady Agnes broke out. “If poor Sir Nicholas could have known! Of course he must go straight home,” she added.

  “He won’t like that,” said Grace.

  “Then he’ll have to go without liking it.”

  “It will rather spoil your little excursion, if you’ve only just come,” Peter suggested; “to say nothing of the great Biddy’s, if she’s enjoying Paris.”

  “We may stay perhaps—with Julia to protect us,” said Lady Agnes.

  “Ah she won’t stay; she’ll go over for her man.”

  “Her man–-?”

  “The fellow who stands, whoever he is—especially if he’s Nick.” These last words caused the eyes of Peter Sherringham’s companions to meet again, and he went on: “She’ll go straight down to Harsh.”

  “Wonderful Julia!” Lady Agnes panted. “Of course Nick must go straight there too.”

  “Well, I suppose he must see first if they’ll have him.”

  “If they’ll have him? Why how can he tell till he tries?”

  “I mean the people at headquarters, the fellows who arrange it.”

  Lady Agnes coloured a little. “My dear Peter, do you suppose there will be the least doubt of their ‘having’ the son of his father?”

  “Of course it’s a great name, Cousin Agnes—a very great name.”

  “One of the greatest, simply,” Lady Agnes smiled.

  “It’s the best name in the world!” said Grace more emphatically.

  “All the same it didn’t prevent his losing his seat.”

  “By half-a-dozen votes: it was too odious!” her ladyship cried.

  “I remember—I remember. And in such a case as that why didn’t they immediately put him in somewhere else?”

  “How one sees you live abroad, dear Peter! There happens to have been the most extraordinary lack of openings—I never saw anything like it—for a year. They’ve had their hand on him, keeping him all ready. I daresay they’ve telegraphed him.”

  “And he hasn’t told you?”

  Lady Agnes faltered. “He’s so very odd when he’s abroad!”

  “At home too he lets things go,” Grace interposed. “He does so little—takes no trouble.” Her mother suffered this statement to pass unchallenged, and she pursued philosophically: “I suppose it’s because he knows he’s so clever.”

  “So he is, dear old man. But what does he do, what has he been doing, in a positive way?”

  “He has been painting.”

  “Ah not seriously!” Lady Agnes protested.

/>   “That’s the worst way,” said Peter Sherringham. “Good things?”

  Neither of the ladies made a direct response to this, but Lady Agnes said: “He has spoken repeatedly. They’re always calling on him.”

  “He speaks magnificently,” Grace attested.

  “That’s another of the things I lose, living in far countries. And he’s doing the Salon now with the great Biddy?”

  “Just the things in this part. I can’t think what keeps them so long,” Lady Agnes groaned. “Did you ever see such a dreadful place?”

  Sherringham stared. “Aren’t the things good? I had an idea–-!”

  “Good?” cried Lady Agnes. “They’re too odious, too wicked.”

  “Ah,” laughed Peter, “that’s what people fall into if they live abroad. The French oughtn’t to live abroad!”

  “Here they come,” Grace announced at this point; “but they’ve got a strange man with them.”

  “That’s a bore when we want to talk!” Lady Agnes sighed.

  Peter got up in the spirit of welcome and stood a moment watching the others approach. “There will be no difficulty in talking, to judge by the gentleman,” he dropped; and while he remains so conspicuous our eyes may briefly rest on him. He was middling high and was visibly a representative of the nervous rather than of the phlegmatic branch of his race. He had an oval face, fine firm features, and a complexion that tended to the brown. Brown were his eyes, and women thought them soft; dark brown his hair, in which the same critics sometimes regretted the absence of a little undulation. It was perhaps to conceal this plainness that he wore it very short. His teeth were white, his moustache was pointed, and so was the small beard that adorned the extremity of his chin. His face expressed intelligence and was very much alive; it had the further distinction that it often struck superficial observers with a certain foreignness of cast. The deeper sort, however, usually felt it latently English enough. There was an idea that, having taken up the diplomatic career and gone to live in strange lands, he cultivated the mask of an alien, an Italian or a Spaniard; of an alien in time even—one of the wonderful ubiquitous diplomatic agents of the sixteenth century. In fact, none the less, it would have been impossible to be more modern than Peter Sherringham—more of one’s class and one’s country. But this didn’t prevent several stray persons—Bridget Dormer for instance—from admiring the hue of his cheek for its olive richness and his moustache and beard for their resemblance to those of Charles I. At the same time—she rather jumbled her comparisons—she thought he recalled a Titian.

  IV

  Peter’s meeting with Nick was of the friendliest on both sides, involving a great many “dear fellows” and “old boys,” and his salutation to the younger of the Miss Dormers consisted of the frankest “Delighted to see you, my dear Bid!” There was no kissing, but there was cousinship in the air, of a conscious, living kind, as Gabriel Nash doubtless quickly noted, hovering for a moment outside the group. Biddy said nothing to Peter Sherringham, but there was no flatness in a silence which heaved, as it were, with the fairest physiognomic portents. Nick introduced Gabriel Nash to his mother and to the other two as “a delightful old friend” whom he had just come across, and Sherringham acknowledged the act by saying to Mr. Nash, but as if rather less for his sake than for that of the presenter: “I’ve seen you very often before.”

  “Ah repetition—recurrence: we haven’t yet, in the study of how to live, abolished that clumsiness, have we?” Mr. Nash genially inquired. “It’s a poverty in the supernumeraries of our stage that we don’t pass once for all, but come round and cross again like a procession or an army at the theatre. It’s a sordid economy that ought to have been managed better. The right thing would be just one appearance, and the procession, regardless of expense, for ever and for ever different.” The company was occupied in placing itself at table, so that the only disengaged attention for the moment was Grace’s, to whom, as her eyes rested on him, the young man addressed these last words with a smile. “Alas, it’s a very shabby idea, isn’t it? The world isn’t got up regardless of expense!”

  Grace looked quickly away from him and said to her brother: “Nick, Mr. Pinks is dead.”

  “Mr. Pinks?” asked Gabriel Nash, appearing to wonder where he should sit.

  “The member for Harsh; and Julia wants you to stand,” the girl went on.

  “Mr. Pinks, the member for Harsh? What names to be sure!” Gabriel mused cheerfully, still unseated.

  “Julia wants me? I’m much obliged to her!” Nick absently said. “Nash, please sit by my mother, with Peter on her other side.”

  “My dear, it isn’t Julia”—Lady Agnes spoke earnestly. “Every one wants you. Haven’t you heard from your people? Didn’t you know the seat was vacant?”

  Nick was looking round the table to see what was on it. “Upon my word I don’t remember. What else have you ordered, mother?”

  “There’s some boeuf braisé, my dear, and afterwards some galantine. Here’s a dish of eggs with asparagus-tips.”

  “I advise you to go in for it, Nick,” said Peter Sherringham, to whom the preparation in question was presented.

  “Into the eggs with asparagus-tips? Donnez m’en s’il vous plaît. My dear fellow, how can I stand? how can I sit? Where’s the money to come from?”

  “The money? Why from Jul–-!” Grace began, but immediately caught her mother’s eye.

  “Poor Julia, how you do work her!” Nick exclaimed. “Nash, I recommend you the asparagus-tips. Mother, he’s my best friend—do look after him.”

  “I’ve an impression I’ve breakfasted—I’m not sure,” Nash smiled.

  “With those beautiful ladies? Try again—you’ll find out.”

  “The money can be managed; the expenses are very small and the seat’s certain,” Lady Agnes pursued, not apparently heeding her son’s injunction in respect to Nash.

  “Rather—if Julia goes down!” her elder daughter exclaimed.

  “Perhaps Julia won’t go down!” Nick answered humorously.

  Biddy was seated next to Mr. Nash, so that she could take occasion to ask, “Who are the beautiful ladies?” as if she failed to recognise her brother’s allusion. In reality this was an innocent trick: she was more curious than she could have given a suitable reason for about the odd women from whom her neighbour had lately separated.

  “Deluded, misguided, infatuated persons!” Mr. Nash replied, understanding that she had asked for a description. “Strange eccentric, almost romantic, types. Predestined victims, simple-minded sacrificial lambs!”

  This was copious, yet it was vague, so that Biddy could only respond: “Oh all that?” But meanwhile Peter Sherringham said to Nick: “Julia’s here, you know. You must go and see her.”

  Nick looked at him an instant rather hard, as if to say: “You too?” But Peter’s eyes appeared to answer, “No, no, not I”; upon which his cousin rejoined: “Of course I’ll go and see her. I’ll go immediately. Please to thank her for thinking of me.”

  “Thinking of you? There are plenty to think of you!” Lady Agnes said. “There are sure to be telegrams at home. We must go back—we must go back!”

  “We must go back to England?” Nick Dormer asked; and as his mother made no answer he continued: “Do you mean I must go to Harsh?”

  Her ladyship evaded this question, inquiring of Mr. Nash if he would have a morsel of fish; but her gain was small, for this gentleman, struck again by the unhappy name of the bereaved constituency, only broke out: “Ah what a place to represent! How can you—how can you?”

  “It’s an excellent place,” said Lady Agnes coldly. “I imagine you’ve never been there. It’s a very good place indeed. It belongs very largely to my cousin, Mrs. Dallow.”

  Gabriel partook of the fish, listening with interest. “But I thought we had no more pocket-boroughs.”

  “It’s pockets we rather lack, so many of us. There are plenty of Harshes,” Nick Dormer observed.

  “I don’t kno
w what you mean,” Lady Agnes said to Nash with considerable majesty.

  Peter Sherringham also addressed him with an “Oh it’s all right; they come down on you like a shot!” and the young man continued ingenuously:

  “Do you mean to say you’ve to pay money to get into that awful place—that it’s not you who are paid?”

  “Into that awful place?” Lady Agnes repeated blankly.

  “Into the House of Commons. That you don’t get a high salary?”

  “My dear Nash, you’re delightful: don’t leave me—don’t leave me!” Nick cried; while his mother looked at him with an eye that demanded: “Who in the world’s this extraordinary person?”