by Henry James
His hostess came rustling in at last; she seemed agitated; she knocked over with the skirt of her dress a little gilded chair which was reflected in the polished parquet as in a sheet of looking-glass. Mrs. Vivian had a fixed smile—she hardly knew what to say.
"I found your address at the banker's," said Bernard. "Your maid, at Blanquais, refused to give it to me."
Mrs. Vivian gave him a little look—there was always more or less of it in her face—which seemed equivalent to an entreaty that her interlocutor should spare her.
"Maids are so strange," she murmured; "especially the French!"
It pleased Bernard for the moment not to spare her, though he felt a sort of delight of kindness for her.
"Your going off from Blanquais so suddenly, without leaving me any explanation, any clue, any message of any sort—made me feel at first as if you did n't wish that I should look you up. It reminded me of the way you left Baden—do you remember?—three years ago."
"Baden was so charming—but one could n't stay forever," said Mrs. Vivian.
"I had a sort of theory one could. Our life was so pleasant that it seemed a shame to break the spell, and if no one had moved I am sure we might be sitting there now."
Mrs. Vivian stared, still with her little fixed smile.
"I think we should have had bad weather."
"Very likely," said Bernard, laughing. "Nature would have grown jealous of our good-humor—of our tranquil happiness. And after all, here we are together again—that is, some of us. But I have only my own audacity to thank for it. I was quite free to believe that you were not at all pleased to see me re-appear—and it is only because I am not easy to discourage—am indeed probably a rather impudent fellow—that I have ventured to come here to-day."
"I am very glad to see you re-appear, Mr. Longueville," Mrs. Vivian declared with the accent of veracity.
"It was your daughter's idea, then, running away from Blanquais?"
Mrs. Vivian lowered her eyes.
"We were obliged to go to Fontainebleau. We have but just come back. I thought of writing to you," she softly added.
"Ah, what pleasure that would have given me!"
"I mean, to tell you where we were, and that we should have been so happy to see you."
"I thank you for the intention. I suppose your daughter would n't let you carry it out."
"Angela is so peculiar," Mrs. Vivian said, simply.
"You told me that the first time I saw you."
"Yes, at Siena," said Mrs. Vivian.
"I am glad to hear you speak frankly of that place!"
"Perhaps it 's better," Mrs. Vivian murmured. She got up and went to the window; then stepping upon the balcony, she looked down a moment into the street. "She will come back in a moment," she said, coming into the room again. "She has gone to see a friend who lives just beside us. We don't mind about Siena now," she added, softly.
Bernard understood her—understood this to be a retraction of the request she had made of him at Baden.
"Dear little woman," he said to himself, "she wants to marry her daughter still—only now she wants to marry her to me!"
He wished to show her that he understood her, and he was on the point of seizing her hand, to do he did n't know what—to hold it, to press it, to kiss it—when he heard the sharp twang of the bell at the door of the little apartment.
Mrs. Vivian fluttered away.
"It 's Angela," she cried, and she stood there waiting and listening, smiling at Bernard, with her handkerchief pressed to her lips.
In a moment the girl came into the drawing-room, but on seeing Bernard she stopped, with her hand on the door-knob. Her mother went to her and kissed her.
"It 's Mr. Longueville, dearest—he has found us out."
"Found us out?" repeated Angela, with a little laugh. "What a singular expression!"
She was blushing as she had blushed when she first saw him at Blanquais. She seemed to Bernard now to have a great and peculiar brightness—something she had never had before.
"I certainly have been looking for you," he said. "I was greatly disappointed when I found you had taken flight from Blanquais."
"Taken flight?" She repeated his words as she had repeated her mother's. "That is also a strange way of speaking!"
"I don't care what I say," said Bernard, "so long as I make you understand that I have wanted very much to see you again, and that I have wondered every day whether I might venture—"
"I don't know why you should n't venture!" she interrupted, giving her little laugh again. "We are not so terrible, are we, mamma?—that is, when once you have climbed our five flights of stairs."
"I came up very fast," said Bernard, "and I find your apartment magnificent."
"Mr. Longueville must come again, must he not, dear?" asked mamma.
"I shall come very often, with your leave," Bernard declared.
"It will be immensely kind," said Angela, looking away.
"I am not sure that you will think it that."
"I don't know what you are trying to prove," said Angela; "first that we ran away from you, and then that we are not nice to our visitors."
"Oh no, not that!" Bernard exclaimed; "for I assure you I shall not care how cold you are with me."
She walked away toward another door, which was masked with a curtain that she lifted.
"I am glad to hear that, for it gives me courage to say that I am very tired, and that I beg you will excuse me."
She glanced at him a moment over her shoulder; then she passed out, dropping the curtain.
Bernard stood there face to face with Mrs. Vivian, whose eyes seemed to plead with him more than ever. In his own there was an excited smile.
"Please don't mind that," she murmured. "I know it 's true that she is tired."
"Mind it, dear lady?" cried the young man. "I delight in it. It 's just what I like."
"Ah, she 's very peculiar!" sighed Mrs. Vivian.
"She is strange—yes. But I think I understand her a little."
"You must come back to-morrow, then."
"I hope to have many to-morrows!" cried Bernard as he took his departure.
CHAPTER XXIII
And he had them in fact. He called the next day at the same hour, and he found the mother and the daughter together in their pretty salon. Angela was very gentle and gracious; he suspected Mrs. Vivian had given her a tender little lecture upon the manner in which she had received him the day before. After he had been there five minutes, Mrs. Vivian took a decanter of water that was standing upon a table and went out on the balcony to irrigate her flowers. Bernard watched her a while from his place in the room; then she moved along the balcony and out of sight. Some ten minutes elapsed without her re-appearing, and then Bernard stepped to the threshold of the window and looked for her. She was not there, and as he came and took his seat near Angela again, he announced, rather formally, that Mrs. Vivian had passed back into one of the other windows.
Angela was silent a moment—then she said—
"Should you like me to call her?"
She was very peculiar—that was very true; yet Bernard held to his declaration of the day before that he now understood her a little.
"No, I don't desire it," he said. "I wish to see you alone; I have something particular to say to you."
She turned her face toward him, and there was something in its expression that showed him that he looked to her more serious than he had ever looked. He sat down again; for some moments he hesitated to go on.
"You frighten me," she said laughing; and in spite of her laugh this was obviously true.
"I assure you my state of mind is anything but formidable. I am afraid of you, on the contrary; I am humble and apologetic."
"I am sorry for that," said Angela. "I particularly dislike receiving apologies, even when I know what they are for. What yours are for, I can't imagine."
"You don't dislike me—you don't hate me?" Bernard suddenly broke out.
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p; "You don't ask me that humbly. Excuse me therefore if I say I have other, and more practical, things to do."
"You despise me," said Bernard.
"That is not humble either, for you seem to insist upon it."
"It would be after all a way of thinking of me, and I have a reason for wishing you to do that."
"I remember very well that you used to have a reason for everything. It was not always a good one."
"This one is excellent," said Bernard, gravely. "I have been in love with you for three years."
She got up slowly, turning away.
"Is that what you wished to say to me?"
She went toward the open window, and he followed her.
"I hope it does n't offend you. I don't say it lightly—it 's not a piece of gallantry. It 's the very truth of my being. I did n't know it till lately—strange as that may seem. I loved you long before I knew it—before I ventured or presumed to know it. I was thinking of you when I seemed to myself to be thinking of other things. It is very strange—there are things in it I don't understand. I travelled over the world, I tried to interest, to divert myself; but at bottom it was a perfect failure. To see you again—that was what I wanted. When I saw you last month at Blanquais I knew it; then everything became clear. It was the answer to the riddle. I wished to read it very clearly—I wished to be sure; therefore I did n't follow you immediately. I questioned my heart—I cross-questioned it. It has borne the examination, and now I am sure. I am very sure. I love you as my life—I beg you to listen to me!"
She had listened—she had listened intently, looking straight out of the window and without moving.
"You have seen very little of me," she said, presently, turning her illuminated eye on him.
"I have seen enough," Bernard added, smiling. "You must remember that at Baden I saw a good deal of you."
"Yes, but that did n't make you like me. I don't understand."
Bernard stood there a moment, frowning, with his eyes lowered.
"I can imagine that. But I think I can explain."
"Don't explain now," said Angela. "You have said enough; explain some other time." And she went out on the balcony.
Bernard, of course, in a moment was beside her, and, disregarding her injunction, he began to explain.
"I thought I disliked you—but I have come to the conclusion it was just the contrary. In reality I was in love with you. I had been so from the first time I saw you—when I made that sketch of you at Siena."
"That in itself needs an explanation. I was not at all nice then—I was very rude, very perverse. I was horrid!"
"Ah, you admit it!" cried Bernard, with a sort of quick elation.
She had been pale, but she suddenly blushed.
"Your own conduct was singular, as I remember it. It was not exactly agreeable."
"Perhaps not; but at least it was meant to be. I did n't know how to please you then, and I am far from supposing that I have learned now. But I entreat you to give me a chance."
She was silent a while; her eyes wandered over the great prospect of Paris.
"Do you know how you can please me now?" she said, at last. "By leaving me alone."
Bernard looked at her a moment, then came straight back into the drawing-room and took his hat.
"You see I avail myself of the first chance. But I shall come back to-morrow."
"I am greatly obliged to you for what you have said. Such a speech as that deserves to be listened to with consideration. You may come back to-morrow," Angela added.
On the morrow, when he came back, she received him alone.
"How did you know, at Baden, that I did n't like you?" he asked, as soon as she would allow him.
She smiled, very gently.
"You assured me yesterday that you did like me."
"I mean that I supposed I did n't. How did you know that?"
"I can only say that I observed."
"You must have observed very closely, for, superficially, I rather had the air of admiring you," said Bernard.
"It was very superficial."
"You don't mean that; for, after all, that is just what my admiration, my interest in you, were not. They were deep, they were latent. They were not superficial—they were subterranean."
"You are contradicting yourself, and I am perfectly consistent," said Angela. "Your sentiments were so well hidden that I supposed I displeased you."
"I remember that at Baden, you used to contradict yourself," Bernard answered.
"You have a terrible memory!"
"Don't call it terrible, for it sees everything now in a charming light—in the light of this understanding that we have at last arrived at, which seems to shine backward—to shine full on those Baden days."
"Have we at last arrived at an understanding?" she asked, with a grave directness which Bernard thought the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"It only depends upon you," he declared; and then he broke out again into a protestation of passionate tenderness. "Don't put me off this time," he cried. "You have had time to think about it; you have had time to get over the surprise, the shock. I love you, and I offer you everything that belongs to me in this world." As she looked at him with her dark, clear eyes, weighing this precious vow and yet not committing herself—"Ah, you don't forgive me!" he murmured.
She gazed at him with the same solemn brightness.
"What have I to forgive you?"
This question seemed to him enchanting. He reached forward and took her hands, and if Mrs. Vivian had come in she would have seen him kneeling at her daughter's feet.
But Mrs. Vivian remained in seclusion, and Bernard saw her only the next time he came.
"I am very happy, because I think my daughter is happy," she said.
"And what do you think of me?"
"I think you are very clever. You must promise me to be very good to her."
"I am clever enough to promise that."
"I think you are good enough to keep it," said Mrs. Vivian. She looked as happy as she said, and her happiness gave her a communicative, confidential tendency. "It is very strange how things come about—how the wheel turns round," she went on. "I suppose there is no harm in my telling you that I believe she always cared for you."
"Why did n't you tell me before?" said Bernard, with almost filial reproachfulness.
"How could I? I don't go about the world offering my daughter to people—especially to indifferent people."
"At Baden you did n't think I was indifferent. You were afraid of my not being indifferent enough."
Mrs. Vivian colored.
"Ah, at Baden I was a little too anxious!"
"Too anxious I should n't speak to your daughter!" said Bernard, laughing.
"At Baden," Mrs. Vivian went on, "I had views. But I have n't any now—I have given them up."
"That makes your acceptance of me very flattering!" Bernard exclaimed, laughing still more gaily.
"I have something better," said Mrs. Vivian, laying her finger-tips on his arm. "I have confidence."
Bernard did his best to encourage this gracious sentiment, and it seemed to him that there was something yet to be done to implant it more firmly in Angela's breast.
"I have a confession to make to you," he said to her one day. "I wish you would listen to it."
"Is it something very horrible?" Angela asked.
"Something very horrible indeed. I once did you an injury."
"An injury?" she repeated, in a tone which seemed to reduce the offence to contemptible proportions by simple vagueness of mind about it.
"I don't know what to call it," said Bernard. "A poor service—an ill-turn."
Angela gave a shrug, or rather an imitation of a shrug; for she was not a shrugging person.
"I never knew it."
"I misrepresented you to Gordon Wright," Bernard went on.
"Why do you speak to me of him?" she asked rather sadly.
"Does it displease you?"
She hesitated a little.
"Yes, it displeases me. If your confession has anything to do with him, I would rather not hear it."
Bernard returned to the subject another time—he had plenty of opportunities. He spent a portion of every day in the company of these dear women; and these days were the happiest of his life. The autumn weather was warm and soothing, the quartier was still deserted, and the uproar of the great city, which seemed a hundred miles away, reached them through the dense October air with a softened and muffled sound. The evenings, however, were growing cool, and before long they lighted the first fire of the season in Mrs. Vivian's heavily draped little chimney-piece. On this occasion Bernard sat there with Angela, watching the bright crackle of the wood and feeling that the charm of winter nights had begun. These two young persons were alone together in the gathering dusk; it was the hour before dinner, before the lamp had been lighted.
"I insist upon making you my confession," said Bernard. "I shall be very unhappy until you let me do it."
"Unhappy? You are the happiest of men."
"I lie upon roses, if you will; but this memory, this remorse, is a folded rose-leaf. I was completely mistaken about you at Baden; I thought all manner of evil of you—or at least I said it."
"Men are dull creatures," said Angela.
"I think they are. So much so that, as I look back upon that time, there are some things I don't understand even now."
"I don't see why you should look back. People in our position are supposed to look forward."
"You don't like those Baden days yourself," said Bernard. "You don't like to think of them."