by Henry James
CHAPTER XXI
Mrs. Touchett, before arriving in Paris, had fixed the day for herdeparture and by the middle of February had begun to travel southward.She interrupted her journey to pay a visit to her son, who at San Remo,on the Italian shore of the Mediterranean, had been spending a dull,bright winter beneath a slow-moving white umbrella. Isabel went with heraunt as a matter of course, though Mrs. Touchett, with homely, customarylogic, had laid before her a pair of alternatives.
"Now, of course, you're completely your own mistress and are as free asthe bird on the bough. I don't mean you were not so before, but you'reat present on a different footing--property erects a kind of barrier.You can do a great many things if you're rich which would be severelycriticised if you were poor. You can go and come, you can travel alone,you can have your own establishment: I mean of course if you'll takea companion--some decayed gentlewoman, with a darned cashmere and dyedhair, who paints on velvet. You don't think you'd like that? Of courseyou can do as you please; I only want you to understand how much you'reat liberty. You might take Miss Stackpole as your dame de compagnie;she'd keep people off very well. I think, however, that it's a greatdeal better you should remain with me, in spite of there being noobligation. It's better for several reasons, quite apart from yourliking it. I shouldn't think you'd like it, but I recommend you to makethe sacrifice. Of course whatever novelty there may have been at firstin my society has quite passed away, and you see me as I am--a dull,obstinate, narrow-minded old woman."
"I don't think you're at all dull," Isabel had replied to this.
"But you do think I'm obstinate and narrow-minded? I told you so!" saidMrs. Touchett with much elation at being justified.
Isabel remained for the present with her aunt, because, in spite ofeccentric impulses, she had a great regard for what was usually deemeddecent, and a young gentlewoman without visible relations had alwaysstruck her as a flower without foliage. It was true that Mrs. Touchett'sconversation had never again appeared so brilliant as that firstafternoon in Albany, when she sat in her damp waterproof and sketchedthe opportunities that Europe would offer to a young person of taste.This, however, was in a great measure the girl's own fault; she hadgot a glimpse of her aunt's experience, and her imagination constantlyanticipated the judgements and emotions of a woman who had very littleof the same faculty. Apart from this, Mrs. Touchett had a great merit;she was as honest as a pair of compasses. There was a comfort in herstiffness and firmness; you knew exactly where to find her and werenever liable to chance encounters and concussions. On her own groundshe was perfectly present, but was never over-inquisitive as regardsthe territory of her neighbour. Isabel came at last to have a kind ofundemonstrable pity for her; there seemed something so dreary inthe condition of a person whose nature had, as it were, so littlesurface--offered so limited a face to the accretions of human contact.Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic, had ever had a chance to fastenupon it--no wind-sown blossom, no familiar softening moss. Her offered,her passive extent, in other words, was about that of a knife-edge.Isabel had reason to believe none the less that as she advanced in lifeshe made more of those concessions to the sense of something obscurelydistinct from convenience--more of them than she independently exacted.She was learning to sacrifice consistency to considerations of thatinferior order for which the excuse must be found in the particularcase. It was not to the credit of her absolute rectitude that she shouldhave gone the longest way round to Florence in order to spend a fewweeks with her invalid son since in former years it had been one of hermost definite convictions that when Ralph wished to see her he was atliberty to remember that Palazzo Crescentini contained a large apartmentknown as the quarter of the signorino.
"I want to ask you something," Isabel said to this young man the dayafter her arrival at San Remo--"something I've thought more than onceof asking you by letter, but that I've hesitated on the whole to writeabout. Face to face, nevertheless, my question seems easy enough. Didyou know your father intended to leave me so much money?"
Ralph stretched his legs a little further than usual and gazed a littlemore fixedly at the Mediterranean.
"What does it matter, my dear Isabel, whether I knew? My father was veryobstinate."
"So," said the girl, "you did know."
"Yes; he told me. We even talked it over a little." "What did he do itfor?" asked Isabel abruptly. "Why, as a kind of compliment."
"A compliment on what?"
"On your so beautifully existing."
"He liked me too much," she presently declared.
"That's a way we all have."
"If I believed that I should be very unhappy. Fortunately I don'tbelieve it. I want to be treated with justice; I want nothing but that."
"Very good. But you must remember that justice to a lovely being isafter all a florid sort of sentiment."
"I'm not a lovely being. How can you say that, at the very moment whenI'm asking such odious questions? I must seem to you delicate!"
"You seem to me troubled," said Ralph.
"I am troubled."
"About what?"
For a moment she answered nothing; then she broke out: "Do you think itgood for me suddenly to be made so rich? Henrietta doesn't."
"Oh, hang Henrietta!" said Ralph coarsely, "If you ask me I'm delightedat it."
"Is that why your father did it--for your amusement?"
"I differ with Miss Stackpole," Ralph went on more gravely. "I think itvery good for you to have means."
Isabel looked at him with serious eyes. "I wonder whether you knowwhat's good for me--or whether you care."
"If I know depend upon it I care. Shall I tell you what it is? Not totorment yourself."
"Not to torment you, I suppose you mean."
"You can't do that; I'm proof. Take things more easily. Don't askyourself so much whether this or that is good for you. Don't questionyour conscience so much--it will get out of tune like a strummedpiano. Keep it for great occasions. Don't try so much to form yourcharacter--it's like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose.Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself. Mostthings are good for you; the exceptions are very rare, and a comfortableincome's not one of them." Ralph paused, smiling; Isabel had listenedquickly. "You've too much power of thought--above all too muchconscience," Ralph added. "It's out of all reason, the number of thingsyou think wrong. Put back your watch. Diet your fever. Spread yourwings; rise above the ground. It's never wrong to do that."
She had listened eagerly, as I say; and it was her nature to understandquickly. "I wonder if you appreciate what you say. If you do, you take agreat responsibility."
"You frighten me a little, but I think I'm right," said Ralph,persisting in cheer.
"All the same what you say is very true," Isabel pursued. "You could saynothing more true. I'm absorbed in myself--I look at life too much asa doctor's prescription. Why indeed should we perpetually be thinkingwhether things are good for us, as if we were patients lying in ahospital? Why should I be so afraid of not doing right? As if itmattered to the world whether I do right or wrong!"
"You're a capital person to advise," said Ralph; "you take the wind outof my sails!"
She looked at him as if she had not heard him--though she was followingout the train of reflexion which he himself had kindled. "I try tocare more about the world than about myself--but I always come back tomyself. It's because I'm afraid." She stopped; her voice had trembleda little. "Yes, I'm afraid; I can't tell you. A large fortune meansfreedom, and I'm afraid of that. It's such a fine thing, and one shouldmake such a good use of it. If one shouldn't one would be ashamed. Andone must keep thinking; it's a constant effort. I'm not sure it's not agreater happiness to be powerless."
"For weak people I've no doubt it's a greater happiness. For weak peoplethe effort not to be contemptible must be great."
"And how do you know I'm not weak?" Isabel asked.
"Ah," Ralph answered with a flush that the girl noticed, "if you are I'ma
wfully sold!"
The charm of the Mediterranean coast only deepened for our heroineon acquaintance, for it was the threshold of Italy, the gate ofadmirations. Italy, as yet imperfectly seen and felt, stretched beforeher as a land of promise, a land in which a love of the beautiful mightbe comforted by endless knowledge. Whenever she strolled upon the shorewith her cousin--and she was the companion of his daily walk--she lookedacross the sea, with longing eyes, to where she knew that Genoa lay. Shewas glad to pause, however, on the edge of this larger adventure; therewas such a thrill even in the preliminary hovering. It affected hermoreover as a peaceful interlude, as a hush of the drum and fife in acareer which she had little warrant as yet for regarding as agitated,but which nevertheless she was constantly picturing to herself bythe light of her hopes, her fears, her fancies, her ambitions, herpredilections, and which reflected these subjective accidents ina manner sufficiently dramatic. Madame Merle had predicted to Mrs.Touchett that after their young friend had put her hand into her pockethalf a dozen times she would be reconciled to the idea that it had beenfilled by a munificent uncle; and the event justified, as it had sooften justified before, that lady's perspicacity. Ralph Touchett hadpraised his cousin for being morally inflammable, that is for beingquick to take a hint that was meant as good advice. His advice hadperhaps helped the matter; she had at any rate before leaving San Remogrown used to feeling rich. The consciousness in question found aproper place in rather a dense little group of ideas that she had aboutherself, and often it was by no means the least agreeable. It tookperpetually for granted a thousand good intentions. She lost herself ina maze of visions; the fine things to be done by a rich, independent,generous girl who took a large human view of occasions and obligationswere sublime in the mass. Her fortune therefore became to her mind apart of her better self; it gave her importance, gave her even, to herown imagination, a certain ideal beauty. What it did for her in theimagination of others is another affair, and on this point we must alsotouch in time. The visions I have just spoken of were mixed with otherdebates. Isabel liked better to think of the future than of the past;but at times, as she listened to the murmur of the Mediterranean waves,her glance took a backward flight. It rested upon two figures which, inspite of increasing distance, were still sufficiently salient; they wererecognisable without difficulty as those of Caspar Goodwood and LordWarburton. It was strange how quickly these images of energy had falleninto the background of our young lady's life. It was in her dispositionat all times to lose faith in the reality of absent things; she couldsummon back her faith, in case of need, with an effort, but the effortwas often painful even when the reality had been pleasant. The past wasapt to look dead and its revival rather to show the livid light of ajudgement-day. The girl moreover was not prone to take for granted thatshe herself lived in the mind of others--she had not the fatuity tobelieve she left indelible traces. She was capable of being wounded bythe discovery that she had been forgotten; but of all liberties the oneshe herself found sweetest was the liberty to forget. She had not givenher last shilling, sentimentally speaking, either to Caspar Goodwood orto Lord Warburton, and yet couldn't but feel them appreciably in debtto her. She had of course reminded herself that she was to hear from Mr.Goodwood again; but this was not to be for another year and a half, andin that time a great many things might happen. She had indeed failed tosay to herself that her American suitor might find some other girl morecomfortable to woo; because, though it was certain many other girlswould prove so, she had not the smallest belief that this meritwould attract him. But she reflected that she herself might know thehumiliation of change, might really, for that matter, come to the end ofthe things that were not Caspar (even though there appeared so many ofthem), and find rest in those very elements of his presence which struckher now as impediments to the finer respiration. It was conceivablethat these impediments should some day prove a sort of blessingin disguise--a clear and quiet harbour enclosed by a brave granitebreakwater. But that day could only come in its order, and she couldn'twait for it with folded hands. That Lord Warburton should continueto cherish her image seemed to her more than a noble humility or anenlightened pride ought to wish to reckon with. She had so definitelyundertaken to preserve no record of what had passed between them that acorresponding effort on his own part would be eminently just. Thiswas not, as it may seem, merely a theory tinged with sarcasm. Isabelcandidly believed that his lordship would, in the usual phrase, get overhis disappointment. He had been deeply affected--this she believed, andshe was still capable of deriving pleasure from the belief; but itwas absurd that a man both so intelligent and so honourably dealt withshould cultivate a scar out of proportion to any wound. Englishmenliked moreover to be comfortable, said Isabel, and there could belittle comfort for Lord Warburton, in the long run, in brooding over aself-sufficient American girl who had been but a casual acquaintance.She flattered herself that, should she hear from one day to another thathe had married some young woman of his own country who had done moreto deserve him, she should receive the news without a pang even ofsurprise. It would have proved that he believed she was firm--which waswhat she wished to seem to him. That alone was grateful to her pride.