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Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (144 page)

BOOK: Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874
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Page 865
awaycome home to me that her daughter was unconscious of what had happened. It was
that,
oddly enough, that gave me a sudden, sharp shake, and not my own perception of our visitor, which appeared perfectly natural. It made the fact vivid to me that she had been equally unaware of him in church, and the two facts togethernow that they were overset my heart more sensibly beating. I wiped my forehead, and Mrs. Marden broke out with a low distressful wail: Now you know my lifenow you know my life!
In God's name who is he
what
is he?
He's a man I wronged.
How did you wrong him?
Oh, awfullyyears ago.
Years ago? Why, he's very young.
Youngyoung? cried Mrs. Marden. He was born before
I
was!
Then why does he look so?
She came nearer to me, she laid her hand on my arm, and there was something in her face that made me shrink a little. Don't you understanddon't you
feel?
she murmured, reproachfully.
I feel very queer! I laughed; and I was conscious that my laugh betrayed it.
He's dead! said Mrs. Marden, from her white face.
Dead? I panted. Then that gentleman was? I couldn't even say the word.
Call him what you likethere are twenty vulgar names. He's a perfect presence.
He's a splendid presence! I cried. The place is haunted
haunted!
I exulted in the word as if it represented the fulfilment of my dearest dream.
It isn't the placemore's the pity! That has nothing to do with it!
Then it's you, dear lady? I said, as if this were still better.
No, nor me eitherI wish it were!
Perhaps it's me, I suggested with a sickly smile.
It's nobody but my childmy innocent, innocent child! And with this Mrs. Marden broke downshe dropped into a chair and burst into tears. I stammered some questionI pressed on her some bewildered appeal, but she waved me
 
Page 866
off, unexpectedly and passionately. I persistedcouldn't I help her, couldn't I intervene? You
have
intervened, she sobbed; you're
in
it, you're
in
it.
I'm very glad to be in anything so curious, I boldly declared.
Glad or not, you can't get out of it.
I don't want to get out of itit's too interesting.
I'm glad you like it. Go away.
But I want to know more about it.
You'll see all you wantgo away!
But I want to understand what I see.
How can youwhen I don't understand myself?
We'll do so togetherwe'll make it out.
At this she got up, doing what she could to obliterate her tears. Yes, it will be better togetherthat's why I've liked you.
Oh, we'll see it through! I declared.
Then you must control yourself better.
I will, I willwith practice.
You'll get used to it, said Mrs. Marden, in a tone I never forgot. But go and join themI'll come in a moment.
I passed out to the terrace and I felt that I had a part to play. So far from dreading another encounter with the perfect presence, as Mrs. Marden called it, I was filled with an excitement that was positively joyous. I desired a renewal of the sensationI opened myself wide to the impression, I went round the house as quickly as if I expected to overtake Sir Edmund Orme. I didn't overtake him just then, but the day was not to close without my recognising that, as Mrs. Marden had said, I should see all I wanted of him.
We took, or most of us took, the collective sociable walk which, in the English country-house, is the consecrated pastime on Sunday afternoons. We were restricted to such a regulated ramble as the ladies were good for; the afternoons, moreover, were short, and by five o'clock we were restored to the fireside in the hall, with a sense, on my part at least, that we might have done a little more for our tea. Mrs. Marden had said she would join us, but she had not appeared; her daughter, who had seen her again before we went out, only explained that she was tired. She remained invisible all the
 
Page 867
afternoon, but this was a detail to which I gave as little heed as I had given to the circumstance of my not having Miss Marden to myself during all our walk. I was too much taken up with another emotion to care; I felt beneath my feet the threshold of the strange door, in my life, which had suddenly been thrown open and out of which unspeakable vibrations played up through me like a fountain. I had heard all my days of apparitions, but it was a different thing to have seen one and to know that I should in all probability see it familiarly, as it were, again. I was on the look-out for it, as a pilot for the flash of a revolving light, and I was ready to generalise on the sinister subject, to declare that ghosts were much less alarming and much more amusing than was commonly supposed. There is no doubt that I was extremely nervous. I couldn't get over the distinction conferred upon methe exception (in the way of mystic enlargement of vision), made in my favour. At the same time I think I did justice to Mrs. Marden's absence; it was a commentary on what she had said to meNow you know my life. She had probably been seeing Sir Edmund Orme for years, and, not having my firm fibre, she had broken down under him. Her nerve was gone, though she had also been able to attest that, in a degree, one got used to him. She had got used to breaking down.
Afternoon tea, when the dusk fell early, was a friendly hour at Tranton; the firelight played into the wide, white last-century hall; sympathies almost confessed themselves, lingering together, before dressing, on deep sofas, in muddy boots, for last words, after walks; and even solitary absorption in the third volume of a novel that was wanted by some one else seemed a form of geniality. I watched my moment and went over to Charlotte Marden when I saw she was about to withdraw. The ladies had left the place one by one, and after I had addressed myself particularly to Miss Marden the three men who were near her gradually dispersed. We had a little vague talkshe appeared preoccupied, and heaven knows
I
wasafter which she said she must go: she should be late for dinner. I proved to her by book that she had plenty of time, and she objected that she must at any rate go up to see her mother: she was afraid she was unwell.
On the contrary, she's better than she has been for a long
 
Page 868
timeI'll guarantee that, I said. She has found out that she can have confidence in me, and that has done her good. Miss Marden had dropped into her chair again. I was standing before her, and she looked up at me without a smilewith a dim distress in her beautiful eyes; not exactly as if I were hurting her, but as if she were no longer disposed to treat as a joke what had passed (whatever it was, it was at the same time difficult to be serious about it), between her mother and myself. But I could answer her inquiry in all kindness and candour, for I was really conscious that the poor lady had put off a part of her burden on me and was proportionately relieved and eased. I'm sure she has slept all the afternoon as she hasn't slept for years, I went on. You have only to ask her.
Charlotte got up again. You make yourself out very useful.
You've a good quarter of an hour, I said. Haven't I a right to talk to you a little this way, alone, when your mother has given me your hand?
And is it
your
mother who has given me yours? I'm much obliged to her, but I don't want it. I think our hands are not our mothers'they happen to be our own! laughed the girl.
Sit down, sit down and let me tell you! I pleaded.
I still stood before her, urgently, to see if she wouldn't oblige me. She hesitated a moment, looking vaguely this way and that, as if under a compulsion that was slightly painful. The empty hall was quietwe heard the loud ticking of the great clock. Then she slowly sank down and I drew a chair close to her. This made me face round to the fire again, and with the movement I perceived, disconcertedly, that we were not alone. The next instant, more strangely than I can say, my discomposure, instead of increasing, dropped, for the person before the fire was Sir Edmund Orme. He stood there as I had seen him in the Indian room, looking at me with the expressionless attention which borrowed its sternness from his sombre distinction. I knew so much more about him now that I had to check a movement of recognition, an acknowledgement of his presence. When once I was aware of it, and that it lasted, the sense that we had company, Charlotte and I, quitted me; it was impressed on me on the contrary that I was more intensely alone with Miss Marden. She evidently saw nothing to look at, and I made a tremendous and very nearly
 
Page 869
successful effort to conceal from her that my own situation was different. I say very nearly, because she watched me an instantwhile my words were arrestedin a way that made me fear she was going to say again, as she had said in the Indian room: What on earth is the matter with you?
What the matter with me was I quickly told her, for the full knowledge of it rolled over me with the touching spectacle of her unconsciousness. It was touching that she became, in the presence of this extraordinary portent. What was portended, danger or sorrow, bliss or bane, was a minor question; all I saw, as she sat there, was that, innocent and charming, she was close to a horror, as she might have thought it, that happened to be veiled from her but that might at any moment be disclosed. I didn't mind it now, as I found, but nothing was more possible than she should, and if it wasn't curious and interesting it might easily be very dreadful. If I didn't mind it for myself, as I afterwards saw, this was largely because I was so taken up with the idea of protecting
her.
My heart beat high with this idea, on the spot; I determined to do everything I could to keep her sense sealed. What I could do might have been very obscure to me if I had not, in all this, become more aware than of anything else that I loved her. The way to save her was to love her, and the way to love her was to tell her, now and here, that I did so. Sir Edmund Orme didn't prevent me, especially as after a moment he turned his back to us and stood looking discreetly at the fire. At the end of another moment he leaned his head on his arm, against the chimneypiece, with an air of gradual dejection, like a spirit still more weary than discreet. Charlotte Marden was startled by what I said to her, and she jumped up to escape it; but she took no offencemy tenderness was too real. She only moved about the room with a deprecating murmur, and I was so busy following up any little advantage that I might have obtained that I didn't notice in what manner Sir Edmund Orme disappeared. I only observed presently that he had gone. This made no differencehe had been so small a hindrance; I only remember being struck, suddenly, with something inexorable in the slow, sweet, sad headshake that Miss Marden gave me.
I don't ask for an answer now, I said; I only want you to be sureto know how much depends on it.
 
Page 870
Oh, I don't want to give it to you, now or ever! she replied. I hate the subject, pleaseI wish one could be let alone. And then, as if I might have found something harsh in this irrepressible, artless cry of beauty beset, she added quickly, vaguely, kindly, as she left the room: Thank you, thank youthank you so much!
At dinner I could be generous enough to be glad, for her, that I was placed on the same side of the table with her, where she couldn't see me. Her mother was nearly opposite to me, and just after we had sat down Mrs. Marden gave me one long, deep look, in which all our strange communion was expressed. It meant of course She has told me, but it meant other things beside. At any rate I know what my answering look to her conveyed: I've seen him againI've seen him again! This didn't prevent Mrs. Marden from treating her neighbours with her usual scrupulous blandness. After dinner, when, in the drawing-room, the men joined the ladies and I went straight up to her to tell her how I wished we could have some private conversation, she said immediately, in a low tone, looking down at her fan while she opened and shut it:
He's herehe's here.
Here? I looked round the room, but I was disappointed.
Look where
she
is, said Mrs. Marden, with just the faintest asperity. Charlotte was in fact not in the main saloon, but in an apartment into which it opened and which was known as the morning-room. I took a few steps and saw her, through a doorway, upright in the middle of the room, talking with three gentlemen whose backs were practically turned to me. For a moment my quest seemed vain; then I recognised that one of the gentlementhe middle onewas Sir Edmund Orme. This time it
was
surprising that the others didn't see him. Charlotte seemed to be looking straight at him, addressing her conversation to him. She saw me after an instant, however, and immediately turned her eyes away. I went back to her mother with an annoyed sense that the girl would think I was watching
her,
which would be unjust. Mrs. Marden had found a small sofaa little apartand I sat down beside her. There were some questions I had so wanted to go into that I wished we were once more in the Indian room. I presently gathered, however, that our privacy was all-sufficient. We communicated
BOOK: Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874
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