The Portrait of A Lady (32 page)

‘‘Sir Matthew Hope told me so, as plainly as was proper,'' she said; ‘‘standing there, near the fire, before dinner. He makes himself very agreeable, the great doctor. I don't mean that his saying that has anything to do with it. But he says such things with great tact. I had said to him that I felt ill at my ease, staying here at such a time; it seemed to me so indiscreet—it was not as if I could nurse. ‘You must remain, you must remain,' he answered; ‘your office will come later.' Was not that a very delicate way both of saying that poor Mr. Touchett would go, and that I might be of some use as a consoler? In fact, however, I shall not be of the slightest use. Your aunt will console herself; she, and she alone, knows just how much consolation she will require. It would be a very delicate matter for another person to undertake to administer the dose. With your cousin it will be different; he will miss his father sadly. But I should never presume to condole with Mr. Ralph; we are not on those terms.''

Madame Merle had alluded more than once to some undefined incongruity in her relations with Ralph Touchett; so Isabel took this occasion of asking her if they were not good friends.

‘‘Perfectly; but he doesn't like me.''

‘‘What have you done to him?''

‘‘Nothing whatever. But one has no need of a reason for that.''

‘‘For not liking you? I think one has need of a very good reason.''

‘‘You are very kind. Be sure you have one ready for the day when you begin.''

‘‘Begin to dislike you? I shall never begin.''

‘‘I hope not; because if you do, you will never end. That is the way with your cousin; he doesn't get over it. It's an antipathy of nature—if I can call it that when it is all on his side. I have nothing whatever against him, and don't bear him the least little grudge for not doing me justice. Justice is all I ask. However, one feels that he is a gentleman, and would never say anything underhand about one.
Cartes sur table,
'' Madame Merle subjoined in a moment, ‘‘I am not afraid of him.''

‘‘I hope not, indeed,'' said Isabel, who added something about his being the kindest fellow living. She remembered, however, that on her first asking him about Madame Merle he had answered her in a manner which this lady might have thought injurious without being explicit. There was something between them, Isabel said to herself, but she said nothing more than this. If it were something of importance, it should inspire respect; if it were not, it was not worth her curiosity. With all her love of knowledge, Isabel had a natural shrinking from raising curtains and looking into unlighted corners. The love of knowledge coexisted in her mind with a still tenderer love of ignorance.

But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise her clear eyebrows at the time, and think of the words afterwards.

‘‘I would give a great deal to be your age again,'' she broke out once, with a bitterness which, though diluted in her customary smile, was by no means disguised by it. ‘‘If I could only begin again—if I could have my life before me!''

‘‘Your life is before you yet,'' Isabel answered gently, for she was vaguely awe-struck.

‘‘No; the best part is gone, and gone for nothing.''

‘‘Surely, not for nothing,'' said Isabel.

‘‘Why not—what have I got? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune, nor position, nor the traces of a beauty which I never had.''

‘‘You have friends, dear lady.''

‘‘I am not so sure!'' cried Madame Merle.

‘‘Ah, you are wrong. You have memories, talents—''

Madame Merle interrupted her. ‘‘What have my talents brought me? Nothing but the need of using them still, to get through the hours, the years, to cheat myself with some pretence of action. As for my memories, the less said about them the better. You will be my friend till you find a better use for your friendship.''

‘‘It will be for you to see that I don't then,'' said Isabel.

‘‘Yes; I would make an effort to keep you,'' Madame Merle rejoined, looking at her gravely. ‘‘When I say I should like to be your age,'' she went on, ‘‘I mean with your qualities—frank, generous, sincere, like you. In that case I should have made something better of my life.''

‘‘What should you have liked to do that you have not done?''

Madame Merle took a sheet of music—she was seated at the piano, and had abruptly wheeled about on the stool when she first spoke—and mechanically turned the leaves. At last she said: ‘‘I am very ambitious!''

‘‘And your ambitions have not been satisfied? They must have been great.''

‘‘They were great. I should make myself ridiculous by talking of them.''

Isabel wondered what they could have been—whether Madame Merle had aspired to wear a crown. ‘‘I don't know what your idea of success may be, but you seem to me to have been successful. To me, indeed, you are an image of success.''

Madame Merle tossed away the music with a smile.

‘‘What is
your
idea of success?''

‘‘You evidently think it must be very tame,'' said Isabel. ‘‘It is to see some dream of one's youth come true.''

‘‘Ah,'' Madame Merle exclaimed, ‘‘that I have never seen! But my dreams were so great—so preposterous. Heaven forgive me, I am dreaming now.'' And she turned back to the piano and began to play with energy.

On the morrow she said to Isabel that her definition of success had been very pretty, but frightfully sad. Measured in that way, who had succeeded? The dreams of one's youth, why they were enchanting, they were divine! Who had ever seen such things come to pass?

‘‘I myself—a few of them,'' Isabel ventured to answer.

‘‘Already? They must have been dreams of yesterday.''

‘‘I began to dream very young,'' said Isabel, smiling.

‘‘Ah, if you mean the aspirations of your childhood— that of having a pink sash and a doll that could close her eyes.''

‘‘No, I don't mean that.''

‘‘Or a young man with a moustache going down on his knees to you.''

‘‘No, nor that either,'' Isabel declared, blushing.

Madame Merle gave a glance at her blush, which caused it to deepen.

‘‘I suspect that is what you do mean. We have all had the young man with the moustache. He is the inevitable young man; he doesn't count.''

Isabel was silent for a moment, and then, with extreme and characteristic inconsequence: ‘‘Why shouldn't he count? There are young men and young men.''

‘‘And yours was a paragon—is that what you mean?'' cried her friend with a laugh. ‘‘If you have had the identical young man you dreamed of, then that was success, and I congratulate you. Only, in that case, why didn't you fly with him to his castle in the Apennines?''

‘‘He has no castle in the Apennines.''

‘‘What has he? An ugly brick house in Fortieth Street? Don't tell me that; I refuse to recognize that as an ideal.''

‘‘I don't care anything about his house,'' said Isabel.

‘‘That is very crude of you. When you have lived as long as I, you will see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we are each of us made up of a cluster of appurtenances. What do you call one's self? Where does it begin? Where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us—and then it flows back again. I know that a large part of myself is in the dresses I choose to wear. I have a great respect for
things
! One's self—for other people—is one's expression of one's self; and one's house, one's clothes, the books one reads, the company one keeps—these things are all expressive.''

This was very metaphysical; not more so, however, than several observations Madame Merle had already made. Isabel was fond of metaphysics, but she was unable to accompany her friend into this bold analysis of the human personality.

‘‘I don't agree with you,'' she said. ‘‘I think just the other way. I don't know whether I succeed in expressing myself, but I know that nothing else expresses me. Nothing that belongs to me is any measure of me; on the contrary, it's a limit, a barrier, and a perfectly arbitrary one. Certainly, the clothes which, as you say, I choose to wear, don't express me; and heaven forbid they should!''

‘‘You dress very well,'' interposed Madame Merle, skilfully.

‘‘Possibly; but I don't care to be judged by that. My clothes may express the dress-maker, but they don't express me. To begin with, it's not my own choice that I wear them; they are imposed upon me by society.''

‘‘Should you prefer to go without them?'' Madame Merle inquired, in a tone which virtually terminated the discussion.

I am bound to confess, though it may cast some discredit upon the sketch I have given of the youthful loyalty which our heroine practised towards this accomplished woman, that Isabel had said nothing whatever to her about Lord Warburton, and had been equally reticent on the subject of Caspar Goodwood. Isabel had not concealed from her, however, that she had had opportunities of marrying, and had even let her know that they were of a highly advantageous kind. Lord Warburton had left Lockleigh, and was gone to Scotland, taking his sisters with him; and though he had written to Ralph more than once, to ask about Mr. Touchett's health, the girl was not liable to the embarrassment of such inquiries as, had he still been in the neighbourhood, he would probably have felt bound to make in person. He had admirable self-control, but she felt sure that if he had come to Gardencourt he would have seen Madame Merle, and that if he had seen her he would have liked her, and betrayed to her that he was in love with her young friend.

It so happened that during Madame Merle's previous visits to Gardencourt—each of them much shorter than the present one—he had either not been at Lockleigh or had not called at Mr. Touchett's. Therefore, though she knew him by name as the great man of that county, she had no cause to suspect him of being a suitor of Mrs. Touchett's freshly imported niece.

‘‘You have plenty of time,'' she had said to Isabel, in return for the mutilated confidences which Isabel made her, and which did not pretend to be perfect, though we have seen that at moments the girl had compunctions at having said so much. ‘‘I am glad you have done nothing yet—that you have it still to do. It is a very good thing for a girl to have refused a few good offers—so long, of course, as they are not the best she is likely to have. Excuse me if my tone seems horribly worldly; one must take that view sometimes. Only don't keep on refusing for the sake of refusing. It's a pleasant exercise of power; but accepting is after all an exercise of power as well. There is always the danger of refusing once too often. It was not the one I fell into—I didn't refuse often enough. You are an exquisite creature, and I should like to see you married to a prime minister. But speaking strictly, you know you are not what is technically called a
parti.
You are extremely good-looking, and extremely clever; in yourself you are quite exceptional. You appear to have the vaguest ideas about your earthly possessions; but from what I can make out, you are not embarrassed with an income. I wish you had a little money.''

‘‘I wish I had!'' said Isabel, simply, apparently forgetting for the moment that her poverty had been a venial fault for two gallant gentlemen.

In spite of Sir Matthew Hope's benevolent recommendation, Madame Merle did not remain to the end, as the issue of poor Mr. Touchett's malady had now come frankly to be designated. She was under pledges to other people which had at last to be redeemed, and she left Gardencourt with the understanding that she should in any event see Mrs. Touchett there again, or in town, before quitting England. Her parting with Isabel was even more like the beginning of a friendship than their meeting had been.

‘‘I am going to six places in succession,'' she said, ‘‘but I shall see no one I like so well as you. They will all be old friends, however; one doesn't make new friends at my age. I have made a great exception for you. You must remember that, and you must think well of me. You must reward me by believing in me.''

By way of answer, Isabel kissed her, and though some women kiss with facility, there are kisses and kisses, and this embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle.

Isabel, after this, was much alone; she saw her aunt and cousin only at meals, and discovered that of the hours that Mrs. Touchett was invisible, only a minor portion was now devoted to nursing her husband. She spent the rest in her own apartments, to which access was not allowed even to her niece, in mysterious and inscrutable exercises. At table she was grave and silent; but her solemnity was not an attitude—Isabel could see that it was a conviction. She wondered whether her aunt repented of having taken her own way so much; but there was no visible evidence of this—no tears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal which had always deemed itself sufficient. Mrs. Touchett seemed simply to feel the need of thinking things over and summing them up; she had a little moral account-book—with columns unerringly ruled, and a sharp steel clasp—which she kept with exemplary neatness.

‘‘If I had foreseen this I would not have proposed your coming abroad now,'' she said to Isabel after Madame Merle had left the house. ‘‘I would have waited and sent for you next year.''

Her remarks had usually a practical ring.