The Portrait of A Lady (33 page)

‘‘So that perhaps I should never have known my uncle? It's a great happiness to me to have come now.''

‘‘That's very well. But it was not that you might know your uncle that I brought you to Europe.'' A perfectly veracious speech; but, as Isabel thought, not as perfectly timed.

She had leisure to think of this and other matters. She took a solitary walk every day, and spent much time in turning over the books in the library. Among the subjects that engaged her attention were the adventures of her friend Miss Stackpole, with whom she was in regular correspondence. Isabel liked her friend's private epistolary style better than her public; that is, she thought her public letters would have been excellent if they had not been printed. Henrietta's career, however, was not so successful as might have been wished even in the interest of her private felicity; that view of the inner life of Great Britain which she was so eager to take appeared to dance before her like an
ignis fatuus.
The invitation from Lady Pensil, for mysterious reasons, had never arrived; and poor Mr. Bantling himself, with all his friendly ingenuity, had been unable to explain so grave a dereliction on the part of a missive that had obviously been sent. Mr. Bantling, however, had evidently taken Henrietta's affairs much to heart, and believed that he owed her a set-off to this illusory visit to Bedfordshire. ‘‘He says he should think I would go to the Continent,'' Henrietta wrote; ‘‘and as he thinks of going there himself, I suppose his advice is sincere. He wants to know why I don't take a view of French life; and it is a fact that I want very much to see the new Republic. Mr. Bantling doesn't care much about the Republic, but he thinks of going over to Paris anyway. I must say he is quite as attentive as I could wish, and at any rate I shall have seen one polite Englishman. I keep telling Mr. Bantling that he ought to have been an American; and you ought to see how it pleases him. Whenever I say so, he always breaks out with the same exclamation—‘Ah, but really, come now!' '' A few days later she wrote that she had decided to go to Paris at the end of the week, and that Mr. Bantling had promised to see her off—perhaps even he would go as far as Dover with her. She would wait in Paris till Isabel should arrive, Henrietta added; speaking quite as if Isabel were to start on her continental journey alone, and making no allusion to Mrs. Touchett. Bearing in mind his interest in their late companion, our heroine communicated several passages from Miss Stackpole's letters to Ralph, who followed with an emotion akin to suspense the career of the correspondent of the
Interviewer.

‘‘It seems to me that she is doing very well,'' he said, ‘‘going over to Paris with an ex-guardsman! If she wants something to write about, she has only to describe that episode.''

‘‘It is not conventional, certainly,'' Isabel answered; ‘‘but if you mean that—as far as Henrietta is concerned—it is not perfectly innocent, you are very much mistaken. You will never understand Henrietta.''

‘‘Excuse me; I understand her perfectly. I didn't at all at first; but now I have got the point of view. I am afraid, however, that Bantling has not; he may have some surprises. Oh, I understand Henrietta as well as if I had made her!''

Isabel was by no means sure of this; but she abstained from expressing further doubt, for she was disposed in these days to extend a great charity to her cousin. One afternoon, less than a week after Madame Merle's departure, she was seated in the library with a volume to which her attention was not fastened. She had placed herself in a deep window-bench, from which she looked out into the dull, damp park; and as the library stood at right angles to the entrance-front of the house, she could see the doctor's dog-cart, which had been waiting for the last two hours before the door. She was struck with the doctor's remaining so long; but at last she saw him appear in the portico, stand a moment, slowly drawing on his gloves and looking at the knees of his horse, and then get into the vehicle and drive away. Isabel kept her place for half an hour; there was a great stillness in the house. It was so great that when she at last heard a soft, slow step on the deep carpet of the room, she was almost startled by the sound. She turned quickly away from the window, and saw Ralph Touchett standing there, with his hands still in his pockets, but with a face absolutely void of its usual latent smile. She got up, and her movement and glance were a question.

‘‘It's all over,'' said Ralph.

‘‘Do you mean that my uncle—?'' And Isabel stopped.

‘‘My father died an hour ago.''

‘‘Ah, my poor Ralph!'' the girl murmured, putting out her hand to him.

20

SOME FORTNIGHT after this incident Madame Merle drove up in a hansom cab to the house in Winchester Square. As she descended from her vehicle she observed, suspended between the dining-room windows, a large, neat, wooden tablet, on whose fresh black ground were inscribed in white paint the words—‘‘This noble freehold mansion to be sold''; with the name of the agent to whom application should be made. ‘‘They certainly lose no time,'' said the visitor, as, after sounding the big brass knocker, she waited to be admitted; ‘‘it's a practical country!'' And within the house, as she ascended to the drawing-room, she perceived numerous signs of abdication; pictures removed from the walls and placed upon sofas, windows undraped and floors laid bare. Mrs. Touchett presently received her, and intimated in a few words that condolences might be taken for granted.

‘‘I know what you are going to say—he was a very good man. But I know it better than any one, because I gave him more chance to show it. In that I think I was a good wife.'' Mrs. Touchett added that at the end her husband apparently recognized this fact. ‘‘He has treated me liberally,'' she said; ‘‘I won't say more liberally than I expected, because I didn't expect. You know that as a general thing I don't expect. But he chose, I presume, to recognize the fact that though I lived much abroad, and mingled—you may say freely—in foreign life, I never exhibited the smallest preference for any one else.''

‘‘For any one but yourself,'' Madame Merle mentally observed; but the reflection was perfectly inaudible.

‘‘I never sacrificed my husband to another,'' Mrs. Touchett continued, with her stout curtness.

‘‘Oh no,'' thought Madame Merle; ‘‘you never did anything for another!''

There was a certain cynicism in these mute comments which demands an explanation; the more so as they are not in accord either with the view—somewhat superficial perhaps—that we have hitherto enjoyed of Madame Merle's character, or with the literal facts of Mrs. Touchett's history; the more so, too, as Madame Merle had a well-founded conviction that her friend's last remark was not in the least to be construed as a side-thrust at herself. The truth is, that the moment she had crossed the threshold she received a subtle impression that Mr. Touchett's death had had consequences, and that these consequences had been profitable to a little circle of persons among whom she was not numbered. Of course it was an event which would naturally have consequences; her imagination had more than once rested upon this fact during her stay at Gardencourt. But it had been one thing to foresee it mentally, and it was another to behold it actually. The idea of a distribution of property—she would almost have said of spoils—just now pressed upon her senses and irritated her with a sense of exclusion. I am far from wishing to say that Madame Merle was one of the hungry ones of the world; but we have already perceived that she had desires which had never been satisfied. If she had been questioned, she would of course have admitted—with a most becoming smile— that she had not the faintest claim to a share in Mr. Touchett's relics. ‘‘There was never anything in the world between us,'' she would have said. ‘‘There was never that, poor man!''—with a fillip of her thumb and her third finger. I hasten to add, moreover, that if her private attitude at the present moment was somewhat incongruously invidious, she was very careful not to betray herself. She had, after all, as much sympathy for Mrs. Touchett's gains as for her losses.

‘‘He has left me this house,'' the newly made widow said; ‘‘but of course I shall not live in it; I have a much better house in Florence. The will was opened only three days since, but I have already offered the house for sale. I have also a share in the bank; but I don't yet understand whether I am obliged to leave it there. If not, I shall certainly take it out. Ralph, of course, has Gardencourt; but I am not sure that he will have means to keep up the place. He is of course left very well off, but his father has given away an immense deal of money; there are bequests to a string of third cousins in Vermont. Ralph, however, is very fond of Gardencourt, and would be quite capable of living there—in summer— with a maid-of-all-work and a gardener's boy. There is one remarkable clause in my husband's will,'' Mrs. Touchett added. ‘‘He has left my niece a fortune.''

‘‘A fortune!'' Madame Merle repeated, softly.

‘‘Isabel steps into something like seventy thousand pounds.''

Madame Merle's hands were clasped in her lap; at this she raised them, still clasped, and held them a moment against her bosom, while her eyes, a little dilated, fixed themselves on those of her friend. ‘‘Ah,'' she cried, ‘‘the clever creature!''

Mrs. Touchett gave her a quick look. ‘‘What do you mean by that?''

For an instant Madame Merle's colour rose, and she dropped her eyes. ‘‘It certainly is clever to achieve such results—without an effort!''

‘‘There certainly was no effort; don't call it an achievement.''

Madame Merle was rarely guilty of the awkwardness of retracting what she had said; her wisdom was shown rather in maintaining it and placing it in a favourable light. ‘‘My dear friend, Isabel would certainly not have had seventy thousand pounds left her if she had not been the most charming girl in the world. Her charm includes great cleverness.''

‘‘She never dreamed, I am sure, of my husband's doing anything for her; and I never dreamed of it either, for he never spoke to me of his intention,'' Mrs. Touchett said. ‘‘She had no claim upon him whatever; it was no great recommendation to him that she was my niece. Whatever she achieved she achieved unconsciously.''

‘‘Ah,'' rejoined Madame Merle, ‘‘those are the greatest strokes!''

Mrs. Touchett gave a shrug. ‘‘The girl is fortunate; I don't deny that. But for the present she is simply stupefied.''

‘‘Do you mean that she doesn't know what to do with the money?''

‘‘That, I think, she has hardly considered. She doesn't know what to think about the matter at all. It has been as if a big gun were suddenly fired off behind her; she is feeling herself, to see if she be hurt. It is but three days since she received a visit from the principal executor, who came in person, very gallantly, to notify her. He told me afterwards that when he had made his little speech she suddenly burst into tears. The money is to remain in the bank, and she is to draw the interest.''

Madame Merle shook her head, with a wise, and now quite benignant, smile. ‘‘After she has done that two or three times she will get used to it.'' Then after a silence— ‘‘What does your son think of it?'' she abruptly asked.

‘‘He left England just before it came out—used up by his fatigue and anxiety, and hurrying off to the south. He is on his way to the Riviera, and I have not yet heard from him. But it is not likely he will ever object to anything done by his father.''

‘‘Didn't you say his own share had been cut down?''

‘‘Only at his wish. I know that he urged his father to do something for the people in America. He is not in the least addicted to looking after number one.''

‘‘It depends upon whom he regards as number one!'' said Madame Merle. And she remained thoughtful a moment, with her eyes bent upon the floor. ‘‘Am I not to see your happy niece?'' she asked at last, looking up.

‘‘You may see her; but you will not be struck with her being happy. She has looked as solemn, these three days, as a Cimabue Madonna!'' And Mrs. Touchett rang for a servant.

Isabel came in shortly after the footman had been sent to call her; and Madame Merle thought, as she appeared, that Mrs. Touchett's comparison had its force. The girl was pale and grave—an effect not mitigated by her deeper mourning; but the smile of her brightest moments came into her face as she saw Madame Merle, who went forward, laid her hand on our heroine's shoulder, and after looking at her a moment, kissed her as if she were returning the kiss that she had received from Isabel at Gardencourt. This was the only allusion that Madame Merle, in her great good taste, made for the present to her young friend's inheritance.

Mrs. Touchett did not remain in London until she had sold her house. After selecting from among its furniture those objects which she wished to transport to her Florence residence, she left the rest of its contents to be disposed of by the auctioneer, and took her departure for the continent. She was, of course, accompanied on this journey by her niece, who now had plenty of leisure to contemplate the windfall on which Madame Merle had covertly congratulated her. Isabel thought of it very often and looked at it in a dozen different lights; but we shall not at present attempt to enter into her meditations or to explain why it was that some of them were of a rather pessimistic cast. The pessimism of this young lady was transient; she ultimately made up her mind that to be rich was a virtue because it was to be able to
do,
and to do was sweet. It was the contrary of weakness. To be weak was, for a young lady, rather graceful, but, after all, as Isabel said to herself, there was a larger grace than that. Just now, it was true, there was not much to do—once she had sent off a cheque to Lily and another to poor Edith; but she was thankful for the quiet months which her mourning robes and her aunt's fresh widowhood compelled the two ladies to spend. The acquisition of power made her serious; she scrutinized her power with a kind of tender ferocity, but she was not eager to exercise it. She began to do so indeed during a stay of some weeks which she presently made with her aunt in Paris, but in ways that will probably be thought rather vulgar. They were the ways that most naturally presented themselves in a city in which the shops are the admiration of the world, especially under the guidance of Mrs. Touchett, who took a rigidly practical view of the transformation of her niece from a poor girl to a rich one. ‘‘Now that you are a young woman of fortune you must know how to play the part—I mean to play it well,'' she said to Isabel, once for all; and she added that the girl's first duty was to have everything handsome. ‘‘You don't know how to take care of your things, but you must learn,'' she went on; this was Isabel's second duty. Isabel submitted, but for the present her imagination was not kindled; she longed for opportunities, but these were not the opportunities she meant.