The Portrait of A Lady (55 page)

‘‘Papa has told me that you have kindly consented to marry him,'' said the good woman's pupil. ‘‘It is very delightful; I think you will suit very well.''

‘‘You think I shall suit you?''

‘‘You will suit me beautifully; but what I mean is that you and papa will suit each other. You are both so quiet and so serious. You are not so quiet as he—or even as Madame Merle; but you are more quiet than many others. He should not, for instance, have a wife like my aunt. She is always moving; to-day especially; you will see when she comes in. They told us at the convent it was wrong to judge our elders, but I suppose there is no harm if we judge them favourably. You will be a delightful companion for papa.''

‘‘For you too, I hope,'' Isabel said.

‘‘I speak first of him on purpose. I have told you already what I myself think of you; I liked you from the first. I admire you so much that I think it will be a great good fortune to have you always before me. You will be my model; I shall try to imitate you—though I am afraid it will be very feeble. I am very glad for papa— he needed something more than me. Without you, I don't see how he could have got it. You will be my stepmother; but we must not use that word. You don't look at all like the word; it is somehow so ugly. They are always said to be cruel; but I think you will never be cruel. I am not afraid.''

‘‘My good little Pansy,'' said Isabel, gently, ‘‘I shall be very kind to you.''

‘‘Very well then; I have nothing to fear,'' the child declared, lightly.

Her description of her aunt had not been incorrect; the Countess Gemini was less than ever in a state of repose. She entered the room with a great deal of expression, and kissed Isabel, first on her lips, and then on each cheek, in the short, quick manner of a bird drinking. She made Isabel sit down on the sofa beside her, and looking at our heroine with a variety of turns of the head, delivered herself of a hundred remarks, from which I offer the reader but a brief selection.

‘‘If you expect me to congratulate you, I must beg you to excuse me. I don't suppose you care whether I do or not; I believe you are very proud. But I care myself whether I tell fibs or not; I never tell them unless there is something to be gained. I don't see what there is to be gained with you—especially as you would not believe me. I don't make phrases—I never made a phrase in my life. My fibs are always very crude. I am very glad, for my own sake, that you are going to marry Osmond; but I won't pretend I am glad for yours. You are very remarkable—you know that's what people call you; you are an heiress, and very good-looking and clever, very original; so it's a good thing to have you in the family. Our family is very good, you know; Osmond will have told you that; and my mother was rather distinguished— she was called the American Corinne. But we are rather fallen, I think, and perhaps you will pick us up. I have great confidence in you; there are ever so many things I want to talk to you about. I never congratulate any girl on marrying; I think it's the worst thing she can do. I suppose Pansy oughtn't to hear all this; but that's what she has come to me for—to acquire the tone of society. There is no harm in her knowing that it isn't such a blessing to get married. When first I got an idea that my brother had designs upon you, I thought of writing to you, to recommend you, in the strongest terms, not to listen to him. Then I thought it would be disloyal, and I hate anything of that kind. Besides, as I say, I was enchanted, for myself; and after all, I am very selfish. By the way, you won't respect me, and we shall never be intimate. I should like it, but you won't. Some day, all the same, we shall be better friends than you will believe at first. My husband will come and see you, though, as you probably know, he is on no sort of terms with Osmond. He is very fond of going to see pretty women, but I am not afraid of you. In the first place, I don't care what he does. In the second, you won't care a straw for him; you will take his measure at a glance. Some day I will tell you all about him. Do you think my niece ought to go out of the room? Pansy, go and practise a little in my boudoir.''

‘‘Let her stay, please,'' said Isabel. ‘‘I would rather hear nothing that Pansy may not!''

36

ONE afternoon, towards dusk, in the autumn of 1876, a young man of pleasing appearance rang at the door of a small apartment on the third floor of an old Roman house. On its being opened he inquired for Madame Merle, whereupon the servant, a neat, plain woman, with a French face and a lady's maid's manner, ushered him into a diminutive drawing-room and requested the favour of his name.

‘‘Mr. Edward Rosier,'' said the young man, who sat down to wait till his hostess should appear.

The reader will perhaps not have forgotten that Mr. Rosier was an ornament of the American circle in Paris, but it may also be remembered that he sometimes vanished from its horizon. He had spent a portion of several winters at Pau, and as he was a gentleman of tolerably inveterate habits he might have continued for years to pay his annual visit to this charming resort. In the summer of 1876, however, an incident befell him which changed the current, not only of his thoughts, but of his proceedings. He passed a month in the upper Engadine, and encountered at St. Moritz a charming young girl. For this young lady he conceived a peculiar admiration; she was exactly the household angel he had long been looking for. He was never precipitate; he was nothing if not discreet; so he forbore for the present to declare his passion; but it seemed to him when they parted—the young lady to go down into Italy, and her admirer to proceed to Geneva, where he was under bonds to join some friends—that he should be very unhappy if he were not to see her again. The simplest way to do so was to go in the autumn to Rome, where Miss Osmond was domiciled with her family. Rosier started on his pilgrimage to the Italian capital and reached it on the first of November. It was a pleasant thing to do; but for the young man there was a strain of the heroic in the enterprise. He was nervous about the fever, and November, after all, was rather early in the season. Fortune, however, favours the brave; and Mr. Rosier, who took three grains of quinine every day, had at the end of a month no cause to deplore his temerity. He had made to a certain extent good use of his time; that is, he had perceived that Miss Pansy Osmond had not a flaw in her composition. She was admirably finished—she was in excellent style. He thought of her in amorous meditation a good deal as he might have thought of a Dresdenchina shepherdess. Miss Osmond, indeed, in the bloom of her juvenility, had a touch of the rococo, which Rosier, whose taste was predominantly for that manner, could not fail to appreciate. That he esteemed the productions of comparatively frivolous periods would have been apparent from the attention he bestowed upon Madame Merle's drawing-room, which, although furnished with specimens of every style, was especially rich in articles of the last two centuries. He had immediately put a glass into one eye and looked round; and then—‘‘By Jove! She has some jolly good things!'' he had murmured to himself. The room was small, and densely filled with furniture; it gave an impression of faded silk and little statuettes which might totter if one moved. Rosier got up and wandered about with his careful tread, bending over the tables charged with knick-knacks and the cushions embossed with princely arms. When Madame Merle came in she found him standing before the fire-place, with his nose very close to the great lace flounce attached to the damask cover of the mantel. He had lifted it delicately, as if he were smelling it.

‘‘It's old Venetian,'' she said; ‘‘it's rather good.''

‘‘It's too good for this; you ought to wear it.''

‘‘They tell me you have some better in Paris, in the same situation.''

‘‘Ah, but I can't wear mine,'' said Rosier, smiling.

‘‘I don't see why you shouldn't! I have better lace than that to wear.''

Rosier's eyes wandered, lingeringly, round the room again.

‘‘You have some very good things.''

‘‘Yes, but I hate them.''

‘‘Do you want to get rid of them?'' the young man asked quickly.

‘‘No, it's good to have something to hate; one works it off.''

‘‘I love my things,'' said Rosier, as he sat there smiling. ‘‘But it's not about them—nor about yours—that I came to talk to you.'' He paused a moment, and then, with greater softness—‘‘I care more for Miss Osmond than for all the
bibelots
in Europe!''

Madame Merle started a little.

‘‘Did you come to tell me that?''

‘‘I came to ask your advice.''

She looked at him with a little frown, stroking her chin.

‘‘A man in love, you know, doesn't ask advice.''

‘‘Why not, if he is in a difficult position? That's often the case with a man in love. I have been in love before, and I know. But never so much as this time—really, never so much. I should like particularly to know what you think of my prospects. I'm afraid Mr. Osmond doesn't think me a phoenix.''

‘‘Do you wish me to intercede?'' Madame Merle asked, with her fine arms folded, and her mouth drawn up to the left.

‘‘If you could say a good word for me, I should be greatly obliged. There will be no use in my troubling Miss Osmond unless I have good reason to believe her father will consent.''

‘‘You are very considerate; that's in your favour. But you assume, in rather an off-hand way, that I think you a prize.''

‘‘You have been very kind to me,'' said the young man. ‘‘That's why I came.''

‘‘I am always kind to people who have good
bibelots
; there is no telling what one may get by it.''

And the left-hand corner of Madame Merle's mouth gave expression to the joke.

Edward Rosier stared and blushed; his correct features were suffused with disappointment.

‘‘Ah, I thought you liked me for myself!''

‘‘I like you very much; but, if you please, we won't analyse. Excuse me if I seem patronizing; but I think you a perfect little gentleman. I must tell you, however, that I have not the marrying of Pansy Osmond.''

‘‘I didn't suppose that. But you have seemed to me intimate with her family, and I thought you might have influence.''

Madame Merle was silent a moment.

‘‘Whom do you call her family?''

‘‘Why, her father; and—how do you say it in English?— her
belle-mère.
''

‘‘Mr. Osmond is her father, certainly; but his wife can scarcely be termed a member of her family. Mrs. Osmond has nothing to do with marrying her.''

‘‘I am sorry for that,'' said Rosier, with an amiable sigh. ‘‘I think Mrs. Osmond would favour me.''

‘‘Very likely—if her husband does not.''

Edward Rosier raised his eyebrows.

‘‘Does she take the opposite line from him?''

‘‘In everything. They think very differently.''

‘‘Well,'' said Rosier, ‘‘I am sorry for that; but it's none of my business. She is very fond of Pansy.''

‘‘Yes, she is very fond of Pansy.''

‘‘And Pansy has a great affection for her. She has told me that she loves her as if she were her own mother.''

‘‘You must, after all, have had some very intimate talk with the poor child,'' said Madame Merle. ‘‘Have you declared your sentiments?''

‘‘Never!'' cried Rosier, lifting his neatly gloved hand. ‘‘Never, until I have assured myself of those of the parents.''

‘‘You always wait for that? You have excellent principles; your conduct is most estimable.''

‘‘I think you are laughing at me,'' poor Rosier murmured, dropping back in his chair, and feeling his small moustache. ‘‘I didn't expect that of you, Madame Merle.''

She shook her head calmly, like a person who saw things clearly.

‘‘You don't do me justice. I think your conduct is in excellent taste and the best you could adopt. Yes, that's what I think.''

‘‘I wouldn't agitate her—only to agitate her; I love her too much for that,'' said Ned Rosier.

‘‘I am glad, after all, that you have told me,'' Madame Merle went on. ‘‘Leave it to me a little; I think I can help you.''

‘‘I said you were the person to come to!'' cried the young man, with an ingenuous radiance in his face.

‘‘You were very clever,'' Madame Merle returned, more dryly. ‘‘When I say I can help you, I mean once assuming that your cause is good. Let us think a little whether it is.''

‘‘I'm a dear little fellow,'' said Rosier, earnestly. ‘‘I won't say I have no faults, but I will say I have no vices.''

‘‘All that is negative. What is the positive side? What have you got besides your Spanish lace and your Dresden tea-cups?''

‘‘I have got a comfortable little fortune—about forty thousand francs a year. With the talent that I have for arranging, we can live beautifully on such an income.''

‘‘Beautifully, no. Sufficiently, yes. Even that depends on where you live.''

‘‘Well, in Paris. I would undertake it in Paris.''

Madame Merle's mouth rose to the left.

‘‘It wouldn't be splendid; you would have to make use of the tea-cups, and they would get broken.''

‘‘We don't want to be splendid. If Miss Osmond should have everything pretty, it would be enough. When one is as pretty as she, one can afford to be simple. She ought never to wear anything but muslin,'' said Rosier, reflectively.