The Portrait of A Lady (61 page)

She spent an hour with him; it was the first of several visits. Gilbert Osmond called on him punctually, and on Isabel sending a carriage for him Ralph came more than once to the Palazzo Roccanera. A fortnight elapsed, at the end of which Ralph announced to Lord Warburton that he thought after all he wouldn't go to Sicily. The two men had been dining together after a day spent by the latter in ranging about the Campagna. They had left the table, and Warburton, before the chimney, was lighting a cigar, which he instantly removed from his lips.

‘‘Won't go to Sicily? Where then will you go?''

‘‘Well, I guess I won't go anywhere,'' said Ralph, from the sofa, in a tone of jocosity.

‘‘Do you mean that you will return to England?''

‘‘Oh dear no; I will stay in Rome.''

‘‘Rome won't do for you; it's not warm enough.''

‘‘It will have to do; I will make it do. See how well I have been.''

Lord Warburton looked at him awhile, puffing his cigar, as if he were trying to see it.

‘‘You have been better than you were on the journey, certainly. I wonder how you lived through that. But I don't understand your condition. I recommend you to try Sicily.''

‘‘I can't try,'' said poor Ralph; ‘‘I can't move further. I can't face that journey. Fancy me between Scylla and Charybdis! I don't want to die on the Sicilian plains— to be snatched away, like Proserpine in the same locality, to the Plutonian shades.''

‘‘What the deuce then did you come for?'' his lordship inquired.

‘‘Because the idea took me. I see it won't do. It really doesn't matter where I am now. I've exhausted all remedies. I've swallowed all climates. As I'm here I'll stay; I haven't got any cousins in Sicily.''

‘‘Your cousin is certainly an inducement. But what does the doctor say?''

‘‘I haven't asked him, and I don't care a fig. If I die here Mrs. Osmond will bury me. But I shall not die here.''

‘‘I hope not.'' Lord Warburton continued to smoke reflectively. ‘‘Well, I must say,'' he resumed, ‘‘for myself I am very glad you don't go to Sicily. I had a horror of that journey.''

‘‘Ah, but for you it needn't have mattered. I had no idea of dragging you in my train.''

‘‘I certainly didn't mean to let you go alone.''

‘‘My dear Warburton, I never expected you to come further than this,'' Ralph cried.

‘‘I should have gone with you and seen you settled,'' said Lord Warburton.

‘‘You are a very good fellow. You are very kind.''

‘‘Then I should have come back here.''

‘‘And then you would have gone to England.''

‘‘No, no; I should have stayed.''

‘‘Well,'' said Ralph, ‘‘if that's what we are both up to, I don't see where Sicily comes in!''

His companion was silent; he sat staring at the fire. At last, looking up: ‘‘I say, tell me this,'' he broke out; ‘‘did you really mean to go to Sicily when we started?''

‘‘Ah,
vous m'en demandez trop!
Let me put a question first. Did you come with me quite—platonically?''

‘‘I don't know what you mean by that. I wanted to come abroad.''

‘‘I suspect we have each been playing our little game.''

‘‘Speak for yourself. I made no secret whatever of my wanting to be here awhile.''

‘‘Yes, I remember you said you wished to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs.''

‘‘I have seen him three times; he is very amusing.''

‘‘I think you have forgotten what you came for,'' said Ralph.

‘‘Perhaps I have,'' his companion answered, rather gravely.

These two gentlemen were children of a race which is not distinguished by the absence of reserve, and they had travelled together from London to Rome without an allusion to matters that were uppermost in the mind of each. There was an old subject that they had once discussed, but it had lost its recognized place in their attention, and even after their arrival in Rome, where many things led back to it, they had kept the same half-diffident, half-confident silence.

‘‘I recommend you to get the doctor's consent, all the same,'' Lord Warburton went on, abruptly, after an interval.

‘‘The doctor's consent will spoil it; I never have it when I can help it!''

‘‘What does Mrs. Osmond think?''

‘‘I have not told her. She will probably say that Rome is too cold, and even offer to go with me to Catania. She is capable of that.''

‘‘In your place I should like it.''

‘‘Her husband won't like it.''

‘‘Ah well, I can fancy that; though it seems to me you are not bound to mind it. It's his affair.''

‘‘I don't want to make any more trouble between them,'' said Ralph.

‘‘Is there so much already?''

‘‘There's complete preparation for it. Her going off with me would make the explosion. Osmond isn't fond of his wife's cousin.''

‘‘Then of course he would make a row. But won't he make a row if you stop here?''

‘‘That's what I want to see. He made one the last time I was in Rome, and then I thought it my duty to go away. Now I think it's my duty to stop and defend her.''

‘‘My dear Touchett, your defensive powers—'' Lord Warburton began, with a smile. But he saw something in his companion's face that checked him. ‘‘Your duty, in these premises, seems to me rather a nice question,'' he said.

Ralph for a short time answered nothing.

‘‘It is true that my defensive powers are small,'' he remarked at last; ‘‘but as my aggressive ones are still smaller, Osmond may, after all, not think me worth his gunpowder. At any rate,'' he added, ‘‘there are things I am curious to see.''

‘‘You are sacrificing your health to your curiosity then?''

‘‘I am not much interested in my health, and I am deeply interested in Mrs. Osmond.''

‘‘So am I. But not as I once was,'' Lord Warburton added quickly. This was one of the allusions he had not hitherto found occasion to make.

‘‘Does she strike you as very happy?'' Ralph inquired, emboldened by this confidence.

‘‘Well, I don't know; I have hardly thought. She told me the other night that she was happy.''

‘‘Ah, she told
you,
of course,'' Ralph exclaimed, smiling.

‘‘I don't know that. It seems to me I was rather the sort of person she might have complained to.''

‘‘Complain? She will never complain. She has done it, and she knows it. She will complain to you least of all. She is very careful.''

‘‘She needn't be. I don't mean to make love to her again.''

‘‘I am delighted to hear it; there can be no doubt at least of
your
duty.''

‘‘Ah no,'' said Lord Warburton, gravely; ‘‘none!''

‘‘Permit me to ask,'' Ralph went on, ‘‘whether it is to bring out the fact that you don't mean to make love to her that you are so very civil to the little girl?''

Lord Warburton gave a slight start; he got up and stood before the fire, blushing a little.

‘‘Does that strike you as very ridiculous?''

‘‘Ridiculous? Not in the least, if you really like her.''

‘‘I think her a delightful little person. I don't know when a girl of that age has pleased me more.''

‘‘She's a charming creature. Ah, she at least is genuine.''

‘‘Of course there's the difference in our ages—more than twenty years.''

‘‘My dear Warburton,'' said Ralph, ‘‘are you serious?''

‘‘Perfectly serious—as far as I've got.''

‘‘I am very glad. And, heaven help us,'' cried Ralph, ‘‘how tickled Gilbert Osmond will be!''

His companion frowned.

‘‘I say, don't spoil it. I shan't marry his daughter to please him.''

‘‘He will have the perversity to be pleased all the same.''

‘‘He's not so fond of me as that,'' said his lordship.

‘‘As that? My dear Warburton, the drawback of your position is that people needn't be fond of you at all to wish to be connected with you. Now, with me in such a case, I should have the happy confidence that they loved me.''

Lord Warburton seemed scarcely to be in the mood for doing justice to general axioms; he was thinking of a special case.

‘‘Do you think she'll be pleased?''

‘‘The girl herself? Delighted, surely.''

‘‘No, no; I mean Mrs. Osmond.''

Ralph looked at him a moment.

‘‘My dear fellow, what has she to do with it?''

‘‘Whatever she chooses. She is very fond of the girl.''

‘‘Very true—very true.'' And Ralph slowly got up. ‘‘It's an interesting question—how far her fondness for the girl will carry her.'' He stood there a moment with his hands in his pockets, with a rather sombre eye. ‘‘I hope, you know, that you are very—very sure— The deuce!'' he broke off, ‘‘I don't know how to say it.''

‘‘Yes, you do; you know how to say everything.''

‘‘Well, it's awkward. I hope you are sure that among Miss Osmond's merits her being a—so near her stepmother isn't a leading one?''

‘‘Good heavens, Touchett!'' cried Lord Warburton, angrily, ‘‘for what do you take me?''

40

ISABEL HAD not seen much of Madame Merle since her marriage, this lady having indulged in frequent absences from Rome. At one time she had spent six months in England; at another she had passed a portion of a winter in Paris. She had made numerous visits to distant friends, and gave countenance to the idea that for the future she should be a less inveterate Roman than in the past. As she had been inveterate in the past only in the sense of constantly having an apartment in one of the sunniest niches of the Pincian—an apartment which often stood empty—this suggested a prospect of almost constant absence; a danger which Isabel at one period had been much inclined to deplore. Familiarity had modified in some degree her first impression of Madame Merle, but it had not essentially altered it; there was still a kind of wonder of admiration in it. Madame Merle was armed at all points; it was a pleasure to see a person so completely equipped for the social battle. She carried her flag discreetly, but her weapons were polished steel, and she used them with a skill which struck Isabel as more and more that of a veteran. She was never weary, never overcome with disgust; she never appeared to need rest or consolation. She had her own ideas; she had of old exposed a great many of them to Isabel, who knew also that under an appearance of extreme self-control her highly cultivated friend concealed a rich sensibility. But her will was mistress of her life; there was something brilliant in the way she kept going. It was as if she had learned the secret of it—as if the art of life were some clever trick that she had guessed. Isabel, as she herself grew older, became acquainted with revulsions, with disgust; there were days when the world looked black, and she asked herself with some peremptoriness what it was that she was pretending to live for. Her old habit had been to live by enthusiasm, to fall in love with suddenly perceived possibilities, with the idea of a new attempt. As a young girl, she used to proceed from one little exaltation to the other; there were scarcely any dull places between. But Madame Merle had suppressed enthusiasm; she fell in love now-a-days with nothing; she lived entirely by reason, by wisdom. There were hours when Isabel would have given anything for lessons in this art; if Madame Merle had been near, she would have made an appeal to her. She had become aware more than before of the advantage of being like that— of having made one's self a firm surface, a sort of corslet of silver. But, as I say, it was not till the winter, during which we lately renewed acquaintance with our heroine, that Madame Merle made a continuous stay in Rome. Isabel now saw more of her than she had done since her marriage; but by this time Isabel's needs and inclinations had considerably changed. It was not at present to Madame Merle that she would have applied for instruction; she had lost the desire to know this lady's clever trick. If she had troubles she must keep them to herself, and if life was difficult it would not make it easier to confess herself beaten. Madame Merle was doubtless of great use to herself, and an ornament to any circle; but was she—would she be—of use to others in periods of refined embarrassment? The best way to profit by Madame Merle—this indeed Isabel had always thought—was to imitate her; to be as firm and bright as she. She recognized no embarrassments, and Isabel, considering this fact, determined, for the fiftieth time, to brush aside her own. It seemed to her, too, on the renewal of an intercourse which had virtually been interrupted, that Madame Merle was changed—that she pushed to the extreme a certain rather artificial fear of being indiscreet. Ralph Touchett, we know, had been of the opinion that she was prone to exaggeration, to forcing the note—was apt, in the vulgar phrase, to overdo it. Isabel had never admitted this charge—had never, indeed, quite understood it; Madame Merle's conduct, to her perception, always bore the stamp of good taste, was always ‘‘quiet.'' But in this matter of not wishing to intrude upon the inner life of the Osmond family, it at last occurred to our heroine that she overdid it a little. That, of course, was not the best taste; that was rather violent. She remembered too much that Isabel was married; that she had now other interests; that though she, Madame Merle, had known Gilbert Osmond and his little Pansy very well, better almost than any one, she was after all not one of them. She was on her guard; she never spoke of their affairs till she was asked, even pressed—as when her opinion was wanted; she had a dread of seeming to meddle. Madame Merle was as candid as we know, and one day she candidly expressed this dread to Isabel.