The Portrait of A Lady (70 page)

‘‘I have just been at your hotel,'' she said. ‘‘I left a card for you.''

‘‘I am very much honoured,'' Caspar Goodwood answered, as if he really meant it.

‘‘It was not to honour you I did it; I have called on you before, and I know you don't like it. It was to talk to you a little about something.''

He looked for a moment at the buckle in her hat. ‘‘I shall be very glad to hear what you wish to say.''

‘‘You don't like to talk with me,'' said Henrietta. ‘‘But I don't care for that; I don't talk for your amusement. I wrote a word to ask you to come and see me; but since I have met you here this will do as well.''

‘‘I was just going away,'' Goodwood said; ‘‘but of course I will stop.'' He was civil, but he was not enthusiastic.

Henrietta, however, never looked for great professions, and she was so much in earnest that she was thankful he would listen to her on any terms. She asked him first, however, if he had seen all the pictures.

‘‘All I want to. I have been here an hour.''

‘‘I wonder if you have seen my Correggio,'' said Henrietta. ‘‘I came up on purpose to have a look at it.'' She went into the Tribune, and he slowly accompanied her.

‘‘I suppose I have seen it, but I didn't know it was yours. I don't remember pictures—especially that sort.'' She had pointed out her favourite work; and he asked her if it was about Correggio that she wished to talk with him.

‘‘No,'' said Henrietta, ‘‘it's about something less harmonious!'' They had the small, brilliant room, a splendid cabinet of treasures, to themselves; there was only a custode hovering about the Medicean Venus. ‘‘I want you to do me a favour,'' Miss Stackpole went on.

Caspar Goodwood frowned a little, but he expressed no embarrassment at the sense of not looking eager. His face was that of a much older man than our earlier friend. ‘‘I'm sure it's something I shan't like,'' he said, rather loud.

‘‘No, I don't think you will like it. If you did, it would be no favour.''

‘‘Well, let us hear it,'' he said, in the tone of a man quite conscious of his own reasonableness.

‘‘You may say there is no particular reason why you should do me a favour. Indeed, I only know of one: the fact that if you would let me I would gladly do you one.'' Her soft, exact tone, in which there was no attempt at effect, had an extreme sincerity; and her companion, though he presented rather a hard surface, could not help being touched by it. When he was touched he rarely showed it, however, by the usual signs; he neither blushed, nor looked away, nor looked conscious. He only fixed his attention more directly; he seemed to consider with added firmness. Henrietta went on therefore disinterestedly, without the sense of an advantage. ‘‘I may say now, indeed—it seems a good time—that if I have ever annoyed you (and I think sometimes that I have), it is because I knew that I was willing to suffer annoyance for you. I have troubled you—doubtless. But I would take trouble for you.''

Goodwood hesitated. ‘‘You are taking trouble now.''

‘‘Yes, I am, some. I want you to consider whether it is better on the whole that you should go to Rome.''

‘‘I thought you were going to say that!'' Goodwood exclaimed, rather artlessly.

‘‘You
have
considered it, then?''

‘‘Of course I have, very carefully. I have looked all round it. Otherwise I shouldn't have come as far as this. That's what I stayed in Paris two months for; I was thinking it over.''

‘‘I am afraid you decided as you liked. You decided it was best, because you were so much attracted.''

‘‘Best for whom, do you mean?'' Goodwood inquired.

‘‘Well, for yourself first. For Mrs. Osmond next.''

‘‘Oh, it won't do her any good! I don't flatter myself that.''

‘‘Won't it do her harm?—that's the question.''

‘‘I don't see what it will matter to her. I am nothing to Mrs. Osmond. But if you want to know, I do want to see her myself.''

‘‘Yes, and that's why you go.''

‘‘Of course it is. Could there be a better reason?''

‘‘How will it help you? That's what I want to know,'' said Miss Stackpole.

‘‘That's just what I can't tell you; it's just what I was thinking about in Paris.''

‘‘It will make you more discontented.''

‘‘Why do you say more so?'' Goodwood asked, rather sternly. ‘‘How do you know I am discontented?''

‘‘Well,'' said Henrietta, hesitating a little, ‘‘—you seem never to have cared for another.''

‘‘How do you know what I care for?'' he cried, with a big blush. ‘‘Just now I care to go to Rome.''

Henrietta looked at him in silence, with a sad yet luminous expression. ‘‘Well,'' she observed, at last, ‘‘I only wanted to tell you what I think; I had it on my mind. Of course you think it's none of my business. But nothing is any one's business, on that principle.''

‘‘It's very kind of you; I am greatly obliged to you for your interest,'' said Caspar Goodwood. ‘‘I shall go to Rome, and I shan't hurt Mrs. Osmond.''

‘‘You won't hurt her, perhaps. But will you help her?—that is the question.''

‘‘Is she in need of help?'' he asked, slowly, with a penetrating look.

‘‘Most women always are,'' said Henrietta, with conscientious evasiveness, and generalizing less hopefully than usual. ‘‘If you go to Rome,'' she added, ‘‘I hope you will be a true friend—not a selfish one!'' And she turned away and began to look at the pictures.

Caspar Goodwood let her go, and stood watching her while she wandered round the room; then, after a moment, he rejoined her. ‘‘You have heard something about her here,'' he said in a moment. ‘‘I should like to know what you have heard.''

Henrietta had never prevaricated in her life, and though on this occasion there might have been a fitness in doing so, she decided, after a moment's hesitation, to make no superficial exception. ‘‘Yes, I have heard,'' she answered; ‘‘but as I don't want you to go to Rome I won't tell you.''

‘‘Just as you please. I shall see for myself,'' said Goodwood. Then, inconsistently—for him, ‘‘You have heard she is unhappy!'' he added.

‘‘Oh, you won't see that!'' Henrietta exclaimed.

‘‘I hope not. When do you start?''

‘‘To-morrow, by the evening train. And you?''

Goodwood hesitated; he had no desire to make his journey to Rome in Miss Stackpole's company. His indifference to this advantage was not of the same character as Gilbert Osmond's, but it had at this moment an equal distinctness. It was rather a tribute to Miss Stackpole's virtues than a reference to her faults. He thought her very remarkable, very brilliant, and he had, in theory, no objection to the class to which she belonged. Lady-correspondents appeared to him a part of the natural scheme of things in a progressive country, and though he never read their letters he supposed that they ministered somehow to social progress. But it was this very eminence of their position that made him wish that Miss Stackpole did not take so much for granted. She took for granted that he was always ready for some allusion to Mrs. Osmond; she had done so when they met in Paris, six weeks after his arrival in Europe, and she had repeated the assumption with every successive opportunity. He had no wish whatever to allude to Mrs. Osmond; he was
not
always thinking of her; he was perfectly sure of that. He was the most reserved, the least colloquial of men, and this inquiring authoress was constantly flashing her lantern into the quiet darkness of his soul. He wished she didn't care so much; he even wished, though it might seem rather brutal of him, that she would leave him alone. In spite of this, however, he just now made other reflections—which show how widely different, in effect, his ill humour was from Gilbert Osmond's. He wished to go immediately to Rome; he would have liked to go alone, in the night-train. He hated the European railway carriages, in which one sat for hours in a vice, knee to knee and nose to nose with a foreigner to whom one presently found one's self objecting with all the added vehemence of one's wish to have the window open; and if they were worse at night even than by day, at least at night one could sleep and dream of an American saloon car. But he could not take a night-train when Miss Stackpole was starting in the morning; it seemed to him that this would be an insult to an unprotected woman. Nor could he wait until after she had gone, unless he should wait longer than he had patience for. It would not do to start the next day. She worried him; she oppressed him; the idea of spending the day in a European railway carriage with her offered a complication of irritations. Still, she was a lady travelling alone; it was his duty to put himself out for her. There could be no two questions about that; it was a perfectly clear necessity. He looked extremely grave for some moments, and then he said, without any of the richness of gallantry, but in a tone of extreme distinctness— ‘‘Of course, if you are going to-morrow, I will go too, as I may be of assistance to you.''

‘‘Well, Mr. Goodwood, I should hope so!'' Henrietta remarked, serenely.

45

I HAVE already had reason to say that Isabel knew that her husband was displeased by the continuance of Ralph's visit to Rome. This knowledge was very present to her as she went to her cousin's hotel the day after she had invited Lord Warburton to give a tangible proof of his sincerity; and at this moment, as at others, she had a sufficient perception of the sources of Osmond's displeasure. He wished her to have no freedom of mind, and he knew perfectly well that Ralph was an apostle of freedom. It was just because he was this, Isabel said to herself, that it was a refreshment to go and see him. It will be perceived that she partook of this refreshment in spite of her husband's disapproval; that is, she partook of it, as she flattered herself, discreetly. She had not as yet undertaken to act in direct opposition to Osmond's wishes; he was her master; she gazed at moments with a sort of incredulous blankness at this fact. It weighed upon her imagination, however; constantly present to her mind were all the traditionary decencies and sanctities of marriage. The idea of violating them filled her with shame as well as with dread, for when she gave herself away she had lost sight of this contingency in the perfect belief that her husband's intentions were as generous as her own. She seemed to see, however, the rapid approach of the day when she should have to take back something that she had solemnly given. Such a ceremony would be odious and monstrous; she tried to shut her eyes to it meanwhile. Osmond would do nothing to help it by beginning first; he would put that burden upon her. He had not yet formally forbidden her to go and see Ralph; but she felt sure that unless Ralph should very soon depart this prohibition would come. How could poor Ralph depart? The weather as yet made it impossible. She could perfectly understand her husband's wish for the event; to be just, she didn't see how he could like her to be with her cousin. Ralph never said a word against him; but Osmond's objections were none the less founded. If Osmond should positively interpose, then she should have to decide, and that would not be easy. The prospect made her heart beat and her cheeks burn, as I say, in advance; there were moments when, in her wish to avoid an open rupture with her husband, she found herself wishing that Ralph would start even at a risk. And it was of no use that, when catching herself in this state of mind, she called herself a feeble spirit, a coward. It was not that she loved Ralph less, but that almost anything seemed preferable to repudiating the most serious act—the single sacred act—of her life. That appeared to make the whole future hideous. To break with Osmond once would be to break forever; any open acknowledgement of irreconcilable needs would be an admission that their whole attempt had proved a failure. For them there could be no condonement, no compromise, no easy forgetfulness, no formal readjustment. They had attempted only one thing, but that one thing was to have been exquisite. Once they missed it, nothing else would do; there is no substitute for that success. For the moment, Isabel went to the Hôtel de Paris as often as she thought well; the measure of expediency resided in her moral consciousness. It had been very liberal today, for in addition to the general truth that she couldn't leave Ralph to die alone, she had something important to ask of him. This indeed was Gilbert's business as well as her own.

She came very soon to what she wished to speak of.

‘‘I want you to answer me a question,'' she said. ‘‘It's about Lord Warburton.''

‘‘I think I know it,'' Ralph answered from his armchair, out of which his thin legs protruded at greater length than ever.

‘‘It's very possible,'' said Isabel. ‘‘Please then answer it.''

‘‘Oh, I don't say I can do that.''

‘‘You are intimate with him,'' said Isabel; ‘‘you have a great deal of observation of him.''

‘‘Very true. But think how he must dissimulate!''

‘‘Why should he dissimulate? That's not his nature.''

‘‘Ah, you must remember that the circumstances are peculiar,'' said Ralph, with an air of private amusement.

‘‘To a certain extent—yes. But is he really in love?''

‘‘Very much, I think. I can make that out.''

‘‘Ah!'' said Isabel, with a certain dryness.

Ralph looked at her a moment; a shade of perplexity mingled with his mild hilarity.