The Portrait of A Lady (73 page)

Lord Warburton had asked leave to bid good-bye to Pansy, but neither Isabel nor Osmond had made any motion to send for her. He had the air of giving out that his visit must be short; he sat on a small chair, as if it were only for a moment, keeping his hat in his hand. But he stayed and stayed; Isabel wondered what he was waiting for. She believed it was not to see Pansy; she had an impression that on the whole he would rather not see Pansy. It was of course to see herself alone— he had something to say to her. Isabel had no great wish to hear it, for she was afraid it would be an explanation, and she could perfectly dispense with explanations. Osmond, however, presently got up, like a man of good taste to whom it had occurred that so inveterate a visitor might wish to say just the last word of all to the ladies.

‘‘I have a letter to write before dinner,'' he said; ‘‘you must excuse me. I will see if my daughter is disengaged, and if she is she shall know you are here. Of course when you come to Rome you will always look us up. Isabel will talk to you about the English expedition; she decides all those things.''

The nod with which, instead of a handshake, he terminated this little speech was perhaps a rather meagre form of salutation; but on the whole it was all the occasion demanded. Isabel reflected that after he left the room Lord Warburton would have no pretext for saying— ‘‘Your husband is very angry''; which would have been extremely disagreeable to her. Nevertheless, if he had done so, she would have said—‘‘Oh, don't be anxious. He doesn't hate
you:
it's me that he hates!''

It was only when they had been left alone together that Lord Warburton showed a certain vague awkwardness— sitting down in another chair, handling two or three of the objects that were near him. ‘‘I hope he will make Miss Osmond come,'' he presently remarked. ‘‘I want very much to see her.''

‘‘I'm glad it's the last time,'' said Isabel.

‘‘So am I. She doesn't care for me.''

‘‘No, she doesn't care for you.''

‘‘I don't wonder at it,'' said Lord Warburton. Then he added, with inconsequence—‘‘You will come to England, won't you?''

‘‘I think we had better not.''

‘‘Ah, you owe me a visit. Don't you remember that you were to have come to Lockleigh once, and you never did?''

‘‘Everything is changed since then,'' said Isabel.

‘‘Not changed for the worse, surely—as far as we are concerned. To see you under my roof—'' and he hesitated a moment, ‘‘—would be a great satisfaction.''

She had feared an explanation; but that was the only one that occurred. They talked a little of Ralph, and in another moment Pansy came in, already dressed for dinner and with a little red spot in either cheek. She shook hands with Lord Warburton and stood looking up into his face with a fixed smile—a smile that Isabel knew, though his lordship probably never suspected it, to be near akin to a burst of tears.

‘‘I am going away,'' he said. ‘‘I want to bid you good-bye.''

‘‘Good-bye, Lord Warburton.'' The young girl's voice trembled a little.

‘‘And I want to tell you how much I wish you may be very happy.''

‘‘Thank you, Lord Warburton,'' Pansy answered.

He lingered a moment, and gave a glance at Isabel. ‘‘You ought to be very happy—you have got a guardian angel.''

‘‘I am sure I shall be happy,'' said Pansy, in the tone of a person whose certainties were always cheerful.

‘‘Such a conviction as that will take you a great way. But if it should ever fail you, remember—remember—'' and Lord Warburton stammered a little. ‘‘Think of me sometimes, you know,'' he said with a vague laugh. Then he shook hands with Isabel, in silence, and presently he was gone.

When he had left the room Isabel expected an effusion of tears from her stepdaughter; but Pansy in fact treated her to something very different.

‘‘I think you
are
my guardian angel!'' she exclaimed, very sweetly.

Isabel shook her head. ‘‘I am not an angel of any kind. I am at the most your good friend.''

‘‘You are a very good friend then—to have asked papa to be gentle with me.''

‘‘I have asked your father nothing,'' said Isabel, wondering.

‘‘He told me just now to come to the drawing-room, and then he gave me a very kind kiss.''

‘‘Ah,'' said Isabel, ‘‘that was quite his own idea!'' She recognized the idea perfectly; it was very characteristic, and she was to see a great deal more of it. Even with Pansy, Osmond could not put himself the least in the wrong. They were dining out that day, and after their dinner they went to another entertainment; so that it was not till late in the evening that Isabel saw him alone. When Pansy kissed him, before going to bed, he returned her embrace with even more than his usual munificence, and Isabel wondered whether he meant it as a hint that his daughter had been injured by the machinations of her stepmother. It was a partial expression at any rate, of what he continued to expect of his wife. Isabel was about to follow Pansy, but he remarked that he wished she would remain; he had something to say to her. Then he walked about the drawing-room a little, while she stood waiting, in her cloak.

‘‘I don't understand what you wish to do,'' he said in a moment. ‘‘I should like to know—so that I may know how to act.''

‘‘Just now I wish to go to bed. I am very tired.''

‘‘Sit down and rest; I shall not keep you long. Not there—take a comfortable place.'' And he arranged a multitude of cushions that were scattered in picturesque disorder upon a vast divan. This was not, however, where she seated herself; she dropped into the nearest chair. The fire had gone out; the lights in the great room were few. She drew her cloak about her; she felt mortally cold. ‘‘I think you are trying to humiliate me,'' Osmond went on. ‘‘It's a most absurd undertaking.''

‘‘I haven't the least idea what you mean,'' said Isabel.

‘‘You have played a very deep game; you have managed it beautifully.''

‘‘What is it that I have managed?''

‘‘You have not quite settled it, however; we shall see him again.'' And he stopped in front of her, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at her thoughtfully, in his usual way, which seemed meant to let her know that she was not an object, but only a rather disagreeable incident, of thought.

‘‘If you mean that Lord Warburton is under an obligation to come back, you are wrong,'' Isabel said. ‘‘He is under none whatever.''

‘‘That's just what I complain of. But when I say he will come back, I don't mean that he will come from a sense of duty.''

‘‘There is nothing else to make him. I think he has quite exhausted Rome.''

‘‘Ah no, that's a shallow judgement. Rome is inexhaustible.'' And Osmond began to walk about again. ‘‘However, about that, perhaps, there is no hurry,'' he added. ‘‘It's rather a good idea of his that we should go to England. If it were not for the fear of finding your cousin there, I think I should try to persuade you.''

‘‘It may be that you will not find my cousin,'' said Isabel.

‘‘I should like to be sure of it. However, I shall be as sure as possible. At the same time I should like to see his house, that you told me so much about at one time: what do you call it?—Gardencourt. It must be a charming thing. And then, you know, I have a devotion to the memory of your uncle; you made me take a great fancy to him. I should like to see where he lived and died. That, however, is a detail. Your friend was right; Pansy ought to see England.''

‘‘I have no doubt she would enjoy it,'' said Isabel.

‘‘But that's a long time hence; next autumn is far off,'' Osmond continued; ‘‘and meantime there are things that more nearly interest us. Do you think me so very proud?'' he asked, suddenly.

‘‘I think you very strange.''

‘‘You don't understand me.''

‘‘No, not even when you insult me.''

‘‘I don't insult you; I am incapable of it. I merely speak of certain facts, and if the allusion is an injury to you the fault is not mine. It is surely a fact that you have kept all this matter quite in your own hands.''

‘‘Are you going back to Lord Warburton?'' Isabel asked. ‘‘I am very tired of his name.''

‘‘You shall hear it again before we have done with it.''

She had spoken of his insulting her, but it suddenly seemed to her that this ceased to be a pain. He was going down—down; the vision of such a fall made her almost giddy; that was the only pain. He was too strange, too different; he didn't touch her. Still, the working of his morbid passion was extraordinary, and she felt a rising curiosity to know in what light he saw himself justified. ‘‘I might say to you that I judge you have nothing to say to me that is worth hearing,'' she rejoined in a moment. ‘‘But I should perhaps be wrong. There is a thing that would be worth my hearing—to know in the plainest words of what it is you accuse me.''

‘‘Of preventing Pansy's marriage to Warburton. Are those words plain enough?''

‘‘On the contrary, I took a great interest in it. I told you so; and when you told me that you counted on me— that I think was what you said—I accepted the obligation. I was a fool to do so, but I did it.''

‘‘You pretended to do it, and you even pretended reluctance to make me more willing to trust you. Then you began to use your ingenuity to get him out of the way.''

‘‘I think I see what you mean,'' said Isabel.

‘‘Where is the letter that you told me he had written me?'' her husband asked.

‘‘I haven't the least idea; I haven't asked him.''

‘‘You stopped it on the way,'' said Osmond.

Isabel slowly got up; standing there, in her white cloak, which covered her to her feet, she might have represented the angel of disdain, first cousin to that of pity. ‘‘Oh, Osmond, for a man who was so fine!'' she exclaimed, in a long murmur.

‘‘I was never so fine as you! You have done everything you wanted. You have got him out of the way without appearing to do so, and you have placed me in the position in which you wished to see me—that of a man who tried to marry his daughter to a lord, but didn't succeed.''

‘‘Pansy doesn't care for him; she is very glad he is gone,'' said Isabel.

‘‘That has nothing to do with the matter.''

‘‘And he doesn't care for Pansy.''

‘‘That won't do; you told me he did. I don't know why you wanted this particular satisfaction,'' Osmond continued; ‘‘you might have taken some other. It doesn't seem to me that I have been presumptuous—that I have taken too much for granted. I have been very modest about it, very quiet. The idea didn't originate with me. He began to show that he liked her before I ever thought of it. I left it all to you.''

‘‘Yes, you were very glad to leave it to me. After this you must attend to such things yourself.''

He looked at her a moment, and then he turned away. ‘‘I thought you were very fond of my daughter.''

‘‘I have never been more so than to-day.''

‘‘Your affection is attended with immense limitations. However, that perhaps is natural.''

‘‘Is this all you wished to say to me?'' Isabel asked, taking a candle that stood on one of the tables.

‘‘Are you satisfied? Am I sufficiently disappointed?''

‘‘I don't think that on the whole you are disappointed. You have had another opportunity to try to bewilder me.''

‘‘It's not that. It's proved that Pansy can aim high.''

‘‘Poor little Pansy!'' said Isabel, turning away with her candle.

47

IT was from Henrietta Stackpole that she learned that Caspar Goodwood had come to Rome; an event that took place three days after Lord Warburton's departure. This latter event had been preceded by an incident of some importance to Isabel—the temporary absence, once again, of Madame Merle, who had gone to Naples to stay with a friend, the happy possessor of a villa at Posilippo. Madame Merle had ceased to minister to Isabel's happiness, who found herself wondering whether the most discreet of women might not also by chance be the most dangerous. Sometimes, at night, she had strange visions; she seemed to see her husband and Madame Merle in dim, indistinguishable combination. It seemed to her that she had not done with her; this lady had something in reserve. Isabel's imagination applied itself actively to this elusive point, but every now and then it was checked by a nameless dread, so that when her brilliant friend was away from Rome she had almost a consciousness of respite. She had already learned from Miss Stackpole that Caspar Goodwood was in Europe, Henrietta having written to inform her of this fact immediately after meeting him in Paris. He himself never wrote to Isabel, and though he was in Europe she thought it very possible he might not desire to see her. Their last interview, before her marriage, had had quite the character of a complete rupture; if she remembered rightly he had said he wished to take his last look at her. Since then he had been the most inharmonious survival of her earlier time—the only one, in fact, with which a permanent pain was associated. He left her, that morning, with the sense of an unnecessary shock; it was like a collision between vessels in broad daylight. There had been no mist, no hidden current to excuse it, and she herself had only wished to steer skilfully. He had bumped against her prow, however, while her hand was on the tiller, and—to complete the metaphor—had given the lighter vessel a strain which still occasionally betrayed itself in a faint creaking. It had been painful to see him, because he represented the only serious harm that (to her belief) she had ever done in the world; he was the only person with an unsatisfied claim upon her. She had made him unhappy; she couldn't help it; and his unhappiness was a great reality. She cried with rage, after he had left her, at—she hardly knew what: she tried to think it was at his want of consideration. He had come to her with his unhappiness when her own bliss was so perfect; he had done his best to darken the brightness of these pure rays. He had not been violent, and yet there was a violence in that. There was a violence at any rate in something, somewhere; perhaps it was only in her own fit of weeping and that after-sense of it which lasted for three or four days. The effect of Caspar Goodwood's visit faded away, and during the first year of Isabel's marriage he dropped out of her books. He was a thankless subject of reference; it was disagreeable to have to think of a person who was unhappy on your account and whom you could do nothing to relieve. It would have been different if she had been able to doubt, even a little, of his unhappiness, as she doubted of Lord Warburton's; unfortunately it was beyond question, and this aggressive, uncompromising look of it was just what made it unattractive. She could never say to herself that Caspar Goodwood had great compensations, as she was able to say in the case of her English suitor. She had no faith in his compensations, and no esteem for them. A cotton-factory was not a compensation for anything— least of all for having failed to marry Isabel Archer. And yet, beyond that, she hardly knew what he had—save of course his intrinsic qualities. Oh, he was intrinsic enough; she never thought of his even looking for artificial aids. If he extended his business—that, to the best of her belief, was the only form exertion could take with him—it would be because it was an enterprising thing, or good for the business; not in the least because he might hope it would overlay the past. This gave his figure a kind of bareness and bleakness which made the accident of meeting it in one's meditations always a sort of shock; it was deficient in the social drapery which muffles the sharpness of human contact. His perfect silence, moreover, the fact that she never heard from him and very seldom heard any mention of him, deepened this impression of his loneliness. She asked Lily for news of him, from time to time; but Lily knew nothing about Boston; her imagination was confined within the limits of Manhattan. As time went on Isabel thought of him oftener, and with fewer restrictions; she had more than once the idea of writing to him. She had never told her husband about him—never let Osmond know of his visits to her in Florence; a reserve not dictated in the early period by a want of confidence in Osmond, but simply by the consideration that Caspar Goodwood's disappointment was not her secret but his own. It would be wrong of her, she believed, to convey it to another, and Mr. Goodwood's affairs could have, after all, but little interest for Gilbert. When it came to the point she never wrote to him; it seemed to her that, considering his grievance, the least she could do was to let him alone. Nevertheless she would have been glad to be in some way nearer to him. It was not that it ever occurred to her that she might have married him; even after the consequences of her marriage became vivid to her, that particular reflection, though she indulged in so many, had not the assurance to present itself. But when she found herself in trouble he became a member of that circle of things with which she wished to set herself right. I have related how passionately she desired to feel that her unhappiness should not have come to her through her own fault. She had no near prospect of dying, and yet she wished to make her peace with the world—to put her spiritual affairs in order. It came back to her from time to time that there was an account still to be settled with Caspar Goodwood; it seemed to her that she would settle it to-day on terms easy for him. Still, when she learned that he was coming to Rome she felt afraid; it would be more disagreeable for him than for any one else to learn that she was unhappy. Deep in her breast she believed that he had invested his all in her happiness, while the others had invested only a part. He was one more person from whom she should have to conceal her misery. She was reassured, however, after he arrived in Rome, for he spent several days without coming to see her.