The Portrait of A Lady (82 page)

When she raised her head again, the Countess Gemini stood before her. She had come in noiselessly, unperceived; she had a strange smile on her thin lips, and a still stranger glitter in her small dark eye.

‘‘I knocked,'' she said, ‘‘but you didn't answer me. So I ventured in. I have been looking at you for the last five minutes. You are very unhappy.''

‘‘Yes; but I don't think you can comfort me.''

‘‘Will you give me leave to try?'' And the Countess sat down on the sofa beside her. She continued to smile, and there was something communicative and exultant in her expression. She appeared to have something to say, and it occurred to Isabel for the first time that her sister-in-law might say something important. She fixed her brilliant eyes upon Isabel, who found at last a disagreeable fascination in her gaze. ‘‘After all,'' the Countess went on, ‘‘I must tell you, to begin with, that I don't understand your state of mind. You seem to have so many scruples, so many reasons, so many ties. When I discovered, ten years ago, that my husband's dearest wish was to make me miserable—of late he has simply let me alone—ah, it was a wonderful simplification! My poor Isabel, you are not simple enough.''

‘‘No, I am not simple enough,'' said Isabel.

‘‘There is something I want you to know,'' the Countess declared, ‘‘—because I think you ought to know it. Perhaps you do; perhaps you have guessed it. But if you have, all I can say is that I understand still less why you shouldn't do as you like.''

‘‘What do you wish me to know?'' Isabel felt a forboding which made her heart beat. The Countess was about to justify herself, and this alone seemed fortuitous.

But the Countess seemed disposed to play a little with her subject. ‘‘In your place I should have guessed it ages ago. Have you never really suspected?''

‘‘I have guessed nothing. What should I have suspected? I don't know what you mean.''

‘‘That's because you have got such a pure mind. I never saw a woman with such a pure mind!'' cried the Countess.

Isabel slowly got up. ‘‘You are going to tell me something horrible.''

‘‘You can call it by whatever name you will!'' And the Countess rose also, while the sharp animation of her bright, capricious face emitted a kind of flash. She stood a moment looking at Isabel, and then she said—‘‘My first sister-in-law had no children!''

Isabel stared back at her; the announcement was an anticlimax. ‘‘Your first sister-in-law?'' she murmured.

‘‘I suppose you know that Osmond has been married before? I have never spoken to you of his wife; I didn't suppose it was proper. But others, less particular, must have done so. The poor little woman lived but two years and died childless. It was after her death that Pansy made her appearance.''

Isabel's brow had gathered itself into a frown; her lips were parted in pale, vague wonder. She was trying to follow; there seemed to be more to follow than she could see. ‘‘Pansy is not my husband's child, then?''

‘‘Your husband's—in perfection! But no one else's husband's. Some one else's wife's. Ah, my good Isabel,'' cried the Countess, ‘‘with you one must dot one's
i
's!''

‘‘I don't understand; whose wife's?'' said Isabel.

‘‘The wife of a horrid little Swiss, who died twelve years ago. He never recognized Miss Pansy, and there was no reason he should. Osmond did, and that was better.''

Isabel stayed the name which rose in a sudden question to her lips; she sank down on her seat again, hanging her head. ‘‘Why have you told me this?'' she asked, in a voice which the Countess hardly recognized.

‘‘Because I was so tired of your not knowing! I was tired of not having told you. It seemed to me so dull. It's not a lie, you know; it's exactly as I say.''

‘‘I never knew,'' said Isabel, looking up at her, simply.

‘‘So I believed—though it was hard to believe. Has it never occurred to you that he has been her lover?''

‘‘I don't know. Something has occurred to me. Perhaps it was that.''

‘‘She has been wonderfully clever about Pansy!'' cried the Countess.

‘‘That thing has never occurred to me,'' said Isabel. ‘‘And as it is—I don't understand.''

She spoke in a low, thoughtful tone, and the poor Countess was equally surprised and disappointed at the effect of her revelation. She had expected to kindle a conflagration, and as yet she had barely extracted a spark. Isabel seemed more awe-stricken than anything else.

‘‘Don't you perceive that the child could never pass for her husband's?'' the Countess asked. ‘‘They had been separated too long for that, and M. Merle had gone to some far country; I think to South America. If she had ever had children—which I am not sure of—she had lost them. On the other hand, circumstances made it convenient enough for Osmond to acknowledge the little girl. His wife was dead—very true; but she had only been dead a year, and what was more natural than that she should have left behind a pledge of their affection? With the aid of a change of residence—he had been living at Naples, and he left it forever—the little fable was easily set going. My poor sister-in-law, who was in her grave, couldn't help herself, and the real mother, to save her reputation, renounced all visible property in the child.''

‘‘Ah, poor creature!'' cried Isabel, bursting into tears. It was a long time since she had shed any; she had suffered a reaction from weeping. But now they gushed with an abundance in which the Countess Gemini found only another discomfiture.

‘‘It's very kind of you to pity her!'' she cried, with a discordant laugh. ‘‘Yes, indeed, you have a pure mind!''

‘‘He must have been false to his wife,'' said Isabel, suddenly controlling herself.

‘‘That's all that's wanting—that you should take up
her
cause!'' the Countess went on.

‘‘But to me—to me—'' And Isabel hesitated, though there was a question in her eyes.

‘‘To you he has been faithful? It depends upon what you call faithful. When he married you, he was no longer the lover of another woman. That state of things had passed away; the lady had repented; and she had a worship of appearances so intense that even Osmond himself got tired of it. You may therefore imagine what it was! But the whole past was between them.''

‘‘Yes,'' said Isabel, ‘‘the whole past is between them.''

‘‘Ah, this later past is nothing. But for five years they were very intimate.''

‘‘Why then did she want him to marry me?''

‘‘Ah, my dear, that's her superiority! Because you had money; and because she thought you would be good to Pansy.''

‘‘Poor woman—and Pansy who doesn't like her!'' cried Isabel.

‘‘That's the reason she wanted some one whom Pansy would like. She knows it; she knows everything.''

‘‘Will she know that you have told me this?''

‘‘That will depend upon whether you tell her. She is prepared for it, and do you know what she counts upon for her defence? On your thinking that I lie. Perhaps you do; don't make yourself uncomfortable to hide it. Only, as it happens this time, I don't. I have told little fibs; but they have never hurt any one but myself.''

Isabel sat staring at her companion's story as at a bale of fantastic wares that some strolling gipsy might have unpacked on the carpet at her feet. ‘‘Why did Osmond never marry her?'' she asked at last.

‘‘Because she had no money.'' The Countess had an answer for everything, and if she lied she lied well. ‘‘No one knows, no one has ever known, what she lives on, or how she has got all those beautiful things. I don't believe Osmond himself knows. Besides, she wouldn't have married him.''

‘‘How can she have loved him then?''

‘‘She doesn't love him, in that way. She did at first, and then, I suppose, she would have married him; but at that time her husband was living. By the time M. Merle had rejoined—I won't say his ancestors, because he never had any—her relations with Osmond had changed, and she had grown more ambitious. She hoped she might marry a great man; that has always been her idea. She has waited and watched and plotted and prayed; but she has never succeeded. I don't call Madame Merle a success, you know. I don't know what she may accomplish yet, but at present she has very little to show. The only tangible result she has ever achieved— except, of course, getting to know every one and staying with them free of expense—has been her bringing you and Osmond together. Oh, she did that, my dear; you needn't look as if you doubted it. I have watched them for years; I know everything—everything. I am thought a great scatterbrain, but I have had enough application of mind to follow up those two. She hates me, and her way of showing it is to pretend to be forever defending me. When people say I have had fifteen lovers, she looks horrified, and declares that quite half of them were never proved. She has been afraid of me for years, and she has taken great comfort in the vile, false things that people have said about me. She has been afraid I would expose her, and she threatened me one day, when Osmond began to pay his court to you. It was at his house in Florence; do you remember that afternoon when she brought you there and we had tea in the garden? She let me know then that if I should tell tales, two could play at that game. She pretends there is a good deal more to tell about me than about her. It would be an interesting comparison! I don't care a fig what she may say, simply because I know you don't care a fig. You can't trouble your head about me less than you do already. So she may take her revenge as she chooses; I don't think she will frighten you very much. Her great idea has been to be tremendously irreproachable—a kind of full-blown lily—the incarnation of propriety. She has always worshipped that god. There should be no scandal about Caesar's wife, you know; and, as I say, she has always hoped to marry Caesar. That was one reason she wouldn't marry Osmond; the fear that on seeing her with Pansy people would put things together—would even see a resemblance. She has had a terror lest the mother should betray herself. She has been awfully careful; the mother has never done so.''

‘‘Yes, yes, the mother has done so,'' said Isabel, who had listened to all this with a face of deepening dreariness. ‘‘She betrayed herself to me the other day, though I didn't recognize her. There appeared to have been a chance of Pansy's making a great marriage, and in her disappointment at its not coming off she almost dropped the mask.''

‘‘Ah, that's where she would stumble!'' cried the Countess. ‘‘She has failed so dreadfully herself that she is determined her daughter shall make it up.''

Isabel started at the words ‘‘her daughter,'' which the Countess threw off so familiarly. ‘‘It seems very wonderful,'' she murmured; and in this bewildering impression she had almost lost her sense of being personally touched by the story.

‘‘Now don't go and turn against the poor innocent child!'' the Countess went on. ‘‘She is very nice, in spite of her lamentable parentage. I have liked Pansy, not because she was hers—but because she had become yours.''

‘‘Yes, she has become mine. And how the poor woman must have suffered at seeing me—!'' Isabel exclaimed, flushing quickly at the thought.

‘‘I don't believe she has suffered; on the contrary, she has enjoyed. Osmond's marriage has given Pansy a great lift. Before that she lived in a hole. And do you know what the mother thought? That you might take such a fancy to the child that you would do something for her. Osmond, of course, could never give her a portion. Osmond was really extremely poor; but of course you know all about that. Ah, my dear,'' cried the Countess, ‘‘why did you ever inherit money?'' She stopped a moment, as if she saw something singular in Isabel's face. ‘‘Don't tell me now that you will give her a dowry. You are capable of that, but I shouldn't believe it. Don't try to be too good. Be a little wicked, feel a little wicked, for once in your life!''

‘‘It's very strange. I suppose I ought to know, but I am sorry,'' Isabel said. ‘‘I am much obliged to you.''

‘‘Yes, you seem to be!'' cried the Countess, with a mocking laugh. ‘‘Perhaps you are—perhaps you are not. You don't take it as I should have thought.''

‘‘How should I take it?'' Isabel asked.

‘‘Well, I should say as a woman who had been made use of.'' Isabel made no answer to this; she only listened, and the Countess went on. ‘‘They have always been bound to each other; they remained so even after she became proper. But he has always been more for her than she has been for him. When their little carnival was over they made a bargain that each should give the other complete liberty, but that each should also do everything possible to help the other on. You may ask me how I know such a thing as that. I know it by the way they have behaved. Now see how much better women are than men! She has found a wife for Osmond, but Osmond has never lifted a little finger for her. She has worked for him, plotted for him, suffered for him; she has even more than once found money for him; and the end of it is that he is tired of her. She is an old habit; there are moments when he needs her; but on the whole he wouldn't miss her if she were removed. And, what's more, to-day she knows it. So you needn't be jealous!'' the Countess added, humorously.

Isabel rose from her sofa again; she felt bruised and short of breath; her head was humming with new knowledge. ‘‘I am much obliged to you,'' she repeated. And then she added, abruptly, in quite a different tone— ‘‘How do you know all this?''