Read Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 Online

Authors: Henry James

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Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (14 page)

Page 74

great charity, but she was independent and witty; and if she was as earnest as other people, she was not quite so serious. Her voice was a little masculine; and it had been said of her that she didn't care in the least how she looked. This was far from true, for she would not for the world have looked better than she thought was right for so plain a woman.

Mrs. Daintry was fond of calculating consequences; but she was not a coward, and she arrived at her business as soon as possible.

You know that Florimond sails on the 20th of this month. He will get home by the 1st of December.

Oh yes, my dear, I know it; everybody is talking about it. I have heard it thirty times. That's where Boston is so small, Lucretia Daintry remarked.

Well, it's big enough for me, said her sister-in-law. And of course people notice his coming back; it shows that everything that has been said is false, and that he really does like us.

He likes his mother, I hope; about the rest I don't know that it matters.

Well, it certainly will be pleasant to have him, said Mrs. Daintry, who was not content with her companion's tone, and wished to extract from her some recognition of the importance of Florimond's advent. It will prove how unjust so much of the talk has been.

My dear woman, I don't know anything about the talk. We make too much fuss about everything. Florimond was an infant when I last saw him.

This was open to the interpretation that too much fuss had been made about Florimondan idea that accorded ill with the project that had kept Mrs. Daintry waiting a quarter of an hour while her hostess walked about on the roof. But Miss Daintry continued, and in a moment gave her sister-in-law the best opportunity she could have hoped for. I don't suppose he will bring with him either salvation or the other thing; and if he has decided to winter among the bears, it will matter much more to him than to any one else. But I shall be very glad to see him if he behaves himself; and I needn't tell you that if there is anything I can do for him and Miss Daintry, tightening her lips together a little, paused,

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suiting her action to the idea that professions were usually humbug.

There is indeed something you can do for him, her sister-in-law hastened to respond; or something you can do for me, at least, she added, more discreetly.

Call it for both of you. What is it? and Miss Daintry put on her eyeglass.

I know you like to do kindnesses, when they are
real
ones; and you almost always have some one staying with you for the winter.

Miss Daintry stared. Do you want to put him to live with me?

No, indeed! Do you think I could part with him? It's another persona lady!

A lady! Is he going to bring a woman with him?

My dear Lucretia, you won't wait. I want to make it as pleasant for him as possible. In that case he may stay longer. He has promised three months; but I should so like to keep him till the summer. It would make me very happy.

Well, my dear, keep him, then, if you can.

But I can't, unless I am helped.

And you want me to help you? Tell me what I must do. Should you wish me to make love to him?

Mrs. Daintry's hesitation at this point was almost as great as if she had found herself obliged to say yes. She was well aware that what she had come to suggest was very delicate; but it seemed to her at the present moment more delicate than ever. Still, her cause was good, because it was the cause of maternal devotion. What I should like you to do would be to ask Rachel Torrance to spend the winter with you.

Miss Daintry had not sat so much on committees without getting used to queer proposals, and she had long since ceased to waste time in expressing a vain surprise. Her method was Socratic; she usually entangled her interlocutor in a net of questions.

Ah, do you want
her
to make love to him?

No, I don't want any love at all. In such a matter as that I want Florimond to be perfectly free. But Rachel is such an attractive girl; she is so artistic and so bright.

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I don't doubt it; but I can't invite all the attractive girls in the country. Why don't you ask her yourself?

It would be too marked. And then Florimond might not like her in the same house; he would have too much of her. Besides, she is no relation of mine, you know; the cousinshipsuch as it is, it is not very closeis on your side. I have reason to believe she would like to come; she knows so little of Boston, and admires it so much. It is astonishing how little idea the New York people have. She would be different from any one here, and that would make a pleasant change for Florimond. She was in Europe so much when she was young. She speaks French perfectly, and Italian, I think, too; and she was brought up in a kind of artistic way. Her father never did anything; but even when he hadn't bread to give his children, he always arranged to have a studio, and they gave musical parties. That's the way Rachel was brought up. But they tell me that it hasn't in the least spoiled her; it has only made her very familiar with life.

Familiar with rubbish! Miss Daintry ejaculated.

My dear Lucretia, I assure you she is a very good girl, or I never would have proposed such a plan as this. She paints very well herself, and tries to sell her pictures. They are dreadfully poorI don't mean the pictures, but Mrs. Torrance and the restand they live in Brooklyn, in some second-rate boarding-house. With that, Rachel has everything about her that would enable her to appreciate Boston. Of course it would be a real kindness, because there would be one less to pay for at the boarding-house. You haven't a son, so you can't understand how a mother feels. I want to prepare everything, to have everything pleasantly arranged. I want to deprive him of every pretext for going away before the summer; because in AugustI don't know whether I have told youI have a kind of idea of going back with him myself. I am so afraid he will miss the artistic side. I don't mind saying that to you, Lucretia, for I have heard you say yourself that you thought it had been left out here. Florimond might go and see Rachel Torrance every day if he liked; of course, being his cousin, and calling her Rachel, it couldn't attract any particular attention. I shouldn't much care if it did, Mrs. Daintry went on, borrowing a certain bravado that in calmer moments was

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eminently foreign to her nature from the impunity with which she had hitherto proceeded. Her project, as she heard herself unfold it, seemed to hang together so well that she felt something of the intoxication of success. I shouldn't care if it did, she repeated, so long as Florimond had a little of the conversation that he is accustomed to, and I was not in perpetual fear of his starting off.

Miss Daintry had listened attentively while her sister-in-law spoke, with eager softness, passing from point to point with a
crescendo
of lucidity, like a woman who had thought it all out and had the consciousness of many reasons on her side. There had been momentary pauses, of which Lucretia had not taken advantage, so that Mrs. Daintry rested at last in the enjoyment of a security that was almost complete and that her companion's first question was not of a nature to dispel.

It's so long since I have seen her. Is she pretty? Miss Daintry inquired.

She is decidedly striking; she has magnificent hair! her visitor answered, almost with enthusiasm.

Do you want Florimond to marry her?

This, somehow, was less pertinent. Ah, no, my dear, Mrs. Daintry rejoined, very judicially. That is not the kind of educationthe kind of
milieu
one would wish for the wife of one's son. She knew, moreover, that her sister-in-law knew her opinion about the marriage of young people. It was a sacrament more high and holy than any words could express, the propriety and timeliness of which lay deep in the hearts of the contracting parties, below all interference from parents and friends; it was an inspiration from above, and she would no more have thought of laying a train to marry her son than she would have thought of breaking open his letters. More relevant even than this, however, was the fact that she did not believe he would wish to make a wife of a girl from a slipshod family in Brooklyn, however little he might care to lose sight of the artistic side. It will be observed that she gave Florimond the credit of being a very discriminating young man; and she indeed discriminated for him in cases in which she would not have presumed to discriminate for herself.

My dear Susan, you are simply the most immoral woman

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in Boston! These were the words of which, after a moment, her sister-in-law delivered herself.

Mrs. Daintry turned a little pale. Don't you think it would be right? she asked quickly.

To sacrifice the poor girl to Florimond's amusement? What has she done that you should wish to play her such a trick? Miss Daintry did not look shocked: she never looked shocked, for even when she was annoyed she was never frightened; but after a moment she broke into a loud, uncompromising laugha laugh which her sister-in-law knew of old and regarded as a peculiarly dangerous form of criticism.

I don't see why she should be sacrificed. She would have a lovely time if she were to come on. She would consider it the greatest kindness to be asked.

To be asked to come and amuse Florimond.

Mrs. Daintry hesitated a moment. I don't see why she should object to that. Florimond is certainly not beneath a person's notice. Why, Lucretia, you speak as if there were something disagreeable about Florimond.

My dear Susan, said Miss Daintry, I am willing to believe that he is the first young man of his time; but, all the same, it isn't a thing to do.

Well, I have thought of it in every possible way, and I haven't seen any harm in it. It isn't as if she were giving up anything to come.

You have thought of it too much, perhaps. Stop thinking for a while. I should have imagined you were more scrupulous.

Mrs. Daintry was silent a moment; she took her sister-in-law's asperity very meekly, for she felt that if she had been wrong in what she proposed she deserved a severe judgment. But why was she wrong? She clasped her hands in her lap and rested her eyes with extreme seriousness upon Lucretia's little
pince-nez,
inviting her to judge her, and too much interested in having the question of her culpability settled to care whether or no she were hurt. It is very hard to know what is right, she said presently. Of course it is only a plan; I wondered how it would strike you.

You had better leave Florimond alone, Miss Daintry answered. I don't see why you should spread so many carpets

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for him. Let him shift for himself. If he doesn't like Boston, Boston can spare him.

You are not nice about him; no, you are not, Lucretia! Mrs. Daintry cried, with a slight tremor in her voice.

Of course I am not as nice as youhe is not my son; but I am trying to be nice about Rachel Torrance.

I am sure she would like himshe would delight in him! Mrs. Daintry broke out.

That's just what I'm afraid of; I couldn't stand that.

Well, Lucretia, I am not convinced, Mrs. Daintry said, rising, with perceptible coldness. It is very hard to be sure one is not unjust. Of course I shall not expect you to send for her; but I shall think of her with a good deal of compassion, all winter, in that dingy place in Brooklyn. And if you have some one else with youand I am sure you will, because you always do, unless you remain alone on purpose this year, to put me in the wrongif you have some one else I shall keep saying to myself: Well, after all, it might have been Rachel!

Miss Daintry gave another of her loud laughs at the idea that she might remain alone on purpose. I shall have a visitor, but it will be some one who will not amuse Florimond in the least. If he wants to go away, it won't be for anything in this house that he will stay.

I really don't see why you should hate him, said poor Mrs. Daintry.

Where do you find that? On the contrary, I appreciate him very highly. That's just why I think it very possible that a girl like Rachel Torrancean odd, uninstructed girl, who hasn't had great advantagesmay fall in love with him and break her heart.

Mrs. Daintry's clear eyes expanded. Is
that
what you are afraid of?

Do you suppose my solicitude is for Florimond? An accident of that sortif she were to show him her heels at the endmight perhaps do him good. But I am thinking of the girl, since you say you don't want him to marry her.

It was not for that that I suggested what I did. I don't want him to marry any oneI have no plans for that, Mrs. Daintry said, as if she were resenting an imputation.

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