Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (17 page)

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The upper part of Beacon Street seemed to Florimond charmingthe long, wide, sunny slope, the uneven line of the older houses, the contrasted, differing, bulging fronts, the painted bricks, the tidy facings, the immaculate doors, the burnished silver plates, the denuded twigs of the far extent of the Common, on the other side; and to crown the eminence and complete the picture, high in the air, poised in the right place, over everything that clustered below, the most felicitous object in Bostonthe gilded dome of the State House. It was in the shadow of this monument, as we know, that Miss Daintry lived; and Florimond, who was always lucky, had the good fortune to find here at home.

It may seem that I have assumed on the part of the reader too great a curiosity about the impressions of this young man, who was not very remarkable, and who has not even the recommendation of being the hero of our perhaps too descriptive tale. The reader will already have discovered that a hero fails us here; but if I go on at all risks to say a few words about Florimond, he will perhaps understand the better why this part has not been filled. Miss Daintry's nephew was not very original; it was his own illusion that he had in a considerable degree the value of rareness. Even this youthful conceit was not rare, for it was not of heroic proportions, and was liable to lapses and discouragements. He was a fair, slim, civil young man, and you would never have guessed from his appearance that he was an impressionist. He was neat and sleek and quite anti-Bohemian, and in spite of his looking about him as he walked, his figure was much more in harmony with the Boston landscape than he supposed. He was a little vain, a little affected, a little pretentious, a little good-looking, a little amusing, a little spoiled, and at times a little tiresome. If he was disagreeable, however, it was also only a little; he did not carry anything to a very high pitch; he was accomplished, industrious, successfulall in the minor degree. He was fond of his mother and fond of himself; he also liked the people who liked him. Such people could belong only to the class of good listeners, for Florimond, with the least encouragement

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(he was very susceptible to that), would chatter by the hour. As he was very observant, and knew a great many stories, his talk was often entertaining, especially to women, many of whom thought him wonderfully sympathetic. It may be added that he was still very young and fluid, and neither his defects nor his virtues had a great consistency. He was fond of the society of women, and had an idea that he knew a great deal about that element of humanity. He believed himself to know everything about art, and almost everything about life, and he expressed himself as much as possible in the phrases that are current in studios. He spoke French very well, and it had rubbed off on his English.

His aunt listened to him attentively, with her nippers on her nose. She had been a little restless at first, and, to relieve herself, had vaguely punched the sofa-cushion which lay beside hera gesture that her friends always recognised; they knew it to express a particular emotion. Florimond, whose egotism was candid and confiding, talked for an hour about himselfabout what he had done, and what he intended to do, what he had said and what had been said to him; about his habits, tastes, achievements, peculiarities, which were apparently so numerous; about the decorations of his studio in Paris; about the character of the French, the works of Zola, the theory of art for art, the American type, the stupidity of his mother's new housethough of course it had some things that were knowingthe pronunciation of Joanna's children, the effect of the commission-business on Arthur Merriman's conversation, the effect of everything on his mother, Mrs. Daintry, and the effect of Mrs. Daintry on her son Florimond. The young man had an epithet which he constantly introduced to express disapproval; when he spoke of the architecture of his mother's house, over which she had taken great pains (she remembered the gabled fronts of Nuremberg), he said that a certain effect had been dreadfully missed, that the character of the doorway was simply crass. He expressed, however, a lively sense of the bright cleanness of American interiors. Oh, as for that, he said, the place is keptit's kept; and, to give an image of this idea, he put his gathered fingers to his lips an instant, seemed to kiss them or blow upon them, and then opened them into the air. Miss

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Daintry had never encountered this gesture before; she had heard it described by travelled persons; but to see her own nephew in the very act of it led her to administer another thump to the sofa-cushion. She finally got this article under control, and sat more quiet, with her hands clasped upon it, while her visitor continued to discourse. In pursuance of his character as an impressionist, he gave her a great many impressions; but it seemed to her that as he talked, he simply exposed himselfexposed his egotism, his little pretensions. Lucretia Daintry, as we know, had a love of justice, and though her opinions were apt to be very positive, her charity was great and her judgments were not harsh; moreover, there was in her composition not a drop of acrimony. Nevertheless, she was, as the phrase is, rather hard on poor little Florimond; and to explain her severity we are bound to assume that in the past he had in some way offended her. To-day, at any rate, it seemed to her that he patronised his maiden-aunt. He scarcely asked about her health, but took for granted on her part an unlimited interest in his own sensations. It came over her afresh that his mother had been absurd in thinking that the usual resources of Boston would not have sufficed to maintain him; and she smiled a little grimly at the idea that a special provision should have been made. This idea presently melted into another, over which she was free to regale herself only after her nephew had departed. For the moment she contented herself with saying to him, when a pause in his young eloquence gave her a chanceYou will have a great many people to go and see. You pay the penalty of being a Bostonian; you have several hundred cousins. One pays for everything.

Florimond lifted his eyebrows. I pay for that every day of my life. Have I got to go and see them all?

Allevery one, said his aunt, who in reality did not hold this obligation in the least sacred.

And to say something agreeable to them all? the young man went on.

Oh no, that is not necessary, Miss Daintry rejoined, with more exactness. There are one or two, however, who always appreciate a pretty speech. She added in an instant, Do you remember Mrs. Mesh?

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Mrs. Mesh? Florimond apparently did not remember.

The wife of Donald Mesh; your grandfathers were first cousins. I don't mean her grandfather, but her husband's. If you don't remember her, I suppose he married her after you went away.

I remember Donald; but I never knew he was a relation. He was single then, I think.

Well, he's double now, said Miss Daintry; he's triple, I may say, for there are two ladies in the house.

If you mean he's a polygamistare there Mormons even here? Florimond, leaning back in his chair, with his elbow on the arm, and twisting with his gloved fingers the point of a small fair moustache, did not appear to have been arrested by this account of Mr. Mesh's household; for he almost immediately asked, in a large, detached wayAre there any nice women here?

It depends on what you mean by nice women; there are some very sharp ones.

Oh, I don't like sharp ones, Florimond remarked, in a tone which made his aunt long to throw her sofa-cushion at his head. Are there any pretty ones?

She looked at him a moment, hesitating. Rachel Torrance is pretty, in a strange, unusual wayblack hair and blue eyes, a serpentine figure, old coins in her tresses; that sort of thing.

I have seen a good deal of that sort of thing, said Florimond, abstractedly.

That I know nothing about. I mention Pauline Mesh's as one of the houses that you ought to go to, and where I know you are expected.

I remember now that my mother has said something about that. But who is the woman with coins in her hair?what has she to do with Pauline Mesh?

Rachel is staying with her; she came from New York a week ago, and I believe she means to spend the winter. She isn't a woman, she's a girl.

My mother didn't speak of her, said Florimond; but I don't think she would recommend me a girl with a serpentine figure.

Very likely not, Miss Daintry answered, dryly. Rachel Torrance is a far-away cousin of Donald Mesh, and conse-

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quently of mine and of yours. She's an artist, like yourself; she paints flowers on little panels and
plaques.

Like myself?I never painted a
plaque
in my life! exclaimed Florimond, staring.

Well, she's a model also; you can paint her if you like; she has often been painted, I believe.

Florimond had begun to caress the other tip of his moustache. I don't care for women who have been painted before. I like to find them out. Besides, I want to rest this winter.

His aunt was disappointed; she wished to put him into relation with Rachel Torrance, and his indifference was an obstacle. The meeting was sure to take place sooner or later, but she would have him glad to precipitate it, and, above all, to quicken her nephew's susceptibilities. Take care you are not found out yourself! she exclaimed, tossing away her sofacushion and getting up.

Florimond did not see what she meant, and he accordingly bore her no rancour; but when, before he took his leave, he said to her, rather irrelevantly, that if he should find himself in the mood during his stay in Boston, he should like to do her portraitshe had such a delightful faceshe almost thought the speech a deliberate impertinence. Do you mean that you have discovered methat no one has suspected it before? she inquired with a laugh, and a little flush in the countenance that he was so good as to appreciate.

Florimond replied, with perfect coolness and good-nature, that he didn't know about this, but that he was sure no one had seen her in just the way he saw her; and he waved his hand in the air with strange circular motions, as if to evoke before him the image of a canvas, with a figure just rubbed in. He repeated this gesture, or something very like it, by way of farewell, when he quitted his aunt, and she thought him insufferably patronising.

This is why she wished him, without loss of time, to make the acquaintance of Rachel Torrance, whose treatment of his pretensions she thought would be salutary. It may now be communicated to the readerafter a delay proportionate to the momentousness of the factthat this had been the idea which suddenly flowered in her brain, as she sat face to face with her irritating young visitor. It had vaguely shaped itself

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after her meeting with that strange girl from Brooklyn, whom Mrs. Mesh, all gratitudefor she liked strangenesspromptly brought to see her; and her present impression of her nephew rapidly completed it. She had not expected to take an interest in Rachel Torrance, and could not see why, through a freak of Susan's, she should have been called upon to think so much about her; but, to her surprise, she perceived that Mrs. Daintry's proposed victim was not the usual forward girl. She perceived at the same time that it had been ridiculous to think of Rachel as a victimto suppose that she was in danger of vainly fixing her affections upon Florimond. She was much more likely to triumph than to suffer; and if her visit to Boston were to produce bitter fruits, it would not be she who should taste them. She had a striking, oriental head, a beautiful smile, a manner of dressing which carried out her exotic type, and a great deal of experience and wit. She evidently knew the world, as one knows it when one has to live by its help. If she had an aim in life, she would draw her bow well above the tender breast of Florimond Daintry. With all this, she certainly was an honest, obliging girl, and had a sense of humour which was a fortunate obstacle to her falling into a pose. Her coins and amulets and seamless garments were, for her, a part of the general joke of one's looking like a Circassian or a Smyrniotean accident for which nature was responsible; and it may be said of her that she took herself much less seriously than other people took her. This was a defect for which Lucretia Daintry had a great kindness; especially as she quickly saw that Rachel was not of an insipid paste, as even triumphant coquettes sometimes are. In spite of her poverty and the opportunities her beauty must have brought her, she had not yet seen fit to marrywhich was a proof that she was clever as well as disinterested. It looks dreadfully cold-blooded as I write it here, but the notion that this capable creature might administer poetic justice to Florimond gave a measurable satisfaction to Miss Daintry. He was in distinct need of a snub, for down in Newbury Street his mother was perpetually swinging the censer; and no young nature could stand that sort of thingleast of all such a nature as Florimond's. She said to herself that such a putting in his place as he might receive from Rachel Torrance would probably be a permanent

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