Read Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 Online

Authors: Henry James

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Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (37 page)

 
Page 213
Look at the way he is pulling that boat and see if you can fancy me.
You could tell him she's a bad, hard girl, who would poison any good man's life! my companion suddenly broke out, with a kind of passion.
Dear Mrs. Pallant, what do you mean? I murmured, staring.
She bent her face into her hands, covering it over with them, and remained so for a minute; then she went on, in a different manner, as if she had not heard my question: I hoped you were too disgusted with us, after the way we left you planted.
It was disconcerting, assuredly, and it might have served if Linda hadn't written. That patched it up, I said, laughing. But my laughter was hollow, for I had been exceedingly impressed with her little explosion of a moment before. Do you really mean she is bad? I added.
Mrs. Pallant made no immediate answer to this; she only said that it did not matter after all whether the crisis should come a few weeks sooner or a few weeks later, since it was destined to come at the first opening. Linda had marked my young manand when Linda had marked a thing!
Bless my soulhow very grim! Do you mean she's in love with him? I demanded, incredulous.
It's enough if she makes him think she isthough even that isn't essential.
If she makes him think so? Dearest lady, what do you mean? I have observed her, I have watched her, and after all what has she done? She has been nice to him, but it would have been much more marked if she hadn't. She has really shown him nothing but the common friendliness of a bright, good-natured girl. Her note was nothing; he showed it to me.
I don't think you have heard every word that she has said to him, Mrs. Pallant rejoined, with a persistence that struck me as unnatural.
No more have you, I take it! I exclaimed. She evidently meant more than she said, and this impression chilled me, made me really uncomfortable.
No, but I know my own daughter. She's a very rare young woman.
 
Page 214
You have a singular tone about her, I respondedsuch a tone as I think I have never heard on a mother's lips. I have observed it before, but never so accentuated.
At this Mrs. Pallant got up; she stood there an instant, looking down at me. You make my reparationmy expiationdifficult! And leaving me rather startled, she began to move along the terrace.
I overtook her presently and repeated her words. Your reparationyour expiation? What on earth do you mean by that?
You know perfectly what I meanit is too magnanimous of you to pretend you don't.
Well, at any rate I don't see what good it does me or what it makes up to me for that you should abuse your daughter.
Oh, I don't care; I shall save him! she exclaimed, as we went, with a kind of perverse cheerfulness. At the same moment two ladies, apparently English, came toward us (scattered groups had been sitting there and the inmates of the hotel were moving to and fro), and I observed the immediate charming transition (it seemed to me to show such years of social practice), by which, as they greeted us, she exchanged her excited, almost fevered expression for an air of recognition and pleasure. They stopped to speak to her and she asked with eagerness whether their mother were better. I strolled on and she presently rejoined me; after which she said impatiently, Come away from thiscome down into the garden. We descended into the garden, strolled through it and paused on the border of the lake.
V.
The charm of the evening had deepened, the stillness was like a solemn expression on a beautiful face and the whole air of the place divine. In the fading light my nephew's boat was too far out to be perceived. I looked for it a little and then, as I gave it up, I remarked that from such an excursion as that, on such a lake, at such an hour, a young man and a young woman of ordinary sensibility could only come back doubly pledged to each other. To this observation Mrs. Pal-
 
Page 215
lant's answer was, superficially at least, irrelevant; she said after a pause:
With you, my dear sir, one has certainly to dot one's i's. Haven't you discovered, and didn't I tell you at Homburg, that we are miserably poor?
Isn't miserably rather too much, when you are living at an expensive hotel?
They take us
en pension,
for ever so little a day. I have been knocking about Europe long enough to learn there are certain ways of doing things. Besides, don't speak of hotels; we have spent half our life in them and Linda told me only last night that she hoped never to put her foot into one again. She thinks that when she comes to such a place as this it's the least that she should find a villa of her own.
Well, her companion there is perfectly competent to give her one. Don't think I have the least desire to push them into each other's arms; I only ask to wash my hands of them. But I should like to know why you want, as you said just now, to save him. When you speak as if your daughter were a monster I take it that you are not serious.
She was facing me there in the twilight, and to let me know that she was more serious perhaps than she had ever been in her life she had only to look at me awhile without protestation. It's Linda's standard. God knows I myself could get on! She is ambitious, luxurious, determined to have what she wants, more than any one I have ever seen. Of course it's open to you to tell me that it's my fault, that I was so before her and have made her so. But does that make me like it any better?
Dear Mrs. Pallant, you are most extraordinary, I stammered, infinitely surprised and not a little pained.
Oh yes, you have made up your mind about me; you see me in a certain way and you don't like the trouble of changing.
Votre siège est fait.
But you will have to changeif you have any generosity! Her eyes shone in the summer dusk and she looked remarkably handsome.
Is this a part of the reparation, of the expiation? I inquired. I don't see what you ever did to Archie.
It's enough that he belongs to you. But it isn't for you that I do it; it's for myself, she went on.
 
Page 216
Doubtless you have your own reasons, which I can't penetrate. But can't you sacrifice something else?must you sacrifice your child?
She's my punishment and she's my stigma! cried Louisa Pallant, with veritable exaltation.
It seems to me rather that you are hers.
Hers? What does
she
know of such things?what can she ever feel? She's cased in steel; she has a heart of marble. It's trueit's true. She appals me!
I laid my hand upon the poor lady's; I uttered, with the intention of checking and soothing her, the first incoherent words that came into my head and I drew her toward a bench which I perceived a few yards away. She dropped upon it; I placed myself near her and besought her to consider well what she was saying. She owed me nothing and I wished no one injured, no one denounced or exposed for my sake.
For your sake? Oh, I am not thinking of you! she answered; and indeed the next moment I thought my words rather fatuous. It's a satisfaction to my own consciencefor I have one, little as you think I have a right to speak of it. I have been punished by my sin itself. I have been hideously worldly, I have thought only of that, and I have taught her to be soto do the same. That's the only instruction I have ever given her, and she has learned the lesson so well that now that I see it printed there in all her nature I am horrified at my work. For years we have lived that way; we have thought of nothing else. She has learned it so well that she has gone far beyond me. I say I am horrified, because she is horrible.
My poor extravagant friend, I pleaded, isn't it still more so to hear a mother say such things?
Why so, if they are abominably true? Besides, I don't care what I say, if I save him.
Do you expect me to repeat to him_____?
Not in the least, she broke in; I will do it myself. At this I uttered some strong inarticulate protest, and she went on with a sort of simplicity: I was very glad at first, but it would have been better if we hadn't met.
I don't agree to that, for you interest me immensely.
I don't care for thatif I can interest him.
You must remember then that your charges are strangely
 
Page 217
vague, considering how violent they are. Never had a girl a more innocent appearance. You know how I have admired it.
You know nothing about her.
I
do, for she is the work of my hand! Mrs. Pallant declared, with a bitter laugh. I have watched her for years and little by little, for the last two or three, it has come over me. There is not a tender spot in her whole composition. To arrive at a brilliant social position, if it were necessary, she would see me drown in this lake without lifting a finger, she would stand there and see itshe would push me inand never feel a pang. That's my young lady! To climb up to the top and be splendid and envied thereto do it at any cost or by any meanness and cruelty, is the only thing she has a heart for. She would lie for it, she would steal for it, she would kill for it! My companion brought out these words with a tremendous low distinctness and an air of sincerity that was really solemn. I watched her pale face and glowing eyes; she held me in a kind of stupor, but her strange, almost vindictive earnestness imposed itself. I found myself believing her, pitying her more than I pitied the girl. It was as if she had been bottled up for longer than she could bear, suffering more and more from the ferment of her knowledge. It relieved her to warn and denounce and expose. God has let me see it in time, in his mercy, she continued; but his ways are strange, that he has let me see it in my daughter. It is myself that he has let me see, myself as I was for years. But she's worseshe is, I assure you; she's worse than I ever intended or dreamed. Her hands were clasped tightly together in her lap; her low voice quavered and her breath came short; she looked up at the faint stars with religious perversity.
Have you ever spoken to her as you speak to me? I asked. Have you ever admonished her, reproached her?
Reproached her? How can I? when all she would have to say would be, You
you
you base onewho made me!
Then why do you want to play her a trick?
I'm not bound to tell you and you wouldn't understand if I did. I should play that boy a far worse trick if I were to hold my tongue.
If he loves her he won't believe a word you say.
Very possibly, but I shall have done my duty.
And shall you say to him simply what you have said to me?
 
Page 218
Never mind what I shall say to him. It will be something that will perhaps affect him, if I lose no time.
If you are so bent on gaining time, I said, why did you let her go out in the boat with him?
Let her? how could I prevent it?
But she asked your permission.
That's a part of all the comedy!
We were silent a moment, after which I resumed: Then she doesn't know you hate her?
I don't know what she knows. She has depths and depths, and all of them bad. Besides, I don't hate her in the least; I pity her simply, for what I have made of her. But I pity still more the man who may find himself married to her.
There's not much danger of there being any such person, at the rate you go on.
Oh, perfectly; she'll marry some one. She'll marry a title as well as a fortune.
It's a pity my nephew hasn't a title, I murmured, smiling.
She hesitated a moment. I see you think I want that and that I am acting a part. God forgive you! Your suspicion is perfectly natural: how can any one tell, with people like us?
The way she uttered these last words brought tears to my eyes. I laid my hand on her arm, holding her awhile, and we looked at each other through the dusk. You couldn't do more if he were my son, I said at last.
Oh, if he had been your son he would have kept out of it! I like him for himself; he's simple and honesthe needs affection.
He would have an admirable, a devoted, mother-in-law, I went on.
Mrs. Pallant gave a little impatient sigh and replied that she was not joking. We sat there some time longer, while I thought over what she had said to me and she apparently did the same. I confess that even close at her side, with the echo of her passionate, broken voice still in the air, some queer ideas came into my head. Was the comedy on
her
side and not on the girl's, and was she posturing as a magnanimous woman at poor Linda's expense? Was she determined, in spite of the young lady's preference, to keep her daughter for a grander personage than a young American whose dollars were

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