Read Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 Online

Authors: Henry James

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Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (92 page)

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in ithe felt this too as he sauntered vaguely and obliquely across the lawn, as if to take an independent line. Fortunately there was an equally fine English directness in the way one of the gentlemen presently rose and made as if to approach him, with an air of conciliation and reassurance. To this demonstration Paul Overt instantly responded, though he knew the gentleman was not his host. He was tall, straight and elderly, and had a pink, smiling face and a white moustache. Our young man met him half way while he laughed and said: ALady Watermouth told us you were coming; she asked me just to look after you. Paul Overt thanked him (he liked him without delay,) and turned round with him, walking toward the others. They've all gone to churchall except us, the stranger continued as they went; we're just sitting hereit's so jolly. Overt rejoined that it was jolly indeedit was such a lovely place; he mentioned that he had not seen it beforeit was a charming impression.

Ah, you've not been here before? said his companion. It's a nice little placenot much to
do,
you know. Overt wondered what he wanted to dohe felt as if he himself were doing a good deal. By the time they came to where the others sat he had guessed his initiator was a military man, and (such was the turn of Overt's imagination,) this made him still more sympathetic. He would naturally have a passion for activityfor deeds at variance with the pacific, pastoral scene. He was evidently so good-natured, however, that he accepted the inglorious hour for what it was worth. Paul Overt shared it with him and with his companions for the next twenty minutes; the latter looked at him and he looked at them without knowing much who they were, while the talk went on without enlightening him much as to what it was about. It was indeed about nothing in particular, and wandered, with casual, pointless pauses and short terrestrial flights, amid the names of persons and placesnames which, for him, had no great power of evocation. It was all sociable and slow, as was right and natural on a warm Sunday morning.

Overt's first attention was given to the question, privately considered, of whether one of the two younger men would be Henry St. George. He knew many of his distinguished

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contemporaries by their photographs, but he had never, as it happened, seen a portrait of the great misguided novelist. One of the gentlemen was out of the questionhe was too young; and the other scarcely looked clever enough, with such mild, undiscriminating eyes. If those eyes were St. George's the problem presented by the ill-matched parts of his genius was still more difficult of solution. Besides, the deportment of the personage possessing them was not, as regards the lady in the red dress, such as could be natural, towards his wife, even to a writer accused by several critics of sacrificing too much to manner. Lastly, Paul Overt had an indefinite feeling that if the gentleman with the sightless eyes bore the name that had set his heart beating faster (he also had contradictory, conventional whiskersthe young admirer of the celebrity had never in a mental vision seen
his
face in so vulgar a frame), he would have given him a sign of recognition or of friendlinesswould have heard of him a little, would know something about
Ginistrella,
would have gathered at least that that recent work of fiction had made an impression on the discerning. Paul Overt had a dread of being grossly proud, but it seemed to him that his self-consciousness took no undue license in thinking that the authorship of
Ginistrella
constituted a degree of identity. His soldierly friend became clear enough; he was Fancourt, but he was also the General; and he mentioned to our young man in the course of a few moments that he had but lately returned from twenty years' service abroad.

And do you mean to remain in England? Overt asked.

Oh yes, I have bought a little house in London.

And I hope you like it, said Overt, looking at Mrs. St. George.

Well, a little house in Manchester Squarethere's a limit to the enthusiasm that that inspires.

Oh, I meant being at home againbeing in London.

My daughter likes itthat's the main thing. She's very fond of art and music and literature and all that kind of thing. She missed it in India and she finds it in London, or she hopes she will find it. Mr. St. George has promised to help herhe has been awfully kind to her. She has gone to churchshe's fond of that toobut they'll all be back in a quarter of an

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hour. You must let me introduce you to hershe will be so glad to know you. I dare say she has read every word you have written.

I shall be delightedI haven't written very many, said Overt, who felt without resentment that the General at least was very vague about that. But he wondered a little why, since he expressed this friendly disposition, it did not occur to him to pronounce the word which would put him in relation with Mrs. St. George. If it was a question of introductions Miss Fancourt (apparently she was unmarried,) was far away and the wife of his illustrious
confrère
was almost between them. This lady struck Paul Overt as a very pretty woman, with a surprising air of youth and a high smartness of aspect which seemed to him (he could scarcely have said why,) a sort of mystification. St. George certainly had every right to a charming wife, but he himself would never have taken the important little woman in the aggressively Parisian dress for the domestic partner of a man of letters. That partner in general, he knew, was far from presenting herself in a single type: his observation had instructed him that she was not inveterately, not necessarily dreary. But he had never before seen her look so much as if her prosperity had deeper foundations than an ink-spotted study-table littered with proof-sheets. Mrs. St. George might have been the wife of a gentleman who kept books rather than wrote them, who carried on great affairs in the City and made better bargains than those that poets make with publishers. With this she hinted at a success more personal, as if she had been the most characteristic product of an age in which society, the world of conversation, is a great drawing-room with the City for its antechamber. Overt judged her at first to be about thirty years of age; then, after a while, he perceived that she was much nearer fifty. But she juggled away the twenty years somehowyou only saw them in a rare glimpse, like the rabbit in the conjurer's sleeve. She was extraordinarily white, and everything about her was prettyher eyes, her ears, her hair, her voice, her hands, her feet (to which her relaxed attitude in her wicker chair gave a great publicity,) and the numerous ribbons and trinkets with which she was bedecked. She looked as if she had put on her best clothes to go to church and then had decided that they

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were too good for that and had stayed at home. She told a story of some length about the shabby way Lady Jane had treated the Duchess, as well as an anecdote in relation to a purchase she had made in Paris (on her way back from Cannes,) for Lady Egbert, who had never refunded the money. Paul Overt suspected her of a tendency to figure great people as larger than life, until he noticed the manner in which she handled Lady Egbert, which was so subversive that it reassured him. He felt that he should have understood her better if he might have met her eye; but she scarcely looked at him. Ah, here they comeall the good ones! she said at last; and Paul Overt saw in the distance the return of the churchgoersseveral persons, in couples and threes, advancing in a flicker of sun and shade at the end of a large green vista formed by the level grass and the overarching boughs.

If you mean to imply that we are bad, I protest, said one of the gentlemenafter making oneself agreeable all the morning!

Ah, if they've found you agreeable! Mrs. St. George exclaimed, smiling. But if we are good the others are better.

They must be angels then, observed the General.

Your husband was an angel, the way he went off at your bidding, the gentleman who had first spoken said to Mrs. St. George.

At my bidding?

Didn't you make him go to church?

I never made him do anything in my life but once, when I made him burn up a bad book. That's all! At her That's all! Paul broke into an irrepressible laugh; it lasted only a second, but it drew her eyes to him. His own met them, but not long enough to help him to understand her; unless it were a step towards this that he felt sure on the instant that the burnt book (the way she alluded to it!) was one of her husband's finest things.

A bad book? her interlocutor repeated.

I didn't like it. He went to church because your daughter went, she continued, to General Fancourt. I think it my duty to call your attention to his demeanour to your daughter.

Page 550

Well, if you don't mind it, I don't, the General laughed.

Il s'attache à ses pas.
But I don't wondershe's so charming.

I hope she won't make him burn any books! Paul Overt ventured to exclaim.

If she would make him write a few it would be more to the purpose, said Mrs. St. George. He has been of an indolence this year!

Our young man staredhe was so struck with the lady's phraseology. Her Write a few seemed to him almost as good as her That's all. Didn't she, as the wife of a rare artist, know what it was to produce
one
perfect work of art? How in the world did she think they were turned off? His private conviction was that admirably as Henry St. George wrote, he had written for the last ten years, and especially for the last five, only too much, and there was an instant during which he felt the temptation to make this public. But before he had spoken a diversion was effected by the return of the absent guests. They strolled up dispersedlythere were eight or ten of themand the circle under the trees rearranged itself as they took their place in it. They made it much larger; so that Paul Overt could feel (he was always feeling that sort of thing, as he said to himself,) that if the company had already been interesting to watch it would now become a great deal more so. He shook hands with his hostess, who welcomed him without many words, in the manner of a woman able to trust him to understandconscious that, in every way, so pleasant an occasion would speak for itself. She offered him no particular facility for sitting by her, and when they had all subsided again he found himself still next General Fancourt, with an unknown lady on his other flank.

That's my daughterthat one opposite, the General said to him without loss of time. Overt saw a tall girl, with magnificent red hair, in a dress of a pretty grey-green tint and of a limp silken texture, in which every modern effect had been avoided. It had therefore somehow the stamp of the latest thing, so that Overt quickly perceived she was eminently a contemporary young lady.

She's very handsomevery handsome, he repeated,

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looking at her. There was something noble in her head, and she appeared fresh and strong.

Her father surveyed her with complacency; then he said: She looks too hotthat's her walk. But she'll be all right presently. Then I'll make her come over and speak to you.

I should be sorry to give you that trouble; if you were to take me over there the young man murmured.

My dear sir, do you suppose I put myself out that way? I don't mean for you, but for Marian, the General added.

I
would put myself out for her, soon enough, Overt replied; after which he went on: Will you be so good as to tell me which of those gentlemen is Henry St. George?

The fellow talking to my girl. By Jove, he
is
making up to herthey're going off for another walk.

Ah, is that he, really? The young man felt a certain surprise, for the personage before him contradicted a preconception which had been vague only till it was confronted with the reality. As soon as this happened the mental image, retiring with a sigh, became substantial enough to suffer a slight wrong. Overt, who had spent a considerable part of his short life in foreign lands, made now, but not for the first time, the reflection that whereas in those countries he had almost always recognised the artist and the man of letters by his personal type, the mould of his face, the character of his head, the expression of his figure and even the indications of his dress, in England this identification was as little as possible a matter of course, thanks to the greater conformity, the habit of sinking the profession instead of advertising it, the general diffusion of the air of the gentlemanthe gentleman committed to no particular set of ideas. More than once, on returning to his own country, he had said to himself in regard to the people whom he met in society: One sees them about and one even talks with them; but to find out what they
do
one would really have to be a detective. In respect to several individuals whose work he was unable to like (perhaps he was wrong) he found himself adding, No wonder they conceal itit's so bad! He observed that oftener than in France and in Germany his artist looked like a gentleman (that is, like an English one,) while he perceived that outside of a few exceptions his

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