Read Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 Online

Authors: Henry James

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Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (94 page)

Page 558

Yes, yeshe knows that.

Paul Overt stared. That they seem to me awfully queer?

Well yes, or at any rate that they are not what they should be. He told me he didn't esteem them. He has told me such wonderful thingshe's so interesting.

There was a certain shock for Paul Overt in the knowledge that the fine genius they were talking of had been reduced to so explicit a confession and had made it, in his misery, to the first comer; for though Miss Fancourt was charming, what was she after all but an immature girl encountered at a country-house? Yet precisely this was a part of the sentiment that he himself had just expressed; he would make way completely for the poor peccable great man, not because he didn't read him clear, but altogether because he did. His consideration was half composed of tenderness for superficialities which he was sure St. George judged privately with supreme sternness and which denoted some tragic intellectual secret. He would have his reasons for his psychology
a fleur de peau,
and these reasons could only be cruel ones, such as would make him dearer to those who already were fond of him. You excite my envy. I judge him, I discriminatebut I love him, Overt said in a moment. And seeing him for the first time this way is a great event for me.

How momentoushow magnificent! cried the girl. How delicious to bring you together!

Your
doing itthat makes it perfect, Overt responded.

He's as eager as you, Miss Fancourt went on. But it's so odd you shouldn't have met.

It's not so odd as it seems. I've been out of England so muchrepeated absences during all these last years.

And yet you write of it as well as if you were always here.

It's just the being away perhaps. At any rate the best bits, I suspect, are those that were done in dreary places abroad.

And why were they dreary?

Because they were health-resortswhere my poor mother was dying.

Your poor mother? the girl murmured, kindly.

We went from place to place to help her to get better. But she never did. To the deadly Riviera (I hate it!) to the high

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Alps, to Algiers, and far awaya hideous journeyto Colorado.

And she isn't better? Miss Fancourt went on.

She died a year ago.

Really?like mine! Only that is far away. Some day you must tell me about your mother, she added.

Overt looked at her a moment. What right things you say! If you say them to St. George I don't wonder he's in bondage.

I don't know what you mean. He doesn't make speeches and professions at allhe isn't ridiculous.

I'm afraid you consider that I am.

No, I don't, the girl replied, rather shortly. He understands everything.

Overt was on the point of saying jocosely: And I don'tis that it? But these words, before he had spoken, changed themselves into others slightly less trivial: Do you suppose he understands his wife?

Miss Fancourt made no direct answer to his question; but after a moment's hesitation she exclaimed: Isn't she charming?

Not in the least!

Here he comes. Now you must know him, the girl went on. A small group of visitors had gathered at the other end of the gallery and they had been joined for a moment by Henry St. George, who strolled in from a neighbouring room. He stood near them a moment, not, apparently, falling into the conversation, but taking up an old miniature from a table and vaguely examining it. At the end of a minute he seemed to perceive Miss Fancourt and her companion in the distance; whereupon, laying down his miniature, he approached them with the same procrastinating air, with his hands in his pockets, looking to right and left at the pictures. The gallery was so long that this transit took some little time, especially as there was a moment when he stopped to admire the fine Gainsborough. He says she has been the making of him, Miss Fancourt continued, in a voice slightly lowered.

Ah, he's often obscure! laughed Paul Overt.

Obscure? she repeated, interrogatively. Her eyes rested

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upon her other friend, and it was not lost upon Paul that they appeared to send out great shafts of softness. He is going to speak to us! she exclaimed, almost breathlessly. There was a sort of rapture in her voice; Paul Overt was startled. Bless my soul, is she so fond of him as thatis she in love with him? he mentally inquired. Didn't I tell you he was eager? she added, to her companion.

It's eagerness dissimulated, the young man rejoined, as the subject of their observation lingered before his Gainsborough. He edges toward us shyly. Does he mean that she saved him by burning that book?

That book? what book did she burn? The girl turned her face quickly upon him.

Hasn't he told you, then?

Not a word.

Then he doesn't tell you everything! Paul Overt had guessed that Miss Fancourt pretty much supposed he did. The great man had now resumed his course and come nearer; nevertheless Overt risked the profane observation: St. George and the dragon, the anecdote suggests!

Miss Fancourt, however, did not hear it; she was smiling at her approaching friend. He
is
eagerhe is! she repeated.

Eager for youyes.

The girl called out frankly, joyously: I know you want to know Mr. Overt. You'll be great friends, and it will always be delightful to me to think that I was here when you first met and that I had something to do with it.

There was a freshness of intention in this speech which carried it off; nevertheless our young man was sorry for Henry St. George, as he was sorry at any time for any one who was publicly invited to be responsive and delightful. He would have been so contented to believe that a man he deeply admired attached an importance to him that he was determined not to play with such a presumption if it possibly were vain. In a single glance of the eye of the pardonable master he discovered (having the sort of divination that belonged to his talent,) that this personage was full of general good-will, but had not read a word he had written. There was even a relief, a simplification, in that: liking him so much already for what he had done, how could he like him more for having been

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struck with a certain promise? He got up, trying to show his compassion, but at the same instant he found himself encompassed by St. George's happy personal arta manner of which it was the essence to conjure away false positions. It all took place in a moment. He was conscious that he knew him now, conscious of his handshake and of the very quality of his hand; of his face, seen nearer and consequently seen better, of a general fraternising assurance, and in particular of the circumstance that St. George didn't dislike him (as yet at least,) for being imposed by a charming but too gushing girl, valuable enough without such danglers. At any rate no irritation was reflected in the voice with which he questioned Miss Fancourt in respect to some project of a walka general walk of the company round the park. He had said something to Overt about a talkWe must have a tremendous lot of talk; there are so many things, aren't there?but Paul perceived that this idea would not in the present case take very immediate effect. All the same he was extremely happy, even after the matter of the walk had been settled (the three presently passed back to the other part of the gallery, where it was discussed with several members of the party,) even when, after they had all gone out together, he found himself for half an hour in contact with Mrs. St. George. Her husband had taken the advance with Miss Fancourt, and this pair were quite out of sight. It was the prettiest of rambles for a summer afternoona grassy circuit, of immense extent, skirting the limit of the park within. The park was completely surrounded by its old mottled but perfect red wall, which, all the way on their left, made a picturesque accompaniment. Mrs. St. George mentioned to him the surprising number of acres that were thus enclosed, together with numerous other facts relating to the property and the family, and its other properties: she could not too strongly urge upon him the importance of seeing their other houses. She ran over the names of these and rang the changes on them with the facility of practice, making them appear an almost endless list. She had received Paul Overt very amiably when he broke ground with her by telling her that he had just had the joy of making her husband's acquaintance, and struck him as so alert and so accommodating a little woman that he was rather ashamed of his
mot
about

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her to Miss Fancourt; though he reflected that a hundred other people, on a hundred occasions, would have been sure to make it. He got on with Mrs. St. George, in short, better than he expected; but this did not prevent her from suddenly becoming aware that she was faint with fatigue and must take her way back to the house by the shortest cut. She hadn't the strength of a kitten, she saidshe was awfully seedy; a state of things that Overt had been too preoccupied to perceivepreoccupied with a private effort to ascertain in what sense she could be held to have been the making of her husband. He had arrived at a glimmering of the answer when she announced that she must leave him, though this perception was of course provisional. While he was in the very act of placing himself at her disposal for the return the situation underwent a change; Lord Masham suddenly turned up, coming back to them, overtaking them, emerging from the shrubberyOvert could scarcely have said how he appeared, and Mrs. St. George had protested that she wanted to be left alone and not to break up the party. A moment later she was walking off with Lord Masham. Paul Overt fell back and joined Lady Watermouth, to whom he presently mentioned that Mrs. St. George had been obliged to renounce the attempt to go further.

She oughtn't to have come out at all, her ladyship remarked, rather grumpily.

Is she so very much of an invalid?

Very bad indeed. And his hostess added, with still greater austerity: She oughtn't to come to stay with one! He wondered what was implied by this, and presently gathered that it was not a reflection on the lady's conduct or her moral nature: it only represented that her strength was not equal to her aspirations.

III.

The smoking-room at Summersoft was on the scale of the rest of the place; that is it was high and light and commodious, and decorated with such refined old carvings and mouldings that it seemed rather a bower for ladies who should sit at work

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at fading crewels than a parliament of gentlemen smoking strong cigars. The gentlemen mustered there in considerable force on the Sunday evening, collecting mainly at one end, in front of one of the cool fair fireplaces of white marble, the entablature of which was adorned with a delicate little Italian subject. There was another in the wall that faced it, and, thanks to the mild summer night, there was no fire in either; but a nucleus for aggregation was furnished on one side by a table in the chimney-corner laden with bottles, decanters and tall tumblers. Paul Overt was an insincere smoker; he puffed cigarettes occasionally for reasons with which tobacco had nothing to do. This was particularly the case on the occasion of which I speak; his motive was the vision of a little direct talk with Henry St. George. The tremendous communion of which the great man had held out hopes to him earlier in the day had not yet come off, and this saddened him considerably, for the party was to go its several ways immediately after breakfast on the morrow. He had, however, the disappointment of finding that apparently the author of
Shadowmere
was not disposed to prolong his vigil. He was not among the gentlemen assembled in the smoking-room when Overt entered it, nor was he one of those who turned up, in bright habiliments, during the next ten minutes. The young man waited a little, wondering whether he had only gone to put on something extraordinary; this would account for his delay as well as contribute further to Overt's observation of his tendency to do the approved superficial thing. But he didn't arrivehe must have been putting on something more extraordinary than was probable. Paul gave him up, feeling a little injured, a little wounded at his not having managed to say twenty words to him. He was not angry, but he puffed his cigarette sighingly, with the sense of having lost a precious chance. He wandered away with his regret, moved slowly round the room, looking at the old prints on the walls. In this attitude he presently felt a hand laid on his shoulder and a friendly voice in his ear. This is good. I hoped I should find you. I came down on purpose. St. George was there, without a change of dress and with a kind facehis graver oneto which Overt eagerly responded. He explained that it

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