LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

confess, though it may cast some discredit on the sketch I have given of the youthful loyalty practised by our heroine toward this accomplished woman, that Isabel had said nothing whatever to her about Lord Warburton and had been equally reticent on the subject of Caspar Goodwood. She had not, however, concealed the fact that she had had opportunities of marrying and had even let her friend know of how advantageous a kind they had been. Lord Warburton had left Lockleigh and was gone to Scotland, taking his sisters with him; and though he had written to Ralph more than once to ask about Mr. Touchett’s health the girl was not liable to the embarrassment of such enquiries as, had he still been in the neighbourhood, he would probably have felt bound to make in person. He had excellent ways, but she felt sure that if he had come to Gardencourt he would have seen Madame Merle, and that if he had seen her he would have liked her and betrayed to her that he was in love with her young friend. It so happened that during this lady’s previous visits to Gardencourt — each of them much shorter than the present — he had either not been at Lockleigh or had not called at Mr. Touchett’s. Therefore, though she knew him by name as the great man of that county, she had no cause to suspect him as a suitor of Mrs. Touchett’s freshly-imported niece.

      “You’ve plenty of time,” she had said to Isabel in return for the mutilated confidences which our young woman made her and which didn’t pretend to be perfect, though we have seen that at moments the girl had compunctions at having said so much. “I’m glad you’ve done nothing yet — that you have it still to do. It’s a very good thing for a girl to have refused a few good offers — so long of course as they are not the best she’s likely to have. Pardon me if my tone seems horribly corrupt; one must take the worldly view sometimes. Only don’t keep on refusing for the sake of refusing. It’s a pleasant exercise of power; but accepting’s after all an exercise of power as well. There’s always the danger of refusing once too often. It was not the one I fell into — I didn’t refuse often enough. You’re an exquisite creature, and I should like to see you married to a prime minister. But speaking strictly, you know, you’re not what is technically called a parti. You’re extremely good-looking and extremely clever; in yourself you’re quite exceptional. You appear to have the vaguest ideas about your earthly possessions; but from what I can make out you’re not embarrassed with an income. I wish you had a little money.”

      “I wish I had!” said Isabel, simply, apparently forgetting for the moment that her poverty had been a venial fault for two gallant gentlemen.

      In spite of Sir Matthew Hope’s benevolent recommendation Madame Merle did not remain to the end, as the issue of poor Mr. Touchett’s malady had now come frankly to be designated. She was under pledges to other people which had at last to be redeemed, and she left Gardencourt with the understanding that she should in any event see Mrs. Touchett there again, or else in town, before quitting England. Her parting with Isabel was even more like the beginning of a friendship than their meeting had been. “I’m going to six places in succession, but I shall see no one I like so well as you. They’ll all be old friends, however; one doesn’t make new friends at my age. I’ve made a great exception for you. You must remember that and must think as well of me as possible. You must reward me by believing in me.”

      By way of answer Isabel kissed her, and, though some women kiss with facility, there are kisses and kisses, and this embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle. Our young lady, after this, was much alone; she saw her aunt and cousin only at meals, and discovered that of the hours during which Mrs. Touchett was invisible only a minor portion was now devoted to nursing her husband. She spent the rest in her own apartments, to which access was not allowed even to her niece, apparently occupied there with mysterious and inscrutable exercises. At table she was grave and silent; but her solemnity was not an attitude — Isabel could see it was a conviction. She wondered if her aunt repented of having taken her own way so much; but there was no visible evidence of this — no tears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal always to its own sense adequate. Mrs. Touchett seemed simply to feel the need of thinking things over and summing them up; she had a little moral account-book — with columns unerringly ruled and a sharp steel clasp — which she kept with exemplary neatness. Uttered reflection had with her ever, at any rate, a practical ring. “If I had foreseen this I’d not have proposed your coming abroad now,” she said to Isabel after Madame Merle had left the house. “I’d have waited and sent for you next year.”

      “So that perhaps I should never have known my uncle? It’s a great happiness to me to have come now.”

      “That’s very well. But it was not that you might know your uncle that I brought you to Europe.” A perfectly veracious speech; but, as Isabel thought, not as perfectly timed. She had leisure to think of this and other matters. She took a solitary walk every day and spent vague hours in turning over books in the library. Among the subjects that engaged her attention were the adventures of her friend Miss Stackpole, with whom she was in regular correspondence. Isabel liked her friend’s private epistolary style better than her public; that is she felt her public letters would have been excellent if they had not been printed. Henrietta’s career, however, was not so successful as might have been wished even in the interest of her private felicity; that view of the inner life of Great Britain which she was so eager to take appeared to dance before her like an ignis fatuus. The invitation from Lady Pensil, for mysterious reasons, had never arrived; and poor Mr. Bantling himself, with all his friendly ingenuity, had been unable to explain so grave a dereliction on the part of a missive that had obviously been sent. He had evidently taken Henrietta’s affairs much to heart, and believed that he owed her a set-off to this illusory visit to Bedfordshire. “He says he should think I would go to the Continent,” Henrietta wrote; “and as he thinks of going there himself I suppose his advice is sincere. He wants to know why I don’t take a view of French life; and it’s a fact that I want very much to see the new Republic. Mr. Bantling doesn’t care much about the Republic, but he thinks of going over to Paris anyway. I must say he’s quite as attentive as I could wish, and at least I shall have seen one polite Englishman. I keep telling Mr. Bantling that he ought to have been an American, and you should see how that pleases him. Whenever I say so he always breaks out with the same exclamation — ‘Ah, but really, come now!” A few days later she wrote that she had decided to go to Paris at the end of the week and that Mr. Banding had promised to see her off — perhaps even would go as far as Dover with her. She would wait in Paris till Isabel should arrive, Henrietta added; speaking quite as if Isabel were to start on her continental journey alone and making no allusion to Mrs. Touchett. Bearing in mind his interest in their late companion, our heroine communicated several passages from this correspondence to Ralph, who followed with an emotion akin to suspense the career of the representative of the Interviewer.

      “It seems to me she’s doing very well,” he said, “going over to Paris with an ex-Lancer! If she wants something to write about she has only to describe that episode.”

      “It’s not conventional, certainly,” Isabel answered; “but if you mean that — as far as Henrietta is concerned — it’s not perfectly innocent, you’re very much mistaken. You’ll never understand Henrietta.”

      “Pardon me, I understand her perfectly. I didn’t at all at first, but now I’ve the point of view. I’m afraid, however, that Bantling hasn’t; he may have some surprises. Oh, I understand Henrietta as well as if I had made her!”

      Isabel was by no means sure of this, but she abstained from expressing further doubt, for she was disposed in these days to extend a great charity to her cousin. One afternoon less than a week after Madame Merle’s departure she was seated in the library with a volume to which her attention was not fastened. She had placed herself in a deep window-bench, from which she looked out into the dull, damp park; and as the library stood at right angles to the entrance-front of the house she could see the doctor’s brougham, which had been waiting for the last two hours before the door. She was struck with his remaining so long, but at last she saw him appear in the portico, stand a moment slowly drawing on his gloves and looking at the knees of his horse, and then get into the vehicle and roll away. Isabel kept her place for half an hour; there was a great stillness in the house. It was so great that when she at last heard a soft, slow step on the deep carpet of the room she was almost startled by the sound. She turned quickly away from the window and saw Ralph Touchett standing

Скачать книгу