Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (86 page)

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Authors: Henry James

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BOOK: Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874
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Page 509
him! the old woman cried. It isn't for your sister he loves you, I suppose; is it?
He doesn't love me at all.
Ah, then he does? Lady Davenant demanded, with some eagerness, laying her hand on the girl's arm. Laura sat near her on her sofa and looked at her, for all answer to this, with an expression of which the sadness appeared to strike the old woman freshly. Doesn't he come to the housedoesn't he say anything? she continued, with a voice of kindness.
He comes to the housevery often.
And don't you like him?
Yes, very muchmore than I did at first.
Well, as you liked him at first well enough to bring him straight to see me, I suppose that means that now you are immensely pleased with him.
He's a gentleman, said Laura.
So he seems to me. But why then doesn't he speak out?
Perhaps that's the very reason! Seriously, the girl added, I don't know what he comes to the house for.
Is he in love with your sister?
I sometimes think so.
And does she encourage him?
She detests him.
Oh, then, I like him! I shall immediately write to him to come and see me: I shall appoint an hour and give him a piece of my mind.
If I believed that, I should kill myself, said Laura.
You may believe what you like; but I wish you didn't show your feelings so in your eyes. They might be those of a poor widow with fifteen children. When I was young I managed to be happy, whatever occurred; and I am sure I looked so.
Oh yes, Lady Davenantfor you it was different. You were safe, in so many ways, Laura said. And you were surrounded with consideration.
I don't know; some of us were very wild, and exceedingly ill thought of, and I didn't cry about it. However, there are natures and natures. If you will come and stay with me tomorrow I will take you in.
You know how kind I think you, but I have promised Selina not to leave her.
 
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Well, then, if she keeps you she must at least go straight! cried the old woman, with some asperity. Laura made no answer to this and Lady Davenant asked, after a moment: And what is Lionel doing?
I don't knowhe is very quiet.
Doesn't it please himhis wife's improvement? The girl got up; apparently she was made uncomfortable by the ironical effect, if not by the ironical intention, of this question. Her old friend was kind but she was penetrating; her very next words pierced further. Of course if you are really protecting her I can't count upon you: a remark not adapted to enliven Laura, who would have liked immensely to transfer herself to Queen's Gate and had her very private ideas as to the efficacy of her protection. Lady Davenant kissed her and then suddenly saidOh, by the way, his address; you must tell me that.
His address?
The young man's whom you brought here. But it's no matter, the old woman added; the butler will have entered itfrom his card.
Lady Davenant, you won't do anything so loathsome! the girl cried, seizing her hand.
Why is it loathsome, if he comes so often? It's rubbish, his caring for Selinaa married womanwhen you are there.
Why is it rubbishwhen so many other people do?
Oh, well, he is differentI could see that; or if he isn't he ought to be!
He likes to observehe came here to take notes, said the girl. And he thinks Selina a very interesting London specimen.
In spite of her dislike of him?
Oh, he doesn't know that! Laura exclaimed.
Why not? he isn't a fool.
Oh, I have made it seem But here Laura stopped; her colour had risen.
Lady Davenant stared an instant. Made it seem that she inclines to him? Mercy, to do that how fond of him you must be! An observation which had the effect of driving the girl straight out of the house.
 
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XI
On one of the last days of June Mrs. Berrington showed her sister a note she had received from your dear friend, as she called him, Mr. Wendover. This was the manner in which she usually designated him, but she had naturally, in the present phase of her relations with Laura, never indulged in any renewal of the eminently perverse insinuations by means of which she had attempted, after the incident at the Soane Museum, to throw dust in her eyes. Mr. Wendover proposed to Mrs. Berrington that she and her sister should honour with their presence a box he had obtained for the opera three nights lateran occasion of high curiosity, the first appearance of a young American singer of whom considerable things were expected. Laura left it to Selina to decide whether they should accept this invitation, and Selina proved to be of two or three differing minds. First she said it wouldn't be convenient to her to go, and she wrote to the young man to this effect. Then, on second thoughts, she considered she might very well go, and telegraphed an acceptance. Later she saw reason to regret her acceptance and communicated this circumstance to her sister, who remarked that it was still not too late to change. Selina left her in ignorance till the next day as to whether she had retracted; then she told her that she had let the matter standthey would go. To this Laura replied that she was gladfor Mr. Wendover. And for yourself, Selina said, leaving the girl to wonder why every one (this universality was represented by Mrs. Lionel Berrington and Lady Davenant) had taken up the idea that she entertained a passion for her compatriot. She was clearly conscious that this was not the case; though she was glad her esteem for him had not yet suffered the disturbance of her seeing reason to believe that Lady Davenant had already meddled, according to her terrible threat. Laura was surprised to learn afterwards that Selina had, in London parlance, thrown over a dinner in order to make the evening at the opera fit in. The dinner would have made her too late, and she didn't care about it: she wanted to hear the whole opera.
The sisters dined together alone, without any question of Lionel, and on alighting at Covent Garden found Mr. Wen-
 
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dover awaiting them in the portico. His box proved commodious and comfortable, and Selina was gracious to him: she thanked him for his consideration in not stuffing it full of people. He assured her that he expected but one other inmatea gentleman of a shrinking disposition, who would take up no room. The gentleman came in after the first act; he was introduced to the ladies as Mr. Booker, of Baltimore. He knew a great deal about the young lady they had come to listen to, and he was not so shrinking but that he attempted to impart a portion of his knowledge even while she was singing. Before the second act was over Laura perceived Lady Ringrose in a box on the other side of the house, accompanied by a lady unknown to her. There was apparently another person in the box, behind the two ladies, whom they turned round from time to time to talk with. Laura made no observation about Lady Ringrose to her sister, and she noticed that Selina never resorted to the glass to look at her. That Mrs. Berrington had not failed to see her, however, was proved by the fact that at the end of the second act (the opera was Meyerbeer's
Huguenots)
she suddenly said, turning to Mr. Wendover: I hope you won't mind very much if I go for a short time to sit with a friend on the other side of the house. She smiled with all her sweetness as she announced this intention, and had the benefit of the fact that an apologetic expression is highly becoming to a pretty woman. But she abstained from looking at her sister, and the latter, after a wondering glance at her, looked at Mr. Wendover. She saw that he was disappointedeven slightly wounded: he had taken some trouble to get his box and it had been no small pleasure to him to see it graced by the presence of a celebrated beauty. Now his situation collapsed if the celebrated beauty were going to transfer her light to another quarter. Laura was unable to imagine what had come into her sister's headto make her so inconsiderate, so rude. Selina tried to perform her act of defection in a soothing, conciliating way, so far as appealing eyebeams went; but she gave no particular reason for her escapade, withheld the name of the friends in question and betrayed no consciousness that it was not usual for ladies to roam about the lobbies. Laura asked her no question, but she said to her, after an hesitation: You won't be long, surely.
 
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You know you oughtn't to leave me here. Selina took no notice of thisexcused herself in no way to the girl. Mr. Wendover only exclaimed, smiling in reference to Laura's last remark: Oh, so far as leaving you here goes! In spite of his great defect (and it was his only one, that she could see) of having only an ascending scale of seriousness, she judged him interestedly enough to feel a real pleasure in noticing that though he was annoyed at Selina's going away and not saying that she would come back soon, he conducted himself as a gentleman should, submitted respectfully, gallantly, to her wish. He suggested that her friends might perhaps, instead, be induced to come to his box, but when she had objected, Oh, you see, there are too many, he put her shawl on her shoulders, opened the box, offered her his arm. While this was going on Laura saw Lady Ringrose studying them with her glass. Selina refused Mr. Wendover's arm; she said, Oh no, you stay with
her
I daresay
he'll
take me: and she gazed inspiringly at Mr. Booker. Selina never mentioned a name when the pronoun would do. Mr. Booker of course sprang to the service required and led her away, with an injunction from his friend to bring her back promptly. As they went off Laura heard Selina say to her companionand she knew Mr. Wendover could also hear itNothing would have induced me to leave her alone with
you!
She thought this a very extraordinary speechshe thought it even vulgar; especially considering that she had never seen the young man till half an hour before and since then had not exchanged twenty words with him. It came to their ears so distinctly that Laura was moved to notice it by exclaiming, with a laugh: Poor Mr. Booker, what does she suppose I would do to him?
Oh, it's for you she's afraid, said Mr. Wendover.
Laura went on, after a moment: She oughtn't to have left me alone with you, either.
Oh yes, she oughtafter all! the young man returned.
The girl had uttered these words from no desire to say something flirtatious, but because they simply expressed a part of the judgment she passed, mentally, on Selina's behaviour. She had a sense of wrongof being made light of; for Mrs. Berrington certainly knew that honourable women didn't (for the appearance of the thing) arrange to leave their unmarried
 
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sister sitting alone, publicly, at the playhouse, with a couple of young menthe couple that there would be as soon as Mr. Booker should come back. It displeased her that the people in the opposite box, the people Selina had joined, should see her exhibited in this light. She drew the curtain of the box a little, she moved a little more behind it, and she heard her companion utter a vague appealing, protecting sigh, which seemed to express his sense (her own corresponded with it) that the glory of the occasion had somehow suddenly departed. At the end of some minutes she perceived among Lady Ringrose and her companions a movement which appeared to denote that Selina had come in. The two ladies in front turned roundsomething went on at the back of the box. She's there, Laura said, indicating the place; but Mrs. Berrington did not show herselfshe remained masked by the others. Neither was Mr. Booker visible; he had not, seemingly, been persuaded to remain, and indeed Laura could see that there would not have been room for him. Mr. Wendover observed, ruefully, that as Mrs. Berrington evidently could see nothing at all from where she had gone she had exchanged a very good place for a very bad one. I can't imagineI can't imagine said the girl; but she paused, losing herself in reflections and wonderments, in conjectures that soon became anxieties. Suspicion of Selina was now so rooted in her heart that it could make her unhappy even when it pointed nowhere, and by the end of half an hour she felt how little her fears had really been lulled since that scene of dishevelment and contrition in the early dawn.
The opera resumed its course, but Mr. Booker did not come back. The American singer trilled and warbled, executed remarkable flights, and there was much applause, every symptom of success; but Laura became more and more unaware of the musicshe had no eyes but for Lady Ringrose and her friend. She watched them earnestlyshe tried to sound with her glass the curtained dimness behind them. Their attention was all for the stage and they gave no present sign of having any fellow-listeners. These others had either gone away or were leaving them very much to themselves. Laura was unable to guess any particular motive on her sister's part, but the conviction grew within her that she had not put such an af-

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