The Master (46 page)

‘I think the language is called Gaelic,’ William said.

‘No, Celtic,’ Lady Wolseley replied. ‘Lady Gregory assured me that it is called Celtic, and I do so wish I had known about it when I was in Ireland. I would have learned it
myself and given parties in it.’

She smiled at Alice who smiled at her in return. William, Henry could see, was no longer prepared to flirt with Lady Wolseley.

‘I travelled in Ireland a number of times,’ he said. ‘And I do believe that England has much to answer for in the way the country has been run.’

‘Oh I quite agree,’ Lady Wolseley said. ‘And my husband spoke to the queen personally about the matter before he went there, and they both took the view that once Mr Parnell
was removed and not replaced, then all the Fenianism would die down. And you should go there now, or speak to Lady Gregory. I believe that Ireland has been transformed.’

‘Have you been to the United States?’ Alice asked.

‘No, dear, no. And I should love to go,’ Lady Wolseley said. ‘I long to see the Wild West. I should like to go there.’

She spoke sadly, as though her not having been there was the regret of her life, and then smiled warmly at Peggy as the young girl returned to the room.

‘Henry, I am so glad we bought this dining-room table,’ Lady Wolseley said.

‘Lady Wolseley was of great assistance when I was furnishing Lamb House,’ Henry said.

‘My dear, we must get more rugs,’ Lady Wolseley said. ‘You cannot go into the new year without some extra rugs. I am told that a marvellous consignment has arrived in London
and I must go upstairs again and look at the drawing room so that we can decide on the colours we need.’

‘Yes,’ Henry said. ‘Let us repair to the drawing room.’

As they walked into the hallway, Henry came face to face with Hammond, whom he had last seen in Ireland when he was a guest of the Wolseley’s. Hammond’s face had changed, his eyes
seemed larger and more gentle. He smiled shyly at Henry and stood aside to let him pass.

‘Oh of course,’ Lady Wolseley said, ‘you know each other. I did remember that.’

Henry led them upstairs to the drawing room, leaving Hammond in the hallway.

‘Yes,’ Lady Wolseley said, ‘Hammond remains with us. He is part of Lord Wolseley’s guard.’

Lady Wolseley found herself a chair near the window while Alice and Peggy sat on the sofa. William stood at the mantelpiece, his face grave.

‘We miss Ireland so much, Mr James,’ Lady Wolseley addressed William directly. ‘We brought Hammond back with us and two gardeners. And all our guests love them, Casey and Leary
the gardeners, they delight everybody. I have to tell all of our guests "don’t pay any attention to their charm, they don’t mean it", but it’s lovely how they talk.’

Henry left the room quietly before his brother had an opportunity to reply and made his way slowly down the stairs. Hammond was still standing in the hallway, as though he had been waiting for
him.

‘I did not know that you had come back to England,’ Henry said.

‘Yes, sir, I followed his lordship and I travel sometimes with her ladyship.’

His voice had lost none of its calmness which Henry felt as a warm relief.

‘I am so glad that you have come to my house,’ Henry said. ‘I hope you have been looked after.’

‘Your boy, sir,’ Hammond said, ‘made sure that I was well fed.’

When Henry continued to look at him, Hammond lifted his eyes. Hammond was beginning to blush. He seemed younger than when Henry had known him in Ireland almost five years earlier. His smile
broadened but he did not move.

‘I should like to show you the garden here and the garden room,’ Henry said.

‘Would you, sir?’ Hammond’s tone was gentle.

‘It is better, of course, in the summer,’ Henry said, walking into the dining room and opening the doors into the garden. The air was cold and dry. ‘And your family in London,
how are they?’ Henry asked.

‘Very well, sir.’

‘And your sister is well?’

‘It is strange that you remembered, sir. She is wonderful.’

They moved around the garden slowly, Hammond stopping for a second each time Henry spoke so that he could properly take in what was being said.

‘You must come back in the summer when everything is in bloom,’ Henry said.

‘I should like to do that,’ Hammond replied.

Henry turned the key to the garden room and they entered. He felt as though they had both walked into some half-forbidden territory, but when he turned and saw Hammond’s face, he realized
that Hammond did not share this perception. He was interested in the desk and the papers and the books. He went to the window and looked at the view.

‘This is a most beautiful room, sir.’

‘It is cold in the winter,’ Henry said, ‘too cold to use.’

‘You must be a happy man here in the summer, sir,’ Hammond said.

He moved over to the books on the wall.

‘I have read some of your books, sir. One of them I have read three times.’

‘One of my books?’

‘
The Princess Casamassima
, sir. I felt that I was living in that book. All those streets of London are the streets I know. And the sister. It was much better than Dickens,
sir.’

‘You like Dickens?’

‘Yes, sir.
Hard Times
and
Bleak House
.’

Hammond turned and began to inspect the books closely, kneeling to see the books on the bottom shelves. He turned and spoke softly.

‘You must excuse me, sir, but some of these titles I have not seen before.’

He was loath to accept any books as gifts, and would only agree when Henry could demonstrate that he had a number of copies of the same edition on the shelves. Finally, after much discussion, he
allowed three books to be set aside for him, Henry having become aware that his embarrassment and hesitation arose from the fact that he did not want Lady Wolseley to see him with the package and
ask what it was. He wrote his address in London in clear letters on a sheet of paper and Henry promised that he would send these books by post.

‘And I shall say nothing to her ladyship,’ Henry said.

Hammond smiled gratefully.

‘Nor shall I, sir.’

As they walked to the spot in the garden where Henry was proposing to build a new glasshouse, Henry could not help noticing that they were being watched with shameless interest by Lady Wolseley.
She stood with William, Alice and Peggy at the drawing-room window. Lady Wolseley was pointing to something in the garden and, when Henry caught her gaze, she waved. As he bowed to her, he saw his
brother observing him and Hammond with a sort of bemused intensity. He did not look directly at his sister-in-law or his niece.

I
N THE DAYS
that followed, he supposed that his brother and sister-in-law and niece discussed Lady Wolseley at length among themselves, but while Alice
and Peggy seemed to have been much animated by her visit, William’s mood had darkened. Henry did not know if something more had been said by Lady Wolseley after he left the room, believing
that what he had heard might have been sufficient in itself. On her departure, as Hammond stood in the background, she had made clear, even more so than she had during her visit, her proprietorial
interest in Henry and her admiration for him. He noted that she did not include his family in the invitation to see her both in the country and in London, which she had extended to Henry. She did
not seem to think that William James and family merited any great attention, and Henry felt that this, as much as her views on the Irish question, might have irritated William profoundly.

As Christmas approached, Alice and Peggy, feeling snugly sentimental, began to plan a truly American festival, not understanding the extent to which the customs of their country coincided with
those of England. William read and slept and spoke enough not to draw too much attention to his own deeply preoccupied state. After lunch one day when Alice and Peggy were making themselves busy in
the kitchen, he asked Henry to wait in the dining room as he wished to speak to him. Henry politely closed the door behind him and sat at the table opposite William.

‘Harry, I have, I know, offered before my doleful views on your not having stayed in America, and said how much we miss you as a chronicler of our society. I think America still awaits the
novelist with eyes as sharp as yours and sympathy as wide ranging.’

‘Indeed,’ Henry said and smiled.

‘But I do not think that you have found your subject in this country,’ William said sternly. He stared towards the window as he spoke, as though he were rehearsing a speech or a
sermon. ‘I do not believe that
The Spoils of Poynton
or
The Awkward Age
or
The Other House
are worthy of your talent. The English have no spiritual life, only a material
one. The only subject here is class and it is a subject of which you know nothing. The only striving is material striving and that you know nothing of either.You do not have in your possession the
knowledge which Dickens or George Eliot or Trollope or Thackeray possessed of the mechanics of English greed. There is no yearning in England, no crying out for truth.’

‘Thank goodness for that,’ Henry said.

‘In short,’ William continued, as though Henry had not spoken, ‘I believe that the English can never be your true subject. And I believe that your style has suffered from the
strain of constantly dramatizing social insipidity. I think also that something cold and thin-blooded and oddly priggish has come to the fore in your content.’

‘I am grateful to you for your opinion,’ Henry said.

‘Harry, I am an avid reader of you, and an admirer of your work.’

‘You seem to feel that I should have remained at home,’ Henry said and lifted his hand refusing to allow William to interrupt him, ‘charting the lives of the pinched
intellectuals of Boston. Yes, that would have been a supreme subject.’

‘Harry, I find I have to read innumerable sentences you now write twice over to see what they could possibly mean. That is the long and the short of it. In this crowded and hurried reading
age you will remain unread and neglected as long as you continue to indulge in this style and these subjects.’

‘I shall,’ Henry replied, ‘as I work in the future then, strive to gratify you, but perhaps I should add that I might be even more humiliated if you should like what I do and
thereby merge it in your affection with things for which I have heard you express admiration. Things which I would sooner descend to a dishonoured grave than have written.’

‘No one is suggesting that you should lie in a dishonoured grave,’ William said, ‘but I did have a concrete proposal for you, a novel that is crying out to be written which
would confound your critics, win you a large audience and give you immense satisfaction.’

‘A novel I should write?’

‘Yes, a novel with no grand English people, but dealing with the America you know.’

‘You speak with great confidence.’

‘Yes,’ William said, ‘I have put some thought into the matter. A novel which would deal with our American history rather than the small business of English manners, bad indeed
as they are. A novel about the Puritan Fathers as told by you …’

Henry stood up and went to the window, forcing William to turn as he spoke. Henry felt that he had the advantage now by standing close to what light was left while his brother sat at the table
in the deepening shadows.

‘May I interrupt you?’ Henry asked. ‘Or is this a lecture whose finish will be marked by the ringing of a bell?’

William turned his chair around and seemed ready to continue what he had begun to say.

‘May I put an end to this conversation,’ Henry said, ‘by stating clearly to you that I view the historical novel as tainted by a fatal cheapness and if you want a statement
from me on the matter in clear American and since you wish me to pander to the crowded, hurried age as you call it, might I tell you my opinion of a novel to be written by me about the Puritan
Fathers?’

He stopped, waiting for an answer.

‘Yes, please,’ William said. ‘I cannot stop you.’

‘It would be all one word,’ Henry said. ‘One simple word. It would be all humbug!’ he said and smiled gently, almost patronizingly at his brother.

A
T SUPPER
it struck him that William had not confided in Alice that he had bravely attempted to lecture his brother on the failure of his fiction.
William’s eyes, he insisted, were sore and Alice tried to ensure that he slept more and did not read as much, while William, Henry saw, played the part of the unwilling and recalcitrant
patient. William had begun to roam uneasily around Lamb House so that Henry was never sure in what room he would find him, or indeed at what time of the day or the night he would discover his
brother restlessly creaking the floorboards in his bedroom or on the stairway.

He understood that William was attempting to fill Lamb House with his presence, using an invisible system, Henry believed, of imposing his authority, making subtle but insistent changes to meal
times, for example, and how meals were served. William began to unnerve Burgess Noakes and the other household staff. At one point, until Alice forced him to desist, he even tried to alter the
arrangement of the furniture in the drawing room and asked Burgess to remove certain ornaments from the mantelpiece which he did not like.

Henry avoided him; if he found him in the drawing room or one of the downstairs rooms, he quietly and diplomatically left him there. Alice still shadowed William. Although she seldom sat in the
same room, she was always hovering close by, seeming to be busy. Peggy, on the other hand, buried herself in books, moving from classic novel to classic novel without lifting her head from them if
she could help it. When she had finished with Jane Austen, she embarked on
The Portrait of a Lady
. Henry was surprised and amused to find that her parents felt free to express openly their
disapproval of her latest choice, but was satisfied the next day that she had persisted with the book. She was, as she told them, too far involved in it now not to finish it. She would skip any
passage which was too difficult or not suitable for her, she said. She was almost grown up, she added proudly. She looked at Henry calmly, without embarrassment, when he told her that, especially
when compared with her Emmet cousins who spoke so badly, she was the most perfect young lady of his acquaintance.