The Portable Henry James (25 page)

“I don’t quarrel,” Doctor Hugh replied. “But I don’t get on with silly women.” Presently he added: “You seem very much alone.”

“That often happens at my age. I’ve outlived, I’ve lost by the way.”

Doctor Hugh hesitated; then surmounting a soft scruple: “Whom have you lost?”

“Every one.”

“Ah, no,” the young man murmured, laying a hand on his arm.

“I once had a wife—I once had a son. My wife died when my child was born, and my boy, at school, was carried off by typhoid.”

“I wish I’d been there!” said Doctor Hugh simply.

“Well—if you’re here!” Dencombe answered, with a smile that, in spite of dimness, showed how much he liked to be sure of his companion’s whereabouts.

“You talk strangely of your age. You’re not old.”

“Hypocrite—so early!”

“I speak physiologically.”

“That’s the way I’ve been speaking for the last five years, and it’s exactly what I’ve been saying to myself. It isn’t till we
are
old that we begin to tell ourselves we’re not!”

“Yet I know I myself am young,” Doctor Hugh declared.

“Not so well as I!” laughed his patient, whose visitor indeed would have established the truth in question by the honesty with which he changed the point of view, remarking that it must be one of the charms of age—at any rate in the case of high distinction—to feel that one has laboured and achieved. Doctor Hugh employed the common phrase about earning one’s rest, and it made poor Dencombe, for an instant, almost angry. He recovered himself, however, to explain, lucidly enough, that if he, ungraciously, knew nothing of such a balm, it was doubtless because he had wasted inestimable years. He had followed literature from the first, but he had taken a lifetime to get alongside of her. Only to-day, at last, had he begun to
see,
so that what he had hitherto done was a movement without a direction. He had ripened too late and was so clumsily constituted that he had had to teach himself by mistakes.

“I prefer your flowers, then, to other people’s fruit, and your mistakes to other people’s successes,” said gallant Doctor Hugh. “It’s for your mistakes I admire you.”

“You’re happy—you don’t know,” Dencombe answered.

Looking at his watch the young man had got up; he named the hour of the afternoon at which he would return. Dencombe warned him against committing himself too deeply, and expressed again all his dread of making him neglect the Countess—perhaps incur her displeasure.

“I want to be like you—I want to learn by mistakes!” Doctor Hugh laughed.

“Take care you don’t make too grave a one! But do come back,” Dencombe added, with the glimmer of a new idea.

“You should have had more vanity!” Doctor Hugh spoke as if he knew the exact amount required to make a man of letters normal.

“No, no—I only should have had more time. I want another go.”

“Another go?”

“I want an extension.”

“An extension?” Again Doctor Hugh repeated Dencombe’s words, with which he seemed to have been struck.

“Don’t you know?—I want to what they call ‘live.’ ”

The young man, for good-bye, had taken his hand, which closed with a certain force. They looked at each other hard a moment. “You
will
live,” said Doctor Hugh.

“Don’t be superficial. It’s too serious!”

“You
shall
live!” Dencombe’s visitor declared, turning pale.

“Ah, that’s better!” And as he retired the invalid, with a troubled laugh, sank gratefully back.

All that day and all the following night he wondered if it mightn’t be arranged. His doctor came again, his servant was attentive, but it was to his confident young friend that he found himself mentally appealing. His collapse on the cliff was plausibly explained, and his liberation, on a better basis, promised for the morrow; meanwhile, however, the intensity of his meditations kept him tranquil and made him indifferent. The idea that occupied him was none the less absorbing because it was a morbid fancy. Here was a clever son of the age, ingenious and ardent, who happened to have set him up for connoisseurs to worship. This servant of his altar had all the new learning in science and all the old reverence in faith; wouldn’t he therefore put his knowledge at the disposal of his sympathy, his craft at the disposal of his love? Couldn’t he be trusted to invent a remedy for a poor artist to whose art he had paid a tribute? If he couldn’t, the alternative was hard: Dencombe would have to surrender to silence, unvindicated and undivined. The rest of the day and all the next he toyed in secret with this sweet futility. Who would work the miracle for him but the young man who could combine such lucidity with such passion? He thought of the fairy-tales of science and charmed himself into forgetting that he looked for a magic that was not of this world. Doctor Hugh was an apparition, and that placed him above the law. He came and went while his patient, who sat up, followed him with supplicating eyes. The interest of knowing the great author had made the young man begin “The Middle Years” afresh, and would help him to find a deeper meaning in its pages. Dencombe had told him what he “tried for”; with all his intelligence, on a first perusal, Doctor Hugh had failed to guess it. The baffled celebrity wondered then who in the world
would
guess it: he was amused once more at the fine, full way with which an intention could be missed. Yet he wouldn’t rail at the general mind to-day—consoling as that ever had been: the revelation of his own slowness had seemed to make all stupidity sacred.

Doctor Hugh, after a little, was visibly worried, confessing, on inquiry, to a source of embarrassment at home. “Stick to the Countess—don’t mind me,” Dencombe said, repeatedly; for his companion was frank enough about the large lady’s attitude. She was so jealous that she had fallen ill—she resented such a breach of allegiance. She paid so much for his fidelity that she must have it all: she refused him the right to other sympathies, charged him with scheming to make her die alone, for it was needless to point out how little Miss Vernham was a resource in trouble. When Doctor Hugh mentioned that the Countess would already have left Bournemouth if he hadn’t kept her in bed, poor Dencombe held his arm tighter and said with decision: “Take her straight away.” They had gone out together, walking back to the sheltered nook in which, the other day, they had met. The young man, who had given his companion a personal support, declared with emphasis that his conscience was clear—he could ride two horses at once. Didn’t he dream, for his future, of a time when he should have to ride five hundred? Longing equally for virtue, Dencombe replied that in that golden age no patient would pretend to have contracted with him for his whole attention. On the part of the Countess was not such an avidity lawful? Doctor Hugh denied it, said there was no contract but only a free understanding, and that a sordid servitude was impossible to a generous spirit; he liked moreover to talk about art, and that was the subject on which, this time, as they sat together on the sunny bench, he tried most to engage the author of “The Middle Years.” Dencombe, soaring again a little on the weak wings of convalescence and still haunted by that happy notion of an organised rescue, found another strain of eloquence to plead the cause of a certain splendid “last manner,” the very citadel, as it would prove, of his reputation, the stronghold into which his real treasure would be gathered. While his listener gave up the morning and the great still sea appeared to wait, he had a wonderful explanatory hour. Even for himself he was inspired as he told of what his treasure would consist—the precious metals he would dig from the mine, the jewels rare, strings of pearls, he would hang between the columns of his temple. He was wonderful for himself, so thick his convictions crowded; but he was still more wonderful for Doctor Hugh, who assured him, none the less, that the very pages he had just published were already encrusted with gems. The young man, however, panted for the combinations to come, and, before the face of the beautiful day, renewed to Dencombe his guarantee that his profession would hold itself responsible for such a life. Then he suddenly clapped his hand upon his watch-pocket and asked leave to absent himself for half an hour. Dencombe waited there for his return, but was at last recalled to the actual by the fall of a shadow across the ground. The shadow darkened into that of Miss Vernham, the young lady in attendance on the Countess; whom Dencombe, recognising her, perceived so clearly to have come to speak to him that he rose from his bench to acknowledge the civility. Miss Vernham indeed proved not particularly civil; she looked strangely agitated, and her type was now unmistakable.

“Excuse me if I inquire,” she said, “whether it’s too much to hope that you may be induced to leave Doctor Hugh alone.” Then, before Dencombe, greatly disconcerted, could protest: “You ought to be informed that you stand in his light; that you may do him a terrible injury.”

“Do you mean by causing the Countess to dispense with his services?”

“By causing her to disinherit him.” Dencombe started at this, and Miss Vernham pursued, in the gratification of seeing she could produce an impression: “It has depended on himself to come into something very handsome. He has had a magnificent prospect, but I think you’ve succeeded in spoiling it.”

“Not intentionally, I assure you. Is there no hope the accident may be repaired?” Dencombe asked.

“She was ready to do anything for him. She takes great fancies, she lets herself go—it’s her way. She has no relations, she’s free to dispose of her money, and she’s very ill.”

“I’m very sorry to hear it,” Dencombe stammered.

“Wouldn’t it be possible for you to leave Bournemouth? That’s what I’ve come to ask you.”

Poor Dencombe sank down on his bench. “I’m very ill myself, but I’ll try!”

Miss Vernham still stood there with her colourless eyes and the brutality of her good conscience. “Before it’s too late, please!” she said; and with this she turned her back, in order, quickly, as if it had been a business to which she could spare but a precious moment, to pass out of his sight.

Oh, yes, after this Dencombe was certainly very ill. Miss Vernham had upset him with her rough, fierce news; it was the sharpest shock to him to discover what was at stake for a penniless young man of fine parts. He sat trembling on his bench, staring at the waste of waters, feeling sick with the directness of the blow. He was indeed too weak, too unsteady, too alarmed; but he would make the effort to get away, for he couldn’t accept the guilt of interference, and his honour was really involved. He would hobble home, at any rate, and then he would think what was to be done. He made his way back to the hotel and, as he went, had a characteristic vision of Miss Vernham’s great motive. The Countess hated women, of course; Dencombe was lucid about that; so the hungry pianist had no personal hopes and could only console herself with the bold conception of helping Doctor Hugh in order either to marry him after he should get his money or to induce him to recognise her title to compensation and buy her off. If she had befriended him at a fruitful crisis he would really, as a man of delicacy, and she knew what to think of that point, have to reckon with her.

At the hotel Dencombe’s servant insisted on his going back to bed. The invalid had talked about catching a train and had begun with orders to pack; after which his humming nerves had yielded to a sense of sickness. He consented to see his physician, who immediately was sent for, but he wished it to be understood that his door was irrevocably closed to Doctor Hugh. He had his plan, which was so fine that he rejoiced in it after getting back to bed. Doctor Hugh, suddenly finding himself snubbed without mercy, would, in natural disgust and to the joy of Miss Vernham, renew his allegiance to the Countess. When his physician arrived Dencombe learned that he was feverish and that this was very wrong: he was to cultivate calmness and try, if possible, not to think. For the rest of the day he wooed stupidity; but there was an ache that kept him sentient, the probable sacrifice of his “extension,” the limit of his course. His medical adviser was anything but pleased; his successive relapses were ominous. He charged this personage to put out a strong hand and take Doctor Hugh off his mind—it would contribute so much to his being quiet. The agitating name, in his room, was not mentioned again, but his security was a smothered fear, and it was not confirmed by the receipt, at ten o’clock that evening, of a telegram which his servant opened and read for him and to which, with an address in London, the signature of Miss Vernham was attached. “Beseech you to use all influence to make our friend join us here in the morning. Countess much the worse for dreadful journey, but everything may still be saved.” The two ladies had gathered themselves up and had been capable in the afternoon of a spiteful revolution. They had started for the capital, and if the elder one, as Miss Vernham had announced, was very ill, she had wished to make it clear that she was proportionately reckless. Poor Dencombe, who was not reckless and who only desired that everything should indeed be “saved,” sent this missive straight off to the young man’s lodging and had on the morrow the pleasure of knowing that he had quitted Bournemouth by an early train.

Two days later he pressed in with a copy of a literary journal in his hand. He had returned because he was anxious and for the pleasure of flourishing the great review of “The Middle Years.” Here at least was something adequate—it rose to the occasion; it was an acclamation, a reparation, a critical attempt to place the author in the niche he had fairly won. Dencombe accepted and submitted; he made neither objection nor inquiry, for old complications had returned and he had had two atrocious days. He was convinced not only that he should never again leave his bed, so that his young friend might pardonably remain, but that the demand he should make on the patience of beholders would be very moderate indeed. Doctor Hugh had been to town, and he tried to find in his eyes some confession that the Countess was pacified and his legacy clinched; but all he could see there was the light of his juvenile joy in two or three of the phrases of the newspaper. Dencombe couldn’t read them, but when his visitor had insisted on repeating them more than once he was able to shake an unintoxicated head. “Ah, no; but they would have been true of what I
could
have done!”