Chapter 29
This statement was very effective, but it might well have seemed at first to
do more credit to her satiric powers than to her faculty of observation.
This was the light in which it presented itself to Bernard; but, little by
little, as she amplified the text, he grew to think well of it, and at last he
was quite ready to place it, as a triumph of sagacity, on a level with that
other discovery which she had made the evening before and with regard to
which his especial errand to-day had been to congratulate her afresh. It
brought him, however, less satisfaction than it appeared to bring to his
clever companion; for, as he observed plausibly enough, Gordon was quite
out of his head, and, this being the case, of what importance was the
secret of his heart?
The secret of his heart and the condition of his head are one
and the same thing,
said Angela.
He is turned upside down
by the wretchedly false position that he has got into with his wife. She has
treated him badly, but he has treated her wrongly. They are in love with
each other, and yet they both do nothing but hide it. He is not in the least
in love with poor me — not to-day any more than he was three years ago.
He thinks he is, because he is full of sorrow and bitterness, and because
the news of our engagement has given him a shock. But that 's only a
pretext — a chance to pour out the grief and pain which have been
accumulating in his heart under a sense of his estrangement from Blanche.
He is too proud to attribute his feelings to that cause, even to himself; but
he wanted to cry out and say he was hurt, to demand justice for a wrong;
and the revelation of the state of things between you and me — which of
course strikes him as incongruous; we must allow largely for that — came to
him as a sudden opportunity. No, no,
the girl went on, with a
generous ardor in her face, following further the train of her argument,
which she appeared to find extremely attractive,
I know what you
are going to say and I deny it. I am not fanciful, or sophistical, or
irrational, and I know perfectly what I am about. Men are so stupid; it 's
only women that have real discernment. Leave me alone, and I shall do something.
Blanche is silly, yes, very silly; but she is not so bad as her
husband accused her of being, in those dreadful words which he will live
to repent of. She is wise enough to care for him, greatly, at bottom, and
to feel her little heart filled with rage and shame that he does n't appear to
care for her. If he would take her a little more seriously — it 's an immense
pity he married her
because she was silly! — she would be flattered by it,
and she would try and deserve it. No, no, no! she does n't, in reality, care
a straw for Captain Lovelock, I assure you, I promise you she does n't. A
woman can tell. She is in danger, possibly, and if her present situation, as
regards her husband, lasts, she might do something as horrid as he said.
But she would do it out of spite — not out of affection for the Captain, who
must be got immediately out of the way. She only keeps him to torment
her husband and make Gordon come back to her. She would drop him
forever to-morrow.
Angela paused a moment, reflecting, with a
kindled eye.
And she shall!
Bernard looked incredulous.
How will that be, Miss Solomon?
You shall see when you come back.
When I come back? Pray, where am I going?
You will leave Paris for a fortnight — as I promised our poor
friend.
Bernard gave an irate laugh.
My dear girl, you are ridiculous! Your promising it was
almost as childish as his asking it.
To play with a child you must be childish. Just see the effect
of this abominable passion of love, which you have been crying up to me
so! By its operation Gordon Wright, the most sensible man of our
acquaintance, is reduced to the level of infancy! If you will only go away,
I will manage him.
You certainly manage me! Pray, where shall I go?
Wherever you choose. I will write to you every day.
That will be an inducement,
said Bernard.
You
know I have never received a letter from you.
I write the most delightful ones!
Angela exclaimed; and
she succeeded in making him promise to start that night for London.
She had just done so when Mrs. Vivian presented herself,
and the
good lady was not a little astonished at being informed of his intention.
You surely are not going to give up my daughter to oblige
Mr. Wright?
she observed.
Upon my word, I feel as if I were!
said Bernard.
I will explain it, dear mamma,
said Angela.
It is
very interesting. Mr. Wright has made a most fearful scene; the state of
things between him and Blanche is dreadful.
Mrs. Vivian opened her clear eyes.
You really speak as if you liked it!
She does like it — she told Gordon so,
said Bernard.
I don't know what she is up to! Gordon has taken leave of his wits;
he wishes to put away his wife.
To put her away?
To repudiate her, as the historians say!
To repudiate little Blanche!
murmured Mrs. Vivian, as
if she were struck with the incongruity of the operation.
I mean to keep them together,
said Angela, with a firm
decision.
Her mother looked at her with admiration.
My dear daughter, I will assist you.
The two ladies had such an air of mysterious competence to the task
they had undertaken that it seemed to Bernard that nothing was left to him
but to retire into temporary exile. He accordingly betook himself to
London, where he had social resources which would, perhaps, make exile
endurable. He found himself, however, little disposed to avail himself of
these resources, and he treated himself to no pleasures but those of
memory and expectation. He ached with a sense of his absence from Mrs.
Vivian's deeply familiar sky-parlor, which seemed to him for the time the
most sacred spot on earth — if on earth it could be called — and he consigned
to those generous postal receptacles which ornament with their brilliant
hue the London street-corners, an inordinate number of the most
voluminous epistles that had ever been dropped into them. He took long
walks, alone, and thought all the way of Angela, to whom, it seemed to
him, that the character of ministering angel was extremely becoming. She
was faithful to her promise of writing to him every day, and she was an
angel who wielded — so at least Bernard thought, and he
was particular
about letters — a very ingenious pen. Of course she had only one topic — the
success of her operations with regard to Gordon.
Mamma has
undertaken Blanche,
she wrote,
and I am devoting myself to
Mr. W. It is really very interesting.
She told Bernard all about it in
detail, and he also found it interesting; doubly so, indeed, for it must be
confessed that the charming figure of the mistress of his affections
attempting to heal a great social breach with her light and delicate hands,
divided his attention pretty equally with the distracted, the distorted, the
almost ludicrous, image of his old friend.
Angela wrote that Gordon had come back to see her the day after
his first visit, and had seemed greatly troubled on learning that Bernard
had taken himself off.
It was because you insisted on it, of
course,
he said;
it was not from feeling the justice of it
himself.
I told him,
said Angela, in her letter,
that I had made a point of it, but that we certainly ought to give you
a little credit for it. But I could n't insist upon this, for fear of sounding a
wrong note and exciting afresh what I suppose he would be pleased to
term his jealousy. He asked me where you had gone, and when I told
him — `Ah, how he must hate me!' he exclaimed. `There you are quite
wrong,' I answered. `He feels as kindly to you as — as I do.' He looked as
if he by no means believed this; but, indeed, he looks as if he believed
nothing at all. He is quite upset and demoralized. He stayed half an hour
and paid me his visit — trying hard to `please' me again! Poor man, he is in
a charming state to please the fair sex! But if he does n't please me, he
interests me more and more; I make bold to say that to you. You would
have said it would be very awkward; but, strangely enough, I found it
very easy. I suppose it is because I am so interested. Very likely it was
awkward for him, poor fellow, for I can certify that he was not a whit
happier at the end of his half-hour, in spite of the privilege he had
enjoyed. He said nothing more about you, and we talked of Paris and New
York, of Baden and Rome. Imagine the situation! I shall make no
resistance whatever to it; I shall simply let him perceive that conversing
with me on these topics does not make him feel a bit more comfortable,
and that he must look elsewhere for a remedy. I said not a word about
Blanche.
She spoke of Blanche, however, the next time.
He came again
this afternoon,
she said in her second letter,
and he wore
exactly the same face as yesterday — namely, a very unhappy one. If I were
not entirely too wise to believe his account of himself, I might suppose
that he was unhappy because Blanche shows symptoms of not taking
flight. She has been with us a great deal — she has no idea what is going
on — and I can't honestly say that she chatters any less than usual. But she
is greatly interested in certain shops that she is buying out, and especially
in her visits to her tailor. Mamma has proposed to her — in view of your
absence — to come and stay with us, and she does n't seem afraid of the
idea. I told her husband to-day that we had asked her, and that we hoped
he had no objection. `None whatever; but she won't come.' `On the
contrary, she says she will.' `She will pretend to, up to the last minute;
and then she will find a pretext for backing out.' `Decidedly, you think
very ill of her,' I said. `She hates me,' he answered, looking at me
strangely. `You say that of every one,' I said. `Yesterday you said it of
Bernard.' `Ah, for him there would be more reason!' he exclaimed. `I
won't attempt to answer for Bernard,' I went on, `but I will answer for
Blanche. Your idea of her hating you is a miserable delusion. She cares
for you more than for any one in the world. You only misunderstand each
other, and with a little good will on both sides you can easily get out of
your tangle.' But he would n't listen to me; he stopped me short. I saw I
should excite him if I insisted; so I dropped the subject. But it is not for
long; he shall listen to me.
Later she wrote that Blanche had in fact
backed out,
and would not come to stay with them, having given as an excuse that she
was perpetually trying on dresses, and that at Mrs. Vivian's she should be
at an inconvenient distance from the temple of these sacred rites, and the
high priest who conducted the worship.
But we see her every
day,
said Angela,
and mamma is constantly with her. She
likes mamma better than me. Mamma listens to her a great deal and talks
to her a little — I can't do either when we are alone. I don't know what she
says — I mean what mamma says; what Blanche says I know as well as if I
heard it. We see nothing of Captain Lovelock, and mamma tells me she
has not spoken of him for
two days. She thinks this is a better symptom,
but I am not so sure. Poor Mr. Wright treats it as a great triumph that
Blanche should behave as he foretold. He is welcome to the comfort he
can get out of this, for he certainly gets none from anything else. The
society of your correspondent is not that balm to his spirit which he
appeared to expect, and this in spite of the fact that I have been as gentle
and kind with him as I know how to be. He is very silent — he sometimes
sits for ten minutes without speaking; I assure you it is n't amusing.
Sometimes he looks at me as if he were going to break out with that crazy
idea to which he treated me the other day. But he says nothing, and then I
see that he is not thinking of me — he is simply thinking of Blanche. The
more he thinks of her the better.
My dear Bernard,
she began on another occasion,
I hope you are not dying of ennui, etc. Over here things are going
so-so. He asked me yesterday to go with him to the Louvre, and we
walked about among the pictures for half an hour. Mamma thinks it a very
strange sort of thing for me to be doing, and though she delights, of all
things, in a good cause, she is not sure that this cause is good enough to
justify the means. I admit that the means are very singular, and, as far as
the Louvre is concerned, they were not successful. We sat and looked for
a quarter of an hour at the great Venus who has lost her arms, and he said
never a word. I think he does n't know what to say. Before we separated
he asked me if I heard from you. `Oh, yes,' I said, `every day.' `And
does he speak of me?' `Never!' I answered; and I think he looked
disappointed.
Bernard had, in fact, in writing to Angela, scarcely
mentioned his name.
He had not been here for two days,
she
continued, at the end of a week;
but last evening, very late — too late
for a visitor — he came in. Mamma had left the drawing-room, and I was
sitting alone; I immediately saw that we had reached a crisis. I thought at
first he was going to tell me that Blanche had carried out his prediction;
but I presently saw that this was not where the shoe pinched; and, besides,
I knew that mamma was watching her too closely. `How can I have ever
been such a dull-souled idiot?' he broke out, as soon as he had got into
the room. `I like to hear you say that,' I said, `because it does n't seem to
me that
you have been at all wise.' `You are cleverness, kindness, tact, in
the most perfect form!' he went on. As a veracious historian I am bound
to tell you that he paid me a bushel of compliments, and thanked me in
the most flattering terms for my having let him bore me so for a week.
`You have not bored me,' I said; `you have interested me.' `Yes,' he
cried, `as a curious case of monomania. It 's a part of your kindness to
say that; but I know I have bored you to death; and the end of it all is that
you despise me. You can't help despising me; I despise myself. I used to
think that I was a man, but I have given that up; I am a poor creature! I
used to think I could take things quietly and bear them bravely. But I
can't! If it were not for very shame I could sit here and cry to you.'
`Don't mind me,' I said; `you know it is a part of our agreement that I
was not to be critical.' `Our agreement?' he repeated, vaguely. `I see you
have forgotten it,' I answered; `but it does n't in the least matter; it is not
of that I wish to talk to you. All the more that it has n't done you a
particle of good. I have been extremely nice with you for a week; but you
are just as unhappy now as you were at the beginning. Indeed, I think you
are rather worse.' `Heaven forgive me, Miss Vivian, I believe I am!' he
cried. `Heaven will easily forgive you; you are on the wrong road. To
catch up with your happiness, which has been running away from you,
you must take another; you must travel in the same direction as Blanche;
you must not separate yourself from your wife.' At the sound of Blanche's
name he jumped up and took his usual tone; he knew all about his wife,
and needed no information. But I made him sit down again, and I made
him listen to me. I made him listen for half an hour, and at the end of the
time he was interested. He had all the appearance of it; he sat gazing at
me, and at last the tears came into his eyes. I believe I had a moment of
eloquence. I don't know what I said, nor how I said it, to what point it
would bear examination, nor how, if you had been there, it would seem to
you, as a disinterested critic, to hang together; but I know that after a
while there were tears in my own eyes. I begged him not to give up
Blanche; I assured him that she is not so foolish as she seems; that she is
a very delicate little creature to handle, and that, in reality, whatever she
does, she is thinking only of
him. He had been all goodness and kindness
to her, I knew that; but he had not, from the first, been able to conceal
from her that he regarded her chiefly as a pretty kitten. She wished to be
more than that, and she took refuge in flirting, simply to excite his
jealousy and make him feel strongly about her. He has felt strongly, and
he was feeling strongly now; he was feeling passionately — that was my
whole contention. But he had perhaps never made it plain to those rather
near-sighted little mental eyes of hers, and he had let her suppose
something that could n't fail to rankle in her mind and torment it. `You
have let her suppose,' I said, `that you were thinking of me, and the poor
girl has been jealous of me. I know it, but from nothing she herself has
said. She has said nothing; she has been too proud and too considerate. If
you don't think that 's to her honor, I do. She has had a chance every day
for a week, but she has treated me without a grain of spite. I have
appreciated it, I have understood it, and it has touched me very much. It
ought to touch you, Mr. Wright. When she heard I was engaged to Mr.
Longueville, it gave her an immense relief. And yet, at the same moment
you were protesting, and denouncing, and saying those horrible things
about her! I know how she appears — she likes admiration. But the
admiration in the world which she would most delight in just now would
be yours. She plays with Captain Lovelock as a child does with a wooden
harlequin, she pulls a string and he throws up his arms and legs. She has
about as much intention of eloping with him as a little girl might have of
eloping with a pasteboard Jim Crow. If you were to have a frank
explanation with her, Blanche would very soon throw Jim Crow out of the
window. I very humbly entreat you to cease thinking of me. I don't know
what wrong you have ever done me, or what kindness I have ever done
you, that you should feel obliged to trouble your head about me. You see
all I am — I tell you now. I am nothing in the least remarkable. As for your
thinking ill of me at Baden, I never knew it nor cared about it. If it had
been so, you see how I should have got over it. Dear Mr. Wright, we
might be such good friends, if you would only believe me. She 's so
pretty, so charming, so universally admired. You said just now you had
bored me, but it 's nothing — in spite of all the compliments you have
paid me — to the way I have bored you. If
she could only know it — that I have
bored you! Let her see for half an hour that I am out of your mind — the
rest will take care of itself. She might so easily have made a quarrel with
me. The way she has behaved to me is one of the prettiest things I have
ever seen, and you shall see the way I shall always behave to her! Don't
think it necessary to say out of politeness that I have not bored you; it is
not in the least necessary. You know perfectly well that you are
disappointed in the charm of my society. And I have done my best, too. I
can honestly affirm that!' For some time he said nothing, and then he
remarked that I was very clever, but he did n't see a word of sense in
what I said. `It only proves,' I said, `that the merit of my conversation is
smaller than you had taken it into your head to fancy. But I have done you
good, all the same. Don't contradict me; you don't know yet; and it 's too
late for us to argue about it. You will tell me to-morrow.'