Chapter Chapter 20 · Chapter XX

Some fortnight after this Madame Merle drove up in a hansom cab to

the house in Winchester Square. As she descended from her vehicle she

observed, suspended between the dining-room windows, a large, neat,

wooden tablet, on whose fresh black ground were inscribed in white paint

the words--“This noble freehold mansion to be sold”; with the name of

the agent to whom application should be made. “They certainly lose no

time,” said the visitor as, after sounding the big brass knocker, she

waited to be admitted; “it’s a practical country!” And within the house,

as she ascended to the drawing-room, she perceived numerous signs of

abdication; pictures removed from the walls and placed upon sofas,

windows undraped and floors laid bare. Mrs. Touchett presently received

her and intimated in a few words that condolences might be taken for

granted.

“I know what you’re going to say--he was a very good man. But I know it

better than any one, because I gave him more chance to show it. In that

I think I was a good wife.” Mrs. Touchett added that at the end her

husband apparently recognised this fact. “He has treated me most

liberally,” she said; “I won’t say more liberally than I expected,

because I didn’t expect. You know that as a general thing I don’t

expect. But he chose, I presume, to recognise the fact that though I

lived much abroad and mingled--you may say freely--in foreign life, I

never exhibited the smallest preference for any one else.”

“For any one but yourself,” Madame Merle mentally observed; but the

reflexion was perfectly inaudible.

“I never sacrificed my husband to another,” Mrs. Touchett continued with

her stout curtness.

“Oh no,” thought Madame Merle; “you never did anything for another!”

There was a certain cynicism in these mute comments which demands an

explanation; the more so as they are not in accord either with the

view--somewhat superficial perhaps--that we have hitherto enjoyed of

Madame Merle’s character or with the literal facts of Mrs. Touchett’s

history; the more so, too, as Madame Merle had a well-founded conviction

that her friend’s last remark was not in the least to be construed as a

side-thrust at herself. The truth is that the moment she had crossed the

threshold she received an impression that Mr. Touchett’s death had had

subtle consequences and that these consequences had been profitable to

a little circle of persons among whom she was not numbered. Of course

it was an event which would naturally have consequences; her imagination

had more than once rested upon this fact during her stay at Gardencourt.

But it had been one thing to foresee such a matter mentally and another

to stand among its massive records. The idea of a distribution of

property--she would almost have said of spoils--just now pressed upon

her senses and irritated her with a sense of exclusion. I am far from

wishing to picture her as one of the hungry mouths or envious hearts of

the general herd, but we have already learned of her having desires

that had never been satisfied. If she had been questioned, she would

of course have admitted--with a fine proud smile--that she had not the

faintest claim to a share in Mr. Touchett’s relics. “There was never

anything in the world between us,” she would have said. “There was never

that, poor man!”--with a fillip of her thumb and her third finger. I

hasten to add, moreover, that if she couldn’t at the present moment keep

from quite perversely yearning she was careful not to betray herself.

She had after all as much sympathy for Mrs. Touchett’s gains as for her

losses.

“He has left me this house,” the newly-made widow said; “but of course

I shall not live in it; I’ve a much better one in Florence. The will

was opened only three days since, but I’ve already offered the house for

sale. I’ve also a share in the bank; but I don’t yet understand if I’m

obliged to leave it there. If not I shall certainly take it out. Ralph,

of course, has Gardencourt; but I’m not sure that he’ll have means to

keep up the place. He’s naturally left very well off, but his father has

given away an immense deal of money; there are bequests to a string of

third cousins in Vermont. Ralph, however, is very fond of Gardencourt

and would be quite capable of living there--in summer--with a

maid-of-all-work and a gardener’s boy. There’s one remarkable clause

in my husband’s will,” Mrs. Touchett added. “He has left my niece a

fortune.”

“A fortune!” Madame Merle softly repeated.

“Isabel steps into something like seventy thousand pounds.” Madame

Merle’s hands were clasped in her lap; at this she raised them, still

clasped, and held them a moment against her bosom while her eyes, a

little dilated, fixed themselves on those of her friend. “Ah,” she

cried, “the clever creature!”

Mrs. Touchett gave her a quick look. “What do you mean by that?”

For an instant Madame Merle’s colour rose and she dropped her eyes. “It

certainly is clever to achieve such results--without an effort!”

“There assuredly was no effort. Don’t call it an achievement.”

Madame Merle was seldom guilty of the awkwardness of retracting what she

had said; her wisdom was shown rather in maintaining it and placing it

in a favourable light. “My dear friend, Isabel would certainly not

have had seventy thousand pounds left her if she had not been the most

charming girl in the world. Her charm includes great cleverness.”

“She never dreamed, I’m sure, of my husband’s doing anything for her;

and I never dreamed of it either, for he never spoke to me of his

intention,” Mrs. Touchett said. “She had no claim upon him whatever; it

was no great recommendation to him that she was my niece. Whatever she

achieved she achieved unconsciously.”

“Ah,” rejoined Madame Merle, “those are the greatest strokes!” Mrs.

Touchett reserved her opinion. “The girl’s fortunate; I don’t deny that.

But for the present she’s simply stupefied.”

“Do you mean that she doesn’t know what to do with the money?”

“That, I think, she has hardly considered. She doesn’t know what to

think about the matter at all. It has been as if a big gun were suddenly

fired off behind her; she’s feeling herself to see if she be hurt. It’s

but three days since she received a visit from the principal executor,

who came in person, very gallantly, to notify her. He told me afterwards

that when he had made his little speech she suddenly burst into tears.

The money’s to remain in the affairs of the bank, and she’s to draw the

interest.”

Madame Merle shook her head with a wise and now quite benignant smile.

“How very delicious! After she has done that two or three times she’ll

get used to it.” Then after a silence, “What does your son think of it?”

she abruptly asked.

“He left England before the will was read--used up by his fatigue and

anxiety and hurrying off to the south. He’s on his way to the Riviera

and I’ve not yet heard from him. But it’s not likely he’ll ever object

to anything done by his father.”

“Didn’t you say his own share had been cut down?”

“Only at his wish. I know that he urged his father to do something for

the people in America. He’s not in the least addicted to looking after

number one.”

“It depends upon whom he regards as number one!” said Madame Merle. And

she remained thoughtful a moment, her eyes bent on the floor.

“Am I not to see your happy niece?” she asked at last as she raised

them.

“You may see her; but you’ll not be struck with her being happy. She

has looked as solemn, these three days, as a Cimabue Madonna!” And Mrs.

Touchett rang for a servant.

Isabel came in shortly after the footman had been sent to call her; and

Madame Merle thought, as she appeared, that Mrs. Touchett’s comparison

had its force. The girl was pale and grave--an effect not mitigated by

her deeper mourning; but the smile of her brightest moments came into

her face as she saw Madame Merle, who went forward, laid her hand on our

heroine’s shoulder and, after looking at her a moment, kissed her as if

she were returning the kiss she had received from her at Gardencourt.

This was the only allusion the visitor, in her great good taste, made

for the present to her young friend’s inheritance.

Mrs. Touchett had no purpose of awaiting in London the sale of her

house. After selecting from among its furniture the objects she wished

to transport to her other abode, she left the rest of its contents to be

disposed of by the auctioneer and took her departure for the Continent.

She was of course accompanied on this journey by her niece, who now had

plenty of leisure to measure and weigh and otherwise handle the windfall

on which Madame Merle had covertly congratulated her. Isabel thought

very often of the fact of her accession of means, looking at it in a

dozen different lights; but we shall not now attempt to follow her train

of thought or to explain exactly why her new consciousness was at first

oppressive. This failure to rise to immediate joy was indeed but brief;

the girl presently made up her mind that to be rich was a virtue because

it was to be able to do, and that to do could only be sweet. It was

the graceful contrary of the stupid side of weakness--especially the

feminine variety. To be weak was, for a delicate young person, rather

graceful, but, after all, as Isabel said to herself, there was a larger

grace than that. Just now, it is true, there was not much to do--once

she had sent off a cheque to Lily and another to poor Edith; but she was

thankful for the quiet months which her mourning robes and her aunt’s

fresh widowhood compelled them to spend together. The acquisition of

power made her serious; she scrutinised her power with a kind of tender

ferocity, but was not eager to exercise it. She began to do so during

a stay of some weeks which she eventually made with her aunt in Paris,

though in ways that will inevitably present themselves as trivial. They

were the ways most naturally imposed in a city in which the shops are

the admiration of the world, and that were prescribed unreservedly by

the guidance of Mrs. Touchett, who took a rigidly practical view of the

transformation of her niece from a poor girl to a rich one. “Now that

you’re a young woman of fortune you must know how to play the part--I

mean to play it well,” she said to Isabel once for all; and she added

that the girl’s first duty was to have everything handsome. “You don’t

know how to take care of your things, but you must learn,” she went on;

this was Isabel’s second duty. Isabel submitted, but for the present

her imagination was not kindled; she longed for opportunities, but these

were not the opportunities she meant.

Mrs. Touchett rarely changed her plans, and, having intended before her

husband’s death to spend a part of the winter in Paris, saw no reason to

deprive herself--still less to deprive her companion--of this advantage.

Though they would live in great retirement she might still present

her niece, informally, to the little circle of her fellow countrymen

dwelling upon the skirts of the Champs Elysées. With many of these

amiable colonists Mrs. Touchett was intimate; she shared their

expatriation, their convictions, their pastimes, their ennui. Isabel

saw them arrive with a good deal of assiduity at her aunt’s hotel, and

pronounced on them with a trenchancy doubtless to be accounted for by

the temporary exaltation of her sense of human duty. She made up her

mind that their lives were, though luxurious, inane, and incurred some

disfavour by expressing this view on bright Sunday afternoons, when the

American absentees were engaged in calling on each other. Though her

listeners passed for people kept exemplarily genial by their cooks and

dressmakers, two or three of them thought her cleverness, which was

generally admitted, inferior to that of the new theatrical pieces. “You

all live here this way, but what does it lead to?” she was pleased to

ask. “It doesn’t seem to lead to anything, and I should think you’d get

very tired of it.”

Mrs. Touchett thought the question worthy of Henrietta Stackpole. The

two ladies had found Henrietta in Paris, and Isabel constantly saw her;

so that Mrs. Touchett had some reason for saying to herself that if her

niece were not clever enough to originate almost anything, she might be

suspected of having borrowed that style of remark from her journalistic

friend. The first occasion on which Isabel had spoken was that of

a visit paid by the two ladies to Mrs. Luce, an old friend of Mrs.

Touchett’s and the only person in Paris she now went to see. Mrs. Luce

had been living in Paris since the days of Louis Philippe; she used to

say jocosely that she was one of the generation of 1830--a joke of

which the point was not always taken. When it failed, Mrs. Luce used to

explain--“Oh yes, I’m one of the romantics;” her French had never

become quite perfect. She was always at home on Sunday afternoons and

surrounded by sympathetic compatriots, usually the same. In fact she

was at home at all times, and reproduced with wondrous truth in her

well-cushioned little corner of the brilliant city, the domestic tone of

her native Baltimore. This reduced Mr. Luce, her worthy husband, a tall,

lean, grizzled, well-brushed gentleman who wore a gold eye-glass and

carried his hat a little too much on the back of his head, to mere

platonic praise of the “distractions” of Paris--they were his great

word--since you would never have guessed from what cares he escaped to

them. One of them was that he went every day to the American banker’s,

where he found a post-office that was almost as sociable and colloquial

an institution as in an American country town. He passed an hour (in

fine weather) in a chair in the Champs Elysées, and he dined uncommonly

well at his own table, seated above a waxed floor which it was Mrs.

Luce’s happiness to believe had a finer polish than any other in the

French capital. Occasionally he dined with a friend or two at the Café

Anglais, where his talent for ordering a dinner was a source of felicity

to his companions and an object of admiration even to the headwaiter

of the establishment. These were his only known pastimes, but they had

beguiled his hours for upwards of half a century, and they doubtless

justified his frequent declaration that there was no place like Paris.

In no other place, on these terms, could Mr. Luce flatter himself that

he was enjoying life. There was nothing like Paris, but it must be

confessed that Mr. Luce thought less highly of this scene of his

dissipations than in earlier days. In the list of his resources his

political reflections should not be omitted, for they were doubtless the

animating principle of many hours that superficially seemed vacant.

Like many of his fellow colonists Mr. Luce was a high--or rather a

deep--conservative, and gave no countenance to the government lately

established in France. He had no faith in its duration and would assure

you from year to year that its end was close at hand. “They want to be

kept down, sir, to be kept down; nothing but the strong hand--the iron

heel--will do for them,” he would frequently say of the French people;

and his ideal of a fine showy clever rule was that of the superseded

Empire. “Paris is much less attractive than in the days of the Emperor;

_he_ knew how to make a city pleasant,” Mr. Luce had often remarked to

Mrs. Touchett, who was quite of his own way of thinking and wished to

know what one had crossed that odious Atlantic for but to get away from

republics.

“Why, madam, sitting in the Champs Elysées, opposite to the Palace of

Industry, I’ve seen the court-carriages from the Tuileries pass up and

down as many as seven times a day. I remember one occasion when they

went as high as nine. What do you see now? It’s no use talking, the

style’s all gone. Napoleon knew what the French people want, and

there’ll be a dark cloud over Paris, our Paris, till they get the Empire

back again.”

Among Mrs. Luce’s visitors on Sunday afternoons was a young man with

whom Isabel had had a good deal of conversation and whom she found

full of valuable knowledge. Mr. Edward Rosier--Ned Rosier as he was

called--was native to New York and had been brought up in Paris, living

there under the eye of his father who, as it happened, had been an early

and intimate friend of the late Mr. Archer. Edward Rosier remembered

Isabel as a little girl; it had been his father who came to the rescue

of the small Archers at the inn at Neufchatel (he was travelling that

way with the boy and had stopped at the hotel by chance), after their

_bonne_ had gone off with the Russian prince and when Mr. Archer’s

whereabouts remained for some days a mystery. Isabel remembered

perfectly the neat little male child whose hair smelt of a delicious

cosmetic and who had a _bonne_ all his own, warranted to lose sight of him

under no provocation. Isabel took a walk with the pair beside the lake

and thought little Edward as pretty as an angel--a comparison by no

means conventional in her mind, for she had a very definite conception

of a type of features which she supposed to be angelic and which her

new friend perfectly illustrated. A small pink face surmounted by a blue

velvet bonnet and set off by a stiff embroidered collar had become the

countenance of her childish dreams; and she had firmly believed for some

time afterwards that the heavenly hosts conversed among themselves in

a queer little dialect of French-English, expressing the properest

sentiments, as when Edward told her that he was “defended” by his _bonne_

to go near the edge of the lake, and that one must always obey to one’s

_bonne_. Ned Rosier’s English had improved; at least it exhibited in a

less degree the French variation. His father was dead and his _bonne_

dismissed, but the young man still conformed to the spirit of their

teaching--he never went to the edge of the lake. There was still

something agreeable to the nostrils about him and something not

offensive to nobler organs. He was a very gentle and gracious youth,

with what are called cultivated tastes--an acquaintance with old china,

with good wine, with the bindings of books, with the _Almanach de Gotha_,

with the best shops, the best hotels, the hours of railway-trains. He

could order a dinner almost as well as Mr. Luce, and it was probable

that as his experience accumulated he would be a worthy successor to

that gentleman, whose rather grim politics he also advocated in a soft

and innocent voice. He had some charming rooms in Paris, decorated with

old Spanish altar-lace, the envy of his female friends, who declared

that his chimney-piece was better draped than the high shoulders of many

a duchess. He usually, however, spent a part of every winter at Pau, and

had once passed a couple of months in the United States.

He took a great interest in Isabel and remembered perfectly the walk at

Neufchatel, when she would persist in going so near the edge. He seemed

to recognise this same tendency in the subversive enquiry that I quoted

a moment ago, and set himself to answer our heroine’s question with

greater urbanity than it perhaps deserved. “What does it lead to, Miss

Archer? Why Paris leads everywhere. You can’t go anywhere unless you

come here first. Every one that comes to Europe has got to pass through.

You don’t mean it in that sense so much? You mean what good it does you?

Well, how can you penetrate futurity? How can you tell what lies ahead?

If it’s a pleasant road I don’t care where it leads. I like the road,

Miss Archer; I like the dear old asphalte. You can’t get tired of

it--you can’t if you try. You think you would, but you wouldn’t;

there’s always something new and fresh. Take the Hôtel Drouot, now;

they sometimes have three and four sales a week. Where can you get such

things as you can here? In spite of all they say I maintain they’re

cheaper too, if you know the right places. I know plenty of places,

but I keep them to myself. I’ll tell you, if you like, as a particular

favour; only you mustn’t tell any one else. Don’t you go anywhere

without asking me first; I want you to promise me that. As a general

thing avoid the Boulevards; there’s very little to be done on the

Boulevards. Speaking conscientiously--_sans blague_--I don’t believe

any one knows Paris better than I. You and Mrs. Touchett must come and

breakfast with me some day, and I’ll show you my things; _je ne vous dis

que ça!_ There has been a great deal of talk about London of late; it’s

the fashion to cry up London. But there’s nothing in it--you can’t

do anything in London. No Louis Quinze--nothing of the First Empire;

nothing but their eternal Queen Anne. It’s good for one’s bed-room,

Queen Anne--for one’s washing-room; but it isn’t proper for a salon. Do

I spend my life at the auctioneer’s?” Mr. Rosier pursued in answer to

another question of Isabel’s. “Oh no; I haven’t the means. I wish I

had. You think I’m a mere trifler; I can tell by the expression of your

face--you’ve got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope you don’t mind

my saying that; I mean it as a kind of warning. You think I ought to do

something, and so do I, so long as you leave it vague. But when you

come to the point you see you have to stop. I can’t go home and be

a shopkeeper. You think I’m very well fitted? Ah, Miss Archer, you

overrate me. I can buy very well, but I can’t sell; you should see when

I sometimes try to get rid of my things. It takes much more ability to

make other people buy than to buy yourself. When I think how clever they

must be, the people who make _me_ buy! Ah no; I couldn’t be a shopkeeper.

I can’t be a doctor; it’s a repulsive business. I can’t be a clergyman;

I haven’t got convictions. And then I can’t pronounce the names right in

the Bible. They’re very difficult, in the Old Testament particularly. I

can’t be a lawyer; I don’t understand--how do you call it?--the American

procedure. Is there anything else? There’s nothing for a gentleman

in America. I should like to be a diplomatist; but American

diplomacy--that’s not for gentlemen either. I’m sure if you had seen the

last min--”

Henrietta Stackpole, who was often with her friend when Mr. Rosier,

coming to pay his compliments late in the afternoon, expressed himself

after the fashion I have sketched, usually interrupted the young man at

this point and read him a lecture on the duties of the American citizen.

She thought him most unnatural; he was worse than poor Ralph Touchett.

Henrietta, however, was at this time more than ever addicted to fine

criticism, for her conscience had been freshly alarmed as regards

Isabel. She had not congratulated this young lady on her augmentations

and begged to be excused from doing so.

“If Mr. Touchett had consulted me about leaving you the money,” she

frankly asserted, “I’d have said to him ‘Never!”

“I see,” Isabel had answered. “You think it will prove a curse in

disguise. Perhaps it will.”

“Leave it to some one you care less for--that’s what I should have

said.”

“To yourself for instance?” Isabel suggested jocosely. And then, “Do you

really believe it will ruin me?” she asked in quite another tone.

“I hope it won’t ruin you; but it will certainly confirm your dangerous

tendencies.”

“Do you mean the love of luxury--of extravagance?”

“No, no,” said Henrietta; “I mean your exposure on the moral side. I

approve of luxury; I think we ought to be as elegant as possible. Look

at the luxury of our western cities; I’ve seen nothing over here to

compare with it. I hope you’ll never become grossly sensual; but I’m not

afraid of that. The peril for you is that you live too much in the world

of your own dreams. You’re not enough in contact with reality--with

the toiling, striving, suffering, I may even say sinning, world

that surrounds you. You’re too fastidious; you’ve too many graceful

illusions. Your newly-acquired thousands will shut you up more and

more to the society of a few selfish and heartless people who will be

interested in keeping them up.”

Isabel’s eyes expanded as she gazed at this lurid scene. “What are my

illusions?” she asked. “I try so hard not to have any.”

“Well,” said Henrietta, “you think you can lead a romantic life, that

you can live by pleasing yourself and pleasing others. You’ll find

you’re mistaken. Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in it--to

make any sort of success of it; and from the moment you do that it

ceases to be romance, I assure you: it becomes grim reality! And you

can’t always please yourself; you must sometimes please other people.

That, I admit, you’re very ready to do; but there’s another thing that’s

still more important--you must often displease others. You must always

be ready for that--you must never shrink from it. That doesn’t suit you

at all--you’re too fond of admiration, you like to be thought well

of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic

views--that’s your great illusion, my dear. But we can’t. You must be

prepared on many occasions in life to please no one at all--not even

yourself.”

Isabel shook her head sadly; she looked troubled and frightened. “This,

for you, Henrietta,” she said, “must be one of those occasions!”

It was certainly true that Miss Stackpole, during her visit to Paris,

which had been professionally more remunerative than her English

sojourn, had not been living in the world of dreams. Mr. Bantling, who

had now returned to England, was her companion for the first four weeks

of her stay; and about Mr. Bantling there was nothing dreamy. Isabel

learned from her friend that the two had led a life of great personal

intimacy and that this had been a peculiar advantage to Henrietta,

owing to the gentleman’s remarkable knowledge of Paris. He had

explained everything, shown her everything, been her constant guide and

interpreter. They had breakfasted together, dined together, gone to

the theatre together, supped together, really in a manner quite lived

together. He was a true friend, Henrietta more than once assured our

heroine; and she had never supposed that she could like any Englishman

so well. Isabel could not have told you why, but she found something

that ministered to mirth in the alliance the correspondent of the

_Interviewer_ had struck with Lady Pensil’s brother; her amusement

moreover subsisted in face of the fact that she thought it a credit to

each of them. Isabel couldn’t rid herself of a suspicion that they were

playing somehow at cross-purposes--that the simplicity of each had

been entrapped. But this simplicity was on either side none the less

honourable. It was as graceful on Henrietta’s part to believe that Mr.

Bantling took an interest in the diffusion of lively journalism and in

consolidating the position of lady-correspondents as it was on the

part of his companion to suppose that the cause of the _Interviewer_--a

periodical of which he never formed a very definite conception--was, if

subtly analysed (a task to which Mr. Bantling felt himself quite equal),

but the cause of Miss Stackpole’s need of demonstrative affection. Each

of these groping celibates supplied at any rate a want of which the

other was impatiently conscious. Mr. Bantling, who was of rather a slow

and a discursive habit, relished a prompt, keen, positive woman, who

charmed him by the influence of a shining, challenging eye and a kind of

bandbox freshness, and who kindled a perception of raciness in a mind

to which the usual fare of life seemed unsalted. Henrietta, on the other

hand, enjoyed the society of a gentleman who appeared somehow, in his

way, made, by expensive, roundabout, almost “quaint” processes, for

her use, and whose leisured state, though generally indefensible, was a

decided boon to a breathless mate, and who was furnished with an easy,

traditional, though by no means exhaustive, answer to almost any social

or practical question that could come up. She often found Mr. Bantling’s

answers very convenient, and in the press of catching the American post

would largely and showily address them to publicity. It was to be feared

that she was indeed drifting toward those abysses of sophistication as

to which Isabel, wishing for a good-humoured retort, had warned her.

There might be danger in store for Isabel; but it was scarcely to be

hoped that Miss Stackpole, on her side, would find permanent rest in any

adoption of the views of a class pledged to all the old abuses. Isabel

continued to warn her good-humouredly; Lady Pensil’s obliging brother

was sometimes, on our heroine’s lips, an object of irreverent and

facetious allusion. Nothing, however, could exceed Henrietta’s

amiability on this point; she used to abound in the sense of Isabel’s

irony and to enumerate with elation the hours she had spent with this

perfect man of the world--a term that had ceased to make with her, as

previously, for opprobrium. Then, a few moments later, she would forget

that they had been talking jocosely and would mention with impulsive

earnestness some expedition she had enjoyed in his company. She would

say: “Oh, I know all about Versailles; I went there with Mr. Bantling. I

was bound to see it thoroughly--I warned him when we went out there that

I was thorough: so we spent three days at the hotel and wandered all

over the place. It was lovely weather--a kind of Indian summer, only not

so good. We just lived in that park. Oh yes; you can’t tell me anything

about Versailles.” Henrietta appeared to have made arrangements to meet

her gallant friend during the spring in Italy.