Chapter Chapter 33 · Chapter XXXIII

Her fit of weeping, however, was soon smothered, and the signs of it had

vanished when, an hour later, she broke the news to her aunt. I use this

expression because she had been sure Mrs. Touchett would not be pleased;

Isabel had only waited to tell her till she had seen Mr. Goodwood. She

had an odd impression that it would not be honourable to make the fact

public before she should have heard what Mr. Goodwood would say about

it. He had said rather less than she expected, and she now had a

somewhat angry sense of having lost time. But she would lose no more;

she waited till Mrs. Touchett came into the drawing-room before the

mid-day breakfast, and then she began. “Aunt Lydia, I’ve something to

tell you.”

Mrs. Touchett gave a little jump and looked at her almost fiercely. “You

needn’t tell me; I know what it is.”

“I don’t know how you know.”

“The same way that I know when the window’s open--by feeling a draught.

You’re going to marry that man.”

“What man do you mean?” Isabel enquired with great dignity.

“Madame Merle’s friend--Mr. Osmond.”

“I don’t know why you call him Madame Merle’s friend. Is that the

principal thing he’s known by?”

“If he’s not her friend he ought to be--after what she has done for

him!” cried Mrs. Touchett. “I shouldn’t have expected it of her; I’m

disappointed.”

“If you mean that Madame Merle has had anything to do with my engagement

you’re greatly mistaken,” Isabel declared with a sort of ardent

coldness.

“You mean that your attractions were sufficient, without the gentleman’s

having had to be lashed up? You’re quite right. They’re immense, your

attractions, and he would never have presumed to think of you if she

hadn’t put him up to it. He has a very good opinion of himself, but he

was not a man to take trouble. Madame Merle took the trouble for him.”

“He has taken a great deal for himself!” cried Isabel with a voluntary

laugh.

Mrs. Touchett gave a sharp nod. “I think he must, after all, to have

made you like him so much.”

“I thought he even pleased _you_.”

“He did, at one time; and that’s why I’m angry with him.”

“Be angry with me, not with him,” said the girl.

“Oh, I’m always angry with you; that’s no satisfaction! Was it for this

that you refused Lord Warburton?”

“Please don’t go back to that. Why shouldn’t I like Mr. Osmond, since

others have done so?”

“Others, at their wildest moments, never wanted to marry him. There’s

nothing _of_ him,” Mrs. Touchett explained.

“Then he can’t hurt me,” said Isabel.

“Do you think you’re going to be happy? No one’s happy, in such doings,

you should know.”

“I shall set the fashion then. What does one marry for?”

“What _you_ will marry for, heaven only knows. People usually marry as

they go into partnership--to set up a house. But in your partnership

you’ll bring everything.”

“Is it that Mr. Osmond isn’t rich? Is that what you’re talking about?”

Isabel asked.

“He has no money; he has no name; he has no importance. I value such

things and I have the courage to say it; I think they’re very precious.

Many other people think the same, and they show it. But they give some

other reason.”

Isabel hesitated a little. “I think I value everything that’s valuable.

I care very much for money, and that’s why I wish Mr. Osmond to have a

little.”

“Give it to him then; but marry some one else.”

“His name’s good enough for me,” the girl went on. “It’s a very pretty

name. Have I such a fine one myself?”

“All the more reason you should improve on it. There are only a dozen

American names. Do you marry him out of charity?”

“It was my duty to tell you, Aunt Lydia, but I don’t think it’s my duty

to explain to you. Even if it were I shouldn’t be able. So please don’t

remonstrate; in talking about it you have me at a disadvantage. I can’t

talk about it.”

“I don’t remonstrate, I simply answer you: I must give some sign of

intelligence. I saw it coming, and I said nothing. I never meddle.”

“You never do, and I’m greatly obliged to you. You’ve been very

considerate.”

“It was not considerate--it was convenient,” said Mrs. Touchett. “But I

shall talk to Madame Merle.”

“I don’t see why you keep bringing her in. She has been a very good

friend to me.”

“Possibly; but she has been a poor one to me.”

“What has she done to you?”

“She has deceived me. She had as good as promised me to prevent your

engagement.”

“She couldn’t have prevented it.”

“She can do anything; that’s what I’ve always liked her for. I knew she

could play any part; but I understood that she played them one by one. I

didn’t understand that she would play two at the same time.”

“I don’t know what part she may have played to you,” Isabel said;

“that’s between yourselves. To me she has been honest and kind and

devoted.”

“Devoted, of course; she wished you to marry her candidate. She told me

she was watching you only in order to interpose.”

“She said that to please you,” the girl answered; conscious, however, of

the inadequacy of the explanation.

“To please me by deceiving me? She knows me better. Am I pleased

to-day?”

“I don’t think you’re ever much pleased,” Isabel was obliged to reply.

“If Madame Merle knew you would learn the truth what had she to gain by

insincerity?”

“She gained time, as you see. While I waited for her to interfere you

were marching away, and she was really beating the drum.”

“That’s very well. But by your own admission you saw I was marching, and

even if she had given the alarm you wouldn’t have tried to stop me.”

“No, but some one else would.”

“Whom do you mean?” Isabel asked, looking very hard at her aunt. Mrs.

Touchett’s little bright eyes, active as they usually were, sustained

her gaze rather than returned it. “Would you have listened to Ralph?”

“Not if he had abused Mr. Osmond.”

“Ralph doesn’t abuse people; you know that perfectly. He cares very much

for you.”

“I know he does,” said Isabel; “and I shall feel the value of it now,

for he knows that whatever I do I do with reason.”

“He never believed you would do this. I told him you were capable of it,

and he argued the other way.”

“He did it for the sake of argument,” the girl smiled. “You don’t accuse

him of having deceived you; why should you accuse Madame Merle?”

“He never pretended he’d prevent it.”

“I’m glad of that!” cried Isabel gaily. “I wish very much,” she

presently added, “that when he comes you’d tell him first of my

engagement.”

“Of course I’ll mention it,” said Mrs. Touchett. “I shall say nothing

more to you about it, but I give you notice I shall talk to others.”

“That’s as you please. I only meant that it’s rather better the

announcement should come from you than from me.”

“I quite agree with you; it’s much more proper!” And on this the aunt

and the niece went to breakfast, where Mrs. Touchett, as good as her

word, made no allusion to Gilbert Osmond. After an interval of silence,

however, she asked her companion from whom she had received a visit an

hour before.

“From an old friend--an American gentleman,” Isabel said with a colour

in her cheek.

“An American gentleman of course. It’s only an American gentleman who

calls at ten o’clock in the morning.”

“It was half-past ten; he was in a great hurry; he goes away this

evening.”

“Couldn’t he have come yesterday, at the usual time?”

“He only arrived last night.”

“He spends but twenty-four hours in Florence?” Mrs. Touchett cried.

“He’s an American gentleman truly.”

“He is indeed,” said Isabel, thinking with perverse admiration of what

Caspar Goodwood had done for her.

Two days afterward Ralph arrived; but though Isabel was sure that Mrs.

Touchett had lost no time in imparting to him the great fact, he showed

at first no open knowledge of it. Their prompted talk was naturally of

his health; Isabel had many questions to ask about Corfu. She had been

shocked by his appearance when he came into the room; she had forgotten

how ill he looked. In spite of Corfu he looked very ill to-day, and she

wondered if he were really worse or if she were simply disaccustomed

to living with an invalid. Poor Ralph made no nearer approach to

conventional beauty as he advanced in life, and the now apparently

complete loss of his health had done little to mitigate the natural

oddity of his person. Blighted and battered, but still responsive and

still ironic, his face was like a lighted lantern patched with paper

and unsteadily held; his thin whisker languished upon a lean cheek; the

exorbitant curve of his nose defined itself more sharply. Lean he was

altogether, lean and long and loose-jointed; an accidental cohesion of

relaxed angles. His brown velvet jacket had become perennial; his

hands had fixed themselves in his pockets; he shambled and stumbled and

shuffled in a manner that denoted great physical helplessness. It was

perhaps this whimsical gait that helped to mark his character more than

ever as that of the humorous invalid--the invalid for whom even his own

disabilities are part of the general joke. They might well indeed with

Ralph have been the chief cause of the want of seriousness marking his

view of a world in which the reason for his own continued presence was

past finding out. Isabel had grown fond of his ugliness; his awkwardness

had become dear to her. They had been sweetened by association; they

struck her as the very terms on which it had been given him to be

charming. He was so charming that her sense of his being ill had

hitherto had a sort of comfort in it; the state of his health had seemed

not a limitation, but a kind of intellectual advantage; it absolved him

from all professional and official emotions and left him the luxury of

being exclusively personal. The personality so resulting was delightful;

he had remained proof against the staleness of disease; he had had to

consent to be deplorably ill, yet had somehow escaped being formally

sick. Such had been the girl’s impression of her cousin; and when she

had pitied him it was only on reflection. As she reflected a good deal

she had allowed him a certain amount of compassion; but she always had

a dread of wasting that essence--a precious article, worth more to the

giver than to any one else. Now, however, it took no great sensibility

to feel that poor Ralph’s tenure of life was less elastic than it should

be. He was a bright, free, generous spirit, he had all the illumination

of wisdom and none of its pedantry, and yet he was distressfully dying.

Isabel noted afresh that life was certainly hard for some people,

and she felt a delicate glow of shame as she thought how easy it now

promised to become for herself. She was prepared to learn that Ralph was

not pleased with her engagement; but she was not prepared, in spite of

her affection for him, to let this fact spoil the situation. She was not

even prepared, or so she thought, to resent his want of sympathy; for

it would be his privilege--it would be indeed his natural line--to find

fault with any step she might take toward marriage. One’s cousin always

pretended to hate one’s husband; that was traditional, classical; it

was a part of one’s cousin’s always pretending to adore one. Ralph was

nothing if not critical; and though she would certainly, other things

being equal, have been as glad to marry to please him as to please any

one, it would be absurd to regard as important that her choice should

square with his views. What were his views after all? He had pretended

to believe she had better have married Lord Warburton; but this was

only because she had refused that excellent man. If she had accepted

him Ralph would certainly have taken another tone; he always took the

opposite. You could criticise any marriage; it was the essence of a

marriage to be open to criticism. How well she herself, should she only

give her mind to it, might criticise this union of her own! She had

other employment, however, and Ralph was welcome to relieve her of the

care. Isabel was prepared to be most patient and most indulgent. He must

have seen that, and this made it the more odd he should say nothing.

After three days had elapsed without his speaking our young woman

wearied of waiting; dislike it as he would, he might at least go through

the form. We, who know more about poor Ralph than his cousin, may easily

believe that during the hours that followed his arrival at Palazzo

Crescentini he had privately gone through many forms. His mother had

literally greeted him with the great news, which had been even more

sensibly chilling than Mrs. Touchett’s maternal kiss. Ralph was shocked

and humiliated; his calculations had been false and the person in the

world in whom he was most interested was lost. He drifted about the

house like a rudderless vessel in a rocky stream, or sat in the garden

of the palace on a great cane chair, his long legs extended, his head

thrown back and his hat pulled over his eyes. He felt cold about the

heart; he had never liked anything less. What could he do, what could

he say? If the girl were irreclaimable could he pretend to like it?

To attempt to reclaim her was permissible only if the attempt should

succeed. To try to persuade her of anything sordid or sinister in the

man to whose deep art she had succumbed would be decently discreet only

in the event of her being persuaded. Otherwise he should simply have

damned himself. It cost him an equal effort to speak his thought and to

dissemble; he could neither assent with sincerity nor protest with hope.

Meanwhile he knew--or rather he supposed--that the affianced pair were

daily renewing their mutual vows. Osmond at this moment showed himself

little at Palazzo Crescentini; but Isabel met him every day elsewhere,

as she was free to do after their engagement had been made public. She

had taken a carriage by the month, so as not to be indebted to her aunt

for the means of pursuing a course of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved,

and she drove in the morning to the Cascine. This suburban wilderness,

during the early hours, was void of all intruders, and our young lady,

joined by her lover in its quietest part, strolled with him a while

through the grey Italian shade and listened to the nightingales.