The Portrait of a Lady

  It was surprising for a variety of reasons, which I shall presently touch upon. On the evening I speak of, while Lord Warburton sat there, she had been on the point of taking the great step of going out of the room and leaving her companions alone. I say the great step, because it was in this light that Gilbert Osmond would have regarded it, and Isabel was trying as much as possible to take her husband’s view. She succeeded after a fashion, but she did not succeed in coming to the point I mention. After all, she couldn’t; something held her and made it impossible. It was not exactly that it would be base, insidious; for women as a general thing practise such manœuvres with a perfectly good conscience, and Isabel had all the qualities of her sex. It was a vague doubt that interposed—a sense that she was not quite sure. So she remained in the drawing-room, and after a while Lord Warburton went off to his party, of which he promised to give Pansy a full account on the morrow. After he had gone, Isabel asked herself whether she had prevented something which would have happened if she had absented herself for a quarter of an hour; and then she exclaimed—always mentally—that when Lord Warburton wished her to go away he would easily find means to let her know it. Pansy said nothing whatever about him after he had gone, and Isabel said nothing, as she had taken a vow of reserve until after he should have declared himself. He was a little longer in coming to this than might seem to accord with the description he had given Isabel of his feelings. Pansy went to bed, and Isabel had to admit that she could not now guess what her stepdaughter was thinking of. Her transparent little companion was for the moment rather opaque.

  Isabel remained alone, looking at the fire, until, at the end of half an hour, her husband came in. He moved about awhile in silence, and then sat down, looking at the fire like herself. But Isabel now had transferred her eyes from the flickering flame in the chimney to Osmond’s face, and she watched him while he sat silent. Covert observation had become a habit with her; an instinct, of which it is not an exaggeration to say that it was allied to that of self-defence, had made it habitual. She wished as much as possible to know his thoughts, to know what he would say, beforehand, so that she might prepare her answer. Preparing answers had not been her strong point of old; she had rarely in this respect got further than thinking afterwards of clever things she might have said. But she had learned caution—learned it in a measure from her husband’s very countenance. It was the same face she had looked into with eyes equally earnest perhaps, but less penetrating, on the terrace of a Florentine villa; except that Osmond had grown a little stouter since his marriage. He still, however, looked very distinguished.

  ‘‘Has Lord Warburton been here?’’ he presently asked.

  ‘‘Yes, he stayed for half an hour.’’

  ‘‘Did he see Pansy?’’

  ‘‘Yes; he sat on the sofa beside her.’’

  ‘‘Did he talk with her much?’’

  ‘‘He talked almost only to her.’’

  ‘‘It seems to me he’s attentive. Isn’t that what you call it?’’

  ‘‘I don’t call it anything,’’ said Isabel; ‘‘I have waited for you to give it a name.’’

  ‘‘That’s a consideration you don’t always show,’’ Osmond answered, after a moment.

  ‘‘I have determined, this time, to try and act as you would like. I have so often failed in that.’’

  Osmond turned his head, slowly, looking at her.

  ‘‘Are you trying to quarrel with me?’’

  ‘‘No, I am trying to live at peace.’’

  ‘‘Nothing is more easy; you know I don’t quarrel myself.’’

  ‘‘What do you call it when you try to make me angry?’’ Isabel asked.

  ‘‘I don’t try; if I have done so, it has been the most natural thing in the world. Moreover, I am not in the least trying now.’’

  Isabel smiled. ‘‘It doesn’t matter. I have determined never to be angry again.’’

  ‘‘That’s an excellent resolve. Your temper isn’t good.’’

  ‘‘No—it’s not good.’’ She pushed away the book she had been reading, and took up the band of tapestry that Pansy had left on the table.

  ‘‘That’s partly why I have not spoken to you about this business of my daughter’s,’’ Osmond said, designating Pansy in the manner that was most frequent with him. ‘‘I was afraid I should encounter opposition—that you too would have views on the subject. I have sent little Rosier about his business.’’

  ‘‘You were afraid that I would plead for Mr. Rosier? Haven’t you noticed that I have never spoken to you of him?’’

  ‘‘I have never given you a chance. We have so little conversation in these days. I know he was an old friend of yours.’’

  ‘‘Yes; he’s an old friend of mine.’’ Isabel cared little more for him than for the tapestry that she held in her hand; but it was true that he was an old friend, and with her husband she felt a desire not to extenuate such ties. He had a way of expressing contempt for them which fortified her loyalty to them, even when, as in the present case, they were in themselves insignificant. She sometimes felt a sort of passion of tenderness for memories which had no other merit than that they belonged to her unmarried life. ‘‘But as regards Pansy,’’ she added in a moment, ‘‘I have given him no encouragement.’’

  ‘‘That’s fortunate,’’ Osmond observed.

  ‘‘Fortunate for me, I suppose you mean. For him it matters little.’’

  ‘‘There is no use talking of him,’’ Osmond said. ‘‘As I tell you, I have turned him out.’’

  ‘‘Yes: but a lover outside is always a lover. He is sometimes even more of one. Mr. Rosier still has hope.’’

  ‘‘He’s welcome to the comfort of it! My daughter has only to sit still to become Lady Warburton.’’

  ‘‘Should you like that?’’ Isabel asked, with a simplicity which was not so affected as it may appear. She was resolved to assume nothing, for Osmond had a way of unexpectedly turning her assumptions against her. The intensity with which he would like his daughter to become Lady Warburton had been the very basis of her own recent reflections. But that was for herself; she would recognize nothing until Osmond should have put it into words; she would not take for granted with him that he thought Lord Warburton a prize worth an amount of effort that was unusual among the Osmonds. It was Gilbert’s constant intimation that, for him, nothing was a prize; that he treated as from equal to equal with the most distinguished people in the world, and that his daughter had only to look about her to pick out a prince. It cost him therefore a lapse from consistency to say explicitly that he yearned for Lord Warburton, that if this nobleman should escape, his equivalent might not be found; and it was another of his customary implications that he was never inconsistent. He would have liked his wife to glide over the point. But strangely enough, now that she was face to face with him, though an hour before she had almost invented a scheme for pleasing him, Isabel was not accommodating, would not glide. And yet she knew exactly the effect on his mind of her question: it would operate as a humiliation. Never mind; he was terribly capable of humiliating her—all the more so that he was also capable of waiting for great opportunities and of showing, sometimes, an almost unaccountable indifference to small ones. Isabel perhaps took a small opportunity because she would not have availed herself of a great one.

  Osmond at present acquitted himself very honourably. ‘‘I should like it extremely; it would be a great marriage. And then Lord Warburton has another advantage; he is an old friend of yours. It would be pleasant for him to come into the family. It is very singular that Pansy’s admirers should all be your old friends.’’

  ‘‘It is natural that they should come to see me. In coming to see me, they see Pansy. Seeing her, it is natural that they should fall in love with her.’’

  ‘‘So I think. But you are not bound to do so.’’

  ‘‘If she should marry Lord Warburton, I should be very glad,’’ Isabel went on, frankly. ‘‘He’s an excellen
t man. You say, however, that she has only to sit still. Perhaps she won’t sit still; if she loses Mr. Rosier she may jump up!’’

  Osmond appeared to give no heed to this; he sat gazing at the fire. ‘‘Pansy would like to be a great lady,’’ he remarked in a moment, with a certain tenderness of tone. ‘‘She wishes, above all, to please,’’ he added.

  ‘‘To please Mr. Rosier, perhaps.’’

  ‘‘No, to please me.’’

  ‘‘Me too a little, I think,’’ said Isabel.

  ‘‘Yes, she has a great opinion of you. But she will do what I like.’’

  ‘‘If you are sure of that, it’s very well,’’ Isabel said.

  ‘‘Meantime,’’ said Osmond, ‘‘I should like our distinguished visitor to speak.’’

  ‘‘He has spoken—to me. He has told me that it would be a great pleasure to him to believe she could care for him.’’

  Osmond turned his head quickly; but at first he said nothing. Then—‘‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’’ he asked, quickly.

  ‘‘There was no opportunity. You know how we live. I have taken the first chance that has offered.’’

  ‘‘Did you speak to him of Rosier?’’

  ‘‘Oh yes, a little.’’

  ‘‘That was hardly necessary.’’

  ‘‘I thought it best he should know, so that, so that—’’ And Isabel paused.

  ‘‘So that what?’’

  ‘‘So that he should act accordingly.’’

  ‘‘So that he should back out, do you mean?’’

  ‘‘No, so that he should advance while there is yet time.’’

  ‘‘That is not the effect it seems to have had.’’

  ‘‘You should have patience,’’ said Isabel. ‘‘You know Englishmen are shy.’’

  ‘‘This one is not. He was not when he made love to you.’’

  She had been afraid Osmond would speak of that; it was disagreeable to her. ‘‘I beg your pardon; he was extremely so,’’ she said simply.

  He answered nothing for some time; he took up a book and turned over the pages, while Isabel sat silent, occupying herself with Pansy’s tapestry. ‘‘You must have a great deal of influence with him,’’ Osmond went on at last. ‘‘The moment you really wish it, you can bring him to the point.’’

  This was more disagreeable still; but Isabel felt it to be natural that her husband should say it, and it was after all something very much of the same sort that she had said to herself. ‘‘Why should I have influence?’’ she asked. ‘‘What have I ever done to put him under an obligation to me?’’

  ‘‘You refused to marry him,’’ said Osmond, with his eyes on his book.

  ‘‘I must not presume too much on that,’’ Isabel answered, gently.

  He threw down the book presently, and got up, standing before the fire with his hands behind him. ‘‘Well,’’ he said, ‘‘I hold that it lies in your hands. I shall leave it there. With a little goodwill you may manage it. Think that over and remember that I count upon you.’’

  He waited a little, to give her time to answer; but she answered nothing, and he presently strolled out of the room.

  42

  SHE answered nothing, because his words had put the situation before her, and she was absorbed in looking at it. There was something in them that suddenly opened the door to agitation, so that she was afraid to trust herself to speak. After Osmond had gone, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes; and for a long time, far into the night, and still further, she sat in the silent drawing-room, given up to her meditation. A servant came in to attend to the fire, and she bade him bring fresh candles and then go to bed. Osmond had told her to think of what he had said; and she did so indeed, and of many other things. The suggestion, from another, that she had a peculiar influence on Lord Warburton had given her the start that accompanies unexpected recognition. Was it true that there was something still between them that might be a handle to make him declare himself to Pansy—a susceptibility, on his part, to approval, a desire to do what would please her? Isabel had hitherto not asked herself the question, because she had not been forced; but now that it was directly presented to her, she saw the answer, and the answer frightened her. Yes, there was something—something on Lord Warburton’s part. When he first came to Rome she believed that the link which united them had completely snapped; but little by little she had been reminded that it still had a palpable existence. It was as thin as a hair, but there were moments when she seemed to hear it vibrate. For herself, nothing was changed; what she once thought of Lord Warburton she still thought; it was needless that feeling should change; on the contrary, it seemed to her a better feeling than ever. But he? Had he still the idea that she might be more to him than other women? Had he the wish to profit by the memory of the few moments of intimacy through which they had once passed? Isabel knew that she had read some of the signs of such a disposition. But what were his hopes, his pretensions, and in what strange way were they mingled with his evidently very sincere appreciation of poor Pansy? Was he in love with Gilbert Osmond’s wife, and if so, what comfort did he expect to derive from it? If he was in love with Pansy, he was not in love with her stepmother; and if he was in love with her stepmother, he was not in love with Pansy. Was she to cultivate the advantage she possessed, in order to make him commit himself to Pansy, knowing that he would do so for her sake, and not for the young girl’s—was this the service her husband had asked of her? This at any rate was the duty with which Isabel found herself confronted from the moment that she admitted to herself that Lord Warburton had still an uneradicated predilection for her society. It was not an agreeable task; it was, in fact, a repulsive one. She asked herself with dismay whether Lord Warburton were pretending to be in love with Pansy in order to cultivate another satisfaction. Of this refinement of duplicity she presently acquitted him; she preferred to believe that he was in good faith. But if his admiration for Pansy was a delusion, this was scarcely better than its being an affectation. Isabel wandered among these ugly possibilities until she completely lost her way; some of them, as she suddenly encountered them, seemed ugly enough. Then she broke out of the labyrinth, rubbing her eyes, and declared that her imagination surely did her little honour, and that her husband’s did him even less. Lord Warburton was as disinterested as he need be, and she was no more to him than she need wish. She would rest upon this until the contrary should be proved; proved more effectually than by a cynical intimation of Osmond’s.

  Such a resolution, however, brought her this evening but little peace, for her soul was haunted with terrors which crowded to the foreground of thought as quickly as a place was made for them. What had suddenly set them into livelier motion she hardly knew, unless it were the strange impression she had received in the afternoon of her husband and Madame Merle being in more direct communication than she suspected. This impression came back to her from time to time, and now she wondered that it had never come before. Besides this, her short interview with Osmond, half an hour before, was a striking example of his faculty for making everything wither that he touched, spoiling everything for her that he looked at. It was very well to undertake to give him a proof of loyalty; the real fact was that the knowledge of his expecting a thing raised a presumption against it. It was as if he had had the evil eye; as if his presence were a blight and his favour a misfortune. Was the fault in himself, or only in the deep mistrust she had conceived for him? This mistrust was the clearest result of their short married life; a gulf had opened between them over which they looked at each other with eyes that were on either side a declaration of the deception suffered. It was a strange opposition, of the like of which she had never dreamed—an opposition in which the vital principle of the one was a thing of contempt to the other. It was not her fault—she had practised no deception; she had only admired and believed. She had taken all the first steps in the purest confidence, and then she had suddenly found the infinite vista of a multiplied life to be a dar
k, narrow alley, with a dead wall at the end. Instead of leading to the high places of happiness, from which the world would seem to lie below one, so that one could look down with a sense of exaltation and advantage, and judge and choose and pity, it led rather downward and earthward, into realms of restriction and depression, where the sound of other lives, easier and freer, was heard as from above, and served to deepen the feeling of failure. It was her deep distrust of her husband—this was what darkened the world. That is a sentiment easily indicated, but not so easily explained, and so composite in its character that much time and still more suffering had been needed to bring it to its actual perfection. Suffering, with Isabel, was an active condition; it was not a chill, a stupor, a despair; it was a passion of thought, of speculation, of response to every pressure. She flattered herself, however, that she had kept her failing faith to herself—that no one suspected it but Osmond. Oh, he knew it, and there were times when she thought that he enjoyed it. It had come gradually—it was not till the first year of her marriage had closed that she took the alarm. Then the shadows began to gather; it was as if Osmond deliberately, almost malignantly, had put the lights out one by one. The dusk at first was vague and thin, and she could still see her way in it. But it steadily increased, and if here and there it had occasionally lifted, there were certain corners of her life that were impenetrably black. These shadows were not an emanation from her own mind; she was very sure of that; she had done her best to be just and temperate, to see only the truth. They were a part of her husband’s very presence. They were not his misdeeds, his turpitudes; she accused him of nothing—that is, of but one thing, which was not a crime. She knew of no wrong that he had done; he was not violent, he was not cruel; she simply believed that he hated her. That was all she accused him of, and the miserable part of it was precisely that it was not a crime, for against a crime she might have found redress. He had discovered that she was so different, that she was not what he had believed she would prove to be. He had thought at first he could change her, and she had done her best to be what he would like. But she was, after all, herself—she couldn’t help that; and now there was no use pretending, playing a part, for he knew her and he had made up his mind. She was not afraid of him; she had no apprehension that he would hurt her; for the ill will he bore her was not of that sort. He would, if possible, never give her a pretext, never put himself in the wrong. Isabel, scanning the future with dry, fixed eyes, saw that he would have the better of her there. She would give him many pretexts; she would often put herself in the wrong. There were times when she almost pitied him; for if she had not deceived him in intention she understood how completely she must have done so in fact. She had effaced herself, when he first knew her; she had made herself small, pretending there was less of her than there really was. It was because she had been under the extraordinary charm that he, on his side, had taken pains to put forth. He was not changed; he had not disguised himself, during the year of his courtship, any more than she. But she had seen only half his nature then, as one saw the disk of the moon when it was partly masked by the shadow of the earth. She saw the full moon now—she saw the whole man. She had kept still, as it were, so that he should have a free field, and yet in spite of this she had mistaken a part for the whole.