I was glad the next morning that we had neglected practical questions, for this gave me a pretext for seeing her again immediately. There was a very practical question to be touched upon. I owed it to her to let her know formally that of course I did not expect her to keep me on as a lodger, and also to show some interest in her own tenure, what she might have on her hands in the way of a lease. But I was not destined, as it happened, to converse with her for more than an instant on either of these points. I sent her no message; I simply went down to the sala and walked to and fro there. I knew she would come out; she would very soon discover I was there. Somehow I preferred not to be shut up with her; gardens and big halls seemed better places to talk. It was a splendid morning, with something in the air that told of the waning of the long Venetian summer; a freshness from the sea which stirred the flowers in the garden and made a pleasant draught in the house, less shuttered and darkened now than when the old woman was alive. It was the beginning of autumn, of the end of the golden months. With this it was the end of my experiment – or would be in the course of half an hour, when I should really have learned that the papers had been reduced to ashes. After that there would be nothing left for me but to go to the station; for seriously (and as it struck me in the morning light) I could not linger there to act as guardian to a piece of middle-aged female helplessness. If she had not saved the papers wherein should I be indebted to her? I think I winced a little as I asked myself how much, if she had saved them, I should have to recognise and, as it were, to reward such a courtesy. Might not that circumstance after all saddle me with a guardianship? If this idea did not make me more uncomfortable as I walked up and down it was because I was convinced I had nothing to look to. If the old woman had not destroyed everything before she pounced upon me in the parlour she had done so afterwards.
It took Miss Tita rather longer than I had expected to guess that I was there; but when at last she came out she looked at me without surprise. I said to her that I had been waiting for her and she asked why I had not let her know. I was glad the next day that I had checked myself before remarking that I had wished to see if a friendly intuition would not tell her: it became a satisfaction to me that I had not indulged in that rather tender joke. What I did say was virtually the truth – that I was too nervous, since I expected her now to settle my fate.
‘Your fate?’ said Miss Tita, giving me a queer look; and as she spoke I noticed a rare change in her. She was different from what she had been the evening before – less natural, less quiet. She had been crying the day before and she was not crying now, and yet she struck me as less confident. It was as if something had happened to her during the night, or at least as if she had thought of something that troubled her – something in particular that affected her relations with me, made them more embarrassing and complicated. Had she simply perceived that her aunt’s not being there now altered my position?
‘I mean about our papers. Are there any? You must know now.’
‘Yes, there are a great many; more than I supposed.’ I was struck with the way her voice trembled as she told me this.
‘Do you mean that you have got them in there – and that I may see them?’
‘I don’t think you can see them,’ said Miss Tita, with an extraordinary expression of entreaty in her eyes, as if the dearest hope she had in the world now was that I would not take them from her. But how could she expect me to make such a sacrifice as that after all that had passed between us? What had I come back to Venice for but to see them, to take them? My delight at learning they were still in existence was such that if the poor woman had gone down on her knees to beseech me never to mention them again I would have treated the proceeding as a bad joke. ‘I have got them but I can’t show them,’ she added.
‘Not even to me? Ah, Miss Tita!’ I groaned, with a voice of infinite remonstrance and reproach.
She coloured and the tears came back to her eyes; I saw that it cost her a kind of anguish to take such a stand but that a dreadful sense of duty had descended upon her. It made me quite sick to find myself confronted with that particular obstacle; all the more that it appeared to me I had been extremely encouraged to leave it out of account. I almost considered that Miss Tita had assured me that if she had no greater hindrance than that—! ‘You don’t mean to say you made her a deathbed promise? It was precisely against your doing anything of that sort that I thought I was safe. Oh, I would rather she had burned the papers outright than that!’
‘No, it isn’t a promise,’ said Miss Tita.
‘Pray what is it then?’
She hesitated and then she said, ‘She tried to burn them, but I prevented it. She had hid them in her bed.’
‘In her bed?’
‘Between the mattresses. That’s where she put them when she took them out of the trunk. I can’t understand how she did it, because Olimpia didn’t help her. She tells me so and I believe her. My aunt only told her afterwards, so that she shouldn’t touch the bed – anything but the sheets. So it was badly made,’ added Miss Tita, simply.
‘I should think so! And how did she try to burn them?’
‘She didn’t try much; she was too weak, those last days. But she told me – she charged me. Oh, it was terrible! She couldn’t speak after that night; she could only make signs.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I took them away. I locked them up.’
‘In the secretary?’
‘Yes, in the secretary,’ said Miss Tita, reddening again.
‘Did you tell her you would burn them?’
‘No, I didn’t – on purpose.’
‘On purpose to gratify me?’
‘Yes, only for that.’
‘And what good will you have done me if after all you won’t show them?’
‘Oh, none; I know that – I know that.’
‘And did she believe you had destroyed them?’
‘I don’t know what she believed at the last. I couldn’t tell – she was too far gone.’
‘Then if there was no promise and no assurance I can’t see what ties you.’
‘Oh, she hated it so – she hated it so! She was so jealous. But here’s the portrait – you may have that,’ Miss Tita announced, taking the little picture, wrapped up in the same manner in which her aunt had wrapped it, out of her pocket.
‘I may have it – do you mean you give it to me?’ I questioned, staring, as it passed into my hand.
‘Oh yes.’
‘But it’s worth money – a large sum.’
‘Well!’ said Miss Tita, still with her strange look.
I did not know what to make of it, for it could scarcely mean that she wanted to bargain like her aunt. She spoke as if she wished to make me a present. ‘I can’t take it from you as a gift,’ I said, ‘and yet I can’t afford to pay you for it according to the ideas Miss Bordereau had of its value. She rated it at a thousand pounds.’
‘Couldn’t we sell it?’ asked Miss Tita.
‘God forbid! I prefer the picture to the money.’
‘Well then keep it.’
‘You are very generous.’
‘So are you.’
‘I don’t know why you should think so,’ I replied, and this was a truthful speech, for the singular creature appeared to have some very fine reference in her mind, which I did not in the least seize.
‘Well, you have made a great difference for me,’ said Miss Tita.
I looked at Jeffrey Aspern’s face in the little picture, partly in order not to look at that of my interlocutress, which had begun to trouble me, even to frighten me a little – it was so self-conscious, so unnatural. I made no answer to this last declaration; I only privately consulted Jeffrey Aspern’s delightful eyes with my own (they were so young and brilliant, and yet so wise, so full of vision); I asked him what on earth was the matter with Miss Tita. He seemed to smile at me with friendly mockery, as if he were amused at my case. I had got into a pickle for him – as if he needed it! He was u
nsatisfactory, for the only moment since I had known him. Nevertheless, now that I held the little picture in my hand I felt that it would be a precious possession. ‘Is this a bribe to make me give up the papers?’ I demanded in a moment, perversely. ‘Much as I value it, if I were to be obliged to choose, the papers are what I should prefer. Ah, but ever so much!’
‘How can you choose – how can you choose?’ Miss Tita asked, slowly, lamentably.
‘I see! Of course there is nothing to be said, if you regard the interdiction that rests upon you as quite insurmountable. In this case it must seem to you that to part with them would be an impiety of the worst kind, a simple sacrilege!’
Miss Tita shook her head, full of her dolefulness. ‘You would understand if you had known her. I’m afraid,’ she quavered suddenly – ‘I’m afraid! She was terrible when she was angry.’
‘Yes, I saw something of that, that night. She was terrible. Then I saw her eyes. Lord, they were fine!’
‘I see them – they stare at me in the dark!’ said Miss Tita.
‘You are nervous, with all you have been through.’
‘Oh yes, very – very!’
‘You mustn’t mind; that will pass away,’ I said, kindly. Then I added, resignedly, for it really seemed to me that I must accept the situation, ‘Well, so it is, and it can’t be helped. I must renounce.’ Miss Tita, at this, looking at me, gave a low, soft moan, and I went on: ‘I only wish to heaven she had destroyed them; then there would be nothing more to say. And I can’t understand why, with her ideas, she didn’t.’
‘Oh, she lived on them!’ said Miss Tita.
‘You can imagine whether that makes me want less to see them,’ I answered, smiling. ‘But don’t let me stand here as if I had it in my soul to tempt you to do anything base. Naturally you will understand I give up my rooms. I leave Venice immediately.’ And I took up my hat, which I had placed on a chair. We were still there rather awkwardly, on our feet, in the middle of the sala. She had left the door of the apartments open behind her but she had not led me that way.
A kind of spasm came into her face as she saw me take my hat. ‘Immediately – do you mean to-day?’ The tone of the words was tragical – they were a cry of desolation.
‘Oh no; not so long as I can be of the least service to you.’
‘Well, just a day or two more – just two or three days,’ she panted. Then controlling herself she added in another manner, ‘She wanted to say something to me – the last day – something very particular, but she couldn’t.’
‘Something very particular?’
‘Something more about the papers.’
‘And did you guess – have you any idea?’
‘No, I have thought – but I don’t know. I have thought all kinds of things.’
‘And for instance?’
‘Well, that if you were a relation it would be different.’
‘If I were a relation?’
‘If you were not a stranger. Then it would be the same for you as for me. Anything that is mine – would be yours, and you could do what you like. I couldn’t prevent you – and you would have no responsibility.’
She brought out this droll explanation with a little nervous rush, as if she were speaking words she had got by heart. They gave me an impression of subtlety and at first I failed to follow. But after a moment her face helped me to see further, and then a light came into my mind. It was embarrassing, and I bent my head over Jeffrey Aspern’s portrait. What an odd expression was in his face! ‘Get out of it as you can, my dear fellow!’ I put the picture into the pocket of my coat and said to Miss Tita, ‘Yes, I’ll sell it for you. I sha’n’t get a thousand pounds by any means, but I shall get something good.’
She looked at me with tears in her eyes, but she seemed to try to smile as she remarked, ‘We can divide the money.’
‘No, no, it shall be all yours.’ Then I went on, ‘I think I know what your poor aunt wanted to say. She wanted to give directions that her papers should be buried with her.’
Miss Tita appeared to consider this suggestion for a moment; after which she declared, with striking decision, ‘Oh no, she wouldn’t have thought that safe!’
‘It seems to me nothing could be safer.’
‘She had an idea that when people want to publish they are capable—’ And she paused, blushing.
‘Of violating a tomb? Mercy on us, what must she have thought of me!’
‘She was not just, she was not generous!’ Miss Tita cried with sudden passion.
The light that had come into my mind a moment before increased. ‘Ah, don’t say that, for we are a dreadful race.’ Then I pursued, ‘If she left a will, that may give you some idea.’
‘I have found nothing of the sort – she destroyed it. She was very fond of me,’ Miss Tita added, incongruously. ‘She wanted me to be happy. And if any person should be kind to me – she wanted to speak of that.’
I was almost awestricken at the astuteness with which the good lady found herself inspired, transparent astuteness as it was and sewn, as the phrase is, with white thread. ‘Depend upon it she didn’t want to make any provision that would be agreeable to me.’
‘No, not to you but to me. She knew I should like it if you could carry out your idea. Not because she cared for you but because she did think of me,’ Miss Tita went on, with her unexpected, persuasive volubility. ‘You could see them – you could use them.’ She stopped, seeing that I perceived the sense of that conditional – stopped long enough for me to give some sign which I did not give. She must have been conscious however that though my face showed the greatest embarrassment that was ever painted on a human countenance it was not set as a stone, it was also full of compassion. It was a comfort to me a long time afterwards to consider that she could not have seen in me the smallest symptom of disrespect. ‘I don’t know what to do; I’m too tormented, I’m too ashamed!’ she continued, with vehemence. Then turning away from me and burying her face in her hands she burst into a flood of tears. If she did not know what to do it may be imagined whether I did any better. I stood there dumb, watching her while her sobs resounded in the great empty hall. In a moment she was facing me again, with her streaming eyes. ‘I would give you everything – she would understand, where she is – she would forgive me!’
‘Ah, Miss Tita – ah, Miss Tita,’ I stammered, for all reply. I did not know what to do, as I say, but at a venture I made a wild, vague movement, in consequence of which I found myself at the door. I remember standing there and saying, ‘It wouldn’t do – it wouldn’t do!’ pensively, awkwardly, grotesquely, while I looked away to the opposite end of the sala as if there were a beautiful view there. The next thing I remember is that I was downstairs and out of the house. My gondola was there and my gondolier, reclining on the cushions, sprang up as soon as he saw me. I jumped in and to his usual ‘Dove commanda?’ I replied, in a tone that made him stare, ‘Anywhere, anywhere; out into the lagoon!’
He rowed me away and I sat there prostrate, groaning softly to myself, with my hat pulled over my face. What in the name of the preposterous did she mean if she did not mean to offer me her hand? That was the price – that was the price! And did she think I wanted it, poor deluded, infatuated, extravagant lady? My gondolier, behind me, must have seen my ears red as I wondered, sitting there under the fluttering tenda, with my hidden face, noticing nothing as we passed – wondered whether her delusion, her infatuation had been my own reckless work. Did she think I had made love to her, even to get the papers? I had not, I had not; I repeated that over to myself for an hour, for two hours, till I was wearied if not convinced. I don’t know where my gondolier took me; we floated aimlessly about on the lagoon, with slow, rare strokes. At last I became conscious that we were near the Lido, far up, on the right hand, as you turn your back to Venice, and I made him put me ashore. I wanted to walk, to move, to shed some of my bewilderment. I crossed the narrow strip and got to the sea-beach – I took my way toward Malamocco. But pre
sently I flung myself down again on the warm sand, in the breeze, on the coarse dry grass. It took it out of me to think I had been so much at fault, that I had unwittingly but none the less deplorably trifled. But I had not given her cause – distinctly I had not. I had said to Mrs Prest that I would make love to her; but it had been a joke without consequences and I had never said it to Tita Bordereau. I had been as kind as possible, because I really liked her; but since when had that become a crime where a woman of such an age and such an appearance was concerned? I am far from remembering clearly the succession of events and feelings during this long day of confusion, which I spent entirely in wandering about, without going home, until late at night; it only comes back to me that there were moments when I pacified my conscience and others when I lashed it into pain. I did not laugh all day – that I do recollect; the case, however it might have struck others, seemed to me so little amusing. It would have been better perhaps for me to feel the comic side of it. At any rate, whether I had given cause or not it went without saying that I could not pay the price. I could not accept. I could not, for a bundle of tattered papers, marry a ridiculous, pathetic, provincial old woman. It was a proof that she did not think the idea would come to me, her having determined to suggest it herself in that practical, argumentative, heroic way, in which the timidity however had been so much more striking than the boldness that her reasons appeared to come first and her feelings afterward.