The Awkward Age (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899)/Book 2/Chapter 9
IX
"Go to her straight—be nice to her: you must have plenty to say. You stay with me—we have our affair."
The latter of these commands the Duchess addressed to Mr. Mitchett while their companion, in obedience to the former and affected, as it seemed, by an unrepressed familiar accent that stirred a fresh flicker of Mitchy's grin, met the new arrival in the middle of the room before Mrs. Brookenham had had time to reach her. The Duchess, quickly reseated, watched an instant the inexpressive concussion of the tall brother and sister; then while Mitchy again subsided in his place, "You're not, as a race, clever, you're not delicate, you're not sane, but you're capable of extraordinary good looks," she resumed. "Vous avez parfois la grande beauté."
Mitchy was much amused. "Do you really think Petherton has?"
The Duchess withstood it. "They've got, both outside and in, the same great general things, only turned, in each, rather different ways, a way safer for him, as a man, and more triumphant for her as—whatever you choose to call her! What can a woman do," she richly mused, "with such beauty as that—"
"Except come desperately to advise with Mrs. Brook"—Mitchy undertook to complete her question—"as to the highest use to make of it? But see," he immediately added, 'how perfectly competent to instruct her our friend now looks." Their hostess had advanced to Lady Fanny with an outstretched hand, but with an eagerness of greeting merged a little in the sweet predominance of wonder as well as in the habit, at such moments most perceptible, of the languid lily-bend. Nothing, in general, could have been less poorly conventional than the kind of reception given in Mrs. Brookenham's drawing-room to the particular element—the element of physical splendor void of those disparities that make the questions of others tiresome—comprised in Lady Fanny's presence. It was a place in which, at all times, before interesting objects, the unanimous occupants, almost more concerned for each other's vibrations than for anything else, were apt rather more to exchange sharp and silent searchings than to fix their eyes on the object itself. In the case of Lady Fanny, however, the object itself—and quite by the same law that had worked, though less profoundly, on the entrance of little Aggie—superseded the usual rapt communion very much in the manner of some beautiful tame tigress who might really coerce attention. There was in Mrs. Brookenham's way of looking up at her a dim, despairing abandonment of the idea of any common personal ground. Lady Fanny, magnificent, simple, stupid, had almost the stature of her brother, a forehead unsurpassably low and an air of sombre concentration just sufficiently corrected by something in her movements that failed to give it a point. Her blue eyes were heavy in spite of being perhaps a couple of shades too clear, and the wealth of her black hair, the disposition of the massive coils of which was all her own, had possibly a satin sheen depreciated by the current fashion. But the great thing in her was that she was, with unconscious heroism, thoroughly herself; and what were Mrs. Brook and Mrs. Brook's intimates, after all, in their free surrender to the play of perception, but a happy association for keeping her so? The Duchess was moved to the liveliest admiration by the grand, simple sweetness of her encounter with Mrs. Donner, a combination indeed in which it was a question if she or Mrs. Brook appeared to the higher advantage. It was poor Mrs. Donner—not, like Mrs. Brook, subtle in sufficiency, nor, like Lady Fanny, almost too simple—who made the poorest show. The Duchess immediately marked it to Mitchy as infinitely characteristic that their hostess, instead of letting one of her visitors go, kept them together by some sweet ingenuity and, while Lord Petherton, dropping his sister, joined Edward and Aggie in the other angle, sat there between them as if, in pursuance of some awfully clever line of her own, she were holding a hand of each. Mr. Mitchett, of course, did justice all round, or at least, as would have seemed from an inquiry he presently made, wished not to fail of it. "Is it your real impression then that Lady Fanny has serious grounds—?"
"For jealousy of that preposterous little person? My dear Mitchett," the Duchess resumed after a moment's reflection, "if you're so rash as to ask me in any of these connections for my 'real' impression, you deserve whatever you may get." The penalty Mitchy had incurred was apparently grave enough to make his companion just falter in the infliction of it; which gave him the opportunity of replying that the little person was perhaps not more preposterous than any one else, that there was something in her he rather liked, and that there were many different ways in which a woman could be interesting. This further levity it was, therefore, that laid him fully open. "Do you mean to say you've been living with Petherton so long without becoming aware that he's shockingly worried?"
"My dear Duchess," Mitchy smiled, "Petherton carries his worries with a bravery! They're so many that I've long since ceased to count them; and, in general, I've been disposed to let those pass that I can't help him to meet. You've made, I judge," he went on, "a better use of opportunities perhaps not so good—such as, at any rate, enables you to see further than I into the meaning of the impatience he just now expressed."
The Duchess was admirable, in conversation, for neglecting everything not essential to her present plausibility. "A woman like Lady Fanny can have no 'grounds' for anything—for any indignation, I mean, or for any revenge worth twopence. In this particular case, at all events, they've been sacrificed with such extravagance that, as an injured wife, she hasn't had the gumption to keep back an inch or two to stand on. She can do absolutely nothing."
"Then you take the view—?" Mitchy, who had, after all, his delicacies, pulled up as at sight of a name.
"I take the view," said the Duchess, "and I know exactly why. Elle se les passe—her little fancies! She's a phenomenon, poor dear. And all with—what shall I call it?—the absence of haunting remorse of a good house-mother who makes the family accounts balance. She looks—and it's what they love her for here when they say 'Watch her now!'—like an angry saint; but she's neither a saint, nor, to be perfectly fair to her, really angry at all. She has only just enough reflection to make out that it may some day be a little better for her that her husband shall, on his side too, have committed himself; and she's only, in secret, too pleased to be sure whom it has been with. All the same I must tell you," the Duchess still more crisply added, "that our little friend Nanda is of the opinion—which I gather her to be quite ready to defend—that Lady Fanny is wrong."
Poor Mitchy found himself staring. "But what has our little friend Nanda to do with it?"
"What indeed, bless her heart? If you will ask questions, however, you must take, as I say, your risks. There are days when, between you all, you stupefy me. One of them was when I happened, about a month ago, to make some allusion to the charming example of Mr. Cashmore's fine taste that we have there before us: what was my surprise at the tone taken by Mrs. Brook to deny, on this little lady's behalf, the soft impeachment? It was quite a mistake that anything had happened—Mrs. Donner had pulled through unscathed. She had been but a day or two, at the most, in danger, for her family and friends—the best influences—had rallied to her support: the flurry was all over. She was now perfectly safe. Do you think she looks so?" the Duchess asked.
This was not a point that Mitchy was conscious of freedom of mind to examine. "Do I understand you that Nanda was her mother's authority—?"
"For the exact shade of the intimacy of the two friends and the state of Mrs. Brook's information? Precisely—it was 'the latest before going to press.' 'Our own correspondent!' Her mother quoted her."
Mr. Mitchett visibly wondered. "But how should Nanda know—?"
"Anything about the matter? How should she not know everything? You've not, I suppose, lost sight of the fact that this lady and Mrs. Grendon are sisters. Carrie's situation and Carrie's perils are naturally very present to the extremely unoccupied Tishy, who is unhappily married into the bargain, who has no children, and whose house, as you may imagine, has a good thick air of partisanship. So, as with Nanda, on her side, there is no more absorbing interest than her dear friend Tishy, with whom she's at present staying and under whose roof she perpetually meets this victim of unjust aspersions—"
"I see the whole thing from here, you imply?" Mr. Mitchett, under the influence of this rapid evocation, had already taken his line. "Well," he said bravely, "Nanda's not a fool."
A momentary silence on the part of the Duchess might have been her tribute to his courage. "No. I don't agree with her, as it happens, here; but that there are matters as to which she's not in general at all befogged is exactly the worst I ever said of her. And I hold that in putting it so—on the basis of my little anecdote—you clearly give out that you're answered."
Mitchy turned it over. "Answered?"
"In the quarrel that, awhile back, you sought to pick with me. What I touched on, to her mother, was the peculiar range of aspects and interests she's compelled to cultivate by the special intimacies that Mrs. Brook permits her. There they are—and that's all I said. Judge them for yourself."
The Duchess had risen as she spoke, which was also what Mrs. Donner and Mrs. Brookenham had done; and Mr. Mitchett was on his feet as well, to act on this last admonition. Mrs. Donner was taking leave, and there occurred among the three ladies, in connection with the circumstance, a somewhat striking exchange of endearments. Mr. Mitchett, observing this, expressed himself suddenly as diverted. "By Jove, they're kissing—she's in Lady Fanny's arms!" But his hilarity was still to deepen. "And Lady Fanny, by Jove, is in Mrs. Brook's!"
"Oh, it's all beyond me! the Duchess cried; and the little wail of her baffled imagination had almost the austerity of a complaint.
"Not a bit— they're all right. Mrs. Brook has acted!" Mitchy went on.
"Oh, it isn't that she doesn't 'act'!" his interlocutress ejaculated.
Mrs. Donner's face presented, as she now crossed the room, something that resembled the ravage of a death-struggle between its artificial and its natural elegance. "Well," Mitchy said with decision as he caught it—"I back Nanda." And while a whiff of derision reached him from the Duchess, "Nothing has happened!" he murmured.
As if to reward him for an indulgence that she must much more have divined than overheard, the visitor approached him with her bravery of awkwardness. "I go on Friday to my sister's, where I shall find Nanda Brookenham. Can I take her any message from you?"
Mr. Mitchett showed a tint that might positively have been reflected. "Why should you dream of her expecting one?"
"Oh," said the Duchess, with a gaiety that but half carried off her asperity, "Mrs. Brook must have told Mrs. Donner to ask you!"
The latter lady, at this, rested strange eyes on the speaker, and they had perhaps something to do with a quick flare of Mitchy's wit. "Tell her, please—if, as I suppose you came here to ask the same of her mother— that I adore her still more for keeping in such happy relations with you as enable me thus to meet you."
Mrs. Donner, overwhelmed, took flight with a nervous laugh, leaving Mr. Mitchett and the Duchess still confronted. Nothing had passed between the two ladies, yet it was as if there were a trace of something in the eyes of the elder, which, during a moment's silence, moved from the retreating visitor, now formally taken over at the door by Edward Brookenham, to Lady Fanny and her hostess, who, in spite of the embraces just performed, had again subsided together while Mrs. Brook gazed up in exalted intelligence. "It's a funny house," said the Duchess at last. "She makes me such a scene over my not bringing Aggie, and still more over my very faint hint of my reasons for it, that I fly off, in compunction, to do what I can, on the spot, to repair my excess of prudence. I reappear, panting, with my niece—and it's to this company I introduce her!"
Her companion looked at the charming child, to whom Lord Petherton was talking with evident kindness and gaiety—a conjunction that evidently excited Mitchy's interest. "May we then know her?" he asked with an effect of drollery. "May I—if he may?"
The Duchess's eyes, turned to him, had taken another light. He even gaped a little at their expression, which was, in a manner, carried out by her tone. "Go and talk to her, you perverse creature, and send him over to me." Lord Petherton, a minute later, had joined her; Brookenham had left the room with Mrs. Donner; his wife and Lady Fanny were still more closely engaged; and the young Agnesina, though visibly a little scared at Mitchy's queer countenance, had begun, after the fashion he had touched on to Mrs. Brook, politely to invoke the aid of the idea of habit. "Look here—you must help me," the Duchess said to Petherton. "You can, perfectly—and it's the first thing I've yet asked of you."
"Oh, oh, oh!" her interlocutor laughed.
"I must have Mitchy," she went on without noticing his particular shade of humor.
"Mitchy too?"—he appeared to wish to leave her in no doubt of it.
"How low you are!" she simply said. "There are times when I despair of you. He's in every way your superior, and I like him so that—well, he must like her. Make him feel that he does."
Lord Petherton turned it over as something put to him practically. "I could wish for him that he would. I see in her possibilities!" he continued to laugh.
"I dare say you do. I see them in Mitchett, and I trust you'll understand me when I say that I appeal to you."
"Appeal to him straight. That's much better," Petherton lucidly observed.
The Duchess wore for a moment her proudest air, which made her, in the connection, exceptionally gentle. "He doesn't like me."
Her interlocutor looked at her with all his bright brutality. "Oh, my dear, I can speak for you—if that's what you want!"
The Duchess met his eyes, and so, for an instant, they sounded each other. "You're so abysmally coarse that I often wonder—" But, as the door reopened, she caught herself. It was the effect of a face apparently directed at her. "Be quiet. Here's Edward."
END OF BOOK SECOND