The Siege of London, The Pension Beaurepas, and The Point of View/The Siege of London/Chapter 2
II.
His delay in going to see her was nevertheless calculated; there were more reasons for it than it is necessary to mention. But when he went, Mrs. Headway was at home, and Littlemore was not surprised to see Sir Arthur Demesne in her sitting-room. There was something in the air which seemed to indicate that this gentleman's visit had already lasted a certain time. Littlemore thought it probable that, given the circumstances, he would now bring it to a close; he must have learned from their hostess that Littlemore was an old and familiar friend. He might of course have definite rights—he had every appearance of it; but the more definite they were the more gracefully he could afford to waive them. Littlemore made these reflections while Sir Arthur Demesne sat there looking at him without giving any sign of departure. Mrs. Headway was very gracious—she had the manner of having known you a hundred years; she scolded Littlemore extravagantly for not having been to see her sooner, but this was only a form of the gracious. By daylight she looked a little faded; but she had an expression which could never fade. She had the best rooms in the hotel, and an air of extreme opulence and prosperity; her courier sat outside, in the ante-chamber, and she evidently knew how to live. She attempted to include Sir Arthur in the conversation, but though the young man remained in his place, he declined to be included. He smiled, in silence; but he was evidently uncomfortable. The conversation, therefore, remained superficial—a quality that, of old, had by no means belonged to Mrs. Headway's interviews with her friends. The Englishman looked at Littlemore with a strange, perverse expression which Littlemore, at first, with a good deal of private amusement, simply attributed to jealousy.
"My dear Sir Arthur, I wish very much you would go," Mrs. Headway remarked, at the end of a quarter of an hour.
Sir Arthur got up and took his hat. "I thought I should oblige you by staying."
"To defend me against Mr. Littlemore? I 've known him since I was a baby—I know the worst he can do." She fixed her charming smile for a moment on her retreating visitor, and she added, with much unexpectedness, "I want to talk to him about my past!"
"That 's just what I want to hear," said Sir Arthur, with his hand on the door.
"We are going to talk American; you would n't understand us!—He speaks in the English style," she explained, in her little sufficient way, as the baronet, who announced that at all events he would come back in the evening, let himself out.
"He does n't know about your past?" Littlemore inquired, trying not to make the question sound impertinent.
"Oh, yes; I 've told him everything; but he does n't understand. The English are so peculiar; I think they are rather stupid. He has never heard of a woman being—" But here Mrs. Headway checked herself, while Littlemore filled out the blank. "What are you laughing at? It does n't matter," she went on; "there are more things in the world than those people have heard of. However, I like them very much; at least I like him. He 's such a gentleman; do you know what I mean? Only, he stays too long, and he is n't amusing. I 'm very glad to see you, for a change."
"Do you mean I 'm not a gentleman?" Littlemore asked.
"No indeed; you used to be, in New Mexico. I think you were the only one—and I hope you are still. That 's why I recognized you the other night; I might have cut you, you know."
"You can still, if you like. It 's not too late."
"Oh, no; that 's not what I want. I want you to help me."
"To help you?"
Mrs. Headway fixed her eyes for a moment on the door. "Do you suppose that man is there still?"
"That young man—your poor Englishman?"
"No; I mean Max. Max is my courier," said Mrs. Headway, with a certain impressiveness.
"I have n't the least idea. I 'll see, if you like."
"No; in that case I should have to give him an order, and I don't know what in the world to ask him to do. He sits there for hours; with my simple habits I afford him no employment. I am afraid I have no imagination."
"The burden of grandeur," said Littlemore.
"Oh yes, I 'm very grand. But on the whole I like it. I 'm only afraid he 'll hear. I talk so very loud; that 's another thing I 'm trying to get over."
"Why do you want to be different?"
"Well, because everything else is different," Mrs. Headway rejoined, with a little sigh. "Did you hear that I 'd lost my husband?" she went on, abruptly.
"Do you mean—a—Mr.———?" and Littlemore paused, with an effect that did not seem to come home to her.
"I mean Mr. Headway," she said, with dignity. "I've been through a good deal since you saw me last: marriage, and death, and trouble, and all sorts of things."
"You had been through a good deal of marriage before that," Littlemore ventured to observe.
She rested her eyes on him with soft brightness, and without a change of color. "Not so much—not so much—"
"Not so much as might have been thought."
"Not so much as was reported. I forget whether I was married when I saw you last."
"It was one of the reports," said Littlemore. "But I never saw Mr. Beck."
"You did n't lose much; he was a simple wretch! I have done certain things in my life which I have never understood; no wonder others can't understand them. But that 's all over! Are you sure Max does n't hear?" she asked, quickly.
"Not at all sure. But if you suspect him of listening at the keyhole, I would send him away."
"I don't think he does that. I am always rushing to the door."
"Then he does n't hear. I had no idea you had so many secrets. When I parted with you, Mr. Headway was in the future."
"Well, now he 's in the past. He was a pleasant man—I can understand my doing that. But he only lived a year. He had neuralgia of the heart; he left me very well off." She mentioned these various facts as if they were quite of the same order.
"I 'm glad to hear it; you used to have expensive tastes."
"I have plenty of money," said Mrs. Headway. "Mr. Headway had property at Denver, which has increased immensely in value. After his death I tried New York. But I don't like New York." Littlemore's hostess uttered this last sentence in a tone which was the résumé of a social episode. "I mean to live in Europe—I like Europe," she announced; and the manner of the announcement had a touch of prophecy, as the other words had had a reverberation of history.
Littlemore was very much struck with all this, and he was greatly entertained with Mrs. Headway. "Are you travelling with that young man?" he inquired, with the coolness of a person who wishes to make his entertainment go as far as possible.
She folded her arms as she leaned back in her chair. "Look here, Mr. Littlemore," she said; "I 'm about as good-natured as I used to be in America, but I know a great deal more. Of course I ain't travelling with that young man; he 's only a friend."
"He is n't a lover?" asked Littlemore, rather cruelly.
"Do people travel with their lovers? I don't want you to laugh at me—I want you to help me." She fixed her eyes on him with an air of tender remonstrance that might have touched him; she looked so gentle and reasonable. "As I tell you, I have taken a great fancy to this old Europe; I feel as if I should never go back. But I want to see something of the life. I think it would suit me—if I could get started a little. Mr. Littlemore," she added, in a moment—"I may as well be frank, for I ain't at all ashamed. I want to get into society. That 's what I 'm after!"
Littlemore settled himself in his chair, with the feeling of a man who, knowing that he will have to pull, seeks to obtain a certain leverage. It was in a tone of light jocosity, almost of encouragement, however, that he repeated: "Into society? It seems to me you are in it already, with baronets for your adorers."
"That 's just what I want to know!" she said, with a certain eagerness. "Is a baronet much?"
"So they are apt to think. But I know very little about it."
"Ain't you in society yourself?"
"I? Never in the world! Where did you get that idea? I care no more about society than about that copy of the Figaro."
Mrs. Headway's countenance assumed for a moment a look of extreme disappointment, and Littlemore could see that, having heard of his silver-mine and his cattle-ranch, and knowing that he was living in Europe, she had hoped to find him immersed in the world of fashion. But she speedily recovered herself. "I don't believe a word of it. You know you 're a gentleman—you can't help yourself."
"I may be a gentleman, but I have none of the habits of one." Littlemore hesitated a moment, and then he added—"I lived too long in the great Southwest."
She flushed quickly; she instantly understood—understood even more that he had meant to say. But she wished to make use of him, and it was of more importance that she should appear forgiving—especially as she had the happy consciousness of being so, than that she should punish a cruel speech. She could afford, however, to be lightly ironical. "That makes no difference—a gentleman is always a gentleman."
"Not always," said Littlemore, laughing.
"It's impossible that, through your sister, you should n't know something about European society," said Mrs. Headway.
At the mention of his sister, made with a studied lightness of reference which he caught as it passed, Littlemore was unable to repress a start. "What in the world have you got to do with my sister?" he would have liked to say. The introduction of this lady was disagreeable to him; she belonged to quite another order of ideas, and it was out of the question that Mrs. Headway should ever make her acquaintance—if this was what, as that lady would have said—she was "after." But he took advantage of a side-issue. "What do you mean by European society? One can't talk about that. It 's a very vague phrase."
"Well, I mean English society—I mean the society your sister lives in—that's what I mean," said Mrs. Headway, who was quite prepared to be definite. "I mean the people I saw in London last May—the people I saw at the opera and in the park, the people who go to the Queen's drawing-rooms. When I was in London I stayed at that hotel on the corner of Piccadilly—that looking straight down St. James's Street—and I spent hours together at the window looking at the people in the carriages. I had a carriage of my own, and when I was not at my window I was driving all round. I was all alone; I saw every one, but I knew no one—I had no one to tell me. I did n't know Sir Arthur then—I only met him a month ago at Homburg. He followed me to Paris—that 's how he came to be my guest." Serenely, prosaically, without any of the inflation of vanity, Mrs. Headway made this last assertion; it was as if she were used to being followed, or as if a gentleman one met at Homburg would inevitably follow. In the same tone she went on: "I attracted a good deal of attention in London—I could easily see that."
"You 'll do that wherever you go," Littlemore said, insufficiently enough, as he felt.
"I don't want to attract so much; I think it 's vulgar," Mrs. Headway rejoined, with a certain soft sweetness which seemed to denote the enjoyment of a new idea. She was evidently open to new ideas.
"Every one was looking at you the other night at the theatre," Littlemore continued. "How can you hope to escape notice?"
"I don't want to escape notice—people have always looked at me, and I suppose they always will. But there are different ways of being looked at, and I know the way I want. I mean to have it, too!" Mrs. Headway exclaimed. Yes, she was very definite.
Littlemore sat there, face to face with her, and for some time he said nothing. He had a mixture of feelings, and the memory of other places, other hours, was stealing over him. There had been of old a very considerable absence of interposing surfaces between these two—he had known her as one knew people only in the great Southwest. He had liked her extremely, in a town where it would have been ridiculous to be difficult to please. But his sense of this fact was somehow connected with Southwestern conditions; his liking for Nancy Beck was an emotion of which the proper setting was a back piazza. She presented herself here on a new basis—she appeared to desire to be classified afresh. Littlemore said to himself that this was too much trouble; he had taken her in that way—he could n't begin at this time of day to take her in another way. He asked himself whether she were going to be a bore. It was not easy to suppose Mrs. Headway capable of this offence; but she might become tiresome if she were bent upon being different. It made him rather afraid when she began to talk about European society, about his sister, about things being vulgar. Littlemore was a very good fellow, and he had at least the average human love of justice; but there was in his composition an element of the indolent, the sceptical, perhaps even the brutal, which made him desire to preserve the simplicity of their former terms of intercourse. He had no particular desire to see a woman rise again, as the mystic process was called; he did n't believe in women's rising again. He believed in their not going down; thought it perfectly possible and eminently desirable, but held it was much better for society that they should not endeavor, as the French say, to mêler les genres. In general, he did n't pretend to say what was good for society—society seemed to him in rather a bad way; but he had a conviction on this particular point. Nancy Beck going in for the great prizes, that spectacle might be entertaining for a simple spectator; but it would be a nuisance, an embarrassment, from the moment anything more than contemplation should be expected of him. He had no wish to be rough, but it might be well to show her that he was not to be humbugged.
"Oh, if there 's anything you want you 'll have it," he said in answer to her last remark. "You have always had what you want."
"Well, I want something new this time. Does your sister reside in London?"
"My dear lady, what do you know about my sister?" Littlemore asked. "She 's not a woman you would care for."
Mrs. Headway was silent a moment. "You don't respect me!" she exclaimed suddenly in a loud, almost gay tone of voice. If Littlemore wished, as I say, to preserve the simplicity of their old terms of intercourse, she was apparently willing to humor him.
"Ah, my dear Mrs. Beck...!" he cried, vaguely, protestingly, and using her former name quite by accident. At San Diego he had never thought whether he respected her or not; that never came up.
"That 's a proof of it—calling me by that hateful name! Don't you believe I 'm married? I have n't been fortunate in my names," she added, pensively.
"You make it very awkward when you say such mad things. My sister lives most of the year in the country; she is very simple, rather dull, perhaps a trifle narrow-minded. You are very clever, very lively, and as wide as all creation. That's why I think you would n't like her."
"You ought to be ashamed to run down your sister!" cried Mrs. Headway. "You told me once—at San Diego—that she was the nicest woman you knew. I made a note of that, you see. And you told me she was just my age. So that makes it rather uncomfortable for you, if you won't introduce me!" And Littlemore's hostess gave a pitiless laugh. "I 'm not in the least afraid of her being dull. It 's very distinguished to be dull. I'm ever so much too lively."
"You are indeed, ever so much! But nothing is more easy than to know my sister," said Littlemore, who knew perfectly that what he said was untrue. And then, as a diversion from this delicate topic, he suddenly asked, "Are you going to marry Sir Arthur?"
"Don't you think I 've been married about enough?"
"Possibly; but this is a new line, it would be different. An Englishman—that 's a new sensation."
"If I should marry, it would be a European," said Mrs. Headway calmly.
"Your chance is very good; they are all marrying Americans."
"He would have to be some one fine, the man I should marry now. I have a good deal to make up for! That's what I want to know about Sir Arthur; all this time you have n't told me."
"I have nothing in the world to tell—I have never heard of him. Has n't he told you himself?"
"Nothing at all; he is very modest. He does n't brag, nor make himself out anything great. That 's what I like him for: I think it 's in such good taste. I like good taste!" exclaimed Mrs. Headway. "But all this time," she added, "you have n't told me you would help me."
"How can I help you? I 'm no one, I have no power."
"You can help me by not preventing me. I want you to promise not to prevent me." She gave him her fixed, bright gaze again; her eyes seemed to look far into his.
"Good Lord, how could I prevent you?"
"I 'm not sure that you could. But you might try."
"I'm too indolent, and too stupid," said Littlemore jocosely.
"Yes," she replied, musing as she still looked at him. "I think you are too stupid. But I think you are also too kind," she added more graciously. She was almost irresistible when she said such a thing as that.
They talked for a quarter of an hour longer, and at last—as if she had had scruples—she spoke to him of his own marriage, of the death of his wife, matters to which she alluded more felicitously (as he thought) than to some other points. "If you have a little girl you ought to be very happy; that 's what I should like to have. Lord, I should make her a nice woman! Not like me—in another style!" When he rose to leave her, she told him that he must come and see her very often; she was to be some weeks longer in Paris; he must bring Mr. Waterville.
"Your English friend won't like that—our coming very often," Littlemore said, as he stood with his hand on the door.
"I don't know what he has got to do with it," she answered, staring.
"Neither do I. Only he must be in love with you."
"That doesn't give him any right. Mercy, if I had had to put myself out for all the men that have been in love with me!"
"Of course you would have had a terrible life! Even doing as you please, you have had rather an agitated one. But your young Englishman's sentiments appear to give him the right to sit there, after one comes in, looking blighted and bored. That might become very tiresome."
"The moment he becomes tiresome I send him away. You can trust me for that."
"Oh," said Littlemore, "it does n't matter, after all." He remembered that it would be very inconvenient to him to have undisturbed possession of Mrs. Headway.
She came out with him into the antechamber. Mr. Max, the courier, was fortunately not there. She lingered a little; she appeared to have more to say.
"On the contrary, he likes you to come," she remarked in a moment; "he wants to study my friends."
"To study them?"
"He wants to find out about me, and he thinks they may tell him something. Some day he will ask you right out, 'What sort of a woman is she, any way?'"
"Has n't he found out yet?"
"He does n't understand me," said Mrs. Headway, surveying the front of her dress. "He has never seen any one like me."
"I should imagine not!"
"So he will ask you, as I say."
"I will tell him you are the most charming woman in Europe."
"That ain't a description! Besides, he knows it. He wants to know if I'm respectable."
"He's very curious!" Littlemore cried, with a laugh.
She grew a little pale; she seemed to be watching his lips. "Mind you tell him," she went on with a smile that brought none of her color back.
"Respectable? I 'll tell him you 're adorable!"
Mrs. Headway stood a moment longer. "Ah, you 're no use!" she murmured. And she suddenly turned away and passed back into her sitting-room, slowly drawing her far-trailing skirts.