Watch and Ward (Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co., 1878)/Chapter 10

by Henry James

X.

HE good lady who enjoyed the sinecure of being mother-in-law to Mrs. Keith passed on that especial Sunday an exceptionally dull evening. Her son's widow was oppressed and preoccupied, and took an early leave. Mrs. Keith's first question on reaching home was as to whether Nora had left her room. On learning that she had quitted the house alone, after dark, Mrs. Keith made her way, stirred by vague conjecture, to the empty chamber, where, of course, she speedily laid her hands on those two testamentary notes to which allusion has been made. In a moment she had read the one addressed to herself. Perturbed as she was, she yet could not repress an impulse of intelligent applause. "Ah, how character plays the cards!" she mused. "How a good girl's very errors set her off!" If Roger longed for Nora to-day, who could measure the morrow's longing? He might enjoy, however, without waiting for the morrow, this refinement of desire. In spite of the late hour, Mrs. Keith repaired to his abode, armed with the other letter, deeming this, at such a moment, a more gracious course than to send for him. The letter Roger found to be brief but pregnant. "Dear Roger," it ran, "I learned this afternoon the secret of all these years,—too late for our happiness. I have been strangely blind; you have been too forbearing,—generous where you should have been strictly just. I never dreamed of what this day would bring. Now, I must leave you; I can do nothing else. This is no time to thank you for what you have been to me, but I shall live to do so yet. Dear Roger, get married, and send me your children to teach. I shall live by teaching. I have a family, you know; I go to New York to-night. I write this on my knees, imploring you to be happy. One of these days, when I have learned to be myself again, we shall be better friends than ever. I beg you, I beg you, not to follow me."

Mrs. Keith sat a long time with her host. For the first time in her knowledge of him she saw Roger violent,—violent with horror and self-censure and vain imprecation. "Take her at her word," she said; "don't follow her. Let her knock against the world a little, and she will have you yet."

This philosophy seemed to Roger too stoical by half; to sit at home and let Nora knock against the world was more than he could undertake. "Whether she will have me or not," he said, "I must bring her back. I am morally responsible for her. Good God! think of her afloat in that horrible city with that rascal of a half-cousin—her 'family' she calls him!—for a pilot!" He took, of course, the first train to New York. How to proceed, where to look, was a hard question; but to linger and waver was agony. He was haunted, as he went, with dreadful visions of what might have befallen her; it seemed to him that he had never loved her before.

Fenton, as he recognized him, was a comfortable sight, in spite of his detested identity. He was better than uncertainty. "You have news for me!" Roger cried. "Where is she?"

Fenton looked about him at his leisure, feeling, agreeably, that now he held the cards. "Gently," he said. "Had n't we better retire?" Upon which Roger, grasping his arm with grim devotion, led him to his own apartment. "I rather hit it," George went on. "I am not the fool you once tried to make me seem."

"Where is she,—tell me that!" Roger repeated.

"Allow me, dear sir," said Fenton, settling himself in spacious vantage. "If I have come here to oblige you, you must let me take my own way. You don't suppose I have rushed to meet you for the pleasure of the thing. I owe it to my cousin, in the first place, to say that I have come without her knowledge."

"If you mean only to torture me," Roger answered, "say so outright. Is she well? is she safe?"

"Safe? the safest creature in the city, sir! A delightful home, maternal care!"

Roger wondered whether Fenton was making horrible sport of his trouble; he turned cold at the thought of maternal care of his providing. But he admonished himself to lose nothing by arrogance. "I thank you extremely for your kindness. Nothing remains but that I should see her."

"Nothing, indeed! You are very considerate. You know that she particularly objects to seeing you."

"Possibly! But that is for her to say. I claim the right to take the refusal from her own lips."

Fenton looked at him with an impudent parody of compassion. "Don 't you think you have had refusals enough? You must enjoy them!"

Roger turned away with an imprecation, but he continued to swallow his impatience. "Mr. Fenton," he said, "you have not come here, I know, to waste words, nor have I to waste temper. You see before you a desperate man. Come, make the most of me! I am willing, I am delighted, to be fleeced! You will help me, but not for nothing. Name your terms."

Fenton flinched, but he did not protest; he only gave himself the luxury of swaggering a little. "Well, you see," he answered, "my assistance is worth something. Let me explain how much. You will never guess! I know your story; Nora has told me everything,—everything! We have had a great talk. Let me give you a little hint of my story,—and excuse egotism! You proposed to her; she refused you. You offered her money, luxury, a position. She knew you, she liked you enormously, yet she refused you flat! Now reflect on this."

There was something revolting to Roger in seeing his adversary profaning these sacred mysteries; he protested. "I have reflected, quite enough. You can tell me nothing. Her affections," he added stiffly, to make an end of it, "were pre-engaged."

"Exactly! You see how that complicates matters. Poor, dear little Nora!" And Fenton gave a twist to his mustache. "Imagine, if you can, how a man placed as I am feels toward a woman,—toward the woman!

If he reciprocates, it 's love, it 's passion, it 's what you will, but it 's common enough! But when he does n't repay her in kind, when he can't, poor devil, it 's—it 's—upon my word," cried Fenton, slapping his knee, "it 's chivalry!"

For some moments Roger failed to appreciate the remarkable purport of these observations; then, suddenly, it dawned upon him. "Do I understand you," he asked, in a voice gentle by force of wonder, "that you are the man?"

Fenton squared himself in his chair. "You have hit it, sir. I am the man,—the happy, the unhappy man. D—n it, sir, it 's not my fault!"

Roger stood staring; Fenton felt his eyes penetrating him to the core. "Excuse me," said Roger, at last, "if I suggest your giving me some slight evidence in support of this extraordinary claim!"

"Evidence? is n't there about evidence enough? When a young girl gives up home and friends and fortune and—and reputation, and rushes out into the world to throw herself into a man's arms, it seems to me you have got your evidence. But if you 'll not take my word, you may leave it! I may look at the matter once too often, let me tell you! I admire Nora with all my heart; I worship the ground she treads on; but I confess I'm afraid of her; she 's too good for me; she was meant for a finer gentleman than I! By which I don't mean you, of necessity. But you have been good to her, and you have a claim. It has been cancelled in a measure; but you wish to set it up again. Now you see that I stand in your way; that if I had a mind to, I might stand there forever! Hang it, sir, I am playing the part of a saint. I have but a word to say to settle my case, and to settle yours. But I have my eye on a lady neither so young nor so pretty as my cousin, yet whom I can marry with a better conscience, for she expects no more than I can give her. Nevertheless, I don't answer for myself. A man isn't a saint every day in the week. Talk about conscience when a beautiful girl sits gazing at you through a mist of tears! O, you have yourself to thank for it all! A year and a half ago, if you had n't treated me like a swindler, Nora would have been content to treat me like a friend. But women have a fancy for an outlaw. You turned me out of doors, and Nora's heart went with me. It has followed me ever since. Here I sit with my ugly face and hold it in my hand. As I say, I don't quite know what to do with it. You propose an arrangement, I inquire your terms. A man loved is a man listened to. If I were to say to Nora tomorrow, 'My dear girl, you have made a mistake. You are in a false position. Go back to Mr. Lawrence directly, and then we will talk about it!' she would look at me a moment with those beautiful eyes of hers, she would sigh, she would gather herself up like a princess on trial for treason, remanded to prison,—and she would march to your door. Once she 's within it, it 's your own affair. That 's what I can do. Now what can you do? Come, something handsome!"

Fenton spoke loud and fast, as if to outstrip self-contempt. Roger listened amazedly to this tissue of falsity, impudence, and greed, and at last, as Fenton paused, and he seemed to see Nora's very image turning away with a shudder, his disgust broke forth. "Upon my word, sir," he cried, "you go too far; you ask too much. Nora in love with you,—you, who have n't the grace even to lie decently! Tell me she 's ill, she 's lost, she 's dead; but don't tell me she can look at you without horror!"

Fenton rose and stood for a moment, glaring with anger at his useless self-exposure. For an instant, Roger expected a tussle. But Fenton deemed that he could deal harder vengeance than by his fists. "Very good!" he cried. "You have chosen. I don't mind your words; you 're an ass at best, and of course you are twenty times an ass when you are put out by a disagreeable truth. But you are not such a fool, I guess, as not to repent!" And Fenton made a rather braver exit than you might have expected.

Roger's recent vigil with Mrs. Keith had been dismal enough; but he was yet to learn that a sleepless night may contain deeper possibilities of suffering. He had flung back Fenton's words, but they returned to the charge. When once the gate is opened to self-torture, the whole army of fiends files in. Before morning he had fairly out-Fentoned Fenton. There was no discretion in his own love; why should there be in Nora's? We love as we must, not as we should; and she, poor girl, might have bowed to the common law. In the morning he slept awhile for weariness, but he awoke to a world of agitation. If Fenton's tale was true, and if, at Mrs. Keith's instigation, his own suspicions had done Hubert wrong, he would go to Hubert, pour out his woes, and demand aid and comfort. He must move to find rest.

Hubert's lodging was far up town; Roger started on foot. The weather was perfect; one of those happy days of February which seem to snatch a mood from May,—a day when any sorrow is twice a sorrow. The winter was melting and trickling; you heard on all sides, in the still sunshine, the raising of windows; on the edges of opposing house-tops rested a vault of vernal blue. Where was she hidden, in the vast bright city? The streets and crowds and houses that concealed her seemed hideous. He would have beggared himself for the sound of her voice, though her words might damn him. When at last he reached Hubert's dwelling, a sudden sense of all that he risked checked his steps. Hubert, after all, and Hubert alone, was a possible rival, and it would be sad work to put the torch into his hands! So he turned heavily back to the Fifth Avenue and kept his way to the Park. Here, for some time he walked about, heeding, feeling, seeing nothing but the glaring, mocking brightness of the day. At last he sat down on a bench; the delicious mildness of the air almost sickened him. It was some time before he perceived through the mist of his thoughts that two ladies had descended from a carriage hard by, and were approaching his bench,—the only one near at hand. One of these ladies was of great age and evidently infirm; she came slowly, leaning on her companion's arm; she wore a green shade over her eyes. The younger lady, who was in the prime of youth and beauty, supported her friend with peculiar tenderness. As Roger rose to give them place, he dimly observed on the young lady's face a movement of recognition, a smile,—the smile of Miss Sands! Blushing slightly, she frankly greeted him. He met her with the best grace at his command, and felt her eyes, as he spoke, scanning the trouble in his aspect. "There is no need of my introducing you to my aunt," she said. "She has lost her hearing, and her only pleasure is to bask in the sun."

She turned and helped this venerable invalid to settle herself on the bench, put a shawl about her, and satisfied her feeble needs with filial solicitude. At the end of ten minutes of commonplace talk, relieved however by certain intelligent glances on either side, Roger found a kind of healing quality in the presence of this agreeable woman. At last these sympathetic eye-beams resolved themselves, on Miss Sands's part, into speech. "You are either very unwell, Mr. Lawrence, or very unhappy."

Roger hesitated an instant, under the empire of that stubborn aversion to complaint which, in his character, was half modesty and half philosophy. But Miss Sands seemed to sit there eying him so like the genius of friendship, that he answered simply, "I am unhappy!"

"I was afraid it would come!" said Miss Sands. "It seemed to me when we met, a year ago, that your spirits were too high for this life. You know you told me something which gives me the right,—I was going to say, to be interested; let me say, at least, to be compassionate."

"I hardly remember what I told you. I only know that I admired you to a degree which may very well have loosened my tongue."

"O, it was about the charms of another you spoke! You told me about the young girl to whom you had devoted yourself."

"I was dreaming then; now I am awake!" Roger hung his head and poked the ground with his stick. Suddenly he looked up, and she saw that his eyes were filled with tears. "Dear lady," he said, "you have stirred deep waters! Don't question me. I am ridiculous with disappointment and sorrow!"

She gently laid her hand upon his arm. "Let me hear it all! I assure you I can't go away and leave you sitting here the same image of suicidal despair I found you."

Thus urged, Roger told his story. Her attention made him understand it better himself, and, as he talked, he worked off the superficial disorder of his grief. When he came to speak of this dismal contingency of Nora's love for her cousin, he threw himself frankly upon Miss Sand's pity, upon her wisdom. "Is such a thing possible?" he asked. "Do you believe it?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You must remember that I know neither Miss Lambert nor the gentleman you speak of. I can hardly risk a judgment; I can only say this, that the general effect of your story is to diminish my esteem for women,—to elevate my opinion of men."

"O, except Nora on one side, and Fenton on the other! Nora is an angel!"

Miss Sands gave a vexed smile. "Possibly! You are a man, and you ought to have loved a woman. Angels have a good conscience guaranteed them; they may do what they please. If I should except any one, it would be Mr. Hubert Lawrence. I met him the other evening."

"You think it is Hubert then?" Roger demanded mournfully.

Miss Sands broke into a brilliant laugh. "For an angel, Miss Lambert has n't lost her time on earth! But don't ask me for advice, Mr. Lawrence; at least not now and here. Come and see me to-morrow, or this evening. Don't regret having spoken; you may believe at least that the burden of your grief is shared. It was too miserable that at such a time you should be sitting here alone, feeding upon your own heart."

These seemed to Roger excellent words; they lost nothing on the speaker's lips. She was indeed extremely beautiful; her face, softened by intelligent pity, was lighted by a gleam of tender irony of his patience. Was he, after all, stupidly patient, ignobly fond? There was in Miss Sands something delightedly rich and mellow. Nora, for an instant, seemed a flighty school-girl. He looked about him, vaguely questioning the empty air, longing for rest, yet dreading forfeiture. He left his place and strolled across the dull-colored turf. At the base of a tree, on its little bed of sparse raw verdure, he suddenly spied the first violet of the year. He stooped and picked it: its mild firm tint was the color of friendship. He brought it back to Miss Sands, who now had risen with her companion and was preparing to return to the carriage. He silently offered her the violet,—a mere pin's head of bloom; a passionate throb of his heart had told him that this was all he could offer her. She took it with a sober smile; it seemed to grow pale beneath her dark blue eyes. "We shall see you again?" she said.

Roger felt himself blushing to his brows. He had a vision on either hand of an offered cup,—the deep-hued wine of illusion,—the bitter draught of constancy. A certain passionate instinct answered,—an instinct deeper than his wisdom, his reason, his virtue,—deep as his love. "Not now," he said. "A year hence!"

Miss Sands turned away and stood for a moment as motionless as some sculptured statue of renunciation. Then, passing her arm caressingly round her companion, "Come, dear aunt," she murmured; "we must go." This little address to the stone-deaf dame was her single tribute to confusion. Roger walked with the ladies to their carriage and silently helped them to enter it. He noted the affectionate tact with which Miss Sands adjusted her movements to those of her companion. When he lifted his hat, his friend bowed, as he fancied, with an air of redoubled compassion. She had but imagined his prior loss,—she knew his present one! "She would make an excellent wife!" he said, as the carriage rolled away. He stood watching it for some minutes; then, as it wheeled round a turn, he was seized with a deeper, sorer sense of his impotent idleness. He would go to Hubert with his accusation, if not with his appeal.