Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (61 page)

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Authors: Henry James

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BOOK: Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874
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Page 357
To-day, no doubt, she's not worthy of the name; but she has been one.
Jamais de la vie!
That's all a pretext.
A pretext? Lyon pricked up his earshe began to wonder what was coming now.
She didn't want youshe wanted me.
I noticed she paid you some attention. What does she want of you?
Oh, to do me an ill turn. She hates melots of women do. She's watching meshe follows me.
Lyon leaned back in his chairhe didn't believe a word of this. He was all the more delighted with it and with the Colonel's bright, candid manner. The story had bloomed, fragrant, on the spot. My dear Colonel! he murmured, with friendly interest and commiseration.
I was annoyed when she came inbut I wasn't startled, his sitter continued.
You concealed it very well, if you were.
Ah, when one has been through what I have! To-day however I confess I was half prepared. I have seen her hanging aboutshe knows my movements. She was near my house this morningshe must have followed me.
But who is she thenwith such a
toupet?
Yes, she has that, said the Colonel; but as you observe she was primed. Still, there was a cheek, as they say, in her coming in. Oh, she's a bad one! She isn't a model and she never was; no doubt she has known some of those women and picked up their form. She had hold of a friend of mine ten years agoa stupid young gander who might have been left to be plucked but whom I was obliged to take an interest in for family reasons. It's a long storyI had really forgotten all about it. She's thirty-seven if she's a day. I cut in and made him get rid of herI sent her about her business. She knew it was me she had to thank. She has never forgiven meI think she's off her head. Her name isn't Geraldine at all and I doubt very much if that's her address.
Ah, what is her name? Lyon asked, most attentive. The details always began to multiply, to abound, when once his companion was well launchedthey flowed forth in battalions.
 
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It's PearsonHarriet Pearson; but she used to call herself Grenadinewasn't that a rum appellation? GrenadineGeraldinethe jump was easy. Lyon was charmed with the promptitude of this response, and his interlocutor went on: I hadn't thought of her for yearsI had quite lost sight of her. I don't know what her idea is, but practically she's harmless. As I came in I thought I saw her a little way up the road. She must have found out I come here and have arrived before me. I daresayor rather I'm sureshe is waiting for me there now.
Hadn't you better have protection? Lyon asked, laughing.
The best protection is five shillingsI'm willing to go that length. Unless indeed she has a bottle of vitriol. But they only throw vitriol on the men who have deceived them, and I never deceived herI told her the first time I saw her that it wouldn't do. Oh, if she's there we'll walk a little way together and talk it over and, as I say, I'll go as far as five shillings.
Well, said Lyon, I'll contribute another five. He felt that this was little to pay for his entertainment.
That entertainment was interrupted however for the time by the Colonel's departure. Lyon hoped for a letter recounting the fictive sequel; but apparently his brilliant sitter did not operate with the pen. At any rate he left town without writing; they had taken a rendezvous for three months later. Oliver Lyon always passed the holidays in the same way; during the first weeks he paid a visit to his elder brother, the happy possessor, in the south of England, of a rambling old house with formal gardens, in which he delighted, and then he went abroadusually to Italy or Spain. This year he carried out his custom after taking a last look at his all but finished work and feeling as nearly pleased with it as he ever felt with the translation of the idea by the handalways, as it seemed to him, a pitiful compromise. One yellow afternoon, in the country, as he was smoking his pipe on one of the old terraces he was seized with the desire to see it again and do two or three things more to it: he had thought of it so often while he lounged there. The impulse was too strong to be dismissed, and though he expected to return to town in the course of another week he was unable to face the delay. To look at the picture for five minutes would be enoughtit would clear up
 
Page 359
certain questions which hummed in his brain; so that the next morning, to give himself this luxury, he took the train for London. He sent no word in advance; he would lunch at his club and probably return into Sussex by the 5.45.
In St. John's Wood the tide of human life flows at no time very fast, and in the first days of September Lyon found unmitigated emptiness in the straight sunny roads where the little plastered garden-walls, with their incommunicative doors, looked slightly Oriental. There was definite stillness in his own house, to which he admitted himself by his pass-key, having a theory that it was well sometimes to take servants unprepared. The good woman who was mainly in charge and who cumulated the functions of cook and housekeeper was, however, quickly summoned by his step, and (he cultivated frankness of intercourse with his domestics) received him without the confusion of surprise. He told her that she needn't mind the place being not quite straight, he had only come up for a few hourshe should be busy in the studio. To this she replied that he was just in time to see a lady and a gentleman who were there at the momentthey had arrived five minutes before. She had told them he was away from home but they said it was all right; they only wanted to look at a picture and would be very careful of everything. I hope it is all right, sir, the housekeeper concluded. The gentleman says he's a sitter and he gave me his namerather an odd name; I think it's military. The lady's a very fine lady, sir; at any rate there they are.
Oh, it's all right, Lyon said, the identity of his visitors being clear. The good woman couldn't know, for she usually had little to do with the comings and goings; his man, who showed people in and out, had accompanied him to the country. He was a good deal surprised at Mrs. Capadose's having come to see her husband's portrait when she knew that the artist himself wished her to forbear; but it was a familiar truth to him that she was a woman of a high spirit. Besides, perhaps the lady was not Mrs. Capadose; the Colonel might have brought some inquisitive friend, a person who wanted a portrait of
her
husband. What were they doing in town, at any rate, at that moment? Lyon made his way to the studio with a certain curiosity; he wondered vaguely what his friends were
 
Page 360
up to. He pushed aside the curtain that hung in the door of communicationthe door opening upon the gallery which it had been found convenient to construct at the time the studio was added to the house. When I say he pushed it aside I should amend my phrase; he laid his hand upon it, but at that moment he was arrested by a very singular sound. It came from the floor of the room beneath him and it startled him extremely, consisting apparently as it did of a passionate waila sort of smothered shriekaccompanied by a violent burst of tears. Oliver Lyon listened intently a moment, and then he passed out upon the balcony, which was covered with an old thick Moorish rug. His step was noiseless, though he had not endeavoured to make it so, and after that first instant he found himself profiting irresistibly by the accident of his not having attracted the attention of the two persons in the studio, who were some twenty feet below him. In truth they were so deeply and so strangely engaged that their unconsciousness of observation was explained. The scene that took place before Lyon's eyes was one of the most extraordinary they had ever rested upon. Delicacy and the failure to comprehend kept him at first from interrupting itfor what he saw was a woman who had thrown herself in a flood of tears on her companion's bosomand these influences were succeeded after a minute (the minutes were very few and very short) by a definite motive which presently had the force to make him step back behind the curtain. I may add that it also had the force to make him avail himself for further contemplation of a crevice formed by his gathering together the two halves of the
portière.
He was perfectly aware of what he was abouthe was for the moment an eavesdropper, a spy; but he was also aware that a very odd business, in which his confidence had been trifled with, was going forward, and that if in a measure it didn't concern him, in a measure it very definitely did. His observation, his reflections, accomplished themselves in a flash.
His visitors were in the middle of the room; Mrs. Capadose clung to her husband, weeping, sobbing as if her heart would break. Her distress was horrible to Oliver Lyon but his astonishment was greater than his horror when he heard the Colo-
 
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nel respond to it by the words, vehemently uttered, Damn him, damn him, damn him! What in the world had happened? why was she sobbing and whom was he damning? What had happened, Lyon saw the next instant, was that the Colonel had finally rummaged out his unfinished portrait (he knew the corner where the artist usually placed it, out of the way, with its face to the wall) and had set it up before his wife on an empty easel. She had looked at it a few moments and thenapparentlywhat she saw in it had produced an explosion of dismay and resentment. She was too busy sobbing and the Colonel was too busy holding her and reiterating his objurgation, to look round or look up. The scene was so unexpected to Lyon that he could not take it, on the spot, as a proof of the triumph of his handof a tremendous hit: he could only wonder what on earth was the matter. The idea of the triumph came a little later. Yet he could see the portrait from where he stood; he was startled with its look of lifehe had not thought it so masterly. Mrs. Capadose flung herself away from her husbandshe dropped into the nearest chair, buried her face in her arms, leaning on a table. Her weeping suddenly ceased to be audible, but she shuddered there as if she were overwhelmed with anguish and shame. Her husband remained a moment staring at the picture; then he went to her, bent over her, took hold of her again, soothed her. What is it, darling, what the devil is it? he demanded.
Lyon heard her answer. It's crueloh, it's too cruel!
Damn himdamn himdamn him! the Colonel repeated.
It's all thereit's all there! Mrs. Capadose went on.
Hang it, what's all there?
Everything there oughtn't to beeverything he has seenit's too dreadful!
Everything he has seen? Why, ain't I a good-looking fellow? He has made me rather handsome.
Mrs. Capadose had sprung up again; she had darted another glance at the painted betrayal. Handsome? Hideous, hideous! Not thatnever, never!
Not
what,
in heaven's name? the Colonel almost shouted. Lyon could see his flushed, bewildered face.
 
Page 362
What he has made of youwhat you know!
He
knowshe has seen. Every one will knowevery one will see. Fancy that thing in the Academy!
You're going wild, darling; but if you hate it so it needn't go.
Oh, he'll send itit's so good! Come awaycome away! Mrs. Capadose wailed, seizing her husband.
It's so good? the poor man cried.
Come awaycome away, she only repeated; and she turned toward the staircase that ascended to the gallery.
Not that waynot through the house, in the state you're in, Lyon heard the Colonel object. This waywe can pass, he added; and he drew his wife to the small door that opened into the garden. It was bolted, but he pushed the bolt and opened the door. She passed out quickly, but he stood there looking back into the room. Wait for me a moment! he cried out to her; and with an excited stride he re-entered the studio. He came up to the picture again, and again he stood looking at it. Damn himdamn himdamn him! he broke out once more. It was not clear to Lyon whether this malediction had for its object the original or the painter of the portrait. The Colonel turned away and moved rapidly about the room, as if he were looking for something; Lyon was unable for the instant to guess his intention. Then the artist said to himself, below his breath, He's going to do it a harm! His first impulse was to rush down and stop him; but he paused, with the sound of Everina Brant's sobs still in his ears. The Colonel found what he was looking forfound it among some odds and ends on a small table and rushed back with it to the easel. At one and the same moment Lyon perceived that the object he had seized was a small Eastern dagger and that he had plunged it into the canvas. He seemed animated by a sudden fury, for with extreme vigour of hand he dragged the instrument down (Lyon knew it to have no very fine edge) making a long, abominable gash. Then he plucked it out and dashed it again several times into the face of the likeness, exactly as if he were stabbing a human victim: it had the oddest effectthat of a sort of figurative suicide. In a few seconds more the Colonel had tossed the dagger awayhe looked at it as he did so, as if he expected it to reek with

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