The Portrait of a Lady [Volume 1]

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Silence--absolute silence--had not fallen upon her companions;
but their talk had an appearance of embarrassed continuity. The
two good sisters had not settled themselves in their respective
chairs; their attitude expressed a final reserve and their faces
showed the glaze of prudence. They were plain, ample,
mild-featured women, with a kind of business-like modesty to
which the impersonal aspect of their stiffened linen and of the
serge that draped them as if nailed on frames gave an advantage.
One of them, a person of a certain age, in spectacles, with a
fresh complexion and a full cheek, had a more discriminating
manner than her colleague, as well as the responsibility of their
errand, which apparently related to the young girl. This object
of interest wore her hat--an ornament of extreme simplicity and
not at variance with her plain muslin gown, too short for her
years, though it must already have been "let out." The gentleman
who might have been supposed to be entertaining the two nuns was
perhaps conscious of the difficulties of his function, it being
in its way as arduous to converse with the very meek as with the
very mighty. At the same time he was clearly much occupied with
their quiet charge, and while she turned her back to him his eyes
rested gravely on her slim, small figure. He was a man of forty,
with a high but well-shaped head, on which the hair, still dense,
but prematurely grizzled, had been cropped close. He had a fine,
narrow, extremely modelled and composed face, of which the only
fault was just this effect of its running a trifle too much to
points; an appearance to which the shape of the beard contributed
not a little. This beard, cut in the manner of the portraits of
the sixteenth century and surmounted by a fair moustache, of
which the ends had a romantic upward flourish, gave its wearer a
foreign, traditionary look and suggested that he was a gentleman
who studied style. His conscious, curious eyes, however, eyes at
once vague and penetrating, intelligent and hard, expressive of
the observer as well as of the dreamer, would have assured you
that he studied it only within well-chosen limits, and that in so
far as he sought it he found it. You would have been much at a
loss to determine his original clime and country; he had none of
the superficial signs that usually render the answer to this
question an insipidly easy one. If he had English blood in his
veins it had probably received some French or Italian commixture;
but he suggested, fine gold coin as he was, no stamp nor emblem
of the common mintage that provides for general circulation; he
was the elegant complicated medal struck off for a special
occasion. He had a light, lean, rather languid-looking figure,
and was apparently neither tall nor short. He was dressed as a
man dresses who takes little other trouble about it than to have
no vulgar things.

"Well, my dear, what do you think of it?" he asked of the young
girl. He used the Italian tongue, and used it with perfect ease;
but this would not have convinced you he was Italian.

The child turned her head earnestly to one side and the other.
"It's very pretty, papa. Did you make it yourself?"

"Certainly I made it. Don't you think I'm clever?"

"Yes, papa, very clever; I also have learned to make pictures."
And she turned round and showed a small, fair face painted with a
fixed and intensely sweet smile.

"You should have brought me a specimen of your powers."

"I've brought a great many; they're in my trunk."

"She draws very--very carefully," the elder of the nuns remarked,
speaking in French.

"I'm glad to hear it. Is it you who have instructed her?"

"Happily no," said the good sister, blushing a little. "Ce n'est
pas ma partie. I teach nothing; I leave that to those who
are wiser. We've an excellent drawing-master, Mr.--Mr.--what is
his name?" she asked of her companion.

Her companion looked about at the carpet. "It's a German name,"
she said in Italian, as if it needed to be translated.

"Yes," the other went on, "he's a German, and we've had him many
years."

The young girl, who was not heeding the conversation, had
wandered away to the open door of the large room and stood
looking into the garden. "And you, my sister, are French," said
the gentleman.

"Yes, sir," the visitor gently replied. "I speak to the pupils in
my own tongue. I know no other. But we have sisters of other
countries--English, German, Irish. They all speak their proper
language."

The gentleman gave a smile. "Has my daughter been under the care
of one of the Irish ladies?" And then, as he saw that his
visitors suspected a joke, though failing to understand it,
"You're very complete," he instantly added.

"Oh, yes, we're complete. We've everything, and everything's of
the best."

"We have gymnastics," the Italian sister ventured to remark. "But
not dangerous."

"I hope not. Is that YOUR branch?" A question which provoked much
candid hilarity on the part of the two ladies; on the subsidence
of which their entertainer, glancing at his daughter, remarked
that she had grown.

"Yes, but I think she has finished. She'll remain--not big," said
the French sister.

"I'm not sorry. I prefer women like books--very good and not too
long. But I know," the gentleman said, "no particular reason why
my child should be short."

The nun gave a temperate shrug, as if to intimate that such
things might be beyond our knowledge. "She's in very good health;
that's the best thing."

"Yes, she looks sound." And the young girl's father watched her a
moment. "What do you see in the garden?" he asked in French.

"I see many flowers," she replied in a sweet, small voice and
with an accent as good as his own.

"Yes, but not many good ones. However, such as they are, go out
and gather some for ces dames."

The child turned to him with her smile heightened by pleasure.
"May I, truly?"

"Ah, when I tell you," said her father.

The girl glanced at the elder of the nuns. "May I, truly, ma
mere?"

"Obey monsieur your father, my child," said the sister, blushing
again.

The child, satisfied with this authorisation, descended from the
threshold and was presently lost to sight. "You don't spoil
them," said her father gaily.

"For everything they must ask leave. That's our system. Leave is
freely granted, but they must ask it."

"Oh, I don't quarrel with your system; I've no doubt it's
excellent. I sent you my daughter to see what you'd make of her.
I had faith."

"One must have faith," the sister blandly rejoined, gazing
through her spectacles.

"Well, has my faith been rewarded What have you made of her?"

The sister dropped her eyes a moment. "A good Christian,
monsieur."

Her host dropped his eyes as well; but it was probable that the
movement had in each case a different spring. "Yes, and what
else?"

He watched the lady from the convent, probably thinking she would
say that a good Christian was everything; but for all her
simplicity she was not so crude as that. "A charming young lady
--a real little woman--a daughter in whom you will have nothing
but contentment."

"She seems to me very gentille," said the father. "She's really
pretty."

"She's perfect. She has no faults."

"She never had any as a child, and I'm glad you have given her
none."

"We love her too much," said the spectacled sister with dignity.

"And as for faults, how can we give what we have not? Le couvent
n'est pas comme le monde, monsieur. She's our daughter, as you
may say. We've had her since she was so small."

"Of all those we shall lose this year she's the one we shall miss
most," the younger woman murmured deferentially.

"Ah, yes, we shall talk long of her," said the other. "We shall
hold her up to the new ones." And at this the good sister
appeared to find her spectacles dim; while her companion, after
fumbling a moment, presently drew forth a pocket-handkerchief of
durable texture.

"It's not certain you'll lose her; nothing's settled yet," their
host rejoined quickly; not as if to anticipate their tears, but
in the tone of a man saying what was most agreeable to himself.
"We should be very happy to believe that. Fifteen is very young
to leave us."

"Oh," exclaimed the gentleman with more vivacity than he had yet
used, "it is not I who wish to take her away. I wish you could
keep her always!"

"Ah, monsieur," said the elder sister, smiling and getting up,
"good as she is, she's made for the world. Le monde y gagnera."

"If all the good people were hidden away in convents how would
the world get on?" her companion softly enquired, rising also.

This was a question of a wider bearing than the good woman
apparently supposed; and the lady in spectacles took a
harmonising view by saying comfortably: "Fortunately there are
good people everywhere."

"If you're going there will be two less here," her host remarked
gallantly.

For this extravagant sally his simple visitors had no answer, and
they simply looked at each other in decent deprecation; but their
confusion was speedily covered by the return of the young girl
with two large bunches of roses--one of them all white, the other
red.

"I give you your choice, mamman Catherine," said the child.
"It's only the colour that's different, mamman Justine; there are
just as many roses in one bunch as in the other."

The two sisters turned to each other, smiling and hesitating,
with "Which will you take?" and "No, it's for you to choose."

"I'll take the red, thank you," said Catherine in the spectacles.
"I'm so red myself. They'll comfort us on our way back to Rome."

"Ah, they won't last," cried the young girl. I wish I could give
you something that would last!"

"You've given us a good memory of yourself, my daughter. That
will last!"

"I wish nuns could wear pretty things. I would give you my blue
beads," the child went on.

"And do you go back to Rome to-night?" her father enquired.

"Yes, we take the train again. We've so much to do la-bas."

"Are you not tired?"

"We are never tired."

"Ah, my sister, sometimes," murmured the junior votaress.

"Not to-day, at any rate. We have rested too well here. Que Dieu
vows garde, ma fine."

Their host, while they exchanged kisses with his daughter, went
forward to open the door through which they were to pass; but as
he did so he gave a slight exclamation, and stood looking beyond.
The door opened into a vaulted ante-chamber, as high as a chapel
and paved with red tiles; and into this antechamber a lady had
just been admitted by a servant, a lad in shabby livery, who was
now ushering her toward the apartment in which our friends were
grouped. The gentleman at the door, after dropping his
exclamation, remained silent; in silence too the lady advanced.
He gave her no further audible greeting and offered her no hand,
but stood aside to let her pass into the saloon. At the threshold
she hesitated. "Is there any one?" she asked.

"Some one you may see."

She went in and found herself confronted with the two nuns and
their pupil, who was coming forward, between them, with a hand in
the arm of each. At the sight of the new visitor they all paused,
and the lady, who had also stopped, stood looking at them. The
young girl gave a little soft cry: "Ah, Madame Merle!"

The visitor had been slightly startled, but her manner the next
instant was none the less gracious. "Yes, it's Madame Merle, come
to welcome you home." And she held out two hands to the girl, who
immediately came up to her, presenting her forehead to be kissed.
Madame Merle saluted this portion of her charming little person
and then stood smiling at the two nuns. They acknowledged her
smile with a decent obeisance, but permitted themselves no direct
scrutiny of this imposing, brilliant woman, who seemed to bring
in with her something of the radiance of the outer world.
"These ladies have brought my daughter home, and now they return
to the convent," the gentleman explained.

"Ah, you go back to Rome? I've lately come from there. It's very
lovely now," said Madame Merle.

The good sisters, standing with their hands folded into their
sleeves, accepted this statement uncritically; and the master of
the house asked his new visitor how long it was since she had
left Rome. "She came to see me at the convent," said the young
girl before the lady addressed had time to reply.

"I've been more than once, Pansy," Madame Merle declared. "Am I
not your great friend in Rome?"

"I remember the last time best," said Pansy, "because you told me
I should come away."

"Did you tell her that?" the child's father asked.

"I hardly remember. I told her what I thought would please her.
I've been in Florence a week. I hoped you would come to see me."

"I should have done so if I had known you were there. One
doesn't know such things by inspiration--though I suppose one
ought. You had better sit down."

These two speeches were made in a particular tone of voice--a tone
half-lowered and carefully quiet, but as from habit rather than
from any definite need. Madame Merle looked about her, choosing
her seat. "You're going to the door with these women? Let me of
course not interrupt the ceremony. Je vous salue, mesdames,"
she added, in French, to the nuns, as if to dismiss them.

"This lady's a great friend of ours; you will have seen her at
the convent," said their entertainer. "We've much faith in her
judgement, and she'll help me to decide whether my daughter shall
return to you at the end of the holidays."

"I hope you'll decide in our favour, madame," the sister in
spectacles ventured to remark.

"That's Mr. Osmond's pleasantry; I decide nothing," said Madame
Merle, but also as in pleasantry. "I believe you've a very good
school, but Miss Osmond's friends must remember that she's very
naturally meant for the world."

"That's what I've told monsieur," sister Catherine answered.
"It's precisely to fit her for the world," she murmured, glancing
at Pansy, who stood, at a little distance, attentive to Madame
Merle's elegant apparel.

"Do you hear that, Pansy? You're very naturally meant for the
world," said Pansy's father.

The child fixed him an instant with her pure young eyes. "Am I
not meant for you, papa?"

Papa gave a quick, light laugh. "That doesn't prevent it! I'm of
the world, Pansy."

"Kindly permit us to retire," said sister Catherine. "Be good and
wise and happy in any case, my daughter."

"I shall certainly come back and see you," Pansy returned,
recommencing her embraces, which were presently interrupted by
Madame Merle.

"Stay with me, dear child," she said, "while your father takes
the good ladies to the door."

Pansy stared, disappointed, yet not protesting. She was evidently
impregnated with the idea of submission, which was due to any one
who took the tone of authority; and she was a passive spectator
of the operation of her fate. "May I not see mamman Catherine get
into the carriage?" she nevertheless asked very gently.

"It would please me better if you'd remain with me," said Madame
Merle, while Mr. Osmond and his companions, who had bowed low
again to the other visitor, passed into the ante-chamber.

"Oh yes, I'll stay," Pansy answered; and she stood near Madame
Merle, surrendering her little hand, which this lady took. She
stared out of the window; her eyes had filled with tears.

"I'm glad they've taught you to obey," said Madame Merle. "That's
what good little girls should do."

"Oh yes, I obey very well," cried Pansy with soft eagerness,
almost with boastfulness, as if she had been speaking of her
piano-playing. And then she gave a faint, just audible sigh.

Madame Merle, holding her hand, drew it across her own fine palm
and looked at it. The gaze was critical, but it found nothing to
deprecate; the child's small hand was delicate and fair. "I hope
they always see that you wear gloves," she said in a moment.
"Little girls usually dislike them."

"I used to dislike them, but I like them now," the child made
answer.

"Very good, I'll make you a present of a dozen."

"I thank you very much. What colours will they be?" Pansy
demanded with interest.

Madame Merle meditated. "Useful colours."

"But very pretty?"

"Are you very fond of pretty things?"

"Yes; but--but not too fond," said Pansy with a trace of
asceticism.

"Well, they won't be too pretty," Madame Merle returned with a
laugh. She took the child's other hand and drew her nearer; after
which, looking at her a moment, "Shall you miss mother
Catherine?" she went on.

"Yes--when I think of her."

"Try then not to think of her. Perhaps some day," added Madame
Merle, "you'll have another mother."

"I don't think that's necessary," Pansy said, repeating her
little soft conciliatory sigh. "I had more than thirty mothers at
the convent."

Her father's step sounded again in the antechamber, and Madame
Merle got up, releasing the child. Mr. Osmond came in and closed
the door; then, without looking at Madame Merle, he pushed one or
two chairs back into their places. His visitor waited a moment
for him to speak, watching him as he moved about. Then at last
she said: "I hoped you'd have come to Rome. I thought it possible
you'd have wished yourself to fetch Pansy away."

"That was a natural supposition; but I'm afraid it's not the
first time I've acted in defiance of your calculations."

"Yes," said Madame Merle, "I think you very perverse."

Mr. Osmond busied himself for a moment in the room--there was
plenty of space in it to move about--in the fashion of a man
mechanically seeking pretexts for not giving an attention which
may be embarrassing. Presently, however, he had exhausted his
pretexts; there was nothing left for him--unless he took up a
book--but to stand with his hands behind him looking at Pansy.
"Why didn't you come and see the last of mamman Catherine?" he
asked of her abruptly in French.

Pansy hesitated a moment, glancing at Madame Merle. "I asked her
to stay with me," said this lady, who had seated herself again in
another place.

"Ah, that was better," Osmond conceded. With which he dropped
into a chair and sat looking at Madame Merle; bent forward a
little, his elbows on the edge of the arms and his hands
interlocked.

"She's going to give me some gloves," said Pansy.

"You needn't tell that to every one, my dear," Madame Merle
observed.

"You're very kind to her," said Osmond. "She's supposed to have
everything she needs."

"I should think she had had enough of the nuns."

"If we're going to discuss that matter she had better go out of
the room."

"Let her stay," said Madame Merle. "We'll talk of something
else."

"If you like I won't listen," Pansy suggested with an appearance
of candour which imposed conviction.

"You may listen, charming child, because you won't understand,"
her father replied. The child sat down, deferentially, near the
open door, within sight of the garden, into which she directed
her innocent, wistful eyes; and Mr. Osmond went on irrelevantly,
addressing himself to his other companion. "You're looking
particularly well."

"I think I always look the same," said Madame Merle.

"You always ARE the same. You don't vary. You're a wonderful
woman."

"Yes, I think I am."

"You sometimes change your mind, however. You told me on your
return from England that you wouldn't leave Rome again for the
present."

"I'm pleased that you remember so well what I say. That was my
intention. But I've come to Florence to meet some friends who
have lately arrived and as to whose movements I was at that time
uncertain."

"That reason's characteristic. You're always doing something for
your friends."

Madame Merle smiled straight at her host. "It's less
characteristic than your comment upon it which is perfectly
insincere. I don't, however, make a crime of that," she added,
"because if you don't believe what you say there's no reason why
you should. I don't ruin myself for my friends; I don't deserve
your praise. I care greatly for myself."

"Exactly; but yourself includes so many other selves--so much of
every one else and of everything. I never knew a person whose
life touched so many other lives."

"What do you call one's life?" asked Madame Merle. "One's
appearance, one's movements, one's engagements, one's society?"

"I call YOUR life your ambitions," said Osmond.

Madame Merle looked a moment at Pansy. "I wonder if she
understands that," she murmured.

"You see she can't stay with us!" And Pansy's father gave rather a
joyless smile. "Go into the garden, mignonne, and pluck a flower
or two for Madame Merle," he went on in French.

"That's just what I wanted to do," Pansy exclaimed, rising with
promptness and noiselessly departing. Her father followed her to
the open door, stood a moment watching her, and then came back,
but remained standing, or rather strolling to and fro, as if to
cultivate a sense of freedom which in another attitude might be
wanting.

"My ambitions are principally for you," said Madame Merle, looking
up at him with a certain courage.

"That comes back to what I say. I'm part of your life--I and a
thousand others. You're not selfish--I can't admit that. If you
were selfish, what should I be? What epithet would properly
describe me?"

"You're indolent. For me that's your worst fault."

"I'm afraid it's really my best."

"You don't care," said Madame Merle gravely.

"No; I don't think I care much. What sort of a fault do you call
that? My indolence, at any rate, was one of the reasons I didn't
go to Rome. But it was only one of them."

"It's not of importance--to me at least--that you didn't go;
though I should have been glad to see you. I'm glad you're not in
Rome now--which you might be, would probably be, if you had gone
there a month ago. There's something I should like you to do at
present in Florence."

"Please remember my indolence," said Osmond.

"I do remember it; but I beg you to forget it. In that way you'll
have both the virtue and the reward. This is not a great labour,
and it may prove a real interest. How long is it since you made a
new acquaintance?"

"I don't think I've made any since I made yours."

"It's time then you should make another. There's a friend of mine
I want you to know."

Mr. Osmond, in his walk, had gone back to the open door again and
was looking at his daughter as she moved about in the intense
sunshine. "What good will it do me?" he asked with a sort of
genial crudity.

Madame Merle waited. "It will amuse you." There was nothing crude
in this rejoinder; it had been thoroughly well considered.

"If you say that, you know, I believe it," said Osmond, coming
toward her. "There are some points in which my confidence in you
is complete. I'm perfectly aware, for instance, that you know good
society from bad."

"Society is all bad."

"Pardon me. That isn't--the knowledge I impute to you--a common
sort of wisdom. You've gained it in the right way--experimentally;
you've compared an immense number of more or less impossible
people with each other."

"Well, I invite you to profit by my knowledge."

"To profit? Are you very sure that I shall?"

"It's what I hope. It will depend on yourself. If I could only
induce you to make an effort!"

"Ah, there you are! I knew something tiresome was coming. What in
the world--that's likely to turn up here--is worth an effort?"

Madame Merle flushed as with a wounded intention. "Don't be
foolish, Osmond. No one knows better than you what IS worth an
effort. Haven't I seen you in old days?"

"I recognise some things. But they're none of them probable in
this poor life."

"It's the effort that makes them probable," said Madame Merle.

"There's something in that. Who then is your friend?"

"The person I came to Florence to see. She's a niece of Mrs.
Touchett, whom you'll not have forgotten."

"A niece? The word niece suggests youth and ignorance. I see what
you're coming to."

"Yes, she's young--twenty-three years old. She's a great friend of
mine. I met her for the first time in England, several months ago,
and we struck up a grand alliance. I like her immensely, and I do
what I don't do every day--I admire her. You'll do the same."

"Not if I can help it."

"Precisely. But you won't be able to help it."

"Is she beautiful, clever, rich, splendid, universally intelligent
and unprecedentedly virtuous? It's only on those conditions that
I care to make her acquaintance. You know I asked you some time
ago never to speak to me of a creature who shouldn't correspond to
that description. I know plenty of dingy people; I don't want to
know any more."

"Miss Archer isn't dingy; she's as bright as the morning. She
corresponds to your description; it's for that I wish you to know
her. She fills all your requirements."

"More or less, of course."

"No; quite literally. She's beautiful, accomplished, generous and,
for an American, well-born. She's also very clever and very
amiable, and she has a handsome fortune."

Mr. Osmond listened to this in silence, appearing to turn it over
in his mind with his eyes on his informant. "What do you want to
do with her?" he asked at last.

"What you see. Put her in your way."

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