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diff --git a/2718-0.txt b/2718-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d20ea58 --- /dev/null +++ b/2718-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2085 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Chaperon, by Henry James + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Chaperon + + +Author: Henry James + + + +Release Date: February 15, 2015 [eBook #2718] +[This file was first posted on July 3, 2000] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAPERON*** + + +Transcribed from 1893 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org. Proofed by Nina Hall, Mohua Sen, Bridie, Francine +Smith and David. + + + + +THE CHAPERON. + + +I. + + +AN old lady, in a high drawing-room, had had her chair moved close to the +fire, where she sat knitting and warming her knees. She was dressed in +deep mourning; her face had a faded nobleness, tempered, however, by the +somewhat illiberal compression assumed by her lips in obedience to +something that was passing in her mind. She was far from the lamp, but +though her eyes were fixed upon her active needles she was not looking at +them. What she really saw was quite another train of affairs. The room +was spacious and dim; the thick London fog had oozed into it even through +its superior defences. It was full of dusky, massive, valuable things. +The old lady sat motionless save for the regularity of her clicking +needles, which seemed as personal to her and as expressive as prolonged +fingers. If she was thinking something out, she was thinking it +thoroughly. + +When she looked up, on the entrance of a girl of twenty, it might have +been guessed that the appearance of this young lady was not an +interruption of her meditation, but rather a contribution to it. The +young lady, who was charming to behold, was also in deep mourning, which +had a freshness, if mourning can be fresh, an air of having been lately +put on. She went straight to the bell beside the chimney-piece and +pulled it, while in her other hand she held a sealed and directed letter. +Her companion glanced in silence at the letter; then she looked still +harder at her work. The girl hovered near the fireplace, without +speaking, and after a due, a dignified interval the butler appeared in +response to the bell. The time had been sufficient to make the silence +between the ladies seem long. The younger one asked the butler to see +that her letter should be posted; and after he had gone out she moved +vaguely about the room, as if to give her grandmother—for such was the +elder personage—a chance to begin a colloquy of which she herself +preferred not to strike the first note. As equally with herself her +companion was on the face of it capable of holding out, the tension, +though it was already late in the evening, might have lasted long. But +the old lady after a little appeared to recognise, a trifle ungraciously, +the girl’s superior resources. + +“Have you written to your mother?” + +“Yes, but only a few lines, to tell her I shall come and see her in the +morning.” + +“Is that all you’ve got to say?” asked the grandmother. + +“I don’t quite know what you want me to say.” + +“I want you to say that you’ve made up your mind.” + +“Yes, I’ve done that, granny.” + +“You intend to respect your father’s wishes?” + +“It depends upon what you mean by respecting them. I do justice to the +feelings by which they were dictated.” + +“What do you mean by justice?” the old lady retorted. + +The girl was silent a moment; then she said: “You’ll see my idea of it.” + +“I see it already! You’ll go and live with her.” + +“I shall talk the situation over with her to-morrow and tell her that I +think that will be best.” + +“Best for her, no doubt!” + +“What’s best for her is best for me.” + +“And for your brother and sister?” As the girl made no reply to this her +grandmother went on: “What’s best for them is that you should acknowledge +some responsibility in regard to them and, considering how young they +are, try and do something for them.” + +“They must do as I’ve done—they must act for themselves. They have their +means now, and they’re free.” + +“Free? They’re mere children.” + +“Let me remind you that Eric is older than I.” + +“He doesn’t like his mother,” said the old lady, as if that were an +answer. + +“I never said he did. And she adores him.” + +“Oh, your mother’s adorations!” + +“Don’t abuse her now,” the girl rejoined, after a pause. + +The old lady forbore to abuse her, but she made up for it the next moment +by saying: “It will be dreadful for Edith.” + +“What will be dreadful?” + +“Your desertion of her.” + +“The desertion’s on her side.” + +“Her consideration for her father does her honour.” + +“Of course I’m a brute, _n’en parlons plus_,” said the girl. “We must go +our respective ways,” she added, in a tone of extreme wisdom and +philosophy. + +Her grandmother straightened out her knitting and began to roll it up. +“Be so good as to ring for my maid,” she said, after a minute. The young +lady rang, and there was another wait and another conscious hush. Before +the maid came her mistress remarked: “Of course then you’ll not come to +_me_, you know.” + +“What do you mean by ‘coming’ to you?” + +“I can’t receive you on that footing.” + +“She’ll not come _with_ me, if you mean that.” + +“I don’t mean that,” said the old lady, getting up as her maid came in. +This attendant took her work from her, gave her an arm and helped her out +of the room, while Rose Tramore, standing before the fire and looking +into it, faced the idea that her grandmother’s door would now under all +circumstances be closed to her. She lost no time however in brooding +over this anomaly: it only added energy to her determination to act. All +she could do to-night was to go to bed, for she felt utterly weary. She +had been living, in imagination, in a prospective struggle, and it had +left her as exhausted as a real fight. Moreover this was the culmination +of a crisis, of weeks of suspense, of a long, hard strain. Her father +had been laid in his grave five days before, and that morning his will +had been read. In the afternoon she had got Edith off to St. Leonard’s +with their aunt Julia, and then she had had a wretched talk with Eric. +Lastly, she had made up her mind to act in opposition to the formidable +will, to a clause which embodied if not exactly a provision, a +recommendation singularly emphatic. She went to bed and slept the sleep +of the just. + +“Oh, my dear, how charming! I must take another house!” It was in these +words that her mother responded to the announcement Rose had just +formally made and with which she had vaguely expected to produce a +certain dignity of effect. In the way of emotion there was apparently no +effect at all, and the girl was wise enough to know that this was not +simply on account of the general line of non-allusion taken by the +extremely pretty woman before her, who looked like her elder sister. +Mrs. Tramore had never manifested, to her daughter, the slightest +consciousness that her position was peculiar; but the recollection of +something more than that fine policy was required to explain such a +failure, to appreciate Rose’s sacrifice. It was simply a fresh reminder +that she had never appreciated anything, that she was nothing but a +tinted and stippled surface. Her situation was peculiar indeed. She had +been the heroine of a scandal which had grown dim only because, in the +eyes of the London world, it paled in the lurid light of the +contemporaneous. That attention had been fixed on it for several days, +fifteen years before; there had been a high relish of the vivid evidence +as to his wife’s misconduct with which, in the divorce-court, Charles +Tramore had judged well to regale a cynical public. The case was +pronounced awfully bad, and he obtained his decree. The folly of the +wife had been inconceivable, in spite of other examples: she had quitted +her children, she had followed the “other fellow” abroad. The other +fellow hadn’t married her, not having had time: he had lost his life in +the Mediterranean by the capsizing of a boat, before the prohibitory term +had expired. + +Mrs. Tramore had striven to extract from this accident something of the +austerity of widowhood; but her mourning only made her deviation more +public, she was a widow whose husband was awkwardly alive. She had not +prowled about the Continent on the classic lines; she had come back to +London to take her chance. But London would give her no chance, would +have nothing to say to her; as many persons had remarked, you could never +tell how London would behave. It would not receive Mrs. Tramore again on +any terms, and when she was spoken of, which now was not often, it was +inveterately said of her that she went nowhere. Apparently she had not +the qualities for which London compounds; though in the cases in which it +does compound you may often wonder what these qualities are. She had not +at any rate been successful: her lover was dead, her husband was liked +and her children were pitied, for in payment for a topic London will +parenthetically pity. It was thought interesting and magnanimous that +Charles Tramore had not married again. The disadvantage to his children +of the miserable story was thus left uncorrected, and this, rather oddly, +was counted as _his_ sacrifice. His mother, whose arrangements were +elaborate, looked after them a great deal, and they enjoyed a mixture of +laxity and discipline under the roof of their aunt, Miss Tramore, who was +independent, having, for reasons that the two ladies had exhaustively +discussed, determined to lead her own life. She had set up a home at St. +Leonard’s, and that contracted shore had played a considerable part in +the upbringing of the little Tramores. They knew about their mother, as +the phrase was, but they didn’t know her; which was naturally deemed more +pathetic for them than for her. She had a house in Chester Square and an +income and a victoria—it served all purposes, as she never went out in +the evening—and flowers on her window-sills, and a remarkable appearance +of youth. The income was supposed to be in part the result of a bequest +from the man for whose sake she had committed the error of her life, and +in the appearance of youth there was a slightly impertinent implication +that it was a sort of afterglow of the same connection. + +Her children, as they grew older, fortunately showed signs of some +individuality of disposition. Edith, the second girl, clung to her aunt +Julia; Eric, the son, clung frantically to polo; while Rose, the elder +daughter, appeared to cling mainly to herself. Collectively, of course, +they clung to their father, whose attitude in the family group, however, +was casual and intermittent. He was charming and vague; he was like a +clever actor who often didn’t come to rehearsal. Fortune, which but for +that one stroke had been generous to him, had provided him with deputies +and trouble-takers, as well as with whimsical opinions, and a reputation +for excellent taste, and whist at his club, and perpetual cigars on +morocco sofas, and a beautiful absence of purpose. Nature had thrown in +a remarkably fine hand, which he sometimes passed over his children’s +heads when they were glossy from the nursery brush. On Rose’s eighteenth +birthday he said to her that she might go to see her mother, on condition +that her visits should be limited to an hour each time and to four in the +year. She was to go alone; the other children were not included in the +arrangement. This was the result of a visit that he himself had paid his +repudiated wife at her urgent request, their only encounter during the +fifteen years. The girl knew as much as this from her aunt Julia, who +was full of tell-tale secrecies. She availed herself eagerly of the +license, and in course of the period that elapsed before her father’s +death she spent with Mrs. Tramore exactly eight hours by the watch. Her +father, who was as inconsistent and disappointing as he was amiable, +spoke to her of her mother only once afterwards. This occasion had been +the sequel of her first visit, and he had made no use of it to ask what +she thought of the personality in Chester Square or how she liked it. He +had only said “Did she take you out?” and when Rose answered “Yes, she +put me straight into a carriage and drove me up and down Bond Street,” +had rejoined sharply “See that that never occurs again.” It never did, +but once was enough, every one they knew having happened to be in Bond +Street at that particular hour. + +After this the periodical interview took place in private, in Mrs. +Tramore’s beautiful little wasted drawing-room. Rose knew that, rare as +these occasions were, her mother would not have kept her “all to herself” +had there been anybody she could have shown her to. But in the poor +lady’s social void there was no one; she had after all her own +correctness and she consistently preferred isolation to inferior +contacts. So her daughter was subjected only to the maternal; it was not +necessary to be definite in qualifying that. The girl had by this time a +collection of ideas, gathered by impenetrable processes; she had tasted, +in the ostracism of her ambiguous parent, of the acrid fruit of the tree +of knowledge. She not only had an approximate vision of what every one +had done, but she had a private judgment for each case. She had a +particular vision of her father, which did not interfere with his being +dear to her, but which was directly concerned in her resolution, after +his death, to do the special thing he had expressed the wish she should +not do. In the general estimate her grandmother and her grandmother’s +money had their place, and the strong probability that any enjoyment of +the latter commodity would now be withheld from her. It included Edith’s +marked inclination to receive the law, and doubtless eventually a more +substantial memento, from Miss Tramore, and opened the question whether +her own course might not contribute to make her sister’s appear +heartless. The answer to this question however would depend on the +success that might attend her own, which would very possibly be small. +Eric’s attitude was eminently simple; he didn’t care to know people who +didn’t know _his_ people. If his mother should ever get back into +society perhaps he would take her up. Rose Tramore had decided to do +what she could to bring this consummation about; and strangely enough—so +mixed were her superstitions and her heresies—a large part of her motive +lay in the value she attached to such a consecration. + +Of her mother intrinsically she thought very little now, and if her eyes +were fixed on a special achievement it was much more for the sake of that +achievement and to satisfy a latent energy that was in her than because +her heart was wrung by this sufferer. Her heart had not been wrung at +all, though she had quite held it out for the experience. Her purpose +was a pious game, but it was still essentially a game. Among the ideas I +have mentioned she had her idea of triumph. She had caught the +inevitable note, the pitch, on her very first visit to Chester Square. +She had arrived there in intense excitement, and her excitement was left +on her hands in a manner that reminded her of a difficult air she had +once heard sung at the opera when no one applauded the performer. That +flatness had made her sick, and so did this, in another way. A part of +her agitation proceeded from the fact that her aunt Julia had told her, +in the manner of a burst of confidence, something she was not to repeat, +that she was in appearance the very image of the lady in Chester Square. +The motive that prompted this declaration was between aunt Julia and her +conscience; but it was a great emotion to the girl to find her +entertainer so beautiful. She was tall and exquisitely slim; she had +hair more exactly to Rose Tramore’s taste than any other she had ever +seen, even to every detail in the way it was dressed, and a complexion +and a figure of the kind that are always spoken of as “lovely.” Her eyes +were irresistible, and so were her clothes, though the clothes were +perhaps a little more precisely the right thing than the eyes. Her +appearance was marked to her daughter’s sense by the highest distinction; +though it may be mentioned that this had never been the opinion of all +the world. It was a revelation to Rose that she herself might look a +little like that. She knew however that aunt Julia had not seen her +deposed sister-in-law for a long time, and she had a general impression +that Mrs. Tramore was to-day a more complete production—for instance as +regarded her air of youth—than she had ever been. There was no +excitement on her side—that was all her visitor’s; there was no +emotion—that was excluded by the plan, to say nothing of conditions more +primal. Rose had from the first a glimpse of her mother’s plan. It was +to mention nothing and imply nothing, neither to acknowledge, to explain +nor to extenuate. She would leave everything to her child; with her +child she was secure. She only wanted to get back into society; she +would leave even that to her child, whom she treated not as a high-strung +and heroic daughter, a creature of exaltation, of devotion, but as a new, +charming, clever, useful friend, a little younger than herself. Already +on that first day she had talked about dressmakers. Of course, poor +thing, it was to be remembered that in her circumstances there were not +many things she _could_ talk about. “She wants to go out again; that’s +the only thing in the wide world she wants,” Rose had promptly, +compendiously said to herself. There had been a sequel to this +observation, uttered, in intense engrossment, in her own room half an +hour before she had, on the important evening, made known her decision to +her grandmother: “Then I’ll _take_ her out!” + +“She’ll drag you down, she’ll drag you down!” Julia Tramore permitted +herself to remark to her niece, the next day, in a tone of feverish +prophecy. + +As the girl’s own theory was that all the dragging there might be would +be upward, and moreover administered by herself, she could look at her +aunt with a cold and inscrutable eye. + +“Very well, then, I shall be out of your sight, from the pinnacle you +occupy, and I sha’n’t trouble you.” + +“Do you reproach me for my disinterested exertions, for the way I’ve +toiled over you, the way I’ve lived for you?” Miss Tramore demanded. + +“Don’t reproach _me_ for being kind to my mother and I won’t reproach you +for anything.” + +“She’ll keep you out of everything—she’ll make you miss everything,” Miss +Tramore continued. + +“Then she’ll make me miss a great deal that’s odious,” said the girl. + +“You’re too young for such extravagances,” her aunt declared. + +“And yet Edith, who is younger than I, seems to be too old for them: how +do you arrange that? My mother’s society will make me older,” Rose +replied. + +“Don’t speak to me of your mother; you _have_ no mother.” + +“Then if I’m an orphan I must settle things for myself.” + +“Do you justify her, do you approve of her?” cried Miss Tramore, who was +inferior to her niece in capacity for retort and whose limitations made +the girl appear pert. + +Rose looked at her a moment in silence; then she said, turning away: “I +think she’s charming.” + +“And do you propose to become charming in the same manner?” + +“Her manner is perfect; it would be an excellent model. But I can’t +discuss my mother with you.” + +“You’ll have to discuss her with some other people!” Miss Tramore +proclaimed, going out of the room. + +Rose wondered whether this were a general or a particular vaticination. +There was something her aunt might have meant by it, but her aunt rarely +meant the best thing she might have meant. Miss Tramore had come up from +St. Leonard’s in response to a telegram from her own parent, for an +occasion like the present brought with it, for a few hours, a certain +relaxation of their dissent. “Do what you can to stop her,” the old lady +had said; but her daughter found that the most she could do was not much. +They both had a baffled sense that Rose had thought the question out a +good deal further than they; and this was particularly irritating to Mrs. +Tramore, as consciously the cleverer of the two. A question thought out +as far as _she_ could think it had always appeared to her to have +performed its human uses; she had never encountered a ghost emerging from +that extinction. Their great contention was that Rose would cut herself +off; and certainly if she wasn’t afraid of that she wasn’t afraid of +anything. Julia Tramore could only tell her mother how little the girl +was afraid. She was already prepared to leave the house, taking with her +the possessions, or her share of them, that had accumulated there during +her father’s illness. There had been a going and coming of her maid, a +thumping about of boxes, an ordering of four-wheelers; it appeared to old +Mrs. Tramore that something of the objectionableness, the indecency, of +her granddaughter’s prospective connection had already gathered about the +place. It was a violation of the decorum of bereavement which was still +fresh there, and from the indignant gloom of the mistress of the house +you might have inferred not so much that the daughter was about to depart +as that the mother was about to arrive. There had been no conversation +on the dreadful subject at luncheon; for at luncheon at Mrs. Tramore’s +(her son never came to it) there were always, even after funerals and +other miseries, stray guests of both sexes whose policy it was to be +cheerful and superficial. Rose had sat down as if nothing had +happened—nothing worse, that is, than her father’s death; but no one had +spoken of anything that any one else was thinking of. + +Before she left the house a servant brought her a message from her +grandmother—the old lady desired to see her in the drawing-room. She had +on her bonnet, and she went down as if she were about to step into her +cab. Mrs. Tramore sat there with her eternal knitting, from which she +forebore even to raise her eyes as, after a silence that seemed to +express the fulness of her reprobation, while Rose stood motionless, she +began: “I wonder if you really understand what you’re doing.” + +“I think so. I’m not so stupid.” + +“I never thought you were; but I don’t know what to make of you now. +You’re giving up everything.” + +The girl was tempted to inquire whether her grandmother called herself +“everything”; but she checked this question, answering instead that she +knew she was giving up much. + +“You’re taking a step of which you will feel the effect to the end of +your days,” Mrs. Tramore went on. + +“In a good conscience, I heartily hope,” said Rose. + +“Your father’s conscience was good enough for his mother; it ought to be +good enough for his daughter.” + +Rose sat down—she could afford to—as if she wished to be very attentive +and were still accessible to argument. But this demonstration only +ushered in, after a moment, the surprising words “I don’t think papa had +any conscience.” + +“What in the name of all that’s unnatural do you mean?” Mrs. Tramore +cried, over her glasses. “The dearest and best creature that ever +lived!” + +“He was kind, he had charming impulses, he was delightful. But he never +reflected.” + +Mrs. Tramore stared, as if at a language she had never heard, a farrago, +a _galimatias_. Her life was made up of items, but she had never had to +deal, intellectually, with a fine shade. Then while her needles, which +had paused an instant, began to fly again, she rejoined: “Do you know +what you are, my dear? You’re a dreadful little prig. Where do you pick +up such talk?” + +“Of course I don’t mean to judge between them,” Rose pursued. “I can +only judge between my mother and myself. Papa couldn’t judge for me.” +And with this she got up. + +“One would think you were horrid. I never thought so before.” + +“Thank you for that.” + +“You’re embarking on a struggle with society,” continued Mrs. Tramore, +indulging in an unusual flight of oratory. “Society will put you in your +place.” + +“Hasn’t it too many other things to do?” asked the girl. + +This question had an ingenuity which led her grandmother to meet it with +a merely provisional and somewhat sketchy answer. “Your ignorance would +be melancholy if your behaviour were not so insane.” + +“Oh, no; I know perfectly what she’ll do!” Rose replied, almost gaily. +“She’ll drag me down.” + +“She won’t even do that,” the old lady declared contradictiously. +“She’ll keep you forever in the same dull hole.” + +“I shall come and see _you_, granny, when I want something more lively.” + +“You may come if you like, but you’ll come no further than the door. If +you leave this house now you don’t enter it again.” + +Rose hesitated a moment. “Do you really mean that?” + +“You may judge whether I choose such a time to joke.” + +“Good-bye, then,” said the girl. + +“Good-bye.” + +Rose quitted the room successfully enough; but on the other side of the +door, on the landing, she sank into a chair and buried her face in her +hands. She had burst into tears, and she sobbed there for a moment, +trying hard to recover herself, so as to go downstairs without showing +any traces of emotion, passing before the servants and again perhaps +before aunt Julia. Mrs. Tramore was too old to cry; she could only drop +her knitting and, for a long time, sit with her head bowed and her eyes +closed. + +Rose had reckoned justly with her aunt Julia; there were no footmen, but +this vigilant virgin was posted at the foot of the stairs. She offered +no challenge however; she only said: “There’s some one in the parlour who +wants to see you.” The girl demanded a name, but Miss Tramore only +mouthed inaudibly and winked and waved. Rose instantly reflected that +there was only one man in the world her aunt would look such deep things +about. “Captain Jay?” her own eyes asked, while Miss Tramore’s were +those of a conspirator: they were, for a moment, the only embarrassed +eyes Rose had encountered that day. They contributed to make aunt +Julia’s further response evasive, after her niece inquired if she had +communicated in advance with this visitor. Miss Tramore merely said that +he had been upstairs with her mother—hadn’t she mentioned it?—and had +been waiting for her. She thought herself acute in not putting the +question of the girl’s seeing him before her as a favour to him or to +herself; she presented it as a duty, and wound up with the proposition: +“It’s not fair to him, it’s not kind, not to let him speak to you before +you go.” + +“What does he want to say?” Rose demanded. + +“Go in and find out.” + +She really knew, for she had found out before; but after standing +uncertain an instant she went in. “The parlour” was the name that had +always been borne by a spacious sitting-room downstairs, an apartment +occupied by her father during his frequent phases of residence in Hill +Street—episodes increasingly frequent after his house in the country had, +in consequence, as Rose perfectly knew, of his spending too much money, +been disposed of at a sacrifice which he always characterised as horrid. +He had been left with the place in Hertfordshire and his mother with the +London house, on the general understanding that they would change about; +but during the last years the community had grown more rigid, mainly at +his mother’s expense. The parlour was full of his memory and his habits +and his things—his books and pictures and _bibelots_, objects that +belonged now to Eric. Rose had sat in it for hours since his death; it +was the place in which she could still be nearest to him. But she felt +far from him as Captain Jay rose erect on her opening the door. This was +a very different presence. He had not liked Captain Jay. She herself +had, but not enough to make a great complication of her father’s +coldness. This afternoon however she foresaw complications. At the very +outset for instance she was not pleased with his having arranged such a +surprise for her with her grandmother and her aunt. It was probably aunt +Julia who had sent for him; her grandmother wouldn’t have done it. It +placed him immediately on their side, and Rose was almost as disappointed +at this as if she had not known it was quite where he would naturally be. +He had never paid her a special visit, but if that was what he wished to +do why shouldn’t he have waited till she should be under her mother’s +roof? She knew the reason, but she had an angry prospect of enjoyment in +making him express it. She liked him enough, after all, if it were +measured by the idea of what she could make him do. + +In Bertram Jay the elements were surprisingly mingled; you would have +gone astray, in reading him, if you had counted on finding the +complements of some of his qualities. He would not however have struck +you in the least as incomplete, for in every case in which you didn’t +find the complement you would have found the contradiction. He was in +the Royal Engineers, and was tall, lean and high-shouldered. He looked +every inch a soldier, yet there were people who considered that he had +missed his vocation in not becoming a parson. He took a public interest +in the spiritual life of the army. Other persons still, on closer +observation, would have felt that his most appropriate field was neither +the army nor the church, but simply the world—the social, successful, +worldly world. If he had a sword in one hand and a Bible in the other he +had a Court Guide concealed somewhere about his person. His profile was +hard and handsome, his eyes were both cold and kind, his dark straight +hair was imperturbably smooth and prematurely streaked with grey. There +was nothing in existence that he didn’t take seriously. He had a +first-rate power of work and an ambition as minutely organised as a +German plan of invasion. His only real recreation was to go to church, +but he went to parties when he had time. If he was in love with Rose +Tramore this was distracting to him only in the same sense as his +religion, and it was included in that department of his extremely +sub-divided life. His religion indeed was of an encroaching, annexing +sort. Seen from in front he looked diffident and blank, but he was +capable of exposing himself in a way (to speak only of the paths of +peace) wholly inconsistent with shyness. He had a passion for instance +for open-air speaking, but was not thought on the whole to excel in it +unless he could help himself out with a hymn. In conversation he kept +his eyes on you with a kind of colourless candour, as if he had not +understood what you were saying and, in a fashion that made many people +turn red, waited before answering. This was only because he was +considering their remarks in more relations than they had intended. He +had in his face no expression whatever save the one just mentioned, and +was, in his profession, already very distinguished. + +He had seen Rose Tramore for the first time on a Sunday of the previous +March, at a house in the country at which she was staying with her +father, and five weeks later he had made her, by letter, an offer of +marriage. She showed her father the letter of course, and he told her +that it would give him great pleasure that she should send Captain Jay +about his business. “My dear child,” he said, “we must really have some +one who will be better fun than that.” Rose had declined the honour, +very considerately and kindly, but not simply because her father wished +it. She didn’t herself wish to detach this flower from the stem, though +when the young man wrote again, to express the hope that he _might_ +hope—so long was he willing to wait—and ask if he might not still +sometimes see her, she answered even more indulgently than at first. She +had shown her father her former letter, but she didn’t show him this one; +she only told him what it contained, submitting to him also that of her +correspondent. Captain Jay moreover wrote to Mr. Tramore, who replied +sociably, but so vaguely that he almost neglected the subject under +discussion—a communication that made poor Bertram ponder long. He could +never get to the bottom of the superficial, and all the proprieties and +conventions of life were profound to him. Fortunately for him old Mrs. +Tramore liked him, he was satisfactory to her long-sightedness; so that a +relation was established under cover of which he still occasionally +presented himself in Hill Street—presented himself nominally to the +mistress of the house. He had had scruples about the veracity of his +visits, but he had disposed of them; he had scruples about so many things +that he had had to invent a general way, to dig a central drain. Julia +Tramore happened to meet him when she came up to town, and she took a +view of him more benevolent than her usual estimate of people encouraged +by her mother. The fear of agreeing with that lady was a motive, but +there was a stronger one, in this particular case, in the fear of +agreeing with her niece, who had rejected him. His situation might be +held to have improved when Mr. Tramore was taken so gravely ill that with +regard to his recovery those about him left their eyes to speak for their +lips; and in the light of the poor gentleman’s recent death it was +doubtless better than it had ever been. + +He was only a quarter of an hour with the girl, but this gave him time to +take the measure of it. After he had spoken to her about her +bereavement, very much as an especially mild missionary might have spoken +to a beautiful Polynesian, he let her know that he had learned from her +companions the very strong step she was about to take. This led to their +spending together ten minutes which, to her mind, threw more light on his +character than anything that had ever passed between them. She had +always felt with him as if she were standing on an edge, looking down +into something decidedly deep. To-day the impression of the +perpendicular shaft was there, but it was rather an abyss of confusion +and disorder than the large bright space in which she had figured +everything as ranged and pigeon-holed, presenting the appearance of the +labelled shelves and drawers at a chemist’s. He discussed without an +invitation to discuss, he appealed without a right to appeal. He was +nothing but a suitor tolerated after dismissal, but he took strangely for +granted a participation in her affairs. He assumed all sorts of things +that made her draw back. He implied that there was everything now to +assist them in arriving at an agreement, since she had never informed him +that he was positively objectionable; but that this symmetry would be +spoiled if she should not be willing to take a little longer to think of +certain consequences. She was greatly disconcerted when she saw what +consequences he meant and at his reminding her of them. What on earth +was the use of a lover if he was to speak only like one’s grandmother and +one’s aunt? He struck her as much in love with her and as particularly +careful at the same time as to what he might say. He never mentioned her +mother; he only alluded, indirectly but earnestly, to the “step.” He +disapproved of it altogether, took an unexpectedly prudent, politic view +of it. He evidently also believed that she would be dragged down; in +other words that she would not be asked out. It was his idea that her +mother would contaminate her, so that he should find himself interested +in a young person discredited and virtually unmarriageable. All this was +more obvious to him than the consideration that a daughter should be +merciful. Where was his religion if he understood mercy so little, and +where were his talent and his courage if he were so miserably afraid of +trumpery social penalties? Rose’s heart sank when she reflected that a +man supposed to be first-rate hadn’t guessed that rather than not do what +she could for her mother she would give up all the Engineers in the +world. She became aware that she probably would have been moved to place +her hand in his on the spot if he had come to her saying “Your idea is +the right one; put it through at every cost.” She couldn’t discuss this +with him, though he impressed her as having too much at stake for her to +treat him with mere disdain. She sickened at the revelation that a +gentleman could see so much in mere vulgarities of opinion, and though +she uttered as few words as possible, conversing only in sad smiles and +headshakes and in intercepted movements toward the door, she happened, in +some unguarded lapse from her reticence, to use the expression that she +was disappointed in him. He caught at it and, seeming to drop his +field-glass, pressed upon her with nearer, tenderer eyes. + +“Can I be so happy as to believe, then, that you had thought of me with +some confidence, with some faith?” + +“If you didn’t suppose so, what is the sense of this visit?” Rose asked. + +“One can be faithful without reciprocity,” said the young man. “I regard +you in a light which makes me want to protect you even if I have nothing +to gain by it.” + +“Yet you speak as if you thought you might keep me for yourself.” + +“For _yourself_. I don’t want you to suffer.” + +“Nor to suffer yourself by my doing so,” said Rose, looking down. + +“Ah, if you would only marry me next month!” he broke out inconsequently. + +“And give up going to mamma?” Rose waited to see if he would say “What +need that matter? Can’t your mother come to us?” But he said nothing of +the sort; he only answered— + +“She surely would be sorry to interfere with the exercise of any other +affection which I might have the bliss of believing that you are now +free, in however small a degree, to entertain.” + +Rose knew that her mother wouldn’t be sorry at all; but she contented +herself with rejoining, her hand on the door: “Good-bye. I sha’n’t +suffer. I’m not afraid.” + +“You don’t know how terrible, how cruel, the world can be.” + +“Yes, I do know. I know everything!” + +The declaration sprang from her lips in a tone which made him look at her +as he had never looked before, as if he saw something new in her face, as +if he had never yet known her. He hadn’t displeased her so much but that +she would like to give him that impression, and since she felt that she +was doing so she lingered an instant for the purpose. It enabled her to +see, further, that he turned red; then to become aware that a carriage +had stopped at the door. Captain Jay’s eyes, from where he stood, fell +upon this arrival, and the nature of their glance made Rose step forward +to look. Her mother sat there, brilliant, conspicuous, in the eternal +victoria, and the footman was already sounding the knocker. It had been +no part of the arrangement that she should come to fetch her; it had been +out of the question—a stroke in such bad taste as would have put Rose in +the wrong. The girl had never dreamed of it, but somehow, suddenly, +perversely, she was glad of it now; she even hoped that her grandmother +and her aunt were looking out upstairs. + +“My mother has come for me. Good-bye,” she repeated; but this time her +visitor had got between her and the door. + +“Listen to me before you go. I will give you a life’s devotion,” the +young man pleaded. He really barred the way. + +She wondered whether her grandmother had told him that if her flight were +not prevented she would forfeit money. Then, vividly, it came over her +that this would be what he was occupied with. “I shall never think of +you—let me go!” she cried, with passion. + +Captain Jay opened the door, but Rose didn’t see his face, and in a +moment she was out of the house. Aunt Julia, who was sure to have been +hovering, had taken flight before the profanity of the knock. + +“Heavens, dear, where did you get your mourning?” the lady in the +victoria asked of her daughter as they drove away. + + + +II. + + +LADY MARESFIELD had given her boy a push in his plump back and had said +to him, “Go and speak to her now; it’s your chance.” She had for a long +time wanted this scion to make himself audible to Rose Tramore, but the +opportunity was not easy to come by. The case was complicated. Lady +Maresfield had four daughters, of whom only one was married. It so +happened moreover that this one, Mrs. Vaughan-Vesey, the only person in +the world her mother was afraid of, was the most to be reckoned with. +The Honourable Guy was in appearance all his mother’s child, though he +was really a simpler soul. He was large and pink; large, that is, as to +everything but the eyes, which were diminishing points, and pink as to +everything but the hair, which was comparable, faintly, to the hue of the +richer rose. He had also, it must be conceded, very small neat teeth, +which made his smile look like a young lady’s. He had no wish to +resemble any such person, but he was perpetually smiling, and he smiled +more than ever as he approached Rose Tramore, who, looking altogether, to +his mind, as a pretty girl should, and wearing a soft white opera-cloak +over a softer black dress, leaned alone against the wall of the vestibule +at Covent Garden while, a few paces off, an old gentleman engaged her +mother in conversation. Madame Patti had been singing, and they were all +waiting for their carriages. To their ears at present came a +vociferation of names and a rattle of wheels. The air, through banging +doors, entered in damp, warm gusts, heavy with the stale, slightly sweet +taste of the London season when the London season is overripe and +spoiling. + +Guy Mangler had only three minutes to reëstablish an interrupted +acquaintance with our young lady. He reminded her that he had danced +with her the year before, and he mentioned that he knew her brother. His +mother had lately been to see old Mrs. Tramore, but this he did not +mention, not being aware of it. That visit had produced, on Lady +Maresfield’s part, a private crisis, engendered ideas. One of them was +that the grandmother in Hill Street had really forgiven the wilful girl +much more than she admitted. Another was that there would still be some +money for Rose when the others should come into theirs. Still another +was that the others would come into theirs at no distant date; the old +lady was so visibly going to pieces. There were several more besides, as +for instance that Rose had already fifteen hundred a year from her +father. The figure had been betrayed in Hill Street; it was part of the +proof of Mrs. Tramore’s decrepitude. Then there was an equal amount that +her mother had to dispose of and on which the girl could absolutely +count, though of course it might involve much waiting, as the mother, a +person of gross insensibility, evidently wouldn’t die of +cold-shouldering. Equally definite, to do it justice, was the conception +that Rose was in truth remarkably good looking, and that what she had +undertaken to do showed, and would show even should it fail, cleverness +of the right sort. Cleverness of the right sort was exactly the quality +that Lady Maresfield prefigured as indispensable in a young lady to whom +she should marry her second son, over whose own deficiencies she flung +the veil of a maternal theory that _his_ cleverness was of a sort that +was wrong. Those who knew him less well were content to wish that he +might not conceal it for such a scruple. This enumeration of his +mother’s views does not exhaust the list, and it was in obedience to one +too profound to be uttered even by the historian that, after a very brief +delay, she decided to move across the crowded lobby. Her daughter Bessie +was the only one with her; Maggie was dining with the Vaughan-Veseys, and +Fanny was not of an age. Mrs. Tramore the younger showed only an +admirable back—her face was to her old gentleman—and Bessie had drifted +to some other people; so that it was comparatively easy for Lady +Maresfield to say to Rose, in a moment: “My dear child, are you never +coming to see us?” + +“We shall be delighted to come if you’ll ask us,” Rose smiled. + +Lady Maresfield had been prepared for the plural number, and she was a +woman whom it took many plurals to disconcert. “I’m sure Guy is longing +for another dance with you,” she rejoined, with the most unblinking +irrelevance. + +“I’m afraid we’re not dancing again quite yet,” said Rose, glancing at +her mother’s exposed shoulders, but speaking as if they were muffled in +crape. + +Lady Maresfield leaned her head on one side and seemed almost wistful. +“Not even at my sister’s ball? She’s to have something next week. +She’ll write to you.” + +Rose Tramore, on the spot, looking bright but vague, turned three or four +things over in her mind. She remembered that the sister of her +interlocutress was the proverbially rich Mrs. Bray, a bankeress or a +breweress or a builderess, who had so big a house that she couldn’t fill +it unless she opened her doors, or her mouth, very wide. Rose had learnt +more about London society during these lonely months with her mother than +she had ever picked up in Hill Street. The younger Mrs. Tramore was a +mine of _commérages_, and she had no need to go out to bring home the +latest intelligence. At any rate Mrs. Bray might serve as the end of a +wedge. “Oh, I dare say we might think of that,” Rose said. “It would be +very kind of your sister.” + +“Guy’ll think of it, won’t you, Guy?” asked Lady Maresfield. + +“Rather!” Guy responded, with an intonation as fine as if he had learnt +it at a music hall; while at the same moment the name of his mother’s +carriage was bawled through the place. Mrs. Tramore had parted with her +old gentleman; she turned again to her daughter. Nothing occurred but +what always occurred, which was exactly this absence of everything—a +universal lapse. She didn’t exist, even for a second, to any recognising +eye. The people who looked at her—of course there were plenty of +those—were only the people who didn’t exist for hers. Lady Maresfield +surged away on her son’s arm. + +It was this noble matron herself who wrote, the next day, inclosing a +card of invitation from Mrs. Bray and expressing the hope that Rose would +come and dine and let her ladyship take her. She should have only one of +her own girls; Gwendolen Vesey was to take the other. Rose handed both +the note and the card in silence to her mother; the latter exhibited only +the name of Miss Tramore. “You had much better go, dear,” her mother +said; in answer to which Miss Tramore slowly tore up the documents, +looking with clear, meditative eyes out of the window. Her mother always +said “You had better go”—there had been other incidents—and Rose had +never even once taken account of the observation. She would make no +first advances, only plenty of second ones, and, condoning no +discrimination, would treat no omission as venial. She would keep all +concessions till afterwards; then she would make them one by one. +Fighting society was quite as hard as her grandmother had said it would +be; but there was a tension in it which made the dreariness vibrate—the +dreariness of such a winter as she had just passed. Her companion had +cried at the end of it, and she had cried all through; only her tears had +been private, while her mother’s had fallen once for all, at luncheon on +the bleak Easter Monday—produced by the way a silent survey of the deadly +square brought home to her that every creature but themselves was out of +town and having tremendous fun. Rose felt that it was useless to attempt +to explain simply by her mourning this severity of solitude; for if +people didn’t go to parties (at least a few didn’t) for six months after +their father died, this was the very time other people took for coming to +see them. It was not too much to say that during this first winter of +Rose’s period with her mother she had no communication whatever with the +world. It had the effect of making her take to reading the new American +books: she wanted to see how girls got on by themselves. She had never +read so much before, and there was a legitimate indifference in it when +topics failed with her mother. They often failed after the first days, +and then, while she bent over instructive volumes, this lady, dressed as +if for an impending function, sat on the sofa and watched her. Rose was +not embarrassed by such an appearance, for she could reflect that, a +little before, her companion had not even a girl who had taken refuge in +queer researches to look at. She was moreover used to her mother’s +attitude by this time. She had her own description of it: it was the +attitude of waiting for the carriage. If they didn’t go out it was not +that Mrs. Tramore was not ready in time, and Rose had even an alarmed +prevision of their some day always arriving first. Mrs. Tramore’s +conversation at such moments was abrupt, inconsequent and personal. She +sat on the edge of sofas and chairs and glanced occasionally at the fit +of her gloves (she was perpetually gloved, and the fit was a thing it was +melancholy to see wasted), as people do who are expecting guests to +dinner. Rose used almost to fancy herself at times a perfunctory husband +on the other side of the fire. + +What she was not yet used to—there was still a charm in it—was her +mother’s extraordinary tact. During the years they lived together they +never had a discussion; a circumstance all the more remarkable since if +the girl had a reason for sparing her companion (that of being sorry for +her) Mrs. Tramore had none for sparing her child. She only showed in +doing so a happy instinct—the happiest thing about her. She took in +perfection a course which represented everything and covered everything; +she utterly abjured all authority. She testified to her abjuration in +hourly ingenious, touching ways. In this manner nothing had to be talked +over, which was a mercy all round. The tears on Easter Monday were +merely a nervous gust, to help show she was not a Christmas doll from the +Burlington Arcade; and there was no lifting up of the repentant Magdalen, +no uttered remorse for the former abandonment of children. Of the way +she could treat her children her demeanour to this one was an example; it +was an uninterrupted appeal to her eldest daughter for direction. She +took the law from Rose in every circumstance, and if you had noticed +these ladies without knowing their history you would have wondered what +tie was fine enough to make maturity so respectful to youth. No mother +was ever so filial as Mrs. Tramore, and there had never been such a +difference of position between sisters. Not that the elder one fawned, +which would have been fearful; she only renounced—whatever she had to +renounce. If the amount was not much she at any rate made no scene over +it. Her hand was so light that Rose said of her secretly, in vague +glances at the past, “No wonder people liked her!” She never +characterised the old element of interference with her mother’s +respectability more definitely than as “people.” They were people, it +was true, for whom gentleness must have been everything and who didn’t +demand a variety of interests. The desire to “go out” was the one +passion that even a closer acquaintance with her parent revealed to Rose +Tramore. She marvelled at its strength, in the light of the poor lady’s +history: there was comedy enough in this unquenchable flame on the part +of a woman who had known such misery. She had drunk deep of every +dishonour, but the bitter cup had left her with a taste for lighted +candles, for squeezing up staircases and hooking herself to the human +elbow. Rose had a vision of the future years in which this taste would +grow with restored exercise—of her mother, in a long-tailed dress, +jogging on and on and on, jogging further and further from her sins, +through a century of the “Morning Post” and down the fashionable avenue +of time. She herself would then be very old—she herself would be dead. +Mrs. Tramore would cover a span of life for which such an allowance of +sin was small. The girl could laugh indeed now at that theory of her +being dragged down. If one thing were more present to her than another +it was the very desolation of their propriety. As she glanced at her +companion, it sometimes seemed to her that if she had been a bad woman +she would have been worse than that. There were compensations for being +“cut” which Mrs. Tramore too much neglected. + +The lonely old lady in Hill Street—Rose thought of her that way now—was +the one person to whom she was ready to say that she would come to her on +any terms. She wrote this to her three times over, and she knocked still +oftener at her door. But the old lady answered no letters; if Rose had +remained in Hill Street it would have been her own function to answer +them; and at the door, the butler, whom the girl had known for ten years, +considered her, when he told her his mistress was not at home, quite as +he might have considered a young person who had come about a place and of +whose eligibility he took a negative view. That was Rose’s one pang, +that she probably appeared rather heartless. Her aunt Julia had gone to +Florence with Edith for the winter, on purpose to make her appear more +so; for Miss Tramore was still the person most scandalised by her +secession. Edith and she, doubtless, often talked over in Florence the +destitution of the aged victim in Hill Street. Eric never came to see +his sister, because, being full both of family and of personal feeling, +he thought she really ought to have stayed with his grandmother. If she +had had such an appurtenance all to herself she might have done what she +liked with it; but he couldn’t forgive such a want of consideration for +anything of his. There were moments when Rose would have been ready to +take her hand from the plough and insist upon reintegration, if only the +fierce voice of the old house had allowed people to look her up. But she +read, ever so clearly, that her grandmother had made this a question of +loyalty to seventy years of virtue. Mrs. Tramore’s forlornness didn’t +prevent her drawing-room from being a very public place, in which Rose +could hear certain words reverberate: “Leave her alone; it’s the only way +to see how long she’ll hold out.” The old woman’s visitors were people +who didn’t wish to quarrel, and the girl was conscious that if they had +not let her alone—that is if they had come to her from her +grandmother—she might perhaps not have held out. She had no friends +quite of her own; she had not been brought up to have them, and it would +not have been easy in a house which two such persons as her father and +his mother divided between them. Her father disapproved of crude +intimacies, and all the intimacies of youth were crude. He had married +at five-and-twenty and could testify to such a truth. Rose felt that she +shared even Captain Jay with her grandmother; she had seen what _he_ was +worth. Moreover, she had spoken to him at that last moment in Hill +Street in a way which, taken with her former refusal, made it impossible +that he should come near her again. She hoped he went to see his +protectress: he could be a kind of substitute and administer comfort. + +It so happened, however, that the day after she threw Lady Maresfield’s +invitation into the wastepaper basket she received a visit from a certain +Mrs. Donovan, whom she had occasionally seen in Hill Street. She vaguely +knew this lady for a busybody, but she was in a situation which even +busybodies might alleviate. Mrs. Donovan was poor, but honest—so +scrupulously honest that she was perpetually returning visits she had +never received. She was always clad in weather-beaten sealskin, and had +an odd air of being prepared for the worst, which was borne out by her +denying that she was Irish. She was of the English Donovans. + +“Dear child, won’t you go out with me?” she asked. + +Rose looked at her a moment and then rang the bell. She spoke of +something else, without answering the question, and when the servant came +she said: “Please tell Mrs. Tramore that Mrs. Donovan has come to see +her.” + +“Oh, that’ll be delightful; only you mustn’t tell your grandmother!” the +visitor exclaimed. + +“Tell her what?” + +“That I come to see your mamma.” + +“You don’t,” said Rose. + +“Sure I hoped you’d introduce me!” cried Mrs. Donovan, compromising +herself in her embarrassment. + +“It’s not necessary; you knew her once.” + +“Indeed and I’ve known every one once,” the visitor confessed. + +Mrs. Tramore, when she came in, was charming and exactly right; she +greeted Mrs. Donovan as if she had met her the week before last, giving +her daughter such a new illustration of her tact that Rose again had the +idea that it was no wonder “people” had liked her. The girl grudged Mrs. +Donovan so fresh a morsel as a description of her mother at home, +rejoicing that she would be inconvenienced by having to keep the story +out of Hill Street. Her mother went away before Mrs. Donovan departed, +and Rose was touched by guessing her reason—the thought that since even +this circuitous personage had been moved to come, the two might, if left +together, invent some remedy. Rose waited to see what Mrs. Donovan had +in fact invented. + +“You won’t come out with me then?” + +“Come out with you?” + +“My daughters are married. You know I’m a lone woman. It would be an +immense pleasure to me to have so charming a creature as yourself to +present to the world.” + +“I go out with my mother,” said Rose, after a moment. + +“Yes, but sometimes when she’s not inclined?” + +“She goes everywhere she wants to go,” Rose continued, uttering the +biggest fib of her life and only regretting it should be wasted on Mrs. +Donovan. + +“Ah, but do you go everywhere _you_ want?” the lady asked sociably. + +“One goes even to places one hates. Every one does that.” + +“Oh, what I go through!” this social martyr cried. Then she laid a +persuasive hand on the girl’s arm. “Let me show you at a few places +first, and then we’ll see. I’ll bring them all here.” + +“I don’t think I understand you,” replied Rose, though in Mrs. Donovan’s +words she perfectly saw her own theory of the case reflected. For a +quarter of a minute she asked herself whether she might not, after all, +do so much evil that good might come. Mrs. Donovan would take her out +the next day, and be thankful enough to annex such an attraction as a +pretty girl. Various consequences would ensue and the long delay would +be shortened; her mother’s drawing-room would resound with the clatter of +teacups. + +“Mrs. Bray’s having some big thing next week; come with me there and I’ll +show you what I mane,” Mrs. Donovan pleaded. + +“I see what you mane,” Rose answered, brushing away her temptation and +getting up. “I’m much obliged to you.” + +“You know you’re wrong, my dear,” said her interlocutress, with angry +little eyes. + +“I’m not going to Mrs. Bray’s.” + +“I’ll get you a kyard; it’ll only cost me a penny stamp.” + +“I’ve got one,” said the girl, smiling. + +“Do you mean a penny stamp?” Mrs. Donovan, especially at departure, +always observed all the forms of amity. “You can’t do it alone, my +darling,” she declared. + +“Shall they call you a cab?” Rose asked. + +“I’ll pick one up. I choose my horse. You know you require your start,” +her visitor went on. + +“Excuse my mother,” was Rose’s only reply. + +“Don’t mention it. Come to me when you need me. You’ll find me in the +Red Book.” + +“It’s awfully kind of you.” + +Mrs. Donovan lingered a moment on the threshold. “Who will you _have_ +now, my child?” she appealed. + +“I won’t have any one!” Rose turned away, blushing for her. “She came +on speculation,” she said afterwards to Mrs. Tramore. + +Her mother looked at her a moment in silence. “You can do it if you +like, you know.” + +Rose made no direct answer to this observation; she remarked instead: +“See what our quiet life allows us to escape.” + +“We don’t escape it. She has been here an hour.” + +“Once in twenty years! We might meet her three times a day.” + +“Oh, I’d take her with the rest!” sighed Mrs. Tramore; while her daughter +recognised that what her companion wanted to do was just what Mrs. +Donovan was doing. Mrs. Donovan’s life was her ideal. + +On a Sunday, ten days later, Rose went to see one of her old governesses, +of whom she had lost sight for some time and who had written to her that +she was in London, unoccupied and ill. This was just the sort of +relation into which she could throw herself now with inordinate zeal; the +idea of it, however, not preventing a foretaste of the queer expression +in the excellent lady’s face when she should mention with whom she was +living. While she smiled at this picture she threw in another joke, +asking herself if Miss Hack could be held in any degree to constitute the +nucleus of a circle. She would come to see her, in any event—come the +more the further she was dragged down. Sunday was always a difficult day +with the two ladies—the afternoons made it so apparent that they were not +frequented. Her mother, it is true, was comprised in the habits of two +or three old gentlemen—she had for a long time avoided male friends of +less than seventy—who disliked each other enough to make the room, when +they were there at once, crack with pressure. Rose sat for a long time +with Miss Hack, doing conscientious justice to the conception that there +could be troubles in the world worse than her own; and when she came back +her mother was alone, but with a story to tell of a long visit from Mr. +Guy Mangler, who had waited and waited for her return. “He’s in love +with you; he’s coming again on Tuesday,” Mrs. Tramore announced. + +“Did he say so?” + +“That he’s coming back on Tuesday?” + +“No, that he’s in love with me.” + +“He didn’t need, when he stayed two hours.” + +“With you? It’s you he’s in love with, mamma!” + +“That will do as well,” laughed Mrs. Tramore. “For all the use we shall +make of him!” she added in a moment. + +“We shall make great use of him. His mother sent him.” + +“Oh, she’ll never come!” + +“Then _he_ sha’n’t,” said Rose. Yet he was admitted on the Tuesday, and +after she had given him his tea Mrs. Tramore left the young people alone. +Rose wished she hadn’t—she herself had another view. At any rate she +disliked her mother’s view, which she had easily guessed. Mr. Mangler +did nothing but say how charming he thought his hostess of the Sunday, +and what a tremendously jolly visit he had had. He didn’t remark in so +many words “I had no idea your mother was such a good sort”; but this was +the spirit of his simple discourse. Rose liked it at first—a little of +it gratified her; then she thought there was too much of it for good +taste. She had to reflect that one does what one can and that Mr. +Mangler probably thought he was delicate. He wished to convey that he +desired to make up to her for the injustice of society. Why shouldn’t +her mother receive gracefully, she asked (not audibly) and who had ever +said she didn’t? Mr. Mangler had a great deal to say about the +disappointment of his own parent over Miss Tramore’s not having come to +dine with them the night of his aunt’s ball. + +“Lady Maresfield knows why I didn’t come,” Rose answered at last. + +“Ah, now, but _I_ don’t, you know; can’t you tell _me_?” asked the young +man. + +“It doesn’t matter, if your mother’s clear about it.” + +“Oh, but why make such an awful mystery of it, when I’m dying to know?” + +He talked about this, he chaffed her about it for the rest of his visit: +he had at last found a topic after his own heart. If her mother +considered that he might be the emblem of their redemption he was an +engine of the most primitive construction. He stayed and stayed; he +struck Rose as on the point of bringing out something for which he had +not quite, as he would have said, the cheek. Sometimes she thought he +was going to begin: “By the way, my mother told me to propose to you.” +At other moments he seemed charged with the admission: “I say, of course +I really know what you’re trying to do for her,” nodding at the door: +“therefore hadn’t we better speak of it frankly, so that I can help you +with my mother, and more particularly with my sister Gwendolen, who’s the +difficult one? The fact is, you see, they won’t do anything for nothing. +If you’ll accept me they’ll call, but they won’t call without something +‘down.’” Mr. Mangler departed without their speaking frankly, and Rose +Tramore had a hot hour during which she almost entertained, vindictively, +the project of “accepting” the limpid youth until after she should have +got her mother into circulation. The cream of the vision was that she +might break with him later. She could read that this was what her mother +would have liked, but the next time he came the door was closed to him, +and the next and the next. + +In August there was nothing to do but to go abroad, with the sense on +Rose’s part that the battle was still all to fight; for a round of +country visits was not in prospect, and English watering-places +constituted one of the few subjects on which the girl had heard her +mother express herself with disgust. Continental autumns had been indeed +for years, one of the various forms of Mrs. Tramore’s atonement, but Rose +could only infer that such fruit as they had borne was bitter. The stony +stare of Belgravia could be practised at Homburg; and somehow it was +inveterately only gentlemen who sat next to her at the _table d’hôte_ at +Cadenabbia. Gentlemen had never been of any use to Mrs. Tramore for +getting back into society; they had only helped her effectually to get +out of it. She once dropped, to her daughter, in a moralising mood, the +remark that it was astonishing how many of them one could know without +its doing one any good. Fifty of them—even very clever ones—represented +a value inferior to that of one stupid woman. Rose wondered at the +offhand way in which her mother could talk of fifty clever men; it seemed +to her that the whole world couldn’t contain such a number. She had a +sombre sense that mankind must be dull and mean. These cogitations took +place in a cold hotel, in an eternal Swiss rain, and they had a flat echo +in the transalpine valleys, as the lonely ladies went vaguely down to the +Italian lakes and cities. Rose guided their course, at moments, with a +kind of aimless ferocity; she moved abruptly, feeling vulgar and hating +their life, though destitute of any definite vision of another life that +would have been open to her. She had set herself a task and she clung to +it; but she appeared to herself despicably idle. She had succeeded in +not going to Homburg waters, where London was trying to wash away some of +its stains; that would be too staring an advertisement of their +situation. The main difference in situations to her now was the +difference of being more or less pitied, at the best an intolerable +danger; so that the places she preferred were the unsuspicious ones. She +wanted to triumph with contempt, not with submission. + +One morning in September, coming with her mother out of the marble church +at Milan, she perceived that a gentleman who had just passed her on his +way into the cathedral and whose face she had not noticed, had quickly +raised his hat, with a suppressed ejaculation. She involuntarily glanced +back; the gentleman had paused, again uncovering, and Captain Jay stood +saluting her in the Italian sunshine. “Oh, good-morning!” she said, and +walked on, pursuing her course; her mother was a little in front. She +overtook her in a moment, with an unreasonable sense, like a gust of cold +air, that men were worse than ever, for Captain Jay had apparently moved +into the church. Her mother turned as they met, and suddenly, as she +looked back, an expression of peculiar sweetness came into this lady’s +eyes. It made Rose’s take the same direction and rest a second time on +Captain Jay, who was planted just where he had stood a minute before. He +immediately came forward, asking Rose with great gravity if he might +speak to her a moment, while Mrs. Tramore went her way again. He had the +expression of a man who wished to say something very important; yet his +next words were simple enough and consisted of the remark that he had not +seen her for a year. + +“Is it really so much as that?” asked Rose. + +“Very nearly. I would have looked you up, but in the first place I have +been very little in London, and in the second I believed it wouldn’t have +done any good.” + +“You should have put that first,” said the girl. “It wouldn’t have done +any good.” + +He was silent over this a moment, in his customary deciphering way; but +the view he took of it did not prevent him from inquiring, as she slowly +followed her mother, if he mightn’t walk with her now. She answered with +a laugh that it wouldn’t do any good but that he might do as he liked. +He replied without the slightest manifestation of levity that it would do +more good than if he didn’t, and they strolled together, with Mrs. +Tramore well before them, across the big, amusing piazza, where the front +of the cathedral makes a sort of builded light. He asked a question or +two and he explained his own presence: having a month’s holiday, the +first clear time for several years, he had just popped over the Alps. He +inquired if Rose had recent news of the old lady in Hill Street, and it +was the only tortuous thing she had ever heard him say. + +“I have had no communication of any kind from her since I parted with you +under her roof. Hasn’t she mentioned that?” said Rose. + +“I haven’t seen her.” + +“I thought you were such great friends.” + +Bertram Jay hesitated a moment. “Well, not so much now.” + +“What has she done to you?” Rose demanded. + +He fidgeted a little, as if he were thinking of something that made him +unconscious of her question; then, with mild violence, he brought out the +inquiry: “Miss Tramore, are you happy?” + +She was startled by the words, for she on her side had been +reflecting—reflecting that he had broken with her grandmother and that +this pointed to a reason. It suggested at least that he wouldn’t now be +so much like a mouthpiece for that cold ancestral tone. She turned off +his question—said it never was a fair one, as you gave yourself away +however you answered it. When he repeated “You give yourself away?” as +if he didn’t understand, she remembered that he had not read the funny +American books. This brought them to a silence, for she had enlightened +him only by another laugh, and he was evidently preparing another +question, which he wished carefully to disconnect from the former. +Presently, just as they were coming near Mrs. Tramore, it arrived in the +words “Is this lady your mother?” On Rose’s assenting, with the addition +that she was travelling with her, he said: “Will you be so kind as to +introduce me to her?” They were so close to Mrs. Tramore that she +probably heard, but she floated away with a single stroke of her paddle +and an inattentive poise of her head. It was a striking exhibition of +the famous tact, for Rose delayed to answer, which was exactly what might +have made her mother wish to turn; and indeed when at last the girl spoke +she only said to her companion: “Why do you ask me that?” + +“Because I desire the pleasure of making her acquaintance.” + +Rose had stopped, and in the middle of the square they stood looking at +each other. “Do you remember what you said to me the last time I saw +you?” + +“Oh, don’t speak of that!” + +“It’s better to speak of it now than to speak of it later.” + +Bertram Jay looked round him, as if to see whether any one would hear; +but the bright foreignness gave him a sense of safety, and he +unexpectedly exclaimed: “Miss Tramore, I love you more than ever!” + +“Then you ought to have come to see us,” declared the girl, quickly +walking on. + +“You treated me the last time as if I were positively offensive to you.” + +“So I did, but you know my reason.” + +“Because I protested against the course you were taking? I did, I did!” +the young man rang out, as if he still, a little, stuck to that. + +His tone made Rose say gaily: “Perhaps you do so yet?” + +“I can’t tell till I’ve seen more of your circumstances,” he replied with +eminent honesty. + +The girl stared; her light laugh filled the air. “And it’s in order to +see more of them and judge that you wish to make my mother’s +acquaintance?” + +He coloured at this and he evaded; then he broke out with a confused +“Miss Tramore, let me stay with you a little!” which made her stop again. + +“Your company will do us great honour, but there must be a rigid +condition attached to our acceptance of it.” + +“Kindly mention it,” said Captain Jay, staring at the façade of the +cathedral. + +“You don’t take us on trial.” + +“On trial?” + +“You don’t make an observation to me—not a single one, ever, ever!—on the +matter that, in Hill Street, we had our last words about.” + +Captain Jay appeared to be counting the thousand pinnacles of the church. +“I think you really must be right,” he remarked at last. + +“There you are!” cried Rose Tramore, and walked rapidly away. + +He caught up with her, he laid his hand upon her arm to stay her. “If +you’re going to Venice, let me go to Venice with you!” + +“You don’t even understand my condition.” + +“I’m sure you’re right, then: you must be right about everything.” + +“That’s not in the least true, and I don’t care a fig whether you’re sure +or not. Please let me go.” + +He had barred her way, he kept her longer. “I’ll go and speak to your +mother myself!” + +Even in the midst of another emotion she was amused at the air of +audacity accompanying this declaration. Poor Captain Jay might have been +on the point of marching up to a battery. She looked at him a moment; +then she said: “You’ll be disappointed!” + +“Disappointed?” + +“She’s much more proper than grandmamma, because she’s much more +amiable.” + +“Dear Miss Tramore—dear Miss Tramore!” the young man murmured helplessly. + +“You’ll see for yourself. Only there’s another condition,” Rose went on. + +“Another?” he cried, with discouragement and alarm. + +“You must understand thoroughly, before you throw in your lot with us +even for a few days, what our position really is.” + +“Is it very bad?” asked Bertram Jay artlessly. + +“No one has anything to do with us, no one speaks to us, no one looks at +us.” + +“Really?” stared the young man. + +“We’ve no social existence, we’re utterly despised.” + +“Oh, Miss Tramore!” Captain Jay interposed. He added quickly, vaguely, +and with a want of presence of mind of which he as quickly felt ashamed: +“Do none of your family—?” The question collapsed; the brilliant girl +was looking at him. + +“We’re extraordinarily happy,” she threw out. + +“Now that’s all I wanted to know!” he exclaimed, with a kind of +exaggerated cheery reproach, walking on with her briskly to overtake her +mother. + +He was not dining at their inn, but he insisted on coming that evening to +their _table d’hôte_. He sat next Mrs. Tramore, and in the evening he +accompanied them gallantly to the opera, at a third-rate theatre where +they were almost the only ladies in the boxes. The next day they went +together by rail to the Charterhouse of Pavia, and while he strolled with +the girl, as they waited for the homeward train, he said to her candidly: +“Your mother’s remarkably pretty.” She remembered the words and the +feeling they gave her: they were the first note of new era. The feeling +was somewhat that of an anxious, gratified matron who has “presented” her +child and is thinking of the matrimonial market. Men might be of no use, +as Mrs. Tramore said, yet it was from this moment Rose dated the rosy +dawn of her confidence that her _protégée_ would go off; and when later, +in crowded assemblies, the phrase, or something like it behind a hat or a +fan, fell repeatedly on her anxious ear, “Your mother _is_ in beauty!” or +“I’ve never seen her look better!” she had a faint vision of the yellow +sunshine and the afternoon shadows on the dusty Italian platform. + +Mrs. Tramore’s behaviour at this period was a revelation of her native +understanding of delicate situations. She needed no account of this one +from her daughter—it was one of the things for which she had a scent; and +there was a kind of loyalty to the rules of a game in the silent +sweetness with which she smoothed the path of Bertram Jay. It was clear +that she was in her element in fostering the exercise of the affections, +and if she ever spoke without thinking twice it is probable that she +would have exclaimed, with some gaiety, “Oh, I know all about _love_!” +Rose could see that she thought their companion would be a help, in spite +of his being no dispenser of patronage. The key to the gates of fashion +had not been placed in his hand, and no one had ever heard of the ladies +of his family, who lived in some vague hollow of the Yorkshire moors; but +none the less he might administer a muscular push. Yes indeed, men in +general were broken reeds, but Captain Jay was peculiarly representative. +Respectability was the woman’s maximum, as honour was the man’s, but this +distinguished young soldier inspired more than one kind of confidence. +Rose had a great deal of attention for the use to which his +respectability was put; and there mingled with this attention some +amusement and much compassion. She saw that after a couple of days he +decidedly liked her mother, and that he was yet not in the least aware of +it. He took for granted that he believed in her but little; +notwithstanding which he would have trusted her with anything except Rose +herself. His trusting her with Rose would come very soon. He never +spoke to her daughter about her qualities of character, but two or three +of them (and indeed these were all the poor lady had, and they made the +best show) were what he had in mind in praising her appearance. When he +remarked: “What attention Mrs. Tramore seems to attract everywhere!” he +meant: “What a beautifully simple nature it is!” and when he said: +“There’s something extraordinarily harmonious in the colours she wears,” +it signified: “Upon my word, I never saw such a sweet temper in my life!” +She lost one of her boxes at Verona, and made the prettiest joke of it to +Captain Jay. When Rose saw this she said to herself, “Next season we +shall have only to choose.” Rose knew what was in the box. + +By the time they reached Venice (they had stopped at half a dozen little +old romantic cities in the most frolicsome æsthetic way) she liked their +companion better than she had ever liked him before. She did him the +justice to recognise that if he was not quite honest with himself he was +at least wholly honest with _her_. She reckoned up everything he had +been since he joined them, and put upon it all an interpretation so +favourable to his devotion that, catching herself in the act of glossing +over one or two episodes that had not struck her at the time as +disinterested she exclaimed, beneath her breath, “Look out—you’re falling +in love!” But if he liked correctness wasn’t he quite right? Could any +one possibly like it more than _she_ did? And if he had protested +against her throwing in her lot with her mother, this was not because of +the benefit conferred but because of the injury received. He exaggerated +that injury, but this was the privilege of a lover perfectly willing to +be selfish on behalf of his mistress. He might have wanted her +grandmother’s money for her, but if he had given her up on first +discovering that she was throwing away her chance of it (oh, this was +_her_ doing too!) he had given up her grandmother as much: not keeping +well with the old woman, as some men would have done; not waiting to see +how the perverse experiment would turn out and appeasing her, if it +should promise tolerably, with a view to future operations. He had had a +simple-minded, evangelical, lurid view of what the girl he loved would +find herself in for. She could see this now—she could see it from his +present bewilderment and mystification, and she liked him and pitied him, +with the kindest smile, for the original _naïveté_ as well as for the +actual meekness. No wonder he hadn’t known what she was in for, since he +now didn’t even know what he was in for himself. Were there not moments +when he thought his companions almost unnaturally good, almost +suspiciously safe? He had lost all power to verify that sketch of their +isolation and _déclassement_ to which she had treated him on the great +square at Milan. The last thing he noticed was that they were neglected, +and he had never, for himself, had such an impression of society. + +It could scarcely be enhanced even by the apparition of a large, fair, +hot, red-haired young man, carrying a lady’s fan in his hand, who +suddenly stood before their little party as, on the third evening after +their arrival in Venice, it partook of ices at one of the tables before +the celebrated Café Florian. The lamplit Venetian dusk appeared to have +revealed them to this gentleman as he sat with other friends at a +neighbouring table, and he had sprung up, with unsophisticated glee, to +shake hands with Mrs. Tramore and her daughter. Rose recalled him to her +mother, who looked at first as though she didn’t remember him but +presently bestowed a sufficiently gracious smile on Mr. Guy Mangler. He +gave with youthful candour the history of his movements and indicated the +whereabouts of his family: he was with his mother and sisters; they had +met the Bob Veseys, who had taken Lord Whiteroy’s yacht and were going to +Constantinople. His mother and the girls, poor things, were at the Grand +Hotel, but he was on the yacht with the Veseys, where they had Lord +Whiteroy’s cook. Wasn’t the food in Venice filthy, and wouldn’t they +come and look at the yacht? She wasn’t very fast, but she was awfully +jolly. His mother might have come if she would, but she wouldn’t at +first, and now, when she wanted to, there were other people, who +naturally wouldn’t turn out for her. Mr. Mangler sat down; he alluded +with artless resentment to the way, in July, the door of his friends had +been closed to him. He was going to Constantinople, but he didn’t +care—if _they_ were going anywhere; meanwhile his mother hoped awfully +they would look her up. + +Lady Maresfield, if she had given her son any such message, which Rose +disbelieved, entertained her hope in a manner compatible with her sitting +for half an hour, surrounded by her little retinue, without glancing in +the direction of Mrs. Tramore. The girl, however, was aware that this +was not a good enough instance of their humiliation; inasmuch as it was +rather she who, on the occasion of their last contact, had held off from +Lady Maresfield. She was a little ashamed now of not having answered the +note in which this affable personage ignored her mother. She couldn’t +help perceiving indeed a dim movement on the part of some of the other +members of the group; she made out an attitude of observation in the +high-plumed head of Mrs. Vaughan-Vesey. Mrs. Vesey, perhaps, might have +been looking at Captain Jay, for as this gentleman walked back to the +hotel with our young lady (they were at the “Britannia,” and young +Mangler, who clung to them, went in front with Mrs. Tramore) he revealed +to Rose that he had some acquaintance with Lady Maresfield’s eldest +daughter, though he didn’t know and didn’t particularly want to know, her +ladyship. He expressed himself with more acerbity than she had ever +heard him use (Christian charity so generally governed his speech) about +the young donkey who had been prattling to them. They separated at the +door of the hotel. Mrs. Tramore had got rid of Mr. Mangler, and Bertram +Jay was in other quarters. + +“If you know Mrs. Vesey, why didn’t you go and speak to her? I’m sure +she saw you,” Rose said. + +Captain Jay replied even more circumspectly than usual. “Because I +didn’t want to leave you.” + +“Well, you can go now; you’re free,” Rose rejoined. + +“Thank you. I shall never go again.” + +“That won’t be civil,” said Rose. + +“I don’t care to be civil. I don’t like her.” + +“Why don’t you like her?” + +“You ask too many questions.” + +“I know I do,” the girl acknowledged. + +Captain Jay had already shaken hands with her, but at this he put out his +hand again. “She’s too worldly,” he murmured, while he held Rose +Tramore’s a moment. + +“Ah, you dear!” Rose exclaimed almost audibly as, with her mother, she +turned away. + +The next morning, upon the Grand Canal, the gondola of our three friends +encountered a stately barge which, though it contained several persons, +seemed pervaded mainly by one majestic presence. During the instant the +gondolas were passing each other it was impossible either for Rose +Tramore or for her companions not to become conscious that this +distinguished identity had markedly inclined itself—a circumstance +commemorated the next moment, almost within earshot of the other boat, by +the most spontaneous cry that had issued for many a day from the lips of +Mrs. Tramore. “Fancy, my dear, Lady Maresfield has bowed to us!” + +“We ought to have returned it,” Rose answered; but she looked at Bertram +Jay, who was opposite to her. He blushed, and she blushed, and during +this moment was born a deeper understanding than had yet existed between +these associated spirits. It had something to do with their going +together that afternoon, without her mother, to look at certain +out-of-the-way pictures as to which Ruskin had inspired her with a desire +to see sincerely. Mrs. Tramore expressed the wish to stay at home, and +the motive of this wish—a finer shade than any that even Ruskin had ever +found a phrase for—was not translated into misrepresenting words by +either the mother or the daughter. At San Giovanni in Bragora the girl +and her companion came upon Mrs. Vaughan-Vesey, who, with one of her +sisters, was also endeavouring to do the earnest thing. She did it to +Rose, she did it to Captain Jay, as well as to Gianbellini; she was a +handsome, long-necked, aquiline person, of a different type from the rest +of her family, and she did it remarkably well. She secured our +friends—it was her own expression—for luncheon, on the morrow, on the +yacht, and she made it public to Rose that she would come that afternoon +to invite her mother. When the girl returned to the hotel, Mrs. Tramore +mentioned, before Captain Jay, who had come up to their sitting-room, +that Lady Maresfield had called. “She stayed a long time—at least it +seemed long!” laughed Mrs. Tramore. + +The poor lady could laugh freely now; yet there was some grimness in a +colloquy that she had with her daughter after Bertram Jay had departed. +Before this happened Mrs. Vesey’s card, scrawled over in pencil and +referring to the morrow’s luncheon, was brought up to Mrs. Tramore. + +“They mean it all as a bribe,” said the principal recipient of these +civilities. + +“As a bribe?” Rose repeated. + +“She wants to marry you to that boy; they’ve seen Captain Jay and they’re +frightened.” + +“Well, dear mamma, I can’t take Mr. Mangler for a husband.” + +“Of course not. But oughtn’t we to go to the luncheon?” + +“Certainly we’ll go to the luncheon,” Rose said; and when the affair took +place, on the morrow, she could feel for the first time that she was +taking her mother out. This appearance was somehow brought home to every +one else, and it was really the agent of her success. For it is of the +essence of this simple history that, in the first place, that success +dated from Mrs. Vesey’s Venetian _déjeuner_, and in the second reposed, +by a subtle social logic, on the very anomaly that had made it dubious. +There is always a chance in things, and Rose Tramore’s chance was in the +fact that Gwendolen Vesey was, as some one had said, awfully modern, an +immense improvement on the exploded science of her mother, and capable of +seeing what a “draw” there would be in the comedy, if properly brought +out, of the reversed positions of Mrs. Tramore and Mrs. Tramore’s +diplomatic daughter. With a first-rate managerial eye she perceived that +people would flock into any room—and all the more into one of hers—to see +Rose bring in her dreadful mother. She treated the cream of English +society to this thrilling spectacle later in the autumn, when she once +more “secured” both the performers for a week at Brimble. It made a hit +on the spot, the very first evening—the girl was felt to play her part so +well. The rumour of the performance spread; every one wanted to see it. +It was an entertainment of which, that winter in the country, and the +next season in town, persons of taste desired to give their friends the +freshness. The thing was to make the Tramores come late, after every one +had arrived. They were engaged for a fixed hour, like the American +imitator and the Patagonian contralto. Mrs. Vesey had been the first to +say the girl was awfully original, but that became the general view. + +Gwendolen Vesey had with her mother one of the few quarrels in which Lady +Maresfield had really stood up to such an antagonist (the elder woman had +to recognise in general in whose veins it was that the blood of the +Manglers flowed) on account of this very circumstance of her attaching +more importance to Miss Tramore’s originality (“Her originality be +hanged!” her ladyship had gone so far as unintelligently to exclaim) than +to the prospects of the unfortunate Guy. Mrs. Vesey actually lost sight +of these pressing problems in her admiration of the way the mother and +the daughter, or rather the daughter and the mother (it was slightly +confusing) “drew.” It was Lady Maresfield’s version of the case that the +brazen girl (she was shockingly coarse) had treated poor Guy abominably. +At any rate it was made known, just after Easter, that Miss Tramore was +to be married to Captain Jay. The marriage was not to take place till +the summer; but Rose felt that before this the field would practically be +won. There had been some bad moments, there had been several warm +corners and a certain number of cold shoulders and closed doors and stony +stares; but the breach was effectually made—the rest was only a question +of time. Mrs. Tramore could be trusted to keep what she had gained, and +it was the dowagers, the old dragons with prominent fangs and glittering +scales, whom the trick had already mainly caught. By this time there +were several houses into which the liberated lady had crept alone. Her +daughter had been expected with her, but they couldn’t turn her out +because the girl had stayed behind, and she was fast acquiring a new +identity, that of a parental connection with the heroine of such a +romantic story. She was at least the next best thing to her daughter, +and Rose foresaw the day when she would be valued principally as a +memento of one of the prettiest episodes in the annals of London. At a +big official party, in June, Rose had the joy of introducing Eric to his +mother. She was a little sorry it was an official party—there were some +other such queer people there; but Eric called, observing the shade, the +next day but one. + +No observer, probably, would have been acute enough to fix exactly the +moment at which the girl ceased to take out her mother and began to be +taken out by her. A later phase was more distinguishable—that at which +Rose forbore to inflict on her companion a duality that might become +oppressive. She began to economise her force, she went only when the +particular effect was required. Her marriage was delayed by the period +of mourning consequent upon the death of her grandmother, who, the +younger Mrs. Tramore averred, was killed by the rumour of her own new +birth. She was the only one of the dragons who had not been tamed. +Julia Tramore knew the truth about this—she was determined such things +should not kill _her_. She would live to do something—she hardly knew +what. The provisions of her mother’s will were published in the +“Illustrated News”; from which it appeared that everything that was not +to go to Eric and to Julia was to go to the fortunate Edith. Miss +Tramore makes no secret of her own intentions as regards this favourite. + +Edith is not pretty, but Lady Maresfield is waiting for her; she is +determined Gwendolen Vesey shall not get hold of her. Mrs. Vesey however +takes no interest in her at all. She is whimsical, as befits a woman of +her fashion; but there are two persons she is still very fond of, the +delightful Bertram Jays. The fondness of this pair, it must be added, is +not wholly expended in return. They are extremely united, but their life +is more domestic than might have been expected from the preliminary +signs. It owes a portion of its concentration to the fact that Mrs. +Tramore has now so many places to go to that she has almost no time to +come to her daughter’s. She is, under her son-in-law’s roof, a brilliant +but a rare apparition, and the other day he remarked upon the +circumstance to his wife. + +“If it hadn’t been for you,” she replied, smiling, “she might have had +her regular place at our fireside.” + +“Good heavens, how did I prevent it?” cried Captain Jay, with all the +consciousness of virtue. + +“You ordered it otherwise, you goose!” And she says, in the same spirit, +whenever her husband commends her (which he does, sometimes, +extravagantly) for the way she launched her mother: “Nonsense, my +dear—practically it was _you_!” + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAPERON*** + + +******* This file should be named 2718-0.txt or 2718-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/1/2718 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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