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diff --git a/2718-h/2718-h.htm b/2718-h/2718-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae3d937 --- /dev/null +++ b/2718-h/2718-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2238 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Chaperon, by Henry James</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +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: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAPERON*** +</pre> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>THE CHAPERON.</h2> +<h3>I.</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">An</span> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Have you written to your mother?”</p> +<p>“Yes, but only a few lines, to tell her I shall come and +see her in the morning.”</p> +<p>“Is that all you’ve got to say?” asked the +grandmother.</p> +<p>“I don’t quite know what you want me to +say.”</p> +<p>“I want you to say that you’ve made up your +mind.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I’ve done that, granny.”</p> +<p>“You intend to respect your father’s +wishes?”</p> +<p>“It depends upon what you mean by respecting them. +I do justice to the feelings by which they were +dictated.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean by justice?” the old lady +retorted.</p> +<p>The girl was silent a moment; then she said: +“You’ll see my idea of it.”</p> +<p>“I see it already! You’ll go and live with +her.”</p> +<p>“I shall talk the situation over with her to-morrow and +tell her that I think that will be best.”</p> +<p>“Best for her, no doubt!”</p> +<p>“What’s best for her is best for me.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“They must do as I’ve done—they must act for +themselves. They have their means now, and they’re +free.”</p> +<p>“Free? They’re mere children.”</p> +<p>“Let me remind you that Eric is older than I.”</p> +<p>“He doesn’t like his mother,” said the old +lady, as if that were an answer.</p> +<p>“I never said he did. And she adores +him.”</p> +<p>“Oh, your mother’s adorations!”</p> +<p>“Don’t abuse her now,” the girl rejoined, +after a pause.</p> +<p>The old lady forbore to abuse her, but she made up for it the +next moment by saying: “It will be dreadful for +Edith.”</p> +<p>“What will be dreadful?”</p> +<p>“Your desertion of her.”</p> +<p>“The desertion’s on her side.”</p> +<p>“Her consideration for her father does her +honour.”</p> +<p>“Of course I’m a brute, <i>n’en parlons +plus</i>,” said the girl. “We must go our +respective ways,” she added, in a tone of extreme wisdom +and philosophy.</p> +<p>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 <i>me</i>, you know.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean by ‘coming’ to +you?”</p> +<p>“I can’t receive you on that footing.”</p> +<p>“She’ll not come <i>with</i> me, if you mean +that.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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 <i>his</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>his</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>could</i> 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 +<i>take</i> her out!”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Very well, then, I shall be out of your sight, from the +pinnacle you occupy, and I sha’n’t trouble +you.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Don’t reproach <i>me</i> for being kind to my +mother and I won’t reproach you for anything.”</p> +<p>“She’ll keep you out of +everything—she’ll make you miss everything,” +Miss Tramore continued.</p> +<p>“Then she’ll make me miss a great deal +that’s odious,” said the girl.</p> +<p>“You’re too young for such extravagances,” +her aunt declared.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Don’t speak to me of your mother; you <i>have</i> +no mother.”</p> +<p>“Then if I’m an orphan I must settle things for +myself.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>Rose looked at her a moment in silence; then she said, turning +away: “I think she’s charming.”</p> +<p>“And do you propose to become charming in the same +manner?”</p> +<p>“Her manner is perfect; it would be an excellent +model. But I can’t discuss my mother with +you.”</p> +<p>“You’ll have to discuss her with some other +people!” Miss Tramore proclaimed, going out of the +room.</p> +<p>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 <i>she</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“I think so. I’m not so stupid.”</p> +<p>“I never thought you were; but I don’t know what +to make of you now. You’re giving up +everything.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“You’re taking a step of which you will feel the +effect to the end of your days,” Mrs. Tramore went on.</p> +<p>“In a good conscience, I heartily hope,” said +Rose.</p> +<p>“Your father’s conscience was good enough for his +mother; it ought to be good enough for his daughter.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<p>“He was kind, he had charming impulses, he was +delightful. But he never reflected.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Tramore stared, as if at a language she had never heard, +a farrago, a <i>galimatias</i>. 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?”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“One would think you were horrid. I never thought +so before.”</p> +<p>“Thank you for that.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Hasn’t it too many other things to do?” +asked the girl.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“Oh, no; I know perfectly what she’ll do!” +Rose replied, almost gaily. “She’ll drag me +down.”</p> +<p>“She won’t even do that,” the old lady +declared contradictiously. “She’ll keep you +forever in the same dull hole.”</p> +<p>“I shall come and see <i>you</i>, granny, when I want +something more lively.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Rose hesitated a moment. “Do you really mean +that?”</p> +<p>“You may judge whether I choose such a time to +joke.”</p> +<p>“Good-bye, then,” said the girl.</p> +<p>“Good-bye.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“What does he want to say?” Rose demanded.</p> +<p>“Go in and find out.”</p> +<p>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 <i>bibelots</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>might</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Can I be so happy as to believe, then, that you had +thought of me with some confidence, with some faith?”</p> +<p>“If you didn’t suppose so, what is the sense of +this visit?” Rose asked.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Yet you speak as if you thought you might keep me for +yourself.”</p> +<p>“For <i>yourself</i>. I don’t want you to +suffer.”</p> +<p>“Nor to suffer yourself by my doing so,” said +Rose, looking down.</p> +<p>“Ah, if you would only marry me next month!” he +broke out inconsequently.</p> +<p>“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—</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“You don’t know how terrible, how cruel, the world +can be.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I do know. I know everything!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“My mother has come for me. Good-bye,” she +repeated; but this time her visitor had got between her and the +door.</p> +<p>“Listen to me before you go. I will give you a +life’s devotion,” the young man pleaded. He +really barred the way.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Heavens, dear, where did you get your mourning?” +the lady in the victoria asked of her daughter as they drove +away.</p> +<h3>II.</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Lady Maresfield</span> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>his</i> 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?”</p> +<p>“We shall be delighted to come if you’ll ask +us,” Rose smiled.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <i>commérages</i>, 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.”</p> +<p>“Guy’ll think of it, won’t you, Guy?” +asked Lady Maresfield.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>he</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Dear child, won’t you go out with me?” she +asked.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“Oh, that’ll be delightful; only you mustn’t +tell your grandmother!” the visitor exclaimed.</p> +<p>“Tell her what?”</p> +<p>“That I come to see your mamma.”</p> +<p>“You don’t,” said Rose.</p> +<p>“Sure I hoped you’d introduce me!” cried +Mrs. Donovan, compromising herself in her embarrassment.</p> +<p>“It’s not necessary; you knew her once.”</p> +<p>“Indeed and I’ve known every one once,” the +visitor confessed.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“You won’t come out with me then?”</p> +<p>“Come out with you?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I go out with my mother,” said Rose, after a +moment.</p> +<p>“Yes, but sometimes when she’s not +inclined?”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Ah, but do you go everywhere <i>you</i> want?” +the lady asked sociably.</p> +<p>“One goes even to places one hates. Every one does +that.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Bray’s having some big thing next week; come +with me there and I’ll show you what I mane,” Mrs. +Donovan pleaded.</p> +<p>“I see what you mane,” Rose answered, brushing +away her temptation and getting up. “I’m much +obliged to you.”</p> +<p>“You know you’re wrong, my dear,” said her +interlocutress, with angry little eyes.</p> +<p>“I’m not going to Mrs. Bray’s.”</p> +<p>“I’ll get you a kyard; it’ll only cost me a +penny stamp.”</p> +<p>“I’ve got one,” said the girl, smiling.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Shall they call you a cab?” Rose asked.</p> +<p>“I’ll pick one up. I choose my horse. +You know you require your start,” her visitor went on.</p> +<p>“Excuse my mother,” was Rose’s only +reply.</p> +<p>“Don’t mention it. Come to me when you need +me. You’ll find me in the Red Book.”</p> +<p>“It’s awfully kind of you.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Donovan lingered a moment on the threshold. +“Who will you <i>have</i> now, my child?” she +appealed.</p> +<p>“I won’t have any one!” Rose turned +away, blushing for her. “She came on +speculation,” she said afterwards to Mrs. Tramore.</p> +<p>Her mother looked at her a moment in silence. “You +can do it if you like, you know.”</p> +<p>Rose made no direct answer to this observation; she remarked +instead: “See what our quiet life allows us to +escape.”</p> +<p>“We don’t escape it. She has been here an +hour.”</p> +<p>“Once in twenty years! We might meet her three +times a day.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Did he say so?”</p> +<p>“That he’s coming back on Tuesday?”</p> +<p>“No, that he’s in love with me.”</p> +<p>“He didn’t need, when he stayed two +hours.”</p> +<p>“With you? It’s you he’s in love with, +mamma!”</p> +<p>“That will do as well,” laughed Mrs. +Tramore. “For all the use we shall make of +him!” she added in a moment.</p> +<p>“We shall make great use of him. His mother sent +him.”</p> +<p>“Oh, she’ll never come!”</p> +<p>“Then <i>he</i> 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.</p> +<p>“Lady Maresfield knows why I didn’t come,” +Rose answered at last.</p> +<p>“Ah, now, but <i>I</i> don’t, you know; +can’t you tell <i>me</i>?” asked the young man.</p> +<p>“It doesn’t matter, if your mother’s clear +about it.”</p> +<p>“Oh, but why make such an awful mystery of it, when +I’m dying to know?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>table d’hôte</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Is it really so much as that?” asked Rose.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“You should have put that first,” said the +girl. “It wouldn’t have done any +good.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“I haven’t seen her.”</p> +<p>“I thought you were such great friends.”</p> +<p>Bertram Jay hesitated a moment. “Well, not so much +now.”</p> +<p>“What has she done to you?” Rose demanded.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“Because I desire the pleasure of making her +acquaintance.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“Oh, don’t speak of that!”</p> +<p>“It’s better to speak of it now than to speak of +it later.”</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>“Then you ought to have come to see us,” declared +the girl, quickly walking on.</p> +<p>“You treated me the last time as if I were positively +offensive to you.”</p> +<p>“So I did, but you know my reason.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>His tone made Rose say gaily: “Perhaps you do so +yet?”</p> +<p>“I can’t tell till I’ve seen more of your +circumstances,” he replied with eminent honesty.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Your company will do us great honour, but there must be +a rigid condition attached to our acceptance of it.”</p> +<p>“Kindly mention it,” said Captain Jay, staring at +the façade of the cathedral.</p> +<p>“You don’t take us on trial.”</p> +<p>“On trial?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Captain Jay appeared to be counting the thousand pinnacles of +the church. “I think you really must be right,” +he remarked at last.</p> +<p>“There you are!” cried Rose Tramore, and walked +rapidly away.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>“You don’t even understand my +condition.”</p> +<p>“I’m sure you’re right, then: you must be +right about everything.”</p> +<p>“That’s not in the least true, and I don’t +care a fig whether you’re sure or not. Please let me +go.”</p> +<p>He had barred her way, he kept her longer. +“I’ll go and speak to your mother myself!”</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>“Disappointed?”</p> +<p>“She’s much more proper than grandmamma, because +she’s much more amiable.”</p> +<p>“Dear Miss Tramore—dear Miss Tramore!” the +young man murmured helplessly.</p> +<p>“You’ll see for yourself. Only there’s +another condition,” Rose went on.</p> +<p>“Another?” he cried, with discouragement and +alarm.</p> +<p>“You must understand thoroughly, before you throw in +your lot with us even for a few days, what our position really +is.”</p> +<p>“Is it very bad?” asked Bertram Jay artlessly.</p> +<p>“No one has anything to do with us, no one speaks to us, +no one looks at us.”</p> +<p>“Really?” stared the young man.</p> +<p>“We’ve no social existence, we’re utterly +despised.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“We’re extraordinarily happy,” she threw +out.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>He was not dining at their inn, but he insisted on coming that +evening to their <i>table d’hôte</i>. 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 <i>protégée</i> 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 <i>is</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>love</i>!” 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>her</i>. 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 +<i>she</i> 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 <i>her</i> 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 <i>naïveté</i> 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 <i>déclassement</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>they</i> +were going anywhere; meanwhile his mother hoped awfully they +would look her up.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“If you know Mrs. Vesey, why didn’t you go and +speak to her? I’m sure she saw you,” Rose +said.</p> +<p>Captain Jay replied even more circumspectly than usual. +“Because I didn’t want to leave you.”</p> +<p>“Well, you can go now; you’re free,” Rose +rejoined.</p> +<p>“Thank you. I shall never go again.”</p> +<p>“That won’t be civil,” said Rose.</p> +<p>“I don’t care to be civil. I don’t +like her.”</p> +<p>“Why don’t you like her?”</p> +<p>“You ask too many questions.”</p> +<p>“I know I do,” the girl acknowledged.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Ah, you dear!” Rose exclaimed almost audibly as, +with her mother, she turned away.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“They mean it all as a bribe,” said the principal +recipient of these civilities.</p> +<p>“As a bribe?” Rose repeated.</p> +<p>“She wants to marry you to that boy; they’ve seen +Captain Jay and they’re frightened.”</p> +<p>“Well, dear mamma, I can’t take Mr. Mangler for a +husband.”</p> +<p>“Of course not. But oughtn’t we to go to the +luncheon?”</p> +<p>“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 +<i>déjeuner</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>her</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“If it hadn’t been for you,” she replied, +smiling, “she might have had her regular place at our +fireside.”</p> +<p>“Good heavens, how did I prevent it?” cried +Captain Jay, with all the consciousness of virtue.</p> +<p>“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 <i>you</i>!”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAPERON***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2718-h.htm or 2718-h.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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