贵妇人画像The Portrait of a Lady-11

discussing the subject and found Henrietta wanting in delicacy."I asked him, and he said he meant to do nothing," Miss Stackpole answered. "But I don't believethat; he's not a man to do nothing. He is a man of high, bold action. Whatever happens to him he'llalways do something, and whatever he does will always be right.""I quite believe that." Henrietta might be wanting in delicacy, but it touched the girl, all the same,to hear this declaration."Ah, you do care for him!" her visitor rang out."Whatever he does will always be right," Isabel repeated. "When a man's of that infallible mouldwhat does it matter to him what one feels?""It may not matter to him, but it matters to one's self.""Ah, what it matters to me--that's not what we're discussing," said Isabel with a cold smile.This time her companion was grave. "Well, I don't care; you have changed. You're not the girl youwere a few short weeks ago, and Mr. Goodwood will see it. I expect him here any day.""I hope he'll hate me then," said Isabel."I believe you hope it about as much as I believe him capable of it."To this observation our heroine made no return; she was absorbed in the alarm given her byHenrietta's intimation that Caspar Goodwood would present himself at Gardencourt. She pretendedto herself, however, that she thought the event impossible, and, later, she communicated herdisbelief to her friend. For the next forty-eight hours, nevertheless, she stood prepared to hear theyoung man's name announced. The feeling pressed upon her; it made the air sultry, as if there wereto be a change of weather; and the weather, socially speaking, had been so agreeable during第 71 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网Isabel's stay at Gardencourt that any change would be for the worse. Her suspense indeed wasdissipated the second day. She had walked into the park in company with the sociable Bunchie,and after strolling about for some time, in a manner at once listless and restless, had seated herselfon a garden-bench, within sight of the house, beneath a spreading beech, where, in a white dressornamented with black ribbons, she formed among the flickering shadows a graceful andharmonious image. She entertained herself for some moments with talking to the little terrier, as towhom the proposal of an ownership divided with her cousin had been applied as impartially aspossible--as impartially as Bunchie's own somewhat fickle and inconstant sympathies would allow.But she was notified for the first time, on this occasion, of the finite character of Bunchie'sintellect; hitherto she had been mainly struck with its extent. It seemed to her at last that she woulddo well to take a book; formerly, when heavy-hearted, she had been able, with the help of somewell-chosen volume, to transfer the seat of consciousness to the organ of pure reason. Of late, itwas not to be denied, literature had seemed a fading light, and even after she had reminded herselfthat her uncle's library was provided with a complete set of those authors which no gentleman'scollection should be without, she sat motionless and empty-handed, her eyes bent on the cool greenturf of the lawn. Her meditations were presently interrupted by the arrival of a servant who handedher a letter. The letter bore the London postmark and was addressed in a hand she knew--that cameinto her vision, already so held by him, with the vividness of the writer's voice or his face. Thisdocument proved short and may be given entire.MY DEAR MISS ARCHER--I don't know whether you will have heard of my coming to England,but even if you have not it will scarcely be a surprise to you. You will remember that when yougave me my dismissal at Albany, three months ago, I did not accept it. I protested against it. Youin fact appeared to accept my protest and to admit that I had the right on my side. I had come to seeyou with the hope that you would let me bring you over to my conviction; my reasons forentertaining this hope had been of the best. But you disappointed it; I found you changed, and youwere able to give me no reason for the change. You admitted that you were unreasonable, and itwas the only concession you would make; but it was a very cheap one, because that's not yourcharacter. No, you are not, and you never will be, arbitrary or capricious. Therefore it is that Ibelieve you will let me see you again. You told me that I'm not disagreeable to you, and I believeit; for I don't see why that should be. I shall always think of you; I shall never think of any oneelse. I came to England simply because you are here; I couldn't stay at home after you had gone: Ihated the country because you were not in it. If I like this country at present it is only because itholds you. I have been to England before, but have never enjoyed it much. May I not come and seeyou for half an hour? This at present is the dearest wish of yours faithfullyCASPAR GOODWOOD.Isabel read this missive with such deep attention that she had not perceived an approaching treadon the soft grass. Looking up, however, as she mechanically folded it she saw Lord Warburtonstanding before her.CHAPTER XII第 72 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网She put the letter into her pocket and offered her visitor a smile of welcome, exhibiting no trace ofdiscomposure and half surprised at her coolness."They told me you were out here," said Lord Warburton; "and as there was no one in the drawing-room and it's really you that I wish to see, I came out with no more ado."Isabel had got up; she felt a wish, for the moment, that he should not sit down beside her. "I wasjust going indoors.""Please don't do that; it's much jollier here; I've ridden over from Lockleigh; it's a lovely day." Hissmile was peculiarly friendly and pleasing, and his whole person seemed to emit that radiance ofgood-feeling and good fare which had formed the charm of the girl's first impression of him. Itsurrounded him like a zone of fine June weather."We'll walk about a little then," said Isabel, who could not divest herself of the sense of anintention on the part of her visitor and who wished both to elude the intention and to satisfy hercuriosity about it. It had flashed upon her vision once before, and it had given her on that occasion,as we know, a certain alarm. This alarm was composed of several elements, not all of which weredisagreeable; she had indeed spent some days in analysing them and had succeeded in separatingthe pleasant part of the idea of Lord Warburton's "making up" to her from the painful. It mayappear to some readers that the young lady was both precipitate and unduly fastidious; but thelatter of these facts, if the charge be true, may serve to exonerate her from the discredit of theformer. She was not eager to convince herself that a territorial magnate, as she had heard LordWarburton called, was smitten with her charms; the fact of a declaration from such a sourcecarrying with it really more questions than it would answer. She had received a strong impressionof his being a "personage," and she had occupied herself in examining the image so conveyed. Atthe risk of adding to the evidence of her self-sufficiency it must be said that there had beenmoments when this possibility of admiration by a personage represented to her an aggressionalmost to the degree of an affront, quite to the degree of an inconvenience. She had never yetknown a personage; there had been no personages, in this sense, in her life; there were probablynone such at all in her native land. When she had thought of individual eminence she had thoughtof it on the basis of character and wit--of what one might like in a gentleman's mind and in his talk.She herself was a character --she couldn't help being aware of that; and hitherto her visions of acompleted consciousness had concerned themselves largely with moral images--things as to whichthe question would be whether they pleased her sublime soul. Lord Warburton loomed up beforeher, largely and brightly, as a collection of attributes and powers which were not to be measured bythis simple rule, but which demanded a different sort of appreciation--an appreciation that the girl,with her habit of judging quickly and freely, felt she lacked patience to bestow. He appeared todemand of her something that no one else, as it were, had presumed to do. What she felt was that aterritorial, a political, a social magnate had conceived the design of drawing her into the system inwhich he rather invidiously lived and moved. A certain instinct, not imperious, but persuasive, toldher to resist-- murmured to her that virtually she had a system and an orbit of her own. It told herother things besides--things which both contradicted and confirmed each other; that a girl might domuch worse than trust herself to such a man and that it would be very interesting to see somethingof his system from his own point of view; that on the other hand, however, there was evidently agreat deal of it which she should regard only as a complication of every hour, and that even in the第 73 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网whole there was something stiff and stupid which would make it a burden. Furthermore there wasa young man lately come from America who had no system at all, but who had a character ofwhich it was useless for her to try to persuade herself that the impression on her mind had beenlight. The letter she carried in her pocket all sufficiently reminded her of the contrary. Smile not,however, I venture to repeat, at this simple young woman from Albany who debated whether sheshould accept an English peer before he had offered himself and who was disposed to believe thaton the whole she could do better. She was a person of great good faith, and if there was a greatdeal of folly in her wisdom those who judge her severely may have the satisfaction of finding that,later, she became consistently wise only at the cost of an amount of folly which will constitutealmost a direct appeal to charity.Lord Warburton seemed quite ready to walk, to sit or to do anything that Isabel should propose,and he gave her this assurance with his usual air of being particularly pleased to exercise a socialvirtue. But he was, nevertheless, not in command of his emotions, and as he strolled beside her fora moment, in silence, looking at her without letting her know it, there was something embarrassedin his glance and his misdirected laughter. Yes, assuredly--as we have touched on the point, wemay return to it for a moment again--the English are the most romantic people in the world andLord Warburton was about to give an example of it. He was about to take a step which wouldastonish all his friends and displease a great many of them, and which had superficially nothing torecommend it. The young lady who trod the turf beside him had come from a queer country acrossthe sea which he knew a good deal about; her antecedents, her associations were very vague to hismind except in so far as they were generic, and in this sense they showed as distinct andunimportant. Miss Archer had neither a fortune nor the sort of beauty that justifies a man to themultitude, and he calculated that he had spent about twenty-six hours in her company. He hadsummed up all this--the perversity of the impulse, which had declined to avail itself of the mostliberal opportunities to subside, and the judgement of mankind, as exemplified particularly in themore quickly-judging half of it: he had looked these things well in the face and then had dismissedthem from his thoughts. He cared no more for them than for the rosebud in his buttonhole. It is thegood fortune of a man who for the greater part of a lifetime has abstained without effort frommaking himself disagreeable to his friends, that when the need comes for such a course it is notdiscredited by irritating associations."I hope you had a pleasant ride," said Isabel, who observed her companion's hesitancy."It would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that it brought me here.""Are you so fond of Gardencourt?" the girl asked, more and more sure that he meant to make someappeal to her; wishing not to challenge him if he hesitated, and yet to keep all the quietness of herreason if he proceeded. It suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a few weeksago she would have deemed deeply romantic: the park of an old English country-house, with theforeground embellished by a "great" (as she supposed) nobleman in the act of making love to ayoung lady who, on careful inspection, should be found to present remarkable analogies withherself. But if she was now the heroine of the situation she succeeded scarcely the less in lookingat it from the outside."I care nothing for Gardencourt," said her companion. "I care only for you."第 74 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"You've known me too short a time to have a right to say that, and I can't believe you're serious."These words of Isabel's were not perfectly sincere, for she had no doubt whatever that he himselfwas. They were simply a tribute to the fact, of which she was perfectly aware, that those he hadjust uttered would have excited surprise on the part of a vulgar world. And, moreover, if anythingbeside the sense she had already acquired that Lord Warburton was not a loose thinker had beenneeded to convince her, the tone in which he replied would quite have served the purpose."One's right in such a matter is not measured by the time, Miss Archer; it's measured by the feelingitself. If I were to wait three months it would make no difference; I shall not be more sure of what Imean than I am to-day. Of course I've seen you very little, but my impression dates from the veryfirst hour we met. I lost no time, I fell in love with you then. It was at first sight, as the novels say;I know now that's not a fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels for evermore. Those twodays I spent here settled it; I don't know whether you suspected I was doing so, but I paid-mentallyspeaking I mean-- the greatest possible attention to you. Nothing you said, nothing you did, waslost upon me. When you came to Lockleigh the other day--or rather when you went away--I wasperfectly sure. Nevertheless I made up my mind to think it over and to question myself narrowly.I've done so; all these days I've done nothing else. I don't make mistakes about such things; I'm avery judicious animal. I don't go off easily, but when I'm touched, it's for life. It's for life, MissArcher, it's for life," Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabelhad ever heard, and looking at her with eyes charged with the light of a passion that had sifteditself clear of the baser parts of emotion--the heat, the violence, the unreason--and that burned assteadily as a lamp in a windless place.By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly, and at last they stopped andhe took her hand. "Ah, Lord Warburton, how little you know me!" Isabel said very gently. Gentlytoo she drew her hand away."Don't taunt me with that; that I don't know you better makes me unhappy enough already; it's allmy loss. But that's what I want, and it seems to me I'm taking the best way. If you'll be my wife,then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you you'll not be able to say it'sfrom ignorance.""If you know me little I know you even less," said Isabel."You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance? Ah, of course that's verypossible. But think, to speak to you as I do, how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction!You do like me rather, don't you?""I like you very much, Lord Warburton," she answered; and at this moment she liked himimmensely."I thank you for saying that; it shows you don't regard me as a stranger. I really believe I've filledall the other relations of life very creditably, and I don't see why I shouldn't fill this one--in which Ioffer myself to you--seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask the people who know me well;I've friends who'll speak for me.""I don't need the recommendation of your friends," said Isabel."Ah now, that's delightful of you. You believe in me yourself."第 75 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"Completely," Isabel declared. She quite glowed there, inwardly, with the pleasure of feeling shedid.The light in her companion's eyes turned into a smile, and he gave a long exhalation of joy. "Ifyou're mistaken, Miss Archer, let me lose all I possess!"She wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he was rich, and, on the instant, felt surethat he didn't. He was thinking that, as he would have said himself; and indeed he might safelyleave it to the memory of any interlocutor, especially of one to whom he was offering his hand.Isabel had prayed that she might not be agitated, and her mind was tranquil enough, even while shelistened and asked herself what it was best she should say, to indulge in this incidental criticism.What she should say, had she asked herself? Her foremost wish was to say something if possiblenot less kind than what he had said to her. His words had carried perfect conviction with them; shefelt she did, all so mysteriously, matter to him. "I thank you more than I can say for your offer,"she returned at last. "It does me great honour.""Ah, don't say that!" he broke out. "I was afraid you'd say something like that. I don't see whatyou've to do with that sort of thing. I don't see why you should thank me--it's I who ought to thankyou for listening to me: a man you know so little coming down on you with such a thumper! Ofcourse it's a great question; I must tell you that I'd rather ask it than have it to answer myself. Butthe way you've listened--or at least your having listened at all--gives me some hope.""Don't hope too much," Isabel said."Oh Miss Archer!" her companion murmured, smiling again, in his seriousness, as if such awarning might perhaps be taken but as the play of high spirits, the exuberance of elation."Should you be greatly surprised if I were to beg you not to hope at all?" Isabel asked."Surprised? I don't know what you mean by surprise. It wouldn't be that; it would be a feeling verymuch worse."Isabel walked on again; she was silent for some minutes. "I'm very sure that, highly as I alreadythink of you, my opinion of you, if I should know you well, would only rise. But I'm by no meanssure that you wouldn't be disappointed. And I say that not in the least out of conventional modesty;it's perfectly sincere.""I'm willing to risk it, Miss Archer," her companion replied."It's a great question, as you say. It's a very difficult question.""I don't expect you of course to answer it outright. Think it over as long as may be necessary. If Ican gain by waiting I'll gladly wait a long time. Only remember that in the end my dearesthappiness depends on your answer.""I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense," said Isabel."Oh, don't mind. I'd much rather have a good answer six months hence than a bad one to-day.""But it's very probable that even six months hence I shouldn't be able to give you one that you'dthink good.""Why not, since you really like me?""Ah, you must never doubt that," said Isabel.第 76 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"Well then, I don't see what more you ask!""It's not what I ask; it's what I can give. I don't think I should suit you; I really don't think Ishould.""You needn't worry about that. That's my affair. You needn't be a better royalist than the king.""It's not only that," said Isabel; "but I'm not sure I wish to marry any one.""Very likely you don't. I've no doubt a great many women begin that way," said his lordship, who,be it averred, did not in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. "Butthey're frequently persuaded.""Ah, that's because they want to be!" And Isabel lightly laughed. Her suitor's countenance fell, andhe looked at her for a while in silence. "I'm afraid it's my being an Englishman that makes youhesitate," he said presently. "I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own country."Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had never occurred to her that Mr. Touchettwas likely to discuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton. "Has he told you that?""I remember his making the remark. He spoke perhaps of Americans generally.""He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England." Isabel spoke in a mannerthat might have seemed a little perverse, but which expressed both her constant perception of heruncle's outward felicity and her general disposition to elude any obligation to take a restrictedview.It gave her companion hope, and he immediately cried with warmth: "Ah, my dear Miss Archer,old England's a very good sort of country, you know! And it will be still better when we'vefurbished it up a little.""Oh, don't furbish it, Lord Warburton--, leave it alone. I like it this way.""Well then, if you like it, I'm more and more unable to see your objection to what I propose.""I'm afraid I can't make you understand.""You ought at least to try. I've a fair intelligence. Are you afraid--afraid of the climate? We caneasily live elsewhere, you know. You can pick out your climate, the whole world over."These words were uttered with a breadth of candour that was like the embrace of strong arms--thatwas like the fragrance straight in her face, and by his clean, breathing lips, of she knew not whatstrange gardens, what charged airs. She would have given her little finger at that moment to feelstrongly and simply the impulse to answer: "Lord Warburton, it's impossible for me to do better inthis wonderful world, I think, than commit myself, very gratefully, to your loyalty." But thoughshe was lost in admiration of her opportunity she managed to move back into the deepest shade ofit, even as some wild, caught creature in a vast cage. The "splendid" security so offered her wasnot the greatest she could conceive. What she finally bethought herself of saying was somethingvery different--something that deferred the need of really facing her crisis. "Don't think me unkindif I ask you to say no more about this to-day.""Certainly, certainly!" her companion cried. "I wouldn't bore you for the world.""You've given me a great deal to think about, and I promise you to do it justice."第 77 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"That's all I ask of you, of course--and that you'll remember how absolutely my happiness is inyour hands."Isabel listened with extreme respect to this admonition, but she said after a minute: "I must tell you