Henry James

“ They looked round them confusedly, made shy for the moment by Benyon’s having struck a note more serious than any that had hitherto souuded between them, looked at the sparse furniture, draped in white overalls, at the scagiiola floor, in which the great cluster of crystal pendants seemed to shine again.
“You are master of your ship. Can’t you sail it as you like?” Kate Theory asked, with a smile.
“I am not master of anything. There is not a man in the world less free. I am a slave. I am a victim.” ”

“ Very likely Mrs. Percival would hear one day that he had once wanted to marry her. So, when he joined his companions a minute later he remarked that he had known Miss Gressie years before, and had even admired her considerably, but had lost sight of her entirely in later days. She had been a great beauty, and it was a wonder that she had not married earlier. Five years ago, was it? No, it was only two. He had been going to say that in so long a time it would have been singular he should not have heard of it. He had been away from New York for ages; but one always heard of marriages and deaths. ”

“ This was what made Kate Theory feel so sure that he had lost the object of his affections; and she said to herself that it must have been under circumstances of peculiar sadness, for that was, after all, a frequent accident, and was not usually thought, in itself, a sufficient stroke to make a man a cynic. This reflection, it may be added, was, on the young lady’s part, just the least bit acrimonious. Captain Benyon was not a cynic in any sense in which he might have shocked an innocent mind; he kept his cynicism to himself, and was a very clever, courteous, attentive gentleman. ”

“ Georgina, as she stood there, turned her face to her lover, and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At last: “Nothing will help us; I don’t think we are very happy,” she answered, while her strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about her beautiful lips.
“I don’t understand how you see things. I thought you were going to say you would marry me!” Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though the dray had passed.
“Oh, yes, I will marry you!” And she moved away, across the street. That was the manner in which she had said it, and it was very characteristic of her. ”

“ They evidently liked him to come,—they liked to see his big transatlantic ship hover about those gleaming coasts of exile. The fact of Miss Mildred being always stretched on her couch—in his successive visits to foreign waters Benyon had not unlearned (as why should he?) the pleasant American habit of using the lady’s personal name—made their intimacy seem greater, their differences less; it was as if his hostesses had taken him into their confidence and he had been—as the consul would have said—of the same party. ”

“ Poor Dora had had no children; but Georgina was making that all right,—she had a beautiful boy. Mrs. Percival had what she would have called quite a pleasant chat with Captain Benyon about Mrs. Roy. Perhaps he was the officer—she never thought of that? He was sure he had never jilted her? And he had never quarrelled with a lady? Well, he must be different from most men.
He certainly had the air of being so, before he parted that afternoon with Kate Theory. This young lady, at least, was free to think him wanting in that consistency which is supposed to be a distinctively masculine virtue. ”

“ They would have another lady when Agnes should arrive; then Percival would remain with Mildred while they took this excursion. Mildred had stayed alone the day she went in the boat; she had insisted on it, and, of course it was really Mildred who had persuaded her; though now that Kate came to think of it, Captain Benyon had, in his quiet, waiting way—he turned out to be waiting long after you thought he had let a thing pass—said a good deal about the pleasure it would give him. Of course, everything would give pleasure to a man who was so bored. ”

“ She would spend with her sister-in-law, in the coming time, one week in the year; that was all that was mortally possible. It was a blessing that one could see exactly what she was, for in that way the question settled itself. It would have been much more tiresome if Agnes had been a little less obvious; then she would have had to hesitate and consider and weigh one thing against another. ”

“ Miss Mildred was sure she should know in a moment whether Agnes would like them. She could never have told him all this if her sister had been there, and Captain Benyon must promise never to reveal to Kate how she had chattered. Kate thought always that they must hide everything, and that even if Agnes should be a dreadful disappointment they must never let any one guess it And yet Kate was just the one who would suffer, in the coming years, after she herself had gone. ”

“ Though sisterless now, she was not without duties, and Benyon could easily see that life would press hard on her unless some one should interfere. Every one regarded her as just the person to do certain things. Every one thought she could do everything, because she had nothing else to do. She used to read to the blind, and, more onerously, to the deaf. She looked after other people’s children while the parents attended anti-slavery conventions.
She was coming to New York later to spend a week at her brother’s, but beyond this she didn’t know what she should do. ”

“ He had met her the summer before, on the piazza of a hotel at Fort Hamilton, to which, with a brother officer, in a dusty buggy, he had driven over from Brooklyn to spend a tremendously hot Sunday,—the kind of day when the navy-yard was loathsome; and the acquaintance had been renewed by his calling in Twelfth Street on New-Year’s Day,—a considerable time to wait for a pretext, but which proved the impression had not been transitory. ”

“ Mildred knew everything, without ever leaving her room, or leaving, at least, that little salon of their own, at the pension, which she had made so pretty by simply lying there, at the window that had the view of the bay and of Vesuvius, and telling Kate how to arrange and rearrange everything. Since it began to be plain that Mildred must spend her small remnant of years altogether in warm climates, the lot of the two sisters had been cast in the ungarnished hostelries of southern Europe. ”

“ At that time people in the United States knew much less than to-day about the comparative attractions of foreign cities, and it was not thought surprising that absent New Yorkers should wish to linger in a seaport where they might find apartments, according to Georgina’s report, in a palace painted in fresco by Vandyke and Titian. Georgina, in her letters, omitted, it will be seen, no detail that could give color to Mrs. Portico’s long stay at Genoa. In such a palace—where the travellers hired twenty gilded rooms for the most insignificant sum—a remarkably fine boy came into the world. ”

“ Women of that sort were not for him, women whom one could not see familiarly without falling in love with them, and whom it was no use to fall in love with unless one was ready to marry them. The light of the summer afternoon, and of Miss Mildred’s pure spirit, seemed suddenly to flood the whole subject. He saw that he was in danger, and he had long since made up his mind that from this particular peril it was not only necessary but honorable to flee. He took leave of his hostess before her sister reappeared, and had the courage even to say to her that he would not come back often after that ”

“ They had talked to the consul about Benyon’s ship, which they could see from their windows, in the distance, at its anchorage. They were the only American ladies then at Naples,—the only residents, at least,—and the captain would n’t be doing the polite thing unless he went to pay them his respects. Benyon felt afresh how little it was in his line to call upon strange women; he was not in the habit of hunting up female acquaintance, or of looking out for the soft emotions which the sex only can inspire. ”

“ I don’t see why you should take so for granted that I would accept him.”
“You will never meet a man who has so few disagreeable qualities. He is probably not enormously rich. I don’t know what is the pay of a captain in the navy—”
“It’s a relief to find there is something you don’t know,” Kate Theory broke in.
“But when I am gone,” her sister went on calmly, “when I am gone there will be plenty for both of you.”
The younger sister, at this, was silent for a moment; then she exclaimed, “Mildred, you may be out of health, but I don’t see why you should be dreadful!” ”

“ No two persons could possibly be more interested in taking each other’s measure. It scarcely belonged to Georgina, however, to have too much the air of timidity; and after a moment, satisfied, apparently, that she was not to receive a broadside, she advanced, slowly rubbing her jewelled hands and smiling. He wondered why she should smile, what thought was in her mind. ”

“ He was a spare, tough young man, his dark hair was straight and fine, and his face, a trifle pale, was smooth and carefully drawn. He stammered a little, blushing when he did so, at long intervals. I scarcely know how he appeared on shipboard, but on shore, in his civilian’s garb, which was of the neatest, he had as little as possible an aroma of winds and waves. He was neither salt nor brown, nor red, nor particularly “hearty.” He never twitched up his trousers, nor, so far as one could see, did he, with his modest, attentive manner, carry himself as one accustomed to command. ”

“ Gentlemen connected with the navy have the advantage of seeing many types of women; they are able to compare the ladies of New York with those of Valparaiso, and those of Halifax with those of the Cape of Good Hope. Eaymond Benyon had had these advantages, and being very fond of women he had learnt his lesson; he was in a position to appreciate Georgina Gressie’s fine points. ”

“ She kept him waiting for a long time after he had been introduced; and as he walked up and down her drawing-room, an immense, florid, expensive apartment, covered with blue satin, gilding, mirrors and bad frescos, it came over him as a certainty that her delay was calculated. She wished to annoy him, to weary him; she was as ungenerous as she was unscrupulous. It never occurred to him that in spite of the bold words of her note, she, too, might be in a tremor, and if any one in their secret bad suggested that she was afraid to meet him, he would have laughed at this idea. ”

“ You are only a blundering man,” Georgina said. “I shall know much better than you the right moment for saying, ‘Well, you may as well make the best of it, because we have already done it!’”
That might very well be, but Benyon did n’t quite understand, and he was awkwardly anxious (for a lover) till it came over him afresh that there was one thing at any rate in his favor, which was simply that the loveliest girl he had ever seen was ready to throw herself into his arms. ”

“ The last time he called before the arrival of the expected brother, he found Miss Theory alone, and sitting up, for a wonder, at her window. Kate had driven into Naples to give orders at the hotel for the reception of the travellers, who required accommodation more spacious than the villa at Posilippo (where the two sisters had the best rooms) could offer them; and the sick girl had taken advantage of her absence and of the pretext afforded by a day of delicious warmth, to transfer herself, for the first time in six months, to an arm-chair. ”

“ Benyon on the other side of the world; but it didn’t seem likely that Mrs. Portico would lend herself to a plot of that kind. If she had taken it into her head to favor their love affair, she would have done it frankly, and Georgina would have been married by this time. Her arrangements were made as quickly as her decision had been—or rather had appeared—slow; for this concerned those agile young men down town. Georgina was perpetually at her house; it was understood in Twelfth Street that she was talking over her future travels with her kind friend. ”

“ Several of them, at any rate, the most robust and most familiar,—love, ambition, jealousy, resentment, greed,—subsisted in considerable force in the little circle at which we have glanced, where a view by no means favorable was taken of Raymond Benyon’s attentions to Miss Gressie. Unanimity was a family trait among these people (Georgina was an exception) , especially in regard to the important concerns of life, such as marriages and closing scenes. The Gressies hung together; they were accustomed to do well for themselves and for each other. ”

“ Benyon more than she thought.
“I know what I am about,” Georgina answered. “There is only one promise, for him. I don’t know what you mean by circumstances being altered.”
“Everything seems to me to be changed,” poor Mrs. Portico murmured, rather tragically. ”

“ Percivals own people—that poor Dora’s husband should have consoled himself; but men always did it (talk of widows!) and he had chosen a girl who was—well, very fine-looking, and the sort of successor to Dora that they needn’t be ashamed of. She had been awfully admired, and no one had understood why she had waited so long to marry. She had had some affair as a girl,—an engagement to an officer in the army,—and the man had jilted her, or they had quarrelled, or something or other. ”

“ You have got about a dozen.”
“Why, Georgina, of course,—Georgina Roy. She’s awfully like.”
“Do you call her your sister-in-law?” Percival Theory asked. “You must want very much to claim her.”
“Well, she’s handsome enough. You have got to invent some new name, then. Captain Benyon, what do you call your brother-in-law’s second wife?” Mrs. Percival continued, turning to her neighbor, who still stood staring at the portrait. At first he had looked without seeing; then sight, and hearing as well, became quick. They were suddenly peopled with thrilling recognitions. ”

“ All I want you to do is to be with me.”
“At Genoa,—yes, you have got it all fixed! You say Mr. Benyon is so fond of the place. That’s all very well; but how will he like his infant being deposited there?”
“He won’t like it at all. You see I tell you the whole truth,” said Georgina, gently.
“Much obliged; it’s a pity you keep it all for me! It is in his power, then, to make you behave properly. He can publish your marriage if you won’t; and if he does you will have to acknowledge your child.”
“Publish, Mrs. Portico? How little you know my Raymond! He will never break a promise ”