Littlemore

“ Littlemore answered, with cynical laughter. After his little interview with the elder Lady Demesne, he did not feel himself at liberty to call again upon the younger; and he never learned—he never even wished to know—whether in the pride of her success she forgave him.
Waterville—it was very strange—was positively scandalized at this success. He held that Mrs. Headway ought never to have been allowed to marry a confiding gentleman; and he used, in speaking to Littlemore, the same words as Mrs. Dolphin. He thought Littlemore might have done differently. ”

“ Littlemore expected her every day to ask why he didn’t bring some of his friends—as to which he had his answer ready. It was rather a poor one, for it consisted but of the “academic” assurance that he wished to keep her for himself. She would be sure to retort that this was “too thin,” as indeed it was; yet the days went by without her calling him to account. The little American colony in Paris abounded in amiable women, but there were none to whom Littlemore could make up his mind to say that it would be a favour to him they should call on Mrs. Headway. ”

“ Littlemore," she added, in a moment—"I may as well be frank, for I ain't at all ashamed. I want to get into society. That 's what I 'm after!"
Littlemore settled himself in his chair, with the feeling of a man who, knowing that he will have to pull, seeks to obtain a certain leverage. It was in a tone of light jocosity, almost of encouragement, however, that he repeated: "Into society? ”

“ He often wondered what the Baronet thought; he had devoted first and last a good deal of attention to the psychology of the English “great land-owning” consciousness. Littlemore, alone, at this moment, was characteristically detached; he never appeared to watch Mrs. Headway, though she so often watched him. Waterville asked himself among other things why Sir Arthur hadn’t brought his own friends to see her, for Paris during the several weeks that now elapsed abounded in English visitors. ”

“ The people here do beat the Dutch! There’s no one they won’t go after. They wouldn’t touch her in New York.”
“Oh New York’s quite old-fashioned and rococo,” said Waterville; and he announced to Littlemore that Lady Demesne was very eager for his arrival and wanted his aid to prevent her son’s bringing such a person into the family. Littlemore was apparently not alarmed at her ladyship’s projects, and intimated, in the manner of a man who thought them rather impertinent, that he could trust himself to keep out of her way. “It isn’t a proper marriage at any rate,” the second secretary urged. ”

“ Mrs. Headway went on. “But I want to see what becomes of that woman.”
“Doña Clorinde? Oh I suppose they’ll shoot her. They generally shoot the women in French plays,” Littlemore said.
“It will remind me of San Pablo!” cried Mrs. Headway. ”

“ Waterville remembered Littlemore's assertion that there were cases in which a man was bound in honor to tell an untruth, and he wondered whether this were such a case. Lady Demesne imposed herself, she made him believe in the reality of her grievance, and he saw the gulf that divided her from a pushing little woman who had lived with Western editors. She was right to wish not to be connected with Mrs. Headway. ”

“ Waterville could always imagine alternatives.
“The more she meant by it the less she ought to say it!” Littlemore declared.
But he returned to the Hôtel Meurice and on the next occasion took this companion with him. The secretary of legation, who had not often been in close quarters with pretty women whose respectability, or whose lack of it, was so frankly discussable, was prepared to find the well-known Texan belle a portentous type. He was afraid there might be danger in her, but on the whole he felt armed. ”

“ Littlemore had added in a moment. Before leaving London he had further mentioned that Mrs. Headway, on his going to take leave of her in Paris, had made another and rather an unexpected attack. “About the society business—she said I must really do something: she couldn’t go on that way. And she appealed to me in the name—I don’t think I quite know how to say it.”
“I should be ever so glad if you’d try,” Waterville had earnestly said, constantly reminding himself that Americans in Europe were after all, in a degree, to a man in his position, as the sheep to the shepherd. ”

“ I want to get into European society, but I want to do so in my own way. I don’t want to run after people; I want them to run after me. I guess they will, some day!” Waterville listened to this with his eyes on the ground; he felt himself turn very red. There was something in such crudities on the part of the ostensibly refined that shocked and mortified him, and Littlemore had been right in speaking of her lack of the nuance. ”

“ George Littlemore arrived in London on the twentieth of May, and one of the first things he did was to go and see Waterville at the Legation, where he made known to him that he had taken for the rest of the season a house at Queen Anne's Gate, so that his sister and her husband, who, under the pressure of diminished rents, had let their own town-residence, might come up and spend a couple of months with him.
"One of the consequences of your having a house will be that you will have to entertain Mrs. Headway," Waterville said. Littlemore sat there with his hands crossed upon his stick ”

“ When I 'm excited I 've got to talk. But I must do things in my own way. I 've got plenty of delicacy, when people are nice to me. Ask Arthur Demesne if I ain't delicate—ask George Littlemore if I ain't. Don't stand there all day; come in to lunch!" And Mrs. Headway resumed her walk, while Rupert Waterville, raising his eyes for a moment, slowly overtook her. "Wait till I get settled; then I 'll be delicate," she pursued. "You can't be delicate when you 're trying to save your life. It 's very well for you to talk, with the whole American Legation to back you. ”

“ He rarely indulged in these optical excursions; he had been a great deal in Paris and had ceased to vibrate more than a few times a day; he believed the French capital could have no more surprises for him, though it had had a good many in former days. Waterville was still in the stage of surprise; he suddenly expressed this emotion. “By Jove, I beg your pardon, I beg her pardon! There is after all a woman who may be called”—he paused a little, inspecting her—“an approach to a beauty!”
“How near an approach?” Littlemore responded. ”

“ Headway's triumphant career should be checked; she had sufficiently abused the facilities of things. Herself a party to an international marriage, Mrs. Dolphin naturally wished that the class to which she belonged should close its ranks and carry its standard high.
"It seems to me that she 's quite as good as the little baronet," said Littlemore, lighting another cigar.
"As good? What do you mean? No one has ever breathed a word against him."
"Very likely. But he's a nonentity, and she at least is somebody. She 's a person, and a very clever one. ”

“ Headway presently remarked, having heard of this circumstance from Rupert Waterville. “I realise you’ll have to do something, you know. I’m sorry for you, but I don’t see how you can get off. You might ask me to dine some day when she’s dining out. I’d come even then, I think, because I want to keep on the right side of you.”
“I call that the wrong side,” said Littlemore.
p. 220“Yes, I see. It’s your sister that’s on the right side. You’re in rather a bad fix, ain’t you? You’ve got to be ‘good’ and mean, or you’ve got to be kind with a little courage. ”

“ This faculty excited real envy on the part of Rupert Waterville, who was ten years younger than he, and who had too many ambitions and anxieties—none of them very important, but making collectively a considerable incubus—to be able to wait for inspiration. He thought it a great accomplishment, he hoped some day to arrive at it; it made a man so independent; he had his resources within his own breast. Littlemore could sit for a whole evening, without utterance or movement, smoking cigars and looking absently at his finger-nails. ”

“ Her sister-in-law, married several years later and coming to Europe on this occasion, had died in London—where she had flattered herself the doctors were infallible—a week after the birth of her little girl; and poor Littlemore, though relinquishing his child for the moment, had lingered on the scene of his deep disconcertment to be within call of the Hampshire nursery. He was a presence to p. 146attract admiring attention, especially since his hair and moustache had turned to so fine a silver. ”

“ Headway made prompt answer. “You told me once—at San Pablo—that she was the nicest woman you knew. I made a note of that, you see. And you told me she was just my age. So that makes it rather inglorious for you if you won’t introduce me!” With which she gave a laugh that perhaps a little heralded danger. “I’m not in the least afraid of her being dull. It’s all right, it’s just refined and nice, to be dull. I’m ever so much too exciting.”
“You are indeed, ever so much! But nothing is more easy than to know my sister,” said Littlemore, who knew perfectly that what he said was untrue. ”

“ I did n't know Sir Arthur then—I only met him a month ago at Homburg. He followed me to Paris—that 's how he came to be my guest." Serenely, prosaically, without any of the inflation of vanity, Mrs. Headway made this last assertion; it was as if she were used to being followed, or as if a gentleman one met at Homburg would inevitably follow. In the same tone she went on: "I attracted a good deal of attention in London—I could easily see that."
"You 'll do that wherever you go," Littlemore said, insufficiently enough, as he felt.
"I don't want to attract so much; I think it 's vulgar," Mrs. ”

“ People were meeting their friends, shopping, changing books at the library, eating ices at the confectioner’s, fruit at the big fruit-shop round the corner. There were a large number of high-collared young dudes, some Trinity and Ormond men with coloured hatbands, ladies with little parcels dangling from their wrists, and countless schoolgirls like themselves. Tilly grew momentarily livelier; her big eyes pounced, hawk-like, on every face she met, and her words to Laura became more disjointed than before. ”

“ He, too, marveled that he should have found any one in this household to whom he could speak in such a vein as this.
"I always thought," Tillie said, "that when I was enough educated to be a teacher and be independent of father, I would be free to live truly. But I see that YOU cannot. You, too, have to hide your real self. Else you could not stay here in New Canaan."
"Or anywhere else, child," he smiled. "It is only with the rare few whom one finds on one's own line of march that one can be absolutely one's self. Your secret life, Miss Tillie, is not unique." ”

“ But when, early in May, Tilly came home one afternoon, looking as fresh and blooming as a rose, and sat down at the melodeon and played "The Soldier's Joy, with Variations," Mrs Bennet was more than repaid for all she had borne. The six months had told on Tilly in many ways. She had smartened up in the matter of clothes; wore bows like other girls, and liked a bit of color in her hair; had learned to talk in a freer way, and could even toss her head a little, when a young man spoke to her. All the little awkward arts of the Provincetown belles Tilly had observed, and in a manner caught. ”

“ Tillie's eyes swept the faces before her, from the stern, set features of her father on her left, to the mild-faced, long-haired, hooks-and-eyes Amishman on her right. The room grew perfectly still as they stared at her in expectant curiosity; for her air and manner did not suggest the humble suppliant for their continued favor,—rather a self-confidence that instinctively excited their stubborn opposition. "She'll see oncet if she kin do with us what she wants," was the thought in the minds of most of them. ”

“ Carts, boats, railway trains, and sometimes pack-horses, seem to comment upon one another as they pass and re-pass, and form a continual and palpable lecture on [Pg 139] modes of transit, such as is not often met with in such distinct shape. Littleborough consists, principally, of one irregular street, winding over a slight elevation, and down to its centre near the railway station, at the water-side, and thence across the bridge, up towards Blackstone Edge. It is a substantial, healthy-looking village, prettily situated in a romantic spot. ”

“ But Lady Graeme disapproves still more of her daughter's appearance.
Rich and sober is her own attire, and the two extremes are unsuitable in her eyes.
"Bee, my dear!"
"Yes, mamma?"
"This is too much, dear child. A family party, your brother and one other gentleman; indeed, you look over-dressed, my love."
"You forget Miss Williams, mamma; we are not quite alone. And Arthur is so particular, I thought you would be sorry if he complained."
"White satin slippers!" murmured Lady Graeme, in a low reproachful aside.
"Arthur always looks at my shoes the first thing. ”

“ In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under certain rarely occurring conditions; but here at Vevey, what conditions could be better than these? — a pretty American girl coming and standing in front of you in a garden. This pretty American girl, however, on hearing Winterbourne's observation, simply glanced at him; she then turned her head and looked over the parapet, at the lake and the opposite mountains. ”

“ That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made himself useful in all sorts of ways: while a couple of professional assistants, hastily called in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on a point of life or death, ran against each other in all the doorways and round all the corners, and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere. Tilly never came out in such force before. ”