Mrs. Hudson

“ Roderick Hudson is wooden, it is crammed with local colour like a schoolmistress's bedroom full of photographs of Rome, it has a plain boiled suet heroine called Mary. But its idea is magnificent. An American of fortune takes Hudson, who has already shown talent as a sculptor, from his stool in a lawyer's office in Northampton, Massachusetts, and sets him up in a studio in Rome. It is the fear of old Mrs Hudson and of Mary, his fiancée, that European life will be too soft for him. But the very opposite occurs; it is he who is too soft for European life. ”

“ Hudson, still looking intently into the lady's face.
"But she has wealth, and is well connected, as the phrase is. These, no doubt, cover a multitude of defects."
"They do not seem to have covered them in this case," said Mrs. Hudson, with a quiet smile, as she drew her arm closer within that of her husband. "At least they are very apparent this evening."
"She has her good points, no doubt," remarked the doctor. "All persons have. We may not always determine the whole character from the face. Very good people sometimes have very homely countenances." ”

“ She would find means to make the Great Desert resemble a photographer's studio. But she 's too much like a head on a postage-stamp. And there 's that nice little old lady in black, Mrs. Hudson. What a dear little woman for a mother! Comme elle est proprette! And the other, the fiancée, of course she 's here. Ah, I see!" She paused; she was looking intently at Mary Garland. Rowland measured the sincerity of her glance and suddenly acquired a conviction. "I should like so much to know her!" she said, turning to Madame Grandoni. "She has a charming face; I 'm sure she 's the nicest person here. ”

“ Roderick! But wait three years, sir, like me!" and Mr. Striker laughed, with a closed mouth and a noiseless shake of all his long person.
Mrs. Hudson smiled confusedly, at hazard; Miss Garland kept her eyes on her stitches. But it seemed to Rowland that the latter colored a little. "Oh, in three years, of course," he said, "we shall know each other better. Before many years are over, madam," he pursued, "I expect the world to know him. I expect him to be a great man!"
Mrs. Hudson looked at first as if this could be but an insidious device for increasing her distress by the assistance of irony. ”

“ She will be a very good wife for a man of genius, and such a one as they are often shrewd enough to take. She ‘ll darn his stockings and keep his accounts, and sit at home and trim the lamp and keep up the fire while he studies the Beautiful in pretty neighbors at dinner-parties. The two ladies are evidently very happy, and, to do them justice, very humbly grateful to you. Mrs. Hudson never speaks of you without tears in her eyes, and I am sure she considers you a specially patented agent of Providence. Verily, it ‘s a good thing for a woman to be in love: Miss Garland has grown almost pretty. ”

“ Hudson, imploringly.
"That depends upon the artist's aptitude. After twenty years a real artist is still studying."
"Oh, my poor boy!" moaned Mrs. Hudson, finding the prospect, under every light, still terrible.
"Now this study of the living model," Mr. Striker pursued. "Inform Mrs. Hudson about that."
"Oh dear, no!" cried Mrs. Hudson, shrinkingly.
"That too," said Rowland, "is one of the reasons for studying in Rome. ”

“ Mob psychology and regimentation of thought were the fountains from which she derived her source of supply, and judicious investment added to her power. People often wondered how Mrs. Hudson had achieved social eminence when women with superior claims had failed. The answer lies just here—her life was spent in a conscious striving for it. Never a move, an invitation, an acceptance, a salutation on the street, was made without forethought. She made Society her tool. Most people are tools, themselves. ”

“ Hudson, who was sitting at one of the windows, empty-handed save for the pocket-handkerchief in her lap, which was held with an air of familiarity with its sadder uses. Near her, on the sofa, half-sitting, half-lounging, in the attitude of a visitor outstaying ceremony, with one long leg flung over the other and a large foot in a clumsy boot swinging to and fro continually, was a lean, sandy-haired gentleman whom Rowland recognised as the original of the portrait of Mr. Barnaby Striker. ”

“ Women are said by some authorities to be cruel; I don’t know how true this is, but it may at least be pertinent to remark that Mrs. Hudson was very much of a woman. It often seemed to Rowland that he had too decidedly forfeited his freedom, and that there was something positively grotesque in a man of his age and circumstances living in such a moral bondage.
But Mary Garland had helped him before, and she helped him now—helped him not less than he had assured himself she would when he found himself drifting to Florence. ”

“ But I have given up trying to imitate Miss Garland," said Christina.
"You surely need imitate no one."
"Don't say that," she said gravely. "So you have walked ten miles this morning? And you are to walk back again?"
"Back again to supper."
"And Mr. Hudson too?"
"Mr. Hudson especially. He is a great walker."
"You men are happy!" Christina cried. "I believe I should enjoy the mountains if I could do such things. It is sitting still and having them scowl down at you! Prince Casamassina never rides. He only goes on a mule. He was carried up the Faulhorn on a litter."
"On a litter?" said Rowland. ”

“ Hudson was a tall, powerful man, with cunning, restless, gray eyes, was well dressed, and wore a linen duster. He had come, he said, seven hundred miles to see Ida. Upon reaching the house, he followed mamma into the dining-room where Marguerite, Gabrielle, and I were sitting at work. ”

“ You were right; you 're always right. She 's as cold and false and heartless as she 's beautiful, and she has sold her heartless beauty to the highest bidder. I hope he knows what he gets!"
"Oh, my son," cried Mrs. Hudson, plaintively, "how could you ever care for such a dreadful creature?"
"It would take long to tell you, dear mother!"
Rowland's lately-deepened sympathy and compassion for Christina was still throbbing in his mind, and he felt that, in loyalty to it, he must say a word for her. "You believed in her too much at first," he declared, "and you believe in her too little now." ”

“ Hudson, who was being carried out of the room in a swoon by two stout maid-servants, with Mary Garland forcing a passage. He rendered what help he could, but when they had laid the poor woman on her bed, Miss Garland motioned him away.
"I think you make her worse," she said.
Rowland went to his own chamber. The partitions in Swiss mountain-inns are thin, and from time to time he heard Mrs. Hudson moaning, three rooms off. Considering its great fury, the storm took long to expend itself; it was upwards of three hours before the thunder ceased. ”

“ He then enlarged upon the awful punishment that inevitably overtook those who opposed the Will of Providence (i.e., his marriage with Ida) : death by some violent means being unavoidable. At this point, the scissors were whirled more excitedly than ever, and Hudson's eyes glared with rage. I need not say that mamma feared every moment would be her last; but still preserving a calm exterior, she never took her eyes off him for an instant, and merely remarking, "It is quite warm here; shall we not sit upon the piazza?" ”

“ Hudson's eyes glowed and expanded; he looked at Rowland for some time in silence. "I have a notion you really know," he said at last. "But if you don't, it does n't much matter."
"My cousin asked me to-day," said Cecilia, "whether I supposed you knew yourself how good it is."
Hudson stared, blushing a little. "Perhaps not!" he cried.
"Very likely," said Mallet. "I read in a book the other day that great talent in action—in fact the book said genius—is a kind of somnambulism. The artist performs great feats, in a dream. We must not wake him up, lest he should lose his balance." ”

“ With great strokes paints the sun-illumined Hudson.
A fair young woman enters on the scene,
Absorbed in picking many kinds of flowers.
The youthful artist, catching sight of her,
Stands up and drops his palette and his brushes.
And when she sees the youth she drops the flowers. ”

“ Have you got servants, by the way?"
Hudson, who had been watching with admiration the unconscious [60] supple grace of the girl as she bustled about the room replied, "Yes, a dirty old woman, a laundress as we call them in the Temple, who comes for an hour every morning and pretends to clean up the place."
"How curious! but you should get her to clean your plates better; just look at the dust on this one. Now I wonder where I'm going to find a tea-cloth."
At last Mary had arranged the table to her satisfaction, and they sat down to a comfortable little supper. ”

“ Mallet, why are you here without him? Bring him to me!"
"Has no one seen Mr. Hudson?" Rowland asked of the others. "Has he not returned?"
Each one shook his head and looked grave, and Rowland attempted to reassure Mrs. Hudson by saying that of course he had taken refuge in a chalet.
"Go and find him, go and find him!" she cried, insanely. "Don't stand there and talk, or I shall die!" It was now as dark as evening, and Rowland could just distinguish the figure of Singleton scampering homeward with his box and easel. "And where is Mary?" Mrs. Hudson went on ”

“ Hudson. "But no woman whose heart was unselfish—no woman with a gentle, loving spirit—ever had a face like that."
It took an hour at least for the different individuals of the company to get familiar with the various parties present, and to know what strangers and what acquaintances were there. Ere this, Dunbar had noticed, with some surprise and without any particular increase of pleasure, that Doctor Hudson and his wife and sister were among the guests. He had never heard of the marriage of Ella with Doctor Baldwin, whose social standing he well knew. ”

“ And as they passed towards the door, who should stumble in upon us but Monsieur Listado.
"Good-morning, Mrs Hudson—good-morning. Halloo—and is it off they are, without so much as a bow, or—Brail, what is the meaning of all this?—Miss Hudson is weeping, as I am a gentleman. You cannot have been uncivil to her—it is impossible. ”

“ The hills, the vale of the Arno, the yellow river, the domes of Florence, were not so much lighted as obscured by the white glow. Rowland had found the two ladies alone at the villa, and he had dropped into a seat as discreetly as if they had been, as he said, at a "show." He felt hushed by the solemn splendour of the scene, but he risked the remark that, what ever life might yet have in store for either of them, this was a night they would never forget.
"It 's a night that makes a success," Mary Garland replied, "of one's having lived at all."
"'At all,' dear?" Mrs. Hudson echoed. ”

“ The Hudson is, in a manner, my first and last love; and after all my wanderings and seeming infidelities, I return to it with a heart-felt preference over all the other rivers in the world. I seem to catch new life as I bathe in its ample billows and inhale the pure breezes of its hills. It is true, the romance of youth is past, that once spread illusions over every scene. I can no longer picture an Arcadia in every green valley ”

“ Hudson in consequence that she should spend the autumn in Switzerland, where she would find a fine tonic climate, plenty of fresh milk and several very inexpensive pensions. Switzerland of course was not reputed ugly, but one could n't have everything!
Mrs. Hudson neither thanked him nor assented, but she wept and packed her trunks. Rowland had a theory, after the scene which led to these preparations, that Mary was weary of waiting for Roderick to come to his senses, that the faith which had borne him company on the tortuous march he was leading it had begun to falter and droop. ”

“ Rowland explained, "that he has taken up a fresh piece of work and that it 's all-absorbing. That 's very good news." This explanation was not sincere, but he had not the courage not to offer it as a stop-gap. And he found he needed all his courage to support it, for Mary had left her place and approached him, formidably unsatisfied.
"He never works in the evening," said Mrs. Hudson. "Can't he come for five minutes? Why does he write such a cruel cold note to his poor mother —to poor Mary? What have we done that he acts so strangely? It 's this wicked, infectious, heathenish place!" ”

“ Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands. ”

“ How easily does a wish become father to the thought! Ice lay north, open water south and west; and so south-west steered Hudson, standing by the wheel, though Juet, the old mate, raged in open mutiny because not enough provisions remained to warrant further voyaging, much less the wintering of a crew of twenty in an ice-locked world. ”

“ Only to those who make friends of the hidden and search out the obscure is revealed the romance of the little river. The Hudson, grown conventional and well turned out, like a handsome mother, accustomed to hotel life, has a daughter, always at her side, yet elusive and wayward. These two, separated by mountain walls and palisade doors and lovely stretches of dreaming hills, meadows and road-crossed flats, have some common secret origin that they cannot alter nor disguise. ”