The Europeans

H >> Henry James >> The Europeans


Mr. Wentworth sat there, with his legs crossed, lifting his dry, pure
countenance from the Boston "Advertiser." Felix entered smiling, as if
he had something particular to say, and his uncle looked at him as if
he both expected and deprecated this event. Felix vividly expressing
himself had come to be a formidable figure to his uncle, who had not yet
arrived at definite views as to a proper tone. For the first time in
his life, as I have said, Mr. Wentworth shirked a responsibility; he
earnestly desired that it might not be laid upon him to determine how
his nephew's lighter propositions should be treated. He lived under an
apprehension that Felix might yet beguile him into assent to doubtful
inductions, and his conscience instructed him that the best form of
vigilance was the avoidance of discussion. He hoped that the pleasant
episode of his nephew's visit would pass away without a further lapse of
consistency.

Felix looked at Charlotte with an air of understanding, and then at Mr.
Wentworth, and then at Charlotte again. Mr. Wentworth bent his refined
eyebrows upon his nephew and stroked down the first page of the
"Advertiser." "I ought to have brought a bouquet," said Felix, laughing.
"In France they always do."

"We are not in France," observed Mr. Wentworth, gravely, while Charlotte
earnestly gazed at him.

"No, luckily, we are not in France, where I am afraid I should have
a harder time of it. My dear Charlotte, have you rendered me that
delightful service?" And Felix bent toward her as if some one had been
presenting him.

Charlotte looked at him with almost frightened eyes; and Mr. Wentworth
thought this might be the beginning of a discussion. "What is the
bouquet for?" he inquired, by way of turning it off.

Felix gazed at him, smiling. "Pour la demande!" And then, drawing up
a chair, he seated himself, hat in hand, with a kind of conscious
solemnity.

Presently he turned to Charlotte again. "My good Charlotte, my admirable
Charlotte," he murmured, "you have not played me false--you have not
sided against me?"

Charlotte got up, trembling extremely, though imperceptibly. "You must
speak to my father yourself," she said. "I think you are clever enough."

But Felix, rising too, begged her to remain. "I can speak better to an
audience!" he declared.

"I hope it is nothing disagreeable," said Mr. Wentworth.

"It 's something delightful, for me!" And Felix, laying down his hat,
clasped his hands a little between his knees. "My dear uncle," he said,
"I desire, very earnestly, to marry your daughter Gertrude." Charlotte
sank slowly into her chair again, and Mr. Wentworth sat staring, with a
light in his face that might have been flashed back from an iceberg.
He stared and stared; he said nothing. Felix fell back, with his hands
still clasped. "Ah--you don't like it. I was afraid!" He blushed deeply,
and Charlotte noticed it--remarking to herself that it was the first
time she had ever seen him blush. She began to blush herself and to
reflect that he might be much in love.

"This is very abrupt," said Mr. Wentworth, at last.

"Have you never suspected it, dear uncle?" Felix inquired. "Well, that
proves how discreet I have been. Yes, I thought you would n't like it."

"It is very serious, Felix," said Mr. Wentworth.

"You think it 's an abuse of hospitality!" exclaimed Felix, smiling
again.

"Of hospitality?--an abuse?" his uncle repeated very slowly.

"That is what Felix said to me," said Charlotte, conscientiously.

"Of course you think so; don't defend yourself!" Felix pursued. "It
is an abuse, obviously; the most I can claim is that it is perhaps a
pardonable one. I simply fell head over heels in love; one can hardly
help that. Though you are Gertrude's progenitor I don't believe you
know how attractive she is. Dear uncle, she contains the elements of a
singularly--I may say a strangely--charming woman!"

"She has always been to me an object of extreme concern," said Mr.
Wentworth. "We have always desired her happiness."

"Well, here it is!" Felix declared. "I will make her happy. She believes
it, too. Now had n't you noticed that?"

"I had noticed that she was much changed," Mr. Wentworth declared, in
a tone whose unexpressive, unimpassioned quality appeared to Felix to
reveal a profundity of opposition. "It may be that she is only becoming
what you call a charming woman."

"Gertrude, at heart, is so earnest, so true," said Charlotte, very
softly, fastening her eyes upon her father.

"I delight to hear you praise her!" cried Felix.

"She has a very peculiar temperament," said Mr. Wentworth.

"Eh, even that is praise!" Felix rejoined. "I know I am not the man you
might have looked for. I have no position and no fortune; I can give
Gertrude no place in the world. A place in the world--that 's what she
ought to have; that would bring her out."

"A place to do her duty!" remarked Mr. Wentworth.

"Ah, how charmingly she does it--her duty!" Felix exclaimed, with a
radiant face. "What an exquisite conception she has of it! But she comes
honestly by that, dear uncle." Mr. Wentworth and Charlotte both looked
at him as if they were watching a greyhound doubling. "Of course with
me she will hide her light under a bushel," he continued; "I being the
bushel! Now I know you like me--you have certainly proved it. But you
think I am frivolous and penniless and shabby! Granted--granted--a
thousand times granted. I have been a loose fish--a fiddler, a painter,
an actor. But there is this to be said: In the first place, I fancy
you exaggerate; you lend me qualities I have n't had. I have been a
Bohemian--yes; but in Bohemia I always passed for a gentleman. I wish
you could see some of my old camarades--they would tell you! It was
the liberty I liked, but not the opportunities! My sins were all
peccadilloes; I always respected my neighbor's property--my neighbor's
wife. Do you see, dear uncle?" Mr. Wentworth ought to have seen; his
cold blue eyes were intently fixed. "And then, c'est fini! It 's all
over. Je me range. I have settled down to a jog-trot. I find I can earn
my living--a very fair one--by going about the world and painting
bad portraits. It 's not a glorious profession, but it is a perfectly
respectable one. You won't deny that, eh? Going about the world, I say?
I must not deny that, for that I am afraid I shall always do--in quest
of agreeable sitters. When I say agreeable, I mean susceptible of
delicate flattery and prompt of payment. Gertrude declares she is
willing to share my wanderings and help to pose my models. She even
thinks it will be charming; and that brings me to my third point.
Gertrude likes me. Encourage her a little and she will tell you so."

Felix's tongue obviously moved much faster than the imagination of his
auditors; his eloquence, like the rocking of a boat in a deep, smooth
lake, made long eddies of silence. And he seemed to be pleading and
chattering still, with his brightly eager smile, his uplifted eyebrows,
his expressive mouth, after he had ceased speaking, and while, with his
glance quickly turning from the father to the daughter, he sat waiting
for the effect of his appeal. "It is not your want of means," said Mr.
Wentworth, after a period of severe reticence.

"Now it 's delightful of you to say that! Only don't say it 's my want
of character. Because I have a character--I assure you I have; a small
one, a little slip of a thing, but still something tangible."

"Ought you not to tell Felix that it is Mr. Brand, father?" Charlotte
asked, with infinite mildness.

"It is not only Mr. Brand," Mr. Wentworth solemnly declared. And he
looked at his knee for a long time. "It is difficult to explain," he
said. He wished, evidently, to be very just. "It rests on moral grounds,
as Mr. Brand says. It is the question whether it is the best thing for
Gertrude."

"What is better--what is better, dear uncle?" Felix rejoined urgently,
rising in his urgency and standing before Mr. Wentworth. His uncle had
been looking at his knee; but when Felix moved he transferred his gaze
to the handle of the door which faced him. "It is usually a fairly good
thing for a girl to marry the man she loves!" cried Felix.

While he spoke, Mr. Wentworth saw the handle of the door begin to turn;
the door opened and remained slightly ajar, until Felix had delivered
himself of the cheerful axiom just quoted. Then it opened altogether
and Gertrude stood there. She looked excited; there was a spark in her
sweet, dull eyes. She came in slowly, but with an air of resolution,
and, closing the door softly, looked round at the three persons present.
Felix went to her with tender gallantry, holding out his hand, and
Charlotte made a place for her on the sofa. But Gertrude put her hands
behind her and made no motion to sit down.

"We are talking of you!" said Felix.

"I know it," she answered. "That 's why I came." And she fastened her
eyes on her father, who returned her gaze very fixedly. In his own cold
blue eyes there was a kind of pleading, reasoning light.

"It is better you should be present," said Mr. Wentworth. "We are
discussing your future."

"Why discuss it?" asked Gertrude. "Leave it to me."

"That is, to me!" cried Felix.

"I leave it, in the last resort, to a greater wisdom than ours," said
the old man.

Felix rubbed his forehead gently. "But en attendant the last resort,
your father lacks confidence," he said to Gertrude.

"Have n't you confidence in Felix?" Gertrude was frowning; there was
something about her that her father and Charlotte had never seen.
Charlotte got up and came to her, as if to put her arm round her; but
suddenly, she seemed afraid to touch her.

Mr. Wentworth, however, was not afraid. "I have had more confidence in
Felix than in you," he said.

"Yes, you have never had confidence in me--never, never! I don't know
why."

"Oh sister, sister!" murmured Charlotte.

"You have always needed advice," Mr. Wentworth declared. "You have had a
difficult temperament."

"Why do you call it difficult? It might have been easy, if you had
allowed it. You would n't let me be natural. I don't know what you
wanted to make of me. Mr. Brand was the worst."

Charlotte at last took hold of her sister. She laid her two hands upon
Gertrude's arm. "He cares so much for you," she almost whispered.

Gertrude looked at her intently an instant; then kissed her. "No, he
does not," she said.

"I have never seen you so passionate," observed Mr. Wentworth, with an
air of indignation mitigated by high principles.

"I am sorry if I offend you," said Gertrude.

"You offend me, but I don't think you are sorry."

"Yes, father, she is sorry," said Charlotte.

"I would even go further, dear uncle," Felix interposed. "I would
question whether she really offends you. How can she offend you?"

To this Mr. Wentworth made no immediate answer. Then, in a moment, "She
has not profited as we hoped."

"Profited? Ah voila!" Felix exclaimed.

Gertrude was very pale; she stood looking down. "I have told Felix I
would go away with him," she presently said.

"Ah, you have said some admirable things!" cried the young man.

"Go away, sister?" asked Charlotte.

"Away--away; to some strange country."

"That is to frighten you," said Felix, smiling at Charlotte.

"To--what do you call it?" asked Gertrude, turning an instant to Felix.
"To Bohemia."

"Do you propose to dispense with preliminaries?" asked Mr. Wentworth,
getting up.

"Dear uncle, vous plaisantez!" cried Felix. "It seems to me that these
are preliminaries."

Gertrude turned to her father. "I have profited," she said. "You wanted
to form my character. Well, my character is formed--for my age. I know
what I want; I have chosen. I am determined to marry this gentleman."

"You had better consent, sir," said Felix very gently.

"Yes, sir, you had better consent," added a very different voice.

Charlotte gave a little jump, and the others turned to the direction
from which it had come. It was the voice of Mr. Brand, who had stepped
through the long window which stood open to the piazza. He stood patting
his forehead with his pocket-handkerchief; he was very much flushed; his
face wore a singular expression.

"Yes, sir, you had better consent," Mr. Brand repeated, coming forward.
"I know what Miss Gertrude means."

"My dear friend!" murmured Felix, laying his hand caressingly on the
young minister's arm.

Mr. Brand looked at him; then at Mr. Wentworth; lastly at Gertrude. He
did not look at Charlotte. But Charlotte's earnest eyes were fastened
to his own countenance; they were asking an immense question of it.
The answer to this question could not come all at once; but some of the
elements of it were there. It was one of the elements of it that Mr.
Brand was very red, that he held his head very high, that he had a
bright, excited eye and an air of embarrassed boldness--the air of a
man who has taken a resolve, in the execution of which he apprehends
the failure, not of his moral, but of his personal, resources. Charlotte
thought he looked very grand; and it is incontestable that Mr. Brand
felt very grand. This, in fact, was the grandest moment of his life;
and it was natural that such a moment should contain opportunities of
awkwardness for a large, stout, modest young man.

"Come in, sir," said Mr. Wentworth, with an angular wave of his hand.
"It is very proper that you should be present."

"I know what you are talking about," Mr. Brand rejoined. "I heard what
your nephew said."

"And he heard what you said!" exclaimed Felix, patting him again on the
arm.

"I am not sure that I understood," said Mr. Wentworth, who had
angularity in his voice as well as in his gestures.

Gertrude had been looking hard at her former suitor. She had been
puzzled, like her sister; but her imagination moved more quickly than
Charlotte's. "Mr. Brand asked you to let Felix take me away," she said
to her father.

The young minister gave her a strange look. "It is not because I don't
want to see you any more," he declared, in a tone intended as it were
for publicity.

"I should n't think you would want to see me any more," Gertrude
answered, gently.

Mr. Wentworth stood staring. "Is n't this rather a change, sir?" he
inquired.

"Yes, sir." And Mr. Brand looked anywhere; only still not at Charlotte.
"Yes, sir," he repeated. And he held his handkerchief a few moments to
his lips.

"Where are our moral grounds?" demanded Mr. Wentworth, who had always
thought Mr. Brand would be just the thing for a younger daughter with a
peculiar temperament.

"It is sometimes very moral to change, you know," suggested Felix.

Charlotte had softly left her sister's side. She had edged gently toward
her father, and now her hand found its way into his arm. Mr. Wentworth
had folded up the "Advertiser" into a surprisingly small compass, and,
holding the roll with one hand, he earnestly clasped it with the other.
Mr. Brand was looking at him; and yet, though Charlotte was so near, his
eyes failed to meet her own. Gertrude watched her sister.

"It is better not to speak of change," said Mr. Brand. "In one sense
there is no change. There was something I desired--something I asked of
you; I desire something still--I ask it of you." And he paused a moment;
Mr. Wentworth looked bewildered. "I should like, in my ministerial
capacity, to unite this young couple."

Gertrude, watching her sister, saw Charlotte flushing intensely, and Mr.
Wentworth felt her pressing upon his arm. "Heavenly Powers!" murmured
Mr. Wentworth. And it was the nearest approach to profanity he had ever
made.

"That is very nice; that is very handsome!" Felix exclaimed.

"I don't understand," said Mr. Wentworth; though it was plain that every
one else did.

"That is very beautiful, Mr. Brand," said Gertrude, emulating Felix.

"I should like to marry you. It will give me great pleasure."

"As Gertrude says, it 's a beautiful idea," said Felix.

Felix was smiling, but Mr. Brand was not even trying to. He himself
treated his proposition very seriously. "I have thought of it, and I
should like to do it," he affirmed.

Charlotte, meanwhile, was staring with expanded eyes. Her imagination,
as I have said, was not so rapid as her sister's, but now it had taken
several little jumps. "Father," she murmured, "consent!"

Mr. Brand heard her; he looked away. Mr. Wentworth, evidently, had no
imagination at all. "I have always thought," he began, slowly, "that
Gertrude's character required a special line of development."

"Father," repeated Charlotte, "consent."

Then, at last, Mr. Brand looked at her. Her father felt her leaning more
heavily upon his folded arm than she had ever done before; and this,
with a certain sweet faintness in her voice, made him wonder what was
the matter. He looked down at her and saw the encounter of her gaze with
the young theologian's; but even this told him nothing, and he continued
to be bewildered. Nevertheless, "I consent," he said at last, "since Mr.
Brand recommends it."

"I should like to perform the ceremony very soon," observed Mr. Brand,
with a sort of solemn simplicity.

"Come, come, that 's charming!" cried Felix, profanely.

Mr. Wentworth sank into his chair. "Doubtless, when you understand it,"
he said, with a certain judicial asperity.

Gertrude went to her sister and led her away, and Felix having passed
his arm into Mr. Brand's and stepped out of the long window with him,
the old man was left sitting there in unillumined perplexity.

Felix did no work that day. In the afternoon, with Gertrude, he got into
one of the boats and floated about with idly-dipping oars. They talked a
good deal of Mr. Brand--though not exclusively.

"That was a fine stroke," said Felix. "It was really heroic."

Gertrude sat musing, with her eyes upon the ripples. "That was what he
wanted to be; he wanted to do something fine."

"He won't be comfortable till he has married us," said Felix. "So much
the better."

"He wanted to be magnanimous; he wanted to have a fine moral pleasure.
I know him so well," Gertrude went on. Felix looked at her; she spoke
slowly, gazing at the clear water. "He thought of it a great deal, night
and day. He thought it would be beautiful. At last he made up his mind
that it was his duty, his duty to do just that--nothing less than that.
He felt exalted; he felt sublime. That 's how he likes to feel. It is
better for him than if I had listened to him."

"It 's better for me," smiled Felix. "But do you know, as regards the
sacrifice, that I don't believe he admired you when this decision was
taken quite so much as he had done a fortnight before?"

"He never admired me. He admires Charlotte; he pitied me. I know him so
well."

"Well, then, he did n't pity you so much."

Gertrude looked at Felix a little, smiling. "You should n't permit
yourself," she said, "to diminish the splendor of his action. He admires
Charlotte," she repeated.

"That's capital!" said Felix laughingly, and dipping his oars. I cannot
say exactly to which member of Gertrude's phrase he alluded; but he
dipped his oars again, and they kept floating about.

Neither Felix nor his sister, on that day, was present at Mr.
Wentworth's at the evening repast. The two occupants of the chalet dined
together, and the young man informed his companion that his marriage was
now an assured fact. Eugenia congratulated him, and replied that if he
were as reasonable a husband as he had been, on the whole, a brother,
his wife would have nothing to complain of.

Felix looked at her a moment, smiling. "I hope," he said, "not to be
thrown back on my reason."

"It is very true," Eugenia rejoined, "that one's reason is dismally
flat. It 's a bed with the mattress removed."

But the brother and sister, later in the evening, crossed over to
the larger house, the Baroness desiring to compliment her prospective
sister-in-law. They found the usual circle upon the piazza, with the
exception of Clifford Wentworth and Lizzie Acton; and as every one stood
up as usual to welcome the Baroness, Eugenia had an admiring audience
for her compliment to Gertrude.

Robert Acton stood on the edge of the piazza, leaning against one of
the white columns, so that he found himself next to Eugenia while she
acquitted herself of a neat little discourse of congratulation.

"I shall be so glad to know you better," she said; "I have seen so much
less of you than I should have liked. Naturally; now I see the reason
why! You will love me a little, won't you? I think I may say I gain
on being known." And terminating these observations with the softest
cadence of her voice, the Baroness imprinted a sort of grand official
kiss upon Gertrude's forehead.

Increased familiarity had not, to Gertrude's imagination, diminished
the mysterious impressiveness of Eugenia's personality, and she felt
flattered and transported by this little ceremony. Robert Acton
also seemed to admire it, as he admired so many of the gracious
manifestations of Madame Munster's wit.

They had the privilege of making him restless, and on this occasion he
walked away, suddenly, with his hands in his pockets, and then came back
and leaned against his column. Eugenia was now complimenting her uncle
upon his daughter's engagement, and Mr. Wentworth was listening with his
usual plain yet refined politeness. It is to be supposed that by this
time his perception of the mutual relations of the young people who
surrounded him had become more acute; but he still took the matter very
seriously, and he was not at all exhilarated.

"Felix will make her a good husband," said Eugenia. "He will be a
charming companion; he has a great quality--indestructible gayety."

"You think that 's a great quality?" asked the old man.

Eugenia meditated, with her eyes upon his. "You think one gets tired of
it, eh?"

"I don't know that I am prepared to say that," said Mr. Wentworth.

"Well, we will say, then, that it is tiresome for others but delightful
for one's self. A woman's husband, you know, is supposed to be her
second self; so that, for Felix and Gertrude, gayety will be a common
property."

"Gertrude was always very gay," said Mr. Wentworth. He was trying to
follow this argument.

Robert Acton took his hands out of his pockets and came a little nearer
to the Baroness. "You say you gain by being known," he said. "One
certainly gains by knowing you."

"What have you gained?" asked Eugenia.

"An immense amount of wisdom."

"That 's a questionable advantage for a man who was already so wise!"

Acton shook his head. "No, I was a great fool before I knew you!"

"And being a fool you made my acquaintance? You are very complimentary."

"Let me keep it up," said Acton, laughing. "I hope, for our pleasure,
that your brother's marriage will detain you."

"Why should I stop for my brother's marriage when I would not stop for
my own?" asked the Baroness.

"Why should n't you stop in either case, now that, as you say, you have
dissolved that mechanical tie that bound you to Europe?"

The Baroness looked at him a moment. "As I say? You look as if you
doubted it."

"Ah," said Acton, returning her glance, "that is a remnant of my old
folly! We have other attractions," he added. "We are to have another
marriage."

But she seemed not to hear him; she was looking at him still. "My word
was never doubted before," she said.

"We are to have another marriage," Acton repeated, smiling.

Then she appeared to understand. "Another marriage?" And she looked at
the others. Felix was chattering to Gertrude; Charlotte, at a distance,
was watching them; and Mr. Brand, in quite another quarter, was turning
his back to them, and, with his hands under his coat-tails and his large
head on one side, was looking at the small, tender crescent of a young
moon. "It ought to be Mr. Brand and Charlotte," said Eugenia, "but it
does n't look like it."

"There," Acton answered, "you must judge just now by contraries. There
is more than there looks to be. I expect that combination one of these
days; but that is not what I meant."

"Well," said the Baroness, "I never guess my own lovers; so I can't
guess other people's."

Acton gave a loud laugh, and he was about to add a rejoinder when Mr.
Wentworth approached his niece. "You will be interested to hear," the
old man said, with a momentary aspiration toward jocosity, "of another
matrimonial venture in our little circle."

"I was just telling the Baroness," Acton observed.

"Mr. Acton was apparently about to announce his own engagement," said
Eugenia.

Mr. Wentworth's jocosity increased. "It is not exactly that; but it
is in the family. Clifford, hearing this morning that Mr. Brand had
expressed a desire to tie the nuptial knot for his sister, took it into
his head to arrange that, while his hand was in, our good friend should
perform a like ceremony for himself and Lizzie Acton."

The Baroness threw back her head and smiled at her uncle; then turning,
with an intenser radiance, to Robert Acton, "I am certainly very stupid
not to have thought of that," she said. Acton looked down at his
boots, as if he thought he had perhaps reached the limits of legitimate
experimentation, and for a moment Eugenia said nothing more. It had
been, in fact, a sharp knock, and she needed to recover herself. This
was done, however, promptly enough. "Where are the young people?" she
asked.