I m glad to know you are to see Mr. Striker again, Rowland answered, correcting a primary inclination to smile. You certainly owe him a respectful farewell, even if he has not understood you. I confess you rather puzzle me. There is another person, he presently added, whose opinion as to your new career I should like to know. What does Miss Garland think?
Hudson looked at him keenly, with a slight blush. Then, with a conscious smile, What makes you suppose she thinks anything? he asked.
Because, though I saw her but for a moment yesterday, she struck me as a very intelligent person, and I am sure she has opinions.
The smile on Rodericks mobile face passed rapidly into a frown. Oh, she thinks what I think! he answered.
Before the two young men separated Rowland attempted to give as harmonious a shape as possible to his companions scheme. I have launched you, as I may say, he said, and I feel as if I ought to see you into port. I am older than you and know the world better, and it seems well that we should voyage a while together. It s on my conscience that I ought to take you to Rome, walk you through the Vatican, and then lock you up with a heap of clay. I sail on the fifth of September; can you make your preparations to start with me?
Roderick assented to all this with an air of candid confidence in his friends wisdom that outshone the virtue of pledges. I have no preparations to make, he said with a smile, raising his arms and letting them fall, as if to indicate his unencumbered condition. What I am to take with me I carry here! and he tapped his forehead.
Happy man! murmured Rowland with a sigh, thinking of the light stowage, in his own organism, in the region indicated by Roderick, and of the heavy one in deposit at his bankers, of bags and boxes.
When his companion had left him he went in search of Cecilia. She was sitting at work at a shady window, and welcomed him to a low chintz-covered chair. He sat some time, thoughtfully snipping tape with her scissors; he expected criticism and he was preparing a rejoinder. At last he told her of Rodericks decision and of his own influence in it. Cecilia, besides an extreme surprise, exhibited a certain fine displeasure at his not having asked her advice.
What would you have said, if I had? he demanded.
I would have said in the first place, Oh for pitys sake dont carry off the person in all Northampton who amuses me most! I would have said in the second place, Nonsense! the boy is doing very well. Let well alone!
That in the first five minutes. What would you have said later?
That for a man who is generally averse to meddling, you were suddenly rather officious.
Rowlands countenance fell. He frowned in silence. Cecilia looked at him askance; gradually the spark of irritation faded from her eye.
Excuse my sharpness, she resumed at last. But I am literally in despair at losing Roderick Hudson. His visits in the evening, for the past year, have kept me alive. They have given a silver tip to leaden days. I dont say he is of a more useful metal than other people, but he is of a different one. Of course, however, that I shall miss him sadly is not a reason for his not going to seek his fortune. Men must work and women must weep!
Decidedly not! said Rowland, with a good deal of emphasis. He had suspected from the first hour of his stay that Cecilia had treated herself to a private social luxury; he had then discovered that she found it in Hudsons lounging visits and boyish chatter, and he had felt himself wondering at last whether, judiciously viewed, her gain in the matter was not the young mans loss. It was evident that Cecilia was not judicious, and that her good sense, habitually rigid under the demands of domestic economy, indulged itself with a certain agreeable laxity on this particular point. She liked her young friend just as he was; she humored him, flattered him, laughed at him, caressed himdid everything but advise him. It was a flirtation without the benefits of a flirtation. She was too old to let him fall in love with her, which might have done him good; and her inclination was to keep him young, so that the nonsense he talked might never transgress a certain line. It was quite conceivable that poor Cecilia should relish a pastime; but if one had philanthropically embraced the idea that something considerable might be made of Roderick, it was impossible not to see that her friendship was not what might be called tonic. So Rowland reflected, in the glow of his new-born sympathy. There was a later time when he would have been grateful if Hudsons susceptibility to the relaxing influence of lovely women might have been limited to such inexpensive tribute as he rendered the excellent Cecilia.
I only desire to remind you, she pursued, that you are likely to have your hands full.
I ve thought of that, and I rather like the idea; liking, as I do, the man. I told you the other day, you know, that I longed to have something on my hands. When it first occurred to me that I might start our young friend on the path of glory, I felt as if I had an unimpeachable inspiration. Then I remembered there were dangers and difficulties, and asked myself whether I had a right to step in between him and his obscurity. My sense of his really having the divine flame answered the question. He is made to do the things that humanity is the happier for! I cant do such things myself, but when I see a young man of genius standing helpless and hopeless for want of capital, I feeland it s no affectation of humility, I assure youas if it would give at least a reflected usefulness to my own life to offer him his opportunity.
In the name of humanity, I suppose, I ought to thank you. But I want, first of all, to be happy myself. You guarantee us at any rate, I hope, the masterpieces.
A masterpiece a year, said Rowland smiling, for the next quarter of a century.
It seems to me that we have a right to ask more: to demand that you guarantee us not only the development of the artist, but the security of the man.
Rowland became grave again. His security?
His moral, his sentimental security. Here, you see, it s perfect. We are all under a tacit compact to preserve it. Perhaps you believe in the necessary turbulence of genius, and you intend to enjoin upon your protege the importance of cultivating his passions.
On the contrary, I believe that a man of genius owes as much deference to his passions as any other man, but not a particle more, and I confess I have a strong conviction that the artist is better for leading a quiet life. That is what I shall preach to my protege, as you call him, by example as well as by precept. You evidently believe, he added in a moment, that he will lead me a dance.
Nay, I prophesy nothing. I only think that circumstances, with our young man, have a great influence; as is proved by the fact that although he has been fuming and fretting here for the last five years, he has nevertheless managed to make the best of it, and found it easy, on the whole, to vegetate. Transplanted to Rome, I fancy he ll put forth a denser leafage. I should like vastly to see the change. You must write me about it, from stage to stage. I hope with all my heart that the fruit will be proportionate to the foliage. Dont think me a bird of ill omen; only remember that you will be held to a strict account.
A man should make the most of himself, and be helped if he needs help, Rowland answered, after a long pause. Of course when a body begins to expand, there comes in the possibility of bursting; but I nevertheless approve of a certain tension of ones being. It s what a man is meant for. And then I believe in the essential salubrity of geniustrue genius.
Rowland became grave again. His security?
His moral, his sentimental security. Here, you see, it s perfect. We are all under a tacit compact to preserve it. Perhaps you believe in the necessary turbulence of genius, and you intend to enjoin upon your protege the importance of cultivating his passions.
On the contrary, I believe that a man of genius owes as much deference to his passions as any other man, but not a particle more, and I confess I have a strong conviction that the artist is better for leading a quiet life. That is what I shall preach to my protege, as you call him, by example as well as by precept. You evidently believe, he added in a moment, that he will lead me a dance.
Nay, I prophesy nothing. I only think that circumstances, with our young man, have a great influence; as is proved by the fact that although he has been fuming and fretting here for the last five years, he has nevertheless managed to make the best of it, and found it easy, on the whole, to vegetate. Transplanted to Rome, I fancy he ll put forth a denser leafage. I should like vastly to see the change. You must write me about it, from stage to stage. I hope with all my heart that the fruit will be proportionate to the foliage. Dont think me a bird of ill omen; only remember that you will be held to a strict account.
A man should make the most of himself, and be helped if he needs help, Rowland answered, after a long pause. Of course when a body begins to expand, there comes in the possibility of bursting; but I nevertheless approve of a certain tension of ones being. It s what a man is meant for. And then I believe in the essential salubrity of geniustrue genius.
Very good, said Cecilia, with an air of resignation which made Rowland, for the moment, seem to himself culpably eager. We ll drink then to-day at dinner to the health of our friend.
* * *Having it much at heart to convince Mrs. Hudson of the purity of his intentions, Rowland waited upon her that evening. He was ushered into a large parlor, which, by the light of a couple of candles, he perceived to be very meagrely furnished and very tenderly and sparingly used. The windows were open to the air of the summer night, and a circle of three persons was temporarily awed into silence by his appearance. One of these was Mrs. 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 recognized as the original of the portrait of Mr. Barnaby Striker. At the table, near the candles, busy with a substantial piece of needle-work, sat the young girl of whom he had had a moments quickened glimpse in Rodericks studio, and whom he had learned to be Miss Garland, his companions kinswoman. This young ladys limpid, penetrating gaze was the most effective greeting he received. Mrs. Hudson rose with a soft, vague sound of distress, and stood looking at him shrinkingly and waveringly, as if she were sorely tempted to retreat through the open window. Mr. Striker swung his long leg a trifle defiantly. No one, evidently, was used to offering hollow welcomes or telling polite fibs. Rowland introduced himself; he had come, he might say, upon business.
Yes, said Mrs. Hudson tremulously; I knowmy son has told me. I suppose it is better I should see you. Perhaps you will take a seat.
With this invitation Rowland prepared to comply, and, turning, grasped the first chair that offered itself.
Not that one, said a full, grave voice; whereupon he perceived that a quantity of sewing-silk had been suspended and entangled over the back, preparatory to being wound on reels. He felt the least bit irritated at the curtness of the warning, coming as it did from a young woman whose countenance he had mentally pronounced interesting, and with regard to whom he was conscious of the germ of the inevitable desire to produce a responsive interest. And then he thought it would break the ice to say something playfully urbane.
Oh, you should let me take the chair, he answered, and have the pleasure of holding the skeins myself!
For all reply to this sally he received a stare of undisguised amazement from Miss Garland, who then looked across at Mrs. Hudson with a glance which plainly said: You see he s quite the insidious personage we feared. The elder lady, however, sat with her eyes fixed on the ground and her two hands tightly clasped. But touching her Rowland felt much more compassion than resentment; her attitude was not coldness, it was a kind of dread, almost a terror. She was a small, eager woman, with a pale, troubled face, which added to her apparent age. After looking at her for some minutes Rowland saw that she was still young, and that she must have been a very girlish bride. She had been a pretty one, too, though she probably had looked terribly frightened at the altar. She was very delicately made, and Roderick had come honestly by his physical slimness and elegance. She wore no cap, and her flaxen hair, which was of extraordinary fineness, was smoothed and confined with Puritanic precision. She was excessively shy, and evidently very humble-minded; it was singular to see a woman to whom the experience of life had conveyed so little reassurance as to her own resources or the chances of things turning out well. Rowland began immediately to like her, and to feel impatient to persuade her that there was no harm in him, and that, twenty to one, her son would make her a well-pleased woman yet. He foresaw that she would be easy to persuade, and that a benevolent conversational tone would probably make her pass, fluttering, from distrust into an oppressive extreme of confidence. But he had an indefinable sense that the person who was testing that strong young eyesight of hers in the dim candle-light was less readily beguiled from her mysterious feminine preconceptions. Miss Garland, according to Cecilias judgment, as Rowland remembered, had not a countenance to inspire a sculptor; but it seemed to Rowland that her countenance might fairly inspire a man who was far from being a sculptor. She was not pretty, as the eye of habit judges prettiness, but when you made the observation you somehow failed to set it down against her, for you had already passed from measuring contours to tracing meanings. In Mary Garlands face there were many possible ones, and they gave you the more to think about that it was notlike Roderick Hudsons, for instancea quick and mobile face, over which expression flickered like a candle in a wind. They followed each other slowly, distinctly, gravely, sincerely, and you might almost have fancied that, as they came and went, they gave her a sort of pain. She was tall and slender, and had an air of maidenly strength and decision. She had a broad forehead and dark eyebrows, a trifle thicker than those of classic beauties; her gray eye was clear but not brilliant, and her features were perfectly irregular. Her mouth was large, fortunately for the principal grace of her physiognomy was her smile, which displayed itself with magnificent amplitude. Rowland, indeed, had not yet seen her smile, but something assured him that her rigid gravity had a radiant counterpart. She wore a scanty white dress, and had a nameless rustic air which would have led one to speak of her less as a young lady than as a young woman. She was evidently a girl of a great personal force, but she lacked pliancy. She was hemming a kitchen towel with the aid of a large steel thimble. She bent her serious eyes at last on her work again, and let Rowland explain himself.