My dear Duchess, he promptly asked, do you mind explaining to me an opinion Ive just heard of yourwith marked originalityholding?
The Duchess, her head all in the air, considered an instant her little ivory princess. Im always ready, Mr. Mitchett, to defend my opinions; but if its a question of going much into the things that are the subjects of some of them perhaps we had better, if you dont mind, choose our time and our place.
No time, gracious lady, for my impatience, Mr. Mitchett replied, could be better than the presentbut if youve reasons for wanting a better place why shouldnt we go on the spot into another room?
Lord Petherton, at this enquiry, broke into instant mirth. Well, of all the coolness, Mitchy!he does go at it, doesnt he, Mrs. Brook? What do you want to do in another room? he demanded of his friend. Upon my word, Duchess, under the nose of those
The Duchess, on the first blush, lent herself to the humour of the case. Well, Petherton, of those?I defy him to finish his sentence! she smiled to the others.
Of those, said his lordship, who flatter themselves that when you do happen to find them somewhere your first idea is not quite to jump at a pretext for getting off somewhere else. Especially, he continued to jest, with a man of Mitchys vile reputation.
Oh! Edward Brookenham exclaimed at this, but only as with quiet relief.
Mitchys offer is perfectly safe, I may let him know, his wife remarked, for I happen to be sure that nothing would really induce Jane to leave Aggie five minutes among us here without remaining herself to see that we dont become improper.
Well then if were already pretty far on the way to it, Lord Petherton resumed, what on earth MIGHT we arrive at in the absence of your control? I warn you, Duchess, he joyously pursued, that if you go out of the room with Mitchy I shall rapidly become quite awful.
The Duchess during this brief passage never took her eyes from her niece, who rewarded her attention with the sweetness of consenting dependence. The childs foreign origin was so delicately but unmistakeably written in all her exquisite lines that her look might have expressed the modest detachment of a person to whom the language of her companions was unknown. Her protectress then glanced round the circle. Youre very odd people all of you, and I dont think you quite know how ridiculous you are. Aggie and I are simple stranger-folk; theres a great deal we dont understand, yet were none the less not easily frightened. In what is it, Mr. Mitchett, the Duchess asked, that Ive wounded your susceptibilities?
Mr. Mitchett cast about; he had apparently found time to reflect on his precipitation. I see what Pethertons up to, and I wont, by drawing you aside just now, expose your niece to anything that might immediately oblige Mrs. Brook to catch her up and flee with her. But the first time I find you more isolatedwell, he laughed, though not with the clearest ring, all I can say is Mind your eyes dear Duchess!
Its about your thinking, Jane, Mrs. Brookenham placidly explained, that Nanda suffersin her morals, dont you know?by my neglect. I wouldnt say anything about you that I cant bravely say TO you; therefore since he has plumped out with it I do confess that Ive appealed to him on what, as so good an old friend, HE thinks of your contention.
What in the world IS Janes contention? Edward Brookenham put the question as if they were stuck at cards.
You really all of you, the Duchess replied with excellent coolness, choose extraordinary conditions for the discussion of delicate matters. There are decidedly too many things on which we dont feel alike. Youre all inconceivable just now. Je ne peux pourtant pas la mettre a la porte, cette cheriewhom she covered again with the gay solicitude that seemed to have in it a vibration of private entreaty: Dont understand, my own darlingdont understand!
Little Aggie looked about with an impartial politeness that, as an expression of the general blind sense of her being as to every particular in hands at full liberty either to spot or to spare her, was touching enough to bring tears to all eyes. It perhaps had to do with the sudden emotion with whichusing now quite a different mannerMrs. Brookenham again embraced her, and even with this ladys equally abrupt and altogether wonderful address to her: Between you and me straight, my dear, and as from friend to friend, I know youll never doubt that everything must be all right!What I spoke of to poor Mitchy, she went on to the Duchess, is the dreadful view you take of my letting Nanda go to Tishyand indeed of the general question of any acquaintance between young unmarried and young married females. Mr. Mitchetts sufficiently interested in us, Jane, to make it natural of me to take him into our confidence in one of our difficulties. On the other hand we feel your solicitude, and I neednt tell you at this time of day what weight in every respect we attach to your judgement. Therefore it WILL be a difficulty for us, cara mia, dont you see? if we decide suddenly, under the spell of your influence, that our daughter must break off a friendshipit WILL be a difficulty for us to put the thing to Nanda herself in such a way as that she shall have some sort of notion of what suddenly possesses us. Then therell be the much stiffer job of putting it to poor Tishy. Yet if her house IS an impossible place what else is one to do? Carrie Donners to be there, and Carrie Donners a nature apart; but how can we ask even a little lamb like Tishy to give up her own sister?
The question had been launched with an argumentative sharpness that made it for a moment keep possession of the air, and during this moment, before a single member of the circle could rally, Mrs. Brookenhams effect was superseded by that of the reappearance of the butler. I say, my dear, dont shriek!Edward Brookenham had only time to sound this warning before a lady, presenting herself in the open doorway, followed close on the announcement of her name. Mrs. Beach Donner!the impression was naturally marked. Every one betrayed it a little but Mrs. Brookenham, who, more than the others, appeared to have the help of seeing that by a merciful stroke her visitor had just failed to hear. This visitor, a young woman of striking, of startling appearance, who, in the manner of certain shiny house-doors and railings, instantly created a presumption of the lurking label Fresh paint, found herself, with an embarrassment oddly opposed to the positive pitch of her complexion, in the presence of a group in which it was yet immediately evident that every one was a friend. Every one, to show no one had been caught, said something extremely easy; so that it was after a moment only poor Mrs. Donner who, seated close to her hostess, seemed to be in any degree in the wrong. This moreover was essentially her fault, so extreme was the anomaly of her having, without the means to back it up, committed herself to a scheme of colour that was practically an advertisement of courage. Irregularly pretty and painfully shy, she was retouched from brow to chin like a suburban photographthe moral of which was simply that she should either have left more to nature or taken more from art. The Duchess had quickly reached her kinsman with a smothered hiss, an Edward dear, for Gods sake take Aggie! and at the end of a few minutes had formed for herself in one of Mrs. Brookenhams admirable corners a society consisting of Lord Petherton and Mr. Mitchett, the latter of whom regarded Mrs. Donner across the room with articulate wonder and compassion.
Its all right, its all rightshes frightened only at herself!
The Duchess watched her as from a box at the play, comfortably shut in, as in the old operatic days at Naples, with a pair of entertainers. Youre the most interesting nation in the world. One never gets to the end of your hatred of the nuance. The sense of the suitable, the harmony of partswhat on earth were you doomed to do that, to be punished sufficiently in advance, you had to be deprived of it in your very cradles? Look at her little black dressrather good, but not so good as it ought to be, and, mixed up with all the rest, see her type, her beauty, her timidity, her wickedness, her notoriety and her impudeur. Its only in this country that a woman is both so shocking and so shaky. The Duchesss displeasure overflowed. If she doesnt know how to be good
Let her at least know how to be bad? Ah, Mitchy replied, your irritation testifies more than anything else could do to our peculiar genius or our peculiar want of it. Our vice is intolerably clumsyif it can possibly be a question of vice in regard to that charming child, who looks like one of the new-fashioned bill-posters, only, in the way of morbid modernity, as Mrs. Brook would say, more extravagant and funny than any that have yet been risked. I remember, he continued, Mrs. Brooks having spoken of her to me lately as wild. Wild?why, shes simply tameness run to seed. Such an expression shows the state of training to which Mrs. Brook has reduced the rest of us.
It doesnt prevent at any rate, Mrs. Brooks training, some of the rest of you from being horrible, the Duchess declared. What did you mean just now, really, by asking me to explain before Aggie this so serious matter of Nandas exposure? Then instantly taking herself up before Mr. Mitchett could answer: What on earth do you suppose Edwards saying to my darling?
Brookenham had placed himself, side by side with the child, on a distant little settee, but it was impossible to make out from the countenance of either if a sound had passed between them. Aggies little manner was too developed to show, and her hosts not developed enough. Oh hes awfully careful, Lord Petherton reassuringly observed. If you or I or Mitchy say anything bad its sure to be before we know it and without particularly meaning it. But old Edward means it
So much that as a general thing he doesnt dare to say it? the Duchess asked. Thats a pretty picture of him, inasmuch as for the most part he never speaks. What therefore must he mean?
Hes an abysshes magnificent! Mr. Mitchett laughed. I dont know a man of an understanding more profound, and hes equally incapable of uttering and of wincing. If by the same token Im horrible, as you call me, he pursued, its only because Im in everyway so beastly superficial. All the same I do sometimes go into things, and I insist on knowing, he again broke out, what it exactly was you had in mind in saying to Mrs. Brook the things about Nanda and myself that she repeated to me.
You insist, you silly man?the Duchess had veered a little to indulgence. Pray on what ground of right, in such a connexion, do you do anything of the sort?
Poor Mitchy showed but for a moment that he felt pulled up. Do you mean that when a girl liked by a fellow likes him so little in return?
I dont mean anything, said the Duchess, that may provoke you to suppose me vulgar and odious enough to try to put you out of conceit of a most interesting and unfortunate creature; and I dont quite as yet seethough I dare say I shall soon make out!what our friend has in her head in tattling to you on these matters as soon as my backs turned. Petherton will tell youI wonder he hasnt told you beforewhy Mrs. Grendon, though not perhaps herself quite the rose, is decidedly in these days too near it.
Oh Petherton never tells me anything! Mitchys answer was brisk and impatient, but evidently quite as sincere as if the person alluded to had not been there.
The person alluded to meanwhile, fidgeting frankly in his chair, alternately stretching his legs and resting his elbows on his knees, had reckoned as small the profit he might derive from this colloquy. His bored state indeedif he was boredprompted in him the honest impulse to clear, as he would have perhaps considered it, the atmosphere. He indicated Mrs. Donner with a remarkable absence of precautions. Why, what the Duchess alludes to is my poor sister Fannys stupid grievancesurely you know about that. He made oddly vivid for a moment the nature of his relatives allegation, his somewhat cynical treatment of which became peculiarly derisive in the light of the attitude and expression, at that minute, of the figure incriminated. My brother-in-laws too thick with her. But Cashmores such a fine old ass. Its excessively unpleasant, he added, for affairs are just in that position in which, from one day to another, there may be something that people will get hold of. Fancy a man, he robustly reflected while the three took in more completely the subject of Mrs. Brookenhams attentionfancy a man with THAT odd piece on his hands! The beauty of it is that the two women seem never to have broken off. Blest if they dont still keep seeing each other!
The Duchess, as on everything else, passed succinctly on this. Ah how can hatreds comfortably flourish without the nourishment of such regular seeing as what you call here bosom friendship alone supplies? What are parties given for in London butthat enemies may meet? I grant you its inconceivable that the husband of a superb creature like your sister should find his requirements better met by an object comme cette petite, who looks like a pen-wiperan actresss idea of onemade up for a theatrical bazaar. At the same time, if youll allow me to say so, it scarcely strikes one that your sisters prudence is such as to have placed all the cards in her hands. Shes the most beautiful woman in England, but her esprit de conduite isnt quite on a level. One cant have everything! she philosophically sighed.
Lord Petherton met her comfortably enough on this assumption of his detachments. If you mean by that her being the biggest fool alive Im quite ready to agree with you. Its exactly what makes me afraid. Yet how can I decently say in especial, he asked, of what?
The Duchess still perched on her critical height. Of what but one of your amazing English periodical public washings of dirty linen? Theres not the least necessity to say! she laughed. If theres anything more remarkable than these purifications its the domestic comfort with which, when all has come and gone, you sport the articles purified.
It comes back, in all that sphere, Mr. Mitchett instructively opined, to our national, our fatal want of style. We can never, dear Duchess, take too many lessons, and theres probably at the present time no more useful function to be performed among us than that dissemination of neater methods to which youre so good as to contribute.
He had had another idea, but before he reached it his companion had gaily broken in. Awfully good one for you, Duchessand Im bound to say that, for a clever woman, you exposed yourself! Ive at any rate a sense of comfort, Lord Petherton pursued, in the good relations now more and more established between poor Fanny and Mrs. Brook. Mrs. Brooks awfully kind to her and awfully sharp, and Fanny will take things from her that she wont take from me. I keep saying to Mrs. Brookdont you know?Do keep hold of her and let her have it strong. She hasnt, upon my honour, any one in the world but me.