第82章

I've made a great exception for you.You must remember that and must think as well of me as possible.You must reward me by believing in me."By way of answer Isabel kissed her, and, though some women kiss with facility, there are kisses and kisses, and this embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle.Our young lady, after this, was much alone; she saw her aunt and cousin only at meals, and discovered that of the hours during which Mrs.Touchett was invisible only a minor portion was now devoted to nursing her husband.She spent the rest in her own apartments, to which access was not allowed even to her niece, apparently occupied there with mysterious and inscrutable exercises.At table she was grave and silent; but her solemnity was not an attitude- Isabel could see it was a conviction.She wondered if her aunt repented of having taken her own way so much; but there was no visible evidence of this- no tears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal always to its own sense adequate.Mrs.Touchett seemed simply to feel the need of thinking things over and summing them up; she had a little moral account-book- with columns unerringly ruled and a sharp steel clasp- which she kept with exemplary neatness.Uttered reflection had with her ever, at any rate, a practical ring."If I had foreseen this I'd not have proposed your coming abroad now," she said to Isabel after Madame Merle had left the house."I'd have waited and sent for you next year.""So that perhaps I should never have known my uncle? It's a great happiness to me to have come now.""That's very well.But it was not that you might know your uncle that I brought you to Europe." A perfectly veracious speech; but, as Isabel thought, not as perfectly timed.She had leisure to think of this and other matters.She took a solitary walk every day and spent vague hours in turning over books in the library.Among the subjects that engaged her attention were the adventures of her friend Miss Stackpole, with whom she was in regular correspondence.Isabel liked her friend's private epistolary style better than her public; that is she felt her public letters would have been excellent if they had not been printed.Henrietta's career, however, was not so successful, as might have been wished even in the interest of her private felicity; that view of the inner life of Great Britain which she was so eager to take appeared to dance before her like an ignis fatuus.The invitation from Lady Pensil, for mysterious reasons, had never arrived; and poor Mr.Bantling himself, with all his friendly ingenuity, had been unable to explain so grave a dereliction on the part of a missive that had obviously been sent.He had evidently taken Henrietta's affairs much to heart, and believed that he owed her a set-off to this illusory visit to Bedfordshire."He says he should think I would go to the Continent," Henrietta wrote; and as he thinks of going there himself I suppose his advice is sincere.He wants to know why I don't take a view of French life; and it's a fact that I want very much to see the new Republic.Mr.Bantling doesn't care much about the Republic, but he thinks of going over to Paris anyway.I must say he's quite as attentive as I could wish, and at least I shall have seen one polite Englishman.I keep telling Mr.Bantling that he ought to have been an American, and you should see how that pleases him.Whenever I say so he always breaks out with the same exclamation- 'Ah, but really, come now!'" A few days later she wrote that she had decided to go to Paris at the end of the week and that Mr.Bantling had promised to see her off perhaps even would go as far as Dover with her.She would wait in Paris till Isabel should arrive, Henrietta added; speaking quite as if Isabel were to start on her continental journey alone and making no allusion to Mrs.Touchett.Bearing in mind his interest in their late companion, our heroine communicated several passages from this correspondence to Ralph, who followed with an emotion akin to suspense the career of the representative of the Interviewer.

"It seems to me she's doing very well," he said, "going over to Paris with an ex-Lancer! If she wants something to write about she has only to describe that episode.""It's not conventional, certainly," Isabel answered; "but if you mean that- as far as Henrietta is concerned- it's not perfectly innocent, you're very much mistaken.You'll never understand Henrietta.""Pardon me, I understand her perfectly.I didn't at all at first, but now I've the point of view.I'm afraid, however, that Bantling hasn't; he may have some surprises.Oh, I understand Henrietta as well as if I had made her!"Isabel was by no means sure of this, but she abstained from expressing further doubt, for she was disposed in these days to extend a great charity to her cousin.One afternoon less than a week after Madame Merle's departure she was seated in the library with a volume to which her attention was not fastened.She had placed herself in a deep window-bench, from which she looked out into the dull, damp park;and as the library stood at right angles to the entrance-front of the house she could see the doctor's brougham, which had been waiting for the last two hours before the door.She was struck with his remaining so long, but at last she saw him appear in the portico, stand a moment slowly drawing on his gloves and looking at the knees of his horse, and then get into the vehicle and roll away.

Isabel kept her place for half an hour; there was a great stillness in the house.It was so great that when she at last heard a soft, slow step on the deep carpet of the room she was almost startled by the sound.She turned quickly away from the window and saw Ralph Touchett standing there with his hands still in his pockets, but with a face absolutely void of its usual latent smile.She got up and her movement and glance were a question.

"It's all over," said Ralph.

"Do you mean that my uncle-?" And Isabel stopped.

"My dear father died an hour ago."

"Ah, my poor Ralph!" she gently wailed, putting out her two hands to him.