The Awkward Age by Henry James (best novel books to read .TXT) đ
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The girl shared from the bench his contemplation. âDo you call THIS madness?â
Well, he rather stuck to it. âYou spoke of it yourself as excitement. Youâll make of course one of your fine distinctions, but I take it in my rough way as a whirl. Weâre going round and round.â In a minute he had folded his arms with the same closeness Vanderbank had usedâin a minute he too was nervously shaking his foot. âSteady, steady; if we sit close we shall see it through. But come down to Suffolk for sanity.â
âYou do mean then that I may come alone?â
âI wonât receive you, I assure you, on any other terms. I want to show you,â he continued, âwhat life CAN give. Not of course,â he subjoined, âof this sort of thing.â
âNoâyouâve told me. Of peace.â
âOf peace,â said Mr. Longdon. âOh you donât knowâyou havenât the least idea. Thatâs just why I want to show you.â
Nanda looked as if already she saw it in the distance. âBut will it be peace if Iâm there? I mean for YOU,â she added.
âIt isnât a question of âme.â Everybodyâs omelet is made of somebodyâs eggs. Besides, I think that when weâre alone togetherâ!â
He had dropped for so long that she wondered. âWell, when we areâ?â
âWhy, it will be all right,â he simply concluded. âTemples of peace, the ancients used to call them. Weâll set up one, and I shall be at least doorkeeper. Youâll come down whenever you like.â
She gave herself to him in her silence more than she could have done in words. âHave you arranged it with mamma?â she said, however, at last.
âIâve arranged everything.â
âSHE wonât want to come?â
Her friendâs laugh turned him to her. âDonât be nervous. There are things as to which your mother trusts me.â
âBut others as to which not.â
Their eyes met for some time on this, and it ended in his saying: âWell, you must help me.â Nanda, but without shrinking, looked away again, and Mr. Longdon, as if to consecrate their understanding by the air of ease, passed to another subject. âMr. Mitchettâs the most princely host.â
âIsnât he too kind for anything? Do you know what he pretends?â Nanda went on. âHe says in the most extraordinary way that he does it all for ME.â
âTakes this great place and fills it with servants and companyâ?â
âYes, just so that I may come down for a Sunday or two. Of course he has only taken it for three or four weeks, but even for that time itâs a handsome compliment. He doesnât care what he does. Itâs his way of amusing himself. He amuses himself at our expense,â the girl continued.
âWell, I hope that makes up, my dear, for the rate at which weâre doing so at his!â
âHis amusement,â said Nanda, âis to see us believe what he says.â
Mr. Longdon thought a moment. âReally, my child, youâre most acute.â
âOh I havenât watched life for nothing! Mitchy doesnât care,â she repeated.
Her companion seemed divided between a desire to draw and a certain fear to encourage her. âDoesnât care for what?â
She considered an instant, all coherently, and it might have added to Mr. Longdonâs impression of her depth. âWell, for himself. I mean for his money. For anything any one may think. For Lord Petherton, for instance, really at all. Lord Petherton thinks he has helped himâ thinks, that is, that Mitchy thinks he has. But Mitchyâs more amused at HIM than at anybody else. He takes every one in.â
âEvery one but you?â
âOh I like him.â
âMy poor child, youâre of a profundity!â Mr. Longdon murmured.
He spoke almost uneasily, but she was not too much alarmed to continue lucid. âAnd he likes me, and I know just how muchâand just how little. Heâs the most generous man in the world. It pleases him to feel that heâs indifferent and splendidâthere are so many things it makes up to him for.â The old man listened with attention, and his young frien conscious of it, proceeded as on ground of which she knew every inch. âHeâs the son, as you know, of a great bootmakerââto all the Courts of Europeââwho left him a large fortune, which had been made, I believe, in the most extraordinary way, by building-speculations as well.â
âOh yes, I know. Itâs astonishing!â her companion sighed.
âThat he should be of such extraction?â
âWell, everything. That you should be talking as you areâthat you should have âwatched life,â as you say, to such purpose. That we should any of us be hereâmost of all that Mr. Mitchett himself should. That your grandmotherâs daughter should have brought HER daughterââ
âTo stay with a personââNanda took it up as, apparently out of delicacy, he fairly failedââwhose father used to take the measure, down on his knees on a little mat, as mamma says, of my grandfatherâs remarkably large foot? Yes, we none of us mind. Do you think we should?â Nanda asked.
Mr. Longdon turned it over. âIâll answer you by a question. Would you marry him?â
âNever.â Then as if to show there was no weakness in her mildness, âNever, never, never,â she repeated.
âAnd yet I dare say you knowâ?â But Mr. Longdon once more faltered; his scruple came uppermost. âYou donât mind my speaking of it?â
âOf his thinking he wants to marry me? Not a bit. I positively enjoy telling you thereâs nothing in it.â
âNot even for HIM?â
Nanda considered. âNot more than is made up to him by his having found out through talks and thingsâwhich mightnât otherwise have occurredâ that I do like him. I wouldnât have come down here if I hadnât liked him.â
âNot for any other reason?ââMr. Longdon put it gravely.
âNot for YOUR being here, do you mean?â
He delayed. âMe and other persons.â
She showed somehow that she wouldnât flinch. âYou werenât asked till after he had made sure Iâd come. Weâve become, you and I,â she smiled, âone of the couples who are invited together.â
These were couples, his speculative eye seemed to show, he didnât even yet know about, and if he mentally took them up a moment it was all promptly to drop them. âI donât think you state it quite strongly enough, you know.â
âThat Mitchy IS hard hit? He states it so strongly himself that it will surely do for both of us. Iâm a part of what I just spoke ofâhis indifference and magnificence. Itâs as if he could only afford to do whatâs not vulgar. He might perfectly marry a dukeâs daughter, but that WOULD be vulgarâwould be the absolute necessity and ideal of nine out of ten of the sons of shoemakers made ambitious by riches. Mitchy says âNo; I take my own line; I go in for a beggar-maid.â And itâs only because Iâm a beggar-maid that he wants me.â
âBut there are plenty of other beggar-maids,â Mr. Longdon objected.
âOh I admit Iâm the one he least dislikes. But if I had any money,â Nanda went on, âor if I were really good-lookingâfor that to-day, the real thing, will do as well as being a dukeâs daughterâhe wouldnât come near me. And I think that ought to settle it. Besides, he must marry Aggie. Sheâs a beggar-maid tooâas well as an angel. So thereâs nothing against it.â
Mr. Longdon stared, but even in his surprise seemed to take from the swiftness with which she made him move over the ground a certain agreeable glow. âDoes âAggieâ like him?â
âShe likes every one. As I say, sheâs an angelâbut a real, real, real one. The kindest man in the worldâs therefore the proper husband for her. If Mitchy wants to do something thoroughly nice,â she declared with the same high competence, âheâll take her out of her situation, which is awful.â
Mr. Longdon looked graver. âIn what way awful?â
âWhy, donât you know?â His eye was now cold enough to give her, in her chill, a flurried sense that she might displease him least by a graceful lightness. âThe Duchess and Lord Petherton are like you and me.â
âIs it a conundrum?â He was serious indeed.
âTheyâre one of the couples who are invited together.â But his face reflected so little success for her levity that it was in another tone she presently added: âMitchy really oughtnât.â Her friend, in silence, fixed his eyes on the ground; an attitude in which there was something to make her strike rather wild. âBut of course, kind as he is, he can scarcely be called particular. He has his ideasâhe thinks nothing matters. He says weâve all come to a pass thatâs the end of everything.â
Mr. Longdon remained mute a while, and when he at last, raised his eyes it was without meeting Nandaâs and with some dryness of manner. âThe end of everything? One might easily receive that impression.â
He again became mute, and there was a pause between them of some length, accepted by Nanda with an anxious stillness that it might have touched a spectator to observe. She sat there as if waiting for some further sign, only wanting not to displease her friend, yet unable to pretend to play any part and with something in her really that she couldnât take back now, something involved in her original assumption that there was to be a kind of intelligence in their relation. âI dare say,â she said at last, âthat I make allusions you donât like. But I keep forgetting.â
He waited a moment longer, then turned to her with a look rendered a trifle strange by the way it happened to reach over his glasses. It was even austerer than before. âKeep forgetting what?â
She gave after an instant a faint feeble smile which seemed to speak of helplessness and which, when at rare moments it played in her face, was expressive from her positive lack of personal, superficial diffidence. âWellâI donât know.â It was as if appearances became at times so complicated thatâso far as helping others to understand was concernedâ she could only give up.
âI hope you donât think I want you to be with me as you wouldnât beâso to speakâwith yourself. I hope you donât think I donât want you to be frank. If you were to try to APPEAR to me anythingâ!â He ended in simple sadness: that, for instance, would be so little what he should like.
âAnything different, you mean, from what I am? Thatâs just what Iâve thought from the first. Oneâs just what one ISâisnât one? I donât mean so much,â she went on, âin oneâs character or temperâfor they have, havenât they? to be whatâs called âproperly controlledââas in oneâs mind and what one sees and feels and the sort of thing one notices.â Nanda paused an instant; then âThere you are!â she simply but rather desperately brought out.
Mr. Longdon considered this with visible intensity. âWhat you suggest is that the things you speak of depend on other people?â
âWell, every one isnât so beautiful as you.â She had met him with promptitude, yet no sooner had she spoken than she appeared again to encounter a difficulty. âBut there it isâmy just saying even that. Oh how I always knowâas Iâve told you beforeâwhenever Iâm different! I canât ask you to tell me the things Granny WOULD have said, because thatâs simply arranging to keep myself back from you, and so being nasty and underhand, which you naturally donât want, nor I either. Nevertheless when I say the things she wouldnât, then I put before you too muchâtoo much for your liking itâwhat I know and see and feel. If weâre both partly the result of other people, HER other people were so different.â The girlâs sensitive boldness kept it up, but there was something in her that pleaded
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