The Golden Bowl by Henry James (free ebook reader for android TXT) 📕

It’s already eleven”⁠—he had looked at the time; “so that if we stop here to luncheon what becomes of our afternoon?”

To this Charlotte’s eyes opened straight. “There’s not the slightest need of our stopping here to luncheon. Don’t you see,” she asked, “how I’m ready?” He had taken it in, but there was always more and more of her. “You mean you’ve arranged⁠—?”

“It’s easy to arrange. My maid goes up with my things. You’ve only to speak to your man about yours, and they can go together.”

“You mean we can leave at once?”

She let him have it all. “One of the carriages, about which I spoke, will already have come back for us. If your superstitions are on our side,” she smiled, “so my arrangements are, and I’ll back my support against yours.”

“Then you had thought,” he wondered, “about Gloucester?”

She hesitated⁠—but it was only her way. “I thought you would think. We have, thank goodness, these harmonies. They are food for superstition if you like. It’s beautiful,” she went on, “that it should be Gloucester; ‘Glo’ster, Glo’ster,’ as you say, making it sound like an old song. However, I’m sure Glo’ster, Glo’ster will be charming,” she still added; “we shall be able easily to lunch there, and, with our luggage and our servants off our hands, we shall have at least three or four hours. We can wire,” she wound up, “from there.”

Ever so quietly she had brought it, as she had thought it, all out, and it had to be as covertly that he let his appreciation expand. “Then Lady Castledean⁠—?”

“Doesn’t dream of our staying.”

He took it, but thinking yet. “Then what does she dream⁠—?”

“Of Mr. Blint, poor dear; of Mr. Blint only.” Her smile for him⁠—for the Prince himself⁠—was free. “Have I positively to tell you that she doesn’t want us? She only wanted us for the others⁠—to show she wasn’t left alone with him. Now that that’s done, and that they’ve all gone, she of course knows for herself⁠—!”

“ ‘Knows’?” the Prince vaguely echoed.

“Why, that we like cathedrals; that we inevitably stop to see them, or go round to take them in, whenever we’ve a chance; that it’s what our respective families quite expect of us and would be disappointed for us to fail of. This, as forestieri,” Mrs. Verver pursued, “would be our pull⁠—if our pull weren’t indeed so great all round.”

He could only keep his eyes on her. “And have you made out the very train⁠—?”

“The very one. Paddington⁠—the 6:50 ‘in.’ That gives us oceans; we can dine, at the usual hour, at home; and as Maggie will of course be in Eaton Square I hereby invite you.”

For a while he still but looked at her; it was a minute before he spoke. “Thank you very much. With pleasure.” To which he in a moment added: “But the train for Gloucester?”

“A local one⁠—11.22; with several stops, but doing it a good deal, I forget how much, within the hour. So that we’ve time. Only,” she said, “we must employ our time.”

He roused himself as from the mere momentary spell of her; he looked again at his watch while they moved back to the door through which she had advanced. But he had also again questions and stops⁠—all as for the mystery and the charm. “You looked it up⁠—without my having asked you?”

“Ah, my dear,” she laughed, “I’ve seen you with Bradshaw! It takes Anglo-Saxon blood.”

“ ‘Blood’?” he echoed. “You’ve that of every race!” It kept her before him. “You’re terrible.”

Well, he could put it as he liked. “I know the name of the inn.”

“What is it then?”

“There are two⁠—you’ll see. But I’ve chosen the right one. And I think I remember the tomb,” she smiled.

“Oh, the tomb⁠—!” Any tomb would do for him. “But I mean I had been keeping my idea so cleverly for you, while there you already were with it.”

“You had been keeping it ‘for’ me as much as you like. But how do you make out,” she asked, “that you were keeping it from me?”

“I don’t⁠—now. How shall I ever keep anything⁠—some day when I shall wish to?”

“Ah, for things I mayn’t want to know, I promise you shall find me stupid.” They had reached their door, where she herself paused to explain. “These days, yesterday, last night, this morning, I’ve wanted everything.”

Well, it was all right. “You shall have everything.”

XXIII

Fanny, on her arrival in town, carried out her second idea, despatching the Colonel to his club for luncheon and packing her maid into a cab, for Cadogan Place, with the variety of their effects. The result of this for each of the pair was a state of occupation so unbroken that the day practically passed without fresh contact between them. They dined out together, but it was both in going to their dinner and in coming back that they appeared, on either side, to have least to communicate. Fanny was wrapped in her thoughts still more closely than in the lemon-coloured mantle that protected her bare shoulders, and her husband, with her silence to deal with, showed himself not less disposed than usual, when so challenged, to hold up, as he would have said, his end of it. They had, in general, in these days, longer pauses and more abrupt transitions; in one of which latter they found themselves, for a climax, launched at midnight. Mrs. Assingham, rather wearily housed again, ascended to the first floor, there to sink, overburdened, on the landing outside the drawing-room, into a great gilded Venetian chair⁠—of which at first, however, she but made, with her brooding face, a sort of throne of meditation. She would thus have recalled a little, with her so free orientalism of type, the immemorially speechless Sphinx about at last to become articulate. The Colonel, not unlike, on his side, some old pilgrim of the desert camping at the foot of that monument, went, by way of reconnoissance, into the drawing-room. He visited, according to his wont, the windows and their fastenings;