Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

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СКАЧАТЬ never disagreeably masculine; but there was a resistless, saucy élan about her that carried her a little beyond the average bounds laid for a lady’s behaviour. It seemed as though her life never stood still, but rushed on with the hurry & brawl of the streamlet that cannot hide the stones clogging its flow. Altogether, she fancied herself happy; but there were moments when she might have said, with Miss Ingelow: “My old sorrow wakes & cries”; moments when all the hubbub of the present could not drown the low reproach of the past. It was a very thin partition that divided Georgie from her skeleton.

      One day, when the last Christmas guests had departed from Lowood, & the new relay had not arrived, Lord Breton, who was shut up with a sharp attack of gout, sent a servant to Georgie’s dressing-room, to say that he would like to see my lady. She came to him at once, for even his company, & his slow, pompous speeches, were better than that dreadful solitude; although gout did not sweeten his temper. “My dear,” he said, “seeing that ivory chess-board in the drawing-room yesterday suggested to me an occupation while I am confined to my chair. I used to be a fair player once. Will you kindly have the board brought up?” As it happened, Georgie had not played a game of chess since the afternoon of her parting with Guy, & her husband’s words, breaking upon a train of sad thought (she had been alone nearly all day) jarred her strangely. “Chess!” she said, with a start. “Oh, I—I had rather not. Excuse me. I hate chess. Couldn’t we play something else?” Lord Breton looked surprised. “Is the game so repugnant to you that I may not ask you to gratify me this afternoon?” he asked, serenely; & Georgie felt almost ashamed of her weakness. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I play very badly, & could only bore you.” “I think I can instruct you,” said Lord Breton, benignly; mistaking her aversion for humility, & delighted at the display of this wife-like virtue. “Oh, no, indeed. I am so stupid about those things. And I don’t like the game.” “I hoped you might conquer your dislike for my sake. You forget that I lead a more monotonous existence than yours, when confined by this unfortunate malady.” Lord Breton’s very tone spoke unutterable things; but if Georgie could have mastered her feeling, the spirit of opposition alone would have been enough to prick her on now. “I am sorry,” she said, coldly, “that my likes & dislikes are not under better control. I cannot play chess.” “You cannot, or will not?” “Whichever you please,” said Georgie, composedly. Lord Breton’s wrath became evident in the contraction of his heavy brows; that a man with his positive ideas about wifely submission, & marital authority, should have his reproofs answered thus! “I do not think,” he observed, “that you consider what you are saying.” “I seldom do,” said Georgia, with engaging frankness. “You know I am quite incorrigible.” “I confess, Lady Breton, I do not care for such trifling.” “I was afraid I was boring you. I am going to drive into Morley. Shall I order you any books from the library?” enquired Georgie, graciously. But as she rose to go, Lord Breton’s ire burst out. “Stay!” he exclaimed, turning red up to his rough eye-brows. “I repeat, Lady Breton, that I do not think you know what you are saying. This trivial evasion of so simple [a] request displeases me; & I must again ask you to sacrifice part of your afternoon to the claims of your husband.” Georgie, who [was] standing with her hand on the door, did not speak; but her eyes gave him back flash for flash. “Will you oblige me by ringing for the chess-board?” continued Lord Breton, rigidly. “Certainly. Perhaps you can get Williamson to play with you,” said Georgie, pulling the bell. (Williamson was my lord’s confidential valet.) “I beg your pardon. I believe I have already asked you to perform that function, Lady Breton.” “And I believe that I have already refused,” said Georgie, regaining her coolness in proportion as her husband grew more irate. At this moment, Williamson appeared, & Lord Breton ordered him to bring up the chessboard. When he was gone, Georgie saw that matters had gone too far for trifling. She had set her whole, strong will against playing the game, & she resolved that Lord Breton should know it at once. “I do not suppose,” she said, looking him directly in the face, “that you mean to drive me into obeying by force. Once for all, I cannot & I will not, do as you ask me. You have insulted me by speaking to me as if I were a perverse child, & not the head of your house; but I don’t mean to lose my temper. I know that gout is very trying.” With this Parthian shot, she turned & left the room. Lord Breton, boiling with rage, called after her—but what can a man tied to his chair with the gout do against a quick-witted strategist in petticoats? Lord Breton began to think that this wife-training was, after all, not mere child’s play. This was the first declaration of open war; but it put Lord Breton on the alert, & spurred Georgie into continual opposition. After all, she said to herself, quarrelling was better than [the] heavy monotony of peace; Lord Breton was perhaps not quite such a bore when worked into a genuine passion, as when trying to be ponderously gallant. Poor Georgie! When she appeared on her husband’s arm at the county balls & dinners in the flash of her diamonds & the rustle of her velvet & lace, it seemed a grand thing to be Lady Breton of Lowood; but often, after those very balls & dinners, when she had sent her hundred-eyed maid away, & stood before the mirror taking off her jewels, she felt that, like Cinderella, after one of those brief triumphs, she was going back to the ashes & rags of reality.

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VI.

      At Rome.

      “I & he, Brothers in art.”

      Tennyson.

      A large studio on the third floor of a Roman palazzo; a room littered & crowded & picturesque in its disorderliness, as only a studio can be. A white cast of Aphrodite relieved by a dull tapestry background representing a wan Susannah dipping her foot in the water, while two muddy-coloured elders glare through a time-eaten bough; an Italian stove surmounted by a coloured sporting print, a Toledo blade & a smashed Tyrolean hat; in one corner a lay-figure with the costumes of a nun, a brigand, a sultana & a Greek girl piled on indiscriminately; in another an easel holding a large canvas on which was roughly sketched the head of a handsome contadina. Such was the first mixed impression which the odd furnishing of the room gave to a newcomer; although a thousand lesser oddities, hung up, artist-fashion, everywhere, made a background of bright colours for these larger objects. It was a soft February day, & the window by which Guy Hastings sat (he was lounging on its broad, uncushioned sill) was opened; so that the draught blew the puffs from his cigarette hither & thither before his face. Jack Egerton, who shared the studio with him, was painting before a small easel, adding the last crimson touches to a wild Campagna sunset, & of course they kept the ball flying between them pretty steadily, as the one worked & the other watched. “That will be a success,” observed Guy, critically. “For whom did you say it was painted?” “A fellow named Graham, an English merchant, with about as much knowledge of art as you & I have of roadmaking. But it is such a delightful rarity to sell a picture, that I don’t care who gets it.” “How did he happen to be trapped?” Jack laughed. “Why, I met him at your handsome Marchese’s the other day, & she made a little speech about my superhuman genius, which led him to take some gracious notice of me. I hinted that he might have seen one of my pictures (that confounded thing that Vianelli’s had for a month) in a shop-window on the Corso, & he remembered it, & enquired the price. ‘Very sorry’ said I, ‘but the thing is sold. To an English Earl, an amateur, whose name I am not at liberty to mention.’ He gobbled the bait at once, ordered this at a splendid price, & I ran down to Vianelli’s, let him into my little game, told him to send the picture home at once, & then sent some flowers to the Marchese!” Guy laughed heartily at his friend’s ruse, & then observed, “I wish you had mentioned that I had some pictures which I would part with as a favour.” “By degrees, my boy, by degrees. He will come to the studio, to see this chef-d’oeuvre, & then you shall be introduced as a painter of whose fame he has of course etc., etc. By the way, I shouldn’t wonder if he came today.” Guy knocked the ashes off his cigarette & got up from his seat. “I thought Teresina would have come this morning,” he said, “but I hope she won’t. She gets so confoundedly frightened when anybody comes in, & one feels like such a fool.” “Guy!” said Egerton, suddenly, СКАЧАТЬ