Lady Barbarina, The Siege of London, An International Episode, and Other Tales. Генри Джеймс

“I recommend you to read that book,” she added.

      “Is it interesting?”

      “It’s an American novel.”

      “I never read novels.”

      “You had really better look at that one.  It will show you the kind of people you want me to know.”

      “I’ve no doubt it’s very vulgar,” Jackson said.  “I don’t see why you read it.”

      “What else can I do?  I can’t always be riding in the Park.  I hate the Park,” she quite rang out.

      “It’s just as good as your own,” said her husband.

      She glanced at him with a certain quickness, her eyebrows slightly lifted.  “Do you mean the park at Pasterns?”

      “No; I mean the park in London.”

      “Oh I don’t care about London.  One was only in London a few weeks.”  She had a horrible lovely ease.

      Yet he but wanted to help her to turn round.  “I suppose you miss the country,” he suggested.  It was his idea of life that he shouldn’t be afraid of anything, not be afraid, in any situation, of knowing the worst that was to be known about it; and the demon of a courage with which discretion was not properly commingled prompted him to take soundings that were perhaps not absolutely necessary for safety and yet that revealed unmistakable rocks.  It was useless to know about rocks if he couldn’t avoid them; the only thing was to trust to the wind.

      “I don’t know what I miss.  I think I miss everything!”  This was his wife’s answer to his too-curious inquiry.  It wasn’t peevish, for that wasn’t the tone of a calm goddess; but it expressed a good deal—a good deal more than Lady Barb, who was rarely eloquent, had expressed before.  Nevertheless, though his question had been precipitate, Jackson said to himself that he might take his time to think over what her fewness of words enclosed; he couldn’t help seeing that the future would give him plenty of chance.  He was in no hurry to ask himself whether poor Mrs. Freer, in Jermyn Street, mightn’t after all have been right in saying that when it came to marrying an English caste-product it wasn’t so simple to be an American doctor—it might avail little even in such a case to be the heir of all the ages.  The transition was complicated, but in his bright mind it was rapid, from the brush of a momentary contact with such ideas to certain considerations which led him to go on after an instant: “Should you like to go down into Connecticut?”

      “Into Connecticut?”

      “That’s one of our States.  It’s about as large as Ireland.  I’ll take you there if you like.”

      “What does one do there?”

      “We can try and get some hunting.”

      “You and I alone?”

      “Perhaps we can get a party to join us.”

      “The people in the State?”

      “Yes—we might propose it to them.”

      “The tradespeople in the towns?”

      “Very true—they’ll have to mind their shops,” Jackson said.  “But we might hunt alone.”

      “Are there any foxes?”

      “No, but there are a few old cows.”

      Lady Barb had already noted that her husband sought the relief of a laugh at her expense, and she was aware that this present opportunity was neither worse nor better than some others.  She didn’t mind that trick in him particularly now, though in England it would have disgusted her; she had the consciousness of virtue, an immense comfort, and flattered herself she had learned the lesson of an altered standard of fitness—besides which there were so many more disagreeable things in America than being laughed at by one’s husband.  But she pretended not to like it because this made him stop, and above all checked discussion, which with Jackson was habitually so facetious and consequently so tiresome.  “I only want to be left alone,” she said in answer—though indeed it hadn’t the style of an answer—to his speech about the cows.  With this she wandered away to one of the windows that looked out on the Fifth Avenue.  She was very fond of these windows and had taken a great fancy to the Fifth Avenue, which, in the high-pitched winter weather, when everything sparkled, was bright and funny and foreign.  It will be seen that she was not wholly unjust to her adoptive country: she found it delightful to look out of the window.  This was a pleasure she had enjoyed in London only in the most furtive manner; it wasn’t the kind of thing that girls in England did.  Besides, in London, in Hill Street, there was nothing particular to see; whereas in the Fifth Avenue everything and every one went by, and observation was made consistent with dignity by the quantities of brocade and lace dressing the embrasure, which somehow wouldn’t have been tidy in England and which made an ambush without concealing the brilliant day.  Hundreds of women—the queer women of New York, who were unlike any that Lady Barb had hitherto seen—passed the house every hour; and her ladyship was infinitely entertained and mystified by the sight of their clothes.  She spent more time than she was aware of in this recreation, and had she been addicted to returning upon herself, to asking herself for an account of her conduct—an inquiry she didn’t indeed completely neglect, but made no great form of—she must have had a wan smile for this proof of what she appeared mainly to have come to America for, conscious though she was that her tastes were very simple and that so long as she didn’t hunt it didn’t much matter what she did.

      Her husband turned about to the fire, giving a push with his foot to a log that had fallen out of its place.  Then he said—and the connexion with the words she had just uttered was direct enough—“You really must manage to be at home on Sundays, you know.  I used to like that so much in London.  All the best women here do it.  You had better begin to-day.  I’m going to see my mother.  If I meet any one I’ll tell them to come.”

      “Tell them not to talk so much,” said Lady Barb among her lace curtains.

      “Ah, my dear,” Jackson returned, “it isn’t every one who has your concision.”  And he went and stood behind her in the window, putting his arm round her waist.  It was as much of a satisfaction to him as it had been six months before, at the time the solicitors were settling the matter, that this flower of an ancient stem should be worn upon his own breast; he still thought its fragrance a thing quite apart, and it was as clear as day to him that his wife was the handsomest woman in New York.  He had begun, after their arrival, by telling her this very often; but the assurance brought no colour to her cheek, no light to her eyes: to be the handsomest woman in New York, now that she was acquainted with that city, plainly failed to strike her as a position in life.  The reader may, moreover, be informed that, oddly enough, Lady Barb didn’t particularly believe this assertion.  There were some very pretty women in New York, and without in the least wishing to be like them—she had seen no woman in America whom she desired to resemble—she envied them some of their peculiar little freshnesses.  It’s probable that her own finest points were those of which she was most unconscious.  But Jackson was intensely aware of all of them; nothing could exceed the minuteness of his appreciation of his wife.  It was a sign of this that after he had stood behind her a moment he kissed her very tenderly.  “Have you any message for my mother?” he asked.

      “Please give her my love.  And you might take her that book.”

      “What book?”

      “That nasty one I’ve been reading.”

      “Oh bother your books!” he cried with a certain irritation as he went out of the room.

      There had been a good many things in her life in New York that cost her an effort, but sending her love to her mother-in-law was not one of these.  She liked Mrs. Lemon better than any one she had seen in America; she was the only person who seemed to Lady Barb really simple, as she herself understood that quality.  Many people had struck her as homely and rustic and many others as pretentious and vulgar; but in Jackson’s mother she had found the golden mean of a discretion, of a native felicity and modesty and decency, which, as she would have said, were really nice.  Her sister, Lady Agatha, was even