Henry James - Henry James - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 10)

“Don’t envy Hudson; he has nothing to envy.”

Singleton grinned at what he considered a harmless jest. “Yes, he’s going to be the great man of our time! And I say, Mr. Mallet, is n’t it a mighty comfort that it’s we who have turned him out?”

“Between ourselves,” said Rowland, “he has disappointed me.”

Singleton stared, open-mouthed. “Dear me, what did you expect?”

“Truly,” said Rowland to himself, “what did I expect?”

“I confess,” cried Singleton, “I can’t judge him rationally. He fascinates me; he’s the sort of man one makes one’s hero of.”

“Strictly speaking, he is not a hero,” said Rowland.

Singleton looked intensely grave, and, with almost tearful eyes, “Is there anything amiss — anything out of the way, about him?” he timidly asked. Then, as Rowland hesitated to reply, he quickly added, “Please, if there is, don’t tell me! I want to know no evil of him, and I think I should hardly believe it. In my memories of this Roman artist-life, he will be the central figure. He will stand there in radiant relief, as beautiful and unspotted as one of his own statues!”

“Amen!” said Rowland, gravely. He remembered afresh that the sea is inhabited by big fishes and little, and that the latter often find their way down the throats of the former. Singleton was going to spend the afternoon in taking last looks at certain other places, and Rowland offered to join him on his sentimental circuit. But as they were preparing to leave the church, he heard himself suddenly addressed from behind. Turning, he beheld a young woman whom he immediately recognized as Madame Grandoni’s maid. Her mistress was present, she said, and begged to confer with him before he departed.

This summons obliged Rowland to separate from Singleton, to whom he bade farewell. He followed the messenger, and presently found Madame Grandoni occupying a liberal area on the steps of the tribune, behind the great altar, where, spreading a shawl on the polished red marble, she had comfortably seated herself. He expected that she had something especial to impart, and she lost no time in bringing forth her treasure.

“Don’t shout very loud,” she said, “remember that we are in church; there’s a limit to the noise one may make even in Saint Peter’s. Christina Light was married this morning to Prince Casamassima.”

Rowland did not shout at all; he gave a deep, short murmur: “Married — this morning?”

“Married this morning, at seven o’clock, le plus tranquillement du monde, before three or four persons. The young couple left Rome an hour afterwards.”

For some moments this seemed to him really terrible; the dark little drama of which he had caught a glimpse had played itself out. He had believed that Christina would resist; that she had succumbed was a proof that the pressure had been cruel. Rowland’s imagination followed her forth with an irresistible tremor into the world toward which she was rolling away, with her detested husband and her stifled ideal; but it must be confessed that if the first impulse of his compassion was for Christina, the second was for Prince Casamassima. Madame Grandoni acknowledged an extreme curiosity as to the secret springs of these strange doings: Casamassima’s sudden dismissal, his still more sudden recall, the hurried private marriage. “Listen,” said Rowland, hereupon, “and I will tell you something.” And he related, in detail, his last visit to Mrs. Light and his talk with this lady, with Christina, and with the Cavaliere.

“Good,” she said; “it’s all very curious. But it’s a riddle, and I only half guess it.”

“Well,” said Rowland, “I desire to harm no one; but certain suppositions have taken shape in my mind which serve as a solvent to several ambiguities.”

“It is very true,” Madame Grandoni answered, “that the Cavaliere, as he stands, has always needed to be explained.”

“He is explained by the hypothesis that, three-and-twenty years ago, at Ancona, Mrs. Light had a lover.”

“I see. Ancona was dull, Mrs. Light was lively, and — three-and-twenty years ago — perhaps, the Cavaliere was fascinating. Doubtless it would be fairer to say that he was fascinated. Poor Giacosa!”

“He has had his compensation,” Rowland said. “He has been passionately fond of Christina.”

“Naturally. But has Christina never wondered why?”

“If she had been near guessing, her mother’s shabby treatment of him would have put her off the scent. Mrs. Light’s conscience has apparently told her that she could expiate an hour’s too great kindness by twenty years’ contempt. So she kept her secret. But what is the profit of having a secret unless you can make some use of it? The day at last came when she could turn hers to account; she could let the skeleton out of the closet and create a panic.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I morally,” said Rowland. “I only conceive that there was a horrible, fabulous scene. The poor Cavaliere stood outside, at the door, white as a corpse and as dumb. The mother and daughter had it out together. Mrs. Light burnt her ships. When she came out she had three lines of writing in her daughter’s hand, which the Cavaliere was dispatched with to the prince. They overtook the young man in time, and, when he reappeared, he was delighted to dispense with further waiting. I don’t know what he thought of the look in his bride’s face; but that is how I roughly reconstruct history.”

“Christina was forced to decide, then, that she could not afford not to be a princess?”

“She was reduced by humiliation. She was assured that it was not for her to make conditions, but to thank her stars that there were none made for her. If she persisted, she might find it coming to pass that there would be conditions, and the formal rupture — the rupture that the world would hear of and pry into — would then proceed from the prince and not from her.”

“That’s all nonsense!” said Madame Grandoni, energetically.

“To us, yes; but not to the proudest girl in the world, deeply wounded in her pride, and not stopping to calculate probabilities, but muffling her shame, with an almost sensuous relief, in a splendor that stood within her grasp and asked no questions. Is it not possible that the late Mr. Light had made an outbreak before witnesses who are still living?”

“Certainly her marriage now,” said Madame Grandoni, less analytically, “has the advantage that it takes her away from her — parents!”

This lady’s farther comments upon the event are not immediately pertinent to our history; there were some other comments of which Rowland had a deeply oppressive foreboding. He called, on the evening of the morrow upon Mrs. Hudson, and found Roderick with the two ladies. Their companion had apparently but lately entered, and Rowland afterwards learned that it was his first appearance since the writing of the note which had so distressed his mother. He had flung himself upon a sofa, where he sat with his chin upon his breast, staring before him with a sinister spark in his eye. He fixed his gaze on Rowland, but gave him no greeting. He had evidently been saying something to startle the women; Mrs. Hudson had gone and seated herself, timidly and imploringly, on the edge of the sofa, trying to take his hand. Miss Garland was applying herself to some needlework with conscious intentness.

Mrs. Hudson gave Rowland, on his entrance, a touching look of gratitude. “Oh, we have such blessed news!” she said. “Roderick is ready to leave Rome.”

“It’s not blessed news; it’s most damnable news!” cried Roderick.

“Oh, but we are very glad, my son, and I am sure you will be when you get away. You’re looking most dreadfully thin; is n’t he, Mr. Mallet? It’s plain enough you need a change. I ’m sure we will go wherever you like. Where would you like to go?”