The Awkward Age - Henry James (ap literature book list .txt) đ
- Author: Henry James
- Performer: -
Book online «The Awkward Age - Henry James (ap literature book list .txt) đ». Author Henry James
If there was something serious in Nanda and something blank in their companion, there was, superficially at least, nothing in Mr. Mitchett but his usual flush of gaiety. âDid she really send you off this way alone?â Then while the girlâs face met his own with the clear confession of it: âIsnât she too splendid for anything?â he asked with immense enjoyment. âWhat do you suppose is her idea?â Nandaâs eyes had now turned to Mr. Longdon, whom she fixed with her mild straightness; which led to Mitchyâs carrying on and repeating the appeal. âIsnât Mrs. Brook charming? What do you suppose is her idea?â
It was a bound into the mystery, a bound of which his fellow visitor stood quite unconscious, only looking at Nanda still with the same coldness of wonder. All expression had for the minute been arrested in Mr. Longdon, but he at last began to show that it had merely been retarded. Yet it was almost with solemnity that he put forth his hand. âHow do you do? How do you do? Iâm so glad!â
Nanda shook hands with him as if she had done so already, though it might have been just her look of curiosity that detracted from her air of amusing herself. âMother has wanted me awfully to see you. She told me to give you her love,â she said. Then she added with odd irrelevance: âI didnât come in the carriage, nor in a cab nor an omnibus.â
âYou came on a bicycle?â Mitchy enquired.
âNo, I walked.â She still spoke without a gleam. âMother wants me to do everything.â
âEven to walk!â Mitchy laughed. âOh yes, we must in these times keep up our walking!â The ingenious observer just now suggested might even have detected in the still higher rise of this visitorâs spirits a want of mere inward ease.
She had taken no notice of the effect upon him of her mention of her mother, and she took none, visibly, of Mr. Longdonâs manner or of his words. What she did while the two men, without offering her, either, a seat, practically lost themselves in their deepening vision, was to give her attention all to the place, looking at the books, pictures and other significant objects, and especially at the small table set out for tea, to which the servant who had admitted her now returned with a steaming kettle. âIsnât it charming here? Will there be any one else? Where IS Mr. Van? Shall I make tea?â There was just a faint quaver, showing a command of the situation more desired perhaps than achieved, in the very rapid sequence of these ejaculations. The servant meanwhile had placed the hot water above the little silver lamp and left the room.
âDo you suppose thereâs anything the matter? Oughtnât the manâor do you know our hostâs room?â Mr. Longdon, addressing Mitchy with solicitude, yet began to show in a countenance less blank a return of his sense of relations. It was as if something had happened to him and he were in haste to convert the signs of it into an appearance of care for the proprieties.
âOh,â said Mitchy, âVanâs only making himself beautifulââwhich account of their absent entertainer gained a point from his appearance at the moment in the doorway furthest removed from the place where the three were gathered.
Vanderbank came in with friendly haste and with something of the look indeedârefreshed, almost rosy, brightly brushed and quickly buttonedâ of emerging, out of breath, from pleasant ablutions and renewals. âWhat a brute to have kept you waiting! I came back from work quite begrimed. How dâye do, how dâye do, how dâye do? Whatâs the matter with you, huddled there as if you were on a street-crossing? I want you to think this a refugeâbut not of that kind!â he laughed. âSit down, for heavenâs sake; lie downâbe happy! Of course youâve made acquaintance allâexcept that Mitchyâs so modest! Tea, tea!ââand he bustled to the table, where the next minute he appeared rather helpless. âNanda, you blessed child, do YOU mind making it? How jolly of you!âare you all right?â He seemed, with this, for the first time, to be aware of somebodyâs absence. âYour mother isnât coming? She let you come alone? How jolly of her!â Pulling off her gloves Nanda had come immediately to his assistance; on which, quitting the table and laying hands on Mr. Longdonâs shoulder to push him toward a sofa, he continued to talk, to sound a note of which the humour was the exaggeration of his flurry. âHow jolly of you to be willing to comeâmost awfully kind! I hope she isnât ill? Do, Mitchy, lie down. Down, Mitchy, down!âthatâs the only way to keep you.â He had waited for no account of Mrs. Brookenhamâs health, and it might have been apparentâstill to our sharp spectatorâ that he found nothing wonderful in her daughterâs unsupported arrival.
âI can make tea beautifully,â she said from behind her table. âMother showed me how this morning.â
âThis morning?ââand Mitchy, who, before the fire and still erect, had declined to be laid low, greeted the simple remark with uproarious mirth. âDear young lady, youâre the most delicious family!â
âShe showed me at breakfast about the little things to do. She thought I might have to make it here and told me to offer,â the girl went on. âI havenât yet done it this way at homeâI usually have my tea upstairs. They bring it up in a cup, all made and very weak, with a piece of bread-and-butter in the saucer. Thatâs because Iâm so young. Tishy never lets me touch hers either; so we had to make up for lost time. Thatâs what mother saidââshe followed up her story, and her young distinctness had clearly something to do with a certain pale concentration in Mr. Longdonâs face. âMother isnât ill, but she told me already yesterday she wouldnât come. She said itâs really all for ME. Iâm sure I hope it is!â âwith which there flickered in her eyes, dimly but perhaps all the more prettily, the first intimation they had given of the light of laughter. âShe told me youâd understand, Mr. Vanâfrom something youâve said to her. Itâs for my seeing Mr. Longdon withoutâshe thinksâher spoiling it.â
âOh my dear child, âspoiling itâ!â Vanderbank protested as he took a cup of tea from her to carry to their friend. âWhen did your mother ever spoil anything? I told her Mr. Longdon wanted to see you, but I didnât say anything of his not yearning also for the rest of the family.â
A sound of protest rather formless escaped from the gentleman named, but Nanda continued to carry out her duty. âShe told me to ask why he hadnât been again to see her. Mr. Mitchy, sugar?âisnât that the way to say it? Three lumps? Youâre like me, only that I more often take five.â Mitchy had dashed forward for his tea; she gave it to him; then she added with her eyes on Mr. Longdonâs, which she had had no difficulty in catching: âShe told me to ask you all sorts of things.â
This acquaintance had got up to take his cup from Vanderbank, whose hand, however, dealt with him on the question of his sitting down again. Mr. Longdon, resisting, kept erect with a low gasp that his host only was near enough to catch. This suddenly appeared to confirm an impression gathered by Vanderbank in their contact, a strange sense that his visitor was so agitated as to be trembling in every limb. It brought to his own lips a kind of ejaculationââI SAY!â But even as he spoke Mr. Longdonâs face, still white, but with a smile that was not all pain, seemed to supplicate him not to notice; and he was not a man to require more than this to achieve a divination as deep as it was rapid. âWhy weâve all been scattered for Easter, havenât we?â he asked of Nanda. âMr. Longdon has been at home, your mother and father have been paying visits, I myself have been out of London, Mitchy has been to Paris, and youâoh yes, I know where youâve been.â
âAh we all know thatâthere has been such a row made about it!â Mitchy said.
âYes, Iâve heard of the feeling there is,â Nanda replied.
âItâs supposed to be awful, my knowing Tishyâquite too awful.â
Mr. Longdon, with Vanderbankâs covert aid, had begun to appear to have pulled himself together, dropping back on his sofa and attending in a manner to his tea. It might have been with the notion of showing himself at ease that he turned, on this, a benevolent smile to the girl. âBut what, my dear, is the objectionâ?â
She looked gravely from him to Vanderbank and to Mitchy, and then back again from one of these to the other. âDo you think I ought to say?â
They both laughed and they both just appeared uncertain, but Vanderbank spoke first. âI donât imagine, Nanda, that you really know.â
âNoâas a family, youâre perfection!â Mitchy broke out. Before the fire again, with his cup, he addressed his hilarity to Mr. Longdon. âI told you a tremendous lot, didnât I? But I didnât tell you about that.â
His elder maintained, yet with a certain vagueness, the attitude of amiable enquiry. âAbout theâaâfamily?â
âWell,â Mitchy smiled, âabout its ramifications. This young lady has a tremendous friendshipâand in short itâs all very complicated.â
âMy dear Nanda,â said Vanderbank, âitâs all very simple. Donât believe a word of anything of the sort.â
He had spoken as with the intention of a large vague optimism; but there was plainly something in the girl that would always make for lucidity. âDo you mean about Carrie Donner? I DONâT believe it, and at any rate I donât think itâs any oneâs business. I shouldnât have a very high opinion of a person who would give up a friend.â She stopped short with the sense apparent that she was saying more than she meant, though, strangely, as if it had been an effect of her type and of her voice, there was neither pertness nor passion in the profession she had just made. Curiously wanting as she seemed both in timidity and in levity, she was to a certainty not self-consciousâshe was extraordinarily simple. Mr. Longdon looked at her now with an evident surrender to his extreme interest, and it might well have perplexed him to see her at once so downright as from experience and yet of so fresh and sweet a tenderness of youth.
âThatâs right, thatâs right, my dear young lady: never, never give up a friend for anything any one says!â It was Mitchy who rang out with this lively wisdom, the action of which on Mr. Longdonâunless indeed it was the action of something elseâwas to make that personage, in a manner that held the others watching him in slight suspense, suddenly spring to his feet again, put down his teacup carefully on a table near and then without a word, as if no one had been present, quietly wander away and disappear through the door left open on Vanderbankâs entrance. It opened into a second, a smaller sitting-room, into which the eyes of his companions followed him.
âWhatâs the matter?â Nanda asked. âHas he been taken ill?â
âHe IS ârum,â my dear Van,â Mitchy said; âbut youâre rightâof a charm, a distinction! In short just the sort of thing we
Comments (0)