The Golden Bowl - Henry James [192]
‘Oh if you and I and Amerigo are. Whenever one corners Charlotte,’ he had developed more at his ease, ‘one finds that she only wants to know what we want. Which is what we got her for!’
‘What we got her for – exactly!’ And so for a little, even though with a certain effect of oddity in their more or less successful ease, they left it; left it till Maggie made the remark that it was all the same wonderful her stepmother should be willing, before the season was out, to exchange so much company for so much comparative solitude.
‘Ah,’ he had then made answer, ‘that’s because her idea, I think, this time, is that we shall have more people, more than we’ve hitherto had, in the country. Don’t you remember that that, originally, was what we were to get her for?’
‘Oh yes – to give us a life.’ Maggie had gone through the form of recalling this, and the light of their ancient candour, shining from so far back, had seemed to bring out some things so strangely that, with the sharpness of the vision, she had risen to her feet. ‘Well, with a “life” Fawns will certainly do.’ He had remained in his place while she looked over his head; the picture, in her vision, had suddenly swarmed. The vibration was that of one of the lurches of the mystic train in which, with her companion, she was travelling; but she was having to steady herself this time before meeting his eyes. She had measured indeed the full difference between the move to Fawns because each of them now knew the others wanted it and the pairing-off, for a journey, of her husband and her father, which nobody knew that either wanted. ‘More company’ at Fawns would be effectually enough the key in which her husband and her stepmother were at work; there was truly no question but that she and her father must accept any array of visitors. No one could try to marry him now. What he had just said was a direct plea for that, and what was the plea itself but an act of submission to Charlotte? He had, from his chair, been noting her look, but he had the next minute also risen, and then it was they had reminded each other of their having come out for the boy. Their junction with him and with his companion successfully effected, the four had moved home more slowly and still more vaguely; yet with a vagueness that permitted of Maggie’s reverting an instant to the larger issue. ‘If we have people in the country then, as you were saying, do you know for whom my first fancy would be? You may be amused, but it would be for the Castledeans.’
‘I see. But why should I be amused?’
‘Well, I mean I am myself. I don’t think I like her – and yet I like to see her: which, as Amerigo says, is “rum”.’
‘But don’t you feel she’s very handsome?’ her father enquired.
‘Yes, but it isn’t for that.’
‘Then what is it for?’
‘Simply that she may be there – just there before us. It’s as if she may have a value – as if something may come of her. I don’t in the least know what, and she rather irritates me meanwhile. I don’t even know, I admit, why – but if we see her often enough I may find out.’
‘Does it matter so very much?’ her companion had asked while they moved together.
She had hesitated. ‘You mean because you do rather like her?’
He on his side too had waited a little, but then he had taken it from her. ‘Yes, I guess I do rather like her.’
Which she accepted for the first case she could recall of their not being affected by a person in the same way. It came back therefore to his pretending; but she had gone far enough, and to add to her appearance of levity she further observed that though they were so far from a novelty she should also immediately desire at Fawns the presence of the Assinghams. That put everything on a basis independent of explanations; yet it was extraordinary at the same time how much, once in the country again with the others, she was going, as they used to say at home, to need the presence of the good Fanny. It was the strangest thing in the world, but it was as if Mrs Assingham might in a manner mitigate the intensity of her consciousness of Charlotte. It was as if the two would balance, one against the other; as if it came round again in that fashion to her idea of the equilibrium. It would be like putting this friend into her scale to make weight