The Golden Bowl by Henry James; Ruth Bernard Yeazell; Philip Horne

Author:Henry James; Ruth Bernard Yeazell; Philip Horne
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: classics
ISBN: 9780199538584
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1904-01-02T10:00:00+00:00

11

‘I can’t say more,’ this made his companion reply, ‘than that something in her face, her voice and her whole manner acted upon me as nothing in her had ever acted before; and just for the reason, above all, that I felt her trying her very best – and her very best, poor duck, is very good – to be quiet and natural. It’s when one sees people who always are natural making little pale pathetic blinking efforts for it – then it is that one knows something’s the matter. I can’t describe my impression – you’d have had it for yourself. And the only thing that ever can be the matter with Maggie is that. By “that” I mean her beginning to doubt. To doubt, for the first time,’ Mrs Assingham wound up, ‘of her wonderful little judgment of her wonderful little world.’

It was impressive, Fanny’s vision, and the Colonel, as if himself agitated by it, took another turn of prowling. ‘To doubt of fidelity – to doubt of friendship! Poor duck indeed! It will go hard with her. But she’ll put it all,’ he concluded, ‘on Charlotte.’

Mrs Assingham, still darkly contemplative, denied this with a headshake. ‘She won’t “put” it anywhere. She won’t do with it anything any one else would. She’ll take it all herself.’

‘You mean she’ll make it out her own fault?’

‘Yes – she’ll find means somehow to arrive at that.’

‘Ah then,’ the Colonel dutifully declared, ‘she’s indeed a little brick!’

‘Oh,’ his wife returned, ‘you’ll see in one way or another to what tune!’ And she spoke, of a sudden, with an approach to elation – so that, as if immediately feeling his surprise, she turned round to him. ‘She’ll see me somehow through!’

‘See you –?’

‘Yes, me. I’m the worst. For,’ said Fanny Assingham, now with a harder exaltation, ‘I did it all. I recognise that – I accept it. She won’t cast it up at me – she won’t cast up anything. So I throw myself upon her – she’ll bear me up.’ She spoke almost volubly – she held him with her sudden sharpness. ‘She’ll carry the whole weight of us.’

There was still nevertheless wonder in it. ‘You mean she won’t mind? I say, love –!’ And he not unkindly stared. ‘Then where’s the difficulty?’

‘There isn’t any!’ Fanny declared with the same rich emphasis.

It kept him indeed, as by the loss of the thread, looking at her longer. ‘Ah you mean there isn’t any for us!’

She met his look for a minute as if it perhaps a little too much imputed a selfishness, a concern for their own surface at any cost. Then she might have been deciding that their own surface was after all what they had most to consider. ‘Not,’ she said with dignity, ‘if we properly keep our heads.’ She appeared even to signify that they would begin by keeping them now. This was what it was to have at last a constituted basis. ‘Do you remember what you said to

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