6

 

One afternoon, at last, however, as I came down from my quarters to go out, I found her in the sala: it was our first encounter on that ground since I had come to the house.  She put on no air of being there by accident; there was an ignorance of such arts in her honest angular diffidence.  That I might be quite sure she was waiting for me she mentioned it at once, but telling me with it that Miss Bordereau wished to see me: she would take me into the room at that moment if I had time.  If I had been late for a love-tryst I would have stayed for this, and I quickly signified that I should be delighted to wait on my benefactress.  'She wants to talk with you - to know you,' Miss Tina said, smiling as if she herself appreciated that idea; and she led me to the door of her aunt's apartment.  I stopped her a moment before she had opened it, looking at her with some curiosity.  I told her that this was a great satisfaction to me and a great honour; but all the same I should like to ask what had made Miss Bordereau so markedly and suddenly change.  It had been only the other day that she wouldn't suffer me near her.  Miss Tina was not embarrassed by my question; she had as many little unexpected serenities, plausibilities almost, as if she told fibs, but the odd part of them was that that had on the contrary their source in her truthfulness.

      'Oh my aunt varies,' she answered; 'it's so terribly dull - I suppose she's tired.'

      'But you told me she wanted more and more to be alone.'

      Poor Miss Tina coloured as if she found me too pushing.  'Well, if you don't believe she wants to see you, I haven't invented it!  I think people often are capricious when they're very old.'

      'That's perfectly true.  I only wanted to be clear as to whether you've repeated to her what I told you the other night.'

      'What you told me?'

      'About Jeffery Aspern - that I'm looking for materials.'

      'If I had told her do you think she'd have sent for you?'

      'That's exactly what I want to know.  If she wants to keep him to herself she might have sent for me to tell me so.'

      'She won't speak of him,' said Miss Tina.  Then as she opened the door she added in a lower tone: 'I told her nothing.'

      The old woman was sitting in the same place in which I had seen her last, in the same position, with the same mystifying bandage over her eyes.  Her welcome was to turn her almost invisible face to me and show me that while she sat silent she saw me clearly.  I made no motion to shake hands with her; I now felt too well that this was out of place for ever.  It had been sufficiently enjoined on me that she was too sacred for trivial modernisms - too venerable to touch.  There was something so grim in her aspect - it was partly the accident of her green shade - as I stood there to be measured, that I ceased on the spot to doubt her suspecting me, though I didn't in the least myself suspect that Miss Tina hadn't just spoken the truth.  She hadn't betrayed me, but the old woman's brooding instinct had served her; she had turned me over and over in the long still hours and had guessed.  The worst of it was that she looked terribly like an old woman who at a pinch would, even like Sardanapalus, burn her treasure.  Miss Tina pushed a chair forward, saying to me, 'This will be a good place for you to sit.'  As I took possession of it I asked after Miss Bordereau's health; expressed the hope that in spite of the very hot weather it was satisfactory.  She answered that it was good enough - good enough; that it was a great thing to be alive.

      'Oh as to that, it depends upon what you compare it with!' I returned with a laugh.

      'I don't compare - I don't compare.  If I did that I should have given everything up long ago.'

      I liked to take this for a subtle allusion to the rapture she had known in the society of Jeffery Aspern - though it was true that such an allusion would have accorded ill with the wish I imputed to her to keep him buried in her soul.  What it accorded with was my constant conviction that no human being had ever had a happier social gift than his, and what it seemed to convey was that nothing in the world was worth speaking of if one pretended to speak of that.  But one didn't pretend!  Miss Tina sat down beside her aunt, looking as if she had reason to believe some wonderful talk would come off between us.

      'It's about the beautiful flowers,' said the old lady, 'you sent us so many - I ought to have thanked you for them before.  But I don't write letters and I receive company but at long intervals.'

      She hadn't thanked me while the flowers continued to come, but she departed from her custom so far as to send for me as soon as she began to fear they wouldn't come any more.  I noted this; I remembered what an acquisitive propensity she had shown when it was a question of extracting gold from me, and I privately rejoiced at the happy thought I had had in suspending my tribute.  She had missed it and was willing to make a concession to bring it back.  At the first sign of this concession I could only go to meet her.  'I'm afraid you haven't had many, of late, but they shall begin again immediately - tomorrow, tonight.'

      'Oh do send us some tonight!' Miss Tina cried as if it were a great affair.

      'What else should you do with them?  It isn't a manly taste to make a bower of your room,' the old woman remarked.

      'I don't make a bower of my room, but I'm exceedingly fond of growing flowers, of watching their ways.  There's nothing unmanly in that; it has been the amusement of philosophers, of statesmen in retirement; even, I think, of great captains.'

      'I suppose you know you can sell them - those you don't use,' Miss Bordereau went on.  'I daresay they wouldn't give you much for them; still, you could make a bargain.'

      'Oh I've never in my life made a bargain, as you ought pretty well to have gathered.  My gardener disposes of them and I ask no questions.'

      'I'd ask a few, I can promise you!' said Miss Bordereau; and it was so I first heard the strange sound of her laugh, which was as if the faint 'walking' ghost of her old-time tone had suddenly cut a caper.  I couldn't get used to the idea that this vision of pecuniary profit was most what drew out the divine Juliana.

      'Come into the garden yourself and pick them; come as often as you like; come every day.  The flowers are all for you,' I pursued, addressing Miss Tina and carrying off this veracious statement by treating it as an innocent joke.  'I can't imagine why she doesn't come down,' I added for Miss Bordereau's benefit.

      'You must make her come; you must come up and fetch her,' the old woman said to my stupefaction.  'That odd thing you've made in the corner will do very well for her to sit in.'

      The allusion to the most elaborate of my shady covets, a sketchy 'summerhouse', was irreverent; it confirmed the impression I had already received that there was a flicker of impertinence in Miss Bordereau's talk, a vague echo of the boldness or the archness of her adventurous youth and which had somehow automatically outlived passions and faculties.  Nonetheless I asked: 'Wouldn't it be possible for you to come down there yourself?  Wouldn't it do you good to sit there in the shade and the sweet air?'

      'Oh sir, when I move out of this it won't be to sit in the air, and I'm afraid that any that may be stirring around me won't be particularly sweet!  It will be a very dark shade indeed.  But that won't be just yet,' Miss Bordereau continued cannily, as if to correct any hopes this free glance at the last receptacle of her mortality might lead me to entertain.  'I've sat here many a day and have had enough of arbours in my time.  But I'm not afraid to wait till I'm called.'

      Miss Tina had expected, as I felt, rare conversation, but perhaps she found it less gracious on her aunt's side - considering I had been sent for with a civil intention - than she had hoped.  As to give the position a turn that would put our companion in a light more favourable she said to me: 'Didn't I tell you the other night that she had sent me out?  You see I can do what I like!'

      'Do you pity her - do you teach her to pity herself?' Miss Bordereau demanded, before I had time to answer this appeal.  'She has a much easier life than I had at her age.'

      'You must remember it has been quite open to me,' I said, 'to think you rather inhuman.'

      'Inhuman?  That's what the poets used to call the women a hundred years ago.  Don't try that; you won't do as well as they!' Juliana went on.  'There's no more poetry in the world - that I know of at least.  But I won't bandy words with you,' she said, and I well remember the old-fashioned artificial sound she gave the speech.  'You make me talk, talk, talk!  It isn't good for me at all.'  I got up at this and told her I would take no more of her time; but she detained me to put a question.  'Do you remember, the day I saw you about the rooms, that you offered us the use of your gondola?'  And when I assented promptly, struck again with her disposition to make a 'good thing' of my being there and wondering what she now had in her eye, she produced: 'Why don't you take that girl out in it and show her the place?'

      'Oh dear aunt, what do you want to do with me?' cried the 'girl' with a piteous quaver.  'I know all about the place!'

      'Well then go with him and explain!' said Miss Bordereau, who gave an effect of cruelty to her implacable power of retort.  This showed her as a sarcastic profane cynical old woman.  'Haven't we heard that there have been all sorts of changes in all these years?  You ought to see them, and at your age - I don't mean because you're so young - you ought to take the chances that come.  You're old enough, my dear, and this gentleman won't hurt you.  He'll show you the famous sunsets, if they still go on - do they go on?  The sun set for me so long ago.  But that's not a reason.  Besides, I shall never miss you; you think you're too important.  Take her to the Piazza; it used to be very pretty,' Miss Bordereau continued, addressing herself to me.  'What have they done with the funny old church?  I hope it hasn't tumbled down.  Let her look at the shops; she may take some money, she may buy what she likes.'

      Poor Miss Tina had got up, discountenanced and helpless, and as we stood there before her aunt it would certainly have struck a spectator of the scene that our venerable friend was making rare sport of us.  Miss Tina protested in a confusion of exclamations and murmurs; but I lost no time in saying that if she would do me the honour to accept the hospitality of my boat I would engage she really shouldn't be bored.  Or if she didn't want so much of my company the boat itself, with the gondolier, was at her service; he was a capital oar and she might have every confidence.  Miss Tina, without definitely answering this speech, looked away from me and out of the window, quite as if about to weep, and I remarked that once we had Miss Bordereau's approval we could easily come to an understanding.  We would take an hour, whichever she liked, one of the very next days.  As I made my obeisance to the old lady I asked her if she would kindly permit me to see her again.

      For a moment she kept me; then she said: 'Is it very necessary to your happiness?'

      'It diverts me more than I can say.'

      'You're wonderfully civil.  Don't you know it almost kills me?'

      'How can I believe that when I see you more animated, more brilliant than when I came in?'

      'That's very true, aunt,' said Miss Tina.  'I think it does you good.'

      'Isn't it touching, the solicitude we each have that the other shall enjoy herself?' sneered Miss Bordereau.  'If you think me brilliant today you don't know what you're talking about; you've never seen an agreeable woman.  What do you people know about good society?' she cried; but before I could tell her, 'Don't try to pay me a compliment; I've been spoiled,' she went on.  'My door's shut, but you may sometimes knock.'

      With this she dismissed me and I left the room.  The latch closed behind me, but Miss Tina, contrary to my hope, had remained within.  I passed slowly across the hall and before taking my way downstairs waited a little.  My hope was answered; after a minute my conductress followed me.  'That's a delightful idea about the Piazza,' I said.  'When will you go - tonight, tomorrow?'

      She had been disconcerted, as I have mentioned, but I had already perceived, and I was to observe again, that when Miss Tina was embarrassed she didn't - as most women would have in like case - turn away, floundering and hedging, but came closer, as it were, with a deprecating, a clinging appeal to be spared, to be protected.  Her attitude was a constant prayer for aid and explanation, and yet no woman in the world could have been less of a comedian.  From the moment you were kind to her she depended on you absolutely; her self-consciousness dropped and she took the greatest intimacy, the innocent intimacy that was all she could conceive, for granted.  She didn't know, she now declared, what possessed her aunt, who had changed so quickly, who had got some idea.  I replied that she must catch the idea and let me have it: we would go and take an ice together at Florian's and she should report while we listened to the band.

      'Oh it will take me a long time to be able to "report"!' she said rather ruefully; and she could promise me this satisfaction neither for that night nor for the next.  I was patient now, however, for I felt I had only to wait; and in fact at the end of the week, one lovely evening after dinner, she stepped into my gondola, to which in honour of the occasion I had attached a second oar.

      We swept in the course of five minutes into the Grand Canal; whereupon she uttered a murmur of ecstasy as fresh as if she had been a tourist just arrived.  She had forgotten the splendour of the great waterway on a clear summer evening, and how the sense of floating between marble palaces and reflected lights disposed the mind to freedom and ease.  We floated long and far, and though my friend gave no high-pitched voice to her glee I was sure of her full surrender.  She was more than pleased, she was transported; the whole thing was an immense liberation.  The gondola moved with slow strokes, to give her time to enjoy it, and she listened to the splash of the oars, which grew louder and more musically liquid as we passed into narrow canals, as if it were a revelation of Venice.  When I asked her how long it was since she had thus floated she answered: 'Oh I don't know; a long time - not since my aunt began to be ill.'  This was not the only show of her extreme vagueness about the previous years and the line marking off the period of Miss Bordereau's eminence.  I was not at liberty to keep her out long, but we took a considerable giro before going to the Piazza.  I asked her no questions, holding off by design from her life at home and the things I wanted to know; I poured, rather, treasures of information about the objects before and around us into her ears, describing also Florence and Rome, discoursing on the charms and advantages of travel.  She reclined, receptive, on the deep leather cushions, turned her eyes conscientiously to everything I noted and never mentioned to me till some time afterwards that she might be supposed to know Florence better than I, as she had lived there for years with her kinswoman.  At last she said with the shy impatience of a child: 'Are we not really going to the Piazza?  That's what I want to see!'  I immediately gave the order that we should go straight, after which we sat silent with the expectation of arrival.  As some time still passed, however, she broke out of her own movement: 'I've found out what's the matter with my aunt: she's afraid you'll go!'

      I quite gasped.  'What has put that into your head?'

      'She has had an idea you've not been happy.  That's why she's different now.'

      'You mean she wants to make me happier?'

      'Well, she wants you not to go.  She wants you to stay.'

      'I suppose you mean on account of the rent,' I remarked candidly.

      Miss Tina's candour but profited.  'Yes, you know; so that I shall have more.'

      'How much does she want you to have?' I asked with all the gaiety I now felt.  'She ought to fix the sum, so that I may stay till it's made up.'

      'Oh that wouldn't please me,' said Miss Tina.  'It would be unheard of, your taking that trouble.'

      'But suppose I should have my own reasons for staying in Venice?'

      'Then it would be better for you to stay in some other house.'

      'And what would your aunt say to that?'

      'She wouldn't like it at all.  But I should think you'd do well to give up your reasons and go away altogether.'

      'Dear Miss Tina,' I said, 'it's not so easy to give up my reasons!'

      She made no immediate answer to this, but after a moment broke out afresh: 'I think I know what your reasons are!'

      'I daresay, because the other night I almost told you how I wished you'd help me to make them good.'

      'I can't do that without being false to my aunt.'

      'What do you mean by being false to her?'

      'Why, she would never consent to what you want.  She has been asked, she has been written to.  It makes her fearfully angry.'

      'Then she has papers of value?' I precipitately cried.

      'Oh she has everything!' sighed Miss Tina with a curious weariness, a sudden lapse into gloom.

      These words caused all my pulses to throb, for I regarded them as precious evidence.  I felt them too deeply to speak, and in the interval the gondola approached the Piazzetta.  After we had disembarked I asked my companion if she would rather walk round the square or go and sit before the great café; to which she replied that she would do whichever I liked best - I must only remember again how little time she had.  I assured her there was plenty to do both, and we made the circuit of the long arcades.  Her spirits revived at the sight of the bright shopwindows, and she lingered and stopped, admiring or disapproving of their contents, asking me what I thought of things, theorising about prices.  My attention wandered from her; her words of a while before, 'Oh she has everything!' echoed so in my consciousness.  We sat down at last in the crowded circle at Florian's, finding an unoccupied table among those that were ranged in the square.  It was a splendid night and all the world out-of-doors; Miss Tina couldn't have wished the elements more auspicious for her return to society.  I saw she felt it all even more than she told, but her impressions were well-nigh too many for her.  She had forgotten the attraction of the world and was learning that she had for the best years of her life been rather mercilessly cheated of it.  This didn't make her angry; but as she took in the charming scene her face had, in spite of its smile of appreciation, the flush of a wounded surprise.  She didn't speak, sunk in the sense of opportunities, for ever lost, that ought to have been easy; and this gave me a chance to say to her: 'Did you mean a while ago that your aunt has a plan of keeping me on by admitting me occasionally to her presence?'

      'She thinks it will make a difference with you if you sometimes see her.  She wants you so much to stay that she's willing to make that concession.'

      'And what good does she consider I think it will do me to see her?'

      'I don't know; it must be interesting,' said Miss Tina simply.  'You told her you found it so.'

      'So it did; but everyone doesn't think that.'

      'No, of course not, or more people would try.'

      'Well, if she's capable of making that reflection she's capable also of making this further one,' I went on: 'that I must have a particular reason for not doing as others do, in spite of the interest she offers - for not leaving her alone.'  Miss Tina looked as if she failed to grasp this rather complicated proposition; so I continued: 'If you've not told her what I said to you the other night may she not at least have guessed it?'

      'I don't know - she's very suspicious.'

      'But she hasn't been made so by indiscreet curiosity, by persecution?'

      'No, no; it isn't that,' said Miss Tina, turning on me a troubled face.  'I don't know how to say it: it's on account of something - ages ago, before I was born - in her life.'

      'Something?  What sort of thing?' - and I asked as if I could have no idea.

      'Oh she has never told me.'  And I was sure my friend spoke the truth.

      Her extreme limpidity was almost provoking, and I felt for the moment that she would have been more satisfactory if she had been less ingenuous.  'Do you suppose it's something to which Jeffery Aspern's letters and papers - I mean the things in her possession - have reference?'

      'I daresay it is!' my companion exclaimed as if this were a very happy suggestion.  'I've never looked at any of those things.'

      'None of them?  Then how do you know what they are?'        

      'I don't,' said Miss Tina placidly.  'I've never had them in my hands.  But I've seen them when she has had them out.'

      'Does she have them out often?'

      'Not now, but she used to.  She's very fond of them.'

      'In spite of their being compromising?'

      'Compromising?' Miss Tina repeated as if vague as to what that meant.  I felt almost as one who corrupts the innocence of youth.

      'I allude to their containing painful memories.'

      'Oh I don't think anything's painful.'

      'You mean there's nothing to affect her reputation?'

      An odder look even than usual came at this into the face of Miss Bordereau's niece - a confession, it seemed, of helplessness, an appeal to me to deal fairly, generously with her.  I had brought her to the Piazza, placed her among charming influences, paid her an attention she appreciated, and now I appeared to show it all as a bribe - a bribe to make her turn in some way against her aunt.  She was of a yielding nature and capable of doing almost anything to please a person markedly kind to her; but the greatest kindness of all would not be to presume too much on this.  It was strange enough, as I afterwards thought, that she had not the least air of resenting my want of consideration for her aunt's character, which would have been in the worst possible taste if anything less vital - from my point of view - had been at stake.  I don't think she really measured it.  'Do you mean she ever did something bad?' she asked in a moment.

      'Heaven forbid I should say so, and it's none of my business.  Besides, if she did,' I agreeably put in, 'that was in other ages, in another world.  But why shouldn't she destroy her papers?'

      'Oh she loves them too much.'

      'Even now, when she may be near her end?'

      'Perhaps when she's sure of that she will.'

      'Well, Miss Tina,' I said, 'that's just what I should like you to prevent.'

      'How can I prevent it?'

      'Couldn't you get them away from her?'

      'And give them to you?'

      This put the case, superficially, with sharp irony, but I was sure of her not intending that.  'Oh I mean that you might let me see them and look them over.  It isn't for myself, or that I should want them at any cost for anyone else.  It's simply that they would be of such immense interest to the public, such immeasurable importance as a contribution to Jeffery Aspern's history.'

      She listened to me in her usual way, as if I abounded in matters she had never heard of, and I felt almost as base as the reporter of a newspaper who forces his way into a house of mourning.  This was marked when she presently said: 'There was a gentleman who some time ago wrote to her in very much those words.  He also wanted her papers.'

      'And did she answer him?' I asked, rather ashamed of not having my friend's rectitude.

      'Only when he had written two or three times.  He made her very angry.'

      'And what did she say?'

      'She said he was a devil,' Miss Tina replied categorically.

      'She used that expression in her letter?'

      'Oh no; she said it to me.  She made me write to him.'

      'And what did you say?'

      'I told him there were no papers at all.'

      'Ah poor gentleman!' I groaned.

      'I knew there were, but I wrote what she bade me.'

      'Of course you had to do that.  But I hope I shan't pass for a devil.'

      'It will depend upon what you ask me to do for you,' my companion smiled.

      'Of if there's a chance of your thinking so my affair's in a bad way!  I shan't ask you to steal for me, nor even to fib - for you can't fib, unless on paper.  But the principal thing is this - to prevent her destroying the papers.'

      'Why, I've no control of her,' said Miss Tina.  'It's she who controls me.'

      'But she doesn't control her own arms and legs, does she?  The way she would naturally destroy her letters would be to burn them.  Now she can't burn them without fire, and she can't get fire unless you give it to her.'

      'I've always done everything she has asked,' my poor friend pleaded.  'Besides, there's Olimpia.'

      I was on the point of saying that Olimpia was probably corruptible, but I thought it best not to sound that note.  So I simply put it that this frail creature might perhaps be managed.

      'Everyone can be managed by my aunt,' said Miss Tina.  And then she remembered that her holiday was over; she must go home.

      I laid my hand on her arm, across the table, to stay her a moment.  'What I want of you is a general promise to help me.'

      'Oh how can I, how can I?' she asked, wondering and troubled.  She was half-surprised, half-frightened at my attaching that importance to her, at my calling on her for action.

      'This is the main thing; to watch our friend carefully and warn me in time, before she commits that dreadful sacrilege.'

      'I can't watch her when she makes me go out.'

      'That's very true.'

      'And when you do too.'

      'Mercy on us - do you think she'll have done anything tonight?'

      'I don't know.  She's very cunning.'

      'Are you trying to frighten me?' I asked.

      I felt this question sufficiently answered when my companion murmured in a musing, almost envious way: 'Oh but she loves them - she loves them!'

      This reflection, repeated with such emphasis, gave me great comfort; but to obtain more of that balm I said: 'If she shouldn't intend to destroy the objects we speak of before her death she'll probably have made some disposition by will.'

      'By will?'

      'Hasn't she made a will for your benefit?'

      'Ah she has so little to leave.  That's why she likes money,' said Miss Tina.

      'Might I ask, since we're really talking things over, what you and she live on?'

      'On some money that comes from America, from a gentleman - I think a lawyer - in New York.  He sends it every quarter.  It isn't much!'

      'And won't she have disposed of that?'

      My companion hesitated - I saw she was blushing.  'I believe it's mine,' she said; and the look and tone which accompanied these words betrayed so the absence of the habit of thinking of herself that I almost thought her charming.  The next instant she added: 'But she had in an avvocato here once, ever so long ago.  And some people came and signed something.'

      'They were probably witnesses.  And you weren't asked to sign?  Well then,' I argued, rapidly and hopefully, 'it's because you're the legatee.  She must have left all her documents to you!'

      'If she has it's with very strict conditions,' Miss Tina responded, rising quickly, while the movement gave the words a small character of decision.  They seemed to imply that the bequest would be accompanied with a proviso that the articles bequeathed should remain concealed from every inquisitive eye, and that I was very much mistaken if I thought her the person to depart from an injunction so absolute.

      'Oh of course you'll have to abide by the terms,' I said; and she uttered nothing to mitigate the rigour of this conclusion.  Nonetheless, later on, just before we disembarked at her own door after a return which had taken place almost in silence, she said to me abruptly: 'I'll do what I can to help you.'  I was grateful for this - it was very well so far as it went; but it didn't keep me from remembering that night in a worried waking hour that I now had her word for it to re-enforce my own impression that the old woman was full of craft.