7

 

The fear of what this side of her character might have led her to do made me nervous for days afterwards.  I waited for an intimation from Miss Tina; I almost read it as her duty to keep me informed, to let me know definitely whether or no Miss Bordereau had sacrificed her treasures.  But as she gave no sign I lost patience and determined to put the case to the very touch of my own senses.  I sent late one afternoon to ask if I might pay the ladies a visit, and my servant came back with surprising news.  Miss Bordereau could be approached without the least difficulty; she had been moved out into the sala and was sitting by the window that overlooked the garden.  I descended and found this picture correct; the old lady had been wheeled forth into the world and had a certain air, which came mainly perhaps from some brighter element in her dress, of being prepared again to have converse with it.  It had not yet, however, begun to flock about her; she was perfectly alone and, though the door leading to her own quarters stood open, I had at first no glimpse of Miss Tina.  The window at which she sat had the afternoon shade and, one of the shutters having been pushed back, she could see the pleasant garden, where the summer sun had by this time dried up too many of the plants - she could see the yellow light and the long shadows.

      'Have you come to tell me you'll take the rooms for six months more?' she asked as I approached her, startling me by something coarse in her cupidity almost as much as if she hadn't already given me a specimen of it.  Juliana's desire to make our acquaintance lucrative had been, as I have sufficiently indicated, a false note in my image of the woman who had inspired a great poet with immortal lines; but I may say here definitely that I after all recognised large allowance made for her.  It was I who had kindled the unholy shame; it was I who had put into her head that she had the means of making money.  She appeared never to have thought of that; she had been living wastefully for years, in a house five times too big for her, on a footing that I could explain only by the presumption that, excessive as it was, the space she enjoyed cost her next to nothing and that, small as were her revenues, they left her, for Venice, an appreciable margin.  I had descended on her one day and taught her to calculate, and my almost extravagant comedy on the subject of the garden had presented me irresistibly in the light of a victim.  Like all persons who achieve the miracle of changing their point of view late in life, she had been intensely converted: she had seized my hint with a desperate tremulous clutch.

      I invited myself to go and get one of the chairs that stood, at a distance, against the wall - she had given herself no concern as to whether I should sit or stand; and while I placed it near her I began gaily:

      'Oh dear madam, what an imagination you have, what an intellectual sweep!  I'm a poor devil of a man of letters who lives from day to day.  How can I take palaces by the year?  My existence is precarious.  I don't know whether six months hence I shall have bread to put in my mouth.  I've treated myself for once; it has been an immense luxury.  But when it comes to going on-!'

      'Are your rooms too dear?  If they are you can have more for the same money,' Juliana responded.  'We can arrange, we can combinare, as they say here.'

      'Well yes, since you ask me, they're too dear, much too dear,' I said.  'Evidently you suppose me richer than I am.'

      She looked at me as from the mouth of her cave.  'If you write books don't you sell them?'

      'Do you mean don't people by them?  A little, a very little - not so much as I could wish.  Writing books, unless one be a great genius - and even then! - is the last road to fortune.  I think there's no more money to be made by good letters.'

      'Perhaps you don't choose nice subjects.  What do you write about?' Miss Bordereau implacably pursued.

      'About the books of other people.  I'm a critic, a commentator, an historian, in a small way.'  I wondered what she was coming to.

      'And what other people now?'

      'Oh better ones than myself: the great writers mainly - the great philosophers and poets of the past; those who are dead and gone and can't, poor darlings, speak for themselves.'

      'And what do you say about them?'

      'I say they sometimes attached themselves to very clever women!' I replied as for pleasantness.  I had measured, as I thought, my risk, but as my words fell upon the air they were to strike me as imprudent.  However, I had launched them and I wasn't sorry, for perhaps after all the old woman would be willing to treat.  It seemed tolerably obvious that she knew my secret: why therefore drag the process out?  But she didn't take what I had said as a confession; she only asked:

      'Do you think it's right to rake up the past?'

      'I don't feel that I know what you mean by raking it up.  How can we get at it unless we dig a little?  The present has such a rough way of treading it down.'

      'Oh I like the past, but I don't like critics,' my hostess declared with her hard complacency.

      'Neither do I, but I like their discoveries.'

      'Aren't they mostly lies?'

      'The lies are what they sometimes discover,' I said, smiling at the quiet impertinence of this.  'They often lay bare the truth.'

      'The truth is God's, it isn't man's: we had better leave it alone.  Who can judge of it? - who can say?'

      'We're terribly in the dark, I know,' I admitted; 'but if we give up trying what becomes of all the fine things?  What becomes of the work I just mentioned, that of the great philosophers and poets?  It's all vain words if there's nothing to measure it by.'

      'You talk as if you were a tailor,' said Miss Bordereau whimsically; and then she added quickly and in a different manner: 'This house is very fine; the proportions are magnificent.  Today I wanted to look at this part again.  I made them bring me out here.  When your man came just now to learn if I would see you I was on the point of sending for you to ask if you didn't mean to go on.  I wanted to judge what I'm letter you have.  This sala is very grand,' she pursued like an auctioneer, moving a little, as I guessed, her invisible eyes.  'I don't believe you often have lived in such a house, eh?'

      'I can't often afford to!' I said.

      'Well then how much will you give me for six months?'

      I was on the point of exclaiming - and the air of excruciation in my face would have denoted a moral fact - 'Don't, Juliana; for his sake, don't!'  But I controlled myself and asked less passionately: 'Why should I remain so long as that?'

      'I thought you liked it,' said Miss Bordereau with her shrivelled dignity.

      'So I thought I should.'

      For a moment she said nothing more, and I left my own words to suggest to her what they might.  I half-expected her to say, coldly enough, that if I had been disappointed we needn't continue the discussion, and this in spite of the fact that I believed her now to have in her mind - however it had come there - what would have told her that my disappointment was natural.  But to my extreme surprise she ended by observing: 'If you don't think we've treated you well enough perhaps we can discover some way of treating you better.'  This speech was somehow so incongruous that it made me laugh again, and I excused myself by saying that she talked as if I were a sulky boy pouting in the corner and having to be 'brought round'.  I hadn't a grain of complaint to make; and could anything have exceeded Miss Tina's graciousness in accompanying me a few nights before to the Piazza?  At this the old woman went on: 'Well, you brought it on yourself!'  And then in a different tone: 'She's a very fine girl.'  I assented cordially to this proposition, and she expressed the hope that I did so not merely to be obliging, but that I really liked her.  Meanwhile I wondered still more what Miss Bordereau was coming to.  'Except for me, today,' she said, 'she hasn't a relation in the world.'  Did she by describing her niece as amiable and unencumbered wish to represent her as a part?

      It was perfectly true that I couldn't afford to go on with my rooms at a fancy price and that I had already devoted to my undertaking almost all the hard cash I had set apart for it.  My patience and my time were by no means exhausted, but I should be able to draw upon them only on a more usual Venetian basis.  I was willing to pay the precious personage with whom my pecuniary dealings were such a discord twice as much as any other padrona di casa would have asked, but I wasn't willing to pay her twenty times as much.  I told her so plainly, and my plainness appeared to have had some success, for she exclaimed: 'Very good; you've done what I asked - you've made an offer!'

      'Yes, but not for half a year.  Only by the month.'

      'Oh I must think of that then.'  She seemed disappointed that I wouldn't tie myself to a period, and I guessed that she wished both to secure me and to discourage me; to say severely: 'Do you dream that you can get off with less than six months?  Do you dream that even by the end of that time you'll be appreciably nearer your victory?'  What was most in my mind was that she had a fancy to play me the trick of making me engage myself when in fact she had sacrificed her treasure.  There was a moment when my suspense on this point was so acute that I all but broke out with the question, and what kept it back was but an instinctive recoil - lest it should be a mistake - from the last violence of self-exposure.  She was such a subtle old witch that one could never tell where one stood with her.  You may imagine whether it cleared up the puzzle when, just after she said she would think of my proposal and without any formal transition, she drew out of her pocket with an embarrassed hand a small object wrapped in crumpled white paper.  She held it there a moment and then resumed: 'Do you know much about curiosities?'

      'About curiosities?'

      'About antiquities, the old gimcracks that people pay so much for today.  Do you know the kind of price they bring?'

      I thought I saw what was coming, but I said ingenuously: 'Do you want to buy something?'

      'No, I want to sell.  What would an amateur give me for that?'  She unfolded the white paper and made a motion for me to take from her a small oval portrait.  I possessed myself of it with fingers of which I could only hope that they didn't betray the intensity of their clutch, and she added: 'I would part with it only for a good price.'

      At the first glance I recognised Jeffery Aspern, and was well aware that I flushed with the act.  As she was watching me, however, I had the consistency to exclaim: 'What a striking face!  Do tell me who he is.'

      'He's an old friend of mine, a very distinguished man in his day.  He gave it me himself, but I'm afraid to mention his name, lest you never should have heard of him, critic and historian as you are.  I know the world goes fast and one generation forgets another.  He was all the fashion when I was young.'

      She was perhaps amazed at my assurance, but I was surprised at hers; at her having the energy, in her state of health and at her time of life, to wish to sport with me to that tune simply for her private entertainment - the humour to test me and practise on me and befool me.  This at least was the interpretation that I put upon her production of the relic, for I couldn't believe she really desired to sell it or cared for any information I might give her.  What she wished was to dangle it before my eyes and put a prohibitive price on it.  'The face comes back to me, it torments me,' I said, turning the object this way and that and looking at it very critically.  It was a careful but not a supreme work of art, larger than the ordinary miniature and representing a young man with a remarkably handsome face, in a high-collared green coat and a buff waistcoat.  I felt in the little work a virtue of likeness and judged it to have been painted when the model was about twenty-five.  There are, as all the world knows, three other portraits of the poet in existence, but none of so early a date as this elegant image.  'I've never seen the original, clearly a man of a past age, but I've seen other reproductions of this face,' I went on.  'You expressed doubt of this generation's having heard of the gentleman, but he strikes me for all the world as a celebrity.  Now who is he?  I can't put my finger on him - I can't give him a label.  Wasn't he a writer?  Surely he's a poet.'  I was determined that it should be she, not I, who should first pronounce Jeffery Aspern's name.

      My resolution was taken in ignorance of Miss Bordereau's extremely resolute character, and her lips never formed in my hearing the syllables that meant so much for her.  She neglected to answer my question, but raised her hand to take back the picture, using a gesture which though impotent was in a high degree peremptory.  'It's only a person who should know for himself that would give me my price,' she said with a certain dryness.

      'Oh then you have a price?'  I didn't restore the charming thing; not from any vindictive purpose, but because I instinctively clung to it.  We looked at each other hard while I retained it.

      'I know the least I would take.  What it occurred to me to ask you about is the most I shall be able to get.'

      She made a movement, drawing herself together as if in a spasm of dread at having lost her prize, she had been impelled to the immense effort of rising to snatch it from me.  I instantly placed it in her hand again, saying as I did so: 'I should like to have it myself, but with your ideas it would be quite beyond my mark.'

      She turned the small oval plate over in her lap, with its face down, and I heard her catch her breath as after a strain or an escape.  This, however, did not prevent her saying in a moment: 'You'd buy a likeness of a person you don't know by an artist who has no reputation?'

      'The artist may have no reputation, but that thing's wonderfully well painted,' I replied, to give myself a reason.

      'It's lucky you thought of saying that, because the painter was my father.'

      'That makes the picture indeed precious!' I returned with gaiety; and I may add that a part of my cheer came from this proof I had been right in my theory of Miss Bordereau's origin.  Aspern had of course met the young lady on his going to her father's studio as a sitter.  I observed to Miss Bordereau that if she would entrust me with her property for twenty-four hours I should be happy to take advice on it; but she made no other reply than to slip it in silence into her pocket.  This convinced me still more that she had no sincere intention of selling it during her lifetime, though she may have desired to satisfy herself as to the sum her niece, should she leave it to her, might expect eventually to obtain for it.  'Well, at any rate, I hope you won't offer it without giving me notice,' I said as she remained irresponsive.  'Remember me as a possible purchaser.'

      'I should want your money first!' she returned with unexpected rudeness; and then, as if she bethought herself that I might well complain of such a tone and wished to turn the matter off, asked abruptly what I talked about with her niece when I went out with her that way of an evening.

      'You speak as if we had set up the habit,' I replied.  'Certainly I should be very glad if it were to become our pleasant custom.  But in that case I should feel a still greater scruple at betraying a lady's confidence.'

      'Her confidence?  Has my niece confidence?'

      'Here she is - she can tell you herself,' I said; for Miss Tina now appeared on the threshold of the old woman's parlour.  'Have you confidence, Miss Tina?  Your aunt wants very much to know.'

      'Not in her, not in her!' the younger lady declared, shaking her head with a dolefulness that was neither jocular nor affected.  'I don't know what to do with her; she has fits of horrid imprudence.  She's so easily tired - and yet she has begun to roam, to drag herself about the house.'  And she looked down at her yoke-fellow of long years with a vacancy of wonder, as if all their contact and custom hadn't made her perversities, on occasion, any more easy to follow.

      'I know what I'm about.  I'm not losing my mind.  I daresay you'd like to think so,' said Miss Bordereau with a crudity of cynicism.

      'I don't suppose you came out here yourself.  Miss Tina must have had to lend you a hand,' I interposed for conciliation.

      'Oh she insisted we should push her; and when she insists!' said Miss Tina, in the same tone of apprehension: as if there were no knowing what service she disapproved of her aunt might for her next to render.

      'I've always got most things done I wanted, thank God!  The people I've lived with have honoured me,' the old woman continued, speaking out of the white ashes of her vanity.

      I took it pleasantly up.  'I suppose you mean they've obeyed you.'

      'Well, whatever it is - when they like one.'

      'It's just because I like you that I want to resist,' said Miss Tina with a nervous laugh.

      'Oh I suspect you'll bring Miss Bordereau upstairs next to pay me a visit,' I went on; to which the old lady replied:

      'Oh no; I can keep an eye on you from here!'

      'You're very tired; you'll certainly be ill tonight!' cried Miss Tina.

      'Nonsense, dear; I feel better at this moment than I've done for a month.  Tomorrow I shall come out again.  I want to be where I can see this clever gentleman.'

      'Shouldn't you perhaps see me better in your sitting-room?' I asked.

      'Don't you mean shouldn't you have a better chance at me?' she returned, fixing me a moment with her green shade.

      'Ah I haven't that anywhere!  I look at you but don't see you.'

      'You agitate her dreadfully - and that's not good,' said Miss Tina, giving me a reproachful deterrent handshake.

      'I want to watch you - I want to watch you!' Miss Bordereau went on.

      'Well then let us spend us much of our time together as possible - I don't care where.  That will give you every facility.'

      'Oh I've seen you enough for today.  I'm satisfied.  Now I'll go home,' Juliana said.  Miss Tina laid her hands on the back of the wheelchair and began to push, but I begged her to let me take her place.  'Oh yes, you may move me this way - you shan't in any other!' the old woman cried as she felt herself propelled firmly and easily over the smooth hard floor.  Before we reached the door of her own apartment she bade me stop, and she took a long last look up and down the noble sala.  'Oh it's a prodigious house!' she murmured; after which I pushed her forward.  When we had entered the parlour Miss Tina let me know she should now be able to manage, and at the same moment the little red-haired donna came to meet her mistress.  Miss Tina's idea was evidently to get her aunt immediately back to bed.  I confess that in spite of this urgency I was guilty of the indiscretion of lingering; it held me there to feel myself so close to the objects I coveted - which would be probably put away somewhere in the faded unsociable room.  The place had indeed a bareness that suggested no hidden values; there were neither dusty nooks nor curtained corners, neither massive cabinets nor chests with iron bands.  Moreover it was possible, it was perhaps even likely, that the old lady had consigned her relics to her bedroom, to some battered box that was shoved under the bed, to the drawer of some lame dressing-table, where they would be in the range of vision by the dim night-lamp.  Nonetheless I turned an eye on every article of furniture, on every conceivable cover for a hoard, and noticed that there were half a dozen things with drawers, and in particular a tall secretary with brass ornaments of the style of the Empire - a receptacle somewhat infirm but still capable of keeping rare secrets.  I don't know why this article so engaged me, small purpose as I had of breaking into it; but I stared at it so hard that Miss Tina noticed me and changed colour.  Her doing this made me think I was right and that, wherever they might have been before, the Aspern papers at that moment languished behind the peevish little lock of the secretary.  It was hard to turn my attention from the dull mahogany front when I reflected that a plain panel divided me from the goal of my hopes; but I gathered up my slightly scattered prudence and with an effort took leave of my hostess.  To make the effort graceful I said to her that I should certainly bring her an opinion about the little picture.

      'The little picture?' Miss Tina asked in surprise.

      'What do you know about it, my dear?' the old woman demanded.  'You needn't mind.  I've fixed my price.'

      'And what may that be?'

      'A thousand pounds.'

      'Oh Lord!' cried poor Miss Tina irrepressibly.

      'Is that what she talks to you about?' said Miss Bordereau.

      'Imagine your aunt's wanting to know!'  I had to separate from my young friend with only those words, though I should have liked immensely to add: 'For heaven's sake meet me tonight in the garden!'