The landing at the top of the stairs in Audley Court was always dark;
but it seemed darker than ever to Hyacinth while he fumbled for the
door-latch after he had heard Rose Muniment’s penetrating voice bid
him come in. During that instant his ear caught the sound, if it could
trust itself, of another voice, which prepared him a little for the
spectacle fully presented as soon as the door—his attempt to reach
the handle in his sudden agitation proving fruitless—was opened to him
by Paul. His friend stood there tall and hospitable, saying something
loud and jovial that he didn’t distinguish. His eyes had crossed the
threshold in a flash, but his step faltered a moment, only to obey,
however, the vigour of Muniment’s outstretched hand. Hyacinth’s glance
had gone straight, and though with four persons in it Rosy’s little
apartment looked crowded he saw no one but the object of his quick
preconception—no one but the Princess Casamassima seated beside the
low sofa, the grand feature introduced during his absence from London,
on which, arrayed in the famous pink dressing-gown, Miss Muniment now
received her visitors. He wondered afterwards why he should have been
so startled; for he had said often enough both to himself and to his
wonderful lady that so far as she was concerned he was proof against
astonishment: it was so evident that the note of her conduct would
always be a sort of splendour of freedom. In fact now that he perceived
she had made her way to Camberwell without his assistance the feeling
in possession of him was a refined embarrassment; he blushed a little
as he entered the circle, the fourth member of which was inevitably
Lady Aurora Langrish. Was it that his intimacy with the Princess gave
him a certain sense of responsibility for her course in respect to
people who knew her as yet so scantly, and that there was something
too little explained in the confidence with which she had practised a
descent upon them? It indeed came over our young man that by this time
perhaps they knew her a good deal; and moreover a woman’s behaviour
spoke for itself when she could sit looking in that fashion like a
radiant angel dressed in a simple bonnet and mantle and immensely
interested in an appealing corner of the earth. It took Hyacinth
but an instant to infer that her character was in a different phase
from any yet exhibited to him. There had been a glory of gentleness
about her the night he made her acquaintance, and she had never
ceased at any moment since to strike him as full of the imagination
of sympathy and pity, unless perforce in relation to her husband,
against whom—for reasons after all doubtless very sufficient—her heart
appeared absolutely steeled. Now at any rate this high mildness had
deepened to a rapture of active, ministering charity. She had put off
her splendour, but her beauty was unquenchably bright; she had made
herself humble for her pious excursion; she had, beside Rosy (who in
the pink dressing-gown looked much the more luxurious of the two),
almost the attitude of an hospital nurse; and it was easy to see from
the meagre line of her garments that she was tremendously in earnest.
If Hyacinth was flurried her own countenance expressed no confusion;
for her evidently this queer little bower of poverty and pain was
a place in which it was perfectly natural that _he_ should turn up.
The sweet, still greeting her eyes offered him might exquisitely have
conveyed that she had been waiting for him, that she knew he would come
and that there had been a tacit appointment for that very moment. They
said other things besides in their beautiful friendliness; they said:
“Don’t notice me too much or make any kind of scene. I’ve an immense
deal to say to you, but remember that I’ve the rest of our life before
me to say it in. Consider only what will be easiest and kindest to
these people, these delightful people, whom I find enchanting (why
didn’t you ever tell me more—I mean really more—about them?). It won’t
be particularly complimentary to them if you’ve the air of seeing
a miracle in my presence here. I’m very glad of your return. The
quavering, fidgety ‘ladyship’ is as striking as the others.”
Hyacinth’s reception at the hands of his old friends was cordial enough
quite to obliterate the element of irony that had lurked, fifteen
weeks before, in their godspeed; their welcome was not boisterous,
but it seemed to express the idea that the occasion, already so rare
and agreeable, needed but his arrival to make it perfect. By the
time he had been three minutes in the room he was able to measure
the impression produced by the Princess, who, it was clear, had cast
the charm of the worshipful over the little company. This was in the
air, in the face of each, in their smiling, their excited eyes and
heightened colour; even Rosy’s wan grimace, at all times screwed up to
ecstasy, had the supreme glitter of great occasions. Lady Aurora looked
more than ever dishevelled with interest and wonder; the long strands
of her silky hair floated like gossamer while, in her extraordinary,
religious attention, with her hands raised and clasped to her bosom as
if she were praying, her respiration rose and fell. She had never seen
any one like the Princess; but Hyacinth’s apprehension of some months
before had been groundless—she evidently didn’t think her “flashy.”
She thought her divine and a revelation of beauty and benignity; and
the illuminated, amplified room could contain no dissentient opinion.
It was her beauty primarily that “fetched” them, Hyacinth could easily
see, and it was not hidden from him that the impression had been made
as much on Paul Muniment as on his companions. It was not in Paul’s
nature to be jerkily demonstrative and he had not lost his head on
the present occasion; but he had already appreciated the difference
between a plain, suspicious man’s preconception of a meretricious,
factitious, fine lady and the actual influence of such a personage.
She was gentler, fairer, wiser than even a chemical expert could have
guessed in advance. In short she held the trio in her hand, having
reduced Lady Aurora to exactly the same simplicity as the others, and
she performed admirably and artistically for their benefit. Almost
before Hyacinth had had time to wonder how she had found the Muniments
out—he had no recollection of giving her specific directions—she
mentioned that Captain Sholto had been so good as to introduce her;
doing so as if she owed him that explanation and were a woman who would
be scrupulous in such a case. It was rather a blow to him to learn she
had been accepting the Captain’s mediation, and this was not softened
by her saying she was too impatient to wait for his own return: he
was apparently so pleased with the roving life that one couldn’t be
sure it would ever take place. The Princess might at least have been
sure that to see her again very soon was still more necessary to his
happiness than anything the roving life could offer. No adventure was
so prodigious as sticking as fast as possible to _her_.
It came out in the conversation he had with her, to which the others
listened with respectful curiosity, that Captain Sholto had brought
her a week before, but that she had then seen only Miss Muniment. “I
took the liberty of coming again by myself to-day, because I wanted to
see the whole family,” she developed, looking from Paul to Lady Aurora
with a bright blandness which purified the statement (as regarded her
ladyship) of impertinence. The Princess added frankly that she had
now been careful to arrive at an hour when she thought Mr. Muniment
might be at home. “When I come to see gentlemen I like at least to
find them,” she continued, and she was so great a lady that there
was no dowdy diffidence in her attitude: it was a simple matter for
her to call on a young man employed at large chemical works if she
had a reason. Hyacinth could see that the reason had already been
brought forward—her immense interest in problems that Mr. Muniment had
completely mastered and in particular their common acquaintance with
the extraordinary man whose mission it was to solve them. He learned
later that she had pronounced the name of the great, patient, powerful
Hoffendahl. A part of the lustre in Rosy’s eye came no doubt from the
declaration she had inevitably been moved to make in respect to any
sympathy with wicked theories that might be imputed to _her_; and of
course the effect of this intensely individual little protest—such was
always its effect—emanating from the sofa and the pink dressing-gown
was to render the home of the Muniments still more quaint and original.
In that spot Paul always gave the pleasantest go-by to any attempt to
draw out his views; so you would have thought, to hear him, that he
allowed himself the reputation of having them only in order to get a
“rise” out of his sister and let their visitors see with what wit and
spirit she could repudiate them. This, however, would only be a reason
the more for the Princess’s following up her scent. She would doubtless
not expect to get at the bottom of his ideas in Audley Court: the
opportunity would occur rather in case of his having the civility—on
which surely she might count—to come and talk them over with her in her
own house.
Hyacinth mentioned to her the disappointment he had had in South
Street and she replied: “Oh, I’ve given up that house and taken quite
a different one.” But she didn’t say where it was, and in spite of her
having given him so much the right to expect she would communicate to
him a matter so nearly touching them both as a change of address he
felt a great shyness about asking.
Their companions watched them as if they considered that something
rather witty and showy now would be likely to come off between them;
but Hyacinth was too full of regard for his beautiful friend’s tacit
notification to him that they must not appear too thick, which was
after all more flattering than the most pressing inquiries or the most
liberal announcements about herself could have been. She never asked
him when he had come back; and indeed it was not long before Rose
Muniment took that business on herself. Hyacinth, however, ventured to
assure himself if Madame Grandoni were still at her post and even to
remark—when his fellow-visitor had replied, “Oh yes, still, still. The
great refusal, as Dante calls it, has not yet come off”—“You ought to
bring her to see Miss Rosy. She’s a person Miss Rosy would particularly
appreciate.”
“I’m sure I should be most happy to receive any friend of the Princess
Casamassima,” said this young lady from the sofa; and when the Princess
answered that she certainly would not fail to produce Madame Grandoni
some day, Hyacinth—though he doubted if the presentation would really
take place—guessed how much she wished her old friend might have heard
the strange, bedizened little invalid make that speech.
There were only three other seats, for the introduction of the sofa—the
question profoundly studied in advance—had rendered necessary the
elimination of certain articles; so that Muniment, on his feet, hovered
round the little circle with his hands in his pockets, laughing freely
and sociably but not looking at the Princess; even if, as Hyacinth was
sure, none the less agitated by her presence.
“You ought to tell us about foreign parts and the grand things you’ve
seen; except that our distinguished visitor must know all about them,”
Muniment threw out to him. Then he added: “Surely, at any rate, you’ve
seen nothing more worthy of your respect than Camberwell.”
“Is this the worst part?” the Princess asked, looking up with her
noble, interested face.
“The worst, madam? What grand ideas you must have! We admire Camberwell
immensely.”
“It’s my brother’s ideas that are grand!” cried Rose Muniment,
betraying him conscientiously. “He does want everything changed, no
less than you, Princess; though he’s more cunning than you and won’t
give one a handle where one can take him up. He thinks all this part
most objectionable—as if dirty people won’t always make everything
dirty where they live! I daresay he thinks there ought to be no dirty
people, and it may be so; only if every one was clean where would be
the merit? You’d get no credit for keeping yourself tidy. If it’s
a question of soap and water, at any rate, every one can begin by
himself. My brother thinks the whole place ought to be as handsome as
Brompton.”
“Ah yes, that’s where the artists and literary people live, isn’t it?”
the Princess asked attentively.
“I’ve never seen it, but it’s very well laid out,” Rosy returned with
her competent manner.
“Oh I like Camberwell better than that,” Muniment said with due
amusement.
The Princess turned to Lady Aurora and, with the air of appealing to
her for her opinion, gave her a glance that travelled in a flash from
the topmost bow of her large misfitting hat to the crumpled points of
her substantial shoes. “I must get _you_ to tell me the truth,” she
breathed. “I want so much to know London—the real London. It seems so
difficult!”
Lady Aurora looked a little frightened, but at the same time gratified,
and after a moment responded: “I believe a great many artists live in
Saint John’s Wood.”
“I don’t care about the artists!” said the Princess, shaking her
head slowly and with the sad smile that sometimes made her beauty so
inexpressibly touching.
“Not when they’ve painted you such beautiful pictures?” Rosy demanded.
“We know about your pictures—we’ve admired them so much. Mr. Hyacinth
has described to us your precious possessions.”
The Princess transferred her smile to Rosy and rested it on that young
lady’s shrunken countenance with the same ineffable head-shake. “You do
me too much honour. I’ve no possessions.”
“Gracious, was it all a make-believe?” Rosy cried, flashing at Hyacinth
an eye that was never so eloquent as when it demanded an explanation.
“I’ve nothing in the world—nothing but the clothes on my back!” the
Princess repeated very gravely and without looking at their indiscreet
friend.
The words struck Hyacinth as an admonition, so that, though
much puzzled, he made no attempt for the moment to reconcile the
contradiction. He only replied: “I meant the things in the house. Of
course I didn’t know to whom they belonged.”
“There are no things in my house now,” the Princess went on; and there
was a touch of pure, high resignation in the words.
“Laws, I shouldn’t like that!” Rose Muniment declared, glancing with
complacency over her own decorated walls. “Everything here belongs to
me.”
“I shall bring Madame Grandoni to see you,” said the Princess
irrelevantly but kindly.
“Do you think it’s not right to have a lot of things about?” Lady
Aurora, with sudden courage, inquired of her distinguished companion,
pointing a vague chin at her but looking into one of the upper angles
of the room.
“I suppose one must always settle that for one’s self. I don’t like to
be surrounded with objects I don’t care for, and I can care only for
one thing—that is for one class of things—at a time. Dear lady,” the
Princess pursued, “I fear I must confess to you that my heart’s not in
bibelots. When thousands and tens of thousands haven’t bread to put
in their mouths I can dispense with tapestry and old china.” And her
fair face, bent charmingly, conciliatingly, on Lady Aurora, appeared to
argue that if she was narrow at least she was honest.
Hyacinth wondered, rather vulgarly, what strange turn she had taken
and whether this singular picture of her denuded personality were not
one of her famous caprices, a whimsical joke, a nervous perversity.
Meanwhile he heard Lady Aurora urge anxiously: “But don’t you think we
ought to make the world more beautiful?”
“Doesn’t the Princess make it so by the mere fact of her existence?”
Hyacinth interposed, his perplexity escaping in a harmless manner
through this graceful hyperbole. He had observed that though the lady
in question could dispense with old china and tapestry she couldn’t
dispense with a pair of immaculate gloves which fitted her to a charm.
“My people have a mass of things, you know, but I’ve really nothing
myself,” said Lady Aurora, as if she owed this assurance to such a
representative of suffering humanity.
“The world will be beautiful enough when it becomes good enough,” the
Princess resumed. “Is there anything so ugly as unjust distinctions, as
the privileges of the few contrasted with the degradation of the many?
When we want to beautify we must begin at the right end.”
“Surely there are none of us but what have our privileges!” Rose
Muniment exclaimed with eagerness. “What do you say to mine, lying here
between two members of the aristocracy and with Mr. Hyacinth thrown
in?”
“You’re certainly lucky—with Lady Aurora Langrish. I wish she would
come and see _me_,” the Princess genially sighed as she rose.
“Do go, my lady, and tell me if it’s so poor!” Rosy went on gaily.
“I think there can’t be too many pictures and statues and works of
art,” Hyacinth broke out. “The more the better, whether people are
hungry or not. In the way of ameliorating influences are not those the
most definite?”
“A piece of bread and butter’s more to the purpose if your stomach’s
empty,” the Princess declared.
“Robinson has been corrupted by foreign influences,” Paul Muniment
suggested. “He doesn’t care for bread and butter now; he likes French
cookery.”
“Yes, but I don’t get it. And have you sent away the little man, the
Italian, with the white cap and apron?” Hyacinth asked of the Princess.
She hesitated a moment but presently replied laughing and not in the
least offended at his question, though it was an attempt to put her
in the wrong from which Hyacinth had not been able to refrain in his
astonishment at these ascetic pretensions: “I’ve sent him away many
times!”
Lady Aurora had also got up; she stood there gazing at her beautiful
fellow-visitor with a timidity that made her wonder only more apparent.
“Your servants must be awfully fond of you.”
“Oh my servants!” said the Princess as if it were only by a stretch
of the meaning of the word that she could be said to enjoy the
ministrations of menials. Her manner seemed to imply that she had a
charwoman for an hour a day. Hyacinth caught the tone and determined
that since she was going, as it appeared, he would break off his own
visit and accompany her. He had flattered himself at the end of three
weeks of Medley that he knew her in every phase, but here was a field
of freshness. She turned to Paul Muniment and put out her hand to
him, and while he took it in his own his face was visited by the most
beautiful eyes that had ever rested there. “Will you come and see me
one of these days?” she asked with a voice as pure as her glance.
Hyacinth waited for Paul’s answer with an emotion that could only be
accounted for by his affectionate sympathy, the manner in which he had
spoken of him to the Princess and which he wished him to justify, the
interest he had in his appearing completely the fine fellow he believed
him. Muniment neither stammered nor blushed; he held himself straight
and looked back at his interlocutress with eyes at least as open as
her own to everything that concerned him. Then by way of answer: “Well
madam, pray what good will it do me?” And the tone of the words was
so humorous and kindly, and so instinct with a plain manly sense, that
though they were not gallant Hyacinth was not ashamed for him. At the
same moment he observed that Lady Aurora was watching their friend as
if she had at least an equal stake in what he might say.
“Ah none; only me perhaps a little.” With this rejoinder and with
a wonderful, sweet, indulgent dignity in which there was none of
the stiffness of pride or resentment the Princess quitted him and
approached Lady Aurora. She asked if _she_ wouldn’t do her the kindness
to come. She should like so much to know her and had an idea there was
a great deal they might talk about. Lady Aurora said she should be
delighted, and the Princess took one of her cards out of her pocket
and gave it to the noble spinster. After she had done so she stood a
moment holding her hand and brought out: “It has really been such a
happiness to me to meet you. Please don’t think it’s very clumsy if I
say I _do_ like you so!” Lady Aurora was evidently exceedingly moved
and impressed; but Rosy, when the Princess took leave of her and the
irrepressible invalid had assured her of the pleasure with which she
should receive her again, uttered the further truth that in spite of
this she herself could never conscientiously enter into such theories.
“If every one was equal,” Rosy asked, “where would be the gratification
I feel in getting a visit from a grandee? That’s what I have often
said to her ladyship, and I consider that I’ve kept her in her place a
little. No, no; no equality while _I_’m about the place!”
The company appeared to comprehend that there was a natural fitness
in Hyacinth’s seeing the great lady on her way, and accordingly no
effort was made to detain him. He guided her, with the help of an
attendant illumination from Muniment, down the dusky staircase, and
at the door of the house there was a renewed, brief leave-taking with
their host, who, however, showed no signs of relenting or recanting
in respect to the Princess’s invitation. The warm evening had by this
time grown thick and the population of Audley Court appeared to be
passing it for the most part in the open air. As Hyacinth assisted his
companion to thread her way through groups of sprawling, chattering
children, gossiping women with bare heads and babies at the breast and
heavily-planted men smoking very bad pipes, it seemed to him that their
project of exploring the slums was already in the way of execution.
He said nothing till they gained the outer street, but then, pausing
a moment, inquired how she would be conveyed. Had she a carriage
somewhere or should he try and get a cab?
“A carriage, my dear fellow? For what do you take me? I won’t trouble
you about a cab: I walk everywhere now.”
“But if I had not been here?”
“I should have gone alone”; and she smiled at him through the turbid
twilight of Camberwell.
“And where, please, gracious heaven? I may at least have the honour of
accompanying you.”
“Certainly, if you can walk so far.”
“So far as what, dear Princess?”
“As Madeira Crescent, Paddington.”
“Madeira Crescent, Paddington?” Hyacinth stared.
“That’s what I call it when I’m with people with whom I wish to be
fine, as with you. I’ve taken a small house there.”
“Then it’s really true that you’ve given up your beautiful things?”
“I’ve sold everything to give to the poor.”
“Ah, Princess——!” the young man almost moaned; for the memory of some
of her treasures was vivid to him.
She became very grave, even stern, and with an accent of reproach
that seemed to show she had been wounded where she was most sensitive
demanded: “When I said I was willing to make the last sacrifice did you
then believe I was lying?”
“Haven’t you kept _anything_?” he went on without heeding this
challenge.
She looked at him a moment. “I’ve kept _you_!” Then she passed her
hand into his arm and they moved forward. He saw what she had done;
she was living in a little ugly, bare, middle-class house and wearing
simple gowns; and the energy and good faith of her behaviour, with the
abruptness of the transformation, took away his breath. “I thought I
should please you so much,” she added after they had gone a few steps.
And before he had time to reply, as they came to a part of the street
where there were small shops, those of butchers, greengrocers and
pork-pie men, with open fronts, flaring lamps and humble purchasers,
she broke out joyously: “Ah, this is the way I like to see London!”