by Henry James
II
WHEN the child was about ten years old, he invited his sister, Mrs.Penniman, to come and stay with him. The Miss Slopers had been but twoin number, and both of them had married early in life. The younger, Mrs.Almond by name, was the wife of a prosperous merchant, and the mother ofa blooming family. She bloomed herself, indeed, and was a comely,comfortable, reasonable woman, and a favourite with her clever brother,who, in the matter of women, even when they were nearly related to him,was a man of distinct preferences. He preferred Mrs. Almond to hissister Lavinia, who had married a poor clergyman, of a sicklyconstitution and a flowery style of eloquence, and then, at the age ofthirty-three, had been left a widow, without children, withoutfortune—with nothing but the memory of Mr. Penniman’s flowers of speech,a certain vague aroma of which hovered about her own conversation.Nevertheless he had offered her a home under his own roof, which Laviniaaccepted with the alacrity of a woman who had spent the ten years of hermarried life in the town of Poughkeepsie. The Doctor had not proposed toMrs. Penniman to come and live with him indefinitely; he had suggestedthat she should make an asylum of his house while she looked about forunfurnished lodgings. It is uncertain whether Mrs. Penniman everinstituted a search for unfurnished lodgings, but it is beyond disputethat she never found them. She settled herself with her brother andnever went away, and when Catherine was twenty years old her Aunt Laviniawas still one of the most striking features of her immediate _entourage_.Mrs. Penniman’s own account of the matter was that she had remained totake charge of her niece’s education. She had given this account, atleast, to every one but the Doctor, who never asked for explanationswhich he could entertain himself any day with inventing. Mrs. Penniman,moreover, though she had a good deal of a certain sort of artificialassurance, shrank, for indefinable reasons, from presenting herself toher brother as a fountain of instruction. She had not a high sense ofhumour, but she had enough to prevent her from making this mistake; andher brother, on his side, had enough to excuse her, in her situation, forlaying him under contribution during a considerable part of a lifetime.He therefore assented tacitly to the proposition which Mrs. Penniman hadtacitly laid down, that it was of importance that the poor motherlessgirl should have a brilliant woman near her. His assent could only betacit, for he had never been dazzled by his sister’s intellectual lustre.Save when he fell in love with Catherine Harrington, he had never beendazzled, indeed, by any feminine characteristics whatever; and though hewas to a certain extent what is called a ladies’ doctor, his privateopinion of the more complicated sex was not exalted. He regarded itscomplications as more curious than edifying, and he had an idea of thebeauty of _reason_, which was, on the whole, meagrely gratified by whathe observed in his female patients. His wife had been a reasonablewoman, but she was a bright exception among several things that he wassure of, this was perhaps the principal. Such a conviction, of course,did little either to mitigate or to abbreviate his widowhood; and it seta limit to his recognition, at the best, of Catherine’s possibilities andof Mrs. Penniman’s ministrations. He, nevertheless, at the end of sixmonths, accepted his sister’s permanent presence as an accomplished fact,and as Catherine grew older perceived that there were in effect goodreasons why she should have a companion of her own imperfect sex. He wasextremely polite to Lavinia, scrupulously, formally polite; and she hadnever seen him in anger but once in her life, when he lost his temper ina theological discussion with her late husband. With her he neverdiscussed theology, nor, indeed, discussed anything; he contented himselfwith making known, very distinctly, in the form of a lucid ultimatum, hiswishes with regard to Catherine.
Once, when the girl was about twelve years old, he had said to her:
“Try and make a clever woman of her, Lavinia; I should like her to be aclever woman.”
Mrs. Penniman, at this, looked thoughtful a moment. “My dear Austin,”she then inquired, “do you think it is better to be clever than to begood?”
“Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for nothing unless youare clever.”
From this assertion Mrs. Penniman saw no reason to dissent; she possiblyreflected that her own great use in the world was owing to her aptitudefor many things.
“Of course I wish Catherine to be good,” the Doctor said next day; “butshe won’t be any the less virtuous for not being a fool. I am not afraidof her being wicked; she will never have the salt of malice in hercharacter. She is as good as good bread, as the French say; but sixyears hence I don’t want to have to compare her to good bread andbutter.”
“Are you afraid she will turn insipid? My dear brother, it is I whosupply the butter; so you needn’t fear!” said Mrs. Penniman, who hadtaken in hand the child’s accomplishments, overlooking her at the piano,where Catherine displayed a certain talent, and going with her to thedancing-class, where it must be confessed that she made but a modestfigure.
Mrs. Penniman was a tall, thin, fair, rather faded woman, with aperfectly amiable disposition, a high standard of gentility, a taste forlight literature, and a certain foolish indirectness and obliquity ofcharacter. She was romantic, she was sentimental, she had a passion forlittle secrets and mysteries—a very innocent passion, for her secrets hadhitherto always been as unpractical as addled eggs. She was notabsolutely veracious; but this defect was of no great consequence, forshe had never had anything to conceal. She would have liked to have alover, and to correspond with him under an assumed name in letters leftat a shop; I am bound to say that her imagination never carried theintimacy farther than this. Mrs. Penniman had never had a lover, but herbrother, who was very shrewd, understood her turn of mind. “WhenCatherine is about seventeen,” he said to himself, “Lavinia will try andpersuade her that some young man with a moustache is in love with her.It will be quite untrue; no young man, with a moustache or without, willever be in love with Catherine. But Lavinia will take it up, and talk toher about it; perhaps, even, if her taste for clandestine operationsdoesn’t prevail with her, she will talk to me about it. Catherine won’tsee it, and won’t believe it, fortunately for her peace of mind; poorCatherine isn’t romantic.”
She was a healthy well-grown child, without a trace of her mother’sbeauty. She was not ugly; she had simply a plain, dull, gentlecountenance. The most that had ever been said for her was that she had a“nice” face, and, though she was an heiress, no one had ever thought ofregarding her as a belle. Her father’s opinion of her moral purity wasabundantly justified; she was excellently, imperturbably good;affectionate, docile, obedient, and much addicted to speaking the truth.In her younger years she was a good deal of a romp, and, though it is anawkward confession to make about one’s heroine, I must add that she wassomething of a glutton. She never, that I know of, stole raisins out ofthe pantry; but she devoted her pocket-money to the purchase ofcream-cakes. As regards this, however, a critical attitude would beinconsistent with a candid reference to the early annals of anybiographer. Catherine was decidedly not clever; she was not quick withher book, nor, indeed, with anything else. She was not abnormallydeficient, and she mustered learning enough to acquit herself respectablyin conversation with her contemporaries, among whom it must be avowed,however, that she occupied a secondary place. It is well known that inNew York it is possible for a young girl to occupy a primary one.Catherine, who was extremely modest, had no desire to shine, and on mostsocial occasions, as they are called, you would have found her lurking inthe background. She was extremely fond of her father, and very muchafraid of him; she thought him the cleverest and handsomest and mostcelebrated of men. The poor girl found her account so completely in theexercise of her affections that the little tremor of fear that mixeditself with her filial passion gave the thing an extra relish rather thanblunted its edge. Her deepest desire was to please him, and herconception of happiness was to know that she had succeeded in pleasinghim. She had never succeeded beyond a certain point. Though, on thewhole, he was very kind to her, she was perfectly aware of this, and to
go beyond the point in question seemed to her really something to livefor. What she could not know, of course, was that she disappointed him,though on three or four occasions the Doctor had been almost frank aboutit. She grew up peacefully and prosperously, but at the age of eighteenMrs. Penniman had not made a clever woman of her. Dr. Sloper would haveliked to be proud of his daughter; but there was nothing to be proud ofin poor Catherine. There was nothing, of course, to be ashamed of; butthis was not enough for the Doctor, who was a proud man and would haveenjoyed being able to think of his daughter as an unusual girl. Therewould have been a fitness in her being pretty and graceful, intelligentand distinguished; for her mother had been the most charming woman of herlittle day, and as regards her father, of course he knew his own value.He had moments of irritation at having produced a commonplace child, andhe even went so far at times as to take a certain satisfaction in thethought that his wife had not lived to find her out. He was naturallyslow in making this discovery himself, and it was not till Catherine hadbecome a young lady grown that he regarded the matter as settled. Hegave her the benefit of a great many doubts; he was in no haste toconclude. Mrs. Penniman frequently assured him that his daughter had adelightful nature; but he knew how to interpret this assurance. Itmeant, to his sense, that Catherine was not wise enough to discover thather aunt was a goose—a limitation of mind that could not fail to beagreeable to Mrs. Penniman. Both she and her brother, however,exaggerated the young girl’s limitations; for Catherine, though she wasvery fond of her aunt, and conscious of the gratitude she owed her,regarded her without a particle of that gentle dread which gave its stampto her admiration of her father. To her mind there was nothing of theinfinite about Mrs. Penniman; Catherine saw her all at once, as it were,and was not dazzled by the apparition whereas her father’s greatfaculties seemed, as they stretched away, to lose themselves in a sort ofluminous vagueness, which indicated, not that they stopped, but thatCatherine’s own mind ceased to follow them.
It must not be supposed that Dr. Sloper visited his disappointment uponthe poor girl, or ever let her suspect that she had played him a trick.On the contrary, for fear of being unjust to her, he did his duty withexemplary zeal, and recognised that she was a faithful and affectionatechild. Besides, he was a philosopher; he smoked a good many cigars overhis disappointment, and in the fulness of time he got used to it. Hesatisfied himself that he had expected nothing, though, indeed, with acertain oddity of reasoning. “I expect nothing,” he said to himself, “sothat if she gives me a surprise, it will be all clear again. If shedoesn’t, it will be no loss.” This was about the time Catherine hadreached her eighteenth year, so that it will be seen her father had notbeen precipitate. At this time she seemed not only incapable of givingsurprises; it was almost a question whether she could have receivedone—she was so quiet and irresponsive. People who expressed themselvesroughly called her stolid. But she was irresponsive because she was shy,uncomfortably, painfully shy. This was not always understood, and shesometimes produced an impression of insensibility. In reality she wasthe softest creature in the world.
