The Complete Works of Henry James

by Henry James

  His visitors were in the middle of the room; Mrs. Capadose clung to her husband, weeping, sobbing as if her heart would break. Her distress was horrible to Oliver Lyon but his astonishment was greater than his horror when he heard the Colonel respond to it by the words, vehemently uttered, ‘Damn him, damn him, damn him!’ What in the world had happened? Why was she sobbing and whom was he damning? What had happened, Lyon saw the next instant, was that the Colonel had finally rummaged out his unfinished portrait (he knew the corner where the artist usually placed it, out of the way, with its face to the wall) and had set it up before his wife on an empty easel. She had looked at it a few moments and then—apparently—what she saw in it had produced an explosion of dismay and resentment. She was too busy sobbing and the Colonel was too busy holding her and reiterating his objurgation, to look round or look up. The scene was so unexpected to Lyon that he could not take it, on the spot, as a proof of the triumph of his hand—of a tremendous hit: he could only wonder what on earth was the matter. The idea of the triumph came a little later. Yet he could see the portrait from where he stood; he was startled with its look of life—he had not thought it so masterly. Mrs. Capadose flung herself away from her husband—she dropped into the nearest chair, buried her face in her arms, leaning on a table. Her weeping suddenly ceased to be audible, but she shuddered there as if she were overwhelmed with anguish and shame. Her husband remained a moment staring at the picture; then he went to her, bent over her, took hold of her again, soothed her. ‘What is it, darling, what the devil is it?’ he demanded.

  Lyon heard her answer. ‘It’s cruel—oh, it’s too cruel!’

  ‘Damn him—damn him—damn him!’ the Colonel repeated.

  ‘It’s all there—it’s all there!’ Mrs. Capadose went on.

  ‘Hang it, what’s all there?’

  ‘Everything there oughtn’t to be—everything he has seen—it’s too dreadful!’

  ‘Everything he has seen? Why, ain’t I a good-looking fellow? He has made me rather handsome.’

  Mrs. Capadose had sprung up again; she had darted another glance at the painted betrayal. ‘Handsome? Hideous, hideous! Not that—never, never!’

  ‘Not what, in heaven’s name?’ the Colonel almost shouted. Lyon could see his flushed, bewildered face.

  ‘What he has made of you—what you know! He knows—he has seen. Every one will know—every one will see. Fancy that thing in the Academy!’

  ‘You’re going wild, darling; but if you hate it so it needn’t go.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll send it—it’s so good! Come away—come away!’ Mrs. Capadose wailed, seizing her husband.

  ‘It’s so good?’ the poor man cried.

  ‘Come away—come away,’ she only repeated; and she turned toward the staircase that ascended to the gallery.

  ‘Not that way—not through the house, in the state you’re in,’ Lyon heard the Colonel object. ‘This way—we can pass,’ he added; and he drew his wife to the small door that opened into the garden. It was bolted, but he pushed the bolt and opened the door. She passed out quickly, but he stood there looking back into the room. ‘Wait for me a moment!’ he cried out to her; and with an excited stride he re-entered the studio. He came up to the picture again, and again he stood looking at it. ‘Damn him—damn him—damn him!’ he broke out once more. It was not clear to Lyon whether this malediction had for its object the original or the painter of the portrait. The Colonel turned away and moved rapidly about the room, as if he were looking for something; Lyon was unable for the instant to guess his intention. Then the artist said to himself, below his breath, ‘He’s going to do it a harm!’ His first impulse was to rush down and stop him; but he paused, with the sound of Everina Brant’s sobs still in his ears. The Colonel found what he was looking for—found it among some odds and ends on a small table and rushed back with it to the easel. At one and the same moment Lyon perceived that the object he had seized was a small Eastern dagger and that he had plunged it into the canvas. He seemed animated by a sudden fury, for with extreme vigour of hand he dragged the instrument down (Lyon knew it to have no very fine edge) making a long, abominable gash. Then he plucked it out and dashed it again several times into the face of the likeness, exactly as if he were stabbing a human victim: it had the oddest effect—that of a sort of figurative suicide. In a few seconds more the Colonel had tossed the dagger away—he looked at it as he did so, as if he expected it to reek with blood—and hurried out of the place, closing the door after him.

  The strangest part of all was—as will doubtless appear—that Oliver Lyon made no movement to save his picture. But he did not feel as if he were losing it or cared not if he were, so much more did he feel that he was gaining a certitude. His old friend was ashamed of her husband, and he had made her so, and he had scored a great success, even though the picture had been reduced to rags. The revelation excited him so—as indeed the whole scene did—that when he came down the steps after the Colonel had gone he trembled with his happy agitation; he was dizzy and had to sit down a moment. The portrait had a dozen jagged wounds—the Colonel literally had hacked it to death. Lyon left it where it was, never touched it, scarcely looked at it; he only walked up and down his studio, still excited, for an hour. At the end of this time his good woman came to recommend that he should have some luncheon; there was a passage under the staircase from the offices.

  ‘Ah, the lady and gentleman have gone, sir? I didn’t hear them.’

  ‘Yes; they went by the garden.’

  But she had stopped, staring at the picture on the easel. ‘Gracious, how you ‘ave served it, sir!’

  Lyon imitated the Colonel. ‘Yes, I cut it up—in a fit of disgust.’

  ‘Mercy, after all your trouble! Because they weren’t pleased, sir?’

  ‘Yes; they weren’t pleased.’

  ‘Well, they must be very grand! Blessed if I would!’

  ‘Have it chopped up; it will do to light fires,’ Lyon said.

  He returned to the country by the 3.30 and a few days later passed over to France. During the two months that he was absent from England he expected something—he could hardly have said what; a manifestation of some sort on the Colonel’s part. Wouldn’t he write, wouldn’t he explain, wouldn’t he take for granted Lyon had discovered the way he had, as the cook said, served him and deem it only decent to take pity in some fashion or other on his mystification? Would he plead guilty or would he repudiate suspicion? The latter course would be difficult and make a considerable draft upon his genius, in view of the certain testimony of Lyon’s housekeeper, who had admitted the visitors and would establish the connection between their presence and the violence wrought. Would the Colonel proffer some apology or some amends, or would any word from him be only a further expression of that destructive petulance which our friend had seen his wife so suddenly and so potently communicate to him? He would have either to declare that he had not touched the picture or to admit that he had, and in either case he would have to tell a fine story. Lyon was impatient for the story and, as no letter came, disappointed that it was not produced. His impatience however was much greater in respect to Mrs. Capadose’s version, if version there was to be; for certainly that would be the real test, would show how far she would go for her husband, on the one side, or for him, Oliver Lyon, on the other. He could scarcely wait to see what line she would take; whether she would simply adopt the Colonel’s, whatever it might be. He wanted to draw her out without waiting, to get an idea in advance. He wrote to her, to this end, from Venice, in the tone of their established friendship, asking for news, narrating his wanderings, hoping they should soon meet in town and not saying a word about the picture. Day followed day, after the time, and he received no answer; upon which he reflected that she couldn’t trust herself to write—was still too much under the influence of the emotion produced by his ‘betrayal.’ Her husband had espoused that emotion and she had espoused the action he had taken in consequence of it, and it was a complete ruptur
e and everything was at an end. Lyon considered this prospect rather ruefully, at the same time that he thought it deplorable that such charming people should have put themselves so grossly in the wrong. He was at last cheered, though little further enlightened, by the arrival of a letter, brief but breathing good-humour and hinting neither at a grievance nor at a bad conscience. The most interesting part of it to Lyon was the postscript, which consisted of these words: ‘I have a confession to make to you. We were in town for a couple of days, the 1st of September, and I took the occasion to defy your authority—it was very bad of me but I couldn’t help it. I made Clement take me to your studio—I wanted so dreadfully to see what you had done with him, your wishes to the contrary notwithstanding. We made your servants let us in and I took a good look at the picture. It is really wonderful!’ ‘Wonderful’ was non-committal, but at least with this letter there was no rupture.

  The third day after Lyon’s return to London was a Sunday, so that he could go and ask Mrs. Capadose for luncheon. She had given him in the spring a general invitation to do so and he had availed himself of it several times. These had been the occasions (before he sat to him) when he saw the Colonel most familiarly. Directly after the meal his host disappeared (he went out, as he said, to call on his women) and the second half-hour was the best, even when there were other people. Now, in the first days of December, Lyon had the luck to find the pair alone, without even Amy, who appeared but little in public. They were in the drawing-room, waiting for the repast to be announced, and as soon as he came in the Colonel broke out, ‘My dear fellow, I’m delighted to see you! I’m so keen to begin again.’

  ‘Oh, do go on, it’s so beautiful,’ Mrs. Capadose said, as she gave him her hand.

  Lyon looked from one to the other; he didn’t know what he had expected, but he had not expected this. ‘Ah, then, you think I’ve got something?’

  ‘You’ve got everything,’ said Mrs. Capadose, smiling from her golden-brown eyes.

  ‘She wrote you of our little crime?’ her husband asked. ‘She dragged me there—I had to go.’ Lyon wondered for a moment whether he meant by their little crime the assault on the canvas; but the Colonel’s next words didn’t confirm this interpretation. ‘You know I like to sit—it gives such a chance to my bavardise. And just now I have time.’

  ‘You must remember I had almost finished,’ Lyon remarked.

  ‘So you had. More’s the pity. I should like you to begin again.’

  ‘My dear fellow, I shall have to begin again!’ said Oliver Lyon with a laugh, looking at Mrs. Capadose. She did not meet his eyes—she had got up to ring for luncheon. ‘The picture has been smashed,’ Lyon continued.

  ‘Smashed? Ah, what did you do that for?’ Mrs. Capadose asked, standing there before him in all her clear, rich beauty. Now that she looked at him she was impenetrable.

  ‘I didn’t—I found it so—with a dozen holes punched in it!’

  ‘I say!’ cried the Colonel.

  Lyon turned his eyes to him, smiling. ‘I hope you didn’t do it?’

  ‘Is it ruined?’ the Colonel inquired. He was as brightly true as his wife and he looked simply as if Lyon’s question could not be serious. ‘For the love of sitting to you? My dear fellow, if I had thought of it I would!’

  ‘Nor you either?’ the painter demanded of Mrs. Capadose.

  Before she had time to reply her husband had seized her arm, as if a highly suggestive idea had come to him. ‘I say, my dear, that woman—that woman!’

  ‘That woman?’ Mrs. Capadose repeated; and Lyon too wondered what woman he meant.

  ‘Don’t you remember when we came out, she was at the door—or a little way from it? I spoke to you of her—I told you about her. Geraldine—Grenadine—the one who burst in that day,’ he explained to Lyon. ‘We saw her hanging about—I called Everina’s attention to her.’

  ‘Do you mean she got at my picture?’

  ‘Ah yes, I remember,’ said Mrs. Capadose, with a sigh.

  ‘She burst in again—she had learned the way—she was waiting for her chance,’ the Colonel continued. ‘Ah, the little brute!’

  Lyon looked down; he felt himself colouring. This was what he had been waiting for—the day the Colonel should wantonly sacrifice some innocent person. And could his wife be a party to that final atrocity? Lyon had reminded himself repeatedly during the previous weeks that when the Colonel perpetrated his misdeed she had already quitted the room; but he had argued none the less—it was a virtual certainty—that he had on rejoining her immediately made his achievement plain to her. He was in the flush of performance; and even if he had not mentioned what he had done she would have guessed it. He did not for an instant believe that poor Miss Geraldine had been hovering about his door, nor had the account given by the Colonel the summer before of his relations with this lady deceived him in the slightest degree. Lyon had never seen her before the day she planted herself in his studio; but he knew her and classified her as if he had made her. He was acquainted with the London female model in all her varieties—in every phase of her development and every step of her decay. When he entered his house that September morning just after the arrival of his two friends there had been no symptoms whatever, up and down the road, of Miss Geraldine’s reappearance. That fact had been fixed in his mind by his recollecting the vacancy of the prospect when his cook told him that a lady and a gentleman were in his studio: he had wondered there was not a carriage nor a cab at his door. Then he had reflected that they would have come by the underground railway; he was close to the Marlborough Road station and he knew the Colonel, coming to his sittings, more than once had availed himself of that convenience. ‘How in the world did she get in?’ He addressed the question to his companions indifferently.

  ‘Let us go down to luncheon,’ said Mrs. Capadose, passing out of the room.

  ‘We went by the garden—without troubling your servant—I wanted to show my wife.’ Lyon followed his hostess with her husband and the Colonel stopped him at the top of the stairs. ‘My dear fellow, I can’t have been guilty of the folly of not fastening the door?’

  ‘I am sure I don’t know, Colonel,’ Lyon said as they went down. ‘It was a very determined hand—a perfect wild-cat.’

  ‘Well, she is a wild-cat—confound her! That’s why I wanted to get him away from her.’

  ‘But I don’t understand her motive.’

  ‘She’s off her head—and she hates me; that was her motive.’

  ‘But she doesn’t hate me, my dear fellow!’ Lyon said, laughing.

  ‘She hated the picture—don’t you remember she said so? The more portraits there are the less employment for such as her.’

  ‘Yes; but if she is not really the model she pretends to be, how can that hurt her?’ Lyon asked.

  The inquiry baffled the Colonel an instant—but only an instant. ‘Ah, she was in a vicious muddle! As I say, she’s off her head.’

  They went into the dining-room, where Mrs. Capadose was taking her place. ‘It’s too bad, it’s too horrid!’ she said. ‘You see the fates are against you. Providence won’t let you be so disinterested—painting masterpieces for nothing.’

  ‘Did you see the woman?’ Lyon demanded, with something like a sternness that he could not mitigate.

  Mrs. Capadose appeared not to perceive it or not to heed it if she did. ‘There was a person, not far from your door, whom Clement called my attention to. He told me something about her but we were going the other way.’

  ‘And do you think she did it?’

  ‘How can I tell? If she did she was mad, poor wretch.’

  ‘I should like very much to get hold of her,’ said Lyon. This was a false statement, for he had no desire for any further conversation with Miss Geraldine. He had exposed his friends to himself, but he had no desire to expose them to any one else, least of all to themselves.

  ‘Oh, depend upon it she will never show again. You’re safe!’ the Colonel exclaimed.

  ‘But I reme
mber her address—Mortimer Terrace Mews, Notting Hill.’

  ‘Oh, that’s pure humbug; there isn’t any such place.’

  ‘Lord, what a deceiver!’ said Lyon.

  ‘Is there any one else you suspect?’ the Colonel went on.

  ‘Not a creature.’

  ‘And what do your servants say?’

  ‘They say it wasn’t them, and I reply that I never said it was. That’s about the substance of our conferences.’

  ‘And when did they discover the havoc?’

  ‘They never discovered it at all. I noticed it first—when I came back.’

  ‘Well, she could easily have stepped in,’ said the Colonel. ‘Don’t you remember how she turned up that day, like the clown in the ring?’