Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “The talk was scarce over when Beatrix entered the room. What came she there to seek? She started and turned pale at the sight of her brother and kinsman.... ‘Charming Beatrix,’ said the prince with a blush that became him very well, ‘these lords have come a-horseback from London, where my sister lies in a despaired state, and where her successor makes himself desired.... Mademoiselle, may we take your coach for town?” Will it please the king to breakfast before he goes?’ was all Beatrix could say. The roses had shuddered out of her cheeks; her eyes were glaring; she looked quite old. She came up to Esmond, and hissed out a word or two. ‘If I did not love you before, cousin,’ says she, ‘think how I love you now,’ If words could stab, no doubt she would have killed. Esmond. She looked at him as if she could. But her keen words gave no wound to Mr. Esmond; his heart was hard. And as he looked at her he wondered that he could ever have loved her.’

  This, I will confess, seems to me great rubbish, of the true historical-romance sort, the mouthing and the posing and all; and of the whole group it is Beatrix alone who seems natural. But doubtless one ought not to praise her, and I will allow that she is preferable only to the good people of the story.

  V

  I am rather glad, however, to get away from her to Blanche Amory, who is a flirt of as modern make as poor Becky Sharp herself, but of lighter weight, and a lamb that is whity-brown where Becky is blackest. Of course, by modem, I mean modem of the second quarter, not the fourth quarter, of our century; of the time when young ladies of fashion wished to be thought literary, as now they wish to be thought athletic, and a little while ago wished to be thought artistic. Blanche Amory, whose first name was really Betsy, wrote verses in both English and French; she sang and played and drew and danced divinely, and she looked the part. “She had fair hair, with green reflections in it; but she had dark eyebrows. She had long, black eyelashes which veiled beautiful brown eyes. She had such a slim waist that it was a wonder to behold; and such slim little feet that you would have thought the grass would scarcely bend under them.... She was always smiling, and a smile not only showed her teeth wonderfully, but likewise exhibited two lovely little pink dimples, that nestled in either cheek.”

  Of course, a young lady so equipped by nature and art to take the hearts of men boxed her brother’s ears in private, and mocked herself of her fat, old, good-natured mother, and made all the trouble she could for her reprobate step-father. Her real father is even more reprobate, being an ex-convict and homicide who lives upon his wife’s second husband, by the threat of turning up and claiming his own. When he finally does so, his daughter has run through her two great flirtations with Pendennis and Harry Foker, and is in a position to be married to a soi-disant French nobleman, and to shine as a salonière in the Paris of the Citizen King. She is a cat and a minx, but not so much of either that the spectator cannot enjoy her gambols; and it may be said in her behalf that she is no worse behaved, however badly natured, than Pendennis. A case might be made out for her, but not by her. The trouble is not so much that she is malevolent as that she is mendacious, but still she is mischievous, and likes to stick pins into people, for the pleasure of seeing them wince.

  The worst of it all is that Thackeray cannot let her alone. He must keep satirizing her, and making a parade of her pretty wickedness, instead of allowing it to show itself in what the poor thing does and says; he must wink at the reader, and whisper him the open secret of her affectation and malice. She is by no means a lady-villain such as some lady-novelists acquainted us with later; it is doubtful whether she is very blackhearted, or would have done any very dark deed. She wishes to be amused, and she wishes to be married; to make a figure in the great world where so many love to shine. She is really very clever, and, as we have seen, very pretty. With half the expenditure of force, she might be much more effective, even in the direction of her ambition, if she would be a little honester; but that is not in the flirt-nature, which in her Thackeray recognized first in all the importance it has kept since in fiction.

  THACKERAY’S GOOD HEROINES

  IT will have been noted by the attentive reader that the bad heroines of Thackeray had all some virtue, which if not quite a saving virtue was still such as to move them to good actions at times, and to keep them from being wholly reprobate. Blanche Amory, who was less direly wicked than either Becky Sharp or Beatrix Esmond, had rather less of this virtue than they, and being vain where they were ambitious, was less moved to occasional kindness. In this she was truly divined, and in her Thackeray marked a great advance in the study of the bad heroine, quite as great as that he made in the study of the good heroine when he learned that she was never altogether good, but was sometimes cruel and jealous and even mean, and was very apt to be capricious. He was once considered a terrible cynic, and I think this notion of him, which now seems so droll, must have come from women unwisely dissatisfied that he did not find the best of their sex altogether angelic. At any rate, he was the discoverer (so far as any man may be the discoverer of anything) of the fallibility of angels; but he had not the courage of his facts, quite, and when he had allowed the defects of their qualities to be seen he felt bound to color these qualities to a yet more heavenly hue, and so was in danger of undoing all the good of his discovery.

  I have already supposed that when Thackeray’s good heroines are mentioned, Lady Castlewood, Helen Pendennis, and Laura Bell would come first to mind. It has been pretty well agreed that Amelia Sedley, sweet, and kind, and true as she is, cannot be counted with the others because she is too passive, too insipid; and yet I think a good word might be said for her. Ninetenths of the kindly people in the world are no more positive than she; goodness, in fact, is not a very positive thing, or not nearly so positive as evil; and in the things that lie next to active goodness, as patience, quiet courage, devotion to an ideal, Amelia is very well. Her devotion does not avail her with the lovers of lovers because it is for an unworthy ideal, and it is counter to the devotion of another who is of the highest desert. But the fact that George Osborne was shallow and false does not impeach the wisdom of the woman whom he deceived and who remains constant to his memory so many years; and the fact that Major Dobbin so preeminently merits her love is no just censure of her refusal.

  It is a disadvantage of Thackeray’s method that his conception of a situation does not reach his reader clear and simple; it is so darkened with advice about it, that the reader is not able to judge it without prejudice. He must free his mind of all sorts of suggestion from the author before he can fairly judge it; but if he once does this in the case of Amelia Sedley I think he will find her neither so weak nor so silly as he must from the impression given him, as it were, at second hand. The situation left to take its chance with the reader is of a delicate pathos, and not of that serio-comic cast which it otherwise wears.

  This is something like saying that Thackeray imagined his things better than he represented them; and I am afraid that this is what I mean. I think that sometimes he changed his mind about them, and “fought” them, as the actors say, to a conclusion different from that which he originally had in view. This appears to me particularly true of the situation in “Henry Esmond,’ where (without knowing the “inside facts”) I believe that when he first imagined Esmond in love with Beatrix, he meant him to be either fortunate or unfortunate in his love of her with no ulterior view for him. His love for Lady Castlewood and hers for him affects me as an afterthought; and though Thackeray achieved a novelty by it, he did not create beauty, as one always does when one follows the line of probability. It is, of course, possible that a man may fall in love with a woman ten years his senior, after he has been in love with her daughter; and of course such a woman may have cherished a passion for him, at first unconscious, and always silent, and, having promoted his love for her daughter by every means in her power, may end by marrying him herself. I say the thing is possible; but it is so ugly, so out of nature, that it is not less than revolting; and therefore I cannot believe that the cas
e was first imagined so.

  Having finally imagined it so, Lady Castlewood’s creator begins well back in her duplex personality to prepare the reader for the unhandsome dénouement. The story is told by Esmond, and very early in it he dwells upon the beauty of his “sweet mistress,” his “dear mistress,” and more and more repeats his sense of it, with an increasing emphasis upon the surprising youthfulness which survives in the mother of a married son and grown-up daughter. Apart from this perfunctory admiration of her charms, however, Esmond shows her a most interesting and noble character, with those limitations which best realize her virtues. It is altogether in character that a beautiful and serious girl should fall in love with a dashing young nobleman like Castlewood; that she should be devoted to him, and then with just cause resentfully jealous; that she should turn in her despair of him to the friendless little Esmond who has come to live with them, and should spend her wounded and outraged love in motherly tenderness upon him; that she should rely increasingly upon his truth and courage, and love him as an eldest son; that later, when he has become a man, and has been wounded in her husband’s fatal quarrel, she should come to him, sick and in prison, to upbraid him for her loss. It is a great scene, where she does so, and much admired, though I doubt if it is always admired for what is finest in the subjective drama, namely, her wish to punish herself in him for the fact that she had really ceased to love her husband. She does not really suspect Esmond of failing Castlewood or abetting him in his quarrel; but somehow she must take out her remorse, and woman-like she takes it out of the creature she loves best.

  Sometime she must begin to be conscious that she no longer loves Esmond quite as a mother; of a young girl it could be supposed that she might continue ignorant of the nature of her feeling, but Lady Castle-’ wood is a mature woman, with all the experience of a wife. The false note is first sounded when in this necessary consciousness she tries to promote his passion for her daughter, which would be impossible. I know that all sorts of idiotic and detestable self-sacrifice is preached in fiction, but this is a little too repulsive for belief. The imagination of the reader refuses to join with that of the author, who is left henceforth to manage the affair alone; and no greater proofs of his power could be shown than he gives in certain ensuing passages of the story. To humor the conceit, we may suppose that Lady Castlewood is doing penance for her own passion in favoring Esmond with Beatrix, but in such a scene as that with the Duke of Hamilton just before his intended marriage with her daughter, she rises into a nobler function than any mere suffering, and shows herself at her loveliest and best.

  Beatrix had just put on a diamond necklace which Esmond had given her for a wedding-gift when the Duke was announced. “He looked very black at Mr. Esmond, to whom he made a very low bow, indeed, and kissed the hand of each lady in his most ceremonious manner. ‘Look, my Lord Duke,’ says Mistress Beatrix, advancing to him and showing the diamonds on her breast. ‘Diamonds,’ says his Grace. ‘H’m! They seem pretty,’... ‘They are a present on my marriage,’ says Beatrix. ‘From her Majesty?’ asks the Duke. ‘From our cousin, Colonel Henry Esmond,’ says Beatrix, taking the colonel’s hand very bravely, ‘who was left guardian to us by our father, and who has a hundred times shown his love and friendship for our family.’ ‘The Duchess of Hamilton receives no diamonds but from her husband, madam,’ says the Duke. ‘May I pray you to restore these to Mr. Esmond?’ ‘Beatrix Esmond may receive a present from our kinsman and benefactor, my Lord Duke,’ says Lady Castlewood, with an air of great dignity....

  ‘Kinsman and benefactor,’ says the Duke. ‘I know of no kinsman: and I do not choose that my wife should have for a benefactor a—’

  ‘My lord!’ says Colonel Esmond. ‘I am not here to bandy words,’ says his Grace: ‘frankly I tell you that your visits to this house are too frequent, and that I choose no presents for the Duchess of Hamilton from gentlemen that bear a name they have no right to.’ ‘My lord!’ breaks out Lady Castlewood, ‘Mr. Esmond hath the best right to that name of any man in the world: and ’tis as old and honorable as your Grace’s.’ My Lord Duke smiled and looked as if Lady Castlewood was mad, that was so talking to him. ‘If I called him benefactor,’ said my mistress, ‘it is because he has been so to us — the noblest, the truest, the bravest, the dearest of benefactors. He would have saved my husband’s life from Mohun’s sword. He did save my boy’s, and defend him from that villain.... The title we bear is his if he would claim it. ’Tis we who have no right to our name: not he, that’s too great for it.... His father was Viscount of Castlewood, and Marquis of Esmond before him, and he is his father’s lawful son and true heir, and... if he is content to forego his name that my child may bear it, we love and honor him and bless him under whatever name he bears ‘ — and here the fond and affectionate creature would have knelt to Esmond, but that he prevented her; and Beatrix, running up to her with a pale face and a cry of alarm, embraced her and said, ‘Mother, what is this?” ’Tis a family secret, my Lord Duke,’ says Esmond: ‘poor Beatrix knew nothing of it, nor did my lady till a year ago. ‘ — ... And then in her touching way, and having hold of her daughter’s hand, and speaking to her rather than my Lord Duke, Lady Castlewood told the story which you already know, lauding up to the skies her kinsman’s behavior. On his side Mr. Esmond explained the reasons that seemed sufficiently cogent with him why... he should remain as he was, Colonel Esmond.

  ‘And Marquis of Esmond, my lord,’ says his Grace, with a low bow. ‘Permit me to ask your lordship’s pardon for words that were uttered in ignorance, and to beg for the favor of your friendship.... I shall esteem it a favor, my lord, if Colonel Esmond will give away the bride.’ ‘And if he will take the usual payment in advance, he is welcome,’ says Beatrix, stepping up to him; and as Esmond kissed her she whispered, ‘Oh, why didn’t I know you before? ‘“

  Lady Castlewood, in fine, seems to me a beautiful creation of which too much is asked. If she could have been left quietly a widow, and Esmond been allowed, or required to console himself for Beatrix with some other, or no other, if need be, she would have remained one of the most perfect figures in fiction. But as it is her loveliness is blotted, her perfection is marred, by the part so improbably attributed to her. Women marry a second time, and they are not unapt to marry men younger than themselves in such cases, but Lady Castlewood is apparently the only woman who brought up a boy as her son, and after she had witnessed his unrequited love for her daughter, whom she tries to have marry him, marries him herself. It does not seem either nice or true; if it were true, that would go a great way towards consoling one for its not being nice.

  II

  Thackeray cannot be called the inventor of the superstition that people who are crossed in love when young keep their thwarted passion tenderly and sacred in mind during a long married life with partners they have never loved; but he preached it much and often. He preached it in the case of Mrs. Pendennis, who is supposed to live in respect and awe for the man she married while keeping green the memory of her lost love in her heart. This may be possible, but it does not seem probable, and it is not to my mind pathetic, but merely sentimental. It does not indeed take so much from Helen Pendennis as the abnormal passion attributed to Lady Castlewood takes from her, but it adds nothing to our sense of her loveliness; and the probability of the situation is not heightened by her having her dead lover’s little daughter (by the second marriage he had made) come to live with her as her own child. That must render it even a little more difficult for her unloved but honored husband. It is supposed to happen, however, and the little girl who is brought up with Arthur Pendennis like a sister is Laura Bell, the heroine jointly with Blanche Amory of the novel named “Pendennis “ after him, and the heroine who finally marries him.

  She does so after much misgiving, and after foregoing the love of a nobler man; yet her affection for Pendennis has borne the test not only of familiar association with him from childhood, but also of much wandering and vacillation on his part. He is
generally pronounced altogether unworthy of her, but women have a way of knowing who is worthy of them that may be generally trusted, and Laura Bell is not illogically willing to take Arthur Pendennis in the end. She is a girl of character, which is to say of sense, and the book in which she figures so greatly to her credit is the effect of a constant good sense such as has rarely found expression in fiction. It is a work of far greater mastery than “Vanity Fair,” and paints the great world with which Thackeray loved to deal with a touch altogether lighter and finer. Its charm is that presence of youth which warms and illumines it: youth sometimes spoiled and sometimes unspoiled, but still youth with its wide horizons and far perspectives. For the purpose of these inadequate studies I have been going through all Thackeray’s great novels (once so familiar to me) again, and “ Pendennis,” without any such supreme figure as Becky Sharp, seems to me still his supreme effort, especially in respect to its women, the ultimate test of greatness in a novel. Helen Pendennis, Laura Bell, Blanche Amory, Lady Clavering, Fanny Bolton, Miss Fotheringay form a group of extraordinary interest and variety, and the first of them are the first named. in Helen Pendennis I have called a sentimentalist, and so she is, but she is not wholly a sentimentalist; only a man can be that. She wants to spoil her boy, but she knows what is good for him, and she wishes him to marry Laura. She is tolerant of the girl’s contempt for his airs and egotisms; she even borrows her money to pay his debts and give him a start in life; but she finds it hard to forgive her for refusing him. Still she does forgive her, and lives on with her in tender affection and a hope which she loses only when she believes her son guilty of betraying poor little Fanny Bolton, and when she has no thought but of his righting the supposed wrong by marrying the girl.