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The Floating Press - Henry James

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48 pages

English

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Grace Mavis may be engaged to be married, but to say she has mixed feelings about the impending union would be putting it mildly. On the sea voyage to reunite with her betrothed, Grace is determined to have one last wild time. But when her behavior crosses the bounds of propriety, tragedy ensues.

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Short story

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 mars 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776678099
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0064€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE PATAGONIA
* * *
HENRY JAMES

*
The Patagonia From a 1922 edition Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-809-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-810-5 © 2015 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV
Chapter I
*
The houses were dark in the August night and the perspective of BeaconStreet, with its double chain of lamps, was a foreshortened desert. Theclub on the hill alone, from its semi-cylindrical front, projected a glowupon the dusky vagueness of the Common, and as I passed it I heard in thehot stillness the click of a pair of billiard-balls. As "every one" wasout of town perhaps the servants, in the extravagance of their leisure,were profaning the tables. The heat was insufferable and I thought withjoy of the morrow, of the deck of the steamer, the freshening breeze, thesense of getting out to sea. I was even glad of what I had learned inthe afternoon at the office of the company—that at the eleventh hour anold ship with a lower standard of speed had been put on in place of thevessel in which I had taken my passage. America was roasting, Englandmight very well be stuffy, and a slow passage (which at that season ofthe year would probably also be a fine one) was a guarantee of ten ortwelve days of fresh air.
I strolled down the hill without meeting a creature, though I could seethrough the palings of the Common that that recreative expanse waspeopled with dim forms. I remembered Mrs. Nettlepoint's house—she livedin those days (they are not so distant, but there have been changes) onthe water-side, a little way beyond the spot at which the Public Gardenterminates; and I reflected that like myself she would be spending thenight in Boston if it were true that, as had been mentioned to me a fewdays before at Mount Desert, she was to embark on the morrow forLiverpool. I presently saw this appearance confirmed by a light aboveher door and in two or three of her windows, and I determined to ask forher, having nothing to do till bedtime. I had come out simply to pass anhour, leaving my hotel to the blaze of its gas and the perspiration ofits porters; but it occurred to me that my old friend might very well not know of the substitution of the Patagonia for the Scandinavia , sothat I should be doing her a service to prepare her mind. Besides, Icould offer to help her, to look after her in the morning: lone women aregrateful for support in taking ship for far countries.
It came to me indeed as I stood on her door-step that as she had a sonshe might not after all be so lone; yet I remembered at the same timethat Jasper Nettlepoint was not quite a young man to lean upon, having—asI at least supposed—a life of his own and tastes and habits which hadlong since diverted him from the maternal side. If he did happen justnow to be at home my solicitude would of course seem officious; for inhis many wanderings—I believed he had roamed all over the globe—hewould certainly have learned how to manage. None the less, in fine, Iwas very glad to show Mrs. Nettlepoint I thought of her. With my longabsence I had lost sight of her; but I had liked her of old, she had beena good friend to my sisters, and I had in regard to her that sense whichis pleasant to those who in general have gone astray or got detached, thesense that she at least knew all about me. I could trust her at any timeto tell people I was respectable. Perhaps I was conscious of how littleI deserved this indulgence when it came over me that I hadn't been nearher for ages. The measure of that neglect was given by my vagueness ofmind about Jasper. However, I really belonged nowadays to a differentgeneration; I was more the mother's contemporary than the son's.
Mrs. Nettlepoint was at home: I found her in her back drawing-room, wherethe wide windows opened to the water. The room was dusky—it was too hotfor lamps—and she sat slowly moving her fan and looking out on thelittle arm of the sea which is so pretty at night, reflecting the lightsof Cambridgeport and Charlestown. I supposed she was musing on the lovedones she was to leave behind, her married daughters, her grandchildren;but she struck a note more specifically Bostonian as she said to me,pointing with her fan to the Back Bay: "I shall see nothing more charmingthan that over there, you know!" She made me very welcome, but her sonhad told her about the Patagonia , for which she was sorry, as thiswould mean a longer voyage. She was a poor creature in any boat andmainly confined to her cabin even in weather extravagantly termed fine—asif any weather could be fine at sea.
"Ah then your son's going with you?" I asked.
"Here he comes, he'll tell you for himself much better than I can pretendto." Jasper Nettlepoint at that moment joined us, dressed in whiteflannel and carrying a large fan. "Well, my dear, have you decided?" hismother continued with no scant irony. "He hasn't yet made up his mind,and we sail at ten o'clock!"
"What does it matter when my things are put up?" the young man said."There's no crowd at this moment; there will be cabins to spare. I'mwaiting for a telegram—that will settle it. I just walked up to theclub to see if it was come—they'll send it there because they supposethis house unoccupied. Not yet, but I shall go back in twenty minutes."
"Mercy, how you rush about in this temperature!" the poor lady exclaimedwhile I reflected that it was perhaps his billiard-balls I had heardten minutes before. I was sure he was fond of billiards.
"Rush? not in the least. I take it uncommon easy."
"Ah I'm bound to say you do!" Mrs. Nettlepoint returned withinconsequence. I guessed at a certain tension between the pair and awant of consideration on the young man's part, arising perhaps fromselfishness. His mother was nervous, in suspense, wanting to be at restas to whether she should have his company on the voyage or be obliged tostruggle alone. But as he stood there smiling and slowly moving his fanhe struck me somehow as a person on whom this fact wouldn't sit tooheavily. He was of the type of those whom other people worry about, notof those who worry about other people. Tall and strong, he had ahandsome face, with a round head and close-curling hair; the whites ofhis eyes and the enamel of his teeth, under his brown moustache, gleamedvaguely in the lights of the Back Bay. I made out that he was sunburnt,as if he lived much in the open air, and that he looked intelligent butalso slightly brutal, though not in a morose way. His brutality, if hehad any, was bright and finished. I had to tell him who I was, but eventhen I saw how little he placed me and that my explanations gave me inhis mind no great identity or at any rate no great importance. I foresawthat he would in intercourse make me feel sometimes very young andsometimes very old, caring himself but little which. He mentioned, as ifto show our companion that he might safely be left to his own devices,that he had once started from London to Bombay at three quarters of anhour's notice.
"Yes, and it must have been pleasant for the people you were with!"
"Oh the people I was with—!" he returned; and his tone appeared tosignify that such people would always have to come off as they could. Heasked if there were no cold drinks in the house, no lemonade, no icedsyrups; in such weather something of that sort ought always to be keptgoing. When his mother remarked that surely at the club they were keptgoing he went on: "Oh yes, I had various things there; but you know I'vewalked down the hill since. One should have something at either end. MayI ring and see?" He rang while Mrs. Nettlepoint observed that with thepeople they had in the house, an establishment reduced naturally at sucha moment to its simplest expression—they were burning up candle-ends andthere were no luxuries—she wouldn't answer for the service. The matterended in her leaving the room in quest of cordials with the femaledomestic who had arrived in response to the bell and in whom Jasper'sappeal aroused no visible intelligence.
She remained away some time and I talked with her son, who was sociablebut desultory and kept moving over the place, always with his fan, as ifhe were properly impatient. Sometimes he seated himself an instant onthe window-sill, and then I made him out in fact thoroughlygood-looking—a fine brown clean young athlete. He failed to tell me onwhat special contingency his decision depended; he only alludedfamiliarly to an expected telegram, and I saw he was probably fond at notime of the trouble of explanations. His mother's absence was a signthat when it might be a question of gratifying him she had grown used tospare no pains, and I fancied her rummaging in some close storeroom,among old preserve-pots, while the dull maid-servant held the candleawry. I don't know whether this same vision was in his own eyes; at allevents it didn't prevent his saying suddenly, as he looked at his watch,that I must excuse him—he should have to go back to the club. He wouldreturn in half an hour—or in less. He walked away and I sat therealone, conscious, on the dark dismantled simplified scene, in the deepsilence that rests on American towns during the hot season—there was nowand then a far cry or a plash in the water, and at intervals the tinkleof the bells of the horse-cars on the long bridge, slow in thesuffocating night—of the strange influence, half-sweet, half-sad, thatabides in houses uninhabited