with rage and I look forty. In six months I shall not be fit to be seen.’
‘Sure, my dear, you deceive yourself. The first moment 1 saw you, I remarked that your complexion was even finer than it was in England. This impression was confirmed when I came here, and examined it at leisure.’
‘I wonder that you should be so easily taken in. It is only so much trompe-?couillon, as Am?lie calls it: she is the best woman-?painter since what’s-?her-?name.’
‘Vig?e Lebrun?’
‘No. Jezebel. Look here,’ she cried, drawing a finger down her cheek and showing a faint smear of pink.
Stephen looked at it closely. He shook his head. ‘No.
That is not the essence, at all. Though in passing I must warn you against the use of ceruse: it may desiccate and wrinkle the deeper layers. I log’s lard is more to the point. No, the essence is your spirit, courage, intelligence, and gaiety; they are unaffected; and it is they that form your face - you are responsible for your face.’
‘But how long do you think any woman’s spirit can last, in this kind of life? They dare not use me so badly when Canning is here, but he is so often away, going to Mah? and so on; and then when he is here, there are these perpetual scenes. Often to the point of a break. And if we break, can you imagine my future? Penniless in Bombay? It is unthinkable. And to feel bound by cowardice is unthinkable, too. Oh, he is a kind keeper, I do not say he is not; but he is so hellish jealous - Get out,’ she shouted at a servant in the doorway. ‘Get out!’ again, as he lingered, making deprecatory gestures; and she shied a decanter at his head.
‘It is so humiliating to be suspected,’ she said, ‘I know half the servants are set to watch. If I did not stand up for myself there would be a troop of black eunuchs, great flabby things, in no time at all. That is why I have my own people. . . Oh, I get so tired of these scenes. Travelling is the only thing that is even half bearable - going somewhere else. It is an impossible situation for a woman with any spirit. Do you remember what I told you, oh a great while ago, about married men being the enemy? Here I am, delivered up to the enemy, bound hand and foot. Of course it is my own fault; you do not have to tell me of it. But that does not make the life any less wretched. Living large is very well, and certainly I love a rope of pearls as much as any woman: but give me even a grisly damp cold English cottage.’
‘I am sorry,’ said he in a harsh formal voice, ‘that you should not be happy. But at least it does give me some slightly greater confidence, a perceptibly greater justification, in making my proposal.’
‘Are you going to take me into keeping too, Stephen?’ she asked, with a smile.
‘No,’ he said, endeavouring to imitate her. He privately crossed his bosom, and then, speaking somewhat at random in his agitation, he went on, ‘I have never made a woman an offer of marriage - am ignorant of - the accepted forms. I am sorry for my ignorance. But I beg you will have the goodness, the very great goodness, to marry me.’ As she did not reply, he added, ‘It would oblige me extremely, Diana.’
‘Why, Stephen,’ she said at last, still gazing at him with candid wonder. ‘Upon my word and honour, you astonish me. I can hardly speak. It was the kindest thing you could possibly have said to mc. But your friendship, your affection, is leading you away; it is your dear good heart full of pity for a friend that. .
‘No, no, no,’ he cried passionately. ‘This is a deliberate, long-?meditated statement, conceived a great while since, and matured over twelve thousand miles and more. I am painfully aware,’ he said, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back, ‘that my appearance does not serve me; that there are objections to my person, my birth, and my religion; and that my fortune is nothing in comparison with that of a wealthy man. But I am not the penniless nonentity I was when we first met; I can offer an honourable if not a brilliant marriage; and at the very lowest I can provide my wife - my widow, my relict - with a decent competence, an assured future.’
‘Stephen darling, you honour me beyond what I can express; you are the dearest man I know - by so very far my best friend. But you know I often speak like a fool when I am angry - fly out farther than I mean -I am an ill-? tempered woman, I am afraid. I am deeply engaged to Canning; he has been extremely good to me And what kind of a wife could I make for you? You should have married Sophie: she would have been content with very little, and you would never have been ashamed of her. Ashamed - think what I have been - think what I am now: and London is not far from Bombay; the gossip is the same in both. And having had this kind of life again, could I ever. . . Stephen, are you unwell?’
‘I was going to say, there is Barcelona, Paris, even Dublin.’
‘You are certainly unwell; you look ghastly. Take off your coat. Sit in your shirt and breeches:’
‘Sure I have never felt the heat so much.’ He threw off his coat and neckcloth.
‘Drink some iced water, and put your head down. Dear Stephen, I wish I could make you happy. Pray do not look so wretched. Perhaps, you know, if it were to come to a
break. .
‘And then again,’ he said, as though ten silent minutes had not passed, ‘it is not a question of very little, by European standards. I have about ten thousand pounds, I believe; an estate worth as much again, and capable of improvement. There is also my pay,’ he added. ‘Two or three hundred a year.’
‘And a castle in Spain,’ said Diana, smiling. ‘Lie still, and tell me about your castle in Spain. I know it has a marble bath.’
‘Aye, and a marble roof, where it has a roof at all. But I must not practise on you, Villiers; it is not what you have here. Six, no five habitable rooms; and most of them are inhabited by merino sheep. It is a romantic ruin, surrounded by romantic mountains; but romance does not keep the rain away.’
He had made his attempt, delivered his charge, and it had failed: now his heart beat quietly again. He was speaking in a companionable, detached voice about merino sheep, the peculiarities of a Spanish rent-?roll, the inconveniences of war, a sailor’s chances of prize-?money, and he was reaching for his neckcloth when she interrupted him and said, ‘Stephen, what you said to me turned my head about so much I hardly know what I answered. I must think. Let us talk about it again in Calcutta. I must have months and months to think. Lord, how pale you have gone again. Come, put on a light gown and we will sit in the court for the fresh air: these lamps are intolerable indoors.’
‘No, no. Do not move.’
‘Why? Because it is Canning’s gown? Because he is my lover? Because he is a Jew?’
‘Stuff. I have the greatest esteem for Jews, so far as anyone can speak of a heterogenous great body of men in such a meaningless, illiberal way.’
