# 91 MRS. OSMOND RETURNS
With a light tap, his butler Higgins entered the room with a tray of coffee, a newspaper and a light breakfast.
“Sir, Mrs. Osmond returns this morning. Shall I send the carriage to await her arrival?“
“No, let Mrs. Osmond take care of herself,” he said. “We don’t know her exact hour of arrival. Better to leave it in her hands.”
Higgins did not think this was at all the way to greet Mrs. Osmond on her return and was tempted to go against his employer and send the carriage. She was a great lady after all. He sensed the discord between the couple, it was in fact discussed freely downstairs and there was speculation that Mrs. Osmond may not ever return from England. He was happy when she confirmed by telegram her impending arrival, the house had been dull without her especially with Miss Pansy away at the convent.
Osmond thought his wife incorrigible; if she wanted to play by her own rules, rules he found unsupportable then she would reap the consequences. He knew Higgins looked at his behavior as an aberration, he did not care what a hired hand thought of him. He, Gilbert Osmond, could hire and fire all the English servants on the continent. Insufferable the English, he thought as he sat down to his breakfast. So many problems his wife’s departure had made for him. Yes, she would have to pay, he thought, his jaw clenched, his hands in a fist, though he did his best to appear unruffled in Higgins's presence, not to betray himself over an impertinent remark. Higgins poured coffee from the silver tray and bowed out gracefully.
Isabel being driven through Rome in the early dawn had time to reflect on what she would say to her husband when again they met. Perhaps he would not be at home but then that would not look appropriate and Osmond never did anything without thinking of appearances. Osmond was the lead in his own drama and his role was to play the supportive husband to the regal wife. It galled him but he was enough of a realist to know he could not at this time do without her, more chagrin that, but he would not, at this time, let her know in so many words how insufferable this position had become to him.
Isabel went straight to her apartment upon arriving home and did not summon a servant to impart a message to her husband. She did not go to him. She did not go near his rooms. Overt impassiveness was the mode they each used to manage their marriage. They would meet again in the second sitting room on the first floor of the Palazzo Roccanera that Osmond often used as a study. In this large, sunny room with the faded fresco on the north-facing wall he did his watercolor painting, studied his folios and looked for imperfection in the variety of objects de art he had on loan, the light so effervescent from the eastern view in the morning. That is where his wife would find him when the time came for a meeting.
She would knock on his door and wait for admittance. She wanted no excess irritation on her husband's part, she wanted to placate him to a point but would not be demeaned; she had been on a journey for the past month, it was a journey of her soul when she finally learned things she might have learned before had she not been so gullible, so naive. She chastised herself for her ignorance; no one had more, she thought. Her blind arrogance had ruled the day and she cringed when she thought of it. Her beloved cousin Ralph was now gone. She had no more reason for concealment but neither was she eager to announce her folly to one and all. It was apparent to those who might take notice; all those who loved her, regarded her with pleasure for her fine spirit, whose warnings she dismissed, so casual in her disregard for what others knew or suspected. Her cousin, when she finally announced her engagement had been so very disappointed, had called Osmond "small." How astutely she had defended his smallness, his want of worldly pleasure, his reclusive life that seemed so much finer than that lived by her fellow Americans with their continuous striving noise. How she, with her new-found wealth would set aright a wrong; that a person so decent would be without adequate means to fulfill the proper destiny for himself and his lovely, unspoiled daughter, Pansy. Her blindness filled her with dismay as she paced around her room, suddenly weighed down with the prospect of meeting Osmond again.
Yes, she married, against the counsel of those most dear to her, what she had thought was a mild-mannered artiste, an intellectual, someone whose cut was so exact he could not, would not play the world's shabby games. Instead she learned quickly that she had married and rewarded considerably, a bully, a snob, someone who had nothing but contempt for his fellow-man, a boorish dilettante without a heart. Her cousin had been kind with his assessment. “Small” did not begin to describe Osmond. When Isabel came to this realization it was the darkest day of her life. Three days later her son was born, her son who lived for six months, the darling, leaving the world of Isabel and Osmond and taking with him all that had been between them as husband and wife and left in his wake a power struggle that absorbed Osmond completely and engulfed Isabel in shame though she was not quite ready to admit defeat.
Osmond, for his part, played his hand in a more subtle fashion. The defection of Lord Warburton, after paying his daughter attention only to dispense with it at the slightest flicker from Isabel’s eye had rankled. Osmond was forced to admit defeat but only to himself. Just another grievance against his wife, a debt that must, and would be squared in the future.
Osmond had been winning until his wretched sister, the Countess Gemini, exposed his hand for which Osmond would never exonerate her. It would be a cold day before she ever darkened his door or saw her niece again. Osmond had given instructions to bar her entrance to his home. She had crossed the line. Osmond only barely tolerated her as it was, with her illicit affairs, her tawdry reputation because she was his sister, his only remaining family. That would be no more. He had no sister, he had written to her. She arrived at his door within forty-eight hours and found her way to Osmond’s study without announcement. He pounced on her, a lethal cat, his nerves taut, his eyes molten flames but the countess had very little fear of her brother. He ordered her to leave his house.
“I will not have you here, I will not listen to your excuses,” he bellowed. “You have done me untold harm. For nothing. What do you get out of this?”
“Oh Osmond, spare me. You're overreacting. Secrets have a way of damning up the works. You married Isabel under a cloak of secrecy for her money, with a good deal of trickery performed by your former mistress.”
“Leave Madame Merle out of this. She at least has the dignity of refrain.”
“I’ve never liked her, you know that but I could never speak against her and I never have.”
"What makes you break with propriety now?" he hissed.
“I like Isabel even though she doesn’t like me. I was weary of keeping secrets from her, I have no patience with naivety after a certain age. It was unseemly,” said the Countess Gemini. “And you are not good to her, I felt sorry for her, so upright, so in need of your approval.” The Countess herself had to bear a heavy load with her husband and thought Isabel should not be absolved from the world’s harshness. “Besides, I was tired of her superiority, not to mention yours and that of Serena Merle. Now Isabel will be on our level. She’s young, perhaps she will find a lover.” She said this with a certain glee knowing it to cut deeply into her brother’s warped sense of morality.
“You dare to come here proffering such claptrap. My wife will never descend to your level. Leave, take your blight from my home, your inferiority astounds me,” he roared and then realized she was playing with him as she did when they were children and quickly regained control. He smoothed his brow, leveled his eyes and stopped pacing but stood before the fireplace with his back to her.
“Maybe not to my level, brother dear, but how long before she stoops to your level?”
“You are an outrage, Countess.” Osmond’s face was red, his placid demeanor destroyed. He was drained of energy from her presence in less than fifteen minutes. He should not let her get to him this way.
When she had made her point--and it was sharply rendered, the Countess left, feeling justified, taking with her Osmond’s good mood. He had just returned from a visit to an old church where he was certain a fourteenth-century altarpiece that would soon be sold was in fact a Giotto. To acquire it, he would need Isabel and her checkbook back in Italy, his sister banished forever, his daughter at home and Madame Merle far away. He thought he might be able to recover his equilibrium, regain his peace of mind if he kept minor blandishments from irritating him. He was going to need his wits to put all that was necessary in place, to obtain this miraculous altarpiece.
Isabel, rattling around in her rooms, nervous, strained from her journey and her cousin's funeral wondered if her stepdaughter had been brought home from the convent, if she might go to her. Her father had sent her back to the convent when she had shown a yearning for a marriage to the one she most regarded. That her father did not think much of her choice and put her back into the seclusion of convent life hurt Pansy badly. She begged Isabel not to forsake her and Isabel promised she would return to her. That promise was what brought her back to Italy: the forlorn tremor in Pansy's little voice haunted her in England. She made one sure decision while at Gardencourt, her cousin’s home, a place she loved, that represented her life before its defilement: she would not forsake Pansy. Isabel still honored her word; she had not strayed in principle. She would fight for her stepdaughter in whatever way she could.
She had many things to catch up on despite the ill-will from her husband she was sure to receive but she had an advantage now: she would no longer be sulking in the dark. She knew not how this would change her life, she only knew that for a long time she had been living in a shadow cast by her husband with his friend, Madame Merle, abetting its mysterious power. She would consent no more to it, this she knew for certain. She was going reestablish a life of meaning with or without Osmond. She may decide not to live with him but she would never divorce. He was her shield. They would have to speak a new language and she was determined Osmond would learn it. This time she would be the teacher and he would listen to her. His reign of authority was at an end. He had nothing on her now: The truth had set her free.
Part IIsabel Osmond, returning to Italy in the early morning dawn, the night's quietude holding as the darkness fades, an hour usually unlived by most, felt a chill upon leaving the train and wrapped her cloak tightly around her as the porter ever so respectful of the lady, held out a hand to guide her from the car as her maid was left to scurry for the scant baggage. Isabel had left Rome in a hurry, traveling light, though heavy in heart. There was a carriage waiting for her though it had not been sent by her husband who continued to ignore her return with less contempt than might be imagined. Gilbert Osmond was anxious for his wife's return for any number of reasons, but he would make sure she would not know that. She would be punished for her departure, that he knew, for sitting at another man's dying bed. He had given her fair warning. That the man was her cousin was not a concern to Osmond, disobedience was her sin and like his daughter, she would learn not to displease. He skulked about his room, nervous, preoccupied, rearranged a drawer, filed his personal correspondence and began to think of how he would conduct his marriage on his wife’s return. He wished he could be somewhere else and had considered going to Florence to avoid her but decided it would not look natural; the servants would talk, his daughter though too timid to question him would register his apathy. Lately she had looked at him in a way she never had before--with a serious confounded stare. This he could not bear in one he so lovingly reared, another thing Isabel must answer for, but he would nevertheless, be at home when she returned, a number of factors ruled it to be so.
With a light tap, his butler Higgins entered the room with a tray of coffee, a newspaper and a light breakfast.
“Sir, Mrs. Osmond returns this morning. Shall I send the carriage to await her arrival?“
“No, let Mrs. Osmond take care of herself,” he said. “We don’t know her exact hour of arrival. Better to leave it in her hands.”
Higgins did not think this was at all the way to greet Mrs. Osmond on her return and was tempted to go against his employer and send the carriage. She was a great lady after all. He sensed the discord between the couple, it was in fact discussed freely downstairs and there was speculation that Mrs. Osmond may not ever return from England. He was happy when she confirmed by telegram her impending arrival, the house had been dull without her especially with Miss Pansy away at the convent.
Osmond thought his wife incorrigible; if she wanted to play by her own rules, rules he found unsupportable then she would reap the consequences. He knew Higgins looked at his behavior as an aberration, he did not care what a hired hand thought of him. He, Gilbert Osmond, could hire and fire all the English servants on the continent. Insufferable the English, he thought as he sat down to his breakfast. So many problems his wife’s departure had made for him. Yes, she would have to pay, he thought, his jaw clenched, his hands in a fist, though he did his best to appear unruffled in Higgins's presence, not to betray himself over an impertinent remark. Higgins poured coffee from the silver tray and bowed out gracefully.
Isabel being driven through Rome in the early dawn had time to reflect on what she would say to her husband when again they met. Perhaps he would not be at home but then that would not look appropriate and Osmond never did anything without thinking of appearances. Osmond was the lead in his own drama and his role was to play the supportive husband to the regal wife. It galled him but he was enough of a realist to know he could not at this time do without her, more chagrin that, but he would not, at this time, let her know in so many words how insufferable this position had become to him.
Isabel went straight to her apartment upon arriving home and did not summon a servant to impart a message to her husband. She did not go to him. She did not go near his rooms. Overt impassiveness was the mode they each used to manage their marriage. They would meet again in the second sitting room on the first floor of the Palazzo Roccanera that Osmond often used as a study. In this large, sunny room with the faded fresco on the north-facing wall he did his watercolor painting, studied his folios and looked for imperfection in the variety of objects de art he had on loan, the light so effervescent from the eastern view in the morning. That is where his wife would find him when the time came for a meeting.
She would knock on his door and wait for admittance. She wanted no excess irritation on her husband's part, she wanted to placate him to a point but would not be demeaned; she had been on a journey for the past month, it was a journey of her soul when she finally learned things she might have learned before had she not been so gullible, so naive. She chastised herself for her ignorance; no one had more, she thought. Her blind arrogance had ruled the day and she cringed when she thought of it. Her beloved cousin Ralph was now gone. She had no more reason for concealment but neither was she eager to announce her folly to one and all. It was apparent to those who might take notice; all those who loved her, regarded her with pleasure for her fine spirit, whose warnings she dismissed, so casual in her disregard for what others knew or suspected. Her cousin, when she finally announced her engagement had been so very disappointed, had called Osmond "small." How astutely she had defended his smallness, his want of worldly pleasure, his reclusive life that seemed so much finer than that lived by her fellow Americans with their continuous striving noise. How she, with her new-found wealth would set aright a wrong; that a person so decent would be without adequate means to fulfill the proper destiny for himself and his lovely, unspoiled daughter, Pansy. Her blindness filled her with dismay as she paced around her room, suddenly weighed down with the prospect of meeting Osmond again.
Yes, she married, against the counsel of those most dear to her, what she had thought was a mild-mannered artiste, an intellectual, someone whose cut was so exact he could not, would not play the world's shabby games. Instead she learned quickly that she had married and rewarded considerably, a bully, a snob, someone who had nothing but contempt for his fellow-man, a boorish dilettante without a heart. Her cousin had been kind with his assessment. “Small” did not begin to describe Osmond. When Isabel came to this realization it was the darkest day of her life. Three days later her son was born, her son who lived for six months, the darling, leaving the world of Isabel and Osmond and taking with him all that had been between them as husband and wife and left in his wake a power struggle that absorbed Osmond completely and engulfed Isabel in shame though she was not quite ready to admit defeat.
Osmond, for his part, played his hand in a more subtle fashion. The defection of Lord Warburton, after paying his daughter attention only to dispense with it at the slightest flicker from Isabel’s eye had rankled. Osmond was forced to admit defeat but only to himself. Just another grievance against his wife, a debt that must, and would be squared in the future.
Osmond had been winning until his wretched sister, the Countess Gemini, exposed his hand for which Osmond would never exonerate her. It would be a cold day before she ever darkened his door or saw her niece again. Osmond had given instructions to bar her entrance to his home. She had crossed the line. Osmond only barely tolerated her as it was, with her illicit affairs, her tawdry reputation because she was his sister, his only remaining family. That would be no more. He had no sister, he had written to her. She arrived at his door within forty-eight hours and found her way to Osmond’s study without announcement. He pounced on her, a lethal cat, his nerves taut, his eyes molten flames but the countess had very little fear of her brother. He ordered her to leave his house.
“I will not have you here, I will not listen to your excuses,” he bellowed. “You have done me untold harm. For nothing. What do you get out of this?”
“Oh Osmond, spare me. You're overreacting. Secrets have a way of damning up the works. You married Isabel under a cloak of secrecy for her money, with a good deal of trickery performed by your former mistress.”
“Leave Madame Merle out of this. She at least has the dignity of refrain.”
“I’ve never liked her, you know that but I could never speak against her and I never have.”
"What makes you break with propriety now?" he hissed.
“I like Isabel even though she doesn’t like me. I was weary of keeping secrets from her, I have no patience with naivety after a certain age. It was unseemly,” said the Countess Gemini. “And you are not good to her, I felt sorry for her, so upright, so in need of your approval.” The Countess herself had to bear a heavy load with her husband and thought Isabel should not be absolved from the world’s harshness. “Besides, I was tired of her superiority, not to mention yours and that of Serena Merle. Now Isabel will be on our level. She’s young, perhaps she will find a lover.” She said this with a certain glee knowing it to cut deeply into her brother’s warped sense of morality.
“You dare to come here proffering such claptrap. My wife will never descend to your level. Leave, take your blight from my home, your inferiority astounds me,” he roared and then realized she was playing with him as she did when they were children and quickly regained control. He smoothed his brow, leveled his eyes and stopped pacing but stood before the fireplace with his back to her.
“Maybe not to my level, brother dear, but how long before she stoops to your level?”
“You are an outrage, Countess.” Osmond’s face was red, his placid demeanor destroyed. He was drained of energy from her presence in less than fifteen minutes. He should not let her get to him this way.
When she had made her point--and it was sharply rendered, the Countess left, feeling justified, taking with her Osmond’s good mood. He had just returned from a visit to an old church where he was certain a fourteenth-century altarpiece that would soon be sold was in fact a Giotto. To acquire it, he would need Isabel and her checkbook back in Italy, his sister banished forever, his daughter at home and Madame Merle far away. He thought he might be able to recover his equilibrium, regain his peace of mind if he kept minor blandishments from irritating him. He was going to need his wits to put all that was necessary in place, to obtain this miraculous altarpiece.
Isabel, rattling around in her rooms, nervous, strained from her journey and her cousin's funeral wondered if her stepdaughter had been brought home from the convent, if she might go to her. Her father had sent her back to the convent when she had shown a yearning for a marriage to the one she most regarded. That her father did not think much of her choice and put her back into the seclusion of convent life hurt Pansy badly. She begged Isabel not to forsake her and Isabel promised she would return to her. That promise was what brought her back to Italy: the forlorn tremor in Pansy's little voice haunted her in England. She made one sure decision while at Gardencourt, her cousin’s home, a place she loved, that represented her life before its defilement: she would not forsake Pansy. Isabel still honored her word; she had not strayed in principle. She would fight for her stepdaughter in whatever way she could.
She had many things to catch up on despite the ill-will from her husband she was sure to receive but she had an advantage now: she would no longer be sulking in the dark. She knew not how this would change her life, she only knew that for a long time she had been living in a shadow cast by her husband with his friend, Madame Merle, abetting its mysterious power. She would consent no more to it, this she knew for certain. She was going reestablish a life of meaning with or without Osmond. She may decide not to live with him but she would never divorce. He was her shield. They would have to speak a new language and she was determined Osmond would learn it. This time she would be the teacher and he would listen to her. His reign of authority was at an end. He had nothing on her now: The truth had set her free.
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