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.
Part IIAh, the truth. Nothing so simple, nothing so elusive. Gilbert Osmond was in his study when a forthright knock on the door alerted him to Isabel's presence. He of course did know she had returned, he was, after all, master of his domain unequivocally. He'd received her telegrams but had no interest in the role of eager husband ready to forgive his wife her trespasses of which Osmond could enumerate at length and did so in the days and hours since her sudden departure to England to sit at the bed of her dying cousin. He did not believe Ralph Touchett was dying; that he was proved wrong did nothing to mitigate his anger. His wife belonged with him in Italy and nowhere else. There were appearances to keep up--Osmond was nothing if not a stickler for appearance. He'd spent his life composing a visage that allowed for no precipitous handling, no rough adornment. Leave it to an American to not understand what was called for, the delicacy, the subtle assertions required, he thought.
Isabel entered the lavish room without a response from her husband. Higgins answered her knock and quickly disappeared.
"Good afternoon, Gilbert, you see I have returned,” she said with timidity, hesitating before his louche countenance. “My cousin Ralph has died, as I wrote...you see, he really was dying." She remained standing at the outskirts of Osmond's study, uncertain as to where this meeting would likely go and if she had the strength for it.
"I am not concerned with your cousin as I expressly told you before you fled our home to sit at his bedside. I do care for propriety, for the way things are prescribed in this country. Do you think I would cast all decorum and decency aside for your cousin whom I care nothing about?"
"Do not disparage my cousin now nor in the future. He is gone, I shall miss him forever. I will not have him belittled in my home. As for propriety, do you not think it appears somewhat shabby that your former mistress made a match for you, that you then courted and married the hand-picked specimen your mistress found for you: You who would despise a bounder but nevertheless allowed yourself to take what was offered and then make a show of indifference to the world's opinion? Shame on you Gilbert. You were at one time above the crass opportunity you embraced by marrying me, pitifully dumb American girl so easily swayed by a few pompous lectures, plausible trinkets, a masterpiece or two, kind phrases to captivate her imagination.”
“I married you in good faith,” he said shocked by his wife’s lack of discretion. Because he was not certain of all she knew, he did not want to tangle with this line of inquiry. “It is you who have fallen out of our vows, Isabel. I regard them as sacred.” He was holding a small carved crucifix while he paced back and forth. He took the high road whenever his wife had reason for complaint; as he did in all encounters with others, he knew any other way was to descend into the querulous games that lesser mortals played at.
She ignored his platitudes and continued on with her own speech before she lost heart. “Yet all would be forgiven had you the capability of regarding me as anything but dreary conduit to endless funding, had you been able to show me the compassion you show your art collection. How dishonorable, Gilbert.”
“What do you know about my reasons? You listen to my sister with her assassination attempt on me. I married you in good faith, I tell you. It is your faith that has wavered, my dear.”
“I know everything, Gilbert, including Pansy’s maternity. No need to deny or attempt to disprove anything. I had much time to think in England you see. If it weren't for your former mistress I might still be in doubt but she was unable to stay away from Pansy, a mother couldn't, after you banished her to the convent. Yes, she was just as keen as you were on a marriage to Lord Warburton. She showed her hand and from there I had only to put your sister’s assertions into play. Oh, I know, it has taken me some time to piece things together and I still may not have but for your sister’s free-range tongue but be glad I am not so set on appearances otherwise I should lie down and die for the form I show the world; a woman who was taken for her money only to find it is not enough, what was expected was her soul along with it. It's only too bad Pansy had other ideas for her future. Where is she, by the way, still under lock and key?"
"Pansy is here at home. You would know that if you'd been in your rightful place. Mother Catherine recommended she be here; she was unhappy it seems at the convent, the sanctuary that was once her happy home now made intolerable by your interference, your stupid meddling in affairs that do not concern you. Or do they? Was your conquest of Lord Warburton unassailable?"
"My conquest, if you choose to call it that, I do not, of Lord Warburton is history. It is of no importance and I refuse to give it any. Lord Warburton will soon be married and we need not think of him again. You need not receive him. Nor will I receive him. You see, I've had time to think and what I think matters greatly to me if it doesn't to you. We are at an impasse, Gilbert, for which I blame myself. Things have happened that take us out of ourselves. I want to make peace with you. I won't fight you any longer or be at odds. You are a lover of art and fine things, certainly you can rise to the occasion of a fine partnership for lack of a better word, a more promising ideal, you have nothing to fear from me: I am done in by your wrath and you know it so there is no need to continue pounding on me.
“Tell me, Mrs. Osmond, does this mean you wave a white flag?”
“I haven't in the least surrendered Gilbert, but I am calling for a truce. I will give you what you want and in return you will give Pansy a life of her choosing."
"That's all, my dear, nothing for yourself?"
"That is for myself. I have no needs that I cannot fulfill on my own. But Pansy cannot fight you and I can. And will."
"Spoken like a true American woman. How tedious, Isabel, as if you could command the unspoken into action."
"My needs aren't that complicated. Pansy's needs are and will continue to be unless you really believe in self-effacement, Gilbert, you cannot be that primitive."
"On the contrary, my dear wife, you overestimate me; I can indeed invoke the primitive man, the patriarch, if you will. I will protect my daughter from a dingy life. I will not sell… settle her for less than her due."
"She is not yours to sell! And you will find that if you do not love your daughter more than yourself, your precious image, you will never win. She has been where love resides, Gilbert, so don't think you will bluff her. And when she turns away, you will have lost something so precious that you will be unable to sleep for the rest of your days. You may have won, but your loss will be greater, so much greater,”
"Such deep philosophy coming from one who so seldom quiets down enough to contemplate the mysteries of meaning, but now has my child figured out and is qualified to give me a lecture on my daughter's love for me, her father, whom she knows only seeks her happiness. Don't be daft, Isabel. You of all people should lecture me? A wife such as you are. Not what I have bargained for either, my dear.”
"Gilbert, I'm asking something of you, because I could divorce you, I'd very much like to divorce you, but while I am in Italy I shall abide by the rules. But I may one day be in England or America or even France. And when and if that time comes, I may choose to do something different. So you see Gilbert, your hand should be played as precautionary: keep me in Italy, see to it that I'm given the respect I deserve, both in private and in public. I am not perfect, of course, but I am your wife, I married you in good faith and I have shared with you as I had been shared with. In good faith, Gilbert. Now I want to get what I pay for: I want a decent partnership, I can't call it a marriage, nor even a friendship, but I wish that we work in conjunction instead fission.”
"Hah! That is what I’ve been trying to do all along. It is you who have worked against me.”
“No, Gilbert, that is not what you have been doing. You have played a game with me. A sordid game I was unfamiliar with. You kept me in suspense and brought great confusion and anxiety to my mind and my heart. I hoped it was a passing phase, wrought from our great loss but in time I began to see Gilbert that you do not see. You whose days are spent in looking at wondrous riches have no vision. You are just as petty and underhanded as the lowest peasant. You have a heart but it is brittle, strangled by your animosity which makes you greedy and self-serving, I’m sorry to be so beastly to you Gilbert, I do not want to fight, but you must understand, I’ve seen through you, you cannot make a fool of me any longer.”
“What I understand is that you are in the wrong, are admitting you are wrong and we should go on from there. If you are not admitting you are wrong, then we can go no further with this.”
“Oh Gilbert, from such a fine man as you claim to be. Why is it so hard to just let go your orthodoxy, your peevishness? Do you get pleasure from denigrating me and our friends?”
“Friends! Ha! We have no friends, Isabel. There is family and foe and in our case, all is forsaken. That is why I guard my daughter as I guard my small Caravaggio: Precious. Now you Isabel Osmond are my wife and as such, also family. So you say you will reward me with your presence in Italy, I say to you, dear wife, if I never see you again, it would suit me fine. You bore me immensely. On the other hand, I do not want to be the bloke whose rich wife left him for someone in England, or America, or France, as you pointed out, or having been cheated out of his rightful place in the hierarchy of the banking system, if you will, but I refuse to talk about anything so crass as your precious money. Do you know how it makes me feel that everywhere, everyone knows that I am provided for by you, my rich American wife who supports me in the style I‘m arrogant enough to think I deserve? Do you know that everyday I am humiliated in some way, some way that I've never experienced before?”
“It hasn’t seemed to bother you much, Gilbert. You turn out in style and substance. No one doubts your fidelity, your honor. If they do, they keep it hidden.”
“Thank you for the compliment but it wreaks of patronization which is beneath you, Isabel.”
“It wasn’t meant to compliment, Gilbert. But it is of no great importance either. What I’m asking of you is for a little civility and Pansy’s freedom. I want all girls to have the opportunity of freedom for as such time as can be given--before marriage and motherhood. We should all have the feeling of liberty once in our lives. But if my money galls you so, you can leave, go back to Florence, to your little hideaway in the hills. You were happy there before...”
“More philosophy. Your cousin’s death has made of you a scribe. Really, Isabel. How tiresome you could become.”
“Ah, you say ‘could.’ You mean I haven’t fallen completely? A triumph of sorts.”
“Don’t be literal, Isabel. What is it you plan to do with my daughter if I give her up to you?”
“I’m going to find out what she wants, what she needs. I’m going to listen to her. I’m going to take her into society to meet certain people and keep her away from a great many others. I will do my best to act in all principle to advise against or enact her heart’s desire, I hope the latter.”
“Spoken like an American woman--all sentiment and aggression.”
“If you’ve a better idea for her that is not banishing her from your kingdom like a mad tyrant, I haven’t seen it. You did not get what you wanted from Lord Warburton, you have caused friction within your family, you have failed as a husband.”
“Thank you my dear, always ready with a kind word.”
“Might you want platitudes from your wife?”
“Hardly. What I want is obedience and that is precisely what I have not gotten from this arrangement, or so it seems, will I ever.”
“Obedience! Surely you can come up with a more worthy desire than that. The most petty thug on the street wants obedience. Aren’t you a little more original than that, Gilbert?”
Osmond moved closer to Isabel who shrank back from the intensity of his glare. “I shall not expect it from you, Mrs. Osmond. I put it to rest. In the meantime, you are offering me a position. As your lawfully wedded husband, though not master, to play my role, and as I say to you, dearest wife, I play my role to perfection. You’ve no complaint. So why do you lecture me now? I’m always ready to play my part. Until death do us part. You say you desire a partnership, well that suits me. A little unoriginal but that is to be expected. We can adjust the terms as we see fit. Just know that I will not be under your thumb at any time.”
“And you are to understand that I will not be treated as you have treated me. Let me alone, stop hating me.”
“What is your part in this? How have you treated me? What about the disdain, the contempt you hold for me? Certainly you don't deny it?”
“I will never question your proclivities or your methods in other regards. We will be of course, platonic from here on in.”
“Of course. Why would I want to make love to a woman has offered to buy my daughter from me.”
“You go to far, Gilbert. I don’t know what to make of you. You are so exalted and then so very low. How does it happen? How do you sink so?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my dear, but you’d better think about what you are saying. I’ve been known to hold a grudge. I never forget. If you think I’ve forgotten something, I haven’t. It’s there, always ready to be recalled. Don’t forget, Isabel.” He moved away and wiped his brow hastily to avoid any detection of nerves spent.
“I consider myself warned Osmond. Now, while you are skipping around looking in the galleries, refining your technique for subterfuge and deception, I will be putting your daughter to the test. I will find out what is in her heart. Oh, don’t worry, I won’t make the same mistake with her as I did with my own fate; I will make sure she is treasured. You can count on that Gilbert."
Osmond sat staring wearily out of the arched window that looked onto a small courtyard with a marble fountain where barely a trickle flowed. The afternoon light was beginning to wan and springtime showed positive signs of the earthly flowering. His meeting with his wife went better than he had expected: he did not have to give her much. He saw that she was worn down by her cousin’s death, the journey and whatever else may have taken place in England. He had not been sure she would return, was relieved that she had but had no intention of playing into her hands. She wanted his daughter’s freedom, he could give her that. He could not keep Pansy locked up forever, she was becoming a woman. He would prefer no man to have her though he would willingly give her up to a prosperous union, anything less looked shabbily arranged. The Osmonds do no come cheap, he sneered, lighting a cigarette.
Very well, he thought, Isabel could take her about. He had other things on his mind. He had begun the negotiations for the altarpiece that would require strategic maneuvers if he were not to be robbed. He coveted this piece and had every intention of purchasing it before other parties were made aware. He would need funds from Isabel, he’d gone through what was allotted him this quarter; troublesome bankers in England were sticklers for exactitude.
He also had another old master in his sights, certain it was the lost Correggio, its mysterious whereabouts often speculated upon by the connoisseurs of art. The owner was short of money to keep the family’s castle from crumbling around them. He was going to shake the old bat down. He would need his wife's help persuading the Marchesa Viticonti, entertaining her in a royal style at their Thursday open house and in private as necessary.
Osmond had plenty to think about. He would agree to a suitable marriage for Pansy. He was estranged from Madame Merle, would avoid her at all costs, she was now a liability he could not afford. As for Isabel, he did not care to think of her; she was a torn filament, and he, Gilbert Osmond, did not dwell on the less than perfect.
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