The Golden Bowl - Henry James [39]
Whether it worked for Mrs Assingham or not the Prince was himself, at this, more than ever reassured. He was safe, in a word – that was what it all meant; and he had required to be safe. He was really safe enough for almost any joke. ‘It’s only,’ he explained to their hostess, ‘because of what Miss Stant has been telling me. Don’t we want to keep up her courage?’ If the joke was broad he hadn’t at least begun it – not, that is, as a joke; which was what his companion’s address to their friend made of it. ‘She has been trying in America, she says, but hasn’t brought it off.’
The tone was somehow not what Mrs Assingham had expected, but she made the best of it. ‘Well then,’ she replied to the young man, ‘if you take such an interest you must bring it off.’
‘And you must help, dear,’ Charlotte said unperturbed – ‘as you’ve helped, so beautifully, in such things before.’ With which, before Mrs Assingham could meet the appeal, she had addressed herself to the Prince on a matter much nearer to him. ‘Your marriage is on Friday?5 – on Saturday?’
‘Oh on Friday, no! For what do you take us? There’s not a vulgar omen we’re neglecting. On Saturday, please, at the Oratory,6 at three o’clock – before twelve assistants exactly.’
‘Twelve including me?’
It struck him – he laughed. ‘You’ll make the thirteenth. It won’t do!’
‘Not,’ said Charlotte, ‘if you’re going in for “omens”. Should you like me stay away?’
‘Dear no – we’ll manage. We’ll make the round number – we’ll have in some old woman. They must keep them there for that, don’t they?’ Mrs Assingham’s return had at last indicated for him his departure; he had possessed himself again of his hat and approached her to take leave. But he had another word for Charlotte. ‘I dine to-night with Mr Verver. Have you any message?’
The girl seemed to wonder a little. ‘For Mr Verver?’
‘For Maggie – about her seeing you early. That, I know, is what she’ll like.’
‘Then I’ll come early – thanks.’
‘I dare say,’ he went on, ‘she’ll send for you. I mean send a carriage.’
‘Oh I don’t require that, thanks. I can go, for a penny, can’t I?’ she asked of Mrs Assingham, ‘in an omnibus.’
‘Oh I say!’ said the Prince while Mrs Assingham looked at her blandly.
‘Yes, love – and I’ll give you the penny. She shall get there,’ the good lady added to their friend.
But Charlotte, as the latter took leave of her, thought of something else. ‘There’s a great favour, Prince, that I want to ask of you. I want, between this and Saturday, to make Maggie a marriage-present.’
‘Oh I say!’ the young man again soothingly exclaimed.
‘Ah but I must,’ she went on. ‘It’s really almost for that I came back. It was impossible to get in America what I wanted.’
Mrs Assingham showed anxiety. ‘What is it then, dear, you want?’
But the girl looked only at their companion. ‘That’s what the Prince, if he’ll be so good, must help me to decide.’
‘Can’t I,’ Mrs Assingham asked, ‘help you to decide?’
‘Certainly, darling, we must talk it well over.’ And she kept her eyes on the Prince. ‘But I want him, if he kindly will, to go with me to look. I want him to judge with me and choose. That, if you can spare the hour,’ she said, ‘is the great favour I mean.’
He raised his eyebrows at her – he wonderfully smiled. ‘What you came back from America to ask? Ah certainly then I must find the hour!’ He wonderfully smiled, but it was after all rather more than he had been reckoning with. It went somehow so little with the rest that, directly, for him, it wasn’t the note of safety; it preserved this character, at the best, but by being the note of publicity. Quickly, quickly, however, the note of publicity struck him as better than any other.