has left me this house,” the newly-made widow said; “but of course I shall not live in it; I’ve a much better one in Florence. The will was opened only three days since, but I’ve already offered the house for sale. I’ve also a share in the bank; but I don’t yet understand if I’m obliged to leave it there. If not I shall certainly take it out. Ralph, of course, has Gardencourt; but I’m not sure that he’ll have means to keep up the place. He’s naturally left very well off, but his father has given away an immense deal of money; there are bequests to a string of third cousins in Vermont. Ralph, however, is very fond of Gardencourt and would be quite capable of living there — in summer — with a maid-of-all-work and a gardener’s boy. There’s one remarkable clause in my husband’s will,” Mrs. Touchett added. “He has left my niece a fortune.”
“A fortune!” Madame Merle softly repeated.
“Isabel steps into something like seventy thousand pounds.” Madame Merle’s hands were clasped in her lap; at this she raised them, still clasped, and held them a moment against her bosom while her eyes, a little dilated, fixed themselves on those of her friend. “Ah,” she cried, “the clever creature!”
Mrs. Touchett gave her a quick look. “What do you mean by that?”
For an instant Madame Merle’s colour rose and she dropped her eyes. “It certainly is clever to achieve such results — without an effort!”
“There assuredly was no effort. Don’t call it an achievement.”
Madame Merle was seldom guilty of the awkwardness of retracting what she had said; her wisdom was shown rather in maintaining it and placing it in a favourable light. “My dear friend, Isabel would certainly not have had seventy thousand pounds left her if she had not been the most charming girl in the world. Her charm includes great cleverness.”
“She never dreamed, I’m sure, of my husband’s doing anything for her; and I never dreamed of it either, for he never spoke to me of his intention,” Mrs. Touchett said. “She had no claim upon him whatever; it was no great recommendation to him that she was my niece. Whatever she achieved she achieved unconsciously.”
“Ah,” rejoined Madame Merle, “those are the greatest strokes!” Mrs. Touchett reserved her opinion. “The girl’s fortunate; I don’t deny that. But for the present she’s simply stupefied.”
“Do you mean that she doesn’t know what to do with the money?”
“That, I think, she has hardly considered. She doesn’t know what to think about the matter at all. It has been as if a big gun were suddenly fired off behind her; she’s feeling herself to see if she be hurt. It’s but three days since she received a visit from the principal executor, who came in person, very gallantly, to notify her. He told me afterwards that when he had made his little speech she suddenly burst into tears. The money’s to remain in the affairs of the bank, and she’s to draw the interest.”
Madame Merle shook her head with a wise and now quite benignant smile. “How very delicious! After she has done that two or three times she’ll get used to it.” Then after a silence, “What does your son think of it?” she abruptly asked.
“He left England before the will was read — used up by his fatigue and anxiety and hurrying off to the south. He’s on his way to the Riviera and I’ve not yet heard from him. But it’s not likely he’ll ever object to anything done by his father.”
“Didn’t you say his own share had been cut down?”
“Only at his wish. I know that he urged his father to do something for the people in America. He’s not in the least addicted to looking after number one.”
“It depends upon whom he regards as number one!” said Madame Merle. And she remained thoughtful a moment, her eyes bent on the floor.
“Am I not to see your happy niece?” she asked at last as she raised them.
“You may see her; but you’ll not be struck with her being happy. She has looked as solemn, these three days, as a Cimabue Madonna!” And Mrs. Touchett rang for a servant.
Isabel came in shortly after the footman had been sent to call her; and Madame Merle thought, as she appeared, that Mrs. Touchett’s comparison had its force. The girl was pale and grave — an effect not mitigated by her deeper mourning; but the smile of her brightest moments came into her face as she saw Madame Merle, who went forward, laid her hand on our heroine’s shoulder and, after looking at her a moment, kissed her as if she were returning the kiss she had received from her at Gardencourt. This was the only allusion the visitor, in her great good taste, made for the present to her young friend’s inheritance.
Mrs. Touchett had no purpose of awaiting in London the sale of her house. After selecting from among its furniture the objects she wished to transport to her other abode, she left the rest of its contents to be disposed of by the auctioneer and took her departure for the Continent. She was of course accompanied on this journey by her niece, who now had plenty of leisure to measure and weigh and otherwise handle the windfall on which Madame Merle had covertly congratulated her. Isabel thought very often of the fact of her accession of means, looking at it in a dozen different lights; but we shall not now attempt to follow her train of thought or to explain exactly why her new consciousness was at first oppressive. This failure to rise to immediate joy was indeed but brief; the girl presently made up her mind that to be rich was a virtue because it was to be able to do, and that to do could only be sweet. It was the graceful contrary of the stupid side of weakness — especially the feminine variety. To be weak was, for a delicate young person, rather graceful, but, after all, as Isabel said to herself, there was a larger grace than that. Just now, it is true, there was not much to do — once she had sent off a cheque to Lily and another to poor Edith; but she was thankful for the quiet months which her mourning robes and her aunt’s fresh widowhood compelled them to spend together. The acquisition of power made her serious; she scrutinised her power with a kind of tender ferocity, but was not eager to exercise it. She began to do so during a stay of some weeks which she eventually made with her aunt in Paris, though in ways that will inevitably present themselves as trivial. They were the ways most naturally imposed in a city in which the shops are the admiration of the world, and that were prescribed unreservedly by the guidance of Mrs. Touchett, who took a rigidly practical view of the transformation of her niece from a poor girl to a rich one. “Now that you’re a young woman of fortune you must know how to play the part — I mean to play it well,” she said to Isabel once for all; and she added that the girl’s first duty was to have everything handsome. “You don’t know how to take care of your things, but you must learn,” she went on; this was Isabel’s second duty. Isabel submitted, but for the present her imagination was not kindled; she longed for opportunities, but these were not the opportunities she meant.
Mrs. Touchett rarely changed her plans, and, having intended before her husband’s death to spend a part of the winter in Paris, saw no reason to deprive herself — still less to deprive her companion — of this advantage. Though they would live in great retirement she might still present her niece, informally, to the little circle of her fellow countrymen dwelling upon the skirts of the Champs Elysees. With many of these amiable colonists Mrs. Touchett was intimate; she shared their expatriation, their convictions, their pastimes, their ennui. Isabel saw them arrive with a good deal of assiduity at her aunt’s hotel, and pronounced on them with a trenchancy doubtless to be accounted for by the temporary exaltation of her sense of human duty. She made up her mind that their lives were, though luxurious, inane, and incurred some disfavour by expressing this view on bright Sunday afternoons, when the American absentees were engaged in calling on each other. Though her listeners passed for people kept exemplarily genial by their cooks and dressmakers, two or three of them thought her cleverness, which was generally
