Greville Fane | Page 3

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This etext was scanned by David Price, email [email protected],
from the 1893 Macmillan and Co. edition. Proofing was by Nina Hall,
Mohua Sen, Bridie, Francine Smith and David.

Greville Fane
by Henry James

Coming in to dress for dinner, I found a telegram: "Mrs. Stormer dying;
can you give us half a column for to-morrow evening? Let her off easy,
but not too easy." I was late; I was in a hurry; I had very little time to
think, but at a venture I dispatched a reply: "Will do what I can." It was
not till I had dressed and was rolling away to dinner that, in the hansom,
I bethought myself of the difficulty of the condition attached. The
difficulty was not of course in letting her off easy but in qualifying that
indulgence. "I simply won't qualify it," I said to myself. I didn't admire
her, but I liked her, and I had known her so long that I almost felt
heartless in sitting down at such an hour to a feast of indifference. I
must have seemed abstracted, for the early years of my acquaintance
with her came back to me. I spoke of her to the lady I had taken down,
hut the lady I had taken down had never heard of Greville Fane. I tried
my other neighbour, who pronounced her books "too vile." I had never
thought them very good, but I should let her off easier than that.
I came away early, for the express purpose of driving to ask about her.
The journey took time, for she lived in the north-west district, in the
neighbourhood of Primrose Hill. My apprehension that I should be too
late was justified in a fuller sense than I had attached to it--I had only
feared that the house would be shut up. There were lights in the
windows, and the temperate tinkle of my bell brought a servant

immediately to the door, but poor Mrs. Stormer had passed into a state
in which the resonance of no earthly knocker was to be feared. A lady,
in the hall, hovering behind the servant, came forward when she heard
my voice. I recognised Lady Luard, but she had mistaken me for the
doctor.
"Excuse my appearing at such an hour," I said; "it was the first possible
moment after I heard."
"It's all over," Lady Luard replied.