What Maisie Knew

What Maisie Knew

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Title: What Maisie Knew
Author: Henry James
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7118] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 12,
2003]

Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT
MAISIE KNEW ***

Etext created by Eve Sobol, South Bend, Indiana, USA

WHAT MAISIE KNEW
HENRY JAMES
The litigation seemed interminable and had in fact been complicated;
but by the decision on the appeal the judgement of the divorce-court
was confirmed as to the assignment of the child. The father, who,
though bespattered from head to foot, had made good his case, was, in
pursuance of this triumph, appointed to keep her: it was not so much
that the mother's character had been more absolutely damaged as that
the brilliancy of a lady's complexion (and this lady's, in court, was
immensely remarked) might be more regarded as showing the spots.
Attached, however, to the second pronouncement was a condition that
detracted, for Beale Farange, from its sweetness--an order that he
should refund to his late wife the twenty-six hundred pounds put down
by her, as it was called, some three years before, in the interest of the
child's maintenance and precisely on a proved understanding that he
would take no proceedings: a sum of which he had had the
administration and of which he could render not the least account. The
obligation thus attributed to her adversary was no small balm to Ida's
resentment; it drew a part of the sting from her defeat and compelled
Mr. Farange perceptibly to lower his crest. He was unable to produce
the money or to raise it in any way; so that after a squabble scarcely
less public and scarcely more decent than the original shock of battle

his only issue from his predicament was a compromise proposed by his
legal advisers and finally accepted by hers.
His debt was by this arrangement remitted to him and the little girl
disposed of in a manner worthy of the judgement-seat of Solomon. She
was divided in two and the portions tossed impartially to the disputants.
They would take her, in rotation, for six months at a time; she would
spend half the year with each. This was odd justice in the eyes of those
who still blinked in the fierce light projected from the tribunal--a light
in which neither parent figured in the least as a happy example to youth
and innocence. What was to have been expected on the evidence was
the nomination, in loco parentis, of some proper third person, some
respectable or at least some presentable friend. Apparently, however,
the circle of the Faranges had been scanned in vain for any such
ornament; so that the only solution finally meeting all the difficulties
was, save that of sending Maisie to a Home, the partition of the tutelary
office in the manner I have mentioned. There were more reasons for her
parents to agree to it than there had ever been for them to agree to
anything; and they now prepared with her help to enjoy the distinction
that waits upon vulgarity sufficiently attested. Their rupture had
resounded, and after being perfectly insignificant together they would
be decidedly striking apart. Had they not produced an impression that
warranted people in looking for appeals in the newspapers for the
rescue of the little one--reverberation, amid a vociferous public, of the
idea that some movement should be started or some benevolent person
should come forward? A good lady came indeed a step or two: she was
distantly related to Mrs. Farange, to whom she proposed that, having
children and nurseries wound up and going, she should be allowed to
take home the bone of contention and, by working it into her