The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1

“The languages are nothing. I mean the spirit—the genius.”

“I’m not sure that I understand you,” said the correspondent of the Interviewer; “but I expect I shall before I leave.”

“He’s what’s called a cosmopolite,” Isabel suggested.

“That means he’s a little of everything and not much of any. I must say I think patriotism is like charity—it begins at home.”

“Ah, but where does home begin, Miss Stackpole?” Ralph enquired.

“I don’t know where it begins, but I know where it ends. It ended a long time before I got here.”

“Don’t you like it over here?” asked Mr. Touchett with his aged, innocent voice.

“Well, sir, I haven’t quite made up my mind what ground I shall take. I feel a good deal cramped. I felt it on the journey from Liverpool to London.”

“Perhaps you were in a crowded carriage,” Ralph suggested.

“Yes, but it was crowded with friends—party of Americans whose acquaintance I had made upon the steamer; a lovely group from Little Rock, Arkansas. In spite of that I felt cramped—I felt something pressing upon me; I couldn’t tell what it was. I felt at the very commencement as if I were not going to accord with the atmosphere. But I suppose I shall make my own atmosphere. That’s the true way—then you can breathe. Your surroundings seem very attractive.”

“Ah, we too are a lovely group!” said Ralph. “Wait a little and you’ll see.”

Miss Stackpole showed every disposition to wait and evidently was prepared to make a considerable stay at Gardencourt. She occupied herself in the mornings with literary labour; but in spite of this Isabel spent many hours with her friend, who, once her daily task performed, deprecated, in fact defied, isolation. Isabel speedily found occasion to desire her to desist from celebrating the charms of their common sojourn in print, having discovered, on the second morning of Miss Stackpole’s visit, that she was engaged on a letter to the Interviewer, of which the title, in her exquisitely neat and legible hand (exactly that of the copybooks which our heroine remembered at school) was “Americans and Tudors—Glimpses of Gardencourt.” Miss Stackpole, with the best conscience in the world, offered to read her letter to Isabel, who immediately put in her protest.

“I don’t think you ought to do that. I don’t think you ought to describe the place.”

Henrietta gazed at her as usual. “Why, it’s just what the people want, and it’s a lovely place.”

“It’s too lovely to be put in the newspapers, and it’s not what my uncle wants.”

“Don’t you believe that!” cried Henrietta. “They’re always delighted afterwards.”

“My uncle won’t be delighted—nor my cousin either. They’ll consider it a breach of hospitality.”

Miss Stackpole showed no sense of confusion; she simply wiped her pen, very neatly, upon an elegant little implement which she kept for the purpose, and put away her manuscript. “Of course if you don’t approve I won’t do it; but I sacrifice a beautiful subject.”

“There are plenty of other subjects, there are subjects all round you. We’ll take some drives; I’ll show you some charming scenery.”

“Scenery’s not my department; I always need a human interest. You know I’m deeply human, Isabel; I always was,” Miss Stackpole rejoined. “I was going to bring in your cousin—the alienated American. There’s a great demand just now for the alienated American, and your cousin’s a beautiful specimen. I should have handled him severely.”

“He would have died of it!” Isabel exclaimed. “Not of the severity, but of the publicity.”

“Well, I should have liked to kill him a little. And I should have delighted to do your uncle, who seems to me a much nobler type—the American faithful still. He’s a grand old man; I don’t see how he can object to my paying him honour.”

Isabel looked at her companion in much wonderment; it struck her as strange that a nature in which she found so much to esteem should break down so in spots. “My poor Henrietta,” she said, “you’ve no sense of privacy.”

Henrietta coloured deeply, and for a moment her brilliant eyes were suffused, while Isabel found her more than ever inconsequent. “You do me great injustice,” said Miss Stackpole with dignity. “I’ve never written a word about myself!”

“I’m very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest for others also!”

“Ah, that’s very good!” cried Henrietta, seizing her pen again. “Just let me make a note of it and I’ll put it in somewhere.” she was a thoroughly good-natured woman, and half an hour later she was in as cheerful a mood as should have been looked for in a newspaper-lady in want of matter. “I’ve promised to do the social side,” she said to Isabel; “and how can I do it unless I get ideas? If I can’t describe this place don’t you know some place I can describe?” Isabel promised she would bethink herself, and the next day, in conversation with her friend, she happened to mention her visit to Lord Warburton’s ancient house. “Ah, you must take me there—that’s just the place for me!” Miss Stackpole cried. “I must get a glimpse of the nobility.”

“I can’t take you,” said Isabel; “but Lord Warburton’s coming here, and you’ll have a chance to see him and observe him. Only if you intend to repeat his conversation I shall certainly give him warning.”

“Don’t do that,” her companion pleaded; “I want him to be natural.”

“An Englishman’s never so natural as when he’s holding his tongue,” Isabel declared.

It was not apparent, at the end of three days, that her cousin had, according to her prophecy, lost his heart to their visitor, though he had spent a good deal of time in her society. They strolled about the park together and sat under the trees, and in the afternoon, when it was delightful to float along the Thames, Miss Stackpole occupied a place in the boat in which hitherto Ralph had had but a single companion. Her presence proved somehow less irreducible to soft particles than Ralph had expected in the natural perturbation of his sense of the perfect solubility of that of his cousin; for the correspondent of the Interviewer prompted mirth in him, and he had long since decided that the crescendo of mirth should be the flower of his declining days. Henrietta, on her side, failed a little to justify Isabel’s declaration with regard to her indifference to masculine opinion; for poor Ralph appeared to have presented himself to her as an irritating problem, which it would be almost immoral not to work out.

“What does he do for a living?” she asked of Isabel the evening of her arrival. “Does he go round all day with his hands in his pockets?”

“He does nothing,” smiled Isabel; “he’s a gentleman of large leisure.”

“Well, I call that a shame—when I have to work like a car-conductor,” Miss Stackpole replied. “I should like to show him up.”

“He’s in wretched health; he’s quite unfit for work,” Isabel urged.

“Pshaw! don’t you believe it. I work when I’m sick,” cried her friend. Later, when she stepped into the boat on joining the water-party, she remarked to Ralph that she supposed he hated her and would like to drown her.

“Ah no,” said Ralph, “I keep my victims for a slower torture. And you’d be such an interesting one!”

“Well, you do torture me; I may say that. But I shock all your prejudices; that’s one comfort.”

“My prejudices? I haven’t a prejudice to bless myself with. There’s intellectual poverty for you.”

“The more shame to you; I’ve some delicious ones. Of course I spoil your flirtation, or whatever it is you call it, with your cousin; but I don’t care for that, as I render her the service of drawing you out. She’ll see how thin you are.”

“Ah, do draw me out!” Ralph exclaimed. “So few people will take the trouble.”

Miss Stackpole, in this undertaking, appeared to shrink from no effort; resorting largely, whenever the opportunity offered, to the natural expedient of interrogation. On the following day the weather was bad, and in the afternoon the young man, by way of providing indoor amusement, offered to show her the pictures. Henrietta strolled through the long gallery in his society, while he pointed out its principal ornaments and mentioned the painters and subjects. Miss Stackpole looked at the pictures in perfect silence, committing herself to no opinion, and Ralph was gratified by the fact that she delivered herself of none of the little ready-made ejaculations of delight of which the visitors to Gardencourt were so frequently lavish. This young lady indeed, to do her justice, was but little addicted to the use of conventional terms; there was something earnest and inventive in her tone, which at times, in its strained deliberation, suggested a person of high culture speaking a foreign language. Ralph Touchett subsequently learned that she had at one time officiated as art critic to a journal of the other world; but she appeared, in spite of this fact, to carry in her pocket none of the small change of admiration. Suddenly, just after he had called her attention to a charming Constable, she turned and looked at him as if he himself had been a picture.

“Do you always spend your time like this?” she demanded.

“I seldom spend it so agreeably.”

“Well, you know what I mean—without any regular occupation.”

“Ah,” said Ralph, “I’m the idlest man living.”

Miss Stackpole directed her gaze to the Constable again, and Ralph bespoke her attention for a small Lancret hanging near it, which represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaning against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playing the guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. “That’s my ideal of a regular occupation,” he said.

Miss Stackpole turned to him again, and, though her eyes had rested upon the picture, he saw she had missed the subject. She was thinking of something much more serious. “I don’t see how you can reconcile it to your conscience.”

“My dear lady, I have no conscience!”

“Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You’ll need it the next time you go to America.”

“I shall probably never go again.”