The Portrait of a Lady

“You’ll see,” said Ralph. “She’ll send a description of us all, including Bunchie, to her newspaper.”

“I shall ask her not to,” Isabel answered.

“You think she’s capable of it then?”

“Perfectly.”

“And yet you’ve made her your bosom-friend?”

“I’ve not made her my bosom-friend; but I like her in spite of her faults.”

“Ah well,” said Ralph, “I’m afraid I shall dislike her in spite of her merits.”

“You’ll probably fall in love with her at the end of three days.”

“And have my love-letters published in the Interviewer? Never!” cried the young man.

The train presently arrived, and Miss Stackpole, promptly descending, proved, as Isabel had promised, quite delicately, even though rather provincially, fair. She was a neat, plump person, of medium stature, with a round face, a small mouth, a delicate complexion, a bunch of light brown ringlets at the back of her head and a peculiarly open, surprised-looking eye. The most striking point in her appearance was the remarkable fixedness of this organ, which rested without impudence or defiance, but as if in conscientious exercise of a natural right, upon every object it happened to encounter. It rested in this manner upon Ralph himself, a little arrested by Miss Stackpole’s gracious and comfortable aspect, which hinted that it wouldn’t be so easy as he had assumed to disapprove of her. She rustled, she shimmered, in fresh, dove-coloured draperies, and Ralph saw at a glance that she was as crisp and new and comprehensive as a first issue before the folding. From top to toe she had probably no misprint. She spoke in a clear, high voice—a voice not rich but loud; yet after she had taken her place with her companions in Mr. Touchett’s carriage she struck him as not all in the large type, the type of horrid “headings”, that he had expected. She answered the enquiries made of her by Isabel, however, and in which the young man ventured to join, with copious lucidity; and later, in the library at Gardencourt, when she had made the acquaintance of Mr. Touchett (his wife not having thought it necessary to appear) did more to give the measure of her confidence in her powers.

“Well, I should like to know whether you consider yourselves American or English,” she broke out. “If once I knew I could talk to you accordingly.”

“Talk to us anyhow and we shall be thankful,” Ralph liberally answered.

She fixed her eyes on him, and there was something in their character that reminded him of large polished buttons—buttons that might have fixed the elastic loops of some tense receptacle: he seemed to see the reflection of surrounding objects on the pupil. The expression of a button is not usually deemed human, but there was something in Miss Stackpole’s gaze that made him, as a very modest man, feel vaguely embarrassed—less inviolate, more dishonoured, than he liked. This sensation, it must be added, after he had spent a day or two in her company, sensibly diminished, though it never wholly lapsed. “I don’t suppose that you’re going to undertake to persuade me that you’re an American,” she said.

“To please you I’ll be an Englishman, I’ll be a Turk!”

“Well, if you can change about that way you’re very welcome,” Miss Stackpole returned.

“I’m sure you understand everything and that differences of nationality are no barrier to you,” Ralph went on.

Miss Stackpole gazed at him still. “Do you mean the foreign languages?”

“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.”