The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1

“That’s very well. After his son he’s your greatest admirer.” She welcomed this assurance, but she gave secretly a small sigh of relief at the thought that Mr. Touchett was one of those admirers who couldn’t propose to marry her. This, however, was not what she spoke; she went on to inform Ralph that there were other reasons for her not remaining in London. She was tired of it and wished to leave it; and then Henrietta was going away—going to stay in Bedfordshire.

“In Bedfordshire?”

“With Lady Pensil, the sister of Mr. Bantling, who has answered for an invitation.”

Ralph was feeling anxious, but at this he broke into a laugh. Suddenly, none the less, his gravity returned. “Bantling’s a man of courage. But if the invitation should get lost on the way?”

“I thought the British post-office was impeccable.”

“The good Homer sometimes nods,” said Ralph. “However,” he went on more brightly, “the good Bantling never does, and, whatever happens, he’ll take care of Henrietta.”

Ralph went to keep his appointment with Sir Matthew Hope, and Isabel made her arrangements for quitting Pratt’s Hotel. Her uncle’s danger touched her nearly, and while she stood before her open trunk, looking about her vaguely for what she should put into it, the tears suddenly rose to her eyes. It was perhaps for this reason that when Ralph came back at two o’clock to take her to the station she was not yet ready. He found Miss Stackpole, however, in the sitting-room, where she had just risen from her luncheon, and this lady immediately expressed her regret at his father’s illness.

“He’s a grand old man,” she said; “he’s faithful to the last. If it’s really to be the last—pardon my alluding to it, but you must often have thought of the possibility—I’m sorry that I shall not be at Gardencourt.”

“You’ll amuse yourself much more in Bedfordshire.”

“I shall be sorry to amuse myself at such a time,” said Henrietta with much propriety. But she immediately added: “I should like so to commemorate the closing scene.”

“My father may live a long time,” said Ralph simply. Then, adverting to topics more cheerful, he interrogated Miss Stackpole as to her own future.

Now that Ralph was in trouble she addressed him in a tone of larger allowance and told him that she was much indebted to him for having made her acquainted with Mr. Bantling. “He has told me just the things I want to know,” she said; “all the society items and all about the royal family. I can’t make out that what he tells me about the royal family is much to their credit; but he says that’s only my peculiar way of looking at it. Well, all I want is that he should give me the facts; I can put them together quick enough, once I’ve got them.” And she added that Mr. Bantling had been so good as to promise to come and take her out that afternoon.

“To take you where?” Ralph ventured to enquire.

“To Buckingham Palace. He’s going to show me over it, so that I may get some idea how they live.”

“Ah,” said Ralph, “we leave you in good hands. The first thing we shall hear is that you’re invited to Windsor Castle.”

“If they ask me, I shall certainly go. Once I get started I’m not afraid. But for all that,” Henrietta added in a moment, “I’m not satisfied; I’m not at peace about Isabel.”

“What is her last misdemeanour?”

“Well, I’ve told you before, and I suppose there’s no harm in my going on. I always finish a subject that I take up. Mr. Goodwood was here last night.”

Ralph opened his eyes; he even blushed a little—his blush being the sign of an emotion somewhat acute. He remembered that Isabel, in separating from him in Winchester Square, had repudiated his suggestion that her motive in doing so was the expectation of a visitor at Pratt’s Hotel, and it was a new pang to him to have to suspect her of duplicity. On the other hand, he quickly said to himself, what concern was it of his that she should have made an appointment with a lover? Had it not been thought graceful in every age that young ladies should make a mystery of such appointments? Ralph gave Miss Stackpole a diplomatic answer. “I should have thought that, with the views you expressed to me the other day, this would satisfy you perfectly.”

“That he should come to see her? That was very well, as far as it went. It was a little plot of mine; I let him know that we were in London, and when it had been arranged that I should spend the evening out I sent him a word—the word we just utter to the ‘wise.’ I hoped he would find her alone; I won’t pretend I didn’t hope that you’d be out of the way. He came to see her, but he might as well have stayed away.”

“Isabel was cruel?”—and Ralph’s face lighted with the relief of his cousin’s not having shown duplicity.

“I don’t exactly know what passed between them. But she gave him no satisfaction—she sent him back to America.”

“Poor Mr. Goodwood!” Ralph sighed.

“Her only idea seems to be to get rid of him,” Henrietta went on.

“Poor Mr. Goodwood!” Ralph repeated. The exclamation, it must be confessed, was automatic; it failed exactly to express his thoughts, which were taking another line.

“You don’t say that as if you felt it. I don’t believe you care.”

“Ah,” said Ralph, “you must remember that I don’t know this interesting young man—that I’ve never seen him.”

“Well, I shall see him, and I shall tell him not to give up. If I didn’t believe Isabel would come round,” Miss Stackpole added—“well, I’d give up myself. I mean I’d give her up!”

CHAPTER XVIII

It had occurred to Ralph that, in the conditions, Isabel’s parting with her friend might be of a slightly embarrassed nature, and he went down to the door of the hotel in advance of his cousin, who, after a slight delay, followed with the traces of an unaccepted remonstrance, as he thought, in her eyes. The two made the journey to Gardencourt in almost unbroken silence, and the servant who met them at the station had no better news to give them of Mr. Touchett—a fact which caused Ralph to congratulate himself afresh on Sir Matthew Hope’s having promised to come down in the five o’clock train and spend the night. Mrs. Touchett, he learned, on reaching home, had been constantly with the old man and was with him at that moment; and this fact made Ralph say to himself that, after all, what his mother wanted was just easy occasion. The finer natures were those that shone at the larger times. Isabel went to her own room, noting throughout the house that perceptible hush which precedes a crisis. At the end of an hour, however, she came downstairs in search of her aunt, whom she wished to ask about Mr. Touchett. She went into the library, but Mrs. Touchett was not there, and as the weather, which had been damp and chill, was now altogether spoiled, it was not probable she had gone for her usual walk in the grounds. Isabel was on the point of ringing to send a question to her room, when this purpose quickly yielded to an unexpected sound—the sound of low music proceeding apparently from the saloon. She knew her aunt never touched the piano, and the musician was therefore probably Ralph, who played for his own amusement. That he should have resorted to this recreation at the present time indicated apparently that his anxiety about his father had been relieved; so that the girl took her way, almost with restored cheer, toward the source of the harmony. The drawing-room at Gardencourt was an apartment of great distances, and, as the piano was placed at the end of it furthest removed from the door at which she entered, her arrival was not noticed by the person seated before the instrument. This person was neither Ralph nor his mother; it was a lady whom Isabel immediately saw to be a stranger to herself, though her back was presented to the door. This back—an ample and well-dressed one—Isabel viewed for some moments with surprise. The lady was of course a visitor who had arrived during her absence and who had not been mentioned by either of the servants—one of them her aunt’s maid—of whom she had had speech since her return. Isabel had already learned, however, with what treasures of reserve the function of receiving orders may be accompanied, and she was particularly conscious of having been treated with dryness by her aunt’s maid, through whose hands she had slipped perhaps a little too mistrustfully and with an effect of plumage but the more lustrous. The advent of a guest was in itself far from disconcerting; she had not yet divested herself of a young faith that each new acquaintance would exert some momentous influence on her life. By the time she had made these reflexions she became aware that the lady at the piano played remarkably well. She was playing something of Schubert’s—Isabel knew not what, but recognised Schubert—and she touched the piano with a discretion of her own. It showed skill, it showed feeling; Isabel sat down noiselessly on the nearest chair and waited till the end of the piece. When it was finished she felt a strong desire to thank the player, and rose from her seat to do so, while at the same time the stranger turned quickly round, as if but just aware of her presence.

“That’s very beautiful, and your playing makes it more beautiful still,” said Isabel with all the young radiance with which she usually uttered a truthful rapture.

“You don’t think I disturbed Mr. Touchett then?” the musician answered as sweetly as this compliment deserved. “The house is so large and his room so far away that I thought I might venture, especially as I played just—just du bout des doigts.”

“She’s a Frenchwoman,” Isabel said to herself; “she says that as if she were French.” And this supposition made the visitor more interesting to our speculative heroine. “I hope my uncle’s doing well,” Isabel added. “I should think that to hear such lovely music as that would really make him feel better.”

The lady smiled and discriminated. “I’m afraid there are moments in life when even Schubert has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however, that they are our worst.”

“I’m not in that state now then,” said Isabel. “On the contrary I should be so glad if you would play something more.”

“If it will give you pleasure—delighted.” And this obliging person took her place again and struck a few chords, while Isabel sat down nearer the instrument. Suddenly the new-comer stopped with her hands on the keys, half-turning and looking over her shoulder. She was forty years old and not pretty, though her expression charmed. “Pardon me,” she said; “but are you the niece—the young American?”

“I’m my aunt’s niece,” Isabel replied with simplicity.

The lady at the piano sat still a moment longer, casting her air of interest over her shoulder. “That’s very well; we’re compatriots.” And then she began to play.

“Ah then she’s not French,” Isabel murmured; and as the opposite supposition had made her romantic it might have seemed that this revelation would have marked a drop. But such was not the fact; rarer even than to be French seemed it to be American on such interesting terms.

The lady played in the same manner as before, softly and solemnly, and while she played the shadows deepened in the room. The autumn twilight gathered in, and from her place Isabel could see the rain, which had now begun in earnest, washing the cold-looking lawn and the wind shaking the great trees. At last, when the music had ceased, her companion got up and, coming nearer with a smile, before Isabel had time to thank her again, said: “I’m very glad you’ve come back; I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

Isabel thought her a very attractive person, but nevertheless spoke with a certain abruptness in reply to this speech. “From whom have you heard about me?”

The stranger hesitated a single moment and then, “From your uncle,” she answered. “I’ve been here three days, and the first day he let me come and pay him a visit in his room. Then he talked constantly of you.”

“As you didn’t know me that must rather have bored you.”

“It made me want to know you. All the more that since then—your aunt being so much with Mr. Touchett—I’ve been quite alone and have got rather tired of my own society. I’ve not chosen a good moment for my visit.”

A servant had come in with lamps and was presently followed by another bearing the tea-tray. On the appearance of this repast Mrs. Touchett had apparently been notified, for she now arrived and addressed herself to the tea-pot. Her greeting to her niece did not differ materially from her manner of raising the lid of this receptacle in order to glance at the contents: in neither act was it becoming to make a show of avidity. Questioned about her husband she was unable to say he was better; but the local doctor was with him, and much light was expected from this gentleman’s consultation with Sir Matthew Hope.

“I suppose you two ladies have made acquaintance,” she pursued. “If you haven’t I recommend you to do so; for so long as we continue—Ralph and I—to cluster about Mr. Touchett’s bed you’re not likely to have much society but each other.”

“I know nothing about you but that you’re a great musician,” Isabel said to the visitor.

“There’s a good deal more than that to know,” Mrs. Touchett affirmed in her little dry tone.

“A very little of it, I am sure, will content Miss Archer!” the lady exclaimed with a light laugh. “I’m an old friend of your aunt’s. I’ve lived much in Florence. I’m Madame Merle.” She made this last announcement as if she were referring to a person of tolerably distinct identity. For Isabel, however, it represented little; she could only continue to feel that Madame Merle had as charming a manner as any she had ever encountered.

“She’s not a foreigner in spite of her name,” said Mrs. Touchett.