The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1

by Henry James

  CHAPTER X

  The day after her visit to Lockleigh she received a note from her friendMiss Stackpole--a note of which the envelope, exhibiting in conjunctionthe postmark of Liverpool and the neat calligraphy of the quick-fingeredHenrietta, caused her some liveliness of emotion. "Here I am, my lovelyfriend," Miss Stackpole wrote; "I managed to get off at last. I decidedonly the night before I left New York--the Interviewer having come roundto my figure. I put a few things into a bag, like a veteran journalist,and came down to the steamer in a street-car. Where are you and wherecan we meet? I suppose you're visiting at some castle or other and havealready acquired the correct accent. Perhaps even you have married alord; I almost hope you have, for I want some introductions to the firstpeople and shall count on you for a few. The Interviewer wants somelight on the nobility. My first impressions (of the people at large) arenot rose-coloured; but I wish to talk them over with you, and you knowthat, whatever I am, at least I'm not superficial. I've also somethingvery particular to tell you. Do appoint a meeting as quickly as you can;come to London (I should like so much to visit the sights with you) orelse let me come to you, wherever you are. I will do so with pleasure;for you know everything interests me and I wish to see as much aspossible of the inner life."

  Isabel judged best not to show this letter to her uncle; but sheacquainted him with its purport, and, as she expected, he begged herinstantly to assure Miss Stackpole, in his name, that he should bedelighted to receive her at Gardencourt. "Though she's a literary lady,"he said, "I suppose that, being an American, she won't show me up, asthat other one did. She has seen others like me."

  "She has seen no other so delightful!" Isabel answered; but she wasnot altogether at ease about Henrietta's reproductive instincts, whichbelonged to that side of her friend's character which she regarded withleast complacency. She wrote to Miss Stackpole, however, that she wouldbe very welcome under Mr. Touchett's roof; and this alert young womanlost no time in announcing her prompt approach. She had gone up toLondon, and it was from that centre that she took the train for thestation nearest to Gardencourt, where Isabel and Ralph were in waitingto receive her.

  "Shall I love her or shall I hate her?" Ralph asked while they movedalong the platform.

  "Whichever you do will matter very little to her," said Isabel. "Shedoesn't care a straw what men think of her."

  "As a man I'm bound to dislike her then. She must be a kind of monster.Is she very ugly?"

  "No, she's decidedly pretty."

  "A female interviewer--a reporter in petticoats? I'm very curious to seeher," Ralph conceded.

  "It's very easy to laugh at her but it is not easy to be as brave asshe."

  "I should think not; crimes of violence and attacks on the personrequire more or less pluck. Do you suppose she'll interview me?"

  "Never in the world. She'll not think you of enough importance."

  "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 herfaults."

  "Ah well," said Ralph, "I'm afraid I shall dislike her in spite of hermerits."

  "You'll probably fall in love with her at the end of three days."

  "And have my love-letters published in the Interviewer? Never!" criedthe young man.

  The train presently arrived, and Miss Stackpole, promptly descending,proved, as Isabel had promised, quite delicately, even though ratherprovincially, fair. She was a neat, plump person, of medium stature,with a round face, a small mouth, a delicate complexion, a bunch oflight brown ringlets at the back of her head and a peculiarly open,surprised-looking eye. The most striking point in her appearance was theremarkable fixedness of this organ, which rested without impudence ordefiance, but as if in conscientious exercise of a natural right, uponevery object it happened to encounter. It rested in this manner uponRalph himself, a little arrested by Miss Stackpole's gracious andcomfortable aspect, which hinted that it wouldn't be so easy as he hadassumed to disapprove of her. She rustled, she shimmered, in fresh,dove-coloured draperies, and Ralph saw at a glance that she was as crispand new and comprehensive as a first issue before the folding. From topto toe she had probably no misprint. She spoke in a clear, high voice--avoice not rich but loud; yet after she had taken her place with hercompanions in Mr. Touchett's carriage she struck him as not all in thelarge type, the type of horrid "headings," that he had expected. Sheanswered the enquiries made of her by Isabel, however, and in which theyoung man ventured to join, with copious lucidity; and later, in thelibrary at Gardencourt, when she had made the acquaintance of Mr.Touchett (his wife not having thought it necessary to appear) did moreto give the measure of her confidence in her powers.

  "Well, I should like to know whether you consider yourselves Americanor English," she broke out. "If once I knew I could talk to youaccordingly."

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

  She fixed her eyes on him, and there was something in their characterthat reminded him of large polished buttons--buttons that might havefixed the elastic loops of some tense receptacle: he seemed to see thereflection of surrounding objects on the pupil. The expression of abutton is not usually deemed human, but there was something in MissStackpole's gaze that made him, as a very modest man, feel vaguelyembarrassed--less inviolate, more dishonoured, than he liked. Thissensation, it must be added, after he had spent a day or two in hercompany, sensibly diminished, though it never wholly lapsed. "I don'tsuppose that you're going to undertake to persuade me that you're anAmerican," 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," MissStackpole returned.

  "I'm sure you understand everything and that differences of nationalityare 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 theInterviewer; "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 sayI 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 longtime 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 toLondon."

  "Perhaps you were in a crowded carriage," Ralph suggested.

  "Yes, but it was crowded with friends--party of Americans whoseacquaintance I had made upon the steamer; a lovely group from LittleRock, Arkansas. In spite of that I felt cramped--I felt somethingpressing upon me; I couldn't tell what it was. I felt at the verycommencement as if I were not going to accord with the atmosphere. ButI suppose I shall make my own atmosphere. That's the true way--then youcan breathe. Your surroundings seem very attractive."

  "Ah, we too are a lovely group!" said Ralph. "Wait a little and you'llsee."

  Miss Stackpole showed every disposition to wait and evidently wasprepared to make a considerable stay at Gardencourt. She occupiedherself in the mornings with literary labour; but in spite of thisIsabel spent many hours with her friend, who, once her daily taskperformed, deprecated, in fact defied, isolation. Isabel speedily foundoccasion to desire her to desist from celebrating the charms of theircommon sojourn in print, having discovered, on the second morningof Miss Stackpole's visit, that she was engaged
on a letter to theInterviewer, of which the title, in her exquisitely neat and legiblehand (exactly that of the copybooks which our heroine remembered atschool) was "Americans and Tudors--Glimpses of Gardencourt." MissStackpole, with the best conscience in the world, offered to read herletter to Isabel, who immediately put in her protest.

  "I don't think you ought to do that. I don't think you ought to describethe 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 unclewants."

  "Don't you believe that!" cried Henrietta. "They're always delightedafterwards."

  "My uncle won't be delighted--nor my cousin either. They'll consider ita 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 thepurpose, and put away her manuscript. "Of course if you don't approve Iwon'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 knowI'm deeply human, Isabel; I always was," Miss Stackpole rejoined. "I wasgoing to bring in your cousin--the alienated American. There's agreat demand just now for the alienated American, and your cousin's abeautiful specimen. I should have handled him severely."

  "He would have died of it!" Isabel exclaimed. "Not of the severity, butof the publicity."

  "Well, I should have liked to kill him a little. And I should havedelighted to do your uncle, who seems to me a much nobler type--theAmerican faithful still. He's a grand old man; I don't see how he canobject to my paying him honour."

  Isabel looked at her companion in much wonderment; it struck her asstrange that a nature in which she found so much to esteem should breakdown so in spots. "My poor Henrietta," she said, "you've no sense ofprivacy."

  Henrietta coloured deeply, and for a moment her brilliant eyes weresuffused, while Isabel found her more than ever inconsequent. "You do megreat injustice," said Miss Stackpole with dignity. "I've never writtena word about myself!"

  "I'm very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest forothers also!"

  "Ah, that's very good!" cried Henrietta, seizing her pen again. "Justlet me make a note of it and I'll put it in somewhere." she was athoroughly good-natured woman, and half an hour later she was in ascheerful a mood as should have been looked for in a newspaper-ladyin want of matter. "I've promised to do the social side," she said toIsabel; "and how can I do it unless I get ideas? If I can't describethis place don't you know some place I can describe?" Isabel promisedshe would bethink herself, and the next day, in conversation with herfriend, she happened to mention her visit to Lord Warburton's ancienthouse. "Ah, you must take me there--that's just the place for me!" MissStackpole cried. "I must get a glimpse of the nobility."

  "I can't take you," said Isabel; "but Lord Warburton's coming here, andyou'll have a chance to see him and observe him. Only if you intend torepeat 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 hehad spent a good deal of time in her society. They strolled about thepark together and sat under the trees, and in the afternoon, when it wasdelightful to float along the Thames, Miss Stackpole occupied a placein the boat in which hitherto Ralph had had but a single companion. Herpresence proved somehow less irreducible to soft particles than Ralphhad expected in the natural perturbation of his sense of the perfectsolubility of that of his cousin; for the correspondent of theInterviewer prompted mirth in him, and he had long since decided thatthe crescendo of mirth should be the flower of his declining days.Henrietta, on her side, failed a little to justify Isabel's declarationwith regard to her indifference to masculine opinion for poor Ralphappeared 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 herarrival. "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, sheremarked to Ralph that she supposed he hated her and would like to drownher.

  "Ah no," said Ralph, "I keep my victims for a slower torture. And you'dbe such an interesting one!"

  "Well, you do torture me; I may say that. But I shock all yourprejudices; that's one comfort."

  "My prejudices? I haven't a prejudice to bless myself with. There'sintellectual poverty for you."

  "The more shame to you; I've some delicious ones. Of course I spoil yourflirtation, or whatever it is you call it, with your cousin; but I don'tcare for that, as I render her the service of drawing you out. She'llsee how thin you are."

  "Ah, do draw me out!" Ralph exclaimed. "So few people will take thetrouble."

  Miss Stackpole, in this undertaking, appeared to shrink from no effort;resorting largely, whenever the opportunity offered, to the naturalexpedient of interrogation. On the following day the weather wasbad, and in the afternoon the young man, by way of providing indooramusement, offered to show her the pictures. Henrietta strolled throughthe long gallery in his society, while he pointed out its principalornaments and mentioned the painters and subjects. Miss Stackpole lookedat the pictures in perfect silence, committing herself to no opinion,and Ralph was gratified by the fact that she delivered herself of noneof the little ready-made ejaculations of delight of which the visitorsto Gardencourt were so frequently lavish. This young lady indeed, to doher 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 culturespeaking a foreign language. Ralph Touchett subsequently learned thatshe had at one time officiated as art critic to a journal of the otherworld; but she appeared, in spite of this fact, to carry in her pocketnone of the small change of admiration. Suddenly, just after he hadcalled her attention to a charming Constable, she turned and looked athim 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 Ralphbespoke her attention for a small Lancret hanging near it, whichrepresented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaningagainst the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playingthe guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. "That's my ideal of aregular occupation," he said.

  Miss Stackpole turned to him again, and, though her eyes had restedupon the picture, he saw she had missed the subject. She was thinkingof something much more serious. "I don't see how you can reconcile it toyour conscience."

  "My dear lady, I have no conscience!"

  "Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You'll need it the next time yougo to America."

  "I shall probably never go again."

  "Are you ashamed to show yourself?"

  Ralph meditated with a mild smile. "I suppose that if one has noconscience one has no shame."

  "Well, you've got plenty of assurance," Henrietta declared. "Do youconsider it right to give up your country?"<
br />
  "Ah, one doesn't give up one's country any more than one gives UPone's grandmother. They're both antecedent to choice--elements of one'scomposition that are not to be eliminated."

  "I suppose that means that you've tried and been worsted. What do theythink of you over here?"

  "They delight in me."

  "That's because you truckle to them."

  "Ah, set it down a little to my natural charm!" Ralph sighed.

  "I don't know anything about your natural charm. If you've got any charmit's quite unnatural. It's wholly acquired--or at least you've triedhard to acquire it, living over here. I don't say you've succeeded. It'sa charm that I don't appreciate, anyway. Make yourself useful in someway, and then we'll talk about it." "Well, now, tell me what I shalldo," said Ralph.

  "Go right home, to begin with."

  "Yes, I see. And then?"

  "Take right hold of something."

  "Well, now, what sort of thing?"

  "Anything you please, so long as you take hold. Some new idea, some bigwork."

  "Is it very difficult to take hold?" Ralph enquired.

  "Not if you put your heart into it."

  "Ah, my heart," said Ralph. "If it depends upon my heart--!"

  "Haven't you got a heart?"

  "I had one a few days ago, but I've lost it since."

  "You're not serious," Miss Stackpole remarked; "that's what's the matterwith you." But for all this, in a day or two, she again permitted him tofix her attention and on the later occasion assigned a different causeto her mysterious perversity. "I know what's the matter with you, Mr.Touchett," she said. "You think you're too good to get married."

  "I thought so till I knew you, Miss Stackpole," Ralph answered; "andthen I suddenly changed my mind."

  "Oh pshaw!" Henrietta groaned.

  "Then it seemed to me," said Ralph, "that I was not good enough."

  "It would improve you. Besides, it's your duty."

  "Ah," cried the young man, "one has so many duties! Is that a duty too?"

  "Of course it is--did you never know that before? It's every one's dutyto get married."

  Ralph meditated a moment; he was disappointed. There was something inMiss Stackpole he had begun to like; it seemed to him that if shewas not a charming woman she was at least a very good "sort." She waswanting in distinction, but, as Isabel had said, she was brave: she wentinto cages, she flourished lashes, like a spangled lion-tamer. He hadnot supposed her to be capable of vulgar arts, but these last wordsstruck him as a false note. When a marriageable young woman urgesmatrimony on an unencumbered young man the most obvious explanation ofher conduct is not the altruistic impulse.

  "Ah, well now, there's a good deal to be said about that," Ralphrejoined.

  "There may be, but that's the principal thing. I must say I think itlooks very exclusive, going round all alone, as if you thought no womanwas good enough for you. Do you think you're better than any one else inthe world? In America it's usual for people to marry."

  "If it's my duty," Ralph asked, "is it not, by analogy, yours as well?"

  Miss Stackpole's ocular surfaces unwinkingly caught the sun. "Have youthe fond hope of finding a flaw in my reasoning? Of course I've as gooda right to marry as any one else."

  "Well then," said Ralph, "I won't say it vexes me to see you single. Itdelights me rather."

  "You're not serious yet. You never will be."

  "Shall you not believe me to be so on the day I tell you I desire togive up the practice of going round alone?"

  Miss Stackpole looked at him for a moment in a manner which seemed toannounce a reply that might technically be called encouraging. But tohis great surprise this expression suddenly resolved itself into anappearance of alarm and even of resentment. "No, not even then," sheanswered dryly. After which she walked away.

  "I've not conceived a passion for your friend," Ralph said that eveningto Isabel, "though we talked some time this morning about it."

  "And you said something she didn't like," the girl replied.

  Ralph stared. "Has she complained of me?"

  "She told me she thinks there's something very low in the tone ofEuropeans towards women."

  "Does she call me a European?"

  "One of the worst. She told me you had said to her something that anAmerican never would have said. But she didn't repeat it."

  Ralph treated himself to a luxury of laughter. "She's an extraordinarycombination. Did she think I was making love to her?"

  "No; I believe even Americans do that. But she apparently thought youmistook the intention of something she had said, and put an unkindconstruction on it."

  "I thought she was proposing marriage to me and I accepted her. Was thatunkind?"

  Isabel smiled. "It was unkind to me. I don't want you to marry."

  "My dear cousin, what's one to do among you all?" Ralph demanded. "MissStackpole tells me it's my bounden duty, and that it's hers, in general,to see I do mine!"

  "She has a great sense of duty," said Isabel gravely. "She has indeed,and it's the motive of everything she says. That's what I like her for.She thinks it's unworthy of you to keep so many things to yourself.That's what she wanted to express. If you thought she was trying to--toattract you, you were very wrong."

  "It's true it was an odd way, but I did think she was trying to attractme. Forgive my depravity."

  "You're very conceited. She had no interested views, and never supposedyou would think she had."

  "One must be very modest then to talk with such women," Ralph saidhumbly. "But it's a very strange type. She's too personal--consideringthat she expects other people not to be. She walks in without knockingat the door."

  "Yes," Isabel admitted, "she doesn't sufficiently recognise theexistence of knockers; and indeed I'm not sure that she doesn't thinkthem rather a pretentious ornament. She thinks one's door should standajar. But I persist in liking her."

  "I persist in thinking her too familiar," Ralph rejoined, naturallysomewhat uncomfortable under the sense of having been doubly deceived inMiss Stackpole.

  "Well," said Isabel, smiling, "I'm afraid it's because she's rathervulgar that I like her."

  "She would be flattered by your reason!"

  "If I should tell her I wouldn't express it in that way. I should sayit's because there's something of the 'people' in her."

  "What do you know about the people? and what does she, for that matter?"

  "She knows a great deal, and I know enough to feel that she's a kindof emanation of the great democracy--of the continent, the country, thenation. I don't say that she sums it all up, that would be too much toask of her. But she suggests it; she vividly figures it."

  "You like her then for patriotic reasons. I'm afraid it is on those verygrounds I object to her."

  "Ah," said Isabel with a kind of joyous sigh, "I like so many things! Ifa thing strikes me with a certain intensity I accept it. I don't want toswagger, but I suppose I'm rather versatile. I like people to be totallydifferent from Henrietta--in the style of Lord Warburton's sisters forinstance. So long as I look at the Misses Molyneux they seem to meto answer a kind of ideal. Then Henrietta presents herself, and I'mstraightway convinced by her; not so much in respect to herself as inrespect to what masses behind her."

  "Ah, you mean the back view of her," Ralph suggested.

  "What she says is true," his cousin answered; "you'll never be serious.I like the great country stretching away beyond the rivers and acrossthe prairies, blooming and smiling and spreading till it stops at thegreen Pacific! A strong, sweet, fresh odour seems to rise from it,and Henrietta--pardon my simile--has something of that odour in hergarments."

  Isabel blushed a little as she concluded this speech, and the blush,together with the momentary ardour she had thrown into it, was sobecoming to her that Ralph stood smiling at her for a moment after shehad ceased speaking. "I'm not sure the Pacific's so green as that," hesaid; "but you're a young woman of imagination. Henrietta, however, doessmell of the Future
--it almost knocks one down!"