The Portrait of A Lady (15 page)

‘‘Well, I should like to know whether you consider yourselves American or English,'' she said. ‘‘If once I knew, I could talk to you accordingly.''

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

She fixed her eyes upon him, and there was something in their character that reminded him of large, polished buttons; he seemed to see the reflection of surrounding objects upon 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 he was a very modest man, feel vaguely embarrassed and uncomfortable. This sensation, it must be added, after he had spent a day or two in her company, sensibly diminished, though it never wholly disappeared. ‘‘I don't suppose that you are going to undertake to persuade me that
you
are an American,'' she said.

‘‘To please you, I will be an Englishman, I will be a Turk!''

‘‘Well, if you can change about that way, you are very welcome,'' Miss Stackpole rejoined.

‘‘I am 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 am not sure that I understand you,'' said the correspondent of the
Interviewer
; ‘‘but I expect I shall before I leave.''

‘‘He is what is called a cosmopolitan,'' 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 inquired.

‘‘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 mild, wise, 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—a party of Americans whose acquaintance I had made upon the steamer; a most 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 sympathize with the atmosphere. But I suppose I shall make my own atmosphere. Your surroundings seem very attractive.''

‘‘Ah, we too are a lovely group!'' said Ralph. ‘‘Wait a little and you will 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, was of an eminently social tendency.

Isabel speedily found occasion to request 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 upon a letter to the
Interviewer,
of which the title, in her exquisitely neat and legible hand (exactly that of the copy-books 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 are always delighted, afterwards.''

‘‘My uncle won't be delighted—nor my cousin, either. They will 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 will take some drives, and I will show you some charming scenery.''

‘‘Scenery is not my department; I always need a human interest. You know I am deeply human, Isabel; I always was,'' Miss Stackpole rejoined. ‘‘I was going to bring in your cousin—the alienated American. There is a great demand just now for the alienated American, and your cousin is 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 is 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 appeared to her so strange that a nature in which she found so much to esteem should exhibit such extraordinary disparities. ‘‘My poor Henrietta,'' she said, ‘‘you have no sense of privacy.''

Henrietta coloured deeply, and for a moment her brilliant eyes were suffused; while Isabel marvelled more than ever at her inconsistency. ‘‘You do me great injustice,'' said Miss Stackpole, with dignity. ‘‘I have never written a word about myself!''

‘‘I am very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest for others also!''

‘‘Ah, that is very good!'' cried Henrietta, seizing her pen again. ‘‘Just let me make a note of it, and I will put it in a letter.'' 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-correspondent in want of material. ‘‘I have 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 is just the place for me!'' Miss Stackpole exclaimed. ‘‘I must get a glimpse of the nobility.''

‘‘I can't take you,'' said Isabel; ‘‘but Lord Warburton is coming here, and you will 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 begged; ‘‘I want him to be natural.''

‘‘An Englishman is never so natural as when he is holding his tongue,'' Isabel rejoined.

It was not apparent, at the end of three days, that her cousin had fallen in love with 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 society had a less insoluble quality than Ralph had expected in the natural perturbation of his sense of the perfect adequacy of that of his cousin; for the correspondent of the
Interviewer
made him laugh a good deal, and he had long since decided that abundant laughter should be the embellishment of the remainder of his days. Henrietta, on her side, did not quite 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 superficial on her part not to solve.

‘‘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,'' said Isabel, smiling; ‘‘he's a gentleman of leisure.''

‘‘Well, I call that a shame—when I have to work like a cotton-mill,'' Miss Stackpole replied. ‘‘I should like to show him up.''

‘‘He is in wretched health; he is quite unfit for work,'' Isabel urged.

‘‘Pshaw! Don't you believe it. I work when I am 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—he would like to drown her.

‘‘Ah, no,'' said Ralph, ‘‘I keep my victims for a slower torture. And you would 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 have some delicious prejudices. Of course I spoil your flirtation, or whatever it is you call it, with your cousin; but I don't care for that, for I render your cousin the service of drawing you out. She will 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 trouble; 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 phrases; there was something earnest and inventive in her tone, which at times, in its brilliant 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 transatlantic journal; 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,'' said Ralph.

‘‘Well, you know what I mean—without any regular occupation.''

‘‘Ah,'' said Ralph, ‘‘I am the idlest man living.''

Miss Stackpole turned her gaze to the Constable again, and Ralph bespoke her attention for a small Watteau 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 that she had not apprehended the subject. She was thinking of something much more serious.

‘‘I don't see how you can reconcile it to your conscience,'' she said.

‘‘My dear lady, I have no conscience!''

‘‘Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You will need it the next time you go to America.''

‘‘I shall probably never go again.''

‘‘Are you ashamed to show yourself?''

Ralph meditated, with a gentle smile.

‘‘I suppose that, if one has no conscience, one has no shame.''

‘‘Well, you have got plenty of assurance,'' Henrietta declared. ‘‘Do you consider it right to give up your country?''

‘‘Ah, one doesn't give up one's country any more than one gives up one's grandmother. It's antecedent to choice.''

‘‘I suppose that means that you would give it up if you could? What do they think 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 urged.

‘‘I don't know anything about your natural charm. If you have got any charm, it's quite unnatural. It's wholly acquired—or at least you have tried hard to acquire it, living over here. I don't say you have succeeded. It's a charm that I don't appreciate, anyway. Make yourself useful in some way, and then we will talk about it.''

‘‘Well now, tell me what I shall do,'' 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 big work.''

‘‘Is it very difficult to take hold?'' Ralph inquired.

‘‘Not if you put your heart into it.''

‘‘Ah, my heart,'' said Ralph. ‘‘If it depends upon my heart—''

‘‘Haven't you got any?''

‘‘I had one a few days ago, but I have lost it since.''

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