Henry James. (1843–1916). The Portrait of a Lady.
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. 1917.
Chapter I
U
It stood upon a low hill, above the river—the river being the Thames, at some forty miles from London. A long gabled front of red brick, with the complexion of which time and the weather had played all sorts of picturesque tricks, only, however, to improve and refine it, presented itself to the lawn, with its patches of ivy, its clustered chimneys, its windows smothered in creepers. The house had a name and a history; the old gentleman taking his tea would have been delighted to tell you these things: how it had been built under Edward the Sixth, had offered a night’s hospitality to the great Elizabeth (whose august person had extended itself upon a huge, magnificent, and terribly angular bed which still formed the principal honour of the sleeping apartments), had been a good deal bruised and defaced in Cromwell’s wars, and then, under the Restoration, repaired and much enlarged; and how, finally, after having been remodelled and disfigured in the eighteenth century, it had passed into the careful keeping of a shrewd American banker, who had bought it originally because (owing to circumstances too complicated to set forth) it was offered at a great bargain; bought it with much grumbling at its ugliness, its antiquity, its incommodity, and who now, at the end of twenty years, had become conscious of a real æsthetic passion for it, so that he knew all its points, and would tell you just where to stand to see them in combination, and just the hour when the shadows of its various protuberances—which fell so softly upon the warm, weary brickwork—were of the right measure. Besides this, as I have said, he could have counted off most of the successive owners and occupants, several of whom were known to general fame; doing so, however, with an undemonstrative conviction that the latest phase of its destiny was not the least honourable. The front of the house overlooking that portion of the lawn with which we are concerned, was not the entrance-front; this was in quite another quarter. Privacy here reigned supreme, and the wide carpet of turf that covered the level hill-top seemed but the extension of a luxurious interior. The great still oaks and beeches flung down a shade as dense as that of velvet curtains; and the place was furnished, like a room, with cushioned seats with rich-coloured rugs, with the books and papers that lay upon the grass. The river was at some distance; where the ground began to slope, the lawn, properly speaking, ceased. But it was none the less a charming walk down to the water.
The old gentleman at the tea-table, who had come from America thirty years before, had brought with him, at the top of his baggage, his American physiognomy; and he had not only brought it with him, but he had kept it in the best order, so that, if necessary, he might have taken it back to his own country with perfect confidence. But at present, obviously, he was not likely to displace himself; his journeys were over, and he was taking the rest that precedes the great rest. He had a narrow, clean-shaven face, with evenly distributed features, and an expression of placid acuteness. It was evidently a face in which the range of expression was not large; so that the air of contented shrewdness was all the more of a merit. It seemed to tell that he had been successful in life, but it seemed to tell also that his success had not been exclusive and invidious, but had had much of the inoffensiveness of failure. He had certainly had a great experience of men; but there was an almost rustic simplicity in the faint smile that played upon his lean, spacious cheek, and lighted up his humorous eye, as he at last slowly and carefully deposited his big tea-cup upon the table. He was neatly dressed, in well-brushed black; but a shawl was folded upon his knees, and his feet were encased in thick, embroidered slippers. A beautiful collie dog lay upon the grass near his chair, watching the master’s face almost as tenderly as the master contemplated the still more magisterial physiognomy of the house; and a little bristling, bustling terrier bestowed a desultory attendance upon the other gentlemen.
One of these was a remarkably well-made man of five-and-thirty, with a face as English as that of the old gentleman I have just sketched was something else; a noticeably handsome face, fresh-coloured, fair, and frank, with firm, straight features, a lively grey eye, and the rich adornment of a chestnut beard. This person had a certain fortunate, brilliant exceptional look—the air of a happy temperament fertilised by a high civilisation—which would have made almost any observer envy him at a venture. He was booted and spurred, as if he had dismounted from a long ride; he wore a white hat, which looked too large for him; he held his two hands behind him, and in one of them—a large, white, well-shaped fist—was crumpled a pair of soiled dog-skin gloves.
His companion, measuring the length of the lawn beside him, was a person of quite another pattern, who, although he might have excited grave curiosity, would not, like the other, have provoked you to wish yourself, almost blindly, in his place. Tall, lean, loosely and feebly put together, he had an ugly, sickly, witty, charming face—furnished, but by no means decorated, with a straggling moustache and whisker. He looked clever and ill—a combination by no means felicitous; and he wore a brown velvet jacket. He carried his hands in his pockets, and there was something in the way he did it that showed the habit was inveterate. His gait had a shambling, wandering quality; he was not very firm on his legs. As I have said, whenever he passed the old man in the chair, he rested his eyes upon him; and at this moment, with their faces brought into relation, you would easily have seen that they were father and son.
The father caught his son’s eye at last, and gave him a mild, responsive smile.
“I am getting on very well,” he said.
“Have you drunk you tea?” asked the son.
“Yes, and enjoyed it.”
“Shall I give you some more?”
The old man considered, placidly.
“Well, I guess I will wait and see.”
He had, in speaking, the American tone.
“Are you cold?” his son inquired.
The father slowly rubbed his legs.
“Well, I don’t know. I can’t tell till I feel.”
“Perhaps some one might feel for you,” said the younger man, laughing.
“Oh, I hope some one will always feel for me! Don’t you feel for me, Lord Warburton?”
“Oh yes, immensely,” said the gentleman addressed as Lord Warburton, promptly. “I am bound to say you look wonderfully comfortable.”
“Well, I suppose I am, in most respects.” And the old man looked down at his green shawl, and smoothed it over his knees. “The fact is, I have been comfortable so many years that I suppose I have got so used to it I don’t know it.”
“Yes, that’s the bore of comfort,” said Lord Warburton. “We only know when we are uncomfortable.”
“It strikes me that we are rather particular,” said his companion.
“Oh yes, there is no doubt we’re particular,” Lord Warburton murmured.
And then the three men remained silent a while; the two younger ones standing looking down at the other, who presently asked for more tea.
“I should think you would be very unhappy with that shawl,” said Lord Warburton, while his companion filled the old man’s cup again.
“Oh no, he must have the shawl!” cried the gentleman in the velvet coat. “Don’t put such ideas as that into his head.”
“It belongs to my wife,” said the old man, simply.
“Oh, if it’s for sentimental reasons——” And Lord Warburton made a gesture of apology.
“I suppose I must give it to her when she comes,” the old man went on.
“You will please to do nothing of the kind. You will keep it to cover your poor old legs.”
“Well, you mustn’t abuse my legs,” said the old man. “I guess they are as good as yours.”
“Oh, you are perfectly free to abuse mine,” his son replied, giving him his tea.
“Well, we are two lame ducks; I don’t think there is much difference.”
“I am much obliged to you for calling me a duck. How is your tea?”
“Well, it’s rather hot.”
“That’s intended to be a merit.”
“Ah, there’s a great deal of merit,” murmured the old man, kindly. “He’s a very good nurse, Lord Warburton.”
“Isn’t he a bit clumsy?” asked his lordship.
“Oh no, he’s not clumsy—considering that he’s an invalid himself. He’s a very good nurse—for a sick-nurse. I call him my sick-nurse because he’s sick himself.”
“Oh, come, daddy!” the ugly young man exclaimed.
“Well, you are; I wish you weren’t. But I suppose you can’t help it.”
“I might try: that’s an idea,” said the young man.
“Were you ever sick, Lord Warburton?” his father asked.
Lord Warburton considered a moment.
“Yes, sir, once, in the Persian Gulf.”
“He is making light of you, daddy,” said the other young man. “That’s a sort of joke.”
“Well, there seem to be so many sorts now,” daddy replied, serenely. “You don’t look as if you had been sick, any way, Lord Warburton.”
“He is sick of life; he was just telling me so; going on fearfully about it,” said Lord Warburton’s friend.
“Is that true, sir?” asked the old man gravely.
“If it is, your son gave me no consolation. He’s a wretched fellow to talk to—a regular cynic. He doesn’t seem to believe anything.”
“That’s another sort of joke,” said the person accused of cynicism.
“It’s because his health is so poor,” his father explained to Lord Warburton. “It affects his mind, and colours his way of looking at things; he seems to feel as if he had never had a chance. But it’s almost entirely theoretical, you know; it doesn’t seem to affect his spirits. I have hardly ever seen him when he wasn’t cheerful—about as he is at present. He often cheers me up.”
The young man so described looked at Lord Warburton and laughed.
“Is it a glowing eulogy or an accusation of levity? Should you like me to carry out my theories, daddy?”
“By Jove, we should see some queer things!” cried Lord Warburton.
“I hope you haven’t taken up that sort of tone,” said the old man.
“Warburton’s tone is worse than mine; he pretends to be bored. I am not in the least bored; I find life only too interesting.”
“Ah, too interesting; you shouldn’t allow it to be that, you know!”
“I am never bored when I come here,” said Lord Warburton. “One gets such uncommonly good talk.”
“Is that another sort of joke?” asked the old man. “You have no excuse for being bored anywhere. When I was your age, I had never heard of such a thing.”
“You must have developed very late.”
“No, I developed very quick; that was just the reason. When I was twenty years old, I was very highly developed indeed. I was working, tooth and nail. You wouldn’t be bored if you had something to do; but all you young men are too idle. You think too much of your pleasure. You are too fastidious, and too indolent, and too rich.”
“Oh, I say,” cried Lord Warburton, “you’re hardly the person to accuse a fellow-creature of being too rich!”
“Do you mean because I am a banker?” asked the old man.
“Because of that, if you like; and because you are so ridiculously wealthy.”
“He isn’t very rich,” said the other young man, indicating his father. “He has given away an immense deal of money.”
“Well, I suppose it was his own,” said Lord Warburton; “and in that case could there be a better proof of wealth? Let not a public benefactor talk of one’s being too fond of pleasure.”
“Daddy is very fond of pleasure—of other people’s.”
The old man shook his head.
“I don’t pretend to have contributed anything to the amusement of my contemporaries.”
“My dear father, you are too modest!”
“That’s a kind of joke, sir,” said Lord Warburton.
“You young men have too many jokes. When there are no jokes, you have nothing left.”
“Fortunately there are always more jokes,” the ugly young man remarked.
“I don’t believe it—I believe things are getting more serious. You young men will find that out.”
“The increasing seriousness of things—that is the great opportunity of jokes.”
“They will have to be grim jokes,” said the old man. “I am convinced there will be great changes; and not all for the better.”
“I quite agree with you, sir,” Lord Warburton declared. “I am very sure there will be great changes, and that all sorts of queer things will happen. That’s why I find so much difficulty in applying your advice; you know you told me the other day that I ought to ‘take hold’ of something. One hesitates to take hold of a thing that may the next moment be knocked sky-high.”
“You ought to take hold of a pretty woman,” said his companion. “He is trying hard to fall in love,” he added, by way of explanation, to his father.
“The pretty women themselves may be sent flying!” Lord Warburton exclaimed.
“No, no, they will be firm,” the old man rejoined; “they will not be affected by the social and political changes I just referred to.”
“You mean they won’t be abolished? Very well, then, I will lay hands on one as soon as possible, and tie her round my neck as a life-preserver.”
“The ladies will save us,” said the old man; “that is, the best of them will—for I make a difference between them. Make up to a good one and marry her, and your life will become much more interesting.”
A momentary silence marked perhaps on the part of his auditors a sense of the magnanimity of this speech, for it was a secret neither for his son nor for his visitor that his own experiment in matrimony had not been a happy one. As he said, however, he made a difference; and these words may have been intended as a confession of personal error; though of course it was not in place for either of his companions to remark that apparently the lady of his choice had not been one of the best.
“If I marry an interesting woman, I shall be interested: is that what you say?” Lord Warburton asked. “I am not at all keen about marrying—your son misrepresented me; but there is no knowing what an interesting woman might do with me.”
“I should like to see your idea of an interesting woman,” said his friend.
“My dear fellow, you can’t see ideas—especially such ethereal ones as mine. If I could only see it myself—that would be a great step in advance.”
“Well, you may fall in love with whomsoever you please; but you must not fall in love with my niece,” said the old man.
His son broke into a laugh. “He will think you mean that as a provocation! My dear father, you have lived with the English for thirty years, and you have picked up a good many of the things they say. But you have never learned the things they don’t say!”
“I say what I please,” the old man declared, with all his serenity.
“I haven’t the honour of knowing your niece,” Lord Warburton said. “I think it is the first time I have heard of her.”
“She is a niece of my wife’s; Mrs. Touchett brings her to England.”
Then young Mr. Touchett explained. “My mother, you know, has been spending the winter in America, and we are expecting her back. She writes that she has discovered a niece, and that she has invited her to come with her.”
“I see—very kind of her,” said Lord Warburton. “Is the young lady interesting?”
“We hardly know more about her than you; my mother has not gone into details. She chiefly communicates with us by means of telegrams, and her telegrams are rather inscrutable. They say women don’t know how to write them, but my mother has thoroughly mastered the art of condensation. ‘Tired America, hot weather awful, return England with niece, first steamer, decent cabin.’ That’s the sort of message we get from her—that was the last that came. But there had been another before, which I think contained the first mention of the niece. ‘Changed hotel, very bad, impudent clerk, address here. Taken sister’s girl, died last year, go to Europe, two sisters, quite independent.’ Over that my father and I have scarcely stopped puzzling; it seems to admit of so many interpretations.”
“There is one thing very clear in it,” said the old man; “she has given the hotel-clerk a dressing.”
“I am not sure even of that, since he has driven her from the field. We thought at first that the sister mentioned might be the sister of the clerk; but the subsequent mention of a niece seems to prove that the allusion is to one of my aunts. Then there was a question as to whose the two sisters were; they are probably two of my late aunt’s daughters. But who is ‘quite independent,’ and in what sense is the term used?—that point is not yet settled. Does the expression apply more particularly to the young lady my mother has adopted, or does it characterise her sisters equally?—and is it used in a moral or in a financial sense? Does it mean that they have been left well off, or that they wish to be under no obligations? or does it simply mean that they are fond of their own way?”
“Whatever else it means, it is pretty sure to mean that,” Mr. Touchett remarked.
“You will see for yourself,” said Lord Warburton. “When does Mrs. Touchett arrive?”
“We are quite in the dark; as soon as she can find a decent cabin. She may be waiting for it yet; on the other hand, she may already have disembarked in England.”
“In that case she would probably have telegraphed to you.”
“She never telegraphs when you would expect it—only when you don’t,” said the old man. “She likes to drop on me suddenly; she thinks she will find me doing something wrong. She has never done so yet, but she is not discouraged.”
“It’s her independence,” her son explained, more favourably. “Whatever that of those young ladies may be, her own is a match for it. She likes to do everything for herself, and has no belief in any one’s power to help her. She thinks me of no more use than a postage-stamp without gum, and she would never forgive me if I should presume to go to Liverpool to meet her.”
“Will you at least let me know when your cousin arrives?” Lord Warburton asked.
“Only on the condition I have mentioned—that you don’t fall in love with her!” Mr. Touchett declared.
“That strikes me as hard. Don’t you think me good enough?”
“I think you too good—because I shouldn’t like her to marry you. She hasn’t come here to look for a husband, I hope; so many young ladies are doing that, as if there were no good ones at home. Then she is probably engaged; American girls are usually engaged, I believe. Moreover, I am not sure, after all, that you would be a good husband.”
“Very likely she is engaged; I have known a good many American girls, and they always were; but I could never see that it made any difference, upon my word! As for my being a good husband, I am not sure of that either; one can but try!”
“Try as much as you please, but don’t try on my niece,” said the old man, whose opposition to the idea was broadly humorous.
“Ah, well,” said Lord Warburton with a humour broader still, “perhaps, after all, she is not worth trying on!”