The Portrait of a Lady: Chapters 6–13

Her paternal aunt, Mrs. Varian, once spread the rumour that Isabel was writing a book—Mrs. Varian having a reverence for books, and averred that the girl would distinguish herself in print.

Mrs. Varian thought highly of literature, for which she entertained that esteem that is connected with a sense of privation.

It may be affirmed without delay that Isabel was probably very liable to the sin of self-esteem; she often surveyed with complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right; she treated herself to occasions of homage.

Isabel pronounced them with confidence “ephemeral,” but she esteemed the courage, energy and good-humour of the writer, who, without parents and without property, had adopted three of the children of an infirm and widowed sister and was paying their school-bills out of the proceeds of her literary labour.

But it is by no means certain that she did not feel it to be wrong that so little notice was taken of them and that her failure (really very gratuitous) to make herself important in the neighbourhood had not much to do with the acrimony of her allusions to her husband’s adopted country.

But she nevertheless made no scruple of abounding in her cousin’s sense and pretending to sigh for the charms of her native land.

Just now he appeared disburdened of pain, but Ralph could not rid himself of a suspicion that this was a subterfuge of the enemy, who was waiting to take him off his guard.

The father and son had been close companions, and the idea of being left alone with the remnant of a tasteless life on his hands was not gratifying to the young man, who had always and tacitly counted upon his elder’s help in making the best of a poor business.

But of the two triumphs, that of refuting a sophistical son and that of holding on a while longer to a state of being which, with all abatements, he enjoyed, Ralph deemed it no sin to hope the latter might be vouchsafed to Mr. Touchett.

But of the two triumphs, that of refuting a sophistical son and that of holding on a while longer to a state of being which, with all abatements, he enjoyed, Ralph deemed it no sin to hope the latter might be vouchsafed to Mr. Touchett.

It even suggested there might be a compensation for the intolerable ennui of surviving his genial sire.

“A character like that,” he said to himself—“a real little passionate force to see at play is the finest thing in nature. It’s finer than the finest work of art—than a Greek bas-relief, than a great Titian, than a Gothic cathedral...."

It devolved upon him of course to do the honours of the place. Mr. Touchett was confined to his chair, and his wife’s position was that of rather a grim visitor; so that in the line of conduct that opened itself to Ralph duty and inclination were harmoniously mixed.

He was not a great walker, but he strolled about the grounds with his cousin—a pastime for which the weather remained favourable with a persistency not allowed for in Isabel’s somewhat lugubrious prevision of the climate...

He had driven over from his own place with a portmanteau and had asked, as the father and son often invited him to do, for a dinner and a lodging.

“Pray do; but I don’t say I shall always think your remonstrance just.”

“He thinks I’m a barbarian,” she said, “and that I’ve never seen forks and spoons;” and she used to ask him artless questions for the pleasure of hearing him answer seriously.

“He thinks your friend’s too subversive—or not subversive enough! I don’t quite understand which,” said Isabel.

It is true that when she described them to her cousin by that term he declared that no epithet could be less applicable than this to the two Misses Molyneux, since there were fifty thousand young women in England who exactly resembled them.

The marks of the Vicar of Lockleigh were a big, athletic figure, a candid, natural countenance, a capacious appetite and a tendency to indiscriminate laughter.

But at last, after a pause of some duration, returning for a moment to their ostensible theme, “Ah, well,” he said, “I’m very glad indeed you like the old barrack. I wish you could see more of it—that you could stay here a while. My sisters have taken an immense fancy to you—if that would be any inducement.”

She was right in trusting to his good manners, for he presently went on, laughing a little and without a trace of the accent that had discomposed her: “I don’t mean of course that you amuse yourself with trifles. You select great materials; the foibles, the afflictions of human nature, the peculiarities of nations!”

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.

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.

Miss Stackpole, in this undertaking, appeared to shrink from no effort; resorting largely, whenever the opportunity offered, to the natural expedient of interrogation.

“If you mean that I had any idea with regard to Mr. Goodwood—!” But she faltered before her friend’s implacable glitter.

To this observation our heroine made no return; she was absorbed in the alarm given her by Henrietta’s intimation that Caspar Goodwood would present himself at Gardencourt.

Isabel read this missive with such deep attention that she had not perceived an approaching tread on the soft grass.

“We’ll walk about a little then,” said Isabel, who could not divest herself of the sense of an intention on the part of her visitor and who wished both to elude the intention and to satisfy her curiosity about it.

It may appear to some readers that the young lady was both precipitate and unduly fastidious; but the latter of these facts, if the charge be true, may serve to exonerate her from the discredit of the former.

It may appear to some readers that the young lady was both precipitate and unduly fastidious; but the latter of these facts, if the charge be true, may serve to exonerate her from the discredit of the former.

She herself was a character—she couldn’t help being aware of that; and hitherto her visions of a completed consciousness had concerned themselves largely with moral images—things as to which the question would be whether they pleased her sublime soul.

Isabel listened with extreme respect to this admonition, but she said after a minute: “I must tell you that what I shall think about is some way of letting you know that what you ask is impossible—letting you know it without making you miserable.”

And then he stood reflecting, his eyes fixed on the observant countenance of Bunchie, who had the air of having understood all that had been said and of pretending to carry off the indiscretion by a simulated fit of curiosity as to the roots of an ancient oak.

With whatever qualifications one would, Lord Warburton had offered her a great opportunity; the situation might have discomforts, might contain oppressive, might contain narrowing elements, might prove really but a stupefying anodyne; but she did her sex no injustice in believing that nineteen women out of twenty would have accommodated themselves to it without a pang.

But this was not the case; she was wondering if she were not a cold, hard, priggish person, and, on her at last getting up and going rather quickly back to the house, felt, as she had said to her friend, really frightened at herself.

You might have seen it in the newspapers in connection with this fruitful contrivance; assurance of which he had given to Isabel by showing her in the columns of the New York Interviewer an exhaustive article on the Goodwood patent—an article not prepared by Miss Stackpole, friendly as she had proved herself to his more sentimental interests.

His jaw was too square and set and his figure too straight and stiff: these things suggested a want of easy consonance with the deeper rhythms of life.

These things cannot be reasoned about, and I very earnestly entreat you not to return to the subject we discussed so exhaustively.

While the author of this missive was making up her mind to dispatch it Henrietta Stackpole formed a resolve which was accompanied by no demur.

She invited Ralph Touchett to take a walk with her in the garden, and when he had assented with that alacrity which seemed constantly to testify to his high expectations, she informed him that she had a favour to ask of him.

Ralph was much puzzled by this appeal, and it is perhaps not to the credit of his purity of mind that he failed to look at it at first in the simplest light. It wore, to his eyes, a tortuous air, and his fault was that he was not quite sure that anything in the world could really be as candid as this request of Miss Stackpole’s appeared.

To read between the lines was easier than to follow the text, and to suppose that Miss Stackpole wished the gentleman invited to Gardencourt on her own account was the sign not so much of a vulgar as of an embarrassed mind. Even from this venial act of vulgarity, however, Ralph was saved, and saved by a force that I can only speak of as inspiration.

This conviction passed into his mind with extreme rapidity; it was perhaps kindled by the pure radiance of the young lady’s imperturbable gaze.

His refusal of Ralph’s overtures was vaguely disconcerting; from the moment he declined to come to Gardencourt our friend began to think him of importance.