The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James
CHAPTER XIII
It was this feeling and not the wish to ask advice--she had no desirewhatever for that--that led her to speak to her uncle of what had takenplace. She wished to speak to some one; she should feel more natural,more human, and her uncle, for this purpose, presented himself in amore attractive light than either her aunt or her friend Henrietta. Hercousin of course was a possible confidant; but she would have had to doherself violence to air this special secret to Ralph. So the next day,after breakfast, she sought her occasion. Her uncle never left hisapartment till the afternoon, but he received his cronies, as he said,in his dressing-room. Isabel had quite taken her place in the classso designated, which, for the rest, included the old man's son, hisphysician, his personal servant, and even Miss Stackpole. Mrs. Touchettdid not figure in the list, and this was an obstacle the less toIsabel's finding her host alone. He sat in a complicated mechanicalchair, at the open window of his room, looking westward over the parkand the river, with his newspapers and letters piled up beside him,his toilet freshly and minutely made, and his smooth, speculative facecomposed to benevolent expectation.
She approached her point directly. ”I think I ought to let you know thatLord Warburton has asked me to marry him. I suppose I ought to tell myaunt; but it seems best to tell you first.”
The old man expressed no surprise, but thanked her for the confidenceshe showed him. ”Do you mind telling me whether you accepted him?” hethen enquired.
”I've not answered him definitely yet; I've taken a little time to thinkof it, because that seems more respectful. But I shall not accept him.”
Mr. Touchett made no comment upon this; he had the air of thinking that,whatever interest he might take in the matter from the point of view ofsociability, he had no active voice in it. ”Well, I told you you'd be asuccess over here. Americans are highly appreciated.”
”Very highly indeed,” said Isabel. ”But at the cost of seeming bothtasteless and ungrateful, I don't think I can marry Lord Warburton.”
”Well,” her uncle went on, ”of course an old man can't judge for a younglady. I'm glad you didn't ask me before you made up your mind. I supposeI ought to tell you,” he added slowly, but as if it were not of muchconsequence, ”that I've known all about it these three days.”
”About Lord Warburton's state of mind?”
”About his intentions, as they say here. He wrote me a very pleasantletter, telling me all about them. Should you like to see his letter?”the old man obligingly asked.
”Thank you; I don't think I care about that. But I'm glad he wrote toyou; it was right that he should, and he would be certain to do what wasright.”
”Ah well, I guess you do like him!” Mr. Touchett declared. ”You needn'tpretend you don't.”
”I like him extremely; I'm very free to admit that. But I don't wish tomarry any one just now.”
”You think some one may come along whom you may like better. Well,that's very likely,” said Mr. Touchett, who appeared to wish to show hiskindness to the girl by easing off her decision, as it were, and findingcheerful reasons for it.
”I don't care if I don't meet any one else. I like Lord Warburton quitewell enough.” she fell into that appearance of a sudden change ofpoint of view with which she sometimes startled and even displeased herinterlocutors.
Her uncle, however, seemed proof against either of these impressions.”He's a very fine man,” he resumed in a tone which might have passedfor that of encouragement. ”His letter was one of the pleasantest I'vereceived for some weeks. I suppose one of the reasons I liked it wasthat it was all about you; that is all except the part that was abouthimself. I suppose he told you all that.”
”He would have told me everything I wished to ask him,” Isabel said.
”But you didn't feel curious?”
”My curiosity would have been idle--once I had determined to decline hisoffer.”
”You didn't find it sufficiently attractive?” Mr. Touchett enquired.
She was silent a little. ”I suppose it was that,” she presentlyadmitted. ”But I don't know why.”
”Fortunately ladies are not obliged to give reasons,” said her uncle.”There's a great deal that's attractive about such an idea; but I don'tsee why the English should want to entice us away from our native land.I know that we try to attract them over there, but that's because ourpopulation is insufficient. Here, you know, they're rather crowded.However, I presume there's room for charming young ladies everywhere.”
”There seems to have been room here for you,” said Isabel, whose eyeshad been wandering over the large pleasure-spaces of the park.
Mr. Touchett gave a shrewd, conscious smile. ”There's room everywhere,my dear, if you'll pay for it. I sometimes think I've paid too much forthis. Perhaps you also might have to pay too much.”
”Perhaps I might,” the girl replied.
That suggestion gave her something more definite to rest on than shehad found in her own thoughts, and the fact of this association of heruncle's mild acuteness with her dilemma seemed to prove that she wasconcerned with the natural and reasonable emotions of life andnot altogether a victim to intellectual eagerness and vagueambitions--ambitions reaching beyond Lord Warburton's beautiful appeal,reaching to something indefinable and possibly not commendable. In sofar as the indefinable had an influence upon Isabel's behaviour at thisjuncture, it was not the conception, even unformulated, of a union withCaspar Goodwood; for however she might have resisted conquest at herEnglish suitor's large quiet hands she was at least as far removedfrom the disposition to let the young man from Boston take positivepossession of her. The sentiment in which She sought refuge afterreading his letter was a critical view of his having come abroad; for itwas part of the influence he had upon her that he seemed to deprive herof the sense of freedom. There was a disagreeably strong push, a kindof hardness of presence, in his way of rising before her. She had beenhaunted at moments by the image, by the danger, of his disapproval andhad wondered--a consideration she had never paid in equal degree to anyone else--whether he would like what she did. The difficulty was thatmore than any man she had ever known, more than poor Lord Warburton (shehad begun now to give his lordship the benefit of this epithet), CasparGoodwood expressed for her an energy--and she had already felt it as apower that was of his very nature. It was in no degree a matter ofhis ”advantages”--it was a matter of the spirit that sat in hisclear-burning eyes like some tireless watcher at a window. She mightlike it or not, but he insisted, ever, with his whole weight and force:even in one's usual contact with him one had to reckon with that. Theidea of a diminished liberty was particularly disagreeable to her atpresent, since she had just given a sort of personal accent to herindependence by looking so straight at Lord Warburton's big bribe andyet turning away from it. Sometimes Caspar Goodwood had seemed to rangehimself on the side of her destiny, to be the stubbornest fact she knew;she said to herself at such moments that she might evade him for a time,but that she must make terms with him at last--terms which would becertain to be favourable to himself. Her impulse had been to availherself of the things that helped her to resist such an obligationand this impulse had been much concerned in her eager acceptance of heraunt's invitation, which had come to her at an hour when she expectedfrom day to day to see Mr. Goodwood and when she was glad to have ananswer ready for something she was sure he would say to her. When shehad told him at Albany, on the evening of Mrs. Touchett's visit, thatshe couldn't then discuss difficult questions, dazzled as she was bythe great immediate opening of her aunt's offer of ”Europe,” he declaredthat this was no answer at all; and it was now to obtain a better onethat he was following her across the sea. To say to herself that he wasa kind of grim fate was well enough for a fanciful young woman who wasable to take much for granted in him; but the reader has a right to anearer and a clearer view.
He was the son of a proprietor of well-known cotton-mills inMassachusetts--a gentleman who had accumulated a considerable fortune inthe exercise of this industry. Caspar at present managed the works, andwith a judgement and a temper which, in spite of keen competition andlanguid years, had kept their prosperity from dwindling. He had receivedthe better part of his education at Harvard College, where, however, hehad gained renown rather as a gymnast and an oarsman than as a gleanerof more dispersed knowledge. Later on he had learned that the finerintelligence too could vault and pull and strain--might even, breakingthe record, treat itself to rare exploits. He had thus discovered inhimself a sharp eye for the mystery of mechanics, and had invented animprovement in the cotton-spinning process which was now largely usedand was known by his name. You might have seen it in the newspapers inconnection with this fruitful contrivance; assurance of which hehad given to Isabel by showing her in the columns of the New YorkInterviewer an exhaustive article on the Goodwood patent--an article notprepared by Miss Stackpole, friendly as she had proved herself to hismore sentimental interests. There were intricate, bristling things herejoiced in; he liked to organise, to contend, to administer; he couldmake people work his will, believe in him, march before him and justifyhim. This was the art, as they said, of managing men--which rested, inhim, further, on a bold though brooding ambition. It struck thosewho knew him well that he might do greater things than carry on acotton-factory; there was nothing cottony about Caspar Goodwood, andhis friends took for granted that he would somehow and somewherewrite himself in bigger letters. But it was as if something large andconfused, something dark and ugly, would have to call upon him: he wasnot after all in harmony with mere smug peace and greed and gain, anorder of things of which the vital breath was ubiquitous advertisement.It pleased Isabel to believe that he might have ridden, on a plungingsteed, the whirlwind of a great war--a war like the Civil strife thathad overdarkened her conscious childhood and his ripening youth.
She liked at any rate this idea of his being by character and in fact amover of men--liked it much better than some other points in his natureand aspect. She cared nothing for his cotton-mill--the Goodwood patentleft her imagination absolutely cold. She wished him no ounce less ofhis manhood, but she sometimes thought he would be rather nicer if helooked, for instance, a little differently. His jaw was too square andset and his figure too straight and stiff: these things suggested a wantof easy consonance with the deeper rhythms of life. Then she viewed withreserve a habit he had of dressing always in the same manner; it wasnot apparently that he wore the same clothes continually, for, on thecontrary, his garments had a way of looking rather too new. But they allseemed of the same piece; the figure, the stuff, was so drearily usual.She had reminded herself more than once that this was a frivolousobjection to a person of his importance; and then she had amended therebuke by saying that it would be a frivolous objection only if shewere in love with him. She was not in love with him and therefore mightcriticise his small defects as well as his great--which latter consistedin the collective reproach of his being too serious, or, rather, not ofhis being so, since one could never be, but certainly of his seeming so.He showed his appetites and designs too simply and artlessly; when onewas alone with him he talked too much about the same subject, and whenother people were present he talked too little about anything. And yethe was of supremely strong, clean make--which was so much she saw thedifferent fitted parts of him as she had seen, in museums and portraits,the different fitted parts of armoured warriors--in plates of steelhandsomely inlaid with gold. It was very strange: where, ever, was anytangible link between her impression and her act? Caspar Goodwood hadnever corresponded to her idea of a delightful person, and she supposedthat this was why he left her so harshly critical. When, however, LordWarburton, who not only did correspond with it, but gave an extension tothe term, appealed to her approval, she found herself still unsatisfied.It was certainly strange.
The sense of her incoherence was not a help to answering Mr. Goodwood'sletter, and Isabel determined to leave it a while unhonoured. If hehad determined to persecute her he must take the consequences; foremostamong which was his being left to perceive how little it charmed herthat he should come down to Gardencourt. She was already liable to theincursions of one suitor at this place, and though it might be pleasantto be appreciated in opposite quarters there was a kind of grossness inentertaining two such passionate pleaders at once, even in a case wherethe entertainment should consist of dismissing them. She made noreply to Mr. Goodwood; but at the end of three days she wrote to LordWarburton, and the letter belongs to our history.
DEAR LORD WARBURTON--A great deal of earnest thought has not led me tochange my mind about the suggestion you were so kind as to make me theother day. I am not, I am really and truly not, able to regard youin the light of a companion for life; or to think of your home--yourvarious homes--as the settled seat of my existence. These things cannotbe reasoned about, and I very earnestly entreat you not to return tothe subject we discussed so exhaustively. We see our lives from our ownpoint of view; that is the privilege of the weakest and humblest of us;and I shall never be able to see mine in the manner you proposed. Kindlylet this suffice you, and do me the justice to believe that I have givenyour proposal the deeply respectful consideration it deserves. It iswith this very great regard that I remain sincerely yours,
ISABEL ARCHER.
While the author of this missive was making up her mind to dispatch itHenrietta Stackpole formed a resolve which was accompanied by no demur.She invited Ralph Touchett to take a walk with her in the garden, andwhen he had assented with that alacrity which seemed constantly totestify to his high expectations, she informed him that she had a favourto ask of him. It may be admitted that at this information the young manflinched; for we know that Miss Stackpole had struck him as apt to pushan advantage. The alarm was unreasoned, however; for he was clear aboutthe area of her indiscretion as little as advised of its vertical depth,and he made a very civil profession of the desire to serve her. Hewas afraid of her and presently told her so. ”When you look at me in acertain way my knees knock together, my faculties desert me; I'm filledwith trepidation and I ask only for strength to execute your commands.You've an address that I've never encountered in any woman.”
”Well,” Henrietta replied good-humouredly, ”if I had not known beforethat you were trying somehow to abash me I should know it now. Of courseI'm easy game--I was brought up with such different customs and ideas.I'm not used to your arbitrary standards, and I've never been spoken toin America as you have spoken to me. If a gentleman conversing with meover there were to speak to me like that I shouldn't know what to makeof it. We take everything more naturally over there, and, after all,we're a great deal more simple. I admit that; I'm very simple myself.Of course if you choose to laugh at me for it you're very welcome; but Ithink on the whole I would rather be myself than you. I'm quite contentto be myself; I don't want to change. There are plenty of people thatappreciate me just as I am. It's true they're nice fresh free-bornAmericans!” Henrietta had lately taken up the tone of helpless innocenceand large concession. ”I want you to assist me a little,” she went on.”I don't care in the least whether I amuse you while you do so; or,rather, I'm perfectly willing your amusement should be your reward. Iwant you to help me about Isabel.”
”Has she injured you?” Ralph asked.
”If she had I shouldn't mind, and I should never tell you. What I'mafraid of is that she'll injure herself.”
”I think that's very possible,” said Ralph.
His companion stopped in the garden-walk, fixing on him perhaps the verygaze that unnerved him. ”That too would amuse you, I suppose. The wayyou do say things! I never heard any one so indifferent.”
”To Isabel? Ah, not that!”
”Well, you're not in love with her, I hope.”
”How can that be, when I'm in love with Another?”
”You're in love with yourself, that's the Other!” Miss Stackpoledeclared. ”Much good may it do you! But if you wish to be serious oncein your life here's a chance; and if you really care for your cousinhere's an opportunity to prove it. I don't expect you to understand her;that's too much to ask. But you needn't do that to grant my favour. I'llsupply the necessary intelligence.”
”I shall enjoy that immensely!” Ralph exclaimed. ”I'll be Caliban andyou shall be Ariel.”
”You're not at all like Caliban, because you're sophisticated, andCaliban was not. But I'm not talking about imaginary characters; I'mtalking about Isabel. Isabel's intensely real. What I wish to tell youis that I find her fearfully changed.”
”Since you came, do you mean?”
”Since I came and before I came. She's not the same as she once sobeautifully was.”
”As she was in America?”
”Yes, in America. I suppose you know she comes from there. She can'thelp it, but she does.”
”Do you want to change her back again?”
”Of course I do, and I want you to help me.”
”Ah,” said Ralph, ”I'm only Caliban; I'm not Prospero.”
”You were Prospero enough to make her what she has become. You've actedon Isabel Archer since she came here, Mr. Touchett.”
”I, my dear Miss Stackpole? Never in the world. Isabel Archer has actedon me--yes; she acts on every one. But I've been absolutely passive.”
”You're too passive then. You had better stir yourself and be careful.Isabel's changing every day; she's drifting away--right out to sea. I'vewatched her and I can see it. She's not the bright American girl shewas. She's taking different views, a different colour, and turning awayfrom her old ideals. I want to save those ideals, Mr. Touchett, andthat's where you come in.”
”Not surely as an ideal?”
”Well, I hope not,” Henrietta replied promptly. ”I've got a fear in myheart that she's going to marry one of these fell Europeans, and I wantto prevent it.
”Ah, I see,” cried Ralph; ”and to prevent it you want me to step in andmarry her?”
”Not quite; that remedy would be as bad as the disease, for you're thetypical, the fell European from whom I wish to rescue her. No; I wishyou to take an interest in another person--a young man to whom she oncegave great encouragement and whom she now doesn't seem to think goodenough. He's a thoroughly grand man and a very dear friend of mine, andI wish very much you would invite him to pay a visit here.”
Ralph was much puzzled by this appeal, and it is perhaps not to thecredit of his purity of mind that he failed to look at it at first inthe simplest light. It wore, to his eyes, a tortuous air, and his faultwas that he was not quite sure that anything in the world could reallybe as candid as this request of Miss Stackpole's appeared. That a youngwoman should demand that a gentleman whom she described as her very dearfriend should be furnished with an opportunity to make himself agreeableto another young woman, a young woman whose attention had wandered andwhose charms were greater--this was an anomaly which for the momentchallenged all his ingenuity of interpretation. To read between thelines was easier than to follow the text, and to suppose that MissStackpole wished the gentleman invited to Gardencourt on her own accountwas the sign not so much of a vulgar as of an embarrassed mind. Evenfrom this venial act of vulgarity, however, Ralph was saved, and savedby a force that I can only speak of as inspiration. With no more outwardlight on the subject than he already possessed he suddenly acquired theconviction that it would be a sovereign injustice to the correspondentof the Interviewer to assign a dishonourable motive to any act of hers.This conviction passed into his mind with extreme rapidity; it wasperhaps kindled by the pure radiance of the young lady's imperturbablegaze. He returned this challenge a moment, consciously, resisting aninclination to frown as one frowns in the presence of larger luminaries.”Who's the gentleman you speak of?”
”Mr. Caspar Goodwood--of Boston. He has been extremely attentive toIsabel--just as devoted to her as he can live. He has followed her outhere and he's at present in London. I don't know his address, but Iguess I can obtain it.”
”I've never heard of him,” said Ralph.
”Well, I suppose you haven't heard of every one. I don't believe he hasever heard of you; but that's no reason why Isabel shouldn't marry him.”
Ralph gave a mild ambiguous laugh. ”What a rage you have for marryingpeople! Do you remember how you wanted to marry me the other day?”
”I've got over that. You don't know how to take such ideas. Mr. Goodwooddoes, however; and that's what I like about him. He's a splendid man anda perfect gentleman, and Isabel knows it.”
”Is she very fond of him?”
”If she isn't she ought to be. He's simply wrapped up in her.”
”And you wish me to ask him here,” said Ralph reflectively.
”It would be an act of true hospitality.”
”Caspar Goodwood,” Ralph continued--”it's rather a striking name.”
”I don't care anything about his name. It might be Ezekiel Jenkins, andI should say the same. He's the only man I have ever seen whom I thinkworthy of Isabel.”
”You're a very devoted friend,” said Ralph.
”Of course I am. If you say that to pour scorn on me I don't care.”
”I don't say it to pour scorn on you; I'm very much struck with it.”
”You're more satiric than ever, but I advise you not to laugh at Mr.Goodwood.”
”I assure you I'm very serious; you ought to understand that,” saidRalph.
In a moment his companion understood it. ”I believe you are; now you'retoo serious.”
”You're difficult to please.”
”Oh, you're very serious indeed. You won't invite Mr. Goodwood.”
”I don't know,” said Ralph. ”I'm capable of strange things. Tell me alittle about Mr. Goodwood. What's he like?”
”He's just the opposite of you. He's at the head of a cotton-factory; avery fine one.”
”Has he pleasant manners?” asked Ralph.
”Splendid manners--in the American style.”
”Would he be an agreeable member of our little circle?”
”I don't think he'd care much about our little circle. He'd concentrateon Isabel.”
”And how would my cousin like that?”
”Very possibly not at all. But it will be good for her. It will callback her thoughts.”
”Call them back--from where?”
”From foreign parts and other unnatural places. Three months ago shegave Mr. Goodwood every reason to suppose he was acceptable to her, andit's not worthy of Isabel to go back on a real friend simply because shehas changed the scene. I've changed the scene too, and the effect of ithas been to make me care more for my old associations than ever. It's mybelief that the sooner Isabel changes it back again the better. I knowher well enough to know that she would never be truly happy over here,and I wish her to form some strong American tie that will act as apreservative.”
”Aren't you perhaps a little too much in a hurry?” Ralph enquired.”Don't you think you ought to give her more of a chance in poor oldEngland?”
”A chance to ruin her bright young life? One's never too much in a hurryto save a precious human creature from drowning.”
”As I understand it then,” said Ralph, ”you wish me to push Mr. Goodwoodoverboard after her. Do you know,” he added, ”that I've never heard hermention his name?”
Henrietta gave a brilliant smile. ”I'm delighted to hear that; it proveshow much she thinks of him.”
Ralph appeared to allow that there was a good deal in this, and hesurrendered to thought while his companion watched him askance. ”If Ishould invite Mr. Goodwood,” he finally said, ”it would be to quarrelwith him.”
”Don't do that; he'd prove the better man.”
”You certainly are doing your best to make me hate him! I really don'tthink I can ask him. I should be afraid of being rude to him.”
”It's just as you please,” Henrietta returned. ”I had no idea you werein love with her yourself.”
”Do you really believe that?” the young man asked with lifted eyebrows.
”That's the most natural speech I've ever heard you make! Of course Ibelieve it,” Miss Stackpole ingeniously said.
”Well,” Ralph concluded, ”to prove to you that you're wrong I'll invitehim. It must be of course as a friend of yours.”
”It will not be as a friend of mine that he'll come; and it will not beto prove to me that I'm wrong that you'll ask him--but to prove it toyourself!”
These last words of Miss Stackpole's (on which the two presentlyseparated) contained an amount of truth which Ralph Touchett was obligedto recognise; but it so far took the edge from too sharp a recognitionthat, in spite of his suspecting it would be rather more indiscreetto keep than to break his promise, he wrote Mr. Goodwood a note of sixlines, expressing the pleasure it would give Mr. Touchett the elder thathe should join a little party at Gardencourt, of which Miss Stackpolewas a valued member. Having sent his letter (to the care of a bankerwhom Henrietta suggested) he waited in some suspense. He had heard thisfresh formidable figure named for the first time; for when his motherhad mentioned on her arrival that there was a story about the girl'shaving an ”admirer” at home, the idea had seemed deficient in realityand he had taken no pains to ask questions the answers to which wouldinvolve only the vague or the disagreeable. Now, however, the nativeadmiration of which his cousin was the object had become more concrete;it took the form of a young man who had followed her to London, who wasinterested in a cotton-mill and had manners in the most splendid of theAmerican styles. Ralph had two theories about this intervenes. Eitherhis passion was a sentimental fiction of Miss Stackpole's (there wasalways a sort of tacit understanding among women, born of the solidarityof the sex, that they should discover or invent lovers for each other),in which case he was not to be feared and would probably not accept theinvitation or else he would accept the invitation and in this eventprove himself a creature too irrational to demand further consideration.The latter clause of Ralph's argument might have seemed incoherent;but it embodied his conviction that if Mr. Goodwood were interested inIsabel in the serious manner described by Miss Stackpole he would notcare to present himself at Gardencourt on a summons from the latterlady. ”On this supposition,” said Ralph, ”he must regard her as a thornon the stem of his rose; as an intercessor he must find her wanting intact.”
Two days after he had sent his invitation he received a very shortnote from Caspar Goodwood, thanking him for it, regretting that otherengagements made a visit to Gardencourt impossible and presenting manycompliments to Miss Stackpole. Ralph handed the note to Henrietta, who,when she had read it, exclaimed: ”Well, I never have heard of anythingso stiff!”
”I'm afraid he doesn't care so much about my cousin as you suppose,”Ralph observed.
”No, it's not that; it's some subtler motive. His nature's very deep.But I'm determined to fathom it, and I shall write to him to know whathe means.”
His refusal of Ralph's overtures was vaguely disconcerting; from themoment he declined to come to Gardencourt our friend began to thinkhim of importance. He asked himself what it signified to him whetherIsabel's admirers should be desperadoes or laggards; they were notrivals of his and were perfectly welcome to act out their genius.Nevertheless he felt much curiosity as to the result of Miss Stackpole'spromised enquiry into the causes of Mr. Goodwood's stiffness--acuriosity for the present ungratified, inasmuch as when he asked herthree days later if she had written to London she was obliged to confessshe had written in vain. Mr. Goodwood had not replied.
”I suppose he's thinking it over,” she said; ”he thinks everythingover; he's not really at all impetuous. But I'm accustomed to having myletters answered the same day.” She presently proposed to Isabel, atall events, that they should make an excursion to London together. ”If Imust tell the truth,” she observed, ”I'm not seeing much at thisplace, and I shouldn't think you were either. I've not even seen thataristocrat--what's his name?--Lord Washburton. He seems to let youseverely alone.”
”Lord Warburton's coming to-morrow, I happen to know,” replied herfriend, who had received a note from the master of Lockleigh in answerto her own letter. ”You'll have every opportunity of turning him insideout.”
”Well, he may do for one letter, but what's one letter when you want towrite fifty? I've described all the scenery in this vicinity and ravedabout all the old women and donkeys. You may say what you please,scenery doesn't make a vital letter. I must go back to London and getsome impressions of real life. I was there but three days before I cameaway, and that's hardly time to get in touch.”
As Isabel, on her journey from New York to Gardencourt, had seen evenless of the British capital than this, it appeared a happy suggestion ofHenrietta's that the two should go thither on a visit of pleasure. Theidea struck Isabel as charming; he was curious of the thick detail ofLondon, which had always loomed large and rich to her. They turned overtheir schemes together and indulged in visions of romantic hours. Theywould stay at some picturesque old inn--one of the inns described byDickens--and drive over the town in those delightful hansoms. Henriettawas a literary woman, and the great advantage of being a literary womanwas that you could go everywhere and do everything. They would dine ata coffee-house and go afterwards to the play; they would frequent theAbbey and the British Museum and find out where Doctor Johnson hadlived, and Goldsmith and Addison. Isabel grew eager and presentlyunveiled the bright vision to Ralph, who burst into a fit of laughterwhich scarce expressed the sympathy she had desired.
”It's a delightful plan,” he said. ”I advise you to go to the Duke'sHead in Covent Garden, an easy, informal, old-fashioned place, and I'llhave you put down at my club.”
”Do you mean it's improper?” Isabel asked. ”Dear me, isn't anythingproper here? With Henrietta surely I may go anywhere; she isn't hamperedin that way. She has travelled over the whole American continent and canat least find her way about this minute island.”
”Ah then,” said Ralph, ”let me take advantage of her protection to go upto town as well. I may never have a chance to travel so safely!”
It was this feeling and not the wish to ask advice--she had no desirewhatever for that--that led her to speak to her uncle of what had takenplace. She wished to speak to some one; she should feel more natural,more human, and her uncle, for this purpose, presented himself in amore attractive light than either her aunt or her friend Henrietta. Hercousin of course was a possible confidant; but she would have had to doherself violence to air this special secret to Ralph. So the next day,after breakfast, she sought her occasion. Her uncle never left hisapartment till the afternoon, but he received his cronies, as he said,in his dressing-room. Isabel had quite taken her place in the classso designated, which, for the rest, included the old man's son, hisphysician, his personal servant, and even Miss Stackpole. Mrs. Touchettdid not figure in the list, and this was an obstacle the less toIsabel's finding her host alone. He sat in a complicated mechanicalchair, at the open window of his room, looking westward over the parkand the river, with his newspapers and letters piled up beside him,his toilet freshly and minutely made, and his smooth, speculative facecomposed to benevolent expectation.
She approached her point directly. ”I think I ought to let you know thatLord Warburton has asked me to marry him. I suppose I ought to tell myaunt; but it seems best to tell you first.”
The old man expressed no surprise, but thanked her for the confidenceshe showed him. ”Do you mind telling me whether you accepted him?” hethen enquired.
”I've not answered him definitely yet; I've taken a little time to thinkof it, because that seems more respectful. But I shall not accept him.”
Mr. Touchett made no comment upon this; he had the air of thinking that,whatever interest he might take in the matter from the point of view ofsociability, he had no active voice in it. ”Well, I told you you'd be asuccess over here. Americans are highly appreciated.”
”Very highly indeed,” said Isabel. ”But at the cost of seeming bothtasteless and ungrateful, I don't think I can marry Lord Warburton.”
”Well,” her uncle went on, ”of course an old man can't judge for a younglady. I'm glad you didn't ask me before you made up your mind. I supposeI ought to tell you,” he added slowly, but as if it were not of muchconsequence, ”that I've known all about it these three days.”
”About Lord Warburton's state of mind?”
”About his intentions, as they say here. He wrote me a very pleasantletter, telling me all about them. Should you like to see his letter?”the old man obligingly asked.
”Thank you; I don't think I care about that. But I'm glad he wrote toyou; it was right that he should, and he would be certain to do what wasright.”
”Ah well, I guess you do like him!” Mr. Touchett declared. ”You needn'tpretend you don't.”
”I like him extremely; I'm very free to admit that. But I don't wish tomarry any one just now.”
”You think some one may come along whom you may like better. Well,that's very likely,” said Mr. Touchett, who appeared to wish to show hiskindness to the girl by easing off her decision, as it were, and findingcheerful reasons for it.
”I don't care if I don't meet any one else. I like Lord Warburton quitewell enough.” she fell into that appearance of a sudden change ofpoint of view with which she sometimes startled and even displeased herinterlocutors.
Her uncle, however, seemed proof against either of these impressions.”He's a very fine man,” he resumed in a tone which might have passedfor that of encouragement. ”His letter was one of the pleasantest I'vereceived for some weeks. I suppose one of the reasons I liked it wasthat it was all about you; that is all except the part that was abouthimself. I suppose he told you all that.”
”He would have told me everything I wished to ask him,” Isabel said.
”But you didn't feel curious?”
”My curiosity would have been idle--once I had determined to decline hisoffer.”
”You didn't find it sufficiently attractive?” Mr. Touchett enquired.
She was silent a little. ”I suppose it was that,” she presentlyadmitted. ”But I don't know why.”
”Fortunately ladies are not obliged to give reasons,” said her uncle.”There's a great deal that's attractive about such an idea; but I don'tsee why the English should want to entice us away from our native land.I know that we try to attract them over there, but that's because ourpopulation is insufficient. Here, you know, they're rather crowded.However, I presume there's room for charming young ladies everywhere.”
”There seems to have been room here for you,” said Isabel, whose eyeshad been wandering over the large pleasure-spaces of the park.
Mr. Touchett gave a shrewd, conscious smile. ”There's room everywhere,my dear, if you'll pay for it. I sometimes think I've paid too much forthis. Perhaps you also might have to pay too much.”
”Perhaps I might,” the girl replied.
That suggestion gave her something more definite to rest on than shehad found in her own thoughts, and the fact of this association of heruncle's mild acuteness with her dilemma seemed to prove that she wasconcerned with the natural and reasonable emotions of life andnot altogether a victim to intellectual eagerness and vagueambitions--ambitions reaching beyond Lord Warburton's beautiful appeal,reaching to something indefinable and possibly not commendable. In sofar as the indefinable had an influence upon Isabel's behaviour at thisjuncture, it was not the conception, even unformulated, of a union withCaspar Goodwood; for however she might have resisted conquest at herEnglish suitor's large quiet hands she was at least as far removedfrom the disposition to let the young man from Boston take positivepossession of her. The sentiment in which She sought refuge afterreading his letter was a critical view of his having come abroad; for itwas part of the influence he had upon her that he seemed to deprive herof the sense of freedom. There was a disagreeably strong push, a kindof hardness of presence, in his way of rising before her. She had beenhaunted at moments by the image, by the danger, of his disapproval andhad wondered--a consideration she had never paid in equal degree to anyone else--whether he would like what she did. The difficulty was thatmore than any man she had ever known, more than poor Lord Warburton (shehad begun now to give his lordship the benefit of this epithet), CasparGoodwood expressed for her an energy--and she had already felt it as apower that was of his very nature. It was in no degree a matter ofhis ”advantages”--it was a matter of the spirit that sat in hisclear-burning eyes like some tireless watcher at a window. She mightlike it or not, but he insisted, ever, with his whole weight and force:even in one's usual contact with him one had to reckon with that. Theidea of a diminished liberty was particularly disagreeable to her atpresent, since she had just given a sort of personal accent to herindependence by looking so straight at Lord Warburton's big bribe andyet turning away from it. Sometimes Caspar Goodwood had seemed to rangehimself on the side of her destiny, to be the stubbornest fact she knew;she said to herself at such moments that she might evade him for a time,but that she must make terms with him at last--terms which would becertain to be favourable to himself. Her impulse had been to availherself of the things that helped her to resist such an obligationand this impulse had been much concerned in her eager acceptance of heraunt's invitation, which had come to her at an hour when she expectedfrom day to day to see Mr. Goodwood and when she was glad to have ananswer ready for something she was sure he would say to her. When shehad told him at Albany, on the evening of Mrs. Touchett's visit, thatshe couldn't then discuss difficult questions, dazzled as she was bythe great immediate opening of her aunt's offer of ”Europe,” he declaredthat this was no answer at all; and it was now to obtain a better onethat he was following her across the sea. To say to herself that he wasa kind of grim fate was well enough for a fanciful young woman who wasable to take much for granted in him; but the reader has a right to anearer and a clearer view.
He was the son of a proprietor of well-known cotton-mills inMassachusetts--a gentleman who had accumulated a considerable fortune inthe exercise of this industry. Caspar at present managed the works, andwith a judgement and a temper which, in spite of keen competition andlanguid years, had kept their prosperity from dwindling. He had receivedthe better part of his education at Harvard College, where, however, hehad gained renown rather as a gymnast and an oarsman than as a gleanerof more dispersed knowledge. Later on he had learned that the finerintelligence too could vault and pull and strain--might even, breakingthe record, treat itself to rare exploits. He had thus discovered inhimself a sharp eye for the mystery of mechanics, and had invented animprovement in the cotton-spinning process which was now largely usedand was known by his name. You might have seen it in the newspapers inconnection with this fruitful contrivance; assurance of which hehad given to Isabel by showing her in the columns of the New YorkInterviewer an exhaustive article on the Goodwood patent--an article notprepared by Miss Stackpole, friendly as she had proved herself to hismore sentimental interests. There were intricate, bristling things herejoiced in; he liked to organise, to contend, to administer; he couldmake people work his will, believe in him, march before him and justifyhim. This was the art, as they said, of managing men--which rested, inhim, further, on a bold though brooding ambition. It struck thosewho knew him well that he might do greater things than carry on acotton-factory; there was nothing cottony about Caspar Goodwood, andhis friends took for granted that he would somehow and somewherewrite himself in bigger letters. But it was as if something large andconfused, something dark and ugly, would have to call upon him: he wasnot after all in harmony with mere smug peace and greed and gain, anorder of things of which the vital breath was ubiquitous advertisement.It pleased Isabel to believe that he might have ridden, on a plungingsteed, the whirlwind of a great war--a war like the Civil strife thathad overdarkened her conscious childhood and his ripening youth.
She liked at any rate this idea of his being by character and in fact amover of men--liked it much better than some other points in his natureand aspect. She cared nothing for his cotton-mill--the Goodwood patentleft her imagination absolutely cold. She wished him no ounce less ofhis manhood, but she sometimes thought he would be rather nicer if helooked, for instance, a little differently. His jaw was too square andset and his figure too straight and stiff: these things suggested a wantof easy consonance with the deeper rhythms of life. Then she viewed withreserve a habit he had of dressing always in the same manner; it wasnot apparently that he wore the same clothes continually, for, on thecontrary, his garments had a way of looking rather too new. But they allseemed of the same piece; the figure, the stuff, was so drearily usual.She had reminded herself more than once that this was a frivolousobjection to a person of his importance; and then she had amended therebuke by saying that it would be a frivolous objection only if shewere in love with him. She was not in love with him and therefore mightcriticise his small defects as well as his great--which latter consistedin the collective reproach of his being too serious, or, rather, not ofhis being so, since one could never be, but certainly of his seeming so.He showed his appetites and designs too simply and artlessly; when onewas alone with him he talked too much about the same subject, and whenother people were present he talked too little about anything. And yethe was of supremely strong, clean make--which was so much she saw thedifferent fitted parts of him as she had seen, in museums and portraits,the different fitted parts of armoured warriors--in plates of steelhandsomely inlaid with gold. It was very strange: where, ever, was anytangible link between her impression and her act? Caspar Goodwood hadnever corresponded to her idea of a delightful person, and she supposedthat this was why he left her so harshly critical. When, however, LordWarburton, who not only did correspond with it, but gave an extension tothe term, appealed to her approval, she found herself still unsatisfied.It was certainly strange.
The sense of her incoherence was not a help to answering Mr. Goodwood'sletter, and Isabel determined to leave it a while unhonoured. If hehad determined to persecute her he must take the consequences; foremostamong which was his being left to perceive how little it charmed herthat he should come down to Gardencourt. She was already liable to theincursions of one suitor at this place, and though it might be pleasantto be appreciated in opposite quarters there was a kind of grossness inentertaining two such passionate pleaders at once, even in a case wherethe entertainment should consist of dismissing them. She made noreply to Mr. Goodwood; but at the end of three days she wrote to LordWarburton, and the letter belongs to our history.
DEAR LORD WARBURTON--A great deal of earnest thought has not led me tochange my mind about the suggestion you were so kind as to make me theother day. I am not, I am really and truly not, able to regard youin the light of a companion for life; or to think of your home--yourvarious homes--as the settled seat of my existence. These things cannotbe reasoned about, and I very earnestly entreat you not to return tothe subject we discussed so exhaustively. We see our lives from our ownpoint of view; that is the privilege of the weakest and humblest of us;and I shall never be able to see mine in the manner you proposed. Kindlylet this suffice you, and do me the justice to believe that I have givenyour proposal the deeply respectful consideration it deserves. It iswith this very great regard that I remain sincerely yours,
ISABEL ARCHER.
While the author of this missive was making up her mind to dispatch itHenrietta Stackpole formed a resolve which was accompanied by no demur.She invited Ralph Touchett to take a walk with her in the garden, andwhen he had assented with that alacrity which seemed constantly totestify to his high expectations, she informed him that she had a favourto ask of him. It may be admitted that at this information the young manflinched; for we know that Miss Stackpole had struck him as apt to pushan advantage. The alarm was unreasoned, however; for he was clear aboutthe area of her indiscretion as little as advised of its vertical depth,and he made a very civil profession of the desire to serve her. Hewas afraid of her and presently told her so. ”When you look at me in acertain way my knees knock together, my faculties desert me; I'm filledwith trepidation and I ask only for strength to execute your commands.You've an address that I've never encountered in any woman.”
”Well,” Henrietta replied good-humouredly, ”if I had not known beforethat you were trying somehow to abash me I should know it now. Of courseI'm easy game--I was brought up with such different customs and ideas.I'm not used to your arbitrary standards, and I've never been spoken toin America as you have spoken to me. If a gentleman conversing with meover there were to speak to me like that I shouldn't know what to makeof it. We take everything more naturally over there, and, after all,we're a great deal more simple. I admit that; I'm very simple myself.Of course if you choose to laugh at me for it you're very welcome; but Ithink on the whole I would rather be myself than you. I'm quite contentto be myself; I don't want to change. There are plenty of people thatappreciate me just as I am. It's true they're nice fresh free-bornAmericans!” Henrietta had lately taken up the tone of helpless innocenceand large concession. ”I want you to assist me a little,” she went on.”I don't care in the least whether I amuse you while you do so; or,rather, I'm perfectly willing your amusement should be your reward. Iwant you to help me about Isabel.”
”Has she injured you?” Ralph asked.
”If she had I shouldn't mind, and I should never tell you. What I'mafraid of is that she'll injure herself.”
”I think that's very possible,” said Ralph.
His companion stopped in the garden-walk, fixing on him perhaps the verygaze that unnerved him. ”That too would amuse you, I suppose. The wayyou do say things! I never heard any one so indifferent.”
”To Isabel? Ah, not that!”
”Well, you're not in love with her, I hope.”
”How can that be, when I'm in love with Another?”
”You're in love with yourself, that's the Other!” Miss Stackpoledeclared. ”Much good may it do you! But if you wish to be serious oncein your life here's a chance; and if you really care for your cousinhere's an opportunity to prove it. I don't expect you to understand her;that's too much to ask. But you needn't do that to grant my favour. I'llsupply the necessary intelligence.”
”I shall enjoy that immensely!” Ralph exclaimed. ”I'll be Caliban andyou shall be Ariel.”
”You're not at all like Caliban, because you're sophisticated, andCaliban was not. But I'm not talking about imaginary characters; I'mtalking about Isabel. Isabel's intensely real. What I wish to tell youis that I find her fearfully changed.”
”Since you came, do you mean?”
”Since I came and before I came. She's not the same as she once sobeautifully was.”
”As she was in America?”
”Yes, in America. I suppose you know she comes from there. She can'thelp it, but she does.”
”Do you want to change her back again?”
”Of course I do, and I want you to help me.”
”Ah,” said Ralph, ”I'm only Caliban; I'm not Prospero.”
”You were Prospero enough to make her what she has become. You've actedon Isabel Archer since she came here, Mr. Touchett.”
”I, my dear Miss Stackpole? Never in the world. Isabel Archer has actedon me--yes; she acts on every one. But I've been absolutely passive.”
”You're too passive then. You had better stir yourself and be careful.Isabel's changing every day; she's drifting away--right out to sea. I'vewatched her and I can see it. She's not the bright American girl shewas. She's taking different views, a different colour, and turning awayfrom her old ideals. I want to save those ideals, Mr. Touchett, andthat's where you come in.”
”Not surely as an ideal?”
”Well, I hope not,” Henrietta replied promptly. ”I've got a fear in myheart that she's going to marry one of these fell Europeans, and I wantto prevent it.
”Ah, I see,” cried Ralph; ”and to prevent it you want me to step in andmarry her?”
”Not quite; that remedy would be as bad as the disease, for you're thetypical, the fell European from whom I wish to rescue her. No; I wishyou to take an interest in another person--a young man to whom she oncegave great encouragement and whom she now doesn't seem to think goodenough. He's a thoroughly grand man and a very dear friend of mine, andI wish very much you would invite him to pay a visit here.”
Ralph was much puzzled by this appeal, and it is perhaps not to thecredit of his purity of mind that he failed to look at it at first inthe simplest light. It wore, to his eyes, a tortuous air, and his faultwas that he was not quite sure that anything in the world could reallybe as candid as this request of Miss Stackpole's appeared. That a youngwoman should demand that a gentleman whom she described as her very dearfriend should be furnished with an opportunity to make himself agreeableto another young woman, a young woman whose attention had wandered andwhose charms were greater--this was an anomaly which for the momentchallenged all his ingenuity of interpretation. To read between thelines was easier than to follow the text, and to suppose that MissStackpole wished the gentleman invited to Gardencourt on her own accountwas the sign not so much of a vulgar as of an embarrassed mind. Evenfrom this venial act of vulgarity, however, Ralph was saved, and savedby a force that I can only speak of as inspiration. With no more outwardlight on the subject than he already possessed he suddenly acquired theconviction that it would be a sovereign injustice to the correspondentof the Interviewer to assign a dishonourable motive to any act of hers.This conviction passed into his mind with extreme rapidity; it wasperhaps kindled by the pure radiance of the young lady's imperturbablegaze. He returned this challenge a moment, consciously, resisting aninclination to frown as one frowns in the presence of larger luminaries.”Who's the gentleman you speak of?”
”Mr. Caspar Goodwood--of Boston. He has been extremely attentive toIsabel--just as devoted to her as he can live. He has followed her outhere and he's at present in London. I don't know his address, but Iguess I can obtain it.”
”I've never heard of him,” said Ralph.
”Well, I suppose you haven't heard of every one. I don't believe he hasever heard of you; but that's no reason why Isabel shouldn't marry him.”
Ralph gave a mild ambiguous laugh. ”What a rage you have for marryingpeople! Do you remember how you wanted to marry me the other day?”
”I've got over that. You don't know how to take such ideas. Mr. Goodwooddoes, however; and that's what I like about him. He's a splendid man anda perfect gentleman, and Isabel knows it.”
”Is she very fond of him?”
”If she isn't she ought to be. He's simply wrapped up in her.”
”And you wish me to ask him here,” said Ralph reflectively.
”It would be an act of true hospitality.”
”Caspar Goodwood,” Ralph continued--”it's rather a striking name.”
”I don't care anything about his name. It might be Ezekiel Jenkins, andI should say the same. He's the only man I have ever seen whom I thinkworthy of Isabel.”
”You're a very devoted friend,” said Ralph.
”Of course I am. If you say that to pour scorn on me I don't care.”
”I don't say it to pour scorn on you; I'm very much struck with it.”
”You're more satiric than ever, but I advise you not to laugh at Mr.Goodwood.”
”I assure you I'm very serious; you ought to understand that,” saidRalph.
In a moment his companion understood it. ”I believe you are; now you'retoo serious.”
”You're difficult to please.”
”Oh, you're very serious indeed. You won't invite Mr. Goodwood.”
”I don't know,” said Ralph. ”I'm capable of strange things. Tell me alittle about Mr. Goodwood. What's he like?”
”He's just the opposite of you. He's at the head of a cotton-factory; avery fine one.”
”Has he pleasant manners?” asked Ralph.
”Splendid manners--in the American style.”
”Would he be an agreeable member of our little circle?”
”I don't think he'd care much about our little circle. He'd concentrateon Isabel.”
”And how would my cousin like that?”
”Very possibly not at all. But it will be good for her. It will callback her thoughts.”
”Call them back--from where?”
”From foreign parts and other unnatural places. Three months ago shegave Mr. Goodwood every reason to suppose he was acceptable to her, andit's not worthy of Isabel to go back on a real friend simply because shehas changed the scene. I've changed the scene too, and the effect of ithas been to make me care more for my old associations than ever. It's mybelief that the sooner Isabel changes it back again the better. I knowher well enough to know that she would never be truly happy over here,and I wish her to form some strong American tie that will act as apreservative.”
”Aren't you perhaps a little too much in a hurry?” Ralph enquired.”Don't you think you ought to give her more of a chance in poor oldEngland?”
”A chance to ruin her bright young life? One's never too much in a hurryto save a precious human creature from drowning.”
”As I understand it then,” said Ralph, ”you wish me to push Mr. Goodwoodoverboard after her. Do you know,” he added, ”that I've never heard hermention his name?”
Henrietta gave a brilliant smile. ”I'm delighted to hear that; it proveshow much she thinks of him.”
Ralph appeared to allow that there was a good deal in this, and hesurrendered to thought while his companion watched him askance. ”If Ishould invite Mr. Goodwood,” he finally said, ”it would be to quarrelwith him.”
”Don't do that; he'd prove the better man.”
”You certainly are doing your best to make me hate him! I really don'tthink I can ask him. I should be afraid of being rude to him.”
”It's just as you please,” Henrietta returned. ”I had no idea you werein love with her yourself.”
”Do you really believe that?” the young man asked with lifted eyebrows.
”That's the most natural speech I've ever heard you make! Of course Ibelieve it,” Miss Stackpole ingeniously said.
”Well,” Ralph concluded, ”to prove to you that you're wrong I'll invitehim. It must be of course as a friend of yours.”
”It will not be as a friend of mine that he'll come; and it will not beto prove to me that I'm wrong that you'll ask him--but to prove it toyourself!”
These last words of Miss Stackpole's (on which the two presentlyseparated) contained an amount of truth which Ralph Touchett was obligedto recognise; but it so far took the edge from too sharp a recognitionthat, in spite of his suspecting it would be rather more indiscreetto keep than to break his promise, he wrote Mr. Goodwood a note of sixlines, expressing the pleasure it would give Mr. Touchett the elder thathe should join a little party at Gardencourt, of which Miss Stackpolewas a valued member. Having sent his letter (to the care of a bankerwhom Henrietta suggested) he waited in some suspense. He had heard thisfresh formidable figure named for the first time; for when his motherhad mentioned on her arrival that there was a story about the girl'shaving an ”admirer” at home, the idea had seemed deficient in realityand he had taken no pains to ask questions the answers to which wouldinvolve only the vague or the disagreeable. Now, however, the nativeadmiration of which his cousin was the object had become more concrete;it took the form of a young man who had followed her to London, who wasinterested in a cotton-mill and had manners in the most splendid of theAmerican styles. Ralph had two theories about this intervenes. Eitherhis passion was a sentimental fiction of Miss Stackpole's (there wasalways a sort of tacit understanding among women, born of the solidarityof the sex, that they should discover or invent lovers for each other),in which case he was not to be feared and would probably not accept theinvitation or else he would accept the invitation and in this eventprove himself a creature too irrational to demand further consideration.The latter clause of Ralph's argument might have seemed incoherent;but it embodied his conviction that if Mr. Goodwood were interested inIsabel in the serious manner described by Miss Stackpole he would notcare to present himself at Gardencourt on a summons from the latterlady. ”On this supposition,” said Ralph, ”he must regard her as a thornon the stem of his rose; as an intercessor he must find her wanting intact.”
Two days after he had sent his invitation he received a very shortnote from Caspar Goodwood, thanking him for it, regretting that otherengagements made a visit to Gardencourt impossible and presenting manycompliments to Miss Stackpole. Ralph handed the note to Henrietta, who,when she had read it, exclaimed: ”Well, I never have heard of anythingso stiff!”
”I'm afraid he doesn't care so much about my cousin as you suppose,”Ralph observed.
”No, it's not that; it's some subtler motive. His nature's very deep.But I'm determined to fathom it, and I shall write to him to know whathe means.”
His refusal of Ralph's overtures was vaguely disconcerting; from themoment he declined to come to Gardencourt our friend began to thinkhim of importance. He asked himself what it signified to him whetherIsabel's admirers should be desperadoes or laggards; they were notrivals of his and were perfectly welcome to act out their genius.Nevertheless he felt much curiosity as to the result of Miss Stackpole'spromised enquiry into the causes of Mr. Goodwood's stiffness--acuriosity for the present ungratified, inasmuch as when he asked herthree days later if she had written to London she was obliged to confessshe had written in vain. Mr. Goodwood had not replied.
”I suppose he's thinking it over,” she said; ”he thinks everythingover; he's not really at all impetuous. But I'm accustomed to having myletters answered the same day.” She presently proposed to Isabel, atall events, that they should make an excursion to London together. ”If Imust tell the truth,” she observed, ”I'm not seeing much at thisplace, and I shouldn't think you were either. I've not even seen thataristocrat--what's his name?--Lord Washburton. He seems to let youseverely alone.”
”Lord Warburton's coming to-morrow, I happen to know,” replied herfriend, who had received a note from the master of Lockleigh in answerto her own letter. ”You'll have every opportunity of turning him insideout.”
”Well, he may do for one letter, but what's one letter when you want towrite fifty? I've described all the scenery in this vicinity and ravedabout all the old women and donkeys. You may say what you please,scenery doesn't make a vital letter. I must go back to London and getsome impressions of real life. I was there but three days before I cameaway, and that's hardly time to get in touch.”
As Isabel, on her journey from New York to Gardencourt, had seen evenless of the British capital than this, it appeared a happy suggestion ofHenrietta's that the two should go thither on a visit of pleasure. Theidea struck Isabel as charming; he was curious of the thick detail ofLondon, which had always loomed large and rich to her. They turned overtheir schemes together and indulged in visions of romantic hours. Theywould stay at some picturesque old inn--one of the inns described byDickens--and drive over the town in those delightful hansoms. Henriettawas a literary woman, and the great advantage of being a literary womanwas that you could go everywhere and do everything. They would dine ata coffee-house and go afterwards to the play; they would frequent theAbbey and the British Museum and find out where Doctor Johnson hadlived, and Goldsmith and Addison. Isabel grew eager and presentlyunveiled the bright vision to Ralph, who burst into a fit of laughterwhich scarce expressed the sympathy she had desired.
”It's a delightful plan,” he said. ”I advise you to go to the Duke'sHead in Covent Garden, an easy, informal, old-fashioned place, and I'llhave you put down at my club.”
”Do you mean it's improper?” Isabel asked. ”Dear me, isn't anythingproper here? With Henrietta surely I may go anywhere; she isn't hamperedin that way. She has travelled over the whole American continent and canat least find her way about this minute island.”
”Ah then,” said Ralph, ”let me take advantage of her protection to go upto town as well. I may never have a chance to travel so safely!”