The Portrait of a Lady

The father caught his son’s eye at last and gave him a mild, responsive smile.

“I’m getting on very well,” he said.

“Have you drunk your tea?” asked the son.

“Yes, and enjoyed it.”

“Shall I give you some more?”

The old man considered, placidly. “Well, I guess I’ll wait and see.” He had, in speaking, the American tone.

“Are you cold?” the son enquired.

The father slowly rubbed his legs. “Well, I don’t know. I can’t tell till I feel.”

“Perhaps someone might feel for you,” said the younger man, laughing.

“Oh, I hope someone 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’m 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’ve been comfortable so many years that I suppose I’ve 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’re uncomfortable.”

“It strikes me we’re rather particular,” his companion remarked.

“Oh yes, there’s 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,” Lord Warburton resumed 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.

“But where’s my wife then?” murmured the old man.

“I suppose the young lady has left her somewhere: that’s a part of the independence.”

The girl spoke to Ralph, smiling, while she still held up the terrier. “Is this your little dog, sir?”

“He was mine a moment ago; but you’ve suddenly acquired a remarkable air of property in him.”

“Couldn’t we share him?” asked the girl. “He’s such a perfect little darling.”

Ralph looked at her a moment; she was unexpectedly pretty. “You may have him altogether,” he then replied.

The young lady seemed to have a great deal of confidence, both in herself and in others; but this abrupt generosity made her blush. “I ought to tell you that I’m probably your cousin,” she brought out, putting down the dog. “And here’s another!” she added quickly, as the collie came up.

“Probably?” the young man exclaimed, laughing. “I supposed it was quite settled! Have you arrived with my mother?”

“Yes, half an hour ago.”

“And has she deposited you and departed again?”

“No, she went straight to her room, and she told me that, if I should see you, I was to say to you that you must come to her there at a quarter to seven.”

The young man looked at his watch. “Thank you very much; I shall be punctual.” And then he looked at his cousin. “You’re very welcome here. I’m delighted to see you.”

She was looking at everything, with an eye that denoted clear perception⁠—at her companion, at the two dogs, at the two gentlemen under the trees, at the beautiful scene that surrounded her.

“I don’t see what makes you fond of it; your father died here.”

“Yes; but I don’t dislike it for that,” the girl rather strangely returned. “I like places in which things have happened⁠—even if they’re sad things. A great many people have died here; the place has been full of life.”

“Is that what you call being full of life?”

“I mean full of experience⁠—of people’s feelings and sorrows. And not of their sorrows only, for I’ve been very happy here as a child.”

“You should go to Florence if you like houses in which things have happened⁠—especially deaths. I live in an old palace in which three people have been murdered; three that were known and I don’t know how many more besides.”

“In an old palace?” Isabel repeated.

“Yes, my dear; a very different affair from this. This is very bourgeois.”

Isabel felt some emotion, for she had always thought highly of her grandmother’s house. But the emotion was of a kind which led her to say: “I should like very much to go to Florence.”

“Well, if you’ll be very good, and do everything I tell you I’ll take you there,” Mrs. Touchett declared.

Our young woman’s emotion deepened; she flushed a little and smiled at her aunt in silence. “Do everything you tell me? I don’t think I can promise that.”

Ralph shook his head sadly. “I might show it to you, but you’d never see it. The privilege isn’t given to everyone; it’s not enviable. It has never been seen by a young, happy, innocent person like you. You must have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it. I saw it long ago,” said Ralph.

“I told you just now I’m very fond of knowledge,” Isabel answered.

“Yes, of happy knowledge⁠—of pleasant knowledge. But you haven’t suffered, and you’re not made to suffer. I hope you’ll never see the ghost!”

She had listened to him attentively, with a smile on her lips, but with a certain gravity in her eyes. Charming as he found her, she had struck him as rather presumptuous⁠—indeed it was a part of her charm; and he wondered what she would say. “I’m not afraid, you know,” she said: which seemed quite presumptuous enough.

“You’re not afraid of suffering?”

“Yes, I’m afraid of suffering. But I’m not afraid of ghosts. And I think people suffer too easily,” she added.

“I don’t believe you do,” said Ralph, looking at her with his hands in his pockets.

“I don’t think that’s a fault,” she answered. “It’s not absolutely necessary to suffer; we were not made for that.”

“You were not, certainly.”

“I’m not speaking of myself.” And she wandered off a little.

“No, it isn’t a fault,” said her cousin. “It’s a merit to be strong.”

“Only, if you don’t suffer they call you hard,” Isabel remarked.

They passed out of the smaller drawing-room, into which they had returned from the gallery, and paused in the hall, at the foot of the staircase.

“I don’t think it presumptuous in me to suggest that you’ll gain more than you’ll lose,” her companion observed.

“I can’t escape unhappiness,” said Isabel. “In marrying you I shall be trying to.”

“I don’t know whether you’d try to, but you certainly would: that I must in candour admit!” he exclaimed with an anxious laugh.

“I mustn’t⁠—I can’t!” cried the girl.

“Well, if you’re bent on being miserable I don’t see why you should make me so. Whatever charms a life of misery may have for you, it has none for me.”

“I’m not bent on a life of misery,” said Isabel. “I’ve always been intensely determined to be happy, and I’ve often believed I should be. I’ve told people that; you can ask them. But it comes over me every now and then that I can never be happy in any extraordinary way; not by turning away, by separating myself.”

“By separating yourself from what?”

“From life. From the usual chances and dangers, from what most people know and suffer.”