The Outcry - Генри Джеймс

Henry James

The Outcry

BOOK FIRST

I

NO, my lord, Banks had replied, no stranger has yet arrived. But Ill see if any one has come inor who has. As he spoke, however, he observed Lady Sandgates approach to the hall by the entrance giving upon the great terrace, and addressed her on her passing the threshold. Lord John, my lady. With which, his duty majestically performed, he retired to the quarterthat of the main access to the spacious centre of the housefrom which he had ushered the visitor.

This personage, facing Lady Sandgate as she paused there a moment framed by the large doorway to the outer expanses, the small pinkish paper of a folded telegram in her hand, had partly before him, as an immediate effect, the high wide interior, still breathing the quiet air and the fair pannelled security of the couple of hushed and stored centuries, in which certain of the reputed treasures of Dedborough Place beautifully disposed themselves; and then, through ample apertures and beyond the stately stone outworks of the great seated and supported houseuplifting terrace, balanced, balustraded steps and containing basins where splash and spray were at restall the rich composed extension of garden and lawn and park. An ancient, an assured elegance seemed to reign; pictures and preserved pieces, cabinets and tapestries, spoke, each for itself, of fine selection and high distinction; while the originals of the old portraits, in more or less deserved salience, hung over the happy scene as the sworn members of a great guild might have sat, on the beautiful April day, at one of their annual feasts.

Such was the setting confirmed by generous time, but the handsome woman of considerably more than forty whose entrance had all but coincided with that of Lord John either belonged, for the eye, to no such complacent company or enjoyed a relation to it in which the odd twists and turns of history must have been more frequent than any dull avenue or easy sequence. Lady Sandgate was shiningly modern, and perhaps at no point more so than by the effect of her express repudiation of a mundane future certain to be more and more offensive to women of real quality and of formed taste. Clearly, at any rate, in her hands, the clue to the antique confidence had lost itself, and repose, however founded, had given way to curiositythat is to speculationhowever disguised. She might have consented, or even attained, to being but gracefully stupid, but she would presumably have confessed, if put on her trial for restlessness or for intelligence, that she was, after all, almost clever enough to be vulgar. Unmistakably, moreover, she had still, with her fine stature, her disciplined figure, her cherished complexion, her bright important hair, her kind bold eyes and her large constant smile, the degree of beauty that might pretend to put every other question by.

Lord John addressed her as with a significant manner that he might have hadthat of a lack of need, or even of interest, for any explanation about herself: it would have been clear that he was apt to discriminate with sharpness among possible claims on his attention. I luckily find you at least, Lady Sandgatethey tell me Theigns off somewhere.

She replied as with the general habit, on her side, of bland reassurance; it mostly had easier consequencesfor herselfthan the perhaps more showy creation of alarm. Only off in the parkopen to-day for a school-feast from Dedborough, as you may have made out from the avenue; giving good advice, at the top of his lungs, to four hundred and fifty children.

It was such a scene, and such an aspect of the personage so accounted for, as Lord John could easily take in, and his recognition familiarly smiled. Oh hes so great on such occasions that Im sorry to be missing it.

Ive had to miss it, Lady Sandgate sighedthat is to miss the peroration. Ive just left them, but he had even then been going on for twenty minutes, and I dare say that if you care to take a look youll find him, poor dear victim of duty, still at it.

Ill warrantfor, as I often tell him, he makes the idea of ones duty an awful thing to his friends by the extravagance with which he always overdoes it. And the image itself appeared in some degree to prompt this particular edified friend to look at his watch and consider. I should like to come in for the grand finale, but I rattled over in a great measure to meet a party, as he calls himselfand calls, if you please, even me!whos motoring down by appointment and whom I think I should be here to receive; as well as a little, I confess, in the hope of a glimpse of Lady Grace: if you can perhaps imagine that!

I can imagine it perfectly, said Lady Sandgate, whom evidently no perceptions of that general order ever cost a strain. It quite sticks out of you, and every one moreover has for some time past been waiting to see. But you havent then, she added, come from town?

No, Im for three days at Chanter with my mother; whom, as she kindly lent me her car, I should have rather liked to bring.

Lady Sandgate left the unsaid, in this connection, languish no longer than was decent. But whom you doubtless had to leave, by her preference, just settling down to bridge.

Oh, to sit down would imply that my mother at some moment of the day gets up!

Which the Duchess never does?Lady Sand-gate only asked to be allowed to show how she saw it. She fights to the last, invincible; gathering in the spoils and only routing her friends? She abounded genially in her privileged vision. Ah yeswe know something of that!

Lord John, who was a young man of a rambling but not of an idle eye, fixed her an instant with a surprise that was yet not steeped in compassion. You too then?

She wouldnt, however, too meanly narrow it down. Well, in this house generally; where Im so often made welcome, you see, and where

Where, he broke in at once, your jolly good footing quite sticks out of you, perhaps youll let me say!

She clearly didnt mind his seeing her ask herself how she should deal with so much rather juvenile intelligence; and indeed she could only decide to deal quite simply. You cant say more than I feeland am proud to feel!at being of comfort when theyre worried.

This but fed the light flame of his easy perceptionwhich lighted for him, if she would, all the facts equally. And theyre worried now, you imply, because my terrible mother is capable of heavy gains and of making a great noise if she isnt paid? I ought to mind speaking of that truth, he went on as with a practised glance in the direction of delicacy; but I think I should like you to know that I myself am not a bit ignorant of why it has made such an impression here.

Lady Sandgate forestalled his knowledge. Because poor Kitty Imberwho should either never touch a card or else learn to suffer in silence, as Ive had to, goodness knows!has thrown herself, with her impossible big debt, upon her father? whom she thinks herself entitled to look to even more as a lovely young widow with a good jointure than she formerly did as the mere most beautiful daughter at home.

She had put the picture a shade interrogatively, but this was as nothing to the note of free inquiry in Lord Johns reply. You mean that our lovely young widowsto say nothing of lovely young wivesought by this time to have made out, in predicaments, how to turn round?