Henry James

“ Munden, widowed childless and lonely, as well as inapt for the minor offices, she had absolutely to have; a more or less humble alter ago to deal with the servants, keep the accounts, make the tea and watch the window-blinds. Nothing seemed more natural than that she should marry again, and obviously that might come; yet the predecessors of Miss Dadd had been contemporaneous with a first husband, so that others formed in her image might be contemporaneous with a second. ”

“ Wouldn’t it in fact have been after all just this failure of vision, this supreme stupidity in short, that kept the catastrophe so long at bay? There was a certain sense of greatness for her in seeing so many of us so absurdly mistaken; and I recall that on various occasions, and in particular when she uttered the words just quoted, this high serenity, as a sign of the relief of her soreness, if not of the effort of her conscience, did something quite visible to my eyes, and also quite unprecedented, for the beauty of her face. ”

“ Munden had replied when I had explained; “for she’s clever too, you know, as well as good-looking, and I don’t see how, if she ever really knew Nina, she could have supposed for a moment that she wasn’t wanted for whatever she might have left to give up. Hasn’t she moreover always been made to feel that she’s ugly enough for anything?” ”

“ The formula was easy to give, for the amusement was that her prettiness—yes, literally, prodigiously, her prettiness—was distinct. Lady Beldonald had been magnificent—had been almost intelligent. Miss What’s-her-name continues pretty, continues even young, and doesn’t matter a straw! She matters so ideally little that Lady Beldonald is practically safer, I judge, than she has ever been. There hasn’t been a symptom of chatter about this person, and I believe her protectress is much surprised that we’re not more struck. ”

“ I know nothing of her original conditions—some minor American city—save that for her to have gone back to them was clearly to have stepped out of her frame. We performed, Mrs. Munden and I, a small funeral service for her by talking it all over and making it all out. It wasn’t—the minor American city—a market for Holbeins, and what had occurred was that the poor old picture, banished from its museum and refreshed by the rise of no new movement to hang it, was capable of the miracle of a silent revolution; of itself turning, in its dire dishonour, its face to the wall. ”

“ If she has seen herself as ugly enough for anything she has seen herself—and that was the only way—as ugly enough for Nina; and she has had her own manner of showing that she understands without making Nina commit herself to anything vulgar. Women are never without ways for doing such things—both for communicating and receiving knowledge—that I can’t explain to you, and that you wouldn’t understand if I could, since you must be a woman even to do that. ”

“ Lady Beldonald uncontrollably murmured.
“Don’t be afraid we shall fight for her,” I returned with a laugh for this tone. Mrs. Brash was still where I could see her without appearing to stare, and she mightn’t have seen I was looking at her, though her protectress, I’m afraid, could scarce have failed of that certainty. “We must each take our turn, and at any rate she’s a wonderful thing, so that if you’ll let her go to Paris Outreau promises her there—”
“There?” my companion gasped.
“A career bigger still than among us, as he considers we haven’t half their eye. ”

“ It’s nothing new to one that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no eyes, no sense, no taste. There are whole communities impenetrably sealed. I don’t say your friend’s a person to make the men turn round in Regent Street. But it adds to the joy of the few who do see that they have it so much to themselves. Where in the world can she have lived? You must tell me all about that—or rather, if she’ll be so good, she must.”
“You mean then to speak to her—?”
I wondered as she pulled up again. “Of her beauty?”
“Her beauty!” cried Lady Beldonald so loud that two or three persons looked round. ”

“ I had seen it all from the original moment at my studio; the poor lady had never known an hour’s appreciation—which moreover, in perfect good faith, she had never missed. The very first thing I did after inducing so unintentionally the resentful retreat of her protectress had been to go straight over to her and say almost without preliminaries that I should hold myself immeasurably obliged for a few patient sittings. ”

“ I returned, “see too much. We can do more.”
“Than Nina?” She was again on the spot. “It wouldn’t after all be difficult. We only want the directly opposite thing—and which is the only one the poor dear can give. Unless indeed,” she suggested, “we simply retract—we back out.”
I turned it over. “It’s too late for that. Whether Mrs. Brash’s peace is gone I can’t say. But Nina’s is.”
“Yes, and there’s no way to bring it back that won’t sacrifice her friend. We can’t turn round and say Mrs. Brash is ugly, can we? But fancy Nina’s not having seen!” Mrs. Munden exclaimed. ”

“ But two things, simultaneously with this and with each other, struck me with force; one of them the truth of Outreau’s description of her, the other the fact that the person bringing her could only have been Lady Beldonald. She was a Holbein—of the first water; yet she was also Mrs. Brash, the imported “foil,” the indispensable “accent,” the successor to the dreary Miss Dadd! By the time I had put these things together—Outreau’s “American” having helped me—I was in just such full possession of her face as I had found myself, on the other first occasion, of that of her patroness. ”

“ What was it then that actually made the old stale sentence mean something so different?—into what new combinations, what extraordinary language, unknown but understood at a glance, had time and life translated it? The only thing to be said was that time and life were artists who beat us all, working with recipes and secrets we could never find out. ”

“ Munden was ready for anything. “Oh that would be lovely!”
But I further worked it out. “The difficulty is that she’s not a model, hang it—that she’s too good for one, that she’s the very thing herself. When Outreau and I have each had our go, that will be all; there’ll be nothing left for any one else. Therefore it behoves us quite to understand that our attitude’s a responsibility. If we can’t do for her positively more than Nina does—”
“We must let her alone?” ”

“ That’s why such a man as you may be after all a complication.”
I continued to brood. “You’re very sure Miss Dadd’s ailment isn’t an affection that, being smothered, has struck in?” My joke, however, wasn’t well timed, for I afterwards learned that the unfortunate lady’s state had been, even while I spoke, such as to forbid all hope. The worst symptoms had appeared; she was destined not to recover; and a week later I heard from Mrs. Munden that she would in fact “gurgle” no more. ”

“ Brash, be in form really to wait on me. The situation must further, to my knowledge, have developed happily, for I arranged with Mrs. Munden that our friend, now all ready to begin, but wanting first just to see the things I had most recently done, should come once more, as a final preliminary, to my studio. A good foreign friend of mine, a French painter, Paul Outreau, was at the moment in London, and I had proposed, as he was much interested in types, to get together for his amusement a small afternoon party. Every one came, my big room was full, there was music and a modest spread ”

“ Munden continues to remind me, however, that this is not the sort of rendering with which, on the other side, after all, Lady Beldonald proposes to content herself. She has come back to the question of her own portrait. Let me settle it then at last. Since she will have the real thing—well, hang it, she shall! ”