The Outcry

The Outcry, by Henry James

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Title: The Outcry
Author: Henry James
Release Date: June 29, 2007 [EBook #21969]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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OUTCRY ***

Produced by David Widger

THE OUTCRY
By Henry James
1911
BOOK FIRST

I
"NO, my lord," Banks had replied, "no stranger has yet arrived. But I'll
see if any one has come in--or who has." As he spoke, however, he
observed Lady Sandgate's 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 quarter--that of the main access to the spacious centre of
the house--from 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
house--uplifting terrace, balanced, balustraded steps and containing
basins where splash and spray were at rest--all 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 curiosity--that is to
speculation--however 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 had--that 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 Sandgate--they tell me Theign's off somewhere."
She replied as with the general habit, on her side, of bland reassurance;
it mostly had easier consequences--for herself--than the perhaps more
showy creation of alarm. "Only off in the park--open 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 he's so great on such occasions that I'm sorry to be missing
it."
"I've had to miss it," Lady Sandgate sighed--"that is to miss the
peroration. I've 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 you'll find
him, poor dear victim of duty, still at it."
"I'll warrant--for, as I often tell him, he