The Coxon Fund.txt

The Coxon Fund







by Henry James

























CHAPTER I















"They've got him for life!" I said to myself that evening on my way



back to the station; but later on, alone in the compartment (from



Wimbledon to Waterloo, before the glory of the District Railway) I



amended this declaration in the light of the sense that my friends



would probably after all not enjoy a monopoly of Mr. Saltram.  I



won't pretend to have taken his vast measure on that first



occasion, but I think I had achieved a glimpse of what the



privilege of his acquaintance might mean for many persons in the



way of charges accepted.  He had been a great experience, and it



was this perhaps that had put me into the frame of foreseeing how



we should all, sooner or later, have the honour of dealing with him



as a whole.  Whatever impression I then received of the, amount of



this total, I had a full enough vision of the patience of the



Mulvilles.  He was to stay all the winter:  Adelaide dropped it in



a tone that drew the sting from the inevitable emphasis.  These



excellent people might indeed have been content to give the circle



of hospitality a diameter of six months; but if they didn't say he



was to stay all summer as well it was only because this was more



than they ventured to hope.  I remember that at dinner that evening



he wore slippers, new and predominantly purple, of some queer



carpet-stuff; but the Mulvilles were still in the stage of



supposing that he might be snatched from them by higher bidders.



At a later time they grew, poor dears, to fear no snatching; but



theirs was a fidelity which needed no help from competition to make



them proud.  Wonderful indeed as, when all was said, you inevitably



pronounced Frank Saltram, it was not to be overlooked that the Kent



Mulvilles were in their way still more extraordinary:  as striking



an instance as could easily be encountered of the familiar truth



that remarkable men find remarkable conveniences.







They had sent for me from Wimbledon to come out and dine, and there



had been an implication in Adelaide's note--judged by her notes



alone she might have been thought silly--that it was a case in



which something momentous was to be determined or done.  I had



never known them not be in a "state" about somebody, and I dare say



I tried to be droll on this point in accepting their invitation.



On finding myself in the presence of their latest discovery I had



not at first felt irreverence droop--and, thank heaven, I have



never been absolutely deprived of that alternative in Mr. Saltram's



company.  I saw, however--I hasten to declare it--that compared to



this specimen their other phoenixes had been birds of



inconsiderable feather, and I afterwards took credit to myself for



not having even in primal bewilderments made a mistake about the



essence of the man.  He had an incomparable gift; I never was blind



to it--it dazzles me still.  It dazzles me perhaps even more in



remembrance than in fact, for I'm not unaware that for so rare a



subject the imagination goes to some expense, inserting a jewel



here and there or giving a twist to a plume.  How the art of



portraiture would rejoice in this figure if the art of portraiture



had only the canvas!  Nature, in truth, had largely rounded it, and



if memory, hovering about it, sometimes holds her breath, this is



because the voice that comes back was really golden.







Though the great man was an inmate and didn't dress, he kept dinner



on this occasion waiting, and the first words he uttered on coming



into the room were an elated announcement to Mulville that he had



found out something.  Not catching the allusion and gaping



doubtless a little at his face, I privately asked Adelaide what he



had found out.  I shall never forget the look she gave me as she



replied:  "Everything!"  She really believed it.  At that moment,



at any rate, he had found out that the mercy of the Mulvilles was



infinite.  He had previously of course discovered, as I had myself



for that matter, that their dinners were soignes.  Let me not



indeed, in saying this, neglect to declare that I shall falsify my



counterfeit if I seem to hint that there was in his nature any



ounce of calculation.  He took whatever came, but he never plotted



for it, and no man who was so much of an absorbent can ever have



been so little of a parasite.  He had a system of the universe, but



he had no system of sponging--that was quite hand-to-mouth.  He had



fine gross easy senses, but it was not his good-natured appetite



that wrought confusion.  If he had loved us for our dinners we



could have paid with our dinners, and it would have been a great



economy of finer matter.  I make free in these connexions with the



plural possessive because if I was never able to do what the



Mulvilles did, and people with still bigger houses and simpler



charities, I met, first and last, every demand of reflexion, of



emotion--particularly perhaps those of gratitude and of resentment.



No one, I think, paid the tribute of giving him up so often, and if



it's rendering honour to borrow wisdom I've a right to talk of my



sacrifices.  He yielded lessons as the sea yields fish--I lived for



a while on this diet.  Sometimes it almost appeared to me that his



massive monstrous failure--if failure after all it was--had been



designed for my private recreation.  He fairly pampered my



curiosity; but the history of that experience would take me too



far.  This is not the large canvas I just now spoke of, and I



wouldn't have approached him with my present hand had it been a



question of all the features.  Frank Saltram's features, for



artistic purposes, are verily the anecdotes that are to be



gathered.  Their name is legion, and this is only one, of which the



interest is that it concerns even more closely several other



persons.  Such episodes, as one looks back, are the little dramas



that made up the innumerable facets of the big drama--which is yet



to be reported.















CHAPTER II















It is furthermore remarkable that though the two stories are



distinct--my own, as it were, and this other--they equally began,



in a manner, the first night of my acquaintance with Frank Saltram,



the night I came back from Wimbledon so agitated with a new sense



of life that, in London, for the very thrill of it, I could only



walk home.  Walking and swinging my stick, I overtook, at



Buckingham Gate, George Gravener, and George Gravener's story may



be said to have begun with my making him, as our paths lay



together, come home with me for a talk.  I duly remember, let me



parenthesise, that it was still more that of another person, and



also that several years were to elapse before it was to extend to a



second chapter.  I had much to say to him, none the less, about my



visit to the Mulvilles, whom he more indifferently knew, and I was



at any rate so amusing that for long afterwards he never



encountered me without asking for news of the old man of the sea.



I hadn't said Mr. Saltram was old, and it was to be seen that he



was of an age to outweather George Gravener.  I had at that time a



lodging in Ebury Street, and Gravener was staying at his brother's



empty house in Eaton Square.  At Cambridge, five years before, even



in our devastating set, his intellectual power had seemed to me



almost awful.  Some one had once asked me privately, with blanched



cheeks, what it was then that after all such a mind as that left



standing.  "It leaves itself!" I could recollect devoutly replying.



I could smile at present for this remembrance, since before we got



to Ebury Street I was struck with the fact that, save in the sense



of being well set up on his legs, George Gravener had actually



ceased to tower.  The universe he laid low had somehow bloomed



again--the usual eminences were visible.  I wondered whether he had



lost his humour, or only, dreadful thought, had never had any--not



even when I had fancied him most Aristophanesque.  What was the



need of appealing to laughter, however, I could enviously enquire,



where you might appeal so confidently to measurement?  Mr.



Saltram's queer figure, his thick nose and hanging lip, were fresh



to me:  in the light of my old friend's fine cold symmetry they



presented mere success in amusing as the refuge of conscious



ugliness.  Already, at hungry twenty-six, Gravener looked as blank



and parliamentary as if he were fifty and popular.  In my scrap of



a residence--he had a worldling's eye for its futile conveniences,



but never a comrade's joke--I sounded Frank Saltram in his ears; a



circumstance I mention in order to note that even then I was



surprised at his impatience of my enlivenment.  As he had never



before heard of the personage it took indeed the form of impatience



of the preposterous Mulvilles, his relation to whom, like mine, had



had its origin in an early, a childish intimacy with the young



Adelaide, the fruit of multiplied ties in the previous generation.



When she married Kent Mulville, who was older than Gravener and I



and much more amiable, I gained a friend, but Gravener practically



lost one.  We reacted in different ways from the form taken by what



he called their deplorable social action--the form (the term was



also his) of nasty second-rate gush.  I may have held...