The Coxon Fund | Page 3

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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