of the possibility of working for Mr. James and went after the job with all my heart, I’d had little experience of working for anyone. I had graduated from university the year before, with my degree in geology but without any clue as to how I was to make my living. I was only very sure that I did not want to become a teacher as my friends Nora and Clara from Cheltenham Ladies College had reluctantly trained to be. No, I had already tried the local dame school while waiting to pass my university entrance exams, and I knew I could never do that again. Like Nora and Clara (and unlike most of my other classmates at Cheltenham), I knew that I would not be marrying any time soon, if at all. Instead, when we finished our training, Nora, Clara, and I went to London and shared a flat. While Nora became the administrator of a small girls’ school, Clara and I looked for other possibilities.
It was Clara who found Miss Petherbridge and her establishment to train educated females for practical jobs in the Whitehall government offices that were now at last opening up to young women seeking employment. Miss P. was a middle-aged spinster, ambitious and kind, who happily kept us practising away in rooms she had found near Whitehall. No matter what level of education we had upon arrival, Miss P. started us all at work on the very lowliest of government tasks, and so I was there training to be an indexer—not a stenographic typist or any sort of typist.
Saying that I knew nothing of Mr. James beyond the revelation of his novels and tales actually means that I knew quite a bit about him. Mr. James had been part of my life ever since I was able to read his work by myself. His characters were my friends, his heroines aspired to the same high goals I did and had the same wishes and dreams that I did. I eagerly devoured each new book as it came out, delivered to us by Mudie’s Lending Library.
I remember the lost afternoons when I first found “The Portrait of a Lady” and devoured it, lying in my bedroom, weeping silently, feeling the great promise of that brave girl and how the cruel and more experienced, unscrupulous friends surrounded her with their selfish schemes and blinded her to what might bring her happiness. I loved all Mr. James’ poor, blighted young girls—Daisy and Nanda and Maisie and Fleda Vetch, even poor little wild Flora in “The Turn of the Screw.” I believed Mr. James gave me, with his stories of the pain and power of cruelty and of love, of open deceit and agreeable divorce, of new and old wealth, a more realistic idea of what went on in the drawing-rooms of Belgravia and maybe in the girls’ bedrooms at Cheltenham than had any sermons in my father’s church.
And so, after I went to Miss Petherbridge to ask for the chance to work with her esteemed client, Mr. James, she agreed that if I would practise and be patient, soon enough she would arrange for the promised interview with the famous author.
Our offices near Whitehall were too noisy and public for meeting prospective clients. Because Miss P. and Mr. James were old acquaintances, she arranged for our appointment to be at her flat late one afternoon on a long, hot August day. I walked the few blocks in the hopes that stretching my legs would calm me. The hot sun glared off the hard, white house fronts; as I climbed the steps, I could feel my shirtwaist sticking to my back, where the heat had made it quite damp. I banged the knocker and was shown into a sort of anteroom to wait. Miss Petherbridge and Mr. James were talking; I could hear their low voices from beyond the closed door, and then the door opened.
Miss Petherbridge came out, all cool and comfortable in a crisp, beige linen dress, which I had never seen her wear at the office. She apparently had dressed up for this meeting. She had done her hair differently, too, not all pulled back into a bun but with side curls, softer, more attractive. Since she was tall, taller even than I am (and I am nearly six feet tall myself), it seemed strange for her to look so delicate. I put my hand up to my hair and its combs and pins, afraid to think how I must look after my hot walk.
Miss Petherbridge seemed more excited than usual. Her voice was high, and the words came fast.
“No, no, my dear, you look fine, come in, don’t keep Mr. James waiting for you.” She held the door for me to go into the front parlour. Her introductions were quick. Then she was gone, and I was alone with Mr. James.
I stood speechless in panic, but to my relief, I found I would have time to retrieve my composure, time even to study this great man, for he immediately began to speak at length, and apparently he expected no response, since he left no pauses.
He was standing beside the fireless grate and gestured for me to join him and sit down. As we settled ourselves into the two chairs set facing each other, I noticed that he was dressed in a rather peculiar combination of the properly dark morning coat and trousers worn with a most un-British sort of soft and flowing silk tie in a brilliant red and blue spot, and with a broad, expansive waistcoat of a comforting yellow check. It made me wonder who chose his clothes. I knew he had never married, but it did make me feel a bit more relaxed to see his not-infallible taste displayed. Perhaps even Mr. James was a victim of his own enthusiasms; perhaps after all his years in England, he had still not quite got the hang of our English taste. Perhaps there was something I could do to help him.
As he continued to express his apparently deep and long thoughts about his pleasure in making my acquaintance, I looked into his open face and was quite struck by his handsome, bright look. His eyes were clear, grey, penetrating and now were slightly twinkling at my own apparently staring, curious gaze. He was tan, quite burnt actually, and his light hair was only a fringe about his beautifully shaped, shining head.
I wondered where he could have been travelling, to be so tan, and as if reading my mind, he went on, saying, “I’m just back from a month’s motor-flight with my dear friend, Mrs. Wharton, in her amazing automobile, speeding along that glorious hilly spine of Italy. With her usual good fortune, even on the voyage home we enjoyed the best weather.”
I thought then that he had the look of an experienced sea captain, with his brown skin and those direct, sharp eyes, but I wondered at the mouth, such a sensitive, expressive feature. No, no sea captain would have survived with so much of his soul revealed as Mr. James. He was still talking in his beautifully resonant voice, with neither a British nor an American accent, I noticed.
“Miss Bosanquet, I want to be sure you understand the special circumstances, the arrangements I require for someone to come to work for me. My home is in the most provincial and adorable of towns, the ancient village of Rye, on the Sussex coast, a perfect antique town, but very quiet, nothing there for a young woman to entertain herself. Well, there is golfing, I suppose, but then you perhaps don’t aspire to that most daunting of sports.”
I was so amazed at his gentle, kind manner, his apologetic tone that I could barely pay attention to what he was saying. Was this the great novelist, the author of the terrifying “The Turn of the Screw,” the shockingly risqué “The Sacred Fount,” the deeply disturbing “The Golden Bowl”? Here was that looming presence, the mind that had put forth such monumental works, novels of such depths and heights—cathedrals, even. Now, was he asking if I desired to play golf? I could hardly believe my ears.
Mr. James went on. “The work itself will not be too taxing, I trust. We will work every day, including Sundays, for three or four hours, from ten to one. There may be other typewriting projects for you after our mornings together, making clean copies, corrections, but those morning hours of ours will be sacrosanct. Perhaps Miss Petherbridge has told you of my current project, that I have embarked on a massive effort, the revised edition of all my most important works. I will include only the pieces I deem worthy, and there will be corrections and revisions to be made, but most of our time will be used to dictate the prefaces for each volume as I come to them. At present I have the first seven prefaces completed, but now I need to pick up the pace.
“As you will find out, I like to write while standing up, moving about, dictating to a steady typewriting machine; I like the ease of speaking these essays of memory, these excursions into my thoughts about writing itself. I got into the habit of dictating about ten years ago, when I had something wrong with
