And Muriel determined she must see it through.

II. A PORTRAIT OF THE PORTRAIT AS A YOUNG WOMAN

It took Miss Fraser seven years to collect nearly enough. She earned from sixty-five cents to one dollar per house-call lesson of an hour. Muriel had made inquiries through friends in Glasgow who knew people in London who might know the sort of folks who’d know the amount you must cough up for a Sargent oil sketch of just your head, or your head and torso, or a family grouping in some characteristic room of the home, either with or without a dog. The more surface inches of you and yours included, the more you naturally paid.

When Muriel announced at last her plan to sail to England in hopes of securing a meeting with Singer Sargent on the chance that he might do a painting of her that she could, in turn, afford, her father threw a red glass pipe-rest against the hearth. Bouncing, it did not break. He vowed to disown her. Muriel might have wondered which legacy the old man threatened to withhold, but she did not embarrass him with the mere facts of their assigned lives. Papa announced that this Mr. Sargent was, despite his clientele, just a rich American doctor’s son who’d got above his station. “He is, after all, notwithstanding a certain flair and facility, no Lord Leighton. And, to quote my acquaintance George Moore, if you’ll forgive my saying so, my dear, ‘Cruelty was the vice of the ancients. Vanity is that of the modern world. Vanity is the last disease.’”

Muriel, inhaling once, explained that she had long since made arrangements, fares paid in advance. If her papa could endure this seeming vanity, he would, she believed, eventually thank her. The Professor finally stated his worst fear: “Are you by chance planning to use yer dowrrry? Not that, Muriel. You’re only thirty-eight. Till now, ye’ve always been so practical.” He took her elongated white hand. She nodded. “This I’m doing is extremely practical, Papa. Great art always is. You told us to see something and then say in a simple way what we’d seen. I regret your pain, but you swore the dowry was mine. I will write you, every day.”

On April 2 of 1888, aboard the SS Georgia, Muriel and her taller, prettier younger sister Ethel (eventually my grandmother) sailed second-class toward Southampton. In Muriel’s possession, a note to Sargent from a former student, now daughter to the American under-ambassador at the Court of Saint James’s. Using a teapot, Muriel steamed open the letter, to Ethel’s embarrassment, in plain view of the ship’s steward. It said, “You will wish to welcome Miss Fraser, who is quite the musical personality in her area.” Of the recommendation, Muriel told her sister, “It is either too kind or not kind enough, but I will take it.” And smiled.