On landing, they proceeded to the Cotswold village of Broadway, where Mr. Singer Sargent summered. The buildings were made of a yellow local stone, and, come evening, the sisters held hands, for the town glowed golden as some candy-tin litho-chromium of Jerusalem, but with foxgloves. Having settled at the Lygon Arms and sent, via messenger, their note of introduction and a short letter explaining a desire to meet the artist, the Fraser girls awaited a reply. Muriel and Ethel, paying full price at the village’s best hotel (knowing they would need the added respectability its notepaper afforded), waited eleven days. Mr. Sargent would then return from Italy. In her letter, Muriel found herself unwilling to mention wanting to be depicted; it surprised her how she hesitated between saying “I wish to be painted” and “portrayed.” They sounded both too formal and too personal, pathetic as the shopgirl with her violets, presumptuous as Sophy Brophy. So, instead, Muriel merely asked leave to pay a social call.

What I admire in recalling this now-famous family account of my great-aunt’s quest (a sensible and scrupulous woman and, from all reports, the possessor of a surprisingly louche sense of humor), what I admire is precisely her middle-class persistence as she stormed the citadel of international connections, of aesthetical hauteur. She and Ethel concocted ambitious walking tours of local country churches, their red Baedeker guide suspended before the pince-nez they were both forced to wear around small print. On the ship, they’d noticed that better-traveled Americans’ Baedekers were worn, sun-faded or ringed with Burgundy-wine stains. So, in the Frasers’ tiny stateroom, giggling, they’d taken turns stepping on the cover, wearing it to tatters that suggested, first, experience, then an extreme sophistication that finally verged upon world-weariness. They began to economize, taking only the provided breakfast scone and tea, then hiking abroad. They returned from one such stroll, April 19, to find a note at the desk: “Tea at four then? Here only briefly, I fear. Courteously, JSS.”

•  •  •

Need I say that, wearing fine black hats, they arrived when all the church bells, all the village mantel clocks, were gonging in uneven agreement of the exact hour? The sisters were greeted by a young Italian manservant of distinguished appearance but seemingly no common language. He simply pointed to the proper room. The house was all windows and looked out onto a garden abounding in several potted lilies, lilies they guessed to be props for Sargent’s masterwork of the Academy show two years previous. The sisters were left seated alone so long that Muriel explored a bit. The chamber in which they waited had the overutilized air of a first-class train-station waiting room, and in the corner she noticed two stray calling cards, one announcing Lord and Lady Rocksavage. But Ethel soon hissed that someone was coming and Muriel dove for a chair.