Please note the following essay contains some spoilers for The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. (Ed.)

I am halfway through reading The Portrait of a Lady; Henry James very thoughtfully divides the book into two parts of almost exactly equal length.

I am gripped by the account of the fortunes of young American heiress Isabel Archer on her romantic adventures around Europe.  But which of her numerous suitors will she end up with?  The blurb on the back cover of my Penguin Classic edition clearly implies that she marries the bounder Gilbert Osmond, so I don’t think I am committing any spoilers by revealing that piece of information, but what I want to know is who she will be with by the very last page of the novel?

Common with most of the characters in the book, I’ve liked Isabel upon my introduction to her; feel somewhat protective of her; want the best for her.  Will there be a happy ending for her?  I hope so.

Here are my best-guess betting odds of her ultimate last-page romantic outcome based on the evidence of the first half of the novel.

Single – Evens
Married to Lord Warburton – 7/2
Married to Ralph Touchett – 8-1
Dead – 10-1
Married to Gilbert Osmond – 20-1
Married to Caspar Goodwood – 25-1
Married to Edward Rosier – 100-1

Some small degree of explanation is required to qualify my odds.

Single
Isabel is such an independent character, surely James is advocating the opinion that a woman does not need to marry in order to define herself?

Lord Warburton
The title of the book is The Portrait of a Lady.  Surely, to be a Lady, you must have to marry a Lord?

Ralph Touchett
Ralph has been the silent architect of Isabel’s fortune.  She may feel obliged to marry him.  But with his failiing health will he survive to the end of the book?  Unlikely.

Dead
Is this novel destined to be a tragedy?  Somehow, I think not.

Gilbert Osmond
As inevitable as Isabel’s marriage to Gilbert Osmond appears, surely she will not end up with him?  Where would be the story in that?  Osmond’s aesthete bounderism must surely be exposed and Isabel permitted to achieve her release?

Caspar Goodwood
Isabel’s home-town beau is far too dull and far too earnest to ever win the girl.  Please don’t let this be the moral that James is planning.

Edward Rosier
He might have been Isabel’s childhood sweetheart when she was aged twelve, but not a serious contender for her heart in adulthood.

I have 288 pages of The Portrait of a Lady left to read.  I could cheat and just turn to the final page to find out if any of my suppositions are correct, but I am enjoying the novel far too much to spoil it by doing that.

At the same time, I am privately championing Lord Warburton’s case.

© Fergus Longfellow

Fergus Longfellow gets behind Lord Warburton.