CHAPTER II.
Mrs. Stratton was summoned home by her husband’s arrival just before Christmas. Isabel preferred to delay yet a little, and reached Chislehurst a fortnight later, accomplishing the journey with the assistance of her maid only. It proved rather too much for her strength, and for a day or two she had to keep her room. Then she joined the family, very pale still, and not able to do much more than hold a kind of court throned by the fireside, but with the light of happiness on her face, listening with a bright smile to every one’s conversation, equally interested in Master Edgar’s latest exploit by flood or field, and in his mother’s rather trenchant comments on neighbouring families.
All the Strattons were at home. The four British youths had been keeping what may best be described by Coleridge’s phrase, “Devil’s Yule.” Colonel Stratton was by good luck a man of substance, and could maintain an establishment corresponding to the needs of such a household. Though Mrs. Stratton had spoken of her house as being too large, it would scarcely be deemed so by the guests of mature age who shared it with the two young Strattons already at Woolwich and Sandhurst, and the other two who were still mewing their mighty youth at scholastic institutions. There was a certain upper chamber in which were to be found appliances for the various kinds of recreation sought after by robust young Britons; here they put on “gloves,” and pummelled each other to their hearts’ satisfaction—thud—thud! Here they vied with one another at single-stick—thwack—thwack! Here they swung dumb-bells, and tumbled on improvised trapezes. And hence, when their noble minds yearned for variety, they rushed headlong, pell-mell into the lower regions of the house, to the delights of the billiard-room. They had the use of a couple of horses, and the frenzy of their over-full veins drove them in turns, like demon huntsmen, over the frozen or muddy country. They returned at the hour of dinner, and ate—ate in stolid silence, till they had appeased the gnawing of hunger, then flung themselves here and there about the drawing-room till their thoughts, released from the brief employment of digestion, could formulate remarks on such subjects as interest youth of their species.
Mrs. Stratton enjoyed it all. Her offspring were perfect in her eyes. Had they been less riotous she would have conceived anxiety about their health. When her third boy, Reginald, aged thirteen years, fell to fisticuffs with a youthful tramp in a lane hard by, and came home irrecognisable from blood and dirt, she viewed him with amused astonishment, and, after setting him to rights with sponge and sticking-plaster, laughingly recommended that in future he should fight only with his social equals. With the two eldest she was a sort of sister; they walked with her about the garden with their arms over her shoulders; the confidence between her and them was perfect, and certainly they were very fond of her. They were stalwart young ruffians, these two, with immaculate complexions and the smooth roundness of feature which entitles men to be called handsome by ladies who are addicted to the use of that word. Mrs. Stratton would rather have been their mother than have borne Shakespeare and Michael Angelo as twins.
Their father—one may be excused for almost forgetting him—was a man of not more than medium height, but very solidly built, and like all his boys, bullet-headed. His round chubby face was much bronzed, his auburn hair and bushy beard of the same colour preserved to him a youthful appearance, which was aided by the remarkably innocent and soft-tempered look of his eyes. He was a man of weak will and great bodily strength; his sons had a string of stories to illustrate the latter—the former would perhaps have been best discoursed upon by Mrs. Stratton. A man of extreme simplicity in his habits, and abnormally shy; with men he was by no means at his ease till they became very old acquaintances, and with women ease never came to him at all. The defect was the more painful owing to his very limited moyens in the matter of conversation; had it not been for the existence of weather, the colonel would, under ordinary circumstances, have preserved the silence for which nature intended him. Of Mrs. Clarendon in particular he had a kind of fear, though at the same time he was attracted to her by her unfailing charm; he knew she sought opportunities of teasing him, and, though it cost him much perspiration, he did not dislike the torment. With her he would have been brought to talk if with any one; a fearful fascination often drew him to her side, only to find, when he valorously opened his lips, that a roguish smile had robbed him of every conception of what he was going to say.
“Well, colonel?” she began, on a typical occasion, one morning when they were alone together for a few minutes.
The colonel turned his eyes to the windows, coughed, and, looking uneasily round, observed that it was astonishingly warm for the season.
“It is,” assented Isabel gravely. Whereupon, as if struck by the similarity of their sentiments, he looked into her face, and repeated his assertion with more emphasis.
“Astonishingly warm for January. You find it so? So do I. Yes, you really notice it?”
“I have been thinking over it since I got up,” said Isabel. “I wonder how many degrees we have in this room?”
With the delight of a shy man who has found something definite to speak of, Colonel Stratton at once started up to go to the thermometer which hung in the window; a half-suppressed laugh made him stop and turn round.
“You don’t really care to know,” he said, flushing up to the eyes. “That’s one of your jokes, Mrs. Clarendon. Ha, ha! Good!”
He stood before her, desperately nibbling both ends of his moustache—he had acquired much skill in the habit of getting them both into his mouth at the same time.
“Well, colonel?”
“You are in a—a frisky mood this morning, Mrs. Clarendon,” he burst forth, laughing painfully.
“A what kind of mood?”
“I beg your pardon. I should have chosen a better word,” he exclaimed, in much confusion. “It really is wonderfully warm for the season—you notice it?”
“Colonel, I assure you I notice it.”
Fear at length overcame fascination.
“I must go and have a look at that new bay,” he murmured. “You—you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Clarendon? Ah, here’s Rose! Don’t you notice how very warm it is, my dear?”
“Rose,” said Mrs. Clarendon, when the colonel had made his escape at quick time, “come here and answer me a rude question. Don’t be shocked; it’s something I do so want to know. How did the colonel”—she lowered her voice, her eyes were gleaming with fun—“how did the colonel propose to you?”
“My dear,” was the reply, given in a humorous whisper, “I did it myself.”
On another occasion, Colonel Stratton came into the room when Isabel was reading. She just noticed his presence, but did not seem inclined to talk, had, in fact, a shadow on her brow. The colonel observed this, by side glances. He moved about a little, and somehow managed to get behind her chair. Then, tapping her on the shoulder—it was his habit with male acquaintances, and he was probably unconscious of the act—he said, in a low voice but with much energy:
“It’s a damned shame! A damned shame!” He had disappeared when Isabel turned to look at him.
She was not quite well that day, or something troubled her. After lunch she went to her own room, and, when she had sat for some time unoccupied, took from her writing-case a letter which she had written the day before. It was to Ada. As she glanced over it, some painful emotion possessed her.
“I can’t send it! I am ashamed!” Her lips uttered the words which she had spoken only to herself.
She crumpled the sheet, and threw it into the fire.
She dined alone, and, a little later, Mrs. Stratton came to sit with her. After various talk, Mrs. Stratton said:
“A couple of friends are coming from town to-morrow—one of them a friend of yours.”
“Who?”
“Rather more than a friend; a relative, I suppose.”
“Robert Asquith?” said Isabel, surprised.
“Yes; I invited him some time ago, at Knightswell.”
“Why, I had a letter from him just before I left, and he didn’t say anything about it. How came you to make such friends with him?”
“Oh, he took my fancy! And I thought it might be pleasant for you to meet here.”
“Certainly; I am delighted.”
“I’m so glad you like him,” she added, after a pause. “I had no idea you got on such good terms when he came down.”
“Why do you never speak of him?” Mrs. Stratton asked, smiling slightly.
“Don’t I? I really can’t say. I suppose I take Robert for granted. I dare say he speaks as little of me as I of him.”
“Perhaps so,” said the other, in an unusually absent way. Then she asked:
“He has never been married?”
“Oh no! Robert is a confirmed old bachelor.”
“Rather strange that, don’t you think? He is in easy circumstances, I think you told me?”
“Decidedly easy.”
“And good-looking.”
“You think so? Yes, I suppose he is,” mused Isabel.
“Suppose? You know very well he is, my dear. And what is he doing, pray?”
“I really can’t say. He has rooms, and lives, I suppose, a very idle life. I shouldn’t wonder if he goes back to the East some day.”
“Very much better for him to stay in England, it seems to me,” remarked Mrs. Stratton drily. Isabel changed the subject.
She went to her bedroom early, and, when her attendant had helped her into the easy costume of a dressing-gown, sat by the fire and let her eyes dream on the shapes of glowing coal. Presently she shook loose her hair, which was done up for the night, and spread it over her shoulders. She took a tress between the fingers of her left hand and stroked its smoothness, a smile growing upon her lips. Then she paced the length of the room several times, standing a moment before the mirror when she reached it. The dressing-gown became well the soft outlines of her form; the long, dark hair, rippling in its sweep from brow to shoulder, changed somewhat the ordinary appearance of her face, gave its sweetness a graver meaning, a more earnest cast of thought.
“If he saw me now he would tell me I was beautiful.”
She smiled at herself, sighed a little, and, before resuming her seat, took from a drawer three letters which she had received during her stay here. Each was of many pages, closely written; he who wrote them had much to say. Isabel had read them many, many times. No such letters had ever before come to her; her pride and joy in them was that of a young girl, touched, however, with the sadness and regret never absent from joy which comes late. She thought how different her life would have been if she had listened to words like these when the years spread out before her a limitless field of hope. It seemed too much as if these letters were addressed to some one else, and had only been given her to read. She had to bring herself with conscious effort to an understanding of all they implied, all they demanded. Yet they moved her to deepest tenderness.
And that was the most marked quality of the letters themselves. In them was sounded by turns every note of love. There was the grace of pure worship, the lyric rapture of passion and desire, the soft rhythm of resigned longing, the sweet sadness of apprehension; but the note of an exquisite tenderness was ever recurrent, with it the music began and ended. They were the love letters of a poet, one in whom melancholy mingled with every emotion, whose brightest visions of joy were shadowed by brooding mortality. There was nothing masterful, no exaction, no distinctly masculine fervour. If a dread fell upon him lest the happiness promised was too great, it found voice in passionate entreaty. He told her much of his past life, its inner secrets, its yearnings, its despair. Of her infinite pity she had chosen him; she would not let him fall again into utter darkness? Love did not stir in him vulgar ambitions; to dwell in the paradise of her presence was all that his soul desired; let the world go its idle way. Too soft, too tender; another would have read his outpourings with compassionate fear, dreading the future of such a love. He visioned a happiness which has no existence. Men win happiness, but not thus. To woo and win as pastime in the pauses of the world’s battle, to make hearth and home a retreat in ill-hap, a place of rest between the combats of day and day, to kindly regard a wife for her usefulness, and children for the pride they satisfy, thus, and not otherwise, do men come to content. Content that is not worth much, perhaps; but what is the price current of misery?
Isabel wrote in reply to each letter; King-cote would have liked to pay in gold the village postman who brought her writing to his door. She, too, spoke with love’s poetry, and her passion rang true. How strange to pen such words! She had always thought of such forms of expression with raillery, perhaps with a little contempt. Boys and girls of course wrote to each other in this way; it was excusable as long as one did not know the world. For all her knowledge of the world she would not now have surrendered the high privilege of language born of the heart. And in all that she wrote—in her thoughts too—it was her effort to place him in that station of mastery which he would not claim for himself. Was there already self-distrust, and was it only woman’s instinct of subjection? She would have had him more assured of his lordship, would have desired that he should worship with less humility. If a man have not strength, love alone will not suffice to bind a woman to him; she will pardon brutality, but weakness inspires her with fear. Isabel had no such thoughts as these, but perchance had his letters contained one sentence of hard practical planning at the end of all their tenderness she would have found that something which unconsciously she lacked. She had bridged the gulf between him and herself; she was ready to make good words by deed, and, in spite of every obstacle, become his wife; it must be his to bear her manfully from one threshold to the other. Once done, she felt in her soul that she should regret nothing; she loved him with the first love of her life. But his hand must uphold her, guide her, for she would close her eyes when the moment came....
She was alone in Mrs. Stratton’s boudoir next morning, when the door was pushed open; turning, she saw her cousin.
“I was told that I might come here in search of you,” said Robert, with his genial smile. “How do you do?”
“Very well, thank you. How are you?—as the children answer. But I needn’t ask that; you have a wonderful faculty for looking healthy.”
“I don’t think there’s often much amiss with me. Setting aside the chance of breaking my neck over a fence, I think I may promise myself a few more years.”
“And the risk of fences you are wise enough to avoid.”
“Nothing of the kind. I was hunting in Leicestershire only yesterday.”
“Impossible, Robert!”
“Indisputable fact——” He had it on his lips to call her “Isabel,” but for some reason checked himself. “A friend of mine took me down and mounted me. I enjoyed it thoroughly.”
“But you are becoming an Englishman.”
“Was I ever anything else?”
“I believe I generally think of you in an Oriental light. At all events, you smoke a hookah, and very much prefer lying on a rug to sitting on a chair.”
“The hookah I have abandoned; the rug comes of your imagination.”
“Oh dear no; it was one of the first things you said to me when you came to see me last spring in town. It stamped you in my mind for ever.”
They laughed.
“But I want to know how you are?” Robert resumed, leaning to her, with his hands on his knees. “Mrs. Stratton’s account is too vaguely ladylike. How, in truth, are you?”
A ripple of laughter replied to him.
“You show me that you can be mirthful; that is much, no doubt. But you must have a change.”
“Am I not having one?”
“Oh, I don’t call this a change. You must get fresh air.”
Asquith’s way of speaking with her was not quite what it had formerly been. He assumed more of—was it cousinship?—than he had done, Possibly the man himself had undergone certain changes during the last few months. Oriental he had been to a certain extent; something of over-leisureliness had marked his bearing; there had been an aloofness in his way of remarking upon things and people, a kind of mild fatalism in his modes of speech. An English autumn with its moor-sport and the life of country houses; an English winter with growth of acquaintances at hospitable firesides had doubtless not been without their modifying influence; but other reasons were also discoverable for the change in his manner towards Isabel. For one thing, he had heard of her refusal of Lord Winterset; for another, he knew of Ada’s approaching marriage.
She made no reply to his advice, and he continued.
“You know Henry Calder?”
“Well.”
“You know that he has been absolutely ruined by a bank failure?”
“You don’t say so?”
“Indeed. The poor fellow is in a wretched state—utterly broken down; they feared a few weeks ago that he was going crazy. You know that he was great at yachting; of course he has had to sell his yacht, and I have bought it.”
“What will you tell me next?”
“Why, this. It is essential that poor Calder should get away to the South, and nothing would do him half as much good as a sail among the islands. Now I propose to ask him to accompany me on such a cruise, say at the beginning of next month. He and I have been on the best of terms since we were lads, and there’s no kind of awkwardness in the arrangement; he goes to put me up to the art of seamanship. Of course his wife accompanies him, and probably their eldest girl.”
“That’s the kindest thing I have heard for a long time, Robert,” said Isabel, giving him a look of admiration.
“Oh dear no; nothing could be simpler. And now—I want you to come with them.” Isabel shook her head.
“But what is your objection?”
“I cannot leave England at present.”
“I don’t ask you to. We are at the middle of January; it will be time enough in three weeks.”
“Out of the question.”
She still shook her head, smiling. Robert reflected for a moment.
“When does this marriage take place?” he asked abruptly.
“Very shortly, I suppose. I have written to Mr. Lacour to request him to make arrangements as soon as he likes. I shall meet him in London on Monday.”
“Good. Then you are absolutely free.”
“I am not free.”
He glanced at her inquiringly.
“I am not free,” Isabel repeated, looking straight before her.
“I suppose I shall be grossly impertinent if I ask what it is that holds you?”
“I cannot now tell you, Robert, but—I must remain in England.”
Her voice had a tremor in it, which she did her best to subdue. She was smiling still, but in a forced, self-conscious way.
Asquith leaned back; he had lost his look of cheerful confidence.
“But it isn’t such a grave matter, after all,” said Isabel, restoring the former tone. “It was a very kind thought of yours, very kind—but you won’t quarrel with me because I can’t come? It will make no difference in your plan for the Calders, surely?”
“I can’t say, I’m sure,” Asquith replied, in an almost petulant manner, strangely at variance with his ordinary tone. He had thrust his hands into his pockets, and was tapping the carpet with his foot.
“What nonsense!” Isabel exclaimed, with growing good humour. “As if you would allow such a scheme to be overthrown just because one of the party failed you! I can suggest half a dozen delightful people who will be happy to go with you.”
“No doubt; but I wanted you.”
“Robert, you are undeniably Oriental; the despotic habit still clings to you. If one swallow doesn’t make a summer, neither does one day’s hunting make an Englishman.”
His countenance cleared.
“Well,” he said, “this is certainly not final. Let us wait till that wedding is over.”
“It is final,” she returned, very positively. “The wedding will not in the least alter things.”
“What then are you going to do?” he asked, with deliberation, gazing at her steadily.
Her eyes fell, and she seemed half to resent his persistence, as she answered:
“I am going to live on three hundred a year.”
“H’m! Do you think of living in London?”
“No; I do not think of living in London. Proceed, sir, with the cross-examination.”
“I think I have been rude enough for one day,” he returned, with a quiet smile as he rose from his chair.
She held her hand to him with the friendly grace which could repay even when it disappointed.
“Thank you, with all my heart,” she said. “Only—remember how dear independence must be to me.”
“Are you acquainted with Mr. Lyster?” Robert asked, with a transition to easier topics.
“I don’t think I know any one of that name.”
“Some one who arrived here a few minutes after I did. It seems we came in the same train.”
“To be sure; a friend the Strattons were expecting. Shall we go to the drawingroom?”
There they found the gentleman in question conversing with Mrs. Stratton, a man of smooth appearance and fluent speech. His forte seemed to be politics, on which subject he discoursed continuously during luncheon. There happened to be diplomatic difficulties with Russia, and Mr. Lyster—much concerned, by-the-bye, with Indian commerce—was emphatic in denunciation of Slavonic craft and treachery, himself taking the stand-point of disinterested honesty, of principle in politics.
“We shall have to give those fellows a licking yet,” remarked Colonel Stratton, with confidence inspired by professional feeling.
“I should think so, indeed!” put in Frank Stratton, the eldest son. The two schoolboys had by this time returned to their football, and only the representatives of Woolwich and Sandhurst remained to grace the family table. “And the sooner the better.”
“What I want to know,” exclaimed Mr. Lyster, “is whether England is a civilising power or not. If so, it is our duty to go to war; if not, of course we may prepare to go to the——”
“Don’t hesitate, Mr. Lyster,” said Mrs. Stratton good-naturedly, “I’m sure we all agree with you.”
“Civilisation!” proceeded the politician, when the laugh had subsided; “that is what England represents, and civilisation rests upon a military basis, if it has any basis at all. It’s all very well to talk about the humanity of arbitration and fudge of that kind; it only postpones the evil day. Our position is the result of good, hard fighting, and mere talking won’t keep it up; we must fight again. Too long a peace means loss of prestige, and loss of prestige means the encroachment of barbarians, who are only to be kept in order by repeated thrashings. They forget that we are a civilising power; unfortunately we are too much disposed to forget it ourselves.”
“The mistake is,” remarked Frank Stratton, “to treat with those fellows at all. Why don’t we take a map of Asia and draw a line just where it seems good to us, and bid the dogs keep on their own side of it? Of course they wouldn’t do so—and then we lick’em!”
His mother looked at him with pride.
“I respect our constitution,” pursued Mr. Lyster, who was too much absorbed in his own rhetoric to pay much attention to the frivolous remarks of others; “but I’ve often thought it wouldn’t be amiss if we could have a British Bizmarck”—so he pronounced the name. “A Bizmarck would make short work with Radical humbug. He would keep up patriotism; he would remind us of our duties as a civilising power.”
“And he’d establish conscription,” remarked Frank. “That’s what we want.”
“Eh? Conscription? Well, I won’t go quite so far as that. It is one of our English glories that there are always men ready to volunteer for active service; men who are prepared to fight and, if need be, to die for their country. I shouldn’t like to see that altered. I think the voluntary system a good one. We are Englishmen; we don’t need to be driven to battle.”
Robert Asquith glanced at Isabel and smiled.
The weather was so bad in the afternoon that it was impossible to leave the house. The two young Strattons went to try and break each other’s heads at single-stick; the colonel, with his guests, repaired to the billiard-room, where they smoked, talked, and handled the cues. Asquith was not quite in the mood for billiards. When he had played with the colonel for half an hour, Mr. Lyster took his place, and he strolled round the room, examining the guns, cricket-bats, horse-whips, and pictures, which invited observation. Going to one of the seats to repose himself, he found a book lying close by on the floor, open leaves downwards, just as it had fallen. It was one of Captain Marryat’s novels. Robert threw up his legs on to the couch, and began to read.
Our friend was anything but a man of literary tastes; with the exception of purchases at railway stations, it is doubtful whether he had ever bought a book in his life. He read newspapers assiduously; they satisfied his need of mental pabulum. For the rest, he made the world his book, and had the faculty of extracting amusement from it in sufficient quantities to occupy his leisure time. He was anything but an ignorant man; conversation, and the haphazard experiences of life, had supplied him in a living way with knowledge which ordinarily has to be sought from the printed page; but intellectual tendencies, properly speaking, he had none. Art he only cared for in the elementary way; for music, he plainly confessed he had no ear. On men and manners, he habitually reflected, and had fair natural power of insight; problems of life were non-existent for him.
The story which he had picked up absorbed him; he read on and on with a boy’s simple enjoyment. His body rested in a corner of the seat, his legs were stretched at full length, one over the other, he held the book up in both hands; often he laughed aloud, and at other times his face wore an expression of the gravest interest. The billiard players had passed out of his world.
When at length he put down the book, he found himself alone in the room. He jumped up, flung the book on to the green table, yawned, stretched his arms, slapped his legs to restore circulation, and walked to the window. It was growing dark. In the leafless garden the rain fell steadily; occasionally drops made their way down the chimney, and hissed upon the fire. Robert had the feeling of one who awakes after dissipation, a debauched and untidy sensation. He felt the necessity of plunging his face in water.
Having done so, he made his way to the drawing-room. Visitors were not to be expected such an afternoon as this, and at first he thought the room was empty. But Mrs. Stratton was sitting with her back to him; the ruffling of a newspaper she held apprised him of her presence.
“So some one has appeared at last,” said the lady, “not for my company, of course, but for a cup of tea. Would you be so good as to ring the bell?”
“The tea will be grateful, I admit,” returned Robert, doing her bidding, “but your society no less. In fact, I want to speak to you.”
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Clarendon refuses my invitation—that I mentioned in my letter, you remember.”
“Refuses? What is her objection?”
“Nothing definite. She says she cannot leave England, that’s all. Has she—I don’t think there’s any harm in asking you, is there?—has she spoken with you at all of what she is going to do?”
“Well, no. In fact, it’s a subject she won’t approach. I don’t think she has formed any plans whatever yet.”
Asquith reflected, and at the same time tea was brought in and lamps lit.
“I half supposed,” said Mrs. Stratton, glancing aside at him, as she held up the teapot, “that you were the most likely person to know of her plans.”
“I assure you, Mrs. Stratton, that was a mistake, an entire mistake.”
The lady raised her eyebrows a little and carefully removed a tea-leaf from her cup.
“You take it for granted,” she asked, after a moment, “that she will really quit Knights-well?”
“How otherwise? I am perfectly sure that nothing would induce her to continue living there under the new régime. If the persons concerned had been—had been other than they of course the affair might have been very simple. But not as it is.”
“By-the-bye,” he added, “she gave me one piece of information. She does not intend to live in London.”
“Where then, I wonder?”
“I can’t conjecture.”
“I would repeat the invitation, I think,” said Mrs. Stratton, looking at him.
“I shall do so, though not just yet.”
The colonel and Mr. Lyster came in talking loudly. .
“Ah, we left you asleep,” said the former to Robert. “Didn’t like to disturb you. We’ve had a walk.”
“A walk, in this weather!” exclaimed his wife.
“Oh yes; a little rain does one no harm. Not a bad afternoon; there’s a pleasant warmth in the air. Don’t you notice a warmth in the air, Asquith?”
“Yes, here in the drawing-room. I can’t answer for outside.”
“Oh, it’s distinctly warm. Eh, Lyster?”
Mrs. Clarendon appeared in the room. The colonel lost his ease, and began to walk about. The conversation became general.
There were several other people at dinner. It fell to Asquith to take down a certain Miss Pye, a tall young lady with a long thin nose, simply dressed in white, with much exposure of bust. This décolleté costume was a thing Robert found it impossible to get used to; he felt that if he went on dining with ladies for another five-and-twenty years there would still arise in him the same sensation of amazement as often as he turned to speak and had his eyes regaled with a vision of the female form divine, with its most significant developments insisted upon. Singular questions of social economy invariably suggested themselves. How far was this fashion a consequence of severe competition in the marriage market? He always found it a little difficult to look his fair neighbour in the face, and, when he at length did so, experienced surprise at her placid equanimity. Miss Pye’s equanimity it would have taken much to disturb. As in duty bound, Robert made his endeavour to interest her in various kinds of conversation. The affirmative and negative particles alone replied to him. She ate with steady application; she smiled feebly when he attempted a very evident joke; she appeared to have no concern in any of the things about which men and women use or abuse the gift of speech. Yet he succeeded at last.
“Did you ever read a book called———?” he asked, naming the novel of Marryat’s which had absorbed him through the afternoon.
“I should think so!” exclaimed Miss Pye, her eyes gleaming with appreciation. “Isn’t it awfully jolly? And——”
She proceeded to name half a dozen other works by the same refined and penetrating author.
“That’s the kind of book I like,” she said. “I believe I ought to have been a boy by rights. My brothers have all Marryat, and Mayne Reid, and Cooper; and I know them all by heart. ‘Valentine Vox,’ too; do you know that? Oh, you just get it, as soon as you can. And ‘Tom Burke of Ours’; that’s Lever. And ‘Handy Andy.’ You haven’t read ‘Handy Andy’? But what a great deal you have to read yet.”
Robert admitted that such was the case. Miss Pye had got upon her subject, and Asquith drew her out. She was something of a new female type to him; but only so because he had long been unused to the society of English girls. Had he mentioned a book by George Eliot she would have told him that her mother didn’t approve of that writer, who was an atheist and immoral.
Later he found himself by Isabel. Her proximity was pleasant to him. He would have preferred just now to sit by her in silence, an glance at her face occasionally, but that was scarcely possible.
“You will let me hear from you when that business is over?” he said.
“I will. Remember it is not my function to send invitations for the wedding.”
“I suppose not.”
Somebody else drew near.
As they passed from the dining-room after breakfast next morning, Isabel said to Mrs. Stratton:
“Come to the boudoir; I have a letter I want to show you.”
The letter was this:
“Dear Mrs. Clarendon,
“I want to tell you in as few words as possible that my marriage is indefinitely postponed. It will not, in any event, take place before I complete my twenty-first year. My second purpose in writing to you is to ask your permission to go at once to London and live in Mr. Meres’ house. This is for purposes of study. I am unable to procure at Knightswell the materials I need. Will you oblige me with a reply as soon as you can?
“Faithfully yours,
“Ada Warren.”
“It does not in the very least surprise me,” observed Mrs. Stratton, smiling urbanely.
“I don’t think I could say that. I am surprised. I believed Ada would stick to a purpose through thick and thin.”
“My dear, she accepted that man in a moment of pique, and she has very wisely repented whilst there is time.”
Isabel was silent.
“And her wanting to go to London,” pursued the other. “It’s all perfectly clear. She’s ashamed of herself; she can’t face you.”
Isabel seated herself and mused, the letter on her lap. Her cheek had a flush of excitement, and her eyes were very bright.
“Look at this, too,” she said, with a laugh, taking from its envelope another letter she was holding. “From Mrs. Bruce Page. I wonder she is not ashamed of herself, I really do!”
“My dearest Mrs. Clarendon,” ran this epistle, “it would be a mercy if you would let me know what your latest news is about that boy. Do you hear from or of him? Has he done anything surprising yet? I shouldn’t a bit wonder if he does—I mean in this affair. He is capable of anything. Do let me know at once if you have any curious news either from him or Ada.”
“It looks as if she anticipated it,” said Mrs. Stratton.
“It does. It would be no great wonder if she proved to be at the bottom of it.”
“Of the postponement, or rupture, or whatever it is?”
Isabel nodded.
“But what shall you do immediately?”
“Nothing. What is there to do? Merely write and give her the permission she asks for.”
“I am really delighted at this!” Mrs. Stratton exclaimed.
“Why should you be delighted? I assure you it is nothing to me.”
“My dear, it is everything—you will tell Mr. Asquith?”
“I suppose so. It will annoy him.”
She reddened, and corrected herself.
“Nonsense, I didn’t mean to say that. I dare say he will take it very much as you do. But you will both be wrong, both be wrong.”
“Isabel, you are mysterious.”
“Am I?” she asked with a laugh, not a very joyous one.
“Yes, more mysterious than I like.”
“Then indeed it won’t be mysterious at all. It’s only in your imagination, Rose. Oh dear, oh dear!” she sighed, “this world is a hard one!”
“I wonder whether you will hear from Mr. Lacour?” Mrs. Stratton asked, after trying to read her friend’s face.
“I wonder,” said Isabel absently.
Their conversation soon came to an end. There was to be driving before lunch as the sky had cleared, and it was not till afternoon that Isabel had an opportunity of informing her cousin of the news she had received.
Robert heard it calmly.
“I really do not know whether to congratulate you or not,” he said, with meaning.
“At all events, you may congratulate Ada.”
“Probably. Do you stay here much longer?”
“I go at the end of the week, the day after to-morrow.”
“So soon?”
“Yes, Knightswell must not be left empty.”
They gazed at each other without definite expression.
CHAPTER III.
I shall be home on Saturday,” wrote Isabel, at the close of a letter addressed to Wood End. “I am writing to Mr. Vissian, to ask him to come and see me before his afternoon service on Sunday, as I want to speak with him of several things. Will you come at three? He will leave shortly after, and you—perhaps will not care to stay?”
She said nothing of the event which had hurried her return, neither did she mention it in her letter to the rector. Mr. Vissian called at the cottage on Friday.
“I have a message for you from Mrs. Clarendon,” he said. “She is returning, and will be glad to see you any time after three on Sunday. I shall be at the house between two and three myself—have to go specially—your audience will succeed mine.”
Kingcote smiled as he promised to obey the summons.
“We shall see you to-morrow as usual,” said Mr. Vissian, in going. “I believe I have got hold of something that will startle you. Nothing, nothing; merely the solution of a crux which has defied every Shakspearian critic hitherto. Don’t be too excited about it; it may prove a mare’s nest; but”——the rector half closed his eyes and nodded twice—“we shall see.”
He went off in his usual high spirits. Sundry Christmas bills had just reduced him to penury, but that was a care he did not allow to weigh upon him, for all that his black suit of daily wear cried shame upon him at the elbows—yet weaker points were happily concealed by pendent cloth. Had he not on his shelves the last year’s publications of the Early English Text Society, bound in halfcalf extra?
To his infinite annoyance, he waited in vain for Kingcote on Saturday evening. The discovery at which he had hinted, had become overnight a certainty; he was convinced that he had explained “the Lady of the Strachy!” (See, loc. cit., the critical edition of Twelfth Night, which Mr. Vissian subsequently put forth—a work deserving more attention at the hands of Shakspearian scholars than it has received.)
“What can ail the man?” he exclaimed impatiently, as he kept coming forth from his study to Mrs. Vissian. “He never failed us before. If he only knew what I’ve got for him!”
But Kingcote did not appear, and Mr. Vissian only saw him on the morrow in Mrs. Clarendon’s drawing-room. Kingcote came in with a grave look, and shook hands with Isabel in silence.
“I hope you have come back quite restored,” he said, rather awkwardly, when it became incumbent upon him to speak. He was not good at acting.
“Why did you fail me last night?” inquired Mr. Vissian.
“I am very sorry. I was not well,” was the brief reply.
He seated himself and was mute. Isabel kept up a lively conversation with the rector, till the latter declared he would be late for church, and hurriedly made off. When he had closed the door behind him, Isabel rose softly, her face all joy; Kingcote moved to meet her, and she fell upon his neck.
“You are not well, dear?”
“That was only an excuse. How well you look, my beautiful!”
“You are glad to see me again?”
“Glad and sorry, for I have bad news to tell you.”
“You too have bad news?” she said anxiously.
“I, too?”
“Come and sit by me.”
They sat side by side.
“Oh, let it wait!” he whispered. “Forget both yours and mine for these few moments. Look at me; let me drink at your eyes. Speak, and call me by my name. I have only lived on the echoes of that voice. Where did you learn that music, Isabel? My pure-browed lady! Your head is like those which come before us in old songs, dark against gold tapestry, or looking from high castle-windows. You should have lived when queens paced in moon-lit galleries, and heard below the poet softly singing to their beauty. Isabel! Is not that a sweet and queenly name?—and I may speak it.”
She listened, trembling with pleasure. Was not the world well lost for such worship? She all but forgot his mention of ill-hap, till the mute pain of his lips brought it back to her mind.
“What has happened, Bernard?”
“What I scarcely dare tell you. Let me kiss your lips once, and then move away and try to realise what it will be to leave you.”
“Leave me?”
“It has come at last. I have known that it must come, and yet I have closed my eyes against the certainty. I could not go to the Vissians’ last night because I was overcome with misery. In the morning I had heard from my sister that her husband is dead. She is helpless, without means of any kind, and her two children dependent upon her. I must go at once to London and—provide for them.”
“Provide for them? Has her husband left her nothing?”
“Not a coin. He was a man of business, and did badly; he has been ill for months, and they could not have lived but for money from me. It is good that he is dead. I had no more to give, unless I surrendered my independence. That of course I must do now, but for Mary and her children I can do it more easily. Her husband I disliked; association with him was impossible. He was without education, good of his kind perhaps, but—commercial. We only met once, and it was once too often.”
“But how could a sister of yours marry so?”
“Poor girl! I never understood it; but she was very young, and had known him some time. That was in Norwich, of course. She went off with him secretly, and they were married in London. Her mother would have nothing to do with them; at her death; what she would have left to Mary, came to me. It was trivial; I have more than repaid it.”
“Can his relations do nothing for her?”
“No. A brother of his, Mary tells me, has come, and will attend the funeral. But he has distinctly told her that he can give no help.”
Kingcote had drawn away a little; Isabel took and held his hand.
“Bernard, how can you support them?”
“Oh, for a time it doesn’t matter; I shall use my capital. Then I shall—work like others do, I suppose. I have had an easy life so long; it was sure to come to an end some day.”
“Why do you keep away from me? What does all this matter? Nothing has come between us, dear.”
His brows were heavy, and he could only look at her sadly. Isabel turned her head away, and dashed tears from her eyes.
“But you too have your ill news, you said?”
For answer she rose and fetched Ada’s letter. Bernard read it.
“Why ill news?” he asked, when he had brooded for a moment.
Isabel had not resumed her seat. She moved about in much agitation, and at length threw herself on her knees by him.
“It is something that I ought to have told you before,” she said. “It seemed, though, such an easy difficulty to overcome; I was so happy, and I would not think of anything in the way. I—” she hid her face against him—“I have lived beyond my income, and have had to borrow money—a large sum of money. I could not have done it, I think, unless it had seemed certain that I should marry some rich man,—though I had to insure my life, and there was my annuity. You know I have had only two thousand a year; it was so little for the way in which I lived. I have always been so thoughtless about money. I could not foresee this great happiness that has come to me. Do not think—Bernard, you won’t think that I should have ever married only because the man who asked me was rich,—I mean if I had never known you. You won’t think that? I have told you that I could never have brought myself to that. Listen, the day before my accident, before I knew that you loved me, before my own love for you had become certain in my heart, Lord Winterset asked me to be his wife, and I—I refused.”
She had looked up pleadingly, but at the end hid her face again. Oh, it is so hard to a woman—nay, that is unjust, to a man also—to speak out the whole truth in self-accusation. Who ever yet did it? What penitent at the confessional? What votary in silent prayer? Maybe it is regard for the dignity of human nature which chains the tongue, that dignity which it costs so much to support, which we so often feel to be a name only, or the shadow of a name.
Kingcote could say nothing.
“Still, listen to me, my dearest! I could not let that stand between us. The debt would have to be paid some day, and when I knew who my husband was to be, there was only one way of meeting it. I should have asked Ada,” her voice sank, “to give me the money. She will be rich, very rich; she could easily give me that. She is good-hearted, I know, though we have never been able to love each other. Before her marriage I would have asked her to give it me, and she would not have refused; it would have been her first act when the property became hers.”
He laid his hand upon her bowed head, and stroked it tenderly; then he raised her to sit by him again.
“I am so glad you have told me that,” he said, smiling very kindly. “Let it be the end of your trouble. Ada will still give you the money when she is of age.”
She kept a long silence before her next words, then looked up at him with wide eyes.
“Are we to be parted so long?”
“But our marriage as yet was in any case impossible. It was bad enough to ask you to share poverty with me; you could not support my sister and her children.”
“Would not your own income have been sufficient for them? We should have had my money.”
“Even if it were enough—barely enough—at present, it could not possibly be so as the boys grow up. It is very hard to think of her living in such a poor and joyless way in those hateful surroundings. I dread to imagine her state now. She will have grown used to a mean, sordid life; her refinement will all be gone; the poisonous air of working London will have infected her. I shall feel shame that she is my sister.”
“That will soon be altered,” Isabel said comfortingly. “You will take her into new scenes. Your society will help her. Who would not grow gentle and refined in your presence? Oh, my love, my love!”
Passionate distress overcame her; she clung to him and wept silently. Kingcote was pale-and woe-stricken; the future loomed hideous before him; he found it hard to feign to himself the gleaming of one far-off star of hope.
“Bernard!”
She raised her head, and looked into his eyes with a passion-glow of purpose.
“If I can obtain that money at once—borrow it, perhaps, from some one who will take my mere word to be repaid when Ada is of age—yes, yes, I could—will you marry me, and let us trust to the future? You are clever—you know so much—you will find some position, sooner or later. Who knows? Your sister may marry again. Will you take my hand, and let us face everything together?”
He was shaken from head to foot with the struggle her words excited. With her arms clinging thus around him, in a moment he would yield—and there was a voice within which whispered hoarsely that to yield would be to tempt a fearful fate. What might he not be led to do next? What impossible sacrifice of self-respect might not become inevitable? He had no jot of faith in his own power to make a future. Imagine this woman some day cooling in her love, and speaking with her pale face unutterable things. She would have a right to reproach him, and a reproach divined would drive him to frenzy. She was weak—he would not shape that into words, but the knowledge was in his heart. After all the features of her life that she had revealed to him, how could he dare the step she tempted him to? His love for her was so sincere that to place her in a position which might touch him with shame on her behalf was in thought a horror. Of whom would she borrow a large sum of money on her bare word? That, to begin with, was impossible; think what it would cost her. Before, all was different. Her income and his put together did not in truth seem to him sad poverty; for her love’s sake she would have contented herself. But the new responsibilities—and then this latest revelation——
Not in linked thoughts, but in swiftly successive flashes of feeling, did these things pass through his mind. He suffered terribly in the moments while the struggle lasted. But at length he found that—he knew not how—he had put away her clinging arms.
“Isabel, we cannot do that.” The words seemed to come unbidden; he heard them as if another spoke. “I love you too well, my own soul! I feel you must not think of that.”
She hung her head, passion-worn, and he heard her ask:
“Do you love me?”
He knelt at her feet and pressed her joined hands against his heart.
“Do I love you? Do you know what it has cost me to refuse to take your life and make it part of mine?”
“You do seem to love me, Bernard.” She stroked the hair upon his forehead, and put it back with soft woman’s touch. Her voice was low and caressing; moisture made her eyes large. “You will not fail me? You will still love me, till I can make myself free?”
“And you?”
“Do I speak and act as if my love were a thing that will easily pass?”
“That is well and wisely spoken,” he returned, smiling up at her. “That is better in my eyes than if you had vowed to love me for ever. We cannot vow love; we can only say that we love with all the strength of our being, and silently feel that it is not a thing of brief life. I shall never ask you to promise to love me, only to say that you do.”
“But that is almost as if you feared.”
“For you, or for myself?”
“You have no fear that your love for me will fail? Dear, I am not the wife you should have sought.”
“You are the wife I was fated to seek; that is enough. You are throned above all women when my soul worships.”
They rested in the after-thought of each other’s words; he pressed her hands against his lips.
“I have few ambitions, Isabel,” he continued. “Of things which men mostly seek, few are of any account to me; I could not stir myself to pursue what awakens others to frantic zeal. One ambition there is that has ruled my life; a high one. I have wished to win a woman’s love. To me that has always been the one, the only thing in the end worth living for. I thought my life would pass and I should never know that supreme blessing. Whatever comes after this, I have had your love, bright one!”
“And always will have.”
He raised his hand in playful warning.
“Life is full of tragedies. The tragedy, I have always thought, is not where two who love each other die for the sake of their love. That is glorious triumph. But where love itself dies, blown upon by the cold breath of the world, and those who loved live on with hearts made sepulchres—that is tragedy.”
“I shall always love you.” She repeated it under her breath, convincing herself.
“On Tuesday I go to London,” Kingcote said, seating himself by her. “So good-bye to my cottage. We shall not forget that poor little house? I hope sometimes to come and look at it, and see my dead self. Some family of working people will live there next. It will be well if they are not haunted.”
“Why haunted?”
“One feels that misery must cling to walls that have seen so much of it.”
“But brighter spirits have since then swept and garnished it, have they not?”
Kingcote was always thrilled with pleasure when her thoughts made for themselves a more imaginative kind of speech. It brought her out of the prose-talking world, and nearer to him.
“They have, dear. You must write to me often, it will be long before we see each other again.”
“But you do not go to-morrow; you will see me again before you go?”
“If you wish it; but won’t it only make the parting harder?”
“Come to me on Tuesday morning, if only for a few minutes. You will go by the 1.30 train? Oh, how shall I ever let you leave me?”
Kingcote rose. He had still words to say, but they would not easily be uttered.
“Isabel, will your life in future be quite the same as it has been?—no, not inwardly, but your outward, daily life?”
“No, it shall not be the same,” she replied earnestly. “How can it be the same? Have I not so much that is new and dear to fill my days?”
“If you had married me now,” he continued, “it would have been to leave the world with which you are familiar; you were ready to make that sacrifice for me. Can you promise me to draw a little apart—to try yourself—to see if you could really give it up, and live for yourself and for me?”
“I will—indeed I will, Bernard!—you shall know all I do every day; you shall see if I cannot live as you wish. You shall tell me of books to read; I will come into your world.”
“That will make my life full of joy, instead of an intolerable burden,” he exclaimed, glowing with delight. “I could not bear it otherwise! The distance between us would be too great. And—is it not better to confess it?—I am easily jealous. I feel that to go on my way there in London, whilst you were shining among people of wealth and leisure, all doing you homage, that would drive me mad.”
Isabel smiled as she reassured him. These words pleased her, but not in the nobler way. He had said what should never be said to a woman by one who will hold her love pure of meaner mixture.
“I shall come to London in the spring,” she said presently. “You know I always do so, but this time it will only be to be near you. I can’t afford a house; I shall take rooms, and you will often come to see me.”
He looked at her, but did not answer.
“But who knows what may happen before then?” she exclaimed, with sudden joyousness. “We can make no plans. Fate has brought us together, and fate will help us—have no fear!”
“Fate is not often benevolent,” said King-cote, smiling cheerlessly.
“But are not we the exceptions? I feel—I know—that there is happiness for us; I won’t listen to a single down-hearted word! You came to Winstoke because my love was waiting for you; you are going now to London because something is prepared which we cannot foresee. Look brighter, dear; it is all well.”
“Isabel, I will not see you again before I go.”
She hesitated.
“Then write me your good-bye, and you shall have one from me on Tuesday morning. Send me your London address in the letter. Shall you live where your sister is?”
“For the present, I believe.”
“And you will see your artist friend again. Shall you tell him? Have you told him?”
“I have not, and shall not. It is our secret.”
She gave a laugh of joy. Why did the laugh jar on him? He was so easily affected by subtleties of feeling which another man would not conceive.
They took leave of each other.
Kingcote walked about the lanes till some time after dark, then made his way to the rectory. Mr. Vissian himself opened the door—there was no evening service at the church in winter.
“Good! I expected you,” he exclaimed. “Better late than never. Have you had tea?”
“No; I should be glad of a cup.”
They went into the sitting-room, where Mrs. Vissian and Percy still sat at table.
It was a rule with the rector to put all mundane literature aside on Sunday, but to-day he, had yielded to temptation. At the place where he had been sitting, a Shakspeare lay open, with a note-book beside it. Mr. Vissian stood with his back to the fire, fidgeting. Presently he could hold no longer; whilst Kingcote was still eating and drinking, he laid a hand on his shoulder, and put before him a page of the note-book.
“My friend,” he said gravely, “read that—carefully now; with no indecent haste. Read—perpend!”
It was the explanatory note on “The Lady of the Strachy.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Kingcote quietly.
“Interesting! By the Turk! It is epochmaking, as the Germans say. I have not a doubt remaining.”
Mrs. Vissian listened to the conversation with just a little evident uneasiness. It was troublesome to be more orthodox than the rector, but she could not forget that it was Sunday. Affectionate little women are quite capable of these weaknesses.
When Mr. Vissian’s excitement was somewhat allayed, Kingcote began in a matter-of-fact way, and told them of his approaching departure, explaining the circumstances which occasioned it. His hearers were genuinely distressed.
“This is evil following upon good with a vengeance,” said the rector. His wife looked sorrowfully at him, and half wondered in her foolish little mind whether this might be a reproval of his Sabbath-breaking—a mild one, suited to a first backsliding.
“I owe you more than I can thank you for,” said Kingcote, looking from husband to wife. “I shall think of the rectory as if it had been my home.”
“I hope,” said Mrs. Vissian, touched, “that you will make it a home as often as you possibly can. We shall always be very, very glad to see you here.”
“My dear Kingcote,” murmured the rector, in an uncertain voice, “this—this upsets me. It is so wholly unexpected. And we were to have gone through every play with scrutiny of metrical development. Your ear is so much more to be depended upon than mine in such matters. Dear me, dear me! This is excessively disturbing!”
“But, by-the-bye,” he added, when he could better trust his vocal organs, “I shall now have some one whom I can rely upon in immediate vicinity of the book-stalls. If you should ever come across anything in my line—you know the kind of thing I want——”
“Mr. Kingcote,” said his wife, raising her finger, “I’m sure you won’t put discord between me and my husband. You know that I dread the mention of book-stalls.”
There was of course to be a later leavetaking; in view of his domestic disturbances, Kingcote consented to breakfast and dine at the rectory on Tuesday. His sticks of furniture he would sell to a dealer in Winstoke on the morrow, and his packing would only be an affair of a couple of hours, books and all. Percy ardently desired to help in this process, and was permitted to come.
Kingcote woke in the middle of the night, with so distinct a voice in his ears that he sat and gazed nervously about him in the darkness. It was as though Isabel had spoken in his very presence, and after he had gained full consciousness; she said, “It is fate, dear,” and uttered the words with pain. Our dreams play these tricks with us. He rose and went to the window; there was a setting moon, and the old oak-trunk before the cottage threw a long, black shadow. The night-wind made its wonted sobbing sound. The sky was very dark in the direction of Knightswell.