She knew then it was all right.

Two days later she read in the paper that Burton would soon arrive. She writes in her diary:

“May 21.—I feel strange, frightened, sick, stupefied, dying to see him, and yet inclined to run away, lest, after all I have suffered and longed for, I should have to bear more.”

But she did not run away. And here we leave her to tell her own tale.

On May 22 I chanced to call upon a friend. I was told she had gone out, but would be in to tea, and was asked if I would wait. I said, “Yes.” In a few minutes another ring came to the door, and another visitor was also asked to wait. A voice that thrilled me through and through came up the stairs, saying, “I want Miss Arundell’s address.” The door opened, I turned round, and judge of my feelings when I beheld Richard! For an instant we both stood dazed. I felt so intensely, that I fancied he must hear my heart beat, and see how every nerve was overtaxed. We rushed into each other’s arms. I cannot attempt to describe the joy of that moment. He had landed the day before, and come to London, and had called here to know where I was living, where to find me. No one will wonder when I say that we forgot all about my hostess and her tea. We went downstairs, and Richard called a cab, and he put me in and told the man to drive about—anywhere. He put his arm round my waist, and I put my head on his shoulder. I felt quite stunned; I could not speak or move, but felt like a person coming to after a fainting fit or a dream; it was acute pain, and for the first half-hour I found no relief. I would have given worlds for tears, but none came. But it was absolute content, such as I fancy people must feel in the first few moments after the soul has quitted the body. When we were a little recovered, we mutually drew each other’s pictures from our respective pockets at the same moment, to show how carefully we had always kept them.

After that we met constantly, and he called upon my parents. I now put our marriage seriously before them, but without success as regards my mother.

I shall never forget Richard as he was then. He had had twenty-one attacks of fever—had been partially paralyzed and partially blind. He was a mere skeleton, with brown-yellow skin hanging in bags, his eyes protruding, and his lips drawn away from his teeth. I used to give him my arm about the Botanical Gardens for fresh air, and sometimes convey him almost fainting in a cab to our house or friends’ houses, who allowed and encouraged our meeting.

He told me that all the time he had been away the greatest consolation he had received were my fortnightly journals, in letter-form, to him, accompanied by all newspaper scraps, and public and private information, and accounts of books, such as I knew would interest him; so that when he did get a mail, which was only in a huge batch now and then, he was as well posted up as if he were living in London.

Richard was looking so lank and thin. He was sadly altered; his youth, health, spirits, and beauty were all gone for the time. He fully justified his fevers, his paralysis and blindness, and any amount of anxiety, peril, hardship, and privation in unhealthy latitudes. Never did I feel the strength of my love as then. He returned poorer, and dispirited by official rows and every species of annoyance; but he was still—had he been ever so unsuccessful, and had every man’s hand against him—my earthly god and king, and I could have knelt at his feet and worshipped him. I used to feel so proud of him; I used to like to sit and look at him, and think, “You are mine, and there is no man on earth the least like you.”^[9]

Isabel tells us that she regretted bitterly not having been able to stay with and nurse the man she loved at this time. They were both most anxious that their marriage should take place, so that they might be together. But the great obstacle to their union was Mrs. Arundell’s opposition. Isabel made a long and impassioned appeal to her mother; but she would not relent, and turned a deaf ear to the lovers’ pleadings. In justice to Mrs. Arundell, it must be admitted that she had apparently good reasons for refusing her consent to their marriage. Burton’s niece says that she “vehemently objected to any daughter of hers espousing a Protestant.”^[10] But this is one of those half-truths which conceal a whole fallacy. Of course Mrs. Arundell, who came of an old Roman Catholic family, and who was a woman of strong religious convictions, would have preferred her daughter to marry a man of the same faith as herself. But it was not a question between Catholicity and Protestantism, but between Christianity and no religion at all. From all that was publicly known of Burton at this time, from his writings and his conversation, he was an Agnostic; and so far as the religious objection to the marriage entered, many a Protestant Evangelical mother would have demurred quite as much as Mrs. Arundell did. Religious prejudices may be just or unjust, but they are forces which have to be reckoned with. And the religious objection was not by any means the only one. At this time there were unpleasant rumours flying about concerning Burton, and some echo of them had reached Mrs. Arundell’s ears. The way in which the Royal Geographical Society had passed him over in favour of Speke had naturally lent colour to these reports; and although Burton had a few friends, he had many enemies. He was under a cloud. The Government ignored him; the War Office disliked him; his military career had so far been a failure—there was no prospect of promotion; the Indian army had brought him under the reduction; he had not the means to keep a wife in decent comfort, nor were his relations in a position to help him, either with money or influence; and lastly, he was of a wild, roving disposition. All these considerations combined to make Mrs. Arundell hesitate in entrusting her daughter’s happiness to his hands. It must be remembered that Isabel was the eldest child. She was a very handsome and fascinating girl; she had many wealthy suitors, and might well have been expected to make “a good match.” From a worldly point of view she was simply throwing herself away. From a higher point of view she was following her destiny, and marrying the man she loved with every fibre of her being. But Mrs. Arundell could hardly have been expected to see things in this light, and in opposing Isabel’s marriage with Richard Burton she only acted as ninety-nine mothers out of every hundred would have done. No sooner were they married than she admitted that she had made a mistake, and did all in her power to atone for it; but at this time she was inexorable.^[11]

Burton, who was very much in love, was not in the habit of brooking opposition, least of all from a woman; and he suggested to Isabel that they should take the law in their own hands, and make a runaway match of it. After all, they had arrived at years of discretion, and might fairly be expected to know their own minds. He was past forty, and Isabel was nearly thirty. More than three years had gone by since he declared his love to her in the Botanical Gardens; nearly ten years had passed since she had fallen in love with him on the Ramparts of Boulogne. Surely they had waited long enough. Isabel was swayed by his pleading; more than once she was on the point of yielding, but she resisted the temptation. Duty and obedience were always watchwords with her, and she could not bear the thought of going against her mother. Her sense of duty warred with her desire. So things see-sawed for nearly a year. And then:

“One day in April, 1860, I was walking out with two friends, and a tightening of the heart came over me that I had known before. I went home, and said to my sister, ‘I am not going to see Richard for some time.’ She said, ‘Why, you will see him to-morrow!’ ‘No, I shall not,’ I said; ‘I don’t know what is the matter.’ A tap came at the door, and a note with the well-known writing was put into my hand. I knew my fate, and with a deep-drawn breath I opened it. He had left—could not bear the pain of saying good-bye; would be absent for nine months, on a journey to see Salt Lake City. He would then come back, and see whether I had made up my mind to choose between him or my mother, to marry me if I would; and if I had not the courage to risk it, he would go back to India, and thence to other explorations, and return no more. I was to take nine months to think about it.”^[12]

This was the last straw to Isabel, and for a time she broke down utterly. For some weeks she was ill in bed and delirious, heart-sick and hopeless, worn out with the mental conflict she was going through. Then she girded up her strength for one last struggle, and when she arose from her bed her purpose was clear and strong. The first thing she did showed that her mind was made up. On the plea of change of air she went into the country and stayed at a farmhouse. As she had determined to marry a poor man and also to accompany him in all his travels, she set herself to rough it and to learn everything which might fit her for the roving life she was afterwards to lead, so that in the desert or the backwoods, with servants or without them, she might be qualified for any emergency. In addition to mastering all domestic duties at the farmhouse, heavy and light, she tried her hand at outdoor work as well, and learned how to look after the poultry-yard and cattle, to groom the horses, and to milk the cows. Nor did her efforts end here. When she came back to London, she asked a friend (Dr. Bird) to teach her to fence. He asked her why she wanted to learn fencing. She answered, “Why? To defend Richard, when he and I are attacked in the wilderness together.” Later on Burton himself taught her to fence, and she became an expert fencer. At this time also she was eager for books of all kinds. She wanted a wider range of reading, so that she might, as she phrased it, “be able to discuss things with Richard.” This period of waiting was, in effect, a period of preparation for her marriage with the man she loved, and she pursued her preparations steadily and quietly without a shadow of wavering. Nevertheless she fretted a great deal during this separation. A friend who knew her at this time has told me she often looked wretched. She spent much time in fasting and prayer, and there were days when she would eat nothing but vegetable and drink water. She used to call these her “marrow and water days.”

One day she saw in the paper “Murder of Captain Burton.” Her anguish was intense. Her mother went with her to the mail-office to make inquiries and ascertain the truth. A Captain Burton had been murdered by his crew, but it was not Isabel’s Captain Burton. She says, “My life seemed to hang on a thread till he [the clerk] answered, and then my face beamed so the man was quite startled.” Great joy, like great grief, is selfish. She gave little thought of the poor man who was killed, the sense of relief was so great. Burton—her Burton—was at that moment enjoying himself with the Mormons in Salt Lake City, where he stayed for some months. When his tour was completed, he turned his face towards home again—and Isabel.

It was Christmas, 1860, that I went to stop with my relatives, Sir Clifford and Lady Constable (his first wife, née Chichester), at Burton Constable—the father and mother of the present baronet. There was a large party in the house, and we were singing; some one propped up the music with the Times, which had just arrived, and the first announcement that caught my eye was that “Captain R. F. Burton had arrived from America.”

I was unable, except by great resolution, to continue what I was doing. I soon retired to my room, and sat up all night, packing, and conjecturing how I should get away—all my numerous plans tending to a “bolt” next morning—should I get an affectionate letter from Richard. I received two; one had been opened and read by somebody else, and one, as it afterwards turned out, had been burked at home before forwarding. It was not an easy matter. I was in a large country house in Yorkshire, with about twenty-five friends and relatives, amongst whom was one brother, and I had heaps of luggage. We were blocked up with snow, and nine miles from the station, and (contra miglior noler voler mal pugna) I had heard of his arrival only early in the evening, and twelve hours later I managed to get a telegram, ordering me to London, under the impression that it was of the most vital importance.

What a triumph it is to a woman’s heart, when she has patiently and courageously worked and prayed and suffered, and the moment is realized that was the goal of her ambition!

As soon as we met, and had had our talk, he said:

“I have waited for five years. The first three were inevitable, on account of my journey to Africa, but the last two were not. Our lives are being spoiled by the unjust prejudice of your mother, and it is for you to consider whether you have not already done your duty in sacrificing two of the best years of your life out of respect to her. If once you really let me go, mind, I shall never come back, because I shall know that you have not got the strength of character which my wife must have. Now you must make up your mind to choose between your mother and me. If you choose me, we marry, and I stay; if not, I go back to India, and on other explorations, and I return no more. Is your answer ready?”

I said, “Quite. I marry you this day three weeks, let who will say nay.”

When we fixed the date of our marriage, I wanted to be married on Wednesday, the 23rd, because it was the Espousals of Our Lady and St. Joseph; but he would not, because Wednesday the 23rd and Friday the 13th were our unlucky days; so we were married on the Vigil, Tuesday, January 22.

We pictured to ourselves much domestic happiness, with youth, health, courage, and talent to win honour, name, and position. We had the same tastes, and perfect confidence in each other. No one turns away from real happiness without some very strong temptation or delusion. I went straight to my father and mother, and told them what had occurred. My father said, “I consent with all my heart, if your mother consents”; and mother said, “Never!” I asked all my brothers and sisters, and they said they would receive him with delight. My mother offered me a marriage with my father and brothers present, my mother and sisters not. I felt that this was a slight upon him, a slight upon his family, and a slur upon me, which I did not deserve, and I refused it. I went to Cardinal Wiseman, and I told him the whole case as it stood, and he asked me if my mind was absolutely made up, and I said, “Absolutely.” Then he said, “Leave the matter to me.” He requested Richard to call upon him, and asked him if he would give him three promises in writing—(1) that I should be allowed the free practice of my religion; (2) that if we had any children they should be brought up Catholics; (3) that we should be married in the Catholic Church: which three promises Richard readily signed. He also amused the Cardinal, as the family afterwards learnt, by saying sharply, “Practise her religion indeed! I should rather think she shall. A man without a religion may be excused, but a woman without a religion is not the woman for me.” The Cardinal then sent for me, promised me his protection, said he would himself procure a special dispensation from Rome, and that he would perform the ceremony himself. He then saw my father, who told him how much opposed my mother was to it; that she was threatened with paralysis; that we had to consider her in every possible way, that she might receive no shocks, no agitation; but that all the rest quite consented to the marriage. A big family council was then held; and it was agreed far better for Richard and me and for every one to make all proper arrangements to be married and to be attended by friends, and for me to go away on a visit to some friends, that they might not come to the wedding, nor participate in it, in order not to agitate my mother; that they would break it to her at a suitable time; and that the secret of their knowing it should be kept up as long as mother lived. “Mind,” said my father, “you must never bring a misunderstanding between mother and me, nor between her and her children.”

I passed that three weeks preparing very solemnly and earnestly for my marriage day, but yet something differently to what many expectant brides do. I made a very solemn religious preparation, receiving the Sacraments. Gowns, presents, and wedding pageants had no part in it, had no place.

The following were my reflections^[14]:

“The principal and leading features of my future life are going to be:

“Marriage with Richard.

“My parents’ blessing and pardon.

“A man-child.

“An appointment, money earned by literature and publishing.

“A little society.

“Doing a great deal of good.

“Much travelling.

“I have always divided marriage into three classes—Love, Ambition, and Life. By Life I mean a particular style of life and second self that a peculiar disposition and strong character require to make life happy, and without which possibly neither Love alone nor Ambition alone would satisfy it. And I love a man in whom I can unite all three, Love, Life, and Ambition, of my own choice. Some understand Ambition as Title, Wealth, Estates; I understand it as Fame, Name, Power. I have undertaken a very peculiar man; I have asked a difficult mission of God, and that is to give me that man’s body and soul. It is a grand mission; and after ten years and a half of prayer God has given it to me. Now we must lead a good, useful, active, noble life, and be each other’s salvation; and if we have children, bring them up in the fear of God. The first thing to be done is to obtain my parents’ pardon and blessing for going my own way; the next, to pray for a child to comfort me when he is absent and cannot take me; and, thirdly, to set to work with a good heart to work for an appointment or other means of living. We must do any amount of study and publishing, take society in moderation as a treat; we must do good according to our means; and when successful we will travel. My rules as a wife are as follows:

“1. Let your husband find in you a companion, friend, and adviser, and confidante, that he may miss nothing at home; and let him find in the wife what he and many other men fancy is only to be found in a mistress, that he may seek nothing out of his home.

“2. Be a careful nurse when he is ailing, that he may never be in low spirits about his health without a serious cause.

“3. Make his home snug. If it be ever so small and poor, there can always be a certain chic about it. Men are always ashamed of a poverty-stricken home, and therefore prefer the club. Attend much to his creature comforts; allow smoking or anything else; for if you do not, somebody else will. Make it yourself cheerful and attractive, and draw relations and intimates about him, and the style of society (literati) that suits him, marking who are real friends to him and who are not.

“4. Improve and educate yourself in every way, that you may enter into his pursuits and keep pace with the times, that he may not weary of you.

“5. Be prepared at any moment to follow him at an hour’s notice and rough it like a man.

“6. Do not try to hide your affection for him, but let him see and feel it in every action. Never refuse him anything he asks. Observe a certain amount of reserve and delicacy before him. Keep up the honeymoon romance, whether at home or in the desert. At the same time do not make prudish bothers, which only disgust, and are not true modesty. Do not make the mistake of neglecting your personal appearance, but try to look well and dress well to please his eye.

“7. Perpetually work up his interests with the world, whether for publishing or for appointments. Let him feel, when he has to go away, that he leaves a second self in charge of his affairs at home; so that if sometimes he is obliged to leave you behind, he may have nothing of anxiety on his mind. Take an interest in everything that interests him. To be companionable, a woman must learn what interests her husband; and if it is only planting turnips, she must try to understand turnips.

“8. Never confide your domestic affairs to your female friends.

“9. Hide his faults from every one, and back him up through every difficulty and trouble; but with his peculiar temperament advocate peace whenever it is consistent with his honour before the world.

“10. Never permit any one to speak disrespectfully of him before you; and if any one does, no matter how difficult, leave the room. Never permit any one to tell you anything about him, especially of his conduct with regard to other women. Never hurt his feelings by a rude remark or jest. Never answer when he finds fault; and never reproach him when he is in the wrong, especially when he tells you of it, nor take advantage of it when you are angry; and always keep his heart up when he has made a failure.

“11. Keep all disagreements for your own room, and never let others find them out.

“12. Never ask him not to do anything—for instance, with regard to visiting other women, or any one you particularly dislike; trust him, and tell him everything, except another person’s secret.

“13. Do not bother him with religious talk, be religious yourself and give good example, take life seriously and earnestly, pray for and procure prayers for him, and do all you can for him without his knowing it, and let all your life be something that will win mercy from God for him. You might try to say a little prayer with him every night before laying down to sleep, and gently draw him to be good to the poor and more gentle and forbearing to others.

“14. Cultivate your own good health, spirits, and nerves, to counteract his naturally melancholy turn, and to enable you to carry out your mission.

“15. Never open his letters, nor appear inquisitive about anything he does not volunteer to tell you.

“16. Never interfere between him and his family; encourage their being with him, and forward everything he wishes to do for them, and treat them in every respect (as far as they will let you) as if they were your own.

“17. Keep everything going, and let nothing ever be at a standstill: nothing would weary him like stagnation.”^[15]

Richard arranged with my own lawyer and my own priest that everything should be conducted in a strictly legal and strictly religious way, and the whole programme of the affair was prepared. A very solemn day to me was the eve of my marriage. The following day I was supposed to be going to pass a few weeks with a friend in the country.

At nine o’clock on Tuesday, January 22, 1861, my cab was at the door, with my box on it. I had to go and wish my father and mother good-bye before leaving. I went downstairs with a beating heart, after I had knelt in my own room, and said a fervent prayer that they might bless me, and if they did I would take it as a sign. I was so nervous, I could scarcely stand. When I went in mother kissed me, and said, “Good-bye, child; God bless you!” I went to my father’s bedside, and knelt down and said good-bye. “God bless you, my darling!” he said, and put his hand out of the bed and laid it on my head. I was too much overcome to speak, and one or two tears ran down my cheeks, and I remember as I passed down I kissed the door outside.

I then ran downstairs, and quickly got into my cab, and drove to the house of some friends (Dr. and Miss Bird), where I changed my clothes—not wedding clothes (clothes which most brides of to-day would probably laugh at)—a fawn-coloured dress, a black-lace cloak, and a white bonnet—and they and I drove off to the Bavarian Catholic Church, Warwick Street. When assembled, we were altogether a party of eight. The Registrar was there for legality, as is customary. Richard was waiting on the doorstep for me, and as we went in he took holy water, and made a very large sign of the cross. The church doors were wide open, and full of people, and many were there who knew us. As the 10.30 Mass was about to begin we were called into the Sacristy, and we then found that the Cardinal in the night had been seized with an acute attack of the illness which carried him off four years later, and had deputed Dr. Hearne, his Vicar-General, to be his proxy.

After the ceremony was over and the names signed, we went back to the house of our friend Dr. Bird and his sister Alice, who have always been our best friends, where we had our wedding breakfast. During the time we were breakfasting Dr. Bird began to chaff Richard about the things that were sometimes said of him, and which were not true. “Now, Burton, tell me, how do you feel when you have killed a man?” Dr. Bird (being a physician) had given himself away without knowing it. Richard looked up quizzically, and drawled out, “Oh, quite jolly! How do you?”^[16]

We then went to Richard’s bachelor lodgings, where he had a bedroom, dressing-room, and sitting-room; and we had very few pounds to bless ourselves with, but were as happy as it is given to any mortals out of heaven to be. The fact is, that the only clandestine thing about it—and that was quite contrary to my desire—was that my poor mother, with her health and her religious scruples, was kept in the dark; but I must thank God, though paralysis came on two years later, it was not I that caused it.

To say that I was happy would be to say nothing. A peace came over me that I had never known. I felt that it was for eternity, an immortal repose, and I was in a bewilderment of wonder at the goodness of God, Who had almost worked miracles for me.