Isabel Clarendon, Vol. I (of II)

“Mr. Clarendon?”

“I will put it away again, if you please.”

He let her do so, and removed the case. When he drew near her, Isabel regarded him with a passionless face, and pointed to the chair he had risen from.

“He knew me well,” she said, with a bitterness which made all her words clear-cut and her voice unshaken. “He calculated my weakness, and devised my punishment skilfully. That I should take the child and rear it to inherit his property, or else lose everything at once. With a woman of self-respect, such a scheme would have been empty; she would have turned away in scorn. But he knew me well; he knew I had not the courage to go back to poverty; that I would rather suffer through years, be the talk and pity and contempt of every one, face at last the confession to her,—all that rather than be poor again!”

Kingcote once more held her hand, and, when she paused, he kissed it passionately.

“You were poor once?” he asked gently, tenderly.

“That is my only excuse. We were wretchedly poor, my mother, my brother, and myself. I have been hungry often and often. We had to keep up a respectable appearance; we starved ourselves to buy clothing and to avoid being indebted to people. I have often gone to bed—when I was a strong, growing girl—and cried because I was so hungry; though I had just before been pretending I could eat no more, as we all of us did, poor mother as well. I was to be a governess; but then a lady took me to London, was wonderfully kind to me, treated me as her daughter. She said”—Isabel half laughed, half cried—“she said I was too good-looking to be a governess.”

“Wasn’t it true? Are you not now so beautiful that my heart faints when I look at you?”

“If I were not so contemptible—if I deserved any recompense for what I have suffered—it would be a priceless one to hear you say so.”

“Tell me more.”

“I married at the end of my first season; made what was called a wonderful marriage. I hadn’t a farthing, and became all at once wealthy. I caught at the best that offered; the best in the world’s sense. I was old enough; I understood what I was doing. No one was to blame but myself. You saw that hard, strong, coarse face? He often looked at me as if he were coldly calculating the risks of murder; but as he got to know me better, he found better punishments. I did not disobey him. I never gave him cause for anger by word or deed; could I help it that I—that I hated him?”

The excitement was again overpowering her strength. She sobbed tearlessly.

“You shall speak no more of that,” King-cote said; “leave it all in the past; forget it, dearest.”

“Am I dearest to you?” she asked, looking into his eyes with yearning tenderness. “Oh, I have never felt till now what it would be to lose wealth and the power of bestowing it!

“May I tell you, only to justify myself—to make myself better in your sight? I might so often have married, and freed myself, men to whom wealth was nothing, who would have taken me for myself: but I could not, not even to gain an honourable position. I had always the hope that I might know what love meant. I have gone through the world and enjoyed it. I have had, I suppose, something of what is called success; it left me cold. Only when you came into my life then it began to be all different. I felt that you were come to save me; you were so unlike others, you interested and attracted me as no one else ever did. You remember our first meeting in Mr. Vissian’s study? I went away and could think of nothing but you; wondered what your story was, tried to understand what it was in you that affected me so strangely.”

“My sovereign lady!”

“If you knew the foolish tricks I played myself! I would not face the truth; I invented all sorts of explanations and excuses when I longed to see you. It occurred to me that you might perhaps come to care for Ada. I persuaded myself that it would make me happy if you married her and became rich. And I can give you nothing!”

“You give me nothing, Isabel? Yesterday I was the poorest creature in this world, without strength, without hope, sunk in misery; now every pulse of my heart is happiness.” She sighed with pleasure.

“Turn your face to me, Isabel; let me try to read it there, to believe it, to make it part of my life. Let me hear you say those three words—I do not know their sound—those three words I hunger for!”

“Three? Have I not said them? Was it only in my thought? I love you, dearest.”

“Four! And from your lips, whose music came to me from another sphere, so far you seemed! You, the throned lady, the queen with the crown of loveliness; so gracious, so good, so noble–”

“Hush! you may not praise me. Dear, you know those words do not describe me, you know how unworthy I am.”

“I will praise you whilst I have breath for speech! What are our paltry conventional judgments? In that I love you, you are to me a peerless woman. Have you not stooped to me from the circle of your glory? Are you not to me embodied goodness, purity, truth? What am I that you should love me, my soul’s worship? Yet your eyes say it, your smile says it, your lips make golden music of the words.”

She sighed again, drinking in his rapturous adoration with closed eyes.

“And you?” she asked. “When did you first love me? Did I not seem to you a very silly, empty, frivolous woman?”

“I loved your name long before I saw you. They talked to me at the rectory, and called you the Lady of Knightswell. I pictured you, and indeed not far unlike yourself; just so gracious, so bright, so gloriously a woman. I looked over to Knightswell from my window, and wondered if ever we should meet. What kindness of fate that brought me that day past the cottage!”

She was still musing over the growth of this flower in her heart.

“I knew it when the pain was over, and I could lie and think. It was all so clear to me then. I had escaped a terrible danger; but for the fall”—her voice sank—“I might never have known this happiness. I was in ceaseless fear lest you should have gone. I asked often if you had called; if you had known how I longed for your name among those who called! There was no need of occupation for me. It was quite enough to lie and think of our talks together, to call back your voice and your look. Oh, I longed to send a word to you; you were so lonely, so unhappy. All that is over now, dearest? You will never again be comfortless?”

“Dare I think that, Isabel?”

“When I love you?”

“That again!” He covered his face with his hands. “Once more!”

“With my soul I love you!”

“If I could but hear that for ever! Shall I hear it when this hour has become part of our memory, in days after this? Dare I think of it as music that I may hear at will?”

“It shall never fail you, if your ear does not weary.”

“If my eyes weary of the light of heaven?”

There was silence before Isabel spoke.

“Ada’s marriage has been postponed on account of my illness; it would have taken place before this. When it is over, and I have discharged my duty to the end, then–”

She paused, not avoiding his gaze, but meeting it with simplest truth, her lips trembling a little.

“I shall have my three hundred a year,” she added, almost pleadingly. “Can we not make it enough? Do you know that the Vissians live on less than that?”

Kingcote dropped his eyes, and spoke with embarrassment.

“To me it is wealth. For you, even alone, it would be miserable poverty. How can I accept such a sacrifice?”

“A sacrifice? Is that your measure of my love?”

He kissed her hand, then asked laughingly: “What do you think my own income is? You dare not guess. I am richer than Goldsmith’s country parson; I have full sixty pounds.”

“Why, then, are we not wealthy? That is the rent of a delightful house, somewhere far away. Might we not go abroad? Would you,” she added anxiously, “go abroad with me?”

“Dear, can you so change your life?”

“It is changed. There is no effort asked of me. I live only for you.”

“Your friends?”

“My friends? One, two, three at most; those I need not lose. My acquaintances, three hundred at least; ah! let them go! It shall be a new world. What need have I of friends? You are my friend, my one, sole friend! I will have no other. Oh, you will not weary of me? I bring you so little—my ignorance, my foolish habits of thought. You will be patient with me, and help me to become more the kind of woman suitable for—for your wife?”

The flush in her cheeks had become steadfast; her eyes gleamed unnaturally. Each word she spoke heightened the fever which was gaining upon her. He noticed this.

“I have been wrong to let you talk so much,” he said gravely. “You are tired; you will suffer.”

“No, I shall sleep, and with such peace in my heart as I have never known.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, and murmured words that he did not hear.

“Is Mrs. Stratton still with you?” he asked.

“At church; it must be nearly time for her to return.”

“And Miss Warren?”

“She is reading, I suppose; she always prefers to be alone.”

“Dear, you are suffering.”

“No, indeed no. Is my face worn? Do I look—old?”

“What was that word? You are as beautiful as day.”

“You will come very soon again? I will write and tell you when.”

“I dare not let you speak more.”

“I am still weak,” she said with a smile. Her voice was failing.

He knelt by her side, and she, bending forward with modest grace, gave him the sweetness of her lips.

The storm still raged; nothing was to be seen beyond a few yards through the white whirl. As Kingcote struggled against it with bent head, a carriage passed him, moving, silently over the snow; it was bringing Mrs.. Stratton from church. This made him fear lest he should meet the Vissians near the rectory; he could speak with no one now; there was a voice in his ears which for his life he would not have silenced. He turned off into the trackless park, and walked in a direction which would bring him out at a lonely part of the new road. With a boy’s delight he leapt through the deep snow, and fought his way against the whirlwind. He lost his bearing; the white outlines of the country were irrecognisable; there was nothing for it but to push on, and come out where, he might. It was two hours at least before he at length got into a track that he knew, and which led him homewards. He reached the cottage in complete exhaustion, chilled, feeble with hunger. Unable even to cast off his wet clothing before he had rested, he threw himself into a chair. He laughed; it would be something to tell her when they met again.