Isabel Clarendon, Vol. I (of II)

CHAPTER III

One morning in August Mrs. Clarendon was sitting in the garden at Knightswell, with Ada Warren and a young lady named Rhoda Meres, a guest at the house. They had chosen a spot which was often resorted to for tea on hot afternoons, a little piece of lawn closely shut in with leafage, whence an overbowered pathway led out to the front garden. The lady of Knightswell sat reposefully in a round-backed rustic chair. She wore a pretty garden costume, a dainty web of shawl just covering her head, her crossed feet just showing below the folds of her dress. An open sunshade lay tumbled on the grass beside her, and on her lap was an illustrated paper, of which she turned the leaves with idle interest. Miss Warren sat a couple of yards away, reading a review. Her dress was plain, and of dark material, and she wore a brown broad-brimmed straw hat. The other young lady made no pretence of being occupied. With knit brows and bent head she walked backwards and forwards on the grass, biting a long leaf which she had pulled from a bough in passing. She was a pretty girl, fair-cheeked and graceful of form. She carried her hat by its ribbon, and let the stray sunlight make gleamings upon her golden hair. Her age was not quite nineteen, and the beautiful lines of her maiden figure lost nothing by her way of holding herself, whether she moved or stood.

After several side glances at her silent companions, she presently came to a pause before Mrs. Clarendon’s chair, and, still holding the leaf between her lips, asked, rather plaintively:

“Why shouldn’t I, Mrs. Clarendon?”

Isabel looked up with suave smiling features, and met the girl’s eyes in silence for a moment.

“My dear Rhoda,” she said then, “why should you?”

“No,” urged the girl, “I think all the reasons are needed on the other side. I must do something, and this is what I think I’m suited for. Why shouldn’t I?”

“For one thing, because you are a lady, and ladies don’t do such things.”

“There you have Mrs. Clarendon’s last word,” remarked Ada Warren, without looking up. Her voice contrasted strangely with those which had been just heard; it was hard in tone, giving clear utterance to each syllable, as if to accentuate the irony in her observation.

“Certainly,” said Isabel, with good humour; “if Rhoda is content to let it be.”

Still biting her leaf, Miss Meres held her head a little on one side, and, after glancing at Ada, turned her eyes again upon Mrs. Clarendon.

“But are you quite sure it is so, Mrs. Clarendon?” she urged. “I mean that ladies don’t go on to the stage? It used to be so, no doubt, but things have been changing. I’m sure I’ve heard that both ladies and gentlemen are beginning to take to acting nowadays. And I can’t see why they shouldn’t. It seems to be better than–”

She stopped, and looked a little embarrassed.

“Better than doing nothing at all, you were going to say,” Isabel supplied; “like myself, for instance? Perhaps it is. But I fancy that the ladies who go on to the stage are generally those who, for some reason or other, have lost their places in society.”

“With a large S,” put in Ada, still without looking up.

“Yes, a very large one,” assented Isabel, smiling.

“And suppose,” exclaimed Rhoda, suddenly bold, “I don’t care anything about the society which spells itself with a large S.”

Mrs. Clarendon shook her head indulgently.

“My child, you can’t help caring about it.”

“Not if I find something I like better outside it?”

Mrs. Clarendon crossed her hands upon the paper, and sighed a little before speaking.

“You think it would be nice to become a Bohemian, and live in contempt of us poor subjects of Mrs. Grundy. Rhoda, those Bohemians struggle for nothing so hard as to get into society. If they are successful, the best fruit of their success is an invitation to a lady’s ‘at home,’ the unsuccessful ones would give their ears to be received in the most commonplace little drawing-room. Now you have already what they strive for so desperately. You’ll see all this plainly enough when you know a little more of the world.”

Rhoda turned away, and recommenced her pacing.

“What does your father say to it?” Mrs. Clarendon asked, after a short silence.

“Father? Oh! he shrugs his shoulders and looks puzzled. Poor father always does that, whatever the difficulty. If I ask him whether the butcher hasn’t charged us too much a pound for veal, he shrugs and looks puzzled. I believe he’d do just the same if I asked him whether to-morrow wasn’t going to be the Day of Judgment.”

Isabel raised her forefinger with a warning smile. Ada Warren laughed.

After another turn on the grass, the girl again paused before Mrs. Clarendon.

“Mr. Lacour told me the other day that he thought of going on to the stage himself. He didn’t see any harm in it.”

As she spoke, Rhoda examined the border of her hat.

“Mr. Lacour!” exclaimed Isabel. “Oh, Mr. Lacour says wonderful things, and has wonderful plans. So you confided your project to Mr. Lacour, did you?”

Isabel threw a rapid glance at Ada whilst speaking; the latter appeared busy with her book.

“No, no,” disclaimed Rhoda rapidly, “I didn’t say a word to him of my own idea. It only came out in conversation.”

Mrs. Clarendon gave a little “h’m,” and stroked the back of one hand with the fingers of the other.

“It’s a mistake, my dear Rhoda,” she said. “Like it or not, we have to consider our neighbour’s opinion, and that doesn’t yet regard the stage as a career open to gentlemen’s daughters.”

“There’s no knowing what we may come to,” remarked Ada absently.

“Then what am I to do, Mrs. Clarendon?” cried the other girl almost piteously.

“A great many things. To begin with, you have to help me to make my garden party on Monday a success. Then again–oh, you have to become acquainted with my cousin, Mr. Asquith. Here he is!”

From the covered pathway issued a tall gentleman of middle age, dressed in a cool summer suit, holding his hat in his hands. His appearance was what is called prepossessing; by his own complete ease and air of genial well-being he helped to put others in the same happy state, his self-satisfaction not being of the kind which irritates by excess. His head was covered with a fine growth of black hair, which continued itself in the form of full whiskers, and with these blended the silken grace of a moustache long enough to completely conceal the lips. His features were slightly browned by Eastern suns. His eyes, as he viewed in turn each of the three ladies, had a calm, restful gaze which could have embarrassed no one, hinting only the friendliest of inward comment.

Isabel rose and stepped forward to meet him. In the act of greeting she was, perhaps, seen to greatest advantage. The upright grace of her still perfect figure, the poise of her head, the face looking straight forward, the smile of exquisite frankness, the warmth of welcome and the natural dignity combined in her attitude as she stood with extended hand, made a picture of fair womanhood which the eye did not readily quit. It was symbolical of her inner self, of the large affections which made the air about her warm, and of the sweet receptiveness of disposition which allowed so many and so different men to see in her their ideal of a woman.

“You found the trap at the station?” she asked, and, satisfied on this point, presented him to her companions. Though Asquith had just reached England in time to see his cousin once or twice before she left London, he had still to become acquainted with Ada Warren, who did not go to town with Mrs. Clarendon, but preferred to make her visits at other times, staying with Mr. Meres and his daughters. Ada was silent during the ceremony of introduction, and did not give her hand; Rhoda showed her more expansive nature and smiled prettily in Robert’s face.

“I thought you would find it pleasant to come and sit here a little before lunch,” said Isabel, by way of leading to conversation.

But Asquith merely bent his head; he seemed all at once to have become a trifle absent, and, after letting his gaze rest on Miss Warren for a few moments, had turned his look groundwards. But the interval was very short.

“That groom of yours who drove me over,” he began, in a leisurely tone and with an appreciative smile, “is a wonderful man.”

“That’s interesting,” said Isabel. “I fear I haven’t discovered his exceptional qualities.”

“They are remarkable. His powers of observation. I make a point of conversing whenever opportunity offers. The suggestive incident was a pig crossing the road; I remarked that it was a fine pig. By a singular accident I must have hit upon the man’s specialty; he looked at me with gratitude, and forthwith gave me—you can’t imagine—the most wonderful disquisition on pigs. He spoke as if he loved them. ‘Now, a pig’s heye, sir! Did you ever happen to notice a pig’s heye, sir?’ I was afraid to say that I had. ‘There’s more in a pig’s heye, sir, than you’d find creditable,’—meaning credible, of course. ‘There’s that knowingness in a pigs heye, sir, it can’t be described in words. When it isn’t fierce,—and if it is, the fierceness of it there’s no imagining!’”

This narration, given with much quiet humour, made Mrs. Clarendon and Rhoda laugh. Ada Warren had resumed her review, or at all events had it lying open on her lap, and showed no smile. Robert watched her with his quiet eyes. In Miss Meres he seemed to have little interest, and he looked far more frequently at Ada than at Mrs. Clarendon.

“By-the-bye, some one we passed on the road,” he said presently. He had a curious habit of mentioning in this disjointed way the subject of the remark he was about to make, and, so reposeful was his habit of speech, it often seemed as if the comment would never follow. “A young man, rather good-looking, or perhaps, rather noticeable. My friend the groom told me he was a settler in these parts; a gentleman who has taken a labourer’s cottage, and lives in a more or less eccentric way. It sounded interesting. Do you know anything of him?”

“Oh yes,” said Isabel, “our rector, Mr. Vissian, knows him, and speaks of him in superlatives. His name is Kingcote.”

“But what is he doing here?—reading, rusticating? I suppose he’s taken the cottage just for the summer months?”

“Mr. Vissian says he has settled here for good—a philosopher, who is tired of town life. He comes from London. I haven’t been favoured with a glimpse of him yet, but several people have spoken of him. I think I must ask Mr. Vissian to bring him here.”

“A month or so of summer would be pleasant, spent in that way,” observed Mr. Asquith; “but to settle finally! Something morbid about him, I suppose; he looks, in fact, rather bloodless, like a man with a fixed idea. Ten to one, he’s on precisely the wrong tack; instead of wanting more of his own society, he ought to have less of it. I suppose he lives alone?”

“Quite.”

“The worst thing for any man. I shouldn’t dare to converse with myself exclusively for two consecutive days. The great, preservative of sanity is free intercourse with one’s fellow men—to see the world from all points, and to refrain from final conclusions.”

Chat of this kind went on for a few minutes, all taking part in it except Ada.

“You are fond of the country, Miss Warren,” Asquith said at length, addressing the latter directly.

“Yes, I’m fond of the country,” was the reply, given in a mechanical way, and with a cold, steady look, whilst she ruffled the edges of her review. Asquith had found it at first difficult to determine whether the peculiarity of the girl’s behaviour were due to excessive shyness or to some more specific cause; but shyness it certainly was not, her manner of speaking and of regarding him put that out of the question. Did she, then, behave in this way to every stranger, or was he for some reason personally distasteful to her; or, again, had something just happened to disturb her temper?

“Your liking for it, though, would scarcely go to the extent of leading you to take up a solitary abode in a labourers cottage?”

“I can’t say,” Ada replied slowly. “One is often ready to do anything for the sake of being left alone.”

“Ada would stipulate, however, to be supplied with the Fortnightly or the Nineteenth Century,” put in Mrs. Clarendon laughingly.

“If anything could drive me into the desert,” was Robert’s remark, “it would be the hope of never again being called upon to look at them. I shouldn’t wonder if Mr.—Mr. Kingcote, isn’t it?—has fled from civilisation for the very same reason. Probably he has cast away books, and aims at returning to the natural state of man.”

“By no means,” said Isabel. “He has brought down quite a library.”

“Alas!” exclaimed Robert, with a humorous shaking of the head, “then he is, I fear, engaged in adding to the burden which oppresses us. No wonder he hides his head; he is writing a book.”

“Perhaps he is a poet, Mrs. Clarendon,” puts in Rhoda.

“Perhaps so, Rhoda; and some day we may have pilgrims from all corners of the earth visiting the cottage he has glorified.”

“With special omnibuses from Winstoke station,” added Robert, “and a colony of licensed victuallers thriving about the sacred spot.”

“Let us be thankful,” exclaimed Isabel, “that a poet’s fame is usually deferred for a generation or two. Ha, there’s the first luncheon bell! It brings a smile to your face, Robert.”

“Did I betray myself? I confess I breakfasted early.”

The two girls walked towards the house together, their elders following more slowly.

“Isn’t Rhoda Meres a nice girl?” said Isabel, when the object of her remark was out of hearing.

“Very,” her cousin assented, though without enthusiasm. He seemed to be thinking of something else.

“The poor child has got a foolish idea into her head; she wants to go on to the stage.”

“Does she—ha? Most young people have that idea at one time or another, I believe. In default of a special audience of one, you see–”

“And she is such a good, dear girl!” pursued Isabel, when Asquith showed no sign of continuing. “Her father is a literary man, the editor of a magazine called Ropers Miscellany—do you know it? He and I are the best of old friends. Its only with the thought of helping her father, I’m sure, that Rhoda has taken up this fancy; we must drive it out of her head somehow.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” remarked Robert, more absently than before.

Isabel glanced at him, and kept silence till they reached the house.

There was nothing remarkable about the structure itself of Knightswell; the front was long and low, built of brick faced with stone, and the level entrance was anything but imposing. The main portion of the building was early eighteenth century, but in the rear there still existed a remnant of the sixteenth century manor-house which had once stood here; the ancient hall now served as kitchen, its fine stone fireplace being filled up with an incongruous modern range. The present hall was surrounded with oak panelling, which Mr. Clarendon had obtained at the dismantling of an old house in the neighbourhood; all else of the interior had become, by successive changes, completely modernised, with the exception of an elaborate chimney-piece in the drawingroom—massive marble-work resting on caryatides—always said, though without corroborative evidence, to be a production of Grinling Gibbons. The faces of the two supporters were curiously unlike each other: on the one side it was that of a youthful maiden, who smiled, and seemed to be upraising her arms in sport; the other was an aged but not unbeautiful face, wearing an expression of long-suffering sadness, worn under the burden which the striving arms sustained. In the dining-room were a few good pictures, taken with the house from the preceding occupants. For Knightswell was not the ancestral abode of Mr. Clarendon’s family; it had passed, by frequent changes, from tenant to tenant, all inglorious. Notwithstanding his historic name, Mr. Clarendon was a novus homo; his father had begun life as an obscure stockbroker, had made a great fortune, and ended his life in a comfortable dwelling in Bayswater; his daughters, there were two, married reputably, and were no more heard of.

During luncheon Asquith was still much occupied in observing Ada Warren whenever he could unobtrusively do so. The young ladies were rather silent, and even Isabel showed now and then a trace of effort in the bright flow of talk which she kept up. Between herself and her cousin, however, there was no lack of ease; a graceful intimacy had established itself on the basis of their kinship, though not exactly that kind of intimacy which bespeaks life-long association. Their talk was of the present, or of the immediate past; neither spoke of things or people whose mention would have revived the memory of years ago.

“And what are you doing with yourself?” Mrs. Clarendon inquired, when Robert had abandoned another futile attempt to draw Ada Warren into converse.

“Upon my word,” was his reply, “I hardly know. The town; I see a good deal of it, indoors and out; it still has the charm of novelty. I can’t say that time has begun to hang heavy on my hands; in truth, it seldom does.”

“Fortunate being!”

“Yes, I suppose so. I find that people have a singular capacity for being bored; I notice it more than I used to. For my own part, I generally find a good deal of enjoyment to be got out of the present moment; the enjoyment of sound health, at lowest. You know how pleasant it is to look back on past days, even though at the time they may have seemed anything but delightful. I account for that by believing that the past always had a preponderant element of pleasure, though disturbing circumstances wouldn’t allow us to perceive it. It’s always a joy to be alive, and we recognise this in looking back, when accidents arrange themselves in their true proportion.”

He glanced at Ada; the girl was smiling scornfully, her face averted to the window.

“The present being so delightful,” said Mrs. Clarendon, “what joyous pleasures have you for the immediate future?”

“Grouse on Wednesday next,” Robert replied, after helping himself to salt in a manner which suggested that he was observant of the number of grains he took. “An acquaintance who has a moor, or a portion of one, in Yorkshire, has given me an invitation. As I have never shot grouse, I shall avail myself of the opportunity to extend my experience.”

“Promise me the pick of your first bag.” There was a project for a long drive in the afternoon; the weather was bright but sufficiently cool, and Robert professed himself delighted. He had a few minutes by himself in the drawing-room when the ladies went up to make their preparations. He gave a careful scrutiny to the caryatides, smiling, as was generally the case when he regarded anything, then glanced about at the pictures and the chance volumes lying here and there; the latter were novels and light literature from Mudie’s. Then he took up a number of the Queen, and began to peruse it, sitting in the window-seat.

“What a singular choice of literature!” exclaimed Isabel, as she came in drawing on her gloves.

“The Queen? It interests me. There’s something so very concrete about such writing. I like the concrete.”

“The first time I ever heard so learned a term applied to so frivolous a publication. After all, Rhoda, there may be more in us poor creatures than we gave ourselves credit for.”

“Do tell me,” said Robert, as he laid down the paper, “what is a—I hope I may ask—what is a ‘graduated plastron’?”

“Oh, this is dreadful!” laughed Isabel. “Come along, the carriage is waiting; we’ll discuss graduated plastrons on our way.”

“Are we not to have the pleasure of Miss Warren’s company?” Robert asked, as they entered the phaeton.

“Ada never goes out with us,” was Mrs. Clarendon’s answer as she took the reins and prepared to drive.

There was no additional guest at dinner; the evening was helped along by Rhoda’s playing and singing. Her voice was good, and she had enjoyed good teaching; this at Mrs. Clarendon’s expense. It was one of many instances in which Isabel had helped her friends the Meres, her aid being given in a manner of which she alone had the secret—irresistible, warm-hearted, delicate beyond risk of offence. Ada sat in the room, but, as usual, had a book in her hands.

“You read much,” said Robert, seating himself beside her and perforce obtaining her attention.

“It is a way of getting through life,” the girl replied, rather less abruptly than she had hitherto spoken.

“That means that life is not quite so attractive to you as it might be?” he returned, under the cover of the music which had just begun.

“I doubt whether life is attractive to any one—who thinks about it.”

She had folded her hands on the pages and was leaning back in her chair. Robert examined her and came to the conclusion that she was not quite so disagreeable in countenance as the irregularity of her features at first led one to think. She had large eyes, and, to meet them, was to be strangely impressed, almost as with the attraction of beauty. Her evening dress was of black satin, a richer and more tasteful garment than he had expected she would wear, judging from her appearance earlier in the day. Her hair, too, was very carefully arranged. The foot, which just showed itself, was not small, but beautifully shaped. Ornaments she had none.

“That is censure clearly directed against myself,” Robert said, with good humour. “And yet I fancy I have thought a good deal of life.” Ada did not seem disposed to pursue the argument.

“What are you reading?” Asquith inquired. It was a volume of Comte. She showed the title without speaking.

“You are a Positivist?”

“No; merely an atheist.”

The confession was uttered in such a matter-of-fact tone that Robert was disposed to think she used the word just for the pleasure of startling him. There was, in fact, a barely perceptible glimmer in her eyes as she sat looking straight before her.

“That’s rather dogmatic, isn’t it?” he remarked, smiling. “The word Agnostic is better, I fancy.”

“I believe it comes to very much the same thing,” said Ada. “The new word has been coined principally to save respectability.”

“A motive with which you have small sympathy?”

“None whatever.”

There was a silence between them.

“You play?” Robert asked, Rhoda Meres having risen from the piano.

“Only for my own amusement.”

“Then certainly you play things which I should like to hear. Will you play me something that has a tune in it? I don’t mean to reflect upon Miss Meres’ playing; but my ear is in a rudimentary state. I should be very grateful if you would play something.”

Ada seemed to harden her face against an intruding smile. She rose, however, and walked over to the piano. Mrs. Clarendon and Rhoda looked at her with undisguised surprise. Asquith noticed that her walk might have been graceful, had she not affected a sort of indifference in gait.

She seated herself at the instrument and played an operatic air; it lasted about three minutes, then she ceased. Robert looked in expectation of her resuming her former seat, but she walked straight to the door and disappeared.

Mrs. Clarendon and Rhoda Meres exchanged glances, and for an instant there was a rather awkward silence. Isabel found a subject, and talked with her wonted vivacity.