Isabel Clarendon, Vol. II (of II)

The trial was when acquaintances of old time presented themselves to claim recognition. There were not more than half-a-dozen who did so, and two or three of these were not, in the end, unwelcome. They were worthy people of the middle-class provincial sort, full of natural curiosity, but also not lacking kindliness. Their curiosity Kingcote satisfied only in broad terms, and perhaps the fixed melancholy of his face prevented the grosser kind of inquisitiveness. He let it be known that his sister kept house for him, and that she was a widow, but it was some time before any one called to see Mary. The circumstances of her marriage were remembered, and created prejudice; there had not been wanting those who, at the time, hinted at worse things than a mere elopement, and now such points were rediscussed with the relish of a provincial appetite which has only limited diet. Still, even Mary was in the end accepted. The first lady who called upon her no doubt suppressed a hesitation for the sake of getting a glimpse of the domestic interior; one or two others justified themselves by the precedent. There followed invitations to heavy tea, and it was made known to Kingcote that he would be welcome here or there at supper. For his sisters sake he obliged himself to go wherever he was sought. He might not enjoy the conversation at these houses, but in future he must have that or none, and to keep up pretences would savour of the ludicrous. He was a shopkeeper, and likely to remain one to the end of his days. Nor did he in truth repine.

He rested. From his illness there had remained a good deal of physical weakness; it was more apparent now than it had been during the late months of the past year. He had no longer a desire to take walks, and indeed seldom left the house for such a purpose; when at leisure, he sat with a book, and it was a trouble to stir from his chair. His appearance was that of a man ten years beyond his own age; always grave, he had only to sit in silence for a quarter of an hour to fall into a dreamy state of absent-mindedness; as often as not he turned the pages of his book without knowledge of what he seemed to be reading. This was not the same thing as unhappiness; his mood was emphatically one of contentment. He interested himself in the details of his business, and was in nothing neglectful. Only it was all done without active pleasure; his life remained joyless.

“What are those lines you are repeating, Bernard?” his sister asked him one evening, when he had turned from the finished supper, to take up a magazine.

“Did I say them aloud?” he asked. Then he quoted:

For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more

Than to walk all day like the Sultan of old in a garden of spice.

“I am not far from that end,” he added then went on with his reading.

There was truth in what he said, and he would not have exchanged his state for one more active, even though it had been an activity that promised happiness. For in happiness he had no faith. It did exist on earth—in the form of sleep; all other bliss he held to be illusion. Heights to which he had once looked up with envious eyes, he did not now contemplate; if a glimpse of them arrested him, he hurriedly turned away, pained by a sudden sense of unrest. The thought of exertion was intolerable. His reading was no longer study, but mere pastime in idle pages; books which demanded thought or suggested a high and energetic ideal, he put aside. This habit of mind, at first involuntary, he was beginning to take consciously for his direction; it preserved to him an even calm, which was now the most desirable of things.

“Do not tell me of your work,” he wrote to Gabriel in London. “It will seem unfriendly that I should not wish to Hear of it, but your progress and achievements I take for granted; they are the essence of the distinction between your world and my own. When you say you have done this, and are planning that, it disturbs me, I know not how; I neither act nor plan, and hope never again to do either. Formerly, when I should gladly have heard these details, you kept them from me; pray do so now. The change in yourself which this new habit implies, I believe I understand. There is a joyful tone in all you write, formerly never to be found. You are less severe, more human. Naturally so; success is before you, and the anxious toil of your years of poverty is at an end. I, too, have ceased to fear poverty—thanks to you—but I dread the more anything that can give a shock to my placid materialism. I dread awakenings of sympathy, I dread discontent, I dread the ideal.”

Whereto Clement Gabriel took occasion to reply:

“My friend, you are in a bad way. Fortunately you are young; there is hope for you in the years that bring the philosophic mind. Allow me to suggest that your present mind contains as little of the philosophic as it well could. I will not for the present trouble you about my doings. We will talk over them when you have recovered your interest in the things which alone are worth living for.”

So the days moved on. Towards the end of the first week in June, Kingcote exhibited a slight return of restlessness; he complained, when Mary questioned him, that he could not sleep; it was nothing, it would pass. It did not, however, pass immediately. For ten days the trouble of mind or body rather grew than diminished; the old dislike of society showed itself, and at length he seemed to be shrinking from his daily occupations. Mr. Billimore, who was observant, noticed that he displayed much anxiety to take the letters from the postman, when the latter came into the shop each morning, and that an examination of the batch seemed always to occasion him some disappointment. But the trouble did in the end prove transitory. A day or two of headache, which kept him to his room, led back to the ordinary routine of life. Business received attention in the usual way, and his impassive countenance was restored....

A week later, there came to the shop a messenger from a hotel, with a note addressed to Mr. Kingcote. He was at that moment in the house; knowing he would appear speedily, Mr. Billimore laid the note on his master’s desk in the counting-house. Within a few minutes Kingcote entered, and took up the envelope carelessly. He dropped it again as if it had burnt him.

Mr. Billimore was advancing to explain by whom the note had been left. Kingcote’s face struck him as so singular, that he retired into the shop without having spoken.

Had he still power to feel this? That terrible sinking at the heart which had once been so common an experience had again come upon him. He had to sit down; his limbs would not support him. His face was hot, his mouth all at once parched; his hands shook as if they never could regain their steadiness.

When he opened the envelope, he found two lines:

“If you could come to see me here before five o’clock, I should be glad. I have a private room; ask for me by name.

“Isabel Clarendon.”

It was now two in the afternoon. Kingcote, after consulting his watch, went upstairs to his bedroom. There he paced up and down for half-an-hour. On recovering from the shock of agitation which was incompatible with thought of any kind, his first sentiment was one of anger. He had thought that the time for this was gone by; the assurance of it had been a new beginning of calm. What right had she to disturb him? As she was in the town, she doubtless knew what his position was; probably she had heard that from Mr. Vissian long ago. What inspiration save of woman’s cruelty could have led to this summons? He had forgotten her; she had gone from his life; was he never to be secure from a renewal of that intolerable anguish, anguish even physical, which she had it in her power to inflict upon him?

Nay, she had worse power than that. From the long-sealed chambers of his heart came a low cry as of reawakening life, life which would fain be free again. The sweat stood on his forehead as he crushed down the tenderness, the passion which he had thought dead. The sight of her handwriting, after so long, had given back to him the dreadful power of seeing herself, her features, her beautiful form. He flung himself by the bedside, and smothered his face; the striving of the old spirit drew groans from him.

What, what was he to her, or she to him? What conceivable circumstances could render possible the realisation of that mad dream, of which he had well-nigh died? It was imbecility to flatter himself with the fancy that she loved him; but, if he could believe it, if she proved it to him–. Had all his suffering been mere frantic jealousy? Had he misunderstood? Had time proved to her that his love was worth more than the pleasures the world could give her? Had it grown within her soul, whilst he had sunk to brutish indifference?

At first it had seemed possible to refuse to see her; would it not be fair reprisal for all that he had borne at her hands? Would it not gratify his pride to coldly tell her that he saw no good end to be gained by a personal interview? It needed another than himself to act upon such a thought. Already he was preparing to go and see her. He threw water upon his face to cool its burning. The fear now had become lest his delay in answering her summons should have led her to conclude that he would not answer it. With haste which only heightened his nervousness, he completed his preparations, and went downstairs. Fortunately he met no one; he could take his hat and leave by the house-door unobserved.

The walk to the hotel was short. On reaching the entrance he had to turn aside and go a little further on, that he might be able to use his voice and present any appearance but that of a man under stress of violent emotion. Between the door of the hotel and the private room to which he was conducted, he knew nothing but the pain which came from the throbbing at his temples and the rush of blood in his ears.

She stood at the farther end of the room, a dark object to him. She wore a summer travelling dress, but of that he could take no note; her face alone came out of the confused mist, and he saw that it was pale and agitated. There was no joy in it; that he knew at once. None of the old sweetness dwelt in her eyes and about her lips. She was austere, fear-stricken.

“You have kept me long,” were her first words, and as she spoke them her hand pressed upon her bosom. “I thought you would come at once.”

The sound of her speaking had the effect of a cold hand upon his forehead. He saw with clear vision; the throbbing at his temples allayed itself.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “Why have you sent for me?”

With perfect consciousness he made his tone as gentle as he could. His words did not seem to himself spontaneous; these were prompted to him from within, and she repeated them as if playing a part.

Isabel came nearer, and held to him the photograph he had returned her. Since sending the note, she had stood there with it in her hand; it was bent.

“Will you take it back again?” she asked. He saw her throat swell; she seemed to swallow something before she spoke.

He did not move to take it.

“You wish,” he replied, “to be a shopkeeper’s wife?”

With no smile he said it; yet it cost him an effort. Again it was the repetition of prompted words.

“I thought you had perhaps heard,” Isabel said, letting her hand fall again, and speaking quickly, still with that swelling of the throat. “Ada refuses to take what is hers by law. She has given it back to me.”

Kingcote’s eyes held themselves fixed upon her face. The silence seemed to be long; he was conscious of prolonging it purposely. He saw her put her hand upon the table and lean heavily on it.

“Will you answer me?” she uttered in an agitated whisper.

“Surely it is needless to answer in words,” he said at length. “Why have you come to offer me that which you know I cannot accept?”

The evil spirit stirred in his breast, and, with scarcely a pause, he continued vehemently:

“Why did you not spare both of us this? Do you think so basely of me? Cannot I read in your face that you believed it to be your duty to make this offer to me, at whatever cost to yourself? You are conscious that your unkindness drove me to part from you in frenzy, and what has happened seemed to impose a necessity of restoring to me a piece of good fortune which I had thrown away. And you have feared lest I should take you at your word! If you had ever loved me you would know me better.”

Her head bowed itself before his violence; he could scarcely catch the words when she said:

“I did love you.”

“For a day—for an hour; I believe it. You gave me your love in recklessness. It was a fatal gift.”

“I think you should not reproach me,” she said, in the same faint voice. “I gave you the one love of my life. I would have married you then. It would have been truer kindness to take me—to have given me something to live for. My love would not have failed you.”

For an instant he could have implored what fate had written unattainable. He knew the unreality of the vision that tempted him, and could not have uttered the words his tongue half-formed. But the mood showed itself in gentler speech.

“I have no right to speak so harshly. The last words we shall ever say to each other must not be unkind. If I did not still love you it would be easier to speak smooth things.”

Her tears were falling.

“If you still love me,” she said brokenly, “it is your right to take me, whatever seems to hinder.” She held forth her hands, but without looking up. “Your voice is the highest leading that I know. Oh, are you not strong enough? Can you not bend me to your will?”

A sob stayed her, but there came another cry:

“If I were young!”

Kingcote quivered, then fell to his knees, holding the hands she had outstretched.

“Say good-bye to me in the kind voice I once knew!” He spoke in hoarse, choked accents. “Say it kindly, that it may be a sacred memory whilst I live, and a hope in death!”

She did utter the word, but in such a passion of weeping that it fell upon his ears like a moan. Then he kissed both her hands, and broke away....

“The tragedy,” Kingcote had once said, “is not where two who love each other die for the sake of their love; but where love itself dies, blown upon by the cold breath of the world, and those who loved live on with hearts made sepulchres.”…

Here is a letter which came to Kingcote from Mr. Vissian some six months later:

“Methinks, my friend, I have grounds of complaint against you. Though I have submitted to your judgment three conjectural emendations which, in my poor thinking, do not lack propriety, you fail even to acknowledge the receipt of them. I trust this does not signify any incapacity to write; for you are of those whom I would rather challenge for unkindness than pity for mischance. I should—taking the more probable view of the case—scarcely have written again thus soon, but that I have sundry items of news to communicate, one of which concerns me nearly. Learn, then, that at the end of the year I surrender my present living, on the ground that another and a better has been offered me. When I say ‘better,’ I mean in the worldly sense; that, I fear, my usual way of speaking will have made you too ready to take for granted. I shall in future be nearer to you by a matter of fifty miles, my new parish being that of S–.

“There will be a necessity for keeping a curate, as the work is much more considerable than what has here been my share. It is in no spirit of levity that I express my hope of being able to adapt my energies to the larger sphere. It is possible that I have occasionally been remiss, owing to the manifold temptations of pursuits which my graver judgment often condemns as incompatible with my duties.

“I should hardly have consented to leave Winstoke were it not for an event which has weakened the tie which bound me to the spot. I refer to the final departure from Knightswell of that gracious lady whom I have so long regarded with affectionate reverence, and whom my wife truly loves. Mrs. Clarendon is Mrs. Clarendon no longer; she has just married a wealthy and, I doubt not, worthy gentleman, her cousin Mr. Asquith, who takes her to live in another part of England. Knightswell is to be sold. The marriage was celebrated privately in London. I am glad I was not asked to officiate; it would have been painful to me. The old name has come to mean so much in my ears; I should but grudgingly have aided in its casting off.

“Now here be news. Moreover, I have it in charge from Mrs. Vissian to say unto you, that, as a final test of your good will to us, we invite you to visit us in our new home not later than the end of January. That you can come, I am convinced, and in very truth we want to see you.

“I must not forget to add that I have just received from Miss Warren a weekly paper containing a poem by herself, and, it seems to me, one of striking merit. After the unprecedented act of generosity which this young lady has performed, I am disposed to regard everything she writes as the outcome of a very noble nature, and to study it in a serious spirit. I am very anxious to know her better, personally, for I have always grievously misjudged her. I do not think she will refuse to come and spend a few days with us in the spring. Would it not be agreeable to you to renew your acquaintance with her at some time?”