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.
He had his letter on Tuesday morning.
Feeling the envelope, he anticipated what he should find on opening it.
There was Isabel’s portrait, a beautiful vignette photograph; it had
been taken when she was last in London. Referring to it, she said:
“Look at it, and let it look at you, daily. And, if ever you _wish_ to
tell me that all is at an end between us, only send me the portrait back
again.”