When Isabel Maddison married Mr. Clarendon she was generally esteemed,
among such as had any interest in the matter, a highly fortunate young
woman. Handsome, penniless, but nineteen years old, at a step she had
achieved social apotheosis. Six months prior to the event Isabel had
been on the point of accepting an engagement as a governess at a salary
of twenty-six pounds a year. By agreeing to the alternative proposal she
became wife of a county member, mistress of a mansion in Mayfair and of
a delightful estate in ------shire, presumptive possessor, before many
years should have passed, of a fortune solidly correspondent with such
show of dignity. Whatever might be the drawbacks, there was much to be
said for the bargain.
The event was not as entirely romantic as it might have been; she was
not positively discovered with ink-stained fingers among schoolgirls’
copy-books, and carried off by a masterful passion to grace a London
season. The kindly interposition of a certain Lady Kent, an old friend
of her mother’s, bridged the gulf between social impossibility and that
respectable limbo where every aspiration is sanctioned and a dutiful
waiting upon Providence is taught to ally itself with the graces of
self-assertion. Isabel was the daughter of a country solicitor, who,
dying before middle age, left a widow and two children, a freehold worth
about thirty-five pounds a year, and a policy of life insurance for two
thousand pounds. Mrs. Maddison thus found herself not particularly well
provided for, and, but for the assistance of a brother who farmed some
three hundred acres in the same county, would have been at a loss how to
educate her boy of ten and bring up (we do not speak of education in the
case of girls) her little Bella of seven. With all the aid that others
were able or disposed to render, the first years of widowhood saw a good
deal of pinching and struggling in the home, which had to be kept on a
footing of gentility with firm resistance of that terrible temptation,
encroachment upon capital. The boy Richard eventually went to learn
farming with his uncle, and, at the latter’s death, being then nearly
twenty, made use of a legacy of a hundred pounds to transport himself to
Australia, where he flourished among sheep. Isabel was then seventeen.
Her mother also received a small legacy at the uncle’s decease, and it
was decided to use this in “finishing off” Isabel, that is to say, in
giving her a year or so of that kind of training which would enable her
to earn her living as a governess.
Already there was an alternative. The gentleman who had succeeded to Mr.
Maddison’s practice, or rather, who had managed to establish one where
only a shadow had existed, had kept an eye on Isabel through these
past ten years, and, now that the girl was to be sent away from home,
astonished both her and her mother by a proposal of marriage. He was a
young Irishman, blessed with much self-confidence, and holding it for a
certainty that he was destined to become Attorney-General. When Isabel
reported the proposal to her mother she could scarcely speak for
laughter. Mrs. Maddison was grave, and wanted time to think. But Isabel
looked in the mirror over the mantelpiece, laughed yet more, and there
was an end of the matter.
She went away to school, and remained there for a year and a half. Then
it was that Lady Kent, now for two years a widow, her husband having
died after a weary invalid vegetation at German baths, came to pay
visits in her native county, and renewed a long-interrupted friendship
with Mrs. Maddison. The two had been neighbours as children, had married
about the same time--the one her luckless solicitor, the other a baronet
who promised to live a year and lingered nearly twenty--and now, in
spite of social differences, found that they still had a kindness
for each other. Isabel was at home, advertising and answering
advertisements. The first glance at this young lady satisfied Lady Kent
that the projects in hand were not promising.
“I doubt whether any one will have her,” she said to Mrs. Maddison. “I’m
sure I wouldn’t.”
The poor lady looked up in astonishment at so unkind a speech.
“My dear,” explained the woman of the world, “she is far too
good-looking, has too much blood, doesn’t at all belong to the governess
breed. I would say, don’t let her be thrown away, if I were not sure
better things were in store for her.”
What these better things might be it was not difficult to imagine; but
the chance of their attainment seemed so remote that Mrs. Maddison was
half disposed to resent such remarks as gratuitous cruelty. Lady Kent
went away and reflected. She paid another visit in a day or two, and
brought forth a startling proposal.
“I have no children of my own,” she said, “and I shan’t marry again--had
enough of it. Let me take Bella to London and give her a season.”
“But how will that----”
“Never mind; let us trust in Providence. She’ll be none the worse, in
any case. Depend upon it, she won’t be a governess; and for looking
about one London is the only place.”
Mrs. Maddison shook her head. Her troubles were increased by the arrival
just then of that offer of a place at six-and-twenty pounds. Isabel knew
nothing of Lady Kent’s proposal, and was willing to go away; but the
mother’s heart had been set in commotion by her friend’s talk. There
were days of miserable uncertainty, and ultimately Isabel herself was
taken into consultation. Lady Kent, who was greatly struck with the
girl, and foresaw congenial excitement in a plan which her native
kindness made agreeable, repeated her proposal in serious form. Isabel
(so she spoke in private to Mrs. Maddison) was made to shine in society.
She had just been “finished off” with the ordinary accomplishments, and
if she now “came out” there was much probability of her attracting a
suitable husband. She should not incur the least danger, that Lady Kent
would guarantee. What was the use of beauty to a poor girl if not to get
her an establishment in life? There was no disgrace in standing up and
proclaiming oneself to be disposed of; the folly and the danger would
lie in trying to keep out of sight. Whether was it better, to be pursued
by rascals as a beautiful governess, or to meet face to face with honest
men who would be likely to fall in love with beauty for its own sake, or
at all events be willing to purchase it respectably? In this way was
the mother talked into compliance. Isabel herself had only to subdue her
exultation. With the beginning of the season she and Lady Kent opened
the campaign together.
The details are not of importance. The seat of war is a familiar region
to my readers, and the engagements reported year after year so closely
resemble each other that they have become by this time rather tedious in
the chronicling. Lady Kent’s prophecy was fulfilled. Isabel had at least
three possible offers, and she selected that of Mr. Eustace Clarendon.
For this gentleman’s qualifications see above.
For the girl was charming; not beautiful as yet, that was to come later;
but so blest with sweetness of virginal feature, so radiant with the joy
of maiden health, so abundant in graceful and dainty instincts, with so
rapturous a smile, with a laugh which came so direct from the source
of nature’s music, that her presence smote upon the heart like very
sunshine. It mattered not where or when she was discovered, her grace
was perfect. In a week she had all the pretty artificialities of the
town in complete possession; one would have thought she had been born
and bred in the atmosphere of refined insincerity. When she appeared
on the Row, who would have thought that she had learned her riding on
a saddleless colt at her uncle’s farm? When she laughingly consented to
play to a few friends, it certainly did not suggest itself that she had
toiled at the instrument in order to teach children for six-and-twenty
pounds a year. She was, as Lady Kent had seen, born for society; it was
her element; it brought out all that was best and loveliest in her; it
made her a complete being. Society could not give her more than it was
in her to produce; but on the other hand, it planted not one seed of
alien evil. Pure-minded she left her home, and, without a shadow on the
purity of her thought, she entered the home of the man who had won
so priceless a treasure. Throughout her life it was to be the same.
Suffering what was in her to suffer, growing in self-knowledge, growing
in tenderness of soul and in outward perfection, always a queen of
society, always making her food of the best that mere society had to
offer, Isabel Clarendon was but Isabel Maddison ripened and subdued in
maturity of charm. Not the greatest and highest among women; falling
short of much that marks the noblest woman-soul; failing in force,
failing in courage, with eyes too level on the surface of this world,
but woman womanly in every fraction of her being, and, as such, infinite
in suggestiveness, infinite in lovableness.
Of the two offers which Isabel declined, only one concerns us. One
evening early in the season she was taken down to dinner by a gentleman
named Asquith. They were introduced to each other just as the movement
from the drawing-room began, and the mention of their respective names
brought a look of surprise to either face.
“Have I not,” asked Mr. Asquith, “the honour and pleasure of being
related to you? Are we not cousins in some degree or other?”
“I really believe we are,” Isabel replied, with her irresistible smile.
“At least, I suppose you belong to the family of which I have heard.”
“And assuredly I hope that you belong to the family of which _I_ have
heard,” said the young man, whose arm trembled sensibly as she put her
hand upon it.
Question and answer brought about a satisfactory establishment of
identity, and the pleasure which Isabel experienced, without attempt
at concealment, in having found a kinsman who belonged of right to the
fashionable world, was anything but disagreeable to the kinsman himself.
The Asquiths were connections of Mr. Maddison, but the family had been
in Canada for many years, and since their return of late to England, had
not come in contact with the widow and her children. Robert Asquith
was three-and-twenty, without any definite occupation, save that he
was nominally reading for the Bar, and possessed of an income of
five hundred a year, which was not likely to grow to anything more
respectable until he should perchance inherit from his father--a hale
man with a number of daughters to look after. Very likely Isabel was
just a little to blame for what ensued. Glad of having found a relation,
she perhaps laid upon the frail tie of consanguinity rather more stress
than it could be reasonably expected to bear, allowed, perhaps, rather
too much of cousinly intimacy to forthwith establish itself, and, in
pure innocence, gave Robert Asquith too much reason to believe that his
society was agreeable to her for its own sake. She was never a coquette;
but a man had to be as free-thoughted and sunny-tempered as herself
to endure the halcyon weather of her intimate friendliness and not be
tempted to change a smile for a sigh. Robert was specially exposed to
such temptation, for he had rather more than average self-esteem, knew
himself to be goodlooking, and, despite his tatterdemalion five hundred
a year, for the most part bore the attitude of a man who is looking
deliberately about him to throw his handkerchief to the fairest and
best, sure of its being eagerly stooped for. Of course he was conscious
of an understanding that the fairest and best would, in the nature of
things, have a gold pedestal for her loveliness, and, of all young men,
he seemed the last to forget this essential element of womanly charm.
There was a breezy coolness about him, a leisureliness of temperament
manifesting itself for instance in perfection of toilette, a touch of
ironical humour in his mode of speech, which from the first gave to
Isabel a sense of safety in accepting his attentions. Lady Kent, of
course, discovered at once the details of Mr. Asquith’s position, and,
in her lightly suggestive way, imparted the information to Isabel. But
the latter smiled at the thought of Robert’s seeking such a wife; she
felt she understood him better than that. As it happened, she did not.
Possibly she failed by miscalculation of her own witchery. However it
came about, there, at length, was Robert Asquith at her feet, offering
her, with a modesty she had not given him credit for, the devotion of
his life. With a surprised shake of the head she reminded him that she
had not a farthing. The usual tone of their conversation warranted a
little levity on her part at this juncture. Behold! he knew it, and
cared not. If his own income seemed paltry (alas! it was), would she
not wait and let him seek a position? In brief, could she not love him a
little, and try to love him more? for indeed his love for her was----
Foolish Robert Asquith! Love cometh not by endeavour; and, as for
Isabel, how could she wait? Had it so pleased the Fates that she _could_
have loved him, had there but fallen upon these maiden years a spark of
that heaven’s fire, so that calculation of income and other degradations
might all at once have become as naught, to what heights of glorified
womanhood might not this soul have risen, and what blessedness like unto
his who should have held her in his sovereign hands?
Robert saw her no more. He was in London still at the date of
her marriage, but shortly after that he had obtained a Government
appointment in Turkey, and the ship bore him to Eastern lands. He was
then three-and-twenty. Five years later news of her widowhood reached
him in Constantinople, and he exchanged with her one or two cousinly
letters. There was an interval, and correspondence renewed itself, this
time begun by Isabel. But Robert began to travel; he wrote from India,
Japan, California; then he was back in Constantinople. His father died,
and Robert was wealthy; he came to England for a month, spent an
hour with his cousin, returned to Turkey, still holding a Government
appointment. Now at length he had returned to England for good, and was
looking about for a settlement. He was forty.
So Isabel married Mr. Eustace Clarendon, M.P. At nine-and-forty he was
held to be a handsome man, though in all probability he had been an ugly
one twenty years before. His good looks consisted, if in anything, in a
clean precision of nose and jaw, allying itself with the gray clearness
of a cold eye and the display of a very satisfactory set of teeth. His
hair was very scant, but he just escaped the charge of baldness; he had
thin whiskers, high up on each cheek. His manners were a trifle frigid,
and his eyes wandered absently as he talked with you, but it was said
that he could make himself excessively agreeable when he pleased.
Probably he did so to Isabel. He was much addicted to politics, and had
all his life nourished political ambition; his failure to reach anything
was perhaps responsible for a certain sourness of visage, a certain
cynicism of tone, at times. Still, he impressed the ordinary observer
as a man of parts; he had a way of uttering sententious truisms which
imposed upon the average listener, and drew fine distinctions between
Liberalism (which he represented) and Radicalism (which he shuddered
at), calculated to make one reflect--on politics. He lived much at
clubs, and, though he had purchased the fine estate of Knightswell,
cared nothing for country pursuits.
They were married, and lived together for five years. Outwardly there
was nothing whatever to suggest that they were not as happy as married
people ordinarily are. They had no children, and Mr. Clarendon was
said to be vexed at this, but such little vexations a wise man
philosophically endures. And Mr. Clarendon laid claim to a certain kind
of philosophy. In these latter years of his life his cynicisms of speech
became rather more pronounced, but they were of a kind which with most
people earned him credit for superiority. One favourite phrase he had
which came to his lips whenever he happened to be talking of his worldly
affairs; it was: “_Après moi le déluge_.” He seemed to mean something
special by this.
Isabel grew to hate the sound of those words, as if they had been a
formula of diabolical incantation.
At first she had life all her own way. They went on to the Continent,
where her young mind grew, then came back to spend the winter at
Knightswell. The house was kept incessantly full of guests, and Isabel
shone. Mr. Clarendon never rode to hounds, but for his wife’s sake
hunters were bought, and Isabel proved herself the most splendid
horsewoman in the field; that bareback riding at her uncle’s farm had
been of service to her. She entered into the joy of hunting with almost
reckless abandonment; she risked leaps which made men stare, and was in
at the death with a face and figure which took away one’s breath. Mr.
Clarendon stayed at home these days, and was in the doorway to receive
her when she returned. They were not seen to greet each other.
Then Mr. Clarendon fell ill of the disease which was to kill him. It was
horribly painful, necessitating hideous operations, renewed again and
again; an illness lasting for three years. He went to London, and Isabel
began her work of tending him. To move about his bedroom, with that
clear, cold, gray eye of his following her wherever she went, was a
ghastly trial, but she bore it. Society was renounced; only occasionally
she went to see intimate friends. One day her maid, a woman who loved
her, begged leave to tell her something--something of which she was not
sure that she ought to speak.
“Whenever you leave the house, ma’am,” she said, “a man follows
you--follows you everywhere, and back home again.”
“Why, what man?”
“A man, ma’am, who--who has been to see master several times,” said the
servant, with apprehension.
“You mean--a paid man? A man employed for this?”
It was enough. Isabel went out no more. A friend or two came to see her,
but at length she was deserted. Her mother died, and she could not even
attend the funeral. Then Mr. Clarendon was removed to Knightswell, where
she tended him for yet another year. At length he died after an agony of
twelve hours. His last words were: “_Après moi le déluge_.”
It was said that he had left an extraordinary will; those who cared to
do so discovered the details, and talked them over with much enjoyment
of the sensation. Outwardly, Isabel’s life soon returned to its former
joyousness. In the season in London (though not in the former house;
she took rooms each year for three months), the rest of the year at
Knightswell, she pursued her social triumphs; people held that she
was more charming than ever. One curious change there was in her
circumstances. Immediately after her husband’s death she took to live
with her a little girl of seven, a very plain and unattractive child,
whose name was Ada Warren. She seemed to have made of her an adoptive
daughter. Those who knew Mr. Clarendon’s will understood the child’s
presence in the house. Mrs. Clarendon never directly spoke of her.
And so twelve years of widowhood went by, and time brought the Midsummer
Day which found Bernard Kingcote rambling between Salcot East and
Winstoke. Mrs. Clarendon’s age was now thirty-six.