Carlton Terrace
Three days after this it was arranged that Isabel should be taken to
Carlton Terrace to be accepted there into the full good graces of
her future father-in-law, and to go through the pleasant ceremony
of seeing the house in which it was to be her destiny to live as
mistress. What can be more interesting to a girl than this first
visit to her future home? And now Isabel Boncassen was to make her
first visit to the house in Carlton Terrace, which the Duke had
already declared his purpose of surrendering to the young couple. She
was going among very grand things,--so grand that those whose affairs
in life are less magnificent may think that her mind should have
soared altogether above chairs and tables, and reposed itself among
diamonds, gold and silver ornaments, rich necklaces, the old masters,
and alabaster statuary. But Dukes and Duchesses must sit upon
chairs,--or at any rate on sofas,--as well as their poorer brethren,
and probably have the same regard for their comfort. Isabel was not
above her future furniture, or the rooms that were to be her rooms,
or the stairs which she would have to tread, or the pillow on which
her head must rest. She had never yet seen even the outside of the
house in which she was to live, and was now prepared to make her
visit with as much enthusiasm as though her future abode was to be
prepared for her in a small house in a small street beyond Islington.
But the Duke was no doubt more than the house, the father-in-law
more than the tables. Isabel, in the ordinary way of society, he had
already known almost with intimacy. She, the while, had been well
aware that if all things could possibly be made to run smoothly with
her, this lordly host, who was so pleasantly courteous to her, would
become her father-in-law. But she had known also that he, in his
courtesy, had been altogether unaware of any such intention on her
part, and that she would now present herself to him in an aspect very
different from that in which she had hitherto been regarded. She
was well aware that the Duke had not wished to take her into his
family,--would not himself have chosen her for his son's wife. She
had seen enough to make her sure that he had even chosen another
bride for his heir. She had been too clever not to perceive that Lady
Mabel Grex had been not only selected,--but almost accepted as though
the thing had been certain. She had learned nearly the whole truth
from Silverbridge, who was not good at keeping a secret from one to
whom his heart was open. That story had been all but read by her with
exactness. "I cannot lose you now," she had said to him, leaning on
his arm;--"I cannot afford to lose you now. But I fear that someone
else is losing you." To this he answered nothing, but simply pressed
her closer to his side. "Someone else," she continued, "who perhaps
may have reason to think that you have injured her." "No," he said
boldly; "no; there is no such person." For he had never ceased to
assure himself that in all that matter with Mabel Grex he had been
guilty of no treachery. There had been a moment, indeed, in which she
might have taken him; but she had chosen to let it pass from her. All
of which, or nearly all of which,--Isabel now saw, and had seen also
that the Duke had been a consenting party to that other arrangement.
She had reason therefore to doubt the manner of her acceptance.
But she had been accepted. She had made such acceptance by him a
stipulation in her acceptance of his son. She was sure of the ground
on which she trod and was determined to carry herself, if not with
pride, yet with dignity. There might be difficulties before her,
but it should not be her fault if she were not as good a Countess,
and,--when time would have it so,--as good a Duchess as another.
The visit was made not quite in the fashion in which Silverbridge
himself had wished. His idea had been to call for Isabel in his cab
and take her down to Carlton Terrace. "Mother must go with me,"
she had said. Then he looked blank,--as he could look when he was
disappointed, as he had looked when she would not talk to him at the
lunch, when she told him that it was not her business to entertain
him. "Don't be selfish," she added, laughing. "Do you think that
mother will not want to have seen the house that I am to live in?"
"She shall come afterwards as often as she likes."
"What,--paying me morning visits from New York! She must come now, if
you please. Love me, love my mother."
"I am awfully fond of her," said Silverbridge, who felt that he
really had behaved well to the old lady.
"So am I,--and therefore she shall go and see the house now. You are
as good as gold,--and do everything just as I tell you. But a good
time is coming, when I shall have to do everything that you tell me."
Then it was arranged that Mrs. and Miss Boncassen were to be taken
down to the house in their own carriage, and were to be received at
the door by Lord Silverbridge.
Another arrangement had also been made. Isabel was to be taken to the
Duke immediately upon her arrival and to be left for awhile with him,
alone, so that he might express himself as he might find fit to do to
this newly-adopted child. It was a matter to him of such importance
that nothing remaining to him in his life could equal it. It was not
simply that she was to be the wife of his son,--though that in itself
was a consideration very sacred. Had it been Gerald who was bringing
to him a bride, the occasion would have had less of awe. But this
girl, this American girl, was to be the mother and grandmother of
future Dukes of Omnium,--the ancestress, it was to be hoped, of all
future Dukes of Omnium! By what she might be, by what she might have
in her of mental fibre, of high or low quality, of true or untrue
womanliness, were to be fashioned those who in days to come might be
amongst the strongest and most faithful bulwarks of the constitution.
An England without a Duke of Omnium,--or at any rate without any
Duke,--what would it be? And yet he knew that with bad Dukes his
country would be in worse stress than though she had none at all.
An aristocracy;--yes; but an aristocracy that shall be of the very
best! He believed himself thoroughly in his order; but if his order,
or many of his order, should become as was now Lord Grex, then, he
thought, that his order not only must go to the wall but that, in the
cause of humanity, it had better do so. With all this daily, hourly,
always in his mind, this matter of the choice of a wife for his heir
was to him of solemn importance.
When they arrived Silverbridge was there and led them first of all
into the dining-room. "My!" said Mrs. Boncassen, as she looked around
her. "I thought that our Fifth Avenue parlours whipped everything in
the way of city houses."
"What a nice little room for Darby and Joan to sit down to eat a
mutton-chop in," said Isabel.
"It's a beastly great barrack," said Silverbridge;--"but the best of
it is that we never use it. We'll have a cosy little place for Darby
and Joan;--you'll see. Now come to the governor. I've got to leave
you with him."
"Oh me! I am in such a fright."
"He can't eat you," said Mrs. Boncassen.
"And he won't even bite," said Silverbridge.
"I should not mind that because I could bite again. But if he looks
as though he thought I shouldn't do, I shall drop."
"My belief is that he's almost as much in love with you as I am,"
said Silverbridge, as he took her to the door of the Duke's room.
"Here we are, sir."
"My dear," said the Duke, rising up and coming to her, "I am very
glad to see you. It is good of you to come to me." Then he took her
in both his hands and kissed her forehead and her lips. She, as she
put her face up to him, stood quite still in his embrace, but her
eyes were bright with pleasure.
"Shall I leave her?" said Silverbridge.
"For a few minutes."
"Don't keep her too long, for I want to take her all over the house."
"A few minutes,--and then I will bring her up to the drawing-room."
Upon this the door was closed, and Isabel was alone with her new
father. "And so, my dear, you are to be my child."
"If you will have me."
"Come here and sit down by me. Your father has already told you
that;--has he not?"
"He has told me that you had consented."
"And Silverbridge has said as much?"
"I would sooner hear it from you than from either of them."
"Then hear it from me. You shall be my child. And if you will love me
you shall be very dear to me. You shall be my own child,--as dear as
my own. I must either love his wife very dearly, or else I must be an
unhappy man. And she must love me dearly, or I must be unhappy."
"I will love you," she said, pressing his hand.
"And now let me say some few words to you, only let there be no
bitterness in them to your young heart. When I say that I take you to
my heart, you may be sure that I do so thoroughly. You shall be as
dear to me and as near as though you had been all English."
"Shall I?"
"There shall no difference be made. My boy's wife shall be my
daughter in very deed. But I had not wished it to be so."
"I knew that;--but could I have given him up?"
"He at any rate could not give you up. There were little
prejudices;--you can understand that."
"Oh yes."
"We who wear black coats could not bring ourselves readily to put on
scarlet garments; nor should we sit comfortably with our legs crossed
like Turks."
"I am your scarlet coat and your cross-legged Turk," she said, with
feigned self-reproach in her voice, but with a sparkle of mirth in
her eye.
"But when I have once got into my scarlet coat I can be very proud
of it, and when I am once seated in my divan I shall find it of all
postures the easiest. Do you understand me?"
"I think so."
"Not a shade of any prejudice shall be left to darken my mind. There
shall be no feeling but that you are in truth his chosen wife. After
all neither can country, nor race, nor rank, nor wealth, make a good
woman. Education can do much. But nature must have done much also."
"Do not expect too much of me."
"I will so expect that all shall be taken for the best. You know, I
think, that I have liked you since I first saw you."
"I know that you have always been good to me."
"I have liked you from the first. That you are lovely perhaps
is no merit; though, to speak the truth, I am well pleased that
Silverbridge should have found so much beauty."
"That is all a matter of taste, I suppose," she said, laughing.
"But there is much that a young woman may do for herself which I
think you have done. A silly girl, though she had been a second
Helen, would hardly have satisfied me."
"Or perhaps him," said Isabel.
"Or him; and it is in that feeling that I find my chief
satisfaction,--that he should have had the sense to have liked such a
one as you better than others. Now I have said it. As not being one
of us I did at first object to his choice. As being what you are
yourself, I am altogether reconciled to it. Do not keep him long
waiting."
"I do not think he likes to be kept waiting for anything."
"I dare say not. I dare say not. And now there is one thing else."
Then the Duke unlocked a little drawer that was close to his hand,
and taking out a ring put it on her finger. It was a bar of diamonds,
perhaps a dozen of them, fixed in a little circlet of gold. "This
must never leave you," he said.
"It never shall,--having come from you."
"It was the first present that I gave to my wife, and it is the first
that I give to you. You may imagine how sacred it is to me. On no
other hand could it be worn without something which to me would be
akin to sacrilege. Now I must not keep you longer or Silverbridge
will be storming about the house. He of course will tell me when it
is to be; but do not you keep him long waiting." Then he kissed her
and led her up into the drawing-room. When he had spoken a word of
greeting to Mrs. Boncassen, he left them to their own devices.
After that they spent the best part of an hour in going over
the house; but even that was done in a manner unsatisfactory to
Silverbridge. Wherever Isabel went, there Mrs. Boncassen went also.
There might have been some fun in showing even the back kitchens to
his bride-elect, by herself;--but there was none in wandering about
those vast underground regions with a stout lady who was really
interested with the cooking apparatus and the wash-houses. The
bedrooms one after another became tedious to him when Mrs. Boncassen
would make communications respecting each of them to her daughter.
"That is Gerald's room," said Silverbridge. "You have never seen
Gerald. He is such a brick." Mrs. Boncassen was charmed with the
whips and sticks and boxing-gloves in Gerald's room, and expressed
an opinion that young men in the States mostly carried their
knick-knacks about with them to the Universities. When she was told
that he had another collection of "knick-knacks" at Matching, and
another at Oxford, she thought that he was a very extravagant young
man. Isabel, who had heard all about the gambling in Scotland, looked
round at her lover and smiled.
"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Boncassen, as they took their leave, "it
is a very grand house, and I hope with all my heart you may have
your health there and be happy. But I don't know that you'll be any
happier because it's so big."
"Wait till you see Gatherum," said Silverbridge. "That, I own, does
make me unhappy. It has been calculated that three months at Gatherum
Castle would drive a philosopher mad."
In all this there had been a certain amount of disappointment for
Silverbridge; but on that evening, before dinner in Brook Street, he
received compensation. As the day was one somewhat peculiar in its
nature he decided that it should be kept altogether as a holiday, and
he did not therefore go down to the House. And not going to the House
of course he spent the time with the Boncassens. "You know you ought
to go," Isabel said to him when they found themselves alone together
in the back drawing-room.
"Of course I ought."
"Then go. Do you think I would keep a Briton from his duties?"
"Not though the constitution should fall in ruins. Do you suppose
that a man wants no rest after inspecting all the pots and pans in
that establishment? A woman, I believe, could go on doing that kind
of thing all day long."
"You should remember at least that the--woman was interesting herself
about your pots and pans."
"And now, Bella, tell me what the governor said to you." Then she
showed him the ring. "Did he give you that?" She nodded her head in
assent. "I did not think he would ever have parted with that."
"It was your mother's."
"She wore it always. I almost think that I never saw her hand without
it. He would not have given you that unless he had meant to be very
good to you."
"He was very good to me. Silverbridge, I have a great deal to do, to
learn to be your wife."
"I'll teach you."
"Yes; you'll teach me. But will you teach me right? There is
something almost awful in your father's serious dignity and solemn
appreciation of the responsibilities of his position. Will you ever
come to that?"
"I shall never be a great man as he is."
"It seems to me that life to him is a load;--which he does not object
to carry, but which he knows must be carried with a great struggle."
"I suppose it ought to be so with everyone."
"Yes," she said, "but the higher you put your foot on the ladder the
more constant should be your thought that your stepping requires
care. I fear that I am climbing too high."
"You can't come down now, my young woman."
"I have to go on now,--and do it as best I can. I will try to do my
best. I will try to do my best. I told him so, and now I tell you so.
I will try to do my best."
"Perhaps after all I am only a 'pert poppet'," she said half an hour
afterwards, for Silverbridge had told her of that terrible mistake
made by poor Dolly Longstaff.
"Brute!" he exclaimed.
"Not at all. And when we are settled down in the real Darby-and-Joan
way I shall hope to see Mr. Longstaff very often. I daresay he won't
call me a pert poppet, and I shall not remind him of the word. But
I shall always think of it; and remembering the way in which my
character struck an educated Englishman,--who was not altogether
ill-disposed towards me,--I may hope to improve myself."