Isabel Clarendon, Vol. II (of II)

“A better right? That you know they have not, Bernard. But—I cannot–”

“They represent the world that is between you and me,” he said, moving away. “You cannot leave them—no, it is impossible. Think how strange it sounds. It would be as easy for you to do anything that is most disgraceful in the world’s eyes, as to leave those friends to themselves for my sake. I am not speaking harshly; I mean that it is in truth so, and it shows us how amazingly we are creatures of conventional habit.”

It was doubtful whether Isabel understood his meaning, her point of view was so different.

A thought which strikes one into speechless astonishment will leave another quite unmoved. It is a question of degree of culture—also of degree of emotion.

“Dear, if you had forewarned me of your coming. Don’t speak unkindly to me!”

“Rather I would never speak again. Go, and all blessings go with you! You have helped me to my calmer self. But, Isabel–”

“Bernard?”

“Are there often these friends about you?” he asked sadly.

“No, not often. I have told you how often I am by myself. And now, I must! Stay; do not leave the room when I do. Sit at the desk there and write me a letter. The drawer below is open; close the envelope, and put it in there; I will look for it. And you have not even breakfasted?”

“Oh, I will go to the ‘Coach and Horses.’ But no; I’m afraid of meeting Mr. Vissian somewhere. I will leave the park by the opposite road, and find some inn. Now I am well again. Good-bye, sweet!”

“Only a month, and I shall be in London!” She hurried away. The ladies were waiting for her. The servant stood by the door with wraps.

“Isn’t it too bad to keep you all like this? I give you leave to scold me all the way. Why didn’t you get in? Lily, you know what you were saying about unpunctual people; take me for your text next time.”

They passed out before her, and she said to the servant:

“Mr. Kingcote is writing in the library. Take him at once some biscuits and wine.”

They drove off, and Isabel was gay as the sunshine....

With her the month passed quickly enough. Through her solicitor she always obtained suitable rooms for the season, this time they were found in the neighbourhood of Portman Square. For some reason or other she did not to the end apprise Kingcote of the exact day on which she would be in town; after reaching her abode she let two days pass before summoning him to her. But this did not mean coldness, only—shopping. A host of things had as usual to be bought; the rooms had to be adorned in various ways; infinite—oh, infinite calls had to be made, or cards to be left. And one of the first houses she went to was that humble one in Chelsea. In her friendships Isabel was golden.

She went in the evening, that all might be at home. Before she could get from the door to the parlour Hilda’s arms were about her, and Rhoda was waiting with a flush of pleasure on her usually pale cheeks.

“I don’t think I shall as much as shake hands with that young lady,” Isabel said, designating the elder girl. “Her behaviour to me has been too shameful. Not one scrap of a letter for two months at least! Ah, how good it is to be with you again! Hilda, you are taller than I am; that is most disrespectful. And it seems yesterday that I used to lift you up on my lap.—Well?”

So kindly said it was, that one word; a greeting that warmed the heart. It was for Thomas Meres himself, who came into the room. He never made use of speech in meeting Mrs. Clarendon; simply shook hands with her and let his eyes rest a moment upon her face.

“And where is Ada?”

Ada was summoned, and shortly presented herself. She showed no pleasure, but came forward holding out her hand naturally; she and Isabel did not kiss each other, it had never been their habit.

“You, I should say, want a good deal more exercise, Ada. Mr. Meres, you are the worst possible person to take care of a young lady who is too fond of shutting herself up over books.”

“Oh, we have been rowing in Battersea Park,” cried Hilda. “Ada rows splendidly. We are going up the river before long, if we can persuade father to come with us. Mrs. Clarendon, do order him to come. Father will do anything that you tell him.”

Her father’s yellow face changed colour for an instant; he laughed.

“If Mrs. Clarendon will guarantee that the boats won’t capsize,” he said; “that is the only question.”

“Are you great at the oar, Rhoda?” Isabel asked, going over to a seat by the girl, and taking her hand affectionately. It was an impulse of pity; Rhoda looked so sad, though she smiled.

“My function is steering,” was the reply.

“What a wise girl! And how did you all enjoy yourselves at Eastbourne? You can’t think how tempted I was to join you. If only it hadn’t been such a long way.”

“I hope you feel no permanent ill results of your accident?” Mr. Meres asked.

“None, I really think. But, oh dear! I’m growing old.”

Hilda broke into her cheery laugh; Rhoda and her father smiled; even Ada moved her lips incredulously.

“How dare you all make fun of me? Hilda, stop laughing at once.”

“Old, indeed, Mrs. Clarendon! That I don’t think you’ll ever be.”

It was Isabel’s delight to hear these words; she flushed with pleasure.

“I want you girls to come and lunch with me to-morrow—no, the day after; to-morrow I am engaged. But I forgot; can you come, Hilda?”

“Yes, on Saturday.”

“That’s just right, then. And can you dine with me on Sunday, Mr. Meres? I shall have some one you would like to know, I think. Mr. Kingcote, Ada; he is in London now. You must give Mr. Meres an account of him.”

She did not stay much longer, and went, as always, leaving kind thoughts behind her. Should we not value those who have this power of touching hearts to the nobler life of emotion as they pass?

CHAPTER VIII

That friend of Kingcote’s, Gabriel by name, of whom we have heard, had his studio on the north side of Regent’s Park, in a house which also supplied him with a bedroom, this double accommodation sufficing to his needs. In regard to light the painting-room was badly contrived; formerly two rooms, it had been made into one by the simple removal of a partition, and of its three windows one looked south, the others west. From the latter was visible the smug, plebeian slope of Primrose Hill; the former faced a public-house. Gabriel would tell you impressively that the air in this part of London was very good. He lived here, in truth, because he could not afford to live in a better place.

He was the only friend Kingcote had retained from early years. Gabriel’s father was a bookseller in Norwich, and the two boys had been companions at their first school. That their intimacy had survived to the present day was not easily accounted for, except perhaps by the fact that neither was fond of seeking acquaintances; knowing each other well, and continuing by the chances of life within reach of each other, they had found in this intercourse enough mutual support to keep their human needs from starving, and had been prevented by it from seeking new associates; it happens occasionally that, with reticent men, a friendship of this kind will terminate in a double isolation. In all other essentials of character they were very unlike. Kingcote we know pretty well by this time—his amiability, his dangerous passiveness, his diffidence, his emotional excess. Not one of these qualities manifested itself in Clement Gabriel. His temper was frankly sour; Kingcote had on occasions visited him and found him indisposed to speak. “Talk to me as much as you like,” he said, when at length there came a question, “but don’t expect me to answer; I shall say bearish things, and I’d rather not.” They sat together for an hour, and the artist did not open his lips. It was his habit to declare that he loved idleness, that at times it cost him unheard-of efforts to go on with his work; that it would have been easier to cut off his hand than to take up the pencil. For all that, no man in London worked more continuously or with fiercer determination. He had not the physique of a robust man; at eighteen he had been declared consumptive; but the will in him was Samson. Ill-health was not allowed to affect his mind, and symptoms of positive disease he appeared to have outgrown; he was in the habit of saying that he could not afford the luxury of a delicate chest, any more than of delicate food. An end he had set before himself, an ideal in art—it was equivalent in his case to an ideal in life—and only the palsy of death would check his progress. Emotions he seemed to have none, outside the concerns of his pursuit. In friendship he made no pretence of warmth; he carried to excess the reserve of an Englishman, and even handshaking he would escape if he could. That he had ever been in love (he was thirty) could not for a moment be supposed, and he spoke with contempt of men who could not live without “women and brats” to hang about them and weight them in the race. “You will never marry?” Kingcote asked him, and the reply was: “Never! I have work to do.” Not a little of arrogance he displayed now and then; as, for instance, in adding after a moment’s pause, “What wife had Michael Angelo?”

His life had, since boyhood, been desperately hard. Till the age of fourteen or fifteen, no bent towards drawing had marked, him; then it exhibited itself suddenly and decisively. His father had no other son, and had made up his mind that Clement should go into the book trade; the lad begged to be allowed to study art. For answer, he was at once taken from school, and put into the shop. He did not grumble, but spent every moment of leisure time in drawing, and deprived himself of sleep for the same purpose. When he was seventeen, and in appearance three years older, he told his father that he must go to London; might he have a few shillings a week to live upon? If not, he must still go; the shillings would come somehow. His resolve was so evident that the father consented to supply him with seven shillings a week for one year; after that, he must shift for himself. Clement accepted the offer. His father expected to see him back in Norwich very shortly; in effect, he had not set eyes upon him to the present day. For the lad, when his year was at an end, nourished such bitterness against the cruelty to which he had been subjected, was so marked by the hungry memories of those twelve months, that, in a letter home, he vowed that he would never meet his father again. The parent responded angrily, and they held intercourse no more.

Gabriel passed his South Kensington examinations, in order to enable himself to teach. During that first year he had also found miscellaneous kinds of employment. He always protested that there was not a mean or repulsive pursuit in London by which he had not at one time or another earned a copper; which was his exaggerated way of stating that he had been driven to strange expedients to keep himself alive and have time to work up without assistance for the successive grades of examination. One source of income he unearthed was the sketching in water-colours of pugilists and race-horses for a man who kept an open stall in Hampstead Road. It became a partnership, in fact; the salesman allowed Gabriel a certain percentage on the drawings sold; and they sold well, especially on Saturday night. Better days began when he got his first private pupil. He was admitted at length to study in the Academy schools, and only just missed a Travelling Studentship—it was a bitter loss. Not a penny did he receive in gift from any one (a prize at South Kensington excepted) after the remittances from Norwich ceased. An offer from Kingcote almost broke their friendship. Gabriel apologised for the violent way in which he had received this offer.

“Can’t you see,” he said, “that if I had not trained myself to savage independence, I should have broken down long since? I excite myself to anger lest I should yield.”

Kingcote’s respect for this character was unbounded. He had an ideal faith in Gabriel. To him he spoke with the utmost freedom of his own affairs, and did not feel the lack of corresponding openness on the other side. Gabriel would have found no relief in exhibiting his sorrows; shut up in his breast, they acted as a motive force. He worked at times in frenzy. Kingcote did not divine this; he regarded his friend as above the ordinary passions and needs; he accepted literally Gabriel’s declaration that work was enough for him. Kingcote had not the power to maintain such reserve; sooner or later he had to find a confidant, and pour forth in sympathetic ears the stream of his miseries. His was essentially a feminine nature; in Gabriel masculine energy found its climax.

The days of race-horses and pugilists had gone by; with increased knowledge of his art, Gabriel had laid upon himself severe restrictions. He would not even paint portraits in the ordinary way, though therein he might easily have found a means of putting aside the teaching, which he hated. He was capable of stopping a girl who sold matches in the street and paying her to let him sketch her face, if it struck his peculiar fancy; but he would not paint the simpering daughter of a retired draper who sought him out. He said plainly that the head did not interest him; it would be waste of time, and he indulged himself in one of his rare laughs—a shockingly unmelodious cackle—as soon as the man had taken off himself and his dudgeon. He held that, as long as he could keep himself from starvation, the ideal exactions of art must be supreme with him. He followed no recognised school, and his early pictures found neither purchaser nor place of exhibition more dignified than a dealer’s window. He was a realist, and could not expect his style to be popular.

Kingcote sought him out as soon as he had leisure after his arrival in London. He had written to announce his departure from Wood End, but left the causes to be explained subsequently. Going over to the studio in the evening, he found the artist at work upon some drawings to illustrate a novel. Gabriel did not leave his seat, merely nodded as his friend came in; it was with a distinct look of annoyance that he found himself obliged to shake hands. Let us see what manner of man he outwardly was. Tall and excessively meagre to begin with; when regarding his work, he thrust his elbows into his sides, and one wondered that he did not hurt himself with the sharp bones. His face was hard set, the mouth somewhat too prominent, the cheeks hollow, the eyes small and keen. His hair was very light, his thin whiskers of the same colour. He had a very long throat, and made it appear still longer by a habit of pushing forward his chin defiantly. No one ever saw his teeth; he even laughed with his mouth close shut. In speaking, his voice was high, often with a tendency to querulousness. When he walked, it was at a great rate, with head down, and cutting left and right with the stick he always carried. He was not at all of a refined type, but energy personified.

“What is the book you are illustrating?” Kingcote inquired.

“Oh, it’s damned nonsense; but I manage to see some things the writer couldn’t. It will be valued in future for the cuts.”

This was characteristic of Gabriel. He said it in the most natural way, and seeing that he spoke truth there seemed no reason why he should not express himself freely.