Isabel Clarendon, Vol. I (of II)

Ada Warren happened to raise her eyes, and beheld Lacour approaching, a smile of frank surprise on his handsome face. She was startled, and could not help showing it. Lacour, on the other hand, was very much at his ease, talked in a lightly facetious way of the antiquities in the case before them, now and then putting in a personal question.

“You are in town?” he asked by parenthesis.

“I am, for one day.”

“I hope Mrs. Clarendon is well? Turning her thoughts, no doubt, to fox-hunting. You don’t hunt, I believe? No more do I. Fortunate I haven’t the taste, isn’t it?”

Ada made no reply, continuing her inspection of the contents of the case, or appearing to do so. He moved a little away, as if to examine other cases, but was presently at her side again. Her curiosity seemed to be satisfied, and she let her eyes wander rather vaguely.

“Do you often come here?” she asked, as they passed from a little group of people to an uninvaded spot a few yards away. She spoke as though against her will, merely to escape from embarrassment.

“No, indeed; I am here by the merest chance, but a most happy one. I haven’t much time as a rule. The weather drove me out to-day. Are you sensitive to the weather? A sky like this weighs upon me; I haven’t a thought; I can’t follow an argument through three successive lines. You know I’m reading law?”

“I rather thought you had left England.” He looked at her, raised his eyebrows slightly, and shook his head.

“You don’t mean that you wish I had?”

“Why should I wish it?”

“I am used to that feeling in my acquaintances; they exhaust their powers of indirect emphasis in conveying to me the fact that I am de trop. It is refreshing to find one exception, and the one I should have desired.”

Whilst speaking he took out a pocket-book, which contained loose papers; one of these he removed; but only to return it to his pocket together with the book.

“Do I bore you?” he asked, bending his head down to her with graceful expectation of her reply; “or will you let me walk on with you?”

“Is there anything you wish particularly to see?” Ada returned, still in the same mechanical way.

“Yes; I should like you to come upstairs to the pictures. You really understand art; you can help me to appreciate the right things.”

She walked on without hesitation, and they spent nearly an hour in the galleries. It was as though, in consenting to accompany him, Ada had overcome an inward restraint, and was now expanding in a sense of freedom. Her face cleared, her eyes grew bright, her tongue was loosened; she talked of the pictures in a natural, easy, and sensible way, quite without self-consciousness. Lacour was, as always, frankly egoistic; everything became to him a text for effusive utterance on his subjective experiences. As on a previous occasion, he spoke of the artistic instincts which made the basis of his nature, and went on to sketch a plan of aesthetic education, such as he hoped some day to carry into effect. The unction of his self-flattery was irresistible; to listen was to become insensibly as interested in him as he was in himself. The mere quality of his voice was insinuating, seductive and delicately sensual, and the necessity of speaking low when strangers were at hand gave him the advantage of intimate notes and cadences. His faculty for making himself and his circumstances a source of pathetic suggestion did in fact almost amount to artistic genius; there was at times a fall in his voice which caressed the ear like certain happiest phrases in sad simple music, and his eyes would fix themselves on a beautiful picture with an apprehension of melancholy so remote, so subtle, that to perceive its reflection was to feel a thrill on the finest chords of sympathy. Then a lighter mood would succeed, comment would take a humorous turn, not without hints of interpretation generally reserved for masculine colloquy, ambiguities which might or might not be intentional, a glancing in directions whence it is usual to avert the mental eye. At the end of the hour Ada was laughing and talking in a way quite new to her, doing her best to say clever things which yet had no point of sarcasm, even speaking a little of herself, though this was a subject upon which Lacour could not get her to dwell.

“It’s a quarter to two,” he exclaimed at length. “Are you not hungry?”

“I meant to lunch here; perhaps it is time.”

“In that case we’ll lunch together—if you permit it?”

They did so in complete good-fellowship, the only difficulty arising when Lacour desired to pay for both. Ada opposed this, and in a manner which proved her in earnest.

“You return to-night?” he asked, leaning towards her on the table when the waiter’s demands had been severally met.

“To-morrow morning. I stay with friends.”

“At the Meres’?” he asked quickly.

“Yes.”

He fingered a bottle in the cruet-stand, his lips slightly drawn together.

“You do not know them intimately?” Ada asked, observing him.

He shook his head.

“No; they would not be interested in hearing that it was I who spoilt your purposes of study.”

Ada did not reply to this, save by a slight change of countenance. Before he spoke again she saw him take an envelope from the inner pocket of his coat.

“I have something here which belongs to you,” he said, “though it is not addressed. It was written a week ago, but for one or two reasons I delayed putting it in the post. Will you let me be my own postman?”

Ada had just drawn on her second glove, and was preparing to rise. She set her face in hard outlines and remained motionless, her hands on her lap.

“Won’t you save me a penny?” Lacour pleaded with gravity. “Economy is essential with me; I have not concealed the fact.”

Ada’s lips quivered to a smile; she took the letter from where it lay on the table, and moved away without facing him. There was colour on her cheeks.

“Are you going straight to your friends?” Lacour inquired, with some difficulty coming up to her side.

“No; I have some purchases to make. I shall take a cab.”

“I will get you one.”

With every politeness of manner he led her from the door to the vehicle, saw her comfortably seated, gave the driver his orders, and took a silent leave. The envelope was crushed in her hand as she drove away.

Not many days later Mrs. Stratton arrived at Knights well, bringing her youngest boy, a ten-year-old, whose absence from school was explained by recent measles. This lady was the wife of an officer at present with his regiment in Africa; her regret at the colonel’s remoteness, and her anxiety on his behalf in a time of savage warfare, were tempered by that spirit of pride in things military which so strongly infuses a certain type of the British matron, destined to bring forth barbarians and heroes. At the age of forty Mrs. Stratton had four children, all boys; the two eldest were already at Woolwich and Sandhurst respectively, the third at Harrow, extracting such strategic science as Thucydides could supply, boastful of a name traceable in army lists three generations back. These four lads were offspring whereof no British matron could feel ashamed: perfect in physical development, striking straight from the shoulder, with skulls to resist a tomahawk, red-cheeked and hammer-fisted. In the nursery they had fought each other to the tapping of noses; at school they fought all and sundry up through every grade of pugilistic championship. From infancy they handled the fowling-piece, and killed with the coolness of hereditary talent. Side by side they walked in quick step, as to the beating of a drum; eyes direct, as looking along a barrel; ears pricked for the millionth echo of an offensive remark.

At cricket they drove cannon-balls; milder games were the target of their scorn. Admirable British youths!

“How can they make such a milk-sop of that child!” Mrs. Stratton exclaimed when she had renewed her acquaintance with Percy Vissian, summoned to “play with” Master Edgar Strangeways Stratton, and showing no great appreciation of the privilege.

“Percy’s tastes are very quiet,” Mrs. Clarendon explained. “He likes reading more than anything else.”

“What does he read? I’ll examine him. Come here, Percy?” she called; the two ladies were on the lawn, and the boys at a little distance.

Percy looked round and prepared to walk towards Mrs. Stratton, but the other boy suddenly caught his two arms, pinned them behind his back, and ran him violently over the grass.

“Gently, Edgar, gently,” said his mother, smiling reproof. Little Percy stood red and flustered, ashamed at a personal indignity, as children with brains are wont to be.

“Percy,” interrogated Mrs. Stratton, “when was the battle of Inkerman fought?”

The lad shook his head, regarding Mrs. Clarendon appealingly.

“Don’t be ashamed, Percy,” said the latter, holding to him her hand. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”

“You couldn’t? Ah-yah!” shrieked Edgar Stratton, flinging up his cap and leaping to catch it. He was a fat, bullet-headed boy, generally red as a boiled lobster, supple as an eel.

“Well, you tell us,” ventured Percy, emboldened by the grasp of Isabel’s hand.

“Think I can’t, you silly?—Fifth of November, 1854; began at seven o’clock in the morning. For three hours eight thousand British infantry supported the attack of forty thousand muffs of Russians. Wish I’d been there, don’t I just! Four English generals were killed and four wounded.”