Isabel Clarendon, Vol. I (of II)

Isabel laughed again, though not quite as before.

“What have you to report of the Spanish ladies?” she asked.

“Beautiful; some I saw beautiful exceedingly; but their complexion too hot. I seemed to feel the need of fresh air. The northern type is my ideal; faces which remain through a lifetime fresh as a flower, which exhale the coolness of an early summer morning. They are graceful, but I often thought of a certain English lady, who has more natural grace of bearing than any one of them.”

He has fixed his look upon her; Isabel tried to make some light response, but her voice failed.

“By-the-bye,” he asked, “Flo gave you that message of mine—a message I sent from Seville?”

“About the winner of the Two Thousand? Oh yes; I was duly humiliated. How could I have erred in a matter of such moment?”

“You remember—there was a wager.”

“Was there?”

“Certainly. You have not forgotten the terms?”

Isabel held her fan by its two ends, and, as if to recollect, pressed it across her forehead. There was a terrible throbbing there; the cool ivory was very pleasant.

“I must claim payment,” Lord Winterset pursued playfully, whilst he glanced about him to see that neighbours were minding their business. “You remember it was to be anything I chose to ask for.”

“Lord Winterset! How foolish! There was really no wager at all; that was a mere joke, a piece of nonsense.”

“Indeed, I did not regard it as anything of the kind,” he continued imperturbably, still fingering his seals. “I knew perfectly well that I should win, and I knew just as well what payment I should beg for.”

Her beautifully gloved hand rested on its open palm by her side; there was pressure on it, the nerves were strung. She gazed straight before her and saw nothing.

Lord Winterset looked at the hand, and touched it with two fingers.

“That is what I ask,” he said, just audibly.

Isabel drew the hand back to her lap, then faced him, with a great effort of self-control.

“I cannot answer you at once, Lord Winterset,” she said, almost calmly, though in very truth the words were a mere buzzing in her own ears. “Not to-night. Grant me a day or two.”

“Is that necessary?”

“It is—indeed it is! I can say nothing whatever to-night. You must not interpret my behaviour at all.”

“We hunt together to-morrow. May I see you in the evening?”

“Yes, after the hunt. I will answer you then. May I, please, be left to myself now?”

“Till to-morrow evening.”

Lord Winterset smiled, bowed to her with informal grace, and passed to the nearest group.

In a few moments, Isabel too moved away. She had but to appear in the centre of the room to attract half-a-dozen loiterers. Never had her social instincts triumphed as they did now; never had she governed herself with such perfection of skill. For five minutes she was an enchantress. Then she drew aside, and presently had disappeared.

At the appointed time and place, Kingcote saw the carriage pulling up for him, Edgar Stratton having ridden his pony on before. It was a dull morning, but perfect for hunting purposes, as Mr. Vissian declared when Kingcote chatted with him for a moment in front of the rectory. The two ladies seemed in excellent spirits; they wore their habits, ready to mount the horses which would have reached Salcot before them. Mrs. Clarendon pressed Kingcote’s hand warmly when he had taken his seat opposite her, held it a moment longer than was necessary, indeed, and looked with earnestness into his face. The night had been sleepless for her, but whatever traces her watching might have left had at once been carried away by the air which breathed past the light-speeding vehicle. She talked and laughed without ceasing; the prospect of a delightful day appeared entirely to occupy her.

On Mrs. Stratton’s making some reference to an engagement for the morrow, “Oh, I can’t look so far forward!” Isabel exclaimed. “To-day is only beginning; what is the good of remembering that it will ever come to an end?”

“That reminds me,” said Kingcote, “of those stories of impious huntsmen, who wished to ride on for ever, and had the wish terribly granted.”

“I am not sure that I shouldn’t follow their example, whoever offered me the choice,” Isabel said. “Ah, it is good to get rid of the world! To forget everything but the delight of your headlong speed!”

“At all events,” said Kingcote, “it is a form of dissipation which brings no headache on the morrow.”

“Now, you too talk of the morrow! Perish the word! I live in to-day. Who knows what may happen before nightfall? I may be killed.”

Kingcote’s ear was struck with something singular in the note of these last words. When he looked at Isabel she did not avert her eyes, but smiled with a touching familiarity.

“Have you news from London?” she asked of him unexpectedly.

“Yes; things are still bad.”

“I am very sorry.”

He had never heard conventional politeness so sweetly expressed; there was a real sorrow in her voice.

Arrived at the scene of the meet, at the end of the main street of Salcot, the ladies at once mounted their hunters and mixed with pink-coated men, who were present in considerable numbers. Kingcote drew to a little distance from the crowd of villagers, and, when a move was made to covert, he just kept the motley troup in sight. The ladies from Knightswell were the only representatives of their sex. When at length there was a find, and strange utterances of man and beast proclaimed the start, he saw Isabel turn round in her saddle, and, to the last moment, wave her hand to him. Then he went back to find the carriage.

A heaviness weighed upon him during the drive home, and for some hours afterwards. It was not the ordinary depression which he had to struggle with day after day, but a feeling which would not yield itself to analysis, which vanished when he questioned himself, yet was back again as soon as he relapsed into vague musing. The white face and waved hand of Isabel Clarendon, that last glimpse he had had of her, would not go from before his mind’s eye; her speech and her manner assailed his memory with indefinable suggestions. It was as if he had lacked discernment at the time, as if he ought to have gathered something which escaped him. He was impatient for another opportunity of observing her, and when would that come? For the first time he felt that it would be impossible to let day after day go by without approaching her. Why had he not used more liberally her invitation to give her his confidence? He had been too reticent, had failed to say a hundred things which now rang in his head. He could not put off the irrational fear that there might be no other chance of speaking freely with her, that something would interpose between her and himself, the something which already cast this shadow upon his imagination.

It was nonsense! Had she not waved her hand to him as she could only do to a friend whom she regarded very kindly? Was it not an assurance of meeting again, and with strengthened friendship? Yet it haunted him with good-bye.

About four o’clock he could bear his solitude no longer, and set out to walk towards the rectory. He was near the door, when he saw the figure of Mr. Vissian running towards him from the village street. His surprise at the sight increased when the rector drew near enough to show a face stricken with alarm.

“Have you heard anything, Kingcote?” the clergyman gasped forth. “Are you coming to tell me something?”

“No; what should I tell you? What is the matter?”

“Great God! They say in the village that Mrs. Clarendon has been brought home, dead—killed in a fall!”

They stared at each other.

“I daren’t go in and tell my wife,” went on Mr. Vissian, in a hoarse whisper. “I must go up to the house at once.”

“I must come with you.”

“Do, that’s a good fellow. Let me—let me lean on your arm. Pooh! I must have more self-control than this. It came like a stunning blow on the head; I all—all but dropped!”

Tears were streaming down his cheeks his voice choked. Kingcote felt his arm quiver.

“I can’t believe it! I wont believe it!” the rector pursued, crying like a child at last. “An accident, but not killed—great Heaven, no! I never had such a ghastly shock in my life. One moment, Kingcote; I am ashamed to pass the lodge like this. I never thought I should be so weak. But if it were my own wife I scarcely could feel it more. I pray to Almighty God that it may be a mistake!”

The lodge was vacant.