Isabel Clarendon, Vol. I (of II)

“I see no change. You are pale, but your face is what it always was.”

“You are growing stronger?” he asked, when she kept silence. “Danger is past?”

“Oh, long past!”

He hesitated for the next words.

“Wasn’t it strange?” Isabel went on, regarding him with wide-eyed intimacy, which thrilled his nerves. “You remember the things I said that morning? What did you think when you heard of the accident?”

“They told me you were dead—that was the first news.”

Her eyes fell before his steady look.

“I half wished it,” she said. “In the moment when I knew what was coming, I had a strange hope that my words might have brought it in reality; I closed my eyes, and tried to think it would be like sleep.”

“Why should you have such thoughts? What has life ever brought you but joy?”

“A few things not quite joyful, and which most women would find rather hard to bear. You know nothing of my story? No? Not by chance in talking about me of late? I suppose there has been much talk about me?”

“Will you not tell me what it is you speak of? Remember that I talk to no one.”

“To be sure. You are so unlike all other men. You are apart in my thoughts—you seem to be in a wholly different world from that I know. Your judgment of me will be sterner than that of mere men of the world, who take self-seeking and dishonour for granted. Yes, it will, it will!”

Her breath was caught, and nervous agitation so gained upon her weakness as almost to make her hysterical. Kingcote bent forward and imprisoned one of her hands.

“Speak calmly,” he urged, in a voice just above a whisper. “Why do you agitate yourself so? Why should you tell me anything that it is painful to speak of?”

His own emotion all but overcame his power of utterance. She did not try to draw away her hand; holding it in one of his, with the other he caressed it soothingly. Isabel smiled at him.

“You are deceived in me,” she pursued, becoming quieter by self-yielding. “You see only appearances. This house and all it represents is not mine; I am only allowed to use it and to make a show till the owner claims it: everything belongs to Miss Warren.”

A minor emotion like surprise could not affect Kingcote in his present mood.

“And I am to judge you sternly for not having told me that?” he asked, his veins on fire from the touch of the hand he held.

“Listen to me. When she marries I lose everything, all but an annuity of three hundred pounds. And that will be in a few weeks, as soon as I am strong enough to go in search of a new home.”

“Yes? Does that call for my judgment?”

She trembled.

“I want to show you something, but I cannot rise to get it. Will you go for me? You see the small writing-desk on the further table?”

Kingcote rose, but with her hand still in his. He could not release it. She, with eyes turned upwards to regard him, her face flushed, her throat quivering, was as loth to be severed from his grasp. Instead of moving away, he bent and put his lips to her forehead. Then the rose-hue clothed her with maidenhood, her head fell, and he felt the pulse at her wrist leap like flame.

“Will you fetch me the desk?” she asked, without meeting his look.

He fetched it, and with a key from her pocket Isabel opened it. Below other papers she found an envelope, and from this took a photograph.

“Will you look at that?” she said, holding it to him.

Kingcote’s face expressed recognition.

“This,” he said, “is, I suppose, Miss Warren’s father? The resemblance is very strong.”

“It is a portrait of Mr. Clarendon,” was her answer, given in a tone of such cold self-command that Kingcote turned to look at her with a movement of surprise.

“Mr. Clarendon?”

“I will put it away again, if you please.”

He let her do so, and removed the case. When he drew near her, Isabel regarded him with a passionless face, and pointed to the chair he had risen from.

“He knew me well,” she said, with a bitterness which made all her words clear-cut and her voice unshaken. “He calculated my weakness, and devised my punishment skilfully. That I should take the child and rear it to inherit his property, or else lose everything at once. With a woman of self-respect, such a scheme would have been empty; she would have turned away in scorn. But he knew me well; he knew I had not the courage to go back to poverty; that I would rather suffer through years, be the talk and pity and contempt of every one, face at last the confession to her,—all that rather than be poor again!”

Kingcote once more held her hand, and, when she paused, he kissed it passionately.

“You were poor once?” he asked gently, tenderly.

“That is my only excuse. We were wretchedly poor, my mother, my brother, and myself. I have been hungry often and often. We had to keep up a respectable appearance; we starved ourselves to buy clothing and to avoid being indebted to people. I have often gone to bed—when I was a strong, growing girl—and cried because I was so hungry; though I had just before been pretending I could eat no more, as we all of us did, poor mother as well. I was to be a governess; but then a lady took me to London, was wonderfully kind to me, treated me as her daughter. She said”—Isabel half laughed, half cried—“she said I was too good-looking to be a governess.”

“Wasn’t it true? Are you not now so beautiful that my heart faints when I look at you?”

“If I were not so contemptible—if I deserved any recompense for what I have suffered—it would be a priceless one to hear you say so.”

“Tell me more.”

“I married at the end of my first season; made what was called a wonderful marriage. I hadn’t a farthing, and became all at once wealthy. I caught at the best that offered; the best in the world’s sense. I was old enough; I understood what I was doing. No one was to blame but myself. You saw that hard, strong, coarse face? He often looked at me as if he were coldly calculating the risks of murder; but as he got to know me better, he found better punishments. I did not disobey him. I never gave him cause for anger by word or deed; could I help it that I—that I hated him?”

The excitement was again overpowering her strength. She sobbed tearlessly.

“You shall speak no more of that,” King-cote said; “leave it all in the past; forget it, dearest.”

“Am I dearest to you?” she asked, looking into his eyes with yearning tenderness. “Oh, I have never felt till now what it would be to lose wealth and the power of bestowing it!

“May I tell you, only to justify myself—to make myself better in your sight? I might so often have married, and freed myself, men to whom wealth was nothing, who would have taken me for myself: but I could not, not even to gain an honourable position. I had always the hope that I might know what love meant. I have gone through the world and enjoyed it. I have had, I suppose, something of what is called success; it left me cold. Only when you came into my life then it began to be all different. I felt that you were come to save me; you were so unlike others, you interested and attracted me as no one else ever did. You remember our first meeting in Mr. Vissian’s study? I went away and could think of nothing but you; wondered what your story was, tried to understand what it was in you that affected me so strangely.”

“My sovereign lady!”

“If you knew the foolish tricks I played myself! I would not face the truth; I invented all sorts of explanations and excuses when I longed to see you. It occurred to me that you might perhaps come to care for Ada. I persuaded myself that it would make me happy if you married her and became rich. And I can give you nothing!”

“You give me nothing, Isabel? Yesterday I was the poorest creature in this world, without strength, without hope, sunk in misery; now every pulse of my heart is happiness.” She sighed with pleasure.

“Turn your face to me, Isabel; let me try to read it there, to believe it, to make it part of my life. Let me hear you say those three words—I do not know their sound—those three words I hunger for!”

“Three? Have I not said them? Was it only in my thought? I love you, dearest.”

“Four! And from your lips, whose music came to me from another sphere, so far you seemed! You, the throned lady, the queen with the crown of loveliness; so gracious, so good, so noble–”