The Doctor's Wife: A Novel

Mrs. Gilbert bowed and smiled and blushed in a pleasant bewilderment. To be introduced, to two Beings in this off-hand manner was almost too much for Mr. Sleaford's daughter. A faint perfume of jasmine and orange-blossom floated towards her from Lady Gwendoline's handkerchief, and she seemed to see the fair-haired lady who smiled at her, and the dark-haired gentleman who had risen at her approach, through an odorous mist that confused her senses.

"I think you know something of my friend Roland," Mr. Raymond repeated; "eh, my dear?"

"Oh, n – no indeed," Isabel stammered; "I never saw – "

"You never saw him before to-day," answered Mr. Raymond, laying his hand on the young man's shoulder with a kind of protecting tenderness in the gesture. "But you've read his verses; those pretty drawing-room Byronics, that refined and anglicised Alfred-de-Musset-ism, that you told me you are so fond of: – don't you remember asking me who wrote the verses, Mrs. Gilbert? I told you the Alien was a country squire; and here he is – a Midlandshire squire of high degree, as the old ballad has it."

Isabel's heart gave a great throb, and her pale face flushed all over with a faint carnation. To be introduced to a Being was something, but to be introduced to a Being who was also a poet, and the very poet whose rhapsodies were her last and favourite idolatry! She could not speak. She tried to say something – something very commonplace, to the effect that the verses were very pretty, and she liked them very much, thank you – but the words refused to come, and her lips only trembled. Before she could recover her confusion, Mr. Raymond had hooked his arm through that of Roland Lansdell, and the two men had walked off together, talking with considerable animation; for Charles Raymond was a kind of adopted father to the owner of Mordred Priory, and was about the only man whom Roland had ever loved or trusted.

Isabel was left by the open window with Lady Gwendoline and George, whose common sense preserved him serene and fearless in the presence of these superior creatures.

"You like my cousin's poetry, then, Mrs. Gilbert?" said Lady Gwendoline.

Her cousin! The dark-haired being was cousin to this fair-haired being in the Parisian bonnet, – a white-chip bonnet, with just one feathery sprig of mountain heather, and broad thick white-silk strings, tied under an aristocratic chin – a determined chin, Mr. Raymond would have told Isabel.

Mrs. Gilbert took heart of grace now that Roland Lansdell was out of hearing, and said, "Oh, yes; she was very, very fond of the 'Alien's Dreams;' they were so sweetly pretty."

"Yes, they are pretty." Lady Gwendoline said, seating herself by the window, and playing with her bonnet-strings as she spoke; "they are very graceful. Do sit down, Mrs. Gilbert; these show-places are so fatiguing. I am waiting for papa, who is talking politics with some Midlandshire people in the hall. I am very glad you like Roland's verses. They're not very original; all the young men write the same kind of poetry nowadays – a sort of mixture of Tennyson, and Edgar Poe, and Alfred de Musset. It reminds me of Balfe's music, somehow; it pleases, and one catches the melody without knowing how or why. The book made quite a little sensation. The 'Westminster' was very complimentary, but the 'Quarterly' was dreadful. I remember Roland reading the article and laughing at it; but he looked like a man who tries to be funny in tight boots, and he called it by some horrible slang term – 'a slate,' I think he said."

Isabel had nothing to say to this. She had never heard that the "Quarterly" was a popular review; and, indeed, the adjective "quarterly" had only one association for her, and that was rent, which had been almost as painful a subject as taxes in the Camberwell household. Lady Gwendoline's papa came in presently to look for his daughter. He was Angus Pierrepoint Aubrey Amyott Pomphrey, Earl of Ruysdale; but he wore a black coat and grey trousers and waistcoat, just like other people, and had thick boots, and didn't look a bit like an earl, Isabel thought.

He said, "Haw, hum – yes, to be sure, my dear," when Lady Gwendoline told him she was ready to go home; "been talking to Witherston – very good fellow, Witherston – wants to get his son returned for Conventford, gen'ral 'lection next year, lib'ral int'rest – very gentlemanly young f'ler, the son;" and then he went to look for Roland, whom he found in the next room with Charles Raymond; and then Lady Gwendoline wished Isabel good morning, and said something very kind, to the effect that they should most likely meet again before long, Lowlands being so near Graybridge; and then the Earl offered his arm to his daughter.

She took it, but she looked back at her cousin, who was talking to Mr. Raymond, and glancing every now and then in a half-amused, half-admiring way at Isabel.

"I am so glad to think you like my wretched scribble, Mrs. Gilbert," he said, going up to her presently.

Isabel blushed again, and said, "Oh, thank you; yes, they are very pretty;" and it was as much as she could do to avoid calling Mr. Lansdell "Sir" or "Your lordship."

"You are coming with us, I suppose, Roland?" Lady Gwendoline said.

"Oh, yes, – that is to say. I'll see you to the carriage."

"I thought you were coming to luncheon."

"No; I meant to come, but I must see that fellow Percival, the lawyer, you know, Gwendoline, and I want to have a little more talk with Raymond. You'll go on and show Mrs. Gilbert the Murillo in the next room, Raymond? and I'll run and look for my cousin's carriage, and then come back."

"We can find the carriage very well without you, Roland," Lady Gwendoline answered quickly. "Come, papa."

The young man stopped, and a little shadow darkened over his face.

"Did you really ask me to luncheon?" he said.

"You really volunteered to come, after breakfast this morning, when you proposed bringing us here."

"Did I? Oh, very well; in that case I shall let the Percival business stand over; and I shall ride to Oakbank to-morrow morning, Raymond, and lie on the grass and talk to you all day long, if you'll let me waste your time for once in a way. Good-bye; good morning, Mrs. Gilbert. By the bye, how do you mean to finish the day, Raymond?"

"I'm going to take Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert to Hurstonleigh Grove; or rather they take me, for they've brought a basket that reminds one of the Derby-day. We're going to picnic in the grove, and drink tea at a cottage in honour of Isabel's – Mrs. Gilbert's – birthday."

"You must come and picnic at Mordred some day. It's not as pretty as Hurstonleigh, but we'll manage to find a rustic spot. If you care for partridges, Mr. Gilbert, you'll find plenty in the woods round Mordred next September."

The young man put on his hat, and went after his cousin and her father. Isabel saw him walk along the bright vista of rooms, and disappear in a burst of sunshine that flooded the great hall when the door was opened. The beings were gone. For a brief interval she had been breathing the poetry of life; but she fell back now into the sober prose, and thought that half the grandeur of the castle was gone with those aristocratic visitors.

"And how do you like my young kinsman?" Mr. Raymond asked presently.

Isabel looked at him with surprise.

"He is your relation – Mr. Lansdell?"

"Yes. My mother was a Lansdell. There's a sort of cousin-ship between Roland and me. He's a good fellow – a very noble-hearted, high-minded young fellow; but – "

But what? Mr. Raymond broke off with so deep a sigh, that Isabel imagined an entire romance upon the strength of the inspiration. Had he done anything wicked? that dark beautiful creature, who only wanted the soul-harrowing memory of a crime to render him perfect. Had he fled his country, like Byron? or buried a fellow-creature in a cave, like Mr. Aram? Isabel's eyes opened to their widest extent; and Charles Raymond answered that inquiring glance.

"I sigh when I speak of Roland," he said, "because I know the young man is not happy. He stands quite alone in the world, and has more money than he knows how to spend; two very bad things for a young man. He's handsome and fascinating, – another disadvantage; and he's brilliant without being a genius. In short, he's just the sort of man to dawdle away the brightest years of his life in the drawing-rooms of a lot of women, and take to writing cynical trash about better men in his old age. I can see only one hope of redemption for him, and that is a happy marriage; a marriage with a sensible woman, who would get the whip-hand of him before he knew where he was. All the luckiest and happiest men have been henpecked. Look at the fate of the men who won't be henpecked. Look at Swift: he was a lord of the creation, and made the women fear him; look at him drivelling and doting under the care of a servant-maid. Look at Sterne; and Byron, who outraged his wife in fact, and satirized her in fiction. Were their lives so much the better because they scorned the gentle guidance of the apron-string? Depend upon it, Mrs. Gilbert, the men who lead great lives, and do noble deeds, and die happy deaths, are married men who obey their wives. I'm a bachelor; so of course I speak without prejudice. I do most heartily wish that Roland Lansdell may marry a good and sensible woman."

"A good and sensible woman!"

Isabel gave an involuntary shudder. Surely, of all the creatures upon this over-populated earth, a sensible woman was the very last whom Roland Lansdell ought to marry. He should marry some lovely being in perpetual white muslin, with long shimmering golden hair, – the dark men always married fair women in Isabel's novels, – a creature who would sit at his feet, and watch with him, as Astarte watched with Manfred, till dismal hours in the silent night; and who should be consumptive, and should die some evening – promiscuously, as Mrs. Gamp would say – with flowers upon her breast, and a smile upon her face.

Isabel knew very little more of the pictures, or the men in armour, or the cannon in the chambers that yet remained to be seen at Warncliffe Castle. She was content to let Mr. Raymond and her husband talk. George admired the cannon, and the old-fashioned locks and keys, and the model of a cathedral made by a poor man out of old champagne corks, and a few other curiosities of the same order; and he enjoyed himself, and was happy to see that his wife was pleased. He could tell that, by the smile upon her lips, though she said so little.

The drive from Warncliffe to Hurstonleigh Grove was as beautiful as the drive from Graybridge to Warncliffe; for this part of Midlandshire is a perpetual park. Isabel sat back in the carriage, and thought of Lady Gwendoline's aristocratic face and white-chip bonnet, and wondered whether she was the sensible woman whom Roland Lansdell would marry. They would be a very handsome couple. Mrs. Gilbert could fancy them riding Arabs – nobody worth speaking of ever rode anything but Arab horses, in Isabel's fancy – in Rotten Row. She could see Lady Gwendoline with a cavalier hat and a long sweeping feather, and Roland Lansdell bending over her horse's neck to talk to her, as they rode along. She fancied them in that glittering saloon, which was one of the stock scenes always ready to be pushed on the stage of her imagination. She fancied them in the midst of that brilliant supernumerary throng who wait upon the footsteps of heroes and heroines. She pictured them to herself going down to the grave through an existence of dinner-parties, and Rotten Row, and balls, and Ascot cups. Ah, what a happy life! what a glorious destiny!

The picnic seemed quite a tame thing after these reveries in the carriage. The orphans met their uncle at the lodge-gate; and they all went across the grass, just as they had gone before, to the little low iron gate which Mr. Raymond was privileged to open with a special key; and into the grove, where the wonderful beeches and oaks made a faint summer darkness.

Was it the same grove? To Isabel it looked as if it had been made smaller since that other picnic; and the waterfall, and the woodland vistas, and the winding paths, and the arbour where they were to dine, – it was all very well for the orphans to clap their hands, and disport themselves upon the grass, and dart off at a tangent every now and then to gather inconvenient wild-flowers; but, after all, there was nothing so very beautiful in Hurstonleigh Grove.

Isabel wandered a little way by herself, while Mr. Raymond and George and the orphans unpacked the basket. She liked to be alone, that she might think of Lady Gwendoline and her cousin. Lady Gwendoline Pomphrey – oh, how grand it sounded! Why, to have such a name as that would alone be bliss; but to be called Gwendoline Pomphrey, and to wear a white-chip bonnet with that heavenly sprig of heather just trembling on the brim, and those broad, carelessly tied, unapproachable strings! And then, like the sudden fall of a curtain in a brilliant theatre, the scene darkened, and Isabel thought of her own life – the life to which she must go back when it was dark that night: the common parlour, or the best parlour, – what was the distinction, in their dismal wretchedness, that one should be called better than the other? – the bread-and-cheese, the radishes, – and, oh, how George could eat radishes, crunch, crunch, crunch! – till madness would have been relief. This unhappy girl felt a blank despair as she thought of her commonplace home, – her home for ever and ever, – unbrightened by a hope, unsanctified by a memory; her home, in which she had a comfortable shelter, and enough to eat and to drink, and decent garments with which to cover herself; and where, had she been a good or a sensible young woman, she ought of course to have been happy.

But she was not happy. The slow fever that had been burning so long in her veins was now a rapid and consuming fire. She wanted a bright life, a happy life, a beautiful life; she wanted to be like Lady Gwendoline, and to live in a house like Warncliffe Castle. It was not that she envied Lord Ruysdale's daughter, remember; envy had no part in her nature. She admired Gwendoline Pomphrey too much to envy her. She would like to have been that elegant creature's youngest sister, and to have worshipped her and imitated her in a spirit of reverence. She had none of the radical's desire to tear the trappings from the bloated aristocrat; she only wanted to be an aristocrat too, and to wear the same trappings, and to march through life to the same music.

George came presently, very much out of breath, to take her back to the arbour where there was a lobster salad, and that fine high-coloured Graybridge sherry, and some pale German wine which Mr. Raymond contributed to the feast.

The orphans and the two gentlemen enjoyed themselves very much. Mr. Raymond could talk about medicine as well as political economy; and he and George entered into a conversation in which there were a great many hard words. The orphans ate – to do that was to be happy; and Isabel sat in a corner of the arbour, looking dreamily out at the shadows on the grass, and wondering why Fate had denied her the privilege of being an earl's daughter.

The drowsy atmosphere of the hot summer's afternoon, the Rhine wine, and the sound of his companion's voice, had such a pleasant influence upon Mr. Raymond, that he fell asleep presently while George was talking; and the young man, perceiving this, produced a Midlandshire newspaper, which he softly unfolded, and began to read.

"Will you come and gather some flowers, Izzie?" whispered one of the orphans. "There are wild roses and honeysuckle in the lane outside. Do come!"

Mrs. Gilbert was very willing to leave the arbour. She wandered away with the two children along those lonely paths, which now sloped downwards into a kind of ravine, and then wound upwards to the grove. The orphans had a good deal to say to their late governess. They had a new instructress, and "she isn't a bit like you, dear Mrs. Gilbert," they said; "and we love you best, though she's very kind, you know, and all that; but she's old, you know, very old, – more than thirty; and she makes us hem cambric frills, and does go on so if we don't put away our things; and makes us do such horrid sums; and instead of telling us stories when we're out with her, as you used, – oh, don't you remember telling us Pelham? how I love Pelham, and Dombey! – about the little boy that died, and Florence – she teaches us botany and jology" (the orphans called it 'jology'), "and tertiary sandstone, and old red formations, and things like that; and oh, dear Izzie, I wish you never had been married."

Isabel smiled at the orphans, and kissed them, when they entwined themselves about her. But she was thinking of the Alien's dreams, and whether Lady Gwendoline was the "Duchess! with the glittering hair and cruel azure eyes," regarding whom the Alien was cynical, not to say abusive. Mrs. Gilbert felt as if she had never read the Alien half enough. She had seen him, and spoken to him, – a real poet, a real, living, breathing poet, who only wanted to lame himself, and turn his collars down, to become a Byron.

She was walking slowly along the woodland pathway, with the orphans round about her, like a modern Laocoon family without the serpents, when she was startled by a rustling of the branches a few paces from her, and looking up, with a sudden half-frightened glance, she saw the tall figure of a man between her and the sunlight.

The man was Mr. Roland Lansdell, the author of "An Alien's Dreams."

"I'm afraid I startled you, Mrs. Gilbert," he said, taking off his hat and standing bareheaded, with the shadows of the leaves flickering and trembling about him like living things. "I thought I should find Mr. Raymond here, as he said you were going to picnic, and I want so much to talk to the dear old boy. So, as they know me at the lodge, I got them to let me in."