In the large liberty of an English country-house Isabel might have found the long morning tedious had she been of a more sociable habit. Lady Victoria, Mrs. Throfton, and Lady Cecilia Spence went to church; all three, as great ladies, having a dutiful eye to the edification of humbler folk. Flora Thangue spent the greater part of the morning writing letters for her hostess, the men fled to the golf-links, and the rest of the women not engaged in vehement political discussion, or Bridge, were striding across country. Isabel, tempted by the charmingly fitted writing-table in her room, although an indolent correspondent, wrote a long and amply descriptive letter to her sister, which her brother-in-law, being more than usually hard up at the moment of its arrival, transposed into fiction and ill.u.s.trated delightfully for a local newspaper. Then she roamed about looking at the pictures, testing her European education by discovering for herself the Lelys and Mores, the Hoppners, Ketels, Holbeins, Knellers, Dahls, and Romneys. She had a quick instinct for the best in all things, but cared less for pictures than for other treasures of the past: marbles, the architecture in old streets, hard brown schlosses on their lonely heights, the Gothic s.p.a.ces of cathedrals, the high and fervent imaginations, immortal yet nameless, in the carvings on stone; the jewelled facades of Orvieto and Siena, the romantic grandeur of the Alhambra.
She opened a door at the back of the central hall and found herself in a pillared corridor with a door at either end. Both rooms were open, and as a blue cloud hung about the entrance to the left, she turned to what proved to be the library of Capheaton. It was a square light apartment, with the orthodox number of books, but with so many desks and writing-tables that it looked more like the business corner of the mansion. Here, indeed, as Isabel was to learn, Lady Victoria held daily conference with her housekeeper and stewards, interviewed the women of the tenantry, and those active and philanthropic ladies of every district that aspire to carry the burdens of others. Here Gwynne kept his Blue Books and thought out his speeches, but it was not a favorite room with the guests.
Isabel had found many books scattered about the house, solid and flippant, old and new, but nothing by her host. She rightly a.s.sumed that his works would be disposed for posterity in the family library, and found them on a shelf above one of the large orderly tables. As a matter of fact she had read but two of his books, and she selected another at random and carried it to a comfortable chair by the window. The work was an exposition of conditions in one of the South African colonies, containing much criticism that had been defined by the Conservative press as youthful impertinence, but surprisingly sound to the unprejudiced. What had impressed Isabel in his other books and claimed her admiration anew was his maturity of thought and style; she saw that this volume had been published when he was twenty-four, written, doubtless, when he was a year or two younger. She felt a vague pity for a man that seemed to have had no youth. Since his graduation from Balliol in a blaze of glory he had worked unceasingly, for he appeared to have found little of ordinary recreation in travel. She wondered if he would take his youth in his bald-headed season, like the self-made American millionaire.
His style, pure, lucid, virile, distinguished, might have been the outcome of midnight travail, or, like his eloquence on the platform, a direct flight from the quickened brain. It certainly bore no resemblance to his amputated table talk. But in a moment she dismissed her speculations, for she had discovered a quality, overlooked before, but arresting in the recent light of his cold arrogance and haughty self-confidence. Behind his strict regard for facts and the keen insight and large grasp of his subject, which, without his evident care for the graces, would have distinguished his work from the dry report of equally conscientious but less gifted men, was the lonely play of a really lofty imagination, and a n.o.ble human sympathy. As she read on, this warm full-blooded quality, tempered always by reason, grew more and more visible to her alert sense; and when the fires in his mind blazed forth into a revelation of a pa.s.sionate love of beauty, both in nature and in human character, Isabel realized what such a man"s power over his audience must be; when this second self, so effectually concealed, suddenly burst into being.
"It is too bad a woman would have to live with the other!" she thought, as she raised her eyes and saw Gwynne emerge from the woods with Mrs.
Kaye. "I cannot say that I envy her."
"By Jove, they have an engaged look!"
Isabel turned with a start, but greeted Lord Hexam with a smile. He was as yet her one satisfactory experience of the young English n.o.bleman, whom, like most American girls, she had unconsciously foreshadowed in doublet and hose. Hexam was quite six feet, with a fine military carriage; he had been in the Guards and had not left the army until after two years of active service; his blue eyes were both honest and intelligent, and he was generally clean cut and highly bred.
He drew up a chair beside Isabel and reflected that she was even handsomer than he had thought, with the sunlight warming the ivory whiteness of her skin, although it contracted the mobile pupils of her eyes; and that little black moles when rightly placed were more attractive than he had thought possible. They gave a sort of daring unconscious eighteenth-century coquetry to what was otherwise a somewhat severe style of beauty. But he was a man for whom a woman"s hair had a peculiar fascination, and while they were uttering commonplaces at random his eyes wandered to the soft yet ma.s.sive coils encircling Isabel"s shapely head, and lingered there.
"Pardon me!" he said, boyishly. "But I always thought--don"t you know?--that hair like that was only in novels and poems and that sort of thing. Is it all your own?" he asked, with sudden suspicion.
"You would think so if you had to carry it for a day. I should have had it cut off long ago if it had happened to be coa.r.s.e hair. It is an inherited evil of which I am too vain to rid myself. The early Spanish women of my family all had hair that touched the ground when they stood up. I have an old sketch of a back view of three of them taken side by side; you see nothing but billows of fine silky hair. But I have put it out of sight, as it looks rather like an advertis.e.m.e.nt for a famous hair restorer."
"I"d give a lot to see yours down. It"s wonderful--wonderful!"
"Well, I have promised a private view to some of the women. If Lady Victoria thinks it quite proper perhaps I"ll admit you."
"I"ll ask her for a card directly she comes home. Let it be this afternoon just after tea."
"I wonder if they really are engaged," said Isabel, who had been told that Englishmen never paid compliments, and was growing embarra.s.sed under the round-eyed scrutiny. Gwynne and Mrs. Kaye had paused by a sundial.
"Who? Oh yes, I should think so, although there was some talk that poor Bratty--but no doubt that was mere rumor, or Mrs. Kaye wouldn"t be on with Jack like that. By Jove, he is engaged. I never saw him look so--so--well, I hardly know what."
"Do you approve of the match?"
"If my consent is asked I shall give them my blessing. He is the salt of the earth, although a bit lumpy now and then; and she is such a jolly little thing, full of genuine affection--just the wife for Jack."
"You believe in her, then?" Isabel wondered, as many another has done, at the miasma that seems to rise and dim a man"s perceptive faculties when he is called upon to estimate the worth of a fascinating woman.
"Rather! Don"t you?"
"She struck me as being one of the few people without a redeeming virtue. To be sure that has a distinction of its own."
"Oh!" He wondered if so handsome a girl shared the common rancor of her age and s.e.x against charming young widows.
"And the worst mannered," continued Isabel, who knew exactly what he thought. "And plebeian in her marrow. I wish my cousin had chosen Miss Thangue or any one else."
"But he couldn"t marry Flora," said the literal young n.o.bleman. "She hasn"t a penny, and is the friend of all our mothers. But I"m sorry you"ve such a bad opinion of Mrs. Kaye. She"s tremendously popular with us. I"m not one of her circle--retinue would be more like it; but I"ve always thought her the brightest little thing going, and I"m sure she wouldn"t harm a fly."
"I"m sure she would do nothing so little worth her while. Well, there is no need for your eyes to be opened; but I wish that my cousin"s might be. I suppose that you have the same faith in him that so many others--himself included--seem to have."
"Rather!--You are a most critical person. Haven"t you?"
"I think I have. In fact I am sure of it. That is the reason I have been wishing he were an American."
He laughed boyishly. "That is a good one! But we need him over here. You haven"t the slightest idea how much. We get into a blue funk every time Zeal takes a cold on his chest. To quote Mrs. Kaye, "A Liberal peer is as useful as a fifth wheel to a coach, and as ornamental as whitewash."
Clever, ain"t it?"
"I think people are touchingly easy to satisfy! I have been treated to several of Mrs. Kaye"s epigrams and heard as many more quoted. It seems to me that nothing could be easier than the manufacture of that popular superfluity."
"Perhaps--with time to think them out beforehand. Anyhow, it"s rather jolly to hear things you can remember."
"I should be the last to deny her cleverness," said Isabel, dryly. But being by no means desirous that he should find her too acid, she dropped her eyes for a moment, then raised two dazzling wells of innocence. "I am tired of the subject of my cousin and Mrs. Kaye," she murmured. "Are you as ambitious as Jack?"
"No use." He stared helplessly down into the blue flood. "There is no escape from the "Peers" for me, although my father, I am happy to say, is as healthy as I am. But after the brain cells become brittle--one never knows. I too am a Liberal, and am getting in all the good work of which I am capable while there is yet time. I don"t go as far as Jack--don"t want to see the "Peers" chucked. I have a strong reverence for traditions, and no taste whatever for democracy--that would be too long a step. And I think a man should be content to be useful, do the best he can, in his own cla.s.s; and be loyal to that cla.s.s whatever happens. Of course I understand Jack"s point of view, because I understand him so well, and know that he would be the most maimed and wretched man on earth in the Upper House; but personally, I think one should be prepared to accept inherited responsibilities."
And then, as they were both young, and mutually attracted, they found many subjects of common interest to keep them in the library until the gong summoned them to luncheon.
XI
Flora Thangue, after luncheon, took Isabel out in a pony cart, and although too loyal to gossip intimately about her patrons, incidentally directed a search-light into certain of their recesses; a light that was to prove useful to Isabel in her future intercourse with them, although it did not in the least prepare her for an experience that awaited her later in the day. Miss Thangue"s mind was occupied at first with the obvious engagement of Gwynne and Mrs. Kaye.
"That woman was born to upset calculations!" she exclaimed. "Yonder is the castle of the dukes of Arcot. We are going over to a party to-morrow night. It really looks like a castle with all those gray battlements and towers, doesn"t it? We don"t call every tuppeny-hapenny villa inhabited by a n.o.bleman a "castle" as they do in Germany and Austria. Well--that clever little panther! I"d like to pack her into one of her own epigrams and bury her alive. I _know_ she was as good as engaged to Brathland.
Now, having decided that, all things considered, Jack is the best match going--for everybody believes Lord Zeal to be worse than he is--well!
there is something appalling in a woman who can adjust herself as quickly as that; whose caprices, sentiments, pa.s.sions, all natural impulses, are completely controlled by her reason. I wish Vicky saw through her; she has so much influence over Jack, and such deadly powers of ridicule. But Vicky, like all spoiled women of the world, is as much the victim of the subtle flatterer as any man, and Julia Kaye has managed her beautifully. She considered Jack for a bit before she was sure of Brathland. Vicky"s real reason for indorsing Julia Kaye--between us--is because she believes her to be one of that small and select band that can hold a man on all his various sides, and she wants to avoid the probability of an absorbing and possibly tragic liaison--like Parnell"s, for instance--which might interfere with, perhaps ruin, Jack"s career. That is all very well, as far as it goes, but I believe Julia Kaye to be so entirely selfish that when Jack finds her out he will sicken of life. I have had the best of opportunities to study women, and I have brought Jack up--I had the honor to be the highly idealized heroine of his calf-love, and have been more or less in his confidence ever since. In certain ways I understand him better than his mother does, for she has seen too much of the worst side of men, and is at heart too _blasee_ to have much respect for or knowledge of their spiritual side; and if I have ever had any maternal spasms in my virtuous spinsterhood they have been over Jack. Can"t you help us out?"
she asked, turning suddenly to the stranger, to whom she was powerfully attracted. "Are you as indifferent as you look?"
"I have no idea! But although I should not in the least object to be cast for a part in this domestic drama, I don"t care for it at the price of too much "Jack." To attempt to cut out Mrs. Kaye I should need a little genuine enthusiasm; and frankly, your beloved prodigy does not inspire it. I like Lord Hexam far better."
"Oh, Jimmy! He"s a fine fellow, but only a type."
"He hasn"t a rampant ego, if that is what you mean. And for every-day purposes--" She shrugged her shoulders. "I could endure and even be deeply interested in Elton Gwynne if he happened to be my brother and I could hook my finger in his destiny; but in any other capacity--no, thank you!"
"Are you going to marry Jimmy?"
"I did not even know he was not already married. Do you see nothing in a man but a husband over here? If I ever do marry it will not be before I am forty."
"That is rather long--if you see much of the world meanwhile! And Jimmy, although there is not much money in the family--about twenty thousand a year--would be a very good match. He will be Earl of Hembolt--a fine old t.i.tle."
"You a.s.sume that such a plum may be pulled by the first comer."
"Rather not! But you Americans have such a way with you! What is more to the point, I never saw him so bowled over."
"Well," said Isabel, imperturbably, "I will think of it. This English country and these wonderful old houses, with their inimitable atmosphere, appeal to me very strongly. I have more the feeling of being at home here than I had even in Spain, where I have roots. And socially and picturesquely, there is nothing to compare with the position of an English n.o.blewoman."
Flora turned her eyes frankly to the cla.s.sic profile beside her. Isabel had removed her hat, and, framed in the heavy coils of her hair, her features impressed the anxious observer as even more Roman than early American; although had she but reflected she would have remembered that the type of the Caesars had its last stronghold in the United States of the eighteenth century. Isabel looked like a very young Roman matron, but her resemblance to the stately effigies in the galleries of Florence and Rome, strong in virtue or vice, was so striking that once more Flora longed for her support. A woman with such capabilities would be wasted in the role of a mere countess--but as the wife of an aspiring Liberal statesman! She devoutly wished that the American had arrived six months earlier, or that Brathland still lived.