Wilkie Collins

“ Lady Lydiard repeated, as if the expression was perfectly unintelligible to her. “I don’t think you have had much experience of dogs, ma’am.” She turned to Isabel, and embraced her tenderly. “Give me a kiss, my dear—you don’t know how wretched I have been since you left me.” She looked back again at Miss Pink. “You are not, perhaps, aware, ma’am, that my dog is devotedly attached to your niece. A dog’s love has been considered by many great men (whose names at the moment escape me) as the most touching and disinterested of all earthly affections.” ”

“ The steward’s pale face turned paler still as he said those words. With the arrival of Isabel in Lady Lydiard’s house “his time had come”—exactly as the women in the servants’ hall had predicted. At last the impenetrable man felt the influence of the sex; at last he knew the passion of love misplaced, ill-starred, hopeless love, for a woman who was young enough to be his child. He had already spoken to Isabel more than once in terms which told his secret plainly enough. But the smouldering fire of jealousy in the man, fanned into flame by Hardyman, now showed itself for the first time. ”

“ Lady Lydiard patted the pretty head that rested on her with such filial tenderness. “There! there!” she said, “Go back and play with Tommie, my dear. We may be as fond of each other as we like; but we mustn’t cry. God bless you! Go away—go away!”
She turned aside quickly; her own eyes were moistening, and it was part of her character to be reluctant to let Isabel see it. “Why have I made a fool of myself?” she wondered, as she approached the drawing-room door. “It doesn’t matter. I am all the better for it. Odd, that Mr. Hardyman should have made me feel fonder of Isabel than ever!” ”

“ Hardyman left the tent, not very willingly. “Wait here,” he said to Isabel; “I’ll be back directly.”
She was standing near her own place at the table. Moody had left one end of the jeweler’s case visible above the napkin, to attract her attention. In a minute more the bracelet and note were in her hands. She dropped on her chair, overwhelmed by the conflicting emotions that rose in her at the sight of the bracelet, at the reading of the note. Her head drooped, and the tears filled her eyes. “Are all women as blind as I have been to what is good and noble in the men who love them?” ”

“ Isabel pointed to the villas, as a necessary concession to good manners, before the groom could anticipate her. “My aunt lives there, sir; at the house called The Lawn.”
“Ah! to be sure!” said Hardyman. “I oughtn’t to have wanted reminding; but I have so many things to think of at the farm. And I am afraid I must be getting old—my memory isn’t as good as it was. I am so glad to have seen you, Miss Isabel. You and your aunt must come and look at my horses. Do you like horses? Are you fond of riding? I have a quiet roan mare that is used to carrying ladies; she would be just the thing for you. ”

“ If the steward had known anything of women (at Isabel’s age) he would never have appealed to her mercy in those plain terms, and at the unpropitious moment. “Pity you?” she repeated contemptuously. “Is that all you have to say to me after hurting my arm? What a bear you are!” She shrugged her shoulders and put her hands coquettishly into the pockets of her apron. That was how she pitied him! His face turned paler and paler—he writhed under it.
“For God’s sake, don’t turn everything I say to you into ridicule!” he cried. “You know I love you with all my heart and soul. ”

“ Hardyman has passed the stolen note, you know, as well as I do, that he has passed it innocently. Instead of wasting time and money in trying to trace a stranger, why not tell Mr. Hardyman what has happened, and ask him to give us the number of the note? You can’t think of everything, I know; but it does seem strange that this idea didn’t occur to you before you went to France.”
“Mr. Moody,” said Old Sharon, “I shall have to cut your acquaintance. You are a man without faith; I don’t like you. As if I hadn’t thought of Hardyman weeks since!” ”

“ I will say one word more, Miss Pink, before I relieve you of my presence. Considering my age and my opportunities, I may claim to know quite as much as you do of the laws and customs which regulate society in our time. Without contesting your niece’s social position—and without the slightest intention of insulting you—I repeat that the rank which Mr. Hardyman inherits makes it simply impossible for him even to think of marrying Isabel. You will do well not to give him any opportunities of meeting with her alone. ”

“ No pen-and-ink portrait need surely be drawn of Felix Sweetsir—he is too well-known a picture in society. The little lithe man, with his bright, restless eyes, and his long iron-gray hair falling in curls to his shoulders, his airy step and his cordial manner; his uncertain age, his innumerable accomplishments, and his unbounded popularity—is he not familiar everywhere, and welcome everywhere? How gratefully he receives, how prodigally he repays, the cordial appreciation of an admiring world! Every man he knows is “a charming fellow.” Every woman he sees is “sweetly pretty.” ”

“ His looks, even more than his words, would have warned a woman with any knowledge of the natures of men to be careful how she answered him. Young, giddy, and inexperienced, Isabel followed the flippant impulse of the moment, without a thought of the consequences. “I’m sure it’s very kind of Mr. Hardyman to speak favorably of me,” she said, with a pert little laugh. “I hope you are not jealous of him, Mr. Moody?”
Moody was in no humor to make allowances for the unbridled gayety of youth and good spirits.
“I hate any man who admires you,” he burst out passionately, “let him be who he may!” ”

“ Isabel stopped and looked back. Hardyman’s language was becoming a little too explicit. “Surely we have lost Mrs. Drumblade and my aunt,” she said. “I don’t see them anywhere.”
“You will see them directly; they are only a long way behind.” With this assurance, he returned, in his own obstinate way, to his one object in view. “Miss Isabel, I want to ask you a question. I’m not a ladies’ man. I speak my mind plainly to everybody—women included. Do you like being here to-day?”
Isabel’s gravity was not proof against this very downright question. ”

“ In your position you cannot possibly be too careful. Here is Mr. Troy! You must come to the gate with us, Isabel, or we shall never get Tommie away from you; I am only his second favorite; you have the first place in his affections. God bless and prosper you, my child!—I wish to heaven you were going back to London with me! Well, Mr. Troy, how have you done with Miss Pink? ”

“ I have been, it seems, so unfortunate as to offend Lady Lydiard (how, I cannot imagine) ; and the all-powerful influence of this noble lady is now used against the struggling artist who is united to you by the sacred ties of kindred. Be it so. I can fight my way upwards, my Lord, as other men have done before me. A day may yet come when the throng of carriages waiting at the door of the fashionable portrait-painter will include her Ladyship’s vehicle, and bring me the tardy expression of her Ladyship’s regret. I refer you, my Lord Lydiard, to that day! ”

“ I don’t deny that I feel an interest in her. The young ladies one meets in society are not much to my taste. Miss Isabel is my taste.”
Lady Lydiard’s face assumed a look of blank dismay. “I am afraid I have failed to convey my exact meaning to you,” she said.
Hardyman gravely declared that he understood her perfectly. “Perfectly!” he repeated, with his impenetrable obstinacy. “Your Ladyship exactly expresses my opinion of Miss Isabel. Prudent, and cheerful, and sweet-tempered, as you say—all the qualities in a woman that I admire. With good looks, too—of course, with good looks. ”

“ Isabel returned once more, feeling that it was really serious this time. Her gravity was even more charming than her gayety. As she lifted her face to him, with large solemn eyes, expressive of her sense of responsibility, Hardyman would have given every horse in his stables to have had the privilege of taking her in his arms and kissing her.
“Tommie has the temper of an angel with the people he likes,” she said. “When he bites, it generally means that he objects to strangers. He loves my Lady, and he loves Mr. Moody, and he loves me, and—and I think that’s all. ”

“ Isabel was on her guard: she had not forgotten what Lady Lydiard had said to her. “No, thank you, Mr. Hardyman; I am a better walker than you think.”
Hardyman continued the conversation in his blunt, resolute way. “I wonder whether you will believe me,” he asked, “if I tell you that this is one of the happiest days of my life.”
“I should think you were always happy,” Isabel cautiously replied, “having such a pretty place to live in as this.”
Hardyman met that answer with one of his quietly-positive denials. “A man is never happy by himself,” he said. “He is happy with a companion. ”

“ Men as old as I am have made good husbands before now. I would devote my whole life to make you happy. There isn’t a wish you could form which I wouldn’t be proud to obey. You must not reckon me by years. My youth has not been wasted in a profligate life; I can be truer to you and fonder of you than many a younger man. Surely my heart is not quite unworthy of you, when it is all yours. I have lived such a lonely, miserable life—and you might so easily brighten it. You are kind to everybody else, Isabel. Tell me, dear, why are you so hard on me? ”

“ To say that Miss Pink, inflated by the triumph, rose, morally speaking, from the earth and floated among the clouds, is to indicate faintly the effect produced on the ex-schoolmistress when her niece first informed her of what had happened at the farm. Attacked on one side by her aunt, and on the other by Hardyman, and feebly defended, at the best, by her own doubts and misgivings, Isabel ended by surrendering at discretion. Like thousands of other women in a similar position, she was in the last degree uncertain as to the state of her own heart. ”

“ Old Sharon resumed when he had joined his friends and had got his breath again, “let’s have a little talk about yourself, miss. Has Mr. Moody told you who I am, and what I want with you? Very good. May I offer you my arm? No! You like to be independent, don’t you? All right—I don’t object. I am an amiable old man, I am. About this Lady Lydiard, now? Suppose you tell me how you first got acquainted with her?”
In some surprise at this question, Isabel told her little story. Observing Sharon’s face while she was speaking, Moody saw that he was not paying the smallest attention to the narrative. ”

“ Oh! how young and innocent I do feel!” Here his innocence got the better of him, and he began to sing, “I wish I were a little fly, in my love’s bosom for to lie!” “Hullo! here we are on the nice soft grass! and, oh, my gracious! there’s a bank running down into a hollow! I can’t stand that, you know. Mr. Moody, hold my hat, and take the greatest care of it. Here goes for a roll down the bank!” ”

“ He passed his hand over his forehead with a sigh of relief. “It’s bad enough as it is,” he said, speaking quietly on his side. “But the remedy for it is plain enough. Come back to the tent.”
She never moved. “Why?” she asked.
“Do you suppose I don’t believe in your innocence too?” he answered. “The one way of setting you right with the world now is for me to make you my wife, in spite of the appearances that point to you. I’m too fond of you, Isabel, to give you up. Come back with me, and I will announce our marriage to my friends.” ”

“ Mr. Troy’s temper was admirably trained. But it began to acknowledge that Miss Pink’s powers of irritation could sting to some purpose.
“No intention of misleading you, madam, has ever crossed my mind,” he rejoined warmly. “As for your niece, I can tell you this. In all my experience of Lady Lydiard, I never saw her so distressed as she was when Miss Isabel left the house!”
“Indeed!” said Miss Pink, with an incredulous smile. “In my rank of life, when we feel distressed about a person, we do our best to comfort that person by a kind letter or an early visit. ”

“ With this reply Old Sharon held out his unwashed hand across the rickety ink-splashed table at which he was sitting.
Mr. Troy would not have touched him with the tips of his own fingers for a thousand pounds. He laid the guinea on the table.
Old Sharon burst into a fierce laugh—a laugh strangely accompanied by a frowning contraction of his eyebrows, and a frightful exhibition of the whole inside of his mouth. “I’m not clean enough for you—eh?” he said, with an appearance of being very much amused. “There’s a dirty old man described in this book that is a little like me.” ”

“ The smile vanished from Lady Lydiard’s face; the tone taken by her nephew in speaking of her dog was disrespectful in the extreme. She showed him plainly that she disapproved of it. Felix went on, nevertheless, impenetrable to reproof of the silent sort. “Dear little Tommie! So delightfully fat; and such an infernal temper! I don’t know whether I hate him or love him. Where is he?”
“Ill in bed,” answered her ladyship, with a gravity which startled even Felix himself. “I wish to speak to you about Tommie. You know everybody. ”

“ What does he know about it?”
“Hush!” said Lady Lydiard. “Control yourself, and hear what he has to say.” She rested her hand on Moody’s shoulder, partly to encourage him, partly to support herself; and, fixing her eyes again on Mr. Troy, repeated his last words, “‘Suspicion rests on my adopted daughter, and on nobody else.’ Why on nobody else?”
“Is your Ladyship prepared to suspect the Rector of St. Anne’s of embezzlement, or your own relatives and equals of theft?” Mr. Troy asked. “Does a shadow of doubt rest on the servants? Not if Mr. Moody’s evidence is to be believed. ”

“ Not in England only, but throughout Europe, he was a recognized authority on his own subject. How could she—how could any woman—resist the influence of his steady mind, his firmness of purpose, his manly resolution to owe everything to himself and nothing to his rank, set off as these attractive qualities were by the outward and personal advantages which exercise an ascendancy of their own? Isabel was fascinated, and yet Isabel was not at ease. In her lonely moments she was troubled by regretful thoughts of Moody, which perplexed and irritated her. She had always behaved honestly to him ”