Lady Carlisle

“ Had she played no part in politics Lady Carlisle would have been marked out as a business woman with a real talent for administration. Her husband cared more for his art than for the management of landed property, and left the family estates mainly in her control. For the latter half of her life she was her own land agent and architect, picking her farmers with a keen eye for character, and planning the rebuilding of farmsteads and cottages, with the minute love of detail on which she prided herself. The estate finances were controlled with method and economy. ”

“ It's what I've always admired most in women, and found least often."
The loving waiter set tea and muffins. Peace unfolded white wings over the little table. A divine orchestra played a dreamy waltz that had reference to a beautiful lady. Carlisle poured, and remembered from Willie's apartment that Canning liked one lump and neither cream nor lemon. He seemed absurdly pleased by the small fact. The topic of the Past having been finally disposed of, the man's ordinary manner seemed abruptly to leave him. His gaze became oddly unsettled, but he perpetually returned it to Carlisle's face. ”

“ When youth and love no more can bless,
Let death obey my call."
Lady Carlisle's son, Frederick, who was educated at Eton and Cambridge, succeeded his father as fifth Earl of Carlisle, in 1758, when he was ten years old. After leaving Cambridge, he started on a continental tour with two Eton friends — Lord FitzWilliam and Charles James Fox. A lively letter-writer, his correspondence with his friend George Selwyn, while in Italy, shows him to have been a young man of wit, feeling, and taste. ”

“ And she involuntarily rose in the Cooney parlor, feeling the oddest, suddenest, most unreasoning impulse to go at once into the dining-room, after all, and be with Looloo, and watch them play checkers for a little while....
It was the surprise of it; nothing more. And Carlisle overcame that impulse. She remained standing motionless, reconsidering as by lightning flashes the quite complicated point of etiquette that so suddenly confronted her. What was a lady's proper attitude toward a nobody who has called her father a shameless homicide and herself a God-pitiful poor little thing? ”

“ Heth heard the tidings (which she did within three minutes of Carlisle's arrival at home) the good lady hardly restrained the tears of jubilee. Having all but abandoned hope, she was swept off her feet by the overwhelming revulsion of feeling, and her attitude--for of course mamma always produced an attitude about everything upon the spot--was not merely ecstatic, but tender and magnanimously humble. For it was clear now that the daughter had outpointed the mother at the Great Game; Cally had justified her flare-up ”

“ She, with her tireless energies, was not one to cry forever over milk hopelessly spilt. But neither was she one to temper justice with too much mercy, and her final word on the matter was a final one, indeed: "But of course you can never make it up to me, Carlisle, never...." And Carlisle, rising, knew even better than mamma how sad and true this was. There was only one thing that her mother had wanted of her, and that thing she had not done. Life, even on this day of song and mist, was seen to be inexorable.... ”

“ She added, after a brief pause: "Should you call a biting lecture on one's shortcomings from a strange man no injury?"
"But surely, speaking to that topic alone, my supplanter could not have spun it out for two hours, while I, luckless one, tramped alone on the piazza."
"Two hours?... As I say," Carlisle laughed at him, nibbling a little pink cake, "I like your pretty speeches."
The fire crackled merrily. The masculine paraphernalia stood, convenient. Canning stretched out an indolent but man's sized hand and refilled his glass. ”

“ The pride and passion were left to be Mr. Carlisle's own. Pride was roused, that he was stopped by so gentle a barrier in his advances; and passion was stimulated, by uncertainty not merely, but by the calm grace and indefinable sweetness which he did not remember in Eleanor, well as he had loved her before. He loved her better now. That charm of manner was the very thing to captivate Mr. Carlisle; he valued it highly; and did not appreciate it the less because it baffled him.
"He's ten times worse than ever," Mrs. Powle said exultingly to her husband. ”

“ As they took him up the Carlisle streets, the old wives cast their windows wide, every woman whispering to another, "That's the man loosed Jock o' the Side." The poor fellow cried out, "Fie on ye, women! why call ye me man? It's no like a man that I'm used, but like a beaten hound that's been fighting in the gutter." They had him up through Carlisle town, and set him by a chimney fire, where they gave him a wheaten loaf to eat, and a can of beer. "Confess my lord's horse, Hobbie," they said, "and to-morrow in Carlisle thou shalt not die." ”

“ Her heart is beating fast, the colour comes and goes in her face. She is thinking how glad she is she did not put on that terra-cotta gown with its huge puffs and frills, but discarded it at the last moment for this soft creamy robe of Indian silk, that seems to float about her like a mist, and show all the lovely curves of her perfect figure as she moves or stands. Cyril Carlisle thinks her more lovely than ever. The old pain so long buried and fought against comes back all too vividly. He knows he has never forgotten, never ceased to love this woman; but she—how calm, how changed she is! ”

“ She is popular in Washington society, makes many friends and keeps them by being true in her friendships, gladly making sacrifices and suffering inconveniences for others. Her husband, Senator Carlisle, ex-speaker of the House, is known throughout the United States. The support of such women as Mrs. Carlisle is a powerful factor in the lives of all men, and to her more than any other does Mr. Carlisle owe all that is true to himself, that places him in the front rank of the great thinkers and of the great statesmen of the age. ”

“ Page was a tall, pleasant-faced woman, still on the right side of forty, a widow whose husband had left her too much of this world's goods for her ever to be classed as a poorhouse Tory; and despite the fact that she was a leader in the old-school, as opposed to the brass-band, set, many people considered her a very agreeable woman. She had amusing things to say, and she said them in the Heth drawing-room with no air of awkwardness. Carlisle, somewhat against her will, was soon thinking her extremely attractive. ”

“ Perhaps no girl in the world was less like the popular portrait of a fat horse-leech's daughter than this girl, Carlisle Heth. Surely no advance ever less resembled the charge of a hating prophet upon a Hun than this man's advance. Carlisle, to be sure, was never one to think in historical or Biblical terminology. ”

“ Don't you think it comes usually as a--a by-product of other things?"
"Oh, but I'm asking you, you see.... What sort of things do you mean?"
He hesitated perceptibly, seeming to take her light derisive remarks with a strange seriousness.
"Well, I think a--a good rule is to ... to cultivate the sympathies all the time, and keep doing something useful."
Carlisle continued to look at his downcast face, with the translucent eyes, and as she looked, the strangest thought shimmered through her, with a turning of the heart new in her experience. She thought: "This man is a good friend...." ”

“ Mr. Carlyle stood confounded, and confused. He drew himself up to his full height, looking every whit as fearless and far more noble than the peer. “My lord, I do not understand you.”
“Yet I speak plainly. What is it but a clandestine procedure to take advantage of a guardian’s absence and beguile a young girl into a marriage beneath her?”
“There has been nothing clandestine in my conduct toward Lady Isabel Vane; there shall be nothing but honor in my conduct toward Lady Isabel Carlyle. Your lordship has been misinformed.” ”

“ As they passed down the steps towards the carriage, Mr. Carlisle suddenly stopped, exclaiming: “Why, child, what is the matter? You have the real martyr-look on your face. I read there, as in a book, that combination of suffering and triumph which we see in pictures, representing those times when men were not so chivalrous as now, and inflicted persecutions on account of a devotion which is so natural to your sex, and which,” he added, laughing, “is so particularly becoming where the woman is young and pretty. ”

“ Carlisle will be here, and he will not like it."
"He will have enough of me by and by, ma'am. I shall may be never have another chance of taking care of Jane. I know she wants to see me, and I am going to-day. And if she wants me very much, I shall stay all night; so you need not send."
"What will Mr. Carlisle say to all that?"
"He will say nothing to it, if you do not give him an opportunity, mamma. I am going, at all events."
"Eleanor, I am afraid you have almost too much independence, for one who is almost a married woman." ”

“ Carlisle wants."
"I cannot go, mamma."
"Eleanor, you would not forfeit your word?"
"I have not given it."
"Do not contradict me! You have given it all these months. Everybody has understood it so. Your father looks upon Mr. Carlisle as his son already. You would be everlastingly disgraced if you play false."
"I will play true, mamma. I will not say I give my heart where I do not give it."
"Give your hand then. All one," said Mrs. Powle laughing. "Come! I order you to obey me, Eleanor!"
"I must not, mamma. I will not go to Hampton Court with Mr. Carlisle." ”

“ I will take the five dollars to her willingly,” replied the young girl; “but I will take myself too. I can easily walk,” she added, looking for permission to her guardian, as the occasion was exceptional.
Displeasure at his sister's thoughtlessness was evident in Mr. Carlisle's tone, as he said:
“You will go in the carriage, Assunta, and I will accompany you. We will return for Clara after the visit. Giovanni, order a basket of provisions to be put up before one o'clock, and be ready yourself to go with us and take charge of it; and now that the matter is settled, we will have some breakfast.” ”

“ You will never get through Carlisle with that on your lip. Anyone who has ever seen you before would recognize you now, in spite of cloak and cap.”
“Madam, you ask too much. The kingdom of England may fall, but this moustache, never.”
“Really,” laughed the girl. “If you saw it at this moment you would not be so proud of it. It has drooped and wilted in the rain like a faded flower. ’Twere better done away with, for it will mark you out from the smooth-faced troopers who throng Carlisle.” ”

“ Carlyle was true and faithful to you, and to you alone. Few women have the chance of happiness, in their married life, in the degree that you had. He is an upright and good man; one of nature's gentlemen; one that England may be proud of as having grown upon her soil. ”

“ It was his carriage they were in, Eleanor then perceived; and she wanted to ask a question; but on the whole concluded it safe to be still; according to the proverb, Let sleeping dogs lie. One other time he drew her shawl round her which she had let slip off.
Mr. Carlisle was possessed of large self-control and had great perfection of tact; and he never shewed either more consummately than this night. What he underwent while standing in the aisle of the Chapel, was known to himself; he made it known to nobody else. He was certainly silent during the drive ”

“ However--any attractive girl is likely to draw the attacks of ruffianly men. His conduct surpass--"
"Yes--but do you think everybody'll understand that?" said Carlisle, hurriedly, and rather felt that the worst was over. "That's just it, mamma,--don't you see? How do we know what sort of gossip is being bandied about downstairs now? You know people always put the worst possible construction they can on a--an episode like this!..."
Her mother wheeled on her, struck afresh in her dearest possession, namely: her pride in the prestige of the name of Heth in an envious and backbiting world. ”

“ She was mamma's daughter, Hugo Canning's betrothed, fighting for her own: and now that movement upstairs warned her that she had no moment to lose.
Carlisle seized the slum doctor's arm with a resolute little hand. Her voice, though panicky, was as inexorable as mamma's own.
"Promise me," said she, "that you will never repeat to anybody what I told you in confidence."
The face of the young man, which was usually so harmless-looking, had suddenly become quite stern. He looked as if he might ask God to pity her again, given a very little more. ”

“ ASSOCIATIONS OF CARLISLE.
NO one versed in ballad lore—no reader of old poetry and romance, can approach Carlisle for the first time without pleasurable emotion. Carlisle is the border city—the city of King Arthur and his knights. It has been the scene of many a stout siege and bloody feud; of many a fierce foray, and mournful execution, and of many a just punishment upon traitors and reivers. It is, consequently, not to be pictured to the imagination without unusual interest. ”

“ My idea was to combine two types of beauty, English and American, and with good press work make both my leading women popular favorites. But the hopeless state of mind of Miss Carlisle put rather a damper on my plan. I turned her over to the care of the ex-manager and remained in my stateroom during the entire trip. On our arrival in New York I loaned Miss Carlisle the cost of her passage home and the following week she started back to London—much to the satisfaction of my American beauty, pardon, my young and handsome star. ”