Lady Isabel

“ I was begging the Lady Isabel to grant that we may be; I was asking her to become my wife.”
The avowal was as a shower of incense to the countess, and her ill humor melted into sunshine. It was a solution to her great difficulty, a loophole by which she might get rid of her bete noire, the hated Isabel. ”

“ LADY ISABEL
‘Lady Isabel,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 129. Lady Isabel’s step-mother accuses her of being her father’s leman; he gives her finer gowns than he gives his wife. Isabel replies that, in the first place, she is young, which is reason enough why her gowns should be fairer; but that, as a matter of fact, a lover of hers over seas sends her ten gowns to one that her father buys her. The step-mother invites Isabel to take wine with her. Isabel wishes first to go to a church. ”

“ Poor human-hearted Isabel, what perversity had bitten her? Her light step drew a mass of drapery behind it; her intelligent head sustained a majesty of ornament. The free, keen girl had become quite another person; what he saw was the fine lady who was supposed to represent something. What did Isabel represent? Ralph asked himself; and he could only answer by saying that she represented Gilbert Osmond. ”

“ Isabel thought him interesting—she came back to that; she liked so to think of him. She had carried away an image from her visit to his hill-top which her subsequent knowledge of him did nothing to efface and which put on for her a particular harmony with other supposed and divined things, histories within histories: the image of a quiet, clever, sensitive, distinguished man, strolling on a moss-grown terrace above the sweet Val d’Arno and holding by the hand a little girl whose bell-like clearness gave a new grace to childhood. ”

“ Of young women of twenty-two or twenty-three years old, still going yearly through the season, Lady Isabel merely said matter-of-factly:
"What a pity!"
For the first time, a disquieting twinge seized Alex, lest the same words should apply to her. No one had shown her the faintest inclination to ask her in marriage, or even express any particular admiration for her. She could not imagine any of the men whom she knew falling in love with her.
At balls or dinner-parties, she made conversation with her partners. They never grew to know one another more intimately. ”

“ Isabel said, she had a spirit to do anything he desired, provided it was nothing wrong. "Virtue is bold, and never fearful," said the duke: and then he asked her, if she had ever heard of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who was drowned at sea. "I have heard of the lady," said Isabel, "and good words went with her name."—"This lady," said the duke, "is the wife of Angelo; but her marriage dowry was on board the vessel in which her brother perished, and mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman! ”

“ But Isabel performed the journey with a positive enjoyment of its dangers and lost her way almost on purpose, in order to get more sensations, so that she was disappointed when an obliging policeman easily set her right again. She was so fond of the spectacle of human life that she enjoyed even the aspect of gathering dusk in the London streets—the moving crowds, the hurrying cabs, the lighted shops, the flaring stalls, the dark, shining dampness of everything. That evening, at her hotel, she wrote to Madame Merle that she should start in a day or two for Rome. ”

“ In Isabel's diary at this time there occurs the following note:
"Richard has just come back with flying colours from Mecca; but instead of coming home, he has gone to Bombay to rejoin his regiment. I glory in his glory. God be thanked!"
Then a sense of desolation and hopelessness sweeps over her soul, for she writes:
"But I am alone and unloved. Love can illumine the dark roof of poverty, and can lighten the fetters of a slave; the most miserable position of humanity is tolerable with its support, and the most splendid irksome without its inspiration. ”

“ Isabel found it difficult to think of her in any detachment or privacy, she existed only in her relations, direct or indirect, with her fellow mortals. One might wonder what commerce she could possibly hold with her own spirit. One always ended, however, by feeling that a charming surface doesn’t necessarily prove one superficial; this was an illusion in which, in one’s youth, one had but just escaped being nourished. Madame Merle was not superficial—not she. She was deep, and her nature spoke none the less in her behaviour because it spoke a conventional tongue. ”

“ The Lady Isabel was the last descendant of the family of D——; her father had fallen in battle; his lady did not long survive him; and thus, at an early age, Isabel became an orphan. Her mother's brother was appointed her guardian, and, with his son Albert, came to reside at the Castle. The children, thus insulated from the world, and educated entirely at home, saw nothing so worthy to be loved as each other, and their attachment was as romantic as the scenes around them. ”

“ When Isabel Arundell loves, her affection will be something extraordinary, her devotion great—in fact, too great. It will be her leading passion, and influence her whole life. Everything will be sacrificed for one man, and she will be constant, unchangeable, and jealous of his affections. In short, he will be her salvation or perdition! Her temper is good, but she is passionate; not easily roused, but when violently irritated she might be a perfect little demon. She is, however, forgiving. She is full of originality and humour, and her utter naturalness will pass for eccentricity. ”

“ Isabel smiled. “It was unkind to me. I don’t want you to marry.”
“My dear cousin, what’s one to do among you all?” Ralph demanded. “Miss Stackpole tells me it’s my bounden duty, and that it’s hers, in general, to see I do mine!”
“She has a great sense of duty,” said Isabel gravely. “She has indeed, and it’s the motive of everything she says. That’s what I like her for. She thinks it’s unworthy of you to keep so many things to yourself. That’s what she wanted to express. If you thought she was trying to—to attract you, you were very wrong.” ”

“ All his affection is given to his present wife. There is no doubt that he loves her with a true, a fervent, a lasting love: though there may have been more romantic sentiment in the early passion felt for Lady Isabel. ”

“ The question was a terrible one, and Isabel took refuge in timorous vagueness. “To remember all the pleasure it’s in your power to give your father.”
“To marry some one else, you mean—if he should ask me?”
For a moment Isabel’s answer caused itself to be waited for; then she heard herself utter it in the stillness that Pansy’s attention seemed to make. “Yes—to marry some one else.”
The child’s eyes grew more penetrating; Isabel believed she was doubting her sincerity, and the impression took force from her slowly getting up from her cushion. ”

“ O Ralph, you’ve been everything! What have I done for you—what can I do to-day? I would die if you could live. But I don’t wish you to live; I would die myself, not to lose you.” Her voice was as broken as his own and full of tears and anguish.
“You won’t lose me—you’ll keep me. Keep me in your heart; I shall be nearer to you than I’ve ever been. Dear Isabel, life is better; for in life there’s love. Death is good—but there’s no love.”
“I never thanked you—I never spoke—I never was what I should be!” Isabel went on. ”

“ When we love the creature more than the Creator—when, for instance, thou shalt care more to please thy lord than to please the Lord—then only is it idolatry. Therefore, I use the word tendency; I trust it is not more with thee.—Well, then, with Isabel"——
Lady Isabel gave a toss of her head,—a gesture to which she is very much addicted.
"With Isabel," continued Lady Judith, "unselfishness would take the form of resigning her own ease or pleasure to suit the convenience of another, Her temptation, therefore, is to indolence and self-pleasing. ”

“ The Miss Arundells had no lack of admirers, and more than once Isabel refused or discouraged advantageous offers of marriage, much to the perplexity of her mother, who naturally wished her daughters to make good marriages; that is to say, to marry men of the same religion as themselves, and in the same world—men who would make them good husbands in every sense of the word. But Isabel, who was then twenty-one years of age, had a strong will of her own, and very decided views on the subject of marriage, and she turned a deaf ear to all pleadings. ”

“ And what will become of all our nice Sundays?"
"Poor little Amy!" said Isabel, parting back the shining curls from the sorrowful little face, and looking into the violet eyes that were fixed upon her so earnestly. "You must not think that I would leave you without first trying to fill my place with one who would love you and try to make you happy. Now, if you will stop crying, I will tell you about the young lady who, I hope, will be your governess. ”

“ Isabel said.
“Why not, I should like to know? You won’t confess that you’ve made a mistake. You’re too proud.”
“I don’t know whether I’m too proud. But I can’t publish my mistake. I don’t think that’s decent. I’d much rather die.”
“You won’t think so always,” said Henrietta.
“I don’t know what great unhappiness might bring me to; but it seems to me I shall always be ashamed. One must accept one’s deeds. I married him before all the world; I was perfectly free; it was impossible to do anything more deliberate. One can’t change that way,” Isabel repeated. ”

“ It must be remembered that Isabel was the eldest child. She was a very handsome and fascinating girl; she had many wealthy suitors, and might well have been expected to make "a good match." From a worldly point of view she was simply throwing herself away. From a higher point of view she was following her destiny, and marrying the man she loved with every fibre of her being. But Mrs. Arundell could hardly have been expected to see things in this light, and in opposing Isabel's marriage with Richard Burton she only acted as ninety-nine mothers out of every hundred would have done. ”

“ The Ladie Isabell being departed from Spaine, hauing trauersed the mountaines Pirenees, passed by Fraunce, went ouer the Alpes, and came to Thurin, where the Duke of Sauoye had then for wyfe, a sister of the kinge of Englande, whoe was bruted to be the fairest creature of the weste partes of the world. For this cause the Lady Isabel desired greatly in passing by to see her, to know whether truth did aunswere the great renowne of her beauty. ”

“ Yet an opportunity for what Isabel could hardly have said; in general, to be more for the child than the child was able to be for herself. Isabel could have smiled, in these days, to remember that her little companion had once been ambiguous, for she now perceived that Pansy’s ambiguities were simply her own grossness of vision. She had been unable to believe any one could care so much—so extraordinarily much—to please. ”

“ Isabel delayed for some minutes to go to him; she moved about the room with a new sense of complications. But at last she presented herself and found him standing near the lamp. He was tall, strong and somewhat stiff; he was also lean and brown. He was not romantically, he was much rather obscurely, handsome; but his physiognomy had an air of requesting your attention, which it rewarded according to the charm you found in blue eyes of remarkable fixedness, the eyes of a complexion other than his own, and a jaw of the somewhat angular mould which is supposed to bespeak resolution. ”

“ It is a curious fact that my mother, Elizabeth Gerard, and Isabel Clifford, my father's first wife, were bosom friends, schoolfellows, and friends out in the world together; and amongst other girlish confidences they used to talk to one another about the sort of man each would marry. Both their men were to be tall, dark, and majestic; one was to be a literary man, and a man of artistic tastes and life ”

“ But, as I say, it was not till the winter during which we lately renewed acquaintance with our heroine that the personage in question made again a continuous stay in Rome. Isabel now saw more of her than she had done since her marriage; but by this time Isabel’s needs and inclinations had considerably changed. It was not at present to Madame Merle that she would have applied for instruction; she had lost the desire to know this lady’s clever trick. If she had troubles she must keep them to herself, and if life was difficult it would not make it easier to confess herself beaten. ”

“ Isabel candidly believed that his lordship would, in the usual phrase, get over his disappointment. He had been deeply affected—this she believed, and she was still capable of deriving pleasure from the belief; but it was absurd that a man both so intelligent and so honourably dealt with should cultivate a scar out of proportion to any wound. Englishmen liked moreover to be comfortable, said Isabel, and there could be little comfort for Lord Warburton, in the long run, in brooding over a self-sufficient American girl who had been but a casual acquaintance. ”

“ Wasn’t it much more probable that if one were fine one would suffer? It involved then perhaps an admission that one had a certain grossness; but Isabel recognised, as it passed before her eyes, the quick vague shadow of a long future. She should never escape; she should last to the end. Then the middle years wrapped her about again and the grey curtain of her indifference closed her in.
Henrietta kissed her, as Henrietta usually kissed, as if she were afraid she should be caught doing it; and then Isabel stood there in the crowd, looking about her, looking for her servant. ”

“ There were too many gentlemen in uniform; they wore those dreadful spurs, which were fatal to the dresses of little maids. It hereupon became apparent that the resources of women are innumerable. Isabel devoted herself to Pansy’s desecrated drapery; she fumbled for a pin and repaired the injury; she smiled and listened to her account of her adventures. Her attention, her sympathy were immediate and active; and they were in direct proportion to a sentiment with which they were in no way connected—a lively conjecture as to whether Lord Warburton might be trying to make love to her. ”