Isabel Clarendon, Vol. II (of II). George Gissing
the guns, cricket-bats, horse-whips, and pictures, which invited observation. Going to one of the seats to repose himself, he found a book lying close by on the floor, open leaves downwards, just as it had fallen. It was one of Captain Marryat’s novels. Robert threw up his legs on to the couch, and began to read.
Our friend was anything but a man of literary tastes; with the exception of purchases at railway stations, it is doubtful whether he had ever bought a book in his life. He read newspapers assiduously; they satisfied his need of mental pabulum. For the rest, he made the world his book, and had the faculty of extracting amusement from it in sufficient quantities to occupy his leisure time. He was anything but an ignorant man; conversation, and the haphazard experiences of life, had supplied him in a living way with knowledge which ordinarily has to be sought from the printed page; but intellectual tendencies, properly speaking, he had none. Art he only cared for in the elementary way; for music, he plainly confessed he had no ear. On men and manners, he habitually reflected, and had fair natural power of insight; problems of life were non-existent for him.
The story which he had picked up absorbed him; he read on and on with a boy’s simple enjoyment. His body rested in a corner of the seat, his legs were stretched at full length, one over the other, he held the book up in both hands; often he laughed aloud, and at other times his face wore an expression of the gravest interest. The billiard players had passed out of his world.
When at length he put down the book, he found himself alone in the room. He jumped up, flung the book on to the green table, yawned, stretched his arms, slapped his legs to restore circulation, and walked to the window. It was growing dark. In the leafless garden the rain fell steadily; occasionally drops made their way down the chimney, and hissed upon the fire. Robert had the feeling of one who awakes after dissipation, a debauched and untidy sensation. He felt the necessity of plunging his face in water.
Having done so, he made his way to the drawing-room. Visitors were not to be expected such an afternoon as this, and at first he thought the room was empty. But Mrs. Stratton was sitting with her back to him; the ruffling of a newspaper she held apprised him of her presence.
“So some one has appeared at last,” said the lady, “not for my company, of course, but for a cup of tea. Would you be so good as to ring the bell?”
“The tea will be grateful, I admit,” returned Robert, doing her bidding, “but your society no less. In fact, I want to speak to you.”
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Clarendon refuses my invitation—that I mentioned in my letter, you remember.”
“Refuses? What is her objection?”
“Nothing definite. She says she cannot leave England, that’s all. Has she—I don’t think there’s any harm in asking you, is there?—has she spoken with you at all of what she is going to do?”
“Well, no. In fact, it’s a subject she won’t approach. I don’t think she has formed any plans whatever yet.”
Asquith reflected, and at the same time tea was brought in and lamps lit.
“I half supposed,” said Mrs. Stratton, glancing aside at him, as she held up the teapot, “that you were the most likely person to know of her plans.”
“I assure you, Mrs. Stratton, that was a mistake, an entire mistake.”
The lady raised her eyebrows a little and carefully removed a tea-leaf from her cup.
“You take it for granted,” she asked, after a moment, “that she will really quit Knights-well?”
“How otherwise? I am perfectly sure that nothing would induce her to continue living there under the new régime. If the persons concerned had been—had been other than they of course the affair might have been very simple. But not as it is.”
“By-the-bye,” he added, “she gave me one piece of information. She does not intend to live in London.”
“Where then, I wonder?”
“I can’t conjecture.”
“I would repeat the invitation, I think,” said Mrs. Stratton, looking at him.
“I shall do so, though not just yet.”
The colonel and Mr. Lyster came in talking loudly. .
“Ah, we left you asleep,” said the former to Robert. “Didn’t like to disturb you. We’ve had a walk.”
“A walk, in this weather!” exclaimed his wife.
“Oh yes; a little rain does one no harm. Not a bad afternoon; there’s a pleasant warmth in the air. Don’t you notice a warmth in the air, Asquith?”
“Yes, here in the drawing-room. I can’t answer for outside.”
“Oh, it’s distinctly warm. Eh, Lyster?”
Mrs. Clarendon appeared in the room. The colonel lost his ease, and began to walk about. The conversation became general.
There were several other people at dinner. It fell to Asquith to take down a certain Miss Pye, a tall young lady with a long thin nose, simply dressed in white, with much exposure of bust. This décolleté costume was a thing Robert found it impossible to get used to; he felt that if he went on dining with ladies for another five-and-twenty years there would still arise in him the same sensation of amazement as often as he turned to speak and had his eyes regaled with a vision of the female form divine, with its most significant developments insisted upon. Singular questions of social economy invariably suggested themselves. How far was this fashion a consequence of severe competition in the marriage market? He always found it a little difficult to look his fair neighbour in the face, and, when he at length did so, experienced surprise at her placid equanimity. Miss Pye’s equanimity it would have taken much to disturb. As in duty bound, Robert made his endeavour to interest her in various kinds of conversation. The affirmative and negative particles alone replied to him. She ate with steady application; she smiled feebly when he attempted a very evident joke; she appeared to have no concern in any of the things about which men and women use or abuse the gift of speech. Yet he succeeded at last.
“Did you ever read a book called–?” he asked, naming the novel of Marryat’s which had absorbed him through the afternoon.
“I should think so!” exclaimed Miss Pye, her eyes gleaming with appreciation. “Isn’t it awfully jolly? And–”
She proceeded to name half a dozen other works by the same refined and penetrating author.
“That’s the kind of book I like,” she said. “I believe I ought to have been a boy by rights. My brothers have all Marryat, and Mayne Reid, and Cooper; and I know them all by heart. ‘Valentine Vox,’ too; do you know that? Oh, you just get it, as soon as you can. And ‘Tom Burke of Ours’; that’s Lever. And ‘Handy Andy.’ You haven’t read ‘Handy Andy’? But what a great deal you have to read yet.”
Robert admitted that such was the case. Miss Pye had got upon her subject, and Asquith drew her out. She was something of a new female type to him; but only so because he had long been unused to the society of English girls. Had he mentioned a book by George Eliot she would have told him that her mother didn’t approve of that writer, who was an atheist and immoral.
Later he found himself by Isabel. Her proximity was pleasant to him. He would have preferred just now to sit by her in silence, an glance at her face occasionally, but that was scarcely possible.
“You will let me hear from you when that business is over?” he said.
“I will. Remember it is not my function to send invitations for the wedding.”
“I suppose not.”
Somebody else drew near.
As they passed from the dining-room after breakfast next morning, Isabel said to Mrs. Stratton:
“Come to the boudoir; I have a letter I want to show you.”
The letter was this:
“Dear Mrs. Clarendon,
“I