CONCERNING ISABEL CARNABY

BY

ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER

AUTHOR OF CUPID'S GARDEN, VERSES WISE AND OTHERWISE, AND VERSES GRAVE AND GAY

NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1898

Authorized Edition.

Dedication

To Mine Own People: meaning those within The magic ring of home—my kith and kin;

And those with whom my soul delights to dwell— Who walk with me as friends, and wish me well;

And lastly those—a large, unnumbered band, Unknown to me—who read and understand.

CONTENTS

Prologue

CHAPTER I. Childish Things

CHAPTER II. Alice

CHAPTER III. Two Kings in Brentford

CHAPTER IV. Friends In Need

CHAPTER V. Water-lilies

CHAPTER VI. Esdaile Court

CHAPTER VII. Isabel Carnaby

CHAPTER VIII. Elton Manor

CHAPTER IX. Indecision

CHAPTER X. Eden

CHAPTER XI. His Own People

CHAPTER XII. A Feast of Good Things

CHAPTER XIII. The Country Of Conceit

CHAPTER XIV. Expulsion from Eden

CHAPTER XV. Angus Grey

CHAPTER XVI. Success

CHAPTER XVII. Vernacre

CHAPTER XVIII. A State Concert

CHAPTER XIX. Among the Wounded

CHAPTER XX. Joanna

CHAPTER XXI. As it was in the Beginning

CHAPTER XXII. For Conscience' Sake

CHAPTER XXIII. The Election

CHAPTER XXIV. Life In London

PROLOGUE.

A woman's tongue is ever slow To tell the thing she does not know.

There was a large dinner-party in Grosvenor Square at the house of Lord Kesterton, one of the new peers.

"Are you thoroughly enjoying your glories and honours?" inquired Lady Eleanor Gregory of her host, who had taken her down to dinner.

"Well, I must confess that I feel rather like the man who lost his wife, and said it was 'verra dull but verra peaceful'; and I have come to the conclusion that peace is an acquired taste."

"Then do you hanker after the fighting in your dear old House of Commons?"

Lord Kesterton smiled. "I am afraid I still babble o' green benches when I get the chance. The House of Commons is like certain women of one's acquaintance: you quarrel with them, and they expect too much from you, and you vow you will enjoy yourself and have nothing more to do with them; but, all the same, they have spoilt your taste for anything else, and they make all other women seem insufferably dull."

"And now I have got to scold you for dismissing my poor, dear Harry," said Lady Eleanor.

"Uncork the vials of your wrath," replied her host, "and I will endeavour to suffer and be strong."

"I shall appeal to Mr. Madderley to second my vote of censure," continued the lady, turning to the Royal Academician who sat at her right hand. "I suppose I ought to talk to you about art, but I am going to talk to you about politics."

"Please do not talk to me about art, dear lady; I could not bear it from you," replied the artist.

"Why not?"

"Because I should thereby discover that you knew nothing at all about it; and the one rag of faith still wrapped round my jaded spirit is my belief in your omniscience. If you take that away from me I shall sink lower and lower, and shall probably end in doubting the wisdom of Woman, or the supremacy of the British rate-payer."

Lady Eleanor laughed. "Don't you feel like this when I talk about politics?"

"Far from it. I know absolutely nothing about them myself; and when I hear you speaking familiarly—nay, even flippantly—of Whips and Under Secretaries and similar ruling powers, I regard you with awe as a mighty sibyl juggling with the mysterious forces of the Unknown."

"I see; it must sound rather impressive."

"Impressive is not the word—it sounds simply tremendous. Calling Under Secretaries by their Christian names seems to me like patting a thunderstorm or playing with an earthquake; yet I have often heard you do it without an apparent qualm. It is marvellous!"

Lady Eleanor was very proud of what she considered her wire-pulling powers; therefore she enjoyed the Academician's persiflage. It was in cases like this that Madderley showed himself such a clever man; he always said disagreeable things; but he generally took care that they were the sort of disagreeable things that people wanted him to say. Women liked Mr. Madderley because, they said, he did not flatter them; they never found out that is was because he flattered them that they liked him so much.

"When I talk about art, however, you regard me as 'an unlessoned girl,' I suppose," suggested her ladyship.

"That certainly is my idea, but, had you given me time, I would have decked its crudeness with some flowers of speech."

"I am so glad that I did not give you time, then. It would be insufferable if you began to be pleasant! Your raison d'être would be gone if you left off telling disagreeable truths, and we should all leave off liking you."

The artist smiled. "It is very kind of you to say that, Lady Eleanor; but don't you think that the men who tell palatable fibs are really the popular men?"

"No, I don't," Lady Eleanor hastened to assure him; "now you are immensely popular—you must know that you are; and yet you always say straight out whatever you think, and never mind how disagreeable it is. It is this truthfulness that makes us all admire and trust you."

The artist smiled again.

"Do you remember," continued Lady Eleanor, "how you once told a whole group of us our faults at a party at the Farleys'? You said that I was ambitious, and that Lady Farley was cruel, and that Isabel was shallow, and that Violet was cold. I have never forgotten it; I thought it was so nice and plucky of you to tell us the truth straight out like that."

Mr. Madderley remembered that he had once said these things; he also remembered that he had never thought any of them, but this he did not consider it necessary to confess.

"But where are the politics you said you were going to talk to me about?"

"Oh! of course—I forgot. I want to ask your opinion as to the way in which the Government has treated me. You know Harry Mortimer was Lord Kesterton's understudy—no, I mean Under Secretary—at the War Office; and it was a very comfortable arrangement for both of them."

"Well?"

"Then Lord Kesterton took his own peerage without a single twinge of conscience. But now that poor, dear Harry has succeeded to his uncle, and become Lord Gravesend, he has got to be sent away like an inefficient footman, because they say they cannot both of them be in the House of Lords. So please tell your host that you think he has behaved abominably!"

"I do indeed. Such conduct seems to me unjustifiable. It is like drinking oneself, and insisting on one's servants being teetotalers."

Lord Kesterton laughed. Madderley always amused him, and he loved to be amused. "But you are keeping back part of the truth, Lady Eleanor," he said; "we have endeavoured to break the blow to Gravesend by giving him the Governorship of New North Wales."

Lady Eleanor sighed. "That is nothing. I wanted Harry to have a career."

"You forget that he is going to marry you," replied her host; "surely that is a career sufficient to satisfy even the most ambitious of men, and to occupy the time of the most industrious."

"Of course it is. What I ought to have said was that I wanted Harry to have a recreation."

"Recreation means variety of occupation," suggested Lord Kesterton, "and he would hardly find that—after marriage—at the War Office."

"Do you think he will find it in New North Wales?"

"Most certainly; because there, in his official life, his duty will be to rule."

"You are very rude," laughed Lady Eleanor; "I shall talk to Mr. Madderley instead, and ask him if he doesn't think that Gravesend is a very depressing title for a young man to come into."

"It suggests the quintessence of finality," replied the artist, "there is no doubt of that."

Lord Gravesend's fiancée nodded. "I mean to alter it, and to call him 'the Lord Harry' instead. That would be prettier, don't you think?"

"Far prettier; also more colloquial, and I love colloquialisms. They are the next best thing to stories in dialect. A story in dialect invariably does me good, because I do not understand it."

"Then do you think that it is the things we don't understand that do us good?" queried the lady.

"Of course; that is why our prescriptions are always written in Latin, and our menus in French."

"I see."

"When I read in the vulgar tongue," continued Mr. Madderley, "that a man is brave and a woman is beautiful, I am not impressed. I have met brave men in the flesh, and I have found that they generally talk about nothing but slain beasts, and go to sleep after dinner. I have also met beautiful women."

"Did you find them equally disappointing?" asked Lady Eleanor.

"A woman always seems to think that if she has a face she need not possess a head as well. Personally I prefer both."

"You are shockingly cynical!"

"Here the power of dialect comes in," continued the artist, "for when I read that a man is 'braw' and a woman is 'bonny,' I know no wells of experience from which to draw cold water to throw on these illusions; therefore my imagination runs riot, and clothes the parties thus described in impossibly perfect attributes. I never met a 'braw lad' or a 'bonny lassie' in my life, that I know of; so I still picture such beings as ideal and glorious creations."

After a little more conversation about airy nothings, Lady Eleanor turned to her host and asked in a low voice: "Who is going to take Harry's place at the War Office?"

The Secretary of State raised his eyebrows. "I really cannot tell you Cabinet secrets, my dear lady."

"Oh! yes, you can. I want dreadfully to know, and I will promise faithfully not to tell anybody, if only you will take me into your confidence. Please do, there's a dear man!"

Lord Kesterton hesitated. Lady Eleanor certainly was very attractive, and it is always pleasant to please a pretty woman. Seeing him hesitate, she increased her coaxing tenfold.

"Well, suppose that I tell you as a great secret," he said at last, "will you give me your word not to repeat it to anybody?"

"Of course I will. I should never think of doing such a thing."

Lord Kesterton lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. "The new Under Secretary for War is our honourable friend the member for Chayford."

Lady Eleanor's eyes sparkled with delight; it was her rôle to stand behind the scenes of Governments and to give little jerks to the ropes—at least, she thought it was; and now both her curiosity and her love of power were gratified.

"I am so glad!" she exclaimed, "he is such a pleasant man—and very clever too, don't you think?"

Like all women, Lady Eleanor Gregory considered the word clever was complimentary; like all men, Lord Kesterton considered it quite the reverse.

"Clever?" he replied, "my dear young lady, what a word to apply to a brilliant politician I Why, he is already one of the ablest men in the Liberal party, and he has only been in the House three years."

"I am so glad you told me. It will interest Harry most tremendously!"

Lord Kesterton started. "But you gave me your word that you would not tell anybody."

"So I did; I quite forgot. But Harry doesn't count, you know. I never keep anything from him—except, of course, the number of dances that I give to other men; but that is different."

"I cannot see why Gravesend doesn't count; he always appears to me to be a man of considerable weight."

"Oh! but you are not engaged to him; if you were you would know that his considerable weight could be tampered with by the display of a little tact and persuasion. But now tell me more about Harry's successor. Of course I know all about who he is to-day; but who was he yesterday? I want to read up the back numbers of his story."

The host shook his head. "Back numbers are always dull and generally fictitious, I find."

"I don't; they amuse me immensely—especially with portraits from early and hideous childhood up to 'present day'."

"Lady Eleanor," said the Secretary for War in a very low voice, "do you know why you have been successful in extracting this confidential communication from me?"

"No."

"Guess."

Lady Eleanor thought for a moment. "Because you knew you could trust me not to repeat it?"

Lord Kesterton smiled. "That was not exactly my reason. Try again."

Lady Eleanor knitted her pretty forehead. "Because you thought that Harry had the right to know who was to step into his shoes?"

Her host shook his head.

Lady Eleanor smiled. "Because I am a very charming young woman?"

"I do not deny that that had something to do with my breach of confidence; but there was still another and a better reason."

"Then I cannot guess it."

"Will you give it up?"

Lady Eleanor nodded,

"I ventured to tell you this State secret," whispered Lord Kesterton to his pretty guest, "because the fact is already announced in the evening papers."

CHAPTER I. Childish Things.

As fays and elves and witches old To children of a gentler mould, Angels and devils came their way And were adapted to their play.

A quaint old town which had long ago ceased to be anything but picturesque, but which never forgot that it had once been prosperous, as some women never forget that they have once been pretty—a town in which the square, red-brick houses pretended that they were frowning on the streets in front, while they were really smiling on the gardens at the back all the time—a town with an interesting past and a most uneventful present—such was Chayford in the county of Mershire.

A noticeable figure in the town of Chayford—a man of courtly manners, cultivated mind and consistent piety—a scholar, moreover, of no mean order, whose learning was profound and whose wisdom was not of this world—such was Mark Seaton, a minister "of the people called Methodists".

In the days of his youth the Reverend Mark Seaton had chosen as his wife Ruth, the only daughter of David Crayshaw of Camchester—well known among the Methodists of the past generation as a "leading friend"; and Mrs. Seaton had inherited a fortune from her father, in addition to many gifts of mind and person. As she had been a dutiful daughter, so she was a devoted wife. To her children she was ever sympathetic and tender, with intermittent attacks of discipline, which she disliked as much as they did; and while her heart was ever begging her to indulge, her conscience kept bidding her to punish them. She had been known to whip her darlings, urged by a painful sense of duty thereto; but on such sad occasions she wore a shawl for the rest of the day, just as she did when the minister was not well, or when any important member of the congregation died.

Mark and Ruth Seaton had only two children, Paul and Joanna by name. Joanna was the elder by a year; but Paul was so much the bigger and stronger and better-looking of the two, that he took the lead in everything.

Paul and Joanna Seaton were brought up in the good old Methodist style, and learned to take life seriously. To them every trivial choice was a decision between good and evil—every fortunate accident a special interposition of Providence on their behalf. They were early taught by their father that the only two things of importance in this life are salvation and education; likewise, that the verb To Be is of infinite moment—the verb To Do of great weight—and the verb To Have of no significance at all. Therefore, whatever faults and failings they might suffer from in after life, there was no possibility of the little Seatons becoming vulgar.

It was when the Seatons "travelled" in the Chayford circuit that Paul and Joanna formed their friendship with Alice Martin. Alice was three years younger than Joanna and two years younger than Paul. It was true that she was not as clever as Joanna—but then she was much prettier, which made it all right. And in childish days—as in later ones—Alice Martin was always ready to play inferior parts in a grateful spirit; a habit of mind which makes people to be beloved, if downtrodden, by their fellow-creatures.

Alice's parents were wealthy and worldly persons. Of being the former they were proud, and of being the latter they were ignorant; in fact they imagined that they were a very godly couple, because they attended chapel regularly, and had their library lined with calf-bound copies of the Methodist Magazine, dating from its Arminian days. Mr. and Mrs. Martin regarded religion very much as they regarded an "English manufacture" or an "Irish industry"; that is to say, they lost no opportunity of patronizing and advertizing it; but felt that in so doing they were conferring a favour and meriting a vote of thanks.

Mrs. Martin was an extremely amusing woman; but she herself had no idea of this—she imagined she was only dignified and edifying. She once said: "Although my husband is a rich man and a county magistrate, he has the fear of the Lord before his eyes". And she had no idea that there was anything humorous in this use of the conjunction although.

Another great friend of the minister's children was Edgar Ford—an earnest little boy who was always asking profound and unanswerable questions. His father was an opulent merchant; and his mother an elegant and well-bred woman, who hid great kindness of heart under a somewhat cold and stately exterior.

But perhaps the most important figure in the children's world—while they were yet children—was their old nurse Martha, a very superior and excellent person who had lived with Mrs. Seaton before her marriage. Martha had another servant under her; but she would share with no one the delightful duty of looking after Paul and Joanna. It was Martha who corrected their childish sins and comforted their childish sorrows; and it was Martha who placed them upon an intimate, yet withal comfortable, footing with the principalities and powers of the spiritual world. To Martha they owed their ineradicable belief that an inclination to idleness or disobedience or greediness was no mere instinct, but a suggestion of the Evil One himself, who—bat-winged and cloven-footed, as he appeared in the illustrations to the Pilgrim's Progress—lurked in the dark places of the china-pantry and the back-stairs, for the set purpose of betraying to destruction the souls of the minister's children. Likewise, they were taught that the subdual of this inclination was no mere outcome of a line of

plain-living, high-thinking ancestors, but a triumph of the powers of light over the powers of darkness. These beliefs Paul and Joanna never outgrew; which, perhaps, accounted for the fact that, as man and woman, they did not underestimate the difference between good and evil.

At Chayford Paul and Joanna spent three of the interminable years of childhood; and Chayford Chapel was ever afterwards associated in their minds with all that is sacred and holy. It was there that they had first touched the fringe of the Unseen, and caught glimpses of life's deeper meanings; it was there that they had sung the old-fashioned hymns to the old-fashioned tunes, and had felt as if they themselves were somehow one with the white-robed multitude, which no man can number, singing the song that the angels cannot learn. Then the hearts of the children were filled with joy and their eyes with tears, and a strange thrill ran through the whole of their being. They did not understand why they felt so gloriously happy and yet wanted to cry; for they were then too young to know that earth, and probably heaven, has nothing better to offer us than that same thrill, which runs through us when we catch fleeting glimpses of the Beautiful and the True, and rise superior for the time being to all that is sordid and cowardly and mean. For the moment, we are "pure in heart"; and therefore,

either through the interpretation of art or the revelation of nature, either in the loyalty of a great people or in the love on a familiar face, we "see God".

When Paul and Joanna were respectively eighteen and nineteen, their father's health gave way and he was obliged to "sit down"—a synonym among Methodist ministers for retiring upon half-pay—and he chose Chayford as the spot where he would finally settle. The Seatons had spent their three years at Chayford some time previously; and it had suited them so well that they selected it as their permanent abode.