The Portrait of A Lady (18 page)

‘‘I hope you had a pleasant ride,'' said Isabel, who observed her companion's hesitancy.

‘‘It would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that it brought me here,'' Lord Warburton answered.

‘‘Are you so fond of Gardencourt?'' the girl asked; more and more sure that he meant to make some demand of her; wishing not to challenge him if he hesitated, and yet to keep all the quietness of her reason if he proceeded. It suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a few weeks ago she would have deemed deeply romantic; the park of an old English country-house, with the foreground embellished by a local nobleman in the act of making love to a young lady who, on careful inspection, should be found to present remarkable analogies with herself. But if she were now the heroine of the situation, she succeeded scarcely the less in looking at it from the outside.

‘‘I care nothing for Gardencourt,'' said Lord Warburton; ‘‘I care only for you.''

‘‘You have known me too short a time to have a right to say that, and I cannot believe you are serious.''

These words of Isabel's were not perfectly sincere, for she had no doubt whatever that he was serious. They were simply a tribute to the fact, of which she was perfectly aware, that those he himself had just uttered would have excited surprise on the part of the public at large. And, moreover, if anything beside the sense she had already acquired that Lord Warburton was not a frivolous person had been needed to convince her, the tone in which he replied to her would quite have served the purpose.

‘‘One's right in such a matter is not measured by the time, Miss Archer; it is measured by the feeling itself. If I were to wait three months, it would make no difference; I shall not be more sure of what I mean than I am to-day. Of course I have seen you very little; but my impression dates from the very first hour we met. I lost no time; I fell in love with you then. It was at first sight, as the novels say; I know now that is not a fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels forevermore. Those two days I spent here settled it; I don't know whether you suspected I was doing so, but I paid—mentally speaking, I mean—the greatest possible attention to you. Nothing you said, nothing you did, was lost upon me. When you came to Lockleigh the other day—or rather, when you went away—I was perfectly sure. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to think it over, and to question myself narrowly. I have done so; all these days I have thought of nothing else. I don't make mistakes about such things; I am a very judicious fellow. I don't go off easily, but when I am touched, it's for life. It's for life, Miss Archer, it's for life,'' Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever heard, and looking at her with eyes that shone with the light of a passion that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion—the heat, the violence, the unreason— and which burned as steadily as a lamp in a windless place.

By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly, and at last they stopped, and he took her hand.

‘‘Ah, Lord Warburton, how little you know me!'' Isabel said, very gently; gently, too, she drew her hand away.

‘‘Don't taunt me with that; that I don't know you better makes me unhappy enough already; it's all my loss. But that is what I want, and it seems to me I am taking the best way. If you will be my wife, then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you, you will not be able to say it is from ignorance.''

‘‘If you know me little, I know you even less,'' said Isabel.

‘‘You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance? Ah, of course, that is very possible. But think, to speak to you as I do, how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction! You do like me rather, don't you?''

‘‘I like you very much, Lord Warburton,'' the girl answered; and at this moment she liked him immensely.

‘‘I thank you for saying that; it shows you don't regard me as a stranger. I really believe I have filled all the other relations of life very creditably, and I don't see why I should not fill this one—in which I offer myself to you—seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask the people who know me well; I have friends who will speak for me.''

‘‘I don't need the recommendation of your friends,'' said Isabel.

‘‘Ah now, that is delightful of you. You believe in me yourself.''

‘‘Completely,'' Isabel declared; and it was the truth.

The light in her companion's eyes turned into a smile, and he gave a long exhalation of joy.

‘‘If you are mistaken, Miss Archer, let me lose all I possess!''

She wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he was rich, and, on the instant, felt sure that he did not. He was sinking that, as he would have said himself; and indeed he might safely leave it to the memory of any interlocutor, especially of one to whom he was offering his hand. Isabel had prayed that she might not be agitated, and her mind was tranquil enough, even while she listened and asked herself what it was best she should say, to indulge in this incidental criticism. What she should say, had she asked herself? Her foremost wish was to say something as nearly as possible as kind as what he had said to her. His words had carried perfect conviction with them; she felt that he loved her.

‘‘I thank you more than I can say for your offer,'' she rejoined at last; ‘‘it does me great honour.''

‘‘Ah, don't say that!'' Lord Warburton broke out. ‘‘I was afraid you would say something like that. I don't see what you have to do with that sort of thing. I don't see why you should thank me—it is I who ought to thank you, for listening to me; a man whom you know so little, coming down on you with such a thumper! Of course it's a great question; I must tell you that I would rather ask it than have it to answer myself. But the way you have listened—or at least your having listened at all— gives me some hope.''

‘‘Don't hope too much,'' Isabel said.

‘‘Oh, Miss Archer!'' her companion murmured, smiling again in his seriousness, as if such a warning might perhaps be taken but as the play of high spirits—the coquetry of elation.

‘‘Should you be greatly surprised if I were to beg you not to hope at all?'' Isabel asked.

‘‘Surprised? I don't know what you mean by surprise. It wouldn't be that; it would be a feeling very much worse.''

Isabel walked on again; she was silent for some minutes.

‘‘I am very sure that, highly as I already think of you, my opinion of you, if I should know you well, would only rise. But I am by no means sure that you would not be disappointed. And I say that not in the least out of conventional modesty; it is perfectly sincere.''

‘‘I am willing to risk it, Miss Archer,'' her companion answered.

‘‘It's a great question, as you say; it's a very difficult question.''

‘‘I don't expect you, of course, to answer it outright. Think it over as long as may be necessary. If I can gain by waiting, I will gladly wait a long time. Only remember that in the end my dearest happiness depends upon your answer.''

‘‘I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense,'' said Isabel.

‘‘Oh, don't mind. I would much rather have a good answer six months hence than a bad one to-day.''

‘‘But it is very probable that even six months hence I should not be able to give you one that you would think good.''

‘‘Why not, since you really like me?''

‘‘Ah, you must never doubt of that,'' said Isabel.

‘‘Well, then, I don't see what more you ask!''

‘‘It is not what I ask; it is what I can give. I don't think I should suit you; I really don't think I should.''

‘‘You needn't bother about that; that's my affair. You needn't be a better royalist than the king.''

‘‘It is not only that,'' said Isabel; ‘‘but I am not sure I wish to marry any one.''

‘‘Very likely you don't. I have no doubt a great many women begin that way,'' said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. ‘‘But they are frequently persuaded.''

‘‘Ah, that is because they want to be!''

And Isabel lightly laughed.

Her suitor's countenance fell, and he looked at her for a while in silence.

‘‘I'm afraid it's my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate,'' he said, presently. ‘‘I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own country.''

Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had never occurred to her that Mr. Touchett was likely to discuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton.

‘‘Has he told you that?'' she asked.

‘‘I remember his making the remark; he spoke perhaps of Americans generally.''

‘‘He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England,'' said Isabel, in a manner that might have seemed a little perverse, but which expressed both her constant perception of her uncle's pictorial circumstances and her general disposition to elude any obligation to take a restricted view.

It gave her companion hope, and he immediately exclaimed, warmly: ‘‘Ah, my dear Miss Archer, old England is a very good sort of country, you know! And it will be still better when we have furbished it up a little.''

‘‘Oh, don't furbish it, Lord Warburton; leave it alone; I like it this way.''

‘‘Well, then, if you like it, I am more and more unable to see your objection to what I propose.''

‘‘I am afraid I can't make you understand.''

‘‘You ought at least to try; I have got a fair intelligence. Are you afraid—afraid of the climate? We can easily live elsewhere, you know. You can pick out your climate, the whole world over.''

These words were uttered with a tender eagerness which went to Isabel's heart, and she would have given her little finger at that moment, to feel, strongly and simply, the impulse to answer, ‘‘Lord Warburton, it is impossible for a woman to do better in this world than to commit herself to your loyalty.'' But though she could conceive the impulse, she could not let it operate; her imagination was charmed, but it was not led captive. What she finally bethought herself of saying was something very different—something which altogether deferred the need of answering. ‘‘Don't think me unkind if I ask you to say no more about this to-day.''

‘‘Certainly, certainly!'' cried Lord Warburton. ‘‘I wouldn't bore you for the world.''

‘‘You have given me a great deal to think about, and I promise you I will do it justice.''

‘‘That's all I ask of you, of course—and that you will remember that my happiness is in your hands.''

Isabel listened with extreme respect to this admonition, but she said after a minute—‘‘I must tell you that what I shall think about is some way of letting you know that what you ask is impossible, without making you miserable.''

‘‘There is no way to do that, Miss Archer. I won't say that, if you refuse me, you will kill me; I shall not die of it. But I shall do worse; I shall live to no purpose.''

‘‘You will live to marry a better woman than I.''

‘‘Don't say that, please,'' said Lord Warburton, very gravely. ‘‘That is fair to neither of us.''

‘‘To marry a worse one, then.''

‘‘If there are better women than you, then I prefer the bad ones; that's all I can say,'' he went on, with the same gravity. ‘‘There is no accounting for tastes.''

His gravity made her feel equally grave, and she showed it by again requesting him to drop the subject for the present. ‘‘I will speak to you myself, very soon,'' she said. ‘‘Perhaps I shall write to you.''

‘‘At your convenience, yes,'' he answered. ‘‘Whatever time you take, it must seem to me long, and I suppose I must make the best of that.''

‘‘I shall not keep you in suspense; I only want to collect my mind a little.''

He gave a melancholy sigh and stood looking at her a moment, with his hands behind him, giving short nervous shakes to his hunting-whip. ‘‘Do you know I am very much afraid of it—of that mind of yours?''

Our heroine's biographer can scarcely tell why, but the question made her start and brought a conscious blush to her cheek. She returned his look a moment, and then, with a note in her voice that might almost have appealed to his compassion—‘‘So am I, my lord!'' she exclaimed.

His compassion was not stirred, however; all that he possessed of the faculty of pity was needed at home. ‘‘Ah! Be merciful, be merciful,'' he murmured.

‘‘I think you had better go,'' said Isabel. ‘‘I will write to you.''

‘‘Very good; but whatever you write, I will come and see you.'' And then he stood reflecting, with his eyes fixed on the observant countenance of Bunchie, who had the air of having understood all that had been said, and of pretending to carry off the indiscretion by a simulated fit of curiosity as to the roots of an ancient beech. ‘‘There is one thing more,'' said Lord Warburton. ‘‘You know, if you don't like Lockleigh—if you think it's damp, or anything of that sort—you need never go within fifty miles of it. It is not damp, by the way; I have had the house thoroughly examined; it is perfectly sanitary. But if you shouldn't fancy it, you needn't dream of living in it. There is no difficulty whatever about that; there are plenty of houses. I thought I would just mention it; some people don't like a moat, you know. Good-bye.''