The Doctor's Wife
CHAPTER III.
ISABEL.
The garden at the of Mr. Sleaford's house was a large square plot of ground, with old pear-trees a neglected lawn. A of hazel-bushes screened all the length of the upon one of the garden; and you looked, there were roses and sweet-brier, apples, and tall raspberry-bushes, all with the gardener's knife; though here and there you came to a that had been at and in some operations of "the boys."
It was an old-fashioned garden, and had once been kept; for garden-flowers up the after summer, as if neglect or not them from the familiar place they loved. Thus up out of that were full of chickweed, and lilies-of-the-valley the ground-sel in a under the water-butt. There were vines, upon which no had been to Mr. Sleaford's tenancy, but which yet a screen of all over the of the house, their about the Venetian shutters, that slowly on their hinges. There were strawberry-beds, and there was an at one end of the garden in which the boys played at "beggar my neighbour," and "all fours," with greasy, dog's-eared cards in the long afternoons; and there were some rabbit-hutches—sure of the of boys—in a under the hazel-bushes. It was a dear old place, where the of with the perfume of the roses; and it was in this neglected garden that Isabel Sleaford the best part of her idle, life.
She was in a basket-chair under one of the pear-trees when Sigismund Smith and his friend into the garden to look for her. She was in a low basket-chair, with a book on her lap, and her on the of her hand, so by the of the page her that she did not her when the two men close up to her. She a dress a good and not too clean, and a of black was her long throat. Her was almost as black as her brother's, and was rolled up in a great knot, from which a long on her white throat—her was very white, with the dead, of ivory.
"I wish that was 'Colonel Montefiasco,'" said Mr. Smith, pointing to the book which the lady was reading. "I should like to see a lady so in one of my books that she wouldn't so much as look up when a was waiting to be to her."
Miss Sleaford her book and rose from her low chair, by this reproach; but she her thumb the pages, and meant to go on with the at the opportunity. She did not wait for any to George, but out her hand to him, and at him frankly.
"Yon are Mr. Gilbert, I know," she said. "Sigismund has been talking of you for the last week. Mamma has got your room ready; and I we shall have tea soon. There are to be some on purpose for your friend, Sigismund, told me to tell you."
She at the book, as much as to say that she had speaking, and wanted to to it.
"What is it, Izzie?" Sigismund asked, her look.
"Algerman Mountfort."
"Ah, I so. Always his books."
A over Miss Sleaford's face.
"They are so beautiful!" she said.
"Dangerously beautiful, I'm afraid, Isabel," the man said, gravely; "beautiful sweetmeats, with the sugar. These books don't make you happy, do they, Izzie?"
"No, they make me unhappy; but"—she a little, and then as she said—"I like that of unhappiness. It's than and and sleeping, and being happy that way."
George only at the lady's face, which up all in a moment, and was beautiful, like some which a picture till you put a lamp it. The only at Mr. Sleaford's daughter, for he hadn't the idea what she and his friend were talking about. He only watch her face, over which and like the of a sky. George Gilbert saw that Isabel Sleaford had that were large and black, like her brother's, but which were different from his, notwithstanding; for they were soft and sleepy, with very little light in them, and what little light there was, only a in the of the large pupils. Being a very man, without much to say for himself, George Gilbert had of in which to the lady's as she talked to her mother's boarder, who was on terms with her. George was not a very man, and he looked at Miss Sleaford's with no more than if she had been a many in a of sculpture. He saw that she had small and a face, and that her great black alone her with a of and beauty, which into when she smiled.
George did not see the full of Isabel Sleaford's beauty, for he was a good man, with a intellect, and Isabel's was of a kind, which only be by a poet; but Mr. Gilbert at a that she was what he called "pretty," and he how it was that her looked a yellow when the light full upon them, and a black when they were by their dark lashes.
George was not so much by Miss Sleaford's as by the that she was different from any woman he had before; and I think this lady's charm, by right of which she should have the of an emperor. There was no one like her. Whatever she had was her own, and no common property with a hundred other girls. You saw her once, and her for ever; but you saw any that you of hers.
She her book at Sigismund's request, and with the two men to George the garden; but she the dingy-looking under her arm, and she into a every now and then, as if she had been reading the pages by some of clairvoyance.
Horace Sleaford came out presently, and the to the house, where tea was ready.
"The boys are to have theirs in the kitchen," he said; "and we tea together in the parlour."
Three boys came out as he spoke, and one by one presented a to Mr. Gilbert. They had been a kite, and in the canal, and helping to some in the meadow; and they were and tumbled, and of out-door amusements. They were all three very much like their brother; and George, looking at the four boys as they him, saw eight of the he having looked upon; but not one of those four of any to Isabel's. The boys were only Miss Sleaford's half-brothers. Mr. Sleaford's wife had died three years after her marriage, and Isabel's only memory of her mother was the of a loving, face; a shadow, that came to the girl sometimes in her sleep.
An old servant, who had come one day, long ago, to see the Sleafords, told Isabel that her mother had once had a great trouble, and that it had killed her. The child had asked what the great trouble was; but the old only her head, and said, "Better for you not to know, my poor, sweet lamb; for you to know."
There was a pencil-sketch of the Mrs. Sleaford in the best parlour; a fly-spotted pencil-sketch, which a woman like Isabel, in a short-waisted gown, with big sleeves; and this was all Miss Sleaford of her mother.
The present Mrs. Sleaford was a little woman, with light hair, and eyes; a well-meaning little woman, who about her miserable, and who from till night, and yet to any she undertook. The Sleafords one servant, a maid-of-all-work, who was called the girl; but this person very from the kitchen, where there was a of water and of hardware, to the gooseberry-bushes with pudding-cloths and dusters, which she out to in the sunshine. To the mind it would have that the Sleafords might have been very nearly as well off without a servant; for Mrs. Sleaford appeared to do all the cooking and the part of the house-work, while Isabel and the boys took it in to go upon and to the garden-door.
The was a as to the back; for the boys were away with by Mrs. Sleaford when they that which she called their "rubbish," and the of the were, therefore, less visible in this apartment. Mrs. Sleaford had herself "tidy" in of her new boarder, and her was with the of yellow soap. George saw at once that she was a very common little woman, and that any by the boys must have to them from their father. He had a for the higher branch of the legal profession, and he that a should have married such a woman as Mrs. Sleaford, and should be to live in the to a where the is her own cook, and the junior are boys.
After tea the two men walked up and the in the garden, while Isabel sat under her pear-tree reading the she had been so to close. Sigismund and his Midlandshire friend walked up and down, cigars, and talking of what they called old times; but those old times were only four or five years ago, though the men talked like greybeards, who look a century or so, and wonder at the of their youth.
Isabel on with her book; the light was away little by little, the pear-trees at the western of the garden, and the star at the end of one of the pathways. She read on more eagerly, almost breathlessly, as the light less; for her step-mother would call her in by-and-by, and there would be a jacket to mend, perhaps, or a of to be for the boys; and there would be no of reading another line of that sweet story, that prose, which into a like poetry, that tender, music which the reader long after the book was and aside, and the of common life so unendurable.
Isabel Sleaford was not eighteen years of age. She had been a of at a day-school in the Albany Road; a in the opinion of the Camberwellians. She a little Italian, French to for the reading of that she might have left unread, and just so much of modern history as her to out all the sugar-plums in the historian's pages,—the Mary Stuarts, and Joan of Arcs, and Anne Boleyns, the Iron Masks and La Vallières, the Marie Antoinettes and Charlotte Cordays, Königsmarks and Borgias; all the and the records of Magna Chartas and Reform Bills, Third Estates and Beds of Justice. She played the piano a little, and sang a little, and painted wishy-washy-looking flowers on Bristol-board from nature, but not at all like nature; for the passion-flowers were to come out like frills, and the would have passed for with short-sighted people.
Miss Sleaford had that half-and-half education which is popular with the middle classes. She left the Albany Road in her sixteenth year, and set to work to educate herself by means of the nearest library. She did not upon garbage, but settled at once upon the in the flower-garden of fiction, and read her over and over again, and little of her own in account-books, for the entry of butcher's-meat and grocery. She whole pages of her by heart, and used to long passages to Sigismund Smith in the evenings; and I am sorry to say that the man, going to work at Colonel Montefiasco next morning, would put of Bulwer, or Dickens, or Thackeray into that gentleman's mouth, and the with the of a John Brodie, the of a Zanoni, and the of a Lord Steyne. Perhaps there was a two people than that which Isabel Sleaford and her mother's boarder. Sigismund by wholesale, and yet was as as the who entered a cattle-market. He his imagination, and Isabel upon hers. To him was something which must be into the most likely to the popular demand. He his into shape as as a a of into the of a or a crown, in with the of his customers. But Isabel's were tyrants, and her life. She wanted her life to be like her books; she wanted to be a heroine,—unhappy perhaps, and early. She had an to die early, by consumption, with a and an in her eyes. She every time she had a little that the was coming, and she to herself, and was to her half-brothers, and told them one by one, in confidence, that she did not think she should be with them long. They were slow to the of her remarks, and would ask her if she was going out as a governess; and, if she took the trouble to her meaning, were to the of the by saying, "Oh, come now, Hookee Walker. Who ate a plum-dumpling yesterday for dinner, and asked for more? That's the only of you've got, Izzie; two helps of at dinner, and no end of bread-and-butter for breakfast."
It was not so that Florence Dombey's friends her. It was not thus that little Paul would have spoken to his sister; but then, who these great healthy boys after reading about little Paul?
Poor Izzie's life was and commonplace, and she not one of out of it, it as she would. Her father was not a Dombey, or an Augustine Caxton, or a Rawdon Crawley. He was a stout, broad-shouldered, good-tempered-looking man, who was of good eating, and three bottles of French every week of his life. He was of his children; but he took them out with him, and he saw very little of them at home. There was nothing to be got out of him. Isabel would have been if he had ill-used her; for then she would have had a grievance, and that would have been something. If he would have himself up into a rage, and her on the stairs, she might have out into the by the canal; but, alas, she had no good Captain Cuttle with to take refuge, no noble-hearted Walter to come to her, with his on the in the firelight! Alas, alas! she looked north and south and east and west, and the sky was all dark; so she was to go to her opium-eating, and a of dreams. She had of in a small way, such as having to three-cornered rents in her brothers' garments, and being sent to in the Walworth Road; but she was to do these when once you had her away from her books; and she her world she went, and was Byron at Missolonghi, or by the of Napoleon the Great while the shopman the on the scale, and the people her the counter.
If there had been any one to take this girl in hand and her education, Heaven only what might have been of her; but there was no to point a in the forest, and Isabel as her her, now setting up one idol, now him by another; as much alone as if she had in a balloon, for in air, and in to the common and of the life about her.
George and Sigismund talked of Miss Sleaford when they of upon the memories of their life in Midlandshire.
"You didn't tell me that Mr. Sleaford had a daughter," George said.
"Didn't I?'
"No. She—Miss Sleaford—is very pretty."
"She's gorgeous," answered Sigismund, with enthusiasm; "she's lovely. I do her for all my dark heroines,—the good heroines, not the ones. Have you noticed Isabel's eyes? People call them black; but they're orange-colour, if you look at them in the sunshine. There's a of Balzac's called 'The Girl with the Golden Eyes.' I what were till I saw Isabel Sleaford."
"You very much at home with her?"
"Oh, yes; we're like and sister. She helps me with my work sometimes; at least she out suggestions, and I use them. But she's romantic. She reads too many novels."
"Too many?"
"Yes. Don't that I want to the value of the article. A novel's a thing after a hard day's work, a practical with the world, a healthy on the of life, a match in the ring. Sit then and read 'Ernest Maltravers,' or 'Eugene Aram,' or the 'Bride of Lammermoor,' and the sweet your to rest, like the cradle-song that a child. No wise man or woman was the for reading novels. Novels are only for those girls who read nothing else, and think that their are to be of their books. That girl wouldn't look at a in a Government office with three hundred a year and the of advancement," said Mr. Smith, pointing to Isabel Sleaford with a of his thumb. "She's waiting for a creature, with a on his mind."
They across the to the pear-tree, under which Isabel was still seated. It was dark, and her and black had a look in the twilight. George Gilbert she was to be the of a romance, and himself and as he her, with the that he had more arms and than he what to do with. I like to think of these three people in this neglected garden upon the 21st of July, 1852, for they were on the very of life, and the them like a great stage in a theatre; but the was down, and all it was a mystery. These three children had their own ideas about the great mystery. Isabel that she would meet a some day in the Walworth Road; the would be his cab, and she would be her best and not going to butter; and the would be by her, and would drive off to her father, and there and then make a of her hand; and she would be married to him, and wear and a diamond after, like Edith Dombey in Mr. Hablot Browne's picture. Poor George no such in his day-dreams. He that he would some girl, and have of patients, and some day be in a great case which would be mentioned in the "Lancet," and live and die respected, as his had done him, in the old house with the red-tiled and gable-ends painted black. Sigismund had, of course, only one vision,—and that was the of that great book, which should be about by the and by the public. He to take life very himself; for was he not, in a manner, going through more than the mind of man imagined? He came home to Camberwell of an afternoon, and took a of rump-steak and three or four cups of weak tea, and about the garden with the boys; and other men who saw what his life was, at him and called him "slow." Slow, indeed! Is it slow to be from a with a rope through your hands and seventy of empty space you? Is it slow to be on a ship on fire in the middle of the Atlantic, and to the entire on one raft, with the female to your by means of her hair? Is it slow to go into passages, with a dark and half-a-dozen bloodhounds, in of a murderer? This was the of thing that Sigismund was doing all day and every day—upon paper; and when the day's work was done, he was very well to in a garden-chair and his cigar, while Isabel talked to him about Byron, and Shelley, and Napoleon the First; for the two and the were her three idols, and came into her when she talked of the after Waterloo, or the to Missolonghi, just as if she had and loved these great men.
The of the house were by this time, and Mrs. Sleaford came to the back-parlour window to call the people to supper. They hours at Camberwell, and supper was the in the day; for Mrs. Sleaford's work was done by that time, and she into amiability, and of her to Sigismund and her children. But to-night was to be a of gala, on account of the man from the country. So there was a and a of lettuces,—very little in to the green-stuff,—and Sigismund was to make a salad. He was very proud of his skill in this of art, and as he was about five-and-twenty minutes chopping, and sprinkling, and stirring, and tasting, and compounding, the was ready, there was time for conversation. To-night George Gilbert talked to Isabel; while Horace the of up to supper there was no one in the house to send him to bed, since he to retire to his unless there by force. He sat opposite his sister, and himself by the long of the lobster, and at George with his on the table, while Sigismund mixed the salad.
They were all very and very merry, for Isabel her heroes, and to come to George's level, and talk about the Great Exhibition of the previous year, and the she had last Christmas. He her very pretty, as she at him across the table; but he to about her again, and why it was she was so different from Miss Sophronia Burdock and the ladies of Graybridge-on-the-Wayverne, he had all his life, and in he had for wonder.
The was at last, and the "six ale," as Horace called it, was out into long narrow glasses, and being a light of beverage, was almost as good as champagne. George had been to supper-parties at Graybridge at which there had been champagne, and jellies, and trifles, but where the talk had not been so as at this supper-table, on which there were not two that matched one another, or a that was free from or crack. The his night at Camberwell to his heart's content; and Sigismund's rose with the six ale. It was when the little party was that Horace jumped up with the empty lobster-shell in his hand, and told his to "hold their noise."
"I him," he said.
A from the gate as the boy spoke.
"That's him again!" he exclaimed, to the door of the room. "He's been at it so long, perhaps; and won't he just give it me if he has!"
Everybody was silent; and George the boy opening the hall-door and going out to the gate. He a colloquy, and a voice with a in it, and then along the garden-walk and the steps the door.
"It's your pa, Izzie," Mrs. Sleaford said. "He'll want a candle: you'd take it out to him; I don't he'll about in here."
George Gilbert a of about Isabel's father, and was when he learnt that Mr. Sleaford was not into the parlour. But Sigismund Smith on and cheese, and out of a jar, without any to the movements of the barrister.
Isabel took a candle, and out into the to her father. She left the door ajar, and George her talking to Mr. Sleaford; but the answered his with a very grace, and the speech which George gave him no very of his host.
"Give me the light, girl, and don't bother!" Mr. Sleaford said. "I've been this day until my head's all of a muddle. Don't at me, child! Tell your mother I've got some work to do, and mayn't go to all night."
"You've been worried, papa?"
"Yes; infernally. And I don't want to be by questions now I've got home. Give me the light, can't you?"
The slowly up the staircase, a door opened on the above, and the were in the room over the parlour.
Isabel came in, looking very grave, and sat down, away from the table.
George saw that all was over for that night; and Sigismund came to a pause in his on the cheese, and meditated, with a on the end of his fork.
He was that a father who ill-used his would not be a for numbers; and he a plan of the plot for a new romance.
If Mr. Sleaford had which to be done that night, he in no great to his work; for the up and down, up and the overhead, as as if the had been some Romanist who had a for himself, and was it out in the of his own chamber. A church clock in the eleven presently, and a Dutch clock in the three, which was near the mark for any clock in Mr. Sleaford's house. Isabel and her mother a stir, as if about to retire; so Sigismund got up, and a of for himself and his friend. He to George to the room that had been prepared for him, and the two men up-stairs together, after the ladies good night. Horace had asleep, with his upon the table, and his against the tallow-candle near him. The took very little notice of the to which he was conducted. He was out by his journey, and all the of the long day; so he quickly, and asleep while his friend was talking to him through the half-open door the two bedrooms. George slept, but not soundly; for he was to a house, in which no after ten o'clock at night; and the of Mr. Sleaford's in a room near at hand the man's slumbers, and mixed themselves with his dreams.
It to George Gilbert as if Mr. Sleaford walked up and his room all night, and long after the early through the window-curtains. George was not surprised, therefore, when he was told at next that his had not yet risen, and was not likely to appear for some hours. Isabel had to go to the Walworth Road on some mission; and George of a the lady and her mother in the passage the parlour-door, in which the word "poor's rates," and "summonses," and "silver spoons," and "backing," and "interest," times.
Mrs. Sleaford was about the house, and the boys were scattered; so George and Sigismund took their together, and read Mr. Sleaford's "Times," which was not as yet for that gentleman's own use. Sigismund a plan of the day. He would take a for once in a way, he said, and would his friend to the Royal Academy, and other picture-galleries, and would the day's by a French dinner.
The two men left the house at eleven o'clock. They had nothing of Isabel that morning, of the master of the house. All that George Gilbert of that was the that Mr. Sleaford had a and a voice.
The 21st of July was a summer's day, and I am to that George Gilbert very of at the pictures in the Royal Academy. To him the of modern art were only "pretty pictures," more or less according to the they told; and Sigismund's upon "modelling," and "depth," and "feeling," and tone, and colour, and distance, were so much jargon; so he was when the day's work was over, and Mr. Smith him away to a very a little way the National Gallery.
"And now I'm going to give you a regular French dinner, George, old fellow;" Sigismund said, in a tone.
Mr. Gilbert looked about him with an air of mystification. He had been to French dinners with cafés and saloons, where the chairs were and gold, and where a dozen of looking-glass you as you ate your soup. He was a little disappointed, perhaps, when Sigismund paused a narrow doorway, on each of which there was an old-fashioned window with queer-shaped and bottles the glass. A big lantern-shaped lamp over the door, and one of the was an iron grating, through which a of and mock-turtle out upon the air.
"This is Boujeot's," said Mr. Smith. "It's the place; no grandeur, you know, but and first-rate cooking. The Emperor of the French used to here almost every day when he was in England; but he told any one his name, and the waiters didn't know who he was till they saw his portrait as President in the 'Illustrated News.'"
It is a popular that the Prince Louis Napoleon was in the of daily at every French restaurant in London the years of his exile; a which a to the dishes, and an of to the wines. George Gilbert looked about him as he seated himself at a little table by his friend, and he Napoleon the Third had sat at that particular table, and the table-cloth had been as dirty in his time. The waiters at Boujeot's were very and accommodating, though they were nearly off their by the of in the public apartments, and old by pre-arrangement in the private rooms up-stairs. Sigismund upon a great of paper, which looked something like a table, and on the blank of which the pencil records of dinners and paid for had been by the waiters. Mr. Smith was a long time in the study of this document; so George Gilbert himself by at some coffee-coloured views upon the walls, which were to the Bay of Biscay and the Cape of Good Hope, with under a sky. George at these, and at a who was in the soul-absorbing of paying his bill; and then the surgeon's away from the little coffee-room at Boujeot's to Mr. Sleaford's garden, and Isabel's and yellow-black eyes, in the twilight. He of Miss Sleaford she was so any other woman he had seen, and he how his father would like her. Not much, George feared; for Mr. Gilbert senior a woman to be very about her back-hair, which Isabel was not, and with her needle, and in the management of a house and the government of a maid-of-all-work; and Isabel be that, since her was to in a wicker-work garden-chair and read novels.
The dinner came in at last, with little over the dishes, which the waiter one by one out of a of oven, from which there came a voice, and nothing more. The two men dined; and George that, for the potatoes, which about his plate when he to his into them, and a of garlic, that savoury, and over the sweets, a French dinner was not so very an English one. But Sigismund out the little with an air of pride, and George was to his with the manner of a when his friend asked him what he of the de à la maître d'hôtel, or the à la South African sherry.
Somehow or other, George was when the dinner was and paid for, and it was time to go home to Camberwell. It was only seven o'clock as yet, and the sun was on the as the men across Trafalgar Square. They took an at Charing Cross, and to the at Walworth, in the of being in time to a cup of tea Mrs. Sleaford let the fire out; for that lady had an of out the kitchen-fire at half-past seven or eight o'clock on evenings, after which hour water was an impossibility; unless Mr. Sleaford wanted grog, in which case a was set upon a of firewood.
George Gilbert did not particularly or not there was any tea to be at Camberwell, but he looked with a of to the of a with Isabel in the garden. He so much of this, that he was pleased when the big, ill-looking house and the that it visible across the waste of ground that was called a common. He was pleased, not with any or emotion, but with a of pleasure. When they came to the door in the garden-wall, Sigismund Smith and gave his at the keyhole; but he looked up suddenly, and cried:
"Well, I'm blest!"
"What's the matter?"
"The door's open."
Mr. Smith pushed it as he spoke, and the two men into the garden.
"In all the time I've with the Sleafords, that before," said Sigismund. "Mr. Sleaford's particular about the gate being locked. He says that the neighbourhood's a one, and you know what are about the place; though, nos, I don't see that there's much to hereabouts," Mr. Smith added, in a whisper.
The door of the house, as well as that of the garden, was open. Sigismund into the hall, closely by George. The door was open too, and the room was empty—the room was empty, and it had an of tidiness, as if all the and had been together and away. There was a of old rope upon the table, by with some tin-tacks, a hammer, and a of blank luggage-labels.
George did not stop to look at these; he to the open window and looked out into the garden. He had so to see Isabel under the pear-tree with a in her lap, that he started and with an of at the garden empty; the place so blank without the in the basket-chair. It was as if George Gilbert had been familiar with that garden for the last ten years, and had it without Isabel in her place.
"I Miss Sleaford—I they're all out," the said, dolefully.
"I they are out," Sigismund answered, looking about him with a puzzled air; "and yet, that's strange. They don't often go out; at least, not all at once. They go out at all, in fact, on errands. I'll call the girl."
He opened the door and looked into the going to out this design, and he started upon the as if he had a ghost.
"What is it?" George.
"My and your portmanteau, all packed and corded; look!"
Mr. Smith pointed as he spoke to a of trunks, a hatbox, a carpet-bag, and a portmanteau, in a in the centre of the room. He spoke in his surprise; and the maid-of-all-work came in with her cap by a single hair-pin to a of hair.
"Oh, sir!" she said, "they're all gone; they at six o'clock this evenin'; and they're going to America, says; and she packed all your things, and she thinks you'd have 'em took to the greengrocer's immediant, for of being for the rent, which is three-quarters doo; but you was to sleep in the house to-night, if you pleased, and your friend likewise; and I was to you your in the morning, I take the key to the Albany Road, and tell the as they've gone away, which he don't know it yet."
"GONE AWAY!" said Sigismund; "GONE AWAY!"
"Yes, sir, every one of 'em; and the boys was so pleased that they would go shoutin' 'ooray, 'ooray, all over the garding, though Mr. Sleaford at 'em awful, and did and tear so, I he was a-goin' mad. But Miss Isabel, she about goin' so and all and like. And there's a on the chimbley-piece, please, which she put it there."
Sigismund upon the letter, and it open. George read it over his friend's shoulder. It was only two lines.
"DEAR MR. SMITH,—Don't think of us for going away so suddenly. Papa says it must be so.
"Yours faithfully,
"ISABEL."
"I should like to keep that letter," George said, up to the of his hair. "Miss Sleaford a hand."
