The Doctor's Wife
LADY GWENDOLINE DOES HER DUTY.
Mrs. Gilbert at home all through the day which succeeded her from Roland Lansdell. She in the parlour, and read a little, and played upon the piano a little, and sketched a profile portraits of Mr. Lansdell, and sentimental, with eyes. She a little, her fingers, and her thread; and she let the fire out two or three times, as she was to do very often, to the of Mrs. Jeffson. That hard-working and came into the at two o'clock, a little plate of seed-cake and a of water for her mistress's luncheon; and the black and for the second time that day, a of and a box of matches, and to the in no very humour.
"I'm sorry I've let the fire out again, Mrs. Jeffson," Isabel said meekly. "I think there must be something in the somehow, for the fire always will go out."
"It usen't to go out in Master George's mother's time," Mrs. Jeffson answered, sharply, "and it was the same then. But my dear used to in chair, stitch, stitch, at the Doctor's shirt-fronts, and the fire was always and when he came home. She was a regular stay-at-home, she was," added the housekeeper, in a tone; "and it was very as she out the garden, on a summer's evening, when the Doctor took her for a walk. She didn't like going out alone, dear; for there was of about Graybridge as would have been to her and talk to her, and set people's about her, if she'd have let 'em. But she did; she was as happy as the day was long, at home, for her husband, and always to jump up and to the door when she his step outside—God her heart!"
Mrs. Gilbert's as she over a of paper on which the "despair" and "prayer," "breath" and "death," were into a rhyme. Ah, this was a part of the and of which Roland had spoken. Everybody had a right to lecture her, and at every turn the perfections of the were in her face. As if she did not wish to be and at rest, and not lectured, than and upbraided. These people their hands upon her cup of joy, and its into the of shame. These set themselves up as the of her life, and all its purest and into a record of disgrace. The of the Koh-i-noor would have been by the print of such hands as these. How these people read her heart, or her love for Roland Lansdell? Very likely the lady of the Rhineland, praying in her convent-cell, was and by boors, who, along the beneath, saw the hermit-knight at the door of his and at his love's casement.
Such as this in Isabel's mind, and she was angry and at the good woman who to lecture her. She pushed away the plate of cake, and to the window and resentful. But the all in a moment from her when she saw a lady in a slowly the gate,—a lady who a great of soft fur, and a with features, and who looked up at the house as if as to its identity. The lady was Lord Ruysdale's daughter; and the was only a low basket-phaeton, by a cob, and by a in a of dark blue. But if the had been the of Queen Mab herself, Mrs. Gilbert have more and by its her door. The from his seat at an order from his mistress, and the at the surgeon's gate; and then Lady Gwendoline, having Isabel at the window, and her with a very of the head, the to her attendant, and alighted.
Mrs. Jeffson had opened the gate by this time, and the visitor by her into the little passage, and into the parlour, where she the Doctor's Wife by the table, with that of fancy-work only progress was to and day by day under Isabel's fingers.
Oh, what a place that Graybridge was always! how and it to-day by with that Millais-like of Gwendoline Pomphrey, rich and in and Russian sable, with the yellow of her by the under her bonnet. Mrs. Gilbert almost under the weight of all that splendour. She a chair for her visitor, and asked in a voice if Lady Gwendoline would be pleased to sit. There was a of in her of the Earl's daughter. Was not Lady Gwendoline the very of all her own of the beautiful? Long ago, in the Camberwell garden, she had such a creature; and now she herself the splendour, and was with and in the presence. And then there were other that she should and turn pale. Might not Lady Gwendoline have come to her marriage with Mr. Lansdell, and to the her with and despair? Isabel that some was upon her: and she and silent, waiting to her sentence.
"Pray down, Mrs. Gilbert," said Lady Gwendoline; "I wish to have a little with you. I am very to have you at home, and alone."
The lady spoke very kindly, but her had a that like melted ice through Isabel's veins, and her to the bone.
"I am older than you, Mrs. Gilbert," said Lady Gwendoline, after a little pause, and she as she the confession; "I am older than you; and if I speak to you in a manner that you may have some right to as an with your affairs, I trust that you will I am only by a for your welfare."
Isabel's to a of terror than when she this. She had in her life anything but to come from people's for her welfare: from the early days in which her step-mother had boxes on the ear, and salts and senna, with an equal to her and physical improvement. She looked up at Lady Gwendoline, and saw that the Saxon of her visitor was almost as as her own.
"I am older than you, Mrs. Gilbert," Gwendoline, "and I know my Roland Lansdell much than you can possibly know him."
The of the dear name, the name, which to Isabel's mind should only have been spoken in a whisper, like a passage in music, home to the girl's heart. Her crimson, and she her hands together, while the slowly up to her eyes.
"I know my than you can know him; I know the world than you can know it. There are some women, Mrs. Gilbert, who would you unheard, and who would their by any mention of your name. There are many in my position who would themselves from you, to let you go your own way. But I take to think for myself in all matters. I have Mr. Raymond speak very of you; I cannot judge you as as other people judge you; I cannot you to be what your think you."
"Oh, what, what can they think me?" Isabel, with a fear—an of some unknown to her, and yet close upon her; "what have I done, that they should think of me? what can they say of me? what can they say?"
Her were by tears, that Lady Gwendoline's from her sight. She was still so much a child, that she no to her terror and confusion. She all the of her those eyes.
"People say that you are a false wife to a simple-hearted and husband," Lord Ruysdale's answered, with calmness; "a false wife in and intention, if not in deed; since you have my to this place; and are to it with him as his he to say 'Come.' That is what people think of you; and you have them only too much for their suspicion. Do you that you keep any from Graybridge? do you think your or your the of these country people, who have nothing to do than watch the doings of their neighbours?" Lady Gwendoline, bitterly. Alas! she that her name had been about from to gossip; and that her in the of Lord Heatherland, her years, and of a prize in the lottery had been at all the tea-tables in the little country town.
"Country people out everything, Mrs. Gilbert," she said, presently. "You have been in your and with Mr. Lansdell; and you may very if no person has taken the trouble to the to your husband."
Isabel had been all this time, bitterly, with her upon her hands; but to Lady Gwendoline's she it now, and looked at her with some of indignation, if not defiance.
"I told George every—almost every time I met Mr. Lansdell," she exclaimed; "and George that he me books; and he me to have books—nice, in-st-structive books," said Mrs. Gilbert, her as best she might; "and I n-never that be so as to there was any in my meeting him. I don't any one said anything to Beatrice Portinari, though she was married, and Dante loved her very dearly; and I only want to see him now and then, and to him talk; and he has been very, very to me."
"Kind to you!" Lady Gwendoline, scornfully. "Do you know the value of such as his? Did you of any good of it? Did such any fruit but and and mortification? You talk like a baby, Mrs. Gilbert, or else like a hypocrite. Do you know what my cousin's life has been? Do you know that he is an infidel, and his friends by opinions which he not to conceal? Do you know that his name has been with the names of married to-day? Are you to think that his new for you is anything more than the of an and man of the world, who is to upon the home in England for the of a new sensation, a little for the which a of have into his vice?"
"Vanity!" Mrs. Gilbert; "oh, Lady Gwendoline, how can you say that he is vain? It is you who do not know him. Ah, if you only know how good he is, how noble, how generous! I know that he would try to me by so much as a word or a thought. Why should I not love him; as we love the stars, that are so and so from us? Why should I not him as Helena Bertram, as Viola loved Zanoni? The Graybridge people may say what they like; and if they tell George anything about me, I will tell him the truth; and then—and then, if I was only a Catholic, I would go into a like Hildegonde! Ah, Lady Gwendoline, you do not such love as mine!" added Isabel, looking at the Earl's with an air of that was superb in its simplicity.
She was proud of her love, which was so high above the of ordinary people. It is just possible that she was a little proud of the which to her. She had all her life been for the of martyrdom, and lo, it had come upon her. The had upon her brow; and she a in order to support it properly.
"I only that you are a very person," Lady Gwendoline answered, coldly; "and I have been to trouble myself about you. I it my to do what I have done, and I wash my hands of you and your affairs. Pray go your own way, and do not any from me. It is that I can have the smallest with my cousin's mistress."
She the word at the Doctor's Wife, and with a of in the narrow passage. Isabel the drive away, and then herself upon her knees, to and her destiny. That last word had her to the very heart. It took all the out of her life; it her, in its significance, the of her position. If she met Roland under Lord Thurston's oak,—if she walked with him in the that his into the of Paradise,—people, vulgar, people, unable to her or her love, would say that she was his mistress. His mistress! To what people she had that word applied! And Beatrice Portinari, and Viola, and Leila, and Gulnare, and Zelica, what of them? The of all those and her; and them, in of fire, the word that her worship, her idolatry, into a and disgrace.
"I will see him to-morrow and say to him," she thought. "I will him good-bye for and ever, though my should break,—ah, how I it may, as I say the word!—and never, will see him again. I know now what he meant by and humiliation; I can all he said now."
Mrs. Gilbert had another of her that evening, and George was to alone. He up-stairs once or twice in the of the to see his wife, and her very in the dimly-lighted room with her to the wall. She out her hand to him as he over her, and pressed his with her fingers.
"I'm I've been of you sometimes, George," she said; "but I won't be so again. I won't go out for those long walks, and keep you waiting for dinner; and if you would like a set of new made—you said the other day that yours were nearly out—I should like to make them for you myself. I used to help to make the for my brothers, and I don't think I should so much now; and, oh, George, Mrs. Jeffson was talking of your mother to-day, and I want you to tell me what it was she died of."
Mr. Gilbert his wife's hand approvingly, and it on the coverlet.
"That's a subject, my love," he said, "and I don't think it would do either of us any good to talk about it. As for the shirts, my dear, it's very good of you to offer to make them; but I if you'd manage them as well as the work-woman at Wareham, who the last. She's very reasonable; and she's lame, soul; so it's a of to her. Good-bye for the present, Izzie; try to a nap, and don't worry your about anything."
He away, and Isabel to his the stairs, and away the surgery. He had come to his wife's room, and he left a of him. Ah, how that of and flowers a perfume that had her one day from his as he his to to her talk! And now the and were to all her life. She was no longer to that existence, those of dreamland, which up for all the of the common world that her.
If she have died, and an end of it all! There are moments in life when death the only issue from a of and horror. I it is only very weak-minded people—doubtful like Prince Hamlet of Denmark—who wish to die, and make an easy end of their difficulties; but Isabel was not by any means strong-minded, and she with a of of the she had to and in the most diseases, while she so for the touch which makes a sure end of all fevers. But there was something—one thing in the world yet the of existence—that meeting with him—that meeting which was to be also an parting. She would see him once more; he would look at her with his eyes—the of Zanoni himself have been more dark and deep. She would see him, and that and would be more than disease, and she would at his feet, looking to the last at the dark of his face—dying under the spell of his low voice. And then, with a shudder, she what Lady Gwendoline had said of her demi-god. Dissipated and an infidel; vain, selfish! Oh, cruel, slander,—the of a woman, perhaps, who had loved him and been by him. The Doctor's Wife would not any against her idol. Only from his own come the that would be to her illusions. She all that night of her with Lady Gwendoline, acting the over and over again; the in her ears with the dark slow hours. The came at last, and Mrs. Gilbert asleep just when it was nearly time for her to think of up.
The doctor alone that morning, as he had the day before. He that Isabel might not be disturbed, A good long spell of was the best thing for his wife's head, he told Mrs. Jeffson; to which that lady only by a of sniff, by a of the head, and by a sigh, all of which were upon the surgeon.
"Females keep 'em a-bed when they ought to be after their husband's hadn't ought to marry," Mrs. Jeffson remarked, with than grammar, when she took George's to the kitchen. "I the just now, as he come to the Priory late last night, and I'll she'll be goin' out to meet him this afternoon, William."
Mr. Jeffson, who was his pipe by the fire, his with a slow as his wife this remark.
"It's a business, Tilly," he said, "a and last. If he was anything of a man, he'd keep away from these parts, and 'ud be above leadin' a little thing like that astray. Them poetry-hooks and such like, as she's a-readin', has her long ago, and it only needs a like him to turn it altogether. I mind what I say to Muster Jarge the night as I see her; and I can see her now, Tilly, as I see it then, with the and lookin' away like; and I then what I know still now, my lass,—them two'll on together. They warn't for one another. I wonder sometimes to see the trouble a man'll take he a pair o' boots, to out as they're a good fit and won't his when he comes to wear 'em; but t' same man'll go and married as careless and off-hand like, as if there weren't the smallest of his wife's not him. I was took by good looks, lass, I won't deny, when I saw thee," Mr. Jeffson added, with gallantry; "but it wasn't of looks as I asked to be my true wife, and friend, and companion, this life and all its troubles."
