The only person at Chayford that Isabel did not get on with was Mrs. Martin. These two fell foul of each other from the first. Mrs. Martin began by being obsequious, and Isabel snubbed her; and the man or woman who can forgive a social slight is as yet an undiscovered product of civilization. Human nature can only stand a certain strain; and social rudeness stretches this elasticity to its uttermost limit, if not beyond it.
Mrs. Martin opened the ball by calling upon Isabel, decked out in her Sunday best.
"I am so glad to meet you, my dear Miss Carnaby," she began, addressing herself pointedly to Isabel, and coolly excluding Mrs. Seaton and Joanna from the conversation, "I feel sure we shall be friends, for your dear aunt's sake. I believe she is one of the Farleys of Ferngrove, and they were friends of my mother's years ago."
"I am afraid I must confess I never heard of the Farleys of Ferngrove," said Isabel rather stiffly.
"Did you not? dear me, how strange! They were an old county family in Lancashire when my dear mother was a girl—really quite a good old family, I can assure you—and she had the pleasure of meeting them once or twice in those happy old days. I really think your distinguished uncle must belong to the same family. They were most accomplished and extremely rich."
"I don't think so," said Isabel. "Uncle Benjamin's money came to him from his mother's brother, who was in the iron trade; his father was a clergyman, and was extremely poor."
Mrs. Martin looked shocked; to her mind there was something indelicate in the mere mention of poverty. Her father had been extremely poor at the commencement of his commercial career, but she would have died rather than mention so disgraceful a fact. She wondered that Miss Carnaby had not more refinement of feeling. Nevertheless she made another attempt to establish a friendly footing between herself and this coarse-minded young woman.
"I wonder if you ever met my dear friends, the Sedleys?" she said.
Isabel did not think so.
"They are charming people, dear Miss Carnaby, and have such aristocratic connections; only last year they were staying in the same hotel as the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Edelweiss, somewhere in Switzerland; I forget the name of the place, but I know it was most fashionable. The Sedleys never go to any but really fashionable resorts."