Kingston, convinced that the presence of Isabel reinforced his admiration for Gundred, made no opposition.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose it will make much difference to us. She is not the kind of woman who is likely to come between husband and wife.’ He laughed.
‘I am certain she is not, poor darling!’ assented Gundred. ‘We must try to pull her into shape and teach her better,’ she added, with meditative earnestness, as if coming between husband and wife were the especial object of a woman’s life and training. ‘And yet, I believe there are men who admire that sort of girl, Kingston. I never can understand a man liking a woman who cannot put on a hat properly, but everybody says they do. I remember Mary Capplethwaite; she was neater than a new pin, with her hair most beautifully done, and the sweetest little face. But that did not prevent her husband from running away with Mildred Gunston, who always looked as if she had been left out all night in the wind and the rain. Of course, dear Mary may have got a little monotonous, but, still, I do think it is a great thing to be tidy and nice—yes?’
‘That is all a man asks of a woman,’ answered Kingston. ‘And one might ask it for ever of your cousin Isabel, and never get it, I imagine. One knows that type of woman so well. The idea is that inferior clothes show a superior soul. The poor things believe that they reveal the beauty, and the freedom, and the preciousness of their individuality by neglecting everything that makes the ordinary woman desirable. They think they are above using the means that no really clever woman ever disdains. They are the half-baked, the half-clever, the weak, feeble copies of the strong-minded, strong-souled creatures they imitate and think they are. One meets them at Oxford; the place swarms with them. They sham genius by means of untidiness. Half of them are tailor-made and half of them are æsthetic—in blue plush sleeves and moulting terra-cotta-coloured plumes, or in short skirts and boat-shaped hats with a cock’s feather on one side. How well I know it; and that is your Cousin Isabel.’
‘You really mustn’t dislike the poor darling so dreadfully, dear. We must make her happy with us. But I am so glad that you agree with me about that kind of woman. I never can see why one’s hair should not be properly done, however clever one is—yes? I have never wanted to be dishevelled or slovenly. We must gradually get poor Isabel into the way of thinking about her appearance a little more. After all, she ought to look at least well-bred, dear, and even now she has one or two good features.’
But Kingston would not agree. He grew forcible on the new-comer’s imperfections, and would allow her no saving grace of line or carriage. She was all wrong. He insisted on the fact, proved it again and again, revelled in it, and turned it to the glorification of his wife. Gundred, for her part, made a weak defence; without quite knowing it, she drew joy and sustenance from her husband’s condemnation of her cousin. It seemed an earnest of his love’s ardour. So she merely palliated Isabel’s faults, and was more glad to challenge admiration for herself by their discovery than sorry that such blemishes should be brought to light. Sweetly and lovingly did she encourage her husband’s criticisms with her mild protests. Her line was to admit her cousin’s shortcomings, but to declare that she loved her notwithstanding. Thus she preserved the full delight of the comparison, while at the same time preserving also the proper loyalty of a Mortimer for a Mortimer. But her daylight dignity had melted; the loyalty of a Mortimer was felt to be now subordinate to that of a wife. Gundred had the happy power of making a virtue of everything she did, no matter what inconsistencies her actions might seem to involve. Husband and wife continued to make love over the faults of their cousin, and it was decided with joy that the woman whose weaknesses could be turned to such delectable account must on no account be allowed to deprive them of her company. Isabel was to live with them, to go with them to Ivescar, to serve as a perpetual whetstone for Kingston’s admiration of Gundred. Some day she would undoubtedly marry, but meanwhile Gundred’s kindness should achieve the double end of giving her cousin a home and turning her cousin’s existence to a profitable purpose.
CHAPTER VIII
The next morning Isabel was as late as Kingston. Gundred condoned the offence on the score of fatigue, but Kingston regarded it with that severity we always show to our own pet faults when we meet them in people we dislike. Daylight added nothing and softened nothing in his first impressions as to his wife’s cousin. Still untidy, still disorderly, still ebullient, Isabel was as reprehensible as ever in all she did and said, and Kingston’s irritation grew as he noticed how often she said what he would have said himself, how she caught his own flying thoughts while Gundred’s mind was still loitering in their track, or busy with the teapot; how unable his instinct still was to endorse the opinion of his reason that Isabel was altogether unworthy of notice. Without seeming to, without caring to, she claimed his notice, insisted on it, held it; and as the day went by, he found himself looking at her again and again with reluctant interest. Each time he forced himself to notice a loose strand of hair, a brooch unfastened, a hook and eye gone wrong; but not the most strenuous disapproval of details could kill his angry curiosity as to the personality of which they made part. As she talked, her wide mouth, with its scarlet lips, flickered and flashed at every feeling, and her great eyes blazed at him, now green, now grey, now gold, till the white was visible all round, and he felt himself bound in the magnetism of their stare. Isabel had accepted Gundred’s proposal with equanimity. Yes, she would make a part of their household gladly, until such time, she said, as she married or eloped. What Gundred had meant—at least, in part—as a favour done to the poor colonial cousin, the poor colonial cousin accepted with the high calm of perfect equality, easily, gracefully, and without a second thought or any emphasis of gratitude. Gundred felt that her cousin’s manner of receiving favours lacked something; she made them seem mere services; and her words, too, sounded flippant and offhand to Gundred, who clung to small politenesses and the proper observances of courtesy.
They were sitting out, all three, in the small square garden. The day was sultry and mysterious, with curling heavy masses of white and fawn-coloured cloud towering high over the rim of a pallid sea. Behind, the mass of the Castle was of a bronzy-rose in the strange light, dreamlike and splendid. In bed and border no flower stirred, and the scent of roses rose straight into the leaden air like so many spires of faint invisible smoke. They sat looking out towards the edge of the world, the unwavering dim line of water that stretched beyond the old wing of King Mark’s Chapel. Above all the rest of the Castle Isabel loved to look at that old haphazard rickle of rooms, that crazy hive of long-dead activities, which stood out from the rest of the building on its defiant promontory over the sea. It was a little barnacle, growing off the hulk of Brakelond, and attached only by the slender stalk of one narrow passage, at whose outer end was its cluster of buildings, the low squat chapel, then the rooms where Kingston, Gundred, and Isabel had their dwelling, and, above, a second story, a series of low rooms at present uninhabited.