Against this geniality, so smooth, so superficial, she felt horribly powerless. There seemed no way, any longer, of piercing to her husband’s notice, of spurring him up to sincerity. And that casual ‘us’ shut the door against her so finally.
‘Ah,’ she answered in a tired tone, her smile tinged with tragedy. ‘You say such delightful things. But I do feel I am not clever enough for you.’
‘It is not cleverness one wants,’ he said. ‘It is just you. You, and only you. You are exactly perfect. One doesn’t criticize and say you are not this and that. You are just You.’
She knew that he no longer criticized. But what he thought loyalty she felt to be lack of interest. The ardour of his words awoke now no answering ardour of conviction in her mind. As for Kingston, an emotion of pure pity stirred him. This charming, dear little woman, how awfully much, after all, he owed her. He believed that he could only pay his debt to her by redoubling the formal warmth of his words. The more pitiable he found her, the more he intensified the eagerness of compliment that was his atonement at once to her and to himself, that eagerness which she found so void and cold. ‘Dear pretty lady,’ he said, ‘you should never have foolish little doubts. Don’t you realize that nobody’s husband was ever so happy in the world before?’
She knew it. And she feared that she counted for nothing in that happiness of his. Her hands dropped, her voice grew chilly in its hopelessness. ‘Such a comfort—yes?’ she answered. ‘I am glad you are so happy, Kingston. I hoped you would be.’
Isabel came back into the room, and in a moment an animated conversation was going forward. Gundred took her part bravely, speaking wherever speech was possible, always falling short or wide of the point, always on the edge of giving up the attempt, and always being picked up by her husband, and pushed back again into the dialogue. Then the carriage was announced, and she set off with Isabel to visit the Restormels.
Kingston sat in the garden, pondering the strange situation, hoping that he was behaving fairly to all concerned, and believing that he was. What could come of it all he had no idea. Poor Gundred, he admired her, respected her, marvelled at her—did everything, in fact, but love her. And that was now beyond his power. Love he could show, love no one can force himself to feel. She no longer stirred any pulses of emotion in him. She was a mere acquaintance—a pretty, charming, well-mannered acquaintance, but nothing more. What could he do, except what he was doing? To send Isabel away would be to find himself soon ceasing even to tolerate his wife. Without Isabel his life would become vacant and boring beyond conception. And it was not possible but that his boredom would react unfavourably on his attitude towards Gundred. It was fairer to all that Isabel should remain with them, easing off the tension of the difficult situation. And in time everything would settle down somehow, and the problem of existence would solve itself. He would not look ahead. Ten days had passed in a dream of holy happiness. Why not ten months, ten years, ten lustres?
Meanwhile the return of the two women was strangely delayed. Tea-time came and went without a sign of them. And then the agitating news arrived that the new horse had emphasized his novelty by bolting on the homeward way, and upsetting the carriage at the foot of the hill leading up to the Castle. Gundred was unhurt, and soon appeared, pale and shaken, but intrepid. As for Isabel, her leg had been badly broken.
The next few hours passed in ceaseless bustle. Isabel, unconscious, was carried up to the Castle. Doctors, nurses, medicaments were wired for. Gundred’s courage came nobly to the fore. Despite the shock she herself had sustained, she went calmly, self-denyingly, self-importantly about her business. Kingston, who had seen nothing and suffered nothing of the accident, was far less placid and level-headed than Gundred. The sight of Isabel appalled him; Gundred firmly faced the responsibility, had her brought to the oaken parlour at the end of the old wooden wing, did all that could be done for her till the doctor arrived. When Isabel returned to consciousness it was Gundred who watched over her, comforted her, tried to mitigate her pain; Kingston could not bear to contemplate the horror. Had the sufferer been a man, Kingston, perhaps, might have confronted his groans more stolidly, though even so his sympathetic, emotional temperament must always have been less fitted than Gundred’s cool, unimaginative bravery, to cope with the manifold uglinesses of physical suffering.
At last, however, the telegrams began to bear fruit. The doctor arrived, and matters showed signs of settling down into a more regular train. The bone was duly set, Isabel made comfortable, and hope held out of a speedy and prosperous recovery. A nurse came, and proved a very capable and decisive young person, whose only weakness was for looking-glasses. She was established in the empty upper rooms of the old wooden wing, and gave nightly scandal to the Castle servants by lighting all the candles she could get together, the better to contemplate her charms and curl her hair. Except for this trick of collecting so lavish an illumination and leaving it to take care of itself while she went about her other businesses, she turned out both pleasant and useful. Her charge soon grew to like her, and, within a day or two of the accident, life at Brakelond was subsiding once more into calm and comfort. Helpless Isabel lay in state in the little oaken parlour, where Kingston and Gundred kept her company, hardly leaving her alone from morning to night. There was even, as her recovery satisfactorily advanced, a certain quiet charm about this invalid life. Isabel incapable of movement was rather a softer, more human person than Isabel insolent in perfect vitality and health. Kingston and Gundred enjoyed sitting with her and talking to her. They took it in turns to read aloud, and did everything they could to make the victim’s imprisonment as bearable as possible.