Love Eternal: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

ISOBEL KISSES GODFREY

On the whole Monk's Acre suited Mr. Knight fairly well. It is true
that he did not like the Abbey, as it was still called, of which the
associations and architectural beauty made no appeal to him, and
thought often with affection of the lodging-house-like abode in which
he had dwelt in his southern seaport town amid the Victorian
surroundings that were suited to his Victorian nature. The glorious
church, too, irritated him, partly because it was so glorious, and
notwithstanding all that the Reformation had done to mar it, so
suggestive of papistical practice and errors, and partly because the
congregation was so scanty in that great expanse of nave and aisle, to
say nothing of the chancel and sundry chapels, that they looked like a
few wandering sheep left by themselves in a vast and almost emptied
fold. Nor was this strange, seeing that the total population of the
parish was but one hundred and forty-seven souls.

Of his squire and patron he saw but little. Occasionally Mr. Blake
attended church and as lay-rector was accommodated in an ugly oak box
in the chancel, where his big body and florid countenance reminded
Godfrey of Farmer Johnson's prize polled ox in its stall. These state
visits were not however very frequent and depended largely upon the
guests who were staying for the week-end at the Hall. If Mr. Blake
discovered that these gentlemen were religiously inclined, he went to
church. If otherwise, and this was more common, acting on his
principle of being all things to all men, he stopped away.

Personally he did not bother his head about the matter which, in
secret, he looked upon as one of the ramifications of the great
edifice of British cant. The vast majority of people in his view went
to church, not because they believed in anything or wished for
instruction or spiritual consolation, but because it looked
respectable, which was exactly why he did so himself. Even then nearly
always he sat alone in the oak box, his visitors generally preferring
to occupy the pew in the nave which was frequented by Lady Jane and
Isobel.

Nor did the two often meet socially since their natures were
antipathetic. In the bosom of his family Mr. Blake would refer to Mr.
Knight as the "little parson rat," while in his bosom Mr. Knight would
think of Mr. Blake as "that bull of Bashan." Further, after some
troubles had arisen about a question of tithe, also about the upkeep
of the chancel, Blake discovered that beneath his meek exterior the
clergyman had a strong will and very clear ideas of the difference
between right and wrong, in short, that he was not a man to be trifled
with, and less still one of whom he could make a tool. Having
ascertained these things he left him alone as much as possible.

Mr. Knight very soon became aware first that his income was
insufficient to his needs, and secondly, especially now when his
health was much improved, that after a busy and hard-working life,
time at Monk's Acre hung heavily upon his hands. The latter trouble to
some extent he palliated by beginning the great work that he had
planned ever since he became a deacon, for which his undoubted
scholarship gave him certain qualifications. Its provisional title
was, "Babylon Unveiled" (he would have liked to substitute "The
Scarlet Woman" for Babylon) and its apparent object an elaborate
attack upon the Roman Church, which in fact was but a cover for the
real onslaught. With the Romans, although perhaps he did not know it
himself, he had certain sympathies, for instance, in the matter of
celibacy. Nor did he entirely disapprove of the monastic orders. Then
he found nothing shocking in the tenets and methods of the Jesuits
working for what they conceived to be a good end. The real targets of
his animosity were his high-church brethren of the Church of England,
wretches who, whilst retaining all the privileges of the Anglican
Establishment, such as marriage, did not hesitate to adopt almost
every error of Rome and to make use of her secret power over the souls
of men by the practice of Confession and otherwise.

As this monumental treatise began in the times of the Early Fathers
and was planned to fill ten volumes of at least a hundred thousand
words apiece, no one will be surprised to learn that it never reached
the stage of publication, or indeed, to be accurate, that it came to
final stop somewhere about the time of Athanasius.

Realizing that the work was likely to equal that of Gibbon both in
length and the years necessary to its completion; also that from it
could be expected no immediate pecuniary profits, Mr. Knight looked
round to find some other way of occupying his leisure, and adding to
his income. Although a reserved person, on a certain Sunday when he
went to lunch at the Hall, in the absence of Mr. Blake who was
spending the week-end somewhere else, he confided his difficulties to
Lady Jane whom he felt to be sympathetic.

"The house is so big," he complained. "Mrs. Parsons" (Godfrey's old
nurse and his housekeeper) "and one girl cannot even keep it clean. It
was most foolish of my predecessor in the living to restore that old
refectory and all the southern dormitories upon which I am told he
spent no less than �1,500 of his own money, never reflecting on the
expense which his successors must incur merely to keep them in order,
since being once there they are liable for charges for dilapidations.
It would have been better, after permission obtained, to let them go
to ruin."

"No doubt, but they are very beautiful, are they not?" remarked Lady
Jane feebly.

"Beauty is a luxury and, I may add, a snare. It is a mistaken love of
beauty and pomp, baits that the Evil One well knows how to use, which
have led so large a section of our Church astray," he replied sipping
at his tumbler of water.

A silence followed, for Lady Jane, who from early and tender
associations loved high-church practices, did not know what to answer.
It was broken by Isobel who had been listening to the conversation in
her acute way, and now said in her clear, strong voice:

"Why don't you keep a school, Mr. Knight? There's lots of room for it
in the Abbey."

"A school!" he said. "A school! I never thought of that. No, it is
ridiculous. Still, pupils perhaps. Out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings, &c. Well, it is time for me to be going. I will think the
matter over after church."

Mr. Knight did think the matter over and after consultation with his
housekeeper, Mrs. Parsons, an advertisement appeared in /The Times/
and /The Spectator/ inviting parents and guardians to entrust two or
three lads to the advertiser's care to receive preliminary education,
together with his own son. It proved fruitful, and after an exchange
of the "highest references," two little boys appeared at Monk's Acre,
both of them rather delicate in health. This was shortly before the
crisis arose as to the future teaching of Isobel, when the last
governess, wishing her "a better spirit," had bidden her a frigid
farewell and shaken the dust of Hawk's Hall off her feet.

One day Isobel was sent with a note to the Abbey House. She rang the
bell but no one came, for Mr. Knight was out walking with his pupils
and Mrs. Parsons and the parlour-maid were elsewhere. Tired of
waiting, she wandered round the grey old building in the hope of
finding someone to whom she could deliver the letter, and came to the
refectory which had a separate entrance. The door was open and she
peeped in. At first, after the brilliant sunlight without, she saw
nothing except the great emptiness of the place with its splendid oak
roof on the repair of which the late incumbent had spent so much,
since as is common in monkish buildings, the windows were high and
narrow. Presently, however, she perceived a little figure seated in
the shadow at the end of the long oaken refectory table, that at which
the monks had eaten, which still remained where it had stood for
hundreds of years, one of the fixtures of the house, and knew it for
that of Godfrey, Mr. Knight's son. Gliding towards him quietly she saw
that he was asleep and stopped to study him.

He was a beautiful boy, pale just now for he had recovered but
recently from some childish illness. His hair was dark and curling,
dark, too, were his eyes, though these she could not see, and the
lashes over them, while his hands were long and fine. He looked most
lonely and pathetic, there in the big oak chair that had so often
accommodated the portly forms of departed abbots, and her warm heart
went out towards him. Of course Isobel knew him, but not very well,
for he was a shy lad and her father had never encouraged intimacy
between the Abbey House and the Hall.

Somehow she had the idea that he was unhappy, for indeed he looked so
even in his sleep, though perhaps this was to be accounted for by a
paper of unfinished sums before him. Sympathy welled up in Isobel, who
remembered the oppressions of the last governess--her of the inkpot.
Sympathy, yes, and more than sympathy, for of a sudden she felt as she
had never felt before. She loved the little lad as though he were her
brother. A strange affinity for him came home to her, although she did
not define it thus; it was as if she knew that her spirit was intimate
with his, yes, and always had been and always would be intimate.

This subtle knowledge went through Isobel like fire and shook her. She
turned pale, her nostrils expanded, her large eyes opened and she
sighed. She did more indeed. Drawn by some over-mastering impulse she
drew near to Godfrey and kissed him gently on the forehead, then
glided back again frightened and ashamed at her own act.

Now he woke up; she felt his dark eyes looking at her. Then he spoke
in a slow, puzzled voice, saying:

"I have had such a funny dream. I dreamed that a spirit came and
kissed me. I did not see it, but I think it must have been my
mother's."

"Why?" asked Isobel.

"Because no one else ever cared enough for me to kiss me, except Mrs.
Parsons, and she has given it up now that the other boys are here."

"Does not your father kiss you?" she asked.

"Yes, once a week, on Sunday evening when I go to bed. Because I don't
count that."

"No, I understand," said Isobel, thinking of her own father, then
added hastily, "it must be sad not to have a mother."

"It is," he answered, "especially when one is ill as I have been, and
must lie so long in bed with pains in the head. You know I had an
abscess in the ear and it hurt very much."

"I didn't know. We heard you were ill and mother wanted to come to see
you. Father wouldn't let her. He thought it might be measles and he is
afraid of catching things."

"Yes," replied Godfrey without surprise. "It wasn't measles, but if it
had been you might have caught them, so of course he was right to be
careful."

"Oh! he wasn't thinking of me or Mummy, he was thinking of himself,"
blurted out Isobel with the candour of youth.

"Big, strong men don't catch measles," said Godfrey in mild
astonishment.

"He says they do, and that they are very dangerous when you are grown
up. Why are you alone here, and what are you working at?"

"My father has kept me in as a punishment because I did my sums wrong.
The other boys have gone out bird-nesting, but I have to stop here
until I get them right. I don't know when that will be," he added with
a sigh, "as I hate rule of three and can't do it."

"Rule of three," said Isobel, "I'm quite good at it. You see I like
figures. My father says it is the family business instinct. Here, let
me try. Move to the other side of that big chair, there's plenty of
room for two, and show it to me."

He obeyed with alacrity and soon the brown head and the fair one were
bent together over the scrawled sheet. Isobel, who had really a
budding talent for mathematics, worked out the sum, or rather the
sums, without difficulty and then, with guile acquired under the
governess r�gime, made him copy them and destroyed all traces of her
own handiwork.

"Are you as stupid at everything as you are at sums?" she asked when
he had finished, rising from the chair and seating herself on the edge
of the table.

"What a rude thing to ask! Of course not," he replied indignantly. "I
am very good at Latin and history, which I like. But you see father
doesn't care much for them. He was a Wrangler, you know."

"A Wrangler! How dreadful. I suppose that is why he argues so much in
his sermons. I hate history. It's full of dates and the names of kings
who were all bad. I can't make out why people put up with kings," she
added reflectively.

"Because they ought to, 'God bless our gracious Queen,' you know."

"Well, God may bless her but I don't see why I should as she never did
anything for me, though Father does hope she will make him something
one day. I'd like to be a Republican with a President as they have in
America."

"You must be what father calls a wicked Radical," said Godfrey staring
at her, "one of those people who want to disestablish the Church."

"I daresay," she replied, nodding her head. "That is if you mean
making clergymen work like other people, instead of spying and
gossiping and playing games as they do about here."

Godfrey did not pursue the argument, but remarked immorally:

"It's a pity you don't come to our class, for then I could do your
history papers and you could do my sums."

She started, but all she said was:

"This would be a good place to learn history. Now I must be going.
Don't forget to give the note. I shall have to say that I waited a
long while before I found anyone. Goodbye, Godfrey."

"Goodbye, Isobel," he answered, but she was gone.

"I hope he did dream that it was his mother who kissed him," Isobel
reflected to herself, for now the full enormity of her performance
came home to her. Young as she was, a mere child with no knowledge of
the great animating forces of life and of the mysteries behind them,
she wondered why she had done this thing; what it was that forced her
to do it. For she knew well that something had forced her, something
outside of herself, as she understood herself. It was as though
another entity that was in her and yet not herself had taken
possession of her and made her act as uninfluenced, she never would
have acted. Thus she pondered in her calm fashion, then, being able to
make nothing of the business, shrugged her shoulders and let it go by.
After all it mattered nothing since Godfrey had dreamed that the ghost
of his mother had visited him and would not suspect her of being that
ghost, and she was certain that never would she do such a thing again.
The trouble was that she had done it once and that the deed signified
some change in her which her childish mind could not understand.

On reaching the Hall, or rather shortly afterwards, she saw her father
who was waiting for the carriage in which to go to the station to meet
some particularly important week-end guest. He asked if she had
brought any answer to his note to Mr. Knight, and she told him that
she had left it in the schoolroom, as she called the refectory,
because he was out.

"I hope he will get it," grumbled Mr. Blake. "One of my friends who is
coming down to-night thinks he understands architecture and I want the
parson to show him over the Abbey House. Indeed that's why he has
come, for you see he is an American who thinks a lot of such old
things."

"Well, it is beautiful, isn't it, Father?" she said. "Even I felt that
it would be easy to learn in that big old room with a roof like that
of a church."

An idea struck him.

"Would you like to go to school there, Isobel?"

"I think so, Father, as I must go to school somewhere and I hate those
horrible governesses."

"Well," he replied, "you couldn't throw inkpots at the holy Knight, as
you did at Miss Hook. Lord! what a rage she was in," he added with a
chuckle. "I had to pay her �5 for a new dress. But it was better to do
that than to risk a County Court action."

Then the carriage came and he departed.

The upshot of it all was that Isobel became another of Mr. Knight's
pupils. When Mr. Blake suggested the arrangement to his wife, she
raised certain objections, among them that associating with these
little lads might make a tomboy of the girl, adding that she had been
taught with children of her own sex. He retorted in his rough marital
fashion, that if it made something different of Isobel to what she,
the mother, was, he would be glad. Indeed, as usual, Lady Jane's
opposition settled the matter.

Now for the next few years of Isobel's life there is little to be
told. Mr. Knight was an able man and a good teacher, and being a
clever girl she learned a great deal from him, especially in the way
of mathematics, for which, as has been said, she had a natural
leaning.

Indeed very soon she outstripped Godfrey and the other lads in this
and sundry other branches of study, sitting at a table by herself on
what once had been the dais of the old hall. In the intervals of
lessons, however, it was their custom to take walks together and then
it was that she always found herself at the side of Godfrey. Indeed
they became inseparable, at any rate in mind. A strange and most
uncommon intimacy existed between these young creatures, almost might
it have been called a friendship of the spirit. Yet, and this was the
curious part of it, they were dissimilar in almost everything that
goes to make up a human being. Even in childhood there was scarcely a
subject on which they thought alike, scarcely a point upon which they
would not argue.

Godfrey was fond of poetry; it bored Isobel. His tendencies were
towards religion though of a very different type from that preached
and practised by his father; hers were anti-religious. In fact she
would have been inclined to endorse the saying of that other
schoolgirl who defined faith as "the art of believing those things
which we know to be untrue," while to him on the other hand they were
profoundly true, though often enough not in the way that they are
generally accepted. Had he possessed any powers of definition at that
age, probably he would have described our accepted beliefs as shadows
of the Truth, distorted and fantastically shaped, like those thrown by
changeful, ragged clouds behind which the eternal sun is shining,
shadows that vary in length and character according to the hour and
weather of the mortal day.

Isobel for her part took little heed of shadows. Her clear, scientific
stamp of mind searched for ascertainable facts, and on these she built
up her philosophy of life and of the death that ends it. Of course all
such contradictions may often be found in a single mind which believes
at one time and rejects at another and sees two, or twenty sides of
everything with a painful and bewildering clearness.

Such a character is apt to end in profound dissatisfaction with the
self from which it cannot be free. Much more then would one have
imagined that these two must have been dissatisfied with each other
and sought the opportunities of escape which were open to them. But it
was not so in the least. They argued and contradicted until they had
nothing more to say, and then lapsed into long periods of weary but
good-natured silence. In a sense each completed each by the addition
of its opposite, as the darkness completes the light, thus making the
round of the perfect day.

As yet this deep affection and remarkable oneness showed no signs of
the end to which obviously it was drifting. That kiss which the girl
had given to the boy was pure sisterly, or one might almost say,
motherly, and indeed this quality inspired their relationship for much
longer than might have been expected. So much was this so that no one
connected with them on either side ever had the slightest suspicion
that they cared for each other in any way except as friends and fellow
pupils.

So the years went by till the pair were seventeen, young man and young
woman, though still called boy and girl. They were good-looking in
their respective ways though yet unformed; tall and straight, too,
both of them, but singularly dissimilar in appearance as well as in
mind. Godfrey was dark, pale and thoughtful-faced. Isobel was fair,
vivacious, open-natured, amusing, and given to saying the first thing
that came to her tongue. She had few reservations; her thoughts might
be read in her large grey eyes before they were heard from her lips,
which generally was not long afterwards. Also she was very able. She
read and understood the papers and followed all the movements of the
day with a lively interest, especially if these had to do with
national affairs or with women and their status.

Business, too, came naturally to her, so much so that her father would
consult her about his undertakings, that is, about those of them which
were absolutely above board and beyond suspicion of sharp dealing. The
others he was far too wise to bring within her ken, knowing exactly
what he would have heard from her upon the subject. And yet
notwithstanding all his care she suspected him, by instinct, not by
knowledge. For his part he was proud of her and would listen with
pleasure when, still a mere child, she engaged his guests boldly in
argument, for instance a bishop or a dean on theology, or a statesman
on current politics. Already he had formed great plans for her future;
she was to marry a peer who took an active part in things, or at any
rate a leading politician, and to become a power in the land. But of
this, too, wisely he said nothing to Isobel, for the time had not yet
come.

During these years things had prospered exceedingly with John Blake
who was now a very rich man with ships owned, or partly owned by him
on every sea. On several occasions he had been asked to stand for
Parliament and declined the honour. He knew himself to be no speaker,
and was sure also that he could not attend both to the affairs of the
country and to those of his ever-spreading business. So he took
another course and began to support the Conservative Party, which he
selected as the safest, by means of large subscriptions.

He did more, he bought a baronetcy, for only thus can the transaction
be described. When a General Election was drawing near, one evening
after dinner at Hawk's Hall he had a purely business conversation with
a political Whip who, perhaps not without motive, had been complaining
to him of the depleted state of the Party Chest.

"Well," said Mr. Blake, "you know that my principles are yours and
that I should like to help your, or rather our cause. Money is tight
with me just now and the outlook is very bad in my trade, but I'm a
man who always backs his fancy; in short, would �15,000 be of use?"

The Whip intimated that it would be of the greatest use.

"Of course," continued Mr. Blake, "I presume that the usual
acknowledgment would follow?"

"What acknowledgment?" asked the Whip sipping his port wearily, for
such negotiations were no new thing to him. "I mean, how do you spell
it?"

"With a P," said Mr. Blake boldly, acting on his usual principle of
asking for more than he hoped to get.

The Whip contemplated him through his eyeglass with a mild and
interested stare.

"Out of the question, my dear fellow," he said. "That box is full and
locked, and there's a long outside list waiting as well. Perhaps you
mean with a K. You know money isn't everything, as some of you
gentlemen seem to think, and if it were, you would have said fifty
instead of fifteen."

"K be damned!" replied Mr. Blake. "I'm not a mayor or an actor-
manager. Let's say B, that stands for Beginning as well as Baronet;
also it comes before P, doesn't it?"

"Well, let's see. You haven't a son, have you? Then perhaps it might
be managed," replied the Whip with gentle but pointed insolence, for
Mr. Blake annoyed him. "I'll make inquiries, and now, shall we join
the ladies? I want to continue my conversation with your daughter
about the corruption which some enemy, taking advantage of her
innocence, has persuaded her exists in the Conservative Party. She is
a clever young lady and makes out a good case against us, though I am
sure I do not know whence she got her information. Not from you, I
suppose, Sir John--I beg your pardon, Mr. Blake."

So the matter was settled, as both of them knew it would be when they
left the room. The cash found its way into some nebulous account that
nobody could have identified with any party, and in the Dissolution
Honours, John Blake, Esq., J.P., was transformed into Sir John Blake,
Bart.; information that left tens of thousands of the students of the
list mildly marvelling why. As the same wonder struck them regarding
the vast majority of the names which appeared therein, this, however,
did not matter. They presumed, good, easy souls, that John Blake,
Esq., J.P., and the rest were patriots who for long years had been
working for the good of their country, and that what they had done in
secret had been discovered in high places and was now proclaimed from
the housetops.

Lady Jane was inclined to share this view. She knew that a great deal
of her husband's money went into mysterious channels of which she was
unable to trace the ends, and concluded in her Victorian-wife kind of
fashion, or at any rate hoped, that it was spent in alleviating the
distress of the "Submerged Tenth" which at that time was much in
evidence. Hence no doubt the gracious recognition that had come to
him. John Blake himself, who paid over the cash, naturally had no such
delusions, and unfortunately in that moment of exultation, when he
contemplated his own name adorning the lists in every newspaper, let
out the truth at breakfast at which Isobel was his sole companion. For
by this time Lady Jane had grown too delicate to come down early.

"Well, you've got a baronet for a father now, my girl"--to be accurate
he called it a "bart."--he said puffing himself out like a great toad
before the fire, as he threw down the /Daily News/ in which his name
was icily ignored in a spiteful leaderette about the Honours List,
upon the top of /The Times/, /The Standard/, and /The Morning Post/.

"Oh!" said Isobel in an interested voice and paused.

"It's wonderful what money can do," went on her father, who was
inclined for a discussion, and saw no other way of opening up the
subject. "Certain qualifications of which it does not become me to
speak, and a good subscription to the Party funds, and there you are
with Bart. instead of Esq. after your name and Sir before it. I wonder
when I shall get the Patent? You know baronets do not receive the
accolade."

"Don't they?" commented Isobel. "Well, that saves the Queen some
trouble of which she must be glad as she does not get the
subscription. I know all about the accolade," she added; "for Godfrey
has told me. Only the other day he was showing me in the Abbey Church
where the warriors who were to receive it, knelt all night before the
altar. But they didn't give subscriptions, they prayed and afterwards
took a cold bath."

"Times are changed," he answered.

"Yes, of course. I can't see /you/ kneeling all night with a white
robe on, Father, in prayer before an altar. But tell me, would they
have made you a baronet if you hadn't given the subscription?"

Sir John chuckled till his great form shook--he had grown very stout
of late years.

"I think you are sharp enough to answer that question for yourself. I
have observed, Isobel, that you know as much of the world as most
young girls of your age."

"So you bought the thing," she exclaimed with a flash of her grey
eyes. "I thought that honours were given because they were earned."

"Did you?" said Sir John, chuckling again. "Well, now you know better.
Look here, Isobel, don't be a fool. Honours, or most of them, like
other things, are for those who can pay for them in this way or that.
Nobody bothers how they come so long as they /do/ come. Now, listen.
Unfortunately, as a girl, you can't inherit this title. But it doesn't
matter much, since it will be easy for you to get one for yourself."

Isobel turned red and uttered an exclamation, but enjoining silence on
her with a wave of his fat hand, her father went on:

"I haven't done so badly, my dear, considering my chances. I don't
mind telling you that I am a rich man now, indeed a very rich man as
things go, and I shall be much richer, for nothing pays like ships,
especially if you man them with foreign crews. Also I am a Bart," and
he pointed to the pile of newspapers on the floor, "and if my Party
gets in again, before long I shall be a Lord, which would make you an
Honourable. Anyway, my girl, although you ain't exactly a beauty,"
here he considered her with a critical eye, "you'll make a fine figure
of a woman and with your money, you should be able to get any husband
you like. What's more," and he banged his fist upon the table, "I
expect you to do it; that's your part of the family business. Do you
understand?"

"I understand, Father, that you expect me to get any husband I like.
Well, I'll promise that."

"I think you ought to come into the office, you are so smart," replied
Sir John with sarcasm. "But don't you try it on me, for I'm smarter.
You know very well that I mean any husband /I/ like, when I say 'any
husband you like.' Now do you understand?"

"Yes," replied Isobel icily. "I understand that you want to buy me a
husband as you have bought a title. Well, titles and husbands are
alike in one thing; once taken you can never be rid of them day or
night. So I'll say at once, to save trouble afterwards, that I would
rather earn my living as a farm girl, and as for your money, Father,
you can do what you wish with it."

Then looking him straight in the eyes, she turned and left the room.

"An odd child!" thought Sir John to himself as he stared after her.
"Anyway, she has got spirit and no doubt will come all right in time
when she learns what's what."

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