第36章 CHAPTER VII MR. KNIGHT AND DUTY(4)

"I am sorry to say that Mother is not well at all. She coughs a great deal now that Essex is getting so damp, and grows thinner and thinner. The doctor says she ought to go to Egypt, only Father won't hear of it. But I won't write about that or we should have another argument on the fourth Commandment. Good-bye, dear old boy.--Your affectionate Isobel.

"P.S.--When you write don't tell me all about Switzerland and snow-covered mountains and blue, bottomless lakes, etc., which I can read in books. Tell me about yourself and what you are doing and thinking--especially what you are thinking.

"P.P.S.--That man in armour isn't really good-looking; he has a squint. Also he puts scent upon his hair and can't spell. I know because he tried to write a bit of poetry on my programme and got it all wrong."

When she had finished this somewhat laboured epistle Isobel remembered that she had forgotten to ask Godfrey to write down his address.

Bethinking her that it would be known to Mrs. Parsons, she took it round to the Abbey House, proposing to add it there. As it happened Mrs. Parsons was out, so she left it with the housemaid, who promised faithfully to give it to her when she returned, with Isobel's message as to writing the address on the sealed envelope. In order that she might not forget, the maid placed it on a table by the back door. By ill luck, however, presently through that door, came, not Mrs.

Parsons, but the Rev. Mr. Knight. He saw the letter addressed to Godfrey Knight, Esq., and, though he half pretended to himself that he did not, at once recognized Isobel's large, upright hand. Taking it from the table he carried it with him into his study and there contemplated it for a while.

"That pernicious girl is communicating with Godfrey," he said to himself, "which I particularly wish to prevent."

A desire came upon him to know what was in the letter, and he began to argue with himself as to his "duty"--that was the word he used.

Finally he concluded that as Godfrey was still so young and so open to bad influences from that quarter, this duty clearly indicated that he should read the letter before it was forwarded. In obedience to this high impulse he opened and read it, with the result that by the time it was finished there was perhaps no more angry clergyman in the British Empire. The description of himself looking as though he had eaten a hatful of crab-apples; the impious remarks about the Thirty-@@nine Articles; the suggestion that Godfrey, instead of going to bed as he had ordered him to do that evening, was wandering about London at midnight; the boldly announced intention of the writer of not going to church--indeed, every word of it irritated him beyond bearing.

"Well," he said aloud, "I do not think that I am called upon to spend twopence-halfpenny" (for Isobel had forgotten the stamp) "in forwarding such poisonous trash to a son whom I should guard from evil. Hateful girl! At any rate she shall have no answer to this effusion."

Then he put the letter into a drawer which he locked.

As a consequence, naturally, Isobel did receive "no answer," a fact from which she drew her own conclusions. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that these seared her soul. She had written to Godfrey, she had humbled herself before Godfrey, and he sent her--no answer. It never occurred to her to make inquiries as to the fate of that letter, except once when she asked the housemaid whom she chanced to meet, whether she had given it to Mrs. Parsons. The girl, whose brain, or whatever represented that organ, was entirely fixed upon a young man in the village of whom she was jealous, answered, yes. Perhaps she had entirely forgotten the incident, or perhaps she considered the throwing of the letter upon a table as equivalent to delivery.

At any rate, Isobel, who thought, like most other young people, that when they once have written something, it is conveyed by a magical agency to the addressee, even if left between the leaves of a blotter, accepted the assurance as conclusive. Without doubt the letter had gone and duly arrived, only Godfrey did not choose to answer it, that was all. Perhaps this might be because he was still angry on account of the knight in armour--oh! how she hoped that this was the reason, but, as her cold, common sense, of which she had an unusual share, convinced her, much more probably the explanation was that he was engaged otherwise, and did not think it worth while to take the trouble to write.

Later on, it is true, she did mean to ask Mrs. Parsons whether she had forwarded the letter. But as it chanced, before she did so, that good woman burst into a flood of conversation about Godfrey, saying how happy he seemed to be in his new home with such nice ladies around, who it was plain, thought so much of him, and so forth. This garrulity Isobel took as an intended hint and ceased from her contemplated queries. When some months later Mr. Knight brought her Godfrey's epistle which announced his inheritance, needless to say, everything became plain as a pikestaff to her experienced intelligence.

So it came about that two young people, who adored each other, were estranged for a considerable length of time. For Isobel wrote no more letters, and the proud and outraged Godfrey would rather have died than attempt to open a correspondence--after what he had seen in that London square. It is true that in his brief epistles home, which were all addressed to his father, since Mrs. Parsons was what is called "a poor scholar," he did try in a roundabout way to learn something about Isobel, but these inquiries, for reasons of his own, his parent completely ignored. In short, she might have been dead for all that Godfrey heard of her, as he believed that she was dead--to him.