Some responded to his training, and these he strenuously encouraged, asking them to dinner and taking them to walk; and these were enthusiastically fond of him, and regarded his beautiful wife as a being of a superior order. Fitzjocelyn and James used to agree that intercourse with her was a very important element in their training, and the invitations were made as impartial as possible, including the intelligent and well-conducted, irrespective of station. Isabel's favourite guest was a good, well-mannered lad, son to Mr. Ramsbotham's follower, the butcher, but, unluckily, Mrs. Richardson and her friends did not esteem it a compliment when their sons were asked to meet him, and, on the other hand, James did not always distinguish real merit from mere responsiveness to his own mind. Dull boys, or such as had a half sullen, half conservative dislike to change, did not gain notice of an agreeable kind, and while intending to show strict justice, he did not know how far he was affected by his prepossessions.
His lectures had emancipated him from evening parties; and, after Mrs. Frost's departure, visiting gave Isabel little trouble. The calm, lofty manners that had been admired in Miss Conway, were thought pride in Mrs. James Frost, and none of the ladies of Northwold even wished to do more than exchange morning calls with her, and talk among themselves of her fine-ladyism. She recked nothing of their keeping aloof; her book and her pen were far pleasanter companions on her alternate evenings of solitude, and in them she tried to lose her wishes for the merry days spent with granny and Clara, and her occasional perceptions that all was not as in their time. James would sometimes bring this fact more palpably before her.
The separation of the families had not diminished the income of the household, but the difference in comfort was great. Isabel knew nothing of management, and did not care to learn. She had been willing to live on a small scale, but she did not understand personal superintendence, she was careless of display, and perfectly happy as long as she was the guest of the grandmother, but she had no comprehension of petty tidinesses or small economies. Now James, brought up on a very different scale, knew in detail how the household ought to live, and made it a duty not to exceed a fixed sum. He had the eye for neatness that she wanted; he could not believe it a hardship to go without indulgences to which his grandmother and sister had not been accustomed. Thus, he protested against unnecessary fires; Isabel shivered and wore shawls; he was hurt at seeming to misuse her, resigned his study fire, and still found the coals ever requiring to be renewed, insisted that his wife should speak to the cook, and mystified her by talking about the regulation of the draught of the kitchen fire; and when Isabel understood, she forgot the lecture.
He was a devoted and admiring husband, but he could not coolly discover innumerable petty neglects and wasteful habits. Impatient words broke out, and Isabel always received them so meekly that he repented and apologized; and in the reconciliation the subject was forgotten, but only to be revived another time. Isabel was always ready to give warm aid and sympathy in all his higher cares and purposes, and her mild tranquillity was repose and soothing to him, but she was like one in a dream. She had married a vision of perfection, and entered on a romance of happy poverty, and she had no desire to awaken; so she never exerted her mind upon the world around her, when it seemed oppressive; and kept the visionary James Frost before her, in company with Adeline and the transformed Sir Hubert. It was much easier to line his tent with a tapestry of Maltese crosses, than to consider whether the hall should be covered with cocoanut matting.
How Christmas passed with Clara, may be seen in the following letter:-
'Cheveleigh, Jan. 1851.
'Dearest Jem,-I can write a long letter to-night, for a fortunate cold has spared me from one of Sir Andrew's dinner-parties. It is a reminiscence of the last ball, partly brought on by compunction at having dragged poor granny thither, in consideration of my unguarded declaration of intense dislike to be chaperoned by Lady Britton. Granny looks glorious in black velvet and diamonds, and I do trust that her universal goodwill rendered the ball more tolerable to her than it was to me. She, at least, is all she seems; whereas I am so infested with civilities, that I long to proclaim myself little Clara Frost, bred up for a governess, and the laughing-stock of her school. Oh! for that first ball where no one danced with me but Mr. Richardson, and I was not a mere peg for the display of Uncle Oliver's Peruvian jewels! I have all the trouble in the world to be allowed to go about fit to be seen, and only by means of great fighting and coaxing did I prevail to have my dress only from London instead of Paris.
'And no wonder I shivered all the way to the ball. Fancy Jane insisting on my going to display my dress to that poor dying Marianne; I was shocked at the notion of carrying my frivolities into such a scene, but Jane said her mind ran on it, and it was 'anything to take off her thoughts from that man.' So I went into her room, and oh! if you could have seen the poor thing, with her short breath and racking cough, her cheeks burning and her eyes glistening at that flimsy trumpery. One bunch of the silver flowers on my skirt was wrong; she spied it, and they would not thwart her, so she would have the needle, and the skeleton trembling fingers set them right. They said she would sleep the easier for it, and she thanked me as if it had really set her more at rest; but how sad, how strange it seems, when she knows that she is sinking fast, and has had Mr. Danvers with her every day. He thinks all is well with her; but it was a melancholy, blank, untaught mind, to begin to work on. Louis would call her life a mournful picture of our civilization. She has told it all to Jane: she was of the mechanic class, just above the rank that goes to Sunday-schools; she went to a genteel weekly school, and was taken out pleasuring on Sunday-no ground-work at all. An orphan at fifteen, she never again knew tenderness. Then came dressmaking till her health failed, and she tried service. She says, Isabel's soft tones made a paradise for her; but late hours, which she did not feel at the time, wore her out, and Delaford trifled with her. Always when alone he pretended devotion to her, then flirted with any other who came in his way, and worry and fretting put the finish to her failing health. She had no spirit to break entirely with him, and even now is pining for one kind word, which he seems to be too hard and selfish to send to her, in answer to a letter of forgiveness that she wrote a fortnight back. What a wretch he must be! Jane says, he tried flirting with poor little Charlotte, and that she was a little 'took up' with his guitar and his verses; but then, Jane says, 'Charlotte has somewhat at the bottom, and knows better than to heed a man as wasn't real religious.' I suppose that is the true difference between Charlotte and Marianne, and even if we looked into Delaford's history, most likely we should find him another nineteenth-century victim to an artificial life. At least, I trust that Jane has been the greatest blessing, Marianne herself speaks of her as more than a mother to her; and I believe I told you of the poor girl's overpowering gratitude, when she found we would not turn her out to die homeless. We read, and we talk, and Mr. Danvers comes; but I believe dear old Jane does more for her than all.
'Poor Jane! when her task of nursing is over, I do not know what she will turn to. The grand servants only keep terms with her because Uncle Oliver gave notice that no one should stay in the house who did not show respect to his _friend_ Mrs. Beckett. It takes all her love for Missus and Master Oliver to make her bear it; and her chief solace is in putting me to bed, and in airing Master Oliver's shirt and slippers. You would laugh to hear her compassionating the home minced-pies! and she tells me she would give fifty pounds rather than bring Charlotte here. My uncle wished grandmamma to manage the house, and she did so at first, but she and the servants did not get on well together; and she said, what I never knew her say before, that she is too old, and so we have an awful dame who rules with a high hand.