“She is one of my patients,” the Doctor would say, to any one who asked him about her.
The tale that she was the daughter of an Italian refugee became more rife after Isabella had begun to study Italian. She liked to have the musical Italian words linger on her tongue. She quoted Italian poetry, read Italian history. In conversation, she generally talked of the present, rarely of the past or of the future. She listened with wonder to those who had a talent for reminiscence. How rich their past must be, that they should be willing to dwell in it! Her own she thought very meagre. If she wanted to live in the past, it must be in the past of great men, not in that of her own little self. So she read of great painters and great artists, and because she read of them she talked of them. Other people, in referring to bygone events, would say, “When I was in Trenton last summer,”–”In Cuba the spring that we were there”; but Isabella would say, “When Raphael died, or when Dante lived.” Everybody liked to talk with her,–laughed with her at her enthusiasm. There was something inspiring, too, in this enthusiasm; it compelled attention, as her air and manner always attracted notice. By her side, the style and elegance of the Misses Tarletan faded out; here was a moon that quite extinguished the light of their little tapers. She became the centre of admiration; the young girls admired her, as they are prone to admire some one particular star. She never courted attention, but it was always given.
“Isabella attracts everybody,” said Celia to her mother. “Even the old Mr. Spencers, who have never been touched by woman before, follow her, and act just as she wills.”
Little Celia, who had been quite a belle hitherto, sunk into the shade by the side of the brilliant Isabella. Yet she followed willingly in the sunny wake that Isabella left behind. She expanded somewhat, herself, for she was quite ashamed to know nothing of all that Isabella talked about so earnestly. The sewing gave place to a little reading, to Mrs. Lester’s horror. The Mountforts and the Gibbses met with Isabella and Celia to read and study, and went into town with them to lectures and to concerts.
A winter passed away and another summer came. Still Isabella was at Dr. Lester’s; and with the lapse of time the harder did it become for the Doctor to question her of her past history,–the more, too, was she herself weaned from it.
The young people had been walking in the garden one evening.
“Let me sit by you here in the porch,” said Lawrence Egerton to Celia,–”I want rest, for body and spirit. I am always in a battle-field when I am talking with Isabella. I must either fight with her or against her. She insists on my fighting all the time. I have to keep my weapons bright, ready for use, every moment. She will lead me, too, in conversation, sends me here, orders me there. I feel like a poor knight in chess, under the sway of a queen”—-
“I don’t know anything about chess,” said Celia, curtly.
“It is a comfort to have you a little ignorant,” said Lawrence. “Please stay in bliss awhile. It is repose, it is refreshment. Isabella drags one into the company of her heroes, and then one feels completely ashamed not to be on more familiar terms with them all. Her Mazzinis, her Tancreds, heroes false and true,–it makes no difference to her,–put one into a whirl between history and story. What a row she would make in Italy, if she went back there!”
“What could we do without her?” said Celia; “it was so quiet and commonplace before she came!”
“That is the trouble,” replied Lawrence, “Isabella won’t let anything remain commonplace. She pulls everything out of its place,–makes a hero or heroine out of a piece of clay. I don’t want to be in heroics all the time. Even Homer’s heroes ate their suppers comfortably. I think it was a mistake in your father, bringing her here. Let her stay in her sphere queening it, and leave us poor mortals to our bread and butter.”
“You know you don’t think so,” expostulated Celia; “you worship her shoe-tie, the hem of her garment.”
“But I don’t want to,” said Lawrence,–”it is a compulsory worship. I had rather be quiet.”