Isabel Clarendon

Mrs. Clarendon is Mrs. Clarendon no longer; she has just married a wealthy and, I doubt not, worthy gentleman, her cousin Mr. Asquith, who takes her to live in another part of England. Knightswell is to be sold. The marriage was celebrated privately in London. I am glad I was not asked to officiate; it would have been painful to me. The old name has come to mean so much in my ears; I should but grudgingly have aided in its casting off.

Marriage bargain, widowhood, Kingcote love, and Lacour intrigue resolve into a private remarriage and estate sale reported by letter — plot as social accounting rather than reunion climax, so plot scores 84.

When Isabel Maddison married Mr. Clarendon she was generally esteemed, among such as had any interest in the matter, a highly fortunate young woman. Handsome, penniless, but nineteen years old, at a step she had achieved social apotheosis. Six months prior to the event Isabel had been on the point of accepting an engagement as a governess at a salary of twenty-six pounds a year.

Isabel individuated by the governess-or-MP choice before character talk begins — penniless beauty against Clarendon's political sourness — so cast scores 86.

Isabel and Ada were alone at Knightswell for a week. Though not in reality nearer to each other, their intercourse was easier than formerly, and chiefly owing to a change in Ada's manner. Her character seemed to be losing some of its angularities, she was less given to remarks of brusque originality, and entertained common subjects without scornful impatience.

Two-volume leisure; illness and London accelerate, but week-long house talk dilates toward the remarriage, so pace scores 80.

From Salcot East to Winstoke there are two roads, known respectively as the old and the new. The latter was made about the middle of the present century; the old road is immemorial. By the modern highway the distance between the two parishes is rather less than five miles; pursue the other, and you fetch a compass of well-nigh ten…

Road geography stated without flourish — landscape as moral compass before Kingcote appears — so prose scores 87.

Vincent Lacour rose at eleven these dark mornings; by half-past twelve he had breakfasted and was at leisure. To begin the day with an elastic interval of leisure seemed to him a primary condition of tolerable existence. From his bedroom windows he had a glimpse of a very busy street, along which, as he hummed at his toilet, he could see heavily-laden omnibuses hastening Citywards…

Knightswell park against City omnibuses — county grace and London leisure as rival climates, so world scores 88.

Kingcote, a man neither too old nor too busy to be rambling aimlessly on this Midsummer Day; over his shoulders a small knapsack, with a waterproof strapped upon it, in his hand a stick he had cut from an oak-tree. Since eleven in the morning the sun had shone as in England it shines but rarely…

Aimless Midsummer rambler under rare English fire invites the reader before Isabel's bargain is named — so hook scores 85.

By agreeing to the alternative proposal she became wife of a county member, mistress of a mansion in Mayfair and of a delightful estate in ———shire, presumptive possessor, before many years should have passed, of a fortune solidly correspondent with such show of dignity. Whatever might be the drawbacks, there was much to be said for the bargain.

Marriage named as bargain against twenty-six-pound governess work — anti-sentimental social arithmetic early in Gissing — so innov scores 83.

Mrs. Clarendon is Mrs. Clarendon no longer; she has just married a wealthy and, I doubt not, worthy gentleman, her cousin Mr. Asquith… Knightswell is to be sold… The old name has come to mean so much in my ears; I should but grudgingly have aided in its casting off.

Love plot closes as rector's social notice, not lovers' reunion — name and house dissolved together — so ending scores 82.