THIS SHORT STORY featuring Susan Isabel Dacre as a character has been discovered by Mike Stewart. The earliest copy of it is from an 1898 South American newspaper1, and it later appears in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 11 Jul 1907. Isabel would have been fifty-four at the time of the earlier publication, not quite the ‘girl’ indicated in the text, but the story could have been written at an earlier date, of course, presumably in some British pulication.
Isabel was a fan of theatre2, and given her remarkable and unconventional life history – lived in France and Italy in her youth, worked in France as a governess, caught up in the Paris commune of 1871, helping build the barricades, a lifelong friend of and sharing her studio with the artist Francis Dodd, thirty years her younger – I should imagine she’d have no problem with her depiction in the story.
I known nothing about ‘Florence Lane-Fox’ – if anyone reading this can identify her I’d be grateful.
In the text below I’ve used modern (double) quote marks rather than the original single quote marks to make it more readable to modern eyes, and corrected four typos … “It your only grievence” to “If your only grievence”, “it it better” to “it is better”, “yon are looking” to “you are looking”, and “Miss Dacre returus” to “Miss Dacre returns”, a case of the typsetter setting the ‘n’ upside down – have transcribed many newspaper articles over the years but never seen that one before.
- The Chilian TImes Illustrated Suppliment, no. 1514, Valparaiso, May 7, 1898.
- “She would rather be present at a bad play than not at all” (The Manchester Guardian, 21 Feb 1933, obituary).
ISABEL DACRE’S BOOTS
by Florence Lane-Fox
“If you wish to make an enemy one of the surest methods of accomplishing that desirable end is to give unsolicited advice.”
Harry Tresidder threw down the letter he had been reading, muttered something about the consignment of the writer to a place supposed, by the superstitious, to be more warm than is consistent with comfort, and snatched up his pipe from the mantelpiece.
The hasty action, and the expression of his face, as he filled his beloved ‘briar-wood’ with choice ‘honey-dew,’ bespoke a frame of mind the reverse of amiable.
He threw himself into his chair, and after a few refreshing, vigorous puffs of the ever-soothing tobacco, he thus delivered himself –
“Of all the meddling, pettifogging fools that ever stalked about this earth, with his head crammed full of motheaten exploded fallacies, that person is my brother Aminadab.”
“His name is against him,” said Percy Franklin, drily. “Glad I wasn’t registered as Aminadab. If his opinions coincide with his name I should think you did not always agree.”
“Agreed!” echoed Tresidder, in a tone of marked disgust. “We simply quarrel like demons whenever we meet. Happily, our encounters are limited to the family dinner at Christmas and similar occasions, such as weddings and funerals.”
“I suppose the obsequies of your uncle Edgar witnessed the last tournament?”
“Just so. This letter – (tearing the epistle into pieces and throwing it into the grate) – is a long preamble, advising me to stand for Yapton.”
“Why not?”
“Hear him, ye gods! Do you know, Percival Franklin, bachelor, that I, Harry Tresidder, widower, do not consider myself fitted to represent my country in Parliament? I have got a conscience.”
“Happily you might do some good.”
“Not a bit of it. I should be a deadly failure. What should I say to the constituents – ‘Dearly beloved brethren, I do not think with you on the temperance question. We make a fortune by brewing beer, and you ruin yourselves by drinking it. I cannot promise to give you all your own way; which, if you got, would ruin you and the country. I cannot swear that I love you, and that, it will be the work of my life to put your interest before my own?'”
Percival Franklin smiled at this tirade, but he answered quietly –
“You would be the right man in the right place; for you always hit the nail on the head whenever you do take a fit into your head speechifying. We must try to solidify the country somehow, for it is in a diabolical state now.”
“Yes; but I cannot do any good – everything has been muddled for twenty years. Unless we can revise the method of administration, and protect life and property more carefully, there is nothing for it but to stand on one side and make room for the foreign invader.”
Percy Franklin started up.
“Never! I will take care we don’t, come to that.”
“Too late for you to try to undo other people’s bad management.”
“Well, you will soon have to make up your mind one way or the other. I cannot potter about much longer earning nothing. If your only grievance against Aminadab is simply his ambition on your account, it is absurd of you to stick to your own opinions in the face of reason! If you do not represent the place a worse man will.”
“You consider it my duty to stand for the place?”
“Of course I do. It is my avocation in life to act as your agent, and I should prefer your paying me to do your work rather than loafing about here smoking your tobacco, eating your dinner, and fancying I had done a hard day’s work when I had
docked a pound or two off some poor devil’s bill, or caught your valet strutting down Piccadilly in your last new suit.”
“Ha! ha! ha! I wish everyone was as sturdy and disagreeable as you are,’ laughed Harry Tresidder. But I really don’t care about the matter.”
He crossed over to the window and looked out.
“By jove, here she is at last,” he cried. “Come here, quick. That’s the girl with the boots.”
“Without them, you mean. What a slipshod female! Why they will remain on the pavement with the next step she takes. She must be pretty strong-minded or very badly off to walk down Grosvenor-street at twelve o’clock in the day in those. Why, good heavens!” – raising his eyes to the lady’s face as she passed the window – “it is Isabel Dacre.”
“That – Isabel Dacre!” cried Tresidder, almost dropping his pipe in amazement. “Why I have been watching that girl every day for weeks, and weaving no end of romances about her -“
“Prior to scraping up an acquaintance and inviting her to become Mrs. Henry Tresidder number two. Well, you cannot do worse than you did at first. Isabel neither drinks nor gambles. But she has one great, failing -“
“Evidently,” said Tresidder. “A lack of taste in dress. She is not lavish in her expenditure. She must be badly off to wear such a vile pair of boots as that.”
Harry Tresidder, although almost a millionaire, was very kind-hearted, and could not bear the idea of anyone suffering. He often had felt impelled to rush out of his comfortable study and ask the young lady a question – if he could help her; but, in spite of her somewhat threadbare aspect there was a certain dignity about her that forbade impertinent curiosity.
“Well, what is her failing?” inquired Tresidder.
“She works hard for her living and is quixotically generous. I daresay she has given away her last new pair, and is compelled to wear these till she has earned some more money.”
“What does she do?”
“Paints pictures.”
“Oh, yes; I saw one in the Academy – Dives and Lazarus.”
“‘I will introduce you to her. Depend upon it there is some history attached to those boots. She is a curiosity in her way.”
“So I should imagine. She cannot be really poor though.”
“Oh l but she is. She had to borrow the money for her education, and she has a spendthrift relation who is always in hot water. But, come along. We will go and call now.”
“Not if I know it,” said Tresidder, sagely. “What is the use of calling when we know she is out?”
“My dear fellow, I know her better than you do. You have plenty of money. You must go to have your portrait painted by the celebrated artist Miss Isabel Dacre. You know nothing of the shabbily dressed, out-at-elbows, poverty-stricken young lady with holes in her boots.”
“A splendid idea! Just the very thing! Now I should have made some hideous blunder, and ruined my chances for ever, if I had been left to myself.”
“True.”
Tresidder was highly elated at his friend’s astute-ness. From how many disastrous scrapes had not this cool, clear-headed, phlegmatic young barrister delivered him? Patient, kindly, and sympathetic, Percy Franklin endeared himself to all who knew him by his unobtrusive method of carrying out their unexpressed wishes. His own life had been full of sorrow and disappointment; consequently he was able to sympathise with every one.
In a short space of time they both called at Miss Dacre’s studio.
She had one large room at the top of the house, with a skylight and two large windows in it, which she used as a studio and reception room combined. She had another apartment at the back fitted as a sitting-room in the daytime, and the furniture reversed became suitable for bed-room purposes at night.
The porter’s daughter attended to all her wants, and showed the two gentlemen straight up to her studio, saying: “Miss Dacre will return in five minutes, if you will wait. You can see her and make your own appointment.”
While they were waiting the pair investigated the room.
“How anyone can live in this smell l cannot imagine. Oil paints, aniseed, and turpentine!” said Harry Tresidder, reeving up his somewhat fastidious nose.
“It is rather nasty,” assented Franklin. “But you get accustomed to it.”
A smothered groan from behind the screen caused Percy to turn sharply round and move it.
There, lying on a sort of extemporised couch, was a lad.
He might be any age, from fifteen to twenty, so careworn and haggard was the face.
He opened his eyes and looked pathetically up at the strangers.
“Oh, please put the screen back quick, before Miss Dacre returns.”
“Not before you tell me what is wrong with you,” said Percy, promptly.
“Oh, nothing” – with half a smile – “I’m hiding. Miss Dacre is a brick; she is preventing my step-mother from locking me up in a lunatic asylum. My people have got all my money; but it is better to be alive and at liberty, so I let them keep the cash and I hide here. I have no one to defend me – only Miss Dacre. Shut up the screen.” The tone of authority and the delicate, high-bred face told both the men that the lad was a person of some importance.
Percy Franklin had just replaced the screen and seated himself in the nearest chair – with the aspect of a naughty child, who has been caught helping itself to forbidden sweetmeats – when the door opened and the artist entered.
“Miss Dacre,” commenced Percy, at once, “I have brought a friend of mine to you. He wants a good portrait of himself, and I thought he could not do better than trust it to you. Mr. Henry Tresidder – Miss Isabel Dacre.”
“I am a neighbour of yours,” said Tresidder.
“Yes, I know. I often see your horses. You have one that I should like to paint some day.”
“Why didn’t you ask me before?” began Tresidder, eagerly. “But you must paint me first. When can you undertake to do it?”
“Tomorrow, if you like.”
The hour was fixed, terms decided on, and the two friends took their departure.
At the time appointed on the following day Mr. Tresidder arrived.
Miss Dacre was waiting for him.
The screen was in a different place, and evidently there was no couch behind it.
Miss Dacre intercepted the look of astonishment which passed over her new client’s face as he glanced from the screen to her easel.
“Ah! you are looking for the boy?” she said, coolly. “He told me that you and Mr. Franklin had discovered him.
Tresidder was rather abashed at her straight-forwardness.
“Carrie!” calling rather loudly; “come here.”
A lanky girl entered the room.
“I have dressed him up in some of my old clothes. Lady Verion would not think of looking for him here.”
“Why, you don’t mean to say this is boy is Lord Verion – that all the fuss was about?”
“I do; and he is as sane – as you are – at least, I am not, in a position to judge of your mental capacity, so I will say – as I am.”
“They put him into a private asylum, and I got him out. I bribed the doctor to give him up. He cannot defend himself against his relatives; the step-mother and the elder sister are against him.”
“Franklin will see into it!” said Tresidder, promptly. “But do you support him, or has he any money?”
“Oh, poor boy, he doesn’t cost much to keep,” said Miss Dacre, colouring slightly. “I can spare the little that he costs me. I have certainly been saving for him to be able to afford a solicitor to defend himself; but if you will undertake to see him righted, why – I need not consider myself responsible any longer.”
The boy strode across the room, and held out his hand to Tresidder.
“You have no idea what a brute that Lady Verion is. I accused her of poisoning my father, and she rounded on me, and said I was mad. But now Miss Dacre has got me in hand I am fairly free of her. She considers my disappearance conclusive evidence of my insanity. I am drowned, or deceased in some way.”
“Well you had better remain in Miss Dacre’s safe custody till you are properly righted. Mr. Franklin, who is my agent, and a very clever man, will undertake your case, and I shall have the pleasure of watching you to discover evidences of your insanity.”
“Would you object to seating yourself and putting yourself into position for your portrait?” said Miss Dacre, drily. Tresidder laughed and allowed himself to be posed.
In the course of the week the comely features of Mr. Henry Tresidder were transmitted to canvas; and he contrived to make himself so agreeable to the fair airtist that she began to look forward to the sittings with as much pleasure as her client.
One morning Percy Franklin was standing at the library window while Tresidder was still scanning his voluminous correspondence.
“By Jove!” he cried. Here comes Isabel in a new pair of boots. I wonder what has happened?” Tresidder smirked.
“A very excellent sign. She is beginning to take an interest in her appearance.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? Well, l am very glad she has left off that vile old pair, I don’t half like to do it, but I must ask her why she wore them. She will tell me. I am such an old friend.”
Accordingly, the next time they met, Franklin asked her point blank – why she had worn the ragged pair.
“I did it for fun, and to prove my friends. Do you know it was killing to see the way all my acquaintances crossed the road or turned the corner directly they saw me coming. You and Mr. Tresidder have been the only two that have ventured to come near me since I appeared in them,” explained Isabel.
“Well, we hope we have proved our sincerity,” said Tresidder.
“Quite, for I believe in both of you.”
It was not long before she had ample proof of Tresidder’s good intentions, for he proposed to her, and was accepted. He relieved his brother Aminadab’s mind by securing the representation of the borough of Yapton. Percy Franklin proved poor Lord Verion’s sanity, and Mrs. Henry Tresidder often laughs when she reminds her husband of the fact that she owes all her best friends to an old pair of boots.
ANNIE LOUISA SWYNNERTON and SUSAN ISABEL DACRE (1844-1933) 