Chapter 11

Brandon Beeches, in the Thames valley, was the seat of Sir
Charles Brandon, seventh baronet of that name. He had lost his
father before attaining his majority, and had married shortly
afterwards; so that in his twenty-fifth year he was father to
three children. He was a little worn, in spite of his youth, but
he was tall and agreeable, had a winning way of taking a kind and
soothing view of the misfortunes of others, could tell a story
well, liked music and could play and sing a little, loved the
arts of design and could sketch a little in water colors, read
every magazine from London to Paris that criticised pictures, had
travelled a little, fished a little, shot a little, botanized a
little, wandered restlessly in the footsteps of women, and
dissipated his energies through all the small channels that his
wealth opened and his talents made easy to him. He had no large
knowledge of any subject, though he had looked into many just far
enough to replace absolute unconsciousness of them with
measurable ignorance. Never having enjoyed the sense of
achievement, he was troubled with unsatisfied aspirations that
filled him with melancholy and convinced him that he was a born
artist. His wife found him selfish, peevish, hankering after
change, and prone to believe that he was attacked by dangerous
disease when he was only catching cold.

Lady Brandon, who believed that he understood all the subjects he
talked about because she did not understand them herself, was one
of his disappointments. In person she resembled none of the types
of beauty striven after by the painters of her time, but she had
charms to which few men are insensible. She was tall, soft, and
stout, with ample and shapely arms, shoulders, and hips. With her
small head, little ears, pretty lips, and roguish eye, she, being
a very large creature, presented an immensity of half womanly,
half infantile loveliness which smote even grave men with a
desire to clasp her in their arms and kiss her. This desire had
scattered the desultory intellectual culture of Sir Charles at
first sight. His imagination invested her with the taste for the
fine arts which ho required from a wife, and he married her in
her first season, only to discover that the amativeness in her
temperament was so little and languid that she made all his
attempts at fondness ridiculous, and robbed the caresses for
which he had longed of all their anticipated ecstasy.
Intellectually she fell still further short of his hopes. She
looked upon his favorite art of painting as a pastime for amateur
and a branch of the house-furnishing trade for professional
artists. When he was discussing it among his friends, she would
offer her opinion with a presumption which was the more