diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:35 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:35 -0700 |
| commit | 32a8aa3f2a8eede955576a9b8929963ad51cd52d (patch) | |
| tree | 645a6f868a0b563e61b9c1b2ee39ebcf9d27104e /old | |
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/224-h.htm.2021-01-28 | 20340 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/224.txt | 16583 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/224.zip | bin | 0 -> 301066 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/pblue10.txt | 17363 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/pblue10.zip | bin | 0 -> 328791 bytes |
5 files changed, 54286 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/224-h.htm.2021-01-28 b/old/224-h.htm.2021-01-28 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b78270a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/224-h.htm.2021-01-28 @@ -0,0 +1,20340 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Pair of Blue Eyes + +Author: Thomas Hardy + +Release Date: July 8, 2008 [EBook #224] +Last Updated: October 14, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PAIR OF BLUE EYES *** + + + + +Produced by John Hamm, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + A PAIR OF BLUE EYES + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + by Thomas Hardy + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + ‘A violet in the youth of primy nature, + Forward, not permanent, sweet not lasting, + The perfume and suppliance of a minute; + No more.’ + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_PREF">PREFACE </a><br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> Chapter I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> Chapter II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> Chapter III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> Chapter IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> Chapter V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> Chapter VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> Chapter VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> Chapter VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> Chapter IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> Chapter X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> Chapter XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> Chapter XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> Chapter XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> Chapter XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> Chapter XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> Chapter XVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> Chapter XVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> Chapter XVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> Chapter XIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> Chapter XX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> Chapter XXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> Chapter XXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> Chapter XXIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> Chapter XXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> Chapter XXV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0026"> Chapter XXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0027"> Chapter XXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0028"> Chapter XXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0029"> Chapter XXIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0030"> Chapter XXX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0031"> Chapter XXXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0032"> Chapter XXXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0033"> Chapter XXXIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0034"> Chapter XXXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0035"> Chapter XXXV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0036"> Chapter XXXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0037"> Chapter XXXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0038"> Chapter XXXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0039"> Chapter XXXIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0040"> Chapter XL </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + The following chapters were written at a time when the craze for + indiscriminate church-restoration had just reached the remotest nooks of + western England, where the wild and tragic features of the coast had long + combined in perfect harmony with the crude Gothic Art of the + ecclesiastical buildings scattered along it, throwing into extraordinary + discord all architectural attempts at newness there. To restore the grey + carcases of a mediaevalism whose spirit had fled, seemed a not less + incongruous act than to set about renovating the adjoining crags + themselves. + </p> + <p> + Hence it happened that an imaginary history of three human hearts, whose + emotions were not without correspondence with these material + circumstances, found in the ordinary incidents of such church-renovations + a fitting frame for its presentation. + </p> + <p> + The shore and country about ‘Castle Boterel’ is now getting well known, + and will be readily recognized. The spot is, I may add, the furthest + westward of all those convenient corners wherein I have ventured to erect + my theatre for these imperfect little dramas of country life and passions; + and it lies near to, or no great way beyond, the vague border of the + Wessex kingdom on that side, which, like the westering verge of modern + American settlements, was progressive and uncertain. + </p> + <p> + This, however, is of little importance. The place is pre-eminently (for + one person at least) the region of dream and mystery. The ghostly birds, + the pall-like sea, the frothy wind, the eternal soliloquy of the waters, + the bloom of dark purple cast, that seems to exhale from the shoreward + precipices, in themselves lend to the scene an atmosphere like the + twilight of a night vision. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +One enormous sea-bord cliff in particular figures in the narrative; and +for some forgotten reason or other this cliff was described in the story +as being without a name. Accuracy would require the statement to be +that a remarkable cliff which resembles in many points the cliff of the +description bears a name that no event has made famous. + + T. H. +March 1899 +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + THE PERSONS + + ELFRIDE SWANCOURT a young Lady + CHRISTOPHER SWANCOURT a Clergyman + STEPHEN SMITH an Architect + HENRY KNIGHT a Reviewer and Essayist + CHARLOTTE TROYTON a rich Widow + GERTRUDE JETHWAY a poor Widow + SPENSER HUGO LUXELLIAN a Peer + LADY LUXELLIAN his Wife + MARY AND KATE two little Girls + WILLIAM WORM a dazed Factotum + JOHN SMITH a Master-mason + JANE SMITH his Wife + MARTIN CANNISTER a Sexton + UNITY a Maid-servant + + Other servants, masons, labourers, grooms, nondescripts, etc., etc. +</pre> + <p> + THE SCENE <br /> <br /> Mostly on the outskirts of Lower Wessex. <a + name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter I + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘A fair vestal, throned in the west’ +</pre> + <p> + Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface. + Their nature more precisely, and as modified by the creeping hours of + time, was known only to those who watched the circumstances of her + history. + </p> + <p> + Personally, she was the combination of very interesting particulars, whose + rarity, however, lay in the combination itself rather than in the + individual elements combined. As a matter of fact, you did not see the + form and substance of her features when conversing with her; and this + charming power of preventing a material study of her lineaments by an + interlocutor, originated not in the cloaking effect of a well-formed + manner (for her manner was childish and scarcely formed), but in the + attractive crudeness of the remarks themselves. She had lived all her life + in retirement—the monstrari gigito of idle men had not flattered + her, and at the age of nineteen or twenty she was no further on in social + consciousness than an urban young lady of fifteen. + </p> + <p> + One point in her, however, you did notice: that was her eyes. In them was + seen a sublimation of all of her; it was not necessary to look further: + there she lived. + </p> + <p> + These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance—blue as the blue we + see between the retreating mouldings of hills and woody slopes on a sunny + September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no beginning or + surface, and was looked INTO rather than AT. + </p> + <p> + As to her presence, it was not powerful; it was weak. Some women can make + their personality pervade the atmosphere of a whole banqueting hall; + Elfride’s was no more pervasive than that of a kitten. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had as her own the thoughtfulness which appears in the face of the + Madonna della Sedia, without its rapture: the warmth and spirit of the + type of woman’s feature most common to the beauties—mortal and + immortal—of Rubens, without their insistent fleshiness. The + characteristic expression of the female faces of Correggio—that of + the yearning human thoughts that lie too deep for tears—was hers + sometimes, but seldom under ordinary conditions. + </p> + <p> + The point in Elfride Swancourt’s life at which a deeper current may be + said to have permanently set in, was one winter afternoon when she found + herself standing, in the character of hostess, face to face with a man she + had never seen before—moreover, looking at him with a Miranda-like + curiosity and interest that she had never yet bestowed on a mortal. + </p> + <p> + On this particular day her father, the vicar of a parish on the sea-swept + outskirts of Lower Wessex, and a widower, was suffering from an attack of + gout. After finishing her household supervisions Elfride became restless, + and several times left the room, ascended the staircase, and knocked at + her father’s chamber-door. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come in!’ was always answered in a hearty out-of-door voice from the + inside. + </p> + <p> + ‘Papa,’ she said on one occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome man of + forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed + wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite + of himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost oaths; + ‘papa, will you not come downstairs this evening?’ She spoke distinctly: + he was rather deaf. + </p> + <p> + ‘Afraid not—eh-hh!—very much afraid I shall not, Elfride. + Piph-ph-ph! I can’t bear even a handkerchief upon this deuced toe of mine, + much less a stocking or slipper—piph-ph-ph! There ‘tis again! No, I + shan’t get up till to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I hope this London man won’t come; for I don’t know what I should + do, papa.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, it would be awkward, certainly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I should hardly think he would come to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because the wind blows so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wind! What ideas you have, Elfride! Who ever heard of wind stopping a man + from doing his business? The idea of this toe of mine coming on so + suddenly!...If he should come, you must send him up to me, I suppose, and + then give him some food and put him to bed in some way. Dear me, what a + nuisance all this is!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Must he have dinner?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Too heavy for a tired man at the end of a tedious journey.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tea, then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not substantial enough.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘High tea, then? There is cold fowl, rabbit-pie, some pasties, and things + of that kind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, high tea.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Must I pour out his tea, papa?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course; you are the mistress of the house.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What! sit there all the time with a stranger, just as if I knew him, and + not anybody to introduce us?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense, child, about introducing; you know better than that. A + practical professional man, tired and hungry, who has been travelling ever + since daylight this morning, will hardly be inclined to talk and air + courtesies to-night. He wants food and shelter, and you must see that he + has it, simply because I am suddenly laid up and cannot. There is nothing + so dreadful in that, I hope? You get all kinds of stuff into your head + from reading so many of those novels.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no; there is nothing dreadful in it when it becomes plainly a case of + necessity like this. But, you see, you are always there when people come + to dinner, even if we know them; and this is some strange London man of + the world, who will think it odd, perhaps.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well; let him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is he Mr. Hewby’s partner?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I should scarcely think so: he may be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How old is he, I wonder?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That I cannot tell. You will find the copy of my letter to Mr. Hewby, and + his answer, upon the table in the study. You may read them, and then + you’ll know as much as I do about our visitor.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have read them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what’s the use of asking questions, then? They contain all I know. + Ugh-h-h!...Od plague you, you young scamp! don’t put anything there! I + can’t bear the weight of a fly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I am sorry, papa. I forgot; I thought you might be cold,’ she said, + hastily removing the rug she had thrown upon the feet of the sufferer; and + waiting till she saw that consciousness of her offence had passed from his + face, she withdrew from the room, and retired again downstairs. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter II + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Twas on the evening of a winter’s day.’ +</pre> + <p> + When two or three additional hours had merged the same afternoon in + evening, some moving outlines might have been observed against the sky on + the summit of a wild lone hill in that district. They circumscribed two + men, having at present the aspect of silhouettes, sitting in a dog-cart + and pushing along in the teeth of the wind. Scarcely a solitary house or + man had been visible along the whole dreary distance of open country they + were traversing; and now that night had begun to fall, the faint twilight, + which still gave an idea of the landscape to their observation, was + enlivened by the quiet appearance of the planet Jupiter, momentarily + gleaming in intenser brilliancy in front of them, and by Sirius shedding + his rays in rivalry from his position over their shoulders. The only + lights apparent on earth were some spots of dull red, glowing here and + there upon the distant hills, which, as the driver of the vehicle + gratuitously remarked to the hirer, were smouldering fires for the + consumption of peat and gorse-roots, where the common was being broken up + for agricultural purposes. The wind prevailed with but little abatement + from its daytime boisterousness, three or four small clouds, delicate and + pale, creeping along under the sky southward to the Channel. + </p> + <p> + Fourteen of the sixteen miles intervening between the railway terminus and + the end of their journey had been gone over, when they began to pass along + the brink of a valley some miles in extent, wherein the wintry skeletons + of a more luxuriant vegetation than had hitherto surrounded them + proclaimed an increased richness of soil, which showed signs of far more + careful enclosure and management than had any slopes they had yet passed. + A little farther, and an opening in the elms stretching up from this + fertile valley revealed a mansion. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian’s,’ said the driver. + </p> + <p> + ‘Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian’s,’ repeated the other mechanically. He + then turned himself sideways, and keenly scrutinized the almost invisible + house with an interest which the indistinct picture itself seemed far from + adequate to create. ‘Yes, that’s Lord Luxellian’s,’ he said yet again + after a while, as he still looked in the same direction. + </p> + <p> + ‘What, be we going there?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; Endelstow Vicarage, as I have told you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought you m’t have altered your mind, sir, as ye have stared that way + at nothing so long.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no; I am interested in the house, that’s all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Most people be, as the saying is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not in the sense that I am.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh!...Well, his family is no better than my own, ‘a b’lieve.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How is that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hedgers and ditchers by rights. But once in ancient times one of ‘em, + when he was at work, changed clothes with King Charles the Second, and + saved the king’s life. King Charles came up to him like a common man, and + said off-hand, “Man in the smock-frock, my name is Charles the Second, and + that’s the truth on’t. Will you lend me your clothes?” “I don’t mind if I + do,” said Hedger Luxellian; and they changed there and then. “Now mind + ye,” King Charles the Second said, like a common man, as he rode away, “if + ever I come to the crown, you come to court, knock at the door, and say + out bold, ‘Is King Charles the Second at home?’ Tell your name, and they + shall let you in, and you shall be made a lord.” Now, that was very nice + of Master Charley?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very nice indeed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, as the story is, the king came to the throne; and some years after + that, away went Hedger Luxellian, knocked at the king’s door, and asked if + King Charles the Second was in. “No, he isn’t,” they said. “Then, is + Charles the Third?” said Hedger Luxellian. “Yes,” said a young feller + standing by like a common man, only he had a crown on, “my name is Charles + the Third.” And——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I really fancy that must be a mistake. I don’t recollect anything in + English history about Charles the Third,’ said the other in a tone of mild + remonstrance. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that’s right history enough, only ‘twasn’t prented; he was rather a + queer-tempered man, if you remember.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well; go on.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And, by hook or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was made a lord, and + everything went on well till some time after, when he got into a most + terrible row with King Charles the Fourth. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t stand Charles the Fourth. Upon my word, that’s too much.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why? There was a George the Fourth, wasn’t there?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, Charleses be as common as Georges. However I’ll say no more about + it....Ah, well! ‘tis the funniest world ever I lived in—upon my life + ‘tis. Ah, that such should be!’ + </p> + <p> + The dusk had thickened into darkness while they thus conversed, and the + outline and surface of the mansion gradually disappeared. The windows, + which had before been as black blots on a lighter expanse of wall, became + illuminated, and were transfigured to squares of light on the general dark + body of the night landscape as it absorbed the outlines of the edifice + into its gloomy monochrome. + </p> + <p> + Not another word was spoken for some time, and they climbed a hill, then + another hill piled on the summit of the first. An additional mile of + plateau followed, from which could be discerned two light-houses on the + coast they were nearing, reposing on the horizon with a calm lustre of + benignity. Another oasis was reached; a little dell lay like a nest at + their feet, towards which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp angle, + and descended a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit’s + burrow. They sank lower and lower. + </p> + <p> + ‘Endelstow Vicarage is inside here,’ continued the man with the reins. + ‘This part about here is West Endelstow; Lord Luxellian’s is East + Endelstow, and has a church to itself. Pa’son Swancourt is the pa’son of + both, and bobs backward and forward. Ah, well! ‘tis a funny world. ‘A + b’lieve there was once a quarry where this house stands. The man who built + it in past time scraped all the glebe for earth to put round the vicarage, + and laid out a little paradise of flowers and trees in the soil he had got + together in this way, whilst the fields he scraped have been good for + nothing ever since.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How long has the present incumbent been here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Maybe about a year, or a year and half: ‘tisn’t two years; for they don’t + scandalize him yet; and, as a rule, a parish begins to scandalize the + pa’son at the end of two years among ‘em familiar. But he’s a very nice + party. Ay, Pa’son Swancourt knows me pretty well from often driving over; + and I know Pa’son Swancourt.’ + </p> + <p> + They emerged from the bower, swept round in a curve, and the chimneys and + gables of the vicarage became darkly visible. Not a light showed anywhere. + They alighted; the man felt his way into the porch, and rang the bell. + </p> + <p> + At the end of three or four minutes, spent in patient waiting without + hearing any sounds of a response, the stranger advanced and repeated the + call in a more decided manner. He then fancied he heard footsteps in the + hall, and sundry movements of the door-knob, but nobody appeared. + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps they beant at home,’ sighed the driver. ‘And I promised myself a + bit of supper in Pa’son Swancourt’s kitchen. Sich lovely mate-pize and + figged keakes, and cider, and drops o’ cordial that they do keep here!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, naibours! Be ye rich men or be ye poor men, that ye must needs + come to the world’s end at this time o’ night?’ exclaimed a voice at this + instant; and, turning their heads, they saw a rickety individual shambling + round from the back door with a horn lantern dangling from his hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Time o’ night, ‘a b’lieve! and the clock only gone seven of ‘em. Show a + light, and let us in, William Worm.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that you, Robert Lickpan?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nobody else, William Worm.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And is the visiting man a-come?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ said the stranger. ‘Is Mr. Swancourt at home?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That ‘a is, sir. And would ye mind coming round by the back way? The + front door is got stuck wi’ the wet, as he will do sometimes; and the Turk + can’t open en. I know I am only a poor wambling man that ‘ill never pay + the Lord for my making, sir; but I can show the way in, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + The new arrival followed his guide through a little door in a wall, and + then promenaded a scullery and a kitchen, along which he passed with eyes + rigidly fixed in advance, an inbred horror of prying forbidding him to + gaze around apartments that formed the back side of the household + tapestry. Entering the hall, he was about to be shown to his room, when + from the inner lobby of the front entrance, whither she had gone to learn + the cause of the delay, sailed forth the form of Elfride. Her start of + amazement at the sight of the visitor coming forth from under the stairs + proved that she had not been expecting this surprising flank movement, + which had been originated entirely by the ingenuity of William Worm. + </p> + <p> + She appeared in the prettiest of all feminine guises, that is to say, in + demi-toilette, with plenty of loose curly hair tumbling down about her + shoulders. An expression of uneasiness pervaded her countenance; and + altogether she scarcely appeared woman enough for the situation. The + visitor removed his hat, and the first words were spoken; Elfride + prelusively looking with a deal of interest, not unmixed with surprise, at + the person towards whom she was to do the duties of hospitality. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am Mr. Smith,’ said the stranger in a musical voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am Miss Swancourt,’ said Elfride. + </p> + <p> + Her constraint was over. The great contrast between the reality she beheld + before her, and the dark, taciturn, sharp, elderly man of business who had + lurked in her imagination—a man with clothes smelling of city smoke, + skin sallow from want of sun, and talk flavoured with epigram—was + such a relief to her that Elfride smiled, almost laughed, in the + new-comer’s face. + </p> + <p> + Stephen Smith, who has hitherto been hidden from us by the darkness, was + at this time of his life but a youth in appearance, and barely a man in + years. Judging from his look, London was the last place in the world that + one would have imagined to be the scene of his activities: such a face + surely could not be nourished amid smoke and mud and fog and dust; such an + open countenance could never even have seen anything of ‘the weariness, + the fever, and the fret’ of Babylon the Second. + </p> + <p> + His complexion was as fine as Elfride’s own; the pink of his cheeks as + delicate. His mouth as perfect as Cupid’s bow in form, and as cherry-red + in colour as hers. Bright curly hair; bright sparkling blue-gray eyes; a + boy’s blush and manner; neither whisker nor moustache, unless a little + light-brown fur on his upper lip deserved the latter title: this composed + the London professional man, the prospect of whose advent had so troubled + Elfride. + </p> + <p> + Elfride hastened to say she was sorry to tell him that Mr. Swancourt was + not able to receive him that evening, and gave the reason why. Mr. Smith + replied, in a voice boyish by nature and manly by art, that he was very + sorry to hear this news; but that as far as his reception was concerned, + it did not matter in the least. + </p> + <p> + Stephen was shown up to his room. In his absence Elfride stealthily glided + into her father’s. + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s come, papa. Such a young man for a business man!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, indeed!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘His face is—well—PRETTY; just like mine.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘H’m! what next?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing; that’s all I know of him yet. It is rather nice, is it not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, we shall see that when we know him better. Go down and give the + poor fellow something to eat and drink, for Heaven’s sake. And when he has + done eating, say I should like to have a few words with him, if he doesn’t + mind coming up here.’ + </p> + <p> + The young lady glided downstairs again, and whilst she awaits young + Smith’s entry, the letters referring to his visit had better be given. + </p> + <p> + 1.—MR. SWANCOURT TO MR. HEWBY. + </p> + <p> + ‘ENDELSTOW VICARAGE, Feb. 18, 18—. + </p> + <p> + ‘SIR,—We are thinking of restoring the tower and aisle of the church + in this parish; and Lord Luxellian, the patron of the living, has + mentioned your name as that of a trustworthy architect whom it would be + desirable to ask to superintend the work. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am exceedingly ignorant of the necessary preliminary steps. Probably, + however, the first is that (should you be, as Lord Luxellian says you are, + disposed to assist us) yourself or some member of your staff come and see + the building, and report thereupon for the satisfaction of parishioners + and others. + </p> + <p> + ‘The spot is a very remote one: we have no railway within fourteen miles; + and the nearest place for putting up at—called a town, though merely + a large village—is Castle Boterel, two miles further on; so that it + would be most convenient for you to stay at the vicarage—which I am + glad to place at your disposal—instead of pushing on to the hotel at + Castle Boterel, and coming back again in the morning. + </p> + <p> + ‘Any day of the next week that you like to name for the visit will find us + quite ready to receive you.—Yours very truly, + </p> + <p> + CHRISTOPHER SWANCOURT. 2.—MR. HEWBY TO MR. SWANCOURT. + </p> + <p> + “PERCY PLACE, CHARING CROSS, Feb. 20, 18—. + </p> + <p> + ‘DEAR SIR,—Agreeably to your request of the 18th instant, I have + arranged to survey and make drawings of the aisle and tower of your parish + church, and of the dilapidations which have been suffered to accrue + thereto, with a view to its restoration. + </p> + <p> + ‘My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, will leave London by the early train + to-morrow morning for the purpose. Many thanks for your proposal to + accommodate him. He will take advantage of your offer, and will probably + reach your house at some hour of the evening. You may put every confidence + in him, and may rely upon his discernment in the matter of church + architecture. + </p> + <p> + ‘Trusting that the plans for the restoration, which I shall prepare from + the details of his survey, will prove satisfactory to yourself and Lord + Luxellian, I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, + </p> + <p> + WALTER HEWBY.’ <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter III + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Melodious birds sing madrigals’ +</pre> + <p> + That first repast in Endelstow Vicarage was a very agreeable one to young + Stephen Smith. The table was spread, as Elfride had suggested to her + father, with the materials for the heterogeneous meal called high tea—a + class of refection welcome to all when away from men and towns, and + particularly attractive to youthful palates. The table was prettily decked + with winter flowers and leaves, amid which the eye was greeted by chops, + chicken, pie, &c., and two huge pasties overhanging the sides of the + dish with a cheerful aspect of abundance. + </p> + <p> + At the end, towards the fireplace, appeared the tea-service, of + old-fashioned Worcester porcelain, and behind this arose the slight form + of Elfride, attempting to add matronly dignity to the movement of pouring + out tea, and to have a weighty and concerned look in matters of marmalade, + honey, and clotted cream. Having made her own meal before he arrived, she + found to her embarrassment that there was nothing left for her to do but + talk when not assisting him. She asked him if he would excuse her + finishing a letter she had been writing at a side-table, and, after + sitting down to it, tingled with a sense of being grossly rude. However, + seeing that he noticed nothing personally wrong in her, and that he too + was embarrassed when she attentively watched his cup to refill it, Elfride + became better at ease; and when furthermore he accidentally kicked the leg + of the table, and then nearly upset his tea-cup, just as schoolboys did, + she felt herself mistress of the situation, and could talk very well. In a + few minutes ingenuousness and a common term of years obliterated all + recollection that they were strangers just met. Stephen began to wax + eloquent on extremely slight experiences connected with his professional + pursuits; and she, having no experiences to fall back upon, recounted with + much animation stories that had been related to her by her father, which + would have astonished him had he heard with what fidelity of action and + tone they were rendered. Upon the whole, a very interesting picture of + Sweet-and-Twenty was on view that evening in Mr. Swancourt’s house. + </p> + <p> + Ultimately Stephen had to go upstairs and talk loud to the vicar, + receiving from him between his puffs a great many apologies for calling + him so unceremoniously to a stranger’s bedroom. ‘But,’ continued Mr. + Swancourt, ‘I felt that I wanted to say a few words to you before the + morning, on the business of your visit. One’s patience gets exhausted by + staying a prisoner in bed all day through a sudden freak of one’s enemy—new + to me, though—for I have known very little of gout as yet. However, + he’s gone to my other toe in a very mild manner, and I expect he’ll slink + off altogether by the morning. I hope you have been well attended to + downstairs?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perfectly. And though it is unfortunate, and I am sorry to see you laid + up, I beg you will not take the slightest notice of my being in the house + the while.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will not. But I shall be down to-morrow. My daughter is an excellent + doctor. A dose or two of her mild mixtures will fetch me round quicker + than all the drug stuff in the world. Well, now about the church business. + Take a seat, do. We can’t afford to stand upon ceremony in these parts as + you see, and for this reason, that a civilized human being seldom stays + long with us; and so we cannot waste time in approaching him, or he will + be gone before we have had the pleasure of close acquaintance. This tower + of ours is, as you will notice, entirely gone beyond the possibility of + restoration; but the church itself is well enough. You should see some of + the churches in this county. Floors rotten: ivy lining the walls.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that’s nothing. The congregation of a neighbour of mine, whenever a + storm of rain comes on during service, open their umbrellas and hold them + up till the dripping ceases from the roof. Now, if you will kindly bring + me those papers and letters you see lying on the table, I will show you + how far we have got.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen crossed the room to fetch them, and the vicar seemed to notice + more particularly the slim figure of his visitor. + </p> + <p> + ‘I suppose you are quite competent?’ he said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Quite,’ said the young man, colouring slightly. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are very young, I fancy—I should say you are not more than + nineteen?’ + </p> + <p> + I am nearly twenty-one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Exactly half my age; I am forty-two.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By the way,’ said Mr. Swancourt, after some conversation, ‘you said your + whole name was Stephen Fitzmaurice, and that your grandfather came + originally from Caxbury. Since I have been speaking, it has occurred to me + that I know something of you. You belong to a well-known ancient county + family—not ordinary Smiths in the least.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t think we have any of their blood in our veins.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense! you must. Hand me the “Landed Gentry.” Now, let me see. There, + Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith—he lies in St. Mary’s Church, doesn’t he? + Well, out of that family Sprang the Leaseworthy Smiths, and collaterally + came General Sir Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith of Caxbury——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I have seen his monument there,’ shouted Stephen. ‘But there is no + connection between his family and mine: there cannot be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There is none, possibly, to your knowledge. But look at this, my dear + sir,’ said the vicar, striking his fist upon the bedpost for emphasis. + ‘Here are you, Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith, living in London, but springing + from Caxbury. Here in this book is a genealogical tree of the Stephen + Fitzmaurice Smiths of Caxbury Manor. You may be only a family of + professional men now—I am not inquisitive: I don’t ask questions of + that kind; it is not in me to do so—but it is as plain as the nose + in your face that there’s your origin! And, Mr. Smith, I congratulate you + upon your blood; blue blood, sir; and, upon my life, a very desirable + colour, as the world goes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I wish you could congratulate me upon some more tangible quality,’ said + the younger man, sadly no less than modestly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense! that will come with time. You are young: all your life is + before you. Now look—see how far back in the mists of antiquity my + own family of Swancourt have a root. Here, you see,’ he continued, turning + to the page, ‘is Geoffrey, the one among my ancestors who lost a barony + because he would cut his joke. Ah, it’s the sort of us! But the story is + too long to tell now. Ay, I’m a poor man—a poor gentleman, in fact: + those I would be friends with, won’t be friends with me; those who are + willing to be friends with me, I am above being friends with. Beyond + dining with a neighbouring incumbent or two, and an occasional chat—sometimes + dinner—with Lord Luxellian, a connection of mine, I am in absolute + solitude—absolute.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have your studies, your books, and your—daughter.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, yes; and I don’t complain of poverty. Canto coram latrone. Well, + Mr. Smith, don’t let me detain you any longer in a sick room. Ha! that + reminds me of a story I once heard in my younger days.’ Here the vicar + began a series of small private laughs, and Stephen looked inquiry. ‘Oh, + no, no! it is too bad—too bad to tell!’ continued Mr. Swancourt in + undertones of grim mirth. ‘Well, go downstairs; my daughter must do the + best she can with you this evening. Ask her to sing to you—she plays + and sings very nicely. Good-night; I feel as if I had known you for five + or six years. I’ll ring for somebody to show you down.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind,’ said Stephen, ‘I can find the way.’ And he went downstairs, + thinking of the delightful freedom of manner in the remoter counties in + comparison with the reserve of London. + </p> + <p> + ‘I forgot to tell you that my father was rather deaf,’ said Elfride + anxiously, when Stephen entered the little drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind; I know all about it, and we are great friends,’ the man of + business replied enthusiastically. ‘And, Miss Swancourt, will you kindly + sing to me?’ + </p> + <p> + To Miss Swancourt this request seemed, what in fact it was, exceptionally + point-blank; though she guessed that her father had some hand in framing + it, knowing, rather to her cost, of his unceremonious way of utilizing her + for the benefit of dull sojourners. At the same time, as Mr. Smith’s + manner was too frank to provoke criticism, and his age too little to + inspire fear, she was ready—not to say pleased—to accede. + Selecting from the canterbury some old family ditties, that in years gone + by had been played and sung by her mother, Elfride sat down to the + pianoforte, and began, ‘’Twas on the evening of a winter’s day,’ in a + pretty contralto voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you like that old thing, Mr. Smith?’ she said at the end. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I do much,’ said Stephen—words he would have uttered, and + sincerely, to anything on earth, from glee to requiem, that she might have + chosen. + </p> + <p> + ‘You shall have a little one by De Leyre, that was given me by a young + French lady who was staying at Endelstow House: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘“Je l’ai plante, je l’ai vu naitre, + Ce beau rosier ou les oiseaux,” &c.; +</pre> + <p> + and then I shall want to give you my own favourite for the very last, + Shelley’s “When the lamp is shattered,” as set to music by my poor mother. + I so much like singing to anybody who REALLY cares to hear me.’ + </p> + <p> + Every woman who makes a permanent impression on a man is usually recalled + to his mind’s eye as she appeared in one particular scene, which seems + ordained to be her special form of manifestation throughout the pages of + his memory. As the patron Saint has her attitude and accessories in + mediaeval illumination, so the sweetheart may be said to have hers upon + the table of her true Love’s fancy, without which she is rarely introduced + there except by effort; and this though she may, on further acquaintance, + have been observed in many other phases which one would imagine to be far + more appropriate to love’s young dream. + </p> + <p> + Miss Elfride’s image chose the form in which she was beheld during these + minutes of singing, for her permanent attitude of visitation to Stephen’s + eyes during his sleeping and waking hours in after days. The profile is + seen of a young woman in a pale gray silk dress with trimmings of + swan’s-down, and opening up from a point in front, like a waistcoat + without a shirt; the cool colour contrasting admirably with the warm bloom + of her neck and face. The furthermost candle on the piano comes + immediately in a line with her head, and half invisible itself, forms the + accidentally frizzled hair into a nebulous haze of light, surrounding her + crown like an aureola. Her hands are in their place on the keys, her lips + parted, and trilling forth, in a tender diminuendo, the closing words of + the sad apostrophe: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘O Love, who bewailest + The frailty of all things here, + Why choose you the frailest + For your cradle, your home, and your bier!’ +</pre> + <p> + Her head is forward a little, and her eyes directed keenly upward to the + top of the page of music confronting her. Then comes a rapid look into + Stephen’s face, and a still more rapid look back again to her business, + her face having dropped its sadness, and acquired a certain expression of + mischievous archness the while; which lingered there for some time, but + was never developed into a positive smile of flirtation. + </p> + <p> + Stephen suddenly shifted his position from her right hand to her left, + where there was just room enough for a small ottoman to stand between the + piano and the corner of the room. Into this nook he squeezed himself, and + gazed wistfully up into Elfride’s face. So long and so earnestly gazed he, + that her cheek deepened to a more and more crimson tint as each line was + added to her song. Concluding, and pausing motionless after the last word + for a minute or two, she ventured to look at him again. His features wore + an expression of unutterable heaviness. + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t hear many songs, do you, Mr. Smith, to take so much notice of + these of mine?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps it was the means and vehicle of the song that I was noticing: I + mean yourself,’ he answered gently. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, Mr. Smith!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is perfectly true; I don’t hear much singing. You mistake what I am, I + fancy. Because I come as a stranger to a secluded spot, you think I must + needs come from a life of bustle, and know the latest movements of the + day. But I don’t. My life is as quiet as yours, and more solitary; + solitary as death.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The death which comes from a plethora of life? But seriously, I can quite + see that you are not the least what I thought you would be before I saw + you. You are not critical, or experienced, or—much to mind. That’s + why I don’t mind singing airs to you that I only half know.’ Finding that + by this confession she had vexed him in a way she did not intend, she + added naively, ‘I mean, Mr. Smith, that you are better, not worse, for + being only young and not very experienced. You don’t think my life here so + very tame and dull, I know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I do not, indeed,’ he said with fervour. ‘It must be delightfully + poetical, and sparkling, and fresh, and——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There you go, Mr. Smith! Well, men of another kind, when I get them to be + honest enough to own the truth, think just the reverse: that my life must + be a dreadful bore in its normal state, though pleasant for the + exceptional few days they pass here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I could live here always!’ he said, and with such a tone and look of + unconscious revelation that Elfride was startled to find that her + harmonies had fired a small Troy, in the shape of Stephen’s heart. She + said quickly: + </p> + <p> + ‘But you can’t live here always.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no.’ And he drew himself in with the sensitiveness of a snail. + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s emotions were sudden as his in kindling, but the least of + woman’s lesser infirmities—love of admiration—caused an + inflammable disposition on his part, so exactly similar to her own, to + appear as meritorious in him as modesty made her own seem culpable in her. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter IV + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap.’ +</pre> + <p> + For reasons of his own, Stephen Smith was stirring a short time after dawn + the next morning. From the window of his room he could see, first, two + bold escarpments sloping down together like the letter V. Towards the + bottom, like liquid in a funnel, appeared the sea, gray and small. On the + brow of one hill, of rather greater altitude than its neighbour, stood the + church which was to be the scene of his operations. The lonely edifice was + black and bare, cutting up into the sky from the very tip of the hill. It + had a square mouldering tower, owning neither battlement nor pinnacle, and + seemed a monolithic termination, of one substance with the ridge, rather + than a structure raised thereon. Round the church ran a low wall; + over-topping the wall in general level was the graveyard; not as a + graveyard usually is, a fragment of landscape with its due variety of + chiaro-oscuro, but a mere profile against the sky, serrated with the + outlines of graves and a very few memorial stones. Not a tree could exist + up there: nothing but the monotonous gray-green grass. + </p> + <p> + Five minutes after this casual survey was made his bedroom was empty, and + its occupant had vanished quietly from the house. + </p> + <p> + At the end of two hours he was again in the room, looking warm and + glowing. He now pursued the artistic details of dressing, which on his + first rising had been entirely omitted. And a very blooming boy he looked, + after that mysterious morning scamper. His mouth was a triumph of its + class. It was the cleanly-cut, piquantly pursed-up mouth of William Pitt, + as represented in the well or little known bust by Nollekens—a mouth + which is in itself a young man’s fortune, if properly exercised. His round + chin, where its upper part turned inward, still continued its perfect and + full curve, seeming to press in to a point the bottom of his nether lip at + their place of junction. + </p> + <p> + Once he murmured the name of Elfride. Ah, there she was! On the lawn in a + plain dress, without hat or bonnet, running with a boy’s velocity, + superadded to a girl’s lightness, after a tame rabbit she was endeavouring + to capture, her strategic intonations of coaxing words alternating with + desperate rushes so much out of keeping with them, that the hollowness of + such expressions was but too evident to her pet, who darted and dodged in + carefully timed counterpart. + </p> + <p> + The scene down there was altogether different from that of the hills. A + thicket of shrubs and trees enclosed the favoured spot from the wilderness + without; even at this time of the year the grass was luxuriant there. No + wind blew inside the protecting belt of evergreens, wasting its force upon + the higher and stronger trees forming the outer margin of the grove. + </p> + <p> + Then he heard a heavy person shuffling about in slippers, and calling ‘Mr. + Smith!’ Smith proceeded to the study, and found Mr. Swancourt. The young + man expressed his gladness to see his host downstairs. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes; I knew I should soon be right again. I have not made the + acquaintance of gout for more than two years, and it generally goes off + the second night. Well, where have you been this morning? I saw you come + in just now, I think!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I have been for a walk.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Start early?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very early, I think?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it was rather early.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Which way did you go? To the sea, I suppose. Everybody goes seaward.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; I followed up the river as far as the park wall.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are different from your kind. Well, I suppose such a wild place is a + novelty, and so tempted you out of bed?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not altogether a novelty. I like it.’ + </p> + <p> + The youth seemed averse to explanation. + </p> + <p> + ‘You must, you must; to go cock-watching the morning after a journey of + fourteen or sixteen hours. But there’s no accounting for tastes, and I am + glad to see that yours are no meaner. After breakfast, but not before, I + shall be good for a ten miles’ walk, Master Smith.’ + </p> + <p> + Certainly there seemed nothing exaggerated in that assertion. Mr. + Swancourt by daylight showed himself to be a man who, in common with the + other two people under his roof, had really strong claims to be considered + handsome,—handsome, that is, in the sense in which the moon is + bright: the ravines and valleys which, on a close inspection, are seen to + diversify its surface being left out of the argument. His face was of a + tint that never deepened upon his cheeks nor lightened upon his forehead, + but remained uniform throughout; the usual neutral salmon-colour of a man + who feeds well—not to say too well—and does not think hard; + every pore being in visible working order. His tout ensemble was that of a + highly improved class of farmer, dressed up in the wrong clothes; that of + a firm-standing perpendicular man, whose fall would have been backwards in + direction if he had ever lost his balance. + </p> + <p> + The vicar’s background was at present what a vicar’s background should be, + his study. Here the consistency ends. All along the chimneypiece were + ranged bottles of horse, pig, and cow medicines, and against the wall was + a high table, made up of the fragments of an old oak Iychgate. Upon this + stood stuffed specimens of owls, divers, and gulls, and over them bunches + of wheat and barley ears, labelled with the date of the year that produced + them. Some cases and shelves, more or less laden with books, the prominent + titles of which were Dr. Brown’s ‘Notes on the Romans,’ Dr. Smith’s ‘Notes + on the Corinthians,’ and Dr. Robinson’s ‘Notes on the Galatians, + Ephesians, and Philippians,’ just saved the character of the place, in + spite of a girl’s doll’s-house standing above them, a marine aquarium in + the window, and Elfride’s hat hanging on its corner. + </p> + <p> + ‘Business, business!’ said Mr. Swancourt after breakfast. He began to find + it necessary to act the part of a fly-wheel towards the somewhat irregular + forces of his visitor. + </p> + <p> + They prepared to go to the church; the vicar, on second thoughts, mounting + his coal-black mare to avoid exerting his foot too much at starting. + Stephen said he should want a man to assist him. ‘Worm!’ the vicar + shouted. + </p> + <p> + A minute or two after a voice was heard round the corner of the building, + mumbling, ‘Ah, I used to be strong enough, but ‘tis altered now! Well, + there, I’m as independent as one here and there, even if they do write + ‘squire after their names.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s the matter?’ said the vicar, as William Worm appeared; when the + remarks were repeated to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Worm says some very true things sometimes,’ Mr. Swancourt said, turning + to Stephen. ‘Now, as regards that word “esquire.” Why, Mr. Smith, that + word “esquire” is gone to the dogs,—used on the letters of every + jackanapes who has a black coat. Anything else, Worm?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, the folk have begun frying again!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear me! I’m sorry to hear that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ Worm said groaningly to Stephen, ‘I’ve got such a noise in my head + that there’s no living night nor day. ‘Tis just for all the world like + people frying fish: fry, fry, fry, all day long in my poor head, till I + don’t know whe’r I’m here or yonder. There, God A’mighty will find it out + sooner or later, I hope, and relieve me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, my deafness,’ said Mr. Swancourt impressively, ‘is a dead silence; + but William Worm’s is that of people frying fish in his head. Very + remarkable, isn’t it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can hear the frying-pan a-fizzing as naterel as life,’ said Worm + corroboratively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it is remarkable,’ said Mr. Smith. + </p> + <p> + ‘Very peculiar, very peculiar,’ echoed the vicar; and they all then + followed the path up the hill, bounded on each side by a little stone + wall, from which gleamed fragments of quartz and blood-red marbles, + apparently of inestimable value, in their setting of brown alluvium. + Stephen walked with the dignity of a man close to the horse’s head, Worm + stumbled along a stone’s throw in the rear, and Elfride was nowhere in + particular, yet everywhere; sometimes in front, sometimes behind, + sometimes at the sides, hovering about the procession like a butterfly; + not definitely engaged in travelling, yet somehow chiming in at points + with the general progress. + </p> + <p> + The vicar explained things as he went on: ‘The fact is, Mr. Smith, I + didn’t want this bother of church restoration at all, but it was necessary + to do something in self-defence, on account of those d——dissenters: + I use the word in its scriptural meaning, of course, not as an expletive.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How very odd!’ said Stephen, with the concern demanded of serious + friendliness. + </p> + <p> + ‘Odd? That’s nothing to how it is in the parish of Twinkley. Both the + churchwardens are——; there, I won’t say what they are; and the + clerk and the sexton as well.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How very strange!’ said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘Strange? My dear sir, that’s nothing to how it is in the parish of + Sinnerton. However, as to our own parish, I hope we shall make some + progress soon.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must trust to circumstances.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There are no circumstances to trust to. We may as well trust in + Providence if we trust at all. But here we are. A wild place, isn’t it? + But I like it on such days as these.’ + </p> + <p> + The churchyard was entered on this side by a stone stile, over which + having clambered, you remained still on the wild hill, the within not + being so divided from the without as to obliterate the sense of open + freedom. A delightful place to be buried in, postulating that delight can + accompany a man to his tomb under any circumstances. There was nothing + horrible in this churchyard, in the shape of tight mounds bonded with + sticks, which shout imprisonment in the ears rather than whisper rest; or + trim garden-flowers, which only raise images of people in new black crape + and white handkerchiefs coming to tend them; or wheel-marks, which remind + us of hearses and mourning coaches; or cypress-bushes, which make a parade + of sorrow; or coffin-boards and bones lying behind trees, showing that we + are only leaseholders of our graves. No; nothing but long, wild, untutored + grass, diversifying the forms of the mounds it covered,—themselves + irregularly shaped, with no eye to effect; the impressive presence of the + old mountain that all this was a part of being nowhere excluded by + disguising art. Outside were similar slopes and similar grass; and then + the serene impassive sea, visible to a width of half the horizon, and + meeting the eye with the effect of a vast concave, like the interior of a + blue vessel. Detached rocks stood upright afar, a collar of foam girding + their bases, and repeating in its whiteness the plumage of a countless + multitude of gulls that restlessly hovered about. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, Worm!’ said Mr. Swancourt sharply; and Worm started into an attitude + of attention at once to receive orders. Stephen and himself were then left + in possession, and the work went on till early in the afternoon, when + dinner was announced by Unity of the vicarage kitchen running up the hill + without a bonnet. + </p> + <p> + Elfride did not make her appearance inside the building till late in the + afternoon, and came then by special invitation from Stephen during dinner. + She looked so intensely LIVING and full of movement as she came into the + old silent place, that young Smith’s world began to be lit by ‘the purple + light’ in all its definiteness. Worm was got rid of by sending him to + measure the height of the tower. + </p> + <p> + What could she do but come close—so close that a minute arc of her + skirt touched his foot—and asked him how he was getting on with his + sketches, and set herself to learn the principles of practical mensuration + as applied to irregular buildings? Then she must ascend the pulpit to + re-imagine for the hundredth time how it would seem to be a preacher. + </p> + <p> + Presently she leant over the front of the pulpit. + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t you tell papa, will you, Mr. Smith, if I tell you something?’ she + said with a sudden impulse to make a confidence. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, that I won’t,’ said he, staring up. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I write papa’s sermons for him very often, and he preaches them + better than he does his own; and then afterwards he talks to people and to + me about what he said in his sermon to-day, and forgets that I wrote it + for him. Isn’t it absurd?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How clever you must be!’ said Stephen. ‘I couldn’t write a sermon for the + world.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, it’s easy enough,’ she said, descending from the pulpit and coming + close to him to explain more vividly. ‘You do it like this. Did you ever + play a game of forfeits called “When is it? where is it? what is it?”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, never.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, that’s a pity, because writing a sermon is very much like playing + that game. You take the text. You think, why is it? what is it? and so on. + You put that down under “Generally.” Then you proceed to the First, + Secondly, and Thirdly. Papa won’t have Fourthlys—says they are all + my eye. Then you have a final Collectively, several pages of this being + put in great black brackets, writing opposite, “LEAVE THIS OUT IF THE + FARMERS ARE FALLING ASLEEP.” Then comes your In Conclusion, then A Few + Words And I Have Done. Well, all this time you have put on the back of + each page, “KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN”—I mean,’ she added, correcting + herself, ‘that’s how I do in papa’s sermon-book, because otherwise he gets + louder and louder, till at last he shouts like a farmer up a-field. Oh, + papa is so funny in some things!’ + </p> + <p> + Then, after this childish burst of confidence, she was frightened, as if + warned by womanly instinct, which for the moment her ardour had outrun, + that she had been too forward to a comparative stranger. + </p> + <p> + Elfride saw her father then, and went away into the wind, being caught by + a gust as she ascended the churchyard slope, in which gust she had the + motions, without the motives, of a hoiden; the grace, without the + self-consciousness, of a pirouetter. She conversed for a minute or two + with her father, and proceeded homeward, Mr. Swancourt coming on to the + church to Stephen. The wind had freshened his warm complexion as it + freshens the glow of a brand. He was in a mood of jollity, and watched + Elfride down the hill with a smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘You little flyaway! you look wild enough now,’ he said, and turned to + Stephen. ‘But she’s not a wild child at all, Mr. Smith. As steady as you; + and that you are steady I see from your diligence here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think Miss Swancourt very clever,’ Stephen observed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, she is; certainly, she is,’ said papa, turning his voice as much as + possible to the neutral tone of disinterested criticism. ‘Now, Smith, I’ll + tell you something; but she mustn’t know it for the world—not for + the world, mind, for she insists upon keeping it a dead secret. Why, SHE + WRITES MY SERMONS FOR ME OFTEN, and a very good job she makes of them!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She can do anything.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She can do that. The little rascal has the very trick of the trade. But, + mind you, Smith, not a word about it to her, not a single word!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not a word,’ said Smith. + </p> + <p> + ‘Look there,’ said Mr. Swancourt. ‘What do you think of my roofing?’ He + pointed with his walking-stick at the chancel roof, + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you do that, sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I worked in shirt-sleeves all the time that was going on. I pulled + down the old rafters, fixed the new ones, put on the battens, slated the + roof, all with my own hands, Worm being my assistant. We worked like + slaves, didn’t we, Worm?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, sure, we did; harder than some here and there—hee, hee!’ said + William Worm, cropping up from somewhere. ‘Like slaves, ‘a b’lieve—hee, + hee! And weren’t ye foaming mad, sir, when the nails wouldn’t go straight? + Mighty I! There, ‘tisn’t so bad to cuss and keep it in as to cuss and let + it out, is it, sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well—why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because you, sir, when ye were a-putting on the roof, only used to cuss + in your mind, which is, I suppose, no harm at all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t think you know what goes on in my mind, Worm.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, doan’t I, sir—hee, hee! Maybe I’m but a poor wambling thing, + sir, and can’t read much; but I can spell as well as some here and there. + Doan’t ye mind, sir, that blustrous night when ye asked me to hold the + candle to ye in yer workshop, when you were making a new chair for the + chancel?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; what of that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I stood with the candle, and you said you liked company, if ‘twas only a + dog or cat—maning me; and the chair wouldn’t do nohow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, I remember.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; the chair wouldn’t do nohow. ‘A was very well to look at; but, Lord!——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Worm, how often have I corrected you for irreverent speaking?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘—‘A was very well to look at, but you couldn’t sit in the chair + nohow. ‘Twas all a-twist wi’ the chair, like the letter Z, directly you + sat down upon the chair. “Get up, Worm,” says you, when you seed the chair + go all a-sway wi’ me. Up you took the chair, and flung en like fire and + brimstone to t’other end of your shop—all in a passion. “Damn the + chair!” says I. “Just what I was thinking,” says you, sir. “I could see it + in your face, sir,” says I, “and I hope you and God will forgi’e me for + saying what you wouldn’t.” To save your life you couldn’t help laughing, + sir, at a poor wambler reading your thoughts so plain. Ay, I’m as wise as + one here and there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought you had better have a practical man to go over the church and + tower with you,’ Mr. Swancourt said to Stephen the following morning, ‘so + I got Lord Luxellian’s permission to send for a man when you came. I told + him to be there at ten o’clock. He’s a very intelligent man, and he will + tell you all you want to know about the state of the walls. His name is + John Smith.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride did not like to be seen again at the church with Stephen. ‘I will + watch here for your appearance at the top of the tower,’ she said + laughingly. ‘I shall see your figure against the sky.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And when I am up there I’ll wave my handkerchief to you, Miss Swancourt,’ + said Stephen. ‘In twelve minutes from this present moment,’ he added, + looking at his watch, ‘I’ll be at the summit and look out for you.’ + </p> + <p> + She went round to the corner of the shrubbery, whence she could watch him + down the slope leading to the foot of the hill on which the church stood. + There she saw waiting for him a white spot—a mason in his working + clothes. Stephen met this man and stopped. + </p> + <p> + To her surprise, instead of their moving on to the churchyard, they both + leisurely sat down upon a stone close by their meeting-place, and remained + as if in deep conversation. Elfride looked at the time; nine of the twelve + minutes had passed, and Stephen showed no signs of moving. More minutes + passed—she grew cold with waiting, and shivered. It was not till the + end of a quarter of an hour that they began to slowly wend up the hill at + a snail’s pace. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rude and unmannerly!’ she said to herself, colouring with pique. ‘Anybody + would think he was in love with that horrid mason instead of with——’ + </p> + <p> + The sentence remained unspoken, though not unthought. + </p> + <p> + She returned to the porch. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is the man you sent for a lazy, sit-still, do-nothing kind of man?’ she + inquired of her father. + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ he said surprised; ‘quite the reverse. He is Lord Luxellian’s + master-mason, John Smith.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh,’ said Elfride indifferently, and returned towards her bleak station, + and waited and shivered again. It was a trifle, after all—a childish + thing—looking out from a tower and waving a handkerchief. But her + new friend had promised, and why should he tease her so? The effect of a + blow is as proportionate to the texture of the object struck as to its own + momentum; and she had such a superlative capacity for being wounded that + little hits struck her hard. + </p> + <p> + It was not till the end of half an hour that two figures were seen above + the parapet of the dreary old pile, motionless as bitterns on a ruined + mosque. Even then Stephen was not true enough to perform what he was so + courteous to promise, and he vanished without making a sign. + </p> + <p> + He returned at midday. Elfride looked vexed when unconscious that his eyes + were upon her; when conscious, severe. However, her attitude of coldness + had long outlived the coldness itself, and she could no longer utter + feigned words of indifference. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, you weren’t kind to keep me waiting in the cold, and break your + promise,’ she said at last reproachfully, in tones too low for her + father’s powers of hearing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Forgive, forgive me!’ said Stephen with dismay. ‘I had forgotten—quite + forgotten! Something prevented my remembering.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Any further explanation?’ said Miss Capricious, pouting. + </p> + <p> + He was silent for a few minutes, and looked askance. + </p> + <p> + ‘None,’ he said, with the accent of one who concealed a sin. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter V + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Bosom’d high in tufted trees.’ +</pre> + <p> + It was breakfast time. + </p> + <p> + As seen from the vicarage dining-room, which took a warm tone of light + from the fire, the weather and scene outside seemed to have stereotyped + themselves in unrelieved shades of gray. The long-armed trees and shrubs + of juniper, cedar, and pine varieties, were grayish black; those of the + broad-leaved sort, together with the herbage, were grayish-green; the + eternal hills and tower behind them were grayish-brown; the sky, dropping + behind all, gray of the purest melancholy. + </p> + <p> + Yet in spite of this sombre artistic effect, the morning was not one which + tended to lower the spirits. It was even cheering. For it did not rain, + nor was rain likely to fall for many days to come. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had turned from the table towards the fire and was idly elevating + a hand-screen before her face, when she heard the click of a little gate + outside. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, here’s the postman!’ she said, as a shuffling, active man came + through an opening in the shrubbery and across the lawn. She vanished, and + met him in the porch, afterwards coming in with her hands behind her back. + </p> + <p> + ‘How many are there? Three for papa, one for Mr. Smith, none for Miss + Swancourt. And, papa, look here, one of yours is from—whom do you + think?—Lord Luxellian. And it has something HARD in it—a lump + of something. I’ve been feeling it through the envelope, and can’t think + what it is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What does Luxellian write for, I wonder?’ Mr. Swancourt had said + simultaneously with her words. He handed Stephen his letter, and took his + own, putting on his countenance a higher class of look than was customary, + as became a poor gentleman who was going to read a letter from a peer. + </p> + <p> + Stephen read his missive with a countenance quite the reverse of the + vicar’s. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘PERCY PLACE, Thursday Evening. +‘DEAR SMITH,—Old H. is in a towering rage with you for being so long +about the church sketches. Swears you are more trouble than you are +worth. He says I am to write and say you are to stay no longer on +any consideration—that he would have done it all in three hours very +easily. I told him that you were not like an experienced hand, which he +seemed to forget, but it did not make much difference. However, between +you and me privately, if I were you I would not alarm myself for a day +or so, if I were not inclined to return. I would make out the week and +finish my spree. He will blow up just as much if you appear here on +Saturday as if you keep away till Monday morning.—Yours very truly, +</pre> + <p> + ‘SIMPKINS JENKINS. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear me—very awkward!’ said Stephen, rather en l’air, and confused + with the kind of confusion that assails an understrapper when he has been + enlarged by accident to the dimensions of a superior, and is somewhat + rudely pared down to his original size. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is awkward?’ said Miss Swancourt. + </p> + <p> + Smith by this time recovered his equanimity, and with it the professional + dignity of an experienced architect. + </p> + <p> + ‘Important business demands my immediate presence in London, I regret to + say,’ he replied. + </p> + <p> + ‘What! Must you go at once?’ said Mr. Swancourt, looking over the edge of + his letter. ‘Important business? A young fellow like you to have important + business!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The truth is,’ said Stephen blushing, and rather ashamed of having + pretended even so slightly to a consequence which did not belong to him,—‘the + truth is, Mr. Hewby has sent to say I am to come home; and I must obey + him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I see; I see. It is politic to do so, you mean. Now I can see more than + you think. You are to be his partner. I booked you for that directly I + read his letter to me the other day, and the way he spoke of you. He + thinks a great deal of you, Mr. Smith, or he wouldn’t be so anxious for + your return.’ + </p> + <p> + Unpleasant to Stephen such remarks as these could not sound; to have the + expectancy of partnership with one of the largest-practising architects in + London thrust upon him was cheering, however untenable he felt the idea to + be. He saw that, whatever Mr. Hewby might think, Mr. Swancourt certainly + thought much of him to entertain such an idea on such slender ground as to + be absolutely no ground at all. And then, unaccountably, his speaking face + exhibited a cloud of sadness, which a reflection on the remoteness of any + such contingency could hardly have sufficed to cause. + </p> + <p> + Elfride was struck with that look of his; even Mr. Swancourt noticed it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ he said cheerfully, ‘never mind that now. You must come again on + your own account; not on business. Come to see me as a visitor, you know—say, + in your holidays—all you town men have holidays like schoolboys. + When are they?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In August, I believe.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well; come in August; and then you need not hurry away so. I am glad + to get somebody decent to talk to, or at, in this outlandish ultima Thule. + But, by the bye, I have something to say—you won’t go to-day?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; I need not,’ said Stephen hesitatingly. ‘I am not obliged to get back + before Monday morning.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well, then, that brings me to what I am going to propose. This is a + letter from Lord Luxellian. I think you heard me speak of him as the + resident landowner in this district, and patron of this living?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I—know of him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is in London now. It seems that he has run up on business for a day or + two, and taken Lady Luxellian with him. He has written to ask me to go to + his house, and search for a paper among his private memoranda, which he + forgot to take with him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did he send in the letter?’ inquired Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘The key of a private desk in which the papers are. He doesn’t like to + trust such a matter to any body else. I have done such things for him + before. And what I propose is, that we make an afternoon of it—all + three of us. Go for a drive to Targan Bay, come home by way of Endelstow + House; and whilst I am looking over the documents you can ramble about the + rooms where you like. I have the run of the house at any time, you know. + The building, though nothing but a mass of gables outside, has a splendid + hall, staircase, and gallery within; and there are a few good pictures.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, there are,’ said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you seen the place, then? + </p> + <p> + ‘I saw it as I came by,’ he said hastily. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes; but I was alluding to the interior. And the church—St. + Eval’s—is much older than our St. Agnes’ here. I do duty in that and + this alternately, you know. The fact is, I ought to have some help; riding + across that park for two miles on a wet morning is not at all the thing. + If my constitution were not well seasoned, as thank God it is,’—here + Mr. Swancourt looked down his front, as if his constitution were visible + there,—‘I should be coughing and barking all the year round. And + when the family goes away, there are only about three servants to preach + to when I get there. Well, that shall be the arrangement, then. Elfride, + you will like to go?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride assented; and the little breakfast-party separated. Stephen rose + to go and take a few final measurements at the church, the vicar following + him to the door with a mysterious expression of inquiry on his face. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ll put up with our not having family prayer this morning, I hope?’ he + whispered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; quite so,’ said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘To tell you the truth,’ he continued in the same undertone, ‘we don’t + make a regular thing of it; but when we have strangers visiting us, I am + strongly of opinion that it is the proper thing to do, and I always do it. + I am very strict on that point. But you, Smith, there is something in your + face which makes me feel quite at home; no nonsense about you, in short. + Ah, it reminds me of a splendid story I used to hear when I was a + helter-skelter young fellow—such a story! But’—here the vicar + shook his head self-forbiddingly, and grimly laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Was it a good story?’ said young Smith, smiling too. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes; but ‘tis too bad—too bad! Couldn’t tell it to you for the + world!’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen went across the lawn, hearing the vicar chuckling privately at the + recollection as he withdrew. + </p> + <p> + They started at three o’clock. The gray morning had resolved itself into + an afternoon bright with a pale pervasive sunlight, without the sun itself + being visible. Lightly they trotted along—the wheels nearly silent, + the horse’s hoofs clapping, almost ringing, upon the hard, white, turnpike + road as it followed the level ridge in a perfectly straight line, seeming + to be absorbed ultimately by the white of the sky. + </p> + <p> + Targan Bay—which had the merit of being easily got at—was duly + visited. They then swept round by innumerable lanes, in which not twenty + consecutive yards were either straight or level, to the domain of Lord + Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and thick neck, like Queen Anne by + Dahl, threw open the lodge gate, a little boy standing behind her. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll give him something, poor little fellow,’ said Elfride, pulling out + her purse and hastily opening it. From the interior of her purse a host of + bits of paper, like a flock of white birds, floated into the air, and were + blown about in all directions. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, to be sure!’ said Stephen with a slight laugh. + </p> + <p> + ‘What the dickens is all that?’ said Mr. Swancourt. ‘Not halves of + bank-notes, Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked annoyed and guilty. ‘They are only something of mine, + papa,’ she faltered, whilst Stephen leapt out, and, assisted by the + lodge-keeper’s little boy, crept about round the wheels and horse’s hoofs + till the papers were all gathered together again. He handed them back to + her, and remounted. + </p> + <p> + ‘I suppose you are wondering what those scraps were?’ she said, as they + bowled along up the sycamore avenue. ‘And so I may as well tell you. They + are notes for a romance I am writing.’ + </p> + <p> + She could not help colouring at the confession, much as she tried to avoid + it. + </p> + <p> + ‘A story, do you mean?’ said Stephen, Mr. Swancourt half listening, and + catching a word of the conversation now and then. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE; a romance of the fifteenth century. + Such writing is out of date now, I know; but I like doing it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A romance carried in a purse! If a highwayman were to rob you, he would + be taken in.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; that’s my way of carrying manuscript. The real reason is, that I + mostly write bits of it on scraps of paper when I am on horseback; and I + put them there for convenience.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you going to do with your romance when you have written it?’ + said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, and turned her head to look at the prospect. + </p> + <p> + For by this time they had reached the precincts of Endelstow House. + Driving through an ancient gate-way of dun-coloured stone, spanned by the + high-shouldered Tudor arch, they found themselves in a spacious court, + closed by a facade on each of its three sides. The substantial portions of + the existing building dated from the reign of Henry VIII.; but the + picturesque and sheltered spot had been the site of an erection of a much + earlier date. A licence to crenellate mansum infra manerium suum was + granted by Edward II. to ‘Hugo Luxellen chivaler;’ but though the faint + outline of the ditch and mound was visible at points, no sign of the + original building remained. + </p> + <p> + The windows on all sides were long and many-mullioned; the roof lines + broken up by dormer lights of the same pattern. The apex stones of these + dormers, together with those of the gables, were surmounted by grotesque + figures in rampant, passant, and couchant variety. Tall octagonal and + twisted chimneys thrust themselves high up into the sky, surpassed in + height, however, by some poplars and sycamores at the back, which showed + their gently rocking summits over ridge and parapet. In the corners of the + court polygonal bays, whose surfaces were entirely occupied by buttresses + and windows, broke into the squareness of the enclosure; and a + far-projecting oriel, springing from a fantastic series of mouldings, + overhung the archway of the chief entrance to the house. + </p> + <p> + As Mr. Swancourt had remarked, he had the freedom of the mansion in the + absence of its owner. Upon a statement of his errand they were all + admitted to the library, and left entirely to themselves. Mr. Swancourt + was soon up to his eyes in the examination of a heap of papers he had + taken from the cabinet described by his correspondent. Stephen and Elfride + had nothing to do but to wander about till her father was ready. + </p> + <p> + Elfride entered the gallery, and Stephen followed her without seeming to + do so. It was a long sombre apartment, enriched with fittings a century or + so later in style than the walls of the mansion. Pilasters of Renaissance + workmanship supported a cornice from which sprang a curved ceiling, + panelled in the awkward twists and curls of the period. The old Gothic + quarries still remained in the upper portion of the large window at the + end, though they had made way for a more modern form of glazing elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + Stephen was at one end of the gallery looking towards Elfride, who stood + in the midst, beginning to feel somewhat depressed by the society of + Luxellian shades of cadaverous complexion fixed by Holbein, Kneller, and + Lely, and seeming to gaze at and through her in a moralizing mood. The + silence, which cast almost a spell upon them, was broken by the sudden + opening of a door at the far end. + </p> + <p> + Out bounded a pair of little girls, lightly yet warmly dressed. Their eyes + were sparkling; their hair swinging about and around; their red mouths + laughing with unalloyed gladness. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Miss Swancourt: dearest Elfie! we heard you. Are you going to stay + here? You are our little mamma, are you not—our big mamma is gone to + London,’ said one. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me tiss you,’ said the other, in appearance very much like the first, + but to a smaller pattern. + </p> + <p> + Their pink cheeks and yellow hair were speedily intermingled with the + folds of Elfride’s dress; she then stooped and tenderly embraced them + both. + </p> + <p> + ‘Such an odd thing,’ said Elfride, smiling, and turning to Stephen. ‘They + have taken it into their heads lately to call me “little mamma,” because I + am very fond of them, and wore a dress the other day something like one of + Lady Luxellian’s.’ + </p> + <p> + These two young creatures were the Honourable Mary and the Honourable Kate—scarcely + appearing large enough as yet to bear the weight of such ponderous + prefixes. They were the only two children of Lord and Lady Luxellian, and, + as it proved, had been left at home during their parents’ temporary + absence, in the custody of nurse and governess. Lord Luxellian was + dotingly fond of the children; rather indifferent towards his wife, since + she had begun to show an inclination not to please him by giving him a + boy. + </p> + <p> + All children instinctively ran after Elfride, looking upon her more as an + unusually nice large specimen of their own tribe than as a grown-up elder. + It had now become an established rule, that whenever she met them—indoors + or out-of-doors, weekdays or Sundays—they were to be severally + pressed against her face and bosom for the space of a quarter of a minute, + and other-wise made much of on the delightful system of cumulative epithet + and caress to which unpractised girls will occasionally abandon + themselves. + </p> + <p> + A look of misgiving by the youngsters towards the door by which they had + entered directed attention to a maid-servant appearing from the same + quarter, to put an end to this sweet freedom of the poor Honourables Mary + and Kate. + </p> + <p> + ‘I wish you lived here, Miss Swancourt,’ piped one like a melancholy + bullfinch. + </p> + <p> + ‘So do I,’ piped the other like a rather more melancholy bullfinch. ‘Mamma + can’t play with us so nicely as you do. I don’t think she ever learnt + playing when she was little. When shall we come to see you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As soon as you like, dears.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And sleep at your house all night? That’s what I mean by coming to see + you. I don’t care to see people with hats and bonnets on, and all standing + up and walking about.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As soon as we can get mamma’s permission you shall come and stay as long + as ever you like. Good-bye!’ + </p> + <p> + The prisoners were then led off, Elfride again turning her attention to + her guest, whom she had left standing at the remote end of the gallery. On + looking around for him he was nowhere to be seen. Elfride stepped down to + the library, thinking he might have rejoined her father there. But Mr. + Swancourt, now cheerfully illuminated by a pair of candles, was still + alone, untying packets of letters and papers, and tying them up again. + </p> + <p> + As Elfride did not stand on a sufficiently intimate footing with the + object of her interest to justify her, as a proper young lady, to commence + the active search for him that youthful impulsiveness prompted, and as, + nevertheless, for a nascent reason connected with those divinely cut lips + of his, she did not like him to be absent from her side, she wandered + desultorily back to the oak staircase, pouting and casting her eyes about + in hope of discerning his boyish figure. + </p> + <p> + Though daylight still prevailed in the rooms, the corridors were in a + depth of shadow—chill, sad, and silent; and it was only by looking + along them towards light spaces beyond that anything or anybody could be + discerned therein. One of these light spots she found to be caused by a + side-door with glass panels in the upper part. Elfride opened it, and + found herself confronting a secondary or inner lawn, separated from the + principal lawn front by a shrubbery. + </p> + <p> + And now she saw a perplexing sight. At right angles to the face of the + wing she had emerged from, and within a few feet of the door, jutted out + another wing of the mansion, lower and with less architectural character. + Immediately opposite to her, in the wall of this wing, was a large broad + window, having its blind drawn down, and illuminated by a light in the + room it screened. + </p> + <p> + On the blind was a shadow from somebody close inside it—a person in + profile. The profile was unmistakably that of Stephen. It was just + possible to see that his arms were uplifted, and that his hands held an + article of some kind. Then another shadow appeared—also in profile—and + came close to him. This was the shadow of a woman. She turned her back + towards Stephen: he lifted and held out what now proved to be a shawl or + mantle—placed it carefully—so carefully—round the lady; + disappeared; reappeared in her front—fastened the mantle. Did he + then kiss her? Surely not. Yet the motion might have been a kiss. Then + both shadows swelled to colossal dimensions—grew distorted—vanished. + </p> + <p> + Two minutes elapsed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Miss Swancourt! I am so glad to find you. I was looking for you,’ + said a voice at her elbow—Stephen’s voice. She stepped into the + passage. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you know any of the members of this establishment?’ said she. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not a single one: how should I?’ he replied. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter VI + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Fare thee weel awhile!’ +</pre> + <p> + Simultaneously with the conclusion of Stephen’s remark, the sound of the + closing of an external door in their immediate neighbourhood reached + Elfride’s ears. It came from the further side of the wing containing the + illuminated room. She then discerned, by the aid of the dusky departing + light, a figure, whose sex was undistinguishable, walking down the + gravelled path by the parterre towards the river. The figure grew fainter, + and vanished under the trees. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Swancourt’s voice was heard calling out their names from a distant + corridor in the body of the building. They retraced their steps, and found + him with his coat buttoned up and his hat on, awaiting their advent in a + mood of self-satisfaction at having brought his search to a successful + close. The carriage was brought round, and without further delay the trio + drove away from the mansion, under the echoing gateway arch, and along by + the leafless sycamores, as the stars began to kindle their trembling + lights behind the maze of branches and twigs. + </p> + <p> + No words were spoken either by youth or maiden. Her unpractised mind was + completely occupied in fathoming its recent acquisition. The young man who + had inspired her with such novelty of feeling, who had come directly from + London on business to her father, having been brought by chance to + Endelstow House had, by some means or other, acquired the privilege of + approaching some lady he had found therein, and of honouring her by petits + soins of a marked kind,—all in the space of half an hour. + </p> + <p> + What room were they standing in? thought Elfride. As nearly as she could + guess, it was Lord Luxellian’s business-room, or office. What people were + in the house? None but the governess and servants, as far as she knew, and + of these he had professed a total ignorance. Had the person she had + indistinctly seen leaving the house anything to do with the performance? + It was impossible to say without appealing to the culprit himself, and + that she would never do. The more Elfride reflected, the more certain did + it appear that the meeting was a chance rencounter, and not an + appointment. On the ultimate inquiry as to the individuality of the woman, + Elfride at once assumed that she could not be an inferior. Stephen Smith + was not the man to care about passages-at-love with women beneath him. + Though gentle, ambition was visible in his kindling eyes; he evidently + hoped for much; hoped indefinitely, but extensively. Elfride was puzzled, + and being puzzled, was, by a natural sequence of girlish sensations, vexed + with him. No more pleasure came in recognizing that from liking to attract + him she was getting on to love him, boyish as he was and innocent as he + had seemed. + </p> + <p> + They reached the bridge which formed a link between the eastern and + western halves of the parish. Situated in a valley that was bounded + outwardly by the sea, it formed a point of depression from which the road + ascended with great steepness to West Endelstow and the Vicarage. There + was no absolute necessity for either of them to alight, but as it was the + vicar’s custom after a long journey to humour the horse in making this + winding ascent, Elfride, moved by an imitative instinct, suddenly jumped + out when Pleasant had just begun to adopt the deliberate stalk he + associated with this portion of the road. + </p> + <p> + The young man seemed glad of any excuse for breaking the silence. ‘Why, + Miss Swancourt, what a risky thing to do!’ he exclaimed, immediately + following her example by jumping down on the other side. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, not at all,’ replied she coldly; the shadow phenomenon at + Endelstow House still paramount within her. + </p> + <p> + Stephen walked along by himself for two or three minutes, wrapped in the + rigid reserve dictated by her tone. Then apparently thinking that it was + only for girls to pout, he came serenely round to her side, and offered + his arm with Castilian gallantry, to assist her in ascending the remaining + three-quarters of the steep. + </p> + <p> + Here was a temptation: it was the first time in her life that Elfride had + been treated as a grown-up woman in this way—offered an arm in a + manner implying that she had a right to refuse it. Till to-night she had + never received masculine attentions beyond those which might be contained + in such homely remarks as ‘Elfride, give me your hand;’ ‘Elfride, take + hold of my arm,’ from her father. Her callow heart made an epoch of the + incident; she considered her array of feelings, for and against. + Collectively they were for taking this offered arm; the single one of + pique determined her to punish Stephen by refusing. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, thank you, Mr. Smith; I can get along better by myself’ + </p> + <p> + It was Elfride’s first fragile attempt at browbeating a lover. Fearing + more the issue of such an undertaking than what a gentle young man might + think of her waywardness, she immediately afterwards determined to please + herself by reversing her statement. + </p> + <p> + ‘On second thoughts, I will take it,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + They slowly went their way up the hill, a few yards behind the carriage. + </p> + <p> + ‘How silent you are, Miss Swancourt!’ Stephen observed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps I think you silent too,’ she returned. + </p> + <p> + ‘I may have reason to be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Scarcely; it is sadness that makes people silent, and you can have none.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t know: I have a trouble; though some might think it less a + trouble than a dilemma.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it?’ she asked impulsively. + </p> + <p> + Stephen hesitated. ‘I might tell,’ he said; ‘at the same time, perhaps, it + is as well——’ + </p> + <p> + She let go his arm and imperatively pushed it from her, tossing her head. + She had just learnt that a good deal of dignity is lost by asking a + question to which an answer is refused, even ever so politely; for though + politeness does good service in cases of requisition and compromise, it + but little helps a direct refusal. ‘I don’t wish to know anything of it; I + don’t wish it,’ she went on. ‘The carriage is waiting for us at the top of + the hill; we must get in;’ and Elfride flitted to the front. ‘Papa, here + is your Elfride!’ she exclaimed to the dusky figure of the old gentleman, + as she sprang up and sank by his side without deigning to accept aid from + Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, yes!’ uttered the vicar in artificially alert tones, awaking from a + most profound sleep, and suddenly preparing to alight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what are you doing, papa? We are not home yet.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, no; of course not; we are not at home yet,’ Mr. Swancourt said + very hastily, endeavouring to dodge back to his original position with the + air of a man who had not moved at all. ‘The fact is I was so lost in deep + meditation that I forgot whereabouts we were.’ And in a minute the vicar + was snoring again. + </p> + <p> + That evening, being the last, seemed to throw an exceptional shade of + sadness over Stephen Smith, and the repeated injunctions of the vicar, + that he was to come and revisit them in the summer, apparently tended less + to raise his spirits than to unearth some misgiving. + </p> + <p> + He left them in the gray light of dawn, whilst the colours of earth were + sombre, and the sun was yet hidden in the east. Elfride had fidgeted all + night in her little bed lest none of the household should be awake soon + enough to start him, and also lest she might miss seeing again the bright + eyes and curly hair, to which their owner’s possession of a hidden mystery + added a deeper tinge of romance. To some extent—so soon does womanly + interest take a solicitous turn—she felt herself responsible for his + safe conduct. They breakfasted before daylight; Mr. Swancourt, being more + and more taken with his guest’s ingenuous appearance, having determined to + rise early and bid him a friendly farewell. It was, however, rather to the + vicar’s astonishment, that he saw Elfride walk in to the breakfast-table, + candle in hand. + </p> + <p> + Whilst William Worm performed his toilet (during which performance the + inmates of the vicarage were always in the habit of waiting with exemplary + patience), Elfride wandered desultorily to the summer house. Stephen + followed her thither. The copse-covered valley was visible from this + position, a mist now lying all along its length, hiding the stream which + trickled through it, though the observers themselves were in clear air. + </p> + <p> + They stood close together, leaning over the rustic balustrading which + bounded the arbour on the outward side, and formed the crest of a steep + slope beneath Elfride constrainedly pointed out some features of the + distant uplands rising irregularly opposite. But the artistic eye was, + either from nature or circumstance, very faint in Stephen now, and he only + half attended to her description, as if he spared time from some other + thought going on within him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, good-bye,’ he said suddenly; ‘I must never see you again, I + suppose, Miss Swancourt, in spite of invitations.’ + </p> + <p> + His genuine tribulation played directly upon the delicate chords of her + nature. She could afford to forgive him for a concealment or two. + Moreover, the shyness which would not allow him to look her in the face + lent bravery to her own eyes and tongue. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, DO come again, Mr. Smith!’ she said prettily. + </p> + <p> + ‘I should delight in it; but it will be better if I do not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certain circumstances in connection with me make it undesirable. Not on + my account; on yours.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Goodness! As if anything in connection with you could hurt me,’ she said + with serene supremacy; but seeing that this plan of treatment was + inappropriate, she tuned a smaller note. ‘Ah, I know why you will not + come. You don’t want to. You’ll go home to London and to all the stirring + people there, and will never want to see us any more!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You know I have no such reason.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And go on writing letters to the lady you are engaged to, just as + before.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What does that mean? I am not engaged.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You wrote a letter to a Miss Somebody; I saw it in the letter-rack.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Pooh! an elderly woman who keeps a stationer’s shop; and it was to tell + her to keep my newspapers till I get back.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You needn’t have explained: it was not my business at all.’ Miss Elfride + was rather relieved to hear that statement, nevertheless. ‘And you won’t + come again to see my father?’ she insisted. + </p> + <p> + ‘I should like to—and to see you again, but——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you reveal to me that matter you hide?’ she interrupted petulantly. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; not now.’ + </p> + <p> + She could not but go on, graceless as it might seem. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me this,’ she importuned with a trembling mouth. ‘Does any meeting + of yours with a lady at Endelstow Vicarage clash with—any interest + you may take in me?’ + </p> + <p> + He started a little. ‘It does not,’ he said emphatically; and looked into + the pupils of her eyes with the confidence that only honesty can give, and + even that to youth alone. + </p> + <p> + The explanation had not come, but a gloom left her. She could not but + believe that utterance. Whatever enigma might lie in the shadow on the + blind, it was not an enigma of underhand passion. + </p> + <p> + She turned towards the house, entering it through the conservatory. + Stephen went round to the front door. Mr. Swancourt was standing on the + step in his slippers. Worm was adjusting a buckle in the harness, and + murmuring about his poor head; and everything was ready for Stephen’s + departure. + </p> + <p> + ‘You named August for your visit. August it shall be; that is, if you care + for the society of such a fossilized Tory,’ said Mr. Swancourt. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Smith only responded hesitatingly, that he should like to come again. + </p> + <p> + ‘You said you would, and you must,’ insisted Elfride, coming to the door + and speaking under her father’s arm. + </p> + <p> + Whatever reason the youth may have had for not wishing to enter the house + as a guest, it no longer predominated. He promised, and bade them adieu, + and got into the pony-carriage, which crept up the slope, and bore him out + of their sight. + </p> + <p> + ‘I never was so much taken with anybody in my life as I am with that young + fellow—never! I cannot understand it—can’t understand it + anyhow,’ said Mr. Swancourt quite energetically to himself; and went + indoors. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter VII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘No more of me you knew, my love!’ +</pre> + <p> + Stephen Smith revisited Endelstow Vicarage, agreeably to his promise. He + had a genuine artistic reason for coming, though no such reason seemed to + be required. Six-and-thirty old seat ends, of exquisite fifteenth-century + workmanship, were rapidly decaying in an aisle of the church; and it + became politic to make drawings of their worm-eaten contours ere they were + battered past recognition in the turmoil of the so-called restoration. + </p> + <p> + He entered the house at sunset, and the world was pleasant again to the + two fair-haired ones. A momentary pang of disappointment had, + nevertheless, passed through Elfride when she casually discovered that he + had not come that minute post-haste from London, but had reached the + neighbourhood the previous evening. Surprise would have accompanied the + feeling, had she not remembered that several tourists were haunting the + coast at this season, and that Stephen might have chosen to do likewise. + </p> + <p> + They did little besides chat that evening, Mr. Swancourt beginning to + question his visitor, closely yet paternally, and in good part, on his + hopes and prospects from the profession he had embraced. Stephen gave + vague answers. The next day it rained. In the evening, when twenty-four + hours of Elfride had completely rekindled her admirer’s ardour, a game of + chess was proposed between them. + </p> + <p> + The game had its value in helping on the developments of their future. + </p> + <p> + Elfride soon perceived that her opponent was but a learner. She next + noticed that he had a very odd way of handling the pieces when castling or + taking a man. Antecedently she would have supposed that the same + performance must be gone through by all players in the same manner; she + was taught by his differing action that all ordinary players, who learn + the game by sight, unconsciously touch the men in a stereotyped way. This + impression of indescribable oddness in Stephen’s touch culminated in + speech when she saw him, at the taking of one of her bishops, push it + aside with the taking man instead of lifting it as a preliminary to the + move. + </p> + <p> + ‘How strangely you handle the men, Mr. Smith!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do I? I am sorry for that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no—don’t be sorry; it is not a matter great enough for sorrow. + But who taught you to play?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nobody, Miss Swancourt,’ he said. ‘I learnt from a book lent me by my + friend Mr. Knight, the noblest man in the world.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you have seen people play?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have never seen the playing of a single game. This is the first time I + ever had the opportunity of playing with a living opponent. I have worked + out many games from books, and studied the reasons of the different moves, + but that is all.’ + </p> + <p> + This was a full explanation of his mannerism; but the fact that a man with + the desire for chess should have grown up without being able to see or + engage in a game astonished her not a little. She pondered on the + circumstance for some time, looking into vacancy and hindering the play. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Swancourt was sitting with his eyes fixed on the board, but apparently + thinking of other things. Half to himself he said, pending the move of + Elfride: + </p> + <p> + ‘“Quae finis aut quod me manet stipendium?”’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen replied instantly: + </p> + <p> + ‘“Effare: jussas cum fide poenas luam.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Excellent—prompt—gratifying!’ said Mr. Swancourt with + feeling, bringing down his hand upon the table, and making three pawns and + a knight dance over their borders by the shaking. ‘I was musing on those + words as applicable to a strange course I am steering—but enough of + that. I am delighted with you, Mr. Smith, for it is so seldom in this + desert that I meet with a man who is gentleman and scholar enough to + continue a quotation, however trite it may be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I also apply the words to myself,’ said Stephen quietly. + </p> + <p> + ‘You? The last man in the world to do that, I should have thought.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come,’ murmured Elfride poutingly, and insinuating herself between them, + ‘tell me all about it. Come, construe, construe!’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked steadfastly into her face, and said slowly, and in a voice + full of a far-off meaning that seemed quaintly premature in one so young: + </p> + <p> + ‘Quae finis WHAT WILL BE THE END, aut OR, quod stipendium WHAT FINE, manet + me AWAITS ME? Effare SPEAK OUT; luam I WILL PAY, cum fide WITH FAITH, + jussas poenas THE PENALTY REQUIRED.’ + </p> + <p> + The vicar, who had listened with a critical compression of the lips to + this school-boy recitation, and by reason of his imperfect hearing had + missed the marked realism of Stephen’s tone in the English words, now said + hesitatingly: ‘By the bye, Mr. Smith (I know you’ll excuse my curiosity), + though your translation was unexceptionably correct and close, you have a + way of pronouncing your Latin which to me seems most peculiar. Not that + the pronunciation of a dead language is of much importance; yet your + accents and quantities have a grotesque sound to my ears. I thought first + that you had acquired your way of breathing the vowels from some of the + northern colleges; but it cannot be so with the quantities. What I was + going to ask was, if your instructor in the classics could possibly have + been an Oxford or Cambridge man?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; he was an Oxford man—Fellow of St. Cyprian’s.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes; there’s no doubt about it. + </p> + <p> + ‘The oddest thing ever I heard of!’ said Mr. Swancourt, starting with + astonishment. ‘That the pupil of such a man——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The best and cleverest man in England!’ cried Stephen enthusiastically. + </p> + <p> + ‘That the pupil of such a man should pronounce Latin in the way you + pronounce it beats all I ever heard. How long did he instruct you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Four years.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Four years!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not so strange when I explain,’ Stephen hastened to say. ‘It was + done in this way—by letter. I sent him exercises and construing + twice a week, and twice a week he sent them back to me corrected, with + marginal notes of instruction. That is how I learnt my Latin and Greek, + such as it is. He is not responsible for my scanning. He has never heard + me scan a line.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A novel case, and a singular instance of patience!’ cried the vicar. + </p> + <p> + ‘On his part, not on mine. Ah, Henry Knight is one in a thousand! I + remember his speaking to me on this very subject of pronunciation. He says + that, much to his regret, he sees a time coming when every man will + pronounce even the common words of his own tongue as seems right in his + own ears, and be thought none the worse for it; that the speaking age is + passing away, to make room for the writing age.’ + </p> + <p> + Both Elfride and her father had waited attentively to hear Stephen go on + to what would have been the most interesting part of the story, namely, + what circumstances could have necessitated such an unusual method of + education. But no further explanation was volunteered; and they saw, by + the young man’s manner of concentrating himself upon the chess-board, that + he was anxious to drop the subject. + </p> + <p> + The game proceeded. Elfride played by rote; Stephen by thought. It was the + cruellest thing to checkmate him after so much labour, she considered. + What was she dishonest enough to do in her compassion? To let him + checkmate her. A second game followed; and being herself absolutely + indifferent as to the result (her playing was above the average among + women, and she knew it), she allowed him to give checkmate again. A final + game, in which she adopted the Muzio gambit as her opening, was terminated + by Elfride’s victory at the twelfth move. + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked up suspiciously. His heart was throbbing even more + excitedly than was hers, which itself had quickened when she seriously set + to work on this last occasion. Mr. Swancourt had left the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘You have been trifling with me till now!’ he exclaimed, his face + flushing. ‘You did not play your best in the first two games?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s guilt showed in her face. Stephen became the picture of vexation + and sadness, which, relishable for a moment, caused her the next instant + to regret the mistake she had made. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Smith, forgive me!’ she said sweetly. ‘I see now, though I did not at + first, that what I have done seems like contempt for your skill. But, + indeed, I did not mean it in that sense. I could not, upon my conscience, + win a victory in those first and second games over one who fought at such + a disadvantage and so manfully.’ + </p> + <p> + He drew a long breath, and murmured bitterly, ‘Ah, you are cleverer than + I. You can do everything—I can do nothing! O Miss Swancourt!’ he + burst out wildly, his heart swelling in his throat, ‘I must tell you how I + love you! All these months of my absence I have worshipped you.’ + </p> + <p> + He leapt from his seat like the impulsive lad that he was, slid round to + her side, and almost before she suspected it his arm was round her waist, + and the two sets of curls intermingled. + </p> + <p> + So entirely new was full-blown love to Elfride, that she trembled as much + from the novelty of the emotion as from the emotion itself. Then she + suddenly withdrew herself and stood upright, vexed that she had submitted + unresistingly even to his momentary pressure. She resolved to consider + this demonstration as premature. + </p> + <p> + ‘You must not begin such things as those,’ she said with coquettish + hauteur of a very transparent nature ‘And—you must not do so again—and + papa is coming.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me kiss you—only a little one,’ he said with his usual + delicacy, and without reading the factitiousness of her manner. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; not one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Only on your cheek?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Forehead?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You care for somebody else, then? Ah, I thought so!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am sure I do not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nor for me either?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can I tell?’ she said simply, the simplicity lying merely in the + broad outlines of her manner and speech. There were the semitone of voice + and half-hidden expression of eyes which tell the initiated how very + fragile is the ice of reserve at these times. + </p> + <p> + Footsteps were heard. Mr. Swancourt then entered the room, and their + private colloquy ended. + </p> + <p> + The day after this partial revelation, Mr. Swancourt proposed a drive to + the cliffs beyond Targan Bay, a distance of three or four miles. + </p> + <p> + Half an hour before the time of departure a crash was heard in the back + yard, and presently Worm came in, saying partly to the world in general, + partly to himself, and slightly to his auditors: + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, ay, sure! That frying of fish will be the end of William Worm. They + be at it again this morning—same as ever—fizz, fizz, fizz!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your head bad again, Worm?’ said Mr. Swancourt. ‘What was that noise we + heard in the yard?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, sir, a weak wambling man am I; and the frying have been going on in + my poor head all through the long night and this morning as usual; and I + was so dazed wi’ it that down fell a piece of leg-wood across the shaft of + the pony-shay, and splintered it off. “Ay,” says I, “I feel it as if ‘twas + my own shay; and though I’ve done it, and parish pay is my lot if I go + from here, perhaps I am as independent as one here and there.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear me, the shaft of the carriage broken!’ cried Elfride. She was + disappointed: Stephen doubly so. The vicar showed more warmth of temper + than the accident seemed to demand, much to Stephen’s uneasiness and + rather to his surprise. He had not supposed so much latent sternness could + co-exist with Mr. Swancourt’s frankness and good-nature. + </p> + <p> + ‘You shall not be disappointed,’ said the vicar at length. ‘It is almost + too long a distance for you to walk. Elfride can trot down on her pony, + and you shall have my old nag, Smith.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride exclaimed triumphantly, ‘You have never seen me on horseback—Oh, + you must!’ She looked at Stephen and read his thoughts immediately. ‘Ah, + you don’t ride, Mr. Smith?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am sorry to say I don’t.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Fancy a man not able to ride!’ said she rather pertly. + </p> + <p> + The vicar came to his rescue. ‘That’s common enough; he has had other + lessons to learn. Now, I recommend this plan: let Elfride ride on + horseback, and you, Mr. Smith, walk beside her.’ + </p> + <p> + The arrangement was welcomed with secret delight by Stephen. It seemed to + combine in itself all the advantages of a long slow ramble with Elfride, + without the contingent possibility of the enjoyment being spoilt by her + becoming weary. The pony was saddled and brought round. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, Mr. Smith,’ said the lady imperatively, coming downstairs, and + appearing in her riding-habit, as she always did in a change of dress, + like a new edition of a delightful volume, ‘you have a task to perform + to-day. These earrings are my very favourite darling ones; but the worst + of it is that they have such short hooks that they are liable to be + dropped if I toss my head about much, and when I am riding I can’t give my + mind to them. It would be doing me knight service if you keep your eyes + fixed upon them, and remember them every minute of the day, and tell me + directly I drop one. They have had such hairbreadth escapes, haven’t they, + Unity?’ she continued to the parlour-maid who was standing at the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, miss, that they have!’ said Unity with round-eyed commiseration. + </p> + <p> + ‘Once ‘twas in the lane that I found one of them,’ pursued Elfride + reflectively. + </p> + <p> + ‘And then ‘twas by the gate into Eighteen Acres,’ Unity chimed in. + </p> + <p> + ‘And then ‘twas on the carpet in my own room,’ rejoined Elfride merrily. + </p> + <p> + ‘And then ‘twas dangling on the embroidery of your petticoat, miss; and + then ‘twas down your back, miss, wasn’t it? And oh, what a way you was in, + miss, wasn’t you? my! until you found it!’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen took Elfride’s slight foot upon his hand: ‘One, two, three, and + up!’ she said. + </p> + <p> + Unfortunately not so. He staggered and lifted, and the horse edged round; + and Elfride was ultimately deposited upon the ground rather more forcibly + than was pleasant. Smith looked all contrition. + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind,’ said the vicar encouragingly; ‘try again! ‘Tis a little + accomplishment that requires some practice, although it looks so easy. + Stand closer to the horse’s head, Mr. Smith.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed, I shan’t let him try again,’ said she with a microscopic look of + indignation. ‘Worm, come here, and help me to mount.’ Worm stepped + forward, and she was in the saddle in a trice. + </p> + <p> + Then they moved on, going for some distance in silence, the hot air of the + valley being occasionally brushed from their faces by a cool breeze, which + wound its way along ravines leading up from the sea. + </p> + <p> + ‘I suppose,’ said Stephen, ‘that a man who can neither sit in a saddle + himself nor help another person into one seems a useless incumbrance; but, + Miss Swancourt, I’ll learn to do it all for your sake; I will, indeed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What is so unusual in you,’ she said, in a didactic tone justifiable in a + horsewoman’s address to a benighted walker, ‘is that your knowledge of + certain things should be combined with your ignorance of certain other + things.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen lifted his eyes earnestly to hers. + </p> + <p> + ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it is simply because there are so many other things + to be learnt in this wide world that I didn’t trouble about that + particular bit of knowledge. I thought it would be useless to me; but I + don’t think so now. I will learn riding, and all connected with it, + because then you would like me better. Do you like me much less for this?’ + </p> + <p> + She looked sideways at him with critical meditation tenderly rendered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do I seem like LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI?’ she began suddenly, without + replying to his question. ‘Fancy yourself saying, Mr. Smith: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I sat her on my pacing steed, + And nothing else saw all day long, + For sidelong would she bend, and sing + A fairy’s song, + She found me roots of relish sweet, + And honey wild, and manna dew;” + </pre> + <p> + and that’s all she did.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no,’ said the young man stilly, and with a rising colour. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘“And sure in language strange she said, + I love thee true.”’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘Not at all,’ she rejoined quickly. ‘See how I can gallop. Now, Pansy, + off!’ And Elfride started; and Stephen beheld her light figure contracting + to the dimensions of a bird as she sank into the distance—her hair + flowing. + </p> + <p> + He walked on in the same direction, and for a considerable time could see + no signs of her returning. Dull as a flower without the sun he sat down + upon a stone, and not for fifteen minutes was any sound of horse or rider + to be heard. Then Elfride and Pansy appeared on the hill in a round trot. + </p> + <p> + ‘Such a delightful scamper as we have had!’ she said, her face flushed and + her eyes sparkling. She turned the horse’s head, Stephen arose, and they + went on again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what have you to say to me, Mr. Smith, after my long absence?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you remember a question you could not exactly answer last night—whether + I was more to you than anybody else?’ said he. + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot exactly answer now, either.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why can’t you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I don’t know if I am more to you than any one else.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, indeed, you are!’ he exclaimed in a voice of intensest appreciation, + at the same time gliding round and looking into her face. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eyes in eyes,’ he murmured playfully; and she blushingly obeyed, looking + back into his. + </p> + <p> + ‘And why not lips on lips?’ continued Stephen daringly. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, certainly not. Anybody might look; and it would be the death of me. + You may kiss my hand if you like.’ + </p> + <p> + He expressed by a look that to kiss a hand through a glove, and that a + riding-glove, was not a great treat under the circumstances. + </p> + <p> + ‘There, then; I’ll take my glove off. Isn’t it a pretty white hand? Ah, + you don’t want to kiss it, and you shall not now!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If I do not, may I never kiss again, you severe Elfride! You know I think + more of you than I can tell; that you are my queen. I would die for you, + Elfride!’ + </p> + <p> + A rapid red again filled her cheeks, and she looked at him meditatively. + What a proud moment it was for Elfride then! She was ruling a heart with + absolute despotism for the first time in her life. + </p> + <p> + Stephen stealthily pounced upon her hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; I won’t, I won’t!’ she said intractably; ‘and you shouldn’t take me + by surprise.’ + </p> + <p> + There ensued a mild form of tussle for absolute possession of the + much-coveted hand, in which the boisterousness of boy and girl was far + more prominent than the dignity of man and woman. Then Pansy became + restless. Elfride recovered her position and remembered herself. + </p> + <p> + ‘You make me behave in not a nice way at all!’ she exclaimed, in a tone + neither of pleasure nor anger, but partaking of both. ‘I ought not to have + allowed such a romp! We are too old now for that sort of thing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I hope you don’t think me too—too much of a creeping-round sort of + man,’ said he in a penitent tone, conscious that he too had lost a little + dignity by the proceeding. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are too familiar; and I can’t have it! Considering the shortness of + the time we have known each other, Mr. Smith, you take too much upon you. + You think I am a country girl, and it doesn’t matter how you behave to + me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I assure you, Miss Swancourt, that I had no idea of freak in my mind. I + wanted to imprint a sweet—serious kiss upon your hand; and that’s + all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, that’s creeping round again! And you mustn’t look into my eyes so,’ + she said, shaking her head at him, and trotting on a few paces in advance. + Thus she led the way out of the lane and across some fields in the + direction of the cliffs. At the boundary of the fields nearest the sea she + expressed a wish to dismount. The horse was tied to a post, and they both + followed an irregular path, which ultimately terminated upon a flat ledge + passing round the face of the huge blue-black rock at a height about + midway between the sea and the topmost verge. There, far beneath and + before them, lay the everlasting stretch of ocean; there, upon detached + rocks, were the white screaming gulls, seeming ever intending to settle, + and yet always passing on. Right and left ranked the toothed and zigzag + line of storm-torn heights, forming the series which culminated in the one + beneath their feet. + </p> + <p> + Behind the youth and maiden was a tempting alcove and seat, formed + naturally in the beetling mass, and wide enough to admit two or three + persons. Elfride sat down, and Stephen sat beside her. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am afraid it is hardly proper of us to be here, either,’ she said half + inquiringly. ‘We have not known each other long enough for this kind of + thing, have we!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes,’ he replied judicially; ‘quite long enough.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How do you know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not length of time, but the manner in which our minutes beat, that + makes enough or not enough in our acquaintanceship.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I see that. But I wish papa suspected or knew what a VERY NEW THING + I am doing. He does not think of it at all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Darling Elfie, I wish we could be married! It is wrong for me to say it—I + know it is—before you know more; but I wish we might be, all the + same. Do you love me deeply, deeply?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No!’ she said in a fluster. + </p> + <p> + At this point-blank denial, Stephen turned his face away decisively, and + preserved an ominous silence; the only objects of interest on earth for + him being apparently the three or four-score sea-birds circling in the air + afar off. + </p> + <p> + ‘I didn’t mean to stop you quite,’ she faltered with some alarm; and + seeing that he still remained silent, she added more anxiously, ‘If you + say that again, perhaps, I will not be quite—quite so obstinate—if—if + you don’t like me to be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, my Elfride!’ he exclaimed, and kissed her. + </p> + <p> + It was Elfride’s first kiss. And so awkward and unused was she; full of + striving—no relenting. There was none of those apparent struggles to + get out of the trap which only results in getting further in: no final + attitude of receptivity: no easy close of shoulder to shoulder, hand upon + hand, face upon face, and, in spite of coyness, the lips in the right + place at the supreme moment. That graceful though apparently accidental + falling into position, which many have noticed as precipitating the end + and making sweethearts the sweeter, was not here. Why? Because experience + was absent. A woman must have had many kisses before she kisses well. + </p> + <p> + In fact, the art of tendering the lips for these amatory salutes follows + the principles laid down in treatises on legerdemain for performing the + trick called Forcing a Card. The card is to be shifted nimbly, withdrawn, + edged under, and withal not to be offered till the moment the unsuspecting + person’s hand reaches the pack; this forcing to be done so modestly and + yet so coaxingly, that the person trifled with imagines he is really + choosing what is in fact thrust into his hand. + </p> + <p> + Well, there were no such facilities now; and Stephen was conscious of it—first + with a momentary regret that his kiss should be spoilt by her confused + receipt of it, and then with the pleasant perception that her awkwardness + was her charm. + </p> + <p> + ‘And you do care for me and love me?’ said he. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very much?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I mustn’t ask you if you’ll wait for me, and be my wife some day?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not?’ she said naively. + </p> + <p> + ‘There is a reason why, my Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not any one that I know of.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Suppose there is something connected with me which makes it almost + impossible for you to agree to be my wife, or for your father to + countenance such an idea?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing shall make me cease to love you: no blemish can be found upon + your personal nature. That is pure and generous, I know; and having that, + how can I be cold to you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And shall nothing else affect us—shall nothing beyond my nature be + a part of my quality in your eyes, Elfie?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing whatever,’ she said with a breath of relief. ‘Is that all? Some + outside circumstance? What do I care?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You can hardly judge, dear, till you know what has to be judged. For + that, we will stop till we get home. I believe in you, but I cannot feel + bright.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Love is new, and fresh to us as the dew; and we are together. As the + lover’s world goes, this is a great deal. Stephen, I fancy I see the + difference between me and you—between men and women generally, + perhaps. I am content to build happiness on any accidental basis that may + lie near at hand; you are for making a world to suit your happiness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, you sometimes say things which make you seem suddenly to become + five years older than you are, or than I am; and that remark is one. I + couldn’t think so OLD as that, try how I might....And no lover has ever + kissed you before?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I knew that; you were so unused. You ride well, but you don’t kiss nicely + at all; and I was told once, by my friend Knight, that that is an + excellent fault in woman.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, come; I must mount again, or we shall not be home by dinner-time.’ + And they returned to where Pansy stood tethered. ‘Instead of entrusting my + weight to a young man’s unstable palm,’ she continued gaily, ‘I prefer a + surer “upping-stock” (as the villagers call it), in the form of a gate. + There—now I am myself again.’ + </p> + <p> + They proceeded homeward at the same walking pace. + </p> + <p> + Her blitheness won Stephen out of his thoughtfulness, and each forgot + everything but the tone of the moment. + </p> + <p> + ‘What did you love me for?’ she said, after a long musing look at a flying + bird. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know,’ he replied idly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, you do,’ insisted Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps, for your eyes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What of them?—now, don’t vex me by a light answer. What of my + eyes?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing to be mentioned. They are indifferently good.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, Stephen, I won’t have that. What did you love me for?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It might have been for your mouth?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what about my mouth?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought it was a passable mouth enough——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s not very comforting.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘With a pretty pout and sweet lips; but actually, nothing more than what + everybody has.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t make up things out of your head as you go on, there’s a dear + Stephen. Now—what—did—you—love—me—for?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps, ‘twas for your neck and hair; though I am not sure: or for your + idle blood, that did nothing but wander away from your cheeks and back + again; but I am not sure. Or your hands and arms, that they eclipsed all + other hands and arms; or your feet, that they played about under your + dress like little mice; or your tongue, that it was of a dear delicate + tone. But I am not altogether sure.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, that’s pretty to say; but I don’t care for your love, if it made a + mere flat picture of me in that way, and not being sure, and such cold + reasoning; but what you FELT I was, you know, Stephen’ (at this a stealthy + laugh and frisky look into his face), ‘when you said to yourself, “I’ll + certainly love that young lady.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I never said it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When you said to yourself, then, “I never will love that young lady.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I didn’t say that, either.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then was it, “I suppose I must love that young lady?”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What, then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Twas much more fluctuating—not so definite.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me; do, do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It was that I ought not to think about you if I loved you truly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, that I don’t understand. There’s no getting it out of you. And I’ll + not ask you ever any more—never more—to say out of the deep + reality of your heart what you loved me for.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sweet tantalizer, what’s the use? It comes to this sole simple thing: + That at one time I had never seen you, and I didn’t love you; that then I + saw you, and I did love you. Is that enough?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I will make it do....I know, I think, what I love you for. You are + nice-looking, of course; but I didn’t mean for that. It is because you are + so docile and gentle.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Those are not quite the correct qualities for a man to be loved for,’ + said Stephen, in rather a dissatisfied tone of self-criticism. ‘Well, + never mind. I must ask your father to allow us to be engaged directly we + get indoors. It will be for a long time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I like it the better....Stephen, don’t mention it till to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because, if he should object—I don’t think he will; but if he + should—we shall have a day longer of happiness from our + ignorance....Well, what are you thinking of so deeply?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was thinking how my dear friend Knight would enjoy this scene. I wish + he could come here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You seem very much engrossed with him,’ she answered, with a jealous + little toss. ‘He must be an interesting man to take up so much of your + attention.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Interesting!’ said Stephen, his face glowing with his fervour; ‘noble, + you ought to say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, yes; I forgot,’ she said half satirically. ‘The noblest man in + England, as you told us last night.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is a fine fellow, laugh as you will, Miss Elfie.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know he is your hero. But what does he do? anything?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He writes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What does he write? I have never heard of his name.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because his personality, and that of several others like him, is absorbed + into a huge WE, namely, the impalpable entity called the PRESENT—a + social and literary Review.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is he only a reviewer?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘ONLY, Elfie! Why, I can tell you it is a fine thing to be on the staff of + the PRESENT. Finer than being a novelist considerably.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s a hit at me, and my poor COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, Elfride,’ he whispered; ‘I didn’t mean that. I mean that he is really + a literary man of some eminence, and not altogether a reviewer. He writes + things of a higher class than reviews, though he reviews a book + occasionally. His ordinary productions are social and ethical essays—all + that the PRESENT contains which is not literary reviewing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I admit he must be talented if he writes for the PRESENT. We have it sent + to us irregularly. I want papa to be a subscriber, but he’s so + conservative. Now the next point in this Mr. Knight—I suppose he is + a very good man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘An excellent man. I shall try to be his intimate friend some day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But aren’t you now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; not so much as that,’ replied Stephen, as if such a supposition were + extravagant. ‘You see, it was in this way—he came originally from + the same place as I, and taught me things; but I am not intimate with him. + Shan’t I be glad when I get richer and better known, and hob and nob with + him!’ Stephen’s eyes sparkled. + </p> + <p> + A pout began to shape itself upon Elfride’s soft lips. ‘You think always + of him, and like him better than you do me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, indeed, Elfride. The feeling is different quite. But I do like him, + and he deserves even more affection from me than I give.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are not nice now, and you make me as jealous as possible!’ she + exclaimed perversely. ‘I know you will never speak to any third person of + me so warmly as you do to me of him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you don’t understand, Elfride,’ he said with an anxious movement. + ‘You shall know him some day. He is so brilliant—no, it isn’t + exactly brilliant; so thoughtful—nor does thoughtful express him—that + it would charm you to talk to him. He’s a most desirable friend, and that + isn’t half I could say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t care how good he is; I don’t want to know him, because he comes + between me and you. You think of him night and day, ever so much more than + of anybody else; and when you are thinking of him, I am shut out of your + mind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, dear Elfride; I love you dearly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I don’t like you to tell me so warmly about him when you are in the + middle of loving me. Stephen, suppose that I and this man Knight of yours + were both drowning, and you could only save one of us——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes—the stupid old proposition—which would I save? + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, which? Not me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Both of you,’ he said, pressing her pendent hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, that won’t do; only one of us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot say; I don’t know. It is disagreeable—quite a horrid idea + to have to handle.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A-ha, I know. You would save him, and let me drown, drown, drown; and I + don’t care about your love!’ + </p> + <p> + She had endeavoured to give a playful tone to her words, but the latter + speech was rather forced in its gaiety. + </p> + <p> + At this point in the discussion she trotted off to turn a corner which was + avoided by the footpath, the road and the path reuniting at a point a + little further on. On again making her appearance she continually managed + to look in a direction away from him, and left him in the cool shade of + her displeasure. Stephen was soon beaten at this game of indifference. He + went round and entered the range of her vision. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you offended, Elfie? Why don’t you talk?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Save me, then, and let that Mr. Clever of yours drown. I hate him. Now, + which would you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, Elfride, you should not press such a hard question. It is + ridiculous.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I won’t be alone with you any more. Unkind, to wound me so!’ She + laughed at her own absurdity but persisted. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, Elfie, let’s make it up and be friends.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Say you would save me, then, and let him drown.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I would save you—and him too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And let him drown. Come, or you don’t love me!’ she teasingly went on. + </p> + <p> + ‘And let him drown,’ he ejaculated despairingly. + </p> + <p> + ‘There; now I am yours!’ she said, and a woman’s flush of triumph lit her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘Only one earring, miss, as I’m alive,’ said Unity on their entering the + hall. + </p> + <p> + With a face expressive of wretched misgiving, Elfride’s hand flew like an + arrow to her ear. + </p> + <p> + ‘There!’ she exclaimed to Stephen, looking at him with eyes full of + reproach. + </p> + <p> + ‘I quite forgot, indeed. If I had only remembered!’ he answered, with a + conscience-stricken face. + </p> + <p> + She wheeled herself round, and turned into the shrubbery. Stephen + followed. + </p> + <p> + ‘If you had told me to watch anything, Stephen, I should have religiously + done it,’ she capriciously went on, as soon as she heard him behind her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Forgetting is forgivable.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, you will find it, if you want me to respect you and be engaged to + you when we have asked papa.’ She considered a moment, and added more + seriously, ‘I know now where I dropped it, Stephen. It was on the cliff. I + remember a faint sensation of some change about me, but I was too absent + to think of it then. And that’s where it is now, and you must go and look + there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll go at once.’ + </p> + <p> + And he strode away up the valley, under a broiling sun and amid the + deathlike silence of early afternoon. He ascended, with giddy-paced haste, + the windy range of rocks to where they had sat, felt and peered about the + stones and crannies, but Elfride’s stray jewel was nowhere to be seen. + Next Stephen slowly retraced his steps, and, pausing at a cross-road to + reflect a while, he left the plateau and struck downwards across some + fields, in the direction of Endelstow House. + </p> + <p> + He walked along the path by the river without the slightest hesitation as + to its bearing, apparently quite familiar with every inch of the ground. + As the shadows began to lengthen and the sunlight to mellow, he passed + through two wicket-gates, and drew near the outskirts of Endelstow Park. + The river now ran along under the park fence, previous to entering the + grove itself, a little further on. + </p> + <p> + Here stood a cottage, between the fence and the stream, on a slightly + elevated spot of ground, round which the river took a turn. The + characteristic feature of this snug habitation was its one chimney in the + gable end, its squareness of form disguised by a huge cloak of ivy, which + had grown so luxuriantly and extended so far from its base, as to increase + the apparent bulk of the chimney to the dimensions of a tower. Some little + distance from the back of the house rose the park boundary, and over this + were to be seen the sycamores of the grove, making slow inclinations to + the just-awakening air. + </p> + <p> + Stephen crossed the little wood bridge in front, went up to the cottage + door, and opened it without knock or signal of any kind. + </p> + <p> + Exclamations of welcome burst from some person or persons when the door + was thrust ajar, followed by the scrape of chairs on a stone floor, as if + pushed back by their occupiers in rising from a table. The door was closed + again, and nothing could now be heard from within, save a lively chatter + and the rattle of plates. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter VIII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord.’ +</pre> + <p> + The mists were creeping out of pools and swamps for their pilgrimages of + the night when Stephen came up to the front door of the vicarage. Elfride + was standing on the step illuminated by a lemon-hued expanse of western + sky. + </p> + <p> + ‘You never have been all this time looking for that earring?’ she said + anxiously. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no; and I have not found it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind. Though I am much vexed; they are my prettiest. But, Stephen, + what ever have you been doing—where have you been? I have been so + uneasy. I feared for you, knowing not an inch of the country. I thought, + suppose he has fallen over the cliff! But now I am inclined to scold you + for frightening me so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I must speak to your father now,’ he said rather abruptly; ‘I have so + much to say to him—and to you, Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Will what you have to say endanger this nice time of ours, and is it that + same shadowy secret you allude to so frequently, and will it make me + unhappy?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Possibly.’ + </p> + <p> + She breathed heavily, and looked around as if for a prompter. + </p> + <p> + ‘Put it off till to-morrow,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + He involuntarily sighed too. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; it must come to-night. Where is your father, Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Somewhere in the kitchen garden, I think,’ she replied. ‘That is his + favourite evening retreat. I will leave you now. Say all that’s to be said—do + all there is to be done. Think of me waiting anxiously for the end.’ And + she re-entered the house. + </p> + <p> + She waited in the drawing-room, watching the lights sink to shadows, the + shadows sink to darkness, until her impatience to know what had occurred + in the garden could no longer be controlled. She passed round the + shrubbery, unlatched the garden door, and skimmed with her keen eyes the + whole twilighted space that the four walls enclosed and sheltered: they + were not there. She mounted a little ladder, which had been used for + gathering fruit, and looked over the wall into the field. This field + extended to the limits of the glebe, which was enclosed on that side by a + privet-hedge. Under the hedge was Mr. Swancourt, walking up and down, and + talking aloud—to himself, as it sounded at first. No: another voice + shouted occasional replies; and this interlocutor seemed to be on the + other side of the hedge. The voice, though soft in quality, was not + Stephen’s. + </p> + <p> + The second speaker must have been in the long-neglected garden of an old + manor-house hard by, which, together with a small estate attached, had + lately been purchased by a person named Troyton, whom Elfride had never + seen. Her father might have struck up an acquaintanceship with some member + of that family through the privet-hedge, or a stranger to the + neighbourhood might have wandered thither. + </p> + <p> + Well, there was no necessity for disturbing him. + </p> + <p> + And it seemed that, after all, Stephen had not yet made his desired + communication to her father. Again she went indoors, wondering where + Stephen could be. For want of something better to do, she went upstairs to + her own little room. Here she sat down at the open window, and, leaning + with her elbow on the table and her cheek upon her hand, she fell into + meditation. + </p> + <p> + It was a hot and still August night. Every disturbance of the silence + which rose to the dignity of a noise could be heard for miles, and the + merest sound for a long distance. So she remained, thinking of Stephen, + and wishing he had not deprived her of his company to no purpose, as it + appeared. How delicate and sensitive he was, she reflected; and yet he was + man enough to have a private mystery, which considerably elevated him in + her eyes. Thus, looking at things with an inward vision, she lost + consciousness of the flight of time. + </p> + <p> + Strange conjunctions of circumstances, particularly those of a trivial + everyday kind, are so frequent in an ordinary life, that we grow used to + their unaccountableness, and forget the question whether the very long + odds against such juxtaposition is not almost a disproof of it being a + matter of chance at all. What occurred to Elfride at this moment was a + case in point. She was vividly imagining, for the twentieth time, the kiss + of the morning, and putting her lips together in the position another such + a one would demand, when she heard the identical operation performed on + the lawn, immediately beneath her window. + </p> + <p> + A kiss—not of the quiet and stealthy kind, but decisive, loud, and + smart. + </p> + <p> + Her face flushed and she looked out, but to no purpose. The dark rim of + the upland drew a keen sad line against the pale glow of the sky, unbroken + except where a young cedar on the lawn, that had outgrown its fellow + trees, shot its pointed head across the horizon, piercing the firmamental + lustre like a sting. + </p> + <p> + It was just possible that, had any persons been standing on the grassy + portions of the lawn, Elfride might have seen their dusky forms. But the + shrubs, which once had merely dotted the glade, had now grown bushy and + large, till they hid at least half the enclosure containing them. The + kissing pair might have been behind some of these; at any rate, nobody was + in sight. + </p> + <p> + Had no enigma ever been connected with her lover by his hints and + absences, Elfride would never have thought of admitting into her mind a + suspicion that he might be concerned in the foregoing enactment. But the + reservations he at present insisted on, while they added to the mystery + without which perhaps she would never have seriously loved him at all, + were calculated to nourish doubts of all kinds, and with a slow flush of + jealousy she asked herself, might he not be the culprit? + </p> + <p> + Elfride glided downstairs on tiptoe, and out to the precise spot on which + she had parted from Stephen to enable him to speak privately to her + father. Thence she wandered into all the nooks around the place from which + the sound seemed to proceed—among the huge laurestines, about the + tufts of pampas grasses, amid the variegated hollies, under the weeping + wych-elm—nobody was there. Returning indoors she called ‘Unity!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She is gone to her aunt’s, to spend the evening,’ said Mr. Swancourt, + thrusting his head out of his study door, and letting the light of his + candles stream upon Elfride’s face—less revealing than, as it seemed + to herself, creating the blush of uneasy perplexity that was burning upon + her cheek. + </p> + <p> + ‘I didn’t know you were indoors, papa,’ she said with surprise. ‘Surely no + light was shining from the window when I was on the lawn?’ and she looked + and saw that the shutters were still open. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, I am in,’ he said indifferently. ‘What did you want Unity for? I + think she laid supper before she went out.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did she?—I have not been to see—I didn’t want her for that.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride scarcely knew, now that a definite reason was required, what that + reason was. Her mind for a moment strayed to another subject, unimportant + as it seemed. The red ember of a match was lying inside the fender, which + explained that why she had seen no rays from the window was because the + candles had only just been lighted. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll come directly,’ said the vicar. ‘I thought you were out somewhere + with Mr. Smith.’ + </p> + <p> + Even the inexperienced Elfride could not help thinking that her father + must be wonderfully blind if he failed to perceive what was the nascent + consequence of herself and Stephen being so unceremoniously left together; + wonderfully careless, if he saw it and did not think about it; wonderfully + good, if, as seemed to her by far the most probable supposition, he saw it + and thought about it and approved of it. These reflections were cut short + by the appearance of Stephen just outside the porch, silvered about the + head and shoulders with touches of moonlight, that had begun to creep + through the trees. + </p> + <p> + ‘Has your trouble anything to do with a kiss on the lawn?’ she asked + abruptly, almost passionately. + </p> + <p> + ‘Kiss on the lawn?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes!’ she said, imperiously now. + </p> + <p> + ‘I didn’t comprehend your meaning, nor do I now exactly. I certainly have + kissed nobody on the lawn, if that is really what you want to know, + Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You know nothing about such a performance?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing whatever. What makes you ask?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t press me to tell; it is nothing of importance. And, Stephen, you + have not yet spoken to papa about our engagement?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ he said regretfully, ‘I could not find him directly; and then I went + on thinking so much of what you said about objections, refusals—bitter + words possibly—ending our happiness, that I resolved to put it off + till to-morrow; that gives us one more day of delight—delight of a + tremulous kind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; but it would be improper to be silent too long, I think,’ she said + in a delicate voice, which implied that her face had grown warm. ‘I want + him to know we love, Stephen. Why did you adopt as your own my thought of + delay?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will explain; but I want to tell you of my secret first—to tell + you now. It is two or three hours yet to bedtime. Let us walk up the hill + to the church.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride passively assented, and they went from the lawn by a side wicket, + and ascended into the open expanse of moonlight which streamed around the + lonely edifice on the summit of the hill. + </p> + <p> + The door was locked. They turned from the porch, and walked hand in hand + to find a resting-place in the churchyard. Stephen chose a flat tomb, + showing itself to be newer and whiter than those around it, and sitting + down himself, gently drew her hand towards him. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, not there,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A mere fancy; but never mind.’ And she sat down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfie, will you love me, in spite of everything that may be said against + me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘O Stephen, what makes you repeat that so continually and so sadly? You + know I will. Yes, indeed,’ she said, drawing closer, ‘whatever may be said + of you—and nothing bad can be—I will cling to you just the + same. Your ways shall be my ways until I die.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you ever think what my parents might be, or what society I originally + moved in?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, not particularly. I have observed one or two little points in your + manners which are rather quaint—no more. I suppose you have moved in + the ordinary society of professional people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Supposing I have not—that none of my family have a profession + except me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t mind. What you are only concerns me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where do you think I went to school—I mean, to what kind of + school?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dr. Somebody’s academy,’ she said simply. + </p> + <p> + ‘No. To a dame school originally, then to a national school.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Only to those! Well, I love you just as much, Stephen, dear Stephen,’ she + murmured tenderly, ‘I do indeed. And why should you tell me these things + so impressively? What do they matter to me?’ + </p> + <p> + He held her closer and proceeded: + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you think my father is—does for his living, that is to + say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He practises some profession or calling, I suppose.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; he is a mason.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A Freemason?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; a cottager and journeyman mason.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride said nothing at first. After a while she whispered: + </p> + <p> + ‘That is a strange idea to me. But never mind; what does it matter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But aren’t you angry with me for not telling you before?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, not at all. Is your mother alive?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is she a nice lady?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very—the best mother in the world. Her people had been well-to-do + yeomen for centuries, but she was only a dairymaid.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘O Stephen!’ came from her in whispered exclamation. + </p> + <p> + ‘She continued to attend to a dairy long after my father married her,’ + pursued Stephen, without further hesitation. ‘And I remember very well + how, when I was very young, I used to go to the milking, look on at the + skimming, sleep through the churning, and make believe I helped her. Ah, + that was a happy time enough!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, never—not happy.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it was.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t see how happiness could be where the drudgery of dairy-work had + to be done for a living—the hands red and chapped, and the shoes + clogged....Stephen, I do own that it seems odd to regard you in the light + of—of—having been so rough in your youth, and done menial + things of that kind.’ (Stephen withdrew an inch or two from her side.) + ‘But I DO LOVE YOU just the same,’ she continued, getting closer under his + shoulder again, ‘and I don’t care anything about the past; and I see that + you are all the worthier for having pushed on in the world in such a way.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not my worthiness; it is Knight’s, who pushed me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, always he—always he!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, and properly so. Now, Elfride, you see the reason of his teaching me + by letter. I knew him years before he went to Oxford, but I had not got + far enough in my reading for him to entertain the idea of helping me in + classics till he left home. Then I was sent away from the village, and we + very seldom met; but he kept up this system of tuition by correspondence + with the greatest regularity. I will tell you all the story, but not now. + There is nothing more to say now, beyond giving places, persons, and + dates.’ His voice became timidly slow at this point. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; don’t take trouble to say more. You are a dear honest fellow to say + so much as you have; and it is not so dreadful either. It has become a + normal thing that millionaires commence by going up to London with their + tools at their back, and half-a-crown in their pockets. That sort of + origin is getting so respected,’ she continued cheerfully, ‘that it is + acquiring some of the odour of Norman ancestry.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, if I had MADE my fortune, I shouldn’t mind. But I am only a possible + maker of it as yet.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is quite enough. And so THIS is what your trouble was?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought I was doing wrong in letting you love me without telling you my + story; and yet I feared to do so, Elfie. I dreaded to lose you, and I was + cowardly on that account.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How plain everything about you seems after this explanation! Your + peculiarities in chess-playing, the pronunciation papa noticed in your + Latin, your odd mixture of book-knowledge with ignorance of ordinary + social accomplishments, are accounted for in a moment. And has this + anything to do with what I saw at Lord Luxellian’s?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did you see?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I saw the shadow of yourself putting a cloak round a lady. I was at the + side door; you two were in a room with the window towards me. You came to + me a moment later.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She was my mother.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your mother THERE!’ She withdrew herself to look at him silently in her + interest. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride,’ said Stephen, ‘I was going to tell you the remainder to-morrow—I + have been keeping it back—I must tell it now, after all. The + remainder of my revelation refers to where my parents are. Where do you + think they live? You know them—by sight at any rate.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know them!’ she said in suspended amazement. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. My father is John Smith, Lord Luxellian’s master-mason, who lives + under the park wall by the river.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘O Stephen! can it be?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He built—or assisted at the building of the house you live in, + years ago. He put up those stone gate piers at the lodge entrance to Lord + Luxellian’s park. My grandfather planted the trees that belt in your lawn; + my grandmother—who worked in the fields with him—held each + tree upright whilst he filled in the earth: they told me so when I was a + child. He was the sexton, too, and dug many of the graves around us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And was your unaccountable vanishing on the first morning of your + arrival, and again this afternoon, a run to see your father and + mother?...I understand now; no wonder you seemed to know your way about + the village!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No wonder. But remember, I have not lived here since I was nine years + old. I then went to live with my uncle, a blacksmith, near Exonbury, in + order to be able to attend a national school as a day scholar; there was + none on this remote coast then. It was there I met with my friend Knight. + And when I was fifteen and had been fairly educated by the school-master—and + more particularly by Knight—I was put as a pupil in an architect’s + office in that town, because I was skilful in the use of the pencil. A + full premium was paid by the efforts of my mother and father, rather + against the wishes of Lord Luxellian, who likes my father, however, and + thinks a great deal of him. There I stayed till six months ago, when I + obtained a situation as improver, as it is called, in a London office. + That’s all of me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To think YOU, the London visitor, the town man, should have been born + here, and have known this village so many years before I did. How strange—how + very strange it seems to me!’ she murmured. + </p> + <p> + ‘My mother curtseyed to you and your father last Sunday,’ said Stephen, + with a pained smile at the thought of the incongruity. ‘And your papa said + to her, “I am glad to see you so regular at church, JANE.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I remember it, but I have never spoken to her. We have only been here + eighteen months, and the parish is so large.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Contrast with this,’ said Stephen, with a miserable laugh, ‘your father’s + belief in my “blue blood,” which is still prevalent in his mind. The first + night I came, he insisted upon proving my descent from one of the most + ancient west-county families, on account of my second Christian name; when + the truth is, it was given me because my grandfather was assistant + gardener in the Fitzmaurice-Smith family for thirty years. Having seen + your face, my darling, I had not heart to contradict him, and tell him + what would have cut me off from a friendly knowledge of you.’ + </p> + <p> + She sighed deeply. ‘Yes, I see now how this inequality may be made to + trouble us,’ she murmured, and continued in a low, sad whisper, ‘I + wouldn’t have minded if they had lived far away. Papa might have consented + to an engagement between us if your connection had been with villagers a + hundred miles off; remoteness softens family contrasts. But he will not + like—O Stephen, Stephen! what can I do?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do?’ he said tentatively, yet with heaviness. ‘Give me up; let me go back + to London, and think no more of me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no; I cannot give you up! This hopelessness in our affairs makes me + care more for you....I see what did not strike me at first. Stephen, why + do we trouble? Why should papa object? An architect in London is an + architect in London. Who inquires there? Nobody. We shall live there, + shall we not? Why need we be so alarmed?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And Elfie,’ said Stephen, his hopes kindling with hers, ‘Knight thinks + nothing of my being only a cottager’s son; he says I am as worthy of his + friendship as if I were a lord’s; and if I am worthy of his friendship, I + am worthy of you, am I not, Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I not only have never loved anybody but you,’ she said, instead of giving + an answer, ‘but I have not even formed a strong friendship, such as you + have for Knight. I wish you hadn’t. It diminishes me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, Elfride, you know better,’ he said wooingly. ‘And had you really + never any sweetheart at all?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘None that was ever recognized by me as such.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But did nobody ever love you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes—a man did once; very much, he said.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How long ago?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, a long time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How long, dearest? + </p> + <p> + ‘A twelvemonth.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s not VERY long’ (rather disappointedly). + </p> + <p> + ‘I said long, not very long.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And did he want to marry you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I believe he did. But I didn’t see anything in him. He was not good + enough, even if I had loved him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘May I ask what he was?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A farmer.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A farmer not good enough—how much better than my family!’ Stephen + murmured. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where is he now?’ he continued to Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘HERE.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Here! what do you mean by that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I mean that he is here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Under us. He is under this tomb. He is dead, and we are sitting on his + grave.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfie,’ said the young man, standing up and looking at the tomb, ‘how odd + and sad that revelation seems! It quite depresses me for the moment.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen! I didn’t wish to sit here; but you would do so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You never encouraged him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never by look, word, or sign,’ she said solemnly. ‘He died of + consumption, and was buried the day you first came.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let us go away. I don’t like standing by HIM, even if you never loved + him. He was BEFORE me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Worries make you unreasonable,’ she half pouted, following Stephen at the + distance of a few steps. ‘Perhaps I ought to have told you before we sat + down. Yes; let us go.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter IX + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Her father did fume’ +</pre> + <p> + Oppressed, in spite of themselves, by a foresight of impending + complications, Elfride and Stephen returned down the hill hand in hand. At + the door they paused wistfully, like children late at school. + </p> + <p> + Women accept their destiny more readily than men. Elfride had now resigned + herself to the overwhelming idea of her lover’s sorry antecedents; Stephen + had not forgotten the trifling grievance that Elfride had known earlier + admiration than his own. + </p> + <p> + ‘What was that young man’s name?’ he inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘Felix Jethway; a widow’s only son.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I remember the family.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She hates me now. She says I killed him.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen mused, and they entered the porch. + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen, I love only you,’ she tremulously whispered. He pressed her + fingers, and the trifling shadow passed away, to admit again the mutual + and more tangible trouble. + </p> + <p> + The study appeared to be the only room lighted up. They entered, each with + a demeanour intended to conceal the inconcealable fact that reciprocal + love was their dominant chord. Elfride perceived a man, sitting with his + back towards herself, talking to her father. She would have retired, but + Mr. Swancourt had seen her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come in,’ he said; ‘it is only Martin Cannister, come for a copy of the + register for poor Mrs. Jethway.’ + </p> + <p> + Martin Cannister, the sexton, was rather a favourite with Elfride. He used + to absorb her attention by telling her of his strange experiences in + digging up after long years the bodies of persons he had known, and + recognizing them by some little sign (though in reality he had never + recognized any). He had shrewd small eyes and a great wealth of double + chin, which compensated in some measure for considerable poverty of nose. + </p> + <p> + The appearance of a slip of paper in Cannister’s hand, and a few shillings + lying on the table in front of him, denoted that the business had been + transacted, and the tenor of their conversation went to show that a + summary of village news was now engaging the attention of parishioner and + parson. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Cannister stood up and touched his forehead over his eye with his + finger, in respectful salutation of Elfride, gave half as much salute to + Stephen (whom he, in common with other villagers, had never for a moment + recognized), then sat down again and resumed his discourse. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where had I got on to, sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To driving the pile,’ said Mr. Swancourt. + </p> + <p> + ‘The pile ‘twas. So, as I was saying, Nat was driving the pile in this + manner, as I might say.’ Here Mr. Cannister held his walking-stick + scrupulously vertical with his left hand, and struck a blow with great + force on the knob of the stick with his right. ‘John was steadying the + pile so, as I might say.’ Here he gave the stick a slight shake, and + looked firmly in the various eyes around to see that before proceeding + further his listeners well grasped the subject at that stage. ‘Well, when + Nat had struck some half-dozen blows more upon the pile, ‘a stopped for a + second or two. John, thinking he had done striking, put his hand upon the + top o’ the pile to gie en a pull, and see if ‘a were firm in the ground.’ + Mr. Cannister spread his hand over the top of the stick, completely + covering it with his palm. ‘Well, so to speak, Nat hadn’t maned to stop + striking, and when John had put his hand upon the pile, the beetle——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh dreadful!’ said Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘The beetle was already coming down, you see, sir. Nat just caught sight + of his hand, but couldn’t stop the blow in time. Down came the beetle upon + poor John Smith’s hand, and squashed en to a pummy.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear me, dear me! poor fellow!’ said the vicar, with an intonation like + the groans of the wounded in a pianoforte performance of the ‘Battle of + Prague.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘John Smith, the master-mason?’ cried Stephen hurriedly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, no other; and a better-hearted man God A’mighty never made.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is he so much hurt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have heard,’ said Mr. Swancourt, not noticing Stephen, ‘that he has a + son in London, a very promising young fellow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, how he must be hurt!’ repeated Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘A beetle couldn’t hurt very little. Well, sir, good-night t’ye; and ye, + sir; and you, miss, I’m sure.’ + </p> + <p> + Mr. Cannister had been making unnoticeable motions of withdrawal, and by + the time this farewell remark came from his lips he was just outside the + door of the room. He tramped along the hall, stayed more than a minute + endeavouring to close the door properly, and then was lost to their + hearing. + </p> + <p> + Stephen had meanwhile turned and said to the vicar: + </p> + <p> + ‘Please excuse me this evening! I must leave. John Smith is my father.’ + </p> + <p> + The vicar did not comprehend at first. + </p> + <p> + ‘What did you say?’ he inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘John Smith is my father,’ said Stephen deliberately. + </p> + <p> + A surplus tinge of redness rose from Mr. Swancourt’s neck, and came round + over his face, the lines of his features became more firmly defined, and + his lips seemed to get thinner. It was evident that a series of little + circumstances, hitherto unheeded, were now fitting themselves together, + and forming a lucid picture in Mr. Swancourt’s mind in such a manner as to + render useless further explanation on Stephen’s part. + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed,’ the vicar said, in a voice dry and without inflection. + </p> + <p> + This being a word which depends entirely upon its tone for its meaning, + Mr. Swancourt’s enunciation was equivalent to no expression at all. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have to go now,’ said Stephen, with an agitated bearing, and a movement + as if he scarcely knew whether he ought to run off or stay longer. ‘On my + return, sir, will you kindly grant me a few minutes’ private + conversation?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly. Though antecedently it does not seem possible that there can + be anything of the nature of private business between us.’ + </p> + <p> + Mr. Swancourt put on his straw hat, crossed the drawing-room, into which + the moonlight was shining, and stepped out of the French window into the + verandah. It required no further effort to perceive what, indeed, + reasoning might have foretold as the natural colour of a mind whose + pleasures were taken amid genealogies, good dinners, and patrician + reminiscences, that Mr. Swancourt’s prejudices were too strong for his + generosity, and that Stephen’s moments as his friend and equal were + numbered, or had even now ceased. + </p> + <p> + Stephen moved forward as if he would follow the vicar, then as if he would + not, and in absolute perplexity whither to turn himself, went awkwardly to + the door. Elfride followed lingeringly behind him. Before he had receded + two yards from the doorstep, Unity and Ann the housemaid came home from + their visit to the village. + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you heard anything about John Smith? The accident is not so bad as + was reported, is it?’ said Elfride intuitively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no; the doctor says it is only a bad bruise.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought so!’ cried Elfride gladly. + </p> + <p> + ‘He says that, although Nat believes he did not check the beetle as it + came down, he must have done so without knowing it—checked it very + considerably too; for the full blow would have knocked his hand abroad, + and in reality it is only made black-and-blue like.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How thankful I am!’ said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + The perplexed Unity looked at him with her mouth rather than with her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘That will do, Unity,’ said Elfride magisterially; and the two maids + passed on. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, do you forgive me?’ said Stephen with a faint smile. ‘No man is + fair in love;’ and he took her fingers lightly in his own. + </p> + <p> + With her head thrown sideways in the Greuze attitude, she looked a tender + reproach at his doubt and pressed his hand. Stephen returned the pressure + threefold, then hastily went off to his father’s cottage by the wall of + Endelstow Park. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, what have you to say to this?’ inquired her father, coming up + immediately Stephen had retired. + </p> + <p> + With feminine quickness she grasped at any straw that would enable her to + plead his cause. ‘He had told me of it,’ she faltered; ‘so that it is not + a discovery in spite of him. He was just coming in to tell you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘COMING to tell! Why hadn’t he already told? I object as much, if not + more, to his underhand concealment of this, than I do to the fact itself. + It looks very much like his making a fool of me, and of you too. You and + he have been about together, and corresponding together, in a way I don’t + at all approve of—in a most unseemly way. You should have known how + improper such conduct is. A woman can’t be too careful not to be seen + alone with I-don’t-know-whom.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You saw us, papa, and have never said a word.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My fault, of course; my fault. What the deuce could I be thinking of! He, + a villager’s son; and we, Swancourts, connections of the Luxellians. We + have been coming to nothing for centuries, and now I believe we have got + there. What shall I next invite here, I wonder!’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride began to cry at this very unpropitious aspect of affairs. ‘O papa, + papa, forgive me and him! We care so much for one another, papa—O, + so much! And what he was going to ask you is, if you will allow of an + engagement between us till he is a gentleman as good as you. We are not in + a hurry, dear papa; we don’t want in the least to marry now; not until he + is richer. Only will you let us be engaged, because I love him so, and he + loves me?’ + </p> + <p> + Mr. Swancourt’s feelings were a little touched by this appeal, and he was + annoyed that such should be the case. ‘Certainly not!’ he replied. He + pronounced the inhibition lengthily and sonorously, so that the ‘not’ + sounded like ‘n-o-o-o-t!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no, no; don’t say it!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Foh! A fine story. It is not enough that I have been deluded and + disgraced by having him here,—the son of one of my village peasants,—but + now I am to make him my son-in-law! Heavens above us, are you mad, + Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have seen his letters come to me ever since his first visit, papa, + and you knew they were a sort of—love-letters; and since he has been + here you have let him be alone with me almost entirely; and you guessed, + you must have guessed, what we were thinking of, and doing, and you didn’t + stop him. Next to love-making comes love-winning, and you knew it would + come to that, papa.’ + </p> + <p> + The vicar parried this common-sense thrust. ‘I know—since you press + me so—I know I did guess some childish attachment might arise + between you; I own I did not take much trouble to prevent it; but I have + not particularly countenanced it; and, Elfride, how can you expect that I + should now? It is impossible; no father in England would hear of such a + thing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But he is the same man, papa; the same in every particular; and how can + he be less fit for me than he was before?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He appeared a young man with well-to-do friends, and a little property; + but having neither, he is another man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You inquired nothing about him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I went by Hewby’s introduction. He should have told me. So should the + young man himself; of course he should. I consider it a most dishonourable + thing to come into a man’s house like a treacherous I-don’t-know-what.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But he was afraid to tell you, and so should I have been. He loved me too + well to like to run the risk. And as to speaking of his friends on his + first visit, I don’t see why he should have done so at all. He came here + on business: it was no affair of ours who his parents were. And then he + knew that if he told you he would never be asked here, and would perhaps + never see me again. And he wanted to see me. Who can blame him for trying, + by any means, to stay near me—the girl he loves? All is fair in + love. I have heard you say so yourself, papa; and you yourself would have + done just as he has—so would any man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And any man, on discovering what I have discovered, would also do as I + do, and mend my mistake; that is, get shot of him again, as soon as the + laws of hospitality will allow.’ But Mr. Swancourt then remembered that he + was a Christian. ‘I would not, for the world, seem to turn him out of + doors,’ he added; ‘but I think he will have the tact to see that he cannot + stay long after this, with good taste.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He will, because he’s a gentleman. See how graceful his manners are,’ + Elfride went on; though perhaps Stephen’s manners, like the feats of + Euryalus, owed their attractiveness in her eyes rather to the + attractiveness of his person than to their own excellence. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay; anybody can be what you call graceful, if he lives a little time in a + city, and keeps his eyes open. And he might have picked up his + gentlemanliness by going to the galleries of theatres, and watching stage + drawing-room manners. He reminds me of one of the worst stories I ever + heard in my life.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What story was that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, thank you! I wouldn’t tell you such an improper matter for the + world!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If his father and mother had lived in the north or east of England,’ + gallantly persisted Elfride, though her sobs began to interrupt her + articulation, ‘anywhere but here—you—would have—only + regarded—HIM, and not THEM! His station—would have—been + what—his profession makes it,—and not fixed by—his + father’s humble position—at all; whom he never lives with—now. + Though John Smith has saved lots of money, and is better off than we are, + they say, or he couldn’t have put his son to such an expensive profession. + And it is clever and—honourable—of Stephen, to be the best of + his family.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. “Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the + king’s mess.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You insult me, papa!’ she burst out. ‘You do, you do! He is my own + Stephen, he is!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That may or may not be true, Elfride,’ returned her father, again + uncomfortably agitated in spite of himself ‘You confuse future + probabilities with present facts,—what the young man may be with + what he is. We must look at what he is, not what an improbable degree of + success in his profession may make him. The case is this: the son of a + working-man in my parish who may or may not be able to buy me up—a + youth who has not yet advanced so far into life as to have any income of + his own deserving the name, and therefore of his father’s degree as + regards station—wants to be engaged to you. His family are living in + precisely the same spot in England as yours, so throughout this county—which + is the world to us—you would always be known as the wife of Jack + Smith the mason’s son, and not under any circumstances as the wife of a + London professional man. It is the drawback, not the compensating fact, + that is talked of always. There, say no more. You may argue all night, and + prove what you will; I’ll stick to my words.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked silently and hopelessly out of the window with large heavy + eyes and wet cheeks. + </p> + <p> + ‘I call it great temerity—and long to call it audacity—in + Hewby,’ resumed her father. ‘I never heard such a thing—giving such + a hobbledehoy native of this place such an introduction to me as he did. + Naturally you were deceived as well as I was. I don’t blame you at all, so + far.’ He went and searched for Mr. Hewby’s original letter. ‘Here’s what + he said to me: “Dear Sir,—Agreeably to your request of the 18th + instant, I have arranged to survey and make drawings,” et cetera. “My + assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith,”—assistant, you see he called him, and + naturally I understood him to mean a sort of partner. Why didn’t he say + “clerk”?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They never call them clerks in that profession, because they do not + write. Stephen—Mr. Smith—told me so. So that Mr. Hewby simply + used the accepted word.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me speak, please, Elfride! My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, will + leave London by the early train to-morrow morning...MANY THANKS FOR YOUR + PROPOSAL TO ACCOMMODATE HIM...YOU MAY PUT EVERY CONFIDENCE IN HIM, and may + rely upon his discernment in the matter of church architecture.” Well, I + repeat that Hewby ought to be ashamed of himself for making so much of a + poor lad of that sort.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Professional men in London,’ Elfride argued, ‘don’t know anything about + their clerks’ fathers and mothers. They have assistants who come to their + offices and shops for years, and hardly even know where they live. What + they can do—what profits they can bring the firm—that’s all + London men care about. And that is helped in him by his faculty of being + uniformly pleasant.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Uniform pleasantness is rather a defect than a faculty. It shows that a + man hasn’t sense enough to know whom to despise.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It shows that he acts by faith and not by sight, as those you claim + succession from directed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s some more of what he’s been telling you, I suppose! Yes, I was + inclined to suspect him, because he didn’t care about sauces of any kind. + I always did doubt a man’s being a gentleman if his palate had no acquired + tastes. An unedified palate is the irrepressible cloven foot of the + upstart. The idea of my bringing out a bottle of my ‘40 Martinez—only + eleven of them left now—to a man who didn’t know it from + eighteenpenny! Then the Latin line he gave to my quotation; it was very + cut-and-dried, very; or I, who haven’t looked into a classical author for + the last eighteen years, shouldn’t have remembered it. Well, Elfride, you + had better go to your room; you’ll get over this bit of tomfoolery in + time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no, no, papa,’ she moaned. For of all the miseries attaching to + miserable love, the worst is the misery of thinking that the passion which + is the cause of them all may cease. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride,’ said her father with rough friendliness, ‘I have an excellent + scheme on hand, which I cannot tell you of now. A scheme to benefit you + and me. It has been thrust upon me for some little time—yes, thrust + upon me—but I didn’t dream of its value till this afternoon, when + the revelation came. I should be most unwise to refuse to entertain it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t like that word,’ she returned wearily. ‘You have lost so much + already by schemes. Is it those wretched mines again?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; not a mining scheme.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Railways?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nor railways. It is like those mysterious offers we see advertised, by + which any gentleman with no brains at all may make so much a week without + risk, trouble, or soiling his fingers. However, I am intending to say + nothing till it is settled, though I will just say this much, that you + soon may have other fish to fry than to think of Stephen Smith. Remember, + I wish, not to be angry, but friendly, to the young man; for your sake + I’ll regard him as a friend in a certain sense. But this is enough; in a + few days you will be quite my way of thinking. There, now, go to your + bedroom. Unity shall bring you up some supper. I wish you not to be here + when he comes back.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter X + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Beneath the shelter of an aged tree.’ +</pre> + <p> + Stephen retraced his steps towards the cottage he had visited only two or + three hours previously. He drew near and under the rich foliage growing + about the outskirts of Endelstow Park, the spotty lights and shades from + the shining moon maintaining a race over his head and down his back in an + endless gambol. When he crossed the plank bridge and entered the + garden-gate, he saw an illuminated figure coming from the enclosed plot + towards the house on the other side. It was his father, with his hand in a + sling, taking a general moonlight view of the garden, and particularly of + a plot of the youngest of young turnips, previous to closing the cottage + for the night. + </p> + <p> + He saluted his son with customary force. ‘Hallo, Stephen! We should ha’ + been in bed in another ten minutes. Come to see what’s the matter wi’ me, + I suppose, my lad?’ + </p> + <p> + The doctor had come and gone, and the hand had been pronounced as injured + but slightly, though it might possibly have been considered a far more + serious case if Mr. Smith had been a more important man. Stephen’s anxious + inquiry drew from his father words of regret at the inconvenience to the + world of his doing nothing for the next two days, rather than of concern + for the pain of the accident. Together they entered the house. + </p> + <p> + John Smith—brown as autumn as to skin, white as winter as to clothes—was + a satisfactory specimen of the village artificer in stone. In common with + most rural mechanics, he had too much individuality to be a typical + ‘working-man’—a resultant of that beach-pebble attrition with his + kind only to be experienced in large towns, which metamorphoses the unit + Self into a fraction of the unit Class. + </p> + <p> + There was not the speciality in his labour which distinguishes the + handicraftsmen of towns. Though only a mason, strictly speaking, he was + not above handling a brick, if bricks were the order of the day; or a + slate or tile, if a roof had to be covered before the wet weather set in, + and nobody was near who could do it better. Indeed, on one or two + occasions in the depth of winter, when frost peremptorily forbids all use + of the trowel, making foundations to settle, stones to fly, and mortar to + crumble, he had taken to felling and sawing trees. Moreover, he had + practised gardening in his own plot for so many years that, on an + emergency, he might have made a living by that calling. + </p> + <p> + Probably our countryman was not such an accomplished artificer in a + particular direction as his town brethren in the trades. But he was, in + truth, like that clumsy pin-maker who made the whole pin, and who was + despised by Adam Smith on that account and respected by Macaulay, much + more the artist nevertheless. + </p> + <p> + Appearing now, indoors, by the light of the candle, his stalwart + healthiness was a sight to see. His beard was close and knotted as that of + a chiselled Hercules; his shirt sleeves were partly rolled up, his + waistcoat unbuttoned; the difference in hue between the snowy linen and + the ruddy arms and face contrasting like the white of an egg and its yolk. + Mrs. Smith, on hearing them enter, advanced from the pantry. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Smith was a matron whose countenance addressed itself to the mind + rather than to the eye, though not exclusively. She retained her personal + freshness even now, in the prosy afternoon-time of her life; but what her + features were primarily indicative of was a sound common sense behind + them; as a whole, appearing to carry with them a sort of argumentative + commentary on the world in general. + </p> + <p> + The details of the accident were then rehearsed by Stephen’s father, in + the dramatic manner also common to Martin Cannister, other individuals of + the neighbourhood, and the rural world generally. Mrs. Smith threw in her + sentiments between the acts, as Coryphaeus of the tragedy, to make the + description complete. The story at last came to an end, as the longest + will, and Stephen directed the conversation into another channel. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, mother, they know everything about me now,’ he said quietly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well done!’ replied his father; ‘now my mind’s at peace.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I blame myself—I never shall forgive myself—for not telling + them before,’ continued the young man. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Smith at this point abstracted her mind from the former subject. ‘I + don’t see what you have to grieve about, Stephen,’ she said. ‘People who + accidentally get friends don’t, as a first stroke, tell the history of + their families.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ye’ve done no wrong, certainly,’ said his father. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; but I should have spoken sooner. There’s more in this visit of mine + than you think—a good deal more.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not more than I think,’ Mrs. Smith replied, looking contemplatively at + him. Stephen blushed; and his father looked from one to the other in a + state of utter incomprehension. + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s a pretty piece enough,’ Mrs. Smith continued, ‘and very lady-like + and clever too. But though she’s very well fit for you as far as that is, + why, mercy ‘pon me, what ever do you want any woman at all for yet?’ + </p> + <p> + John made his naturally short mouth a long one, and wrinkled his forehead, + ‘That’s the way the wind d’blow, is it?’ he said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mother,’ exclaimed Stephen, ‘how absurdly you speak! Criticizing whether + she’s fit for me or no, as if there were room for doubt on the matter! + Why, to marry her would be the great blessing of my life—socially + and practically, as well as in other respects. No such good fortune as + that, I’m afraid; she’s too far above me. Her family doesn’t want such + country lads as I in it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then if they don’t want you, I’d see them dead corpses before I’d want + them, and go to better families who do want you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, yes; but I could never put up with the distaste of being welcomed + among such people as you mean, whilst I could get indifference among such + people as hers.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What crazy twist o’ thinking will enter your head next?’ said his mother. + ‘And come to that, she’s not a bit too high for you, or you too low for + her. See how careful I be to keep myself up. I’m sure I never stop for + more than a minute together to talk to any journeymen people; and I never + invite anybody to our party o’ Christmases who are not in business for + themselves. And I talk to several toppermost carriage people that come to + my lord’s without saying ma’am or sir to ‘em, and they take it as quiet as + lambs.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You curtseyed to the vicar, mother; and I wish you hadn’t.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But it was before he called me by my Christian name, or he would have got + very little curtseying from me!’ said Mrs. Smith, bridling and sparkling + with vexation. ‘You go on at me, Stephen, as if I were your worst enemy! + What else could I do with the man to get rid of him, banging it into me + and your father by side and by seam, about his greatness, and what + happened when he was a young fellow at college, and I don’t know what-all; + the tongue o’ en flopping round his mouth like a mop-rag round a dairy. + That ‘a did, didn’t he, John?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s about the size o’t,’ replied her husband. + </p> + <p> + ‘Every woman now-a-days,’ resumed Mrs. Smith, ‘if she marry at all, must + expect a father-in-law of a rank lower than her father. The men have gone + up so, and the women have stood still. Every man you meet is more the dand + than his father; and you are just level wi’ her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s what she thinks herself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It only shows her sense. I knew she was after ‘ee, Stephen—I knew + it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘After me! Good Lord, what next!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I really must say again that you ought not to be in such a hurry, and + wait for a few years. You might go higher than a bankrupt pa’son’s girl + then.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The fact is, mother,’ said Stephen impatiently, ‘you don’t know anything + about it. I shall never go higher, because I don’t want to, nor should I + if I lived to be a hundred. As to you saying that she’s after me, I don’t + like such a remark about her, for it implies a scheming woman, and a man + worth scheming for, both of which are not only untrue, but ludicrously + untrue, of this case. Isn’t it so, father?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand the matter well enough to gie my opinion,’ + said his father, in the tone of the fox who had a cold and could not + smell. + </p> + <p> + ‘She couldn’t have been very backward anyhow, considering the short time + you have known her,’ said his mother. ‘Well I think that five years hence + you’ll be plenty young enough to think of such things. And really she can + very well afford to wait, and will too, take my word. Living down in an + out-step place like this, I am sure she ought to be very thankful that you + took notice of her. She’d most likely have died an old maid if you hadn’t + turned up.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘All nonsense,’ said Stephen, but not aloud. + </p> + <p> + ‘A nice little thing she is,’ Mrs. Smith went on in a more complacent tone + now that Stephen had been talked down; ‘there’s not a word to say against + her, I’ll own. I see her sometimes decked out like a horse going to fair, + and I admire her for’t. A perfect little lady. But people can’t help their + thoughts, and if she’d learnt to make figures instead of letters when she + was at school ‘twould have been better for her pocket; for as I said, + there never were worse times for such as she than now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, now, mother!’ said Stephen with smiling deprecation. + </p> + <p> + ‘But I will!’ said his mother with asperity. ‘I don’t read the papers for + nothing, and I know men all move up a stage by marriage. Men of her class, + that is, parsons, marry squires’ daughters; squires marry lords’ + daughters; lords marry dukes’ daughters; dukes marry queens’ daughters. + All stages of gentlemen mate a stage higher; and the lowest stage of + gentlewomen are left single, or marry out of their class.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you said just now, dear mother——’ retorted Stephen, + unable to resist the temptation of showing his mother her inconsistency. + Then he paused. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what did I say?’ And Mrs. Smith prepared her lips for a new + campaign. + </p> + <p> + Stephen, regretting that he had begun, since a volcano might be the + consequence, was obliged to go on. + </p> + <p> + ‘You said I wasn’t out of her class just before.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, there, there! That’s you; that’s my own flesh and blood. I’ll + warrant that you’ll pick holes in everything your mother says, if you can, + Stephen. You are just like your father for that; take anybody’s part but + mine. Whilst I am speaking and talking and trying and slaving away for + your good, you are waiting to catch me out in that way. So you are in her + class, but ‘tis what HER people would CALL marrying out of her class. + Don’t be so quarrelsome, Stephen!’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen preserved a discreet silence, in which he was imitated by his + father, and for several minutes nothing was heard but the ticking of the + green-faced case-clock against the wall. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m sure,’ added Mrs. Smith in a more philosophic tone, and as a + terminative speech, ‘if there’d been so much trouble to get a husband in + my time as there is in these days—when you must make a god-almighty + of a man to get en to hae ye—I’d have trod clay for bricks before + I’d ever have lowered my dignity to marry, or there’s no bread in nine + loaves.’ + </p> + <p> + The discussion now dropped, and as it was getting late, Stephen bade his + parents farewell for the evening, his mother none the less warmly for + their sparring; for although Mrs. Smith and Stephen were always + contending, they were never at enmity. + </p> + <p> + ‘And possibly,’ said Stephen, ‘I may leave here altogether to-morrow; I + don’t know. So that if I shouldn’t call again before returning to London, + don’t be alarmed, will you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But didn’t you come for a fortnight?’ said his mother. ‘And haven’t you a + month’s holiday altogether? They are going to turn you out, then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not at all. I may stay longer; I may go. If I go, you had better say + nothing about my having been here, for her sake. At what time of the + morning does the carrier pass Endelstow lane?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Seven o’clock.’ + </p> + <p> + And then he left them. His thoughts were, that should the vicar permit him + to become engaged, to hope for an engagement, or in any way to think of + his beloved Elfride, he might stay longer. Should he be forbidden to think + of any such thing, he resolved to go at once. And the latter, even to + young hopefulness, seemed the more probable alternative. + </p> + <p> + Stephen walked back to the vicarage through the meadows, as he had come, + surrounded by the soft musical purl of the water through little weirs, the + modest light of the moon, the freshening smell of the dews out-spread + around. It was a time when mere seeing is meditation, and meditation + peace. Stephen was hardly philosopher enough to avail himself of Nature’s + offer. His constitution was made up of very simple particulars; was one + which, rare in the spring-time of civilizations, seems to grow abundant as + a nation gets older, individuality fades, and education spreads; that is, + his brain had extraordinary receptive powers, and no great creativeness. + Quickly acquiring any kind of knowledge he saw around him, and having a + plastic adaptability more common in woman than in man, he changed colour + like a chameleon as the society he found himself in assumed a higher and + more artificial tone. He had not many original ideas, and yet there was + scarcely an idea to which, under proper training, he could not have added + a respectable co-ordinate. + </p> + <p> + He saw nothing outside himself to-night; and what he saw within was a + weariness to his flesh. Yet to a dispassionate observer, his pretensions + to Elfride, though rather premature, were far from absurd as marriages go, + unless the accidental proximity of simple but honest parents could be said + to make them so. + </p> + <p> + The clock struck eleven when he entered the house. Elfride had been + waiting with scarcely a movement since he departed. Before he had spoken + to her she caught sight of him passing into the study with her father. She + saw that he had by some means obtained the private interview he desired. + </p> + <p> + A nervous headache had been growing on the excitable girl during the + absence of Stephen, and now she could do nothing beyond going up again to + her room as she had done before. Instead of lying down she sat again in + the darkness without closing the door, and listened with a beating heart + to every sound from downstairs. The servants had gone to bed. She + ultimately heard the two men come from the study and cross to the + dining-room, where supper had been lingering for more than an hour. The + door was left open, and she found that the meal, such as it was, passed + off between her father and her lover without any remark, save commonplaces + as to cucumbers and melons, their wholesomeness and culture, uttered in a + stiff and formal way. It seemed to prefigure failure. + </p> + <p> + Shortly afterwards Stephen came upstairs to his bedroom, and was almost + immediately followed by her father, who also retired for the night. Not + inclined to get a light, she partly undressed and sat on the bed, where + she remained in pained thought for some time, possibly an hour. Then + rising to close her door previously to fully unrobing, she saw a streak of + light shining across the landing. Her father’s door was shut, and he could + be heard snoring regularly. The light came from Stephen’s room, and the + slight sounds also coming thence emphatically denoted what he was doing. + In the perfect silence she could hear the closing of a lid and the + clicking of a lock,—he was fastening his hat-box. Then the buckling + of straps and the click of another key,—he was securing his + portmanteau. With trebled foreboding she opened her door softly, and went + towards his. One sensation pervaded her to distraction. Stephen, her + handsome youth and darling, was going away, and she might never see him + again except in secret and in sadness—perhaps never more. At any + rate, she could no longer wait till the morning to hear the result of the + interview, as she had intended. She flung her dressing-gown round her, + tapped lightly at his door, and whispered ‘Stephen!’ He came instantly, + opened the door, and stepped out. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me; are we to hope?’ + </p> + <p> + He replied in a disturbed whisper, and a tear approached its outlet, + though none fell. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am not to think of such a preposterous thing—that’s what he said. + And I am going to-morrow. I should have called you up to bid you + good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But he didn’t say you were to go—O Stephen, he didn’t say that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; not in words. But I cannot stay.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, don’t, don’t go! Do come and let us talk. Let us come down to the + drawing-room for a few minutes; he will hear us here.’ + </p> + <p> + She preceded him down the staircase with the taper light in her hand, + looking unnaturally tall and thin in the long dove-coloured dressing-gown + she wore. She did not stop to think of the propriety or otherwise of this + midnight interview under such circumstances. She thought that the tragedy + of her life was beginning, and, for the first time almost, felt that her + existence might have a grave side, the shade of which enveloped and + rendered invisible the delicate gradations of custom and punctilio. + Elfride softly opened the drawing-room door and they both went in. When + she had placed the candle on the table, he enclosed her with his arms, + dried her eyes with his handkerchief, and kissed their lids. + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen, it is over—happy love is over; and there is no more + sunshine now!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will make a fortune, and come to you, and have you. Yes, I will!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Papa will never hear of it—never—never! You don’t know him. I + do. He is either biassed in favour of a thing, or prejudiced against it. + Argument is powerless against either feeling.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; I won’t think of him so,’ said Stephen. ‘If I appear before him some + time hence as a man of established name, he will accept me—I know he + will. He is not a wicked man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, he is not wicked. But you say “some time hence,” as if it were no + time. To you, among bustle and excitement, it will be comparatively a + short time, perhaps; oh, to me, it will be its real length trebled! Every + summer will be a year—autumn a year—winter a year! O Stephen! + and you may forget me!’ + </p> + <p> + Forget: that was, and is, the real sting of waiting to fond-hearted woman. + The remark awoke in Stephen the converse fear. ‘You, too, may be persuaded + to give me up, when time has made me fainter in your memory. For, + remember, your love for me must be nourished in secret; there will be no + long visits from me to support you. Circumstances will always tend to + obliterate me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen,’ she said, filled with her own misgivings, and unheeding his + last words, ‘there are beautiful women where you live—of course I + know there are—and they may win you away from me.’ Her tears came + visibly as she drew a mental picture of his faithlessness. ‘And it won’t + be your fault,’ she continued, looking into the candle with doleful eyes. + ‘No! You will think that our family don’t want you, and get to include me + with them. And there will be a vacancy in your heart, and some others will + be let in.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I could not, I would not. Elfie, do not be so full of forebodings.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, they will,’ she replied. ‘And you will look at them, not caring + at first, and then you will look and be interested, and after a while you + will think, “Ah, they know all about city life, and assemblies, and + coteries, and the manners of the titled, and poor little Elfie, with all + the fuss that’s made about her having me, doesn’t know about anything but + a little house and a few cliffs and a space of sea, far away.” And then + you’ll be more interested in them, and they’ll make you have them instead + of me, on purpose to be cruel to me because I am silly, and they are + clever and hate me. And I hate them, too; yes, I do!’ + </p> + <p> + Her impulsive words had power to impress him at any rate with the + recognition of the uncertainty of all that is not accomplished. And, worse + than that general feeling, there of course remained the sadness which + arose from the special features of his own case. However remote a desired + issue may be, the mere fact of having entered the groove which leads to + it, cheers to some extent with a sense of accomplishment. Had Mr. + Swancourt consented to an engagement of no less length than ten years, + Stephen would have been comparatively cheerful in waiting; they would have + felt that they were somewhere on the road to Cupid’s garden. But, with a + possibility of a shorter probation, they had not as yet any prospect of + the beginning; the zero of hope had yet to be reached. Mr. Swancourt would + have to revoke his formidable words before the waiting for marriage could + even set in. And this was despair. + </p> + <p> + ‘I wish we could marry now,’ murmured Stephen, as an impossible fancy. + </p> + <p> + ‘So do I,’ said she also, as if regarding an idle dream. ‘’Tis the only + thing that ever does sweethearts good!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Secretly would do, would it not, Elfie?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, secretly would do; secretly would indeed be best,’ she said, and + went on reflectively: ‘All we want is to render it absolutely impossible + for any future circumstance to upset our future intention of being happy + together; not to begin being happy now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Exactly,’ he murmured in a voice and manner the counterpart of hers. ‘To + marry and part secretly, and live on as we are living now; merely to put + it out of anybody’s power to force you away from me, dearest.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Or you away from me, Stephen.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Or me from you. It is possible to conceive a force of circumstance strong + enough to make any woman in the world marry against her will: no + conceivable pressure, up to torture or starvation, can make a woman once + married to her lover anybody else’s wife.’ + </p> + <p> + Now up to this point the idea of an immediate secret marriage had been + held by both as an untenable hypothesis, wherewith simply to beguile a + miserable moment. During a pause which followed Stephen’s last remark, a + fascinating perception, then an alluring conviction, flashed along the + brain of both. The perception was that an immediate marriage COULD be + contrived; the conviction that such an act, in spite of its daring, its + fathomless results, its deceptiveness, would be preferred by each to the + life they must lead under any other conditions. + </p> + <p> + The youth spoke first, and his voice trembled with the magnitude of the + conception he was cherishing. ‘How strong we should feel, Elfride! going + on our separate courses as before, without the fear of ultimate + separation! O Elfride! think of it; think of it!’ + </p> + <p> + It is certain that the young girl’s love for Stephen received a fanning + from her father’s opposition which made it blaze with a dozen times the + intensity it would have exhibited if left alone. Never were conditions + more favourable for developing a girl’s first passing fancy for a handsome + boyish face—a fancy rooted in inexperience and nourished by + seclusion—into a wild unreflecting passion fervid enough for + anything. All the elements of such a development were there, the chief one + being hopelessness—a necessary ingredient always to perfect the + mixture of feelings united under the name of loving to distraction. + </p> + <p> + ‘We would tell papa soon, would we not?’ she inquired timidly. ‘Nobody + else need know. He would then be convinced that hearts cannot be played + with; love encouraged be ready to grow, love discouraged be ready to die, + at a moment’s notice. Stephen, do you not think that if marriages against + a parent’s consent are ever justifiable, they are when young people have + been favoured up to a point, as we have, and then have had that favour + suddenly withdrawn?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. It is not as if we had from the beginning acted in opposition to + your papa’s wishes. Only think, Elfie, how pleasant he was towards me but + six hours ago! He liked me, praised me, never objected to my being alone + with you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I believe he MUST like you now,’ she cried. ‘And if he found that you + irremediably belonged to me, he would own it and help you. ‘O Stephen, + Stephen,’ she burst out again, as the remembrance of his packing came + afresh to her mind, ‘I cannot bear your going away like this! It is too + dreadful. All I have been expecting miserably killed within me like this!’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen flushed hot with impulse. ‘I will not be a doubt to you—thought + of you shall not be a misery to me!’ he said. ‘We will be wife and husband + before we part for long!’ + </p> + <p> + She hid her face on his shoulder. ‘Anything to make SURE!’ she whispered. + </p> + <p> + ‘I did not like to propose it immediately,’ continued Stephen. ‘It seemed + to me—it seems to me now—like trying to catch you—a girl + better in the world than I.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not that, indeed! And am I better in worldly station? What’s the use of + have beens? We may have been something once; we are nothing now.’ + </p> + <p> + Then they whispered long and earnestly together; Stephen hesitatingly + proposing this and that plan, Elfride modifying them, with quick + breathings, and hectic flush, and unnaturally bright eyes. It was two + o’clock before an arrangement was finally concluded. + </p> + <p> + She then told him to leave her, giving him his light to go up to his own + room. They parted with an agreement not to meet again in the morning. + After his door had been some time closed he heard her softly gliding into + her chamber. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XI + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Journeys end in lovers meeting.’ +</pre> + <p> + Stephen lay watching the Great Bear; Elfride was regarding a monotonous + parallelogram of window blind. Neither slept that night. + </p> + <p> + Early the next morning—that is to say, four hours after their stolen + interview, and just as the earliest servant was heard moving about—Stephen + Smith went downstairs, portmanteau in hand. Throughout the night he had + intended to see Mr. Swancourt again, but the sharp rebuff of the previous + evening rendered such an interview particularly distasteful. Perhaps there + was another and less honest reason. He decided to put it off. Whatever of + moral timidity or obliquity may have lain in such a decision, no + perception of it was strong enough to detain him. He wrote a note in his + room, which stated simply that he did not feel happy in the house after + Mr. Swancourt’s sudden veto on what he had favoured a few hours before; + but that he hoped a time would come, and that soon, when his original + feelings of pleasure as Mr. Swancourt’s guest might be recovered. + </p> + <p> + He expected to find the downstairs rooms wearing the gray and cheerless + aspect that early morning gives to everything out of the sun. He found in + the dining room a breakfast laid, of which somebody had just partaken. + </p> + <p> + Stephen gave the maid-servant his note of adieu. She stated that Mr. + Swancourt had risen early that morning, and made an early breakfast. He + was not going away that she knew of. + </p> + <p> + Stephen took a cup of coffee, left the house of his love, and turned into + the lane. It was so early that the shaded places still smelt like night + time, and the sunny spots had hardly felt the sun. The horizontal rays + made every shallow dip in the ground to show as a well-marked hollow. Even + the channel of the path was enough to throw shade, and the very stones of + the road cast tapering dashes of darkness westward, as long as Jael’s + tent-nail. + </p> + <p> + At a spot not more than a hundred yards from the vicar’s residence the + lane leading thence crossed the high road. Stephen reached the point of + intersection, stood still and listened. Nothing could be heard save the + lengthy, murmuring line of the sea upon the adjacent shore. He looked at + his watch, and then mounted a gate upon which he seated himself, to await + the arrival of the carrier. Whilst he sat he heard wheels coming in two + directions. + </p> + <p> + The vehicle approaching on his right he soon recognized as the carrier’s. + There were the accompanying sounds of the owner’s voice and the smack of + his whip, distinct in the still morning air, by which he encouraged his + horses up the hill. + </p> + <p> + The other set of wheels sounded from the lane Stephen had just traversed. + On closer observation, he perceived that they were moving from the + precincts of the ancient manor-house adjoining the vicarage grounds. A + carriage then left the entrance gates of the house, and wheeling round + came fully in sight. It was a plain travelling carriage, with a small + quantity of luggage, apparently a lady’s. The vehicle came to the junction + of the four ways half-a-minute before the carrier reached the same spot, + and crossed directly in his front, proceeding by the lane on the other + side. + </p> + <p> + Inside the carriage Stephen could just discern an elderly lady with a + younger woman, who seemed to be her maid. The road they had taken led to + Stratleigh, a small watering-place sixteen miles north. + </p> + <p> + He heard the manor-house gates swing again, and looking up saw another + person leaving them, and walking off in the direction of the parsonage. + ‘Ah, how much I wish I were moving that way!’ felt he parenthetically. The + gentleman was tall, and resembled Mr. Swancourt in outline and attire. He + opened the vicarage gate and went in. Mr. Swancourt, then, it certainly + was. Instead of remaining in bed that morning Mr. Swancourt must have + taken it into his head to see his new neighbour off on a journey. He must + have been greatly interested in that neighbour to do such an unusual + thing. + </p> + <p> + The carrier’s conveyance had pulled up, and Stephen now handed in his + portmanteau and mounted the shafts. ‘Who is that lady in the carriage?’ he + inquired indifferently of Lickpan the carrier. + </p> + <p> + ‘That, sir, is Mrs. Troyton, a widder wi’ a mint o’ money. She’s the owner + of all that part of Endelstow that is not Lord Luxellian’s. Only been here + a short time; she came into it by law. The owner formerly was a terrible + mysterious party—never lived here—hardly ever was seen here + except in the month of September, as I might say.’ + </p> + <p> + The horses were started again, and noise rendered further discourse a + matter of too great exertion. Stephen crept inside under the tilt, and was + soon lost in reverie. + </p> + <p> + Three hours and a half of straining up hills and jogging down brought them + to St. Launce’s, the market town and railway station nearest to Endelstow, + and the place from which Stephen Smith had journeyed over the downs on + the, to him, memorable winter evening at the beginning of the same year. + The carrier’s van was so timed as to meet a starting up-train, which + Stephen entered. Two or three hours’ railway travel through vertical + cuttings in metamorphic rock, through oak copses rich and green, + stretching over slopes and down delightful valleys, glens, and ravines, + sparkling with water like many-rilled Ida, and he plunged amid the hundred + and fifty thousand people composing the town of Plymouth. + </p> + <p> + There being some time upon his hands he left his luggage at the + cloak-room, and went on foot along Bedford Street to the nearest church. + Here Stephen wandered among the multifarious tombstones and looked in at + the chancel window, dreaming of something that was likely to happen by the + altar there in the course of the coming month. He turned away and ascended + the Hoe, viewed the magnificent stretch of sea and massive promontories of + land, but without particularly discerning one feature of the varied + perspective. He still saw that inner prospect—the event he hoped for + in yonder church. The wide Sound, the Breakwater, the light-house on + far-off Eddystone, the dark steam vessels, brigs, barques, and schooners, + either floating stilly, or gliding with tiniest motion, were as the dream, + then; the dreamed-of event was as the reality. + </p> + <p> + Soon Stephen went down from the Hoe, and returned to the railway station. + He took his ticket, and entered the London train. + </p> + <p> + That day was an irksome time at Endelstow vicarage. Neither father nor + daughter alluded to the departure of Stephen. Mr. Swancourt’s manner + towards her partook of the compunctious kindness that arises from a + misgiving as to the justice of some previous act. + </p> + <p> + Either from lack of the capacity to grasp the whole coup d’oeil, or from a + natural endowment for certain kinds of stoicism, women are cooler than men + in critical situations of the passive form. Probably, in Elfride’s case at + least, it was blindness to the greater contingencies of the future she was + preparing for herself, which enabled her to ask her father in a quiet + voice if he could give her a holiday soon, to ride to St. Launce’s and go + on to Plymouth. + </p> + <p> + Now, she had only once before gone alone to Plymouth, and that was in + consequence of some unavoidable difficulty. Being a country girl, and a + good, not to say a wild, horsewoman, it had been her delight to canter, + without the ghost of an attendant, over the fourteen or sixteen miles of + hard road intervening between their home and the station at St. Launce’s, + put up the horse, and go on the remainder of the distance by train, + returning in the same manner in the evening. It was then resolved that, + though she had successfully accomplished this journey once, it was not to + be repeated without some attendance. + </p> + <p> + But Elfride must not be confounded with ordinary young feminine + equestrians. The circumstances of her lonely and narrow life made it + imperative that in trotting about the neighbourhood she must trot alone or + else not at all. Usage soon rendered this perfectly natural to herself. + Her father, who had had other experiences, did not much like the idea of a + Swancourt, whose pedigree could be as distinctly traced as a thread in a + skein of silk, scampering over the hills like a farmer’s daughter, even + though he could habitually neglect her. But what with his not being able + to afford her a regular attendant, and his inveterate habit of letting + anything be to save himself trouble, the circumstance grew customary. And + so there arose a chronic notion in the villagers’ minds that all ladies + rode without an attendant, like Miss Swancourt, except a few who were + sometimes visiting at Lord Luxellian’s. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t like your going to Plymouth alone, particularly going to St. + Launce’s on horseback. Why not drive, and take the man?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not nice to be so overlooked.’ Worm’s company would not seriously + have interfered with her plans, but it was her humour to go without him. + </p> + <p> + ‘When do you want to go?’ said her father. + </p> + <p> + She only answered, ‘Soon.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will consider,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + Only a few days elapsed before she asked again. A letter had reached her + from Stephen. It had been timed to come on that day by special arrangement + between them. In it he named the earliest morning on which he could meet + her at Plymouth. Her father had been on a journey to Stratleigh, and + returned in unusual buoyancy of spirit. It was a good opportunity; and + since the dismissal of Stephen her father had been generally in a mood to + make small concessions, that he might steer clear of large ones connected + with that outcast lover of hers. + </p> + <p> + ‘Next Thursday week I am going from home in a different direction,’ said + her father. ‘In fact, I shall leave home the night before. You might + choose the same day, for they wish to take up the carpets, or some such + thing, I think. As I said, I don’t like you to be seen in a town on + horseback alone; but go if you will.’ + </p> + <p> + Thursday week. Her father had named the very day that Stephen also had + named that morning as the earliest on which it would be of any use to meet + her; that was, about fifteen days from the day on which he had left + Endelstow. Fifteen days—that fragment of duration which has acquired + such an interesting individuality from its connection with the English + marriage law. + </p> + <p> + She involuntarily looked at her father so strangely, that on becoming + conscious of the look she paled with embarrassment. Her father, too, + looked confused. What was he thinking of? + </p> + <p> + There seemed to be a special facility offered her by a power external to + herself in the circumstance that Mr. Swancourt had proposed to leave home + the night previous to her wished-for day. Her father seldom took long + journeys; seldom slept from home except perhaps on the night following a + remote Visitation. Well, she would not inquire too curiously into the + reason of the opportunity, nor did he, as would have been natural, proceed + to explain it of his own accord. In matters of fact there had hitherto + been no reserve between them, though they were not usually confidential in + its full sense. But the divergence of their emotions on Stephen’s account + had produced an estrangement which just at present went even to the extent + of reticence on the most ordinary household topics. + </p> + <p> + Elfride was almost unconsciously relieved, persuading herself that her + father’s reserve on his business justified her in secrecy as regarded her + own—a secrecy which was necessarily a foregone decision with her. So + anxious is a young conscience to discover a palliative, that the ex post + facto nature of a reason is of no account in excluding it. + </p> + <p> + The intervening fortnight was spent by her mostly in walking by herself + among the shrubs and trees, indulging sometimes in sanguine anticipations; + more, far more frequently, in misgivings. All her flowers seemed dull of + hue; her pets seemed to look wistfully into her eyes, as if they no longer + stood in the same friendly relation to her as formerly. She wore + melancholy jewellery, gazed at sunsets, and talked to old men and women. + It was the first time that she had had an inner and private world apart + from the visible one about her. She wished that her father, instead of + neglecting her even more than usual, would make some advance—just + one word; she would then tell all, and risk Stephen’s displeasure. Thus + brought round to the youth again, she saw him in her fancy, standing, + touching her, his eyes full of sad affection, hopelessly renouncing his + attempt because she had renounced hers; and she could not recede. + </p> + <p> + On the Wednesday she was to receive another letter. She had resolved to + let her father see the arrival of this one, be the consequences what they + might: the dread of losing her lover by this deed of honesty prevented her + acting upon the resolve. Five minutes before the postman’s expected + arrival she slipped out, and down the lane to meet him. She met him + immediately upon turning a sharp angle, which hid her from view in the + direction of the vicarage. The man smilingly handed one missive, and was + going on to hand another, a circular from some tradesman. + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ she said; ‘take that on to the house.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, miss, you are doing what your father has done for the last + fortnight.’ + </p> + <p> + She did not comprehend. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, come to this corner, and take a letter of me every morning, all writ + in the same handwriting, and letting any others for him go on to the + house.’ And on the postman went. + </p> + <p> + No sooner had he turned the corner behind her back than she heard her + father meet and address the man. She had saved her letter by two minutes. + Her father audibly went through precisely the same performance as she had + just been guilty of herself. + </p> + <p> + This stealthy conduct of his was, to say the least, peculiar. + </p> + <p> + Given an impulsive inconsequent girl, neglected as to her inner life by + her only parent, and the following forces alive within her; to determine a + resultant: + </p> + <p> + First love acted upon by a deadly fear of separation from its object: + inexperience, guiding onward a frantic wish to prevent the above-named + issue: misgivings as to propriety, met by hope of ultimate exoneration: + indignation at parental inconsistency in first encouraging, then + forbidding: a chilling sense of disobedience, overpowered by a + conscientious inability to brook a breaking of plighted faith with a man + who, in essentials, had remained unaltered from the beginning: a blessed + hope that opposition would turn an erroneous judgement: a bright faith + that things would mend thereby, and wind up well. + </p> + <p> + Probably the result would, after all, have been nil, had not the following + few remarks been made one day at breakfast. + </p> + <p> + Her father was in his old hearty spirits. He smiled to himself at stories + too bad to tell, and called Elfride a little scamp for surreptitiously + preserving some blind kittens that ought to have been drowned. After this + expression, she said to him suddenly: + </p> + <p> + ‘If Mr. Smith had been already in the family, you would not have been made + wretched by discovering he had poor relations?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you mean in the family by marriage?’ he replied inattentively, and + continuing to peel his egg. + </p> + <p> + The accumulating scarlet told that was her meaning, as much as the + affirmative reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘I should have put up with it, no doubt,’ Mr. Swancourt observed. + </p> + <p> + ‘So that you would not have been driven into hopeless melancholy, but have + made the best of him?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s erratic mind had from her youth upwards been constantly in the + habit of perplexing her father by hypothetical questions, based on absurd + conditions. The present seemed to be cast so precisely in the mould of + previous ones that, not being given to syntheses of circumstances, he + answered it with customary complacency. + </p> + <p> + ‘If he were allied to us irretrievably, of course I, or any sensible man, + should accept conditions that could not be altered; certainly not be + hopelessly melancholy about it. I don’t believe anything in the world + would make me hopelessly melancholy. And don’t let anything make you so, + either.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I won’t, papa,’ she cried, with a serene brightness that pleased him. + </p> + <p> + Certainly Mr. Swancourt must have been far from thinking that the + brightness came from an exhilarating intention to hold back no longer from + the mad action she had planned. + </p> + <p> + In the evening he drove away towards Stratleigh, quite alone. It was an + unusual course for him. At the door Elfride had been again almost impelled + by her feelings to pour out all. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why are you going to Stratleigh, papa?’ she said, and looked at him + longingly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will tell you to-morrow when I come back,’ he said cheerily; ‘not + before then, Elfride. Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know, and so + far will I trust thee, gentle Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + She was repressed and hurt. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will tell you my errand to Plymouth, too, when I come back,’ she + murmured. + </p> + <p> + He went away. His jocularity made her intention seem the lighter, as his + indifference made her more resolved to do as she liked. + </p> + <p> + It was a familiar September sunset, dark-blue fragments of cloud upon an + orange-yellow sky. These sunsets used to tempt her to walk towards them, + as any beautiful thing tempts a near approach. She went through the field + to the privet hedge, clambered into the middle of it, and reclined upon + the thick boughs. After looking westward for a considerable time, she + blamed herself for not looking eastward to where Stephen was, and turned + round. Ultimately her eyes fell upon the ground. + </p> + <p> + A peculiarity was observable beneath her. A green field spread itself on + each side of the hedge, one belonging to the glebe, the other being a part + of the land attached to the manor-house adjoining. On the vicarage side + she saw a little footpath, the distinctive and altogether exceptional + feature of which consisted in its being only about ten yards long; it + terminated abruptly at each end. + </p> + <p> + A footpath, suddenly beginning and suddenly ending, coming from nowhere + and leading nowhere, she had never seen before. + </p> + <p> + Yes, she had, on second thoughts. She had seen exactly such a path trodden + in the front of barracks by the sentry. + </p> + <p> + And this recollection explained the origin of the path here. Her father + had trodden it by pacing up and down, as she had once seen him doing. + </p> + <p> + Sitting on the hedge as she sat now, her eyes commanded a view of both + sides of it. And a few minutes later, Elfride looked over to the manor + side. + </p> + <p> + Here was another sentry path. It was like the first in length, and it + began and ended exactly opposite the beginning and ending of its + neighbour, but it was thinner, and less distinct. + </p> + <p> + Two reasons existed for the difference. This one might have been trodden + by a similar weight of tread to the other, exercised a less number of + times; or it might have been walked just as frequently, but by lighter + feet. + </p> + <p> + Probably a gentleman from Scotland-yard, had he been passing at the time, + might have considered the latter alternative as the more probable. Elfride + thought otherwise, so far as she thought at all. But her own great + To-Morrow was now imminent; all thoughts inspired by casual sights of the + eye were only allowed to exercise themselves in inferior corners of her + brain, previously to being banished altogether. + </p> + <p> + Elfride was at length compelled to reason practically upon her + undertaking. All her definite perceptions thereon, when the emotion + accompanying them was abstracted, amounted to no more than these: + </p> + <p> + ‘Say an hour and three-quarters to ride to St. Launce’s. + </p> + <p> + ‘Say half an hour at the Falcon to change my dress. + </p> + <p> + ‘Say two hours waiting for some train and getting to Plymouth. + </p> + <p> + ‘Say an hour to spare before twelve o’clock. + </p> + <p> + ‘Total time from leaving Endelstow till twelve o’clock, five hours. + </p> + <p> + ‘Therefore I shall have to start at seven.’ + </p> + <p> + No surprise or sense of unwontedness entered the minds of the servants at + her early ride. The monotony of life we associate with people of small + incomes in districts out of the sound of the railway whistle, has one + exception, which puts into shade the experience of dwellers about the + great centres of population—that is, in travelling. Every journey + there is more or less an adventure; adventurous hours are necessarily + chosen for the most commonplace outing. Miss Elfride had to leave early—that + was all. + </p> + <p> + Elfride never went out on horseback but she brought home something—something + found, or something bought. If she trotted to town or village, her burden + was books. If to hills, woods, or the seashore, it was wonderful mosses, + abnormal twigs, a handkerchief of wet shells or seaweed. + </p> + <p> + Once, in muddy weather, when Pansy was walking with her down the street of + Castle Boterel, on a fair-day, a packet in front of her and a packet under + her arm, an accident befell the packets, and they slipped down. On one + side of her, three volumes of fiction lay kissing the mud; on the other + numerous skeins of polychromatic wools lay absorbing it. Unpleasant women + smiled through windows at the mishap, the men all looked round, and a boy, + who was minding a ginger-bread stall whilst the owner had gone to get + drunk, laughed loudly. The blue eyes turned to sapphires, and the cheeks + crimsoned with vexation. + </p> + <p> + After that misadventure she set her wits to work, and was ingenious enough + to invent an arrangement of small straps about the saddle, by which a + great deal could be safely carried thereon, in a small compass. Here she + now spread out and fastened a plain dark walking-dress and a few other + trifles of apparel. Worm opened the gate for her, and she vanished away. + </p> + <p> + One of the brightest mornings of late summer shone upon her. The heather + was at its purplest, the furze at its yellowest, the grasshoppers chirped + loud enough for birds, the snakes hissed like little engines, and Elfride + at first felt lively. Sitting at ease upon Pansy, in her orthodox + riding-habit and nondescript hat, she looked what she felt. But the + mercury of those days had a trick of falling unexpectedly. First, only for + one minute in ten had she a sense of depression. Then a large cloud, that + had been hanging in the north like a black fleece, came and placed itself + between her and the sun. It helped on what was already inevitable, and she + sank into a uniformity of sadness. + </p> + <p> + She turned in the saddle and looked back. They were now on an open + table-land, whose altitude still gave her a view of the sea by Endelstow. + She looked longingly at that spot. + </p> + <p> + During this little revulsion of feeling Pansy had been still advancing, + and Elfride felt it would be absurd to turn her little mare’s head the + other way. ‘Still,’ she thought, ‘if I had a mamma at home I WOULD go + back!’ + </p> + <p> + And making one of those stealthy movements by which women let their hearts + juggle with their brains, she did put the horse’s head about, as if + unconsciously, and went at a hand-gallop towards home for more than a + mile. By this time, from the inveterate habit of valuing what we have + renounced directly the alternative is chosen, the thought of her forsaken + Stephen recalled her, and she turned about, and cantered on to St. + Launce’s again. + </p> + <p> + This miserable strife of thought now began to rage in all its wildness. + Overwrought and trembling, she dropped the rein upon Pansy’s shoulders, + and vowed she would be led whither the horse would take her. + </p> + <p> + Pansy slackened her pace to a walk, and walked on with her agitated burden + for three or four minutes. At the expiration of this time they had come to + a little by-way on the right, leading down a slope to a pool of water. The + pony stopped, looked towards the pool, and then advanced and stooped to + drink. + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked at her watch and discovered that if she were going to reach + St. Launce’s early enough to change her dress at the Falcon, and get a + chance of some early train to Plymouth—there were only two available—it + was necessary to proceed at once. + </p> + <p> + She was impatient. It seemed as if Pansy would never stop drinking; and + the repose of the pool, the idle motions of the insects and flies upon it, + the placid waving of the flags, the leaf-skeletons, like Genoese filigree, + placidly sleeping at the bottom, by their contrast with her own turmoil + made her impatience greater. + </p> + <p> + Pansy did turn at last, and went up the slope again to the high-road. The + pony came upon it, and stood cross-wise, looking up and down. Elfride’s + heart throbbed erratically, and she thought, ‘Horses, if left to + themselves, make for where they are best fed. Pansy will go home.’ + </p> + <p> + Pansy turned and walked on towards St. Launce’s + </p> + <p> + Pansy at home, during summer, had little but grass to live on. After a run + to St. Launce’s she always had a feed of corn to support her on the return + journey. Therefore, being now more than half way, she preferred St. + Launce’s. + </p> + <p> + But Elfride did not remember this now. All she cared to recognize was a + dreamy fancy that to-day’s rash action was not her own. She was disabled + by her moods, and it seemed indispensable to adhere to the programme. So + strangely involved are motives that, more than by her promise to Stephen, + more even than by her love, she was forced on by a sense of the necessity + of keeping faith with herself, as promised in the inane vow of ten minutes + ago. + </p> + <p> + She hesitated no longer. Pansy went, like the steed of Adonis, as if she + told the steps. Presently the quaint gables and jumbled roofs of St. + Launce’s were spread beneath her, and going down the hill she entered the + courtyard of the Falcon. Mrs. Buckle, the landlady, came to the door to + meet her. + </p> + <p> + The Swancourts were well known here. The transition from equestrian to the + ordinary guise of railway travellers had been more than once performed by + father and daughter in this establishment. + </p> + <p> + In less than a quarter of an hour Elfride emerged from the door in her + walking dress, and went to the railway. She had not told Mrs. Buckle + anything as to her intentions, and was supposed to have gone out shopping. + </p> + <p> + An hour and forty minutes later, and she was in Stephen’s arms at the + Plymouth station. Not upon the platform—in the secret retreat of a + deserted waiting-room. + </p> + <p> + Stephen’s face boded ill. He was pale and despondent. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is the matter?’ she asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘We cannot be married here to-day, my Elfie! I ought to have known it and + stayed here. In my ignorance I did not. I have the licence, but it can + only be used in my parish in London. I only came down last night, as you + know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What shall we do?’ she said blankly. + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s only one thing we can do, darling.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Go on to London by a train just starting, and be married there + to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Passengers for the 11.5 up-train take their seats!’ said a guard’s voice + on the platform. + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you go, Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will.’ + </p> + <p> + In three minutes the train had moved off, bearing away with it Stephen and + Elfride. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Adieu! she cries, and waved her lily hand.’ +</pre> + <p> + The few tattered clouds of the morning enlarged and united, the sun + withdrew behind them to emerge no more that day, and the evening drew to a + close in drifts of rain. The water-drops beat like duck shot against the + window of the railway-carriage containing Stephen and Elfride. + </p> + <p> + The journey from Plymouth to Paddington, by even the most headlong + express, allows quite enough leisure for passion of any sort to cool. + Elfride’s excitement had passed off, and she sat in a kind of stupor + during the latter half of the journey. She was aroused by the clanging of + the maze of rails over which they traced their way at the entrance to the + station. + </p> + <p> + Is this London?’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, darling,’ said Stephen in a tone of assurance he was far from + feeling. To him, no less than to her, the reality so greatly differed from + the prefiguring. + </p> + <p> + She peered out as well as the window, beaded with drops, would allow her, + and saw only the lamps, which had just been lit, blinking in the wet + atmosphere, and rows of hideous zinc chimney-pipes in dim relief against + the sky. She writhed uneasily, as when a thought is swelling in the mind + which must cause much pain at its deliverance in words. Elfride had known + no more about the stings of evil report than the native wild-fowl knew of + the effects of Crusoe’s first shot. Now she saw a little further, and a + little further still. + </p> + <p> + The train stopped. Stephen relinquished the soft hand he had held all the + day, and proceeded to assist her on to the platform. + </p> + <p> + This act of alighting upon strange ground seemed all that was wanted to + complete a resolution within her. + </p> + <p> + She looked at her betrothed with despairing eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘O Stephen,’ she exclaimed, ‘I am so miserable! I must go home again—I + must—I must! Forgive my wretched vacillation. I don’t like it here—nor + myself—nor you!’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked bewildered, and did not speak. + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you allow me to go home?’ she implored. ‘I won’t trouble you to go + with me. I will not be any weight upon you; only say you will agree to my + returning; that you will not hate me for it, Stephen! It is better that I + should return again; indeed it is, Stephen.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But we can’t return now,’ he said in a deprecatory tone. + </p> + <p> + ‘I must! I will!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How? When do you want to go?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now. Can we go at once?’ + </p> + <p> + The lad looked hopelessly along the platform. + </p> + <p> + ‘If you must go, and think it wrong to remain, dearest,’ said he sadly, + ‘you shall. You shall do whatever you like, my Elfride. But would you in + reality rather go now than stay till to-morrow, and go as my wife?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes—much—anything to go now. I must; I must!’ she cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘We ought to have done one of two things,’ he answered gloomily. ‘Never to + have started, or not to have returned without being married. I don’t like + to say it, Elfride—indeed I don’t; but you must be told this, that + going back unmarried may compromise your good name in the eyes of people + who may hear of it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They will not; and I must go.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘O Elfride! I am to blame for bringing you away.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not at all. I am the elder.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By a month; and what’s that? But never mind that now.’ He looked around. + ‘Is there a train for Plymouth to-night?’ he inquired of a guard. The + guard passed on and did not speak. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is there a train for Plymouth to-night?’ said Elfride to another. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, miss; the 8.10—leaves in ten minutes. You have come to the + wrong platform; it is the other side. Change at Bristol into the night + mail. Down that staircase, and under the line.’ + </p> + <p> + They ran down the staircase—Elfride first—to the + booking-office, and into a carriage with an official standing beside the + door. ‘Show your tickets, please.’ They are locked in—men about the + platform accelerate their velocities till they fly up and down like + shuttles in a loom—a whistle—the waving of a flag—a + human cry—a steam groan—and away they go to Plymouth again, + just catching these words as they glide off: + </p> + <p> + ‘Those two youngsters had a near run for it, and no mistake!’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride found her breath. + </p> + <p> + ‘And have you come too, Stephen? Why did you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I shall not leave you till I see you safe at St. Launce’s. Do not think + worse of me than I am, Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + And then they rattled along through the night, back again by the way they + had come. The weather cleared, and the stars shone in upon them. Their two + or three fellow-passengers sat for most of the time with closed eyes. + Stephen sometimes slept; Elfride alone was wakeful and palpitating hour + after hour. + </p> + <p> + The day began to break, and revealed that they were by the sea. Red rocks + overhung them, and, receding into distance, grew livid in the blue grey + atmosphere. The sun rose, and sent penetrating shafts of light in upon + their weary faces. Another hour, and the world began to be busy. They + waited yet a little, and the train slackened its speed in view of the + platform at St. Launce’s. + </p> + <p> + She shivered, and mused sadly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I did not see all the consequences,’ she said. ‘Appearances are wofully + against me. If anybody finds me out, I am, I suppose, disgraced.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then appearances will speak falsely; and how can that matter, even if + they do? I shall be your husband sooner or later, for certain, and so + prove your purity.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen, once in London I ought to have married you,’ she said firmly. + ‘It was my only safe defence. I see more things now than I did yesterday. + My only remaining chance is not to be discovered; and that we must fight + for most desperately.’ + </p> + <p> + They stepped out. Elfride pulled a thick veil over her face. + </p> + <p> + A woman with red and scaly eyelids and glistening eyes was sitting on a + bench just inside the office-door. She fixed her eyes upon Elfride with an + expression whose force it was impossible to doubt, but the meaning of + which was not clear; then upon the carriage they had left. She seemed to + read a sinister story in the scene. + </p> + <p> + Elfride shrank back, and turned the other way. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who is that woman?’ said Stephen. ‘She looked hard at you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mrs. Jethway—a widow, and mother of that young man whose tomb we + sat on the other night. Stephen, she is my enemy. Would that God had had + mercy enough upon me to have hidden this from HER!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do not talk so hopelessly,’ he remonstrated. ‘I don’t think she + recognized us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I pray that she did not.’ + </p> + <p> + He put on a more vigorous mood. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, we will go and get some breakfast.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no!’ she begged. ‘I cannot eat. I MUST get back to Endelstow.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride was as if she had grown years older than Stephen now. + </p> + <p> + ‘But you have had nothing since last night but that cup of tea at + Bristol.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t eat, Stephen.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wine and biscuit?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nor tea, nor coffee?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A glass of water?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No. I want something that makes people strong and energetic for the + present, that borrows the strength of to-morrow for use to-day—leaving + to-morrow without any at all for that matter; or even that would take all + life away to-morrow, so long as it enabled me to get home again now. + Brandy, that’s what I want. That woman’s eyes have eaten my heart away!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are wild; and you grieve me, darling. Must it be brandy?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, if you please.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How much?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know. I have never drunk more than a teaspoonful at once. All I + know is that I want it. Don’t get it at the Falcon.’ + </p> + <p> + He left her in the fields, and went to the nearest inn in that direction. + Presently he returned with a small flask nearly full, and some slices of + bread-and-butter, thin as wafers, in a paper-bag. Elfride took a sip or + two. + </p> + <p> + ‘It goes into my eyes,’ she said wearily. ‘I can’t take any more. Yes, I + will; I will close my eyes. Ah, it goes to them by an inside route. I + don’t want it; throw it away.’ + </p> + <p> + However, she could eat, and did eat. Her chief attention was concentrated + upon how to get the horse from the Falcon stables without suspicion. + Stephen was not allowed to accompany her into the town. She acted now upon + conclusions reached without any aid from him: his power over her seemed to + have departed. + </p> + <p> + ‘You had better not be seen with me, even here where I am so little known. + We have begun stealthily as thieves, and we must end stealthily as + thieves, at all hazards. Until papa has been told by me myself, a + discovery would be terrible.’ + </p> + <p> + Walking and gloomily talking thus they waited till nearly nine o’clock, at + which time Elfride thought she might call at the Falcon without creating + much surprise. Behind the railway-station was the river, spanned by an old + Tudor bridge, whence the road diverged in two directions, one skirting the + suburbs of the town, and winding round again into the high-road to + Endelstow. Beside this road Stephen sat, and awaited her return from the + Falcon. + </p> + <p> + He sat as one sitting for a portrait, motionless, watching the chequered + lights and shades on the tree-trunks, the children playing opposite the + school previous to entering for the morning lesson, the reapers in a field + afar off. The certainty of possession had not come, and there was nothing + to mitigate the youth’s gloom, that increased with the thought of the + parting now so near. + </p> + <p> + At length she came trotting round to him, in appearance much as on the + romantic morning of their visit to the cliff, but shorn of the radiance + which glistened about her then. However, her comparative immunity from + further risk and trouble had considerably composed her. Elfride’s capacity + for being wounded was only surpassed by her capacity for healing, which + rightly or wrongly is by some considered an index of transientness of + feeling in general. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, what did they say at the Falcon?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing. Nobody seemed curious about me. They knew I went to Plymouth, + and I have stayed there a night now and then with Miss Bicknell. I rather + calculated upon that.’ + </p> + <p> + And now parting arose like a death to these children, for it was + imperative that she should start at once. Stephen walked beside her for + nearly a mile. During the walk he said sadly: + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, four-and-twenty hours have passed, and the thing is not done.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you have insured that it shall be done.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How have I?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘O Stephen, you ask how! Do you think I could marry another man on earth + after having gone thus far with you? Have I not shown beyond possibility + of doubt that I can be nobody else’s? Have I not irretrievably committed + myself?—pride has stood for nothing in the face of my great love. + You misunderstood my turning back, and I cannot explain it. It was wrong + to go with you at all; and though it would have been worse to go further, + it would have been better policy, perhaps. Be assured of this, that + whenever you have a home for me—however poor and humble—and + come and claim me, I am ready.’ She added bitterly, ‘When my father knows + of this day’s work, he may be only too glad to let me go.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps he may, then, insist upon our marriage at once!’ Stephen + answered, seeing a ray of hope in the very focus of her remorse. ‘I hope + he may, even if we had still to part till I am ready for you, as we + intended.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride did not reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t seem the same woman, Elfie, that you were yesterday.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nor am I. But good-bye. Go back now.’ And she reined the horse for + parting. ‘O Stephen,’ she cried, ‘I feel so weak! I don’t know how to meet + him. Cannot you, after all, come back with me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Shall I come?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride paused to think. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; it will not do. It is my utter foolishness that makes me say such + words. But he will send for you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Say to him,’ continued Stephen, ‘that we did this in the absolute despair + of our minds. Tell him we don’t wish him to favour us—only to deal + justly with us. If he says, marry now, so much the better. If not, say + that all may be put right by his promise to allow me to have you when I am + good enough for you—which may be soon. Say I have nothing to offer + him in exchange for his treasure—the more sorry I; but all the love, + and all the life, and all the labour of an honest man shall be yours. As + to when this had better be told, I leave you to judge.’ + </p> + <p> + His words made her cheerful enough to toy with her position. + </p> + <p> + ‘And if ill report should come, Stephen,’ she said smiling, ‘why, the + orange-tree must save me, as it saved virgins in St. George’s time from + the poisonous breath of the dragon. There, forgive me for forwardness: I + am going.’ + </p> + <p> + Then the boy and girl beguiled themselves with words of half-parting only. + </p> + <p> + ‘Own wifie, God bless you till we meet again!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Till we meet again, good-bye!’ + </p> + <p> + And the pony went on, and she spoke to him no more. He saw her figure + diminish and her blue veil grow gray—saw it with the agonizing + sensations of a slow death. + </p> + <p> + After thus parting from a man than whom she had known none greater as yet, + Elfride rode rapidly onwards, a tear being occasionally shaken from her + eyes into the road. What yesterday had seemed so desirable, so promising, + even trifling, had now acquired the complexion of a tragedy. + </p> + <p> + She saw the rocks and sea in the neighbourhood of Endelstow, and heaved a + sigh of relief. + </p> + <p> + When she passed a field behind the vicarage she heard the voices of Unity + and William Worm. They were hanging a carpet upon a line. Unity was + uttering a sentence that concluded with ‘when Miss Elfride comes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When d’ye expect her?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not till evening now. She’s safe enough at Miss Bicknell’s, bless ye.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride went round to the door. She did not knock or ring; and seeing + nobody to take the horse, Elfride led her round to the yard, slipped off + the bridle and saddle, drove her towards the paddock, and turned her in. + Then Elfride crept indoors, and looked into all the ground-floor rooms. + Her father was not there. + </p> + <p> + On the mantelpiece of the drawing-room stood a letter addressed to her in + his handwriting. She took it and read it as she went upstairs to change + her habit. + </p> + <p> + STRATLEIGH, Thursday. + </p> + <p> + ‘DEAR ELFRIDE,—On second thoughts I will not return to-day, but only + come as far as Wadcombe. I shall be at home by to-morrow afternoon, and + bring a friend with me.—Yours, in haste, + </p> + <p> + C. S.’ + </p> + <p> + After making a quick toilet she felt more revived, though still suffering + from a headache. On going out of the door she met Unity at the top of the + stair. + </p> + <p> + ‘O Miss Elfride! I said to myself ‘tis her sperrit! We didn’t dream o’ you + not coming home last night. You didn’t say anything about staying.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I intended to come home the same evening, but altered my plan. I wished I + hadn’t afterwards. Papa will be angry, I suppose?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Better not tell him, miss,’ said Unity. + </p> + <p> + ‘I do fear to,’ she murmured. ‘Unity, would you just begin telling him + when he comes home?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What! and get you into trouble?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I deserve it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, indeed, I won’t,’ said Unity. ‘It is not such a mighty matter, Miss + Elfride. I says to myself, master’s taking a hollerday, and because he’s + not been kind lately to Miss Elfride, she——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is imitating him. Well, do as you like. And will you now bring me some + luncheon?’ + </p> + <p> + After satisfying an appetite which the fresh marine air had given her in + its victory over an agitated mind, she put on her hat and went to the + garden and summer-house. She sat down, and leant with her head in a + corner. Here she fell asleep. + </p> + <p> + Half-awake, she hurriedly looked at the time. She had been there three + hours. At the same moment she heard the outer gate swing together, and + wheels sweep round the entrance; some prior noise from the same source + having probably been the cause of her awaking. Next her father’s voice was + heard calling to Worm. + </p> + <p> + Elfride passed along a walk towards the house behind a belt of shrubs. She + heard a tongue holding converse with her father, which was not that of + either of the servants. Her father and the stranger were laughing + together. Then there was a rustling of silk, and Mr. Swancourt and his + companion, or companions, to all seeming entered the door of the house, + for nothing more of them was audible. Elfride had turned back to meditate + on what friends these could be, when she heard footsteps, and her father + exclaiming behind her: + </p> + <p> + ‘O Elfride, here you are! I hope you got on well?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s heart smote her, and she did not speak. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come back to the summer-house a minute,’ continued Mr. Swancourt; ‘I have + to tell you of that I promised to.’ + </p> + <p> + They entered the summer-house, and stood leaning over the knotty woodwork + of the balustrade. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now,’ said her father radiantly, ‘guess what I have to say.’ He seemed to + be regarding his own existence so intently, that he took no interest in + nor even saw the complexion of hers. + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot, papa,’ she said sadly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Try, dear.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I would rather not, indeed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are tired. You look worn. The ride was too much for you. Well, this + is what I went away for. I went to be married!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Married!’ she faltered, and could hardly check an involuntary ‘So did I.’ + A moment after and her resolve to confess perished like a bubble. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; to whom do you think? Mrs. Troyton, the new owner of the estate over + the hedge, and of the old manor-house. It was only finally settled between + us when I went to Stratleigh a few days ago.’ He lowered his voice to a + sly tone of merriment. ‘Now, as to your stepmother, you’ll find she is not + much to look at, though a good deal to listen to. She is twenty years + older than myself, for one thing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You forget that I know her. She called here once, after we had been, and + found her away from home.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course, of course. Well, whatever her looks are, she’s as excellent a + woman as ever breathed. She has had lately left her as absolute property + three thousand five hundred a year, besides the devise of this estate—and, + by the way, a large legacy came to her in satisfaction of dower, as it is + called.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Three thousand five hundred a year!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And a large—well, a fair-sized—mansion in town, and a + pedigree as long as my walking-stick; though that bears evidence of being + rather a raked-up affair—done since the family got rich—people + do those things now as they build ruins on maiden estates and cast + antiques at Birmingham.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride merely listened and said nothing. + </p> + <p> + He continued more quietly and impressively. ‘Yes, Elfride, she is wealthy + in comparison with us, though with few connections. However, she will + introduce you to the world a little. We are going to exchange her house in + Baker Street for one at Kensington, for your sake. Everybody is going + there now, she says. At Easters we shall fly to town for the usual three + months—I shall have a curate of course by that time. Elfride, I am + past love, you know, and I honestly confess that I married her for your + sake. Why a woman of her standing should have thrown herself away upon me, + God knows. But I suppose her age and plainness were too pronounced for a + town man. With your good looks, if you now play your cards well, you may + marry anybody. Of course, a little contrivance will be necessary; but + there’s nothing to stand between you and a husband with a title, that I + can see. Lady Luxellian was only a squire’s daughter. Now, don’t you see + how foolish the old fancy was? But come, she is indoors waiting to see + you. It is as good as a play, too,’ continued the vicar, as they walked + towards the house. ‘I courted her through the privet hedge yonder: not + entirely, you know, but we used to walk there of an evening—nearly + every evening at last. But I needn’t tell you details now; everything was + terribly matter-of-fact, I assure you. At last, that day I saw her at + Stratleigh, we determined to settle it off-hand.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you never said a word to me,’ replied Elfride, not reproachfully + either in tone or thought. Indeed, her feeling was the very reverse of + reproachful. She felt relieved and even thankful. Where confidence had not + been given, how could confidence be expected? + </p> + <p> + Her father mistook her dispassionateness for a veil of politeness over a + sense of ill-usage. ‘I am not altogether to blame,’ he said. ‘There were + two or three reasons for secrecy. One was the recent death of her relative + the testator, though that did not apply to you. But remember, Elfride,’ he + continued in a stiffer tone, ‘you had mixed yourself up so foolishly with + those low people, the Smiths—and it was just, too, when Mrs. Troyton + and myself were beginning to understand each other—that I resolved + to say nothing even to you. How did I know how far you had gone with them + and their son? You might have made a point of taking tea with them every + day, for all that I knew.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride swallowed her feelings as she best could, and languidly though + flatly asked a question. + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you kiss Mrs. Troyton on the lawn about three weeks ago? That evening + I came into the study and found you had just had candles in?’ + </p> + <p> + Mr. Swancourt looked rather red and abashed, as middle-aged lovers are apt + to do when caught in the tricks of younger ones. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, yes; I think I did,’ he stammered; ‘just to please her, you know.’ + And then recovering himself he laughed heartily. + </p> + <p> + ‘And was this what your Horatian quotation referred to?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It was, Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + They stepped into the drawing-room from the verandah. At that moment Mrs. + Swancourt came downstairs, and entered the same room by the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here, Charlotte, is my little Elfride,’ said Mr. Swancourt, with the + increased affection of tone often adopted towards relations when newly + produced. + </p> + <p> + Poor Elfride, not knowing what to do, did nothing at all; but stood + receptive of all that came to her by sight, hearing, and touch. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt moved forward, took her step-daughter’s hand, then kissed + her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, darling!’ she exclaimed good-humouredly, ‘you didn’t think when you + showed a strange old woman over the conservatory a month or two ago, and + explained the flowers to her so prettily, that she would so soon be here + in new colours. Nor did she, I am sure.’ + </p> + <p> + The new mother had been truthfully enough described by Mr. Swancourt. She + was not physically attractive. She was dark—very dark—in + complexion, portly in figure, and with a plentiful residuum of hair in the + proportion of half a dozen white ones to half a dozen black ones, though + the latter were black indeed. No further observed, she was not a woman to + like. But there was more to see. To the most superficial critic it was + apparent that she made no attempt to disguise her age. She looked sixty at + the first glance, and close acquaintanceship never proved her older. + </p> + <p> + Another and still more winning trait was one attaching to the corners of + her mouth. Before she made a remark these often twitched gently: not + backwards and forwards, the index of nervousness; not down upon the jaw, + the sign of determination; but palpably upwards, in precisely the curve + adopted to represent mirth in the broad caricatures of schoolboys. Only + this element in her face was expressive of anything within the woman, but + it was unmistakable. It expressed humour subjective as well as objective—which + could survey the peculiarities of self in as whimsical a light as those of + other people. + </p> + <p> + This is not all of Mrs. Swancourt. She had held out to Elfride hands whose + fingers were literally stiff with rings, signis auroque rigentes, like + Helen’s robe. These rows of rings were not worn in vanity apparently. They + were mostly antique and dull, though a few were the reverse. + </p> + <p> + RIGHT HAND. + </p> + <p> + 1st. Plainly set oval onyx, representing a devil’s head. 2nd. Green jasper + intaglio, with red veins. 3rd. Entirely gold, bearing figure of a hideous + griffin. 4th. A sea-green monster diamond, with small diamonds round it. + 5th. Antique cornelian intaglio of dancing figure of a satyr. 6th. An + angular band chased with dragons’ heads. 7th. A facetted carbuncle + accompanied by ten little twinkling emeralds; &c. &c. + </p> + <p> + LEFT HAND. + </p> + <p> + 1st. A reddish-yellow toadstone. 2nd. A heavy ring enamelled in colours, + and bearing a jacynth. 3rd. An amethystine sapphire. 4th. A polished ruby, + surrounded by diamonds. 5th. The engraved ring of an abbess. 6th. A gloomy + intaglio; &c. &c. + </p> + <p> + Beyond this rather quaint array of stone and metal Mrs. Swancourt wore no + ornament whatever. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had been favourably impressed with Mrs. Troyton at their meeting + about two months earlier; but to be pleased with a woman as a momentary + acquaintance was different from being taken with her as a stepmother. + However, the suspension of feeling was but for a moment. Elfride decided + to like her still. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt was a woman of the world as to knowledge, the reverse as to + action, as her marriage suggested. Elfride and the lady were soon + inextricably involved in conversation, and Mr. Swancourt left them to + themselves. + </p> + <p> + ‘And what do you find to do with yourself here?’ Mrs. Swancourt said, + after a few remarks about the wedding. ‘You ride, I know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I ride. But not much, because papa doesn’t like my going alone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must have somebody to look after you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I read, and write a little.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You should write a novel. The regular resource of people who don’t go + enough into the world to live a novel is to write one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have done it,’ said Elfride, looking dubiously at Mrs. Swancourt, as if + in doubt whether she would meet with ridicule there. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s right. Now, then, what is it about, dear?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘About—well, it is a romance of the Middle Ages.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Knowing nothing of the present age, which everybody knows about, for + safety you chose an age known neither to you nor other people. That’s it, + eh? No, no; I don’t mean it, dear.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I have had some opportunities of studying mediaeval art and manners + in the library and private museum at Endelstow House, and I thought I + should like to try my hand upon a fiction. I know the time for these tales + is past; but I was interested in it, very much interested.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When is it to appear?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, never, I suppose.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense, my dear girl. Publish it, by all means. All ladies do that sort + of thing now; not for profit, you know, but as a guarantee of mental + respectability to their future husbands.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘An excellent idea of us ladies.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Though I am afraid it rather resembles the melancholy ruse of throwing + loaves over castle-walls at besiegers, and suggests desperation rather + than plenty inside.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you ever try it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; I was too far gone even for that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Papa says no publisher will take my book.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That remains to be proved. I’ll give my word, my dear, that by this time + next year it shall be printed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you, indeed?’ said Elfride, partially brightening with pleasure, + though she was sad enough in her depths. ‘I thought brains were the + indispensable, even if the only, qualification for admission to the + republic of letters. A mere commonplace creature like me will soon be + turned out again.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no; once you are there you’ll be like a drop of water in a piece of + rock-crystal—your medium will dignify your commonness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It will be a great satisfaction,’ Elfride murmured, and thought of + Stephen, and wished she could make a great fortune by writing romances, + and marry him and live happily. + </p> + <p> + ‘And then we’ll go to London, and then to Paris,’ said Mrs. Swancourt. ‘I + have been talking to your father about it. But we have first to move into + the manor-house, and we think of staying at Torquay whilst that is going + on. Meanwhile, instead of going on a honeymoon scamper by ourselves, we + have come home to fetch you, and go all together to Bath for two or three + weeks.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride assented pleasantly, even gladly; but she saw that, by this + marriage, her father and herself had ceased for ever to be the close + relations they had been up to a few weeks ago. It was impossible now to + tell him the tale of her wild elopement with Stephen Smith. + </p> + <p> + He was still snugly housed in her heart. His absence had regained for him + much of that aureola of saintship which had been nearly abstracted during + her reproachful mood on that miserable journey from London. Rapture is + often cooled by contact with its cause, especially if under awkward + conditions. And that last experience with Stephen had done anything but + make him shine in her eyes. His very kindness in letting her return was + his offence. Elfride had her sex’s love of sheer force in a man, however + ill-directed; and at that critical juncture in London Stephen’s only + chance of retaining the ascendancy over her that his face and not his + parts had acquired for him, would have been by doing what, for one thing, + he was too youthful to undertake—that was, dragging her by the wrist + to the rails of some altar, and peremptorily marrying her. Decisive action + is seen by appreciative minds to be frequently objectless, and sometimes + fatal; but decision, however suicidal, has more charm for a woman than the + most unequivocal Fabian success. + </p> + <p> + However, some of the unpleasant accessories of that occasion were now out + of sight again, and Stephen had resumed not a few of his fancy colours. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XIII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘He set in order many proverbs.’ +</pre> + <p> + It is London in October—two months further on in the story. + </p> + <p> + Bede’s Inn has this peculiarity, that it faces, receives from, and + discharges into a bustling thoroughfare speaking only of wealth and + respectability, whilst its postern abuts on as crowded and + poverty-stricken a network of alleys as are to be found anywhere in the + metropolis. The moral consequences are, first, that those who occupy + chambers in the Inn may see a great deal of shirtless humanity’s habits + and enjoyments without doing more than look down from a back window; and + second they may hear wholesome though unpleasant social reminders through + the medium of a harsh voice, an unequal footstep, the echo of a blow or a + fall, which originates in the person of some drunkard or wife-beater, as + he crosses and interferes with the quiet of the square. Characters of this + kind frequently pass through the Inn from a little foxhole of an alley at + the back, but they never loiter there. + </p> + <p> + It is hardly necessary to state that all the sights and movements proper + to the Inn are most orderly. On the fine October evening on which we + follow Stephen Smith to this place, a placid porter is sitting on a stool + under a sycamore-tree in the midst, with a little cane in his hand. We + notice the thick coat of soot upon the branches, hanging underneath them + in flakes, as in a chimney. The blackness of these boughs does not at + present improve the tree—nearly forsaken by its leaves as it is—but + in the spring their green fresh beauty is made doubly beautiful by the + contrast. Within the railings is a flower-garden of respectable dahlias + and chrysanthemums, where a man is sweeping the leaves from the grass. + </p> + <p> + Stephen selects a doorway, and ascends an old though wide wooden + staircase, with moulded balusters and handrail, which in a country + manor-house would be considered a noteworthy specimen of Renaissance + workmanship. He reaches a door on the first floor, over which is painted, + in black letters, ‘Mr. Henry Knight’—‘Barrister-at-law’ being + understood but not expressed. The wall is thick, and there is a door at + its outer and inner face. The outer one happens to be ajar: Stephen goes + to the other, and taps. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come in!’ from distant penetralia. + </p> + <p> + First was a small anteroom, divided from the inner apartment by a + wainscoted archway two or three yards wide. Across this archway hung a + pair of dark-green curtains, making a mystery of all within the arch + except the spasmodic scratching of a quill pen. Here was grouped a chaotic + assemblage of articles—mainly old framed prints and paintings—leaning + edgewise against the wall, like roofing slates in a builder’s yard. All + the books visible here were folios too big to be stolen—some lying + on a heavy oak table in one corner, some on the floor among the pictures, + the whole intermingled with old coats, hats, umbrellas, and + walking-sticks. + </p> + <p> + Stephen pushed aside the curtain, and before him sat a man writing away as + if his life depended upon it—which it did. + </p> + <p> + A man of thirty in a speckled coat, with dark brown hair, curly beard, and + crisp moustache: the latter running into the beard on each side of the + mouth, and, as usual, hiding the real expression of that organ under a + chronic aspect of impassivity. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, my dear fellow, I knew ‘twas you,’ said Knight, looking up with a + smile, and holding out his hand. + </p> + <p> + Knight’s mouth and eyes came to view now. Both features were good, and had + the peculiarity of appearing younger and fresher than the brow and face + they belonged to, which were getting sicklied o’er by the unmistakable + pale cast. The mouth had not quite relinquished rotundity of curve for the + firm angularities of middle life; and the eyes, though keen, permeated + rather than penetrated: what they had lost of their boy-time brightness by + a dozen years of hard reading lending a quietness to their gaze which + suited them well. + </p> + <p> + A lady would have said there was a smell of tobacco in the room: a man + that there was not. + </p> + <p> + Knight did not rise. He looked at a timepiece on the mantelshelf, then + turned again to his letters, pointing to a chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I am glad you have come. I only returned to town yesterday; now, + don’t speak, Stephen, for ten minutes; I have just that time to the late + post. At the eleventh minute, I’m your man.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen sat down as if this kind of reception was by no means new, and + away went Knight’s pen, beating up and down like a ship in a storm. + </p> + <p> + Cicero called the library the soul of the house; here the house was all + soul. Portions of the floor, and half the wall-space, were taken up by + book-shelves ordinary and extraordinary; the remaining parts, together + with brackets, side-tables, &c., being occupied by casts, statuettes, + medallions, and plaques of various descriptions, picked up by the owner in + his wanderings through France and Italy. + </p> + <p> + One stream only of evening sunlight came into the room from a window quite + in the corner, overlooking a court. An aquarium stood in the window. It + was a dull parallelopipedon enough for living creatures at most hours of + the day; but for a few minutes in the evening, as now, an errant, kindly + ray lighted up and warmed the little world therein, when the many-coloured + zoophytes opened and put forth their arms, the weeds acquired a rich + transparency, the shells gleamed of a more golden yellow, and the timid + community expressed gladness more plainly than in words. + </p> + <p> + Within the prescribed ten minutes Knight flung down his pen, rang for the + boy to take the letters to the post, and at the closing of the door + exclaimed, ‘There; thank God, that’s done. Now, Stephen, pull your chair + round, and tell me what you have been doing all this time. Have you kept + up your Greek?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How’s that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I haven’t enough spare time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s nonsense.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I have done a great many things, if not that. And I have done one + extraordinary thing.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight turned full upon Stephen. ‘Ah-ha! Now, then, let me look into your + face, put two and two together, and make a shrewd guess.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen changed to a redder colour. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Smith,’ said Knight, after holding him rigidly by the shoulders, and + keenly scrutinising his countenance for a minute in silence, ‘you have + fallen in love.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well—the fact is——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, out with it.’ But seeing that Stephen looked rather distressed, he + changed to a kindly tone. ‘Now Smith, my lad, you know me well enough by + this time, or you ought to; and you know very well that if you choose to + give me a detailed account of the phenomenon within you, I shall listen; + if you don’t, I am the last man in the world to care to hear it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll tell this much: I HAVE fallen in love, and I want to be MARRIED.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight looked ominous as this passed Stephen’s lips. + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t judge me before you have heard more,’ cried Stephen anxiously, + seeing the change in his friend’s countenance. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t judge. Does your mother know about it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing definite.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Father?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No. But I’ll tell you. The young person——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, that’s dreadfully ungallant. But perhaps I understand the frame of + mind a little, so go on. Your sweetheart——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She is rather higher in the world than I am.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As it should be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And her father won’t hear of it, as I now stand.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not an uncommon case.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And now comes what I want your advice upon. Something has happened at her + house which makes it out of the question for us to ask her father again + now. So we are keeping silent. In the meantime an architect in India has + just written to Mr. Hewby to ask whether he can find for him a young + assistant willing to go over to Bombay to prepare drawings for work + formerly done by the engineers. The salary he offers is 350 rupees a + month, or about 35 Pounds. Hewby has mentioned it to me, and I have been + to Dr. Wray, who says I shall acclimatise without much illness. Now, would + you go?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You mean to say, because it is a possible road to the young lady.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I was thinking I could go over and make a little money, and then + come back and ask for her. I have the option of practising for myself + after a year.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Would she be staunch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes! For ever—to the end of her life!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How do you know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, how do people know? Of course, she will.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight leant back in his chair. ‘Now, though I know her thoroughly as she + exists in your heart, Stephen, I don’t know her in the flesh. All I want + to ask is, is this idea of going to India based entirely upon a belief in + her fidelity?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I should not go if it were not for her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, Stephen, you have put me in rather an awkward position. If I give + my true sentiments, I shall hurt your feelings; if I don’t, I shall hurt + my own judgment. And remember, I don’t know much about women.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you have had attachments, although you tell me very little about + them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I only hope you’ll continue to prosper till I tell you more.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen winced at this rap. ‘I have never formed a deep attachment,’ + continued Knight. ‘I never have found a woman worth it. Nor have I been + once engaged to be married.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You write as if you had been engaged a hundred times, if I may be allowed + to say so,’ said Stephen in an injured tone. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, that may be. But, my dear Stephen, it is only those who half know a + thing that write about it. Those who know it thoroughly don’t take the + trouble. All I know about women, or men either, is a mass of generalities. + I plod along, and occasionally lift my eyes and skim the weltering surface + of mankind lying between me and the horizon, as a crow might; no more.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight stopped as if he had fallen into a train of thought, and Stephen + looked with affectionate awe at a master whose mind, he believed, could + swallow up at one meal all that his own head contained. + </p> + <p> + There was affective sympathy, but no great intellectual fellowship, + between Knight and Stephen Smith. Knight had seen his young friend when + the latter was a cherry-cheeked happy boy, had been interested in him, had + kept his eye upon him, and generously helped the lad to books, till the + mere connection of patronage grew to acquaintance, and that ripened to + friendship. And so, though Smith was not at all the man Knight would have + deliberately chosen as a friend—or even for one of a group of a + dozen friends—he somehow was his friend. Circumstance, as usual, did + it all. How many of us can say of our most intimate alter ego, leaving + alone friends of the outer circle, that he is the man we should have + chosen, as embodying the net result after adding up all the points in + human nature that we love, and principles we hold, and subtracting all + that we hate? The man is really somebody we got to know by mere physical + juxtaposition long maintained, and was taken into our confidence, and even + heart, as a makeshift. + </p> + <p> + ‘And what do you think of her?’ Stephen ventured to say, after a silence. + </p> + <p> + ‘Taking her merits on trust from you,’ said Knight, ‘as we do those of the + Roman poets of whom we know nothing but that they lived, I still think she + will not stick to you through, say, three years of absence in India.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But she will!’ cried Stephen desperately. ‘She is a girl all delicacy and + honour. And no woman of that kind, who has committed herself so into a + man’s hands as she has into mine, could possibly marry another.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How has she committed herself?’ asked Knight cunously. + </p> + <p> + Stephen did not answer. Knight had looked on his love so sceptically that + it would not do to say all that he had intended to say by any means. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, don’t tell,’ said Knight. ‘But you are begging the question, which + is, I suppose, inevitable in love.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I’ll tell you another thing,’ the younger man pleaded. ‘You remember + what you said to me once about women receiving a kiss. Don’t you? Why, + that instead of our being charmed by the fascination of their bearing at + such a time, we should immediately doubt them if their confusion has any + GRACE in it—that awkward bungling was the true charm of the + occasion, implying that we are the first who has played such a part with + them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is true, quite,’ said Knight musingly. + </p> + <p> + It often happened that the disciple thus remembered the lessons of the + master long after the master himself had forgotten them. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, that was like her!’ cried Stephen triumphantly. ‘She was in such a + flurry that she didn’t know what she was doing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Splendid, splendid!’ said Knight soothingly. ‘So that all I have to say + is, that if you see a good opening in Bombay there’s no reason why you + should not go without troubling to draw fine distinctions as to reasons. + No man fully realizes what opinions he acts upon, or what his actions + mean.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I go to Bombay. I’ll write a note here, if you don’t mind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sleep over it—it is the best plan—and write to-morrow. + Meantime, go there to that window and sit down, and look at my Humanity + Show. I am going to dine out this evening, and have to dress here out of + my portmanteau. I bring up my things like this to save the trouble of + going down to my place at Richmond and back again.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight then went to the middle of the room and flung open his portmanteau, + and Stephen drew near the window. The streak of sunlight had crept upward, + edged away, and vanished; the zoophytes slept: a dusky gloom pervaded the + room. And now another volume of light shone over the window. + </p> + <p> + ‘There!’ said Knight, ‘where is there in England a spectacle to equal + that? I sit there and watch them every night before I go home. Softly open + the sash.’ + </p> + <p> + Beneath them was an alley running up to the wall, and thence turning + sideways and passing under an arch, so that Knight’s back window was + immediately over the angle, and commanded a view of the alley lengthwise. + Crowds—mostly of women—were surging, bustling, and pacing up + and down. Gaslights glared from butchers’ stalls, illuminating the lumps + of flesh to splotches of orange and vermilion, like the wild colouring of + Turner’s later pictures, whilst the purl and babble of tongues of every + pitch and mood was to this human wild-wood what the ripple of a brook is + to the natural forest. + </p> + <p> + Nearly ten minutes passed. Then Knight also came to the window. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, now, I call a cab and vanish down the street in the direction of + Berkeley Square,’ he said, buttoning his waistcoat and kicking his morning + suit into a corner. Stephen rose to leave. + </p> + <p> + ‘What a heap of literature!’ remarked the young man, taking a final + longing survey round the room, as if to abide there for ever would be the + great pleasure of his life, yet feeling that he had almost outstayed his + welcome-while. His eyes rested upon an arm-chair piled full of newspapers, + magazines, and bright new volumes in green and red. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ said Knight, also looking at them and breathing a sigh of + weariness; ‘something must be done with several of them soon, I suppose. + Stephen, you needn’t hurry away for a few minutes, you know, if you want + to stay; I am not quite ready. Overhaul those volumes whilst I put on my + coat, and I’ll walk a little way with you.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen sat down beside the arm-chair and began to tumble the books about. + Among the rest he found a novelette in one volume, THE COURT OF KELLYON + CASTLE. By Ernest Field. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you going to review this?’ inquired Stephen with apparent unconcern, + and holding up Elfride’s effusion. + </p> + <p> + ‘Which? Oh, that! I may—though I don’t do much light reviewing now. + But it is reviewable.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How do you mean?’ + </p> + <p> + Knight never liked to be asked what he meant. ‘Mean! I mean that the + majority of books published are neither good enough nor bad enough to + provoke criticism, and that that book does provoke it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By its goodness or its badness?’ Stephen said with some anxiety on poor + little Elfride’s score. + </p> + <p> + ‘Its badness. It seems to be written by some girl in her teens.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen said not another word. He did not care to speak plainly of Elfride + after that unfortunate slip his tongue had made in respect of her having + committed herself; and, apart from that, Knight’s severe—almost + dogged and self-willed—honesty in criticizing was unassailable by + the humble wish of a youthful friend like Stephen. + </p> + <p> + Knight was now ready. Turning off the gas, and slamming together the door, + they went downstairs and into the street. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XIV + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘We frolic while ‘tis May.’ +</pre> + <p> + It has now to be realized that nearly three-quarters of a year have passed + away. In place of the autumnal scenery which formed a setting to the + previous enactments, we have the culminating blooms of summer in the year + following. + </p> + <p> + Stephen is in India, slaving away at an office in Bombay; occasionally + going up the country on professional errands, and wondering why people who + had been there longer than he complained so much of the effect of the + climate upon their constitutions. Never had a young man a finer start than + seemed now to present itself to Stephen. It was just in that exceptional + heyday of prosperity which shone over Bombay some few years ago, that he + arrived on the scene. Building and engineering partook of the general + impetus. Speculation moved with an accelerated velocity every successive + day, the only disagreeable contingency connected with it being the + possibility of a collapse. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had never told her father of the four-and-twenty-hours’ escapade + with Stephen, nor had it, to her knowledge, come to his ears by any other + route. It was a secret trouble and grief to the girl for a short time, and + Stephen’s departure was another ingredient in her sorrow. But Elfride + possessed special facilities for getting rid of trouble after a decent + interval. Whilst a slow nature was imbibing a misfortune little by little, + she had swallowed the whole agony of it at a draught and was brightening + again. She could slough off a sadness and replace it by a hope as easily + as a lizard renews a diseased limb. + </p> + <p> + And two such excellent distractions had presented themselves. One was + bringing out the romance and looking for notices in the papers, which, + though they had been significantly short so far, had served to divert her + thoughts. The other was migrating from the vicarage to the more commodious + old house of Mrs. Swancourt’s, overlooking the same valley. Mr. Swancourt + at first disliked the idea of being transplanted to feminine soil, but the + obvious advantages of such an accession of dignity reconciled him to the + change. So there was a radical ‘move;’ the two ladies staying at Torquay + as had been arranged, the vicar going to and fro. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt considerably enlarged Elfride’s ideas in an aristocratic + direction, and she began to forgive her father for his politic marriage. + Certainly, in a worldly sense, a handsome face at three-and-forty had + never served a man in better stead. + </p> + <p> + The new house at Kensington was ready, and they were all in town. + </p> + <p> + The Hyde Park shrubs had been transplanted as usual, the chairs ranked in + line, the grass edgings trimmed, the roads made to look as if they were + suffering from a heavy thunderstorm; carriages had been called for by the + easeful, horses by the brisk, and the Drive and Row were again the groove + of gaiety for an hour. We gaze upon the spectacle, at six o’clock on this + midsummer afternoon, in a melon-frame atmosphere and beneath a violet sky. + The Swancourt equipage formed one in the stream. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt was a talker of talk of the incisive kind, which her low + musical voice—the only beautiful point in the old woman—prevented + from being wearisome. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now,’ she said to Elfride, who, like AEneas at Carthage, was full of + admiration for the brilliant scene, ‘you will find that our companionless + state will give us, as it does everybody, an extraordinary power in + reading the features of our fellow-creatures here. I always am a listener + in such places as these—not to the narratives told by my neighbours’ + tongues, but by their faces—the advantage of which is, that whether + I am in Row, Boulevard, Rialto, or Prado, they all speak the same + language. I may have acquired some skill in this practice through having + been an ugly lonely woman for so many years, with nobody to give me + information; a thing you will not consider strange when the parallel case + is borne in mind,—how truly people who have no clocks will tell the + time of day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, that they will,’ said Mr. Swancourt corroboratively. ‘I have known + labouring men at Endelstow and other farms who had framed complete systems + of observation for that purpose. By means of shadows, winds, clouds, the + movements of sheep and oxen, the singing of birds, the crowing of cocks, + and a hundred other sights and sounds which people with watches in their + pockets never know the existence of, they are able to pronounce within ten + minutes of the hour almost at any required instant. That reminds me of an + old story which I’m afraid is too bad—too bad to repeat.’ Here the + vicar shook his head and laughed inwardly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell it—do!’ said the ladies. + </p> + <p> + ‘I mustn’t quite tell it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s absurd,’ said Mrs. Swancourt. + </p> + <p> + ‘It was only about a man who, by the same careful system of observation, + was known to deceive persons for more than two years into the belief that + he kept a barometer by stealth, so exactly did he foretell all changes in + the weather by the braying of his ass and the temper of his wife.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Exactly,’ said Mrs. Swancourt. ‘And in just the way that those learnt the + signs of nature, I have learnt the language of her illegitimate sister—artificiality; + and the fibbing of eyes, the contempt of nose-tips, the indignation of + back hair, the laughter of clothes, the cynicism of footsteps, and the + various emotions lying in walking-stick twirls, hat-liftings, the + elevation of parasols, the carriage of umbrellas, become as A B C to me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Just look at that daughter’s sister class of mamma in the carriage across + there,’ she continued to Elfride, pointing with merely a turn of her eye. + ‘The absorbing self-consciousness of her position that is shown by her + countenance is most humiliating to a lover of one’s country. You would + hardly believe, would you, that members of a Fashionable World, whose + professed zero is far above the highest degree of the humble, could be so + ignorant of the elementary instincts of reticence.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, to bear on their faces, as plainly as on a phylactery, the + inscription, “Do, pray, look at the coronet on my panels.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, Charlotte,’ said the vicar, ‘you see as much in faces as Mr. Puff + saw in Lord Burleigh’s nod.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride could not but admire the beauty of her fellow countrywomen, + especially since herself and her own few acquaintances had always been + slightly sunburnt or marked on the back of the hands by a bramble-scratch + at this time of the year. + </p> + <p> + ‘And what lovely flowers and leaves they wear in their bonnets!’ she + exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes,’ returned Mrs. Swancourt. ‘Some of them are even more striking in + colour than any real ones. Look at that beautiful rose worn by the lady + inside the rails. Elegant vine-tendrils introduced upon the stem as an + improvement upon prickles, and all growing so naturally just over her ear—I + say growing advisedly, for the pink of the petals and the pink of her + handsome cheeks are equally from Nature’s hand to the eyes of the most + casual observer.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But praise them a little, they do deserve it!’ said generous Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I do. See how the Duchess of——waves to and fro in her + seat, utilizing the sway of her landau by looking around only when her + head is swung forward, with a passive pride which forbids a resistance to + the force of circumstance. Look at the pretty pout on the mouths of that + family there, retaining no traces of being arranged beforehand, so well is + it done. Look at the demure close of the little fists holding the + parasols; the tiny alert thumb, sticking up erect against the ivory stem + as knowing as can be, the satin of the parasol invariably matching the + complexion of the face beneath it, yet seemingly by an accident, which + makes the thing so attractive. There’s the red book lying on the opposite + seat, bespeaking the vast numbers of their acquaintance. And I + particularly admire the aspect of that abundantly daughtered woman on the + other side—I mean her look of unconsciousness that the girls are + stared at by the walkers, and above all the look of the girls themselves—losing + their gaze in the depths of handsome men’s eyes without appearing to + notice whether they are observing masculine eyes or the leaves of the + trees. There’s praise for you. But I am only jesting, child—you know + that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Piph-ph-ph—how warm it is, to be sure!’ said Mr. Swancourt, as if + his mind were a long distance from all he saw. ‘I declare that my watch is + so hot that I can scarcely bear to touch it to see what the time is, and + all the world smells like the inside of a hat.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How the men stare at you, Elfride!’ said the elder lady. ‘You will kill + me quite, I am afraid.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Kill you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As a diamond kills an opal in the same setting.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have noticed several ladies and gentlemen looking at me,’ said Elfride + artlessly, showing her pleasure at being observed. + </p> + <p> + ‘My dear, you mustn’t say “gentlemen” nowadays,’ her stepmother answered + in the tones of arch concern that so well became her ugliness. ‘We have + handed over “gentlemen” to the lower middle class, where the word is still + to be heard at tradesmen’s balls and provincial tea-parties, I believe. It + is done with here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What must I say, then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ladies and MEN” always.’ + </p> + <p> + At this moment appeared in the stream of vehicles moving in the contrary + direction a chariot presenting in its general surface the rich indigo hue + of a midnight sky, the wheels and margins being picked out in delicate + lines of ultramarine; the servants’ liveries were dark-blue coats and + silver lace, and breeches of neutral Indian red. The whole concern formed + an organic whole, and moved along behind a pair of dark chestnut geldings, + who advanced in an indifferently zealous trot, very daintily performed, + and occasionally shrugged divers points of their veiny surface as if they + were rather above the business. + </p> + <p> + In this sat a gentleman with no decided characteristics more than that he + somewhat resembled a good-natured commercial traveller of the superior + class. Beside him was a lady with skim-milky eyes and complexion, + belonging to the “interesting” class of women, where that class merges in + the sickly, her greatest pleasure being apparently to enjoy nothing. + Opposite this pair sat two little girls in white hats and blue feathers. + </p> + <p> + The lady saw Elfride, smiled and bowed, and touched her husband’s elbow, + who turned and received Elfride’s movement of recognition with a gallant + elevation of his hat. Then the two children held up their arms to Elfride, + and laughed gleefully. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who is that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Lord Luxellian, isn’t it?’ said Mrs. Swancourt, who with the vicar + had been seated with her back towards them. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ replied Elfride. ‘He is the one man of those I have seen here whom + I consider handsomer than papa.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you, dear,’ said Mr. Swancourt. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; but your father is so much older. When Lord Luxellian gets a little + further on in life, he won’t be half so good-looking as our man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you, dear, likewise,’ said Mr. Swancourt. + </p> + <p> + ‘See,’ exclaimed Elfride, still looking towards them, ‘how those little + dears want me! Actually one of them is crying for me to come.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We were talking of bracelets just now. Look at Lady Luxellian’s,’ said + Mrs. Swancourt, as that baroness lifted up her arm to support one of the + children. ‘It is slipping up her arm—too large by half. I hate to + see daylight between a bracelet and a wrist; I wonder women haven’t better + taste.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not on that account, indeed,’ Elfride expostulated. ‘It is that her + arm has got thin, poor thing. You cannot think how much she has altered in + this last twelvemonth.’ + </p> + <p> + The carriages were now nearer together, and there was an exchange of more + familiar greetings between the two families. Then the Luxellians crossed + over and drew up under the plane-trees, just in the rear of the + Swancourts. Lord Luxellian alighted, and came forward with a musical + laugh. + </p> + <p> + It was his attraction as a man. People liked him for those tones, and + forgot that he had no talents. Acquaintances remembered Mr. Swancourt by + his manner; they remembered Stephen Smith by his face, Lord Luxellian by + his laugh. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Swancourt made some friendly remarks—among others things upon + the heat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ said Lord Luxellian, ‘we were driving by a furrier’s window this + afternoon, and the sight filled us all with such a sense of suffocation + that we were glad to get away. Ha-ha!’ He turned to Elfride. ‘Miss + Swancourt, I have hardly seen or spoken to you since your literary feat + was made public. I had no idea a chiel was taking notes down at quiet + Endelstow, or I should certainly have put myself and friends upon our best + behaviour. Swancourt, why didn’t you give me a hint!’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride fluttered, blushed, laughed, said it was nothing to speak of, + &c. &c. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I think you were rather unfairly treated by the PRESENT, I + certainly do. Writing a heavy review like that upon an elegant trifle like + the COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE was absurd.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ said Elfride, opening her eyes. ‘Was I reviewed in the PRESENT?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes; didn’t you see it? Why, it was four or five months ago!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I never saw it. How sorry I am! What a shame of my publishers! They + promised to send me every notice that appeared.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, then, I am almost afraid I have been giving you disagreeable + information, intentionally withheld out of courtesy. Depend upon it they + thought no good would come of sending it, and so would not pain you + unnecessarily.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no; I am indeed glad you have told me, Lord Luxellian. It is quite a + mistaken kindness on their part. Is the review so much against me?’ she + inquired tremulously. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no; not that exactly—though I almost forget its exact purport + now. It was merely—merely sharp, you know—ungenerous, I might + say. But really my memory does not enable me to speak decidedly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We’ll drive to the PRESENT office, and get one directly; shall we, papa?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If you are so anxious, dear, we will, or send. But to-morrow will do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And do oblige me in a little matter now, Elfride,’ said Lord Luxellian + warmly, and looking as if he were sorry he had brought news that disturbed + her. ‘I am in reality sent here as a special messenger by my little Polly + and Katie to ask you to come into our carriage with them for a short time. + I am just going to walk across into Piccadilly, and my wife is left alone + with them. I am afraid they are rather spoilt children; but I have half + promised them you shall come.’ + </p> + <p> + The steps were let down, and Elfride was transferred—to the intense + delight of the little girls, and to the mild interest of loungers with red + skins and long necks, who cursorily eyed the performance with their + walking-sticks to their lips, occasionally laughing from far down their + throats and with their eyes, their mouths not being concerned in the + operation at all. Lord Luxellian then told the coachman to drive on, + lifted his hat, smiled a smile that missed its mark and alighted on a + total stranger, who bowed in bewilderment. Lord Luxellian looked long at + Elfride. + </p> + <p> + The look was a manly, open, and genuine look of admiration; a momentary + tribute of a kind which any honest Englishman might have paid to fairness + without being ashamed of the feeling, or permitting it to encroach in the + slightest degree upon his emotional obligations as a husband and head of a + family. Then Lord Luxellian turned away, and walked musingly to the upper + end of the promenade. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Swancourt had alighted at the same time with Elfride, crossing over to + the Row for a few minutes to speak to a friend he recognized there; and + his wife was thus left sole tenant of the carriage. + </p> + <p> + Now, whilst this little act had been in course of performance, there stood + among the promenading spectators a man of somewhat different description + from the rest. Behind the general throng, in the rear of the chairs, and + leaning against the trunk of a tree, he looked at Elfride with quiet and + critical interest. + </p> + <p> + Three points about this unobtrusive person showed promptly to the + exercised eye that he was not a Row man pur sang. First, an irrepressible + wrinkle or two in the waist of his frock-coat—denoting that he had + not damned his tailor sufficiently to drive that tradesman up to the + orthodox high pressure of cunning workmanship. Second, a slight + slovenliness of umbrella, occasioned by its owner’s habit of resting + heavily upon it, and using it as a veritable walking-stick, instead of + letting its point touch the ground in the most coquettish of kisses, as is + the proper Row manner to do. Third, and chief reason, that try how you + might, you could scarcely help supposing, on looking at his face, that + your eyes were not far from a well-finished mind, instead of the + well-finished skin et praeterea nihil, which is by rights the Mark of the + Row. + </p> + <p> + The probability is that, had not Mrs. Swancourt been left alone in her + carriage under the tree, this man would have remained in his unobserved + seclusion. But seeing her thus, he came round to the front, stooped under + the rail, and stood beside the carriage-door. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt looked reflectively at him for a quarter of a minute, then + held out her hand laughingly: + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Henry Knight—of course it is! My—second—third—fourth + cousin—what shall I say? At any rate, my kinsman.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, one of a remnant not yet cut off. I scarcely was certain of you, + either, from where I was standing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have not seen you since you first went to Oxford; consider the number + of years! You know, I suppose, of my marriage?’ + </p> + <p> + And there sprang up a dialogue concerning family matters of birth, death, + and marriage, which it is not necessary to detail. Knight presently + inquired: + </p> + <p> + ‘The young lady who changed into the other carriage is, then, your + stepdaughter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, Elfride. You must know her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And who was the lady in the carriage Elfride entered; who had an + ill-defined and watery look, as if she were only the reflection of herself + in a pool?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Lady Luxellian; very weakly, Elfride says. My husband is remotely + connected with them; but there is not much intimacy on account of——. + However, Henry, you’ll come and see us, of course. 24 Chevron Square. Come + this week. We shall only be in town a week or two longer.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me see. I’ve got to run up to Oxford to-morrow, where I shall be for + several days; so that I must, I fear, lose the pleasure of seeing you in + London this year.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then come to Endelstow; why not return with us?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am afraid if I were to come before August I should have to leave again + in a day or two. I should be delighted to be with you at the beginning of + that month; and I could stay a nice long time. I have thought of going + westward all the summer.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well. Now remember that’s a compact. And won’t you wait now and see + Mr. Swancourt? He will not be away ten minutes longer.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; I’ll beg to be excused; for I must get to my chambers again this + evening before I go home; indeed, I ought to have been there now—I + have such a press of matters to attend to just at present. You will + explain to him, please. Good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And let us know the day of your appearance as soon as you can.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XV + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘A wandering voice.’ +</pre> + <p> + Though sheer and intelligible griefs are not charmed away by being + confided to mere acquaintances, the process is a palliative to certain + ill-humours. Among these, perplexed vexation is one—a species of + trouble which, like a stream, gets shallower by the simple operation of + widening it in any quarter. + </p> + <p> + On the evening of the day succeeding that of the meeting in the Park, + Elfride and Mrs. Swancourt were engaged in conversation in the + dressing-room of the latter. Such a treatment of such a case was in course + of adoption here. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had just before received an affectionate letter from Stephen Smith + in Bombay, which had been forwarded to her from Endelstow. But since this + is not the case referred to, it is not worth while to pry further into the + contents of the letter than to discover that, with rash though pardonable + confidence in coming times, he addressed her in high spirits as his + darling future wife. Probably there cannot be instanced a briefer and + surer rule-of-thumb test of a man’s temperament—sanguine or cautious—than + this: did he or does he ante-date the word wife in corresponding with a + sweet-heart he honestly loves? + </p> + <p> + She had taken this epistle into her own room, read a little of it, then + SAVED the rest for to-morrow, not wishing to be so extravagant as to + consume the pleasure all at once. Nevertheless, she could not resist the + wish to enjoy yet a little more, so out came the letter again, and in + spite of misgivings as to prodigality the whole was devoured. The letter + was finally reperused and placed in her pocket. + </p> + <p> + What was this? Also a newspaper for Elfride, which she had overlooked in + her hurry to open the letter. It was the old number of the PRESENT, + containing the article upon her book, forwarded as had been requested. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had hastily read it through, shrunk perceptibly smaller, and had + then gone with the paper in her hand to Mrs. Swancourt’s dressing-room, to + lighten or at least modify her vexation by a discriminating estimate from + her stepmother. + </p> + <p> + She was now looking disconsolately out of the window. + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind, my child,’ said Mrs. Swancourt after a careful perusal of the + matter indicated. ‘I don’t see that the review is such a terrible one, + after all. Besides, everybody has forgotten about it by this time. I’m + sure the opening is good enough for any book ever written. Just listen—it + sounds better read aloud than when you pore over it silently: “THE COURT + OF KELLYON CASTLE. A ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. BY ERNEST FIELD. In the + belief that we were for a while escaping the monotonous repetition of + wearisome details in modern social scenery, analyses of uninteresting + character, or the unnatural unfoldings of a sensation plot, we took this + volume into our hands with a feeling of pleasure. We were disposed to + beguile ourselves with the fancy that some new change might possibly be + rung upon donjon keeps, chain and plate armour, deeply scarred cheeks, + tender maidens disguised as pages, to which we had not listened long ago.” + Now, that’s a very good beginning, in my opinion, and one to be proud of + having brought out of a man who has never seen you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, yes,’ murmured Elfride wofully. ‘But, then, see further on!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well the next bit is rather unkind, I must own,’ said Mrs. Swancourt, and + read on. ‘“Instead of this we found ourselves in the hands of some young + lady, hardly arrived at years of discretion, to judge by the silly device + it has been thought worth while to adopt on the title-page, with the idea + of disguising her sex.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am not “silly”!’ said Elfride indignantly. ‘He might have called me + anything but that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are not, indeed. Well:—“Hands of a young lady...whose chapters + are simply devoted to impossible tournaments, towers, and escapades, which + read like flat copies of like scenes in the stories of Mr. G. P. R. James, + and the most unreal portions of IVANHOE. The bait is so palpably + artificial that the most credulous gudgeon turns away.” Now, my dear, I + don’t see overmuch to complain of in that. It proves that you were clever + enough to make him think of Sir Walter Scott, which is a great deal.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes; though I cannot romance myself, I am able to remind him of those + who can!’ Elfride intended to hurl these words sarcastically at her + invisible enemy, but as she had no more satirical power than a + wood-pigeon, they merely fell in a pretty murmur from lips shaped to a + pout. + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly: and that’s something. Your book is good enough to be bad in an + ordinary literary manner, and doesn’t stand by itself in a melancholy + position altogether worse than assailable.—“That interest in an + historical romance may nowadays have any chance of being sustained, it is + indispensable that the reader find himself under the guidance of some + nearly extinct species of legendary, who, in addition to an impulse + towards antiquarian research and an unweakened faith in the mediaeval + halo, shall possess an inventive faculty in which delicacy of sentiment is + far overtopped by a power of welding to stirring incident a spirited + variety of the elementary human passions.” Well, that long-winded effusion + doesn’t refer to you at all, Elfride, merely something put in to fill up. + Let me see, when does he come to you again;...not till the very end, + actually. Here you are finally polished off: + </p> + <p> + ‘“But to return to the little work we have used as the text of this + article. We are far from altogether disparaging the author’s powers. She + has a certain versatility that enables her to use with effect a style of + narration peculiar to herself, which may be called a murmuring of delicate + emotional trifles, the particular gift of those to whom the social + sympathies of a peaceful time are as daily food. Hence, where matters of + domestic experience, and the natural touches which make people real, can + be introduced without anachronisms too striking, she is occasionally + felicitous; and upon the whole we feel justified in saying that the book + will bear looking into for the sake of those portions which have nothing + whatever to do with the story.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I suppose it is intended for satire; but don’t think anything more + of it now, my dear. It is seven o’clock.’ And Mrs. Swancourt rang for her + maid. + </p> + <p> + Attack is more piquant than concord. Stephen’s letter was concerning + nothing but oneness with her: the review was the very reverse. And a + stranger with neither name nor shape, age nor appearance, but a mighty + voice, is naturally rather an interesting novelty to a lady he chooses to + address. When Elfride fell asleep that night she was loving the writer of + the letter, but thinking of the writer of that article. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XVI + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Then fancy shapes—as fancy can.’ +</pre> + <p> + On a day about three weeks later, the Swancourt trio were sitting quietly + in the drawing-room of The Crags, Mrs. Swancourt’s house at Endelstow, + chatting, and taking easeful survey of their previous month or two of town—a + tangible weariness even to people whose acquaintances there might be + counted on the fingers. + </p> + <p> + A mere season in London with her practised step-mother had so advanced + Elfride’s perceptions, that her courtship by Stephen seemed emotionally + meagre, and to have drifted back several years into a childish past. In + regarding our mental experiences, as in visual observation, our own + progress reads like a dwindling of that we progress from. + </p> + <p> + She was seated on a low chair, looking over her romance with melancholy + interest for the first time since she had become acquainted with the + remarks of the PRESENT thereupon. + </p> + <p> + ‘Still thinking of that reviewer, Elfie?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not of him personally; but I am thinking of his opinion. Really, on + looking into the volume after this long time has elapsed, he seems to have + estimated one part of it fairly enough.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no; I wouldn’t show the white feather now! Fancy that of all people + in the world the writer herself should go over to the enemy. How shall + Monmouth’s men fight when Monmouth runs away?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t do that. But I think he is right in some of his arguments, though + wrong in others. And because he has some claim to my respect I regret all + the more that he should think so mistakenly of my motives in one or two + instances. It is more vexing to be misunderstood than to be + misrepresented; and he misunderstands me. I cannot be easy whilst a person + goes to rest night after night attributing to me intentions I never had.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He doesn’t know your name, or anything about you. And he has doubtless + forgotten there is such a book in existence by this time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I myself should certainly like him to be put right upon one or two + matters,’ said the vicar, who had hitherto been silent. ‘You see, critics + go on writing, and are never corrected or argued with, and therefore are + never improved.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Papa,’ said Elfride brightening, ‘write to him!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I would as soon write to him as look at him, for the matter of that,’ + said Mr. Swancourt. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do! And say, the young person who wrote the book did not adopt a + masculine pseudonym in vanity or conceit, but because she was afraid it + would be thought presumptuous to publish her name, and that she did not + mean the story for such as he, but as a sweetener of history for young + people, who might thereby acquire a taste for what went on in their own + country hundreds of years ago, and be tempted to dive deeper into the + subject. Oh, there is so much to explain; I wish I might write myself!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, Elfie, I’ll tell you what we will do,’ answered Mr. Swancourt, + tickled with a sort of bucolic humour at the idea of criticizing the + critic. ‘You shall write a clear account of what he is wrong in, and I + will copy it and send it as mine.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, now, directly!’ said Elfride, jumping up. ‘When will you send it, + papa?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, in a day or two, I suppose,’ he returned. Then the vicar paused and + slightly yawned, and in the manner of elderly people began to cool from + his ardour for the undertaking now that it came to the point. ‘But, + really, it is hardly worth while,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + ‘O papa!’ said Elfride, with much disappointment. ‘You said you would, and + now you won’t. That is not fair!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But how can we send it if we don’t know whom to send it to?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If you really want to send such a thing it can easily be done,’ said Mrs. + Swancourt, coming to her step-daughter’s rescue. ‘An envelope addressed, + “To the Critic of THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE, care of the Editor of the + PRESENT,” would find him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I suppose it would.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not write your answer yourself, Elfride?’ Mrs. Swancourt inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘I might,’ she said hesitatingly; ‘and send it anonymously: that would be + treating him as he has treated me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No use in the world!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I don’t like to let him know my exact name. Suppose I put my initials + only? The less you are known the more you are thought of.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; you might do that.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride set to work there and then. Her one desire for the last fortnight + seemed likely to be realized. As happens with sensitive and secluded + minds, a continual dwelling upon the subject had magnified to colossal + proportions the space she assumed herself to occupy or to have occupied in + the occult critic’s mind. At noon and at night she had been pestering + herself with endeavours to perceive more distinctly his conception of her + as a woman apart from an author: whether he really despised her; whether + he thought more or less of her than of ordinary young women who never + ventured into the fire of criticism at all. Now she would have the + satisfaction of feeling that at any rate he knew her true intent in + crossing his path, and annoying him so by her performance, and be taught + perhaps to despise it a little less. + </p> + <p> + Four days later an envelope, directed to Miss Swancourt in a strange hand, + made its appearance from the post-bag. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh,’ said Elfride, her heart sinking within her. ‘Can it be from that man—a + lecture for impertinence? And actually one for Mrs. Swancourt in the same + hand-writing!’ She feared to open hers. ‘Yet how can he know my name? No; + it is somebody else.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense!’ said her father grimly. ‘You sent your initials, and the + Directory was available. Though he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to look + there unless he had been thoroughly savage with you. I thought you wrote + with rather more asperity than simple literary discussion required.’ This + timely clause was introduced to save the character of the vicar’s judgment + under any issue of affairs. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, here I go,’ said Elfride, desperately tearing open the seal. + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure, of course,’ exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt; and looking up from her + own letter. ‘Christopher, I quite forgot to tell you, when I mentioned + that I had seen my distant relative, Harry Knight, that I invited him here + for whatever length of time he could spare. And now he says he can come + any day in August.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Write, and say the first of the month,’ replied the indiscriminate vicar. + </p> + <p> + She read on, ‘Goodness me—and that isn’t all. He is actually the + reviewer of Elfride’s book. How absurd, to be sure! I had no idea he + reviewed novels or had anything to do with the PRESENT. He is a barrister—and + I thought he only wrote in the Quarterlies. Why, Elfride, you have brought + about an odd entanglement! What does he say to you?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride had put down her letter with a dissatisfied flush on her face. ‘I + don’t know. The idea of his knowing my name and all about me!...Why, he + says nothing particular, only this— + </p> + <p> + ‘“MY DEAR MADAM,—Though I am sorry that my remarks should have + seemed harsh to you, it is a pleasure to find that they have been the + means of bringing forth such an ingeniously argued reply. Unfortunately, + it is so long since I wrote my review, that my memory does not serve me + sufficiently to say a single word in my defence, even supposing there + remains one to be said, which is doubtful. You will find from a letter I + have written to Mrs. Swancourt, that we are not such strangers to each + other as we have been imagining. Possibly, I may have the pleasure of + seeing you soon, when any argument you choose to advance shall receive all + the attention it deserves.” + </p> + <p> + ‘That is dim sarcasm—I know it is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And then, his remarks didn’t seem harsh—I mean I did not say so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He thinks you are in a frightful temper,’ said Mr. Swancourt, chuckling + in undertones. + </p> + <p> + ‘And he will come and see me, and find the authoress as contemptible in + speech as she has been impertinent in manner. I do heartily wish I had + never written a word to him!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind,’ said Mrs. Swancourt, also laughing in low quiet jerks; ‘it + will make the meeting such a comical affair, and afford splendid by-play + for your father and myself. The idea of our running our heads against + Harry Knight all the time! I cannot get over that.’ + </p> + <p> + The vicar had immediately remembered the name to be that of Stephen + Smith’s preceptor and friend; but having ceased to concern himself in the + matter he made no remark to that effect, consistently forbearing to allude + to anything which could restore recollection of the (to him) disagreeable + mistake with regard to poor Stephen’s lineage and position. Elfride had of + course perceived the same thing, which added to the complication of + relationship a mesh that her stepmother knew nothing of. + </p> + <p> + The identification scarcely heightened Knight’s attractions now, though a + twelvemonth ago she would only have cared to see him for the interest he + possessed as Stephen’s friend. Fortunately for Knight’s advent, such a + reason for welcome had only begun to be awkward to her at a time when the + interest he had acquired on his own account made it no longer necessary. + </p> + <p> + These coincidences, in common with all relating to him, tended to keep + Elfride’s mind upon the stretch concerning Knight. As was her custom when + upon the horns of a dilemma, she walked off by herself among the laurel + bushes, and there, standing still and splitting up a leaf without removing + it from its stalk, fetched back recollections of Stephen’s frequent words + in praise of his friend, and wished she had listened more attentively. + Then, still pulling the leaf, she would blush at some fancied + mortification that would accrue to her from his words when they met, in + consequence of her intrusiveness, as she now considered it, in writing to + him. + </p> + <p> + The next development of her meditations was the subject of what this man’s + personal appearance might be—was he tall or short, dark or fair, gay + or grim? She would have asked Mrs. Swancourt but for the risk she might + thereby incur of some teasing remark being returned. Ultimately Elfride + would say, ‘Oh, what a plague that reviewer is to me!’ and turn her face + to where she imagined India lay, and murmur to herself, ‘Ah, my little + husband, what are you doing now? Let me see, where are you—south, + east, where? Behind that hill, ever so far behind!’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XVII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase.’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘There is Henry Knight, I declare!’ said Mrs. Swancourt one day. + </p> + <p> + They were gazing from the jutting angle of a wild enclosure not far from + The Crags, which almost overhung the valley already described as leading + up from the sea and little port of Castle Boterel. The stony escarpment + upon which they stood had the contour of a man’s face, and it was covered + with furze as with a beard. People in the field above were preserved from + an accidental roll down these prominences and hollows by a hedge on the + very crest, which was doing that kindly service for Elfride and her mother + now. + </p> + <p> + Scrambling higher into the hedge and stretching her neck further over the + furze, Elfride beheld the individual signified. He was walking leisurely + along the little green path at the bottom, beside the stream, a satchel + slung upon his left hip, a stout walking-stick in his hand, and a + brown-holland sun-hat upon his head. The satchel was worn and old, and the + outer polished surface of the leather was cracked and peeling off. + </p> + <p> + Knight having arrived over the hills to Castle Boterel upon the top of a + crazy omnibus, preferred to walk the remaining two miles up the valley, + leaving his luggage to be brought on. + </p> + <p> + Behind him wandered, helter-skelter, a boy of whom Knight had briefly + inquired the way to Endelstow; and by that natural law of physics which + causes lesser bodies to gravitate towards the greater, this boy had kept + near to Knight, and trotted like a little dog close at his heels, + whistling as he went, with his eyes fixed upon Knight’s boots as they rose + and fell. + </p> + <p> + When they had reached a point precisely opposite that in which Mrs. and + Miss Swancourt lay in ambush, Knight stopped and turned round. + </p> + <p> + ‘Look here, my boy,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + The boy parted his lips, opened his eyes, and answered nothing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s sixpence for you, on condition that you don’t again come within + twenty yards of my heels, all the way up the valley.’ + </p> + <p> + The boy, who apparently had not known he had been looking at Knight’s + heels at all, took the sixpence mechanically, and Knight went on again, + wrapt in meditation. + </p> + <p> + ‘A nice voice,’ Elfride thought; ‘but what a singular temper!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now we must get indoors before he ascends the slope,’ said Mrs. Swancourt + softly. And they went across by a short cut over a stile, entering the + lawn by a side door, and so on to the house. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Swancourt had gone into the village with the curate, and Elfride felt + too nervous to await their visitor’s arrival in the drawing-room with Mrs. + Swancourt. So that when the elder lady entered, Elfride made some pretence + of perceiving a new variety of crimson geranium, and lingered behind among + the flower beds. + </p> + <p> + There was nothing gained by this, after all, she thought; and a few + minutes after boldly came into the house by the glass side-door. She + walked along the corridor, and entered the drawing-room. Nobody was there. + </p> + <p> + A window at the angle of the room opened directly into an octagonal + conservatory, enclosing the corner of the building. From the conservatory + came voices in conversation—Mrs. Swancourt’s and the stranger’s. + </p> + <p> + She had expected him to talk brilliantly. To her surprise he was asking + questions in quite a learner’s manner, on subjects connected with the + flowers and shrubs that she had known for years. When after the lapse of a + few minutes he spoke at some length, she considered there was a hard + square decisiveness in the shape of his sentences, as if, unlike her own + and Stephen’s, they were not there and then newly constructed, but were + drawn forth from a large store ready-made. They were now approaching the + window to come in again. + </p> + <p> + ‘That is a flesh-coloured variety,’ said Mrs. Swancourt. ‘But oleanders, + though they are such bulky shrubs, are so very easily wounded as to be + unprunable—giants with the sensitiveness of young ladies. Oh, here + is Elfride!’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked as guilty and crestfallen as Lady Teazle at the dropping of + the screen. Mrs. Swancourt presented him half comically, and Knight in a + minute or two placed himself beside the young lady. + </p> + <p> + A complexity of instincts checked Elfride’s conventional smiles of + complaisance and hospitality; and, to make her still less comfortable, + Mrs. Swancourt immediately afterwards left them together to seek her + husband. Mr. Knight, however, did not seem at all incommoded by his + feelings, and he said with light easefulness: + </p> + <p> + ‘So, Miss Swancourt, I have met you at last. You escaped me by a few + minutes only when we were in London.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. I found that you had seen Mrs. Swancourt.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And now reviewer and reviewed are face to face,’ he added unconcernedly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes: though the fact of your being a relation of Mrs. Swancourt’s takes + off the edge of it. It was strange that you should be one of her family + all the time.’ Elfride began to recover herself now, and to look into + Knight’s face. ‘I was merely anxious to let you know my REAL meaning in + writing the book—extremely anxious.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can quite understand the wish; and I was gratified that my remarks + should have reached home. They very seldom do, I am afraid.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride drew herself in. Here he was, sticking to his opinions as firmly + as if friendship and politeness did not in the least require an immediate + renunciation of them. + </p> + <p> + ‘You made me very uneasy and sorry by writing such things!’ she murmured, + suddenly dropping the mere cacueterie of a fashionable first introduction, + and speaking with some of the dudgeon of a child towards a severe + schoolmaster. + </p> + <p> + ‘That is rather the object of honest critics in such a case. Not to cause + unnecessary sorrow, but: “To make you sorry after a proper manner, that ye + may receive damage by us in nothing,” as a powerful pen once wrote to the + Gentiles. Are you going to write another romance?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Write another?’ she said. ‘That somebody may pen a condemnation and + “nail’t wi’ Scripture” again, as you do now, Mr. Knight?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You may do better next time,’ he said placidly: ‘I think you will. But I + would advise you to confine yourself to domestic scenes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you. But never again!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, you may be right. That a young woman has taken to writing is not by + any means the best thing to hear about her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What is the best?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I prefer not to say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you know? Then, do tell me, please.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well’—(Knight was evidently changing his meaning)—‘I suppose + to hear that she has married.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride hesitated. ‘And what when she has been married?’ she said at last, + partly in order to withdraw her own person from the argument. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then to hear no more about her. It is as Smeaton said of his lighthouse: + her greatest real praise, when the novelty of her inauguration has worn + off, is that nothing happens to keep the talk of her alive.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I see,’ said Elfride softly and thoughtfully. ‘But of course it is + different quite with men. Why don’t you write novels, Mr. Knight?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I couldn’t write one that would interest anybody.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘For several reasons. It requires a judicious omission of your real + thoughts to make a novel popular, for one thing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is that really necessary? Well, I am sure you could learn to do that with + practice,’ said Elfride with an ex-cathedra air, as became a person who + spoke from experience in the art. ‘You would make a great name for + certain,’ she continued. + </p> + <p> + ‘So many people make a name nowadays, that it is more distinguished to + remain in obscurity.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me seriously—apart from the subject—why don’t you write + a volume instead of loose articles?’ she insisted. + </p> + <p> + ‘Since you are pleased to make me talk of myself, I will tell you + seriously,’ said Knight, not less amused at this catechism by his young + friend than he was interested in her appearance. ‘As I have implied, I + have not the wish. And if I had the wish, I could not now concentrate + sufficiently. We all have only our one cruse of energy given us to make + the best of. And where that energy has been leaked away week by week, + quarter by quarter, as mine has for the last nine or ten years, there is + not enough dammed back behind the mill at any given period to supply the + force a complete book on any subject requires. Then there is the + self-confidence and waiting power. Where quick results have grown + customary, they are fatal to a lively faith in the future.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I comprehend; and so you choose to write in fragments?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I don’t choose to do it in the sense you mean; choosing from a whole + world of professions, all possible. It was by the constraint of accident + merely. Not that I object to the accident.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why don’t you object—I mean, why do you feel so quiet about + things?’ Elfride was half afraid to question him so, but her intense + curiosity to see what the inside of literary Mr. Knight was like, kept her + going on. + </p> + <p> + Knight certainly did not mind being frank with her. Instances of this + trait in men who are not without feeling, but are reticent from habit, may + be recalled by all of us. When they find a listener who can by no + possibility make use of them, rival them, or condemn them, reserved and + even suspicious men of the world become frank, keenly enjoying the inner + side of their frankness. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why I don’t mind the accidental constraint,’ he replied, ‘is because, in + making beginnings, a chance limitation of direction is often better than + absolute freedom.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I see—that is, I should if I quite understood what all those + generalities mean.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, this: That an arbitrary foundation for one’s work, which no length + of thought can alter, leaves the attention free to fix itself on the work + itself, and make the best of it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Lateral compression forcing altitude, as would be said in that tongue,’ + she said mischievously. ‘And I suppose where no limit exists, as in the + case of a rich man with a wide taste who wants to do something, it will be + better to choose a limit capriciously than to have none.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ he said meditatively. ‘I can go as far as that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ resumed Elfride, ‘I think it better for a man’s nature if he does + nothing in particular.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There is such a case as being obliged to.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes; I was speaking of when you are not obliged for any other reason + than delight in the prospect of fame. I have thought many times lately + that a thin widespread happiness, commencing now, and of a piece with the + days of your life, is preferable to an anticipated heap far away in the + future, and none now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, that’s the very thing I said just now as being the principle of all + ephemeral doers like myself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I am sorry to have parodied you,’ she said with some confusion. ‘Yes, + of course. That is what you meant about not trying to be famous.’ And she + added, with the quickness of conviction characteristic of her mind: ‘There + is much littleness in trying to be great. A man must think a good deal of + himself, and be conceited enough to believe in himself, before he tries at + all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But it is soon enough to say there is harm in a man’s thinking a good + deal of himself when it is proved he has been thinking wrong, and too soon + then sometimes. Besides, we should not conclude that a man who strives + earnestly for success does so with a strong sense of his own merit. He may + see how little success has to do with merit, and his motive may be his + very humility.’ + </p> + <p> + This manner of treating her rather provoked Elfride. No sooner did she + agree with him than he ceased to seem to wish it, and took the other side. + ‘Ah,’ she thought inwardly, ‘I shall have nothing to do with a man of this + kind, though he is our visitor.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think you will find,’ resumed Knight, pursuing the conversation more + for the sake of finishing off his thoughts on the subject than for + engaging her attention, ‘that in actual life it is merely a matter of + instinct with men—this trying to push on. They awake to a + recognition that they have, without premeditation, begun to try a little, + and they say to themselves, “Since I have tried thus much, I will try a + little more.” They go on because they have begun.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride, in her turn, was not particularly attending to his words at this + moment. She had, unconsciously to herself, a way of seizing any point in + the remarks of an interlocutor which interested her, and dwelling upon it, + and thinking thoughts of her own thereupon, totally oblivious of all that + he might say in continuation. On such occasions she artlessly surveyed the + person speaking; and then there was a time for a painter. Her eyes seemed + to look at you, and past you, as you were then, into your future; and past + your future into your eternity—not reading it, but gazing in an + unused, unconscious way—her mind still clinging to its original + thought. + </p> + <p> + This is how she was looking at Knight. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly Elfride became conscious of what she was doing, and was painfully + confused. + </p> + <p> + ‘What were you so intent upon in me?’ he inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘As far as I was thinking of you at all, I was thinking how clever you + are,’ she said, with a want of premeditation that was startling in its + honesty and simplicity. + </p> + <p> + Feeling restless now that she had so unwittingly spoken, she arose and + stepped to the window, having heard the voices of her father and Mrs. + Swancourt coming up below the terrace. ‘Here they are,’ she said, going + out. Knight walked out upon the lawn behind her. She stood upon the edge + of the terrace, close to the stone balustrade, and looked towards the sun, + hanging over a glade just now fair as Tempe’s vale, up which her father + was walking. + </p> + <p> + Knight could not help looking at her. The sun was within ten degrees of + the horizon, and its warm light flooded her face and heightened the bright + rose colour of her cheeks to a vermilion red, their moderate pink hue + being only seen in its natural tone where the cheek curved round into + shadow. The ends of her hanging hair softly dragged themselves backwards + and forwards upon her shoulder as each faint breeze thrust against or + relinquished it. Fringes and ribbons of her dress, moved by the same + breeze, licked like tongues upon the parts around them, and fluttering + forward from shady folds caught likewise their share of the lustrous + orange glow. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Swancourt shouted out a welcome to Knight from a distance of about + thirty yards, and after a few preliminary words proceeded to a + conversation of deep earnestness on Knight’s fine old family name, and + theories as to lineage and intermarriage connected therewith. Knight’s + portmanteau having in the meantime arrived, they soon retired to prepare + for dinner, which had been postponed two hours later than the usual time + of that meal. + </p> + <p> + An arrival was an event in the life of Elfride, now that they were again + in the country, and that of Knight necessarily an engrossing one. And that + evening she went to bed for the first time without thinking of Stephen at + all. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XVIII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘He heard her musical pants.’ +</pre> + <p> + The old tower of West Endelstow Church had reached the last weeks of its + existence. It was to be replaced by a new one from the designs of Mr. + Hewby, the architect who had sent down Stephen. Planks and poles had + arrived in the churchyard, iron bars had been thrust into the venerable + crack extending down the belfry wall to the foundation, the bells had been + taken down, the owls had forsaken this home of their forefathers, and six + iconoclasts in white fustian, to whom a cracked edifice was a species of + Mumbo Jumbo, had taken lodgings in the village previous to beginning the + actual removal of the stones. + </p> + <p> + This was the day after Knight’s arrival. To enjoy for the last time the + prospect seaward from the summit, the vicar, Mrs. Swancourt, Knight, and + Elfride, all ascended the winding turret—Mr. Swancourt stepping + forward with many loud breaths, his wife struggling along silently, but + suffering none the less. They had hardly reached the top when a large + lurid cloud, palpably a reservoir of rain, thunder, and lightning, was + seen to be advancing overhead from the north. + </p> + <p> + The two cautious elders suggested an immediate return, and proceeded to + put it in practice as regarded themselves. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear me, I wish I had not come up,’ exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt. + </p> + <p> + ‘We shall be slower than you two in going down,’ the vicar said over his + shoulder, ‘and so, don’t you start till we are nearly at the bottom, or + you will run over us and break our necks somewhere in the darkness of the + turret.’ + </p> + <p> + Accordingly Elfride and Knight waited on the leads till the staircase + should be clear. Knight was not in a talkative mood that morning. Elfride + was rather wilful, by reason of his inattention, which she privately set + down to his thinking her not worth talking to. Whilst Knight stood + watching the rise of the cloud, she sauntered to the other side of the + tower, and there remembered a giddy feat she had performed the year + before. It was to walk round upon the parapet of the tower—which was + quite without battlement or pinnacle, and presented a smooth flat surface + about two feet wide, forming a pathway on all the four sides. Without + reflecting in the least upon what she was doing she now stepped upon the + parapet in the old way, and began walking along. + </p> + <p> + ‘We are down, cousin Henry,’ cried Mrs. Swancourt up the turret. ‘Follow + us when you like.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight turned and saw Elfride beginning her elevated promenade. His face + flushed with mingled concern and anger at her rashness. + </p> + <p> + ‘I certainly gave you credit for more common sense,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + She reddened a little and walked on. + </p> + <p> + ‘Miss Swancourt, I insist upon your coming down,’ he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will in a minute. I am safe enough. I have done it often.’ + </p> + <p> + At that moment, by reason of a slight perturbation his words had caused in + her, Elfride’s foot caught itself in a little tuft of grass growing in a + joint of the stone-work, and she almost lost her balance. Knight sprang + forward with a face of horror. By what seemed the special interposition of + a considerate Providence she tottered to the inner edge of the parapet + instead of to the outer, and reeled over upon the lead roof two or three + feet below the wall. + </p> + <p> + Knight seized her as in a vice, and he said, panting, ‘That ever I should + have met a woman fool enough to do a thing of that kind! Good God, you + ought to be ashamed of yourself!’ + </p> + <p> + The close proximity of the Shadow of Death had made her sick and pale as a + corpse before he spoke. Already lowered to that state, his words + completely over-powered her, and she swooned away as he held her. + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s eyes were not closed for more than forty seconds. She opened + them, and remembered the position instantly. His face had altered its + expression from stern anger to pity. But his severe remarks had rather + frightened her, and she struggled to be free. + </p> + <p> + ‘If you can stand, of course you may,’ he said, and loosened his arms. ‘I + hardly know whether most to laugh at your freak or to chide you for its + folly.’ + </p> + <p> + She immediately sank upon the lead-work. Knight lifted her again. ‘Are you + hurt?’ he said. + </p> + <p> + She murmured an incoherent expression, and tried to smile; saying, with a + fitful aversion of her face, ‘I am only frightened. Put me down, do put me + down!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you can’t walk,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t know that; how can you? I am only frightened, I tell you,’ she + answered petulantly, and raised her hand to her forehead. Knight then saw + that she was bleeding from a severe cut in her wrist, apparently where it + had descended upon a salient corner of the lead-work. Elfride, too, seemed + to perceive and feel this now for the first time, and for a minute nearly + lost consciousness again. Knight rapidly bound his handkerchief round the + place, and to add to the complication, the thundercloud he had been + watching began to shed some heavy drops of rain. Knight looked up and saw + the vicar striding towards the house, and Mrs. Swancourt waddling beside + him like a hard-driven duck. + </p> + <p> + ‘As you are so faint, it will be much better to let me carry you down,’ + said Knight; ‘or at any rate inside out of the rain.’ But her objection to + be lifted made it impossible for him to support her for more than five + steps. + </p> + <p> + ‘This is folly, great folly,’ he exclaimed, setting her down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed!’ she murmured, with tears in her eyes. ‘I say I will not be + carried, and you say this is folly!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So it is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, it isn’t!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is folly, I think. At any rate, the origin of it all is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t agree to it. And you needn’t get so angry with me; I am not worth + it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed you are. You are worth the enmity of princes, as was said of such + another. Now, then, will you clasp your hands behind my neck, that I may + carry you down without hurting you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You had better, or I shall foreclose.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s that!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Deprive you of your chance.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride gave a little toss. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, don’t writhe so when I attempt to carry you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t help it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then submit quietly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t care. I don’t care,’ she murmured in languid tones and with + closed eyes. + </p> + <p> + He took her into his arms, entered the turret, and with slow and cautious + steps descended round and round. Then, with the gentleness of a nursing + mother, he attended to the cut on her arm. During his progress through the + operations of wiping it and binding it up anew, her face changed its + aspect from pained indifference to something like bashful interest, + interspersed with small tremors and shudders of a trifling kind. + </p> + <p> + In the centre of each pale cheek a small red spot the size of a wafer had + now made its appearance, and continued to grow larger. Elfride momentarily + expected a recurrence to the lecture on her foolishness, but Knight said + no more than this— + </p> + <p> + ‘Promise me NEVER to walk on that parapet again.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It will be pulled down soon: so I do.’ In a few minutes she continued in + a lower tone, and seriously, ‘You are familiar of course, as everybody is, + with those strange sensations we sometimes have, that our life for the + moment exists in duplicate.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That we have lived through that moment before?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Or shall again. Well, I felt on the tower that something similar to that + scene is again to be common to us both.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God forbid!’ said Knight. ‘Promise me that you will never again walk on + any such place on any consideration.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That such a thing has not been before, we know. That it shall not be + again, you vow. Therefore think no more of such a foolish fancy.’ + </p> + <p> + There had fallen a great deal of rain, but unaccompanied by lightning. A + few minutes longer, and the storm had ceased. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, take my arm, please.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, it is not necessary.’ This relapse into wilfulness was because he + had again connected the epithet foolish with her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense: it is quite necessary; it will rain again directly, and you are + not half recovered.’ And without more ado Knight took her hand, drew it + under his arm, and held it there so firmly that she could not have removed + it without a struggle. Feeling like a colt in a halter for the first time, + at thus being led along, yet afraid to be angry, it was to her great + relief that she saw the carriage coming round the corner to fetch them. + </p> + <p> + Her fall upon the roof was necessarily explained to some extent upon their + entering the house; but both forbore to mention a word of what she had + been doing to cause such an accident. During the remainder of the + afternoon Elfride was invisible; but at dinner-time she appeared as bright + as ever. + </p> + <p> + In the drawing-room, after having been exclusively engaged with Mr. and + Mrs. Swancourt through the intervening hour, Knight again found himself + thrown with Elfride. She had been looking over a chess problem in one of + the illustrated periodicals. + </p> + <p> + ‘You like chess, Miss Swancourt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. It is my favourite scientific game; indeed, excludes every other. Do + you play?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have played; though not lately.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Challenge him, Elfride,’ said the vicar heartily. ‘She plays very well + for a lady, Mr. Knight.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Shall we play?’ asked Elfride tentatively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, certainly. I shall be delighted.’ + </p> + <p> + The game began. Mr. Swancourt had forgotten a similar performance with + Stephen Smith the year before. Elfride had not; but she had begun to take + for her maxim the undoubted truth that the necessity of continuing + faithful to Stephen, without suspicion, dictated a fickle behaviour almost + as imperatively as fickleness itself; a fact, however, which would give a + startling advantage to the latter quality should it ever appear. + </p> + <p> + Knight, by one of those inexcusable oversights which will sometimes + afflict the best of players, placed his rook in the arms of one of her + pawns. It was her first advantage. She looked triumphant—even + ruthless. + </p> + <p> + ‘By George! what was I thinking of?’ said Knight quietly; and then + dismissed all concern at his accident. + </p> + <p> + ‘Club laws we’ll have, won’t we, Mr. Knight?’ said Elfride suasively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, certainly,’ said Mr. Knight, a thought, however, just occurring + to his mind, that he had two or three times allowed her to replace a man + on her religiously assuring him that such a move was an absolute blunder. + </p> + <p> + She immediately took up the unfortunate rook and the contest proceeded, + Elfride having now rather the better of the game. Then he won the + exchange, regained his position, and began to press her hard. Elfride grew + flurried, and placed her queen on his remaining rook’s file. + </p> + <p> + ‘There—how stupid! Upon my word, I did not see your rook. Of course + nobody but a fool would have put a queen there knowingly!’ + </p> + <p> + She spoke excitedly, half expecting her antagonist to give her back the + move. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nobody, of course,’ said Knight serenely, and stretched out his hand + towards his royal victim. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not very pleasant to have it taken advantage of, then,’ she said + with some vexation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Club laws, I think you said?’ returned Knight blandly, and mercilessly + appropriating the queen. + </p> + <p> + She was on the brink of pouting, but was ashamed to show it; tears almost + stood in her eyes. She had been trying so hard—so very hard—thinking + and thinking till her brain was in a whirl; and it seemed so heartless of + him to treat her so, after all. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think it is——’ she began. + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ + </p> + <p> + —‘Unkind to take advantage of a pure mistake I make in that way.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I lost my rook by even a purer mistake,’ said the enemy in an inexorable + tone, without lifting his eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, but——’ However, as his logic was absolutely + unanswerable, she merely registered a protest. ‘I cannot endure those + cold-blooded ways of clubs and professional players, like Staunton and + Morphy. Just as if it really mattered whether you have raised your fingers + from a man or no!’ + </p> + <p> + Knight smiled as pitilessly as before, and they went on in silence. + </p> + <p> + ‘Checkmate,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Another game,’ said Elfride peremptorily, and looking very warm. + </p> + <p> + ‘With all my heart,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Checkmate,’ said Knight again at the end of forty minutes. + </p> + <p> + ‘Another game,’ she returned resolutely. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll give you the odds of a bishop,’ Knight said to her kindly. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, thank you,’ Elfride replied in a tone intended for courteous + indifference; but, as a fact, very cavalier indeed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Checkmate,’ said her opponent without the least emotion. + </p> + <p> + Oh, the difference between Elfride’s condition of mind now, and when she + purposely made blunders that Stephen Smith might win! + </p> + <p> + It was bedtime. Her mind as distracted as if it would throb itself out of + her head, she went off to her chamber, full of mortification at being + beaten time after time when she herself was the aggressor. Having for two + or three years enjoyed the reputation throughout the globe of her father’s + brain—which almost constituted her entire world—of being an + excellent player, this fiasco was intolerable; for unfortunately the + person most dogged in the belief in a false reputation is always that one, + the possessor, who has the best means of knowing that it is not true. + </p> + <p> + In bed no sleep came to soothe her; that gentle thing being the very + middle-of-summer friend in this respect of flying away at the merest + troublous cloud. After lying awake till two o’clock an idea seemed to + strike her. She softly arose, got a light, and fetched a Chess Praxis from + the library. Returning and sitting up in bed, she diligently studied the + volume till the clock struck five, and her eyelids felt thick and heavy. + She then extinguished the light and lay down again. + </p> + <p> + ‘You look pale, Elfride,’ said Mrs. Swancourt the next morning at + breakfast. ‘Isn’t she, cousin Harry?’ + </p> + <p> + A young girl who is scarcely ill at all can hardly help becoming so when + regarded as such by all eyes turning upon her at the table in obedience to + some remark. Everybody looked at Elfride. She certainly was pale. + </p> + <p> + ‘Am I pale?’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I did not sleep much. I could + not get rid of armies of bishops and knights, try how I would.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Chess is a bad thing just before bedtime; especially for excitable people + like yourself, dear. Don’t ever play late again.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll play early instead. Cousin Knight,’ she said in imitation of Mrs. + Swancourt, ‘will you oblige me in something?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Even to half my kingdom.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, it is to play one game more.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, instantly; the moment we have breakfasted.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense, Elfride,’ said her father. ‘Making yourself a slave to the game + like that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I want to, papa! Honestly, I am restless at having been so + ignominiously overcome. And Mr. Knight doesn’t mind. So what harm can + there be?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let us play, by all means, if you wish it,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + So, when breakfast was over, the combatants withdrew to the quiet of the + library, and the door was closed. Elfride seemed to have an idea that her + conduct was rather ill-regulated and startlingly free from conventional + restraint. And worse, she fancied upon Knight’s face a slightly amused + look at her proceedings. + </p> + <p> + ‘You think me foolish, I suppose,’ she said recklessly; ‘but I want to do + my very best just once, and see whether I can overcome you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly: nothing more natural. Though I am afraid it is not the plan + adopted by women of the world after a defeat.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, pray?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because they know that as good as overcoming is skill in effacing + recollection of being overcome, and turn their attention to that + entirely.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am wrong again, of course.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps your wrong is more pleasing than their right.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t quite know whether you mean that, or whether you are laughing at + me,’ she said, looking doubtingly at him, yet inclining to accept the more + flattering interpretation. ‘I am almost sure you think it vanity in me to + think I am a match for you. Well, if you do, I say that vanity is no crime + in such a case.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, perhaps not. Though it is hardly a virtue.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, in battle! Nelson’s bravery lay in his vanity.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed! Then so did his death.’ + </p> + <p> + Oh no, no! For it is written in the book of the prophet Shakespeare— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Fear and be slain? no worse can come to fight; + And fight and die, is death destroying death!” + </pre> + <p> + And down they sat, and the contest began, Elfride having the first move. + The game progressed. Elfride’s heart beat so violently that she could not + sit still. Her dread was lest he should hear it. And he did discover it at + last—some flowers upon the table being set throbbing by its + pulsations. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think we had better give over,’ said Knight, looking at her gently. ‘It + is too much for you, I know. Let us write down the position, and finish + another time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, please not,’ she implored. ‘I should not rest if I did not know the + result at once. It is your move.’ + </p> + <p> + Ten minutes passed. + </p> + <p> + She started up suddenly. ‘I know what you are doing?’ she cried, an angry + colour upon her cheeks, and her eyes indignant. ‘You were thinking of + letting me win to please me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t mind owning that I was,’ Knight responded phlegmatically, and + appearing all the more so by contrast with her own turmoil. + </p> + <p> + ‘But you must not! I won’t have it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, that will not do; I insist that you promise not to do any such absurd + thing. It is insulting me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well, madam. I won’t do any such absurd thing. You shall not win.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is to be proved!’ she returned proudly; and the play went on. + </p> + <p> + Nothing is now heard but the ticking of a quaint old timepiece on the + summit of a bookcase. Ten minutes pass; he captures her knight; she takes + his knight, and looks a very Rhadamanthus. + </p> + <p> + More minutes tick away; she takes his pawn and has the advantage, showing + her sense of it rather prominently. + </p> + <p> + Five minutes more: he takes her bishop: she brings things even by taking + his knight. + </p> + <p> + Three minutes: she looks bold, and takes his queen: he looks placid, and + takes hers. + </p> + <p> + Eight or ten minutes pass: he takes a pawn; she utters a little pooh! but + not the ghost of a pawn can she take in retaliation. + </p> + <p> + Ten minutes pass: he takes another pawn and says, ‘Check!’ She flushes, + extricates herself by capturing his bishop, and looks triumphant. He + immediately takes her bishop: she looks surprised. + </p> + <p> + Five minutes longer: she makes a dash and takes his only remaining bishop; + he replies by taking her only remaining knight. + </p> + <p> + Two minutes: he gives check; her mind is now in a painful state of + tension, and she shades her face with her hand. + </p> + <p> + Yet a few minutes more: he takes her rook and checks again. She literally + trembles now lest an artful surprise she has in store for him shall be + anticipated by the artful surprise he evidently has in store for her. + </p> + <p> + Five minutes: ‘Checkmate in two moves!’ exclaims Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘If you can,’ says Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I have miscalculated; that is cruel!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Checkmate,’ says Knight; and the victory is won. + </p> + <p> + Elfride arose and turned away without letting him see her face. Once in + the hall she ran upstairs and into her room, and flung herself down upon + her bed, weeping bitterly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where is Elfride?’ said her father at luncheon. + </p> + <p> + Knight listened anxiously for the answer. He had been hoping to see her + again before this time. + </p> + <p> + ‘She isn’t well, sir,’ was the reply. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt rose and left the room, going upstairs to Elfride’s + apartment. + </p> + <p> + At the door was Unity, who occupied in the new establishment a position + between young lady’s maid and middle-housemaid. + </p> + <p> + ‘She is sound asleep, ma’am,’ Unity whispered. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt opened the door. Elfride was lying full-dressed on the bed, + her face hot and red, her arms thrown abroad. At intervals of a minute she + tossed restlessly from side to side, and indistinctly moaned words used in + the game of chess. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt had a turn for doctoring, and felt her pulse. It was + twanging like a harp-string, at the rate of nearly a hundred and fifty a + minute. Softly moving the sleeping girl to a little less cramped position, + she went downstairs again. + </p> + <p> + ‘She is asleep now,’ said Mrs. Swancourt. ‘She does not seem very well. + Cousin Knight, what were you thinking of? her tender brain won’t bear + cudgelling like your great head. You should have strictly forbidden her to + play again.’ + </p> + <p> + In truth, the essayist’s experience of the nature of young women was far + less extensive than his abstract knowledge of them led himself and others + to believe. He could pack them into sentences like a workman, but + practically was nowhere. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am indeed sorry,’ said Knight, feeling even more than he expressed. + ‘But surely, the young lady knows best what is good for her!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Bless you, that’s just what she doesn’t know. She never thinks of such + things, does she, Christopher? Her father and I have to command her and + keep her in order, as you would a child. She will say things worthy of a + French epigrammatist, and act like a robin in a greenhouse. But I think we + will send for Dr. Granson—there can be no harm.’ + </p> + <p> + A man was straightway despatched on horseback to Castle Boterel, and the + gentleman known as Dr. Granson came in the course of the afternoon. He + pronounced her nervous system to be in a decided state of disorder; + forwarded some soothing draught, and gave orders that on no account + whatever was she to play chess again. + </p> + <p> + The next morning Knight, much vexed with himself, waited with a curiously + compounded feeling for her entry to breakfast. The women servants came in + to prayers at irregular intervals, and as each entered, he could not, to + save his life, avoid turning his head with the hope that she might be + Elfride. Mr. Swancourt began reading without waiting for her. Then + somebody glided in noiselessly; Knight softly glanced up: it was only the + little kitchen-maid. Knight thought reading prayers a bore. + </p> + <p> + He went out alone, and for almost the first time failed to recognize that + holding converse with Nature’s charms was not solitude. On nearing the + house again he perceived his young friend crossing a slope by a path which + ran into the one he was following in the angle of the field. Here they + met. Elfride was at once exultant and abashed: coming into his presence + had upon her the effect of entering a cathedral. + </p> + <p> + Knight had his note-book in his hand, and had, in fact, been in the very + act of writing therein when they came in view of each other. He left off + in the midst of a sentence, and proceeded to inquire warmly concerning her + state of health. She said she was perfectly well, and indeed had never + looked better. Her health was as inconsequent as her actions. Her lips + were red, WITHOUT the polish that cherries have, and their redness + margined with the white skin in a clearly defined line, which had nothing + of jagged confusion in it. Altogether she stood as the last person in the + world to be knocked over by a game of chess, because too ephemeral-looking + to play one. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you taking notes?’ she inquired with an alacrity plainly arising less + from interest in the subject than from a wish to divert his thoughts from + herself. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I was making an entry. And with your permission I will complete it.’ + Knight then stood still and wrote. Elfride remained beside him a moment, + and afterwards walked on. + </p> + <p> + ‘I should like to see all the secrets that are in that book,’ she gaily + flung back to him over her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t think you would find much to interest you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know I should.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then of course I have no more to say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I would ask this question first. Is it a book of mere facts + concerning journeys and expenditure, and so on, or a book of thoughts?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, to tell the truth, it is not exactly either. It consists for the + most part of jottings for articles and essays, disjointed and + disconnected, of no possible interest to anybody but myself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It contains, I suppose, your developed thoughts in embryo?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If they are interesting when enlarged to the size of an article, what + must they be in their concentrated form? Pure rectified spirit, above + proof; before it is lowered to be fit for human consumption: “words that + burn” indeed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Rather like a balloon before it is inflated: flabby, shapeless, dead. You + could hardly read them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘May I try?’ she said coaxingly. ‘I wrote my poor romance in that way—I + mean in bits, out of doors—and I should like to see whether your way + of entering things is the same as mine.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, that’s rather an awkward request. I suppose I can hardly refuse + now you have asked so directly; but——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You think me ill-mannered in asking. But does not this justify me—your + writing in my presence, Mr. Knight? If I had lighted upon your book by + chance, it would have been different; but you stand before me, and say, + “Excuse me,” without caring whether I do or not, and write on, and then + tell me they are not private facts but public ideas.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well, Miss Swancourt. If you really must see, the consequences be + upon your own head. Remember, my advice to you is to leave my book alone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But with that caution I have your permission?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + She hesitated a moment, looked at his hand containing the book, then + laughed, and saying, ‘I must see it,’ withdrew it from his fingers. + </p> + <p> + Knight rambled on towards the house, leaving her standing in the path + turning over the leaves. By the time he had reached the wicket-gate he saw + that she had moved, and waited till she came up. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had closed the note-book, and was carrying it disdainfully by the + corner between her finger and thumb; her face wore a nettled look. She + silently extended the volume towards him, raising her eyes no higher than + her hand was lifted. + </p> + <p> + ‘Take it,’ said Elfride quickly. ‘I don’t want to read it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Could you understand it?’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘As far as I looked. But I didn’t care to read much.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Miss Swancourt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Only because I didn’t wish to—that’s all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I warned you that you might not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, but I never supposed you would have put me there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your name is not mentioned once within the four corners.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not my name—I know that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nor your description, nor anything by which anybody would recognize you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Except myself. For what is this?’ she exclaimed, taking it from him and + opening a page. ‘August 7. That’s the day before yesterday. But I won’t + read it,’ Elfride said, closing the book again with pretty hauteur. ‘Why + should I? I had no business to ask to see your book, and it serves me + right.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight hardly recollected what he had written, and turned over the book to + see. He came to this: + </p> + <p> + ‘Aug. 7. Girl gets into her teens, and her self-consciousness is born. + After a certain interval passed in infantine helplessness it begins to + act. Simple, young, and inexperienced at first. Persons of observation can + tell to a nicety how old this consciousness is by the skill it has + acquired in the art necessary to its success—the art of hiding + itself. Generally begins career by actions which are popularly termed + showing-off. Method adopted depends in each case upon the disposition, + rank, residence, of the young lady attempting it. Town-bred girl will + utter some moral paradox on fast men, or love. Country miss adopts the + more material media of taking a ghastly fence, whistling, or making your + blood run cold by appearing to risk her neck. (MEM. On Endelstow Tower.) + </p> + <p> + ‘An innocent vanity is of course the origin of these displays. “Look at + me,” say these youthful beginners in womanly artifice, without reflecting + whether or not it be to their advantage to show so very much of + themselves. (Amplify and correct for paper on Artless Arts.)’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I remember now,’ said Knight. ‘The notes were certainly suggested by + your manoeuvre on the church tower. But you must not think too much of + such random observations,’ he continued encouragingly, as he noticed her + injured looks. ‘A mere fancy passing through my head assumes a factitious + importance to you, because it has been made permanent by being written + down. All mankind think thoughts as bad as those of people they most love + on earth, but such thoughts never getting embodied on paper, it becomes + assumed that they never existed. I daresay that you yourself have thought + some disagreeable thing or other of me, which would seem just as bad as + this if written. I challenge you, now, to tell me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The worst thing I have thought of you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I must not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought you were rather round-shouldered.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight looked slightly redder. + </p> + <p> + ‘And that there was a little bald spot on the top of your head.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Heh-heh! Two ineradicable defects,’ said Knight, there being a faint + ghastliness discernible in his laugh. ‘They are much worse in a lady’s eye + than being thought self-conscious, I suppose.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, that’s very fine,’ she said, too inexperienced to perceive her hit, + and hence not quite disposed to forgive his notes. ‘You alluded to me in + that entry as if I were such a child, too. Everybody does that. I cannot + understand it. I am quite a woman, you know. How old do you think I am?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How old? Why, seventeen, I should say. All girls are seventeen.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are wrong. I am nearly nineteen. Which class of women do you like + best, those who seem younger, or those who seem older than they are?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Off-hand I should be inclined to say those who seem older.’ + </p> + <p> + So it was not Elfride’s class. + </p> + <p> + ‘But it is well known,’ she said eagerly, and there was something touching + in the artless anxiety to be thought much of which she revealed by her + words, ‘that the slower a nature is to develop, the richer the nature. + Youths and girls who are men and women before they come of age are + nobodies by the time that backward people have shown their full compass.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ said Knight thoughtfully. ‘There is really something in that + remark. But at the risk of offence I must remind you that you there take + it for granted that the woman behind her time at a given age has not + reached the end of her tether. Her backwardness may be not because she is + slow to develop, but because she soon exhausted her capacity for + developing.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked disappointed. By this time they were indoors. Mrs. + Swancourt, to whom match-making by any honest means was meat and drink, + had now a little scheme of that nature concerning this pair. The + morning-room, in which they both expected to find her, was empty; the old + lady having, for the above reason, vacated it by the second door as they + entered by the first. + </p> + <p> + Knight went to the chimney-piece, and carelessly surveyed two portraits on + ivory. + </p> + <p> + ‘Though these pink ladies had very rudimentary features, judging by what I + see here,’ he observed, ‘they had unquestionably beautiful heads of hair.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; and that is everything,’ said Elfride, possibly conscious of her + own, possibly not. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not everything; though a great deal, certainly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Which colour do you like best?’ she ventured to ask. + </p> + <p> + ‘More depends on its abundance than on its colour.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Abundances being equal, may I inquire your favourite colour?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dark.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I mean for women,’ she said, with the minutest fall of countenance, and a + hope that she had been misunderstood. + </p> + <p> + ‘So do I,’ Knight replied. + </p> + <p> + It was impossible for any man not to know the colour of Elfride’s hair. In + women who wear it plainly such a feature may be overlooked by men not + given to ocular intentness. But hers was always in the way. You saw her + hair as far as you could see her sex, and knew that it was the palest + brown. She knew instantly that Knight, being perfectly aware of this, had + an independent standard of admiration in the matter. + </p> + <p> + Elfride was thoroughly vexed. She could not but be struck with the honesty + of his opinions, and the worst of it was, that the more they went against + her, the more she respected them. And now, like a reckless gambler, she + hazarded her last and best treasure. Her eyes: they were her all now. + </p> + <p> + ‘What coloured eyes do you like best, Mr. Knight?’ she said slowly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Honestly, or as a compliment?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course honestly; I don’t want anybody’s compliment!’ + </p> + <p> + And yet Elfride knew otherwise: that a compliment or word of approval from + that man then would have been like a well to a famished Arab. + </p> + <p> + ‘I prefer hazel,’ he said serenely. + </p> + <p> + She had played and lost again. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XIX + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Love was in the next degree.’ +</pre> + <p> + Knight had none of those light familiarities of speech which, by judicious + touches of epigrammatic flattery, obliterate a woman’s recollection of the + speaker’s abstract opinions. So no more was said by either on the subject + of hair, eyes, or development. Elfride’s mind had been impregnated with + sentiments of her own smallness to an uncomfortable degree of + distinctness, and her discomfort was visible in her face. The whole + tendency of the conversation latterly had been to quietly but surely + disparage her; and she was fain to take Stephen into favour in + self-defence. He would not have been so unloving, she said, as to admire + an idiosyncrasy and features different from her own. True, Stephen had + declared he loved her: Mr. Knight had never done anything of the sort. + Somehow this did not mend matters, and the sensation of her smallness in + Knight’s eyes still remained. Had the position been reversed—had + Stephen loved her in spite of a differing taste, and had Knight been + indifferent in spite of her resemblance to his ideal, it would have + engendered far happier thoughts. As matters stood, Stephen’s admiration + might have its root in a blindness the result of passion. Perhaps any keen + man’s judgment was condemnatory of her. + </p> + <p> + During the remainder of Saturday they were more or less thrown with their + seniors, and no conversation arose which was exclusively their own. When + Elfride was in bed that night her thoughts recurred to the same subject. + At one moment she insisted that it was ill-natured of him to speak so + decisively as he had done; the next, that it was sterling honesty. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, what a poor nobody I am!’ she said, sighing. ‘People like him, who go + about the great world, don’t care in the least what I am like either in + mood or feature.’ + </p> + <p> + Perhaps a man who has got thoroughly into a woman’s mind in this manner, + is half way to her heart; the distance between those two stations is + proverbially short. + </p> + <p> + ‘And are you really going away this week?’ said Mrs. Swancourt to Knight + on the following evening, which was Sunday. + </p> + <p> + They were all leisurely climbing the hill to the church, where a last + service was now to be held at the rather exceptional time of evening + instead of in the afternoon, previous to the demolition of the ruinous + portions. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am intending to cross to Cork from Bristol,’ returned Knight; ‘and then + I go on to Dublin.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Return this way, and stay a little longer with us,’ said the vicar. ‘A + week is nothing. We have hardly been able to realize your presence yet. I + remember a story which——’ + </p> + <p> + The vicar suddenly stopped. He had forgotten it was Sunday, and would + probably have gone on in his week-day mode of thought had not a turn in + the breeze blown the skirt of his college gown within the range of his + vision, and so reminded him. He at once diverted the current of his + narrative with the dexterity the occasion demanded. + </p> + <p> + ‘The story of the Levite who journeyed to Bethlehem-judah, from which I + took my text the Sunday before last, is quite to the point,’ he continued, + with the pronunciation of a man who, far from having intended to tell a + week-day story a moment earlier, had thought of nothing but Sabbath + matters for several weeks. ‘What did he gain after all by his + restlessness? Had he remained in the city of the Jebusites, and not been + so anxious for Gibeah, none of his troubles would have arisen.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But he had wasted five days already,’ said Knight, closing his eyes to + the vicar’s commendable diversion. ‘His fault lay in beginning the + tarrying system originally.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘True, true; my illustration fails.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But not the hospitality which prompted the story.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So you are to come just the same,’ urged Mrs. Swancourt, for she had seen + an almost imperceptible fall of countenance in her stepdaughter at + Knight’s announcement. + </p> + <p> + Knight half promised to call on his return journey; but the uncertainty + with which he spoke was quite enough to fill Elfride with a regretful + interest in all he did during the few remaining hours. The curate having + already officiated twice that day in the two churches, Mr. Swancourt had + undertaken the whole of the evening service, and Knight read the lessons + for him. The sun streamed across from the dilapidated west window, and + lighted all the assembled worshippers with a golden glow, Knight as he + read being illuminated by the same mellow lustre. Elfride at the organ + regarded him with a throbbing sadness of mood which was fed by a sense of + being far removed from his sphere. As he went deliberately through the + chapter appointed—a portion of the history of Elijah—and + ascended that magnificent climax of the wind, the earthquake, the fire, + and the still small voice, his deep tones echoed past with such apparent + disregard of her existence, that his presence inspired her with a forlorn + sense of unapproachableness, which his absence would hardly have been able + to cause. + </p> + <p> + At the same time, turning her face for a moment to catch the glory of the + dying sun as it fell on his form, her eyes were arrested by the shape and + aspect of a woman in the west gallery. It was the bleak barren countenance + of the widow Jethway, whom Elfride had not seen much of since the morning + of her return with Stephen Smith. Possessing the smallest of competencies, + this unhappy woman appeared to spend her life in journeyings between + Endelstow Churchyard and that of a village near Southampton, where her + father and mother were laid. + </p> + <p> + She had not attended the service here for a considerable time, and she now + seemed to have a reason for her choice of seat. From the gallery window + the tomb of her son was plainly visible—standing as the nearest + object in a prospect which was closed outwardly by the changeless horizon + of the sea. + </p> + <p> + The streaming rays, too, flooded her face, now bent towards Elfride with a + hard and bitter expression that the solemnity of the place raised to a + tragic dignity it did not intrinsically possess. The girl resumed her + normal attitude with an added disquiet. + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s emotion was cumulative, and after a while would assert itself on + a sudden. A slight touch was enough to set it free—a poem, a sunset, + a cunningly contrived chord of music, a vague imagining, being the usual + accidents of its exhibition. The longing for Knight’s respect, which was + leading up to an incipient yearning for his love, made the present + conjuncture a sufficient one. Whilst kneeling down previous to leaving, + when the sunny streaks had gone upward to the roof, and the lower part of + the church was in soft shadow, she could not help thinking of Coleridge’s + morbid poem ‘The Three Graves,’ and shuddering as she wondered if Mrs. + Jethway were cursing her, she wept as if her heart would break. + </p> + <p> + They came out of church just as the sun went down, leaving the landscape + like a platform from which an eloquent speaker has retired, and nothing + remains for the audience to do but to rise and go home. Mr. and Mrs. + Swancourt went off in the carriage, Knight and Elfride preferring to walk, + as the skilful old matchmaker had imagined. They descended the hill + together. + </p> + <p> + ‘I liked your reading, Mr. Knight,’ Elfride presently found herself + saying. ‘You read better than papa.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will praise anybody that will praise me. You played excellently, Miss + Swancourt, and very correctly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Correctly—yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It must be a great pleasure to you to take an active part in the + service.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I want to be able to play with more feeling. But I have not a good + selection of music, sacred or secular. I wish I had a nice little + music-library—well chosen, and that the only new pieces sent me were + those of genuine merit.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am glad to hear such a wish from you. It is extraordinary how many + women have no honest love of music as an end and not as a means, even + leaving out those who have nothing in them. They mostly like it for its + accessories. I have never met a woman who loves music as do ten or a dozen + men I know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How would you draw the line between women with something and women with + nothing in them?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ said Knight, reflecting a moment, ‘I mean by nothing in them those + who don’t care about anything solid. This is an instance: I knew a man who + had a young friend in whom he was much interested; in fact, they were + going to be married. She was seemingly poetical, and he offered her a + choice of two editions of the British poets, which she pretended to want + badly. He said, “Which of them would you like best for me to send?” She + said, “A pair of the prettiest earrings in Bond Street, if you don’t mind, + would be nicer than either.” Now I call her a girl with not much in her + but vanity; and so do you, I daresay.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes,’ replied Elfride with an effort. + </p> + <p> + Happening to catch a glimpse of her face as she was speaking, and noticing + that her attempt at heartiness was a miserable failure, he appeared to + have misgivings. + </p> + <p> + ‘You, Miss Swancourt, would not, under such circumstances, have preferred + the nicknacks?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I don’t think I should, indeed,’ she stammered. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll put it to you,’ said the inflexible Knight. ‘Which will you have of + these two things of about equal value—the well-chosen little library + of the best music you spoke of—bound in morocco, walnut case, lock + and key—or a pair of the very prettiest earrings in Bond Street + windows?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course the music,’ Elfride replied with forced earnestness. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are quite certain?’ he said emphatically. + </p> + <p> + ‘Quite,’ she faltered; ‘if I could for certain buy the earrings + afterwards.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight, somewhat blamably, keenly enjoyed sparring with the palpitating + mobile creature, whose excitable nature made any such thing a species of + cruelty. + </p> + <p> + He looked at her rather oddly, and said, ‘Fie!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Forgive me,’ she said, laughing a little, a little frightened, and + blushing very deeply. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Miss Elfie, why didn’t you say at first, as any firm woman would have + said, I am as bad as she, and shall choose the same?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know,’ said Elfride wofully, and with a distressful smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought you were exceptionally musical?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So I am, I think. But the test is so severe—quite painful.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t understand.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Music doesn’t do any real good, or rather——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That IS a thing to say, Miss Swancourt! Why, what——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t understand! you don’t understand!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what conceivable use is there in jimcrack jewellery?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no, no, no!’ she cried petulantly; ‘I didn’t mean what you think. I + like the music best, only I like——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Earrings better—own it!’ he said in a teasing tone. ‘Well, I think + I should have had the moral courage to own it at once, without pretending + to an elevation I could not reach.’ + </p> + <p> + Like the French soldiery, Elfride was not brave when on the defensive. So + it was almost with tears in her eyes that she answered desperately: + </p> + <p> + ‘My meaning is, that I like earrings best just now, because I lost one of + my prettiest pair last year, and papa said he would not buy any more, or + allow me to myself, because I was careless; and now I wish I had some like + them—that’s what my meaning is—indeed it is, Mr. Knight.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am afraid I have been very harsh and rude,’ said Knight, with a look of + regret at seeing how disturbed she was. ‘But seriously, if women only knew + how they ruin their good looks by such appurtenances, I am sure they would + never want them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They were lovely, and became me so!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not if they were like the ordinary hideous things women stuff their ears + with nowadays—like the governor of a steam-engine, or a pair of + scales, or gold gibbets and chains, and artists’ palettes, and + compensation pendulums, and Heaven knows what besides.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; they were not one of those things. So pretty—like this,’ she + said with eager animation. And she drew with the point of her parasol an + enlarged view of one of the lamented darlings, to a scale that would have + suited a giantess half-a-mile high. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, very pretty—very,’ said Knight dryly. ‘How did you come to + lose such a precious pair of articles?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I only lost one—nobody ever loses both at the same time.’ + </p> + <p> + She made this remark with embarrassment, and a nervous movement of the + fingers. Seeing that the loss occurred whilst Stephen Smith was attempting + to kiss her for the first time on the cliff, her confusion was hardly to + be wondered at. The question had been awkward, and received no direct + answer. + </p> + <p> + Knight seemed not to notice her manner. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nobody ever loses both—I see. And certainly the fact that it + was a case of loss takes away all odour of vanity from your choice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As I never know whether you are in earnest, I don’t now,’ she said, + looking up inquiringly at the hairy face of the oracle. And coming + gallantly to her own rescue, ‘If I really seem vain, it is that I am only + vain in my ways—not in my heart. The worst women are those vain in + their hearts, and not in their ways.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘An adroit distinction. Well, they are certainly the more objectionable of + the two,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is vanity a mortal or a venial sin? You know what life is: tell me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am very far from knowing what life is. A just conception of life is too + large a thing to grasp during the short interval of passing through it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Will the fact of a woman being fond of jewellery be likely to make her + life, in its higher sense, a failure?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nobody’s life is altogether a failure.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, you know what I mean, even though my words are badly selected and + commonplace,’ she said impatiently. ‘Because I utter commonplace words, + you must not suppose I think only commonplace thoughts. My poor stock of + words are like a limited number of rough moulds I have to cast all my + materials in, good and bad; and the novelty or delicacy of the substance + is often lost in the coarse triteness of the form.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well; I’ll believe that ingenious representation. As to the subject + in hand—lives which are failures—you need not trouble + yourself. Anybody’s life may be just as romantic and strange and + interesting if he or she fails as if he or she succeed. All the difference + is, that the last chapter is wanting in the story. If a man of power tries + to do a great deed, and just falls short of it by an accident not his + fault, up to that time his history had as much in it as that of a great + man who has done his great deed. It is whimsical of the world to hold that + particulars of how a lad went to school and so on should be as an + interesting romance or as nothing to them, precisely in proportion to his + after renown.’ + </p> + <p> + They were walking between the sunset and the moonrise. With the dropping + of the sun a nearly full moon had begun to raise itself. Their shadows, as + cast by the western glare, showed signs of becoming obliterated in the + interest of a rival pair in the opposite direction which the moon was + bringing to distinctness. + </p> + <p> + ‘I consider my life to some extent a failure,’ said Knight again after a + pause, during which he had noticed the antagonistic shadows. + </p> + <p> + ‘You! How?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t precisely know. But in some way I have missed the mark.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really? To have done it is not much to be sad about, but to feel that you + have done it must be a cause of sorrow. Am I right?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Partly, though not quite. For a sensation of being profoundly experienced + serves as a sort of consolation to people who are conscious of having + taken wrong turnings. Contradictory as it seems, there is nothing truer + than that people who have always gone right don’t know half as much about + the nature and ways of going right as those do who have gone wrong. + However, it is not desirable for me to chill your summer-time by going + into this.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have not told me even now if I am really vain.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If I say Yes, I shall offend you; if I say No, you’ll think I don’t mean + it,’ he replied, looking curiously into her face. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, well,’ she replied, with a little breath of distress, ‘“That which is + exceeding deep, who will find it out?” I suppose I must take you as I do + the Bible—find out and understand all I can; and on the strength of + that, swallow the rest in a lump, by simple faith. Think me vain, if you + will. Worldly greatness requires so much littleness to grow up in, that an + infirmity more or less is not a matter for regret.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As regards women, I can’t say,’ answered Knight carelessly; ‘but it is + without doubt a misfortune for a man who has a living to get, to be born + of a truly noble nature. A high soul will bring a man to the workhouse; so + you may be right in sticking up for vanity.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no, I don’t do that,’ she said regretfully. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Knight, when you are gone, will you send me something you have + written? I think I should like to see whether you write as you have lately + spoken, or in your better mood. Which is your true self—the cynic + you have been this evening, or the nice philosopher you were up to + to-night?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, which? You know as well as I.’ + </p> + <p> + Their conversation detained them on the lawn and in the portico till the + stars blinked out. Elfride flung back her head, and said idly— + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s a bright star exactly over me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Each bright star is overhead somewhere.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is it? Oh yes, of course. Where is that one?’ and she pointed with her + finger. + </p> + <p> + ‘That is poised like a white hawk over one of the Cape Verde Islands.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Looking down upon the source of the Nile.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And that lonely quiet-looking one?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He watches the North Pole, and has no less than the whole equator for his + horizon. And that idle one low down upon the ground, that we have almost + rolled away from, is in India—over the head of a young friend of + mine, who very possibly looks at the star in our zenith, as it hangs low + upon his horizon, and thinks of it as marking where his true love dwells.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride glanced at Knight with misgiving. Did he mean her? She could not + see his features; but his attitude seemed to show unconsciousness. + </p> + <p> + ‘The star is over MY head,’ she said with hesitation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Or anybody else’s in England.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, I see:’ she breathed her relief. + </p> + <p> + ‘His parents, I believe, are natives of this county. I don’t know them, + though I have been in correspondence with him for many years till lately. + Fortunately or unfortunately for him he fell in love, and then went to + Bombay. Since that time I have heard very little of him.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight went no further in his volunteered statement, and though Elfride at + one moment was inclined to profit by the lessons in honesty he had just + been giving her, the flesh was weak, and the intention dispersed into + silence. There seemed a reproach in Knight’s blind words, and yet she was + not able to clearly define any disloyalty that she had been guilty of. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XX + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘A distant dearness in the hill.’ +</pre> + <p> + Knight turned his back upon the parish of Endelstow, and crossed over to + Cork. + </p> + <p> + One day of absence superimposed itself on another, and proportionately + weighted his heart. He pushed on to the Lakes of Killarney, rambled amid + their luxuriant woods, surveyed the infinite variety of island, hill, and + dale there to be found, listened to the marvellous echoes of that romantic + spot; but altogether missed the glory and the dream he formerly found in + such favoured regions. + </p> + <p> + Whilst in the company of Elfride, her girlish presence had not perceptibly + affected him to any depth. He had not been conscious that her entry into + his sphere had added anything to himself; but now that she was taken away + he was very conscious of a great deal being abstracted. The superfluity + had become a necessity, and Knight was in love. + </p> + <p> + Stephen fell in love with Elfride by looking at her: Knight by ceasing to + do so. When or how the spirit entered into him he knew not: certain he was + that when on the point of leaving Endelstow he had felt none of that + exquisite nicety of poignant sadness natural to such severances, seeing + how delightful a subject of contemplation Elfride had been ever since. Had + he begun to love her when she met his eye after her mishap on the tower? + He had simply thought her weak. Had he grown to love her whilst standing + on the lawn brightened all over by the evening sun? He had thought her + complexion good: no more. Was it her conversation that had sown the seed? + He had thought her words ingenious, and very creditable to a young woman, + but not noteworthy. Had the chess-playing anything to do with it? + Certainly not: he had thought her at that time a rather conceited child. + </p> + <p> + Knight’s experience was a complete disproof of the assumption that love + always comes by glances of the eye and sympathetic touches of the fingers: + that, like flame, it makes itself palpable at the moment of generation. + Not till they were parted, and she had become sublimated in his memory, + could he be said to have even attentively regarded her. + </p> + <p> + Thus, having passively gathered up images of her which his mind did not + act upon till the cause of them was no longer before him, he appeared to + himself to have fallen in love with her soul, which had temporarily + assumed its disembodiment to accompany him on his way. + </p> + <p> + She began to rule him so imperiously now that, accustomed to analysis, he + almost trembled at the possible result of the introduction of this new + force among the nicely adjusted ones of his ordinary life. He became + restless: then he forgot all collateral subjects in the pleasure of + thinking about her. + </p> + <p> + Yet it must be said that Knight loved philosophically rather than with + romance. + </p> + <p> + He thought of her manner towards him. Simplicity verges on coquetry. Was + she flirting? he said to himself. No forcible translation of favour into + suspicion was able to uphold such a theory. The performance had been too + well done to be anything but real. It had the defects without which + nothing is genuine. No actress of twenty years’ standing, no bald-necked + lady whose earliest season ‘out’ was lost in the discreet mist of evasive + talk, could have played before him the part of ingenuous girl as Elfride + lived it. She had the little artful ways which partly make up + ingenuousness. + </p> + <p> + There are bachelors by nature and bachelors by circumstance: spinsters + there doubtless are also of both kinds, though some think only those of + the latter. However, Knight had been looked upon as a bachelor by nature. + What was he coming to? It was very odd to himself to look at his theories + on the subject of love, and reading them now by the full light of a new + experience, to see how much more his sentences meant than he had felt them + to mean when they were written. People often discover the real force of a + trite old maxim only when it is thrust upon them by a chance adventure; + but Knight had never before known the case of a man who learnt the full + compass of his own epigrams by such means. + </p> + <p> + He was intensely satisfied with one aspect of the affair. Inbred in him + was an invincible objection to be any but the first comer in a woman’s + heart. He had discovered within himself the condition that if ever he did + make up his mind to marry, it must be on the certainty that no cropping + out of inconvenient old letters, no bow and blush to a mysterious stranger + casually met, should be a possible source of discomposure. Knight’s + sentiments were only the ordinary ones of a man of his age who loves + genuinely, perhaps exaggerated a little by his pursuits. When men first + love as lads, it is with the very centre of their hearts, nothing else + being concerned in the operation. With added years, more of the faculties + attempt a partnership in the passion, till at Knight’s age the + understanding is fain to have a hand in it. It may as well be left out. A + man in love setting up his brains as a gauge of his position is as one + determining a ship’s longitude from a light at the mast-head. + </p> + <p> + Knight argued from Elfride’s unwontedness of manner, which was matter of + fact, to an unwontedness in love, which was matter of inference only. + Incredules les plus credules. ‘Elfride,’ he said, ‘had hardly looked upon + a man till she saw me.’ + </p> + <p> + He had never forgotten his severity to her because she preferred ornament + to edification, and had since excused her a hundred times by thinking how + natural to womankind was a love of adornment, and how necessary became a + mild infusion of personal vanity to complete the delicate and fascinating + dye of the feminine mind. So at the end of the week’s absence, which had + brought him as far as Dublin, he resolved to curtail his tour, return to + Endelstow, and commit himself by making a reality of the hypothetical + offer of that Sunday evening. + </p> + <p> + Notwithstanding that he had concocted a great deal of paper theory on + social amenities and modern manners generally, the special ounce of + practice was wanting, and now for his life Knight could not recollect + whether it was considered correct to give a young lady personal ornaments + before a regular engagement to marry had been initiated. But the day + before leaving Dublin he looked around anxiously for a high-class + jewellery establishment, in which he purchased what he considered would + suit her best. + </p> + <p> + It was with a most awkward and unwonted feeling that after entering and + closing the door of his room he sat down, opened the morocco case, and + held up each of the fragile bits of gold-work before his eyes. Many things + had become old to the solitary man of letters, but these were new, and he + handled like a child an outcome of civilization which had never before + been touched by his fingers. A sudden fastidious decision that the pattern + chosen would not suit her after all caused him to rise in a flurry and + tear down the street to change them for others. After a great deal of + trouble in reselecting, during which his mind became so bewildered that + the critical faculty on objects of art seemed to have vacated his person + altogether, Knight carried off another pair of ear-rings. These remained + in his possession till the afternoon, when, after contemplating them fifty + times with a growing misgiving that the last choice was worse than the + first, he felt that no sleep would visit his pillow till he had improved + upon his previous purchases yet again. In a perfect heat of vexation with + himself for such tergiversation, he went anew to the shop-door, was + absolutely ashamed to enter and give further trouble, went to another + shop, bought a pair at an enormously increased price, because they seemed + the very thing, asked the goldsmiths if they would take the other pair in + exchange, was told that they could not exchange articles bought of another + maker, paid down the money, and went off with the two pairs in his + possession, wondering what on earth to do with the superfluous pair. He + almost wished he could lose them, or that somebody would steal them, and + was burdened with an interposing sense that, as a capable man, with true + ideas of economy, he must necessarily sell them somewhere, which he did at + last for a mere song. Mingled with a blank feeling of a whole day being + lost to him in running about the city on this new and extraordinary class + of errand, and of several pounds being lost through his bungling, was a + slight sense of satisfaction that he had emerged for ever from his + antediluvian ignorance on the subject of ladies’ jewellery, as well as + secured a truly artistic production at last. During the remainder of that + day he scanned the ornaments of every lady he met with the profoundly + experienced eye of an appraiser. + </p> + <p> + Next morning Knight was again crossing St. George’s Channel—not + returning to London by the Holyhead route as he had originally intended, + but towards Bristol—availing himself of Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt’s + invitation to revisit them on his homeward journey. + </p> + <p> + We flit forward to Elfride. + </p> + <p> + Woman’s ruling passion—to fascinate and influence those more + powerful than she—though operant in Elfride, was decidedly + purposeless. She had wanted her friend Knight’s good opinion from the + first: how much more than that elementary ingredient of friendship she now + desired, her fears would hardly allow her to think. In originally wishing + to please the highest class of man she had ever intimately known, there + was no disloyalty to Stephen Smith. She could not—and few women can—realize + the possible vastness of an issue which has only an insignificant + begetting. + </p> + <p> + Her letters from Stephen were necessarily few, and her sense of fidelity + clung to the last she had received as a wrecked mariner clings to flotsam. + The young girl persuaded herself that she was glad Stephen had such a + right to her hand as he had acquired (in her eyes) by the elopement. She + beguiled herself by saying, ‘Perhaps if I had not so committed myself I + might fall in love with Mr. Knight.’ + </p> + <p> + All this made the week of Knight’s absence very gloomy and distasteful to + her. She retained Stephen in her prayers, and his old letters were re-read—as + a medicine in reality, though she deceived herself into the belief that it + was as a pleasure. + </p> + <p> + These letters had grown more and more hopeful. He told her that he + finished his work every day with a pleasant consciousness of having + removed one more stone from the barrier which divided them. Then he drew + images of what a fine figure they two would cut some day. People would + turn their heads and say, ‘What a prize he has won!’ She was not to be sad + about that wild runaway attempt of theirs (Elfride had repeatedly said + that it grieved her). Whatever any other person who knew of it might + think, he knew well enough the modesty of her nature. The only reproach + was a gentle one for not having written quite so devotedly during her + visit to London. Her letter had seemed to have a liveliness derived from + other thoughts than thoughts of him. + </p> + <p> + Knight’s intention of an early return to Endelstow having originally been + faint, his promise to do so had been fainter. He was a man who kept his + words well to the rear of his possible actions. The vicar was rather + surprised to see him again so soon: Mrs. Swancourt was not. Knight found, + on meeting them all, after his arrival had been announced, that they had + formed an intention to go to St. Leonards for a few days at the end of the + month. + </p> + <p> + No satisfactory conjuncture offered itself on this first evening of his + return for presenting Elfride with what he had been at such pains to + procure. He was fastidious in his reading of opportunities for such an + intended act. The next morning chancing to break fine after a week of + cloudy weather, it was proposed and decided that they should all drive to + Barwith Strand, a local lion which neither Mrs. Swancourt nor Knight had + seen. Knight scented romantic occasions from afar, and foresaw that such a + one might be expected before the coming night. + </p> + <p> + The journey was along a road by neutral green hills, upon which hedgerows + lay trailing like ropes on a quay. Gaps in these uplands revealed the blue + sea, flecked with a few dashes of white and a solitary white sail, the + whole brimming up to a keen horizon which lay like a line ruled from + hillside to hillside. Then they rolled down a pass, the chocolate-toned + rocks forming a wall on both sides, from one of which fell a heavy jagged + shade over half the roadway. A spout of fresh water burst from an + occasional crevice, and pattering down upon broad green leaves, ran along + as a rivulet at the bottom. Unkempt locks of heather overhung the brow of + each steep, whence at divers points a bramble swung forth into mid-air, + snatching at their head-dresses like a claw. + </p> + <p> + They mounted the last crest, and the bay which was to be the end of their + pilgrimage burst upon them. The ocean blueness deepened its colour as it + stretched to the foot of the crags, where it terminated in a fringe of + white—silent at this distance, though moving and heaving like a + counterpane upon a restless sleeper. The shadowed hollows of the purple + and brown rocks would have been called blue had not that tint been so + entirely appropriated by the water beside them. + </p> + <p> + The carriage was put up at a little cottage with a shed attached, and an + ostler and the coachman carried the hamper of provisions down to the + shore. + </p> + <p> + Knight found his opportunity. ‘I did not forget your wish,’ he began, when + they were apart from their friends. + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked as if she did not understand. + </p> + <p> + ‘And I have brought you these,’ he continued, awkwardly pulling out the + case, and opening it while holding it towards her. + </p> + <p> + ‘O Mr. Knight!’ said Elfride confusedly, and turning to a lively red; ‘I + didn’t know you had any intention or meaning in what you said. I thought + it a mere supposition. I don’t want them.’ + </p> + <p> + A thought which had flashed into her mind gave the reply a greater + decisiveness than it might otherwise have possessed. To-morrow was the day + for Stephen’s letter. + </p> + <p> + ‘But will you not accept them?’ Knight returned, feeling less her master + than heretofore. + </p> + <p> + ‘I would rather not. They are beautiful—more beautiful than any I + have ever seen,’ she answered earnestly, looking half-wishfully at the + temptation, as Eve may have looked at the apple. ‘But I don’t want to have + them, if you will kindly forgive me, Mr. Knight.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No kindness at all,’ said Mr. Knight, brought to a full stop at this + unexpected turn of events. + </p> + <p> + A silence followed. Knight held the open case, looking rather wofully at + the glittering forms he had forsaken his orbit to procure; turning it + about and holding it up as if, feeling his gift to be slighted by her, he + were endeavouring to admire it very much himself. + </p> + <p> + ‘Shut them up, and don’t let me see them any longer—do!’ she said + laughingly, and with a quaint mixture of reluctance and entreaty. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Elfie?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not Elfie to you, Mr. Knight. Oh, because I shall want them. There, I am + silly, I know, to say that! But I have a reason for not taking them—now.’ + She kept in the last word for a moment, intending to imply that her + refusal was finite, but somehow the word slipped out, and undid all the + rest. + </p> + <p> + ‘You will take them some day?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t want to.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why don’t you want to, Elfride Swancourt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I don’t. I don’t like to take them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have read a fact of distressing significance in that,’ said Knight. + ‘Since you like them, your dislike to having them must be towards me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, it isn’t.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What, then? Do you like me?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride deepened in tint, and looked into the distance with features + shaped to an expression of the nicest criticism as regarded her answer. + </p> + <p> + ‘I like you pretty well,’ she at length murmured mildly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not very much?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are so sharp with me, and say hard things, and so how can I?’ she + replied evasively. + </p> + <p> + ‘You think me a fogey, I suppose?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I don’t—I mean I do—I don’t know what I think you, I + mean. Let us go to papa,’ responded Elfride, with somewhat of a flurried + delivery. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I’ll tell you my object in getting the present,’ said Knight, with + a composure intended to remove from her mind any possible impression of + his being what he was—her lover. ‘You see it was the very least I + could do in common civility.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride felt rather blank at this lucid statement. + </p> + <p> + Knight continued, putting away the case: ‘I felt as anybody naturally + would have, you know, that my words on your choice the other day were + invidious and unfair, and thought an apology should take a practical + shape.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride was sorry—she could not tell why—that he gave such a + legitimate reason. It was a disappointment that he had all the time a cool + motive, which might be stated to anybody without raising a smile. Had she + known they were offered in that spirit, she would certainly have accepted + the seductive gift. And the tantalizing feature was that perhaps he + suspected her to imagine them offered as a lover’s token, which was + mortifying enough if they were not. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt came now to where they were sitting, to select a flat + boulder for spreading their table-cloth upon, and, amid the discussion on + that subject, the matter pending between Knight and Elfride was shelved + for a while. He read her refusal so certainly as the bashfulness of a girl + in a novel position, that, upon the whole, he could tolerate such a + beginning. Could Knight have been told that it was a sense of fidelity + struggling against new love, whilst no less assuring as to his ultimate + victory, it might have entirely abstracted the wish to secure it. + </p> + <p> + At the same time a slight constraint of manner was visible between them + for the remainder of the afternoon. The tide turned, and they were obliged + to ascend to higher ground. The day glided on to its end with the usual + quiet dreamy passivity of such occasions—when every deed done and + thing thought is in endeavouring to avoid doing and thinking more. Looking + idly over the verge of a crag, they beheld their stone dining-table + gradually being splashed upon and their crumbs and fragments all washed + away by the incoming sea. The vicar drew a moral lesson from the scene; + Knight replied in the same satisfied strain. And then the waves rolled in + furiously—the neutral green-and-blue tongues of water slid up the + slopes, and were metamorphosed into foam by a careless blow, falling back + white and faint, and leaving trailing followers behind. + </p> + <p> + The passing of a heavy shower was the next scene—driving them to + shelter in a shallow cave—after which the horses were put in, and + they started to return homeward. By the time they reached the higher + levels the sky had again cleared, and the sunset rays glanced directly + upon the wet uphill road they had climbed. The ruts formed by their + carriage-wheels on the ascent—a pair of Liliputian canals—were + as shining bars of gold, tapering to nothing in the distance. Upon this + also they turned their backs, and night spread over the sea. + </p> + <p> + The evening was chilly, and there was no moon. Knight sat close to + Elfride, and, when the darkness rendered the position of a person a matter + of uncertainty, particularly close. Elfride edged away. + </p> + <p> + ‘I hope you allow me my place ungrudgingly?’ he whispered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes; ‘tis the least I can do in common civility,’ she said, accenting + the words so that he might recognize them as his own returned. + </p> + <p> + Both of them felt delicately balanced between two possibilities. Thus they + reached home. + </p> + <p> + To Knight this mild experience was delightful. It was to him a gentle + innocent time—a time which, though there may not be much in it, + seldom repeats itself in a man’s life, and has a peculiar dearness when + glanced at retrospectively. He is not inconveniently deep in love, and is + lulled by a peaceful sense of being able to enjoy the most trivial thing + with a childlike enjoyment. The movement of a wave, the colour of a stone, + anything, was enough for Knight’s drowsy thoughts of that day to + precipitate themselves upon. Even the sermonizing platitudes the vicar had + delivered himself of—chiefly because something seemed to be + professionally required of him in the presence of a man of Knight’s + proclivities—were swallowed whole. The presence of Elfride led him + not merely to tolerate that kind of talk from the necessities of ordinary + courtesy; but he listened to it—took in the ideas with an enjoyable + make-believe that they were proper and necessary, and indulged in a + conservative feeling that the face of things was complete. + </p> + <p> + Entering her room that evening Elfride found a packet for herself on the + dressing-table. How it came there she did not know. She tremblingly undid + the folds of white paper that covered it. Yes; it was the treasure of a + morocco case, containing those treasures of ornament she had refused in + the daytime. + </p> + <p> + Elfride dressed herself in them for a moment, looked at herself in the + glass, blushed red, and put them away. They filled her dreams all that + night. Never had she seen anything so lovely, and never was it more clear + that as an honest woman she was in duty bound to refuse them. Why it was + not equally clear to her that duty required more vigorous co-ordinate + conduct as well, let those who dissect her say. + </p> + <p> + The next morning glared in like a spectre upon her. It was Stephen’s + letter-day, and she was bound to meet the postman—to stealthily do a + deed she had never liked, to secure an end she now had ceased to desire. + </p> + <p> + But she went. + </p> + <p> + There were two letters. + </p> + <p> + One was from the bank at St. Launce’s, in which she had a small private + deposit—probably something about interest. She put that in her + pocket for a moment, and going indoors and upstairs to be safer from + observation, tremblingly opened Stephen’s. + </p> + <p> + What was this he said to her? + </p> + <p> + She was to go to the St. Launce’s Bank and take a sum of money which they + had received private advices to pay her. + </p> + <p> + The sum was two hundred pounds. + </p> + <p> + There was no check, order, or anything of the nature of guarantee. In fact + the information amounted to this: the money was now in the St. Launce’s + Bank, standing in her name. + </p> + <p> + She instantly opened the other letter. It contained a deposit-note from + the bank for the sum of two hundred pounds which had that day been added + to her account. Stephen’s information, then, was correct, and the transfer + made. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have saved this in one year,’ Stephen’s letter went on to say, ‘and + what so proper as well as pleasant for me to do as to hand it over to you + to keep for your use? I have plenty for myself, independently of this. + Should you not be disposed to let it lie idle in the bank, get your father + to invest it in your name on good security. It is a little present to you + from your more than betrothed. He will, I think, Elfride, feel now that my + pretensions to your hand are anything but the dream of a silly boy not + worth rational consideration.’ + </p> + <p> + With a natural delicacy, Elfride, in mentioning her father’s marriage, had + refrained from all allusion to the pecuniary resources of the lady. + </p> + <p> + Leaving this matter-of-fact subject, he went on, somewhat after his boyish + manner: + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you remember, darling, that first morning of my arrival at your house, + when your father read at prayers the miracle of healing the sick of the + palsy—where he is told to take up his bed and walk? I do, and I can + now so well realize the force of that passage. The smallest piece of mat + is the bed of the Oriental, and yesterday I saw a native perform the very + action, which reminded me to mention it. But you are better read than I, + and perhaps you knew all this long ago....One day I bought some small + native idols to send home to you as curiosities, but afterwards finding + they had been cast in England, made to look old, and shipped over, I threw + them away in disgust. + </p> + <p> + ‘Speaking of this reminds me that we are obliged to import all our + house-building ironwork from England. Never was such foresight required to + be exercised in building houses as here. Before we begin, we have to order + every column, lock, hinge, and screw that will be required. We cannot go + into the next street, as in London, and get them cast at a minute’s + notice. Mr. L. says somebody will have to go to England very soon and + superintend the selection of a large order of this kind. I only wish I may + be the man.’ + </p> + <p> + There before her lay the deposit-receipt for the two hundred pounds, and + beside it the elegant present of Knight. Elfride grew cold—then her + cheeks felt heated by beating blood. If by destroying the piece of paper + the whole transaction could have been withdrawn from her experience, she + would willingly have sacrificed the money it represented. She did not know + what to do in either case. She almost feared to let the two articles lie + in juxtaposition: so antagonistic were the interests they represented that + a miraculous repulsion of one by the other was almost to be expected. + </p> + <p> + That day she was seen little of. By the evening she had come to a + resolution, and acted upon it. The packet was sealed up—with a tear + of regret as she closed the case upon the pretty forms it contained—directed, + and placed upon the writing-table in Knight’s room. And a letter was + written to Stephen, stating that as yet she hardly understood her position + with regard to the money sent; but declaring that she was ready to fulfil + her promise to marry him. After this letter had been written she delayed + posting it—although never ceasing to feel strenuously that the deed + must be done. + </p> + <p> + Several days passed. There was another Indian letter for Elfride. Coming + unexpectedly, her father saw it, but made no remark—why, she could + not tell. The news this time was absolutely overwhelming. Stephen, as he + had wished, had been actually chosen as the most fitting to execute the + iron-work commission he had alluded to as impending. This duty completed + he would have three months’ leave. His letter continued that he should + follow it in a week, and should take the opportunity to plainly ask her + father to permit the engagement. Then came a page expressive of his + delight and hers at the reunion; and finally, the information that he + would write to the shipping agents, asking them to telegraph and tell her + when the ship bringing him home should be in sight—knowing how + acceptable such information would be. + </p> + <p> + Elfride lived and moved now as in a dream. Knight had at first become + almost angry at her persistent refusal of his offering—and no less + with the manner than the fact of it. But he saw that she began to look + worn and ill—and his vexation lessened to simple perplexity. + </p> + <p> + He ceased now to remain in the house for long hours together as before, + but made it a mere centre for antiquarian and geological excursions in the + neighbourhood. Throw up his cards and go away he fain would have done, but + could not. And, thus, availing himself of the privileges of a relative, he + went in and out the premises as fancy led him—but still lingered on. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t wish to stay here another day if my presence is distasteful,’ he + said one afternoon. ‘At first you used to imply that I was severe with + you; and when I am kind you treat me unfairly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no. Don’t say so.’ + </p> + <p> + The origin of their acquaintanceship had been such as to render their + manner towards each other peculiar and uncommon. It was of a kind to cause + them to speak out their minds on any feelings of objection and difference: + to be reticent on gentler matters. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have a good mind to go away and never trouble you again,’ continued + Knight. + </p> + <p> + She said nothing, but the eloquent expression of her eyes and wan face was + enough to reproach him for harshness. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you like me to be here, then?’ inquired Knight gently. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ she said. Fidelity to the old love and truth to the new were ranged + on opposite sides, and truth virtuelessly prevailed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I’ll stay a little longer,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t be vexed if I keep by myself a good deal, will you? Perhaps + something may happen, and I may tell you something.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mere coyness,’ said Knight to himself; and went away with a lighter + heart. The trick of reading truly the enigmatical forces at work in women + at given times, which with some men is an unerring instinct, is peculiar + to minds less direct and honest than Knight’s. + </p> + <p> + The next evening, about five o’clock, before Knight had returned from a + pilgrimage along the shore, a man walked up to the house. He was a + messenger from Camelton, a town a few miles off, to which place the + railway had been advanced during the summer. + </p> + <p> + ‘A telegram for Miss Swancourt, and three and sixpence to pay for the + special messenger.’ Miss Swancourt sent out the money, signed the paper, + and opened her letter with a trembling hand. She read: + </p> + <p> + ‘Johnson, Liverpool, to Miss Swancourt, Endelstow, near Castle Boterel. + </p> + <p> + ‘Amaryllis telegraphed off Holyhead, four o’clock. Expect will dock and + land passengers at Canning’s Basin ten o’clock to-morrow morning.’ + </p> + <p> + Her father called her into the study. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, who sent you that message?’ he asked suspiciously. + </p> + <p> + ‘Johnson.’ ‘Who is Johnson, for Heaven’s sake?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The deuce you don’t! Who is to know, then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have never heard of him till now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s a singular story, isn’t it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, come, miss! What was the telegram?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you really wish to know, papa?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Remember, I am a full-grown woman now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Being a woman, and not a child, I may, I think, have a secret or two.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You will, it seems.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Women have, as a rule.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But don’t keep them. So speak out.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If you will not press me now, I give my word to tell you the meaning of + all this before the week is past.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘On your honour?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘On my honour.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well. I have had a certain suspicion, you know; and I shall be glad + to find it false. I don’t like your manner lately.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘At the end of the week, I said, papa.’ + </p> + <p> + Her father did not reply, and Elfride left the room. + </p> + <p> + She began to look out for the postman again. Three mornings later he + brought an inland letter from Stephen. It contained very little matter, + having been written in haste; but the meaning was bulky enough. Stephen + said that, having executed a commission in Liverpool, he should arrive at + his father’s house, East Endelstow, at five or six o’clock that same + evening; that he would after dusk walk on to the next village, and meet + her, if she would, in the church porch, as in the old time. He proposed + this plan because he thought it unadvisable to call formally at her house + so late in the evening; yet he could not sleep without having seen her. + The minutes would seem hours till he clasped her in his arms. + </p> + <p> + Elfride was still steadfast in her opinion that honour compelled her to + meet him. Probably the very longing to avoid him lent additional weight to + the conviction; for she was markedly one of those who sigh for the + unattainable—to whom, superlatively, a hope is pleasing because not + a possession. And she knew it so well that her intellect was inclined to + exaggerate this defect in herself. + </p> + <p> + So during the day she looked her duty steadfastly in the face; read + Wordsworth’s astringent yet depressing ode to that Deity; committed + herself to her guidance; and still felt the weight of chance desires. + </p> + <p> + But she began to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the sacrifice + of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of propriety compelled her to + regard as her only possible husband. She would meet him, and do all that + lay in her power to marry him. To guard against a relapse, a note was at + once despatched to his father’s cottage for Stephen on his arrival, fixing + an hour for the interview. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXI + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘On thy cold grey stones, O sea!’ +</pre> + <p> + Stephen had said that he should come by way of Bristol, and thence by a + steamer to Castle Boterel, in order to avoid the long journey over the + hills from St. Launce’s. He did not know of the extension of the railway + to Camelton. + </p> + <p> + During the afternoon a thought occurred to Elfride, that from any cliff + along the shore it would be possible to see the steamer some hours before + its arrival. + </p> + <p> + She had accumulated religious force enough to do an act of supererogation. + The act was this—to go to some point of land and watch for the ship + that brought her future husband home. + </p> + <p> + It was a cloudy afternoon. Elfride was often diverted from a purpose by a + dull sky; and though she used to persuade herself that the weather was as + fine as possible on the other side of the clouds, she could not bring + about any practical result from this fancy. Now, her mood was such that + the humid sky harmonized with it. + </p> + <p> + Having ascended and passed over a hill behind the house, Elfride came to a + small stream. She used it as a guide to the coast. It was smaller than + that in her own valley, and flowed altogether at a higher level. Bushes + lined the slopes of its shallow trough; but at the bottom, where the water + ran, was a soft green carpet, in a strip two or three yards wide. + </p> + <p> + In winter, the water flowed over the grass; in summer, as now, it trickled + along a channel in the midst. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had a sensation of eyes regarding her from somewhere. She turned, + and there was Mr. Knight. He had dropped into the valley from the side of + the hill. She felt a thrill of pleasure, and rebelliously allowed it to + exist. + </p> + <p> + ‘What utter loneliness to find you in!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am going to the shore by tracking the stream. I believe it empties + itself not far off, in a silver thread of water, over a cascade of great + height.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why do you load yourself with that heavy telescope?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To look over the sea with it,’ she said faintly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll carry it for you to your journey’s end.’ And he took the glass from + her unresisting hands. ‘It cannot be half a mile further. See, there is + the water.’ He pointed to a short fragment of level muddy-gray colour, + cutting against the sky. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had already scanned the small surface of ocean visible, and had + seen no ship. + </p> + <p> + They walked along in company, sometimes with the brook between them—for + it was no wider than a man’s stride—sometimes close together. The + green carpet grew swampy, and they kept higher up. + </p> + <p> + One of the two ridges between which they walked dwindled lower and became + insignificant. That on the right hand rose with their advance, and + terminated in a clearly defined edge against the light, as if it were + abruptly sawn off. A little further, and the bed of the rivulet ended in + the same fashion. + </p> + <p> + They had come to a bank breast-high, and over it the valley was no longer + to be seen. It was withdrawn cleanly and completely. In its place was sky + and boundless atmosphere; and perpendicularly down beneath them—small + and far off—lay the corrugated surface of the Atlantic. + </p> + <p> + The small stream here found its death. Running over the precipice it was + dispersed in spray before it was half-way down, and falling like rain upon + projecting ledges, made minute grassy meadows of them. At the bottom the + water-drops soaked away amid the debris of the cliff. This was the + inglorious end of the river. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you looking for? said Knight, following the direction of her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + She was gazing hard at a black object—nearer to the shore than to + the horizon—from the summit of which came a nebulous haze, + stretching like gauze over the sea. + </p> + <p> + ‘The Puffin, a little summer steamboat—from Bristol to Castle + Boterel,’ she said. ‘I think that is it—look. Will you give me the + glass?’ + </p> + <p> + Knight pulled open the old-fashioned but powerful telescope, and handed it + to Elfride, who had looked on with heavy eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t keep it up now,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rest it on my shoulder.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is too high.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Under my arm.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Too low. You may look instead,’ she murmured weakly. + </p> + <p> + Knight raised the glass to his eye, and swept the sea till the Puffin + entered its field. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it is the Puffin—a tiny craft. I can see her figure-head + distinctly—a bird with a beak as big as its head.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Can you see the deck?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wait a minute; yes, pretty clearly. And I can see the black forms of the + passengers against its white surface. One of them has taken something from + another—a glass, I think—yes, it is—and he is levelling + it in this direction. Depend upon it we are conspicuous objects against + the sky to them. Now, it seems to rain upon them, and they put on + overcoats and open umbrellas. They vanish and go below—all but that + one who has borrowed the glass. He is a slim young fellow, and still + watches us.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride grew pale, and shifted her little feet uneasily. + </p> + <p> + Knight lowered the glass. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think we had better return,’ he said. ‘That cloud which is raining on + them may soon reach us. Why, you look ill. How is that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Something in the air affects my face.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Those fair cheeks are very fastidious, I fear,’ returned Knight tenderly. + ‘This air would make those rosy that were never so before, one would think—eh, + Nature’s spoilt child?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s colour returned again. + </p> + <p> + ‘There is more to see behind us, after all,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + She turned her back upon the boat and Stephen Smith, and saw, towering + still higher than themselves, the vertical face of the hill on the right, + which did not project seaward so far as the bed of the valley, but formed + the back of a small cove, and so was visible like a concave wall, bending + round from their position towards the left. + </p> + <p> + The composition of the huge hill was revealed to its backbone and marrow + here at its rent extremity. It consisted of a vast stratification of + blackish-gray slate, unvaried in its whole height by a single change of + shade. + </p> + <p> + It is with cliffs and mountains as with persons; they have what is called + a presence, which is not necessarily proportionate to their actual bulk. A + little cliff will impress you powerfully; a great one not at all. It + depends, as with man, upon the countenance of the cliff. + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot bear to look at that cliff,’ said Elfride. ‘It has a horrid + personality, and makes me shudder. We will go.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Can you climb?’ said Knight. ‘If so, we will ascend by that path over the + grim old fellow’s brow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Try me,’ said Elfride disdainfully. ‘I have ascended steeper slopes than + that.’ + </p> + <p> + From where they had been loitering, a grassy path wound along inside a + bank, placed as a safeguard for unwary pedestrians, to the top of the + precipice, and over it along the hill in an inland direction. + </p> + <p> + ‘Take my arm, Miss Swancourt,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can get on better without it, thank you.’ + </p> + <p> + When they were one quarter of the way up, Elfride stopped to take breath. + Knight stretched out his hand. + </p> + <p> + She took it, and they ascended the remaining slope together. Reaching the + very top, they sat down to rest by mutual consent. + </p> + <p> + ‘Heavens, what an altitude!’ said Knight between his pants, and looking + far over the sea. The cascade at the bottom of the slope appeared a mere + span in height from where they were now. + </p> + <p> + Elfride was looking to the left. The steamboat was in full view again, and + by reason of the vast surface of sea their higher position uncovered it + seemed almost close to the shore. + </p> + <p> + ‘Over that edge,’ said Knight, ‘where nothing but vacancy appears, is a + moving compact mass. The wind strikes the face of the rock, runs up it, + rises like a fountain to a height far above our heads, curls over us in an + arch, and disperses behind us. In fact, an inverted cascade is there—as + perfect as the Niagara Falls—but rising instead of falling, and air + instead of water. Now look here.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight threw a stone over the bank, aiming it as if to go onward over the + cliff. Reaching the verge, it towered into the air like a bird, turned + back, and alighted on the ground behind them. They themselves were in a + dead calm. + </p> + <p> + ‘A boat crosses Niagara immediately at the foot of the falls, where the + water is quite still, the fallen mass curving under it. We are in + precisely the same position with regard to our atmospheric cataract here. + If you run back from the cliff fifty yards, you will be in a brisk wind. + Now I daresay over the bank is a little backward current.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight rose and leant over the bank. No sooner was his head above it than + his hat appeared to be sucked from his head—slipping over his + forehead in a seaward direction. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s the backward eddy, as I told you,’ he cried, and vanished over the + little bank after his hat. + </p> + <p> + Elfride waited one minute; he did not return. She waited another, and + there was no sign of him. + </p> + <p> + A few drops of rain fell, then a sudden shower. + </p> + <p> + She arose, and looked over the bank. On the other side were two or three + yards of level ground—then a short steep preparatory slope—then + the verge of the precipice. + </p> + <p> + On the slope was Knight, his hat on his head. He was on his hands and + knees, trying to climb back to the level ground. The rain had wetted the + shaly surface of the incline. A slight superficial wetting of the soil + hereabout made it far more slippery to stand on than the same soil + thoroughly drenched. The inner substance was still hard, and was + lubricated by the moistened film. + </p> + <p> + ‘I find a difficulty in getting back,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s heart fell like lead. + </p> + <p> + ‘But you can get back?’ she wildly inquired. + </p> + <p> + Knight strove with all his might for two or three minutes, and the drops + of perspiration began to bead his brow. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I am unable to do it,’ he answered. + </p> + <p> + Elfride, by a wrench of thought, forced away from her mind the sensation + that Knight was in bodily danger. But attempt to help him she must. She + ventured upon the treacherous incline, propped herself with the closed + telescope, and gave him her hand before he saw her movements. + </p> + <p> + ‘O Elfride! why did you?’ said he. ‘I am afraid you have only endangered + yourself.’ + </p> + <p> + And as if to prove his statement, in making an endeavour by her assistance + they both slipped lower, and then he was again stayed. His foot was + propped by a bracket of quartz rock, balanced on the verge of the + precipice. Fixed by this, he steadied her, her head being about a foot + below the beginning of the slope. Elfride had dropped the glass; it rolled + to the edge and vanished over it into a nether sky. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hold tightly to me,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + She flung her arms round his neck with such a firm grasp that whilst he + remained it was impossible for her to fall. + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t be flurried,’ Knight continued. ‘So long as we stay above this + block we are perfectly safe. Wait a moment whilst I consider what we had + better do.’ + </p> + <p> + He turned his eyes to the dizzy depths beneath them, and surveyed the + position of affairs. + </p> + <p> + Two glances told him a tale with ghastly distinctness. It was that, unless + they performed their feat of getting up the slope with the precision of + machines, they were over the edge and whirling in mid-air. + </p> + <p> + For this purpose it was necessary that he should recover the breath and + strength which his previous efforts had cost him. So he still waited, and + looked in the face of the enemy. + </p> + <p> + The crest of this terrible natural facade passed among the neighbouring + inhabitants as being seven hundred feet above the water it overhung. It + had been proved by actual measurement to be not a foot less than six + hundred and fifty. + </p> + <p> + That is to say, it is nearly three times the height of Flamborough, half + as high again as the South Foreland, a hundred feet higher than Beachy + Head—the loftiest promontory on the east or south side of this + island—twice the height of St. Aldhelm’s, thrice as high as the + Lizard, and just double the height of St. Bee’s. One sea-bord point on the + western coast is known to surpass it in altitude, but only by a few feet. + This is Great Orme’s Head, in Caernarvonshire. + </p> + <p> + And it must be remembered that the cliff exhibits an intensifying feature + which some of those are without—sheer perpendicularity from the + half-tide level. + </p> + <p> + Yet this remarkable rampart forms no headland: it rather walls in an inlet—the + promontory on each side being much lower. Thus, far from being salient, + its horizontal section is concave. The sea, rolling direct from the shores + of North America, has in fact eaten a chasm into the middle of a hill, and + the giant, embayed and unobtrusive, stands in the rear of pigmy + supporters. Not least singularly, neither hill, chasm, nor precipice has a + name. On this account I will call the precipice the Cliff without a Name.* + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * See Preface +</pre> + <p> + What gave an added terror to its height was its blackness. And upon this + dark face the beating of ten thousand west winds had formed a kind of + bloom, which had a visual effect not unlike that of a Hambro’ grape. + Moreover it seemed to float off into the atmosphere, and inspire terror + through the lungs. + </p> + <p> + ‘This piece of quartz, supporting my feet, is on the very nose of the + cliff,’ said Knight, breaking the silence after his rigid stoical + meditation. ‘Now what you are to do is this. Clamber up my body till your + feet are on my shoulders: when you are there you will, I think, be able to + climb on to level ground.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What will you do?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wait whilst you run for assistance.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I ought to have done that in the first place, ought I not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was in the act of slipping, and should have reached no stand-point + without your weight, in all probability. But don’t let us talk. Be brave, + Elfride, and climb.’ + </p> + <p> + She prepared to ascend, saying, ‘This is the moment I anticipated when on + the tower. I thought it would come!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘This is not a time for superstition,’ said Knight. ‘Dismiss all that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will,’ she said humbly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now put your foot into my hand: next the other. That’s good—well + done. Hold to my shoulder.’ + </p> + <p> + She placed her feet upon the stirrup he made of his hand, and was high + enough to get a view of the natural surface of the hill over the bank. + </p> + <p> + ‘Can you now climb on to level ground?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am afraid not. I will try.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What can you see?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The sloping common.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What upon it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Purple heather and some grass.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing more—no man or human being of any kind?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nobody.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now try to get higher in this way. You see that tuft of sea-pink above + you. Get that well into your hand, but don’t trust to it entirely. Then + step upon my shoulder, and I think you will reach the top.’ + </p> + <p> + With trembling limbs she did exactly as he told her. The preternatural + quiet and solemnity of his manner overspread upon herself, and gave her a + courage not her own. She made a spring from the top of his shoulder, and + was up. + </p> + <p> + Then she turned to look at him. + </p> + <p> + By an ill fate, the force downwards of her bound, added to his own weight, + had been too much for the block of quartz upon which his feet depended. It + was, indeed, originally an igneous protrusion into the enormous masses of + black strata, which had since been worn away from the sides of the alien + fragment by centuries of frost and rain, and now left it without much + support. + </p> + <p> + It moved. Knight seized a tuft of sea-pink with each hand. + </p> + <p> + The quartz rock which had been his salvation was worse than useless now. + It rolled over, out of sight, and away into the same nether sky that had + engulfed the telescope. + </p> + <p> + One of the tufts by which he held came out at the root, and Knight began + to follow the quartz. It was a terrible moment. Elfride uttered a low wild + wail of agony, bowed her head, and covered her face with her hands. + </p> + <p> + Between the turf-covered slope and the gigantic perpendicular rock + intervened a weather-worn series of jagged edges, forming a face yet + steeper than the former slope. As he slowly slid inch by inch upon these, + Knight made a last desperate dash at the lowest tuft of vegetation—the + last outlying knot of starved herbage ere the rock appeared in all its + bareness. It arrested his further descent. Knight was now literally + suspended by his arms; but the incline of the brow being what engineers + would call about a quarter in one, it was sufficient to relieve his arms + of a portion of his weight, but was very far from offering an adequately + flat face to support him. + </p> + <p> + In spite of this dreadful tension of body and mind, Knight found time for + a moment of thankfulness. Elfride was safe. + </p> + <p> + She lay on her side above him—her fingers clasped. Seeing him again + steady, she jumped upon her feet. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, if I can only save you by running for help!’ she cried. ‘Oh, I would + have died instead! Why did you try so hard to deliver me?’ And she turned + away wildly to run for assistance. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, how long will it take you to run to Endelstow and back?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Three-quarters of an hour.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That won’t do; my hands will not hold out ten minutes. And is there + nobody nearer?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; unless a chance passer may happen to be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He would have nothing with him that could save me. Is there a pole or + stick of any kind on the common?’ + </p> + <p> + She gazed around. The common was bare of everything but heather and grass. + </p> + <p> + A minute—perhaps more time—was passed in mute thought by both. + On a sudden the blank and helpless agony left her face. She vanished over + the bank from his sight. + </p> + <p> + Knight felt himself in the presence of a personalized loneliness. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘A woman’s way.’ +</pre> + <p> + Haggard cliffs, of every ugly altitude, are as common as sea-fowl along + the line of coast between Exmoor and Land’s End; but this outflanked and + encompassed specimen was the ugliest of them all. Their summits are not + safe places for scientific experiment on the principles of air-currents, + as Knight had now found, to his dismay. + </p> + <p> + He still clutched the face of the escarpment—not with the frenzied + hold of despair, but with a dogged determination to make the most of his + every jot of endurance, and so give the longest possible scope to + Elfride’s intentions, whatever they might be. + </p> + <p> + He reclined hand in hand with the world in its infancy. Not a blade, not + an insect, which spoke of the present, was between him and the past. The + inveterate antagonism of these black precipices to all strugglers for life + is in no way more forcibly suggested than by the paucity of tufts of + grass, lichens, or confervae on their outermost ledges. + </p> + <p> + Knight pondered on the meaning of Elfride’s hasty disappearance, but could + not avoid an instinctive conclusion that there existed but a doubtful hope + for him. As far as he could judge, his sole chance of deliverance lay in + the possibility of a rope or pole being brought; and this possibility was + remote indeed. The soil upon these high downs was left so untended that + they were unenclosed for miles, except by a casual bank or dry wall, and + were rarely visited but for the purpose of collecting or counting the + flock which found a scanty means of subsistence thereon. + </p> + <p> + At first, when death appeared improbable, because it had never visited him + before, Knight could think of no future, nor of anything connected with + his past. He could only look sternly at Nature’s treacherous attempt to + put an end to him, and strive to thwart her. + </p> + <p> + From the fact that the cliff formed the inner face of the segment of a + huge cylinder, having the sky for a top and the sea for a bottom, which + enclosed the cove to the extent of more than a semicircle, he could see + the vertical face curving round on each side of him. He looked far down + the facade, and realized more thoroughly how it threatened him. Grimness + was in every feature, and to its very bowels the inimical shape was + desolation. + </p> + <p> + By one of those familiar conjunctions of things wherewith the inanimate + world baits the mind of man when he pauses in moments of suspense, + opposite Knight’s eyes was an imbedded fossil, standing forth in low + relief from the rock. It was a creature with eyes. The eyes, dead and + turned to stone, were even now regarding him. It was one of the early + crustaceans called Trilobites. Separated by millions of years in their + lives, Knight and this underling seemed to have met in their death. It was + the single instance within reach of his vision of anything that had ever + been alive and had had a body to save, as he himself had now. + </p> + <p> + The creature represented but a low type of animal existence, for never in + their vernal years had the plains indicated by those numberless slaty + layers been traversed by an intelligence worthy of the name. Zoophytes, + mollusca, shell-fish, were the highest developments of those ancient + dates. The immense lapses of time each formation represented had known + nothing of the dignity of man. They were grand times, but they were mean + times too, and mean were their relics. He was to be with the small in his + death. + </p> + <p> + Knight was a geologist; and such is the supremacy of habit over occasion, + as a pioneer of the thoughts of men, that at this dreadful juncture his + mind found time to take in, by a momentary sweep, the varied scenes that + had had their day between this creature’s epoch and his own. There is no + place like a cleft landscape for bringing home such imaginings as these. + </p> + <p> + Time closed up like a fan before him. He saw himself at one extremity of + the years, face to face with the beginning and all the intermediate + centuries simultaneously. Fierce men, clothed in the hides of beasts, and + carrying, for defence and attack, huge clubs and pointed spears, rose from + the rock, like the phantoms before the doomed Macbeth. They lived in + hollows, woods, and mud huts—perhaps in caves of the neighbouring + rocks. Behind them stood an earlier band. No man was there. Huge + elephantine forms, the mastodon, the hippopotamus, the tapir, antelopes of + monstrous size, the megatherium, and the myledon—all, for the + moment, in juxtaposition. Further back, and overlapped by these, were + perched huge-billed birds and swinish creatures as large as horses. Still + more shadowy were the sinister crocodilian outlines—alligators and + other uncouth shapes, culminating in the colossal lizard, the iguanodon. + Folded behind were dragon forms and clouds of flying reptiles: still + underneath were fishy beings of lower development; and so on, till the + lifetime scenes of the fossil confronting him were a present and modern + condition of things. These images passed before Knight’s inner eye in less + than half a minute, and he was again considering the actual present. Was + he to die? The mental picture of Elfride in the world, without himself to + cherish her, smote his heart like a whip. He had hoped for deliverance, + but what could a girl do? He dared not move an inch. Was Death really + stretching out his hand? The previous sensation, that it was improbable he + would die, was fainter now. + </p> + <p> + However, Knight still clung to the cliff. + </p> + <p> + To those musing weather-beaten West-country folk who pass the greater part + of their days and nights out of doors, Nature seems to have moods in other + than a poetical sense: predilections for certain deeds at certain times, + without any apparent law to govern or season to account for them. She is + read as a person with a curious temper; as one who does not scatter + kindnesses and cruelties alternately, impartially, and in order, but + heartless severities or overwhelming generosities in lawless caprice. + Man’s case is always that of the prodigal’s favourite or the miser’s + pensioner. In her unfriendly moments there seems a feline fun in her + tricks, begotten by a foretaste of her pleasure in swallowing the victim. + </p> + <p> + Such a way of thinking had been absurd to Knight, but he began to adopt it + now. He was first spitted on to a rock. New tortures followed. The rain + increased, and persecuted him with an exceptional persistency which he was + moved to believe owed its cause to the fact that he was in such a wretched + state already. An entirely new order of things could be observed in this + introduction of rain upon the scene. It rained upwards instead of down. + The strong ascending air carried the rain-drops with it in its race up the + escarpment, coming to him with such velocity that they stuck into his + flesh like cold needles. Each drop was virtually a shaft, and it pierced + him to his skin. The water-shafts seemed to lift him on their points: no + downward rain ever had such a torturing effect. In a brief space he was + drenched, except in two places. These were on the top of his shoulders and + on the crown of his hat. + </p> + <p> + The wind, though not intense in other situations was strong here. It + tugged at his coat and lifted it. We are mostly accustomed to look upon + all opposition which is not animate, as that of the stolid, inexorable + hand of indifference, which wears out the patience more than the strength. + Here, at any rate, hostility did not assume that slow and sickening form. + It was a cosmic agency, active, lashing, eager for conquest: + determination; not an insensate standing in the way. + </p> + <p> + Knight had over-estimated the strength of his hands. They were getting + weak already. ‘She will never come again; she has been gone ten minutes,’ + he said to himself. + </p> + <p> + This mistake arose from the unusual compression of his experiences just + now: she had really been gone but three. + </p> + <p> + ‘As many more minutes will be my end,’ he thought. + </p> + <p> + Next came another instance of the incapacity of the mind to make + comparisons at such times. + </p> + <p> + ‘This is a summer afternoon,’ he said, ‘and there can never have been such + a heavy and cold rain on a summer day in my life before.’ + </p> + <p> + He was again mistaken. The rain was quite ordinary in quantity; the air in + temperature. It was, as is usual, the menacing attitude in which they + approached him that magnified their powers. + </p> + <p> + He again looked straight downwards, the wind and the water-dashes lifting + his moustache, scudding up his cheeks, under his eyelids, and into his + eyes. This is what he saw down there: the surface of the sea—visually + just past his toes, and under his feet; actually one-eighth of a mile, or + more than two hundred yards, below them. We colour according to our moods + the objects we survey. The sea would have been a deep neutral blue, had + happier auspices attended the gazer it was now no otherwise than + distinctly black to his vision. That narrow white border was foam, he knew + well; but its boisterous tosses were so distant as to appear a pulsation + only, and its plashing was barely audible. A white border to a black sea—his + funeral pall and its edging. + </p> + <p> + The world was to some extent turned upside down for him. Rain descended + from below. Beneath his feet was aerial space and the unknown; above him + was the firm, familiar ground, and upon it all that he loved best. + </p> + <p> + Pitiless nature had then two voices, and two only. The nearer was the + voice of the wind in his ears rising and falling as it mauled and thrust + him hard or softly. The second and distant one was the moan of that + unplummetted ocean below and afar—rubbing its restless flank against + the Cliff without a Name. + </p> + <p> + Knight perseveringly held fast. Had he any faith in Elfride? Perhaps. Love + is faith, and faith, like a gathered flower, will rootlessly live on. + </p> + <p> + Nobody would have expected the sun to shine on such an evening as this. + Yet it appeared, low down upon the sea. Not with its natural golden + fringe, sweeping the furthest ends of the landscape, not with the strange + glare of whiteness which it sometimes puts on as an alternative to colour, + but as a splotch of vermilion red upon a leaden ground—a red face + looking on with a drunken leer. + </p> + <p> + Most men who have brains know it, and few are so foolish as to disguise + this fact from themselves or others, even though an ostentatious display + may be called self-conceit. Knight, without showing it much, knew that his + intellect was above the average. And he thought—he could not help + thinking—that his death would be a deliberate loss to earth of good + material; that such an experiment in killing might have been practised + upon some less developed life. + </p> + <p> + A fancy some people hold, when in a bitter mood, is that inexorable + circumstance only tries to prevent what intelligence attempts. Renounce a + desire for a long-contested position, and go on another tack, and after a + while the prize is thrown at you, seemingly in disappointment that no more + tantalizing is possible. + </p> + <p> + Knight gave up thoughts of life utterly and entirely, and turned to + contemplate the Dark Valley and the unknown future beyond. Into the + shadowy depths of these speculations we will not follow him. Let it + suffice to state what ensued. + </p> + <p> + At that moment of taking no more thought for this life, something + disturbed the outline of the bank above him. A spot appeared. It was the + head of Elfride. + </p> + <p> + Knight immediately prepared to welcome life again. + </p> + <p> + The expression of a face consigned to utter loneliness, when a friend + first looks in upon it, is moving in the extreme. In rowing seaward to a + light-ship or sea-girt lighthouse, where, without any immediate terror of + death, the inmates experience the gloom of monotonous seclusion, the + grateful eloquence of their countenances at the greeting, expressive of + thankfulness for the visit, is enough to stir the emotions of the most + careless observer. + </p> + <p> + Knight’s upward look at Elfride was of a nature with, but far + transcending, such an instance as this. The lines of his face had deepened + to furrows, and every one of them thanked her visibly. His lips moved to + the word ‘Elfride,’ though the emotion evolved no sound. His eyes passed + all description in their combination of the whole diapason of eloquence, + from lover’s deep love to fellow-man’s gratitude for a token of + remembrance from one of his kind. + </p> + <p> + Elfride had come back. What she had come to do he did not know. She could + only look on at his death, perhaps. Still, she had come back, and not + deserted him utterly, and it was much. + </p> + <p> + It was a novelty in the extreme to see Henry Knight, to whom Elfride was + but a child, who had swayed her as a tree sways a bird’s nest, who + mastered her and made her weep most bitterly at her own insignificance, + thus thankful for a sight of her face. She looked down upon him, her face + glistening with rain and tears. He smiled faintly. + </p> + <p> + ‘How calm he is!’ she thought. ‘How great and noble he is to be so calm!’ + She would have died ten times for him then. + </p> + <p> + The gliding form of the steamboat caught her eye: she heeded it no longer. + </p> + <p> + ‘How much longer can you wait?’ came from her pale lips and along the wind + to his position. + </p> + <p> + ‘Four minutes,’ said Knight in a weaker voice than her own. + </p> + <p> + ‘But with a good hope of being saved?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Seven or eight.’ + </p> + <p> + He now noticed that in her arms she bore a bundle of white linen, and that + her form was singularly attenuated. So preternaturally thin and flexible + was Elfride at this moment, that she appeared to bend under the light + blows of the rain-shafts, as they struck into her sides and bosom, and + splintered into spray on her face. There is nothing like a thorough + drenching for reducing the protuberances of clothes, but Elfride’s seemed + to cling to her like a glove. + </p> + <p> + Without heeding the attack of the clouds further than by raising her hand + and wiping away the spirts of rain when they went more particularly into + her eyes, she sat down and hurriedly began rending the linen into strips. + These she knotted end to end, and afterwards twisted them like the strands + of a cord. In a short space of time she had formed a perfect rope by this + means, six or seven yards long. + </p> + <p> + ‘Can you wait while I bind it?’ she said, anxiously extending her gaze + down to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, if not very long. Hope has given me a wonderful instalment of + strength.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride dropped her eyes again, tore the remaining material into narrow + tape-like ligaments, knotted each to each as before, but on a smaller + scale, and wound the lengthy string she had thus formed round and round + the linen rope, which, without this binding, had a tendency to spread + abroad. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now,’ said Knight, who, watching the proceedings intently, had by this + time not only grasped her scheme, but reasoned further on, ‘I can hold + three minutes longer yet. And do you use the time in testing the strength + of the knots, one by one.’ + </p> + <p> + She at once obeyed, tested each singly by putting her foot on the rope + between each knot, and pulling with her hands. One of the knots slipped. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, think! It would have broken but for your forethought,’ Elfride + exclaimed apprehensively. + </p> + <p> + She retied the two ends. The rope was now firm in every part. + </p> + <p> + ‘When you have let it down,’ said Knight, already resuming his position of + ruling power, ‘go back from the edge of the slope, and over the bank as + far as the rope will allow you. Then lean down, and hold the end with both + hands.’ + </p> + <p> + He had first thought of a safer plan for his own deliverance, but it + involved the disadvantage of possibly endangering her life. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have tied it round my waist,’ she cried, ‘and I will lean directly upon + the bank, holding with my hands as well.’ + </p> + <p> + It was the arrangement he had thought of, but would not suggest. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will raise and drop it three times when I am behind the bank,’ she + continued, ‘to signify that I am ready. Take care, oh, take the greatest + care, I beg you!’ + </p> + <p> + She dropped the rope over him, to learn how much of its length it would be + necessary to expend on that side of the bank, went back, and disappeared + as she had done before. + </p> + <p> + The rope was trailing by Knight’s shoulders. In a few moments it twitched + three times. + </p> + <p> + He waited yet a second or two, then laid hold. + </p> + <p> + The incline of this upper portion of the precipice, to the length only of + a few feet, useless to a climber empty-handed, was invaluable now. Not + more than half his weight depended entirely on the linen rope. Half a + dozen extensions of the arms, alternating with half a dozen seizures of + the rope with his feet, brought him up to the level of the soil. + </p> + <p> + He was saved, and by Elfride. + </p> + <p> + He extended his cramped limbs like an awakened sleeper, and sprang over + the bank. + </p> + <p> + At sight of him she leapt to her feet with almost a shriek of joy. + Knight’s eyes met hers, and with supreme eloquence the glance of each told + a long-concealed tale of emotion in that short half-moment. Moved by an + impulse neither could resist, they ran together and into each other’s + arms. + </p> + <p> + At the moment of embracing, Elfride’s eyes involuntarily flashed towards + the Puffin steamboat. It had doubled the point, and was no longer to be + seen. + </p> + <p> + An overwhelming rush of exultation at having delivered the man she revered + from one of the most terrible forms of death, shook the gentle girl to the + centre of her soul. It merged in a defiance of duty to Stephen, and a + total recklessness as to plighted faith. Every nerve of her will was now + in entire subjection to her feeling—volition as a guiding power had + forsaken her. To remain passive, as she remained now, encircled by his + arms, was a sufficiently complete result—a glorious crown to all the + years of her life. Perhaps he was only grateful, and did not love her. No + matter: it was infinitely more to be even the slave of the greater than + the queen of the less. Some such sensation as this, though it was not + recognized as a finished thought, raced along the impressionable soul of + Elfride. + </p> + <p> + Regarding their attitude, it was impossible for two persons to go nearer + to a kiss than went Knight and Elfride during those minutes of impulsive + embrace in the pelting rain. Yet they did not kiss. Knight’s peculiarity + of nature was such that it would not allow him to take advantage of the + unguarded and passionate avowal she had tacitly made. + </p> + <p> + Elfride recovered herself, and gently struggled to be free. + </p> + <p> + He reluctantly relinquished her, and then surveyed her from crown to toe. + She seemed as small as an infant. He perceived whence she had obtained the + rope. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, my Elfride!’ he exclaimed in gratified amazement. + </p> + <p> + ‘I must leave you now,’ she said, her face doubling its red, with an + expression between gladness and shame ‘You follow me, but at some + distance.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The rain and wind pierce you through; the chill will kill you. God bless + you for such devotion! Take my coat and put it on.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; I shall get warm running.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride had absolutely nothing between her and the weather but her + exterior robe or ‘costume.’ The door had been made upon a woman’s wit, and + it had found its way out. Behind the bank, whilst Knight reclined upon the + dizzy slope waiting for death, she had taken off her whole clothing, and + replaced only her outer bodice and skirt. Every thread of the remainder + lay upon the ground in the form of a woollen and cotton rope. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am used to being wet through,’ she added. ‘I have been drenched on + Pansy dozens of times. Good-bye till we meet, clothed and in our right + minds, by the fireside at home!’ + </p> + <p> + She then ran off from him through the pelting rain like a hare; or more + like a pheasant when, scampering away with a lowered tail, it has a mind + to fly, but does not. Elfride was soon out of sight. + </p> + <p> + Knight felt uncomfortably wet and chilled, but glowing with fervour + nevertheless. He fully appreciated Elfride’s girlish delicacy in refusing + his escort in the meagre habiliments she wore, yet felt that necessary + abstraction of herself for a short half-hour as a most grievous loss to + him. + </p> + <p> + He gathered up her knotted and twisted plumage of linen, lace, and + embroidery work, and laid it across his arm. He noticed on the ground an + envelope, limp and wet. In endeavouring to restore this to its proper + shape, he loosened from the envelope a piece of paper it had contained, + which was seized by the wind in falling from Knight’s hand. It was blown + to the right, blown to the left—it floated to the edge of the cliff + and over the sea, where it was hurled aloft. It twirled in the air, and + then flew back over his head. + </p> + <p> + Knight followed the paper, and secured it. Having done so, he looked to + discover if it had been worth securing. + </p> + <p> + The troublesome sheet was a banker’s receipt for two hundred pounds, + placed to the credit of Miss Swancourt, which the impractical girl had + totally forgotten she carried with her. + </p> + <p> + Knight folded it as carefully as its moist condition would allow, put it + in his pocket, and followed Elfride. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXIII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot?’ +</pre> + <p> + By this time Stephen Smith had stepped out upon the quay at Castle + Boterel, and breathed his native air. + </p> + <p> + A darker skin, a more pronounced moustache, and an incipient beard, were + the chief additions and changes noticeable in his appearance. + </p> + <p> + In spite of the falling rain, which had somewhat lessened, he took a small + valise in his hand, and, leaving the remainder of his luggage at the inn, + ascended the hills towards East Endelstow. This place lay in a vale of its + own, further inland than the west village, and though so near it, had + little of physical feature in common with the latter. East Endelstow was + more wooded and fertile: it boasted of Lord Luxellian’s mansion and park, + and was free from those bleak open uplands which lent such an air of + desolation to the vicinage of the coast—always excepting the small + valley in which stood the vicarage and Mrs. Swancourt’s old house, The + Crags. + </p> + <p> + Stephen had arrived nearly at the summit of the ridge when the rain again + increased its volume, and, looking about for temporary shelter, he + ascended a steep path which penetrated dense hazel bushes in the lower + part of its course. Further up it emerged upon a ledge immediately over + the turnpike-road, and sheltered by an overhanging face of rubble rock, + with bushes above. For a reason of his own he made this spot his refuge + from the storm, and turning his face to the left, conned the landscape as + a book. + </p> + <p> + He was overlooking the valley containing Elfride’s residence. + </p> + <p> + From this point of observation the prospect exhibited the peculiarity of + being either brilliant foreground or the subdued tone of distance, a + sudden dip in the surface of the country lowering out of sight all the + intermediate prospect. In apparent contact with the trees and bushes + growing close beside him appeared the distant tract, terminated suddenly + by the brink of the series of cliffs which culminated in the tall giant + without a name—small and unimportant as here beheld. A leaf on a + bough at Stephen’s elbow blotted out a whole hill in the contrasting + district far away; a green bunch of nuts covered a complete upland there, + and the great cliff itself was outvied by a pigmy crag in the bank hard by + him. Stephen had looked upon these things hundreds of times before to-day, + but he had never viewed them with such tenderness as now. + </p> + <p> + Stepping forward in this direction yet a little further, he could see the + tower of West Endelstow Church, beneath which he was to meet his Elfride + that night. And at the same time he noticed, coming over the hill from the + cliffs, a white speck in motion. It seemed first to be a sea-gull flying + low, but ultimately proved to be a human figure, running with great + rapidity. The form flitted on, heedless of the rain which had caused + Stephen’s halt in this place, dropped down the heathery hill, entered the + vale, and was out of sight. + </p> + <p> + Whilst he meditated upon the meaning of this phenomenon, he was surprised + to see swim into his ken from the same point of departure another moving + speck, as different from the first as well could be, insomuch that it was + perceptible only by its blackness. Slowly and regularly it took the same + course, and there was not much doubt that this was the form of a man. He, + too, gradually descended from the upper levels, and was lost in the valley + below. + </p> + <p> + The rain had by this time again abated, and Stephen returned to the road. + Looking ahead, he saw two men and a cart. They were soon obscured by the + intervention of a high hedge. Just before they emerged again he heard + voices in conversation. + </p> + <p> + ‘’A must soon be in the naibourhood, too, if so be he’s a-coming,’ said a + tenor tongue, which Stephen instantly recognized as Martin Cannister’s. + </p> + <p> + ‘’A must ‘a b’lieve,’ said another voice—that of Stephen’s father. + </p> + <p> + Stephen stepped forward, and came before them face to face. His father and + Martin were walking, dressed in their second best suits, and beside them + rambled along a grizzel horse and brightly painted spring-cart. + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, Mr. Cannister; here’s the lost man!’ exclaimed young Smith, + entering at once upon the old style of greeting. ‘Father, here I am.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, my sonny; and glad I be for’t!’ returned John Smith, overjoyed + to see the young man. ‘How be ye? Well, come along home, and don’t let’s + bide out here in the damp. Such weather must be terrible bad for a young + chap just come from a fiery nation like Indy; hey, naibour Cannister?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Trew, trew. And about getting home his traps? Boxes, monstrous bales, and + noble packages of foreign description, I make no doubt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hardly all that,’ said Stephen laughing. + </p> + <p> + ‘We brought the cart, maning to go right on to Castle Boterel afore ye + landed,’ said his father. ‘“Put in the horse,” says Martin. “Ay,” says I, + “so we will;” and did it straightway. Now, maybe, Martin had better go on + wi’ the cart for the things, and you and I walk home-along.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I shall be back a’most as soon as you. Peggy is a pretty step still, + though time d’ begin to tell upon her as upon the rest o’ us.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen told Martin where to find his baggage, and then continued his + journey homeward in the company of his father. + </p> + <p> + ‘Owing to your coming a day sooner than we first expected,’ said John, + ‘you’ll find us in a turk of a mess, sir—“sir,” says I to my own + son! but ye’ve gone up so, Stephen. We’ve killed the pig this morning for + ye, thinking ye’d be hungry, and glad of a morsel of fresh mate. And ‘a + won’t be cut up till to-night. However, we can make ye a good supper of + fry, which will chaw up well wi’ a dab o’ mustard and a few nice new + taters, and a drop of shilling ale to wash it down. Your mother have + scrubbed the house through because ye were coming, and dusted all the + chimmer furniture, and bought a new basin and jug of a travelling + crockery-woman that came to our door, and scoured the cannel-sticks, and + claned the winders! Ay, I don’t know what ‘a ha’n’t a done. Never were + such a steer, ‘a b’lieve.’ + </p> + <p> + Conversation of this kind and inquiries of Stephen for his mother’s + wellbeing occupied them for the remainder of the journey. When they drew + near the river, and the cottage behind it, they could hear the + master-mason’s clock striking off the bygone hours of the day at intervals + of a quarter of a minute, during which intervals Stephen’s imagination + readily pictured his mother’s forefinger wandering round the dial in + company with the minute-hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘The clock stopped this morning, and your mother in putting en right + seemingly,’ said his father in an explanatory tone; and they went up the + garden to the door. + </p> + <p> + When they had entered, and Stephen had dutifully and warmly greeted his + mother—who appeared in a cotton dress of a dark-blue ground, covered + broadcast with a multitude of new and full moons, stars, and planets, with + an occasional dash of a comet-like aspect to diversify the scene—the + crackle of cart-wheels was heard outside, and Martin Cannister stamped in + at the doorway, in the form of a pair of legs beneath a great box, his + body being nowhere visible. When the luggage had been all taken down, and + Stephen had gone upstairs to change his clothes, Mrs. Smith’s mind seemed + to recover a lost thread. + </p> + <p> + ‘Really our clock is not worth a penny,’ she said, turning to it and + attempting to start the pendulum. + </p> + <p> + ‘Stopped again?’ inquired Martin with commiseration. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sure,’ replied Mrs. Smith; and continued after the manner of certain + matrons, to whose tongues the harmony of a subject with a casual mood is a + greater recommendation than its pertinence to the occasion, ‘John would + spend pounds a year upon the jimcrack old thing, if he might, in having it + claned, when at the same time you may doctor it yourself as well. “The + clock’s stopped again, John,” I say to him. “Better have en claned,” says + he. There’s five shillings. “That clock grinds again,” I say to en. + “Better have en claned,” ‘a says again. “That clock strikes wrong, John,” + says I. “Better have en claned,” he goes on. The wheels would have been + polished to skeletons by this time if I had listened to en, and I assure + you we could have bought a chainey-faced beauty wi’ the good money we’ve + flung away these last ten years upon this old green-faced mortal. And, + Martin, you must be wet. My son is gone up to change. John is damper than + I should like to be, but ‘a calls it nothing. Some of Mrs. Swancourt’s + servants have been here—they ran in out of the rain when going for a + walk—and I assure you the state of their bonnets was frightful.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How’s the folks? We’ve been over to Castle Boterel, and what wi’ running + and stopping out of the storms, my poor head is beyond everything! fizz, + fizz fizz; ‘tis frying o’ fish from morning to night,’ said a cracked + voice in the doorway at this instant. + </p> + <p> + ‘Lord so’s, who’s that?’ said Mrs. Smith, in a private exclamation, and + turning round saw William Worm, endeavouring to make himself look passing + civil and friendly by overspreading his face with a large smile that + seemed to have no connection with the humour he was in. Behind him stood a + woman about twice his size, with a large umbrella over her head. This was + Mrs. Worm, William’s wife. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come in, William,’ said John Smith. ‘We don’t kill a pig every day. And + you, likewise, Mrs. Worm. I make ye welcome. Since ye left Parson + Swancourt, William, I don’t see much of ‘ee.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, for to tell the truth, since I took to the turn-pike-gate line, I’ve + been out but little, coming to church o’ Sundays not being my duty now, as + ‘twas in a parson’s family, you see. However, our boy is able to mind the + gate now, and I said, says I, “Barbara, let’s call and see John Smith.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am sorry to hear yer pore head is so bad still.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, I assure you that frying o’ fish is going on for nights and days. + And, you know, sometimes ‘tisn’t only fish, but rashers o’ bacon and + inions. Ay, I can hear the fat pop and fizz as nateral as life; can’t I, + Barbara?’ + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Worm, who had been all this time engaged in closing her umbrella, + corroborated this statement, and now, coming indoors, showed herself to be + a wide-faced, comfortable-looking woman, with a wart upon her cheek, + bearing a small tuft of hair in its centre. + </p> + <p> + ‘Have ye ever tried anything to cure yer noise, Maister Worm?’ inquired + Martin Cannister. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh ay; bless ye, I’ve tried everything. Ay, Providence is a merciful man, + and I have hoped He’d have found it out by this time, living so many years + in a parson’s family, too, as I have, but ‘a don’t seem to relieve me. Ay, + I be a poor wambling man, and life’s a mint o’ trouble!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘True, mournful true, William Worm. ‘Tis so. The world wants looking to, + or ‘tis all sixes and sevens wi’ us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Take your things off, Mrs. Worm,’ said Mrs. Smith. ‘We be rather in a + muddle, to tell the truth, for my son is just dropped in from Indy a day + sooner than we expected, and the pig-killer is coming presently to cut + up.’ + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barbara Worm, not wishing to take any mean advantage of persons in a + muddle by observing them, removed her bonnet and mantle with eyes fixed + upon the flowers in the plot outside the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘What beautiful tiger-lilies!’ said Mrs. Worm. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, they be very well, but such a trouble to me on account of the + children that come here. They will go eating the berries on the stem, and + call ‘em currants. Taste wi’ junivals is quite fancy, really.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And your snapdragons look as fierce as ever.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, really,’ answered Mrs. Smith, entering didactically into the + subject, ‘they are more like Christians than flowers. But they make up + well enough wi’ the rest, and don’t require much tending. And the same can + be said o’ these miller’s wheels. ‘Tis a flower I like very much, though + so simple. John says he never cares about the flowers o’ ‘em, but men have + no eye for anything neat. He says his favourite flower is a cauliflower. + And I assure you I tremble in the springtime, for ‘tis perfect murder.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t say so, Mrs. Smith!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘John digs round the roots, you know. In goes his blundering spade, + through roots, bulbs, everything that hasn’t got a good show above ground, + turning ‘em up cut all to slices. Only the very last fall I went to move + some tulips, when I found every bulb upside down, and the stems crooked + round. He had turned ‘em over in the spring, and the cunning creatures had + soon found that heaven was not where it used to be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s that long-favoured flower under the hedge?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They? O Lord, they are the horrid Jacob’s ladders! Instead of praising + ‘em, I be mad wi’ ‘em for being so ready to bide where they are not + wanted. They be very well in their way, but I do not care for things that + neglect won’t kill. Do what I will, dig, drag, scrap, pull, I get too many + of ‘em. I chop the roots: up they’ll come, treble strong. Throw ‘em over + hedge; there they’ll grow, staring me in the face like a hungry dog driven + away, and creep back again in a week or two the same as before. ‘Tis + Jacob’s ladder here, Jacob’s ladder there, and plant ‘em where nothing in + the world will grow, you get crowds of ‘em in a month or two. John made a + new manure mixen last summer, and he said, “Maria, now if you’ve got any + flowers or such like, that you don’t want, you may plant ‘em round my + mixen so as to hide it a bit, though ‘tis not likely anything of much + value will grow there.” I thought, “There’s them Jacob’s ladders; I’ll put + them there, since they can’t do harm in such a place;” and I planted the + Jacob’s ladders sure enough. They growed, and they growed, in the mixen + and out of the mixen, all over the litter, covering it quite up. When John + wanted to use it about the garden, ‘a said, “Nation seize them Jacob’s + ladders of yours, Maria! They’ve eat the goodness out of every morsel of + my manure, so that ‘tis no better than sand itself!” Sure enough the + hungry mortals had. ‘Tis my belief that in the secret souls o’ ‘em, + Jacob’s ladders be weeds, and not flowers at all, if the truth was known.’ + </p> + <p> + Robert Lickpan, pig-killer and carrier, arrived at this moment. The fatted + animal hanging in the back kitchen was cleft down the middle of its + backbone, Mrs. Smith being meanwhile engaged in cooking supper. + </p> + <p> + Between the cutting and chopping, ale was handed round, and Worm and the + pig-killer listened to John Smith’s description of the meeting with + Stephen, with eyes blankly fixed upon the table-cloth, in order that + nothing in the external world should interrupt their efforts to conjure up + the scene correctly. + </p> + <p> + Stephen came downstairs in the middle of the story, and after the little + interruption occasioned by his entrance and welcome, the narrative was + again continued, precisely as if he had not been there at all, and was + told inclusively to him, as to somebody who knew nothing about the matter. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ay,” I said, as I catched sight o’ en through the brimbles, “that’s the + lad, for I d’ know en by his grand-father’s walk;” for ‘a stapped out like + poor father for all the world. Still there was a touch o’ the frisky that + set me wondering. ‘A got closer, and I said, “That’s the lad, for I d’ + know en by his carrying a black case like a travelling man.” Still, a road + is common to all the world, and there be more travelling men than one. But + I kept my eye cocked, and I said to Martin, “‘Tis the boy, now, for I d’ + know en by the wold twirl o’ the stick and the family step.” Then ‘a come + closer, and a’ said, “All right.” I could swear to en then.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen’s personal appearance was next criticised. + </p> + <p> + ‘He d’ look a deal thinner in face, surely, than when I seed en at the + parson’s, and never knowed en, if ye’ll believe me,’ said Martin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, there,’ said another, without removing his eyes from Stephen’s face, + ‘I should ha’ knowed en anywhere. ‘Tis his father’s nose to a T.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It has been often remarked,’ said Stephen modestly. + </p> + <p> + ‘And he’s certainly taller,’ said Martin, letting his glance run over + Stephen’s form from bottom to top. + </p> + <p> + ‘I was thinking ‘a was exactly the same height,’ Worm replied. + </p> + <p> + ‘Bless thy soul, that’s because he’s bigger round likewise.’ And the + united eyes all moved to Stephen’s waist. + </p> + <p> + ‘I be a poor wambling man, but I can make allowances,’ said William Worm. + ‘Ah, sure, and how he came as a stranger and pilgrim to Parson Swancourt’s + that time, not a soul knowing en after so many years! Ay, life’s a strange + picter, Stephen: but I suppose I must say Sir to ye?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, it is not necessary at present,’ Stephen replied, though mentally + resolving to avoid the vicinity of that familiar friend as soon as he had + made pretensions to the hand of Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, well,’ said Worm musingly, ‘some would have looked for no less than a + Sir. There’s a sight of difference in people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And in pigs likewise,’ observed John Smith, looking at the halved carcass + of his own. + </p> + <p> + Robert Lickpan, the pig-killer, here seemed called upon to enter the lists + of conversation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, they’ve got their particular naters good-now,’ he remarked + initially. ‘Many’s the rum-tempered pig I’ve knowed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t doubt it, Master Lickpan,’ answered Martin, in a tone expressing + that his convictions, no less than good manners, demanded the reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ continued the pig-killer, as one accustomed to be heard. ‘One that + I knowed was deaf and dumb, and we couldn’t make out what was the matter + wi’ the pig. ‘A would eat well enough when ‘a seed the trough, but when + his back was turned, you might a-rattled the bucket all day, the poor soul + never heard ye. Ye could play tricks upon en behind his back, and a’ + wouldn’t find it out no quicker than poor deaf Grammer Cates. But a’ + fatted well, and I never seed a pig open better when a’ was killed, and ‘a + was very tender eating, very; as pretty a bit of mate as ever you see; you + could suck that mate through a quill. + </p> + <p> + ‘And another I knowed,’ resumed the killer, after quietly letting a pint + of ale run down his throat of its own accord, and setting down the cup + with mathematical exactness upon the spot from which he had raised it—‘another + went out of his mind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How very mournful!’ murmured Mrs. Worm. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, poor thing, ‘a did! As clean out of his mind as the cleverest + Christian could go. In early life ‘a was very melancholy, and never seemed + a hopeful pig by no means. ‘Twas Andrew Stainer’s pig—that’s whose + pig ‘twas.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can mind the pig well enough,’ attested John Smith. + </p> + <p> + ‘And a pretty little porker ‘a was. And you all know Farmer Buckle’s sort? + Every jack o’ em suffer from the rheumatism to this day, owing to a damp + sty they lived in when they were striplings, as ‘twere.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, now we’ll weigh,’ said John. + </p> + <p> + ‘If so be he were not so fine, we’d weigh en whole: but as he is, we’ll + take a side at a time. John, you can mind my old joke, ey?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I do so; though ‘twas a good few years ago I first heard en.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ said Lickpan, ‘that there old familiar joke have been in our family + for generations, I may say. My father used that joke regular at + pig-killings for more than five and forty years—the time he followed + the calling. And ‘a told me that ‘a had it from his father when he was + quite a chiel, who made use o’ en just the same at every killing more or + less; and pig-killings were pig-killings in those days.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Trewly they were.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve never heard the joke,’ said Mrs. Smith tentatively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nor I,’ chimed in Mrs. Worm, who, being the only other lady in the room, + felt bound by the laws of courtesy to feel like Mrs. Smith in everything. + </p> + <p> + ‘Surely, surely you have,’ said the killer, looking sceptically at the + benighted females. ‘However, ‘tisn’t much—I don’t wish to say it is. + It commences like this: “Bob will tell the weight of your pig, ‘a + b’lieve,” says I. The congregation of neighbours think I mane my son Bob, + naturally; but the secret is that I mane the bob o’ the steelyard. Ha, ha, + ha!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Haw, haw, haw!’ laughed Martin Cannister, who had heard the explanation + of this striking story for the hundredth time. + </p> + <p> + ‘Huh, huh, huh!’ laughed John Smith, who had heard it for the thousandth. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hee, hee, hee!’ laughed William Worm, who had never heard it at all, but + was afraid to say so. + </p> + <p> + ‘Thy grandfather, Robert, must have been a wide-awake chap to make that + story,’ said Martin Cannister, subsiding to a placid aspect of delighted + criticism. + </p> + <p> + ‘He had a head, by all account. And, you see, as the first-born of the + Lickpans have all been Roberts, they’ve all been Bobs, so the story was + handed down to the present day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Poor Joseph, your second boy, will never be able to bring it out in + company, which is rather unfortunate,’ said Mrs. Worm thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + ‘’A won’t. Yes, grandfer was a clever chap, as ye say; but I knowed a + cleverer. ‘Twas my uncle Levi. Uncle Levi made a snuff-box that should be + a puzzle to his friends to open. He used to hand en round at wedding + parties, christenings, funerals, and in other jolly company, and let ‘em + try their skill. This extraordinary snuff-box had a spring behind that + would push in and out—a hinge where seemed to be the cover; a slide + at the end, a screw in front, and knobs and queer notches everywhere. One + man would try the spring, another would try the screw, another would try + the slide; but try as they would, the box wouldn’t open. And they couldn’t + open en, and they didn’t open en. Now what might you think was the secret + of that box?’ + </p> + <p> + All put on an expression that their united thoughts were inadequate to the + occasion. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why the box wouldn’t open at all. ‘A were made not to open, and ye might + have tried till the end of Revelations, ‘twould have been as naught, for + the box were glued all round.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A very deep man to have made such a box.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. ‘Twas like uncle Levi all over.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Twas. I can mind the man very well. Tallest man ever I seed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’A was so. He never slept upon a bedstead after he growed up a hard + boy-chap—never could get one long enough. When ‘a lived in that + little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber + door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet poke out upon the + landing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s dead and gone now, nevertheless, poor man, as we all shall,’ + observed Worm, to fill the pause which followed the conclusion of Robert + Lickpan’s speech. + </p> + <p> + The weighing and cutting up was pursued amid an animated discourse on + Stephen’s travels; and at the finish, the first-fruits of the day’s + slaughter, fried in onions, were then turned from the pan into a dish on + the table, each piece steaming and hissing till it reached their very + mouths. + </p> + <p> + It must be owned that the gentlemanly son of the house looked rather out + of place in the course of this operation. Nor was his mind quite + philosophic enough to allow him to be comfortable with these + old-established persons, his father’s friends. He had never lived long at + home—scarcely at all since his childhood. The presence of William + Worm was the most awkward feature of the case, for, though Worm had left + the house of Mr. Swancourt, the being hand-in-glove with a ci-devant + servitor reminded Stephen too forcibly of the vicar’s classification of + himself before he went from England. Mrs. Smith was conscious of the + defect in her arrangements which had brought about the undesired + conjunction. She spoke to Stephen privately. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am above having such people here, Stephen; but what could I do? And + your father is so rough in his nature that he’s more mixed up with them + than need be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind, mother,’ said Stephen; ‘I’ll put up with it now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When we leave my lord’s service, and get further up the country—as + I hope we shall soon—it will be different. We shall be among fresh + people, and in a larger house, and shall keep ourselves up a bit, I hope.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is Miss Swancourt at home, do you know?’ Stephen inquired + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, your father saw her this morning.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you often see her?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Scarcely ever. Mr. Glim, the curate, calls occasionally, but the + Swancourts don’t come into the village now any more than to drive through + it. They dine at my lord’s oftener than they used. Ah, here’s a note was + brought this morning for you by a boy.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen eagerly took the note and opened it, his mother watching him. He + read what Elfride had written and sent before she started for the cliff + that afternoon: + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I will meet you in the church at nine to-night.—E. S.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know, Stephen,’ his mother said meaningly, ‘whe’r you still think + about Miss Elfride, but if I were you I wouldn’t concern about her. They + say that none of old Mrs. Swancourt’s money will come to her + step-daughter.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I see the evening has turned out fine; I am going out for a little while + to look round the place,’ he said, evading the direct query. ‘Probably by + the time I return our visitors will be gone, and we’ll have a more + confidential talk.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXIV + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour.’ +</pre> + <p> + The rain had ceased since the sunset, but it was a cloudy night; and the + light of the moon, softened and dispersed by its misty veil, was + distributed over the land in pale gray. + </p> + <p> + A dark figure stepped from the doorway of John Smith’s river-side cottage, + and strode rapidly towards West Endelstow with a light footstep. Soon + ascending from the lower levels he turned a corner, followed a cart-track, + and saw the tower of the church he was in quest of distinctly shaped forth + against the sky. In less than half an hour from the time of starting he + swung himself over the churchyard stile. + </p> + <p> + The wild irregular enclosure was as much as ever an integral part of the + old hill. The grass was still long, the graves were shaped precisely as + passing years chose to alter them from their orthodox form as laid down by + Martin Cannister, and by Stephen’s own grandfather before him. + </p> + <p> + A sound sped into the air from the direction in which Castle Boterel lay. + It was the striking of the church clock, distinct in the still atmosphere + as if it had come from the tower hard by, which, wrapt in its solitary + silentness, gave out no such sounds of life. + </p> + <p> + ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.’ Stephen carefully + counted the strokes, though he well knew their number beforehand. Nine + o’clock. It was the hour Elfride had herself named as the most convenient + for meeting him. + </p> + <p> + Stephen stood at the door of the porch and listened. He could have heard + the softest breathing of any person within the porch; nobody was there. He + went inside the doorway, sat down upon the stone bench, and waited with a + beating heart. + </p> + <p> + The faint sounds heard only accentuated the silence. The rising and + falling of the sea, far away along the coast, was the most important. A + minor sound was the scurr of a distant night-hawk. Among the minutest + where all were minute were the light settlement of gossamer fragments + floating in the air, a toad humbly labouring along through the grass near + the entrance, the crackle of a dead leaf which a worm was endeavouring to + pull into the earth, a waft of air, getting nearer and nearer, and + expiring at his feet under the burden of a winged seed. + </p> + <p> + Among all these soft sounds came not the only soft sound he cared to hear—the + footfall of Elfride. + </p> + <p> + For a whole quarter of an hour Stephen sat thus intent, without moving a + muscle. At the end of that time he walked to the west front of the church. + Turning the corner of the tower, a white form stared him in the face. He + started back, and recovered himself. It was the tomb of young farmer + Jethway, looking still as fresh and as new as when it was first erected, + the white stone in which it was hewn having a singular weirdness amid the + dark blue slabs from local quarries, of which the whole remaining + gravestones were formed. + </p> + <p> + He thought of the night when he had sat thereon with Elfride as his + companion, and well remembered his regret that she had received, even + unwillingly, earlier homage than his own. But his present tangible anxiety + reduced such a feeling to sentimental nonsense in comparison; and he + strolled on over the graves to the border of the churchyard, whence in the + daytime could be clearly seen the vicarage and the present residence of + the Swancourts. No footstep was discernible upon the path up the hill, but + a light was shining from a window in the last-named house. + </p> + <p> + Stephen knew there could be no mistake about the time or place, and no + difficulty about keeping the engagement. He waited yet longer, passing + from impatience into a mood which failed to take any account of the lapse + of time. He was awakened from his reverie by Castle Boterel clock. + </p> + <p> + One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN. + </p> + <p> + One little fall of the hammer in addition to the number it had been sharp + pleasure to hear, and what a difference to him! + </p> + <p> + He left the churchyard on the side opposite to his point of entrance, and + went down the hill. Slowly he drew near the gate of her house. This he + softly opened, and walked up the gravel drive to the door. Here he paused + for several minutes. + </p> + <p> + At the expiration of that time the murmured speech of a manly voice came + out to his ears through an open window behind the corner of the house. + This was responded to by a clear soft laugh. It was the laugh of Elfride. + </p> + <p> + Stephen was conscious of a gnawing pain at his heart. He retreated as he + had come. There are disappointments which wring us, and there are those + which inflict a wound whose mark we bear to our graves. Such are so keen + that no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate them: + they become registered as a permanent loss of happiness. Such a one was + Stephen’s now: the crowning aureola of the dream had been the meeting here + by stealth; and if Elfride had come to him only ten minutes after he had + turned away, the disappointment would have been recognizable still. + </p> + <p> + When the young man reached home he found there a letter which had arrived + in his absence. Believing it to contain some reason for her + non-appearance, yet unable to imagine one that could justify her, he + hastily tore open the envelope. + </p> + <p> + The paper contained not a word from Elfride. It was the deposit-note for + his two hundred pounds. On the back was the form of a cheque, and this she + had filled up with the same sum, payable to the bearer. + </p> + <p> + Stephen was confounded. He attempted to divine her motive. Considering how + limited was his knowledge of her later actions, he guessed rather shrewdly + that, between the time of her sending the note in the morning and the + evening’s silent refusal of his gift, something had occurred which had + caused a total change in her attitude towards him. + </p> + <p> + He knew not what to do. It seemed absurd now to go to her father next + morning, as he had purposed, and ask for an engagement with her, a + possibility impending all the while that Elfride herself would not be on + his side. Only one course recommended itself as wise. To wait and see what + the days would bring forth; to go and execute his commissions in + Birmingham; then to return, learn if anything had happened, and try what a + meeting might do; perhaps her surprise at his backwardness would bring her + forward to show latent warmth as decidedly as in old times. + </p> + <p> + This act of patience was in keeping only with the nature of a man + precisely of Stephen’s constitution. Nine men out of ten would perhaps + have rushed off, got into her presence, by fair means or foul, and + provoked a catastrophe of some sort. Possibly for the better, probably for + the worse. + </p> + <p> + He started for Birmingham the next morning. A day’s delay would have made + no difference; but he could not rest until he had begun and ended the + programme proposed to himself. Bodily activity will sometimes take the + sting out of anxiety as completely as assurance itself. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXV + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Mine own familiar friend.’ +</pre> + <p> + During these days of absence Stephen lived under alternate conditions. + Whenever his emotions were active, he was in agony. Whenever he was not in + agony, the business in hand had driven out of his mind by sheer force all + deep reflection on the subject of Elfride and love. + </p> + <p> + By the time he took his return journey at the week’s end, Stephen had very + nearly worked himself up to an intention to call and see her face to face. + On this occasion also he adopted his favourite route—by the little + summer steamer from Bristol to Castle Boterel; the time saved by speed on + the railway being wasted at junctions, and in following a devious course. + </p> + <p> + It was a bright silent evening at the beginning of September when Smith + again set foot in the little town. He felt inclined to linger awhile upon + the quay before ascending the hills, having formed a romantic intention to + go home by way of her house, yet not wishing to wander in its + neighbourhood till the evening shades should sufficiently screen him from + observation. + </p> + <p> + And thus waiting for night’s nearer approach, he watched the placid scene, + over which the pale luminosity of the west cast a sorrowful monochrome, + that became slowly embrowned by the dusk. A star appeared, and another, + and another. They sparkled amid the yards and rigging of the two coal + brigs lying alangside, as if they had been tiny lamps suspended in the + ropes. The masts rocked sleepily to the infinitesimal flux of the tide, + which clucked and gurgled with idle regularity in nooks and holes of the + harbour wall. + </p> + <p> + The twilight was now quite pronounced enough for his purpose; and as, + rather sad at heart, he was about to move on, a little boat containing two + persons glided up the middle of the harbour with the lightness of a + shadow. The boat came opposite him, passed on, and touched the + landing-steps at the further end. One of its occupants was a man, as + Stephen had known by the easy stroke of the oars. When the pair ascended + the steps, and came into greater prominence, he was enabled to discern + that the second personage was a woman; also that she wore a white + decoration—apparently a feather—in her hat or bonnet, which + spot of white was the only distinctly visible portion of her clothing. + </p> + <p> + Stephen remained a moment in their rear, and they passed on, when he + pursued his way also, and soon forgot the circumstance. Having crossed a + bridge, forsaken the high road, and entered the footpath which led up the + vale to West Endelstow, he heard a little wicket click softly together + some yards ahead. By the time that Stephen had reached the wicket and + passed it, he heard another click of precisely the same nature from + another gate yet further on. Clearly some person or persons were preceding + him along the path, their footsteps being rendered noiseless by the soft + carpet of turf. Stephen now walked a little quicker, and perceived two + forms. One of them bore aloft the white feather he had noticed in the + woman’s hat on the quay: they were the couple he had seen in the boat. + Stephen dropped a little further to the rear. + </p> + <p> + From the bottom of the valley, along which the path had hitherto lain, + beside the margin of the trickling streamlet, another path now diverged, + and ascended the slope of the left-hand hill. This footway led only to the + residence of Mrs. Swancourt and a cottage or two in its vicinity. No grass + covered this diverging path in portions of its length, and Stephen was + reminded that the pair in front of him had taken this route by the + occasional rattle of loose stones under their feet. Stephen climbed in the + same direction, but for some undefined reason he trod more softly than did + those preceding him. His mind was unconsciously in exercise upon whom the + woman might be—whether a visitor to The Crags, a servant, or + Elfride. He put it to himself yet more forcibly; could the lady be + Elfride? A possible reason for her unaccountable failure to keep the + appointment with him returned with painful force. + </p> + <p> + They entered the grounds of the house by the side wicket, whence the path, + now wide and well trimmed, wound fantastically through the shrubbery to an + octagonal pavilion called the Belvedere, by reason of the comprehensive + view over the adjacent district that its green seats afforded. The path + passed this erection and went on to the house as well as to the gardener’s + cottage on the other side, straggling thence to East Endelstow; so that + Stephen felt no hesitation in entering a promenade which could scarcely be + called private. + </p> + <p> + He fancied that he heard the gate open and swing together again behind + him. Turning, he saw nobody. + </p> + <p> + The people of the boat came to the summer-house. One of them spoke. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am afraid we shall get a scolding for being so late.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen instantly recognised the familiar voice, richer and fuller now + than it used to be. ‘Elfride!’ he whispered to himself, and held fast by a + sapling, to steady himself under the agitation her presence caused him. + His heart swerved from its beat; he shunned receiving the meaning he + sought. + </p> + <p> + ‘A breeze is rising again; how the ash tree rustles!’ said Elfride. ‘Don’t + you hear it? I wonder what the time is.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen relinquished the sapling. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will get a light and tell you. Step into the summer-house; the air is + quiet there.’ + </p> + <p> + The cadence of that voice—its peculiarity seemed to come home to him + like that of some notes of the northern birds on his return to his native + clime, as an old natural thing renewed, yet not particularly noticed as + natural before that renewal. + </p> + <p> + They entered the Belvedere. In the lower part it was formed of close + wood-work nailed crosswise, and had openings in the upper by way of + windows. + </p> + <p> + The scratch of a striking light was heard, and a bright glow radiated from + the interior of the building. The light gave birth to dancing + leaf-shadows, stem-shadows, lustrous streaks, dots, sparkles, and threads + of silver sheen of all imaginable variety and transience. It awakened + gnats, which flew towards it, revealed shiny gossamer threads, disturbed + earthworms. Stephen gave but little attention to these phenomena, and less + time. He saw in the summer-house a strongly illuminated picture. + </p> + <p> + First, the face of his friend and preceptor Henry Knight, between whom and + himself an estrangement had arisen, not from any definite causes beyond + those of absence, increasing age, and diverging sympathies. + </p> + <p> + Next, his bright particular star, Elfride. The face of Elfride was more + womanly than when she had called herself his, but as clear and healthy as + ever. Her plenteous twines of beautiful hair were looking much as usual, + with the exception of a slight modification in their arrangement in + deference to the changes of fashion. + </p> + <p> + Their two foreheads were close together, almost touching, and both were + looking down. Elfride was holding her watch, Knight was holding the light + with one hand, his left arm being round her waist. Part of the scene + reached Stephen’s eyes through the horizontal bars of woodwork, which + crossed their forms like the ribs of a skeleton. + </p> + <p> + Knight’s arm stole still further round the waist of Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is half-past eight,’ she said in a low voice, which had a peculiar + music in it, seemingly born of a thrill of pleasure at the new proof that + she was beloved. + </p> + <p> + The flame dwindled down, died away, and all was wrapped in a darkness to + which the gloom before the illumination bore no comparison in apparent + density. Stephen, shattered in spirit and sick to his heart’s centre, + turned away. In turning, he saw a shadowy outline behind the summer-house + on the other side. His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Was the form + a human form, or was it an opaque bush of juniper? + </p> + <p> + The lovers arose, brushed against the laurestines, and pursued their way + to the house. The indistinct figure had moved, and now passed across + Smith’s front. So completely enveloped was the person, that it was + impossible to discern him or her any more than as a shape. The shape + glided noiselessly on. + </p> + <p> + Stephen stepped forward, fearing any mischief was intended to the other + two. ‘Who are you?’ he said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind who I am,’ answered a weak whisper from the enveloping folds. + ‘WHAT I am, may she be! Perhaps I knew well—ah, so well!—a + youth whose place you took, as he there now takes yours. Will you let her + break your heart, and bring you to an untimely grave, as she did the one + before you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are Mrs. Jethway, I think. What do you do here? And why do you talk + so wildly?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because my heart is desolate, and nobody cares about it. May hers be so + that brought trouble upon me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Silence!’ said Stephen, staunch to Elfride in spite of himself. ‘She + would harm nobody wilfully, never would she! How do you come here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I saw the two coming up the path, and wanted to learn if she were not one + of them. Can I help disliking her if I think of the past? Can I help + watching her if I remember my boy? Can I help ill-wishing her if I + well-wish him?’ + </p> + <p> + The bowed form went on, passed through the wicket, and was enveloped by + the shadows of the field. + </p> + <p> + Stephen had heard that Mrs. Jethway, since the death of her son, had + become a crazed, forlorn woman; and bestowing a pitying thought upon her, + he dismissed her fancied wrongs from his mind, but not her condemnation of + Elfride’s faithlessness. That entered into and mingled with the sensations + his new experience had begotten. The tale told by the little scene he had + witnessed ran parallel with the unhappy woman’s opinion, which, however + baseless it might have been antecedently, had become true enough as + regarded himself. + </p> + <p> + A slow weight of despair, as distinct from a violent paroxysm as + starvation from a mortal shot, filled him and wrung him body and soul. The + discovery had not been altogether unexpected, for throughout his anxiety + of the last few days since the night in the churchyard, he had been + inclined to construe the uncertainty unfavourably for himself. His hopes + for the best had been but periodic interruptions to a chronic fear of the + worst. + </p> + <p> + A strange concomitant of his misery was the singularity of its form. That + his rival should be Knight, whom once upon a time he had adored as a man + is very rarely adored by another in modern times, and whom he loved now, + added deprecation to sorrow, and cynicism to both. Henry Knight, whose + praises he had so frequently trumpeted in her ears, of whom she had + actually been jealous, lest she herself should be lessened in Stephen’s + love on account of him, had probably won her the more easily by reason of + those very praises which he had only ceased to utter by her command. She + had ruled him like a queen in that matter, as in all others. Stephen could + tell by her manner, brief as had been his observation of it, and by her + words, few as they were, that her position was far different with Knight. + That she looked up at and adored her new lover from below his pedestal, + was even more perceptible than that she had smiled down upon Stephen from + a height above him. + </p> + <p> + The suddenness of Elfride’s renunciation of himself was food for more + torture. To an unimpassioned outsider, it admitted of at least two + interpretations—it might either have proceeded from an endeavour to + be faithful to her first choice, till the lover seen absolutely + overpowered the lover remembered, or from a wish not to lose his love till + sure of the love of another. But to Stephen Smith the motive involved in + the latter alternative made it untenable where Elfride was the actor. + </p> + <p> + He mused on her letters to him, in which she had never mentioned a + syllable concerning Knight. It is desirable, however, to observe that only + in two letters could she possibly have done so. One was written about a + week before Knight’s arrival, when, though she did not mention his + promised coming to Stephen, she had hardly a definite reason in her mind + for neglecting to do it. In the next she did casually allude to Knight. + But Stephen had left Bombay long before that letter arrived. + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked at the black form of the adjacent house, where it cut a + dark polygonal notch out of the sky, and felt that he hated the spot. He + did not know many facts of the case, but could not help instinctively + associating Elfride’s fickleness with the marriage of her father, and + their introduction to London society. He closed the iron gate bounding the + shrubbery as noiselessly as he had opened it, and went into the grassy + field. Here he could see the old vicarage, the house alone that was + associated with the sweet pleasant time of his incipient love for Elfride. + Turning sadly from the place that was no longer a nook in which his + thoughts might nestle when he was far away, he wandered in the direction + of the east village, to reach his father’s house before they retired to + rest. + </p> + <p> + The nearest way to the cottage was by crossing the park. He did not hurry. + Happiness frequently has reason for haste, but it is seldom that + desolation need scramble or strain. Sometimes he paused under the + low-hanging arms of the trees, looking vacantly on the ground. + </p> + <p> + Stephen was standing thus, scarcely less crippled in thought than he was + blank in vision, when a clear sound permeated the quiet air about him, and + spread on far beyond. The sound was the stroke of a bell from the tower of + East Endelstow Church, which stood in a dell not forty yards from Lord + Luxellian’s mansion, and within the park enclosure. Another stroke greeted + his ear, and gave character to both: then came a slow succession of them. + </p> + <p> + ‘Somebody is dead,’ he said aloud. + </p> + <p> + The death-knell of an inhabitant of the eastern parish was being tolled. + </p> + <p> + An unusual feature in the tolling was that it had not been begun according + to the custom in Endelstow and other parishes in the neighbourhood. At + every death the sex and age of the deceased were announced by a system of + changes. Three times three strokes signified that the departed one was a + man; three times two, a woman; twice three, a boy; twice two, a girl. The + regular continuity of the tolling suggested that it was the resumption + rather than the beginning of a knell—the opening portion of which + Stephen had not been near enough to hear. + </p> + <p> + The momentary anxiety he had felt with regard to his parents passed away. + He had left them in perfect health, and had any serious illness seized + either, a communication would have reached him ere this. At the same time, + since his way homeward lay under the churchyard yews, he resolved to look + into the belfry in passing by, and speak a word to Martin Cannister, who + would be there. + </p> + <p> + Stephen reached the brow of the hill, and felt inclined to renounce his + idea. His mood was such that talking to any person to whom he could not + unburden himself would be wearisome. However, before he could put any + inclination into effect, the young man saw from amid the trees a bright + light shining, the rays from which radiated like needles through the sad + plumy foliage of the yews. Its direction was from the centre of the + churchyard. + </p> + <p> + Stephen mechanically went forward. Never could there be a greater contrast + between two places of like purpose than between this graveyard and that of + the further village. Here the grass was carefully tended, and formed + virtually a part of the manor-house lawn; flowers and shrubs being planted + indiscriminately over both, whilst the few graves visible were + mathematically exact in shape and smoothness, appearing in the daytime + like chins newly shaven. There was no wall, the division between God’s + Acre and Lord Luxellian’s being marked only by a few square stones set at + equidistant points. Among those persons who have romantic sentiments on + the subject of their last dwelling-place, probably the greater number + would have chosen such a spot as this in preference to any other: a few + would have fancied a constraint in its trim neatness, and would have + preferred the wild hill-top of the neighbouring site, with Nature in her + most negligent attire. + </p> + <p> + The light in the churchyard he next discovered to have its source in a + point very near the ground, and Stephen imagined it might come from a + lantern in the interior of a partly-dug grave. But a nearer approach + showed him that its position was immediately under the wall of the aisle, + and within the mouth of an archway. He could now hear voices, and the + truth of the whole matter began to dawn upon him. Walking on towards the + opening, Smith discerned on his left hand a heap of earth, and before him + a flight of stone steps which the removed earth had uncovered, leading + down under the edifice. It was the entrance to a large family vault, + extending under the north aisle. + </p> + <p> + Stephen had never before seen it open, and descending one or two steps + stooped to look under the arch. The vault appeared to be crowded with + coffins, with the exception of an open central space, which had been + necessarily kept free for ingress and access to the sides, round three of + which the coffins were stacked in stone bins or niches. + </p> + <p> + The place was well lighted with candles stuck in slips of wood that were + fastened to the wall. On making the descent of another step the living + inhabitants of the vault were recognizable. They were his father the + master-mason, an under-mason, Martin Cannister, and two or three young and + old labouring-men. Crowbars and workmen’s hammers were scattered about. + The whole company, sitting round on coffins which had been removed from + their places, apparently for some alteration or enlargement of the vault, + were eating bread and cheese, and drinking ale from a cup with two + handles, passed round from each to each. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who is dead?’ Stephen inquired, stepping down. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXVI + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘To that last nothing under earth.’ +</pre> + <p> + All eyes were turned to the entrance as Stephen spoke, and the + ancient-mannered conclave scrutinized him inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, ‘tis our Stephen!’ said his father, rising from his seat; and, still + retaining the frothy mug in his left hand, he swung forward his right for + a grasp. ‘Your mother is expecting ye—thought you would have come + afore dark. But you’ll wait and go home with me? I have all but done for + the day, and was going directly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, ‘tis Master Stephy, sure enough. Glad to see you so soon again, + Master Smith,’ said Martin Cannister, chastening the gladness expressed in + his words by a strict neutrality of countenance, in order to harmonize the + feeling as much as possible with the solemnity of a family vault. + </p> + <p> + ‘The same to you, Martin; and you, William,’ said Stephen, nodding around + to the rest, who, having their mouths full of bread and cheese, were of + necessity compelled to reply merely by compressing their eyes to friendly + lines and wrinkles. + </p> + <p> + ‘And who is dead?’ Stephen repeated. + </p> + <p> + ‘Lady Luxellian, poor gentlewoman, as we all shall, said the under-mason. + ‘Ay, and we be going to enlarge the vault to make room for her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When did she die?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Early this morning,’ his father replied, with an appearance of recurring + to a chronic thought. ‘Yes, this morning. Martin hev been tolling ever + since, almost. There, ‘twas expected. She was very limber.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, poor soul, this morning,’ resumed the under-mason, a marvellously old + man, whose skin seemed so much too large for his body that it would not + stay in position. ‘She must know by this time whether she’s to go up or + down, poor woman.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was her age?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not more than seven or eight and twenty by candlelight. But, Lord! by day + ‘a was forty if ‘a were an hour.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, night-time or day-time makes a difference of twenty years to rich + feymels,’ observed Martin. + </p> + <p> + ‘She was one and thirty really,’ said John Smith. ‘I had it from them that + know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not more than that!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’A looked very bad, poor lady. In faith, ye might say she was dead for + years afore ‘a would own it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As my old father used to say, “dead, but wouldn’t drop down.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I seed her, poor soul,’ said a labourer from behind some removed coffins, + ‘only but last Valentine’s-day of all the world. ‘A was arm in crook wi’ + my lord. I says to myself, “You be ticketed Churchyard, my noble lady, + although you don’t dream on’t.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I suppose my lord will write to all the other lords anointed in the + nation, to let ‘em know that she that was is now no more?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Tis done and past. I see a bundle of letters go off an hour after the + death. Sich wonderful black rims as they letters had—half-an-inch + wide, at the very least.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Too much,’ observed Martin. ‘In short, ‘tis out of the question that a + human being can be so mournful as black edges half-an-inch wide. I’m sure + people don’t feel more than a very narrow border when they feels most of + all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And there are two little girls, are there not?’ said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nice clane little faces!—left motherless now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They used to come to Parson Swancourt’s to play with Miss Elfride when I + were there,’ said William Worm. ‘Ah, they did so’s!’ The latter sentence + was introduced to add the necessary melancholy to a remark which, + intrinsically, could hardly be made to possess enough for the occasion. + ‘Yes,’ continued Worm, ‘they’d run upstairs, they’d run down; flitting + about with her everywhere. Very fond of her, they were. Ah, well!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Fonder than ever they were of their mother, so ‘tis said here and there,’ + added a labourer. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, you see, ‘tis natural. Lady Luxellian stood aloof from ‘em so—was + so drowsy-like, that they couldn’t love her in the jolly-companion way + children want to like folks. Only last winter I seed Miss Elfride talking + to my lady and the two children, and Miss Elfride wiped their noses for + em’ SO careful—my lady never once seeing that it wanted doing; and, + naturally, children take to people that’s their best friend.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Be as ‘twill, the woman is dead and gone, and we must make a place for + her,’ said John. ‘Come, lads, drink up your ale, and we’ll just rid this + corner, so as to have all clear for beginning at the wall, as soon as ‘tis + light to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen then asked where Lady Luxellian was to lie. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here,’ said his father. ‘We are going to set back this wall and make a + recess; and ‘tis enough for us to do before the funeral. When my lord’s + mother died, she said, “John, the place must be enlarged before another + can be put in.” But ‘a never expected ‘twould be wanted so soon. Better + move Lord George first, I suppose, Simeon?’ + </p> + <p> + He pointed with his foot to a heavy coffin, covered with what had + originally been red velvet, the colour of which could only just be + distinguished now. + </p> + <p> + ‘Just as ye think best, Master John,’ replied the shrivelled mason. ‘Ah, + poor Lord George!’ he continued, looking contemplatively at the huge + coffin; ‘he and I were as bitter enemies once as any could be when one is + a lord and t’other only a mortal man. Poor fellow! He’d clap his hand upon + my shoulder and cuss me as familial and neighbourly as if he’d been a + common chap. Ay, ‘a cussed me up hill and ‘a cussed me down; and then ‘a + would rave out again, and the goold clamps of his fine new teeth would + glisten in the sun like fetters of brass, while I, being a small man and + poor, was fain to say nothing at all. Such a strappen fine gentleman as he + was too! Yes, I rather liked en sometimes. But once now and then, when I + looked at his towering height, I’d think in my inside, “What a weight + you’ll be, my lord, for our arms to lower under the aisle of Endelstow + Church some day!”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And was he?’ inquired a young labourer. + </p> + <p> + ‘He was. He was five hundredweight if ‘a were a pound. What with his lead, + and his oak, and his handles, and his one thing and t’other’—here + the ancient man slapped his hand upon the cover with a force that caused a + rattle among the bones inside—‘he half broke my back when I took his + feet to lower en down the steps there. “Ah,” saith I to John there—didn’t + I, John?—“that ever one man’s glory should be such a weight upon + another man!” But there, I liked my lord George sometimes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Tis a strange thought,’ said another, ‘that while they be all here under + one roof, a snug united family o’ Luxellians, they be really scattered + miles away from one another in the form of good sheep and wicked goats, + isn’t it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘True; ‘tis a thought to look at.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And that one, if he’s gone upward, don’t know what his wife is doing no + more than the man in the moon if she’s gone downward. And that some + unfortunate one in the hot place is a-hollering across to a lucky one up + in the clouds, and quite forgetting their bodies be boxed close together + all the time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, ‘tis a thought to look at, too, that I can say “Hullo!” close to + fiery Lord George, and ‘a can’t hear me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And that I be eating my onion close to dainty Lady Jane’s nose, and she + can’t smell me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do ‘em put all their heads one way for?’ inquired a young man. + </p> + <p> + ‘Because ‘tis churchyard law, you simple. The law of the living is, that a + man shall be upright and down-right, and the law of the dead is, that a + man shall be east and west. Every state of society have its laws.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We must break the law wi’ a few of the poor souls, however. Come, buckle + to,’ said the master-mason. + </p> + <p> + And they set to work anew. + </p> + <p> + The order of interment could be distinctly traced by observing the + appearance of the coffins as they lay piled around. On those which had + been standing there but a generation or two the trappings still remained. + Those of an earlier period showed bare wood, with a few tattered rags + dangling therefrom. Earlier still, the wood lay in fragments on the floor + of the niche, and the coffin consisted of naked lead alone; whilst in the + case of the very oldest, even the lead was bulging and cracking in pieces, + revealing to the curious eye a heap of dust within. The shields upon many + were quite loose, and removable by the hand, their lustreless surfaces + still indistinctly exhibiting the name and title of the deceased. + </p> + <p> + Overhead the groins and concavities of the arches curved in all + directions, dropping low towards the walls, where the height was no more + than sufficient to enable a person to stand upright. + </p> + <p> + The body of George the fourteenth baron, together with two or three + others, all of more recent date than the great bulk of coffins piled + there, had, for want of room, been placed at the end of the vault on + tressels, and not in niches like the others. These it was necessary to + remove, to form behind them the chamber in which they were ultimately to + be deposited. Stephen, finding the place and proceedings in keeping with + the sombre colours of his mind, waited there still. + </p> + <p> + ‘Simeon, I suppose you can mind poor Lady Elfride, and how she ran away + with the actor?’ said John Smith, after awhile. ‘I think it fell upon the + time my father was sexton here. Let us see—where is she?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Here somewhere,’ returned Simeon, looking round him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, I’ve got my arms round the very gentlewoman at this moment.’ He + lowered the end of the coffin he was holding, wiped his face, and throwing + a morsel of rotten wood upon another as an indicator, continued: ‘That’s + her husband there. They was as fair a couple as you should see anywhere + round about; and a good-hearted pair likewise. Ay, I can mind it, though I + was but a chiel at the time. She fell in love with this young man of hers, + and their banns were asked in some church in London; and the old lord her + father actually heard ‘em asked the three times, and didn’t notice her + name, being gabbled on wi’ a host of others. When she had married she told + her father, and ‘a fleed into a monstrous rage, and said she shouldn’ hae + a farthing. Lady Elfride said she didn’t think of wishing it; if he’d + forgie her ‘twas all she asked, and as for a living, she was content to + play plays with her husband. This frightened the old lord, and ‘a gie’d + ‘em a house to live in, and a great garden, and a little field or two, and + a carriage, and a good few guineas. Well, the poor thing died at her first + gossiping, and her husband—who was as tender-hearted a man as ever + eat meat, and would have died for her—went wild in his mind, and + broke his heart (so ‘twas said). Anyhow, they were buried the same day—father + and mother—but the baby lived. Ay, my lord’s family made much of + that man then, and put him here with his wife, and there in the corner the + man is now. The Sunday after there was a funeral sermon: the text was, “Or + ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken;” and when + ‘twas preaching the men drew their hands across their eyes several times, + and every woman cried out loud.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what became of the baby?’ said Stephen, who had frequently heard + portions of the story. + </p> + <p> + ‘She was brought up by her grandmother, and a pretty maid she were. And + she must needs run away with the curate—Parson Swancourt that is + now. Then her grandmother died, and the title and everything went away to + another branch of the family altogether. Parson Swancourt wasted a good + deal of his wife’s money, and she left him Miss Elfride. That trick of + running away seems to be handed down in families, like craziness or gout. + And they two women be alike as peas.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Which two?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Lady Elfride and young Miss that’s alive now. The same hair and eyes: but + Miss Elfride’s mother was darker a good deal.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Life’s a strangle bubble, ye see,’ said William Worm musingly. ‘For if + the Lord’s anointment had descended upon women instead of men, Miss + Elfride would be Lord Luxellian—Lady, I mane. But as it is, the + blood is run out, and she’s nothing to the Luxellian family by law, + whatever she may be by gospel.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I used to fancy,’ said Simeon, ‘when I seed Miss Elfride hugging the + little ladyships, that there was a likeness; but I suppose ‘twas only my + dream, for years must have altered the old family shape.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And now we’ll move these two, and home-along,’ interposed John Smith, + reviving, as became a master, the spirit of labour, which had showed + unmistakable signs of being nearly vanquished by the spirit of chat, ‘The + flagon of ale we don’t want we’ll let bide here till to-morrow; none of + the poor souls will touch it ‘a b’lieve.’ + </p> + <p> + So the evening’s work was concluded, and the party drew from the abode of + the quiet dead, closing the old iron door, and shooting the lock loudly + into the huge copper staple—an incongruous act of imprisonment + towards those who had no dreams of escape. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXVII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘How should I greet thee?’ +</pre> + <p> + Love frequently dies of time alone—much more frequently of + displacement. With Elfride Swancourt, a powerful reason why the + displacement should be successful was that the new-comer was a greater man + than the first. By the side of the instructive and piquant snubbings she + received from Knight, Stephen’s general agreeableness seemed watery; by + the side of Knight’s spare love-making, Stephen’s continual outflow seemed + lackadaisical. She had begun to sigh for somebody further on in manhood. + Stephen was hardly enough of a man. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps there was a proneness to inconstancy in her nature—a nature, + to those who contemplate it from a standpoint beyond the influence of that + inconstancy, the most exquisite of all in its plasticity and ready + sympathies. Partly, too, Stephen’s failure to make his hold on her heart a + permanent one was his too timid habit of dispraising himself beside her—a + peculiarity which, exercised towards sensible men, stirs a kindly chord of + attachment that a marked assertiveness would leave untouched, but + inevitably leads the most sensible woman in the world to undervalue him + who practises it. Directly domineering ceases in the man, snubbing begins + in the woman; the trite but no less unfortunate fact being that the + gentler creature rarely has the capacity to appreciate fair treatment from + her natural complement. The abiding perception of the position of + Stephen’s parents had, of course, a little to do with Elfride’s + renunciation. To such girls poverty may not be, as to the more worldly + masses of humanity, a sin in itself; but it is a sin, because graceful and + dainty manners seldom exist in such an atmosphere. Few women of old family + can be thoroughly taught that a fine soul may wear a smock-frock, and an + admittedly common man in one is but a worm in their eyes. John Smith’s + rough hands and clothes, his wife’s dialect, the necessary narrowness of + their ways, being constantly under Elfride’s notice, were not without + their deflecting influence. + </p> + <p> + On reaching home after the perilous adventure by the sea-shore, Knight had + felt unwell, and retired almost immediately. The young lady who had so + materially assisted him had done the same, but she reappeared, properly + clothed, about five o’clock. She wandered restlessly about the house, but + not on account of their joint narrow escape from death. The storm which + had torn the tree had merely bowed the reed, and with the deliverance of + Knight all deep thought of the accident had left her. The mutual avowal + which it had been the means of precipitating occupied a far longer length + of her meditations. + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s disquiet now was on account of that miserable promise to meet + Stephen, which returned like a spectre again and again. The perception of + his littleness beside Knight grew upon her alarmingly. She now thought how + sound had been her father’s advice to her to give him up, and was as + passionately desirous of following it as she had hitherto been averse. + Perhaps there is nothing more hardening to the tone of young minds than + thus to discover how their dearest and strongest wishes become gradually + attuned by Time the Cynic to the very note of some selfish policy which in + earlier days they despised. + </p> + <p> + The hour of appointment came, and with it a crisis; and with the crisis a + collapse. + </p> + <p> + ‘God forgive me—I can’t meet Stephen!’ she exclaimed to herself. ‘I + don’t love him less, but I love Mr. Knight more!’ + </p> + <p> + Yes: she would save herself from a man not fit for her—in spite of + vows. She would obey her father, and have no more to do with Stephen + Smith. Thus the fickle resolve showed signs of assuming the complexion of + a virtue. + </p> + <p> + The following days were passed without any definite avowal from Knight’s + lips. Such solitary walks and scenes as that witnessed by Smith in the + summer-house were frequent, but he courted her so intangibly that to any + but such a delicate perception as Elfride’s it would have appeared no + courtship at all. The time now really began to be sweet with her. She + dismissed the sense of sin in her past actions, and was automatic in the + intoxication of the moment. The fact that Knight made no actual + declaration was no drawback. Knowing since the betrayal of his sentiments + that love for her really existed, she preferred it for the present in its + form of essence, and was willing to avoid for awhile the grosser medium of + words. Their feelings having been forced to a rather premature + demonstration, a reaction was indulged in by both. + </p> + <p> + But no sooner had she got rid of her troubled conscience on the matter of + faithlessness than a new anxiety confronted her. It was lest Knight should + accidentally meet Stephen in the parish, and that herself should be the + subject of discourse. + </p> + <p> + Elfride, learning Knight more thoroughly, perceived that, far from having + a notion of Stephen’s precedence, he had no idea that she had ever been + wooed before by anybody. On ordinary occasions she had a tongue so frank + as to show her whole mind, and a mind so straightforward as to reveal her + heart to its innermost shrine. But the time for a change had come. She + never alluded to even a knowledge of Knight’s friend. When women are + secret they are secret indeed; and more often than not they only begin to + be secret with the advent of a second lover. + </p> + <p> + The elopement was now a spectre worse than the first, and, like the Spirit + in Glenfinlas, it waxed taller with every attempt to lay it. Her natural + honesty invited her to confide in Knight, and trust to his generosity for + forgiveness: she knew also that as mere policy it would be better to tell + him early if he was to be told at all. The longer her concealment the more + difficult would be the revelation. But she put it off. The intense fear + which accompanies intense love in young women was too strong to allow the + exercise of a moral quality antagonistic to itself: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; + Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.’ +</pre> + <p> + The match was looked upon as made by her father and mother. The vicar + remembered her promise to reveal the meaning of the telegram she had + received, and two days after the scene in the summer-house, asked her + pointedly. She was frank with him now. + </p> + <p> + ‘I had been corresponding with Stephen Smith ever since he left England, + till lately,’ she calmly said. + </p> + <p> + ‘What!’ cried the vicar aghast; ‘under the eyes of Mr. Knight, too?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; when I found I cared most for Mr. Knight, I obeyed you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You were very kind, I’m sure. When did you begin to like Mr. Knight?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t see that that is a pertinent question, papa; the telegram was + from the shipping agent, and was not sent at my request. It announced the + arrival of the vessel bringing him home.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Home! What, is he here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; in the village, I believe.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Has he tried to see you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Only by fair means. But don’t, papa, question me so! It is torture.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will only say one word more,’ he replied. ‘Have you met him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have not. I can assure you that at the present moment there is no more + of an understanding between me and the young man you so much disliked than + between him and you. You told me to forget him; and I have forgotten him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, well; though you did not obey me in the beginning, you are a good + girl, Elfride, in obeying me at last.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t call me “good,” papa,’ she said bitterly; ‘you don’t know—and + the less said about some things the better. Remember, Mr. Knight knows + nothing about the other. Oh, how wrong it all is! I don’t know what I am + coming to.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As matters stand, I should be inclined to tell him; or, at any rate, I + should not alarm myself about his knowing. He found out the other day that + this was the parish young Smith’s father lives in—what puts you in + such a flurry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t say; but promise—pray don’t let him know! It would be my + ruin!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Pooh, child. Knight is a good fellow and a clever man; but at the same + time it does not escape my perceptions that he is no great catch for you. + Men of his turn of mind are nothing so wonderful in the way of husbands. + If you had chosen to wait, you might have mated with a much wealthier man. + But remember, I have not a word to say against your having him, if you + like him. Charlotte is delighted, as you know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, papa,’ she said, smiling hopefully through a sigh, ‘it is nice to + feel that in giving way to—to caring for him, I have pleased my + family. But I am not good; oh no, I am very far from that!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘None of us are good, I am sorry to say,’ said her father blandly; ‘but + girls have a chartered right to change their minds, you know. It has been + recognized by poets from time immemorial. Catullus says, “Mulier cupido + quod dicit amanti, in vento—” What a memory mine is! However, the + passage is, that a woman’s words to a lover are as a matter of course + written only on wind and water. Now don’t be troubled about that, + Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, you don’t know!’ + </p> + <p> + They had been standing on the lawn, and Knight was now seen lingering some + way down a winding walk. When Elfride met him, it was with a much greater + lightness of heart; things were more straightforward now. The + responsibility of her fickleness seemed partly shifted from her own + shoulders to her father’s. Still, there were shadows. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, could he have known how far I went with Stephen, and yet have said + the same, how much happier I should be!’ That was her prevailing thought. + </p> + <p> + In the afternoon the lovers went out together on horseback for an hour or + two; and though not wishing to be observed, by reason of the late death of + Lady Luxellian, whose funeral had taken place very privately on the + previous day, they yet found it necessary to pass East Endelstow Church. + </p> + <p> + The steps to the vault, as has been stated, were on the outside of the + building, immediately under the aisle wall. Being on horseback, both + Knight and Elfride could overlook the shrubs which screened the + church-yard. + </p> + <p> + ‘Look, the vault seems still to be open,’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it is open,’ she answered + </p> + <p> + ‘Who is that man close by it? The mason, I suppose?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I wonder if it is John Smith, Stephen’s father?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I believe it is,’ said Elfride, with apprehension. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, and can it be? I should like to inquire how his son, my truant + protege’, is going on. And from your father’s description of the vault, + the interior must be interesting. Suppose we go in.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Had we better, do you think? May not Lord Luxellian be there?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not at all likely.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride then assented, since she could do nothing else. Her heart, which + at first had quailed in consternation, recovered itself when she + considered the character of John Smith. A quiet unassuming man, he would + be sure to act towards her as before those love passages with his son, + which might have given a more pretentious mechanic airs. So without much + alarm she took Knight’s arm after dismounting, and went with him between + and over the graves. The master-mason recognized her as she approached, + and, as usual, lifted his hat respectfully. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know you to be Mr. Smith, my former friend Stephen’s father,’ said + Knight, directly he had scanned the embrowned and ruddy features of John. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sir, I b’lieve I be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How is your son now? I have only once heard from him since he went to + India. I daresay you have heard him speak of me—Mr. Knight, who + became acquainted with him some years ago in Exonbury.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, that I have. Stephen is very well, thank you, sir, and he’s in + England; in fact, he’s at home. In short, sir, he’s down in the vault + there, a-looking at the departed coffins.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s heart fluttered like a butterfly. + </p> + <p> + Knight looked amazed. ‘Well, that is extraordinary.’ he murmured. ‘Did he + know I was in the parish?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I really can’t say, sir,’ said John, wishing himself out of the + entanglement he rather suspected than thoroughly understood. + </p> + <p> + ‘Would it be considered an intrusion by the family if we went into the + vault?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, bless ye, no, sir; scores of folk have been stepping down. ‘Tis left + open a-purpose.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We will go down, Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am afraid the air is close,’ she said appealingly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, ma’am,’ said John. ‘We white-limed the walls and arches the day + ‘twas opened, as we always do, and again on the morning of the funeral; + the place is as sweet as a granary. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I should like you to accompany me, Elfie; having originally sprung + from the family too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t like going where death is so emphatically present. I’ll stay by + the horses whilst you go in; they may get loose.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What nonsense! I had no idea your sentiments were so flimsily formed as + to be perturbed by a few remnants of mortality; but stay out, if you are + so afraid, by all means.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, I am not afraid; don’t say that.’ + </p> + <p> + She held miserably to his arm, thinking that, perhaps, the revelation + might as well come at once as ten minutes later, for Stephen would be sure + to accompany his friend to his horse. + </p> + <p> + At first, the gloom of the vault, which was lighted only by a couple of + candles, was too great to admit of their seeing anything distinctly; but + with a further advance Knight discerned, in front of the black masses + lining the walls, a young man standing, and writing in a pocket-book. + </p> + <p> + Knight said one word: ‘Stephen!’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen Smith, not being in such absolute ignorance of Knight’s + whereabouts as Knight had been of Smith’s instantly recognized his friend, + and knew by rote the outlines of the fair woman standing behind him. + </p> + <p> + Stephen came forward and shook him by the hand, without speaking. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why have you not written, my boy?’ said Knight, without in any way + signifying Elfride’s presence to Stephen. To the essayist, Smith was still + the country lad whom he had patronized and tended; one to whom the formal + presentation of a lady betrothed to himself would have seemed incongruous + and absurd. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why haven’t you written to me?’ said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, yes. Why haven’t I? why haven’t we? That’s always the query which we + cannot clearly answer without an unsatisfactory sense of our inadequacies. + However, I have not forgotten you, Smith. And now we have met; and we must + meet again, and have a longer chat than this can conveniently be. I must + know all you have been doing. That you have thriven, I know, and you must + teach me the way.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride stood in the background. Stephen had read the position at a + glance, and immediately guessed that she had never mentioned his name to + Knight. His tact in avoiding catastrophes was the chief quality which made + him intellectually respectable, in which quality he far transcended + Knight; and he decided that a tranquil issue out of the encounter, without + any harrowing of the feelings of either Knight or Elfride, was to be + attempted if possible. His old sense of indebtedness to Knight had never + wholly forsaken him; his love for Elfride was generous now. + </p> + <p> + As far as he dared look at her movements he saw that her bearing towards + him would be dictated by his own towards her; and if he acted as a + stranger she would do likewise as a means of deliverance. Circumstances + favouring this course, it was desirable also to be rather reserved towards + Knight, to shorten the meeting as much as possible. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am afraid that my time is almost too short to allow even of such a + pleasure,’ he said. ‘I leave here to-morrow. And until I start for the + Continent and India, which will be in a fortnight, I shall have hardly a + moment to spare.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight’s disappointment and dissatisfied looks at this reply sent a pang + through Stephen as great as any he had felt at the sight of Elfride. The + words about shortness of time were literally true, but their tone was far + from being so. He would have been gratified to talk with Knight as in past + times, and saw as a dead loss to himself that, to save the woman who cared + nothing for him, he was deliberately throwing away his friend. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I am sorry to hear that,’ said Knight, in a changed tone. ‘But of + course, if you have weighty concerns to attend to, they must not be + neglected. And if this is to be our first and last meeting, let me say + that I wish you success with all my heart!’ Knight’s warmth revived + towards the end; the solemn impressions he was beginning to receive from + the scene around them abstracting from his heart as a puerility any + momentary vexation at words. ‘It is a strange place for us to meet in,’ he + continued, looking round the vault. + </p> + <p> + Stephen briefly assented, and there was a silence. The blackened coffins + were now revealed more clearly than at first, the whitened walls and + arches throwing them forward in strong relief. It was a scene which was + remembered by all three as an indelible mark in their history. Knight, + with an abstracted face, was standing between his companions, though a + little in advance of them, Elfride being on his right hand, and Stephen + Smith on his left. The white daylight on his right side gleamed faintly + in, and was toned to a blueness by contrast with the yellow rays from the + candle against the wall. Elfride, timidly shrinking back, and nearest the + entrance, received most of the light therefrom, whilst Stephen was + entirely in candlelight, and to him the spot of outer sky visible above + the steps was as a steely blue patch, and nothing more. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have been here two or three times since it was opened,’ said Stephen. + ‘My father was engaged in the work, you know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. What are you doing?’ Knight inquired, looking at the note-book and + pencil Stephen held in his hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have been sketching a few details in the church, and since then I have + been copying the names from some of the coffins here. Before I left + England I used to do a good deal of this sort of thing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; of course. Ah, that’s poor Lady Luxellian, I suppose.’ Knight + pointed to a coffin of light satin-wood, which stood on the stone sleepers + in the new niche. ‘And the remainder of the family are on this side. Who + are those two, so snug and close together?’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen’s voice altered slightly as he replied ‘That’s Lady Elfride + Kingsmore—born Luxellian, and that is Arthur, her husband. I have + heard my father say that they—he—ran away with her, and + married her against the wish of her parents.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I imagine this to be where you got your Christian name, Miss + Swancourt?’ said Knight, turning to her. ‘I think you told me it was three + or four generations ago that your family branched off from the + Luxellians?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She was my grandmother,’ said Elfride, vainly endeavouring to moisten her + dry lips before she spoke. Elfride had then the conscience-stricken look + of Guido’s Magdalen, rendered upon a more childlike form. She kept her + face partially away from Knight and Stephen, and set her eyes upon the sky + visible outside, as if her salvation depended upon quickly reaching it. + Her left hand rested lightly within Knight’s arm, half withdrawn, from a + sense of shame at claiming him before her old lover, yet unwilling to + renounce him; so that her glove merely touched his sleeve. ‘“Can one be + pardoned, and retain the offence?”’ quoted Elfride’s heart then. + </p> + <p> + Conversation seemed to have no self-sustaining power, and went on in the + shape of disjointed remarks. ‘One’s mind gets thronged with thoughts while + standing so solemnly here,’ Knight said, in a measured quiet voice. ‘How + much has been said on death from time to time! how much we ourselves can + think upon it! We may fancy each of these who lie here saying: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘For Thou, to make my fall more great, + Didst lift me up on high.’ +</pre> + <p> + What comes next, Elfride? It is the Hundred-and-second Psalm I am thinking + of.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I know it,’ she murmured, and went on in a still lower voice, + seemingly afraid for any words from the emotional side of her nature to + reach Stephen: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘“My days, just hastening to their end, + Are like an evening shade; + My beauty doth, like wither’d grass, + With waning lustre fade.”’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘Well,’ said Knight musingly, ‘let us leave them. Such occasions as these + seem to compel us to roam outside ourselves, far away from the fragile + frame we live in, and to expand till our perception grows so vast that our + physical reality bears no sort of proportion to it. We look back upon the + weak and minute stem on which this luxuriant growth depends, and ask, Can + it be possible that such a capacity has a foundation so small? Must I + again return to my daily walk in that narrow cell, a human body, where + worldly thoughts can torture me? Do we not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ said Stephen and Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘One has a sense of wrong, too, that such an appreciative breadth as a + sentient being possesses should be committed to the frail casket of a + body. What weakens one’s intentions regarding the future like the thought + of this?...However, let us tune ourselves to a more cheerful chord, for + there’s a great deal to be done yet by us all.’ + </p> + <p> + As Knight meditatively addressed his juniors thus, unconscious of the + deception practised, for different reasons, by the severed hearts at his + side, and of the scenes that had in earlier days united them, each one + felt that he and she did not gain by contrast with their musing mentor. + Physically not so handsome as either the youthful architect or the vicar’s + daughter, the thoroughness and integrity of Knight illuminated his + features with a dignity not even incipient in the other two. It is + difficult to frame rules which shall apply to both sexes, and Elfride, an + undeveloped girl, must, perhaps, hardly be laden with the moral + responsibilities which attach to a man in like circumstances. The charm of + woman, too, lies partly in her subtleness in matters of love. But if + honesty is a virtue in itself, Elfride, having none of it now, seemed, + being for being, scarcely good enough for Knight. Stephen, though + deceptive for no unworthy purpose, was deceptive after all; and whatever + good results grace such strategy if it succeed, it seldom draws + admiration, especially when it fails. + </p> + <p> + On an ordinary occasion, had Knight been even quite alone with Stephen, he + would hardly have alluded to his possible relationship to Elfride. But + moved by attendant circumstances Knight was impelled to be confiding. + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen,’ he said, ‘this lady is Miss Swancourt. I am staying at her + father’s house, as you probably know.’ He stepped a few paces nearer to + Smith, and said in a lower tone: ‘I may as well tell you that we are + engaged to be married.’ + </p> + <p> + Low as the words had been spoken, Elfride had heard them, and awaited + Stephen’s reply in breathless silence, if that could be called silence + where Elfride’s dress, at each throb of her heart, shook and indicated it + like a pulse-glass, rustling also against the wall in reply to the same + throbbing. The ray of daylight which reached her face lent it a blue + pallor in comparison with those of the other two. + </p> + <p> + ‘I congratulate you,’ Stephen whispered; and said aloud, ‘I know Miss + Swancourt—a little. You must remember that my father is a + parishioner of Mr. Swancourt’s.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought you might possibly not have lived at home since they have been + here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have never lived at home, certainly, since that time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have seen Mr. Smith,’ faltered Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, there is no excuse for me. As strangers to each other I ought, I + suppose, to have introduced you: as acquaintances, I should not have stood + so persistently between you. But the fact is, Smith, you seem a boy to me, + even now.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen appeared to have a more than previous consciousness of the intense + cruelty of his fate at the present moment. He could not repress the words, + uttered with a dim bitterness: + </p> + <p> + ‘You should have said that I seemed still the rural mechanic’s son I am, + and hence an unfit subject for the ceremony of introductions.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, no, no! I won’t have that.’ Knight endeavoured to give his reply a + laughing tone in Elfride’s ears, and an earnestness in Stephen’s: in both + which efforts he signally failed, and produced a forced speech pleasant to + neither. ‘Well, let us go into the open air again; Miss Swancourt, you are + particularly silent. You mustn’t mind Smith. I have known him for years, + as I have told you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, you have,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘To think she has never mentioned her knowledge of me!’ Smith murmured, + and thought with some remorse how much her conduct resembled his own on + his first arrival at her house as a stranger to the place. + </p> + <p> + They ascended to the daylight, Knight taking no further notice of + Elfride’s manner, which, as usual, he attributed to the natural shyness of + a young woman at being discovered walking with him on terms which left not + much doubt of their meaning. Elfride stepped a little in advance, and + passed through the churchyard. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are changed very considerably, Smith,’ said Knight, ‘and I suppose it + is no more than was to be expected. However, don’t imagine that I shall + feel any the less interest in you and your fortunes whenever you care to + confide them to me. I have not forgotten the attachment you spoke of as + your reason for going away to India. A London young lady, was it not? I + hope all is prosperous?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No: the match is broken off.’ + </p> + <p> + It being always difficult to know whether to express sorrow or gladness + under such circumstances—all depending upon the character of the + match—Knight took shelter in the safe words: ‘I trust it was for the + best.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I hope it was. But I beg that you will not press me further: no, you have + not pressed me—I don’t mean that—but I would rather not speak + upon the subject.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen’s words were hurried. + </p> + <p> + Knight said no more, and they followed in the footsteps of Elfride, who + still kept some paces in advance, and had not heard Knight’s unconscious + allusion to her. Stephen bade him adieu at the churchyard-gate without + going outside, and watched whilst he and his sweetheart mounted their + horses. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good heavens, Elfride,’ Knight exclaimed, ‘how pale you are! I suppose I + ought not to have taken you into that vault. What is the matter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing,’ said Elfride faintly. ‘I shall be myself in a moment. All was + so strange and unexpected down there, that it made me unwell.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought you said very little. Shall I get some water?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you think it is safe for you to mount?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Quite—indeed it is,’ she said, with a look of appeal. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now then—up she goes!’ whispered Knight, and lifted her tenderly + into the saddle. + </p> + <p> + Her old lover still looked on at the performance as he leant over the gate + a dozen yards off. Once in the saddle, and having a firm grip of the + reins, she turned her head as if by a resistless fascination, and for the + first time since that memorable parting on the moor outside St. Launce’s + after the passionate attempt at marriage with him, Elfride looked in the + face of the young man she first had loved. He was the youth who had called + her his inseparable wife many a time, and whom she had even addressed as + her husband. Their eyes met. Measurement of life should be proportioned + rather to the intensity of the experience than to its actual length. Their + glance, but a moment chronologically, was a season in their history. To + Elfride the intense agony of reproach in Stephen’s eye was a nail piercing + her heart with a deadliness no words can describe. With a spasmodic effort + she withdrew her eyes, urged on the horse, and in the chaos of perturbed + memories was oblivious of any presence beside her. The deed of deception + was complete. + </p> + <p> + Gaining a knoll on which the park transformed itself into wood and copse, + Knight came still closer to her side, and said, ‘Are you better now, + dearest?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes.’ She pressed a hand to her eyes, as if to blot out the image of + Stephen. A vivid scarlet spot now shone with preternatural brightness in + the centre of each cheek, leaving the remainder of her face lily-white as + before. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride,’ said Knight, rather in his old tone of mentor, ‘you know I + don’t for a moment chide you, but is there not a great deal of unwomanly + weakness in your allowing yourself to be so overwhelmed by the sight of + what, after all, is no novelty? Every woman worthy of the name should, I + think, be able to look upon death with something like composure. Surely + you think so too?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I own it.’ + </p> + <p> + His obtuseness to the cause of her indisposition, by evidencing his entire + freedom from the suspicion of anything behind the scenes, showed how + incapable Knight was of deception himself, rather than any inherent + dulness in him regarding human nature. This, clearly perceived by Elfride, + added poignancy to her self-reproach, and she idolized him the more + because of their difference. Even the recent sight of Stephen’s face and + the sound of his voice, which for a moment had stirred a chord or two of + ancient kindness, were unable to keep down the adoration re-existent now + that he was again out of view. + </p> + <p> + She had replied to Knight’s question hastily, and immediately went on to + speak of indifferent subjects. After they had reached home she was apart + from him till dinner-time. When dinner was over, and they were watching + the dusk in the drawing-room, Knight stepped out upon the terrace. Elfride + went after him very decisively, on the spur of a virtuous intention. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Knight, I want to tell you something,’ she said, with quiet firmness. + </p> + <p> + ‘And what is it about?’ gaily returned her lover. ‘Happiness, I hope. Do + not let anything keep you so sad as you seem to have been to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot mention the matter until I tell you the whole substance of it,’ + she said. ‘And that I will do to-morrow. I have been reminded of it + to-day. It is about something I once did, and don’t think I ought to have + done.’ + </p> + <p> + This, it must be said, was rather a mild way of referring to a frantic + passion and flight, which, much or little in itself, only accident had + saved from being a scandal in the public eye. + </p> + <p> + Knight thought the matter some trifle, and said pleasantly: + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I am not to hear the dreadful confession now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, not now. I did not mean to-night,’ Elfride responded, with a slight + decline in the firmness of her voice. ‘It is not light as you think it—it + troubles me a great deal.’ Fearing now the effect of her own earnestness, + she added forcedly, ‘Though, perhaps, you may think it light after all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you have not said when it is to be?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To-morrow morning. Name a time, will you, and bind me to it? I want you + to fix an hour, because I am weak, and may otherwise try to get out of + it.’ She added a little artificial laugh, which showed how timorous her + resolution was still. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, say after breakfast—at eleven o’clock.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, eleven o’clock. I promise you. Bind me strictly to my word.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXVIII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘I lull a fancy, trouble-tost.’ +</pre> + <p> + Miss Swancourt, it is eleven o’clock.’ + </p> + <p> + She was looking out of her dressing-room window on the first floor, and + Knight was regarding her from the terrace balustrade, upon which he had + been idly sitting for some time—dividing the glances of his eye + between the pages of a book in his hand, the brilliant hues of the + geraniums and calceolarias, and the open window above-mentioned. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it is, I know. I am coming.’ + </p> + <p> + He drew closer, and under the window. + </p> + <p> + ‘How are you this morning, Elfride? You look no better for your long + night’s rest.’ + </p> + <p> + She appeared at the door shortly after, took his offered arm, and together + they walked slowly down the gravel path leading to the river and away + under the trees. + </p> + <p> + Her resolution, sustained during the last fifteen hours, had been to tell + the whole truth, and now the moment had come. + </p> + <p> + Step by step they advanced, and still she did not speak. They were nearly + at the end of the walk, when Knight broke the silence. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what is the confession, Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + She paused a moment, drew a long breath; and this is what she said: + </p> + <p> + ‘I told you one day—or rather I gave you to understand—what + was not true. I fancy you thought me to mean I was nineteen my next + birthday, but it was my last I was nineteen.’ + </p> + <p> + The moment had been too much for her. Now that the crisis had come, no + qualms of conscience, no love of honesty, no yearning to make a confidence + and obtain forgiveness with a kiss, could string Elfride up to the + venture. Her dread lest he should be unforgiving was heightened by the + thought of yesterday’s artifice, which might possibly add disgust to his + disappointment. The certainty of one more day’s affection, which she + gained by silence, outvalued the hope of a perpetuity combined with the + risk of all. + </p> + <p> + The trepidation caused by these thoughts on what she had intended to say + shook so naturally the words she did say, that Knight never for a moment + suspected them to be a last moment’s substitution. He smiled and pressed + her hand warmly. + </p> + <p> + ‘My dear Elfie—yes, you are now—no protestation—what a + winning little woman you are, to be so absurdly scrupulous about a mere + iota! Really, I never once have thought whether your nineteenth year was + the last or the present. And, by George, well I may not; for it would + never do for a staid fogey a dozen years older to stand upon such a trifle + as that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t praise me—don’t praise me! Though I prize it from your lips, + I don’t deserve it now.’ + </p> + <p> + But Knight, being in an exceptionally genial mood, merely saw this + distressful exclamation as modesty. ‘Well,’ he added, after a minute, ‘I + like you all the better, you know, for such moral precision, although I + called it absurd.’ He went on with tender earnestness: ‘For, Elfride, + there is one thing I do love to see in a woman—that is, a soul + truthful and clear as heaven’s light. I could put up with anything if I + had that—forgive nothing if I had it not. Elfride, you have such a + soul, if ever woman had; and having it, retain it, and don’t ever listen + to the fashionable theories of the day about a woman’s privileges and + natural right to practise wiles. Depend upon it, my dear girl, that a + noble woman must be as honest as a noble man. I specially mean by honesty, + fairness not only in matters of business and social detail, but in all the + delicate dealings of love, to which the licence given to your sex + particularly refers.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked troublously at the trees. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now let us go on to the river, Elfie.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I would if I had a hat on,’ she said with a sort of suppressed woe. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will get it for you,’ said Knight, very willing to purchase her + companionship at so cheap a price. ‘You sit down there a minute.’ And he + turned and walked rapidly back to the house for the article in question. + </p> + <p> + Elfride sat down upon one of the rustic benches which adorned this portion + of the grounds, and remained with her eyes upon the grass. She was induced + to lift them by hearing the brush of light and irregular footsteps hard + by. Passing along the path which intersected the one she was in and + traversed the outer shrubberies, Elfride beheld the farmer’s widow, Mrs. + Jethway. Before she noticed Elfride, she paused to look at the house, + portions of which were visible through the bushes. Elfride, shrinking + back, hoped the unpleasant woman might go on without seeing her. But Mrs. + Jethway, silently apostrophizing the house, with actions which seemed + dictated by a half-overturned reason, had discerned the girl, and + immediately came up and stood in front of her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Miss Swancourt! Why did you disturb me? Mustn’t I trespass here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You may walk here if you like, Mrs. Jethway. I do not disturb you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You disturb my mind, and my mind is my whole life; for my boy is there + still, and he is gone from my body.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, poor young man. I was sorry when he died.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you know what he died of?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Consumption.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, no!’ said the widow. ‘That word “consumption” covers a good deal. + He died because you were his own well-agreed sweetheart, and then proved + false—and it killed him. Yes, Miss Swancourt,’ she said in an + excited whisper, ‘you killed my son!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can you be so wicked and foolish!’ replied Elfride, rising + indignantly. But indignation was not natural to her, and having been so + worn and harrowed by late events, she lost any powers of defence that mood + might have lent her. ‘I could not help his loving me, Mrs. Jethway!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s just what you could have helped. You know how it began, Miss + Elfride. Yes: you said you liked the name of Felix better than any other + name in the parish, and you knew it was his name, and that those you said + it to would report it to him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I knew it was his name—of course I did; but I am sure, Mrs. + Jethway, I did not intend anybody to tell him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you knew they would.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I didn’t.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And then, after that, when you were riding on Revels-day by our house, + and the lads were gathered there, and you wanted to dismount, when Jim + Drake and George Upway and three or four more ran forward to hold your + pony, and Felix stood back timid, why did you beckon to him, and say you + would rather he held it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘O Mrs. Jethway, you do think so mistakenly! I liked him best—that’s + why I wanted him to do it. He was gentle and nice—I always thought + him so—and I liked him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then why did you let him kiss you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is a falsehood; oh, it is, it is!’ said Elfride, weeping with + desperation. ‘He came behind me, and attempted to kiss me; and that was + why I told him never to let me see him again.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you did not tell your father or anybody, as you would have if you had + looked upon it then as the insult you now pretend it was.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He begged me not to tell, and foolishly enough I did not. And I wish I + had now. I little expected to be scourged with my own kindness. Pray leave + me, Mrs. Jethway.’ The girl only expostulated now. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, you harshly dismissed him, and he died. And before his body was + cold, you took another to your heart. Then as carelessly sent him about + his business, and took a third. And if you consider that nothing, Miss + Swancourt,’ she continued, drawing closer; ‘it led on to what was very + serious indeed. Have you forgotten the would-be runaway marriage? The + journey to London, and the return the next day without being married, and + that there’s enough disgrace in that to ruin a woman’s good name far less + light than yours? You may have: I have not. Fickleness towards a lover is + bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is wantonness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, it’s a wicked cruel lie! Do not say it; oh, do not!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Does your new man know of it? I think not, or he would be no man of + yours! As much of the story as was known is creeping about the + neighbourhood even now; but I know more than any of them, and why should I + respect your love?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I defy you!’ cried Elfride tempestuously. ‘Do and say all you can to ruin + me; try; put your tongue at work; I invite it! I defy you as a slanderous + woman! Look, there he comes.’ And her voice trembled greatly as she saw + through the leaves the beloved form of Knight coming from the door with + her hat in his hand. ‘Tell him at once; I can bear it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not now,’ said the woman, and disappeared down the path. + </p> + <p> + The excitement of her latter words had restored colour to Elfride’s + cheeks; and hastily wiping her eyes, she walked farther on, so that by the + time her lover had overtaken her the traces of emotion had nearly + disappeared from her face. Knight put the hat upon her head, took her + hand, and drew it within his arm. + </p> + <p> + It was the last day but one previous to their departure for St. Leonards; + and Knight seemed to have a purpose in being much in her company that day. + They rambled along the valley. The season was that period in the autumn + when the foliage alone of an ordinary plantation is rich enough in hues to + exhaust the chromatic combinations of an artist’s palette. Most lustrous + of all are the beeches, graduating from bright rusty red at the extremity + of the boughs to a bright yellow at their inner parts; young oaks are + still of a neutral green; Scotch firs and hollies are nearly blue; whilst + occasional dottings of other varieties give maroons and purples of every + tinge. + </p> + <p> + The river—such as it was—here pursued its course amid + flagstones as level as a pavement, but divided by crevices of irregular + width. With the summer drought the torrent had narrowed till it was now + but a thread of crystal clearness, meandering along a central channel in + the rocky bed of the winter current. Knight scrambled through the bushes + which at this point nearly covered the brook from sight, and leapt down + upon the dry portion of the river bottom. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, I never saw such a sight!’ he exclaimed. ‘The hazels overhang + the river’s course in a perfect arch, and the floor is beautifully paved. + The place reminds one of the passages of a cloister. Let me help you + down.’ + </p> + <p> + He assisted her through the marginal underwood and down to the stones. + They walked on together to a tiny cascade about a foot wide and high, and + sat down beside it on the flags that for nine months in the year were + submerged beneath a gushing bourne. From their feet trickled the + attenuated thread of water which alone remained to tell the intent and + reason of this leaf-covered aisle, and journeyed on in a zigzag line till + lost in the shade. + </p> + <p> + Knight, leaning on his elbow, after contemplating all this, looked + critically at Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘Does not such a luxuriant head of hair exhaust itself and get thin as the + years go on from eighteen to eight-and-twenty?’ he asked at length. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no!’ she said quickly, with a visible disinclination to harbour such a + thought, which came upon her with an unpleasantness whose force it would + be difficult for men to understand. She added afterwards, with smouldering + uneasiness, ‘Do you really think that a great abundance of hair is more + likely to get thin than a moderate quantity?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I really do. I believe—am almost sure, in fact—that if + statistics could be obtained on the subject, you would find the persons + with thin hair were those who had a superabundance originally, and that + those who start with a moderate quantity retain it without much loss.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s troubles sat upon her face as well as in her heart. Perhaps to a + woman it is almost as dreadful to think of losing her beauty as of losing + her reputation. At any rate, she looked quite as gloomy as she had looked + at any minute that day. + </p> + <p> + ‘You shouldn’t be so troubled about a mere personal adornment,’ said + Knight, with some of the severity of tone that had been customary before + she had beguiled him into softness. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think it is a woman’s duty to be as beautiful as she can. If I were a + scholar, I would give you chapter and verse for it from one of your own + Latin authors. I know there is such a passage, for papa has alluded to + it.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Munditiae, et ornatus, et cultus,” &c.—is that it? A passage + in Livy which is no defence at all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, it is not that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind, then; for I have a reason for not taking up my old cudgels + against you, Elfie. Can you guess what the reason is?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; but I am glad to hear it,’ she said thankfully. ‘For it is dreadful + when you talk so. For whatever dreadful name the weakness may deserve, I + must candidly own that I am terrified to think my hair may ever get thin.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course; a sensible woman would rather lose her wits than her beauty.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t care if you do say satire and judge me cruelly. I know my hair is + beautiful; everybody says so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, my dear Miss Swancourt,’ he tenderly replied, ‘I have not said + anything against it. But you know what is said about handsome being and + handsome doing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Poor Miss Handsome-does cuts but a sorry figure beside Miss Handsome-is + in every man’s eyes, your own not excepted, Mr. Knight, though it pleases + you to throw off so,’ said Elfride saucily. And lowering her voice: ‘You + ought not to have taken so much trouble to save me from falling over the + cliff, for you don’t think mine a life worth much trouble evidently.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps you think mine was not worth yours.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It was worth anybody’s!’ + </p> + <p> + Her hand was plashing in the little waterfall, and her eyes were bent the + same way. + </p> + <p> + ‘You talk about my severity with you, Elfride. You are unkind to me, you + know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How?’ she asked, looking up from her idle occupation. + </p> + <p> + ‘After my taking trouble to get jewellery to please you, you wouldn’t + accept it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps I would now; perhaps I want to.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do!’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + And the packet was withdrawn from his pocket and presented the third time. + Elfride took it with delight. The obstacle was rent in twain, and the + significant gift was hers. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll take out these ugly ones at once,’ she exclaimed, ‘and I’ll wear + yours—shall I?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I should be gratified.’ + </p> + <p> + Now, though it may seem unlikely, considering how far the two had gone in + converse, Knight had never yet ventured to kiss Elfride. Far slower was he + than Stephen Smith in matters like that. The utmost advance he had made in + such demonstrations had been to the degree witnessed by Stephen in the + summer-house. So Elfride’s cheek being still forbidden fruit to him, he + said impulsively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfie, I should like to touch that seductive ear of yours. Those are my + gifts; so let me dress you in them.’ + </p> + <p> + She hesitated with a stimulating hesitation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me put just one in its place, then?’ + </p> + <p> + Her face grew much warmer. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t think it would be quite the usual or proper course,’ she said, + suddenly turning and resuming her operation of plashing in the miniature + cataract. + </p> + <p> + The stillness of things was disturbed by a bird coming to the streamlet to + drink. After watching him dip his bill, sprinkle himself, and fly into a + tree, Knight replied, with the courteous brusqueness she so much liked to + hear— + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, now you may as well be fair. You would mind my doing it but + little, I think; so give me leave, do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will be fair, then,’ she said confidingly, and looking him full in the + face. It was a particular pleasure to her to be able to do a little + honesty without fear. ‘I should not mind your doing so—I should like + such an attention. My thought was, would it be right to let you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I will!’ he rejoined, with that singular earnestness about a small + matter—in the eyes of a ladies’ man but a momentary peg for + flirtation or jest—which is only found in deep natures who have been + wholly unused to toying with womankind, and which, from its unwontedness, + is in itself a tribute the most precious that can be rendered, and homage + the most exquisite to be received. + </p> + <p> + ‘And you shall,’ she whispered, without reserve, and no longer mistress of + the ceremonies. And then Elfride inclined herself towards him, thrust back + her hair, and poised her head sideways. In doing this her arm and shoulder + necessarily rested against his breast. + </p> + <p> + At the touch, the sensation of both seemed to be concentrated at the point + of contact. All the time he was performing the delicate manoeuvre Knight + trembled like a young surgeon in his first operation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now the other,’ said Knight in a whisper. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know exactly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your touch agitates me so. Let us go home.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t say that, Elfride. What is it, after all? A mere nothing. Now turn + round, dearest.’ + </p> + <p> + She was powerless to disobey, and turned forthwith; and then, without any + defined intention in either’s mind, his face and hers drew closer + together; and he supported her there, and kissed her. + </p> + <p> + Knight was at once the most ardent and the coolest man alive. When his + emotions slumbered he appeared almost phlegmatic; when they were moved he + was no less than passionate. And now, without having quite intended an + early marriage, he put the question plainly. It came with all the ardour + which was the accumulation of long years behind a natural reserve. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, when shall we be married?’ + </p> + <p> + The words were sweet to her; but there was a bitter in the sweet. These + newly-overt acts of his, which had culminated in this plain question, + coming on the very day of Mrs. Jethway’s blasting reproaches, painted + distinctly her fickleness as an enormity. Loving him in secret had not + seemed such thorough-going inconstancy as the same love recognized and + acted upon in the face of threats. Her distraction was interpreted by him + at her side as the outward signs of an unwonted experience. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t press you for an answer now, darling,’ he said, seeing she was + not likely to give a lucid reply. ‘Take your time.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight was as honourable a man as was ever loved and deluded by woman. It + may be said that his blindness in love proved the point, for shrewdness in + love usually goes with meanness in general. Once the passion had mastered + him, the intellect had gone for naught. Knight, as a lover, was more + single-minded and far simpler than his friend Stephen, who in other + capacities was shallow beside him. + </p> + <p> + Without saying more on the subject of their marriage, Knight held her at + arm’s length, as if she had been a large bouquet, and looked at her with + critical affection. + </p> + <p> + ‘Does your pretty gift become me?’ she inquired, with tears of excitement + on the fringes of her eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘Undoubtedly, perfectly!’ said her lover, adopting a lighter tone to put + her at her ease. ‘Ah, you should see them; you look shinier than ever. + Fancy that I have been able to improve you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Am I really so nice? I am glad for your sake. I wish I could see myself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You can’t. You must wait till we get home.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I shall never be able,’ she said, laughing. ‘Look: here’s a way.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So there is. Well done, woman’s wit!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hold me steady!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And don’t let me fall, will you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By no means.’ + </p> + <p> + Below their seat the thread of water paused to spread out into a smooth + small pool. Knight supported her whilst she knelt down and leant over it. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can see myself. Really, try as religiously as I will, I cannot help + admiring my appearance in them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Doubtless. How can you be so fond of finery? I believe you are corrupting + me into a taste for it. I used to hate every such thing before I knew + you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I like ornaments, because I want people to admire what you possess, and + envy you, and say, “I wish I was he.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I suppose I ought not to object after that. And how much longer are you + going to look in there at yourself?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Until you are tired of holding me? Oh, I want to ask you something.’ And + she turned round. ‘Now tell truly, won’t you? What colour of hair do you + like best now?’ + </p> + <p> + Knight did not answer at the moment. + </p> + <p> + ‘Say light, do!’ she whispered coaxingly. ‘Don’t say dark, as you did that + time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Light-brown, then. Exactly the colour of my sweetheart’s.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really?’ said Elfride, enjoying as truth what she knew to be flattery. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And blue eyes, too, not hazel? Say yes, say yes!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘One recantation is enough for to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well, blue eyes.’ And Knight laughed, and drew her close and kissed + her the second time, which operations he performed with the carefulness of + a fruiterer touching a bunch of grapes so as not to disturb their bloom. + </p> + <p> + Elfride objected to a second, and flung away her face, the movement + causing a slight disarrangement of hat and hair. Hardly thinking what she + said in the trepidation of the moment, she exclaimed, clapping her hand to + her ear— + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, we must be careful! I lost the other earring doing like this.’ + </p> + <p> + No sooner did she realise the significant words than a troubled look + passed across her face, and she shut her lips as if to keep them back. + </p> + <p> + ‘Doing like what?’ said Knight, perplexed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, sitting down out of doors,’ she replied hastily. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXIX + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Care, thou canker.’ +</pre> + <p> + It is an evening at the beginning of October, and the mellowest of autumn + sunsets irradiates London, even to its uttermost eastern end. Between the + eye and the flaming West, columns of smoke stand up in the still air like + tall trees. Everything in the shade is rich and misty blue. + </p> + <p> + Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt and Elfride are looking at these lustrous and lurid + contrasts from the window of a large hotel near London Bridge. The visit + to their friends at St. Leonards is over, and they are staying a day or + two in the metropolis on their way home. + </p> + <p> + Knight spent the same interval of time in crossing over to Brittany by way + of Jersey and St. Malo. He then passed through Normandy, and returned to + London also, his arrival there having been two days later than that of + Elfride and her parents. + </p> + <p> + So the evening of this October day saw them all meeting at the + above-mentioned hotel, where they had previously engaged apartments. + During the afternoon Knight had been to his lodgings at Richmond to make a + little change in the nature of his baggage; and on coming up again there + was never ushered by a bland waiter into a comfortable room a happier man + than Knight when shown to where Elfride and her step-mother were sitting + after a fatiguing day of shopping. + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked none the better for her change: Knight was as brown as a + nut. They were soon engaged by themselves in a corner of the room. Now + that the precious words of promise had been spoken, the young girl had no + idea of keeping up her price by the system of reserve which other more + accomplished maidens use. Her lover was with her again, and it was enough: + she made her heart over to him entirely. + </p> + <p> + Dinner was soon despatched. And when a preliminary round of conversation + concerning their doings since the last parting had been concluded, they + reverted to the subject of to-morrow’s journey home. + </p> + <p> + ‘That enervating ride through the myrtle climate of South Devon—how + I dread it to-morrow!’ Mrs. Swancourt was saying. ‘I had hoped the weather + would have been cooler by this time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you ever go by water?’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Never—by never, I mean not since the time of railways.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then if you can afford an additional day, I propose that we do it,’ said + Knight. ‘The Channel is like a lake just now. We should reach Plymouth in + about forty hours, I think, and the boats start from just below the bridge + here’ (pointing over his shoulder eastward). + </p> + <p> + ‘Hear, hear!’ said the vicar. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s an idea, certainly,’ said his wife. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course these coasters are rather tubby,’ said Knight. ‘But you + wouldn’t mind that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No: we wouldn’t mind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And the saloon is a place like the fishmarket of a ninth-rate country + town, but that wouldn’t matter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh dear, no. If we had only thought of it soon enough, we might have had + the use of Lord Luxellian’s yacht. But never mind, we’ll go. We shall + escape the worrying rattle through the whole length of London to-morrow + morning—not to mention the risk of being killed by excursion trains, + which is not a little one at this time of the year, if the papers are + true.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride, too, thought the arrangement delightful; and accordingly, ten + o’clock the following morning saw two cabs crawling round by the Mint, and + between the preternaturally high walls of Nightingale Lane towards the + river side. + </p> + <p> + The first vehicle was occupied by the travellers in person, and the second + brought up the luggage, under the supervision of Mrs. Snewson, Mrs. + Swancourt’s maid—and for the last fortnight Elfride’s also; for + although the younger lady had never been accustomed to any such attendant + at robing times, her stepmother forced her into a semblance of familiarity + with one when they were away from home. + </p> + <p> + Presently waggons, bales, and smells of all descriptions increased to such + an extent that the advance of the cabs was at the slowest possible rate. + At intervals it was necessary to halt entirely, that the heavy vehicles + unloading in front might be moved aside, a feat which was not accomplished + without a deal of swearing and noise. The vicar put his head out of the + window. + </p> + <p> + ‘Surely there must be some mistake in the way,’ he said with great + concern, drawing in his head again. ‘There’s not a respectable conveyance + to be seen here except ours. I’ve heard that there are strange dens in + this part of London, into which people have been entrapped and murdered—surely + there is no conspiracy on the part of the cabman?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, no. It is all right,’ said Mr. Knight, who was as placid as dewy + eve by the side of Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what I argue from,’ said the vicar, with a greater emphasis of + uneasiness, ‘are plain appearances. This can’t be the highway from London + to Plymouth by water, because it is no way at all to any place. We shall + miss our steamer and our train too—that’s what I think.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Depend upon it we are right. In fact, here we are.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Trimmer’s Wharf,’ said the cabman, opening the door. + </p> + <p> + No sooner had they alighted than they perceived a tussle going on between + the hindmost cabman and a crowd of light porters who had charged him in + column, to obtain possession of the bags and boxes, Mrs. Snewson’s hands + being seen stretched towards heaven in the midst of the melee. Knight + advanced gallantly, and after a hard struggle reduced the crowd to two, + upon whose shoulders and trucks the goods vanished away in the direction + of the water’s edge with startling rapidity. + </p> + <p> + Then more of the same tribe, who had run on ahead, were heard shouting to + boatmen, three of whom pulled alongside, and two being vanquished, the + luggage went tumbling into the remaining one. + </p> + <p> + ‘Never saw such a dreadful scene in my life—never!’ said Mr. + Swancourt, floundering into the boat. ‘Worse than Famine and Sword upon + one. I thought such customs were confined to continental ports. Aren’t you + astonished, Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no,’ said Elfride, appearing amid the dingy scene like a rainbow in a + murky sky. ‘It is a pleasant novelty, I think.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where in the wide ocean is our steamer?’ the vicar inquired. ‘I can see + nothing but old hulks, for the life of me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Just behind that one,’ said Knight; ‘we shall soon be round under her.’ + </p> + <p> + The object of their search was soon after disclosed to view—a great + lumbering form of inky blackness, which looked as if it had never known + the touch of a paint-brush for fifty years. It was lying beside just such + another, and the way on board was down a narrow lane of water between the + two, about a yard and a half wide at one end, and gradually converging to + a point. At the moment of their entry into this narrow passage, a + brilliantly painted rival paddled down the river like a trotting steed, + creating such a series of waves and splashes that their frail wherry was + tossed like a teacup, and the vicar and his wife slanted this way and + that, inclining their heads into contact with a Punch-and-Judy air and + countenance, the wavelets striking the sides of the two hulls, and + flapping back into their laps. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dreadful! horrible!’ Mr. Swancourt murmured privately; and said aloud, I + thought we walked on board. I don’t think really I should have come, if I + had known this trouble was attached to it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If they must splash, I wish they would splash us with clean water,’ said + the old lady, wiping her dress with her handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + ‘I hope it is perfectly safe,’ continued the vicar. + </p> + <p> + ‘O papa! you are not very brave,’ cried Elfride merrily. + </p> + <p> + ‘Bravery is only obtuseness to the perception of contingencies,’ Mr. + Swancourt severely answered. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt laughed, and Elfride laughed, and Knight laughed, in the + midst of which pleasantness a man shouted to them from some position + between their heads and the sky, and they found they were close to the + Juliet, into which they quiveringly ascended. + </p> + <p> + It having been found that the lowness of the tide would prevent their + getting off for an hour, the Swancourts, having nothing else to do, + allowed their eyes to idle upon men in blue jerseys performing mysterious + mending operations with tar-twine; they turned to look at the dashes of + lurid sunlight, like burnished copper stars afloat on the ripples, which + danced into and tantalized their vision; or listened to the loud music of + a steam-crane at work close by; or to sighing sounds from the funnels of + passing steamers, getting dead as they grew more distant; or to shouts + from the decks of different craft in their vicinity, all of them assuming + the form of ‘Ah-he-hay!’ + </p> + <p> + Half-past ten: not yet off. Mr. Swancourt breathed a breath of weariness, + and looked at his fellow-travellers in general. Their faces were certainly + not worth looking at. The expression ‘Waiting’ was written upon them so + absolutely that nothing more could be discerned there. All animation was + suspended till Providence should raise the water and let them go. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have been thinking,’ said Knight, ‘that we have come amongst the rarest + class of people in the kingdom. Of all human characteristics, a low + opinion of the value of his own time by an individual must be among the + strangest to find. Here we see numbers of that patient and happy species. + Rovers, as distinct from travellers.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But they are pleasure-seekers, to whom time is of no importance.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no. The pleasure-seekers we meet on the grand routes are more anxious + than commercial travellers to rush on. And added to the loss of time in + getting to their journey’s end, these exceptional people take their chance + of sea-sickness by coming this way.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Can it be?’ inquired the vicar with apprehension. ‘Surely not, Mr. + Knight, just here in our English Channel—close at our doors, as I + may say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Entrance passages are very draughty places, and the Channel is like the + rest. It ruins the temper of sailors. It has been calculated by + philosophers that more damns go up to heaven from the Channel, in the + course of a year, than from all the five oceans put together.’ + </p> + <p> + They really start now, and the dead looks of all the throng come to life + immediately. The man who has been frantically hauling in a rope that bade + fair to have no end ceases his labours, and they glide down the serpentine + bends of the Thames. + </p> + <p> + Anything anywhere was a mine of interest to Elfride, and so was this. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is well enough now,’ said Mrs. Swancourt, after they had passed the + Nore, ‘but I can’t say I have cared for my voyage hitherto.’ For being now + in the open sea a slight breeze had sprung up, which cheered her as well + as her two younger companions. But unfortunately it had a reverse effect + upon the vicar, who, after turning a sort of apricot jam colour, + interspersed with dashes of raspberry, pleaded indisposition, and vanished + from their sight. + </p> + <p> + The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Swancourt kindly sat apart by herself reading, + and the betrothed pair were left to themselves. Elfride clung trustingly + to Knight’s arm, and proud was she to walk with him up and down the deck, + or to go forward, and leaning with him against the forecastle rails, watch + the setting sun gradually withdrawing itself over their stern into a huge + bank of livid cloud with golden edges that rose to meet it. + </p> + <p> + She was childishly full of life and spirits, though in walking up and down + with him before the other passengers, and getting noticed by them, she was + at starting rather confused, it being the first time she had shown herself + so openly under that kind of protection. ‘I expect they are envious and + saying things about us, don’t you?’ she would whisper to Knight with a + stealthy smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no,’ he would answer unconcernedly. ‘Why should they envy us, and what + can they say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not any harm, of course,’ Elfride replied, ‘except such as this: “How + happy those two are! she is proud enough now.” What makes it worse,’ she + continued in the extremity of confidence, ‘I heard those two cricketing + men say just now, “She’s the nobbiest girl on the boat.” But I don’t mind + it, you know, Harry.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I should hardly have supposed you did, even if you had not told me,’ said + Knight with great blandness. + </p> + <p> + She was never tired of asking her lover questions and admiring his + answers, good, bad, or indifferent as they might be. The evening grew dark + and night came on, and lights shone upon them from the horizon and from + the sky. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now look there ahead of us, at that halo in the air, of silvery + brightness. Watch it, and you will see what it comes to.’ + </p> + <p> + She watched for a few minutes, when two white lights emerged from the side + of a hill, and showed themselves to be the origin of the halo. + </p> + <p> + ‘What a dazzling brilliance! What do they mark?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The South Foreland: they were previously covered by the cliff.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What is that level line of little sparkles—a town, I suppose?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s Dover.’ + </p> + <p> + All this time, and later, soft sheet lightning expanded from a cloud in + their path, enkindling their faces as they paced up and down, shining over + the water, and, for a moment, showing the horizon as a keen line. + </p> + <p> + Elfride slept soundly that night. Her first thought the next morning was + the thrilling one that Knight was as close at hand as when they were at + home at Endelstow, and her first sight, on looking out of the cabin + window, was the perpendicular face of Beachy Head, gleaming white in a + brilliant six-o’clock-in-the-morning sun. This fair daybreak, however, + soon changed its aspect. A cold wind and a pale mist descended upon the + sea, and seemed to threaten a dreary day. + </p> + <p> + When they were nearing Southampton, Mrs. Swancourt came to say that her + husband was so ill that he wished to be put on shore here, and left to do + the remainder of the journey by land. ‘He will be perfectly well directly + he treads firm ground again. Which shall we do—go with him, or + finish our voyage as we intended?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride was comfortably housed under an umbrella which Knight was holding + over her to keep off the wind. ‘Oh, don’t let us go on shore!’ she said + with dismay. ‘It would be such a pity!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s very fine,’ said Mrs. Swancourt archly, as to a child. ‘See, the + wind has increased her colour, the sea her appetite and spirits, and + somebody her happiness. Yes, it would be a pity, certainly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Tis my misfortune to be always spoken to from a pedestal,’ sighed + Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, we will do as you like, Mrs. Swancourt,’ said Knight, ‘but——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I myself would rather remain on board,’ interrupted the elder lady. ‘And + Mr. Swancourt particularly wishes to go by himself. So that shall settle + the matter.’ + </p> + <p> + The vicar, now a drab colour, was put ashore, and became as well as ever + forthwith. + </p> + <p> + Elfride, sitting alone in a retired part of the vessel, saw a veiled woman + walk aboard among the very latest arrivals at this port. She was clothed + in black silk, and carried a dark shawl upon her arm. The woman, without + looking around her, turned to the quarter allotted to the second-cabin + passengers. All the carnation Mrs. Swancourt had complimented her + step-daughter upon possessing left Elfride’s cheeks, and she trembled + visibly. + </p> + <p> + She ran to the other side of the boat, where Mrs. Swancourt was standing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let us go home by railway with papa, after all,’ she pleaded earnestly. + ‘I would rather go with him—shall we?’ + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt looked around for a moment, as if unable to decide. ‘Ah,’ + she exclaimed, ‘it is too late now. Why did not you say so before, when we + had plenty of time?’ + </p> + <p> + The Juliet had at that minute let go, the engines had started, and they + were gliding slowly away from the quay. There was no help for it but to + remain, unless the Juliet could be made to put back, and that would create + a great disturbance. Elfride gave up the idea and submitted quietly. Her + happiness was sadly mutilated now. + </p> + <p> + The woman whose presence had so disturbed her was exactly like Mrs. + Jethway. She seemed to haunt Elfride like a shadow. After several minutes’ + vain endeavour to account for any design Mrs. Jethway could have in + watching her, Elfride decided to think that, if it were the widow, the + encounter was accidental. She remembered that the widow in her + restlessness was often visiting the village near Southampton, which was + her original home, and it was possible that she chose water-transit with + the idea of saving expense. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is the matter, Elfride?’ Knight inquired, standing before her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing more than that I am rather depressed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t much wonder at it; that wharf was depressing. We seemed + underneath and inferior to everything around us. But we shall be in the + sea breeze again soon, and that will freshen you, dear.’ + </p> + <p> + The evening closed in and dusk increased as they made way down Southampton + Water and through the Solent. Elfride’s disturbance of mind was such that + her light spirits of the foregoing four and twenty hours had entirely + deserted her. The weather too had grown more gloomy, for though the + showers of the morning had ceased, the sky was covered more closely than + ever with dense leaden clouds. How beautiful was the sunset when they + rounded the North Foreland the previous evening! now it was impossible to + tell within half an hour the time of the luminary’s going down. Knight led + her about, and being by this time accustomed to her sudden changes of + mood, overlooked the necessity of a cause in regarding the conditions—impressionableness + and elasticity. + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked stealthily to the other end of the vessel. Mrs. Jethway, or + her double, was sitting at the stern—her eye steadily regarding + Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let us go to the forepart,’ she said quickly to Knight. ‘See there—the + man is fixing the lights for the night.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight assented, and after watching the operation of fixing the red and + the green lights on the port and starboard bows, and the hoisting of the + white light to the masthead, he walked up and down with her till the + increase of wind rendered promenading difficult. Elfride’s eyes were + occasionally to be found furtively gazing abaft, to learn if her enemy + were really there. Nobody was visible now. + </p> + <p> + ‘Shall we go below?’ said Knight, seeing that the deck was nearly + deserted. + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ she said. ‘If you will kindly get me a rug from Mrs. Swancourt, I + should like, if you don’t mind, to stay here.’ She had recently fancied + the assumed Mrs. Jethway might be a first-class passenger, and dreaded + meeting her by accident. + </p> + <p> + Knight appeared with the rug, and they sat down behind a weather-cloth on + the windward side, just as the two red eyes of the Needles glared upon + them from the gloom, their pointed summits rising like shadowy phantom + figures against the sky. It became necessary to go below to an + eight-o’clock meal of nondescript kind, and Elfride was immensely relieved + at finding no sign of Mrs. Jethway there. They again ascended, and + remained above till Mrs. Snewson staggered up to them with the message + that Mrs. Swancourt thought it was time for Elfride to come below. Knight + accompanied her down, and returned again to pass a little more time on + deck. + </p> + <p> + Elfride partly undressed herself and lay down, and soon became + unconscious, though her sleep was light. How long she had lain, she knew + not, when by slow degrees she became cognizant of a whispering in her ear. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are well on with him, I can see. Well, provoke me now, but my day + will come, you will find.’ That seemed to be the utterance, or words to + that effect. + </p> + <p> + Elfride became broad awake and terrified. She knew the words, if real, + could be only those of one person, and that person the widow Jethway. + </p> + <p> + The lamp had gone out and the place was in darkness. In the next berth she + could hear her stepmother breathing heavily, further on Snewson breathing + more heavily still. These were the only other legitimate occupants of the + cabin, and Mrs. Jethway must have stealthily come in by some means and + retreated again, or else she had entered an empty berth next Snewson’s. + The fear that this was the case increased Elfride’s perturbation, till it + assumed the dimensions of a certainty, for how could a stranger from the + other end of the ship possibly contrive to get in? Could it have been a + dream? + </p> + <p> + Elfride raised herself higher and looked out of the window. There was the + sea, floundering and rushing against the ship’s side just by her head, and + thence stretching away, dim and moaning, into an expanse of + indistinctness; and far beyond all this two placid lights like rayless + stars. Now almost fearing to turn her face inwards again, lest Mrs. + Jethway should appear at her elbow, Elfride meditated upon whether to call + Snewson to keep her company. ‘Four bells’ sounded, and she heard voices, + which gave her a little courage. It was not worth while to call Snewson. + </p> + <p> + At any rate Elfride could not stay there panting longer, at the risk of + being again disturbed by that dreadful whispering. So wrapping herself up + hurriedly she emerged into the passage, and by the aid of a faint light + burning at the entrance to the saloon found the foot of the stairs, and + ascended to the deck. Dreary the place was in the extreme. It seemed a new + spot altogether in contrast with its daytime self. She could see the + glowworm light from the binnacle, and the dim outline of the man at the + wheel; also a form at the bows. Not another soul was apparent from stem to + stern. + </p> + <p> + Yes, there were two more—by the bulwarks. One proved to be her + Harry, the other the mate. She was glad indeed, and on drawing closer + found they were holding a low slow chat about nautical affairs. She ran up + and slipped her hand through Knight’s arm, partly for love, partly for + stability. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfie! not asleep?’ said Knight, after moving a few steps aside with her. + </p> + <p> + ‘No: I cannot sleep. May I stay here? It is so dismal down there, and—and + I was afraid. Where are we now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Due south of Portland Bill. Those are the lights abeam of us: look. A + terrible spot, that, on a stormy night. And do you see a very small light + that dips and rises to the right? That’s a light-ship on the dangerous + shoal called the Shambles, where many a good vessel has gone to pieces. + Between it and ourselves is the Race—a place where antagonistic + currents meet and form whirlpools—a spot which is rough in the + smoothest weather, and terrific in a wind. That dark, dreary horizon we + just discern to the left is the West Bay, terminated landwards by the + Chesil Beach.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What time is it, Harry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Just past two.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you going below?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no; not to-night. I prefer pure air.’ + </p> + <p> + She fancied he might be displeased with her for coming to him at this + unearthly hour. ‘I should like to stay here too, if you will allow me,’ + she said timidly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I want to ask you things.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow you, Elfie!’ said Knight, putting his arm round her and drawing her + closer. ‘I am twice as happy with you by my side. Yes: we will stay, and + watch the approach of day.’ + </p> + <p> + So they again sought out the sheltered nook, and sitting down wrapped + themselves in the rug as before. + </p> + <p> + ‘What were you going to ask me?’ he inquired, as they undulated up and + down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, it was not much—perhaps a thing I ought not to ask,’ she said + hesitatingly. Her sudden wish had really been to discover at once whether + he had ever before been engaged to be married. If he had, she would make + that a ground for telling him a little of her conduct with Stephen. Mrs. + Jethway’s seeming words had so depressed the girl that she herself now + painted her flight in the darkest colours, and longed to ease her burdened + mind by an instant confession. If Knight had ever been imprudent himself, + he might, she hoped, forgive all. + </p> + <p> + ‘I wanted to ask you,’ she went on, ‘if—you had ever been engaged + before.’ She added tremulously, ‘I hope you have—I mean, I don’t + mind at all if you have.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I never was,’ Knight instantly and heartily replied. ‘Elfride’—and + there was a certain happy pride in his tone—‘I am twelve years older + than you, and I have been about the world, and, in a way, into society, + and you have not. And yet I am not so unfit for you as strict-thinking + people might imagine, who would assume the difference in age to signify + most surely an equal addition to my practice in love-making.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride shivered. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are cold—is the wind too much for you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ she said gloomily. The belief which had been her sheet-anchor in + hoping for forgiveness had proved false. This account of the exceptional + nature of his experience, a matter which would have set her rejoicing two + years ago, chilled her now like a frost. + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t mind my asking you?’ she continued. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no—not at all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And have you never kissed many ladies?’ she whispered, hoping he would + say a hundred at the least. + </p> + <p> + The time, the circumstances, and the scene were such as to draw + confidences from the most reserved. ‘Elfride,’ whispered Knight in reply, + ‘it is strange you should have asked that question. But I’ll answer it, + though I have never told such a thing before. I have been rather absurd in + my avoidance of women. I have never given a woman a kiss in my life, + except yourself and my mother.’ The man of two and thirty with the + experienced mind warmed all over with a boy’s ingenuous shame as he made + the confession. + </p> + <p> + ‘What, not one?’ she faltered. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; not one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How very strange!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, the reverse experience may be commoner. And yet, to those who have + observed their own sex, as I have, my case is not remarkable. Men about + town are women’s favourites—that’s the postulate—and + superficial people don’t think far enough to see that there may be + reserved, lonely exceptions.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you proud of it, Harry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, indeed. Of late years I have wished I had gone my ways and trod out + my measure like lighter-hearted men. I have thought of how many happy + experiences I may have lost through never going to woo.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then why did you hold aloof?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot say. I don’t think it was my nature to: circumstance hindered + me, perhaps. I have regretted it for another reason. This great remissness + of mine has had its effect upon me. The older I have grown, the more + distinctly have I perceived that it was absolutely preventing me from + liking any woman who was not as unpractised as I; and I gave up the + expectation of finding a nineteenth-century young lady in my own raw + state. Then I found you, Elfride, and I felt for the first time that my + fastidiousness was a blessing. And it helped to make me worthy of you. I + felt at once that, differing as we did in other experiences, in this + matter I resembled you. Well, aren’t you glad to hear it, Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I am,’ she answered in a forced voice. ‘But I always had thought + that men made lots of engagements before they married—especially if + they don’t marry very young.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So all women think, I suppose—and rightly, indeed, of the majority + of bachelors, as I said before. But an appreciable minority of slow-coach + men do not—and it makes them very awkward when they do come to the + point. However, it didn’t matter in my case.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ she asked uneasily. + </p> + <p> + ‘Because you know even less of love-making and matrimonial prearrangement + than I, and so you can’t draw invidious comparisons if I do my engaging + improperly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think you do it beautifully!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you, dear. But,’ continued Knight laughingly, ‘your opinion is not + that of an expert, which alone is of value.’ + </p> + <p> + Had she answered, ‘Yes, it is,’ half as strongly as she felt it, Knight + might have been a little astonished. + </p> + <p> + ‘If you had ever been engaged to be married before,’ he went on, ‘I expect + your opinion of my addresses would be different. But then, I should not——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Should not what, Harry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I was merely going to say that in that case I should never have given + myself the pleasure of proposing to you, since your freedom from that + experience was your attraction, darling.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are severe on women, are you not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I think not. I had a right to please my taste, and that was for + untried lips. Other men than those of my sort acquire the taste as they + get older—but don’t find an Elfride——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What horrid sound is that we hear when we pitch forward?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Only the screw—don’t find an Elfride as I did. To think that I + should have discovered such an unseen flower down there in the West—to + whom a man is as much as a multitude to some women, and a trip down the + English Channel like a voyage round the world!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And would you,’ she said, and her voice was tremulous, ‘have given up a + lady—if you had become engaged to her—and then found she had + had ONE kiss before yours—and would you have—gone away and + left her?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘One kiss,—no, hardly for that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Two?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well—I could hardly say inventorially like that. Too much of that + sort of thing certainly would make me dislike a woman. But let us confine + our attention to ourselves, not go thinking of might have beens.’ + </p> + <p> + So Elfride had allowed her thoughts to ‘dally with false surmise,’ and + every one of Knight’s words fell upon her like a weight. After this they + were silent for a long time, gazing upon the black mysterious sea, and + hearing the strange voice of the restless wind. A rocking to and fro on + the waves, when the breeze is not too violent and cold, produces a + soothing effect even upon the most highly-wrought mind. Elfride slowly + sank against Knight, and looking down, he found by her soft regular + breathing that she had fallen asleep. Not wishing to disturb her, he + continued still, and took an intense pleasure in supporting her warm young + form as it rose and fell with her every breath. + </p> + <p> + Knight fell to dreaming too, though he continued wide awake. It was + pleasant to realize the implicit trust she placed in him, and to think of + the charming innocence of one who could sink to sleep in so simple and + unceremonious a manner. More than all, the musing unpractical student felt + the immense responsibility he was taking upon himself by becoming the + protector and guide of such a trusting creature. The quiet slumber of her + soul lent a quietness to his own. Then she moaned, and turned herself + restlessly. Presently her mutterings became distinct: + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t tell him—he will not love me....I did not mean any disgrace—indeed + I did not, so don’t tell Harry. We were going to be married—that was + why I ran away....And he says he will not have a kissed woman....And if + you tell him he will go away, and I shall die. I pray have mercy—Oh!’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride started up wildly. + </p> + <p> + The previous moment a musical ding-dong had spread into the air from their + right hand, and awakened her. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it?’ she exclaimed in terror. + </p> + <p> + ‘Only “eight bells,”’ said Knight soothingly. ‘Don’t be frightened, little + bird, you are safe. What have you been dreaming about?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t tell, I can’t tell!’ she said with a shudder. ‘Oh, I don’t know + what to do!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stay quietly with me. We shall soon see the dawn now. Look, the morning + star is lovely over there. The clouds have completely cleared off whilst + you have been sleeping. What have you been dreaming of?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A woman in our parish.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t you like her?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t. She doesn’t like me. Where are we?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘About south of the Exe.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight said no more on the words of her dream. They watched the sky till + Elfride grew calm, and the dawn appeared. It was mere wan lightness first. + Then the wind blew in a changed spirit, and died away to a zephyr. The + star dissolved into the day. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s how I should like to die,’ said Elfride, rising from her seat and + leaning over the bulwark to watch the star’s last expiring gleam. + </p> + <p> + ‘As the lines say,’ Knight replied—— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘“To set as sets the morning star, which goes + Not down behind the darken’d west, nor hides + Obscured among the tempests of the sky, + But melts away into the light of heaven.”’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘Oh, other people have thought the same thing, have they? That’s always + the case with my originalities—they are original to nobody but + myself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not only the case with yours. When I was a young hand at reviewing I used + to find that a frightful pitfall—dilating upon subjects I met with, + which were novelties to me, and finding afterwards they had been exhausted + by the thinking world when I was in pinafores.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is delightful. Whenever I find you have done a foolish thing I am + glad, because it seems to bring you a little nearer to me, who have done + many.’ And Elfride thought again of her enemy asleep under the deck they + trod. + </p> + <p> + All up the coast, prominences singled themselves out from recesses. Then a + rosy sky spread over the eastern sea and behind the low line of land, + flinging its livery in dashes upon the thin airy clouds in that direction. + Every projection on the land seemed now so many fingers anxious to catch a + little of the liquid light thrown so prodigally over the sky, and after a + fantastic time of lustrous yellows in the east, the higher elevations + along the shore were flooded with the same hues. The bluff and bare + contours of Start Point caught the brightest, earliest glow of all, and so + also did the sides of its white lighthouse, perched upon a shelf in its + precipitous front like a mediaeval saint in a niche. Their lofty neighbour + Bolt Head on the left remained as yet ungilded, and retained its gray. + </p> + <p> + Then up came the sun, as it were in jerks, just to seaward of the + easternmost point of land, flinging out a Jacob’s-ladder path of light + from itself to Elfride and Knight, and coating them with rays in a few + minutes. The inferior dignitaries of the shore—Froward Point, Berry + Head, and Prawle—all had acquired their share of the illumination + ere this, and at length the very smallest protuberance of wave, cliff, or + inlet, even to the innermost recesses of the lovely valley of the Dart, + had its portion; and sunlight, now the common possession of all, ceased to + be the wonderful and coveted thing it had been a short half hour before. + </p> + <p> + After breakfast, Plymouth arose into view, and grew distincter to their + nearing vision, the Breakwater appearing like a streak of phosphoric light + upon the surface of the sea. Elfride looked furtively around for Mrs. + Jethway, but could discern no shape like hers. Afterwards, in the bustle + of landing, she looked again with the same result, by which time the woman + had probably glided upon the quay unobserved. Expanding with a sense of + relief, Elfride waited whilst Knight looked to their luggage, and then saw + her father approaching through the crowd, twirling his walking-stick to + catch their attention. Elbowing their way to him they all entered the + town, which smiled as sunny a smile upon Elfride as it had done between + one and two years earlier, when she had entered it at precisely the same + hour as the bride-elect of Stephen Smith. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXX + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Vassal unto Love.’ +</pre> + <p> + Elfride clung closer to Knight as day succeeded day. Whatever else might + admit of question, there could be no dispute that the allegiance she bore + him absorbed her whole soul and existence. A greater than Stephen had + arisen, and she had left all to follow him. + </p> + <p> + The unreserved girl was never chary of letting her lover discover how much + she admired him. She never once held an idea in opposition to any one of + his, or insisted on any point with him, or showed any independence, or + held her own on any subject. His lightest whim she respected and obeyed as + law, and if, expressing her opinion on a matter, he took up the subject + and differed from her, she instantly threw down her own opinion as wrong + and untenable. Even her ambiguities and espieglerie were but media of the + same manifestation; acted charades, embodying the words of her prototype, + the tender and susceptible daughter-in-law of Naomi: ‘Let me find favour + in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou + hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid.’ + </p> + <p> + She was syringing the plants one wet day in the greenhouse. Knight was + sitting under a great passion-flower observing the scene. Sometimes he + looked out at the rain from the sky, and then at Elfride’s inner rain of + larger drops, which fell from trees and shrubs, after having previously + hung from the twigs like small silver fruit. + </p> + <p> + ‘I must give you something to make you think of me during this autumn at + your chambers,’ she was saying. ‘What shall it be? Portraits do more harm + than good, by selecting the worst expression of which your face is + capable. Hair is unlucky. And you don’t like jewellery.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Something which shall bring back to my mind the many scenes we have + enacted in this conservatory. I see what I should prize very much. That + dwarf myrtle tree in the pot, which you have been so carefully tending.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride looked thoughtfully at the myrtle. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can carry it comfortably in my hat box,’ said Knight. ‘And I will put + it in my window, and so, it being always before my eyes, I shall think of + you continually.’ + </p> + <p> + It so happened that the myrtle which Knight had singled out had a peculiar + beginning and history. It had originally been a twig worn in Stephen + Smith’s button-hole, and he had taken it thence, stuck it into the pot, + and told her that if it grew, she was to take care of it, and keep it in + remembrance of him when he was far away. + </p> + <p> + She looked wistfully at the plant, and a sense of fairness to Smith’s + memory caused her a pang of regret that Knight should have asked for that + very one. It seemed exceeding a common heartlessness to let it go. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is there not anything you like better?’ she said sadly. ‘That is only an + ordinary myrtle.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No: I am fond of myrtle.’ Seeing that she did not take kindly to the + idea, he said again, ‘Why do you object to my having that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no—I don’t object precisely—it was a feeling.—Ah, + here’s another cutting lately struck, and just as small—of a better + kind, and with prettier leaves—myrtus microphylla.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That will do nicely. Let it be put in my room, that I may not forget it. + What romance attaches to the other?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It was a gift to me.’ + </p> + <p> + The subject then dropped. Knight thought no more of the matter till, on + entering his bedroom in the evening, he found the second myrtle placed + upon his dressing-table as he had directed. He stood for a moment admiring + the fresh appearance of the leaves by candlelight, and then he thought of + the transaction of the day. + </p> + <p> + Male lovers as well as female can be spoilt by too much kindness, and + Elfride’s uniform submissiveness had given Knight a rather exacting manner + at crises, attached to her as he was. ‘Why should she have refused the one + I first chose?’ he now asked himself. Even such slight opposition as she + had shown then was exceptional enough to make itself noticeable. He was + not vexed with her in the least: the mere variation of her way to-day from + her usual ways kept him musing on the subject, because it perplexed him. + ‘It was a gift’—those were her words. Admitting it to be a gift, he + thought she could hardly value a mere friend more than she valued him as a + lover, and giving the plant into his charge would have made no difference. + ‘Except, indeed, it was the gift of a lover,’ he murmured. + </p> + <p> + ‘I wonder if Elfride has ever had a lover before?’ he said aloud, as a new + idea, quite. This and companion thoughts were enough to occupy him + completely till he fell asleep—rather later than usual. + </p> + <p> + The next day, when they were again alone, he said to her rather suddenly— + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you love me more or less, Elfie, for what I told you on board the + steamer?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You told me so many things,’ she returned, lifting her eyes to his and + smiling. + </p> + <p> + ‘I mean the confession you coaxed out of me—that I had never been in + the position of lover before.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is a satisfaction, I suppose, to be the first in your heart,’ she said + to him, with an attempt to continue her smiling. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am going to ask you a question now,’ said Knight, somewhat awkwardly. + ‘I only ask it in a whimsical way, you know: not with great seriousness, + Elfride. You may think it odd, perhaps.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride tried desperately to keep the colour in her face. She could not, + though distressed to think that getting pale showed consciousness of + deeper guilt than merely getting red. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no—I shall not think that,’ she said, because obliged to say + something to fill the pause which followed her questioner’s remark. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is this: have you ever had a lover? I am almost sure you have not; + but, have you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not, as it were, a lover; I mean, not worth mentioning, Harry,’ she + faltered. + </p> + <p> + Knight, overstrained in sentiment as he knew the feeling to be, felt some + sickness of heart. + </p> + <p> + ‘Still, he was a lover?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, a sort of lover, I suppose,’ she responded tardily. + </p> + <p> + ‘A man, I mean, you know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; but only a mere person, and——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But truly your lover?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; a lover certainly—he was that. Yes, he might have been called + my lover.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight said nothing to this for a minute or more, and kept silent time + with his finger to the tick of the old library clock, in which room the + colloquy was going on. + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t mind, Harry, do you?’ she said anxiously, nestling close to + him, and watching his face. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course, I don’t seriously mind. In reason, a man cannot object to such + a trifle. I only thought you hadn’t—that was all.’ + </p> + <p> + However, one ray was abstracted from the glory about her head. But + afterwards, when Knight was wandering by himself over the bare and breezy + hills, and meditating on the subject, that ray suddenly returned. For she + might have had a lover, and never have cared in the least for him. She + might have used the word improperly, and meant ‘admirer’ all the time. Of + course she had been admired; and one man might have made his admiration + more prominent than that of the rest—a very natural case. + </p> + <p> + They were sitting on one of the garden seats when he found occasion to put + the supposition to the test. ‘Did you love that lover or admirer of yours + ever so little, Elfie?’ + </p> + <p> + She murmured reluctantly, ‘Yes, I think I did.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight felt the same faint touch of misery. ‘Only a very little?’ he said. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am not sure how much.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you are sure, darling, you loved him a little?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think I am sure I loved him a little.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And not a great deal, Elfie?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My love was not supported by reverence for his powers.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But, Elfride, did you love him deeply?’ said Knight restlessly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t exactly know how deep you mean by deeply.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s nonsense.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You misapprehend; and you have let go my hand!’ she cried, her eyes + filling with tears. ‘Harry, don’t be severe with me, and don’t question + me. I did not love him as I do you. And could it be deeply if I did not + think him cleverer than myself? For I did not. You grieve me so much—you + can’t think.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will not say another word about it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you will not think about it, either, will you? I know you think of + weaknesses in me after I am out of your sight; and not knowing what they + are, I cannot combat them. I almost wish you were of a grosser nature, + Harry; in truth I do! Or rather, I wish I could have the advantages such a + nature in you would afford me, and yet have you as you are.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What advantages would they be?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Less anxiety, and more security. Ordinary men are not so delicate in + their tastes as you; and where the lover or husband is not fastidious, and + refined, and of a deep nature, things seem to go on better, I fancy—as + far as I have been able to observe the world.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I suppose it is right. Shallowness has this advantage, that you + can’t be drowned there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I think I’ll have you as you are; yes, I will!’ she said winsomely. + ‘The practical husbands and wives who take things philosophically are very + humdrum, are they not? Yes, it would kill me quite. You please me best as + you are.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Even though I wish you had never cared for one before me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. And you must not wish it. Don’t!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll try not to, Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + So she hoped, but her heart was troubled. If he felt so deeply on this + point, what would he say did he know all, and see it as Mrs. Jethway saw + it? He would never make her the happiest girl in the world by taking her + to be his own for aye. The thought enclosed her as a tomb whenever it + presented itself to her perturbed brain. She tried to believe that Mrs. + Jethway would never do her such a cruel wrong as to increase the bad + appearance of her folly by innuendoes; and concluded that concealment, + having been begun, must be persisted in, if possible. For what he might + consider as bad as the fact, was her previous concealment of it by + strategy. + </p> + <p> + But Elfride knew Mrs. Jethway to be her enemy, and to hate her. It was + possible she would do her worst. And should she do it, all might be over. + </p> + <p> + Would the woman listen to reason, and be persuaded not to ruin one who had + never intentionally harmed her? + </p> + <p> + It was night in the valley between Endelstow Crags and the shore. The + brook which trickled that way to the sea was distinct in its murmurs now, + and over the line of its course there began to hang a white riband of fog. + Against the sky, on the left hand of the vale, the black form of the + church could be seen. On the other rose hazel-bushes, a few trees, and + where these were absent, furze tufts—as tall as men—on stems + nearly as stout as timber. The shriek of some bird was occasionally heard, + as it flew terror-stricken from its first roost, to seek a new + sleeping-place, where it might pass the night unmolested. + </p> + <p> + In the evening shade, some way down the valley, and under a row of scrubby + oaks, a cottage could still be discerned. It stood absolutely alone. The + house was rather large, and the windows of some of the rooms were nailed + up with boards on the outside, which gave a particularly deserted + appearance to the whole erection. From the front door an irregular series + of rough and misshapen steps, cut in the solid rock, led down to the edge + of the streamlet, which, at their extremity, was hollowed into a basin + through which the water trickled. This was evidently the means of water + supply to the dweller or dwellers in the cottage. + </p> + <p> + A light footstep was heard descending from the higher slopes of the + hillside. Indistinct in the pathway appeared a moving female shape, who + advanced and knocked timidly at the door. No answer being returned the + knock was repeated, with the same result, and it was then repeated a third + time. This also was unsuccessful. + </p> + <p> + From one of the only two windows on the ground floor which were not + boarded up came rays of light, no shutter or curtain obscuring the room + from the eyes of a passer on the outside. So few walked that way after + nightfall that any such means to secure secrecy were probably deemed + unnecessary. + </p> + <p> + The inequality of the rays falling upon the trees outside told that the + light had its origin in a flickering fire only. The visitor, after the + third knocking, stepped a little to the left in order to gain a view of + the interior, and threw back the hood from her face. The dancing yellow + sheen revealed the fair and anxious countenance of Elfride. + </p> + <p> + Inside the house this firelight was enough to illumine the room + distinctly, and to show that the furniture of the cottage was superior to + what might have been expected from so unpromising an exterior. It also + showed to Elfride that the room was empty. Beyond the light quiver and + flap of the flames nothing moved or was audible therein. + </p> + <p> + She turned the handle and entered, throwing off the cloak which enveloped + her, under which she appeared without hat or bonnet, and in the sort of + half-toilette country people ordinarily dine in. Then advancing to the + foot of the staircase she called distinctly, but somewhat fearfully, ‘Mrs. + Jethway!’ + </p> + <p> + No answer. + </p> + <p> + With a look of relief and regret combined, denoting that ease came to the + heart and disappointment to the brain, Elfride paused for several minutes, + as if undecided how to act. Determining to wait, she sat down on a chair. + The minutes drew on, and after sitting on the thorns of impatience for + half an hour, she searched her pocket, took therefrom a letter, and tore + off the blank leaf. Then taking out a pencil she wrote upon the paper: + </p> + <p> + ‘DEAR MRS. JETHWAY,—I have been to visit you. I wanted much to see + you, but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to execute the + threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway, let + any one know I ran away from home! It would ruin me with him, and break my + heart. I will do anything for you, if you will be kind to me. In the name + of our common womanhood, do not, I implore you, make a scandal of me.—Yours, + E. SWANCOURT.’ + </p> + <p> + She folded the note cornerwise, directed it, and placed it on the table. + Then again drawing the hood over her curly head she emerged silently as + she had come. + </p> + <p> + Whilst this episode had been in action at Mrs. Jethway’s cottage, Knight + had gone from the dining-room into the drawing-room, and found Mrs. + Swancourt there alone. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride has vanished upstairs or somewhere,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘And I have been reading an article in an old number of the PRESENT that I + lighted on by chance a short time ago; it is an article you once told us + was yours. Well, Harry, with due deference to your literary powers, allow + me to say that this effusion is all nonsense, in my opinion.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it about?’ said Knight, taking up the paper and reading. + </p> + <p> + ‘There: don’t get red about it. Own that experience has taught you to be + more charitable. I have never read such unchivalrous sentiments in my life—from + a man, I mean. There, I forgive you; it was before you knew Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes,’ said Knight, looking up. ‘I remember now. The text of that + sermon was not my own at all, but was suggested to me by a young man named + Smith—the same whom I have mentioned to you as coming from this + parish. I thought the idea rather ingenious at the time, and enlarged it + to the weight of a few guineas, because I had nothing else in my head.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Which idea do you call the text? I am curious to know that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, this,’ said Knight, somewhat unwillingly. ‘That experience teaches, + and your sweetheart, no less than your tailor, is necessarily very + imperfect in her duties, if you are her first patron: and conversely, the + sweetheart who is graceful under the initial kiss must be supposed to have + had some practice in the trade.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And do you mean to say that you wrote that upon the strength of another + man’s remark, without having tested it by practice?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes—indeed I do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I think it was uncalled for and unfair. And how do you know it is + true? I expect you regret it now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Since you bring me into a serious mood, I will speak candidly. I do + believe that remark to be perfectly true, and, having written it, I would + defend it anywhere. But I do often regret having ever written it, as well + as others of the sort. I have grown older since, and I find such a tone of + writing is calculated to do harm in the world. Every literary Jack becomes + a gentleman if he can only pen a few indifferent satires upon womankind: + women themselves, too, have taken to the trick; and so, upon the whole, I + begin to be rather ashamed of my companions.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Henry, you have fallen in love since and it makes a difference,’ said + Mrs. Swancourt with a faint tone of banter. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s true; but that is not my reason.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Having found that, in a case of your own experience, a so-called goose + was a swan, it seems absurd to deny such a possibility in other men’s + experiences.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You can hit palpably, cousin Charlotte,’ said Knight. ‘You are like the + boy who puts a stone inside his snowball, and I shall play with you no + longer. Excuse me—I am going for my evening stroll.’ + </p> + <p> + Though Knight had spoken jestingly, this incident and conversation had + caused him a sudden depression. Coming, rather singularly, just after his + discovery that Elfride had known what it was to love warmly before she had + known him, his mind dwelt upon the subject, and the familiar pipe he + smoked, whilst pacing up and down the shrubbery-path, failed to be a + solace. He thought again of those idle words—hitherto quite + forgotten—about the first kiss of a girl, and the theory seemed more + than reasonable. Of course their sting now lay in their bearing on + Elfride. + </p> + <p> + Elfride, under Knight’s kiss, had certainly been a very different woman + from herself under Stephen’s. Whether for good or for ill, she had + marvellously well learnt a betrothed lady’s part; and the fascinating + finish of her deportment in this second campaign did probably arise from + her unreserved encouragement of Stephen. Knight, with all the rapidity of + jealous sensitiveness, pounced upon some words she had inadvertently let + fall about an earring, which he had only partially understood at the time. + It was during that ‘initial kiss’ by the little waterfall: + </p> + <p> + ‘We must be careful. I lost the other by doing this!’ + </p> + <p> + A flush which had in it as much of wounded pride as of sorrow, passed over + Knight as he thought of what he had so frequently said to her in his + simplicity. ‘I always meant to be the first comer in a woman’s heart, + fresh lips or none for me.’ How childishly blind he must have seemed to + this mere girl! How she must have laughed at him inwardly! He absolutely + writhed as he thought of the confession she had wrung from him on the boat + in the darkness of night. The one conception which had sustained his + dignity when drawn out of his shell on that occasion—that of her + charming ignorance of all such matters—how absurd it was! + </p> + <p> + This man, whose imagination had been fed up to preternatural size by + lonely study and silent observations of his kind—whose emotions had + been drawn out long and delicate by his seclusion, like plants in a cellar—was + now absolutely in pain. Moreover, several years of poetic study, and, if + the truth must be told, poetic efforts, had tended to develop the + affective side of his constitution still further, in proportion to his + active faculties. It was his belief in the absolute newness of + blandishment to Elfride which had constituted her primary charm. He began + to think it was as hard to be earliest in a woman’s heart as it was to be + first in the Pool of Bethesda. + </p> + <p> + That Knight should have been thus constituted: that Elfride’s second lover + should not have been one of the great mass of bustling mankind, little + given to introspection, whose good-nature might have compensated for any + lack of appreciativeness, was the chance of things. That her throbbing, + self-confounding, indiscreet heart should have to defend itself unaided + against the keen scrutiny and logical power which Knight, now that his + suspicions were awakened, would sooner or later be sure to exercise + against her, was her misfortune. A miserable incongruity was apparent in + the circumstance of a strong mind practising its unerring archery upon a + heart which the owner of that mind loved better than his own. + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s docile devotion to Knight was now its own enemy. Clinging to him + so dependently, she taught him in time to presume upon that devotion—a + lesson men are not slow to learn. A slight rebelliousness occasionally + would have done him no harm, and would have been a world of advantage to + her. But she idolized him, and was proud to be his bond-servant. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXXI + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘A worm i’ the bud.’ +</pre> + <p> + One day the reviewer said, ‘Let us go to the cliffs again, Elfride;’ and, + without consulting her wishes, he moved as if to start at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘The cliff of our dreadful adventure?’ she inquired, with a shudder. + ‘Death stares me in the face in the person of that cliff.’ + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, so entirely had she sunk her individuality in his that the + remark was not uttered as an expostulation, and she immediately prepared + to accompany him. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, not that place,’ said Knight. ‘It is ghastly to me, too. That other, + I mean; what is its name?—Windy Beak.’ + </p> + <p> + Windy Beak was the second cliff in height along that coast, and, as is + frequently the case with the natural features of the globe no less than + with the intellectual features of men, it enjoyed the reputation of being + the first. Moreover, it was the cliff to which Elfride had ridden with + Stephen Smith, on a well-remembered morning of his summer visit. + </p> + <p> + So, though thought of the former cliff had caused her to shudder at the + perils to which her lover and herself had there been exposed, by being + associated with Knight only it was not so objectionable as Windy Beak. + That place was worse than gloomy, it was a perpetual reproach to her. + </p> + <p> + But not liking to refuse, she said, ‘It is further than the other cliff.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; but you can ride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And will you too?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’ll walk.’ + </p> + <p> + A duplicate of her original arrangement with Stephen. Some fatality must + be hanging over her head. But she ceased objecting. + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well, Harry, I’ll ride,’ she said meekly. + </p> + <p> + A quarter of an hour later she was in the saddle. But how different the + mood from that of the former time. She had, indeed, given up her position + as queen of the less to be vassal of the greater. Here was no showing off + now; no scampering out of sight with Pansy, to perplex and tire her + companion; no saucy remarks on LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. Elfride was + burdened with the very intensity of her love. + </p> + <p> + Knight did most of the talking along the journey. Elfride silently + listened, and entirely resigned herself to the motions of the ambling + horse upon which she sat, alternately rising and sinking gently, like a + sea bird upon a sea wave. + </p> + <p> + When they had reached the limit of a quadruped’s possibilities in walking, + Knight tenderly lifted her from the saddle, tied the horse, and rambled on + with her to the seat in the rock. Knight sat down, and drew Elfride deftly + beside him, and they looked over the sea. + </p> + <p> + Two or three degrees above that melancholy and eternally level line, the + ocean horizon, hung a sun of brass, with no visible rays, in a sky of + ashen hue. It was a sky the sun did not illuminate or enkindle, as is + usual at sunsets. This sheet of sky was met by the salt mass of gray + water, flecked here and there with white. A waft of dampness occasionally + rose to their faces, which was probably rarefied spray from the blows of + the sea upon the foot of the cliff. + </p> + <p> + Elfride wished it could be a longer time ago that she had sat there with + Stephen as her lover, and agreed to be his wife. The significant closeness + of that time to the present was another item to add to the list of + passionate fears which were chronic with her now. + </p> + <p> + Yet Knight was very tender this evening, and sustained her close to him as + they sat. + </p> + <p> + Not a word had been uttered by either since sitting down, when Knight said + musingly, looking still afar— + </p> + <p> + ‘I wonder if any lovers in past years ever sat here with arms locked, as + we do now. Probably they have, for the place seems formed for a seat.’ + </p> + <p> + Her recollection of a well-known pair who had, and the much-talked-of loss + which had ensued therefrom, and how the young man had been sent back to + look for the missing article, led Elfride to glance down to her side, and + behind her back. Many people who lose a trinket involuntarily give a + momentary look for it in passing the spot ever so long afterwards. They do + not often find it. Elfride, in turning her head, saw something shine + weakly from a crevice in the rocky sedile. Only for a few minutes during + the day did the sun light the alcove to its innermost rifts and slits, but + these were the minutes now, and its level rays did Elfride the good or + evil turn of revealing the lost ornament. + </p> + <p> + Elfride’s thoughts instantly reverted to the words she had unintentionally + uttered upon what had been going on when the earring was lost. And she was + immediately seized with a misgiving that Knight, on seeing the object, + would be reminded of her words. Her instinctive act therefore was to + secure it privately. + </p> + <p> + It was so deep in the crack that Elfride could not pull it out with her + hand, though she made several surreptitious trials. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you doing, Elfie?’ said Knight, noticing her attempts, and + looking behind him likewise. + </p> + <p> + She had relinquished the endeavour, but too late. + </p> + <p> + Knight peered into the joint from which her hand had been withdrawn, and + saw what she had seen. He instantly took a penknife from his pocket, and + by dint of probing and scraping brought the earring out upon open ground. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not yours, surely?’ he inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it is,’ she said quietly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, that is a most extraordinary thing, that we should find it like + this!’ Knight then remembered more circumstances; ‘What, is it the one you + have told me of?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + The unfortunate remark of hers at the kiss came into his mind, if eyes + were ever an index to be trusted. Trying to repress the words he yet spoke + on the subject, more to obtain assurance that what it had seemed to imply + was not true than from a wish to pry into bygones. + </p> + <p> + ‘Were you really engaged to be married to that lover?’ he said, looking + straight forward at the sea again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes—but not exactly. Yet I think I was.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘O Elfride, engaged to be married!’ he murmured. + </p> + <p> + ‘It would have been called a—secret engagement, I suppose. But don’t + look so disappointed; don’t blame me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why do you say “No, no,” in such a way? Sweetly enough, but so barely?’ + </p> + <p> + Knight made no direct reply to this. ‘Elfride, I told you once,’ he said, + following out his thoughts, ‘that I never kissed a woman as a sweetheart + until I kissed you. A kiss is not much, I suppose, and it happens to few + young people to be able to avoid all blandishments and attentions except + from the one they afterwards marry. But I have peculiar weaknesses, + Elfride; and because I have led a peculiar life, I must suffer for it, I + suppose. I had hoped—well, what I had no right to hope in connection + with you. You naturally granted your former lover the privileges you grant + me.’ + </p> + <p> + A ‘yes’ came from her like the last sad whisper of a breeze. + </p> + <p> + ‘And he used to kiss you—of course he did.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And perhaps you allowed him a more free manner in his love-making than I + have shown in mine.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I did not.’ This was rather more alertly spoken. + </p> + <p> + ‘But he adopted it without being allowed?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How much I have made of you, Elfride, and how I have kept aloof!’ said + Knight in deep and shaken tones. ‘So many days and hours as I have hoped + in you—I have feared to kiss you more than those two times. And he + made no scruples to...’ + </p> + <p> + She crept closer to him and trembled as if with cold. Her dread that the + whole story, with random additions, would become known to him, caused her + manner to be so agitated that Knight was alarmed and perplexed into + stillness. The actual innocence which made her think so fearfully of what, + as the world goes, was not a great matter, magnified her apparent guilt. + It may have said to Knight that a woman who was so flurried in the + preliminaries must have a dreadful sequel to her tale. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know,’ continued Knight, with an indescribable drag of manner and + intonation,—‘I know I am absurdly scrupulous about you—that I + want you too exclusively mine. In your past before you knew me—from + your very cradle—I wanted to think you had been mine. I would make + you mine by main force. Elfride,’ he went on vehemently, ‘I can’t help + this jealousy over you! It is my nature, and must be so, and I HATE the + fact that you have been caressed before: yes hate it!’ + </p> + <p> + She drew a long deep breath, which was half a sob. Knight’s face was hard, + and he never looked at her at all, still fixing his gaze far out to sea, + which the sun had now resigned to the shade. In high places it is not long + from sunset to night, dusk being in a measure banished, and though only + evening where they sat, it had been twilight in the valleys for half an + hour. Upon the dull expanse of sea there gradually intensified itself into + existence the gleam of a distant light-ship. + </p> + <p> + ‘When that lover first kissed you, Elfride was it in such a place as + this?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it was.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t tell me anything but what I wring out of you. Why is that? Why + have you suppressed all mention of this when casual confidences of mine + should have suggested confidence in return? On board the Juliet, why were + you so secret? It seems like being made a fool of, Elfride, to think that, + when I was teaching you how desirable it was that we should have no + secrets from each other, you were assenting in words, but in act + contradicting me. Confidence would have been so much more promising for + our happiness. If you had had confidence in me, and told me willingly, I + should—be different. But you suppress everything, and I shall + question you. Did you live at Endelstow at that time?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ she said faintly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where were you when he first kissed you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sitting in this seat.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, I thought so!’ said Knight, rising and facing her. + </p> + <p> + ‘And that accounts for everything—the exclamation which you + explained deceitfully, and all! Forgive the harsh word, Elfride—forgive + it.’ He smiled a surface smile as he continued: ‘What a poor mortal I am + to play second fiddle in everything and to be deluded by fibs!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, don’t say it; don’t, Harry!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where did he kiss you besides here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sitting on—a tomb in the—churchyard—and other places,’ + she answered with slow recklessness. + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind, never mind,’ he exclaimed, on seeing her tears and + perturbation. ‘I don’t want to grieve you. I don’t care.’ + </p> + <p> + But Knight did care. + </p> + <p> + ‘It makes no difference, you know,’ he continued, seeing she did not + reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘I feel cold,’ said Elfride. ‘Shall we go home?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; it is late in the year to sit long out of doors: we ought to be off + this ledge before it gets too dark to let us see our footing. I daresay + the horse is impatient.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight spoke the merest commonplace to her now. He had hoped to the last + moment that she would have volunteered the whole story of her first + attachment. It grew more and more distasteful to him that she should have + a secret of this nature. Such entire confidence as he had pictured as + about to exist between himself and the innocent young wife who had known + no lover’s tones save his—was this its beginning? He lifted her upon + the horse, and they went along constrainedly. The poison of suspicion was + doing its work well. + </p> + <p> + An incident occurred on this homeward journey which was long remembered by + both, as adding shade to shadow. Knight could not keep from his mind the + words of Adam’s reproach to Eve in PARADISE LOST, and at last whispered + them to himself— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Fool’d and beguiled: by him thou, I by thee!’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘What did you say?’ Elfride inquired timorously. + </p> + <p> + ‘It was only a quotation.’ + </p> + <p> + They had now dropped into a hollow, and the church tower made its + appearance against the pale evening sky, its lower part being hidden by + some intervening trees. Elfride, being denied an answer, was looking at + the tower and trying to think of some contrasting quotation she might use + to regain his tenderness. After a little thought she said in winning tones— + </p> + <p> + “Thou hast been my hope, and a strong tower for me against the enemy.”’ + </p> + <p> + They passed on. A few minutes later three or four birds were seen to fly + out of the tower. + </p> + <p> + ‘The strong tower moves,’ said Knight, with surprise. + </p> + <p> + A corner of the square mass swayed forward, sank, and vanished. A loud + rumble followed, and a cloud of dust arose where all had previously been + so clear. + </p> + <p> + ‘The church restorers have done it!’ said Elfride. + </p> + <p> + At this minute Mr. Swancourt was seen approaching them. He came up with a + bustling demeanour, apparently much engrossed by some business in hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘We have got the tower down!’ he exclaimed. ‘It came rather quicker than + we intended it should. The first idea was to take it down stone by stone, + you know. In doing this the crack widened considerably, and it was not + believed safe for the men to stand upon the walls any longer. Then we + decided to undermine it, and three men set to work at the weakest corner + this afternoon. They had left off for the evening, intending to give the + final blow to-morrow morning, and had been home about half an hour, when + down it came. A very successful job—a very fine job indeed. But he + was a tough old fellow in spite of the crack.’ Here Mr. Swancourt wiped + from his face the perspiration his excitement had caused him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Poor old tower!’ said Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I am sorry for it,’ said Knight. ‘It was an interesting piece of + antiquity—a local record of local art.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, but my dear sir, we shall have a new one, expostulated Mr. Swancourt; + ‘a splendid tower—designed by a first-rate London man—in the + newest style of Gothic art, and full of Christian feeling.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed!’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes. Not in the barbarous clumsy architecture of this neighbourhood; + you see nothing so rough and pagan anywhere else in England. When the men + are gone, I would advise you to go and see the church before anything + further is done to it. You can now sit in the chancel, and look down the + nave through the west arch, and through that far out to sea. In fact,’ + said Mr. Swancourt significantly, ‘if a wedding were performed at the + altar to-morrow morning, it might be witnessed from the deck of a ship on + a voyage to the South Seas, with a good glass. However, after dinner, when + the moon has risen, go up and see for yourselves.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight assented with feverish readiness. He had decided within the last + few minutes that he could not rest another night without further talk with + Elfride upon the subject which now divided them: he was determined to know + all, and relieve his disquiet in some way. Elfride would gladly have + escaped further converse alone with him that night, but it seemed + inevitable. + </p> + <p> + Just after moonrise they left the house. How little any expectation of the + moonlight prospect—which was the ostensible reason of their + pilgrimage—had to do with Knight’s real motive in getting the gentle + girl again upon his arm, Elfride no less than himself well knew. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXXII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Had I wist before I kist’ +</pre> + <p> + It was now October, and the night air was chill. After looking to see that + she was well wrapped up, Knight took her along the hillside path they had + ascended so many times in each other’s company, when doubt was a thing + unknown. On reaching the church they found that one side of the tower was, + as the vicar had stated, entirely removed, and lying in the shape of + rubbish at their feet. The tower on its eastern side still was firm, and + might have withstood the shock of storms and the siege of battering years + for many a generation even now. They entered by the side-door, went + eastward, and sat down by the altar-steps. + </p> + <p> + The heavy arch spanning the junction of tower and nave formed to-night a + black frame to a distant misty view, stretching far westward. Just outside + the arch came the heap of fallen stones, then a portion of moonlit + churchyard, then the wide and convex sea behind. It was a coup-d’oeil + which had never been possible since the mediaeval masons first attached + the old tower to the older church it dignified, and hence must be supposed + to have had an interest apart from that of simple moonlight on ancient + wall and sea and shore—any mention of which has by this time, it is + to be feared, become one of the cuckoo-cries which are heard but not + regarded. Rays of crimson, blue, and purple shone upon the twain from the + east window behind them, wherein saints and angels vied with each other in + primitive surroundings of landscape and sky, and threw upon the pavement + at the sitters’ feet a softer reproduction of the same translucent hues, + amid which the shadows of the two living heads of Knight and Elfride were + opaque and prominent blots. Presently the moon became covered by a cloud, + and the iridescence died away. + </p> + <p> + ‘There, it is gone!’ said Knight. ‘I’ve been thinking, Elfride, that this + place we sit on is where we may hope to kneel together soon. But I am + restless and uneasy, and you know why.’ + </p> + <p> + Before she replied the moonlight returned again, irradiating that portion + of churchyard within their view. It brightened the near part first, and + against the background which the cloud-shadow had not yet uncovered stood, + brightest of all, a white tomb—the tomb of young Jethway. + </p> + <p> + Knight, still alive on the subject of Elfride’s secret, thought of her + words concerning the kiss that it once had occurred on a tomb in this + churchyard. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride,’ he said, with a superficial archness which did not half cover + an undercurrent of reproach, ‘do you know, I think you might have told me + voluntarily about that past—of kisses and betrothing—without + giving me so much uneasiness and trouble. Was that the tomb you alluded to + as having sat on with him?’ + </p> + <p> + She waited an instant. ‘Yes,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + The correctness of his random shot startled Knight; though, considering + that almost all the other memorials in the churchyard were upright + headstones upon which nobody could possibly sit, it was not so wonderful. + </p> + <p> + Elfride did not even now go on with the explanation her exacting lover + wished to have, and her reticence began to irritate him as before. He was + inclined to read her a lecture. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why don’t you tell me all?’ he said somewhat indignantly. ‘Elfride, there + is not a single subject upon which I feel more strongly than upon this—that + everything ought to be cleared up between two persons before they become + husband and wife. See how desirable and wise such a course is, in order to + avoid disagreeable contingencies in the form of discoveries afterwards. + For, Elfride, a secret of no importance at all may be made the basis of + some fatal misunderstanding only because it is discovered, and not + confessed. They say there never was a couple of whom one had not some + secret the other never knew or was intended to know. This may or may not + be true; but if it be true, some have been happy in spite rather than in + consequence of it. If a man were to see another man looking significantly + at his wife, and she were blushing crimson and appearing startled, do you + think he would be so well satisfied with, for instance, her truthful + explanation that once, to her great annoyance, she accidentally fainted + into his arms, as if she had said it voluntarily long ago, before the + circumstance occurred which forced it from her? Suppose that admirer you + spoke of in connection with the tomb yonder should turn up, and bother me. + It would embitter our lives, if I were then half in the dark, as I am + now!’ + </p> + <p> + Knight spoke the latter sentences with growing force. + </p> + <p> + ‘It cannot be,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not?’ he asked sharply. + </p> + <p> + Elfride was distressed to find him in so stern a mood, and she trembled. + In a confusion of ideas, probably not intending a wilful prevarication, + she answered hurriedly— + </p> + <p> + ‘If he’s dead, how can you meet him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is he dead? Oh, that’s different altogether!’ said Knight, immensely + relieved. ‘But, let me see—what did you say about that tomb and + him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s his tomb,’ she continued faintly. + </p> + <p> + ‘What! was he who lies buried there the man who was your lover?’ Knight + asked in a distinct voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; and I didn’t love him or encourage him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you let him kiss you—you said so, you know, Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + She made no reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why,’ said Knight, recollecting circumstances by degrees, ‘you surely + said you were in some degree engaged to him—and of course you were + if he kissed you. And now you say you never encouraged him. And I have + been fancying you said—I am almost sure you did—that you were + sitting with him ON that tomb. Good God!’ he cried, suddenly starting up + in anger, ‘are you telling me untruths? Why should you play with me like + this? I’ll have the right of it. Elfride, we shall never be happy! There’s + a blight upon us, or me, or you, and it must be cleared off before we + marry.’ Knight moved away impetuously as if to leave her. + </p> + <p> + She jumped up and clutched his arm + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t go, Harry—don’t! + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, then,’ said Knight sternly. ‘And remember this, no more fibs, + or, upon my soul, I shall hate you. Heavens! that I should come to this, + to be made a fool of by a girl’s untruths——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t, don’t treat me so cruelly! O Harry, Harry, have pity, and withdraw + those dreadful words! I am truthful by nature—I am—and I don’t + know how I came to make you misunderstand! But I was frightened!’ She + quivered so in her perturbation that she shook him with her {Note: + sentence incomplete in text.} + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you say you were sitting on that tomb?’ he asked moodily. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; and it was true.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then how, in the name of Heaven, can a man sit upon his own tomb?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That was another man. Forgive me, Harry, won’t you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What, a lover in the tomb and a lover on it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh—Oh—yes!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then there were two before me? + </p> + <p> + ‘I—suppose so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, don’t be a silly woman with your supposing—I hate all that,’ + said Knight contemptuously almost. ‘Well, we learn strange things. I don’t + know what I might have done—no man can say into what shape + circumstances may warp him—but I hardly think I should have had the + conscience to accept the favours of a new lover whilst sitting over the + poor remains of the old one; upon my soul, I don’t.’ Knight, in moody + meditation, continued looking towards the tomb, which stood staring them + in the face like an avenging ghost. + </p> + <p> + ‘But you wrong me—Oh, so grievously!’ she cried. ‘I did not meditate + any such thing: believe me, Harry, I did not. It only happened so—quite + of itself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I suppose you didn’t INTEND such a thing,’ he said. ‘Nobody ever + does,’ he sadly continued. + </p> + <p> + ‘And him in the grave I never once loved.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I suppose the second lover and you, as you sat there, vowed to be + faithful to each other for ever?’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride only replied by quick heavy breaths, showing she was on the brink + of a sob. + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t choose to be anything but reserved, then?’ he said + imperatively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course we did,’ she responded. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Of course!” You seem to treat the subject very lightly?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is past, and is nothing to us now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, it is a nothing which, though it may make a careless man laugh, + cannot but make a genuine one grieve. It is a very gnawing pain. Tell me + straight through—all of it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never. O Harry! how can you expect it when so little of it makes you so + harsh with me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, Elfride, listen to this. You know that what you have told only jars + the subtler fancies in one, after all. The feeling I have about it would + be called, and is, mere sentimentality; and I don’t want you to suppose + that an ordinary previous engagement of a straightforward kind would make + any practical difference in my love, or my wish to make you my wife. But + you seem to have more to tell, and that’s where the wrong is. Is there + more?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not much more,’ she wearily answered. + </p> + <p> + Knight preserved a grave silence for a minute. ‘“Not much more,”’ he said + at last. ‘I should think not, indeed!’ His voice assumed a low and steady + pitch. ‘Elfride, you must not mind my saying a strange-sounding thing, for + say it I shall. It is this: that if there WERE much more to add to an + account which already includes all the particulars that a broken marriage + engagement could possibly include with propriety, it must be some + exceptional thing which might make it impossible for me or any one else to + love you and marry you.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight’s disturbed mood led him much further than he would have gone in a + quieter moment. And, even as it was, had she been assertive to any degree + he would not have been so peremptory; and had she been a stronger + character—more practical and less imaginative—she would have + made more use of her position in his heart to influence him. But the + confiding tenderness which had won him is ever accompanied by a sort of + self-committal to the stream of events, leading every such woman to trust + more to the kindness of fate for good results than to any argument of her + own. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, well,’ he murmured cynically; ‘I won’t say it is your fault: it is + my ill-luck, I suppose. I had no real right to question you—everybody + would say it was presuming. But when we have misunderstood, we feel + injured by the subject of our misunderstanding. You never said you had had + nobody else here making love to you, so why should I blame you? Elfride, I + beg your pardon.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no! I would rather have your anger than that cool aggrieved + politeness. Do drop that, Harry! Why should you inflict that upon me? It + reduces me to the level of a mere acquaintance.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You do that with me. Why not confidence for confidence?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; but I didn’t ask you a single question with regard to your past: I + didn’t wish to know about it. All I cared for was that, wherever you came + from, whatever you had done, whoever you had loved, you were mine at last. + Harry, if originally you had known I had loved, would you never have cared + for me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I won’t quite say that. Though I own that the idea of your inexperienced + state had a great charm for me. But I think this: that if I had known + there was any phase of your past love you would refuse to reveal if I + asked to know it, I should never have loved you.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride sobbed bitterly. ‘Am I such a—mere characterless toy—as + to have no attrac—tion in me, apart from—freshness? Haven’t I + brains? You said—I was clever and ingenious in my thoughts, and—isn’t + that anything? Have I not some beauty? I think I have a little—and I + know I have—yes, I do! You have praised my voice, and my manner, and + my accomplishments. Yet all these together are so much rubbish because I—accidentally + saw a man before you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, come, Elfride. “Accidentally saw a man” is very cool. You loved him, + remember.’ + </p> + <p> + —‘And loved him a little!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And refuse now to answer the simple question how it ended. Do you refuse + still, Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have no right to question me so—you said so. It is unfair. + Trust me as I trust you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s not at all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I shall not love you if you are so cruel. It is cruel to me to argue like + this.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps it is. Yes, it is. I was carried away by my feeling for you. + Heaven knows that I didn’t mean to; but I have loved you so that I have + used you badly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t mind it, Harry!’ she instantly answered, creeping up and nestling + against him; ‘and I will not think at all that you used me harshly if you + will forgive me, and not be vexed with me any more? I do wish I had been + exactly as you thought I was, but I could not help it, you know. If I had + only known you had been coming, what a nunnery I would have lived in to + have been good enough for you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, never mind,’ said Knight; and he turned to go. He endeavoured to + speak sportively as they went on. ‘Diogenes Laertius says that + philosophers used voluntarily to deprive themselves of sight to be + uninterrupted in their meditations. Men, becoming lovers, ought to do the + same thing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?—but never mind—I don’t want to know. Don’t speak + laconically to me,’ she said with deprecation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why? Because they would never then be distracted by discovering their + idol was second-hand.’ + </p> + <p> + She looked down and sighed; and they passed out of the crumbling old + place, and slowly crossed to the churchyard entrance. Knight was not + himself, and he could not pretend to be. She had not told all. + </p> + <p> + He supported her lightly over the stile, and was practically as attentive + as a lover could be. But there had passed away a glory, and the dream was + not as it had been of yore. Perhaps Knight was not shaped by Nature for a + marrying man. Perhaps his lifelong constraint towards women, which he had + attributed to accident, was not chance after all, but the natural result + of instinctive acts so minute as to be undiscernible even by himself. Or + whether the rough dispelling of any bright illusion, however imaginative, + depreciates the real and unexaggerated brightness which appertains to its + basis, one cannot say. Certain it was that Knight’s disappointment at + finding himself second or third in the field, at Elfride’s momentary + equivoque, and at her reluctance to be candid, brought him to the verge of + cynicism. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXXIII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery.’ +</pre> + <p> + A habit of Knight’s, when not immediately occupied with Elfride—to + walk by himself for half an hour or so between dinner and bedtime—had + become familiar to his friends at Endelstow, Elfride herself among them. + When he had helped her over the stile, she said gently, ‘If you wish to + take your usual turn on the hill, Harry, I can run down to the house + alone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you, Elfie; then I think I will.’ + </p> + <p> + Her form diminished to blackness in the moonlight, and Knight, after + remaining upon the churchyard stile a few minutes longer, turned back + again towards the building. His usual course was now to light a cigar or + pipe, and indulge in a quiet meditation. But to-night his mind was too + tense to bethink itself of such a solace. He merely walked round to the + site of the fallen tower, and sat himself down upon some of the large + stones which had composed it until this day, when the chain of + circumstance originated by Stephen Smith, while in the employ of Mr. + Hewby, the London man of art, had brought about its overthrow. + </p> + <p> + Pondering on the possible episodes of Elfride’s past life, and on how he + had supposed her to have had no past justifying the name, he sat and + regarded the white tomb of young Jethway, now close in front of him. The + sea, though comparatively placid, could as usual be heard from this point + along the whole distance between promontories to the right and left, + floundering and entangling itself among the insulated stacks of rock which + dotted the water’s edge—the miserable skeletons of tortured old + cliffs that would not even yet succumb to the wear and tear of the tides. + </p> + <p> + As a change from thoughts not of a very cheerful kind, Knight attempted + exertion. He stood up, and prepared to ascend to the summit of the ruinous + heap of stones, from which a more extended outlook was obtainable than + from the ground. He stretched out his arm to seize the projecting arris of + a larger block than ordinary, and so help himself up, when his hand + lighted plump upon a substance differing in the greatest possible degree + from what he had expected to seize—hard stone. It was stringy and + entangled, and trailed upon the stone. The deep shadow from the aisle wall + prevented his seeing anything here distinctly, and he began guessing as a + necessity. ‘It is a tressy species of moss or lichen,’ he said to himself. + </p> + <p> + But it lay loosely over the stone. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is a tuft of grass,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + But it lacked the roughness and humidity of the finest grass. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is a mason’s whitewash-brush.’ + </p> + <p> + Such brushes, he remembered, were more bristly; and however much used in + repairing a structure, would not be required in pulling one down. + </p> + <p> + He said, ‘It must be a thready silk fringe.’ + </p> + <p> + He felt further in. It was somewhat warm. Knight instantly felt somewhat + cold. + </p> + <p> + To find the coldness of inanimate matter where you expect warmth is + startling enough; but a colder temperature than that of the body being + rather the rule than the exception in common substances, it hardly conveys + such a shock to the system as finding warmth where utter frigidity is + anticipated. + </p> + <p> + ‘God only knows what it is,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + He felt further, and in the course of a minute put his hand upon a human + head. The head was warm, but motionless. The thready mass was the hair of + the head—long and straggling, showing that the head was a woman’s. + </p> + <p> + Knight in his perplexity stood still for a moment, and collected his + thoughts. The vicar’s account of the fall of the tower was that the + workmen had been undermining it all the day, and had left in the evening + intending to give the finishing stroke the next morning. Half an hour + after they had gone the undermined angle came down. The woman who was half + buried, as it seemed, must have been beneath it at the moment of the fall. + </p> + <p> + Knight leapt up and began endeavouring to remove the rubbish with his + hands. The heap overlying the body was for the most part fine and dusty, + but in immense quantity. It would be a saving of time to run for + assistance. He crossed to the churchyard wall, and hastened down the hill. + </p> + <p> + A little way down an intersecting road passed over a small ridge, which + now showed up darkly against the moon, and this road here formed a kind of + notch in the sky-line. At the moment that Knight arrived at the crossing + he beheld a man on this eminence, coming towards him. Knight turned aside + and met the stranger. + </p> + <p> + ‘There has been an accident at the church,’ said Knight, without preface. + ‘The tower has fallen on somebody, who has been lying there ever since. + Will you come and help?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That I will,’ said the man. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is a woman,’ said Knight, as they hurried back, ‘and I think we two + are enough to extricate her. Do you know of a shovel?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The grave-digging shovels are about somewhere. They used to stay in the + tower.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And there must be some belonging to the workmen.’ + </p> + <p> + They searched about, and in an angle of the porch found three carefully + stowed away. Going round to the west end Knight signified the spot of the + tragedy. + </p> + <p> + ‘We ought to have brought a lantern,’ he exclaimed. ‘But we may be able to + do without.’ He set to work removing the superincumbent mass. + </p> + <p> + The other man, who looked on somewhat helplessly at first, now followed + the example of Knight’s activity, and removed the larger stones which were + mingled with the rubbish. But with all their efforts it was quite ten + minutes before the body of the unfortunate creature could be extricated. + They lifted her as carefully as they could, breathlessly carried her to + Felix Jethway’s tomb, which was only a few steps westward, and laid her + thereon. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is she dead indeed?’ said the stranger. + </p> + <p> + ‘She appears to be,’ said Knight. ‘Which is the nearest house? The + vicarage, I suppose.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; but since we shall have to call a surgeon from Castle Boterel, I + think it would be better to carry her in that direction, instead of away + from the town.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And is it not much further to the first house we come to going that way, + than to the vicarage or to The Crags?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not much,’ the stranger replied. + </p> + <p> + ‘Suppose we take her there, then. And I think the best way to do it would + be thus, if you don’t mind joining hands with me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not in the least; I am glad to assist.’ + </p> + <p> + Making a kind of cradle, by clasping their hands crosswise under the + inanimate woman, they lifted her, and walked on side by side down a path + indicated by the stranger, who appeared to know the locality well. + </p> + <p> + ‘I had been sitting in the church for nearly an hour,’ Knight resumed, + when they were out of the churchyard. ‘Afterwards I walked round to the + site of the fallen tower, and so found her. It is painful to think I + unconsciously wasted so much time in the very presence of a perishing, + flying soul.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The tower fell at dusk, did it not? quite two hours ago, I think?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. She must have been there alone. What could have been her object in + visiting the churchyard then? + </p> + <p> + ‘It is difficult to say.’ The stranger looked inquiringly into the + reclining face of the motionless form they bore. ‘Would you turn her round + for a moment, so that the light shines on her face?’ he said. + </p> + <p> + They turned her face to the moon, and the man looked closer into her + features. ‘Why, I know her!’ he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who is she?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mrs. Jethway. And the cottage we are taking her to is her own. She is a + widow; and I was speaking to her only this afternoon. I was at Castle + Boterel post-office, and she came there to post a letter. Poor soul! Let + us hurry on.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hold my wrist a little tighter. Was not that tomb we laid her on the tomb + of her only son?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it was. Yes, I see it now. She was there to visit the tomb. Since + the death of that son she has been a desolate, desponding woman, always + bewailing him. She was a farmer’s wife, very well educated—a + governess originally, I believe.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight’s heart was moved to sympathy. His own fortunes seemed in some + strange way to be interwoven with those of this Jethway family, through + the influence of Elfride over himself and the unfortunate son of that + house. He made no reply, and they still walked on. + </p> + <p> + ‘She begins to feel heavy,’ said the stranger, breaking the silence. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, she does,’ said Knight; and after another pause added, ‘I think I + have met you before, though where I cannot recollect. May I ask who you + are?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes. I am Lord Luxellian. Who are you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am a visitor at The Crags—Mr. Knight.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have heard of you, Mr. Knight.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I of you, Lord Luxellian. I am glad to meet you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I may say the same. I am familiar with your name in print.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I with yours. Is this the house?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + The door was locked. Knight, reflecting a moment, searched the pocket of + the lifeless woman, and found therein a large key which, on being applied + to the door, opened it easily. The fire was out, but the moonlight entered + the quarried window, and made patterns upon the floor. The rays enabled + them to see that the room into which they had entered was pretty well + furnished, it being the same room that Elfride had visited alone two or + three evenings earlier. They deposited their still burden on an + old-fashioned couch which stood against the wall, and Knight searched + about for a lamp or candle. He found a candle on a shelf, lighted it, and + placed it on the table. + </p> + <p> + Both Knight and Lord Luxellian examined the pale countenance attentively, + and both were nearly convinced that there was no hope. No marks of + violence were visible in the casual examination they made. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think that as I know where Doctor Granson lives,’ said Lord Luxellian, + ‘I had better run for him whilst you stay here.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight agreed to this. Lord Luxellian then went off, and his hurrying + footsteps died away. Knight continued bending over the body, and a few + minutes longer of careful scrutiny perfectly satisfied him that the woman + was far beyond the reach of the lancet and the drug. Her extremities were + already beginning to get stiff and cold. Knight covered her face, and sat + down. + </p> + <p> + The minutes went by. The essayist remained musing on all the occurrences + of the night. His eyes were directed upon the table, and he had seen for + some time that writing-materials were spread upon it. He now noticed these + more particularly: there were an inkstand, pen, blotting-book, and + note-paper. Several sheets of paper were thrust aside from the rest, upon + which letters had been begun and relinquished, as if their form had not + been satisfactory to the writer. A stick of black sealing-wax and seal + were there too, as if the ordinary fastening had not been considered + sufficiently secure. The abandoned sheets of paper lying as they did open + upon the table, made it possible, as he sat, to read the few words written + on each. One ran thus: + </p> + <p> + ‘SIR,—As a woman who was once blest with a dear son of her own, I + implore you to accept a warning——’ + </p> + <p> + Another: + </p> + <p> + ‘SIR,—If you will deign to receive warning from a stranger before it + is too late to alter your course, listen to——’ + </p> + <p> + The third: + </p> + <p> + ‘SIR,—With this letter I enclose to you another which, unaided by + any explanation from me, tells a startling tale. I wish, however, to add a + few words to make your delusion yet more clear to you——’ + </p> + <p> + It was plain that, after these renounced beginnings, a fourth letter had + been written and despatched, which had been deemed a proper one. Upon the + table were two drops of sealing-wax, the stick from which they were taken + having been laid down overhanging the edge of the table; the end of it + drooped, showing that the wax was placed there whilst warm. There was the + chair in which the writer had sat, the impression of the letter’s address + upon the blotting-paper, and the poor widow who had caused these results + lying dead hard by. Knight had seen enough to lead him to the conclusion + that Mrs. Jethway, having matter of great importance to communicate to + some friend or acquaintance, had written him a very careful letter, and + gone herself to post it; that she had not returned to the house from that + time of leaving it till Lord Luxellian and himself had brought her back + dead. + </p> + <p> + The unutterable melancholy of the whole scene, as he waited on, silent and + alone, did not altogether clash with the mood of Knight, even though he + was the affianced of a fair and winning girl, and though so lately he had + been in her company. Whilst sitting on the remains of the demolished tower + he had defined a new sensation; that the lengthened course of inaction he + had lately been indulging in on Elfride’s account might probably not be + good for him as a man who had work to do. It could quickly be put an end + to by hastening on his marriage with her. + </p> + <p> + Knight, in his own opinion, was one who had missed his mark by excessive + aiming. Having now, to a great extent, given up ideal ambitions, he wished + earnestly to direct his powers into a more practical channel, and thus + correct the introspective tendencies which had never brought himself much + happiness, or done his fellow-creatures any great good. To make a start in + this new direction by marriage, which, since knowing Elfride, had been so + entrancing an idea, was less exquisite to-night. That the curtailment of + his illusion regarding her had something to do with the reaction, and with + the return of his old sentiments on wasting time, is more than probable. + Though Knight’s heart had so greatly mastered him, the mastery was not so + complete as to be easily maintained in the face of a moderate intellectual + revival. + </p> + <p> + His reverie was broken by the sound of wheels, and a horse’s tramp. The + door opened to admit the surgeon, Lord Luxellian, and a Mr. Coole, coroner + for the division (who had been attending at Castle Boterel that very day, + and was having an after-dinner chat with the doctor when Lord Luxellian + arrived); next came two female nurses and some idlers. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Granson, after a cursory examination, pronounced the woman dead from + suffocation, induced by intense pressure on the respiratory organs; and + arrangements were made that the inquiry should take place on the following + morning, before the return of the coroner to St. Launce’s. + </p> + <p> + Shortly afterwards the house of the widow was deserted by all its living + occupants, and she abode in death, as she had in her life during the past + two years, entirely alone. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXXIV + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.’ +</pre> + <p> + Sixteen hours had passed. Knight was entering the ladies’ boudoir at The + Crags, upon his return from attending the inquest touching the death of + Mrs. Jethway. Elfride was not in the apartment. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Swancourt made a few inquiries concerning the verdict and collateral + circumstances. Then she said— + </p> + <p> + ‘The postman came this morning the minute after you left the house. There + was only one letter for you, and I have it here.’ + </p> + <p> + She took a letter from the lid of her workbox, and handed it to him. + Knight took the missive abstractedly, but struck by its appearance + murmured a few words and left the room. + </p> + <p> + The letter was fastened with a black seal, and the handwriting in which it + was addressed had lain under his eyes, long and prominently, only the + evening before. + </p> + <p> + Knight was greatly agitated, and looked about for a spot where he might be + secure from interruption. It was the season of heavy dews, which lay on + the herbage in shady places all the day long; nevertheless, he entered a + small patch of neglected grass-plat enclosed by the shrubbery, and there + perused the letter, which he had opened on his way thither. + </p> + <p> + The handwriting, the seal, the paper, the introductory words, all had told + on the instant that the letter had come to him from the hands of the widow + Jethway, now dead and cold. He had instantly understood that the + unfinished notes which caught his eye yesternight were intended for nobody + but himself. He had remembered some of the words of Elfride in her sleep + on the steamer, that somebody was not to tell him of something, or it + would be her ruin—a circumstance hitherto deemed so trivial and + meaningless that he had well-nigh forgotten it. All these things infused + into him an emotion intense in power and supremely distressing in quality. + The paper in his hand quivered as he read: + </p> + <p> + ‘THE VALLEY, ENDELSTOW. + </p> + <p> + ‘SIR,—A woman who has not much in the world to lose by any censure + this act may bring upon her, wishes to give you some hints concerning a + lady you love. If you will deign to accept a warning before it is too + late, you will notice what your correspondent has to say. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are deceived. Can such a woman as this be worthy? + </p> + <p> + ‘One who encouraged an honest youth to love her, then slighted him, so + that he died. + </p> + <p> + ‘One who next took a man of no birth as a lover, who was forbidden the + house by her father. + </p> + <p> + ‘One who secretly left her home to be married to that man, met him, and + went with him to London. + </p> + <p> + ‘One who, for some reason or other, returned again unmarried. + </p> + <p> + ‘One who, in her after-correspondence with him, went so far as to address + him as her husband. + </p> + <p> + ‘One who wrote the enclosed letter to ask me, who better than anybody else + knows the story, to keep the scandal a secret. + </p> + <p> + ‘I hope soon to be beyond the reach of either blame or praise. But before + removing me God has put it in my power to avenge the death of my son. + </p> + <p> + ‘GERTRUDE JETHWAY.’ + </p> + <p> + The letter enclosed was the note in pencil that Elfride had written in + Mrs. Jethway’s cottage: + </p> + <p> + ‘DEAR MRS. JETHWAY,—I have been to visit you. I wanted much to see + you, but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to execute the + threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway, let + any one know I ran away from home! It would ruin me with him, and break my + heart. I will do anything for you, if you will be kind to me. In the name + of our common womanhood, do not, I implore you, make a scandal of me.—Yours, + </p> + <p> + ‘E. SWANCOURT. + </p> + <p> + Knight turned his head wearily towards the house. The ground rose rapidly + on nearing the shrubbery in which he stood, raising it almost to a level + with the first floor of The Crags. Elfride’s dressing-room lay in the + salient angle in this direction, and it was lighted by two windows in such + a position that, from Knight’s standing-place, his sight passed through + both windows, and raked the room. Elfride was there; she was pausing + between the two windows, looking at her figure in the cheval-glass. She + regarded herself long and attentively in front; turned, flung back her + head, and observed the reflection over her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + Nobody can predicate as to her object or fancy; she may have done the deed + in the very abstraction of deep sadness. She may have been moaning from + the bottom of her heart, ‘How unhappy am I!’ But the impression produced + on Knight was not a good one. He dropped his eyes moodily. The dead + woman’s letter had a virtue in the accident of its juncture far beyond any + it intrinsically exhibited. Circumstance lent to evil words a ring of + pitiless justice echoing from the grave. Knight could not endure their + possession. He tore the letter into fragments. + </p> + <p> + He heard a brushing among the bushes behind, and turning his head he saw + Elfride following him. The fair girl looked in his face with a wistful + smile of hope, too forcedly hopeful to displace the firmly established + dread beneath it. His severe words of the previous night still sat heavy + upon her. + </p> + <p> + ‘I saw you from my window, Harry,’ she said timidly. + </p> + <p> + ‘The dew will make your feet wet,’ he observed, as one deaf. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t mind it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There is danger in getting wet feet.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes...Harry, what is the matter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing. Shall I resume the serious conversation I had with you last + night? No, perhaps not; perhaps I had better not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I cannot tell! How wretched it all is! Ah, I wish you were your own + dear self again, and had kissed me when I came up! Why didn’t you ask me + for one? why don’t you now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Too free in manner by half,’ he heard murmur the voice within him. + </p> + <p> + ‘It was that hateful conversation last night,’ she went on. ‘Oh, those + words! Last night was a black night for me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Kiss!—I hate that word! Don’t talk of kissing, for God’s sake! I + should think you might with advantage have shown tact enough to keep back + that word “kiss,” considering those you have accepted.’ + </p> + <p> + She became very pale, and a rigid and desolate charactery took possession + of her face. That face was so delicate and tender in appearance now, that + one could fancy the pressure of a finger upon it would cause a livid spot. + </p> + <p> + Knight walked on, and Elfride with him, silent and unopposing. He opened a + gate, and they entered a path across a stubble-field. + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps I intrude upon you?’ she said as he closed the gate. ‘Shall I go + away?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No. Listen to me, Elfride.’ Knight’s voice was low and unequal. ‘I have + been honest with you: will you be so with me? If any—strange—connection + has existed between yourself and a predecessor of mine, tell it now. It is + better that I know it now, even though the knowledge should part us, than + that I should discover it in time to come. And suspicions have been + awakened in me. I think I will not say how, because I despise the means. A + discovery of any mystery of your past would embitter our lives.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight waited with a slow manner of calmness. His eyes were sad and + imperative. They went farther along the path. + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you forgive me if I tell you all?’ she exclaimed entreatingly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t promise; so much depends upon what you have to tell.’ + </p> + <p> + Elfride could not endure the silence which followed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you not going to love me?’ she burst out. ‘Harry, Harry, love me, and + speak as usual! Do; I beseech you, Harry!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you going to act fairly by me?’ said Knight, with rising anger; ‘or + are you not? What have I done to you that I should be put off like this? + Be caught like a bird in a springe; everything intended to be hidden from + me! Why is it, Elfride? That’s what I ask you.’ + </p> + <p> + In their agitation they had left the path, and were wandering among the + wet and obstructive stubble, without knowing or heeding it. + </p> + <p> + ‘What have I done?’ she faltered. + </p> + <p> + ‘What? How can you ask what, when you know so well? You KNOW that I have + designedly been kept in ignorance of something attaching to you, which, + had I known of it, might have altered all my conduct; and yet you say, + what?’ + </p> + <p> + She drooped visibly, and made no answer. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not that I believe in malicious letter-writers and whisperers; not I. I + don’t know whether I do or don’t: upon my soul, I can’t tell. I know this: + a religion was building itself upon you in my heart. I looked into your + eyes, and thought I saw there truth and innocence as pure and perfect as + ever embodied by God in the flesh of woman. Perfect truth is too much to + expect, but ordinary truth I WILL HAVE or nothing at all. Just say, then; + is the matter you keep back of the gravest importance, or is it not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t understand all your meaning. If I have hidden anything from you, + it has been because I loved you so, and I feared—feared—to + lose you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Since you are not given to confidence, I want to ask you some plain + questions. Have I your permission?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ she said, and there came over her face a weary resignation. ‘Say + the harshest words you can; I will bear them!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There is a scandal in the air concerning you, Elfride; and I cannot even + combat it without knowing definitely what it is. It may not refer to you + entirely, or even at all.’ Knight trifled in the very bitterness of his + feeling. ‘In the time of the French Revolution, Pariseau, a ballet-master, + was beheaded by mistake for Parisot, a captain of the King’s Guard. I wish + there was another “E. Swancourt” in the neighbourhood. Look at this.’ + </p> + <p> + He handed her the letter she had written and left on the table at Mrs. + Jethway’s. She looked over it vacantly. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not so much as it seems!’ she pleaded. ‘It seems wickedly deceptive + to look at now, but it had a much more natural origin than you think. My + sole wish was not to endanger our love. O Harry! that was all my idea. It + was not much harm.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes; but independently of the poor miserable creature’s remarks, it + seems to imply—something wrong.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What remarks?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Those she wrote me—now torn to pieces. Elfride, DID you run away + with a man you loved?—that was the damnable statement. Has such an + accusation life in it—really, truly, Elfride?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ she whispered. + </p> + <p> + Knight’s countenance sank. ‘To be married to him?’ came huskily from his + lips. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. Oh, forgive me! I had never seen you, Harry.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To London?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; but I——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Answer my questions; say nothing else, Elfride Did you ever deliberately + try to marry him in secret?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; not deliberately.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But did you do it?’ + </p> + <p> + A feeble red passed over her face. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘And after that—did you—write to him as your husband; and did + he address you as his wife?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Listen, listen! It was——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do answer me; only answer me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then, yes, we did.’ Her lips shook; but it was with some little dignity + that she continued: ‘I would gladly have told you; for I knew and know I + had done wrong. But I dared not; I loved you too well. Oh, so well! You + have been everything in the world to me—and you are now. Will you + not forgive me?’ + </p> + <p> + It is a melancholy thought, that men who at first will not allow the + verdict of perfection they pronounce upon their sweethearts or wives to be + disturbed by God’s own testimony to the contrary, will, once suspecting + their purity, morally hang them upon evidence they would be ashamed to + admit in judging a dog. + </p> + <p> + The reluctance to tell, which arose from Elfride’s simplicity in thinking + herself so much more culpable than she really was, had been doing fatal + work in Knight’s mind. The man of many ideas, now that his first dream of + impossible things was over, vibrated too far in the contrary direction; + and her every movement of feature—every tremor—every confused + word—was taken as so much proof of her unworthiness. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, we must bid good-bye to compliment,’ said Knight: ‘we must do + without politeness now. Look in my face, and as you believe in God above, + tell me truly one thing more. Were you away alone with him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you return home the same day on which you left it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + The word fell like a bolt, and the very land and sky seemed to suffer. + Knight turned aside. Meantime Elfride’s countenance wore a look indicating + utter despair of being able to explain matters so that they would seem no + more than they really were,—a despair which not only relinquishes + the hope of direct explanation, but wearily gives up all collateral + chances of extenuation. + </p> + <p> + The scene was engraved for years on the retina of Knight’s eye: the dead + and brown stubble, the weeds among it, the distant belt of beeches + shutting out the view of the house, the leaves of which were now red and + sick to death. + </p> + <p> + ‘You must forget me,’ he said. ‘We shall not marry, Elfride.’ + </p> + <p> + How much anguish passed into her soul at those words from him was told by + the look of supreme torture she wore. + </p> + <p> + ‘What meaning have you, Harry? You only say so, do you?’ + </p> + <p> + She looked doubtingly up at him, and tried to laugh, as if the unreality + of his words must be unquestionable. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are not in earnest, I know—I hope you are not? Surely I belong + to you, and you are going to keep me for yours?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride, I have been speaking too roughly to you; I have said what I + ought only to have thought. I like you; and let me give you a word of + advice. Marry your man as soon as you can. However weary of each other you + may feel, you belong to each other, and I am not going to step between + you. Do you think I would—do you think I could for a moment? If you + cannot marry him now, and another makes you his wife, do not reveal this + secret to him after marriage, if you do not before. Honesty would be + damnation then.’ + </p> + <p> + Bewildered by his expressions, she exclaimed— + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no; I will not be a wife unless I am yours; and I must be yours!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If we had married——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you don’t MEAN—that—that—you will go away and leave + me, and not be anything more to me—oh, you don’t!’ + </p> + <p> + Convulsive sobs took all nerve out of her utterance. She checked them, and + continued to look in his face for the ray of hope that was not to be found + there. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am going indoors,’ said Knight. ‘You will not follow me, Elfride; I + wish you not to.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no; indeed, I will not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And then I am going to Castle Boterel. Good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + He spoke the farewell as if it were but for the day—lightly, as he + had spoken such temporary farewells many times before—and she seemed + to understand it as such. Knight had not the power to tell her plainly + that he was going for ever; he hardly knew for certain that he was: + whether he should rush back again upon the current of an irresistible + emotion, or whether he could sufficiently conquer himself, and her in him, + to establish that parting as a supreme farewell, and present himself to + the world again as no woman’s. + </p> + <p> + Ten minutes later he had left the house, leaving directions that if he did + not return in the evening his luggage was to be sent to his chambers in + London, whence he intended to write to Mr. Swancourt as to the reasons of + his sudden departure. He descended the valley, and could not forbear + turning his head. He saw the stubble-field, and a slight girlish figure in + the midst of it—up against the sky. Elfride, docile as ever, had + hardly moved a step, for he had said, Remain. He looked and saw her again—he + saw her for weeks and months. He withdrew his eyes from the scene, swept + his hand across them, as if to brush away the sight, breathed a low groan, + and went on. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXXV + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘And wilt thou leave me thus?—say nay—say nay!’ +</pre> + <p> + The scene shifts to Knight’s chambers in Bede’s Inn. It was late in the + evening of the day following his departure from Endelstow. A drizzling + rain descended upon London, forming a humid and dreary halo over every + well-lighted street. The rain had not yet been prevalent long enough to + give to rapid vehicles that clear and distinct rattle which follows the + thorough washing of the stones by a drenching rain, but was just + sufficient to make footway and roadway slippery, adhesive, and clogging to + both feet and wheels. + </p> + <p> + Knight was standing by the fire, looking into its expiring embers, + previously to emerging from his door for a dreary journey home to + Richmond. His hat was on, and the gas turned off. The blind of the window + overlooking the alley was not drawn down; and with the light from beneath, + which shone over the ceiling of the room, came, in place of the usual + babble, only the reduced clatter and quick speech which were the result of + necessity rather than choice. + </p> + <p> + Whilst he thus stood, waiting for the expiration of the few minutes that + were wanting to the time for his catching the train, a light tapping upon + the door mingled with the other sounds that reached his ears. It was so + faint at first that the outer noises were almost sufficient to drown it. + Finding it repeated Knight crossed the lobby, crowded with books and + rubbish, and opened the door. + </p> + <p> + A woman, closely muffled up, but visibly of fragile build, was standing on + the landing under the gaslight. She sprang forward, flung her arms round + Knight’s neck, and uttered a low cry— + </p> + <p> + ‘O Harry, Harry, you are killing me! I could not help coming. Don’t send + me away—don’t! Forgive your Elfride for coming—I love you so!’ + </p> + <p> + Knight’s agitation and astonishment mastered him for a few moments. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride!’ he cried, ‘what does this mean? What have you done?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do not hurt me and punish me—Oh, do not! I couldn’t help coming; it + was killing me. Last night, when you did not come back, I could not bear + it—I could not! Only let me be with you, and see your face, Harry; I + don’t ask for more.’ + </p> + <p> + Her eyelids were hot, heavy, and thick with excessive weeping, and the + delicate rose-red of her cheeks was disfigured and inflamed by the + constant chafing of the handkerchief in wiping her many tears. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who is with you? Have you come alone?’ he hurriedly inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. When you did not come last night, I sat up hoping you would come—and + the night was all agony—and I waited on and on, and you did not + come! Then when it was morning, and your letter said you were gone, I + could not endure it; and I ran away from them to St. Launce’s, and came by + the train. And I have been all day travelling to you, and you won’t make + me go away again, will you, Harry, because I shall always love you till I + die?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yet it is wrong for you to stay. O Elfride! what have you committed + yourself to? It is ruin to your good name to run to me like this! Has not + your first experience been sufficient to keep you from these things?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My name! Harry, I shall soon die, and what good will my name be to me + then? Oh, could I but be the man and you the woman, I would not leave you + for such a little fault as mine! Do not think it was so vile a thing in me + to run away with him. Ah, how I wish you could have run away with twenty + women before you knew me, that I might show you I would think it no fault, + but be glad to get you after them all, so that I had you! If you only knew + me through and through, how true I am, Harry. Cannot I be yours? Say you + love me just the same, and don’t let me be separated from you again, will + you? I cannot bear it—all the long hours and days and nights going + on, and you not there, but away because you hate me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not hate you, Elfride,’ he said gently, and supported her with his arm. + ‘But you cannot stay here now—just at present, I mean.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I suppose I must not—I wish I might. I am afraid that if—you + lose sight of me—something dark will happen, and we shall not meet + again. Harry, if I am not good enough to be your wife, I wish I could be + your servant and live with you, and not be sent away never to see you + again. I don’t mind what it is except that!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I cannot send you away: I cannot. God knows what dark future may + arise out of this evening’s work; but I cannot send you away! You must sit + down, and I will endeavour to collect my thoughts and see what had better + be done. + </p> + <p> + At that moment a loud knocking at the house door was heard by both, + accompanied by a hurried ringing of the bell that echoed from attic to + basement. The door was quickly opened, and after a few hasty words of + converse in the hall, heavy footsteps ascended the stairs. + </p> + <p> + The face of Mr. Swancourt, flushed, grieved, and stern, appeared round the + landing of the staircase. He came higher up, and stood beside them. + Glancing over and past Knight with silent indignation, he turned to the + trembling girl. + </p> + <p> + ‘O Elfride! and have I found you at last? Are these your tricks, madam? + When will you get rid of your idiocies, and conduct yourself like a decent + woman? Is my family name and house to be disgraced by acts that would be a + scandal to a washerwoman’s daughter? Come along, madam; come!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She is so weary!’ said Knight, in a voice of intensest anguish. ‘Mr. + Swancourt, don’t be harsh with her—let me beg of you to be tender + with her, and love her!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To you, sir,’ said Mr. Swancourt, turning to him as if by the sheer + pressure of circumstances, ‘I have little to say. I can only remark, that + the sooner I can retire from your presence the better I shall be pleased. + Why you could not conduct your courtship of my daughter like an honest + man, I do not know. Why she—a foolish inexperienced girl—should + have been tempted to this piece of folly, I do not know. Even if she had + not known better than to leave her home, you might have, I should think.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not his fault: he did not tempt me, papa! I came.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If you wished the marriage broken off, why didn’t you say so plainly? If + you never intended to marry, why could you not leave her alone? Upon my + soul, it grates me to the heart to be obliged to think so ill of a man I + thought my friend!’ + </p> + <p> + Knight, soul-sick and weary of his life, did not arouse himself to utter a + word in reply. How should he defend himself when his defence was the + accusation of Elfride? On that account he felt a miserable satisfaction in + letting her father go on thinking and speaking wrongfully. It was a faint + ray of pleasure straying into the great gloominess of his brain to think + that the vicar might never know but that he, as her lover, tempted her + away, which seemed to be the form Mr. Swancourt’s misapprehension had + taken. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, are you coming?’ said Mr. Swancourt to her again. He took her + unresisting hand, drew it within his arm, and led her down the stairs. + Knight’s eyes followed her, the last moment begetting in him a frantic + hope that she would turn her head. She passed on, and never looked back. + </p> + <p> + He heard the door open—close again. The wheels of a cab grazed the + kerbstone, a murmured direction followed. The door was slammed together, + the wheels moved, and they rolled away. + </p> + <p> + From that hour of her reappearance a dreadful conflict raged within the + breast of Henry Knight. His instinct, emotion, affectiveness—or + whatever it may be called—urged him to stand forward, seize upon + Elfride, and be her cherisher and protector through life. Then came the + devastating thought that Elfride’s childlike, unreasoning, and indiscreet + act in flying to him only proved that the proprieties must be a dead + letter with her; that the unreserve, which was really artlessness without + ballast, meant indifference to decorum; and what so likely as that such a + woman had been deceived in the past? He said to himself, in a mood of the + bitterest cynicism: ‘The suspicious discreet woman who imagines dark and + evil things of all her fellow-creatures is far too shrewd to be deluded by + man: trusting beings like Elfride are the women who fall.’ + </p> + <p> + Hours and days went by, and Knight remained inactive. Lengthening time, + which made fainter the heart-awakening power of her presence, strengthened + the mental ability to reason her down. Elfride loved him, he knew, and he + could not leave off loving her but marry her he would not. If she could + but be again his own Elfride—the woman she had seemed to be—but + that woman was dead and buried, and he knew her no more! And how could he + marry this Elfride, one who, if he had originally seen her as she was, + would have been barely an interesting pitiable acquaintance in his eyes—no + more? + </p> + <p> + It cankered his heart to think he was confronted by the closest instance + of a worse state of things than any he had assumed in the pleasant social + philosophy and satire of his essays. + </p> + <p> + The moral rightness of this man’s life was worthy of all praise; but in + spite of some intellectual acumen, Knight had in him a modicum of that + wrongheadedness which is mostly found in scrupulously honest people. With + him, truth seemed too clean and pure an abstraction to be so hopelessly + churned in with error as practical persons find it. Having now seen + himself mistaken in supposing Elfride to be peerless, nothing on earth + could make him believe she was not so very bad after all. + </p> + <p> + He lingered in town a fortnight, doing little else than vibrate between + passion and opinions. One idea remained intact—that it was better + Elfride and himself should not meet. + </p> + <p> + When he surveyed the volumes on his shelves—few of which had been + opened since Elfride first took possession of his heart—their + untouched and orderly arrangement reproached him as an apostate from the + old faith of his youth and early manhood. He had deserted those + never-failing friends, so they seemed to say, for an unstable delight in a + ductile woman, which had ended all in bitterness. The spirit of + self-denial, verging on asceticism, which had ever animated Knight in old + times, announced itself as having departed with the birth of love, with it + having gone the self-respect which had compensated for the lack of + self-gratification. Poor little Elfride, instead of holding, as formerly, + a place in his religion, began to assume the hue of a temptation. Perhaps + it was human and correctly natural that Knight never once thought whether + he did not owe her a little sacrifice for her unchary devotion in saving + his life. + </p> + <p> + With a consciousness of having thus, like Antony, kissed away kingdoms and + provinces, he next considered how he had revealed his higher secrets and + intentions to her, an unreserve he would never have allowed himself with + any man living. How was it that he had not been able to refrain from + telling her of adumbrations heretofore locked in the closest strongholds + of his mind? + </p> + <p> + Knight’s was a robust intellect, which could escape outside the atmosphere + of heart, and perceive that his own love, as well as other people’s, could + be reduced by change of scene and circumstances. At the same time the + perception was a superimposed sorrow: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘O last regret, regret can die!’ +</pre> + <p> + But being convinced that the death of this regret was the best thing for + him, he did not long shrink from attempting it. He closed his chambers, + suspended his connection with editors, and left London for the Continent. + Here we will leave him to wander without purpose, beyond the nominal one + of encouraging obliviousness of Elfride. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXXVI + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘The pennie’s the jewel that beautifies a’.’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘I can’t think what’s coming to these St. Launce’s people at all at all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘With their “How-d’ye-do’s,” do you mean?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ay, with their “How-d’ye-do’s,” and shaking of hands, asking me in, and + tender inquiries for you, John.’ + </p> + <p> + These words formed part of a conversation between John Smith and his wife + on a Saturday evening in the spring which followed Knight’s departure from + England. Stephen had long since returned to India; and the persevering + couple themselves had migrated from Lord Luxellian’s park at Endelstow to + a comfortable roadside dwelling about a mile out of St. Launce’s, where + John had opened a small stone and slate yard in his own name. + </p> + <p> + ‘When we came here six months ago,’ continued Mrs. Smith, ‘though I had + paid ready money so many years in the town, my friskier shopkeepers would + only speak over the counter. Meet ‘em in the street half-an-hour after, + and they’d treat me with staring ignorance of my face.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Look through ye as through a glass winder?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, the brazen ones would. The quiet and cool ones would glance over the + top of my head, past my side, over my shoulder, but never meet my eye. The + gentle-modest would turn their faces south if I were coming east, flit + down a passage if I were about to halve the pavement with them. There was + the spruce young bookseller would play the same tricks; the butcher’s + daughters; the upholsterer’s young men. Hand in glove when doing business + out of sight with you; but caring nothing for a’ old woman when playing + the genteel away from all signs of their trade.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘True enough, Maria.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, to-day ‘tis all different. I’d no sooner got to market than Mrs. + Joakes rushed up to me in the eyes of the town and said, “My dear Mrs. + Smith, now you must be tired with your walk! Come in and have some lunch! + I insist upon it; knowing you so many years as I have! Don’t you remember + when we used to go looking for owls’ feathers together in the Castle + ruins?” There’s no knowing what you may need, so I answered the woman + civilly. I hadn’t got to the corner before that thriving young lawyer, + Sweet, who’s quite the dandy, ran after me out of breath. “Mrs. Smith,” he + says, “excuse my rudeness, but there’s a bramble on the tail of your + dress, which you’ve dragged in from the country; allow me to pull it off + for you.” If you’ll believe me, this was in the very front of the Town + Hall. What’s the meaning of such sudden love for a’ old woman?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Can’t say; unless ‘tis repentance.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Repentance! was there ever such a fool as you. John? Did anybody ever + repent with money in’s pocket and fifty years to live?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, I’ve been thinking too,’ said John, passing over the query as hardly + pertinent, ‘that I’ve had more loving-kindness from folks to-day than I + ever have before since we moved here. Why, old Alderman Tope walked out to + the middle of the street where I was, to shake hands with me—so ‘a + did. Having on my working clothes, I thought ‘twas odd. Ay, and there was + young Werrington.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s he?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, the man in Hill Street, who plays and sells flutes, trumpets, and + fiddles, and grand pehanners. He was talking to Egloskerry, that very + small bachelor-man with money in the funds. I was going by, I’m sure, + without thinking or expecting a nod from men of that glib kidney when in + my working clothes——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You always will go poking into town in your working clothes. Beg you to + change how I will, ‘tis no use.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, however, I was in my working clothes. Werrington saw me. “Ah, Mr. + Smith! a fine morning; excellent weather for building,” says he, out as + loud and friendly as if I’d met him in some deep hollow, where he could + get nobody else to speak to at all. ‘Twas odd: for Werrington is one of + the very ringleaders of the fast class.’ + </p> + <p> + At that moment a tap came to the door. The door was immediately opened by + Mrs. Smith in person. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ll excuse us, I’m sure, Mrs. Smith, but this beautiful spring weather + was too much for us. Yes, and we could stay in no longer; and I took Mrs. + Trewen upon my arm directly we’d had a cup of tea, and out we came. And + seeing your beautiful crocuses in such a bloom, we’ve taken the liberty to + enter. We’ll step round the garden, if you don’t mind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not at all,’ said Mrs. Smith; and they walked round the garden. She + lifted her hands in amazement directly their backs were turned. ‘Goodness + send us grace!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who be they?’ said her husband. + </p> + <p> + ‘Actually Mr. Trewen, the bank-manager, and his wife.’ + </p> + <p> + John Smith, staggered in mind, went out of doors and looked over the + garden gate, to collect his ideas. He had not been there two minutes when + wheels were heard, and a carriage and pair rolled along the road. A + distinguished-looking lady, with the demeanour of a duchess, reclined + within. When opposite Smith’s gate she turned her head, and instantly + commanded the coachman to stop. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Mr. Smith, I am glad to see you looking so well. I could not help + stopping a moment to congratulate you and Mrs. Smith upon the happiness + you must enjoy. Joseph, you may drive on.’ + </p> + <p> + And the carriage rolled away towards St. Launce’s. + </p> + <p> + Out rushed Mrs. Smith from behind a laurel-bush, where she had stood + pondering. + </p> + <p> + ‘Just going to touch my hat to her,’ said John; ‘just for all the world as + I would have to poor Lady Luxellian years ago.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Lord! who is she?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The public-house woman—what’s her name? Mrs.—Mrs.—at + the Falcon.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Public-house woman. The clumsiness of the Smith family! You MIGHT say the + landlady of the Falcon Hotel, since we are in for politeness. The people + are ridiculous enough, but give them their due.’ + </p> + <p> + The possibility is that Mrs. Smith was getting mollified, in spite of + herself, by these remarkably friendly phenomena among the people of St. + Launce’s. And in justice to them it was quite desirable that she should do + so. The interest which the unpractised ones of this town expressed so + grotesquely was genuine of its kind, and equal in intrinsic worth to the + more polished smiles of larger communities. + </p> + <p> + By this time Mr. and Mrs. Trewen were returning from the garden. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll ask ‘em flat,’ whispered John to his wife. ‘I’ll say, “We be in a + fog—you’ll excuse my asking a question, Mr. and Mrs. Trewen. How is + it you all be so friendly to-day?” Hey? ‘Twould sound right and sensible, + wouldn’t it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not a word! Good mercy, when will the man have manners!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It must be a proud moment for you, I am sure, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, to have + a son so celebrated,’ said the bank-manager advancing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, ‘tis Stephen—I knew it!’ said Mrs. Smith triumphantly to + herself. + </p> + <p> + ‘We don’t know particulars,’ said John. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not know!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, ‘tis all over town. Our worthy Mayor alluded to it in a speech at + the dinner last night of the Every-Man-his-own-Maker Club.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what about Stephen?’ urged Mrs. Smith. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, your son has been feted by deputy-governors and Parsee princes and + nobody-knows-who in India; is hand in glove with nabobs, and is to design + a large palace, and cathedral, and hospitals, colleges, halls, and + fortifications, by the general consent of the ruling powers, Christian and + Pagan alike.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Twas sure to come to the boy,’ said Mr. Smith unassumingly. + </p> + <p> + ‘’Tis in yesterday’s St. Launce’s Chronicle; and our worthy Mayor in the + chair introduced the subject into his speech last night in a masterly + manner.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Twas very good of the worthy Mayor in the chair I’m sure,’ said + Stephen’s mother. ‘I hope the boy will have the sense to keep what he’s + got; but as for men, they are a simple sex. Some woman will hook him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the evening closes in, and we must be going; + and remember this, that every Saturday when you come in to market, you are + to make our house as your own. There will be always a tea-cup and saucer + for you, as you know there has been for months, though you may have + forgotten it. I’m a plain-speaking woman, and what I say I mean.’ + </p> + <p> + When the visitors were gone, and the sun had set, and the moon’s rays were + just beginning to assert themselves upon the walls of the dwelling, John + Smith and his wife sat dawn to the newspaper they had hastily procured + from the town. And when the reading was done, they considered how best to + meet the new social requirements settling upon them, which Mrs. Smith + considered could be done by new furniture and house enlargement alone. + </p> + <p> + ‘And, John, mind one thing,’ she said in conclusion. ‘In writing to + Stephen, never by any means mention the name of Elfride Swancourt again. + We’ve left the place, and know no more about her except by hearsay. He + seems to be getting free of her, and glad am I for it. It was a cloudy + hour for him when he first set eyes upon the girl. That family’s been no + good to him, first or last; so let them keep their blood to themselves if + they want to. He thinks of her, I know, but not so hopelessly. So don’t + try to know anything about her, and we can’t answer his questions. She may + die out of his mind then.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That shall be it,’ said John. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXXVII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘After many days.’ +</pre> + <p> + Knight roamed south, under colour of studying Continental antiquities. + </p> + <p> + He paced the lofty aisles of Amiens, loitered by Ardennes Abbey, climbed + into the strange towers of Laon, analyzed Noyon and Rheims. Then he went + to Chartres, and examined its scaly spires and quaint carving then he + idled about Coutances. He rowed beneath the base of Mont St. Michel, and + caught the varied skyline of the crumbling edifices encrusting it. St. + Ouen’s, Rouen, knew him for days; so did Vezelay, Sens, and many a + hallowed monument besides. Abandoning the inspection of early French art + with the same purposeless haste as he had shown in undertaking it, he went + further, and lingered about Ferrara, Padua, and Pisa. Satiated with + mediaevalism, he tried the Roman Forum. Next he observed moonlight and + starlight effects by the bay of Naples. He turned to Austria, became + enervated and depressed on Hungarian and Bohemian plains, and was + refreshed again by breezes on the declivities of the Carpathians. + </p> + <p> + Then he found himself in Greece. He visited the plain of Marathon, and + strove to imagine the Persian defeat; to Mars Hill, to picture St. Paul + addressing the ancient Athenians; to Thermopylae and Salamis, to run + through the facts and traditions of the Second Invasion—the result + of his endeavours being more or less chaotic. Knight grew as weary of + these places as of all others. Then he felt the shock of an earthquake in + the Ionian Islands, and went to Venice. Here he shot in gondolas up and + down the winding thoroughfare of the Grand Canal, and loitered on calle + and piazza at night, when the lagunes were undisturbed by a ripple, and no + sound was to be heard but the stroke of the midnight clock. Afterwards he + remained for weeks in the museums, galleries, and libraries of Vienna, + Berlin, and Paris; and thence came home. + </p> + <p> + Time thus rolls us on to a February afternoon, divided by fifteen months + from the parting of Elfride and her lover in the brown stubble field + towards the sea. + </p> + <p> + Two men obviously not Londoners, and with a touch of foreignness in their + look, met by accident on one of the gravel walks leading across Hyde Park. + The younger, more given to looking about him than his fellow, saw and + noticed the approach of his senior some time before the latter had raised + his eyes from the ground, upon which they were bent in an abstracted gaze + that seemed habitual with him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Knight—indeed it is!’ exclaimed the younger man. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Stephen Smith!’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + Simultaneous operations might now have been observed progressing in both, + the result being that an expression less frank and impulsive than the + first took possession of their features. It was manifest that the next + words uttered were a superficial covering to constraint on both sides. + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you been in England long?’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Only two days,’ said Smith. + </p> + <p> + ‘India ever since?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nearly ever since.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They were making a fuss about you at St. Launce’s last year. I fancy I + saw something of the sort in the papers.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; I believe something was said about me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I must congratulate you on your achievements.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thanks, but they are nothing very extraordinary. A natural professional + progress where there was no opposition.’ + </p> + <p> + There followed that want of words which will always assert itself between + nominal friends who find they have ceased to be real ones, and have not + yet sunk to the level of mere acquaintance. Each looked up and down the + Park. Knight may possibly have borne in mind during the intervening months + Stephen’s manner towards him the last time they had met, and may have + encouraged his former interest in Stephen’s welfare to die out of him as + misplaced. Stephen certainly was full of the feelings begotten by the + belief that Knight had taken away the woman he loved so well. + </p> + <p> + Stephen Smith then asked a question, adopting a certain recklessness of + manner and tone to hide, if possible, the fact that the subject was a much + greater one to him than his friend had ever supposed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you married?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am not.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight spoke in an indescribable tone of bitterness that was almost + moroseness. + </p> + <p> + ‘And I never shall be,’ he added decisively. ‘Are you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ said Stephen, sadly and quietly, like a man in a sick-room. Totally + ignorant whether or not Knight knew of his own previous claims upon + Elfride, he yet resolved to hazard a few more words upon the topic which + had an aching fascination for him even now. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then your engagement to Miss Swancourt came to nothing,’ he said. ‘You + remember I met you with her once?’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen’s voice gave way a little here, in defiance of his firmest will to + the contrary. Indian affairs had not yet lowered those emotions down to + the point of control. + </p> + <p> + ‘It was broken off,’ came quickly from Knight. ‘Engagements to marry often + end like that—for better or for worse.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; so they do. And what have you been doing lately?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Doing? Nothing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you been?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can hardly tell you. In the main, going about Europe; and it may + perhaps interest you to know that I have been attempting the serious study + of Continental art of the Middle Ages. My notes on each example I visited + are at your service. They are of no use to me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I shall be glad with them....Oh, travelling far and near!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not far,’ said Knight, with moody carelessness. ‘You know, I daresay, + that sheep occasionally become giddy—hydatids in the head, ‘tis + called, in which their brains become eaten up, and the animal exhibits the + strange peculiarity of walking round and round in a circle continually. I + have travelled just in the same way—round and round like a giddy + ram.’ + </p> + <p> + The reckless, bitter, and rambling style in which Knight talked, as if + rather to vent his images than to convey any ideas to Stephen, struck the + young man painfully. His former friend’s days had become cankered in some + way: Knight was a changed man. He himself had changed much, but not as + Knight had changed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yesterday I came home,’ continued Knight, ‘without having, to the best of + my belief, imbibed half-a-dozen ideas worth retaining.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You out-Hamlet Hamlet in morbidness of mood,’ said Stephen, with + regretful frankness. + </p> + <p> + Knight made no reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you know,’ Stephen continued, ‘I could almost have sworn that you + would be married before this time, from what I saw?’ + </p> + <p> + Knight’s face grew harder. ‘Could you?’ he said. + </p> + <p> + Stephen was powerless to forsake the depressing, luring subject. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; and I simply wonder at it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whom did you expect me to marry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Her I saw you with.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you for that wonder.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did she jilt you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Smith, now one word to you,’ Knight returned steadily. ‘Don’t you ever + question me on that subject. I have a reason for making this request, + mind. And if you do question me, you will not get an answer.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I don’t for a moment wish to ask what is unpleasant to you—not + I. I had a momentary feeling that I should like to explain something on my + side, and hear a similar explanation on yours. But let it go, let it go, + by all means.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What would you explain?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I lost the woman I was going to marry: you have not married as you + intended. We might have compared notes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have never asked you a word about your case.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And the inference is obvious.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Quite so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The truth is, Stephen, I have doggedly resolved never to allude to the + matter—for which I have a very good reason.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Doubtless. As good a reason as you had for not marrying her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You talk insidiously. I had a good one—a miserably good one!’ + </p> + <p> + Smith’s anxiety urged him to venture one more question. + </p> + <p> + ‘Did she not love you enough?’ He drew his breath in a slow and attenuated + stream, as he waited in timorous hope for the answer. + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen, you rather strain ordinary courtesy in pressing questions of + that kind after what I have said. I cannot understand you at all. I must + go on now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, good God!’ exclaimed Stephen passionately, ‘you talk as if you + hadn’t at all taken her away from anybody who had better claims to her + than you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you mean by that?’ said Knight, with a puzzled air. ‘What have + you heard?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing. I too must go on. Good-day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If you will go,’ said Knight, reluctantly now, ‘you must, I suppose. I am + sure I cannot understand why you behave so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nor I why you do. I have always been grateful to you, and as far as I am + concerned we need never have become so estranged as we have.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And have I ever been anything but well-disposed towards you, Stephen? + Surely you know that I have not! The system of reserve began with you: you + know that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no! You altogether mistake our position. You were always from the + first reserved to me, though I was confidential to you. That was, I + suppose, the natural issue of our differing positions in life. And when I, + the pupil, became reserved like you, the master, you did not like it. + However, I was going to ask you to come round and see me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where are you staying?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘At the Grosvenor Hotel, Pimlico.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So am I.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s convenient, not to say odd. Well, I am detained in London for a + day or two; then I am going down to see my father and mother, who live at + St. Launce’s now. Will you see me this evening?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I may; but I will not promise. I was wishing to be alone for an hour or + two; but I shall know where to find you, at any rate. Good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXXVIII + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Jealousy is cruel as the grave.’ +</pre> + <p> + Stephen pondered not a little on this meeting with his old friend and + once-beloved exemplar. He was grieved, for amid all the distractions of + his latter years a still small voice of fidelity to Knight had lingered on + in him. Perhaps this staunchness was because Knight ever treated him as a + mere disciple—even to snubbing him sometimes; and had at last, + though unwittingly, inflicted upon him the greatest snub of all, that of + taking away his sweetheart. The emotional side of his constitution was + built rather after a feminine than a male model; and that tremendous wound + from Knight’s hand may have tended to keep alive a warmth which + solicitousness would have extinguished altogether. + </p> + <p> + Knight, on his part, was vexed, after they had parted, that he had not + taken Stephen in hand a little after the old manner. Those words which + Smith had let fall concerning somebody having a prior claim to Elfride, + would, if uttered when the man was younger, have provoked such a query as, + ‘Come, tell me all about it, my lad,’ from Knight, and Stephen would + straightway have delivered himself of all he knew on the subject. + </p> + <p> + Stephen the ingenuous boy, though now obliterated externally by Stephen + the contriving man, returned to Knight’s memory vividly that afternoon. He + was at present but a sojourner in London; and after attending to the two + or three matters of business which remained to be done that day, he walked + abstractedly into the gloomy corridors of the British Museum for the + half-hour previous to their closing. That meeting with Smith had reunited + the present with the past, closing up the chasm of his absence from + England as if it had never existed, until the final circumstances of his + previous time of residence in London formed but a yesterday to the + circumstances now. The conflict that then had raged in him concerning + Elfride Swancourt revived, strengthened by its sleep. Indeed, in those + many months of absence, though quelling the intention to make her his + wife, he had never forgotten that she was the type of woman adapted to his + nature; and instead of trying to obliterate thoughts of her altogether, he + had grown to regard them as an infirmity it was necessary to tolerate. + </p> + <p> + Knight returned to his hotel much earlier in the evening than he would + have done in the ordinary course of things. He did not care to think + whether this arose from a friendly wish to close the gap that had slowly + been widening between himself and his earliest acquaintance, or from a + hankering desire to hear the meaning of the dark oracles Stephen had + hastily pronounced, betokening that he knew something more of Elfride than + Knight had supposed. + </p> + <p> + He made a hasty dinner, inquired for Smith, and soon was ushered into the + young man’s presence, whom he found sitting in front of a comfortable + fire, beside a table spread with a few scientific periodicals and art + reviews. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have come to you, after all,’ said Knight. ‘My manner was odd this + morning, and it seemed desirable to call; but that you had too much sense + to notice, Stephen, I know. Put it down to my wanderings in France and + Italy.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t say another word, but sit down. I am only too glad to see you + again.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen would hardly have cared to tell Knight just then that the minute + before Knight was announced he had been reading over some old letters of + Elfride’s. They were not many; and until to-night had been sealed up, and + stowed away in a corner of his leather trunk, with a few other mementoes + and relics which had accompanied him in his travels. The familiar sights + and sounds of London, the meeting with his friend, had with him also + revived that sense of abiding continuity with regard to Elfride and love + which his absence at the other side of the world had to some extent + suspended, though never ruptured. He at first intended only to look over + these letters on the outside; then he read one; then another; until the + whole was thus re-used as a stimulus to sad memories. He folded them away + again, placed them in his pocket, and instead of going on with an + examination into the state of the artistic world, had remained musing on + the strange circumstance that he had returned to find Knight not the + husband of Elfride after all. + </p> + <p> + The possibility of any given gratification begets a cumulative sense of + its necessity. Stephen gave the rein to his imagination, and felt more + intensely than he had felt for many months that, without Elfride, his life + would never be any great pleasure to himself, or honour to his Maker. + </p> + <p> + They sat by the fire, chatting on external and random subjects, neither + caring to be the first to approach the matter each most longed to discuss. + On the table with the periodicals lay two or three pocket-books, one of + them being open. Knight seeing from the exposed page that the contents + were sketches only, began turning the leaves over carelessly with his + finger. When, some time later, Stephen was out of the room, Knight + proceeded to pass the interval by looking at the sketches more carefully. + </p> + <p> + The first crude ideas, pertaining to dwellings of all kinds, were roughly + outlined on the different pages. Antiquities had been copied; fragments of + Indian columns, colossal statues, and outlandish ornament from the temples + of Elephanta and Kenneri, were carelessly intruded upon by outlines of + modern doors, windows, roofs, cooking-stoves, and household furniture; + everything, in short, which comes within the range of a practising + architect’s experience, who travels with his eyes open. Among these + occasionally appeared rough delineations of mediaeval subjects for carving + or illumination—heads of Virgins, Saints, and Prophets. + </p> + <p> + Stephen was not professedly a free-hand draughtsman, but he drew the human + figure with correctness and skill. In its numerous repetitions on the + sides and edges of the leaves, Knight began to notice a peculiarity. All + the feminine saints had one type of feature. There were large nimbi and + small nimbi about their drooping heads, but the face was always the same. + That profile—how well Knight knew that profile! + </p> + <p> + Had there been but one specimen of the familiar countenance, he might have + passed over the resemblance as accidental; but a repetition meant more. + Knight thought anew of Smith’s hasty words earlier in the day, and looked + at the sketches again and again. + </p> + <p> + On the young man’s entry, Knight said with palpable agitation— + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen, who are those intended for?’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked over the book with utter unconcern, ‘Saints and angels, + done in my leisure moments. They were intended as designs for the stained + glass of an English church.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But whom do you idealize by that type of woman you always adopt for the + Virgin?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nobody.’ + </p> + <p> + And then a thought raced along Stephen’s mind and he looked up at his + friend. + </p> + <p> + The truth is, Stephen’s introduction of Elfride’s lineaments had been so + unconscious that he had not at first understood his companion’s drift. The + hand, like the tongue, easily acquires the trick of repetition by rote, + without calling in the mind to assist at all; and this had been the case + here. Young men who cannot write verses about their Loves generally take + to portraying them, and in the early days of his attachment Smith had + never been weary of outlining Elfride. The lay-figure of Stephen’s + sketches now initiated an adjustment of many things. Knight had recognized + her. The opportunity of comparing notes had come unsought. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elfride Swancourt, to whom I was engaged,’ he said quietly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know what you mean by speaking like that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was it Elfride? YOU the man, Stephen?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; and you are thinking why did I conceal the fact from you that time + at Endelstow, are you not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, and more—more.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I did it for the best; blame me if you will; I did it for the best. And + now say how could I be with you afterwards as I had been before?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know at all; I can’t say.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight remained fixed in thought, and once he murmured— + </p> + <p> + ‘I had a suspicion this afternoon that there might be some such meaning in + your words about my taking her away. But I dismissed it. How came you to + know her?’ he presently asked, in almost a peremptory tone. + </p> + <p> + ‘I went down about the church; years ago now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When you were with Hewby, of course, of course. Well, I can’t understand + it.’ His tones rose. ‘I don’t know what to say, your hoodwinking me like + this for so long!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t see that I have hoodwinked you at all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes, but’—— + </p> + <p> + Knight arose from his seat, and began pacing up and down the room. His + face was markedly pale, and his voice perturbed, as he said— + </p> + <p> + ‘You did not act as I should have acted towards you under those + circumstances. I feel it deeply; and I tell you plainly, I shall never + forget it!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your behaviour at that meeting in the family vault, when I told you we + were going to be married. Deception, dishonesty, everywhere; all the + world’s of a piece!’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen did not much like this misconstruction of his motives, even though + it was but the hasty conclusion of a friend disturbed by emotion. + </p> + <p> + ‘I could do no otherwise than I did, with due regard to her,’ he said + stiffly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed!’ said Knight, in the bitterest tone of reproach. ‘Nor could you + with due regard to her have married her, I suppose! I have hoped—longed—that + HE, who turns out to be YOU, would ultimately have done that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am much obliged to you for that hope. But you talk very mysteriously. I + think I had about the best reason anybody could have had for not doing + that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, what reason was it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That I could not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You ought to have made an opportunity; you ought to do so now, in bare + justice to her, Stephen!’ cried Knight, carried beyond himself. ‘That you + know very well, and it hurts and wounds me more than you dream to find you + never have tried to make any reparation to a woman of that kind—so + trusting, so apt to be run away with by her feelings—poor little + fool, so much the worse for her!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, you talk like a madman! You took her away from me, did you not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Picking up what another throws down can scarcely be called “taking away.” + However, we shall not agree too well upon that subject, so we had better + part.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I am quite certain you misapprehend something most grievously,’ said + Stephen, shaken to the bottom of his heart. ‘What have I done; tell me? I + have lost Elfride, but is that such a sin?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was it her doing, or yours?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was what?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That you parted.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will tell you honestly. It was hers entirely, entirely.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was her reason?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can hardly say. But I’ll tell the story without reserve.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen until to-day had unhesitatingly held that she grew tired of him + and turned to Knight; but he did not like to advance the statement now, or + even to think the thought. To fancy otherwise accorded better with the + hope to which Knight’s estrangement had given birth: that love for his + friend was not the direct cause, but a result of her suspension of love + for himself. + </p> + <p> + ‘Such a matter must not be allowed to breed discord between us,’ Knight + returned, relapsing into a manner which concealed all his true feeling, as + if confidence now was intolerable. ‘I do see that your reticence towards + me in the vault may have been dictated by prudential considerations.’ He + concluded artificially, ‘It was a strange thing altogether; but not of + much importance, I suppose, at this distance of time; and it does not + concern me now, though I don’t mind hearing your story.’ + </p> + <p> + These words from Knight, uttered with such an air of renunciation and + apparent indifference, prompted Smith to speak on—perhaps with a + little complacency—of his old secret engagement to Elfride. He told + the details of its origin, and the peremptory words and actions of her + father to extinguish their love. + </p> + <p> + Knight persevered in the tone and manner of a disinterested outsider. It + had become more than ever imperative to screen his emotions from Stephen’s + eye; the young man would otherwise be less frank, and their meeting would + be again embittered. What was the use of untoward candour? + </p> + <p> + Stephen had now arrived at the point in his ingenuous narrative where he + left the vicarage because of her father’s manner. Knight’s interest + increased. Their love seemed so innocent and childlike thus far. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is a nice point in casuistry,’ he observed, ‘to decide whether you + were culpable or not in not telling Swancourt that your friends were + parishioners of his. It was only human nature to hold your tongue under + the circumstances. Well, what was the result of your dismissal by him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That we agreed to be secretly faithful. And to insure this we thought we + would marry.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight’s suspense and agitation rose higher when Stephen entered upon this + phase of the subject. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you mind telling on?’ he said, steadying his manner of speech. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, not at all.’ + </p> + <p> + Then Stephen gave in full the particulars of the meeting with Elfride at + the railway station; the necessity they were under of going to London, + unless the ceremony were to be postponed. The long journey of the + afternoon and evening; her timidity and revulsion of feeling; its + culmination on reaching London; the crossing over to the down-platform and + their immediate departure again, solely in obedience to her wish; the + journey all night; their anxious watching for the dawn; their arrival at + St. Launce’s at last—were detailed. And he told how a village woman + named Jethway was the only person who recognized them, either going or + coming; and how dreadfully this terrified Elfride. He told how he waited + in the fields whilst this then reproachful sweetheart went for her pony, + and how the last kiss he ever gave her was given a mile out of the town, + on the way to Endelstow. + </p> + <p> + These things Stephen related with a will. He believed that in doing so he + established word by word the reasonableness of his claim to Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘Curse her! curse that woman!—that miserable letter that parted us! + O God!’ + </p> + <p> + Knight began pacing the room again, and uttered this at further end. + </p> + <p> + ‘What did you say?’ said Stephen, turning round. + </p> + <p> + ‘Say? Did I say anything? Oh, I was merely thinking about your story, and + the oddness of my having a fancy for the same woman afterwards. And that + now I—I have forgotten her almost; and neither of us care about her, + except just as a friend, you know, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + Knight still continued at the further end of the room, somewhat in shadow. + </p> + <p> + ‘Exactly,’ said Stephen, inwardly exultant, for he was really deceived by + Knight’s off-hand manner. + </p> + <p> + Yet he was deceived less by the completeness of Knight’s disguise than by + the persuasive power which lay in the fact that Knight had never before + deceived him in anything. So this supposition that his companion had + ceased to love Elfride was an enormous lightening of the weight which had + turned the scale against him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Admitting that Elfride COULD love another man after you,’ said the elder, + under the same varnish of careless criticism, ‘she was none the worse for + that experience.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The worse? Of course she was none the worse.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you ever think it a wild and thoughtless thing for her to do?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed, I never did,’ said Stephen. ‘I persuaded her. She saw no harm in + it until she decided to return, nor did I; nor was there, except to the + extent of indiscretion.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Directly she thought it was wrong she would go no further?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That was it. I had just begun to think it wrong too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Such a childish escapade might have been misrepresented by any + evil-disposed person, might it not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It might; but I never heard that it was. Nobody who really knew all the + circumstances would have done otherwise than smile. If all the world had + known it, Elfride would still have remained the only one who thought her + action a sin. Poor child, she always persisted in thinking so, and was + frightened more than enough.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen, do you love her now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I like her; I always shall, you know,’ he said evasively, and with + all the strategy love suggested. ‘But I have not seen her for so long that + I can hardly be expected to love her. Do you love her still?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How shall I answer without being ashamed? What fickle beings we men are, + Stephen! Men may love strongest for a while, but women love longest. I + used to love her—in my way, you know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I understand. Ah, and I used to love her in my way. In fact, I loved + her a good deal at one time; but travel has a tendency to obliterate early + fancies.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It has—it has, truly.’ + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in this conversation was the + circumstance that, though each interlocutor had at first his suspicions of + the other’s abiding passion awakened by several little acts, neither would + allow himself to see that his friend might now be speaking deceitfully as + well as he. + </p> + <p> + ‘Stephen.’ resumed Knight, ‘now that matters are smooth between us, I + think I must leave you. You won’t mind my hurrying off to my quarters?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ll stay to some sort of supper surely? didn’t you come to dinner!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must really excuse me this once.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then you’ll drop in to breakfast to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I shall be rather pressed for time.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘An early breakfast, which shall interfere with nothing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll come,’ said Knight, with as much readiness as it was possible to + graft upon a huge stock of reluctance. ‘Yes, early; eight o’clock say, as + we are under the same roof.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Any time you like. Eight it shall be.’ + </p> + <p> + And Knight left him. To wear a mask, to dissemble his feelings as he had + in their late miserable conversation, was such torture that he could + support it no longer. It was the first time in Knight’s life that he had + ever been so entirely the player of a part. And the man he had thus + deceived was Stephen, who had docilely looked up to him from youth as a + superior of unblemished integrity. + </p> + <p> + He went to bed, and allowed the fever of his excitement to rage + uncontrolled. Stephen—it was only he who was the rival—only + Stephen! There was an anti-climax of absurdity which Knight, wretched and + conscience-stricken as he was, could not help recognizing. Stephen was but + a boy to him. Where the great grief lay was in perceiving that the very + innocence of Elfride in reading her little fault as one so grave was what + had fatally misled him. Had Elfride, with any degree of coolness, asserted + that she had done no harm, the poisonous breath of the dead Mrs. Jethway + would have been inoperative. Why did he not make his little docile girl + tell more? If on that subject he had only exercised the imperativeness + customary with him on others, all might have been revealed. It smote his + heart like a switch when he remembered how gently she had borne his + scourging speeches, never answering him with a single reproach, only + assuring him of her unbounded love. + </p> + <p> + Knight blessed Elfride for her sweetness, and forgot her fault. He + pictured with a vivid fancy those fair summer scenes with her. He again + saw her as at their first meeting, timid at speaking, yet in her eagerness + to be explanatory borne forward almost against her will. How she would + wait for him in green places, without showing any of the ordinary womanly + affectations of indifference! How proud she was to be seen walking with + him, bearing legibly in her eyes the thought that he was the greatest + genius in the world! + </p> + <p> + He formed a resolution; and after that could make pretence of slumber no + longer. Rising and dressing himself, he sat down and waited for day. + </p> + <p> + That night Stephen was restless too. Not because of the unwontedness of a + return to English scenery; not because he was about to meet his parents, + and settle down for awhile to English cottage life. He was indulging in + dreams, and for the nonce the warehouses of Bombay and the plains and + forts of Poonah were but a shadow’s shadow. His dream was based on this + one atom of fact: Elfride and Knight had become separated, and their + engagement was as if it had never been. Their rupture must have occurred + soon after Stephen’s discovery of the fact of their union; and, Stephen + went on to think, what so probable as that a return of her errant + affection to himself was the cause? + </p> + <p> + Stephen’s opinions in this matter were those of a lover, and not the + balanced judgment of an unbiassed spectator. His naturally sanguine spirit + built hope upon hope, till scarcely a doubt remained in his mind that her + lingering tenderness for him had in some way been perceived by Knight, and + had provoked their parting. + </p> + <p> + To go and see Elfride was the suggestion of impulses it was impossible to + withstand. At any rate, to run down from St. Launce’s to Castle Poterel, a + distance of less than twenty miles, and glide like a ghost about their old + haunts, making stealthy inquiries about her, would be a fascinating way of + passing the first spare hours after reaching home on the day after the + morrow. + </p> + <p> + He was now a richer man than heretofore, standing on his own bottom; and + the definite position in which he had rooted himself nullified old local + distinctions. He had become illustrious, even sanguine clarus, judging + from the tone of the worthy Mayor of St. Launce’s. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XXXIX + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Each to the loved one’s side.’ +</pre> + <p> + The friends and rivals breakfasted together the next morning. Not a word + was said on either side upon the matter discussed the previous evening so + glibly and so hollowly. Stephen was absorbed the greater part of the time + in wishing he were not forced to stay in town yet another day. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t intend to leave for St. Launce’s till to-morrow, as you know,’ he + said to Knight at the end of the meal. ‘What are you going to do with + yourself to-day?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have an engagement just before ten,’ said Knight deliberately; ‘and + after that time I must call upon two or three people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll look for you this evening,’ said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, do. You may as well come and dine with me; that is, if we can meet. + I may not sleep in London to-night; in fact, I am absolutely unsettled as + to my movements yet. However, the first thing I am going to do is to get + my baggage shifted from this place to Bede’s Inn. Good-bye for the + present. I’ll write, you know, if I can’t meet you.’ + </p> + <p> + It now wanted a quarter to nine o’clock. When Knight was gone, Stephen + felt yet more impatient of the circumstance that another day would have to + drag itself away wearily before he could set out for that spot of earth + whereon a soft thought of him might perhaps be nourished still. On a + sudden he admitted to his mind the possibility that the engagement he was + waiting in town to keep might be postponed without much harm. + </p> + <p> + It was no sooner perceived than attempted. Looking at his watch, he found + it wanted forty minutes to the departure of the ten o’clock train from + Paddington, which left him a surplus quarter of an hour before it would be + necessary to start for the station. + </p> + <p> + Scribbling a hasty note or two—one putting off the business meeting, + another to Knight apologizing for not being able to see him in the evening—paying + his bill, and leaving his heavier luggage to follow him by goods-train, he + jumped into a cab and rattled off to the Great Western Station. + </p> + <p> + Shortly afterwards he took his seat in the railway carriage. + </p> + <p> + The guard paused on his whistle, to let into the next compartment to + Smith’s a man of whom Stephen had caught but a hasty glimpse as he ran + across the platform at the last moment. + </p> + <p> + Smith sank back into the carriage, stilled by perplexity. The man was like + Knight—astonishingly like him. Was it possible it could be he? To + have got there he must have driven like the wind to Bede’s Inn, and hardly + have alighted before starting again. No, it could not be he; that was not + his way of doing things. + </p> + <p> + During the early part of the journey Stephen Smith’s thoughts busied + themselves till his brain seemed swollen. One subject was concerning his + own approaching actions. He was a day earlier than his letter to his + parents had stated, and his arrangement with them had been that they + should meet him at Plymouth; a plan which pleased the worthy couple beyond + expression. Once before the same engagement had been made, which he had + then quashed by ante-dating his arrival. This time he would go right on to + Castle Boterel; ramble in that well-known neighbourhood during the evening + and next morning, making inquiries; and return to Plymouth to meet them as + arranged—a contrivance which would leave their cherished project + undisturbed, relieving his own impatience also. + </p> + <p> + At Chippenham there was a little waiting, and some loosening and attaching + of carriages. + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked out. At the same moment another man’s head emerged from the + adjoining window. Each looked in the other’s face. + </p> + <p> + Knight and Stephen confronted one another. + </p> + <p> + ‘You here!’ said the younger man. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. It seems that you are too,’ said Knight, strangely. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + The selfishness of love and the cruelty of jealousy were fairly + exemplified at this moment. Each of the two men looked at his friend as he + had never looked at him before. Each was TROUBLED at the other’s presence. + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought you said you were not coming till to-morrow,’ remarked Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘I did. It was an afterthought to come to-day. This journey was your + engagement, then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, it was not. This is an afterthought of mine too. I left a note to + explain it, and account for my not being able to meet you this evening as + we arranged.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So did I for you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t look well: you did not this morning.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have a headache. You are paler to-day than you were.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I, too, have been suffering from headache. We have to wait here a few + minutes, I think.’ + </p> + <p> + They walked up and down the platform, each one more and more + embarrassingly concerned with the awkwardness of his friend’s presence. + They reached the end of the footway, and paused in sheer + absent-mindedness. Stephen’s vacant eyes rested upon the operations of + some porters, who were shifting a dark and curious-looking van from the + rear of the train, to shunt another which was between it and the fore part + of the train. This operation having been concluded, the two friends + returned to the side of their carriage. + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you come in here?’ said Knight, not very warmly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have my rug and portmanteau and umbrella with me: it is rather + bothering to move now,’ said Stephen reluctantly. ‘Why not you come here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have my traps too. It is hardly worth while to shift them, for I shall + see you again, you know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, yes.’ + </p> + <p> + And each got into his own place. Just at starting, a man on the platform + held up his hands and stopped the train. + </p> + <p> + Stephen looked out to see what was the matter. + </p> + <p> + One of the officials was exclaiming to another, ‘That carriage should have + been attached again. Can’t you see it is for the main line? Quick! What + fools there are in the world!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What a confounded nuisance these stoppages are!’ exclaimed Knight + impatiently, looking out from his compartment. ‘What is it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That singular carriage we saw has been unfastened from our train by + mistake, it seems,’ said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + He was watching the process of attaching it. The van or carriage, which he + now recognized as having seen at Paddington before they started, was rich + and solemn rather than gloomy in aspect. It seemed to be quite new, and of + modern design, and its impressive personality attracted the notice of + others beside himself. He beheld it gradually wheeled forward by two men + on each side: slower and more sadly it seemed to approach: then a slight + concussion, and they were connected with it, and off again. + </p> + <p> + Stephen sat all the afternoon pondering upon the reason of Knight’s + unexpected reappearance. Was he going as far as Castle Boterel? If so, he + could only have one object in view—a visit to Elfride. And what an + idea it seemed! + </p> + <p> + At Plymouth Smith partook of a little refreshment, and then went round to + the side from which the train started for Camelton, the new station near + Castle Boterel and Endelstow. + </p> + <p> + Knight was already there. + </p> + <p> + Stephen walked up and stood beside him without speaking. Two men at this + moment crept out from among the wheels of the waiting train. + </p> + <p> + ‘The carriage is light enough,’ said one in a grim tone. ‘Light as vanity; + full of nothing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing in size, but a good deal in signification,’ said the other, a man + of brighter mind and manners. + </p> + <p> + Smith then perceived that to their train was attached that same carriage + of grand and dark aspect which had haunted them all the way from London. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are going on, I suppose?’ said Knight, turning to Stephen, after idly + looking at the same object. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We may as well travel together for the remaining distance, may we not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly we will;’ and they both entered the same door. + </p> + <p> + Evening drew on apace. It chanced to be the eve of St. Valentine’s—that + bishop of blessed memory to youthful lovers—and the sun shone low + under the rim of a thick hard cloud, decorating the eminences of the + landscape with crowns of orange fire. As the train changed its direction + on a curve, the same rays stretched in through the window, and coaxed open + Knight’s half-closed eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘You will get out at St. Launce’s, I suppose?’ he murmured. + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ said Stephen, ‘I am not expected till to-morrow.’ Knight was silent. + </p> + <p> + ‘And you—are you going to Endelstow?’ said the younger man + pointedly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Since you ask, I can do no less than say I am, Stephen,’ continued Knight + slowly, and with more resolution of manner than he had shown all the day. + ‘I am going to Endelstow to see if Elfride Swancourt is still free; and if + so, to ask her to be my wife.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So am I,’ said Stephen Smith. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think you’ll lose your labour,’ Knight returned with decision. + </p> + <p> + ‘Naturally you do.’ There was a strong accent of bitterness in Stephen’s + voice. ‘You might have said HOPE instead of THINK,’ he added. + </p> + <p> + ‘I might have done no such thing. I gave you my opinion. Elfride Swancourt + may have loved you once, no doubt, but it was when she was so young that + she hardly knew her own mind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you,’ said Stephen laconically. ‘She knew her mind as well as I + did. We are the same age. If you hadn’t interfered——’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t say that—don’t say it, Stephen! How can you make out that I + interfered? Be just, please!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ said his friend, ‘she was mine before she was yours—you know + that! And it seemed a hard thing to find you had got her, and that if it + had not been for you, all might have turned out well for me.’ Stephen + spoke with a swelling heart, and looked out of the window to hide the + emotion that would make itself visible upon his face. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is absurd,’ said Knight in a kinder tone, ‘for you to look at the + matter in that light. What I tell you is for your good. You naturally do + not like to realize the truth—that her liking for you was only a + girl’s first fancy, which has no root ever.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is not true!’ said Stephen passionately. ‘It was you put me out. And + now you’ll be pushing in again between us, and depriving me of my chance + again! My right, that’s what it is! How ungenerous of you to come anew and + try to take her away from me! When you had won her, I did not interfere; + and you might, I think, Mr. Knight, do by me as I did by you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t “Mr.” me; you are as well in the world as I am now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘First love is deepest; and that was mine.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who told you that?’ said Knight superciliously. + </p> + <p> + ‘I had her first love. And it was through me that you and she parted. I + can guess that well enough.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It was. And if I were to explain to you in what way that operated in + parting us, I should convince you that you do quite wrong in intruding + upon her—that, as I said at first, your labour will be lost. I don’t + choose to explain, because the particulars are painful. But if you won’t + listen to me, go on, for Heaven’s sake. I don’t care what you do, my boy.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have no right to domineer over me as you do. Just because, when I was + a lad, I was accustomed to look up to you as a master, and you helped me a + little, for which I was grateful to you and have loved you, you assume too + much now, and step in before me. It is cruel—it is unjust—of + you to injure me so!’ + </p> + <p> + Knight showed himself keenly hurt at this. ‘Stephen, those words are + untrue and unworthy of any man, and they are unworthy of you. You know you + wrong me. If you have ever profited by any instruction of mine, I am only + too glad to know it. You know it was given ungrudgingly, and that I have + never once looked upon it as making you in any way a debtor to me.’ + </p> + <p> + Stephen’s naturally gentle nature was touched, and it was in a troubled + voice that he said, ‘Yes, yes. I am unjust in that—I own it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘This is St. Launce’s Station, I think. Are you going to get out?’ + </p> + <p> + Knight’s manner of returning to the matter in hand drew Stephen again into + himself. ‘No; I told you I was going to Endelstow,’ he resolutely replied. + </p> + <p> + Knight’s features became impassive, and he said no more. The train + continued rattling on, and Stephen leant back in his corner and closed his + eyes. The yellows of evening had turned to browns, the dusky shades + thickened, and a flying cloud of dust occasionally stroked the window—borne + upon a chilling breeze which blew from the north-east. The previously + gilded but now dreary hills began to lose their daylight aspects of + rotundity, and to become black discs vandyked against the sky, all nature + wearing the cloak that six o’clock casts over the landscape at this time + of the year. + </p> + <p> + Stephen started up in bewilderment after a long stillness, and it was some + time before he recollected himself. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, how real, how real!’ he exclaimed, brushing his hand across his + eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is?’ said Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘That dream. I fell asleep for a few minutes, and have had a dream—the + most vivid I ever remember.’ + </p> + <p> + He wearily looked out into the gloom. They were now drawing near to + Camelton. The lighting of the lamps was perceptible through the veil of + evening—each flame starting into existence at intervals, and + blinking weakly against the gusts of wind. + </p> + <p> + ‘What did you dream?’ said Knight moodily. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing to be told. ‘Twas a sort of incubus. There is never anything + in dreams.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I hardly supposed there was.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know that. However, what I so vividly dreamt was this, since you would + like to hear. It was the brightest of bright mornings at East Endelstow + Church, and you and I stood by the font. Far away in the chancel Lord + Luxellian was standing alone, cold and impassive, and utterly unlike his + usual self: but I knew it was he. Inside the altar rail stood a strange + clergyman with his book open. He looked up and said to Lord Luxellian, + “Where’s the bride?” Lord Luxellian said, “There’s no bride.” At that + moment somebody came in at the door, and I knew her to be Lady Luxellian + who died. He turned and said to her, “I thought you were in the vault + below us; but that could have only been a dream of mine. Come on.” Then + she came on. And in brushing between us she chilled me so with cold that I + exclaimed, “The life is gone out of me!” and, in the way of dreams, I + awoke. But here we are at Camelton.’ + </p> + <p> + They were slowly entering the station. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you going to do?’ said Knight. ‘Do you really intend to call on + the Swancourts?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By no means. I am going to make inquiries first. I shall stay at the + Luxellian Arms to-night. You will go right on to Endelstow, I suppose, at + once?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can hardly do that at this time of the day. Perhaps you are not aware + that the family—her father, at any rate—is at variance with me + as much as with you. + </p> + <p> + ‘I didn’t know it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And that I cannot rush into the house as an old friend any more than you + can. Certainly I have the privileges of a distant relationship, whatever + they may be.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight let down the window, and looked ahead. ‘There are a great many + people at the station,’ he said. ‘They seem all to be on the look-out for + us.’ + </p> + <p> + When the train stopped, the half-estranged friends could perceive by the + lamplight that the assemblage of idlers enclosed as a kernel a group of + men in black cloaks. A side gate in the platform railing was open, and + outside this stood a dark vehicle, which they could not at first + characterize. Then Knight saw on its upper part forms against the sky like + cedars by night, and knew the vehicle to be a hearse. Few people were at + the carriage doors to meet the passengers—the majority had + congregated at this upper end. Knight and Stephen alighted, and turned for + a moment in the same direction. + </p> + <p> + The sombre van, which had accompanied them all day from London, now began + to reveal that their destination was also its own. It had been drawn up + exactly opposite the open gate. The bystanders all fell back, forming a + clear lane from the gateway to the van, and the men in cloaks entered the + latter conveyance. + </p> + <p> + ‘They are labourers, I fancy,’ said Stephen. ‘Ah, it is strange; but I + recognize three of them as Endelstow men. Rather remarkable this.’ + </p> + <p> + Presently they began to come out, two and two; and under the rays of the + lamp they were seen to bear between them a light-coloured coffin of + satin-wood, brightly polished, and without a nail. The eight men took the + burden upon their shoulders, and slowly crossed with it over to the gate. + </p> + <p> + Knight and Stephen went outside, and came close to the procession as it + moved off. A carriage belonging to the cortege turned round close to a + lamp. The rays shone in upon the face of the vicar of Endelstow, Mr. + Swancourt—looking many years older than when they had last seen him. + Knight and Stephen involuntarily drew back. + </p> + <p> + Knight spoke to a bystander. ‘What has Mr. Swancourt to do with that + funeral?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is the lady’s father,’ said the bystander. + </p> + <p> + ‘What lady’s father?’ said Knight, in a voice so hollow that the man + stared at him. + </p> + <p> + ‘The father of the lady in the coffin. She died in London, you know, and + has been brought here by this train. She is to be taken home to-night, and + buried to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight stood staring blindly at where the hearse had been; as if he saw + it, or some one, there. Then he turned, and beheld the lithe form of + Stephen bowed down like that of an old man. He took his young friend’s + arm, and led him away from the light. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Chapter XL + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Welcome, proud lady.’ +</pre> + <p> + Half an hour has passed. Two miserable men are wandering in the darkness + up the miles of road from Camelton to Endelstow. + </p> + <p> + ‘Has she broken her heart?’ said Henry Knight. ‘Can it be that I have + killed her? I was bitter with her, Stephen, and she has died! And may God + have NO mercy upon me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can you have killed her more than I?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, I went away from her—stole away almost—and didn’t tell + her I should not come again; and at that last meeting I did not kiss her + once, but let her miserably go. I have been a fool—a fool! I wish + the most abject confession of it before crowds of my countrymen could in + any way make amends to my darling for the intense cruelty I have shown + her!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘YOUR darling!’ said Stephen, with a sort of laugh. ‘Any man can say that, + I suppose; any man can. I know this, she was MY darling before she was + yours; and after too. If anybody has a right to call her his own, it is + I.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You talk like a man in the dark; which is what you are. Did she ever do + anything for you? Risk her name, for instance, for you?’ + </p> + <p> + Yes, she did,’ said Stephen emphatically. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not entirely. Did she ever live for you—prove she could not live + without you—laugh and weep for you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never! Did she ever risk her life for you—no! My darling did for + me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then it was in kindness only. When did she risk her life for you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To save mine on the cliff yonder. The poor child was with me looking at + the approach of the Puffin steamboat, and I slipped down. We both had a + narrow escape. I wish we had died there!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, but wait,’ Stephen pleaded with wet eyes. ‘She went on that cliff to + see me arrive home: she had promised it. She told me she would months + before. And would she have gone there if she had not cared for me at all?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have an idea that Elfride died for you, no doubt,’ said Knight, with + a mournful sarcasm too nerveless to support itself. + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind. If we find that—that she died yours, I’ll say no more + ever.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And if we find she died yours, I’ll say no more.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well—so it shall be.’ + </p> + <p> + The dark clouds into which the sun had sunk had begun to drop rain in an + increasing volume. + </p> + <p> + ‘Can we wait somewhere here till this shower is over?’ said Stephen + desultorily. + </p> + <p> + ‘As you will. But it is not worth while. We’ll hear the particulars, and + return. Don’t let people know who we are. I am not much now.’ + </p> + <p> + They had reached a point at which the road branched into two—just + outside the west village, one fork of the diverging routes passing into + the latter place, the other stretching on to East Endelstow. Having come + some of the distance by the footpath, they now found that the hearse was + only a little in advance of them. + </p> + <p> + ‘I fancy it has turned off to East Endelstow. Can you see?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot. You must be mistaken.’ + </p> + <p> + Knight and Stephen entered the village. A bar of fiery light lay across + the road, proceeding from the half-open door of a smithy, in which bellows + were heard blowing and a hammer ringing. The rain had increased, and they + mechanically turned for shelter towards the warm and cosy scene. + </p> + <p> + Close at their heels came another man, without over-coat or umbrella, and + with a parcel under his arm. + </p> + <p> + ‘A wet evening,’ he said to the two friends, and passed by them. They + stood in the outer penthouse, but the man went in to the fire. + </p> + <p> + The smith ceased his blowing, and began talking to the man who had + entered. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have walked all the way from Camelton,’ said the latter. ‘Was obliged + to come to-night, you know.’ + </p> + <p> + He held the parcel, which was a flat one, towards the firelight, to learn + if the rain had penetrated it. Resting it edgewise on the forge, he + supported it perpendicularly with one hand, wiping his face with the + handkerchief he held in the other. + </p> + <p> + ‘I suppose you know what I’ve got here?’ he observed to the smith. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I don’t,’ said the smith, pausing again on his bellows. + </p> + <p> + ‘As the rain’s not over, I’ll show you,’ said the bearer. + </p> + <p> + He laid the thin and broad package, which had acute angles in different + directions, flat upon the anvil, and the smith blew up the fire to give + him more light. First, after untying the package, a sheet of brown paper + was removed: this was laid flat. Then he unfolded a piece of baize: this + also he spread flat on the paper. The third covering was a wrapper of + tissue paper, which was spread out in its turn. The enclosure was + revealed, and he held it up for the smith’s inspection. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh—I see!’ said the smith, kindling with a chastened interest, and + drawing close. ‘Poor young lady—ah, terrible melancholy thing—so + soon too!’ + </p> + <p> + Knight and Stephen turned their heads and looked. + </p> + <p> + ‘And what’s that?’ continued the smith. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s the coronet—beautifully finished, isn’t it? Ah, that cost + some money!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Tis as fine a bit of metal work as ever I see—that ‘tis.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It came from the same people as the coffin, you know, but was not ready + soon enough to be sent round to the house in London yesterday. I’ve got to + fix it on this very night.’ + </p> + <p> + The carefully-packed articles were a coffin-plate and coronet. + </p> + <p> + Knight and Stephen came forward. The undertaker’s man, on seeing them look + for the inscription, civilly turned it round towards them, and each read, + almost at one moment, by the ruddy light of the coals: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + E L F R I D E, + Wife of Spenser Hugo Luxellian, + Fifteenth Baron Luxellian: + Died February 10, 18—. +</pre> + <p> + They read it, and read it, and read it again—Stephen and Knight—as + if animated by one soul. Then Stephen put his hand upon Knight’s arm, and + they retired from the yellow glow, further, further, till the chill + darkness enclosed them round, and the quiet sky asserted its presence + overhead as a dim grey sheet of blank monotony. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where shall we go?’ said Stephen. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know.’ + </p> + <p> + A long silence ensued....‘Elfride married!’ said Stephen then in a thin + whisper, as if he feared to let the assertion loose on the world. + </p> + <p> + ‘False,’ whispered Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘And dead. Denied us both. I hate “false”—I hate it!’ + </p> + <p> + Knight made no answer. + </p> + <p> + Nothing was heard by them now save the slow measurement of time by their + beating pulses, the soft touch of the dribbling rain upon their clothes, + and the low purr of the blacksmith’s bellows hard by. + </p> + <p> + ‘Shall we follow Elfie any further?’ Stephen said. + </p> + <p> + ‘No: let us leave her alone. She is beyond our love, and let her be beyond + our reproach. Since we don’t know half the reasons that made her do as she + did, Stephen, how can we say, even now, that she was not pure and true in + heart?’ Knight’s voice had now become mild and gentle as a child’s. He + went on: ‘Can we call her ambitious? No. Circumstance has, as usual, + overpowered her purposes—fragile and delicate as she—liable to + be overthrown in a moment by the coarse elements of accident. I know + that’s it,—don’t you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It may be—it must be. Let us go on.’ + </p> + <p> + They began to bend their steps towards Castle Boterel, whither they had + sent their bags from Camelton. They wandered on in silence for many + minutes. Stephen then paused, and lightly put his hand within Knight’s + arm. + </p> + <p> + ‘I wonder how she came to die,’ he said in a broken whisper. ‘Shall we + return and learn a little more?’ + </p> + <p> + They turned back again, and entering Endelstow a second time, came to a + door which was standing open. It was that of an inn called the Welcome + Home, and the house appeared to have been recently repaired and entirely + modernized. The name too was not that of the same landlord as formerly, + but Martin Cannister’s. + </p> + <p> + Knight and Smith entered. The inn was quite silent, and they followed the + passage till they reached the kitchen, where a huge fire was burning, + which roared up the chimney, and sent over the floor, ceiling, and + newly-whitened walls a glare so intense as to make the candle quite a + secondary light. A woman in a white apron and black gown was standing + there alone behind a cleanly-scrubbed deal table. Stephen first, and + Knight afterwards, recognized her as Unity, who had been parlour-maid at + the vicarage and young lady’s-maid at the Crags. + </p> + <p> + ‘Unity,’ said Stephen softly, ‘don’t you know me?’ + </p> + <p> + She looked inquiringly a moment, and her face cleared up. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Smith—ay, that it is!’ she said. ‘And that’s Mr. Knight. I beg + you to sit down. Perhaps you know that since I saw you last I have married + Martin Cannister.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How long have you been married?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘About five months. We were married the same day that my dear Miss Elfie + became Lady Luxellian.’ Tears appeared in Unity’s eyes, and filled them, + and fell down her cheek, in spite of efforts to the contrary. + </p> + <p> + The pain of the two men in resolutely controlling themselves when thus + exampled to admit relief of the same kind was distressing. They both + turned their backs and walked a few steps away. + </p> + <p> + Then Unity said, ‘Will you go into the parlour, gentlemen?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let us stay here with her,’ Knight whispered, and turning said, ‘No; we + will sit here. We want to rest and dry ourselves here for a time, if you + please.’ + </p> + <p> + That evening the sorrowing friends sat with their hostess beside the large + fire, Knight in the recess formed by the chimney breast, where he was in + shade. And by showing a little confidence they won hers, and she told them + what they had stayed to hear—the latter history of poor Elfride. + </p> + <p> + ‘One day—after you, Mr. Knight, left us for the last time—she + was missed from the Crags, and her father went after her, and brought her + home ill. Where she went to, I never knew—but she was very unwell + for weeks afterwards. And she said to me that she didn’t care what became + of her, and she wished she could die. When she was better, I said she + would live to be married yet, and she said then, “Yes; I’ll do anything + for the benefit of my family, so as to turn my useless life to some + practical account.” Well, it began like this about Lord Luxellian courting + her. The first Lady Luxellian had died, and he was in great trouble + because the little girls were left motherless. After a while they used to + come and see her in their little black frocks, for they liked her as well + or better than their own mother—-that’s true. They used to call her + “little mamma.” These children made her a shade livelier, but she was not + the girl she had been—I could see that—and she grew thinner a + good deal. Well, my lord got to ask the Swancourts oftener and oftener to + dinner—nobody else of his acquaintance—and at last the vicar’s + family were backwards and forwards at all hours of the day. Well, people + say that the little girls asked their father to let Miss Elfride come and + live with them, and that he said perhaps he would if they were good + children. However, the time went on, and one day I said, “Miss Elfride, + you don’t look so well as you used to; and though nobody else seems to + notice it I do.” She laughed a little, and said, “I shall live to be + married yet, as you told me.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Shall you, miss? I am glad to hear that,” I said. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Whom do you think I am going to be married to?” she said again. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Mr. Knight, I suppose,” said I. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh!” she cried, and turned off so white, and afore I could get to her + she had sunk down like a heap of clothes, and fainted away. Well, then, + she came to herself after a time, and said, “Unity, now we’ll go on with + our conversation.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Better not to-day, miss,” I said. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes, we will,” she said. “Whom do you think I am going to be married + to?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I don’t know,” I said this time. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Guess,” she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘“‘Tisn’t my lord, is it?” says I. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes, ‘tis,” says she, in a sick wild way. + </p> + <p> + ‘“But he don’t come courting much,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “‘Ah! you don’t know,” she said, and told me ‘twas going to be in October. + After that she freshened up a bit—whether ‘twas with the thought of + getting away from home or not, I don’t know. For, perhaps, I may as well + speak plainly, and tell you that her home was no home to her now. Her + father was bitter to her and harsh upon her; and though Mrs. Swancourt was + well enough in her way, ‘twas a sort of cold politeness that was not worth + much, and the little thing had a worrying time of it altogether. About a + month before the wedding, she and my lord and the two children used to + ride about together upon horseback, and a very pretty sight they were; and + if you’ll believe me, I never saw him once with her unless the children + were with her too—which made the courting so strange-looking. Ay, + and my lord is so handsome, you know, so that at last I think she rather + liked him; and I have seen her smile and blush a bit at things he said. He + wanted her the more because the children did, for everybody could see that + she would be a most tender mother to them, and friend and playmate too. + And my lord is not only handsome, but a splendid courter, and up to all + the ways o’t. So he made her the beautifullest presents; ah, one I can + mind—a lovely bracelet, with diamonds and emeralds. Oh, how red her + face came when she saw it! The old roses came back to her cheeks for a + minute or two then. I helped dress her the day we both were married—it + was the last service I did her, poor child! When she was ready, I ran + upstairs and slipped on my own wedding gown, and away they went, and away + went Martin and I; and no sooner had my lord and my lady been married than + the parson married us. It was a very quiet pair of weddings—hardly + anybody knew it. Well, hope will hold its own in a young heart, if so be + it can; and my lady freshened up a bit, for my lord was SO handsome and + kind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How came she to die—and away from home?’ murmured Knight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t you see, sir, she fell off again afore they’d been married long, + and my lord took her abroad for change of scene. They were coming home, + and had got as far as London, when she was taken very ill and couldn’t be + moved, and there she died.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was he very fond of her?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What, my lord? Oh, he was!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘VERY fond of her?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘VERY, beyond everything. Not suddenly, but by slow degrees. ‘Twas her + nature to win people more when they knew her well. He’d have died for her, + I believe. Poor my lord, he’s heart-broken now!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The funeral is to-morrow?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; my husband is now at the vault with the masons, opening the steps + and cleaning down the walls.’ + </p> + <p> + The next day two men walked up the familiar valley from Castle Boterel to + East Endelstow Church. And when the funeral was over, and every one had + left the lawn-like churchyard, the pair went softly down the steps of the + Luxellian vault, and under the low-groined arches they had beheld once + before, lit up then as now. In the new niche of the crypt lay a rather new + coffin, which had lost some of its lustre, and a newer coffin still, + bright and untarnished in the slightest degree. + </p> + <p> + Beside the latter was the dark form of a man, kneeling on the damp floor, + his body flung across the coffin, his hands clasped, and his whole frame + seemingly given up in utter abandonment to grief. He was still young—younger, + perhaps, than Knight—and even now showed how graceful was his figure + and symmetrical his build. He murmured a prayer half aloud, and was quite + unconscious that two others were standing within a few yards of him. + </p> + <p> + Knight and Stephen had advanced to where they once stood beside Elfride on + the day all three had met there, before she had herself gone down into + silence like her ancestors, and shut her bright blue eyes for ever. Not + until then did they see the kneeling figure in the dim light. Knight + instantly recognized the mourner as Lord Luxellian, the bereaved husband + of Elfride. + </p> + <p> + They felt themselves to be intruders. Knight pressed Stephen back, and + they silently withdrew as they had entered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come away,’ he said, in a broken voice. ‘We have no right to be there. + Another stands before us—nearer to her than we!’ + </p> + <p> + And side by side they both retraced their steps down the grey still valley + to Castle Boterel. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PAIR OF BLUE EYES *** + +***** This file should be named 224-h.htm or 224-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/224/ + +Produced by John Hamm, and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. + +The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + </body> +</html> diff --git a/old/224.txt b/old/224.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6742857 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/224.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16583 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Pair of Blue Eyes + +Author: Thomas Hardy + +Release Date: July 8, 2008 [EBook #224] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PAIR OF BLUE EYES *** + + + + +Produced by John Hamm + + + + + +A PAIR OF BLUE EYES + +by Thomas Hardy + + + + 'A violet in the youth of primy nature, + Forward, not permanent, sweet not lasting, + The perfume and suppliance of a minute; + No more.' + + + + +PREFACE + +The following chapters were written at a time when the craze for +indiscriminate church-restoration had just reached the remotest nooks +of western England, where the wild and tragic features of the coast +had long combined in perfect harmony with the crude Gothic Art of the +ecclesiastical buildings scattered along it, throwing into extraordinary +discord all architectural attempts at newness there. To restore the +grey carcases of a mediaevalism whose spirit had fled, seemed a not +less incongruous act than to set about renovating the adjoining crags +themselves. + +Hence it happened that an imaginary history of three human hearts, +whose emotions were not without correspondence with these +material circumstances, found in the ordinary incidents of such +church-renovations a fitting frame for its presentation. + +The shore and country about 'Castle Boterel' is now getting well known, +and will be readily recognized. The spot is, I may add, the furthest +westward of all those convenient corners wherein I have ventured to +erect my theatre for these imperfect little dramas of country life and +passions; and it lies near to, or no great way beyond, the vague border +of the Wessex kingdom on that side, which, like the westering verge of +modern American settlements, was progressive and uncertain. + +This, however, is of little importance. The place is pre-eminently (for +one person at least) the region of dream and mystery. The ghostly birds, +the pall-like sea, the frothy wind, the eternal soliloquy of the waters, +the bloom of dark purple cast, that seems to exhale from the shoreward +precipices, in themselves lend to the scene an atmosphere like the +twilight of a night vision. + +One enormous sea-bord cliff in particular figures in the narrative; and +for some forgotten reason or other this cliff was described in the story +as being without a name. Accuracy would require the statement to be +that a remarkable cliff which resembles in many points the cliff of the +description bears a name that no event has made famous. + + T. H. +March 1899 + + + + + THE PERSONS + + ELFRIDE SWANCOURT a young Lady + CHRISTOPHER SWANCOURT a Clergyman + STEPHEN SMITH an Architect + HENRY KNIGHT a Reviewer and Essayist + CHARLOTTE TROYTON a rich Widow + GERTRUDE JETHWAY a poor Widow + SPENSER HUGO LUXELLIAN a Peer + LADY LUXELLIAN his Wife + MARY AND KATE two little Girls + WILLIAM WORM a dazed Factotum + JOHN SMITH a Master-mason + JANE SMITH his Wife + MARTIN CANNISTER a Sexton + UNITY a Maid-servant + + Other servants, masons, labourers, grooms, nondescripts, etc., etc. + + +THE SCENE + +Mostly on the outskirts of Lower Wessex. + + + + +Chapter I + + 'A fair vestal, throned in the west' + + +Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface. +Their nature more precisely, and as modified by the creeping hours +of time, was known only to those who watched the circumstances of her +history. + +Personally, she was the combination of very interesting particulars, +whose rarity, however, lay in the combination itself rather than in the +individual elements combined. As a matter of fact, you did not see the +form and substance of her features when conversing with her; and this +charming power of preventing a material study of her lineaments by an +interlocutor, originated not in the cloaking effect of a well-formed +manner (for her manner was childish and scarcely formed), but in the +attractive crudeness of the remarks themselves. She had lived all her +life in retirement--the monstrari gigito of idle men had not flattered +her, and at the age of nineteen or twenty she was no further on in +social consciousness than an urban young lady of fifteen. + +One point in her, however, you did notice: that was her eyes. In them +was seen a sublimation of all of her; it was not necessary to look +further: there she lived. + +These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance--blue as the blue we see +between the retreating mouldings of hills and woody slopes on a sunny +September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no beginning or +surface, and was looked INTO rather than AT. + +As to her presence, it was not powerful; it was weak. Some women can +make their personality pervade the atmosphere of a whole banqueting +hall; Elfride's was no more pervasive than that of a kitten. + +Elfride had as her own the thoughtfulness which appears in the face of +the Madonna della Sedia, without its rapture: the warmth and spirit +of the type of woman's feature most common to the beauties--mortal +and immortal--of Rubens, without their insistent fleshiness. The +characteristic expression of the female faces of Correggio--that of the +yearning human thoughts that lie too deep for tears--was hers sometimes, +but seldom under ordinary conditions. + +The point in Elfride Swancourt's life at which a deeper current may be +said to have permanently set in, was one winter afternoon when she found +herself standing, in the character of hostess, face to face with a man +she had never seen before--moreover, looking at him with a Miranda-like +curiosity and interest that she had never yet bestowed on a mortal. + +On this particular day her father, the vicar of a parish on the +sea-swept outskirts of Lower Wessex, and a widower, was suffering from +an attack of gout. After finishing her household supervisions Elfride +became restless, and several times left the room, ascended the +staircase, and knocked at her father's chamber-door. + +'Come in!' was always answered in a hearty out-of-door voice from the +inside. + +'Papa,' she said on one occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome man of +forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed +wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite +of himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost +oaths; 'papa, will you not come downstairs this evening?' She spoke +distinctly: he was rather deaf. + +'Afraid not--eh-hh!--very much afraid I shall not, Elfride. Piph-ph-ph! +I can't bear even a handkerchief upon this deuced toe of mine, much less +a stocking or slipper--piph-ph-ph! There 'tis again! No, I shan't get up +till to-morrow.' + +'Then I hope this London man won't come; for I don't know what I should +do, papa.' + +'Well, it would be awkward, certainly.' + +'I should hardly think he would come to-day.' + +'Why?' + +'Because the wind blows so.' + +'Wind! What ideas you have, Elfride! Who ever heard of wind stopping a +man from doing his business? The idea of this toe of mine coming on so +suddenly!...If he should come, you must send him up to me, I suppose, +and then give him some food and put him to bed in some way. Dear me, +what a nuisance all this is!' + +'Must he have dinner?' + +'Too heavy for a tired man at the end of a tedious journey.' + +'Tea, then?' + +'Not substantial enough.' + +'High tea, then? There is cold fowl, rabbit-pie, some pasties, and +things of that kind.' + +'Yes, high tea.' + +'Must I pour out his tea, papa?' + +'Of course; you are the mistress of the house.' + +'What! sit there all the time with a stranger, just as if I knew him, +and not anybody to introduce us?' + +'Nonsense, child, about introducing; you know better than that. A +practical professional man, tired and hungry, who has been travelling +ever since daylight this morning, will hardly be inclined to talk and +air courtesies to-night. He wants food and shelter, and you must see +that he has it, simply because I am suddenly laid up and cannot. There +is nothing so dreadful in that, I hope? You get all kinds of stuff into +your head from reading so many of those novels.' + +'Oh no; there is nothing dreadful in it when it becomes plainly a case +of necessity like this. But, you see, you are always there when people +come to dinner, even if we know them; and this is some strange London +man of the world, who will think it odd, perhaps.' + +'Very well; let him.' + +'Is he Mr. Hewby's partner?' + +'I should scarcely think so: he may be.' + +'How old is he, I wonder?' + +'That I cannot tell. You will find the copy of my letter to Mr. Hewby, +and his answer, upon the table in the study. You may read them, and then +you'll know as much as I do about our visitor.' + +'I have read them.' + +'Well, what's the use of asking questions, then? They contain all I +know. Ugh-h-h!...Od plague you, you young scamp! don't put anything +there! I can't bear the weight of a fly.' + +'Oh, I am sorry, papa. I forgot; I thought you might be cold,' she said, +hastily removing the rug she had thrown upon the feet of the sufferer; +and waiting till she saw that consciousness of her offence had passed +from his face, she withdrew from the room, and retired again downstairs. + + + + +Chapter II + + 'Twas on the evening of a winter's day.' + + +When two or three additional hours had merged the same afternoon in +evening, some moving outlines might have been observed against the sky +on the summit of a wild lone hill in that district. They circumscribed +two men, having at present the aspect of silhouettes, sitting in a +dog-cart and pushing along in the teeth of the wind. Scarcely a solitary +house or man had been visible along the whole dreary distance of open +country they were traversing; and now that night had begun to fall, +the faint twilight, which still gave an idea of the landscape to +their observation, was enlivened by the quiet appearance of the planet +Jupiter, momentarily gleaming in intenser brilliancy in front of them, +and by Sirius shedding his rays in rivalry from his position over their +shoulders. The only lights apparent on earth were some spots of dull +red, glowing here and there upon the distant hills, which, as the driver +of the vehicle gratuitously remarked to the hirer, were smouldering +fires for the consumption of peat and gorse-roots, where the common was +being broken up for agricultural purposes. The wind prevailed with but +little abatement from its daytime boisterousness, three or four small +clouds, delicate and pale, creeping along under the sky southward to the +Channel. + +Fourteen of the sixteen miles intervening between the railway terminus +and the end of their journey had been gone over, when they began to pass +along the brink of a valley some miles in extent, wherein the wintry +skeletons of a more luxuriant vegetation than had hitherto surrounded +them proclaimed an increased richness of soil, which showed signs of far +more careful enclosure and management than had any slopes they had yet +passed. A little farther, and an opening in the elms stretching up from +this fertile valley revealed a mansion. + +'That's Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian's,' said the driver. + +'Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian's,' repeated the other mechanically. +He then turned himself sideways, and keenly scrutinized the almost +invisible house with an interest which the indistinct picture itself +seemed far from adequate to create. 'Yes, that's Lord Luxellian's,' he +said yet again after a while, as he still looked in the same direction. + +'What, be we going there?' + +'No; Endelstow Vicarage, as I have told you.' + +'I thought you m't have altered your mind, sir, as ye have stared that +way at nothing so long.' + +'Oh no; I am interested in the house, that's all.' + +'Most people be, as the saying is.' + +'Not in the sense that I am.' + +'Oh!...Well, his family is no better than my own, 'a b'lieve.' + +'How is that?' + +'Hedgers and ditchers by rights. But once in ancient times one of 'em, +when he was at work, changed clothes with King Charles the Second, and +saved the king's life. King Charles came up to him like a common man, +and said off-hand, "Man in the smock-frock, my name is Charles the +Second, and that's the truth on't. Will you lend me your clothes?" "I +don't mind if I do," said Hedger Luxellian; and they changed there and +then. "Now mind ye," King Charles the Second said, like a common man, as +he rode away, "if ever I come to the crown, you come to court, knock at +the door, and say out bold, 'Is King Charles the Second at home?' Tell +your name, and they shall let you in, and you shall be made a lord." +Now, that was very nice of Master Charley?' + +'Very nice indeed.' + +'Well, as the story is, the king came to the throne; and some years +after that, away went Hedger Luxellian, knocked at the king's door, +and asked if King Charles the Second was in. "No, he isn't," they said. +"Then, is Charles the Third?" said Hedger Luxellian. "Yes," said a young +feller standing by like a common man, only he had a crown on, "my name +is Charles the Third." And----' + +'I really fancy that must be a mistake. I don't recollect anything in +English history about Charles the Third,' said the other in a tone of +mild remonstrance. + +'Oh, that's right history enough, only 'twasn't prented; he was rather a +queer-tempered man, if you remember.' + +'Very well; go on.' + +'And, by hook or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was made a lord, and +everything went on well till some time after, when he got into a most +terrible row with King Charles the Fourth. + +'I can't stand Charles the Fourth. Upon my word, that's too much.' + +'Why? There was a George the Fourth, wasn't there?' + +'Certainly.' + +'Well, Charleses be as common as Georges. However I'll say no more about +it....Ah, well! 'tis the funniest world ever I lived in--upon my life +'tis. Ah, that such should be!' + +The dusk had thickened into darkness while they thus conversed, and the +outline and surface of the mansion gradually disappeared. The windows, +which had before been as black blots on a lighter expanse of wall, +became illuminated, and were transfigured to squares of light on the +general dark body of the night landscape as it absorbed the outlines of +the edifice into its gloomy monochrome. + +Not another word was spoken for some time, and they climbed a hill, then +another hill piled on the summit of the first. An additional mile of +plateau followed, from which could be discerned two light-houses on the +coast they were nearing, reposing on the horizon with a calm lustre of +benignity. Another oasis was reached; a little dell lay like a nest at +their feet, towards which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp angle, +and descended a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit's +burrow. They sank lower and lower. + +'Endelstow Vicarage is inside here,' continued the man with the reins. +'This part about here is West Endelstow; Lord Luxellian's is East +Endelstow, and has a church to itself. Pa'son Swancourt is the pa'son +of both, and bobs backward and forward. Ah, well! 'tis a funny world. +'A b'lieve there was once a quarry where this house stands. The man who +built it in past time scraped all the glebe for earth to put round the +vicarage, and laid out a little paradise of flowers and trees in the +soil he had got together in this way, whilst the fields he scraped have +been good for nothing ever since.' + +'How long has the present incumbent been here?' + +'Maybe about a year, or a year and half: 'tisn't two years; for they +don't scandalize him yet; and, as a rule, a parish begins to scandalize +the pa'son at the end of two years among 'em familiar. But he's a very +nice party. Ay, Pa'son Swancourt knows me pretty well from often driving +over; and I know Pa'son Swancourt.' + +They emerged from the bower, swept round in a curve, and the chimneys +and gables of the vicarage became darkly visible. Not a light showed +anywhere. They alighted; the man felt his way into the porch, and rang +the bell. + +At the end of three or four minutes, spent in patient waiting without +hearing any sounds of a response, the stranger advanced and repeated the +call in a more decided manner. He then fancied he heard footsteps in the +hall, and sundry movements of the door-knob, but nobody appeared. + +'Perhaps they beant at home,' sighed the driver. 'And I promised myself +a bit of supper in Pa'son Swancourt's kitchen. Sich lovely mate-pize and +figged keakes, and cider, and drops o' cordial that they do keep here!' + +'All right, naibours! Be ye rich men or be ye poor men, that ye must +needs come to the world's end at this time o' night?' exclaimed a voice +at this instant; and, turning their heads, they saw a rickety individual +shambling round from the back door with a horn lantern dangling from his +hand. + +'Time o' night, 'a b'lieve! and the clock only gone seven of 'em. Show a +light, and let us in, William Worm.' + +'Oh, that you, Robert Lickpan?' + +'Nobody else, William Worm.' + +'And is the visiting man a-come?' + +'Yes,' said the stranger. 'Is Mr. Swancourt at home?' + +'That 'a is, sir. And would ye mind coming round by the back way? The +front door is got stuck wi' the wet, as he will do sometimes; and the +Turk can't open en. I know I am only a poor wambling man that 'ill never +pay the Lord for my making, sir; but I can show the way in, sir.' + +The new arrival followed his guide through a little door in a wall, and +then promenaded a scullery and a kitchen, along which he passed with +eyes rigidly fixed in advance, an inbred horror of prying forbidding +him to gaze around apartments that formed the back side of the household +tapestry. Entering the hall, he was about to be shown to his room, when +from the inner lobby of the front entrance, whither she had gone to +learn the cause of the delay, sailed forth the form of Elfride. Her +start of amazement at the sight of the visitor coming forth from under +the stairs proved that she had not been expecting this surprising flank +movement, which had been originated entirely by the ingenuity of William +Worm. + +She appeared in the prettiest of all feminine guises, that is to say, in +demi-toilette, with plenty of loose curly hair tumbling down about her +shoulders. An expression of uneasiness pervaded her countenance; and +altogether she scarcely appeared woman enough for the situation. The +visitor removed his hat, and the first words were spoken; Elfride +prelusively looking with a deal of interest, not unmixed with surprise, +at the person towards whom she was to do the duties of hospitality. + +'I am Mr. Smith,' said the stranger in a musical voice. + +'I am Miss Swancourt,' said Elfride. + +Her constraint was over. The great contrast between the reality she +beheld before her, and the dark, taciturn, sharp, elderly man of +business who had lurked in her imagination--a man with clothes smelling +of city smoke, skin sallow from want of sun, and talk flavoured with +epigram--was such a relief to her that Elfride smiled, almost laughed, +in the new-comer's face. + +Stephen Smith, who has hitherto been hidden from us by the darkness, was +at this time of his life but a youth in appearance, and barely a man +in years. Judging from his look, London was the last place in the world +that one would have imagined to be the scene of his activities: such a +face surely could not be nourished amid smoke and mud and fog and dust; +such an open countenance could never even have seen anything of 'the +weariness, the fever, and the fret' of Babylon the Second. + +His complexion was as fine as Elfride's own; the pink of his cheeks as +delicate. His mouth as perfect as Cupid's bow in form, and as cherry-red +in colour as hers. Bright curly hair; bright sparkling blue-gray eyes; +a boy's blush and manner; neither whisker nor moustache, unless a +little light-brown fur on his upper lip deserved the latter title: this +composed the London professional man, the prospect of whose advent had +so troubled Elfride. + +Elfride hastened to say she was sorry to tell him that Mr. Swancourt was +not able to receive him that evening, and gave the reason why. Mr. Smith +replied, in a voice boyish by nature and manly by art, that he was very +sorry to hear this news; but that as far as his reception was concerned, +it did not matter in the least. + +Stephen was shown up to his room. In his absence Elfride stealthily +glided into her father's. + +'He's come, papa. Such a young man for a business man!' + +'Oh, indeed!' + +'His face is--well--PRETTY; just like mine.' + +'H'm! what next?' + +'Nothing; that's all I know of him yet. It is rather nice, is it not?' + +'Well, we shall see that when we know him better. Go down and give the +poor fellow something to eat and drink, for Heaven's sake. And when he +has done eating, say I should like to have a few words with him, if he +doesn't mind coming up here.' + +The young lady glided downstairs again, and whilst she awaits young +Smith's entry, the letters referring to his visit had better be given. + + +1.--MR. SWANCOURT TO MR. HEWBY. + +'ENDELSTOW VICARAGE, Feb. 18, 18--. + +'SIR,--We are thinking of restoring the tower and aisle of the church in +this parish; and Lord Luxellian, the patron of the living, has mentioned +your name as that of a trustworthy architect whom it would be desirable +to ask to superintend the work. + +'I am exceedingly ignorant of the necessary preliminary steps. Probably, +however, the first is that (should you be, as Lord Luxellian says you +are, disposed to assist us) yourself or some member of your staff come +and see the building, and report thereupon for the satisfaction of +parishioners and others. + +'The spot is a very remote one: we have no railway within fourteen +miles; and the nearest place for putting up at--called a town, though +merely a large village--is Castle Boterel, two miles further on; so that +it would be most convenient for you to stay at the vicarage--which I am +glad to place at your disposal--instead of pushing on to the hotel at +Castle Boterel, and coming back again in the morning. + +'Any day of the next week that you like to name for the visit will find +us quite ready to receive you.--Yours very truly, + +CHRISTOPHER SWANCOURT. + + +2.--MR. HEWBY TO MR. SWANCOURT. + +"PERCY PLACE, CHARING CROSS, Feb. 20, 18--. + +'DEAR SIR,--Agreeably to your request of the 18th instant, I have +arranged to survey and make drawings of the aisle and tower of your +parish church, and of the dilapidations which have been suffered to +accrue thereto, with a view to its restoration. + +'My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, will leave London by the early train +to-morrow morning for the purpose. Many thanks for your proposal to +accommodate him. He will take advantage of your offer, and will +probably reach your house at some hour of the evening. You may put every +confidence in him, and may rely upon his discernment in the matter of +church architecture. + +'Trusting that the plans for the restoration, which I shall prepare from +the details of his survey, will prove satisfactory to yourself and Lord +Luxellian, I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, + +WALTER HEWBY.' + + + + +Chapter III + + 'Melodious birds sing madrigals' + + +That first repast in Endelstow Vicarage was a very agreeable one to +young Stephen Smith. The table was spread, as Elfride had suggested to +her father, with the materials for the heterogeneous meal called high +tea--a class of refection welcome to all when away from men and towns, +and particularly attractive to youthful palates. The table was prettily +decked with winter flowers and leaves, amid which the eye was greeted by +chops, chicken, pie, &c., and two huge pasties overhanging the sides of +the dish with a cheerful aspect of abundance. + +At the end, towards the fireplace, appeared the tea-service, of +old-fashioned Worcester porcelain, and behind this arose the slight +form of Elfride, attempting to add matronly dignity to the movement of +pouring out tea, and to have a weighty and concerned look in matters of +marmalade, honey, and clotted cream. Having made her own meal before he +arrived, she found to her embarrassment that there was nothing left for +her to do but talk when not assisting him. She asked him if he would +excuse her finishing a letter she had been writing at a side-table, and, +after sitting down to it, tingled with a sense of being grossly rude. +However, seeing that he noticed nothing personally wrong in her, and +that he too was embarrassed when she attentively watched his cup to +refill it, Elfride became better at ease; and when furthermore he +accidentally kicked the leg of the table, and then nearly upset his +tea-cup, just as schoolboys did, she felt herself mistress of the +situation, and could talk very well. In a few minutes ingenuousness +and a common term of years obliterated all recollection that they were +strangers just met. Stephen began to wax eloquent on extremely slight +experiences connected with his professional pursuits; and she, having +no experiences to fall back upon, recounted with much animation stories +that had been related to her by her father, which would have astonished +him had he heard with what fidelity of action and tone they were +rendered. Upon the whole, a very interesting picture of Sweet-and-Twenty +was on view that evening in Mr. Swancourt's house. + +Ultimately Stephen had to go upstairs and talk loud to the vicar, +receiving from him between his puffs a great many apologies for calling +him so unceremoniously to a stranger's bedroom. 'But,' continued Mr. +Swancourt, 'I felt that I wanted to say a few words to you before the +morning, on the business of your visit. One's patience gets exhausted +by staying a prisoner in bed all day through a sudden freak of one's +enemy--new to me, though--for I have known very little of gout as yet. +However, he's gone to my other toe in a very mild manner, and I expect +he'll slink off altogether by the morning. I hope you have been well +attended to downstairs?' + +'Perfectly. And though it is unfortunate, and I am sorry to see you +laid up, I beg you will not take the slightest notice of my being in the +house the while.' + +'I will not. But I shall be down to-morrow. My daughter is an excellent +doctor. A dose or two of her mild mixtures will fetch me round quicker +than all the drug stuff in the world. Well, now about the church +business. Take a seat, do. We can't afford to stand upon ceremony in +these parts as you see, and for this reason, that a civilized human +being seldom stays long with us; and so we cannot waste time in +approaching him, or he will be gone before we have had the pleasure of +close acquaintance. This tower of ours is, as you will notice, entirely +gone beyond the possibility of restoration; but the church itself is +well enough. You should see some of the churches in this county. Floors +rotten: ivy lining the walls.' + +'Dear me!' + +'Oh, that's nothing. The congregation of a neighbour of mine, whenever +a storm of rain comes on during service, open their umbrellas and hold +them up till the dripping ceases from the roof. Now, if you will kindly +bring me those papers and letters you see lying on the table, I will +show you how far we have got.' + +Stephen crossed the room to fetch them, and the vicar seemed to notice +more particularly the slim figure of his visitor. + +'I suppose you are quite competent?' he said. + +'Quite,' said the young man, colouring slightly. + +'You are very young, I fancy--I should say you are not more than +nineteen?' + +I am nearly twenty-one.' + +'Exactly half my age; I am forty-two.' + +'By the way,' said Mr. Swancourt, after some conversation, 'you said +your whole name was Stephen Fitzmaurice, and that your grandfather came +originally from Caxbury. Since I have been speaking, it has occurred +to me that I know something of you. You belong to a well-known ancient +county family--not ordinary Smiths in the least.' + +'I don't think we have any of their blood in our veins.' + +'Nonsense! you must. Hand me the "Landed Gentry." Now, let me see. +There, Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith--he lies in St. Mary's Church, +doesn't he? Well, out of that family Sprang the Leaseworthy Smiths, and +collaterally came General Sir Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith of Caxbury----' + +'Yes; I have seen his monument there,' shouted Stephen. 'But there is no +connection between his family and mine: there cannot be.' + +'There is none, possibly, to your knowledge. But look at this, my dear +sir,' said the vicar, striking his fist upon the bedpost for emphasis. +'Here are you, Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith, living in London, but +springing from Caxbury. Here in this book is a genealogical tree of the +Stephen Fitzmaurice Smiths of Caxbury Manor. You may be only a family +of professional men now--I am not inquisitive: I don't ask questions of +that kind; it is not in me to do so--but it is as plain as the nose in +your face that there's your origin! And, Mr. Smith, I congratulate you +upon your blood; blue blood, sir; and, upon my life, a very desirable +colour, as the world goes.' + +'I wish you could congratulate me upon some more tangible quality,' said +the younger man, sadly no less than modestly. + +'Nonsense! that will come with time. You are young: all your life is +before you. Now look--see how far back in the mists of antiquity my own +family of Swancourt have a root. Here, you see,' he continued, turning +to the page, 'is Geoffrey, the one among my ancestors who lost a barony +because he would cut his joke. Ah, it's the sort of us! But the story +is too long to tell now. Ay, I'm a poor man--a poor gentleman, in fact: +those I would be friends with, won't be friends with me; those who are +willing to be friends with me, I am above being friends with. Beyond +dining with a neighbouring incumbent or two, and an occasional +chat--sometimes dinner--with Lord Luxellian, a connection of mine, I am +in absolute solitude--absolute.' + +'You have your studies, your books, and your--daughter.' + +'Oh yes, yes; and I don't complain of poverty. Canto coram latrone. +Well, Mr. Smith, don't let me detain you any longer in a sick room. Ha! +that reminds me of a story I once heard in my younger days.' Here +the vicar began a series of small private laughs, and Stephen looked +inquiry. 'Oh, no, no! it is too bad--too bad to tell!' continued Mr. +Swancourt in undertones of grim mirth. 'Well, go downstairs; my daughter +must do the best she can with you this evening. Ask her to sing to +you--she plays and sings very nicely. Good-night; I feel as if I had +known you for five or six years. I'll ring for somebody to show you +down.' + +'Never mind,' said Stephen, 'I can find the way.' And he went +downstairs, thinking of the delightful freedom of manner in the remoter +counties in comparison with the reserve of London. + + +'I forgot to tell you that my father was rather deaf,' said Elfride +anxiously, when Stephen entered the little drawing-room. + +'Never mind; I know all about it, and we are great friends,' the man of +business replied enthusiastically. 'And, Miss Swancourt, will you kindly +sing to me?' + +To Miss Swancourt this request seemed, what in fact it was, +exceptionally point-blank; though she guessed that her father had some +hand in framing it, knowing, rather to her cost, of his unceremonious +way of utilizing her for the benefit of dull sojourners. At the same +time, as Mr. Smith's manner was too frank to provoke criticism, and his +age too little to inspire fear, she was ready--not to say pleased--to +accede. Selecting from the canterbury some old family ditties, that in +years gone by had been played and sung by her mother, Elfride sat down +to the pianoforte, and began, ''Twas on the evening of a winter's day,' +in a pretty contralto voice. + +'Do you like that old thing, Mr. Smith?' she said at the end. + +'Yes, I do much,' said Stephen--words he would have uttered, and +sincerely, to anything on earth, from glee to requiem, that she might +have chosen. + +'You shall have a little one by De Leyre, that was given me by a young +French lady who was staying at Endelstow House: + + + '"Je l'ai plante, je l'ai vu naitre, + Ce beau rosier ou les oiseaux," &c.; + + +and then I shall want to give you my own favourite for the very last, +Shelley's "When the lamp is shattered," as set to music by my poor +mother. I so much like singing to anybody who REALLY cares to hear me.' + +Every woman who makes a permanent impression on a man is usually +recalled to his mind's eye as she appeared in one particular scene, +which seems ordained to be her special form of manifestation throughout +the pages of his memory. As the patron Saint has her attitude and +accessories in mediaeval illumination, so the sweetheart may be said to +have hers upon the table of her true Love's fancy, without which she is +rarely introduced there except by effort; and this though she may, on +further acquaintance, have been observed in many other phases which one +would imagine to be far more appropriate to love's young dream. + +Miss Elfride's image chose the form in which she was beheld during +these minutes of singing, for her permanent attitude of visitation to +Stephen's eyes during his sleeping and waking hours in after days. +The profile is seen of a young woman in a pale gray silk dress with +trimmings of swan's-down, and opening up from a point in front, like a +waistcoat without a shirt; the cool colour contrasting admirably with +the warm bloom of her neck and face. The furthermost candle on the piano +comes immediately in a line with her head, and half invisible itself, +forms the accidentally frizzled hair into a nebulous haze of light, +surrounding her crown like an aureola. Her hands are in their place on +the keys, her lips parted, and trilling forth, in a tender diminuendo, +the closing words of the sad apostrophe: + + + 'O Love, who bewailest + The frailty of all things here, + Why choose you the frailest + For your cradle, your home, and your bier!' + + +Her head is forward a little, and her eyes directed keenly upward to the +top of the page of music confronting her. Then comes a rapid look into +Stephen's face, and a still more rapid look back again to her business, +her face having dropped its sadness, and acquired a certain expression +of mischievous archness the while; which lingered there for some time, +but was never developed into a positive smile of flirtation. + +Stephen suddenly shifted his position from her right hand to her left, +where there was just room enough for a small ottoman to stand between +the piano and the corner of the room. Into this nook he squeezed +himself, and gazed wistfully up into Elfride's face. So long and so +earnestly gazed he, that her cheek deepened to a more and more crimson +tint as each line was added to her song. Concluding, and pausing +motionless after the last word for a minute or two, she ventured to look +at him again. His features wore an expression of unutterable heaviness. + +'You don't hear many songs, do you, Mr. Smith, to take so much notice of +these of mine?' + +'Perhaps it was the means and vehicle of the song that I was noticing: I +mean yourself,' he answered gently. + +'Now, Mr. Smith!' + +'It is perfectly true; I don't hear much singing. You mistake what I am, +I fancy. Because I come as a stranger to a secluded spot, you think I +must needs come from a life of bustle, and know the latest movements of +the day. But I don't. My life is as quiet as yours, and more solitary; +solitary as death.' + +'The death which comes from a plethora of life? But seriously, I can +quite see that you are not the least what I thought you would be before +I saw you. You are not critical, or experienced, or--much to mind. +That's why I don't mind singing airs to you that I only half know.' +Finding that by this confession she had vexed him in a way she did not +intend, she added naively, 'I mean, Mr. Smith, that you are better, not +worse, for being only young and not very experienced. You don't think my +life here so very tame and dull, I know.' + +'I do not, indeed,' he said with fervour. 'It must be delightfully +poetical, and sparkling, and fresh, and----' + +'There you go, Mr. Smith! Well, men of another kind, when I get them to +be honest enough to own the truth, think just the reverse: that my life +must be a dreadful bore in its normal state, though pleasant for the +exceptional few days they pass here.' + +'I could live here always!' he said, and with such a tone and look +of unconscious revelation that Elfride was startled to find that her +harmonies had fired a small Troy, in the shape of Stephen's heart. She +said quickly: + +'But you can't live here always.' + +'Oh no.' And he drew himself in with the sensitiveness of a snail. + +Elfride's emotions were sudden as his in kindling, but the least of +woman's lesser infirmities--love of admiration--caused an inflammable +disposition on his part, so exactly similar to her own, to appear as +meritorious in him as modesty made her own seem culpable in her. + + + + +Chapter IV + + 'Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap.' + + +For reasons of his own, Stephen Smith was stirring a short time after +dawn the next morning. From the window of his room he could see, first, +two bold escarpments sloping down together like the letter V. Towards +the bottom, like liquid in a funnel, appeared the sea, gray and small. +On the brow of one hill, of rather greater altitude than its neighbour, +stood the church which was to be the scene of his operations. The lonely +edifice was black and bare, cutting up into the sky from the very tip +of the hill. It had a square mouldering tower, owning neither battlement +nor pinnacle, and seemed a monolithic termination, of one substance with +the ridge, rather than a structure raised thereon. Round the church ran +a low wall; over-topping the wall in general level was the graveyard; +not as a graveyard usually is, a fragment of landscape with its due +variety of chiaro-oscuro, but a mere profile against the sky, serrated +with the outlines of graves and a very few memorial stones. Not a tree +could exist up there: nothing but the monotonous gray-green grass. + +Five minutes after this casual survey was made his bedroom was empty, +and its occupant had vanished quietly from the house. + +At the end of two hours he was again in the room, looking warm and +glowing. He now pursued the artistic details of dressing, which on +his first rising had been entirely omitted. And a very blooming boy he +looked, after that mysterious morning scamper. His mouth was a triumph +of its class. It was the cleanly-cut, piquantly pursed-up mouth of +William Pitt, as represented in the well or little known bust by +Nollekens--a mouth which is in itself a young man's fortune, if properly +exercised. His round chin, where its upper part turned inward, still +continued its perfect and full curve, seeming to press in to a point the +bottom of his nether lip at their place of junction. + +Once he murmured the name of Elfride. Ah, there she was! On the lawn +in a plain dress, without hat or bonnet, running with a boy's +velocity, superadded to a girl's lightness, after a tame rabbit she +was endeavouring to capture, her strategic intonations of coaxing words +alternating with desperate rushes so much out of keeping with them, that +the hollowness of such expressions was but too evident to her pet, who +darted and dodged in carefully timed counterpart. + +The scene down there was altogether different from that of the hills. +A thicket of shrubs and trees enclosed the favoured spot from the +wilderness without; even at this time of the year the grass was +luxuriant there. No wind blew inside the protecting belt of evergreens, +wasting its force upon the higher and stronger trees forming the outer +margin of the grove. + +Then he heard a heavy person shuffling about in slippers, and calling +'Mr. Smith!' Smith proceeded to the study, and found Mr. Swancourt. The +young man expressed his gladness to see his host downstairs. + +'Oh yes; I knew I should soon be right again. I have not made the +acquaintance of gout for more than two years, and it generally goes off +the second night. Well, where have you been this morning? I saw you come +in just now, I think!' + +'Yes; I have been for a walk.' + +'Start early?' + +'Yes.' + +'Very early, I think?' + +'Yes, it was rather early.' + +'Which way did you go? To the sea, I suppose. Everybody goes seaward.' + +'No; I followed up the river as far as the park wall.' + +'You are different from your kind. Well, I suppose such a wild place is +a novelty, and so tempted you out of bed?' + +'Not altogether a novelty. I like it.' + +The youth seemed averse to explanation. + +'You must, you must; to go cock-watching the morning after a journey of +fourteen or sixteen hours. But there's no accounting for tastes, and +I am glad to see that yours are no meaner. After breakfast, but not +before, I shall be good for a ten miles' walk, Master Smith.' + +Certainly there seemed nothing exaggerated in that assertion. Mr. +Swancourt by daylight showed himself to be a man who, in common with +the other two people under his roof, had really strong claims to be +considered handsome,--handsome, that is, in the sense in which the moon +is bright: the ravines and valleys which, on a close inspection, are +seen to diversify its surface being left out of the argument. His face +was of a tint that never deepened upon his cheeks nor lightened upon +his forehead, but remained uniform throughout; the usual neutral +salmon-colour of a man who feeds well--not to say too well--and does not +think hard; every pore being in visible working order. His tout ensemble +was that of a highly improved class of farmer, dressed up in the wrong +clothes; that of a firm-standing perpendicular man, whose fall would +have been backwards in direction if he had ever lost his balance. + +The vicar's background was at present what a vicar's background should +be, his study. Here the consistency ends. All along the chimneypiece +were ranged bottles of horse, pig, and cow medicines, and against the +wall was a high table, made up of the fragments of an old oak Iychgate. +Upon this stood stuffed specimens of owls, divers, and gulls, and over +them bunches of wheat and barley ears, labelled with the date of the +year that produced them. Some cases and shelves, more or less laden +with books, the prominent titles of which were Dr. Brown's 'Notes on +the Romans,' Dr. Smith's 'Notes on the Corinthians,' and Dr. Robinson's +'Notes on the Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians,' just saved the +character of the place, in spite of a girl's doll's-house standing above +them, a marine aquarium in the window, and Elfride's hat hanging on its +corner. + +'Business, business!' said Mr. Swancourt after breakfast. He began to +find it necessary to act the part of a fly-wheel towards the somewhat +irregular forces of his visitor. + +They prepared to go to the church; the vicar, on second thoughts, +mounting his coal-black mare to avoid exerting his foot too much at +starting. Stephen said he should want a man to assist him. 'Worm!' the +vicar shouted. + +A minute or two after a voice was heard round the corner of the +building, mumbling, 'Ah, I used to be strong enough, but 'tis altered +now! Well, there, I'm as independent as one here and there, even if they +do write 'squire after their names.' + +'What's the matter?' said the vicar, as William Worm appeared; when the +remarks were repeated to him. + +'Worm says some very true things sometimes,' Mr. Swancourt said, turning +to Stephen. 'Now, as regards that word "esquire." Why, Mr. Smith, +that word "esquire" is gone to the dogs,--used on the letters of every +jackanapes who has a black coat. Anything else, Worm?' + +'Ay, the folk have begun frying again!' + +'Dear me! I'm sorry to hear that.' + +'Yes,' Worm said groaningly to Stephen, 'I've got such a noise in my +head that there's no living night nor day. 'Tis just for all the world +like people frying fish: fry, fry, fry, all day long in my poor head, +till I don't know whe'r I'm here or yonder. There, God A'mighty will +find it out sooner or later, I hope, and relieve me.' + +'Now, my deafness,' said Mr. Swancourt impressively, 'is a dead silence; +but William Worm's is that of people frying fish in his head. Very +remarkable, isn't it?' + +'I can hear the frying-pan a-fizzing as naterel as life,' said Worm +corroboratively. + +'Yes, it is remarkable,' said Mr. Smith. + +'Very peculiar, very peculiar,' echoed the vicar; and they all then +followed the path up the hill, bounded on each side by a little stone +wall, from which gleamed fragments of quartz and blood-red marbles, +apparently of inestimable value, in their setting of brown alluvium. +Stephen walked with the dignity of a man close to the horse's head, Worm +stumbled along a stone's throw in the rear, and Elfride was nowhere +in particular, yet everywhere; sometimes in front, sometimes behind, +sometimes at the sides, hovering about the procession like a butterfly; +not definitely engaged in travelling, yet somehow chiming in at points +with the general progress. + +The vicar explained things as he went on: 'The fact is, Mr. Smith, +I didn't want this bother of church restoration at all, but it +was necessary to do something in self-defence, on account of those +d----dissenters: I use the word in its scriptural meaning, of course, +not as an expletive.' + +'How very odd!' said Stephen, with the concern demanded of serious +friendliness. + +'Odd? That's nothing to how it is in the parish of Twinkley. Both the +churchwardens are----; there, I won't say what they are; and the clerk +and the sexton as well.' + +'How very strange!' said Stephen. + +'Strange? My dear sir, that's nothing to how it is in the parish of +Sinnerton. However, as to our own parish, I hope we shall make some +progress soon.' + +'You must trust to circumstances.' + +'There are no circumstances to trust to. We may as well trust in +Providence if we trust at all. But here we are. A wild place, isn't it? +But I like it on such days as these.' + +The churchyard was entered on this side by a stone stile, over which +having clambered, you remained still on the wild hill, the within not +being so divided from the without as to obliterate the sense of open +freedom. A delightful place to be buried in, postulating that delight +can accompany a man to his tomb under any circumstances. There was +nothing horrible in this churchyard, in the shape of tight mounds bonded +with sticks, which shout imprisonment in the ears rather than whisper +rest; or trim garden-flowers, which only raise images of people in new +black crape and white handkerchiefs coming to tend them; or wheel-marks, +which remind us of hearses and mourning coaches; or cypress-bushes, +which make a parade of sorrow; or coffin-boards and bones lying behind +trees, showing that we are only leaseholders of our graves. No; nothing +but long, wild, untutored grass, diversifying the forms of the mounds +it covered,--themselves irregularly shaped, with no eye to effect; the +impressive presence of the old mountain that all this was a part of +being nowhere excluded by disguising art. Outside were similar slopes +and similar grass; and then the serene impassive sea, visible to a +width of half the horizon, and meeting the eye with the effect of a +vast concave, like the interior of a blue vessel. Detached rocks stood +upright afar, a collar of foam girding their bases, and repeating in its +whiteness the plumage of a countless multitude of gulls that restlessly +hovered about. + +'Now, Worm!' said Mr. Swancourt sharply; and Worm started into an +attitude of attention at once to receive orders. Stephen and himself +were then left in possession, and the work went on till early in the +afternoon, when dinner was announced by Unity of the vicarage kitchen +running up the hill without a bonnet. + + +Elfride did not make her appearance inside the building till late in +the afternoon, and came then by special invitation from Stephen during +dinner. She looked so intensely LIVING and full of movement as she came +into the old silent place, that young Smith's world began to be lit +by 'the purple light' in all its definiteness. Worm was got rid of by +sending him to measure the height of the tower. + +What could she do but come close--so close that a minute arc of her +skirt touched his foot--and asked him how he was getting on with +his sketches, and set herself to learn the principles of practical +mensuration as applied to irregular buildings? Then she must ascend the +pulpit to re-imagine for the hundredth time how it would seem to be a +preacher. + +Presently she leant over the front of the pulpit. + +'Don't you tell papa, will you, Mr. Smith, if I tell you something?' she +said with a sudden impulse to make a confidence. + +'Oh no, that I won't,' said he, staring up. + +'Well, I write papa's sermons for him very often, and he preaches them +better than he does his own; and then afterwards he talks to people and +to me about what he said in his sermon to-day, and forgets that I wrote +it for him. Isn't it absurd?' + +'How clever you must be!' said Stephen. 'I couldn't write a sermon for +the world.' + +'Oh, it's easy enough,' she said, descending from the pulpit and coming +close to him to explain more vividly. 'You do it like this. Did you ever +play a game of forfeits called "When is it? where is it? what is it?"' + +'No, never.' + +'Ah, that's a pity, because writing a sermon is very much like playing +that game. You take the text. You think, why is it? what is it? and so +on. You put that down under "Generally." Then you proceed to the First, +Secondly, and Thirdly. Papa won't have Fourthlys--says they are all my +eye. Then you have a final Collectively, several pages of this being +put in great black brackets, writing opposite, "LEAVE THIS OUT IF THE +FARMERS ARE FALLING ASLEEP." Then comes your In Conclusion, then A Few +Words And I Have Done. Well, all this time you have put on the back +of each page, "KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN"--I mean,' she added, correcting +herself, 'that's how I do in papa's sermon-book, because otherwise he +gets louder and louder, till at last he shouts like a farmer up a-field. +Oh, papa is so funny in some things!' + +Then, after this childish burst of confidence, she was frightened, as if +warned by womanly instinct, which for the moment her ardour had outrun, +that she had been too forward to a comparative stranger. + +Elfride saw her father then, and went away into the wind, being caught +by a gust as she ascended the churchyard slope, in which gust she had +the motions, without the motives, of a hoiden; the grace, without the +self-consciousness, of a pirouetter. She conversed for a minute or two +with her father, and proceeded homeward, Mr. Swancourt coming on to +the church to Stephen. The wind had freshened his warm complexion as it +freshens the glow of a brand. He was in a mood of jollity, and watched +Elfride down the hill with a smile. + +'You little flyaway! you look wild enough now,' he said, and turned to +Stephen. 'But she's not a wild child at all, Mr. Smith. As steady as +you; and that you are steady I see from your diligence here.' + +'I think Miss Swancourt very clever,' Stephen observed. + +'Yes, she is; certainly, she is,' said papa, turning his voice as much +as possible to the neutral tone of disinterested criticism. 'Now, Smith, +I'll tell you something; but she mustn't know it for the world--not for +the world, mind, for she insists upon keeping it a dead secret. Why, SHE +WRITES MY SERMONS FOR ME OFTEN, and a very good job she makes of them!' + +'She can do anything.' + +'She can do that. The little rascal has the very trick of the trade. +But, mind you, Smith, not a word about it to her, not a single word!' + +'Not a word,' said Smith. + +'Look there,' said Mr. Swancourt. 'What do you think of my roofing?' He +pointed with his walking-stick at the chancel roof, + +'Did you do that, sir?' + +'Yes, I worked in shirt-sleeves all the time that was going on. I pulled +down the old rafters, fixed the new ones, put on the battens, slated +the roof, all with my own hands, Worm being my assistant. We worked like +slaves, didn't we, Worm?' + +'Ay, sure, we did; harder than some here and there--hee, hee!' said +William Worm, cropping up from somewhere. 'Like slaves, 'a b'lieve--hee, +hee! And weren't ye foaming mad, sir, when the nails wouldn't go +straight? Mighty I! There, 'tisn't so bad to cuss and keep it in as to +cuss and let it out, is it, sir?' + +'Well--why?' + +'Because you, sir, when ye were a-putting on the roof, only used to cuss +in your mind, which is, I suppose, no harm at all.' + +'I don't think you know what goes on in my mind, Worm.' + +'Oh, doan't I, sir--hee, hee! Maybe I'm but a poor wambling thing, sir, +and can't read much; but I can spell as well as some here and there. +Doan't ye mind, sir, that blustrous night when ye asked me to hold the +candle to ye in yer workshop, when you were making a new chair for the +chancel?' + +'Yes; what of that?' + +'I stood with the candle, and you said you liked company, if 'twas only +a dog or cat--maning me; and the chair wouldn't do nohow.' + +'Ah, I remember.' + +'No; the chair wouldn't do nohow. 'A was very well to look at; but, +Lord!----' + +'Worm, how often have I corrected you for irreverent speaking?' + +'--'A was very well to look at, but you couldn't sit in the chair nohow. +'Twas all a-twist wi' the chair, like the letter Z, directly you sat +down upon the chair. "Get up, Worm," says you, when you seed the chair +go all a-sway wi' me. Up you took the chair, and flung en like fire +and brimstone to t'other end of your shop--all in a passion. "Damn the +chair!" says I. "Just what I was thinking," says you, sir. "I could see +it in your face, sir," says I, "and I hope you and God will forgi'e +me for saying what you wouldn't." To save your life you couldn't help +laughing, sir, at a poor wambler reading your thoughts so plain. Ay, I'm +as wise as one here and there.' + +'I thought you had better have a practical man to go over the church and +tower with you,' Mr. Swancourt said to Stephen the following morning, +'so I got Lord Luxellian's permission to send for a man when you came. I +told him to be there at ten o'clock. He's a very intelligent man, and +he will tell you all you want to know about the state of the walls. His +name is John Smith.' + +Elfride did not like to be seen again at the church with Stephen. 'I +will watch here for your appearance at the top of the tower,' she said +laughingly. 'I shall see your figure against the sky.' + +'And when I am up there I'll wave my handkerchief to you, Miss +Swancourt,' said Stephen. 'In twelve minutes from this present moment,' +he added, looking at his watch, 'I'll be at the summit and look out for +you.' + +She went round to the corner of the shrubbery, whence she could watch +him down the slope leading to the foot of the hill on which the church +stood. There she saw waiting for him a white spot--a mason in his +working clothes. Stephen met this man and stopped. + +To her surprise, instead of their moving on to the churchyard, they +both leisurely sat down upon a stone close by their meeting-place, and +remained as if in deep conversation. Elfride looked at the time; nine +of the twelve minutes had passed, and Stephen showed no signs of moving. +More minutes passed--she grew cold with waiting, and shivered. It was +not till the end of a quarter of an hour that they began to slowly wend +up the hill at a snail's pace. + +'Rude and unmannerly!' she said to herself, colouring with pique. +'Anybody would think he was in love with that horrid mason instead of +with----' + +The sentence remained unspoken, though not unthought. + +She returned to the porch. + +'Is the man you sent for a lazy, sit-still, do-nothing kind of man?' she +inquired of her father. + +'No,' he said surprised; 'quite the reverse. He is Lord Luxellian's +master-mason, John Smith.' + +'Oh,' said Elfride indifferently, and returned towards her bleak +station, and waited and shivered again. It was a trifle, after all--a +childish thing--looking out from a tower and waving a handkerchief. But +her new friend had promised, and why should he tease her so? The effect +of a blow is as proportionate to the texture of the object struck as +to its own momentum; and she had such a superlative capacity for being +wounded that little hits struck her hard. + +It was not till the end of half an hour that two figures were seen above +the parapet of the dreary old pile, motionless as bitterns on a ruined +mosque. Even then Stephen was not true enough to perform what he was so +courteous to promise, and he vanished without making a sign. + +He returned at midday. Elfride looked vexed when unconscious that his +eyes were upon her; when conscious, severe. However, her attitude of +coldness had long outlived the coldness itself, and she could no longer +utter feigned words of indifference. + +'Ah, you weren't kind to keep me waiting in the cold, and break your +promise,' she said at last reproachfully, in tones too low for her +father's powers of hearing. + +'Forgive, forgive me!' said Stephen with dismay. 'I had forgotten--quite +forgotten! Something prevented my remembering.' + +'Any further explanation?' said Miss Capricious, pouting. + +He was silent for a few minutes, and looked askance. + +'None,' he said, with the accent of one who concealed a sin. + + + + +Chapter V + + 'Bosom'd high in tufted trees.' + + +It was breakfast time. + +As seen from the vicarage dining-room, which took a warm tone of light +from the fire, the weather and scene outside seemed to have stereotyped +themselves in unrelieved shades of gray. The long-armed trees and shrubs +of juniper, cedar, and pine varieties, were grayish black; those of the +broad-leaved sort, together with the herbage, were grayish-green; +the eternal hills and tower behind them were grayish-brown; the sky, +dropping behind all, gray of the purest melancholy. + +Yet in spite of this sombre artistic effect, the morning was not one +which tended to lower the spirits. It was even cheering. For it did not +rain, nor was rain likely to fall for many days to come. + +Elfride had turned from the table towards the fire and was idly +elevating a hand-screen before her face, when she heard the click of a +little gate outside. + +'Ah, here's the postman!' she said, as a shuffling, active man came +through an opening in the shrubbery and across the lawn. She vanished, +and met him in the porch, afterwards coming in with her hands behind her +back. + +'How many are there? Three for papa, one for Mr. Smith, none for Miss +Swancourt. And, papa, look here, one of yours is from--whom do you +think?--Lord Luxellian. And it has something HARD in it--a lump of +something. I've been feeling it through the envelope, and can't think +what it is.' + +'What does Luxellian write for, I wonder?' Mr. Swancourt had said +simultaneously with her words. He handed Stephen his letter, and took +his own, putting on his countenance a higher class of look than was +customary, as became a poor gentleman who was going to read a letter +from a peer. + +Stephen read his missive with a countenance quite the reverse of the +vicar's. + + + 'PERCY PLACE, Thursday Evening. +'DEAR SMITH,--Old H. is in a towering rage with you for being so long +about the church sketches. Swears you are more trouble than you are +worth. He says I am to write and say you are to stay no longer on +any consideration--that he would have done it all in three hours very +easily. I told him that you were not like an experienced hand, which he +seemed to forget, but it did not make much difference. However, between +you and me privately, if I were you I would not alarm myself for a day +or so, if I were not inclined to return. I would make out the week and +finish my spree. He will blow up just as much if you appear here on +Saturday as if you keep away till Monday morning.--Yours very truly, + +'SIMPKINS JENKINS. + + + +'Dear me--very awkward!' said Stephen, rather en l'air, and confused +with the kind of confusion that assails an understrapper when he has +been enlarged by accident to the dimensions of a superior, and is +somewhat rudely pared down to his original size. + +'What is awkward?' said Miss Swancourt. + +Smith by this time recovered his equanimity, and with it the +professional dignity of an experienced architect. + +'Important business demands my immediate presence in London, I regret to +say,' he replied. + +'What! Must you go at once?' said Mr. Swancourt, looking over the edge +of his letter. 'Important business? A young fellow like you to have +important business!' + +'The truth is,' said Stephen blushing, and rather ashamed of having +pretended even so slightly to a consequence which did not belong to +him,--'the truth is, Mr. Hewby has sent to say I am to come home; and I +must obey him.' + +'I see; I see. It is politic to do so, you mean. Now I can see more than +you think. You are to be his partner. I booked you for that directly +I read his letter to me the other day, and the way he spoke of you. He +thinks a great deal of you, Mr. Smith, or he wouldn't be so anxious for +your return.' + +Unpleasant to Stephen such remarks as these could not sound; to have the +expectancy of partnership with one of the largest-practising architects +in London thrust upon him was cheering, however untenable he felt the +idea to be. He saw that, whatever Mr. Hewby might think, Mr. Swancourt +certainly thought much of him to entertain such an idea on such slender +ground as to be absolutely no ground at all. And then, unaccountably, +his speaking face exhibited a cloud of sadness, which a reflection on +the remoteness of any such contingency could hardly have sufficed to +cause. + +Elfride was struck with that look of his; even Mr. Swancourt noticed it. + +'Well,' he said cheerfully, 'never mind that now. You must come again +on your own account; not on business. Come to see me as a visitor, +you know--say, in your holidays--all you town men have holidays like +schoolboys. When are they?' + +'In August, I believe.' + +'Very well; come in August; and then you need not hurry away so. I am +glad to get somebody decent to talk to, or at, in this outlandish ultima +Thule. But, by the bye, I have something to say--you won't go to-day?' + +'No; I need not,' said Stephen hesitatingly. 'I am not obliged to get +back before Monday morning.' + +'Very well, then, that brings me to what I am going to propose. This is +a letter from Lord Luxellian. I think you heard me speak of him as the +resident landowner in this district, and patron of this living?' + +'I--know of him.' + +'He is in London now. It seems that he has run up on business for a day +or two, and taken Lady Luxellian with him. He has written to ask me to +go to his house, and search for a paper among his private memoranda, +which he forgot to take with him.' + +'What did he send in the letter?' inquired Elfride. + +'The key of a private desk in which the papers are. He doesn't like to +trust such a matter to any body else. I have done such things for him +before. And what I propose is, that we make an afternoon of it--all +three of us. Go for a drive to Targan Bay, come home by way of Endelstow +House; and whilst I am looking over the documents you can ramble about +the rooms where you like. I have the run of the house at any time, you +know. The building, though nothing but a mass of gables outside, has a +splendid hall, staircase, and gallery within; and there are a few good +pictures.' + +'Yes, there are,' said Stephen. + +'Have you seen the place, then? + +'I saw it as I came by,' he said hastily. + +'Oh yes; but I was alluding to the interior. And the church--St. +Eval's--is much older than our St. Agnes' here. I do duty in that and +this alternately, you know. The fact is, I ought to have some help; +riding across that park for two miles on a wet morning is not at all +the thing. If my constitution were not well seasoned, as thank God it +is,'--here Mr. Swancourt looked down his front, as if his constitution +were visible there,--'I should be coughing and barking all the year +round. And when the family goes away, there are only about three +servants to preach to when I get there. Well, that shall be the +arrangement, then. Elfride, you will like to go?' + +Elfride assented; and the little breakfast-party separated. Stephen +rose to go and take a few final measurements at the church, the vicar +following him to the door with a mysterious expression of inquiry on his +face. + +'You'll put up with our not having family prayer this morning, I hope?' +he whispered. + +'Yes; quite so,' said Stephen. + +'To tell you the truth,' he continued in the same undertone, 'we don't +make a regular thing of it; but when we have strangers visiting us, I am +strongly of opinion that it is the proper thing to do, and I always do +it. I am very strict on that point. But you, Smith, there is something +in your face which makes me feel quite at home; no nonsense about you, +in short. Ah, it reminds me of a splendid story I used to hear when I +was a helter-skelter young fellow--such a story! But'--here the vicar +shook his head self-forbiddingly, and grimly laughed. + +'Was it a good story?' said young Smith, smiling too. + +'Oh yes; but 'tis too bad--too bad! Couldn't tell it to you for the +world!' + +Stephen went across the lawn, hearing the vicar chuckling privately at +the recollection as he withdrew. + + +They started at three o'clock. The gray morning had resolved itself +into an afternoon bright with a pale pervasive sunlight, without the +sun itself being visible. Lightly they trotted along--the wheels nearly +silent, the horse's hoofs clapping, almost ringing, upon the hard, +white, turnpike road as it followed the level ridge in a perfectly +straight line, seeming to be absorbed ultimately by the white of the +sky. + +Targan Bay--which had the merit of being easily got at--was duly +visited. They then swept round by innumerable lanes, in which not twenty +consecutive yards were either straight or level, to the domain of Lord +Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and thick neck, like Queen Anne by +Dahl, threw open the lodge gate, a little boy standing behind her. + +'I'll give him something, poor little fellow,' said Elfride, pulling out +her purse and hastily opening it. From the interior of her purse a host +of bits of paper, like a flock of white birds, floated into the air, and +were blown about in all directions. + +'Well, to be sure!' said Stephen with a slight laugh. + +'What the dickens is all that?' said Mr. Swancourt. 'Not halves of +bank-notes, Elfride?' + +Elfride looked annoyed and guilty. 'They are only something of mine, +papa,' she faltered, whilst Stephen leapt out, and, assisted by the +lodge-keeper's little boy, crept about round the wheels and horse's +hoofs till the papers were all gathered together again. He handed them +back to her, and remounted. + +'I suppose you are wondering what those scraps were?' she said, as they +bowled along up the sycamore avenue. 'And so I may as well tell you. +They are notes for a romance I am writing.' + +She could not help colouring at the confession, much as she tried to +avoid it. + +'A story, do you mean?' said Stephen, Mr. Swancourt half listening, and +catching a word of the conversation now and then. + +'Yes; THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE; a romance of the fifteenth century. +Such writing is out of date now, I know; but I like doing it.' + +'A romance carried in a purse! If a highwayman were to rob you, he would +be taken in.' + +'Yes; that's my way of carrying manuscript. The real reason is, that I +mostly write bits of it on scraps of paper when I am on horseback; and I +put them there for convenience.' + +'What are you going to do with your romance when you have written it?' +said Stephen. + +'I don't know,' she replied, and turned her head to look at the +prospect. + +For by this time they had reached the precincts of Endelstow House. +Driving through an ancient gate-way of dun-coloured stone, spanned by +the high-shouldered Tudor arch, they found themselves in a spacious +court, closed by a facade on each of its three sides. The substantial +portions of the existing building dated from the reign of Henry VIII.; +but the picturesque and sheltered spot had been the site of an erection +of a much earlier date. A licence to crenellate mansum infra manerium +suum was granted by Edward II. to 'Hugo Luxellen chivaler;' but though +the faint outline of the ditch and mound was visible at points, no sign +of the original building remained. + +The windows on all sides were long and many-mullioned; the roof lines +broken up by dormer lights of the same pattern. The apex stones of these +dormers, together with those of the gables, were surmounted by grotesque +figures in rampant, passant, and couchant variety. Tall octagonal and +twisted chimneys thrust themselves high up into the sky, surpassed in +height, however, by some poplars and sycamores at the back, which showed +their gently rocking summits over ridge and parapet. In the corners +of the court polygonal bays, whose surfaces were entirely occupied by +buttresses and windows, broke into the squareness of the enclosure; and +a far-projecting oriel, springing from a fantastic series of mouldings, +overhung the archway of the chief entrance to the house. + +As Mr. Swancourt had remarked, he had the freedom of the mansion in +the absence of its owner. Upon a statement of his errand they were all +admitted to the library, and left entirely to themselves. Mr. Swancourt +was soon up to his eyes in the examination of a heap of papers he had +taken from the cabinet described by his correspondent. Stephen and +Elfride had nothing to do but to wander about till her father was ready. + +Elfride entered the gallery, and Stephen followed her without seeming to +do so. It was a long sombre apartment, enriched with fittings a century +or so later in style than the walls of the mansion. Pilasters of +Renaissance workmanship supported a cornice from which sprang a curved +ceiling, panelled in the awkward twists and curls of the period. The old +Gothic quarries still remained in the upper portion of the large window +at the end, though they had made way for a more modern form of glazing +elsewhere. + +Stephen was at one end of the gallery looking towards Elfride, who stood +in the midst, beginning to feel somewhat depressed by the society of +Luxellian shades of cadaverous complexion fixed by Holbein, Kneller, and +Lely, and seeming to gaze at and through her in a moralizing mood. The +silence, which cast almost a spell upon them, was broken by the sudden +opening of a door at the far end. + +Out bounded a pair of little girls, lightly yet warmly dressed. Their +eyes were sparkling; their hair swinging about and around; their red +mouths laughing with unalloyed gladness. + +'Ah, Miss Swancourt: dearest Elfie! we heard you. Are you going to stay +here? You are our little mamma, are you not--our big mamma is gone to +London,' said one. + +'Let me tiss you,' said the other, in appearance very much like the +first, but to a smaller pattern. + +Their pink cheeks and yellow hair were speedily intermingled with the +folds of Elfride's dress; she then stooped and tenderly embraced them +both. + +'Such an odd thing,' said Elfride, smiling, and turning to Stephen. +'They have taken it into their heads lately to call me "little mamma," +because I am very fond of them, and wore a dress the other day something +like one of Lady Luxellian's.' + +These two young creatures were the Honourable Mary and the Honourable +Kate--scarcely appearing large enough as yet to bear the weight of such +ponderous prefixes. They were the only two children of Lord and Lady +Luxellian, and, as it proved, had been left at home during their +parents' temporary absence, in the custody of nurse and governess. Lord +Luxellian was dotingly fond of the children; rather indifferent towards +his wife, since she had begun to show an inclination not to please him +by giving him a boy. + +All children instinctively ran after Elfride, looking upon her more as +an unusually nice large specimen of their own tribe than as a grown-up +elder. It had now become an established rule, that whenever she met +them--indoors or out-of-doors, weekdays or Sundays--they were to be +severally pressed against her face and bosom for the space of a quarter +of a minute, and other-wise made much of on the delightful system +of cumulative epithet and caress to which unpractised girls will +occasionally abandon themselves. + +A look of misgiving by the youngsters towards the door by which they +had entered directed attention to a maid-servant appearing from the same +quarter, to put an end to this sweet freedom of the poor Honourables +Mary and Kate. + +'I wish you lived here, Miss Swancourt,' piped one like a melancholy +bullfinch. + +'So do I,' piped the other like a rather more melancholy bullfinch. +'Mamma can't play with us so nicely as you do. I don't think she ever +learnt playing when she was little. When shall we come to see you?' + +'As soon as you like, dears.' + +'And sleep at your house all night? That's what I mean by coming to +see you. I don't care to see people with hats and bonnets on, and all +standing up and walking about.' + +'As soon as we can get mamma's permission you shall come and stay as +long as ever you like. Good-bye!' + +The prisoners were then led off, Elfride again turning her attention to +her guest, whom she had left standing at the remote end of the gallery. +On looking around for him he was nowhere to be seen. Elfride stepped +down to the library, thinking he might have rejoined her father there. +But Mr. Swancourt, now cheerfully illuminated by a pair of candles, was +still alone, untying packets of letters and papers, and tying them up +again. + +As Elfride did not stand on a sufficiently intimate footing with the +object of her interest to justify her, as a proper young lady, to +commence the active search for him that youthful impulsiveness prompted, +and as, nevertheless, for a nascent reason connected with those divinely +cut lips of his, she did not like him to be absent from her side, she +wandered desultorily back to the oak staircase, pouting and casting her +eyes about in hope of discerning his boyish figure. + +Though daylight still prevailed in the rooms, the corridors were in +a depth of shadow--chill, sad, and silent; and it was only by looking +along them towards light spaces beyond that anything or anybody could be +discerned therein. One of these light spots she found to be caused by +a side-door with glass panels in the upper part. Elfride opened it, and +found herself confronting a secondary or inner lawn, separated from the +principal lawn front by a shrubbery. + +And now she saw a perplexing sight. At right angles to the face of the +wing she had emerged from, and within a few feet of the door, jutted +out another wing of the mansion, lower and with less architectural +character. Immediately opposite to her, in the wall of this wing, was +a large broad window, having its blind drawn down, and illuminated by a +light in the room it screened. + +On the blind was a shadow from somebody close inside it--a person in +profile. The profile was unmistakably that of Stephen. It was just +possible to see that his arms were uplifted, and that his hands held an +article of some kind. Then another shadow appeared--also in profile--and +came close to him. This was the shadow of a woman. She turned her back +towards Stephen: he lifted and held out what now proved to be a shawl or +mantle--placed it carefully--so carefully--round the lady; disappeared; +reappeared in her front--fastened the mantle. Did he then kiss her? +Surely not. Yet the motion might have been a kiss. Then both shadows +swelled to colossal dimensions--grew distorted--vanished. + +Two minutes elapsed. + +'Ah, Miss Swancourt! I am so glad to find you. I was looking for +you,' said a voice at her elbow--Stephen's voice. She stepped into the +passage. + +'Do you know any of the members of this establishment?' said she. + +'Not a single one: how should I?' he replied. + + + + +Chapter VI + + 'Fare thee weel awhile!' + + +Simultaneously with the conclusion of Stephen's remark, the sound of +the closing of an external door in their immediate neighbourhood reached +Elfride's ears. It came from the further side of the wing containing the +illuminated room. She then discerned, by the aid of the dusky departing +light, a figure, whose sex was undistinguishable, walking down the +gravelled path by the parterre towards the river. The figure grew +fainter, and vanished under the trees. + +Mr. Swancourt's voice was heard calling out their names from a distant +corridor in the body of the building. They retraced their steps, and +found him with his coat buttoned up and his hat on, awaiting their +advent in a mood of self-satisfaction at having brought his search to +a successful close. The carriage was brought round, and without further +delay the trio drove away from the mansion, under the echoing gateway +arch, and along by the leafless sycamores, as the stars began to kindle +their trembling lights behind the maze of branches and twigs. + +No words were spoken either by youth or maiden. Her unpractised mind was +completely occupied in fathoming its recent acquisition. The young man +who had inspired her with such novelty of feeling, who had come directly +from London on business to her father, having been brought by chance to +Endelstow House had, by some means or other, acquired the privilege +of approaching some lady he had found therein, and of honouring her by +petits soins of a marked kind,--all in the space of half an hour. + +What room were they standing in? thought Elfride. As nearly as she could +guess, it was Lord Luxellian's business-room, or office. What people +were in the house? None but the governess and servants, as far as she +knew, and of these he had professed a total ignorance. Had the person +she had indistinctly seen leaving the house anything to do with the +performance? It was impossible to say without appealing to the culprit +himself, and that she would never do. The more Elfride reflected, the +more certain did it appear that the meeting was a chance rencounter, and +not an appointment. On the ultimate inquiry as to the individuality of +the woman, Elfride at once assumed that she could not be an inferior. +Stephen Smith was not the man to care about passages-at-love with women +beneath him. Though gentle, ambition was visible in his kindling eyes; +he evidently hoped for much; hoped indefinitely, but extensively. +Elfride was puzzled, and being puzzled, was, by a natural sequence of +girlish sensations, vexed with him. No more pleasure came in recognizing +that from liking to attract him she was getting on to love him, boyish +as he was and innocent as he had seemed. + +They reached the bridge which formed a link between the eastern and +western halves of the parish. Situated in a valley that was bounded +outwardly by the sea, it formed a point of depression from which the +road ascended with great steepness to West Endelstow and the Vicarage. +There was no absolute necessity for either of them to alight, but as +it was the vicar's custom after a long journey to humour the horse in +making this winding ascent, Elfride, moved by an imitative instinct, +suddenly jumped out when Pleasant had just begun to adopt the deliberate +stalk he associated with this portion of the road. + +The young man seemed glad of any excuse for breaking the silence. 'Why, +Miss Swancourt, what a risky thing to do!' he exclaimed, immediately +following her example by jumping down on the other side. + +'Oh no, not at all,' replied she coldly; the shadow phenomenon at +Endelstow House still paramount within her. + +Stephen walked along by himself for two or three minutes, wrapped in the +rigid reserve dictated by her tone. Then apparently thinking that it was +only for girls to pout, he came serenely round to her side, and offered +his arm with Castilian gallantry, to assist her in ascending the +remaining three-quarters of the steep. + +Here was a temptation: it was the first time in her life that Elfride +had been treated as a grown-up woman in this way--offered an arm in a +manner implying that she had a right to refuse it. Till to-night she +had never received masculine attentions beyond those which might be +contained in such homely remarks as 'Elfride, give me your hand;' +'Elfride, take hold of my arm,' from her father. Her callow heart made +an epoch of the incident; she considered her array of feelings, for and +against. Collectively they were for taking this offered arm; the single +one of pique determined her to punish Stephen by refusing. + +'No, thank you, Mr. Smith; I can get along better by myself' + +It was Elfride's first fragile attempt at browbeating a lover. Fearing +more the issue of such an undertaking than what a gentle young man +might think of her waywardness, she immediately afterwards determined to +please herself by reversing her statement. + +'On second thoughts, I will take it,' she said. + +They slowly went their way up the hill, a few yards behind the carriage. + +'How silent you are, Miss Swancourt!' Stephen observed. + +'Perhaps I think you silent too,' she returned. + +'I may have reason to be.' + +'Scarcely; it is sadness that makes people silent, and you can have +none.' + +'You don't know: I have a trouble; though some might think it less a +trouble than a dilemma.' + +'What is it?' she asked impulsively. + +Stephen hesitated. 'I might tell,' he said; 'at the same time, perhaps, +it is as well----' + +She let go his arm and imperatively pushed it from her, tossing her +head. She had just learnt that a good deal of dignity is lost by asking +a question to which an answer is refused, even ever so politely; +for though politeness does good service in cases of requisition and +compromise, it but little helps a direct refusal. 'I don't wish to know +anything of it; I don't wish it,' she went on. 'The carriage is waiting +for us at the top of the hill; we must get in;' and Elfride flitted +to the front. 'Papa, here is your Elfride!' she exclaimed to the dusky +figure of the old gentleman, as she sprang up and sank by his side +without deigning to accept aid from Stephen. + +'Ah, yes!' uttered the vicar in artificially alert tones, awaking from a +most profound sleep, and suddenly preparing to alight. + +'Why, what are you doing, papa? We are not home yet.' + +'Oh no, no; of course not; we are not at home yet,' Mr. Swancourt said +very hastily, endeavouring to dodge back to his original position with +the air of a man who had not moved at all. 'The fact is I was so lost in +deep meditation that I forgot whereabouts we were.' And in a minute the +vicar was snoring again. + + +That evening, being the last, seemed to throw an exceptional shade of +sadness over Stephen Smith, and the repeated injunctions of the vicar, +that he was to come and revisit them in the summer, apparently tended +less to raise his spirits than to unearth some misgiving. + +He left them in the gray light of dawn, whilst the colours of earth were +sombre, and the sun was yet hidden in the east. Elfride had fidgeted all +night in her little bed lest none of the household should be awake +soon enough to start him, and also lest she might miss seeing again +the bright eyes and curly hair, to which their owner's possession of a +hidden mystery added a deeper tinge of romance. To some extent--so +soon does womanly interest take a solicitous turn--she felt herself +responsible for his safe conduct. They breakfasted before daylight; +Mr. Swancourt, being more and more taken with his guest's ingenuous +appearance, having determined to rise early and bid him a friendly +farewell. It was, however, rather to the vicar's astonishment, that he +saw Elfride walk in to the breakfast-table, candle in hand. + +Whilst William Worm performed his toilet (during which performance +the inmates of the vicarage were always in the habit of waiting with +exemplary patience), Elfride wandered desultorily to the summer house. +Stephen followed her thither. The copse-covered valley was visible from +this position, a mist now lying all along its length, hiding the stream +which trickled through it, though the observers themselves were in clear +air. + +They stood close together, leaning over the rustic balustrading which +bounded the arbour on the outward side, and formed the crest of a steep +slope beneath Elfride constrainedly pointed out some features of the +distant uplands rising irregularly opposite. But the artistic eye was, +either from nature or circumstance, very faint in Stephen now, and he +only half attended to her description, as if he spared time from some +other thought going on within him. + +'Well, good-bye,' he said suddenly; 'I must never see you again, I +suppose, Miss Swancourt, in spite of invitations.' + +His genuine tribulation played directly upon the delicate chords of +her nature. She could afford to forgive him for a concealment or two. +Moreover, the shyness which would not allow him to look her in the face +lent bravery to her own eyes and tongue. + +'Oh, DO come again, Mr. Smith!' she said prettily. + +'I should delight in it; but it will be better if I do not.' + +'Why?' + +'Certain circumstances in connection with me make it undesirable. Not on +my account; on yours.' + +'Goodness! As if anything in connection with you could hurt me,' she +said with serene supremacy; but seeing that this plan of treatment was +inappropriate, she tuned a smaller note. 'Ah, I know why you will +not come. You don't want to. You'll go home to London and to all the +stirring people there, and will never want to see us any more!' + +'You know I have no such reason.' + +'And go on writing letters to the lady you are engaged to, just as +before.' + +'What does that mean? I am not engaged.' + +'You wrote a letter to a Miss Somebody; I saw it in the letter-rack.' + +'Pooh! an elderly woman who keeps a stationer's shop; and it was to tell +her to keep my newspapers till I get back.' + +'You needn't have explained: it was not my business at all.' Miss +Elfride was rather relieved to hear that statement, nevertheless. 'And +you won't come again to see my father?' she insisted. + +'I should like to--and to see you again, but----' + +'Will you reveal to me that matter you hide?' she interrupted +petulantly. + +'No; not now.' + +She could not but go on, graceless as it might seem. + +'Tell me this,' she importuned with a trembling mouth. 'Does any meeting +of yours with a lady at Endelstow Vicarage clash with--any interest you +may take in me?' + +He started a little. 'It does not,' he said emphatically; and looked +into the pupils of her eyes with the confidence that only honesty can +give, and even that to youth alone. + +The explanation had not come, but a gloom left her. She could not but +believe that utterance. Whatever enigma might lie in the shadow on the +blind, it was not an enigma of underhand passion. + +She turned towards the house, entering it through the conservatory. +Stephen went round to the front door. Mr. Swancourt was standing on the +step in his slippers. Worm was adjusting a buckle in the harness, and +murmuring about his poor head; and everything was ready for Stephen's +departure. + +'You named August for your visit. August it shall be; that is, if you +care for the society of such a fossilized Tory,' said Mr. Swancourt. + +Mr. Smith only responded hesitatingly, that he should like to come +again. + +'You said you would, and you must,' insisted Elfride, coming to the door +and speaking under her father's arm. + +Whatever reason the youth may have had for not wishing to enter the +house as a guest, it no longer predominated. He promised, and bade them +adieu, and got into the pony-carriage, which crept up the slope, and +bore him out of their sight. + +'I never was so much taken with anybody in my life as I am with that +young fellow--never! I cannot understand it--can't understand it +anyhow,' said Mr. Swancourt quite energetically to himself; and went +indoors. + + + + +Chapter VII + + 'No more of me you knew, my love!' + + +Stephen Smith revisited Endelstow Vicarage, agreeably to his promise. He +had a genuine artistic reason for coming, though no such reason +seemed to be required. Six-and-thirty old seat ends, of exquisite +fifteenth-century workmanship, were rapidly decaying in an aisle of +the church; and it became politic to make drawings of their worm-eaten +contours ere they were battered past recognition in the turmoil of the +so-called restoration. + +He entered the house at sunset, and the world was pleasant again to +the two fair-haired ones. A momentary pang of disappointment had, +nevertheless, passed through Elfride when she casually discovered that +he had not come that minute post-haste from London, but had reached the +neighbourhood the previous evening. Surprise would have accompanied the +feeling, had she not remembered that several tourists were haunting the +coast at this season, and that Stephen might have chosen to do likewise. + +They did little besides chat that evening, Mr. Swancourt beginning to +question his visitor, closely yet paternally, and in good part, on his +hopes and prospects from the profession he had embraced. Stephen gave +vague answers. The next day it rained. In the evening, when twenty-four +hours of Elfride had completely rekindled her admirer's ardour, a game +of chess was proposed between them. + +The game had its value in helping on the developments of their future. + +Elfride soon perceived that her opponent was but a learner. She next +noticed that he had a very odd way of handling the pieces when castling +or taking a man. Antecedently she would have supposed that the same +performance must be gone through by all players in the same manner; she +was taught by his differing action that all ordinary players, who learn +the game by sight, unconsciously touch the men in a stereotyped way. +This impression of indescribable oddness in Stephen's touch culminated +in speech when she saw him, at the taking of one of her bishops, push it +aside with the taking man instead of lifting it as a preliminary to the +move. + +'How strangely you handle the men, Mr. Smith!' + +'Do I? I am sorry for that.' + +'Oh no--don't be sorry; it is not a matter great enough for sorrow. But +who taught you to play?' + +'Nobody, Miss Swancourt,' he said. 'I learnt from a book lent me by my +friend Mr. Knight, the noblest man in the world.' + +'But you have seen people play?' + +'I have never seen the playing of a single game. This is the first time +I ever had the opportunity of playing with a living opponent. I have +worked out many games from books, and studied the reasons of the +different moves, but that is all.' + +This was a full explanation of his mannerism; but the fact that a man +with the desire for chess should have grown up without being able to +see or engage in a game astonished her not a little. She pondered on the +circumstance for some time, looking into vacancy and hindering the play. + +Mr. Swancourt was sitting with his eyes fixed on the board, but +apparently thinking of other things. Half to himself he said, pending +the move of Elfride: + +'"Quae finis aut quod me manet stipendium?"' + +Stephen replied instantly: + +'"Effare: jussas cum fide poenas luam."' + +'Excellent--prompt--gratifying!' said Mr. Swancourt with feeling, +bringing down his hand upon the table, and making three pawns and a +knight dance over their borders by the shaking. 'I was musing on those +words as applicable to a strange course I am steering--but enough of +that. I am delighted with you, Mr. Smith, for it is so seldom in this +desert that I meet with a man who is gentleman and scholar enough to +continue a quotation, however trite it may be.' + +'I also apply the words to myself,' said Stephen quietly. + +'You? The last man in the world to do that, I should have thought.' + +'Come,' murmured Elfride poutingly, and insinuating herself between +them, 'tell me all about it. Come, construe, construe!' + +Stephen looked steadfastly into her face, and said slowly, and in a +voice full of a far-off meaning that seemed quaintly premature in one so +young: + +'Quae finis WHAT WILL BE THE END, aut OR, quod stipendium WHAT FINE, +manet me AWAITS ME? Effare SPEAK OUT; luam I WILL PAY, cum fide WITH +FAITH, jussas poenas THE PENALTY REQUIRED.' + +The vicar, who had listened with a critical compression of the lips to +this school-boy recitation, and by reason of his imperfect hearing had +missed the marked realism of Stephen's tone in the English words, now +said hesitatingly: 'By the bye, Mr. Smith (I know you'll excuse my +curiosity), though your translation was unexceptionably correct and +close, you have a way of pronouncing your Latin which to me seems most +peculiar. Not that the pronunciation of a dead language is of much +importance; yet your accents and quantities have a grotesque sound to +my ears. I thought first that you had acquired your way of breathing the +vowels from some of the northern colleges; but it cannot be so with +the quantities. What I was going to ask was, if your instructor in the +classics could possibly have been an Oxford or Cambridge man?' + +'Yes; he was an Oxford man--Fellow of St. Cyprian's.' + +'Really?' + +'Oh yes; there's no doubt about it. + +'The oddest thing ever I heard of!' said Mr. Swancourt, starting with +astonishment. 'That the pupil of such a man----' + +'The best and cleverest man in England!' cried Stephen enthusiastically. + +'That the pupil of such a man should pronounce Latin in the way you +pronounce it beats all I ever heard. How long did he instruct you?' + +'Four years.' + +'Four years!' + +'It is not so strange when I explain,' Stephen hastened to say. 'It was +done in this way--by letter. I sent him exercises and construing twice a +week, and twice a week he sent them back to me corrected, with marginal +notes of instruction. That is how I learnt my Latin and Greek, such as +it is. He is not responsible for my scanning. He has never heard me scan +a line.' + +'A novel case, and a singular instance of patience!' cried the vicar. + +'On his part, not on mine. Ah, Henry Knight is one in a thousand! I +remember his speaking to me on this very subject of pronunciation. He +says that, much to his regret, he sees a time coming when every man will +pronounce even the common words of his own tongue as seems right in his +own ears, and be thought none the worse for it; that the speaking age is +passing away, to make room for the writing age.' + +Both Elfride and her father had waited attentively to hear Stephen go on +to what would have been the most interesting part of the story, namely, +what circumstances could have necessitated such an unusual method of +education. But no further explanation was volunteered; and they saw, by +the young man's manner of concentrating himself upon the chess-board, +that he was anxious to drop the subject. + +The game proceeded. Elfride played by rote; Stephen by thought. It +was the cruellest thing to checkmate him after so much labour, she +considered. What was she dishonest enough to do in her compassion? +To let him checkmate her. A second game followed; and being herself +absolutely indifferent as to the result (her playing was above the +average among women, and she knew it), she allowed him to give checkmate +again. A final game, in which she adopted the Muzio gambit as her +opening, was terminated by Elfride's victory at the twelfth move. + +Stephen looked up suspiciously. His heart was throbbing even more +excitedly than was hers, which itself had quickened when she seriously +set to work on this last occasion. Mr. Swancourt had left the room. + +'You have been trifling with me till now!' he exclaimed, his face +flushing. 'You did not play your best in the first two games?' + +Elfride's guilt showed in her face. Stephen became the picture of +vexation and sadness, which, relishable for a moment, caused her the +next instant to regret the mistake she had made. + +'Mr. Smith, forgive me!' she said sweetly. 'I see now, though I did not +at first, that what I have done seems like contempt for your skill. +But, indeed, I did not mean it in that sense. I could not, upon my +conscience, win a victory in those first and second games over one who +fought at such a disadvantage and so manfully.' + +He drew a long breath, and murmured bitterly, 'Ah, you are cleverer than +I. You can do everything--I can do nothing! O Miss Swancourt!' he burst +out wildly, his heart swelling in his throat, 'I must tell you how I +love you! All these months of my absence I have worshipped you.' + +He leapt from his seat like the impulsive lad that he was, slid round +to her side, and almost before she suspected it his arm was round her +waist, and the two sets of curls intermingled. + +So entirely new was full-blown love to Elfride, that she trembled as +much from the novelty of the emotion as from the emotion itself. Then +she suddenly withdrew herself and stood upright, vexed that she had +submitted unresistingly even to his momentary pressure. She resolved to +consider this demonstration as premature. + +'You must not begin such things as those,' she said with coquettish +hauteur of a very transparent nature 'And--you must not do so again--and +papa is coming.' + +'Let me kiss you--only a little one,' he said with his usual delicacy, +and without reading the factitiousness of her manner. + +'No; not one.' + +'Only on your cheek?' + +'No.' + +'Forehead?' + +'Certainly not.' + +'You care for somebody else, then? Ah, I thought so!' + +'I am sure I do not.' + +'Nor for me either?' + +'How can I tell?' she said simply, the simplicity lying merely in the +broad outlines of her manner and speech. There were the semitone of +voice and half-hidden expression of eyes which tell the initiated how +very fragile is the ice of reserve at these times. + +Footsteps were heard. Mr. Swancourt then entered the room, and their +private colloquy ended. + +The day after this partial revelation, Mr. Swancourt proposed a drive to +the cliffs beyond Targan Bay, a distance of three or four miles. + +Half an hour before the time of departure a crash was heard in the back +yard, and presently Worm came in, saying partly to the world in general, +partly to himself, and slightly to his auditors: + +'Ay, ay, sure! That frying of fish will be the end of William Worm. They +be at it again this morning--same as ever--fizz, fizz, fizz!' + +'Your head bad again, Worm?' said Mr. Swancourt. 'What was that noise we +heard in the yard?' + +'Ay, sir, a weak wambling man am I; and the frying have been going on in +my poor head all through the long night and this morning as usual; and I +was so dazed wi' it that down fell a piece of leg-wood across the shaft +of the pony-shay, and splintered it off. "Ay," says I, "I feel it as if +'twas my own shay; and though I've done it, and parish pay is my lot if +I go from here, perhaps I am as independent as one here and there."' + +'Dear me, the shaft of the carriage broken!' cried Elfride. She was +disappointed: Stephen doubly so. The vicar showed more warmth of temper +than the accident seemed to demand, much to Stephen's uneasiness and +rather to his surprise. He had not supposed so much latent sternness +could co-exist with Mr. Swancourt's frankness and good-nature. + +'You shall not be disappointed,' said the vicar at length. 'It is almost +too long a distance for you to walk. Elfride can trot down on her pony, +and you shall have my old nag, Smith.' + +Elfride exclaimed triumphantly, 'You have never seen me on +horseback--Oh, you must!' She looked at Stephen and read his thoughts +immediately. 'Ah, you don't ride, Mr. Smith?' + +'I am sorry to say I don't.' + +'Fancy a man not able to ride!' said she rather pertly. + +The vicar came to his rescue. 'That's common enough; he has had other +lessons to learn. Now, I recommend this plan: let Elfride ride on +horseback, and you, Mr. Smith, walk beside her.' + +The arrangement was welcomed with secret delight by Stephen. It seemed +to combine in itself all the advantages of a long slow ramble with +Elfride, without the contingent possibility of the enjoyment being +spoilt by her becoming weary. The pony was saddled and brought round. + +'Now, Mr. Smith,' said the lady imperatively, coming downstairs, and +appearing in her riding-habit, as she always did in a change of dress, +like a new edition of a delightful volume, 'you have a task to perform +to-day. These earrings are my very favourite darling ones; but the worst +of it is that they have such short hooks that they are liable to be +dropped if I toss my head about much, and when I am riding I can't give +my mind to them. It would be doing me knight service if you keep your +eyes fixed upon them, and remember them every minute of the day, and +tell me directly I drop one. They have had such hairbreadth escapes, +haven't they, Unity?' she continued to the parlour-maid who was standing +at the door. + +'Yes, miss, that they have!' said Unity with round-eyed commiseration. + +'Once 'twas in the lane that I found one of them,' pursued Elfride +reflectively. + +'And then 'twas by the gate into Eighteen Acres,' Unity chimed in. + +'And then 'twas on the carpet in my own room,' rejoined Elfride merrily. + +'And then 'twas dangling on the embroidery of your petticoat, miss; and +then 'twas down your back, miss, wasn't it? And oh, what a way you was +in, miss, wasn't you? my! until you found it!' + +Stephen took Elfride's slight foot upon his hand: 'One, two, three, and +up!' she said. + +Unfortunately not so. He staggered and lifted, and the horse edged +round; and Elfride was ultimately deposited upon the ground rather more +forcibly than was pleasant. Smith looked all contrition. + +'Never mind,' said the vicar encouragingly; 'try again! 'Tis a little +accomplishment that requires some practice, although it looks so easy. +Stand closer to the horse's head, Mr. Smith.' + +'Indeed, I shan't let him try again,' said she with a microscopic look +of indignation. 'Worm, come here, and help me to mount.' Worm stepped +forward, and she was in the saddle in a trice. + +Then they moved on, going for some distance in silence, the hot air of +the valley being occasionally brushed from their faces by a cool breeze, +which wound its way along ravines leading up from the sea. + +'I suppose,' said Stephen, 'that a man who can neither sit in a saddle +himself nor help another person into one seems a useless incumbrance; +but, Miss Swancourt, I'll learn to do it all for your sake; I will, +indeed.' + +'What is so unusual in you,' she said, in a didactic tone justifiable in +a horsewoman's address to a benighted walker, 'is that your knowledge of +certain things should be combined with your ignorance of certain other +things.' + +Stephen lifted his eyes earnestly to hers. + +'You know,' he said, 'it is simply because there are so many other +things to be learnt in this wide world that I didn't trouble about that +particular bit of knowledge. I thought it would be useless to me; but +I don't think so now. I will learn riding, and all connected with it, +because then you would like me better. Do you like me much less for +this?' + +She looked sideways at him with critical meditation tenderly rendered. + +'Do I seem like LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI?' she began suddenly, without +replying to his question. 'Fancy yourself saying, Mr. Smith: + + + "I sat her on my pacing steed, + And nothing else saw all day long, + For sidelong would she bend, and sing + A fairy's song, + She found me roots of relish sweet, + And honey wild, and manna dew;" + + +and that's all she did.' + +'No, no,' said the young man stilly, and with a rising colour. + + + + '"And sure in language strange she said, + I love thee true."' + + + +'Not at all,' she rejoined quickly. 'See how I can gallop. Now, +Pansy, off!' And Elfride started; and Stephen beheld her light +figure contracting to the dimensions of a bird as she sank into the +distance--her hair flowing. + +He walked on in the same direction, and for a considerable time could +see no signs of her returning. Dull as a flower without the sun he sat +down upon a stone, and not for fifteen minutes was any sound of horse +or rider to be heard. Then Elfride and Pansy appeared on the hill in a +round trot. + +'Such a delightful scamper as we have had!' she said, her face flushed +and her eyes sparkling. She turned the horse's head, Stephen arose, and +they went on again. + +'Well, what have you to say to me, Mr. Smith, after my long absence?' + +'Do you remember a question you could not exactly answer last +night--whether I was more to you than anybody else?' said he. + +'I cannot exactly answer now, either.' + +'Why can't you?' + +'Because I don't know if I am more to you than any one else.' + +'Yes, indeed, you are!' he exclaimed in a voice of intensest +appreciation, at the same time gliding round and looking into her face. + +'Eyes in eyes,' he murmured playfully; and she blushingly obeyed, +looking back into his. + +'And why not lips on lips?' continued Stephen daringly. + +'No, certainly not. Anybody might look; and it would be the death of me. +You may kiss my hand if you like.' + +He expressed by a look that to kiss a hand through a glove, and that a +riding-glove, was not a great treat under the circumstances. + +'There, then; I'll take my glove off. Isn't it a pretty white hand? Ah, +you don't want to kiss it, and you shall not now!' + +'If I do not, may I never kiss again, you severe Elfride! You know I +think more of you than I can tell; that you are my queen. I would die +for you, Elfride!' + +A rapid red again filled her cheeks, and she looked at him meditatively. +What a proud moment it was for Elfride then! She was ruling a heart with +absolute despotism for the first time in her life. + +Stephen stealthily pounced upon her hand. + +'No; I won't, I won't!' she said intractably; 'and you shouldn't take me +by surprise.' + +There ensued a mild form of tussle for absolute possession of the +much-coveted hand, in which the boisterousness of boy and girl was far +more prominent than the dignity of man and woman. Then Pansy became +restless. Elfride recovered her position and remembered herself. + +'You make me behave in not a nice way at all!' she exclaimed, in a tone +neither of pleasure nor anger, but partaking of both. 'I ought not to +have allowed such a romp! We are too old now for that sort of thing.' + +'I hope you don't think me too--too much of a creeping-round sort of +man,' said he in a penitent tone, conscious that he too had lost a +little dignity by the proceeding. + +'You are too familiar; and I can't have it! Considering the shortness +of the time we have known each other, Mr. Smith, you take too much upon +you. You think I am a country girl, and it doesn't matter how you behave +to me!' + +'I assure you, Miss Swancourt, that I had no idea of freak in my mind. I +wanted to imprint a sweet--serious kiss upon your hand; and that's all.' + +'Now, that's creeping round again! And you mustn't look into my eyes +so,' she said, shaking her head at him, and trotting on a few paces in +advance. Thus she led the way out of the lane and across some fields in +the direction of the cliffs. At the boundary of the fields nearest the +sea she expressed a wish to dismount. The horse was tied to a post, and +they both followed an irregular path, which ultimately terminated upon +a flat ledge passing round the face of the huge blue-black rock at a +height about midway between the sea and the topmost verge. There, far +beneath and before them, lay the everlasting stretch of ocean; there, +upon detached rocks, were the white screaming gulls, seeming ever +intending to settle, and yet always passing on. Right and left ranked +the toothed and zigzag line of storm-torn heights, forming the series +which culminated in the one beneath their feet. + +Behind the youth and maiden was a tempting alcove and seat, formed +naturally in the beetling mass, and wide enough to admit two or three +persons. Elfride sat down, and Stephen sat beside her. + +'I am afraid it is hardly proper of us to be here, either,' she said +half inquiringly. 'We have not known each other long enough for this +kind of thing, have we!' + +'Oh yes,' he replied judicially; 'quite long enough.' + +'How do you know?' + +'It is not length of time, but the manner in which our minutes beat, +that makes enough or not enough in our acquaintanceship.' + +'Yes, I see that. But I wish papa suspected or knew what a VERY NEW +THING I am doing. He does not think of it at all.' + +'Darling Elfie, I wish we could be married! It is wrong for me to say +it--I know it is--before you know more; but I wish we might be, all the +same. Do you love me deeply, deeply?' + +'No!' she said in a fluster. + +At this point-blank denial, Stephen turned his face away decisively, and +preserved an ominous silence; the only objects of interest on earth for +him being apparently the three or four-score sea-birds circling in the +air afar off. + +'I didn't mean to stop you quite,' she faltered with some alarm; and +seeing that he still remained silent, she added more anxiously, 'If you +say that again, perhaps, I will not be quite--quite so obstinate--if--if +you don't like me to be.' + +'Oh, my Elfride!' he exclaimed, and kissed her. + +It was Elfride's first kiss. And so awkward and unused was she; full of +striving--no relenting. There was none of those apparent struggles to +get out of the trap which only results in getting further in: no final +attitude of receptivity: no easy close of shoulder to shoulder, hand +upon hand, face upon face, and, in spite of coyness, the lips in the +right place at the supreme moment. That graceful though apparently +accidental falling into position, which many have noticed as +precipitating the end and making sweethearts the sweeter, was not here. +Why? Because experience was absent. A woman must have had many kisses +before she kisses well. + +In fact, the art of tendering the lips for these amatory salutes follows +the principles laid down in treatises on legerdemain for performing +the trick called Forcing a Card. The card is to be shifted nimbly, +withdrawn, edged under, and withal not to be offered till the moment the +unsuspecting person's hand reaches the pack; this forcing to be done so +modestly and yet so coaxingly, that the person trifled with imagines he +is really choosing what is in fact thrust into his hand. + +Well, there were no such facilities now; and Stephen was conscious of +it--first with a momentary regret that his kiss should be spoilt by her +confused receipt of it, and then with the pleasant perception that her +awkwardness was her charm. + +'And you do care for me and love me?' said he. + +'Yes.' + +'Very much?' + +'Yes.' + +'And I mustn't ask you if you'll wait for me, and be my wife some day?' + +'Why not?' she said naively. + +'There is a reason why, my Elfride.' + +'Not any one that I know of.' + +'Suppose there is something connected with me which makes it almost +impossible for you to agree to be my wife, or for your father to +countenance such an idea?' + +'Nothing shall make me cease to love you: no blemish can be found upon +your personal nature. That is pure and generous, I know; and having +that, how can I be cold to you?' + +'And shall nothing else affect us--shall nothing beyond my nature be a +part of my quality in your eyes, Elfie?' + +'Nothing whatever,' she said with a breath of relief. 'Is that all? Some +outside circumstance? What do I care?' + +'You can hardly judge, dear, till you know what has to be judged. For +that, we will stop till we get home. I believe in you, but I cannot feel +bright.' + +'Love is new, and fresh to us as the dew; and we are together. As the +lover's world goes, this is a great deal. Stephen, I fancy I see the +difference between me and you--between men and women generally, perhaps. +I am content to build happiness on any accidental basis that may lie +near at hand; you are for making a world to suit your happiness.' + +'Elfride, you sometimes say things which make you seem suddenly to +become five years older than you are, or than I am; and that remark is +one. I couldn't think so OLD as that, try how I might....And no lover +has ever kissed you before?' + +'Never.' + +'I knew that; you were so unused. You ride well, but you don't kiss +nicely at all; and I was told once, by my friend Knight, that that is an +excellent fault in woman.' + +'Now, come; I must mount again, or we shall not be home by dinner-time.' +And they returned to where Pansy stood tethered. 'Instead of entrusting +my weight to a young man's unstable palm,' she continued gaily, 'I +prefer a surer "upping-stock" (as the villagers call it), in the form of +a gate. There--now I am myself again.' + +They proceeded homeward at the same walking pace. + +Her blitheness won Stephen out of his thoughtfulness, and each forgot +everything but the tone of the moment. + +'What did you love me for?' she said, after a long musing look at a +flying bird. + +'I don't know,' he replied idly. + +'Oh yes, you do,' insisted Elfride. + +'Perhaps, for your eyes.' + +'What of them?--now, don't vex me by a light answer. What of my eyes?' + +'Oh, nothing to be mentioned. They are indifferently good.' + +'Come, Stephen, I won't have that. What did you love me for?' + +'It might have been for your mouth?' + +'Well, what about my mouth?' + +'I thought it was a passable mouth enough----' + +'That's not very comforting.' + +'With a pretty pout and sweet lips; but actually, nothing more than what +everybody has.' + +'Don't make up things out of your head as you go on, there's a dear +Stephen. Now--what--did--you--love--me--for?' + +'Perhaps, 'twas for your neck and hair; though I am not sure: or for +your idle blood, that did nothing but wander away from your cheeks +and back again; but I am not sure. Or your hands and arms, that they +eclipsed all other hands and arms; or your feet, that they played about +under your dress like little mice; or your tongue, that it was of a dear +delicate tone. But I am not altogether sure.' + +'Ah, that's pretty to say; but I don't care for your love, if it made a +mere flat picture of me in that way, and not being sure, and such +cold reasoning; but what you FELT I was, you know, Stephen' (at this +a stealthy laugh and frisky look into his face), 'when you said to +yourself, "I'll certainly love that young lady."' + +'I never said it.' + +'When you said to yourself, then, "I never will love that young lady."' + +'I didn't say that, either.' + +'Then was it, "I suppose I must love that young lady?"' + +'No.' + +'What, then?' + +''Twas much more fluctuating--not so definite.' + +'Tell me; do, do.' + +'It was that I ought not to think about you if I loved you truly.' + +'Ah, that I don't understand. There's no getting it out of you. And I'll +not ask you ever any more--never more--to say out of the deep reality of +your heart what you loved me for.' + +'Sweet tantalizer, what's the use? It comes to this sole simple thing: +That at one time I had never seen you, and I didn't love you; that then +I saw you, and I did love you. Is that enough?' + +'Yes; I will make it do....I know, I think, what I love you for. You are +nice-looking, of course; but I didn't mean for that. It is because you +are so docile and gentle.' + +'Those are not quite the correct qualities for a man to be loved for,' +said Stephen, in rather a dissatisfied tone of self-criticism. 'Well, +never mind. I must ask your father to allow us to be engaged directly we +get indoors. It will be for a long time.' + +'I like it the better....Stephen, don't mention it till to-morrow.' + +'Why?' + +'Because, if he should object--I don't think he will; but if +he should--we shall have a day longer of happiness from our +ignorance....Well, what are you thinking of so deeply?' + +'I was thinking how my dear friend Knight would enjoy this scene. I wish +he could come here.' + +'You seem very much engrossed with him,' she answered, with a jealous +little toss. 'He must be an interesting man to take up so much of your +attention.' + +'Interesting!' said Stephen, his face glowing with his fervour; 'noble, +you ought to say.' + +'Oh yes, yes; I forgot,' she said half satirically. 'The noblest man in +England, as you told us last night.' + +'He is a fine fellow, laugh as you will, Miss Elfie.' + +'I know he is your hero. But what does he do? anything?' + +'He writes.' + +'What does he write? I have never heard of his name.' + +'Because his personality, and that of several others like him, is +absorbed into a huge WE, namely, the impalpable entity called the +PRESENT--a social and literary Review.' + +'Is he only a reviewer?' + +'ONLY, Elfie! Why, I can tell you it is a fine thing to be on the staff +of the PRESENT. Finer than being a novelist considerably.' + +'That's a hit at me, and my poor COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE.' + +'No, Elfride,' he whispered; 'I didn't mean that. I mean that he is +really a literary man of some eminence, and not altogether a reviewer. +He writes things of a higher class than reviews, though he reviews +a book occasionally. His ordinary productions are social and ethical +essays--all that the PRESENT contains which is not literary reviewing.' + +'I admit he must be talented if he writes for the PRESENT. We have it +sent to us irregularly. I want papa to be a subscriber, but he's so +conservative. Now the next point in this Mr. Knight--I suppose he is a +very good man.' + +'An excellent man. I shall try to be his intimate friend some day.' + +'But aren't you now?' + +'No; not so much as that,' replied Stephen, as if such a supposition +were extravagant. 'You see, it was in this way--he came originally from +the same place as I, and taught me things; but I am not intimate with +him. Shan't I be glad when I get richer and better known, and hob and +nob with him!' Stephen's eyes sparkled. + +A pout began to shape itself upon Elfride's soft lips. 'You think always +of him, and like him better than you do me!' + +'No, indeed, Elfride. The feeling is different quite. But I do like him, +and he deserves even more affection from me than I give.' + +'You are not nice now, and you make me as jealous as possible!' she +exclaimed perversely. 'I know you will never speak to any third person +of me so warmly as you do to me of him.' + +'But you don't understand, Elfride,' he said with an anxious movement. +'You shall know him some day. He is so brilliant--no, it isn't exactly +brilliant; so thoughtful--nor does thoughtful express him--that it would +charm you to talk to him. He's a most desirable friend, and that isn't +half I could say.' + +'I don't care how good he is; I don't want to know him, because he comes +between me and you. You think of him night and day, ever so much more +than of anybody else; and when you are thinking of him, I am shut out of +your mind.' + +'No, dear Elfride; I love you dearly.' + +'And I don't like you to tell me so warmly about him when you are in +the middle of loving me. Stephen, suppose that I and this man Knight of +yours were both drowning, and you could only save one of us----' + +'Yes--the stupid old proposition--which would I save? + +'Well, which? Not me.' + +'Both of you,' he said, pressing her pendent hand. + +'No, that won't do; only one of us.' + +'I cannot say; I don't know. It is disagreeable--quite a horrid idea to +have to handle.' + +'A-ha, I know. You would save him, and let me drown, drown, drown; and I +don't care about your love!' + +She had endeavoured to give a playful tone to her words, but the latter +speech was rather forced in its gaiety. + +At this point in the discussion she trotted off to turn a corner which +was avoided by the footpath, the road and the path reuniting at a point +a little further on. On again making her appearance she continually +managed to look in a direction away from him, and left him in the +cool shade of her displeasure. Stephen was soon beaten at this game of +indifference. He went round and entered the range of her vision. + +'Are you offended, Elfie? Why don't you talk?' + +'Save me, then, and let that Mr. Clever of yours drown. I hate him. Now, +which would you?' + +'Really, Elfride, you should not press such a hard question. It is +ridiculous.' + +'Then I won't be alone with you any more. Unkind, to wound me so!' She +laughed at her own absurdity but persisted. + +'Come, Elfie, let's make it up and be friends.' + +'Say you would save me, then, and let him drown.' + +'I would save you--and him too.' + +'And let him drown. Come, or you don't love me!' she teasingly went on. + +'And let him drown,' he ejaculated despairingly. + +'There; now I am yours!' she said, and a woman's flush of triumph lit +her eyes. + + + +'Only one earring, miss, as I'm alive,' said Unity on their entering the +hall. + +With a face expressive of wretched misgiving, Elfride's hand flew like +an arrow to her ear. + +'There!' she exclaimed to Stephen, looking at him with eyes full of +reproach. + +'I quite forgot, indeed. If I had only remembered!' he answered, with a +conscience-stricken face. + +She wheeled herself round, and turned into the shrubbery. Stephen +followed. + +'If you had told me to watch anything, Stephen, I should have +religiously done it,' she capriciously went on, as soon as she heard him +behind her. + +'Forgetting is forgivable.' + +'Well, you will find it, if you want me to respect you and be engaged +to you when we have asked papa.' She considered a moment, and added more +seriously, 'I know now where I dropped it, Stephen. It was on the cliff. +I remember a faint sensation of some change about me, but I was too +absent to think of it then. And that's where it is now, and you must go +and look there.' + +'I'll go at once.' + +And he strode away up the valley, under a broiling sun and amid the +deathlike silence of early afternoon. He ascended, with giddy-paced +haste, the windy range of rocks to where they had sat, felt and peered +about the stones and crannies, but Elfride's stray jewel was nowhere +to be seen. Next Stephen slowly retraced his steps, and, pausing at a +cross-road to reflect a while, he left the plateau and struck downwards +across some fields, in the direction of Endelstow House. + +He walked along the path by the river without the slightest hesitation +as to its bearing, apparently quite familiar with every inch of the +ground. As the shadows began to lengthen and the sunlight to mellow, +he passed through two wicket-gates, and drew near the outskirts of +Endelstow Park. The river now ran along under the park fence, previous +to entering the grove itself, a little further on. + +Here stood a cottage, between the fence and the stream, on a slightly +elevated spot of ground, round which the river took a turn. The +characteristic feature of this snug habitation was its one chimney in +the gable end, its squareness of form disguised by a huge cloak of ivy, +which had grown so luxuriantly and extended so far from its base, as to +increase the apparent bulk of the chimney to the dimensions of a tower. +Some little distance from the back of the house rose the park boundary, +and over this were to be seen the sycamores of the grove, making slow +inclinations to the just-awakening air. + +Stephen crossed the little wood bridge in front, went up to the cottage +door, and opened it without knock or signal of any kind. + +Exclamations of welcome burst from some person or persons when the door +was thrust ajar, followed by the scrape of chairs on a stone floor, as +if pushed back by their occupiers in rising from a table. The door was +closed again, and nothing could now be heard from within, save a lively +chatter and the rattle of plates. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + 'Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord.' + + +The mists were creeping out of pools and swamps for their pilgrimages +of the night when Stephen came up to the front door of the vicarage. +Elfride was standing on the step illuminated by a lemon-hued expanse of +western sky. + +'You never have been all this time looking for that earring?' she said +anxiously. + +'Oh no; and I have not found it.' + +'Never mind. Though I am much vexed; they are my prettiest. But, +Stephen, what ever have you been doing--where have you been? I have +been so uneasy. I feared for you, knowing not an inch of the country. I +thought, suppose he has fallen over the cliff! But now I am inclined to +scold you for frightening me so.' + +'I must speak to your father now,' he said rather abruptly; 'I have so +much to say to him--and to you, Elfride.' + +'Will what you have to say endanger this nice time of ours, and is it +that same shadowy secret you allude to so frequently, and will it make +me unhappy?' + +'Possibly.' + +She breathed heavily, and looked around as if for a prompter. + +'Put it off till to-morrow,' she said. + +He involuntarily sighed too. + +'No; it must come to-night. Where is your father, Elfride?' + +'Somewhere in the kitchen garden, I think,' she replied. 'That is his +favourite evening retreat. I will leave you now. Say all that's to be +said--do all there is to be done. Think of me waiting anxiously for the +end.' And she re-entered the house. + +She waited in the drawing-room, watching the lights sink to shadows, the +shadows sink to darkness, until her impatience to know what had occurred +in the garden could no longer be controlled. She passed round the +shrubbery, unlatched the garden door, and skimmed with her keen eyes the +whole twilighted space that the four walls enclosed and sheltered: they +were not there. She mounted a little ladder, which had been used for +gathering fruit, and looked over the wall into the field. This field +extended to the limits of the glebe, which was enclosed on that side by +a privet-hedge. Under the hedge was Mr. Swancourt, walking up and down, +and talking aloud--to himself, as it sounded at first. No: another voice +shouted occasional replies; and this interlocutor seemed to be on the +other side of the hedge. The voice, though soft in quality, was not +Stephen's. + +The second speaker must have been in the long-neglected garden of an old +manor-house hard by, which, together with a small estate attached, had +lately been purchased by a person named Troyton, whom Elfride had never +seen. Her father might have struck up an acquaintanceship with some +member of that family through the privet-hedge, or a stranger to the +neighbourhood might have wandered thither. + +Well, there was no necessity for disturbing him. + +And it seemed that, after all, Stephen had not yet made his desired +communication to her father. Again she went indoors, wondering where +Stephen could be. For want of something better to do, she went upstairs +to her own little room. Here she sat down at the open window, and, +leaning with her elbow on the table and her cheek upon her hand, she +fell into meditation. + +It was a hot and still August night. Every disturbance of the silence +which rose to the dignity of a noise could be heard for miles, and the +merest sound for a long distance. So she remained, thinking of Stephen, +and wishing he had not deprived her of his company to no purpose, as it +appeared. How delicate and sensitive he was, she reflected; and yet he +was man enough to have a private mystery, which considerably elevated +him in her eyes. Thus, looking at things with an inward vision, she lost +consciousness of the flight of time. + +Strange conjunctions of circumstances, particularly those of a trivial +everyday kind, are so frequent in an ordinary life, that we grow used to +their unaccountableness, and forget the question whether the very long +odds against such juxtaposition is not almost a disproof of it being a +matter of chance at all. What occurred to Elfride at this moment was a +case in point. She was vividly imagining, for the twentieth time, the +kiss of the morning, and putting her lips together in the position +another such a one would demand, when she heard the identical operation +performed on the lawn, immediately beneath her window. + +A kiss--not of the quiet and stealthy kind, but decisive, loud, and +smart. + +Her face flushed and she looked out, but to no purpose. The dark rim +of the upland drew a keen sad line against the pale glow of the sky, +unbroken except where a young cedar on the lawn, that had outgrown its +fellow trees, shot its pointed head across the horizon, piercing the +firmamental lustre like a sting. + +It was just possible that, had any persons been standing on the grassy +portions of the lawn, Elfride might have seen their dusky forms. But the +shrubs, which once had merely dotted the glade, had now grown bushy and +large, till they hid at least half the enclosure containing them. The +kissing pair might have been behind some of these; at any rate, nobody +was in sight. + +Had no enigma ever been connected with her lover by his hints and +absences, Elfride would never have thought of admitting into her mind a +suspicion that he might be concerned in the foregoing enactment. But the +reservations he at present insisted on, while they added to the mystery +without which perhaps she would never have seriously loved him at all, +were calculated to nourish doubts of all kinds, and with a slow flush of +jealousy she asked herself, might he not be the culprit? + +Elfride glided downstairs on tiptoe, and out to the precise spot on +which she had parted from Stephen to enable him to speak privately to +her father. Thence she wandered into all the nooks around the place from +which the sound seemed to proceed--among the huge laurestines, about the +tufts of pampas grasses, amid the variegated hollies, under the weeping +wych-elm--nobody was there. Returning indoors she called 'Unity!' + +'She is gone to her aunt's, to spend the evening,' said Mr. Swancourt, +thrusting his head out of his study door, and letting the light of his +candles stream upon Elfride's face--less revealing than, as it seemed to +herself, creating the blush of uneasy perplexity that was burning upon +her cheek. + +'I didn't know you were indoors, papa,' she said with surprise. 'Surely +no light was shining from the window when I was on the lawn?' and she +looked and saw that the shutters were still open. + +'Oh yes, I am in,' he said indifferently. 'What did you want Unity for? +I think she laid supper before she went out.' + +'Did she?--I have not been to see--I didn't want her for that.' + +Elfride scarcely knew, now that a definite reason was required, what +that reason was. Her mind for a moment strayed to another subject, +unimportant as it seemed. The red ember of a match was lying inside the +fender, which explained that why she had seen no rays from the window +was because the candles had only just been lighted. + +'I'll come directly,' said the vicar. 'I thought you were out somewhere +with Mr. Smith.' + +Even the inexperienced Elfride could not help thinking that her father +must be wonderfully blind if he failed to perceive what was the nascent +consequence of herself and Stephen being so unceremoniously left +together; wonderfully careless, if he saw it and did not think about +it; wonderfully good, if, as seemed to her by far the most probable +supposition, he saw it and thought about it and approved of it. These +reflections were cut short by the appearance of Stephen just outside the +porch, silvered about the head and shoulders with touches of moonlight, +that had begun to creep through the trees. + +'Has your trouble anything to do with a kiss on the lawn?' she asked +abruptly, almost passionately. + +'Kiss on the lawn?' + +'Yes!' she said, imperiously now. + +'I didn't comprehend your meaning, nor do I now exactly. I certainly +have kissed nobody on the lawn, if that is really what you want to know, +Elfride.' + +'You know nothing about such a performance?' + +'Nothing whatever. What makes you ask?' + +'Don't press me to tell; it is nothing of importance. And, Stephen, you +have not yet spoken to papa about our engagement?' + +'No,' he said regretfully, 'I could not find him directly; and then +I went on thinking so much of what you said about objections, +refusals--bitter words possibly--ending our happiness, that I +resolved to put it off till to-morrow; that gives us one more day of +delight--delight of a tremulous kind.' + +'Yes; but it would be improper to be silent too long, I think,' she said +in a delicate voice, which implied that her face had grown warm. 'I want +him to know we love, Stephen. Why did you adopt as your own my thought +of delay?' + +'I will explain; but I want to tell you of my secret first--to tell you +now. It is two or three hours yet to bedtime. Let us walk up the hill to +the church.' + +Elfride passively assented, and they went from the lawn by a side +wicket, and ascended into the open expanse of moonlight which streamed +around the lonely edifice on the summit of the hill. + +The door was locked. They turned from the porch, and walked hand in hand +to find a resting-place in the churchyard. Stephen chose a flat tomb, +showing itself to be newer and whiter than those around it, and sitting +down himself, gently drew her hand towards him. + +'No, not there,' she said. + +'Why not here?' + +'A mere fancy; but never mind.' And she sat down. + +'Elfie, will you love me, in spite of everything that may be said +against me?' + +'O Stephen, what makes you repeat that so continually and so sadly? You +know I will. Yes, indeed,' she said, drawing closer, 'whatever may be +said of you--and nothing bad can be--I will cling to you just the same. +Your ways shall be my ways until I die.' + +'Did you ever think what my parents might be, or what society I +originally moved in?' + +'No, not particularly. I have observed one or two little points in your +manners which are rather quaint--no more. I suppose you have moved in +the ordinary society of professional people.' + +'Supposing I have not--that none of my family have a profession except +me?' + +'I don't mind. What you are only concerns me.' + +'Where do you think I went to school--I mean, to what kind of school?' + +'Dr. Somebody's academy,' she said simply. + +'No. To a dame school originally, then to a national school.' + +'Only to those! Well, I love you just as much, Stephen, dear Stephen,' +she murmured tenderly, 'I do indeed. And why should you tell me these +things so impressively? What do they matter to me?' + +He held her closer and proceeded: + +'What do you think my father is--does for his living, that is to say?' + +'He practises some profession or calling, I suppose.' + +'No; he is a mason.' + +'A Freemason?' + +'No; a cottager and journeyman mason.' + +Elfride said nothing at first. After a while she whispered: + +'That is a strange idea to me. But never mind; what does it matter?' + +'But aren't you angry with me for not telling you before?' + +'No, not at all. Is your mother alive?' + +'Yes.' + +'Is she a nice lady?' + +'Very--the best mother in the world. Her people had been well-to-do +yeomen for centuries, but she was only a dairymaid.' + +'O Stephen!' came from her in whispered exclamation. + +'She continued to attend to a dairy long after my father married her,' +pursued Stephen, without further hesitation. 'And I remember very well +how, when I was very young, I used to go to the milking, look on at the +skimming, sleep through the churning, and make believe I helped her. Ah, +that was a happy time enough!' + +'No, never--not happy.' + +'Yes, it was.' + +'I don't see how happiness could be where the drudgery of dairy-work +had to be done for a living--the hands red and chapped, and the shoes +clogged....Stephen, I do own that it seems odd to regard you in the +light of--of--having been so rough in your youth, and done menial things +of that kind.' (Stephen withdrew an inch or two from her side.) 'But +I DO LOVE YOU just the same,' she continued, getting closer under his +shoulder again, 'and I don't care anything about the past; and I see +that you are all the worthier for having pushed on in the world in such +a way.' + +'It is not my worthiness; it is Knight's, who pushed me.' + +'Ah, always he--always he!' + +'Yes, and properly so. Now, Elfride, you see the reason of his teaching +me by letter. I knew him years before he went to Oxford, but I had not +got far enough in my reading for him to entertain the idea of helping +me in classics till he left home. Then I was sent away from the village, +and we very seldom met; but he kept up this system of tuition by +correspondence with the greatest regularity. I will tell you all the +story, but not now. There is nothing more to say now, beyond giving +places, persons, and dates.' His voice became timidly slow at this +point. + +'No; don't take trouble to say more. You are a dear honest fellow to say +so much as you have; and it is not so dreadful either. It has become a +normal thing that millionaires commence by going up to London with their +tools at their back, and half-a-crown in their pockets. That sort of +origin is getting so respected,' she continued cheerfully, 'that it is +acquiring some of the odour of Norman ancestry.' + +'Ah, if I had MADE my fortune, I shouldn't mind. But I am only a +possible maker of it as yet.' + +'It is quite enough. And so THIS is what your trouble was?' + +'I thought I was doing wrong in letting you love me without telling you +my story; and yet I feared to do so, Elfie. I dreaded to lose you, and I +was cowardly on that account.' + +'How plain everything about you seems after this explanation! Your +peculiarities in chess-playing, the pronunciation papa noticed in your +Latin, your odd mixture of book-knowledge with ignorance of ordinary +social accomplishments, are accounted for in a moment. And has this +anything to do with what I saw at Lord Luxellian's?' + +'What did you see?' + +'I saw the shadow of yourself putting a cloak round a lady. I was at the +side door; you two were in a room with the window towards me. You came +to me a moment later.' + +'She was my mother.' + +'Your mother THERE!' She withdrew herself to look at him silently in her +interest. + +'Elfride,' said Stephen, 'I was going to tell you the remainder +to-morrow--I have been keeping it back--I must tell it now, after all. +The remainder of my revelation refers to where my parents are. Where do +you think they live? You know them--by sight at any rate.' + +'I know them!' she said in suspended amazement. + +'Yes. My father is John Smith, Lord Luxellian's master-mason, who lives +under the park wall by the river.' + +'O Stephen! can it be?' + +'He built--or assisted at the building of the house you live in, years +ago. He put up those stone gate piers at the lodge entrance to Lord +Luxellian's park. My grandfather planted the trees that belt in your +lawn; my grandmother--who worked in the fields with him--held each tree +upright whilst he filled in the earth: they told me so when I was a +child. He was the sexton, too, and dug many of the graves around us.' + +'And was your unaccountable vanishing on the first morning of your +arrival, and again this afternoon, a run to see your father and +mother?...I understand now; no wonder you seemed to know your way about +the village!' + +'No wonder. But remember, I have not lived here since I was nine years +old. I then went to live with my uncle, a blacksmith, near Exonbury, in +order to be able to attend a national school as a day scholar; there +was none on this remote coast then. It was there I met with my friend +Knight. And when I was fifteen and had been fairly educated by the +school-master--and more particularly by Knight--I was put as a pupil in +an architect's office in that town, because I was skilful in the use +of the pencil. A full premium was paid by the efforts of my mother +and father, rather against the wishes of Lord Luxellian, who likes my +father, however, and thinks a great deal of him. There I stayed till six +months ago, when I obtained a situation as improver, as it is called, in +a London office. That's all of me.' + +'To think YOU, the London visitor, the town man, should have been +born here, and have known this village so many years before I did. How +strange--how very strange it seems to me!' she murmured. + +'My mother curtseyed to you and your father last Sunday,' said Stephen, +with a pained smile at the thought of the incongruity. 'And your papa +said to her, "I am glad to see you so regular at church, JANE."' + +'I remember it, but I have never spoken to her. We have only been here +eighteen months, and the parish is so large.' + +'Contrast with this,' said Stephen, with a miserable laugh, 'your +father's belief in my "blue blood," which is still prevalent in his +mind. The first night I came, he insisted upon proving my descent from +one of the most ancient west-county families, on account of my +second Christian name; when the truth is, it was given me because my +grandfather was assistant gardener in the Fitzmaurice-Smith family for +thirty years. Having seen your face, my darling, I had not heart to +contradict him, and tell him what would have cut me off from a friendly +knowledge of you.' + +She sighed deeply. 'Yes, I see now how this inequality may be made +to trouble us,' she murmured, and continued in a low, sad whisper, +'I wouldn't have minded if they had lived far away. Papa might have +consented to an engagement between us if your connection had been with +villagers a hundred miles off; remoteness softens family contrasts. But +he will not like--O Stephen, Stephen! what can I do?' + +'Do?' he said tentatively, yet with heaviness. 'Give me up; let me go +back to London, and think no more of me.' + +'No, no; I cannot give you up! This hopelessness in our affairs makes me +care more for you....I see what did not strike me at first. Stephen, +why do we trouble? Why should papa object? An architect in London is an +architect in London. Who inquires there? Nobody. We shall live there, +shall we not? Why need we be so alarmed?' + +'And Elfie,' said Stephen, his hopes kindling with hers, 'Knight thinks +nothing of my being only a cottager's son; he says I am as worthy of his +friendship as if I were a lord's; and if I am worthy of his friendship, +I am worthy of you, am I not, Elfride?' + +'I not only have never loved anybody but you,' she said, instead of +giving an answer, 'but I have not even formed a strong friendship, such +as you have for Knight. I wish you hadn't. It diminishes me.' + +'Now, Elfride, you know better,' he said wooingly. 'And had you really +never any sweetheart at all?' + +'None that was ever recognized by me as such.' + +'But did nobody ever love you?' + +'Yes--a man did once; very much, he said.' + +'How long ago?' + +'Oh, a long time.' + +'How long, dearest? + +'A twelvemonth.' + +'That's not VERY long' (rather disappointedly). + +'I said long, not very long.' + +'And did he want to marry you?' + +'I believe he did. But I didn't see anything in him. He was not good +enough, even if I had loved him.' + +'May I ask what he was?' + +'A farmer.' + +'A farmer not good enough--how much better than my family!' Stephen +murmured. + +'Where is he now?' he continued to Elfride. + +'HERE.' + +'Here! what do you mean by that?' + +'I mean that he is here.' + +'Where here?' + +'Under us. He is under this tomb. He is dead, and we are sitting on his +grave.' + +'Elfie,' said the young man, standing up and looking at the tomb, +'how odd and sad that revelation seems! It quite depresses me for the +moment.' + +'Stephen! I didn't wish to sit here; but you would do so.' + +'You never encouraged him?' + +'Never by look, word, or sign,' she said solemnly. 'He died of +consumption, and was buried the day you first came.' + +'Let us go away. I don't like standing by HIM, even if you never loved +him. He was BEFORE me.' + +'Worries make you unreasonable,' she half pouted, following Stephen at +the distance of a few steps. 'Perhaps I ought to have told you before we +sat down. Yes; let us go.' + + + + +Chapter IX + + 'Her father did fume' + + +Oppressed, in spite of themselves, by a foresight of impending +complications, Elfride and Stephen returned down the hill hand in hand. +At the door they paused wistfully, like children late at school. + +Women accept their destiny more readily than men. Elfride had now +resigned herself to the overwhelming idea of her lover's sorry +antecedents; Stephen had not forgotten the trifling grievance that +Elfride had known earlier admiration than his own. + +'What was that young man's name?' he inquired. + +'Felix Jethway; a widow's only son.' + +'I remember the family.' + +'She hates me now. She says I killed him.' + +Stephen mused, and they entered the porch. + +'Stephen, I love only you,' she tremulously whispered. He pressed her +fingers, and the trifling shadow passed away, to admit again the mutual +and more tangible trouble. + +The study appeared to be the only room lighted up. They entered, +each with a demeanour intended to conceal the inconcealable fact that +reciprocal love was their dominant chord. Elfride perceived a man, +sitting with his back towards herself, talking to her father. She would +have retired, but Mr. Swancourt had seen her. + +'Come in,' he said; 'it is only Martin Cannister, come for a copy of the +register for poor Mrs. Jethway.' + +Martin Cannister, the sexton, was rather a favourite with Elfride. He +used to absorb her attention by telling her of his strange experiences +in digging up after long years the bodies of persons he had known, and +recognizing them by some little sign (though in reality he had never +recognized any). He had shrewd small eyes and a great wealth of double +chin, which compensated in some measure for considerable poverty of +nose. + +The appearance of a slip of paper in Cannister's hand, and a few +shillings lying on the table in front of him, denoted that the business +had been transacted, and the tenor of their conversation went to +show that a summary of village news was now engaging the attention of +parishioner and parson. + +Mr. Cannister stood up and touched his forehead over his eye with his +finger, in respectful salutation of Elfride, gave half as much salute to +Stephen (whom he, in common with other villagers, had never for a moment +recognized), then sat down again and resumed his discourse. + +'Where had I got on to, sir?' + +'To driving the pile,' said Mr. Swancourt. + +'The pile 'twas. So, as I was saying, Nat was driving the pile in this +manner, as I might say.' Here Mr. Cannister held his walking-stick +scrupulously vertical with his left hand, and struck a blow with great +force on the knob of the stick with his right. 'John was steadying the +pile so, as I might say.' Here he gave the stick a slight shake, and +looked firmly in the various eyes around to see that before proceeding +further his listeners well grasped the subject at that stage. 'Well, +when Nat had struck some half-dozen blows more upon the pile, 'a stopped +for a second or two. John, thinking he had done striking, put his hand +upon the top o' the pile to gie en a pull, and see if 'a were firm in +the ground.' Mr. Cannister spread his hand over the top of the stick, +completely covering it with his palm. 'Well, so to speak, Nat hadn't +maned to stop striking, and when John had put his hand upon the pile, +the beetle----' + +'Oh dreadful!' said Elfride. + +'The beetle was already coming down, you see, sir. Nat just caught sight +of his hand, but couldn't stop the blow in time. Down came the beetle +upon poor John Smith's hand, and squashed en to a pummy.' + +'Dear me, dear me! poor fellow!' said the vicar, with an intonation like +the groans of the wounded in a pianoforte performance of the 'Battle of +Prague.' + +'John Smith, the master-mason?' cried Stephen hurriedly. + +'Ay, no other; and a better-hearted man God A'mighty never made.' + +'Is he so much hurt?' + +'I have heard,' said Mr. Swancourt, not noticing Stephen, 'that he has a +son in London, a very promising young fellow.' + +'Oh, how he must be hurt!' repeated Stephen. + +'A beetle couldn't hurt very little. Well, sir, good-night t'ye; and ye, +sir; and you, miss, I'm sure.' + +Mr. Cannister had been making unnoticeable motions of withdrawal, and by +the time this farewell remark came from his lips he was just outside the +door of the room. He tramped along the hall, stayed more than a minute +endeavouring to close the door properly, and then was lost to their +hearing. + +Stephen had meanwhile turned and said to the vicar: + +'Please excuse me this evening! I must leave. John Smith is my father.' + +The vicar did not comprehend at first. + +'What did you say?' he inquired. + +'John Smith is my father,' said Stephen deliberately. + +A surplus tinge of redness rose from Mr. Swancourt's neck, and came +round over his face, the lines of his features became more firmly +defined, and his lips seemed to get thinner. It was evident that a +series of little circumstances, hitherto unheeded, were now fitting +themselves together, and forming a lucid picture in Mr. Swancourt's mind +in such a manner as to render useless further explanation on Stephen's +part. + +'Indeed,' the vicar said, in a voice dry and without inflection. + +This being a word which depends entirely upon its tone for its meaning, +Mr. Swancourt's enunciation was equivalent to no expression at all. + +'I have to go now,' said Stephen, with an agitated bearing, and a +movement as if he scarcely knew whether he ought to run off or stay +longer. 'On my return, sir, will you kindly grant me a few minutes' +private conversation?' + +'Certainly. Though antecedently it does not seem possible that there can +be anything of the nature of private business between us.' + +Mr. Swancourt put on his straw hat, crossed the drawing-room, into which +the moonlight was shining, and stepped out of the French window into +the verandah. It required no further effort to perceive what, indeed, +reasoning might have foretold as the natural colour of a mind whose +pleasures were taken amid genealogies, good dinners, and patrician +reminiscences, that Mr. Swancourt's prejudices were too strong for his +generosity, and that Stephen's moments as his friend and equal were +numbered, or had even now ceased. + +Stephen moved forward as if he would follow the vicar, then as if he +would not, and in absolute perplexity whither to turn himself, went +awkwardly to the door. Elfride followed lingeringly behind him. Before +he had receded two yards from the doorstep, Unity and Ann the housemaid +came home from their visit to the village. + +'Have you heard anything about John Smith? The accident is not so bad as +was reported, is it?' said Elfride intuitively. + +'Oh no; the doctor says it is only a bad bruise.' + +'I thought so!' cried Elfride gladly. + +'He says that, although Nat believes he did not check the beetle as +it came down, he must have done so without knowing it--checked it very +considerably too; for the full blow would have knocked his hand abroad, +and in reality it is only made black-and-blue like.' + +'How thankful I am!' said Stephen. + +The perplexed Unity looked at him with her mouth rather than with her +eyes. + +'That will do, Unity,' said Elfride magisterially; and the two maids +passed on. + +'Elfride, do you forgive me?' said Stephen with a faint smile. 'No man +is fair in love;' and he took her fingers lightly in his own. + +With her head thrown sideways in the Greuze attitude, she looked a +tender reproach at his doubt and pressed his hand. Stephen returned the +pressure threefold, then hastily went off to his father's cottage by the +wall of Endelstow Park. + +'Elfride, what have you to say to this?' inquired her father, coming up +immediately Stephen had retired. + +With feminine quickness she grasped at any straw that would enable her +to plead his cause. 'He had told me of it,' she faltered; 'so that it is +not a discovery in spite of him. He was just coming in to tell you.' + +'COMING to tell! Why hadn't he already told? I object as much, if +not more, to his underhand concealment of this, than I do to the fact +itself. It looks very much like his making a fool of me, and of you too. +You and he have been about together, and corresponding together, in a +way I don't at all approve of--in a most unseemly way. You should have +known how improper such conduct is. A woman can't be too careful not to +be seen alone with I-don't-know-whom.' + +'You saw us, papa, and have never said a word.' + +'My fault, of course; my fault. What the deuce could I be thinking of! +He, a villager's son; and we, Swancourts, connections of the Luxellians. +We have been coming to nothing for centuries, and now I believe we have +got there. What shall I next invite here, I wonder!' + +Elfride began to cry at this very unpropitious aspect of affairs. +'O papa, papa, forgive me and him! We care so much for one another, +papa--O, so much! And what he was going to ask you is, if you will allow +of an engagement between us till he is a gentleman as good as you. We +are not in a hurry, dear papa; we don't want in the least to marry now; +not until he is richer. Only will you let us be engaged, because I love +him so, and he loves me?' + +Mr. Swancourt's feelings were a little touched by this appeal, and he +was annoyed that such should be the case. 'Certainly not!' he replied. +He pronounced the inhibition lengthily and sonorously, so that the 'not' +sounded like 'n-o-o-o-t!' + +'No, no, no; don't say it!' + +'Foh! A fine story. It is not enough that I have been deluded +and disgraced by having him here,--the son of one of my village +peasants,--but now I am to make him my son-in-law! Heavens above us, are +you mad, Elfride?' + +'You have seen his letters come to me ever since his first visit, papa, +and you knew they were a sort of--love-letters; and since he has been +here you have let him be alone with me almost entirely; and you guessed, +you must have guessed, what we were thinking of, and doing, and you +didn't stop him. Next to love-making comes love-winning, and you knew it +would come to that, papa.' + +The vicar parried this common-sense thrust. 'I know--since you press me +so--I know I did guess some childish attachment might arise between +you; I own I did not take much trouble to prevent it; but I have not +particularly countenanced it; and, Elfride, how can you expect that I +should now? It is impossible; no father in England would hear of such a +thing.' + +'But he is the same man, papa; the same in every particular; and how can +he be less fit for me than he was before?' + +'He appeared a young man with well-to-do friends, and a little property; +but having neither, he is another man.' + +'You inquired nothing about him?' + +'I went by Hewby's introduction. He should have told me. So should +the young man himself; of course he should. I consider it a most +dishonourable thing to come into a man's house like a treacherous +I-don't-know-what.' + +'But he was afraid to tell you, and so should I have been. He loved me +too well to like to run the risk. And as to speaking of his friends on +his first visit, I don't see why he should have done so at all. He came +here on business: it was no affair of ours who his parents were. And +then he knew that if he told you he would never be asked here, and would +perhaps never see me again. And he wanted to see me. Who can blame him +for trying, by any means, to stay near me--the girl he loves? All is +fair in love. I have heard you say so yourself, papa; and you yourself +would have done just as he has--so would any man.' + +'And any man, on discovering what I have discovered, would also do as I +do, and mend my mistake; that is, get shot of him again, as soon as the +laws of hospitality will allow.' But Mr. Swancourt then remembered that +he was a Christian. 'I would not, for the world, seem to turn him out +of doors,' he added; 'but I think he will have the tact to see that he +cannot stay long after this, with good taste.' + +'He will, because he's a gentleman. See how graceful his manners are,' +Elfride went on; though perhaps Stephen's manners, like the feats +of Euryalus, owed their attractiveness in her eyes rather to the +attractiveness of his person than to their own excellence. + +'Ay; anybody can be what you call graceful, if he lives a little time +in a city, and keeps his eyes open. And he might have picked up his +gentlemanliness by going to the galleries of theatres, and watching +stage drawing-room manners. He reminds me of one of the worst stories I +ever heard in my life.' + +'What story was that?' + +'Oh no, thank you! I wouldn't tell you such an improper matter for the +world!' + +'If his father and mother had lived in the north or east of England,' +gallantly persisted Elfride, though her sobs began to interrupt her +articulation, 'anywhere but here--you--would have--only regarded--HIM, +and not THEM! His station--would have--been what--his profession makes +it,--and not fixed by--his father's humble position--at all; whom he +never lives with--now. Though John Smith has saved lots of money, and +is better off than we are, they say, or he couldn't have put his son +to such an expensive profession. And it is clever and--honourable--of +Stephen, to be the best of his family.' + +'Yes. "Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the +king's mess."' + +'You insult me, papa!' she burst out. 'You do, you do! He is my own +Stephen, he is!' + +'That may or may not be true, Elfride,' returned her father, again +uncomfortably agitated in spite of himself 'You confuse future +probabilities with present facts,--what the young man may be with what +he is. We must look at what he is, not what an improbable degree of +success in his profession may make him. The case is this: the son of +a working-man in my parish who may or may not be able to buy me up--a +youth who has not yet advanced so far into life as to have any income +of his own deserving the name, and therefore of his father's degree as +regards station--wants to be engaged to you. His family are living +in precisely the same spot in England as yours, so throughout this +county--which is the world to us--you would always be known as the wife +of Jack Smith the mason's son, and not under any circumstances as +the wife of a London professional man. It is the drawback, not the +compensating fact, that is talked of always. There, say no more. You may +argue all night, and prove what you will; I'll stick to my words.' + +Elfride looked silently and hopelessly out of the window with large +heavy eyes and wet cheeks. + +'I call it great temerity--and long to call it audacity--in Hewby,' +resumed her father. 'I never heard such a thing--giving such a +hobbledehoy native of this place such an introduction to me as he did. +Naturally you were deceived as well as I was. I don't blame you at all, +so far.' He went and searched for Mr. Hewby's original letter. 'Here's +what he said to me: "Dear Sir,--Agreeably to your request of the 18th +instant, I have arranged to survey and make drawings," et cetera. "My +assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith,"--assistant, you see he called him, and +naturally I understood him to mean a sort of partner. Why didn't he say +"clerk"?' + +'They never call them clerks in that profession, because they do not +write. Stephen--Mr. Smith--told me so. So that Mr. Hewby simply used the +accepted word.' + +'Let me speak, please, Elfride! My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, will +leave London by the early train to-morrow morning...MANY THANKS FOR YOUR +PROPOSAL TO ACCOMMODATE HIM...YOU MAY PUT EVERY CONFIDENCE IN HIM, and +may rely upon his discernment in the matter of church architecture." +Well, I repeat that Hewby ought to be ashamed of himself for making so +much of a poor lad of that sort.' + +'Professional men in London,' Elfride argued, 'don't know anything about +their clerks' fathers and mothers. They have assistants who come to +their offices and shops for years, and hardly even know where they +live. What they can do--what profits they can bring the firm--that's all +London men care about. And that is helped in him by his faculty of being +uniformly pleasant.' + +'Uniform pleasantness is rather a defect than a faculty. It shows that a +man hasn't sense enough to know whom to despise.' + +'It shows that he acts by faith and not by sight, as those you claim +succession from directed.' + +'That's some more of what he's been telling you, I suppose! Yes, I was +inclined to suspect him, because he didn't care about sauces of any +kind. I always did doubt a man's being a gentleman if his palate had no +acquired tastes. An unedified palate is the irrepressible cloven foot +of the upstart. The idea of my bringing out a bottle of my '40 +Martinez--only eleven of them left now--to a man who didn't know it from +eighteenpenny! Then the Latin line he gave to my quotation; it was very +cut-and-dried, very; or I, who haven't looked into a classical author +for the last eighteen years, shouldn't have remembered it. Well, +Elfride, you had better go to your room; you'll get over this bit of +tomfoolery in time.' + +'No, no, no, papa,' she moaned. For of all the miseries attaching to +miserable love, the worst is the misery of thinking that the passion +which is the cause of them all may cease. + +'Elfride,' said her father with rough friendliness, 'I have an excellent +scheme on hand, which I cannot tell you of now. A scheme to benefit you +and me. It has been thrust upon me for some little time--yes, thrust +upon me--but I didn't dream of its value till this afternoon, when the +revelation came. I should be most unwise to refuse to entertain it.' + +'I don't like that word,' she returned wearily. 'You have lost so much +already by schemes. Is it those wretched mines again?' + +'No; not a mining scheme.' + +'Railways?' + +'Nor railways. It is like those mysterious offers we see advertised, +by which any gentleman with no brains at all may make so much a week +without risk, trouble, or soiling his fingers. However, I am intending +to say nothing till it is settled, though I will just say this much, +that you soon may have other fish to fry than to think of Stephen Smith. +Remember, I wish, not to be angry, but friendly, to the young man; for +your sake I'll regard him as a friend in a certain sense. But this is +enough; in a few days you will be quite my way of thinking. There, now, +go to your bedroom. Unity shall bring you up some supper. I wish you not +to be here when he comes back.' + + + + +Chapter X + + 'Beneath the shelter of an aged tree.' + + +Stephen retraced his steps towards the cottage he had visited only +two or three hours previously. He drew near and under the rich foliage +growing about the outskirts of Endelstow Park, the spotty lights and +shades from the shining moon maintaining a race over his head and down +his back in an endless gambol. When he crossed the plank bridge and +entered the garden-gate, he saw an illuminated figure coming from the +enclosed plot towards the house on the other side. It was his father, +with his hand in a sling, taking a general moonlight view of the garden, +and particularly of a plot of the youngest of young turnips, previous to +closing the cottage for the night. + +He saluted his son with customary force. 'Hallo, Stephen! We should ha' +been in bed in another ten minutes. Come to see what's the matter wi' +me, I suppose, my lad?' + +The doctor had come and gone, and the hand had been pronounced as +injured but slightly, though it might possibly have been considered +a far more serious case if Mr. Smith had been a more important man. +Stephen's anxious inquiry drew from his father words of regret at the +inconvenience to the world of his doing nothing for the next two days, +rather than of concern for the pain of the accident. Together they +entered the house. + +John Smith--brown as autumn as to skin, white as winter as to +clothes--was a satisfactory specimen of the village artificer in stone. +In common with most rural mechanics, he had too much individuality to be +a typical 'working-man'--a resultant of that beach-pebble attrition with +his kind only to be experienced in large towns, which metamorphoses the +unit Self into a fraction of the unit Class. + +There was not the speciality in his labour which distinguishes the +handicraftsmen of towns. Though only a mason, strictly speaking, he was +not above handling a brick, if bricks were the order of the day; or a +slate or tile, if a roof had to be covered before the wet weather set +in, and nobody was near who could do it better. Indeed, on one or two +occasions in the depth of winter, when frost peremptorily forbids all +use of the trowel, making foundations to settle, stones to fly, and +mortar to crumble, he had taken to felling and sawing trees. Moreover, +he had practised gardening in his own plot for so many years that, on an +emergency, he might have made a living by that calling. + +Probably our countryman was not such an accomplished artificer in a +particular direction as his town brethren in the trades. But he was, in +truth, like that clumsy pin-maker who made the whole pin, and who was +despised by Adam Smith on that account and respected by Macaulay, much +more the artist nevertheless. + +Appearing now, indoors, by the light of the candle, his stalwart +healthiness was a sight to see. His beard was close and knotted as that +of a chiselled Hercules; his shirt sleeves were partly rolled up, his +waistcoat unbuttoned; the difference in hue between the snowy linen and +the ruddy arms and face contrasting like the white of an egg and its +yolk. Mrs. Smith, on hearing them enter, advanced from the pantry. + +Mrs. Smith was a matron whose countenance addressed itself to the +mind rather than to the eye, though not exclusively. She retained her +personal freshness even now, in the prosy afternoon-time of her life; +but what her features were primarily indicative of was a sound common +sense behind them; as a whole, appearing to carry with them a sort of +argumentative commentary on the world in general. + +The details of the accident were then rehearsed by Stephen's father, in +the dramatic manner also common to Martin Cannister, other individuals +of the neighbourhood, and the rural world generally. Mrs. Smith threw in +her sentiments between the acts, as Coryphaeus of the tragedy, to make +the description complete. The story at last came to an end, as the +longest will, and Stephen directed the conversation into another +channel. + +'Well, mother, they know everything about me now,' he said quietly. + +'Well done!' replied his father; 'now my mind's at peace.' + +'I blame myself--I never shall forgive myself--for not telling them +before,' continued the young man. + +Mrs. Smith at this point abstracted her mind from the former subject. 'I +don't see what you have to grieve about, Stephen,' she said. 'People who +accidentally get friends don't, as a first stroke, tell the history of +their families.' + +'Ye've done no wrong, certainly,' said his father. + +'No; but I should have spoken sooner. There's more in this visit of mine +than you think--a good deal more.' + +'Not more than I think,' Mrs. Smith replied, looking contemplatively at +him. Stephen blushed; and his father looked from one to the other in a +state of utter incomprehension. + +'She's a pretty piece enough,' Mrs. Smith continued, 'and very lady-like +and clever too. But though she's very well fit for you as far as that +is, why, mercy 'pon me, what ever do you want any woman at all for yet?' + +John made his naturally short mouth a long one, and wrinkled his +forehead, 'That's the way the wind d'blow, is it?' he said. + +'Mother,' exclaimed Stephen, 'how absurdly you speak! Criticizing +whether she's fit for me or no, as if there were room for doubt on +the matter! Why, to marry her would be the great blessing of my +life--socially and practically, as well as in other respects. No such +good fortune as that, I'm afraid; she's too far above me. Her family +doesn't want such country lads as I in it.' + +'Then if they don't want you, I'd see them dead corpses before I'd want +them, and go to better families who do want you.' + +'Ah, yes; but I could never put up with the distaste of being welcomed +among such people as you mean, whilst I could get indifference among +such people as hers.' + +'What crazy twist o' thinking will enter your head next?' said his +mother. 'And come to that, she's not a bit too high for you, or you too +low for her. See how careful I be to keep myself up. I'm sure I never +stop for more than a minute together to talk to any journeymen people; +and I never invite anybody to our party o' Christmases who are not +in business for themselves. And I talk to several toppermost carriage +people that come to my lord's without saying ma'am or sir to 'em, and +they take it as quiet as lambs.' + +'You curtseyed to the vicar, mother; and I wish you hadn't.' + +'But it was before he called me by my Christian name, or he would have +got very little curtseying from me!' said Mrs. Smith, bridling and +sparkling with vexation. 'You go on at me, Stephen, as if I were your +worst enemy! What else could I do with the man to get rid of him, +banging it into me and your father by side and by seam, about his +greatness, and what happened when he was a young fellow at college, and +I don't know what-all; the tongue o' en flopping round his mouth like a +mop-rag round a dairy. That 'a did, didn't he, John?' + +'That's about the size o't,' replied her husband. + +'Every woman now-a-days,' resumed Mrs. Smith, 'if she marry at all, must +expect a father-in-law of a rank lower than her father. The men have +gone up so, and the women have stood still. Every man you meet is more +the dand than his father; and you are just level wi' her.' + +'That's what she thinks herself.' + +'It only shows her sense. I knew she was after 'ee, Stephen--I knew it.' + +'After me! Good Lord, what next!' + +'And I really must say again that you ought not to be in such a hurry, +and wait for a few years. You might go higher than a bankrupt pa'son's +girl then.' + +'The fact is, mother,' said Stephen impatiently, 'you don't know +anything about it. I shall never go higher, because I don't want to, nor +should I if I lived to be a hundred. As to you saying that she's after +me, I don't like such a remark about her, for it implies a scheming +woman, and a man worth scheming for, both of which are not only untrue, +but ludicrously untrue, of this case. Isn't it so, father?' + +'I'm afraid I don't understand the matter well enough to gie my +opinion,' said his father, in the tone of the fox who had a cold and +could not smell. + +'She couldn't have been very backward anyhow, considering the short +time you have known her,' said his mother. 'Well I think that five years +hence you'll be plenty young enough to think of such things. And really +she can very well afford to wait, and will too, take my word. Living +down in an out-step place like this, I am sure she ought to be very +thankful that you took notice of her. She'd most likely have died an old +maid if you hadn't turned up.' + +'All nonsense,' said Stephen, but not aloud. + +'A nice little thing she is,' Mrs. Smith went on in a more complacent +tone now that Stephen had been talked down; 'there's not a word to say +against her, I'll own. I see her sometimes decked out like a horse going +to fair, and I admire her for't. A perfect little lady. But people can't +help their thoughts, and if she'd learnt to make figures instead of +letters when she was at school 'twould have been better for her pocket; +for as I said, there never were worse times for such as she than now.' + +'Now, now, mother!' said Stephen with smiling deprecation. + +'But I will!' said his mother with asperity. 'I don't read the papers +for nothing, and I know men all move up a stage by marriage. Men of her +class, that is, parsons, marry squires' daughters; squires marry lords' +daughters; lords marry dukes' daughters; dukes marry queens' daughters. +All stages of gentlemen mate a stage higher; and the lowest stage of +gentlewomen are left single, or marry out of their class.' + +'But you said just now, dear mother----' retorted Stephen, unable to +resist the temptation of showing his mother her inconsistency. Then he +paused. + +'Well, what did I say?' And Mrs. Smith prepared her lips for a new +campaign. + +Stephen, regretting that he had begun, since a volcano might be the +consequence, was obliged to go on. + +'You said I wasn't out of her class just before.' + +'Yes, there, there! That's you; that's my own flesh and blood. I'll +warrant that you'll pick holes in everything your mother says, if you +can, Stephen. You are just like your father for that; take anybody's +part but mine. Whilst I am speaking and talking and trying and slaving +away for your good, you are waiting to catch me out in that way. So you +are in her class, but 'tis what HER people would CALL marrying out of +her class. Don't be so quarrelsome, Stephen!' + +Stephen preserved a discreet silence, in which he was imitated by his +father, and for several minutes nothing was heard but the ticking of the +green-faced case-clock against the wall. + +'I'm sure,' added Mrs. Smith in a more philosophic tone, and as a +terminative speech, 'if there'd been so much trouble to get a husband in +my time as there is in these days--when you must make a god-almighty of +a man to get en to hae ye--I'd have trod clay for bricks before I'd ever +have lowered my dignity to marry, or there's no bread in nine loaves.' + +The discussion now dropped, and as it was getting late, Stephen bade his +parents farewell for the evening, his mother none the less warmly +for their sparring; for although Mrs. Smith and Stephen were always +contending, they were never at enmity. + +'And possibly,' said Stephen, 'I may leave here altogether to-morrow; +I don't know. So that if I shouldn't call again before returning to +London, don't be alarmed, will you?' + +'But didn't you come for a fortnight?' said his mother. 'And haven't you +a month's holiday altogether? They are going to turn you out, then?' + +'Not at all. I may stay longer; I may go. If I go, you had better say +nothing about my having been here, for her sake. At what time of the +morning does the carrier pass Endelstow lane?' + +'Seven o'clock.' + +And then he left them. His thoughts were, that should the vicar permit +him to become engaged, to hope for an engagement, or in any way to think +of his beloved Elfride, he might stay longer. Should he be forbidden to +think of any such thing, he resolved to go at once. And the latter, even +to young hopefulness, seemed the more probable alternative. + +Stephen walked back to the vicarage through the meadows, as he had come, +surrounded by the soft musical purl of the water through little +weirs, the modest light of the moon, the freshening smell of the dews +out-spread around. It was a time when mere seeing is meditation, and +meditation peace. Stephen was hardly philosopher enough to avail +himself of Nature's offer. His constitution was made up of very simple +particulars; was one which, rare in the spring-time of civilizations, +seems to grow abundant as a nation gets older, individuality fades, +and education spreads; that is, his brain had extraordinary receptive +powers, and no great creativeness. Quickly acquiring any kind of +knowledge he saw around him, and having a plastic adaptability more +common in woman than in man, he changed colour like a chameleon as the +society he found himself in assumed a higher and more artificial tone. +He had not many original ideas, and yet there was scarcely an idea to +which, under proper training, he could not have added a respectable +co-ordinate. + +He saw nothing outside himself to-night; and what he saw within was a +weariness to his flesh. Yet to a dispassionate observer, his pretensions +to Elfride, though rather premature, were far from absurd as marriages +go, unless the accidental proximity of simple but honest parents could +be said to make them so. + +The clock struck eleven when he entered the house. Elfride had been +waiting with scarcely a movement since he departed. Before he had spoken +to her she caught sight of him passing into the study with her father. +She saw that he had by some means obtained the private interview he +desired. + +A nervous headache had been growing on the excitable girl during the +absence of Stephen, and now she could do nothing beyond going up again +to her room as she had done before. Instead of lying down she sat again +in the darkness without closing the door, and listened with a beating +heart to every sound from downstairs. The servants had gone to bed. +She ultimately heard the two men come from the study and cross to the +dining-room, where supper had been lingering for more than an hour. The +door was left open, and she found that the meal, such as it was, +passed off between her father and her lover without any remark, save +commonplaces as to cucumbers and melons, their wholesomeness and +culture, uttered in a stiff and formal way. It seemed to prefigure +failure. + +Shortly afterwards Stephen came upstairs to his bedroom, and was almost +immediately followed by her father, who also retired for the night. Not +inclined to get a light, she partly undressed and sat on the bed, where +she remained in pained thought for some time, possibly an hour. Then +rising to close her door previously to fully unrobing, she saw a streak +of light shining across the landing. Her father's door was shut, and he +could be heard snoring regularly. The light came from Stephen's room, +and the slight sounds also coming thence emphatically denoted what he +was doing. In the perfect silence she could hear the closing of a lid +and the clicking of a lock,--he was fastening his hat-box. Then the +buckling of straps and the click of another key,--he was securing his +portmanteau. With trebled foreboding she opened her door softly, and +went towards his. One sensation pervaded her to distraction. Stephen, +her handsome youth and darling, was going away, and she might never see +him again except in secret and in sadness--perhaps never more. At any +rate, she could no longer wait till the morning to hear the result of +the interview, as she had intended. She flung her dressing-gown round +her, tapped lightly at his door, and whispered 'Stephen!' He came +instantly, opened the door, and stepped out. + +'Tell me; are we to hope?' + +He replied in a disturbed whisper, and a tear approached its outlet, +though none fell. + +'I am not to think of such a preposterous thing--that's what he said. +And I am going to-morrow. I should have called you up to bid you +good-bye.' + +'But he didn't say you were to go--O Stephen, he didn't say that?' + +'No; not in words. But I cannot stay.' + +'Oh, don't, don't go! Do come and let us talk. Let us come down to the +drawing-room for a few minutes; he will hear us here.' + +She preceded him down the staircase with the taper light in her +hand, looking unnaturally tall and thin in the long dove-coloured +dressing-gown she wore. She did not stop to think of the propriety +or otherwise of this midnight interview under such circumstances. She +thought that the tragedy of her life was beginning, and, for the first +time almost, felt that her existence might have a grave side, the shade +of which enveloped and rendered invisible the delicate gradations of +custom and punctilio. Elfride softly opened the drawing-room door and +they both went in. When she had placed the candle on the table, he +enclosed her with his arms, dried her eyes with his handkerchief, and +kissed their lids. + +'Stephen, it is over--happy love is over; and there is no more sunshine +now!' + +'I will make a fortune, and come to you, and have you. Yes, I will!' + +'Papa will never hear of it--never--never! You don't know him. I do. +He is either biassed in favour of a thing, or prejudiced against it. +Argument is powerless against either feeling.' + +'No; I won't think of him so,' said Stephen. 'If I appear before him +some time hence as a man of established name, he will accept me--I know +he will. He is not a wicked man.' + +'No, he is not wicked. But you say "some time hence," as if it were no +time. To you, among bustle and excitement, it will be comparatively +a short time, perhaps; oh, to me, it will be its real length trebled! +Every summer will be a year--autumn a year--winter a year! O Stephen! +and you may forget me!' + +Forget: that was, and is, the real sting of waiting to fond-hearted +woman. The remark awoke in Stephen the converse fear. 'You, too, may be +persuaded to give me up, when time has made me fainter in your memory. +For, remember, your love for me must be nourished in secret; there will +be no long visits from me to support you. Circumstances will always tend +to obliterate me.' + +'Stephen,' she said, filled with her own misgivings, and unheeding his +last words, 'there are beautiful women where you live--of course I know +there are--and they may win you away from me.' Her tears came visibly +as she drew a mental picture of his faithlessness. 'And it won't be your +fault,' she continued, looking into the candle with doleful eyes. 'No! +You will think that our family don't want you, and get to include me +with them. And there will be a vacancy in your heart, and some others +will be let in.' + +'I could not, I would not. Elfie, do not be so full of forebodings.' + +'Oh yes, they will,' she replied. 'And you will look at them, not caring +at first, and then you will look and be interested, and after a while +you will think, "Ah, they know all about city life, and assemblies, and +coteries, and the manners of the titled, and poor little Elfie, with all +the fuss that's made about her having me, doesn't know about anything +but a little house and a few cliffs and a space of sea, far away." And +then you'll be more interested in them, and they'll make you have them +instead of me, on purpose to be cruel to me because I am silly, and they +are clever and hate me. And I hate them, too; yes, I do!' + +Her impulsive words had power to impress him at any rate with the +recognition of the uncertainty of all that is not accomplished. And, +worse than that general feeling, there of course remained the sadness +which arose from the special features of his own case. However remote a +desired issue may be, the mere fact of having entered the groove which +leads to it, cheers to some extent with a sense of accomplishment. Had +Mr. Swancourt consented to an engagement of no less length than ten +years, Stephen would have been comparatively cheerful in waiting; they +would have felt that they were somewhere on the road to Cupid's garden. +But, with a possibility of a shorter probation, they had not as yet any +prospect of the beginning; the zero of hope had yet to be reached. Mr. +Swancourt would have to revoke his formidable words before the waiting +for marriage could even set in. And this was despair. + +'I wish we could marry now,' murmured Stephen, as an impossible fancy. + +'So do I,' said she also, as if regarding an idle dream. ''Tis the only +thing that ever does sweethearts good!' + +'Secretly would do, would it not, Elfie?' + +'Yes, secretly would do; secretly would indeed be best,' she said, and +went on reflectively: 'All we want is to render it absolutely impossible +for any future circumstance to upset our future intention of being happy +together; not to begin being happy now.' + +'Exactly,' he murmured in a voice and manner the counterpart of hers. +'To marry and part secretly, and live on as we are living now; merely to +put it out of anybody's power to force you away from me, dearest.' + +'Or you away from me, Stephen.' + +'Or me from you. It is possible to conceive a force of circumstance +strong enough to make any woman in the world marry against her will: no +conceivable pressure, up to torture or starvation, can make a woman once +married to her lover anybody else's wife.' + +Now up to this point the idea of an immediate secret marriage had been +held by both as an untenable hypothesis, wherewith simply to beguile a +miserable moment. During a pause which followed Stephen's last remark, +a fascinating perception, then an alluring conviction, flashed along the +brain of both. The perception was that an immediate marriage COULD be +contrived; the conviction that such an act, in spite of its daring, its +fathomless results, its deceptiveness, would be preferred by each to the +life they must lead under any other conditions. + +The youth spoke first, and his voice trembled with the magnitude of the +conception he was cherishing. 'How strong we should feel, Elfride! +going on our separate courses as before, without the fear of ultimate +separation! O Elfride! think of it; think of it!' + +It is certain that the young girl's love for Stephen received a fanning +from her father's opposition which made it blaze with a dozen times the +intensity it would have exhibited if left alone. Never were conditions +more favourable for developing a girl's first passing fancy for a +handsome boyish face--a fancy rooted in inexperience and nourished by +seclusion--into a wild unreflecting passion fervid enough for anything. +All the elements of such a development were there, the chief one being +hopelessness--a necessary ingredient always to perfect the mixture of +feelings united under the name of loving to distraction. + +'We would tell papa soon, would we not?' she inquired timidly. 'Nobody +else need know. He would then be convinced that hearts cannot be played +with; love encouraged be ready to grow, love discouraged be ready to +die, at a moment's notice. Stephen, do you not think that if marriages +against a parent's consent are ever justifiable, they are when young +people have been favoured up to a point, as we have, and then have had +that favour suddenly withdrawn?' + +'Yes. It is not as if we had from the beginning acted in opposition to +your papa's wishes. Only think, Elfie, how pleasant he was towards me +but six hours ago! He liked me, praised me, never objected to my being +alone with you.' + +'I believe he MUST like you now,' she cried. 'And if he found that you +irremediably belonged to me, he would own it and help you. 'O Stephen, +Stephen,' she burst out again, as the remembrance of his packing came +afresh to her mind, 'I cannot bear your going away like this! It is +too dreadful. All I have been expecting miserably killed within me like +this!' + +Stephen flushed hot with impulse. 'I will not be a doubt to you--thought +of you shall not be a misery to me!' he said. 'We will be wife and +husband before we part for long!' + +She hid her face on his shoulder. 'Anything to make SURE!' she +whispered. + +'I did not like to propose it immediately,' continued Stephen. 'It +seemed to me--it seems to me now--like trying to catch you--a girl +better in the world than I.' + +'Not that, indeed! And am I better in worldly station? What's the use of +have beens? We may have been something once; we are nothing now.' + +Then they whispered long and earnestly together; Stephen hesitatingly +proposing this and that plan, Elfride modifying them, with quick +breathings, and hectic flush, and unnaturally bright eyes. It was two +o'clock before an arrangement was finally concluded. + +She then told him to leave her, giving him his light to go up to his own +room. They parted with an agreement not to meet again in the morning. +After his door had been some time closed he heard her softly gliding +into her chamber. + + + + +Chapter XI + + 'Journeys end in lovers meeting.' + + +Stephen lay watching the Great Bear; Elfride was regarding a monotonous +parallelogram of window blind. Neither slept that night. + +Early the next morning--that is to say, four hours after their +stolen interview, and just as the earliest servant was heard moving +about--Stephen Smith went downstairs, portmanteau in hand. Throughout +the night he had intended to see Mr. Swancourt again, but the sharp +rebuff of the previous evening rendered such an interview particularly +distasteful. Perhaps there was another and less honest reason. He +decided to put it off. Whatever of moral timidity or obliquity may have +lain in such a decision, no perception of it was strong enough to detain +him. He wrote a note in his room, which stated simply that he did not +feel happy in the house after Mr. Swancourt's sudden veto on what he had +favoured a few hours before; but that he hoped a time would come, and +that soon, when his original feelings of pleasure as Mr. Swancourt's +guest might be recovered. + +He expected to find the downstairs rooms wearing the gray and cheerless +aspect that early morning gives to everything out of the sun. He +found in the dining room a breakfast laid, of which somebody had just +partaken. + +Stephen gave the maid-servant his note of adieu. She stated that Mr. +Swancourt had risen early that morning, and made an early breakfast. He +was not going away that she knew of. + +Stephen took a cup of coffee, left the house of his love, and turned +into the lane. It was so early that the shaded places still smelt like +night time, and the sunny spots had hardly felt the sun. The horizontal +rays made every shallow dip in the ground to show as a well-marked +hollow. Even the channel of the path was enough to throw shade, and the +very stones of the road cast tapering dashes of darkness westward, as +long as Jael's tent-nail. + +At a spot not more than a hundred yards from the vicar's residence the +lane leading thence crossed the high road. Stephen reached the point of +intersection, stood still and listened. Nothing could be heard save the +lengthy, murmuring line of the sea upon the adjacent shore. He looked +at his watch, and then mounted a gate upon which he seated himself, to +await the arrival of the carrier. Whilst he sat he heard wheels coming +in two directions. + +The vehicle approaching on his right he soon recognized as the +carrier's. There were the accompanying sounds of the owner's voice and +the smack of his whip, distinct in the still morning air, by which he +encouraged his horses up the hill. + +The other set of wheels sounded from the lane Stephen had just +traversed. On closer observation, he perceived that they were moving +from the precincts of the ancient manor-house adjoining the vicarage +grounds. A carriage then left the entrance gates of the house, and +wheeling round came fully in sight. It was a plain travelling carriage, +with a small quantity of luggage, apparently a lady's. The vehicle +came to the junction of the four ways half-a-minute before the carrier +reached the same spot, and crossed directly in his front, proceeding by +the lane on the other side. + +Inside the carriage Stephen could just discern an elderly lady with a +younger woman, who seemed to be her maid. The road they had taken led to +Stratleigh, a small watering-place sixteen miles north. + +He heard the manor-house gates swing again, and looking up saw another +person leaving them, and walking off in the direction of the parsonage. +'Ah, how much I wish I were moving that way!' felt he parenthetically. +The gentleman was tall, and resembled Mr. Swancourt in outline and +attire. He opened the vicarage gate and went in. Mr. Swancourt, then, +it certainly was. Instead of remaining in bed that morning Mr. Swancourt +must have taken it into his head to see his new neighbour off on a +journey. He must have been greatly interested in that neighbour to do +such an unusual thing. + +The carrier's conveyance had pulled up, and Stephen now handed in his +portmanteau and mounted the shafts. 'Who is that lady in the carriage?' +he inquired indifferently of Lickpan the carrier. + +'That, sir, is Mrs. Troyton, a widder wi' a mint o' money. She's the +owner of all that part of Endelstow that is not Lord Luxellian's. Only +been here a short time; she came into it by law. The owner formerly was +a terrible mysterious party--never lived here--hardly ever was seen here +except in the month of September, as I might say.' + +The horses were started again, and noise rendered further discourse a +matter of too great exertion. Stephen crept inside under the tilt, and +was soon lost in reverie. + +Three hours and a half of straining up hills and jogging down brought +them to St. Launce's, the market town and railway station nearest to +Endelstow, and the place from which Stephen Smith had journeyed over the +downs on the, to him, memorable winter evening at the beginning of +the same year. The carrier's van was so timed as to meet a starting +up-train, which Stephen entered. Two or three hours' railway travel +through vertical cuttings in metamorphic rock, through oak copses rich +and green, stretching over slopes and down delightful valleys, glens, +and ravines, sparkling with water like many-rilled Ida, and he plunged +amid the hundred and fifty thousand people composing the town of +Plymouth. + +There being some time upon his hands he left his luggage at the +cloak-room, and went on foot along Bedford Street to the nearest church. +Here Stephen wandered among the multifarious tombstones and looked in at +the chancel window, dreaming of something that was likely to happen by +the altar there in the course of the coming month. He turned away and +ascended the Hoe, viewed the magnificent stretch of sea and massive +promontories of land, but without particularly discerning one feature of +the varied perspective. He still saw that inner prospect--the event +he hoped for in yonder church. The wide Sound, the Breakwater, the +light-house on far-off Eddystone, the dark steam vessels, brigs, +barques, and schooners, either floating stilly, or gliding with tiniest +motion, were as the dream, then; the dreamed-of event was as the +reality. + +Soon Stephen went down from the Hoe, and returned to the railway +station. He took his ticket, and entered the London train. + + +That day was an irksome time at Endelstow vicarage. Neither father nor +daughter alluded to the departure of Stephen. Mr. Swancourt's manner +towards her partook of the compunctious kindness that arises from a +misgiving as to the justice of some previous act. + +Either from lack of the capacity to grasp the whole coup d'oeil, or from +a natural endowment for certain kinds of stoicism, women are cooler than +men in critical situations of the passive form. Probably, in Elfride's +case at least, it was blindness to the greater contingencies of the +future she was preparing for herself, which enabled her to ask her +father in a quiet voice if he could give her a holiday soon, to ride to +St. Launce's and go on to Plymouth. + +Now, she had only once before gone alone to Plymouth, and that was in +consequence of some unavoidable difficulty. Being a country girl, and a +good, not to say a wild, horsewoman, it had been her delight to canter, +without the ghost of an attendant, over the fourteen or sixteen miles +of hard road intervening between their home and the station at St. +Launce's, put up the horse, and go on the remainder of the distance by +train, returning in the same manner in the evening. It was then resolved +that, though she had successfully accomplished this journey once, it was +not to be repeated without some attendance. + +But Elfride must not be confounded with ordinary young feminine +equestrians. The circumstances of her lonely and narrow life made it +imperative that in trotting about the neighbourhood she must trot +alone or else not at all. Usage soon rendered this perfectly natural to +herself. Her father, who had had other experiences, did not much like +the idea of a Swancourt, whose pedigree could be as distinctly traced as +a thread in a skein of silk, scampering over the hills like a farmer's +daughter, even though he could habitually neglect her. But what with +his not being able to afford her a regular attendant, and his inveterate +habit of letting anything be to save himself trouble, the circumstance +grew customary. And so there arose a chronic notion in the villagers' +minds that all ladies rode without an attendant, like Miss Swancourt, +except a few who were sometimes visiting at Lord Luxellian's. + +'I don't like your going to Plymouth alone, particularly going to St. +Launce's on horseback. Why not drive, and take the man?' + +'It is not nice to be so overlooked.' Worm's company would not seriously +have interfered with her plans, but it was her humour to go without him. + +'When do you want to go?' said her father. + +She only answered, 'Soon.' + +'I will consider,' he said. + +Only a few days elapsed before she asked again. A letter had reached +her from Stephen. It had been timed to come on that day by special +arrangement between them. In it he named the earliest morning on which +he could meet her at Plymouth. Her father had been on a journey to +Stratleigh, and returned in unusual buoyancy of spirit. It was a good +opportunity; and since the dismissal of Stephen her father had been +generally in a mood to make small concessions, that he might steer clear +of large ones connected with that outcast lover of hers. + +'Next Thursday week I am going from home in a different direction,' said +her father. 'In fact, I shall leave home the night before. You might +choose the same day, for they wish to take up the carpets, or some such +thing, I think. As I said, I don't like you to be seen in a town on +horseback alone; but go if you will.' + +Thursday week. Her father had named the very day that Stephen also had +named that morning as the earliest on which it would be of any use to +meet her; that was, about fifteen days from the day on which he had left +Endelstow. Fifteen days--that fragment of duration which has acquired +such an interesting individuality from its connection with the English +marriage law. + +She involuntarily looked at her father so strangely, that on becoming +conscious of the look she paled with embarrassment. Her father, too, +looked confused. What was he thinking of? + +There seemed to be a special facility offered her by a power external +to herself in the circumstance that Mr. Swancourt had proposed to leave +home the night previous to her wished-for day. Her father seldom took +long journeys; seldom slept from home except perhaps on the night +following a remote Visitation. Well, she would not inquire too curiously +into the reason of the opportunity, nor did he, as would have been +natural, proceed to explain it of his own accord. In matters of fact +there had hitherto been no reserve between them, though they were not +usually confidential in its full sense. But the divergence of their +emotions on Stephen's account had produced an estrangement which just +at present went even to the extent of reticence on the most ordinary +household topics. + +Elfride was almost unconsciously relieved, persuading herself that her +father's reserve on his business justified her in secrecy as regarded +her own--a secrecy which was necessarily a foregone decision with her. +So anxious is a young conscience to discover a palliative, that the ex +post facto nature of a reason is of no account in excluding it. + +The intervening fortnight was spent by her mostly in walking by +herself among the shrubs and trees, indulging sometimes in sanguine +anticipations; more, far more frequently, in misgivings. All her flowers +seemed dull of hue; her pets seemed to look wistfully into her eyes, +as if they no longer stood in the same friendly relation to her as +formerly. She wore melancholy jewellery, gazed at sunsets, and talked to +old men and women. It was the first time that she had had an inner and +private world apart from the visible one about her. She wished that her +father, instead of neglecting her even more than usual, would make some +advance--just one word; she would then tell all, and risk Stephen's +displeasure. Thus brought round to the youth again, she saw him in +her fancy, standing, touching her, his eyes full of sad affection, +hopelessly renouncing his attempt because she had renounced hers; and +she could not recede. + +On the Wednesday she was to receive another letter. She had resolved +to let her father see the arrival of this one, be the consequences +what they might: the dread of losing her lover by this deed of honesty +prevented her acting upon the resolve. Five minutes before the postman's +expected arrival she slipped out, and down the lane to meet him. She met +him immediately upon turning a sharp angle, which hid her from view in +the direction of the vicarage. The man smilingly handed one missive, and +was going on to hand another, a circular from some tradesman. + +'No,' she said; 'take that on to the house.' + +'Why, miss, you are doing what your father has done for the last +fortnight.' + +She did not comprehend. + +'Why, come to this corner, and take a letter of me every morning, all +writ in the same handwriting, and letting any others for him go on to +the house.' And on the postman went. + +No sooner had he turned the corner behind her back than she heard +her father meet and address the man. She had saved her letter by two +minutes. Her father audibly went through precisely the same performance +as she had just been guilty of herself. + +This stealthy conduct of his was, to say the least, peculiar. + + +Given an impulsive inconsequent girl, neglected as to her inner life by +her only parent, and the following forces alive within her; to determine +a resultant: + +First love acted upon by a deadly fear of separation from its object: +inexperience, guiding onward a frantic wish to prevent the above-named +issue: misgivings as to propriety, met by hope of ultimate exoneration: +indignation at parental inconsistency in first encouraging, then +forbidding: a chilling sense of disobedience, overpowered by a +conscientious inability to brook a breaking of plighted faith with a man +who, in essentials, had remained unaltered from the beginning: a blessed +hope that opposition would turn an erroneous judgement: a bright faith +that things would mend thereby, and wind up well. + +Probably the result would, after all, have been nil, had not the +following few remarks been made one day at breakfast. + +Her father was in his old hearty spirits. He smiled to himself +at stories too bad to tell, and called Elfride a little scamp for +surreptitiously preserving some blind kittens that ought to have been +drowned. After this expression, she said to him suddenly: + +'If Mr. Smith had been already in the family, you would not have been +made wretched by discovering he had poor relations?' + +'Do you mean in the family by marriage?' he replied inattentively, and +continuing to peel his egg. + +The accumulating scarlet told that was her meaning, as much as the +affirmative reply. + +'I should have put up with it, no doubt,' Mr. Swancourt observed. + +'So that you would not have been driven into hopeless melancholy, but +have made the best of him?' + +Elfride's erratic mind had from her youth upwards been constantly in +the habit of perplexing her father by hypothetical questions, based on +absurd conditions. The present seemed to be cast so precisely in +the mould of previous ones that, not being given to syntheses of +circumstances, he answered it with customary complacency. + +'If he were allied to us irretrievably, of course I, or any sensible +man, should accept conditions that could not be altered; certainly not +be hopelessly melancholy about it. I don't believe anything in the world +would make me hopelessly melancholy. And don't let anything make you so, +either.' + +'I won't, papa,' she cried, with a serene brightness that pleased him. + +Certainly Mr. Swancourt must have been far from thinking that the +brightness came from an exhilarating intention to hold back no longer +from the mad action she had planned. + +In the evening he drove away towards Stratleigh, quite alone. It was +an unusual course for him. At the door Elfride had been again almost +impelled by her feelings to pour out all. + +'Why are you going to Stratleigh, papa?' she said, and looked at him +longingly. + +'I will tell you to-morrow when I come back,' he said cheerily; 'not +before then, Elfride. Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know, and +so far will I trust thee, gentle Elfride.' + +She was repressed and hurt. + +'I will tell you my errand to Plymouth, too, when I come back,' she +murmured. + +He went away. His jocularity made her intention seem the lighter, as his +indifference made her more resolved to do as she liked. + +It was a familiar September sunset, dark-blue fragments of cloud upon an +orange-yellow sky. These sunsets used to tempt her to walk towards them, +as any beautiful thing tempts a near approach. She went through the +field to the privet hedge, clambered into the middle of it, and reclined +upon the thick boughs. After looking westward for a considerable time, +she blamed herself for not looking eastward to where Stephen was, and +turned round. Ultimately her eyes fell upon the ground. + +A peculiarity was observable beneath her. A green field spread itself +on each side of the hedge, one belonging to the glebe, the other being a +part of the land attached to the manor-house adjoining. On the +vicarage side she saw a little footpath, the distinctive and altogether +exceptional feature of which consisted in its being only about ten yards +long; it terminated abruptly at each end. + +A footpath, suddenly beginning and suddenly ending, coming from nowhere +and leading nowhere, she had never seen before. + +Yes, she had, on second thoughts. She had seen exactly such a path +trodden in the front of barracks by the sentry. + +And this recollection explained the origin of the path here. Her father +had trodden it by pacing up and down, as she had once seen him doing. + +Sitting on the hedge as she sat now, her eyes commanded a view of both +sides of it. And a few minutes later, Elfride looked over to the manor +side. + +Here was another sentry path. It was like the first in length, and +it began and ended exactly opposite the beginning and ending of its +neighbour, but it was thinner, and less distinct. + +Two reasons existed for the difference. This one might have been trodden +by a similar weight of tread to the other, exercised a less number of +times; or it might have been walked just as frequently, but by lighter +feet. + +Probably a gentleman from Scotland-yard, had he been passing at the +time, might have considered the latter alternative as the more probable. +Elfride thought otherwise, so far as she thought at all. But her own +great To-Morrow was now imminent; all thoughts inspired by casual sights +of the eye were only allowed to exercise themselves in inferior corners +of her brain, previously to being banished altogether. + +Elfride was at length compelled to reason practically upon her +undertaking. All her definite perceptions thereon, when the emotion +accompanying them was abstracted, amounted to no more than these: + +'Say an hour and three-quarters to ride to St. Launce's. + +'Say half an hour at the Falcon to change my dress. + +'Say two hours waiting for some train and getting to Plymouth. + +'Say an hour to spare before twelve o'clock. + +'Total time from leaving Endelstow till twelve o'clock, five hours. + +'Therefore I shall have to start at seven.' + + +No surprise or sense of unwontedness entered the minds of the servants +at her early ride. The monotony of life we associate with people of +small incomes in districts out of the sound of the railway whistle, has +one exception, which puts into shade the experience of dwellers about +the great centres of population--that is, in travelling. Every journey +there is more or less an adventure; adventurous hours are necessarily +chosen for the most commonplace outing. Miss Elfride had to leave +early--that was all. + +Elfride never went out on horseback but she brought home +something--something found, or something bought. If she trotted to town +or village, her burden was books. If to hills, woods, or the seashore, +it was wonderful mosses, abnormal twigs, a handkerchief of wet shells or +seaweed. + +Once, in muddy weather, when Pansy was walking with her down the street +of Castle Boterel, on a fair-day, a packet in front of her and a packet +under her arm, an accident befell the packets, and they slipped down. +On one side of her, three volumes of fiction lay kissing the mud; on +the other numerous skeins of polychromatic wools lay absorbing it. +Unpleasant women smiled through windows at the mishap, the men all +looked round, and a boy, who was minding a ginger-bread stall whilst +the owner had gone to get drunk, laughed loudly. The blue eyes turned to +sapphires, and the cheeks crimsoned with vexation. + +After that misadventure she set her wits to work, and was ingenious +enough to invent an arrangement of small straps about the saddle, by +which a great deal could be safely carried thereon, in a small compass. +Here she now spread out and fastened a plain dark walking-dress and +a few other trifles of apparel. Worm opened the gate for her, and she +vanished away. + +One of the brightest mornings of late summer shone upon her. The heather +was at its purplest, the furze at its yellowest, the grasshoppers +chirped loud enough for birds, the snakes hissed like little engines, +and Elfride at first felt lively. Sitting at ease upon Pansy, in her +orthodox riding-habit and nondescript hat, she looked what she felt. But +the mercury of those days had a trick of falling unexpectedly. First, +only for one minute in ten had she a sense of depression. Then a large +cloud, that had been hanging in the north like a black fleece, came and +placed itself between her and the sun. It helped on what was already +inevitable, and she sank into a uniformity of sadness. + +She turned in the saddle and looked back. They were now on an open +table-land, whose altitude still gave her a view of the sea by +Endelstow. She looked longingly at that spot. + +During this little revulsion of feeling Pansy had been still advancing, +and Elfride felt it would be absurd to turn her little mare's head the +other way. 'Still,' she thought, 'if I had a mamma at home I WOULD go +back!' + +And making one of those stealthy movements by which women let their +hearts juggle with their brains, she did put the horse's head about, as +if unconsciously, and went at a hand-gallop towards home for more than +a mile. By this time, from the inveterate habit of valuing what we +have renounced directly the alternative is chosen, the thought of her +forsaken Stephen recalled her, and she turned about, and cantered on to +St. Launce's again. + +This miserable strife of thought now began to rage in all its wildness. +Overwrought and trembling, she dropped the rein upon Pansy's shoulders, +and vowed she would be led whither the horse would take her. + +Pansy slackened her pace to a walk, and walked on with her agitated +burden for three or four minutes. At the expiration of this time they +had come to a little by-way on the right, leading down a slope to a pool +of water. The pony stopped, looked towards the pool, and then advanced +and stooped to drink. + +Elfride looked at her watch and discovered that if she were going to +reach St. Launce's early enough to change her dress at the Falcon, +and get a chance of some early train to Plymouth--there were only two +available--it was necessary to proceed at once. + +She was impatient. It seemed as if Pansy would never stop drinking; and +the repose of the pool, the idle motions of the insects and flies upon +it, the placid waving of the flags, the leaf-skeletons, like Genoese +filigree, placidly sleeping at the bottom, by their contrast with her +own turmoil made her impatience greater. + +Pansy did turn at last, and went up the slope again to the high-road. +The pony came upon it, and stood cross-wise, looking up and down. +Elfride's heart throbbed erratically, and she thought, 'Horses, if left +to themselves, make for where they are best fed. Pansy will go home.' + +Pansy turned and walked on towards St. Launce's + +Pansy at home, during summer, had little but grass to live on. After a +run to St. Launce's she always had a feed of corn to support her on the +return journey. Therefore, being now more than half way, she preferred +St. Launce's. + +But Elfride did not remember this now. All she cared to recognize was a +dreamy fancy that to-day's rash action was not her own. She was disabled +by her moods, and it seemed indispensable to adhere to the programme. +So strangely involved are motives that, more than by her promise to +Stephen, more even than by her love, she was forced on by a sense of the +necessity of keeping faith with herself, as promised in the inane vow of +ten minutes ago. + +She hesitated no longer. Pansy went, like the steed of Adonis, as if +she told the steps. Presently the quaint gables and jumbled roofs of St. +Launce's were spread beneath her, and going down the hill she entered +the courtyard of the Falcon. Mrs. Buckle, the landlady, came to the door +to meet her. + +The Swancourts were well known here. The transition from equestrian +to the ordinary guise of railway travellers had been more than once +performed by father and daughter in this establishment. + +In less than a quarter of an hour Elfride emerged from the door in her +walking dress, and went to the railway. She had not told Mrs. Buckle +anything as to her intentions, and was supposed to have gone out +shopping. + +An hour and forty minutes later, and she was in Stephen's arms at the +Plymouth station. Not upon the platform--in the secret retreat of a +deserted waiting-room. + +Stephen's face boded ill. He was pale and despondent. + +'What is the matter?' she asked. + +'We cannot be married here to-day, my Elfie! I ought to have known it +and stayed here. In my ignorance I did not. I have the licence, but it +can only be used in my parish in London. I only came down last night, as +you know.' + +'What shall we do?' she said blankly. + +'There's only one thing we can do, darling.' + +'What's that?' + +'Go on to London by a train just starting, and be married there +to-morrow.' + +'Passengers for the 11.5 up-train take their seats!' said a guard's +voice on the platform. + +'Will you go, Elfride?' + +'I will.' + +In three minutes the train had moved off, bearing away with it Stephen +and Elfride. + + + + +Chapter XII + + 'Adieu! she cries, and waved her lily hand.' + + +The few tattered clouds of the morning enlarged and united, the sun +withdrew behind them to emerge no more that day, and the evening drew to +a close in drifts of rain. The water-drops beat like duck shot against +the window of the railway-carriage containing Stephen and Elfride. + +The journey from Plymouth to Paddington, by even the most headlong +express, allows quite enough leisure for passion of any sort to cool. +Elfride's excitement had passed off, and she sat in a kind of stupor +during the latter half of the journey. She was aroused by the clanging +of the maze of rails over which they traced their way at the entrance to +the station. + +Is this London?' she said. + +'Yes, darling,' said Stephen in a tone of assurance he was far from +feeling. To him, no less than to her, the reality so greatly differed +from the prefiguring. + +She peered out as well as the window, beaded with drops, would allow +her, and saw only the lamps, which had just been lit, blinking in the +wet atmosphere, and rows of hideous zinc chimney-pipes in dim relief +against the sky. She writhed uneasily, as when a thought is swelling in +the mind which must cause much pain at its deliverance in words. Elfride +had known no more about the stings of evil report than the native +wild-fowl knew of the effects of Crusoe's first shot. Now she saw a +little further, and a little further still. + +The train stopped. Stephen relinquished the soft hand he had held all +the day, and proceeded to assist her on to the platform. + +This act of alighting upon strange ground seemed all that was wanted to +complete a resolution within her. + +She looked at her betrothed with despairing eyes. + +'O Stephen,' she exclaimed, 'I am so miserable! I must go home again--I +must--I must! Forgive my wretched vacillation. I don't like it here--nor +myself--nor you!' + +Stephen looked bewildered, and did not speak. + +'Will you allow me to go home?' she implored. 'I won't trouble you to go +with me. I will not be any weight upon you; only say you will agree to +my returning; that you will not hate me for it, Stephen! It is better +that I should return again; indeed it is, Stephen.' + +'But we can't return now,' he said in a deprecatory tone. + +'I must! I will!' + +'How? When do you want to go?' + +'Now. Can we go at once?' + +The lad looked hopelessly along the platform. + +'If you must go, and think it wrong to remain, dearest,' said he sadly, +'you shall. You shall do whatever you like, my Elfride. But would you in +reality rather go now than stay till to-morrow, and go as my wife?' + +'Yes, yes--much--anything to go now. I must; I must!' she cried. + +'We ought to have done one of two things,' he answered gloomily. 'Never +to have started, or not to have returned without being married. I don't +like to say it, Elfride--indeed I don't; but you must be told this, that +going back unmarried may compromise your good name in the eyes of people +who may hear of it.' + +'They will not; and I must go.' + +'O Elfride! I am to blame for bringing you away.' + +'Not at all. I am the elder.' + +'By a month; and what's that? But never mind that now.' He looked +around. 'Is there a train for Plymouth to-night?' he inquired of a +guard. The guard passed on and did not speak. + +'Is there a train for Plymouth to-night?' said Elfride to another. + +'Yes, miss; the 8.10--leaves in ten minutes. You have come to the wrong +platform; it is the other side. Change at Bristol into the night mail. +Down that staircase, and under the line.' + +They ran down the staircase--Elfride first--to the booking-office, and +into a carriage with an official standing beside the door. 'Show your +tickets, please.' They are locked in--men about the platform accelerate +their velocities till they fly up and down like shuttles in a loom--a +whistle--the waving of a flag--a human cry--a steam groan--and away they +go to Plymouth again, just catching these words as they glide off: + +'Those two youngsters had a near run for it, and no mistake!' + +Elfride found her breath. + +'And have you come too, Stephen? Why did you?' + +'I shall not leave you till I see you safe at St. Launce's. Do not think +worse of me than I am, Elfride.' + +And then they rattled along through the night, back again by the way +they had come. The weather cleared, and the stars shone in upon them. +Their two or three fellow-passengers sat for most of the time with +closed eyes. Stephen sometimes slept; Elfride alone was wakeful and +palpitating hour after hour. + +The day began to break, and revealed that they were by the sea. Red +rocks overhung them, and, receding into distance, grew livid in the blue +grey atmosphere. The sun rose, and sent penetrating shafts of light in +upon their weary faces. Another hour, and the world began to be busy. +They waited yet a little, and the train slackened its speed in view of +the platform at St. Launce's. + +She shivered, and mused sadly. + +'I did not see all the consequences,' she said. 'Appearances are wofully +against me. If anybody finds me out, I am, I suppose, disgraced.' + +'Then appearances will speak falsely; and how can that matter, even if +they do? I shall be your husband sooner or later, for certain, and so +prove your purity.' + +'Stephen, once in London I ought to have married you,' she said +firmly. 'It was my only safe defence. I see more things now than I did +yesterday. My only remaining chance is not to be discovered; and that we +must fight for most desperately.' + +They stepped out. Elfride pulled a thick veil over her face. + +A woman with red and scaly eyelids and glistening eyes was sitting on a +bench just inside the office-door. She fixed her eyes upon Elfride with +an expression whose force it was impossible to doubt, but the meaning of +which was not clear; then upon the carriage they had left. She seemed to +read a sinister story in the scene. + +Elfride shrank back, and turned the other way. + +'Who is that woman?' said Stephen. 'She looked hard at you.' + +'Mrs. Jethway--a widow, and mother of that young man whose tomb we sat +on the other night. Stephen, she is my enemy. Would that God had had +mercy enough upon me to have hidden this from HER!' + +'Do not talk so hopelessly,' he remonstrated. 'I don't think she +recognized us.' + +'I pray that she did not.' + +He put on a more vigorous mood. + +'Now, we will go and get some breakfast.' + +'No, no!' she begged. 'I cannot eat. I MUST get back to Endelstow.' + +Elfride was as if she had grown years older than Stephen now. + +'But you have had nothing since last night but that cup of tea at +Bristol.' + +'I can't eat, Stephen.' + +'Wine and biscuit?' + +'No.' + +'Nor tea, nor coffee?' + +'No.' + +'A glass of water?' + +'No. I want something that makes people strong and energetic for the +present, that borrows the strength of to-morrow for use to-day--leaving +to-morrow without any at all for that matter; or even that would take +all life away to-morrow, so long as it enabled me to get home again now. +Brandy, that's what I want. That woman's eyes have eaten my heart away!' + +'You are wild; and you grieve me, darling. Must it be brandy?' + +'Yes, if you please.' + +'How much?' + +'I don't know. I have never drunk more than a teaspoonful at once. All I +know is that I want it. Don't get it at the Falcon.' + +He left her in the fields, and went to the nearest inn in that +direction. Presently he returned with a small flask nearly full, and +some slices of bread-and-butter, thin as wafers, in a paper-bag. Elfride +took a sip or two. + +'It goes into my eyes,' she said wearily. 'I can't take any more. Yes, +I will; I will close my eyes. Ah, it goes to them by an inside route. I +don't want it; throw it away.' + +However, she could eat, and did eat. Her chief attention was +concentrated upon how to get the horse from the Falcon stables without +suspicion. Stephen was not allowed to accompany her into the town. She +acted now upon conclusions reached without any aid from him: his power +over her seemed to have departed. + +'You had better not be seen with me, even here where I am so little +known. We have begun stealthily as thieves, and we must end stealthily +as thieves, at all hazards. Until papa has been told by me myself, a +discovery would be terrible.' + +Walking and gloomily talking thus they waited till nearly nine o'clock, +at which time Elfride thought she might call at the Falcon without +creating much surprise. Behind the railway-station was the river, +spanned by an old Tudor bridge, whence the road diverged in two +directions, one skirting the suburbs of the town, and winding round +again into the high-road to Endelstow. Beside this road Stephen sat, and +awaited her return from the Falcon. + +He sat as one sitting for a portrait, motionless, watching the chequered +lights and shades on the tree-trunks, the children playing opposite the +school previous to entering for the morning lesson, the reapers in a +field afar off. The certainty of possession had not come, and there was +nothing to mitigate the youth's gloom, that increased with the thought +of the parting now so near. + +At length she came trotting round to him, in appearance much as on the +romantic morning of their visit to the cliff, but shorn of the radiance +which glistened about her then. However, her comparative immunity +from further risk and trouble had considerably composed her. Elfride's +capacity for being wounded was only surpassed by her capacity for +healing, which rightly or wrongly is by some considered an index of +transientness of feeling in general. + +'Elfride, what did they say at the Falcon?' + +'Nothing. Nobody seemed curious about me. They knew I went to Plymouth, +and I have stayed there a night now and then with Miss Bicknell. I +rather calculated upon that.' + +And now parting arose like a death to these children, for it was +imperative that she should start at once. Stephen walked beside her for +nearly a mile. During the walk he said sadly: + +'Elfride, four-and-twenty hours have passed, and the thing is not done.' + +'But you have insured that it shall be done.' + +'How have I?' + +'O Stephen, you ask how! Do you think I could marry another man on earth +after having gone thus far with you? Have I not shown beyond possibility +of doubt that I can be nobody else's? Have I not irretrievably committed +myself?--pride has stood for nothing in the face of my great love. You +misunderstood my turning back, and I cannot explain it. It was wrong to +go with you at all; and though it would have been worse to go further, +it would have been better policy, perhaps. Be assured of this, that +whenever you have a home for me--however poor and humble--and come and +claim me, I am ready.' She added bitterly, 'When my father knows of this +day's work, he may be only too glad to let me go.' + +'Perhaps he may, then, insist upon our marriage at once!' Stephen +answered, seeing a ray of hope in the very focus of her remorse. 'I +hope he may, even if we had still to part till I am ready for you, as we +intended.' + +Elfride did not reply. + +'You don't seem the same woman, Elfie, that you were yesterday.' + +'Nor am I. But good-bye. Go back now.' And she reined the horse for +parting. 'O Stephen,' she cried, 'I feel so weak! I don't know how to +meet him. Cannot you, after all, come back with me?' + +'Shall I come?' + +Elfride paused to think. + +'No; it will not do. It is my utter foolishness that makes me say such +words. But he will send for you.' + +'Say to him,' continued Stephen, 'that we did this in the absolute +despair of our minds. Tell him we don't wish him to favour us--only to +deal justly with us. If he says, marry now, so much the better. If not, +say that all may be put right by his promise to allow me to have you +when I am good enough for you--which may be soon. Say I have nothing to +offer him in exchange for his treasure--the more sorry I; but all the +love, and all the life, and all the labour of an honest man shall be +yours. As to when this had better be told, I leave you to judge.' + +His words made her cheerful enough to toy with her position. + +'And if ill report should come, Stephen,' she said smiling, 'why, the +orange-tree must save me, as it saved virgins in St. George's time from +the poisonous breath of the dragon. There, forgive me for forwardness: I +am going.' + +Then the boy and girl beguiled themselves with words of half-parting +only. + +'Own wifie, God bless you till we meet again!' + +'Till we meet again, good-bye!' + +And the pony went on, and she spoke to him no more. He saw her figure +diminish and her blue veil grow gray--saw it with the agonizing +sensations of a slow death. + +After thus parting from a man than whom she had known none greater as +yet, Elfride rode rapidly onwards, a tear being occasionally shaken +from her eyes into the road. What yesterday had seemed so desirable, so +promising, even trifling, had now acquired the complexion of a tragedy. + +She saw the rocks and sea in the neighbourhood of Endelstow, and heaved +a sigh of relief. + +When she passed a field behind the vicarage she heard the voices of +Unity and William Worm. They were hanging a carpet upon a line. Unity +was uttering a sentence that concluded with 'when Miss Elfride comes.' + +'When d'ye expect her?' + +'Not till evening now. She's safe enough at Miss Bicknell's, bless ye.' + +Elfride went round to the door. She did not knock or ring; and seeing +nobody to take the horse, Elfride led her round to the yard, slipped off +the bridle and saddle, drove her towards the paddock, and turned her in. +Then Elfride crept indoors, and looked into all the ground-floor rooms. +Her father was not there. + +On the mantelpiece of the drawing-room stood a letter addressed to her +in his handwriting. She took it and read it as she went upstairs to +change her habit. + + +STRATLEIGH, Thursday. + +'DEAR ELFRIDE,--On second thoughts I will not return to-day, but only +come as far as Wadcombe. I shall be at home by to-morrow afternoon, and +bring a friend with me.--Yours, in haste, + +C. S.' + + +After making a quick toilet she felt more revived, though still +suffering from a headache. On going out of the door she met Unity at the +top of the stair. + +'O Miss Elfride! I said to myself 'tis her sperrit! We didn't dream o' +you not coming home last night. You didn't say anything about staying.' + +'I intended to come home the same evening, but altered my plan. I wished +I hadn't afterwards. Papa will be angry, I suppose?' + +'Better not tell him, miss,' said Unity. + +'I do fear to,' she murmured. 'Unity, would you just begin telling him +when he comes home?' + +'What! and get you into trouble?' + +'I deserve it.' + +'No, indeed, I won't,' said Unity. 'It is not such a mighty matter, Miss +Elfride. I says to myself, master's taking a hollerday, and because he's +not been kind lately to Miss Elfride, she----' + +'Is imitating him. Well, do as you like. And will you now bring me some +luncheon?' + +After satisfying an appetite which the fresh marine air had given her +in its victory over an agitated mind, she put on her hat and went to +the garden and summer-house. She sat down, and leant with her head in a +corner. Here she fell asleep. + +Half-awake, she hurriedly looked at the time. She had been there three +hours. At the same moment she heard the outer gate swing together, and +wheels sweep round the entrance; some prior noise from the same source +having probably been the cause of her awaking. Next her father's voice +was heard calling to Worm. + +Elfride passed along a walk towards the house behind a belt of shrubs. +She heard a tongue holding converse with her father, which was not that +of either of the servants. Her father and the stranger were laughing +together. Then there was a rustling of silk, and Mr. Swancourt and his +companion, or companions, to all seeming entered the door of the +house, for nothing more of them was audible. Elfride had turned back to +meditate on what friends these could be, when she heard footsteps, and +her father exclaiming behind her: + +'O Elfride, here you are! I hope you got on well?' + +Elfride's heart smote her, and she did not speak. + +'Come back to the summer-house a minute,' continued Mr. Swancourt; 'I +have to tell you of that I promised to.' + +They entered the summer-house, and stood leaning over the knotty +woodwork of the balustrade. + +'Now,' said her father radiantly, 'guess what I have to say.' He seemed +to be regarding his own existence so intently, that he took no interest +in nor even saw the complexion of hers. + +'I cannot, papa,' she said sadly. + +'Try, dear.' + +'I would rather not, indeed.' + +'You are tired. You look worn. The ride was too much for you. Well, this +is what I went away for. I went to be married!' + +'Married!' she faltered, and could hardly check an involuntary 'So did +I.' A moment after and her resolve to confess perished like a bubble. + +'Yes; to whom do you think? Mrs. Troyton, the new owner of the estate +over the hedge, and of the old manor-house. It was only finally settled +between us when I went to Stratleigh a few days ago.' He lowered his +voice to a sly tone of merriment. 'Now, as to your stepmother, you'll +find she is not much to look at, though a good deal to listen to. She is +twenty years older than myself, for one thing.' + +'You forget that I know her. She called here once, after we had been, +and found her away from home.' + +'Of course, of course. Well, whatever her looks are, she's as excellent +a woman as ever breathed. She has had lately left her as absolute +property three thousand five hundred a year, besides the devise of this +estate--and, by the way, a large legacy came to her in satisfaction of +dower, as it is called.' + +'Three thousand five hundred a year!' + +'And a large--well, a fair-sized--mansion in town, and a pedigree as +long as my walking-stick; though that bears evidence of being rather a +raked-up affair--done since the family got rich--people do those +things now as they build ruins on maiden estates and cast antiques at +Birmingham.' + +Elfride merely listened and said nothing. + +He continued more quietly and impressively. 'Yes, Elfride, she is +wealthy in comparison with us, though with few connections. However, she +will introduce you to the world a little. We are going to exchange her +house in Baker Street for one at Kensington, for your sake. Everybody is +going there now, she says. At Easters we shall fly to town for the usual +three months--I shall have a curate of course by that time. Elfride, I +am past love, you know, and I honestly confess that I married her for +your sake. Why a woman of her standing should have thrown herself +away upon me, God knows. But I suppose her age and plainness were too +pronounced for a town man. With your good looks, if you now play your +cards well, you may marry anybody. Of course, a little contrivance will +be necessary; but there's nothing to stand between you and a husband +with a title, that I can see. Lady Luxellian was only a squire's +daughter. Now, don't you see how foolish the old fancy was? But come, +she is indoors waiting to see you. It is as good as a play, too,' +continued the vicar, as they walked towards the house. 'I courted her +through the privet hedge yonder: not entirely, you know, but we used to +walk there of an evening--nearly every evening at last. But I needn't +tell you details now; everything was terribly matter-of-fact, I assure +you. At last, that day I saw her at Stratleigh, we determined to settle +it off-hand.' + +'And you never said a word to me,' replied Elfride, not reproachfully +either in tone or thought. Indeed, her feeling was the very reverse of +reproachful. She felt relieved and even thankful. Where confidence had +not been given, how could confidence be expected? + +Her father mistook her dispassionateness for a veil of politeness over a +sense of ill-usage. 'I am not altogether to blame,' he said. 'There +were two or three reasons for secrecy. One was the recent death of her +relative the testator, though that did not apply to you. But remember, +Elfride,' he continued in a stiffer tone, 'you had mixed yourself up so +foolishly with those low people, the Smiths--and it was just, too, when +Mrs. Troyton and myself were beginning to understand each other--that I +resolved to say nothing even to you. How did I know how far you had gone +with them and their son? You might have made a point of taking tea with +them every day, for all that I knew.' + +Elfride swallowed her feelings as she best could, and languidly though +flatly asked a question. + +'Did you kiss Mrs. Troyton on the lawn about three weeks ago? That +evening I came into the study and found you had just had candles in?' + +Mr. Swancourt looked rather red and abashed, as middle-aged lovers are +apt to do when caught in the tricks of younger ones. + +'Well, yes; I think I did,' he stammered; 'just to please her, you +know.' And then recovering himself he laughed heartily. + +'And was this what your Horatian quotation referred to?' + +'It was, Elfride.' + +They stepped into the drawing-room from the verandah. At that moment +Mrs. Swancourt came downstairs, and entered the same room by the door. + +'Here, Charlotte, is my little Elfride,' said Mr. Swancourt, with the +increased affection of tone often adopted towards relations when newly +produced. + +Poor Elfride, not knowing what to do, did nothing at all; but stood +receptive of all that came to her by sight, hearing, and touch. + +Mrs. Swancourt moved forward, took her step-daughter's hand, then kissed +her. + +'Ah, darling!' she exclaimed good-humouredly, 'you didn't think when you +showed a strange old woman over the conservatory a month or two ago, and +explained the flowers to her so prettily, that she would so soon be here +in new colours. Nor did she, I am sure.' + +The new mother had been truthfully enough described by Mr. Swancourt. +She was not physically attractive. She was dark--very dark--in +complexion, portly in figure, and with a plentiful residuum of hair in +the proportion of half a dozen white ones to half a dozen black ones, +though the latter were black indeed. No further observed, she was not a +woman to like. But there was more to see. To the most superficial critic +it was apparent that she made no attempt to disguise her age. She looked +sixty at the first glance, and close acquaintanceship never proved her +older. + +Another and still more winning trait was one attaching to the corners +of her mouth. Before she made a remark these often twitched gently: not +backwards and forwards, the index of nervousness; not down upon the jaw, +the sign of determination; but palpably upwards, in precisely the curve +adopted to represent mirth in the broad caricatures of schoolboys. Only +this element in her face was expressive of anything within the woman, +but it was unmistakable. It expressed humour subjective as well as +objective--which could survey the peculiarities of self in as whimsical +a light as those of other people. + +This is not all of Mrs. Swancourt. She had held out to Elfride hands +whose fingers were literally stiff with rings, signis auroque rigentes, +like Helen's robe. These rows of rings were not worn in vanity +apparently. They were mostly antique and dull, though a few were the +reverse. + + +RIGHT HAND. + +1st. Plainly set oval onyx, representing a devil's head. 2nd. Green +jasper intaglio, with red veins. 3rd. Entirely gold, bearing figure of +a hideous griffin. 4th. A sea-green monster diamond, with small diamonds +round it. 5th. Antique cornelian intaglio of dancing figure of a +satyr. 6th. An angular band chased with dragons' heads. 7th. A facetted +carbuncle accompanied by ten little twinkling emeralds; &c. &c. + + +LEFT HAND. + +1st. A reddish-yellow toadstone. 2nd. A heavy ring enamelled in colours, +and bearing a jacynth. 3rd. An amethystine sapphire. 4th. A polished +ruby, surrounded by diamonds. 5th. The engraved ring of an abbess. 6th. +A gloomy intaglio; &c. &c. + + +Beyond this rather quaint array of stone and metal Mrs. Swancourt wore +no ornament whatever. + +Elfride had been favourably impressed with Mrs. Troyton at their meeting +about two months earlier; but to be pleased with a woman as a momentary +acquaintance was different from being taken with her as a stepmother. +However, the suspension of feeling was but for a moment. Elfride decided +to like her still. + +Mrs. Swancourt was a woman of the world as to knowledge, the reverse +as to action, as her marriage suggested. Elfride and the lady were soon +inextricably involved in conversation, and Mr. Swancourt left them to +themselves. + +'And what do you find to do with yourself here?' Mrs. Swancourt said, +after a few remarks about the wedding. 'You ride, I know.' + +'Yes, I ride. But not much, because papa doesn't like my going alone.' + +'You must have somebody to look after you.' + +'And I read, and write a little.' + +'You should write a novel. The regular resource of people who don't go +enough into the world to live a novel is to write one.' + +'I have done it,' said Elfride, looking dubiously at Mrs. Swancourt, as +if in doubt whether she would meet with ridicule there. + +'That's right. Now, then, what is it about, dear?' + +'About--well, it is a romance of the Middle Ages.' + +'Knowing nothing of the present age, which everybody knows about, for +safety you chose an age known neither to you nor other people. That's +it, eh? No, no; I don't mean it, dear.' + +'Well, I have had some opportunities of studying mediaeval art and +manners in the library and private museum at Endelstow House, and I +thought I should like to try my hand upon a fiction. I know the time for +these tales is past; but I was interested in it, very much interested.' + +'When is it to appear?' + +'Oh, never, I suppose.' + +'Nonsense, my dear girl. Publish it, by all means. All ladies do that +sort of thing now; not for profit, you know, but as a guarantee of +mental respectability to their future husbands.' + +'An excellent idea of us ladies.' + +'Though I am afraid it rather resembles the melancholy ruse of throwing +loaves over castle-walls at besiegers, and suggests desperation rather +than plenty inside.' + +'Did you ever try it?' + +'No; I was too far gone even for that.' + +'Papa says no publisher will take my book.' + +'That remains to be proved. I'll give my word, my dear, that by this +time next year it shall be printed.' + +'Will you, indeed?' said Elfride, partially brightening with pleasure, +though she was sad enough in her depths. 'I thought brains were the +indispensable, even if the only, qualification for admission to the +republic of letters. A mere commonplace creature like me will soon be +turned out again.' + +'Oh no; once you are there you'll be like a drop of water in a piece of +rock-crystal--your medium will dignify your commonness.' + +'It will be a great satisfaction,' Elfride murmured, and thought of +Stephen, and wished she could make a great fortune by writing romances, +and marry him and live happily. + +'And then we'll go to London, and then to Paris,' said Mrs. Swancourt. +'I have been talking to your father about it. But we have first to move +into the manor-house, and we think of staying at Torquay whilst that +is going on. Meanwhile, instead of going on a honeymoon scamper by +ourselves, we have come home to fetch you, and go all together to Bath +for two or three weeks.' + +Elfride assented pleasantly, even gladly; but she saw that, by this +marriage, her father and herself had ceased for ever to be the close +relations they had been up to a few weeks ago. It was impossible now to +tell him the tale of her wild elopement with Stephen Smith. + +He was still snugly housed in her heart. His absence had regained for +him much of that aureola of saintship which had been nearly abstracted +during her reproachful mood on that miserable journey from London. +Rapture is often cooled by contact with its cause, especially if under +awkward conditions. And that last experience with Stephen had done +anything but make him shine in her eyes. His very kindness in letting +her return was his offence. Elfride had her sex's love of sheer force +in a man, however ill-directed; and at that critical juncture in London +Stephen's only chance of retaining the ascendancy over her that his face +and not his parts had acquired for him, would have been by doing what, +for one thing, he was too youthful to undertake--that was, dragging her +by the wrist to the rails of some altar, and peremptorily marrying +her. Decisive action is seen by appreciative minds to be frequently +objectless, and sometimes fatal; but decision, however suicidal, has +more charm for a woman than the most unequivocal Fabian success. + +However, some of the unpleasant accessories of that occasion were now +out of sight again, and Stephen had resumed not a few of his fancy +colours. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + 'He set in order many proverbs.' + + +It is London in October--two months further on in the story. + +Bede's Inn has this peculiarity, that it faces, receives from, and +discharges into a bustling thoroughfare speaking only of wealth +and respectability, whilst its postern abuts on as crowded and +poverty-stricken a network of alleys as are to be found anywhere in the +metropolis. The moral consequences are, first, that those who occupy +chambers in the Inn may see a great deal of shirtless humanity's habits +and enjoyments without doing more than look down from a back window; +and second they may hear wholesome though unpleasant social reminders +through the medium of a harsh voice, an unequal footstep, the echo of +a blow or a fall, which originates in the person of some drunkard or +wife-beater, as he crosses and interferes with the quiet of the square. +Characters of this kind frequently pass through the Inn from a little +foxhole of an alley at the back, but they never loiter there. + +It is hardly necessary to state that all the sights and movements proper +to the Inn are most orderly. On the fine October evening on which we +follow Stephen Smith to this place, a placid porter is sitting on a +stool under a sycamore-tree in the midst, with a little cane in his +hand. We notice the thick coat of soot upon the branches, hanging +underneath them in flakes, as in a chimney. The blackness of these +boughs does not at present improve the tree--nearly forsaken by its +leaves as it is--but in the spring their green fresh beauty is made +doubly beautiful by the contrast. Within the railings is a flower-garden +of respectable dahlias and chrysanthemums, where a man is sweeping the +leaves from the grass. + +Stephen selects a doorway, and ascends an old though wide wooden +staircase, with moulded balusters and handrail, which in a country +manor-house would be considered a noteworthy specimen of Renaissance +workmanship. He reaches a door on the first floor, over which is +painted, in black letters, 'Mr. Henry Knight'--'Barrister-at-law' being +understood but not expressed. The wall is thick, and there is a door at +its outer and inner face. The outer one happens to be ajar: Stephen goes +to the other, and taps. + +'Come in!' from distant penetralia. + +First was a small anteroom, divided from the inner apartment by a +wainscoted archway two or three yards wide. Across this archway hung +a pair of dark-green curtains, making a mystery of all within the arch +except the spasmodic scratching of a quill pen. Here was grouped +a chaotic assemblage of articles--mainly old framed prints and +paintings--leaning edgewise against the wall, like roofing slates in +a builder's yard. All the books visible here were folios too big to be +stolen--some lying on a heavy oak table in one corner, some on the +floor among the pictures, the whole intermingled with old coats, hats, +umbrellas, and walking-sticks. + +Stephen pushed aside the curtain, and before him sat a man writing away +as if his life depended upon it--which it did. + +A man of thirty in a speckled coat, with dark brown hair, curly beard, +and crisp moustache: the latter running into the beard on each side of +the mouth, and, as usual, hiding the real expression of that organ under +a chronic aspect of impassivity. + +'Ah, my dear fellow, I knew 'twas you,' said Knight, looking up with a +smile, and holding out his hand. + +Knight's mouth and eyes came to view now. Both features were good, and +had the peculiarity of appearing younger and fresher than the brow +and face they belonged to, which were getting sicklied o'er by the +unmistakable pale cast. The mouth had not quite relinquished rotundity +of curve for the firm angularities of middle life; and the eyes, though +keen, permeated rather than penetrated: what they had lost of their +boy-time brightness by a dozen years of hard reading lending a quietness +to their gaze which suited them well. + +A lady would have said there was a smell of tobacco in the room: a man +that there was not. + +Knight did not rise. He looked at a timepiece on the mantelshelf, then +turned again to his letters, pointing to a chair. + +'Well, I am glad you have come. I only returned to town yesterday; now, +don't speak, Stephen, for ten minutes; I have just that time to the late +post. At the eleventh minute, I'm your man.' + +Stephen sat down as if this kind of reception was by no means new, and +away went Knight's pen, beating up and down like a ship in a storm. + +Cicero called the library the soul of the house; here the house was all +soul. Portions of the floor, and half the wall-space, were taken up by +book-shelves ordinary and extraordinary; the remaining parts, together +with brackets, side-tables, &c., being occupied by casts, statuettes, +medallions, and plaques of various descriptions, picked up by the owner +in his wanderings through France and Italy. + +One stream only of evening sunlight came into the room from a window +quite in the corner, overlooking a court. An aquarium stood in the +window. It was a dull parallelopipedon enough for living creatures at +most hours of the day; but for a few minutes in the evening, as now, an +errant, kindly ray lighted up and warmed the little world therein, when +the many-coloured zoophytes opened and put forth their arms, the weeds +acquired a rich transparency, the shells gleamed of a more golden +yellow, and the timid community expressed gladness more plainly than in +words. + +Within the prescribed ten minutes Knight flung down his pen, rang for +the boy to take the letters to the post, and at the closing of the door +exclaimed, 'There; thank God, that's done. Now, Stephen, pull your chair +round, and tell me what you have been doing all this time. Have you kept +up your Greek?' + +'No.' + +'How's that?' + +'I haven't enough spare time.' + +'That's nonsense.' + +'Well, I have done a great many things, if not that. And I have done one +extraordinary thing.' + +Knight turned full upon Stephen. 'Ah-ha! Now, then, let me look into +your face, put two and two together, and make a shrewd guess.' + +Stephen changed to a redder colour. + +'Why, Smith,' said Knight, after holding him rigidly by the shoulders, +and keenly scrutinising his countenance for a minute in silence, 'you +have fallen in love.' + +'Well--the fact is----' + +'Now, out with it.' But seeing that Stephen looked rather distressed, he +changed to a kindly tone. 'Now Smith, my lad, you know me well enough by +this time, or you ought to; and you know very well that if you choose to +give me a detailed account of the phenomenon within you, I shall listen; +if you don't, I am the last man in the world to care to hear it.' + +'I'll tell this much: I HAVE fallen in love, and I want to be MARRIED.' + +Knight looked ominous as this passed Stephen's lips. + +'Don't judge me before you have heard more,' cried Stephen anxiously, +seeing the change in his friend's countenance. + +'I don't judge. Does your mother know about it?' + +'Nothing definite.' + +'Father?' + +'No. But I'll tell you. The young person----' + +'Come, that's dreadfully ungallant. But perhaps I understand the frame +of mind a little, so go on. Your sweetheart----' + +'She is rather higher in the world than I am.' + +'As it should be.' + +'And her father won't hear of it, as I now stand.' + +'Not an uncommon case.' + +'And now comes what I want your advice upon. Something has happened at +her house which makes it out of the question for us to ask her father +again now. So we are keeping silent. In the meantime an architect in +India has just written to Mr. Hewby to ask whether he can find for him +a young assistant willing to go over to Bombay to prepare drawings for +work formerly done by the engineers. The salary he offers is 350 rupees +a month, or about 35 Pounds. Hewby has mentioned it to me, and I have +been to Dr. Wray, who says I shall acclimatise without much illness. +Now, would you go?' + +'You mean to say, because it is a possible road to the young lady.' + +'Yes; I was thinking I could go over and make a little money, and then +come back and ask for her. I have the option of practising for myself +after a year.' + +'Would she be staunch?' + +'Oh yes! For ever--to the end of her life!' + +'How do you know?' + +'Why, how do people know? Of course, she will.' + +Knight leant back in his chair. 'Now, though I know her thoroughly as +she exists in your heart, Stephen, I don't know her in the flesh. All +I want to ask is, is this idea of going to India based entirely upon a +belief in her fidelity?' + +'Yes; I should not go if it were not for her.' + +'Well, Stephen, you have put me in rather an awkward position. If I give +my true sentiments, I shall hurt your feelings; if I don't, I shall hurt +my own judgment. And remember, I don't know much about women.' + +'But you have had attachments, although you tell me very little about +them.' + +'And I only hope you'll continue to prosper till I tell you more.' + +Stephen winced at this rap. 'I have never formed a deep attachment,' +continued Knight. 'I never have found a woman worth it. Nor have I been +once engaged to be married.' + +'You write as if you had been engaged a hundred times, if I may be +allowed to say so,' said Stephen in an injured tone. + +'Yes, that may be. But, my dear Stephen, it is only those who half know +a thing that write about it. Those who know it thoroughly don't take +the trouble. All I know about women, or men either, is a mass of +generalities. I plod along, and occasionally lift my eyes and skim the +weltering surface of mankind lying between me and the horizon, as a crow +might; no more.' + +Knight stopped as if he had fallen into a train of thought, and Stephen +looked with affectionate awe at a master whose mind, he believed, could +swallow up at one meal all that his own head contained. + +There was affective sympathy, but no great intellectual fellowship, +between Knight and Stephen Smith. Knight had seen his young friend when +the latter was a cherry-cheeked happy boy, had been interested in him, +had kept his eye upon him, and generously helped the lad to books, till +the mere connection of patronage grew to acquaintance, and that ripened +to friendship. And so, though Smith was not at all the man Knight would +have deliberately chosen as a friend--or even for one of a group of a +dozen friends--he somehow was his friend. Circumstance, as usual, did +it all. How many of us can say of our most intimate alter ego, leaving +alone friends of the outer circle, that he is the man we should have +chosen, as embodying the net result after adding up all the points in +human nature that we love, and principles we hold, and subtracting all +that we hate? The man is really somebody we got to know by mere physical +juxtaposition long maintained, and was taken into our confidence, and +even heart, as a makeshift. + +'And what do you think of her?' Stephen ventured to say, after a +silence. + +'Taking her merits on trust from you,' said Knight, 'as we do those of +the Roman poets of whom we know nothing but that they lived, I still +think she will not stick to you through, say, three years of absence in +India.' + +'But she will!' cried Stephen desperately. 'She is a girl all delicacy +and honour. And no woman of that kind, who has committed herself so into +a man's hands as she has into mine, could possibly marry another.' + +'How has she committed herself?' asked Knight cunously. + +Stephen did not answer. Knight had looked on his love so sceptically +that it would not do to say all that he had intended to say by any +means. + +'Well, don't tell,' said Knight. 'But you are begging the question, +which is, I suppose, inevitable in love.' + +'And I'll tell you another thing,' the younger man pleaded. 'You +remember what you said to me once about women receiving a kiss. Don't +you? Why, that instead of our being charmed by the fascination of +their bearing at such a time, we should immediately doubt them if their +confusion has any GRACE in it--that awkward bungling was the true charm +of the occasion, implying that we are the first who has played such a +part with them.' + +'It is true, quite,' said Knight musingly. + +It often happened that the disciple thus remembered the lessons of the +master long after the master himself had forgotten them. + +'Well, that was like her!' cried Stephen triumphantly. 'She was in such +a flurry that she didn't know what she was doing.' + +'Splendid, splendid!' said Knight soothingly. 'So that all I have to say +is, that if you see a good opening in Bombay there's no reason why you +should not go without troubling to draw fine distinctions as to reasons. +No man fully realizes what opinions he acts upon, or what his actions +mean.' + +'Yes; I go to Bombay. I'll write a note here, if you don't mind.' + +'Sleep over it--it is the best plan--and write to-morrow. Meantime, go +there to that window and sit down, and look at my Humanity Show. I +am going to dine out this evening, and have to dress here out of my +portmanteau. I bring up my things like this to save the trouble of going +down to my place at Richmond and back again.' + +Knight then went to the middle of the room and flung open his +portmanteau, and Stephen drew near the window. The streak of sunlight +had crept upward, edged away, and vanished; the zoophytes slept: a dusky +gloom pervaded the room. And now another volume of light shone over the +window. + +'There!' said Knight, 'where is there in England a spectacle to equal +that? I sit there and watch them every night before I go home. Softly +open the sash.' + +Beneath them was an alley running up to the wall, and thence turning +sideways and passing under an arch, so that Knight's back window +was immediately over the angle, and commanded a view of the alley +lengthwise. Crowds--mostly of women--were surging, bustling, and pacing +up and down. Gaslights glared from butchers' stalls, illuminating the +lumps of flesh to splotches of orange and vermilion, like the wild +colouring of Turner's later pictures, whilst the purl and babble of +tongues of every pitch and mood was to this human wild-wood what the +ripple of a brook is to the natural forest. + +Nearly ten minutes passed. Then Knight also came to the window. + +'Well, now, I call a cab and vanish down the street in the direction +of Berkeley Square,' he said, buttoning his waistcoat and kicking his +morning suit into a corner. Stephen rose to leave. + +'What a heap of literature!' remarked the young man, taking a final +longing survey round the room, as if to abide there for ever would be +the great pleasure of his life, yet feeling that he had almost outstayed +his welcome-while. His eyes rested upon an arm-chair piled full of +newspapers, magazines, and bright new volumes in green and red. + +'Yes,' said Knight, also looking at them and breathing a sigh of +weariness; 'something must be done with several of them soon, I suppose. +Stephen, you needn't hurry away for a few minutes, you know, if you want +to stay; I am not quite ready. Overhaul those volumes whilst I put on my +coat, and I'll walk a little way with you.' + +Stephen sat down beside the arm-chair and began to tumble the books +about. Among the rest he found a novelette in one volume, THE COURT OF +KELLYON CASTLE. By Ernest Field. + +'Are you going to review this?' inquired Stephen with apparent +unconcern, and holding up Elfride's effusion. + +'Which? Oh, that! I may--though I don't do much light reviewing now. But +it is reviewable.' + +'How do you mean?' + +Knight never liked to be asked what he meant. 'Mean! I mean that the +majority of books published are neither good enough nor bad enough to +provoke criticism, and that that book does provoke it.' + +'By its goodness or its badness?' Stephen said with some anxiety on poor +little Elfride's score. + +'Its badness. It seems to be written by some girl in her teens.' + +Stephen said not another word. He did not care to speak plainly of +Elfride after that unfortunate slip his tongue had made in respect +of her having committed herself; and, apart from that, Knight's +severe--almost dogged and self-willed--honesty in criticizing was +unassailable by the humble wish of a youthful friend like Stephen. + +Knight was now ready. Turning off the gas, and slamming together the +door, they went downstairs and into the street. + + + + +Chapter XIV + + 'We frolic while 'tis May.' + + +It has now to be realized that nearly three-quarters of a year have +passed away. In place of the autumnal scenery which formed a setting to +the previous enactments, we have the culminating blooms of summer in the +year following. + +Stephen is in India, slaving away at an office in Bombay; occasionally +going up the country on professional errands, and wondering why people +who had been there longer than he complained so much of the effect of +the climate upon their constitutions. Never had a young man a finer +start than seemed now to present itself to Stephen. It was just in that +exceptional heyday of prosperity which shone over Bombay some few years +ago, that he arrived on the scene. Building and engineering partook +of the general impetus. Speculation moved with an accelerated velocity +every successive day, the only disagreeable contingency connected with +it being the possibility of a collapse. + +Elfride had never told her father of the four-and-twenty-hours' escapade +with Stephen, nor had it, to her knowledge, come to his ears by any +other route. It was a secret trouble and grief to the girl for a short +time, and Stephen's departure was another ingredient in her sorrow. But +Elfride possessed special facilities for getting rid of trouble after a +decent interval. Whilst a slow nature was imbibing a misfortune little +by little, she had swallowed the whole agony of it at a draught and was +brightening again. She could slough off a sadness and replace it by a +hope as easily as a lizard renews a diseased limb. + +And two such excellent distractions had presented themselves. One was +bringing out the romance and looking for notices in the papers, which, +though they had been significantly short so far, had served to divert +her thoughts. The other was migrating from the vicarage to the more +commodious old house of Mrs. Swancourt's, overlooking the same valley. +Mr. Swancourt at first disliked the idea of being transplanted to +feminine soil, but the obvious advantages of such an accession of +dignity reconciled him to the change. So there was a radical 'move;' the +two ladies staying at Torquay as had been arranged, the vicar going to +and fro. + +Mrs. Swancourt considerably enlarged Elfride's ideas in an aristocratic +direction, and she began to forgive her father for his politic marriage. +Certainly, in a worldly sense, a handsome face at three-and-forty had +never served a man in better stead. + + +The new house at Kensington was ready, and they were all in town. + +The Hyde Park shrubs had been transplanted as usual, the chairs ranked +in line, the grass edgings trimmed, the roads made to look as if they +were suffering from a heavy thunderstorm; carriages had been called for +by the easeful, horses by the brisk, and the Drive and Row were again +the groove of gaiety for an hour. We gaze upon the spectacle, at six +o'clock on this midsummer afternoon, in a melon-frame atmosphere and +beneath a violet sky. The Swancourt equipage formed one in the stream. + +Mrs. Swancourt was a talker of talk of the incisive kind, which her low +musical voice--the only beautiful point in the old woman--prevented from +being wearisome. + +'Now,' she said to Elfride, who, like AEneas at Carthage, was full +of admiration for the brilliant scene, 'you will find that our +companionless state will give us, as it does everybody, an extraordinary +power in reading the features of our fellow-creatures here. I always +am a listener in such places as these--not to the narratives told by my +neighbours' tongues, but by their faces--the advantage of which is, that +whether I am in Row, Boulevard, Rialto, or Prado, they all speak the +same language. I may have acquired some skill in this practice through +having been an ugly lonely woman for so many years, with nobody to give +me information; a thing you will not consider strange when the parallel +case is borne in mind,--how truly people who have no clocks will tell +the time of day.' + +'Ay, that they will,' said Mr. Swancourt corroboratively. 'I have known +labouring men at Endelstow and other farms who had framed complete +systems of observation for that purpose. By means of shadows, winds, +clouds, the movements of sheep and oxen, the singing of birds, the +crowing of cocks, and a hundred other sights and sounds which people +with watches in their pockets never know the existence of, they are +able to pronounce within ten minutes of the hour almost at any required +instant. That reminds me of an old story which I'm afraid is too +bad--too bad to repeat.' Here the vicar shook his head and laughed +inwardly. + +'Tell it--do!' said the ladies. + +'I mustn't quite tell it.' + +'That's absurd,' said Mrs. Swancourt. + +'It was only about a man who, by the same careful system of observation, +was known to deceive persons for more than two years into the belief +that he kept a barometer by stealth, so exactly did he foretell all +changes in the weather by the braying of his ass and the temper of his +wife.' + +Elfride laughed. + +'Exactly,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'And in just the way that those learnt +the signs of nature, I have learnt the language of her illegitimate +sister--artificiality; and the fibbing of eyes, the contempt of +nose-tips, the indignation of back hair, the laughter of clothes, the +cynicism of footsteps, and the various emotions lying in walking-stick +twirls, hat-liftings, the elevation of parasols, the carriage of +umbrellas, become as A B C to me. + +'Just look at that daughter's sister class of mamma in the carriage +across there,' she continued to Elfride, pointing with merely a turn of +her eye. 'The absorbing self-consciousness of her position that is shown +by her countenance is most humiliating to a lover of one's country. You +would hardly believe, would you, that members of a Fashionable World, +whose professed zero is far above the highest degree of the humble, +could be so ignorant of the elementary instincts of reticence.' + +'How?' + +'Why, to bear on their faces, as plainly as on a phylactery, the +inscription, "Do, pray, look at the coronet on my panels."' + +'Really, Charlotte,' said the vicar, 'you see as much in faces as Mr. +Puff saw in Lord Burleigh's nod.' + +Elfride could not but admire the beauty of her fellow countrywomen, +especially since herself and her own few acquaintances had always +been slightly sunburnt or marked on the back of the hands by a +bramble-scratch at this time of the year. + +'And what lovely flowers and leaves they wear in their bonnets!' she +exclaimed. + +'Oh yes,' returned Mrs. Swancourt. 'Some of them are even more striking +in colour than any real ones. Look at that beautiful rose worn by the +lady inside the rails. Elegant vine-tendrils introduced upon the stem as +an improvement upon prickles, and all growing so naturally just over her +ear--I say growing advisedly, for the pink of the petals and the pink +of her handsome cheeks are equally from Nature's hand to the eyes of the +most casual observer.' + +'But praise them a little, they do deserve it!' said generous Elfride. + +'Well, I do. See how the Duchess of----waves to and fro in her seat, +utilizing the sway of her landau by looking around only when her head +is swung forward, with a passive pride which forbids a resistance to +the force of circumstance. Look at the pretty pout on the mouths of that +family there, retaining no traces of being arranged beforehand, so well +is it done. Look at the demure close of the little fists holding the +parasols; the tiny alert thumb, sticking up erect against the ivory stem +as knowing as can be, the satin of the parasol invariably matching the +complexion of the face beneath it, yet seemingly by an accident, +which makes the thing so attractive. There's the red book lying on the +opposite seat, bespeaking the vast numbers of their acquaintance. And +I particularly admire the aspect of that abundantly daughtered woman on +the other side--I mean her look of unconsciousness that the girls +are stared at by the walkers, and above all the look of the girls +themselves--losing their gaze in the depths of handsome men's eyes +without appearing to notice whether they are observing masculine eyes or +the leaves of the trees. There's praise for you. But I am only jesting, +child--you know that.' + +'Piph-ph-ph--how warm it is, to be sure!' said Mr. Swancourt, as if his +mind were a long distance from all he saw. 'I declare that my watch is +so hot that I can scarcely bear to touch it to see what the time is, and +all the world smells like the inside of a hat.' + +'How the men stare at you, Elfride!' said the elder lady. 'You will kill +me quite, I am afraid.' + +'Kill you?' + +'As a diamond kills an opal in the same setting.' + +'I have noticed several ladies and gentlemen looking at me,' said +Elfride artlessly, showing her pleasure at being observed. + +'My dear, you mustn't say "gentlemen" nowadays,' her stepmother answered +in the tones of arch concern that so well became her ugliness. 'We have +handed over "gentlemen" to the lower middle class, where the word is +still to be heard at tradesmen's balls and provincial tea-parties, I +believe. It is done with here.' + +'What must I say, then?' + +'"Ladies and MEN" always.' + +At this moment appeared in the stream of vehicles moving in the contrary +direction a chariot presenting in its general surface the rich indigo +hue of a midnight sky, the wheels and margins being picked out in +delicate lines of ultramarine; the servants' liveries were dark-blue +coats and silver lace, and breeches of neutral Indian red. The whole +concern formed an organic whole, and moved along behind a pair of dark +chestnut geldings, who advanced in an indifferently zealous trot, very +daintily performed, and occasionally shrugged divers points of their +veiny surface as if they were rather above the business. + +In this sat a gentleman with no decided characteristics more than +that he somewhat resembled a good-natured commercial traveller of +the superior class. Beside him was a lady with skim-milky eyes and +complexion, belonging to the "interesting" class of women, where that +class merges in the sickly, her greatest pleasure being apparently to +enjoy nothing. Opposite this pair sat two little girls in white hats and +blue feathers. + +The lady saw Elfride, smiled and bowed, and touched her husband's elbow, +who turned and received Elfride's movement of recognition with a gallant +elevation of his hat. Then the two children held up their arms to +Elfride, and laughed gleefully. + +'Who is that?' + +'Why, Lord Luxellian, isn't it?' said Mrs. Swancourt, who with the vicar +had been seated with her back towards them. + +'Yes,' replied Elfride. 'He is the one man of those I have seen here +whom I consider handsomer than papa.' + +'Thank you, dear,' said Mr. Swancourt. + +'Yes; but your father is so much older. When Lord Luxellian gets a +little further on in life, he won't be half so good-looking as our man.' + +'Thank you, dear, likewise,' said Mr. Swancourt. + +'See,' exclaimed Elfride, still looking towards them, 'how those little +dears want me! Actually one of them is crying for me to come.' + +'We were talking of bracelets just now. Look at Lady Luxellian's,' said +Mrs. Swancourt, as that baroness lifted up her arm to support one of the +children. 'It is slipping up her arm--too large by half. I hate to see +daylight between a bracelet and a wrist; I wonder women haven't better +taste.' + +'It is not on that account, indeed,' Elfride expostulated. 'It is that +her arm has got thin, poor thing. You cannot think how much she has +altered in this last twelvemonth.' + +The carriages were now nearer together, and there was an exchange of +more familiar greetings between the two families. Then the Luxellians +crossed over and drew up under the plane-trees, just in the rear of the +Swancourts. Lord Luxellian alighted, and came forward with a musical +laugh. + +It was his attraction as a man. People liked him for those tones, and +forgot that he had no talents. Acquaintances remembered Mr. Swancourt by +his manner; they remembered Stephen Smith by his face, Lord Luxellian by +his laugh. + +Mr. Swancourt made some friendly remarks--among others things upon the +heat. + +'Yes,' said Lord Luxellian, 'we were driving by a furrier's window this +afternoon, and the sight filled us all with such a sense of suffocation +that we were glad to get away. Ha-ha!' He turned to Elfride. 'Miss +Swancourt, I have hardly seen or spoken to you since your literary feat +was made public. I had no idea a chiel was taking notes down at quiet +Endelstow, or I should certainly have put myself and friends upon our +best behaviour. Swancourt, why didn't you give me a hint!' + +Elfride fluttered, blushed, laughed, said it was nothing to speak of, +&c. &c. + +'Well, I think you were rather unfairly treated by the PRESENT, I +certainly do. Writing a heavy review like that upon an elegant trifle +like the COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE was absurd.' + +'What?' said Elfride, opening her eyes. 'Was I reviewed in the PRESENT?' + +'Oh yes; didn't you see it? Why, it was four or five months ago!' + +'No, I never saw it. How sorry I am! What a shame of my publishers! They +promised to send me every notice that appeared.' + +'Ah, then, I am almost afraid I have been giving you disagreeable +information, intentionally withheld out of courtesy. Depend upon it +they thought no good would come of sending it, and so would not pain you +unnecessarily.' + +'Oh no; I am indeed glad you have told me, Lord Luxellian. It is quite a +mistaken kindness on their part. Is the review so much against me?' she +inquired tremulously. + +'No, no; not that exactly--though I almost forget its exact purport +now. It was merely--merely sharp, you know--ungenerous, I might say. But +really my memory does not enable me to speak decidedly.' + +'We'll drive to the PRESENT office, and get one directly; shall we, +papa?' + +'If you are so anxious, dear, we will, or send. But to-morrow will do.' + +'And do oblige me in a little matter now, Elfride,' said Lord Luxellian +warmly, and looking as if he were sorry he had brought news that +disturbed her. 'I am in reality sent here as a special messenger by my +little Polly and Katie to ask you to come into our carriage with them +for a short time. I am just going to walk across into Piccadilly, and +my wife is left alone with them. I am afraid they are rather spoilt +children; but I have half promised them you shall come.' + +The steps were let down, and Elfride was transferred--to the intense +delight of the little girls, and to the mild interest of loungers with +red skins and long necks, who cursorily eyed the performance with their +walking-sticks to their lips, occasionally laughing from far down their +throats and with their eyes, their mouths not being concerned in the +operation at all. Lord Luxellian then told the coachman to drive on, +lifted his hat, smiled a smile that missed its mark and alighted on a +total stranger, who bowed in bewilderment. Lord Luxellian looked long at +Elfride. + +The look was a manly, open, and genuine look of admiration; a momentary +tribute of a kind which any honest Englishman might have paid to +fairness without being ashamed of the feeling, or permitting it to +encroach in the slightest degree upon his emotional obligations as +a husband and head of a family. Then Lord Luxellian turned away, and +walked musingly to the upper end of the promenade. + +Mr. Swancourt had alighted at the same time with Elfride, crossing over +to the Row for a few minutes to speak to a friend he recognized there; +and his wife was thus left sole tenant of the carriage. + +Now, whilst this little act had been in course of performance, there +stood among the promenading spectators a man of somewhat different +description from the rest. Behind the general throng, in the rear of the +chairs, and leaning against the trunk of a tree, he looked at Elfride +with quiet and critical interest. + +Three points about this unobtrusive person showed promptly to +the exercised eye that he was not a Row man pur sang. First, an +irrepressible wrinkle or two in the waist of his frock-coat--denoting +that he had not damned his tailor sufficiently to drive that tradesman +up to the orthodox high pressure of cunning workmanship. Second, a +slight slovenliness of umbrella, occasioned by its owner's habit of +resting heavily upon it, and using it as a veritable walking-stick, +instead of letting its point touch the ground in the most coquettish of +kisses, as is the proper Row manner to do. Third, and chief reason, that +try how you might, you could scarcely help supposing, on looking at his +face, that your eyes were not far from a well-finished mind, instead of +the well-finished skin et praeterea nihil, which is by rights the Mark +of the Row. + +The probability is that, had not Mrs. Swancourt been left alone in her +carriage under the tree, this man would have remained in his unobserved +seclusion. But seeing her thus, he came round to the front, stooped +under the rail, and stood beside the carriage-door. + +Mrs. Swancourt looked reflectively at him for a quarter of a minute, +then held out her hand laughingly: + +'Why, Henry Knight--of course it is! My--second--third--fourth +cousin--what shall I say? At any rate, my kinsman.' + +'Yes, one of a remnant not yet cut off. I scarcely was certain of you, +either, from where I was standing.' + +'I have not seen you since you first went to Oxford; consider the number +of years! You know, I suppose, of my marriage?' + +And there sprang up a dialogue concerning family matters of birth, +death, and marriage, which it is not necessary to detail. Knight +presently inquired: + +'The young lady who changed into the other carriage is, then, your +stepdaughter?' + +'Yes, Elfride. You must know her.' + +'And who was the lady in the carriage Elfride entered; who had an +ill-defined and watery look, as if she were only the reflection of +herself in a pool?' + +'Lady Luxellian; very weakly, Elfride says. My husband is remotely +connected with them; but there is not much intimacy on account of----. +However, Henry, you'll come and see us, of course. 24 Chevron Square. +Come this week. We shall only be in town a week or two longer.' + +'Let me see. I've got to run up to Oxford to-morrow, where I shall be +for several days; so that I must, I fear, lose the pleasure of seeing +you in London this year.' + +'Then come to Endelstow; why not return with us?' + +'I am afraid if I were to come before August I should have to leave +again in a day or two. I should be delighted to be with you at the +beginning of that month; and I could stay a nice long time. I have +thought of going westward all the summer.' + +'Very well. Now remember that's a compact. And won't you wait now and +see Mr. Swancourt? He will not be away ten minutes longer.' + +'No; I'll beg to be excused; for I must get to my chambers again this +evening before I go home; indeed, I ought to have been there now--I have +such a press of matters to attend to just at present. You will explain +to him, please. Good-bye.' + +'And let us know the day of your appearance as soon as you can.' + +'I will' + + + + +Chapter XV + + 'A wandering voice.' + + +Though sheer and intelligible griefs are not charmed away by being +confided to mere acquaintances, the process is a palliative to certain +ill-humours. Among these, perplexed vexation is one--a species of +trouble which, like a stream, gets shallower by the simple operation of +widening it in any quarter. + +On the evening of the day succeeding that of the meeting in the +Park, Elfride and Mrs. Swancourt were engaged in conversation in the +dressing-room of the latter. Such a treatment of such a case was in +course of adoption here. + +Elfride had just before received an affectionate letter from Stephen +Smith in Bombay, which had been forwarded to her from Endelstow. But +since this is not the case referred to, it is not worth while to pry +further into the contents of the letter than to discover that, with rash +though pardonable confidence in coming times, he addressed her in high +spirits as his darling future wife. Probably there cannot be instanced a +briefer and surer rule-of-thumb test of a man's temperament--sanguine +or cautious--than this: did he or does he ante-date the word wife in +corresponding with a sweet-heart he honestly loves? + +She had taken this epistle into her own room, read a little of it, then +SAVED the rest for to-morrow, not wishing to be so extravagant as to +consume the pleasure all at once. Nevertheless, she could not resist the +wish to enjoy yet a little more, so out came the letter again, and in +spite of misgivings as to prodigality the whole was devoured. The letter +was finally reperused and placed in her pocket. + +What was this? Also a newspaper for Elfride, which she had overlooked +in her hurry to open the letter. It was the old number of the PRESENT, +containing the article upon her book, forwarded as had been requested. + +Elfride had hastily read it through, shrunk perceptibly smaller, and had +then gone with the paper in her hand to Mrs. Swancourt's dressing-room, +to lighten or at least modify her vexation by a discriminating estimate +from her stepmother. + +She was now looking disconsolately out of the window. + +'Never mind, my child,' said Mrs. Swancourt after a careful perusal of +the matter indicated. 'I don't see that the review is such a terrible +one, after all. Besides, everybody has forgotten about it by this time. +I'm sure the opening is good enough for any book ever written. Just +listen--it sounds better read aloud than when you pore over it silently: +"THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE. A ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. BY ERNEST +FIELD. In the belief that we were for a while escaping the monotonous +repetition of wearisome details in modern social scenery, analyses of +uninteresting character, or the unnatural unfoldings of a sensation +plot, we took this volume into our hands with a feeling of pleasure. We +were disposed to beguile ourselves with the fancy that some new change +might possibly be rung upon donjon keeps, chain and plate armour, deeply +scarred cheeks, tender maidens disguised as pages, to which we had not +listened long ago." Now, that's a very good beginning, in my opinion, +and one to be proud of having brought out of a man who has never seen +you.' + +'Ah, yes,' murmured Elfride wofully. 'But, then, see further on!' + +'Well the next bit is rather unkind, I must own,' said Mrs. Swancourt, +and read on. '"Instead of this we found ourselves in the hands of some +young lady, hardly arrived at years of discretion, to judge by the silly +device it has been thought worth while to adopt on the title-page, with +the idea of disguising her sex."' + +'I am not "silly"!' said Elfride indignantly. 'He might have called me +anything but that.' + +'You are not, indeed. Well:--"Hands of a young lady...whose chapters are +simply devoted to impossible tournaments, towers, and escapades, which +read like flat copies of like scenes in the stories of Mr. G. P. R. +James, and the most unreal portions of IVANHOE. The bait is so palpably +artificial that the most credulous gudgeon turns away." Now, my dear, +I don't see overmuch to complain of in that. It proves that you were +clever enough to make him think of Sir Walter Scott, which is a great +deal.' + +'Oh yes; though I cannot romance myself, I am able to remind him of +those who can!' Elfride intended to hurl these words sarcastically +at her invisible enemy, but as she had no more satirical power than a +wood-pigeon, they merely fell in a pretty murmur from lips shaped to a +pout. + +'Certainly: and that's something. Your book is good enough to be bad in +an ordinary literary manner, and doesn't stand by itself in a melancholy +position altogether worse than assailable.--"That interest in an +historical romance may nowadays have any chance of being sustained, it +is indispensable that the reader find himself under the guidance of +some nearly extinct species of legendary, who, in addition to an impulse +towards antiquarian research and an unweakened faith in the mediaeval +halo, shall possess an inventive faculty in which delicacy of sentiment +is far overtopped by a power of welding to stirring incident a spirited +variety of the elementary human passions." Well, that long-winded +effusion doesn't refer to you at all, Elfride, merely something put in +to fill up. Let me see, when does he come to you again;...not till the +very end, actually. Here you are finally polished off: + +'"But to return to the little work we have used as the text of this +article. We are far from altogether disparaging the author's powers. She +has a certain versatility that enables her to use with effect a style +of narration peculiar to herself, which may be called a murmuring of +delicate emotional trifles, the particular gift of those to whom the +social sympathies of a peaceful time are as daily food. Hence, where +matters of domestic experience, and the natural touches which make +people real, can be introduced without anachronisms too striking, she is +occasionally felicitous; and upon the whole we feel justified in saying +that the book will bear looking into for the sake of those portions +which have nothing whatever to do with the story." + +'Well, I suppose it is intended for satire; but don't think anything +more of it now, my dear. It is seven o'clock.' And Mrs. Swancourt rang +for her maid. + +Attack is more piquant than concord. Stephen's letter was concerning +nothing but oneness with her: the review was the very reverse. And a +stranger with neither name nor shape, age nor appearance, but a mighty +voice, is naturally rather an interesting novelty to a lady he chooses +to address. When Elfride fell asleep that night she was loving the +writer of the letter, but thinking of the writer of that article. + + + + +Chapter XVI + + 'Then fancy shapes--as fancy can.' + + +On a day about three weeks later, the Swancourt trio were sitting +quietly in the drawing-room of The Crags, Mrs. Swancourt's house at +Endelstow, chatting, and taking easeful survey of their previous month +or two of town--a tangible weariness even to people whose acquaintances +there might be counted on the fingers. + +A mere season in London with her practised step-mother had so advanced +Elfride's perceptions, that her courtship by Stephen seemed emotionally +meagre, and to have drifted back several years into a childish past. +In regarding our mental experiences, as in visual observation, our own +progress reads like a dwindling of that we progress from. + +She was seated on a low chair, looking over her romance with melancholy +interest for the first time since she had become acquainted with the +remarks of the PRESENT thereupon. + +'Still thinking of that reviewer, Elfie?' + +'Not of him personally; but I am thinking of his opinion. Really, on +looking into the volume after this long time has elapsed, he seems to +have estimated one part of it fairly enough.' + +'No, no; I wouldn't show the white feather now! Fancy that of all people +in the world the writer herself should go over to the enemy. How shall +Monmouth's men fight when Monmouth runs away?' + +'I don't do that. But I think he is right in some of his arguments, +though wrong in others. And because he has some claim to my respect I +regret all the more that he should think so mistakenly of my motives in +one or two instances. It is more vexing to be misunderstood than to +be misrepresented; and he misunderstands me. I cannot be easy whilst +a person goes to rest night after night attributing to me intentions I +never had.' + +'He doesn't know your name, or anything about you. And he has doubtless +forgotten there is such a book in existence by this time.' + +'I myself should certainly like him to be put right upon one or two +matters,' said the vicar, who had hitherto been silent. 'You see, +critics go on writing, and are never corrected or argued with, and +therefore are never improved.' + +'Papa,' said Elfride brightening, 'write to him!' + +'I would as soon write to him as look at him, for the matter of that,' +said Mr. Swancourt. + +'Do! And say, the young person who wrote the book did not adopt a +masculine pseudonym in vanity or conceit, but because she was afraid it +would be thought presumptuous to publish her name, and that she did not +mean the story for such as he, but as a sweetener of history for young +people, who might thereby acquire a taste for what went on in their own +country hundreds of years ago, and be tempted to dive deeper into the +subject. Oh, there is so much to explain; I wish I might write myself!' + +'Now, Elfie, I'll tell you what we will do,' answered Mr. Swancourt, +tickled with a sort of bucolic humour at the idea of criticizing the +critic. 'You shall write a clear account of what he is wrong in, and I +will copy it and send it as mine.' + +'Yes, now, directly!' said Elfride, jumping up. 'When will you send it, +papa?' + +'Oh, in a day or two, I suppose,' he returned. Then the vicar paused and +slightly yawned, and in the manner of elderly people began to cool from +his ardour for the undertaking now that it came to the point. 'But, +really, it is hardly worth while,' he said. + +'O papa!' said Elfride, with much disappointment. 'You said you would, +and now you won't. That is not fair!' + +'But how can we send it if we don't know whom to send it to?' + +'If you really want to send such a thing it can easily be done,' said +Mrs. Swancourt, coming to her step-daughter's rescue. 'An envelope +addressed, "To the Critic of THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE, care of the +Editor of the PRESENT," would find him.' + +'Yes, I suppose it would.' + +'Why not write your answer yourself, Elfride?' Mrs. Swancourt inquired. + +'I might,' she said hesitatingly; 'and send it anonymously: that would +be treating him as he has treated me.' + +'No use in the world!' + +'But I don't like to let him know my exact name. Suppose I put my +initials only? The less you are known the more you are thought of.' + +'Yes; you might do that.' + +Elfride set to work there and then. Her one desire for the last +fortnight seemed likely to be realized. As happens with sensitive and +secluded minds, a continual dwelling upon the subject had magnified to +colossal proportions the space she assumed herself to occupy or to have +occupied in the occult critic's mind. At noon and at night she had +been pestering herself with endeavours to perceive more distinctly his +conception of her as a woman apart from an author: whether he really +despised her; whether he thought more or less of her than of ordinary +young women who never ventured into the fire of criticism at all. Now +she would have the satisfaction of feeling that at any rate he knew +her true intent in crossing his path, and annoying him so by her +performance, and be taught perhaps to despise it a little less. + +Four days later an envelope, directed to Miss Swancourt in a strange +hand, made its appearance from the post-bag. + +'Oh,' said Elfride, her heart sinking within her. 'Can it be from that +man--a lecture for impertinence? And actually one for Mrs. Swancourt in +the same hand-writing!' She feared to open hers. 'Yet how can he know my +name? No; it is somebody else.' + +'Nonsense!' said her father grimly. 'You sent your initials, and the +Directory was available. Though he wouldn't have taken the trouble to +look there unless he had been thoroughly savage with you. I thought +you wrote with rather more asperity than simple literary discussion +required.' This timely clause was introduced to save the character of +the vicar's judgment under any issue of affairs. + +'Well, here I go,' said Elfride, desperately tearing open the seal. + +'To be sure, of course,' exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt; and looking up +from her own letter. 'Christopher, I quite forgot to tell you, when +I mentioned that I had seen my distant relative, Harry Knight, that I +invited him here for whatever length of time he could spare. And now he +says he can come any day in August.' + +'Write, and say the first of the month,' replied the indiscriminate +vicar. + +She read on, 'Goodness me--and that isn't all. He is actually the +reviewer of Elfride's book. How absurd, to be sure! I had no idea +he reviewed novels or had anything to do with the PRESENT. He is a +barrister--and I thought he only wrote in the Quarterlies. Why, Elfride, +you have brought about an odd entanglement! What does he say to you?' + +Elfride had put down her letter with a dissatisfied flush on her face. +'I don't know. The idea of his knowing my name and all about me!...Why, +he says nothing particular, only this-- + + +'"MY DEAR MADAM,--Though I am sorry that my remarks should have seemed +harsh to you, it is a pleasure to find that they have been the means of +bringing forth such an ingeniously argued reply. Unfortunately, it is +so long since I wrote my review, that my memory does not serve me +sufficiently to say a single word in my defence, even supposing there +remains one to be said, which is doubtful. You will find from a letter +I have written to Mrs. Swancourt, that we are not such strangers to each +other as we have been imagining. Possibly, I may have the pleasure of +seeing you soon, when any argument you choose to advance shall receive +all the attention it deserves." + + +'That is dim sarcasm--I know it is.' + +'Oh no, Elfride.' + +'And then, his remarks didn't seem harsh--I mean I did not say so.' + +'He thinks you are in a frightful temper,' said Mr. Swancourt, chuckling +in undertones. + +'And he will come and see me, and find the authoress as contemptible in +speech as she has been impertinent in manner. I do heartily wish I had +never written a word to him!' + +'Never mind,' said Mrs. Swancourt, also laughing in low quiet jerks; 'it +will make the meeting such a comical affair, and afford splendid by-play +for your father and myself. The idea of our running our heads against +Harry Knight all the time! I cannot get over that.' + +The vicar had immediately remembered the name to be that of Stephen +Smith's preceptor and friend; but having ceased to concern himself in +the matter he made no remark to that effect, consistently forbearing +to allude to anything which could restore recollection of the (to him) +disagreeable mistake with regard to poor Stephen's lineage and position. +Elfride had of course perceived the same thing, which added to the +complication of relationship a mesh that her stepmother knew nothing of. + +The identification scarcely heightened Knight's attractions now, though +a twelvemonth ago she would only have cared to see him for the interest +he possessed as Stephen's friend. Fortunately for Knight's advent, such +a reason for welcome had only begun to be awkward to her at a time +when the interest he had acquired on his own account made it no longer +necessary. + + +These coincidences, in common with all relating to him, tended to keep +Elfride's mind upon the stretch concerning Knight. As was her custom +when upon the horns of a dilemma, she walked off by herself among the +laurel bushes, and there, standing still and splitting up a leaf without +removing it from its stalk, fetched back recollections of Stephen's +frequent words in praise of his friend, and wished she had listened +more attentively. Then, still pulling the leaf, she would blush at some +fancied mortification that would accrue to her from his words when they +met, in consequence of her intrusiveness, as she now considered it, in +writing to him. + +The next development of her meditations was the subject of what this +man's personal appearance might be--was he tall or short, dark or fair, +gay or grim? She would have asked Mrs. Swancourt but for the risk she +might thereby incur of some teasing remark being returned. Ultimately +Elfride would say, 'Oh, what a plague that reviewer is to me!' and turn +her face to where she imagined India lay, and murmur to herself, 'Ah, +my little husband, what are you doing now? Let me see, where are +you--south, east, where? Behind that hill, ever so far behind!' + + + + +Chapter XVII + + 'Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase.' + + +'There is Henry Knight, I declare!' said Mrs. Swancourt one day. + +They were gazing from the jutting angle of a wild enclosure not far from +The Crags, which almost overhung the valley already described as leading +up from the sea and little port of Castle Boterel. The stony escarpment +upon which they stood had the contour of a man's face, and it was +covered with furze as with a beard. People in the field above were +preserved from an accidental roll down these prominences and hollows +by a hedge on the very crest, which was doing that kindly service for +Elfride and her mother now. + +Scrambling higher into the hedge and stretching her neck further over +the furze, Elfride beheld the individual signified. He was walking +leisurely along the little green path at the bottom, beside the stream, +a satchel slung upon his left hip, a stout walking-stick in his hand, +and a brown-holland sun-hat upon his head. The satchel was worn and old, +and the outer polished surface of the leather was cracked and peeling +off. + +Knight having arrived over the hills to Castle Boterel upon the top of a +crazy omnibus, preferred to walk the remaining two miles up the valley, +leaving his luggage to be brought on. + +Behind him wandered, helter-skelter, a boy of whom Knight had briefly +inquired the way to Endelstow; and by that natural law of physics which +causes lesser bodies to gravitate towards the greater, this boy had +kept near to Knight, and trotted like a little dog close at his heels, +whistling as he went, with his eyes fixed upon Knight's boots as they +rose and fell. + +When they had reached a point precisely opposite that in which Mrs. and +Miss Swancourt lay in ambush, Knight stopped and turned round. + +'Look here, my boy,' he said. + +The boy parted his lips, opened his eyes, and answered nothing. + +'Here's sixpence for you, on condition that you don't again come within +twenty yards of my heels, all the way up the valley.' + +The boy, who apparently had not known he had been looking at Knight's +heels at all, took the sixpence mechanically, and Knight went on again, +wrapt in meditation. + +'A nice voice,' Elfride thought; 'but what a singular temper!' + +'Now we must get indoors before he ascends the slope,' said Mrs. +Swancourt softly. And they went across by a short cut over a stile, +entering the lawn by a side door, and so on to the house. + +Mr. Swancourt had gone into the village with the curate, and Elfride +felt too nervous to await their visitor's arrival in the drawing-room +with Mrs. Swancourt. So that when the elder lady entered, Elfride made +some pretence of perceiving a new variety of crimson geranium, and +lingered behind among the flower beds. + +There was nothing gained by this, after all, she thought; and a few +minutes after boldly came into the house by the glass side-door. She +walked along the corridor, and entered the drawing-room. Nobody was +there. + +A window at the angle of the room opened directly into an octagonal +conservatory, enclosing the corner of the building. From the +conservatory came voices in conversation--Mrs. Swancourt's and the +stranger's. + +She had expected him to talk brilliantly. To her surprise he was asking +questions in quite a learner's manner, on subjects connected with the +flowers and shrubs that she had known for years. When after the lapse of +a few minutes he spoke at some length, she considered there was a hard +square decisiveness in the shape of his sentences, as if, unlike her own +and Stephen's, they were not there and then newly constructed, but were +drawn forth from a large store ready-made. They were now approaching the +window to come in again. + +'That is a flesh-coloured variety,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'But oleanders, +though they are such bulky shrubs, are so very easily wounded as to be +unprunable--giants with the sensitiveness of young ladies. Oh, here is +Elfride!' + +Elfride looked as guilty and crestfallen as Lady Teazle at the dropping +of the screen. Mrs. Swancourt presented him half comically, and Knight +in a minute or two placed himself beside the young lady. + +A complexity of instincts checked Elfride's conventional smiles of +complaisance and hospitality; and, to make her still less comfortable, +Mrs. Swancourt immediately afterwards left them together to seek her +husband. Mr. Knight, however, did not seem at all incommoded by his +feelings, and he said with light easefulness: + +'So, Miss Swancourt, I have met you at last. You escaped me by a few +minutes only when we were in London.' + +'Yes. I found that you had seen Mrs. Swancourt.' + +'And now reviewer and reviewed are face to face,' he added +unconcernedly. + +'Yes: though the fact of your being a relation of Mrs. Swancourt's takes +off the edge of it. It was strange that you should be one of her family +all the time.' Elfride began to recover herself now, and to look into +Knight's face. 'I was merely anxious to let you know my REAL meaning in +writing the book--extremely anxious.' + +'I can quite understand the wish; and I was gratified that my remarks +should have reached home. They very seldom do, I am afraid.' + +Elfride drew herself in. Here he was, sticking to his opinions as +firmly as if friendship and politeness did not in the least require an +immediate renunciation of them. + +'You made me very uneasy and sorry by writing such things!' she +murmured, suddenly dropping the mere cacueterie of a fashionable first +introduction, and speaking with some of the dudgeon of a child towards a +severe schoolmaster. + +'That is rather the object of honest critics in such a case. Not to +cause unnecessary sorrow, but: "To make you sorry after a proper manner, +that ye may receive damage by us in nothing," as a powerful pen once +wrote to the Gentiles. Are you going to write another romance?' + +'Write another?' she said. 'That somebody may pen a condemnation and +"nail't wi' Scripture" again, as you do now, Mr. Knight?' + +'You may do better next time,' he said placidly: 'I think you will. But +I would advise you to confine yourself to domestic scenes.' + +'Thank you. But never again!' + +'Well, you may be right. That a young woman has taken to writing is not +by any means the best thing to hear about her.' + +'What is the best?' + +'I prefer not to say.' + +'Do you know? Then, do tell me, please.' + +'Well'--(Knight was evidently changing his meaning)--'I suppose to hear +that she has married.' + +Elfride hesitated. 'And what when she has been married?' she said at +last, partly in order to withdraw her own person from the argument. + +'Then to hear no more about her. It is as Smeaton said of his +lighthouse: her greatest real praise, when the novelty of her +inauguration has worn off, is that nothing happens to keep the talk of +her alive.' + +'Yes, I see,' said Elfride softly and thoughtfully. 'But of course it is +different quite with men. Why don't you write novels, Mr. Knight?' + +'Because I couldn't write one that would interest anybody.' + +'Why?' + +'For several reasons. It requires a judicious omission of your real +thoughts to make a novel popular, for one thing.' + +'Is that really necessary? Well, I am sure you could learn to do that +with practice,' said Elfride with an ex-cathedra air, as became a person +who spoke from experience in the art. 'You would make a great name for +certain,' she continued. + +'So many people make a name nowadays, that it is more distinguished to +remain in obscurity.' + +'Tell me seriously--apart from the subject--why don't you write a volume +instead of loose articles?' she insisted. + +'Since you are pleased to make me talk of myself, I will tell you +seriously,' said Knight, not less amused at this catechism by his young +friend than he was interested in her appearance. 'As I have implied, I +have not the wish. And if I had the wish, I could not now concentrate +sufficiently. We all have only our one cruse of energy given us to make +the best of. And where that energy has been leaked away week by week, +quarter by quarter, as mine has for the last nine or ten years, there is +not enough dammed back behind the mill at any given period to supply +the force a complete book on any subject requires. Then there is the +self-confidence and waiting power. Where quick results have grown +customary, they are fatal to a lively faith in the future.' + +'Yes, I comprehend; and so you choose to write in fragments?' + +'No, I don't choose to do it in the sense you mean; choosing from a +whole world of professions, all possible. It was by the constraint of +accident merely. Not that I object to the accident.' + +'Why don't you object--I mean, why do you feel so quiet about things?' +Elfride was half afraid to question him so, but her intense curiosity to +see what the inside of literary Mr. Knight was like, kept her going on. + +Knight certainly did not mind being frank with her. Instances of this +trait in men who are not without feeling, but are reticent from habit, +may be recalled by all of us. When they find a listener who can by no +possibility make use of them, rival them, or condemn them, reserved and +even suspicious men of the world become frank, keenly enjoying the inner +side of their frankness. + +'Why I don't mind the accidental constraint,' he replied, 'is because, +in making beginnings, a chance limitation of direction is often better +than absolute freedom.' + +'I see--that is, I should if I quite understood what all those +generalities mean.' + +'Why, this: That an arbitrary foundation for one's work, which no length +of thought can alter, leaves the attention free to fix itself on the +work itself, and make the best of it.' + +'Lateral compression forcing altitude, as would be said in that tongue,' +she said mischievously. 'And I suppose where no limit exists, as in the +case of a rich man with a wide taste who wants to do something, it will +be better to choose a limit capriciously than to have none.' + +'Yes,' he said meditatively. 'I can go as far as that.' + +'Well,' resumed Elfride, 'I think it better for a man's nature if he +does nothing in particular.' + +'There is such a case as being obliged to.' + +'Yes, yes; I was speaking of when you are not obliged for any other +reason than delight in the prospect of fame. I have thought many times +lately that a thin widespread happiness, commencing now, and of a piece +with the days of your life, is preferable to an anticipated heap far +away in the future, and none now.' + +'Why, that's the very thing I said just now as being the principle of +all ephemeral doers like myself.' + +'Oh, I am sorry to have parodied you,' she said with some confusion. +'Yes, of course. That is what you meant about not trying to be famous.' +And she added, with the quickness of conviction characteristic of her +mind: 'There is much littleness in trying to be great. A man must think +a good deal of himself, and be conceited enough to believe in himself, +before he tries at all.' + +'But it is soon enough to say there is harm in a man's thinking a good +deal of himself when it is proved he has been thinking wrong, and too +soon then sometimes. Besides, we should not conclude that a man who +strives earnestly for success does so with a strong sense of his own +merit. He may see how little success has to do with merit, and his +motive may be his very humility.' + +This manner of treating her rather provoked Elfride. No sooner did she +agree with him than he ceased to seem to wish it, and took the other +side. 'Ah,' she thought inwardly, 'I shall have nothing to do with a man +of this kind, though he is our visitor.' + +'I think you will find,' resumed Knight, pursuing the conversation +more for the sake of finishing off his thoughts on the subject than for +engaging her attention, 'that in actual life it is merely a matter of +instinct with men--this trying to push on. They awake to a recognition +that they have, without premeditation, begun to try a little, and they +say to themselves, "Since I have tried thus much, I will try a little +more." They go on because they have begun.' + +Elfride, in her turn, was not particularly attending to his words at +this moment. She had, unconsciously to herself, a way of seizing any +point in the remarks of an interlocutor which interested her, and +dwelling upon it, and thinking thoughts of her own thereupon, totally +oblivious of all that he might say in continuation. On such occasions +she artlessly surveyed the person speaking; and then there was a time +for a painter. Her eyes seemed to look at you, and past you, as you were +then, into your future; and past your future into your eternity--not +reading it, but gazing in an unused, unconscious way--her mind still +clinging to its original thought. + +This is how she was looking at Knight. + +Suddenly Elfride became conscious of what she was doing, and was +painfully confused. + +'What were you so intent upon in me?' he inquired. + +'As far as I was thinking of you at all, I was thinking how clever you +are,' she said, with a want of premeditation that was startling in its +honesty and simplicity. + +Feeling restless now that she had so unwittingly spoken, she arose and +stepped to the window, having heard the voices of her father and Mrs. +Swancourt coming up below the terrace. 'Here they are,' she said, going +out. Knight walked out upon the lawn behind her. She stood upon the edge +of the terrace, close to the stone balustrade, and looked towards the +sun, hanging over a glade just now fair as Tempe's vale, up which her +father was walking. + +Knight could not help looking at her. The sun was within ten degrees +of the horizon, and its warm light flooded her face and heightened the +bright rose colour of her cheeks to a vermilion red, their moderate pink +hue being only seen in its natural tone where the cheek curved round +into shadow. The ends of her hanging hair softly dragged themselves +backwards and forwards upon her shoulder as each faint breeze thrust +against or relinquished it. Fringes and ribbons of her dress, moved by +the same breeze, licked like tongues upon the parts around them, and +fluttering forward from shady folds caught likewise their share of the +lustrous orange glow. + +Mr. Swancourt shouted out a welcome to Knight from a distance of +about thirty yards, and after a few preliminary words proceeded to a +conversation of deep earnestness on Knight's fine old family name, and +theories as to lineage and intermarriage connected therewith. Knight's +portmanteau having in the meantime arrived, they soon retired to prepare +for dinner, which had been postponed two hours later than the usual time +of that meal. + +An arrival was an event in the life of Elfride, now that they were again +in the country, and that of Knight necessarily an engrossing one. And +that evening she went to bed for the first time without thinking of +Stephen at all. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + + 'He heard her musical pants.' + + +The old tower of West Endelstow Church had reached the last weeks of its +existence. It was to be replaced by a new one from the designs of Mr. +Hewby, the architect who had sent down Stephen. Planks and poles had +arrived in the churchyard, iron bars had been thrust into the venerable +crack extending down the belfry wall to the foundation, the bells had +been taken down, the owls had forsaken this home of their forefathers, +and six iconoclasts in white fustian, to whom a cracked edifice was a +species of Mumbo Jumbo, had taken lodgings in the village previous to +beginning the actual removal of the stones. + +This was the day after Knight's arrival. To enjoy for the last time the +prospect seaward from the summit, the vicar, Mrs. Swancourt, Knight, and +Elfride, all ascended the winding turret--Mr. Swancourt stepping +forward with many loud breaths, his wife struggling along silently, but +suffering none the less. They had hardly reached the top when a large +lurid cloud, palpably a reservoir of rain, thunder, and lightning, was +seen to be advancing overhead from the north. + +The two cautious elders suggested an immediate return, and proceeded to +put it in practice as regarded themselves. + +'Dear me, I wish I had not come up,' exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt. + +'We shall be slower than you two in going down,' the vicar said over his +shoulder, 'and so, don't you start till we are nearly at the bottom, or +you will run over us and break our necks somewhere in the darkness of +the turret.' + +Accordingly Elfride and Knight waited on the leads till the staircase +should be clear. Knight was not in a talkative mood that morning. +Elfride was rather wilful, by reason of his inattention, which she +privately set down to his thinking her not worth talking to. Whilst +Knight stood watching the rise of the cloud, she sauntered to the other +side of the tower, and there remembered a giddy feat she had performed +the year before. It was to walk round upon the parapet of the +tower--which was quite without battlement or pinnacle, and presented a +smooth flat surface about two feet wide, forming a pathway on all the +four sides. Without reflecting in the least upon what she was doing she +now stepped upon the parapet in the old way, and began walking along. + +'We are down, cousin Henry,' cried Mrs. Swancourt up the turret. 'Follow +us when you like.' + +Knight turned and saw Elfride beginning her elevated promenade. His face +flushed with mingled concern and anger at her rashness. + +'I certainly gave you credit for more common sense,' he said. + +She reddened a little and walked on. + +'Miss Swancourt, I insist upon your coming down,' he exclaimed. + +'I will in a minute. I am safe enough. I have done it often.' + +At that moment, by reason of a slight perturbation his words had caused +in her, Elfride's foot caught itself in a little tuft of grass growing +in a joint of the stone-work, and she almost lost her balance. Knight +sprang forward with a face of horror. By what seemed the special +interposition of a considerate Providence she tottered to the inner edge +of the parapet instead of to the outer, and reeled over upon the lead +roof two or three feet below the wall. + +Knight seized her as in a vice, and he said, panting, 'That ever I +should have met a woman fool enough to do a thing of that kind! Good +God, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!' + +The close proximity of the Shadow of Death had made her sick and pale +as a corpse before he spoke. Already lowered to that state, his words +completely over-powered her, and she swooned away as he held her. + +Elfride's eyes were not closed for more than forty seconds. She opened +them, and remembered the position instantly. His face had altered its +expression from stern anger to pity. But his severe remarks had rather +frightened her, and she struggled to be free. + +'If you can stand, of course you may,' he said, and loosened his arms. +'I hardly know whether most to laugh at your freak or to chide you for +its folly.' + +She immediately sank upon the lead-work. Knight lifted her again. 'Are +you hurt?' he said. + +She murmured an incoherent expression, and tried to smile; saying, with +a fitful aversion of her face, 'I am only frightened. Put me down, do +put me down!' + +'But you can't walk,' said Knight. + +'You don't know that; how can you? I am only frightened, I tell you,' +she answered petulantly, and raised her hand to her forehead. Knight +then saw that she was bleeding from a severe cut in her wrist, +apparently where it had descended upon a salient corner of the +lead-work. Elfride, too, seemed to perceive and feel this now for the +first time, and for a minute nearly lost consciousness again. Knight +rapidly bound his handkerchief round the place, and to add to the +complication, the thundercloud he had been watching began to shed some +heavy drops of rain. Knight looked up and saw the vicar striding towards +the house, and Mrs. Swancourt waddling beside him like a hard-driven +duck. + +'As you are so faint, it will be much better to let me carry you down,' +said Knight; 'or at any rate inside out of the rain.' But her objection +to be lifted made it impossible for him to support her for more than +five steps. + +'This is folly, great folly,' he exclaimed, setting her down. + +'Indeed!' she murmured, with tears in her eyes. 'I say I will not be +carried, and you say this is folly!' + +'So it is.' + +'No, it isn't!' + +'It is folly, I think. At any rate, the origin of it all is.' + +'I don't agree to it. And you needn't get so angry with me; I am not +worth it.' + +'Indeed you are. You are worth the enmity of princes, as was said of +such another. Now, then, will you clasp your hands behind my neck, that +I may carry you down without hurting you?' + +'No, no.' + +'You had better, or I shall foreclose.' + +'What's that!' + +'Deprive you of your chance.' + +Elfride gave a little toss. + +'Now, don't writhe so when I attempt to carry you.' + +'I can't help it.' + +'Then submit quietly.' + +'I don't care. I don't care,' she murmured in languid tones and with +closed eyes. + +He took her into his arms, entered the turret, and with slow and +cautious steps descended round and round. Then, with the gentleness of +a nursing mother, he attended to the cut on her arm. During his progress +through the operations of wiping it and binding it up anew, her face +changed its aspect from pained indifference to something like bashful +interest, interspersed with small tremors and shudders of a trifling +kind. + +In the centre of each pale cheek a small red spot the size of a wafer +had now made its appearance, and continued to grow larger. Elfride +momentarily expected a recurrence to the lecture on her foolishness, but +Knight said no more than this-- + +'Promise me NEVER to walk on that parapet again.' + +'It will be pulled down soon: so I do.' In a few minutes she continued +in a lower tone, and seriously, 'You are familiar of course, as +everybody is, with those strange sensations we sometimes have, that our +life for the moment exists in duplicate.' + +'That we have lived through that moment before?' + +'Or shall again. Well, I felt on the tower that something similar to +that scene is again to be common to us both.' + +'God forbid!' said Knight. 'Promise me that you will never again walk on +any such place on any consideration.' + +'I do.' + +'That such a thing has not been before, we know. That it shall not be +again, you vow. Therefore think no more of such a foolish fancy.' + +There had fallen a great deal of rain, but unaccompanied by lightning. A +few minutes longer, and the storm had ceased. + +'Now, take my arm, please.' + +'Oh no, it is not necessary.' This relapse into wilfulness was because +he had again connected the epithet foolish with her. + +'Nonsense: it is quite necessary; it will rain again directly, and you +are not half recovered.' And without more ado Knight took her hand, drew +it under his arm, and held it there so firmly that she could not have +removed it without a struggle. Feeling like a colt in a halter for the +first time, at thus being led along, yet afraid to be angry, it was to +her great relief that she saw the carriage coming round the corner to +fetch them. + +Her fall upon the roof was necessarily explained to some extent upon +their entering the house; but both forbore to mention a word of what she +had been doing to cause such an accident. During the remainder of the +afternoon Elfride was invisible; but at dinner-time she appeared as +bright as ever. + +In the drawing-room, after having been exclusively engaged with Mr. and +Mrs. Swancourt through the intervening hour, Knight again found himself +thrown with Elfride. She had been looking over a chess problem in one of +the illustrated periodicals. + +'You like chess, Miss Swancourt?' + +'Yes. It is my favourite scientific game; indeed, excludes every other. +Do you play?' + +'I have played; though not lately.' + +'Challenge him, Elfride,' said the vicar heartily. 'She plays very well +for a lady, Mr. Knight.' + +'Shall we play?' asked Elfride tentatively. + +'Oh, certainly. I shall be delighted.' + +The game began. Mr. Swancourt had forgotten a similar performance with +Stephen Smith the year before. Elfride had not; but she had begun to +take for her maxim the undoubted truth that the necessity of continuing +faithful to Stephen, without suspicion, dictated a fickle behaviour +almost as imperatively as fickleness itself; a fact, however, which +would give a startling advantage to the latter quality should it ever +appear. + +Knight, by one of those inexcusable oversights which will sometimes +afflict the best of players, placed his rook in the arms of one of her +pawns. It was her first advantage. She looked triumphant--even ruthless. + +'By George! what was I thinking of?' said Knight quietly; and then +dismissed all concern at his accident. + +'Club laws we'll have, won't we, Mr. Knight?' said Elfride suasively. + +'Oh yes, certainly,' said Mr. Knight, a thought, however, just occurring +to his mind, that he had two or three times allowed her to replace a +man on her religiously assuring him that such a move was an absolute +blunder. + +She immediately took up the unfortunate rook and the contest proceeded, +Elfride having now rather the better of the game. Then he won the +exchange, regained his position, and began to press her hard. Elfride +grew flurried, and placed her queen on his remaining rook's file. + +'There--how stupid! Upon my word, I did not see your rook. Of course +nobody but a fool would have put a queen there knowingly!' + +She spoke excitedly, half expecting her antagonist to give her back the +move. + +'Nobody, of course,' said Knight serenely, and stretched out his hand +towards his royal victim. + +'It is not very pleasant to have it taken advantage of, then,' she said +with some vexation. + +'Club laws, I think you said?' returned Knight blandly, and mercilessly +appropriating the queen. + +She was on the brink of pouting, but was ashamed to show it; tears +almost stood in her eyes. She had been trying so hard--so very +hard--thinking and thinking till her brain was in a whirl; and it seemed +so heartless of him to treat her so, after all. + +'I think it is----' she began. + +'What?' + +--'Unkind to take advantage of a pure mistake I make in that way.' + +'I lost my rook by even a purer mistake,' said the enemy in an +inexorable tone, without lifting his eyes. + +'Yes, but----' However, as his logic was absolutely unanswerable, she +merely registered a protest. 'I cannot endure those cold-blooded ways of +clubs and professional players, like Staunton and Morphy. Just as if it +really mattered whether you have raised your fingers from a man or no!' + +Knight smiled as pitilessly as before, and they went on in silence. + +'Checkmate,' said Knight. + +'Another game,' said Elfride peremptorily, and looking very warm. + +'With all my heart,' said Knight. + +'Checkmate,' said Knight again at the end of forty minutes. + +'Another game,' she returned resolutely. + +'I'll give you the odds of a bishop,' Knight said to her kindly. + +'No, thank you,' Elfride replied in a tone intended for courteous +indifference; but, as a fact, very cavalier indeed. + +'Checkmate,' said her opponent without the least emotion. + +Oh, the difference between Elfride's condition of mind now, and when she +purposely made blunders that Stephen Smith might win! + +It was bedtime. Her mind as distracted as if it would throb itself out +of her head, she went off to her chamber, full of mortification at being +beaten time after time when she herself was the aggressor. Having for +two or three years enjoyed the reputation throughout the globe of her +father's brain--which almost constituted her entire world--of being an +excellent player, this fiasco was intolerable; for unfortunately the +person most dogged in the belief in a false reputation is always that +one, the possessor, who has the best means of knowing that it is not +true. + +In bed no sleep came to soothe her; that gentle thing being the very +middle-of-summer friend in this respect of flying away at the merest +troublous cloud. After lying awake till two o'clock an idea seemed to +strike her. She softly arose, got a light, and fetched a Chess Praxis +from the library. Returning and sitting up in bed, she diligently +studied the volume till the clock struck five, and her eyelids felt +thick and heavy. She then extinguished the light and lay down again. + +'You look pale, Elfride,' said Mrs. Swancourt the next morning at +breakfast. 'Isn't she, cousin Harry?' + +A young girl who is scarcely ill at all can hardly help becoming so when +regarded as such by all eyes turning upon her at the table in obedience +to some remark. Everybody looked at Elfride. She certainly was pale. + +'Am I pale?' she said with a faint smile. 'I did not sleep much. I could +not get rid of armies of bishops and knights, try how I would.' + +'Chess is a bad thing just before bedtime; especially for excitable +people like yourself, dear. Don't ever play late again.' + +'I'll play early instead. Cousin Knight,' she said in imitation of Mrs. +Swancourt, 'will you oblige me in something?' + +'Even to half my kingdom.' + +'Well, it is to play one game more.' + +'When?' + +'Now, instantly; the moment we have breakfasted.' + +'Nonsense, Elfride,' said her father. 'Making yourself a slave to the +game like that.' + +'But I want to, papa! Honestly, I am restless at having been so +ignominiously overcome. And Mr. Knight doesn't mind. So what harm can +there be?' + +'Let us play, by all means, if you wish it,' said Knight. + +So, when breakfast was over, the combatants withdrew to the quiet of the +library, and the door was closed. Elfride seemed to have an idea +that her conduct was rather ill-regulated and startlingly free from +conventional restraint. And worse, she fancied upon Knight's face a +slightly amused look at her proceedings. + +'You think me foolish, I suppose,' she said recklessly; 'but I want to +do my very best just once, and see whether I can overcome you.' + +'Certainly: nothing more natural. Though I am afraid it is not the plan +adopted by women of the world after a defeat.' + +'Why, pray?' + +'Because they know that as good as overcoming is skill in effacing +recollection of being overcome, and turn their attention to that +entirely.' + +'I am wrong again, of course.' + +'Perhaps your wrong is more pleasing than their right.' + +'I don't quite know whether you mean that, or whether you are laughing +at me,' she said, looking doubtingly at him, yet inclining to accept the +more flattering interpretation. 'I am almost sure you think it vanity in +me to think I am a match for you. Well, if you do, I say that vanity is +no crime in such a case.' + +'Well, perhaps not. Though it is hardly a virtue.' + +'Oh yes, in battle! Nelson's bravery lay in his vanity.' + +'Indeed! Then so did his death.' + +Oh no, no! For it is written in the book of the prophet Shakespeare-- + + + "Fear and be slain? no worse can come to fight; + And fight and die, is death destroying death!" + + +And down they sat, and the contest began, Elfride having the first move. +The game progressed. Elfride's heart beat so violently that she could +not sit still. Her dread was lest he should hear it. And he did discover +it at last--some flowers upon the table being set throbbing by its +pulsations. + +'I think we had better give over,' said Knight, looking at her gently. +'It is too much for you, I know. Let us write down the position, and +finish another time.' + +'No, please not,' she implored. 'I should not rest if I did not know the +result at once. It is your move.' + +Ten minutes passed. + +She started up suddenly. 'I know what you are doing?' she cried, an +angry colour upon her cheeks, and her eyes indignant. 'You were thinking +of letting me win to please me!' + +'I don't mind owning that I was,' Knight responded phlegmatically, and +appearing all the more so by contrast with her own turmoil. + +'But you must not! I won't have it.' + +'Very well.' + +'No, that will not do; I insist that you promise not to do any such +absurd thing. It is insulting me!' + +'Very well, madam. I won't do any such absurd thing. You shall not win.' + +'That is to be proved!' she returned proudly; and the play went on. + +Nothing is now heard but the ticking of a quaint old timepiece on the +summit of a bookcase. Ten minutes pass; he captures her knight; she +takes his knight, and looks a very Rhadamanthus. + +More minutes tick away; she takes his pawn and has the advantage, +showing her sense of it rather prominently. + +Five minutes more: he takes her bishop: she brings things even by taking +his knight. + +Three minutes: she looks bold, and takes his queen: he looks placid, and +takes hers. + +Eight or ten minutes pass: he takes a pawn; she utters a little pooh! +but not the ghost of a pawn can she take in retaliation. + +Ten minutes pass: he takes another pawn and says, 'Check!' She flushes, +extricates herself by capturing his bishop, and looks triumphant. He +immediately takes her bishop: she looks surprised. + +Five minutes longer: she makes a dash and takes his only remaining +bishop; he replies by taking her only remaining knight. + +Two minutes: he gives check; her mind is now in a painful state of +tension, and she shades her face with her hand. + +Yet a few minutes more: he takes her rook and checks again. She +literally trembles now lest an artful surprise she has in store for him +shall be anticipated by the artful surprise he evidently has in store +for her. + +Five minutes: 'Checkmate in two moves!' exclaims Elfride. + +'If you can,' says Knight. + +'Oh, I have miscalculated; that is cruel!' + +'Checkmate,' says Knight; and the victory is won. + +Elfride arose and turned away without letting him see her face. Once in +the hall she ran upstairs and into her room, and flung herself down upon +her bed, weeping bitterly. + + +'Where is Elfride?' said her father at luncheon. + +Knight listened anxiously for the answer. He had been hoping to see her +again before this time. + +'She isn't well, sir,' was the reply. + +Mrs. Swancourt rose and left the room, going upstairs to Elfride's +apartment. + +At the door was Unity, who occupied in the new establishment a position +between young lady's maid and middle-housemaid. + +'She is sound asleep, ma'am,' Unity whispered. + +Mrs. Swancourt opened the door. Elfride was lying full-dressed on the +bed, her face hot and red, her arms thrown abroad. At intervals of a +minute she tossed restlessly from side to side, and indistinctly moaned +words used in the game of chess. + +Mrs. Swancourt had a turn for doctoring, and felt her pulse. It was +twanging like a harp-string, at the rate of nearly a hundred and fifty +a minute. Softly moving the sleeping girl to a little less cramped +position, she went downstairs again. + +'She is asleep now,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'She does not seem very well. +Cousin Knight, what were you thinking of? her tender brain won't bear +cudgelling like your great head. You should have strictly forbidden her +to play again.' + +In truth, the essayist's experience of the nature of young women was +far less extensive than his abstract knowledge of them led himself and +others to believe. He could pack them into sentences like a workman, but +practically was nowhere. + +'I am indeed sorry,' said Knight, feeling even more than he expressed. +'But surely, the young lady knows best what is good for her!' + +'Bless you, that's just what she doesn't know. She never thinks of such +things, does she, Christopher? Her father and I have to command her and +keep her in order, as you would a child. She will say things worthy of a +French epigrammatist, and act like a robin in a greenhouse. But I think +we will send for Dr. Granson--there can be no harm.' + +A man was straightway despatched on horseback to Castle Boterel, and the +gentleman known as Dr. Granson came in the course of the afternoon. +He pronounced her nervous system to be in a decided state of disorder; +forwarded some soothing draught, and gave orders that on no account +whatever was she to play chess again. + +The next morning Knight, much vexed with himself, waited with a +curiously compounded feeling for her entry to breakfast. The women +servants came in to prayers at irregular intervals, and as each entered, +he could not, to save his life, avoid turning his head with the hope +that she might be Elfride. Mr. Swancourt began reading without waiting +for her. Then somebody glided in noiselessly; Knight softly glanced up: +it was only the little kitchen-maid. Knight thought reading prayers a +bore. + +He went out alone, and for almost the first time failed to recognize +that holding converse with Nature's charms was not solitude. On nearing +the house again he perceived his young friend crossing a slope by a path +which ran into the one he was following in the angle of the field. Here +they met. Elfride was at once exultant and abashed: coming into his +presence had upon her the effect of entering a cathedral. + +Knight had his note-book in his hand, and had, in fact, been in the very +act of writing therein when they came in view of each other. He left off +in the midst of a sentence, and proceeded to inquire warmly concerning +her state of health. She said she was perfectly well, and indeed had +never looked better. Her health was as inconsequent as her actions. Her +lips were red, WITHOUT the polish that cherries have, and their redness +margined with the white skin in a clearly defined line, which had +nothing of jagged confusion in it. Altogether she stood as the last +person in the world to be knocked over by a game of chess, because too +ephemeral-looking to play one. + +'Are you taking notes?' she inquired with an alacrity plainly arising +less from interest in the subject than from a wish to divert his +thoughts from herself. + +'Yes; I was making an entry. And with your permission I will complete +it.' Knight then stood still and wrote. Elfride remained beside him a +moment, and afterwards walked on. + +'I should like to see all the secrets that are in that book,' she gaily +flung back to him over her shoulder. + +'I don't think you would find much to interest you.' + +'I know I should.' + +'Then of course I have no more to say.' + +'But I would ask this question first. Is it a book of mere facts +concerning journeys and expenditure, and so on, or a book of thoughts?' + +'Well, to tell the truth, it is not exactly either. It consists for +the most part of jottings for articles and essays, disjointed and +disconnected, of no possible interest to anybody but myself.' + +'It contains, I suppose, your developed thoughts in embryo?' + +'Yes.' + +'If they are interesting when enlarged to the size of an article, what +must they be in their concentrated form? Pure rectified spirit, above +proof; before it is lowered to be fit for human consumption: "words that +burn" indeed.' + +'Rather like a balloon before it is inflated: flabby, shapeless, dead. +You could hardly read them.' + +'May I try?' she said coaxingly. 'I wrote my poor romance in that way--I +mean in bits, out of doors--and I should like to see whether your way of +entering things is the same as mine.' + +'Really, that's rather an awkward request. I suppose I can hardly refuse +now you have asked so directly; but----' + +'You think me ill-mannered in asking. But does not this justify me--your +writing in my presence, Mr. Knight? If I had lighted upon your book by +chance, it would have been different; but you stand before me, and say, +"Excuse me," without caring whether I do or not, and write on, and then +tell me they are not private facts but public ideas.' + +'Very well, Miss Swancourt. If you really must see, the consequences +be upon your own head. Remember, my advice to you is to leave my book +alone.' + +'But with that caution I have your permission?' + +'Yes.' + +She hesitated a moment, looked at his hand containing the book, then +laughed, and saying, 'I must see it,' withdrew it from his fingers. + +Knight rambled on towards the house, leaving her standing in the path +turning over the leaves. By the time he had reached the wicket-gate he +saw that she had moved, and waited till she came up. + +Elfride had closed the note-book, and was carrying it disdainfully by +the corner between her finger and thumb; her face wore a nettled look. +She silently extended the volume towards him, raising her eyes no higher +than her hand was lifted. + +'Take it,' said Elfride quickly. 'I don't want to read it.' + +'Could you understand it?' said Knight. + +'As far as I looked. But I didn't care to read much.' + +'Why, Miss Swancourt?' + +'Only because I didn't wish to--that's all.' + +'I warned you that you might not.' + +'Yes, but I never supposed you would have put me there.' + +'Your name is not mentioned once within the four corners.' + +'Not my name--I know that.' + +'Nor your description, nor anything by which anybody would recognize +you.' + +'Except myself. For what is this?' she exclaimed, taking it from him and +opening a page. 'August 7. That's the day before yesterday. But I won't +read it,' Elfride said, closing the book again with pretty hauteur. 'Why +should I? I had no business to ask to see your book, and it serves me +right.' + +Knight hardly recollected what he had written, and turned over the book +to see. He came to this: + +'Aug. 7. Girl gets into her teens, and her self-consciousness is born. +After a certain interval passed in infantine helplessness it begins to +act. Simple, young, and inexperienced at first. Persons of observation +can tell to a nicety how old this consciousness is by the skill it has +acquired in the art necessary to its success--the art of hiding +itself. Generally begins career by actions which are popularly termed +showing-off. Method adopted depends in each case upon the disposition, +rank, residence, of the young lady attempting it. Town-bred girl will +utter some moral paradox on fast men, or love. Country miss adopts the +more material media of taking a ghastly fence, whistling, or making your +blood run cold by appearing to risk her neck. (MEM. On Endelstow Tower.) + +'An innocent vanity is of course the origin of these displays. "Look +at me," say these youthful beginners in womanly artifice, without +reflecting whether or not it be to their advantage to show so very much +of themselves. (Amplify and correct for paper on Artless Arts.)' + +'Yes, I remember now,' said Knight. 'The notes were certainly suggested +by your manoeuvre on the church tower. But you must not think too much +of such random observations,' he continued encouragingly, as he noticed +her injured looks. 'A mere fancy passing through my head assumes a +factitious importance to you, because it has been made permanent by +being written down. All mankind think thoughts as bad as those of people +they most love on earth, but such thoughts never getting embodied on +paper, it becomes assumed that they never existed. I daresay that you +yourself have thought some disagreeable thing or other of me, which +would seem just as bad as this if written. I challenge you, now, to tell +me.' + +'The worst thing I have thought of you?' + +'Yes.' + +'I must not.' + +'Oh yes.' + +'I thought you were rather round-shouldered.' + +Knight looked slightly redder. + +'And that there was a little bald spot on the top of your head.' + +'Heh-heh! Two ineradicable defects,' said Knight, there being a faint +ghastliness discernible in his laugh. 'They are much worse in a lady's +eye than being thought self-conscious, I suppose.' + +'Ah, that's very fine,' she said, too inexperienced to perceive her hit, +and hence not quite disposed to forgive his notes. 'You alluded to me in +that entry as if I were such a child, too. Everybody does that. I cannot +understand it. I am quite a woman, you know. How old do you think I am?' + +'How old? Why, seventeen, I should say. All girls are seventeen.' + +'You are wrong. I am nearly nineteen. Which class of women do you like +best, those who seem younger, or those who seem older than they are?' + +'Off-hand I should be inclined to say those who seem older.' + +So it was not Elfride's class. + +'But it is well known,' she said eagerly, and there was something +touching in the artless anxiety to be thought much of which she revealed +by her words, 'that the slower a nature is to develop, the richer the +nature. Youths and girls who are men and women before they come of age +are nobodies by the time that backward people have shown their full +compass.' + +'Yes,' said Knight thoughtfully. 'There is really something in that +remark. But at the risk of offence I must remind you that you there take +it for granted that the woman behind her time at a given age has not +reached the end of her tether. Her backwardness may be not because she +is slow to develop, but because she soon exhausted her capacity for +developing.' + +Elfride looked disappointed. By this time they were indoors. Mrs. +Swancourt, to whom match-making by any honest means was meat and +drink, had now a little scheme of that nature concerning this pair. The +morning-room, in which they both expected to find her, was empty; the +old lady having, for the above reason, vacated it by the second door as +they entered by the first. + +Knight went to the chimney-piece, and carelessly surveyed two portraits +on ivory. + +'Though these pink ladies had very rudimentary features, judging by what +I see here,' he observed, 'they had unquestionably beautiful heads of +hair.' + +'Yes; and that is everything,' said Elfride, possibly conscious of her +own, possibly not. + +'Not everything; though a great deal, certainly.' + +'Which colour do you like best?' she ventured to ask. + +'More depends on its abundance than on its colour.' + +'Abundances being equal, may I inquire your favourite colour?' + +'Dark.' + +'I mean for women,' she said, with the minutest fall of countenance, and +a hope that she had been misunderstood. + +'So do I,' Knight replied. + +It was impossible for any man not to know the colour of Elfride's hair. +In women who wear it plainly such a feature may be overlooked by men not +given to ocular intentness. But hers was always in the way. You saw her +hair as far as you could see her sex, and knew that it was the palest +brown. She knew instantly that Knight, being perfectly aware of this, +had an independent standard of admiration in the matter. + +Elfride was thoroughly vexed. She could not but be struck with the +honesty of his opinions, and the worst of it was, that the more they +went against her, the more she respected them. And now, like a reckless +gambler, she hazarded her last and best treasure. Her eyes: they were +her all now. + +'What coloured eyes do you like best, Mr. Knight?' she said slowly. + +'Honestly, or as a compliment?' + +'Of course honestly; I don't want anybody's compliment!' + +And yet Elfride knew otherwise: that a compliment or word of approval +from that man then would have been like a well to a famished Arab. + +'I prefer hazel,' he said serenely. + +She had played and lost again. + + + + +Chapter XIX + + 'Love was in the next degree.' + + +Knight had none of those light familiarities of speech which, by +judicious touches of epigrammatic flattery, obliterate a woman's +recollection of the speaker's abstract opinions. So no more was said by +either on the subject of hair, eyes, or development. Elfride's mind +had been impregnated with sentiments of her own smallness to an +uncomfortable degree of distinctness, and her discomfort was visible in +her face. The whole tendency of the conversation latterly had been to +quietly but surely disparage her; and she was fain to take Stephen into +favour in self-defence. He would not have been so unloving, she said, +as to admire an idiosyncrasy and features different from her own. True, +Stephen had declared he loved her: Mr. Knight had never done anything +of the sort. Somehow this did not mend matters, and the sensation of +her smallness in Knight's eyes still remained. Had the position been +reversed--had Stephen loved her in spite of a differing taste, and had +Knight been indifferent in spite of her resemblance to his ideal, it +would have engendered far happier thoughts. As matters stood, Stephen's +admiration might have its root in a blindness the result of passion. +Perhaps any keen man's judgment was condemnatory of her. + +During the remainder of Saturday they were more or less thrown with +their seniors, and no conversation arose which was exclusively their +own. When Elfride was in bed that night her thoughts recurred to the +same subject. At one moment she insisted that it was ill-natured of him +to speak so decisively as he had done; the next, that it was sterling +honesty. + +'Ah, what a poor nobody I am!' she said, sighing. 'People like him, who +go about the great world, don't care in the least what I am like either +in mood or feature.' + +Perhaps a man who has got thoroughly into a woman's mind in this manner, +is half way to her heart; the distance between those two stations is +proverbially short. + +'And are you really going away this week?' said Mrs. Swancourt to Knight +on the following evening, which was Sunday. + +They were all leisurely climbing the hill to the church, where a last +service was now to be held at the rather exceptional time of evening +instead of in the afternoon, previous to the demolition of the ruinous +portions. + +'I am intending to cross to Cork from Bristol,' returned Knight; 'and +then I go on to Dublin.' + +'Return this way, and stay a little longer with us,' said the vicar. 'A +week is nothing. We have hardly been able to realize your presence yet. +I remember a story which----' + +The vicar suddenly stopped. He had forgotten it was Sunday, and would +probably have gone on in his week-day mode of thought had not a turn in +the breeze blown the skirt of his college gown within the range of his +vision, and so reminded him. He at once diverted the current of his +narrative with the dexterity the occasion demanded. + +'The story of the Levite who journeyed to Bethlehem-judah, from which +I took my text the Sunday before last, is quite to the point,' he +continued, with the pronunciation of a man who, far from having intended +to tell a week-day story a moment earlier, had thought of nothing but +Sabbath matters for several weeks. 'What did he gain after all by his +restlessness? Had he remained in the city of the Jebusites, and not been +so anxious for Gibeah, none of his troubles would have arisen.' + +'But he had wasted five days already,' said Knight, closing his eyes +to the vicar's commendable diversion. 'His fault lay in beginning the +tarrying system originally.' + +'True, true; my illustration fails.' + +'But not the hospitality which prompted the story.' + +'So you are to come just the same,' urged Mrs. Swancourt, for she had +seen an almost imperceptible fall of countenance in her stepdaughter at +Knight's announcement. + +Knight half promised to call on his return journey; but the uncertainty +with which he spoke was quite enough to fill Elfride with a regretful +interest in all he did during the few remaining hours. The curate having +already officiated twice that day in the two churches, Mr. Swancourt had +undertaken the whole of the evening service, and Knight read the lessons +for him. The sun streamed across from the dilapidated west window, and +lighted all the assembled worshippers with a golden glow, Knight as he +read being illuminated by the same mellow lustre. Elfride at the organ +regarded him with a throbbing sadness of mood which was fed by a sense +of being far removed from his sphere. As he went deliberately through +the chapter appointed--a portion of the history of Elijah--and ascended +that magnificent climax of the wind, the earthquake, the fire, and +the still small voice, his deep tones echoed past with such apparent +disregard of her existence, that his presence inspired her with a +forlorn sense of unapproachableness, which his absence would hardly have +been able to cause. + +At the same time, turning her face for a moment to catch the glory of +the dying sun as it fell on his form, her eyes were arrested by the +shape and aspect of a woman in the west gallery. It was the bleak barren +countenance of the widow Jethway, whom Elfride had not seen much of +since the morning of her return with Stephen Smith. Possessing the +smallest of competencies, this unhappy woman appeared to spend her life +in journeyings between Endelstow Churchyard and that of a village near +Southampton, where her father and mother were laid. + +She had not attended the service here for a considerable time, and she +now seemed to have a reason for her choice of seat. From the gallery +window the tomb of her son was plainly visible--standing as the nearest +object in a prospect which was closed outwardly by the changeless +horizon of the sea. + +The streaming rays, too, flooded her face, now bent towards Elfride with +a hard and bitter expression that the solemnity of the place raised to +a tragic dignity it did not intrinsically possess. The girl resumed her +normal attitude with an added disquiet. + +Elfride's emotion was cumulative, and after a while would assert itself +on a sudden. A slight touch was enough to set it free--a poem, a sunset, +a cunningly contrived chord of music, a vague imagining, being the usual +accidents of its exhibition. The longing for Knight's respect, which +was leading up to an incipient yearning for his love, made the present +conjuncture a sufficient one. Whilst kneeling down previous to leaving, +when the sunny streaks had gone upward to the roof, and the lower +part of the church was in soft shadow, she could not help thinking +of Coleridge's morbid poem 'The Three Graves,' and shuddering as she +wondered if Mrs. Jethway were cursing her, she wept as if her heart +would break. + +They came out of church just as the sun went down, leaving the landscape +like a platform from which an eloquent speaker has retired, and nothing +remains for the audience to do but to rise and go home. Mr. and Mrs. +Swancourt went off in the carriage, Knight and Elfride preferring to +walk, as the skilful old matchmaker had imagined. They descended the +hill together. + +'I liked your reading, Mr. Knight,' Elfride presently found herself +saying. 'You read better than papa.' + +'I will praise anybody that will praise me. You played excellently, Miss +Swancourt, and very correctly.' + +'Correctly--yes.' + +'It must be a great pleasure to you to take an active part in the +service.' + +'I want to be able to play with more feeling. But I have not a good +selection of music, sacred or secular. I wish I had a nice little +music-library--well chosen, and that the only new pieces sent me were +those of genuine merit.' + +'I am glad to hear such a wish from you. It is extraordinary how many +women have no honest love of music as an end and not as a means, even +leaving out those who have nothing in them. They mostly like it for its +accessories. I have never met a woman who loves music as do ten or a +dozen men I know.' + +'How would you draw the line between women with something and women with +nothing in them?' + +'Well,' said Knight, reflecting a moment, 'I mean by nothing in them +those who don't care about anything solid. This is an instance: I knew a +man who had a young friend in whom he was much interested; in fact, they +were going to be married. She was seemingly poetical, and he offered her +a choice of two editions of the British poets, which she pretended to +want badly. He said, "Which of them would you like best for me to send?" +She said, "A pair of the prettiest earrings in Bond Street, if you don't +mind, would be nicer than either." Now I call her a girl with not much +in her but vanity; and so do you, I daresay.' + +'Oh yes,' replied Elfride with an effort. + +Happening to catch a glimpse of her face as she was speaking, and +noticing that her attempt at heartiness was a miserable failure, he +appeared to have misgivings. + +'You, Miss Swancourt, would not, under such circumstances, have +preferred the nicknacks?' + +'No, I don't think I should, indeed,' she stammered. + +'I'll put it to you,' said the inflexible Knight. 'Which will you have +of these two things of about equal value--the well-chosen little library +of the best music you spoke of--bound in morocco, walnut case, lock and +key--or a pair of the very prettiest earrings in Bond Street windows?' + +'Of course the music,' Elfride replied with forced earnestness. + +'You are quite certain?' he said emphatically. + +'Quite,' she faltered; 'if I could for certain buy the earrings +afterwards.' + +Knight, somewhat blamably, keenly enjoyed sparring with the palpitating +mobile creature, whose excitable nature made any such thing a species of +cruelty. + +He looked at her rather oddly, and said, 'Fie!' + +'Forgive me,' she said, laughing a little, a little frightened, and +blushing very deeply. + +'Ah, Miss Elfie, why didn't you say at first, as any firm woman would +have said, I am as bad as she, and shall choose the same?' + +'I don't know,' said Elfride wofully, and with a distressful smile. + +'I thought you were exceptionally musical?' + +'So I am, I think. But the test is so severe--quite painful.' + +'I don't understand.' + +'Music doesn't do any real good, or rather----' + +'That IS a thing to say, Miss Swancourt! Why, what----' + +'You don't understand! you don't understand!' + +'Why, what conceivable use is there in jimcrack jewellery?' + +'No, no, no, no!' she cried petulantly; 'I didn't mean what you think. I +like the music best, only I like----' + +'Earrings better--own it!' he said in a teasing tone. 'Well, I think I +should have had the moral courage to own it at once, without pretending +to an elevation I could not reach.' + +Like the French soldiery, Elfride was not brave when on the defensive. +So it was almost with tears in her eyes that she answered desperately: + +'My meaning is, that I like earrings best just now, because I lost one +of my prettiest pair last year, and papa said he would not buy any more, +or allow me to myself, because I was careless; and now I wish I had some +like them--that's what my meaning is--indeed it is, Mr. Knight.' + +'I am afraid I have been very harsh and rude,' said Knight, with a look +of regret at seeing how disturbed she was. 'But seriously, if women only +knew how they ruin their good looks by such appurtenances, I am sure +they would never want them.' + +'They were lovely, and became me so!' + +'Not if they were like the ordinary hideous things women stuff their +ears with nowadays--like the governor of a steam-engine, or a pair +of scales, or gold gibbets and chains, and artists' palettes, and +compensation pendulums, and Heaven knows what besides.' + +'No; they were not one of those things. So pretty--like this,' she said +with eager animation. And she drew with the point of her parasol an +enlarged view of one of the lamented darlings, to a scale that would +have suited a giantess half-a-mile high. + +'Yes, very pretty--very,' said Knight dryly. 'How did you come to lose +such a precious pair of articles?' + +'I only lost one--nobody ever loses both at the same time.' + +She made this remark with embarrassment, and a nervous movement of +the fingers. Seeing that the loss occurred whilst Stephen Smith was +attempting to kiss her for the first time on the cliff, her confusion +was hardly to be wondered at. The question had been awkward, and +received no direct answer. + +Knight seemed not to notice her manner. + +'Oh, nobody ever loses both--I see. And certainly the fact that it was a +case of loss takes away all odour of vanity from your choice.' + +'As I never know whether you are in earnest, I don't now,' she said, +looking up inquiringly at the hairy face of the oracle. And coming +gallantly to her own rescue, 'If I really seem vain, it is that I am +only vain in my ways--not in my heart. The worst women are those vain in +their hearts, and not in their ways.' + +'An adroit distinction. Well, they are certainly the more objectionable +of the two,' said Knight. + +'Is vanity a mortal or a venial sin? You know what life is: tell me.' + +'I am very far from knowing what life is. A just conception of life is +too large a thing to grasp during the short interval of passing through +it.' + +'Will the fact of a woman being fond of jewellery be likely to make her +life, in its higher sense, a failure?' + +'Nobody's life is altogether a failure.' + +'Well, you know what I mean, even though my words are badly selected and +commonplace,' she said impatiently. 'Because I utter commonplace words, +you must not suppose I think only commonplace thoughts. My poor stock +of words are like a limited number of rough moulds I have to cast all my +materials in, good and bad; and the novelty or delicacy of the substance +is often lost in the coarse triteness of the form.' + +'Very well; I'll believe that ingenious representation. As to the +subject in hand--lives which are failures--you need not trouble +yourself. Anybody's life may be just as romantic and strange and +interesting if he or she fails as if he or she succeed. All the +difference is, that the last chapter is wanting in the story. If a man +of power tries to do a great deed, and just falls short of it by an +accident not his fault, up to that time his history had as much in it as +that of a great man who has done his great deed. It is whimsical of the +world to hold that particulars of how a lad went to school and so on +should be as an interesting romance or as nothing to them, precisely in +proportion to his after renown.' + +They were walking between the sunset and the moonrise. With the dropping +of the sun a nearly full moon had begun to raise itself. Their shadows, +as cast by the western glare, showed signs of becoming obliterated in +the interest of a rival pair in the opposite direction which the moon +was bringing to distinctness. + +'I consider my life to some extent a failure,' said Knight again after a +pause, during which he had noticed the antagonistic shadows. + +'You! How?' + +'I don't precisely know. But in some way I have missed the mark.' + +'Really? To have done it is not much to be sad about, but to feel that +you have done it must be a cause of sorrow. Am I right?' + +'Partly, though not quite. For a sensation of being profoundly +experienced serves as a sort of consolation to people who are conscious +of having taken wrong turnings. Contradictory as it seems, there is +nothing truer than that people who have always gone right don't know +half as much about the nature and ways of going right as those do who +have gone wrong. However, it is not desirable for me to chill your +summer-time by going into this.' + +'You have not told me even now if I am really vain.' + +'If I say Yes, I shall offend you; if I say No, you'll think I don't +mean it,' he replied, looking curiously into her face. + +'Ah, well,' she replied, with a little breath of distress, '"That which +is exceeding deep, who will find it out?" I suppose I must take you as I +do the Bible--find out and understand all I can; and on the strength of +that, swallow the rest in a lump, by simple faith. Think me vain, if you +will. Worldly greatness requires so much littleness to grow up in, that +an infirmity more or less is not a matter for regret.' + +'As regards women, I can't say,' answered Knight carelessly; 'but it is +without doubt a misfortune for a man who has a living to get, to be born +of a truly noble nature. A high soul will bring a man to the workhouse; +so you may be right in sticking up for vanity.' + +'No, no, I don't do that,' she said regretfully. + +Mr. Knight, when you are gone, will you send me something you have +written? I think I should like to see whether you write as you have +lately spoken, or in your better mood. Which is your true self--the +cynic you have been this evening, or the nice philosopher you were up to +to-night?' + +'Ah, which? You know as well as I.' + +Their conversation detained them on the lawn and in the portico till the +stars blinked out. Elfride flung back her head, and said idly-- + +'There's a bright star exactly over me.' + +'Each bright star is overhead somewhere.' + +'Is it? Oh yes, of course. Where is that one?' and she pointed with her +finger. + +'That is poised like a white hawk over one of the Cape Verde Islands.' + +'And that?' + +'Looking down upon the source of the Nile.' + +'And that lonely quiet-looking one?' + +'He watches the North Pole, and has no less than the whole equator for +his horizon. And that idle one low down upon the ground, that we have +almost rolled away from, is in India--over the head of a young friend of +mine, who very possibly looks at the star in our zenith, as it hangs +low upon his horizon, and thinks of it as marking where his true love +dwells.' + +Elfride glanced at Knight with misgiving. Did he mean her? She could not +see his features; but his attitude seemed to show unconsciousness. + +'The star is over MY head,' she said with hesitation. + +'Or anybody else's in England.' + +'Oh yes, I see:' she breathed her relief. + +'His parents, I believe, are natives of this county. I don't know +them, though I have been in correspondence with him for many years till +lately. Fortunately or unfortunately for him he fell in love, and then +went to Bombay. Since that time I have heard very little of him.' + +Knight went no further in his volunteered statement, and though Elfride +at one moment was inclined to profit by the lessons in honesty he had +just been giving her, the flesh was weak, and the intention dispersed +into silence. There seemed a reproach in Knight's blind words, and yet +she was not able to clearly define any disloyalty that she had been +guilty of. + + + + +Chapter XX + + 'A distant dearness in the hill.' + + +Knight turned his back upon the parish of Endelstow, and crossed over to +Cork. + +One day of absence superimposed itself on another, and proportionately +weighted his heart. He pushed on to the Lakes of Killarney, rambled amid +their luxuriant woods, surveyed the infinite variety of island, hill, +and dale there to be found, listened to the marvellous echoes of that +romantic spot; but altogether missed the glory and the dream he formerly +found in such favoured regions. + +Whilst in the company of Elfride, her girlish presence had not +perceptibly affected him to any depth. He had not been conscious that +her entry into his sphere had added anything to himself; but now +that she was taken away he was very conscious of a great deal being +abstracted. The superfluity had become a necessity, and Knight was in +love. + +Stephen fell in love with Elfride by looking at her: Knight by ceasing +to do so. When or how the spirit entered into him he knew not: certain +he was that when on the point of leaving Endelstow he had felt none of +that exquisite nicety of poignant sadness natural to such severances, +seeing how delightful a subject of contemplation Elfride had been ever +since. Had he begun to love her when she met his eye after her mishap +on the tower? He had simply thought her weak. Had he grown to love her +whilst standing on the lawn brightened all over by the evening sun? He +had thought her complexion good: no more. Was it her conversation +that had sown the seed? He had thought her words ingenious, and very +creditable to a young woman, but not noteworthy. Had the chess-playing +anything to do with it? Certainly not: he had thought her at that time a +rather conceited child. + +Knight's experience was a complete disproof of the assumption that +love always comes by glances of the eye and sympathetic touches of the +fingers: that, like flame, it makes itself palpable at the moment of +generation. Not till they were parted, and she had become sublimated in +his memory, could he be said to have even attentively regarded her. + +Thus, having passively gathered up images of her which his mind did not +act upon till the cause of them was no longer before him, he appeared +to himself to have fallen in love with her soul, which had temporarily +assumed its disembodiment to accompany him on his way. + +She began to rule him so imperiously now that, accustomed to analysis, +he almost trembled at the possible result of the introduction of this +new force among the nicely adjusted ones of his ordinary life. He became +restless: then he forgot all collateral subjects in the pleasure of +thinking about her. + +Yet it must be said that Knight loved philosophically rather than with +romance. + +He thought of her manner towards him. Simplicity verges on coquetry. Was +she flirting? he said to himself. No forcible translation of favour into +suspicion was able to uphold such a theory. The performance had been +too well done to be anything but real. It had the defects without which +nothing is genuine. No actress of twenty years' standing, no bald-necked +lady whose earliest season 'out' was lost in the discreet mist of +evasive talk, could have played before him the part of ingenuous girl +as Elfride lived it. She had the little artful ways which partly make up +ingenuousness. + +There are bachelors by nature and bachelors by circumstance: spinsters +there doubtless are also of both kinds, though some think only those +of the latter. However, Knight had been looked upon as a bachelor by +nature. What was he coming to? It was very odd to himself to look at his +theories on the subject of love, and reading them now by the full light +of a new experience, to see how much more his sentences meant than he +had felt them to mean when they were written. People often discover the +real force of a trite old maxim only when it is thrust upon them by a +chance adventure; but Knight had never before known the case of a man +who learnt the full compass of his own epigrams by such means. + +He was intensely satisfied with one aspect of the affair. Inbred in him +was an invincible objection to be any but the first comer in a woman's +heart. He had discovered within himself the condition that if ever +he did make up his mind to marry, it must be on the certainty that +no cropping out of inconvenient old letters, no bow and blush to +a mysterious stranger casually met, should be a possible source of +discomposure. Knight's sentiments were only the ordinary ones of a man +of his age who loves genuinely, perhaps exaggerated a little by his +pursuits. When men first love as lads, it is with the very centre of +their hearts, nothing else being concerned in the operation. With added +years, more of the faculties attempt a partnership in the passion, till +at Knight's age the understanding is fain to have a hand in it. It may +as well be left out. A man in love setting up his brains as a gauge of +his position is as one determining a ship's longitude from a light at +the mast-head. + +Knight argued from Elfride's unwontedness of manner, which was matter +of fact, to an unwontedness in love, which was matter of inference only. +Incredules les plus credules. 'Elfride,' he said, 'had hardly looked +upon a man till she saw me.' + +He had never forgotten his severity to her because she preferred +ornament to edification, and had since excused her a hundred times +by thinking how natural to womankind was a love of adornment, and how +necessary became a mild infusion of personal vanity to complete the +delicate and fascinating dye of the feminine mind. So at the end of the +week's absence, which had brought him as far as Dublin, he resolved to +curtail his tour, return to Endelstow, and commit himself by making a +reality of the hypothetical offer of that Sunday evening. + +Notwithstanding that he had concocted a great deal of paper theory on +social amenities and modern manners generally, the special ounce of +practice was wanting, and now for his life Knight could not recollect +whether it was considered correct to give a young lady personal +ornaments before a regular engagement to marry had been initiated. +But the day before leaving Dublin he looked around anxiously for a +high-class jewellery establishment, in which he purchased what he +considered would suit her best. + +It was with a most awkward and unwonted feeling that after entering and +closing the door of his room he sat down, opened the morocco case, and +held up each of the fragile bits of gold-work before his eyes. Many +things had become old to the solitary man of letters, but these were +new, and he handled like a child an outcome of civilization which had +never before been touched by his fingers. A sudden fastidious decision +that the pattern chosen would not suit her after all caused him to rise +in a flurry and tear down the street to change them for others. After +a great deal of trouble in reselecting, during which his mind became so +bewildered that the critical faculty on objects of art seemed to have +vacated his person altogether, Knight carried off another pair of +ear-rings. These remained in his possession till the afternoon, when, +after contemplating them fifty times with a growing misgiving that the +last choice was worse than the first, he felt that no sleep would visit +his pillow till he had improved upon his previous purchases yet again. +In a perfect heat of vexation with himself for such tergiversation, he +went anew to the shop-door, was absolutely ashamed to enter and give +further trouble, went to another shop, bought a pair at an enormously +increased price, because they seemed the very thing, asked the +goldsmiths if they would take the other pair in exchange, was told that +they could not exchange articles bought of another maker, paid down the +money, and went off with the two pairs in his possession, wondering what +on earth to do with the superfluous pair. He almost wished he could +lose them, or that somebody would steal them, and was burdened with an +interposing sense that, as a capable man, with true ideas of economy, +he must necessarily sell them somewhere, which he did at last for a mere +song. Mingled with a blank feeling of a whole day being lost to him in +running about the city on this new and extraordinary class of errand, +and of several pounds being lost through his bungling, was a slight +sense of satisfaction that he had emerged for ever from his antediluvian +ignorance on the subject of ladies' jewellery, as well as secured a +truly artistic production at last. During the remainder of that day +he scanned the ornaments of every lady he met with the profoundly +experienced eye of an appraiser. + +Next morning Knight was again crossing St. George's Channel--not +returning to London by the Holyhead route as he had originally intended, +but towards Bristol--availing himself of Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt's +invitation to revisit them on his homeward journey. + +We flit forward to Elfride. + +Woman's ruling passion--to fascinate and influence those more powerful +than she--though operant in Elfride, was decidedly purposeless. She had +wanted her friend Knight's good opinion from the first: how much more +than that elementary ingredient of friendship she now desired, her fears +would hardly allow her to think. In originally wishing to please +the highest class of man she had ever intimately known, there was no +disloyalty to Stephen Smith. She could not--and few women can--realize +the possible vastness of an issue which has only an insignificant +begetting. + +Her letters from Stephen were necessarily few, and her sense of fidelity +clung to the last she had received as a wrecked mariner clings to +flotsam. The young girl persuaded herself that she was glad Stephen +had such a right to her hand as he had acquired (in her eyes) by the +elopement. She beguiled herself by saying, 'Perhaps if I had not so +committed myself I might fall in love with Mr. Knight.' + +All this made the week of Knight's absence very gloomy and distasteful +to her. She retained Stephen in her prayers, and his old letters were +re-read--as a medicine in reality, though she deceived herself into the +belief that it was as a pleasure. + +These letters had grown more and more hopeful. He told her that he +finished his work every day with a pleasant consciousness of having +removed one more stone from the barrier which divided them. Then he drew +images of what a fine figure they two would cut some day. People would +turn their heads and say, 'What a prize he has won!' She was not to be +sad about that wild runaway attempt of theirs (Elfride had repeatedly +said that it grieved her). Whatever any other person who knew of it +might think, he knew well enough the modesty of her nature. The only +reproach was a gentle one for not having written quite so devotedly +during her visit to London. Her letter had seemed to have a liveliness +derived from other thoughts than thoughts of him. + + +Knight's intention of an early return to Endelstow having originally +been faint, his promise to do so had been fainter. He was a man who kept +his words well to the rear of his possible actions. The vicar was rather +surprised to see him again so soon: Mrs. Swancourt was not. Knight +found, on meeting them all, after his arrival had been announced, that +they had formed an intention to go to St. Leonards for a few days at the +end of the month. + +No satisfactory conjuncture offered itself on this first evening of his +return for presenting Elfride with what he had been at such pains to +procure. He was fastidious in his reading of opportunities for such an +intended act. The next morning chancing to break fine after a week of +cloudy weather, it was proposed and decided that they should all drive +to Barwith Strand, a local lion which neither Mrs. Swancourt nor Knight +had seen. Knight scented romantic occasions from afar, and foresaw that +such a one might be expected before the coming night. + +The journey was along a road by neutral green hills, upon which +hedgerows lay trailing like ropes on a quay. Gaps in these uplands +revealed the blue sea, flecked with a few dashes of white and a solitary +white sail, the whole brimming up to a keen horizon which lay like a +line ruled from hillside to hillside. Then they rolled down a pass, the +chocolate-toned rocks forming a wall on both sides, from one of which +fell a heavy jagged shade over half the roadway. A spout of fresh water +burst from an occasional crevice, and pattering down upon broad green +leaves, ran along as a rivulet at the bottom. Unkempt locks of heather +overhung the brow of each steep, whence at divers points a bramble swung +forth into mid-air, snatching at their head-dresses like a claw. + +They mounted the last crest, and the bay which was to be the end of +their pilgrimage burst upon them. The ocean blueness deepened its colour +as it stretched to the foot of the crags, where it terminated in a +fringe of white--silent at this distance, though moving and heaving +like a counterpane upon a restless sleeper. The shadowed hollows of the +purple and brown rocks would have been called blue had not that tint +been so entirely appropriated by the water beside them. + +The carriage was put up at a little cottage with a shed attached, and +an ostler and the coachman carried the hamper of provisions down to the +shore. + +Knight found his opportunity. 'I did not forget your wish,' he began, +when they were apart from their friends. + +Elfride looked as if she did not understand. + +'And I have brought you these,' he continued, awkwardly pulling out the +case, and opening it while holding it towards her. + +'O Mr. Knight!' said Elfride confusedly, and turning to a lively red; 'I +didn't know you had any intention or meaning in what you said. I thought +it a mere supposition. I don't want them.' + +A thought which had flashed into her mind gave the reply a greater +decisiveness than it might otherwise have possessed. To-morrow was the +day for Stephen's letter. + +'But will you not accept them?' Knight returned, feeling less her master +than heretofore. + +'I would rather not. They are beautiful--more beautiful than any I +have ever seen,' she answered earnestly, looking half-wishfully at the +temptation, as Eve may have looked at the apple. 'But I don't want to +have them, if you will kindly forgive me, Mr. Knight.' + +'No kindness at all,' said Mr. Knight, brought to a full stop at this +unexpected turn of events. + +A silence followed. Knight held the open case, looking rather wofully +at the glittering forms he had forsaken his orbit to procure; turning it +about and holding it up as if, feeling his gift to be slighted by her, +he were endeavouring to admire it very much himself. + +'Shut them up, and don't let me see them any longer--do!' she said +laughingly, and with a quaint mixture of reluctance and entreaty. + +'Why, Elfie?' + +'Not Elfie to you, Mr. Knight. Oh, because I shall want them. There, +I am silly, I know, to say that! But I have a reason for not taking +them--now.' She kept in the last word for a moment, intending to imply +that her refusal was finite, but somehow the word slipped out, and undid +all the rest. + +'You will take them some day?' + +'I don't want to.' + +'Why don't you want to, Elfride Swancourt?' + +'Because I don't. I don't like to take them.' + +'I have read a fact of distressing significance in that,' said Knight. +'Since you like them, your dislike to having them must be towards me?' + +'No, it isn't.' + +'What, then? Do you like me?' + +Elfride deepened in tint, and looked into the distance with features +shaped to an expression of the nicest criticism as regarded her answer. + +'I like you pretty well,' she at length murmured mildly. + +'Not very much?' + +'You are so sharp with me, and say hard things, and so how can I?' she +replied evasively. + +'You think me a fogey, I suppose?' + +'No, I don't--I mean I do--I don't know what I think you, I mean. Let us +go to papa,' responded Elfride, with somewhat of a flurried delivery. + +'Well, I'll tell you my object in getting the present,' said Knight, +with a composure intended to remove from her mind any possible +impression of his being what he was--her lover. 'You see it was the very +least I could do in common civility.' + +Elfride felt rather blank at this lucid statement. + +Knight continued, putting away the case: 'I felt as anybody naturally +would have, you know, that my words on your choice the other day were +invidious and unfair, and thought an apology should take a practical +shape.' + +'Oh yes.' + +Elfride was sorry--she could not tell why--that he gave such a +legitimate reason. It was a disappointment that he had all the time a +cool motive, which might be stated to anybody without raising a smile. +Had she known they were offered in that spirit, she would certainly +have accepted the seductive gift. And the tantalizing feature was that +perhaps he suspected her to imagine them offered as a lover's token, +which was mortifying enough if they were not. + +Mrs. Swancourt came now to where they were sitting, to select a flat +boulder for spreading their table-cloth upon, and, amid the discussion +on that subject, the matter pending between Knight and Elfride was +shelved for a while. He read her refusal so certainly as the bashfulness +of a girl in a novel position, that, upon the whole, he could tolerate +such a beginning. Could Knight have been told that it was a sense of +fidelity struggling against new love, whilst no less assuring as to his +ultimate victory, it might have entirely abstracted the wish to secure +it. + +At the same time a slight constraint of manner was visible between +them for the remainder of the afternoon. The tide turned, and they were +obliged to ascend to higher ground. The day glided on to its end with +the usual quiet dreamy passivity of such occasions--when every deed done +and thing thought is in endeavouring to avoid doing and thinking +more. Looking idly over the verge of a crag, they beheld their stone +dining-table gradually being splashed upon and their crumbs and +fragments all washed away by the incoming sea. The vicar drew a moral +lesson from the scene; Knight replied in the same satisfied strain. And +then the waves rolled in furiously--the neutral green-and-blue tongues +of water slid up the slopes, and were metamorphosed into foam by a +careless blow, falling back white and faint, and leaving trailing +followers behind. + +The passing of a heavy shower was the next scene--driving them to +shelter in a shallow cave--after which the horses were put in, and they +started to return homeward. By the time they reached the higher levels +the sky had again cleared, and the sunset rays glanced directly upon +the wet uphill road they had climbed. The ruts formed by their +carriage-wheels on the ascent--a pair of Liliputian canals--were as +shining bars of gold, tapering to nothing in the distance. Upon this +also they turned their backs, and night spread over the sea. + +The evening was chilly, and there was no moon. Knight sat close to +Elfride, and, when the darkness rendered the position of a person a +matter of uncertainty, particularly close. Elfride edged away. + +'I hope you allow me my place ungrudgingly?' he whispered. + +'Oh yes; 'tis the least I can do in common civility,' she said, +accenting the words so that he might recognize them as his own returned. + +Both of them felt delicately balanced between two possibilities. Thus +they reached home. + +To Knight this mild experience was delightful. It was to him a gentle +innocent time--a time which, though there may not be much in it, seldom +repeats itself in a man's life, and has a peculiar dearness when glanced +at retrospectively. He is not inconveniently deep in love, and is lulled +by a peaceful sense of being able to enjoy the most trivial thing with +a childlike enjoyment. The movement of a wave, the colour of a stone, +anything, was enough for Knight's drowsy thoughts of that day to +precipitate themselves upon. Even the sermonizing platitudes the +vicar had delivered himself of--chiefly because something seemed to +be professionally required of him in the presence of a man of Knight's +proclivities--were swallowed whole. The presence of Elfride led him not +merely to tolerate that kind of talk from the necessities of ordinary +courtesy; but he listened to it--took in the ideas with an enjoyable +make-believe that they were proper and necessary, and indulged in a +conservative feeling that the face of things was complete. + +Entering her room that evening Elfride found a packet for herself on +the dressing-table. How it came there she did not know. She tremblingly +undid the folds of white paper that covered it. Yes; it was the treasure +of a morocco case, containing those treasures of ornament she had +refused in the daytime. + +Elfride dressed herself in them for a moment, looked at herself in the +glass, blushed red, and put them away. They filled her dreams all that +night. Never had she seen anything so lovely, and never was it more +clear that as an honest woman she was in duty bound to refuse them. +Why it was not equally clear to her that duty required more vigorous +co-ordinate conduct as well, let those who dissect her say. + +The next morning glared in like a spectre upon her. It was Stephen's +letter-day, and she was bound to meet the postman--to stealthily do a +deed she had never liked, to secure an end she now had ceased to desire. + +But she went. + +There were two letters. + +One was from the bank at St. Launce's, in which she had a small private +deposit--probably something about interest. She put that in her +pocket for a moment, and going indoors and upstairs to be safer from +observation, tremblingly opened Stephen's. + +What was this he said to her? + +She was to go to the St. Launce's Bank and take a sum of money which +they had received private advices to pay her. + +The sum was two hundred pounds. + +There was no check, order, or anything of the nature of guarantee. In +fact the information amounted to this: the money was now in the St. +Launce's Bank, standing in her name. + +She instantly opened the other letter. It contained a deposit-note from +the bank for the sum of two hundred pounds which had that day been +added to her account. Stephen's information, then, was correct, and the +transfer made. + +'I have saved this in one year,' Stephen's letter went on to say, 'and +what so proper as well as pleasant for me to do as to hand it over to +you to keep for your use? I have plenty for myself, independently of +this. Should you not be disposed to let it lie idle in the bank, get +your father to invest it in your name on good security. It is a little +present to you from your more than betrothed. He will, I think, Elfride, +feel now that my pretensions to your hand are anything but the dream of +a silly boy not worth rational consideration.' + +With a natural delicacy, Elfride, in mentioning her father's marriage, +had refrained from all allusion to the pecuniary resources of the lady. + +Leaving this matter-of-fact subject, he went on, somewhat after his +boyish manner: + +'Do you remember, darling, that first morning of my arrival at your +house, when your father read at prayers the miracle of healing the sick +of the palsy--where he is told to take up his bed and walk? I do, and I +can now so well realize the force of that passage. The smallest piece of +mat is the bed of the Oriental, and yesterday I saw a native perform the +very action, which reminded me to mention it. But you are better read +than I, and perhaps you knew all this long ago....One day I bought some +small native idols to send home to you as curiosities, but afterwards +finding they had been cast in England, made to look old, and shipped +over, I threw them away in disgust. + +'Speaking of this reminds me that we are obliged to import all our +house-building ironwork from England. Never was such foresight required +to be exercised in building houses as here. Before we begin, we have +to order every column, lock, hinge, and screw that will be required. +We cannot go into the next street, as in London, and get them cast at +a minute's notice. Mr. L. says somebody will have to go to England very +soon and superintend the selection of a large order of this kind. I only +wish I may be the man.' + +There before her lay the deposit-receipt for the two hundred pounds, +and beside it the elegant present of Knight. Elfride grew cold--then her +cheeks felt heated by beating blood. If by destroying the piece of paper +the whole transaction could have been withdrawn from her experience, she +would willingly have sacrificed the money it represented. She did +not know what to do in either case. She almost feared to let the two +articles lie in juxtaposition: so antagonistic were the interests they +represented that a miraculous repulsion of one by the other was almost +to be expected. + +That day she was seen little of. By the evening she had come to a +resolution, and acted upon it. The packet was sealed up--with a tear +of regret as she closed the case upon the pretty forms it +contained--directed, and placed upon the writing-table in Knight's room. +And a letter was written to Stephen, stating that as yet she hardly +understood her position with regard to the money sent; but declaring +that she was ready to fulfil her promise to marry him. After this letter +had been written she delayed posting it--although never ceasing to feel +strenuously that the deed must be done. + +Several days passed. There was another Indian letter for Elfride. Coming +unexpectedly, her father saw it, but made no remark--why, she could not +tell. The news this time was absolutely overwhelming. Stephen, as he +had wished, had been actually chosen as the most fitting to execute the +iron-work commission he had alluded to as impending. This duty completed +he would have three months' leave. His letter continued that he should +follow it in a week, and should take the opportunity to plainly ask +her father to permit the engagement. Then came a page expressive of his +delight and hers at the reunion; and finally, the information that he +would write to the shipping agents, asking them to telegraph and tell +her when the ship bringing him home should be in sight--knowing how +acceptable such information would be. + +Elfride lived and moved now as in a dream. Knight had at first become +almost angry at her persistent refusal of his offering--and no less with +the manner than the fact of it. But he saw that she began to look worn +and ill--and his vexation lessened to simple perplexity. + +He ceased now to remain in the house for long hours together as before, +but made it a mere centre for antiquarian and geological excursions in +the neighbourhood. Throw up his cards and go away he fain would have +done, but could not. And, thus, availing himself of the privileges of +a relative, he went in and out the premises as fancy led him--but still +lingered on. + +'I don't wish to stay here another day if my presence is distasteful,' +he said one afternoon. 'At first you used to imply that I was severe +with you; and when I am kind you treat me unfairly.' + +'No, no. Don't say so.' + +The origin of their acquaintanceship had been such as to render their +manner towards each other peculiar and uncommon. It was of a kind to +cause them to speak out their minds on any feelings of objection and +difference: to be reticent on gentler matters. + +'I have a good mind to go away and never trouble you again,' continued +Knight. + +She said nothing, but the eloquent expression of her eyes and wan face +was enough to reproach him for harshness. + +'Do you like me to be here, then?' inquired Knight gently. + +'Yes,' she said. Fidelity to the old love and truth to the new were +ranged on opposite sides, and truth virtuelessly prevailed. + +'Then I'll stay a little longer,' said Knight. + +'Don't be vexed if I keep by myself a good deal, will you? Perhaps +something may happen, and I may tell you something.' + +'Mere coyness,' said Knight to himself; and went away with a lighter +heart. The trick of reading truly the enigmatical forces at work in +women at given times, which with some men is an unerring instinct, is +peculiar to minds less direct and honest than Knight's. + +The next evening, about five o'clock, before Knight had returned from +a pilgrimage along the shore, a man walked up to the house. He was a +messenger from Camelton, a town a few miles off, to which place the +railway had been advanced during the summer. + +'A telegram for Miss Swancourt, and three and sixpence to pay for the +special messenger.' Miss Swancourt sent out the money, signed the paper, +and opened her letter with a trembling hand. She read: + + +'Johnson, Liverpool, to Miss Swancourt, Endelstow, near Castle Boterel. + +'Amaryllis telegraphed off Holyhead, four o'clock. Expect will dock and +land passengers at Canning's Basin ten o'clock to-morrow morning.' + + +Her father called her into the study. + +'Elfride, who sent you that message?' he asked suspiciously. + +'Johnson.' 'Who is Johnson, for Heaven's sake?' + +'I don't know.' + +'The deuce you don't! Who is to know, then?' + +'I have never heard of him till now.' + +'That's a singular story, isn't it.' + +'I don't know.' + +'Come, come, miss! What was the telegram?' + +'Do you really wish to know, papa?' + +'Well, I do.' + +'Remember, I am a full-grown woman now.' + +'Well, what then?' + +'Being a woman, and not a child, I may, I think, have a secret or two.' + +'You will, it seems.' + +'Women have, as a rule.' + +'But don't keep them. So speak out.' + +'If you will not press me now, I give my word to tell you the meaning of +all this before the week is past.' + +'On your honour?' + +'On my honour.' + +'Very well. I have had a certain suspicion, you know; and I shall be +glad to find it false. I don't like your manner lately.' + +'At the end of the week, I said, papa.' + +Her father did not reply, and Elfride left the room. + +She began to look out for the postman again. Three mornings later he +brought an inland letter from Stephen. It contained very little matter, +having been written in haste; but the meaning was bulky enough. Stephen +said that, having executed a commission in Liverpool, he should arrive +at his father's house, East Endelstow, at five or six o'clock that same +evening; that he would after dusk walk on to the next village, and meet +her, if she would, in the church porch, as in the old time. He proposed +this plan because he thought it unadvisable to call formally at her +house so late in the evening; yet he could not sleep without having seen +her. The minutes would seem hours till he clasped her in his arms. + +Elfride was still steadfast in her opinion that honour compelled her to +meet him. Probably the very longing to avoid him lent additional weight +to the conviction; for she was markedly one of those who sigh for the +unattainable--to whom, superlatively, a hope is pleasing because not a +possession. And she knew it so well that her intellect was inclined to +exaggerate this defect in herself. + +So during the day she looked her duty steadfastly in the face; read +Wordsworth's astringent yet depressing ode to that Deity; committed +herself to her guidance; and still felt the weight of chance desires. + +But she began to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the +sacrifice of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of propriety +compelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She would meet +him, and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guard against +a relapse, a note was at once despatched to his father's cottage for +Stephen on his arrival, fixing an hour for the interview. + + + + +Chapter XXI + + 'On thy cold grey stones, O sea!' + + +Stephen had said that he should come by way of Bristol, and thence by a +steamer to Castle Boterel, in order to avoid the long journey over the +hills from St. Launce's. He did not know of the extension of the railway +to Camelton. + +During the afternoon a thought occurred to Elfride, that from any cliff +along the shore it would be possible to see the steamer some hours +before its arrival. + +She had accumulated religious force enough to do an act of +supererogation. The act was this--to go to some point of land and watch +for the ship that brought her future husband home. + +It was a cloudy afternoon. Elfride was often diverted from a purpose by +a dull sky; and though she used to persuade herself that the weather was +as fine as possible on the other side of the clouds, she could not bring +about any practical result from this fancy. Now, her mood was such that +the humid sky harmonized with it. + +Having ascended and passed over a hill behind the house, Elfride came to +a small stream. She used it as a guide to the coast. It was smaller than +that in her own valley, and flowed altogether at a higher level. Bushes +lined the slopes of its shallow trough; but at the bottom, where the +water ran, was a soft green carpet, in a strip two or three yards wide. + +In winter, the water flowed over the grass; in summer, as now, it +trickled along a channel in the midst. + +Elfride had a sensation of eyes regarding her from somewhere. She +turned, and there was Mr. Knight. He had dropped into the valley from +the side of the hill. She felt a thrill of pleasure, and rebelliously +allowed it to exist. + +'What utter loneliness to find you in!' + +'I am going to the shore by tracking the stream. I believe it empties +itself not far off, in a silver thread of water, over a cascade of great +height.' + +'Why do you load yourself with that heavy telescope?' + +'To look over the sea with it,' she said faintly. + +'I'll carry it for you to your journey's end.' And he took the glass +from her unresisting hands. 'It cannot be half a mile further. See, +there is the water.' He pointed to a short fragment of level muddy-gray +colour, cutting against the sky. + +Elfride had already scanned the small surface of ocean visible, and had +seen no ship. + +They walked along in company, sometimes with the brook between them--for +it was no wider than a man's stride--sometimes close together. The green +carpet grew swampy, and they kept higher up. + +One of the two ridges between which they walked dwindled lower and +became insignificant. That on the right hand rose with their advance, +and terminated in a clearly defined edge against the light, as if it +were abruptly sawn off. A little further, and the bed of the rivulet +ended in the same fashion. + +They had come to a bank breast-high, and over it the valley was no +longer to be seen. It was withdrawn cleanly and completely. In its +place was sky and boundless atmosphere; and perpendicularly down beneath +them--small and far off--lay the corrugated surface of the Atlantic. + +The small stream here found its death. Running over the precipice it was +dispersed in spray before it was half-way down, and falling like rain +upon projecting ledges, made minute grassy meadows of them. At the +bottom the water-drops soaked away amid the debris of the cliff. This +was the inglorious end of the river. + +'What are you looking for? said Knight, following the direction of her +eyes. + +She was gazing hard at a black object--nearer to the shore than to the +horizon--from the summit of which came a nebulous haze, stretching like +gauze over the sea. + +'The Puffin, a little summer steamboat--from Bristol to Castle Boterel,' +she said. 'I think that is it--look. Will you give me the glass?' + +Knight pulled open the old-fashioned but powerful telescope, and handed +it to Elfride, who had looked on with heavy eyes. + +'I can't keep it up now,' she said. + +'Rest it on my shoulder.' + +'It is too high.' + +'Under my arm.' + +'Too low. You may look instead,' she murmured weakly. + +Knight raised the glass to his eye, and swept the sea till the Puffin +entered its field. + +'Yes, it is the Puffin--a tiny craft. I can see her figure-head +distinctly--a bird with a beak as big as its head.' + +'Can you see the deck?' + +'Wait a minute; yes, pretty clearly. And I can see the black forms +of the passengers against its white surface. One of them has taken +something from another--a glass, I think--yes, it is--and he is +levelling it in this direction. Depend upon it we are conspicuous +objects against the sky to them. Now, it seems to rain upon them, and +they put on overcoats and open umbrellas. They vanish and go below--all +but that one who has borrowed the glass. He is a slim young fellow, and +still watches us.' + +Elfride grew pale, and shifted her little feet uneasily. + +Knight lowered the glass. + +'I think we had better return,' he said. 'That cloud which is raining on +them may soon reach us. Why, you look ill. How is that?' + +'Something in the air affects my face.' + +'Those fair cheeks are very fastidious, I fear,' returned Knight +tenderly. 'This air would make those rosy that were never so before, one +would think--eh, Nature's spoilt child?' + +Elfride's colour returned again. + +'There is more to see behind us, after all,' said Knight. + +She turned her back upon the boat and Stephen Smith, and saw, towering +still higher than themselves, the vertical face of the hill on the +right, which did not project seaward so far as the bed of the valley, +but formed the back of a small cove, and so was visible like a concave +wall, bending round from their position towards the left. + +The composition of the huge hill was revealed to its backbone and marrow +here at its rent extremity. It consisted of a vast stratification of +blackish-gray slate, unvaried in its whole height by a single change of +shade. + +It is with cliffs and mountains as with persons; they have what is +called a presence, which is not necessarily proportionate to their +actual bulk. A little cliff will impress you powerfully; a great one not +at all. It depends, as with man, upon the countenance of the cliff. + +'I cannot bear to look at that cliff,' said Elfride. 'It has a horrid +personality, and makes me shudder. We will go.' + +'Can you climb?' said Knight. 'If so, we will ascend by that path over +the grim old fellow's brow.' + +'Try me,' said Elfride disdainfully. 'I have ascended steeper slopes +than that.' + +From where they had been loitering, a grassy path wound along inside a +bank, placed as a safeguard for unwary pedestrians, to the top of the +precipice, and over it along the hill in an inland direction. + +'Take my arm, Miss Swancourt,' said Knight. + +'I can get on better without it, thank you.' + +When they were one quarter of the way up, Elfride stopped to take +breath. Knight stretched out his hand. + +She took it, and they ascended the remaining slope together. Reaching +the very top, they sat down to rest by mutual consent. + +'Heavens, what an altitude!' said Knight between his pants, and looking +far over the sea. The cascade at the bottom of the slope appeared a mere +span in height from where they were now. + +Elfride was looking to the left. The steamboat was in full view again, +and by reason of the vast surface of sea their higher position uncovered +it seemed almost close to the shore. + +'Over that edge,' said Knight, 'where nothing but vacancy appears, is a +moving compact mass. The wind strikes the face of the rock, runs up it, +rises like a fountain to a height far above our heads, curls over us +in an arch, and disperses behind us. In fact, an inverted cascade is +there--as perfect as the Niagara Falls--but rising instead of falling, +and air instead of water. Now look here.' + +Knight threw a stone over the bank, aiming it as if to go onward over +the cliff. Reaching the verge, it towered into the air like a bird, +turned back, and alighted on the ground behind them. They themselves +were in a dead calm. + +'A boat crosses Niagara immediately at the foot of the falls, where +the water is quite still, the fallen mass curving under it. We are in +precisely the same position with regard to our atmospheric cataract +here. If you run back from the cliff fifty yards, you will be in a brisk +wind. Now I daresay over the bank is a little backward current.' + +Knight rose and leant over the bank. No sooner was his head above it +than his hat appeared to be sucked from his head--slipping over his +forehead in a seaward direction. + +'That's the backward eddy, as I told you,' he cried, and vanished over +the little bank after his hat. + +Elfride waited one minute; he did not return. She waited another, and +there was no sign of him. + +A few drops of rain fell, then a sudden shower. + +She arose, and looked over the bank. On the other side were two or three +yards of level ground--then a short steep preparatory slope--then the +verge of the precipice. + +On the slope was Knight, his hat on his head. He was on his hands and +knees, trying to climb back to the level ground. The rain had wetted the +shaly surface of the incline. A slight superficial wetting of the soil +hereabout made it far more slippery to stand on than the same soil +thoroughly drenched. The inner substance was still hard, and was +lubricated by the moistened film. + +'I find a difficulty in getting back,' said Knight. + +Elfride's heart fell like lead. + +'But you can get back?' she wildly inquired. + +Knight strove with all his might for two or three minutes, and the drops +of perspiration began to bead his brow. + +'No, I am unable to do it,' he answered. + +Elfride, by a wrench of thought, forced away from her mind the sensation +that Knight was in bodily danger. But attempt to help him she must. She +ventured upon the treacherous incline, propped herself with the closed +telescope, and gave him her hand before he saw her movements. + +'O Elfride! why did you?' said he. 'I am afraid you have only endangered +yourself.' + +And as if to prove his statement, in making an endeavour by her +assistance they both slipped lower, and then he was again stayed. His +foot was propped by a bracket of quartz rock, balanced on the verge of +the precipice. Fixed by this, he steadied her, her head being about a +foot below the beginning of the slope. Elfride had dropped the glass; it +rolled to the edge and vanished over it into a nether sky. + +'Hold tightly to me,' he said. + +She flung her arms round his neck with such a firm grasp that whilst he +remained it was impossible for her to fall. + +'Don't be flurried,' Knight continued. 'So long as we stay above this +block we are perfectly safe. Wait a moment whilst I consider what we had +better do.' + +He turned his eyes to the dizzy depths beneath them, and surveyed the +position of affairs. + +Two glances told him a tale with ghastly distinctness. It was that, +unless they performed their feat of getting up the slope with the +precision of machines, they were over the edge and whirling in mid-air. + +For this purpose it was necessary that he should recover the breath and +strength which his previous efforts had cost him. So he still waited, +and looked in the face of the enemy. + +The crest of this terrible natural facade passed among the neighbouring +inhabitants as being seven hundred feet above the water it overhung. +It had been proved by actual measurement to be not a foot less than six +hundred and fifty. + +That is to say, it is nearly three times the height of Flamborough, half +as high again as the South Foreland, a hundred feet higher than +Beachy Head--the loftiest promontory on the east or south side of this +island--twice the height of St. Aldhelm's, thrice as high as the Lizard, +and just double the height of St. Bee's. One sea-bord point on the +western coast is known to surpass it in altitude, but only by a few +feet. This is Great Orme's Head, in Caernarvonshire. + +And it must be remembered that the cliff exhibits an intensifying +feature which some of those are without--sheer perpendicularity from the +half-tide level. + +Yet this remarkable rampart forms no headland: it rather walls in an +inlet--the promontory on each side being much lower. Thus, far from +being salient, its horizontal section is concave. The sea, rolling +direct from the shores of North America, has in fact eaten a chasm into +the middle of a hill, and the giant, embayed and unobtrusive, stands in +the rear of pigmy supporters. Not least singularly, neither hill, chasm, +nor precipice has a name. On this account I will call the precipice the +Cliff without a Name.* + + * See Preface + +What gave an added terror to its height was its blackness. And upon this +dark face the beating of ten thousand west winds had formed a kind of +bloom, which had a visual effect not unlike that of a Hambro' grape. +Moreover it seemed to float off into the atmosphere, and inspire terror +through the lungs. + +'This piece of quartz, supporting my feet, is on the very nose of +the cliff,' said Knight, breaking the silence after his rigid stoical +meditation. 'Now what you are to do is this. Clamber up my body till +your feet are on my shoulders: when you are there you will, I think, be +able to climb on to level ground.' + +'What will you do?' + +'Wait whilst you run for assistance.' + +'I ought to have done that in the first place, ought I not?' + +'I was in the act of slipping, and should have reached no stand-point +without your weight, in all probability. But don't let us talk. Be +brave, Elfride, and climb.' + +She prepared to ascend, saying, 'This is the moment I anticipated when +on the tower. I thought it would come!' + +'This is not a time for superstition,' said Knight. 'Dismiss all that.' + +'I will,' she said humbly. + +'Now put your foot into my hand: next the other. That's good--well done. +Hold to my shoulder.' + +She placed her feet upon the stirrup he made of his hand, and was high +enough to get a view of the natural surface of the hill over the bank. + +'Can you now climb on to level ground?' + +'I am afraid not. I will try.' + +'What can you see?' + +'The sloping common.' + +'What upon it?' + +'Purple heather and some grass.' + +'Nothing more--no man or human being of any kind?' + +'Nobody.' + +'Now try to get higher in this way. You see that tuft of sea-pink above +you. Get that well into your hand, but don't trust to it entirely. Then +step upon my shoulder, and I think you will reach the top.' + +With trembling limbs she did exactly as he told her. The preternatural +quiet and solemnity of his manner overspread upon herself, and gave her +a courage not her own. She made a spring from the top of his shoulder, +and was up. + +Then she turned to look at him. + +By an ill fate, the force downwards of her bound, added to his own +weight, had been too much for the block of quartz upon which his feet +depended. It was, indeed, originally an igneous protrusion into the +enormous masses of black strata, which had since been worn away from the +sides of the alien fragment by centuries of frost and rain, and now left +it without much support. + +It moved. Knight seized a tuft of sea-pink with each hand. + +The quartz rock which had been his salvation was worse than useless now. +It rolled over, out of sight, and away into the same nether sky that had +engulfed the telescope. + +One of the tufts by which he held came out at the root, and Knight began +to follow the quartz. It was a terrible moment. Elfride uttered a low +wild wail of agony, bowed her head, and covered her face with her hands. + +Between the turf-covered slope and the gigantic perpendicular rock +intervened a weather-worn series of jagged edges, forming a face yet +steeper than the former slope. As he slowly slid inch by inch upon +these, Knight made a last desperate dash at the lowest tuft of +vegetation--the last outlying knot of starved herbage ere the rock +appeared in all its bareness. It arrested his further descent. Knight +was now literally suspended by his arms; but the incline of the +brow being what engineers would call about a quarter in one, it was +sufficient to relieve his arms of a portion of his weight, but was very +far from offering an adequately flat face to support him. + +In spite of this dreadful tension of body and mind, Knight found time +for a moment of thankfulness. Elfride was safe. + +She lay on her side above him--her fingers clasped. Seeing him again +steady, she jumped upon her feet. + +'Now, if I can only save you by running for help!' she cried. 'Oh, I +would have died instead! Why did you try so hard to deliver me?' And she +turned away wildly to run for assistance. + +'Elfride, how long will it take you to run to Endelstow and back?' + +'Three-quarters of an hour.' + +'That won't do; my hands will not hold out ten minutes. And is there +nobody nearer?' + +'No; unless a chance passer may happen to be.' + +'He would have nothing with him that could save me. Is there a pole or +stick of any kind on the common?' + +She gazed around. The common was bare of everything but heather and +grass. + +A minute--perhaps more time--was passed in mute thought by both. On a +sudden the blank and helpless agony left her face. She vanished over the +bank from his sight. + +Knight felt himself in the presence of a personalized loneliness. + + + + +Chapter XXII + + 'A woman's way.' + + +Haggard cliffs, of every ugly altitude, are as common as sea-fowl along +the line of coast between Exmoor and Land's End; but this outflanked and +encompassed specimen was the ugliest of them all. Their summits are not +safe places for scientific experiment on the principles of air-currents, +as Knight had now found, to his dismay. + +He still clutched the face of the escarpment--not with the frenzied +hold of despair, but with a dogged determination to make the most of +his every jot of endurance, and so give the longest possible scope to +Elfride's intentions, whatever they might be. + +He reclined hand in hand with the world in its infancy. Not a blade, not +an insect, which spoke of the present, was between him and the past. The +inveterate antagonism of these black precipices to all strugglers for +life is in no way more forcibly suggested than by the paucity of tufts +of grass, lichens, or confervae on their outermost ledges. + +Knight pondered on the meaning of Elfride's hasty disappearance, but +could not avoid an instinctive conclusion that there existed but a +doubtful hope for him. As far as he could judge, his sole chance of +deliverance lay in the possibility of a rope or pole being brought; and +this possibility was remote indeed. The soil upon these high downs was +left so untended that they were unenclosed for miles, except by a +casual bank or dry wall, and were rarely visited but for the purpose +of collecting or counting the flock which found a scanty means of +subsistence thereon. + +At first, when death appeared improbable, because it had never visited +him before, Knight could think of no future, nor of anything connected +with his past. He could only look sternly at Nature's treacherous +attempt to put an end to him, and strive to thwart her. + +From the fact that the cliff formed the inner face of the segment of a +huge cylinder, having the sky for a top and the sea for a bottom, which +enclosed the cove to the extent of more than a semicircle, he could see +the vertical face curving round on each side of him. He looked far down +the facade, and realized more thoroughly how it threatened him. Grimness +was in every feature, and to its very bowels the inimical shape was +desolation. + +By one of those familiar conjunctions of things wherewith the inanimate +world baits the mind of man when he pauses in moments of suspense, +opposite Knight's eyes was an imbedded fossil, standing forth in low +relief from the rock. It was a creature with eyes. The eyes, dead and +turned to stone, were even now regarding him. It was one of the early +crustaceans called Trilobites. Separated by millions of years in their +lives, Knight and this underling seemed to have met in their death. It +was the single instance within reach of his vision of anything that had +ever been alive and had had a body to save, as he himself had now. + +The creature represented but a low type of animal existence, for never +in their vernal years had the plains indicated by those numberless slaty +layers been traversed by an intelligence worthy of the name. Zoophytes, +mollusca, shell-fish, were the highest developments of those ancient +dates. The immense lapses of time each formation represented had known +nothing of the dignity of man. They were grand times, but they were mean +times too, and mean were their relics. He was to be with the small in +his death. + +Knight was a geologist; and such is the supremacy of habit over +occasion, as a pioneer of the thoughts of men, that at this dreadful +juncture his mind found time to take in, by a momentary sweep, the +varied scenes that had had their day between this creature's epoch and +his own. There is no place like a cleft landscape for bringing home such +imaginings as these. + +Time closed up like a fan before him. He saw himself at one extremity +of the years, face to face with the beginning and all the intermediate +centuries simultaneously. Fierce men, clothed in the hides of beasts, +and carrying, for defence and attack, huge clubs and pointed spears, +rose from the rock, like the phantoms before the doomed Macbeth. +They lived in hollows, woods, and mud huts--perhaps in caves of the +neighbouring rocks. Behind them stood an earlier band. No man was there. +Huge elephantine forms, the mastodon, the hippopotamus, the tapir, +antelopes of monstrous size, the megatherium, and the myledon--all, for +the moment, in juxtaposition. Further back, and overlapped by these, +were perched huge-billed birds and swinish creatures as large as horses. +Still more shadowy were the sinister crocodilian outlines--alligators +and other uncouth shapes, culminating in the colossal lizard, the +iguanodon. Folded behind were dragon forms and clouds of flying +reptiles: still underneath were fishy beings of lower development; and +so on, till the lifetime scenes of the fossil confronting him were +a present and modern condition of things. These images passed before +Knight's inner eye in less than half a minute, and he was again +considering the actual present. Was he to die? The mental picture of +Elfride in the world, without himself to cherish her, smote his heart +like a whip. He had hoped for deliverance, but what could a girl do? He +dared not move an inch. Was Death really stretching out his hand? The +previous sensation, that it was improbable he would die, was fainter +now. + +However, Knight still clung to the cliff. + +To those musing weather-beaten West-country folk who pass the greater +part of their days and nights out of doors, Nature seems to have moods +in other than a poetical sense: predilections for certain deeds at +certain times, without any apparent law to govern or season to account +for them. She is read as a person with a curious temper; as one who does +not scatter kindnesses and cruelties alternately, impartially, and in +order, but heartless severities or overwhelming generosities in lawless +caprice. Man's case is always that of the prodigal's favourite or the +miser's pensioner. In her unfriendly moments there seems a feline fun +in her tricks, begotten by a foretaste of her pleasure in swallowing the +victim. + +Such a way of thinking had been absurd to Knight, but he began to adopt +it now. He was first spitted on to a rock. New tortures followed. The +rain increased, and persecuted him with an exceptional persistency which +he was moved to believe owed its cause to the fact that he was in such +a wretched state already. An entirely new order of things could be +observed in this introduction of rain upon the scene. It rained upwards +instead of down. The strong ascending air carried the rain-drops with +it in its race up the escarpment, coming to him with such velocity that +they stuck into his flesh like cold needles. Each drop was virtually a +shaft, and it pierced him to his skin. The water-shafts seemed to lift +him on their points: no downward rain ever had such a torturing effect. +In a brief space he was drenched, except in two places. These were on +the top of his shoulders and on the crown of his hat. + +The wind, though not intense in other situations was strong here. It +tugged at his coat and lifted it. We are mostly accustomed to look upon +all opposition which is not animate, as that of the stolid, inexorable +hand of indifference, which wears out the patience more than the +strength. Here, at any rate, hostility did not assume that slow and +sickening form. It was a cosmic agency, active, lashing, eager for +conquest: determination; not an insensate standing in the way. + +Knight had over-estimated the strength of his hands. They were getting +weak already. 'She will never come again; she has been gone ten +minutes,' he said to himself. + +This mistake arose from the unusual compression of his experiences just +now: she had really been gone but three. + +'As many more minutes will be my end,' he thought. + +Next came another instance of the incapacity of the mind to make +comparisons at such times. + +'This is a summer afternoon,' he said, 'and there can never have been +such a heavy and cold rain on a summer day in my life before.' + +He was again mistaken. The rain was quite ordinary in quantity; the air +in temperature. It was, as is usual, the menacing attitude in which they +approached him that magnified their powers. + +He again looked straight downwards, the wind and the water-dashes +lifting his moustache, scudding up his cheeks, under his eyelids, +and into his eyes. This is what he saw down there: the surface of +the sea--visually just past his toes, and under his feet; actually +one-eighth of a mile, or more than two hundred yards, below them. We +colour according to our moods the objects we survey. The sea would have +been a deep neutral blue, had happier auspices attended the gazer it was +now no otherwise than distinctly black to his vision. That narrow white +border was foam, he knew well; but its boisterous tosses were so distant +as to appear a pulsation only, and its plashing was barely audible. A +white border to a black sea--his funeral pall and its edging. + +The world was to some extent turned upside down for him. Rain descended +from below. Beneath his feet was aerial space and the unknown; above him +was the firm, familiar ground, and upon it all that he loved best. + +Pitiless nature had then two voices, and two only. The nearer was the +voice of the wind in his ears rising and falling as it mauled and thrust +him hard or softly. The second and distant one was the moan of that +unplummetted ocean below and afar--rubbing its restless flank against +the Cliff without a Name. + +Knight perseveringly held fast. Had he any faith in Elfride? Perhaps. +Love is faith, and faith, like a gathered flower, will rootlessly live +on. + +Nobody would have expected the sun to shine on such an evening as this. +Yet it appeared, low down upon the sea. Not with its natural golden +fringe, sweeping the furthest ends of the landscape, not with the +strange glare of whiteness which it sometimes puts on as an alternative +to colour, but as a splotch of vermilion red upon a leaden ground--a red +face looking on with a drunken leer. + +Most men who have brains know it, and few are so foolish as to disguise +this fact from themselves or others, even though an ostentatious display +may be called self-conceit. Knight, without showing it much, knew that +his intellect was above the average. And he thought--he could not help +thinking--that his death would be a deliberate loss to earth of good +material; that such an experiment in killing might have been practised +upon some less developed life. + +A fancy some people hold, when in a bitter mood, is that inexorable +circumstance only tries to prevent what intelligence attempts. Renounce +a desire for a long-contested position, and go on another tack, and +after a while the prize is thrown at you, seemingly in disappointment +that no more tantalizing is possible. + +Knight gave up thoughts of life utterly and entirely, and turned to +contemplate the Dark Valley and the unknown future beyond. Into the +shadowy depths of these speculations we will not follow him. Let it +suffice to state what ensued. + +At that moment of taking no more thought for this life, something +disturbed the outline of the bank above him. A spot appeared. It was the +head of Elfride. + +Knight immediately prepared to welcome life again. + +The expression of a face consigned to utter loneliness, when a friend +first looks in upon it, is moving in the extreme. In rowing seaward to +a light-ship or sea-girt lighthouse, where, without any immediate terror +of death, the inmates experience the gloom of monotonous seclusion, the +grateful eloquence of their countenances at the greeting, expressive of +thankfulness for the visit, is enough to stir the emotions of the most +careless observer. + +Knight's upward look at Elfride was of a nature with, but far +transcending, such an instance as this. The lines of his face had +deepened to furrows, and every one of them thanked her visibly. His lips +moved to the word 'Elfride,' though the emotion evolved no sound. His +eyes passed all description in their combination of the whole diapason +of eloquence, from lover's deep love to fellow-man's gratitude for a +token of remembrance from one of his kind. + +Elfride had come back. What she had come to do he did not know. She +could only look on at his death, perhaps. Still, she had come back, and +not deserted him utterly, and it was much. + +It was a novelty in the extreme to see Henry Knight, to whom Elfride +was but a child, who had swayed her as a tree sways a bird's nest, who +mastered her and made her weep most bitterly at her own insignificance, +thus thankful for a sight of her face. She looked down upon him, her +face glistening with rain and tears. He smiled faintly. + +'How calm he is!' she thought. 'How great and noble he is to be so +calm!' She would have died ten times for him then. + +The gliding form of the steamboat caught her eye: she heeded it no +longer. + +'How much longer can you wait?' came from her pale lips and along the +wind to his position. + +'Four minutes,' said Knight in a weaker voice than her own. + +'But with a good hope of being saved?' + +'Seven or eight.' + +He now noticed that in her arms she bore a bundle of white linen, and +that her form was singularly attenuated. So preternaturally thin and +flexible was Elfride at this moment, that she appeared to bend under the +light blows of the rain-shafts, as they struck into her sides and bosom, +and splintered into spray on her face. There is nothing like a thorough +drenching for reducing the protuberances of clothes, but Elfride's +seemed to cling to her like a glove. + +Without heeding the attack of the clouds further than by raising her +hand and wiping away the spirts of rain when they went more particularly +into her eyes, she sat down and hurriedly began rending the linen into +strips. These she knotted end to end, and afterwards twisted them like +the strands of a cord. In a short space of time she had formed a perfect +rope by this means, six or seven yards long. + +'Can you wait while I bind it?' she said, anxiously extending her gaze +down to him. + +'Yes, if not very long. Hope has given me a wonderful instalment of +strength.' + +Elfride dropped her eyes again, tore the remaining material into narrow +tape-like ligaments, knotted each to each as before, but on a smaller +scale, and wound the lengthy string she had thus formed round and round +the linen rope, which, without this binding, had a tendency to spread +abroad. + +'Now,' said Knight, who, watching the proceedings intently, had by this +time not only grasped her scheme, but reasoned further on, 'I can +hold three minutes longer yet. And do you use the time in testing the +strength of the knots, one by one.' + +She at once obeyed, tested each singly by putting her foot on the rope +between each knot, and pulling with her hands. One of the knots slipped. + +'Oh, think! It would have broken but for your forethought,' Elfride +exclaimed apprehensively. + +She retied the two ends. The rope was now firm in every part. + +'When you have let it down,' said Knight, already resuming his position +of ruling power, 'go back from the edge of the slope, and over the bank +as far as the rope will allow you. Then lean down, and hold the end with +both hands.' + +He had first thought of a safer plan for his own deliverance, but it +involved the disadvantage of possibly endangering her life. + +'I have tied it round my waist,' she cried, 'and I will lean directly +upon the bank, holding with my hands as well.' + +It was the arrangement he had thought of, but would not suggest. + +'I will raise and drop it three times when I am behind the bank,' she +continued, 'to signify that I am ready. Take care, oh, take the greatest +care, I beg you!' + +She dropped the rope over him, to learn how much of its length it +would be necessary to expend on that side of the bank, went back, and +disappeared as she had done before. + +The rope was trailing by Knight's shoulders. In a few moments it +twitched three times. + +He waited yet a second or two, then laid hold. + +The incline of this upper portion of the precipice, to the length only +of a few feet, useless to a climber empty-handed, was invaluable now. +Not more than half his weight depended entirely on the linen rope. Half +a dozen extensions of the arms, alternating with half a dozen seizures +of the rope with his feet, brought him up to the level of the soil. + +He was saved, and by Elfride. + +He extended his cramped limbs like an awakened sleeper, and sprang over +the bank. + +At sight of him she leapt to her feet with almost a shriek of joy. +Knight's eyes met hers, and with supreme eloquence the glance of each +told a long-concealed tale of emotion in that short half-moment. Moved +by an impulse neither could resist, they ran together and into each +other's arms. + +At the moment of embracing, Elfride's eyes involuntarily flashed towards +the Puffin steamboat. It had doubled the point, and was no longer to be +seen. + +An overwhelming rush of exultation at having delivered the man she +revered from one of the most terrible forms of death, shook the gentle +girl to the centre of her soul. It merged in a defiance of duty to +Stephen, and a total recklessness as to plighted faith. Every nerve +of her will was now in entire subjection to her feeling--volition as a +guiding power had forsaken her. To remain passive, as she remained now, +encircled by his arms, was a sufficiently complete result--a glorious +crown to all the years of her life. Perhaps he was only grateful, and +did not love her. No matter: it was infinitely more to be even the slave +of the greater than the queen of the less. Some such sensation as this, +though it was not recognized as a finished thought, raced along the +impressionable soul of Elfride. + +Regarding their attitude, it was impossible for two persons to go nearer +to a kiss than went Knight and Elfride during those minutes of impulsive +embrace in the pelting rain. Yet they did not kiss. Knight's peculiarity +of nature was such that it would not allow him to take advantage of the +unguarded and passionate avowal she had tacitly made. + +Elfride recovered herself, and gently struggled to be free. + +He reluctantly relinquished her, and then surveyed her from crown to +toe. She seemed as small as an infant. He perceived whence she had +obtained the rope. + +'Elfride, my Elfride!' he exclaimed in gratified amazement. + +'I must leave you now,' she said, her face doubling its red, with +an expression between gladness and shame 'You follow me, but at some +distance.' + +'The rain and wind pierce you through; the chill will kill you. God +bless you for such devotion! Take my coat and put it on.' + +'No; I shall get warm running.' + +Elfride had absolutely nothing between her and the weather but her +exterior robe or 'costume.' The door had been made upon a woman's wit, +and it had found its way out. Behind the bank, whilst Knight reclined +upon the dizzy slope waiting for death, she had taken off her whole +clothing, and replaced only her outer bodice and skirt. Every thread of +the remainder lay upon the ground in the form of a woollen and cotton +rope. + +'I am used to being wet through,' she added. 'I have been drenched on +Pansy dozens of times. Good-bye till we meet, clothed and in our right +minds, by the fireside at home!' + +She then ran off from him through the pelting rain like a hare; or more +like a pheasant when, scampering away with a lowered tail, it has a mind +to fly, but does not. Elfride was soon out of sight. + +Knight felt uncomfortably wet and chilled, but glowing with fervour +nevertheless. He fully appreciated Elfride's girlish delicacy in +refusing his escort in the meagre habiliments she wore, yet felt +that necessary abstraction of herself for a short half-hour as a most +grievous loss to him. + +He gathered up her knotted and twisted plumage of linen, lace, and +embroidery work, and laid it across his arm. He noticed on the ground +an envelope, limp and wet. In endeavouring to restore this to its proper +shape, he loosened from the envelope a piece of paper it had contained, +which was seized by the wind in falling from Knight's hand. It was blown +to the right, blown to the left--it floated to the edge of the cliff and +over the sea, where it was hurled aloft. It twirled in the air, and then +flew back over his head. + +Knight followed the paper, and secured it. Having done so, he looked to +discover if it had been worth securing. + +The troublesome sheet was a banker's receipt for two hundred pounds, +placed to the credit of Miss Swancourt, which the impractical girl had +totally forgotten she carried with her. + +Knight folded it as carefully as its moist condition would allow, put it +in his pocket, and followed Elfride. + + + + +Chapter XXIII + + 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?' + + +By this time Stephen Smith had stepped out upon the quay at Castle +Boterel, and breathed his native air. + +A darker skin, a more pronounced moustache, and an incipient beard, were +the chief additions and changes noticeable in his appearance. + +In spite of the falling rain, which had somewhat lessened, he took a +small valise in his hand, and, leaving the remainder of his luggage at +the inn, ascended the hills towards East Endelstow. This place lay in +a vale of its own, further inland than the west village, and though so +near it, had little of physical feature in common with the latter. East +Endelstow was more wooded and fertile: it boasted of Lord Luxellian's +mansion and park, and was free from those bleak open uplands which lent +such an air of desolation to the vicinage of the coast--always excepting +the small valley in which stood the vicarage and Mrs. Swancourt's old +house, The Crags. + +Stephen had arrived nearly at the summit of the ridge when the rain +again increased its volume, and, looking about for temporary shelter, he +ascended a steep path which penetrated dense hazel bushes in the lower +part of its course. Further up it emerged upon a ledge immediately over +the turnpike-road, and sheltered by an overhanging face of rubble rock, +with bushes above. For a reason of his own he made this spot his refuge +from the storm, and turning his face to the left, conned the landscape +as a book. + +He was overlooking the valley containing Elfride's residence. + +From this point of observation the prospect exhibited the peculiarity +of being either brilliant foreground or the subdued tone of distance, a +sudden dip in the surface of the country lowering out of sight all the +intermediate prospect. In apparent contact with the trees and bushes +growing close beside him appeared the distant tract, terminated suddenly +by the brink of the series of cliffs which culminated in the tall giant +without a name--small and unimportant as here beheld. A leaf on a bough +at Stephen's elbow blotted out a whole hill in the contrasting district +far away; a green bunch of nuts covered a complete upland there, and the +great cliff itself was outvied by a pigmy crag in the bank hard by him. +Stephen had looked upon these things hundreds of times before to-day, +but he had never viewed them with such tenderness as now. + +Stepping forward in this direction yet a little further, he could see +the tower of West Endelstow Church, beneath which he was to meet his +Elfride that night. And at the same time he noticed, coming over the +hill from the cliffs, a white speck in motion. It seemed first to be a +sea-gull flying low, but ultimately proved to be a human figure, running +with great rapidity. The form flitted on, heedless of the rain which +had caused Stephen's halt in this place, dropped down the heathery hill, +entered the vale, and was out of sight. + +Whilst he meditated upon the meaning of this phenomenon, he was +surprised to see swim into his ken from the same point of departure +another moving speck, as different from the first as well could be, +insomuch that it was perceptible only by its blackness. Slowly and +regularly it took the same course, and there was not much doubt that +this was the form of a man. He, too, gradually descended from the upper +levels, and was lost in the valley below. + +The rain had by this time again abated, and Stephen returned to the +road. Looking ahead, he saw two men and a cart. They were soon obscured +by the intervention of a high hedge. Just before they emerged again he +heard voices in conversation. + +''A must soon be in the naibourhood, too, if so be he's a-coming,' +said a tenor tongue, which Stephen instantly recognized as Martin +Cannister's. + +''A must 'a b'lieve,' said another voice--that of Stephen's father. + +Stephen stepped forward, and came before them face to face. His father +and Martin were walking, dressed in their second best suits, and beside +them rambled along a grizzel horse and brightly painted spring-cart. + +'All right, Mr. Cannister; here's the lost man!' exclaimed young Smith, +entering at once upon the old style of greeting. 'Father, here I am.' + +'All right, my sonny; and glad I be for't!' returned John Smith, +overjoyed to see the young man. 'How be ye? Well, come along home, and +don't let's bide out here in the damp. Such weather must be terrible bad +for a young chap just come from a fiery nation like Indy; hey, naibour +Cannister?' + +'Trew, trew. And about getting home his traps? Boxes, monstrous bales, +and noble packages of foreign description, I make no doubt?' + +'Hardly all that,' said Stephen laughing. + +'We brought the cart, maning to go right on to Castle Boterel afore ye +landed,' said his father. '"Put in the horse," says Martin. "Ay," says +I, "so we will;" and did it straightway. Now, maybe, Martin had better +go on wi' the cart for the things, and you and I walk home-along.' + +'And I shall be back a'most as soon as you. Peggy is a pretty step +still, though time d' begin to tell upon her as upon the rest o' us.' + +Stephen told Martin where to find his baggage, and then continued his +journey homeward in the company of his father. + +'Owing to your coming a day sooner than we first expected,' said John, +'you'll find us in a turk of a mess, sir--"sir," says I to my own son! +but ye've gone up so, Stephen. We've killed the pig this morning for +ye, thinking ye'd be hungry, and glad of a morsel of fresh mate. And 'a +won't be cut up till to-night. However, we can make ye a good supper +of fry, which will chaw up well wi' a dab o' mustard and a few nice new +taters, and a drop of shilling ale to wash it down. Your mother have +scrubbed the house through because ye were coming, and dusted all +the chimmer furniture, and bought a new basin and jug of a travelling +crockery-woman that came to our door, and scoured the cannel-sticks, and +claned the winders! Ay, I don't know what 'a ha'n't a done. Never were +such a steer, 'a b'lieve.' + +Conversation of this kind and inquiries of Stephen for his mother's +wellbeing occupied them for the remainder of the journey. When they +drew near the river, and the cottage behind it, they could hear the +master-mason's clock striking off the bygone hours of the day at +intervals of a quarter of a minute, during which intervals Stephen's +imagination readily pictured his mother's forefinger wandering round the +dial in company with the minute-hand. + +'The clock stopped this morning, and your mother in putting en right +seemingly,' said his father in an explanatory tone; and they went up the +garden to the door. + +When they had entered, and Stephen had dutifully and warmly greeted his +mother--who appeared in a cotton dress of a dark-blue ground, covered +broadcast with a multitude of new and full moons, stars, and planets, +with an occasional dash of a comet-like aspect to diversify the +scene--the crackle of cart-wheels was heard outside, and Martin +Cannister stamped in at the doorway, in the form of a pair of legs +beneath a great box, his body being nowhere visible. When the luggage +had been all taken down, and Stephen had gone upstairs to change his +clothes, Mrs. Smith's mind seemed to recover a lost thread. + +'Really our clock is not worth a penny,' she said, turning to it and +attempting to start the pendulum. + +'Stopped again?' inquired Martin with commiseration. + +'Yes, sure,' replied Mrs. Smith; and continued after the manner of +certain matrons, to whose tongues the harmony of a subject with a casual +mood is a greater recommendation than its pertinence to the occasion, +'John would spend pounds a year upon the jimcrack old thing, if he +might, in having it claned, when at the same time you may doctor it +yourself as well. "The clock's stopped again, John," I say to him. +"Better have en claned," says he. There's five shillings. "That clock +grinds again," I say to en. "Better have en claned," 'a says again. +"That clock strikes wrong, John," says I. "Better have en claned," he +goes on. The wheels would have been polished to skeletons by this +time if I had listened to en, and I assure you we could have bought a +chainey-faced beauty wi' the good money we've flung away these last ten +years upon this old green-faced mortal. And, Martin, you must be wet. My +son is gone up to change. John is damper than I should like to be, +but 'a calls it nothing. Some of Mrs. Swancourt's servants have been +here--they ran in out of the rain when going for a walk--and I assure +you the state of their bonnets was frightful.' + +'How's the folks? We've been over to Castle Boterel, and what wi' +running and stopping out of the storms, my poor head is beyond +everything! fizz, fizz fizz; 'tis frying o' fish from morning to night,' +said a cracked voice in the doorway at this instant. + +'Lord so's, who's that?' said Mrs. Smith, in a private exclamation, +and turning round saw William Worm, endeavouring to make himself look +passing civil and friendly by overspreading his face with a large smile +that seemed to have no connection with the humour he was in. Behind him +stood a woman about twice his size, with a large umbrella over her head. +This was Mrs. Worm, William's wife. + +'Come in, William,' said John Smith. 'We don't kill a pig every day. +And you, likewise, Mrs. Worm. I make ye welcome. Since ye left Parson +Swancourt, William, I don't see much of 'ee.' + +'No, for to tell the truth, since I took to the turn-pike-gate line, +I've been out but little, coming to church o' Sundays not being my duty +now, as 'twas in a parson's family, you see. However, our boy is able to +mind the gate now, and I said, says I, "Barbara, let's call and see John +Smith."' + +'I am sorry to hear yer pore head is so bad still.' + +'Ay, I assure you that frying o' fish is going on for nights and days. +And, you know, sometimes 'tisn't only fish, but rashers o' bacon and +inions. Ay, I can hear the fat pop and fizz as nateral as life; can't I, +Barbara?' + +Mrs. Worm, who had been all this time engaged in closing her umbrella, +corroborated this statement, and now, coming indoors, showed herself to +be a wide-faced, comfortable-looking woman, with a wart upon her cheek, +bearing a small tuft of hair in its centre. + +'Have ye ever tried anything to cure yer noise, Maister Worm?' inquired +Martin Cannister. + +'Oh ay; bless ye, I've tried everything. Ay, Providence is a merciful +man, and I have hoped He'd have found it out by this time, living so +many years in a parson's family, too, as I have, but 'a don't seem to +relieve me. Ay, I be a poor wambling man, and life's a mint o' trouble!' + +'True, mournful true, William Worm. 'Tis so. The world wants looking to, +or 'tis all sixes and sevens wi' us.' + +'Take your things off, Mrs. Worm,' said Mrs. Smith. 'We be rather in a +muddle, to tell the truth, for my son is just dropped in from Indy a day +sooner than we expected, and the pig-killer is coming presently to cut +up.' + +Mrs. Barbara Worm, not wishing to take any mean advantage of persons +in a muddle by observing them, removed her bonnet and mantle with eyes +fixed upon the flowers in the plot outside the door. + +'What beautiful tiger-lilies!' said Mrs. Worm. + +'Yes, they be very well, but such a trouble to me on account of the +children that come here. They will go eating the berries on the stem, +and call 'em currants. Taste wi' junivals is quite fancy, really.' + +'And your snapdragons look as fierce as ever.' + +'Well, really,' answered Mrs. Smith, entering didactically into the +subject, 'they are more like Christians than flowers. But they make up +well enough wi' the rest, and don't require much tending. And the same +can be said o' these miller's wheels. 'Tis a flower I like very much, +though so simple. John says he never cares about the flowers o' 'em, +but men have no eye for anything neat. He says his favourite flower is +a cauliflower. And I assure you I tremble in the springtime, for 'tis +perfect murder.' + +'You don't say so, Mrs. Smith!' + +'John digs round the roots, you know. In goes his blundering spade, +through roots, bulbs, everything that hasn't got a good show above +ground, turning 'em up cut all to slices. Only the very last fall I went +to move some tulips, when I found every bulb upside down, and the stems +crooked round. He had turned 'em over in the spring, and the cunning +creatures had soon found that heaven was not where it used to be.' + +'What's that long-favoured flower under the hedge?' + +'They? O Lord, they are the horrid Jacob's ladders! Instead of praising +'em, I be mad wi' 'em for being so ready to bide where they are not +wanted. They be very well in their way, but I do not care for things +that neglect won't kill. Do what I will, dig, drag, scrap, pull, I get +too many of 'em. I chop the roots: up they'll come, treble strong. Throw +'em over hedge; there they'll grow, staring me in the face like a hungry +dog driven away, and creep back again in a week or two the same as +before. 'Tis Jacob's ladder here, Jacob's ladder there, and plant 'em +where nothing in the world will grow, you get crowds of 'em in a month +or two. John made a new manure mixen last summer, and he said, "Maria, +now if you've got any flowers or such like, that you don't want, you may +plant 'em round my mixen so as to hide it a bit, though 'tis not likely +anything of much value will grow there." I thought, "There's them +Jacob's ladders; I'll put them there, since they can't do harm in such a +place;" and I planted the Jacob's ladders sure enough. They growed, and +they growed, in the mixen and out of the mixen, all over the litter, +covering it quite up. When John wanted to use it about the garden, 'a +said, "Nation seize them Jacob's ladders of yours, Maria! They've eat +the goodness out of every morsel of my manure, so that 'tis no better +than sand itself!" Sure enough the hungry mortals had. 'Tis my belief +that in the secret souls o' 'em, Jacob's ladders be weeds, and not +flowers at all, if the truth was known.' + +Robert Lickpan, pig-killer and carrier, arrived at this moment. The +fatted animal hanging in the back kitchen was cleft down the middle of +its backbone, Mrs. Smith being meanwhile engaged in cooking supper. + +Between the cutting and chopping, ale was handed round, and Worm and +the pig-killer listened to John Smith's description of the meeting with +Stephen, with eyes blankly fixed upon the table-cloth, in order that +nothing in the external world should interrupt their efforts to conjure +up the scene correctly. + +Stephen came downstairs in the middle of the story, and after the little +interruption occasioned by his entrance and welcome, the narrative was +again continued, precisely as if he had not been there at all, and +was told inclusively to him, as to somebody who knew nothing about the +matter. + +'"Ay," I said, as I catched sight o' en through the brimbles, "that's +the lad, for I d' know en by his grand-father's walk;" for 'a stapped +out like poor father for all the world. Still there was a touch o' the +frisky that set me wondering. 'A got closer, and I said, "That's the +lad, for I d' know en by his carrying a black case like a travelling +man." Still, a road is common to all the world, and there be more +travelling men than one. But I kept my eye cocked, and I said to Martin, +"'Tis the boy, now, for I d' know en by the wold twirl o' the stick and +the family step." Then 'a come closer, and a' said, "All right." I could +swear to en then.' + +Stephen's personal appearance was next criticised. + +'He d' look a deal thinner in face, surely, than when I seed en at the +parson's, and never knowed en, if ye'll believe me,' said Martin. + +'Ay, there,' said another, without removing his eyes from Stephen's +face, 'I should ha' knowed en anywhere. 'Tis his father's nose to a T.' + +'It has been often remarked,' said Stephen modestly. + +'And he's certainly taller,' said Martin, letting his glance run over +Stephen's form from bottom to top. + +'I was thinking 'a was exactly the same height,' Worm replied. + +'Bless thy soul, that's because he's bigger round likewise.' And the +united eyes all moved to Stephen's waist. + +'I be a poor wambling man, but I can make allowances,' said William +Worm. 'Ah, sure, and how he came as a stranger and pilgrim to Parson +Swancourt's that time, not a soul knowing en after so many years! Ay, +life's a strange picter, Stephen: but I suppose I must say Sir to ye?' + +'Oh, it is not necessary at present,' Stephen replied, though mentally +resolving to avoid the vicinity of that familiar friend as soon as he +had made pretensions to the hand of Elfride. + +'Ah, well,' said Worm musingly, 'some would have looked for no less than +a Sir. There's a sight of difference in people.' + +'And in pigs likewise,' observed John Smith, looking at the halved +carcass of his own. + +Robert Lickpan, the pig-killer, here seemed called upon to enter the +lists of conversation. + +'Yes, they've got their particular naters good-now,' he remarked +initially. 'Many's the rum-tempered pig I've knowed.' + +'I don't doubt it, Master Lickpan,' answered Martin, in a tone +expressing that his convictions, no less than good manners, demanded the +reply. + +'Yes,' continued the pig-killer, as one accustomed to be heard. 'One +that I knowed was deaf and dumb, and we couldn't make out what was the +matter wi' the pig. 'A would eat well enough when 'a seed the trough, +but when his back was turned, you might a-rattled the bucket all day, +the poor soul never heard ye. Ye could play tricks upon en behind his +back, and a' wouldn't find it out no quicker than poor deaf Grammer +Cates. But a' fatted well, and I never seed a pig open better when a' +was killed, and 'a was very tender eating, very; as pretty a bit of mate +as ever you see; you could suck that mate through a quill. + +'And another I knowed,' resumed the killer, after quietly letting a pint +of ale run down his throat of its own accord, and setting down the +cup with mathematical exactness upon the spot from which he had raised +it--'another went out of his mind.' + +'How very mournful!' murmured Mrs. Worm. + +'Ay, poor thing, 'a did! As clean out of his mind as the cleverest +Christian could go. In early life 'a was very melancholy, and never +seemed a hopeful pig by no means. 'Twas Andrew Stainer's pig--that's +whose pig 'twas.' + +'I can mind the pig well enough,' attested John Smith. + +'And a pretty little porker 'a was. And you all know Farmer Buckle's +sort? Every jack o' em suffer from the rheumatism to this day, owing to +a damp sty they lived in when they were striplings, as 'twere.' + +'Well, now we'll weigh,' said John. + +'If so be he were not so fine, we'd weigh en whole: but as he is, we'll +take a side at a time. John, you can mind my old joke, ey?' + +'I do so; though 'twas a good few years ago I first heard en.' + +'Yes,' said Lickpan, 'that there old familiar joke have been in our +family for generations, I may say. My father used that joke regular at +pig-killings for more than five and forty years--the time he followed +the calling. And 'a told me that 'a had it from his father when he was +quite a chiel, who made use o' en just the same at every killing more or +less; and pig-killings were pig-killings in those days.' + +'Trewly they were.' + +'I've never heard the joke,' said Mrs. Smith tentatively. + +'Nor I,' chimed in Mrs. Worm, who, being the only other lady in the +room, felt bound by the laws of courtesy to feel like Mrs. Smith in +everything. + +'Surely, surely you have,' said the killer, looking sceptically at the +benighted females. 'However, 'tisn't much--I don't wish to say it is. It +commences like this: "Bob will tell the weight of your pig, 'a b'lieve," +says I. The congregation of neighbours think I mane my son Bob, +naturally; but the secret is that I mane the bob o' the steelyard. Ha, +ha, ha!' + +'Haw, haw, haw!' laughed Martin Cannister, who had heard the explanation +of this striking story for the hundredth time. + +'Huh, huh, huh!' laughed John Smith, who had heard it for the +thousandth. + +'Hee, hee, hee!' laughed William Worm, who had never heard it at all, +but was afraid to say so. + +'Thy grandfather, Robert, must have been a wide-awake chap to make that +story,' said Martin Cannister, subsiding to a placid aspect of delighted +criticism. + +'He had a head, by all account. And, you see, as the first-born of the +Lickpans have all been Roberts, they've all been Bobs, so the story was +handed down to the present day.' + +'Poor Joseph, your second boy, will never be able to bring it out in +company, which is rather unfortunate,' said Mrs. Worm thoughtfully. + +''A won't. Yes, grandfer was a clever chap, as ye say; but I knowed a +cleverer. 'Twas my uncle Levi. Uncle Levi made a snuff-box that should +be a puzzle to his friends to open. He used to hand en round at wedding +parties, christenings, funerals, and in other jolly company, and let 'em +try their skill. This extraordinary snuff-box had a spring behind that +would push in and out--a hinge where seemed to be the cover; a slide at +the end, a screw in front, and knobs and queer notches everywhere. One +man would try the spring, another would try the screw, another would +try the slide; but try as they would, the box wouldn't open. And they +couldn't open en, and they didn't open en. Now what might you think was +the secret of that box?' + +All put on an expression that their united thoughts were inadequate to +the occasion. + +'Why the box wouldn't open at all. 'A were made not to open, and ye +might have tried till the end of Revelations, 'twould have been as +naught, for the box were glued all round.' + +'A very deep man to have made such a box.' + +'Yes. 'Twas like uncle Levi all over.' + +''Twas. I can mind the man very well. Tallest man ever I seed.' + +''A was so. He never slept upon a bedstead after he growed up a hard +boy-chap--never could get one long enough. When 'a lived in that little +small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber door +every night at going to his bed, and let his feet poke out upon the +landing.' + +'He's dead and gone now, nevertheless, poor man, as we all shall,' +observed Worm, to fill the pause which followed the conclusion of Robert +Lickpan's speech. + +The weighing and cutting up was pursued amid an animated discourse on +Stephen's travels; and at the finish, the first-fruits of the day's +slaughter, fried in onions, were then turned from the pan into a dish +on the table, each piece steaming and hissing till it reached their very +mouths. + +It must be owned that the gentlemanly son of the house looked rather +out of place in the course of this operation. Nor was his mind +quite philosophic enough to allow him to be comfortable with these +old-established persons, his father's friends. He had never lived long +at home--scarcely at all since his childhood. The presence of William +Worm was the most awkward feature of the case, for, though Worm had left +the house of Mr. Swancourt, the being hand-in-glove with a ci-devant +servitor reminded Stephen too forcibly of the vicar's classification +of himself before he went from England. Mrs. Smith was conscious of +the defect in her arrangements which had brought about the undesired +conjunction. She spoke to Stephen privately. + +'I am above having such people here, Stephen; but what could I do? And +your father is so rough in his nature that he's more mixed up with them +than need be.' + +'Never mind, mother,' said Stephen; 'I'll put up with it now.' + +'When we leave my lord's service, and get further up the country--as +I hope we shall soon--it will be different. We shall be among fresh +people, and in a larger house, and shall keep ourselves up a bit, I +hope.' + +'Is Miss Swancourt at home, do you know?' Stephen inquired + +'Yes, your father saw her this morning.' + +'Do you often see her?' + +'Scarcely ever. Mr. Glim, the curate, calls occasionally, but the +Swancourts don't come into the village now any more than to drive +through it. They dine at my lord's oftener than they used. Ah, here's a +note was brought this morning for you by a boy.' + +Stephen eagerly took the note and opened it, his mother watching him. He +read what Elfride had written and sent before she started for the cliff +that afternoon: + + +'Yes; I will meet you in the church at nine to-night.--E. S.' + + +'I don't know, Stephen,' his mother said meaningly, 'whe'r you still +think about Miss Elfride, but if I were you I wouldn't concern about +her. They say that none of old Mrs. Swancourt's money will come to her +step-daughter.' + +'I see the evening has turned out fine; I am going out for a little +while to look round the place,' he said, evading the direct query. +'Probably by the time I return our visitors will be gone, and we'll have +a more confidential talk.' + + + + +Chapter XXIV + + 'Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour.' + + +The rain had ceased since the sunset, but it was a cloudy night; and +the light of the moon, softened and dispersed by its misty veil, was +distributed over the land in pale gray. + +A dark figure stepped from the doorway of John Smith's river-side +cottage, and strode rapidly towards West Endelstow with a light +footstep. Soon ascending from the lower levels he turned a corner, +followed a cart-track, and saw the tower of the church he was in quest +of distinctly shaped forth against the sky. In less than half an hour +from the time of starting he swung himself over the churchyard stile. + +The wild irregular enclosure was as much as ever an integral part of the +old hill. The grass was still long, the graves were shaped precisely as +passing years chose to alter them from their orthodox form as laid down +by Martin Cannister, and by Stephen's own grandfather before him. + +A sound sped into the air from the direction in which Castle Boterel +lay. It was the striking of the church clock, distinct in the still +atmosphere as if it had come from the tower hard by, which, wrapt in its +solitary silentness, gave out no such sounds of life. + +'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.' Stephen +carefully counted the strokes, though he well knew their number +beforehand. Nine o'clock. It was the hour Elfride had herself named as +the most convenient for meeting him. + +Stephen stood at the door of the porch and listened. He could have heard +the softest breathing of any person within the porch; nobody was there. +He went inside the doorway, sat down upon the stone bench, and waited +with a beating heart. + +The faint sounds heard only accentuated the silence. The rising and +falling of the sea, far away along the coast, was the most important. +A minor sound was the scurr of a distant night-hawk. Among the minutest +where all were minute were the light settlement of gossamer fragments +floating in the air, a toad humbly labouring along through the +grass near the entrance, the crackle of a dead leaf which a worm was +endeavouring to pull into the earth, a waft of air, getting nearer and +nearer, and expiring at his feet under the burden of a winged seed. + +Among all these soft sounds came not the only soft sound he cared to +hear--the footfall of Elfride. + +For a whole quarter of an hour Stephen sat thus intent, without moving +a muscle. At the end of that time he walked to the west front of the +church. Turning the corner of the tower, a white form stared him in the +face. He started back, and recovered himself. It was the tomb of young +farmer Jethway, looking still as fresh and as new as when it was +first erected, the white stone in which it was hewn having a singular +weirdness amid the dark blue slabs from local quarries, of which the +whole remaining gravestones were formed. + +He thought of the night when he had sat thereon with Elfride as his +companion, and well remembered his regret that she had received, even +unwillingly, earlier homage than his own. But his present tangible +anxiety reduced such a feeling to sentimental nonsense in comparison; +and he strolled on over the graves to the border of the churchyard, +whence in the daytime could be clearly seen the vicarage and the present +residence of the Swancourts. No footstep was discernible upon the path +up the hill, but a light was shining from a window in the last-named +house. + +Stephen knew there could be no mistake about the time or place, and no +difficulty about keeping the engagement. He waited yet longer, passing +from impatience into a mood which failed to take any account of the +lapse of time. He was awakened from his reverie by Castle Boterel clock. + +One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN. + +One little fall of the hammer in addition to the number it had been +sharp pleasure to hear, and what a difference to him! + +He left the churchyard on the side opposite to his point of entrance, +and went down the hill. Slowly he drew near the gate of her house. This +he softly opened, and walked up the gravel drive to the door. Here he +paused for several minutes. + +At the expiration of that time the murmured speech of a manly voice came +out to his ears through an open window behind the corner of the house. +This was responded to by a clear soft laugh. It was the laugh of +Elfride. + +Stephen was conscious of a gnawing pain at his heart. He retreated as he +had come. There are disappointments which wring us, and there are those +which inflict a wound whose mark we bear to our graves. Such are so +keen that no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate +them: they become registered as a permanent loss of happiness. Such a +one was Stephen's now: the crowning aureola of the dream had been the +meeting here by stealth; and if Elfride had come to him only ten +minutes after he had turned away, the disappointment would have been +recognizable still. + +When the young man reached home he found there a letter which had +arrived in his absence. Believing it to contain some reason for her +non-appearance, yet unable to imagine one that could justify her, he +hastily tore open the envelope. + +The paper contained not a word from Elfride. It was the deposit-note for +his two hundred pounds. On the back was the form of a cheque, and this +she had filled up with the same sum, payable to the bearer. + +Stephen was confounded. He attempted to divine her motive. Considering +how limited was his knowledge of her later actions, he guessed rather +shrewdly that, between the time of her sending the note in the morning +and the evening's silent refusal of his gift, something had occurred +which had caused a total change in her attitude towards him. + +He knew not what to do. It seemed absurd now to go to her father next +morning, as he had purposed, and ask for an engagement with her, a +possibility impending all the while that Elfride herself would not be +on his side. Only one course recommended itself as wise. To wait and see +what the days would bring forth; to go and execute his commissions in +Birmingham; then to return, learn if anything had happened, and try what +a meeting might do; perhaps her surprise at his backwardness would bring +her forward to show latent warmth as decidedly as in old times. + +This act of patience was in keeping only with the nature of a man +precisely of Stephen's constitution. Nine men out of ten would perhaps +have rushed off, got into her presence, by fair means or foul, and +provoked a catastrophe of some sort. Possibly for the better, probably +for the worse. + +He started for Birmingham the next morning. A day's delay would have +made no difference; but he could not rest until he had begun and ended +the programme proposed to himself. Bodily activity will sometimes take +the sting out of anxiety as completely as assurance itself. + + + + +Chapter XXV + + 'Mine own familiar friend.' + + +During these days of absence Stephen lived under alternate conditions. +Whenever his emotions were active, he was in agony. Whenever he was not +in agony, the business in hand had driven out of his mind by sheer force +all deep reflection on the subject of Elfride and love. + +By the time he took his return journey at the week's end, Stephen had +very nearly worked himself up to an intention to call and see her face +to face. On this occasion also he adopted his favourite route--by the +little summer steamer from Bristol to Castle Boterel; the time saved +by speed on the railway being wasted at junctions, and in following a +devious course. + +It was a bright silent evening at the beginning of September when Smith +again set foot in the little town. He felt inclined to linger awhile +upon the quay before ascending the hills, having formed a romantic +intention to go home by way of her house, yet not wishing to wander in +its neighbourhood till the evening shades should sufficiently screen him +from observation. + +And thus waiting for night's nearer approach, he watched the placid +scene, over which the pale luminosity of the west cast a sorrowful +monochrome, that became slowly embrowned by the dusk. A star appeared, +and another, and another. They sparkled amid the yards and rigging +of the two coal brigs lying alangside, as if they had been tiny lamps +suspended in the ropes. The masts rocked sleepily to the infinitesimal +flux of the tide, which clucked and gurgled with idle regularity in +nooks and holes of the harbour wall. + +The twilight was now quite pronounced enough for his purpose; and as, +rather sad at heart, he was about to move on, a little boat containing +two persons glided up the middle of the harbour with the lightness of +a shadow. The boat came opposite him, passed on, and touched the +landing-steps at the further end. One of its occupants was a man, as +Stephen had known by the easy stroke of the oars. When the pair ascended +the steps, and came into greater prominence, he was enabled to discern +that the second personage was a woman; also that she wore a white +decoration--apparently a feather--in her hat or bonnet, which spot of +white was the only distinctly visible portion of her clothing. + +Stephen remained a moment in their rear, and they passed on, when he +pursued his way also, and soon forgot the circumstance. Having crossed +a bridge, forsaken the high road, and entered the footpath which led +up the vale to West Endelstow, he heard a little wicket click softly +together some yards ahead. By the time that Stephen had reached the +wicket and passed it, he heard another click of precisely the same +nature from another gate yet further on. Clearly some person or persons +were preceding him along the path, their footsteps being rendered +noiseless by the soft carpet of turf. Stephen now walked a little +quicker, and perceived two forms. One of them bore aloft the white +feather he had noticed in the woman's hat on the quay: they were the +couple he had seen in the boat. Stephen dropped a little further to the +rear. + +From the bottom of the valley, along which the path had hitherto lain, +beside the margin of the trickling streamlet, another path now diverged, +and ascended the slope of the left-hand hill. This footway led only to +the residence of Mrs. Swancourt and a cottage or two in its vicinity. No +grass covered this diverging path in portions of its length, and Stephen +was reminded that the pair in front of him had taken this route by the +occasional rattle of loose stones under their feet. Stephen climbed in +the same direction, but for some undefined reason he trod more softly +than did those preceding him. His mind was unconsciously in exercise +upon whom the woman might be--whether a visitor to The Crags, a servant, +or Elfride. He put it to himself yet more forcibly; could the lady be +Elfride? A possible reason for her unaccountable failure to keep the +appointment with him returned with painful force. + +They entered the grounds of the house by the side wicket, whence +the path, now wide and well trimmed, wound fantastically through the +shrubbery to an octagonal pavilion called the Belvedere, by reason of +the comprehensive view over the adjacent district that its green seats +afforded. The path passed this erection and went on to the house as well +as to the gardener's cottage on the other side, straggling thence +to East Endelstow; so that Stephen felt no hesitation in entering a +promenade which could scarcely be called private. + +He fancied that he heard the gate open and swing together again behind +him. Turning, he saw nobody. + +The people of the boat came to the summer-house. One of them spoke. + +'I am afraid we shall get a scolding for being so late.' + +Stephen instantly recognised the familiar voice, richer and fuller now +than it used to be. 'Elfride!' he whispered to himself, and held fast +by a sapling, to steady himself under the agitation her presence caused +him. His heart swerved from its beat; he shunned receiving the meaning +he sought. + +'A breeze is rising again; how the ash tree rustles!' said Elfride. +'Don't you hear it? I wonder what the time is.' + +Stephen relinquished the sapling. + +'I will get a light and tell you. Step into the summer-house; the air is +quiet there.' + +The cadence of that voice--its peculiarity seemed to come home to him +like that of some notes of the northern birds on his return to his +native clime, as an old natural thing renewed, yet not particularly +noticed as natural before that renewal. + +They entered the Belvedere. In the lower part it was formed of close +wood-work nailed crosswise, and had openings in the upper by way of +windows. + +The scratch of a striking light was heard, and a bright glow radiated +from the interior of the building. The light gave birth to dancing +leaf-shadows, stem-shadows, lustrous streaks, dots, sparkles, and +threads of silver sheen of all imaginable variety and transience. It +awakened gnats, which flew towards it, revealed shiny gossamer threads, +disturbed earthworms. Stephen gave but little attention to these +phenomena, and less time. He saw in the summer-house a strongly +illuminated picture. + +First, the face of his friend and preceptor Henry Knight, between whom +and himself an estrangement had arisen, not from any definite causes +beyond those of absence, increasing age, and diverging sympathies. + +Next, his bright particular star, Elfride. The face of Elfride was more +womanly than when she had called herself his, but as clear and healthy +as ever. Her plenteous twines of beautiful hair were looking much as +usual, with the exception of a slight modification in their arrangement +in deference to the changes of fashion. + +Their two foreheads were close together, almost touching, and both were +looking down. Elfride was holding her watch, Knight was holding the +light with one hand, his left arm being round her waist. Part of the +scene reached Stephen's eyes through the horizontal bars of woodwork, +which crossed their forms like the ribs of a skeleton. + +Knight's arm stole still further round the waist of Elfride. + +'It is half-past eight,' she said in a low voice, which had a peculiar +music in it, seemingly born of a thrill of pleasure at the new proof +that she was beloved. + +The flame dwindled down, died away, and all was wrapped in a darkness to +which the gloom before the illumination bore no comparison in apparent +density. Stephen, shattered in spirit and sick to his heart's +centre, turned away. In turning, he saw a shadowy outline behind +the summer-house on the other side. His eyes grew accustomed to the +darkness. Was the form a human form, or was it an opaque bush of +juniper? + +The lovers arose, brushed against the laurestines, and pursued their +way to the house. The indistinct figure had moved, and now passed across +Smith's front. So completely enveloped was the person, that it was +impossible to discern him or her any more than as a shape. The shape +glided noiselessly on. + +Stephen stepped forward, fearing any mischief was intended to the other +two. 'Who are you?' he said. + +'Never mind who I am,' answered a weak whisper from the enveloping +folds. 'WHAT I am, may she be! Perhaps I knew well--ah, so well!--a +youth whose place you took, as he there now takes yours. Will you let +her break your heart, and bring you to an untimely grave, as she did the +one before you?' + +'You are Mrs. Jethway, I think. What do you do here? And why do you talk +so wildly?' + +'Because my heart is desolate, and nobody cares about it. May hers be so +that brought trouble upon me!' + +'Silence!' said Stephen, staunch to Elfride in spite of himself. 'She +would harm nobody wilfully, never would she! How do you come here?' + +'I saw the two coming up the path, and wanted to learn if she were not +one of them. Can I help disliking her if I think of the past? Can I +help watching her if I remember my boy? Can I help ill-wishing her if I +well-wish him?' + +The bowed form went on, passed through the wicket, and was enveloped by +the shadows of the field. + +Stephen had heard that Mrs. Jethway, since the death of her son, had +become a crazed, forlorn woman; and bestowing a pitying thought +upon her, he dismissed her fancied wrongs from his mind, but not her +condemnation of Elfride's faithlessness. That entered into and mingled +with the sensations his new experience had begotten. The tale told by +the little scene he had witnessed ran parallel with the unhappy woman's +opinion, which, however baseless it might have been antecedently, had +become true enough as regarded himself. + +A slow weight of despair, as distinct from a violent paroxysm as +starvation from a mortal shot, filled him and wrung him body and soul. +The discovery had not been altogether unexpected, for throughout his +anxiety of the last few days since the night in the churchyard, he had +been inclined to construe the uncertainty unfavourably for himself. His +hopes for the best had been but periodic interruptions to a chronic fear +of the worst. + +A strange concomitant of his misery was the singularity of its form. +That his rival should be Knight, whom once upon a time he had adored +as a man is very rarely adored by another in modern times, and whom +he loved now, added deprecation to sorrow, and cynicism to both. Henry +Knight, whose praises he had so frequently trumpeted in her ears, of +whom she had actually been jealous, lest she herself should be lessened +in Stephen's love on account of him, had probably won her the more +easily by reason of those very praises which he had only ceased to utter +by her command. She had ruled him like a queen in that matter, as in +all others. Stephen could tell by her manner, brief as had been his +observation of it, and by her words, few as they were, that her position +was far different with Knight. That she looked up at and adored her new +lover from below his pedestal, was even more perceptible than that she +had smiled down upon Stephen from a height above him. + +The suddenness of Elfride's renunciation of himself was food for more +torture. To an unimpassioned outsider, it admitted of at least two +interpretations--it might either have proceeded from an endeavour to be +faithful to her first choice, till the lover seen absolutely overpowered +the lover remembered, or from a wish not to lose his love till sure of +the love of another. But to Stephen Smith the motive involved in the +latter alternative made it untenable where Elfride was the actor. + +He mused on her letters to him, in which she had never mentioned a +syllable concerning Knight. It is desirable, however, to observe that +only in two letters could she possibly have done so. One was written +about a week before Knight's arrival, when, though she did not mention +his promised coming to Stephen, she had hardly a definite reason in her +mind for neglecting to do it. In the next she did casually allude to +Knight. But Stephen had left Bombay long before that letter arrived. + +Stephen looked at the black form of the adjacent house, where it cut a +dark polygonal notch out of the sky, and felt that he hated the spot. +He did not know many facts of the case, but could not help instinctively +associating Elfride's fickleness with the marriage of her father, and +their introduction to London society. He closed the iron gate bounding +the shrubbery as noiselessly as he had opened it, and went into the +grassy field. Here he could see the old vicarage, the house alone that +was associated with the sweet pleasant time of his incipient love for +Elfride. Turning sadly from the place that was no longer a nook in +which his thoughts might nestle when he was far away, he wandered in the +direction of the east village, to reach his father's house before they +retired to rest. + +The nearest way to the cottage was by crossing the park. He did not +hurry. Happiness frequently has reason for haste, but it is seldom +that desolation need scramble or strain. Sometimes he paused under the +low-hanging arms of the trees, looking vacantly on the ground. + +Stephen was standing thus, scarcely less crippled in thought than he was +blank in vision, when a clear sound permeated the quiet air about him, +and spread on far beyond. The sound was the stroke of a bell from the +tower of East Endelstow Church, which stood in a dell not forty yards +from Lord Luxellian's mansion, and within the park enclosure. Another +stroke greeted his ear, and gave character to both: then came a slow +succession of them. + +'Somebody is dead,' he said aloud. + +The death-knell of an inhabitant of the eastern parish was being tolled. + +An unusual feature in the tolling was that it had not been begun +according to the custom in Endelstow and other parishes in the +neighbourhood. At every death the sex and age of the deceased were +announced by a system of changes. Three times three strokes signified +that the departed one was a man; three times two, a woman; twice +three, a boy; twice two, a girl. The regular continuity of the tolling +suggested that it was the resumption rather than the beginning of a +knell--the opening portion of which Stephen had not been near enough to +hear. + +The momentary anxiety he had felt with regard to his parents passed +away. He had left them in perfect health, and had any serious illness +seized either, a communication would have reached him ere this. At the +same time, since his way homeward lay under the churchyard yews, he +resolved to look into the belfry in passing by, and speak a word to +Martin Cannister, who would be there. + +Stephen reached the brow of the hill, and felt inclined to renounce his +idea. His mood was such that talking to any person to whom he could not +unburden himself would be wearisome. However, before he could put any +inclination into effect, the young man saw from amid the trees a bright +light shining, the rays from which radiated like needles through the +sad plumy foliage of the yews. Its direction was from the centre of the +churchyard. + +Stephen mechanically went forward. Never could there be a greater +contrast between two places of like purpose than between this graveyard +and that of the further village. Here the grass was carefully tended, +and formed virtually a part of the manor-house lawn; flowers and shrubs +being planted indiscriminately over both, whilst the few graves visible +were mathematically exact in shape and smoothness, appearing in the +daytime like chins newly shaven. There was no wall, the division between +God's Acre and Lord Luxellian's being marked only by a few square +stones set at equidistant points. Among those persons who have romantic +sentiments on the subject of their last dwelling-place, probably the +greater number would have chosen such a spot as this in preference to +any other: a few would have fancied a constraint in its trim neatness, +and would have preferred the wild hill-top of the neighbouring site, +with Nature in her most negligent attire. + +The light in the churchyard he next discovered to have its source in a +point very near the ground, and Stephen imagined it might come from a +lantern in the interior of a partly-dug grave. But a nearer approach +showed him that its position was immediately under the wall of the +aisle, and within the mouth of an archway. He could now hear voices, and +the truth of the whole matter began to dawn upon him. Walking on towards +the opening, Smith discerned on his left hand a heap of earth, +and before him a flight of stone steps which the removed earth had +uncovered, leading down under the edifice. It was the entrance to a +large family vault, extending under the north aisle. + +Stephen had never before seen it open, and descending one or two steps +stooped to look under the arch. The vault appeared to be crowded with +coffins, with the exception of an open central space, which had been +necessarily kept free for ingress and access to the sides, round three +of which the coffins were stacked in stone bins or niches. + +The place was well lighted with candles stuck in slips of wood that were +fastened to the wall. On making the descent of another step the living +inhabitants of the vault were recognizable. They were his father the +master-mason, an under-mason, Martin Cannister, and two or three young +and old labouring-men. Crowbars and workmen's hammers were scattered +about. The whole company, sitting round on coffins which had been +removed from their places, apparently for some alteration or enlargement +of the vault, were eating bread and cheese, and drinking ale from a cup +with two handles, passed round from each to each. + +'Who is dead?' Stephen inquired, stepping down. + + + + +Chapter XXVI + + 'To that last nothing under earth.' + + +All eyes were turned to the entrance as Stephen spoke, and the +ancient-mannered conclave scrutinized him inquiringly. + +'Why, 'tis our Stephen!' said his father, rising from his seat; and, +still retaining the frothy mug in his left hand, he swung forward his +right for a grasp. 'Your mother is expecting ye--thought you would have +come afore dark. But you'll wait and go home with me? I have all but +done for the day, and was going directly.' + +'Yes, 'tis Master Stephy, sure enough. Glad to see you so soon again, +Master Smith,' said Martin Cannister, chastening the gladness expressed +in his words by a strict neutrality of countenance, in order to +harmonize the feeling as much as possible with the solemnity of a family +vault. + +'The same to you, Martin; and you, William,' said Stephen, nodding +around to the rest, who, having their mouths full of bread and cheese, +were of necessity compelled to reply merely by compressing their eyes to +friendly lines and wrinkles. + +'And who is dead?' Stephen repeated. + +'Lady Luxellian, poor gentlewoman, as we all shall, said the +under-mason. 'Ay, and we be going to enlarge the vault to make room for +her.' + +'When did she die?' + +'Early this morning,' his father replied, with an appearance of +recurring to a chronic thought. 'Yes, this morning. Martin hev been +tolling ever since, almost. There, 'twas expected. She was very limber.' + +'Ay, poor soul, this morning,' resumed the under-mason, a marvellously +old man, whose skin seemed so much too large for his body that it would +not stay in position. 'She must know by this time whether she's to go up +or down, poor woman.' + +'What was her age?' + +'Not more than seven or eight and twenty by candlelight. But, Lord! by +day 'a was forty if 'a were an hour.' + +'Ay, night-time or day-time makes a difference of twenty years to rich +feymels,' observed Martin. + +'She was one and thirty really,' said John Smith. 'I had it from them +that know.' + +'Not more than that!' + +''A looked very bad, poor lady. In faith, ye might say she was dead for +years afore 'a would own it.' + +'As my old father used to say, "dead, but wouldn't drop down."' + +'I seed her, poor soul,' said a labourer from behind some removed +coffins, 'only but last Valentine's-day of all the world. 'A was arm +in crook wi' my lord. I says to myself, "You be ticketed Churchyard, my +noble lady, although you don't dream on't."' + +'I suppose my lord will write to all the other lords anointed in the +nation, to let 'em know that she that was is now no more?' + +''Tis done and past. I see a bundle of letters go off an hour after the +death. Sich wonderful black rims as they letters had--half-an-inch wide, +at the very least.' + +'Too much,' observed Martin. 'In short, 'tis out of the question that +a human being can be so mournful as black edges half-an-inch wide. I'm +sure people don't feel more than a very narrow border when they feels +most of all.' + +'And there are two little girls, are there not?' said Stephen. + +'Nice clane little faces!--left motherless now.' + +'They used to come to Parson Swancourt's to play with Miss Elfride +when I were there,' said William Worm. 'Ah, they did so's!' The latter +sentence was introduced to add the necessary melancholy to a remark +which, intrinsically, could hardly be made to possess enough for the +occasion. 'Yes,' continued Worm, 'they'd run upstairs, they'd run down; +flitting about with her everywhere. Very fond of her, they were. Ah, +well!' + +'Fonder than ever they were of their mother, so 'tis said here and +there,' added a labourer. + +'Well, you see, 'tis natural. Lady Luxellian stood aloof from +'em so--was so drowsy-like, that they couldn't love her in the +jolly-companion way children want to like folks. Only last winter I seed +Miss Elfride talking to my lady and the two children, and Miss Elfride +wiped their noses for em' SO careful--my lady never once seeing that it +wanted doing; and, naturally, children take to people that's their best +friend.' + +'Be as 'twill, the woman is dead and gone, and we must make a place for +her,' said John. 'Come, lads, drink up your ale, and we'll just rid this +corner, so as to have all clear for beginning at the wall, as soon as +'tis light to-morrow.' + +Stephen then asked where Lady Luxellian was to lie. + +'Here,' said his father. 'We are going to set back this wall and make a +recess; and 'tis enough for us to do before the funeral. When my lord's +mother died, she said, "John, the place must be enlarged before another +can be put in." But 'a never expected 'twould be wanted so soon. Better +move Lord George first, I suppose, Simeon?' + +He pointed with his foot to a heavy coffin, covered with what had +originally been red velvet, the colour of which could only just be +distinguished now. + +'Just as ye think best, Master John,' replied the shrivelled mason. 'Ah, +poor Lord George!' he continued, looking contemplatively at the huge +coffin; 'he and I were as bitter enemies once as any could be when one +is a lord and t'other only a mortal man. Poor fellow! He'd clap his hand +upon my shoulder and cuss me as familial and neighbourly as if he'd been +a common chap. Ay, 'a cussed me up hill and 'a cussed me down; and then +'a would rave out again, and the goold clamps of his fine new teeth +would glisten in the sun like fetters of brass, while I, being a small +man and poor, was fain to say nothing at all. Such a strappen fine +gentleman as he was too! Yes, I rather liked en sometimes. But once now +and then, when I looked at his towering height, I'd think in my inside, +"What a weight you'll be, my lord, for our arms to lower under the aisle +of Endelstow Church some day!"' + +'And was he?' inquired a young labourer. + +'He was. He was five hundredweight if 'a were a pound. What with his +lead, and his oak, and his handles, and his one thing and t'other'--here +the ancient man slapped his hand upon the cover with a force that caused +a rattle among the bones inside--'he half broke my back when I took +his feet to lower en down the steps there. "Ah," saith I to John +there--didn't I, John?--"that ever one man's glory should be such a +weight upon another man!" But there, I liked my lord George sometimes.' + +''Tis a strange thought,' said another, 'that while they be all here +under one roof, a snug united family o' Luxellians, they be really +scattered miles away from one another in the form of good sheep and +wicked goats, isn't it?' + +'True; 'tis a thought to look at.' + +'And that one, if he's gone upward, don't know what his wife is doing +no more than the man in the moon if she's gone downward. And that some +unfortunate one in the hot place is a-hollering across to a lucky one up +in the clouds, and quite forgetting their bodies be boxed close together +all the time.' + +'Ay, 'tis a thought to look at, too, that I can say "Hullo!" close to +fiery Lord George, and 'a can't hear me.' + +'And that I be eating my onion close to dainty Lady Jane's nose, and she +can't smell me.' + +'What do 'em put all their heads one way for?' inquired a young man. + +'Because 'tis churchyard law, you simple. The law of the living is, that +a man shall be upright and down-right, and the law of the dead is, that +a man shall be east and west. Every state of society have its laws.' + +'We must break the law wi' a few of the poor souls, however. Come, +buckle to,' said the master-mason. + +And they set to work anew. + +The order of interment could be distinctly traced by observing the +appearance of the coffins as they lay piled around. On those which +had been standing there but a generation or two the trappings still +remained. Those of an earlier period showed bare wood, with a few +tattered rags dangling therefrom. Earlier still, the wood lay in +fragments on the floor of the niche, and the coffin consisted of naked +lead alone; whilst in the case of the very oldest, even the lead was +bulging and cracking in pieces, revealing to the curious eye a heap of +dust within. The shields upon many were quite loose, and removable by +the hand, their lustreless surfaces still indistinctly exhibiting the +name and title of the deceased. + +Overhead the groins and concavities of the arches curved in all +directions, dropping low towards the walls, where the height was no more +than sufficient to enable a person to stand upright. + +The body of George the fourteenth baron, together with two or three +others, all of more recent date than the great bulk of coffins piled +there, had, for want of room, been placed at the end of the vault on +tressels, and not in niches like the others. These it was necessary to +remove, to form behind them the chamber in which they were ultimately to +be deposited. Stephen, finding the place and proceedings in keeping with +the sombre colours of his mind, waited there still. + +'Simeon, I suppose you can mind poor Lady Elfride, and how she ran away +with the actor?' said John Smith, after awhile. 'I think it fell upon +the time my father was sexton here. Let us see--where is she?' + +'Here somewhere,' returned Simeon, looking round him. + +'Why, I've got my arms round the very gentlewoman at this moment.' +He lowered the end of the coffin he was holding, wiped his face, +and throwing a morsel of rotten wood upon another as an indicator, +continued: 'That's her husband there. They was as fair a couple as you +should see anywhere round about; and a good-hearted pair likewise. Ay, I +can mind it, though I was but a chiel at the time. She fell in love with +this young man of hers, and their banns were asked in some church in +London; and the old lord her father actually heard 'em asked the three +times, and didn't notice her name, being gabbled on wi' a host of +others. When she had married she told her father, and 'a fleed into a +monstrous rage, and said she shouldn' hae a farthing. Lady Elfride said +she didn't think of wishing it; if he'd forgie her 'twas all she asked, +and as for a living, she was content to play plays with her husband. +This frightened the old lord, and 'a gie'd 'em a house to live in, and a +great garden, and a little field or two, and a carriage, and a good +few guineas. Well, the poor thing died at her first gossiping, and her +husband--who was as tender-hearted a man as ever eat meat, and would +have died for her--went wild in his mind, and broke his heart (so 'twas +said). Anyhow, they were buried the same day--father and mother--but the +baby lived. Ay, my lord's family made much of that man then, and put him +here with his wife, and there in the corner the man is now. The Sunday +after there was a funeral sermon: the text was, "Or ever the silver cord +be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken;" and when 'twas preaching the +men drew their hands across their eyes several times, and every woman +cried out loud.' + +'And what became of the baby?' said Stephen, who had frequently heard +portions of the story. + +'She was brought up by her grandmother, and a pretty maid she were. And +she must needs run away with the curate--Parson Swancourt that is now. +Then her grandmother died, and the title and everything went away to +another branch of the family altogether. Parson Swancourt wasted a good +deal of his wife's money, and she left him Miss Elfride. That trick +of running away seems to be handed down in families, like craziness or +gout. And they two women be alike as peas.' + +'Which two?' + +'Lady Elfride and young Miss that's alive now. The same hair and eyes: +but Miss Elfride's mother was darker a good deal.' + +'Life's a strangle bubble, ye see,' said William Worm musingly. 'For +if the Lord's anointment had descended upon women instead of men, Miss +Elfride would be Lord Luxellian--Lady, I mane. But as it is, the blood +is run out, and she's nothing to the Luxellian family by law, whatever +she may be by gospel.' + +'I used to fancy,' said Simeon, 'when I seed Miss Elfride hugging the +little ladyships, that there was a likeness; but I suppose 'twas only my +dream, for years must have altered the old family shape.' + +'And now we'll move these two, and home-along,' interposed John Smith, +reviving, as became a master, the spirit of labour, which had showed +unmistakable signs of being nearly vanquished by the spirit of chat, +'The flagon of ale we don't want we'll let bide here till to-morrow; +none of the poor souls will touch it 'a b'lieve.' + +So the evening's work was concluded, and the party drew from the abode +of the quiet dead, closing the old iron door, and shooting the lock +loudly into the huge copper staple--an incongruous act of imprisonment +towards those who had no dreams of escape. + + + + +Chapter XXVII + + 'How should I greet thee?' + + +Love frequently dies of time alone--much more frequently of +displacement. With Elfride Swancourt, a powerful reason why the +displacement should be successful was that the new-comer was a greater +man than the first. By the side of the instructive and piquant snubbings +she received from Knight, Stephen's general agreeableness seemed watery; +by the side of Knight's spare love-making, Stephen's continual outflow +seemed lackadaisical. She had begun to sigh for somebody further on in +manhood. Stephen was hardly enough of a man. + +Perhaps there was a proneness to inconstancy in her nature--a nature, to +those who contemplate it from a standpoint beyond the influence of +that inconstancy, the most exquisite of all in its plasticity and ready +sympathies. Partly, too, Stephen's failure to make his hold on her heart +a permanent one was his too timid habit of dispraising himself beside +her--a peculiarity which, exercised towards sensible men, stirs a kindly +chord of attachment that a marked assertiveness would leave untouched, +but inevitably leads the most sensible woman in the world to undervalue +him who practises it. Directly domineering ceases in the man, snubbing +begins in the woman; the trite but no less unfortunate fact being +that the gentler creature rarely has the capacity to appreciate fair +treatment from her natural complement. The abiding perception of the +position of Stephen's parents had, of course, a little to do with +Elfride's renunciation. To such girls poverty may not be, as to the more +worldly masses of humanity, a sin in itself; but it is a sin, because +graceful and dainty manners seldom exist in such an atmosphere. Few +women of old family can be thoroughly taught that a fine soul may wear a +smock-frock, and an admittedly common man in one is but a worm in their +eyes. John Smith's rough hands and clothes, his wife's dialect, the +necessary narrowness of their ways, being constantly under Elfride's +notice, were not without their deflecting influence. + +On reaching home after the perilous adventure by the sea-shore, Knight +had felt unwell, and retired almost immediately. The young lady who +had so materially assisted him had done the same, but she reappeared, +properly clothed, about five o'clock. She wandered restlessly about the +house, but not on account of their joint narrow escape from death. The +storm which had torn the tree had merely bowed the reed, and with the +deliverance of Knight all deep thought of the accident had left her. The +mutual avowal which it had been the means of precipitating occupied a +far longer length of her meditations. + +Elfride's disquiet now was on account of that miserable promise to meet +Stephen, which returned like a spectre again and again. The perception +of his littleness beside Knight grew upon her alarmingly. She now +thought how sound had been her father's advice to her to give him up, +and was as passionately desirous of following it as she had hitherto +been averse. Perhaps there is nothing more hardening to the tone of +young minds than thus to discover how their dearest and strongest wishes +become gradually attuned by Time the Cynic to the very note of some +selfish policy which in earlier days they despised. + +The hour of appointment came, and with it a crisis; and with the crisis +a collapse. + +'God forgive me--I can't meet Stephen!' she exclaimed to herself. 'I +don't love him less, but I love Mr. Knight more!' + +Yes: she would save herself from a man not fit for her--in spite of +vows. She would obey her father, and have no more to do with Stephen +Smith. Thus the fickle resolve showed signs of assuming the complexion +of a virtue. + +The following days were passed without any definite avowal from Knight's +lips. Such solitary walks and scenes as that witnessed by Smith in the +summer-house were frequent, but he courted her so intangibly that to any +but such a delicate perception as Elfride's it would have appeared no +courtship at all. The time now really began to be sweet with her. She +dismissed the sense of sin in her past actions, and was automatic in +the intoxication of the moment. The fact that Knight made no actual +declaration was no drawback. Knowing since the betrayal of his +sentiments that love for her really existed, she preferred it for the +present in its form of essence, and was willing to avoid for awhile the +grosser medium of words. Their feelings having been forced to a rather +premature demonstration, a reaction was indulged in by both. + +But no sooner had she got rid of her troubled conscience on the matter +of faithlessness than a new anxiety confronted her. It was lest Knight +should accidentally meet Stephen in the parish, and that herself should +be the subject of discourse. + +Elfride, learning Knight more thoroughly, perceived that, far from +having a notion of Stephen's precedence, he had no idea that she had +ever been wooed before by anybody. On ordinary occasions she had a +tongue so frank as to show her whole mind, and a mind so straightforward +as to reveal her heart to its innermost shrine. But the time for a +change had come. She never alluded to even a knowledge of Knight's +friend. When women are secret they are secret indeed; and more often +than not they only begin to be secret with the advent of a second lover. + +The elopement was now a spectre worse than the first, and, like the +Spirit in Glenfinlas, it waxed taller with every attempt to lay it. +Her natural honesty invited her to confide in Knight, and trust to his +generosity for forgiveness: she knew also that as mere policy it would +be better to tell him early if he was to be told at all. The longer her +concealment the more difficult would be the revelation. But she put it +off. The intense fear which accompanies intense love in young women +was too strong to allow the exercise of a moral quality antagonistic to +itself: + + + 'Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; + Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.' + + +The match was looked upon as made by her father and mother. The vicar +remembered her promise to reveal the meaning of the telegram she had +received, and two days after the scene in the summer-house, asked her +pointedly. She was frank with him now. + +'I had been corresponding with Stephen Smith ever since he left England, +till lately,' she calmly said. + +'What!' cried the vicar aghast; 'under the eyes of Mr. Knight, too?' + +'No; when I found I cared most for Mr. Knight, I obeyed you.' + +'You were very kind, I'm sure. When did you begin to like Mr. Knight?' + +'I don't see that that is a pertinent question, papa; the telegram was +from the shipping agent, and was not sent at my request. It announced +the arrival of the vessel bringing him home.' + +'Home! What, is he here?' + +'Yes; in the village, I believe.' + +'Has he tried to see you?' + +'Only by fair means. But don't, papa, question me so! It is torture.' + +'I will only say one word more,' he replied. 'Have you met him?' + +'I have not. I can assure you that at the present moment there is +no more of an understanding between me and the young man you so much +disliked than between him and you. You told me to forget him; and I have +forgotten him.' + +'Oh, well; though you did not obey me in the beginning, you are a good +girl, Elfride, in obeying me at last.' + +'Don't call me "good," papa,' she said bitterly; 'you don't know--and +the less said about some things the better. Remember, Mr. Knight knows +nothing about the other. Oh, how wrong it all is! I don't know what I am +coming to.' + +'As matters stand, I should be inclined to tell him; or, at any rate, +I should not alarm myself about his knowing. He found out the other day +that this was the parish young Smith's father lives in--what puts you in +such a flurry?' + +'I can't say; but promise--pray don't let him know! It would be my +ruin!' + +'Pooh, child. Knight is a good fellow and a clever man; but at the same +time it does not escape my perceptions that he is no great catch for +you. Men of his turn of mind are nothing so wonderful in the way of +husbands. If you had chosen to wait, you might have mated with a much +wealthier man. But remember, I have not a word to say against your +having him, if you like him. Charlotte is delighted, as you know.' + +'Well, papa,' she said, smiling hopefully through a sigh, 'it is nice to +feel that in giving way to--to caring for him, I have pleased my family. +But I am not good; oh no, I am very far from that!' + +'None of us are good, I am sorry to say,' said her father blandly; 'but +girls have a chartered right to change their minds, you know. It has +been recognized by poets from time immemorial. Catullus says, "Mulier +cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento--" What a memory mine is! However, +the passage is, that a woman's words to a lover are as a matter of +course written only on wind and water. Now don't be troubled about that, +Elfride.' + +'Ah, you don't know!' + +They had been standing on the lawn, and Knight was now seen lingering +some way down a winding walk. When Elfride met him, it was with a much +greater lightness of heart; things were more straightforward now. The +responsibility of her fickleness seemed partly shifted from her own +shoulders to her father's. Still, there were shadows. + +'Ah, could he have known how far I went with Stephen, and yet have +said the same, how much happier I should be!' That was her prevailing +thought. + +In the afternoon the lovers went out together on horseback for an hour +or two; and though not wishing to be observed, by reason of the late +death of Lady Luxellian, whose funeral had taken place very privately +on the previous day, they yet found it necessary to pass East Endelstow +Church. + +The steps to the vault, as has been stated, were on the outside of the +building, immediately under the aisle wall. Being on horseback, +both Knight and Elfride could overlook the shrubs which screened the +church-yard. + +'Look, the vault seems still to be open,' said Knight. + +'Yes, it is open,' she answered + +'Who is that man close by it? The mason, I suppose?' + +'Yes.' + +'I wonder if it is John Smith, Stephen's father?' + +'I believe it is,' said Elfride, with apprehension. + +'Ah, and can it be? I should like to inquire how his son, my truant +protege', is going on. And from your father's description of the vault, +the interior must be interesting. Suppose we go in.' + +'Had we better, do you think? May not Lord Luxellian be there?' + +'It is not at all likely.' + +Elfride then assented, since she could do nothing else. Her heart, +which at first had quailed in consternation, recovered itself when she +considered the character of John Smith. A quiet unassuming man, he would +be sure to act towards her as before those love passages with his son, +which might have given a more pretentious mechanic airs. So without much +alarm she took Knight's arm after dismounting, and went with him between +and over the graves. The master-mason recognized her as she approached, +and, as usual, lifted his hat respectfully. + +'I know you to be Mr. Smith, my former friend Stephen's father,' said +Knight, directly he had scanned the embrowned and ruddy features of +John. + +'Yes, sir, I b'lieve I be.' + +'How is your son now? I have only once heard from him since he went to +India. I daresay you have heard him speak of me--Mr. Knight, who became +acquainted with him some years ago in Exonbury.' + +'Ay, that I have. Stephen is very well, thank you, sir, and he's in +England; in fact, he's at home. In short, sir, he's down in the vault +there, a-looking at the departed coffins.' + +Elfride's heart fluttered like a butterfly. + +Knight looked amazed. 'Well, that is extraordinary.' he murmured. 'Did +he know I was in the parish?' + +'I really can't say, sir,' said John, wishing himself out of the +entanglement he rather suspected than thoroughly understood. + +'Would it be considered an intrusion by the family if we went into the +vault?' + +'Oh, bless ye, no, sir; scores of folk have been stepping down. 'Tis +left open a-purpose.' + +'We will go down, Elfride.' + +'I am afraid the air is close,' she said appealingly. + +'Oh no, ma'am,' said John. 'We white-limed the walls and arches the day +'twas opened, as we always do, and again on the morning of the funeral; +the place is as sweet as a granary. + +'Then I should like you to accompany me, Elfie; having originally sprung +from the family too.' + +'I don't like going where death is so emphatically present. I'll stay by +the horses whilst you go in; they may get loose.' + +'What nonsense! I had no idea your sentiments were so flimsily formed as +to be perturbed by a few remnants of mortality; but stay out, if you are +so afraid, by all means.' + +'Oh no, I am not afraid; don't say that.' + +She held miserably to his arm, thinking that, perhaps, the revelation +might as well come at once as ten minutes later, for Stephen would be +sure to accompany his friend to his horse. + +At first, the gloom of the vault, which was lighted only by a couple of +candles, was too great to admit of their seeing anything distinctly; but +with a further advance Knight discerned, in front of the black masses +lining the walls, a young man standing, and writing in a pocket-book. + +Knight said one word: 'Stephen!' + +Stephen Smith, not being in such absolute ignorance of Knight's +whereabouts as Knight had been of Smith's instantly recognized his +friend, and knew by rote the outlines of the fair woman standing behind +him. + +Stephen came forward and shook him by the hand, without speaking. + +'Why have you not written, my boy?' said Knight, without in any way +signifying Elfride's presence to Stephen. To the essayist, Smith was +still the country lad whom he had patronized and tended; one to whom +the formal presentation of a lady betrothed to himself would have seemed +incongruous and absurd. + +'Why haven't you written to me?' said Stephen. + +'Ah, yes. Why haven't I? why haven't we? That's always the query +which we cannot clearly answer without an unsatisfactory sense of our +inadequacies. However, I have not forgotten you, Smith. And now we +have met; and we must meet again, and have a longer chat than this can +conveniently be. I must know all you have been doing. That you have +thriven, I know, and you must teach me the way.' + +Elfride stood in the background. Stephen had read the position at a +glance, and immediately guessed that she had never mentioned his name +to Knight. His tact in avoiding catastrophes was the chief quality which +made him intellectually respectable, in which quality he far transcended +Knight; and he decided that a tranquil issue out of the encounter, +without any harrowing of the feelings of either Knight or Elfride, was +to be attempted if possible. His old sense of indebtedness to Knight had +never wholly forsaken him; his love for Elfride was generous now. + +As far as he dared look at her movements he saw that her bearing towards +him would be dictated by his own towards her; and if he acted as a +stranger she would do likewise as a means of deliverance. Circumstances +favouring this course, it was desirable also to be rather reserved +towards Knight, to shorten the meeting as much as possible. + +'I am afraid that my time is almost too short to allow even of such a +pleasure,' he said. 'I leave here to-morrow. And until I start for the +Continent and India, which will be in a fortnight, I shall have hardly a +moment to spare.' + +Knight's disappointment and dissatisfied looks at this reply sent a pang +through Stephen as great as any he had felt at the sight of Elfride. The +words about shortness of time were literally true, but their tone was +far from being so. He would have been gratified to talk with Knight as +in past times, and saw as a dead loss to himself that, to save the woman +who cared nothing for him, he was deliberately throwing away his friend. + +'Oh, I am sorry to hear that,' said Knight, in a changed tone. 'But +of course, if you have weighty concerns to attend to, they must not be +neglected. And if this is to be our first and last meeting, let me say +that I wish you success with all my heart!' Knight's warmth revived +towards the end; the solemn impressions he was beginning to receive +from the scene around them abstracting from his heart as a puerility any +momentary vexation at words. 'It is a strange place for us to meet in,' +he continued, looking round the vault. + +Stephen briefly assented, and there was a silence. The blackened coffins +were now revealed more clearly than at first, the whitened walls and +arches throwing them forward in strong relief. It was a scene which was +remembered by all three as an indelible mark in their history. Knight, +with an abstracted face, was standing between his companions, though a +little in advance of them, Elfride being on his right hand, and Stephen +Smith on his left. The white daylight on his right side gleamed faintly +in, and was toned to a blueness by contrast with the yellow rays from +the candle against the wall. Elfride, timidly shrinking back, and +nearest the entrance, received most of the light therefrom, whilst +Stephen was entirely in candlelight, and to him the spot of outer sky +visible above the steps was as a steely blue patch, and nothing more. + +'I have been here two or three times since it was opened,' said Stephen. +'My father was engaged in the work, you know.' + +'Yes. What are you doing?' Knight inquired, looking at the note-book and +pencil Stephen held in his hand. + +'I have been sketching a few details in the church, and since then I +have been copying the names from some of the coffins here. Before I left +England I used to do a good deal of this sort of thing.' + +'Yes; of course. Ah, that's poor Lady Luxellian, I suppose.' Knight +pointed to a coffin of light satin-wood, which stood on the stone +sleepers in the new niche. 'And the remainder of the family are on this +side. Who are those two, so snug and close together?' + +Stephen's voice altered slightly as he replied 'That's Lady Elfride +Kingsmore--born Luxellian, and that is Arthur, her husband. I have heard +my father say that they--he--ran away with her, and married her against +the wish of her parents.' + +'Then I imagine this to be where you got your Christian name, Miss +Swancourt?' said Knight, turning to her. 'I think you told me it was +three or four generations ago that your family branched off from the +Luxellians?' + +'She was my grandmother,' said Elfride, vainly endeavouring to moisten +her dry lips before she spoke. Elfride had then the conscience-stricken +look of Guido's Magdalen, rendered upon a more childlike form. She kept +her face partially away from Knight and Stephen, and set her eyes upon +the sky visible outside, as if her salvation depended upon quickly +reaching it. Her left hand rested lightly within Knight's arm, half +withdrawn, from a sense of shame at claiming him before her old lover, +yet unwilling to renounce him; so that her glove merely touched +his sleeve. '"Can one be pardoned, and retain the offence?"' quoted +Elfride's heart then. + +Conversation seemed to have no self-sustaining power, and went on in +the shape of disjointed remarks. 'One's mind gets thronged with thoughts +while standing so solemnly here,' Knight said, in a measured quiet +voice. 'How much has been said on death from time to time! how much we +ourselves can think upon it! We may fancy each of these who lie here +saying: + + + 'For Thou, to make my fall more great, + Didst lift me up on high.' + + +What comes next, Elfride? It is the Hundred-and-second Psalm I am +thinking of.' + +'Yes, I know it,' she murmured, and went on in a still lower voice, +seemingly afraid for any words from the emotional side of her nature to +reach Stephen: + + + '"My days, just hastening to their end, + Are like an evening shade; + My beauty doth, like wither'd grass, + With waning lustre fade."' + + +'Well,' said Knight musingly, 'let us leave them. Such occasions as +these seem to compel us to roam outside ourselves, far away from the +fragile frame we live in, and to expand till our perception grows so +vast that our physical reality bears no sort of proportion to it. We +look back upon the weak and minute stem on which this luxuriant +growth depends, and ask, Can it be possible that such a capacity has a +foundation so small? Must I again return to my daily walk in that narrow +cell, a human body, where worldly thoughts can torture me? Do we not?' + +'Yes,' said Stephen and Elfride. + +'One has a sense of wrong, too, that such an appreciative breadth as a +sentient being possesses should be committed to the frail casket of +a body. What weakens one's intentions regarding the future like the +thought of this?...However, let us tune ourselves to a more cheerful +chord, for there's a great deal to be done yet by us all.' + +As Knight meditatively addressed his juniors thus, unconscious of the +deception practised, for different reasons, by the severed hearts at his +side, and of the scenes that had in earlier days united them, each one +felt that he and she did not gain by contrast with their musing mentor. +Physically not so handsome as either the youthful architect or the +vicar's daughter, the thoroughness and integrity of Knight illuminated +his features with a dignity not even incipient in the other two. It is +difficult to frame rules which shall apply to both sexes, and Elfride, +an undeveloped girl, must, perhaps, hardly be laden with the moral +responsibilities which attach to a man in like circumstances. The charm +of woman, too, lies partly in her subtleness in matters of love. But if +honesty is a virtue in itself, Elfride, having none of it now, seemed, +being for being, scarcely good enough for Knight. Stephen, though +deceptive for no unworthy purpose, was deceptive after all; and +whatever good results grace such strategy if it succeed, it seldom draws +admiration, especially when it fails. + +On an ordinary occasion, had Knight been even quite alone with Stephen, +he would hardly have alluded to his possible relationship to Elfride. +But moved by attendant circumstances Knight was impelled to be +confiding. + +'Stephen,' he said, 'this lady is Miss Swancourt. I am staying at her +father's house, as you probably know.' He stepped a few paces nearer +to Smith, and said in a lower tone: 'I may as well tell you that we are +engaged to be married.' + +Low as the words had been spoken, Elfride had heard them, and awaited +Stephen's reply in breathless silence, if that could be called silence +where Elfride's dress, at each throb of her heart, shook and indicated +it like a pulse-glass, rustling also against the wall in reply to the +same throbbing. The ray of daylight which reached her face lent it a +blue pallor in comparison with those of the other two. + +'I congratulate you,' Stephen whispered; and said aloud, 'I know Miss +Swancourt--a little. You must remember that my father is a parishioner +of Mr. Swancourt's.' + +'I thought you might possibly not have lived at home since they have +been here.' + +'I have never lived at home, certainly, since that time.' + +'I have seen Mr. Smith,' faltered Elfride. + +'Well, there is no excuse for me. As strangers to each other I ought, +I suppose, to have introduced you: as acquaintances, I should not have +stood so persistently between you. But the fact is, Smith, you seem a +boy to me, even now.' + +Stephen appeared to have a more than previous consciousness of the +intense cruelty of his fate at the present moment. He could not repress +the words, uttered with a dim bitterness: + +'You should have said that I seemed still the rural mechanic's son I am, +and hence an unfit subject for the ceremony of introductions.' + +'Oh, no, no! I won't have that.' Knight endeavoured to give his reply +a laughing tone in Elfride's ears, and an earnestness in Stephen's: +in both which efforts he signally failed, and produced a forced speech +pleasant to neither. 'Well, let us go into the open air again; Miss +Swancourt, you are particularly silent. You mustn't mind Smith. I have +known him for years, as I have told you.' + +'Yes, you have,' she said. + +'To think she has never mentioned her knowledge of me!' Smith murmured, +and thought with some remorse how much her conduct resembled his own on +his first arrival at her house as a stranger to the place. + +They ascended to the daylight, Knight taking no further notice of +Elfride's manner, which, as usual, he attributed to the natural shyness +of a young woman at being discovered walking with him on terms which +left not much doubt of their meaning. Elfride stepped a little in +advance, and passed through the churchyard. + +'You are changed very considerably, Smith,' said Knight, 'and I suppose +it is no more than was to be expected. However, don't imagine that I +shall feel any the less interest in you and your fortunes whenever you +care to confide them to me. I have not forgotten the attachment you +spoke of as your reason for going away to India. A London young lady, +was it not? I hope all is prosperous?' + +'No: the match is broken off.' + +It being always difficult to know whether to express sorrow or gladness +under such circumstances--all depending upon the character of the +match--Knight took shelter in the safe words: 'I trust it was for the +best.' + +'I hope it was. But I beg that you will not press me further: no, you +have not pressed me--I don't mean that--but I would rather not speak +upon the subject.' + +Stephen's words were hurried. + +Knight said no more, and they followed in the footsteps of Elfride, who +still kept some paces in advance, and had not heard Knight's unconscious +allusion to her. Stephen bade him adieu at the churchyard-gate without +going outside, and watched whilst he and his sweetheart mounted their +horses. + +'Good heavens, Elfride,' Knight exclaimed, 'how pale you are! I suppose +I ought not to have taken you into that vault. What is the matter?' + +'Nothing,' said Elfride faintly. 'I shall be myself in a moment. All was +so strange and unexpected down there, that it made me unwell.' + +'I thought you said very little. Shall I get some water?' + +'No, no.' + +'Do you think it is safe for you to mount?' + +'Quite--indeed it is,' she said, with a look of appeal. + +'Now then--up she goes!' whispered Knight, and lifted her tenderly into +the saddle. + +Her old lover still looked on at the performance as he leant over the +gate a dozen yards off. Once in the saddle, and having a firm grip of +the reins, she turned her head as if by a resistless fascination, and +for the first time since that memorable parting on the moor outside +St. Launce's after the passionate attempt at marriage with him, Elfride +looked in the face of the young man she first had loved. He was the +youth who had called her his inseparable wife many a time, and whom she +had even addressed as her husband. Their eyes met. Measurement of life +should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than +to its actual length. Their glance, but a moment chronologically, was +a season in their history. To Elfride the intense agony of reproach in +Stephen's eye was a nail piercing her heart with a deadliness no words +can describe. With a spasmodic effort she withdrew her eyes, urged on +the horse, and in the chaos of perturbed memories was oblivious of any +presence beside her. The deed of deception was complete. + +Gaining a knoll on which the park transformed itself into wood and +copse, Knight came still closer to her side, and said, 'Are you better +now, dearest?' + +'Oh yes.' She pressed a hand to her eyes, as if to blot out the image of +Stephen. A vivid scarlet spot now shone with preternatural brightness in +the centre of each cheek, leaving the remainder of her face lily-white +as before. + +'Elfride,' said Knight, rather in his old tone of mentor, 'you know I +don't for a moment chide you, but is there not a great deal of unwomanly +weakness in your allowing yourself to be so overwhelmed by the sight of +what, after all, is no novelty? Every woman worthy of the name should, I +think, be able to look upon death with something like composure. Surely +you think so too?' + +'Yes; I own it.' + +His obtuseness to the cause of her indisposition, by evidencing his +entire freedom from the suspicion of anything behind the scenes, showed +how incapable Knight was of deception himself, rather than any inherent +dulness in him regarding human nature. This, clearly perceived by +Elfride, added poignancy to her self-reproach, and she idolized him the +more because of their difference. Even the recent sight of Stephen's +face and the sound of his voice, which for a moment had stirred a chord +or two of ancient kindness, were unable to keep down the adoration +re-existent now that he was again out of view. + +She had replied to Knight's question hastily, and immediately went on to +speak of indifferent subjects. After they had reached home she was apart +from him till dinner-time. When dinner was over, and they were watching +the dusk in the drawing-room, Knight stepped out upon the terrace. +Elfride went after him very decisively, on the spur of a virtuous +intention. + +'Mr. Knight, I want to tell you something,' she said, with quiet +firmness. + +'And what is it about?' gaily returned her lover. 'Happiness, I hope. Do +not let anything keep you so sad as you seem to have been to-day.' + +'I cannot mention the matter until I tell you the whole substance of +it,' she said. 'And that I will do to-morrow. I have been reminded of +it to-day. It is about something I once did, and don't think I ought to +have done.' + +This, it must be said, was rather a mild way of referring to a frantic +passion and flight, which, much or little in itself, only accident had +saved from being a scandal in the public eye. + +Knight thought the matter some trifle, and said pleasantly: + +'Then I am not to hear the dreadful confession now?' + +'No, not now. I did not mean to-night,' Elfride responded, with a slight +decline in the firmness of her voice. 'It is not light as you think +it--it troubles me a great deal.' Fearing now the effect of her own +earnestness, she added forcedly, 'Though, perhaps, you may think it +light after all.' + +'But you have not said when it is to be?' + +'To-morrow morning. Name a time, will you, and bind me to it? I want you +to fix an hour, because I am weak, and may otherwise try to get out of +it.' She added a little artificial laugh, which showed how timorous her +resolution was still. + +'Well, say after breakfast--at eleven o'clock.' + +'Yes, eleven o'clock. I promise you. Bind me strictly to my word.' + + + +Chapter XXVIII + +'I lull a fancy, trouble-tost.' + + +Miss Swancourt, it is eleven o'clock.' + +She was looking out of her dressing-room window on the first floor, and +Knight was regarding her from the terrace balustrade, upon which he had +been idly sitting for some time--dividing the glances of his eye between +the pages of a book in his hand, the brilliant hues of the geraniums and +calceolarias, and the open window above-mentioned. + +'Yes, it is, I know. I am coming.' + +He drew closer, and under the window. + +'How are you this morning, Elfride? You look no better for your long +night's rest.' + +She appeared at the door shortly after, took his offered arm, and +together they walked slowly down the gravel path leading to the river +and away under the trees. + +Her resolution, sustained during the last fifteen hours, had been to +tell the whole truth, and now the moment had come. + +Step by step they advanced, and still she did not speak. They were +nearly at the end of the walk, when Knight broke the silence. + +'Well, what is the confession, Elfride?' + +She paused a moment, drew a long breath; and this is what she said: + +'I told you one day--or rather I gave you to understand--what was not +true. I fancy you thought me to mean I was nineteen my next birthday, +but it was my last I was nineteen.' + +The moment had been too much for her. Now that the crisis had come, +no qualms of conscience, no love of honesty, no yearning to make a +confidence and obtain forgiveness with a kiss, could string Elfride up +to the venture. Her dread lest he should be unforgiving was heightened +by the thought of yesterday's artifice, which might possibly add disgust +to his disappointment. The certainty of one more day's affection, which +she gained by silence, outvalued the hope of a perpetuity combined with +the risk of all. + +The trepidation caused by these thoughts on what she had intended to say +shook so naturally the words she did say, that Knight never for a moment +suspected them to be a last moment's substitution. He smiled and pressed +her hand warmly. + +'My dear Elfie--yes, you are now--no protestation--what a winning little +woman you are, to be so absurdly scrupulous about a mere iota! Really, I +never once have thought whether your nineteenth year was the last or +the present. And, by George, well I may not; for it would never do for a +staid fogey a dozen years older to stand upon such a trifle as that.' + +'Don't praise me--don't praise me! Though I prize it from your lips, I +don't deserve it now.' + +But Knight, being in an exceptionally genial mood, merely saw this +distressful exclamation as modesty. 'Well,' he added, after a minute, 'I +like you all the better, you know, for such moral precision, although +I called it absurd.' He went on with tender earnestness: 'For, Elfride, +there is one thing I do love to see in a woman--that is, a soul truthful +and clear as heaven's light. I could put up with anything if I had +that--forgive nothing if I had it not. Elfride, you have such a soul, if +ever woman had; and having it, retain it, and don't ever listen to the +fashionable theories of the day about a woman's privileges and natural +right to practise wiles. Depend upon it, my dear girl, that a noble +woman must be as honest as a noble man. I specially mean by honesty, +fairness not only in matters of business and social detail, but in all +the delicate dealings of love, to which the licence given to your sex +particularly refers.' + +Elfride looked troublously at the trees. + +'Now let us go on to the river, Elfie.' + +'I would if I had a hat on,' she said with a sort of suppressed woe. + +'I will get it for you,' said Knight, very willing to purchase her +companionship at so cheap a price. 'You sit down there a minute.' And he +turned and walked rapidly back to the house for the article in question. + +Elfride sat down upon one of the rustic benches which adorned this +portion of the grounds, and remained with her eyes upon the grass. She +was induced to lift them by hearing the brush of light and irregular +footsteps hard by. Passing along the path which intersected the one she +was in and traversed the outer shrubberies, Elfride beheld the farmer's +widow, Mrs. Jethway. Before she noticed Elfride, she paused to look at +the house, portions of which were visible through the bushes. Elfride, +shrinking back, hoped the unpleasant woman might go on without seeing +her. But Mrs. Jethway, silently apostrophizing the house, with actions +which seemed dictated by a half-overturned reason, had discerned the +girl, and immediately came up and stood in front of her. + +'Ah, Miss Swancourt! Why did you disturb me? Mustn't I trespass here?' + +'You may walk here if you like, Mrs. Jethway. I do not disturb you.' + +'You disturb my mind, and my mind is my whole life; for my boy is there +still, and he is gone from my body.' + +'Yes, poor young man. I was sorry when he died.' + +'Do you know what he died of?' + +'Consumption.' + +'Oh no, no!' said the widow. 'That word "consumption" covers a good +deal. He died because you were his own well-agreed sweetheart, and then +proved false--and it killed him. Yes, Miss Swancourt,' she said in an +excited whisper, 'you killed my son!' + +'How can you be so wicked and foolish!' replied Elfride, rising +indignantly. But indignation was not natural to her, and having been so +worn and harrowed by late events, she lost any powers of defence +that mood might have lent her. 'I could not help his loving me, Mrs. +Jethway!' + +'That's just what you could have helped. You know how it began, Miss +Elfride. Yes: you said you liked the name of Felix better than any other +name in the parish, and you knew it was his name, and that those you +said it to would report it to him.' + +'I knew it was his name--of course I did; but I am sure, Mrs. Jethway, I +did not intend anybody to tell him.' + +'But you knew they would.' + +'No, I didn't.' + +'And then, after that, when you were riding on Revels-day by our house, +and the lads were gathered there, and you wanted to dismount, when Jim +Drake and George Upway and three or four more ran forward to hold your +pony, and Felix stood back timid, why did you beckon to him, and say you +would rather he held it?' + +'O Mrs. Jethway, you do think so mistakenly! I liked him best--that's +why I wanted him to do it. He was gentle and nice--I always thought him +so--and I liked him.' + +'Then why did you let him kiss you?' + +'It is a falsehood; oh, it is, it is!' said Elfride, weeping with +desperation. 'He came behind me, and attempted to kiss me; and that was +why I told him never to let me see him again.' + +'But you did not tell your father or anybody, as you would have if you +had looked upon it then as the insult you now pretend it was.' + +'He begged me not to tell, and foolishly enough I did not. And I wish +I had now. I little expected to be scourged with my own kindness. Pray +leave me, Mrs. Jethway.' The girl only expostulated now. + +'Well, you harshly dismissed him, and he died. And before his body was +cold, you took another to your heart. Then as carelessly sent him about +his business, and took a third. And if you consider that nothing, Miss +Swancourt,' she continued, drawing closer; 'it led on to what was very +serious indeed. Have you forgotten the would-be runaway marriage? The +journey to London, and the return the next day without being married, +and that there's enough disgrace in that to ruin a woman's good name far +less light than yours? You may have: I have not. Fickleness towards a +lover is bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is wantonness.' + +'Oh, it's a wicked cruel lie! Do not say it; oh, do not!' + +'Does your new man know of it? I think not, or he would be no man +of yours! As much of the story as was known is creeping about the +neighbourhood even now; but I know more than any of them, and why should +I respect your love?' + +'I defy you!' cried Elfride tempestuously. 'Do and say all you can to +ruin me; try; put your tongue at work; I invite it! I defy you as a +slanderous woman! Look, there he comes.' And her voice trembled greatly +as she saw through the leaves the beloved form of Knight coming from the +door with her hat in his hand. 'Tell him at once; I can bear it.' + +'Not now,' said the woman, and disappeared down the path. + +The excitement of her latter words had restored colour to Elfride's +cheeks; and hastily wiping her eyes, she walked farther on, so that by +the time her lover had overtaken her the traces of emotion had nearly +disappeared from her face. Knight put the hat upon her head, took her +hand, and drew it within his arm. + +It was the last day but one previous to their departure for St. +Leonards; and Knight seemed to have a purpose in being much in her +company that day. They rambled along the valley. The season was that +period in the autumn when the foliage alone of an ordinary plantation is +rich enough in hues to exhaust the chromatic combinations of an artist's +palette. Most lustrous of all are the beeches, graduating from bright +rusty red at the extremity of the boughs to a bright yellow at their +inner parts; young oaks are still of a neutral green; Scotch firs and +hollies are nearly blue; whilst occasional dottings of other varieties +give maroons and purples of every tinge. + +The river--such as it was--here pursued its course amid flagstones as +level as a pavement, but divided by crevices of irregular width. With +the summer drought the torrent had narrowed till it was now but a thread +of crystal clearness, meandering along a central channel in the rocky +bed of the winter current. Knight scrambled through the bushes which at +this point nearly covered the brook from sight, and leapt down upon the +dry portion of the river bottom. + +'Elfride, I never saw such a sight!' he exclaimed. 'The hazels overhang +the river's course in a perfect arch, and the floor is beautifully +paved. The place reminds one of the passages of a cloister. Let me help +you down.' + +He assisted her through the marginal underwood and down to the stones. +They walked on together to a tiny cascade about a foot wide and high, +and sat down beside it on the flags that for nine months in the year +were submerged beneath a gushing bourne. From their feet trickled the +attenuated thread of water which alone remained to tell the intent and +reason of this leaf-covered aisle, and journeyed on in a zigzag line +till lost in the shade. + +Knight, leaning on his elbow, after contemplating all this, looked +critically at Elfride. + +'Does not such a luxuriant head of hair exhaust itself and get thin as +the years go on from eighteen to eight-and-twenty?' he asked at length. + +'Oh no!' she said quickly, with a visible disinclination to harbour such +a thought, which came upon her with an unpleasantness whose force it +would be difficult for men to understand. She added afterwards, with +smouldering uneasiness, 'Do you really think that a great abundance of +hair is more likely to get thin than a moderate quantity?' + +'Yes, I really do. I believe--am almost sure, in fact--that if +statistics could be obtained on the subject, you would find the persons +with thin hair were those who had a superabundance originally, and that +those who start with a moderate quantity retain it without much loss.' + +Elfride's troubles sat upon her face as well as in her heart. Perhaps +to a woman it is almost as dreadful to think of losing her beauty as of +losing her reputation. At any rate, she looked quite as gloomy as she +had looked at any minute that day. + +'You shouldn't be so troubled about a mere personal adornment,' said +Knight, with some of the severity of tone that had been customary before +she had beguiled him into softness. + +'I think it is a woman's duty to be as beautiful as she can. If I were a +scholar, I would give you chapter and verse for it from one of your own +Latin authors. I know there is such a passage, for papa has alluded to +it.' + +"'Munditiae, et ornatus, et cultus," &c.--is that it? A passage in Livy +which is no defence at all.' + +'No, it is not that.' + +'Never mind, then; for I have a reason for not taking up my old cudgels +against you, Elfie. Can you guess what the reason is?' + +'No; but I am glad to hear it,' she said thankfully. 'For it is dreadful +when you talk so. For whatever dreadful name the weakness may deserve, +I must candidly own that I am terrified to think my hair may ever get +thin.' + +'Of course; a sensible woman would rather lose her wits than her +beauty.' + +'I don't care if you do say satire and judge me cruelly. I know my hair +is beautiful; everybody says so.' + +'Why, my dear Miss Swancourt,' he tenderly replied, 'I have not said +anything against it. But you know what is said about handsome being and +handsome doing.' + +'Poor Miss Handsome-does cuts but a sorry figure beside Miss Handsome-is +in every man's eyes, your own not excepted, Mr. Knight, though it +pleases you to throw off so,' said Elfride saucily. And lowering her +voice: 'You ought not to have taken so much trouble to save me from +falling over the cliff, for you don't think mine a life worth much +trouble evidently.' + +'Perhaps you think mine was not worth yours.' + +'It was worth anybody's!' + +Her hand was plashing in the little waterfall, and her eyes were bent +the same way. + +'You talk about my severity with you, Elfride. You are unkind to me, you +know.' + +'How?' she asked, looking up from her idle occupation. + +'After my taking trouble to get jewellery to please you, you wouldn't +accept it.' + +'Perhaps I would now; perhaps I want to.' + +'Do!' said Knight. + +And the packet was withdrawn from his pocket and presented the third +time. Elfride took it with delight. The obstacle was rent in twain, and +the significant gift was hers. + +'I'll take out these ugly ones at once,' she exclaimed, 'and I'll wear +yours--shall I?' + +'I should be gratified.' + +Now, though it may seem unlikely, considering how far the two had gone +in converse, Knight had never yet ventured to kiss Elfride. Far slower +was he than Stephen Smith in matters like that. The utmost advance he +had made in such demonstrations had been to the degree witnessed by +Stephen in the summer-house. So Elfride's cheek being still forbidden +fruit to him, he said impulsively. + +'Elfie, I should like to touch that seductive ear of yours. Those are my +gifts; so let me dress you in them.' + +She hesitated with a stimulating hesitation. + +'Let me put just one in its place, then?' + +Her face grew much warmer. + +'I don't think it would be quite the usual or proper course,' she said, +suddenly turning and resuming her operation of plashing in the miniature +cataract. + +The stillness of things was disturbed by a bird coming to the streamlet +to drink. After watching him dip his bill, sprinkle himself, and fly +into a tree, Knight replied, with the courteous brusqueness she so much +liked to hear-- + +'Elfride, now you may as well be fair. You would mind my doing it but +little, I think; so give me leave, do.' + +'I will be fair, then,' she said confidingly, and looking him full in +the face. It was a particular pleasure to her to be able to do a little +honesty without fear. 'I should not mind your doing so--I should like +such an attention. My thought was, would it be right to let you?' + +'Then I will!' he rejoined, with that singular earnestness about a small +matter--in the eyes of a ladies' man but a momentary peg for flirtation +or jest--which is only found in deep natures who have been wholly unused +to toying with womankind, and which, from its unwontedness, is in itself +a tribute the most precious that can be rendered, and homage the most +exquisite to be received. + +'And you shall,' she whispered, without reserve, and no longer mistress +of the ceremonies. And then Elfride inclined herself towards him, thrust +back her hair, and poised her head sideways. In doing this her arm and +shoulder necessarily rested against his breast. + +At the touch, the sensation of both seemed to be concentrated at the +point of contact. All the time he was performing the delicate manoeuvre +Knight trembled like a young surgeon in his first operation. + +'Now the other,' said Knight in a whisper. + +'No, no.' + +'Why not?' + +'I don't know exactly.' + +'You must know.' + +'Your touch agitates me so. Let us go home.' + +'Don't say that, Elfride. What is it, after all? A mere nothing. Now +turn round, dearest.' + +She was powerless to disobey, and turned forthwith; and then, without +any defined intention in either's mind, his face and hers drew closer +together; and he supported her there, and kissed her. + +Knight was at once the most ardent and the coolest man alive. When his +emotions slumbered he appeared almost phlegmatic; when they were moved +he was no less than passionate. And now, without having quite intended +an early marriage, he put the question plainly. It came with all +the ardour which was the accumulation of long years behind a natural +reserve. + +'Elfride, when shall we be married?' + +The words were sweet to her; but there was a bitter in the sweet. These +newly-overt acts of his, which had culminated in this plain question, +coming on the very day of Mrs. Jethway's blasting reproaches, painted +distinctly her fickleness as an enormity. Loving him in secret had not +seemed such thorough-going inconstancy as the same love recognized and +acted upon in the face of threats. Her distraction was interpreted by +him at her side as the outward signs of an unwonted experience. + +'I don't press you for an answer now, darling,' he said, seeing she was +not likely to give a lucid reply. 'Take your time.' + +Knight was as honourable a man as was ever loved and deluded by +woman. It may be said that his blindness in love proved the point, +for shrewdness in love usually goes with meanness in general. Once the +passion had mastered him, the intellect had gone for naught. Knight, as +a lover, was more single-minded and far simpler than his friend Stephen, +who in other capacities was shallow beside him. + +Without saying more on the subject of their marriage, Knight held her at +arm's length, as if she had been a large bouquet, and looked at her with +critical affection. + +'Does your pretty gift become me?' she inquired, with tears of +excitement on the fringes of her eyes. + +'Undoubtedly, perfectly!' said her lover, adopting a lighter tone to put +her at her ease. 'Ah, you should see them; you look shinier than ever. +Fancy that I have been able to improve you!' + +'Am I really so nice? I am glad for your sake. I wish I could see +myself.' + +'You can't. You must wait till we get home.' + +'I shall never be able,' she said, laughing. 'Look: here's a way.' + +'So there is. Well done, woman's wit!' + +'Hold me steady!' + +'Oh yes.' + +'And don't let me fall, will you?' + +'By no means.' + +Below their seat the thread of water paused to spread out into a smooth +small pool. Knight supported her whilst she knelt down and leant over +it. + +'I can see myself. Really, try as religiously as I will, I cannot help +admiring my appearance in them.' + +'Doubtless. How can you be so fond of finery? I believe you are +corrupting me into a taste for it. I used to hate every such thing +before I knew you.' + +'I like ornaments, because I want people to admire what you possess, and +envy you, and say, "I wish I was he."' + +'I suppose I ought not to object after that. And how much longer are you +going to look in there at yourself?' + +'Until you are tired of holding me? Oh, I want to ask you something.' +And she turned round. 'Now tell truly, won't you? What colour of hair do +you like best now?' + +Knight did not answer at the moment. + +'Say light, do!' she whispered coaxingly. 'Don't say dark, as you did +that time.' + +'Light-brown, then. Exactly the colour of my sweetheart's.' + +'Really?' said Elfride, enjoying as truth what she knew to be flattery. + +'Yes.' + +'And blue eyes, too, not hazel? Say yes, say yes!' + +'One recantation is enough for to-day.' + +'No, no.' + +'Very well, blue eyes.' And Knight laughed, and drew her close and +kissed her the second time, which operations he performed with the +carefulness of a fruiterer touching a bunch of grapes so as not to +disturb their bloom. + +Elfride objected to a second, and flung away her face, the movement +causing a slight disarrangement of hat and hair. Hardly thinking what +she said in the trepidation of the moment, she exclaimed, clapping her +hand to her ear-- + +'Ah, we must be careful! I lost the other earring doing like this.' + +No sooner did she realise the significant words than a troubled look +passed across her face, and she shut her lips as if to keep them back. + +'Doing like what?' said Knight, perplexed. + +'Oh, sitting down out of doors,' she replied hastily. + + + + +Chapter XXIX + + 'Care, thou canker.' + + +It is an evening at the beginning of October, and the mellowest of +autumn sunsets irradiates London, even to its uttermost eastern end. +Between the eye and the flaming West, columns of smoke stand up in the +still air like tall trees. Everything in the shade is rich and misty +blue. + +Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt and Elfride are looking at these lustrous and +lurid contrasts from the window of a large hotel near London Bridge. The +visit to their friends at St. Leonards is over, and they are staying a +day or two in the metropolis on their way home. + +Knight spent the same interval of time in crossing over to Brittany +by way of Jersey and St. Malo. He then passed through Normandy, and +returned to London also, his arrival there having been two days later +than that of Elfride and her parents. + +So the evening of this October day saw them all meeting at the +above-mentioned hotel, where they had previously engaged apartments. +During the afternoon Knight had been to his lodgings at Richmond to make +a little change in the nature of his baggage; and on coming up again +there was never ushered by a bland waiter into a comfortable room a +happier man than Knight when shown to where Elfride and her step-mother +were sitting after a fatiguing day of shopping. + +Elfride looked none the better for her change: Knight was as brown as a +nut. They were soon engaged by themselves in a corner of the room. Now +that the precious words of promise had been spoken, the young girl had +no idea of keeping up her price by the system of reserve which other +more accomplished maidens use. Her lover was with her again, and it was +enough: she made her heart over to him entirely. + +Dinner was soon despatched. And when a preliminary round of conversation +concerning their doings since the last parting had been concluded, they +reverted to the subject of to-morrow's journey home. + +'That enervating ride through the myrtle climate of South Devon--how I +dread it to-morrow!' Mrs. Swancourt was saying. 'I had hoped the weather +would have been cooler by this time.' + +'Did you ever go by water?' said Knight. + +'Never--by never, I mean not since the time of railways.' + +'Then if you can afford an additional day, I propose that we do it,' +said Knight. 'The Channel is like a lake just now. We should reach +Plymouth in about forty hours, I think, and the boats start from just +below the bridge here' (pointing over his shoulder eastward). + +'Hear, hear!' said the vicar. + +'It's an idea, certainly,' said his wife. + +'Of course these coasters are rather tubby,' said Knight. 'But you +wouldn't mind that?' + +'No: we wouldn't mind.' + +'And the saloon is a place like the fishmarket of a ninth-rate country +town, but that wouldn't matter?' + +'Oh dear, no. If we had only thought of it soon enough, we might have +had the use of Lord Luxellian's yacht. But never mind, we'll go. We +shall escape the worrying rattle through the whole length of London +to-morrow morning--not to mention the risk of being killed by excursion +trains, which is not a little one at this time of the year, if the +papers are true.' + +Elfride, too, thought the arrangement delightful; and accordingly, ten +o'clock the following morning saw two cabs crawling round by the Mint, +and between the preternaturally high walls of Nightingale Lane towards +the river side. + +The first vehicle was occupied by the travellers in person, and the +second brought up the luggage, under the supervision of Mrs. Snewson, +Mrs. Swancourt's maid--and for the last fortnight Elfride's also; +for although the younger lady had never been accustomed to any such +attendant at robing times, her stepmother forced her into a semblance of +familiarity with one when they were away from home. + +Presently waggons, bales, and smells of all descriptions increased to +such an extent that the advance of the cabs was at the slowest possible +rate. At intervals it was necessary to halt entirely, that the heavy +vehicles unloading in front might be moved aside, a feat which was not +accomplished without a deal of swearing and noise. The vicar put his +head out of the window. + +'Surely there must be some mistake in the way,' he said with great +concern, drawing in his head again. 'There's not a respectable +conveyance to be seen here except ours. I've heard that there are +strange dens in this part of London, into which people have been +entrapped and murdered--surely there is no conspiracy on the part of the +cabman?' + +'Oh no, no. It is all right,' said Mr. Knight, who was as placid as dewy +eve by the side of Elfride. + +'But what I argue from,' said the vicar, with a greater emphasis of +uneasiness, 'are plain appearances. This can't be the highway from +London to Plymouth by water, because it is no way at all to any place. +We shall miss our steamer and our train too--that's what I think.' + +'Depend upon it we are right. In fact, here we are.' + +'Trimmer's Wharf,' said the cabman, opening the door. + +No sooner had they alighted than they perceived a tussle going on +between the hindmost cabman and a crowd of light porters who had +charged him in column, to obtain possession of the bags and boxes, Mrs. +Snewson's hands being seen stretched towards heaven in the midst of the +melee. Knight advanced gallantly, and after a hard struggle reduced the +crowd to two, upon whose shoulders and trucks the goods vanished away in +the direction of the water's edge with startling rapidity. + +Then more of the same tribe, who had run on ahead, were heard shouting +to boatmen, three of whom pulled alongside, and two being vanquished, +the luggage went tumbling into the remaining one. + +'Never saw such a dreadful scene in my life--never!' said Mr. Swancourt, +floundering into the boat. 'Worse than Famine and Sword upon one. I +thought such customs were confined to continental ports. Aren't you +astonished, Elfride?' + +'Oh no,' said Elfride, appearing amid the dingy scene like a rainbow in +a murky sky. 'It is a pleasant novelty, I think.' + +'Where in the wide ocean is our steamer?' the vicar inquired. 'I can see +nothing but old hulks, for the life of me.' + +'Just behind that one,' said Knight; 'we shall soon be round under her.' + +The object of their search was soon after disclosed to view--a great +lumbering form of inky blackness, which looked as if it had never known +the touch of a paint-brush for fifty years. It was lying beside just +such another, and the way on board was down a narrow lane of water +between the two, about a yard and a half wide at one end, and gradually +converging to a point. At the moment of their entry into this narrow +passage, a brilliantly painted rival paddled down the river like a +trotting steed, creating such a series of waves and splashes that +their frail wherry was tossed like a teacup, and the vicar and his wife +slanted this way and that, inclining their heads into contact with a +Punch-and-Judy air and countenance, the wavelets striking the sides of +the two hulls, and flapping back into their laps. + +'Dreadful! horrible!' Mr. Swancourt murmured privately; and said aloud, +I thought we walked on board. I don't think really I should have come, +if I had known this trouble was attached to it.' + +'If they must splash, I wish they would splash us with clean water,' +said the old lady, wiping her dress with her handkerchief. + +'I hope it is perfectly safe,' continued the vicar. + +'O papa! you are not very brave,' cried Elfride merrily. + +'Bravery is only obtuseness to the perception of contingencies,' Mr. +Swancourt severely answered. + +Mrs. Swancourt laughed, and Elfride laughed, and Knight laughed, in the +midst of which pleasantness a man shouted to them from some position +between their heads and the sky, and they found they were close to the +Juliet, into which they quiveringly ascended. + +It having been found that the lowness of the tide would prevent their +getting off for an hour, the Swancourts, having nothing else to +do, allowed their eyes to idle upon men in blue jerseys performing +mysterious mending operations with tar-twine; they turned to look at +the dashes of lurid sunlight, like burnished copper stars afloat on the +ripples, which danced into and tantalized their vision; or listened to +the loud music of a steam-crane at work close by; or to sighing sounds +from the funnels of passing steamers, getting dead as they grew more +distant; or to shouts from the decks of different craft in their +vicinity, all of them assuming the form of 'Ah-he-hay!' + +Half-past ten: not yet off. Mr. Swancourt breathed a breath of +weariness, and looked at his fellow-travellers in general. Their faces +were certainly not worth looking at. The expression 'Waiting' was +written upon them so absolutely that nothing more could be discerned +there. All animation was suspended till Providence should raise the +water and let them go. + +'I have been thinking,' said Knight, 'that we have come amongst the +rarest class of people in the kingdom. Of all human characteristics, a +low opinion of the value of his own time by an individual must be among +the strangest to find. Here we see numbers of that patient and happy +species. Rovers, as distinct from travellers.' + +'But they are pleasure-seekers, to whom time is of no importance.' + +'Oh no. The pleasure-seekers we meet on the grand routes are more +anxious than commercial travellers to rush on. And added to the loss of +time in getting to their journey's end, these exceptional people take +their chance of sea-sickness by coming this way.' + +'Can it be?' inquired the vicar with apprehension. 'Surely not, Mr. +Knight, just here in our English Channel--close at our doors, as I may +say.' + +'Entrance passages are very draughty places, and the Channel is like +the rest. It ruins the temper of sailors. It has been calculated by +philosophers that more damns go up to heaven from the Channel, in the +course of a year, than from all the five oceans put together.' + +They really start now, and the dead looks of all the throng come to life +immediately. The man who has been frantically hauling in a rope that +bade fair to have no end ceases his labours, and they glide down the +serpentine bends of the Thames. + +Anything anywhere was a mine of interest to Elfride, and so was this. + +'It is well enough now,' said Mrs. Swancourt, after they had passed the +Nore, 'but I can't say I have cared for my voyage hitherto.' For being +now in the open sea a slight breeze had sprung up, which cheered her as +well as her two younger companions. But unfortunately it had a reverse +effect upon the vicar, who, after turning a sort of apricot jam colour, +interspersed with dashes of raspberry, pleaded indisposition, and +vanished from their sight. + +The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Swancourt kindly sat apart by herself +reading, and the betrothed pair were left to themselves. Elfride clung +trustingly to Knight's arm, and proud was she to walk with him up +and down the deck, or to go forward, and leaning with him against the +forecastle rails, watch the setting sun gradually withdrawing itself +over their stern into a huge bank of livid cloud with golden edges that +rose to meet it. + +She was childishly full of life and spirits, though in walking up and +down with him before the other passengers, and getting noticed by them, +she was at starting rather confused, it being the first time she had +shown herself so openly under that kind of protection. 'I expect they +are envious and saying things about us, don't you?' she would whisper to +Knight with a stealthy smile. + +'Oh no,' he would answer unconcernedly. 'Why should they envy us, and +what can they say?' + +'Not any harm, of course,' Elfride replied, 'except such as this: "How +happy those two are! she is proud enough now." What makes it worse,' she +continued in the extremity of confidence, 'I heard those two cricketing +men say just now, "She's the nobbiest girl on the boat." But I don't +mind it, you know, Harry.' + +'I should hardly have supposed you did, even if you had not told me,' +said Knight with great blandness. + +She was never tired of asking her lover questions and admiring his +answers, good, bad, or indifferent as they might be. The evening grew +dark and night came on, and lights shone upon them from the horizon and +from the sky. + +'Now look there ahead of us, at that halo in the air, of silvery +brightness. Watch it, and you will see what it comes to.' + +She watched for a few minutes, when two white lights emerged from the +side of a hill, and showed themselves to be the origin of the halo. + +'What a dazzling brilliance! What do they mark?' + +'The South Foreland: they were previously covered by the cliff.' + +'What is that level line of little sparkles--a town, I suppose?' + +'That's Dover.' + +All this time, and later, soft sheet lightning expanded from a cloud in +their path, enkindling their faces as they paced up and down, shining +over the water, and, for a moment, showing the horizon as a keen line. + +Elfride slept soundly that night. Her first thought the next morning was +the thrilling one that Knight was as close at hand as when they were +at home at Endelstow, and her first sight, on looking out of the cabin +window, was the perpendicular face of Beachy Head, gleaming white in a +brilliant six-o'clock-in-the-morning sun. This fair daybreak, however, +soon changed its aspect. A cold wind and a pale mist descended upon the +sea, and seemed to threaten a dreary day. + +When they were nearing Southampton, Mrs. Swancourt came to say that her +husband was so ill that he wished to be put on shore here, and left +to do the remainder of the journey by land. 'He will be perfectly well +directly he treads firm ground again. Which shall we do--go with him, or +finish our voyage as we intended?' + +Elfride was comfortably housed under an umbrella which Knight was +holding over her to keep off the wind. 'Oh, don't let us go on shore!' +she said with dismay. 'It would be such a pity!' + +'That's very fine,' said Mrs. Swancourt archly, as to a child. 'See, +the wind has increased her colour, the sea her appetite and spirits, and +somebody her happiness. Yes, it would be a pity, certainly.' + +''Tis my misfortune to be always spoken to from a pedestal,' sighed +Elfride. + +'Well, we will do as you like, Mrs. Swancourt,' said Knight, 'but----' + +'I myself would rather remain on board,' interrupted the elder lady. +'And Mr. Swancourt particularly wishes to go by himself. So that shall +settle the matter.' + +The vicar, now a drab colour, was put ashore, and became as well as ever +forthwith. + +Elfride, sitting alone in a retired part of the vessel, saw a veiled +woman walk aboard among the very latest arrivals at this port. She was +clothed in black silk, and carried a dark shawl upon her arm. The +woman, without looking around her, turned to the quarter allotted to +the second-cabin passengers. All the carnation Mrs. Swancourt had +complimented her step-daughter upon possessing left Elfride's cheeks, +and she trembled visibly. + +She ran to the other side of the boat, where Mrs. Swancourt was +standing. + +'Let us go home by railway with papa, after all,' she pleaded earnestly. +'I would rather go with him--shall we?' + +Mrs. Swancourt looked around for a moment, as if unable to decide. 'Ah,' +she exclaimed, 'it is too late now. Why did not you say so before, when +we had plenty of time?' + +The Juliet had at that minute let go, the engines had started, and they +were gliding slowly away from the quay. There was no help for it but +to remain, unless the Juliet could be made to put back, and that would +create a great disturbance. Elfride gave up the idea and submitted +quietly. Her happiness was sadly mutilated now. + +The woman whose presence had so disturbed her was exactly like Mrs. +Jethway. She seemed to haunt Elfride like a shadow. After several +minutes' vain endeavour to account for any design Mrs. Jethway could +have in watching her, Elfride decided to think that, if it were the +widow, the encounter was accidental. She remembered that the widow in +her restlessness was often visiting the village near Southampton, which +was her original home, and it was possible that she chose water-transit +with the idea of saving expense. + +'What is the matter, Elfride?' Knight inquired, standing before her. + +'Nothing more than that I am rather depressed.' + +'I don't much wonder at it; that wharf was depressing. We seemed +underneath and inferior to everything around us. But we shall be in the +sea breeze again soon, and that will freshen you, dear.' + +The evening closed in and dusk increased as they made way down +Southampton Water and through the Solent. Elfride's disturbance of mind +was such that her light spirits of the foregoing four and twenty hours +had entirely deserted her. The weather too had grown more gloomy, for +though the showers of the morning had ceased, the sky was covered more +closely than ever with dense leaden clouds. How beautiful was the sunset +when they rounded the North Foreland the previous evening! now it was +impossible to tell within half an hour the time of the luminary's going +down. Knight led her about, and being by this time accustomed to her +sudden changes of mood, overlooked the necessity of a cause in regarding +the conditions--impressionableness and elasticity. + +Elfride looked stealthily to the other end of the vessel. Mrs. Jethway, +or her double, was sitting at the stern--her eye steadily regarding +Elfride. + +'Let us go to the forepart,' she said quickly to Knight. 'See there--the +man is fixing the lights for the night.' + +Knight assented, and after watching the operation of fixing the red and +the green lights on the port and starboard bows, and the hoisting of +the white light to the masthead, he walked up and down with her till +the increase of wind rendered promenading difficult. Elfride's eyes were +occasionally to be found furtively gazing abaft, to learn if her enemy +were really there. Nobody was visible now. + +'Shall we go below?' said Knight, seeing that the deck was nearly +deserted. + +'No,' she said. 'If you will kindly get me a rug from Mrs. Swancourt, I +should like, if you don't mind, to stay here.' She had recently fancied +the assumed Mrs. Jethway might be a first-class passenger, and dreaded +meeting her by accident. + +Knight appeared with the rug, and they sat down behind a weather-cloth +on the windward side, just as the two red eyes of the Needles glared +upon them from the gloom, their pointed summits rising like shadowy +phantom figures against the sky. It became necessary to go below to +an eight-o'clock meal of nondescript kind, and Elfride was immensely +relieved at finding no sign of Mrs. Jethway there. They again ascended, +and remained above till Mrs. Snewson staggered up to them with the +message that Mrs. Swancourt thought it was time for Elfride to come +below. Knight accompanied her down, and returned again to pass a little +more time on deck. + +Elfride partly undressed herself and lay down, and soon became +unconscious, though her sleep was light. How long she had lain, she knew +not, when by slow degrees she became cognizant of a whispering in her +ear. + +'You are well on with him, I can see. Well, provoke me now, but my day +will come, you will find.' That seemed to be the utterance, or words to +that effect. + +Elfride became broad awake and terrified. She knew the words, if real, +could be only those of one person, and that person the widow Jethway. + +The lamp had gone out and the place was in darkness. In the next berth +she could hear her stepmother breathing heavily, further on Snewson +breathing more heavily still. These were the only other legitimate +occupants of the cabin, and Mrs. Jethway must have stealthily come in by +some means and retreated again, or else she had entered an empty berth +next Snewson's. The fear that this was the case increased Elfride's +perturbation, till it assumed the dimensions of a certainty, for how +could a stranger from the other end of the ship possibly contrive to get +in? Could it have been a dream? + +Elfride raised herself higher and looked out of the window. There was +the sea, floundering and rushing against the ship's side just by her +head, and thence stretching away, dim and moaning, into an expanse of +indistinctness; and far beyond all this two placid lights like rayless +stars. Now almost fearing to turn her face inwards again, lest Mrs. +Jethway should appear at her elbow, Elfride meditated upon whether to +call Snewson to keep her company. 'Four bells' sounded, and she heard +voices, which gave her a little courage. It was not worth while to call +Snewson. + +At any rate Elfride could not stay there panting longer, at the risk of +being again disturbed by that dreadful whispering. So wrapping herself +up hurriedly she emerged into the passage, and by the aid of a faint +light burning at the entrance to the saloon found the foot of the +stairs, and ascended to the deck. Dreary the place was in the extreme. +It seemed a new spot altogether in contrast with its daytime self. She +could see the glowworm light from the binnacle, and the dim outline +of the man at the wheel; also a form at the bows. Not another soul was +apparent from stem to stern. + +Yes, there were two more--by the bulwarks. One proved to be her Harry, +the other the mate. She was glad indeed, and on drawing closer found +they were holding a low slow chat about nautical affairs. She ran up +and slipped her hand through Knight's arm, partly for love, partly for +stability. + +'Elfie! not asleep?' said Knight, after moving a few steps aside with +her. + +'No: I cannot sleep. May I stay here? It is so dismal down there, +and--and I was afraid. Where are we now?' + +'Due south of Portland Bill. Those are the lights abeam of us: look. +A terrible spot, that, on a stormy night. And do you see a very small +light that dips and rises to the right? That's a light-ship on the +dangerous shoal called the Shambles, where many a good vessel has +gone to pieces. Between it and ourselves is the Race--a place where +antagonistic currents meet and form whirlpools--a spot which is rough in +the smoothest weather, and terrific in a wind. That dark, dreary horizon +we just discern to the left is the West Bay, terminated landwards by the +Chesil Beach.' + +'What time is it, Harry?' + +'Just past two.' + +'Are you going below?' + +'Oh no; not to-night. I prefer pure air.' + +She fancied he might be displeased with her for coming to him at this +unearthly hour. 'I should like to stay here too, if you will allow me,' +she said timidly. + +'I want to ask you things.' + +'Allow you, Elfie!' said Knight, putting his arm round her and drawing +her closer. 'I am twice as happy with you by my side. Yes: we will stay, +and watch the approach of day.' + +So they again sought out the sheltered nook, and sitting down wrapped +themselves in the rug as before. + +'What were you going to ask me?' he inquired, as they undulated up and +down. + +'Oh, it was not much--perhaps a thing I ought not to ask,' she said +hesitatingly. Her sudden wish had really been to discover at once +whether he had ever before been engaged to be married. If he had, she +would make that a ground for telling him a little of her conduct with +Stephen. Mrs. Jethway's seeming words had so depressed the girl that +she herself now painted her flight in the darkest colours, and longed to +ease her burdened mind by an instant confession. If Knight had ever been +imprudent himself, he might, she hoped, forgive all. + +'I wanted to ask you,' she went on, 'if--you had ever been engaged +before.' She added tremulously, 'I hope you have--I mean, I don't mind +at all if you have.' + +'No, I never was,' Knight instantly and heartily replied. 'Elfride'--and +there was a certain happy pride in his tone--'I am twelve years older +than you, and I have been about the world, and, in a way, into society, +and you have not. And yet I am not so unfit for you as strict-thinking +people might imagine, who would assume the difference in age to signify +most surely an equal addition to my practice in love-making.' + +Elfride shivered. + +'You are cold--is the wind too much for you?' + +'No,' she said gloomily. The belief which had been her sheet-anchor in +hoping for forgiveness had proved false. This account of the exceptional +nature of his experience, a matter which would have set her rejoicing +two years ago, chilled her now like a frost. + +'You don't mind my asking you?' she continued. + +'Oh no--not at all.' + +'And have you never kissed many ladies?' she whispered, hoping he would +say a hundred at the least. + +The time, the circumstances, and the scene were such as to draw +confidences from the most reserved. 'Elfride,' whispered Knight in +reply, 'it is strange you should have asked that question. But I'll +answer it, though I have never told such a thing before. I have been +rather absurd in my avoidance of women. I have never given a woman a +kiss in my life, except yourself and my mother.' The man of two and +thirty with the experienced mind warmed all over with a boy's ingenuous +shame as he made the confession. + +'What, not one?' she faltered. + +'No; not one.' + +'How very strange!' + +'Yes, the reverse experience may be commoner. And yet, to those who have +observed their own sex, as I have, my case is not remarkable. Men about +town are women's favourites--that's the postulate--and superficial +people don't think far enough to see that there may be reserved, lonely +exceptions.' + +'Are you proud of it, Harry?' + +'No, indeed. Of late years I have wished I had gone my ways and trod out +my measure like lighter-hearted men. I have thought of how many happy +experiences I may have lost through never going to woo.' + +'Then why did you hold aloof?' + +'I cannot say. I don't think it was my nature to: circumstance hindered +me, perhaps. I have regretted it for another reason. This great +remissness of mine has had its effect upon me. The older I have grown, +the more distinctly have I perceived that it was absolutely preventing +me from liking any woman who was not as unpractised as I; and I gave up +the expectation of finding a nineteenth-century young lady in my own raw +state. Then I found you, Elfride, and I felt for the first time that my +fastidiousness was a blessing. And it helped to make me worthy of you. +I felt at once that, differing as we did in other experiences, in this +matter I resembled you. Well, aren't you glad to hear it, Elfride?' + +'Yes, I am,' she answered in a forced voice. 'But I always had thought +that men made lots of engagements before they married--especially if +they don't marry very young.' + +'So all women think, I suppose--and rightly, indeed, of the majority of +bachelors, as I said before. But an appreciable minority of slow-coach +men do not--and it makes them very awkward when they do come to the +point. However, it didn't matter in my case.' + +'Why?' she asked uneasily. + +'Because you know even less of love-making and matrimonial +prearrangement than I, and so you can't draw invidious comparisons if I +do my engaging improperly.' + +'I think you do it beautifully!' + +'Thank you, dear. But,' continued Knight laughingly, 'your opinion is +not that of an expert, which alone is of value.' + +Had she answered, 'Yes, it is,' half as strongly as she felt it, Knight +might have been a little astonished. + +'If you had ever been engaged to be married before,' he went on, 'I +expect your opinion of my addresses would be different. But then, I +should not----' + +'Should not what, Harry?' + +'Oh, I was merely going to say that in that case I should never have +given myself the pleasure of proposing to you, since your freedom from +that experience was your attraction, darling.' + +'You are severe on women, are you not?' + +'No, I think not. I had a right to please my taste, and that was for +untried lips. Other men than those of my sort acquire the taste as they +get older--but don't find an Elfride----' + +'What horrid sound is that we hear when we pitch forward?' + +'Only the screw--don't find an Elfride as I did. To think that I should +have discovered such an unseen flower down there in the West--to whom a +man is as much as a multitude to some women, and a trip down the English +Channel like a voyage round the world!' + +'And would you,' she said, and her voice was tremulous, 'have given up +a lady--if you had become engaged to her--and then found she had had ONE +kiss before yours--and would you have--gone away and left her?' + +'One kiss,--no, hardly for that.' + +'Two?' + +'Well--I could hardly say inventorially like that. Too much of that sort +of thing certainly would make me dislike a woman. But let us confine our +attention to ourselves, not go thinking of might have beens.' + +So Elfride had allowed her thoughts to 'dally with false surmise,' and +every one of Knight's words fell upon her like a weight. After this they +were silent for a long time, gazing upon the black mysterious sea, and +hearing the strange voice of the restless wind. A rocking to and fro +on the waves, when the breeze is not too violent and cold, produces a +soothing effect even upon the most highly-wrought mind. Elfride slowly +sank against Knight, and looking down, he found by her soft regular +breathing that she had fallen asleep. Not wishing to disturb her, he +continued still, and took an intense pleasure in supporting her warm +young form as it rose and fell with her every breath. + +Knight fell to dreaming too, though he continued wide awake. It was +pleasant to realize the implicit trust she placed in him, and to think +of the charming innocence of one who could sink to sleep in so simple +and unceremonious a manner. More than all, the musing unpractical +student felt the immense responsibility he was taking upon himself by +becoming the protector and guide of such a trusting creature. The quiet +slumber of her soul lent a quietness to his own. Then she moaned, and +turned herself restlessly. Presently her mutterings became distinct: + +'Don't tell him--he will not love me....I did not mean any +disgrace--indeed I did not, so don't tell Harry. We were going to be +married--that was why I ran away....And he says he will not have a +kissed woman....And if you tell him he will go away, and I shall die. I +pray have mercy--Oh!' + +Elfride started up wildly. + +The previous moment a musical ding-dong had spread into the air from +their right hand, and awakened her. + +'What is it?' she exclaimed in terror. + +'Only "eight bells,"' said Knight soothingly. 'Don't be frightened, +little bird, you are safe. What have you been dreaming about?' + +'I can't tell, I can't tell!' she said with a shudder. 'Oh, I don't know +what to do!' + +'Stay quietly with me. We shall soon see the dawn now. Look, the morning +star is lovely over there. The clouds have completely cleared off whilst +you have been sleeping. What have you been dreaming of?' + +'A woman in our parish.' + +'Don't you like her?' + +'I don't. She doesn't like me. Where are we?' + +'About south of the Exe.' + +Knight said no more on the words of her dream. They watched the sky +till Elfride grew calm, and the dawn appeared. It was mere wan lightness +first. Then the wind blew in a changed spirit, and died away to a +zephyr. The star dissolved into the day. + +'That's how I should like to die,' said Elfride, rising from her seat +and leaning over the bulwark to watch the star's last expiring gleam. + +'As the lines say,' Knight replied---- + + + '"To set as sets the morning star, which goes + Not down behind the darken'd west, nor hides + Obscured among the tempests of the sky, + But melts away into the light of heaven."' + + +'Oh, other people have thought the same thing, have they? That's always +the case with my originalities--they are original to nobody but myself.' + +'Not only the case with yours. When I was a young hand at reviewing +I used to find that a frightful pitfall--dilating upon subjects I met +with, which were novelties to me, and finding afterwards they had been +exhausted by the thinking world when I was in pinafores.' + +'That is delightful. Whenever I find you have done a foolish thing I am +glad, because it seems to bring you a little nearer to me, who have done +many.' And Elfride thought again of her enemy asleep under the deck they +trod. + +All up the coast, prominences singled themselves out from recesses. Then +a rosy sky spread over the eastern sea and behind the low line of +land, flinging its livery in dashes upon the thin airy clouds in that +direction. Every projection on the land seemed now so many fingers +anxious to catch a little of the liquid light thrown so prodigally over +the sky, and after a fantastic time of lustrous yellows in the east, the +higher elevations along the shore were flooded with the same hues. The +bluff and bare contours of Start Point caught the brightest, earliest +glow of all, and so also did the sides of its white lighthouse, perched +upon a shelf in its precipitous front like a mediaeval saint in a niche. +Their lofty neighbour Bolt Head on the left remained as yet ungilded, +and retained its gray. + +Then up came the sun, as it were in jerks, just to seaward of the +easternmost point of land, flinging out a Jacob's-ladder path of light +from itself to Elfride and Knight, and coating them with rays in a few +minutes. The inferior dignitaries of the shore--Froward Point, Berry +Head, and Prawle--all had acquired their share of the illumination ere +this, and at length the very smallest protuberance of wave, cliff, or +inlet, even to the innermost recesses of the lovely valley of the Dart, +had its portion; and sunlight, now the common possession of all, ceased +to be the wonderful and coveted thing it had been a short half hour +before. + +After breakfast, Plymouth arose into view, and grew distincter to their +nearing vision, the Breakwater appearing like a streak of phosphoric +light upon the surface of the sea. Elfride looked furtively around for +Mrs. Jethway, but could discern no shape like hers. Afterwards, in the +bustle of landing, she looked again with the same result, by which time +the woman had probably glided upon the quay unobserved. Expanding with +a sense of relief, Elfride waited whilst Knight looked to their luggage, +and then saw her father approaching through the crowd, twirling his +walking-stick to catch their attention. Elbowing their way to him they +all entered the town, which smiled as sunny a smile upon Elfride as it +had done between one and two years earlier, when she had entered it at +precisely the same hour as the bride-elect of Stephen Smith. + + + + +Chapter XXX + + 'Vassal unto Love.' + + +Elfride clung closer to Knight as day succeeded day. Whatever else might +admit of question, there could be no dispute that the allegiance she +bore him absorbed her whole soul and existence. A greater than Stephen +had arisen, and she had left all to follow him. + +The unreserved girl was never chary of letting her lover discover how +much she admired him. She never once held an idea in opposition to +any one of his, or insisted on any point with him, or showed any +independence, or held her own on any subject. His lightest whim she +respected and obeyed as law, and if, expressing her opinion on a matter, +he took up the subject and differed from her, she instantly threw +down her own opinion as wrong and untenable. Even her ambiguities and +espieglerie were but media of the same manifestation; acted charades, +embodying the words of her prototype, the tender and susceptible +daughter-in-law of Naomi: 'Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for +that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto +thine handmaid.' + +She was syringing the plants one wet day in the greenhouse. Knight was +sitting under a great passion-flower observing the scene. Sometimes he +looked out at the rain from the sky, and then at Elfride's inner rain of +larger drops, which fell from trees and shrubs, after having previously +hung from the twigs like small silver fruit. + +'I must give you something to make you think of me during this autumn +at your chambers,' she was saying. 'What shall it be? Portraits do more +harm than good, by selecting the worst expression of which your face is +capable. Hair is unlucky. And you don't like jewellery.' + +'Something which shall bring back to my mind the many scenes we have +enacted in this conservatory. I see what I should prize very much. That +dwarf myrtle tree in the pot, which you have been so carefully tending.' + +Elfride looked thoughtfully at the myrtle. + +'I can carry it comfortably in my hat box,' said Knight. 'And I will put +it in my window, and so, it being always before my eyes, I shall think +of you continually.' + +It so happened that the myrtle which Knight had singled out had a +peculiar beginning and history. It had originally been a twig worn in +Stephen Smith's button-hole, and he had taken it thence, stuck it into +the pot, and told her that if it grew, she was to take care of it, and +keep it in remembrance of him when he was far away. + +She looked wistfully at the plant, and a sense of fairness to Smith's +memory caused her a pang of regret that Knight should have asked for +that very one. It seemed exceeding a common heartlessness to let it go. + +'Is there not anything you like better?' she said sadly. 'That is only +an ordinary myrtle.' + +'No: I am fond of myrtle.' Seeing that she did not take kindly to the +idea, he said again, 'Why do you object to my having that?' + +'Oh no--I don't object precisely--it was a feeling.--Ah, here's another +cutting lately struck, and just as small--of a better kind, and with +prettier leaves--myrtus microphylla.' + +'That will do nicely. Let it be put in my room, that I may not forget +it. What romance attaches to the other?' + +'It was a gift to me.' + +The subject then dropped. Knight thought no more of the matter till, on +entering his bedroom in the evening, he found the second myrtle placed +upon his dressing-table as he had directed. He stood for a moment +admiring the fresh appearance of the leaves by candlelight, and then he +thought of the transaction of the day. + +Male lovers as well as female can be spoilt by too much kindness, and +Elfride's uniform submissiveness had given Knight a rather exacting +manner at crises, attached to her as he was. 'Why should she have +refused the one I first chose?' he now asked himself. Even such slight +opposition as she had shown then was exceptional enough to make itself +noticeable. He was not vexed with her in the least: the mere variation +of her way to-day from her usual ways kept him musing on the subject, +because it perplexed him. 'It was a gift'--those were her words. +Admitting it to be a gift, he thought she could hardly value a mere +friend more than she valued him as a lover, and giving the plant into +his charge would have made no difference. 'Except, indeed, it was the +gift of a lover,' he murmured. + +'I wonder if Elfride has ever had a lover before?' he said aloud, as a +new idea, quite. This and companion thoughts were enough to occupy him +completely till he fell asleep--rather later than usual. + +The next day, when they were again alone, he said to her rather +suddenly-- + +'Do you love me more or less, Elfie, for what I told you on board the +steamer?' + +'You told me so many things,' she returned, lifting her eyes to his and +smiling. + +'I mean the confession you coaxed out of me--that I had never been in +the position of lover before.' + +'It is a satisfaction, I suppose, to be the first in your heart,' she +said to him, with an attempt to continue her smiling. + +'I am going to ask you a question now,' said Knight, somewhat awkwardly. +'I only ask it in a whimsical way, you know: not with great seriousness, +Elfride. You may think it odd, perhaps.' + +Elfride tried desperately to keep the colour in her face. She could not, +though distressed to think that getting pale showed consciousness of +deeper guilt than merely getting red. + +'Oh no--I shall not think that,' she said, because obliged to say +something to fill the pause which followed her questioner's remark. + +'It is this: have you ever had a lover? I am almost sure you have not; +but, have you?' + +'Not, as it were, a lover; I mean, not worth mentioning, Harry,' she +faltered. + +Knight, overstrained in sentiment as he knew the feeling to be, felt +some sickness of heart. + +'Still, he was a lover?' + +'Well, a sort of lover, I suppose,' she responded tardily. + +'A man, I mean, you know.' + +'Yes; but only a mere person, and----' + +'But truly your lover?' + +'Yes; a lover certainly--he was that. Yes, he might have been called my +lover.' + +Knight said nothing to this for a minute or more, and kept silent time +with his finger to the tick of the old library clock, in which room the +colloquy was going on. + +'You don't mind, Harry, do you?' she said anxiously, nestling close to +him, and watching his face. + +'Of course, I don't seriously mind. In reason, a man cannot object to +such a trifle. I only thought you hadn't--that was all.' + +However, one ray was abstracted from the glory about her head. But +afterwards, when Knight was wandering by himself over the bare and +breezy hills, and meditating on the subject, that ray suddenly returned. +For she might have had a lover, and never have cared in the least for +him. She might have used the word improperly, and meant 'admirer' all +the time. Of course she had been admired; and one man might have made +his admiration more prominent than that of the rest--a very natural +case. + +They were sitting on one of the garden seats when he found occasion to +put the supposition to the test. 'Did you love that lover or admirer of +yours ever so little, Elfie?' + +She murmured reluctantly, 'Yes, I think I did.' + +Knight felt the same faint touch of misery. 'Only a very little?' he +said. + +'I am not sure how much.' + +'But you are sure, darling, you loved him a little?' + +'I think I am sure I loved him a little.' + +'And not a great deal, Elfie?' + +'My love was not supported by reverence for his powers.' + +'But, Elfride, did you love him deeply?' said Knight restlessly. + +'I don't exactly know how deep you mean by deeply.' + +'That's nonsense.' + +'You misapprehend; and you have let go my hand!' she cried, her eyes +filling with tears. 'Harry, don't be severe with me, and don't question +me. I did not love him as I do you. And could it be deeply if I did +not think him cleverer than myself? For I did not. You grieve me so +much--you can't think.' + +'I will not say another word about it.' + +'And you will not think about it, either, will you? I know you think of +weaknesses in me after I am out of your sight; and not knowing what they +are, I cannot combat them. I almost wish you were of a grosser nature, +Harry; in truth I do! Or rather, I wish I could have the advantages such +a nature in you would afford me, and yet have you as you are.' + +'What advantages would they be?' + +'Less anxiety, and more security. Ordinary men are not so delicate in +their tastes as you; and where the lover or husband is not fastidious, +and refined, and of a deep nature, things seem to go on better, I +fancy--as far as I have been able to observe the world.' + +'Yes; I suppose it is right. Shallowness has this advantage, that you +can't be drowned there.' + +'But I think I'll have you as you are; yes, I will!' she said winsomely. +'The practical husbands and wives who take things philosophically are +very humdrum, are they not? Yes, it would kill me quite. You please me +best as you are.' + +'Even though I wish you had never cared for one before me?' + +'Yes. And you must not wish it. Don't!' + +'I'll try not to, Elfride.' + +So she hoped, but her heart was troubled. If he felt so deeply on this +point, what would he say did he know all, and see it as Mrs. Jethway saw +it? He would never make her the happiest girl in the world by taking her +to be his own for aye. The thought enclosed her as a tomb whenever it +presented itself to her perturbed brain. She tried to believe that Mrs. +Jethway would never do her such a cruel wrong as to increase the bad +appearance of her folly by innuendoes; and concluded that concealment, +having been begun, must be persisted in, if possible. For what he might +consider as bad as the fact, was her previous concealment of it by +strategy. + +But Elfride knew Mrs. Jethway to be her enemy, and to hate her. It was +possible she would do her worst. And should she do it, all might be +over. + +Would the woman listen to reason, and be persuaded not to ruin one who +had never intentionally harmed her? + + + +It was night in the valley between Endelstow Crags and the shore. The +brook which trickled that way to the sea was distinct in its murmurs +now, and over the line of its course there began to hang a white riband +of fog. Against the sky, on the left hand of the vale, the black form of +the church could be seen. On the other rose hazel-bushes, a few trees, +and where these were absent, furze tufts--as tall as men--on stems +nearly as stout as timber. The shriek of some bird was occasionally +heard, as it flew terror-stricken from its first roost, to seek a new +sleeping-place, where it might pass the night unmolested. + +In the evening shade, some way down the valley, and under a row of +scrubby oaks, a cottage could still be discerned. It stood absolutely +alone. The house was rather large, and the windows of some of the rooms +were nailed up with boards on the outside, which gave a particularly +deserted appearance to the whole erection. From the front door an +irregular series of rough and misshapen steps, cut in the solid rock, +led down to the edge of the streamlet, which, at their extremity, +was hollowed into a basin through which the water trickled. This was +evidently the means of water supply to the dweller or dwellers in the +cottage. + +A light footstep was heard descending from the higher slopes of the +hillside. Indistinct in the pathway appeared a moving female shape, who +advanced and knocked timidly at the door. No answer being returned the +knock was repeated, with the same result, and it was then repeated a +third time. This also was unsuccessful. + +From one of the only two windows on the ground floor which were not +boarded up came rays of light, no shutter or curtain obscuring the room +from the eyes of a passer on the outside. So few walked that way after +nightfall that any such means to secure secrecy were probably deemed +unnecessary. + +The inequality of the rays falling upon the trees outside told that the +light had its origin in a flickering fire only. The visitor, after the +third knocking, stepped a little to the left in order to gain a view of +the interior, and threw back the hood from her face. The dancing yellow +sheen revealed the fair and anxious countenance of Elfride. + +Inside the house this firelight was enough to illumine the room +distinctly, and to show that the furniture of the cottage was superior +to what might have been expected from so unpromising an exterior. It +also showed to Elfride that the room was empty. Beyond the light quiver +and flap of the flames nothing moved or was audible therein. + +She turned the handle and entered, throwing off the cloak which +enveloped her, under which she appeared without hat or bonnet, and +in the sort of half-toilette country people ordinarily dine in. Then +advancing to the foot of the staircase she called distinctly, but +somewhat fearfully, 'Mrs. Jethway!' + +No answer. + +With a look of relief and regret combined, denoting that ease came to +the heart and disappointment to the brain, Elfride paused for several +minutes, as if undecided how to act. Determining to wait, she sat down +on a chair. The minutes drew on, and after sitting on the thorns of +impatience for half an hour, she searched her pocket, took therefrom a +letter, and tore off the blank leaf. Then taking out a pencil she wrote +upon the paper: + + +'DEAR MRS. JETHWAY,--I have been to visit you. I wanted much to see +you, but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to execute the +threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway, +let any one know I ran away from home! It would ruin me with him, and +break my heart. I will do anything for you, if you will be kind to +me. In the name of our common womanhood, do not, I implore you, make a +scandal of me.--Yours, E. SWANCOURT.' + + +She folded the note cornerwise, directed it, and placed it on the table. +Then again drawing the hood over her curly head she emerged silently as +she had come. + +Whilst this episode had been in action at Mrs. Jethway's cottage, Knight +had gone from the dining-room into the drawing-room, and found Mrs. +Swancourt there alone. + +'Elfride has vanished upstairs or somewhere,' she said. + +'And I have been reading an article in an old number of the PRESENT that +I lighted on by chance a short time ago; it is an article you once told +us was yours. Well, Harry, with due deference to your literary powers, +allow me to say that this effusion is all nonsense, in my opinion.' + +'What is it about?' said Knight, taking up the paper and reading. + +'There: don't get red about it. Own that experience has taught you to +be more charitable. I have never read such unchivalrous sentiments in my +life--from a man, I mean. There, I forgive you; it was before you knew +Elfride.' + +'Oh yes,' said Knight, looking up. 'I remember now. The text of that +sermon was not my own at all, but was suggested to me by a young man +named Smith--the same whom I have mentioned to you as coming from this +parish. I thought the idea rather ingenious at the time, and enlarged it +to the weight of a few guineas, because I had nothing else in my head.' + +'Which idea do you call the text? I am curious to know that.' + +'Well, this,' said Knight, somewhat unwillingly. 'That experience +teaches, and your sweetheart, no less than your tailor, is necessarily +very imperfect in her duties, if you are her first patron: and +conversely, the sweetheart who is graceful under the initial kiss must +be supposed to have had some practice in the trade.' + +'And do you mean to say that you wrote that upon the strength of another +man's remark, without having tested it by practice?' + +'Yes--indeed I do.' + +'Then I think it was uncalled for and unfair. And how do you know it is +true? I expect you regret it now.' + +'Since you bring me into a serious mood, I will speak candidly. I do +believe that remark to be perfectly true, and, having written it, I +would defend it anywhere. But I do often regret having ever written it, +as well as others of the sort. I have grown older since, and I find such +a tone of writing is calculated to do harm in the world. Every literary +Jack becomes a gentleman if he can only pen a few indifferent satires +upon womankind: women themselves, too, have taken to the trick; and so, +upon the whole, I begin to be rather ashamed of my companions.' + +'Ah, Henry, you have fallen in love since and it makes a difference,' +said Mrs. Swancourt with a faint tone of banter. + +'That's true; but that is not my reason.' + +'Having found that, in a case of your own experience, a so-called goose +was a swan, it seems absurd to deny such a possibility in other men's +experiences.' + +'You can hit palpably, cousin Charlotte,' said Knight. 'You are like the +boy who puts a stone inside his snowball, and I shall play with you no +longer. Excuse me--I am going for my evening stroll.' + +Though Knight had spoken jestingly, this incident and conversation had +caused him a sudden depression. Coming, rather singularly, just after +his discovery that Elfride had known what it was to love warmly before +she had known him, his mind dwelt upon the subject, and the familiar +pipe he smoked, whilst pacing up and down the shrubbery-path, failed +to be a solace. He thought again of those idle words--hitherto quite +forgotten--about the first kiss of a girl, and the theory seemed more +than reasonable. Of course their sting now lay in their bearing on +Elfride. + +Elfride, under Knight's kiss, had certainly been a very different woman +from herself under Stephen's. Whether for good or for ill, she had +marvellously well learnt a betrothed lady's part; and the fascinating +finish of her deportment in this second campaign did probably arise from +her unreserved encouragement of Stephen. Knight, with all the rapidity +of jealous sensitiveness, pounced upon some words she had inadvertently +let fall about an earring, which he had only partially understood at the +time. It was during that 'initial kiss' by the little waterfall: + +'We must be careful. I lost the other by doing this!' + +A flush which had in it as much of wounded pride as of sorrow, passed +over Knight as he thought of what he had so frequently said to her +in his simplicity. 'I always meant to be the first comer in a woman's +heart, fresh lips or none for me.' How childishly blind he must have +seemed to this mere girl! How she must have laughed at him inwardly! He +absolutely writhed as he thought of the confession she had wrung from +him on the boat in the darkness of night. The one conception which had +sustained his dignity when drawn out of his shell on that occasion--that +of her charming ignorance of all such matters--how absurd it was! + +This man, whose imagination had been fed up to preternatural size by +lonely study and silent observations of his kind--whose emotions had +been drawn out long and delicate by his seclusion, like plants in a +cellar--was now absolutely in pain. Moreover, several years of poetic +study, and, if the truth must be told, poetic efforts, had tended +to develop the affective side of his constitution still further, in +proportion to his active faculties. It was his belief in the absolute +newness of blandishment to Elfride which had constituted her primary +charm. He began to think it was as hard to be earliest in a woman's +heart as it was to be first in the Pool of Bethesda. + +That Knight should have been thus constituted: that Elfride's second +lover should not have been one of the great mass of bustling mankind, +little given to introspection, whose good-nature might have compensated +for any lack of appreciativeness, was the chance of things. That her +throbbing, self-confounding, indiscreet heart should have to defend +itself unaided against the keen scrutiny and logical power which Knight, +now that his suspicions were awakened, would sooner or later be sure to +exercise against her, was her misfortune. A miserable incongruity was +apparent in the circumstance of a strong mind practising its unerring +archery upon a heart which the owner of that mind loved better than his +own. + +Elfride's docile devotion to Knight was now its own enemy. Clinging +to him so dependently, she taught him in time to presume upon that +devotion--a lesson men are not slow to learn. A slight rebelliousness +occasionally would have done him no harm, and would have been a world +of advantage to her. But she idolized him, and was proud to be his +bond-servant. + + + + +Chapter XXXI + + 'A worm i' the bud.' + + +One day the reviewer said, 'Let us go to the cliffs again, Elfride;' +and, without consulting her wishes, he moved as if to start at once. + +'The cliff of our dreadful adventure?' she inquired, with a shudder. +'Death stares me in the face in the person of that cliff.' + +Nevertheless, so entirely had she sunk her individuality in his that the +remark was not uttered as an expostulation, and she immediately prepared +to accompany him. + +'No, not that place,' said Knight. 'It is ghastly to me, too. That +other, I mean; what is its name?--Windy Beak.' + +Windy Beak was the second cliff in height along that coast, and, as is +frequently the case with the natural features of the globe no less than +with the intellectual features of men, it enjoyed the reputation of +being the first. Moreover, it was the cliff to which Elfride had ridden +with Stephen Smith, on a well-remembered morning of his summer visit. + +So, though thought of the former cliff had caused her to shudder at the +perils to which her lover and herself had there been exposed, by being +associated with Knight only it was not so objectionable as Windy Beak. +That place was worse than gloomy, it was a perpetual reproach to her. + +But not liking to refuse, she said, 'It is further than the other +cliff.' + +'Yes; but you can ride.' + +'And will you too?' + +'No, I'll walk.' + +A duplicate of her original arrangement with Stephen. Some fatality must +be hanging over her head. But she ceased objecting. + +'Very well, Harry, I'll ride,' she said meekly. + +A quarter of an hour later she was in the saddle. But how different +the mood from that of the former time. She had, indeed, given up her +position as queen of the less to be vassal of the greater. Here was no +showing off now; no scampering out of sight with Pansy, to perplex +and tire her companion; no saucy remarks on LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. +Elfride was burdened with the very intensity of her love. + +Knight did most of the talking along the journey. Elfride silently +listened, and entirely resigned herself to the motions of the ambling +horse upon which she sat, alternately rising and sinking gently, like a +sea bird upon a sea wave. + +When they had reached the limit of a quadruped's possibilities in +walking, Knight tenderly lifted her from the saddle, tied the horse, and +rambled on with her to the seat in the rock. Knight sat down, and drew +Elfride deftly beside him, and they looked over the sea. + +Two or three degrees above that melancholy and eternally level line, the +ocean horizon, hung a sun of brass, with no visible rays, in a sky of +ashen hue. It was a sky the sun did not illuminate or enkindle, as is +usual at sunsets. This sheet of sky was met by the salt mass of +gray water, flecked here and there with white. A waft of dampness +occasionally rose to their faces, which was probably rarefied spray from +the blows of the sea upon the foot of the cliff. + +Elfride wished it could be a longer time ago that she had sat there +with Stephen as her lover, and agreed to be his wife. The significant +closeness of that time to the present was another item to add to the +list of passionate fears which were chronic with her now. + +Yet Knight was very tender this evening, and sustained her close to him +as they sat. + +Not a word had been uttered by either since sitting down, when Knight +said musingly, looking still afar-- + +'I wonder if any lovers in past years ever sat here with arms locked, as +we do now. Probably they have, for the place seems formed for a seat.' + +Her recollection of a well-known pair who had, and the much-talked-of +loss which had ensued therefrom, and how the young man had been sent +back to look for the missing article, led Elfride to glance down to her +side, and behind her back. Many people who lose a trinket involuntarily +give a momentary look for it in passing the spot ever so long +afterwards. They do not often find it. Elfride, in turning her head, saw +something shine weakly from a crevice in the rocky sedile. Only for a +few minutes during the day did the sun light the alcove to its innermost +rifts and slits, but these were the minutes now, and its level rays did +Elfride the good or evil turn of revealing the lost ornament. + +Elfride's thoughts instantly reverted to the words she had +unintentionally uttered upon what had been going on when the earring was +lost. And she was immediately seized with a misgiving that Knight, on +seeing the object, would be reminded of her words. Her instinctive act +therefore was to secure it privately. + +It was so deep in the crack that Elfride could not pull it out with her +hand, though she made several surreptitious trials. + +'What are you doing, Elfie?' said Knight, noticing her attempts, and +looking behind him likewise. + +She had relinquished the endeavour, but too late. + +Knight peered into the joint from which her hand had been withdrawn, and +saw what she had seen. He instantly took a penknife from his pocket, +and by dint of probing and scraping brought the earring out upon open +ground. + +'It is not yours, surely?' he inquired. + +'Yes, it is,' she said quietly. + +'Well, that is a most extraordinary thing, that we should find it like +this!' Knight then remembered more circumstances; 'What, is it the one +you have told me of?' + +'Yes.' + +The unfortunate remark of hers at the kiss came into his mind, if eyes +were ever an index to be trusted. Trying to repress the words he yet +spoke on the subject, more to obtain assurance that what it had seemed +to imply was not true than from a wish to pry into bygones. + +'Were you really engaged to be married to that lover?' he said, looking +straight forward at the sea again. + +'Yes--but not exactly. Yet I think I was.' + +'O Elfride, engaged to be married!' he murmured. + +'It would have been called a--secret engagement, I suppose. But don't +look so disappointed; don't blame me.' + +'No, no.' + +'Why do you say "No, no," in such a way? Sweetly enough, but so barely?' + +Knight made no direct reply to this. 'Elfride, I told you once,' he +said, following out his thoughts, 'that I never kissed a woman as a +sweetheart until I kissed you. A kiss is not much, I suppose, and it +happens to few young people to be able to avoid all blandishments +and attentions except from the one they afterwards marry. But I have +peculiar weaknesses, Elfride; and because I have led a peculiar life, I +must suffer for it, I suppose. I had hoped--well, what I had no right to +hope in connection with you. You naturally granted your former lover the +privileges you grant me.' + +A 'yes' came from her like the last sad whisper of a breeze. + +'And he used to kiss you--of course he did.' + +'Yes.' + +'And perhaps you allowed him a more free manner in his love-making than +I have shown in mine.' + +'No, I did not.' This was rather more alertly spoken. + +'But he adopted it without being allowed?' + +'Yes.' + +'How much I have made of you, Elfride, and how I have kept aloof!' said +Knight in deep and shaken tones. 'So many days and hours as I have hoped +in you--I have feared to kiss you more than those two times. And he made +no scruples to...' + +She crept closer to him and trembled as if with cold. Her dread that the +whole story, with random additions, would become known to him, caused +her manner to be so agitated that Knight was alarmed and perplexed into +stillness. The actual innocence which made her think so fearfully of +what, as the world goes, was not a great matter, magnified her apparent +guilt. It may have said to Knight that a woman who was so flurried in +the preliminaries must have a dreadful sequel to her tale. + +'I know,' continued Knight, with an indescribable drag of manner and +intonation,--'I know I am absurdly scrupulous about you--that I want you +too exclusively mine. In your past before you knew me--from your very +cradle--I wanted to think you had been mine. I would make you mine by +main force. Elfride,' he went on vehemently, 'I can't help this jealousy +over you! It is my nature, and must be so, and I HATE the fact that you +have been caressed before: yes hate it!' + +She drew a long deep breath, which was half a sob. Knight's face was +hard, and he never looked at her at all, still fixing his gaze far out +to sea, which the sun had now resigned to the shade. In high places it +is not long from sunset to night, dusk being in a measure banished, and +though only evening where they sat, it had been twilight in the +valleys for half an hour. Upon the dull expanse of sea there gradually +intensified itself into existence the gleam of a distant light-ship. + +'When that lover first kissed you, Elfride was it in such a place as +this?' + +'Yes, it was.' + +'You don't tell me anything but what I wring out of you. Why is that? +Why have you suppressed all mention of this when casual confidences of +mine should have suggested confidence in return? On board the Juliet, +why were you so secret? It seems like being made a fool of, Elfride, to +think that, when I was teaching you how desirable it was that we should +have no secrets from each other, you were assenting in words, but in act +contradicting me. Confidence would have been so much more promising for +our happiness. If you had had confidence in me, and told me willingly, I +should--be different. But you suppress everything, and I shall question +you. Did you live at Endelstow at that time?' + +'Yes,' she said faintly. + +'Where were you when he first kissed you?' + +'Sitting in this seat.' + +'Ah, I thought so!' said Knight, rising and facing her. + +'And that accounts for everything--the exclamation which you explained +deceitfully, and all! Forgive the harsh word, Elfride--forgive it.' He +smiled a surface smile as he continued: 'What a poor mortal I am to play +second fiddle in everything and to be deluded by fibs!' + +'Oh, don't say it; don't, Harry!' + +'Where did he kiss you besides here?' + +'Sitting on--a tomb in the--churchyard--and other places,' she answered +with slow recklessness. + +'Never mind, never mind,' he exclaimed, on seeing her tears and +perturbation. 'I don't want to grieve you. I don't care.' + +But Knight did care. + +'It makes no difference, you know,' he continued, seeing she did not +reply. + +'I feel cold,' said Elfride. 'Shall we go home?' + +'Yes; it is late in the year to sit long out of doors: we ought to be +off this ledge before it gets too dark to let us see our footing. I +daresay the horse is impatient.' + +Knight spoke the merest commonplace to her now. He had hoped to the +last moment that she would have volunteered the whole story of her first +attachment. It grew more and more distasteful to him that she should +have a secret of this nature. Such entire confidence as he had pictured +as about to exist between himself and the innocent young wife who had +known no lover's tones save his--was this its beginning? He lifted +her upon the horse, and they went along constrainedly. The poison of +suspicion was doing its work well. + +An incident occurred on this homeward journey which was long remembered +by both, as adding shade to shadow. Knight could not keep from his +mind the words of Adam's reproach to Eve in PARADISE LOST, and at last +whispered them to himself-- + + + 'Fool'd and beguiled: by him thou, I by thee!' + + +'What did you say?' Elfride inquired timorously. + +'It was only a quotation.' + +They had now dropped into a hollow, and the church tower made its +appearance against the pale evening sky, its lower part being hidden by +some intervening trees. Elfride, being denied an answer, was looking at +the tower and trying to think of some contrasting quotation she might +use to regain his tenderness. After a little thought she said in winning +tones-- + +"Thou hast been my hope, and a strong tower for me against the enemy."' + +They passed on. A few minutes later three or four birds were seen to fly +out of the tower. + +'The strong tower moves,' said Knight, with surprise. + +A corner of the square mass swayed forward, sank, and vanished. A loud +rumble followed, and a cloud of dust arose where all had previously been +so clear. + +'The church restorers have done it!' said Elfride. + +At this minute Mr. Swancourt was seen approaching them. He came up with +a bustling demeanour, apparently much engrossed by some business in +hand. + +'We have got the tower down!' he exclaimed. 'It came rather quicker +than we intended it should. The first idea was to take it down stone by +stone, you know. In doing this the crack widened considerably, and it +was not believed safe for the men to stand upon the walls any longer. +Then we decided to undermine it, and three men set to work at the +weakest corner this afternoon. They had left off for the evening, +intending to give the final blow to-morrow morning, and had been home +about half an hour, when down it came. A very successful job--a very +fine job indeed. But he was a tough old fellow in spite of the crack.' +Here Mr. Swancourt wiped from his face the perspiration his excitement +had caused him. + +'Poor old tower!' said Elfride. + +'Yes, I am sorry for it,' said Knight. 'It was an interesting piece of +antiquity--a local record of local art.' + +'Ah, but my dear sir, we shall have a new one, expostulated Mr. +Swancourt; 'a splendid tower--designed by a first-rate London man--in +the newest style of Gothic art, and full of Christian feeling.' + +'Indeed!' said Knight. + +'Oh yes. Not in the barbarous clumsy architecture of this neighbourhood; +you see nothing so rough and pagan anywhere else in England. When +the men are gone, I would advise you to go and see the church before +anything further is done to it. You can now sit in the chancel, and look +down the nave through the west arch, and through that far out to sea. In +fact,' said Mr. Swancourt significantly, 'if a wedding were performed +at the altar to-morrow morning, it might be witnessed from the deck of +a ship on a voyage to the South Seas, with a good glass. However, after +dinner, when the moon has risen, go up and see for yourselves.' + +Knight assented with feverish readiness. He had decided within the last +few minutes that he could not rest another night without further talk +with Elfride upon the subject which now divided them: he was determined +to know all, and relieve his disquiet in some way. Elfride would gladly +have escaped further converse alone with him that night, but it seemed +inevitable. + +Just after moonrise they left the house. How little any expectation +of the moonlight prospect--which was the ostensible reason of their +pilgrimage--had to do with Knight's real motive in getting the gentle +girl again upon his arm, Elfride no less than himself well knew. + + + + +Chapter XXXII + + 'Had I wist before I kist' + + +It was now October, and the night air was chill. After looking to see +that she was well wrapped up, Knight took her along the hillside path +they had ascended so many times in each other's company, when doubt was +a thing unknown. On reaching the church they found that one side of the +tower was, as the vicar had stated, entirely removed, and lying in the +shape of rubbish at their feet. The tower on its eastern side still +was firm, and might have withstood the shock of storms and the siege +of battering years for many a generation even now. They entered by the +side-door, went eastward, and sat down by the altar-steps. + +The heavy arch spanning the junction of tower and nave formed to-night +a black frame to a distant misty view, stretching far westward. Just +outside the arch came the heap of fallen stones, then a portion of +moonlit churchyard, then the wide and convex sea behind. It was a +coup-d'oeil which had never been possible since the mediaeval masons +first attached the old tower to the older church it dignified, and +hence must be supposed to have had an interest apart from that of simple +moonlight on ancient wall and sea and shore--any mention of which has by +this time, it is to be feared, become one of the cuckoo-cries which are +heard but not regarded. Rays of crimson, blue, and purple shone upon the +twain from the east window behind them, wherein saints and angels vied +with each other in primitive surroundings of landscape and sky, and +threw upon the pavement at the sitters' feet a softer reproduction of +the same translucent hues, amid which the shadows of the two living +heads of Knight and Elfride were opaque and prominent blots. Presently +the moon became covered by a cloud, and the iridescence died away. + +'There, it is gone!' said Knight. 'I've been thinking, Elfride, that +this place we sit on is where we may hope to kneel together soon. But I +am restless and uneasy, and you know why.' + +Before she replied the moonlight returned again, irradiating that +portion of churchyard within their view. It brightened the near part +first, and against the background which the cloud-shadow had not yet +uncovered stood, brightest of all, a white tomb--the tomb of young +Jethway. + +Knight, still alive on the subject of Elfride's secret, thought of her +words concerning the kiss that it once had occurred on a tomb in this +churchyard. + +'Elfride,' he said, with a superficial archness which did not half cover +an undercurrent of reproach, 'do you know, I think you might have told +me voluntarily about that past--of kisses and betrothing--without giving +me so much uneasiness and trouble. Was that the tomb you alluded to as +having sat on with him?' + +She waited an instant. 'Yes,' she said. + +The correctness of his random shot startled Knight; though, considering +that almost all the other memorials in the churchyard were upright +headstones upon which nobody could possibly sit, it was not so +wonderful. + +Elfride did not even now go on with the explanation her exacting lover +wished to have, and her reticence began to irritate him as before. He +was inclined to read her a lecture. + +'Why don't you tell me all?' he said somewhat indignantly. 'Elfride, +there is not a single subject upon which I feel more strongly than upon +this--that everything ought to be cleared up between two persons before +they become husband and wife. See how desirable and wise such a +course is, in order to avoid disagreeable contingencies in the form of +discoveries afterwards. For, Elfride, a secret of no importance at all +may be made the basis of some fatal misunderstanding only because it is +discovered, and not confessed. They say there never was a couple of whom +one had not some secret the other never knew or was intended to know. +This may or may not be true; but if it be true, some have been happy in +spite rather than in consequence of it. If a man were to see another +man looking significantly at his wife, and she were blushing crimson and +appearing startled, do you think he would be so well satisfied with, for +instance, her truthful explanation that once, to her great annoyance, +she accidentally fainted into his arms, as if she had said it +voluntarily long ago, before the circumstance occurred which forced it +from her? Suppose that admirer you spoke of in connection with the tomb +yonder should turn up, and bother me. It would embitter our lives, if I +were then half in the dark, as I am now!' + +Knight spoke the latter sentences with growing force. + +'It cannot be,' she said. + +'Why not?' he asked sharply. + +Elfride was distressed to find him in so stern a mood, and she trembled. +In a confusion of ideas, probably not intending a wilful prevarication, +she answered hurriedly-- + +'If he's dead, how can you meet him?' + +'Is he dead? Oh, that's different altogether!' said Knight, immensely +relieved. 'But, let me see--what did you say about that tomb and him?' + +'That's his tomb,' she continued faintly. + +'What! was he who lies buried there the man who was your lover?' Knight +asked in a distinct voice. + +'Yes; and I didn't love him or encourage him.' + +'But you let him kiss you--you said so, you know, Elfride.' + +She made no reply. + +'Why,' said Knight, recollecting circumstances by degrees, 'you surely +said you were in some degree engaged to him--and of course you were if +he kissed you. And now you say you never encouraged him. And I have been +fancying you said--I am almost sure you did--that you were sitting with +him ON that tomb. Good God!' he cried, suddenly starting up in anger, +'are you telling me untruths? Why should you play with me like this? +I'll have the right of it. Elfride, we shall never be happy! There's +a blight upon us, or me, or you, and it must be cleared off before we +marry.' Knight moved away impetuously as if to leave her. + +She jumped up and clutched his arm + +'Don't go, Harry--don't! + +'Tell me, then,' said Knight sternly. 'And remember this, no more fibs, +or, upon my soul, I shall hate you. Heavens! that I should come to this, +to be made a fool of by a girl's untruths----' + +'Don't, don't treat me so cruelly! O Harry, Harry, have pity, and +withdraw those dreadful words! I am truthful by nature--I am--and I +don't know how I came to make you misunderstand! But I was frightened!' +She quivered so in her perturbation that she shook him with her {Note: +sentence incomplete in text.} + +'Did you say you were sitting on that tomb?' he asked moodily. + +'Yes; and it was true.' + +'Then how, in the name of Heaven, can a man sit upon his own tomb?' + +'That was another man. Forgive me, Harry, won't you?' + +'What, a lover in the tomb and a lover on it?' + +'Oh--Oh--yes!' + +'Then there were two before me? + +'I--suppose so.' + +'Now, don't be a silly woman with your supposing--I hate all that,' said +Knight contemptuously almost. 'Well, we learn strange things. I +don't know what I might have done--no man can say into what shape +circumstances may warp him--but I hardly think I should have had the +conscience to accept the favours of a new lover whilst sitting over the +poor remains of the old one; upon my soul, I don't.' Knight, in moody +meditation, continued looking towards the tomb, which stood staring them +in the face like an avenging ghost. + +'But you wrong me--Oh, so grievously!' she cried. 'I did not meditate +any such thing: believe me, Harry, I did not. It only happened so--quite +of itself.' + +'Well, I suppose you didn't INTEND such a thing,' he said. 'Nobody ever +does,' he sadly continued. + +'And him in the grave I never once loved.' + +'I suppose the second lover and you, as you sat there, vowed to be +faithful to each other for ever?' + +Elfride only replied by quick heavy breaths, showing she was on the +brink of a sob. + +'You don't choose to be anything but reserved, then?' he said +imperatively. + +'Of course we did,' she responded. + +'"Of course!" You seem to treat the subject very lightly?' + +'It is past, and is nothing to us now.' + +'Elfride, it is a nothing which, though it may make a careless man +laugh, cannot but make a genuine one grieve. It is a very gnawing pain. +Tell me straight through--all of it.' + +'Never. O Harry! how can you expect it when so little of it makes you so +harsh with me?' + +'Now, Elfride, listen to this. You know that what you have told only +jars the subtler fancies in one, after all. The feeling I have about it +would be called, and is, mere sentimentality; and I don't want you to +suppose that an ordinary previous engagement of a straightforward kind +would make any practical difference in my love, or my wish to make you +my wife. But you seem to have more to tell, and that's where the wrong +is. Is there more?' + +'Not much more,' she wearily answered. + +Knight preserved a grave silence for a minute. '"Not much more,"' he +said at last. 'I should think not, indeed!' His voice assumed a low and +steady pitch. 'Elfride, you must not mind my saying a strange-sounding +thing, for say it I shall. It is this: that if there WERE much more +to add to an account which already includes all the particulars that +a broken marriage engagement could possibly include with propriety, it +must be some exceptional thing which might make it impossible for me or +any one else to love you and marry you.' + +Knight's disturbed mood led him much further than he would have gone +in a quieter moment. And, even as it was, had she been assertive to any +degree he would not have been so peremptory; and had she been a stronger +character--more practical and less imaginative--she would have made more +use of her position in his heart to influence him. But the confiding +tenderness which had won him is ever accompanied by a sort of +self-committal to the stream of events, leading every such woman to +trust more to the kindness of fate for good results than to any argument +of her own. + +'Well, well,' he murmured cynically; 'I won't say it is your fault: +it is my ill-luck, I suppose. I had no real right to question +you--everybody would say it was presuming. But when we have +misunderstood, we feel injured by the subject of our misunderstanding. +You never said you had had nobody else here making love to you, so why +should I blame you? Elfride, I beg your pardon.' + +'No, no! I would rather have your anger than that cool aggrieved +politeness. Do drop that, Harry! Why should you inflict that upon me? It +reduces me to the level of a mere acquaintance.' + +'You do that with me. Why not confidence for confidence?' + +'Yes; but I didn't ask you a single question with regard to your past: +I didn't wish to know about it. All I cared for was that, wherever you +came from, whatever you had done, whoever you had loved, you were mine +at last. Harry, if originally you had known I had loved, would you never +have cared for me?' + +'I won't quite say that. Though I own that the idea of your +inexperienced state had a great charm for me. But I think this: that if +I had known there was any phase of your past love you would refuse to +reveal if I asked to know it, I should never have loved you.' + +Elfride sobbed bitterly. 'Am I such a--mere characterless toy--as to +have no attrac--tion in me, apart from--freshness? Haven't I brains? +You said--I was clever and ingenious in my thoughts, and--isn't that +anything? Have I not some beauty? I think I have a little--and I know +I have--yes, I do! You have praised my voice, and my manner, and my +accomplishments. Yet all these together are so much rubbish because +I--accidentally saw a man before you!' + +'Oh, come, Elfride. "Accidentally saw a man" is very cool. You loved +him, remember.' + +--'And loved him a little!' + +'And refuse now to answer the simple question how it ended. Do you +refuse still, Elfride?' + +'You have no right to question me so--you said so. It is unfair. Trust +me as I trust you.' + +'That's not at all.' + +'I shall not love you if you are so cruel. It is cruel to me to argue +like this.' + +'Perhaps it is. Yes, it is. I was carried away by my feeling for you. +Heaven knows that I didn't mean to; but I have loved you so that I have +used you badly.' + +'I don't mind it, Harry!' she instantly answered, creeping up and +nestling against him; 'and I will not think at all that you used me +harshly if you will forgive me, and not be vexed with me any more? I do +wish I had been exactly as you thought I was, but I could not help it, +you know. If I had only known you had been coming, what a nunnery I +would have lived in to have been good enough for you!' + +'Well, never mind,' said Knight; and he turned to go. He endeavoured +to speak sportively as they went on. 'Diogenes Laertius says that +philosophers used voluntarily to deprive themselves of sight to be +uninterrupted in their meditations. Men, becoming lovers, ought to do +the same thing.' + +'Why?--but never mind--I don't want to know. Don't speak laconically to +me,' she said with deprecation. + +'Why? Because they would never then be distracted by discovering their +idol was second-hand.' + +She looked down and sighed; and they passed out of the crumbling old +place, and slowly crossed to the churchyard entrance. Knight was not +himself, and he could not pretend to be. She had not told all. + +He supported her lightly over the stile, and was practically as +attentive as a lover could be. But there had passed away a glory, and +the dream was not as it had been of yore. Perhaps Knight was not shaped +by Nature for a marrying man. Perhaps his lifelong constraint towards +women, which he had attributed to accident, was not chance after +all, but the natural result of instinctive acts so minute as to be +undiscernible even by himself. Or whether the rough dispelling of +any bright illusion, however imaginative, depreciates the real and +unexaggerated brightness which appertains to its basis, one cannot say. +Certain it was that Knight's disappointment at finding himself second +or third in the field, at Elfride's momentary equivoque, and at her +reluctance to be candid, brought him to the verge of cynicism. + + + + +Chapter XXXIII + + 'O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery.' + + +A habit of Knight's, when not immediately occupied with Elfride--to walk +by himself for half an hour or so between dinner and bedtime--had become +familiar to his friends at Endelstow, Elfride herself among them. When +he had helped her over the stile, she said gently, 'If you wish to take +your usual turn on the hill, Harry, I can run down to the house alone.' + +'Thank you, Elfie; then I think I will.' + +Her form diminished to blackness in the moonlight, and Knight, after +remaining upon the churchyard stile a few minutes longer, turned back +again towards the building. His usual course was now to light a cigar or +pipe, and indulge in a quiet meditation. But to-night his mind was too +tense to bethink itself of such a solace. He merely walked round to the +site of the fallen tower, and sat himself down upon some of the +large stones which had composed it until this day, when the chain of +circumstance originated by Stephen Smith, while in the employ of Mr. +Hewby, the London man of art, had brought about its overthrow. + +Pondering on the possible episodes of Elfride's past life, and on how +he had supposed her to have had no past justifying the name, he sat and +regarded the white tomb of young Jethway, now close in front of him. +The sea, though comparatively placid, could as usual be heard from this +point along the whole distance between promontories to the right and +left, floundering and entangling itself among the insulated stacks of +rock which dotted the water's edge--the miserable skeletons of tortured +old cliffs that would not even yet succumb to the wear and tear of the +tides. + +As a change from thoughts not of a very cheerful kind, Knight attempted +exertion. He stood up, and prepared to ascend to the summit of +the ruinous heap of stones, from which a more extended outlook was +obtainable than from the ground. He stretched out his arm to seize the +projecting arris of a larger block than ordinary, and so help himself +up, when his hand lighted plump upon a substance differing in the +greatest possible degree from what he had expected to seize--hard stone. +It was stringy and entangled, and trailed upon the stone. The +deep shadow from the aisle wall prevented his seeing anything here +distinctly, and he began guessing as a necessity. 'It is a tressy +species of moss or lichen,' he said to himself. + +But it lay loosely over the stone. + +'It is a tuft of grass,' he said. + +But it lacked the roughness and humidity of the finest grass. + +'It is a mason's whitewash-brush.' + +Such brushes, he remembered, were more bristly; and however much used in +repairing a structure, would not be required in pulling one down. + +He said, 'It must be a thready silk fringe.' + +He felt further in. It was somewhat warm. Knight instantly felt somewhat +cold. + +To find the coldness of inanimate matter where you expect warmth is +startling enough; but a colder temperature than that of the body being +rather the rule than the exception in common substances, it hardly +conveys such a shock to the system as finding warmth where utter +frigidity is anticipated. + +'God only knows what it is,' he said. + +He felt further, and in the course of a minute put his hand upon a human +head. The head was warm, but motionless. The thready mass was the hair +of the head--long and straggling, showing that the head was a woman's. + +Knight in his perplexity stood still for a moment, and collected his +thoughts. The vicar's account of the fall of the tower was that the +workmen had been undermining it all the day, and had left in the evening +intending to give the finishing stroke the next morning. Half an hour +after they had gone the undermined angle came down. The woman who was +half buried, as it seemed, must have been beneath it at the moment of +the fall. + +Knight leapt up and began endeavouring to remove the rubbish with his +hands. The heap overlying the body was for the most part fine and +dusty, but in immense quantity. It would be a saving of time to run for +assistance. He crossed to the churchyard wall, and hastened down the +hill. + +A little way down an intersecting road passed over a small ridge, which +now showed up darkly against the moon, and this road here formed a +kind of notch in the sky-line. At the moment that Knight arrived at the +crossing he beheld a man on this eminence, coming towards him. Knight +turned aside and met the stranger. + +'There has been an accident at the church,' said Knight, without +preface. 'The tower has fallen on somebody, who has been lying there +ever since. Will you come and help?' + +'That I will,' said the man. + +'It is a woman,' said Knight, as they hurried back, 'and I think we two +are enough to extricate her. Do you know of a shovel?' + +'The grave-digging shovels are about somewhere. They used to stay in the +tower.' + +'And there must be some belonging to the workmen.' + +They searched about, and in an angle of the porch found three carefully +stowed away. Going round to the west end Knight signified the spot of +the tragedy. + +'We ought to have brought a lantern,' he exclaimed. 'But we may be able +to do without.' He set to work removing the superincumbent mass. + +The other man, who looked on somewhat helplessly at first, now followed +the example of Knight's activity, and removed the larger stones which +were mingled with the rubbish. But with all their efforts it was +quite ten minutes before the body of the unfortunate creature could be +extricated. They lifted her as carefully as they could, breathlessly +carried her to Felix Jethway's tomb, which was only a few steps +westward, and laid her thereon. + +'Is she dead indeed?' said the stranger. + +'She appears to be,' said Knight. 'Which is the nearest house? The +vicarage, I suppose.' + +'Yes; but since we shall have to call a surgeon from Castle Boterel, I +think it would be better to carry her in that direction, instead of away +from the town.' + +'And is it not much further to the first house we come to going that +way, than to the vicarage or to The Crags?' + +'Not much,' the stranger replied. + +'Suppose we take her there, then. And I think the best way to do it +would be thus, if you don't mind joining hands with me.' + +'Not in the least; I am glad to assist.' + +Making a kind of cradle, by clasping their hands crosswise under the +inanimate woman, they lifted her, and walked on side by side down a path +indicated by the stranger, who appeared to know the locality well. + +'I had been sitting in the church for nearly an hour,' Knight resumed, +when they were out of the churchyard. 'Afterwards I walked round to the +site of the fallen tower, and so found her. It is painful to think I +unconsciously wasted so much time in the very presence of a perishing, +flying soul.' + +'The tower fell at dusk, did it not? quite two hours ago, I think?' + +'Yes. She must have been there alone. What could have been her object in +visiting the churchyard then? + +'It is difficult to say.' The stranger looked inquiringly into the +reclining face of the motionless form they bore. 'Would you turn her +round for a moment, so that the light shines on her face?' he said. + +They turned her face to the moon, and the man looked closer into her +features. 'Why, I know her!' he exclaimed. + +'Who is she?' + +'Mrs. Jethway. And the cottage we are taking her to is her own. She is +a widow; and I was speaking to her only this afternoon. I was at Castle +Boterel post-office, and she came there to post a letter. Poor soul! Let +us hurry on.' + +'Hold my wrist a little tighter. Was not that tomb we laid her on the +tomb of her only son?' + +'Yes, it was. Yes, I see it now. She was there to visit the tomb. Since +the death of that son she has been a desolate, desponding woman, always +bewailing him. She was a farmer's wife, very well educated--a governess +originally, I believe.' + +Knight's heart was moved to sympathy. His own fortunes seemed in some +strange way to be interwoven with those of this Jethway family, through +the influence of Elfride over himself and the unfortunate son of that +house. He made no reply, and they still walked on. + +'She begins to feel heavy,' said the stranger, breaking the silence. + +'Yes, she does,' said Knight; and after another pause added, 'I think I +have met you before, though where I cannot recollect. May I ask who you +are?' + +'Oh yes. I am Lord Luxellian. Who are you?' + +'I am a visitor at The Crags--Mr. Knight.' + +'I have heard of you, Mr. Knight.' + +'And I of you, Lord Luxellian. I am glad to meet you.' + +'I may say the same. I am familiar with your name in print.' + +'And I with yours. Is this the house?' + +'Yes.' + +The door was locked. Knight, reflecting a moment, searched the pocket +of the lifeless woman, and found therein a large key which, on being +applied to the door, opened it easily. The fire was out, but the +moonlight entered the quarried window, and made patterns upon the floor. +The rays enabled them to see that the room into which they had entered +was pretty well furnished, it being the same room that Elfride had +visited alone two or three evenings earlier. They deposited their still +burden on an old-fashioned couch which stood against the wall, and +Knight searched about for a lamp or candle. He found a candle on a +shelf, lighted it, and placed it on the table. + +Both Knight and Lord Luxellian examined the pale countenance +attentively, and both were nearly convinced that there was no hope. No +marks of violence were visible in the casual examination they made. + +'I think that as I know where Doctor Granson lives,' said Lord +Luxellian, 'I had better run for him whilst you stay here.' + +Knight agreed to this. Lord Luxellian then went off, and his hurrying +footsteps died away. Knight continued bending over the body, and a few +minutes longer of careful scrutiny perfectly satisfied him that +the woman was far beyond the reach of the lancet and the drug. Her +extremities were already beginning to get stiff and cold. Knight covered +her face, and sat down. + +The minutes went by. The essayist remained musing on all the occurrences +of the night. His eyes were directed upon the table, and he had seen +for some time that writing-materials were spread upon it. He now noticed +these more particularly: there were an inkstand, pen, blotting-book, +and note-paper. Several sheets of paper were thrust aside from the rest, +upon which letters had been begun and relinquished, as if their form had +not been satisfactory to the writer. A stick of black sealing-wax +and seal were there too, as if the ordinary fastening had not been +considered sufficiently secure. The abandoned sheets of paper lying as +they did open upon the table, made it possible, as he sat, to read the +few words written on each. One ran thus: + + +'SIR,--As a woman who was once blest with a dear son of her own, I +implore you to accept a warning----' + + +Another: + + +'SIR,--If you will deign to receive warning from a stranger before it is +too late to alter your course, listen to----' + + +The third: + + +'SIR,--With this letter I enclose to you another which, unaided by any +explanation from me, tells a startling tale. I wish, however, to add a +few words to make your delusion yet more clear to you----' + + + +It was plain that, after these renounced beginnings, a fourth letter had +been written and despatched, which had been deemed a proper one. Upon +the table were two drops of sealing-wax, the stick from which they were +taken having been laid down overhanging the edge of the table; the end +of it drooped, showing that the wax was placed there whilst warm. +There was the chair in which the writer had sat, the impression of the +letter's address upon the blotting-paper, and the poor widow who had +caused these results lying dead hard by. Knight had seen enough to +lead him to the conclusion that Mrs. Jethway, having matter of great +importance to communicate to some friend or acquaintance, had written +him a very careful letter, and gone herself to post it; that she had not +returned to the house from that time of leaving it till Lord Luxellian +and himself had brought her back dead. + +The unutterable melancholy of the whole scene, as he waited on, silent +and alone, did not altogether clash with the mood of Knight, even though +he was the affianced of a fair and winning girl, and though so lately he +had been in her company. Whilst sitting on the remains of the demolished +tower he had defined a new sensation; that the lengthened course of +inaction he had lately been indulging in on Elfride's account might +probably not be good for him as a man who had work to do. It could +quickly be put an end to by hastening on his marriage with her. + +Knight, in his own opinion, was one who had missed his mark by excessive +aiming. Having now, to a great extent, given up ideal ambitions, he +wished earnestly to direct his powers into a more practical channel, +and thus correct the introspective tendencies which had never brought +himself much happiness, or done his fellow-creatures any great good. +To make a start in this new direction by marriage, which, since knowing +Elfride, had been so entrancing an idea, was less exquisite to-night. +That the curtailment of his illusion regarding her had something to do +with the reaction, and with the return of his old sentiments on wasting +time, is more than probable. Though Knight's heart had so greatly +mastered him, the mastery was not so complete as to be easily maintained +in the face of a moderate intellectual revival. + +His reverie was broken by the sound of wheels, and a horse's tramp. +The door opened to admit the surgeon, Lord Luxellian, and a Mr. Coole, +coroner for the division (who had been attending at Castle Boterel that +very day, and was having an after-dinner chat with the doctor when Lord +Luxellian arrived); next came two female nurses and some idlers. + +Mr. Granson, after a cursory examination, pronounced the woman dead from +suffocation, induced by intense pressure on the respiratory organs; +and arrangements were made that the inquiry should take place on the +following morning, before the return of the coroner to St. Launce's. + +Shortly afterwards the house of the widow was deserted by all its living +occupants, and she abode in death, as she had in her life during the +past two years, entirely alone. + + + + +Chapter XXXIV + + 'Yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.' + + +Sixteen hours had passed. Knight was entering the ladies' boudoir at The +Crags, upon his return from attending the inquest touching the death of +Mrs. Jethway. Elfride was not in the apartment. + +Mrs. Swancourt made a few inquiries concerning the verdict and +collateral circumstances. Then she said-- + +'The postman came this morning the minute after you left the house. +There was only one letter for you, and I have it here.' + +She took a letter from the lid of her workbox, and handed it to him. +Knight took the missive abstractedly, but struck by its appearance +murmured a few words and left the room. + +The letter was fastened with a black seal, and the handwriting in which +it was addressed had lain under his eyes, long and prominently, only the +evening before. + +Knight was greatly agitated, and looked about for a spot where he might +be secure from interruption. It was the season of heavy dews, which +lay on the herbage in shady places all the day long; nevertheless, he +entered a small patch of neglected grass-plat enclosed by the shrubbery, +and there perused the letter, which he had opened on his way thither. + +The handwriting, the seal, the paper, the introductory words, all had +told on the instant that the letter had come to him from the hands of +the widow Jethway, now dead and cold. He had instantly understood that +the unfinished notes which caught his eye yesternight were intended for +nobody but himself. He had remembered some of the words of Elfride +in her sleep on the steamer, that somebody was not to tell him of +something, or it would be her ruin--a circumstance hitherto deemed so +trivial and meaningless that he had well-nigh forgotten it. All these +things infused into him an emotion intense in power and supremely +distressing in quality. The paper in his hand quivered as he read: + + +'THE VALLEY, ENDELSTOW. + +'SIR,--A woman who has not much in the world to lose by any censure this +act may bring upon her, wishes to give you some hints concerning a lady +you love. If you will deign to accept a warning before it is too late, +you will notice what your correspondent has to say. + +'You are deceived. Can such a woman as this be worthy? + +'One who encouraged an honest youth to love her, then slighted him, so +that he died. + +'One who next took a man of no birth as a lover, who was forbidden the +house by her father. + +'One who secretly left her home to be married to that man, met him, and +went with him to London. + +'One who, for some reason or other, returned again unmarried. + +'One who, in her after-correspondence with him, went so far as to +address him as her husband. + +'One who wrote the enclosed letter to ask me, who better than anybody +else knows the story, to keep the scandal a secret. + +'I hope soon to be beyond the reach of either blame or praise. But +before removing me God has put it in my power to avenge the death of my +son. + +'GERTRUDE JETHWAY.' + + +The letter enclosed was the note in pencil that Elfride had written in +Mrs. Jethway's cottage: + + +'DEAR MRS. JETHWAY,--I have been to visit you. I wanted much to see +you, but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to execute the +threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway, +let any one know I ran away from home! It would ruin me with him, and +break my heart. I will do anything for you, if you will be kind to +me. In the name of our common womanhood, do not, I implore you, make a +scandal of me.--Yours, + +'E. SWANCOURT. + + +Knight turned his head wearily towards the house. The ground rose +rapidly on nearing the shrubbery in which he stood, raising it almost to +a level with the first floor of The Crags. Elfride's dressing-room +lay in the salient angle in this direction, and it was lighted by two +windows in such a position that, from Knight's standing-place, his sight +passed through both windows, and raked the room. Elfride was there; +she was pausing between the two windows, looking at her figure in +the cheval-glass. She regarded herself long and attentively in front; +turned, flung back her head, and observed the reflection over her +shoulder. + +Nobody can predicate as to her object or fancy; she may have done the +deed in the very abstraction of deep sadness. She may have been moaning +from the bottom of her heart, 'How unhappy am I!' But the impression +produced on Knight was not a good one. He dropped his eyes moodily. The +dead woman's letter had a virtue in the accident of its juncture far +beyond any it intrinsically exhibited. Circumstance lent to evil words a +ring of pitiless justice echoing from the grave. Knight could not endure +their possession. He tore the letter into fragments. + +He heard a brushing among the bushes behind, and turning his head he saw +Elfride following him. The fair girl looked in his face with a wistful +smile of hope, too forcedly hopeful to displace the firmly established +dread beneath it. His severe words of the previous night still sat heavy +upon her. + +'I saw you from my window, Harry,' she said timidly. + +'The dew will make your feet wet,' he observed, as one deaf. + +'I don't mind it.' + +'There is danger in getting wet feet.' + +'Yes...Harry, what is the matter?' + +'Oh, nothing. Shall I resume the serious conversation I had with you +last night? No, perhaps not; perhaps I had better not.' + +'Oh, I cannot tell! How wretched it all is! Ah, I wish you were your own +dear self again, and had kissed me when I came up! Why didn't you ask me +for one? why don't you now?' + +'Too free in manner by half,' he heard murmur the voice within him. + +'It was that hateful conversation last night,' she went on. 'Oh, those +words! Last night was a black night for me.' + +'Kiss!--I hate that word! Don't talk of kissing, for God's sake! I +should think you might with advantage have shown tact enough to keep +back that word "kiss," considering those you have accepted.' + +She became very pale, and a rigid and desolate charactery took +possession of her face. That face was so delicate and tender in +appearance now, that one could fancy the pressure of a finger upon it +would cause a livid spot. + +Knight walked on, and Elfride with him, silent and unopposing. He opened +a gate, and they entered a path across a stubble-field. + +'Perhaps I intrude upon you?' she said as he closed the gate. 'Shall I +go away?' + +'No. Listen to me, Elfride.' Knight's voice was low and unequal. +'I have been honest with you: will you be so with me? If +any--strange--connection has existed between yourself and a predecessor +of mine, tell it now. It is better that I know it now, even though the +knowledge should part us, than that I should discover it in time to +come. And suspicions have been awakened in me. I think I will not say +how, because I despise the means. A discovery of any mystery of your +past would embitter our lives.' + +Knight waited with a slow manner of calmness. His eyes were sad and +imperative. They went farther along the path. + +'Will you forgive me if I tell you all?' she exclaimed entreatingly. + +'I can't promise; so much depends upon what you have to tell.' + +Elfride could not endure the silence which followed. + +'Are you not going to love me?' she burst out. 'Harry, Harry, love me, +and speak as usual! Do; I beseech you, Harry!' + +'Are you going to act fairly by me?' said Knight, with rising anger; 'or +are you not? What have I done to you that I should be put off like this? +Be caught like a bird in a springe; everything intended to be hidden +from me! Why is it, Elfride? That's what I ask you.' + +In their agitation they had left the path, and were wandering among the +wet and obstructive stubble, without knowing or heeding it. + +'What have I done?' she faltered. + +'What? How can you ask what, when you know so well? You KNOW that I have +designedly been kept in ignorance of something attaching to you, which, +had I known of it, might have altered all my conduct; and yet you say, +what?' + +She drooped visibly, and made no answer. + +'Not that I believe in malicious letter-writers and whisperers; not I. +I don't know whether I do or don't: upon my soul, I can't tell. I know +this: a religion was building itself upon you in my heart. I looked +into your eyes, and thought I saw there truth and innocence as pure and +perfect as ever embodied by God in the flesh of woman. Perfect truth is +too much to expect, but ordinary truth I WILL HAVE or nothing at all. +Just say, then; is the matter you keep back of the gravest importance, +or is it not?' + +'I don't understand all your meaning. If I have hidden anything from +you, it has been because I loved you so, and I feared--feared--to lose +you.' + +'Since you are not given to confidence, I want to ask you some plain +questions. Have I your permission?' + +'Yes,' she said, and there came over her face a weary resignation. 'Say +the harshest words you can; I will bear them!' + +'There is a scandal in the air concerning you, Elfride; and I cannot +even combat it without knowing definitely what it is. It may not refer +to you entirely, or even at all.' Knight trifled in the very bitterness +of his feeling. 'In the time of the French Revolution, Pariseau, a +ballet-master, was beheaded by mistake for Parisot, a captain of +the King's Guard. I wish there was another "E. Swancourt" in the +neighbourhood. Look at this.' + +He handed her the letter she had written and left on the table at Mrs. +Jethway's. She looked over it vacantly. + +'It is not so much as it seems!' she pleaded. 'It seems wickedly +deceptive to look at now, but it had a much more natural origin than you +think. My sole wish was not to endanger our love. O Harry! that was all +my idea. It was not much harm.' + +'Yes, yes; but independently of the poor miserable creature's remarks, +it seems to imply--something wrong.' + +'What remarks?' + +'Those she wrote me--now torn to pieces. Elfride, DID you run away +with a man you loved?--that was the damnable statement. Has such an +accusation life in it--really, truly, Elfride?' + +'Yes,' she whispered. + +Knight's countenance sank. 'To be married to him?' came huskily from his +lips. + +'Yes. Oh, forgive me! I had never seen you, Harry.' + +'To London?' + +'Yes; but I----' + +'Answer my questions; say nothing else, Elfride Did you ever +deliberately try to marry him in secret?' + +'No; not deliberately.' + +'But did you do it?' + +A feeble red passed over her face. + +'Yes,' she said. + +'And after that--did you--write to him as your husband; and did he +address you as his wife?' + +'Listen, listen! It was----' + +'Do answer me; only answer me!' + +'Then, yes, we did.' Her lips shook; but it was with some little dignity +that she continued: 'I would gladly have told you; for I knew and know I +had done wrong. But I dared not; I loved you too well. Oh, so well! You +have been everything in the world to me--and you are now. Will you not +forgive me?' + +It is a melancholy thought, that men who at first will not allow the +verdict of perfection they pronounce upon their sweethearts or wives +to be disturbed by God's own testimony to the contrary, will, once +suspecting their purity, morally hang them upon evidence they would be +ashamed to admit in judging a dog. + +The reluctance to tell, which arose from Elfride's simplicity in +thinking herself so much more culpable than she really was, had been +doing fatal work in Knight's mind. The man of many ideas, now that +his first dream of impossible things was over, vibrated too far in +the contrary direction; and her every movement of feature--every +tremor--every confused word--was taken as so much proof of her +unworthiness. + +'Elfride, we must bid good-bye to compliment,' said Knight: 'we must +do without politeness now. Look in my face, and as you believe in God +above, tell me truly one thing more. Were you away alone with him?' + +'Yes.' + +'Did you return home the same day on which you left it?' + +'No.' + +The word fell like a bolt, and the very land and sky seemed to suffer. +Knight turned aside. Meantime Elfride's countenance wore a look +indicating utter despair of being able to explain matters so that they +would seem no more than they really were,--a despair which not only +relinquishes the hope of direct explanation, but wearily gives up all +collateral chances of extenuation. + +The scene was engraved for years on the retina of Knight's eye: the +dead and brown stubble, the weeds among it, the distant belt of beeches +shutting out the view of the house, the leaves of which were now red and +sick to death. + +'You must forget me,' he said. 'We shall not marry, Elfride.' + +How much anguish passed into her soul at those words from him was told +by the look of supreme torture she wore. + +'What meaning have you, Harry? You only say so, do you?' + +She looked doubtingly up at him, and tried to laugh, as if the unreality +of his words must be unquestionable. + +'You are not in earnest, I know--I hope you are not? Surely I belong to +you, and you are going to keep me for yours?' + +'Elfride, I have been speaking too roughly to you; I have said what I +ought only to have thought. I like you; and let me give you a word of +advice. Marry your man as soon as you can. However weary of each other +you may feel, you belong to each other, and I am not going to step +between you. Do you think I would--do you think I could for a moment? If +you cannot marry him now, and another makes you his wife, do not reveal +this secret to him after marriage, if you do not before. Honesty would +be damnation then.' + +Bewildered by his expressions, she exclaimed-- + +'No, no; I will not be a wife unless I am yours; and I must be yours!' + +'If we had married----' + +'But you don't MEAN--that--that--you will go away and leave me, and not +be anything more to me--oh, you don't!' + +Convulsive sobs took all nerve out of her utterance. She checked them, +and continued to look in his face for the ray of hope that was not to be +found there. + +'I am going indoors,' said Knight. 'You will not follow me, Elfride; I +wish you not to.' + +'Oh no; indeed, I will not.' + +'And then I am going to Castle Boterel. Good-bye.' + +He spoke the farewell as if it were but for the day--lightly, as he had +spoken such temporary farewells many times before--and she seemed to +understand it as such. Knight had not the power to tell her plainly that +he was going for ever; he hardly knew for certain that he was: whether +he should rush back again upon the current of an irresistible emotion, +or whether he could sufficiently conquer himself, and her in him, to +establish that parting as a supreme farewell, and present himself to the +world again as no woman's. + +Ten minutes later he had left the house, leaving directions that if he +did not return in the evening his luggage was to be sent to his chambers +in London, whence he intended to write to Mr. Swancourt as to the +reasons of his sudden departure. He descended the valley, and could not +forbear turning his head. He saw the stubble-field, and a slight girlish +figure in the midst of it--up against the sky. Elfride, docile as ever, +had hardly moved a step, for he had said, Remain. He looked and saw her +again--he saw her for weeks and months. He withdrew his eyes from +the scene, swept his hand across them, as if to brush away the sight, +breathed a low groan, and went on. + + + + +Chapter XXXV + + 'And wilt thou leave me thus?--say nay--say nay!' + + +The scene shifts to Knight's chambers in Bede's Inn. It was late in the +evening of the day following his departure from Endelstow. A drizzling +rain descended upon London, forming a humid and dreary halo over every +well-lighted street. The rain had not yet been prevalent long enough to +give to rapid vehicles that clear and distinct rattle which follows +the thorough washing of the stones by a drenching rain, but was just +sufficient to make footway and roadway slippery, adhesive, and clogging +to both feet and wheels. + +Knight was standing by the fire, looking into its expiring embers, +previously to emerging from his door for a dreary journey home to +Richmond. His hat was on, and the gas turned off. The blind of the +window overlooking the alley was not drawn down; and with the light from +beneath, which shone over the ceiling of the room, came, in place of the +usual babble, only the reduced clatter and quick speech which were the +result of necessity rather than choice. + +Whilst he thus stood, waiting for the expiration of the few minutes that +were wanting to the time for his catching the train, a light tapping +upon the door mingled with the other sounds that reached his ears. It +was so faint at first that the outer noises were almost sufficient to +drown it. Finding it repeated Knight crossed the lobby, crowded with +books and rubbish, and opened the door. + +A woman, closely muffled up, but visibly of fragile build, was standing +on the landing under the gaslight. She sprang forward, flung her arms +round Knight's neck, and uttered a low cry-- + +'O Harry, Harry, you are killing me! I could not help coming. Don't send +me away--don't! Forgive your Elfride for coming--I love you so!' + +Knight's agitation and astonishment mastered him for a few moments. + +'Elfride!' he cried, 'what does this mean? What have you done?' + +'Do not hurt me and punish me--Oh, do not! I couldn't help coming; it +was killing me. Last night, when you did not come back, I could not bear +it--I could not! Only let me be with you, and see your face, Harry; I +don't ask for more.' + +Her eyelids were hot, heavy, and thick with excessive weeping, and +the delicate rose-red of her cheeks was disfigured and inflamed by the +constant chafing of the handkerchief in wiping her many tears. + +'Who is with you? Have you come alone?' he hurriedly inquired. + +'Yes. When you did not come last night, I sat up hoping you would +come--and the night was all agony--and I waited on and on, and you did +not come! Then when it was morning, and your letter said you were gone, +I could not endure it; and I ran away from them to St. Launce's, and +came by the train. And I have been all day travelling to you, and you +won't make me go away again, will you, Harry, because I shall always +love you till I die?' + +'Yet it is wrong for you to stay. O Elfride! what have you committed +yourself to? It is ruin to your good name to run to me like this! +Has not your first experience been sufficient to keep you from these +things?' + +'My name! Harry, I shall soon die, and what good will my name be to me +then? Oh, could I but be the man and you the woman, I would not leave +you for such a little fault as mine! Do not think it was so vile a thing +in me to run away with him. Ah, how I wish you could have run away with +twenty women before you knew me, that I might show you I would think it +no fault, but be glad to get you after them all, so that I had you! If +you only knew me through and through, how true I am, Harry. Cannot I be +yours? Say you love me just the same, and don't let me be separated from +you again, will you? I cannot bear it--all the long hours and days and +nights going on, and you not there, but away because you hate me!' + +'Not hate you, Elfride,' he said gently, and supported her with his arm. +'But you cannot stay here now--just at present, I mean.' + +'I suppose I must not--I wish I might. I am afraid that if--you lose +sight of me--something dark will happen, and we shall not meet again. +Harry, if I am not good enough to be your wife, I wish I could be your +servant and live with you, and not be sent away never to see you again. +I don't mind what it is except that!' + +'No, I cannot send you away: I cannot. God knows what dark future may +arise out of this evening's work; but I cannot send you away! You must +sit down, and I will endeavour to collect my thoughts and see what had +better be done. + +At that moment a loud knocking at the house door was heard by both, +accompanied by a hurried ringing of the bell that echoed from attic to +basement. The door was quickly opened, and after a few hasty words of +converse in the hall, heavy footsteps ascended the stairs. + +The face of Mr. Swancourt, flushed, grieved, and stern, appeared round +the landing of the staircase. He came higher up, and stood beside them. +Glancing over and past Knight with silent indignation, he turned to the +trembling girl. + +'O Elfride! and have I found you at last? Are these your tricks, madam? +When will you get rid of your idiocies, and conduct yourself like a +decent woman? Is my family name and house to be disgraced by acts that +would be a scandal to a washerwoman's daughter? Come along, madam; +come!' + +'She is so weary!' said Knight, in a voice of intensest anguish. 'Mr. +Swancourt, don't be harsh with her--let me beg of you to be tender with +her, and love her!' + +'To you, sir,' said Mr. Swancourt, turning to him as if by the sheer +pressure of circumstances, 'I have little to say. I can only remark, +that the sooner I can retire from your presence the better I shall be +pleased. Why you could not conduct your courtship of my daughter like an +honest man, I do not know. Why she--a foolish inexperienced girl--should +have been tempted to this piece of folly, I do not know. Even if she +had not known better than to leave her home, you might have, I should +think.' + +'It is not his fault: he did not tempt me, papa! I came.' + +'If you wished the marriage broken off, why didn't you say so plainly? +If you never intended to marry, why could you not leave her alone? Upon +my soul, it grates me to the heart to be obliged to think so ill of a +man I thought my friend!' + +Knight, soul-sick and weary of his life, did not arouse himself to utter +a word in reply. How should he defend himself when his defence was the +accusation of Elfride? On that account he felt a miserable satisfaction +in letting her father go on thinking and speaking wrongfully. It was a +faint ray of pleasure straying into the great gloominess of his brain to +think that the vicar might never know but that he, as her lover, tempted +her away, which seemed to be the form Mr. Swancourt's misapprehension +had taken. + +'Now, are you coming?' said Mr. Swancourt to her again. He took her +unresisting hand, drew it within his arm, and led her down the stairs. +Knight's eyes followed her, the last moment begetting in him a frantic +hope that she would turn her head. She passed on, and never looked back. + +He heard the door open--close again. The wheels of a cab grazed the +kerbstone, a murmured direction followed. The door was slammed together, +the wheels moved, and they rolled away. + + +From that hour of her reappearance a dreadful conflict raged within +the breast of Henry Knight. His instinct, emotion, affectiveness--or +whatever it may be called--urged him to stand forward, seize upon +Elfride, and be her cherisher and protector through life. Then came +the devastating thought that Elfride's childlike, unreasoning, and +indiscreet act in flying to him only proved that the proprieties must be +a dead letter with her; that the unreserve, which was really artlessness +without ballast, meant indifference to decorum; and what so likely as +that such a woman had been deceived in the past? He said to himself, +in a mood of the bitterest cynicism: 'The suspicious discreet woman who +imagines dark and evil things of all her fellow-creatures is far too +shrewd to be deluded by man: trusting beings like Elfride are the women +who fall.' + +Hours and days went by, and Knight remained inactive. Lengthening +time, which made fainter the heart-awakening power of her presence, +strengthened the mental ability to reason her down. Elfride loved him, +he knew, and he could not leave off loving her but marry her he would +not. If she could but be again his own Elfride--the woman she had seemed +to be--but that woman was dead and buried, and he knew her no more! And +how could he marry this Elfride, one who, if he had originally seen her +as she was, would have been barely an interesting pitiable acquaintance +in his eyes--no more? + +It cankered his heart to think he was confronted by the closest instance +of a worse state of things than any he had assumed in the pleasant +social philosophy and satire of his essays. + +The moral rightness of this man's life was worthy of all praise; but in +spite of some intellectual acumen, Knight had in him a modicum of that +wrongheadedness which is mostly found in scrupulously honest people. +With him, truth seemed too clean and pure an abstraction to be so +hopelessly churned in with error as practical persons find it. Having +now seen himself mistaken in supposing Elfride to be peerless, nothing +on earth could make him believe she was not so very bad after all. + +He lingered in town a fortnight, doing little else than vibrate between +passion and opinions. One idea remained intact--that it was better +Elfride and himself should not meet. + +When he surveyed the volumes on his shelves--few of which had been +opened since Elfride first took possession of his heart--their untouched +and orderly arrangement reproached him as an apostate from the old faith +of his youth and early manhood. He had deserted those never-failing +friends, so they seemed to say, for an unstable delight in a ductile +woman, which had ended all in bitterness. The spirit of self-denial, +verging on asceticism, which had ever animated Knight in old times, +announced itself as having departed with the birth of love, with it +having gone the self-respect which had compensated for the lack +of self-gratification. Poor little Elfride, instead of holding, +as formerly, a place in his religion, began to assume the hue of a +temptation. Perhaps it was human and correctly natural that Knight +never once thought whether he did not owe her a little sacrifice for her +unchary devotion in saving his life. + +With a consciousness of having thus, like Antony, kissed away kingdoms +and provinces, he next considered how he had revealed his higher secrets +and intentions to her, an unreserve he would never have allowed himself +with any man living. How was it that he had not been able to refrain +from telling her of adumbrations heretofore locked in the closest +strongholds of his mind? + +Knight's was a robust intellect, which could escape outside the +atmosphere of heart, and perceive that his own love, as well as other +people's, could be reduced by change of scene and circumstances. At the +same time the perception was a superimposed sorrow: + + + 'O last regret, regret can die!' + + +But being convinced that the death of this regret was the best thing for +him, he did not long shrink from attempting it. He closed his chambers, +suspended his connection with editors, and left London for the +Continent. Here we will leave him to wander without purpose, beyond the +nominal one of encouraging obliviousness of Elfride. + + + + +Chapter XXXVI + + 'The pennie's the jewel that beautifies a'.' + + +'I can't think what's coming to these St. Launce's people at all at +all.' + +'With their "How-d'ye-do's," do you mean?' + +'Ay, with their "How-d'ye-do's," and shaking of hands, asking me in, and +tender inquiries for you, John.' + +These words formed part of a conversation between John Smith and +his wife on a Saturday evening in the spring which followed Knight's +departure from England. Stephen had long since returned to India; and +the persevering couple themselves had migrated from Lord Luxellian's +park at Endelstow to a comfortable roadside dwelling about a mile out of +St. Launce's, where John had opened a small stone and slate yard in his +own name. + +'When we came here six months ago,' continued Mrs. Smith, 'though I +had paid ready money so many years in the town, my friskier shopkeepers +would only speak over the counter. Meet 'em in the street half-an-hour +after, and they'd treat me with staring ignorance of my face.' + +'Look through ye as through a glass winder?' + +'Yes, the brazen ones would. The quiet and cool ones would glance over +the top of my head, past my side, over my shoulder, but never meet my +eye. The gentle-modest would turn their faces south if I were coming +east, flit down a passage if I were about to halve the pavement with +them. There was the spruce young bookseller would play the same tricks; +the butcher's daughters; the upholsterer's young men. Hand in glove +when doing business out of sight with you; but caring nothing for a' old +woman when playing the genteel away from all signs of their trade.' + +'True enough, Maria.' + +'Well, to-day 'tis all different. I'd no sooner got to market than Mrs. +Joakes rushed up to me in the eyes of the town and said, "My dear Mrs. +Smith, now you must be tired with your walk! Come in and have some +lunch! I insist upon it; knowing you so many years as I have! Don't you +remember when we used to go looking for owls' feathers together in the +Castle ruins?" There's no knowing what you may need, so I answered the +woman civilly. I hadn't got to the corner before that thriving young +lawyer, Sweet, who's quite the dandy, ran after me out of breath. "Mrs. +Smith," he says, "excuse my rudeness, but there's a bramble on the tail +of your dress, which you've dragged in from the country; allow me to +pull it off for you." If you'll believe me, this was in the very front +of the Town Hall. What's the meaning of such sudden love for a' old +woman?' + +'Can't say; unless 'tis repentance.' + +'Repentance! was there ever such a fool as you. John? Did anybody ever +repent with money in's pocket and fifty years to live?' + +'Now, I've been thinking too,' said John, passing over the query as +hardly pertinent, 'that I've had more loving-kindness from folks to-day +than I ever have before since we moved here. Why, old Alderman Tope +walked out to the middle of the street where I was, to shake hands with +me--so 'a did. Having on my working clothes, I thought 'twas odd. Ay, +and there was young Werrington.' + +'Who's he?' + +'Why, the man in Hill Street, who plays and sells flutes, trumpets, and +fiddles, and grand pehanners. He was talking to Egloskerry, that very +small bachelor-man with money in the funds. I was going by, I'm sure, +without thinking or expecting a nod from men of that glib kidney when in +my working clothes----' + +'You always will go poking into town in your working clothes. Beg you to +change how I will, 'tis no use.' + +'Well, however, I was in my working clothes. Werrington saw me. "Ah, Mr. +Smith! a fine morning; excellent weather for building," says he, out as +loud and friendly as if I'd met him in some deep hollow, where he could +get nobody else to speak to at all. 'Twas odd: for Werrington is one of +the very ringleaders of the fast class.' + +At that moment a tap came to the door. The door was immediately opened +by Mrs. Smith in person. + +'You'll excuse us, I'm sure, Mrs. Smith, but this beautiful spring +weather was too much for us. Yes, and we could stay in no longer; and I +took Mrs. Trewen upon my arm directly we'd had a cup of tea, and out we +came. And seeing your beautiful crocuses in such a bloom, we've taken +the liberty to enter. We'll step round the garden, if you don't mind.' + +'Not at all,' said Mrs. Smith; and they walked round the garden. +She lifted her hands in amazement directly their backs were turned. +'Goodness send us grace!' + +'Who be they?' said her husband. + +'Actually Mr. Trewen, the bank-manager, and his wife.' + +John Smith, staggered in mind, went out of doors and looked over the +garden gate, to collect his ideas. He had not been there two minutes +when wheels were heard, and a carriage and pair rolled along the road. +A distinguished-looking lady, with the demeanour of a duchess, reclined +within. When opposite Smith's gate she turned her head, and instantly +commanded the coachman to stop. + +'Ah, Mr. Smith, I am glad to see you looking so well. I could not help +stopping a moment to congratulate you and Mrs. Smith upon the happiness +you must enjoy. Joseph, you may drive on.' + +And the carriage rolled away towards St. Launce's. + +Out rushed Mrs. Smith from behind a laurel-bush, where she had stood +pondering. + +'Just going to touch my hat to her,' said John; 'just for all the world +as I would have to poor Lady Luxellian years ago.' + +'Lord! who is she?' + +'The public-house woman--what's her name? Mrs.--Mrs.--at the Falcon.' + +'Public-house woman. The clumsiness of the Smith family! You MIGHT say +the landlady of the Falcon Hotel, since we are in for politeness. The +people are ridiculous enough, but give them their due.' + +The possibility is that Mrs. Smith was getting mollified, in spite of +herself, by these remarkably friendly phenomena among the people of St. +Launce's. And in justice to them it was quite desirable that she should +do so. The interest which the unpractised ones of this town expressed so +grotesquely was genuine of its kind, and equal in intrinsic worth to the +more polished smiles of larger communities. + +By this time Mr. and Mrs. Trewen were returning from the garden. + +'I'll ask 'em flat,' whispered John to his wife. 'I'll say, "We be in a +fog--you'll excuse my asking a question, Mr. and Mrs. Trewen. How is it +you all be so friendly to-day?" Hey? 'Twould sound right and sensible, +wouldn't it?' + +'Not a word! Good mercy, when will the man have manners!' + +'It must be a proud moment for you, I am sure, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, to +have a son so celebrated,' said the bank-manager advancing. + +'Ah, 'tis Stephen--I knew it!' said Mrs. Smith triumphantly to herself. + +'We don't know particulars,' said John. + +'Not know!' + +'No.' + +'Why, 'tis all over town. Our worthy Mayor alluded to it in a speech at +the dinner last night of the Every-Man-his-own-Maker Club.' + +'And what about Stephen?' urged Mrs. Smith. + +'Why, your son has been feted by deputy-governors and Parsee princes +and nobody-knows-who in India; is hand in glove with nabobs, and is to +design a large palace, and cathedral, and hospitals, colleges, halls, +and fortifications, by the general consent of the ruling powers, +Christian and Pagan alike.' + +''Twas sure to come to the boy,' said Mr. Smith unassumingly. + +''Tis in yesterday's St. Launce's Chronicle; and our worthy Mayor in the +chair introduced the subject into his speech last night in a masterly +manner.' + +''Twas very good of the worthy Mayor in the chair I'm sure,' said +Stephen's mother. 'I hope the boy will have the sense to keep what he's +got; but as for men, they are a simple sex. Some woman will hook him.' + +'Well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the evening closes in, and we must be going; +and remember this, that every Saturday when you come in to market, you +are to make our house as your own. There will be always a tea-cup and +saucer for you, as you know there has been for months, though you may +have forgotten it. I'm a plain-speaking woman, and what I say I mean.' + +When the visitors were gone, and the sun had set, and the moon's rays +were just beginning to assert themselves upon the walls of the dwelling, +John Smith and his wife sat dawn to the newspaper they had hastily +procured from the town. And when the reading was done, they considered +how best to meet the new social requirements settling upon them, +which Mrs. Smith considered could be done by new furniture and house +enlargement alone. + +'And, John, mind one thing,' she said in conclusion. 'In writing to +Stephen, never by any means mention the name of Elfride Swancourt again. +We've left the place, and know no more about her except by hearsay. He +seems to be getting free of her, and glad am I for it. It was a cloudy +hour for him when he first set eyes upon the girl. That family's been no +good to him, first or last; so let them keep their blood to themselves +if they want to. He thinks of her, I know, but not so hopelessly. So +don't try to know anything about her, and we can't answer his questions. +She may die out of his mind then.' + +'That shall be it,' said John. + + + + +Chapter XXXVII + + 'After many days.' + + +Knight roamed south, under colour of studying Continental antiquities. + +He paced the lofty aisles of Amiens, loitered by Ardennes Abbey, climbed +into the strange towers of Laon, analyzed Noyon and Rheims. Then he went +to Chartres, and examined its scaly spires and quaint carving then he +idled about Coutances. He rowed beneath the base of Mont St. Michel, and +caught the varied skyline of the crumbling edifices encrusting it. +St. Ouen's, Rouen, knew him for days; so did Vezelay, Sens, and many a +hallowed monument besides. Abandoning the inspection of early French art +with the same purposeless haste as he had shown in undertaking it, he +went further, and lingered about Ferrara, Padua, and Pisa. Satiated with +mediaevalism, he tried the Roman Forum. Next he observed moonlight and +starlight effects by the bay of Naples. He turned to Austria, became +enervated and depressed on Hungarian and Bohemian plains, and was +refreshed again by breezes on the declivities of the Carpathians. + +Then he found himself in Greece. He visited the plain of Marathon, and +strove to imagine the Persian defeat; to Mars Hill, to picture St. Paul +addressing the ancient Athenians; to Thermopylae and Salamis, to run +through the facts and traditions of the Second Invasion--the result of +his endeavours being more or less chaotic. Knight grew as weary of these +places as of all others. Then he felt the shock of an earthquake in the +Ionian Islands, and went to Venice. Here he shot in gondolas up and down +the winding thoroughfare of the Grand Canal, and loitered on calle and +piazza at night, when the lagunes were undisturbed by a ripple, and no +sound was to be heard but the stroke of the midnight clock. Afterwards +he remained for weeks in the museums, galleries, and libraries of +Vienna, Berlin, and Paris; and thence came home. + +Time thus rolls us on to a February afternoon, divided by fifteen months +from the parting of Elfride and her lover in the brown stubble field +towards the sea. + +Two men obviously not Londoners, and with a touch of foreignness in +their look, met by accident on one of the gravel walks leading across +Hyde Park. The younger, more given to looking about him than his fellow, +saw and noticed the approach of his senior some time before the latter +had raised his eyes from the ground, upon which they were bent in an +abstracted gaze that seemed habitual with him. + +'Mr. Knight--indeed it is!' exclaimed the younger man. + +'Ah, Stephen Smith!' said Knight. + +Simultaneous operations might now have been observed progressing in +both, the result being that an expression less frank and impulsive than +the first took possession of their features. It was manifest that the +next words uttered were a superficial covering to constraint on both +sides. + +'Have you been in England long?' said Knight. + +'Only two days,' said Smith. + +'India ever since?' + +'Nearly ever since.' + +'They were making a fuss about you at St. Launce's last year. I fancy I +saw something of the sort in the papers.' + +'Yes; I believe something was said about me.' + +'I must congratulate you on your achievements.' + +'Thanks, but they are nothing very extraordinary. A natural professional +progress where there was no opposition.' + +There followed that want of words which will always assert itself +between nominal friends who find they have ceased to be real ones, and +have not yet sunk to the level of mere acquaintance. Each looked up +and down the Park. Knight may possibly have borne in mind during the +intervening months Stephen's manner towards him the last time they had +met, and may have encouraged his former interest in Stephen's welfare to +die out of him as misplaced. Stephen certainly was full of the feelings +begotten by the belief that Knight had taken away the woman he loved so +well. + +Stephen Smith then asked a question, adopting a certain recklessness of +manner and tone to hide, if possible, the fact that the subject was a +much greater one to him than his friend had ever supposed. + +'Are you married?' + +'I am not.' + +Knight spoke in an indescribable tone of bitterness that was almost +moroseness. + +'And I never shall be,' he added decisively. 'Are you?' + +'No,' said Stephen, sadly and quietly, like a man in a sick-room. +Totally ignorant whether or not Knight knew of his own previous claims +upon Elfride, he yet resolved to hazard a few more words upon the topic +which had an aching fascination for him even now. + +'Then your engagement to Miss Swancourt came to nothing,' he said. 'You +remember I met you with her once?' + +Stephen's voice gave way a little here, in defiance of his firmest will +to the contrary. Indian affairs had not yet lowered those emotions down +to the point of control. + +'It was broken off,' came quickly from Knight. 'Engagements to marry +often end like that--for better or for worse.' + +'Yes; so they do. And what have you been doing lately?' + +'Doing? Nothing.' + +'Where have you been?' + +'I can hardly tell you. In the main, going about Europe; and it may +perhaps interest you to know that I have been attempting the serious +study of Continental art of the Middle Ages. My notes on each example I +visited are at your service. They are of no use to me.' + +'I shall be glad with them....Oh, travelling far and near!' + +'Not far,' said Knight, with moody carelessness. 'You know, I daresay, +that sheep occasionally become giddy--hydatids in the head, 'tis called, +in which their brains become eaten up, and the animal exhibits the +strange peculiarity of walking round and round in a circle continually. +I have travelled just in the same way--round and round like a giddy +ram.' + +The reckless, bitter, and rambling style in which Knight talked, as if +rather to vent his images than to convey any ideas to Stephen, struck +the young man painfully. His former friend's days had become cankered in +some way: Knight was a changed man. He himself had changed much, but not +as Knight had changed. + +'Yesterday I came home,' continued Knight, 'without having, to the best +of my belief, imbibed half-a-dozen ideas worth retaining.' + +'You out-Hamlet Hamlet in morbidness of mood,' said Stephen, with +regretful frankness. + +Knight made no reply. + +'Do you know,' Stephen continued, 'I could almost have sworn that you +would be married before this time, from what I saw?' + +Knight's face grew harder. 'Could you?' he said. + +Stephen was powerless to forsake the depressing, luring subject. + +'Yes; and I simply wonder at it.' + +'Whom did you expect me to marry?' + +'Her I saw you with.' + +'Thank you for that wonder.' + +'Did she jilt you?' + +'Smith, now one word to you,' Knight returned steadily. 'Don't you ever +question me on that subject. I have a reason for making this request, +mind. And if you do question me, you will not get an answer.' + +'Oh, I don't for a moment wish to ask what is unpleasant to you--not I. +I had a momentary feeling that I should like to explain something on my +side, and hear a similar explanation on yours. But let it go, let it go, +by all means.' + +'What would you explain?' + +'I lost the woman I was going to marry: you have not married as you +intended. We might have compared notes.' + +'I have never asked you a word about your case.' + +'I know that.' + +'And the inference is obvious.' + +'Quite so.' + +'The truth is, Stephen, I have doggedly resolved never to allude to the +matter--for which I have a very good reason.' + +'Doubtless. As good a reason as you had for not marrying her.' + +'You talk insidiously. I had a good one--a miserably good one!' + +Smith's anxiety urged him to venture one more question. + +'Did she not love you enough?' He drew his breath in a slow and +attenuated stream, as he waited in timorous hope for the answer. + +'Stephen, you rather strain ordinary courtesy in pressing questions of +that kind after what I have said. I cannot understand you at all. I must +go on now.' + +'Why, good God!' exclaimed Stephen passionately, 'you talk as if you +hadn't at all taken her away from anybody who had better claims to her +than you!' + +'What do you mean by that?' said Knight, with a puzzled air. 'What have +you heard?' + +'Nothing. I too must go on. Good-day.' + +'If you will go,' said Knight, reluctantly now, 'you must, I suppose. I +am sure I cannot understand why you behave so.' + +'Nor I why you do. I have always been grateful to you, and as far as I +am concerned we need never have become so estranged as we have.' + +'And have I ever been anything but well-disposed towards you, Stephen? +Surely you know that I have not! The system of reserve began with you: +you know that.' + +'No, no! You altogether mistake our position. You were always from the +first reserved to me, though I was confidential to you. That was, I +suppose, the natural issue of our differing positions in life. And when +I, the pupil, became reserved like you, the master, you did not like it. +However, I was going to ask you to come round and see me.' + +'Where are you staying?' + +'At the Grosvenor Hotel, Pimlico.' + +'So am I.' + +'That's convenient, not to say odd. Well, I am detained in London for a +day or two; then I am going down to see my father and mother, who live +at St. Launce's now. Will you see me this evening?' + +'I may; but I will not promise. I was wishing to be alone for an hour or +two; but I shall know where to find you, at any rate. Good-bye.' + + + + +Chapter XXXVIII + + 'Jealousy is cruel as the grave.' + + +Stephen pondered not a little on this meeting with his old friend and +once-beloved exemplar. He was grieved, for amid all the distractions of +his latter years a still small voice of fidelity to Knight had lingered +on in him. Perhaps this staunchness was because Knight ever treated him +as a mere disciple--even to snubbing him sometimes; and had at last, +though unwittingly, inflicted upon him the greatest snub of all, that of +taking away his sweetheart. The emotional side of his constitution was +built rather after a feminine than a male model; and that tremendous +wound from Knight's hand may have tended to keep alive a warmth which +solicitousness would have extinguished altogether. + +Knight, on his part, was vexed, after they had parted, that he had not +taken Stephen in hand a little after the old manner. Those words which +Smith had let fall concerning somebody having a prior claim to Elfride, +would, if uttered when the man was younger, have provoked such a query +as, 'Come, tell me all about it, my lad,' from Knight, and Stephen would +straightway have delivered himself of all he knew on the subject. + +Stephen the ingenuous boy, though now obliterated externally by Stephen +the contriving man, returned to Knight's memory vividly that afternoon. +He was at present but a sojourner in London; and after attending to the +two or three matters of business which remained to be done that day, he +walked abstractedly into the gloomy corridors of the British Museum for +the half-hour previous to their closing. That meeting with Smith had +reunited the present with the past, closing up the chasm of his absence +from England as if it had never existed, until the final circumstances +of his previous time of residence in London formed but a yesterday +to the circumstances now. The conflict that then had raged in him +concerning Elfride Swancourt revived, strengthened by its sleep. Indeed, +in those many months of absence, though quelling the intention to make +her his wife, he had never forgotten that she was the type of woman +adapted to his nature; and instead of trying to obliterate thoughts +of her altogether, he had grown to regard them as an infirmity it was +necessary to tolerate. + +Knight returned to his hotel much earlier in the evening than he would +have done in the ordinary course of things. He did not care to think +whether this arose from a friendly wish to close the gap that had slowly +been widening between himself and his earliest acquaintance, or from +a hankering desire to hear the meaning of the dark oracles Stephen had +hastily pronounced, betokening that he knew something more of Elfride +than Knight had supposed. + +He made a hasty dinner, inquired for Smith, and soon was ushered +into the young man's presence, whom he found sitting in front of +a comfortable fire, beside a table spread with a few scientific +periodicals and art reviews. + +'I have come to you, after all,' said Knight. 'My manner was odd this +morning, and it seemed desirable to call; but that you had too much +sense to notice, Stephen, I know. Put it down to my wanderings in France +and Italy.' + +'Don't say another word, but sit down. I am only too glad to see you +again.' + +Stephen would hardly have cared to tell Knight just then that the minute +before Knight was announced he had been reading over some old letters +of Elfride's. They were not many; and until to-night had been sealed +up, and stowed away in a corner of his leather trunk, with a few other +mementoes and relics which had accompanied him in his travels. The +familiar sights and sounds of London, the meeting with his friend, had +with him also revived that sense of abiding continuity with regard to +Elfride and love which his absence at the other side of the world had to +some extent suspended, though never ruptured. He at first intended +only to look over these letters on the outside; then he read one; then +another; until the whole was thus re-used as a stimulus to sad memories. +He folded them away again, placed them in his pocket, and instead of +going on with an examination into the state of the artistic world, had +remained musing on the strange circumstance that he had returned to find +Knight not the husband of Elfride after all. + +The possibility of any given gratification begets a cumulative sense of +its necessity. Stephen gave the rein to his imagination, and felt more +intensely than he had felt for many months that, without Elfride, his +life would never be any great pleasure to himself, or honour to his +Maker. + +They sat by the fire, chatting on external and random subjects, neither +caring to be the first to approach the matter each most longed +to discuss. On the table with the periodicals lay two or three +pocket-books, one of them being open. Knight seeing from the exposed +page that the contents were sketches only, began turning the leaves over +carelessly with his finger. When, some time later, Stephen was out +of the room, Knight proceeded to pass the interval by looking at the +sketches more carefully. + +The first crude ideas, pertaining to dwellings of all kinds, were +roughly outlined on the different pages. Antiquities had been copied; +fragments of Indian columns, colossal statues, and outlandish ornament +from the temples of Elephanta and Kenneri, were carelessly intruded +upon by outlines of modern doors, windows, roofs, cooking-stoves, and +household furniture; everything, in short, which comes within the range +of a practising architect's experience, who travels with his eyes +open. Among these occasionally appeared rough delineations of mediaeval +subjects for carving or illumination--heads of Virgins, Saints, and +Prophets. + +Stephen was not professedly a free-hand draughtsman, but he drew the +human figure with correctness and skill. In its numerous repetitions on +the sides and edges of the leaves, Knight began to notice a peculiarity. +All the feminine saints had one type of feature. There were large nimbi +and small nimbi about their drooping heads, but the face was always the +same. That profile--how well Knight knew that profile! + +Had there been but one specimen of the familiar countenance, he might +have passed over the resemblance as accidental; but a repetition meant +more. Knight thought anew of Smith's hasty words earlier in the day, and +looked at the sketches again and again. + +On the young man's entry, Knight said with palpable agitation-- + +'Stephen, who are those intended for?' + +Stephen looked over the book with utter unconcern, 'Saints and angels, +done in my leisure moments. They were intended as designs for the +stained glass of an English church.' + +'But whom do you idealize by that type of woman you always adopt for the +Virgin?' + +'Nobody.' + +And then a thought raced along Stephen's mind and he looked up at his +friend. + +The truth is, Stephen's introduction of Elfride's lineaments had been so +unconscious that he had not at first understood his companion's drift. +The hand, like the tongue, easily acquires the trick of repetition by +rote, without calling in the mind to assist at all; and this had been +the case here. Young men who cannot write verses about their Loves +generally take to portraying them, and in the early days of his +attachment Smith had never been weary of outlining Elfride. The +lay-figure of Stephen's sketches now initiated an adjustment of many +things. Knight had recognized her. The opportunity of comparing notes +had come unsought. + +'Elfride Swancourt, to whom I was engaged,' he said quietly. + +'Stephen!' + +'I know what you mean by speaking like that.' + +'Was it Elfride? YOU the man, Stephen?' + +'Yes; and you are thinking why did I conceal the fact from you that time +at Endelstow, are you not?' + +'Yes, and more--more.' + +'I did it for the best; blame me if you will; I did it for the best. And +now say how could I be with you afterwards as I had been before?' + +'I don't know at all; I can't say.' + +Knight remained fixed in thought, and once he murmured-- + +'I had a suspicion this afternoon that there might be some such meaning +in your words about my taking her away. But I dismissed it. How came you +to know her?' he presently asked, in almost a peremptory tone. + +'I went down about the church; years ago now.' + +'When you were with Hewby, of course, of course. Well, I can't +understand it.' His tones rose. 'I don't know what to say, your +hoodwinking me like this for so long!' + +'I don't see that I have hoodwinked you at all.' + +'Yes, yes, but'---- + +Knight arose from his seat, and began pacing up and down the room. His +face was markedly pale, and his voice perturbed, as he said-- + +'You did not act as I should have acted towards you under those +circumstances. I feel it deeply; and I tell you plainly, I shall never +forget it!' + +'What?' + +'Your behaviour at that meeting in the family vault, when I told you +we were going to be married. Deception, dishonesty, everywhere; all the +world's of a piece!' + +Stephen did not much like this misconstruction of his motives, even +though it was but the hasty conclusion of a friend disturbed by emotion. + +'I could do no otherwise than I did, with due regard to her,' he said +stiffly. + +'Indeed!' said Knight, in the bitterest tone of reproach. 'Nor could +you with due regard to her have married her, I suppose! I have +hoped--longed--that HE, who turns out to be YOU, would ultimately have +done that.' + +'I am much obliged to you for that hope. But you talk very mysteriously. +I think I had about the best reason anybody could have had for not doing +that.' + +'Oh, what reason was it?' + +'That I could not.' + +'You ought to have made an opportunity; you ought to do so now, in bare +justice to her, Stephen!' cried Knight, carried beyond himself. 'That +you know very well, and it hurts and wounds me more than you dream to +find you never have tried to make any reparation to a woman of that +kind--so trusting, so apt to be run away with by her feelings--poor +little fool, so much the worse for her!' + +'Why, you talk like a madman! You took her away from me, did you not?' + +'Picking up what another throws down can scarcely be called "taking +away." However, we shall not agree too well upon that subject, so we had +better part.' + +'But I am quite certain you misapprehend something most grievously,' +said Stephen, shaken to the bottom of his heart. 'What have I done; tell +me? I have lost Elfride, but is that such a sin?' + +'Was it her doing, or yours?' + +'Was what?' + +'That you parted.' + +'I will tell you honestly. It was hers entirely, entirely.' + +'What was her reason?' + +'I can hardly say. But I'll tell the story without reserve.' + +Stephen until to-day had unhesitatingly held that she grew tired of him +and turned to Knight; but he did not like to advance the statement now, +or even to think the thought. To fancy otherwise accorded better with +the hope to which Knight's estrangement had given birth: that love for +his friend was not the direct cause, but a result of her suspension of +love for himself. + +'Such a matter must not be allowed to breed discord between us,' Knight +returned, relapsing into a manner which concealed all his true feeling, +as if confidence now was intolerable. 'I do see that your reticence +towards me in the vault may have been dictated by prudential +considerations.' He concluded artificially, 'It was a strange thing +altogether; but not of much importance, I suppose, at this distance of +time; and it does not concern me now, though I don't mind hearing your +story.' + +These words from Knight, uttered with such an air of renunciation and +apparent indifference, prompted Smith to speak on--perhaps with a +little complacency--of his old secret engagement to Elfride. He told +the details of its origin, and the peremptory words and actions of her +father to extinguish their love. + +Knight persevered in the tone and manner of a disinterested outsider. +It had become more than ever imperative to screen his emotions from +Stephen's eye; the young man would otherwise be less frank, and their +meeting would be again embittered. What was the use of untoward candour? + +Stephen had now arrived at the point in his ingenuous narrative where +he left the vicarage because of her father's manner. Knight's interest +increased. Their love seemed so innocent and childlike thus far. + +'It is a nice point in casuistry,' he observed, 'to decide whether you +were culpable or not in not telling Swancourt that your friends were +parishioners of his. It was only human nature to hold your tongue under +the circumstances. Well, what was the result of your dismissal by him?' + +'That we agreed to be secretly faithful. And to insure this we thought +we would marry.' + +Knight's suspense and agitation rose higher when Stephen entered upon +this phase of the subject. + +'Do you mind telling on?' he said, steadying his manner of speech. + +'Oh, not at all.' + +Then Stephen gave in full the particulars of the meeting with Elfride at +the railway station; the necessity they were under of going to London, +unless the ceremony were to be postponed. The long journey of the +afternoon and evening; her timidity and revulsion of feeling; its +culmination on reaching London; the crossing over to the down-platform +and their immediate departure again, solely in obedience to her wish; +the journey all night; their anxious watching for the dawn; their +arrival at St. Launce's at last--were detailed. And he told how a +village woman named Jethway was the only person who recognized them, +either going or coming; and how dreadfully this terrified Elfride. He +told how he waited in the fields whilst this then reproachful sweetheart +went for her pony, and how the last kiss he ever gave her was given a +mile out of the town, on the way to Endelstow. + +These things Stephen related with a will. He believed that in doing so +he established word by word the reasonableness of his claim to Elfride. + +'Curse her! curse that woman!--that miserable letter that parted us! O +God!' + +Knight began pacing the room again, and uttered this at further end. + +'What did you say?' said Stephen, turning round. + +'Say? Did I say anything? Oh, I was merely thinking about your story, +and the oddness of my having a fancy for the same woman afterwards. And +that now I--I have forgotten her almost; and neither of us care about +her, except just as a friend, you know, eh?' + +Knight still continued at the further end of the room, somewhat in +shadow. + +'Exactly,' said Stephen, inwardly exultant, for he was really deceived +by Knight's off-hand manner. + +Yet he was deceived less by the completeness of Knight's disguise than +by the persuasive power which lay in the fact that Knight had never +before deceived him in anything. So this supposition that his companion +had ceased to love Elfride was an enormous lightening of the weight +which had turned the scale against him. + +'Admitting that Elfride COULD love another man after you,' said the +elder, under the same varnish of careless criticism, 'she was none the +worse for that experience.' + +'The worse? Of course she was none the worse.' + +'Did you ever think it a wild and thoughtless thing for her to do?' + +'Indeed, I never did,' said Stephen. 'I persuaded her. She saw no harm +in it until she decided to return, nor did I; nor was there, except to +the extent of indiscretion.' + +'Directly she thought it was wrong she would go no further?' + +'That was it. I had just begun to think it wrong too.' + +'Such a childish escapade might have been misrepresented by any +evil-disposed person, might it not?' + +'It might; but I never heard that it was. Nobody who really knew all the +circumstances would have done otherwise than smile. If all the world had +known it, Elfride would still have remained the only one who thought her +action a sin. Poor child, she always persisted in thinking so, and was +frightened more than enough.' + +'Stephen, do you love her now?' + +'Well, I like her; I always shall, you know,' he said evasively, and +with all the strategy love suggested. 'But I have not seen her for so +long that I can hardly be expected to love her. Do you love her still?' + +'How shall I answer without being ashamed? What fickle beings we +men are, Stephen! Men may love strongest for a while, but women love +longest. I used to love her--in my way, you know.' + +'Yes, I understand. Ah, and I used to love her in my way. In fact, +I loved her a good deal at one time; but travel has a tendency to +obliterate early fancies.' + +'It has--it has, truly.' + +Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in this conversation was the +circumstance that, though each interlocutor had at first his suspicions +of the other's abiding passion awakened by several little acts, neither +would allow himself to see that his friend might now be speaking +deceitfully as well as he. + +'Stephen.' resumed Knight, 'now that matters are smooth between us, I +think I must leave you. You won't mind my hurrying off to my quarters?' + +'You'll stay to some sort of supper surely? didn't you come to dinner!' + +'You must really excuse me this once.' + +'Then you'll drop in to breakfast to-morrow.' + +'I shall be rather pressed for time.' + +'An early breakfast, which shall interfere with nothing?' + +'I'll come,' said Knight, with as much readiness as it was possible to +graft upon a huge stock of reluctance. 'Yes, early; eight o'clock say, +as we are under the same roof.' + +'Any time you like. Eight it shall be.' + +And Knight left him. To wear a mask, to dissemble his feelings as he +had in their late miserable conversation, was such torture that he could +support it no longer. It was the first time in Knight's life that he +had ever been so entirely the player of a part. And the man he had thus +deceived was Stephen, who had docilely looked up to him from youth as a +superior of unblemished integrity. + +He went to bed, and allowed the fever of his excitement to rage +uncontrolled. Stephen--it was only he who was the rival--only Stephen! +There was an anti-climax of absurdity which Knight, wretched and +conscience-stricken as he was, could not help recognizing. Stephen was +but a boy to him. Where the great grief lay was in perceiving that the +very innocence of Elfride in reading her little fault as one so grave +was what had fatally misled him. Had Elfride, with any degree of +coolness, asserted that she had done no harm, the poisonous breath of +the dead Mrs. Jethway would have been inoperative. Why did he not +make his little docile girl tell more? If on that subject he had only +exercised the imperativeness customary with him on others, all might +have been revealed. It smote his heart like a switch when he remembered +how gently she had borne his scourging speeches, never answering him +with a single reproach, only assuring him of her unbounded love. + +Knight blessed Elfride for her sweetness, and forgot her fault. He +pictured with a vivid fancy those fair summer scenes with her. He +again saw her as at their first meeting, timid at speaking, yet in her +eagerness to be explanatory borne forward almost against her will. +How she would wait for him in green places, without showing any of the +ordinary womanly affectations of indifference! How proud she was to be +seen walking with him, bearing legibly in her eyes the thought that he +was the greatest genius in the world! + +He formed a resolution; and after that could make pretence of slumber no +longer. Rising and dressing himself, he sat down and waited for day. + +That night Stephen was restless too. Not because of the unwontedness +of a return to English scenery; not because he was about to meet his +parents, and settle down for awhile to English cottage life. He was +indulging in dreams, and for the nonce the warehouses of Bombay and the +plains and forts of Poonah were but a shadow's shadow. His dream was +based on this one atom of fact: Elfride and Knight had become separated, +and their engagement was as if it had never been. Their rupture must +have occurred soon after Stephen's discovery of the fact of their union; +and, Stephen went on to think, what so probable as that a return of her +errant affection to himself was the cause? + +Stephen's opinions in this matter were those of a lover, and not the +balanced judgment of an unbiassed spectator. His naturally sanguine +spirit built hope upon hope, till scarcely a doubt remained in his mind +that her lingering tenderness for him had in some way been perceived by +Knight, and had provoked their parting. + +To go and see Elfride was the suggestion of impulses it was impossible +to withstand. At any rate, to run down from St. Launce's to Castle +Poterel, a distance of less than twenty miles, and glide like a ghost +about their old haunts, making stealthy inquiries about her, would be a +fascinating way of passing the first spare hours after reaching home on +the day after the morrow. + +He was now a richer man than heretofore, standing on his own bottom; and +the definite position in which he had rooted himself nullified old local +distinctions. He had become illustrious, even sanguine clarus, judging +from the tone of the worthy Mayor of St. Launce's. + + + + +Chapter XXXIX + + 'Each to the loved one's side.' + + +The friends and rivals breakfasted together the next morning. Not a word +was said on either side upon the matter discussed the previous evening +so glibly and so hollowly. Stephen was absorbed the greater part of the +time in wishing he were not forced to stay in town yet another day. + +'I don't intend to leave for St. Launce's till to-morrow, as you know,' +he said to Knight at the end of the meal. 'What are you going to do with +yourself to-day?' + +'I have an engagement just before ten,' said Knight deliberately; 'and +after that time I must call upon two or three people.' + +'I'll look for you this evening,' said Stephen. + +'Yes, do. You may as well come and dine with me; that is, if we can +meet. I may not sleep in London to-night; in fact, I am absolutely +unsettled as to my movements yet. However, the first thing I am going to +do is to get my baggage shifted from this place to Bede's Inn. Good-bye +for the present. I'll write, you know, if I can't meet you.' + +It now wanted a quarter to nine o'clock. When Knight was gone, Stephen +felt yet more impatient of the circumstance that another day would have +to drag itself away wearily before he could set out for that spot of +earth whereon a soft thought of him might perhaps be nourished still. On +a sudden he admitted to his mind the possibility that the engagement he +was waiting in town to keep might be postponed without much harm. + +It was no sooner perceived than attempted. Looking at his watch, he +found it wanted forty minutes to the departure of the ten o'clock train +from Paddington, which left him a surplus quarter of an hour before it +would be necessary to start for the station. + +Scribbling a hasty note or two--one putting off the business meeting, +another to Knight apologizing for not being able to see him in the +evening--paying his bill, and leaving his heavier luggage to follow +him by goods-train, he jumped into a cab and rattled off to the Great +Western Station. + +Shortly afterwards he took his seat in the railway carriage. + +The guard paused on his whistle, to let into the next compartment to +Smith's a man of whom Stephen had caught but a hasty glimpse as he ran +across the platform at the last moment. + +Smith sank back into the carriage, stilled by perplexity. The man was +like Knight--astonishingly like him. Was it possible it could be he? +To have got there he must have driven like the wind to Bede's Inn, and +hardly have alighted before starting again. No, it could not be he; that +was not his way of doing things. + +During the early part of the journey Stephen Smith's thoughts busied +themselves till his brain seemed swollen. One subject was concerning +his own approaching actions. He was a day earlier than his letter to +his parents had stated, and his arrangement with them had been that +they should meet him at Plymouth; a plan which pleased the worthy couple +beyond expression. Once before the same engagement had been made, which +he had then quashed by ante-dating his arrival. This time he would go +right on to Castle Boterel; ramble in that well-known neighbourhood +during the evening and next morning, making inquiries; and return to +Plymouth to meet them as arranged--a contrivance which would leave their +cherished project undisturbed, relieving his own impatience also. + +At Chippenham there was a little waiting, and some loosening and +attaching of carriages. + +Stephen looked out. At the same moment another man's head emerged from +the adjoining window. Each looked in the other's face. + +Knight and Stephen confronted one another. + +'You here!' said the younger man. + +'Yes. It seems that you are too,' said Knight, strangely. + +'Yes.' + +The selfishness of love and the cruelty of jealousy were fairly +exemplified at this moment. Each of the two men looked at his friend +as he had never looked at him before. Each was TROUBLED at the other's +presence. + +'I thought you said you were not coming till to-morrow,' remarked +Knight. + +'I did. It was an afterthought to come to-day. This journey was your +engagement, then?' + +'No, it was not. This is an afterthought of mine too. I left a note to +explain it, and account for my not being able to meet you this evening +as we arranged.' + +'So did I for you.' + +'You don't look well: you did not this morning.' + +'I have a headache. You are paler to-day than you were.' + +'I, too, have been suffering from headache. We have to wait here a few +minutes, I think.' + +They walked up and down the platform, each one more and more +embarrassingly concerned with the awkwardness of his friend's +presence. They reached the end of the footway, and paused in sheer +absent-mindedness. Stephen's vacant eyes rested upon the operations of +some porters, who were shifting a dark and curious-looking van from the +rear of the train, to shunt another which was between it and the fore +part of the train. This operation having been concluded, the two friends +returned to the side of their carriage. + +'Will you come in here?' said Knight, not very warmly. + +'I have my rug and portmanteau and umbrella with me: it is rather +bothering to move now,' said Stephen reluctantly. 'Why not you come +here?' + +'I have my traps too. It is hardly worth while to shift them, for I +shall see you again, you know.' + +'Oh, yes.' + +And each got into his own place. Just at starting, a man on the platform +held up his hands and stopped the train. + +Stephen looked out to see what was the matter. + +One of the officials was exclaiming to another, 'That carriage should +have been attached again. Can't you see it is for the main line? Quick! +What fools there are in the world!' + +'What a confounded nuisance these stoppages are!' exclaimed Knight +impatiently, looking out from his compartment. 'What is it?' + +'That singular carriage we saw has been unfastened from our train by +mistake, it seems,' said Stephen. + +He was watching the process of attaching it. The van or carriage, which +he now recognized as having seen at Paddington before they started, was +rich and solemn rather than gloomy in aspect. It seemed to be quite +new, and of modern design, and its impressive personality attracted the +notice of others beside himself. He beheld it gradually wheeled forward +by two men on each side: slower and more sadly it seemed to approach: +then a slight concussion, and they were connected with it, and off +again. + +Stephen sat all the afternoon pondering upon the reason of Knight's +unexpected reappearance. Was he going as far as Castle Boterel? If so, +he could only have one object in view--a visit to Elfride. And what an +idea it seemed! + +At Plymouth Smith partook of a little refreshment, and then went round +to the side from which the train started for Camelton, the new station +near Castle Boterel and Endelstow. + +Knight was already there. + +Stephen walked up and stood beside him without speaking. Two men at this +moment crept out from among the wheels of the waiting train. + +'The carriage is light enough,' said one in a grim tone. 'Light as +vanity; full of nothing.' + +'Nothing in size, but a good deal in signification,' said the other, a +man of brighter mind and manners. + +Smith then perceived that to their train was attached that same carriage +of grand and dark aspect which had haunted them all the way from London. + +'You are going on, I suppose?' said Knight, turning to Stephen, after +idly looking at the same object. + +'Yes.' + +'We may as well travel together for the remaining distance, may we not?' + +'Certainly we will;' and they both entered the same door. + +Evening drew on apace. It chanced to be the eve of St. Valentine's--that +bishop of blessed memory to youthful lovers--and the sun shone low under +the rim of a thick hard cloud, decorating the eminences of the landscape +with crowns of orange fire. As the train changed its direction on a +curve, the same rays stretched in through the window, and coaxed open +Knight's half-closed eyes. + +'You will get out at St. Launce's, I suppose?' he murmured. + +'No,' said Stephen, 'I am not expected till to-morrow.' Knight was +silent. + +'And you--are you going to Endelstow?' said the younger man pointedly. + +'Since you ask, I can do no less than say I am, Stephen,' continued +Knight slowly, and with more resolution of manner than he had shown all +the day. 'I am going to Endelstow to see if Elfride Swancourt is still +free; and if so, to ask her to be my wife.' + +'So am I,' said Stephen Smith. + +'I think you'll lose your labour,' Knight returned with decision. + +'Naturally you do.' There was a strong accent of bitterness in Stephen's +voice. 'You might have said HOPE instead of THINK,' he added. + +'I might have done no such thing. I gave you my opinion. Elfride +Swancourt may have loved you once, no doubt, but it was when she was so +young that she hardly knew her own mind.' + +'Thank you,' said Stephen laconically. 'She knew her mind as well as I +did. We are the same age. If you hadn't interfered----' + +'Don't say that--don't say it, Stephen! How can you make out that I +interfered? Be just, please!' + +'Well,' said his friend, 'she was mine before she was yours--you know +that! And it seemed a hard thing to find you had got her, and that if +it had not been for you, all might have turned out well for me.' Stephen +spoke with a swelling heart, and looked out of the window to hide the +emotion that would make itself visible upon his face. + +'It is absurd,' said Knight in a kinder tone, 'for you to look at the +matter in that light. What I tell you is for your good. You naturally do +not like to realize the truth--that her liking for you was only a girl's +first fancy, which has no root ever.' + +'It is not true!' said Stephen passionately. 'It was you put me out. And +now you'll be pushing in again between us, and depriving me of my chance +again! My right, that's what it is! How ungenerous of you to come +anew and try to take her away from me! When you had won her, I did not +interfere; and you might, I think, Mr. Knight, do by me as I did by +you!' + +'Don't "Mr." me; you are as well in the world as I am now.' + +'First love is deepest; and that was mine.' + +'Who told you that?' said Knight superciliously. + +'I had her first love. And it was through me that you and she parted. I +can guess that well enough.' + +'It was. And if I were to explain to you in what way that operated in +parting us, I should convince you that you do quite wrong in intruding +upon her--that, as I said at first, your labour will be lost. I don't +choose to explain, because the particulars are painful. But if you won't +listen to me, go on, for Heaven's sake. I don't care what you do, my +boy.' + +'You have no right to domineer over me as you do. Just because, when +I was a lad, I was accustomed to look up to you as a master, and you +helped me a little, for which I was grateful to you and have loved +you, you assume too much now, and step in before me. It is cruel--it is +unjust--of you to injure me so!' + +Knight showed himself keenly hurt at this. 'Stephen, those words are +untrue and unworthy of any man, and they are unworthy of you. You know +you wrong me. If you have ever profited by any instruction of mine, I am +only too glad to know it. You know it was given ungrudgingly, and that I +have never once looked upon it as making you in any way a debtor to me.' + +Stephen's naturally gentle nature was touched, and it was in a troubled +voice that he said, 'Yes, yes. I am unjust in that--I own it.' + +'This is St. Launce's Station, I think. Are you going to get out?' + +Knight's manner of returning to the matter in hand drew Stephen again +into himself. 'No; I told you I was going to Endelstow,' he resolutely +replied. + +Knight's features became impassive, and he said no more. The train +continued rattling on, and Stephen leant back in his corner and closed +his eyes. The yellows of evening had turned to browns, the dusky +shades thickened, and a flying cloud of dust occasionally stroked the +window--borne upon a chilling breeze which blew from the north-east. +The previously gilded but now dreary hills began to lose their daylight +aspects of rotundity, and to become black discs vandyked against the +sky, all nature wearing the cloak that six o'clock casts over the +landscape at this time of the year. + +Stephen started up in bewilderment after a long stillness, and it was +some time before he recollected himself. + +'Well, how real, how real!' he exclaimed, brushing his hand across his +eyes. + +'What is?' said Knight. + +'That dream. I fell asleep for a few minutes, and have had a dream--the +most vivid I ever remember.' + +He wearily looked out into the gloom. They were now drawing near to +Camelton. The lighting of the lamps was perceptible through the veil of +evening--each flame starting into existence at intervals, and blinking +weakly against the gusts of wind. + +'What did you dream?' said Knight moodily. + +'Oh, nothing to be told. 'Twas a sort of incubus. There is never +anything in dreams.' + +'I hardly supposed there was.' + +'I know that. However, what I so vividly dreamt was this, since you +would like to hear. It was the brightest of bright mornings at East +Endelstow Church, and you and I stood by the font. Far away in the +chancel Lord Luxellian was standing alone, cold and impassive, and +utterly unlike his usual self: but I knew it was he. Inside the altar +rail stood a strange clergyman with his book open. He looked up and said +to Lord Luxellian, "Where's the bride?" Lord Luxellian said, "There's no +bride." At that moment somebody came in at the door, and I knew her to +be Lady Luxellian who died. He turned and said to her, "I thought you +were in the vault below us; but that could have only been a dream of +mine. Come on." Then she came on. And in brushing between us she chilled +me so with cold that I exclaimed, "The life is gone out of me!" and, in +the way of dreams, I awoke. But here we are at Camelton.' + +They were slowly entering the station. + +'What are you going to do?' said Knight. 'Do you really intend to call +on the Swancourts?' + +'By no means. I am going to make inquiries first. I shall stay at the +Luxellian Arms to-night. You will go right on to Endelstow, I suppose, +at once?' + +'I can hardly do that at this time of the day. Perhaps you are not aware +that the family--her father, at any rate--is at variance with me as much +as with you. + +'I didn't know it.' + +'And that I cannot rush into the house as an old friend any more than +you can. Certainly I have the privileges of a distant relationship, +whatever they may be.' + +Knight let down the window, and looked ahead. 'There are a great many +people at the station,' he said. 'They seem all to be on the look-out +for us.' + +When the train stopped, the half-estranged friends could perceive by the +lamplight that the assemblage of idlers enclosed as a kernel a group of +men in black cloaks. A side gate in the platform railing was open, +and outside this stood a dark vehicle, which they could not at first +characterize. Then Knight saw on its upper part forms against the sky +like cedars by night, and knew the vehicle to be a hearse. Few people +were at the carriage doors to meet the passengers--the majority had +congregated at this upper end. Knight and Stephen alighted, and turned +for a moment in the same direction. + +The sombre van, which had accompanied them all day from London, now +began to reveal that their destination was also its own. It had been +drawn up exactly opposite the open gate. The bystanders all fell back, +forming a clear lane from the gateway to the van, and the men in cloaks +entered the latter conveyance. + +'They are labourers, I fancy,' said Stephen. 'Ah, it is strange; but I +recognize three of them as Endelstow men. Rather remarkable this.' + +Presently they began to come out, two and two; and under the rays of +the lamp they were seen to bear between them a light-coloured coffin of +satin-wood, brightly polished, and without a nail. The eight men took +the burden upon their shoulders, and slowly crossed with it over to the +gate. + +Knight and Stephen went outside, and came close to the procession as it +moved off. A carriage belonging to the cortege turned round close to +a lamp. The rays shone in upon the face of the vicar of Endelstow, Mr. +Swancourt--looking many years older than when they had last seen him. +Knight and Stephen involuntarily drew back. + +Knight spoke to a bystander. 'What has Mr. Swancourt to do with that +funeral?' + +'He is the lady's father,' said the bystander. + +'What lady's father?' said Knight, in a voice so hollow that the man +stared at him. + +'The father of the lady in the coffin. She died in London, you know, and +has been brought here by this train. She is to be taken home to-night, +and buried to-morrow.' + +Knight stood staring blindly at where the hearse had been; as if he saw +it, or some one, there. Then he turned, and beheld the lithe form of +Stephen bowed down like that of an old man. He took his young friend's +arm, and led him away from the light. + + + + +Chapter XL + + 'Welcome, proud lady.' + + +Half an hour has passed. Two miserable men are wandering in the darkness +up the miles of road from Camelton to Endelstow. + +'Has she broken her heart?' said Henry Knight. 'Can it be that I have +killed her? I was bitter with her, Stephen, and she has died! And may +God have NO mercy upon me!' + +'How can you have killed her more than I?' + +'Why, I went away from her--stole away almost--and didn't tell her I +should not come again; and at that last meeting I did not kiss her once, +but let her miserably go. I have been a fool--a fool! I wish the most +abject confession of it before crowds of my countrymen could in any way +make amends to my darling for the intense cruelty I have shown her!' + +'YOUR darling!' said Stephen, with a sort of laugh. 'Any man can say +that, I suppose; any man can. I know this, she was MY darling before she +was yours; and after too. If anybody has a right to call her his own, it +is I.' + +'You talk like a man in the dark; which is what you are. Did she ever do +anything for you? Risk her name, for instance, for you?' + +Yes, she did,' said Stephen emphatically. + +'Not entirely. Did she ever live for you--prove she could not live +without you--laugh and weep for you?' + +'Yes.' + +'Never! Did she ever risk her life for you--no! My darling did for me.' + +'Then it was in kindness only. When did she risk her life for you?' + +'To save mine on the cliff yonder. The poor child was with me looking at +the approach of the Puffin steamboat, and I slipped down. We both had a +narrow escape. I wish we had died there!' + +'Ah, but wait,' Stephen pleaded with wet eyes. 'She went on that cliff +to see me arrive home: she had promised it. She told me she would months +before. And would she have gone there if she had not cared for me at +all?' + +'You have an idea that Elfride died for you, no doubt,' said Knight, +with a mournful sarcasm too nerveless to support itself. + +'Never mind. If we find that--that she died yours, I'll say no more +ever.' + +'And if we find she died yours, I'll say no more.' + +'Very well--so it shall be.' + +The dark clouds into which the sun had sunk had begun to drop rain in an +increasing volume. + +'Can we wait somewhere here till this shower is over?' said Stephen +desultorily. + +'As you will. But it is not worth while. We'll hear the particulars, and +return. Don't let people know who we are. I am not much now.' + +They had reached a point at which the road branched into two--just +outside the west village, one fork of the diverging routes passing into +the latter place, the other stretching on to East Endelstow. Having come +some of the distance by the footpath, they now found that the hearse was +only a little in advance of them. + +'I fancy it has turned off to East Endelstow. Can you see?' + +'I cannot. You must be mistaken.' + +Knight and Stephen entered the village. A bar of fiery light lay across +the road, proceeding from the half-open door of a smithy, in which +bellows were heard blowing and a hammer ringing. The rain had increased, +and they mechanically turned for shelter towards the warm and cosy +scene. + +Close at their heels came another man, without over-coat or umbrella, +and with a parcel under his arm. + +'A wet evening,' he said to the two friends, and passed by them. They +stood in the outer penthouse, but the man went in to the fire. + +The smith ceased his blowing, and began talking to the man who had +entered. + +'I have walked all the way from Camelton,' said the latter. 'Was obliged +to come to-night, you know.' + +He held the parcel, which was a flat one, towards the firelight, to +learn if the rain had penetrated it. Resting it edgewise on the forge, +he supported it perpendicularly with one hand, wiping his face with the +handkerchief he held in the other. + +'I suppose you know what I've got here?' he observed to the smith. + +'No, I don't,' said the smith, pausing again on his bellows. + +'As the rain's not over, I'll show you,' said the bearer. + +He laid the thin and broad package, which had acute angles in different +directions, flat upon the anvil, and the smith blew up the fire to give +him more light. First, after untying the package, a sheet of brown paper +was removed: this was laid flat. Then he unfolded a piece of baize: this +also he spread flat on the paper. The third covering was a wrapper +of tissue paper, which was spread out in its turn. The enclosure was +revealed, and he held it up for the smith's inspection. + +'Oh--I see!' said the smith, kindling with a chastened interest, and +drawing close. 'Poor young lady--ah, terrible melancholy thing--so soon +too!' + +Knight and Stephen turned their heads and looked. + +'And what's that?' continued the smith. + +'That's the coronet--beautifully finished, isn't it? Ah, that cost some +money!' + +''Tis as fine a bit of metal work as ever I see--that 'tis.' + +'It came from the same people as the coffin, you know, but was not ready +soon enough to be sent round to the house in London yesterday. I've got +to fix it on this very night.' + +The carefully-packed articles were a coffin-plate and coronet. + +Knight and Stephen came forward. The undertaker's man, on seeing them +look for the inscription, civilly turned it round towards them, and each +read, almost at one moment, by the ruddy light of the coals: + + + E L F R I D E, + Wife of Spenser Hugo Luxellian, + Fifteenth Baron Luxellian: + Died February 10, 18--. + + +They read it, and read it, and read it again--Stephen and Knight--as if +animated by one soul. Then Stephen put his hand upon Knight's arm, and +they retired from the yellow glow, further, further, till the chill +darkness enclosed them round, and the quiet sky asserted its presence +overhead as a dim grey sheet of blank monotony. + +'Where shall we go?' said Stephen. + +'I don't know.' + +A long silence ensued....'Elfride married!' said Stephen then in a thin +whisper, as if he feared to let the assertion loose on the world. + +'False,' whispered Knight. + +'And dead. Denied us both. I hate "false"--I hate it!' + +Knight made no answer. + +Nothing was heard by them now save the slow measurement of time by their +beating pulses, the soft touch of the dribbling rain upon their clothes, +and the low purr of the blacksmith's bellows hard by. + +'Shall we follow Elfie any further?' Stephen said. + +'No: let us leave her alone. She is beyond our love, and let her be +beyond our reproach. Since we don't know half the reasons that made her +do as she did, Stephen, how can we say, even now, that she was not pure +and true in heart?' Knight's voice had now become mild and gentle as a +child's. He went on: 'Can we call her ambitious? No. Circumstance has, +as usual, overpowered her purposes--fragile and delicate as she--liable +to be overthrown in a moment by the coarse elements of accident. I know +that's it,--don't you?' + +'It may be--it must be. Let us go on.' + +They began to bend their steps towards Castle Boterel, whither they +had sent their bags from Camelton. They wandered on in silence for many +minutes. Stephen then paused, and lightly put his hand within Knight's +arm. + +'I wonder how she came to die,' he said in a broken whisper. 'Shall we +return and learn a little more?' + +They turned back again, and entering Endelstow a second time, came to a +door which was standing open. It was that of an inn called the Welcome +Home, and the house appeared to have been recently repaired and entirely +modernized. The name too was not that of the same landlord as formerly, +but Martin Cannister's. + +Knight and Smith entered. The inn was quite silent, and they followed +the passage till they reached the kitchen, where a huge fire was +burning, which roared up the chimney, and sent over the floor, ceiling, +and newly-whitened walls a glare so intense as to make the candle quite +a secondary light. A woman in a white apron and black gown was standing +there alone behind a cleanly-scrubbed deal table. Stephen first, and +Knight afterwards, recognized her as Unity, who had been parlour-maid at +the vicarage and young lady's-maid at the Crags. + +'Unity,' said Stephen softly, 'don't you know me?' + +She looked inquiringly a moment, and her face cleared up. + +'Mr. Smith--ay, that it is!' she said. 'And that's Mr. Knight. I beg you +to sit down. Perhaps you know that since I saw you last I have married +Martin Cannister.' + +'How long have you been married?' + +'About five months. We were married the same day that my dear Miss Elfie +became Lady Luxellian.' Tears appeared in Unity's eyes, and filled them, +and fell down her cheek, in spite of efforts to the contrary. + +The pain of the two men in resolutely controlling themselves when thus +exampled to admit relief of the same kind was distressing. They both +turned their backs and walked a few steps away. + +Then Unity said, 'Will you go into the parlour, gentlemen?' + +'Let us stay here with her,' Knight whispered, and turning said, 'No; we +will sit here. We want to rest and dry ourselves here for a time, if you +please.' + +That evening the sorrowing friends sat with their hostess beside the +large fire, Knight in the recess formed by the chimney breast, where he +was in shade. And by showing a little confidence they won hers, and +she told them what they had stayed to hear--the latter history of poor +Elfride. + +'One day--after you, Mr. Knight, left us for the last time--she was +missed from the Crags, and her father went after her, and brought her +home ill. Where she went to, I never knew--but she was very unwell for +weeks afterwards. And she said to me that she didn't care what became of +her, and she wished she could die. When she was better, I said she would +live to be married yet, and she said then, "Yes; I'll do anything +for the benefit of my family, so as to turn my useless life to some +practical account." Well, it began like this about Lord Luxellian +courting her. The first Lady Luxellian had died, and he was in great +trouble because the little girls were left motherless. After a while +they used to come and see her in their little black frocks, for they +liked her as well or better than their own mother---that's true. +They used to call her "little mamma." These children made her a shade +livelier, but she was not the girl she had been--I could see that--and +she grew thinner a good deal. Well, my lord got to ask the Swancourts +oftener and oftener to dinner--nobody else of his acquaintance--and at +last the vicar's family were backwards and forwards at all hours of the +day. Well, people say that the little girls asked their father to let +Miss Elfride come and live with them, and that he said perhaps he would +if they were good children. However, the time went on, and one day I +said, "Miss Elfride, you don't look so well as you used to; and though +nobody else seems to notice it I do." She laughed a little, and said, "I +shall live to be married yet, as you told me." + +'"Shall you, miss? I am glad to hear that," I said. + +'"Whom do you think I am going to be married to?" she said again. + +'"Mr. Knight, I suppose," said I. + +'"Oh!" she cried, and turned off so white, and afore I could get to her +she had sunk down like a heap of clothes, and fainted away. Well, then, +she came to herself after a time, and said, "Unity, now we'll go on with +our conversation." + +'"Better not to-day, miss," I said. + +'"Yes, we will," she said. "Whom do you think I am going to be married +to?" + +'"I don't know," I said this time. + +'"Guess," she said. + +'"'Tisn't my lord, is it?" says I. + +'"Yes, 'tis," says she, in a sick wild way. + +'"But he don't come courting much," I said. + +"'Ah! you don't know," she said, and told me 'twas going to be in +October. After that she freshened up a bit--whether 'twas with the +thought of getting away from home or not, I don't know. For, perhaps, I +may as well speak plainly, and tell you that her home was no home to her +now. Her father was bitter to her and harsh upon her; and though Mrs. +Swancourt was well enough in her way, 'twas a sort of cold politeness +that was not worth much, and the little thing had a worrying time of it +altogether. About a month before the wedding, she and my lord and the +two children used to ride about together upon horseback, and a very +pretty sight they were; and if you'll believe me, I never saw him once +with her unless the children were with her too--which made the courting +so strange-looking. Ay, and my lord is so handsome, you know, so that at +last I think she rather liked him; and I have seen her smile and blush a +bit at things he said. He wanted her the more because the children did, +for everybody could see that she would be a most tender mother to them, +and friend and playmate too. And my lord is not only handsome, but +a splendid courter, and up to all the ways o't. So he made her the +beautifullest presents; ah, one I can mind--a lovely bracelet, with +diamonds and emeralds. Oh, how red her face came when she saw it! The +old roses came back to her cheeks for a minute or two then. I helped +dress her the day we both were married--it was the last service I did +her, poor child! When she was ready, I ran upstairs and slipped on my +own wedding gown, and away they went, and away went Martin and I; and no +sooner had my lord and my lady been married than the parson married us. +It was a very quiet pair of weddings--hardly anybody knew it. Well, +hope will hold its own in a young heart, if so be it can; and my lady +freshened up a bit, for my lord was SO handsome and kind.' + +'How came she to die--and away from home?' murmured Knight. + +'Don't you see, sir, she fell off again afore they'd been married long, +and my lord took her abroad for change of scene. They were coming home, +and had got as far as London, when she was taken very ill and couldn't +be moved, and there she died.' + +'Was he very fond of her?' + +'What, my lord? Oh, he was!' + +'VERY fond of her?' + +'VERY, beyond everything. Not suddenly, but by slow degrees. 'Twas her +nature to win people more when they knew her well. He'd have died for +her, I believe. Poor my lord, he's heart-broken now!' + +'The funeral is to-morrow?' + +'Yes; my husband is now at the vault with the masons, opening the steps +and cleaning down the walls.' + + +The next day two men walked up the familiar valley from Castle Boterel +to East Endelstow Church. And when the funeral was over, and every one +had left the lawn-like churchyard, the pair went softly down the steps +of the Luxellian vault, and under the low-groined arches they had beheld +once before, lit up then as now. In the new niche of the crypt lay a +rather new coffin, which had lost some of its lustre, and a newer coffin +still, bright and untarnished in the slightest degree. + +Beside the latter was the dark form of a man, kneeling on the damp +floor, his body flung across the coffin, his hands clasped, and his +whole frame seemingly given up in utter abandonment to grief. He was +still young--younger, perhaps, than Knight--and even now showed how +graceful was his figure and symmetrical his build. He murmured a prayer +half aloud, and was quite unconscious that two others were standing +within a few yards of him. + +Knight and Stephen had advanced to where they once stood beside Elfride +on the day all three had met there, before she had herself gone down +into silence like her ancestors, and shut her bright blue eyes for ever. +Not until then did they see the kneeling figure in the dim light. Knight +instantly recognized the mourner as Lord Luxellian, the bereaved husband +of Elfride. + +They felt themselves to be intruders. Knight pressed Stephen back, and +they silently withdrew as they had entered. + +'Come away,' he said, in a broken voice. 'We have no right to be there. +Another stands before us--nearer to her than we!' + +And side by side they both retraced their steps down the grey still +valley to Castle Boterel. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PAIR OF BLUE EYES *** + +***** This file should be named 224.txt or 224.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/224/ + +Produced by John Hamm + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/224.zip b/old/224.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1341f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/224.zip diff --git a/old/pblue10.txt b/old/pblue10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71a8c5e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pblue10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17363 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext of A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy + +March, 1995 [Etext #224] + + +Project Gutenberg's Etext of A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy +******This file should be named pblue10.txt or pblue10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, pblue11.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, pblue10a.txt. + + +Prepared by John Hamm <John_Hamm@MindLink.bc.ca> + +Scanned with OmniPage Professional 5.0 OCR software +donated to Project Gutenberg by Caere Corporation +1-800-535-7226 Contact Mike Lough <Mikel@caere.com> + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar, then we produce 2 +million dollars per hour this year we, will have to do four text +files per month: thus upping our productivity from one million. +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end +of the year 2001. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois +Benedictine College). (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go +to IBC, too) + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive +Director: +hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (internet) hart@uiucvmd (bitnet) + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext91 +or cd etext92 +or cd etext93 [for new books] [now also in cd etext/etext93] +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET 0INDEX.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney +Internet (72600.2026@compuserve.com); TEL: (212-254-5093) +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + +A Pair of Blue Eyes + +by Thomas Hardy + + + + 'A violet in the youth of primy nature, + Forward, not permanent, sweet not lasting, + The perfume and suppliance of a minute; + No more.' + + + +PREFACE + +The following chapters were written at a time when the craze for +indiscriminate church-restoration had just reached the remotest +nooks of western England, where the wild and tragic features of +the coast had long combined in perfect harmony with the crude +Gothic Art of the ecclesiastical buildings scattered along it, +throwing into extraordinary discord all architectural attempts at +newness there. To restore the grey carcases of a mediaevalism +whose spirit had fled, seemed a not less incongruous act than to +set about renovating the adjoining crags themselves. + +Hence it happened that an imaginary history of three human hearts, +whose emotions were not without correspondence with these material +circumstances, found in the ordinary incidents of such church- +renovations a fitting frame for its presentation. + +The shore and country about 'Castle Boterel' is now getting well +known, and will be readily recognized. The spot is, I may add, +the furthest westward of all those convenient corners wherein I +have ventured to erect my theatre for these imperfect little +dramas of country life and passions; and it lies near to, or no +great way beyond, the vague border of the Wessex kingdom on that +side, which, like the westering verge of modern American +settlements, was progressive and uncertain. + +This, however, is of little importance. The place is pre- +eminently (for one person at least) the region of dream and +mystery. The ghostly birds, the pall-like sea, the frothy wind, +the eternal soliloquy of the waters, the bloom of dark purple +cast, that seems to exhale from the shoreward precipices, in +themselves lend to the scene an atmosphere like the twilight of a +night vision. + +One enormous sea-bord cliff in particular figures in the +narrative; and for some forgotten reason or other this cliff was +described in the story as being without a name. Accuracy would +require the statement to be that a remarkable cliff which +resembles in many points the cliff of the description bears a name +that no event has made famous. + + T. H. +March 1899 + + + + THE PERSONS + + ELFRIDE SWANCOURT a young Lady + CHRISTOPHER SWANCOURT a Clergyman + STEPHEN SMITH an Architect + HENRY KNIGHT a Reviewer and Essayist + CHARLOTTE TROYTON a rich Widow + GERTRUDE JETHWAY a poor Widow + SPENSER HUGO LUXELLIAN a Peer + LADY LUXELLIAN his Wife + MARY AND KATE two little Girls + WILLIAM WORM a dazed Factotum + JOHN SMITH a Master-mason + JANE SMITH his Wife + MARTIN CANNISTER a Sexton + UNITY a Maid-servant + +Other servants, masons, labourers, grooms, nondescripts, etc., etc. + + +THE SCENE +Mostly on the outskirts of Lower Wessex. + + + +Chapter I + +'A fair vestal, throned in the west' + + +Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the +surface. Their nature more precisely, and as modified by the +creeping hours of time, was known only to those who watched the +circumstances of her history. + +Personally, she was the combination of very interesting +particulars, whose rarity, however, lay in the combination itself +rather than in the individual elements combined. As a matter of +fact, you did not see the form and substance of her features when +conversing with her; and this charming power of preventing a +material study of her lineaments by an interlocutor, originated +not in the cloaking effect of a well-formed manner (for her manner +was childish and scarcely formed), but in the attractive crudeness +of the remarks themselves. She had lived all her life in +retirement--the monstrari gigito of idle men had not flattered +her, and at the age of nineteen or twenty she was no further on in +social consciousness than an urban young lady of fifteen. + +One point in her, however, you did notice: that was her eyes. In +them was seen a sublimation of all of her; it was not necessary to +look further: there she lived. + +These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance--blue as the blue we +see between the retreating mouldings of hills and woody slopes on +a sunny September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no +beginning or surface, and was looked INTO rather than AT. + +As to her presence, it was not powerful; it was weak. Some women +can make their personality pervade the atmosphere of a whole +banqueting hall; Elfride's was no more pervasive than that of a +kitten. + +Elfride had as her own the thoughtfulness which appears in the +face of the Madonna della Sedia, without its rapture: the warmth +and spirit of the type of woman's feature most common to the +beauties--mortal and immortal--of Rubens, without their insistent +fleshiness. The characteristic expression of the female faces of +Correggio--that of the yearning human thoughts that lie too deep +for tears--was hers sometimes, but seldom under ordinary +conditions. + +The point in Elfride Swancourt's life at which a deeper current +may be said to have permanently set in, was one winter afternoon +when she found herself standing, in the character of hostess, face +to face with a man she had never seen before--moreover, looking at +him with a Miranda-like curiosity and interest that she had never +yet bestowed on a mortal. + +On this particular day her father, the vicar of a parish on the +sea-swept outskirts of Lower Wessex, and a widower, was suffering +from an attack of gout. After finishing her household +supervisions Elfride became restless, and several times left the +room, ascended the staircase, and knocked at her father's chamber- +door. + +'Come in!' was always answered in a hearty out-of-door voice from +the inside. + +'Papa,' she said on one occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome +man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay +on the bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then +enunciating, in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or +words that were almost oaths; 'papa, will you not come downstairs +this evening?' She spoke distinctly: he was rather deaf. + +'Afraid not--eh-hh !--very much afraid I shall not, Elfride. +Piph-ph-ph! I can't bear even a handkerchief upon this deuced toe +of mine, much less a stocking or slipper--piph-ph-ph! There 'tis +again! No, I shan't get up till to-morrow.' + +'Then I hope this London man won't come; for I don't know what I +should do, papa.' + +'Well, it would be awkward, certainly.' + +'I should hardly think he would come to-day.' + +'Why?' + +'Because the wind blows so.' + +'Wind! What ideas you have, Elfride! Who ever heard of wind +stopping a man from doing his business? The idea of this toe of +mine coming on so suddenly!...If he should come, you must send him +up to me, I suppose, and then give him some food and put him to +bed in some way. Dear me, what a nuisance all this is!' + +'Must he have dinner?' + +'Too heavy for a tired man at the end of a tedious journey.' + +'Tea, then?' + +'Not substantial enough.' + +'High tea, then? There is cold fowl, rabbit-pie, some pasties, and +things of that kind.' + +'Yes, high tea.' + +'Must I pour out his tea, papa?' + +'Of course; you are the mistress of the house.' + +'What! sit there all the time with a stranger, just as if I knew +him, and not anybody to introduce us?' + +'Nonsense, child, about introducing; you know better than that. A +practical professional man, tired and hungry, who has been +travelling ever since daylight this morning, will hardly be +inclined to talk and air courtesies to-night. He wants food and +shelter, and you must see that he has it, simply because I am +suddenly laid up and cannot. There is nothing so dreadful in +that, I hope? You get all kinds of stuff into your head from +reading so many of those novels.' + +'Oh no; there is nothing dreadful in it when it becomes plainly a +case of necessity like this. But, you see, you are always there +when people come to dinner, even if we know them; and this is some +strange London man of the world, who will think it odd, perhaps.' + +'Very well; let him.' + +'Is he Mr. Hewby's partner?' + +'I should scarcely think so: he may be.' + +'How old is he, I wonder?' + +'That I cannot tell. You will find the copy of my letter to Mr. +Hewby, and his answer, upon the table in the study. You may read +them, and then you'll know as much as I do about our visitor.' + +'I have read them.' + +'Well, what's the use of asking questions, then? They contain all +I know. Ugh-h-h!...Od plague you, you young scamp! don't put +anything there! I can't bear the weight of a fly.' + +'Oh, I am sorry, papa. I forgot; I thought you might be cold,' +she said, hastily removing the rug she had thrown upon the feet of +the sufferer; and waiting till she saw that consciousness of her +offence had passed from his face, she withdrew from the room, and +retired again downstairs. + + + +Chapter II + +'Twas on the evening of a winter's day.' + + +When two or three additional hours had merged +the same afternoon in evening, some moving outlines might have +been observed against the sky on the summit of a wild lone hill in +that district. They circumscribed two men, having at present the +aspect of silhouettes, sitting in a dog-cart and pushing along in +the teeth of the wind. Scarcely a solitary house or man had been +visible along the whole dreary distance of open country they were +traversing; and now that night had begun to fall, the faint +twilight, which still gave an idea of the landscape to their +observation, was enlivened by the quiet appearance of the planet +Jupiter, momentarily gleaming in intenser brilliancy in front of +them, and by Sirius shedding his rays in rivalry from his position +over their shoulders. The only lights apparent on earth were some +spots of dull red, glowing here and there upon the distant hills, +which, as the driver of the vehicle gratuitously remarked to the +hirer, were smouldering fires for the consumption of peat and +gorse-roots, where the common was being broken up for agricultural +purposes. The wind prevailed with but little abatement from its +daytime boisterousness, three or four small clouds, delicate and +pale, creeping along under the sky southward to the Channel. + +Fourteen of the sixteen miles intervening between the railway +terminus and the end of their journey had been gone over, when +they began to pass along the brink of a valley some miles in +extent, wherein the wintry skeletons of a more luxuriant +vegetation than had hitherto surrounded them proclaimed an +increased richness of soil, which showed signs of far more careful +enclosure and management than had any slopes they had yet passed. +A little farther, and an opening in the elms stretching up from +this fertile valley revealed a mansion. + +'That's Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian's,' said the driver. + +'Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian's,' repeated the other +mechanically. He then turned himself sideways, and keenly +scrutinized the almost invisible house with an interest which the +indistinct picture itself seemed far from adequate to create. +'Yes, that's Lord Luxellian's,' he said yet again after a while, +as he still looked in the same direction. + +'What, be we going there?' + +'No; Endelstow Vicarage, as I have told you.' + +'I thought you m't have altered your mind, sir, as ye have stared +that way at nothing so long.' + +'Oh no; I am interested in the house, that's all.' + +'Most people be, as the saying is.' + +'Not in the sense that I am.' + +'Oh!...Well, his family is no better than my own, 'a b'lieve.' + +'How is that?' + +'Hedgers and ditchers by rights. But once in ancient times one of +'em, when he was at work, changed clothes with King Charles the +Second, and saved the king's life. King Charles came up to him +like a common man, and said off-hand, "Man in the smock-frock, my +name is Charles the Second, and that's the truth on't. Will you +lend me your clothes?" "I don't mind if I do," said Hedger +Luxellian; and they changed there and then. "Now mind ye," King +Charles the Second said, like a common man, as he rode away, "if +ever I come to the crown, you come to court, knock at the door, +and say out bold, 'Is King Charles the Second at home?' Tell your +name, and they shall let you in, and you shall be made a lord." +Now, that was very nice of Master Charley?' + +'Very nice indeed.' + +'Well, as the story is, the king came to the throne; and some +years after that, away went Hedger Luxellian, knocked at the +king's door, and asked if King Charles the Second was in. "No, he +isn't," they said. "Then, is Charles the Third?" said Hedger +Luxellian. "Yes," said a young feller standing by like a common +man, only he had a crown on, "my name is Charles the Third." And----' + +'I really fancy that must be a mistake. I don't recollect +anything in English history about Charles the Third,' said the +other in a tone of mild remonstrance. + +'Oh, that's right history enough, only 'twasn't prented; he was +rather a queer-tempered man, if you remember.' + +'Very well; go on.' + +'And, by hook or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was made a lord, and +everything went on well till some time after, when he got into a +most terrible row with King Charles the Fourth + +'I can't stand Charles the Fourth. Upon my word, that's too +much.' + +'Why? There was a George the Fourth, wasn't there?' + +'Certainly.' + +'Well, Charleses be as common as Georges. However I'll say no +more about it....Ah, well! 'tis the funniest world ever I lived +in--upon my life 'tis. Ah, that such should be!' + +The dusk had thickened into darkness while they thus conversed, +and the outline and surface of the mansion gradually disappeared. +The windows, which had before been as black blots on a lighter +expanse of wall, became illuminated, and were transfigured to +squares of light on the general dark body of the night landscape +as it absorbed the outlines of the edifice into its gloomy +monochrome. + +Not another word was spoken for some time, and they climbed a +hill, then another hill piled on the summit of the first. An +additional mile of plateau followed, from which could be discerned +two light-houses on the coast they were nearing, reposing on the +horizon with a calm lustre of benignity. Another oasis was +reached; a little dell lay like a nest at their feet, towards +which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp angle, and descended +a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit's burrow. +They sank lower and lower. + +'Endelstow Vicarage is inside here,' continued the man with the +reins. 'This part about here is West Endelstow; Lord Luxellian's +is East Endelstow, and has a church to itself. Pa'son Swancourt +is the pa'son of both, and bobs backward and forward. Ah, well! +'tis a funny world. 'A b'lieve there was once a quarry where this +house stands. The man who built it in past time scraped all the +glebe for earth to put round the vicarage, and laid out a little +paradise of flowers and trees in the soil he had got together in +this way, whilst the fields he scraped have been good for nothing +ever since.' + +'How long has the present incumbent been here?' + +'Maybe about a year, or a year and half: 'tisn't two years; for +they don't scandalize him yet; and, as a rule, a parish begins to +scandalize the pa'son at the end of two years among 'em familiar. +But he's a very nice party. Ay, Pa'son Swancourt knows me pretty +well from often driving over; and I know Pa'son Swancourt.' + +They emerged from the bower, swept round in a curve, and the +chimneys and gables of the vicarage became darkly visible. Not a +light showed anywhere. They alighted; the man felt his way into +the porch, and rang the bell. + +At the end of three or four minutes, spent in patient waiting +without hearing any sounds of a response, the stranger advanced +and repeated the call in a more decided manner. He then fancied +he heard footsteps in the hall, and sundry movements of the door- +knob, but nobody appeared. + +'Perhaps they beant at home,' sighed the driver. 'And I promised +myself a bit of supper in Pa'son Swancourt's kitchen. Sich lovely +mate-pize and figged keakes, and cider, and drops o' cordial that +they do keep here!' + +'All right, naibours! Be ye rich men or be ye poor men, that ye +must needs come to the world's end at this time o' night?' +exclaimed a voice at this instant; and, turning their heads, they +saw a rickety individual shambling round from the back door with a +horn lantern dangling from his hand. + +'Time o' night, 'a b'lieve! and the clock only gone seven of 'em. +Show a light, and let us in, William Worm.' + +'Oh, that you, Robert Lickpan?' + +'Nobody else, William Worm.' + +'And is the visiting man a-come?' + +'Yes,' said the stranger. 'Is Mr. Swancourt at home?' + +'That 'a is, sir. And would ye mind coming round by the back way? +The front door is got stuck wi' the wet, as he will do sometimes; +and the Turk can't open en. I know I am only a poor wambling man +that 'ill never pay the Lord for my making, sir; but I can show +the way in, sir.' + +The new arrival followed his guide through a little door in a +wall, and then promenaded a scullery and a kitchen, along which he +passed with eyes rigidly fixed in advance, an inbred horror of +prying forbidding him to gaze around apartments that formed the +back side of the household tapestry. Entering the hall, he was +about to be shown to his room, when from the inner lobby of the +front entrance, whither she had gone to learn the cause of the +delay, sailed forth the form of Elfride. Her start of amazement +at the sight of the visitor coming forth from under the stairs +proved that she had not been expecting this surprising flank +movement, which had been originated entirely by the ingenuity of +William Worm. + +She appeared in the prettiest of all feminine guises, that is to +say, in demi-toilette, with plenty of loose curly hair tumbling +down about her shoulders. An expression of uneasiness pervaded +her countenance; and altogether she scarcely appeared woman enough +for the situation. The visitor removed his hat, and the first +words were spoken; Elfride prelusively looking with a deal of +interest, not unmixed with surprise, at the person towards whom +she was to do the duties of hospitality. + +'I am Mr. Smith,' said the stranger in a musical voice. + +'I am Miss Swancourt,' said Elfride. + +Her constraint was over. The great contrast between the reality +she beheld before her, and the dark, taciturn, sharp, elderly man +of business who had lurked in her imagination--a man with clothes +smelling of city smoke, skin sallow from want of sun, and talk +flavoured with epigram--was such a relief to her that Elfride +smiled, almost laughed, in the new-comer's face. + +Stephen Smith, who has hitherto been hidden from us by the +darkness, was at this time of his life but a youth in appearance, +and barely a man in years. Judging from his look, London was the +last place in the world that one would have imagined to be the +scene of his activities: such a face surely could not be nourished +amid smoke and mud and fog and dust; such an open countenance +could never even have seen anything of 'the weariness, the fever, +and the fret' of Babylon the Second. + +His complexion was as fine as Elfride's own; the pink of his +cheeks as delicate. His mouth as perfect as Cupid's bow in form, +and as cherry-red in colour as hers. Bright curly hair; bright +sparkling blue-gray eyes; a boy's blush and manner; neither +whisker nor moustache, unless a little light-brown fur on his +upper lip deserved the latter title: this composed the London +professional man, the prospect of whose advent had so troubled +Elfride. + +Elfride hastened to say she was sorry to tell him that Mr. +Swancourt was not able to receive him that evening, and gave the +reason why. Mr. Smith replied, in a voice boyish by nature and +manly by art, that he was very sorry to hear this news; but that +as far as his reception was concerned, it did not matter in the +least. + +Stephen was shown up to his room. In his absence Elfride +stealthily glided into her father's. + +'He's come, papa. Such a young man for a business man!' + +'Oh, indeed!' + +'His face is--well--PRETTY; just like mine.' + +'H'm! what next?' + +'Nothing; that's all I know of him yet. It is rather nice, is it +not?' + +'Well, we shall see that when we know him better. Go down and +give the poor fellow something to eat and drink, for Heaven's +sake. And when he has done eating, say I should like to have a +few words with him, if he doesn't mind coming up here.' + +The young lady glided downstairs again, and whilst she awaits +young Smith's entry, the letters referring to his visit had better +be given. + + +1.--MR. SWANCOURT TO MR. HEWBY. + + 'ENDELSTOW VICARAGE, Feb. 18, 18--. + +'SIR,--We are thinking of restoring the tower and aisle of the +church in this parish; and Lord Luxellian, the patron of the +living, has mentioned your name as that of a trustworthy architect +whom it would be desirable to ask to superintend the work. + +'I am exceedingly ignorant of the necessary preliminary steps. +Probably, however, the first is that (should you be, as Lord +Luxellian says you are, disposed to assist us) yourself or some +member of your staff come and see the building, and report +thereupon for the satisfaction of parishioners and others. + +'The spot is a very remote one: we have no railway within fourteen +miles; and the nearest place for putting up at--called a town, +though merely a large village--is Castle Boterel, two miles +further on; so that it would be most convenient for you to stay at +the vicarage--which I am glad to place at your disposal--instead +of pushing on to the hotel at Castle Boterel, and coming back +again in the morning. + +'Any day of the next week that you like to name for the visit will +find us quite ready to receive you.--Yours very truly, CHRISTOPHER +SWANCOURT. + + +2.--MR. HEWBY TO MR. SWANCOURT. + + "PERCY PLACE, CHARING CROSS, Feb. 20, 18--. + +'DEAR SIR,--Agreeably to your request of the 18th instant, I have +arranged to survey and make drawings of the aisle and tower of +your parish church, and of the dilapidations which have been +suffered to accrue thereto, with a view to its restoration. + +'My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, will leave London by the early +train to-morrow morning for the purpose. Many thanks for your +proposal to accommodate him. He will take advantage of your +offer, and will probably reach your house at some hour of the +evening. You may put every confidence in him, and may rely upon +his discernment in the matter of church architecture. + +'Trusting that the plans for the restoration, which I shall +prepare from the details of his survey, will prove satisfactory to +yourself and Lord Luxellian, I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, +WALTER HEWBY.' + + + +Chapter III + +'Melodious birds sing madrigals' + + +That first repast in Endelstow Vicarage was a very agreeable one +to young Stephen Smith. The table was spread, as Elfride had +suggested to her father, with the materials for the heterogeneous +meal called high tea--a class of refection welcome to all when +away from men and towns, and particularly attractive to youthful +palates. The table was prettily decked with winter flowers and +leaves, amid which the eye was greeted by chops, chicken, pie, +&c., and two huge pasties overhanging the sides of the dish with a +cheerful aspect of abundance. + +At the end, towards the fireplace, appeared the tea-service, of +old-fashioned Worcester porcelain, and behind this arose the +slight form of Elfride, attempting to add matronly dignity to the +movement of pouring out tea, and to have a weighty and concerned +look in matters of marmalade, honey, and clotted cream. Having +made her own meal before he arrived, she found to her +embarrassment that there was nothing left for her to do but talk +when not assisting him. She asked him if he would excuse her +finishing a letter she had been writing at a side-table, and, +after sitting down to it, tingled with a sense of being grossly +rude. However, seeing that he noticed nothing personally wrong in +her, and that he too was embarrassed when she attentively watched +his cup to refill it, Elfride became better at ease; and when +furthermore he accidentally kicked the leg of the table, and then +nearly upset his tea-cup, just as schoolboys did, she felt herself +mistress of the situation, and could talk very well. In a few +minutes ingenuousness and a common term of years obliterated all +recollection that they were strangers just met. Stephen began to +wax eloquent on extremely slight experiences connected with his +professional pursuits; and she, having no experiences to fall back +upon, recounted with much animation stories that had been related +to her by her father, which would have astonished him had he heard +with what fidelity of action and tone they were rendered. Upon +the whole, a very interesting picture of Sweet-and-Twenty was on +view that evening in Mr. Swancourt's house. + +Ultimately Stephen had to go upstairs and talk loud to the vicar, +receiving from him between his puffs a great many apologies for +calling him so unceremoniously to a stranger's bedroom. 'But,' +continued Mr. Swancourt, 'I felt that I wanted to say a few words +to you before the morning, on the business of your visit. One's +patience gets exhausted by staying a prisoner in bed all day +through a sudden freak of one's enemy--new to me, though--for I +have known very little of gout as yet. However, he's gone to my +other toe in a very mild manner, and I expect he'll slink off +altogether by the morning. I hope you have been well attended to +downstairs?' + +'Perfectly. And though it is unfortunate, and I am sorry to see +you laid up, I beg you will not take the slightest notice of my +being in the house the while.' + +'I will not. But I shall be down to-morrow. My daughter is an +excellent doctor. A dose or two of her mild mixtures will fetch +me round quicker than all the drug stuff in the world. Well, now +about the church business. Take a seat, do. We can't afford to +stand upon ceremony in these parts as you see, and for this +reason, that a civilized human being seldom stays long with us; +and so we cannot waste time in approaching him, or he will be gone +before we have had the pleasure of close acquaintance. This tower +of ours is, as you will notice, entirely gone beyond the +possibility of restoration; but the church itself is well enough. +You should see some of the churches in this county. Floors +rotten: ivy lining the walls.' + +'Dear me!' + +'Oh, that's nothing. The congregation of a neighbour of mine, +whenever a storm of rain comes on during service, open their +umbrellas and hold them up till the dripping ceases from the roof. +Now, if you will kindly bring me those papers and letters you see +lying on the table, I will show you how far we have got.' + +Stephen crossed the room to fetch them, and the vicar seemed to +notice more particularly the slim figure of his visitor. + +'I suppose you are quite competent?' he said. + +'Quite,' said the young man, colouring slightly. + +'You are very young, I fancy--I should say you are not more than +nineteen?' + +I am nearly twenty-one.' + +'Exactly half my age; I am forty-two.' + +'By the way,' said Mr. Swancourt, after some conversation, 'you +said your whole name was Stephen Fitzmaurice, and that your +grandfather came originally from Caxbury. Since I have been +speaking, it has occurred to me that I know something of you. You +belong to a well-known ancient county family--not ordinary Smiths +in the least.' + +'I don't think we have any of their blood in our veins.' + +'Nonsense! you must. Hand me the "Landed Gentry." Now, let me +see. There, Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith--he lies in St. Mary's +Church, doesn't he? Well, out of that family Sprang the +Leaseworthy Smiths, and collaterally came General Sir Stephen +Fitzmaurice Smith of Caxbury----' + +'Yes; I have seen his monument there,' shouted Stephen. 'But +there is no connection between his family and mine: there cannot +be.' + +'There is none, possibly, to your knowledge. But look at this, my +dear sir,' said the vicar, striking his fist upon the bedpost for +emphasis. 'Here are you, Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith, living in +London, but springing from Caxbury. Here in this book is a +genealogical tree of the Stephen Fitzmaurice Smiths of Caxbury +Manor. You may be only a family of professional men now--I am not +inquisitive: I don't ask questions of that kind; it is not in me +to do so--but it is as plain as the nose in your face that there's +your origin! And, Mr. Smith, I congratulate you upon your blood; +blue blood, sir; and, upon my life, a very desirable colour, as +the world goes.' + +'I wish you could congratulate me upon some more tangible +quality,' said the younger man, sadly no less than modestly. + +'Nonsense! that will come with time. You are young: all your life +is before you. Now look--see how far back in the mists of +antiquity my own family of Swancourt have a root. Here, you see,' +he continued, turning to the page, 'is Geoffrey, the one among my +ancestors who lost a barony because he would cut his joke. Ah, +it's the sort of us! But the story is too long to tell now. Ay, +I'm a poor man--a poor gentleman, in fact: those I would be +friends with, won't be friends with me; those who are willing to +be friends with me, I am above being friends with. Beyond dining +with a neighbouring incumbent or two. and an occasional chat-- +sometimes dinner--with Lord Luxellian, a connection of mine, I am +in absolute solitude--absolute.' + +'You have your studies, your books, and your--daughter.' + +'Oh yes, yes; and I don't complain of poverty. Canto coram +latrone. Well, Mr. Smith, don't let me detain you any longer in a +sick room. Ha! that reminds me of a story I once heard in my +younger days.' Here the vicar began a series of small private +laughs, and Stephen looked inquiry. 'Oh, no, no! it is too bad-- +too bad to tell!' continued Mr. Swancourt in undertones of grim +mirth. 'Well, go downstairs; my daughter must do the best she can +with you this evening. Ask her to sing to you--she plays and +sings very nicely. Good-night; I feel as if I had known you for +five or six years. I'll ring for somebody to show you down.' + +'Never mind,' said Stephen, 'I can find the way.' And he went +downstairs, thinking of the delightful freedom of manner in the +remoter counties in comparison with the reserve of London. + + +'I forgot to tell you that my father was rather deaf,' said +Elfride anxiously, when Stephen entered the little drawing-room. + +'Never mind; I know all about it, and we are great friends,' the +man of business replied enthusiastically. 'And, Miss Swancourt, +will you kindly sing to me?' + +To Miss Swancourt this request seemed, what in fact it was, +exceptionally point-blank; though she guessed that her father had +some hand in framing it, knowing, rather to her cost, of his +unceremonious way of utilizing her for the benefit of dull +sojourners. At the same time, as Mr. Smith's manner was too frank +to provoke criticism, and his age too little to inspire fear, she +was ready--not to say pleased--to accede. Selecting from the +canterbury some old family ditties, that in years gone by had been +played and sung by her mother, Elfride sat down to the pianoforte, +and began, "Twas on the evening of a winter's day,' in a pretty +contralto voice. + +'Do you like that old thing, Mr. Smith?' she said at the end. + +'Yes, I do much,' said Stephen--words he would have uttered, and +sincerely, to anything on earth, from glee to requiem, that she +might have chosen. + +'You shall have a little one by De Leyre, that was given me by a +young French lady who was staying at Endelstow House: + + + '"Je l'ai plante, je l'ai vu naitre, + Ce beau rosier ou les oiseaux," &c.; + + +and then I shall want to give you my own favourite for the very +last, Shelley's "When the lamp is shattered," as set to music by +my poor mother. I so much like singing to anybody who REALLY +cares to hear me.' + +Every woman who makes a permanent impression on a man is usually +recalled to his mind's eye as she appeared in one particular +scene, which seems ordained to be her special form of +manifestation throughout the pages of his memory. As the patron +Saint has her attitude and accessories in mediaeval illumination, +so the sweetheart may be said to have hers upon the table of her +true Love's fancy, without which she is rarely introduced there +except by effort; and this though she may, on further +acquaintance, have been observed in many other phases which one +would imagine to be far more appropriate to love's young dream. + +Miss Elfride's image chose the form in which she was beheld during +these minutes of singing, for her permanent attitude of visitation +to Stephen's eyes during his sleeping and waking hours in after +days. The profile is seen of a young woman in a pale gray silk +dress with trimmings of swan's-down, and opening up from a point +in front, like a waistcoat without a shirt; the cool colour +contrasting admirably with the warm bloom of her neck and face. +The furthermost candle on the piano comes immediately in a line +with her head, and half invisible itself, forms the accidentally +frizzled hair into a nebulous haze of light, surrounding her crown +like an aureola. Her hands are in their place on the keys, her +lips parted, and trilling forth, in a tender diminuendo, the +closing words of the sad apostrophe: + + + + 'O Love, who bewailest + The frailty of all things here, + Why choose you the frailest + For your cradle, your home, and your bier!' + + +Her head is forward a little, and her eyes directed keenly upward +to the top of the page of music confronting her. Then comes a +rapid look into Stephen's face, and a still more rapid look back +again to her business, her face having dropped its sadness, and +acquired a certain expression of mischievous archness the while; +which lingered there for some time, but was never developed into a +positive smile of flirtation. + +Stephen suddenly shifted his position from her right hand to her +left, where there was just room enough for a small ottoman to +stand between the piano and the corner of the room. Into this +nook he squeezed himself, and gazed wistfully up into Elfride's +face. So long and so earnestly gazed he, that her cheek deepened +to a more and more crimson tint as each line was added to her +song. Concluding, and pausing motionless after the last word for +a minute or two, she ventured to look at him again. His features +wore an expression of unutterable heaviness. + +'You don't hear many songs, do you, Mr. Smith, to take so much +notice of these of mine?' + +'Perhaps it was the means and vehicle of the song that I was +noticing: I mean yourself,' he answered gently. + +'Now, Mr. Smith!' + +'It is perfectly true; I don't hear much singing. You mistake +what I am, I fancy. Because I come as a stranger to a secluded +spot, you think I must needs come from a life of bustle, and know +the latest movements of the day. But I don't. My life is as +quiet as yours, and more solitary; solitary as death.' + +'The death which comes from a plethora of life? But seriously, I +can quite see that you are not the least what I thought you would +be before I saw you. You are not critical, or experienced, or-- +much to mind. That's why I don't mind singing airs to you that I +only half know.' Finding that by this confession she had vexed him +in a way she did not intend, she added naively, 'I mean, Mr. +Smith, that you are better, not worse, for being only young and +not very experienced. You don't think my life here so very tame +and dull, I know.' + +'I do not, indeed,' he said with fervour. 'It must be +delightfully poetical, and sparkling, and fresh, and----' + +'There you go, Mr. Smith! Well, men of another kind, when I get +them to be honest enough to own the truth, think just the reverse: +that my life must be a dreadful bore in its normal state, though +pleasant for the exceptional few days they pass here.' + +'I could live here always!' he said, and with such a tone and look +of unconscious revelation that Elfride was startled to find that +her harmonies had fired a small Troy, in the shape of Stephen's +heart. She said quickly: + +'But you can't live here always.' + +'Oh no.' And he drew himself in with the sensitiveness of a snail. + +Elfride's emotions were sudden as his in kindling, but the least +of woman's lesser infirmities--love of admiration--caused an +inflammable disposition on his part, so exactly similar to her +own, to appear as meritorious in him as modesty made her own seem +culpable in her. + + + +Chapter IV + +'Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap.' + + +For reasons of his own, Stephen Smith was stirring a short time +after dawn the next morning. From the window of his room he could +see, first, two bold escarpments sloping down together like the +letter V. Towards the bottom, like liquid in a funnel, appeared +the sea, gray and small. On the brow of one hill, of rather +greater altitude than its neighbour, stood the church which was to +be the scene of his operations. The lonely edifice was black and +bare, cutting up into the sky from the very tip of the hill. It +had a square mouldering tower, owning neither battlement nor +pinnacle, and seemed a monolithic termination, of one substance +with the ridge, rather than a structure raised thereon. Round the +church ran a low wall; over-topping the wall in general level was +the graveyard; not as a graveyard usually is, a fragment of +landscape with its due variety of chiaro-oscuro, but a mere +profile against the sky, serrated with the outlines of graves and +a very few memorial stones. Not a tree could exist up there: +nothing but the monotonous gray-green grass. + +Five minutes after this casual survey was made his bedroom was +empty, and its occupant had vanished quietly from the house. + +At the end of two hours he was again in the room, looking warm and +glowing. He now pursued the artistic details of dressing, which +on his first rising had been entirely omitted. And a very +blooming boy he looked, after that mysterious morning scamper. +His mouth was a triumph of its class. It was the cleanly-cut, +piquantly pursed-up mouth of William Pitt, as represented in the +well or little known bust by Nollekens--a mouth which is in itself +a young man's fortune, if properly exercised. His round chin, +where its upper part turned inward, still continued its perfect +and full curve, seeming to press in to a point the bottom of his +nether lip at their place of junction. + +Once he murmured the name of Elfride. Ah, there she was! On the +lawn in a plain dress, without hat or bonnet, running with a boy's +velocity, superadded to a girl's lightness, after a tame rabbit +she was endeavouring to capture, her strategic intonations of +coaxing words alternating with desperate rushes so much out of +keeping with them, that the hollowness of such expressions was but +too evident to her pet, who darted and dodged in carefully timed +counterpart. + +The scene down there was altogether different from that of the +hills. A thicket of shrubs and trees enclosed the favoured spot +from the wilderness without; even at this time of the year the +grass was luxuriant there. No wind blew inside the protecting +belt of evergreens, wasting its force upon the higher and stronger +trees forming the outer margin of the grove. + +Then he heard a heavy person shuffling about in slippers, and +calling 'Mr. Smith!' Smith proceeded to the study, and found Mr. +Swancourt. The young man expressed his gladness to see his host +downstairs. + +'Oh yes; I knew I should soon be right again. I have not made the +acquaintance of gout for more than two years, and it generally +goes off the second night. Well, where have you been this +morning? I saw you come in just now, I think!' + +'Yes; I have been for a walk.' + +'Start early?' + +'Yes.' + +'Very early, I think?' + +'Yes, it was rather early.' + +'Which way did you go? To the sea, I suppose. Everybody goes +seaward.' + +'No; I followed up the river as far as the park wall.' + +'You are different from your kind. Well, I suppose such a wild +place is a novelty, and so tempted you out of bed?' + +'Not altogether a novelty. I like it.' + +The youth seemed averse to explanation. + +'You must, you must; to go cock-watching the morning after a +journey of fourteen or sixteen hours. But there's no accounting +for tastes, and I am glad to see that yours are no meaner. After +breakfast, but not before, I shall be good for a ten miles' walk, +Master Smith.' + +Certainly there seemed nothing exaggerated in that assertion. Mr. +Swancourt by daylight showed himself to be a man who, in common +with the other two people under his roof, had really strong claims +to be considered handsome,--handsome, that is, in the sense in +which the moon is bright: the ravines and valleys which, on a +close inspection, are seen to diversify its surface being left out +of the argument. His face was of a tint that never deepened upon +his cheeks nor lightened upon his forehead, but remained uniform +throughout; the usual neutral salmon-colour of a man who feeds +well--not to say too well--and does not think hard; every pore +being in visible working order. His tout ensemble was that of a +highly improved class of farmer, dressed up in the wrong clothes; +that of a firm-standing perpendicular man, whose fall would have +been backwards indirection if he had ever lost his balance. + +The vicar's background was at present what a vicar's background +should be, his study. Here the consistency ends. All along the +chimneypiece were ranged bottles of horse, pig, and cow medicines, +and against the wall was a high table, made up of the fragments of +an old oak Iychgate. Upon this stood stuffed specimens of owls, +divers, and gulls, and over them bunches of wheat and barley ears, +labelled with the date of the year that produced them. Some cases +and shelves, more or less laden with books, the prominent titles +of which were Dr. Brown's 'Notes on the Romans,' Dr. Smith's +'Notes on the Corinthians,' and Dr. Robinson's 'Notes on the +Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians,' just saved the character +of the place, in spite of a girl's doll's-house standing above +them, a marine aquarium in the window, and Elfride's hat hanging +on its corner. + +'Business, business!' said Mr. Swancourt after breakfast. He began +to find it necessary to act the part of a fly-wheel towards the +somewhat irregular forces of his visitor. + +They prepared to go to the church; the vicar, on second thoughts, +mounting his coal-black mare to avoid exerting his foot too much +at starting. Stephen said he should want a man to assist him. +'Worm!' the vicar shouted. + +A minute or two after a voice was heard round the corner of the +building, mumbling, 'Ah, I used to be strong enough, but 'tis +altered now! Well, there, I'm as independent as one here and +there, even if they do write 'squire after their names.' + +'What's the matter?' said the vicar, as William Worm appeared; +when the remarks were repeated to him. + +'Worm says some very true things sometimes,' Mr. Swancourt said, +turning to Stephen. 'Now, as regards that word "esquire." Why, +Mr. Smith, that word "esquire" is gone to the dogs,--used on the +letters of every jackanapes who has a black coat. Anything else, +Worm?' + +'Ay, the folk have begun frying again!' + +'Dear me! I'm sorry to hear that.' + +'Yes,' Worm said groaningly to Stephen, 'I've got such a noise in +my head that there's no living night nor day. 'Tis just for all +the world like people frying fish: fry, fry, fry, all day long in +my poor head, till I don't know whe'r I'm here or yonder. There, +God A'mighty will find it out sooner or later, I hope, and relieve +me.' + +'Now, my deafness,' said Mr. Swancourt impressively, 'is a dead +silence; but William Worm's is that of people frying fish in his +head. Very remarkable, isn't it?' + +'I can hear the frying-pan a-fizzing as naterel as life,' said +Worm corroboratively. + +'Yes, it is remarkable,' said Mr. Smith. + +'Very peculiar, very peculiar,' echoed the vicar; and they all +then followed the path up the hill, bounded on each side by a +little stone wall, from which gleamed fragments of quartz and +blood-red marbles, apparently of inestimable value, in their +setting of brown alluvium. Stephen walked with the dignity of a +man close to the horse's head, Worm stumbled along a stone's throw +in the rear, and Elfride was nowhere in particular, yet +everywhere; sometimes in front, sometimes behind, sometimes at the +sides, hovering about the procession like a butterfly; not +definitely engaged in travelling, yet somehow chiming in at points +with the general progress. + +The vicar explained things as he went on: 'The fact is, Mr. Smith, +I didn't want this bother of church restoration at all, but it was +necessary to do something in self-defence, on account of those d---- +dissenters: I use the word in its scriptural meaning, of +course, not as an expletive.' + +'How very odd!' said Stephen, with the concern demanded of serious +friendliness. + +'Odd? That's nothing to how it is in the parish of Twinkley. Both +the churchwardens are----; there, I won't say what they are; and +the clerk and the sexton as well.' + +'How very strange!' said Stephen. + +'Strange? My dear sir, that's nothing to how it is in the parish +of Sinnerton. However, as to our own parish, I hope we shall make +some progress soon.' + +'You must trust to circumstances.' + +'There are no circumstances to trust to. We may as well trust in +Providence if we trust at all. But here we are. A wild place, +isn't it? But I like it on such days as these.' + +The churchyard was entered on this side by a stone stile, over +which having clambered, you remained still on the wild hill, the +within not being so divided from the without as to obliterate the +sense of open freedom. A delightful place to be buried in, +postulating that delight can accompany a man to his tomb under any +circumstances. There was nothing horrible in this churchyard, in +the shape of tight mounds bonded with sticks, which shout +imprisonment in the ears rather than whisper rest; or trim garden- +flowers, which only raise images of people in new black crape and +white handkerchiefs coming to tend them; or wheel-marks, which +remind us of hearses and mourning coaches; or cypress-bushes, +which make a parade of sorrow; or coffin-boards and bones lying +behind trees, showing that we are only leaseholders of our graves. +No; nothing but long, wild, untutored grass, diversifying the +forms of the mounds it covered,--themselves irregularly shaped, +with no eye to effect; the impressive presence of the old mountain +that all this was a part of being nowhere excluded by disguising +art. Outside were similar slopes and similar grass; and then the +serene impassive sea, visible to a width of half the horizon, and +meeting the eye with the effect of a vast concave, like the +interior of a blue vessel. Detached rocks stood upright afar, a +collar of foam girding their bases, and repeating in its whiteness +the plumage of a countless multitude of gulls that restlessly +hovered about. + +'Now, Worm!' said Mr. Swancourt sharply; and Worm started into an +attitude of attention at once to receive orders. Stephen and +himself were then left in possession, and the work went on till +early in the afternoon, when dinner was announced by Unity of the +vicarage kitchen running up the hill without a bonnet. + + +Elfride did not make her appearance inside the building till late +in the afternoon, and came then by special invitation from Stephen +during dinner. She looked so intensely LIVING and full of +movement as she came into the old silent place, that young Smith's +world began to be lit by 'the purple light' in all its +definiteness. Worm was got rid of by sending him to measure the +height of the tower. + +What could she do but come close--so close that a minute arc of +her skirt touched his foot--and asked him how he was getting on +with his sketches, and set herself to learn the principles of +practical mensuration as applied to irregular buildings? Then she +must ascend the pulpit to re-imagine for the hundredth time how it +would seem to be a preacher. + +Presently she leant over the front of the pulpit. + +'Don't you tell papa, will you, Mr. Smith, if I tell you +something?' she said with a sudden impulse to make a confidence. + +'Oh no, that I won't,' said he, staring up. + +'Well, I write papa's sermons for him very often, and he preaches +them better than he does his own; and then afterwards he talks to +people and to me about what he said in his sermon to-day, and +forgets that I wrote it for him. Isn't it absurd?' + +'How clever you must be!' said Stephen. 'I couldn't write a +sermon for the world.' + +'Oh, it's easy enough,' she said, descending from the pulpit and +coming close to him to explain more vividly. 'You do it like +this. Did you ever play a game of forfeits called "When is it? +where is it? what is it?"' + +'No, never.' + +'Ah, that's a pity, because writing a sermon is very much like +playing that game. You take the text. You think, why is it? what +is it? and so on. You put that down under "Generally." Then you +proceed to the First, Secondly, and Thirdly. Papa won't have +Fourthlys--says they are all my eye. Then you have a final +Collectively, several pages of this being put in great black +brackets, writing opposite, "LEAVE THIS OUT IF THE FARMERS ARE +FALLING ASLEEP." Then comes your In Conclusion, then A Few Words +And I Have Done. Well, all this time you have put on the back of +each page, "KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN"--I mean,' she added, correcting +herself, 'that's how I do in papa's sermon-book, because otherwise +he gets louder and louder, till at last he shouts like a farmer up +a-field. Oh, papa is so funny in some things!' + +Then, after this childish burst of confidence, she was frightened, +as if warned by womanly instinct, which for the moment her ardour +had outrun, that she had been too forward to a comparative +stranger. + +Elfride saw her father then, and went away into the wind, being +caught by a gust as she ascended the churchyard slope, in which +gust she had the motions, without the motives, of a hoiden; the +grace, without the self-consciousness, of a pirouetter. She +conversed for a minute or two with her father, and proceeded +homeward, Mr. Swancourt coming on to the church to Stephen. The +wind had freshened his warm complexion as it freshens the glow of +a brand. He was in a mood of jollity, and watched Elfride down +the hill with a smile. + +'You little flyaway! you look wild enough now,' he said, and +turned to Stephen. 'But she's not a wild child at all, Mr. Smith. +As steady as you; and that you are steady I see from your +diligence here.' + +'I think Miss Swancourt very clever,' Stephen observed. + +'Yes, she is; certainly, she is,' said papa, turning his voice as +much as possible to the neutral tone of disinterested criticism. +'Now, Smith, I'll tell you something; but she mustn't know it for +the world--not for the world, mind, for she insists upon keeping +it a dead secret. Why, SHE WRITES MY SERMONS FOR ME OFTEN, and a +very good job she makes of them!' + +'She can do anything.' + +'She can do that. The little rascal has the very trick of the +trade. But, mind you, Smith, not a word about it to her, not a +single word!' + +'Not a word,' said Smith. + +'Look there,' said Mr. Swancourt. 'What do you think of my +roofing?' He pointed with his walking-stick at the chancel roof + +'Did you do that, sir?' + +'Yes, I worked in shirt-sleeves all the time that was going on. I +pulled down the old rafters, fixed the new ones, put on the +battens, slated the roof, all with my own hands, Worm being my +assistant. We worked like slaves, didn't we, Worm?' + +'Ay, sure, we did; harder than some here and there--hee, hee!' +said William Worm, cropping up from somewhere. 'Like slaves, 'a +b'lieve--hee, hee! And weren't ye foaming mad, sir, when the nails +wouldn't go straight? Mighty I! There, 'tisn't so bad to cuss and +keep it in as to cuss and let it out, is it, sir?' + +'Well--why?' + +'Because you, sir, when ye were a-putting on the roof, only used +to cuss in your mind, which is, I suppose, no harm at all.' + +'I don't think you know what goes on in my mind, Worm.' + +'Oh, doan't I, sir--hee, hee! Maybe I'm but a poor wambling thing, +sir, and can't read much; but I can spell as well as some here and +there. Doan't ye mind, sir, that blustrous night when ye asked me +to hold the candle to ye in yer workshop, when you were making a +new chair for the chancel?' + +'Yes; what of that?' + +'I stood with the candle, and you said you liked company, if 'twas +only a dog or cat--maning me; and the chair wouldn't do nohow.' + +'Ah, I remember.' + +'No; the chair wouldn't do nohow. 'A was very well to look at; +but, Lord!----' + +'Worm, how often have I corrected you for irreverent speaking?' + +'--'A was very well to look at, but you couldn't sit in the chair +nohow. 'Twas all a-twist wi' the chair, like the letter Z, +directly you sat down upon the chair. "Get up, Worm," says you, +when you seed the chair go all a-sway wi' me. Up you took the +chair, and flung en like fire and brimstone to t'other end of your +shop--all in a passion. "Damn the chair!" says I. "Just what I +was thinking," says you, sir. "I could see it in your face, sir," +says I, "and I hope you and God will forgi'e me for saying what +you wouldn't." To save your life you couldn't help laughing, sir, +at a poor wambler reading your thoughts so plain. Ay, I'm as wise +as one here and there.' + +'I thought you had better have a practical man to go over the +church and tower with you,' Mr. Swancourt said to Stephen the +following morning, 'so I got Lord Luxellian's permission to send +for a man when you came. I told him to be there at ten o'clock. +He's a very intelligent man, and he will tell you all you want to +know about the state of the walls. His name is John Smith.' + +Elfride did not like to be seen again at the church with Stephen. +'I will watch here for your appearance at the top of the tower,' +she said laughingly. 'I shall see your figure against the sky.' + +'And when I am up there I'll wave my handkerchief to you, Miss +Swancourt,' said Stephen. 'In twelve minutes from this present +moment,' he added, looking at his watch, 'I'll be at the summit +and look out for you.' + +She went round to the corner of the sbrubbery, whence she could +watch him down the slope leading to the foot of the hill on which +the church stood. There she saw waiting for him a white spot--a +mason in his working clothes. Stephen met this man and stopped. + +To her surprise, instead of their moving on to the churchyard, +they both leisurely sat down upon a stone close by their meeting- +place, and remained as if in deep conversation. Elfride looked at +the time; nine of the twelve minutes had passed, and Stephen +showed no signs of moving. More minutes passed--she grew cold +with waiting, and shivered. It was not till the end of a quarter +of an hour that they began to slowly wend up the hill at a snail's +pace. + +'Rude and unmannerly!' she said to herself, colouring with pique. +'Anybody would think he was in love with that horrid mason instead +of with----' + +The sentence remained unspoken, though not unthought. + +She returned to the porch. + +'Is the man you sent for a lazy, sit-still, do-nothing kind of +man?' she inquired of her father. + +'No,' he said surprised; 'quite the reverse. He is Lord +Luxellian's master-mason, John Smith.' + +'Oh,' said Elfride indifferently, and returned towards her bleak +station, and waited and shivered again. It was a trifle, after +all--a childish thing--looking out from a tower and waving a +handkerchief. But her new friend had promised, and why should he +tease her so? The effect of a blow is as proportionate to the +texture of the object struck as to its own momentum; and she had +such a superlative capacity for being wounded that little hits +struck her hard. + +It was not till the end of half an hour that two figures were seen +above the parapet of the dreary old pile, motionless as bitterns +on a ruined mosque. Even then Stephen was not true enough to +perform what he was so courteous to promise, and he vanished +without making a sign. + +He returned at midday. Elfride looked vexed when unconscious that +his eyes were upon her; when conscious, severe. However, her +attitude of coldness had long outlived the coldness itself, and +she could no longer utter feigned words of indifference. + +'Ah, you weren't kind to keep me waiting in the cold, and break +your promise,' she said at last reproachfully, in tones too low +for her father's powers of hearing. + +'Forgive, forgive me!' said Stephen with dismay. 'I had +forgotten--quite forgotten! Something prevented my remembering.' + +'Any further explanation?' said Miss Capricious, pouting. + +He was silent for a few minutes, and looked askance. + +'None,' he said, with the accent of one who concealed a sin. + + + +Chapter V + +'Bosom'd high in tufted trees.' + + +It was breakfast time. + +As seen from the vicarage dining-room, which took a warm tone of +light from the fire, the weather and scene outside seemed to have +stereotyped themselves in unrelieved shades of gray. The long- +armed trees and shrubs of juniper, cedar, and pine varieties, were +grayish black; those of the broad-leaved sort, together with the +herbage, were grayish-green; the eternal hills and tower behind +them were grayish-brown; the sky, dropping behind all, gray of the +purest melancholy. + +Yet in spite of this sombre artistic effect, the morning was not +one which tended to lower the spirits. It was even cheering. For +it did not rain, nor was rain likely to fall for many days to +come. + +Elfride had turned from the table towards the fire and was idly +elevating a hand-screen before her face, when she heard the click +of a little gate outside. + +'Ah, here's the postman!' she said, as a shuffling, active man +came through an opening in the shrubbery and across the lawn. She +vanished, and met him in the porch, afterwards coming in with her +hands behind her back. + +'How many are there? Three for papa, one for Mr. Smith, none for +Miss Swancourt. And, papa, look here, one of yours is from--whom +do you think?--Lord Luxellian. And it has something HARD in it--a +lump of something. I've been feeling it through the envelope, and +can't think what it is.' + +'What does Luxellian write for, I wonder?' Mr. Swancourt had said +simultaneously with her words. He handed Stephen his letter, and +took his own, putting on his countenance a higher class of look +than was customary, as became a poor gentleman who was going to +read a letter from a peer. + +Stephen read his missive with a countenance quite the reverse of +the vicar's. + + + 'PERCY PLACE, Thursday Evening. +'DEAR SMITH,--Old H. is in a towering rage with you for being so +long about the church sketches. Swears you are more trouble than +you are worth. He says I am to write and say you are to stay no +longer on any consideration--that he would have done it all in +three hours very easily. I told him that you were not like an +experienced hand, which he seemed to forget, but it did not make +much difference. However, between you and me privately, if I were +you I would not alarm myself for a day or so, if I were not +inclined to return. I would make out the week and finish my +spree. He will blow up just as much if you appear here on +Saturday as if you keep away till Monday morning.--Yours very +truly, + 'SIMPKINS JENKINS. + + + +'Dear me--very awkward!' said Stephen, rather en l'air, and +confused with the kind of confusion that assails an understrapper +when he has been enlarged by accident to the dimensions of a +superior, and is somewhat rudely pared down to his original size. + +'What is awkward?' said Miss Swancourt. + +Smith by this time recovered his equanimity, and with it the +professional dignity of an experienced architect. + +'Important business demands my immediate presence in London, I +regret to say,' he replied. + +'What! Must you go at once?' said Mr. Swancourt, looking over the +edge of his letter. 'Important business? A young fellow like you +to have important business!' + +'The truth is,' said Stephen blushing, and rather ashamed of +having pretended even so slightly to a consequence which did not +belong to him,--'the truth is, Mr. Hewby has sent to say I am to +come home; and I must obey him.' + +'I see; I see. It is politic to do so, you mean. Now I can see +more than you think. You are to be his partner. I booked you for +that directly I read his letter to me the other day, and the way +he spoke of you. He thinks a great deal of you, Mr. Smith, or he +wouldn't be so anxious for your return.' + +Unpleasant to Stephen such remarks as these could not sound; to +have the expectancy of partnership with one of the largest- +practising architects in London thrust upon him was cheering, +however untenable he felt the idea to be. He saw that, whatever +Mr. Hewby might think, Mr. Swancourt certainly thought much of him +to entertain such an idea on such slender ground as to be +absolutely no ground at all. And then, unaccountably, his +speaking face exhibited a cloud of sadness, which a reflection on +the remoteness of any such contingency could hardly have sufficed +to cause. + +Elfride was struck with that look of his; even Mr. Swancourt +noticed it. + +'Well,' he said cheerfully, 'never mind that now. You must come +again on your own account; not on business. Come to see me as a +visitor, you know--say, in your holidays--all you town men have +holidays like schoolboys. When are they?' + +'In August, I believe.' + +'Very well; come in August; and then you need not hurry away so. +I am glad to get somebody decent to talk to, or at, in this +outlandish ultima Thule. But, by the bye, I have something to +say--you won't go to-day?' + +'No; I need not,' said Stephen hesitatingly. 'I am not obliged to +get back before Monday morning.' + +'Very well, then, that brings me to what I am going to propose. +This is a letter from Lord Luxellian. I think you heard me speak +of him as the resident landowner in this district, and patron of +this living?' + +'I--know of him.' + +'He is in London now. It seems that he has run up on business for +a day or two, and taken Lady Luxellian with him. He has written +to ask me to go to his house, and search for a paper among his +private memoranda, which he forgot to take with him.' + +'What did he send in the letter?' inquired Elfride. + +'The key of a private desk in which the papers are. He doesn't +like to trust such a matter to any body else. I have done such +things for him before. And what I propose is, that we make an +afternoon of it--all three of us. Go for a drive to Targan Bay, +come home by way of Endelstow House; and whilst I am looking over +the documents you can ramble about the rooms where you like. I +have the run of the house at any time, you know. The building, +though nothing but a mass of gables outside, has a splendid hall, +staircase, and gallery within; and there are a few good pictures.' + +'Yes, there are,' said Stephen. + +'Have you seen the place, then? + +'I saw it as I came by,' he said hastily. + +'Oh yes; but I was alluding to the interior. And the church--St. +Eval's--is much older than our St. Agnes' here. I do duty in that +and this alternately, you know. The fact is, I ought to have some +help; riding across that park for two miles on a wet morning is +not at all the thing. If my constitution were not well seasoned, +as thank God it is,'--here Mr. Swancourt looked down his front, as +if his constitution were visible there,--'I should be coughing and +barking all the year round. And when the family goes away, there +are only about three servants to preach to when I get there. +Well, that shall be the arrangement, then. Elfride, you will like +to go?' + +Elfride assented; and the little breakfast-party separated. +Stephen rose to go and take a few final measurements at the +church, the vicar following him to the door with a mysterious +expression of inquiry on his face. + +'You'll put up with our not having family prayer this morning, I +hope?' he whispered. + +'Yes; quite so,' said Stephen. + +'To tell you the truth,' he continued in the same undertone, 'we +don't make a regular thing of it; but when we have strangers +visiting us, I am strongly of opinion that it is the proper thing +to do, and I always do it. I am very strict on that point. But +you, Smith, there is something in your face which makes me feel +quite at home; no nonsense about you, in short. Ah, it reminds me +of a splendid story I used to hear when I was a helter-skelter +young fellow--such a story! But'--here the vicar shook his head +self-forbiddingly, and grimly laughed. + +'Was it a good story?' said young Smith, smiling too. + +'Oh yes; but 'tis too bad--too bad! Couldn't tell it to you for +the world!' + +Stephen went across the lawn, hearing the vicar chuckling +privately at the recollection as he withdrew. + + +They started at three o'clock. The gray morning had resolved +itself into an afternoon bright with a pale pervasive sunlight, +without the sun itself being visible. Lightly they trotted along-- +the wheels nearly silent, the horse's hoofs clapping, almost +ringing, upon the hard, white, turnpike road as it followed the +level ridge in a perfectly straight line, seeming to be absorbed +ultimately by the white of the sky. + +Targan Bay--which had the merit of being easily got at--was duly +visited. They then swept round by innumerable lanes, in which not +twenty consecutive yards were either straight or level, to the +domain of Lord Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and thick +neck, like Queen Anne by Dahl, threw open the lodge gate, a little +boy standing behind her. + +'I'll give him something, poor little fellow,' said Elfride, +pulling out her purse and hastily opening it. From the interior +of her purse a host of bits of paper, like a flock of white birds, +floated into the air, and were blown about in all directions. + +'Well, to be sure!' said Stephen with a slight laugh. + +'What the dickens is all that?' said Mr. Swancourt. 'Not halves +of bank-notes, Elfride?' + +Elfride looked annoyed and guilty. 'They are only something of +mine, papa,' she faltered, whilst Stephen leapt out, and, assisted +by the lodge-keeper's little boy, crept about round the wheels and +horse's hoofs till the papers were all gathered together again. +He handed them back to her, and remounted. + +'I suppose you are wondering what those scraps were?' she said, as +they bowled along up the sycamore avenue. 'And so I may as well +tell you. They are notes for a romance I am writing.' + +She could not help colouring at the confession, much as she tried +to avoid it. + +'A story, do you mean?' said Stephen, Mr. Swancourt half +listening, and catching a word of the conversation now and then. + +'Yes; THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE; a romance of the fifteenth +century. Such writing is out of date now, I know; but I like +doing it.' + +'A romance carried in a purse! If a highwayman were to rob you, he +would be taken in.' + +'Yes; that's my way of carrying manuscript. The real reason is, +that I mostly write bits of it on scraps of paper when I am on +horseback; and I put them there for convenience.' + +'What are you going to do with your romance when you have written +it?' said Stephen. + +'I don't know,' she replied, and turned her head to look at the +prospect. + +For by this time they had reached the precincts of Endelstow +House. Driving through an ancient gate-way of dun-coloured stone, +spanned by the high-shouldered Tudor arch, they found themselves +in a spacious court, closed by a facade on each of its three +sides. The substantial portions of the existing building dated +from the reign of Henry VIII.; but the picturesque and sheltered +spot had been the site of an erection of a much earlier date. A +licence to crenellate mansum infra manerium suum was granted by +Edward II. to 'Hugo Luxellen chivaler;' but though the faint +outline of the ditch and mound was visible at points, no sign of +the original building remained. + +The windows on all sides were long and many-mullioned; the roof +lines broken up by dormer lights of the same pattern. The apex +stones of these dormers, together with those of the gables, were +surmounted by grotesque figures in rampant, passant, and couchant +variety. Tall octagonal and twisted chimneys thrust themselves +high up into the sky, surpassed in height, however, by some +poplars and sycamores at the back, which showed their gently +rocking summits over ridge and parapet. In the corners of the +court polygonal bays, whose surfaces were entirely occupied by +buttresses and windows, broke into the squareness of the +enclosure; and a far-projecting oriel, springing from a fantastic +series of mouldings, overhung the archway of the chief entrance to +the house. + +As Mr. Swancourt had remarked, he had the freedom of the mansion +in the absence of its owner. Upon a statement of his errand they +were all admitted to the library, and left entirely to themselves. +Mr. Swancourt was soon up to his eyes in the examination of a heap +of papers he had taken from the cabinet described by his +correspondent. Stephen and Elfride had nothing to do but to +wander about till her father was ready. + +Elfride entered the gallery, and Stephen followed her without +seeming to do so. It was a long sombre apartment, enriched with +fittings a century or so later in style than the walls of the +mansion. Pilasters of Renaissance workmanship supported a cornice +from which sprang a curved ceiling, panelled in the awkward twists +and curls of the period. The old Gothic quarries still remained +in the upper portion of the large window at the end, though they +had made way for a more modern form of glazing elsewhere. + +Stephen was at one end of the gallery looking towards Elfride, who +stood in the midst, beginning to feel somewhat depressed by the +society of Luxellian shades of cadaverous complexion fixed by +Holbein, Kneller, and Lely, and seeming to gaze at and through her +in a moralizing mood. The silence, which cast almost a spell upon +them, was broken by the sudden opening of a door at the far end. + +Out bounded a pair of little girls, lightly yet warmly dressed. +Their eyes were sparkling; their hair swinging about and around; +their red mouths laughing with unalloyed gladness. + +'Ah, Miss Swancourt: dearest Elfie! we heard you. Are you going +to stay here? You are our little mamma, are you not--our big mamma +is gone to London,' said one. + +'Let me tiss you,' said the other, in appearance very much like +the first, but to a smaller pattern. + +Their pink cheeks and yellow hair were speedily intermingled with +the folds of Elfride's dress; she then stooped and tenderly +embraced them both. + +'Such an odd thing,' said Elfride, smiling, and turning to +Stephen. 'They have taken it into their heads lately to call me +"little mamma," because I am very fond of them, and wore a dress +the other day something like one of Lady Luxellian's.' + +These two young creatures were the Honourable Mary and the +Honourable Kate--scarcely appearing large enough as yet to bear +the weight of such ponderous prefixes. They were the only two +children of Lord and Lady Luxellian, and, as it proved, had been +left at home during their parents' temporary absence, in the +custody of nurse and governess. Lord Luxellian was dotingly fond +of the children; rather indifferent towards his wife, since she +had begun to show an inclination not to please him by giving him a +boy. + +All children instinctively ran after Elfride, looking upon her +more as an unusually nice large specimen of their own tribe than +as a grown-up elder. It had now become an established rule, that +whenever she met them--indoors or out-of-doors, weekdays or +Sundays--they were to be severally pressed against her face and +bosom for the space of a quarter of a minute, and other--wise made +much of on the delightful system of cumulative epithet and caress +to which unpractised girls will occasionally abandon themselves. + +A look of misgiving by the youngsters towards the door by which +they had entered directed attention to a maid-servant appearing +from the same quarter, to put an end to this sweet freedom of the +poor Honourables Mary and Kate. + +'I wish you lived here, Miss Swancourt,' piped one like a +melancholy bullfinch. + +'So do I,' piped the other like a rather more melancholy +bullfinch. 'Mamma can't play with us so nicely as you do. I +don't think she ever learnt playing when she was little. When +shall we come to see you?' + +'As soon as you like, dears.' + +'And sleep at your house all night? That's what I mean by coming +to see you. I don't care to see people with hats and bonnets on, +and all standing up and walking about.' + +'As soon as we can get mamma's permission you shall come and stay +as long as ever you like. Good-bye!' + +The prisoners were then led off, Elfride again turning her +attention to her guest, whom she had left standing at the remote +end of the gallery. On looking around for him he was nowhere to +be seen. Elfride stepped down to the library, thinking he might +have rejoined her father there. But Mr. Swancourt, now cheerfully +illuminated by a pair of candles, was still alone, untying packets +of letters and papers, and tying them up again. + +As Elfride did not stand on a sufficiently intimate footing with +the object of her interest to justify her, as a proper young lady, +to commence the active search for him that youthful impulsiveness +prompted, and as, nevertheless, for a nascent reason connected +with those divinely cut lips of his, she did not like him to be +absent from her side, she wandered desultorily back to the oak +staircase, pouting and casting her eyes about in hope of +discerning his boyish figure. + +Though daylight still prevailed in the rooms, the corridors were +in a depth of shadow--chill, sad, and silent; and it was only by +looking along them towards light spaces beyond that anything or +anybody could be discerned therein. One of these light spots she +found to be caused by a side-door with glass panels in the upper +part. Elfride opened it, and found herself confronting a +secondary or inner lawn, separated from the principal lawn front +by a shrubbery. + +And now she saw a perplexing sight. At right angles to the face +of the wing she had emerged from, and within a few feet of the +door, jutted out another wing of the mansion, lower and with less +architectural character. Immediately opposite to her, in the wall +of this wing, was a large broad window, having its blind drawn +down, and illuminated by a light in the room it screened. + +On the blind was a shadow from somebody close inside it--a person +in profile. The profile was unmistakably that of Stephen. It was +just possible to see that his arms were uplifted, and that his +hands held an article of some kind. Then another shadow appeared-- +also in profile--and came close to him. This was the shadow of a +woman. She turned her back towards Stephen: he lifted and held +out what now proved to be a shawl or mantle--placed it carefully-- +so carefully--round the lady; disappeared; reappeared in her +front--fastened the mantle. Did he then kiss her? Surely not. +Yet the motion might have been a kiss. Then both shadows swelled +to colossal dimensions--grew distorted--vanished. + +Two minutes elapsed. + +'Ah, Miss Swancourt! I am so glad to find you. I was looking for +you,' said a voice at her elbow--Stephen's voice. She stepped +into the passage. + +'Do you know any of the members of this establishment?' said she. + +'Not a single one: how should I?' he replied. + + + +Chapter VI + +'Fare thee weel awhile!' + + +Simultaneously with the conclusion of Stephen's remark, the sound +of the closing of an external door in their immediate +neighbourhood reached Elfride's ears. It came from the further +side of the wing containing the illuminated room. She then +discerned, by the aid of the dusky departing light, a figure, +whose sex was undistinguishable, walking down the gravelled path +by the parterre towards the river. The figure grew fainter, and +vanished under the trees. + +Mr. Swancourt's voice was heard calling out their names from a +distant corridor in the body of the building. They retraced their +steps, and found him with his coat buttoned up and his hat on, +awaiting their advent in a mood of self-satisfaction at having +brought his search to a successful close. The carriage was +brought round, and without further delay the trio drove away from +the mansion, under the echoing gateway arch, and along by the +leafless sycamores, as the stars began to kindle their trembling +lights behind the maze of branches and twigs. + +No words were spoken either by youth or maiden. Her unpractised +mind was completely occupied in fathoming its recent acquisition. +The young man who had inspired her with such novelty of feeling, +who had come directly from London on business to her father, +having been brought by chance to Endelstow House had, by some +means or other, acquired the privilege of approaching some lady he +had found therein, and of honouring her by petits soins of a +marked kind,--all in the space of half an hour. + +What room were they standing in? thought Elfride. As nearly as +she could guess, it was Lord Luxellian's business-room, or office. +What people were in the house? None but the governess and +servants, as far as she knew, and of these he had professed a +total ignorance. Had the person she had indistinctly seen leaving +the house anything to do with the performance? It was impossible +to say without appealing to the culprit himself, and that she +would never do. The more Elfride reflected, the more certain did +it appear that the meeting was a chance rencounter, and not an +appointment. On the ultimate inquiry as to the individuality of +the woman, Elfride at once assumed that she could not be an +inferior. Stephen Smith was not the man to care about passages- +at-love with women beneath him. Though gentle, ambition was +visible in his kindling eyes; he evidently hoped for much; hoped +indefinitely, but extensively. Elfride was puzzled, and being +puzzled, was, by a natural sequence of girlish sensations, vexed +with him. No more pleasure came in recognizing that from liking +to attract him she was getting on to love him, boyish as he was +and innocent as he had seemed. + +They reached the bridge which formed a link between the eastern +and western halves of the parish. Situated in a valley that was +bounded outwardly by the sea, it formed a point of depression from +which the road ascended with great steepness to West Endelstow and +the Vicarage. There was no absolute necessity for either of them +to alight, but as it was the vicar's custom after a long journey +to humour the horse in making this winding ascent, Elfride, moved +by an imitative instinct, suddenly jumped out when Pleasant had +just begun to adopt the deliberate stalk he associated with this +portion of the road. + +The young man seemed glad of any excuse for breaking the silence. +'Why, Miss Swancourt, what a risky thing to do!' he exclaimed, +immediately following her example by jumping down on the other +side. + +'Oh no, not at all,' replied she coldly; the shadow phenomenon at +Endelstow House still paramount within her. + +Stephen walked along by himself for two or three minutes, wrapped +in the rigid reserve dictated by her tone. Then apparently +thinking that it was only for girls to pout, he came serenely +round to her side, and offered his arm with Castilian gallantry, +to assist her in ascending the remaining three-quarters of the +steep. + +Here was a temptation: it was the first time in her life that +Elfride had been treated as a grown-up woman in this way--offered +an arm in a manner implying that she had a right to refuse it. +Till to-night she had never received masculine attentions beyond +those which might be contained in such homely remarks as 'Elfride, +give me your hand;' 'Elfride, take hold of my arm,' from her +father. Her callow heart made an epoch of the incident; she +considered her array of feelings, for and against. Collectively +they were for taking this offered arm; the single one of pique +determined her to punish Stephen by refusing. + +'No, thank you, Mr. Smith; I can get along better by myself' + +It was Elfride's first fragile attempt at browbeating a lover. +Fearing more the issue of such an undertaking than what a gentle +young man might think of her waywardness, she immediately +afterwards determined to please herself by reversing her +statement. + +'On second thoughts, I will take it,' she said. + +They slowly went their way up the hill, a few yards behind the +carriage. + +'How silent you are, Miss Swancourt!' Stephen observed. + +'Perhaps I think you silent too,' she returned. + +'I may have reason to be.' + +'Scarcely; it is sadness that makes people silent, and you can +have none.' + +'You don't know: I have a trouble; though some might think it less +a trouble than a dilemma.' + +'What is it?' she asked impulsively. + +Stephen hesitated. 'I might tell,' he said; 'at the same time, +perhaps, it is as well----' + +She let go his arm and imperatively pushed it from her, tossing +her head. She had just learnt that a good deal of dignity is lost +by asking a question to which an answer is refused, even ever so +politely; for though politeness does good service in cases of +requisition and compromise, it but little helps a direct refusal. +'I don't wish to know anything of it; I don't wish it,' she went +on. 'The carriage is waiting for us at the top of the hill; we +must get in;' and Elfride flitted to the front. 'Papa, here is +your Elfride!' she exclaimed to the dusky figure of the old +gentleman, as she sprang up and sank by his side without deigning +to accept aid from Stephen. + +'Ah, yes!' uttered the vicar in artificially alert tones, awaking +from a most profound sleep, and suddenly preparing to alight. + +'Why, what are you doing, papa? We are not home yet.' + +'Oh no, no; of course not; we are not at home yet,' Mr. Swancourt +said very hastily, endeavouring to dodge back to his original +position with the air of a man who had not moved at all. 'The +fact is I was so lost in deep meditation that I forgot whereabouts +we were.' And in a minute the vicar was snoring again. + + +That evening, being the last, seemed to throw an exceptional shade +of sadness over Stephen Smith, and the repeated injunctions of the +vicar, that he was to come and revisit them in the summer, +apparently tended less to raise his spirits than to unearth some +misgiving. + +He left them in the gray light of dawn, whilst the colours of +earth were sombre, and the sun was yet hidden in the east. Elfride +had fidgeted all night in her little bed lest none of the +household should be awake soon enough to start him, and also lest +she might miss seeing again the bright eyes and curly hair, to +which their owner's possession of a hidden mystery added a deeper +tinge of romance. To some extent--so soon does womanly interest +take a solicitous turn--she felt herself responsible for his safe +conduct. They breakfasted before daylight; Mr. Swancourt, being +more and more taken with his guest's ingenuous appearance, having +determined to rise early and bid him a friendly farewell. It was, +however, rather to the vicar's astonishment, that he saw Elfride +walk in to the breakfast-table, candle in hand. + +Whilst William Worm performed his toilet (during which performance +the inmates of the vicarage were always in the habit of waiting +with exemplary patience), Elfride wandered desultorily to the +summer house. Stephen followed her thither. The copse-covered +valley was visible from this position, a mist now lying all along +its length, hiding the stream which trickled through it, though +the observers themselves were in clear air. + +They stood close together, leaning over the rustic balustrading +which bounded the arbour on the outward side, and formed the crest +of a steep slope beneath Elfride constrainedly pointed out some +features of the distant uplands rising irregularly opposite. But +the artistic eye was, either from nature or circumstance, very +faint in Stephen now, and he only half attended to her +description, as if he spared time from some other thought going on +within him. + +'Well, good-bye,' he said suddenly; 'I must never see you again, I +suppose, Miss Swancourt, in spite of invitations.' + +His genuine tribulation played directly upon the delicate chords +of her nature. She could afford to forgive him for a concealment +or two. Moreover, the shyness which would not allow him to look +her in the face lent bravery to her own eyes and tongue. + +'Oh, DO come again, Mr. Smith!' she said prettily. + +'I should delight in it; but it will be better if I do not.' + +'Why?' + +'Certain circumstances in connection with me make it undesirable. +Not on my account; on yours.' + +'Goodness! As if anything in connection with you could hurt me,' +she said with serene supremacy; but seeing that this plan of +treatment was inappropriate, she tuned a smaller note. 'Ah, I +know why you will not come. You don't want to. You'll go home to +London and to all the stirring people there, and will never want +to see us any more!' + +'You know I have no such reason.' + +'And go on writing letters to the lady you are engaged to, just as +before.' + +'What does that mean? I am not engaged.' + +'You wrote a letter to a Miss Somebody; I saw it in the letter- +rack.' + +'Pooh! an elderly woman who keeps a stationer's shop; and it was +to tell her to keep my newspapers till I get back.' + +'You needn't have explained: it was not my business at all.' Miss +Elfride was rather relieved to hear that statement, nevertheless. +'And you won't come again to see my father?' she insisted. + +'I should like to--and to see you again, but----' + +'Will you reveal to me that matter you hide?' she interrupted +petulantly. + +'No; not now.' + +She could not but go on, graceless as it might seem. + +'Tell me this,' she importuned with a trembling mouth. 'Does any +meeting of yours with a lady at Endelstow Vicarage clash with--any +interest you may take in me?' + +He started a little. 'It does not,' he said emphatically; and +looked into the pupils of her eyes with the confidence that only +honesty can give, and even that to youth alone. + +The explanation had not come, but a gloom left her. She could not +but believe that utterance. Whatever enigma might lie in the +shadow on the blind, it was not an enigma of underhand passion. + +She turned towards the house, entering it through the +conservatory. Stephen went round to the front door. Mr. +Swancourt was standing on the step in his slippers. Worm was +adjusting a buckle in the harness, and murmuring about his poor +head; and everything was ready for Stephen's departure. + +'You named August for your visit. August it shall be; that is, if +you care for the society of such a fossilized Tory,' said Mr. +Swancourt. + +Mr. Smith only responded hesitatingly, that he should like to come +again. + +'You said you would, and you must,' insisted Elfride, coming to +the door and speaking under her father's arm. + +Whatever reason the youth may have had for not wishing to enter +the house as a guest, it no longer predominated. He promised, and +bade them adieu, and got into the pony-carriage, which crept up +the slope, and bore him out of their sight. + +'I never was so much taken with anybody in my life as I am with +that young fellow--never! I cannot understand it--can't understand +it anyhow,' said Mr. Swancourt quite energetically to himself; and +went indoors. + + + +Chapter VII + +'No more of me you knew, my love!' + + +Stephen Smith revisited Endelstow Vicarage, agreeably to his +promise. He had a genuine artistic reason for coming, though no +such reason seemed to be required. Six-and-thirty old seat ends, +of exquisite fifteenth-century workmanship, were rapidly decaying +in an aisle of the church; and it became politic to make drawings +of their worm-eaten contours ere they were battered past +recognition in the turmoil of the so-called restoration. + +He entered the house at sunset, and the world was pleasant again +to the two fair-haired ones. A momentary pang of disappointment +had, nevertheless, passed through Elfride when she casually +discovered that he had not come that minute post-haste from +London, but had reached the neighbourhood the previous evening. +Surprise would have accompanied the feeling, had she not +remembered that several tourists were haunting the coast at this +season, and that Stephen might have chosen to do likewise. + +They did little besides chat that evening, Mr. Swancourt beginning +to question his visitor, closely yet paternally, and in good part, +on his hopes and prospects from the profession he had embraced. +Stephen gave vague answers. The next day it rained. In the +evening, when twenty-four hours of Elfride had completely +rekindled her admirer's ardour, a game of chess was proposed +between them. + +The game had its value in helping on the developments of their +future. + +Elfride soon perceived that her opponent was but a learner. She +next noticed that he had a very odd way of handling the pieces +when castling or taking a man. Antecedently she would have +supposed that the same performance must be gone through by all +players in the same manner; she was taught by his differing action +that all ordinary players, who learn the game by sight, +unconsciously touch the men in a stereotyped way. This impression +of indescribable oddness in Stephen's touch culminated in speech +when she saw him, at the taking of one of her bishops, push it +aside with the taking man instead of lifting it as a preliminary +to the move. + +'How strangely you handle the men, Mr. Smith!' + +'Do I? I am sorry for that.' + +'Oh no--don't be sorry; it is not a matter great enough for +sorrow. But who taught you to play?' + +'Nobody, Miss Swancourt,' he said. 'I learnt from a book lent me +by my friend Mr. Knight, the noblest man in the world.' + +'But you have seen people play?' + +'I have never seen the playing of a single game. This is the +first time I ever had the opportunity of playing with a living +opponent. I have worked out many games from books, and studied +the reasons of the different moves, but that is all.' + +This was a full explanation of his mannerism; but the fact that a +man with the desire for chess should have grown up without being +able to see or engage in a game astonished her not a little. She +pondered on the circumstance for some time, looking into vacancy +and hindering the play. + +Mr. Swancourt was sitting with his eyes fixed on the board, but +apparently thinking of other things. Half to himself he said, +pending the move of Elfride: + +'"Quae finis aut quod me manet stipendium?"' + +Stephen replied instantly: + +'"Effare: jussas cum fide poenas luam."' + +'Excellent--prompt--gratifying!' said Mr. Swancourt with feeling, +bringing down his hand upon the table, and making three pawns and +a knight dance over their borders by the shaking. 'I was musing +on those words as applicable to a strange course I am steering-- +but enough of that. I am delighted with you, Mr. Smith, for it is +so seldom in this desert that I meet with a man who is gentleman +and scholar enough to continue a quotation, however trite it may +be.' + +'I also apply the words to myself,' said Stephen quietly. + +'You? The last man in the world to do that, I should have +thought.' + +'Come,' murmured Elfride poutingly, and insinuating herself +between them, 'tell me all about it. Come, construe, construe!' + +Stephen looked steadfastly into her face, and said slowly, and in +a voice full of a far-off meaning that seemed quaintly premature +in one so young: + +'Quae finis WHAT WILL BE THE END, aut OR, quod stipendium WHAT +FINE, manet me AWAITS ME? Effare SPEAK OUT; luam I WILL PAY, cum +fide WITH FAITH, jussas poenas THE PENALTY REQUIRED.' + +The vicar, who had listened with a critical compression of the +lips to this school-boy recitation, and by reason of his imperfect +hearing had missed the marked realism of Stephen's tone in the +English words, now said hesitatingly: 'By the bye, Mr. Smith (I +know you'll excuse my curiosity), though your translation was +unexceptionably correct and close, you have a way of pronouncing +your Latin which to me seems most peculiar. Not that the +pronunciation of a dead language is of much importance; yet your +accents and quantities have a grotesque sound to my ears. I +thought first that you had acquired your way of breathing the +vowels from some of the northern colleges; but it cannot be so +with the quantities. What I was going to ask was, if your +instructor in the classics could possibly have been an Oxford or +Cambridge man?' + +'Yes; he was an Oxford man--Fellow of St. Cyprian's.' + +'Really?' + +'Oh yes; there's no doubt about it. + +'The oddest thing ever I heard of!' said Mr. Swancourt, starting +with astonishment. 'That the pupil of such a man----' + +'The best and cleverest man in England!' cried Stephen +enthusiastically. + +'That the pupil of such a man should pronounce Latin in the way +you pronounce it beats all I ever heard. How long did he instruct +you?' + +'Four years.' + +'Four years!' + +'It is not so strange when I explain,' Stephen hastened to say. +'It was done in this way--by letter. I sent him exercises and +construing twice a week, and twice a week he sent them back to me +corrected, with marginal notes of instruction. That is how I +learnt my Latin and Greek, such as it is. He is not responsible +for my scanning. He has never heard me scan a line.' + +'A novel case, and a singular instance of patience!' cried the +vicar. + +'On his part, not on mine. Ah, Henry Knight is one in a thousand! +I remember his speaking to me on this very subject of +pronunciation. He says that, much to his regret, he sees a time +coming when every man will pronounce even the common words of his +own tongue as seems right in his own ears, and be thought none the +worse for it; that the speaking age is passing away, to make room +for the writing age.' + +Both Elfride and her father had waited attentively to hear Stephen +go on to what would have been the most interesting part of the +story, namely, what circumstances could have necessitated such an +unusual method of education. But no further explanation was +volunteered; and they saw, by the young man's manner of +concentrating himself upon the chess-board, that he was anxious to +drop the subject. + +The game proceeded. Elfride played by rote; Stephen by thought. +It was the cruellest thing to checkmate him after so much labour, +she considered. What was she dishonest enough to do in her +compassion? To let him checkmate her. A second game followed; and +being herself absolutely indifferent as to the result (her playing +was above the average among women, and she knew it), she allowed +him to give checkmate again. A final game, in which she adopted +the Muzio gambit as her opening, was terminated by Elfride's +victory at the twelfth move. + +Stephen looked up suspiciously. His heart was throbbing even more +excitedly than was hers, which itself had quickened when she +seriously set to work on this last occasion. Mr. Swancourt had +left the room. + +'You have been trifling with me till now!' he exclaimed, his face +flushing. 'You did not play your best in the first two games?' + +Elfride's guilt showed in her face. Stephen became the picture of +vexation and sadness, which, relishable for a moment, caused her +the next instant to regret the mistake she had made. + +'Mr. Smith, forgive me!' she said sweetly. 'I see now, though I +did not at first, that what I have done seems like contempt for +your skill. But, indeed, I did not mean it in that sense. I +could not, upon my conscience, win a victory in those first and +second games over one who fought at such a disadvantage and so +manfully.' + +He drew a long breath, and murmured bitterly, 'Ah, you are +cleverer than I. You can do everything--I can do nothing! O Miss +Swancourt!' he burst out wildly, his heart swelling in his throat, +'I must tell you how I love you! All these months of my absence I +have worshipped you.' + +He leapt from his seat like the impulsive lad that he was, slid +round to her side, and almost before she suspected it his arm was +round her waist, and the two sets of curls intermingled. + +So entirely new was full-blown love to Elfride, that she trembled +as much from the novelty of the emotion as from the emotion +itself. Then she suddenly withdrew herself and stood upright, +vexed that she had submitted unresistingly even to his momentary +pressure. She resolved to consider this demonstration as +premature. + +'You must not begin such things as those,' she said with +coquettish hauteur of a very transparent nature 'And--you must not +do so again--and papa is coming.' + +'Let me kiss you--only a little one,' he said with his usual +delicacy, and without reading the factitiousness of her manner. + +'No; not one.' + +'Only on your cheek?' + +'No.' + +'Forehead?' + +'Certainly not.' + +'You care for somebody else, then? Ah, I thought so!' + +'I am sure I do not.' + +'Nor for me either?' + +'How can I tell?' she said simply, the simplicity lying merely in +the broad outlines of her manner and speech. There were the +semitone of voice and half-hidden expression of eyes which tell +the initiated how very fragile is the ice of reserve at these +times. + +Footsteps were heard. Mr. Swancourt then entered the room, and +their private colloquy ended. + +The day after this partial revelation, Mr. Swancourt proposed a +drive to the cliffs beyond Targan Bay, a distance of three or four +miles. + +Half an hour before the time of departure a crash was heard in the +back yard, and presently Worm came in, saying partly to the world +in general, part]y to himself, and slightly to his auditors: + +'Ay, ay, sure! That frying of fish will be the end of William +Worm. They be at it again this morning--same as ever--fizz, fizz, +fizz!' + +'Your head bad again, Worm?' said Mr. Swancourt. 'What was that +noise we heard in the yard?' + +'Ay, sir, a weak wambling man am I; and the frying have been going +on in my poor head all through the long night and this morning as +usual; and I was so dazed wi' it that down fell a piece of leg- +wood across the shaft of the pony-shay, and splintered it off. +"Ay," says I, "I feel it as if 'twas my own shay; and though I've +done it, and parish pay is my lot if I go from here, perhaps I am +as independent as one here and there."' + +'Dear me, the shaft of the carriage broken!' cried Elfride. She +was disappointed: Stephen doubly so. The vicar showed more warmth +of temper than the accident seemed to demand, much to Stephen's +uneasiness and rather to his surprise. He had not supposed so +much latent sternness could co-exist with Mr. Swancourt's +frankness and good-nature. + +'You shall not be disappointed,' said the vicar at length. 'It is +almost too long a distance for you to walk. Elfride can trot down +on her pony, and you shall have my old nag, Smith.' + +Elfride exclaimed triumphantly, 'You have never seen me on +horseback--Oh, you must!' She looked at Stephen and read his +thoughts immediately. 'Ah, you don't ride, Mr. Smith?' + +'I am sorry to say I don't.' + +'Fancy a man not able to ride!' said she rather pertly. + +The vicar came to his rescue. 'That's common enough; he has had +other lessons to learn. Now, I recommend this plan: let Elfride +ride on horseback, and you, Mr. Smith, walk beside her.' + +The arrangement was welcomed with secret delight by Stephen. It +seemed to combine in itself all the advantages of a long slow +ramble with Elfride, without the contingent possibility of the +enjoyment being spoilt by her becoming weary. The pony was +saddled and brought round. + +'Now, Mr. Smith,' said the lady imperatively, coming downstairs, +and appearing in her riding-habit, as she always did in a change +of dress, like a new edition of a delightful volume, 'you have a +task to perform to-day. These earrings are my very favourite +darling ones; but the worst of it is that they have such short +hooks that they are liable to be dropped if I toss my head about +much, and when I am riding I can't give my mind to them. It would +be doing me knight service if you keep your eyes fixed upon them, +and remember them every minute of the day, and tell me directly I +drop one. They have had such hairbreadth escapes, haven't they, +Unity?' she continued to the parlour-maid who was standing at the +door. + +'Yes, miss, that they have!' said Unity with round-eyed +commiseration. + +'Once 'twas in the lane that I found one of them,' pursued Elfride +reflectively. + +'And then 'twas by the gate into Eighteen Acres,' Unity chimed in. + +'And then 'twas on the carpet in my own room,' rejoined Elfride +merrily. + +'And then 'twas dangling on the embroidery of your petticoat, +miss; and then 'twas down your back, miss, wasn't it? And oh, what +a way you was in, miss, wasn't you? my! until you found it!' + +Stephen took Elfride's slight foot upon his hand: 'One, two, +three, and up!' she said. + +Unfortunately not so. He staggered and lifted, and the horse +edged round; and Elfride was ultimately deposited upon the ground +rather more forcibly than was pleasant. Smith looked all +contrition. + +'Never mind,' said the vicar encouragingly; 'try again! 'Tis a +little accomplishment that requires some practice, although it +looks so easy. Stand closer to the horse's head, Mr. Smith.' + +'Indeed, I shan't let him try again,' said she with a microscopic +look of indignation. 'Worm, come here, and help me to mount.' +Worm stepped forward, and she was in the saddle in a trice. + +Then they moved on, going for some distance in silence, the hot +air of the valley being occasionally brushed from their faces by a +cool breeze, which wound its way along ravines leading up from the +sea. + +'I suppose,' said Stephen, 'that a man who can neither sit in a +saddle himself nor help another person into one seems a useless +incumbrance; but, Miss Swancourt, I'll learn to do it all for your +sake; I will, indeed.' + +'What is so unusual in you,' she said, in a didactic tone +justifiable in a horsewoman's address to a benighted walker, 'is +that your knowledge of certain things should be combined with your +ignorance of certain other things.' + +Stephen lifted his eyes earnestly to hers. + +'You know,' he said, 'it is simply because there are so many other +things to be learnt in this wide world that I didn't trouble about +that particular bit of knowledge. I thought it would be useless +to me; but I don't think so now. I will learn riding, and all +connected with it, because then you would like me better. Do you +like me much less for this?' + +She looked sideways at him with critical meditation tenderly +rendered. + +'Do I seem like LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI?' she began suddenly, +without replying to his question. 'Fancy yourself saying, Mr. +Smith: + + + "I sat her on my pacing steed, + And nothing else saw all day long, + For sidelong would she bend, and sing + A fairy's song, + She found me roots of relish sweet, + And honey wild, and manna dew; " + + +and that's all she did.' + +'No, no,' said the young man stilly, and with a rising colour. + + + + '"And sure in language strange she said, + I love thee true."' + + + +'Not at all,' she rejoined quickly. 'See how I can gallop. Now, +Pansy, off!' And Elfride started; and Stephen beheld her light +figure contracting to the dimensions of a bird as she sank into +the distance--her hair flowing. + +He walked on in the same direction, and for a considerable time +could see no signs of her returning. Dull as a flower without the +sun he sat down upon a stone, and not for fifteen minutes was any +sound of horse or rider to be heard. Then Elfride and Pansy +appeared on the hill in a round trot. + +'Such a delightful scamper as we have had!' she said, her face +flushed and her eyes sparkling. She turned the horse's head, +Stephen arose, and they went on again. + +'Well, what have you to say to me, Mr. Smith, after my long +absence?' + +'Do you remember a question you could not exactly answer last +night--whether I was more to you than anybody else?' said he. + +'I cannot exactly answer now, either.' + +'Why can't you?' + +'Because I don't know if I am more to you than any one else.' + +'Yes, indeed, you are!' he exclaimed in a voice of intensest +appreciation, at the same time gliding round and looking into her +face. + +'Eyes in eyes,' he murmured playfully; and she blushingly obeyed, +looking back into his. + +'And why not lips on lips?' continued Stephen daringly. + +'No, certainly not. Anybody might look; and it would be the death +of me. You may kiss my hand if you like.' + +He expressed by a look that to kiss a hand through a glove, and +that a riding-glove, was not a great treat under the +circumstances. + +'There, then; I'll take my glove off. Isn't it a pretty white +hand? Ah, you don't want to kiss it, and you shall not now!' + +'If I do not, may I never kiss again, you severe Elfride! You know +I think more of you than I can tell; that you are my queen. I +would die for you, Elfride!' + +A rapid red again filled her cheeks, and she looked at him +meditatively. What a proud moment it was for Elfride then! She +was ruling a heart with absolute despotism for the first time in +her life. + +Stephen stealthily pounced upon her hand. + +'No; I won't, I won't!' she said intractably; 'and you shouldn't +take me by surprise.' + +There ensued a mild form of tussle for absolute possession of the +much-coveted hand, in which the boisterousness of boy and girl was +far more prominent than the dignity of man and woman. Then Pansy +became restless. Elfride recovered her position and remembered +herself. + +'You make me behave in not a nice way at all!' she exclaimed, in a +tone neither of pleasure nor anger, but partaking of both. 'I +ought not to have allowed such a romp! We are too old now for that +sort of thing.' + +'I hope you don't think me too--too much of a creeping-round sort +of man,' said he in a penitent tone, conscious that he too had +lost a little dignity by the proceeding. + +'You are too familiar; and I can't have it! Considering the +shortness of the time we have known each other, Mr. Smith, you +take too much upon you. You think I am a country girl, and it +doesn't matter how you behave to me!' + +'I assure you, Miss Swancourt, that I had no idea of freak in my +mind. I wanted to imprint a sweet--serious kiss upon your hand; +and that's all.' + +'Now, that's creeping round again! And you mustn't look into my +eyes so,' she said, shaking her head at him, and trotting on a few +paces in advance. Thus she led the way out of the lane and across +some fields in the direction of the cliffs. At the boundary of +the fields nearest the sea she expressed a wish to dismount. The +horse was tied to a post. and they both followed an irregular +path, which ultimately terminated upon a flat ledge passing round +the face of the huge blue-black rock at a height about midway +between the sea and the topmost verge. There, far beneath and +before them, lay the everlasting stretch of ocean; there, upon +detached rocks, were the white screaming gulls, seeming ever +intending to settle, and yet always passing on. Right and left +ranked the toothed and zigzag line of storm-torn heights, forming +the series which culminated in the one beneath their feet. + +Behind the youth and maiden was a tempting alcove and seat, formed +naturally in the beetling mass, and wide enough to admit two or +three persons. Elfride sat down, and Stephen sat beside her. + +'I am afraid it is hardly proper of us to be here, either,' she +said half inquiringly. 'We have not known each other long enough +for this kind of thing, have we!' + +'Oh yes,' he replied judicially; 'quite long enough.' + +'How do you know?' + +'It is not length of time, but the manner in which our minutes +beat, that makes enough or not enough in our acquaintanceship.' + +'Yes, I see that. But I wish papa suspected or knew what a VERY +NEW THING I am doing. He does not think of it at all.' + +'Darling Elfie, I wish we could be married! It is wrong for me to +say it--I know it is--before you know more; but I wish we might +be, all the same. Do you love me deeply, deeply?' + +'No!' she said in a fluster. + +At this point-blank denial, Stephen turned his face away +decisively, and preserved an ominous silence; the only objects of +interest on earth for him being apparently the three or four-score +sea-birds circling in the air afar off. + +'I didn't mean to stop you quite,' she faltered with some alarm; +and seeing that he still remained silent, she added more +anxiously, 'If you say that again, perhaps, I will not be quite-- +quite so obstinate--if--if you don't like me to be.' + +'Oh, my Elfride!' he exclaimed, and kissed her. + +It was Elfride's first kiss. And so awkward and unused was she; +full of striving--no relenting. There was none of those apparent +struggles to get out of the trap which only results in getting +further in: no final attitude of receptivity: no easy close of +shoulder to shoulder, hand upon hand, face upon face, and, in +spite of coyness, the lips in the right place at the supreme +moment. That graceful though apparently accidental falling into +position, which many have noticed as precipitating the end and +making sweethearts the sweeter, was not here. Why? Because +experience was absent. A woman must have had many kisses before +she kisses well. + +In fact, the art of tendering the lips for these amatory salutes +follows the principles laid down in treatises on legerdemain for +performing the trick called Forcing a Card. The card is to be +shifted nimbly, withdrawn, edged under, and withal not to be +offered till the moment the unsuspecting person's hand reaches the +pack; this forcing to be done so modestly and yet so coaxingly, +that the person trifled with imagines he is really choosing what +is in fact thrust into his hand. + +Well, there were no such facilities now; and Stephen was conscious +of it--first with a momentary regret that his kiss should be +spoilt by her confused receipt of it, and then with the pleasant +perception that her awkwardness was her charm. + +'And you do care for me and love me?' said he. + +'Yes.' + +'Very much?' + +'Yes.' + +'And I mustn't ask you if you'll wait for me, and be my wife some +day?' + +'Why not?' she said naively. + +'There is a reason why, my Elfride.' + +'Not any one that I know of.' + +'Suppose there is something connected with me which makes it +almost impossible for you to agree to be my wife, or for your +father to countenance such an idea?' + +'Nothing shall make me cease to love you: no blemish can be found +upon your personal nature. That is pure and generous, I know; and +having that, how can I be cold to you?' + +'And shall nothing else affect us--shall nothing beyond my nature +be a part of my quality in your eyes, Elfie?' + +'Nothing whatever,' she said with a breath of relief. 'Is that +all? Some outside circumstance? What do I care?' + +'You can hardly judge, dear, till you know what has to be judged. +For that, we will stop till we get home. I believe in you, but I +cannot feel bright.' + +'Love is new, and fresh to us as the dew; and we are together. As +the lover's world goes, this is a great deal. Stephen, I fancy I +see the difference between me and you--between men and women +generally, perhaps. I am content to build happiness on any +accidental basis that may lie near at hand; you are for making a +world to suit your happiness.' + +'Elfride, you sometimes say things which make you seem suddenly to +become five years older than you are, or than I am; and that +remark is one. I couldn't think so OLD as that, try how I +might....And no lover has ever kissed you before?' + +'Never.' + +'I knew that; you were so unused. You ride well, but you don't +kiss nicely at all; and I was told once, by my friend Knight, that +that is an excellent fault in woman.' + +'Now, come; I must mount again, or we shall not be home by dinner- +time.' And they returned to where Pansy stood tethered. 'Instead +of entrusting my weight to a young man's unstable palm,' she +continued gaily, 'I prefer a surer "upping-stock" (as the +villagers call it), in the form of a gate. There--now I am myself +again.' + +They proceeded homeward at the same walking pace. + +Her blitheness won Stephen out of his thoughtfulness, and each +forgot everything but the tone of the moment. + +'What did you love me for?' she said, after a long musing look at +a flying bird. + +'I don't know,' he replied idly. + +'Oh yes, you do,' insisted Elfride. + +'Perhaps, for your eyes.' + +'What of them?--now, don't vex me by a light answer. What of my +eyes?' + +'Oh, nothing to be mentioned. They are indifferently good.' + +'Come, Stephen, I won't have that. What did you love me for?' + +'It might have been for your mouth?' + +'Well, what about my mouth?' + +'I thought it was a passable mouth enough----' + +'That's not very comforting.' + +'With a pretty pout and sweet lips; but actually, nothing more +than what everybody has.' + +'Don't make up things out of your head as you go on, there's a +dear Stephen. Now--what--did--you--love--me--for?' + +'Perhaps, 'twas for your neck and hair; though I am not sure: or +for your idle blood, that did nothing but wander away from your +cheeks and back again; but I am not sure. Or your hands and arms, +that they eclipsed all other hands and arms; or your feet, that +they played about under your dress like little mice; or your +tongue, that it was of a dear delicate tone. But I am not +altogether sure.' + +'Ah, that's pretty to say; but I don't care for your love, if it +made a mere flat picture of me in that way, and not being sure, +and such cold reasoning; but what you FELT I was, you know, +Stephen' (at this a stealthy laugh and frisky look into his face), +'when you said to yourself, "I'll certainly love that young +lady."' + +'I never said it.' + +'When you said to yourself, then, "I never will love that young +lady."' + +'I didn't say that, either.' + +'Then was it, "I suppose I must love that young lady?"' + +'No.' + +'What, then?' + +''Twas much more fluctuating--not so definite.' + +'Tell me; do, do.' + +'It was that I ought not to think about you if I loved you truly.' + +'Ah, that I don't understand. There's no getting it out of you. +And I'll not ask you ever any more--never more--to say out of the +deep reality of your heart what you loved me for.' + +'Sweet tantalizer, what's the use? It comes to this sole simple +thing: That at one time I had never seen you, and I didn't love +you; that then I saw you, and I did love you. Is that enough?' + +'Yes; I will make it do....I know, I think, what I love you for. +You are nice-looking, of course; but I didn't mean for that. It +is because you are so docile and gentle.' + +'Those are not quite the correct qualities for a man to be loved +for,' said Stephen, in rather a dissatisfied tone of self- +criticism. 'Well, never mind. I must ask your father to allow us +to be engaged directly we get indoors. It will be for a long +time.' + +'I like it the better....Stephen, don't mention it till to- +morrow.' + +'Why?' + +'Because, if he should object--I don't think he will; but if he +should--we shall have a day longer of happiness from our +ignorance....Well, what are you thinking of so deeply?' + +'I was thinking how my dear friend Knight would enjoy this scene. +I wish he could come here.' + +'You seem very much engrossed with him,' she answered, with a +jealous little toss. 'He must be an interesting man to take up so +much of your attention.' + +'Interesting!' said Stephen, his face glowing with his fervour; +'noble, you ought to say.' + +'Oh yes, yes; I forgot,' she said half satirically. 'The noblest +man in England, as you told us last night.' + +'He is a fine fellow, laugh as you will, Miss Elfie.' + +'I know he is your hero. But what does he do? anything?' + +'He writes.' + +'What does he write? I have never heard of his name.' + +'Because his personality, and that of several others like him, is +absorbed into a huge WE, namely, the impalpable entity called the +PRESENT--a social and literary Review.' + +'Is he only a reviewer?' + +'ONLY, Elfie! Why, I can tell you it is a fine thing to be on the +staff of the PRESENT. Finer than being a novelist considerably.' + +'That's a hit at me, and my poor COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE.' + +'No, Elfride,' he whispered; 'I didn't mean that. I mean that he +is really a literary man of some eminence, and not altogether a +reviewer. He writes things of a higher class than reviews, though +he reviews a book occasionally. His ordinary productions are +social and ethical essays--all that the PRESENT contains which is +not literary reviewing.' + +'I admit he must be talented if he writes for the PRESENT. We +have it sent to us irregularly. I want papa to be a subscriber, +but he's so conservative. Now the next point in this Mr. Knight-- +I suppose he is a very good man.' + +'An excellent man. I shall try to be his intimate friend some +day.' + +'But aren't you now?' + +'No; not so much as that,' replied Stephen, as if such a +supposition were extravagant. 'You see, it was in this way--he +came originally from the same place as I, and taught me things; +but I am not intimate with him. Shan't I be glad when I get +richer and better known, and hob and nob with him!' Stephen's eyes +sparkled. + +A pout began to shape itself upon Elfride's soft lips. 'You think +always of him, and like him better than you do me!' + +'No, indeed, Elfride. The feeling is different quite. But I do +like him, and he deserves even more affection from me than I +give.' + +'You are not nice now, and you make me as jealous as possible!' +she exclaimed perversely. 'I know you will never speak to any +third person of me so warmly as you do to me of him.' + +'But you don't understand, Elfride,' he said with an anxious +movement. 'You shall know him some day. He is so brilliant--no, +it isn't exactly brilliant; so thoughtful--nor does thoughtful +express him--that it would charm you to talk to him. He's a most +desirable friend, and that isn't half I could say.' + +'I don't care how good he is; I don't want to know him, because he +comes between me and you. You think of him night and day, ever so +much more than of anybody else; and when you are thinking of him, +I am shut out of your mind.' + +'No, dear Elfride; I love you dearly.' + +'And I don't like you to tell me so warmly about him when you are +in the middle of loving me. Stephen, suppose that I and this man +Knight of yours were both drowning, and you could only save one of +us----' + +'Yes--the stupid old proposition--which would I save? + +'Well, which? Not me.' + +'Both of you,' he said, pressing her pendent hand. + +'No, that won't do; only one of us.' + +'I cannot say; I don't know. It is disagreeable--quite a horrid +idea to have to handle.' + +'A-ha, I know. You would save him, and let me drown, drown, +drown; and I don't care about your love!' + +She had endeavoured to give a playful tone to her words, but the +latter speech was rather forced in its gaiety. + +At this point in the discussion she trotted off to turn a corner +which was avoided by the footpath, the road and the path reuniting +at a point a little further on. On again making her appearance +she continually managed to look in a direction away from him, and +left him in the cool shade of her displeasure. Stephen was soon +beaten at this game of indifference. He went round and entered +the range of her vision. + +'Are you offended, Elfie? Why don't you talk?' + +'Save me, then, and let that Mr. Clever of yours drown. I hate +him. Now, which would you?' + +'Really, Elfride, you should not press such a hard question. It +is ridiculous.' + +'Then I won't be alone with you any more. Unkind, to wound me +so!' She laughed at her own absurdity but persisted. + +'Come, Elfie, let's make it up and be friends.' + +'Say you would save me, then, and let him drown.' + +'I would save you--and him too.' + +'And let him drown. Come, or you don't love me!' she teasingly +went on. + +'And let him drown,' he ejaculated despairingly. + +'There; now I am yours!' she said, and a woman's flush of triumph +lit her eyes. + + + +'Only one earring, miss, as I'm alive,' said Unity on their +entering the hall. + +With a face expressive of wretched misgiving, Elfride's hand flew +like an arrow to her ear. + +'There!' she exclaimed to Stephen, looking at him with eyes full +of reproach. + +'I quite forgot, indeed. If I had only remembered!' he answered, +with a conscience-stricken face. + +She wheeled herself round, and turned into the shrubbery. Stephen +followed. + +'If you had told me to watch anything, Stephen, I should have +religiously done it,' she capriciously went on, as soon as she +heard him behind her. + +'Forgetting is forgivable.' + +'Well, you will find it, if you want me to respect you and be +engaged to you when we have asked papa.' She considered a moment, +and added more seriously, 'I know now where I dropped it, Stephen. +It was on the cliff. I remember a faint sensation of some change +about me, but I was too absent to think of it then. And that's +where it is now, and you must go and look there.' + +'I'll go at once.' + +And he strode away up the valley, under a broiling sun and amid +the deathlike silence of early afternoon. He ascended, with +giddy-paced haste, the windy range of rocks to where they had sat, +felt and peered about the stones and crannies, but Elfride's stray +jewel was nowhere to be seen. Next Stephen slowly retraced his +steps, and, pausing at a cross-road to reflect a while, he left +the plateau and struck downwards across some fields, in the +direction of Endelstow House. + +He walked along the path by the river without the slightest +hesitation as to its bearing, apparently quite familiar with every +inch of the ground. As the shadows began to lengthen and the +sunlight to mellow, he passed through two wicket-gates, and drew +near the outskirts of Endelstow Park. The river now ran along +under the park fence, previous to entering the grove itself, a +little further on. + +Here stood a cottage, between the fence and the stream, on a +slightly elevated spot of ground, round which the river took a +turn. The characteristic feature of this snug habitation was its +one chimney in the gable end, its squareness of form disguised by +a huge cloak of ivy, which had grown so luxuriantly and extended +so far from its base, as to increase the apparent bulk of the +chimney to the dimensions of a tower. Some little distance from +the back of the house rose the park boundary, and over this were +to be seen the sycamores of the grove, making slow inclinations to +the just-awakening air. + +Stephen crossed the little wood bridge in front, went up to the +cottage door, and opened it without knock or signal of any kind. + +Exclamations of welcome burst from some person or persons when the +door was thrust ajar, followed by the scrape of chairs on a stone +floor, as if pushed back by their occupiers in rising from a +table. The door was closed again, and nothing could now be heard +from within, save a lively chatter and the rattle of plates. + + + +Chapter VIII + +'Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord.' + + +The mists were creeping out of pools and swamps for their +pilgrimages of the night when Stephen came up to the front door of +the vicarage. Elfride was standing on the step illuminated by a +lemon-hued expanse of western sky. + +'You never have been all this time looking for that earring?' she +said anxiously. + +'Oh no; and I have not found it.' + +'Never mind. Though I am much vexed; they are my prettiest. But, +Stephen, what ever have you been doing--where have you been? I +have been so uneasy. I feared for you, knowing not an inch of the +country. I thought, suppose he has fallen over the cliff! But now +I am inclined to scold you for frightening me so.' + +'I must speak to your father now,' he said rather abruptly; 'I +have so much to say to him--and to you, Elfride.' + +'Will what you have to say endanger this nice time of ours, and is +it that same shadowy secret you allude to so frequently, and will +it make me unhappy?' + +'Possibly.' + +She breathed heavily, and looked around as if for a prompter. + +'Put it off till to-morrow,' she said. + +He involuntarily sighed too. + +'No; it must come to-night. Where is your father, Elfride?' + +'Somewhere in the kitchen garden, I think,' she replied. 'That is +his favourite evening retreat. I will leave you now. Say all +that's to be said--do all there is to be done. Think of me +waiting anxiously for the end.' And she re-entered the house. + +She waited in the drawing-room, watching the lights sink to +shadows, the shadows sink to darkness, until her impatience to +know what had occurred in the garden could no longer be +controlled. She passed round the shrubbery, unlatched the garden +door, and skimmed with her keen eyes the whole twilighted space +that the four walls enclosed and sheltered: they were not there. +She mounted a little ladder, which had been used for gathering +fruit, and looked over the wall into the field. This field +extended to the limits of the glebe, which was enclosed on that +side by a privet-hedge. Under the hedge was Mr. Swancourt, +walking up and down, and talking aloud--to himself, as it sounded +at first. No: another voice shouted occasional replies ; and this +interlocutor seemed to be on the other side of the hedge. The +voice, though soft in quality, was not Stephen's. + +The second speaker must have been in the long-neglected garden of +an old manor-house hard by, which, together with a small estate +attached, had lately been purchased by a person named Troyton, +whom Elfride had never seen. Her father might have struck up an +acquaintanceship with some member of that family through the +privet-hedge, or a stranger to the neighbourhood might have +wandered thither. + +Well, there was no necessity for disturbing him. + +And it seemed that, after all, Stephen had not yet made his +desired communication to her father. Again she went indoors, +wondering where Stephen could be. For want of something better to +do, she went upstairs to her own little room. Here she sat down +at the open window, and, leaning with her elbow on the table and +her cheek upon her hand, she fell into meditation. + +It was a hot and still August night. Every disturbance of the +silence which rose to the dignity of a noise could be heard for +miles, and the merest sound for a long distance. So she remained, +thinking of Stephen, and wishing he had not deprived her of his +company to no purpose, as it appeared. How delicate and sensitive +he was, she reflected; and yet he was man enough to have a private +mystery, which considerably elevated him in her eyes. Thus, +looking at things with an inward vision, she lost consciousness of +the flight of time. + +Strange conjunctions of circumstances, particularly those of a +trivial everyday kind, are so frequent in an ordinary life, that +we grow used to their unaccountableness, and forget the question +whether the very long odds against such juxtaposition is not +almost a disproof of it being a matter of chance at all. What +occurred to Elfride at this moment was a case in point. She was +vividly imagining, for the twentieth time, the kiss of the +morning, and putting her lips together in the position another +such a one would demand, when she heard the identical operation +performed on the lawn, immediately beneath her window. + +A kiss--not of the quiet and stealthy kind, but decisive, loud, +and smart. + +Her face flushed and she looked out, but to no purpose. The dark +rim of the upland drew a keen sad line against the pale glow of +the sky, unbroken except where a young cedar on the lawn, that had +outgrown its fellow trees, shot its pointed head across the +horizon, piercing the firmamental lustre like a sting. + +It was just possible that, had any persons been standing on the +grassy portions of the lawn, Elfride might have seen their dusky +forms. But the shrubs, which once had merely dotted the glade, +had now grown bushy and large, till they hid at least half the +enclosure containing them. The kissing pair might have been +behind some of these; at any rate, nobody was in sight. + +Had no enigma ever been connected with her lover by his hints and +absences, Elfride would never have thought of admitting into her +mind a suspicion that he might be concerned in the foregoing +enactment. But the reservations he at present insisted on, while +they added to the mystery without which perhaps she would never +have seriously loved him at all, were calculated to nourish doubts +of all kinds, and with a slow flush of jealousy she asked herself, +might he not be the culprit? + +Elfride glided downstairs on tiptoe, and out to the precise spot +on which she had parted from Stephen to enable him to speak +privately to her father. Thence she wandered into all the nooks +around the place from which the sound seemed to proceed--among the +huge laurestines, about the tufts of pampas grasses, amid the +variegated hollies, under the weeping wych-elm--nobody was there. +Returning indoors she called 'Unity!' + +'She is gone to her aunt's, to spend the evening,' said Mr. +Swancourt, thrusting his head out of his study door, and letting +the light of his candles stream upon Elfride's face--less +revealing than, as it seemed to herself, creating the blush of +uneasy perplexity that was burning upon her cheek. + +'I didn't know you were indoors, papa,' she said with surprise. +'Surely no light was shining from the window when I was on the +lawn?' and she looked and saw that the shutters were still open. + +'Oh yes, I am in,' he said indifferently. 'What did you want +Unity for? I think she laid supper before she went out.' + +'Did she?--I have not been to see--I didn't want her for that.' + +Elfride scarcely knew, now that a definite reason was required, +what that reason was. Her mind for a moment strayed to another +subject, unimportant as it seemed. The red ember of a match was +lying inside the fender, which explained that why she had seen no +rays from the window was because the candles had only just been +lighted. + +'I'll come directly,' said the vicar. 'I thought you were out +somewhere with Mr. Smith.' + +Even the inexperienced Elfride could not help thinking that her +father must be wonderfully blind if he failed to perceive what was +the nascent consequence of herself and Stephen being so +unceremoniously left together; wonderfully careless, if he saw it +and did not think about it; wonderfully good, if, as seemed to her +by far the most probable supposition, he saw it and thought about +it and approved of it. These reflections were cut short by the +appearance of Stephen just outside the porch, silvered about the +head and shoulders with touches of moonlight, that had begun to +creep through the trees. + +'Has your trouble anything to do with a kiss on the lawn?' she +asked abruptly, almost passionately. + +'Kiss on the lawn?' + +'Yes!' she said, imperiously now. + +'I didn't comprehend your meaning, nor do I now exactly. I +certainly have kissed nobody on the lawn, if that is really what +you want to know, Elfride.' + +'You know nothing about such a performance?' + +'Nothing whatever. What makes you ask?' + +'Don't press me to tell; it is nothing of importance. And, +Stephen, you have not yet spoken to papa about our engagement?' + +'No,' he said regretfully, 'I could not find him directly; and +then I went on thinking so much of what you said about objections, +refusals--bitter words possibly--ending our happiness, that I +resolved to put it off till to-morrow; that gives us one more day +of delight--delight of a tremulous kind.' + +'Yes; but it would be improper to be silent too long, I think,' +she said in a delicate voice, which implied that her face had +grown warm. 'I want him to know we love, Stephen. Why did you +adopt as your own my thought of delay?' + +'I will explain; but I want to tell you of my secret first--to +tell you now. It is two or three hours yet to bedtime. Let us +walk up the hill to the church.' + +Elfride passively assented, and they went from the lawn by a side +wicket, and ascended into the open expanse of moonlight which +streamed around the lonely edifice on the summit of the hill. + +The door was locked. They turned from the porch, and walked hand +in hand to find a resting-place in the churchyard. Stephen chose +a flat tomb, showing itself to be newer and whiter than those +around it, and sitting down himself, gently drew her hand towards +him. + +'No, not there,' she said. + +'Why not here?' + +'A mere fancy; but never mind.' And she sat down. + +'Elfie, will you love me, in spite of everything that may be said +against me?' + +'O Stephen, what makes you repeat that so continually and so +sadly? You know I will. Yes, indeed,' she said, drawing closer, +'whatever may be said of you--and nothing bad can be--I will cling +to you just the same. Your ways shall be my ways until I die.' + +'Did you ever think what my parents might be, or what society I +originally moved in?' + +'No, not particularly. I have observed one or two little points +in your manners which are rather quaint--no more. I suppose you +have moved in the ordinary society of professional people.' + +'Supposing I have not--that none of my family have a profession +except me?' + +'I don't mind. What you are only concerns me.' + +'Where do you think I went to school--I mean, to what kind of +school?' + +'Dr. Somebody's academy,' she said simply. + +'No. To a dame school originally, then to a national school.' + +'Only to those! Well, I love you just as much, Stephen, dear +Stephen,' she murmured tenderly, 'I do indeed. And why should you +tell me these things so impressively? What do they matter to me?' + +He held her closer and proceeded: + +'What do you think my father is--does for his living, that is to +say?' + +'He practises some profession or calling, I suppose.' + +'No; he is a mason.' + +'A Freemason?' + +'No; a cottager and journeyman mason.' + +Elfride said nothing at first. After a while she whispered: + +'That is a strange idea to me. But never mind; what does it +matter?' + +'But aren't you angry with me for not telling you before?' + +'No, not at all. Is your mother alive?' + +'Yes.' + +'Is she a nice lady?' + +'Very--the best mother in the world. Her people had been well-to- +do yeomen for centuries, but she was only a dairymaid.' + +'O Stephen!' came from her in whispered exclamation. + +'She continued to attend to a dairy long after my father married +her,' pursued Stephen, without further hesitation. 'And I +remember very well how, when I was very young, I used to go to the +milking, look on at the skimming, sleep through the churning, and +make believe I helped her. Ah, that was a happy time enough!' + +'No, never--not happy.' + +'Yes, it was.' + +'I don't see how happiness could be where the drudgery of dairy- +work had to be done for a living--the hands red and chapped, and +the shoes clogged....Stephen, I do own that it seems odd to regard +you in the light of--of--having been so rough in your youth, and +done menial things of that kind.' (Stephen withdrew an inch or two +from her side.) 'But I DO LOVE YOU just the same,' she continued, +getting closer under his shoulder again, 'and I don't care +anything about the past; and I see that you are all the worthier +for having pushed on in the world in such a way.' + +'It is not my worthiness; it is Knight's, who pushed me.' + +'Ah, always he--always he!' + +'Yes, and properly so. Now, Elfride, you see the reason of his +teaching me by letter. I knew him years before he went to Oxford, +but I had not got far enough in my reading for him to entertain +the idea of helping me in classics till he left home. Then I was +sent away from the village, and we very seldom met; but he kept up +this system of tuition by correspondence with the greatest +regularity. I will tell you all the story, but not now. There is +nothing more to say now, beyond giving places, persons, and +dates.' His voice became timidly slow at this point. + +'No; don't take trouble to say more. You are a dear honest fellow +to say so much as you have; and it is not so dreadful either. It +has become a normal thing that millionaires commence by going up +to London with their tools at their back, and half-a-crown in +their pockets. That sort of origin is getting so respected,' she +continued cheerfully, 'that it is acquiring some of the odour of +Norman ancestry.' + +'Ah, if I had MADE my fortune, I shouldn't mind. But I am only a +possible maker of it as yet.' + +'It is quite enough. And so THIS is what your trouble was?' + +'I thought I was doing wrong in letting you love me without +telling you my story; and yet I feared to do so, Elfie. I dreaded +to lose you, and I was cowardly on that account.' + +'How plain everything about you seems after this explanation! Your +peculiarities in chess-playing, the pronunciation papa noticed in +your Latin, your odd mixture of book-knowledge with ignorance of +ordinary social accomplishments, are accounted for in a moment. +And has this anything to do with what I saw at Lord Luxellian's?' + +'What did you see?' + +'I saw the shadow of yourself putting a cloak round a lady. I was +at the side door; you two were in a room with the window towards +me. You came to me a moment later.' + +'She was my mother.' + +'Your mother THERE!' She withdrew herself to look at him silently +in her interest. + +'Elfride,' said Stephen, 'I was going to tell you the remainder +to-morrow--I have been keeping it back--I must tell it now, after +all. The remainder of my revelation refers to where my parents +are. Where do you think they live? You know them--by sight at any +rate.' + +'I know them!' she said in suspended amazement. + +'Yes. My father is John Smith, Lord Luxellian's master-mason, who +lives under the park wall by the river.' + +'O Stephen! can it be?' + +'He built--or assisted at the building of the house you live in, +years ago. He put up those stone gate piers at the lodge entrance +to Lord Luxellian's park. My grandfather planted the trees that +belt in your lawn; my grandmother--who worked in the fields with +him--held each tree upright whilst he filled in the earth: they +told me so when I was a child. He was the sexton, too, and dug +many of the graves around us.' + +'And was your unaccountable vanishing on the first morning of your +arrival, and again this afternoon, a run to see your father and +mother?...I understand now; no wonder you seemed to know your way +about the village!' + +'No wonder. But remember, I have not lived here since I was nine +years old. I then went to live with my uncle, a blacksmith, near +Exonbury, in order to be able to attend a national school as a day +scholar; there was none on this remote coast then. It was there I +met with my friend Knight. And when I was fifteen and had been +fairly educated by the school-master--and more particularly by +Knight--I was put as a pupil in an architect's office in that +town, because I was skilful in the use of the pencil. A full +premium was paid by the efforts of my mother and father, rather +against the wishes of Lord Luxellian, who likes my father, +however, and thinks a great deal of him. There I stayed till six +months ago, when I obtained a situation as improver, as it is +called, in a London office. That's all of me.' + +'To think YOU, the London visitor, the town man, should have been +born here, and have known this village so many years before I did. +How strange--how very strange it seems to me!' she murmured. + +'My mother curtseyed to you and your father last Sunday,' said +Stephen, with a pained smile at the thought of the incongruity. +'And your papa said to her, "I am glad to see you so regular at +church, JANE."' + +'I remember it, but I have never spoken to her. We have only been +here eighteen months, and the parish is so large.' + +'Contrast with this,' said Stephen, with a miserable laugh, 'your +father's belief in my "blue blood," which is still prevalent in +his mind. The first night I came, he insisted upon proving my +descent from one of the most ancient west-county families, on +account of my second Christian name; when the truth is, it was +given me because my grandfather was assistant gardener in the +Fitzmaurice-Smith family for thirty years. Having seen your face, +my darling, I had not heart to contradict him, and tell him what +would have cut me off from a friendly knowledge of you.' + +She sighed deeply. 'Yes, I see now how this inequality may be +made to trouble us,' she murmured, and continued in a low, sad +whisper, 'I wouldn't have minded if they had lived far away. Papa +might have consented to an engagement between us if your +connection had been with villagers a hundred miles off; remoteness +softens family contrasts. But he will not like--O Stephen, +Stephen! what can I do?' + +'Do?' he said tentatively, yet with heaviness. 'Give me up; let +me go back to London, and think no more of me.' + +'No, no; I cannot give you up! This hopelessness in our affairs +makes me care more for you....I see what did not strike me at +first. Stephen, why do we trouble? Why should papa object? An +architect in London is an architect in London. Who inquires +there? Nobody. We shall live there, shall we not? Why need we be +so alarmed?' + +'And Elfie,' said Stephen, his hopes kindling with hers, 'Knight +thinks nothing of my being only a cottager's son; he says I am as +worthy of his friendship as if I were a lord's; and if I am worthy +of his friendship, I am worthy of you, am I not, Elfride?' + +'I not only have never loved anybody but you,' she said, instead +of giving an answer, 'but I have not even formed a strong +friendship, such as you have for Knight. I wish you hadn't. It +diminishes me.' + +'Now, Elfride, you know better,' he said wooingly. 'And had you +really never any sweetheart at all?' + +'None that was ever recognized by me as such.' + +'But did nobody ever love you?' + +'Yes--a man did once; very much, he said.' + +'How long ago?' + +'Oh, a long time.' + +'How long, dearest? + +'A twelvemonth.' + +'That's not VERY long' (rather disappointedly). + +'I said long, not very long.' + +'And did he want to marry you?' + +'I believe he did. But I didn't see anything in him. He was not +good enough, even if I had loved him.' + +'May I ask what he was?' + +'A farmer.' + +'A farmer not good enough--how much better than my family!' +Stephen murmured. + +'Where is he now?' he continued to Elfride. + +'HERE.' + +'Here! what do you mean by that?' + +'I mean that he is here.' + +'Where here?' + +'Under us. He is under this tomb. He is dead, and we are sitting +on his grave.' + +'Elfie,' said the young man, standing up and looking at the tomb, +'how odd and sad that revelation seems! It quite depresses me for +the moment.' + +'Stephen! I didn't wish to sit here; but you would do so.' + +'You never encouraged him?' + +'Never by look, word, or sign,' she said solemnly. 'He died of +consumption, and was buried the day you first came.' + +'Let us go away. I don't like standing by HIM, even if you never +loved him. He was BEFORE me.' + +'Worries make you unreasonable,' she half pouted, following +Stephen at the distance of a few steps. 'Perhaps I ought to have +told you before we sat down. Yes; let us go.' + + + +Chapter IX + +'Her father did fume' + + +Oppressed, in spite of themselves, by a foresight of impending +complications, Elfride and Stephen returned down the hill hand in +hand. At the door they paused wistfully, like children late at +school. + +Women accept their destiny more readily than men. Elfride had now +resigned herself to the overwhelming idea of her lover's sorry +antecedents; Stephen had not forgotten the trifling grievance that +Elfride had known earlier admiration than his own. + +'What was that young man's name?' he inquired. + +'Felix Jethway; a widow's only son.' + +'I remember the family.' + +'She hates me now. She says I killed him.' + +Stephen mused, and they entered the porch. + +'Stephen, I love only you,' she tremulously whispered. He pressed +her fingers, and the trifling shadow passed away, to admit again +the mutual and more tangible trouble. + +The study appeared to be the only room lighted up. They entered, +each with a demeanour intended to conceal the inconcealable fact +that reciprocal love was their dominant chord. Elfride perceived +a man, sitting with his back towards herself, talking to her +father. She would have retired, but Mr. Swancourt had seen her. + +'Come in,' he said; 'it is only Martin Cannister, come for a copy +of the register for poor Mrs. Jethway.' + +Martin Cannister, the sexton, was rather a favourite with Elfride. +He used to absorb her attention by telling her of his strange +experiences in digging up after long years the bodies of persons +he had known, and recognizing them by some little sign (though in +reality he had never recognized any). He had shrewd small eyes +and a great wealth of double chin, which compensated in some +measure for considerable poverty of nose. + +The appearance of a slip of paper in Cannister's hand, and a few +shillings lying on the table in front of him, denoted that the +business had been transacted, and the tenor of their conversation +went to show that a summary of village news was now engaging the +attention of parishioner and parson. + +Mr. Cannister stood up and touched his forehead over his eye with +his finger, in respectful salutation of Elfride, gave half as much +salute to Stephen (whom he, in common with other villagers, had +never for a moment recognized), then sat down again and resumed +his discourse. + +'Where had I got on to, sir?' + +'To driving the pile,' said Mr. Swancourt. + +'The pile 'twas. So, as I was saying, Nat was driving the pile in +this manner, as I might say.' Here Mr. Cannister held his walking- +stick scrupulously vertical with his left hand, and struck a blow +with great force on the knob of the stick with his right. 'John +was steadying the pile so, as I might say.' Here he gave the stick +a slight shake, and looked firmly in the various eyes around to +see that before proceeding further his listeners well grasped the +subject at that stage. 'Well, when Nat had struck some half-dozen +blows more upon the pile, 'a stopped for a second or two. John, +thinking he had done striking, put his hand upon the top o' the +pile to gie en a pull, and see if 'a were firm in the ground.' Mr. +Cannister spread his hand over the top of the stick, completely +covering it with his palm. 'Well, so to speak, Nat hadn't maned +to stop striking, and when John had put his hand upon the pile, +the beetle----' + +'Oh dreadful!' said Elfride. + +'The beetle was already coming down, you see, sir. Nat just +caught sight of his hand, but couldn't stop the blow in time. +Down came the beetle upon poor John Smith's hand, and squashed en +to a pummy.' + +'Dear me, dear me! poor fellow!' said the vicar, with an +intonation like the groans of the wounded in a pianoforte +performance of the 'Battle of Prague.' + +'John Smith, the master-mason?' cried Stephen hurriedly. + +'Ay, no other; and a better-hearted man God A'mighty never made.' + +'Is he so much hurt?' + +'I have heard,' said Mr. Swancourt, not noticing Stephen, 'that he +has a son in London, a very promising young fellow.' + +'Oh, how he must be hurt!' repeated Stephen. + +'A beetle couldn't hurt very little. Well, sir, good-night t'ye; +and ye, sir; and you, miss, I'm sure.' + +Mr. Cannister had been making unnoticeable motions of withdrawal, +and by the time this farewell remark came from his lips he was +just outside the door of the room. He tramped along the hall, +stayed more than a minute endeavouring to close the door properly, +and then was lost to their hearing. + +Stephen had meanwhile turned and said to the vicar: + +'Please excuse me this evening! I must leave. John Smith is my +father.' + +The vicar did not comprehend at first. + +'What did you say?' he inquired. + +'John Smith is my father,' said Stephen deliberately. + +A surplus tinge of redness rose from Mr. Swancourt's neck, and +came round over his face, the lines of his features became more +firmly defined, and his lips seemed to get thinner. It was +evident that a series of little circumstances, hitherto unheeded, +were now fitting themselves together, and forming a lucid picture +in Mr. Swancourt's mind in such a manner as to render useless +further explanation on Stephen's part. + +'Indeed,' the vicar said, in a voice dry and without inflection. + +This being a word which depends entirely upon its tone for its +meaning, Mr. Swancourt's enunciation was equivalent to no +expression at all. + +'I have to go now,' said Stephen, with an agitated bearing, and a +movement as if he scarcely knew whether he ought to run off or +stay longer. 'On my return, sir, will you kindly grant me a few +minutes' private conversation?' + +'Certainly. Though antecedently it does not seem possible that +there can be anything of the nature of private business between +us.' + +Mr. Swancourt put on his straw hat, crossed the drawing-room, into +which the moonlight was shining, and stepped out of the French +window into the verandah. It required no further effort to +perceive what, indeed, reasoning might have foretold as the +natural colour of a mind whose pleasures were taken amid +genealogies, good dinners, and patrician reminiscences, that Mr. +Swancourt's prejudices were too strong for his generosity, and +that Stephen's moments as his friend and equal were numbered, or +had even now ceased. + +Stephen moved forward as if he would follow the vicar, then as if +he would not, and in absolute perplexity whither to turn himself, +went awkwardly to the door. Elfride followed lingeringly behind +him. Before he had receded two yards from the doorstep, Unity and +Ann the housemaid came home from their visit to the village. + +'Have you heard anything about John Smith? The accident is not so +bad as was reported, is it?' said Elfride intuitively. + +'Oh no; the doctor says it is only a bad bruise.' + +'I thought so!' cried Elfride gladly. + +'He says that, although Nat believes he did not check the beetle +as it came down, he must have done so without knowing it--checked +it very considerably too; for the full blow would have knocked his +hand abroad, and in reality it is only made black-and-blue like.' + +'How thankful I am!' said Stephen. + +The perplexed Unity looked at him with her mouth rather than with +her eyes. + +'That will do, Unity,' said Elfride magisterially; and the two +maids passed on. + +'Elfride, do you forgive me?' said Stephen with a faint smile. +'No man is fair in love;' and he took her fingers lightly in his +own. + +With her head thrown sideways in the Greuze attitude, she looked a +tender reproach at his doubt and pressed his hand. Stephen +returned the pressure threefold, then hastily went off to his +father's cottage by the wall of Endelstow Park. + +'Elfride, what have you to say to this?' inquired her father, +coming up immediately Stephen had retired. + +With feminine quickness she grasped at any straw that would enable +her to plead his cause. 'He had told me of it,' she faltered; 'so +that it is not a discovery in spite of him. He was just coming in +to tell you.' + +'COMING to tell! Why hadn't he already told? I object as much, if +not more, to his underhand concealment of this, than I do to the +fact itself. It looks very much like his making a fool of me, and +of you too. You and he have been about together, and +corresponding together, in a way I don't at all approve of--in a +most unseemly way. You should have known how improper such +conduct is. A woman can't be too careful not to be seen alone +with I-don't-know-whom.' + +'You saw us, papa, and have never said a word.' + +'My fault, of course; my fault. What the deuce could I be +thinking of! He, a villager's son; and we, Swancourts, connections +of the Luxellians. We have been coming to nothing for centuries, +and now I believe we have got there. What shall I next invite +here, I wonder!' + +Elfride began to cry at this very unpropitious aspect of affairs. +'O papa, papa, forgive me and him! We care so much for one +another, papa--O, so much! And what he was going to ask you is, if +you will allow of an engagement between us till he is a gentleman +as good as you. We are not in a hurry, dear papa; we don't want +in the least to marry now; not until he is richer. Only will you +let us be engaged, because I love him so, and he loves me?' + +Mr. Swancourt's feelings were a little touched by this appeal, and +he was annoyed that such should be the case. 'Certainly not!' he +replied. He pronounced the inhibition lengthily and sonorously, +so that the 'not' sounded like 'n-o-o-o-t!' + +'No, no, no; don't say it!' + +'Foh! A fine story. It is not enough that I have been deluded and +disgraced by having him here,--the son of one of my village +peasants,--but now I am to make him my son-in-law! Heavens above +us, are you mad, Elfride?' + +'You have seen his letters come to me ever since his first visit, +papa, and you knew they were a sort of--love-letters; and since he +has been here you have let him be alone with me almost entirely; +and you guessed, you must have guessed, what we were thinking of, +and doing, and you didn't stop him. Next to love-making comes +love-winning, and you knew it would come to that, papa.' + +The vicar parried this common-sense thrust. 'I know--since you +press me so--I know I did guess some childish attachment might +arise between you; I own I did not take much trouble to prevent +it; but I have not particularly countenanced it; and, Elfride, how +can you expect that I should now? It is impossible; no father in +England would hear of such a thing.' + +'But he is the same man, papa; the same in every particular; and +how can he be less fit for me than he was before?' + +'He appeared a young man with well-to-do friends, and a little +property; but having neither, he is another man.' + +'You inquired nothing about him?' + +'I went by Hewby's introduction. He should have told me. So +should the young man himself; of course he should. I consider it +a most dishonourable thing to come into a man's house like a +treacherous I-don't-know-what.' + +'But he was afraid to tell you, and so should I have been. He +loved me too well to like to run the risk. And as to speaking of +his friends on his first visit, I don't see why he should have +done so at all. He came here on business: it was no affair of +ours who his parents were. And then he knew that if he told you +he would never be asked here, and would perhaps never see me +again. And he wanted to see me. Who can blame him for trying, by +any means, to stay near me--the girl he loves? All is fair in +love. I have heard you say so yourself, papa; and you yourself +would have done just as he has--so would any man.' + +'And any man, on discovering what I have discovered, would also do +as I do, and mend my mistake; that is, get shot of him again, as +soon as the laws of hospitality will allow.' But Mr. Swancourt +then remembered that he was a Christian. 'I would not, for the +world, seem to turn him out of doors,' he added; 'but I think he +will have the tact to see that he cannot stay long after this, +with good taste.' + +'He will, because he's a gentleman. See how graceful his manners +are,' Elfride went on; though perhaps Stephen's manners, like the +feats of Euryalus, owed their attractiveness in her eyes rather to +the attractiveness of his person than to their own excellence. + +'Ay; anybody can be what you call graceful, if he lives a little +time in a city, and keeps his eyes open. And he might have picked +up his gentlemanliness by going to the galleries of theatres, and +watching stage drawing-room manners. He reminds me of one of the +worst stories I ever heard in my life.' + +'What story was that?' + +'Oh no, thank you! I wouldn't tell you such an improper matter for +the world!' + +'If his father and mother had lived in the north or east of +England,' gallantly persisted Elfride, though her sobs began to +interrupt her articulation, 'anywhere but here--you--would have-- +only regarded--HIM, and not THEM! His station--would have--been +what--his profession makes it,--and not fixed by--his father's +humble position--at all; whom he never lives with--now. Though +John Smith has saved lots of money, and is better off than we are, +they say, or he couldn't have put his son to such an expensive +profession. And it is clever and--honourable--of Stephen, to be +the best of his family.' + +'Yes. "Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at +the king's mess."' + +'You insult me, papa!' she burst out. 'You do, you do! He is my +own Stephen, he is!' + +'That may or may not be true, Elfride,' returned her father, again +uncomfortably agitated in spite of himself 'You confuse future +probabilities with present facts,--what the young man may be with +what he is. We must look at what he is, not what an improbable +degree of success in his profession may make him. The case is +this: the son of a working-man in my parish who may or may not be +able to buy me up--a youth who has not yet advanced so far into +life as to have any income of his own deserving the name, and +therefore of his father's degree as regards station--wants to be +engaged to you. His family are living in precisely the same spot +in England as yours, so throughout this county--which is the world +to us--you would always be known as the wife of Jack Smith the +mason's son, and not under any circumstances as the wife of a +London professional man. It is the drawback, not the compensating +fact, that is talked of always. There, say no more. You may +argue all night, and prove what you will; I'll stick to my words.' + +Elfride looked silently and hopelessly out of the window with +large heavy eyes and wet cheeks. + +'I call it great temerity--and long to call it audacity--in +Hewby,' resumed her father. 'I never heard such a thing--giving +such a hobbledehoy native of this place such an introduction to me +as he did. Naturally you were deceived as well as I was. I don't +blame you at all, so far.' He went and searched for Mr. Hewby's +original letter. 'Here's what he said to me: "Dear Sir,-- +Agreeably to your request of the 18th instant, I have arranged to +survey and make drawings," et cetera. "My assistant, Mr. Stephen +Smith"--assistant, you see he called him, and naturally I +understood him to mean a sort of partner. Why didn't he say +"clerk"?' + +'They never call them clerks in that profession, because they do +not write. Stephen--Mr. Smith--told me so. So that Mr. Hewby +simply used the accepted word.' + +'Let me speak, please, Elfride! "My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, +will leave London by the early train to-morrow morning...MANY +THANKS FOR YOUR PROPOSAL TO ACCOMMODATE HIM...YOU MAY PUT EVERY +CONFIDENCE IN HIM, and may rely upon his discernment in the matter +of church architecture." Well, I repeat that Hewby ought to be +ashamed of himself for making so much of a poor lad of that sort.' + +'Professional men in London,' Elfride argued, 'don't know anything +about their clerks' fathers and mothers. They have assistants who +come to their offices and shops for years, and hardly even know +where they live. What they can do--what profits they can bring +the firm--that's all London men care about. And that is helped in +him by his faculty of being uniformly pleasant.' + +'Uniform pleasantness is rather a defect than a faculty. It shows +that a man hasn't sense enough to know whom to despise.' + +'It shows that he acts by faith and not by sight, as those you +claim succession from directed.' + +'That's some more of what he's been telling you, I suppose! Yes, I +was inclined to suspect him, because he didn't care about sauces +of any kind. I always did doubt a man's being a gentleman if his +palate had no acquired tastes. An unedified palate is the +irrepressible cloven foot of the upstart. The idea of my bringing +out a bottle of my '40 Martinez--only eleven of them left now--to +a man who didn't know it from eighteenpenny! Then the Latin line +he gave to my quotation; it was very cut-and-dried, very; or I, +who haven't looked into a classical author for the last eighteen +years, shouldn't have remembered it. Well, Elfride, you had +better go to your room; you'll get over this bit of tomfoolery in +time.' + +'No, no, no, papa,' she moaned. For of all the miseries attaching +to miserable love, the worst is the misery of thinking that the +passion which is the cause of them all may cease. + +'Elfride,' said her father with rough friendliness, 'I have an +excellent scheme on hand, which I cannot tell you of now. A +scheme to benefit you and me. It has been thrust upon me for some +little time--yes, thrust upon me--but I didn't dream of its value +till this afternoon, when the revelation came. I should be most +unwise to refuse to entertain it.' + +'I don't like that word,' she returned wearily. 'You have lost so +much already by schemes. Is it those wretched mines again?' + +'No; not a mining scheme.' + +'Railways?' + +'Nor railways. It is like those mysterious offers we see +advertised, by which any gentleman with no brains at all may make +so much a week without risk, trouble, or soiling his fingers. +However, I am intending to say nothing till it is settled, though +I will just say this much, that you soon may have other fish to +fry than to think of Stephen Smith. Remember, I wish, not to be +angry, but friendly, to the young man; for your sake I'll regard +him as a friend in a certain sense. But this is enough; in a few +days you will be quite my way of thinking. There, now, go to your +bedroom. Unity shall bring you up some supper. I wish you not to +be here when he comes back.' + + + +Chapter X + +'Beneath the shelter of an aged tree.' + + +Stephen retraced his steps towards the cottage he had visited only +two or three hours previously. He drew near and under the rich +foliage growing about the outskirts of Endelstow Park, the spotty +lights and shades from the shining moon maintaining a race over +his head and down his back in an endless gambol. When he crossed +the plank bridge and entered the garden-gate, he saw an +illuminated figure coming from the enclosed plot towards the house +on the other side. It was his father, with his hand in a sling, +taking a general moonlight view of the garden, and particularly of +a plot of the youngest of young turnips, previous to closing the +cottage for the night. + +He saluted his son with customary force. 'Hallo, Stephen! We +should ha' been in bed in another ten minutes. Come to see what's +the matter wi' me, I suppose, my lad?' + +The doctor had come and gone, and the hand had been pronounced as +injured but slightly, though it might possibly have been +considered a far more serious case if Mr. Smith had been a more +important man. Stephen's anxious inquiry drew from his father +words of regret at the inconvenience to the world of his doing +nothing for the next two days, rather than of concern for the pain +of the accident. Together they entered the house. + +John Smith--brown as autumn as to skin, white as winter as to +clothes--was a satisfactory specimen of the village artificer in +stone. In common with most rural mechanics, he had too much +individuality to be a typical 'working-man'--a resultant of that +beach-pebble attrition with his kind only to be experienced in +large towns, which metamorphoses the unit Self into a fraction of +the unit Class. + +There was not the speciality in his labour which distinguishes the +handicraftsmen of towns. Though only a mason, strictly speaking, +he was not above handling a brick, if bricks were the order of the +day; or a slate or tile, if a roof had to be covered before the +wet weather set in, and nobody was near who could do it better. +Indeed, on one or two occasions in the depth of winter, when frost +peremptorily forbids all use of the trowel, making foundations to +settle, stones to fly, and mortar to crumble, he had taken to +felling and sawing trees. Moreover, he had practised gardening in +his own plot for so many years that, on an emergency, he might +have made a living by that calling. + +Probably our countryman was not such an accomplished artificer in +a particular direction as his town brethren in the trades. But he +was, in truth, like that clumsy pin-maker who made the whole pin, +and who was despised by Adam Smith on that account and respected +by Macaulay, much more the artist nevertheless. + +Appearing now, indoors, by the light of the candle, his stalwart +healthiness was a sight to see. His beard was close and knotted +as that of a chiselled Hercules; his shirt sleeves were partly +rolled up, his waistcoat unbuttoned; the difference in hue between +the snowy linen and the ruddy arms and face contrasting like the +white of an egg and its yolk. Mrs. Smith, on hearing them enter, +advanced from the pantry. + +Mrs. Smith was a matron whose countenance addressed itself to the +mind rather than to the eye, though not exclusively. She retained +her personal freshness even now, in the prosy afternoon-time of +her life; but what her features were primarily indicative of was a +sound common sense behind them; as a whole, appearing to carry +with them a sort of argumentative commentary on the world in +general. + +The details of the accident were then rehearsed by Stephen's +father, in the dramatic manner also common to Martin Cannister, +other individuals of the neighbourhood, and the rural world +generally. Mrs. Smith threw in her sentiments between the acts, +as Coryphaeus of the tragedy, to make the description complete. +The story at last came to an end, as the longest will, and Stephen +directed the conversation into another channel. + +'Well, mother, they know everything about me now,' he said +quietly. + +'Well done!' replied his father; 'now my mind's at peace.' + +'I blame myself--I never shall forgive myself--for not telling +them before,' continued the young man. + +Mrs. Smith at this point abstracted her mind from the former +subject. 'I don't see what you have to grieve about, Stephen,' +she said. 'People who accidentally get friends don't, as a first +stroke, tell the history of their families.' + +'Ye've done no wrong, certainly,' said his father. + +'No; but I should have spoken sooner. There's more in this visit +of mine than you think--a good deal more.' + +'Not more than I think,' Mrs. Smith replied, looking +contemplatively at him. Stephen blushed; and his father looked +from one to the other in a state of utter incomprehension. + +'She's a pretty piece enough,' Mrs. Smith continued, 'and very +lady-like and clever too. But though she's very well fit for you +as far as that is, why, mercy 'pon me, what ever do you want any +woman at all for yet?' + +John made his naturally short mouth a long one, and wrinkled his +forehead, 'That's the way the wind d'blow, is it?' he said. + +'Mother,' exclaimed Stephen, 'how absurdly you speak! Criticizing +whether she's fit for me or no, as if there were room for doubt on +the matter! Why, to marry her would be the great blessing of my +life--socially and practically, as well as in other respects. No +such good fortune as that, I'm afraid; she's too far above me. +Her family doesn't want such country lads as I in it.' + +'Then if they don't want you, I'd see them dead corpses before I'd +want them, and go to better families who do want you.' + +'Ah, yes; but I could never put up with the distaste of being +welcomed among such people as you mean, whilst I could get +indifference among such people as hers.' + +'What crazy twist o' thinking will enter your head next?' said his +mother. 'And come to that, she's not a bit too high for you, or +you too low for her. See how careful I be to keep myself up. I'm +sure I never stop for more than a minute together to talk to any +journeymen people; and I never invite anybody to our party o' +Christmases who are not in business for themselves. And I talk to +several toppermost carriage people that come to my lord's without +saying ma'am or sir to 'em, and they take it as quiet as lambs.' + +'You curtseyed to the vicar, mother; and I wish you hadn't.' + +'But it was before he called me by my Christian name, or he would +have got very little curtseying from me!' said Mrs. Smith, +bridling and sparkling with vexation. 'You go on at me, Stephen, +as if I were your worst enemy! What else could I do with the man +to get rid of him, banging it into me and your father by side and +by seam, about his greatness, and what happened when he was a +young fellow at college, and I don't know what-all; the tongue o' +en flopping round his mouth like a mop-rag round a dairy. That 'a +did, didn't he, John?' + +'That's about the size o't,' replied her husband. + +'Every woman now-a-days,' resumed Mrs. Smith, 'if she marry at +all, must expect a father-in-law of a rank lower than her father. +The men have gone up so, and the women have stood still. Every +man you meet is more the dand than his father; and you are just +level wi' her.' + +'That's what she thinks herself.' + +'It only shows her sense. I knew she was after 'ee, Stephen--I +knew it.' + +'After me! Good Lord, what next!' + +'And I really must say again that you ought not to be in such a +hurry, and wait for a few years. You might go higher than a +bankrupt pa'son's girl then.' + +'The fact is, mother,' said Stephen impatiently, 'you don't know +anything about it. I shall never go higher, because I don't want +to, nor should I if I lived to be a hundred. As to you saying +that she's after me, I don't like such a remark about her, for it +implies a scheming woman, and a man worth scheming for, both of +which are not only untrue, but ludicrously untrue, of this case. +Isn't it so, father?' + +'I'm afraid I don't understand the matter well enough to gie my +opinion,' said his father, in the tone of the fox who had a cold +and could not smell. + +'She couldn't have been very backward anyhow, considering the +short time you have known her,' said his mother. 'Well I think +that five years hence you'll be plenty young enough to think of +such things. And really she can very well afford to wait, and +will too, take my word. Living down in an out-step place like +this, I am sure she ought to be very thankful that you took notice +of her. She'd most likely have died an old maid if you hadn't +turned up.' + +'All nonsense,' said Stephen, but not aloud. + +'A nice little thing she is,' Mrs. Smith went on in a more +complacent tone now that Stephen had been talked down; 'there's +not a word to say against her, I'll own. I see her sometimes +decked out like a horse going to fair, and I admire her for't. A +perfect little lady. But people can't help their thoughts, and if +she'd learnt to make figures instead of letters when she was at +school 'twould have been better for her pocket; for as I said, +there never were worse times for such as she than now.' + +'Now, now, mother!' said Stephen with smiling deprecation. + +'But I will!' said his mother with asperity. 'I don't read the +papers for nothing, and I know men all move up a stage by +marriage. Men of her class, that is, parsons, marry squires' +daughters; squires marry lords' daughters; lords marry dukes' +daughters; dukes marry queens' daughters. All stages of gentlemen +mate a stage higher; and the lowest stage of gentlewomen are left +single, or marry out of their class.' + +'But you said just now, dear mother----' retorted Stephen, unable +to resist the temptation of showing his mother her inconsistency. +Then he paused. + +'Well, what did I say?' And Mrs. Smith prepared her lips for a new +campaign. + +Stephen, regretting that he had begun, since a volcano might be +the consequence, was obliged to go on. + +'You said I wasn't out of her class just before.' + +'Yes, there, there! That's you; that's my own flesh and blood. +I'll warrant that you'll pick holes in everything your mother +says, if you can, Stephen. You are just like your father for +that; take anybody's part but mine. Whilst I am speaking and +talking and trying and slaving away for your good, you are waiting +to catch me out in that way. So you are in her class, but 'tis +what HER people would CALL marrying out of her class. Don't be so +quarrelsome, Stephen!' + +Stephen preserved a discreet silence, in which he was imitated by +his father, and for several minutes nothing was heard but the +ticking of the green-faced case-clock against the wall. + +'I'm sure,' added Mrs. Smith in a more philosophic tone, and as a +terminative speech, 'if there'd been so much trouble to get a +husband in my time as there is in these days--when you must make a +god-almighty of a man to get en to hae ye--I'd have trod clay for +bricks before I'd ever have lowered my dignity to marry, or +there's no bread in nine loaves.' + +The discussion now dropped, and as it was getting late, Stephen +bade his parents farewell for the evening, his mother none the +less warmly for their sparring; for although Mrs. Smith and +Stephen were always contending, they were never at enmity. + +'And possibly,' said Stephen, 'I may leave here altogether to- +morrow; I don't know. So that if I shouldn't call again before +returning to London, don't be alarmed, will you?' + +'But didn't you come for a fortnight?' said his mother. 'And +haven't you a month's holiday altogether? They are going to turn +you out, then?' + +'Not at all. I may stay longer; I may go. If I go, you had +better say nothing about my having been here, for her sake. At +what time of the morning does the carrier pass Endelstow lane?' + +'Seven o'clock.' + +And then he left them. His thoughts were, that should the vicar +permit him to become engaged, to hope for an engagement, or in any +way to think of his beloved Elfride, he might stay longer. Should +he be forbidden to think of any such thing, he resolved to go at +once. And the latter, even to young hopefulness, seemed the more +probable alternative. + +Stephen walked back to the vicarage through the meadows, as he had +come, surrounded by the soft musical purl of the water through +little weirs, the modest light of the moon, the freshening smell +of the dews out-spread around. It was a time when mere seeing is +meditation, and meditation peace. Stephen was hardly philosopher +enough to avail himself of Nature's offer. His constitution was +made up of very simple particulars; was one which, rare in the +spring-time of civilizations, seems to grow abundant as a nation +gets older, individuality fades, and education spreads; that is, +his brain had extraordinary receptive powers, and no great +creativeness. Quickly acquiring any kind of knowledge he saw +around him, and having a plastic adaptability more common in woman +than in man, he changed colour like a chameleon as the society he +found himself in assumed a higher and more artificial tone. He +had not many original ideas, and yet there was scarcely an idea to +which, under proper training, he could not have added a +respectable co-ordinate. + +He saw nothing outside himself to-night; and what he saw within +was a weariness to his flesh. Yet to a dispassionate observer, +his pretensions to Elfride, though rather premature, were far from +absurd as marriages go, unless the accidental proximity of simple +but honest parents could be said to make them so. + +The clock struck eleven when he entered the house. Elfride had +been waiting with scarcely a movement since he departed. Before +he had spoken to her she caught sight of him passing into the +study with her father. She saw that he had by some means obtained +the private interview he desired. + +A nervous headache had been growing on the excitable girl during +the absence of Stephen, and now she could do nothing beyond going +up again to her room as she had done before. Instead of lying +down she sat again in the darkness without closing the door, and +listened with a beating heart to every sound from downstairs. The +servants had gone to bed. She ultimately heard the two men come +from the study and cross to the dining-room, where supper had been +lingering for more than an hour. The door was left open, and she +found that the meal, such as it was, passed off between her father +and her lover without any remark, save commonplaces as to +cucumbers and melons, their wholesomeness and culture, uttered in +a stiff and formal way. It seemed to prefigure failure. + +Shortly afterwards Stephen came upstairs to his bedroom, and was +almost immediately followed by her father, who also retired for +the night. Not inclined to get a light, she partly undressed and +sat on the bed, where she remained in pained thought for some +time, possibly an hour. Then rising to close her door previously +to fully unrobing, she saw a streak of light shining across the +landing. Her father's door was shut, and he could be heard +snoring regularly. The light came from Stephen's room, and the +slight sounds also coming thence emphatically denoted what he was +doing. In the perfect silence she could hear the closing of a lid +and the clicking of a lock,--he was fastening his hat-box. Then +the buckling of straps and the click of another key,--he was +securing his portmanteau. With trebled foreboding she opened her +door softly, and went towards his. One sensation pervaded her to +distraction. Stephen, her handsome youth and darling, was going +away, and she might never see him again except in secret and in +sadness--perhaps never more. At any rate, she could no longer +wait till the morning to hear the result of the interview, as she +had intended. She flung her dressing-gown round her, tapped +lightly at his door, and whispered 'Stephen!' He came instantly, +opened the door, and stepped out. + +'Tell me; are we to hope?' + +He replied in a disturbed whisper, and a tear approached its +outlet, though none fell. + +'I am not to think of such a preposterous thing--that's what he +said. And I am going to-morrow. I should have called you up to +bid you good-bye.' + +'But he didn't say you were to go--O Stephen, he didn't say that?' + +'No; not in words. But I cannot stay.' + +'Oh, don't, don't go! Do come and let us talk. Let us come down +to the drawing-room for a few minutes; he will hear us here.' + +She preceded him down the staircase with the taper light in her +hand, looking unnaturally tall and thin in the long dove-coloured +dressing-gown she wore. She did not stop to think of the +propriety or otherwise of this midnight interview under such +circumstances. She thought that the tragedy of her life was +beginning, and, for the first time almost, felt that her existence +might have a grave side, the shade of which enveloped and rendered +invisible the delicate gradations of custom and punctilio. +Elfride softly opened the drawing-room door and they both went in. +When she had placed the candle on the table, he enclosed her with +his arms, dried her eyes with his handkerchief, and kissed their +lids. + +'Stephen, it is over--happy love is over; and there is no more +sunshine now!' + +'I will make a fortune, and come to you, and have you. Yes, I +will!' + +'Papa will never hear of it--never--never! You don't know him. I +do. He is either biassed in favour of a thing, or prejudiced +against it. Argument is powerless against either feeling.' + +'No; I won't think of him so,' said Stephen. 'If I appear before +him some time hence as a man of established name, he will accept +me--I know he will. He is not a wicked man.' + +'No, he is not wicked. But you say "some time hence," as if it +were no time. To you, among bustle and excitement, it will be +comparatively a short time, perhaps; oh, to me, it will be its +real length trebled! Every summer will be a year--autumn a year-- +winter a year! O Stephen! and you may forget me!' + +Forget: that was, and is, the real sting of waiting to fond- +hearted woman. The remark awoke in Stephen the converse fear. +'You, too, may be persuaded to give me up, when time has made me +fainter in your memory. For, remember, your love for me must be +nourished in secret; there will be no long visits from me to +support you. Circumstances will always tend to obliterate me.' + +'Stephen,' she said, filled with her own misgivings, and unheeding +his last words, 'there are beautiful women where you live--of +course I know there are--and they may win you away from me.' Her +tears came visibly as she drew a mental picture of his +faithlessness. 'And it won't be your fault,' she continued, +looking into the candle with doleful eyes. 'No! You will think +that our family don't want you, and get to include me with them. +And there will be a vacancy in your heart, and some others will be +let in.' + +'I could not, I would not. Elfie, do not be so full of +forebodings.' + +'Oh yes, they will,' she replied. 'And you will look at them, not +caring at first, and then you will look and be interested, and +after a while you will think, "Ah, they know all about city life, +and assemblies, and coteries, and the manners of the titled, and +poor little Elfie, with all the fuss that's made about her having +me, doesn't know about anything but a little house and a few +cliffs and a space of sea, far away." And then you'll be more +interested in them, and they'll make you have them instead of me, +on purpose to be cruel to me because I am silly, and they are +clever and hate me. And I hate them, too; yes, I do!' + +Her impulsive words had power to impress him at any rate with the +recognition of the uncertainty of all that is not accomplished. +And, worse than that general feeling, there of course remained the +sadness which arose from the special features of his own case. +However remote a desired issue may be, the mere fact of having +entered the groove which leads to it, cheers to some extent with a +sense of accomplishment. Had Mr. Swancourt consented to an +engagement of no less length than ten years, Stephen would have +been comparatively cheerful in waiting; they would have felt that +they were somewhere on the road to Cupid's garden. But, with a +possibility of a shorter probation, they had not as yet any +prospect of the beginning; the zero of hope had yet to be reached. +Mr. Swancourt would have to revoke his formidable words before the +waiting for marriage could even set in. And this was despair. + +'I wish we could marry now,' murmured Stephen, as an impossible +fancy. + +'So do I,' said she also, as if regarding an idle dream. ''Tis +the only thing that ever does sweethearts good!' + +'Secretly would do, would it not, Elfie?' + +'Yes, secretly would do; secretly would indeed be best,' she said, +and went on reflectively: 'All we want is to render it absolutely +impossible for any future circumstance to upset our future +intention of being happy together; not to begin being happy now.' + +'Exactly,' he murmured in a voice and manner the counterpart of +hers. 'To marry and part secretly, and live on as we are living +now; merely to put it out of anybody's power to force you away +from me, dearest.' + +'Or you away from me, Stephen.' + +'Or me from you. It is possible to conceive a force of +circumstance strong enough to make any woman in the world marry +against her will: no conceivable pressure, up to torture or +starvation, can make a woman once married to her lover anybody +else's wife.' + +Now up to this point the idea of an immediate secret marriage had +been held by both as an untenable hypothesis, wherewith simply to +beguile a miserable moment. During a pause which followed +Stephen's last remark, a fascinating perception, then an alluring +conviction, flashed along the brain of both. The perception was +that an immediate marriage COULD be contrived; the conviction that +such an act, in spite of its daring, its fathomless results, its +deceptiveness, would be preferred by each to the life they must +lead under any other conditions. + +The youth spoke first, and his voice trembled with the magnitude +of the conception he was cherishing. 'How strong we should feel, +Elfride! going on our separate courses as before, without the fear +of ultimate separation! O Elfride! think of it; think of it!' + +It is certain that the young girl's love for Stephen received a +fanning from her father's opposition which made it blaze with a +dozen times the intensity it would have exhibited if left alone. +Never were conditions more favourable for developing a girl's +first passing fancy for a handsome boyish face--a fancy rooted in +inexperience and nourished by seclusion--into a wild unreflecting +passion fervid enough for anything. All the elements of such a +development were there, the chief one being hopelessness--a +necessary ingredient always to perfect the mixture of feelings +united under the name of loving to distraction. + +'We would tell papa soon, would we not?' she inquired timidly. +'Nobody else need know. He would then be convinced that hearts +cannot be played with; love encouraged be ready to grow, love +discouraged be ready to die, at a moment's notice. Stephen, do +you not think that if marriages against a parent's consent are +ever justifiable, they are when young people have been favoured up +to a point, as we have, and then have had that favour suddenly +withdrawn?' + +'Yes. It is not as if we had from the beginning acted in +opposition to your papa's wishes. Only think, Elfie, how pleasant +he was towards me but six hours ago! He liked me, praised me, +never objected to my being alone with you.' + +'I believe he MUST like you now,' she cried. 'And if he found +that you irremediably belonged to me, he would own it and help +you. 'O Stephen, Stephen,' she burst out again, as the +remembrance of his packing came afresh to her mind, 'I cannot bear +your going away like this! It is too dreadful. All I have been +expecting miserably killed within me like this!' + +Stephen flushed hot with impulse. 'I will not be a doubt to you-- +thought of you shall not be a misery to me!' he said. 'We will be +wife and husband before we part for long!' + +She hid her face on his shoulder. 'Anything to make SURE!' she +whispered. + +'I did not like to propose it immediately,' continued Stephen. +'It seemed to me--it seems to me now--like trying to catch you--a +girl better in the world than I.' + +'Not that, indeed! And am I better in worldly station? What's the +use of have beens? We may have been something once; we are nothing +now.' + +Then they whispered long and earnestly together; Stephen +hesitatingly proposing this and that plan, Elfride modifying them, +with quick breathings, and hectic flush, and unnaturally bright +eyes. It was two o'clock before an arrangement was finally +concluded. + +She then told him to leave her, giving him his light to go up to +his own room. They parted with an agreement not to meet again in +the morning. After his door had been some time closed he heard +her softly gliding into her chamber. + + + +Chapter XI + +'Journeys end in lovers meeting.' + + +Stephen lay watching the Great Bear; Elfride was regarding a +monotonous parallelogram of window blind. Neither slept that +night. + +Early the next morning--that is to say, four hours after their +stolen interview, and just as the earliest servant was heard +moving about--Stephen Smith went downstairs, portmanteau in hand. +Throughout the night he had intended to see Mr. Swancourt again, +but the sharp rebuff of the previous evening rendered such an +interview particularly distasteful. Perhaps there was another and +less honest reason. He decided to put it off. Whatever of moral +timidity or obliquity may have lain in such a decision, no +perception of it was strong enough to detain him. He wrote a note +in his room, which stated simply that he did not feel happy in the +house after Mr. Swancourt's sudden veto on what he had favoured a +few hours before; but that he hoped a time would come, and that +soon, when his original feelings of pleasure as Mr. Swancourt's +guest might be recovered. + +He expected to find the downstairs rooms wearing the gray and +cheerless aspect that early morning gives to everything out of the +sun. He found in the dining room a breakfast laid, of which +somebody had just partaken. + +Stephen gave the maid-servant his note of adieu. She stated that +Mr. Swancourt had risen early that morning, and made an early +breakfast. He was not going away that she knew of. + +Stephen took a cup of coffee, left the house of his love, and +turned into the lane. It was so early that the shaded places +still smelt like night time, and the sunny spots had hardly felt +the sun. The horizontal rays made every shallow dip in the ground +to show as a well-marked hollow. Even the channel of the path was +enough to throw shade, and the very stones of the road cast +tapering dashes of darkness westward, as long as Jael's tent-nail. + +At a spot not more than a hundred yards from the vicar's residence +the lane leading thence crossed the high road. Stephen reached +the point of intersection, stood still and listened. Nothing +could be heard save the lengthy, murmuring line of the sea upon +the adjacent shore. He looked at his watch, and then mounted a +gate upon which he seated himself, to await the arrival of the +carrier. Whilst he sat he heard wheels coming in two directions. + +The vehicle approaching on his right he soon recognized as the +carrier's. There were the accompanying sounds of the owner's +voice and the smack of his whip, distinct in the still morning +air, by which he encouraged his horses up the hill. + +The other set of wheels sounded from the lane Stephen had just +traversed. On closer observation, he perceived that they were +moving from the precincts of the ancient manor-house adjoining the +vicarage grounds. A carriage then left the entrance gates of the +house, and wheeling round came fully in sight. It was a plain +travelling carriage, with a small quantity of luggage, apparently +a lady's. The vehicle came to the junction of the four ways half- +a-minute before the carrier reached the same spot, and crossed +directly in his front, proceeding by the lane on the other side. + +Inside the carriage Stephen could just discern an elderly lady +with a younger woman, who seemed to be her maid. The road they +had taken led to Stratleigh, a small watering-place sixteen miles +north. + +He heard the manor-house gates swing again, and looking up saw +another person leaving them, and walking off in the direction of +the parsonage. 'Ah, how much I wish I were moving that way!' felt +he parenthetically. The gentleman was tall, and resembled Mr. +Swancourt in outline and attire. He opened the vicarage gate and +went in. Mr. Swancourt, then, it certainly was. Instead of +remaining in bed that morning Mr. Swancourt must have taken it +into his head to see his new neighbour off on a journey. He must +have been greatly interested in that neighbour to do such an +unusual thing. + +The carrier's conveyance had pulled up, and Stephen now handed in +his portmanteau and mounted the shafts. 'Who is that lady in the +carriage?' he inquired indifferently of Lickpan the carrier. + +'That, sir, is Mrs. Troyton, a widder wi' a mint o' money. She's +the owner of all that part of Endelstow that is not Lord +Luxellian's. Only been here a short time; she came into it by +law. The owner formerly was a terrible mysterious party--never +lived here--hardly ever was seen here except in the month of +September, as I might say.' + +The horses were started again, and noise rendered further +discourse a matter of too great exertion. Stephen crept inside +under the tilt, and was soon lost in reverie. + +Three hours and a half of straining up hills and jogging down +brought them to St. Launce's, the market town and railway station +nearest to Endelstow, and the place from which Stephen Smith had +journeyed over the downs on the, to him, memorable winter evening +at the beginning of the same year. The carrier's van was so timed +as to meet a starting up-train, which Stephen entered. Two or +three hours' railway travel through vertical cuttings in +metamorphic rock, through oak copses rich and green, stretching +over slopes and down delightful valleys, glens, and ravines, +sparkling with water like many-rilled Ida, and he plunged amid the +hundred and fifty thousand people composing the town of Plymouth. + +There being some time upon his hands he left his luggage at the +cloak-room, and went on foot along Bedford Street to the nearest +church. Here Stephen wandered among the multifarious tombstones +and looked in at the chancel window, dreaming of something that +was likely to happen by the altar there in the course of the +coming month. He turned away and ascended the Hoe, viewed the +magnificent stretch of sea and massive promontories of land, but +without particularly discerning one feature of the varied +perspective. He still saw that inner prospect--the event he hoped +for in yonder church. The wide Sound, the Breakwater, the light- +house on far-off Eddystone, the dark steam vessels, brigs, +barques, and schooners, either floating stilly, or gliding with +tiniest motion, were as the dream, then; the dreamed-of event was +as the reality. + +Soon Stephen went down from the Hoe, and returned to the railway +station. He took his ticket, and entered the London train. + + +That day was an irksome time at Endelstow vicarage. Neither +father nor daughter alluded to the departure of Stephen. Mr. +Swancourt's manner towards her partook of the compunctious +kindness that arises from a misgiving as to the justice of some +previous act. + +Either from lack of the capacity to grasp the whole coup d'oeil, +or from a natural endowment for certain kinds of stoicism, women +are cooler than men in critical situations of the passive form. +Probably, in Elfride's case at least, it was blindness to the +greater contingencies of the future she was preparing for herself, +which enabled her to ask her father in a quiet voice if he could +give her a holiday soon, to ride to St. Launce's and go on to +Plymouth. + +Now, she had only once before gone alone to Plymouth, and that was +in consequence of some unavoidable difficulty. Being a country +girl, and a good, not to say a wild, horsewoman, it had been her +delight to canter, without the ghost of an attendant, over the +fourteen or sixteen miles of hard road intervening between their +home and the station at St. Launce's, put up the horse, and go on +the remainder of the distance by train, returning in the same +manner in the evening. It was then resolved that, though she had +successfully accomplished this journey once, it was not to be +repeated without some attendance. + +But Elfride must not be confounded with ordinary young feminine +equestrians. The circumstances of her lonely and narrow life made +it imperative that in trotting about the neighbourhood she must +trot alone or else not at all. Usage soon rendered this perfectly +natural to herself. Her father, who had had other experiences, +did not much like the idea of a Swancourt, whose pedigree could be +as distinctly traced as a thread in a skein of silk, scampering +over the hills like a farmer's daughter, even though he could +habitually neglect her. But what with his not being able to +afford her a regular attendant, and his inveterate habit of +letting anything be to save himself trouble, the circumstance grew +customary. And so there arose a chronic notion in the villagers' +minds that all ladies rode without an attendant, like Miss +Swancourt, except a few who were sometimes visiting at Lord +Luxellian's. + +'I don't like your going to Plymouth alone, particularly going to +St. Launce's on horseback. Why not drive, and take the man?' + +'It is not nice to be so overlooked.' Worm's company would not +seriously have interfered with her plans, but it was her humour to +go without him. + +'When do you want to go?' said her father. + +She only answered, 'Soon.' + +'I will consider,' he said. + +Only a few days elapsed before she asked again. A letter had +reached her from Stephen. It had been timed to come on that day +by special arrangement between them. In it he named the earliest +morning on which he could meet her at Plymouth. Her father had +been on a journey to Stratleigh, and returned in unusual buoyancy +of spirit. It was a good opportunity; and since the dismissal of +Stephen her father had been generally in a mood to make small +concessions, that he might steer clear of large ones connected +with that outcast lover of hers. + +'Next Thursday week I am going from home in a different +direction,' said her father. 'In fact, I shall leave home the +night before. You might choose the same day, for they wish to +take up the carpets, or some such thing, I think. As I said, I +don't like you to be seen in a town on horseback alone; but go if +you will.' + +Thursday week. Her father had named the very day that Stephen +also had named that morning as the earliest on which it would be +of any use to meet her; that was, about fifteen days from the day +on which he had left Endelstow. Fifteen days--that fragment of +duration which has acquired such an interesting individuality from +its connection with the English marriage law. + +She involuntarily looked at her father so strangely, that on +becoming conscious of the look she paled with embarrassment. Her +father, too, looked confused. What was he thinking of? + +There seemed to be a special facility offered her by a power +external to herself in the circumstance that Mr. Swancourt had +proposed to leave home the night previous to her wished-for day. +Her father seldom took long journeys; seldom slept from home +except perhaps on the night following a remote Visitation. Well, +she would not inquire too curiously into the reason of the +opportunity, nor did he, as would have been natural, proceed to +explain it of his own accord. In matters of fact there had +hitherto been no reserve between them, though they were not +usually confidential in its full sense. But the divergence of +their emotions on Stephen's account had produced an estrangement +which just at present went even to the extent of reticence on the +most ordinary household topics. + +Elfride was almost unconsciously relieved, persuading herself that +her father's reserve on his business justified her in secrecy as +regarded her own--a secrecy which was necessarily a foregone +decision with her. So anxious is a young conscience to discover a +palliative, that the ex post facto nature of a reason is of no +account in excluding it. + +The intervening fortnight was spent by her mostly in walking by +herself among the shrubs and trees, indulging sometimes in +sanguine anticipations; more, far more frequently, in misgivings. +All her flowers seemed dull of hue; her pets seemed to look +wistfully into her eyes, as if they no longer stood in the same +friendly relation to her as formerly. She wore melancholy +jewellery, gazed at sunsets, and talked to old men and women. It +was the first time that she had had an inner and private world +apart from the visible one about her. She wished that her father, +instead of neglecting her even more than usual, would make some +advance--just one word; she would then tell all, and risk +Stephen's displeasure. Thus brought round to the youth again, she +saw him in her fancy, standing, touching her, his eyes full of sad +affection, hopelessly renouncing his attempt because she had +renounced hers; and she could not recede. + +On the Wednesday she was to receive another letter. She had +resolved to let her father see the arrival of this one, be the +consequences what they might: the dread of losing her lover by +this deed of honesty prevented her acting upon the resolve. Five +minutes before the postman's expected arrival she slipped out, and +down the lane to meet him. She met him immediately upon turning a +sharp angle, which hid her from view in the direction of the +vicarage. The man smilingly handed one missive, and was going on +to hand another, a circular from some tradesman. + +'No,' she said; 'take that on to the house.' + +'Why, miss, you are doing what your father has done for the last +fortnight.' + +She did not comprehend. + +'Why, come to this corner, and take a letter of me every morning, +all writ in the same handwriting, and letting any others for him +go on to the house.' And on the postman went. + +No sooner had he turned the corner behind her back than she heard +her father meet and address the man. She had saved her letter by +two minutes. Her father audibly went through precisely the same +performance as she had just been guilty of herself. + +This stealthy conduct of his was, to say the least, peculiar. + + +Given an impulsive inconsequent girl, neglected as to her inner +life by her only parent, and the following forces alive within +her; to determine a resultant: + +First love acted upon by a deadly fear of separation from its +object: inexperience, guiding onward a frantic wish to prevent the +above-named issue: misgivings as to propriety, met by hope of +ultimate exoneration: indignation at parental inconsistency in +first encouraging, then forbidding: a chilling sense of +disobedience, overpowered by a conscientious inability to brook a +breaking of plighted faith with a man who, in essentials, had +remained unaltered from the beginning: a blessed hope that +opposition would turn an erroneous judgement: a bright faith that +things would mend thereby, and wind up well. + +Probably the result would, after all, have been nil, had not the +following few remarks been made one day at breakfast. + +Her father was in his old hearty spirits. He smiled to himself at +stories too bad to tell, and called Elfride a little scamp for +surreptitiously preserving some blind kittens that ought to have +been drowned. After this expression, she said to him suddenly: + +If Mr. Smith had been already in the family, you would not have +been made wretched by discovering he had poor relations?' + +'Do you mean in the family by marriage?' he replied inattentively, +and continuing to peel his egg. + +The accumulating scarlet told that was her meaning, as much as the +affirmative reply. + +'I should have put up with it, no doubt,' Mr. Swancourt observed. + +'So that you would not have been driven into hopeless melancholy, +but have made the best of him?' + +Elfride's erratic mind had from her youth upwards been constantly +in the habit of perplexing her father by hypothetical questions, +based on absurd conditions. The present seemed to be cast so +precisely in the mould of previous ones that, not being given to +syntheses of circumstances, he answered it with customary +complacency. + +'If he were allied to us irretrievably, of course I, or any +sensible man, should accept conditions that could not be altered; +certainly not be hopelessly melancholy about it. I don't believe +anything in the world would make me hopelessly melancholy. And +don't let anything make you so, either.' + +'I won't, papa,' she cried, with a serene brightness that pleased +him. + +Certainly Mr. Swancourt must have been far from thinking that the +brightness came from an exhilarating intention to hold back no +longer from the mad action she had planned. + +In the evening he drove away towards Stratleigh, quite alone. It +was an unusual course for him. At the door Elfride had been again +almost impelled by her feelings to pour out all. + +'Why are you going to Stratleigh, papa?' she said, and looked at +him longingly. + +'I will tell you to-morrow when I come back,' he said cheerily; +'not before then, Elfride. Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not +know, and so far will I trust thee, gentle Elfride.' + +She was repressed and hurt. + +'I will tell you my errand to Plymouth, too, when I come back,' +she murmured. + +He went away. His jocularity made her intention seem the lighter, +as his indifference made her more resolved to do as she liked. + +It was a familiar September sunset, dark-blue fragments of cloud +upon an orange-yellow sky. These sunsets used to tempt her to +walk towards them, as any beautiful thing tempts a near approach. +She went through the field to the privet hedge, clambered into the +middle of it, and reclined upon the thick boughs. After looking +westward for a considerable time, she blamed herself for not +looking eastward to where Stephen was, and turned round. +Ultimately her eyes fell upon the ground. + +A peculiarity was observable beneath her. A green field spread +itself on each side of the hedge, one belonging to the glebe, the +other being a part of the land attached to the manor-house +adjoining. On the vicarage side she saw a little footpath, the +distinctive and altogether exceptional feature of which consisted +in its being only about ten yards long; it terminated abruptly at +each end. + +A footpath, suddenly beginning and suddenly ending, coming from +nowhere and leading nowhere, she had never seen before. + +Yes, she had, on second thoughts. She had seen exactly such a +path trodden in the front of barracks by the sentry. + +And this recollection explained the origin of the path here. Her +father had trodden it by pacing up and down, as she had once seen +him doing. + +Sitting on the hedge as she sat now, her eyes commanded a view of +both sides of it. And a few minutes later, Elfride looked over to +the manor side. + +Here was another sentry path. It was like the first in length, +and it began and ended exactly opposite the beginning and ending +of its neighbour, but it was thinner, and less distinct. + +Two reasons existed for the difference. This one might have been +trodden by a similar weight of tread to the other, exercised a +less number of times; or it might have been walked just as +frequently, but by lighter feet. + +Probably a gentleman from Scotland-yard, had he been passing at +the time, might have considered the latter alternative as the more +probable. Elfride thought otherwise, so far as she thought at +all. But her own great To-Morrow was now imminent; all thoughts +inspired by casual sights of the eye were only allowed to exercise +themselves in inferior corners of her brain, previously to being +banished altogether. + +Elfride was at length compelled to reason practically upon her +undertaking. All her definite perceptions thereon, when the +emotion accompanying them was abstracted, amounted to no more than +these: + +'Say an hour and three-quarters to ride to St. Launce's. + +'Say half an hour at the Falcon to change my dress. + +'Say two hours waiting for some train and getting to Plymouth. + +'Say an hour to spare before twelve o'clock. + +'Total time from leaving Endelstow till twelve o'clock, five +hours. + +'Therefore I shall have to start at seven.' + + +No surprise or sense of unwontedness entered the minds of the +servants at her early ride. The monotony of life we associate +with people of small incomes in districts out of the sound of the +railway whistle, has one exception, which puts into shade the +experience of dwellers about the great centres of population--that +is, in travelling. Every journey there is more or less an +adventure; adventurous hours are necessarily chosen for the most +commonplace outing. Miss Elfride had to leave early--that was +all. + +Elfride never went out on horseback but she brought home +something--something found, or something bought. If she trotted +to town or village, her burden was books. If to hills, woods, or +the seashore, it was wonderful mosses, abnormal twigs, a +handkerchief of wet shells or seaweed. + +Once, in muddy weather, when Pansy was walking with her down the +street of Castle Boterel, on a fair-day, a packet in front of her +and a packet under her arm, an accident befell the packets, and +they slipped down. On one side of her, three volumes of fiction +lay kissing the mud; on the other numerous skeins of polychromatic +wools lay absorbing it. Unpleasant women smiled through windows +at the mishap, the men all looked round, and a boy, who was +minding a ginger-bread stall whilst the owner had gone to get +drunk, laughed loudly. The blue eyes turned to sapphires, and the +cheeks crimsoned with vexation. + +After that misadventure she set her wits to work, and was +ingenious enough to invent an arrangement of small straps about +the saddle, by which a great deal could be safely carried thereon, +in a small compass. Here she now spread out and fastened a plain +dark walking-dress and a few other trifles of apparel. Worm +opened the gate for her, and she vanished away. + +One of the brightest mornings of late summer shone upon her. The +heather was at its purplest, the furze at its yellowest, the +grasshoppers chirped loud enough for birds, the snakes hissed like +little engines, and Elfride at first felt lively. Sitting at ease +upon Pansy, in her orthodox riding-habit and nondescript hat, she +looked what she felt. But the mercury of those days had a trick +of falling unexpectedly. First, only for one minute in ten had +she a sense of depression. Then a large cloud, that had been +hanging in the north like a black fleece, came and placed itself +between her and the sun. It helped on what was already +inevitable, and she sank into a uniformity of sadness. + +She turned in the saddle and looked back. They were now on an +open table-land, whose altitude still gave her a view of the sea +by Endelstow. She looked longingly at that spot. + +During this little revulsion of feeling Pansy had been still +advancing, and Elfride felt it would be absurd to turn her little +mare's head the other way. 'Still,' she thought, 'if I had a +mamma at home I WOULD go back!' + +And making one of those stealthy movements by which women let +their hearts juggle with their brains, she did put the horse's +head about, as if unconsciously, and went at a hand-gallop towards +home for more than a mile. By this time, from the inveterate +habit of valuing what we have renounced directly the alternative +is chosen, the thought of her forsaken Stephen recalled her, and +she turned about, and cantered on to St. Launce's again. + +This miserable strife of thought now began to rage in all its +wildness. Overwrought and trembling, she dropped the rein upon +Pansy's shoulders, and vowed she would be led whither the horse +would take her. + +Pansy slackened her pace to a walk, and walked on with her +agitated burden for three or four minutes. At the expiration of +this time they had come to a little by-way on the right, leading +down a slope to a pool of water. The pony stopped, looked towards +the pool, and then advanced and stooped to drink. + +Elfride looked at her watch and discovered that if she were going +to reach St. Launce's early enough to change her dress at the +Falcon, and get a chance of some early train to Plymouth--there +were only two available--it was necessary to proceed at once. + +She was impatient. It seemed as if Pansy would never stop +drinking; and the repose of the pool, the idle motions of the +insects and flies upon it, the placid waving of the flags, the +leaf-skeletons, like Genoese filigree, placidly sleeping at the +bottom, by their contrast with her own turmoil made her impatience +greater. + +Pansy did turn at last, and went up the slope again to the high- +road. The pony came upon it, and stood cross-wise, looking up and +down. Elfride's heart throbbed erratically, and she thought, +'Horses, if left to themselves, make for where they are best fed. +Pansy will go home.' + +Pansy turned and walked on towards St. Launce's + +Pansy at home, during summer, had little but grass to live on. +After a run to St. Launce's she always had a feed of corn to +support her on the return journey. Therefore, being now more than +half way, she preferred St. Launce's. + +But Elfride did not remember this now. All she cared to recognize +was a dreamy fancy that to-day's rash action was not her own. She +was disabled by her moods, and it seemed indispensable to adhere +to the programme. So strangely involved are motives that, more +than by her promise to Stephen, more even than by her love, she +was forced on by a sense of the necessity of keeping faith with +herself, as promised in the inane vow of ten minutes ago. + +She hesitated no longer. Pansy went, like the steed of Adonis, as +if she told the steps. Presently the quaint gables and jumbled +roofs of St. Launce's were spread beneath her, and going down the +hill she entered the courtyard of the Falcon. Mrs. Buckle, the +landlady, came to the door to meet her. + +The Swancourts were well known here. The transition from +equestrian to the ordinary guise of railway travellers had been +more than once performed by father and daughter in this +establishment. + +In less than a quarter of an hour Elfride emerged from the door in +her walking dress, and went to the railway. She had not told Mrs. +Buckle anything as to her intentions, and was supposed to have +gone out shopping. + +An hour and forty minutes later, and she was in Stephen's arms at +the Plymouth station. Not upon the platform--in the secret +retreat of a deserted waiting-room. + +Stephen's face boded ill. He was pale and despondent. + +What is the matter?' she asked. + +'We cannot be married here to-day, my Elfie! I ought to have known +it and stayed here. In my ignorance I did not. I have the +licence, but it can only be used in my parish in London. I only +came down last night, as you know.' + +'What shall we do?' she said blankly. + +'There's only one thing we can do, darling.' + +'What's that?' + +'Go on to London by a train just starting, and be married there +to-morrow.' + +'Passengers for the 11.5 up-train take their seats!' said a +guard's voice on the platform. + +'Will you go, Elfride?' + +'I will.' + +In three minutes the train had moved off, bearing away with it +Stephen and Elfride. + + + +Chapter XII + +'Adieu! she cries, and waved her lily hand.' + + +The few tattered clouds of the morning enlarged and united, the +sun withdrew behind them to emerge no more that day, and the +evening drew to a close in drifts of rain. The water-drops beat +like duck shot against the window of the railway-carriage +containing Stephen and Elfride. + +The journey from Plymouth to Paddington, by even the most headlong +express, allows quite enough leisure for passion of any sort to +cool. Elfride's excitement had passed off, and she sat in a kind +of stupor during the latter half of the journey. She was aroused +by the clanging of the maze of rails over which they traced their +way at the entrance to the station. + +Is this London?' she said. + +'Yes, darling,' said Stephen in a tone of assurance he was far +from feeling. To him, no less than to her, the reality so greatly +differed from the prefiguring. + +She peered out as well as the window, beaded with drops, would +allow her, and saw only the lamps, which had just been lit, +blinking in the wet atmosphere, and rows of hideous zinc chimney- +pipes in dim relief against the sky. She writhed uneasily, as +when a thought is swelling in the mind which must cause much pain +at its deliverance in words. Elfride had known no more about the +stings of evil report than the native wild-fowl knew of the +effects of Crusoe's first shot. Now she saw a little further, and +a little further still. + +The train stopped. Stephen relinquished the soft hand he had held +all the day, and proceeded to assist her on to the platform. + +This act of alighting upon strange ground seemed all that was +wanted to complete a resolution within her. + +She looked at her betrothed with despairing eyes. + +'O Stephen,' she exclaimed, 'I am so miserable! I must go home +again--I must--I must! Forgive my wretched vacillation. I don't +like it here--nor myself--nor you!' + +Stephen looked bewildered, and did not speak. + +'Will you allow me to go home?' she implored. 'I won't trouble +you to go with me. I will not be any weight upon you; only say +you will agree to my returning; that you will not hate me for it, +Stephen! It is better that I should return again; indeed it is, +Stephen.' + +'But we can't return now,' he said in a deprecatory tone. + +'I must! I will!' + +'How? When do you want to go?' + +'Now. Can we go at once?' + +The lad looked hopelessly along the platform. + +'If you must go, and think it wrong to remain, dearest,' said he +sadly, 'you shall. You shall do whatever you like, my Elfride. +But would you in reality rather go now than stay till to-morrow, +and go as my wife?' + +'Yes, yes--much--anything to go now. I must; I must!' she cried. + +'We ought to have done one of two things,' he answered gloomily. +'Never to have started, or not to have returned without being +married. I don't like to say it, Elfride--indeed I don't; but you +must be told this, that going back unmarried may compromise your +good name in the eyes of people who may hear of it.' + +'They will not; and I must go.' + +'O Elfride! I am to blame for bringing you away.' + +'Not at all. I am the elder.' + +'By a month; and what's that? But never mind that now.' He looked +around. 'Is there a train for Plymouth to-night?' he inquired of +a guard. The guard passed on and did not speak. + +'Is there a train for Plymouth to-night?' said Elfride to another. + +'Yes, miss; the 8.10--leaves in ten minutes. You have come to the +wrong platform; it is the other side. Change at Bristol into the +night mail. Down that staircase, and under the line.' + +They ran down the staircase--Elfride first--to the booking-office, +and into a carriage with an official standing beside the door. +'Show your tickets, please.' They are locked in--men about the +platform accelerate their velocities till they fly up and down +like shuttles in a loom--a whistle--the waving of a flag--a human +cry--a steam groan--and away they go to Plymouth again, just +catching these words as they glide off: + +'Those two youngsters had a near run for it, and no mistake!' + +Elfride found her breath. + +'And have you come too, Stephen? Why did you?' + +'I shall not leave you till I see you safe at St. Launce's. Do +not think worse of me than I am, Elfride.' + +And then they rattled along through the night, back again by the +way they had come. The weather cleared, and the stars shone in +upon them. Their two or three fellow-passengers sat for most of +the time with closed eyes. Stephen sometimes slept; Elfride alone +was wakeful and palpitating hour after hour. + +The day began to break, and revealed that they were by the sea. +Red rocks overhung them, and, receding into distance, grew livid +in the blue grey atmosphere. The sun rose, and sent penetrating +shafts of light in upon their weary faces. Another hour, and the +world began to be busy. They waited yet a little, and the train +slackened its speed in view of the platform at St. Launce's. + +She shivered, and mused sadly. + +'I did not see all the consequences,' she said. 'Appearances are +wofully against me. If anybody finds me out, I am, I suppose, +disgraced.' + +'Then appearances will speak falsely; and how can that matter, +even if they do? I shall be your husband sooner or later, for +certain, and so prove your purity.' + +'Stephen, once in London I ought to have married you,' she said +firmly. 'It was my only safe defence. I see more things now than +I did yesterday. My only remaining chance is not to be +discovered; and that we must fight for most desperately.' + +They stepped out. Elfride pulled a thick veil over her face. + +A woman with red and scaly eyelids and glistening eyes was sitting +on a bench just inside the office-door. She fixed her eyes upon +Elfride with an expression whose force it was impossible to doubt, +but the meaning of which was not clear; then upon the carriage +they had left. She seemed to read a sinister story in the scene. + +Elfride shrank back, and turned the other way. + +'Who is that woman?' said Stephen. 'She looked hard at you.' + +'Mrs. Jethway--a widow, and mother of that young man whose tomb we +sat on the other night. Stephen, she is my enemy. Would that God +had had mercy enough upon me to have hidden this from HER!' + +'Do not talk so hopelessly,' he remonstrated. 'I don't think she +recognized us.' + +'I pray that she did not.' + +He put on a more vigorous mood. + +'Now, we will go and get some breakfast.' + +'No, no!' she begged. 'I cannot eat. I MUST get back to +Endelstow.' + +Elfride was as if she had grown years older than Stephen now. + +'But you have had nothing since last night but that cup of tea at +Bristol.' + +'I can't eat, Stephen.' + +'Wine and biscuit?' + +'No.' + +'Nor tea, nor coffee?' + +'No.' + +'A glass of water?' + +'No. I want something that makes people strong and energetic for +the present, that borrows the strength of to-morrow for use to- +day--leaving to-morrow without any at all for that matter; or even +that would take all life away to-morrow, so long as it enabled me +to get home again now. Brandy, that's what I want. That woman's +eyes have eaten my heart away!' + +'You are wild; and you grieve me, darling. Must it be brandy?' + +'Yes, if you please.' + +'How much?' + +'I don't know. I have never drunk more than a teaspoonful at +once. All I know is that I want it. Don't get it at the Falcon.' + +He left her in the fields, and went to the nearest inn in that +direction. Presently he returned with a small flask nearly full, +and some slices of bread-and-butter, thin as wafers, in a paper- +bag. Elfride took a sip or two. + +'It goes into my eyes,' she said wearily. 'I can't take any more. +Yes, I will; I will close my eyes. Ah, it goes to them by an +inside route. I don't want it; throw it away.' + +However, she could eat, and did eat. Her chief attention was +concentrated upon how to get the horse from the Falcon stables +without suspicion. Stephen was not allowed to accompany her into +the town. She acted now upon conclusions reached without any aid +from him: his power over her seemed to have departed. + +'You had better not be seen with me, even here where I am so +little known. We have begun stealthily as thieves, and we must +end stealthily as thieves, at all hazards. Until papa has been +told by me myself, a discovery would be terrible.' + +Walking and gloomily talking thus they waited till nearly nine +o'clock, at which time Elfride thought she might call at the +Falcon without creating much surprise. Behind the railway-station +was the river, spanned by an old Tudor bridge, whence the road +diverged in two directions, one skirting the suburbs of the town, +and winding round again into the high-road to Endelstow. Beside +this road Stephen sat, and awaited her return from the Falcon. + +He sat as one sitting for a portrait, motionless, watching the +chequered lights and shades on the tree-trunks, the children +playing opposite the school previous to entering for the morning +lesson, the reapers in a field afar off. The certainty of +possession had not come, and there was nothing to mitigate the +youth's gloom, that increased with the thought of the parting now +so near. + +At length she came trotting round to him, in appearance much as on +the romantic morning of their visit to the cliff, but shorn of the +radiance which glistened about her then. However, her comparative +immunity from further risk and trouble had considerably composed +her. Elfride's capacity for being wounded was only surpassed by +her capacity for healing, which rightly or wrongly is by some +considered an index of transientness of feeling in general. + +'Elfride, what did they say at the Falcon?' + +'Nothing. Nobody seemed curious about me. They knew I went to +Plymouth, and I have stayed there a night now and then with Miss +Bicknell. I rather calculated upon that.' + +And now parting arose like a death to these children, for it was +imperative that she should start at once. Stephen walked beside +her for nearly a mile. During the walk he said sadly: + +'Elfride, four-and-twenty hours have passed, and the thing is not +done.' + +'But you have insured that it shall be done.' + +'How have I?' + +'O Stephen, you ask how! Do you think I could marry another man on +earth after having gone thus far with you? Have I not shown beyond +possibility of doubt that I can be nobody else's? Have I not +irretrievably committed myself?--pride has stood for nothing in +the face of my great love. You misunderstood my turning back, and +I cannot explain it. It was wrong to go with you at all; and +though it would have been worse to go further, it would have been +better policy, perhaps. Be assured of this, that whenever you +have a home for me--however poor and humble--and come and claim +me, I am ready.' She added bitterly, 'When my father knows of this +day's work, he may be only too glad to let me go.' + +'Perhaps he may, then, insist upon our marriage at once!' Stephen +answered, seeing a ray of hope in the very focus of her remorse. +'I hope he may, even if we had still to part till I am ready for +you, as we intended.' + +Elfride did not reply. + +'You don't seem the same woman, Elfie, that you were yesterday.' + +'Nor am I. But good-bye. Go back now.' And she reined the horse +for parting. 'O Stephen,' she cried, 'I feel so weak! I don't +know how to meet him. Cannot you, after all, come back with me?' + +'Shall I come?' + +Elfride paused to think. + +'No; it will not do. It is my utter foolishness that makes me say +such words. But he will send for you.' + +'Say to him,' continued Stephen, 'that we did this in the absolute +despair of our minds. Tell him we don't wish him to favour us-- +only to deal justly with us. If he says, marry now, so much the +better. If not, say that all may be put right by his promise to +allow me to have you when I am good enough for you--which may be +soon. Say I have nothing to offer him in exchange for his +treasure--the more sorry I; but all the love, and all the life, +and all the labour of an honest man shall be yours. As to when +this had better be told, I leave you to judge.' + +His words made her cheerful enough to toy with her position. + +'And if ill report should come, Stephen,' she said smiling, 'why, +the orange-tree must save me, as it saved virgins in St. George's +time from the poisonous breath of the dragon. There, forgive me +for forwardness: I am going.' + +Then the boy and girl beguiled themselves with words of half- +parting only. + +'Own wifie, God bless you till we meet again!' + +'Till we meet again, good-bye!' + +And the pony went on, and she spoke to him no more. He saw her +figure diminish and her blue veil grow gray--saw it with the +agonizing sensations of a slow death. + +After thus parting from a man than whom she had known none greater +as yet, Elfride rode rapidly onwards, a tear being occasionally +shaken from her eyes into the road. What yesterday had seemed so +desirable, so promising, even trifling, had now acquired the +complexion of a tragedy. + +She saw the rocks and sea in the neighbourhood of Endelstow, and +heaved a sigh of relief + +When she passed a field behind the vicarage she heard the voices +of Unity and William Worm. They were hanging a carpet upon a +line. Unity was uttering a sentence that concluded with 'when +Miss Elfride comes.' + +'When d'ye expect her?' + +'Not till evening now. She's safe enough at Miss Bicknell's, +bless ye.' + +Elfride went round to the door. She did not knock or ring; and +seeing nobody to take the horse, Elfride led her round to the +yard, slipped off the bridle and saddle, drove her towards the +paddock, and turned her in. Then Elfride crept indoors, and +looked into all the ground-floor rooms. Her father was not there. + +On the mantelpiece of the drawing-room stood a letter addressed to +her in his handwriting. She took it and read it as she went +upstairs to change her habit. + + +STRATLEIGH, Thursday. + +'DEAR ELFRIDE,--On second thoughts I will not return to-day, but +only come as far as Wadcombe. I shall be at home by to-morrow +afternoon, and bring a friend with me.--Yours, in haste, + C. S.' + + +After making a quick toilet she felt more revived, though still +suffering from a headache. On going out of the door she met Unity +at the top of the stair. + +'O Miss Elfride! I said to myself 'tis her sperrit! We didn't +dream o' you not coming home last night. You didn't say anything +about staying.' + +'I intended to come home the same evening, but altered my plan. I +wished I hadn't afterwards. Papa will be angry, I suppose?' + +'Better not tell him, miss,' said Unity. + +'I do fear to,' she murmured. 'Unity, would you just begin +telling him when he comes home?' + +'What! and get you into trouble?' + +'I deserve it.' + +'No, indeed, I won't,' said Unity. 'It is not such a mighty +matter, Miss Elfride. I says to myself, master's taking a +hollerday, and because he's not been kind lately to Miss Elfride, +she----' + +'Is imitating him. Well, do as you like. And will you now bring +me some luncheon?' + +After satisfying an appetite which the fresh marine air had given +her in its victory over an agitated mind, she put on her hat and +went to the garden and summer-house. She sat down, and leant with +her head in a corner. Here she fell asleep. + +Half-awake, she hurriedly looked at the time. She had been there +three hours. At the same moment she heard the outer gate swing +together, and wheels sweep round the entrance; some prior noise +from the same source having probably been the cause of her +awaking. Next her father's voice was heard calling to Worm. + +Elfride passed along a walk towards the house behind a belt of +shrubs. She heard a tongue holding converse with her father, +which was not that of either of the servants. Her father and the +stranger were laughing together. Then there was a rustling of +silk, and Mr. Swancourt and his companion, or companions, to all +seeming entered the door of the house, for nothing more of them +was audible. Elfride had turned back to meditate on what friends +these could be, when she heard footsteps, and her father +exclaiming behind her: + +'O Elfride, here you are! I hope you got on well?' + +Elfride's heart smote her, and she did not speak. + +'Come back to the summer-house a minute,' continued Mr. Swancourt; +'I have to tell you of that I promised to.' + +They entered the summer-house, and stood leaning over the knotty +woodwork of the balustrade. + +'Now,' said her father radiantly, 'guess what I have to say.' He +seemed to be regarding his own existence so intently, that he took +no interest in nor even saw the complexion of hers. + +'I cannot, papa,' she said sadly. + +'Try, dear.' + +'I would rather not, indeed.' + +'You are tired. You look worn. The ride was too much for you. +Well, this is what I went away for. I went to be married!' + +'Married!' she faltered, and could hardly check an involuntary 'So +did I.' A moment after and her resolve to confess perished like a +bubble. + +'Yes; to whom do you think? Mrs. Troyton, the new owner of the +estate over the hedge, and of the old manor-house. It was only +finally settled between us when I went to Stratleigh a few days +ago.' He lowered his voice to a sly tone of merriment. 'Now, as +to your stepmother, you'll find she is not much to look at, though +a good deal to listen to. She is twenty years older than myself, +for one thing.' + +'You forget that I know her. She called here once, after we had +been, and found her away from home.' + +'Of course, of course. Well, whatever her looks are, she's as +excellent a woman as ever breathed. She has had lately left her +as absolute property three thousand five hundred a year, besides +the devise of this estate--and, by the way, a large legacy came to +her in satisfaction of dower, as it is called.' + +'Three thousand five hundred a year!' + +'And a large--well, a fair-sized--mansion in town, and a pedigree +as long as my walking-stick; though that bears evidence of being +rather a raked-up affair--done since the family got rich--people +do those things now as they build ruins on maiden estates and cast +antiques at Birmingham.' + +Elfride merely listened and said nothing. + +He continued more quietly and impressively. 'Yes, Elfride, she is +wealthy in comparison with us, though with few connections. +However, she will introduce you to the world a little. We are +going to exchange her house in Baker Street for one at Kensington, +for your sake. Everybody is going there now, she says. At +Easters we shall fly to town for the usual three months--I shall +have a curate of course by that time. Elfride, I am past love, +you know, and I honestly confess that I married her for your sake. +Why a woman of her standing should have thrown herself away upon +me, God knows. But I suppose her age and plainness were too +pronounced for a town man. With your good looks, if you now play +your cards well, you may marry anybody. Of course, a little +contrivance will be necessary; but there's nothing to stand +between you and a husband with a title, that I can see. Lady +Luxellian was only a squire's daughter. Now, don't you see how +foolish the old fancy was? But come, she is indoors waiting to see +you. It is as good as a play, too,' continued the vicar, as they +walked towards the house. 'I courted her through the privet hedge +yonder: not entirely, you know, but we used to walk there of an +evening--nearly every evening at last. But I needn't tell you +details now; everything was terribly matter-of-fact, I assure you. +At last, that day I saw her at Stratleigh, we determined to settle +it off-hand.' + +'And you never said a word to me,' replied Elfride, not +reproachfully either in tone or thought. Indeed, her feeling was +the very reverse of reproachful. She felt relieved and even +thankful. Where confidence had not been given, how could +confidence be expected? + +Her father mistook her dispassionateness for a veil of politeness +over a sense of ill-usage. 'I am not altogether to blame,' he +said. 'There were two or three reasons for secrecy. One was the +recent death of her relative the testator, though that did not +apply to you. But remember, Elfride,' he continued in a stiffer +tone, 'you had mixed yourself up so foolishly with those low +people, the Smiths--and it was just, too, when Mrs. Troyton and +myself were beginning to understand each other--that I resolved to +say nothing even to you. How did I know how far you had gone with +them and their son? You might have made a point of taking tea with +them every day, for all that I knew.' + +Elfride swallowed her feelings as she best could, and languidly +though flatly asked a question. + +'Did you kiss Mrs. Troyton on the lawn about three weeks ago? That +evening I came into the study and found you had just had candles +in?' + +Mr. Swancourt looked rather red and abashed, as middle-aged lovers +are apt to do when caught in the tricks of younger ones. + +'Well, yes; I think I did,' he stammered; 'just to please her, you +know.' And then recovering himself he laughed heartily. + +'And was this what your Horatian quotation referred to?' + +'It was, Elfride.' + +They stepped into the drawing-room from the verandah. At that +moment Mrs. Swancourt came downstairs, and entered the same room +by the door. + +'Here, Charlotte, is my little Elfride,' said Mr. Swancourt, with +the increased affection of tone often adopted towards relations +when newly produced. + +Poor Elfride, not knowing what to do, did nothing at all; but +stood receptive of all that came to her by sight, hearing, and +touch. + +Mrs. Swancourt moved forward, took her step-daughter's hand, then +kissed her. + +'Ah, darling!' she exclaimed good-humouredly, 'you didn't think +when you showed a strange old woman over the conservatory a month +or two ago, and explained the flowers to her so prettily, that she +would so soon be here in new colours. Nor did she, I am sure.' + +The new mother had been truthfully enough described by Mr. +Swancourt. She was not physically attractive. She was dark--very +dark--in complexion, portly in figure, and with a plentiful +residuum of hair in the proportion of half a dozen white ones to +half a dozen black ones, though the latter were black indeed. No +further observed, she was not a woman to like. But there was more +to see. To the most superficial critic it was apparent that she +made no attempt to disguise her age. She looked sixty at the +first glance, and close acquaintanceship never proved her older. + +Another and still more winning trait was one attaching to the +corners of her mouth. Before she made a remark these often +twitched gently: not backwards and forwards, the index of +nervousness; not down upon the jaw, the sign of determination; but +palpably upwards, in precisely the curve adopted to represent +mirth in the broad caricatures of schoolboys. Only this element +in her face was expressive of anything within the woman, but it +was unmistakable. It expressed humour subjective as well as +objective--which could survey the peculiarities of self in as +whimsical a light as those of other people. + +This is not all of Mrs. Swancourt. She had held out to Elfride +hands whose fingers were literally stiff with rings, signis +auroque rigentes, like Helen's robe. These rows of rings were not +worn in vanity apparently. They were mostly antique and dull, +though a few were the reverse. + + +RIGHT HAND. + +1st. Plainly set oval onyx, representing a devil's head. 2nd. +Green jasper intaglio, with red veins. 3rd. Entirely gold, +bearing figure of a hideous griffin. 4th. A sea-green monster +diamond, with small diamonds round it. 5th. Antique cornelian +intaglio of dancing figure of a satyr. 6th. An angular band +chased with dragons' heads. 7th. A facetted carbuncle accompanied +by ten little twinkling emeralds; &c. &c. + + +LEFT HAND. + +1st. A reddish-yellow toadstone. 2nd. A heavy ring enamelled in +colours, and bearing a jacynth. 3rd. An amethystine sapphire. +4th. A polished ruby, surrounded by diamonds. 5th. The engraved +ring of an abbess. 6th. A gloomy intaglio; &c. &c. + + +Beyond this rather quaint array of stone and metal Mrs. Swancourt +wore no ornament whatever. + +Elfride had been favourably impressed with Mrs. Troyton at their +meeting about two months earlier; but to be pleased with a woman +as a momentary acquaintance was different from being taken with +her as a stepmother. However, the suspension of feeling was but +for a moment. Elfride decided to like her still. + +Mrs. Swancourt was a woman of the world as to knowledge, the +reverse as to action, as her marriage suggested. Elfride and the +lady were soon inextricably involved in conversation, and Mr. +Swancourt left them to themselves. + +'And what do you find to do with yourself here?' Mrs. Swancourt +said, after a few remarks about the wedding. 'You ride, I know.' + +'Yes, I ride. But not much, because papa doesn't like my going +alone.' + +'You must have somebody to look after you.' + +'And I read, and write a little.' + +'You should write a novel. The regular resource of people who +don't go enough into the world to live a novel is to write one.' + +'I have done it,' said Elfride, looking dubiously at Mrs. +Swancourt, as if in doubt whether she would meet with ridicule +there. + +'That's right. Now, then, what is it about, dear?' + +'About--well, it is a romance of the Middle Ages.' + +'Knowing nothing of the present age, which everybody knows about, +for safety you chose an age known neither to you nor other people. +That's it, eh? No, no; I don't mean it, dear.' + +'Well, I have had some opportunities of studying mediaeval art and +manners in the library and private museum at Endelstow House, and +I thought I should like to try my hand upon a fiction. I know the +time for these tales is past; but I was interested in it, very +much interested.' + +'When is it to appear?' + +'Oh, never, I suppose.' + +'Nonsense, my dear girl. Publish it, by all means. All ladies do +that sort of thing now; not for profit, you know, but as a +guarantee of mental respectability to their future husbands.' + +'An excellent idea of us ladies.' + +'Though I am afraid it rather resembles the melancholy ruse of +throwing loaves over castle-walls at besiegers, and suggests +desperation rather than plenty inside.' + +'Did you ever try it?' + +'No; I was too far gone even for that.' + +'Papa says no publisher will take my book.' + +'That remains to be proved. I'll give my word, my dear, that by +this time next year it shall be printed.' + +'Will you, indeed?' said Elfride, partially brightening with +pleasure, though she was sad enough in her depths. 'I thought +brains were the indispensable, even if the only, qualification for +admission to the republic of letters. A mere commonplace creature +like me will soon be turned out again.' + +'Oh no; once you are there you'll be like a drop of water in a +piece of rock-crystal--your medium will dignify your commonness.' + +'It will be a great satisfaction,' Elfride murmured, and thought +of Stephen, and wished she could make a great fortune by writing +romances, and marry him and live happily. + +'And then we'll go to London, and then to Paris,' said Mrs. +Swancourt. 'I have been talking to your father about it. But we +have first to move into the manor-house, and we think of staying +at Torquay whilst that is going on. Meanwhile, instead of going +on a honeymoon scamper by ourselves, we have come home to fetch +you, and go all together to Bath for two or three weeks.' + +Elfride assented pleasantly, even gladly; but she saw that, by +this marriage, her father and herself had ceased for ever to be +the close relations they had been up to a few weeks ago. It was +impossible now to tell him the tale of her wild elopement with +Stephen Smith. + +He was still snugly housed in her heart. His absence had regained +for him much of that aureola of saintship which had been nearly +abstracted during her reproachful mood on that miserable journey +from London. Rapture is often cooled by contact with its cause, +especially if under awkward conditions. And that last experience +with Stephen had done anything but make him shine in her eyes. +His very kindness in letting her return was his offence. Elfride +had her sex's love of sheer force in a man, however ill-directed; +and at that critical juncture in London Stephen's only chance of +retaining the ascendancy over her that his face and not his parts +had acquired for him, would have been by doing what, for one +thing, he was too youthful to undertake--that was, dragging her by +the wrist to the rails of some altar, and peremptorily marrying +her. Decisive action is seen by appreciative minds to be +frequently objectless, and sometimes fatal; but decision, however +suicidal, has more charm for a woman than the most unequivocal +Fabian success. + +However, some of the unpleasant accessories of that occasion were +now out of sight again, and Stephen had resumed not a few of his +fancy colours. + + + +Chapter XIII + +'He set in order many proverbs.' + + +It is London in October--two months further on in the story. + +Bede's Inn has this peculiarity, that it faces, receives from, and +discharges into a bustling thoroughfare speaking only of wealth +and respectability, whilst its postern abuts on as crowded and +poverty-stricken a network of alleys as are to be found anywhere +in the metropolis. The moral consequences are, first, that those +who occupy chambers in the Inn may see a great deal of shirtless +humanity's habits and enjoyments without doing more than look down +from a back window; and second they may hear wholesome though +unpleasant social reminders through the medium of a harsh voice, +an unequal footstep, the echo of a blow or a fall, which +originates in the person of some drunkard or wife-beater, as he +crosses and interferes with the quiet of the square. Characters +of this kind frequently pass through the Inn from a little foxhole +of an alley at the back, but they never loiter there. + +It is hardly necessary to state that all the sights and movements +proper to the Inn are most orderly. On the fine October evening +on which we follow Stephen Smith to this place, a placid porter is +sitting on a stool under a sycamore-tree in the midst, with a +little cane in his hand. We notice the thick coat of soot upon +the branches, hanging underneath them in flakes, as in a chimney. +The blackness of these boughs does not at present improve the +tree--nearly forsaken by its leaves as it is--but in the spring +their green fresh beauty is made doubly beautiful by the contrast. +Within the railings is a flower-garden of respectable dahlias and +chrysanthemums, where a man is sweeping the leaves from the grass. + +Stephen selects a doorway, and ascends an old though wide wooden +staircase, with moulded balusters and handrail, which in a country +manor-house would be considered a noteworthy specimen of +Renaissance workmanship. He reaches a door on the first floor, +over which is painted, in black letters, 'Mr. Henry Knight'-- +'Barrister-at-law' being understood but not expressed. The wall +is thick, and there is a door at its outer and inner face. The +outer one happens to be ajar: Stephen goes to the other, and taps. + +'Come in!' from distant penetralia. + +First was a small anteroom, divided from the inner apartment by a +wainscoted archway two or three yards wide. Across this archway +hung a pair of dark-green curtains, making a mystery of all within +the arch except the spasmodic scratching of a quill pen. Here was +grouped a chaotic assemblage of articles--mainly old framed prints +and paintings--leaning edgewise against the wall, like roofing +slates in a builder's yard. All the books visible here were +folios too big to be stolen--some lying on a heavy oak table in +one corner, some on the floor among the pictures, the whole +intermingled with old coats, hats, umbrellas, and walking-sticks. + +Stephen pushed aside the curtain, and before him sat a man writing +away as if his life depended upon it--which it did. + +A man of thirty in a speckled coat, with dark brown hair, curly +beard, and crisp moustache: the latter running into the beard on +each side of the mouth, and, as usual, hiding the real expression +of that organ under a chronic aspect of impassivity. + +'Ah, my dear fellow, I knew 'twas you,' said Knight, looking up +with a smile, and holding out his hand. + +Knight's mouth and eyes came to view now. Both features were +good, and had the peculiarity of appearing younger and fresher +than the brow and face they belonged to, which were getting +sicklied o'er by the unmistakable pale cast. The mouth had not +quite relinquished rotundity of curve for the firm angularities of +middle life; and the eyes, though keen, permeated rather than +penetrated: what they had lost of their boy-time brightness by a +dozen years of hard reading lending a quietness to their gaze +which suited them well. + +A lady would have said there was a smell of tobacco in the room: a +man that there was not. + +Knight did not rise. He looked at a timepiece on the mantelshelf, +then turned again to his letters, pointing to a chair. + +'Well, I am glad you have come. I only returned to town +yesterday; now, don't speak, Stephen, for ten minutes; I have just +that time to the late post. At the eleventh minute, I'm your man.' + +Stephen sat down as if this kind of reception was by no means new, +and away went Knight's pen, beating up and down like a ship in a +storm. + +Cicero called the library the soul of the house; here the house +was all soul. Portions of the floor, and half the wall-space, +were taken up by book-shelves ordinary and extraordinary; the +remaining parts, together with brackets, side-tables, &c., being +occupied by casts, statuettes, medallions, and plaques of various +descriptions, picked up by the owner in his wanderings through +France and Italy. + +One stream only of evening sunlight came into the room from a +window quite in the corner, overlooking a court. An aquarium +stood in the window. It was a dull parallelopipedon enough for +living creatures at most hours of the day; but for a few minutes +in the evening, as now, an errant, kindly ray lighted up and +warmed the little world therein, when the many-coloured zoophytes +opened and put forth their arms, the weeds acquired a rich +transparency, the shells gleamed of a more golden yellow, and the +timid community expressed gladness more plainly than in words. + +Within the prescribed ten minutes Knight flung down his pen, rang +for the boy to take the letters to the post, and at the closing of +the door exclaimed, 'There; thank God, that's done. Now, Stephen, +pull your chair round, and tell me what you have been doing all +this time. Have you kept up your Greek?' + +'No.' + +'How's that?' + +'I haven't enough spare time.' + +'That's nonsense.' + +'Well, I have done a great many things, if not that. And I have +done one extraordinary thing.' + +Knight turned full upon Stephen. 'Ah-ha! Now, then, let me look +into your face, put two and two together, and make a shrewd +guess.' + +Stephen changed to a redder colour. + +'Why, Smith,' said Knight, after holding him rigidly by the +shoulders, and keenly scrutinising his countenance for a minute in +silence, 'you have fallen in love.' + +'Well--the fact is----' + +'Now, out with it.' But seeing that Stephen looked rather +distressed, he changed to a kindly tone. 'Now Smith, my lad, you +know me well enough by this time, or you ought to; and you know +very well that if you choose to give me a detailed account of the +phenomenon within you, I shall listen; if you don't, I am the last +man in the world to care to hear it.' + +'I'll tell this much: I HAVE fallen in love, and I want to be +MARRIED.' + +Knight looked ominous as this passed Stephen's lips. + +'Don't judge me before you have heard more,' cried Stephen +anxiously, seeing the change in his friend's countenance. + +'I don't judge. Does your mother know about it?' + +'Nothing definite.' + +'Father?' + +'No. But I'll tell you. The young person----' + +'Come, that's dreadfully ungallant. But perhaps I understand the +frame of mind a little, so go on. Your sweetheart----' + +'She is rather higher in the world than I am.' + +'As it should be.' + +'And her father won't hear of it, as I now stand.' + +'Not an uncommon case.' + +'And now comes what I want your advice upon. Something has +happened at her house which makes it out of the question for us to +ask her father again now. So we are keeping silent. In the +meantime an architect in India has just written to Mr. Hewby to +ask whether he can find for him a young assistant willing to go +over to Bombay to prepare drawings for work formerly done by the +engineers. The salary he offers is 350 rupees a month, or about +35 Pounds. Hewby has mentioned it to me, and I have been to Dr. +Wray, who says I shall acclimatise without much illness. Now, +would you go?' + +'You mean to say, because it is a possible road to the young +lady.' + +'Yes; I was thinking I could go over and make a little money, and +then come back and ask for her. I have the option of practising +for myself after a year.' + +'Would she be staunch?' + +'Oh yes! For ever--to the end of her life!' + +'How do you know?' + +'Why, how do people know? Of course, she will.' + +Knight leant back in his chair. 'Now, though I know her +thoroughly as she exists in your heart, Stephen, I don't know her +in the flesh. All I want to ask is, is this idea of going to +India based entirely upon a belief in her fidelity?' + +'Yes; I should not go if it were not for her.' + +'Well, Stephen, you have put me in rather an awkward position. If +I give my true sentiments, I shall hurt your feelings; if I don't, +I shall hurt my own judgment. And remember, I don't know much +about women.' + +'But you have had attachments, although you tell me very little +about them.' + +'And I only hope you'll continue to prosper till I tell you more.' + +Stephen winced at this rap. 'I have never formed a deep +attachment,' continued Knight. 'I never have found a woman worth +it. Nor have I been once engaged to be married.' + +'You write as if you had been engaged a hundred times, if I may be +allowed to say so,' said Stephen in an injured tone. + +'Yes, that may be. But, my dear Stephen, it is only those who +half know a thing that write about it. Those who know it +thoroughly don't take the trouble. All I know about women, or men +either, is a mass of generalities. I plod along, and occasionally +lift my eyes and skim the weltering surface of mankind lying +between me and the horizon, as a crow might; no more.' + +Knight stopped as if he had fallen into a train of thought, and +Stephen looked with affectionate awe at a master whose mind, he +believed, could swallow up at one meal all that his own head +contained. + +There was affective sympathy, but no great intellectual +fellowship, between Knight and Stephen Smith. Knight had seen his +young friend when the latter was a cherry-cheeked happy boy, had +been interested in him, had kept his eye upon him, and generously +helped the lad to books, till the mere connection of patronage +grew to acquaintance, and that ripened to friendship. And so, +though Smith was not at all the man Knight would have deliberately +chosen as a friend--or even for one of a group of a dozen friends-- +he somehow was his friend. Circumstance, as usual, did it all. +How many of us can say of our most intimate alter ego, leaving +alone friends of the outer circle, that he is the man we should +have chosen, as embodying the net result after adding up all the +points in human nature that we love, and principles we hold, and +subtracting all that we hate? The man is really somebody we got to +know by mere physical juxtaposition long maintained, and was taken +into our confidence, and even heart, as a makeshift. + +'And what do you think of her?' Stephen ventured to say, after a +silence. + +'Taking her merits on trust from you,' said Knight, 'as we do +those of the Roman poets of whom we know nothing but that they +lived, I still think she will not stick to you through, say, three +years of absence in India.' + +'But she will!' cried Stephen desperately. 'She is a girl all +delicacy and honour. And no woman of that kind, who has committed +herself so into a man's hands as she has into mine, could possibly +marry another.' + +'How has she committed herself?' asked Knight cunously. + +Stephen did not answer. Knight had looked on his love so +sceptically that it would not do to say all that he had intended +to say by any means. + +'Well, don't tell,' said Knight. 'But you are begging the +question, which is, I suppose, inevitable in love.' + +'And I'll tell you another thing,' the younger man pleaded. 'You +remember what you said to me once about women receiving a kiss. +Don't you? Why, that instead of our being charmed by the +fascination of their bearing at such a time, we should immediately +doubt them if their confusion has any GRACE in it--that awkward +bungling was the true charm of the occasion, implying that we are +the first who has played such a part with them.' + +'It is true, quite,' said Knight musingly. + +It often happened that the disciple thus remembered the lessons of +the master long after the master himself had forgotten them. + +'Well, that was like her!' cried Stephen triumphantly. 'She was +in such a flurry that she didn't know what she was doing.' + +'Splendid, splendid!' said Knight soothingly. 'So that all I have +to say is, that if you see a good opening in Bombay there's no +reason why you should not go without troubling to draw fine +distinctions as to reasons. No man fully realizes what opinions +he acts upon, or what his actions mean.' + +'Yes; I go to Bombay. I'll write a note here, if you don't mind.' + +'Sleep over it--it is the best plan--and write to-morrow. +Meantime, go there to that window and sit down, and look at my +Humanity Show. I am going to dine out this evening, and have to +dress here out of my portmanteau. I bring up my things like this +to save the trouble of going down to my place at Richmond and back +again.' + +Knight then went to the middle of the room and flung open his +portmanteau, and Stephen drew near the window. The streak of +sunlight had crept upward, edged away, and vanished; the zoophytes +slept: a dusky gloom pervaded the room. And now another volume of +light shone over the window. + +'There!' said Knight, 'where is there in England a spectacle to +equal that? I sit there and watch them every night before I go +home. Softly open the sash.' + +Beneath them was an alley running up to the wall, and thence +turning sideways and passing under an arch, so that Knight's back +window was immediately over the angle, and commanded a view of the +alley lengthwise. Crowds--mostly of women--were surging, +bustling, and pacing up and down. Gaslights glared from butchers' +stalls, illuminating the lumps of flesh to splotches of orange and +vermilion, like the wild colouring of Turner's later pictures, +whilst the purl and babble of tongues of every pitch and mood was +to this human wild-wood what the ripple of a brook is to the +natural forest. + +Nearly ten minutes passed. Then Knight also came to the window. + +'Well, now, I call a cab and vanish down the street in the +direction of Berkeley Square,' he said, buttoning his waistcoat +and kicking his morning suit into a corner. Stephen rose to +leave. + +'What a heap of literature!' remarked the young man, taking a +final longing survey round the room, as if to abide there for ever +would be the great pleasure of his life, yet feeling that he had +almost outstayed his welcome-while. His eyes rested upon an arm- +chair piled full of newspapers, magazines, and bright new volumes +in green and red. + +'Yes,' said Knight, also looking at them and breathing a sigh of +weariness; 'something must be done with several of them soon, I +suppose. Stephen, you needn't hurry away for a few minutes, you +know, if you want to stay; I am not quite ready. Overhaul those +volumes whilst I put on my coat, and I'll walk a little way with +you.' + +Stephen sat down beside the arm-chair and began to tumble the +books about. Among the rest he found a novelette in one volume, +THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE. By Ernest Field. + +'Are you going to review this?' inquired Stephen with apparent +unconcern, and holding up Elfride's effusion. + +'Which? Oh, that! I may--though I don't do much light reviewing +now. But it is reviewable.' + +'How do you mean?' + +Knight never liked to be asked what he meant. 'Mean! I mean that +the majority of books published are neither good enough nor bad +enough to provoke criticism, and that that book does provoke it.' + +'By its goodness or its badness?' Stephen said with some anxiety +on poor little Elfride's score. + +'Its badness. It seems to be written by some girl in her teens.' + +Stephen said not another word. He did not care to speak plainly +of Elfride after that unfortunate slip his tongue had made in +respect of her having committed herself; and, apart from that, +Knight's severe--almost dogged and self-willed--honesty in +criticizing was unassailable by the humble wish of a youthful +friend like Stephen. + +Knight was now ready. Turning off the gas, and slamming together +the door, they went downstairs and into the street. + + + +Chapter XIV + +'We frolic while 'tis May.' + + +It has now to be realized that nearly three-quarters of a year +have passed away. In place of the autumnal scenery which formed a +setting to the previous enactments, we have the culminating blooms +of summer in the year following. + +Stephen is in India, slaving away at an office in Bombay; +occasionally going up the country on professional errands, and +wondering why people who had been there longer than he complained +so much of the effect of the climate upon their constitutions. +Never had a young man a finer start than seemed now to present +itself to Stephen. It was just in that exceptional heyday of +prosperity which shone over Bombay some few years ago, that he +arrived on the scene. Building and engineering partook of the +general impetus. Speculation moved with an accelerated velocity +every successive day, the only disagreeable contingency connected +with it being the possibility of a collapse. + +Elfride had never told her father of the four-and-twenty-hours' +escapade with Stephen, nor had it, to her knowledge, come to his +ears by any other route. It was a secret trouble and grief to the +girl for a short time, and Stephen's departure was another +ingredient in her sorrow. But Elfride possessed special +facilities for getting rid of trouble after a decent interval. +Whilst a slow nature was imbibing a misfortune little by little, +she had swallowed the whole agony of it at a draught and was +brightening again. She could slough off a sadness and replace it +by a hope as easily as a lizard renews a diseased limb. + +And two such excellent distractions had presented themselves. One +was bringing out the romance and looking for notices in the +papers, which, though they had been significantly short so far, +had served to divert her thoughts. The other was migrating from +the vicarage to the more commodious old house of Mrs. Swancourt's, +overlooking the same valley. Mr. Swancourt at first disliked the +idea of being transplanted to feminine soil, but the obvious +advantages of such an accession of dignity reconciled him to the +change. So there was a radical 'move;' the two ladies staying at +Torquay as had been arranged, the vicar going to and fro. + +Mrs. Swancourt considerably enlarged Elfride's ideas in an +aristocratic direction, and she began to forgive her father for +his politic marriage. Certainly, in a worldly sense, a handsome +face at three-and-forty had never served a man in better stead. + + +The new house at Kensington was ready, and they were all in town. + +The Hyde Park shrubs had been transplanted as usual, the chairs +ranked in line, the grass edgings trimmed, the roads made to look +as if they were suffering from a heavy thunderstorm; carriages had +been called for by the easeful, horses by the brisk, and the Drive +and Row were again the groove of gaiety for an hour. We gaze upon +the spectacle, at six o'clock on this midsummer afternoon, in a +melon-frame atmosphere and beneath a violet sky. The Swancourt +equipage formed one in the stream. + +Mrs. Swancourt was a talker of talk of the incisive kind, which +her low musical voice--the only beautiful point in the old woman-- +prevented from being wearisome. + +'Now,' she said to Elfride, who, like AEneas at Carthage, was full +of admiration for the brilliant scene, 'you will find that our +companionless state will give us, as it does everybody, an +extraordinary power in reading the features of our fellow- +creatures here. I always am a listener in such places as these-- +not to the narratives told by my neighbours' tongues, but by their +faces--the advantage of which is, that whether I am in Row, +Boulevard, Rialto, or Prado, they all speak the same language. I +may have acquired some skill in this practice through having been +an ugly lonely woman for so many years, with nobody to give me +information; a thing you will not consider strange when the +parallel case is borne in mind,--how truly people who have no +clocks will tell the time of day.' + +'Ay, that they will,' said Mr. Swancourt corroboratively. 'I have +known labouring men at Endelstow and other farms who had framed +complete systems of observation for that purpose. By means of +shadows, winds, clouds, the movements of sheep and oxen, the +singing of birds, the crowing of cocks, and a hundred other sights +and sounds which people with watches in their pockets never know +the existence of, they are able to pronounce within ten minutes of +the hour almost at any required instant. That reminds me of an +old story which I'm afraid is too bad--too bad to repeat.' Here +the vicar shook his head and laughed inwardly. + +'Tell it--do!' said the ladies. + +'I mustn't quite tell it.' + +'That's absurd,' said Mrs. Swancourt. + +'It was only about a man who, by the same careful system of +observation, was known to deceive persons for more than two years +into the belief that he kept a barometer by stealth, so exactly +did he foretell all changes in the weather by the braying of his +ass and the temper of his wife.' + +Elfride laughed. + +'Exactly,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'And in just the way that those +learnt the signs of nature, I have learnt the language of her +illegitimate sister--artificiality; and the fibbing of eyes, the +contempt of nose-tips, the indignation of back hair, the laughter +of clothes, the cynicism of footsteps, and the various emotions +lying in walking-stick twirls, hat-liftings, the elevation of +parasols, the carriage of umbrellas, become as A B C to me. + +'Just look at that daughter's sister class of mamma in the +carriage across there,' she continued to Elfride, pointing with +merely a turn of her eye. 'The absorbing self-consciousness of +her position that is shown by her countenance is most humiliating +to a lover of one's country. You would hardly believe, would you, +that members of a Fashionable World, whose professed zero is far +above the highest degree of the humble, could be so ignorant of +the elementary instincts of reticence.' + +'How?' + +'Why, to bear on their faces, as plainly as on a phylactery, the +inscription, "Do, pray, look at the coronet on my panels."' + +'Really, Charlotte,' said the vicar, 'you see as much in faces as +Mr. Puff saw in Lord Burleigh's nod.' + +Elfride could not but admire the beauty of her fellow +countrywomen, especially since herself and her own few +acquaintances had always been slightly sunburnt or marked on the +back of the hands by a bramble-scratch at this time of the year. + +'And what lovely flowers and leaves they wear in their bonnets!' +she exclaimed. + +'Oh yes,' returned Mrs. Swancourt. 'Some of them are even more +striking in colour than any real ones. Look at that beautiful +rose worn by the lady inside the rails. Elegant vine-tendrils +introduced upon the stem as an improvement upon prickles, and all +growing so naturally just over her ear--I say growing advisedly, +for the pink of the petals and the pink of her handsome cheeks are +equally from Nature's hand to the eyes of the most casual +observer.' + +'But praise them a little, they do deserve it!' said generous +Elfride. + +'Well, I do. See how the Duchess of----waves to and fro in her +seat, utilizing the sway of her landau by looking around only when +her head is swung forward, with a passive pride which forbids a +resistance to the force of circumstance. Look at the pretty pout +on the mouths of that family there, retaining no traces of being +arranged beforehand, so well is it done. Look at the demure close +of the little fists holding the parasols; the tiny alert thumb, +sticking up erect against the ivory stem as knowing as can be, the +satin of the parasol invariably matching the complexion of the +face beneath it, yet seemingly by an accident, which makes the +thing so attractive. There's the red book lying on the opposite +seat, bespeaking the vast numbers of their acquaintance. And I +particularly admire the aspect of that abundantly daughtered woman +on the other side--I mean her look of unconsciousness that the +girls are stared at by the walkers, and above all the look of the +girls themselves--losing their gaze in the depths of handsome +men's eyes without appearing to notice whether they are observing +masculine eyes or the leaves of the trees. There's praise for +you. But I am only jesting, child--you know that.' + +'Piph-ph-ph--how warm it is, to be sure!' said Mr. Swancourt, as +if his mind were a long distance from all he saw. 'I declare that +my watch is so hot that I can scarcely bear to touch it to see +what the time is, and all the world smells like the inside of a +hat.' + +'How the men stare at you, Elfride!' said the elder lady. 'You +will kill me quite, I am afraid.' + +'Kill you?' + +'As a diamond kills an opal in the same setting.' + +'I have noticed several ladies and gentlemen looking at me,' said +Elfride artlessly, showing her pleasure at being observed. + +'My dear, you mustn't say "gentlemen" nowadays,' her stepmother +answered in the tones of arch concern that so well became her +ugliness. 'We have handed over "gentlemen" to the lower middle +class, where the word is still to be heard at tradesmen's balls +and provincial tea-parties, I believe. It is done with here.' + +'What must I say, then?' + +'"Ladies and MEN" always.' + +At this moment appeared in the stream of vehicles moving in the +contrary direction a chariot presenting in its general surface the +rich indigo hue of a midnight sky, the wheels and margins being +picked out in delicate lines of ultramarine; the servants' +liveries were dark-blue coats and silver lace, and breeches of +neutral Indian red. The whole concern formed an organic whole, +and moved along behind a pair of dark chestnut geldings, who +advanced in an indifferently zealous trot, very daintily +performed, and occasionally shrugged divers points of their veiny +surface as if they were rather above the business. + +In this sat a gentleman with no decided characteristics more than +that he somewhat resembled a good-natured commercial traveller of +the superior class. Beside him was a lady with skim-milky eyes +and complexion, belonging to the "interesting" class of women, +where that class merges in the sickly, her greatest pleasure being +apparently to enjoy nothing. Opposite this pair sat two little +girls in white hats and blue feathers. + +The lady saw Elfride, smiled and bowed, and touched her husband's +elbow, who turned and received Elfride's movement of recognition +with a gallant elevation of his hat. Then the two children held +up their arms to Elfride, and laughed gleefully. + +'Who is that?' + +'Why, Lord Luxellian, isn't it?' said Mrs. Swancourt, who with the +vicar had been seated with her back towards them. + +'Yes,' replied Elfride. 'He is the one man of those I have seen +here whom I consider handsomer than papa.' + +'Thank you, dear,' said Mr. Swancourt. + +'Yes; but your father is so much older. When Lord Luxellian gets +a little further on in life, he won't be half so good-looking as +our man.' + +'Thank you, dear, likewise,' said Mr. Swancourt. + +'See,' exclaimed Elfride, still looking towards them, 'how those +little dears want me! Actually one of them is crying for me to +come.' + +'We were talking of bracelets just now. Look at Lady +Luxellian's,' said Mrs. Swancourt, as that baroness lifted up her +arm to support one of the children. 'It is slipping up her arm-- +too large by half. I hate to see daylight between a bracelet and +a wrist; I wonder women haven't better taste.' + +'It is not on that account, indeed,' Elfride expostulated. 'It is +that her arm has got thin, poor thing. You cannot think how much +she has altered in this last twelvemonth.' + +The carriages were now nearer together, and there was an exchange +of more familiar greetings between the two families. Then the +Luxellians crossed over and drew up under the plane-trees, just in +the rear of the Swancourts. Lord Luxellian alighted, and came +forward with a musical laugh. + +It was his attraction as a man. People liked him for those tones, +and forgot that he had no talents. Acquaintances remembered Mr. +Swancourt by his manner; they remembered Stephen Smith by his +face, Lord Luxellian by his laugh. + +Mr. Swancourt made some friendly remarks--among others things upon +the heat. + +'Yes,' said Lord Luxellian, 'we were driving by a furrier's window +this afternoon, and the sight filled us all with such a sense of +suffocation that we were glad to get away. Ha-ha!' He turned to +Elfride. 'Miss Swancourt, I have hardly seen or spoken to you +since your literary feat was made public. I had no idea a chiel +was taking notes down at quiet Endelstow, or I should certainly +have put myself and friends upon our best behaviour. Swancourt, +why didn't you give me a hint!' + +Elfride fluttered, blushed, laughed, said it was nothing to speak +of, &c. &c. + +'Well, I think you were rather unfairly treated by the PRESENT, I +certainly do. Writing a heavy review like that upon an elegant +trifle like the COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE was absurd.' + +'What?' said Elfride, opening her eyes. 'Was I reviewed in the +PRESENT?' + +'Oh yes; didn't you see it? Why, it was four or five months ago!' + +'No, I never saw it. How sorry I am! What a shame of my +publishers! They promised to send me every notice that appeared.' + +'Ah, then, I am almost afraid I have been giving you disagreeable +information, intentionally withheld out of courtesy. Depend upon +it they thought no good would come of sending it, and so would not +pain you unnecessarily.' + +'Oh no; I am indeed glad you have told me, Lord Luxellian. It is +quite a mistaken kindness on their part. Is the review so much +against me?' she inquired tremulously. + +'No, no; not that exactly--though I almost forget its exact +purport now. It was merely--merely sharp, you know--ungenerous, I +might say. But really my memory does not enable me to speak +decidedly.' + +'We'll drive to the PRESENT office, and get one directly; shall +we, papa?' + +'If you are so anxious, dear, we will, or send. But to-morrow +will do.' + +'And do oblige me in a little matter now, Elfride,' said Lord +Luxellian warmly, and looking as if he were sorry he had brought +news that disturbed her. 'I am in reality sent here as a special +messenger by my little Polly and Katie to ask you to come into our +carriage with them for a short time. I am just going to walk +across into Piccadilly, and my wife is left alone with them. I am +afraid they are rather spoilt children; but I have half promised +them you shall come.' + +The steps were let down, and Elfride was transferred--to the +intense delight of the little girls, and to the mild interest of +loungers with red skins and long necks, who cursorily eyed the +performance with their walking-sticks to their lips, occasionally +laughing from far down their throats and with their eyes, their +mouths not being concerned in the operation at all. Lord +Luxellian then told the coachman to drive on, lifted his hat, +smiled a smile that missed its mark and alighted on a total +stranger, who bowed in bewilderment. Lord Luxellian looked long +at Elfride. + +The look was a manly, open, and genuine look of admiration; a +momentary tribute of a kind which any honest Englishman might have +paid to fairness without being ashamed of the feeling, or +permitting it to encroach in the slightest degree upon his +emotional obligations as a husband and head of a family. Then +Lord Luxellian turned away, and walked musingly to the upper end +of the promenade. + +Mr. Swancourt had alighted at the same time with Elfride, crossing +over to the Row for a few minutes to speak to a friend he +recognized there; and his wife was thus left sole tenant of the +carriage. + +Now, whilst this little act had been in course of performance, +there stood among the promenading spectators a man of somewhat +different description from the rest. Behind the general throng, in +the rear of the chairs, and leaning against the trunk of a tree, +he looked at Elfride with quiet and critical interest. + +Three points about this unobtrusive person showed promptly to the +exercised eye that he was not a Row man pur sang. First, an +irrepressible wrinkle or two in the waist of his frock-coat-- +denoting that he had not damned his tailor sufficiently to drive +that tradesman up to the orthodox high pressure of cunning +workmanship. Second, a slight slovenliness of umbrella, +occasioned by its owner's habit of resting heavily upon it, and +using it as a veritable walking-stick, instead of letting its +point touch the ground in the most coquettish of kisses, as is the +proper Row manner to do. Third, and chief reason, that try how +you might, you could scarcely help supposing, on looking at his +face, that your eyes were not far from a well-finished mind, +instead of the well-finished skin et praeterea nihil, which is by +rights the Mark of the Row. + +The probability is that, had not Mrs. Swancourt been left alone in +her carriage under the tree, this man would have remained in his +unobserved seclusion. But seeing her thus, he came round to the +front, stooped under the rail, and stood beside the carriage-door. + +Mrs. Swancourt looked reflectively at him for a quarter of a +minute, then held out her hand laughingly: + +'Why, Henry Knight--of course it is! My--second--third--fourth +cousin--what shall I say? At any rate, my kinsman.' + +'Yes, one of a remnant not yet cut off. I scarcely was certain of +you, either, from where I was standing.' + +'I have not seen you since you first went to Oxford; consider the +number of years! You know, I suppose, of my marriage?' + +And there sprang up a dialogue concerning family matters of birth, +death, and marriage, which it is not necessary to detail. Knight +presently inquired: + +'The young lady who changed into the other carriage is, then, your +stepdaughter?' + +'Yes, Elfride. You must know her.' + +'And who was the lady in the carriage Elfride entered; who had an +ill-defined and watery look, as if she were only the reflection of +herself in a pool?' + +'Lady Luxellian; very weakly, Elfride says. My husband is +remotely connected with them; but there is not much intimacy on +account of----. However, Henry, you'll come and see us, of +course. 24 Chevron Square. Come this week. We shall only be in +town a week or two longer.' + +'Let me see. I've got to run up to Oxford to-morrow, where I +shall be for several days; so that I must, I fear, lose the +pleasure of seeing you in London this year.' + +'Then come to Endelstow; why not return with us?' + +'I am afraid if I were to come before August I should have to +leave again in a day or two. I should be delighted to be with you +at the beginning of that month; and I could stay a nice long time. +I have thought of going westward all the summer.' + +'Very well. Now remember that's a compact. And won't you wait +now and see Mr. Swancourt? He will not be away ten minutes +longer.' + +'No; I'll beg to be excused; for I must get to my chambers again +this evening before I go home; indeed, I ought to have been there +now--I have such a press of matters to attend to just at present. +You will explain to him, please. Good-bye.' + +'And let us know the day of your appearance as soon as you can.' + +'I will' + + + +Chapter XV + +'A wandering voice.' + + +Though sheer and intelligible griefs are not charmed away by being +confided to mere acquaintances, the process is a palliative to +certain ill-humours. Among these, perplexed vexation is one--a +species of trouble which, like a stream, gets shallower by the +simple operation of widening it in any quarter. + +On the evening of the day succeeding that of the meeting in the +Park, Elfride and Mrs. Swancourt were engaged in conversation in +the dressing-room of the latter. Such a treatment of such a case +was in course of adoption here. + +Elfride had just before received an affectionate letter from +Stephen Smith in Bombay, which had been forwarded to her from +Endelstow. But since this is not the case referred to, it is not +worth while to pry further into the contents of the letter than to +discover that, with rash though pardonable confidence in coming +times, he addressed her in high spirits as his darling future +wife. Probably there cannot be instanced a briefer and surer rule- +of-thumb test of a man's temperament--sanguine or cautious--than +this: did he or does he ante-date the word wife in corresponding +with a sweet-heart he honestly loves? + +She had taken this epistle into her own room, read a little of it, +then SAVED the rest for to-morrow, not wishing to be so +extravagant as to consume the pleasure all at once. Nevertheless, +she could not resist the wish to enjoy yet a little more, so out +came the letter again, and in spite of misgivings as to +prodigality the whole was devoured. The letter was finally +reperused and placed in her pocket. + +What was this? Also a newspaper for Elfride, which she had +overlooked in her hurry to open the letter. It was the old number +of the PRESENT, containing the article upon her book, forwarded as +had been requested. + +Elfride had hastily read it through, shrunk perceptibly smaller, +and had then gone with the paper in her hand to Mrs. Swancourt's +dressing-room, to lighten or at least modify her vexation by a +discriminating estimate from her stepmother. + +She was now looking disconsolately out of the window. + +'Never mind, my child,' said Mrs. Swancourt after a careful +perusal of the matter indicated. 'I don't see that the review is +such a terrible one, after all. Besides, everybody has forgotten +about it by this time. I'm sure the opening is good enough for +any book ever written. Just listen--it sounds better read aloud +than when you pore over it silently: "THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE. +A ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. BY ERNEST FIELD. In the belief +that we were for a while escaping the monotonous repetition of +wearisome details in modern social scenery, analyses of +uninteresting character, or the unnatural unfoldings of a +sensation plot, we took this volume into our hands with a feeling +of pleasure. We were disposed to beguile ourselves with the fancy +that some new change might possibly be rung upon donjon keeps, +chain and plate armour, deeply scarred cheeks, tender maidens +disguised as pages, to which we had not listened long ago." Now, +that's a very good beginning, in my opinion, and one to be proud +of having brought out of a man who has never seen you.' + +'Ah, yes,' murmured Elfride wofully. 'But, then, see further on!' + +'Well the next bit is rather unkind, I must own,' said Mrs. +Swancourt, and read on. '"Instead of this we found ourselves in +the hands of some young lady, hardly arrived at years of +discretion, to judge by the silly device it has been thought worth +while to adopt on the title-page, with the idea of disguising her +sex."' + +'I am not "silly"!' said Elfride indignantly. 'He might have +called me anything but that.' + +'You are not, indeed. Well:--"Hands of a young lady...whose +chapters are simply devoted to impossible tournaments, towers, and +escapades, which read like flat copies of like scenes in the +stories of Mr. G. P. R. James, and the most unreal portions of +IVANHOE. The bait is so palpably artificial that the most +credulous gudgeon turns away." Now, my dear, I don't see overmuch +to complain of in that. It proves that you were clever enough to +make him think of Sir Walter Scott, which is a great deal.' + +'Oh yes; though I cannot romance myself, I am able to remind him +of those who can!' Elfride intended to hurl these words +sarcastically at her invisible enemy, but as she had no more +satirical power than a wood-pigeon, they merely fell in a pretty +murmur from lips shaped to a pout. + +'Certainly: and that's something. Your book is good enough to be +bad in an ordinary literary manner, and doesn't stand by itself in +a melancholy position altogether worse than assailable.--"That +interest in an historical romance may nowadays have any chance of +being sustained, it is indispensable that the reader find himself +under the guidance of some nearly extinct species of legendary, +who, in addition to an impulse towards antiquarian research and an +unweakened faith in the mediaeval halo, shall possess an inventive +faculty in which delicacy of sentiment is far overtopped by a +power of welding to stirring incident a spirited variety of the +elementary human passions." Well, that long-winded effusion +doesn't refer to you at all, Elfride, merely something put in to +fill up. Let me see, when does he come to you again;...not till +the very end, actually. Here you are finally polished off: + +'"But to return to the little work we have used as the text of +this article. We are far from altogether disparaging the author's +powers. She has a certain versatility that enables her to use +with effect a style of narration peculiar to herself, which may be +called a murmuring of delicate emotional trifles, the particular +gift of those to whom the social sympathies of a peaceful time are +as daily food. Hence, where matters of domestic experience, and +the natural touches which make people real, can be introduced +without anachronisms too striking, she is occasionally felicitous; +and upon the whole we feel justified in saying that the book will +bear looking into for the sake of those portions which have +nothing whatever to do with the story." + +'Well, I suppose it is intended for satire; but don't think +anything more of it now, my dear. It is seven o'clock.' And Mrs. +Swancourt rang for her maid. + +Attack is more piquant than concord. Stephen's letter was +concerning nothing but oneness with her: the review was the very +reverse. And a stranger with neither name nor shape, age nor +appearance, but a mighty voice, is naturally rather an interesting +novelty to a lady he chooses to address. When Elfride fell asleep +that night she was loving the writer of the letter, but thinking +of the writer of that article. + + + +Chapter XVI + +'Then fancy shapes--as fancy can.' + + +On a day about three weeks later, the Swancourt trio were sitting +quietly in the drawing-room of The Crags, Mrs. Swancourt's house +at Endelstow, chatting, and taking easeful survey of their +previous month or two of town--a tangible weariness even to people +whose acquaintances there might be counted on the fingers. + +A mere season in London with her practised step-mother had so +advanced Elfride's perceptions, that her courtship by Stephen +seemed emotionally meagre, and to have drifted back several years +into a childish past. In regarding our mental experiences, as in +visual observation, our own progress reads like a dwindling of +that we progress from. + +She was seated on a low chair, looking over her romance with +melancholy interest for the first time since she had become +acquainted with the remarks of the PRESENT thereupon. + +'Still thinking of that reviewer, Elfie?' + +'Not of him personally; but I am thinking of his opinion. Really, +on looking into the volume after this long time has elapsed, he +seems to have estimated one part of it fairly enough.' + +'No, no; I wouldn't show the white feather now! Fancy that of all +people in the world the writer herself should go over to the +enemy. How shall Monmouth's men fight when Monmouth runs away?' + +'I don't do that. But I think he is right in some of his +arguments, though wrong in others. And because he has some claim +to my respect I regret all the more that he should think so +mistakenly of my motives in one or two instances. It is more +vexing to be misunderstood than to be misrepresented; and he +misunderstands me. I cannot be easy whilst a person goes to rest +night after night attributing to me intentions I never had.' + +'He doesn't know your name, or anything about you. And he has +doubtless forgotten there is such a book in existence by this +time.' + +'I myself should certainly like him to be put right upon one or +two matters,' said the vicar, who had hitherto been silent. 'You +see, critics go on writing, and are never corrected or argued +with, and therefore are never improved.' + +'Papa,' said Elfride brightening, 'write to him!' + +'I would as soon write to him as look at him, for the matter of +that,' said Mr. Swancourt. + +'Do! And say, the young person who wrote the book did not adopt a +masculine pseudonym in vanity or conceit, but because she was +afraid it would be thought presumptuous to publish her name, and +that she did not mean the story for such as he, but as a sweetener +of history for young people, who might thereby acquire a taste for +what went on in their own country hundreds of years ago, and be +tempted to dive deeper into the subject. Oh, there is so much to +explain; I wish I might write myself!' + +'Now, Elfie, I'll tell you what we will do,' answered Mr. +Swancourt, tickled with a sort of bucolic humour at the idea of +criticizing the critic. 'You shall write a clear account of what +he is wrong in, and I will copy it and send it as mine.' + +'Yes, now, directly!' said Elfride, jumping up. 'When will you +send it, papa? ' + +'Oh, in a day or two, I suppose,' he returned. Then the vicar +paused and slightly yawned, and in the manner of elderly people +began to cool from his ardour for the undertaking now that it came +to the point. 'But, really, it is hardly worth while,' he said. + +'O papa!' said Elfride, with much disappointment. 'You said you +would, and now you won't. That is not fair!' + +'But how can we send it if we don't know whom to send it to?' + +'If you really want to send such a thing it can easily be done,' +said Mrs. Swancourt, coming to her step-daughter's rescue. 'An +envelope addressed, "To the Critic of THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE, +care of the Editor of the PRESENT," would find him.' + +'Yes, I suppose it would.' + +'Why not write your answer yourself, Elfride?' Mrs. Swancourt +inquired. + +'I might,' she said hesitatingly; 'and send it anonymously: that +would be treating him as he has treated me.' + +'No use in the world!' + +'But I don't like to let him know my exact name. Suppose I put my +initials only? The less you are known the more you are thought +of.' + +'Yes; you might do that.' + +Elfride set to work there and then. Her one desire for the last +fortnight seemed likely to be realized. As happens with sensitive +and secluded minds, a continual dwelling upon the subject had +magnified to colossal proportions the space she assumed herself to +occupy or to have occupied in the occult critic's mind. At noon +and at night she had been pestering herself with endeavours to +perceive more distinctly his conception of her as a woman apart +from an author: whether he really despised her; whether he thought +more or less of her than of ordinary young women who never +ventured into the fire of criticism at all. Now she would have +the satisfaction of feeling that at any rate he knew her true +intent in crossing his path, and annoying him so by her +performance, and be taught perhaps to despise it a little less. + +Four days later an envelope, directed to Miss Swancourt in a +strange hand, made its appearance from the post-bag. + +'0h,' said Elfride, her heart sinking within her. 'Can it be from +that man--a lecture for impertinence? And actually one for Mrs. +Swancourt in the same hand-writing!' She feared to open hers. +'Yet how can he know my name? No; it is somebody else.' + +'Nonsense!' said her father grimly. 'You sent your initials, and +the Directory was available. Though he wouldn't have taken the +trouble to look there unless he had been thoroughly savage with +you. I thought you wrote with rather more asperity than simple +literary discussion required.' This timely clause was introduced +to save the character of the vicar's judgment under any issue of +affairs. + +'Well, here I go,' said Elfride, desperately tearing open the +seal. + +'To be sure, of course,' exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt; and looking up +from her own letter. 'Christopher, I quite forgot to tell you, +when I mentioned that I had seen my distant relative, Harry +Knight, that I invited him here for whatever length of time he +could spare. And now he says he can come any day in August.' + +'Write, and say the first of the month,' replied the +indiscriminate vicar. + +She read om 'Goodness me--and that isn't all. He is actually the +reviewer of Elfride's book. How absurd, to be sure! I had no idea +he reviewed novels or had anything to do with the PRESENT. He is +a barrister--and I thought he only wrote in the Quarterlies. Why, +Elfride, you have brought about an odd entanglement! What does he +say to you?' + +Elfride had put down her letter with a dissatisfied flush on her +face. 'I don't know. The idea of his knowing my name and all +about me!...Why, he says nothing particular, only this-- + + +'"MY DEAR MADAM,--Though I am sorry that my remarks should have +seemed harsh to you, it is a pleasure to find that they have been +the means of bringing forth such an ingeniously argued reply. +Unfortunately, it is so long since I wrote my review, that my +memory does not serve me sufficiently to say a single word in my +defence, even supposing there remains one to be said, which is +doubtful. You, will find from a letter I have written to Mrs. +Swancourt, that we are not such strangers to each other as we have +been imagining. Possibly, I may have the pleasure of seeing you +soon, when any argument you choose to advance shall receive all +the attention it deserves." + + +'That is dim sarcasm--I know it is.' + +'Oh no, Elfride.' + +'And then, his remarks didn't seem harsh--I mean I did not say +so.' + +'He thinks you are in a frightful temper,' said Mr. Swancourt, +chuckling in undertones. + +'And he will come and see me, and find the authoress as +contemptible in speech as she has been impertinent in manner. I +do heartily wish I had never written a word to him!' + +'Never mind,' said Mrs. Swancourt, also laughing in low quiet +jerks; 'it will make the meeting such a comical affair, and afford +splendid by-play for your father and myself. The idea of our +running our heads against Harry Knight all the time! I cannot get +over that.' + +The vicar had immediately remembered the name to be that of +Stephen Smith's preceptor and friend; but having ceased to concern +himself in the matter he made no remark to that effect, +consistently forbearing to allude to anything which could restore +recollection of the (to him) disagreeable mistake with regard to +poor Stephen's lineage and position. Elfride had of course +perceived the same thing, which added to the complication of +relationship a mesh that her stepmother knew nothing of. + +The identification scarcely heightened Knight's attractions now, +though a twelvemonth ago she would only have cared to see him for +the interest he possessed as Stephen's friend. Fortunately for +Knight's advent, such a reason for welcome had only begun to be +awkward to her at a time when the interest he had acquired on his +own account made it no longer necessary. + + +These coincidences, in common with all relating to him, tended to +keep Elfride's mind upon the stretch concerning Knight. As was +her custom when upon the horns of a dilemma, she walked off by +herself among the laurel bushes, and there, standing still and +splitting up a leaf without removing it from its stalk, fetched +back recollections of Stephen's frequent words in praise of his +friend, and wished she had listened more attentively. Then, still +pulling the leaf, she would blush at some fancied mortification +that would accrue to her from his words when they met, in +consequence of her intrusiveness, as she now considered it, in +writing to him. + +The next development of her meditations was the subject of what +this man's personal appearance might be--was he tall or short, +dark or fair, gay or grim? She would have asked Mrs. Swancourt but +for the risk she might thereby incur of some teasing remark being +returned. Ultimately Elfride would say, 'Oh, what a plague that +reviewer is to me!' and turn her face to where she imagined India +lay, and murmur to herself, 'Ah, my little husband, what are you +doing now? Let me see, where are you--south, east, where? Behind +that hill, ever so far behind!' + + + +Chapter XVII + +'Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase.' + + +'There is Henry Knight, I declare!' said Mrs. Swancourt one day. + +They were gazing from the jutting angle of a wild enclosure not +far from The Crags, which almost overhung the valley already +described as leading up from the sea and little port of Castle +Boterel. The stony escarpment upon which they stood had the +contour of a man's face, and it was covered with furze as with a +beard. People in the field above were preserved from an +accidental roll down these prominences and hollows by a hedge on +the very crest, which was doing that kindly service for Elfride +and her mother now. + +Scrambling higher into the hedge and stretching her neck further +over the furze, Elfride beheld the individual signified. He was +walking leisurely along the little green path at the bottom, +beside the stream, a satchel slung upon his left hip, a stout +walking-stick in his hand, and a brown-holland sun-hat upon his +head. The satchel was worn and old, and the outer polished +surface of the leather was cracked and peeling off. + +Knight having arrived over the hills to Castle Boterel upon the +top of a crazy omnibus, preferred to walk the remaining two miles +up the valley, leaving his luggage to be brought on. + +Behind him wandered, helter-skelter, a boy of whom Knight had +briefly inquired the way to Endelstow; and by that natural law of +physics which causes lesser bodies to gravitate towards the +greater, this boy had kept near to Knight, and trotted like a +little dog close at his heels, whistling as he went, with his eyes +fixed upon Knight's boots as they rose and fell. + +When they had reached a point precisely opposite that in which +Mrs. and Miss Swancourt lay in ambush, Knight stopped and turned +round. + +'Look here, my boy,' he said. + +The boy parted his lips, opened his eyes, and answered nothing. + +'Here's sixpence for you, on condition that you don't again come +within twenty yards of my heels, all the way up the valley.' + +The boy, who apparently had not known he had been looking at +Knight's heels at all, took the sixpence mechanically, and Knight +went on again, wrapt in meditation. + +'A nice voice,' Elfride thought; 'but what a singular temper!' + +'Now we must get indoors before he ascends the slope,' said Mrs. +Swancourt softly. And they went across by a short cut over a +stile, entering the lawn by a side door, and so on to the house. + +Mr. Swancourt had gone into the village with the curate, and +Elfride felt too nervous to await their visitor's arrival in the +drawing-room with Mrs. Swancourt. So that when the elder lady +entered, Elfride made some pretence of perceiving a new variety of +crimson geranium, and lingered behind among the flower beds. + +There was nothing gained by this, after all, she thought; and a +few minutes after boldly came into the house by the glass side- +door. She walked along the corridor, and entered the drawing- +room. Nobody was there. + +A window at the angle of the room opened directly into an +octagonal conservatory, enclosing the corner of the building. +From the conservatory came voices in conversation--Mrs. +Swancourt's and the stranger's. + +She had expected him to talk brilliantly. To her surprise he was +asking questions in quite a learner's manner, on subjects +connected with the flowers and shrubs that she had known for +years. When after the lapse of a few minutes he spoke at some +length, she considered there was a hard square decisiveness in the +shape of his sentences, as if, unlike her own and Stephen's, they +were not there and then newly constructed, but were drawn forth +from a large store ready-made. They were now approaching the +window to come in again. + +'That is a flesh-coloured variety,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'But +oleanders, though they are such bulky shrubs, are so very easily +wounded as to be unprunable--giants with the sensitiveness of +young ladies. Oh, here is Elfride!' + +Elfride looked as guilty and crestfallen as Lady Teazle at the +dropping of the screen. Mrs. Swancourt presented him half +comically, and Knight in a minute or two placed himself beside the +young lady. + +A complexity of instincts checked Elfride's conventional smiles of +complaisance and hospitality; and, to make her still less +comfortable, Mrs. Swancourt immediately afterwards left them +together to seek her husband. Mr. Knight, however, did not seem +at all incommoded by his feelings, and he said with light +easefulness: + +'So, Miss Swancourt, I have met you at last. You escaped me by a +few minutes only when we were in London.' + +'Yes. I found that you had seen Mrs. Swancourt.' + +'And now reviewer and reviewed are face to face,' he added +unconcernedly. + +'Yes: though the fact of your being a relation of Mrs. Swancourt's +takes off the edge of it. It was strange that you should be one +of her family all the time.' Elfride began to recover herself now, +and to look into Knight's face. 'I was merely anxious to let you +know my REAL meaning in writing the book--extremely anxious.' + +'I can quite understand the wish; and I was gratified that my +remarks should have reached home. They very seldom do, I am +afraid.' + +Elfride drew herself in. Here he was, sticking to his opinions as +firmly as if friendship and politeness did not in the least +require an immediate renunciation of them. + +'You made me very uneasy and sorry by writing such things!' she +murmured, suddenly dropping the mere cacueterie of a fashionable +first introduction, and speaking with some of the dudgeon of a +child towards a severe schoolmaster. + +'That is rather the object of honest critics in such a case. Not +to cause unnecessary sorrow, but: "To make you sorry after a +proper manner, that ye may receive damage by us in nothing," as a +powerful pen once wrote to the Gentiles. Are you going to write +another romance?' + +'Write another?' she said. 'That somebody may pen a condemnation +and "nail't wi' Scripture" again, as you do now, Mr. Knight?' + +'You may do better next time,' he said placidly: 'I think you +will. But I would advise you to confine yourself to domestic +scenes.' + +'Thank you. But never again!' + +'Well, you may be right. That a young woman has taken to writing +is not by any means the best thing to hear about her.' + +'What is the best?' + +'I prefer not to say.' + +'Do you know? Then, do tell me, please.' + +'Well'--(Knight was evidently changing his meaning)--'I suppose to +hear that she has married.' + +Elfride hesitated. 'And what when she has been married?' she said +at last, partly in order to withdraw her own person from the +argument. + +'Then to hear no more about her. It is as Smeaton said of his +lighthouse: her greatest real praise, when the novelty of her +inauguration has worn off, is that nothing happens to keep the +talk of her alive.' + +'Yes, I see,' said Elfride softly and thoughtfully. 'But of +course it is different quite with men. Why don't you write +novels, Mr. Knight?' + +'Because I couldn't write one that would interest anybody.' + +'Why?' + +'For several reasons. It requires a judicious omission of your +real thoughts to make a novel popular, for one thing.' + +'Is that really necessary? Well, I am sure you could learn to do +that with practice,' said Elfride with an ex-cathedra air, as +became a person who spoke from experience in the art. 'You would +make a great name for certain,' she continued. + +'So many people make a name nowadays, that it is more +distinguished to remain in obscurity.' + +'Tell me seriously--apart from the subject--why don't you write a +volume instead of loose articles?' she insisted. + +'Since you are pleased to make me talk of myself, I will tell you +seriously,' said Knight, not less amused at this catechism by his +young friend than he was interested in her appearance. 'As I have +implied, I have not the wish. And if I had the wish, I could not +now concentrate sufficiently. We all have only our one cruse of +energy given us to make the best of. And where that energy has +been leaked away week by week, quarter by quarter, as mine has for +the last nine or ten years, there is not enough dammed back behind +the mill at any given period to supply the force a complete book +on any subject requires. Then there is the self-confidence and +waiting power. Where quick results have grown customary, they are +fatal to a lively faith in the future.' + +'Yes, I comprehend; and so you choose to write in fragments?' + +'No, I don't choose to do it in the sense you mean; choosing from +a whole world of professions, all possible. It was by the +constraint of accident merely. Not that I object to the +accident.' + +'Why don't you object--I mean, why do you feel so quiet about +things?' Elfride was half afraid to question him so, but her +intense curiosity to see what the inside of literary Mr. Knight +was like, kept her going on. + +Knight certainly did not mind being frank with her. Instances of +this trait in men who are not without feeling, but are reticent +from habit, may be recalled by all of us. When they find a +listener who can by no possibility make use of them, rival them, +or condemn them, reserved and even suspicious men of the world +become frank, keenly enjoying the inner side of their frankness. + +'Why I don't mind the accidental constraint,' he replied, 'is +because, in making beginnings, a chance limitation of direction is +often better than absolute freedom.' + +'I see--that is, I should if I quite understood what all those +generalities mean.' + +'Why, this: That an arbitrary foundation for one's work, which no +length of thought can alter, leaves the attention free to fix +itself on the work itself, and make the best of it.' + +'Lateral compression forcing altitude, as would be said in that +tongue,' she said mischievously. 'And I suppose where no limit +exists, as in the case of a rich man with a wide taste who wants +to do something, it will be better to choose a limit capriciously +than to have none.' + +'Yes,' he said meditatively. 'I can go as far as that.' + +'Well,' resumed Elfride, 'I think it better for a man's nature if +he does nothing in particular.' + +'There is such a case as being obliged to.' + +'Yes, yes; I was speaking of when you are not obliged for any +other reason than delight in the prospect of fame. I have thought +many times lately that a thin widespread happiness, commencing +now, and of a piece with the days of your life, is preferable to +an anticipated heap far away in the future, and none now.' + +'Why, that's the very thing I said just now as being the principle +of all ephemeral doers like myself.' + +'Oh, I am sorry to have parodied you,' she said with some +confusion. 'Yes, of course. That is what you meant about not +trying to be famous.' And she added, with the quickness of +conviction characteristic of her mind: 'There is much littleness +in trying to be great. A man must think a good deal of himself, +and be conceited enough to believe in himself, before he tries at +all.' + +'But it is soon enough to say there is harm in a man's thinking a +good deal of himself when it is proved he has been thinking wrong, +and too soon then sometimes. Besides, we should not conclude that +a man who strives earnestly for success does so with a strong +sense of his own merit. He may see how little success has to do +with merit, and his motive may be his very humility.' + +This manner of treating her rather provoked Elfride. No sooner +did she agree with him than he ceased to seem to wish it, and took +the other side. 'Ah,' she thought inwardly, 'I shall have nothing +to do with a man of this kind, though he is our visitor.' + +'I think you will find,' resumed Knight, pursuing the conversation +more for the sake of finishing off his thoughts on the subject +than for engaging her attention, 'that in actual life it is merely +a matter of instinct with men--this trying to push on. They awake +to a recognition that they have, without premeditation, begun to +try a little, and they say to themselves, "Since I have tried thus +much, I will try a little more." They go on because they have +begun.' + +Elfride, in her turn, was not particularly attending to his words +at this moment. She had, unconsciously to herself, a way of +seizing any point in the remarks of an interlocutor which +interested her, and dwelling upon it, and thinking thoughts of her +own thereupon, totally oblivious of all that he might say in +continuation. On such occasions she artlessly surveyed the person +speaking; and then there was a time for a painter. Her eyes +seemed to look at you, and past you, as you were then, into your +future; and past your future into your eternity--not reading it, +but gazing in an unused, unconscious way--her mind still clinging +to its original thought. + +This is how she was looking at Knight. + +Suddenly Elfride became conscious of what she was doing, and was +painfully confused. + +'What were you so intent upon in me?' he inquired. + +'As far as I was thinking of you at all, I was thinking how clever +you are,' she said, with a want of premeditation that was +startling in its honesty and simplicity. + +Feeling restless now that she had so unwittingly spoken, she arose +and stepped to the window, having heard the voices of her father +and Mrs. Swancourt coming up below the terrace. 'Here they are,' +she said, going out. Knight walked out upon the lawn behind her. +She stood upon the edge of the terrace, close to the stone +balustrade, and looked towards the sun, hanging over a glade just +now fair as Tempe's vale, up which her father was walking. + +Knight could not help looking at her. The sun was within ten +degrees of the horizon, and its warm light flooded her face and +heightened the bright rose colour of her cheeks to a vermilion +red, their moderate pink hue being only seen in its natural tone +where the cheek curved round into shadow. The ends of her hanging +hair softly dragged themselves backwards and forwards upon her +shoulder as each faint breeze thrust against or relinquished it. +Fringes and ribbons of her dress, moved by the same breeze, licked +like tongues upon the parts around them, and fluttering forward +from shady folds caught likewise their share of the lustrous +orange glow. + +Mr. Swancourt shouted out a welcome to Knight from a distance of +about thirty yards, and after a few preliminary words proceeded to +a conversation of deep earnestness on Knight's fine old family +name, and theories as to lineage and intermarriage connected +therewith. Knight's portmanteau having in the meantime arrived, +they soon retired to prepare for dinner, which had been postponed +two hours later than the usual time of that meal. + +An arrival was an event in the life of Elfride, now that they were +again in the country, and that of Knight necessarily an engrossing +one. And that evening she went to bed for the first time without +thinking of Stephen at all. + + + +Chapter XVIII + +'He heard her musical pants.' + + +The old tower of West Endelstow Church had reached the last weeks +of its existence. It was to be replaced by a new one from the +designs of Mr. Hewby, the architect who had sent down Stephen. +Planks and poles had arrived in the churchyard, iron bars had been +thrust into the venerable crack extending down the belfry wall to +the foundation, the bells had been taken down, the owls had +forsaken this home of their forefathers, and six iconoclasts in +white fustian, to whom a cracked edifice was a species of Mumbo +Jumbo, had taken lodgings in the village previous to beginning the +actual removal of the stones. + +This was the day after Knight's arrival. To enjoy for the last +time the prospect seaward from the summit, the vicar, Mrs. +Swancourt, Knight, and Elfride, all ascended the winding turret-- +Mr. Swancourt stepping forward with many loud breaths, his wife +struggling along silently, but suffering none the less. They had +hardly reached the top when a large lurid cloud, palpably a +reservoir of rain, thunder, and lightning, was seen to be +advancing overhead from the north. + +The two cautious elders suggested an immediate return, and +proceeded to put it in practice as regarded themselves. + +'Dear me, I wish I had not come up,' exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt. + +'We shall be slower than you two in going down,' the vicar said +over his shoulder, 'and so, don't you start till we are nearly at +the bottom, or you will run over us and break our necks somewhere +in the darkness of the turret.' + +Accordingly Elfride and Knight waited on the leads till the +staircase should be clear. Knight was not in a talkative mood +that morning. Elfride was rather wilful, by reason of his +inattention, which she privately set down to his thinking her not +worth talking to. Whilst Knight stood watching the rise of the +cloud, she sauntered to the other side of the tower, and there +remembered a giddy feat she had performed the year before. It was +to walk round upon the parapet of the tower--which was quite +without battlement or pinnacle, and presented a smooth flat +surface about two feet wide, forming a pathway on all the four +sides. Without reflecting in the least upon what she was doing +she now stepped upon the parapet in the old way, and began walking +along. + +'We are down, cousin Henry,' cried Mrs. Swancourt up the turret. +'Follow us when you like.' + +Knight turned and saw Elfride beginning her elevated promenade. +His face flushed with mingled concern and anger at her rashness. + +'I certainly gave you credit for more common sense,' he said. + +She reddened a little and walked on. + +'Miss Swancourt, I insist upon your coming down,' he exclaimed. + +'I will in a minute. I am safe enough. I have done it often.' + +At that moment, by reason of a slight perturbation his words had +caused in her, Elfride's foot caught itself in a little tuft of +grass growing in a joint of the stone-work, and she almost lost +her balance. Knight sprang forward with a face of horror. By +what seemed the special interposition of a considerate Providence +she tottered to the inner edge of the parapet instead of to the +outer, and reeled over upon the lead roof two or three feet below +the wall. + +Knight seized her as in a vice, and he said, panting, 'That ever I +should have met a woman fool enough to do a thing of that kind! +Good God, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!' + +The close proximity of the Shadow of Death had made her sick and +pale as a corpse before he spoke. Already lowered to that state, +his words completely over-powered her, and she swooned away as he +held her. + +Elfride's eyes were not closed for more than forty seconds. She +opened them, and remembered the position instantly. His face had +altered its expression from stern anger to pity. But his severe +remarks had rather frightened her, and she struggled to be free. + +'If you can stand, of course you may,' he said, and loosened his +arms. 'I hardly know whether most to laugh at your freak or to +chide you for its folly.' + +She immediately sank upon the lead-work. Knight lifted her again. +'Are you hurt?' he said. + +She murmured an incoherent expression, and tried to smile; saying, +with a fitful aversion of her face, 'I am only frightened. Put me +down, do put me down!' + +'But you can't walk,' said Knight. + +'You don't know that; how can you? I am only frightened, I tell +you,' she answered petulantly, and raised her hand to her +forehead. Knight then saw that she was bleeding from a severe cut +in her wrist, apparently where it had descended upon a salient +corner of the lead-work. Elfride, too, seemed to perceive and +feel this now for the first time, and for a minute nearly lost +consciousness again. Knight rapidly bound his handkerchief round +the place, and to add to the complication, the thundercloud he had +been watching began to shed some heavy drops of rain. Knight +looked up and saw the vicar striding towards the house, and Mrs. +Swancourt waddling beside him like a hard-driven duck. + +'As you are so faint, it will be much better to let me carry you +down,' said Knight; 'or at any rate inside out of the rain.' But +her objection to be lifted made it impossible for him to support +her for more than five steps. + +'This is folly, great folly,' he exclaimed, setting her down. + +'Indeed!' she murmured, with tears in her eyes. 'I say I will not +be carried, and you say this is folly!' + +'So it is.' + +'No, it isn't!' + +'It is folly, I think. At any rate, the origin of it all is.' + +'I don't agree to it. And you needn't get so angry with me; I am +not worth it.' + +'Indeed you are. You are worth the enmity of princes, as was said +of such another. Now, then, will you clasp your hands behind my +neck, that I may carry you down without hurting you?' + +'No, no.' + +'You had better, or I shall foreclose.' + +'What's that!' + +'Deprive you of your chance.' + +Elfride gave a little toss. + +'Now, don't writhe so when I attempt to carry you.' + +'I can't help it.' + +'Then submit quietly.' + +'I don't care. I don't care,' she murmured in languid tones and +with closed eyes. + +He took her into his arms, entered the turret, and with slow and +cautious steps descended round and round. Then, with the +gentleness of a nursing mother, he attended to the cut on her arm. +During his progress through the operations of wiping it and +binding it up anew, her face changed its aspect from pained +indifference to something like bashful interest, interspersed with +small tremors and shudders of a trifling kind. + +In the centre of each pale cheek a small red spot the size of a +wafer had now made its appearance, and continued to grow larger. +Elfride momentarily expected a recurrence to the lecture on her +foolishness, but Knight said no more than this-- + +'Promise me NEVER to walk on that parapet again.' + +'It will be pulled down soon: so I do.' In a few minutes she +continued in a lower tone, and seriously, 'You are familiar of +course, as everybody is, with those strange sensations we +sometimes have, that our life for the moment exists in duplicate.' + +'That we have lived through that moment before?' + +'Or shall again. Well, I felt on the tower that something similar +to that scene is again to be common to us both.' + +'God forbid!' said Knight. 'Promise me that you will never again +walk on any such place on any consideration.' + +'I do.' + +'That such a thing has not been before, we know. That it shall +not be again, you vow. Therefore think no more of such a foolish +fancy.' + +There had fallen a great deal of rain, but unaccompanied by +lightning. A few minutes longer, and the storm had ceased. + +'Now, take my arm, please.' + +'Oh no, it is not necessary.' This relapse into wilfulness was +because he had again connected the epithet foolish with her. + +'Nonsense: it is quite necessary; it will rain again directly, and +you are not half recovered.' And without more ado Knight took her +hand, drew it under his arm, and held it there so firmly that she +could not have removed it without a struggle. Feeling like a colt +in a halter for the first time, at thus being led along, yet +afraid to be angry, it was to her great relief that she saw the +carriage coming round the corner to fetch them. + +Her fall upon the roof was necessarily explained to some extent +upon their entering the house; but both forbore to mention a word +of what she had been doing to cause such an accident. During the +remainder of the afternoon Elfride was invisible; but at dinner- +time she appeared as bright as ever. + +In the drawing-room, after having been exclusively engaged with +Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt through the intervening hour, Knight again +found himself thrown with Elfride. She had been looking over a +chess problem in one of the illustrated periodicals. + +'You like chess, Miss Swancourt?' + +'Yes. It is my favourite scientific game; indeed, excludes every +other. Do you play?' + +'I have played; though not lately.' + +'Challenge him, Elfride,' said the vicar heartily. 'She plays +very well for a lady, Mr. Knight.' + +'Shall we play?' asked Elfride tentatively. + +'Oh, certainly. I shall be delighted.' + +The game began. Mr. Swancourt had forgotten a similar performance +with Stephen Smith the year before. Elfride had not; but she had +begun to take for her maxim the undoubted truth that the necessity +of continuing faithful to Stephen, without suspicion, dictated a +fickle behaviour almost as imperatively as fickleness itself; a +fact, however, which would give a startling advantage to the +latter quality should it ever appear. + +Knight, by one of those inexcusable oversights which will +sometimes afflict the best of players, placed his rook in the arms +of one of her pawns. It was her first advantage. She looked +triumphant--even ruthless. + +'By George! what was I thinking of?' said Knight quietly; and then +dismissed all concern at his accident. + +'Club laws we'll have, won't we, Mr. Knight?' said Elfride +suasively. + +'Oh yes, certainly,' said Mr. Knight, a thought, however, just +occurring to his mind, that he had two or three times allowed her +to replace a man on her religiously assuring him that such a move +was an absolute blunder. + +She immediately took up the unfortunate rook and the contest +proceeded, Elfride having now rather the better of the game. Then +he won the exchange, regained his position, and began to press her +hard. Elfride grew flurried, and placed her queen on his +remaining rook's file. + +'There--how stupid! Upon my word, I did not see your rook. Of +course nobody but a fool would have put a queen there knowingly!' + +She spoke excitedly, half expecting her antagonist to give her +back the move. + +'Nobody, of course,' said Knight serenely, and stretched out his +hand towards his royal victim. + +'It is not very pleasant to have it taken advantage of, then,' she +said with some vexation. + +'Club laws, I think you said?' returned Knight blandly, and +mercilessly appropriating the queen. + +She was on the brink of pouting, but was ashamed to show it; tears +almost stood in her eyes. She had been trying so hard--so very +hard--thinking and thinking till her brain was in a whirl; and it +seemed so heartless of him to treat her so, after all. + +'I think it is----' she began. + +'What?' + +--'Unkind to take advantage of a pure mistake I make in that way.' + +'I lost my rook by even a purer mistake,' said the enemy in an +inexorable tone, without lifting his eyes. + +'Yes, but----' However, as his logic was absolutely unanswerable, +she merely registered a protest. 'I cannot endure those cold- +blooded ways of clubs and professional players, like Staunton and +Morphy. Just as if it really mattered whether you have raised +your fingers from a man or no!' + +Knight smiled as pitilessly as before, and they went on in +silence. + +'Checkmate,' said Knight. + +'Another game,' said Elfride peremptorily, and looking very warm. + +'With all my heart,' said Knight. + +'Checkmate,' said Knight again at the end of forty minutes. + +'Another game,' she returned resolutely. + +'I'll give you the odds of a bishop,' Knight said to her kindly. + +'No, thank you,' Elfride replied in a tone intended for courteous +indifference; but, as a fact, very cavalier indeed. + +'Checkmate,' said her opponent without the least emotion. + +Oh, the difference between Elfride's condition of mind now, and +when she purposely made blunders that Stephen Smith might win! + +It was bedtime. Her mind as distracted as if it would throb +itself out of her head, she went off to her chamber, full of +mortification at being beaten time after time when she herself was +the aggressor. Having for two or three years enjoyed the +reputation throughout the globe of her father's brain--which +almost constituted her entire world--of being an excellent player, +this fiasco was intolerable; for unfortunately the person most +dogged in the belief in a false reputation is always that one, the +possessor, who has the best means of knowing that it is not true. + +In bed no sleep came to soothe her; that gentle thing being the +very middle-of-summer friend in this respect of flying away at the +merest troublous cloud. After lying awake till two o'clock an +idea seemed to strike her. She softly arose, got a light, and +fetched a Chess Praxis from the library. Returning and sitting up +in bed, she diligently studied the volume till the clock struck +five, and her eyelids felt thick and heavy. She then extinguished +the light and lay down again. + +'You look pale, Elfride,' said Mrs. Swancourt the next morning at +breakfast. 'Isn't she, cousin Harry?' + +A young girl who is scarcely ill at all can hardly help becoming +so when regarded as such by all eyes turning upon her at the table +in obedience to some remark. Everybody looked at Elfride. She +certainly was pale. + +'Am I pale?' she said with a faint smile. 'I did not sleep much. +I could not get rid of armies of bishops and knights, try how I +would.' + +'Chess is a bad thing just before bedtime; especially for +excitable people like yourself, dear. Don't ever play late +again.' + +'I'll play early instead. Cousin Knight,' she said in imitation +of Mrs. Swancourt, 'will you oblige me in something?' + +'Even to half my kingdom.' + +'Well, it is to play one game more.' + +'When?' + +'Now, instantly; the moment we have breakfasted.' + +'Nonsense, Elfride,' said her father. 'Making yourself a slave to +the game like that.' + +'But I want to, papa! Honestly, I am restless at having been so +ignominiously overcome. And Mr. Knight doesn't mind. So what +harm can there be?' + +'Let us play, by all means, if you wish it,' said Knight. + +So, when breakfast was over, the combatants withdrew to the quiet +of the library, and the door was closed. Elfride seemed to have +an idea that her conduct was rather ill-regulated and startlingly +free from conventional restraint. And worse, she fancied upon +Knight's face a slightly amused look at her proceedings. + +'You think me foolish, I suppose,' she said recklessly; 'but I +want to do my very best just once, and see whether I can overcome +you.' + +'Certainly: nothing more natural. Though I am afraid it is not +the plan adopted by women of the world after a defeat.' + +'Why, pray?' + +'Because they know that as good as overcoming is skill in effacing +recollection of being overcome, and turn their attention to that +entirely.' + +'I am wrong again, of course.' + +'Perhaps your wrong is more pleasing than their right.' + +'I don't quite know whether you mean that, or whether you are +laughing at me,' she said, looking doubtingly at him, yet +inclining to accept the more flattering interpretation. 'I am +almost sure you think it vanity in me to think I am a match for +you. Well, if you do, I say that vanity is no crime in such a +case.' + +'Well, perhaps not. Though it is hardly a virtue.' + +'Oh yes, in battle! Nelson's bravery lay in his vanity.' + +'Indeed! Then so did his death.' + +Oh no, no! For it is written in the book of the prophet +Shakespeare-- + + + "Fear and be slain? no worse can come to fight; + And fight and die, is death destroying death!" + + +And down they sat, and the contest began, Elfride having the first +move. The game progressed. Elfride's heart beat so violently +that she could not sit still. Her dread was lest he should hear +it. And he did discover it at last--some flowers upon the table +being set throbbing by its pulsations. + +'I think we had better give over,' said Knight, looking at her +gently. 'It is too much for you, I know. Let us write down the +position, and finish another time.' + +'No, please not,' she implored. 'I should not rest if I did not +know the result at once. It is your move.' + +Ten minutes passed. + +She started up suddenly. 'I know what you are doing?' she cried, +an angry colour upon her cheeks, and her eyes indignant. 'You +were thinking of letting me win to please me!' + +'I don't mind owning that I was,' Knight responded phlegmatically, +and appearing all the more so by contrast with her own turmoil. + +'But you must not! I won't have it.' + +'Very well.' + +'No, that will not do; I insist that you promise not to do any +such absurd thing. It is insulting me!' + +'Very well, madam. I won't do any such absurd thing. You shall +not win.' + +'That is to be proved!' she returned proudly; and the play went +on. + +Nothing is now heard but the ticking of a quaint old timepiece on +the summit of a bookcase. Ten minutes pass; he captures her +knight; she takes his knight, and looks a very Rhadamanthus. + +More minutes tick away; she takes his pawn and has the advantage, +showing her sense of it rather prominently. + +Five minutes more: he takes her bishop: she brings things even by +taking his knight. + +Three minutes: she looks bold, and takes his queen: he looks +placid, and takes hers. + +Eight or ten minutes pass: he takes a pawn; she utters a little +pooh! but not the ghost of a pawn can she take in retaliation. + +Ten minutes pass: he takes another pawn and says, 'Check!' She +flushes, extricates herself by capturing his bishop, and looks +triumphant. He immediately takes her bishop: she looks surprised. + +Five minutes longer: she makes a dash and takes his only remaining +bishop; he replies by taking her only remaining knight. + +Two minutes: he gives check; her mind is now in a painful state of +tension, and she shades her face with her hand. + +Yet a few minutes more: he takes her rook and checks again. She +literally trembles now lest an artful surprise she has in store +for him shall be anticipated by the artful surprise he evidently +has in store for her. + +Five minutes: 'Checkmate in two moves!' exclaims Elfride. + +'If you can,' says Knight. + +'Oh, I have miscalculated; that is cruel!' + +'Checkmate,' says Knight; and the victory is won. + +Elfride arose and turned away without letting him see her face. +Once in the hall she ran upstairs and into her room, and flung +herself down upon her bed, weeping bitterly. + + +'Where is Elfride?' said her father at luncheon. + +Knight listened anxiously for the answer. He had been hoping to +see her again before this time. + +'She isn't well, sir,' was the reply. + +Mrs. Swancourt rose and left the room, going upstairs to Elfride's +apartment. + +At the door was Unity, who occupied in the new establishment a +position between young lady's maid and middle-housemaid. + +'She is sound asleep, ma'am,' Unity whispered. + +Mrs. Swancourt opened the door. Elfride was lying full-dressed on +the bed, her face hot and red, her arms thrown abroad. At +intervals of a minute she tossed restlessly from side to side, and +indistinctly moaned words used in the game of chess. + +Mrs. Swancourt had a turn for doctoring, and felt her pulse. It +was twanging like a harp-string, at the rate of nearly a hundred +and fifty a minute. Softly moving the sleeping girl to a little +less cramped position, she went downstairs again. + +'She is asleep now,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'She does not seem very +well. Cousin Knight, what were you thinking of? her tender brain +won't bear cudgelling like your great head. You should have +strictly forbidden her to play again.' + +In truth, the essayist's experience of the nature of young women +was far less extensive than his abstract knowledge of them led +himself and others to believe. He could pack them into sentences +like a workman, but practically was nowhere. + +'I am indeed sorry,' said Knight, feeling even more than he +expressed. 'But surely, the young lady knows best what is good +for her!' + +'Bless you, that's just what she doesn't know. She never thinks +of such things, does she, Christopher? Her father and I have to +command her and keep her in order, as you would a child. She will +say things worthy of a French epigrammatist, and act like a robin +in a greenhouse. But I think we will send for Dr. Granson--there +can be no harm.' + +A man was straightway despatched on horseback to Castle Boterel, +and the gentleman known as Dr. Granson came in the course of the +afternoon. He pronounced her nervous system to be in a decided +state of disorder; forwarded some soothing draught, and gave +orders that on no account whatever was she to play chess again. + +The next morning Knight, much vexed with himself, waited with a +curiously compounded feeling for her entry to breakfast. The +women servants came in to prayers at irregular intervals, and as +each entered, he could not, to save his life, avoid turning his +head with the hope that she might be Elfride. Mr. Swancourt began +reading without waiting for her. Then somebody glided in +noiselessly; Knight softly glanced up: it was only the little +kitchen-maid. Knight thought reading prayers a bore. + +He went out alone, and for almost the first time failed to +recognize that holding converse with Nature's charms was not +solitude. On nearing the house again he perceived his young +friend crossing a slope by a path which ran into the one he was +following in the angle of the field. Here they met. Elfride was +at once exultant and abashed: coming into his presence had upon +her the effect of entering a cathedral. + +Knight had his note-book in his hand, and had, in fact, been in +the very act of writing therein when they came in view of each +other. He left off in the midst of a sentence, and proceeded to +inquire warmly concerning her state of health. She said she was +perfectly well, and indeed had never looked better. Her health +was as inconsequent as her actions. Her lips were red, WITHOUT +the polish that cherries have, and their redness margined with the +white skin in a clearly defined line, which had nothing of jagged +confusion in it. Altogether she stood as the last person in the +world to be knocked over by a game of chess, because too +ephemeral-looking to play one. + +'Are you taking notes?' she inquired with an alacrity plainly +arising less from interest in the subject than from a wish to +divert his thoughts from herself. + +'Yes; I was making an entry. And with your permission I will +complete it.' Knight then stood still and wrote. Elfride remained +beside him a moment, and afterwards walked on. + +'I should like to see all the secrets that are in that book,' she +gaily flung back to him over her shoulder. + +'I don't think you would find much to interest you.' + +'I know I should.' + +'Then of course I have no more to say.' + +'But I would ask this question first. Is it a book of mere facts +concerning journeys and expenditure, and so on, or a book of +thoughts?' + +'Well, to tell the truth, it is not exactly either. It consists +for the most part of jottings for articles and essays, disjointed +and disconnected, of no possible interest to anybody but myself.' + +'It contains, I suppose, your developed thoughts in embryo?' + +'Yes.' + +'If they are interesting when enlarged to the size of an article, +what must they be in their concentrated form? Pure rectified +spirit, above proof; before it is lowered to be fit for human +consumption: "words that burn" indeed.' + +'Rather like a balloon before it is inflated: flabby, shapeless, +dead. You could hardly read them.' + +'May I try?' she said coaxingly. 'I wrote my poor romance in that +way--I mean in bits, out of doors--and I should like to see +whether your way of entering things is the same as mine.' + +'Really, that's rather an awkward request. I suppose I can hardly +refuse now you have asked so directly; but----' + +'You think me ill-mannered in asking. But does not this justify +me--your writing in my presence, Mr. Knight? If I had lighted upon +your book by chance, it would have been different; but you stand +before me, and say, "Excuse me," without caring whether I do or +not, and write on, and then tell me they are not private facts but +public ideas.' + +'Very well, Miss Swancourt. If you really must see, the +consequences be upon your own head. Remember, my advice to you is +to leave my book alone.' + +'But with that caution I have your permission?' + +'Yes.' + +She hesitated a moment, looked at his hand containing the book, +then laughed, and saying, 'I must see it,' withdrew it from his +fingers. + +Knight rambled on towards the house, leaving her standing in the +path turning over the leaves. By the time he had reached the +wicket-gate he saw that she had moved, and waited till she came +up. + +Elfride had closed the note-book, and was carrying it disdainfully +by the corner between her finger and thumb; her face wore a +nettled look. She silently extended the volume towards him, +raising her eyes no higher than her hand was lifted. + +'Take it,' said Elfride quickly. 'I don't want to read it.' + +'Could you understand it?' said Knight. + +'As far as I looked. But I didn't care to read much.' + +'Why, Miss Swancourt?' + +'Only because I didn't wish to--that's all.' + +'I warned you that you might not.' + +'Yes, but I never supposed you would have put me there.' + +'Your name is not mentioned once within the four corners.' + +'Not my name--I know that.' + +'Nor your description, nor anything by which anybody would +recognize you.' + +'Except myself. For what is this?' she exclaimed, taking it from +him and opening a page. 'August 7. That's the day before +yesterday. But I won't read it,' Elfride said, closing the book +again with pretty hauteur. 'Why should I? I had no business to +ask to see your hook, and it serves me right.' + +Knight hardly recollected what he had written, and turned over the +book to see. He came to this: + +'Aug. 7. Girl gets into her teens, and her self-consciousness is +born. After a certain interval passed in infantine helplessness +it begins to act. Simple, young, and inexperienced at first. +Persons of observation can tell to a nicety how old this +consciousness is by the skill it has acquired in the art necessary +to its success--the art of hiding itself. Generally begins career +by actions which are popularly termed showing-off. Method adopted +depends in each case upon the disposition, rank, residence, of the +young lady attempting it. Town-bred girl will utter some moral +paradox on fast men, or love. Country miss adopts the more +material media of taking a ghastly fence, whistling, or making +your blood run cold by appearing to risk her neck. (MEM. On +Endelstow Tower.) + +'An innocent vanity is of course the origin of these displays. +"Look at me," say these youthful beginners in womanly artifice, +without reflecting whether or not it be to their advantage to show +so very much of themselves. (Amplify and correct for paper on +Artless Arts.)' + +'Yes, I remember now,' said Knight. 'The notes were certainly +suggested by your manoeuvre on the church tower. But you must not +think too much of such random observations,' he continued +encouragingly, as he noticed her injured looks. 'A mere fancy +passing through my head assumes a factitious importance to you, +because it has been made permanent by being written down. All +mankind think thoughts as bad as those of people they most love on +earth, but such thoughts never getting embodied on paper, it +becomes assumed that they never existed. I daresay that you +yourself have thought some disagreeable thing or other of me, +which would seem just as bad as this if written. I challenge you, +now, to tell me.' + +'The worst thing I have thought of you?' + +'Yes.' + +'I must not.' + +'Oh yes.' + +'I thought you were rather round-shouldered.' + +Knight looked slightly redder. + +'And that there was a little bald spot on the top of your head.' + +'Heh-heh! Two ineradicable defects,' said Knight, there being a +faint ghastliness discernible in his laugh. 'They are much worse +in a lady's eye than being thought self-conscious, I suppose.' + +'Ah, that's very fine,' she said, too inexperienced to perceive +her hit, and hence not quite disposed to forgive his notes. 'You +alluded to me in that entry as if I were such a child, too. +Everybody does that. I cannot understand it. I am quite a woman, +you know. How old do you think I am?' + +'How old? Why, seventeen, I should say. All girls are seventeen.' + +'You are wrong. I am nearly nineteen. Which class of women do +you like best, those who seem younger, or those who seem older +than they are?' + +'Off-hand I should be inclined to say those who seem older.' + +So it was not Elfride's class. + +'But it is well known,' she said eagerly, and there was something +touching in the artless anxiety to be thought much of which she +revealed by her words, 'that the slower a nature is to develop, +the richer the nature. Youths and girls who are men and women +before they come of age are nobodies by the time that backward +people have shown their full compass.' + +'Yes,' said Knight thoughtfully. 'There is really something in +that remark. But at the risk of offence I must remind you that +you there take it for granted that the woman behind her time at a +given age has not reached the end of her tether. Her backwardness +may be not because she is slow to develop, but because she soon +exhausted her capacity for developing.' + +Elfride looked disappointed. By this time they were indoors. +Mrs. Swancourt, to whom match-making by any honest means was meat +and drink, had now a little scheme of that nature concerning this +pair. The morning-room, in which they both expected to find her, +was empty; the old lady having, for the above reason, vacated it +by the second door as they entered by the first. + +Knight went to the chimney-piece, and carelessly surveyed two +portraits on ivory. + +'Though these pink ladies had very rudimentary features, judging +by what I see here,' he observed, 'they had unquestionably +beautiful heads of hair.' + +'Yes; and that is everything,' said Elfride, possibly conscious of +her own, possibly not. + +'Not everything; though a great deal, certainly.' + +'Which colour do you like best?' she ventured to ask. + +'More depends on its abundance than on its colour.' + +'Abundances being equal, may I inquire your favourite colour?' + +'Dark.' + +'I mean for women,' she said, with the minutest fall of +countenance, and a hope that she had been misunderstood. + +'So do I,' Knight replied. + +It was impossible for any man not to know the colour of Elfride's +hair. In women who wear it plainly such a feature may be +overlooked by men not given to ocular intentness. But hers was +always in the way. You saw her hair as far as you could see her +sex, and knew that it was the palest brown. She knew instantly +that Knight, being perfectly aware of this, had an independent +standard of admiration in the matter. + +Elfride was thoroughly vexed. She could not but be struck with +the honesty of his opinions, and the worst of it was, that the +more they went against her, the more she respected them. And now, +like a reckless gambler, she hazarded her last and best treasure. +Her eyes: they were her all now. + +'What coloured eyes do you like best, Mr. Knight?' she said +slowly. + +'Honestly, or as a compliment?' + +'Of course honestly; I don't want anybody's compliment!' + +And yet Elfride knew otherwise: that a compliment or word of +approval from that man then would have been like a well to a +famished Arab. + +'I prefer hazel,' he said serenely. + +She had played and lost again. + + + +Chapter XIX + +'Love was in the next degree.' + + +Knight had none of those light familiarities of speech which, by +judicious touches of epigrammatic flattery, obliterate a woman's +recollection of the speaker's abstract opinions. So no more was +said by either on the subject of hair, eyes, or development. +Elfride's mind had been impregnated with sentiments of her own +smallness to an uncomfortable degree of distinctness, and her +discomfort was visible in her face. The whole tendency of the +conversation latterly had been to quietly but surely disparage +her; and she was fain to take Stephen into favour in self-defence. +He would not have been so unloving, she said, as to admire an +idiosyncrasy and features different from her own. True, Stephen +had declared he loved her: Mr. Knight had never done anything of +the sort. Somehow this did not mend matters, and the sensation of +her smallness in Knight's eyes still remained. Had the position +been reversed--had Stephen loved her in spite of a differing +taste, and had Knight been indifferent in spite of her resemblance +to his ideal, it would have engendered far happier thoughts. As +matters stood, Stephen's admiration might have its root in a +blindness the result of passion. Perhaps any keen man's judgment +was condemnatory of her. + +During the remainder of Saturday they were more or less thrown +with their seniors, and no conversation arose which was +exclusively their own. When Elfride was in bed that night her +thoughts recurred to the same subject. At one moment she insisted +that it was ill-natured of him to speak so decisively as he had +done; the next, that it was sterling honesty. + +'Ah, what a poor nobody I am!' she said, sighing. 'People like +him, who go about the great world, don't care in the least what I +am like either in mood or feature.' + +Perhaps a man who has got thoroughly into a woman's mind in this +manner, is half way to her heart; the distance between those two +stations is proverbially short. + +'And are you really going away this week?' said Mrs. Swancourt to +Knight on the following evening, which was Sunday. + +They were all leisurely climbing the hill to the church, where a +last service was now to be held at the rather exceptional time of +evening instead of in the afternoon, previous to the demolition of +the ruinous portions. + +'I am intending to cross to Cork from Bristol,' returned Knight; +'and then I go on to Dublin.' + +'Return this way, and stay a little longer with us,' said the +vicar. 'A week is nothing. We have hardly been able to realize +your presence yet. I remember a story which----' + +The vicar suddenly stopped. He had forgotten it was Sunday, and +would probably have gone on in his week-day mode of thought had +not a turn in the breeze blown the skirt of his college gown +within the range of his vision, and so reminded him. He at once +diverted the current of his narrative with the dexterity the +occasion demanded. + +'The story of the Levite who journeyed to Bethlehem-judah, from +which I took my text the Sunday before last, is quite to the +point,' he continued, with the pronunciation of a man who, far +from having intended to tell a week-day story a moment earlier, +had thought of nothing but Sabbath matters for several weeks. +'What did he gain after all by his restlessness? Had he remained +in the city of the Jebusites, and not been so anxious for Gibeah, +none of his troubles would have arisen.' + +'But he had wasted five days already,' said Knight, closing his +eyes to the vicar's commendable diversion. 'His fault lay in +beginning the tarrying system originally.' + +'True, true; my illustration fails.' + +'But not the hospitality which prompted the story.' + +'So you are to come just the same,' urged Mrs. Swancourt, for she +had seen an almost imperceptible fall of countenance in her +stepdaughter at Knight's announcement. + +Knight half promised to call on his return journey; but the +uncertainty with which he spoke was quite enough to fill Elfride +with a regretful interest in all he did during the few remaining +hours. The curate having already officiated twice that day in the +two churches, Mr. Swancourt had undertaken the whole of the +evening service, and Knight read the lessons for him. The sun +streamed across from the dilapidated west window, and lighted all +the assembled worshippers with a golden glow, Knight as he read +being illuminated by the same mellow lustre. Elfride at the organ +regarded him with a throbbing sadness of mood which was fed by a +sense of being far removed from his sphere. As he went +deliberately through the chapter appointed--a portion of the +history of Elijah--and ascended that magnificent climax of the +wind, the earthquake, the fire, and the still small voice, his +deep tones echoed past with such apparent disregard of her +existence, that his presence inspired her with a forlorn sense of +unapproachableness, which his absence would hardly have been able +to cause. + +At the same time, turning her face for a moment to catch the glory +of the dying sun as it fell on his form, her eyes were arrested by +the shape and aspect of a woman in the west gallery. It was the +bleak barren countenance of the widow Jethway, whom Elfride had +not seen much of since the morning of her return with Stephen +Smith. Possessing the smallest of competencies, this unhappy +woman appeared to spend her life in journeyings between Endelstow +Churchyard and that of a village near Southampton, where her +father and mother were laid. + +She had not attended the service here for a considerable time, and +she now seemed to have a reason for her choice of seat. From the +gallery window the tomb of her son was plainly visible--standing +as the nearest object in a prospect which was closed outwardly by +the changeless horizon of the sea. + +The streaming rays, too, flooded her face, now bent towards +Elfride with a hard and bitter expression that the solemnity of +the place raised to a tragic dignity it did not intrinsically +possess. The girl resumed her normal attitude with an added +disquiet. + +Elfride's emotion was cumulative, and after a while would assert +itself on a sudden. A slight touch was enough to set it free--a +poem, a sunset, a cunningly contrived chord of music, a vague +imagining, being the usual accidents of its exhibition. The +longing for Knight's respect, which was leading up to an incipient +yearning for his love, made the present conjuncture a sufficient +one. Whilst kneeling down previous to leaving, when the sunny +streaks had gone upward to the roof, and the lower part of the +church was in soft shadow, she could not help thinking of +Coleridge's morbid poem 'The Three Graves,' and shuddering as she +wondered if Mrs. Jethway were cursing her, she wept as if her +heart would break. + +They came out of church just as the sun went down, leaving the +landscape like a platform from which an eloquent speaker has +retired, and nothing remains for the audience to do but to rise +and go home. Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt went off in the carriage, +Knight and Elfride preferring to walk, as the skilful old +matchmaker had imagined. They descended the hill together. + +'I liked your reading, Mr. Knight,' Elfride presently found +herself saying. 'You read better than papa.' + +'I will praise anybody that will praise me. You played +excellently, Miss Swancourt, and very correctly.' + +'Correctly--yes.' + +'It must be a great pleasure to you to take an active part in the +service.' + +'I want to be able to play with more feeling. But I have not a +good selection of music, sacred or secular. I wish I had a nice +little music-library--well chosen, and that the only new pieces +sent me were those of genuine merit.' + +'I am glad to hear such a wish from you. It is extraordinary how +many women have no honest love of music as an end and not as a +means, even leaving out those who have nothing in them. They +mostly like it for its accessories. I have never met a woman who +loves music as do ten or a dozen men I know.' + +'How would you draw the line between women with something and +women with nothing in them?' + +'Well,' said Knight, reflecting a moment, 'I mean by nothing in +them those who don't care about anything solid. This is an +instance: I knew a man who had a young friend in whom he was much +interested; in fact, they were going to be married. She was +seemingly poetical, and he offered her a choice of two editions of +the British poets, which she pretended to want badly. He said, +"Which of them would you like best for me to send?" She said, "A +pair of the prettiest earrings in Bond Street, if you don't mind, +would be nicer than either." Now I call her a girl with not much +in her but vanity; and so do you, I daresay.' + +'Oh yes,' replied Elfride with an effort. + +Happening to catch a glimpse of her face as she was speaking, and +noticing that her attempt at heartiness was a miserable failure, +he appeared to have misgivings. + +'You, Miss Swancourt, would not, under such circumstances, have +preferred the nicknacks?' + +'No, I don't think I should, indeed,' she stammered. + +'I'll put it to you,' said the inflexible Knight. 'Which will you +have of these two things of about equal value--the well-chosen +little library of the best music you spoke of--bound in morocco, +walnut case, lock and key--or a pair of the very prettiest +earrings in Bond Street windows?' + +'Of course the music,' Elfride replied with forced earnestness. + +'You are quite certain?' he said emphatically. + +'Quite,' she faltered; 'if I could for certain buy the earrings +afterwards.' + +Knight, somewhat blamably, keenly enjoyed sparring with the +palpitating mobile creature, whose excitable nature made any such +thing a species of cruelty. + +He looked at her rather oddly, and said, 'Fie!' + +'Forgive me,' she said, laughing a little, a little frightened, +and blushing very deeply. + +'Ah, Miss Elfie, why didn't you say at first, as any firm woman +would have said, I am as bad as she, and shall choose the same?' + +'I don't know,' said Elfride wofully, and with a distressful +smile. + +'I thought you were exceptionally musical?' + +'So I am, I think. But the test is so severe--quite painful.' + +'I don't understand.' + +'Music doesn't do any real good, or rather----' + +'That IS a thing to say, Miss Swancourt! Why, what----' + +'You don't understand! you don't understand!' + +'Why, what conceivable use is there in jimcrack jewellery?' + +'No, no, no, no!' she cried petulantly; 'I didn't mean what you +think. I like the music best, only I like----' + +'Earrings better--own it!' he said in a teasing tone. 'Well, I +think I should have had the moral courage to own it at once, +without pretending to an elevation I could not reach.' + +Like the French soldiery, Elfride was not brave when on the +defensive. So it was almost with tears in her eyes that she +answered desperately: + +'My meaning is, that I like earrings best just now, because I lost +one of my prettiest pair last year, and papa said he would not buy +any more, or allow me to myself, because I was careless; and now I +wish I had some like them--that's what my meaning is--indeed it +is, Mr. Knight.' + +'I am afraid I have been very harsh and rude,' said Knight, with a +look of regret at seeing how disturbed she was. 'But seriously, +if women only knew how they ruin their good looks by such +appurtenances, I am sure they would never want them.' + +'They were lovely, and became me so!' + +'Not if they were like the ordinary hideous things women stuff +their ears with nowadays--like the governor of a steam-engine, or +a pair of scales, or gold gibbets and chains, and artists' +palettes, and compensation pendulums, and Heaven knows what +besides.' + +'No; they were not one of those things. So pretty--like this,' +she said with eager animation. And she drew with the point of her +parasol an enlarged view of one of the lamented darlings, to a +scale that would have suited a giantess half-a-mile high. + +'Yes, very pretty--very,' said Knight dryly. 'How did you come to +lose such a precious pair of articles?' + +'I only lost one--nobody ever loses both at the same time.' + +She made this remark with embarrassment, and a nervous movement of +the fingers. Seeing that the loss occurred whilst Stephen Smith +was attempting to kiss her for the first time on the cliff, her +confusion was hardly to be wondered at. The question had been +awkward, and received no direct answer. + +Knight seemed not to notice her manner. + +'Oh, nobody ever loses both--I see. And certainly the fact that +it was a case of loss takes away all odour of vanity from your +choice.' + +'As I never know whether you are in earnest, I don't now,' she +said, looking up inquiringly at the hairy face of the oracle. And +coming gallantly to her own rescue, 'If I really seem vain, it is +that I am only vain in my ways--not in my heart. The worst women +are those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways.' + +'An adroit distinction. Well, they are certainly the more +objectionable of the two,' said Knight. + +'Is vanity a mortal or a venial sin? You know what life is: tell +me.' + +'I am very far from knowing what life is. A just conception of +life is too large a thing to grasp during the short interval of +passing through it.' + +'Will the fact of a woman being fond of jewellery be likely to +make her life, in its higher sense, a failure?' + +'Nobody's life is altogether a failure.' + +'Well, you know what I mean, even though my words are badly +selected and commonplace,' she said impatiently. 'Because I utter +commonplace words, you must not suppose I think only commonplace +thoughts. My poor stock of words are like a limited number of +rough moulds I have to cast all my materials in, good and bad; and +the novelty or delicacy of the substance is often lost in the +coarse triteness of the form.' + +'Very well; I'll believe that ingenious representation. As to the +subject in hand--lives which are failures--you need not trouble +yourself. Anybody's life may be just as romantic and strange and +interesting if he or she fails as if he or she succeed. All the +difference is, that the last chapter is wanting in the story. If +a man of power tries to do a great deed, and just falls short of +it by an accident not his fault, up to that time his history had +as much in it as that of a great man who has done his great deed. +It is whimsical of the world to hold that particulars of how a lad +went to school and so on should be as an interesting romance or as +nothing to them, precisely in proportion to his after renown.' + +They were walking between the sunset and the moonrise. With the +dropping of the sun a nearly full moon had begun to raise itself. +Their shadows, as cast by the western glare, showed signs of +becoming obliterated in the interest of a rival pair in the +opposite direction which the moon was bringing to distinctness. + +'I consider my life to some extent a failure,' said Knight again +after a pause, during which he had noticed the antagonistic +shadows. + +'You! How?' + +'I don't precisely know. But in some way I have missed the mark.' + +'Really? To have done it is not much to be sad about, but to feel +that you have done it must be a cause of sorrow. Am I right?' + +'Partly, though not quite. For a sensation of being profoundly +experienced serves as a sort of consolation to people who are +conscious of having taken wrong turnings. Contradictory as it +seems, there is nothing truer than that people who have always +gone right don't know half as much about the nature and ways of +going right as those do who have gone wrong. However, it is not +desirable for me to chill your summer-time by going into this.' + +'You have not told me even now if I am really vain.' + +'If I say Yes, I shall offend you; if I say No, you'll think I +don't mean it,' he replied, looking curiously into her face. + +'Ah, well,' she replied, with a little breath of distress, '"That +which is exceeding deep, who will find it out?" I suppose I must +take you as I do the Bible--find out and understand all I can; and +on the strength of that, swallow the rest in a lump, by simple +faith. Think me vain, if you will. Worldly greatness requires so +much littleness to grow up in, that an infirmity more or less is +not a matter for regret.' + +'As regards women, I can't say,' answered Knight carelessly; 'but +it is without doubt a misfortune for a man who has a living to +get, to be born of a truly noble nature. A high soul will bring a +man to the workhouse; so you may be right in sticking up for +vanity.' + +'No, no, I don't do that,' she said regretfully. + +Mr. Knight, when you are gone, will you send me something you have +written? I think I should like to see whether you write as you +have lately spoken, or in your better mood. Which is your true +self--the cynic you have been this evening, or the nice +philosopher you were up to to-night?' + +'Ah, which? You know as well as I.' + +Their conversation detained them on the lawn and in the portico +till the stars blinked out. Elfride flung back her head, and said +idly-- + +'There's a bright star exactly over me.' + +'Each bright star is overhead somewhere.' + +'Is it? Oh yes, of course. Where is that one?' and she pointed +with her finger. + +'That is poised like a white hawk over one of the Cape Verde +Islands.' + +'And that?' + +'Looking down upon the source of the Nile.' + +'And that lonely quiet-looking one?' + +'He watches the North Pole, and has no less than the whole equator +for his horizon. And that idle one low down upon the ground, that +we have almost rolled away from, is in India--over the head of a +young friend of mine, who very possibly looks at the star in our +zenith, as it hangs low upon his horizon, and thinks of it as +marking where his true love dwells.' + +Elfride glanced at Knight with misgiving. Did he mean her? She +could not see his features; but his attitude seemed to show +unconsciousness. + +'The star is over MY head,' she said with hesitation. + +'Or anybody else's in England.' + +'Oh yes, I see:' she breathed her relief. + +'His parents, I believe, are natives of this county. I don't know +them, though I have been in correspondence with him for many years +till lately. Fortunately or unfortunately for him he fell in +love, and then went to Bombay. Since that time I have heard very +little of him.' + +Knight went no further in his volunteered statement, and though +Elfride at one moment was inclined to profit by the lessons in +honesty he had just been giving her, the flesh was weak, and the +intention dispersed into silence. There seemed a reproach in +Knight's blind words, and yet she was not able to clearly define +any disloyalty that she had been guilty of. + + + +Chapter XX + +'A distant dearness in the hill.' + + +Knight turned his back upon the parish of Endelstow, and crossed +over to Cork. + +One day of absence superimposed itself on another, and +proportionately weighted his heart. He pushed on to the Lakes of +Killarney, rambled amid their luxuriant woods, surveyed the +infinite variety of island, hill, and dale there to be found, +listened to the marvellous echoes of that romantic spot; but +altogether missed the glory and the dream he formerly found in +such favoured regions. + +Whilst in the company of Elfride, her girlish presence had not +perceptibly affected him to any depth. He had not been conscious +that her entry into his sphere had added anything to himself; but +now that she was taken away he was very conscious of a great deal +being abstracted. The superfluity had become a necessity, and +Knight was in love. + +Stephen fell in love with Elfride by looking at her: Knight by +ceasing to do so. When or how the spirit entered into him he knew +not: certain he was that when on the point of leaving Endelstow he +had felt none of that exquisite nicety of poignant sadness natural +to such severances, seeing how delightful a subject of +contemplation Elfride had been ever since. Had he begun to love +her when she met his eye after her mishap on the tower? He had +simply thought her weak. Had he grown to love her whilst standing +on the lawn brightened all over by the evening sun? He had thought +her complexion good: no more. Was it her conversation that had +sown the seed? He had thought her words ingenious, and very +creditable to a young woman, but not noteworthy. Had the chess- +playing anything to do with it? Certainly not: he had thought her +at that time a rather conceited child. + +Knight's experience was a complete disproof of the assumption that +love always comes by glances of the eye and sympathetic touches of +the fingers: that, like flame, it makes itself palpable at the +moment of generation. Not till they were parted, and she had +become sublimated in his memory, could he be said to have even +attentively regarded her. + +Thus, having passively gathered up images of her which his mind +did not act upon till the cause of them was no longer before him, +he appeared to himself to have fallen in love with her soul, which +had temporarily assumed its disembodiment to accompany him on his +way. + +She began to rule him so imperiously now that, accustomed to +analysis, he almost trembled at the possible result of the +introduction of this new force among the nicely adjusted ones of +his ordinary life. He became restless: then he forgot all +collateral subjects in the pleasure of thinking about her. + +Yet it must be said that Knight loved philosophically rather than +with romance. + +He thought of her manner towards him. Simplicity verges on +coquetry. Was she flirting? he said to himself. No forcible +translation of favour into suspicion was able to uphold such a +theory. The performance had been too well done to be anything but +real. It had the defects without which nothing is genuine. No +actress of twenty years' standing, no bald-necked lady whose +earliest season 'out' was lost in the discreet mist of evasive +talk, could have played before him the part of ingenuous girl as +Elfride lived it. She had the little artful ways which partly +make up ingenuousness. + +There are bachelors by nature and bachelors by circumstance: +spinsters there doubtless are also of both kinds, though some +think only those of the latter. However, Knight had been looked +upon as a bachelor by nature. What was he coming to? It was very +odd to himself to look at his theories on the subject of love, and +reading them now by the full light of a new experience, to see how +much more his sentences meant than he had felt them to mean when +they were written. People often discover the real force of a +trite old maxim only when it is thrust upon them by a chance +adventure; but Knight had never before known the case of a man who +learnt the full compass of his own epigrams by such means. + +He was intensely satisfied with one aspect of the affair. Inbred +in him was an invincible objection to be any but the first comer +in a woman's heart. He had discovered within himself the +condition that if ever he did make up his mind to marry, it must +be on the certainty that no cropping out of inconvenient old +letters, no bow and blush to a mysterious stranger casually met, +should be a possible source of discomposure. Knight's sentiments +were only the ordinary ones of a man of his age who loves +genuinely, perhaps exaggerated a little by his pursuits. When men +first love as lads, it is with the very centre of their hearts, +nothing else being concerned in the operation. With added years, +more of the faculties attempt a partnership in the passion, till +at Knight's age the understanding is fain to have a hand in it. +It may as well be left out. A man in love setting up his brains +as a gauge of his position is as one determining a ship's +longitude from a light at the mast-head. + +Knight argued from Elfride's unwontedness of manner, which was +matter of fact, to an unwontedness in love, which was matter of +inference only. Incredules les plus credules. 'Elfride,' he +said, 'had hardly looked upon a man till she saw me.' + +He had never forgotten his severity to her because she preferred +ornament to edification, and had since excused her a hundred times +by thinking how natural to womankind was a love of adornment, and +how necessary became a mild infusion of personal vanity to +complete the delicate and fascinating dye of the feminine mind. +So at the end of the week's absence, which had brought him as far +as Dublin, he resolved to curtail his tour, return to Endelstow, +and commit himself by making a reality of the hypothetical offer +of that Sunday evening. + +Notwithstanding that he had concocted a great deal of paper theory +on social amenities and modern manners generally, the special +ounce of practice was wanting, and now for his life Knight could +not recollect whether it was considered correct to give a young +lady personal ornaments before a regular engagement to marry had +been initiated. But the day before leaving Dublin he looked +around anxiously for a high-class jewellery establishment, in +which he purchased what he considered would suit her best. + +It was with a most awkward and unwonted feeling that after +entering and closing the door of his room he sat down, opened the +morocco case, and held up each of the fragile bits of gold-work +before his eyes. Many things had become old to the solitary man +of letters, but these were new, and he handled like a child an +outcome of civilization which had never before been touched by his +fingers. A sudden fastidious decision that the pattern chosen +would not suit her after all caused him to rise in a flurry and +tear down the street to change them for others. After a great +deal of trouble in reselecting, during which his mind became so +bewildered that the critical faculty on objects of art seemed to +have vacated his person altogether, Knight carried off another +pair of ear-rings. These remained in his possession till the +afternoon, when, after contemplating them fifty times with a +growing misgiving that the last choice was worse than the first, +he felt that no sleep would visit his pillow till he had improved +upon his previous purchases yet again. In a perfect heat of +vexation with himself for such tergiversation, he went anew to the +shop-door, was absolutely ashamed to enter and give further +trouble, went to another shop, bought a pair at an enormously +increased price, because they seemed the very thing, asked the +goldsmiths if they would take the other pair in exchange, was told +that they could not exchange articles bought of another maker, +paid down the money, and went off with the two pairs in his +possession, wondering what on earth to do with the superfluous +pair. He almost wished he could lose them, or that somebody would +steal them, and was burdened with an interposing sense that, as a +capable man, with true ideas of economy, he must necessarily sell +them somewhere, which he did at last for a mere song. Mingled +with a blank feeling of a whole day being lost to him in running +about the city on this new and extraordinary class of errand, and +of several pounds being lost through his bungling, was a slight +sense of satisfaction that he had emerged for ever from his +antediluvian ignorance on the subject of ladies' jewellery, as +well as secured a truly artistic production at last. During the +remainder of that day he scanned the ornaments of every lady he +met with the profoundly experienced eye of an appraiser. + +Next morning Knight was again crossing St. George's Channel--not +returning to London by the Holyhead route as he had originally +intended, but towards Bristol--availing himself of Mr. and Mrs. +Swancourt's invitation to revisit them on his homeward journey. + +We flit forward to Elfride. + +Woman's ruling passion--to fascinate and influence those more +powerful than she--though operant in Elfride, was decidedly +purposeless. She had wanted her friend Knight's good opinion from +the first: how much more than that elementary ingredient of +friendship she now desired, her fears would hardly allow her to +think. In originally wishing to please the highest class of man +she had ever intimately known, there was no disloyalty to Stephen +Smith. She could not--and few women can--realize the possible +vastness of an issue which has only an insignificant begetting. + +Her letters from Stephen were necessarily few, and her sense of +fidelity clung to the last she had received as a wrecked mariner +clings to flotsam. The young girl persuaded herself that she was +glad Stephen had such a right to her hand as he had acquired (in +her eyes) by the elopement. She beguiled herself by saying, +'Perhaps if I had not so committed myself I might fall in love +with Mr. Knight.' + +All this made the week of Knight's absence very gloomy and +distasteful to her. She retained Stephen in her prayers, and his +old letters were re-read--as a medicine in reality, though she +deceived herself into the belief that it was as a pleasure. + +These letters had grown more and more hopeful. He told her that +he finished his work every day with a pleasant consciousness of +having removed one more stone from the barrier which divided them. +Then he drew images of what a fine figure they two would cut some +day. People would turn their heads and say, 'What a prize he has +won!' She was not to be sad about that wild runaway attempt of +theirs (Elfride had repeatedly said that it grieved her). +Whatever any other person who knew of it might think, he knew well +enough the modesty of her nature. The only reproach was a gentle +one for not having written quite so devotedly during her visit to +London. Her letter had seemed to have a liveliness derived from +other thoughts than thoughts of him. + + +Knight's intention of an early return to Endelstow having +originally been faint, his promise to do so had been fainter. He +was a man who kept his words well to the rear of his possible +actions. The vicar was rather surprised to see him again so soon: +Mrs. Swancourt was not. Knight found, on meeting them all, after +his arrival had been announced, that they had formed an intention +to go to St. Leonards for a few days at the end of the month. + +No satisfactory conjuncture offered itself on this first evening +of his return for presenting Elfride with what he had been at such +pains to procure. He was fastidious in his reading of +opportunities for such an intended act. The next morning chancing +to break fine after a week of cloudy weather, it was proposed and +decided that they should all drive to Barwith Strand, a local lion +which neither Mrs. Swancourt nor Knight had seen. Knight scented +romantic occasions from afar, and foresaw that such a one might be +expected before the coming night. + +The journey was along a road by neutral green hills, upon which +hedgerows lay trailing like ropes on a quay. Gaps in these +uplands revealed the blue sea, flecked with a few dashes of white +and a solitary white sail, the whole brimming up to a keen horizon +which lay like a line ruled from hillside to hillside. Then they +rolled down a pass, the chocolate-toned rocks forming a wall on +both sides, from one of which fell a heavy jagged shade over half +the roadway. A spout of fresh water burst from an occasional +crevice, and pattering down upon broad green leaves, ran along as +a rivulet at the bottom. Unkempt locks of heather overhung the +brow of each steep, whence at divers points a bramble swung forth +into mid-air, snatching at their head-dresses like a claw. + +They mounted the last crest, and the bay which was to be the end +of their pilgrimage burst upon them. The ocean blueness deepened +its colour as it stretched to the foot of the crags, where it +terminated in a fringe of white--silent at this distance, though +moving and heaving like a counterpane upon a restless sleeper. +The shadowed hollows of the purple and brown rocks would have been +called blue had not that tint been so entirely appropriated by the +water beside them. + +The carriage was put up at a little cottage with a shed attached, +and an ostler and the coachman carried the hamper of provisions +down to the shore. + +Knight found his opportunity. 'I did not forget your wish,' he +began, when they were apart from their friends. + +Elfride looked as if she did not understand. + +'And I have brought you these,' he continued, awkwardly pulling +out the case, and opening it while holding it towards her. + +'O Mr. Knight!' said Elfride confusedly, and turning to a lively +red; 'I didn't know you had any intention or meaning in what you +said. I thought it a mere supposition. I don't want them.' + +A thought which had flashed into her mind gave the reply a greater +decisiveness than it might otherwise have possessed. To-morrow +was the day for Stephen's letter. + +'But will you not accept them?' Knight returned, feeling less her +master than heretofore. + +'I would rather not. They are beautiful--more beautiful than any +I have ever seen,' she answered earnestly, looking half-wishfully +at the temptation, as Eve may have looked at the apple. 'But I +don't want to have them, if you will kindly forgive me, Mr. +Knight.' + +'No kindness at all,' said Mr. Knight, brought to a full stop at +this unexpected turn of events. + +A silence followed. Knight held the open case, looking rather +wofully at the glittering forms he had forsaken his orbit to +procure; turning it about and holding it up as if, feeling his +gift to be slighted by her, he were endeavouring to admire it very +much himself. + +'Shut them up, and don't let me see them any longer--do!' she said +laughingly, and with a quaint mixture of reluctance and entreaty. + +'Why, Elfie?' + +'Not Elfie to you, Mr. Knight. Oh, because I shall want them. +There, I am silly, I know, to say that! But I have a reason for +not taking them--now.' She kept in the last word for a moment, +intending to imply that her refusal was finite, but somehow the +word slipped out, and undid all the rest. + +'You will take them some day?' + +'I don't want to.' + +'Why don't you want to, Elfride Swancourt?' + +'Because I don't. I don't like to take them.' + +'I have read a fact of distressing significance in that,' said +Knight. 'Since you like them, your dislike to having them must be +towards me?' + +'No, it isn't.' + +'What, then? Do you like me?' + +Elfride deepened in tint, and looked into the distance with +features shaped to an expression of the nicest criticism as +regarded her answer. + +'I like you pretty well,' she at length murmured mildly. + +'Not very much?' + +'You are so sharp with me, and say hard things, and so how can I?' +she replied evasively. + +'You think me a fogey, I suppose?' + +'No, I don't--I mean I do--I don't know what I think you, I mean. +Let us go to papa,' responded Elfride, with somewhat of a flurried +delivery. + +'Well, I'll tell you my object in getting the present,' said +Knight, with a composure intended to remove from her mind any +possible impression of his being what he was--her lover. 'You see +it was the very least I could do in common civility.' + +Elfride felt rather blank at this lucid statement. + +Knight continued, putting away the case: 'I felt as anybody +naturally would have, you know, that my words on your choice the +other day were invidious and unfair, and thought an apology should +take a practical shape.' + +'Oh yes.' + +Elfride was sorry--she could not tell why--that he gave such a +legitimate reason. It was a disappointment that he had all the +time a cool motive, which might be stated to anybody without +raising a smile. Had she known they were offered in that spirit, +she would certainly have accepted the seductive gift. And the +tantalizing feature was that perhaps he suspected her to imagine +them offered as a lover's token, which was mortifying enough if +they were not. + +Mrs. Swancourt came now to where they were sitting, to select a +flat boulder for spreading their table-cloth upon, and, amid the +discussion on that subject, the matter pending between Knight and +Elfride was shelved for a while. He read her refusal so certainly +as the bashfulness of a girl in a novel position, that, upon the +whole, he could tolerate such a beginning. Could Knight have been +told that it was a sense of fidelity struggling against new love, +whilst no less assuring as to his ultimate victory, it might have +entirely abstracted the wish to secure it. + +At the same time a slight constraint of manner was visible between +them for the remainder of the afternoon. The tide turned, and +they were obliged to ascend to higher ground. The day glided on +to its end with the usual quiet dreamy passivity of such +occasions--when every deed done and thing thought is in +endeavouring to avoid doing and thinking more. Looking idly over +the verge of a crag, they beheld their stone dining-table +gradually being splashed upon and their crumbs and fragments all +washed away by the incoming sea. The vicar drew a moral lesson +from the scene; Knight replied in the same satisfied strain. And +then the waves rolled in furiously--the neutral green-and-blue +tongues of water slid up the slopes, and were metamorphosed into +foam by a careless blow, falling back white and faint, and leaving +trailing followers behind. + +The passing of a heavy shower was the next scene--driving them to +shelter in a shallow cave--after which the horses were put in, and +they started to return homeward. By the time they reached the +higher levels the sky had again cleared, and the sunset rays +glanced directly upon the wet uphill road they had climbed. The +ruts formed by their carriage-wheels on the ascent--a pair of +Liliputian canals--were as shining bars of gold, tapering to +nothing in the distance. Upon this also they turned their backs, +and night spread over the sea. + +The evening was chilly, and there was no moon. Knight sat close +to Elfride, and, when the darkness rendered the position of a +person a matter of uncertainty, particularly close. Elfride edged +away. + +'I hope you allow me my place ungrudgingly?' he whispered. + +'Oh yes; 'tis the least I can do in common civility,' she said, +accenting the words so that he might recognize them as his own +returned. + +Both of them felt delicately balanced between two possibilities. +Thus they reached home. + +To Knight this mild experience was delightful. It was to him a +gentle innocent time--a time which, though there may not be much +in it, seldom repeats itself in a man's life, and has a peculiar +dearness when glanced at retrospectively. He is not +inconveniently deep in love, and is lulled by a peaceful sense of +being able to enjoy the most trivial thing with a childlike +enjoyment. The movement of a wave, the colour of a stone, +anything, was enough for Knight's drowsy thoughts of that day to +precipitate themselves upon. Even the sermonizing platitudes the +vicar had delivered himself of--chiefly because something seemed +to be professionally required of him in the presence of a man of +Knight's proclivities--were swallowed whole. The presence of +Elfride led him not merely to tolerate that kind of talk from the +necessities of ordinary courtesy; but he listened to it--took in +the ideas with an enjoyable make-believe that they were proper and +necessary, and indulged in a conservative feeling that the face of +things was complete. + +Entering her room that evening Elfride found a packet for herself +on the dressing-table. How it came there she did not know. She +tremblingly undid the folds of white paper that covered it. Yes; +it was the treasure of a morocco case, containing those treasures +of ornament she had refused in the daytime. + +Elfride dressed herself in them for a moment, looked at herself in +the glass, blushed red, and put them away. They filled her dreams +all that night. Never had she seen anything so lovely, and never +was it more clear that as an honest woman she was in duty bound to +refuse them. Why it was not equally clear to her that duty +required more vigorous co-ordinate conduct as well, let those who +dissect her say. + +The next morning glared in like a spectre upon her. It was +Stephen's letter-day, and she was bound to meet the postman--to +stealthily do a deed she had never liked, to secure an end she now +had ceased to desire. + +But she went. + +There were two letters. + +One was from the bank at St. Launce's, in which she had a small +private deposit--probably something about interest. She put that +in her pocket for a moment, and going indoors and upstairs to be +safer from observation, tremblingly opened Stephen's. + +What was this he said to her? + +She was to go to the St. Launce's Bank and take a sum of money +which they had received private advices to pay her. + +The sum was two hundred pounds. + +There was no check, order, or anything of the nature of guarantee. +In fact the information amounted to this: the money was now in the +St. Launce's Bank, standing in her name. + +She instantly opened the other letter. It contained a deposit- +note from the bank for the sum of two hundred pounds which had +that day been added to her account. Stephen's information, then, +was correct, and the transfer made. + +'I have saved this in one year,' Stephen's letter went on to say, +'and what so proper as well as pleasant for me to do as to hand it +over to you to keep for your use? I have plenty for myself, +independently of this. Should you not be disposed to let it lie +idle in the bank, get your father to invest it in your name on +good security. It is a little present to you from your more than +betrothed. He will, I think, Elfride, feel now that my +pretensions to your hand are anything but the dream of a silly boy +not worth rational consideration.' + +With a natural delicacy, Elfride, in mentioning her father's +marriage, had refrained from all allusion to the pecuniary +resources of the lady. + +Leaving this matter-of-fact subject, he went on, somewhat after +his boyish manner: + +'Do you remember, darling, that first morning of my arrival at +your house, when your father read at prayers the miracle of +healing the sick of the palsy--where he is told to take up his bed +and walk? I do, and I can now so well realize the force of that +passage. The smallest piece of mat is the bed of the Oriental, +and yesterday I saw a native perform the very action, which +reminded me to mention it. But you are better read than I, and +perhaps you knew all this long ago....One day I bought some small +native idols to send home to you as curiosities, but afterwards +finding they had been cast in England, made to look old, and +shipped over, I threw them away in disgust. + +'Speaking of this reminds me that we are obliged to import all our +house-building ironwork from England. Never was such foresight +required to be exercised in building houses as here. Before we +begin, we have to order every column, lock, hinge, and screw that +will be required. We cannot go into the next street, as in +London, and get them cast at a minute's notice. Mr. L. says +somebody will have to go to England very soon and superintend the +selection of a large order of this kind. I only wish I may be the +man.' + +There before her lay the deposit-receipt for the two hundred +pounds, and beside it the elegant present of Knight. Elfride grew +cold--then her cheeks felt heated by beating blood. If by +destroying the piece of paper the whole transaction could have +been withdrawn from her experience, she would willingly have +sacrificed the money it represented. She did not know what to do +in either case. She almost feared to let the two articles lie in +juxtaposition: so antagonistic were the interests they represented +that a miraculous repulsion of one by the other was almost to be +expected. + +That day she was seen little of. By the evening she had come to a +resolution, and acted upon it. The packet was sealed up--with a +tear of regret as she closed the case upon the pretty forms it +contained--directed, and placed upon the writing-table in Knight's +room. And a letter was written to Stephen, stating that as yet +she hardly understood her position with regard to the money sent; +but declaring that she was ready to fulfil her promise to marry +him. After this letter had been written she delayed posting it-- +although never ceasing to feel strenuously that the deed must be +done. + +Several days passed. There was another Indian letter for Elfride. +Coming unexpectedly, her father saw it, but made no remark--why, +she could not tell. The news this time was absolutely +overwhelming. Stephen, as he had wished, had been actually chosen +as the most fitting to execute the iron-work commission he had +alluded to as impending. This duty completed he would have three +months' leave. His letter continued that he should follow it in a +week, and should take the opportunity to plainly ask her father to +permit the engagement. Then came a page expressive of his delight +and hers at the reunion; and finally, the information that he +would write to the shipping agents, asking them to telegraph and +tell her when the ship bringing him home should be in sight-- +knowing how acceptable such information would be. + +Elfride lived and moved now as in a dream. Knight had at first +become almost angry at her persistent refusal of his offering--and +no less with the manner than the fact of it. But he saw that she +began to look worn and ill--and his vexation lessened to simple +perplexity. + +He ceased now to remain in the house for long hours together as +before, but made it a mere centre for antiquarian and geological +excursions in the neighbourhood. Throw up his cards and go away +he fain would have done, but could not. And, thus, availing +himself of the privileges of a relative, he went in and out the +premises as fancy led him--but still lingered on. + +'I don't wish to stay here another day if my presence is +distasteful,' he said one afternoon. 'At first you used to imply +that I was severe with you; and when I am kind you treat me +unfairly.' + +'No, no. Don't say so.' + +The origin of their acquaintanceship had been such as to render +their manner towards each other peculiar and uncommon. It was of +a kind to cause them to speak out their minds on any feelings of +objection and difference: to be reticent on gentler matters. + +'I have a good mind to go away and never trouble you again,' +continued Knight. + +She said nothing, but the eloquent expression of her eyes and wan +face was enough to reproach him for harshness. + +'Do you like me to be here, then?' inquired Knight gently. + +'Yes,' she said. Fidelity to the old love and truth to the new +were ranged on opposite sides, and truth virtuelessly prevailed. + +'Then I'll stay a little longer,' said Knight. + +'Don't be vexed if I keep by myself a good deal, will you? Perhaps +something may happen, and I may tell you something.' + +'Mere coyness,' said Knight to himself; and went away with a +lighter heart. The trick of reading truly the enigmatical forces +at work in women at given times, which with some men is an +unerring instinct, is peculiar to minds less direct and honest +than Knight's. + +The next evening, about five o'clock, before Knight had returned +from a pilgrimage along the shore, a man walked up to the house. +He was a messenger from Camelton, a town a few miles off, to which +place the railway had been advanced during the summer. + +'A telegram for Miss Swancourt, and three and sixpence to pay for +the special messenger.' Miss Swancourt sent out the money, signed +the paper, and opened her letter with a trembling hand. She read: + + +'Johnson, Liverpool, to Miss Swancourt, Endelstow, near Castle +Boterel. + +'Amaryllis telegraphed off Holyhead, four o'clock. Expect will +dock and land passengers at Canning's Basin ten o'clock to-morrow +morning.' + + +Her father called her into the study. + +'Elfride, who sent you that message?' he asked suspiciously. + +'Johnson.' +'Who is Johnson, for Heaven's sake?' + +'I don't know.' + +'The deuce you don't! Who is to know, then?' + +'I have never heard of him till now.' + +'That's a singular story, isn't it.' + +'I don't know.' + +'Come, come, miss! What was the telegram?' + +'Do you really wish to know, papa?' + +'Well, I do.' + +'Remember, I am a full-grown woman now.' + +'Well, what then?' + +'Being a woman, and not a child, I may, I think, have a secret or +two.' + +'You will, it seems.' + +'Women have, as a rule.' + +'But don't keep them. So speak out.' + +'If you will not press me now, I give my word to tell you the +meaning of all this before the week is past.' + +'On your honour?' + +'On my honour.' + +'Very well. I have had a certain suspicion, you know; and I shall +be glad to find it false. I don't like your manner lately.' + +'At the end of the week, I said, papa.' + +Her father did not reply, and Elfride left the room. + +She began to look out for the postman again. Three mornings later +he brought an inland letter from Stephen. It contained very +little matter, having been written in haste; but the meaning was +bulky enough. Stephen said that, having executed a commission in +Liverpool, he should arrive at his father's house, East Endelstow, +at five or six o'clock that same evening; that he would after dusk +walk on to the next village, and meet her, if she would, in the +church porch, as in the old time. He proposed this plan because +he thought it unadvisable to call formally at her house so late in +the evening; yet he could not sleep without having seen her. The +minutes would seem hours till he clasped her in his arms. + +Elfride was still steadfast in her opinion that honour compelled +her to meet him. Probably the very longing to avoid him lent +additional weight to the conviction; for she was markedly one of +those who sigh for the unattainable--to whom, superlatively, a +hope is pleasing because not a possession. And she knew it so +well that her intellect was inclined to exaggerate this defect in +herself. + +So during the day she looked her duty steadfastly in the face; +read Wordsworth's astringent yet depressing ode to that Deity; +committed herself to her guidance; and still felt the weight of +chance desires. + +But she began to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the +sacrifice of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of propriety +compelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She would +meet him, and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guard +against a relapse, a note was at once despatched to his father's +cottage for Stephen on his arrival, fixing an hour for the +interview. + + + +Chapter XXI + +'On thy cold grey stones, O sea!' + + +Stephen had said that he should come by way of Bristol, and thence +by a steamer to Castle Boterel, in order to avoid the long journey +over the hills from St. Launce's. He did not know of the +extension of the railway to Camelton. + +During the afternoon a thought occurred to Elfride, that from any +cliff along the shore it would be possible to see the steamer some +hours before its arrival. + +She had accumulated religious force enough to do an act of +supererogation. The act was this--to go to some point of land and +watch for the ship that brought her future husband home. + +It was a cloudy afternoon. Elfride was often diverted from a +purpose by a dull sky; and though she used to persuade herself +that the weather was as fine as possible on the other side of the +clouds, she could not bring about any practical result from this +fancy. Now, her mood was such that the humid sky harmonized with +it. + +Having ascended and passed over a hill behind the house, Elfride +came to a small stream. She used it as a guide to the coast. It +was smaller than that in her own valley, and flowed altogether at +a higher level. Bushes lined the slopes of its shallow trough; +but at the bottom, where the water ran, was a soft green carpet, +in a strip two or three yards wide. + +In winter, the water flowed over the grass; in summer, as now, it +trickled along a channel in the midst. + +Elfride had a sensation of eyes regarding her from somewhere. She +turned, and there was Mr. Knight. He had dropped into the valley +from the side of the hill. She felt a thrill of pleasure, and +rebelliously allowed it to exist. + +'What utter loneliness to find you in!' + +'I am going to the shore by tracking the stream. I believe it +empties itself not far off, in a silver thread of water, over a +cascade of great height.' + +'Why do you load yourself with that heavy telescope?' + +'To look over the sea with it,' she said faintly. + +'I'll carry it for you to your journey's end.' And he took the +glass from her unresisting hands. 'It cannot be half a mile +further. See, there is the water.' He pointed to a short fragment +of level muddy-gray colour, cutting against the sky. + +Elfride had already scanned the small surface of ocean visible, +and had seen no ship. + +They walked along in company, sometimes with the brook between +them--for it was no wider than a man's stride--sometimes close +together. The green carpet grew swampy, and they kept higher up. + +One of the two ridges between which they walked dwindled lower and +became insignificant. That on the right hand rose with their +advance, and terminated in a clearly defined edge against the +light, as if it were abruptly sawn off. A little further, and the +bed of the rivulet ended in the same fashion. + +They had come to a bank breast-high, and over it the valley was no +longer to be seen. It was withdrawn cleanly and completely. In +its place was sky and boundless atmosphere; and perpendicularly +down beneath them--small and far off--lay the corrugated surface +of the Atlantic. + +The small stream here found its death. Running over the precipice +it was dispersed in spray before it was half-way down, and falling +like rain upon projecting ledges, made minute grassy meadows of +them. At the bottom the water-drops soaked away amid the debris +of the cliff. This was the inglorious end of the river. + +'What are you looking for? said Knight, following the direction of +her eyes. + +She was gazing hard at a black object--nearer to the shore than to +the horizon--from the summit of which came a nebulous haze, +stretching like gauze over the sea. + +'The Puffin, a little summer steamboat--from Bristol to Castle +Boterel,' she said. 'I think that is it--look. Will you give me +the glass?' + +Knight pulled open the old-fashioned but powerful telescope, and +handed it to Elfride, who had looked on with heavy eyes. + +'I can't keep it up now,' she said. + +'Rest it on my shoulder.' + +'It is too high.' + +'Under my arm.' + +'Too low. You may look instead,' she murmured weakly. + +Knight raised the glass to his eye, and swept the sea till the +Puffin entered its field. + +'Yes, it is the Puffin--a tiny craft. I can see her figure-head +distinctly--a bird with a beak as big as its head.' + +'Can you see the deck?' + +"Wait a minute; yes, pretty clearly. And I can see the black +forms of the passengers against its white surface. One of them +has taken something from another--a glass, I think--yes, it is-- +and he is levelling it in this direction. Depend upon it we are +conspicuous objects against the sky to them. Now, it seems to +rain upon them, and they put on overcoats and open umbrellas. +They vanish and go below--all but that one who has borrowed the +glass. He is a slim young fellow, and still watches us.' + +Elfride grew pale, and shifted her little feet uneasily. + +Knight lowered the glass. + +'I think we had better return,' he said. 'That cloud which is +raining on them may soon reach us. Why, you look ill. How is +that?' + +'Something in the air affects my face.' + +'Those fair cheeks are very fastidious, I fear,' returned Knight +tenderly. 'This air would make those rosy that were never so +before, one would think--eh, Nature's spoilt child?' + +Elfride's colour returned again. + +'There is more to see behind us, after all,' said Knight. + +She turned her back upon the boat and Stephen Smith, and saw, +towering still higher than themselves, the vertical face of the +hill on the right, which did not project seaward so far as the bed +of the valley, but formed the back of a small cove, and so was +visible like a concave wall, bending round from their position +towards the left. + +The composition of the huge hill was revealed to its backbone and +marrow here at its rent extremity. It consisted of a vast +stratification of blackish-gray slate, unvaried in its whole +height by a single change of shade. + +It is with cliffs and mountains as with persons; they have what is +called a presence, which is not necessarily proportionate to their +actual bulk. A little cliff will impress you powerfully; a great +one not at all. It depends, as with man, upon the countenance of +the cliff. + +'I cannot bear to look at that cliff,' said Elfride. 'It has a +horrid personality, and makes me shudder. We will go.' + +'Can you climb?' said Knight. 'If so, we will ascend by that path +over the grim old fellow's brow.' + +'Try me,' said Elfride disdainfully. 'I have ascended steeper +slopes than that.' + +From where they had been loitering, a grassy path wound along +inside a bank, placed as a safeguard for unwary pedestrians, to +the top of the precipice, and over it along the hill in an inland +direction. + +'Take my arm, Miss Swancourt,' said Knight. + +'I can get on better without it, thank you.' + +When they were one quarter of the way up, Elfride stopped to take +breath. Knight stretched out his hand. + +She took it, and they ascended the remaining slope together. +Reaching the very top, they sat down to rest by mutual consent. + +'Heavens, what an altitude!' said Knight between his pants, and +looking far over the sea. The cascade at the bottom of the slope +appeared a mere span in height from where they were now. + +Elfride was looking to the left. The steamboat was in full view +again, and by reason of the vast surface of sea their higher +position uncovered it seemed almost close to the shore. + +'Over that edge,' said Knight, 'where nothing but vacancy appears, +is a moving compact mass. The wind strikes the face of the rock, +runs up it, rises like a fountain to a height far above our heads, +curls over us in an arch, and disperses behind us. In fact, an +inverted cascade is there--as perfect as the Niagara Falls--but +rising instead of falling, and air instead of water. Now look +here.' + +Knight threw a stone over the bank, aiming it as if to go onward +over the cliff. Reaching the verge, it towered into the air like +a bird, turned back, and alighted on the ground behind them. They +themselves were in a dead calm. + +'A boat crosses Niagara immediately at the foot of the falls, +where the water is quite still, the fallen mass curving under it. +We are in precisely the same position with regard to our +atmospheric cataract here. If you run back from the cliff fifty +yards, you will be in a brisk wind. Now I daresay over the bank +is a little backward current.' + +Knight rose and leant over the bank. No sooner was his head above +it than his hat appeared to be sucked from his head--slipping over +his forehead in a seaward direction. + +'That's the backward eddy, as I told you,' he cried, and vanished +over the little bank after his hat. + +Elfride waited one minute; he did not return. She waited another, +and there was no sign of him. + +A few drops of rain fell, then a sudden shower. + +She arose, and looked over the bank. On the other side were two +or three yards of level ground--then a short steep preparatory +slope--then the verge of the precipice. + +On the slope was Knight, his hat on his head. He was on his hands +and knees, trying to climb back to the level ground. The rain had +wetted the shaly surface of the incline. A slight superficial +wetting of the soil hereabout made it far more slippery to stand +on than the same soil thoroughly drenched. The inner substance +was still hard, and was lubricated by the moistened film. + +'I find a difficulty in getting back,' said Knight. + +Elfride's heart fell like lead. + +'But you can get back?' she wildly inquired. + +Knight strove with all his might for two or three minutes, and the +drops of perspiration began to bead his brow. + +'No, I am unable to do it,' he answered. + +Elfride, by a wrench of thought, forced away from her mind the +sensation that Knight was in bodily danger. But attempt to help +him she must. She ventured upon the treacherous incline, propped +herself with the closed telescope, and gave him her hand before he +saw her movements. + +'O Elfride! why did you?' said he. 'I am afraid you have only +endangered yourself.' + +And as if to prove his statement, in making an endeavour by her +assistance they both slipped lower, and then he was again stayed. +His foot was propped by a bracket of quartz rock, balanced on the +verge of the precipice. Fixed by this, he steadied her, her head +being about a foot below the beginning of the slope. Elfride had +dropped the glass; it rolled to the edge and vanished over it into +a nether sky. + +'Hold tightly to me,' he said. + +She flung her arms round his neck with such a firm grasp that +whilst he remained it was impossible for her to fall. + +'Don't be flurried,' Knight continued. 'So long as we stay above +this block we are perfectly safe. Wait a moment whilst I consider +what we had better do.' + +He turned his eyes to the dizzy depths beneath them, and surveyed +the position of affairs. + +Two glances told him a tale with ghastly distinctness. It was +that, unless they performed their feat of getting up the slope +with the precision of machines, they were over the edge and +whirling in mid-air. + +For this purpose it was necessary that he should recover the +breath and strength which his previous efforts had cost him. So +he still waited, and looked in the face of the enemy. + +The crest of this terrible natural facade passed among the +neighbouring inhabitants as being seven hundred feet above the +water it overhung. It had been proved by actual measurement to be +not a foot less than six hundred and fifty. + +That is to say, it is nearly three times the height of +Flamborough, half as high again as the South Foreland, a hundred +feet higher than Beachy Head--the loftiest promontory on the east +or south side of this island--twice the height of St. Aldhelm's, +thrice as high as the Lizard, and just double the height of St. +Bee's. One sea-bord point on the western coast is known to +surpass it in altitude, but only by a few feet. This is Great +Orme's Head, in Caernarvonshire. + +And it must be remembered that the cliff exhibits an intensifying +feature which some of those are without--sheer perpendicularity +from the half-tide level. + +Yet this remarkable rampart forms no headland: it rather walls in +an inlet--the promontory on each side being much lower. Thus, far +from being salient, its horizontal section is concave. The sea, +rolling direct from the shores of North America, has in fact eaten +a chasm into the middle of a hill, and the giant, embayed and +unobtrusive, stands in the rear of pigmy supporters. Not least +singularly, neither hill, chasm, nor precipice has a name. On +this account I will call the precipice the Cliff without a Name.* + +* See Preface + +What gave an added terror to its height was its blackness. And +upon this dark face the beating of ten thousand west winds had +formed a kind of bloom, which had a visual effect not unlike that +of a Hambro' grape. Moreover it seemed to float off into the +atmosphere, and inspire terror through the lungs. + +'This piece of quartz, supporting my feet, is on the very nose of +the cliff,' said Knight, breaking the silence after his rigid +stoical meditation. 'Now what you are to do is this. Clamber up +my body till your feet are on my shoulders: when you are there you +will, I think, be able to climb on to level ground.' + +'What will you do?' + +'Wait whilst you run for assistance.' + +'I ought to have done that in the first place, ought I not?' + +'I was in the act of slipping, and should have reached no stand- +point without your weight, in all probability. But don't let us +talk. Be brave, Elfride, and climb.' + +She prepared to ascend, saying, 'This is the moment I anticipated +when on the tower. I thought it would come!' + +'This is not a time for superstition,' said Knight. 'Dismiss all +that.' + +'I will,' she said humbly. + +'Now put your foot into my hand: next the other. That's good-- +well done. Hold to my shoulder.' + +She placed her feet upon the stirrup he made of his hand, and was +high enough to get a view of the natural surface of the hill over +the bank. + +'Can you now climb on to level ground?' + +'I am afraid not. I will try.' + +'What can you see?' + +'The sloping common.' + +'What upon it?' + +'Purple heather and some grass.' + +'Nothing more--no man or human being of any kind?' + +'Nobody.' + +'Now try to get higher in this way. You see that tuft of sea-pink +above you. Get that well into your hand, but don't trust to it +entirely. Then step upon my shoulder, and I think you will reach +the top.' + +With trembling limbs she did exactly as he told her. The +preternatural quiet and solemnity of his manner overspread upon +herself, and gave her a courage not her own. She made a spring +from the top of his shoulder, and was up. + +Then she turned to look at him. + +By an ill fate, the force downwards of her bound, added to his own +weight, had been too much for the block of quartz upon which his +feet depended. It was, indeed, originally an igneous protrusion +into the enormous masses of black strata, which had since been +worn away from the sides of the alien fragment by centuries of +frost and rain, and now left it without much support. + +It moved. Knight seized a tuft of sea-pink with each hand. + +The quartz rock which had been his salvation was worse than +useless now. It rolled over, out of sight, and away into the same +nether sky that had engulfed the telescope. + +One of the tufts by which he held came out at the root, and Knight +began to follow the quartz. It was a terrible moment. Elfride +uttered a low wild wail of agony, bowed her head, and covered her +face with her hands. + +Between the turf-covered slope and the gigantic perpendicular rock +intervened a weather-worn series of jagged edges, forming a face +yet steeper than the former slope. As he slowly slid inch by inch +upon these, Knight made a last desperate dash at the lowest tuft +of vegetation--the last outlying knot of starved herbage ere the +rock appeared in all its bareness. It arrested his further +descent. Knight was now literally suspended by his arms; but the +incline of the brow being what engineers would call about a +quarter in one, it was sufficient to relieve his arms of a portion +of his weight, but was very far from offering an adequately flat +face to support him. + +In spite of this dreadful tension of body and mind, Knight found +time for a moment of thankfulness. Elfride was safe. + +She lay on her side above him--her fingers clasped. Seeing him +again steady, she jumped upon her feet. + +'Now, if I can only save you by running for help!' she cried. +'Oh, I would have died instead! Why did you try so hard to deliver +me?' And she turned away wildly to run for assistance. + +'Elfride, how long will it take you to run to Endelstow and back?' + +'Three-quarters of an hour.' + +'That won't do; my hands will not hold out ten minutes. And is +there nobody nearer?' + +'No; unless a chance passer may happen to be.' + +'He would have nothing with him that could save me. Is there a +pole or stick of any kind on the common?' + +She gazed around. The common was bare of everything but heather +and grass. + +A minute--perhaps more time--was passed in mute thought by both. +On a sudden the blank and helpless agony left her face. She +vanished over the bank from his sight. + +Knight felt himself in the presence of a personalized lonliness. + + + +Chapter XXII + +'A woman's way.' + + +Haggard cliffs, of every ugly altitude, are as common as sea-fowl +along the line of coast between Exmoor and Land's End; but this +outflanked and encompassed specimen was the ugliest of them all. +Their summits are not safe places for scientific experiment on the +principles of air-currents, as Knight had now found, to his +dismay. + +He still clutched the face of the escarpment--not with the +frenzied hold of despair, but with a dogged determination to make +the most of his every jot of endurance, and so give the longest +possible scope to Elfride's intentions, whatever they might be. + +He reclined hand in hand with the world in its infancy. Not a +blade, not an insect, which spoke of the present, was between him +and the past. The inveterate antagonism of these black precipices +to all strugglers for life is in no way more forcibly suggested +than by the paucity of tufts of grass, lichens, or confervae on +their outermost ledges. + +Knight pondered on the meaning of Elfride's hasty disappearance, +but could not avoid an instinctive conclusion that there existed +but a doubtful hope for him. As far as he could judge, his sole +chance of deliverance lay in the possibility of a rope or pole +being brought; and this possibility was remote indeed. The soil +upon these high downs was left so untended that they were +unenclosed for miles, except by a casual bank or dry wall, and +were rarely visited but for the purpose of collecting or counting +the flock which found a scanty means of subsistence thereon. + +At first, when death appeared improbable, because it had never +visited him before, Knight could think of no future, nor of +anything connected with his past. He could only look sternly at +Nature's treacherous attempt to put an end to him, and strive to +thwart her. + +From the fact that the cliff formed the inner face of the segment +of a huge cylinder, having the sky for a top and the sea for a +bottom, which enclosed the cove to the extent of more than a +semicircle, he could see the vertical face curving round on each +side of him. He looked far down the facade, and realized more +thoroughly how it threatened him. Grimness was in every feature, +and to its very bowels the inimical shape was desolation. + +By one of those familiar conjunctions of things wherewith the +inanimate world baits the mind of man when he pauses in moments of +suspense, opposite Knight's eyes was an imbedded fossil, standing +forth in low relief from the rock. It was a creature with eyes. +The eyes, dead and turned to stone, were even now regarding him. +It was one of the early crustaceans called Trilobites. Separated +by millions of years in their lives, Knight and this underling +seemed to have met in their death. It was the single instance +within reach of his vision of anything that had ever been alive +and had had a body to save, as he himself had now. + +The creature represented but a low type of animal existence, for +never in their vernal years had the plains indicated by those +numberless slaty layers been traversed by an intelligence worthy +of the name. Zoophytes, mollusca, shell-fish, were the highest +developments of those ancient dates. The immense lapses of time +each formation represented had known nothing of the dignity of +man. They were grand times, but they were mean times too, and +mean were their relics. He was to be with the small in his death. + +Knight was a geologist; and such is the supremacy of habit over +occasion, as a pioneer of the thoughts of men, that at this +dreadful juncture his mind found time to take in, by a momentary +sweep, the varied scenes that had had their day between this +creature's epoch and his own. There is no place like a cleft +landscape for bringing home such imaginings as these. + +Time closed up like a fan before him. He saw himself at one +extremity of the years, face to face with the beginning and all +the intermediate centuries simultaneously. Fierce men, clothed in +the hides of beasts, and carrying, for defence and attack, huge +clubs and pointed spears, rose from the rock, like the phantoms +before the doomed Macbeth. They lived in hollows, woods, and mud +huts--perhaps in caves of the neighbouring rocks. Behind them +stood an earlier band. No man was there. Huge elephantine forms, +the mastodon, the hippopotamus, the tapir, antelopes of monstrous +size, the megatherium, and the myledon--all, for the moment, in +juxtaposition. Further back, and overlapped by these, were +perched huge-billed birds and swinish creatures as large as +horses. Still more shadowy were the sinister crocodilian +outlines--alligators and other uncouth shapes, culminating in the +colossal lizard, the iguanodon. Folded behind were dragon forms +and clouds of flying reptiles: still underneath were fishy beings +of lower development; and so on, till the lifetime scenes of the +fossil confronting him were a present and modern condition of +things. These images passed before Knight's inner eye in less +than half a minute, and he was again considering the actual +present. Was he to die? The mental picture of Elfride in the +world, without himself to cherish her, smote his heart like a +whip. He had hoped for deliverance, but what could a girl do? He +dared not move an inch. Was Death really stretching out his hand? +The previous sensation, that it was improbable he would die, was +fainter now. + +However, Knight still clung to the cliff. + +To those musing weather-beaten West-country folk who pass the +greater part of their days and nights out of doors, Nature seems +to have moods in other than a poetical sense: predilections for +certain deeds at certain times, without any apparent law to govern +or season to account for them. She is read as a person with a +curious temper; as one who does not scatter kindnesses and +cruelties alternately, impartially, and in order, but heartless +severities or overwhelming generosities in lawless caprice. Man's +case is always that of the prodigal's favourite or the miser's +pensioner. In her unfriendly moments there seems a feline fun in +her tricks, begotten by a foretaste of her pleasure in swallowing +the victim. + +Such a way of thinking had been absurd to Knight, but he began to +adopt it now. He was first spitted on to a rock. New tortures +followed. The rain increased, and persecuted him with an +exceptional persistency which he was moved to believe owed its +cause to the fact that he was in such a wretched state already. +An entirely new order of things could be observed in this +introduction of rain upon the scene. It rained upwards instead of +down. The strong ascending air carried the rain-drops with it in +its race up the escarpment, coming to him with such velocity that +they stuck into his flesh like cold needles. Each drop was +virtually a shaft, and it pierced him to his skin. The water- +shafts seemed to lift him on their points: no downward rain ever +had such a torturing effect. In a brief space he was drenched, +except in two places. These were on the top of his shoulders and +on the crown of his hat. + +The wind, though not intense in other situations was strong here. +It tugged at his coat and lifted it. We are mostly accustomed to +look upon all opposition which is not animate, as that of the +stolid, inexorable hand of indifference, which wears out the +patience more than the strength. Here, at any rate, hostility did +not assume that slow and sickening form. It was a cosmic agency, +active, lashing, eager for conquest: determination; not an +insensate standing in the way. + +Knight had over-estimated the strength of his hands. They were +getting weak already. 'She will never come again; she has been +gone ten minutes,' he said to himself. + +This mistake arose from the unusual compression of his experiences +just now: she had really been gone but three. + +'As many more minutes will be my end,' he thought. + +Next came another instance of the incapacity of the mind to make +comparisons at such times. + +'This is a summer afternoon,' he said, 'and there can never have +been such a heavy and cold rain on a summer day in my life +before.' + +He was again mistaken. The rain was quite ordinary in quantity; +the air in temperature. It was, as is usual, the menacing +attitude in which they approached him that magnified their powers. + +He again looked straight downwards, the wind and the water-dashes +lifting his moustache, scudding up his cheeks, under his eyelids, +and into his eyes. This is what he saw down there: the surface of +the sea--visually just past his toes, and under his feet; actually +one-eighth of a mile, or more than two hundred yards, below them. +We colour according to our moods the objects we survey. The sea +would have been a deep neutral blue, had happier auspices attended +the gazer it was now no otherwise than distinctly black to his +vision. That narrow white border was foam, he knew well; but its +boisterous tosses were so distant as to appear a pulsation only, +and its plashing was barely audible. A white border to a black +sea--his funeral pall and its edging. + +The world was to some extent turned upside down for him. Rain +descended from below. Beneath his feet was aerial space and the +unknown; above him was the firm, familiar ground, and upon it all +that he loved best. + +Pitiless nature had then two voices, and two only. The nearer was +the voice of the wind in his ears rising and falling as it mauled +and thrust him hard or softly. The second and distant one was the +moan of that unplummetted ocean below and afar--rubbing its +restless flank against the Cliff without a Name. + +Knight perseveringly held fast. Had he any faith in Elfride? +Perhaps. Love is faith, and faith, like a gathered flower, will +rootlessly live on. + +Nobody would have expected the sun to shine on such an evening as +this. Yet it appeared, low down upon the sea. Not with its +natural golden fringe, sweeping the furthest ends of the +landscape, not with the strange glare of whiteness which it +sometimes puts on as an alternative to colour, but as a splotch of +vermilion red upon a leaden ground--a red face looking on with a +drunken leer. + +Most men who have brains know it, and few are so foolish as to +disguise this fact from themselves or others, even though an +ostentatious display may be called self-conceit. Knight, without +showing it much, knew that his intellect was above the average. +And he thought--he could not help thinking--that his death would +be a deliberate loss to earth of good material; that such an +experiment in killing might have been practised upon some less +developed life. + +A fancy some people hold, when in a bitter mood, is that +inexorable circumstance only tries to prevent what intelligence +attempts. Renounce a desire for a long-contested position, and go +on another tack, and after a while the prize is thrown at you, +seemingly in disappointment that no more tantalizing is possible. + +Knight gave up thoughts of life utterly and entirely, and turned +to contemplate the Dark Valley and the unknown future beyond. +Into the shadowy depths of these speculations we will not follow +him. Let it suffice to state what ensued. + +At that moment of taking no more thought for this life, something +disturbed the outline of the bank above him. A spot appeared. It +was the head of Elfride. + +Knight immediately prepared to welcome life again. + +The expression of a face consigned to utter loneliness, when a +friend first looks in upon it, is moving in the extreme. In +rowing seaward to a light-ship or sea-girt lighthouse, where, +without any immediate terror of death, the inmates experience the +gloom of monotonous seclusion, the grateful eloquence of their +countenances at the greeting, expressive of thankfulness for the +visit, is enough to stir the emotions of the most careless +observer. + +Knight's upward look at Elfride was of a nature with, but far +transcending, such an instance as this. The lines of his face had +deepened to furrows, and every one of them thanked her visibly. +His lips moved to the word 'Elfride,' though the emotion evolved +no sound. His eyes passed all description in their combination of +the whole diapason of eloquence, from lover's deep love to fellow- +man's gratitude for a token of remembrance from one of his kind. + +Elfride had come back. What she had come to do he did not know. +She could only look on at his death, perhaps. Still, she had come +back, and not deserted him utterly, and it was much. + +It was a novelty in the extreme to see Henry Knight, to whom +Elfride was but a child, who had swayed her as a tree sways a +bird's nest, who mastered her and made her weep most bitterly at +her own insignificance, thus thankful for a sight of her face. +She looked down upon him, her face glistening with rain and tears. +He smiled faintly. + +'How calm he is!' she thought. 'How great and noble he is to be +so calm!' She would have died ten times for him then. + +The gliding form of the steamboat caught her eye: she heeded it no +longer. + +'How much longer can you wait?' came from her pale lips and along +the wind to his position. + +'Four minutes,' said Knight in a weaker voice than her own. + +'But with a good hope of being saved?' + +'Seven or eight.' + +He now noticed that in her arms she bore a bundle of white linen, +and that her form was singularly attenuated. So preternaturally +thin and flexible was Elfride at this moment, that she appeared to +bend under the light blows of the rain-shafts, as they struck into +her sides and bosom, and splintered into spray on her face. There +is nothing like a thorough drenching for reducing the +protuberances of clothes, but Elfride's seemed to cling to her +like a glove. + +Without heeding the attack of the clouds further than by raising +her hand and wiping away the spirts of rain when they went more +particularly into her eyes, she sat down and hurriedly began +rending the linen into strips. These she knotted end to end, and +afterwards twisted them like the strands of a cord. In a short +space of time she had formed a perfect rope by this means, six or +seven yards long. + +'Can you wait while I bind it?' she said, anxiously extending her +gaze down to him. + +'Yes, if not very long. Hope has given me a wonderful instalment +of strength.' + +Elfride dropped her eyes again, tore the remaining material into +narrow tape-like ligaments, knotted each to each as before, but on +a smaller scale, and wound the lengthy string she had thus formed +round and round the linen rope, which, without this binding, had a +tendency to spread abroad. + +'Now,' said Knight, who, watching the proceedings intently, had by +this time not only grasped her scheme, but reasoned further on, 'I +can hold three minutes longer yet. And do you use the time in +testing the strength of the knots, one by one.' + +She at once obeyed, tested each singly by putting her foot on the +rope between each knot, and pulling with her hands. One of the +knots slipped. + +'Oh, think! It would have broken but for your forethought,' +Elfride exclaimed apprehensively. + +She retied the two ends. The rope was now firm in every part. + +'When you have let it down,' said Knight, already resuming his +position of ruling power, 'go back from the edge of the slope, and +over the bank as far as the rope will allow you. Then lean down, +and hold the end with both hands.' + +He had first thought of a safer plan for his own deliverance, but +it involved the disadvantage of possibly endangering her life. + +'I have tied it round my waist,' she cried, 'and I will lean +directly upon the bank, holding with my hands as well.' + +It was the arrangement he had thought of, but would not suggest. + +'I will raise and drop it three times when I am behind the bank,' +she continued, 'to signify that I am ready. Take care, oh, take +the greatest care, I beg you!' + +She dropped the rope over him, to learn how much of its length it +would be necessary to expend on that side of the bank, went back, +and disappeared as she had done before. + +The rope was trailing by Knight's shoulders. In a few moments it +twitched three times. + +He waited yet a second or two, then laid hold. + +The incline of this upper portion of the precipice, to the length +only of a few feet, useless to a climber empty-handed, was +invaluable now. Not more than half his weight depended entirely +on the linen rope. Half a dozen extensions of the arms, +alternating with half a dozen seizures of the rope with his feet, +brought him up to the level of the soil. + +He was saved, and by Elfride. + +He extended his cramped limbs like an awakened sleeper, and sprang +over the bank. + +At sight of him she leapt to her feet with almost a shriek of joy. +Knight's eyes met hers, and with supreme eloquence the glance of +each told a long-concealed tale of emotion in that short half- +moment. Moved by an impulse neither could resist, they ran +together and into each other's arms. + +At the moment of embracing, Elfride's eyes involuntarily flashed +towards the Puffin steamboat. It had doubled the point, and was +no longer to be seen. + +An overwhelming rush of exultation at having delivered the man she +revered from one of the most terrible forms of death, shook the +gentle girl to the centre of her soul. It merged in a defiance of +duty to Stephen, and a total recklessness as to plighted faith. +Every nerve of her will was now in entire subjection to her +feeling--volition as a guiding power had forsaken her. To remain +passive, as she remained now, encircled by his arms, was a +sufficiently complete result--a glorious crown to all the years of +her life. Perhaps he was only grateful, and did not love her. No +matter: it was infinitely more to be even the slave of the greater +than the queen of the less. Some such sensation as this, though +it was not recognized as a finished thought, raced along the +impressionable soul of Elfride. + +Regarding their attitude, it was impossible for two persons to go +nearer to a kiss than went Knight and Elfride during those minutes +of impulsive embrace in the pelting rain. Yet they did not kiss. +Knight's peculiarity of nature was such that it would not allow +him to take advantage of the unguarded and passionate avowal she +had tacitly made. + +Elfride recovered herself, and gently struggled to be free. + +He reluctantly relinquished her, and then surveyed her from crown +to toe. She seemed as small as an infant. He perceived whence +she had obtained the rope. + +'Elfride, my Elfride!' he exclaimed in gratified amazement. + +'I must leave you now,' she said, her face doubling its red, with +an expression between gladness and shame 'You follow me, but at +some distance.' + +'The rain and wind pierce you through; the chill will kill you. +God bless you for such devotion! Take my coat and put it on.' + +'No; I shall get warm running.' + +Elfride had absolutely nothing between her and the weather but her +exterior robe or 'costume.' The door had been made upon a woman's +wit, and it had found its way out. Behind the bank, whilst Knight +reclined upon the dizzy slope waiting for death, she had taken off +her whole clothing, and replaced only her outer bodice and skirt. +Every thread of the remainder lay upon the ground in the form of a +woollen and cotton rope. + +'I am used to being wet through,' she added. 'I have been +drenched on Pansy dozens of times. Good-bye till we meet, clothed +and in our right minds, by the fireside at home!' + +She then ran off from him through the pelting rain like a hare; or +more like a pheasant when, scampering away with a lowered tail, it +has a mind to fly, but does not. Elfride was soon out of sight. + +Knight felt uncomfortably wet and chilled, but glowing with +fervour nevertheless. He fully appreciated Elfride's girlish +delicacy in refusing his escort in the meagre habiliments she +wore, yet felt that necessary abstraction of herself for a short +half-hour as a most grievous loss to him. + +He gathered up her knotted and twisted plumage of linen, lace, and +embroidery work, and laid it across his arm. He noticed on the +ground an envelope, limp and wet. In endeavouring to restore this +to its proper shape, he loosened from the envelope a piece of +paper it had contained, which was seized by the wind in falling +from Knight's hand. It was blown to the right, blown to the left-- +it floated to the edge of the cliff and over the sea, where it +was hurled aloft. It twirled in the air, and then flew back over +his head. + +Knight followed the paper, and secured it. Having done so, he +looked to discover if it had been worth securing. + +The troublesome sheet was a banker's receipt for two hundred +pounds, placed to the credit of Miss Swancourt, which the +impractical girl had totally forgotten she carried with her. + +Knight folded it as carefully as its moist condition would allow, +put it in his pocket, and followed Elfride. + + + +Chapter XXIII + +'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?' + + +By this time Stephen Smith had stepped out upon the quay at Castle +Boterel, and breathed his native air. + +A darker skin, a more pronounced moustache, and an incipient +beard, were the chief additions and changes noticeable in his +appearance. + +In spite of the falling rain, which had somewhat lessened, he took +a small valise in his hand, and, leaving the remainder of his +luggage at the inn, ascended the hills towards East Endelstow. +This place lay in a vale of its own, further inland than the west +village, and though so near it, had little of physical feature in +common with the latter. East Endelstow was more wooded and +fertile: it boasted of Lord Luxellian's mansion and park, and was +free from those bleak open uplands which lent such an air of +desolation to the vicinage of the coast--always excepting the +small valley in which stood the vicarage and Mrs. Swancourt's old +house, The Crags. + +Stephen had arrived nearly at the summit of the ridge when the +rain again increased its volume, and, looking about for temporary +shelter, he ascended a steep path which penetrated dense hazel +bushes in the lower part of its course. Further up it emerged +upon a ledge immediately over the turnpike-road, and sheltered by +an overhanging face of rubble rock, with bushes above. For a +reason of his own he made this spot his refuge from the storm, and +turning his face to the left, conned the landscape as a book. + +He was overlooking the valley containing Elfride's residence. + +From this point of observation the prospect exhibited the +peculiarity of being either brilliant foreground or the subdued +tone of distance, a sudden dip in the surface of the country +lowering out of sight all the intermediate prospect. In apparent +contact with the trees and bushes growing close beside him +appeared the distant tract, terminated suddenly by the brink of +the series of cliffs which culminated in the tall giant without a +name--small and unimportant as here beheld. A leaf on a bough at +Stephen's elbow blotted out a whole hill in the contrasting +district far away; a green bunch of nuts covered a complete upland +there, and the great cliff itself was outvied by a pigmy crag in +the bank hard by him. Stephen had looked upon these things +hundreds of times before to-day, but he had never viewed them with +such tenderness as now. + +Stepping forward in this direction yet a little further, he could +see the tower of West Endelstow Church, beneath which he was to +meet his Elfride that night. And at the same time he noticed, +coming over the hill from the cliffs, a white speck in motion. It +seemed first to be a sea-gull flying low, but ultimately proved to +be a human figure, running with great rapidity. The form flitted +on, heedless of the rain which had caused Stephen's halt in this +place, dropped down the heathery hill, entered the vale, and was +out of sight. + +Whilst he meditated upon the meaning of this phenomenon, he was +surprised to see swim into his ken from the same point of +departure another moving speck, as different from the first as +well could be, insomuch that it was perceptible only by its +blackness. Slowly and regularly it took the same course, and +there was not much doubt that this was the form of a man. He, +too, gradually descended from the upper levels, and was lost in +the valley below. + +The rain had by this time again abated, and Stephen returned to +the road. Looking ahead, he saw two men and a cart. They were +soon obscured by the intervention of a high hedge. Just before +they emerged again he heard voices in conversation. + +''A must soon be in the naibourhood, too, if so be he's a-coming,' +said a tenor tongue, which Stephen instantly recognized as Martin +Cannister's. + +''A must 'a b'lieve,' said another voice--that of Stephen's +father. + +Stephen stepped forward, and came before them face to face. His +father and Martin were walking, dressed in their second best +suits, and beside them rambled along a grizzel horse and brightly +painted spring-cart. + +'All right, Mr. Cannister; here's the lost man!' exclaimed young +Smith, entering at once upon the old style of greeting. 'Father, +here I am.' + +'All right, my sonny; and glad I be for't!' returned John Smith, +overjoyed to see the young man. 'How be ye? Well, come along +home, and don't let's bide out here in the damp. Such weather +must be terrible bad for a young chap just come from a fiery +nation like Indy; hey, naibour Cannister?' + +'Trew, trew. And about getting home his traps? Boxes, monstrous +bales, and noble packages of foreign description, I make no +doubt?' + +'Hardly all that,' said Stephen laughing. + +'We brought the cart, maning to go right on to Castle Boterel +afore ye landed,' said his father. '"Put in the horse," says +Martin. "Ay," says I, "so we will;" and did it straightway. Now, +maybe, Martin had better go on wi' the cart for the things, and +you and I walk home-along.' + +'And I shall be back a'most as soon as you. Peggy is a pretty +step still, though time d' begin to tell upon her as upon the rest +o' us.' + +Stephen told Martin where to find his baggage, and then continued +his journey homeward in the company of his father. + +'Owing to your coming a day sooner than we first expected,' said +John, 'you'll find us in a turk of a mess, sir--"sir," says I to +my own son! but ye've gone up so, Stephen. We've killed the pig +this morning for ye, thinking ye'd be hungry, and glad of a morsel +of fresh mate. And 'a won't be cut up till to-night. However, we +can make ye a good supper of fry, which will chaw up well wi' a +dab o' mustard and a few nice new taters, and a drop of shilling +ale to wash it down. Your mother have scrubbed the house through +because ye were coming, and dusted all the chimmer furniture, and +bought a new basin and jug of a travelling crockery-woman that +came to our door, and scoured the cannel-sticks, and claned the +winders! Ay, I don't know what 'a ha'n't a done. Never were such +a steer, 'a b'lieve.' + +Conversation of this kind and inquiries of Stephen for his +mother's wellbeing occupied them for the remainder of the journey. +When they drew near the river, and the cottage behind it, they +could hear the master-mason's clock striking off the bygone hours +of the day at intervals of a quarter of a minute, during which +intervals Stephen's imagination readily pictured his mother's +forefinger wandering round the dial in company with the minute- +hand. + +'The clock stopped this morning, and your mother in putting en +right seemingly,' said his father in an explanatory tone; and they +went up the garden to the door. + +When they had entered, and Stephen had dutifully and warmly +greeted his mother--who appeared in a cotton dress of a dark-blue +ground, covered broadcast with a multitude of new and full moons, +stars, and planets, with an occasional dash of a comet-like aspect +to diversify the scene--the crackle of cart-wheels was heard +outside, and Martin Cannister stamped in at the doorway, in the +form of a pair of legs beneath a great box, his body being nowhere +visible. When the luggage had been all taken down, and Stephen +had gone upstairs to change his clothes, Mrs. Smith's mind seemed +to recover a lost thread. + +'Really our clock is not worth a penny,' she said, turning to it +and attempting to start the pendulum. + +'Stopped again?' inquired Martin with commiseration. + +'Yes, sure,' replied Mrs. Smith; and continued after the manner of +certain matrons, to whose tongues the harmony of a subject with a +casual mood is a greater recommendation than its pertinence to the +occasion, 'John would spend pounds a year upon the jimcrack old +thing, if he might, in having it claned, when at the same time you +may doctor it yourself as well. "The clock's stopped again, +John," I say to him. "Better have en claned," says he. There's +five shillings. "That clock grinds again," I say to en. "Better +have en claned," 'a says again. "That clock strikes wrong, John," +says I. "Better have en claned," he goes on. The wheels would +have been polished to skeletons by this time if I had listened to +en, and I assure you we could have bought a chainey-faced beauty +wi' the good money we've flung away these last ten years upon this +old green-faced mortal. And, Martin, you must be wet. My son is +gone up to change. John is damper than I should like to be, but +'a calls it nothing. Some of Mrs. Swancourt's servants have been +here--they ran in out of the rain when going for a walk--and I +assure you the state of their bonnets was frightful.' + +'How's the folks? We've been over to Castle Boterel, and what wi' +running and stopping out of the storms, my poor head is beyond +everything! fizz, fizz fizz; 'tis frying o' fish from morning to +night,' said a cracked voice in the doorway at this instant. + +'Lord so's, who's that?' said Mrs. Smith, in a private +exclamation, and turning round saw William Worm, endeavouring to +make himself look passing civil and friendly by overspreading his +face with a large smile that seemed to have no connection with the +humour he was in. Behind him stood a woman about twice his size, +with a large umbrella over her head. This was Mrs. Worm, +William's wife. + +'Come in, William,' said John Smith. 'We don't kill a pig every +day. And you, likewise, Mrs. Worm. I make ye welcome. Since ye +left Parson Swancourt, William, I don't see much of 'ee.' + +'No, for to tell the truth, since I took to the turn-pike-gate +line, I've been out but little, coming to church o' Sundays not +being my duty now, as 'twas in a parson's family, you see. +However, our boy is able to mind the gate now, and I said, says I, +"Barbara, let's call and see John Smith."' + +'I am sorry to hear yer pore head is so bad still.' + +'Ay, I assure you that frying o' fish is going on for nights and +days. And, you know, sometimes 'tisn't only fish, but rashers o' +bacon and inions. Ay, I can hear the fat pop and fizz as nateral +as life; can't I, Barbara?' + +Mrs. Worm, who had been all this time engaged in closing her +umbrella, corroborated this statement, and now, coming indoors, +showed herself to be a wide-faced, comfortable-looking woman, with +a wart upon her cheek, bearing a small tuft of hair in its centre. + +'Have ye ever tried anything to cure yer noise, Maister Worm?' +inquired Martin Cannister. + +'Oh ay; bless ye, I've tried everything. Ay, Providence is a +merciful man, and I have hoped He'd have found it out by this +time, living so many years in a parson's family, too, as I have, +but 'a don't seem to relieve me. Ay, I be a poor wambling man, +and life's a mint o' trouble!' + +'True, mournful true, William Worm. 'Tis so. The world wants +looking to, or 'tis all sixes and sevens wi' us.' + +'Take your things off, Mrs. Worm,' said Mrs. Smith. 'We be rather +in a muddle, to tell the truth, for my son is just dropped in from +Indy a day sooner than we expected, and the pig-killer is coming +presently to cut up.' + +Mrs. Barbara Worm, not wishing to take any mean advantage of +persons in a muddle by observing them, removed her bonnet and +mantle with eyes fixed upon the flowers in the plot outside the +door. + +'What beautiful tiger-lilies!' said Mrs. Worm. + +'Yes, they be very well, but such a trouble to me on account of +the children that come here. They will go eating the berries on +the stem, and call 'em currants. Taste wi' junivals is quite +fancy, really.' + +'And your snapdragons look as fierce as ever.' + +'Well, really,' answered Mrs. Smith, entering didactically into +the subject, 'they are more like Christians than flowers. But +they make up well enough wi' the rest, and don't require much +tending. And the same can be said o' these miller's wheels. 'Tis +a flower I like very much, though so simple. John says he never +cares about the flowers o' 'em, but men have no eye for anything +neat. He says his favourite flower is a cauliflower. And I +assure you I tremble in the springtime, for 'tis perfect murder.' + +'You don't say so, Mrs. Smith!' + +'John digs round the roots, you know. In goes his blundering +spade, through roots, bulbs, everything that hasn't got a good +show above ground, turning 'em up cut all to slices. Only the +very last fall I went to move some tulips, when I found every bulb +upside down, and the stems crooked round. He had turned 'em over +in the spring, and the cunning creatures had soon found that +heaven was not where it used to be.' + +'What's that long-favoured flower under the hedge?' + +'They? O Lord, they are the horrid Jacob's ladders! Instead of +praising 'em, I be mad wi' 'em for being so ready to bide where +they are not wanted. They be very well in their way, but I do not +care for things that neglect won't kill. Do what I will, dig, +drag, scrap, pull, I get too many of 'em. I chop the roots: up +they'll come, treble strong. Throw 'em over hedge; there they'll +grow, staring me in the face like a hungry dog driven away, and +creep back again in a week or two the same as before. 'Tis +Jacob's ladder here, Jacob's ladder there, and plant 'em where +nothing in the world will grow, you get crowds of 'em in a month +or two. John made a new manure mixen last summer, and he said, +"Maria, now if you've got any flowers or such like, that you don't +want, you may plant 'em round my mixen so as to hide it a bit, +though 'tis not likely anything of much value will grow there." I +thought, "There's them Jacob's ladders; I'll put them there, since +they can't do harm in such a place; "and I planted the Jacob's +ladders sure enough. They growed, and they growed, in the mixen +and out of the mixen, all over the litter, covering it quite up. +When John wanted to use it about the garden, 'a said, "Nation +seize them Jacob's ladders of yours, Maria! They've eat the +goodness out of every morsel of my manure, so that 'tis no better +than sand itself!" Sure enough the hungry mortals had. 'Tis my +belief that in the secret souls o' 'em, Jacob's ladders be weeds, +and not flowers at all, if the truth was known.' + +Robert Lickpan, pig-killer and carrier, arrived at this moment. +The fatted animal hanging in the back kitchen was cleft down the +middle of its backbone, Mrs. Smith being meanwhile engaged in +cooking supper. + +Between the cutting and chopping, ale was handed round, and Worm +and the pig-killer listened to John Smith's description of the +meeting with Stephen, with eyes blankly fixed upon the table- +cloth, in order that nothing in the external world should +interrupt their efforts to conjure up the scene correctly. + +Stephen came downstairs in the middle of the story, and after the +little interruption occasioned by his entrance and welcome, the +narrative was again continued, precisely as if he had not been +there at all, and was told inclusively to him, as to somebody who +knew nothing about the matter. + +'"Ay," I said, as I catched sight o' en through the brimbles, +"that's the lad, for I d' know en by his grand-father's walk; "for +'a stapped out like poor father for all the world. Still there +was a touch o' the frisky that set me wondering. 'A got closer, +and I said, "That's the lad, for I d' know en by his carrying a +black case like a travelling man." Still, a road is common to all +the world, and there be more travelling men than one. But I kept +my eye cocked, and I said to Martin, "'Tis the boy, now, for I d' +know en by the wold twirl o' the stick and the family step." Then +'a come closer, and a' said, "All right." I could swear to en +then.' + +Stephen's personal appearance was next criticised. + +'He d' look a deal thinner in face, surely, than when I seed en at +the parson's, and never knowed en, if ye'll believe me,' said +Martin. + +'Ay, there,' said another, without removing his eyes from +Stephen's face, 'I should ha' knowed en anywhere. 'Tis his +father's nose to a T.' + +'It has been often remarked,' said Stephen modestly. + +'And he's certainly taller,' said Martin, letting his glance run +over Stephen's form from bottom to top. + +'I was thinking 'a was exactly the same height,' Worm replied. + +'Bless thy soul, that's because he's bigger round likewise.' And +the united eyes all moved to Stephen's waist. + +'I be a poor wambling man, but I can make allowances,' said +William Worm. 'Ah, sure, and how he came as a stranger and +pilgrim to Parson Swancourt's that time, not a soul knowing en +after so many years! Ay, life's a strange picter, Stephen: but I +suppose I must say Sir to ye?' + +'Oh, it is not necessary at present,' Stephen replied, though +mentally resolving to avoid the vicinity of that familiar friend +as soon as he had made pretensions to the hand of Elfride. + +'Ah, well,' said Worm musingly, 'some would have looked for no +less than a Sir. There's a sight of difference in people.' + +'And in pigs likewise,' observed John Smith, looking at the halved +carcass of his own. + +Robert Lickpan, the pig-killer, here seemed called upon to enter +the lists of conversation. + +'Yes, they've got their particular naters good-now,' he remarked +initially. 'Many's the rum-tempered pig I've knowed.' + +'I don't doubt it, Master Lickpan,' answered Martin, in a tone +expressing that his convictions, no less than good manners, +demanded the reply. + +'Yes,' continued the pig-killer, as one accustomed to be heard. +'One that I knowed was deaf and dumb, and we couldn't make out +what was the matter wi' the pig. 'A would eat well enough when 'a +seed the trough, but when his back was turned, you might a-rattled +the bucket all day, the poor soul never heard ye. Ye could play +tricks upon en behind his back, and a' wouldn't find it out no +quicker than poor deaf Grammer Cates. But a' fatted well, and I +never seed a pig open better when a' was killed, and 'a was very +tender eating, very; as pretty a bit of mate as ever you see; you +could suck that mate through a quill. + +'And another I knowed,' resumed the killer, after quietly letting +a pint of ale run down his throat of its own accord, and setting +down the cup with mathematical exactness upon the spot from which +he had raised it--'another went out of his mind.' + +'How very mournful!' murmured Mrs. Worm. + +'Ay, poor thing, 'a did! As clean out of his mind as the cleverest +Christian could go. In early life 'a was very melancholy, and +never seemed a hopeful pig by no means. 'Twas Andrew Stainer's +pig--that's whose pig 'twas.' + +'I can mind the pig well enough,' attested John Smith. + +'And a pretty little porker 'a was. And you all know Farmer +Buckle's sort? Every jack o' em suffer from the rheumatism to this +day, owing to a damp sty they lived in when they were striplings, +as 'twere.' + +'Well, now we'll weigh,' said John. + +'If so be he were not so fine, we'd weigh en whole: but as he is, +we'll take a side at a time. John, you can mind my old joke, ey?' + +'I do so; though 'twas a good few years ago I first heard en.' + +'Yes,' said Lickpan, 'that there old familiar joke have been in +our family for generations, I may say. My father used that joke +regular at pig-killings for more than five and forty years--the +time he followed the calling. And 'a told me that 'a had it from +his father when he was quite a chiel, who made use o' en just the +same at every killing more or less; and pig-killings were pig- +killings in those days.' + +'Trewly they were.' + +'I've never heard the joke,' said Mrs. Smith tentatively. + +'Nor I,' chimed in Mrs. Worm, who, being the only other lady in +the room, felt bound by the laws of courtesy to feel like Mrs. +Smith in everything. + +'Surely, surely you have,' said the killer, looking sceptically at +the benighted females. 'However, 'tisn't much--I don't wish to +say it is. It commences like this: "Bob will tell the weight of +your pig, 'a b'lieve," says I. The congregation of neighbours +think I mane my son Bob, naturally; but the secret is that I mane +the bob o' the steelyard. Ha, ha, ha!' + +'Haw, haw, haw!' laughed Martin Cannister, who had heard the +explanation of this striking story for the hundredth time. + +'Huh, huh, huh!' laughed John Smith, who had heard it for the +thousandth. + +'Hee, hee, hee!' laughed William Worm, who had never heard it at +all, but was afraid to say so. + +'Thy grandfather, Robert, must have been a wide-awake chap to make +that story,' said Martin Cannister, subsiding to a placid aspect +of delighted criticism. + +'He had a head, by all account. And, you see, as the first-born +of the Lickpans have all been Roberts, they've all been Bobs, so +the story was handed down to the present day.' + +'Poor Joseph, your second boy, will never be able to bring it out +in company, which is rather unfortunate,' said Mrs. Worm +thoughtfully. + +''A won't. Yes, grandfer was a clever chap, as ye say; but I +knowed a cleverer. 'Twas my uncle Levi. Uncle Levi made a snuff- +box that should be a puzzle to his friends to open. He used to +hand en round at wedding parties, christenings, funerals, and in +other jolly company, and let 'em try their skill. This +extraordinary snuff-box had a spring behind that would push in and +out--a hinge where seemed to be the cover; a slide at the end, a +screw in front, and knobs and queer notches everywhere. One man +would try the spring, another would try the screw, another would +try the slide; but try as they would, the box wouldn't open. And +they couldn't open en, and they didn't open en. Now what might +you think was the secret of that box?' + +All put on an expression that their united thoughts were +inadequate to the occasion. + +'Why the box wouldn't open at all. 'A were made not to open, and +ye might have tried till the end of Revelations, 'twould have been +as naught, for the box were glued all round.' + +'A very deep man to have made such a box.' + +'Yes. 'Twas like uncle Levi all over.' + +''Twas. I can mind the man very well. Tallest man ever I seed.' + +''A was so. He never slept upon a bedstead after he growed up a +hard boy-chap--never could get one long enough. When 'a lived in +that little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open +his chamber door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet +poke out upon the landing.' + +'He's dead and gone now, nevertheless, poor man, as we all shall,' +observed Worm, to fill the pause which followed the conclusion of +Robert Lickpan's speech. + +The weighing and cutting up was pursued amid an animated discourse +on Stephen's travels; and at the finish, the first-fruits of the +day's slaughter, fried in onions, were then turned from the pan +into a dish on the table, each piece steaming and hissing till it +reached their very mouths. + +It must be owned that the gentlemanly son of the house looked +rather out of place in the course of this operation. Nor was his +mind quite philosophic enough to allow him to be comfortable with +these old-established persons, his father's friends. He had never +lived long at home--scarcely at all since his childhood. The +presence of William Worm was the most awkward feature of the case, +for, though Worm had left the house of Mr. Swancourt, the being +hand-in-glove with a ci-devant servitor reminded Stephen too +forcibly of the vicar's classification of himself before he went +from England. Mrs. Smith was conscious of the defect in her +arrangements which had brought about the undesired conjunction. +She spoke to Stephen privately. + +'I am above having such people here, Stephen; but what could I do? +And your father is so rough in his nature that he's more mixed up +with them than need be.' + +'Never mind, mother,' said Stephen; 'I'll put up with it now.' + +'When we leave my lord's service, and get further up the country-- +as I hope we shall soon--it will be different. We shall be among +fresh people, and in a larger house, and shall keep ourselves up a +bit, I hope.' + +'Is Miss Swancourt at home, do you know?' Stephen inquired + +'Yes, your father saw her this morning.' + +'Do you often see her?' + +'Scarcely ever. Mr. Glim, the curate, calls occasionally, but the +Swancourts don't come into the village now any more than to drive +through it. They dine at my lord's oftener than they used. Ah, +here's a note was brought this morning for you by a boy.' + +Stephen eagerly took the note and opened it, his mother watching +him. He read what Elfride had written and sent before she started +for the cliff that afternoon: + + +'Yes; I will meet you in the church at nine to-night.--E. S.' + + +'I don't know, Stephen,' his mother said meaningly, 'whe'r you +still think about Miss Elfride, but if I were you I wouldn't +concern about her. They say that none of old Mrs. Swancourt's +money will come to her step-daughter.' + +'I see the evening has turned out fine; I am going out for a +little while to look round the place,' he said, evading the direct +query. 'Probably by the time I return our visitors will be gone, +and we'll have a more confidential talk.' + + + +Chapter XXIV + +'Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour.' + + +The rain had ceased since the sunset, but it was a cloudy night; +and the light of the moon, softened and dispersed by its misty +veil, was distributed over the land in pale gray. + +A dark figure stepped from the doorway of John Smith's river-side +cottage, and strode rapidly towards West Endelstow with a light +footstep. Soon ascending from the lower levels he turned a +corner, followed a cart-track, and saw the tower of the church he +was in quest of distinctly shaped forth against the sky. In less +than half an hour from the time of starting he swung himself over +the churchyard stile. + +The wild irregular enclosure was as much as ever an integral part +of the old hill. The grass was still long, the graves were shaped +precisely as passing years chose to alter them from their orthodox +form as laid down by Martin Cannister, and by Stephen's own +grandfather before him. + +A sound sped into the air from the direction in which Castle +Boterel lay. It was the striking of the church clock, distinct in +the still atmosphere as if it had come from the tower hard by, +which, wrapt in its solitary silentness, gave out no such sounds +of life. + +'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.' Stephen +carefully counted the strokes, though he well knew their number +beforehand. Nine o'clock. It was the hour Elfride had herself +named as the most convenient for meeting him. + +Stephen stood at the door of the porch and listened. He could +have heard the softest breathing of any person within the porch; +nobody was there. He went inside the doorway, sat down upon the +stone bench, and waited with a beating heart. + +The faint sounds heard only accentuated the silence. The rising +and falling of the sea, far away along the coast, was the most +important. A minor sound was the scurr of a distant night-hawk. +Among the minutest where all were minute were the light settlement +of gossamer fragments floating in the air, a toad humbly labouring +along through the grass near the entrance, the crackle of a dead +leaf which a worm was endeavouring to pull into the earth, a waft +of air, getting nearer and nearer, and expiring at his feet under +the burden of a winged seed. + +Among all these soft sounds came not the only soft sound he cared +to hear--the footfall of Elfride. + +For a whole quarter of an hour Stephen sat thus intent, without +moving a muscle. At the end of that time he walked to the west +front of the church. Turning the corner of the tower, a white +form stared him in the face. He started back, and recovered +himself. It was the tomb of young farmer Jethway, looking still +as fresh and as new as when it was first erected, the white stone +in which it was hewn having a singular weirdness amid the dark +blue slabs from local quarries, of which the whole remaining +gravestones were formed. + +He thought of the night when he had sat thereon with Elfride as +his companion, and well remembered his regret that she had +received, even unwillingly, earlier homage than his own. But his +present tangible anxiety reduced such a feeling to sentimental +nonsense in comparison; and he strolled on over the graves to the +border of the churchyard, whence in the daytime could be clearly +seen the vicarage and the present residence of the Swancourts. No +footstep was discernible upon the path up the hill, but a light +was shining from a window in the last-named house. + +Stephen knew there could be no mistake about the time or place, +and no difficulty about keeping the engagement. He waited yet +longer, passing from impatience into a mood which failed to take +any account of the lapse of time. He was awakened from his +reverie by Castle Boterel clock. + +One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN . + +One little fall of the hammer in addition to the number it had +been sharp pleasure to hear, and what a difference to him! + +He left the churchyard on the side opposite to his point of +entrance, and went down the hill. Slowly he drew near the gate of +her house. This he softly opened, and walked up the gravel drive +to the door. Here he paused for several minutes. + +At the expiration of that time the murmured speech of a manly +voice came out to his ears through an open window behind the +corner of the house. This was responded to by a clear soft laugh. +It was the laugh of Elfride. + +Stephen was conscious of a gnawing pain at his heart. He +retreated as he had come. There are disappointments which wring +us, and there are those which inflict a wound whose mark we bear +to our graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of +the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become registered +as a permanent loss of happiness. Such a one was Stephen's now: +the crowning aureola of the dream had been the meeting here by +stealth; and if Elfride had come to him only ten minutes after he +had turned away, the disappointment would have been recognizable +still. + +When the young man reached home he found there a letter which had +arrived in his absence. Believing it to contain some reason for +her non-appearance, yet unable to imagine one that could justify +her, he hastily tore open the envelope. + +The paper contained not a word from Elfride. It was the deposit- +note for his two hundred pounds. On the back was the form of a +cheque, and this she had filled up with the same sum, payable to +the bearer. + +Stephen was confounded. He attempted to divine her motive. +Considering how limited was his knowledge of her later actions, he +guessed rather shrewdly that, between the time of her sending the +note in the morning and the evening's silent refusal of his gift, +something had occurred which had caused a total change in her +attitude towards him. + +He knew not what to do. It seemed absurd now to go to her father +next morning, as he had purposed, and ask for an engagement with +her, a possibility impending all the while that Elfride herself +would not be on his side. Only one course recommended itself as +wise. To wait and see what the days would bring forth; to go and +execute his commissions in Birmingham; then to return, learn if +anything had happened, and try what a meeting might do; perhaps +her surprise at his backwardness would bring her forward to show +latent warmth as decidedly as in old times. + +This act of patience was in keeping only with the nature of a man +precisely of Stephen's constitution. Nine men out of ten would +perhaps have rushed off, got into her presence, by fair means or +foul, and provoked a catastrophe of some sort. Possibly for the +better, probably for the worse. + +He started for Birmingham the next morning. A day's delay would +have made no difference; but he could not rest until he had begun +and ended the programme proposed to himself. Bodily activity will +sometimes take the sting out of anxiety as completely as assurance +itself. + + + +Chapter XXV + +'Mine own familiar friend.' + + +During these days of absence Stephen lived under alternate +conditions. Whenever his emotions were active, he was in agony. +Whenever he was not in agony, the business in hand had driven out +of his mind by sheer force all deep reflection on the subject of +Elfride and love. + +By the time he took his return journey at the week's end, Stephen +had very nearly worked himself up to an intention to call and see +her face to face. On this occasion also he adopted his favourite +route--by the little summer steamer from Bristol to Castle +Boterel; the time saved by speed on the railway being wasted at +junctions, and in following a devious course. + +It was a bright silent evening at the beginning of September when +Smith again set foot in the little town. He felt inclined to +linger awhile upon the quay before ascending the hills, having +formed a romantic intention to go home by way of her house, yet +not wishing to wander in its neighbourhood till the evening shades +should sufficiently screen him from observation. + +And thus waiting for night's nearer approach, he watched the +placid scene, over which the pale luminosity of the west cast a +sorrowful monochrome, that became slowly embrowned by the dusk. A +star appeared, and another, and another. They sparkled amid the +yards and rigging of the two coal brigs lying alangside, as if +they had been tiny lamps suspended in the ropes. The masts rocked +sleepily to the infinitesimal flux of the tide, which clucked and +gurgled with idle regularity in nooks and holes of the harbour +wall. + +The twilight was now quite pronounced enough for his purpose; and +as, rather sad at heart, he was about to move on, a little boat +containing two persons glided up the middle of the harbour with +the lightness of a shadow. The boat came opposite him, passed on, +and touched the landing-steps at the further end. One of its +occupants was a man, as Stephen had known by the easy stroke of +the oars. When the pair ascended the steps, and came into greater +prominence, he was enabled to discern that the second personage +was a woman; also that she wore a white decoration--apparently a +feather--in her hat or bonnet, which spot of white was the only +distinctly visible portion of her clothing. + +Stephen remained a moment in their rear, and they passed on, when +he pursued his way also, and soon forgot the circumstance. Having +crossed a bridge, forsaken the high road, and entered the footpath +which led up the vale to West Endelstow, he heard a little wicket +click softly together some yards ahead. By the time that Stephen +had reached the wicket and passed it, he heard another click of +precisely the same nature from another gate yet further on. +Clearly some person or persons were preceding him along the path, +their footsteps being rendered noiseless by the soft carpet of +turf. Stephen now walked a little quicker, and perceived two +forms. One of them bore aloft the white feather he had noticed in +the woman's hat on the quay: they were the couple he had seen in +the boat. Stephen dropped a little further to the rear. + +From the bottom of the valley, along which the path had hitherto +lain, beside the margin of the trickling streamlet, another path +now diverged, and ascended the slope of the left-hand hill. This +footway led only to the residence of Mrs. Swancourt and a cottage +or two in its vicinity. No grass covered this diverging path in +portions of its length, and Stephen was reminded that the pair in +front of him had taken this route by the occasional rattle of +loose stones under their feet. Stephen climbed in the same +direction, but for some undefined reason he trod more softly than +did those preceding him. His mind was unconsciously in exercise +upon whom the woman might be--whether a visitor to The Crags, a +servant, or Elfride. He put it to himself yet more forcibly; +could the lady be Elfride? A possible reason for her unaccountable +failure to keep the appointment with him returned with painful +force. + +They entered the grounds of the house by the side wicket, whence +the path, now wide and well trimmed, wound fantastically through +the shrubbery to an octagonal pavilion called the Belvedere, by +reason of the comprehensive view over the adjacent district that +its green seats afforded. The path passed this erection and went +on to the house as well as to the gardener's cottage on the other +side, straggling thence to East Endelstow; so that Stephen felt no +hesitation in entering a promenade which could scarcely be called +private. + +He fancied that he heard the gate open and swing together again +behind him. Turning, he saw nobody. + +The people of the boat came to the summer-house. One of them +spoke. + +'I am afraid we shall get a scolding for being so late.' + +Stephen instantly recognised the familiar voice, richer and fuller +now than it used to be. 'Elfride!' he whispered to himself, and +held fast by a sapling, to steady himself under the agitation her +presence caused him. His heart swerved from its beat; he shunned +receiving the meaning he sought. + +'A breeze is rising again; how the ash tree rustles!' said +Elfride. 'Don't you hear it? I wonder what the time is.' + +Stephen relinquished the sapling. + +I will get a light and tell you. Step into the summer-house; the +air is quiet there.' + +The cadence of that voice--its peculiarity seemed to come home to +him like that of some notes of the northern birds on his return to +his native clime, as an old natural thing renewed, yet not +particularly noticed as natural before that renewal. + +They entered the Belvedere. In the lower part it was formed of +close wood-work nailed crosswise, and had openings in the upper by +way of windows. + +The scratch of a striking light was heard, and a bright glow +radiated from the interior of the building. The light gave birth +to dancing leaf-shadows, stem-shadows, lustrous streaks, dots, +sparkles, and threads of silver sheen of all imaginable variety +and transience. It awakened gnats, which flew towards it, +revealed shiny gossamer threads, disturbed earthworms. Stephen +gave but little attention to these phenomena, and less time. He +saw in the summer-house a strongly illuminated picture. + +First, the face of his friend and preceptor Henry Knight, between +whom and himself an estrangement had arisen, not from any definite +causes beyond those of absence, increasing age, and diverging +sympathies. + +Next, his bright particular star, Elfride. The face of Elfride +was more womanly than when she had called herself his, but as +clear and healthy as ever. Her plenteous twines of beautiful hair +were looking much as usual, with the exception of a slight +modification in their arrangement in deference to the changes of +fashion. + +Their two foreheads were close together, almost touching, and both +were looking down. Elfride was holding her watch, Knight was +holding the light with one hand, his left arm being round her +waist. Part of the scene reached Stephen's eyes through the +horizontal bars of woodwork, which crossed their forms like the +ribs of a skeleton. + +Knight's arm stole still further round the waist of Elfride. + +'It is half-past eight,' she said in a low voice, which had a +peculiar music in it, seemingly born of a thrill of pleasure at +the new proof that she was beloved. + +The flame dwindled down, died away, and all was wrapped in a +darkness to which the gloom before the illumination bore no +comparison in apparent density. Stephen, shattered in spirit and +sick to his heart's centre, turned away. In turning, he saw a +shadowy outline behind the summer-house on the other side. His +eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Was the form a human form, +or was it an opaque bush of juniper? + +The lovers arose, brushed against the laurestines, and pursued +their way to the house. The indistinct figure had moved, and now +passed across Smith's front. So completely enveloped was the +person, that it was impossible to discern him or her any more than +as a shape. The shape glided noiselessly on. + +Stephen stepped forward, fearing any mischief was intended to the +other two. 'Who are you?' he said. + +'Never mind who I am,' answered a weak whisper from the enveloping +folds. 'WHAT I am, may she be! Perhaps I knew well--ah, so well!-- +a youth whose place you took, as he there now takes yours. Will +you let her break your heart, and bring you to an untimely grave, +as she did the one before you?' + +'You are Mrs. Jethway, I think. What do you do here? And why do +you talk so wildly?' + +'Because my heart is desolate, and nobody cares about it. May +hers be so that brought trouble upon me!' + +'Silence!' said Stephen, staunch to Elfride in spite of himself +'She would harm nobody wilfully, never would she! How do you come +here?' + +'I saw the two coming up the path, and wanted to learn if she were +not one of them. Can I help disliking her if I think of the past? +Can I help watching her if I remember my boy? Can I help ill- +wishing her if I well-wish him?' + +The bowed form went on, passed through the wicket, and was +enveloped by the shadows of the field. + +Stephen had heard that Mrs. Jethway, since the death of her son, +had become a crazed, forlorn woman; and bestowing a pitying +thought upon her, he dismissed her fancied wrongs from his mind, +but not her condemnation of Elfride's faithlessness. That entered +into and mingled with the sensations his new experience had +begotten. The tale told by the little scene he had witnessed ran +parallel with the unhappy woman's opinion, which, however baseless +it might have been antecedently, had become true enough as +regarded himself. + +A slow weight of despair, as distinct from a violent paroxysm as +starvation from a mortal shot, filled him and wrung him body and +soul. The discovery had not been altogether unexpected, for +throughout his anxiety of the last few days since the night in the +churchyard, he had been inclined to construe the uncertainty +unfavourably for himself. His hopes for the best had been but +periodic interruptions to a chronic fear of the worst. + +A strange concomitant of his misery was the singularity of its +form. That his rival should be Knight, whom once upon a time he +had adored as a man is very rarely adored by another in modern +times, and whom he loved now, added deprecation to sorrow, and +cynicism to both. Henry Knight, whose praises he had so +frequently trumpeted in her ears, of whom she had actually been +jealous, lest she herself should be lessened in Stephen's love on +account of him, had probably won her the more easily by reason of +those very praises which he had only ceased to utter by her +command. She had ruled him like a queen in that matter, as in all +others. Stephen could tell by her manner, brief as had been his +observation of it, and by her words, few as they were, that her +position was far different with Knight. That she looked up at and +adored her new lover from below his pedestal, was even more +perceptible than that she had smiled down upon Stephen from a +height above him. + +The suddenness of Elfride's renunciation of himself was food for +more torture. To an unimpassioned outsider, it admitted of at +least two interpretations--it might either have proceeded from an +endeavour to be faithful to her first choice, till the lover seen +absolutely overpowered the lover remembered, or from a wish not to +lose his love till sure of the love of another. But to Stephen +Smith the motive involved in the latter alternative made it +untenable where Elfride was the actor. + +He mused on her letters to him, in which she had never mentioned a +syllable concerning Knight. It is desirable, however, to observe +that only in two letters could she possibly have done so. One was +written about a week before Knight's arrival, when, though she did +not mention his promised coming to Stephen, she had hardly a +definite reason in her mind for neglecting to do it. In the next +she did casually allude to Knight. But Stephen had left Bombay +long before that letter arrived. + +Stephen looked at the black form of the adjacent house, where it +cut a dark polygonal notch out of the sky, and felt that he hated +the spot. He did not know many facts of the case, but could not +help instinctively associating Elfride's fickleness with the +marriage of her father, and their introduction to London society. +He closed the iron gate bounding the shrubbery as noiselessly as +he had opened it, and went into the grassy field. Here he could +see the old vicarage, the house alone that was associated with the +sweet pleasant time of his incipient love for Elfride. Turning +sadly from the place that was no longer a nook in which his +thoughts might nestle when he was far away, he wandered in the +direction of the east village, to reach his father's house before +they retired to rest. + +The nearest way to the cottage was by crossing the park. He did +not hurry. Happiness frequently has reason for haste, but it is +seldom that desolation need scramble or strain. Sometimes he +paused under the low-hanging arms of the trees, looking vacantly +on the ground. + +Stephen was standing thus, scarcely less crippled in thought than +he was blank in vision, when a clear sound permeated the quiet air +about him, and spread on far beyond. The sound was the stroke of +a bell from the tower of East Endelstow Church, which stood in a +dell not forty yards from Lord Luxellian's mansion, and within the +park enclosure. Another stroke greeted his ear, and gave +character to both: then came a slow succession of them. + +'Somebody is dead,' he said aloud. + +The death-knell of an inhabitant of the eastern parish was being +tolled. + +An unusual feature in the tolling was that it had not been begun +according to the custom in Endelstow and other parishes in the +neighbourhood. At every death the sex and age of the deceased +were announced by a system of changes. Three times three strokes +signified that the departed one was a man; three times two, a +woman; twice three, a boy; twice two, a girl. The regular +continuity of the tolling suggested that it was the resumption +rather than the beginning of a knell--the opening portion of which +Stephen had not been near enough to hear. + +The momentary anxiety he had felt with regard to his parents +passed away. He had left them in perfect health, and had any +serious illness seized either, a communication would have reached +him ere this. At the same time, since his way homeward lay under +the churchyard yews, he resolved to look into the belfry in +passing by, and speak a word to Martin Cannister, who would be +there. + +Stephen reached the brow of the hill, and felt inclined to +renounce his idea. His mood was such that talking to any person +to whom he could not unburden himself would be wearisome. +However, before he could put any inclination into effect, the +young man saw from amid the trees a bright light shining, the rays +from which radiated like needles through the sad plumy foliage of +the yews. Its direction was from the centre of the churchyard. + +Stephen mechanically went forward. Never could there be a greater +contrast between two places of like purpose than between this +graveyard and that of the further village. Here the grass was +carefully tended, and formed virtually a part of the manor-house +lawn; flowers and shrubs being planted indiscriminately over both, +whilst the few graves visible were mathematically exact in shape +and smoothness, appearing in the daytime like chins newly shaven. +There was no wall, the division between God's Acre and Lord +Luxellian's being marked only by a few square stones set at +equidistant points. Among those persons who have romantic +sentiments on the subject of their last dwelling-place, probably +the greater number would have chosen such a spot as this in +preference to any other: a few would have fancied a constraint in +its trim neatness, and would have preferred the wild hill-top of +the neighbouring site, with Nature in her most negligent attire. + +The light in the churchyard he next discovered to have its source +in a point very near the ground, and Stephen imagined it might +come from a lantern in the interior of a partly-dug grave. But a +nearer approach showed him that its position was immediately under +the wall of the aisle, and within the mouth of an archway. He +could now hear voices, and the truth of the whole matter began to +dawn upon him. Walking on towards the opening, Smith discerned on +his left hand a heap of earth, and before him a flight of stone +steps which the removed earth had uncovered, leading down under +the edifice. It was the entrance to a large family vault, +extending under the north aisle. + +Stephen had never before seen it open, and descending one or two +steps stooped to look under the arch. The vault appeared to be +crowded with coffins, with the exception of an open central space, +which had been necessarily kept free for ingress and access to the +sides, round three of which the coffins were stacked in stone bins +or niches. + +The place was well lighted with candles stuck in slips of wood +that were fastened to the wall. On making the descent of another +step the living inhabitants of the vault were recognizable. They +were his father the master-mason, an under-mason, Martin +Cannister, and two or three young and old labouring-men. Crowbars +and workmen's hammers were scattered about. The whole company, +sitting round on coffins which had been removed from their places, +apparently for some alteration or enlargement of the vault, were +eating bread and cheese, and drinking ale from a cup with two +handles, passed round from each to each. + +'Who is dead?' Stephen inquired, stepping down. + + + +Chapter XXVI + +'To that last nothing under earth.' + + +All eyes were turned to the entrance as Stephen spoke, and the +ancient-mannered conclave scrutinized him inquiringly. + +'Why, 'tis our Stephen!' said his father, rising from his seat; +and, still retaining the frothy mug in his left hand, he swung +forward his right for a grasp. 'Your mother is expecting ye-- +thought you would have come afore dark. But you'll wait and go +home with me? I have all but done for the day, and was going +directly.' + +'Yes, 'tis Master Stephy, sure enough. Glad to see you so soon +again, Master Smith,' said Martin Cannister, chastening the +gladness expressed in his words by a strict neutrality of +countenance, in order to harmonize the feeling as much as possible +with the solemnity of a family vault. + +'The same to you, Martin; and you, William,' said Stephen, nodding +around to the rest, who, having their mouths full of bread and +cheese, were of necessity compelled to reply merely by compressing +their eyes to friendly lines and wrinkles. + +'And who is dead?' Stephen repeated. + +'Lady Luxellian, poor gentlewoman, as we all shall, said the +under-mason. 'Ay, and we be going to enlarge the vault to make +room for her.' + +'When did she die?' + +'Early this morning,' his father replied, with an appearance of +recurring to a chronic thought. 'Yes, this morning. Martin hev +been tolling ever since, almost. There, 'twas expected. She was +very limber.' + +'Ay, poor soul, this morning,' resumed the under-mason, a +marvellously old man, whose skin seemed so much too large for his +body that it would not stay in position. 'She must know by this +time whether she's to go up or down, poor woman.' + +'What was her age?' + +'Not more than seven or eight and twenty by candlelight. But, +Lord! by day 'a was forty if 'a were an hour.' + +'Ay, night-time or day-time makes a difference of twenty years to +rich feymels,' observed Martin. + +'She was one and thirty really,' said John Smith. 'I had it from +them that know.' + +'Not more than that!' + +''A looked very bad, poor lady. In faith, ye might say she was +dead for years afore 'a would own it.' + +'As my old father used to say, "dead, but wouldn't drop down."' + +'I seed her, poor soul,' said a labourer from behind some removed +coffins, 'only but last Valentine's-day of all the world. 'A was +arm in crook wi' my lord. I says to myself, "You be ticketed +Churchyard, my noble lady, although you don't dream on't."' + +'I suppose my lord will write to all the other lords anointed in +the nation, to let 'em know that she that was is now no more?' + +''Tis done and past. I see a bundle of letters go off an hour +after the death. Sich wonderful black rims as they letters had-- +half-an-inch wide, at the very least.' + +'Too much,' observed Martin. 'In short, 'tis out of the question +that a human being can be so mournful as black edges half-an-inch +wide. I'm sure people don't feel more than a very narrow border +when they feels most of all.' + +'And there are two little girls, are there not?' said Stephen. + +'Nice clane little faces!--left motherless now.' + +'They used to come to Parson Swancourt's to play with Miss Elfride +when I were there,' said William Worm. 'Ah, they did so's!' The +latter sentence was introduced to add the necessary melancholy to +a remark which, intrinsically, could hardly be made to possess +enough for the occasion. 'Yes,' continued Worm, 'they'd run +upstairs, they'd run down; flitting about with her everywhere. +Very fond of her, they were. Ah, well!' + +'Fonder than ever they were of their mother, so 'tis said here and +there,' added a labourer. + +'Well, you see, 'tis natural. Lady Luxellian stood aloof from 'em +so--was so drowsy-like, that they couldn't love her in the jolly- +companion way children want to like folks. Only last winter I +seed Miss Elfride talking to my lady and the two children, and +Miss Elfride wiped their noses for em' SO careful--my lady never +once seeing that it wanted doing; and, naturally, children take to +people that's their best friend.' + +'Be as 'twill, the woman is dead and gone, and we must make a +place for her,' said John. 'Come, lads, drink up your ale, and +we'll just rid this corner, so as to have all clear for beginning +at the wall, as soon as 'tis light to-morrow.' + +Stephen then asked where Lady Luxellian was to lie. + +'Here,' said his father. 'We are going to set back this wall and +make a recess; and 'tis enough for us to do before the funeral. +When my lord's mother died, she said, "John, the place must be +enlarged before another can be put in." But 'a never expected +'twould be wanted so soon. Better move Lord George first, I +suppose, Simeon?' + +He pointed with his foot to a heavy coffin, covered with what had +originally been red velvet, the colour of which could only just be +distinguished now. + +'Just as ye think best, Master John,' replied the shrivelled +mason. 'Ah, poor Lord George!' he continued, looking +contemplatively at the huge coffin; 'he and I were as bitter +enemies once as any could be when one is a lord and t'other only a +mortal man. Poor fellow! He'd clap his hand upon my shoulder and +cuss me as familial and neighbourly as if he'd been a common chap. +Ay, 'a cussed me up hill and 'a cussed me down; and then 'a would +rave out again, and the goold clamps of his fine new teeth would +glisten in the sun like fetters of brass, while I, being a small +man and poor, was fain to say nothing at all. Such a strappen +fine gentleman as he was too! Yes, I rather liked en sometimes. +But once now and then, when I looked at his towering height, I'd +think in my inside, "What a weight you'll be, my lord, for our +arms to lower under the aisle of Endelstow Church some day!"' + +'And was he?' inquired a young labourer. + +'He was. He was five hundredweight if 'a were a pound. What with +his lead, and his oak, and his handles, and his one thing and +t'other'--here the ancient man slapped his hand upon the cover +with a force that caused a rattle among the bones inside--'he half +broke my back when I took his feet to lower en down the steps +there. "Ah," saith I to John there--didn't I, John?--"that ever +one man's glory should be such a weight upon another man!" But +there, I liked my lord George sometimes.' + +''Tis a strange thought,' said another, 'that while they be all +here under one roof, a snug united family o' Luxellians, they be +really scattered miles away from one another in the form of good +sheep and wicked goats, isn't it?' + +'True; 'tis a thought to look at.' + +'And that one, if he's gone upward, don't know what his wife is +doing no more than the man in the moon if she's gone downward. +And that some unfortunate one in the hot place is a-hollering +across to a lucky one up in the clouds, and quite forgetting their +bodies be boxed close together all the time.' + +'Ay, 'tis a thought to look at, too, that I can say "Hullo!" close +to fiery Lord George, and 'a can't hear me.' + +'And that I be eating my onion close to dainty Lady Jane's nose, +and she can't smell me.' + +'What do 'em put all their heads one way for?' inquired a young +man. + +'Because 'tis churchyard law, you simple. The law of the living +is, that a man shall be upright and down-right, and the law of the +dead is, that a man shall be east and west. Every state of society +have its laws.' + +'We must break the law wi' a few of the poor souls, however. +Come, buckle to,' said the master-mason. + +And they set to work anew. + +The order of interment could be distinctly traced by observing the +appearance of the coffins as they lay piled around. On those +which had been standing there but a generation or two the +trappings still remained. Those of an earlier period showed bare +wood, with a few tattered rags dangling therefrom. Earlier still, +the wood lay in fragments on the floor of the niche, and the +coffin consisted of naked lead alone; whilst in the case of the +very oldest, even the lead was bulging and cracking in pieces, +revealing to the curious eye a heap of dust within. The shields +upon many were quite loose, and removable by the hand, their +lustreless surfaces still indistinctly exhibiting the name and +title of the deceased. + +Overhead the groins and concavities of the arches curved in all +directions, dropping low towards the walls, where the height was +no more than sufficient to enable a person to stand upright. + +The body of George the fourteenth baron, together with two or +three others, all of more recent date than the great bulk of +coffins piled there, had, for want of room, been placed at the end +of the vault on tressels, and not in niches like the others. +These it was necessary to remove, to form behind them the chamber +in which they were ultimately to be deposited. Stephen, finding +the place and proceedings in keeping with the sombre colours of +his mind, waited there still. + +'Simeon, I suppose you can mind poor Lady Elfride, and how she ran +away with the actor?' said John Smith, after awhile. 'I think it +fell upon the time my father was sexton here. Let us see--where +is she?' + +'Here somewhere,' returned Simeon, looking round him. + +'Why, I've got my arms round the very gentlewoman at this moment.' +He lowered the end of the coffin he was holding, wiped his face, +and throwing a morsel of rotten wood upon another as an indicator, +continued: 'That's her husband there. They was as fair a couple +as you should see anywhere round about; and a good-hearted pair +likewise. Ay, I can mind it, though I was but a chiel at the +time. She fell in love with this young man of hers, and their +banns were asked in some church in London; and the old lord her +father actually heard 'em asked the three times, and didn't notice +her name, being gabbled on wi' a host of others. When she had +married she told her father, and 'a fleed into a monstrous rage, +and said she shouldn' hae a farthing. Lady Elfride said she +didn't think of wishing it; if he'd forgie her 'twas all she +asked, and as for a living, she was content to play plays with her +husband. This frightened the old lord, and 'a gie'd 'em a house +to live in, and a great garden, and a little field or two, and a +carriage, and a good few guineas. Well, the poor thing died at +her first gossiping, and her husband--who was as tender-hearted a +man as ever eat meat, and would have died for her--went wild in +his mind, and broke his heart (so 'twas said). Anyhow, they were +buried the same day--father and mother--but the baby lived. Ay, +my lord's family made much of that man then, and put him here with +his wife, and there in the corner the man is now. The Sunday +after there was a funeral sermon: the text was, "Or ever the +silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken;" and when +'twas preaching the men drew their hands across their eyes several +times, and every woman cried out loud.' + +'And what became of the baby?' said Stephen, who had frequently +heard portions of the story. + +'She was brought up by her grandmother, and a pretty maid she +were. And she must needs run away with the curate--Parson +Swancourt that is now. Then her grandmother died, and the title +and everything went away to another branch of the family +altogether. Parson Swancourt wasted a good deal of his wife's +money, and she left him Miss Elfride. That trick of running away +seems to be handed down in families, like craziness or gout. And +they two women be alike as peas.' + +'Which two?' + +'Lady Elfride and young Miss that's alive now. The same hair and +eyes: but Miss Elfride's mother was darker a good deal.' + +'Life's a strangle bubble, ye see,' said William Worm musingly. +'For if the Lord's anointment had descended upon women instead of +men, Miss Elfride would be Lord Luxellian--Lady, I mane. But as +it is, the blood is run out, and she's nothing to the Luxellian +family by law, whatever she may be by gospel.' + +'I used to fancy,' said Simeon, 'when I seed Miss Elfride hugging +the little ladyships, that there was a likeness; but I suppose +'twas only my dream, for years must have altered the old family +shape.' + +'And now we'll move these two, and home-along,' interposed John +Smith, reviving, as became a master, the spirit of labour, which +had showed unmistakable signs of being nearly vanquished by the +spirit of chat, 'The flagon of ale we don't want we'll let bide +here till to-morrow; none of the poor souls will touch it 'a +b'lieve.' + +So the evening's work was concluded, and the party drew from the +abode of the quiet dead, closing the old iron door, and shooting +the lock loudly into the huge copper staple--an incongruous act of +imprisonment towards those who had no dreams of escape. + + + +Chapter XXVII + +'How should I greet thee?' + + +Love frequently dies of time alone--much more frequently of +displacement. With Elfride Swancourt, a powerful reason why the +displacement should be successful was that the new-comer was a +greater man than the first. By the side of the instructive and +piquant snubbings she received from Knight, Stephen's general +agreeableness seemed watery; by the side of Knight's spare love- +making, Stephen's continual outflow seemed lackadaisical. She had +begun to sigh for somebody further on in manhood. Stephen was +hardly enough of a man. + +Perhaps there was a proneness to inconstancy in her nature--a +nature, to those who contemplate it from a standpoint beyond the +influence of that inconstancy, the most exquisite of all in its +plasticity and ready sympathies. Partly, too, Stephen's failure +to make his hold on her heart a permanent one was his too timid +habit of dispraising himself beside her--a peculiarity which, +exercised towards sensible men, stirs a kindly chord of attachment +that a marked assertiveness would leave untouched, but inevitably +leads the most sensible woman in the world to undervalue him who +practises it. Directly domineering ceases in the man, snubbing +begins in the woman; the trite but no less unfortunate fact being +that the gentler creature rarely has the capacity to appreciate +fair treatment from her natural complement. The abiding +perception of the position of Stephen's parents had, of course, a +little to do with Elfride's renunciation. To such girls poverty +may not be, as to the more worldly masses of humanity, a sin in +itself; but it is a sin, because graceful and dainty manners +seldom exist in such an atmosphere. Few women of old family can +be thoroughly taught that a fine soul may wear a smock-frock, and +an admittedly common man in one is but a worm in their eyes. John +Smith's rough hands and clothes, his wife's dialect, the necessary +narrowness of their ways, being constantly under Elfride's notice, +were not without their deflecting influence. + +On reaching home after the perilous adventure by the sea-shore, +Knight had felt unwell, and retired almost immediately. The young +lady who had so materially assisted him had done the same, but she +reappeared, properly clothed, about five o'clock. She wandered +restlessly about the house, but not on account of their joint +narrow escape from death. The storm which had torn the tree had +merely bowed the reed, and with the deliverance of Knight all deep +thought of the accident had left her. The mutual avowal which it +had been the means of precipitating occupied a far longer length +of her meditations. + +Elfride's disquiet now was on account of that miserable promise to +meet Stephen, which returned like a spectre again and again. The +perception of his littleness beside Knight grew upon her +alarmingly. She now thought how sound had been her father's +advice to her to give him up, and was as passionately desirous of +following it as she had hitherto been averse. Perhaps there is +nothing more hardening to the tone of young minds than thus to +discover how their dearest and strongest wishes become gradually +attuned by Time the Cynic to the very note of some selfish policy +which in earlier days they despised. + +The hour of appointment came, and with it a crisis; and with the +crisis a collapse. + +'God forgive me--I can't meet Stephen!' she exclaimed to herself. +'I don't love him less, but I love Mr. Knight more!' + +Yes: she would save herself from a man not fit for her--in spite +of vows. She would obey her father, and have no more to do with +Stephen Smith. Thus the fickle resolve showed signs of assuming +the complexion of a virtue. + +The following days were passed without any definite avowal from +Knight's lips. Such solitary walks and scenes as that witnessed +by Smith in the summer-house were frequent, but he courted her so +intangibly that to any but such a delicate perception as Elfride's +it would have appeared no courtship at all. The time now really +began to be sweet with her. She dismissed the sense of sin in her +past actions, and was automatic in the intoxication of the moment. +The fact that Knight made no actual declaration was no drawback. +Knowing since the betrayal of his sentiments that love for her +really existed, she preferred it for the present in its form of +essence, and was willing to avoid for awhile the grosser medium of +words. Their feelings having been forced to a rather premature +demonstration, a reaction was indulged in by both. + +But no sooner had she got rid of her troubled conscience on the +matter of faithlessness than a new anxiety confronted her. It was +lest Knight should accidentally meet Stephen in the parish, and +that herself should be the subject of discourse. + +Elfride, learning Knight more thoroughly, perceived that, far +from having a notion of Stephen's precedence, he had no idea that +she had ever been wooed before by anybody. On ordinary occasions +she had a tongue so frank as to show her whole mind, and a mind so +straightforward as to reveal her heart to its innermost shrine. +But the time for a change had come. She never alluded to even a +knowledge of Knight's friend. When women are secret they are +secret indeed; and more often than not they only begin to be +secret with the advent of a second lover. + +The elopement was now a spectre worse than the first, and, like +the Spirit in Glenfinlas, it waxed taller with every attempt to +lay it. Her natural honesty invited her to confide in Knight, and +trust to his generosity for forgiveness: she knew also that as +mere policy it would be better to tell him early if he was to be +told at all. The longer her concealment the more difficult would +be the revelation. But she put it off. The intense fear which +accompanies intense love in young women was too strong to allow +the exercise of a moral quality antagonistic to itself: + + + 'Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; + Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.' + + +The match was looked upon as made by her father and mother. The +vicar remembered her promise to reveal the meaning of the telegram +she had received, and two days after the scene in the summer- +house, asked her pointedly. She was frank with him now. + +'I had been corresponding with Stephen Smith ever since he left +England, till lately,' she calmly said. + +'What!' cried the vicar aghast; 'under the eyes of Mr. Knight, +too?' + +'No; when I found I cared most for Mr. Knight, I obeyed you.' + +'You were very kind, I'm sure. When did you begin to like Mr. +Knight?' + +'I don't see that that is a pertinent question, papa; the telegram +was from the shipping agent, and was not sent at my request. It +announced the arrival of the vessel bringing him home.' + +'Home! What, is he here?' + +'Yes; in the village, I believe.' + +'Has he tried to see you?' + +'Only by fair means. But don't, papa, question me so! It is +torture.' + +'I will only say one word more,' he replied. 'Have you met him?' + +'I have not. I can assure you that at the present moment there is +no more of an understanding between me and the young man you so +much disliked than between him and you. You told me to forget +him; and I have forgotten him.' + +'Oh, well; though you did not obey me in the beginning, you are a +good girl, Elfride, in obeying me at last.' + +'Don't call me "good," papa,' she said bitterly; 'you don't know-- +and the less said about some things the better. Remember, Mr. +Knight knows nothing about the other. Oh, how wrong it all is! I +don't know what I am coming to.' + +'As matters stand, I should be inclined to tell him; or, at any +rate, I should not alarm myself about his knowing. He found out +the other day that this was the parish young Smith's father lives +in--what puts you in such a flurry?' + +'I can't say; but promise--pray don't let him know! It would be my +ruin!' + +'Pooh, child. Knight is a good fellow and a clever man; but at +the same time it does not escape my perceptions that he is no +great catch for you. Men of his turn of mind are nothing so +wonderful in the way of husbands. If you had chosen to wait, you +might have mated with a much wealthier man. But remember, I have +not a word to say against your having him, if you like him. +Charlotte is delighted, as you know.' + +'Well, papa,' she said, smiling hopefully through a sigh, 'it is +nice to feel that in giving way to--to caring for him, I have +pleased my family. But I am not good; oh no, I am very far from +that!' + +'None of us are good, I am sorry to say,' said her father blandly; +'but girls have a chartered right to change their minds, you know. +It has been recognized by poets from time immemorial. Catullus +says, "Mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento--' What a memory +mine is! However, the passage is, that a woman's words to a lover +are as a matter of course written only on wind and water. Now +don't be troubled about that, Elfride.' + +'Ah, you don't know!' + +They had been standing on the lawn, and Knight was now seen +lingering some way down a winding walk. When Elfride met him, it +was with a much greater lightness of heart; things were more +straightforward now. The responsibility of her fickleness seemed +partly shifted from her own shoulders to her father's. Still, +there were shadows. + +'Ah, could he have known how far I went with Stephen, and yet have +said the same, how much happier I should be!' That was her +prevailing thought. + +In the afternoon the lovers went out together on horseback for an +hour or two; and though not wishing to be observed, by reason of +the late death of Lady Luxellian, whose funeral had taken place +very privately on the previous day, they yet found it necessary to +pass East Endelstow Church. + +The steps to the vault, as has been stated, were on the outside of +the building, immediately under the aisle wall. Being on +horseback, both Knight and Elfride could overlook the shrubs which +screened the church-yard. + +'Look, the vault seems still to be open,' said Knight. + +'Yes, it is open,' she answered + +'Who is that man close by it? The mason, I suppose?' + +'Yes.' + +'I wonder if it is John Smith, Stephen's father?' + +'I believe it is,' said Elfride, with apprehension. + +'Ah, and can it be? I should like to inquire how his son, my +truant protege', is going on. And from your father's description +of the vault, the interior must be interesting. Suppose we go +in.' + +'Had we better, do you think? May not Lord Luxellian be there?' + +'It is not at all likely.' + +Elfride then assented, since she could do nothing else. Her +heart, which at first had quailed in consternation, recovered +itself when she considered the character of John Smith. A quiet +unassuming man, he would be sure to act towards her as before +those love passages with his son, which might have given a more +pretentious mechanic airs. So without much alarm she took +Knight's arm after dismounting, and went with him between and over +the graves. The master-mason recognized her as she approached, +and, as usual, lifted his hat respectfully. + +'I know you to be Mr. Smith, my former friend Stephen's father,' +said Knight, directly he had scanned the embrowned and ruddy +features of John. + +'Yes, sir, I b'lieve I be.' + +'How is your son now? I have only once heard from him since he +went to India. I daresay you have heard him speak of me--Mr. +Knight, who became acquainted with him some years ago in +Exonbury.' + +'Ay, that I have. Stephen is very well, thank you, sir, and he's +in England; in fact, he's at home. In short, sir, he's down in +the vault there, a-looking at the departed coffins.' + +Elfride's heart fluttered like a butterfly. + +Knight looked amazed. 'Well, that is extraordinary.' he murmured. +'Did he know I was in the parish?' + +'I really can't say, sir,' said John, wishing himself out of the +entanglement he rather suspected than thoroughly understood. + +'Would it be considered an intrusion by the family if we went into +the vault?' + +'Oh, bless ye, no, sir; scores of folk have been stepping down. +'Tis left open a-purpose.' + +'We will go down, Elfride.' + +'I am afraid the air is close,' she said appealingly. + +'Oh no, ma'am,' said John. 'We white-limed the walls and arches +the day 'twas opened, as we always do, and again on the morning of +the funeral; the place is as sweet as a granary. + +'Then I should like you to accompany me, Elfie; having originally +sprung from the family too.' + +'I don't like going where death is so emphatically present. I'll +stay by the horses whilst you go in; they may get loose.' + +'What nonsense! I had no idea your sentiments were so flimsily +formed as to be perturbed by a few remnants of mortality; but stay +out, if you are so afraid, by all means.' + +'Oh no, I am not afraid; don't say that.' + +She held miserably to his arm, thinking that, perhaps, the +revelation might as well come at once as ten minutes later, for +Stephen would be sure to accompany his friend to his horse. + +At first, the gloom of the vault, which was lighted only by a +couple of candles, was too great to admit of their seeing anything +distinctly; but with a further advance Knight discerned, in front +of the black masses lining the walls, a young man standing, and +writing in a pocket-book. + +Knight said one word: 'Stephen!' + +Stephen Smith, not being in such absolute ignorance of Knight's +whereabouts as Knight had been of Smith's instantly recognized his +friend, and knew by rote the outlines of the fair woman standing +behind him. + +Stephen came forward and shook him by the hand, without speaking. + +'Why have you not written, my boy?' said Knight, without in any +way signifying Elfride's presence to Stephen. To the essayist, +Smith was still the country lad whom he had patronized and tended; +one to whom the formal presentation of a lady betrothed to himself +would have seemed incongruous and absurd. + +'Why haven't you written to me?' said Stephen. + +'Ah, yes. Why haven't I? why haven't we? That's always the query +which we cannot clearly answer without an unsatisfactory sense of +our inadequacies. However, I have not forgotten you, Smith. And +now we have met; and we must meet again, and have a longer chat +than this can conveniently be. I must know all you have been +doing. That yon have thriven, I know, and you must teach me the +way.' + +Elfride stood in the background. Stephen had read the position at +a glance, and immediately guessed that she had never mentioned his +name to Knight. His tact in avoiding catastrophes was the chief +quality which made him intellectually respectable, in which +quality he far transcended Knight; and he decided that a tranquil +issue out of the encounter, without any harrowing of the feelings +of either Knight or Elfride, was to be attempted if possible. His +old sense of indebtedness to Knight had never wholly forsaken him; +his love for Elfride was generous now. + +As far as he dared look at her movements he saw that her bearing +towards him would be dictated by his own towards her; and if he +acted as a stranger she would do likewise as a means of +deliverance. Circumstances favouring this course, it was +desirable also to be rather reserved towards Knight, to shorten +the meeting as much as possible. + +'I am afraid that my time is almost too short to allow even of +such a pleasure,' he said. 'I leave here to-morrow. And until I +start for the Continent and India, which will be in a fortnight, I +shall have hardly a moment to spare.' + +Knight's disappointment and dissatisfied looks at this reply sent +a pang through Stephen as great as any he had felt at the sight of +Elfride. The words about shortness of time were literally true, +but their tone was far from being so. He would have been +gratified to talk with Knight as in past times, and saw as a dead +loss to himself that, to save the woman who cared nothing for him, +he was deliberately throwing away his friend. + +'Oh, I am sorry to hear that,' said Knight, in a changed tone. +'But of course, if you have weighty concerns to attend to, they +must not be neglected. And if this is to be our first and last +meeting, let me say that I wish you success with all my heart!' +Knight's warmth revived towards the end; the solemn impressions he +was beginning to receive from the scene around them abstracting +from his heart as a puerility any momentary vexation at words. +'It is a strange place for us to meet in,' he continued, looking +round the vault. + +Stephen briefly assented, and there was a silence. The blackened +coffins were now revealed more clearly than at first, the whitened +walls and arches throwing them forward in strong relief. It was a +scene which was remembered by all three as an indelible mark in +their history. Knight, with an abstracted face, was standing +between his companions, though a little in advance of them, +Elfride being on his right hand, and Stephen Smith on his left. +The white daylight on his right side gleamed faintly in, and was +toned to a blueness by contrast with the yellow rays from the +candle against the wall. Elfride, timidly shrinking back, and +nearest the entrance, received most of the light therefrom, whilst +Stephen was entirely in candlelight, and to him the spot of outer +sky visible above the steps was as a steely blue patch, and +nothing more. + +'I have been here two or three times since it was opened,' said +Stephen. 'My father was engaged in the work, you know.' + +'Yes. What are you doing?' Knight inquired, looking at the note- +book and pencil Stephen held in his hand. + +'I have been sketching a few details in the church, and since then +I have been copying the names from some of the coffins here. +Before I left England I used to do a good deal of this sort of +thing.' + +'Yes; of course. Ah, that's poor Lady Luxellian, I suppose.' +Knight pointed to a coffin of light satin-wood, which stood on the +stone sleepers in the new niche. 'And the remainder of the family +are on this side. Who are those two, so snug and close together?' + +Stephen's voice altered slightly as he replied 'That's Lady +Elfride Kingsmore--born Luxellian, and that is Arthur, her +husband. I have heard my father say that they--he--ran away with +her, and married her against the wish of her parents.' + +'Then I imagine this to be where you got your Christian name, Miss +Swancourt?' said Knight, turning to her. 'I think you told me it +was three or four generations ago that your family branched off +from the Luxellians?' + +'She was my grandmother,' said Elfride, vainly endeavouring to +moisten her dry lips before she spoke. Elfride had then the +conscience-stricken look of Guido's Magdalen, rendered upon a more +childlike form. She kept her face partially away from Knight and +Stephen, and set her eyes upon the sky visible outside, as if her +salvation depended upon quickly reaching it. Her left hand rested +lightly within Knight's arm, half withdrawn, from a sense of shame +at claiming him before her old lover, yet unwilling to renounce +him; so that her glove merely touched his sleeve. '"Can one be +pardoned, and retain the offence?"' quoted Elfride's heart then. + +Conversation seemed to have no self-sustaining power, and went on +in the shape of disjointed remarks. 'One's mind gets thronged +with thoughts while standing so solemnly here,' Knight said, in a +measured quiet voice. 'How much has been said on death from time +to time! how much we ourselves can think upon it! We may fancy +each of these who lie here saying: + + + 'For Thou, to make my fall more great, + Didst lift me up on high.' + + +What comes next, Elfride? It is the Hundred-and-second Psalm I am +thinking of.' + +'Yes, I know it,' she murmured, and went on in a still lower +voice, seemingly afraid for any words from the emotional side of +her nature to reach Stephen: + + + '"My days, just hastening to their end, + Are like an evening shade; + My beauty doth, like wither'd grass, + With waning lustre fade."' + + +'Well,' said Knight musingly, 'let us leave them. Such occasions +as these seem to compel us to roam outside ourselves, far away +from the fragile frame we live in, and to expand till our +perception grows so vast that our physical reality bears no sort +of proportion to it. We look back upon the weak and minute stem +on which this luxuriant growth depends, and ask, Can it be +possible that such a capacity has a foundation so small? Must I +again return to my daily walk in that narrow cell, a human body, +where worldly thoughts can torture me? Do we not?' + +'Yes,' said Stephen and Elfride. + +'One has a sense of wrong, too, that such an appreciative breadth +as a sentient being possesses should be committed to the frail +casket of a body. What weakens one's intentions regarding the +future like the thought of this?...However, let us tune ourselves +to a more cheerful chord, for there's a great deal to be done yet +by us all.' + +As Knight meditatively addressed his juniors thus, unconscious of +the deception practised, for different reasons, by the severed +hearts at his side, and of the scenes that had in earlier days +united them, each one felt that he and she did not gain by +contrast with their musing mentor. Physically not so handsome as +either the youthful architect or the vicar's daughter, the +thoroughness and integrity of Knight illuminated his features with +a dignity not even incipient in the other two. It is difficult to +frame rules which shall apply to both sexes, and Elfride, an +undeveloped girl, must, perhaps, hardly be laden with the moral +responsibilities which attach to a man in like circumstances. The +charm of woman, too, lies partly in her subtleness in matters of +love. But if honesty is a virtue in itself, Elfride, having none +of it now, seemed, being for being, scarcely good enough for +Knight. Stephen, though deceptive for no unworthy purpose, was +deceptive after all; and whatever good results grace such strategy +if it succeed, it seldom draws admiration, especially when it +fails. + +On an ordinary occasion, had Knight been even quite alone with +Stephen, he would hardly have alluded to his possible relationship +to Elfride. But moved by attendant circumstances Knight was +impelled to be confiding. + +'Stephen,' he said, 'this lady is Miss Swancourt. I am staying at +her father's house, as you probably know.' He stepped a few paces +nearer to Smith, and said in a lower tone: 'I may as well tell you +that we are engaged to be married.' + +Low as the words had been spoken, Elfride had heard them, and +awaited Stephen's reply in breathless silence, if that could be +called silence where Elfride's dress, at each throb of her heart, +shook and indicated it like a pulse-glass, rustling also against +the wall in reply to the same throbbing. The ray of daylight +which reached her face lent it a blue pallor in comparison with +those of the other two. + +'I congratulate you,' Stephen whispered; and said aloud, 'I know +Miss Swancourt--a little. You must remember that my father is a +parishioner of Mr. Swancourt's.' + +'I thought you might possibly not have lived at home since they +have been here.' + +'I have never lived at home, certainly, since that time.' + +'I have seen Mr. Smith,' faltered Elfride. + +'Well, there is no excuse for me. As strangers to each other I +ought, I suppose, to have introduced you: as acquaintances, I +should not have stood so persistently between you. But the fact +is, Smith, you seem a boy to me, even now.' + +Stephen appeared to have a more than previous consciousness of the +intense cruelty of his fate at the present moment. He could not +repress the words, uttered with a dim bitterness: + +'You should have said that I seemed still the rural mechanic's son +I am, and hence an unfit subject for the ceremony of +introductions.' + +'Oh, no, no! I won't have that.' Knight endeavoured to give his +reply a laughing tone in Elfride's ears, and an earnestness in +Stephen's: in both which efforts he signally failed, and produced +a forced speech pleasant to neither. 'Well, let us go into the +open air again; Miss Swancourt, you are particularly silent. You +mustn't mind Smith. I have known him for years, as I have told +you.' + +'Yes, you have,' she said. + +'To think she has never mentioned her knowledge of me!' Smith +murmured, and thought with some remorse how much her conduct +resembled his own on his first arrival at her house as a stranger +to the place. + +They ascended to the daylight, Knight taking no further notice of +Elfride's manner, which, as usual, he attributed to the natural +shyness of a young woman at being discovered walking with him on +terms which left not much doubt of their meaning. Elfride stepped +a little in advance, and passed through the churchyard. + +'You are changed very considerably, Smith,' said Knight, 'and I +suppose it is no more than was to be expected. However, don't +imagine that I shall feel any the less interest in you and your +fortunes whenever you care to confide them to me. I have not +forgotten the attachment you spoke of as your reason for going +away to India. A London young lady, was it not? I hope all is +prosperous?' + +'No: the match is broken off.' + +It being always difficult to know whether to express sorrow or +gladness under such circumstances--all depending upon the +character of the match--Knight took shelter in the safe words: 'I +trust it was for the best.' + +'I hope it was. But I beg that you will not press me further: no, +you have not pressed me--I don't mean that--but I would rather not +speak upon the subject.' + +Stephen's words were hurried. + +Knight said no more, and they followed in the footsteps of +Elfride, who still kept some paces in advance, and had not heard +Knight's unconscious allusion to her. Stephen bade him adieu at +the churchyard-gate without going outside, and watched whilst he +and his sweetheart mounted their horses. + +'Good heavens, Elfride,' Knight exclaimed, 'how pale you are! I +suppose I ought not to have taken you into that vault. What is +the matter?' + +'Nothing,' said Elfride faintly. 'I shall be myself in a moment. +All was so strange and unexpected down there, that it made me +unwell.' + +'I thought you said very little. Shall I get some water?' + +'No, no.' + +'Do you think it is safe for you to mount?' + +'Quite--indeed it is,' she said, with a look of appeal. + +'Now then--up she goes!' whispered Knight, and lifted her tenderly +into the saddle. + +Her old lover still looked on at the performance as he leant over +the gate a dozen yards off. Once in the saddle, and having a firm +grip of the reins, she turned her head as if by a resistless +fascination, and for the first time since that memorable parting +on the moor outside St. Launce's after the passionate attempt at +marriage with him, Elfride looked in the face of the young man she +first had loved. He was the youth who had called her his +inseparable wife many a time, and whom she had even addressed as +her husband. Their eyes met. Measurement of life should be +proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than to its +actual length. Their glance, but a moment chronologically, was a +season in their history. To Elfride the intense agony of reproach +in Stephen's eye was a nail piercing her heart with a deadliness +no words can describe. With a spasmodic effort she withdrew her +eyes, urged on the horse, and in the chaos of perturbed memories +was oblivious of any presence beside her. The deed of deception +was complete. + +Gaining a knoll on which the park transformed itself into wood and +copse, Knight came still closer to her side, and said, 'Are you +better now, dearest?' + +'Oh yes.' She pressed a hand to her eyes, as if to blot out the +image of Stephen. A vivid scarlet spot now shone with +preternatural brightness in the centre of each cheek, leaving the +remainder of her face lily-white as before. + +'Elfride,' said Knight, rather in his old tone of mentor, 'you +know I don't for a moment chide you, but is there not a great deal +of unwomanly weakness in your allowing yourself to be so +overwhelmed by the sight of what, after all, is no novelty? Every +woman worthy of the name should, I think, be able to look upon +death with something like composure. Surely you think so too?' + +'Yes; I own it.' + +His obtuseness to the cause of her indisposition, by evidencing +his entire freedom from the suspicion of anything behind the +scenes, showed how incapable Knight was of deception himself, +rather than any inherent dulness in him regarding human nature. +This, clearly perceived by Elfride, added poignancy to her self- +reproach, and she idolized him the more because of their +difference. Even the recent sight of Stephen's face and the sound +of his voice, which for a moment had stirred a chord or two of +ancient kindness, were unable to keep down the adoration re- +existent now that he was again out of view. + +She had replied to Knight's question hastily, and immediately went +on to speak of indifferent subjects. After they had reached home +she was apart from him till dinner-time. When dinner was over, +and they were watching the dusk in the drawing-room, Knight +stepped out upon the terrace. Elfride went after him very +decisively, on the spur of a virtuous intention. + +'Mr. Knight, I want to tell you something,' she said, with quiet +firmness. + +'And what is it about?' gaily returned her lover. 'Happiness, I +hope. Do not let anything keep you so sad as you seem to have +been to-day.' + +'I cannot mention the matter until I tell you the whole substance +of it,' she said. 'And that I will do to-morrow. I have been +reminded of it to-day. It is about something I once did, and +don't think I ought to have done.' + +This, it must be said, was rather a mild way of referring to a +frantic passion and flight, which, much or little in itself, only +accident had saved from being a scandal in the public eye. + +Knight thought the matter some trifle, and said pleasantly: + +'Then I am not to hear the dreadful confession now?' + +'No, not now. I did not mean to-night,' Elfride responded, with a +slight decline in the firmness of her voice. 'It is not light as +you think it--it troubles me a great deal.' Fearing now the +effect of her own earnestness, she added forcedly, 'Though, +perhaps, you may think it light after all.' + +'But you have not said when it is to be?' + +'To-morrow morning. Name a time, will you, and bind me to it? I +want you to fix an hour, because I am weak, and may otherwise try +to get out of it.' She added a little artificial laugh, which +showed how timorous her resolution was still. + +'Well, say after breakfast--at eleven o'clock.' + +'Yes, eleven o'clock. I promise you. Bind me strictly to my +word.' + + + +Chapter XXVIII + +'I lull a fancy, trouble-tost.' + + +Miss Swancourt, it is eleven o'clock.' + +She was looking out of her dressing-room window on the first +floor, and Knight was regarding her from the terrace balustrade, +upon which he had been idly sitting for some time--dividing the +glances of his eye between the pages of a book in his hand, the +brilliant hues of the geraniums and calceolarias, and the open +window above-mentioned. + +'Yes, it is, I know. I am coming.' + +He drew closer, and under the window. + +'How are you this morning, Elfride? You look no better for your +long night's rest.' + +She appeared at the door shortly after, took his offered arm, and +together they walked slowly down the gravel path leading to the +river and away under the trees. + +Her resolution, sustained during the last fifteen hours, had been +to tell the whole truth, and now the moment had come. + +Step by step they advanced, and still she did not speak. They +were nearly at the end of the walk, when Knight broke the silence. + +'Well, what is the confession, Elfride?' + +She paused a moment, drew a long breath; and this is what she +said: + +'I told you one day--or rather I gave you to understand--what was +not true. I fancy you thought me to mean I was nineteen my next +birthday, but it was my last I was nineteen.' + +The moment had been too much for her. Now that the crisis had +come, no qualms of conscience, no love of honesty, no yearning to +make a confidence and obtain forgiveness with a kiss, could string +Elfride up to the venture. Her dread lest he should be +unforgiving was heightened by the thought of yesterday's artifice, +which might possibly add disgust to his disappointment. The +certainty of one more day's affection, which she gained by +silence, outvalued the hope of a perpetuity combined with the risk +of all. + +The trepidation caused by these thoughts on what she had intended +to say shook so naturally the words she did say, that Knight never +for a moment suspected them to be a last moment's substitution. +He smiled and pressed her hand warmly. + +'My dear Elfie--yes, you are now--no protestation--what a winning +little woman you are, to be so absurdly scrupulous about a mere +iota! Really, I never once have thought whether your nineteenth +year was the last or the present. And, by George, well I may not; +for it would never do for a staid fogey a dozen years older to +stand upon such a trifle as that.' + +'Don't praise me--don't praise me! Though I prize it from your +lips, I don't deserve it now.' + +But Knight, being in an exceptionally genial mood, merely saw this +distressful exclamation as modesty. 'Well,' he added, after a +minute, 'I like you all the better, you know, for such moral +precision, although I called it absurd.' He went on with tender +earnestness: 'For, Elfride, there is one thing I do love to see in +a woman--that is, a soul truthful and clear as heaven's light. I +could put up with anything if I had that--forgive nothing if I had +it not. Elfride, you have such a soul, if ever woman had; and +having it, retain it, and don't ever listen to the fashionable +theories of the day about a woman's privileges and natural right +to practise wiles. Depend upon it, my dear girl, that a noble +woman must be as honest as a noble man. I specially mean by +honesty, fairness not only in matters of business and social +detail, but in all the delicate dealings of love, to which the +licence given to your sex particularly refers.' + +Elfride looked troublously at the trees. + +'Now let us go on to the river, Elfie.' + +'I would if I had a hat on,' she said with a sort of suppressed +woe. + +'I will get it for you,' said Knight, very willing to purchase her +companionship at so cheap a price. 'You sit down there a minute.' +And he turned and walked rapidly back to the house for the article +in question. + +Elfride sat down upon one of the rustic benches which adorned this +portion of the grounds, and remained with her eyes upon the grass. +She was induced to lift them by hearing the brush of light and +irregular footsteps hard by. Passing along the path which +intersected the one she was in and traversed the outer +shrubberies, Elfride beheld the farmer's widow, Mrs. Jethway. +Before she noticed Elfride, she paused to look at the house, +portions of which were visible through the bushes. Elfride, +shrinking back, hoped the unpleasant woman might go on without +seeing her. But Mrs. Jethway, silently apostrophizing the house, +with actions which seemed dictated by a half-overturned reason, +had discerned the girl, and immediately came up and stood in front +of her. + +'Ah, Miss Swancourt! Why did you disturb me? Mustn't I trespass +here?' + +'You may walk here if you like, Mrs. Jethway. I do not disturb +you.' + +'You disturb my mind, and my mind is my whole life; for my boy is +there still, and he is gone from my body.' + +'Yes, poor young man. I was sorry when he died.' + +'Do you know what he died of? ' + +'Consumption.' + +'Oh no, no!' said the widow. 'That word "consumption" covers a +good deal. He died because you were his own well-agreed +sweetheart, and then proved false--and it killed him. Yes, Miss +Swancourt,' she said in an excited whisper, 'you killed my son!' + +'How can you be so wicked and foolish!' replied Elfride, rising +indignantly. But indignation was not natural to her, and having +been so worn and harrowed by late events, she lost any powers of +defence that mood might have lent her. 'I could not help his +loving me, Mrs. Jethway!' + +'That's just what you could have helped. You know how it began, +Miss Elfride. Yes: you said you liked the name of Felix better +than any other name in the parish, and you knew it was his name, +and that those you said it to would report it to him.' + +'I knew it was his name--of course I did; but I am sure, Mrs. +Jethway, I did not intend anybody to tell him.' + +'But you knew they would.' + +'No, I didn't.' + +'And then, after that, when you were riding on Revels-day by our +house, and the lads were gathered there, and you wanted to +dismount, when Jim Drake and George Upway and three or four more +ran forward to hold your pony, and Felix stood back timid, why did +you beckon to him, and say you would rather he held it? ' + +'O Mrs. Jethway, you do think so mistakenly! I liked him best-- +that's why I wanted him to do it. He was gentle and nice--I +always thought him so--and I liked him.' + +'Then why did you let him kiss you?' + +'It is a falsehood; oh, it is, it is!' said Elfride, weeping with +desperation. 'He came behind me, and attempted to kiss me; and +that was why I told him never to let me see him again.' + +'But you did not tell your father or anybody, as you would have if +you had looked upon it then as the insult you now pretend it was.' + +'He begged me not to tell, and foolishly enough I did not. And I +wish I had now. I little expected to be scourged with my own +kindness. Pray leave me, Mrs. Jethway.' The girl only +expostulated now. + +'Well, you harshly dismissed him, and he died. And before his +body was cold, you took another to your heart. Then as carelessly +sent him about his business, and took a third. And if you +consider that nothing, Miss Swancourt,' she continued, drawing +closer; 'it led on to what was very serious indeed. Have you +forgotten the would-be runaway marriage? The journey to London, +and the return the next day without being married, and that +there's enough disgrace in that to ruin a woman's good name far +less light than yours? You may have: I have not. Fickleness +towards a lover is bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is +wantonness.' + +'Oh, it's a wicked cruel lie! Do not say it; oh, do not! ' + +'Does your new man know of it? I think not, or he would be no man +of yours! As much of the story as was known is creeping about the +neighbourhood even now; but I know more than any of them, and why +should I respect your love?' + +'I defy you!' cried Elfride tempestuously. 'Do and say all you +can to ruin me; try; put your tongue at work; I invite it! I defy +you as a slanderous woman! Look, there he comes.' And her voice +trembled greatly as she saw through the leaves the beloved form of +Knight coming from the door with her hat in his hand. 'Tell him +at once; I can bear it.' + +'Not now,' said the woman, and disappeared down the path. + +The excitement of her latter words had restored colour to +Elfride's cheeks; and hastily wiping her eyes, she walked farther +on, so that by the time her lover had overtaken her the traces of +emotion had nearly disappeared from her face. Knight put the hat +upon her head, took her hand, and drew it within his arm. + +It was the last day but one previous to their departure for St. +Leonards; and Knight seemed to have a purpose in being much in her +company that day. They rambled along the valley. The season was +that period in the autumn when the foliage alone of an ordinary +plantation is rich enough in hues to exhaust the chromatic +combinations of an artist's palette. Most lustrous of all are the +beeches, graduating from bright rusty red at the extremity of the +boughs to a bright yellow at their inner parts; young oaks are +still of a neutral green; Scotch firs and hollies are nearly blue; +whilst occasional dottings of other varieties give maroons and +purples of every tinge. + +The river--such as it was--here pursued its course amid flagstones +as level as a pavement, but divided by crevices of irregular +width. With the summer drought the torrent had narrowed till it +was now but a thread of crystal clearness, meandering along a +central channel in the rocky bed of the winter current. Knight +scrambled through the bushes which at this point nearly covered +the brook from sight, and leapt down upon the dry portion of the +river bottom. + +'Elfride, I never saw such a sight!' he exclaimed. 'The hazels +overhang the river's course in a perfect arch, and the floor is +beautifully paved. The place reminds one of the passages of a +cloister. Let me help you down.' + +He assisted her through the marginal underwood and down to the +stones. They walked on together to a tiny cascade about a foot +wide and high, and sat down beside it on the flags that for nine +months in the year were submerged beneath a gushing bourne. From +their feet trickled the attenuated thread of water which alone +remained to tell the intent and reason of this leaf-covered aisle, +and journeyed on in a zigzag line till lost in the shade. + +Knight, leaning on his elbow, after contemplating all this, looked +critically at Elfride. + +'Does not such a luxuriant head of hair exhaust itself and get +thin as the years go on from eighteen to eight-and-twenty?' he +asked at length. + +'Oh no!' she said quickly, with a visible disinclination to +harbour such a thought, which came upon her with an unpleasantness +whose force it would be difficult for men to understand. She +added afterwards, with smouldering uneasiness, 'Do you really +think that a great abundance of hair is more likely to get thin +than a moderate quantity?' + +'Yes, I really do. I believe--am almost sure, in fact--that if +statistics could be obtained on the subject, you would find the +persons with thin hair were those who had a superabundance +originally, and that those who start with a moderate quantity +retain it without much loss.' + +Elfride's troubles sat upon her face as well as in her heart. +Perhaps to a woman it is almost as dreadful to think of losing her +beauty as of losing her reputation. At any rate, she looked quite +as gloomy as she had looked at any minute that day. + +'You shouldn't be so troubled about a mere personal adornment,' +said Knight, with some of the severity of tone that had been +customary before she had beguiled him into softness. + +'I think it is a woman's duty to be as beautiful as she can. If I +were a scholar, I would give you chapter and verse for it from one +of your own Latin authors. I know there is such a passage, for +papa has alluded to it.' + +"'Munditiae, et ornatus, et cultus," &c.--is that it? A passage in +Livy which is no defence at all.' + +'No, it is not that.' + +'Never mind, then; for I have a reason for not taking up my old +cudgels against you, Elfie. Can you guess what the reason is?' + +'No; but I am glad to hear it,' she said thankfully. 'For it is +dreadful when you talk so. For whatever dreadful name the +weakness may deserve, I must candidly own that I am terrified to +think my hair may ever get thin.' + +'Of course; a sensible woman would rather lose her wits than her +beauty.' + +'I don't care if you do say satire and judge me cruelly. I know +my hair is beautiful; everybody says so.' + +'Why, my dear Miss Swancourt,' he tenderly replied, 'I have not +said anything against it. But you know what is said about +handsome being and handsome doing.' + +'Poor Miss Handsome-does cuts but a sorry figure beside Miss +Handsome-is in every man's eyes, your own not excepted, Mr. +Knight, though it pleases you to throw off so,' said Elfride +saucily. And lowering her voice: 'You ought not to have taken so +much trouble to save me from falling over the cliff, for you don't +think mine a life worth much trouble evidently.' + +'Perhaps you think mine was not worth yours.' + +'It was worth anybody's!' + +Her hand was plashing in the little waterfall, and her eyes were +bent the same way. + +'You talk about my severity with you, Elfride. You are unkind to +me, you know.' + +'How?' she asked, looking up from her idle occupation. + +'After my taking trouble to get jewellery to please you, you +wouldn't accept it.' + +'Perhaps I would now; perhaps I want to.' + +'Do!' said Knight. + +And the packet was withdrawn from his pocket and presented the +third time. Elfride took it with delight. The obstacle was rent +in twain, and the significant gift was hers. + +'I'll take out these ugly ones at once,' she exclaimed, 'and I'll +wear yours--shall I?' + +'I should be gratified.' + +Now, though it may seem unlikely, considering how far the two had +gone in converse, Knight had never yet ventured to kiss Elfride. +Far slower was he than Stephen Smith in matters like that. The +utmost advance he had made in such demonstrations had been to the +degree witnessed by Stephen in the summer-house. So Elfride's +cheek being still forbidden fruit to him, he said impulsively. + +'Elfie, I should like to touch that seductive ear of yours. Those +are my gifts; so let me dress you in them.' + +She hesitated with a stimulating hesitation. + +'Let me put just one in its place, then?' + +Her face grew much warmer. + +'I don't think it would be quite the usual or proper course,' she +said, suddenly turning and resuming her operation of plashing in +the miniature cataract. + +The stillness of things was disturbed by a bird coming to the +streamlet to drink. After watching him dip his bill, sprinkle +himself, and fly into a tree, Knight replied, with the courteous +brusqueness she so much liked to hear-- + +'Elfride, now you may as well be fair. You would mind my doing it +but little, I think; so give me leave, do.' + +'I will be fair, then,' she said confidingly, and looking him full +in the face. It was a particular pleasure to her to be able to do +a little honesty without fear. 'I should not mind your doing so-- +I should like such an attention. My thought was, would it be +right to let you?' + +'Then I will!' he rejoined, with that singular earnestness about a +small matter--in the eyes of a ladies' man but a momentary peg for +flirtation or jest--which is only found in deep natures who have +been wholly unused to toying with womankind, and which, from its +unwontedness, is in itself a tribute the most precious that can be +rendered, and homage the most exquisite to be received. + +'And you shall,' she whispered, without reserve, and no longer +mistress of the ceremonies. And then Elfride inclined herself +towards him, thrust back her hair, and poised her head sideways. +In doing this her arm and shoulder necessarily rested against his +breast. + +At the touch, the sensation of both seemed to be concentrated at +the point of contact. All the time he was performing the delicate +manoeuvre Knight trembled like a young surgeon in his first +operation. + +'Now the other,' said Knight in a whisper. + +'No, no.' + +'Why not?' + +'I don't know exactly.' + +'You must know.' + +'Your touch agitates me so. Let us go home.' + +'Don't say that, Elfride. What is it, after all? A mere nothing. +Now turn round, dearest.' + +She was powerless to disobey, and turned forthwith; and then, +without any defined intention in either's mind, his face and hers +drew closer together; and he supported her there, and kissed her. + +Knight was at once the most ardent and the coolest man alive. +When his emotions slumbered he appeared almost phlegmatic; when +they were moved he was no less than passionate. And now, without +having quite intended an early marriage, he put the question +plainly. It came with all the ardour which was the accumulation +of long years behind a natural reserve. + +'Elfride, when shall we be married?' + +The words were sweet to her; but there was a bitter in the sweet. +These newly-overt acts of his, which had culminated in this plain +question, coming on the very day of Mrs. Jethway's blasting +reproaches, painted distinctly her fickleness as an enormity. +Loving him in secret had not seemed such thorough-going +inconstancy as the same love recognized and acted upon in the face +of threats. Her distraction was interpreted by him at her side as +the outward signs of an unwonted experience. + +'I don't press you for an answer now, darling,' he said, seeing +she was not likely to give a lucid reply. 'Take your time.' + +Knight was as honourable a man as was ever loved and deluded by +woman. It may be said that his blindness in love proved the +point, for shrewdness in love usually goes with meanness in +general. Once the passion had mastered him, the intellect had +gone for naught. Knight, as a lover, was more single-minded and +far simpler than his friend Stephen, who in other capacities was +shallow beside him. + +Without saying more on the subject of their marriage, Knight held +her at arm's length, as if she had been a large bouquet, and +looked at her with critical affection. + +'Does your pretty gift become me?' she inquired, with tears of +excitement on the fringes of her eyes. + +'Undoubtedly, perfectly!' said her lover, adopting a lighter tone +to put her at her ease. 'Ah, you should see them; you look +shinier than ever. Fancy that I have been able to improve you!' + +'Am I really so nice? I am glad for your sake. I wish I could see +myself.' + +'You can't. You must wait till we get home.' + +'I shall never be able,' she said, laughing. 'Look: here's a +way.' + +'So there is. Well done, woman's wit!' + +'Hold me steady!' + +'Oh yes.' + +'And don't let me fall, will you?' + +'By no means.' + +Below their seat the thread of water paused to spread out into a +smooth small pool. Knight supported her whilst she knelt down and +leant over it. + +'I can see myself. Really, try as religiously as I will, I cannot +help admiring my appearance in them.' + +'Doubtless. How can you be so fond of finery? I believe you are +corrupting me into a taste for it. I used to hate every such +thing before I knew you.' + +'I like ornaments, because I want people to admire what you +possess, and envy you, and say, "I wish I was he." ' + +'I suppose I ought not to object after that. And how much longer +are you going to look in there at yourself?' + +'Until you are tired of holding me? Oh, I want to ask you +something.' And she turned round. 'Now tell truly, won't you? +What colour of hair do you like best now?' + +Knight did not answer at the moment. + +'Say light, do!' she whispered coaxingly. 'Don't say dark, as you +did that time.' + +'Light-brown, then. Exactly the colour of my sweetheart's.' + +'Really?' said Elfride, enjoying as truth what she knew to be +flattery. + +'Yes.' + +'And blue eyes, too, not hazel? Say yes, say yes!' + +'One recantation is enough for to-day.' + +'No, no.' + +'Very well, blue eyes.' And Knight laughed, and drew her close and +kissed her the second time, which operations he performed with the +carefulness of a fruiterer touching a bunch of grapes so as not to +disturb their bloom. + +Elfride objected to a second, and flung away her face, the +movement causing a slight disarrangement of hat and hair. Hardly +thinking what she said in the trepidation of the moment, she +exclaimed, clapping her hand to her ear-- + +'Ah, we must be careful! I lost the other earring doing like +this.' + +No sooner did she realise the significant words than a troubled +look passed across her face, and she shut her lips as if to keep +them back. + +'Doing like what?' said Knight, perplexed. + +'Oh, sitting down out of doors,' she replied hastily. + + + +Chapter XXIX + +'Care, thou canker.' + + +It is an evening at the beginning of October, and the mellowest of +autumn sunsets irradiates London, even to its uttermost eastern +end. Between the eye and the flaming West, columns of smoke stand +up in the still air like tall trees. Everything in the shade is +rich and misty blue. + +Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt and Elfride are looking at these lustrous +and lurid contrasts from the window of a large hotel near London +Bridge. The visit to their friends at St. Leonards is over, and +they are staying a day or two in the metropolis on their way home. + +Knight spent the same interval of time in crossing over to +Brittany by way of Jersey and St. Malo. He then passed through +Normandy, and returned to London also, his arrival there having +been two days later than that of Elfride and her parents. + +So the evening of this October day saw them all meeting at the +above-mentioned hotel, where they had previously engaged +apartments. During the afternoon Knight had been to his lodgings +at Richmond to make a little change in the nature of his baggage; +and on coming up again there was never ushered by a bland waiter +into a comfortable room a happier man than Knight when shown to +where Elfride and her step-mother were sitting after a fatiguing +day of shopping. + +Elfride looked none the better for her change: Knight was as brown +as a nut. They were soon engaged by themselves in a corner of the +room. Now that the precious words of promise had been spoken, the +young girl had no idea of keeping up her price by the system of +reserve which other more accomplished maidens use. Her lover was +with her again, and it was enough: she made her heart over to him +entirely. + +Dinner was soon despatched. And when a preliminary round of +conversation concerning their doings since the last parting had +been concluded, they reverted to the subject of to-morrow's +journey home. + +'That enervating ride through the myrtle climate of South Devon-- +how I dread it to-morrow!' Mrs. Swancourt was saying. 'I had +hoped the weather would have been cooler by this time.' + +'Did you ever go by water?' said Knight. + +'Never--by never, I mean not since the time of railways.' + +'Then if you can afford an additional day, I propose that we do +it,' said Knight. 'The Channel is like a lake just now. We +should reach Plymouth in about forty hours, I think, and the boats +start from just below the bridge here' (pointing over his shoulder +eastward). + +'Hear, hear!' said the vicar. + +'It's an idea, certainly,' said his wife. + +'Of course these coasters are rather tubby,' said Knight. 'But +you wouldn't mind that?' + +'No: we wouldn't mind.' + +'And the saloon is a place like the fishmarket of a ninth-rate +country town, but that wouldn't matter?' + +'Oh dear, no. If we had only thought of it soon enough, we might +have had the use of Lord Luxellian's yacht. But never mind, we'll +go. We shall escape the worrying rattle through the whole length +of London to-morrow morning--not to mention the risk of being +killed by excursion trains, which is not a little one at this time +of the year, if the papers are true.' + +Elfride, too, thought the arrangement delightful; and accordingly, +ten o'clock the following morning saw two cabs crawling round by +the Mint, and between the preternaturally high walls of +Nightingale Lane towards the river side. + +The first vehicle was occupied by the travellers in person, and +the second brought up the luggage, under the supervision of Mrs. +Snewson, Mrs. Swancourt's maid--and for the last fortnight +Elfride's also; for although the younger lady had never been +accustomed to any such attendant at robing times, her stepmother +forced her into a semblance of familiarity with one when they were +away from home. + +Presently waggons, bales, and smells of all descriptions increased +to such an extent that the advance of the cabs was at the slowest +possible rate. At intervals it was necessary to halt entirely, +that the heavy vehicles unloading in front might be moved aside, a +feat which was not accomplished without a deal of swearing and +noise. The vicar put his head out of the window. + +'Surely there must be some mistake in the way,' he said with great +concern, drawing in his head again. 'There's not a respectable +conveyance to be seen here except ours. I've heard that there are +strange dens in this part of London, into which people have been +entrapped and murdered--surely there is no conspiracy on the part +of the cabman?' + +'Oh no, no. It is all right,' said Mr. Knight, who was as placid +as dewy eve by the side of Elfride. + +'But what I argue from,' said the vicar, with a greater emphasis +of uneasiness, 'are plain appearances. This can't be the highway +from London to Plymouth by water, because it is no way at all to +any place. We shall miss our steamer and our train too--that's +what I think.' + +'Depend upon it we are right. In fact, here we are.' + +'Trimmer's Wharf,' said the cabman, opening the door. + +No sooner had they alighted than they perceived a tussle going on +between the hindmost cabman and a crowd of light porters who had +charged him in column, to obtain possession of the bags and boxes, +Mrs. Snewson's hands being seen stretched towards heaven in the +midst of the melee. Knight advanced gallantly, and after a hard +struggle reduced the crowd to two, upon whose shoulders and trucks +the goods vanished away in the direction of the water's edge with +startling rapidity. + +Then more of the same tribe, who had run on ahead, were heard +shouting to boatmen, three of whom pulled alongside, and two being +vanquished, the luggage went tumbling into the remaining one. + +'Never saw such a dreadful scene in my life--never!' said Mr. +Swancourt, floundering into the boat. 'Worse than Famine and +Sword upon one. I thought such customs were confined to +continental ports. Aren't you astonished, Elfride?' + +'Oh no,' said Elfride, appearing amid the dingy scene like a +rainbow in a murky sky. 'It is a pleasant novelty, I think.' + +'Where in the wide ocean is our steamer?' the vicar inquired. 'I +can see nothing but old hulks, for the life of me.' + +'Just behind that one,' said Knight; 'we shall soon be round under +her.' + +The object of their search was soon after disclosed to view--a +great lumbering form of inky blackness, which looked as if it had +never known the touch of a paint-brush for fifty years. It was +lying beside just such another, and the way on board was down a +narrow lane of water between the two, about a yard and a half wide +at one end, and gradually converging to a point. At the moment of +their entry into this narrow passage, a brilliantly painted rival +paddled down the river like a trotting steed, creating such a +series of waves and splashes that their frail wherry was tossed +like a teacup, and the vicar and his wife slanted this way and +that, inclining their heads into contact with a Punch-and-Judy air +and countenance, the wavelets striking the sides of the two hulls, +and flapping back into their laps. + +'Dreadful! horrible!' Mr. Swancourt murmured privately; and said +aloud, I thought we walked on board. I don't think really I +should have come, if I had known this trouble was attached to it.' + +'If they must splash, I wish they would splash us with clean +water,' said the old lady, wiping her dress with her handkerchief. + +'I hope it is perfectly safe,' continued the vicar. + +'O papa! you are not very brave,' cried Elfride merrily. + +'Bravery is only obtuseness to the perception of contingencies,' +Mr. Swancourt severely answered. + +Mrs. Swancourt laughed, and Elfride laughed, and Knight laughed, +in the midst of which pleasantness a man shouted to them from some +position between their heads and the sky, and they found they were +close to the Juliet, into which they quiveringly ascended. + +It having been found that the lowness of the tide would prevent +their getting off for an hour, the Swancourts, having nothing else +to do, allowed their eyes to idle upon men in blue jerseys +performing mysterious mending operations with tar-twine; they +turned to look at the dashes of lurid sunlight, like burnished +copper stars afloat on the ripples, which danced into and +tantalized their vision; or listened to the loud music of a steam- +crane at work close by; or to sighing sounds from the funnels of +passing steamers, getting dead as they grew more distant; or to +shouts from the decks of different craft in their vicinity, all of +them assuming the form of 'Ah-he-hay!' + +Half-past ten: not yet off. Mr. Swancourt breathed a breath of +weariness, and looked at his fellow-travellers in general. Their +faces were certainly not worth looking at. The expression +'Waiting' was written upon them so absolutely that nothing more +could be discerned there. All animation was suspended till +Providence should raise the water and let them go. + +'I have been thinking,' said Knight, 'that we have come amongst +the rarest class of people in the kingdom. Of all human +characteristics, a low opinion of the value of his own time by an +individual must be among the strangest to find. Here we see +numbers of that patient and happy species. Rovers, as distinct +from travellers.' + +'But they are pleasure-seekers, to whom time is of no importance.' + +'Oh no. The pleasure-seekers we meet on the grand routes are more +anxious than commercial travellers to rush on. And added to the +loss of time in getting to their journey's end, these exceptional +people take their chance of sea-sickness by coming this way.' + +'Can it be?' inquired the vicar with apprehension. 'Surely not, +Mr. Knight, just here in our English Channel--close at our doors, +as I may say.' + +'Entrance passages are very draughty places, and the Channel is +like the rest. It ruins the temper of sailors. It has been +calculated by philosophers that more damns go up to heaven from +the Channel, in the course of a year, than from all the five +oceans put together.' + +They really start now, and the dead looks of all the throng come +to life immediately. The man who has been frantically hauling in +a rope that bade fair to have no end ceases his labours, and they +glide down the serpentine bends of the Thames. + +Anything anywhere was a mine of interest to Elfride, and so was +this. + +'It is well enough now,' said Mrs. Swancourt, after they had +passed the Nore, 'but I can't say I have cared for my voyage +hitherto.' For being now in the open sea a slight breeze had +sprung up, which cheered her as well as her two younger +companions. But unfortunately it had a reverse effect upon the +vicar, who, after turning a sort of apricot jam colour, +interspersed with dashes of raspberry, pleaded indisposition, and +vanished from their sight. + +The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Swancourt kindly sat apart by herself +reading, and the betrothed pair were left to themselves. Elfride +clung trustingly to Knight's arm, and proud was she to walk with +him up and down the deck, or to go forward, and leaning with him +against the forecastle rails, watch the setting sun gradually +withdrawing itself over their stern into a huge bank of livid +cloud with golden edges that rose to meet it. + +She was childishly full of life and spirits, though in walking up +and down with him before the other passengers, and getting noticed +by them, she was at starting rather confused, it being the first +time she had shown herself so openly under that kind of +protection. 'I expect they are envious and saying things about +us, don't you?' she would whisper to Knight with a stealthy smile. + +'Oh no,' he would answer unconcernedly. 'Why should they envy us, +and what can they say?' + +'Not any harm, of course,' Elfride replied, 'except such as this: +"How happy those two are! she is proud enough now." What makes it +worse,' she continued in the extremity of confidence, 'I heard +those two cricketing men say just now, "She's the nobbiest girl on +the boat." But I don't mind it, you know, Harry.' + +'I should hardly have supposed you did, even if you had not told +me,' said Knight with great blandness. + +She was never tired of asking her lover questions and admiring his +answers, good, bad, or indifferent as they might be. The evening +grew dark and night came on, and lights shone upon them from the +horizon and from the sky. + +'Now look there ahead of us, at that halo in the air, of silvery +brightness. Watch it, and you will see what it comes to.' + +She watched for a few minutes, when two white lights emerged from +the side of a hill, and showed themselves to be the origin of the +halo. + +'What a dazzling brilliance! What do they mark?' + +'The South Foreland: they were previously covered by the cliff.' + +'What is that level line of little sparkles--a town, I suppose?' + +'That's Dover.' + +All this time, and later, soft sheet lightning expanded from a +cloud in their path, enkindling their faces as they paced up and +down, shining over the water, and, for a moment, showing the +horizon as a keen line. + +Elfride slept soundly that night. Her first thought the next +morning was the thrilling one that Knight was as close at hand as +when they were at home at Endelstow, and her first sight, on +looking out of the cabin window, was the perpendicular face of +Beachy Head, gleaming white in a brilliant six-o'clock-in-the- +morning sun. This fair daybreak, however, soon changed its +aspect. A cold wind and a pale mist descended upon the sea, and +seemed to threaten a dreary day. + +When they were nearing Southampton, Mrs. Swancourt came to say +that her husband was so ill that he wished to be put on shore +here, and left to do the remainder of the journey by land. 'He +will be perfectly well directly he treads firm ground again. +Which shall we do--go with him, or finish our voyage as we +intended?' + +Elfride was comfortably housed under an umbrella which Knight was +holding over her to keep off the wind. 'Oh, don't let us go on +shore!' she said with dismay. 'It would be such a pity!' + +'That's very fine,' said Mrs. Swancourt archly, as to a child. +'See, the wind has increased her colour, the sea her appetite and +spirits, and somebody her happiness. Yes, it would be a pity, +certainly.' + +''Tis my misfortune to be always spoken to from a pedestal,' +sighed Elfride. + +'Well, we will do as you like, Mrs. Swancourt,' said Knight, 'but----' + +'I myself would rather remain on board,' interrupted the elder +lady. 'And Mr. Swancourt particularly wishes to go by himself. +So that shall settle the matter.' + +The vicar, now a drab colour, was put ashore, and became as well +as ever forthwith. + +Elfride, sitting alone in a retired part of the vessel, saw a +veiled woman walk aboard among the very latest arrivals at this +port. She was clothed in black silk, and carried a dark shawl +upon her arm. The woman, without looking around her, turned to +the quarter allotted to the second-cabin passengers. All the +carnation Mrs. Swancourt had complimented her step-daughter upon +possessing left Elfride's cheeks, and she trembled visibly. + +She ran to the other side of the boat, where Mrs. Swancourt was +standing. + +'Let us go home by railway with papa, after all,' she pleaded +earnestly. 'I would rather go with him--shall we?' + +Mrs. Swancourt looked around for a moment, as if unable to decide. +'Ah,' she exclaimed, 'it is too late now. Why did not you say so +before, when we had plenty of time?' + +The Juliet had at that minute let go, the engines had started, and +they were gliding slowly away from the quay. There was no help +for it but to remain, unless the Juliet could be made to put back, +and that would create a great disturbance. Elfride gave up the +idea and submitted quietly. Her happiness was sadly mutilated +now. + +The woman whose presence had so disturbed her was exactly like +Mrs. Jethway. She seemed to haunt Elfride like a shadow. After +several minutes' vain endeavour to account for any design Mrs. +Jethway could have in watching her, Elfride decided to think that, +if it were the widow, the encounter was accidental. She +remembered that the widow in her restlessness was often visiting +the village near Southampton, which was her original home, and it +was possible that she chose water-transit with the idea of saving +expense. + +'What is the matter, Elfride?' Knight inquired, standing before +her. + +'Nothing more than that I am rather depressed.' + +'I don't much wonder at it; that wharf was depressing. We seemed +underneath and inferior to everything around us. But we shall be +in the sea breeze again soon, and that will freshen you, dear.' + +The evening closed in and dusk increased as they made way down +Southampton Water and through the Solent. Elfride's disturbance +of mind was such that her light spirits of the foregoing four and +twenty hours had entirely deserted her. The weather too had grown +more gloomy, for though the showers of the morning had ceased, the +sky was covered more closely than ever with dense leaden clouds. +How beautiful was the sunset when they rounded the North Foreland +the previous evening! now it was impossible to tell within half an +hour the time of the luminary's going down. Knight led her about, +and being by this time accustomed to her sudden changes of mood, +overlooked the necessity of a cause in regarding the conditions-- +impressionableness and elasticity. + +Elfride looked stealthily to the other end of the vessel. Mrs. +Jethway, or her double, was sitting at the stern--her eye steadily +regarding Elfride. + +'Let us go to the forepart,' she said quickly to Knight. 'See +there--the man is fixing the lights for the night.' + +Knight assented, and after watching the operation of fixing the +red and the green lights on the port and starboard bows, and the +hoisting of the white light to the masthead, he walked up and down +with her till the increase of wind rendered promenading difficult. +Elfride's eyes were occasionally to be found furtively gazing +abaft, to learn if her enemy were really there. Nobody was +visible now. + +'Shall we go below?' said Knight, seeing that the deck was nearly +deserted. + +'No,' she said. 'If you will kindly get me a rug from Mrs. +Swancourt, I should like, if you don't mind, to stay here.' She +had recently fancied the assumed Mrs. Jethway might be a first- +class passenger, and dreaded meeting her by accident. + +Knight appeared with the rug, and they sat down behind a weather- +cloth on the windward side, just as the two red eyes of the +Needles glared upon them from the gloom, their pointed summits +rising like shadowy phantom figures against the sky. It became +necessary to go below to an eight-o'clock meal of nondescript +kind, and Elfride was immensely relieved at finding no sign of +Mrs. Jethway there. They again ascended, and remained above till +Mrs. Snewson staggered up to them with the message that Mrs. +Swancourt thought it was time for Elfride to come below. Knight +accompanied her down, and returned again to pass a little more +time on deck. + +Elfride partly undressed herself and lay down, and soon became +unconscious, though her sleep was light How long she had lain, she +knew not, when by slow degrees she became cognizant of a +whispering in her ear. + +'You are well on with him, I can see. Well, provoke me now, but +my day will come, you will find.' That seemed to be the utterance, +or words to that effect. + +Elfride became broad awake and terrified. She knew the words, if +real, could be only those of one person, and that person the widow +Jethway. + +The lamp had gone out and the place was in darkness. In the next +berth she could hear her stepmother breathing heavily, further on +Snewson breathing more heavily still. These were the only other +legitimate occupants of the cabin, and Mrs. Jethway must have +stealthily come in by some means and retreated again, or else she +had entered an empty berth next Snewson's. The fear that this was +the case increased Elfride's perturbation, till it assumed the +dimensions of a certainty, for how could a stranger from the other +end of the ship possibly contrive to get in? Could it have been a +dream? + +Elfride raised herself higher and looked out of the window. There +was the sea, floundering and rushing against the ship's side just +by her head, and thence stretching away, dim and moaning, into an +expanse of indistinctness; and far beyond all this two placid +lights like rayless stars. Now almost fearing to turn her face +inwards again, lest Mrs. Jethway should appear at her elbow, +Elfride meditated upon whether to call Snewson to keep her +company. 'Four bells ' sounded, and she heard voices, which gave +her a little courage. It was not worth while to call Snewson. + +At any rate Elfride could not stay there panting longer, at the +risk of being again disturbed by that dreadful whispering. So +wrapping herself up hurriedly she emerged into the passage, and by +the aid of a faint light burning at the entrance to the saloon +found the foot of the stairs, and ascended to the deck. Dreary +the place was in the extreme. It seemed a new spot altogether in +contrast with its daytime self. She could see the glowworm light +from the binnacle, and the dim outline of the man at the wheel; +also a form at the bows. Not another soul was apparent from stem +to stern. + +Yes, there were two more--by the bulwarks. One proved to be her +Harry, the other the mate. She was glad indeed, and on drawing +closer found they were holding a low slow chat about nautical +affairs. She ran up and slipped her hand through Knight's arm, +partly for love, partly for stability. + +'Elfie! not asleep?' said Knight, after moving a few steps aside +with her. + +'No: I cannot sleep. May I stay here? It is so dismal down there, +and--and I was afraid. Where are we now?' + +'Due south of Portland Bill. Those are the lights abeam of us: +look. A terrible spot, that, on a stormy night. And do you see a +very small light that dips and rises to the right? That's a light- +ship on the dangerous shoal called the Shambles, where many a good +vessel has gone to pieces. Between it and ourselves is the Race-- +a place where antagonistic currents meet and form whirlpools--a +spot which is rough in the smoothest weather, and terrific in a +wind. That dark, dreary horizon we just discern to the left is +the West Bay, terminated landwards by the Chesil Beach.' + +'What time is it, Harry?' + +'Just past two.' + +'Are you going below?' + +'Oh no; not to-night. I prefer pure air.' + +She fancied he might be displeased with her for coming to him at +this unearthly hour. 'I should like to stay here too, if you will +allow me,' she said timidly. + +'I want to ask you things.' + +'Allow you, Elfie!' said Knight, putting his arm round her and +drawing her closer. 'I am twice as happy with you by my side. +Yes: we will stay, and watch the approach of day.' + +So they again sought out the sheltered nook, and sitting down +wrapped themselves in the rug as before. + +'What were you going to ask me?' he inquired, as they undulated up +and down. + +'Oh, it was not much--perhaps a thing I ought not to ask,' she +said hesitatingly. Her sudden wish had really been to discover at +once whether he had ever before been engaged to be married. If he +had, she would make that a ground for telling him a little of her +conduct with Stephen. Mrs. Jethway's seeming words had so +depressed the girl that she herself now painted her flight in the +darkest colours, and longed to ease her burdened mind by an +instant confession. If Knight had ever been imprudent himself, he +might, she hoped, forgive all. + +'I wanted to ask you,' she went on, 'if--you had ever been engaged +before.' She added tremulously, 'I hope you have--I mean, I don't +mind at all if you have.' + +'No, I never was,' Knight instantly and heartily replied. +'Elfride'--and there was a certain happy pride in his tone--'I am +twelve years older than you, and I have been about the world, and, +in a way, into society, and you have not. And yet I am not so +unfit for you as strict-thinking people might imagine, who would +assume the difference in age to signify most surely an equal +addition to my practice in love-making.' + +Elfride shivered. + +'You are cold--is the wind too much for you?' + +'No,' she said gloomily. The belief which had been her sheet- +anchor in hoping for forgiveness had proved false. This account +of the exceptional nature of his experience, a matter which would +have set her rejoicing two years ago, chilled her now like a +frost. + +'You don't mind my asking you?' she continued. + +'Oh no--not at all.' + +'And have you never kissed many ladies?' she whispered, hoping he +would say a hundred at the least. + +The time, the circumstances, and the scene were such as to draw +confidences from the most reserved. 'Elfride,' whispered Knight +in reply, 'it is strange you should have asked that question. But +I'll answer it, though I have never told such a thing before. I +have been rather absurd in my avoidance of women. I have never +given a woman a kiss in my life, except yourself and my mother.' +The man of two and thirty with the experienced mind warmed all +over with a boy's ingenuous shame as he made the confession. + +'What, not one?' she faltered. + +'No; not one.' + +'How very strange!' + +'Yes, the reverse experience may be commoner. And yet, to those +who have observed their own sex, as I have, my case is not +remarkable. Men about town are women's favourites--that's the +postulate--and superficial people don't think far enough to see +that there may be reserved, lonely exceptions.' + +'Are you proud of it, Harry?' + +'No, indeed. Of late years I have wished I had gone my ways and +trod out my measure like lighter-hearted men. I have thought of +how many happy experiences I may have lost through never going to +woo.' + +'Then why did you hold aloof?' + +'I cannot say. I don't think it was my nature to: circumstance +hindered me, perhaps. I have regretted it for another reason. +This great remissness of mine has had its effect upon me. The +older I have grown, the more distinctly have I perceived that it +was absolutely preventing me from liking any woman who was not as +unpractised as I; and I gave up the expectation of finding a +nineteenth-century young lady in my own raw state. Then I found +you, Elfride, and l felt for the first time that my fastidiousness +was a blessing. And it helped to make me worthy of you. I felt +at once that, differing as we did in other experiences, in this +matter I resembled you. Well, aren't you glad to hear it, +Elfride?' + +'Yes, I am,' she answered in a forced voice. 'But I always had +thought that men made lots of engagements before they married-- +especially if they don't marry very young.' + +'So all women think, I suppose--and rightly, indeed, of the +majority of bachelors, as I said before. But an appreciable +minority of slow-coach men do not--and it makes them very awkward +when they do come to the point. However, it didn't matter in my +case.' + +'Why?' she asked uneasily. + +'Because you know even less of love-making and matrimonial +prearrangement than I, and so you can't draw invidious comparisons +if I do my engaging improperly.' + +'I think you do it beautifully!' + +'Thank you, dear. But,' continued Knight laughingly, 'your +opinion is not that of an expert, which alone is of value.' + +Had she answered, 'Yes, it is,' half as strongly as she felt it, +Knight might have been a little astonished. + +'If you had ever been engaged to be married before,' he went on, +'I expect your opinion of my addresses would be different. But +then, I should not----' + +'Should not what, Harry?' + +'Oh, I was merely going to say that in that case I should never +have given myself the pleasure of proposing to you, since your +freedom from that experience was your attraction, darling.' + +'You are severe on women, are you not?' + +'No, I think not. I had a right to please my taste, and that was +for untried lips. Other men than those of my sort acquire the +taste as they get older--but don't find an Elfride----' + +'What horrid sound is that we hear when we pitch forward?' + +'Only the screw--don't find an Elfride as I did. To think that I +should have discovered such an unseen flower down there in the +West--to whom a man is as much as a multitude to some women, and a +trip down the English Channel like a voyage round the world!' + +'And would you,' she said, and her voice was tremulous, 'have +given up a lady--if you had become engaged to her--and then found +she had had ONE kiss before yours--and would you have--gone away +and left her?' + +'One kiss,--no, hardly for that.' + +'Two?' + +'Well--I could hardly say inventorially like that. Too much of +that sort of thing certainly would make me dislike a woman. But +let us confine our attention to ourselves, not go thinking of +might have beens.' + +So Elfride had allowed her thoughts to 'dally with false surmise,' +and every one of Knight's words fell upon her like a weight. +After this they were silent for a long time, gazing upon the black +mysterious sea, and hearing the strange voice of the restless +wind. A rocking to and fro on the waves, when the breeze is not +too violent and cold, produces a soothing effect even upon the +most highly-wrought mind. Elfride slowly sank against Knight, and +looking down, he found by her soft regular breathing that she had +fallen asleep. Not wishing to disturb her, he continued still, +and took an intense pleasure in supporting her warm young form as +it rose and fell with her every breath. + +Knight fell to dreaming too, though he continued wide awake. It +was pleasant to realize the implicit trust she placed in him, and +to think of the charming innocence of one who could sink to sleep +in so simple and unceremonious a manner. More than all, the +musing unpractical student felt the immense responsibility he was +taking upon himself by becoming the protector and guide of such a +trusting creature. The quiet slumber of her soul lent a quietness +to his own. Then she moaned, and turned herself restlessly. +Presently her mutterings became distinct: + +'Don't tell him--he will not love me....I did not mean any +disgrace--indeed I did not, so don't tell Harry. We were going to +be married--that was why I ran away....And he says he will not +have a kissed woman....And if you tell him he will go away, and I +shall die. I pray have mercy--Oh!' + +Elfride started up wildly. + +The previous moment a musical ding-dong had spread into the air +from their right hand, and awakened her. + +'What is it?' she exclaimed in terror. + +'Only "eight bells,"' said Knight soothingly. 'Don't be +frightened, little bird, you are safe. What have you been +dreaming about?' + +'I can't tell, I can't tell!' she said with a shudder. 'Oh, I +don't know what to do!' + +'Stay quietly with me. We shall soon see the dawn now. Look, the +morning star is lovely over there. The clouds have completely +cleared off whilst you have been sleeping. What have you been +dreaming of?' + +'A woman in our parish.' + +'Don't you like her?' + +'I don't. She doesn't like me. Where are we?' + +'About south of the Exe.' + +Knight said no more on the words of her dream. They watched the +sky till Elfride grew calm, and the dawn appeared. It was mere +wan lightness first. Then the wind blew in a changed spirit, and +died away to a zephyr. The star dissolved into the day. + +'That's how I should like to die,' said Elfride, rising from her +seat and leaning over the bulwark to watch the star's last +expiring gleam. + +'As the lines say,' Knight replied---- + + + '"To set as sets the morning star, which goes + Not down behind the darken'd west, nor hides + Obscured among the tempests of the sky, + But melts away into the light of heaven."' + + +'Oh, other people have thought the same thing, have they? That's +always the case with my originalities--they are original to nobody +but myself.' + +'Not only the case with yours. When I was a young hand at +reviewing I used to find that a frightful pitfall--dilating upon +subjects I met with, which were novelties to me, and finding +afterwards they had been exhausted by the thinking world when I +was in pinafores.' + +'That is delightful. Whenever I find you have done a foolish +thing I am glad, because it seems to bring you a little nearer to +me, who have done many.' And Elfride thought again of her enemy +asleep under the deck they trod. + +All up the coast, prominences singled themselves out from +recesses. Then a rosy sky spread over the eastern sea and behind +the low line of land, flinging its livery in dashes upon the thin +airy clouds in that direction. Every projection on the land +seemed now so many fingers anxious to catch a little of the liquid +light thrown so prodigally over the sky, and after a fantastic +time of lustrous yellows in the east, the higher elevations along +the shore were flooded with the same hues. The bluff and bare +contours of Start Point caught the brightest, earliest glow of +all, and so also did the sides of its white lighthouse, perched +upon a shelf in its precipitous front like a mediaeval saint in a +niche. Their lofty neighbour Bolt Head on the left remained as +yet ungilded, and retained its gray. + +Then up came the sun, as it were in jerks, just to seaward of the +easternmost point of land, flinging out a Jacob's-ladder path of +light from itself to Elfride and Knight, and coating them with +rays in a few minutes. The inferior dignitaries of the shore-- +Froward Point, Berry Head, and Prawle--all had acquired their +share of the illumination ere this, and at length the very +smallest protuberance of wave, cliff, or inlet, even to the +innermost recesses of the lovely valley of the Dart, had its +portion; and sunlight, now the common possession of all, ceased to +be the wonderful and coveted thing it had been a short half hour +before. + +After breakfast, Plymouth arose into view, and grew distincter to +their nearing vision, the Breakwater appearing like a streak of +phosphoric light upon the surface of the sea. Elfride looked +furtively around for Mrs. Jethway, but could discern no shape like +hers. Afterwards, in the bustle of landing, she looked again with +the same result, by which time the woman had probably glided upon +the quay unobserved. Expanding with a sense of relief, Elfride +waited whilst Knight looked to their luggage, and then saw her +father approaching through the crowd, twirling his walking-stick +to catch their attention. Elbowing their way to him they all +entered the town, which smiled as sunny a smile upon Elfride as it +had done between one and two years earlier, when she had entered +it at precisely the same hour as the bride-elect of Stephen Smith. + + + +Chapter XXX + +'Vassal unto Love.' + + +Elfride clung closer to Knight as day succeeded day. Whatever +else might admit of question, there could be no dispute that the +allegiance she bore him absorbed her whole soul and existence. A +greater than Stephen had arisen, and she had left all to follow +him. + +The unreserved girl was never chary of letting her lover discover +how much she admired him. She never once held an idea in +opposition to any one of his, or insisted on any point with him, +or showed any independence, or held her own on any subject. His +lightest whim she respected and obeyed as law, and if, expressing +her opinion on a matter, he took up the subject and differed from +her, she instantly threw down her own opinion as wrong and +untenable. Even her ambiguities and espieglerie were but media of +the same manifestation; acted charades, embodying the words of her +prototype, the tender and susceptible daughter-in-law of Naomi: +'Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast +comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine +handmaid.' + +She was syringing the plants one wet day in the greenhouse. +Knight was sitting under a great passion-flower observing the +scene. Sometimes he looked out at the rain from the sky, and then +at Elfride's inner rain of larger drops, which fell from trees and +shrubs, after having previously hung from the twigs like small +silver fruit. + +'I must give you something to make you think of me during this +autumn at your chambers,' she was saying. 'What shall it be? +Portraits do more harm than good, by selecting the worst +expression of which your face is capable. Hair is unlucky. And +you don't like jewellery.' + +'Something which shall bring back to my mind the many scenes we +have enacted in this conservatory. I see what I should prize very +much. That dwarf myrtle tree in the pot, which you have been so +carefully tending.' + +Elfride looked thoughtfully at the myrtle. + +'I can carry it comfortably in my hat box,' said Knight. 'And I +will put it in my window, and so, it being always before my eyes, +I shall think of you continually.' + +It so happened that the myrtle which Knight had singled out had a +peculiar beginning and history. It had originally been a twig +worn in Stephen Smith's button-hole, and he had taken it thence, +stuck it into the pot, and told her that if it grew, she was to +take care of it, and keep it in remembrance of him when he was far +away. + +She looked wistfully at the plant, and a sense of fairness to +Smith's memory caused her a pang of regret that Knight should have +asked for that very one. It seemed exceeding a common +heartlessness to let it go. + +'Is there not anything you like better?' she said sadly. 'That is +only an ordinary myrtle.' + +'No: I am fond of myrtle.' Seeing that she did not take kindly to +the idea, he said again, 'Why do you object to my having that?' + +'Oh no--I don't object precisely--it was a feeling.--Ah, here's +another cutting lately struck, and just as small--of a better +kind, and with prettier leaves--myrtus microphylla.' + +'That will do nicely. Let it be put in my room, that I may not +forget it. What romance attaches to the other?' + +'It was a gift to me.' + +The subject then dropped. Knight thought no more of the matter +till, on entering his bedroom in the evening, he found the second +myrtle placed upon his dressing-table as he had directed. He +stood for a moment admiring the fresh appearance of the leaves by +candlelight, and then he thought of the transaction of the day. + +Male lovers as well as female can be spoilt by too much kindness, +and Elfride's uniform submissiveness had given Knight a rather +exacting manner at crises, attached to her as he was. 'Why should +she have refused the one I first chose?' he now asked himself. +Even such slight opposition as she had shown then was exceptional +enough to make itself noticeable. He was not vexed with her in +the least: the mere variation of her way to-day from her usual +ways kept him musing on the subject, because it perplexed him. +'It was a gift'--those were her words. Admitting it to be a gift, +he thought she could hardly value a mere friend more than she +valued him as a lover, and giving the plant into his charge would +have made no difference. 'Except, indeed, it was the gift of a +lover,' he murmured. + +'I wonder if Elfride has ever had a lover before?' he said aloud, +as a new idea, quite. This and companion thoughts were enough to +occupy him completely till he fell asleep--rather later than +usual. + +The next day, when they were again alone, he said to her rather +suddenly-- + +'Do you love me more or less, Elfie, for what I told you on board +the steamer?' + +'You told me so many things,' she returned, lifting her eyes to +his and smiling. + +'I mean the confession you coaxed out of me--that I had never been +in the position of lover before.' + +'It is a satisfaction, I suppose, to be the first in your heart,' +she said to him, with an attempt to continue her smiling. + +'I am going to ask you a question now,' said Knight, somewhat +awkwardly. 'I only ask it in a whimsical way, you know: not with +great seriousness, Elfride. You may think it odd, perhaps.' + +Elfride tried desperately to keep the colour in her face. She +could not, though distressed to think that getting pale showed +consciousness of deeper guilt than merely getting red. + +'Oh no--I shall not think that,' she said, because obliged to say +something to fill the pause which followed her questioner's +remark. + +'It is this: have you ever had a lover? I am almost sure you have +not; but, have you?' + +'Not, as it were, a lover; I mean, not worth mentioning, Harry,' +she faltered. + +Knight, overstrained in sentiment as he knew the feeling to be, +felt some sickness of heart. + +'Still, he was a lover?' + +'Well, a sort of lover, I suppose,' she responded tardily. + +'A man, I mean, you know.' + +'Yes; but only a mere person, and----' + +'But truly your lover?' + +'Yes; a lover certainly--he was that. Yes, he might have been +called my lover.' + +Knight said nothing to this for a minute or more, and kept silent +time with his finger to the tick of the old library clock, in +which room the colloquy was going on. + +'You don't mind, Harry, do you?' she said anxiously, nestling +close to him, and watching his face. + +'Of course, I don't seriously mind. In reason, a man cannot +object to such a trifle. I only thought you hadn't--that was +all.' + +However, one ray was abstracted from the glory about her head. +But afterwards, when Knight was wandering by himself over the bare +and breezy hills, and meditating on the subject, that ray suddenly +returned. For she might have had a lover, and never have cared in +the least for him. She might have used the word improperly, and +meant 'admirer' all the time. Of course she had been admired; and +one man might have made his admiration more prominent than that of +the rest--a very natural case. + +They were sitting on one of the garden seats when he found +occasion to put the supposition to the test. 'Did you love that +lover or admirer of yours ever so little, Elfie?' + +She murmured reluctantly, 'Yes, I think I did.' + +Knight felt the same faint touch of misery. 'Only a very little?' +he said. + +'I am not sure how much.' + +'But you are sure, darling, you loved him a little?' + +'I think I am sure I loved him a little.' + +'And not a great deal, Elfie?' + +'My love was not supported by reverence for his powers.' + +'But, Elfride, did you love him deeply?' said Knight restlessly. + +'I don't exactly know how deep you mean by deeply.' + +'That's nonsense.' + +'You misapprehend; and you have let go my hand!' she cried, her +eyes filling with tears. 'Harry, don't be severe with me, and +don't question me. I did not love him as I do you. And could it +be deeply if I did not think him cleverer than myself? For I did +not. You grieve me so much--you can't think.' + +'I will not say another word about it.' + +'And you will not think about it, either, will you? I know you +think of weaknesses in me after I am out of your sight; and not +knowing what they are, I cannot combat them. I almost wish you +were of a grosser nature, Harry; in truth I do! Or rather, I wish +I could have the advantages such a nature in you would afford me, +and yet have you as you are.' + +'What advantages would they be?' + +'Less anxiety, and more security. Ordinary men are not so +delicate in their tastes as you; and where the lover or husband is +not fastidious, and refined, and of a deep nature, things seem to +go on better, I fancy--as far as I have been able to observe the +world.' + +'Yes; I suppose it is right. Shallowness has this advantage, that +you can't be drowned there.' + +'But I think I'll have you as you are; yes, I will!' she said +winsomely. 'The practical husbands and wives who take things +philosophically are very humdrum, are they not? Yes, it would kill +me quite. You please me best as you are.' + +'Even though I wish you had never cared for one before me?' + +'Yes. And you must not wish it. Don't!' + +'I'll try not to, Elfride.' + +So she hoped, but her heart was troubled. If he felt so deeply on +this point, what would he say did he know all, and see it as Mrs. +Jethway saw it? He would never make her the happiest girl in the +world by taking her to be his own for aye. The thought enclosed +her as a tomb whenever it presented itself to her perturbed brain. +She tried to believe that Mrs. Jethway would never do her such a +cruel wrong as to increase the bad appearance of her folly by +innuendoes; and concluded that concealment, having been begun, +must be persisted in, if possible. For what he might consider as +bad as the fact, was her previous concealment of it by strategy. + +But Elfride knew Mrs. Jethway to be her enemy, and to hate her. +It was possible she would do her worst. And should she do it, all +might be over. + +Would the woman listen to reason, and be persuaded not to ruin one +who had never intentionally harmed her? + + + +It was night in the valley between Endelstow Crags and the shore. +The brook which trickled that way to the sea was distinct in its +murmurs now, and over the line of its course there began to hang a +white riband of fog. Against the sky, on the left hand of the +vale, the black form of the church could be seen. On the other +rose hazel-bushes, a few trees, and where these were absent, furze +tufts--as tall as men--on stems nearly as stout as timber. The +shriek of some bird was occasionally heard, as it flew terror- +stricken from its first roost, to seek a new sleeping-place, where +it might pass the night unmolested. + +In the evening shade, some way down the valley, and under a row of +scrubby oaks, a cottage could still be discerned. It stood +absolutely alone. The house was rather large, and the windows of +some of the rooms were nailed up with boards on the outside, which +gave a particularly deserted appearance to the whole erection. +From the front door an irregular series of rough and misshapen +steps, cut in the solid rock, led down to the edge of the +streamlet, which, at their extremity, was hollowed into a basin +through which the water trickled. This was evidently the means of +water supply to the dweller or dwellers in the cottage. + +A light footstep was heard descending from the higher slopes of +the hillside. Indistinct in the pathway appeared a moving female +shape, who advanced and knocked timidly at the door. No answer +being returned the knock was repeated, with the same result, and +it was then repeated a third time. This also was unsuccessful. + +From one of the only two windows on the ground floor which were +not boarded up came rays of light, no shutter or curtain obscuring +the room from the eyes of a passer on the outside. So few walked +that way after nightfall that any such means to secure secrecy +were probably deemed unnecessary. + +The inequality of the rays falling upon the trees outside told +that the light had its origin in a flickering fire only. The +visitor, after the third knocking, stepped a little to the left in +order to gain a view of the interior, and threw back the hood from +her face. The dancing yellow sheen revealed the fair and anxious +countenance of Elfride. + +Inside the house this firelight was enough to illumine the room +distinctly, and to show that the furniture of the cottage was +superior to what might have been expected from so unpromising an +exterior. It also showed to Elfride that the room was empty. +Beyond the light quiver and flap of the flames nothing moved or +was audible therein. + +She turned the handle and entered, throwing off the cloak which +enveloped her, under which she appeared without hat or bonnet, and +in the sort of half-toilette country people ordinarily dine in. +Then advancing to the foot of the staircase she called distinctly, +but somewhat fearfully, 'Mrs. Jethway!' + +No answer. + +With a look of relief and regret combined, denoting that ease came +to the heart and disappointment to the brain, Elfride paused for +several minutes, as if undecided how to act. Determining to wait, +she sat down on a chair. The minutes drew on, and after sitting +on the thorns of impatience for half an hour, she searched her +pocket, took therefrom a letter, and tore off the blank leaf. +Then taking out a pencil she wrote upon the paper: + + +'DEAR MRS. JETHWAY,--I have been to visit you. I wanted much to +see you, but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to +execute the threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech +you, Mrs. Jethway, let any one know I ran away from home! It would +ruin me with him, and break my heart. I will do anything for you, +if you will be kind to me. In the name of our common womanhood, +do not, I implore you, make a scandal of me.--Yours, E. +SWANCOURT.' + + +She folded the note cornerwise, directed it, and placed it on the +table. Then again drawing the hood over her curly head she +emerged silently as she had come. + +Whilst this episode had been in action at Mrs. Jethway's cottage, +Knight had gone from the dining-room into the drawing-room, and +found Mrs. Swancourt there alone. + +'Elfride has vanished upstairs or somewhere,' she said. + +'And I have been reading an article in an old number of the +PRESENT that I lighted on by chance a short time ago; it is an +article you once told us was yours. Well, Harry, with due +deference to your literary powers, allow me to say that this +effusion is all nonsense, in my opinion.' + +'What is it about?' said Knight, taking up the paper and reading. + +'There: don't get red about it. Own that experience has taught +you to be more charitable. I have never read such unchivalrous +sentiments in my life--from a man, I mean. There, I forgive you; +it was before you knew Elfride.' + +'Oh yes,' said Knight, looking up. 'I remember now. The text of +that sermon was not my own at all, but was suggested to me by a +young man named Smith--the same whom I have mentioned to you as +coming from this parish. I thought the idea rather ingenious at +the time, and enlarged it to the weight of a few guineas, because +I had nothing else in my head.' + +'Which idea do you call the text? I am curious to know that.' + +'Well, this,' said Knight, somewhat unwillingly. 'That experience +teaches, and your sweetheart, no less than your tailor, is +necessarily very imperfect in her duties, if you are her first +patron: and conversely, the sweetheart who is graceful under the +initial kiss must be supposed to have had some practice in the +trade.' + +'And do you mean to say that you wrote that upon the strength of +another man's remark, without having tested it by practice?' + +'Yes--indeed I do.' + +'Then I think it was uncalled for and unfair. And how do you know +it is true? I expect you regret it now.' + +'Since you bring me into a serious mood, I will speak candidly. I +do believe that remark to be perfectly true, and, having written +it, I would defend it anywhere. But I do often regret having ever +written it, as well as others of the sort. I have grown older +since, and I find such a tone of writing is calculated to do harm +in the world. Every literary Jack becomes a gentleman if he can +only pen a few indifferent satires upon womankind: women +themselves, too, have taken to the trick; and so, upon the whole, +I begin to be rather ashamed of my companions.' + +'Ah, Henry, you have fallen in love since and it makes a +difference,' said Mrs. Swancourt with a faint tone of banter. + +'That's true; but that is not my reason.' + +'Having found that, in a case of your own experience, a so-called +goose was a swan, it seems absurd to deny such a possibility in +other men's experiences.' + +'You can hit palpably, cousin Charlotte,' said Knight. 'You are +like the boy who puts a stone inside his snowball, and I shall +play with you no longer. Excuse me--I am going for my evening +stroll.' + +Though Knight had spoken jestingly, this incident and conversation +had caused him a sudden depression. Coming, rather singularly, +just after his discovery that Elfride had known what it was to +love warmly before she had known him, his mind dwelt upon the +subject, and the familiar pipe he smoked, whilst pacing up and +down the shrubbery-path, failed to be a solace. He thought again +of those idle words--hitherto quite forgotten--about the first +kiss of a girl, and the theory seemed more than reasonable. Of +course their sting now lay in their bearing on Elfride. + +Elfride, under Knight's kiss, had certainly been a very different +woman from herself under Stephen's. Whether for good or for ill, +she had marvellously well learnt a betrothed lady's part; and the +fascinating finish of her deportment in this second campaign did +probably arise from her unreserved encouragement of Stephen. +Knight, with all the rapidity of jealous sensitiveness, pounced +upon some words she had inadvertently let fall about an earring, +which he had only partially understood at the time. It was during +that 'initial kiss' by the little waterfall: + +'We must be careful. I lost the other by doing this!' + +A flush which had in it as much of wounded pride as of sorrow, +passed over Knight as he thought of what he had so frequently said +to her in his simplicity. 'I always meant to be the first comer +in a woman's heart, fresh lips or none for me.' How childishly +blind he must have seemed to this mere girl! How she must have +laughed at him inwardly! He absolutely writhed as he thought of +the confession she had wrung from him on the boat in the darkness +of night. The one conception which had sustained his dignity when +drawn out of his shell on that occasion--that of her charming +ignorance of all such matters--how absurd it was! + +This man, whose imagination had been fed up to preternatural size +by lonely study and silent observations of his kind--whose +emotions had been drawn out long and delicate by his seclusion, +like plants in a cellar--was now absolutely in pain. Moreover, +several years of poetic study, and, if the truth must be told, +poetic efforts, had tended to develop the affective side of his +constitution still further, in proportion to his active faculties. +It was his belief in the absolute newness of blandishment to +Elfride which had constituted her primary charm. He began to +think it was as hard to be earliest in a woman's heart as it was +to be first in the Pool of Bethesda. + +That Knight should have been thus constituted: that Elfride's +second lover should not have been one of the great mass of +bustling mankind, little given to introspection, whose good-nature +might have compensated for any lack of appreciativeness, was the +chance of things. That her throbbing, self-confounding, +indiscreet heart should have to defend itself unaided against the +keen scrutiny and logical power which Knight, now that his +suspicions were awakened, would sooner or later be sure to +exercise against her, was her misfortune. A miserable incongruity +was apparent in the circumstance of a strong mind practising its +unerring archery upon a heart which the owner of that mind loved +better than his own. + +Elfride's docile devotion to Knight was now its own enemy. +Clinging to him so dependently, she taught him in time to presume +upon that devotion--a lesson men are not slow to learn. A slight +rebelliousness occasionally would have done him no harm, and would +have been a world of advantage to her. But she idolized him, and +was proud to be his bond-servant. + + + +Chapter XXXI + +'A worm i' the bud.' + + +One day the reviewer said, 'Let us go to the cliffs again, +Elfride;' and, without consulting her wishes, he moved as if to +start at once. + +'The cliff of our dreadful adventure?' she inquired, with a +shudder. 'Death stares me in the face in the person of that +cliff.' + +Nevertheless, so entirely had she sunk her individuality in his +that the remark was not uttered as an expostulation, and she +immediately prepared to accompany him. + +'No, not that place,' said Knight. 'It is ghastly to me, too. +That other, I mean; what is its name?--Windy Beak.' + +Windy Beak was the second cliff in height along that coast, and, +as is frequently the case with the natural features of the globe +no less than with the intellectual features of men, it enjoyed the +reputation of being the first. Moreover, it was the cliff to +which Elfride had ridden with Stephen Smith, on a well-remembered +morning of his summer visit. + +So, though thought of the former cliff had caused her to shudder +at the perils to which her lover and herself had there been +exposed, by being associated with Knight only it was not so +objectionable as Windy Beak. That place was worse than gloomy, it +was a perpetual reproach to her. + +But not liking to refuse, she said, 'It is further than the other +cliff.' + +'Yes; but you can ride.' + +'And will you too?' + +'No, I'll walk.' + +A duplicate of her original arrangement with Stephen. Some +fatality must be hanging over her head. But she ceased objecting. + +'Very well, Harry, I'll ride,' she said meekly. + +A quarter of an hour later she was in the saddle. But how +different the mood from that of the former time. She had, indeed, +given up her position as queen of the less to be vassal of the +greater. Here was no showing off now; no scampering out of sight +with Pansy, to perplex and tire her companion; no saucy remarks on +LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. Elfride was burdened with the very +intensity of her love. + +Knight did most of the talking along the journey. Elfride +silently listened, and entirely resigned herself to the motions of +the ambling horse upon which she sat, alternately rising and +sinking gently, like a sea bird upon a sea wave. + +When they had reached the limit of a quadruped's possibilities in +walking, Knight tenderly lifted her from the saddle, tied the +horse, and rambled on with her to the seat in the rock. Knight +sat down, and drew Elfride deftly beside him, and they looked over +the sea. + +Two or three degrees above that melancholy and eternally level +line, the ocean horizon, hung a sun of brass, with no visible +rays, in a sky of ashen hue. It was a sky the sun did not +illuminate or enkindle, as is usual at sunsets. This sheet of sky +was met by the salt mass of gray water, flecked here and there +with white. A waft of dampness occasionally rose to their faces, +which was probably rarefied spray from the blows of the sea upon +the foot of the cliff. + +Elfride wished it could be a longer time ago that she had sat +there with Stephen as her lover, and agreed to be his wife. The +significant closeness of that time to the present was another item +to add to the list of passionate fears which were chronic with her +now. + +Yet Knight was very tender this evening, and sustained her close +to him as they sat. + +Not a word had been uttered by either since sitting down, when +Knight said musingly, looking still afar-- + +'I wonder if any lovers in past years ever sat here with arms +locked, as we do now. Probably they have, for the place seems +formed for a seat.' + +Her recollection of a well-known pair who had, and the much- +talked-of loss which had ensued therefrom, and how the young man +had been sent back to look for the missing article, led Elfride to +glance down to her side, and behind her back. Many people who +lose a trinket involuntarily give a momentary look for it in +passing the spot ever so long afterwards. They do not often find +it. Elfride, in turning her head, saw something shine weakly from +a crevice in the rocky sedile. Only for a few minutes during the +day did the sun light the alcove to its innermost rifts and slits, +but these were the minutes now, and its level rays did Elfride the +good or evil turn of revealing the lost ornament. + +Elfride's thoughts instantly reverted to the words she had +unintentionally uttered upon what had been going on when the +earring was lost. And she was immediately seized with a misgiving +that Knight, on seeing the object, would be reminded of her words. +Her instinctive act therefore was to secure it privately. + +It was so deep in the crack that Elfride could not pull it out +with her hand, though she made several surreptitious trials. + +'What are you doing, Elfie?' said Knight, noticing her attempts, +and looking behind him likewise. + +She had relinquished the endeavour, but too late. + +Knight peered into the joint from which her hand had been +withdrawn, and saw what she had seen. He instantly took a +penknife from his pocket, and by dint of probing and scraping +brought the earring out upon open ground. + +'It is not yours, surely?' he inquired. + +'Yes, it is,' she said quietly. + +'Well, that is a most extraordinary thing, that we should find it +like this!' Knight then remembered more circumstances; 'What, is +it the one you have told me of?' + +'Yes.' + +The unfortunate remark of hers at the kiss came into his mind, if +eyes were ever an index to be trusted. Trying to repress the +words he yet spoke on the subject, more to obtain assurance that +what it had seemed to imply was not true than from a wish to pry +into bygones. + +'Were you really engaged to be married to that lover?' he said, +looking straight forward at the sea again. + +'Yes--but not exactly. Yet I think I was.' + +'O Elfride, engaged to be married!' he murmured. + +'It would have been called a--secret engagement, I suppose. But +don't look so disappointed; don't blame me.' + +'No, no.' + +'Why do you say "No, no," in such a way? Sweetly enough, but so +barely?' + +Knight made no direct reply to this. 'Elfride, I told you once,' +he said, following out his thoughts, 'that I never kissed a woman +as a sweetheart until I kissed you. A kiss is not much, I +suppose, and it happens to few young people to be able to avoid +all blandishments and attentions except from the one they +afterwards marry. But I have peculiar weaknesses, Elfride; and +because I have led a peculiar life, I must suffer for it, I +suppose. I had hoped--well, what I had no right to hope in +connection with you. You naturally granted your former lover the +privileges you grant me.' + +A 'yes' came from her like the last sad whisper of a breeze. + +'And he used to kiss you--of course he did.' + +'Yes.' + +'And perhaps you allowed him a more free manner in his love-making +than I have shown in mine.' + +'No, I did not.' This was rather more alertly spoken. + +'But he adopted it without being allowed?' + +'Yes.' + +'How much I have made of you, Elfride, and how I have kept aloof!' +said Knight in deep and shaken tones. 'So many days and hours as +I have hoped in you--I have feared to kiss you more than those two +times. And he made no scruples to...' + +She crept closer to him and trembled as if with cold. Her dread +that the whole story, with random additions, would become known to +him, caused her manner to be so agitated that Knight was alarmed +and perplexed into stillness. The actual innocence which made her +think so fearfully of what, as the world goes, was not a great +matter, magnified her apparent guilt. It may have said to Knight +that a woman who was so flurried in the preliminaries must have a +dreadful sequel to her tale. + +'I know,' continued Knight, with an indescribable drag of manner +and intonation,--'I know I am absurdly scrupulous about you--that +I want you too exclusively mine. In your past before you knew me-- +from your very cradle--I wanted to think you had been mine. I +would make you mine by main force. Elfride,' he went on +vehemently, 'I can't help this jealousy over you! It is my nature, +and must be so, and I HATE the fact that you have been caressed +before: yes hate it!' + +She drew a long deep breath, which was half a sob. Knight's face +was hard, and he never looked at her at all, still fixing his gaze +far out to sea, which the sun had now resigned to the shade. In +high places it is not long from sunset to night, dusk being in a +measure banished, and though only evening where they sat, it had +been twilight in the valleys for half an hour. Upon the dull +expanse of sea there gradually intensified itself into existence +the gleam of a distant light-ship. + +'When that lover first kissed you, Elfride was it in such a place +as this?' + +'Yes, it was.' + +'You don't tell me anything but what I wring out of you. Why is +that? Why have you suppressed all mention of this when casual +confidences of mine should have suggested confidence in return? On +board the Juliet, why were you so secret? It seems like being made +a fool of, Elfride, to think that, when I was teaching you how +desirable it was that we should have no secrets from each other, +you were assenting in words, but in act contradicting me. +Confidence would have been so much more promising for our +happiness. If you had had confidence in me, and told me +willingly, I should--be different. But you suppress everything, +and I shall question you. Did you live at Endelstow at that +time?' + +'Yes,' she said faintly. + +'Where were you when he first kissed you?' + +'Sitting in this seat.' + +'Ah, I thought so!' said Knight, rising and facing her. + +'And that accounts for everything--the exclamation which you +explained deceitfully, and all! Forgive the harsh word, Elfride-- +forgive it.' He smiled a surface smile as he continued: 'What a +poor mortal I am to play second fiddle in everything and to be +deluded by fibs!' + +'Oh, don't say it; don't, Harry!' + +'Where did he kiss you besides here?' + +'Sitting on--a tomb in the--churchyard--and other places,' she +answered with slow recklessness. + +'Never mind, never mind,' he exclaimed, on seeing her tears and +perturbation. 'I don't want to grieve you. I don't care.' + +But Knight did care. + +'It makes no difference, you know,' he continued, seeing she did +not reply. + +'I feel cold,' said Elfride. 'Shall we go home?' + +'Yes; it is late in the year to sit long out of doors: we ought to +be off this ledge before it gets too dark to let us see our +footing. I daresay the horse is impatient.' + +Knight spoke the merest commonplace to her now. He had hoped to +the last moment that she would have volunteered the whole story of +her first attachment. It grew more and more distasteful to him +that she should have a secret of this nature. Such entire +confidence as he had pictured as about to exist between himself +and the innocent young wife who had known no lover's tones save +his--was this its beginning? He lifted her upon the horse, and +they went along constrainedly. The poison of suspicion was doing +its work well. + +An incident occurred on this homeward journey which was long +remembered by both, as adding shade to shadow. Knight could not +keep from his mind the words of Adam's reproach to Eve in PARADISE +LOST, and at last whispered them to himself-- + + + 'Fool'd and beguiled: by him thou, I by thee!' + + +'What did you say?' Elfride inquired timorously. + +'It was only a quotation.' + +They had now dropped into a hollow, and the church tower made its +appearance against the pale evening sky, its lower part being +hidden by some intervening trees. Elfride, being denied an +answer, was looking at the tower and trying to think of some +contrasting quotation she might use to regain his tenderness. +After a little thought she said in winning tones-- + +"Thou hast been my hope, and a strong tower for me against the +enemy."' + +They passed on. A few minutes later three or four birds were seen +to fly out of the tower. + +'The strong tower moves,' said Knight, with surprise. + +A corner of the square mass swayed forward, sank, and vanished. A +loud rumble followed, and a cloud of dust arose where all had +previously been so clear. + +'The church restorers have done it!' said Elfride. + +At this minute Mr. Swancourt was seen approaching them. He came +up with a bustling demeanour, apparently much engrossed by some +business in hand. + +'We have got the tower down!' he exclaimed. 'It came rather +quicker than we intended it should. The first idea was to take it +down stone by stone, you know. In doing this the crack widened +considerably, and it was not believed safe for the men to stand +upon the walls any longer. Then we decided to undermine it, and +three men set to work at the weakest corner this afternoon. They +had left off for the evening, intending to give the final blow to- +morrow morning, and had been home about half an hour, when down it +came. A very successful job--a very fine job indeed. But he was +a tough old fellow in spite of the crack.' Here Mr. Swancourt +wiped from his face the perspiration his excitement had caused +him. + +'Poor old tower!' said Elfride. + +'Yes, I am sorry for it,' said Knight. 'It was an interesting +piece of antiquity--a local record of local art.' + +'Ah, but my dear sir, we shall have a new one, expostulated Mr. +Swancourt; 'a splendid tower--designed by a first-rate London man-- +in the newest style of Gothic art, and full of Christian +feeling.' + +'Indeed!' said Knight. + +'Oh yes. Not in the barbarous clumsy architecture of this +neighbourhood; you see nothing so rough and pagan anywhere else in +England. When the men are gone, I would advise you to go and see +the church before anything further is done to it. You can now sit +in the chancel, and look down the nave through the west arch, and +through that far out to sea. In fact,' said Mr. Swancourt +significantly, 'if a wedding were performed at the altar to-morrow +morning, it might be witnessed from the deck of a ship on a voyage +to the South Seas, with a good glass. However, after dinner, when +the moon has risen, go up and see for yourselves.' + +Knight assented with feverish readiness. He had decided within +the last few minutes that he could not rest another night without +further talk with Elfride upon the subject which now divided them: +he was determined to know all, and relieve his disquiet in some +way. Elfride would gladly have escaped further converse alone +with him that night, but it seemed inevitable. + +Just after moonrise they left the house. How little any +expectation of the moonlight prospect--which was the ostensible +reason of their pilgrimage--had to do with Knight's real motive in +getting the gentle girl again upon his arm, Elfride no less than +himself well knew. + + + +Chapter XXXII + +'Had I wist before I kist' + + +It was now October, and the night air was chill. After looking to +see that she was well wrapped up, Knight took her along the +hillside path they had ascended so many times in each other's +company, when doubt was a thing unknown. On reaching the church +they found that one side of the tower was, as the vicar had +stated, entirely removed, and lying in the shape of rubbish at +their feet. The tower on its eastern side still was firm, and +might have withstood the shock of storms and the siege of +battering years for many a generation even now. They entered by +the side-door, went eastward, and sat down by the altar-steps. + +The heavy arch spanning the junction of tower and nave formed to- +night a black frame to a distant misty view, stretching far +westward. Just outside the arch came the heap of fallen stones, +then a portion of moonlit churchyard, then the wide and convex sea +behind. It was a coup-d'oeil which had never been possible since +the mediaeval masons first attached the old tower to the older +church it dignified, and hence must be supposed to have had an +interest apart from that of simple moonlight on ancient wall and +sea and shore--any mention of which has by this time, it is to be +feared, become one of the cuckoo-cries which are heard but not +regarded. Rays of crimson, blue, and purple shone upon the twain +from the east window behind them, wherein saints and angels vied +with each other in primitive surroundings of landscape and sky, +and threw upon the pavement at the sitters' feet a softer +reproduction of the same translucent hues, amid which the shadows +of the two living heads of Knight and Elfride were opaque and +prominent blots. Presently the moon became covered by a cloud, +and the iridescence died away. + +'There, it is gone!' said Knight. 'I've been thinking, Elfride, +that this place we sit on is where we may hope to kneel together +soon. But I am restless and uneasy, and you know why.' + +Before she replied the moonlight returned again, irradiating that +portion of churchyard within their view. It brightened the near +part first, and against the background which the cloud-shadow had +not yet uncovered stood, brightest of all, a white tomb--the tomb +of young Jethway. + +Knight, still alive on the subject of Elfride's secret, thought of +her words concerning the kiss that it once had occurred on a tomb +in this churchyard. + +'Elfride,' he said, with a superficial archness which did not half +cover an undercurrent of reproach, 'do you know, I think you might +have told me voluntarily about that past--of kisses and +betrothing--without giving me so much uneasiness and trouble. Was +that the tomb you alluded to as having sat on with him?' + +She waited an instant. 'Yes,' she said. + +The correctness of his random shot startled Knight; though, +considering that almost all the other memorials in the churchyard +were upright headstones upon which nobody could possibly sit, it +was not so wonderful. + +Elfride did not even now go on with the explanation her exacting +lover wished to have, and her reticence began to irritate him as +before. He was inclined to read her a lecture. + +'Why don't you tell me all?' he said somewhat indignantly. +'Elfride, there is not a single subject upon which I feel more +strongly than upon this--that everything ought to be cleared up +between two persons before they become husband and wife. See how +desirable and wise such a course is, in order to avoid +disagreeable contingencies in the form of discoveries afterwards. +For, Elfride, a secret of no importance at all may be made the +basis of some fatal misunderstanding only because it is +discovered, and not confessed. They say there never was a couple +of whom one had not some secret the other never knew or was +intended to know. This may or may not be true; but if it be true, +some have been happy in spite rather than in consequence of it. +If a man were to see another man looking significantly at his +wife, and she were blushing crimson and appearing startled, do you +think he would be so well satisfied with, for instance, her +truthful explanation that once, to her great annoyance, she +accidentally fainted into his arms, as if she had said it +voluntarily long ago, before the circumstance occurred which +forced it from her? Suppose that admirer you spoke of in +connection with the tomb yonder should turn up, and bother me. It +would embitter our lives, if I were then half in the dark, as I am +now!' + +Knight spoke the latter sentences with growing force. + +'It cannot be,' she said. + +'Why not?' he asked sharply. + +Elfride was distressed to find him in so stern a mood, and she +trembled. In a confusion of ideas, probably not intending a +wilful prevarication, she answered hurriedly-- + +'If he's dead, how can you meet him?' + +'Is he dead? Oh, that's different altogether!' said Knight, +immensely relieved. 'But, let me see--what did you say about that +tomb and him?' + +'That's his tomb,' she continued faintly. + +'What! was he who lies buried there the man who was your lover?' +Knight asked in a distinct voice. + +'Yes; and I didn't love him or encourage him.' + +'But you let him kiss you--you said so, you know, Elfride.' + +She made no reply. + +'Why,' said Knight, recollecting circumstances by degrees, 'you +surely said you were in some degree engaged to him--and of course +you were if he kissed you. And now you say you never encouraged +him. And I have been fancying you said--I am almost sure you did-- +that you were sitting with him ON that tomb. Good God!' he +cried, suddenly starting up in anger, 'are you telling me +untruths? Why should you play with me like this? I'll have the +right of it. Elfride, we shall never be happy! There's a blight +upon us, or me, or you, and it must be cleared off before we +marry.' Knight moved away impetuously as if to leave her. + +She jumped up and clutched his arm + +'Don't go, Harry--don't! + +'Tell me, then,' said Knight sternly. 'And remember this, no more +fibs, or, upon my soul, I shall hate you. Heavens! that I should +come to this, to be made a fool of by a girl's untruths----' + +'Don't, don't treat me so cruelly! O Harry, Harry, have pity, and +withdraw those dreadful words! I am truthful by nature--I am--and +I don't know how I came to make you misunderstand! But I was +frightened!' She quivered so in her perturbation that she shook +him with her {Note: sentence incomplete in text.} + +'Did you say you were sitting on that tomb?' he asked moodily. + +'Yes; and it was true.' + +'Then how, in the name of Heaven, can a man sit upon his own +tomb?' + +'That was another man. Forgive me, Harry, won't you?' + +'What, a lover in the tomb and a lover on it?' + +'Oh--Oh--yes!' + +'Then there were two before me? + +'I--suppose so.' + +'Now, don't be a silly woman with your supposing--I hate all +that,' said Knight contemptuously almost. 'Well, we learn strange +things. I don't know what I might have done--no man can say into +what shape circumstances may warp him--but I hardly think I should +have had the conscience to accept the favours of a new lover +whilst sitting over the poor remains of the old one; upon my soul, +I don't.' Knight, in moody meditation, continued looking towards +the tomb, which stood staring them in the face like an avenging +ghost. + +'But you wrong me--Oh, so grievously!" she cried. 'I did not +meditate any such thing: believe me, Harry, I did not. It only +happened so--quite of itself.' + +'Well, I suppose you didn't INTEND such a thing,' he said. +'Nobody ever does,' he sadly continued. + +'And him in the grave I never once loved.' + +'I suppose the second lover and you, as you sat there, vowed to be +faithful to each other for ever?' + +Elfride only replied by quick heavy breaths, showing she was on +the brink of a sob. + +'You don't choose to be anything but reserved, then?' he said +imperatively. + +'Of course we did,' she responded. + +'"Of course!" You seem to treat the subject very lightly?' + +'It is past, and is nothing to us now.' + +'Elfride, it is a nothing which, though it may make a careless man +laugh, cannot but make a genuine one grieve. It is a very gnawing +pain. Tell me straight through--all of it.' + +'Never. O Harry! how can you expect it when so little of it makes +you so harsh with me?' + +'Now, Elfride, listen to this. You know that what you have told +only jars the subtler fancies in one, after all. The feeling I +have about it would be called, and is, mere sentimentality; and I +don't want you to suppose that an ordinary previous engagement of +a straightforward kind would make any practical difference in my +love, or my wish to make you my wife. But you seem to have more +to tell, and that's where the wrong is. Is there more?' + +'Not much more,' she wearily answered. + +Knight preserved a grave silence for a minute. '"Not much more,"' +he said at last. 'I should think not, indeed!' His voice assumed +a low and steady pitch. 'Elfride, you must not mind my saying a +strange-sounding thing, for say it I shall. It is this: that if +there WERE much more to add to an account which already includes +all the particulars that a broken marriage engagement could +possibly include with propriety, it must be some exceptional thing +which might make it impossible for me or any one else to love you +and marry you.' + +Knight's disturbed mood led him much further than he would have +gone in a quieter moment. And, even as it was, had she been +assertive to any degree he would not have been so peremptory; and +had she been a stronger character--more practical and less +imaginative--she would have made more use of her position in his +heart to influence him. But the confiding tenderness which had +won him is ever accompanied by a sort of self-committal to the +stream of events, leading every such woman to trust more to the +kindness of fate for good results than to any argument of her own. + +'Well, well,' he murmured cynically; 'I won't say it is your +fault: it is my ill-luck, I suppose. I had no real right to +question you--everybody would say it was presuming. But when we +have misunderstood, we feel injured by the subject of our +misunderstanding. You never said you had had nobody else here +making love to you, so why should I blame you? Elfride, I beg your +pardon.' + +'No, no! I would rather have your anger than that cool aggrieved +politeness. Do drop that, Harry! Why should you inflict that upon +me? It reduces me to the level of a mere acquaintance.' + +'You do that with me. Why not confidence for confidence?' + +'Yes; but I didn't ask you a single question with regard to your +past: I didn't wish to know about it. All I cared for was that, +wherever you came from, whatever you had done, whoever you had +loved, you were mine at last. Harry, if originally you had known +I had loved, would you never have cared for me?' + +'I won't quite say that. Though I own that the idea of your +inexperienced state had a great charm for me. But I think this: +that if I had known there was any phase of your past love you +would refuse to reveal if I asked to know it, I should never have +loved you.' + +Elfride sobbed bitterly. 'Am I such a--mere characterless toy--as +to have no attrac--tion in me, apart from--freshness? Haven't I +brains? You said--I was clever and ingenious in my thoughts, and-- +isn't that anything? Have I not some beauty? I think I have a +little--and I know I have--yes, I do! You have praised my voice, +and my manner, and my accomplishments. Yet all these together are +so much rubbish because I--accidentally saw a man before you!' + +'Oh, come, Elfride. "Accidentally saw a man" is very cool. You +loved him, remember.' + +--'And loved him a little!' + +'And refuse now to answer the simple question how it ended. Do +you refuse still, Elfride?' + +'You have no right to question me so--you said so. It is unfair. +Trust me as I trust you.' + +'That's not at all.' + +'I shall not love you if you are so cruel. It is cruel to me to +argue like this.' + +'Perhaps it is. Yes, it is. I was carried away by my feeling for +you. Heaven knows that I didn't mean to; but I have loved you so +that I have used you badly.' + +'I don't mind it, Harry!' she instantly answered, creeping up and +nestling against him; 'and I will not think at all that you used +me harshly if you will forgive me, and not be vexed with me any +more? I do wish I had been exactly as you thought I was, but I +could not help it, you know. If I had only known you had been +coming, what a nunnery I would have lived in to have been good +enough for you!' + +'Well, never mind,' said Knight; and he turned to go. He +endeavoured to speak sportively as they went on. 'Diogenes +Laertius says that philosophers used voluntarily to deprive +themselves of sight to be uninterrupted in their meditations. +Men, becoming lovers, ought to do the same thing.' + +'Why?--but never mind--I don't want to know. Don't speak +laconically to me,' she said with deprecation. + +'Why? Because they would never then be distracted by discovering +their idol was second-hand.' + +She looked down and sighed; and they passed out of the crumbling +old place, and slowly crossed to the churchyard entrance. Knight +was not himself, and he could not pretend to be. She had not told +all. + +He supported her lightly over the stile, and was practically as +attentive as a lover could be. But there had passed away a glory, +and the dream was not as it had been of yore. Perhaps Knight was +not shaped by Nature for a marrying man. Perhaps his lifelong +constraint towards women, which he had attributed to accident, was +not chance after all, but the natural result of instinctive acts +so minute as to be undiscernible even by himself. Or whether the +rough dispelling of any bright illusion, however imaginative, +depreciates the real and unexaggerated brightness which appertains +to its basis, one cannot say. Certain it was that Knight's +disappointment at finding himself second or third in the field, at +Elfride's momentary equivoque, and at her reluctance to be candid, +brought him to the verge of cynicism. + + + +Chapter XXXIII + +'O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery.' + + +A habit of Knight's, when not immediately occupied with Elfride-- +to walk by himself for half an hour or so between dinner and +bedtime--had become familiar to his friends at Endelstow, Elfride +herself among them. When he had helped her over the stile, she +said gently, 'If you wish to take your usual turn on the hill, +Harry, I can run down to the house alone.' + +'Thank you, Elfie; then I think I will.' + +Her form diminished to blackness in the moonlight, and Knight, +after remaining upon the churchyard stile a few minutes longer, +turned back again towards the building. His usual course was now +to light a cigar or pipe, and indulge in a quiet meditation. But +to-night his mind was too tense to bethink itself of such a +solace. He merely walked round to the site of the fallen tower, +and sat himself down upon some of the large stones which had +composed it until this day, when the chain of circumstance +originated by Stephen Smith, while in the employ of Mr. Hewby, the +London man of art, had brought about its overthrow. + +Pondering on the possible episodes of Elfride's past life, and on +how he had supposed her to have had no past justifying the name, +he sat and regarded the white tomb of young Jethway, now close in +front of him. The sea, though comparatively placid, could as +usual be heard from this point along the whole distance between +promontories to the right and left, floundering and entangling +itself among the insulated stacks of rock which dotted the water's +edge--the miserable skeletons of tortured old cliffs that would +not even yet succumb to the wear and tear of the tides. + +As a change from thoughts not of a very cheerful kind, Knight +attempted exertion. He stood up, and prepared to ascend to the +summit of the ruinous heap of stones, from which a more extended +outlook was obtainable than from the ground. He stretched out his +arm to seize the projecting arris of a larger block than ordinary, +and so help himself up, when his hand lighted plump upon a +substance differing in the greatest possible degree from what he +had expected to seize--hard stone. It was stringy and entangled, +and trailed upon the stone. The deep shadow from the aisle wall +prevented his seeing anything here distinctly, and he began +guessing as a necessity. 'It is a tressy species of moss or +lichen,' he said to himself. + +But it lay loosely over the stone. + +'It is a tuft of grass,' he said. + +But it lacked the roughness and humidity of the finest grass. + +'It is a mason's whitewash-brush.' + +Such brushes, he remembered, were more bristly; and however much +used in repairing a structure, would not be required in pulling +one down. + +He said, 'It must be a thready silk fringe.' + +He felt further in. It was somewhat warm. Knight instantly felt +somewhat cold. + +To find the coldness of inanimate matter where you expect warmth +is startling enough; but a colder temperature than that of the +body being rather the rule than the exception in common +substances, it hardly conveys such a shock to the system as +finding warmth where utter frigidity is anticipated. + +'God only knows what it is,' he said. + +He felt further, and in the course of a minute put his hand upon a +human head. The head was warm, but motionless. The thready mass +was the hair of the head--long and straggling, showing that the +head was a woman's. + +Knight in his perplexity stood still for a moment, and collected +his thoughts. The vicar's account of the fall of the tower was +that the workmen had been undermining it all the day, and had left +in the evening intending to give the finishing stroke the next +morning. Half an hour after they had gone the undermined angle +came down. The woman who was half buried, as it seemed, must have +been beneath it at the moment of the fall. + +Knight leapt up and began endeavouring to remove the rubbish with +his hands. The heap overlying the body was for the most part fine +and dusty, but in immense quantity. It would be a saving of time +to run for assistance. He crossed to the churchyard wall, and +hastened down the hill. + +A little way down an intersecting road passed over a small ridge, +which now showed up darkly against the moon, and this road here +formed a kind of notch in the sky-line. At the moment that Knight +arrived at the crossing he beheld a man on this eminence, coming +towards him. Knight turned aside and met the stranger. + +'There has been an accident at the church,' said Knight, without +preface. 'The tower has fallen on somebody, who has been lying +there ever since. Will you come and help?' + +'That I will,' said the man. + +'It is a woman,' said Knight, as they hurried back, 'and I think +we two are enough to extricate her. Do you know of a shovel?' + +'The grave-digging shovels are about somewhere. They used to stay +in the tower.' + +'And there must be some belonging to the workmen.' + +They searched about, and in an angle of the porch found three +carefully stowed away. Going round to the west end Knight +signified the spot of the tragedy. + +'We ought to have brought a lantern,' he exclaimed. 'But we may +be able to do without.' He set to work removing the superincumbent +mass. + +The other man, who looked on somewhat helplessly at first, now +followed the example of Knight's activity, and removed the larger +stones which were mingled with the rubbish. But with all their +efforts it was quite ten minutes before the body of the +unfortunate creature could be extricated. They lifted her as +carefully as they could, breathlessly carried her to Felix +Jethway's tomb, which was only a few steps westward, and laid her +thereon. + +'Is she dead indeed?' said the stranger. + +'She appears to be,' said Knight. 'Which is the nearest house? +The vicarage, I suppose.' + +'Yes; but since we shall have to call a surgeon from Castle +Boterel, I think it would be better to carry her in that +direction, instead of away from the town.' + +'And is it not much further to the first house we come to going +that way, than to the vicarage or to The Crags?' + +'Not much,' the stranger replied. + +'Suppose we take her there, then. And I think the best way to do +it would be thus, if you don't mind joining hands with me.' + +'Not in the least; I am glad to assist.' + +Making a kind of cradle, by clasping their hands crosswise under +the inanimate woman, they lifted her, and walked on side by side +down a path indicated by the stranger, who appeared to know the +locality well. + +'I had been sitting in the church for nearly an hour,' Knight +resumed, when they were out of the churchyard. 'Afterwards I +walked round to the site of the fallen tower, and so found her. +It is painful to think I unconsciously wasted so much time in the +very presence of a perishing, flying soul.' + +'The tower fell at dusk, did it not? quite two hours ago, I +think?' + +'Yes. She must have been there alone. What could have been her +object in visiting the churchyard then? + +'It is difficult to say.' The stranger looked inquiringly into the +reclining face of the motionless form they bore. 'Would you turn +her round for a moment, so that the light shines on her face?' he +said. + +They turned her face to the moon, and the man looked closer into +her features. 'Why, I know her!' he exclaimed. + +'Who is she?' + +'Mrs. Jethway. And the cottage we are taking her to is her own. +She is a widow; and I was speaking to her only this afternoon. I +was at Castle Boterel post-office, and she came there to post a +letter. Poor soul! Let us hurry on.' + +'Hold my wrist a little tighter. Was not that tomb we laid her on +the tomb of her only son?' + +'Yes, it was. Yes, I see it now. She was there to visit the +tomb. Since the death of that son she has been a desolate, +desponding woman, always bewailing him. She was a farmer's wife, +very well educated--a governess originally, I believe.' + +Knight's heart was moved to sympathy. His own fortunes seemed in +some strange way to be interwoven with those of this Jethway +family, through the influence of Elfride over himself and the +unfortunate son of that house. He made no reply, and they still +walked on. + +'She begins to feel heavy,' said the stranger, breaking the +silence. + +'Yes, she does,' said Knight; and after another pause added, 'I +think I have met you before, though where I cannot recollect. May +I ask who you are?' + +'Oh yes. I am Lord Luxellian. Who are you?' + +'I am a visitor at The Crags--Mr. Knight.' + +'I have heard of you, Mr. Knight.' + +'And I of you, Lord Luxellian. I am glad to meet you.' + +'I may say the same. I am familiar with your name in print.' + +'And I with yours. Is this the house?' + +'Yes.' + +The door was locked. Knight, reflecting a moment, searched the +pocket of the lifeless woman, and found therein a large key which, +on being applied to the door, opened it easily. The fire was out, +but the moonlight entered the quarried window, and made patterns +upon the floor. The rays enabled them to see that the room into +which they had entered was pretty well furnished, it being the +same room that Elfride had visited alone two or three evenings +earlier. They deposited their still burden on an old-fashioned +couch which stood against the wall, and Knight searched about for +a lamp or candle. He found a candle on a shelf, lighted it, and +placed it on the table. + +Both Knight and Lord Luxellian examined the pale countenance +attentively, and both were nearly convinced that there was no +hope. No marks of violence were visible in the casual examination +they made. + +'I think that as I know where Doctor Granson lives,' said Lord +Luxellian, 'I had better run for him whilst you stay here.' + +Knight agreed to this. Lord Luxellian then went off, and his +hurrying footsteps died away. Knight continued bending over the +body, and a few minutes longer of careful scrutiny perfectly +satisfied him that the woman was far beyond the reach of the +lancet and the drug. Her extremities were already beginning to +get stiff and cold. Knight covered her face, and sat down. + +The minutes went by. The essayist remained musing on all the +occurrences of the night. His eyes were directed upon the table, +and he had seen for some time that writing-materials were spread +upon it. He now noticed these more particularly: there were an +inkstand, pen, blotting-book, and note-paper. Several sheets of +paper were thrust aside from the rest, upon which letters had been +begun and relinquished, as if their form had not been satisfactory +to the writer. A stick of black sealing-wax and seal were there +too, as if the ordinary fastening had not been considered +sufficiently secure. The abandoned sheets of paper lying as they +did open upon the table, made it possible, as he sat, to read the +few words written on each. One ran thus: + + +'SIR,--As a woman who was once blest with a dear son of her own, I +implore you to accept a warning----' + + +Another: + + +'SIR,--If you will deign to receive warning from a stranger before +it is too late to alter your course, listen to----' + + +The third: + + +'SIR,--With this letter I enclose to you another which, unaided by +any explanation from me, tells a startling tale. I wish, however, +to add a few words to make your delusion yet more clear to you---- +' + + +It was plain that, after these renounced beginnings, a fourth +letter had been written and despatched, which had been deemed a +proper one. Upon the table were two drops of sealing-wax, the +stick from which they were taken having been laid down overhanging +the edge of the table; the end of it drooped, showing that the wax +was placed there whilst warm. There was the chair in which the +writer had sat, the impression of the letter's address upon the +blotting-paper, and the poor widow who had caused these results +lying dead hard by. Knight had seen enough to lead him to the +conclusion that Mrs. Jethway, having matter of great importance to +communicate to some friend or acquaintance, had written him a very +careful letter, and gone herself to post it; that she had not +returned to the house from that time of leaving it till Lord +Luxellian and himself had brought her back dead. + +The unutterable melancholy of the whole scene, as he waited on, +silent and alone, did not altogether clash with the mood of +Knight, even though he was the affianced of a fair and winning +girl, and though so lately he had been in her company. Whilst +sitting on the remains of the demolished tower he had defined a +new sensation; that the lengthened course of inaction he had +lately been indulging in on Elfride's account might probably not +be good for him as a man who had work to do. It could quickly be +put an end to by hastening on his marriage with her. + +Knight, in his own opinion, was one who had missed his mark by +excessive aiming. Having now, to a great extent, given up ideal +ambitions, he wished earnestly to direct his powers into a more +practical channel, and thus correct the introspective tendencies +which had never brought himself much happiness, or done his +fellow-creatures any great good. To make a start in this new +direction by marriage, which, since knowing Elfride, had been so +entrancing an idea, was less exquisite to-night. That the +curtailment of his illusion regarding her had something to do with +the reaction, and with the return of his old sentiments on wasting +time, is more than probable. Though Knight's heart had so greatly +mastered him, the mastery was not so complete as to be easily +maintained in the face of a moderate intellectual revival. + +His reverie was broken by the sound of wheels, and a horse's +tramp. The door opened to admit the surgeon, Lord Luxellian, and +a Mr. Coole, coroner for the division (who had been attending at +Castle Boterel that very day, and was having an after-dinner chat +with the doctor when Lord Luxellian arrived); next came two female +nurses and some idlers. + +Mr. Granson, after a cursory examination, pronounced the woman +dead from suffocation, induced by intense pressure on the +respiratory organs; and arrangements were made that the inquiry +should take place on the following morning, before the return of +the coroner to St. Launce's. + +Shortly afterwards the house of the widow was deserted by all its +living occupants, and she abode in death, as she had in her life +during the past two years, entirely alone. + + + +Chapter XXXIV + +'Yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.' + + +Sixteen hours had passed. Knight was entering the ladies' boudoir +at The Crags, upon his return from attending the inquest touching +the death of Mrs. Jethway. Elfride was not in the apartment. + +Mrs. Swancourt made a few inquiries concerning the verdict and +collateral circumstances. Then she said-- + +'The postman came this morning the minute after you left the +house. There was only one letter for you, and I have it here.' + +She took a letter from the lid of her workbox, and handed it to +him. Knight took the missive abstractedly, but struck by its +appearance murmured a few words and left the room. + +The letter was fastened with a black seal, and the handwriting in +which it was addressed had lain under his eyes, long and +prominently, only the evening before. + +Knight was greatly agitated, and looked about for a spot where he +might be secure from interruption. It was the season of heavy +dews, which lay on the herbage in shady places all the day long; +nevertheless, he entered a small patch of neglected grass-plat +enclosed by the shrubbery, and there perused the letter, which he +had opened on his way thither. + +The handwriting, the seal, the paper, the introductory words, all +had told on the instant that the letter had come to him from the +hands of the widow Jethway, now dead and cold. He had instantly +understood that the unfinished notes which caught his eye +yesternight were intended for nobody but himself. He had +remembered some of the words of Elfride in her sleep on the +steamer, that somebody was not to tell him of something, or it +would be her ruin--a circumstance hitherto deemed so trivial and +meaningless that he had well-nigh forgotten it. All these things +infused into him an emotion intense in power and supremely +distressing in quality. The paper in his hand quivered as he +read: + + + 'THE VALLEY, ENDELSTOW. + +'SIR,--A woman who has not much in the world to lose by any +censure this act may bring upon her, wishes to give you some hints +concerning a lady you love. If you will deign to accept a warning +before it is too late, you will notice what your correspondent has +to say. + +'You are deceived. Can such a woman as this be worthy? + +'One who encouraged an honest youth to love her, then slighted +him, so that he died. + +'One who next took a man of no birth as a lover, who was forbidden +the house by her father. + +'One who secretly left her home to be married to that man, met +him, and went with him to London. + +'One who, for some reason or other, returned again unmarried. + +'One who, in her after-correspondence with him, went so far as to +address him as her husband. + +'One who wrote the enclosed letter to ask me, who better than +anybody else knows the story, to keep the scandal a secret. + +'I hope soon to be beyond the reach of either blame or praise. +But before removing me God has put it in my power to avenge the +death of my son. + + 'GERTRUDE JETHWAY.' + + +The letter enclosed was the note in pencil that Elfride had +written in Mrs. Jethway's cottage: + + +'DEAR MRS. JETHWAY,--I have been to visit you. I wanted much to +see you, but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to +execute the threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech +you, Mrs. Jethway, let any one know I ran away from home! It would +ruin me with him, and break my heart. I will do anything for you, +if you will be kind to me. In the name of our common womanhood, +do not, I implore you, make a scandal of me.--Yours, + 'E. SWANCOURT. + + +Knight turned his head wearily towards the house. The ground rose +rapidly on nearing the shrubbery in which he stood, raising it +almost to a level with the first floor of The Crags. Elfride's +dressing-room lay in the salient angle in this direction, and it +was lighted by two windows in such a position that, from Knight's +standing-place, his sight passed through both windows, and raked +the room. Elfride was there; she was pausing between the two +windows, looking at her figure in the cheval-glass. She regarded +herself long and attentively in front; turned, flung back her +head, and observed the reflection over her shoulder. + +Nobody can predicate as to her object or fancy; she may have done +the deed in the very abstraction of deep sadness. She may have +been moaning from the bottom of her heart, 'How unhappy am I!' But +the impression produced on Knight was not a good one. He dropped +his eyes moodily. The dead woman's letter had a virtue in the +accident of its juncture far beyond any it intrinsically +exhibited. Circumstance lent to evil words a ring of pitiless +justice echoing from the grave. Knight could not endure their +possession. He tore the letter into fragments. + +He heard a brushing among the bushes behind, and turning his head +he saw Elfride following him. The fair girl looked in his face +with a wistful smile of hope, too forcedly hopeful to displace the +firmly established dread beneath it. His severe words of the +previous night still sat heavy upon her. + +'I saw you from my window, Harry,' she said timidly. + +'The dew will make your feet wet,' he observed, as one deaf. + +'I don't mind it.' + +'There is danger in getting wet feet.' + +'Yes...Harry, what is the matter?' + +'Oh, nothing. Shall I resume the serious conversation I had with +you last night? No, perhaps not; perhaps I had better not.' + +'Oh, I cannot tell! How wretched it all is! Ah, I wish you were +your own dear self again, and had kissed me when I came up! Why +didn't you ask me for one? why don't you now?' + +'Too free in manner by half,' he heard murmur the voice within +him. + +'It was that hateful conversation last night,' she went on. 'Oh, +those words! Last night was a black night for me.' + +'Kiss!--I hate that word! Don't talk of kissing, for God's sake! I +should think you might with advantage have shown tact enough to +keep back that word "kiss," considering those you have accepted.' + +She became very pale, and a rigid and desolate charactery took +possession of her face. That face was so delicate and tender in +appearance now, that one could fancy the pressure of a finger upon +it would cause a livid spot. + +Knight walked on, and Elfride with him, silent and unopposing. He +opened a gate, and they entered a path across a stubble-field. + +'Perhaps I intrude upon you?' she said as he closed the gate. +'Shall I go away?' + +'No. Listen to me, Elfride.' Knight's voice was low and unequal. +'I have been honest with you: will you be so with me? If any-- +strange--connection has existed between yourself and a predecessor +of mine, tell it now. It is better that I know it now, even +though the knowledge should part us, than that I should discover +it in time to come. And suspicions have been awakened in me. I +think I will not say how, because I despise the means. A +discovery of any mystery of your past would embitter our lives.' + +Knight waited with a slow manner of calmness. His eyes were sad +and imperative. They went farther along the path. + +'Will you forgive me if I tell you all?' she exclaimed +entreatingly. + +'I can't promise; so much depends upon what you have to tell.' + +Elfride could not endure the silence which followed. + +'Are you not going to love me?' she burst out. 'Harry, Harry, +love me, and speak as usual! Do; I beseech you, Harry!' + +'Are you going to act fairly by me?' said Knight, with rising +anger; 'or are you not? What have I done to you that I should be +put off like this? Be caught like a bird in a springe; everything +intended to be hidden from me! Why is it, Elfride? That's what I +ask you.' + +In their agitation they had left the path, and were wandering +among the wet and obstructive stubble, without knowing or heeding +it. + +'What have I done?' she faltered. + +'What? How can you ask what, when you know so well? You KNOW that +I have designedly been kept in ignorance of something attaching to +you, which, had I known of it, might have altered all my conduct; +and yet you say, what?' + +She drooped visibly, and made no answer. + +'Not that I believe in malicious letter-writers and whisperers; +not I. I don't know whether I do or don't: upon my soul, I can't +tell. I know this: a religion was building itself upon you in my +heart. I looked into your eyes, and thought I saw there truth and +innocence as pure and perfect as ever embodied by God in the flesh +of woman. Perfect truth is too much to expect, but ordinary truth +I WILL HAVE or nothing at all. Just say, then; is the matter you +keep back of the gravest importance, or is it not?' + +'I don't understand all your meaning. If I have hidden anything +from you, it has been because I loved you so, and I feared-- +feared--to lose you.' + +'Since you are not given to confidence, I want to ask you some +plain questions. Have I your permission?' + +'Yes,' she said, and there came over her face a weary resignation. +'Say the harshest words you can; I will bear them!' + +'There is a scandal in the air concerning you, Elfride; and I +cannot even combat it without knowing definitely what it is. It +may not refer to you entirely, or even at all.' Knight trifled in +the very bitterness of his feeling. 'In the time of the French +Revolution, Pariseau, a ballet-master, was beheaded by mistake for +Parisot, a captain of the King's Guard. I wish there was another +"E. Swancourt" in the neighbourhood. Look at this.' + +He handed her the letter she had written and left on the table at +Mrs. Jethway's. She looked over it vacantly. + +'It is not so much as it seems!' she pleaded. 'It seems wickedly +deceptive to look at now, but it had a much more natural origin +than you think. My sole wish was not to endanger our love. O +Harry! that was all my idea. It was not much harm.' + +'Yes, yes; but independently of the poor miserable creature's +remarks, it seems to imply--something wrong.' + +'What remarks?' + +'Those she wrote me--now torn to pieces. Elfride, DID you run +away with a man you loved?--that was the damnable statement. Has +such an accusation life in it--really, truly, Elfride?' + +'Yes,' she whispered. + +Knight's countenance sank. 'To be married to him?' came huskily +from his lips. + +'Yes. Oh, forgive me! I had never seen you, Harry.' + +'To London?' + +'Yes; but I----' + +'Answer my questions; say nothing else, Elfride Did you ever +deliberately try to marry him in secret?' + +'No; not deliberately.' + +'But did you do it?' + +A feeble red passed over her face. + +'Yes,' she said. + +'And after that--did you--write to him as your husband; and did he +address you as his wife?' + +'Listen, listen! It was----' + +'Do answer me; only answer me!' + +'Then, yes, we did.' Her lips shook; but it was with some little +dignity that she continued: 'I would gladly have told you; for I +knew and know I had done wrong. But I dared not; I loved you too +well. Oh, so well! You have been everything in the world to me-- +and you are now. Will you not forgive me?' + +It is a melancholy thought, that men who at first will not allow +the verdict of perfection they pronounce upon their sweethearts or +wives to be disturbed by God's own testimony to the contrary, +will, once suspecting their purity, morally hang them upon +evidence they would be ashamed to admit in judging a dog. + +The reluctance to tell, which arose from Elfride's simplicity in +thinking herself so much more culpable than she really was, had +been doing fatal work in Knight's mind. The man of many ideas, +now that his first dream of impossible things was over, vibrated +too far in the contrary direction; and her every movement of +feature--every tremor--every confused word--was taken as so much +proof of her unworthiness. + +'Elfride, we must bid good-bye to compliment,' said Knight: 'we +must do without politeness now. Look in my face, and as you +believe in God above, tell me truly one thing more. Were you away +alone with him?' + +'Yes.' + +'Did you return home the same day on which you left it?' + +'No.' + +The word fell like a bolt, and the very land and sky seemed to +suffer. Knight turned aside. Meantime Elfride's countenance wore +a look indicating utter despair of being able to explain matters +so that they would seem no more than they really were,--a despair +which not only relinquishes the hope of direct explanation, but +wearily gives up all collateral chances of extenuation. + +The scene was engraved for years on the retina of Knight's eye: +the dead and brown stubble, the weeds among it, the distant belt +of beeches shutting out the view of the house, the leaves of which +were now red and sick to death. + +'You must forget me,' he said. 'We shall not marry, Elfride.' + +How much anguish passed into her soul at those words from him was +told by the look of supreme torture she wore. + +'What meaning have you, Harry? You only say so, do you?' + +She looked doubtingly up at him, and tried to laugh, as if the +unreality of his words must be unquestionable. + +'You are not in earnest, I know--I hope you are not? Surely I +belong to you, and you are going to keep me for yours?' + +'Elfride, I have been speaking too roughly to you; I have said +what I ought only to have thought. I like you; and let me give +you a word of advice. Marry your man as soon as you can. However +weary of each other you may feel, you belong to each other, and I +am not going to step between you. Do you think I would--do you +think I could for a moment? If you cannot marry him now, and +another makes you his wife, do not reveal this secret to him after +marriage, if you do not before. Honesty would be damnation then.' + +Bewildered by his expressions, she exclaimed-- + +'No, no; I will not be a wife unless I am yours; and I must be +yours!' + +'If we had married----' + +'But you don't MEAN--that--that--you will go away and leave me, +and not be anything more to me--oh, you don't!' + +Convulsive sobs took all nerve out of her utterance. She checked +them, and continued to look in his face for the ray of hope that +was not to be found there. + +'I am going indoors,' said Knight. 'You will not follow me, +Elfride; I wish you not to.' + +'Oh no; indeed, I will not.' + +'And then I am going to Castle Boterel. Good-bye.' + +He spoke the farewell as if it were but for the day--lightly, as +he had spoken such temporary farewells many times before--and she +seemed to understand it as such. Knight had not the power to tell +her plainly that he was going for ever; he hardly knew for certain +that he was: whether he should rush back again upon the current of +an irresistible emotion, or whether he could sufficiently conquer +himself, and her in him, to establish that parting as a supreme +farewell, and present himself to the world again as no woman's. + +Ten minutes later he had left the house, leaving directions that +if he did not return in the evening his luggage was to be sent to +his chambers in London, whence he intended to write to Mr. +Swancourt as to the reasons of his sudden departure. He descended +the valley, and could not forbear turning his head. He saw the +stubble-field, and a slight girlish figure in the midst of it--up +against the sky. Elfride, docile as ever, had hardly moved a +step, for he had said, Remain. He looked and saw her again--he +saw her for weeks and months. He withdrew his eyes from the +scene, swept his hand across them, as if to brush away the sight, +breathed a low groan, and went on. + + + +Chapter XXXV + +'And wilt thou leave me thus?--say nay--say nay!' + + +The scene shifts to Knight's chambers in Bede's Inn. It was late +in the evening of the day following his departure from Endelstow. +A drizzling rain descended upon London, forming a humid and dreary +halo over every well-lighted street. The rain had not yet been +prevalent long enough to give to rapid vehicles that clear and +distinct rattle which follows the thorough washing of the stones +by a drenching rain, but was just sufficient to make footway and +roadway slippery, adhesive, and clogging to both feet and wheels. + +Knight was standing by the fire, looking into its expiring embers, +previously to emerging from his door for a dreary journey home to +Richmond. His hat was on, and the gas turned off. The blind of +the window overlooking the alley was not drawn down; and with the +light from beneath, which shone over the ceiling of the room, +came, in place of the usual babble, only the reduced clatter and +quick speech which were the result of necessity rather than +choice. + +Whilst he thus stood, waiting for the expiration of the few +minutes that were wanting to the time for his catching the train, +a light tapping upon the door mingled with the other sounds that +reached his ears. It was so faint at first that the outer noises +were almost sufficient to drown it. Finding it repeated Knight +crossed the lobby, crowded with books and rubbish, and opened the +door. + +A woman, closely muffled up, but visibly of fragile build, was +standing on the landing under the gaslight. She sprang forward, +flung her arms round Knight's neck, and uttered a low cry-- + +'O Harry, Harry, you are killing me! I could not help coming. +Don't send me away--don't! Forgive your Elfride for coming--I love +you so!' + +Knight's agitation and astonishment mastered him for a few +moments. + +'Elfride!' he cried, 'what does this mean? What have you done?' + +'Do not hurt me and punish me--Oh, do not! I couldn't help coming; +it was killing me. Last night, when you did not come back, I +could not bear it--I could not! Only let me be with you, and see +your face, Harry; I don't ask for more.' + +Her eyelids were hot, heavy, and thick with excessive weeping, and +the delicate rose-red of her cheeks was disfigured and inflamed by +the constant chafing of the handkerchief in wiping her many tears. + +'Who is with you? Have you come alone?' he hurriedly inquired. + +'Yes. When you did not come last night, I sat up hoping you would +come--and the night was all agony--and I waited on and on, and you +did not come! Then when it was morning, and your letter said you +were gone, I could not endure it; and I ran away from them to St. +Launce's, and came by the train. And I have been all day +travelling to you, and you won't make me go away again, will you, +Harry, because I shall always love you till I die?' + +'Yet it is wrong for you to stay. O Elfride! what have you +committed yourself to? It is ruin to your good name to run to me +like this! Has not your first experience been sufficient to keep +you from these things?' + +'My name! Harry, I shall soon die, and what good will my name be +to me then? Oh, could I but be the man and you the woman, I would +not leave you for such a little fault as mine! Do not think it was +so vile a thing in me to run away with him. Ah, how I wish you +could have run away with twenty women before you knew me, that I +might show you I would think it no fault, but be glad to get you +after them all, so that I had you! If you only knew me through and +through, how true I am, Harry. Cannot I be yours? Say you love me +just the same, and don't let me be separated from you again, will +you? I cannot bear it--all the long hours and days and nights +going on, and you not there, but away because you hate me!' + +'Not hate you, Elfride,' he said gently, and supported her with +his arm. 'But you cannot stay here now--just at present, I mean.' + +'I suppose I must not--I wish I might. I am afraid that if--you +lose sight of me--something dark will happen, and we shall not +meet again. Harry, if I am not good enough to be your wife, I +wish I could be your servant and live with you, and not be sent +away never to see you again. I don't mind what it is except +that!' + +'No, I cannot send you away: I cannot. God knows what dark future +may arise out of this evening's work; but I cannot send you away! +You must sit down, and I will endeavour to collect my thoughts and +see what had better be done. + +At that moment a loud knocking at the house door was heard by +both, accompanied by a hurried ringing of the bell that echoed +from attic to basement. The door was quickly opened, and after a +few hasty words of converse in the hall, heavy footsteps ascended +the stairs. + +The face of Mr. Swancourt, flushed, grieved, and stern, appeared +round the landing of the staircase. He came higher up, and stood +beside them. Glancing over and past Knight with silent +indignation, he turned to the trembling girl. + +'O Elfride! and have I found you at last? Are these your tricks, +madam? When will you get rid of your idiocies, and conduct +yourself like a decent woman? Is my family name and house to be +disgraced by acts that would be a scandal to a washerwoman's +daughter? Come along, madam; come!' + +'She is so weary!' said Knight, in a voice of intensest anguish. +'Mr. Swancourt, don't be harsh with her--let me beg of you to be +tender with her, and love her!' + +'To you, sir,' said Mr. Swancourt, turning to him as if by the +sheer pressure of circumstances, 'I have little to say. I can +only remark, that the sooner I can retire from your presence the +better I shall be pleased. Why you could not conduct your +courtship of my daughter like an honest man, I do not know. Why +she--a foolish inexperienced girl--should have been tempted to +this piece of folly, I do not know. Even if she had not known +better than to leave her home, you might have, I should think.' + +'It is not his fault: he did not tempt me, papa! I came.' + +'If you wished the marriage broken off, why didn't you say so +plainly? If you never intended to marry, why could you not leave +her alone? Upon my soul, it grates me to the heart to be obliged +to think so ill of a man I thought my friend!' + +Knight, soul-sick and weary of his life, did not arouse himself to +utter a word in reply. How should he defend himself when his +defence was the accusation of Elfride? On that account he felt a +miserable satisfaction in letting her father go on thinking and +speaking wrongfully. It was a faint ray of pleasure straying into +the great gloominess of his brain to think that the vicar might +never know but that he, as her lover, tempted her away, which +seemed to be the form Mr. Swancourt's misapprehension had taken. + +'Now, are you coming?' said Mr. Swancourt to her again. He took +her unresisting hand, drew it within his arm, and led her down the +stairs. Knight's eyes followed her, the last moment begetting in +him a frantic hope that she would turn her head. She passed on, +and never looked back. + +He heard the door open--close again. The wheels of a cab grazed +the kerbstone, a murmured direction followed. The door was +slammed together, the wheels moved, and they rolled away. + + +From that hour of her reappearance a dreadful conflict raged +within the breast of Henry Knight. His instinct, emotion, +affectiveness--or whatever it may be called--urged him to stand +forward, seize upon Elfride, and be her cherisher and protector +through life. Then came the devastating thought that Elfride's +childlike, unreasoning, and indiscreet act in flying to him only +proved that the proprieties must be a dead letter with her; that +the unreserve, which was really artlessness without ballast, meant +indifference to decorum; and what so likely as that such a woman +had been deceived in the past? He said to himself, in a mood of +the bitterest cynicism: 'The suspicious discreet woman who +imagines dark and evil things of all her fellow-creatures is far +too shrewd to be deluded by man: trusting beings like Elfride are +the women who fall.' + +Hours and days went by, and Knight remained inactive. Lengthening +time, which made fainter the heart-awakening power of her +presence, strengthened the mental ability to reason her down. +Elfride loved him, he knew, and he could not leave off loving her +but marry her he would not. If she could but be again his own +Elfride--the woman she had seemed to be--but that woman was dead +and buried, and he knew her no more! And how could he marry this +Elfride, one who, if he had originally seen her as she was, would +have been barely an interesting pitiable acquaintance in his eyes-- +no more? + +It cankered his heart to think he was confronted by the closest +instance of a worse state of things than any he had assumed in the +pleasant social philosophy and satire of his essays. + +The moral rightness of this man's life was worthy of all praise; +but in spite of some intellectual acumen, Knight had in him a +modicum of that wrongheadedness which is mostly found in +scrupulously honest people. With him, truth seemed too clean and +pure an abstraction to be so hopelessly churned in with error as +practical persons find it. Having now seen himself mistaken in +supposing Elfride to be peerless, nothing on earth could make him +believe she was not so very bad after all. + +He lingered in town a fortnight, doing little else than vibrate +between passion and opinions. One idea remained intact--that it +was better Elfride and himself should not meet. + +When he surveyed the volumes on his shelves--few of which had been +opened since Elfride first took possession of his heart--their +untouched and orderly arrangement reproached him as an apostate +from the old faith of his youth and early manhood. He had +deserted those never-failing friends, so they seemed to say, for +an unstable delight in a ductile woman, which had ended all in +bitterness. The spirit of self-denial, verging on asceticism, +which had ever animated Knight in old times, announced itself as +having departed with the birth of love, with it having gone the +self-respect which had compensated for the lack of self- +gratification. Poor little Elfride, instead of holding, as +formerly, a place in his religion, began to assume the hue of a +temptation. Perhaps it was human and correctly natural that +Knight never once thought whether he did not owe her a little +sacrifice for her unchary devotion in saving his life. + +With a consciousness of having thus, like Antony, kissed away +kingdoms and provinces, he next considered how he had revealed his +higher secrets and intentions to her, an unreserve he would never +have allowed himself with any man living. How was it that he had +not been able to refrain from telling her of adumbrations +heretofore locked in the closest strongholds of his mind? + +Knight's was a robust intellect, which could escape outside the +atmosphere of heart, and perceive that his own love, as well as +other people's, could be reduced by change of scene and +circumstances. At the same time the perception was a superimposed +sorrow: + + + 'O last regret, regret can die!' + + +But being convinced that the death of this regret was the best +thing for him, he did not long shrink from attempting it. He +closed his chambers, suspended his connection with editors, and +left London for the Continent. Here we will leave him to wander +without purpose, beyond the nominal one of encouraging +obliviousness of Elfride. + + + +Chapter XXXVI + +'The pennie's the jewel that beautifies a'.' + + +'I can't think what's coming to these St. Launce's people at all +at all.' + +'With their "How-d'ye-do's," do you mean?' + +'Ay, with their "How-d'ye-do's," and shaking of hands, asking me +in, and tender inquiries for you, John.' + +These words formed part of a conversation between John Smith and +his wife on a Saturday evening in the spring which followed +Knight's departure from England. Stephen had long since returned +to India; and the persevering couple themselves had migrated from +Lord Luxellian's park at Endelstow to a comfortable roadside +dwelling about a mile out of St. Launce's, where John had opened a +small stone and slate yard in his own name. + +'When we came here six months ago,' continued Mrs. Smith, 'though +I had paid ready money so many years in the town, my friskier +shopkeepers would only speak over the counter. Meet 'em in the +street half-an-hour after, and they'd treat me with staring +ignorance of my face.' + +'Look through ye as through a glass winder?' + +'Yes, the brazen ones would. The quiet and cool ones would glance +over the top of my head, past my side, over my shoulder, but never +meet my eye. The gentle-modest would turn their faces south if I +were coming east, flit down a passage if I were about to halve the +pavement with them. There was the spruce young bookseller would +play the same tricks; the butcher's daughters; the upholsterer's +young men. Hand in glove when doing business out of sight with +you; but caring nothing for a' old woman when playing the genteel +away from all signs of their trade.' + +'True enough, Maria.' + +'Well, to-day 'tis all different. I'd no sooner got to market +than Mrs. Joakes rushed up to me in the eyes of the town and said, +"My dear Mrs. Smith, now you must be tired with your walk! Come in +and have some lunch! I insist upon it; knowing you so many years +as I have! Don't you remember when we used to go looking for owls' +feathers together in the Castle ruins?" There's no knowing what +you may need, so I answered the woman civilly. I hadn't got to +the corner before that thriving young lawyer, Sweet, who's quite +the dandy, ran after me out of breath. "Mrs. Smith," he says, +"excuse my rudeness, but there's a bramble on the tail of your +dress, which you've dragged in from the country; allow me to pull +it off for you." If you'll believe me, this was in the very front +of the Town Hall. What's the meaning of such sudden love for a' +old woman?' + +'Can't say; unless 'tis repentance.' + +'Repentance! was there ever such a fool as you. John? Did anybody +ever repent with money in's pocket and fifty years to live?' + +'Now, I've been thinking too,' said John, passing over the query +as hardly pertinent, 'that I've had more loving-kindness from +folks to-day than I ever have before since we moved here. Why, +old Alderman Tope walked out to the middle of the street where I +was, to shake hands with me--so 'a did. Having on my working +clothes, I thought 'twas odd. Ay, and there was young +Werrington.' + +'Who's he?' + +'Why, the man in Hill Street, who plays and sells flutes, +trumpets, and fiddles, and grand pehanners. He was talking to +Egloskerry, that very small bachelor-man with money in the funds. +I was going by, I'm sure, without thinking or expecting a nod from +men of that glib kidney when in my working clothes----' + +'You always will go poking into town in your working clothes. Beg +you to change how I will, 'tis no use.' + +'Well, however, I was in my working clothes. Werrington saw me. +"Ah, Mr. Smith! a fine morning; excellent weather for building," +says he, out as loud and friendly as if I'd met him in some deep +hollow, where he could get nobody else to speak to at all. 'Twas +odd: for Werrington is one of the very ringleaders of the fast +class.' + +At that moment a tap came to the door. The door was immediately +opened by Mrs. Smith in person. + +'You'll excuse us, I'm sure, Mrs. Smith, but this beautiful spring +weather was too much for us. Yes, and we could stay in no longer; +and I took Mrs. Trewen upon my arm directly we'd had a cup of tea, +and out we came. And seeing your beautiful crocuses in such a +bloom, we've taken the liberty to enter. We'll step round the +garden, if you don't mind.' + +'Not at all,' said Mrs. Smith; and they walked round the garden. +She lifted her hands in amazement directly their backs were +turned. 'Goodness send us grace!' + +Who be they?' said her husband. + +'Actually Mr. Trewen, the bank-manager, and his wife.' + +John Smith, staggered in mind, went out of doors and looked over +the garden gate, to collect his ideas. He had not been there two +minutes when wheels were heard, and a carriage and pair rolled +along the road. A distinguished-looking lady, with the demeanour +of a duchess, reclined within. When opposite Smith's gate she +turned her head, and instantly commanded the coachman to stop. + +'Ah, Mr. Smith, I am glad to see you looking so well. I could not +help stopping a moment to congratulate you and Mrs. Smith upon the +happiness you must enjoy. Joseph, you may drive on.' + +And the carriage rolled away towards St. Launce's. + +Out rushed Mrs. Smith from behind a laurel-bush, where she had +stood pondering. + +'Just going to touch my hat to her,' said John; 'just for all the +world as I would have to poor Lady Luxellian years ago.' + +'Lord! who is she?' + +'The public-house woman--what's her name? Mrs.--Mrs.--at the +Falcon.' + +'Public-house woman. The clumsiness of the Smith family! You +MIGHT say the landlady of the Falcon Hotel, since we are in for +politeness. The people are ridiculous enough, but give them their +due.' + +The possibility is that Mrs. Smith was getting mollified, in spite +of herself, by these remarkably friendly phenomena among the +people of St. Launce's. And in justice to them it was quite +desirable that she should do so. The interest which the +unpractised ones of this town expressed so grotesquely was genuine +of its kind, and equal in intrinsic worth to the more polished +smiles of larger communities. + +By this time Mr. and Mrs. Trewen were returning from the garden. + +'I'll ask 'em flat,' whispered John to his wife. 'I'll say, "We +be in a fog--you'll excuse my asking a question, Mr. and Mrs. +Trewen. How is it you all be so friendly to-day?" Hey? 'Twould +sound right and sensible, wouldn't it?' + +'Not a word! Good mercy, when will the man have manners!' + +'It must be a proud moment for you, I am sure, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, +to have a son so celebrated,' said the bank-manager advancing. + +'Ah, 'tis Stephen--I knew it!' said Mrs. Smith triumphantly to +herself. + +'We don't know particulars,' said John. + +'Not know!' + +'No.' + +'Why, 'tis all over town. Our worthy Mayor alluded to it in a +speech at the dinner last night of the Every-Man-his-own-Maker +Club.' + +'And what about Stephen?' urged Mrs. Smith. + +'Why, your son has been feted by deputy-governors and Parsee +princes and nobody-knows-who in India; is hand in glove with +nabobs, and is to design a large palace, and cathedral, and +hospitals, colleges, halls, and fortifications, by the general +consent of the ruling powers, Christian and Pagan alike.' + +''Twas sure to come to the boy,' said Mr. Smith unassumingly. + +''Tis in yesterday's St. Launce's Chronicle; and our worthy Mayor +in the chair introduced the subject into his speech last night in +a masterly manner.' + +''Twas very good of the worthy Mayor in the chair I'm sure,' said +Stephen's mother. 'I hope the boy will have the sense to keep +what he's got; but as for men, they are a simple sex. Some woman +will hook him.' + +'Well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the evening closes in, and we must be +going; and remember this, that every Saturday when you come in to +market, you are to make our house as your own. There will be +always a tea-cup and saucer for you, as you know there has been +for months, though you may have forgotten it. I'm a plain- +speaking woman, and what I say I mean.' + +When the visitors were gone, and the sun had set, and the moon's +rays were just beginning to assert themselves upon the walls of +the dwelling, John Smith and his wife sat dawn to the newspaper +they had hastily procured from the town. And when the reading was +done, they considered how best to meet the new social requirements +settling upon them, which Mrs. Smith considered could be done by +new furniture and house enlargement alone. + +'And, John, mind one thing,' she said in conclusion. 'In writing +to Stephen, never by any means mention the name of Elfride +Swancourt again. We've left the place, and know no more about her +except by hearsay. He seems to be getting free of her, and glad +am I for it. It was a cloudy hour for him when he first set eyes +upon the girl. That family's been no good to him, first or last; +so let them keep their blood to themselves if they want to. He +thinks of her, I know, but not so hopelessly. So don't try to +know anything about her, and we can't answer his questions. She +may die out of his mind then.' + +'That shall be it,' said John. + + + +Chapter XXXVII + +'After many days.' + + +Knight roamed south, under colour of studying Continental +antiquities. + +He paced the lofty aisles of Amiens, loitered by Ardennes Abbey, +climbed into the strange towers of Laon, analyzed Noyon and +Rheims. Then he went to Chartres, and examined its scaly spires +and quaint carving then he idled about Coutances. He rowed +beneath the base of Mont St. Michel, and caught the varied skyline +of the crumbling edifices encrusting it. St. Ouen's, Rouen, knew +him for days; so did Vezelay, Sens, and many a hallowed monument +besides. Abandoning the inspection of early French art with the +same purposeless haste as he had shown in undertaking it, he went +further, and lingered about Ferrara, Padua, and Pisa. Satiated +with mediaevalism, he tried the Roman Forum. Next he observed +moonlight and starlight effects by the bay of Naples. He turned +to Austria, became enervated and depressed on Hungarian and +Bohemian plains, and was refreshed again by breezes on the +declivities of the Carpathians. + +Then he found himself in Greece. He visited the plain of +Marathon, and strove to imagine the Persian defeat; to Mars Hill, +to picture St. Paul addressing the ancient Athenians; to +Thermopylae and Salamis, to run through the facts and traditions +of the Second Invasion--the result of his endeavours being more or +less chaotic. Knight grew as weary of these places as of all +others. Then he felt the shock of an earthquake in the Ionian +Islands, and went to Venice. Here he shot in gondolas up and down +the winding thoroughfare of the Grand Canal, and loitered on calle +and piazza at night, when the lagunes were undisturbed by a +ripple, and no sound was to be heard but the stroke of the +midnight clock. Afterwards he remained for weeks in the museums, +galleries, and libraries of Vienna, Berlin, and Paris; and thence +came home. + +Time thus rolls us on to a February afternoon, divided by fifteen +months from the parting of Elfride and her lover in the brown +stubble field towards the sea. + +Two men obviously not Londoners, and with a touch of foreignness +in their look, met by accident on one of the gravel walks leading +across Hyde Park. The younger, more given to looking about him +than his fellow, saw and noticed the approach of his senior some +time before the latter had raised his eyes from the ground, upon +which they were bent in an abstracted gaze that seemed habitual +with him. + +'Mr. Knight--indeed it is!' exclaimed the younger man. + +'Ah, Stephen Smith!' said Knight. + +Simultaneous operations might now have been observed progressing +in both, the result being that an expression less frank and +impulsive than the first took possession of their features. It +was manifest that the next words uttered were a superficial +covering to constraint on both sides. + +'Have you been in England long?' said Knight. + +'Only two days,' said Smith. India ever since?' + +'Nearly ever since.' + +'They were making a fuss about you at St. Launce's last year. I +fancy I saw something of the sort in the papers.' + +'Yes; I believe something was said about me.' + +'I must congratulate you on your achievements.' + +'Thanks, but they are nothing very extraordinary. A natural +professional progress where there was no opposition.' + +There followed that want of words which will always assert itself +between nominal friends who find they have ceased to be real ones, +and have not yet sunk to the level of mere acquaintance. Each +looked up and down the Park. Knight may possibly have borne in +mind during the intervening months Stephen's manner towards him +the last time they had met, and may have encouraged his former +interest in Stephen's welfare to die out of him as misplaced. +Stephen certainly was full of the feelings begotten by the belief +that Knight had taken away the woman he loved so well. + +Stephen Smith then asked a question, adopting a certain +recklessness of manner and tone to hide, if possible, the fact +that the subject was a much greater one to him than his friend had +ever supposed. + +'Are you married?' + +'I am not.' + +Knight spoke in an indescribable tone of bitterness that was +almost moroseness. + +'And I never shall be,' he added decisively. 'Are you?' + +'No,' said Stephen, sadly and quietly, like a man in a sick-room. +Totally ignorant whether or not Knight knew of his own previous +claims upon Elfride, he yet resolved to hazard a few more words +upon the topic which had an aching fascination for him even now. + +'Then your engagement to Miss Swancourt came to nothing,' he said. +'You remember I met you with her once?' + +Stephen's voice gave way a little here, in defiance of his firmest +will to the contrary. Indian affairs had not yet lowered those +emotions down to the point of control. + +'It was broken off,' came quickly from Knight. 'Engagements to +marry often end like that--for better or for worse.' + +'Yes; so they do. And what have you been doing lately?' + +'Doing? Nothing.' + +'Where have you been?' + +'I can hardly tell you. In the main, going about Europe; and it +may perhaps interest you to know that I have been attempting the +serious study of Continental art of the Middle Ages. My notes on +each example I visited are at your service. They are of no use to +me.' + +'I shall be glad with them....Oh, travelling far and near!' + +'Not far,' said Knight, with moody carelessness. 'You know, I +daresay, that sheep occasionally become giddy--hydatids in the +head, 'tis called, in which their brains become eaten up, and the +animal exhibits the strange peculiarity of walking round and round +in a circle continually. I have travelled just in the same way-- +round and round like a giddy ram.' + +The reckless, bitter, and rambling style in which Knight talked, +as if rather to vent his images than to convey any ideas to +Stephen, struck the young man painfully. His former friend's days +had become cankered in some way: Knight was a changed man. He +himself had changed much, but not as Knight had changed. + +'Yesterday I came home,' continued Knight, 'without having, to the +best of my belief, imbibed half-a-dozen ideas worth retaining.' + +'You out-Hamlet Hamlet in morbidness of mood,' said Stephen, with +regretful frankness. + +Knight made no reply. + +'Do you know,' Stephen continued, 'I could almost have sworn that +you would be married before this time, from what I saw?' + +Knight's face grew harder. 'Could you?' he said. + +Stephen was powerless to forsake the depressing, luring subject. + +'Yes; and I simply wonder at it.' + +'Whom did you expect me to marry?' + +'Her I saw you with.' + +'Thank you for that wonder.' + +'Did she jilt you?' + +'Smith, now one word to you,' Knight returned steadily. 'Don't +you ever question me on that subject. I have a reason for making +this request, mind. And if you do question me, you will not get +an answer.' + +'Oh, I don't for a moment wish to ask what is unpleasant to you-- +not I. I had a momentary feeling that I should like to explain +something on my side, and hear a similar explanation on yours. +But let it go, let it go, by all means.' + +'What would you explain?' + +'I lost the woman I was going to marry: you have not married as +you intended. We might have compared notes.' + +'I have never asked you a word about your case.' + +'I know that.' + +'And the inference is obvious.' + +'Quite so.' + +'The truth is, Stephen, I have doggedly resolved never to allude +to the matter--for which I have a very good reason.' + +'Doubtless. As good a reason as you had for not marrying her.' + +'You talk insidiously. I had a good one--a miserably good one!' + +Smith's anxiety urged him to venture one more question. + +'Did she not love you enough?' He drew his breath in a slow and +attenuated stream, as he waited in timorous hope for the answer. + +'Stephen, you rather strain ordinary courtesy in pressing +questions of that kind after what I have said. I cannot +understand you at all. I must go on now.' + +'Why, good God!' exclaimed Stephen passionately, 'you talk as if +you hadn't at all taken her away from anybody who had better +claims to her than you!' + +'What do you mean by that?' said Knight, with a puzzled air. +'What have you heard?' + +'Nothing. I too must go on. Good-day.' + +'If you will go,' said Knight, reluctantly now, 'you must, I +suppose. I am sure I cannot understand why you behave so.' + +'Nor I why you do. I have always been grateful to you, and as far +as I am concerned we need never have become so estranged as we +have.' + +'And have I ever been anything but well-disposed towards you, +Stephen? Surely you know that I have not! The system of reserve +began with you: you know that.' + +'No, no! You altogether mistake our position. You were always +from the first reserved to me, though I was confidential to you. +That was, I suppose, the natural issue of our differing positions +in life. And when I, the pupil, became reserved like you, the +master, you did not like it. However, I was going to ask you to +come round and see me.' + +'Where are you staying?' + +'At the Grosvenor Hotel, Pimlico.' + +'So am I.' + +'That's convenient, not to say odd. Well, I am detained in London +for a day or two; then I am going down to see my father and +mother, who live at St. Launce's now. Will you see me this +evening?' + +'I may; but I will not promise. I was wishing to be alone for an +hour or two; but I shall know where to find you, at any rate. +Good-bye.' + + + +Chapter XXXVIII + +'Jealousy is cruel as the grave.' + + +Stephen pondered not a little on this meeting with his old friend +and once-beloved exemplar. He was grieved, for amid all the +distractions of his latter years a still small voice of fidelity +to Knight had lingered on in him. Perhaps this staunchness was +because Knight ever treated him as a mere disciple--even to +snubbing him sometimes; and had at last, though unwittingly, +inflicted upon him the greatest snub of all, that of taking away +his sweetheart. The emotional side of his constitution was built +rather after a feminine than a male model; and that tremendous +wound from Knight's hand may have tended to keep alive a warmth +which solicitousness would have extinguished altogether. + +Knight, on his part, was vexed, after they had parted, that he had +not taken Stephen in hand a little after the old manner. Those +words which Smith had let fall concerning somebody having a prior +claim to Elfride, would, if uttered when the man was younger, have +provoked such a query as, 'Come, tell me all about it, my lad,' +from Knight, and Stephen would straightway have delivered himself +of all he knew on the subject. + +Stephen the ingenuous boy, though now obliterated externally by +Stephen the contriving man, returned to Knight's memory vividly +that afternoon. He was at present but a sojourner in London; and +after attending to the two or three matters of business which +remained to be done that day, he walked abstractedly into the +gloomy corridors of the British Museum for the half-hour previous +to their closing. That meeting with Smith had reunited the +present with the past, closing up the chasm of his absence from +England as if it had never existed, until the final circumstances +of his previous time of residence in London formed but a yesterday +to the circumstances now. The conflict that then had raged in him +concerning Elfride Swancourt revived, strengthened by its sleep. +Indeed, in those many months of absence, though quelling the +intention to make her his wife, he had never forgotten that she +was the type of woman adapted to his nature; and instead of trying +to obliterate thoughts of her altogether, he had grown to regard +them as an infirmity it was necessary to tolerate. + +Knight returned to his hotel much earlier in the evening than he +would have done in the ordinary course of things. He did not care +to think whether this arose from a friendly wish to close the gap +that had slowly been widening between himself and his earliest +acquaintance, or from a hankering desire to hear the meaning of +the dark oracles Stephen had hastily pronounced, betokening that +he knew something more of Elfride than Knight had supposed. + +He made a hasty dinner, inquired for Smith, and soon was ushered +into the young man's presence, whom he found sitting in front of a +comfortable fire, beside a table spread with a few scientific +periodicals and art reviews. + +'I have come to you, after all,' said Knight. 'My manner was odd +this morning, and it seemed desirable to call; but that you had +too much sense to notice, Stephen, I know. Put it down to my +wanderings in France and Italy.' + +'Don't say another word, but sit down. I am only too glad to see +you again.' + +Stephen would hardly have cared to tell Knight just then that the +minute before Knight was announced he had been reading over some +old letters of Elfride's. They were not many; and until to-night +had been sealed up, and stowed away in a corner of his leather +trunk, with a few other mementoes and relics which had accompanied +him in his travels. The familiar sights and sounds of London, the +meeting with his friend, had with him also revived that sense of +abiding continuity with regard to Elfride and love which his +absence at the other side of the world had to some extent +suspended, though never ruptured. He at first intended only to +look over these letters on the outside; then he read one; then +another; until the whole was thus re-used as a stimulus to sad +memories. He folded them away again, placed them in his pocket, +and instead of going on with an examination into the state of the +artistic world, had remained musing on the strange circumstance +that he had returned to find Knight not the husband of Elfride +after all. + +The possibility of any given gratification begets a cumulative +sense of its necessity. Stephen gave the rein to his imagination, +and felt more intensely than he had felt for many months that, +without Elfride, his life would never be any great pleasure to +himself, or honour to his Maker. + +They sat by the fire, chatting on external and random subjects, +neither caring to be the first to approach the matter each most +longed to discuss. On the table with the periodicals lay two or +three pocket-books, one of them being open. Knight seeing from +the exposed page that the contents were sketches only, began +turning the leaves over carelessly with his finger. When, some +time later, Stephen was out of the room, Knight proceeded to pass +the interval by looking at the sketches more carefully. + +The first crude ideas, pertaining to dwellings of all kinds, were +roughly outlined on the different pages. Antiquities had been +copied; fragments of Indian columns, colossal statues, and +outlandish ornament from the temples of Elephanta and Kenneri, +were carelessly intruded upon by outlines of modern doors, +windows, roofs, cooking-stoves, and household furniture; +everything, in short, which comes within the range of a practising +architect's experience, who travels with his eyes open. Among +these occasionally appeared rough delineations of mediaeval +subjects for carving or illumination--heads of Virgins, Saints, +and Prophets. + +Stephen was not professedly a free-hand draughtsman, but he drew +the human figure with correctness and skill. In its numerous +repetitions on the sides and edges of the leaves, Knight began to +notice a peculiarity. All the feminine saints had one type of +feature. There were large nimbi and small nimbi about their +drooping heads, but the face was always the same. That profile-- +how well Knight knew that profile! + +Had there been but one specimen of the familiar countenance, he +might have passed over the resemblance as accidental; but a +repetition meant more. Knight thought anew of Smith's hasty words +earlier in the day, and looked at the sketches again and again. + +On the young man's entry, Knight said with palpable agitation-- + +'Stephen, who are those intended for?' + +Stephen looked over the book with utter unconcern, 'Saints and +angels, done in my leisure moments. They were intended as designs +for the stained glass of an English church.' + +'But whom do you idealize by that type of woman you always adopt +for the Virgin?' + +'Nobody.' + +And then a thought raced along Stephen's mind and he looked up at +his friend. + +The truth is, Stephen's introduction of Elfride's lineaments had +been so unconscious that he had not at first understood his +companion's drift. The hand, like the tongue, easily acquires the +trick of repetition by rote, without calling in the mind to assist +at all; and this had been the case here. Young men who cannot +write verses about their Loves generally take to portraying them, +and in the early days of his attachment Smith had never been weary +of outlining Elfride. The lay-figure of Stephen's sketches now +initiated an adjustment of many things. Knight had recognized +her. The opportunity of comparing notes had come unsought. + +'Elfride Swancourt, to whom I was engaged,' he said quietly. + +'Stephen!' + +'I know what you mean by speaking like that.' + +'Was it Elfride? YOU the man, Stephen?' + +'Yes; and you are thinking why did I conceal the fact from you +that time at Endelstow, are you not?' + +'Yes, and more--more.' + +'I did it for the best; blame me if you will; I did it for the +best. And now say how could I be with you afterwards as I had +been before?' + +'I don't know at all; I can't say.' + +Knight remained fixed in thought, and once he murmured-- + +'I had a suspicion this afternoon that there might be some such +meaning in your words about my taking her away. But I dismissed +it. How came you to know her?' he presently asked, in almost a +peremptory tone. + +'I went down about the church; years ago now.' + +'When you were with Hewby, of course, of course. Well, I can't +understand it.' His tones rose. 'I don't know what to say, your +hoodwinking me like this for so long!' + +'I don't see that I have hoodwinked you at all.' + +'Yes, yes, but'---- + +Knight arose from his seat, and began pacing up and down the room. +His face was markedly pale, and his voice perturbed, as he said-- + +'You did not act as I should have acted towards you under those +circumstances. I feel it deeply; and I tell you plainly, I shall +never forget it!' + +'What?' + +'Your behaviour at that meeting in the family vault, when I told +you we were going to be married. Deception, dishonesty, +everywhere; all the world's of a piece!' + +Stephen did not much like this misconstruction of his motives, +even though it was but the hasty conclusion of a friend disturbed +by emotion. + +'I could do no otherwise than I did, with due regard to her,' he +said stiffly. + +'Indeed!' said Knight, in the bitterest tone of reproach. 'Nor +could you with due regard to her have married her, I suppose! I +have hoped--longed--that HE, who turns out to be YOU, would +ultimately have done that.' + +'I am much obliged to you for that hope. But you talk very +mysteriously. I think I had about the best reason anybody could +have had for not doing that.' + +'Oh, what reason was it?' + +'That I could not.' + +'You ought to have made an opportunity; you ought to do so now, in +bare justice to her, Stephen!' cried Knight, carried beyond +himself. 'That you know very well, and it hurts and wounds me +more than you dream to find you never have tried to make any +reparation to a woman of that kind--so trusting, so apt to be run +away with by her feelings--poor little fool, so much the worse for +her!' + +'Why, you talk like a madman! You took her away from me, did you +not?' + +'Picking up what another throws down can scarcely be called +"taking away." However, we shall not agree too well upon that +subject, so we had better part.' + +'But I am quite certain you misapprehend something most +grievously,' said Stephen, shaken to the bottom of his heart. +'What have I done; tell me? I have lost Elfride, but is that such +a sin?' + +'Was it her doing, or yours?' + +'Was what?' + +'That you parted.' + +'I will tell you honestly. It was hers entirely, entirely.' + +'What was her reason?' + +'I can hardly say. But I'll tell the story without reserve.' + +Stephen until to-day had unhesitatingly held that she grew tired +of him and turned to Knight; but he did not like to advance the +statement now, or even to think the thought. To fancy otherwise +accorded better with the hope to which Knight's estrangement had +given birth: that love for his friend was not the direct cause, +but a result of her suspension of love for himself. + +'Such a matter must not be allowed to breed discord between us,' +Knight returned, relapsing into a manner which concealed all his +true feeling, as if confidence now was intolerable. 'I do see +that your reticence towards me in the vault may have been dictated +by prudential considerations.' He concluded artificially, 'It was +a strange thing altogether; but not of much importance, I suppose, +at this distance of time; and it does not concern me now, though I +don't mind hearing your story.' + +These words from Knight, uttered with such an air of renunciation +and apparent indifference, prompted Smith to speak on--perhaps +with a little complacency--of his old secret engagement to +Elfride. He told the details of its origin, and the peremptory +words and actions of her father to extinguish their love. + +Knight persevered in the tone and manner of a disinterested +outsider. It had become more than ever imperative to screen his +emotions from Stephen's eye; the young man would otherwise be less +frank, and their meeting would be again embittered. What was the +use of untoward candour? + +Stephen had now arrived at the point in his ingenuous narrative +where he left the vicarage because of her father's manner. +Knight's interest increased. Their love seemed so innocent and +childlike thus far. + +'It is a nice point in casuistry,' he observed, 'to decide whether +you were culpable or not in not telling Swancourt that your +friends were parishioners of his. It was only human nature to +hold your tongue under the circumstances. Well, what was the +result of your dismissal by him?' + +'That we agreed to be secretly faithful. And to insure this we +thought we would marry.' + +Knight's suspense and agitation rose higher when Stephen entered +upon this phase of the subject. + +'Do you mind telling on?' he said, steadying his manner of speech. + +'Oh, not at all.' + +Then Stephen gave in full the particulars of the meeting with +Elfride at the railway station; the necessity they were under of +going to London, unless the ceremony were to be postponed. The +long journey of the afternoon and evening; her timidity and +revulsion of feeling; its culmination on reaching London; the +crossing over to the down-platform and their immediate departure +again, solely in obedience to her wish; the journey all night; +their anxious watching for the dawn; their arrival at St. Launce's +at last--were detailed. And he told how a village woman named +Jethway was the only person who recognized them, either going or +coming; and how dreadfully this terrified Elfride. He told how he +waited in the fields whilst this then reproachful sweetheart went +for her pony, and how the last kiss he ever gave her was given a +mile out of the town, on the way to Endelstow. + +These things Stephen related with a will. He believed that in +doing so he established word by word the reasonableness of his +claim to Elfride. + +'Curse her! curse that woman!--that miserable letter that parted +us! O God!' + +Knight began pacing the room again, and uttered this at further +end. + +'What did you say?' said Stephen, turning round. + +'Say? Did I say anything? Oh, I was merely thinking about your +story, and the oddness of my having a fancy for the same woman +afterwards. And that now I--I have forgotten her almost; and +neither of us care about her, except just as a friend, you know, +eh?' + +Knight still continued at the further end of the room, somewhat in +shadow. + +'Exactly,' said Stephen, inwardly exultant, for he was really +deceived by Knight's off-hand manner. + +Yet he was deceived less by the completeness of Knight's disguise +than by the persuasive power which lay in the fact that Knight had +never before deceived him in anything. So this supposition that +his companion had ceased to love Elfride was an enormous +lightening of the weight which had turned the scale against him. + +'Admitting that Elfride COULD love another man after you,' said +the elder, under the same varnish of careless criticism, 'she was +none the worse for that experience.' + +'The worse? Of course she was none the worse.' + +'Did you ever think it a wild and thoughtless thing for her to +do?' + +'Indeed, I never did,' said Stephen. 'I persuaded her. She saw +no harm in it until she decided to return, nor did I; nor was +there, except to the extent of indiscretion.' + +'Directly she thought it was wrong she would go no further?' + +'That was it. I had just begun to think it wrong too.' + +'Such a childish escapade might have been misrepresented by any +evil-disposed person, might it not?' + +'It might; but I never heard that it was. Nobody who really knew +all the circumstances would have done otherwise than smile. If +all the world had known it, Elfride would still have remained the +only one who thought her action a sin. Poor child, she always +persisted in thinking so, and was frightened more than enough.' + +'Stephen, do you love her now?' + +'Well, I like her; I always shall, you know,' he said evasively, +and with all the strategy love suggested. 'But I have not seen +her for so long that I can hardly be expected to love her. Do you +love her still?' + +'How shall I answer without being ashamed? What fickle beings we +men are, Stephen! Men may love strongest for a while, but women +love longest. I used to love her--in my way, you know.' + +'Yes, I understand. Ah, and I used to love her in my way. In +fact, I loved her a good deal at one time; but travel has a +tendency to obliterate early fancies.' + +'It has--it has, truly.' + +Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in this conversation was +the circumstance that, though each interlocutor had at first his +suspicions of the other's abiding passion awakened by several +little acts, neither would allow himself to see that his friend +might now be speaking deceitfully as well as he. + +'Stephen.' resumed Knight, 'now that matters are smooth between +us, I think I must leave you. You won't mind my hurrying off to +my quarters?' + +'You'll stay to some sort of supper surely? didn't you come to +dinner!' + +'You must really excuse me this once.' + +'Then you'll drop in to breakfast to-morrow.' + +'I shall be rather pressed for time.' + +'An early breakfast, which shall interfere with nothing?' + +'I'll come,' said Knight, with as much readiness as it was +possible to graft upon a huge stock of reluctance. 'Yes, early; +eight o'clock say, as we are under the same roof.' + +'Any time you like. Eight it shall be.' + +And Knight left him. To wear a mask, to dissemble his feelings as +he had in their late miserable conversation, was such torture that +he could support it no longer. It was the first time in Knight's +life that he had ever been so entirely the player of a part. And +the man he had thus deceived was Stephen, who had docilely looked +up to him from youth as a superior of unblemished integrity. + +He went to bed, and allowed the fever of his excitement to rage +uncontrolled. Stephen--it was only he who was the rival--only +Stephen! There was an anti-climax of absurdity which Knight, +wretched and conscience-stricken as he was, could not help +recognizing. Stephen was but a boy to him. Where the great grief +lay was in perceiving that the very innocence of Elfride in +reading her little fault as one so grave was what had fatally +misled him. Had Elfride, with any degree of coolness, asserted +that she had done no harm, the poisonous breath of the dead Mrs. +Jethway would have been inoperative. Why did he not make his +little docile girl tell more? If on that subject he had only +exercised the imperativeness customary with him on others, all +might have been revealed. It smote his heart like a switch when +he remembered how gently she had borne his scourging speeches, +never answering him with a single reproach, only assuring him of +her unbounded love. + +Knight blessed Elfride for her sweetness, and forgot her fault. +He pictured with a vivid fancy those fair summer scenes with her. +He again saw her as at their first meeting, timid at speaking, yet +in her eagerness to be explanatory borne forward almost against +her will. How she would wait for him in green places, without +showing any of the ordinary womanly affectations of indifference! +How proud she was to be seen walking with him, bearing legibly in +her eyes the thought that he was the greatest genius in the world! + +He formed a resolution; and after that could make pretence of +slumber no longer. Rising and dressing himself, he sat down and +waited for day. + +That night Stephen was restless too. Not because of the +unwontedness of a return to English scenery; not because he was +about to meet his parents, and settle down for awhile to English +cottage life. He was indulging in dreams, and for the nonce the +warehouses of Bombay and the plains and forts of Poonah were but a +shadow's shadow. His dream was based on this one atom of fact: +Elfride and Knight had become separated, and their engagement was +as if it had never been. Their rupture must have occurred soon +after Stephen's discovery of the fact of their union; and, Stephen +went on to think, what so probable as that a return of her errant +affection to himself was the cause? + +Stephen's opinions in this matter were those of a lover, and not +the balanced judgment of an unbiassed spectator. His naturally +sanguine spirit built hope upon hope, till scarcely a doubt +remained in his mind that her lingering tenderness for him had in +some way been perceived by Knight, and had provoked their parting. + +To go and see Elfride was the suggestion of impulses it was +impossible to withstand. At any rate, to run down from St. +Launce's to Castle Poterel, a distance of less than twenty miles, +and glide like a ghost about their old haunts, making stealthy +inquiries about her, would be a fascinating way of passing the +first spare hours after reaching home on the day after the morrow. + +He was now a richer man than heretofore, standing on his own +bottom; and the definite position in which he had rooted himself +nullified old local distinctions. He had become illustrious, even +sanguine clarus, judging from the tone of the worthy Mayor of St. +Launce's. + + + +Chapter XXXIX + +'Each to the loved one's side.' + + +The friends and rivals breakfasted together the next morning. Not +a word was said on either side upon the matter discussed the +previous evening so glibly and so hollowly. Stephen was absorbed +the greater part of the time in wishing he were not forced to stay +in town yet another day. + +'I don't intend to leave for St. Launce's till to-morrow, as you +know,' he said to Knight at the end of the meal. 'What are you +going to do with yourself to-day?' + +'I have an engagement just before ten,' said Knight deliberately; +'and after that time I must call upon two or three people.' + +'I'll look for you this evening,' said Stephen. + +'Yes, do. You may as well come and dine with me; that is, if we +can meet. I may not sleep in London to-night; in fact, I am +absolutely unsettled as to my movements yet. However, the first +thing I am going to do is to get my baggage shifted from this +place to Bede's Inn. Good-bye for the present. I'll write, you +know, if I can't meet you.' + +It now wanted a quarter to nine o'clock. When Knight was gone, +Stephen felt yet more impatient of the circumstance that another +day would have to drag itself away wearily before he could set out +for that spot of earth whereon a soft thought of him might perhaps +be nourished still. On a sudden he admitted to his mind the +possibility that the engagement he was waiting in town to keep +might be postponed without much harm. + +It was no sooner perceived than attempted. Looking at his watch, +he found it wanted forty minutes to the departure of the ten +o'clock train from Paddington, which left him a surplus quarter of +an hour before it would be necessary to start for the station. + +Scribbling a hasty note or two--one putting off the business +meeting, another to Knight apologizing for not being able to see +him in the evening--paying his bill, and leaving his heavier +luggage to follow him by goods-train, he jumped into a cab and +rattled off to the Great Western Station. + +Shortly afterwards he took his seat in the railway carriage. + +The guard paused on his whistle, to let into the next compartment +to Smith's a man of whom Stephen had caught but a hasty glimpse as +he ran across the platform at the last moment. + +Smith sank back into the carriage, stilled by perplexity. The man +was like Knight--astonishingly like him. Was it possible it could +be he? To have got there he must have driven like the wind to +Bede's Inn, and hardly have alighted before starting again. No, +it could not be he; that was not his way of doing things. + +During the early part of the journey Stephen Smith's thoughts +busied themselves till his brain seemed swollen. One subject was +concerning his own approaching actions. He was a day earlier than +his letter to his parents had stated, and his arrangement with +them had been that they should meet him at Plymouth; a plan which +pleased the worthy couple beyond expression. Once before the same +engagement had been made, which he had then quashed by ante-dating +his arrival. This time he would go right on to Castle Boterel; +ramble in that well-known neighbourhood during the evening and +next morning, making inquiries; and return to Plymouth to meet +them as arranged--a contrivance which would leave their cherished +project undisturbed, relieving his own impatience also. + +At Chippenham there was a little waiting, and some loosening and +attaching of carriages. + +Stephen looked out. At the same moment another man's head emerged +from the adjoining window. Each looked in the other's face. + +Knight and Stephen confronted one another. + +'You here!' said the younger man. + +'Yes. It seems that you are too,' said Knight, strangely. + +'Yes.' + +The selfishness of love and the cruelty of jealousy were fairly +exemplified at this moment. Each of the two men looked at his +friend as he had never looked at him before. Each was TROUBLED at +the other's presence. + +'I thought you said you were not coming till to-morrow,' remarked +Knight. + +'I did. It was an afterthought to come to-day. This journey was +your engagement, then?' + +'No, it was not. This is an afterthought of mine too. I left a +note to explain it, and account for my not being able to meet you +this evening as we arranged.' + +'So did I for you.' + +'You don't look well: you did not this morning.' + +'I have a headache. You are paler to-day than you were.' + +'I, too, have been suffering from headache. We have to wait here +a few minutes, I think.' + +They walked up and down the platform, each one more and more +embarrassingly concerned with the awkwardness of his friend's +presence. They reached the end of the footway, and paused in +sheer absent-mindedness. Stephen's vacant eyes rested upon the +operations of some porters, who were shifting a dark and curious- +looking van from the rear of the train, to shunt another which was +between it and the fore part of the train. This operation having +been concluded, the two friends returned to the side of their +carriage. + +'Will you come in here?' said Knight, not very warmly. + +'I have my rug and portmanteau and umbrella with me: it is rather +bothering to move now,' said Stephen reluctantly. 'Why not you +come here?' + +'I have my traps too. It is hardly worth while to shift them, for +I shall see you again, you know.' + +'Oh, yes.' + +And each got into his own place. Just at starting, a man on the +platform held up his hands and stopped the train. + +Stephen looked out to see what was the matter. + +One of the officials was exclaiming to another, 'That carriage +should have been attached again. Can't you see it is for the main +line? Quick! What fools there are in the world!' + +'What a confounded nuisance these stoppages are!' exclaimed Knight +impatiently, looking out from his compartment. 'What is it?' + +'That singular carriage we saw has been unfastened from our train +by mistake, it seems,' said Stephen. + +He was watching the process of attaching it. The van or carriage, +which he now recognized as having seen at Paddington before they +started, was rich and solemn rather than gloomy in aspect. It +seemed to be quite new, and of modern design, and its impressive +personality attracted the notice of others beside himself. He +beheld it gradually wheeled forward by two men on each side: +slower and more sadly it seemed to approach: then a slight +concussion, and they were connected with it, and off again. + +Stephen sat all the afternoon pondering upon the reason of +Knight's unexpected reappearance. Was he going as far as Castle +Boterel? If so, he could only have one object in view--a visit to +Elfride. And what an idea it seemed! + +At Plymouth Smith partook of a little refreshment, and then went +round to the side from which the train started for Camelton, the +new station near Castle Boterel and Endelstow. + +Knight was already there. + +Stephen walked up and stood beside him without speaking. Two men +at this moment crept out from among the wheels of the waiting +train. + +'The carriage is light enough,' said one in a grim tone. 'Light +as vanity; full of nothing.' + +'Nothing in size, but a good deal in signification,' said the +other, a man of brighter mind and manners. + +Smith then perceived that to their train was attached that same +carriage of grand and dark aspect which had haunted them all the +way from London. + +'You are going on, I suppose?' said Knight, turning to Stephen, +after idly looking at the same object. + +'Yes.' + +'We may as well travel together for the remaining distance, may we +not?' + +'Certainly we will;' and they both entered the same door. + +Evening drew on apace. It chanced to be the eve of St. +Valentine's--that bishop of blessed memory to youthful lovers--and +the sun shone low under the rim of a thick hard cloud, decorating +the eminences of the landscape with crowns of orange fire. As the +train changed its direction on a curve, the same rays stretched in +through the window, and coaxed open Knight's half-closed eyes. + +'You will get out at St. Launce's, I suppose?' he murmured. + +'No,' said Stephen, 'I am not expected till to-morrow.' Knight was +silent. + +'And you--are you going to Endelstow?' said the younger man +pointedly. + +'Since you ask, I can do no less than say I am, Stephen,' +continued Knight slowly, and with more resolution of manner than +he had shown all the day. 'I am going to Endelstow to see if +Elfride Swancourt is still free; and if so, to ask her to be my +wife.' + +'So am I,' said Stephen Smith. + +'I think you'll lose your labour,' Knight returned with decision. + +'Naturally you do.' There was a strong accent of bitterness in +Stephen's voice. 'You might have said HOPE instead of THINK,' he +added. + +'I might have done no such thing. I gave you my opinion. Elfride +Swancourt may have loved you once, no doubt, but it was when she +was so young that she hardly knew her own mind.' + +'Thank you,' said Stephen laconically. 'She knew her mind as well +as I did. We are the same age. If you hadn't interfered----' + +'Don't say that--don't say it, Stephen! How can you make out that +I interfered? Be just, please!' + +'Well,' said his friend, 'she was mine before she was yours--you +know that! And it seemed a hard thing to find you had got her, and +that if it had not been for you, all might have turned out well +for me.' Stephen spoke with a swelling heart, and looked out of +the window to hide the emotion that would make itself visible upon +his face. + +'It is absurd,' said Knight in a kinder tone, 'for you to look at +the matter in that light. What I tell you is for your good. You +naturally do not like to realize the truth--that her liking for +you was only a girl's first fancy, which has no root ever.' + +'It is not true!' said Stephen passionately. 'It was you put me +out. And now you'll be pushing in again between us, and depriving +me of my chance again! My right, that's what it is! How ungenerous +of you to come anew and try to take her away from me! When you had +won her, I did not interfere; and you might, I think, Mr. Knight, +do by me as I did by you!' + +'Don't "Mr." me; you are as well in the world as I am now.' + +'First love is deepest; and that was mine.' + +'Who told you that?' said Knight superciliously. + +'I had her first love. And it was through me that you and she +parted. I can guess that well enough.' + +'It was. And if I were to explain to you in what way that +operated in parting us, I should convince you that you do quite +wrong in intruding upon her--that, as I said at first, your labour +will be lost. I don't choose to explain, because the particulars +are painful. But if you won't listen to me, go on, for Heaven's +sake. I don't care what you do, my boy.' + +'You have no right to domineer over me as you do. Just because, +when I was a lad, I was accustomed to look up to you as a master, +and you helped me a little, for which I was grateful to you and +have loved you, you assume too much now, and step in before me. +It is cruel--it is unjust--of you to injure me so!' + +Knight showed himself keenly hurt at this. 'Stephen, those words +are untrue and unworthy of any man, and they are unworthy of you. +You know you wrong me. If you have ever profited by any +instruction of mine, I am only too glad to know it. You know it +was given ungrudgingly, and that I have never once looked upon it +as making you in any way a debtor to me.' + +Stephen's naturally gentle nature was touched, and it was in a +troubled voice that he said, 'Yes, yes. I am unjust in that--I +own it.' + +'This is St. Launce's Station, I think. Are you going to get +out?' + +Knight's manner of returning to the matter in hand drew Stephen +again into himself. 'No; I told you I was going to Endelstow,' he +resolutely replied. + +Knight's features became impassive, and he said no more. The +train continued rattling on, and Stephen leant back in his corner +and closed his eyes. The yellows of evening had turned to browns, +the dusky shades thickened, and a flying cloud of dust +occasionally stroked the window--borne upon a chilling breeze +which blew from the north-east. The previously gilded but now +dreary hills began to lose their daylight aspects of rotundity, +and to become black discs vandyked against the sky, all nature +wearing the cloak that six o'clock casts over the landscape at +this time of the year. + +Stephen started up in bewilderment after a long stillness, and it +was some time before he recollected himself. + +'Well, how real, how real!' he exclaimed, brushing his hand across +his eyes. + +'What is?' said Knight. + +'That dream. I fell asleep for a few minutes, and have had a +dream--the most vivid I ever remember.' + +He wearily looked out into the gloom. They were now drawing near +to Camelton. The lighting of the lamps was perceptible through +the veil of evening--each flame starting into existence at +intervals, and blinking weakly against the gusts of wind. + +'What did you dream?' said Knight moodily. + +'Oh, nothing to be told. 'Twas a sort of incubus. There is never +anything in dreams.' + +'I hardly supposed there was.' + +'I know that. However, what I so vividly dreamt was this, since +you would like to hear. It was the brightest of bright mornings +at East Endelstow Church, and you and I stood by the font. Far +away in the chancel Lord Luxellian was standing alone, cold and +impassive, and utterly unlike his usual self: but I knew it was +he. Inside the altar rail stood a strange clergyman with his book +open. He looked up and said to Lord Luxellian, "Where's the +bride?" Lord Luxellian said, "There's no bride." At that moment +somebody came in at the door, and I knew her to be Lady Luxellian +who died. He turned and said to her, "I thought you were in the +vault below us; but that could have only been a dream of mine. +Come on." Then she came on. And in brushing between us she +chilled me so with cold that I exclaimed, "The life is gone out of +me!" and, in the way of dreams, I awoke. But here we are at +Camelton.' + +They were slowly entering the station. + +'What are you going to do?' said Knight. 'Do you really intend to +call on the Swancourts?' + +'By no means. I am going to make inquiries first. I shall stay +at the Luxellian Arms to-night. You will go right on to +Endelstow, I suppose, at once?' + +'I can hardly do that at this time of the day. Perhaps you are +not aware that the family--her father, at any rate--is at variance +with me as much as with you. + +'I didn't know it.' + +'And that I cannot rush into the house as an old friend any more +than you can. Certainly I have the privileges of a distant +relationship, whatever they may be.' + +Knight let down the window, and looked ahead. 'There are a great +many people at the station,' he said. 'They seem all to be on the +look-out for us.' + +When the train stopped, the half-estranged friends could perceive +by the lamplight that the assemblage of idlers enclosed as a +kernel a group of men in black cloaks. A side gate in the +platform railing was open, and outside this stood a dark vehicle, +which they could not at first characterize. Then Knight saw on +its upper part forms against the sky like cedars by night, and +knew the vehicle to be a hearse. Few people were at the carriage +doors to meet the passengers--the majority had congregated at this +upper end. Knight and Stephen alighted, and turned for a moment +in the same direction. + +The sombre van, which had accompanied them all day from London, +now began to reveal that their destination was also its own. It +had been drawn up exactly opposite the open gate. The bystanders +all fell back, forming a clear lane from the gateway to the van, +and the men in cloaks entered the latter conveyance. + +'They are labourers, I fancy,' said Stephen. 'Ah, it is strange; +but I recognize three of them as Endelstow men. Rather remarkable +this.' + +Presently they began to come out, two and two; and under the rays +of the lamp they were seen to bear between them a light-coloured +coffin of satin-wood, brightly polished, and without a nail. The +eight men took the burden upon their shoulders, and slowly crossed +with it over to the gate. + +Knight and Stephen went outside, and came close to the procession +as it moved off. A carriage belonging to the cortege turned round +close to a lamp. The rays shone in upon the face of the vicar of +Endelstow, Mr. Swancourt--looking many years older than when they +had last seen him. Knight and Stephen involuntarily drew back. + +Knight spoke to a bystander. 'What has Mr. Swancourt to do with +that funeral?' + +'He is the lady's father,' said the bystander. + +'What lady's father?' said Knight, in a voice so hollow that the +man stared at him. + +'The father of the lady in the coffin. She died in London, you +know, and has been brought here by this train. She is to be taken +home to-night, and buried to-morrow.' + +Knight stood staring blindly at where the hearse had been; as if +he saw it, or some one, there. Then he turned, and beheld the +lithe form of Stephen bowed down like that of an old man. He took +his young friend's arm, and led him away from the light. + + + +Chapter XL + +'Welcome, proud lady.' + + +Half an hour has passed. Two miserable men are wandering in the +darkness up the miles of road from Camelton to Endelstow. + +'Has she broken her heart?' said Henry Knight. 'Can it be that I +have killed her? I was bitter with her, Stephen, and she has died! +And may God have NO mercy upon me!' + +'How can you have killed her more than I?' + +'Why, I went away from her--stole away almost--and didn't tell her +I should not come again; and at that last meeting I did not kiss +her once, but let her miserably go. I have been a fool--a fool! I +wish the most abject confession of it before crowds of my +countrymen could in any way make amends to my darling for the +intense cruelty I have shown her!' + +'YOUR darling!' said Stephen, with a sort of laugh. 'Any man can +say that, I suppose; any man can. I know this, she was MY darling +before she was yours; and after too. If anybody has a right to +call her his own, it is I.' + +'You talk like a man in the dark; which is what you are. Did she +ever do anything for you? Risk her name, for instance, for you?' + +Yes, she did,' said Stephen emphatically. + +'Not entirely. Did she ever live for you--prove she could not +live without you--laugh and weep for you?' + +'Yes.' + +'Never! Did she ever risk her life for you--no! My darling did for +me.' + +'Then it was in kindness only. When did she risk her life for +you?' + +'To save mine on the cliff yonder. The poor child was with me +looking at the approach of the Puffin steamboat, and I slipped +down. We both had a narrow escape. I wish we had died there!' + +'Ah, but wait,' Stephen pleaded with wet eyes. 'She went on that +cliff to see me arrive home: she had promised it. She told me she +would months before. And would she have gone there if she had not +cared for me at all?' + +'You have an idea that Elfride died for you, no doubt,' said +Knight, with a mournful sarcasm too nerveless to support itself. + +'Never mind. If we find that--that she died yours, I'll say no +more ever.' + +'And if we find she died yours, I'll say no more.' + +'Very well--so it shall be.' + +The dark clouds into which the sun had sunk had begun to drop rain +in an increasing volume. + +'Can we wait somewhere here till this shower is over?' said +Stephen desultorily. + +'As you will. But it is not worth while. We'll hear the +particulars, and return. Don't let people know who we are. I am +not much now.' + +They had reached a point at which the road branched into two--just +outside the west village, one fork of the diverging routes passing +into the latter place, the other stretching on to East Endelstow. +Having come some of the distance by the footpath, they now found +that the hearse was only a little in advance of them. + +'I fancy it has turned off to East Endelstow. Can you see?' + +'I cannot. You must be mistaken.' + +Knight and Stephen entered the village. A bar of fiery light lay +across the road, proceeding from the half-open door of a smithy, +in which bellows were heard blowing and a hammer ringing. The +rain had increased, and they mechanically turned for shelter +towards the warm and cosy scene. + +Close at their heels came another man, without over-coat or +umbrella, and with a parcel under his arm. + +'A wet evening,' he said to the two friends, and passed by them. +They stood in the outer penthouse, but the man went in to the +fire. + +The smith ceased his blowing, and began talking to the man who had +entered. + +'I have walked all the way from Camelton,' said the latter. 'Was +obliged to come to-night, you know.' + +He held the parcel, which was a flat one, towards the firelight, +to learn if the rain had penetrated it. Resting it edgewise on +the forge, he supported it perpendicularly with one hand, wiping +his face with the handkerchief he held in the other. + +'I suppose you know what I've got here?' he observed to the smith. + +'No, I don't,' said the smith, pausing again on his bellows. + +'As the rain's not over, I'll show you,' said the bearer. + +He laid the thin and broad package, which had acute angles in +different directions, flat upon the anvil, and the smith blew up +the fire to give him more light. First, after untying the +package, a sheet of brown paper was removed: this was laid flat. +Then he unfolded a piece of baize: this also he spread flat on the +paper. The third covering was a wrapper of tissue paper, which +was spread out in its turn. The enclosure was revealed, and he +held it up for the smith's inspection. + +'Oh--I see!' said the smith, kindling with a chastened interest, +and drawing close. 'Poor young lady--ah, terrible melancholy +thing--so soon too!' + +Knight and Stephen turned their heads and looked. + +'And what's that?' continued the smith. + +'That's the coronet--beautifully finished, isn't it? Ah, that cost +some money!' + +''Tis as fine a bit of metal work as ever I see--that 'tis.' + +'It came from the same people as the coffin, you know, but was not +ready soon enough to be sent round to the house in London +yesterday. I've got to fix it on this very night.' + +The carefully-packed articles were a coffin-plate and coronet. + +Knight and Stephen came forward. The undertaker's man, on seeing +them look for the inscription, civilly turned it round towards +them, and each read, almost at one moment, by the ruddy light of +the coals: + + +E L F R I D E, +Wife of Spenser Hugo Luxellian, +Fifteenth Baron Luxellian: +Died February 10, 18--. + + +They read it, and read it, and read it again--Stephen and Knight-- +as if animated by one soul. Then Stephen put his hand upon +Knight's arm, and they retired from the yellow glow, further, +further, till the chill darkness enclosed them round, and the +quiet sky asserted its presence overhead as a dim grey sheet of +blank monotony. + +'Where shall we go?' said Stephen. + +'I don't know.' + +A long silence ensued....'Elfride married!' said Stephen then in a +thin whisper, as if he feared to let the assertion loose on the +world. + +'False,' whispered Knight. + +'And dead. Denied us both. I hate "false"--I hate it!' + +Knight made no answer. + +Nothing was heard by them now save the slow measurement of time by +their beating pulses, the soft touch of the dribbling rain upon +their clothes, and the low purr of the blacksmith's bellows hard +by. + +'Shall we follow Elfie any further?' Stephen said. + +'No: let us leave her alone. She is beyond our love, and let her +be beyond our reproach. Since we don't know half the reasons that +made her do as she did, Stephen, how can we say, even now, that +she was not pure and true in heart?' Knight's voice had now become +mild and gentle as a child's. He went on: 'Can we call her +ambitious? No. Circumstance has, as usual, overpowered her +purposes--fragile and delicate as she--liable to be overthrown in +a moment by the coarse elements of accident. I know that's it,-- +don't you?' + +'It may be--it must be. Let us go on.' + +They began to bend their steps towards Castle Boterel, whither +they had sent their bags from Camelton. They wandered on in +silence for many minutes. Stephen then paused, and lightly put +his hand within Knight's arm. + +'I wonder how she came to die,' he said in a broken whisper. +'Shall we return and learn a little more?' + +They turned back again, and entering Endelstow a second time, came +to a door which was standing open. It was that of an inn called +the Welcome Home, and the house appeared to have been recently +repaired and entirely modernized. The name too was not that of +the same landlord as formerly, but Martin Cannister's. + +Knight and Smith entered. The inn was quite silent, and they +followed the passage till they reached the kitchen, where a huge +fire was burning, which roared up the chimney, and sent over the +floor, ceiling, and newly-whitened walls a glare so intense as to +make the candle quite a secondary light. A woman in a white apron +and black gown was standing there alone behind a cleanly-scrubbed +deal table. Stephen first, and Knight afterwards, recognized her +as Unity, who had been parlour-maid at the vicarage and young +lady's-maid at the Crags. + +'Unity,' said Stephen softly, 'don't you know me?' + +She looked inquiringly a moment, and her face cleared up. + +'Mr. Smith--ay, that it is!' she said. 'And that's Mr. Knight. I +beg you to sit down. Perhaps you know that since I saw you last I +have married Martin Cannister.' + +'How long have you been married?' + +'About five months. We were married the same day that my dear +Miss Elfie became Lady Luxellian.' Tears appeared in Unity's eyes, +and filled them, and fell down her cheek, in spite of efforts to +the contrary. + +The pain of the two men in resolutely controlling themselves when +thus exampled to admit relief of the same kind was distressing. +They both turned their backs and walked a few steps away. + +Then Unity said, 'Will you go into the parlour, gentlemen?' + +'Let us stay here with her,' Knight whispered, and turning said, +'No; we will sit here. We want to rest and dry ourselves here for +a time, if you please.' + +That evening the sorrowing friends sat with their hostess beside +the large fire, Knight in the recess formed by the chimney breast, +where he was in shade. And by showing a little confidence they +won hers, and she told them what they had stayed to hear--the +latter history of poor Elfride. + +'One day--after you, Mr. Knight, left us for the last time--she +was missed from the Crags, and her father went after her, and +brought her home ill. Where she went to, I never knew--but she +was very unwell for weeks afterwards. And she said to me that she +didn't care what became of her, and she wished she could die. +When she was better, I said she would live to be married yet, and +she said then, "Yes; I'll do anything for the benefit of my +family, so as to turn my useless life to some practical account." +Well, it began like this about Lord Luxellian courting her. The +first Lady Luxellian had died, and he was in great trouble because +the little girls were left motherless. After a while they used to +come and see her in their little black frocks, for they liked her +as well or better than their own mother---that's true. They used +to call her "little mamma." These children made her a shade +livelier, but she was not the girl she had been--I could see that-- +and she grew thinner a good deal. Well, my lord got to ask the +Swancourts oftener and oftener to dinner--nobody else of his +acquaintance--and at last the vicar's family were backwards and +forwards at all hours of the day. Well, people say that the +little girls asked their father to let Miss Elfride come and live +with them, and that he said perhaps he would if they were good +children. However, the time went on, and one day I said, "Miss +Elfride, you don't look so well as you used to; and though nobody +else seems to notice it I do." She laughed a little, and said, "I +shall live to be married yet, as you told me." + +'"Shall you, miss? I am glad to hear that," I said. + +'"Whom do you think I am going to be married to?" she said again. + +'"Mr. Knight, I suppose," said I. + +'"Oh!" she cried, and turned off so white, and afore I could get +to her she had sunk down like a heap of clothes, and fainted away. +Well, then, she came to herself after a time, and said, "Unity, +now we'll go on with our conversation." + +'"Better not to-day, miss," I said. + +'"Yes, we will," she said. "Whom do you think I am going to be +married to?" + +'"I don't know," I said this time. + +'"Guess," she said. + +'"'Tisn't my lord, is it?" says I. + +'"Yes, 'tis," says she, in a sick wild way. + +'"But he don't come courting much," I said. + +"'Ah! you don't know," she said, and told me 'twas going to be in +October. After that she freshened up a bit--whether 'twas with +the thought of getting away from home or not, I don't know. For, +perhaps, I may as well speak plainly, and tell you that her home +was no home to her now. Her father was bitter to her and harsh +upon her; and though Mrs. Swancourt was well enough in her way, +'twas a sort of cold politeness that was not worth much, and the +little thing had a worrying time of it altogether. About a month +before the wedding, she and my lord and the two children used to +ride about together upon horseback, and a very pretty sight they +were; and if you'll believe me, I never saw him once with her +unless the children were with her too--which made the courting so +strange-looking. Ay, and my lord is so handsome, you know, so +that at last I think she rather liked him; and I have seen her +smile and blush a bit at things he said. He wanted her the more +because the children did, for everybody could see that she would +be a most tender mother to them, and friend and playmate too. And +my lord is not only handsome, but a splendid courter, and up to +all the ways o't. So he made her the beautifullest presents; ah, +one I can mind--a lovely bracelet, with diamonds and emeralds. +Oh, how red her face came when she saw it! The old roses came back +to her cheeks for a minute or two then. I helped dress her the +day we both were married--it was the last service I did her, poor +child! When she was ready, I ran upstairs and slipped on my own +wedding gown, and away they went, and away went Martin and I; and +no sooner had my lord and my lady been married than the parson +married us. It was a very quiet pair of weddings--hardly anybody +knew it. Well, hope will hold its own in a young heart, if so be +it can; and my lady freshened up a bit, for my lord was SO +handsome and kind.' + +'How came she to die--and away from home?' murmured Knight. + +'Don't you see, sir, she fell off again afore they'd been married +long, and my lord took her abroad for change of scene. They were +coming home, and had got as far as London, when she was taken very +ill and couldn't be moved, and there she died.' + +'Was he very fond of her?' + +'What, my lord? Oh, he was!' + +'VERY fond of her?' + +'VERY, beyond everything. Not suddenly, but by slow degrees. +'Twas her nature to win people more when they knew her well. He'd +have died for her, I believe. Poor my lord, he's heart-broken +now!' + +'The funeral is to-morrow?' + +'Yes; my husband is now at the vault with the masons, opening the +steps and cleaning down the walls.' + + +The next day two men walked up the familiar valley from Castle +Boterel to East Endelstow Church. And when the funeral was over, +and every one had left the lawn-like churchyard, the pair went +softly down the steps of the Luxellian vault, and under the low- +groined arches they had beheld once before, lit up then as now. +In the new niche of the crypt lay a rather new coffin, which had +lost some of its lustre, and a newer coffin still, bright and +untarnished in the slightest degree. + +Beside the latter was the dark form of a man, kneeling on the damp +floor, his body flung across the coffin, his hands clasped, and +his whole frame seemingly given up in utter abandonment to grief. +He was still young--younger, perhaps, than Knight--and even now +showed how graceful was his figure and symmetrical his build. He +murmured a prayer half aloud, and was quite unconscious that two +others were standing within a few yards of him. + +Knight and Stephen had advanced to where they once stood beside +Elfride on the day all three had met there, before she had herself +gone down into silence like her ancestors, and shut her bright +blue eyes for ever. Not until then did they see the kneeling +figure in the dim light. Knight instantly recognized the mourner +as Lord Luxellian, the bereaved husband of Elfride. + +They felt themselves to be intruders. Knight pressed Stephen +back, and they silently withdrew as they had entered. + +'Come away,' he said, in a broken voice. 'We have no right to be +there. Another stands before us--nearer to her than we!' + +And side by side they both retraced their steps down the grey +still valley to Castle Boterel. + + + + + +The End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes + + diff --git a/old/pblue10.zip b/old/pblue10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..65549ab --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pblue10.zip |