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diff --git a/224-h/224-h.htm b/224-h/224-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..93e6647 --- /dev/null +++ b/224-h/224-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,23438 @@ +<!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" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy</title> + +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: A Pair of Blue Eyes</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Hardy</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March, 1995 [eBook #224]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 11, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: John Hamm</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PAIR OF BLUE EYES ***</div> + +<h1>A PAIR OF BLUE EYES</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Thomas Hardy</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="poem"> +“A violet in the youth of primy nature,<br/> +Forward, not permanent, sweet not lasting,<br/> +The perfume and suppliance of a minute;<br/> +No more.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_PREF">PREFACE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0001">Chapter I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0002">Chapter II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0003">Chapter III</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0004">Chapter IV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0005">Chapter V</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0006">Chapter VI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0007">Chapter VII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0008">Chapter VIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0009">Chapter IX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0010">Chapter X</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0011">Chapter XI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0012">Chapter XII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0013">Chapter XIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0014">Chapter XIV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0015">Chapter XV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0016">Chapter XVI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0017">Chapter XVII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0018">Chapter XVIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0019">Chapter XIX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0020">Chapter XX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0021">Chapter XXI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0022">Chapter XXII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0023">Chapter XXIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0024">Chapter XXIV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0025">Chapter XXV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0026">Chapter XXVI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0027">Chapter XXVII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0028">Chapter XXVIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0029">Chapter XXIX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0030">Chapter XXX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0031">Chapter XXXI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0032">Chapter XXXII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0033">Chapter XXXIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0034">Chapter XXXIV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0035">Chapter XXXV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0036">Chapter XXXVI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0037">Chapter XXXVII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0038">Chapter XXXVIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0039">Chapter XXXIX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0040">Chapter XL</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_PREF"></a> +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 mediævalism 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> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +T. H. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>March</i> 1899 +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE PERSONS +</p> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td>ELFRIDE SWANCOURT</td><td>a young Lady</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>CHRISTOPHER SWANCOURT</td><td>a Clergyman</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>STEPHEN SMITH</td><td>an Architect</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>HENRY KNIGHT</td><td>a Reviewer and Essayist</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>CHARLOTTE TROYTON</td><td>a rich Widow</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>GERTRUDE JETHWAY</td><td>a poor Widow</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>SPENSER HUGO LUXELLIAN</td><td>a Peer</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>LADY LUXELLIAN</td><td>his Wife</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>MARY AND KATE</td><td>two little Girls</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>WILLIAM WORM</td><td>a dazed Factotum</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>JOHN SMITH</td><td>a Master-mason</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>JANE SMITH</td><td>his Wife</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>MARTIN CANNISTER</td><td>a Sexton</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>UNITY</td><td>a Maid-servant</td> +</tr> + +</table> +<p class="center"> +Other servants, masons, labourers, grooms, nondescripts, etc., etc. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE SCENE <br /> <br /> Mostly on the outskirts of Lower Wessex. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0001"></a> +Chapter I</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“A fair vestal, throned in the west” +</p> + +<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 <i>monstrari digito</i> 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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0002"></a> +Chapter II</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“’Twas on the evening of a winter’s day.” +</p> + +<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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0003"></a> +Chapter III</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Melodious birds sing madrigals” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Je l’ai planté, je l’ai vu naître,<br/> +Ce beau rosier où les oiseaux,’ &c.; +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <i>really</i> 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> + +<p class="poem"> +“O Love, who bewailest<br/> + The frailty of all things here,<br/> +Why choose you the frailest<br/> + For your cradle, your home, and your bier!” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0004"></a> +<br/> +Chapter IV</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0005"></a> +<br/> +Chapter V</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Bosom’d high in tufted trees.” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="right"> +“PERCY PLACE, Thursday Evening. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +‘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, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“SIMPKINS JENKINS. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me—very awkward!” said Stephen, rather <i>en l’air</i>, 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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0006"></a> +<br/> +Chapter VI</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Fare thee weel awhile!” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0007"></a> +<br/> +Chapter VII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“No more of me you knew, my love!” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="poem"> +‘I sat her on my pacing steed,<br/> + And nothing else saw all day long,<br/> +For sidelong would she bend, and sing<br/> + A fairy’s song,<br/> +She found me roots of relish sweet,<br/> +And honey wild, and manna dew;’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and that’s all she did.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said the young man stilly, and with a rising colour. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘And sure in language strange she said,<br/> + I love thee true.’” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0008"></a> +<br/> +Chapter VIII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0009"></a> +<br/> +Chapter IX</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Her father did fume” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0010"></a> +<br/> +Chapter X</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Beneath the shelter of an aged tree.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0011"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XI</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Journeys end in lovers meeting.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0012"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Adieu! she cries, and waved her lily hand.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0013"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XIII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“He set in order many proverbs.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0014"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XIV</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“We frolic while ’tis May.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0015"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XV</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“A wandering voice.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0016"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XVI</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Then fancy shapes—as fancy can.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0017"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XVII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0018"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XVIII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“He heard her musical pants.” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Fear and be slain? no worse can come to fight;<br/> +And fight and die, is death destroying death!’ +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0019"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XIX</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Love was in the next degree.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0020"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XX</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“A distant dearness in the hill.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0021"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXI</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“On thy cold grey stones, O sea!” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="footnote"> +* See Preface +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0022"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“A woman’s way.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0023"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXIII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Should auld acquaintance be forgot?” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0024"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXIV</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0025"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXV</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Mine own familiar friend.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0026"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXVI</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“To that last nothing under earth.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0027"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXVII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“How should I greet thee?” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="poem"> +“Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;<br/> +Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.” +</p> + +<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 protegé, 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> + +<p class="poem"> +“For Thou, to make my fall more great,<br/> + Didst lift me up on high.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘My days, just hastening to their end,<br/> + Are like an evening shade;<br/> +My beauty doth, like wither’d grass,<br/> + With waning lustre fade.’” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0028"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXVIII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“I lull a fancy, trouble-tost.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0029"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXIX</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Care, thou canker.” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘To set as sets the morning star, which goes<br/> +Not down behind the darken’d west, nor hides<br/> +Obscured among the tempests of the sky,<br/> +But melts away into the light of heaven.’” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0030"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXX</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Vassal unto Love.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0031"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXXI</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“A worm i’ the bud.” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="poem"> +“Fool’d and beguiled: by him thou, I by thee!” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0032"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXXII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Had I wist before I kist” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0033"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXXIII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0034"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXXIV</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0035"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXXV</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“And wilt thou leave me thus?—say nay—say nay!” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="poem"> +“O last regret, regret can die!” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0036"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXXVI</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“The pennie’s the jewel that beautifies a’.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0037"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXXVII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“After many days.” +</p> + +<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 mediævalism, 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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0038"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXXVIII</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Jealousy is cruel as the grave.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0039"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XXXIX</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Each to the loved one’s side.” +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0040"></a> +<br/> +Chapter XL</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Welcome, proud lady.” +</p> + +<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> + +<p class="center"> +E L F R I D E,<br/> +Wife of Spenser Hugo Luxellian,<br/> +Fifteenth Baron Luxellian:<br/> +Died February 10, 18—. +</p> + +<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> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PAIR OF BLUE EYES ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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. 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