by Thomas Hardy
‘Oh, my Elfride!’ he exclaimed, and kissed her.
It was Elfride’s first kiss. And so awkward and unused was she; full of striving — no relenting. There was none of those apparent struggles to get out of the trap which only results in getting further in: no final attitude of receptivity: no easy close of shoulder to shoulder, hand upon hand, face upon face, and, in spite of coyness, the lips in the right place at the supreme moment. That graceful though apparently accidental falling into position, which many have noticed as precipitating the end and making sweethearts the sweeter, was not here. Why? Because experience was absent. A woman must have had many kisses before she kisses well.
In fact, the art of tendering the lips for these amatory salutes follows the principles laid down in treatises on legerdemain for performing the trick called Forcing a Card. The card is to be shifted nimbly, withdrawn, edged under, and withal not to be offered till the moment the unsuspecting person’s hand reaches the pack; this forcing to be done so modestly and yet so coaxingly, that the person trifled with imagines he is really choosing what is in fact thrust into his hand.
Well, there were no such facilities now; and Stephen was conscious of it — first with a momentary regret that his kiss should be spoilt by her confused receipt of it, and then with the pleasant perception that her awkwardness was her charm.
‘And you do care for me and love me?’ said he.
‘Yes.’
‘Very much?’
‘Yes.’
‘And I mustn’t ask you if you’ll wait for me, and be my wife some day?’
‘Why not?’ she said naively.
‘There is a reason why, my Elfride.’
‘Not any one that I know of.’
‘Suppose there is something connected with me which makes it almost impossible for you to agree to be my wife, or for your father to countenance such an idea?’
‘Nothing shall make me cease to love you: no blemish can be found upon your personal nature. That is pure and generous, I know; and having that, how can I be cold to you?’
‘And shall nothing else affect us — shall nothing beyond my nature be a part of my quality in your eyes, Elfie?’
‘Nothing whatever,’ she said with a breath of relief. ‘Is that all? Some outside circumstance? What do I care?’
‘You can hardly judge, dear, till you know what has to be judged. For that, we will stop till we get home. I believe in you, but I cannot feel bright.’
‘Love is new, and fresh to us as the dew; and we are together. As the lover’s world goes, this is a great deal. Stephen, I fancy I see the difference between me and you — between men and women generally, perhaps. I am content to build happiness on any accidental basis that may lie near at hand; you are for making a world to suit your happiness.’
‘Elfride, you sometimes say things which make you seem suddenly to become five years older than you are, or than I am; and that remark is one. I couldn’t think so OLD as that, try how I might....And no lover has ever kissed you before?’
‘Never.’
‘I knew that; you were so unused. You ride well, but you don’t kiss nicely at all; and I was told once, by my friend Knight, that that is an excellent fault in woman.’
‘Now, come; I must mount again, or we shall not be home by dinner-time.’ And they returned to where Pansy stood tethered. ‘Instead of entrusting my weight to a young man’s unstable palm,’ she continued gaily, ‘I prefer a surer “upping-stock” (as the villagers call it), in the form of a gate. There — now I am myself again.’
They proceeded homeward at the same walking pace.
Her blitheness won Stephen out of his thoughtfulness, and each forgot everything but the tone of the moment.
‘What did you love me for?’ she said, after a long musing look at a flying bird.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied idly.
‘Oh yes, you do,’ insisted Elfride.
‘Perhaps, for your eyes.’
‘What of them? — now, don’t vex me by a light answer. What of my eyes?’
‘Oh, nothing to be mentioned. They are indifferently good.’
‘Come, Stephen, I won’t have that. What did you love me for?’
‘It might have been for your mouth?’
‘Well, what about my mouth?’
‘I thought it was a passable mouth enough — — ’
‘That’s not very comforting.’
‘With a pretty pout and sweet lips; but actually, nothing more than what everybody has.’
‘Don’t make up things out of your head as you go on, there’s a dear Stephen. Now — what — did — you — love — me — for?’
‘Perhaps, ‘twas for your neck and hair; though I am not sure: or for your idle blood, that did nothing but wander away from your cheeks and back again; but I am not sure. Or your hands and arms, that they eclipsed all other hands and arms; or your feet, that they played about under your dress like little mice; or your tongue, that it was of a dear delicate tone. But I am not altogether sure.’
‘Ah, that’s pretty to say; but I don’t care for your love, if it made a mere flat picture of me in that way, and not being sure, and such cold reasoning; but what you FELT I was, you know, Stephen’ (at this a stealthy laugh and frisky look into his face), ‘when you said to yourself, “I’ll certainly love that young lady.”‘
‘I never said it.’
‘When you said to yourself, then, “I never will love that young lady.”‘
‘I didn’t say that, either.’
‘Then was it, “I suppose I must love that young lady?”‘
‘No.’
‘What, then?’
‘‘Twas much more fluctuating — not so definite.’
‘Tell me; do, do.’
‘It was that I ought not to think about you if I loved you truly.’
‘Ah, that I don’t understand. There’s no getting it out of you. And I’ll not ask you ever any more — never more — to say out of the deep reality of your heart what you loved me for.’
‘Sweet tantaliser, what’s the use? It comes to this sole simple thing: That at one time I had never seen you, and I didn’t love you; that then I saw you, and I did love you. Is that enough?’
‘Yes; I will make it do....I know, I think, what I love you for. You are nice-looking, of course; but I didn’t mean for that. It is because you are so docile and gentle.’
‘Those are not quite the correct qualities for a man to be loved for,’ said Stephen, in rather a dissatisfied tone of self-criticism. ‘Well, never mind. I must ask your father to allow us to be engaged directly we get indoors. It will be for a long time.’
‘I like it the better....Stephen, don’t mention it till to-morrow.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, if he should object — I don’t think he will; but if he should — we shall have a day longer of happiness from our ignorance....Well, what are you thinking of so deeply?’
‘I was thinking how my dear friend Knight would enjoy this scene. I wish he could come here.’
‘You seem very much engrossed with him,’ she answered, with a jealous little toss. ‘He must be an interesting man to take up so much of your attention.’
‘Interesting!’ said Stephen, his face glowing with his fervour; ‘noble, you ought to say.’
‘Oh yes, yes; I forgot,’ she said half satirically. ‘The noblest man in England, as you told us last night.’
‘He is a fine fellow, laugh as you will, Miss Elfie.’
‘I know he is your hero. But what does he do? anything?’
‘He writes.’
‘What does he write? I have never heard of his name.’
‘Because his personality, and that of several others like him, is absorbed into a huge WE, namely, the impalpable entity called the PRESENT — a social and literary Review.’
‘Is he only a reviewer?’
‘ONLY, Elfie! Why, I can tell you it is a fine thing to be on the staff of the PRESENT. Finer
than being a novelist considerably.’
‘That’s a hit at me, and my poor COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE.’
‘No, Elfride,’ he whispered; ‘I didn’t mean that. I mean that he is really a literary man of some eminence, and not altogether a reviewer. He writes things of a higher class than reviews, though he reviews a book occasionally. His ordinary productions are social and ethical essays — all that the PRESENT contains which is not literary reviewing.’
‘I admit he must be talented if he writes for the PRESENT. We have it sent to us irregularly. I want papa to be a subscriber, but he’s so conservative. Now the next point in this Mr. Knight — I suppose he is a very good man.’
‘An excellent man. I shall try to be his intimate friend some day.’
‘But aren’t you now?’
‘No; not so much as that,’ replied Stephen, as if such a supposition were extravagant. ‘You see, it was in this way — he came originally from the same place as I, and taught me things; but I am not intimate with him. Shan’t I be glad when I get richer and better known, and hob and nob with him!’ Stephen’s eyes sparkled.
A pout began to shape itself upon Elfride’s soft lips. ‘You think always of him, and like him better than you do me!’
‘No, indeed, Elfride. The feeling is different quite. But I do like him, and he deserves even more affection from me than I give.’
‘You are not nice now, and you make me as jealous as possible!’ she exclaimed perversely. ‘I know you will never speak to any third person of me so warmly as you do to me of him.’
‘But you don’t understand, Elfride,’ he said with an anxious movement. ‘You shall know him some day. He is so brilliant — no, it isn’t exactly brilliant; so thoughtful — nor does thoughtful express him — that it would charm you to talk to him. He’s a most desirable friend, and that isn’t half I could say.’
‘I don’t care how good he is; I don’t want to know him, because he comes between me and you. You think of him night and day, ever so much more than of anybody else; and when you are thinking of him, I am shut out of your mind.’
‘No, dear Elfride; I love you dearly.’
‘And I don’t like you to tell me so warmly about him when you are in the middle of loving me. Stephen, suppose that I and this man Knight of yours were both drowning, and you could only save one of us — — ’
‘Yes — the stupid old proposition — which would I save?
‘Well, which? Not me.’
‘Both of you,’ he said, pressing her pendent hand.
‘No, that won’t do; only one of us.’
‘I cannot say; I don’t know. It is disagreeable — quite a horrid idea to have to handle.’
‘A-ha, I know. You would save him, and let me drown, drown, drown; and I don’t care about your love!’
She had endeavoured to give a playful tone to her words, but the latter speech was rather forced in its gaiety.
At this point in the discussion she trotted off to turn a corner which was avoided by the footpath, the road and the path reuniting at a point a little further on. On again making her appearance she continually managed to look in a direction away from him, and left him in the cool shade of her displeasure. Stephen was soon beaten at this game of indifference. He went round and entered the range of her vision.
‘Are you offended, Elfie? Why don’t you talk?’
‘Save me, then, and let that Mr. Clever of yours drown. I hate him. Now, which would you?’
‘Really, Elfride, you should not press such a hard question. It is ridiculous.’
‘Then I won’t be alone with you any more. Unkind, to wound me so!’ She laughed at her own absurdity but persisted.
‘Come, Elfie, let’s make it up and be friends.’
‘Say you would save me, then, and let him drown.’
‘I would save you — and him too.’
‘And let him drown. Come, or you don’t love me!’ she teasingly went on.
‘And let him drown,’ he ejaculated despairingly.
‘There; now I am yours!’ she said, and a woman’s flush of triumph lit her eyes.
‘Only one earring, miss, as I’m alive,’ said Unity on their entering the hall.
With a face expressive of wretched misgiving, Elfride’s hand flew like an arrow to her ear.
‘There!’ she exclaimed to Stephen, looking at him with eyes full of reproach.
‘I quite forgot, indeed. If I had only remembered!’ he answered, with a conscience-stricken face.
She wheeled herself round, and turned into the shrubbery. Stephen followed.
‘If you had told me to watch anything, Stephen, I should have religiously done it,’ she capriciously went on, as soon as she heard him behind her.
‘Forgetting is forgivable.’
‘Well, you will find it, if you want me to respect you and be engaged to you when we have asked papa.’ She considered a moment, and added more seriously, ‘I know now where I dropped it, Stephen. It was on the cliff. I remember a faint sensation of some change about me, but I was too absent to think of it then. And that’s where it is now, and you must go and look there.’
‘I’ll go at once.’
And he strode away up the valley, under a broiling sun and amid the deathlike silence of early afternoon. He ascended, with giddy-paced haste, the windy range of rocks to where they had sat, felt and peered about the stones and crannies, but Elfride’s stray jewel was nowhere to be seen. Next Stephen slowly retraced his steps, and, pausing at a cross-road to reflect a while, he left the plateau and struck downwards across some fields, in the direction of Endelstow House.
He walked along the path by the river without the slightest hesitation as to its bearing, apparently quite familiar with every inch of the ground. As the shadows began to lengthen and the sunlight to mellow, he passed through two wicket-gates, and drew near the outskirts of Endelstow Park. The river now ran along under the park fence, previous to entering the grove itself, a little further on.
Here stood a cottage, between the fence and the stream, on a slightly elevated spot of ground, round which the river took a turn. The characteristic feature of this snug habitation was its one chimney in the gable end, its squareness of form disguised by a huge cloak of ivy, which had grown so luxuriantly and extended so far from its base, as to increase the apparent bulk of the chimney to the dimensions of a tower. Some little distance from the back of the house rose the park boundary, and over this were to be seen the sycamores of the grove, making slow inclinations to the just-awakening air.
Stephen crossed the little wood bridge in front, went up to the cottage door, and opened it without knock or signal of any kind.
Exclamations of welcome burst from some person or persons when the door was thrust ajar, followed by the scrape of chairs on a stone floor, as if pushed back by their occupiers in rising from a table. The door was closed again, and nothing could now be heard from within, save a lively chatter and the rattle of plates.
CHAPTER VIII
‘Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord.’
The mists were creeping out of pools and swamps for their pilgrimages of the night when Stephen came up to the front door of the vicarage. Elfride was standing on the step illuminated by a lemon-hued expanse of western sky.
‘You never have been all this time looking for that earring?’ she said anxiously.
‘Oh no; and I have not found it.’
‘Never mind. Though I am much vexed; they are my prettiest. But, Stephen, what ever have you been doing — where have you been? I have been so uneasy. I feared for you, knowing not an inch of the country. I thought, suppose he has fallen over the cliff! But now I am inclined to scold you for frightening me so.’
‘I must speak to your father now,’ he said rather abruptly; ‘I have so much to say to him — and to you, Elfride.’
‘Will what you have to say endanger this nice time of ours, and is it that same shadowy secret you allude to so frequently, and will it make me unhap
py?’
‘Possibly.’
She breathed heavily, and looked around as if for a prompter.
‘Put it off till to-morrow,’ she said.
He involuntarily sighed too.
‘No; it must come to-night. Where is your father, Elfride?’
‘Somewhere in the kitchen garden, I think,’ she replied. ‘That is his favourite evening retreat. I will leave you now. Say all that’s to be said — do all there is to be done. Think of me waiting anxiously for the end.’ And she re-entered the house.
She waited in the drawing-room, watching the lights sink to shadows, the shadows sink to darkness, until her impatience to know what had occurred in the garden could no longer be controlled. She passed round the shrubbery, unlatched the garden door, and skimmed with her keen eyes the whole twilighted space that the four walls enclosed and sheltered: they were not there. She mounted a little ladder, which had been used for gathering fruit, and looked over the wall into the field. This field extended to the limits of the glebe, which was enclosed on that side by a privet-hedge. Under the hedge was Mr. Swancourt, walking up and down, and talking aloud — to himself, as it sounded at first. No: another voice shouted occasional replies; and this interlocutor seemed to be on the other side of the hedge. The voice, though soft in quality, was not Stephen’s.
The second speaker must have been in the long-neglected garden of an old manor-house hard by, which, together with a small estate attached, had lately been purchased by a person named Troyton, whom Elfride had never seen. Her father might have struck up an acquaintanceship with some member of that family through the privet-hedge, or a stranger to the neighbourhood might have wandered thither.
Well, there was no necessity for disturbing him.
And it seemed that, after all, Stephen had not yet made his desired communication to her father. Again she went indoors, wondering where Stephen could be. For want of something better to do, she went upstairs to her own little room. Here she sat down at the open window, and, leaning with her elbow on the table and her cheek upon her hand, she fell into meditation.
It was a hot and still August night. Every disturbance of the silence which rose to the dignity of a noise could be heard for miles, and the merest sound for a long distance. So she remained, thinking of Stephen, and wishing he had not deprived her of his company to no purpose, as it appeared. How delicate and sensitive he was, she reflected; and yet he was man enough to have a private mystery, which considerably elevated him in her eyes. Thus, looking at things with an inward vision, she lost consciousness of the flight of time.
