by Thomas Hardy
‘I will not say another word about it.’
‘And you will not think about it, either, will you? I know you think of weaknesses in me after I am out of your sight; and not knowing what they are, I cannot combat them. I almost wish you were of a grosser nature, Harry; in truth I do! Or rather, I wish I could have the advantages such a nature in you would afford me, and yet have you as you are.’
‘What advantages would they be?’
‘Less anxiety, and more security. Ordinary men are not so delicate in their tastes as you; and where the lover or husband is not fastidious, and refined, and of a deep nature, things seem to go on better, I fancy — as far as I have been able to observe the world.’
‘Yes; I suppose it is right. Shallowness has this advantage, that you can’t be drowned there.’
‘But I think I’ll have you as you are; yes, I will!’ she said winsomely. ‘The practical husbands and wives who take things philosophically are very humdrum, are they not? Yes, it would kill me quite. You please me best as you are.’
‘Even though I wish you had never cared for one before me?’
‘Yes. And you must not wish it. Don’t!’
‘I’ll try not to, Elfride.’
So she hoped, but her heart was troubled. If he felt so deeply on this point, what would he say did he know all, and see it as Mrs. Jethway saw it? He would never make her the happiest girl in the world by taking her to be his own for aye. The thought enclosed her as a tomb whenever it presented itself to her perturbed brain. She tried to believe that Mrs. Jethway would never do her such a cruel wrong as to increase the bad appearance of her folly by innuendoes; and concluded that concealment, having been begun, must be persisted in, if possible. For what he might consider as bad as the fact, was her previous concealment of it by strategy.
But Elfride knew Mrs. Jethway to be her enemy, and to hate her. It was possible she would do her worst. And should she do it, all might be over.
Would the woman listen to reason, and be persuaded not to ruin one who had never intentionally harmed her?
It was night in the valley between Endelstow Crags and the shore. The brook which trickled that way to the sea was distinct in its murmurs now, and over the line of its course there began to hang a white riband of fog. Against the sky, on the left hand of the vale, the black form of the church could be seen. On the other rose hazel-bushes, a few trees, and where these were absent, furze tufts — as tall as men — on stems nearly as stout as timber. The shriek of some bird was occasionally heard, as it flew terror-stricken from its first roost, to seek a new sleeping-place, where it might pass the night unmolested.
In the evening shade, some way down the valley, and under a row of scrubby oaks, a cottage could still be discerned. It stood absolutely alone. The house was rather large, and the windows of some of the rooms were nailed up with boards on the outside, which gave a particularly deserted appearance to the whole erection. From the front door an irregular series of rough and misshapen steps, cut in the solid rock, led down to the edge of the streamlet, which, at their extremity, was hollowed into a basin through which the water trickled. This was evidently the means of water supply to the dweller or dwellers in the cottage.
A light footstep was heard descending from the higher slopes of the hillside. Indistinct in the pathway appeared a moving female shape, who advanced and knocked timidly at the door. No answer being returned the knock was repeated, with the same result, and it was then repeated a third time. This also was unsuccessful.
From one of the only two windows on the ground floor which were not boarded up came rays of light, no shutter or curtain obscuring the room from the eyes of a passer on the outside. So few walked that way after nightfall that any such means to secure secrecy were probably deemed unnecessary.
The inequality of the rays falling upon the trees outside told that the light had its origin in a flickering fire only. The visitor, after the third knocking, stepped a little to the left in order to gain a view of the interior, and threw back the hood from her face. The dancing yellow sheen revealed the fair and anxious countenance of Elfride.
Inside the house this firelight was enough to illumine the room distinctly, and to show that the furniture of the cottage was superior to what might have been expected from so unpromising an exterior. It also showed to Elfride that the room was empty. Beyond the light quiver and flap of the flames nothing moved or was audible therein.
She turned the handle and entered, throwing off the cloak which enveloped her, under which she appeared without hat or bonnet, and in the sort of half-toilette country people ordinarily dine in. Then advancing to the foot of the staircase she called distinctly, but somewhat fearfully, ‘Mrs. Jethway!’
No answer.
With a look of relief and regret combined, denoting that ease came to the heart and disappointment to the brain, Elfride paused for several minutes, as if undecided how to act. Determining to wait, she sat down on a chair. The minutes drew on, and after sitting on the thorns of impatience for half an hour, she searched her pocket, took therefrom a letter, and tore off the blank leaf. Then taking out a pencil she wrote upon the paper:
‘DEAR MRS. JETHWAY, — I have been to visit you. I wanted much to see you, but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to execute the threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway, let any one know I ran away from home! It would ruin me with him, and break my heart. I will do anything for you, if you will be kind to me. In the name of our common womanhood, do not, I implore you, make a scandal of me. — Yours, E. SWANCOURT.’
She folded the note cornerwise, directed it, and placed it on the table. Then again drawing the hood over her curly head she emerged silently as she had come.
Whilst this episode had been in action at Mrs. Jethway’s cottage, Knight had gone from the dining-room into the drawing-room, and found Mrs. Swancourt there alone.
‘Elfride has vanished upstairs or somewhere,’ she said.
‘And I have been reading an article in an old number of the PRESENT that I lighted on by chance a short time ago; it is an article you once told us was yours. Well, Harry, with due deference to your literary powers, allow me to say that this effusion is all nonsense, in my opinion.’
‘What is it about?’ said Knight, taking up the paper and reading.
‘There: don’t get red about it. Own that experience has taught you to be more charitable. I have never read such unchivalrous sentiments in my life — from a man, I mean. There, I forgive you; it was before you knew Elfride.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Knight, looking up. ‘I remember now. The text of that sermon was not my own at all, but was suggested to me by a young man named Smith — the same whom I have mentioned to you as coming from this parish. I thought the idea rather ingenious at the time, and enlarged it to the weight of a few guineas, because I had nothing else in my head.’
‘Which idea do you call the text? I am curious to know that.’
‘Well, this,’ said Knight, somewhat unwillingly. ‘That experience teaches, and your sweetheart, no less than your tailor, is necessarily very imperfect in her duties, if you are her first patron: and conversely, the sweetheart who is graceful under the initial kiss must be supposed to have had some practice in the trade.’
‘And do you mean to say that you wrote that upon the strength of another man’s remark, without having tested it by practice?’
‘Yes — indeed I do.’
‘Then I think it was uncalled for and unfair. And how do you know it is true? I expect you regret it now.’
‘Since you bring me into a serious mood, I will speak candidly. I do believe that remark to be perfectly true, and, having written it, I would defend it anywhere. But I do often regret having ever written it, as well as others of the sort. I have grown older since, and I find such a tone of writing is calculated to do harm in the world. Every literary Jack becomes a gentleman if he can only pen a few indifferent satires upon womankind: women themselves,
too, have taken to the trick; and so, upon the whole, I begin to be rather ashamed of my companions.’
‘Ah, Henry, you have fallen in love since and it makes a difference,’ said Mrs. Swancourt with a faint tone of banter.
‘That’s true; but that is not my reason.’
‘Having found that, in a case of your own experience, a so-called goose was a swan, it seems absurd to deny such a possibility in other men’s experiences.’
‘You can hit palpably, cousin Charlotte,’ said Knight. ‘You are like the boy who puts a stone inside his snowball, and I shall play with you no longer. Excuse me — I am going for my evening stroll.’
Though Knight had spoken jestingly, this incident and conversation had caused him a sudden depression. Coming, rather singularly, just after his discovery that Elfride had known what it was to love warmly before she had known him, his mind dwelt upon the subject, and the familiar pipe he smoked, whilst pacing up and down the shrubbery-path, failed to be a solace. He thought again of those idle words — hitherto quite forgotten — about the first kiss of a girl, and the theory seemed more than reasonable. Of course their sting now lay in their bearing on Elfride.
Elfride, under Knight’s kiss, had certainly been a very different woman from herself under Stephen’s. Whether for good or for ill, she had marvellously well learnt a betrothed lady’s part; and the fascinating finish of her deportment in this second campaign did probably arise from her unreserved encouragement of Stephen. Knight, with all the rapidity of jealous sensitiveness, pounced upon some words she had inadvertently let fall about an earring, which he had only partially understood at the time. It was during that ‘initial kiss’ by the little waterfall:
‘We must be careful. I lost the other by doing this!’
A flush which had in it as much of wounded pride as of sorrow, passed over Knight as he thought of what he had so frequently said to her in his simplicity. ‘I always meant to be the first comer in a woman’s heart, fresh lips or none for me.’ How childishly blind he must have seemed to this mere girl! How she must have laughed at him inwardly! He absolutely writhed as he thought of the confession she had wrung from him on the boat in the darkness of night. The one conception which had sustained his dignity when drawn out of his shell on that occasion — that of her charming ignorance of all such matters — how absurd it was!
This man, whose imagination had been fed up to preternatural size by lonely study and silent observations of his kind — whose emotions had been drawn out long and delicate by his seclusion, like plants in a cellar — was now absolutely in pain. Moreover, several years of poetic study, and, if the truth must be told, poetic efforts, had tended to develop the affective side of his constitution still further, in proportion to his active faculties. It was his belief in the absolute newness of blandishment to Elfride which had constituted her primary charm. He began to think it was as hard to be earliest in a woman’s heart as it was to be first in the Pool of Bethesda.
That Knight should have been thus constituted: that Elfride’s second lover should not have been one of the great mass of bustling mankind, little given to introspection, whose good-nature might have compensated for any lack of appreciativeness, was the chance of things. That her throbbing, self-confounding, indiscreet heart should have to defend itself unaided against the keen scrutiny and logical power which Knight, now that his suspicions were awakened, would sooner or later be sure to exercise against her, was her misfortune. A miserable incongruity was apparent in the circumstance of a strong mind practising its unerring archery upon a heart which the owner of that mind loved better than his own.
Elfride’s docile devotion to Knight was now its own enemy. Clinging to him so dependently, she taught him in time to presume upon that devotion — a lesson men are not slow to learn. A slight rebelliousness occasionally would have done him no harm, and would have been a world of advantage to her. But she idolized him, and was proud to be his bond-servant.
CHAPTER XXXI
‘A worm i’ the bud.’
One day the reviewer said, ‘Let us go to the cliffs again, Elfride;’ and, without consulting her wishes, he moved as if to start at once.
‘The cliff of our dreadful adventure?’ she inquired, with a shudder. ‘Death stares me in the face in the person of that cliff.’
Nevertheless, so entirely had she sunk her individuality in his that the remark was not uttered as an expostulation, and she immediately prepared to accompany him.
‘No, not that place,’ said Knight. ‘It is ghastly to me, too. That other, I mean; what is its name? — Windy Beak.’
Windy Beak was the second cliff in height along that coast, and, as is frequently the case with the natural features of the globe no less than with the intellectual features of men, it enjoyed the reputation of being the first. Moreover, it was the cliff to which Elfride had ridden with Stephen Smith, on a well-remembered morning of his summer visit.
So, though thought of the former cliff had caused her to shudder at the perils to which her lover and herself had there been exposed, by being associated with Knight only it was not so objectionable as Windy Beak. That place was worse than gloomy, it was a perpetual reproach to her.
But not liking to refuse, she said, ‘It is further than the other cliff.’
‘Yes; but you can ride.’
‘And will you too?’
‘No, I’ll walk.’
A duplicate of her original arrangement with Stephen. Some fatality must be hanging over her head. But she ceased objecting.
‘Very well, Harry, I’ll ride,’ she said meekly.
A quarter of an hour later she was in the saddle. But how different the mood from that of the former time. She had, indeed, given up her position as queen of the less to be vassal of the greater. Here was no showing off now; no scampering out of sight with Pansy, to perplex and tire her companion; no saucy remarks on LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. Elfride was burdened with the very intensity of her love.
Knight did most of the talking along the journey. Elfride silently listened, and entirely resigned herself to the motions of the ambling horse upon which she sat, alternately rising and sinking gently, like a sea bird upon a sea wave.
When they had reached the limit of a quadruped’s possibilities in walking, Knight tenderly lifted her from the saddle, tied the horse, and rambled on with her to the seat in the rock. Knight sat down, and drew Elfride deftly beside him, and they looked over the sea.
Two or three degrees above that melancholy and eternally level line, the ocean horizon, hung a sun of brass, with no visible rays, in a sky of ashen hue. It was a sky the sun did not illuminate or enkindle, as is usual at sunsets. This sheet of sky was met by the salt mass of gray water, flecked here and there with white. A waft of dampness occasionally rose to their faces, which was probably rarefied spray from the blows of the sea upon the foot of the cliff.
Elfride wished it could be a longer time ago that she had sat there with Stephen as her lover, and agreed to be his wife. The significant closeness of that time to the present was another item to add to the list of passionate fears which were chronic with her now.
Yet Knight was very tender this evening, and sustained her close to him as they sat.
Not a word had been uttered by either since sitting down, when Knight said musingly, looking still afar —
‘I wonder if any lovers in past years ever sat here with arms locked, as we do now. Probably they have, for the place seems formed for a seat.’
Her recollection of a well-known pair who had, and the much-talked-of loss which had ensued therefrom, and how the young man had been sent back to look for the missing article, led Elfride to glance down to her side, and behind her back. Many people who lose a trinket involuntarily give a momentary look for it in passing the spot ever so long afterwards. They do not often find it. Elfride, in turning her head, saw something shine weakly from a crevice in the rocky sedile. Only for a few minutes during the day did the sun light the alcove to its innermost
rifts and slits, but these were the minutes now, and its level rays did Elfride the good or evil turn of revealing the lost ornament.
Elfride’s thoughts instantly reverted to the words she had unintentionally uttered upon what had been going on when the earring was lost. And she was immediately seized with a misgiving that Knight, on seeing the object, would be reminded of her words. Her instinctive act therefore was to secure it privately.
It was so deep in the crack that Elfride could not pull it out with her hand, though she made several surreptitious trials.
‘What are you doing, Elfie?’ said Knight, noticing her attempts, and looking behind him likewise.
She had relinquished the endeavour, but too late.
Knight peered into the joint from which her hand had been withdrawn, and saw what she had seen. He instantly took a penknife from his pocket, and by dint of probing and scraping brought the earring out upon open ground.
‘It is not yours, surely?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, it is,’ she said quietly.
‘Well, that is a most extraordinary thing, that we should find it like this!’ Knight then remembered more circumstances; ‘What, is it the one you have told me of?’
‘Yes.’
The unfortunate remark of hers at the kiss came into his mind, if eyes were ever an index to be trusted. Trying to repress the words he yet spoke on the subject, more to obtain assurance that what it had seemed to imply was not true than from a wish to pry into bygones.
‘Were you really engaged to be married to that lover?’ he said, looking straight forward at the sea again.
‘Yes — but not exactly. Yet I think I was.’
‘O Elfride, engaged to be married!’ he murmured.
‘It would have been called a — secret engagement, I suppose. But don’t look so disappointed; don’t blame me.’
‘No, no.’
‘Why do you say “No, no,” in such a way? Sweetly enough, but so barely?’
