“Adieu! she cries, and waved her lily hand.”
The few tattered clouds of the morning enlarged and united, the sun
withdrew behind them to emerge no more that day, and the evening drew
to a close in drifts of rain. The water-drops beat like duck shot
against the window of the railway-carriage containing Stephen and
Elfride.
The journey from Plymouth to Paddington, by even the most headlong
express, allows quite enough leisure for passion of any sort to cool.
Elfride’s excitement had passed off, and she sat in a kind of stupor
during the latter half of the journey. She was aroused by the clanging
of the maze of rails over which they traced their way at the entrance
to the station.
Is this London?” she said.
“Yes, darling,” said Stephen in a tone of assurance he was far from
feeling. To him, no less than to her, the reality so greatly differed
from the prefiguring.
She peered out as well as the window, beaded with drops, would allow
her, and saw only the lamps, which had just been lit, blinking in the
wet atmosphere, and rows of hideous zinc chimney-pipes in dim relief
against the sky. She writhed uneasily, as when a thought is swelling in
the mind which must cause much pain at its deliverance in words.
Elfride had known no more about the stings of evil report than the
native wild-fowl knew of the effects of Crusoe’s first shot. Now she
saw a little further, and a little further still.
The train stopped. Stephen relinquished the soft hand he had held all
the day, and proceeded to assist her on to the platform.
This act of alighting upon strange ground seemed all that was wanted to
complete a resolution within her.
She looked at her betrothed with despairing eyes.
“O Stephen,” she exclaimed, “I am so miserable! I must go home again—I
must—I must! Forgive my wretched vacillation. I don’t like it here—nor
myself—nor you!”
Stephen looked bewildered, and did not speak.
“Will you allow me to go home?” she implored. “I won’t trouble you to
go with me. I will not be any weight upon you; only say you will agree
to my returning; that you will not hate me for it, Stephen! It is
better that I should return again; indeed it is, Stephen.”
“But we can’t return now,” he said in a deprecatory tone.
“I must! I will!”
“How? When do you want to go?”
“Now. Can we go at once?”
The lad looked hopelessly along the platform.
“If you must go, and think it wrong to remain, dearest,” said he sadly,
“you shall. You shall do whatever you like, my Elfride. But would you
in reality rather go now than stay till to-morrow, and go as my wife?”
“Yes, yes—much—anything to go now. I must; I must!” she cried.
“We ought to have done one of two things,” he answered gloomily. “Never
to have started, or not to have returned without being married. I don’t
like to say it, Elfride—indeed I don’t; but you must be told this, that
going back unmarried may compromise your good name in the eyes of
people who may hear of it.”
“They will not; and I must go.”
“O Elfride! I am to blame for bringing you away.”
“Not at all. I am the elder.”
“By a month; and what’s that? But never mind that now.” He looked
around. “Is there a train for Plymouth to-night?” he inquired of a
guard. The guard passed on and did not speak.
“Is there a train for Plymouth to-night?” said Elfride to another.
“Yes, miss; the 8.10—leaves in ten minutes. You have come to the wrong
platform; it is the other side. Change at Bristol into the night mail.
Down that staircase, and under the line.”
They ran down the staircase—Elfride first—to the booking-office, and
into a carriage with an official standing beside the door. “Show your
tickets, please.” They are locked in—men about the platform accelerate
their velocities till they fly up and down like shuttles in a loom—a
whistle—the waving of a flag—a human cry—a steam groan—and away they go
to Plymouth again, just catching these words as they glide off:
“Those two youngsters had a near run for it, and no mistake!”
Elfride found her breath.
“And have you come too, Stephen? Why did you?”
“I shall not leave you till I see you safe at St. Launce’s. Do not
think worse of me than I am, Elfride.”
And then they rattled along through the night, back again by the way
they had come. The weather cleared, and the stars shone in upon them.
Their two or three fellow-passengers sat for most of the time with
closed eyes. Stephen sometimes slept; Elfride alone was wakeful and
palpitating hour after hour.
The day began to break, and revealed that they were by the sea. Red
rocks overhung them, and, receding into distance, grew livid in the
blue grey atmosphere. The sun rose, and sent penetrating shafts of
light in upon their weary faces. Another hour, and the world began to
be busy. They waited yet a little, and the train slackened its speed in
view of the platform at St. Launce’s.
She shivered, and mused sadly.
“I did not see all the consequences,” she said. “Appearances are
wofully against me. If anybody finds me out, I am, I suppose,
disgraced.”
“Then appearances will speak falsely; and how can that matter, even if
they do? I shall be your husband sooner or later, for certain, and so
prove your purity.”
“Stephen, once in London I ought to have married you,” she said firmly.
“It was my only safe defence. I see more things now than I did
yesterday. My only remaining chance is not to be discovered; and that
we must fight for most desperately.”
They stepped out. Elfride pulled a thick veil over her face.
A woman with red and scaly eyelids and glistening eyes was sitting on a
bench just inside the office-door. She fixed her eyes upon Elfride with
an expression whose force it was impossible to doubt, but the meaning
of which was not clear; then upon the carriage they had left. She
seemed to read a sinister story in the scene.
Elfride shrank back, and turned the other way.
“Who is that woman?” said Stephen. “She looked hard at you.”
“Mrs. Jethway—a widow, and mother of that young man whose tomb we sat
on the other night. Stephen, she is my enemy. Would that God had had
mercy enough upon me to have hidden this from HER!”
“Do not talk so hopelessly,” he remonstrated. “I don’t think she
recognized us.”
“I pray that she did not.”
He put on a more vigorous mood.
“Now, we will go and get some breakfast.”
“No, no!” she begged. “I cannot eat. I MUST get back to Endelstow.”
Elfride was as if she had grown years older than Stephen now.
“But you have had nothing since last night but that cup of tea at
Bristol.”
“I can’t eat, Stephen.”
“Wine and biscuit?”
“No.”
“Nor tea, nor coffee?”
“No.”
“A glass of water?”
“No. I want something that makes people strong and energetic for the
present, that borrows the strength of to-morrow for use to-day—leaving
to-morrow without any at all for that matter; or even that would take
all life away to-morrow, so long as it enabled me to get home again
now. Brandy, that’s what I want. That woman’s eyes have eaten my heart
away!”
“You are wild; and you grieve me, darling. Must it be brandy?”
“Yes, if you please.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. I have never drunk more than a teaspoonful at once. All
I know is that I want it. Don’t get it at the Falcon.”
He left her in the fields, and went to the nearest inn in that
direction. Presently he returned with a small flask nearly full, and
some slices of bread-and-butter, thin as wafers, in a paper-bag.
Elfride took a sip or two.
“It goes into my eyes,” she said wearily. “I can’t take any more. Yes,
I will; I will close my eyes. Ah, it goes to them by an inside route. I
don’t want it; throw it away.”
However, she could eat, and did eat. Her chief attention was
concentrated upon how to get the horse from the Falcon stables without
suspicion. Stephen was not allowed to accompany her into the town. She
acted now upon conclusions reached without any aid from him: his power
over her seemed to have departed.
“You had better not be seen with me, even here where I am so little
known. We have begun stealthily as thieves, and we must end stealthily
as thieves, at all hazards. Until papa has been told by me myself, a
discovery would be terrible.”
Walking and gloomily talking thus they waited till nearly nine o’clock,
at which time Elfride thought she might call at the Falcon without
creating much surprise. Behind the railway-station was the river,
spanned by an old Tudor bridge, whence the road diverged in two
directions, one skirting the suburbs of the town, and winding round
again into the high-road to Endelstow. Beside this road Stephen sat,
and awaited her return from the Falcon.
He sat as one sitting for a portrait, motionless, watching the
chequered lights and shades on the tree-trunks, the children playing
opposite the school previous to entering for the morning lesson, the
reapers in a field afar off. The certainty of possession had not come,
and there was nothing to mitigate the youth’s gloom, that increased
with the thought of the parting now so near.
At length she came trotting round to him, in appearance much as on the
romantic morning of their visit to the cliff, but shorn of the radiance
which glistened about her then. However, her comparative immunity from
further risk and trouble had considerably composed her. Elfride’s
capacity for being wounded was only surpassed by her capacity for
healing, which rightly or wrongly is by some considered an index of
transientness of feeling in general.
“Elfride, what did they say at the Falcon?”
“Nothing. Nobody seemed curious about me. They knew I went to Plymouth,
and I have stayed there a night now and then with Miss Bicknell. I
rather calculated upon that.”
And now parting arose like a death to these children, for it was
imperative that she should start at once. Stephen walked beside her for
nearly a mile. During the walk he said sadly:
“Elfride, four-and-twenty hours have passed, and the thing is not
done.”
“But you have insured that it shall be done.”
“How have I?”
“O Stephen, you ask how! Do you think I could marry another man on
earth after having gone thus far with you? Have I not shown beyond
possibility of doubt that I can be nobody else’s? Have I not
irretrievably committed myself?—pride has stood for nothing in the face
of my great love. You misunderstood my turning back, and I cannot
explain it. It was wrong to go with you at all; and though it would
have been worse to go further, it would have been better policy,
perhaps. Be assured of this, that whenever you have a home for
me—however poor and humble—and come and claim me, I am ready.” She
added bitterly, “When my father knows of this day’s work, he may be
only too glad to let me go.”
“Perhaps he may, then, insist upon our marriage at once!” Stephen
answered, seeing a ray of hope in the very focus of her remorse. “I
hope he may, even if we had still to part till I am ready for you, as
we intended.”
Elfride did not reply.
“You don’t seem the same woman, Elfie, that you were yesterday.”
“Nor am I. But good-bye. Go back now.” And she reined the horse for
parting. “O Stephen,” she cried, “I feel so weak! I don’t know how to
meet him. Cannot you, after all, come back with me?”
“Shall I come?”
Elfride paused to think.
“No; it will not do. It is my utter foolishness that makes me say such
words. But he will send for you.”
“Say to him,” continued Stephen, “that we did this in the absolute
despair of our minds. Tell him we don’t wish him to favour us—only to
deal justly with us. If he says, marry now, so much the better. If not,
say that all may be put right by his promise to allow me to have you
when I am good enough for you—which may be soon. Say I have nothing to
offer him in exchange for his treasure—the more sorry I; but all the
love, and all the life, and all the labour of an honest man shall be
yours. As to when this had better be told, I leave you to judge.”
His words made her cheerful enough to toy with her position.
“And if ill report should come, Stephen,” she said smiling, “why, the
orange-tree must save me, as it saved virgins in St. George’s time from
the poisonous breath of the dragon. There, forgive me for forwardness:
I am going.”
Then the boy and girl beguiled themselves with words of half-parting
only.
“Own wifie, God bless you till we meet again!”
“Till we meet again, good-bye!”
And the pony went on, and she spoke to him no more. He saw her figure
diminish and her blue veil grow gray—saw it with the agonizing
sensations of a slow death.
After thus parting from a man than whom she had known none greater as
yet, Elfride rode rapidly onwards, a tear being occasionally shaken
from her eyes into the road. What yesterday had seemed so desirable, so
promising, even trifling, had now acquired the complexion of a tragedy.
She saw the rocks and sea in the neighbourhood of Endelstow, and heaved
a sigh of relief.
When she passed a field behind the vicarage she heard the voices of
Unity and William Worm. They were hanging a carpet upon a line. Unity
was uttering a sentence that concluded with “when Miss Elfride comes.”
“When d’ye expect her?”
“Not till evening now. She’s safe enough at Miss Bicknell’s, bless ye.”
Elfride went round to the door. She did not knock or ring; and seeing
nobody to take the horse, Elfride led her round to the yard, slipped
off the bridle and saddle, drove her towards the paddock, and turned
her in. Then Elfride crept indoors, and looked into all the
ground-floor rooms. Her father was not there.
On the mantelpiece of the drawing-room stood a letter addressed to her
in his handwriting. She took it and read it as she went upstairs to
change her habit.
STRATLEIGH, Thursday.
“DEAR ELFRIDE,—On second thoughts I will not return to-day, but only
come as far as Wadcombe. I shall be at home by to-morrow afternoon, and
bring a friend with me.—Yours, in haste,
C. S.”
After making a quick toilet she felt more revived, though still
suffering from a headache. On going out of the door she met Unity at
the top of the stair.
“O Miss Elfride! I said to myself ’tis her sperrit! We didn’t dream o’
you not coming home last night. You didn’t say anything about staying.”
“I intended to come home the same evening, but altered my plan. I
wished I hadn’t afterwards. Papa will be angry, I suppose?”
“Better not tell him, miss,” said Unity.
“I do fear to,” she murmured. “Unity, would you just begin telling him
when he comes home?”
“What! and get you into trouble?”
“I deserve it.”
“No, indeed, I won’t,” said Unity. “It is not such a mighty matter,
Miss Elfride. I says to myself, master’s taking a hollerday, and
because he’s not been kind lately to Miss Elfride, she——”
“Is imitating him. Well, do as you like. And will you now bring me some
luncheon?”
After satisfying an appetite which the fresh marine air had given her
in its victory over an agitated mind, she put on her hat and went to
the garden and summer-house. She sat down, and leant with her head in a
corner. Here she fell asleep.
Half-awake, she hurriedly looked at the time. She had been there three
hours. At the same moment she heard the outer gate swing together, and
wheels sweep round the entrance; some prior noise from the same source
having probably been the cause of her awaking. Next her father’s voice
was heard calling to Worm.
Elfride passed along a walk towards the house behind a belt of shrubs.
She heard a tongue holding converse with her father, which was not that
of either of the servants. Her father and the stranger were laughing
together. Then there was a rustling of silk, and Mr. Swancourt and his
companion, or companions, to all seeming entered the door of the house,
for nothing more of them was audible. Elfride had turned back to
meditate on what friends these could be, when she heard footsteps, and
her father exclaiming behind her:
“O Elfride, here you are! I hope you got on well?”
Elfride’s heart smote her, and she did not speak.
“Come back to the summer-house a minute,” continued Mr. Swancourt; “I
have to tell you of that I promised to.”
They entered the summer-house, and stood leaning over the knotty
woodwork of the balustrade.
“Now,” said her father radiantly, “guess what I have to say.” He seemed
to be regarding his own existence so intently, that he took no interest
in nor even saw the complexion of hers.
“I cannot, papa,” she said sadly.
“Try, dear.”
“I would rather not, indeed.”
“You are tired. You look worn. The ride was too much for you. Well,
this is what I went away for. I went to be married!”
“Married!” she faltered, and could hardly check an involuntary “So did
I.” A moment after and her resolve to confess perished like a bubble.
“Yes; to whom do you think? Mrs. Troyton, the new owner of the estate
over the hedge, and of the old manor-house. It was only finally settled
between us when I went to Stratleigh a few days ago.” He lowered his
voice to a sly tone of merriment. “Now, as to your stepmother, you’ll
find she is not much to look at, though a good deal to listen to. She
is twenty years older than myself, for one thing.”
“You forget that I know her. She called here once, after we had been,
and found her away from home.”
“Of course, of course. Well, whatever her looks are, she’s as excellent
a woman as ever breathed. She has had lately left her as absolute
property three thousand five hundred a year, besides the devise of this
estate—and, by the way, a large legacy came to her in satisfaction of
dower, as it is called.”
“Three thousand five hundred a year!”
“And a large—well, a fair-sized—mansion in town, and a pedigree as long
as my walking-stick; though that bears evidence of being rather a
raked-up affair—done since the family got rich—people do those things
now as they build ruins on maiden estates and cast antiques at
Birmingham.”
Elfride merely listened and said nothing.
He continued more quietly and impressively. “Yes, Elfride, she is
wealthy in comparison with us, though with few connections. However,
she will introduce you to the world a little. We are going to exchange
her house in Baker Street for one at Kensington, for your sake.
Everybody is going there now, she says. At Easters we shall fly to town
for the usual three months—I shall have a curate of course by that
time. Elfride, I am past love, you know, and I honestly confess that I
married her for your sake. Why a woman of her standing should have
thrown herself away upon me, God knows. But I suppose her age and
plainness were too pronounced for a town man. With your good looks, if
you now play your cards well, you may marry anybody. Of course, a
little contrivance will be necessary; but there’s nothing to stand
between you and a husband with a title, that I can see. Lady Luxellian
was only a squire’s daughter. Now, don’t you see how foolish the old
fancy was? But come, she is indoors waiting to see you. It is as good
as a play, too,” continued the vicar, as they walked towards the house.
“I courted her through the privet hedge yonder: not entirely, you know,
but we used to walk there of an evening—nearly every evening at last.
But I needn’t tell you details now; everything was terribly
matter-of-fact, I assure you. At last, that day I saw her at
Stratleigh, we determined to settle it off-hand.”
“And you never said a word to me,” replied Elfride, not reproachfully
either in tone or thought. Indeed, her feeling was the very reverse of
reproachful. She felt relieved and even thankful. Where confidence had
not been given, how could confidence be expected?
Her father mistook her dispassionateness for a veil of politeness over
a sense of ill-usage. “I am not altogether to blame,” he said. “There
were two or three reasons for secrecy. One was the recent death of her
relative the testator, though that did not apply to you. But remember,
Elfride,” he continued in a stiffer tone, “you had mixed yourself up so
foolishly with those low people, the Smiths—and it was just, too, when
Mrs. Troyton and myself were beginning to understand each other—that I
resolved to say nothing even to you. How did I know how far you had
gone with them and their son? You might have made a point of taking tea
with them every day, for all that I knew.”
Elfride swallowed her feelings as she best could, and languidly though
flatly asked a question.
“Did you kiss Mrs. Troyton on the lawn about three weeks ago? That
evening I came into the study and found you had just had candles in?”
Mr. Swancourt looked rather red and abashed, as middle-aged lovers are
apt to do when caught in the tricks of younger ones.
“Well, yes; I think I did,” he stammered; “just to please her, you
know.” And then recovering himself he laughed heartily.
“And was this what your Horatian quotation referred to?”
“It was, Elfride.”
They stepped into the drawing-room from the verandah. At that moment
Mrs. Swancourt came downstairs, and entered the same room by the door.
“Here, Charlotte, is my little Elfride,” said Mr. Swancourt, with the
increased affection of tone often adopted towards relations when newly
produced.
Poor Elfride, not knowing what to do, did nothing at all; but stood
receptive of all that came to her by sight, hearing, and touch.
Mrs. Swancourt moved forward, took her step-daughter’s hand, then
kissed her.
“Ah, darling!” she exclaimed good-humouredly, “you didn’t think when
you showed a strange old woman over the conservatory a month or two
ago, and explained the flowers to her so prettily, that she would so
soon be here in new colours. Nor did she, I am sure.”
The new mother had been truthfully enough described by Mr. Swancourt.
She was not physically attractive. She was dark—very dark—in
complexion, portly in figure, and with a plentiful residuum of hair in
the proportion of half a dozen white ones to half a dozen black ones,
though the latter were black indeed. No further observed, she was not a
woman to like. But there was more to see. To the most superficial
critic it was apparent that she made no attempt to disguise her age.
She looked sixty at the first glance, and close acquaintanceship never
proved her older.
Another and still more winning trait was one attaching to the corners
of her mouth. Before she made a remark these often twitched gently: not
backwards and forwards, the index of nervousness; not down upon the
jaw, the sign of determination; but palpably upwards, in precisely the
curve adopted to represent mirth in the broad caricatures of
schoolboys. Only this element in her face was expressive of anything
within the woman, but it was unmistakable. It expressed humour
subjective as well as objective—which could survey the peculiarities of
self in as whimsical a light as those of other people.
This is not all of Mrs. Swancourt. She had held out to Elfride hands
whose fingers were literally stiff with rings, signis auroque rigentes,
like Helen’s robe. These rows of rings were not worn in vanity
apparently. They were mostly antique and dull, though a few were the
reverse.
RIGHT HAND.
1st. Plainly set oval onyx, representing a devil’s head. 2nd. Green
jasper intaglio, with red veins. 3rd. Entirely gold, bearing figure of
a hideous griffin. 4th. A sea-green monster diamond, with small
diamonds round it. 5th. Antique cornelian intaglio of dancing figure of
a satyr. 6th. An angular band chased with dragons’ heads. 7th. A
facetted carbuncle accompanied by ten little twinkling emeralds; &c.
&c.
LEFT HAND.
1st. A reddish-yellow toadstone. 2nd. A heavy ring enamelled in
colours, and bearing a jacynth. 3rd. An amethystine sapphire. 4th. A
polished ruby, surrounded by diamonds. 5th. The engraved ring of an
abbess. 6th. A gloomy intaglio; &c. &c.
Beyond this rather quaint array of stone and metal Mrs. Swancourt wore
no ornament whatever.
Elfride had been favourably impressed with Mrs. Troyton at their
meeting about two months earlier; but to be pleased with a woman as a
momentary acquaintance was different from being taken with her as a
stepmother. However, the suspension of feeling was but for a moment.
Elfride decided to like her still.
Mrs. Swancourt was a woman of the world as to knowledge, the reverse as
to action, as her marriage suggested. Elfride and the lady were soon
inextricably involved in conversation, and Mr. Swancourt left them to
themselves.
“And what do you find to do with yourself here?” Mrs. Swancourt said,
after a few remarks about the wedding. “You ride, I know.”
“Yes, I ride. But not much, because papa doesn’t like my going alone.”
“You must have somebody to look after you.”
“And I read, and write a little.”
“You should write a novel. The regular resource of people who don’t go
enough into the world to live a novel is to write one.”
“I have done it,” said Elfride, looking dubiously at Mrs. Swancourt, as
if in doubt whether she would meet with ridicule there.
“That’s right. Now, then, what is it about, dear?”
“About—well, it is a romance of the Middle Ages.”
“Knowing nothing of the present age, which everybody knows about, for
safety you chose an age known neither to you nor other people. That’s
it, eh? No, no; I don’t mean it, dear.”
“Well, I have had some opportunities of studying mediaeval art and
manners in the library and private museum at Endelstow House, and I
thought I should like to try my hand upon a fiction. I know the time
for these tales is past; but I was interested in it, very much
interested.”
“When is it to appear?”
“Oh, never, I suppose.”
“Nonsense, my dear girl. Publish it, by all means. All ladies do that
sort of thing now; not for profit, you know, but as a guarantee of
mental respectability to their future husbands.”
“An excellent idea of us ladies.”
“Though I am afraid it rather resembles the melancholy ruse of throwing
loaves over castle-walls at besiegers, and suggests desperation rather
than plenty inside.”
“Did you ever try it?”
“No; I was too far gone even for that.”
“Papa says no publisher will take my book.”
“That remains to be proved. I’ll give my word, my dear, that by this
time next year it shall be printed.”
“Will you, indeed?” said Elfride, partially brightening with pleasure,
though she was sad enough in her depths. “I thought brains were the
indispensable, even if the only, qualification for admission to the
republic of letters. A mere commonplace creature like me will soon be
turned out again.”
“Oh no; once you are there you’ll be like a drop of water in a piece of
rock-crystal—your medium will dignify your commonness.”
“It will be a great satisfaction,” Elfride murmured, and thought of
Stephen, and wished she could make a great fortune by writing romances,
and marry him and live happily.
“And then we’ll go to London, and then to Paris,” said Mrs. Swancourt.
“I have been talking to your father about it. But we have first to move
into the manor-house, and we think of staying at Torquay whilst that is
going on. Meanwhile, instead of going on a honeymoon scamper by
ourselves, we have come home to fetch you, and go all together to Bath
for two or three weeks.”
Elfride assented pleasantly, even gladly; but she saw that, by this
marriage, her father and herself had ceased for ever to be the close
relations they had been up to a few weeks ago. It was impossible now to
tell him the tale of her wild elopement with Stephen Smith.
He was still snugly housed in her heart. His absence had regained for
him much of that aureola of saintship which had been nearly abstracted
during her reproachful mood on that miserable journey from London.
Rapture is often cooled by contact with its cause, especially if under
awkward conditions. And that last experience with Stephen had done
anything but make him shine in her eyes. His very kindness in letting
her return was his offence. Elfride had her sex’s love of sheer force
in a man, however ill-directed; and at that critical juncture in London
Stephen’s only chance of retaining the ascendancy over her that his
face and not his parts had acquired for him, would have been by doing
what, for one thing, he was too youthful to undertake—that was,
dragging her by the wrist to the rails of some altar, and peremptorily
marrying her. Decisive action is seen by appreciative minds to be
frequently objectless, and sometimes fatal; but decision, however
suicidal, has more charm for a woman than the most unequivocal Fabian
success.
However, some of the unpleasant accessories of that occasion were now
out of sight again, and Stephen had resumed not a few of his fancy
colours.