“A wandering voice.”
Though sheer and intelligible griefs are not charmed away by being
confided to mere acquaintances, the process is a palliative to certain
ill-humours. Among these, perplexed vexation is one—a species of
trouble which, like a stream, gets shallower by the simple operation of
widening it in any quarter.
On the evening of the day succeeding that of the meeting in the Park,
Elfride and Mrs. Swancourt were engaged in conversation in the
dressing-room of the latter. Such a treatment of such a case was in
course of adoption here.
Elfride had just before received an affectionate letter from Stephen
Smith in Bombay, which had been forwarded to her from Endelstow. But
since this is not the case referred to, it is not worth while to pry
further into the contents of the letter than to discover that, with
rash though pardonable confidence in coming times, he addressed her in
high spirits as his darling future wife. Probably there cannot be
instanced a briefer and surer rule-of-thumb test of a man’s
temperament—sanguine or cautious—than this: did he or does he ante-date
the word wife in corresponding with a sweet-heart he honestly loves?
She had taken this epistle into her own room, read a little of it, then
SAVED the rest for to-morrow, not wishing to be so extravagant as to
consume the pleasure all at once. Nevertheless, she could not resist
the wish to enjoy yet a little more, so out came the letter again, and
in spite of misgivings as to prodigality the whole was devoured. The
letter was finally reperused and placed in her pocket.
What was this? Also a newspaper for Elfride, which she had overlooked
in her hurry to open the letter. It was the old number of the PRESENT,
containing the article upon her book, forwarded as had been requested.
Elfride had hastily read it through, shrunk perceptibly smaller, and
had then gone with the paper in her hand to Mrs. Swancourt’s
dressing-room, to lighten or at least modify her vexation by a
discriminating estimate from her stepmother.
She was now looking disconsolately out of the window.
“Never mind, my child,” said Mrs. Swancourt after a careful perusal of
the matter indicated. “I don’t see that the review is such a terrible
one, after all. Besides, everybody has forgotten about it by this time.
I’m sure the opening is good enough for any book ever written. Just
listen—it sounds better read aloud than when you pore over it silently:
‘THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE. A ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. BY ERNEST
FIELD. In the belief that we were for a while escaping the monotonous
repetition of wearisome details in modern social scenery, analyses of
uninteresting character, or the unnatural unfoldings of a sensation
plot, we took this volume into our hands with a feeling of pleasure. We
were disposed to beguile ourselves with the fancy that some new change
might possibly be rung upon donjon keeps, chain and plate armour,
deeply scarred cheeks, tender maidens disguised as pages, to which we
had not listened long ago.’ Now, that’s a very good beginning, in my
opinion, and one to be proud of having brought out of a man who has
never seen you.”
“Ah, yes,” murmured Elfride wofully. “But, then, see further on!”
“Well the next bit is rather unkind, I must own,” said Mrs. Swancourt,
and read on. “‘Instead of this we found ourselves in the hands of some
young lady, hardly arrived at years of discretion, to judge by the
silly device it has been thought worth while to adopt on the
title-page, with the idea of disguising her sex.’”
“I am not ‘silly’!” said Elfride indignantly. “He might have called me
anything but that.”
“You are not, indeed. Well:—‘Hands of a young lady...whose chapters are
simply devoted to impossible tournaments, towers, and escapades, which
read like flat copies of like scenes in the stories of Mr. G. P. R.
James, and the most unreal portions of IVANHOE. The bait is so palpably
artificial that the most credulous gudgeon turns away.’ Now, my dear, I
don’t see overmuch to complain of in that. It proves that you were
clever enough to make him think of Sir Walter Scott, which is a great
deal.”
“Oh yes; though I cannot romance myself, I am able to remind him of
those who can!” Elfride intended to hurl these words sarcastically at
her invisible enemy, but as she had no more satirical power than a
wood-pigeon, they merely fell in a pretty murmur from lips shaped to a
pout.
“Certainly: and that’s something. Your book is good enough to be bad in
an ordinary literary manner, and doesn’t stand by itself in a
melancholy position altogether worse than assailable.—‘That interest in
an historical romance may nowadays have any chance of being sustained,
it is indispensable that the reader find himself under the guidance of
some nearly extinct species of legendary, who, in addition to an
impulse towards antiquarian research and an unweakened faith in the
mediaeval halo, shall possess an inventive faculty in which delicacy of
sentiment is far overtopped by a power of welding to stirring incident
a spirited variety of the elementary human passions.’ Well, that
long-winded effusion doesn’t refer to you at all, Elfride, merely
something put in to fill up. Let me see, when does he come to you
again;...not till the very end, actually. Here you are finally polished
off:
“‘But to return to the little work we have used as the text of this
article. We are far from altogether disparaging the author’s powers.
She has a certain versatility that enables her to use with effect a
style of narration peculiar to herself, which may be called a murmuring
of delicate emotional trifles, the particular gift of those to whom the
social sympathies of a peaceful time are as daily food. Hence, where
matters of domestic experience, and the natural touches which make
people real, can be introduced without anachronisms too striking, she
is occasionally felicitous; and upon the whole we feel justified in
saying that the book will bear looking into for the sake of those
portions which have nothing whatever to do with the story.’
“Well, I suppose it is intended for satire; but don’t think anything
more of it now, my dear. It is seven o’clock.” And Mrs. Swancourt rang
for her maid.
Attack is more piquant than concord. Stephen’s letter was concerning
nothing but oneness with her: the review was the very reverse. And a
stranger with neither name nor shape, age nor appearance, but a mighty
voice, is naturally rather an interesting novelty to a lady he chooses
to address. When Elfride fell asleep that night she was loving the
writer of the letter, but thinking of the writer of that article.