“Vassal unto Love.”
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.
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.”
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.
“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.”
“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.”
Elfride looked thoughtfully at the myrtle.
“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.”
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.
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.
“Is there not anything you like better?” she said sadly. “That is only
an ordinary myrtle.”
“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?”
“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.”
“That will do nicely. Let it be put in my room, that I may not forget
it. What romance attaches to the other?”
“It was a gift to me.”
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.
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.
“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.
The next day, when they were again alone, he said to her rather
suddenly—
“Do you love me more or less, Elfie, for what I told you on board the
steamer?”
“You told me so many things,” she returned, lifting her eyes to his and
smiling.
“I mean the confession you coaxed out of me—that I had never been in
the position of lover before.”
“It is a satisfaction, I suppose, to be the first in your heart,” she
said to him, with an attempt to continue her smiling.
“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.”
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.
“Oh no—I shall not think that,” she said, because obliged to say
something to fill the pause which followed her questioner’s remark.
“It is this: have you ever had a lover? I am almost sure you have not;
but, have you?”
“Not, as it were, a lover; I mean, not worth mentioning, Harry,” she
faltered.
Knight, overstrained in sentiment as he knew the feeling to be, felt
some sickness of heart.
“Still, he was a lover?”
“Well, a sort of lover, I suppose,” she responded tardily.
“A man, I mean, you know.”
“Yes; but only a mere person, and——”
“But truly your lover?”
“Yes; a lover certainly—he was that. Yes, he might have been called my
lover.”
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.
“You don’t mind, Harry, do you?” she said anxiously, nestling close to
him, and watching his face.
“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.”
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.
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?”
She murmured reluctantly, “Yes, I think I did.”
Knight felt the same faint touch of misery. “Only a very little?” he
said.
“I am not sure how much.”
“But you are sure, darling, you loved him a little?”
“I think I am sure I loved him a little.”
“And not a great deal, Elfie?”
“My love was not supported by reverence for his powers.”
“But, Elfride, did you love him deeply?” said Knight restlessly.
“I don’t exactly know how deep you mean by deeply.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“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.”
“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.