From this point of observation the prospect exhibited the
peculiarity of being either brilliant foreground or the subdued
tone of distance, a sudden dip in the surface of the country
lowering out of sight all the intermediate prospect. In apparent
contact with the trees and bushes growing close beside him
appeared the distant tract, terminated suddenly by the brink of
the series of cliffs which culminated in the tall giant without a
name - small and unimportant as here beheld. A leaf on a bough at
Stephen's elbow blotted out a whole hill in the contrasting
district far away; a green bunch of nuts covered a complete upland
there, and the great cliff itself was outvied by a pigmy crag in
the bank hard by him. Stephen had looked upon these things
hundreds of times before to-day, but he had never viewed them with
such tenderness as now.
Stepping forward in this direction yet a little further, he could
see the tower of West Endelstow Church, beneath which he was to
meet his Elfride that night. And at the same time he noticed,
coming over the hill from the cliffs, a white speck in motion. It
seemed first to be a sea-gull flying low, but ultimately proved to
be a human figure, running with great rapidity. The form flitted
on, heedless of the rain which had caused Stephen's halt in this
place, dropped down the heathery hill, entered the vale, and was
out of sight.
Whilst he meditated upon the meaning of this phenomenon, he was
surprised to see swim into his ken from the same point of
departure another moving speck, as different from the first as
well could be, insomuch that it was perceptible only by its
blackness. Slowly and regularly it took the same course, and
there was not much doubt that this was the form of a man. He,
too, gradually descended from the upper levels, and was lost in
the valley below.
The rain had by this time again abated, and Stephen returned to
the road. Looking ahead, he saw two men and a cart. They were
soon obscured by the intervention of a high hedge. Just before
they emerged again he heard voices in conversation.
''A must soon be in the naibourhood, too, if so be he's a-coming,'
said a tenor tongue, which Stephen instantly recognized as Martin
Cannister's.
''A must 'a b'lieve,' said another voice - that of Stephen's
father.
Stephen stepped forward, and came before them face to face. His
father and Martin were walking, dressed in their second best
suits, and beside them rambled along a grizzel horse and brightly
painted spring-cart.
'All right, Mr. Cannister; here's the lost man!' exclaimed young
Smith, entering at once upon the old style of greeting. 'Father,
here I am.'
'All right, my sonny; and glad I be for't!' returned John Smith,
overjoyed to see the young man. 'How be ye? Well, come along
home, and don't let's bide out here in the damp. Such weather
must be terrible bad for a young chap just come from a fiery
nation like Indy; hey, naibour Cannister?'
'Trew, trew. And about getting home his traps? Boxes, monstrous
bales, and noble packages of foreign description, I make no
doubt?'
'Hardly all that,' said Stephen laughing.
'We brought the cart, maning to go right on to Castle Boterel
afore ye landed,' said his father. '"Put in the horse," says
Martin. "Ay," says I, "so we will;" and did it straightway. Now,
maybe, Martin had better go on wi' the cart for the things, and
you and I walk home-along.'
'And I shall be back a'most as soon as you. Peggy is a pretty
step still, though time d' begin to tell upon her as upon the rest
o' us.'
Stephen told Martin where to find his baggage, and then continued
his journey homeward in the company of his father.
'Owing to your coming a day sooner than we first expected,' said
John, 'you'll find us in a turk of a mess, sir - "sir," says I to
my own son! but ye've gone up so, Stephen. We've killed the pig
this morning for ye, thinking ye'd be hungry, and glad of a morsel
of fresh mate. And 'a won't be cut up till to-night. However, we
can make ye a good supper of fry, which will chaw up well wi' a
dab o' mustard and a few nice new taters, and a drop of shilling
ale to wash it down. Your mother have scrubbed the house through
because ye were coming, and dusted all the chimmer furniture, and
bought a new basin and jug of a travelling crockery-woman that
came to our door, and scoured the cannel-sticks, and claned the
winders! Ay, I don't know what 'a ha'n't a done. Never were such
a steer, 'a b'lieve.'
Conversation of this kind and inquiries of Stephen for his
mother's wellbeing occupied them for the remainder of the journey.
When they drew near the river, and the cottage behind it, they
could hear the master-mason's clock striking off the bygone hours
of the day at intervals of a quarter of a minute, during which
intervals Stephen's imagination readily pictured his mother's
forefinger wandering round the dial in company with the minute-
hand.
'The clock stopped this morning, and your mother in putting en
right seemingly,' said his father in an explanatory tone; and they
went up the garden to the door.
When they had entered, and Stephen had dutifully and warmly
greeted his mother - who appeared in a cotton dress of a dark-blue
ground, covered broadcast with a multitude of new and full moons,
stars, and planets, with an occasional dash of a comet-like aspect
to diversify the scene - the crackle of cart-wheels was heard
outside, and Martin Cannister stamped in at the doorway, in the
form of a pair of legs beneath a great box, his body being nowhere
visible. When the luggage had been all taken down, and Stephen
had gone upstairs to change his clothes, Mrs. Smith's mind seemed
to recover a lost thread.
'Really our clock is not worth a penny,' she said, turning to it
and attempting to start the pendulum.
'Stopped again?' inquired Martin with commiseration.
'Yes, sure,' replied Mrs. Smith; and continued after the manner of
certain matrons, to whose tongues the harmony of a subject with a
casual mood is a greater recommendation than its pertinence to the
occasion, 'John would spend pounds a year upon the jimcrack old
thing, if he might, in having it claned, when at the same time you
may doctor it yourself as well. "The clock's stopped again,
John," I say to him. "Better have en claned," says he. There's
five shillings. "That clock grinds again," I say to en. "Better
have en claned," 'a says again. "That clock strikes wrong, John,"
says I. "Better have en claned," he goes on. The wheels would
have been polished to skeletons by this time if I had listened to
en, and I assure you we could have bought a chainey-faced beauty
wi' the good money we've flung away these last ten years upon this
old green-faced mortal. And, Martin, you must be wet. My son is
gone up to change. John is damper than I should like to be, but
'a calls it nothing. Some of Mrs. Swancourt's servants have been
here - they ran in out of the rain when going for a walk - and I
assure you the state of their bonnets was frightful.'
'How's the folks? We've been over to Castle Boterel, and what wi'
running and stopping out of the storms, my poor head is beyond
everything! fizz, fizz fizz; 'tis frying o' fish from morning to
night,' said a cracked voice in the doorway at this instant.
'Lord so's, who's that?' said Mrs. Smith, in a private
exclamation, and turning round saw William Worm, endeavouring to
make himself look passing civil and friendly by overspreading his
face with a large smile that seemed to have no connection with the
humour he was in. Behind him stood a woman about twice his size,
with a large umbrella over her head. This was Mrs. Worm,
William's wife.
'Come in, William,' said John Smith. 'We don't kill a pig every
day. And you, likewise, Mrs. Worm. I make ye welcome. Since ye
left Parson Swancourt, William, I don't see much of 'ee.'
'No, for to tell the truth, since I took to the turn-pike-gate
line, I've been out but little, coming to church o' Sundays not
being my duty now, as 'twas in a parson's family, you see.
However, our boy is able to mind the gate now, and I said, says I,
"Barbara, let's call and see John Smith."'
'I am sorry to hear yer pore head is so bad still.'
'Ay, I assure you that frying o' fish is going on for nights and
days. And, you know, sometimes 'tisn't only fish, but rashers o'
bacon and inions. Ay, I can hear the fat pop and fizz as nateral
as life; can't I, Barbara?'
Mrs. Worm, who had been all this time engaged in closing her
umbrella, corroborated this statement, and now, coming indoors,
showed herself to be a wide-faced, comfortable-looking woman, with
a wart upon her cheek, bearing a small tuft of hair in its centre.
'Have ye ever tried anything to cure yer noise, Maister Worm?'
inquired Martin Cannister.
'Oh ay; bless ye, I've tried everything. Ay, Providence is a
merciful man, and I have hoped He'd have found it out by this
time, living so many years in a parson's family, too, as I have,
but 'a don't seem to relieve me. Ay, I be a poor wambling man,
and life's a mint o' trouble!'
'True, mournful true, William Worm. 'Tis so. The world wants
looking to, or 'tis all sixes and sevens wi' us.'
'Take your things off, Mrs. Worm,' said Mrs. Smith. 'We be rather
in a muddle, to tell the truth, for my son is just dropped in from
Indy a day sooner than we expected, and the pig-killer is coming
presently to cut up.'
Mrs. Barbara Worm, not wishing to take any mean advantage of
persons in a muddle by observing them, removed her bonnet and
mantle with eyes fixed upon the flowers in the plot outside the
door.
'What beautiful tiger-lilies!' said Mrs. Worm.
'Yes, they be very well, but such a trouble to me on account of
the children that come here. They will go eating the berries on
the stem, and call 'em currants. Taste wi' junivals is quite
fancy, really.'
'And your snapdragons look as fierce as ever.'
'Well, really,' answered Mrs. Smith, entering didactically into
the subject, 'they are more like Christians than flowers. But
they make up well enough wi' the rest, and don't require much
tending. And the same can be said o' these miller's wheels. 'Tis
a flower I like very much, though so simple. John says he never
cares about the flowers o' 'em, but men have no eye for anything
neat. He says his favourite flower is a cauliflower. And I
assure you I tremble in the springtime, for 'tis perfect murder.'
'You don't say so, Mrs. Smith!'
'John digs round the roots, you know. In goes his blundering
spade, through roots, bulbs, everything that hasn't got a good
show above ground, turning 'em up cut all to slices. Only the
very last fall I went to move some tulips, when I found every bulb
upside down, and the stems crooked round. He had turned 'em over
in the spring, and the cunning creatures had soon found that
heaven was not where it used to be.'
'What's that long-favoured flower under the hedge?'
'They? O Lord, they are the horrid Jacob's ladders! Instead of
praising 'em, I be mad wi' 'em for being so ready to bide where
they are not wanted. They be very well in their way, but I do not
care for things that neglect won't kill. Do what I will, dig,
drag, scrap, pull, I get too many of 'em. I chop the roots: up
they'll come, treble strong. Throw 'em over hedge; there they'll
grow, staring me in the face like a hungry dog driven away, and
creep back again in a week or two the same as before. 'Tis
Jacob's ladder here, Jacob's ladder there, and plant 'em where
nothing in the world will grow, you get crowds of 'em in a month
or two. John made a new manure mixen last summer, and he said,
"Maria, now if you've got any flowers or such like, that you don't
want, you may plant 'em round my mixen so as to hide it a bit,
though 'tis not likely anything of much value will grow there." I
thought, "There's them Jacob's ladders; I'll put them there, since
they can't do harm in such a place; "and I planted the Jacob's
ladders sure enough. They growed, and they growed, in the mixen
and out of the mixen, all over the litter, covering it quite up.
When John wanted to use it about the garden, 'a said, "Nation
seize them Jacob's ladders of yours, Maria! They've eat the
goodness out of every morsel of my manure, so that 'tis no better
than sand itself!" Sure enough the hungry mortals had. 'Tis my
belief that in the secret souls o' 'em, Jacob's ladders be weeds,
and not flowers at all, if the truth was known.'
Robert Lickpan, pig-killer and carrier, arrived at this moment.
The fatted animal hanging in the back kitchen was cleft down the
middle of its backbone, Mrs. Smith being meanwhile engaged in
cooking supper.
Between the cutting and chopping, ale was handed round, and Worm
and the pig-killer listened to John Smith's description of the
meeting with Stephen, with eyes blankly fixed upon the table-
cloth, in order that nothing in the external world should
interrupt their efforts to conjure up the scene correctly.
Stephen came downstairs in the middle of the story, and after the
little interruption occasioned by his entrance and welcome, the
narrative was again continued, precisely as if he had not been
there at all, and was told inclusively to him, as to somebody who
knew nothing about the matter.
'"Ay," I said, as I catched sight o' en through the brimbles,
"that's the lad, for I d' know en by his grand-father's walk; "for
'a stapped out like poor father for all the world. Still there
was a touch o' the frisky that set me wondering. 'A got closer,
and I said, "That's the lad, for I d' know en by his carrying a
black case like a travelling man." Still, a road is common to all
the world, and there be more travelling men than one. But I kept
my eye cocked, and I said to Martin, "'Tis the boy, now, for I d'
know en by the wold twirl o' the stick and the family step." Then
'a come closer, and a' said, "All right." I could swear to en
then.'
Stephen's personal appearance was next criticised.
'He d' look a deal thinner in face, surely, than when I seed en at
the parson's, and never knowed en, if ye'll believe me,' said
Martin.
'Ay, there,' said another, without removing his eyes from
Stephen's face, 'I should ha' knowed en anywhere. 'Tis his
father's nose to a T.'
'It has been often remarked,' said Stephen modestly.
'And he's certainly taller,' said Martin, letting his glance run
over Stephen's form from bottom to top.
'I was thinking 'a was exactly the same height,' Worm replied.
'Bless thy soul, that's because he's bigger round likewise.' And
the united eyes all moved to Stephen's waist.
'I be a poor wambling man, but I can make allowances,' said
William Worm. 'Ah, sure, and how he came as a stranger and
pilgrim to Parson Swancourt's that time, not a soul knowing en
after so many years! Ay, life's a strange picter, Stephen: but I
suppose I must say Sir to ye?'
'Oh, it is not necessary at present,' Stephen replied, though
mentally resolving to avoid the vicinity of that familiar friend
as soon as he had made pretensions to the hand of Elfride.
'Ah, well,' said Worm musingly, 'some would have looked for no
less than a Sir. There's a sight of difference in people.'
'And in pigs likewise,' observed John Smith, looking at the halved
carcass of his own.
Robert Lickpan, the pig-killer, here seemed called upon to enter
the lists of conversation.
'Yes, they've got their particular naters good-now,' he remarked
initially. 'Many's the rum-tempered pig I've knowed.'
'I don't doubt it, Master Lickpan,' answered Martin, in a tone
expressing that his convictions, no less than good manners,
demanded the reply.
'Yes,' continued the pig-killer, as one accustomed to be heard.
'One that I knowed was deaf and dumb, and we couldn't make out
what was the matter wi' the pig. 'A would eat well enough when 'a
seed the trough, but when his back was turned, you might a-rattled
the bucket all day, the poor soul never heard ye. Ye could play
tricks upon en behind his back, and a' wouldn't find it out no
quicker than poor deaf Grammer Cates. But a' fatted well, and I
never seed a pig open better when a' was killed, and 'a was very
tender eating, very; as pretty a bit of mate as ever you see; you
could suck that mate through a quill.
'And another I knowed,' resumed the killer, after quietly letting
a pint of ale run down his throat of its own accord, and setting
down the cup with mathematical exactness upon the spot from which
he had raised it - 'another went out of his mind.'
'How very mournful!' murmured Mrs. Worm.
'Ay, poor thing, 'a did! As clean out of his mind as the cleverest
Christian could go. In early life 'a was very melancholy, and
never seemed a hopeful pig by no means. 'Twas Andrew Stainer's
pig - that's whose pig 'twas.'
'I can mind the pig well enough,' attested John Smith.
'And a pretty little porker 'a was. And you all know Farmer
Buckle's sort? Every jack o' em suffer from the rheumatism to this
day, owing to a damp sty they lived in when they were striplings,
as 'twere.'
'Well, now we'll weigh,' said John.
'If so be he were not so fine, we'd weigh en whole: but as he is,
we'll take a side at a time. John, you can mind my old joke, ey?'
'I do so; though 'twas a good few years ago I first heard en.'
'Yes,' said Lickpan, 'that there old familiar joke have been in
our family for generations, I may say. My father used that joke
regular at pig-killings for more than five and forty years - the
time he followed the calling. And 'a told me that 'a had it from
his father when he was quite a chiel, who made use o' en just the
same at every killing more or less; and pig-killings were pig-
killings in those days.'
'Trewly they were.'
'I've never heard the joke,' said Mrs. Smith tentatively.
'Nor I,' chimed in Mrs. Worm, who, being the only other lady in
the room, felt bound by the laws of courtesy to feel like Mrs.
Smith in everything.
'Surely, surely you have,' said the killer, looking sceptically at
the benighted females. 'However, 'tisn't much - I don't wish to
say it is. It commences like this: "Bob will tell the weight of
your pig, 'a b'lieve," says I. The congregation of neighbours
think I mane my son Bob, naturally; but the secret is that I mane
the bob o' the steelyard. Ha, ha, ha!'
'Haw, haw, haw!' laughed Martin Cannister, who had heard the
explanation of this striking story for the hundredth time.
'Huh, huh, huh!' laughed John Smith, who had heard it for the
thousandth.
'Hee, hee, hee!' laughed William Worm, who had never heard it at
all, but was afraid to say so.
'Thy grandfather, Robert, must have been a wide-awake chap to make
that story,' said Martin Cannister, subsiding to a placid aspect
of delighted criticism.
'He had a head, by all account. And, you see, as the first-born
of the Lickpans have all been Roberts, they've all been Bobs, so
the story was handed down to the present day.'
'Poor Joseph, your second boy, will never be able to bring it out
in company, which is rather unfortunate,' said Mrs. Worm
thoughtfully.
''A won't. Yes, grandfer was a clever chap, as ye say; but I
knowed a cleverer. 'Twas my uncle Levi. Uncle Levi made a snuff-
box that should be a puzzle to his friends to open. He used to
hand en round at wedding parties, christenings, funerals, and in
other jolly company, and let 'em try their skill. This
extraordinary snuff-box had a spring behind that would push in and
out - a hinge where seemed to be the cover; a slide at the end, a
screw in front, and knobs and queer notches everywhere. One man
would try the spring, another would try the screw, another would
try the slide; but try as they would, the box wouldn't open. And
they couldn't open en, and they didn't open en. Now what might
you think was the secret of that box?'
All put on an expression that their united thoughts were
inadequate to the occasion.
'Why the box wouldn't open at all. 'A were made not to open, and
ye might have tried till the end of Revelations, 'twould have been
as naught, for the box were glued all round.'
'A very deep man to have made such a box.'
'Yes. 'Twas like uncle Levi all over.'
''Twas. I can mind the man very well. Tallest man ever I seed.'
''A was so. He never slept upon a bedstead after he growed up a
hard boy-chap - never could get one long enough. When 'a lived in
that little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open
his chamber door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet
poke out upon the landing.'
'He's dead and gone now, nevertheless, poor man, as we all shall,'
observed Worm, to fill the pause which followed the conclusion of
Robert Lickpan's speech.
The weighing and cutting up was pursued amid an animated discourse
on Stephen's travels; and at the finish, the first-fruits of the
day's slaughter, fried in onions, were then turned from the pan
into a dish on the table, each piece steaming and hissing till it
reached their very mouths.
It must be owned that the gentlemanly son of the house looked
rather out of place in the course of this operation. Nor was his
mind quite philosophic enough to allow him to be comfortable with
these old-established persons, his father's friends. He had never
lived long at home - scarcely at all since his childhood. The
presence of William Worm was the most awkward feature of the case,
for, though Worm had left the house of Mr. Swancourt, the being
hand-in-glove with a ci-devant servitor reminded Stephen too
forcibly of the vicar's classification of himself before he went
from England. Mrs. Smith was conscious of the defect in her
arrangements which had brought about the undesired conjunction.
She spoke to Stephen privately.
'I am above having such people here, Stephen; but what could I do?
And your father is so rough in his nature that he's more mixed up
with them than need be.'
'Never mind, mother,' said Stephen; 'I'll put up with it now.'
'When we leave my lord's service, and get further up the country -
as I hope we shall soon - it will be different. We shall be among
fresh people, and in a larger house, and shall keep ourselves up a
bit, I hope.'
'Is Miss Swancourt at home, do you know?' Stephen inquired
'Yes, your father saw her this morning.'
'Do you often see her?'
'Scarcely ever. Mr. Glim, the curate, calls occasionally, but the
Swancourts don't come into the village now any more than to drive
through it. They dine at my lord's oftener than they used. Ah,
here's a note was brought this morning for you by a boy.'
Stephen eagerly took the note and opened it, his mother watching
him. He read what Elfride had written and sent before she started
for the cliff that afternoon:
'Yes; I will meet you in the church at nine to-night. - E. S.'
'I don't know, Stephen,' his mother said meaningly, 'whe'r you
still think about Miss Elfride, but if I were you I wouldn't
concern about her. They say that none of old Mrs. Swancourt's
money will come to her step-daughter.'
'I see the evening has turned out fine; I am going out for a
little while to look round the place,' he said, evading the direct
query. 'Probably by the time I return our visitors will be gone,
and we'll have a more confidential talk.'
Chapter XXIV
'Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour.'
The rain had ceased since the sunset, but it was a cloudy night;
and the light of the moon, softened and dispersed by its misty
veil, was distributed over the land in pale gray.
A dark figure stepped from the doorway of John Smith's river-side
cottage, and strode rapidly towards West Endelstow with a light
footstep. Soon ascending from the lower levels he turned a
corner, followed a cart-track, and saw the tower of the church he
was in quest of distinctly shaped forth against the sky. In less
than half an hour from the time of starting he swung himself over
the churchyard stile.
The wild irregular enclosure was as much as ever an integral part
of the old hill. The grass was still long, the graves were shaped
precisely as passing years chose to alter them from their orthodox
form as laid down by Martin Cannister, and by Stephen's own
grandfather before him.
A sound sped into the air from the direction in which Castle
Boterel lay. It was the striking of the church clock, distinct in
the still atmosphere as if it had come from the tower hard by,
which, wrapt in its solitary silentness, gave out no such sounds
of life.
'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.' Stephen
carefully counted the strokes, though he well knew their number
beforehand. Nine o'clock. It was the hour Elfride had herself
named as the most convenient for meeting him.
Stephen stood at the door of the porch and listened. He could
have heard the softest breathing of any person within the porch;
nobody was there. He went inside the doorway, sat down upon the
stone bench, and waited with a beating heart.
The faint sounds heard only accentuated the silence. The rising
and falling of the sea, far away along the coast, was the most
important. A minor sound was the scurr of a distant night-hawk.
Among the minutest where all were minute were the light settlement
of gossamer fragments floating in the air, a toad humbly labouring
along through the grass near the entrance, the crackle of a dead
leaf which a worm was endeavouring to pull into the earth, a waft
of air, getting nearer and nearer, and expiring at his feet under
the burden of a winged seed.
Among all these soft sounds came not the only soft sound he cared
to hear - the footfall of Elfride.
For a whole quarter of an hour Stephen sat thus intent, without
moving a muscle. At the end of that time he walked to the west
front of the church. Turning the corner of the tower, a white
form stared him in the face. He started back, and recovered
himself. It was the tomb of young farmer Jethway, looking still
as fresh and as new as when it was first erected, the white stone
in which it was hewn having a singular weirdness amid the dark
blue slabs from local quarries, of which the whole remaining
gravestones were formed.
He thought of the night when he had sat thereon with Elfride as
his companion, and well remembered his regret that she had
received, even unwillingly, earlier homage than his own. But his
present tangible anxiety reduced such a feeling to sentimental
nonsense in comparison; and he strolled on over the graves to the
border of the churchyard, whence in the daytime could be clearly
seen the vicarage and the present residence of the Swancourts. No
footstep was discernible upon the path up the hill, but a light
was shining from a window in the last-named house.
Stephen knew there could be no mistake about the time or place,
and no difficulty about keeping the engagement. He waited yet
longer, passing from impatience into a mood which failed to take
any account of the lapse of time. He was awakened from his
reverie by Castle Boterel clock.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN .
One little fall of the hammer in addition to the number it had
been sharp pleasure to hear, and what a difference to him!
He left the churchyard on the side opposite to his point of
entrance, and went down the hill. Slowly he drew near the gate of
her house. This he softly opened, and walked up the gravel drive
to the door. Here he paused for several minutes.
At the expiration of that time the murmured speech of a manly
voice came out to his ears through an open window behind the
corner of the house. This was responded to by a clear soft laugh.
It was the laugh of Elfride.
Stephen was conscious of a gnawing pain at his heart. He
retreated as he had come. There are disappointments which wring
us, and there are those which inflict a wound whose mark we bear
to our graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of
the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become registered
as a permanent loss of happiness. Such a one was Stephen's now:
the crowning aureola of the dream had been the meeting here by
stealth; and if Elfride had come to him only ten minutes after he
had turned away, the disappointment would have been recognizable
still.
When the young man reached home he found there a letter which had
arrived in his absence. Believing it to contain some reason for
her non-appearance, yet unable to imagine one that could justify
her, he hastily tore open the envelope.
The paper contained not a word from Elfride. It was the deposit-
note for his two hundred pounds. On the back was the form of a
cheque, and this she had filled up with the same sum, payable to
the bearer.
Stephen was confounded. He attempted to divine her motive.
Considering how limited was his knowledge of her later actions, he
guessed rather shrewdly that, between the time of her sending the
note in the morning and the evening's silent refusal of his gift,
something had occurred which had caused a total change in her
attitude towards him.
He knew not what to do. It seemed absurd now to go to her father
next morning, as he had purposed, and ask for an engagement with
her, a possibility impending all the while that Elfride herself
would not be on his side. Only one course recommended itself as
wise. To wait and see what the days would bring forth; to go and
execute his commissions in Birmingham; then to return, learn if
anything had happened, and try what a meeting might do; perhaps
her surprise at his backwardness would bring her forward to show
latent warmth as decidedly as in old times.
This act of patience was in keeping only with the nature of a man
precisely of Stephen's constitution. Nine men out of ten would
perhaps have rushed off, got into her presence, by fair means or
foul, and provoked a catastrophe of some sort. Possibly for the
better, probably for the worse.
He started for Birmingham the next morning. A day's delay would
have made no difference; but he could not rest until he had begun
and ended the programme proposed to himself. Bodily activity will
sometimes take the sting out of anxiety as completely as assurance
itself.
Chapter XXV
'Mine own familiar friend.'
During these days of absence Stephen lived under alternate
conditions. Whenever his emotions were active, he was in agony.
Whenever he was not in agony, the business in hand had driven out
of his mind by sheer force all deep reflection on the subject of
Elfride and love.
By the time he took his return journey at the week's end, Stephen
had very nearly worked himself up to an intention to call and see
her face to face. On this occasion also he adopted his favourite
route - by the little summer steamer from Bristol to Castle
Boterel; the time saved by speed on the railway being wasted at
junctions, and in following a devious course.
It was a bright silent evening at the beginning of September when
Smith again set foot in the little town. He felt inclined to
linger awhile upon the quay before ascending the hills, having
formed a romantic intention to go home by way of her house, yet
not wishing to wander in its neighbourhood till the evening shades
should sufficiently screen him from observation.
And thus waiting for night's nearer approach, he watched the
placid scene, over which the pale luminosity of the west cast a
sorrowful monochrome, that became slowly embrowned by the dusk. A
star appeared, and another, and another. They sparkled amid the
yards and rigging of the two coal brigs lying alangside, as if
they had been tiny lamps suspended in the ropes. The masts rocked
sleepily to the infinitesimal flux of the tide, which clucked and
gurgled with idle regularity in nooks and holes of the harbour
wall.
The twilight was now quite pronounced enough for his purpose; and
as, rather sad at heart, he was about to move on, a little boat
containing two persons glided up the middle of the harbour with
the lightness of a shadow. The boat came opposite him, passed on,
and touched the landing-steps at the further end. One of its
occupants was a man, as Stephen had known by the easy stroke of
the oars. When the pair ascended the steps, and came into greater
prominence, he was enabled to discern that the second personage
was a woman; also that she wore a white decoration - apparently a
feather - in her hat or bonnet, which spot of white was the only
distinctly visible portion of her clothing.
Stephen remained a moment in their rear, and they passed on, when
he pursued his way also, and soon forgot the circumstance. Having
crossed a bridge, forsaken the high road, and entered the footpath
which led up the vale to West Endelstow, he heard a little wicket
click softly together some yards ahead. By the time that Stephen
had reached the wicket and passed it, he heard another click of
precisely the same nature from another gate yet further on.
Clearly some person or persons were preceding him along the path,
their footsteps being rendered noiseless by the soft carpet of
turf. Stephen now walked a little quicker, and perceived two
forms. One of them bore aloft the white feather he had noticed in
the woman's hat on the quay: they were the couple he had seen in
the boat. Stephen dropped a little further to the rear.
From the bottom of the valley, along which the path had hitherto
lain, beside the margin of the trickling streamlet, another path
now diverged, and ascended the slope of the left-hand hill. This
footway led only to the residence of Mrs. Swancourt and a cottage
or two in its vicinity. No grass covered this diverging path in
portions of its length, and Stephen was reminded that the pair in
front of him had taken this route by the occasional rattle of
loose stones under their feet. Stephen climbed in the same
direction, but for some undefined reason he trod more softly than
did those preceding him. His mind was unconsciously in exercise
upon whom the woman might be - whether a visitor to The Crags, a
servant, or Elfride. He put it to himself yet more forcibly;
could the lady be Elfride? A possible reason for her unaccountable
failure to keep the appointment with him returned with painful
force.
They entered the grounds of the house by the side wicket, whence
the path, now wide and well trimmed, wound fantastically through
the shrubbery to an octagonal pavilion called the Belvedere, by
reason of the comprehensive view over the adjacent district that
its green seats afforded. The path passed this erection and went
on to the house as well as to the gardener's cottage on the other
side, straggling thence to East Endelstow; so that Stephen felt no
hesitation in entering a promenade which could scarcely be called
private.
He fancied that he heard the gate open and swing together again
behind him. Turning, he saw nobody.
The people of the boat came to the summer-house. One of them
spoke.
'I am afraid we shall get a scolding for being so late.'
Stephen instantly recognised the familiar voice, richer and fuller
now than it used to be. 'Elfride!' he whispered to himself, and
held fast by a sapling, to steady himself under the agitation her
presence caused him. His heart swerved from its beat; he shunned
receiving the meaning he sought.
'A breeze is rising again; how the ash tree rustles!' said
Elfride. 'Don't you hear it? I wonder what the time is.'
Stephen relinquished the sapling.
I will get a light and tell you. Step into the summer-house; the
air is quiet there.'
The cadence of that voice - its peculiarity seemed to come home to
him like that of some notes of the northern birds on his return to
his native clime, as an old natural thing renewed, yet not
particularly noticed as natural before that renewal.
They entered the Belvedere. In the lower part it was formed of
close wood-work nailed crosswise, and had openings in the upper by
way of windows.
The scratch of a striking light was heard, and a bright glow
radiated from the interior of the building. The light gave birth
to dancing leaf-shadows, stem-shadows, lustrous streaks, dots,
sparkles, and threads of silver sheen of all imaginable variety
and transience. It awakened gnats, which flew towards it,
revealed shiny gossamer threads, disturbed earthworms. Stephen
gave but little attention to these phenomena, and less time. He
saw in the summer-house a strongly illuminated picture.
First, the face of his friend and preceptor Henry Knight, between
whom and himself an estrangement had arisen, not from any definite
causes beyond those of absence, increasing age, and diverging
sympathies.
Next, his bright particular star, Elfride. The face of Elfride
was more womanly than when she had called herself his, but as
clear and healthy as ever. Her plenteous twines of beautiful hair
were looking much as usual, with the exception of a slight
modification in their arrangement in deference to the changes of
fashion.
Their two foreheads were close together, almost touching, and both
were looking down. Elfride was holding her watch, Knight was
holding the light with one hand, his left arm being round her
waist. Part of the scene reached Stephen's eyes through the
horizontal bars of woodwork, which crossed their forms like the
ribs of a skeleton.
Knight's arm stole still further round the waist of Elfride.
'It is half-past eight,' she said in a low voice, which had a
peculiar music in it, seemingly born of a thrill of pleasure at
the new proof that she was beloved.
The flame dwindled down, died away, and all was wrapped in a
darkness to which the gloom before the illumination bore no
comparison in apparent density. Stephen, shattered in spirit and
sick to his heart's centre, turned away. In turning, he saw a
shadowy outline behind the summer-house on the other side. His
eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Was the form a human form,
or was it an opaque bush of juniper?
The lovers arose, brushed against the laurestines, and pursued
their way to the house. The indistinct figure had moved, and now
passed across Smith's front. So completely enveloped was the
person, that it was impossible to discern him or her any more than
as a shape. The shape glided noiselessly on.
Stephen stepped forward, fearing any mischief was intended to the
other two. 'Who are you?' he said.
'Never mind who I am,' answered a weak whisper from the enveloping
folds. 'WHAT I am, may she be! Perhaps I knew well - ah, so well! -
a youth whose place you took, as he there now takes yours. Will
you let her break your heart, and bring you to an untimely grave,
as she did the one before you?'
'You are Mrs. Jethway, I think. What do you do here? And why do
you talk so wildly?'
'Because my heart is desolate, and nobody cares about it. May
hers be so that brought trouble upon me!'
'Silence!' said Stephen, staunch to Elfride in spite of himself
'She would harm nobody wilfully, never would she! How do you come
here?'
'I saw the two coming up the path, and wanted to learn if she were
not one of them. Can I help disliking her if I think of the past?
Can I help watching her if I remember my boy? Can I help ill-
wishing her if I well-wish him?'
The bowed form went on, passed through the wicket, and was