Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated), page 95
On an ordinary occasion, had Knight been even quite alone with Stephen, he would hardly have alluded to his possible relationship to Elfride. But moved by attendant circumstances Knight was impelled to be confiding.
‘Stephen,’ he said, ‘this lady is Miss Swancourt. I am staying at her father’s house, as you probably know.’ He stepped a few paces nearer to Smith, and said in a lower tone: ‘I may as well tell you that we are engaged to be married.’
Low as the words had been spoken, Elfride had heard them, and awaited Stephen’s reply in breathless silence, if that could be called silence where Elfride’s dress, at each throb of her heart, shook and indicated it like a pulse-glass, rustling also against the wall in reply to the same throbbing. The ray of daylight which reached her face lent it a blue pallor in comparison with those of the other two.
‘I congratulate you,’ Stephen whispered; and said aloud, ‘I know Miss Swancourt — a little. You must remember that my father is a parishioner of Mr. Swancourt’s.’
‘I thought you might possibly not have lived at home since they have been here.’
‘I have never lived at home, certainly, since that time.’
‘I have seen Mr. Smith,’ faltered Elfride.
‘Well, there is no excuse for me. As strangers to each other I ought, I suppose, to have introduced you: as acquaintances, I should not have stood so persistently between you. But the fact is, Smith, you seem a boy to me, even now.’
Stephen appeared to have a more than previous consciousness of the intense cruelty of his fate at the present moment. He could not repress the words, uttered with a dim bitterness:
‘You should have said that I seemed still the rural mechanic’s son I am, and hence an unfit subject for the ceremony of introductions.’
‘Oh, no, no! I won’t have that.’ Knight endeavoured to give his reply a laughing tone in Elfride’s ears, and an earnestness in Stephen’s: in both which efforts he signally failed, and produced a forced speech pleasant to neither. ‘Well, let us go into the open air again; Miss Swancourt, you are particularly silent. You mustn’t mind Smith. I have known him for years, as I have told you.’
‘Yes, you have,’ she said.
‘To think she has never mentioned her knowledge of me!’ Smith murmured, and thought with some remorse how much her conduct resembled his own on his first arrival at her house as a stranger to the place.
They ascended to the daylight, Knight taking no further notice of Elfride’s manner, which, as usual, he attributed to the natural shyness of a young woman at being discovered walking with him on terms which left not much doubt of their meaning. Elfride stepped a little in advance, and passed through the churchyard.
‘You are changed very considerably, Smith,’ said Knight, ‘and I suppose it is no more than was to be expected. However, don’t imagine that I shall feel any the less interest in you and your fortunes whenever you care to confide them to me. I have not forgotten the attachment you spoke of as your reason for going away to India. A London young lady, was it not? I hope all is prosperous?’
‘No: the match is broken off.’
It being always difficult to know whether to express sorrow or gladness under such circumstances — all depending upon the character of the match — Knight took shelter in the safe words: ‘I trust it was for the best.’
‘I hope it was. But I beg that you will not press me further: no, you have not pressed me — I don’t mean that — but I would rather not speak upon the subject.’
Stephen’s words were hurried.
Knight said no more, and they followed in the footsteps of Elfride, who still kept some paces in advance, and had not heard Knight’s unconscious allusion to her. Stephen bade him adieu at the churchyard-gate without going outside, and watched whilst he and his sweetheart mounted their horses.
‘Good heavens, Elfride,’ Knight exclaimed, ‘how pale you are! I suppose I ought not to have taken you into that vault. What is the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ said Elfride faintly. ‘I shall be myself in a moment. All was so strange and unexpected down there, that it made me unwell.’
‘I thought you said very little. Shall I get some water?’
‘No, no.’
‘Do you think it is safe for you to mount?’
‘Quite — indeed it is,’ she said, with a look of appeal.
‘Now then — up she goes!’ whispered Knight, and lifted her tenderly into the saddle.
Her old lover still looked on at the performance as he leant over the gate a dozen yards off. Once in the saddle, and having a firm grip of the reins, she turned her head as if by a resistless fascination, and for the first time since that memorable parting on the moor outside St. Launce’s after the passionate attempt at marriage with him, Elfride looked in the face of the young man she first had loved. He was the youth who had called her his inseparable wife many a time, and whom she had even addressed as her husband. Their eyes met. Measurement of life should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than to its actual length. Their glance, but a moment chronologically, was a season in their history. To Elfride the intense agony of reproach in Stephen’s eye was a nail piercing her heart with a deadliness no words can describe. With a spasmodic effort she withdrew her eyes, urged on the horse, and in the chaos of perturbed memories was oblivious of any presence beside her. The deed of deception was complete.
Gaining a knoll on which the park transformed itself into wood and copse, Knight came still closer to her side, and said, ‘Are you better now, dearest?’
‘Oh yes.’ She pressed a hand to her eyes, as if to blot out the image of Stephen. A vivid scarlet spot now shone with preternatural brightness in the centre of each cheek, leaving the remainder of her face lily-white as before.
‘Elfride,’ said Knight, rather in his old tone of mentor, ‘you know I don’t for a moment chide you, but is there not a great deal of unwomanly weakness in your allowing yourself to be so overwhelmed by the sight of what, after all, is no novelty? Every woman worthy of the name should, I think, be able to look upon death with something like composure. Surely you think so too?’
‘Yes; I own it.’
His obtuseness to the cause of her indisposition, by evidencing his entire freedom from the suspicion of anything behind the scenes, showed how incapable Knight was of deception himself, rather than any inherent dulness in him regarding human nature. This, clearly perceived by Elfride, added poignancy to her self-reproach, and she idolized him the more because of their difference. Even the recent sight of Stephen’s face and the sound of his voice, which for a moment had stirred a chord or two of ancient kindness, were unable to keep down the adoration re-existent now that he was again out of view.
She had replied to Knight’s question hastily, and immediately went on to speak of indifferent subjects. After they had reached home she was apart from him till dinner-time. When dinner was over, and they were watching the dusk in the drawing-room, Knight stepped out upon the terrace. Elfride went after him very decisively, on the spur of a virtuous intention.
‘Mr. Knight, I want to tell you something,’ she said, with quiet firmness.
‘And what is it about?’ gaily returned her lover. ‘Happiness, I hope. Do not let anything keep you so sad as you seem to have been to-day.’
‘I cannot mention the matter until I tell you the whole substance of it,’ she said. ‘And that I will do to-morrow. I have been reminded of it to-day. It is about something I once did, and don’t think I ought to have done.’
This, it must be said, was rather a mild way of referring to a frantic passion and flight, which, much or little in itself, only accident had saved from being a scandal in the public eye.
Knight thought the matter some trifle, and said pleasantly:
‘Then I am not to hear the dreadful confession now?’
‘No, not now. I did not mean to-night,’ Elfride responded, with a slight decline in the firmness of her voice. ‘It is not light as you think it — it troubles me a great deal.’ Fearing now the effect of her own earnestness, she added forcedly, ‘Though, perhaps, you may think it light after all.’
‘But you have not said when it is to be?’
‘To-morrow morning. Name a time, will you, and bind me to it? I want you to fix an hour, because I am weak, and may otherwise try to get out of it.’ She added a little artificial laugh, which showed how timorous her resolution was still.
‘Well, say after breakfast — at eleven o’clock.’
‘Yes, eleven o’clock. I promise you. Bind me strictly to my word.’
CHAPTER XXVIII
‘I lull a fancy, trouble-tost.’
Miss Swancourt, it is eleven o’clock.’
She was looking out of her dressing-room window on the first floor, and Knight was regarding her from the terrace balustrade, upon which he had been idly sitting for some time — dividing the glances of his eye between the pages of a book in his hand, the brilliant hues of the geraniums and calceolarias, and the open window above-mentioned.
‘Yes, it is, I know. I am coming.’
He drew closer, and under the window.
‘How are you this morning, Elfride? You look no better for your long night’s rest.’
She appeared at the door shortly after, took his offered arm, and together they walked slowly down the gravel path leading to the river and away under the trees.
Her resolution, sustained during the last fifteen hours, had been to tell the whole truth, and now the moment had come.
Step by step they advanced, and still she did not speak. They were nearly at the end of the walk, when Knight broke the silence.
‘Well, what is the confession, Elfride?’
She paused a moment, drew a long breath; and this is what she said:
‘I told you one day — or rather I gave you to understand — what was not true. I fancy you thought me to mean I was nineteen my next birthday, but it was my last I was nineteen.’
The moment had been too much for her. Now that the crisis had come, no qualms of conscience, no love of honesty, no yearning to make a confidence and obtain forgiveness with a kiss, could string Elfride up to the venture. Her dread lest he should be unforgiving was heightened by the thought of yesterday’s artifice, which might possibly add disgust to his disappointment. The certainty of one more day’s affection, which she gained by silence, outvalued the hope of a perpetuity combined with the risk of all.
The trepidation caused by these thoughts on what she had intended to say shook so naturally the words she did say, that Knight never for a moment suspected them to be a last moment’s substitution. He smiled and pressed her hand warmly.
‘My dear Elfie — yes, you are now — no protestation — what a winning little woman you are, to be so absurdly scrupulous about a mere iota! Really, I never once have thought whether your nineteenth year was the last or the present. And, by George, well I may not; for it would never do for a staid fogey a dozen years older to stand upon such a trifle as that.’
‘Don’t praise me — don’t praise me! Though I prize it from your lips, I don’t deserve it now.’
But Knight, being in an exceptionally genial mood, merely saw this distressful exclamation as modesty. ‘Well,’ he added, after a minute, ‘I like you all the better, you know, for such moral precision, although I called it absurd.’ He went on with tender earnestness: ‘For, Elfride, there is one thing I do love to see in a woman — that is, a soul truthful and clear as heaven’s light. I could put up with anything if I had that — forgive nothing if I had it not. Elfride, you have such a soul, if ever woman had; and having it, retain it, and don’t ever listen to the fashionable theories of the day about a woman’s privileges and natural right to practise wiles. Depend upon it, my dear girl, that a noble woman must be as honest as a noble man. I specially mean by honesty, fairness not only in matters of business and social detail, but in all the delicate dealings of love, to which the licence given to your sex particularly refers.’
Elfride looked troublously at the trees.
‘Now let us go on to the river, Elfie.’
‘I would if I had a hat on,’ she said with a sort of suppressed woe.
‘I will get it for you,’ said Knight, very willing to purchase her companionship at so cheap a price. ‘You sit down there a minute.’ And he turned and walked rapidly back to the house for the article in question.
Elfride sat down upon one of the rustic benches which adorned this portion of the grounds, and remained with her eyes upon the grass. She was induced to lift them by hearing the brush of light and irregular footsteps hard by. Passing along the path which intersected the one she was in and traversed the outer shrubberies, Elfride beheld the farmer’s widow, Mrs. Jethway. Before she noticed Elfride, she paused to look at the house, portions of which were visible through the bushes. Elfride, shrinking back, hoped the unpleasant woman might go on without seeing her. But Mrs. Jethway, silently apostrophizing the house, with actions which seemed dictated by a half-overturned reason, had discerned the girl, and immediately came up and stood in front of her.
‘Ah, Miss Swancourt! Why did you disturb me? Mustn’t I trespass here?’
‘You may walk here if you like, Mrs. Jethway. I do not disturb you.’
‘You disturb my mind, and my mind is my whole life; for my boy is there still, and he is gone from my body.’
‘Yes, poor young man. I was sorry when he died.’
‘Do you know what he died of?’
‘Consumption.’
‘Oh no, no!’ said the widow. ‘That word “consumption” covers a good deal. He died because you were his own well-agreed sweetheart, and then proved false — and it killed him. Yes, Miss Swancourt,’ she said in an excited whisper, ‘you killed my son!’
‘How can you be so wicked and foolish!’ replied Elfride, rising indignantly. But indignation was not natural to her, and having been so worn and harrowed by late events, she lost any powers of defence that mood might have lent her. ‘I could not help his loving me, Mrs. Jethway!’
‘That’s just what you could have helped. You know how it began, Miss Elfride. Yes: you said you liked the name of Felix better than any other name in the parish, and you knew it was his name, and that those you said it to would report it to him.’
‘I knew it was his name — of course I did; but I am sure, Mrs. Jethway, I did not intend anybody to tell him.’
‘But you knew they would.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘And then, after that, when you were riding on Revels-day by our house, and the lads were gathered there, and you wanted to dismount, when Jim Drake and George Upway and three or four more ran forward to hold your pony, and Felix stood back timid, why did you beckon to him, and say you would rather he held it?’
‘O Mrs. Jethway, you do think so mistakenly! I liked him best — that’s why I wanted him to do it. He was gentle and nice — I always thought him so — and I liked him.’
‘Then why did you let him kiss you?’
‘It is a falsehood; oh, it is, it is!’ said Elfride, weeping with desperation. ‘He came behind me, and attempted to kiss me; and that was why I told him never to let me see him again.’
‘But you did not tell your father or anybody, as you would have if you had looked upon it then as the insult you now pretend it was.’
‘He begged me not to tell, and foolishly enough I did not. And I wish I had now. I little expected to be scourged with my own kindness. Pray leave me, Mrs. Jethway.’ The girl only expostulated now.
‘Well, you harshly dismissed him, and he died. And before his body was cold, you took another to your heart. Then as carelessly sent him about his business, and took a third. And if you consider that nothing, Miss Swancourt,’ she continued, drawing closer; ‘it led on to what was very serious indeed. Have you forgotten the would-be runaway marriage? The journey to London, and the return the next day without being married, and that there’s enough disgrace in that to ruin a woman’s good name far less light than yours? You may have: I have not. Fickleness towards a lover is bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is wantonness.’
‘Oh, it’s a wicked cruel lie! Do not say it; oh, do not!’
‘Does your new man know of it? I think not, or he would be no man of yours! As much of the story as was known is creeping about the neighbourhood even now; but I know more than any of them, and why should I respect your love?’
‘I defy you!’ cried Elfride tempestuously. ‘Do and say all you can to ruin me; try; put your tongue at work; I invite it! I defy you as a slanderous woman! Look, there he comes.’ And her voice trembled greatly as she saw through the leaves the beloved form of Knight coming from the door with her hat in his hand. ‘Tell him at once; I can bear it.’
‘Not now,’ said the woman, and disappeared down the path.
The excitement of her latter words had restored colour to Elfride’s cheeks; and hastily wiping her eyes, she walked farther on, so that by the time her lover had overtaken her the traces of emotion had nearly disappeared from her face. Knight put the hat upon her head, took her hand, and drew it within his arm.
