Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (225 page)

She instantly perceived that getting into close quarters in that way might be very inconvenient, considering the youngsters she had under her charge, and straightway decided upon a point that she had debated for several days — a visit to her aunt in Normandy.  In London it had been a mere thought, but the Channel had looked so tempting from its brink that the journey was virtually fixed as soon as she reached Knollsea, and found that a little pleasure steamer crossed to Cherbourg once a week during the summer, so that she would not have to enter the crowded routes at all.

‘I am afraid I shall not see you in Knollsea,’ she said.  ‘I am about to go to Cherbourg and then to Rouen.’

‘How sorry I am.  When do you leave?’

‘At the beginning of next week,’ said Ethelberta, settling the time there and then.

‘Did I hear you say that you were going to Cherbourg and Rouen?’ Lord Mountclere inquired.

‘I think to do so,’ said Ethelberta.

‘I am going to Normandy myself,’ said a voice behind her, and without turning she knew that Neigh was standing there.

They next went outside, and Lord Mountclere offered Ethelberta his arm on the ground of assisting her down the burnished grass slope.  Ethelberta, taking pity upon him, took it; but the assistance was all on her side; she stood like a statue amid his slips and totterings, some of which taxed her strength heavily, and her ingenuity more, to appear as the supported and not the supporter.  The incident brought Neigh still further from his retirement, and she learnt that he was one of a yachting party which had put in at Knollsea that morning; she was greatly relieved to find that he was just now on his way to London, whence he would probably proceed on his journey abroad.

Ethelberta adhered as well as she could to her resolve that Neigh should not speak with her alone, but by dint of perseverance he did manage to address her without being overheard.

‘Will you give me an answer?’ said Neigh.  ‘I have come on purpose.’

‘I cannot just now.  I have been led to doubt you.’

‘Doubt me?  What new wrong have I done?’

‘Spoken jestingly of my visit to Farnfield.’

‘Good — -!  I did not speak or think of you.  When I told that incident I had no idea who the lady was — I did not know it was you till two days later, and I at once held my tongue.  I vow to you upon my soul and life that what I say is true.  How shall I prove my truth better than by my errand here?’

‘Don’t speak of this now.  I am so occupied with other things.  I am going to Rouen, and will think of it on my way.’

‘I am going there too.  When do you go?’

‘I shall be in Rouen next Wednesday, I hope.’

‘May I ask where?’

‘Hôtel Beau Séjour.’

‘Will you give me an answer there?  I can easily call upon you.  It is now a month and more since you first led me to hope — ’

‘I did not lead you to hope — at any rate clearly.’

‘Indirectly you did.  And although I am willing to be as considerate as any man ought to be in giving you time to think over the question, there is a limit to my patience.  Any necessary delay I will put up with, but I won’t be trifled with.  I hate all nonsense, and can’t stand it.’

‘Indeed.  Good morning.’

‘But Mrs. Petherwin — just one word.’

‘I have nothing to say.’

‘I will meet you at Rouen for an answer.  I would meet you in Hades for the matter of that.  Remember this: next Wednesday, if I live, I shall call upon you at Rouen.’

She did not say nay.

‘May I?’ he added.

‘If you will.’

‘But say it shall be an appointment?’

‘Very well.’

Lord Mountclere was by this time toddling towards them to ask if they would come on to his house, Enckworth Court, not very far distant, to lunch with the rest of the party.  Neigh, having already arranged to go on to town that afternoon, was obliged to decline, and Ethelberta thought fit to do the same, idly asking Lord Mountclere if Enckworth Court lay in the direction of a gorge that was visible where they stood.

‘No; considerably to the left,’ he said.  ‘The opening you are looking at would reveal the sea if it were not for the trees that block the way.  Ah, those trees have a history; they are half-a-dozen elms which I planted myself when I was a boy.  How time flies!’

‘It is unfortunate they stand just so as to cover the blue bit of sea.  That addition would double the value of the view from here.’

‘You would prefer the blue sea to the trees?’

‘In that particular spot I should; they might have looked just as well, and yet have hidden nothing worth seeing.  The narrow slit would have been invaluable there.’

‘They shall fall before the sun sets, in deference to your opinion,’ said Lord Mountclere.

‘That would be rash indeed,’ said Ethelberta, laughing, ‘when my opinion on such a point may be worth nothing whatever.’

‘Where no other is acted upon, it is practically the universal one,’ he replied gaily.

And then Ethelberta’s elderly admirer bade her adieu, and away the whole party drove in a long train over the hills towards the valley wherein stood Enckworth Court.  Ethelberta’s carriage was supposed by her friends to have been left at the village inn, as were many others, and her retiring from view on foot attracted no notice.

She watched them out of sight, and she also saw the rest depart — those who, their interest in archaeology having begun and ended with this spot, had, like herself, declined the hospitable viscount’s invitation, and started to drive or walk at once home again.  Thereupon the castle was quite deserted except by Ethelberta, the ass, and the jackdaws, now floundering at ease again in and about the ivy of the keep.

Not wishing to enter Knollsea till the evening shades were falling, she still walked amid the ruins, examining more leisurely some points which the stress of keeping herself companionable would not allow her to attend to while the assemblage was present.  At the end of the survey, being somewhat weary with her clambering, she sat down on the slope commanding the gorge where the trees grew, to make a pencil sketch of the landscape as it was revealed between the ragged walls.  Thus engaged she weighed the circumstances of Lord Mountclere’s invitation, and could not be certain if it were prudishness or simple propriety in herself which had instigated her to refuse.  She would have liked the visit for many reasons, and if Lord Mountclere had been anybody but a remarkably attentive old widower, she would have gone.  As it was, it had occurred to her that there was something in his tone which should lead her to hesitate.  Were any among the elderly or married ladies who had appeared upon the ground in a detached form as she had done — and many had appeared thus — invited to Enckworth; and if not, why were they not?  That Lord Mountclere admired her there was no doubt, and for this reason it behoved her to be careful.  His disappointment at parting from her was, in one aspect, simply laughable, from its odd resemblance to the unfeigned sorrow of a boy of fifteen at a first parting from his first love; in another aspect it caused reflection; and she thought again of his curiosity about her doings for the remainder of the summer.

* * * * *

While she sketched and thought thus, the shadows grew longer, and the sun low.  And then she perceived a movement in the gorge.  One of the trees forming the curtain across it began to wave strangely: it went further to one side, and fell. Where the tree had stood was now a rent in the foliage, and through the narrow rent could be seen the distant sea.

Ethelberta uttered a soft exclamation.  It was not caused by the surprise she had felt, nor by the intrinsic interest of the sight, nor by want of comprehension.  It was a sudden realisation of vague things hitherto dreamed of from a distance only — a sense of novel power put into her hands without request or expectation.  A landscape was to be altered to suit her whim.  She had in her lifetime moved essentially larger mountains, but they had seemed of far less splendid material than this; for it was the nature of the gratification rather than its magnitude which enchanted the fancy of a woman whose poetry, in spite of her necessities, was hardly yet extinguished.  But there was something more, with which poetry had little to do.  Whether the opinion of any pretty woman in England was of more weight with Lord Mountclere than memories of his boyhood, or whether that distinction was reserved for her alone; this was a point that she would have liked to know.

The enjoyment of power in a new element, an enjoyment somewhat resembling in kind that which is given by a first ride or swim, held Ethelberta to the spot, and she waited, but sketched no more.  Another tree-top swayed and vanished as before, and the slit of sea was larger still.  Her mind and eye were so occupied with this matter that, sitting in her nook, she did not observe a thin young man, his boots white with the dust of a long journey on foot, who arrived at the castle by the valley-road from Knollsea.  He looked awhile at the ruin, and, skirting its flank instead of entering by the great gateway, climbed up the scarp and walked in through a breach.  After standing for a moment among the walls, now silent and apparently empty, with a disappointed look he descended the slope, and proceeded along on his way.

Ethelberta, who was in quite another part of the castle, saw the black spot diminishing to the size of a fly as he receded along the dusty road, and soon after she descended on the other side, where she remounted the ass, and ambled homeward as she had come, in no bright mood.  What, seeing the precariousness of her state, was the day’s triumph worth after all, unless, before her beauty abated, she could ensure her position against the attacks of chance?

   ’To be thus is nothing;

But to be safely thus.’

 — she said it more than once on her journey that day.

On entering the sitting-room of their cot up the hill she found it empty, and from a change perceptible in the position of small articles of furniture, something unusual seemed to have taken place in her absence.  The dwelling being of that sort in which whatever goes on in one room is audible through all the rest, Picotee, who was upstairs, heard the arrival and came down.  Picotee’s face was rosed over with the brilliance of some excitement.  ‘What do you think I have to tell you, Berta?’ she said.

‘I have no idea,’ said her sister.  ‘Surely,’ she added, her face intensifying to a wan sadness, ‘Mr. Julian has not been here?’

‘Yes,’ said Picotee.  ‘And we went down to the sands — he, and Myrtle, and Georgina, and Emmeline, and I — and Cornelia came down when she had put away the dinner.  And then we dug wriggles out of the sand with Myrtle’s spade: we got such a lot, and had such fun; they are in a dish in the kitchen.  Mr. Julian came to see you; but at last he could wait no longer, and when I told him you were at the meeting in the castle ruins he said he would try to find you there on his way home, if he could get there before the meeting broke up.’

‘Then it was he I saw far away on the road — yes, it must have been.’  She remained in gloomy reverie a few moments, and then said, ‘Very well — let it be.  Picotee, get me some tea: I do not want dinner.’

But the news of Christopher’s visit seemed to have taken away her appetite for tea also, and after sitting a little while she flung herself down upon the couch, and told Picotee that she had settled to go and see their aunt Charlotte.

‘I am going to write to Sol and Dan to ask them to meet me there,’ she added.  ‘I want them, if possible, to see Paris.  It will improve them greatly in their trades, I am thinking, if they can see the kinds of joinery and decoration practised in France.  They agreed to go, if I should wish it, before we left London.  You, of course, will go as my maid.’

Picotee gazed upon the sea with a crestfallen look, as if she would rather not cross it in any capacity just then.

‘It would scarcely be worth going to the expense of taking me, would it?’ she said.

The cause of Picotee’s sudden sense of economy was so plain that her sister smiled; but young love, however foolish, is to a thinking person far too tragic a power for ridicule; and Ethelberta forbore, going on as if Picotee had not spoken: ‘I must have you with me.  I may be seen there: so many are passing through Rouen at this time of the year.  Cornelia can take excellent care of the children while we are gone.  I want to get out of England, and I will get out of England.  There is nothing but vanity and vexation here.’

‘I am sorry you were away when he called,’ said Picotee gently.

‘O, I don’t mean that.  I wish there were no different ranks in the world, and that contrivance were not a necessary faculty to have at all.  Well, we are going to cross by the little steamer that puts in here, and we are going on Monday.’  She added in another minute, ‘What had Mr. Julian to tell us that he came here?  How did he find us out?’

‘I mentioned that we were coming here in my letter to Faith.  Mr. Julian says that perhaps he and his sister may also come for a few days before the season is over.  I should like to see Miss Julian again.  She is such a nice girl.’

‘Yes.’  Ethelberta played with her hair, and looked at the ceiling as she reclined.  ‘I have decided after all,’ she said, ‘that it will be better to take Cornelia as my maid, and leave you here with the children.  Cornelia is stronger as a companion than you, and she will be delighted to go.  Do you think you are competent to keep Myrtle and Georgina out of harm’s way?’

‘O yes — I will be exceedingly careful,’ said Picotee, with great vivacity.  ‘And if there is time I can go on teaching them a little.’  Then Picotee caught Ethelberta’s eye, and colouring red, sank down beside her sister, whispering, ‘I know why it is!  But if you would rather have me with you I will go, and not once wish to stay.’

Ethelberta looked as if she knew all about that, and said, ‘Of course there will be no necessity to tell the Julians about my departure until they have fixed the time for coming, and cannot alter their minds.’

The sound of the children with Cornelia, and their appearance outside the window, pushing between the fuchsia bushes which overhung the path, put an end to this dialogue; they entered armed with buckets and spades, a very moist and sandy aspect pervading them as far up as the high-water mark of their clothing, and began to tell Ethelberta of the wonders of the deep.