Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (234 page)

‘Yes.’

‘It boasts of a very fine organ.’

‘Ah.’

‘And the organist is a clever young man.’

‘Oh.’

Lord Mountclere paused a moment or two.  ‘By the way, you may remember that he is the Mr. Julian who set your song to music!’

‘I recollect it quite well.’  Her heart was horrified and she thought Lord Mountclere must be developing into an inquisitor, which perhaps he was.  But none of this reached her face.

They turned in the direction of the Hall, were set down, and entered.

The large assembly-room set apart for the concert was upstairs, and it was possible to enter it in two ways: by the large doorway in front of the landing, or by turning down a side passage leading to council-rooms and subsidiary apartments of small size, which were allotted to performers in any exhibition; thus they could enter from one of these directly upon the platform, without passing through the audience.

‘Will you seat yourselves here?’ said Lord Mountclere, who, instead of entering by the direct door, had brought the young women round into this green-room, as it may be called.  ‘You see we have come in privately enough; when the musicians arrive we can pass through behind them, and step down to our seats from the front.’

The players could soon be heard tuning in the next room.  Then one came through the passage-room where the three waited, and went in, then another, then another.  Last of all came Julian.

Ethelberta sat facing the door, but Christopher, never in the least expecting her there, did not recognize her till he was quite inside.  When he had really perceived her to be the one who had troubled his soul so many times and long, the blood in his face — never very much — passed off and left it, like the shade of a cloud.  Between them stood a table covered with green baize, which, reflecting upwards a band of sunlight shining across the chamber, flung upon his already white features the virescent hues of death.  The poor musician, whose person, much to his own inconvenience, constituted a complete breviary of the gentle emotions, looked as if he were going to fall down in a faint.

Ethelberta flung at Lord Mountclere a look which clipped him like pincers: he never forgot it as long as he lived.

‘This is your pretty jealous scheme — I see it!’ she hissed to him, and without being able to control herself went across to Julian.

But a slight gasp came from behind the door where Picotee had been sitting.  Ethelberta and Lord Mountclere looked that way: and behold, Picotee had nearly swooned.

Ethelberta’s show of passion went as quickly as it had come, for she felt that a splendid triumph had been put into her hands.  ‘Now do you see the truth?’ she whispered to Lord Mountclere without a drachm of feeling; pointing to Christopher and then to Picotee — as like as two snowdrops now.

‘I do, I do,’ murmured the viscount hastily.

They both went forward to help Christopher in restoring the fragile Picotee: he had set himself to that task as suddenly as he possibly could to cover his own near approach to the same condition.  Not much help was required, the little girl’s indisposition being quite momentary, and she sat up in the chair again.

‘Are you better?’ said Ethelberta to Christopher.

‘Quite well — quite,’ he said, smiling faintly.  ‘I am glad to see you.  I must, I think, go into the next room now.’  He bowed and walked out awkwardly.

‘Are you better, too?’ she said to Picotee.

‘Quite well,’ said Picotee.

‘You are quite sure you know between whom the love lies now — eh?’ Ethelberta asked in a sarcastic whisper of Lord Mountclere.

‘I am — beyond a doubt,’ murmured the anxious nobleman; he feared that look of hers, which was not less dominant than irresistible.

Some additional moments given to thought on the circumstances rendered Ethelberta still more indignant and intractable.  She went out at the door by which they had entered, along the passage, and down the stairs.  A shuffling footstep followed, but she did not turn her head.  When they reached the bottom of the stairs the carriage had gone, their exit not being expected till two hours later.  Ethelberta, nothing daunted, swept along the pavement and down the street in a turbulent prance, Lord Mountclere trotting behind with a jowl reduced to a mere nothing by his concern at the discourtesy into which he had been lured by jealous whisperings.

‘My dearest — forgive me; I confess I doubted you — but I was beside myself,’ came to her ears from over her shoulder.  But Ethelberta walked on as before.

Lord Mountclere sighed like a poet over a ledger.  ‘An old man — who is not very old — naturally torments himself with fears of losing — no, no — it was an innocent jest of mine — you will forgive a joke — hee-hee?’ he said again, on getting no reply.

‘You had no right to mistrust me!’

‘I do not — you did not blench.  You should have told me before that it was your sister and not yourself who was entangled with him.’

‘You brought me to Melchester on purpose to confront him!’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Are you not ashamed?’

‘I am satisfied.  It is better to know the truth by any means than to die of suspense; better for us both — surely you see that?’

They had by this time got to the end of a long street, and into a deserted side road by which the station could be indirectly reached.  Picotee appeared in the distance as a mere distracted speck of girlhood, following them because not knowing what else to do in her sickness of body and mind.  Once out of sight here, Ethelberta began to cry.

‘Ethelberta,’ said Lord Mountclere, in an agony of trouble, ‘don’t be vexed!  It was an inconsiderate trick — I own it.  Do what you will, but do not desert me now!  I could not bear it — you would kill me if you were to leave me.  Anything, but be mine.’

Ethelberta continued her way, and drying her eyes entered the station, where, on searching the time-tables, she found there would be no train for Anglebury for the next two hours.  Then more slowly she turned towards the town again, meeting Picotee and keeping in her company.

Lord Mountclere gave up the chase, but as he wished to get into the town again, he followed in the same direction.  When Ethelberta had proceeded as far as the Red Lion Hotel, she turned towards it with her companion, and being shown to a room, the two sisters shut themselves in.  Lord Mountclere paused and entered the White Hart, the rival hotel to the Red Lion, which stood in an adjoining street.

Having secluded himself in an apartment here, walked from window to window awhile, and made himself generally uncomfortable, he sat down to the writing materials on the table, and concocted a note: —

‘WHITE HART HOTEL.

‘MY DEAR MRS. PETHERWIN, — You do not mean to be so cruel as to break your plighted word to me?  Remember, there is no love without much jealousy, and lovers are ever full of sighs and misgiving.  I have owned to as much contrition as can reasonably be expected.  I could not endure the suspicion that you loved another. — Yours always,

‘MOUNTCLERE.’

This he sent, watching from the window its progress along the street.  He awaited anxiously for an answer, and waited long.  It was nearly twenty minutes before he could hear a messenger approaching the door.  Yes — she had actually sent a reply; he prized it as if it had been the first encouragement he had ever in his life received from woman: —

‘MY LORD’ (wrote Ethelberta), — ’I am not prepared at present to enter into the question of marriage at all. The incident which has occurred affords me every excuse for withdrawing my promise, since it was given under misapprehensions on a point that materially affects my happiness.

‘E. PETHERWIN.’

‘Ho-ho-ho — Miss Hoity-toity!’ said Lord Mountclere, trotting up and down.  But, remembering it was her June against his November, this did not last long, and he frantically replied: —

‘MY DARLING, — I cannot release you — I must do anything to keep my treasure.  Will you not see me for a few minutes, and let bygones go to the winds?’

Was ever a thrush so safe in a cherry net before!

The messenger came back with the information that Mrs. Petherwin had taken a walk to the Close, her companion alone remaining at the hotel.  There being nothing else left for the viscount to do, he put on his hat, and went out on foot in the same direction.  He had not walked far when he saw Ethelberta moving slowly along the High Street before him.

Ethelberta was at this hour wandering without any fixed intention beyond that of consuming time.  She was very wretched, and very indifferent: the former when thinking of her past, the latter when thinking of the days to come.  While she walked thus unconscious of the streets, and their groups of other wayfarers, she saw Christopher emerge from a door not many paces in advance, and close it behind him: he stood for a moment on the step before descending into the road.

She could not, even had she wished it, easily check her progress without rendering the chance of his perceiving her still more certain.  But she did not wish any such thing, and it made little difference, for he had already seen her in taking his survey round, and came down from the door to her side.  It was impossible for anything formal to pass between them now.

‘You are not at the concert, Mr. Julian?’ she said.  ‘I am glad to have a better opportunity of speaking to you, and of asking for your sister.  Unfortunately there is not time for us to call upon her to-day.’

‘Thank you, but it makes no difference,’ said Julian, with somewhat sad reserve.  ‘I will tell her I have met you; she is away from home just at present.’  And finding that Ethelberta did not rejoin immediately he observed, ‘The chief organist, old Dr. Breeve, has taken my place at the concert, as it was arranged he should do after the opening part.  I am now going to the Cathedral for the afternoon service.  You are going there too?’

‘I thought of looking at the interior for a moment.’

So they went on side by side, saying little; for it was a situation in which scarcely any appropriate thing could be spoken.  Ethelberta was the less reluctant to walk in his company because of the provocation to skittishness that Lord Mountclere had given, a provocation which she still resented.  But she was far from wishing to increase his jealousy; and yet this was what she was doing, Lord Mountclere being a perturbed witness from behind of all that was passing now.

They turned the corner of the short street of connection which led under an archway to the Cathedral Close, the old peer dogging them still.  Christopher seemed to warm up a little, and repeated the invitation.  ‘You will come with your sister to see us before you leave?’ he said.  ‘We have tea at six.’

‘We shall have left Melchester before that time.  I am now only waiting for the train.’

‘You two have not come all the way from Knollsea alone?’

‘Part of the way,’ said Ethelberta evasively.

‘And going back alone?’

‘No.  Only for the last five miles.  At least that was the arrangement — I am not quite sure if it holds good.’

‘You don’t wish me to see you safely in the train?’

‘It is not necessary: thank you very much.  We are well used to getting about the world alone, and from Melchester to Knollsea is no serious journey, late or early. . . .  Yet I think I ought, in honesty, to tell you that we are not entirely by ourselves in Melchester to-day.’

‘I remember I saw your friend — relative — in the room at the Town-hall.  It did not occur to my mind for the moment that he was any other than a stranger standing there.’

‘He is not a relative,’ she said, with perplexity.  ‘I hardly know, Christopher, how to explain to you my position here to-day, because of some difficulties that have arisen since we have been in the town, which may alter it entirely.  On that account I will be less frank with you than I should like to be, considering how long we have known each other.  It would be wrong, however, if I were not to tell you that there has been a possibility of my marriage with him.’

‘The elderly gentleman?’

‘Yes.  And I came here in his company, intending to return with him.  But you shall know all soon.  Picotee shall write to Faith.’

‘I always think the Cathedral looks better from this point than from the point usually chosen by artists,’ he said, with nervous quickness, directing her glance upwards to the silent structure, now misty and unrelieved by either high light or deep shade.  ‘We get the grouping of the chapels and choir-aisles more clearly shown — and the whole culminates to a more perfect pyramid from this spot — do you think so?’

‘Yes.  I do.’

A little further, and Christopher stopped to enter, when Ethelberta bade him farewell.  ‘I thought at one time that our futures might have been different from what they are apparently becoming,’ he said then, regarding her as a stall-reader regards the brilliant book he cannot afford to buy.  ‘But one gets weary of repining about that.  I wish Picotee and yourself could see us oftener; I am as confirmed a bachelor now as Faith is an old maid.  I wonder if — should the event you contemplate occur — you and he will ever visit us, or we shall ever visit you!’

Christopher was evidently imagining the elderly gentleman to be some retired farmer, or professional man already so intermixed with the metamorphic classes of society as not to be surprised or inconvenienced by her beginnings; one who wished to secure Ethelberta as an ornament to his parlour fire in a quiet spirit, and in no intoxicated mood regardless of issues.  She could scarcely reply to his supposition; and the parting was what might have been predicted from a conversation so carefully controlled.

Ethelberta, as she had intended, now went on further, and entering the nave began to inspect the sallow monuments which lined the grizzled pile.  She did not perceive amid the shadows an old gentleman who had crept into the mouldy place as stealthily as a worm into a skull, and was keeping himself carefully beyond her observation.  She continued to regard feature after feature till the choristers had filed in from the south side, and peals broke forth from the organ on the black oaken mass at the junction of nave and choir, shaking every cobweb in the dusky vaults, and Ethelberta’s heart no less.  She knew the fingers that were pressing out those rolling sounds, and knowing them, became absorbed in tracing their progress.  To go towards the organ-loft was an act of unconsciousness, and she did not pause till she stood almost beneath it.