Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (25 page)

Springrove, the clerk, the grinders, and Gad, all ranged themselves behind the lever of the screw, and walked round like soldiers wheeling.

‘The man that the old quean hev got is a man you can hardly get upon your tongue to gainsay, by the look o’ en,’ rejoined Clerk Crickett.

‘One o’ them people that can contrive to be thought no worse o’ for stealen a horse than another man for looken over hedge at en,’ said a grinder.

‘Well, he’s all there as steward, and is quite the gentleman — no doubt about that.’

‘So would my Ted ha’ been, for the matter o’ that,’ the farmer said.

‘That’s true: ‘a would, sir.’

‘I said, I’ll give Ted a good education if it do cost me my eyes, and I would have done it.’

‘Ay, that you would so,’ said the chorus of assistants solemnly.

‘But he took to books and drawing naturally, and cost very little; and as a wind-up the womenfolk hatched up a match between him and his cousin.’

‘When’s the wedden to be, Mr. Springrove?’

‘Uncertain — but soon, I suppose. Edward, you see, can do anything pretty nearly, and yet can’t get a straightforward living. I wish sometimes I had kept him here, and let professions go. But he was such a one for the pencil.’

He dropped the lever in the hedge, and turned to his visitor.

‘Now then, missie, if you’ll come indoors, please.’

Gad Weedy looked with a placid criticism at Cytherea as she withdrew with the farmer.

‘I could tell by the tongue o’ her that she didn’t take her degrees in our county,’ he said in an undertone.

‘The railways have left you lonely here,’ she observed, when they were indoors.

Save the withered old flies, which were quite tame from the solitude, not a being was in the house. Nobody seemed to have entered it since the last passenger had been called out to mount the last stage-coach that had run by.

‘Yes, the Inn and I seem almost a pair of fossils,’ the farmer replied, looking at the room and then at himself.

‘O, Mr. Springrove,’ said Cytherea, suddenly recollecting herself; ‘I am much obliged to you for recommending me to Miss Aldclyffe.’ She began to warm towards the old man; there was in him a gentleness of disposition which reminded her of her own father.

‘Recommending? Not at all, miss. Ted — that’s my son — Ted said a fellow-draughtsman of his had a sister who wanted to be doing something in the world, and I mentioned it to the housekeeper, that’s all. Ay, I miss my son very much.’

She kept her back to the window that he might not see her rising colour.

‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘sometimes I can’t help feeling uneasy about him. You know, he seems not made for a town life exactly: he gets very queer over it sometimes, I think. Perhaps he’ll be better when he’s married to Adelaide.’

A half-impatient feeling arose in her, like that which possesses a sick person when he hears a recently-struck hour struck again by a slow clock. She had lived further on.

‘Everything depends upon whether he loves her,’ she said tremulously.

‘He used to — he doesn’t show it so much now; but that’s because he’s older. You see, it was several years ago they first walked together as young man and young woman. She’s altered too from what she was when he first courted her.’

‘How, sir?’

‘O, she’s more sensible by half. When he used to write to her she’d creep up the lane and look back over her shoulder, and slide out the letter, and read a word and stand in thought looking at the hills and seeing none. Then the cuckoo would cry — away the letter would slip, and she’d start wi’ fright at the mere bird, and have a red skin before the quickest man among ye could say, “Blood rush up.”‘

He came forward with the money and dropped it into her hand. His thoughts were still with Edward, and he absently took her little fingers in his as he said, earnestly and ingenuously —

‘‘Tis so seldom I get a gentlewoman to speak to that I can’t help speaking to you, Miss Graye, on my fears for Edward; I sometimes am afraid that he’ll never get on — that he’ll die poor and despised under the worst mental conditions, a keen sense of having been passed in the race by men whose brains are nothing to his own, all through his seeing too far into things — being discontented with make-shifts — thinking o’ perfection in things, and then sickened that there’s no such thing as perfection. I shan’t be sorry to see him marry, since it may settle him down and do him good.... Ay, we’ll hope for the best.’

He let go her hand and accompanied her to the door saying, ‘If you should care to walk this way and talk to an old man once now and then, it will be a great delight to him, Miss Graye. Good-evening to ye.... Ah look! a thunderstorm is brewing — be quick home. Or shall I step up with you?’

‘No, thank you, Mr. Springrove. Good evening,’ she said in a low voice, and hurried away. One thought still possessed her; Edward had trifled with her love.

4. FIVE TO SIX P.M.

She followed the road into a bower of trees, overhanging it so densely that the pass appeared like a rabbit’s burrow, and presently reached a side entrance to the park. The clouds rose more rapidly than the farmer had anticipated: the sheep moved in a trail, and complained incoherently. Livid grey shades, like those of the modern French painters, made a mystery of the remote and dark parts of the vista, and seemed to insist upon a suspension of breath. Before she was half-way across the park the thunder rumbled distinctly.

The direction in which she had to go would take her close by the old manor-house. The air was perfectly still, and between each low rumble of the thunder behind she could hear the roar of the waterfall before her, and the creak of the engine among the bushes hard by it. Hurrying on, with a growing dread of the gloom and of the approaching storm, she drew near the Old House, now rising before her against the dark foliage and sky in tones of strange whiteness.

On the flight of steps, which descended from a terrace in front to the level of the park, stood a man. He appeared, partly from the relief the position gave to his figure, and partly from fact, to be of towering height. He was dark in outline, and was looking at the sky, with his hands behind him.

It was necessary for Cytherea to pass directly across the line of his front. She felt so reluctant to do this, that she was about to turn under the trees out of the path and enter it again at a point beyond the Old House; but he had seen her, and she came on mechanically, unconsciously averting her face a little, and dropping her glance to the ground.

Her eyes unswervingly lingered along the path until they fell upon another path branching in a right line from the path she was pursuing. It came from the steps of the Old House. ‘I am exactly opposite him now,’ she thought, ‘and his eyes are going through me.’

A clear masculine voice said, at the same instant —

‘Are you afraid?’

She, interpreting his question by her feelings at the moment, assumed himself to be the object of fear, if any. ‘I don’t think I am,’ she stammered.

He seemed to know that she thought in that sense.

‘Of the thunder, I mean,’ he said; ‘not of myself.’

She must turn to him now. ‘I think it is going to rain,’ she remarked for the sake of saying something.

He could not conceal his surprise and admiration of her face and bearing. He said courteously, ‘It may possibly not rain before you reach the House, if you are going there?’

‘Yes, I am,’

‘May I walk up with you? It is lonely under the trees.’

‘No.’ Fearing his courtesy arose from a belief that he was addressing a woman of higher station than was hers, she added, ‘I am Miss Aldclyffe’s companion. I don’t mind the loneliness.’

‘O, Miss Aldclyffe’s companion. Then will you be kind enough to take a subscription to her? She sent to me this afternoon to ask me to become a subscriber to her Society, and I was out. Of course I’ll subscribe if she wishes it. I take a great interest in the Society.’

‘Miss Aldclyffe will be glad to hear that, I know.’

‘Yes; let me see — what Society did she say it was? I am afraid I haven’t enough money in my pocket, and yet it would be a satisfaction to her to have practical proof of my willingness. I’ll get it, and be out in one minute.’

He entered the house and was at her side again within the time he had named. ‘This is it,’ he said pleasantly.

She held up her hand. The soft tips of his fingers brushed the palm of her glove as he placed the money within it. She wondered why his fingers should have touched her.

‘I think after all,’ he continued, ‘that the rain is upon us, and will drench you before you reach the House. Yes: see there.’

He pointed to a round wet spot as large as a nasturtium leaf, which had suddenly appeared upon the white surface of the step.

‘You had better come into the porch. It is not nearly night yet. The clouds make it seem later than it really is.’

Heavy drops of rain, followed immediately by a forked flash of lightning and sharp rattling thunder compelled her, willingly or no, to accept his invitation. She ascended the steps, stood beside him just within the porch, and for the first time obtained a series of short views of his person, as they waited there in silence.

He was an extremely handsome man, well-formed, and well-dressed, of an age which seemed to be two or three years less than thirty. The most striking point in his appearance was the wonderful, almost preternatural, clearness of his complexion. There was not a blemish or speck of any kind to mar the smoothness of its surface or the beauty of its hue. Next, his forehead was square and broad, his brows straight and firm, his eyes penetrating and clear. By collecting the round of expressions they gave forth, a person who theorized on such matters would have imbibed the notion that their owner was of a nature to kick against the pricks; the last man in the world to put up with a position because it seemed to be his destiny to do so; one who took upon himself to resist fate with the vindictive determination of a Theomachist. Eyes and forehead both would have expressed keenness of intellect too severely to be pleasing, had their force not been counteracted by the lines and tone of the lips. These were full and luscious to a surprising degree, possessing a woman-like softness of curve, and a ruby redness so intense, as to testify strongly to much susceptibility of heart where feminine beauty was concerned — a susceptibility that might require all the ballast of brain with which he had previously been credited to confine within reasonable channels.

His manner was rather elegant than good: his speech well-finished and unconstrained.

The pause in their discourse, which had been caused by the peal of thunder was unbroken by either for a minute or two, during which the ears of both seemed to be absently following the low roar of the waterfall as it became gradually rivalled by the increasing rush of rain upon the trees and herbage of the grove. After her short looks at him, Cytherea had turned her head towards the avenue for a while, and now, glancing back again for an instant, she discovered that his eyes were engaged in a steady, though delicate, regard of her face and form.

At this moment, by reason of the narrowness of the porch, their dresses touched, and remained in contact.

His clothes are something exterior to every man; but to a woman her dress is part of her body. Its motions are all present to her intelligence if not to her eyes; no man knows how his coat-tails swing. By the slightest hyperbole it may be said that her dress has sensation. Crease but the very Ultima Thule of fringe or flounce, and it hurts her as much as pinching her. Delicate antennae, or feelers, bristle on every outlying frill. Go to the uppermost: she is there; tread on the lowest: the fair creature is there almost before you.

Thus the touch of clothes, which was nothing to Manston, sent a thrill through Cytherea, seeing, moreover, that he was of the nature of a mysterious stranger. She looked out again at the storm, but still felt him. At last to escape the sensation she moved away, though by so doing it was necessary to advance a little into the rain.

‘Look, the rain is coming into the porch upon you,’ he said. ‘Step inside the door.’

Cytherea hesitated.

‘Perfectly safe, I assure you,’ he added, laughing, and holding the door open. ‘You shall see what a state of disorganization I am in — boxes on boxes, furniture, straw, crockery, in every form of transposition. An old woman is in the back quarters somewhere, beginning to put things to rights.... You know the inside of the house, I dare say?’

‘I have never been in.’

‘O well, come along. Here, you see, they have made a door through, here, they have put a partition dividing the old hall into two, one part is now my parlour; there they have put a plaster ceiling, hiding the old chestnut-carved roof because it was too high and would have been chilly for me; you see, being the original hall, it was open right up to the top, and here the lord of the manor and his retainers used to meet and be merry by the light from the monstrous fire which shone out from that monstrous fire-place, now narrowed to a mere nothing for my grate, though you can see the old outline still. I almost wish I could have had it in its original state.’

‘With more romance and less comfort.’

‘Yes, exactly. Well, perhaps the wish is not deep-seated. You will see how the things are tumbled in anyhow, packing-cases and all. The only piece of ornamental furniture yet unpacked is this one.’

‘An organ?’

‘Yes, an organ. I made it myself, except the pipes. I opened the case this afternoon to commence soothing myself at once. It is not a very large one, but quite big enough for a private house. You play, I dare say?’

‘The piano. I am not at all used to an organ.’

‘You would soon acquire the touch for an organ, though it would spoil your touch for the piano. Not that that matters a great deal. A piano isn’t much as an instrument.’

‘It is the fashion to say so now. I think it is quite good enough.’

‘That isn’t altogether a right sentiment about things being good enough.’

‘No — no. What I mean is, that the men who despise pianos do it as a rule from their teeth, merely for fashion’s sake, because cleverer men have said it before them — not from the experience of their ears.’