Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (768 page)

‘Never!’ said the old man.  ‘Here is a lady under age, without experience — child-like in her maiden innocence and virtue — whom you have plied by your vile arts, till this morning at dawn — ’

‘Lord Quantock, were I not bound to respect your gray hairs — ’

‘Till this morning at dawn you tempted her away from her father’s roof.  What blame can attach to her conduct that will not, on a full explanation of the matter, be readily passed over in her and thrown entirely on you?  Laura, you return at once with me.  I should not have arrived, after all, early enough to deliver you, if it had not been for the disinterestedness of your cousin, Captain Northbrook, who, on my discovering your flight this morning, offered with a promptitude for which I can never sufficiently thank him, to accompany me on my journey, as the only male relative I have near me.  Come, do you hear?  Put on your things; we are off at once.’

‘I don’t want to go!’ pouted the young lady.

‘I daresay you don’t,’ replied her father drily.  ‘But children never know what’s best for them.  So come along, and trust to my opinion.’

Laura was silent, and did not move, the opera gentleman looking helplessly into the fire, and the lady’s cousin sitting meditatively calm, as the single one of the four whose position enabled him to survey the whole escapade with the cool criticism of a comparative outsider.

‘I say to you, Laura, as the father of a daughter under age, that you instantly come with me.  What?  Would you compel me to use physical force to reclaim you?’

‘I don’t want to return!’ again declared Laura.

‘It is your duty to return nevertheless, and at once, I inform you.’

‘I don’t want to!’

‘Now, dear Laura, this is what I say: return with me and your cousin James quietly, like a good and repentant girl, and nothing will be said.  Nobody knows what has happened as yet, and if we start at once, we shall be home before it is light to-morrow morning.  Come.’

‘I am not obliged to come at your bidding, father, and I would rather not!’

Now James, the cousin, during this dialogue might have been observed to grow somewhat restless, and even impatient.  More than once he had parted his lips to speak, but second thoughts each time held him back.  The moment had come, however, when he could keep silence no longer.

‘Come, madam!’ he spoke out, ‘this farce with your father has, in my opinion, gone on long enough.  Just make no more ado, and step downstairs with us.’

She gave herself an intractable little twist, and did not reply.

‘By the Lord Harry, Laura, I won’t stand this!’ he said angrily.  ‘Come, get on your things before I come and compel you.  There is a kind of compulsion to which this talk is child’s play.  Come, madam — instantly, I say!’

The old nobleman turned to his nephew and said mildly: ‘Leave me to insist, James.  It doesn’t become you.  I can speak to her sharply enough, if I choose.’

James, however, did not heed his uncle, and went on to the troublesome young woman: ‘You say you don’t want to come, indeed!  A pretty story to tell me, that!  Come, march out of the room at once, and leave that hulking fellow for me to deal with afterward.  Get on quickly — come!’ and he advanced toward her as if to pull her by the hand.

‘Nay, nay,’ expostulated Laura’s father, much surprised at his nephew’s sudden demeanour.  ‘You take too much upon yourself.  Leave her to me.’

‘I won’t leave her to you any longer!’

‘You have no right, James, to address either me or her in this way; so just hold your tongue.  Come, my dear.’

‘I have every right!’ insisted James.

‘How do you make that out?’

‘I have the right of a husband.’

‘Whose husband?’

‘Hers.’

‘What?’

‘She’s my wife.’

‘James!’

‘Well, to cut a long story short, I may say that she secretly married me, in spite of your lordship’s prohibition, about three months ago.  And I must add that, though she cooled down rather quickly, everything went on smoothly enough between us for some time; in spite of the awkwardness of meeting only by stealth.  We were only waiting for a convenient moment to break the news to you when this idle Adonis turned up, and after poisoning her mind against me, brought her into this disgrace.’

Here the operatic luminary, who had sat in rather an abstracted and nerveless attitude till the cousin made his declaration, fired up and cried: ‘I declare before Heaven that till this moment I never knew she was a wife!  I found her in her father’s house an unhappy girl — unhappy, as I believe, because of the loneliness and dreariness of that establishment, and the want of society, and for nothing else whatever.  What this statement about her being your wife means I am quite at a loss to understand.  Are you indeed married to him, Laura?’

Laura nodded from within her tearful handkerchief.  ‘It was because of my anomalous position in being privately married to him,’ she sobbed, ‘that I was unhappy at home — and — and I didn’t like him so well as I did at first — and I wished I could get out of the mess I was in!  And then I saw you a few times, and when you said, “We’ll run off,” I thought I saw a way out of it all, and then I agreed to come with you — oo-oo!’

‘Well! well! well!  And is this true?’ murmured the bewildered old nobleman, staring from James to Laura, and from Laura to James, as if he fancied they might be figments of the imagination.  ‘Is this, then, James, the secret of your kindness to your old uncle in helping him to find his daughter?  Good Heavens!  What further depths of duplicity are there left for a man to learn!’

‘I have married her, Uncle Quantock, as I said,’ answered James coolly.  ‘The deed is done, and can’t be undone by talking here.’

‘Where were you married?’

‘At St. Mary’s, Toneborough.’

‘When?’

‘On the 29th of September, during the time she was visiting there.’

‘Who married you?’

‘I don’t know.  One of the curates — we were quite strangers to the place.  So, instead of my assisting you to recover her, you may as well assist me.’

‘Never! never!’ said Lord Quantock.  ‘Madam, and sir, I beg to tell you that I wash my hands of the whole affair!  If you are man and wife, as it seems you are, get reconciled as best you may.  I have no more to say or do with either of you.  I leave you, Laura, in the hands of your husband, and much joy may you bring him; though the situation, I own, is not encouraging.’

Saying this, the indignant speaker pushed back his chair against the table with such force that the candlesticks rocked on their bases, and left the room.

Laura’s wet eyes roved from one of the young men to the other, who now stood glaring face to face, and, being much frightened at their aspect, slipped out of the room after her father.  Him, however, she could hear going out of the front door, and, not knowing where to take shelter, she crept into the darkness of an adjoining bedroom, and there awaited events with a palpitating heart.

Meanwhile the two men remaining in the sitting-room drew nearer to each other, and the opera-singer broke the silence by saying, ‘How could you insult me in the way you did, calling me a fellow, and accusing me of poisoning her mind toward you, when you knew very well I was as ignorant of your relation to her as an unborn babe?’

‘Oh yes, you were quite ignorant; I can believe that readily,’ sneered Laura’s husband.

‘I here call Heaven to witness that I never knew!’

‘Recitativo — the rhythm excellent, and the tone well sustained.  Is it likely that any man could win the confidence of a young fool her age, and not get that out of her?  Preposterous!  Tell it to the most improved new pit-stalls.’

‘Captain Northbrook, your insinuations are as despicable as your wretched person!’ cried the baritone, losing all patience.  And springing forward he slapped the captain in the face with the palm of his hand.

Northbrook flinched but slightly, and calmly using his handkerchief to learn if his nose was bleeding, said, ‘I quite expected this insult, so I came prepared.’  And he drew forth from a black valise which he carried in his hand a small case of pistols.

The baritone started at the unexpected sight, but recovering from his surprise said, ‘Very well, as you will,’ though perhaps his tone showed a slight want of confidence.

‘Now,’ continued the husband, quite confidingly, ‘we want no parade, no nonsense, you know.  Therefore we’ll dispense with seconds?’

The signor slightly nodded.

‘Do you know this part of the country well?’ Cousin James went on, in the same cool and still manner.  ‘If you don’t, I do.  Quite at the bottom of the rocks out there, just beyond the stream which falls over them to the shore, is a smooth sandy space, not so much shut in as to be out of the moonlight; and the way down to it from this side is over steps cut in the cliff; and we can find our way down without trouble.  We — we two — will find our way down; but only one of us will find his way up, you understand?’

‘Quite.’

‘Then suppose we start; the sooner it is over the better.  We can order supper before we go out — supper for two; for though we are three at present — ’

‘Three?’

‘Yes; you and I and she — ’

‘Oh yes.’

‘ — We shall be only two by and by; so that, as I say, we will order supper for two; for the lady and a gentleman.  Whichever comes back alive will tap at her door, and call her in to share the repast with him — she’s not off the premises.  But we must not alarm her now; and above all things we must not let the inn-people see us go out; it would look so odd for two to go out, and only one come in.  Ha! ha!’

‘Ha! ha! exactly.’

‘Are you ready?’

‘Oh — quite.’

‘Then I’ll lead the way.’

He went softly to the door and downstairs, ordering supper to be ready in an hour, as he had said; then making a feint of returning to the room again, he beckoned to the singer, and together they slipped out of the house by a side door.

* * * * *

The sky was now quite clear, and the wheelmarks of the brougham which had borne away Laura’s father, Lord Quantock, remained distinctly visible.  Soon the verge of the down was reached, the captain leading the way, and the baritone following silently, casting furtive glances at his companion, and beyond him at the scene ahead.  In due course they arrived at the chasm in the cliff which formed the waterfall.  The outlook here was wild and picturesque in the extreme, and fully justified the many praises, paintings, and photographic views to which the spot had given birth.  What in summer was charmingly green and gray, was now rendered weird and fantastic by the snow.

From their feet the cascade plunged downward almost vertically to a depth of eighty or a hundred feet before finally losing itself in the sand, and though the stream was but small, its impact upon jutting rocks in its descent divided it into a hundred spirts and splashes that sent up a mist into the upper air.  A few marginal drippings had been frozen into icicles, but the centre flowed on unimpeded.

The operatic artist looked down as he halted, but his thoughts were plainly not of the beauty of the scene.  His companion with the pistols was immediately in front of him, and there was no handrail on the side of the path toward the chasm.  Obeying a quick impulse, he stretched out his arm, and with a superhuman thrust sent Laura’s husband reeling over.  A whirling human shape, diminishing downward in the moon’s rays farther and farther toward invisibility, a smack-smack upon the projecting ledges of rock — at first louder and heavier than that of the brook, and then scarcely to be distinguished from it — then a cessation, then the splashing of the stream as before, and the accompanying murmur of the sea, were all the incidents that disturbed the customary flow of the little waterfall.

The singer waited in a fixed attitude for a few minutes, then turning, he rapidly retraced his steps over the intervening upland toward the road, and in less than a quarter of an hour was at the door of the hotel.  Slipping quietly in as the clock struck ten, he said to the landlord, over the bar hatchway —

‘The bill as soon as you can let me have it, including charges for the supper that was ordered, though we cannot stay to eat it, I am sorry to say.’  He added with forced gaiety, ‘The lady’s father and cousin have thought better of intercepting the marriage, and after quarrelling with each other have gone home independently.’

‘Well done, sir!’ said the landlord, who still sided with this customer in preference to those who had given trouble and barely paid for baiting the horses.  ‘“Love will find out the way!” as the saying is.  Wish you joy, sir!’

Signor Smithozzi went upstairs, and on entering the sitting-room found that Laura had crept out from the dark adjoining chamber in his absence.  She looked up at him with eyes red from weeping, and with symptoms of alarm.

‘What is it? — where is he?’ she said apprehensively.

‘Captain Northbrook has gone back.  He says he will have no more to do with you.’

‘And I am quite abandoned by them! — and they’ll forget me, and nobody care about me any more!’  She began to cry afresh.

‘But it is the luckiest thing that could have happened.  All is just as it was before they came disturbing us.  But, Laura, you ought to have told me about that private marriage, though it is all the same now; it will be dissolved, of course.  You are a wid — virtually a widow.’

‘It is no use to reproach me for what is past.  What am I to do now?’

‘We go at once to Cliff-Martin.  The horse has rested thoroughly these last three hours, and he will have no difficulty in doing an additional half-dozen miles.  We shall be there before twelve, and there are late taverns in the place, no doubt.  There we’ll sell both horse and carriage to-morrow morning; and go by the coach to Downstaple.  Once in the train we are safe.’

‘I agree to anything,’ she said listlessly.

In about ten minutes the horse was put in, the bill paid, the lady’s dried wraps put round her, and the journey resumed.

When about a mile on their way, they saw a glimmering light in advance of them.  ‘I wonder what that is?’ said the baritone, whose manner had latterly become nervous, every sound and sight causing him to turn his head.