Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (772 page)

My first thought was that this might tend to reduce myself and family to a state of chronic melancholy; but remembering there were reflectors advertised to throw sunlight into any nook almost, I agreed to the inconvenience, for the sake of the porch, though I found afterwards that the gloom was for all time, the patent reflector, naturally enough, sending its spot of light against the opposite wall, where it was not wanted, and leaving none about the landing, where it was.

In getting a house built for a specified sum by contract with a builder, there is a certain pit-fall into which unwary people are sure to step — this accident is technically termed “getting into extras.” It is evident that the only way to get out again without making a town-talk about yourself, is to pay the builder a large sum of money over and above the contract amount — the value of course of the extras. In the present case, I knew very well that the perceptible additions would have to be paid for. Commonsense, and Mr Penny himself perhaps, should have told me a little more distinctly that I must pay if I said “yes” to questions whether I preferred one window a trifle larger than it was originally intended, another a trifle smaller, second thoughts as to where a doorway should be, and so on. Then came a host of things “not included — a sink in the scullery, a rain-water tank and a pump, a trap-door into the roof, a scraper, a weather-cock and four letters, ventilators in the nursery, same in the kitchen, all of which worked vigorously enough, but the wrong way; patent remarkable bell-pulls; a royal letters extraordinary kitchen-range, which it would cost exactly three pence three — farthings to keep a fire in for twelve hours, and yet cook any joint in any way, warm up what was left yesterday, boil the vegetables, and do the ironing. But not keeping a strict account of all these expenses, and thinking myself safe in Mr Penny’s hands from any enormous increase, I was astounded to find that the additions altogether came to some hundreds of pounds. I could almost go through the worry of building another house, to show how carefully I would avoid getting into extras again.

Then they have to be wound up. A surveyor is called in from somewhere, and, by a fiction, his heart’s desire is supposed to be that you shall not be overcharged one halfpenny by the builder for the additions. The builder names a certain sum as the value of a portion — say double its worth, the surveyor then names a sum, about half its true value. They then fight it out by word of mouth, and gradually bringing their valuations nearer and nearer together, at last meet in the middle. All my accounts underwent this operation.

Families-removing van carried our furniture and effects to the new building without giving us much trouble; but a number of vexing little incidents occurred on our settling down, which I should have felt more deeply had not a sort of Martinmas summer of Sophia’s interest in the affair now set in, and lightened them considerably. Smoke was one of our nuisances. On lighting the study-fire, every particle of smoke came curling into the room. In our trouble, we sent for the architect, who immediately asked if we had tried the plan of opening the register to cure it. We had not, but we did so, and the smoke ascended at once. The last thing I remember was Sophia jumping up one night and frightening me out of my senses with the exclamation: “O that builder! Not a single bar of any sort is there to the nursery-windows. John, some day those poor little children will tumble out in their innocence — how should they know better? — and be dashed to pieces. Why did you put the nursery on the second floor?” And you may be sure that some bars were put up the very next morning.

Destiny and a Blue Cloak

“Good morning, Miss Lovill!” said the young man, in the free manner usual with him toward pretty and inexperienced country girls.

Agatha Pollin — the maiden addressed — instantly perceived how the mistake had arisen. Miss Lovill was the owner of a blue autumn wrapper, exceptionally gay for a village; and Agatha, in a spirit of emulation rather than originality, had purchased a similarly enviable article for herself, which she wore to-day for the first time. It may be mentioned that the two young women had ridden together from their homes to Maiden-Newton on this foggy September morning, Agatha prolonging her journey thence to Weymouth by train, and leaving her acquaintance at the former place. The remark was made to her on Weymouth esplanade.

Agatha was now about to reply very naturally, “I am not Miss Lovill,” and she went so far as to turn up her face to him for the purpose, when he added, “I’ve been hoping to meet you. I have heard of your — well, I must say it — beauty, long ago, though I only came to Beaminster yesterday.”

Agatha bowed — her contradiction hung back — and they walked slowly along the esplanade together without speaking another word after the above point-blank remark of his. It was evident that her new friend could never have seen either herself or Miss Lovill except from a distance.

And Agatha trembled as well as bowed. This Miss Lovill — Frances Lovill — was of great and long renown as the beauty of Cloton village, near Beaminster. She was five and twenty and fully developed, while Agatha was only the niece of the miller of the same place, just nineteen, and of no repute as yet for comeliness, though she undoubtedly could boast of much. Now, were the speaker, Oswald Winwood, to be told that he had not lighted upon the true Helen, he would instantly apologize for his mistake and leave her side,” contingency of no great matter but for one curious emotional circumstance — Agatha had already lost her heart to him. Only in secret had she acquired this interest in Winwood — by hearing much report of his talent and by watching him several times from a window; but she loved none the less in that she had discovered that Miss Lovill’s desire to meet and talk with the same intellectual luminary was in a fair way of approaching the intensity of her own. We are never unbiased appraisers, even in love, and rivalry usually operates as a stimulant to esteem even while it is acting as an obstacle to opportunity. So it had been with Agatha in her talk to Miss Lovill that morning concerning Oswald Winwood.

The Weymouth season was almost at an end, and but few loungers were to be seen on the parades, particularly at this early hour. Agatha looked over the iridescent sea, from which the veil of mist was slowly rising, at the white cliffs on the left, now just beginning to gleam in a weak sunlight, at the one solitary yacht in the midst, and still delayed her explanation. Her companion went on:

“The mist is vanishing, look, and I think it will be fine, after all. Shall you stay in Weymouth the whole day?”

“No. I am going to Portland by the twelve o’clock steam-boat. But I return here again at six to go home by the seven o’clock train.”

“I go to Maiden Newton by the same train, and then to Beaminster by the carrier.”

“So do I.”

“Not, I suppose, to walk from Beaminster to Cloton at that time in the evening?”

“I shall be met by somebody — but it is only a mile, you know.”

That is how it all began; the continuation it is not necessary to detail at length. Both being somewhat young and impulsive, social forms were not scrupulously attended to. She discovered him to be on board the steamer as it ploughed the emerald waves of Weymouth Bay, although he had wished her a formal good-bye at the pier. He had altered his mind, he said, and thought that he would come to Portland, too. They returned by the same boat, walked the velvet sands till the train started, and entered a carriage together.

All this time, in the midst of her happiness, Agatha’s conscience was sombre with guiltiness at not having yet told him of his mistake. It was true that he had not more than once or twice called her by Miss Lovill’s name since the first greeting in the morning; but he certainly was still under the impression that she was Frances Lovill. Yet she perceived that though he had been led to her by another’s name, it was her own proper person that he was so rapidly getting to love, and Agatha’s feminine insight suggested blissfully to her that the face belonging to the name would after this encounter have no power to drag him away from the face of the day’s romance.

They reached Maiden-Newton at dusk, and went to the inn door, where stood the old-fashioned hooded van which was to take them to Beaminster. It was on the point of starting, and when they had mounted in front the old man at once drove up the long hill leading out of the village.

“This has been a charming experience to me, Miss Lovill,” Oswald said, as they sat side by side. “Accidental meetings have a way of making themselves pleasant when contrived ones quite fail to do it.”

It was absolutely necessary to confess this time, though all her bliss were at once destroyed.

“I am not really Miss Lovill!” she faltered.

“What! not the young lady — and are you really not Frances Lovill?” he exclaimed, in surprise.

“O forgive me, Mr Winwood! I have wanted so to tell you of your mistake; indeed I have, all day — but I couldn’t — and it is so wicked and wrong of me! I am only poor Agatha Pollin, at the mill.”

“But why couldn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was afraid that if I did you would go away from me and not care for me any more, and I l — l — love you so dearly!”

The carrier being on foot beside the horse, the van being so dark, and Oswald’s feelings being rather warm, he could not for his life avoid kissing her there and then.

“Well,” he said, “it doesn’t matter; you are yourself anyhow. It is you I like, and nobody else in the world — not the name. But, you know, I was really looking for Miss Lovill this morning. I saw the back of her head yesterday, and I have often heard how very good-looking she is. Ah! suppose you had been she. I wonder — “

He did not complete the sentence. The driver mounted again, touched the horse with the whip, and they jogged on.

“You forgive me?” she said.

“Entirely — absolutely — the reason justified everything. How strange that you should have been caring deeply for me, and I ignorant of it all the time!”

They descended into Beaminster and alighted, Oswald handing her down. They had not moved from the spot when another female figure also alighted, dropped her fare into the carrier’s hand, and glided away.

“Who is that?” said Oswald to the carrier. “Why, I thought we were the only passengers!”

“What?” said the carrier, who was rather stupid.

“Who is that woman?”

“Miss Lovill, of Cloton. She altered her mind about staying at Beaminster, and is come home again.”

“Oh!” said Agatha, almost sinking to the earth. “She has heard it all. What shall I do, what shall I do?”

“Never mind it a bit,” said Oswald.

II

The mill stood beside the village high-road, from which it was separated by the stream, the latter forming also the boundary of the mill garden, orchard, and paddock on that side. A visitor crossed a little wood bridge embedded in oozy, aquatic growths, and found himself in a space where usually stood a waggon laden with sacks, surrounded by a number of bright-feathered fowls.

It was now, however, just dusk, but the mill was not closed, a stripe of light stretching as usual from the open door across the front, across the river, across the road, into the hedge beyond. On the bridge, which was aside from the line of light, a young man and girl stood talking together. Soon they moved a little way apart, and then it was apparent that their right hands were joined. In receding one from the other they began to swing their arms gently backward and forward between them.

“Come a little way up the lane, Agatha, since it is the last time,” he said. “I don’t like parting here. You know your uncle does not object.”

“He doesn’t object because he knows nothing to object to,” she whispered. And they both then contemplated the fine, stalwart figure of the said uncle, who could be seen moving about inside the mill, illuminated by the candle, and circumscribed by a faint halo of flour, and hindered by the whirr of the mill from hearing anything so gentle as lovers’ talk.

Oswald had not relinquished her hand, and, submitting herself to a bondage she appeared to love better than freedom, Agatha followed him across the bridge, and they went down the lane engaged in the low, sad talk common to all such cases, interspersed with remarks peculiar to their own.

“It is nothing so fearful to contemplate,” he said.” Many live there for years in a state of rude health, and return home in the same happy condition. So shall I.”

“I hope you will.”

“But aren’t you glad I am going? It is better to do well in India than badly here. Say you are glad, dearest; it will fortify me when I am gone.”

“I am glad,” she murmured faintly. “I mean I am glad in my mind. I don’t think that in my heart I am glad.”

“Thanks to Macaulay, of honoured memory, I have as good a chance as the best of them!” he said, with ardour. “What a great thing competitive examination is; it will put good men in good places, and make inferior men move lower down; all bureaucratic jobbery will be swept away.”

“What’s bureaucratic, Oswald?”

“Oh! that’s what they call it, you know. It is — well, I don’t exactly know what it is. I know this, that it is the name of what I hate, and that it isn’t competitive examination.”

“At any rate it is a very bad thing,” she said, conclusively.

“Very bad, indeed; you may take my word for that.”

Then the parting scene began, in the dark, under the heavy-headed trees which shut out sky and stars. “And since I shall be in London till the Spring,” he remarked, “the parting doesn’t seem so bad — so all at once. Perhaps you may come to London before the Spring, Agatha.”

“I may; but I don’t think I shall.”

“We must hope on all the same. Then there will be the examination, and then I shall know my fate.”

“I hope you’ll fail! — there, I’ve said it; I couldn’t help it, Oswald!” she exclaimed, bursting out crying. “You would come home again then!”

“How can you be so disheartening and wicked, Agatha! I — I didn’t expect — “

“No, no; I don’t wish it; I wish you to be best, top, very very best!” she said. “I didn’t mean the other; indeed, dear Oswald, I didn’t. And will you be sure to come to me when you are rich? Sure to come?”