A pair of blue eyes
don’t for a moment chide you, but is there not a great deal of
unwomanly weakness in your allowing yourself to be so overwhelmed by
the sight of what, after all, is no novelty? Every woman worthy of the
name should, I think, be able to look upon death with something like
composure. Surely you think so too?”
“Yes; I own it.”
His obtuseness to the cause of her indisposition, by evidencing his
entire freedom from the suspicion of anything behind the scenes, showed
how incapable Knight was of deception himself, rather than any inherent
dulness in him regarding human nature. This, clearly perceived by
Elfride, added poignancy to her self-reproach, and she idolized him the
more because of their difference. Even the recent sight of Stephen’s
face and the sound of his voice, which for a moment had stirred a chord
or two of ancient kindness, were unable to keep down the adoration
re-existent now that he was again out of view.
She had replied to Knight’s question hastily, and immediately went on
to speak of indifferent subjects. After they had reached home she was
apart from him till dinner-time. When dinner was over, and they were
watching the dusk in the drawing-room, Knight stepped out upon the
terrace. Elfride went after him very decisively, on the spur of a
virtuous intention.
“Mr. Knight, I want to tell you something,” she said, with quiet
firmness.
“And what is it about?” gaily returned her lover. “Happiness, I hope.
Do not let anything keep you so sad as you seem to have been to-day.”
“I cannot mention the matter until I tell you the whole substance of
it,” she said. “And that I will do to-morrow. I have been reminded of
it to-day. It is about something I once did, and don’t think I ought to
have done.”
This, it must be said, was rather a mild way of referring to a frantic
passion and flight, which, much or little in itself, only accident had
saved from being a scandal in the public eye.
Knight thought the matter some trifle, and said pleasantly:
“Then I am not to hear the dreadful confession now?”
“No, not now. I did not mean to-night,” Elfride responded, with a
slight decline in the firmness of her voice. “It is not light as you
think it—it troubles me a great deal.” Fearing now the effect of her
own earnestness, she added forcedly, “Though, perhaps, you may think it
light after all.”
“But you have not said when it is to be?”
“To-morrow morning. Name a time, will you, and bind me to it? I want
you to fix an hour, because I am weak, and may otherwise try to get out
of it.” She added a little artificial laugh, which showed how timorous
her resolution was still.
“Well, say after breakfast—at eleven o’clock.”
“Yes, eleven o’clock. I promise you. Bind me strictly to my word.”
Chapter XXVIII
“I lull a fancy, trouble-tost.”
Miss Swancourt, it is eleven o’clock.”
She was looking out of her dressing-room window on the first floor, and
Knight was regarding her from the terrace balustrade, upon which he had
been idly sitting for some time—dividing the glances of his eye between
the pages of a book in his hand, the brilliant hues of the geraniums
and calceolarias, and the open window above-mentioned.
“Yes, it is, I know. I am coming.”
He drew closer, and under the window.
“How are you this morning, Elfride? You look no better for your long
night’s rest.”
She appeared at the door shortly after, took his offered arm, and
together they walked slowly down the gravel path leading to the river
and away under the trees.
Her resolution, sustained during the last fifteen hours, had been to
tell the whole truth, and now the moment had come.
Step by step they advanced, and still she did not speak. They were
nearly at the end of the walk, when Knight broke the silence.
“Well, what is the confession, Elfride?”
She paused a moment, drew a long breath; and this is what she said:
“I told you one day—or rather I gave you to understand—what was not
true. I fancy you thought me to mean I was nineteen my next birthday,
but it was my last I was nineteen.”
The moment had been too much for her. Now that the crisis had come, no
qualms of conscience, no love of honesty, no yearning to make a
confidence and obtain forgiveness with a kiss, could string Elfride up
to the venture. Her dread lest he should be unforgiving was heightened
by the thought of yesterday’s artifice, which might possibly add
disgust to his disappointment. The certainty of one more day’s
affection, which she gained by silence, outvalued the hope of a
perpetuity combined with the risk of all.
The trepidation caused by these thoughts on what she had intended to
say shook so naturally the words she did say, that Knight never for a
moment suspected them to be a last moment’s substitution. He smiled and
pressed her hand warmly.
“My dear Elfie—yes, you are now—no protestation—what a winning little
woman you are, to be so absurdly scrupulous about a mere iota! Really,
I never once have thought whether your nineteenth year was the last or
the present. And, by George, well I may not; for it would never do for
a staid fogey a dozen years older to stand upon such a trifle as that.”
“Don’t praise me—don’t praise me! Though I prize it from your lips, I
don’t deserve it now.”
But Knight, being in an exceptionally genial mood, merely saw this
distressful exclamation as modesty. “Well,” he added, after a minute,
“I like you all the better, you know, for such moral precision,
although I called it absurd.” He went on with tender earnestness: “For,
Elfride, there is one thing I do love to see in a woman—that is, a soul
truthful and clear as heaven’s light. I could put up with anything if I
had that—forgive nothing if I had it not. Elfride, you have such a
soul, if ever woman had; and having it, retain it, and don’t ever
listen to the fashionable theories of the day about a woman’s
privileges and natural right to practise wiles. Depend upon it, my dear
girl, that a noble woman must be as honest as a noble man. I specially
mean by honesty, fairness not only in matters of business and social
detail, but in all the delicate dealings of love, to which the licence
given to your sex particularly refers.”
Elfride looked troublously at the trees.
“Now let us go on to the river, Elfie.”
“I would if I had a hat on,” she said with a sort of suppressed woe.
“I will get it for you,” said Knight, very willing to purchase her
companionship at so cheap a price. “You sit down there a minute.” And
he turned and walked rapidly back to the house for the article in
question.
Elfride sat down upon one of the rustic benches which adorned this
portion of the grounds, and remained with her eyes upon the grass. She
was induced to lift them by hearing the brush of light and irregular
footsteps hard by. Passing along the path which intersected the one she
was in and traversed the outer shrubberies, Elfride beheld the farmer’s
widow, Mrs. Jethway. Before she noticed Elfride, she paused to look at
the house, portions of which were visible through the bushes. Elfride,
shrinking back, hoped the unpleasant woman might go on without seeing
her. But Mrs. Jethway, silently apostrophizing the house, with actions
which seemed dictated by a half-overturned reason, had discerned the
girl, and immediately came up and stood in front of her.
“Ah, Miss Swancourt! Why did you disturb me? Mustn’t I trespass here?”
“You may walk here if you like, Mrs. Jethway. I do not disturb you.”
“You disturb my mind, and my mind is my whole life; for my boy is there
still, and he is gone from my body.”
“Yes, poor young man. I was sorry when he died.”
“Do you know what he died of?”
“Consumption.”
“Oh no, no!” said the widow. “That word ‘consumption’ covers a good
deal. He died because you were his own well-agreed sweetheart, and then
proved false—and it killed him. Yes, Miss Swancourt,” she said in an
excited whisper, “you killed my son!”
“How can you be so wicked and foolish!” replied Elfride, rising
indignantly. But indignation was not natural to her, and having been so
worn and harrowed by late events, she lost any powers of defence that
mood might have lent her. “I could not help his loving me, Mrs.
Jethway!”
“That’s just what you could have helped. You know how it began, Miss
Elfride. Yes: you said you liked the name of Felix better than any
other name in the parish, and you knew it was his name, and that those
you said it to would report it to him.”
“I knew it was his name—of course I did; but I am sure, Mrs. Jethway, I
did not intend anybody to tell him.”
“But you knew they would.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And then, after that, when you were riding on Revels-day by our house,
and the lads were gathered there, and you wanted to dismount, when Jim
Drake and George Upway and three or four more ran forward to hold your
pony, and Felix stood back timid, why did you beckon to him, and say
you would rather he held it?”
“O Mrs. Jethway, you do think so mistakenly! I liked him best—that’s
why I wanted him to do it. He was gentle and nice—I always thought him
so—and I liked him.”
“Then why did you let him kiss you?”
“It is a falsehood; oh, it is, it is!” said Elfride, weeping with
desperation. “He came behind me, and attempted to kiss me; and that was
why I told him never to let me see him again.”
“But you did not tell your father or anybody, as you would have if you
had looked upon it then as the insult you now pretend it was.”
“He begged me not to tell, and foolishly enough I did not. And I wish I
had now. I little expected to be scourged with my own kindness. Pray
leave me, Mrs. Jethway.” The girl only expostulated now.
“Well, you harshly dismissed him, and he died. And before his body was
cold, you took another to your heart. Then as carelessly sent him about
his business, and took a third. And if you consider that nothing, Miss
Swancourt,” she continued, drawing closer; “it led on to what was very
serious indeed. Have you forgotten the would-be runaway marriage? The
journey to London, and the return the next day without being married,
and that there’s enough disgrace in that to ruin a woman’s good name
far less light than yours? You may have: I have not. Fickleness towards
a lover is bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is wantonness.”
“Oh, it’s a wicked cruel lie! Do not say it; oh, do not!”
“Does your new man know of it? I think not, or he would be no man of
yours! As much of the story as was known is creeping about the
neighbourhood even now; but I know more than any of them, and why
should I respect your love?”
“I defy you!” cried Elfride tempestuously. “Do and say all you can to
ruin me; try; put your tongue at work; I invite it! I defy you as a
slanderous woman! Look, there he comes.” And her voice trembled greatly
as she saw through the leaves the beloved form of Knight coming from
the door with her hat in his hand. “Tell him at once; I can bear it.”
“Not now,” said the woman, and disappeared down the path.
The excitement of her latter words had restored colour to Elfride’s
cheeks; and hastily wiping her eyes, she walked farther on, so that by
the time her lover had overtaken her the traces of emotion had nearly
disappeared from her face. Knight put the hat upon her head, took her
hand, and drew it within his arm.
It was the last day but one previous to their departure for St.
Leonards; and Knight seemed to have a purpose in being much in her
company that day. They rambled along the valley. The season was that
period in the autumn when the foliage alone of an ordinary plantation
is rich enough in hues to exhaust the chromatic combinations of an
artist’s palette. Most lustrous of all are the beeches, graduating from
bright rusty red at the extremity of the boughs to a bright yellow at