A pair of blue eyes
says that, much to his regret, he sees a time coming when every man
will pronounce even the common words of his own tongue as seems right
in his own ears, and be thought none the worse for it; that the
speaking age is passing away, to make room for the writing age.”
Both Elfride and her father had waited attentively to hear Stephen go
on to what would have been the most interesting part of the story,
namely, what circumstances could have necessitated such an unusual
method of education. But no further explanation was volunteered; and
they saw, by the young man’s manner of concentrating himself upon the
chess-board, that he was anxious to drop the subject.
The game proceeded. Elfride played by rote; Stephen by thought. It was
the cruellest thing to checkmate him after so much labour, she
considered. What was she dishonest enough to do in her compassion? To
let him checkmate her. A second game followed; and being herself
absolutely indifferent as to the result (her playing was above the
average among women, and she knew it), she allowed him to give
checkmate again. A final game, in which she adopted the Muzio gambit as
her opening, was terminated by Elfride’s victory at the twelfth move.
Stephen looked up suspiciously. His heart was throbbing even more
excitedly than was hers, which itself had quickened when she seriously
set to work on this last occasion. Mr. Swancourt had left the room.
“You have been trifling with me till now!” he exclaimed, his face
flushing. “You did not play your best in the first two games?”
Elfride’s guilt showed in her face. Stephen became the picture of
vexation and sadness, which, relishable for a moment, caused her the
next instant to regret the mistake she had made.
“Mr. Smith, forgive me!” she said sweetly. “I see now, though I did not
at first, that what I have done seems like contempt for your skill.
But, indeed, I did not mean it in that sense. I could not, upon my
conscience, win a victory in those first and second games over one who
fought at such a disadvantage and so manfully.”
He drew a long breath, and murmured bitterly, “Ah, you are cleverer
than I. You can do everything—I can do nothing! O Miss Swancourt!” he
burst out wildly, his heart swelling in his throat, “I must tell you
how I love you! All these months of my absence I have worshipped you.”
He leapt from his seat like the impulsive lad that he was, slid round
to her side, and almost before she suspected it his arm was round her
waist, and the two sets of curls intermingled.
So entirely new was full-blown love to Elfride, that she trembled as
much from the novelty of the emotion as from the emotion itself. Then
she suddenly withdrew herself and stood upright, vexed that she had
submitted unresistingly even to his momentary pressure. She resolved to
consider this demonstration as premature.
“You must not begin such things as those,” she said with coquettish
hauteur of a very transparent nature “And—you must not do so again—and
papa is coming.”
“Let me kiss you—only a little one,” he said with his usual delicacy,
and without reading the factitiousness of her manner.
“No; not one.”
“Only on your cheek?”
“No.”
“Forehead?”
“Certainly not.”
“You care for somebody else, then? Ah, I thought so!”
“I am sure I do not.”
“Nor for me either?”
“How can I tell?” she said simply, the simplicity lying merely in the
broad outlines of her manner and speech. There were the semitone of
voice and half-hidden expression of eyes which tell the initiated how
very fragile is the ice of reserve at these times.
Footsteps were heard. Mr. Swancourt then entered the room, and their
private colloquy ended.
The day after this partial revelation, Mr. Swancourt proposed a drive
to the cliffs beyond Targan Bay, a distance of three or four miles.
Half an hour before the time of departure a crash was heard in the back
yard, and presently Worm came in, saying partly to the world in
general, partly to himself, and slightly to his auditors:
“Ay, ay, sure! That frying of fish will be the end of William Worm.
They be at it again this morning—same as ever—fizz, fizz, fizz!”
“Your head bad again, Worm?” said Mr. Swancourt. “What was that noise
we heard in the yard?”
“Ay, sir, a weak wambling man am I; and the frying have been going on
in my poor head all through the long night and this morning as usual;
and I was so dazed wi’ it that down fell a piece of leg-wood across the
shaft of the pony-shay, and splintered it off. ‘Ay,’ says I, ‘I feel it
as if ’twas my own shay; and though I’ve done it, and parish pay is my
lot if I go from here, perhaps I am as independent as one here and
there.’”
“Dear me, the shaft of the carriage broken!” cried Elfride. She was
disappointed: Stephen doubly so. The vicar showed more warmth of temper
than the accident seemed to demand, much to Stephen’s uneasiness and
rather to his surprise. He had not supposed so much latent sternness
could co-exist with Mr. Swancourt’s frankness and good-nature.
“You shall not be disappointed,” said the vicar at length. “It is
almost too long a distance for you to walk. Elfride can trot down on
her pony, and you shall have my old nag, Smith.”
Elfride exclaimed triumphantly, “You have never seen me on
horseback—Oh, you must!” She looked at Stephen and read his thoughts
immediately. “Ah, you don’t ride, Mr. Smith?”
“I am sorry to say I don’t.”
“Fancy a man not able to ride!” said she rather pertly.
The vicar came to his rescue. “That’s common enough; he has had other
lessons to learn. Now, I recommend this plan: let Elfride ride on
horseback, and you, Mr. Smith, walk beside her.”
The arrangement was welcomed with secret delight by Stephen. It seemed
to combine in itself all the advantages of a long slow ramble with
Elfride, without the contingent possibility of the enjoyment being
spoilt by her becoming weary. The pony was saddled and brought round.
“Now, Mr. Smith,” said the lady imperatively, coming downstairs, and
appearing in her riding-habit, as she always did in a change of dress,
like a new edition of a delightful volume, “you have a task to perform
to-day. These earrings are my very favourite darling ones; but the
worst of it is that they have such short hooks that they are liable to
be dropped if I toss my head about much, and when I am riding I can’t
give my mind to them. It would be doing me knight service if you keep
your eyes fixed upon them, and remember them every minute of the day,
and tell me directly I drop one. They have had such hairbreadth
escapes, haven’t they, Unity?” she continued to the parlour-maid who
was standing at the door.
“Yes, miss, that they have!” said Unity with round-eyed commiseration.
“Once ’twas in the lane that I found one of them,” pursued Elfride
reflectively.
“And then ’twas by the gate into Eighteen Acres,” Unity chimed in.
“And then ’twas on the carpet in my own room,” rejoined Elfride
merrily.
“And then ’twas dangling on the embroidery of your petticoat, miss; and
then ’twas down your back, miss, wasn’t it? And oh, what a way you was
in, miss, wasn’t you? my! until you found it!”
Stephen took Elfride’s slight foot upon his hand: “One, two, three, and
up!” she said.
Unfortunately not so. He staggered and lifted, and the horse edged
round; and Elfride was ultimately deposited upon the ground rather more
forcibly than was pleasant. Smith looked all contrition.
“Never mind,” said the vicar encouragingly; “try again! ’Tis a little
accomplishment that requires some practice, although it looks so easy.
Stand closer to the horse’s head, Mr. Smith.”
“Indeed, I shan’t let him try again,” said she with a microscopic look
of indignation. “Worm, come here, and help me to mount.” Worm stepped
forward, and she was in the saddle in a trice.
Then they moved on, going for some distance in silence, the hot air of
the valley being occasionally brushed from their faces by a cool
breeze, which wound its way along ravines leading up from the sea.
“I suppose,” said Stephen, “that a man who can neither sit in a saddle
himself nor help another person into one seems a useless incumbrance;
but, Miss Swancourt, I’ll learn to do it all for your sake; I will,
indeed.”
“What is so unusual in you,” she said, in a didactic tone justifiable
in a horsewoman’s address to a benighted walker, “is that your
knowledge of certain things should be combined with your ignorance of
certain other things.”
Stephen lifted his eyes earnestly to hers.
“You know,” he said, “it is simply because there are so many other
things to be learnt in this wide world that I didn’t trouble about that
particular bit of knowledge. I thought it would be useless to me; but I
don’t think so now. I will learn riding, and all connected with it,
because then you would like me better. Do you like me much less for
this?”
She looked sideways at him with critical meditation tenderly rendered.
“Do I seem like LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI?” she began suddenly, without
replying to his question. “Fancy yourself saying, Mr. Smith:
‘I sat her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy’s song,
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;’
and that’s all she did.”
“No, no,” said the young man stilly, and with a rising colour.
“‘And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.’”
“Not at all,” she rejoined quickly. “See how I can gallop. Now, Pansy,
off!” And Elfride started; and Stephen beheld her light figure
contracting to the dimensions of a bird as she sank into the
distance—her hair flowing.
He walked on in the same direction, and for a considerable time could
see no signs of her returning. Dull as a flower without the sun he sat
down upon a stone, and not for fifteen minutes was any sound of horse
or rider to be heard. Then Elfride and Pansy appeared on the hill in a
round trot.
“Such a delightful scamper as we have had!” she said, her face flushed
and her eyes sparkling. She turned the horse’s head, Stephen arose, and
they went on again.
“Well, what have you to say to me, Mr. Smith, after my long absence?”
“Do you remember a question you could not exactly answer last
night—whether I was more to you than anybody else?” said he.
“I cannot exactly answer now, either.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because I don’t know if I am more to you than any one else.”
“Yes, indeed, you are!” he exclaimed in a voice of intensest
appreciation, at the same time gliding round and looking into her face.
“Eyes in eyes,” he murmured playfully; and she blushingly obeyed,
looking back into his.
“And why not lips on lips?” continued Stephen daringly.
“No, certainly not. Anybody might look; and it would be the death of
me. You may kiss my hand if you like.”
He expressed by a look that to kiss a hand through a glove, and that a
riding-glove, was not a great treat under the circumstances.
“There, then; I’ll take my glove off. Isn’t it a pretty white hand? Ah,
you don’t want to kiss it, and you shall not now!”
“If I do not, may I never kiss again, you severe Elfride! You know I
think more of you than I can tell; that you are my queen. I would die
for you, Elfride!”
A rapid red again filled her cheeks, and she looked at him
meditatively. What a proud moment it was for Elfride then! She was
ruling a heart with absolute despotism for the first time in her life.
Stephen stealthily pounced upon her hand.
“No; I won’t, I won’t!” she said intractably; “and you shouldn’t take
me by surprise.”
There ensued a mild form of tussle for absolute possession of the
much-coveted hand, in which the boisterousness of boy and girl was far