The Hand of Ethelberta

T >> Thomas Hardy >> The Hand of Ethelberta


A few words of greeting passed, and Ethelberta told him how she was
fearing to meet them all, united and primed with their morning's
knowledge as they appeared to be.

'Well, we have not done much yet,' said Lord Mountclere. 'As for myself,
I have given no thought at all to our day's work. I had not forgotten
your promise to attend, if you could possibly drive across, and--hee-hee-
hee!--I have frequently looked towards the hill where the road descends.
. . . Will you now permit me to introduce some of my party--as many of
them as you care to know by name? I think they would all like to speak
to you.'

Ethelberta then found herself nominally made known to ten or a dozen
ladies and gentlemen who had wished for special acquaintance with her.
She stood there, as all women stand who have made themselves remarkable
by their originality, or devotion to any singular cause, as a person
freed of her hampering and inconvenient sex, and, by virtue of her
popularity, unfettered from the conventionalities of manner prescribed by
custom for household womankind. The charter to move abroad unchaperoned,
which society for good reasons grants only to women of three sorts--the
famous, the ministering, and the improper--Ethelberta was in a fair way
to make splendid use of: instead of walking in protected lanes she
experienced that luxury of isolation which normally is enjoyed by men
alone, in conjunction with the attention naturally bestowed on a woman
young and fair. Among the presentations were Mr. and Mrs. Tynn, member
and member's mainspring for North Wessex; Sir Cyril and Lady Blandsbury;
Lady Jane Joy; and the Honourable Edgar Mountclere, the viscount's
brother. There also hovered near her the learned Doctor Yore; Mr. Small,
a profound writer, who never printed his works; the Reverend Mr. Brook,
rector; the Very Reverend Dr. Taylor, dean; and the undoubtedly Reverend
Mr. Tinkleton, Nonconformist, who had slipped into the fold by chance.

These and others looked with interest at Ethelberta: the old county
fathers hard, as at a questionable town phenomenon, the county sons
tenderly, as at a pretty creature, and the county daughters with great
admiration, as at a lady reported by their mammas to be no better than
she should be. It will be seen that Ethelberta was the sort of woman
that well-rooted local people might like to look at on such a free and
friendly occasion as an archaeological meeting, where, to gratify a
pleasant whim, the picturesque form of acquaintance is for the nonce
preferred to the useful, the spirits being so brisk as to swerve from
strict attention to the select and sequent gifts of heaven, blood and
acres, to consider for an idle moment the subversive Mephistophelian
endowment, brains.

'Our progress in the survey of the castle has not been far as yet,' Lord
Mountclere resumed; 'indeed, we have only just arrived, the weather this
morning being so unsettled. When you came up we were engaged in a
preliminary study of the poor animal you see there: how it could have got
up here we cannot understand.'

He pointed as he spoke to the donkey which had brought Ethelberta
thither, whereupon she was silent, and gazed at her untoward beast as if
she had never before beheld him.

The ass looked at Ethelberta as though he would say, 'Why don't you own
me, after safely bringing you over those weary hills?' But the pride and
emulation which had made her what she was would not permit her, as the
most lovely woman there, to take upon her own shoulders the ridicule that
had already been cast upon the ass. Had he been young and gaily
caparisoned, she might have done it; but his age, the clumsy trappings of
rustic make, and his needy woful look of hard servitude, were too much to
endure.

'Many come and picnic here,' she said serenely, 'and the animal may have
been left till they return from some walk.'

'True,' said Lord Mountclere, without the slightest suspicion of the
truth. The humble ass hung his head in his usual manner, and it demanded
little fancy from Ethelberta to imagine that he despised her. And then
her mind flew back to her history and extraction, to her father--perhaps
at that moment inventing a private plate-powder in an underground
pantry--and with a groan at her inconsistency in being ashamed of the
ass, she said in her heart, 'My God, what a thing am I!'

They then all moved on to another part of the castle, the viscount
busying himself round and round her person like the head scraper at a pig-
killing; and as they went indiscriminately mingled, jesting lightly or
talking in earnest, she beheld ahead of her the form of Neigh among the
rest.

Now, there could only be one reason on earth for Neigh's presence--her
remark that she might attend--for Neigh took no more interest in
antiquities than in the back of the moon. Ethelberta was a little
flurried; perhaps he had come to scold her, or to treat her badly in that
indefinable way of his by which he could make a woman feel as nothing
without any direct act at all. She was afraid of him, and, determining
to shun him, was thankful that Lord Mountclere was near, to take off the
edge of Neigh's manner towards her if he approached.

'Do you know in what part of the ruins the lecture is to be given?' she
said to the viscount.

'Wherever you like,' he replied gallantly. 'Do you propose a place, and
I will get Dr. Yore to adopt it. Say, shall it be here, or where they
are standing?'

How could Ethelberta refrain from exercising a little power when it was
put into her hands in this way?

'Let it be here,' she said, 'if it makes no difference to the meeting.'

'It shall be,' said Lord Mountclere.

And then the lively old nobleman skipped like a roe to the President and
to Dr. Yore, who was to read the paper on the castle, and they soon
appeared coming back to where the viscount's party and Ethelberta were
beginning to seat themselves. The bulk of the company followed, and Dr.
Yore began.

He must have had a countenance of leather--as, indeed, from his colour he
appeared to have--to stand unmoved in his position, and read, and look up
to give explanations, without a change of muscle, under the dozens of
bright eyes that were there converged upon him, like the sticks of a fan,
from the ladies who sat round him in a semicircle upon the grass.
However, he went on calmly, and the women sheltered themselves from the
heat with their umbrellas and sunshades, their ears lulled by the hum of
insects, and by the drone of the doctor's voice. The reader buzzed on
with the history of the castle, tracing its development from a mound with
a few earthworks to its condition in Norman times; he related monkish
marvels connected with the spot; its resistance under Matilda to Stephen,
its probable shape while a residence of King John, and the sad story of
the Damsel of Brittany, sister of his victim Arthur, who was confined
here in company with the two daughters of Alexander, king of Scotland. He
went on to recount the confinement of Edward II. herein, previous to his
murder at Berkeley, the gay doings in the reign of Elizabeth, and so
downward through time to the final overthrow of the stern old pile. As
he proceeded, the lecturer pointed with his finger at the various
features appertaining to the date of his story, which he told with
splendid vigour when he had warmed to his work, till his narrative,
particularly in the conjectural and romantic parts, where it became
coloured rather by the speaker's imagination than by the pigments of
history, gathered together the wandering thoughts of all. It was easy
for him then to meet those fair concentred eyes, when the sunshades were
thrown back, and complexions forgotten, in the interest of the history.
The doctor's face was then no longer criticized as a rugged boulder, a
dried fig, an oak carving, or a walnut shell, but became blotted out like
a mountain top in a shining haze by the nebulous pictures conjured by his
tale.

Then the lecture ended, and questions were asked, and individuals of the
company wandered at will, the light dresses of the ladies sweeping over
the hot grass and brushing up thistledown which had hitherto lain
quiescent, so that it rose in a flight from the skirts of each like a
comet's tail.

Some of Lord Mountclere's party, including himself and Ethelberta,
wandered now into a cool dungeon, partly open to the air overhead, where
long arms of ivy hung between their eyes and the white sky. While they
were here, Lady Jane Joy and some other friends of the viscount told
Ethelberta that they were probably coming on to Knollsea.

She instantly perceived that getting into close quarters in that way
might be very inconvenient, considering the youngsters she had under her
charge, and straightway decided upon a point that she had debated for
several days--a visit to her aunt in Normandy. In London it had been a
mere thought, but the Channel had looked so tempting from its brink that
the journey was virtually fixed as soon as she reached Knollsea, and
found that a little pleasure steamer crossed to Cherbourg once a week
during the summer, so that she would not have to enter the crowded routes
at all.

'I am afraid I shall not see you in Knollsea,' she said. 'I am about to
go to Cherbourg and then to Rouen.'

'How sorry I am. When do you leave?'

'At the beginning of next week,' said Ethelberta, settling the time there
and then.

'Did I hear you say that you were going to Cherbourg and Rouen?' Lord
Mountclere inquired.

'I think to do so,' said Ethelberta.

'I am going to Normandy myself,' said a voice behind her, and without
turning she knew that Neigh was standing there.

They next went outside, and Lord Mountclere offered Ethelberta his arm on
the ground of assisting her down the burnished grass slope. Ethelberta,
taking pity upon him, took it; but the assistance was all on her side;
she stood like a statue amid his slips and totterings, some of which
taxed her strength heavily, and her ingenuity more, to appear as the
supported and not the supporter. The incident brought Neigh still
further from his retirement, and she learnt that he was one of a yachting
party which had put in at Knollsea that morning; she was greatly relieved
to find that he was just now on his way to London, whence he would
probably proceed on his journey abroad.

Ethelberta adhered as well as she could to her resolve that Neigh should
not speak with her alone, but by dint of perseverance he did manage to
address her without being overheard.

'Will you give me an answer?' said Neigh. 'I have come on purpose.'

'I cannot just now. I have been led to doubt you.'

'Doubt me? What new wrong have I done?'

'Spoken jestingly of my visit to Farnfield.'

'Good ---! I did not speak or think of you. When I told that incident I
had no idea who the lady was--I did not know it was you till two days
later, and I at once held my tongue. I vow to you upon my soul and life
that what I say is true. How shall I prove my truth better than by my
errand here?'

'Don't speak of this now. I am so occupied with other things. I am
going to Rouen, and will think of it on my way.'

'I am going there too. When do you go?'

'I shall be in Rouen next Wednesday, I hope.'

'May I ask where?'

'Hotel Beau Sejour.'

'Will you give me an answer there? I can easily call upon you. It is
now a month and more since you first led me to hope--'

'I did not lead you to hope--at any rate clearly.'

'Indirectly you did. And although I am willing to be as considerate as
any man ought to be in giving you time to think over the question, there
is a limit to my patience. Any necessary delay I will put up with, but I
won't be trifled with. I hate all nonsense, and can't stand it.'

'Indeed. Good morning.'

'But Mrs. Petherwin--just one word.'

'I have nothing to say.'

'I will meet you at Rouen for an answer. I would meet you in Hades for
the matter of that. Remember this: next Wednesday, if I live, I shall
call upon you at Rouen.'

She did not say nay.

'May I?' he added.

'If you will.'

'But say it shall be an appointment?'

'Very well.'

Lord Mountclere was by this time toddling towards them to ask if they
would come on to his house, Enckworth Court, not very far distant, to
lunch with the rest of the party. Neigh, having already arranged to go
on to town that afternoon, was obliged to decline, and Ethelberta thought
fit to do the same, idly asking Lord Mountclere if Enckworth Court lay in
the direction of a gorge that was visible where they stood.

'No; considerably to the left,' he said. 'The opening you are looking at
would reveal the sea if it were not for the trees that block the way. Ah,
those trees have a history; they are half-a-dozen elms which I planted
myself when I was a boy. How time flies!'

'It is unfortunate they stand just so as to cover the blue bit of sea.
That addition would double the value of the view from here.'

'You would prefer the blue sea to the trees?'

'In that particular spot I should; they might have looked just as well,
and yet have hidden nothing worth seeing. The narrow slit would have
been invaluable there.'

'They shall fall before the sun sets, in deference to your opinion,' said
Lord Mountclere.

'That would be rash indeed,' said Ethelberta, laughing, 'when my opinion
on such a point may be worth nothing whatever.'

'Where no other is acted upon, it is practically the universal one,' he
replied gaily.

And then Ethelberta's elderly admirer bade her adieu, and away the whole
party drove in a long train over the hills towards the valley wherein
stood Enckworth Court. Ethelberta's carriage was supposed by her friends
to have been left at the village inn, as were many others, and her
retiring from view on foot attracted no notice.

She watched them out of sight, and she also saw the rest depart--those
who, their interest in archaeology having begun and ended with this spot,
had, like herself, declined the hospitable viscount's invitation, and
started to drive or walk at once home again. Thereupon the castle was
quite deserted except by Ethelberta, the ass, and the jackdaws, now
floundering at ease again in and about the ivy of the keep.

Not wishing to enter Knollsea till the evening shades were falling, she
still walked amid the ruins, examining more leisurely some points which
the stress of keeping herself companionable would not allow her to attend
to while the assemblage was present. At the end of the survey, being
somewhat weary with her clambering, she sat down on the slope commanding
the gorge where the trees grew, to make a pencil sketch of the landscape
as it was revealed between the ragged walls. Thus engaged she weighed
the circumstances of Lord Mountclere's invitation, and could not be
certain if it were prudishness or simple propriety in herself which had
instigated her to refuse. She would have liked the visit for many
reasons, and if Lord Mountclere had been anybody but a remarkably
attentive old widower, she would have gone. As it was, it had occurred
to her that there was something in his tone which should lead her to
hesitate. Were any among the elderly or married ladies who had appeared
upon the ground in a detached form as she had done--and many had appeared
thus--invited to Enckworth; and if not, why were they not? That Lord
Mountclere admired her there was no doubt, and for this reason it behoved
her to be careful. His disappointment at parting from her was, in one
aspect, simply laughable, from its odd resemblance to the unfeigned
sorrow of a boy of fifteen at a first parting from his first love; in
another aspect it caused reflection; and she thought again of his
curiosity about her doings for the remainder of the summer.

* * * * *

While she sketched and thought thus, the shadows grew longer, and the sun
low. And then she perceived a movement in the gorge. One of the trees
forming the curtain across it began to wave strangely: it went further to
one side, and fell. Where the tree had stood was now a rent in the
foliage, and through the narrow rent could be seen the distant sea.

Ethelberta uttered a soft exclamation. It was not caused by the surprise
she had felt, nor by the intrinsic interest of the sight, nor by want of
comprehension. It was a sudden realization of vague things hitherto
dreamed of from a distance only--a sense of novel power put into her
hands without request or expectation. A landscape was to be altered to
suit her whim. She had in her lifetime moved essentially larger
mountains, but they had seemed of far less splendid material than this;
for it was the nature of the gratification rather than its magnitude
which enchanted the fancy of a woman whose poetry, in spite of her
necessities, was hardly yet extinguished. But there was something more,
with which poetry had little to do. Whether the opinion of any pretty
woman in England was of more weight with Lord Mountclere than memories of
his boyhood, or whether that distinction was reserved for her alone; this
was a point that she would have liked to know.

The enjoyment of power in a new element, an enjoyment somewhat resembling
in kind that which is given by a first ride or swim, held Ethelberta to
the spot, and she waited, but sketched no more. Another tree-top swayed
and vanished as before, and the slit of sea was larger still. Her mind
and eye were so occupied with this matter that, sitting in her nook, she
did not observe a thin young man, his boots white with the dust of a long
journey on foot, who arrived at the castle by the valley-road from
Knollsea. He looked awhile at the ruin, and, skirting its flank instead
of entering by the great gateway, climbed up the scarp and walked in
through a breach. After standing for a moment among the walls, now
silent and apparently empty, with a disappointed look he descended the
slope, and proceeded along on his way.

Ethelberta, who was in quite another part of the castle, saw the black
spot diminishing to the size of a fly as he receded along the dusty road,
and soon after she descended on the other side, where she remounted the
ass, and ambled homeward as she had come, in no bright mood. What,
seeing the precariousness of her state, was the day's triumph worth after
all, unless, before her beauty abated, she could ensure her position
against the attacks of chance?

'To be thus is nothing;
But to be safely thus.'

--she said it more than once on her journey that day.

On entering the sitting-room of their cot up the hill she found it empty,
and from a change perceptible in the position of small articles of
furniture, something unusual seemed to have taken place in her absence.
The dwelling being of that sort in which whatever goes on in one room is
audible through all the rest, Picotee, who was upstairs, heard the
arrival and came down. Picotee's face was rosed over with the brilliance
of some excitement. 'What do you think I have to tell you, Berta?' she
said.

'I have no idea,' said her sister. 'Surely,' she added, her face
intensifying to a wan sadness, 'Mr. Julian has not been here?'

'Yes,' said Picotee. 'And we went down to the sands--he, and Myrtle, and
Georgina, and Emmeline, and I--and Cornelia came down when she had put
away the dinner. And then we dug wriggles out of the sand with Myrtle's
spade: we got such a lot, and had such fun; they are in a dish in the
kitchen. Mr. Julian came to see you; but at last he could wait no
longer, and when I told him you were at the meeting in the castle ruins
he said he would try to find you there on his way home, if he could get
there before the meeting broke up.'

'Then it was he I saw far away on the road--yes, it must have been.' She
remained in gloomy reverie a few moments, and then said, 'Very well--let
it be. Picotee, get me some tea: I do not want dinner.'

But the news of Christopher's visit seemed to have taken away her
appetite for tea also, and after sitting a little while she flung herself
down upon the couch, and told Picotee that she had settled to go and see
their aunt Charlotte.

'I am going to write to Sol and Dan to ask them to meet me there,' she
added. 'I want them, if possible, to see Paris. It will improve them
greatly in their trades, I am thinking, if they can see the kinds of
joinery and decoration practised in France. They agreed to go, if I
should wish it, before we left London. You, of course, will go as my
maid.'

Picotee gazed upon the sea with a crestfallen look, as if she would
rather not cross it in any capacity just then.

'It would scarcely be worth going to the expense of taking me, would it?'
she said.

The cause of Picotee's sudden sense of economy was so plain that her
sister smiled; but young love, however foolish, is to a thinking person
far too tragic a power for ridicule; and Ethelberta forbore, going on as
if Picotee had not spoken: 'I must have you with me. I may be seen
there: so many are passing through Rouen at this time of the year.
Cornelia can take excellent care of the children while we are gone. I
want to get out of England, and I will get out of England. There is
nothing but vanity and vexation here.'

'I am sorry you were away when he called,' said Picotee gently.

'O, I don't mean that. I wish there were no different ranks in the
world, and that contrivance were not a necessary faculty to have at all.
Well, we are going to cross by the little steamer that puts in here, and
we are going on Monday.' She added in another minute, 'What had Mr.
Julian to tell us that he came here? How did he find us out?'

'I mentioned that we were coming here in my letter to Faith. Mr. Julian
says that perhaps he and his sister may also come for a few days before
the season is over. I should like to see Miss Julian again. She is such
a nice girl.'

'Yes.' Ethelberta played with her hair, and looked at the ceiling as she
reclined. 'I have decided after all,' she said, 'that it will be better
to take Cornelia as my maid, and leave you here with the children.
Cornelia is stronger as a companion than you, and she will be delighted
to go. Do you think you are competent to keep Myrtle and Georgina out of
harm's way?'

'O yes--I will be exceedingly careful,' said Picotee, with great
vivacity. 'And if there is time I can go on teaching them a little.'
Then Picotee caught Ethelberta's eye, and colouring red, sank down beside
her sister, whispering, 'I know why it is! But if you would rather have
me with you I will go, and not once wish to stay.'

Ethelberta looked as if she knew all about that, and said, 'Of course
there will be no necessity to tell the Julians about my departure until
they have fixed the time for coming, and cannot alter their minds.'

The sound of the children with Cornelia, and their appearance outside the
window, pushing between the fuchsia bushes which overhung the path, put
an end to this dialogue; they entered armed with buckets and spades, a
very moist and sandy aspect pervading them as far up as the high-water
mark of their clothing, and began to tell Ethelberta of the wonders of
the deep.




32. A ROOM IN ENCKWORTH COURT


'Are you sure the report is true?'

'I am sure that what I say is true, my lord; but it is hardly to be
called a report. It is a secret, known at present to nobody but myself
and Mrs. Doncastle's maid.'

The speaker was Lord Mountclere's trusty valet, and the conversation was
between him and the viscount in a dressing-room at Enckworth Court, on
the evening after the meeting of archaeologists at Corvsgate Castle.

'H'm-h'm; the daughter of a butler. Does Mrs. Doncastle know of this
yet, or Mr. Neigh, or any of their friends?'

'No, my lord.'

'You are quite positive?'

'Quite positive. I was, by accident, the first that Mrs. Menlove named
the matter to, and I told her it might be much to her advantage if she
took particular care it should go no further.'

'Mrs. Menlove! Who's she?'

'The lady's-maid at Mrs. Doncastle's, my lord.'

'O, ah--of course. You may leave me now, Tipman.' Lord Mountclere
remained in thought for a moment. 'A clever little puss, to hoodwink us
all like this--hee-hee!' he murmured. 'Her education--how finished; and
her beauty--so seldom that I meet with such a woman. Cut down my elms to
please a butler's daughter--what a joke--certainly a good joke! To
interest me in her on the right side instead of the wrong was strange.
But it can be made to change sides--hee-hee!--it can be made to change
sides! Tipman!'

Tipman came forward from the doorway.

'Will you take care that that piece of gossip you mentioned to me is not
repeated in this house? I strongly disapprove of talebearing of any
sort, and wish to hear no more of this. Such stories are never true.
Answer me--do you hear? Such stories are never true.'

'I beg pardon, but I think your lordship will find this one true,' said
the valet quietly.

'Then where did she get her manners and education? Do you know?'

'I do not, my lord. I suppose she picked 'em up by her wits.'