Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

by Thomas Hardy

  But she would not, and he stood still, watching her as she panted up the way; for the moment an irradiated being, the epitome of a whole sex: by the beams of his own infatuation

  ‘....... robed in such exceeding glory

  That he beheld her not;’

  beheld her not as she really was, as she was even to himself sometimes. But to the soldier what was she? Smaller and smaller she waned up the rigid mathematical road, still gazing at the soldier aloft, as Pierston gazed at her. He could just discern sentinels springing up at the different coigns of vantage that she passed, but seeing who she was they did not intercept her; and presently she crossed the drawbridge over the enormous chasm surrounding the forts, passed the sentries there also, and disappeared through the arch into the interior. Pierston could not see the sentry now, and there occurred to him the hateful idea that this scarlet rival was meeting and talking freely to her, the unprotected orphan girl of his sweet original Avice; perhaps, relieved of duty, escorting her across the interior, carrying her basket, her tender body encircled by his arm.

  ‘What the devil are you staring at, as if you were in a trance?’

  Pierston turned his head: and there stood his old friend Somers — still looking the long-leased bachelor that he was.

  ‘I might say what the devil do you do here? if I weren’t so glad to see you.’

  Somers said that he had come to see what was detaining his friend in such an out-of-the-way place at that time of year, and incidentally to get some fresh air into his own lungs. Pierston made him welcome, and they went towards Sylvania Castle.

  ‘You were staring, as far as I could see, at a pretty little washerwoman with a basket of clothes?’ resumed the painter.

  ‘Yes; it was that to you, but not to me. Behind the mere pretty island-girl (to the world) is, in my eye, the Idea, in Platonic phraseology — the essence and epitome of all that is desirable in this existence.... I am under a doom, Somers. Yes, I am under a doom. To have been always following a phantom whom I saw in woman after woman while she was at a distance, but vanishing away on close approach, was bad enough; but now the terrible thing is that the phantom does NOT vanish, but stays to tantalise me even when I am near enough to see what it is! That girl holds me, THOUGH my eyes are open, and THOUGH I see that I am a fool!’

  Somers regarded the visionary look of his friend, which rather intensified than decreased as his years wore on, but made no further remark. When they reached the castle Somers gazed round upon the scenery, and Pierston, signifying the quaint little Elizabethan cottage, said: ‘That’s where she lives.’

  ‘What a romantic place! — and this island altogether. A man might love a scarecrow or turnip-lantern here.’

  ‘But a woman mightn’t. Scenery doesn’t impress them, though they pretend it does. This girl is as fickle as — ’

  ‘You once were.’

  ‘Exactly — from your point of view. She has told me so — candidly. And it hits me hard.’

  Somers stood still in sudden thought. ‘Well — that IS a strange turning of the tables!’ he said. ‘But you wouldn’t really marry her, Pierston?’

  ‘I would — to-morrow. Why shouldn’t I? What are fame and name and society to me — a descendant of wreckers and smugglers, like her. Besides, I know what she’s made of, my boy, to her innermost fibre; I know the perfect and pure quarry she was dug from: and that gives a man confidence.’

  ‘Then you’ll win.’

  * * *

  While they were sitting after dinner that evening their quiet discourse was interrupted by the long low whistle from the cliffs without. Somers took no notice, but Pierston marked it. That whistle always occurred at the same time in the evening when Avice was helping in the house. He excused himself for a moment to his visitor and went out upon the dark lawn. A crunching of feet upon the gravel mixed in with the articulation of the sea — steps light as if they were winged. And he supposed, two minutes later, that the mouth of some hulking fellow was upon hers, which he himself hardly ventured to look at, so touching was its young beauty.

  Hearing people about — among others the before-mentioned married couple quarrelling, the woman’s tones having a kinship to Avice’s own — he returned to the house. Next day Somers roamed abroad to look for scenery for a marine painting, and, going out to seek him, Pierston met Avice.

  ‘So you have a lover, my lady!’ he said severely. She admitted that it was the fact. ‘You won’t stick to him,’ he continued.

  ‘I think I may to THIS one,’ said she, in a meaning tone that he failed to fathom then. ‘He deserted me once, but he won’t again.’

  ‘I suppose he’s a wonderful sort of fellow?’

  ‘He’s good enough for me.’

  ‘So handsome, no doubt.’

  ‘Handsome enough for me.’

  ‘So refined and respectable.’

  ‘Refined and respectable enough for me.’

  He could not disturb her equanimity, and let her pass. The next day was Sunday, and Somers having chosen his view at the other end of the island, Pierston determined in the afternoon to see Avice’s lover. He found that she had left her cottage stronghold, and went on towards the lighthouses at the Beal. Turning back when he had reached the nearest, he saw on the lonely road between the quarries a young man evidently connected with the stone trade, with Avice the Second upon his arm.

  She looked prettily guilty and blushed a little under his glance. The man’s was one of the typical island physiognomies — his features energetic and wary in their expression, and half covered with a close, crisp black beard. Pierston fancied that out of his keen dark eyes there glimmered a dry sense of humour at the situation.

  If so, Avice must have told him of Pierston’s symptoms of tenderness. This girl, whom, for her dear mother’s sake more than for her own unquestionable attractiveness, he would have guarded as the apple of his eye, how could she estimate him so flippantly!

  The mortification of having brought himself to this position with the antitype, by his early slight of the type, blinded him for the moment to what struck him a short time after. The man upon whose arm she hung was not a soldier. What, then, became of her entranced gaze at the sentinel? She could hardly have transferred her affections so promptly; or, to give her the benefit of his own theory, her Beloved could scarcely have flitted from frame to frame in so very brief an interval. And which of them had been he who whistled softly in the dusk to her?

  Without further attempt to find Alfred Somers Pierston walked homeward, moodily thinking that the desire to make reparation to the original woman by wedding and enriching the copy — which lent such an unprecedented permanence to his new love — was thwarted, as if by set intention of his destiny.

  At the door of the grounds about the castle there stood a carriage. He observed that it was not one of the homely flys from the under-hill town, but apparently from the popular resort across the bay. Wondering why the visitor had not driven in he entered, to find in the drawing-room Nichola Pine-Avon.

  At his first glance upon her, fashionably dressed and graceful in movement, she seemed beautiful; at the second, when he observed that her face was pale and agitated, she seemed pathetic likewise. Altogether, she was now a very different figure from her who, sitting in her chair with such finished composure, had snubbed him in her drawing-room in Hamptonshire Square.

  ‘You are surprised at this? Of course you are!’ she said, in a low, pleading voice, languidly lifting her heavy eyelids, while he was holding her hand. ‘But I couldn’t help it! I know I have done something to offend you — have I not? O! what can it be, that you have come away to this outlandish rock, to live with barbarians in the midst of the London season?’

  ‘You have not offended me, dear Mrs. Pine-Avon,’ he said. ‘How sorry I am that you should have supposed it! Yet I am glad, too, that your fancy should have done me the good turn of bringing you here to see me.’

  ‘I am staying at Budmouth-Regis,’ she explained.

>   ‘Then I did see you at a church-service here a little while back?’

  She blushed faintly upon her pallor, and she sighed. Their eyes met. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘I don’t know why I shouldn’t show the virtue of candour. You know what it means. I was the stronger once; now I am the weaker. Whatever pain I may have given you in the ups and downs of our acquaintance I am sorry for, and would willingly repair all errors of the past by — being amenable to reason in the future.’

  It was impossible that Jocelyn should not feel a tender impulsion towards this attractive and once independent woman, who from every worldly point of view was an excellent match for him — a superior match, indeed, except in money. He took her hand again and held it awhile, and a faint wave of gladness seemed to flow through her. But no — he could go no further. That island girl, in her coquettish Sunday frock and little hat with its bunch of cock’s feathers held him as by strands of Manila rope. He dropped Nichola’s hand.

  ‘I am leaving Budmouth to-morrow,’ she said. ‘That was why I felt I must call. You did not know I had been there all through the Whitsun holidays?’

  ‘I did not, indeed; or I should have come to see you.’.

  ‘I didn’t like to write. I wish I had, now!’

  ‘I wish you had, too, dear Mrs. Pine-Avon.’

  But it was ‘Nichola’ that she wanted to be. As they reached the landau he told her that he should be back in town himself again soon, and would call immediately. At the moment of his words Avice Caro, now alone, passed close along by the carriage on the other side, towards her house hard at hand. She did not turn head or eye to the pair: they seemed to be in her view objects of indifference.

  Pierston became cold as a stone. The chill towards Nichola that the presence of the girl, — sprite, witch, troll that she was — brought with it came like a doom. He knew what a fool he was, as he had said. But he was powerless in the grasp of the idealising passion. He cared more for Avice’s finger-tips than for Mrs. Pine-Avon’s whole personality.

  Perhaps Nichola saw it, for she said mournfully: ‘Now I have done all I could! I felt that the only counterpoise to my cruelty to you in my drawing-room would be to come as a suppliant to yours.’

  ‘It is most handsome and noble of you, my very dear friend!’ said he, with an emotion of courtesy rather than of enthusiasm.

  Then adieux were spoken, and she drove away. But Pierston saw only the retreating Avice, and knew that he was helpless in her hands. The church of the island had risen near the foundations of the Pagan temple, and a Christian emanation from the former might be wrathfully torturing him through the very false gods to whom he had devoted himself both in his craft, like Demetrius of Ephesus, and in his heart. Perhaps Divine punishment for his idolatries had come.

  CHAPTER X.

  SHE FAILS TO VANISH STILL

  Pierston had not turned far back towards the castle when he was overtaken by Somers and the man who carried his painting lumber. They paced together to the door; the man deposited the articles and went away, and the two walked up and down before entering.

  ‘I met an extremely interesting woman in the road out there,’ said the painter.

  ‘Ah, she is! A sprite, a sylph; Psyche indeed!’

  ‘I was struck with her.’

  ‘It shows how beauty will out through the homeliest guise.’

  ‘Yes, it will; though not always. And this case doesn’t prove it, for the lady’s attire was in the latest and most approved taste.’

  ‘Oh, you mean the lady who was driving?’

  ‘Of course. What, were you thinking of the pretty little cottage-girl outside here? I did meet her, but what’s she? Very well for one’s picture, though hardly for one’s fireside. This lady — ’

  ‘Is Mrs. Pine-Avon. A kind, proud woman, who’ll do what people with no pride would not condescend to think of. She is leaving Budmouth to-morrow, and she drove across to see me. You know how things seemed to be going with us at one time? But I am no good to any woman. She’s been very generous towards me, which I’ve not been to her.... She’ll ultimately throw herself away upon some wretch unworthy of her, no doubt.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ murmured Somers. After a while he said abruptly, ‘I’ll marry her myself, if she’ll have me. I like the look of her.’

  ‘I wish you would, Alfred, or rather could! She has long had an idea of slipping out of the world of fashion into the world of art. She is a woman of individuality and earnest instincts. I am in real trouble about her. I won’t say she can be won — it would be ungenerous of me to say that. But try. I can bring you together easily.’

  ‘I’ll marry her, if she’s willing!’ With the phlegmatic dogmatism that was part of him, Somers added: ‘When you have decided to marry, take the first nice woman you meet. They are all alike.’

  ‘Well — you don’t know her yet,’ replied Jocelyn, who could give praise where he could not give love.

  ‘But you do, and I’ll take her on the strength of your judgment. Is she really handsome? — I had but the merest glance. But I know she is, or she wouldn’t have caught your discriminating eye.’

  ‘You may take my word for it; she looks as well at hand as afar.’

  ‘What colour are her eyes?’

  ‘Her eyes? I don’t go much in for colour, being professionally sworn to form. But, let me see — grey; and her hair rather light than dark brown.’

  ‘I wanted something darker,’ said Somers airily. ‘There are so many fair models among native Englishwomen. Still, blondes are useful property!... Well, well; this is flippancy. But I liked the look of her.’

  * * *

  Somers had gone back to town. It was a wet day on the little peninsula: but Pierston walked out as far as the garden-house of his hired castle, where he sat down and smoked. This erection being on the boundary-wall of his property his ear could now and then catch the tones of Avice’s voice from her open-doored cottage in the lane which skirted his fence; and he noticed that there were no modulations in it. He knew why that was. She wished to go out, and could not. He had observed before that when she was planning an outing a particular note would come into her voice during the preceding hours: a dove’s roundness of sound; no doubt the effect upon her voice of her thoughts of her lover, or lovers. Yet the latter it could not be. She was pure and singlehearted: half an eye could see that. Whence, then, the two men? Possibly the quarrier was a relation.

  There seemed reason in this when, going out into the lane, he encountered one of the red jackets he had been thinking of. Soldiers were seldom seen in this outer part of the isle: their beat from the forts, when on pleasure, was in the opposite direction, and this man must have had a special reason for coming hither. Pierston surveyed him. He was a round-faced, good-humoured fellow to look at, having two little pieces of moustache on his upper lip, like a pair of minnows rampant, and small black eyes, over which the Glengarry cap straddled flat. It was a hateful idea that her tender cheek should be kissed by the lips of this heavy young man, who had never been sublimed by a single battle, even with defenceless savages.

  The soldier went before her house, looked at the door, and moved on down the crooked way to the cliffs, where there was a path back to the forts. But he did not adopt it, returning by the way he had come. This showed his wish to pass the house again. She gave no sign, however, and the soldier disappeared.

  Pierston could not be satisfied that Avice was in the house, and he crossed over to the front of her little freehold and tapped at the door, which stood ajar.

  Nobody came: hearing a slight movement within he crossed the threshold. Avice was there alone, sitting on a low stool in a dark corner, as though she wished to be unobserved by any casual passer-by. She looked up at him without emotion or apparent surprise; but he could then see that she was crying. The view, for the first time, of distress in an unprotected young girl towards whom he felt drawn by ties of extraordinary delicacy and tenderness, moved Pierston beyond measure. He entered without cere
mony.

  ‘Avice, my dear girl!’ he said. ‘Something is the matter!’

  She looked assent, and he went on: ‘Now tell me all about it. Perhaps I can help you. Come, tell me.’

  ‘I can’t!’ she murmured. ‘Grammer Stockwool is upstairs, and she’ll hear!’ Mrs. Stockwool was the old woman who had come to live with the girl for company since her mother’s death.

  ‘Then come into my garden opposite. There we shall be quite private.’

  She rose, put on her hat, and accompanied him to the door. Here she asked him if the lane were empty, and on his assuring her that it was she crossed over and entered with him through the garden-wall.

  The place was a shady and secluded one, though through the boughs the sea could be seen quite near at hand, its moanings being distinctly audible. A water-drop from a tree fell here and there, but the rain was not enough to hurt them.

  ‘Now let me hear it,’ he said soothingly. ‘You may tell me with the greatest freedom. I was a friend of your mother’s, you know. That is, I knew her; and I’ll be a friend of yours.’

  The statement was risky, if he wished her not to suspect him of being her mother’s false one. But that lover’s name appeared to be unknown to the present Avice.

  ‘I can’t tell you, sir,’ she replied unwillingly; ‘except that it has to do with my own changeableness. The rest is the secret of somebody else.’

  ‘I am sorry for that,’ said he.

  ‘I am getting to care for one I ought not to think of, and it means ruin. I ought to get away!’.

  ‘You mean from the island?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pierston reflected. His presence in London had been desired for some time; yet he had delayed going because of his new solicitudes here. But to go and take her with him would afford him opportunity of watching over her, tending her mind, and developing it; while it might remove her from some looming danger. It was a somewhat awkward guardianship for him, as a lonely man, to carry out; still, it could be done. He asked her abruptly if she would really like to go away for a while.