Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (5 page)

“Forgive you? Oh, Miss Allenville!” said he in a wild whisper, “I wish you had sinned a hundred ,times as much, that I might show how readily I can forgive all.”

She had looked as if she would have held out her hand; but, for some reason or other, directly he had spoken with emotion it was not so well for him as when he had spoken to wound her. She passed on silently, and entered the private gate to the house.

A day or two after this, about three o’clock in the afternoon, and whilst Egbert was giving a less on in geography, a lad burst into the school with the tidings that Farmer Broadford had fallen from a cornstack they were threshing, and hurt himself severely.

The boy had borrowed a horse to come with, and Mayne at once made him gallop off with it for a doctor. Dismissing the children, the young man ran home full of forebodings. He found his relative in a chair, held up by two of his labouring men. He was put to bed, and seeing how pale he was, Egbert gave him a little wine, and bathed the parts which had been bruised by the fall.

Egbert had at first been the more troubled at the event through believing that his grandfather’s fall was the result of his low spirits and mental uneasiness; and he blamed himself for letting so infirm a man go out upon the farm till quite recovered. But it turned out that the actual cause of the accident was the breaking of the ladder that he had been standing on. When the surgeon had seen him he said that the external bruises were mere trifles; but that the shock had been great, and had produced internal injuries highly dangerous to a man in that stage of life.

His grandson was of opinion in later years that the fall only hastened by a few months a dissolution which would soon have taken place under any circumstances, from the natural decay of the old man’s constitution. His pulse grew feeble and his voice weak, but he continued in a comparatively firm state of mind for some days, during which he talked to Egbert a great deal.

Egbert trusted that the illness would soon pass away; his anxiety for his grandfather was great. When he was gone not one of the family would be left but himself. But in spite of hope the younger man perceived that death was really at hand. And now arose a question. It was certainly a time to make confidences, if they were ever to be made; should he, then, tell his grandfather, who knew the Allenvilles so well, of his love for Geraldine? At one moment it seemed duty; at another it seemed a graceful act, to say the least.

Yet Egbert might never have uttered a word but for a remark of his grandfather’s which led up to the very point. He was speaking of the farm and of the squire, and thence he went on to the daughter.

“She, too,” he said, “seems to have that reckless spirit which was in her mother’s family, and ruined her mother’s father at the gaming-table, though she’s too young to show much of it yet.”

“I hope not,” said Egbert fervently.

“Why? What be the Allenvilles to you — not that I wish the girl harm?”

“I think she is the very best being in the world. I — love her deeply.”

His grandfather’s eyes were set on the wall. “Well, well, my poor boy,” came softly from his mouth. “What made ye think of loving her? Ye may as well love a mountain, for any return you’ll ‘ever get. Do she know of it?”

“She guesses it. It was my saving her from the threshing-machine that began it.”

“And she checks you? “‘

“Well — no.”

“Egbert,” he said after a silence, “I am grieved, for it can but end in pain. Mind, she’s an inexperienced girl. She never thinks of what trouble she may get herself into with her father and with her friends. And mind this, my lad, as another reason for dropping it; however honourable your love may be, you’ll never get credit for your honour. Nothing you can do will ever root out the notion of people that where the man is poor and the woman is high-born he’s a scamp and she’s an angel.”

“She’s very good.”

“She’s thoughtless, or she’d never encourage you. You must try not to see her.”

“I will never put myself in her way again.”

The subject was mentioned no more then. The next day the worn-out old farmer died, and his last request to Egbert was that he would do nothing to tempt Geraldine Allenville to think of him further.

CHAPTER VI.

Hath misery made thee blind

To the fond workings of a woman’s mind?

And must I say — albeit my heart rebel

With all that woman feels but should not tell;

Because, despite thy faults, that heart is moved —

It feared thee, thank’d thee, pitied, maddend, loved?

It was in the evening of the day after Farmer Broadford’s death that Egbert first sat down in the house alone. The bandy-legged little man who had acted as his grandfather’s groom of the chambers and stables simultaneously had gone into the village. The candles were not yet lighted, and Mayne abstractedly watched upon the pale wall the latter rays of sunset slowly changing into the white shine of a moon a few days old. The ancient family clock had stopped for want of winding, and the intense silence that prevailed seemed more like the bodily presence of some quality than the mere absence of sound.

He was thinking how many were the indifferent expressions which he had used towards the poor body lying cold up-stairs — the only relation he had latterly had upon earth — which might as well have been left unsaid; of how far he had been from practically attempting to do what in theory he called best — to make the most of every pulse of natural affection; that he had never heeded or particularly inquired the meaning of the different pieces of advice which the kind old man had tendered from time to time; that he had never even thought of asking for any details of his grandfather’s history.

His musings turned upon Geraldine. He had promised to seek her no more, and he would keep his promise. Her interest in him might only be that of an exceedingly romantic and freakish soul, awakened but through “lack of other idleness,” and because sound sense suggested to her that it was a thing dangerous to do; for it seemed that she was ever and only moved by the superior of two antagonistic forces. She had as yet seen little or no society, she was only seventeen; and hence it was possible that a week of the town and fashion into which she would soon be initiated might blot out his very existence from her memory.

He was sitting with his back to the window, meditating in this minor key, when a shadow darkened the opposite moonlit wall. Egbert started. There was a gentle tap at the door; and he opened it to behold the well-known form of the lady in his mind.

“Mr. Mayne, are you alone?” she whispered, full of agitation.

“Quite alone, excepting my poor grandfather’s body up-stairs,” he answered, as agitated as she.

Then out it all came. “I couldn’t help coming — I hope — oh, I do so pray - that it was not through me that he died. Was it I, indeed, who killed him? They say it was the effect of the news that he was to leave the farm. I would have done anything to hinder his being turned out had I only reflected! And now he is dead. It was so cruel to an old man like him; and now you have nobody in the world to care for you, have you, Egbert — except me?”

The ice was wholly broken. He took her hand in both his own and began to assure her that her alarm was grounded on nothing whatever. And yet he was almost reluctant to assure her out of so sweet a state. And when he had said over and over again that his grandfather’s fall had nothing to do with his mental condition, that the utmost result of her hasty proceeding was a sadness of spirit in him, she still persisted, as is the custom of women, in holding to that most painful possibility as the most likely, simply because it wounded her most. It was a long while before she would be convinced of her own innocence, but he maintained it firmly, and she finally believed.

They sat down together, restraint having quite died out between them. The fine-lady portion of her existence, of which there was never much, was in abeyance, and they spoke and acted simply as a young man and woman who were beset by common troubles, and who had like hopes and fears.

“And you will never blame me again for what I did?” said Egbert.

“I never blamed you much,” she murmured with arch simplicity. “Why should it be wrong for me to be honest with you now, and tell everything you want to know?”

Mayne was silent. That was a difficult question for a conscientious man to answer. Here was he nearly twenty-one years of age, and with some experience of life, while she was a girl nursed up like an exotic, with no real experience; and but little over seventeen — though from the fineness of her figure she looked more womanly than she really was. It plainly had not crossed her young mind that she was on the verge of committing the most horrible social sin — that of loving beneath her, and owning that she so loved. Two years thence she might see the imprudence of her conduct, and blame him for having led her on. Ought he not, then, considering his grandfather’s words, to say that it was wrong for her to be honest; that she should forget him, and fix her mind on matters appertaining to her order? He could not do it — he let her drift sweetly on.

“I think more of you than of anybody in the whole world,” he replied. “And you will allow me to, will you not? — let me always keep you in my heart, and almost worship you?”

“That would be wrong. But you may think of me, if you like to, very much; it will give me great pleasure. I don’t think my father thinks of me at all — or anybody, except you. I said the other day I would never think of you again, but I have done it, a good many times. It is all through being obliged to care for somebody whether you will or no.”

“And you will go on thinking of me?”

“I will do anything to — oblige you.”

Egbert, on the impulse of the moment, bent over her and raised her little hand to his lips. He reverenced her too much to think of kissing her cheek. She knew this, and was thrilled through with the delight of being adored as one from above the sky.

Up to this day of its existence their affection had been a battle, a species of antagonism wherein his heart and the girl’s had faced each other, and being anxious to do honour to their respective parts. But now it was a truce and a settlement, in which each one took up the other’s utmost weakness, and was careless of concealing his and her own.

Surely, sitting there as they sat then, a more unreasoning condition of mind as to how this unequal conjunction would end never existed. They swam along through the passing moments, not a thought of duty on either side, not a further thought on his but that she was the dayspring of his life, that he would die for her a hundred times; superadded to which was a shapeless uneasiness that she would in some manner slip away from him. The solemnity of the event that had just happened would have shown up to him any ungenerous feeling in strong colours — and he had reason afterwards to examine the epoch narrowly; but it only seemed to demonstrate how instinctive and uncalculating was the love that worked within him.

It was almost time for her to leave. She held up her watch to the moonlight. Five minutes more she would stay; then three minutes, and no longer. “Now I am going,” she said. “Do you forgive me entirely?”

“How shall I say ‘yes’ without assuming that there was something to forgive?”

“Say ‘yes.’ It is sweeter to fancy I am forgiven than to think I have not sinned.”

With this she went to the door. Egbert accompanied her through the wood, and across a portion of the park, till they were about a hundred yards from the house, when he was forced to bid her farewell.

The old man was buried on the following Sunday. During several weeks afterwards Egbert’s sole consolation under his loss was in thinking of Geraldine, for they did not meet in private again till some time had elapsed. The ultimate issue of this absorption in her did not concern him at all: it seemed to be in keeping with the system of his existence now that he should have an utterly inscrutable to-morrow.

CHAPTER VII.

Come forward, some great marshal, and organize

equality in society.

The month of August came round, and Miss Allenville was to lay the foundation-stone of a tower or beacon which her father was about to erect on the highest hill of his estate, to the memory of his brother, the general. It was arranged that the school children should sing at the ceremony. Accordingly, at the hour fixed, Egbert was on the spot; a crowd of villagers had also arrived, and carriages were visible in the distance, wending their way towards the scene. When they had drawn up alongside and the visitors alighted, the master mason appeared nervous.

“Mr. Mayne,” he said to Egbert, “you had better do what’s to be done for the lady. I shall speak too loud, or too soft, or handle things wrong. Do you attend upon her, and I’ll lower the stone.”

Several ladies and gentlemen now gathered round, and presently Miss Allenville stood in position for her office, supported on one side by her father, a hard-featured man of five-and-forty, and some friends who were visiting at the house; and on the other by the school children, who began singing a song in keeping with the occasion. When this was done, Geraldine laid down the sealed bottle with its enclosed memorandum, which had been prepared for the purpose, and taking a trowel from her father’s hand, dabbled confusedly in the mortar, accidentally smearing it over the handle of the trowel.

“Lower the stone,” said Egbert, who stood close by, to the mason at the winch; and the stone began to descend.

The dainty-handed young woman was looking as if she would give anything to be relieved of the dirty trowel; but Egbert, the only one who observed this, was guiding the stone with both hands into its place, and could not receive the tool of her. Every moment increased her perplexity.

“Take it, take it, will you?” she impatiently whispered to him, blushing with a consciousness that people began to perceive her awkward handling.