第39章

There being some time upon his hands he left his luggage at the cloak-room,and went on foot along Bedford Street to the nearest church.Here Stephen wandered among the multifarious tombstones and looked in at the chancel window,dreaming of something that was likely to happen by the altar there in the course of the coming month.He turned away and ascended the Hoe,viewed the magnificent stretch of sea and massive promontories of land,but without particularly discerning one feature of the varied perspective.He still saw that inner prospect--the event he hoped for in yonder church.The wide Sound,the Breakwater,the light-house on far-off Eddystone,the dark steam vessels,brigs,barques,and schooners,either floating stilly,or gliding with tiniest motion,were as the dream,then;the dreamed-of event was as the reality.

Soon Stephen went down from the Hoe,and returned to the railway station.He took his ticket,and entered the London train.

That day was an irksome time at Endelstow vicarage.Neither father nor daughter alluded to the departure of Stephen.Mr.

Swancourts manner towards her partook of the compunctious kindness that arises from a misgiving as to the justice of some previous act.

Either from lack of the capacity to grasp the whole coup doeil,or from a natural endowment for certain kinds of stoicism,women are cooler than men in critical situations of the passive form.

Probably,in Elfrides case at least,it was blindness to the greater contingencies of the future she was preparing for herself,which enabled her to ask her father in a quiet voice if he could give her a holiday soon,to ride to St.Launces and go on to Plymouth.

Now,she had only once before gone alone to Plymouth,and that was in consequence of some unavoidable difficulty.Being a country girl,and a good,not to say a wild,horsewoman,it had been her delight to canter,without the ghost of an attendant,over the fourteen or sixteen miles of hard road intervening between their home and the station at St.Launces,put up the horse,and go on the remainder of the distance by train,returning in the same manner in the evening.It was then resolved that,though she had successfully accomplished this journey once,it was not to be repeated without some attendance.

But Elfride must not be confounded with ordinary young feminine equestrians.The circumstances of her lonely and narrow life made it imperative that in trotting about the neighbourhood she must trot alone or else not at all.Usage soon rendered this perfectly natural to herself.Her father,who had had other experiences,did not much like the idea of a Swancourt,whose pedigree could be as distinctly traced as a thread in a skein of silk,scampering over the hills like a farmers daughter,even though he could habitually neglect her.But what with his not being able to afford her a regular attendant,and his inveterate habit of letting anything be to save himself trouble,the circumstance grew customary.And so there arose a chronic notion in the villagers minds that all ladies rode without an attendant,like Miss Swancourt,except a few who were sometimes visiting at Lord Luxellians.

I dont like your going to Plymouth alone,particularly going to St.Launces on horseback.Why not drive,and take the man?

It is not nice to be so overlooked.Worms company would not seriously have interfered with her plans,but it was her humour to go without him.

When do you want to go?said her father.

She only answered,Soon.

I will consider,he said.

Only a few days elapsed before she asked again.A letter had reached her from Stephen.It had been timed to come on that day by special arrangement between them.In it he named the earliest morning on which he could meet her at Plymouth.Her father had been on a journey to Stratleigh,and returned in unusual buoyancy of spirit.It was a good opportunity;and since the dismissal of Stephen her father had been generally in a mood to make small concessions,that he might steer clear of large ones connected with that outcast lover of hers.

Next Thursday week I am going from home in a different direction,said her father.In fact,I shall leave home the night before.You might choose the same day,for they wish to take up the carpets,or some such thing,I think.As I said,I dont like you to be seen in a town on horseback alone;but go if you will.

Thursday week.Her father had named the very day that Stephen also had named that morning as the earliest on which it would be of any use to meet her;that was,about fifteen days from the day on which he had left Endelstow.Fifteen days--that fragment of duration which has acquired such an interesting individuality from its connection with the English marriage law.

She involuntarily looked at her father so strangely,that on becoming conscious of the look she paled with embarrassment.Her father,too,looked confused.What was he thinking of?

There seemed to be a special facility offered her by a power external to herself in the circumstance that Mr.Swancourt had proposed to leave home the night previous to her wished-for day.

Her father seldom took long journeys;seldom slept from home except perhaps on the night following a remote Visitation.Well,she would not inquire too curiously into the reason of the opportunity,nor did he,as would have been natural,proceed to explain it of his own accord.In matters of fact there had hitherto been no reserve between them,though they were not usually confidential in its full sense.But the divergence of their emotions on Stephens account had produced an estrangement which just at present went even to the extent of reticence on the most ordinary household topics.