Chapter V
'Bosom'd high in tufted trees.'
It was breakfast time.
As seen from the vicarage dining-room, which took a warm tone of
light from the fire, the weather and scene outside seemed to have
stereotyped themselves in unrelieved shades of gray. The long-
armed trees and shrubs of juniper, cedar, and pine varieties, were
grayish black; those of the broad-leaved sort, together with the
herbage, were grayish-green; the eternal hills and tower behind
them were grayish-brown; the sky, dropping behind all, gray of the
purest melancholy.
Yet in spite of this sombre artistic effect, the morning was not
one which tended to lower the spirits. It was even cheering. For
it did not rain, nor was rain likely to fall for many days to
come.
Elfride had turned from the table towards the fire and was idly
elevating a hand-screen before her face, when she heard the click
of a little gate outside.
'Ah, here's the postman!' she said, as a shuffling, active man
came through an opening in the shrubbery and across the lawn. She
vanished, and met him in the porch, afterwards coming in with her
hands behind her back.
'How many are there? Three for papa, one for Mr. Smith, none for
Miss Swancourt. And, papa, look here, one of yours is from--whom
do you think?--Lord Luxellian. And it has something HARD in it--a
lump of something. I've been feeling it through the envelope, and
can't think what it is.'
'What does Luxellian write for, I wonder?' Mr. Swancourt had said
simultaneously with her words. He handed Stephen his letter, and
took his own, putting on his countenance a higher class of look
than was customary, as became a poor gentleman who was going to
read a letter from a peer.
Stephen read his missive with a countenance quite the reverse of
the vicar's.
'PERCY PLACE, Thursday Evening.
'DEAR SMITH,--Old H. is in a towering rage with you for being so
long about the church sketches. Swears you are more trouble than
you are worth. He says I am to write and say you are to stay no
longer on any consideration--that he would have done it all in
three hours very easily. I told him that you were not like an
experienced hand, which he seemed to forget, but it did not make
much difference. However, between you and me privately, if I were
you I would not alarm myself for a day or so, if I were not
inclined to return. I would make out the week and finish my
spree. He will blow up just as much if you appear here on
Saturday as if you keep away till Monday morning.--Yours very
truly,
'SIMPKINS JENKINS.
'Dear me--very awkward!' said Stephen, rather en l'air, and
confused with the kind of confusion that assails an understrapper
when he has been enlarged by accident to the dimensions of a
superior, and is somewhat rudely pared down to his original size.
'What is awkward?' said Miss Swancourt.
Smith by this time recovered his equanimity, and with it the
professional dignity of an experienced architect.
'Important business demands my immediate presence in London, I
regret to say,' he replied.
'What! Must you go at once?' said Mr. Swancourt, looking over the
edge of his letter. 'Important business? A young fellow like you
to have important business!'
'The truth is,' said Stephen blushing, and rather ashamed of
having pretended even so slightly to a consequence which did not
belong to him,--'the truth is, Mr. Hewby has sent to say I am to
come home; and I must obey him.'
'I see; I see. It is politic to do so, you mean. Now I can see
more than you think. You are to be his partner. I booked you for
that directly I read his letter to me the other day, and the way
he spoke of you. He thinks a great deal of you, Mr. Smith, or he
wouldn't be so anxious for your return.'
Unpleasant to Stephen such remarks as these could not sound; to
have the expectancy of partnership with one of the largest-
practising architects in London thrust upon him was cheering,
however untenable he felt the idea to be. He saw that, whatever
Mr. Hewby might think, Mr. Swancourt certainly thought much of him
to entertain such an idea on such slender ground as to be
absolutely no ground at all. And then, unaccountably, his
speaking face exhibited a cloud of sadness, which a reflection on
the remoteness of any such contingency could hardly have sufficed
to cause.
Elfride was struck with that look of his; even Mr. Swancourt
noticed it.
'Well,' he said cheerfully, 'never mind that now. You must come
again on your own account; not on business. Come to see me as a
visitor, you know--say, in your holidays--all you town men have
holidays like schoolboys. When are they?'
'In August, I believe.'
'Very well; come in August; and then you need not hurry away so.
I am glad to get somebody decent to talk to, or at, in this
outlandish ultima Thule. But, by the bye, I have something to
say--you won't go to-day?'
'No; I need not,' said Stephen hesitatingly. 'I am not obliged to
get back before Monday morning.'
'Very well, then, that brings me to what I am going to propose.
This is a letter from Lord Luxellian. I think you heard me speak
of him as the resident landowner in this district, and patron of
this living?'
'I--know of him.'
'He is in London now. It seems that he has run up on business for
a day or two, and taken Lady Luxellian with him. He has written
to ask me to go to his house, and search for a paper among his
private memoranda, which he forgot to take with him.'
'What did he send in the letter?' inquired Elfride.
'The key of a private desk in which the papers are. He doesn't
like to trust such a matter to any body else. I have done such
things for him before. And what I propose is, that we make an
afternoon of it--all three of us. Go for a drive to Targan Bay,
come home by way of Endelstow House; and whilst I am looking over
the documents you can ramble about the rooms where you like. I
have the run of the house at any time, you know. The building,
though nothing but a mass of gables outside, has a splendid hall,
staircase, and gallery within; and there are a few good pictures.'
'Yes, there are,' said Stephen.
'Have you seen the place, then?
'I saw it as I came by,' he said hastily.
'Oh yes; but I was alluding to the interior. And the church--St.
Eval's--is much older than our St. Agnes' here. I do duty in that
and this alternately, you know. The fact is, I ought to have some
help; riding across that park for two miles on a wet morning is
not at all the thing. If my constitution were not well seasoned,
as thank God it is,'--here Mr. Swancourt looked down his front, as
if his constitution were visible there,--'I should be coughing and
barking all the year round. And when the family goes away, there
are only about three servants to preach to when I get there.
Well, that shall be the arrangement, then. Elfride, you will like
to go?'
Elfride assented; and the little breakfast-party separated.
Stephen rose to go and take a few final measurements at the
church, the vicar following him to the door with a mysterious
expression of inquiry on his face.
'You'll put up with our not having family prayer this morning, I
hope?' he whispered.
'Yes; quite so,' said Stephen.
'To tell you the truth,' he continued in the same undertone, 'we
don't make a regular thing of it; but when we have strangers
visiting us, I am strongly of opinion that it is the proper thing
to do, and I always do it. I am very strict on that point. But
you, Smith, there is something in your face which makes me feel
quite at home; no nonsense about you, in short. Ah, it reminds me
of a splendid story I used to hear when I was a helter-skelter
young fellow--such a story! But'--here the vicar shook his head
self-forbiddingly, and grimly laughed.
'Was it a good story?' said young Smith, smiling too.
'Oh yes; but 'tis too bad--too bad! Couldn't tell it to you for
the world!'
Stephen went across the lawn, hearing the vicar chuckling
privately at the recollection as he withdrew.
They started at three o'clock. The gray morning had resolved
itself into an afternoon bright with a pale pervasive sunlight,
without the sun itself being visible. Lightly they trotted along--
the wheels nearly silent, the horse's hoofs clapping, almost
ringing, upon the hard, white, turnpike road as it followed the
level ridge in a perfectly straight line, seeming to be absorbed
ultimately by the white of the sky.
Targan Bay--which had the merit of being easily got at--was duly
visited. They then swept round by innumerable lanes, in which not
twenty consecutive yards were either straight or level, to the
domain of Lord Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and thick
neck, like Queen Anne by Dahl, threw open the lodge gate, a little
boy standing behind her.
'I'll give him something, poor little fellow,' said Elfride,
pulling out her purse and hastily opening it. From the interior
of her purse a host of bits of paper, like a flock of white birds,
floated into the air, and were blown about in all directions.
'Well, to be sure!' said Stephen with a slight laugh.
'What the dickens is all that?' said Mr. Swancourt. 'Not halves
of bank-notes, Elfride?'
Elfride looked annoyed and guilty. 'They are only something of
mine, papa,' she faltered, whilst Stephen leapt out, and, assisted
by the lodge-keeper's little boy, crept about round the wheels and
horse's hoofs till the papers were all gathered together again.
He handed them back to her, and remounted.
'I suppose you are wondering what those scraps were?' she said, as
they bowled along up the sycamore avenue. 'And so I may as well
tell you. They are notes for a romance I am writing.'
She could not help colouring at the confession, much as she tried
to avoid it.
'A story, do you mean?' said Stephen, Mr. Swancourt half
listening, and catching a word of the conversation now and then.
'Yes; THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE; a romance of the fifteenth
century. Such writing is out of date now, I know; but I like
doing it.'
'A romance carried in a purse! If a highwayman were to rob you, he
would be taken in.'
'Yes; that's my way of carrying manuscript. The real reason is,
that I mostly write bits of it on scraps of paper when I am on
horseback; and I put them there for convenience.'
'What are you going to do with your romance when you have written
it?' said Stephen.
'I don't know,' she replied, and turned her head to look at the
prospect.
For by this time they had reached the precincts of Endelstow
House. Driving through an ancient gate-way of dun-coloured stone,
spanned by the high-shouldered Tudor arch, they found themselves
in a spacious court, closed by a facade on each of its three
sides. The substantial portions of the existing building dated
from the reign of Henry VIII.; but the picturesque and sheltered
spot had been the site of an erection of a much earlier date. A
licence to crenellate mansum infra manerium suum was granted by
Edward II. to 'Hugo Luxellen chivaler;' but though the faint
outline of the ditch and mound was visible at points, no sign of
the original building remained.
The windows on all sides were long and many-mullioned; the roof
lines broken up by dormer lights of the same pattern. The apex
stones of these dormers, together with those of the gables, were
surmounted by grotesque figures in rampant, passant, and couchant
variety. Tall octagonal and twisted chimneys thrust themselves
high up into the sky, surpassed in height, however, by some
poplars and sycamores at the back, which showed their gently
rocking summits over ridge and parapet. In the corners of the
court polygonal bays, whose surfaces were entirely occupied by
buttresses and windows, broke into the squareness of the
enclosure; and a far-projecting oriel, springing from a fantastic
series of mouldings, overhung the archway of the chief entrance to
the house.
As Mr. Swancourt had remarked, he had the freedom of the mansion
in the absence of its owner. Upon a statement of his errand they
were all admitted to the library, and left entirely to themselves.
Mr. Swancourt was soon up to his eyes in the examination of a heap
of papers he had taken from the cabinet described by his
correspondent. Stephen and Elfride had nothing to do but to
wander about till her father was ready.
Elfride entered the gallery, and Stephen followed her without
seeming to do so. It was a long sombre apartment, enriched with
fittings a century or so later in style than the walls of the
mansion. Pilasters of Renaissance workmanship supported a cornice
from which sprang a curved ceiling, panelled in the awkward twists
and curls of the period. The old Gothic quarries still remained
in the upper portion of the large window at the end, though they
had made way for a more modern form of glazing elsewhere.
Stephen was at one end of the gallery looking towards Elfride, who
stood in the midst, beginning to feel somewhat depressed by the
society of Luxellian shades of cadaverous complexion fixed by
Holbein, Kneller, and Lely, and seeming to gaze at and through her
in a moralizing mood. The silence, which cast almost a spell upon
them, was broken by the sudden opening of a door at the far end.
Out bounded a pair of little girls, lightly yet warmly dressed.
Their eyes were sparkling; their hair swinging about and around;
their red mouths laughing with unalloyed gladness.
'Ah, Miss Swancourt: dearest Elfie! we heard you. Are you going
to stay here? You are our little mamma, are you not--our big mamma
is gone to London,' said one.
'Let me tiss you,' said the other, in appearance very much like
the first, but to a smaller pattern.
Their pink cheeks and yellow hair were speedily intermingled with
the folds of Elfride's dress; she then stooped and tenderly
embraced them both.
'Such an odd thing,' said Elfride, smiling, and turning to
Stephen. 'They have taken it into their heads lately to call me
"little mamma," because I am very fond of them, and wore a dress
the other day something like one of Lady Luxellian's.'
These two young creatures were the Honourable Mary and the
Honourable Kate--scarcely appearing large enough as yet to bear
the weight of such ponderous prefixes. They were the only two
children of Lord and Lady Luxellian, and, as it proved, had been
left at home during their parents' temporary absence, in the
custody of nurse and governess. Lord Luxellian was dotingly fond
of the children; rather indifferent towards his wife, since she
had begun to show an inclination not to please him by giving him a
boy.
All children instinctively ran after Elfride, looking upon her
more as an unusually nice large specimen of their own tribe than
as a grown-up elder. It had now become an established rule, that
whenever she met them--indoors or out-of-doors, weekdays or
Sundays--they were to be severally pressed against her face and
bosom for the space of a quarter of a minute, and other--wise made
much of on the delightful system of cumulative epithet and caress
to which unpractised girls will occasionally abandon themselves.
A look of misgiving by the youngsters towards the door by which
they had entered directed attention to a maid-servant appearing
from the same quarter, to put an end to this sweet freedom of the
poor Honourables Mary and Kate.
'I wish you lived here, Miss Swancourt,' piped one like a
melancholy bullfinch.
'So do I,' piped the other like a rather more melancholy
bullfinch. 'Mamma can't play with us so nicely as you do. I
don't think she ever learnt playing when she was little. When
shall we come to see you?'
'As soon as you like, dears.'
'And sleep at your house all night? That's what I mean by coming
to see you. I don't care to see people with hats and bonnets on,
and all standing up and walking about.'
'As soon as we can get mamma's permission you shall come and stay
as long as ever you like. Good-bye!'
The prisoners were then led off, Elfride again turning her
attention to her guest, whom she had left standing at the remote
end of the gallery. On looking around for him he was nowhere to
be seen. Elfride stepped down to the library, thinking he might
have rejoined her father there. But Mr. Swancourt, now cheerfully
illuminated by a pair of candles, was still alone, untying packets
of letters and papers, and tying them up again.
As Elfride did not stand on a sufficiently intimate footing with
the object of her interest to justify her, as a proper young lady,
to commence the active search for him that youthful impulsiveness
prompted, and as, nevertheless, for a nascent reason connected
with those divinely cut lips of his, she did not like him to be
absent from her side, she wandered desultorily back to the oak
staircase, pouting and casting her eyes about in hope of
discerning his boyish figure.
Though daylight still prevailed in the rooms, the corridors were
in a depth of shadow--chill, sad, and silent; and it was only by
looking along them towards light spaces beyond that anything or
anybody could be discerned therein. One of these light spots she
found to be caused by a side-door with glass panels in the upper
part. Elfride opened it, and found herself confronting a
secondary or inner lawn, separated from the principal lawn front
by a shrubbery.
And now she saw a perplexing sight. At right angles to the face
of the wing she had emerged from, and within a few feet of the
door, jutted out another wing of the mansion, lower and with less
architectural character. Immediately opposite to her, in the wall
of this wing, was a large broad window, having its blind drawn
down, and illuminated by a light in the room it screened.
On the blind was a shadow from somebody close inside it--a person
in profile. The profile was unmistakably that of Stephen. It was
just possible to see that his arms were uplifted, and that his
hands held an article of some kind. Then another shadow appeared--
also in profile--and came close to him. This was the shadow of a
woman. She turned her back towards Stephen: he lifted and held
out what now proved to be a shawl or mantle--placed it carefully--
so carefully--round the lady; disappeared; reappeared in her
front--fastened the mantle. Did he then kiss her? Surely not.
Yet the motion might have been a kiss. Then both shadows swelled
to colossal dimensions--grew distorted--vanished.
Two minutes elapsed.
'Ah, Miss Swancourt! I am so glad to find you. I was looking for
you,' said a voice at her elbow--Stephen's voice. She stepped
into the passage.
'Do you know any of the members of this establishment?' said she.
'Not a single one: how should I?' he replied.
