The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament

V. ON THE VERGE OF POSSESSION

In anticipation of his marriage Pierston had taken a new red house of the approved Kensington pattern, with a new studio at the back as large as a mediaeval barn. Hither, in collusion with the elder Avice – whose health had mended somewhat – he invited mother and daughter to spend a week or two with him, thinking thereby to exercise on the latter’s imagination an influence which was not practicable while he was a guest at their house; and by interesting his betrothed in the fitting and furnishing of this residence to create in her an ambition to be its mistress.

It was a pleasant, reposeful time to be in town. There was nobody to interrupt them in their proceedings, and, it being out of the season, the largest tradesmen were as attentive to their wants as if those firms had never before been honoured with a single customer whom they really liked. Pierston and his guests, almost equally inexperienced – for the sculptor had nearly forgotten what knowledge of householding he had acquired earlier in life – could consider and practise thoroughly a species of skeleton-drill in receiving visitors when the pair should announce themselves as married and at home in the coming winter season.

Avice was charming, even if a little cold. He congratulated himself yet again that time should have reserved for him this final chance for one of the line. She was somewhat like her mother, whom he had loved in the flesh, but she had the soul of her grandmother, whom he had loved in the spirit – and, for that matter, loved now. Only one criticism had he to pass upon his choice: though in outward semblance her grandam idealized, she had not the first Avice’s candour, but rather her mother’s closeness. He never knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling. Yet he seemed to have such prescriptive rights in women of her blood that her occasional want of confidence did not deeply trouble him.

It was one of those ripe and mellow afternoons that sometimes colour London with their golden light at this time of the year, and produce those marvellous sunset effects which, if they were not known to be made up of kitchen coal-smoke and animal exhalations, would be rapturously applauded. Behind the perpendicular, oblique, zigzagged, and curved zinc ‘tall-boys,’ that formed a grey pattern not unlike early Gothic numerals against the sky, the men and women on the tops of the omnibuses saw an irradiation of topaz hues, darkened here and there into richest russet.

There had been a sharp shower during the afternoon, and Pierston – who had to take care of himself – had worn a pair of goloshes on his short walk in the street. He noiselessly entered the studio, inside which some gleams of the same mellow light had managed to creep, and where he guessed he should find his prospective wife and mother-in-law awaiting him with tea. But only Avice was there, seated beside the teapot of brown delf, which, as artists, they affected, her back being toward him. She was holding her handkerchief to her eyes, and he saw that she was weeping silently.

In another moment he perceived that she was weeping over a book. By this time she had heard him, and came forward. He made it appear that he had not noticed her distress, and they discussed some arrangements of furniture. When he had taken a cup of tea she went away, leaving the book behind her.

Pierston took it up. The volume was an old school-book; Stievenard’s ‘Lectures Francaises,’ with her name in it as a pupil at Sandbourne High School, and date-markings denoting lessons taken at a comparatively recent time, for Avice had been but a novice as governess when he discovered her.

For a school-girl – which she virtually was – to weep over a school-book was strange. Could she have been affected by some subject in the readings? Impossible. Pierston fell to thinking, and zest died for the process of furnishing, which he had undertaken so gaily. Somehow, the bloom was again disappearing from his approaching marriage. Yet he loved Avice more and more tenderly; he feared sometimes that in the solicitousness of his affection he was spoiling her by indulging her every whim.

He looked round the large and ambitious apartment, now becoming clouded with shades, out of which the white and cadaverous countenances of his studies, casts, and other lumber peered meditatively at him, as if they were saying, ‘What are you going to do now, old boy?’ They had never looked like that while standing in his past homely workshop, where all the real labours of his life had been carried out. What should a man of his age, who had not for years done anything to speak of – certainly not to add to his reputation as an artist – want with a new place like this? It was all because of the elect lady, and she apparently did not want him.

Pierston did not observe anything further in Avice to cause him misgiving till one dinner-time, a week later, towards the end of the visit. Then, as he sat himself between her and her mother at their limited table, he was struck with her nervousness, and was tempted to say, ‘Why are you troubled, my little dearest?’ in tones which disclosed that he was as troubled as she.

‘Am I troubled?’ she said with a start, turning her gentle hazel eyes upon him. ‘Yes, I suppose I am. It is because I have received a letter – from an old friend.’

‘You didn’t show it to me,’ said her mother.

‘No – I tore it up.’

‘Why?’

‘It was not necessary to keep it, so I destroyed it.’

Mrs. Pierston did not press her further on the subject, and Avice showed no disposition to continue it. They retired rather early, as they always did, but Pierston remained pacing about his studio a long while, musing on many things, not the least being the perception that to wed a woman may be by no means the same thing as to be united with her. The ‘old friend’ of Avice’s remark had sounded very much like ‘lover.’ Otherwise why should the letter have so greatly disturbed her?

There seemed to be something uncanny, after all, about London, in its relation to his contemplated marriage. When she had first come up she was easier with him than now. And yet his bringing her there had helped his cause; the house had decidedly impressed her – almost overawed her, and though he owned that by no law of nature or reason had her mother or himself any right to urge on Avice partnership with him against her inclination, he resolved to make the most of having her under his influence by getting the wedding details settled before she and her mother left.

The next morning he proceeded to do this. When he encountered Avice there was a trace of apprehension on her face; but he set that down to a fear that she had offended him the night before by her taciturnity. Directly he requested her mother, in Avice’s presence, to get her to fix the day quite early, Mrs. Pierston became brighter and brisker. She, too, plainly had doubts about the wisdom of delay, and turning to her daughter said, ‘Now, my dear, do you hear?’

It was ultimately agreed that the widow and her daughter should go back in a day or two, to await Pierston’s arrival on the wedding-eve, immediately after their return.

* * *

In pursuance of the arrangement Pierston found himself on the south shore of England in the gloom of the aforesaid evening, the isle, as he looked across at it with his approach, being just discernible as a moping countenance, a creature sullen with a sense that he was about to withdraw from its keeping the rarest object it had ever owned. He had come alone, not to embarrass them, and had intended to halt a couple of hours in the neighbouring seaport to give some orders relating to the wedding, but the little railway train being in waiting to take him on, he proceeded with a natural impatience, resolving to do his business here by messenger from the isle.

He passed the ruins of the Tudor castle and the long featureless rib of grinding pebbles that screened off the outer sea, which could be heard lifting and dipping rhythmically in the wide vagueness of the Bay. At the under-hill island townlet of the Wells there were no flys, and leaving his things to be brought on, as he often did, he climbed the eminence on foot.

Half-way up the steepest part of the pass he saw in the dusk a figure pausing – the single person on the incline. Though it was too dark to identify faces, Pierston gathered from the way in which the halting stranger was supporting himself by the handrail, which here bordered the road to assist climbers, that the person was exhausted.

‘Anything the matter?’ he said.

‘O no – not much,’ was returned by the other. ‘But it is steep just here.’

The accent was not quite that of an Englishman, and struck him as hailing from one of the Channel Islands. ‘Can’t I help you up to the top?’ he said, for the voice, though that of a young man, seemed faint and shaken.

‘No, thank you. I have been ill; but I thought I was all right again; and as the night was fine I walked into the island by the road. It turned out to be rather too much for me, as there is some weakness left still; and this stiff incline brought it out.’

‘Naturally. You’d better take hold of my arm – at any rate to the brow here.’

Thus pressed the stranger did so, and they went on towards the ridge, till, reaching the lime-kiln standing there the stranger abandoned his hold, saying: ‘Thank you for your assistance, sir. Good-night.’

‘I don’t think I recognize your voice as a native’s?’

‘No, it is not. I am a Jersey man. Goodnight, sir.’

‘Good-night, if you are sure you can get on. Here, take this stick – it is no use to me.’ Saying which, Pierston put his walking-stick into the young man’s hand.

‘Thank you again. I shall be quite recovered when I have rested a minute or two. Don’t let me detain you, please.’

The stranger as he spoke turned his face towards the south, where the Beal light had just come into view, and stood regarding it with an obstinate fixity. As he evidently wished to be left to himself Jocelyn went on, and troubled no more about him, though the desire of the young man to be rid of his company, after accepting his walking-stick and his arm, had come with a suddenness that was almost emotional; and impressionable as Jocelyn was, no less now than in youth, he was saddened for a minute by the sense that there were people in the world who did not like even his sympathy.

However, a pleasure which obliterated all this arose when Pierston drew near to the house that was likely to be his dear home on all future visits to the isle, perhaps even his permanent home as he grew older and the associations of his youth re-asserted themselves. It had been, too, his father’s house, the house in which he was born, and he amused his fancy with plans for its enlargement under the supervision of Avice and himself. It was a still greater pleasure to behold a tall and shapely figure standing against the light of the open door and presumably awaiting him.

Avice, who it was, gave a little jump when she recognized him, but dutifully allowed him to kiss her when he reached her side; though her nervousness was only too apparent, and was like a child’s towards a parent who may prove stern.

‘How dear of you to guess that I might come on at once instead of later!’ said Jocelyn. ‘Well, if I had stayed in the town to go to the shops and so on, I could not have got here till the last train. How is mother? – our mother, as I shall call her soon.’

Avice said that her mother had not been so well – she feared not nearly so well since her return from London, so that she was obliged to keep her room. The visit had perhaps been too much for her. ‘But she will not acknowledge that she is much weaker, because she will not disturb my happiness.’

Jocelyn was in a mood to let trifles of manner pass, and he took no notice of the effort which had accompanied the last word. They went upstairs to Mrs. Pierston, whose obvious relief and thankfulness at sight of him was grateful to her visitor.

‘I am so, O so glad you are come!’ she said huskily, as she held out her thin hand and stifled a sob. ‘I have been so – ’

She could get no further for a moment, and Avice turned away weeping, and abruptly left the room.

‘I have so set my heart on this,’ Mrs. Pierston went on, ‘that I have not been able to sleep of late, for I have feared I might drop off suddenly before she is yours, and lose the comfort of seeing you actually united. Your being so kind to me in old times has made me so sure that she will find a good husband in you, that I am over anxious, I know. Indeed, I have not liked to let her know quite how anxious I am.’

Thus they talked till Jocelyn bade her goodnight, it being noticeable that Mrs. Pierston, chastened by her illnesses, maintained no longer any reserve on her gladness to acquire him as her son-in-law; and her feelings destroyed any remaining scruples he might have had from perceiving that Avice’s consent was rather an obedience than a desire. As he went downstairs, and found Avice awaiting his descent, he wondered if anything had occurred here during his absence to give Mrs. Pierston new uneasiness about the marriage, but it was an inquiry he could not address to a girl whose actions could alone be the cause of such uneasiness.

He looked round for her as he supped, but though she had come into the room with him she was not there now. He remembered her telling him that she had had supper with her mother, and Jocelyn sat on quietly musing and sipping his wine for something near half-an-hour. Wondering then for the first time what had become of her, he rose and went to the door. Avice was quite near him after all – only standing at the front door as she had been doing when he came, looking into the light of the full moon, which had risen since his arrival. His sudden opening of the dining-room door seemed to agitate her.

‘What is it, dear?’ he asked.

‘As mother is much better and doesn’t want me, I ought to go and see somebody I promised to take a parcel to – I feel I ought. And yet, as you have just come to see me – I suppose you don’t approve of my going out while you are here?’

‘Who is the person?’

‘Somebody down that way,’ she said indefinitely. ‘It is not very far off. I am not afraid – I go out often by myself at night hereabout.’

He reassured her good-humouredly. ‘If you really wish to go, my dear, of course I don’t object. I have no authority to do that till tomorrow, and you know that if I had it I shouldn’t use it.’

‘O but you have! Mother being an invalid, you are in her place, apart from – to-morrow.’

‘Nonsense, darling. Run across to your friend’s house by all means if you want to.’

‘And you’ll be here when I come in?’

‘No, I am going down to the inn to see if my things are brought up.’

‘But hasn’t mother asked you to stay here? The spare room was got ready for you… Dear me, I am afraid I ought to have told you.’

‘She did ask me. But I have some things coming, directed to the inn, and I had better be there. So I’ll wish you good-night, though it is not late. I will come in quite early to-morrow, to inquire how your mother is going on, and to wish you good-morning. You will be back again quickly this evening?’

‘O yes.’

‘And I needn’t go with you for company?’

‘O no, thank you. It is no distance.’

Pierston then departed, thinking how entirely her manner was that of one to whom a question of doing anything was a question of permission and not of judgment. He had no sooner gone than Avice took a parcel from a cupboard, put on her hat and cloak, and following by the way he had taken till she reached the entrance to Sylvania Castle, there stood still. She could hear Pierston’s footsteps passing down East Quarriers to the inn; but she went no further in that direction. Turning into the lane on the right, of which mention has so often been made, she went quickly past the last cottage, and having entered the gorge beyond she clambered into the ruin of the Red King’s or Bow-and-Arrow Castle, standing as a square black mass against the moonlit, indefinite sea.

VI. THE WELL-BELOVED IS – WHERE?

Mrs. Pierston passed a restless night, but this she let nobody know; nor, what was painfully evident to herself, that her prostration was increased by anxiety and suspense about the wedding on which she had too much set her heart.

During the very brief space in which she dozed Avice came into her room. As it was not infrequent for her daughter to look in upon her thus she took little notice, merely saying to assure the girl: ‘I am better, dear. Don’t come in again. Get to sleep yourself.’

The mother, however, went thinking anew. She had no apprehensions about this marriage. She felt perfectly sure that it was the best thing she could do for her girl. Not a young woman on the island but was envying Avice at that moment; for Jocelyn was absurdly young for three score, a good-looking man, one whose history was generally known here; as also were the exact figures of the fortune he had inherited from his father, and the social standing he could claim – a standing, however, which that fortune would not have been large enough to procure unassisted by his reputation in his art.

But Avice had been weak enough, as her mother knew, to indulge in fancies for local youths from time to time, and Mrs. Pierston could not help congratulating herself that her daughter had been so docile in the circumstances. Yet to every one except, perhaps, Avice herself, Jocelyn was the most romantic of lovers. Indeed was there ever such a romance as that man embodied in his relations to her house? Rejecting the first Avice, the second had rejected him, and to rally to the third with final achievement was an artistic and tender finish to which it was ungrateful in anybody to be blind.

The widow thought that the second Avice might probably not have rejected Pierston on that occasion in the London studio so many years ago if destiny had not arranged that she should have been secretly united to another when the proposing moment came.

But what had come was best. ‘My God,’ she said at times that night, ‘to think my aim in writing to him should be fulfilling itself like this!’

When all was right and done, what a success upon the whole her life would have been. She who had begun her career as a cottage-girl, a small quarry-owner’s daughter, had sunk so low as to the position of laundress, had engaged in various menial occupations, had made an unhappy marriage for love which had, however, in the long run, thanks to Jocelyn’s management, much improved her position, was at last to see her daughter secure what she herself had just missed securing, and established in a home of affluence and refinement.

Thus the sick woman excited herself as the hours went on. At last, in her tenseness it seemed to her that the time had already come at which the household was stirring, and she fancied she heard conversation in her daughter’s room. But she found that it was only five o’clock, and not yet daylight. Her state was such that she could see the hangings of the bed tremble with her tremors. She had declared overnight that she did not require any one to sit up with her, but she now rang a little handbell, and in a few minutes a nurse appeared; Ruth Stockwool, an island woman and neighbour, whom Mrs. Pierston knew well, and who knew all Mrs. Pierston’s history.

‘I am so nervous that I can’t stay by myself,’ said the widow. ‘And I thought I heard Becky dressing Miss Avice in her wedding things.’

‘O no – not yet, ma’am. There’s nobody up. But I’ll get you something.’

When Mrs. Pierston had taken a little nourishment she went on: ‘I can’t help frightening myself with thoughts that she won’t marry him. You see he is older than Avice.’

‘Yes, he is,’ said her neighbour. ‘But I don’t see how anything can hender the wedden now.’

‘Avice, you know, had fancies; at least one fancy for another man; a young fellow of five-and-twenty. And she’s been very secret and odd about it. I wish she had raved and cried and had it out; but she’s been quite the other way. I know she’s fond of him still.’

‘What – that young Frenchman, Mr. Leverre o’ Sandbourne? I’ve heard a little of it. But I should say there wadden much between ‘em.’

‘I don’t think there was. But I’ve a sort of conviction that she saw him last night. I believe it was only to bid him good-bye, and return him some books he had given her; but I wish she had never known him; he is rather an excitable, impulsive young man, and he might make mischief. He isn’t a Frenchman, though he has lived in France. His father was a Jersey gentleman, and on his becoming a widower he married as his second wife a native of this very island. That’s mainly why the young man is so at home in these parts.’

‘Ah – now I follow ‘ee. She was a Bencomb, his stepmother: I heard something about her years ago.’

‘Yes; her father had the biggest stone-trade on the island at one time; but the name is forgotten here now. He retired years before I was born. However, mother used to tell me that she was a handsome young woman, who tried to catch Mr. Pierston when he was a young man, and scandalized herself a bit with him. She went off abroad with her father, who had made a fortune here; but when he got over there he lost it nearly all in some way. Years after she married this Jerseyman, Mr. Leverre, who had been fond of her as a girl, and she brought up his child as her own.’

Mrs. Pierston paused, but as Ruth did not ask any question she presently resumed her self-relieving murmur:

‘How Miss Avice got to know the young man was in this way. When Mrs. Leverre’s husband died she came from Jersey to live at Sandbourne; and made it her business one day to cross over to this place to make inquiries about Mr. Jocelyn Pierston. As my name was Pierston she called upon me with her son, and so Avice and he got acquainted. When Avice went back to Sandbourne to the finishing school they kept up the acquaintance in secret. He taught French somewhere there, and does still, I believe.’

‘Well, I hope she’ll forget en. He idden good enough.’

‘I hope so – I hope so… Now I’ll try to get a little nap.’

Ruth Stockwool went back to her room, where, finding it would not be necessary to get up for another hour, she lay down again and soon slept. Her bed was close to the staircase, from which it was divided by a lath partition only, and her consciousness either was or seemed to be aroused by light brushing touches on the outside of the partition, as of fingers feeling the way downstairs in the dark. The slight noise passed, and in a few seconds she dreamt or fancied she could hear the unfastening of the back door.

She had nearly sunk into another sound sleep when precisely the same phenomena were repeated; fingers brushing along the wall close to her head, down, downward, the soft opening of the door, its close, and silence again.

She now became clearly awake. The repetition of the process had made the whole matter a singular one. Early as it was the first sounds might have been those of the housemaid descending, though why she should have come down so stealthily and in the dark did not make itself clear. But the second performance was inexplicable. Ruth got out of bed and lifted her blind. The dawn was hardly yet pink, and the light from the sandbank was not yet extinguished. But the bushes of euonymus against the white palings of the front garden could be seen, also the light surface of the road winding away like a riband to the north entrance of Sylvania Castle, thence round to the village, the cliffs, and the Cove behind. Upon the road two dark figures could just be discerned, one a little way behind the other, but overtaking and joining the foremost as Ruth looked. After all they might be quarriers or lighthouse-keepers from the south of the island, or fishermen just landed from a night’s work. There being nothing to connect them with the noises she had heard indoors she dismissed the whole subject, and went to bed again.

* * *

Jocelyn had promised to pay an early visit to ascertain the state of Mrs. Pierston’s health after her night’s rest, her precarious condition being more obvious to him than to Avice, and making him a little anxious. Subsequent events caused him to remember that while he was dressing he casually observed two or three boatmen standing near the cliff beyond the village, and apparently watching with deep interest what seemed to be a boat far away towards the opposite shore of South Wessex. At half-past eight he came from the door of the inn and went straight to Mrs. Pierston’s. On approaching he discovered that a strange expression which seemed to hang about the house-front that morning was more than a fancy, the gate, door, and two windows being open, though the blinds of other windows were not drawn up, the whole lending a vacant, dazed look to the domicile, as of a person gaping in sudden stultification. Nobody answered his knock, and walking into the dining-room he found that no breakfast had been laid. His flashing thought was, ‘Mrs. Pierston is dead.’

While standing in the room somebody came downstairs, and Jocelyn encountered Ruth Stockwool, an open letter fluttering in her hand.

‘O Mr. Pierston, Mr. Pierston! The Lord-a-Lord!’

‘What? Mrs. Pierston – ’

‘No, no! Miss Avice! She is gone! – yes – gone! Read ye this, sir. It was left in her bedroom, and we be fairly gallied out of our senses!’

He took the letter and confusedly beheld that it was in two handwritings, the first section being in Avice’s:

‘MY DEAR MOTHER, – How ever will you forgive me for what I have done! So deceitful as it seems. And yet till this night I had no idea of deceiving either you or Mr. Pierston.

‘Last night at ten o’clock I went out, as you may have guessed, to see Mr. Leverre for the last time, and to give him back his books, letters, and little presents to me. I went only a few steps – to Bow-and-Arrow Castle, where we met as we had agreed to do, since he could not call. When I reached the place I found him there waiting, but quite ill. He had been unwell at his mother’s house for some days, and had been obliged to stay in bed, but he had got up on purpose to come and bid me good-bye. The over-exertion of the journey upset him, and though we stayed and stayed till twelve o’clock he felt quite unable to go back home – unable, indeed, to move more than a few yards. I had tried so hard not to love him any longer, but I loved him so now that I could not desert him and leave him out there to catch his death. So I helped him – nearly carrying him – on and on to our door, and then round to the back. Here he got a little better, and as he could not stay there, and everybody was now asleep, I helped him upstairs into the room we had prepared for Mr. Pierston if he should have wanted one. I got him into bed, and then fetched some brandy and a little of your tonic. Did you see me come into your room for it, or were you asleep?

‘I sat by him all night. He improved slowly, and we talked over what we had better do. I felt that, though I had intended to give him up, I could not now becomingly marry any other man, and that I ought to marry him. We decided to do it at once, before anybody could hinder us. So we came down before it was light, and have gone away to get the ceremony solemnized.

‘Tell Mr. Pierston it was not premeditated, but the result of an accident. I am sincerely sorry to have treated him with what he will think unfairness, but though I did not love him I meant to obey you and marry him. But God sent this necessity of my having to give shelter to my Love, to prevent, I think, my doing what I am now convinced would have been wrong – Ever your loving daughter, AVICE.’

The second was in a man’s hand:

‘DEAR MOTHER (as you will soon be to me), – Avice has clearly explained above how it happened that I have not been able to give her up to Mr. Pierston. I think I should have died if I had not accepted the hospitality of a room in your house this night, and your daughter’s tender nursing through the dark dreary hours. We love each other beyond expression, and it is obvious that, if we are human, we cannot resist marrying now, in spite of friends’ wishes. Will you please send the note lying beside this to my mother. It is merely to explain what I have done – Yours with warmest regard, HENRI LEVERRE.’

Jocelyn turned away and looked out of the window.

‘Mrs. Pierston thought she heard some talking in the night, but of course she put it down to fancy. And she remembers Miss Avice coming into her room at one o’clock in the morning, and going to the table where the medicine was standing. A sly girl – all the time her young man within a yard or two, in the very room, and a using the very clean sheets that you, sir, were to have used! They are our best linen ones, got up beautiful, and a kept wi’ rosemary. Really, sir, one would say you stayed out o’ your chammer o’ purpose to oblige the young man with a bed!’

‘Don’t blame them, don’t blame them!’ said Jocelyn in an even and characterless voice. ‘Don’t blame her, particularly. She didn’t make the circumstances. I did… It was how I served her grandmother. … Well, she’s gone! You needn’t make a mystery of it. Tell it to all the island: say that a man came to marry a wife, and didn’t find her at home. Tell everybody that she’s run away. It must be known sooner or later.’

One of the servants said, after waiting a few moments: ‘We shan’t do that, sir.’

‘Oh – Why won’t you?’

‘We liked her too well, with all her faults.’

‘Ah – did you,’ said he; and he sighed. He perceived that the younger maids were secretly on Avice’s side.

‘How does her mother bear it?’ Jocelyn asked. ‘Is she awake?’

Mrs. Pierston had hardly slept, and, having learnt the tidings inadvertently, became so distracted and incoherent as to be like a person in a delirium; till, a few moments before he arrived, all her excitement ceased, and she lay in a weak, quiet silence.

‘Let me go up,’ Pierston said. ‘And send for the doctor.’

Passing Avice’s chamber he perceived that the little bed had not been slept on. At the door of the spare room he looked in. In one corner stood a walking-stick – his own.