The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters

Faith interrupted with, ‘I believe there is one of the dancers now! – why, I should have thought they had all gone to bed, and wouldn’t get up again for days.’ She indicated to him a figure on the lawn towards the left, looking upon the same flashing scene as that they themselves beheld.

‘It is your own particular one,’ continued Faith. ‘Yes, I see the blue flowers under the edge of her cloak.’

‘And I see her squirrel-coloured hair,’ said Christopher.

Both stood looking at this apparition, who once, and only once, thought fit to turn her head towards the front of the house they were gazing from. Faith was one in whom the meditative somewhat overpowered the active faculties; she went on, with no abundance of love, to theorize upon this gratuitously charming woman, who, striking freakishly into her brother’s path, seemed likely to do him no good in her sisterly estimation. Ethelberta’s bright and shapely form stood before her critic now, smartened by the motes of sunlight from head to heel: what Faith would have given to see her so clearly within!

‘Without doubt she is already a lady of many romantic experiences,’ she said dubiously.

‘And on the way to many more,’ said Christopher. The tone was just of the kind which may be imagined of a sombre man who had been up all night piping that others might dance.

Faith parted her lips as if in consternation at possibilities. Ethelberta, having already become an influence in Christopher’s system, might soon become more – an indestructible fascination – to drag him about, turn his soul inside out, harrow him, twist him, and otherwise torment him, according to the stereotyped form of such processes.

They were interrupted by the opening of a door. A servant entered and came up to them.

‘This is for you, I believe, sir,’ he said. ‘Two guineas;’ and he placed the money in Christopher’s hand. ‘Some breakfast will be ready for you in a moment if you like to have it. Would you wish it brought in here; or will you come to the steward’s room?’

‘Yes, we will come.’ And the man then began to extinguish the lights one by one. Christopher dropped the two pounds and two shillings singly into his pocket, and looking listlessly at the footman said, ‘Can you tell me the address of that lady on the lawn? Ah, she has disappeared!’

‘She wore a dress with blue flowers,’ said Faith.

‘And remarkable bright in her manner? O, that’s the young widow, Mrs – what’s that name – I forget for the moment.’

‘Widow?’ said Christopher, the eyes of his understanding getting wonderfully clear, and Faith uttering a private ejaculation of thanks that after all no commandments were likely to be broken in this matter. ‘The lady I mean is quite a girlish sort of woman.’

‘Yes, yes, so she is – that’s the one. Coachman says she must have been born a widow, for there is not time for her ever to have been made one. However, she’s not quite such a chicken as all that. Mrs. Petherwin, that’s the party’s name.’

‘Does she live here?’

‘No, she is staying in the house visiting for a few days with her mother-in-law. They are a London family, I don’t know her address.’

‘Is she a poetess?’

‘That I cannot say. She is very clever at verses; but she don’t lean over gates to see the sun, and goes to church as regular as you or I, so I should hardly be inclined to say that she’s the complete thing. When she’s up in one of her vagaries she’ll sit with the ladies and make up pretty things out of her head as fast as sticks a-breaking. They will run off her tongue like cotton from a reel, and if she can ever be got in the mind of telling a story she will bring it out that serious and awful that it makes your flesh creep upon your bones; if she’s only got to say that she walked out of one door into another, she’ll tell it so that there seems something wonderful in it. ’Tis a bother to start her, so our people say behind her back, but, once set going, the house is all alive with her. However, it will soon be dull enough; she and Lady Petherwin are off to-morrow for Rookington, where I believe they are going to stay over New Year’s Day.’

‘Where do you say they are going?’ inquired Christopher, as they followed the footman.

‘Rookington Park – about three miles out of Sandbourne, in the opposite direction to this.’

‘A widow,’ Christopher murmured.

Faith overheard him. ‘That makes no difference to us, does it?’ she said wistfully.

Forty minutes later they were driving along an open road over a ridge which commanded a view of a small inlet below them, the sands of this nook being sheltered by crumbling cliffs. Here at once they saw, in the full light of the sun, two women standing side by side, their faces directed over the sea.

‘There she is again!’ said Faith. ‘She has walked along the shore from the lawn where we saw her before.’

‘Yes,’ said the coachman, ‘she’s a curious woman seemingly. She’ll talk to any poor body she meets. You see she had been out for a morning walk instead of going to bed, and that is some queer mortal or other she has picked up with on her way.’

‘I wonder she does not prefer some rest,’ Faith observed.

The road then dropped into a hollow, and the women by the sea were no longer within view from the carriage, which rapidly neared Sandbourne with the two musicians.

6. THE SHORE BY WYNDWAY

The east gleamed upon Ethelberta’s squirrel-coloured hair as she said to her companion, ‘I have come, Picotee; but not, as you imagine, from a night’s sleep. We have actually been dancing till daylight at Wyndway.’

‘Then you should not have troubled to come! I could have borne the disappointment under such circumstances,’ said the pupil-teacher, who, wearing a dress not so familiar to Christopher’s eyes as had been the little white jacket, had not been recognized by him from the hill. ‘You look so tired, Berta. I could not stay up all night for the world!’

‘One gets used to these things,’ said Ethelberta quietly. ‘I should have been in bed certainly, had I not particularly wished to use this opportunity of meeting you before you go home to-morrow. I could not have come to Sandbourne to-day, because we are leaving to return again to Rookington. This is all that I wish you to take to mother – only a few little things which may be useful to her; but you will see what it contains when you open it.’ She handed to Picotee a small parcel. ‘This is for yourself,’ she went on, giving a small packet besides. ‘It will pay your fare home and back, and leave you something to spare.’

‘Thank you,’ said Picotee docilely.

‘Now, Picotee,’ continued the elder, ‘let us talk for a few minutes before I go back: we may not meet again for some time.’ She put her arm round the waist of Picotee, who did the same by Ethelberta; and thus interlaced they walked backwards and forwards upon the firm flat sand with the motion of one body animated by one will.

‘Well, what did you think of my poems?’

‘I liked them; but naturally, I did not understand all the experience you describe. It is so different from mine. Yet that made them more interesting to me. I thought I should so much like to mix in the same scenes; but that of course is impossible.’

‘I am afraid it is. And you posted the book as I said?’

‘Yes.’ She added hurriedly, as if to change the subject, ‘I have told nobody that we are sisters, or that you are known in any way to me or to mother or to any of us. I thought that would be best, from what you said.’

‘Yes, perhaps it is best for the present.’

‘The box of clothes came safely, and I find very little alteration will be necessary to make the dress do beautifully for me on Sundays. It is quite new-fashioned to me, though I suppose it was old-fashioned to you. O, and Berta, will the title of Lady Petherwin descend to you when your mother-in-law dies?’

‘No, of course not. She is only a knight’s widow, and that’s nothing.’

‘The lady of a knight looks as good on paper as the lady of a lord.’

‘Yes. And in other places too sometimes. However, about your journey home. Be very careful; and don’t make any inquiries at the stations of anybody but officials. If any man wants to be friendly with you, try to find out if it is from a genuine wish to assist you, or from admiration of your fresh face.’

‘How shall I know which?’ said Picotee.

Ethelberta laughed. ‘If Heaven does not tell you at the moment I cannot,’ she said. ‘But humanity looks with a different eye from love, and upon the whole it is most to be prized by all of us. I believe it ends oftener in marriage than do a lover’s flying smiles. So that for this and other reasons love from a stranger is mostly worthless as a speculation; and it is certainly dangerous as a game. Well, Picotee, has any one paid you real attentions yet?’

‘No – that is – ’

‘There is something going on.’

‘Only a wee bit.’

‘I thought so. There was a dishonesty about your dear eyes which has never been there before, and love-making and dishonesty are inseparable as coupled hounds. Up comes man, and away goes innocence. Are you going to tell me anything about him?’

‘I would rather not, Ethelberta; because it is hardly anything.’

‘Well, be careful. And mind this, never tell him what you feel.’