A Changed Man, and Other Tales

‘That’s capital – then you can easily make him stand as first couple with you. Now I must pick up mine.’

‘I – I think I’ll dance with you, Mr. Bellston,’ she said with some trepidation. ‘Because, you see,’ she explained eagerly, ‘I know the figure and you don’t – so that I can help you; while Nicholas Long, I know, is familiar with the figure, and that will make two couples who know it – which is necessary, at least.’

Bellston showed his gratification by one of his angry-pleasant flushes – he had hardly dared to ask for what she proffered freely; and having requested Nicholas to take the dairyman’s daughter, led Christine to her place, Long promptly stepping up second with his charge. There were grim silent depths in Nic’s character; a small deedy spark in his eye, as it caught Christine’s, was all that showed his consciousness of her. Then the fiddlers began – the celebrated Mellstock fiddlers who, given free stripping, could play from sunset to dawn without turning a hair. The couples wheeled and swung, Nicholas taking Christine’s hand in the course of business with the figure, when she waited for him to give it a little squeeze; but he did not.

Christine had the greatest difficulty in steering her partner through the maze, on account of his self-will, and when at last they reached the bottom of the long line, she was breathless with her hard labour.. Resting here, she watched Nic and his lady; and, though she had decidedly cooled off in these later months, began to admire him anew. Nobody knew these dances like him, after all, or could do anything of this sort so well. His performance with the dairyman’s daughter so won upon her, that when ‘Speed the Plough’ was over she contrived to speak to him.

‘Nic, you are to dance with me next time.’

He said he would, and presently asked her in a formal public manner, lifting his hat gallantly. She showed a little backwardness, which he quite understood, and allowed him to lead her to the top, a row of enormous length appearing below them as if by magic as soon as they had taken their places. Truly the Squire was right when he said that they only wanted starting.

‘What is it to be?’ whispered Nicholas.

She turned to the band. ‘The Honeymoon,’ she said.

And then they trod the delightful last-century measure of that name, which if it had been ever danced better, was never danced with more zest. The perfect responsiveness which their tender acquaintance threw into the motions of Nicholas and his partner lent to their gyrations the fine adjustment of two interacting parts of a single machine. The excitement of the movement carried Christine back to the time – the unreflecting passionate time, about two years before – when she and Nic had been incipient lovers only; and it made her forget the carking anxieties, the vision of social breakers ahead, that had begun to take the gilding off her position now. Nicholas, on his part, had never ceased to be a lover; no personal worries had as yet made him conscious of any staleness, flatness, or unprofitableness in his admiration of Christine.

‘Not quite so wildly, Nic,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t object personally; but they’ll notice us. How came you here?’

‘I heard that you had driven over; and I set out – on purpose for this.’

‘What – you have walked?’

‘Yes. If I had waited for one of uncle’s horses I should have been too late.’

‘Five miles here and five back – ten miles on foot – merely to dance!’

‘With you. What made you think of this old “Honeymoon” thing?’

‘O! it came into my head when I saw you, as what would have been a reality with us if you had not been stupid about that licence, and had got it for a distant church.’

‘Shall we try again?’

‘No – I don’t know. I’ll think it over.’

The villagers admired their grace and skill, as the dancers themselves perceived; but they did not know what accompanied that admiration in one spot, at least.

‘People who wonder they can foot it so featly together should know what some others think,’ a waterman was saying to his neighbour. ‘Then their wonder would be less.’

His comrade asked for information.

‘Well – really I hardly believe it – but ’tis said they be man and wife. Yes, sure – went to church and did the job a’most afore ’twas light one morning. But mind, not a word of this; for ’twould be the loss of a winter’s work to me if I had spread such a report and it were not true.’

When the dance had ended she rejoined her own section of the company. Her father and Mr. Bellston the elder had now come out from the house, and were smoking in the background. Presently she found that her father was at her elbow.

‘Christine, don’t dance too often with young Long – as a mere matter of prudence, I mean, as volk might think it odd, he being one of our own neighbouring farmers. I should not mention this to ’ee if he were an ordinary young fellow; but being superior to the rest it behoves you to be careful.’

‘Exactly, papa,’ said Christine.

But the revived sense that she was deceiving him threw a damp over her spirits. ‘But, after all,’ she said to herself, ‘he is a young man of Elsenford, handsome, able, and the soul of honour; and I am a young woman of the adjoining parish, who have been constantly thrown into communication with him. Is it not, by nature’s rule, the most proper thing in the world that I should marry him, and is it not an absurd conventional regulation which says that such a union would be wrong?’

It may be concluded that the strength of Christine’s large-minded argument was rather an evidence of weakness than of strength in the passion it concerned, which had required neither argument nor reasoning of any kind for its maintenance when full and flush in its early days.

When driving home in the dark with her father she sank into pensive silence. She was thinking of Nicholas having to trudge on foot all those miles back after his exertions on the sward. Mr. Everard, arousing himself from a nap, said suddenly, ‘I have something to mention to ’ee, by George – so I have, Chris! You probably know what it is?’

She expressed ignorance, wondering if her father had discovered anything of her secret.

‘Well, according to him you know it. But I will tell ’ee. Perhaps you noticed young Jim Bellston walking me off down the lawn with him? – whether or no, we walked together a good while; and he informed me that he wanted to pay his addresses to ’ee. I naturally said that it depended upon yourself; and he replied that you were willing enough; you had given him particular encouragement – showing your preference for him by specially choosing him for your partner – hey? “In that case,” says I, “go on and conquer – settle it with her – I have no objection.” The poor fellow was very grateful, and in short, there we left the matter. He’ll propose to-morrow.’

She saw now to her dismay what James Bellston had read as encouragement. ‘He has mistaken me altogether,’ she said. ‘I had no idea of such a thing.’

‘What, you won’t have him?’

‘Indeed, I cannot!’

‘Chrissy,’ said Mr. Everard with emphasis, ‘there’s noobody whom I should so like you to marry as that young man. He’s a thoroughly clever fellow, and fairly well provided for. He’s travelled all over the temperate zone; but he says that directly he marries he’s going to give up all that, and be a regular stay-at-home. You would be nowhere safer than in his hands.’

‘It is true,’ she answered. ‘He is a highly desirable match, and I should be well provided for, and probably very safe in his hands.’

‘Then don’t be skittish, and stand-to.’

She had spoken from her conscience and understanding, and not to please her father. As a reflecting woman she believed that such a marriage would be a wise one. In great things Nicholas was closest to her nature; in little things Bellston seemed immeasurably nearer than Nic; and life was made up of little things.

Altogether the firmament looked black for Nicholas Long, notwithstanding her half-hour’s ardour for him when she saw him dancing with the dairyman’s daughter. Most great passions, movements, and beliefs – individual and national – burst during their decline into a temporary irradiation, which rivals their original splendour; and then they speedily become extinct. Perhaps the dance had given the last flare-up to Christine’s love. It seemed to have improvidently consumed for its immediate purpose all her ardour forwards, so that for the future there was nothing left but frigidity.

Nicholas had certainly been very foolish about that licence!

CHAPTER IV

This laxity of emotional tone was further increased by an incident, when, two days later, she kept an appointment with Nicholas in the Sallows. The Sallows was an extension of shrubberies and plantations along the banks of the Froom, accessible from the lawn of Froom-Everard House only, except by wading through the river at the waterfall or elsewhere. Near the brink was a thicket of box in which a trunk lay prostrate; this had been once or twice their trysting-place, though it was by no means a safe one; and it was here she sat awaiting him now.

The noise of the stream muffled any sound of footsteps, and it was before she was aware of his approach that she looked up and saw him wading across at the top of the waterfall.

Noontide lights and dwarfed shadows always banished the romantic aspect of her love for Nicholas. Moreover, something new had occurred to disturb her; and if ever she had regretted giving way to a tenderness for him – which perhaps she had not done with any distinctness – she regretted it now. Yet in the bottom of their hearts those two were excellently paired, the very twin halves of a perfect whole; and their love was pure. But at this hour surfaces showed garishly, and obscured the depths. Probably her regret appeared in her face.

He walked up to her without speaking, the water running from his boots; and, taking one of her hands in each of his own, looked narrowly into her eyes.

‘Have you thought it over?’

‘What?’

‘Whether we shall try again; you remember saying you would at the dance?’

‘Oh, I had forgotten that!’

‘You are sorry we tried at all!’ he said accusingly.

‘I am not so sorry for the fact as for the rumours,’ she said.