You like Thomas Hardy's "Hand of Ethelberta" next to "Far from the Madding Crowd." Well, Coomb Castle in that book is really Corfe Castle. I told you we were in Hardy country. After Wareham, and not very far away, at Wool, is an old, old manor-house of the Turbervilles, turned into a farmhouse now. You don't need to be reminded of what Hardy made of that, I know.
We lunched at an interesting old inn, like all the rest of the ancient houses of Corfe, slate-roofed, grim and gray. Then we coasted down the steep hill to the plain again, making for Swanage. It was dusty, but we weren't sorry, because, just when we were travelling rather fast, on a perfectly clear road, a policeman popped out like a Jack-in-the-Box, apparently from nowhere. You could tell by his face he was a "trappist," as Dick calls the motor-spies, and though Sir Lionel wasn't really going beyond the legal limit, he glared at our number as if he meant mischief. But that number-plate had thoughtfully masked itself in dust, so with all the will in the world he could work us no harm after our backs were turned. Once in a while it does seem as if Nature sympathized with the poor, maligned motorist whom nobody loves, and is willing to throw her protection over him. It would be like tempting Providence to polish off dust or mud, in such circumstances, wouldn't it?
My face was a different matter, though, and I longed to polish it. Before we got to Swanage, it felt—even under chiffon—just as an iced cake must feel. Only the cake, fortunately for its contour, never needs to smile.
We were going to Swanage because of the caves—Tilly Whim Caves. Did you ever hear of them, Parisienne mamma? Small blame to you, if not, because one can't know everything; but they are worth seeing; and the Swanage harbour is a little dream. The town is good, too. Old-world, and very, very respectable-looking, as if it were full of long-established lawyers and clergymen, yet not dull, like Wareham, which was important in Saxon days, long before Swanage was born or thought of. It's "Knollsea" in the "Hand of Ethelberta." Do you remember? And Alfred the Great had a victory close by—so close, that in a storm the Danish ships blew into what is the town now, as if they had been butterflies with their wings wet.
We climbed up, up above the village, in the motor-car, on the steepest, twistingest road I've seen yet in England, though Sir Lionel says I'll think nothing of it when we get into Devonshire; up, up to a high place where they've built a restaurant. Near by we left the motor (and Emily, who never walks for pleasure), and ho, for the caves! It was a scramble among dark cliffs of Purbeck limestone. The caves are delightfully weird, and of course there are smuggling stories about them. A strange wind blew through their labyrinths, ceaselessly, like the breathings of a hidden giant, betrayed by sleep. It was heavenly cool in that dim twilight that never knew sun, but oh, it was hot coming out into the afternoon glare, and climbing the steep path to where the motor waited! I think Mrs. Senter was sorry she hadn't stopped with Emily. She got a horrid headache, and felt so ill that Sir Lionel asked if she would care to stop all night at Swanage, and she said she would.
Fortunately, it turned out that there were good hotels, and Sir Lionel took rooms at the one we liked the best—old-fashioned in an agreeable way. Mrs. Senter went to bed, but the rest of us strolled out after dinner; and Mrs. Norton began talking to Dick about his mother, which threw Sir Lionel and me together.
We sat on the pier, where the moon turned bright pink as she dipped down into a bank of clouds like a rose-garden growing out of the sea. And even when it was dark, the sea kept its colour, the deep blue of sapphires, where, at a distance, little white yachts and sailboats looked like a company of crescent moons floating in an azure sky. I felt in the sweetest mood, kind toward all the world, and particularly to Sir Lionel. I couldn't bear to remember that I'd ever had bad thoughts, and doubts, so I was half sub-consciously nicer to him than I ever was before. Dick kept glaring at me, from his seat beside Mrs. Norton, and drawing his eyebrows together when he thought Sir Lionel wasn't looking. Going home, he got a chance for a few words, when Emily was speaking to her brother about Mrs. Senter's headache. He said that there was something he must say to me, alone, and he wanted me to come out into the garden behind the hotel, to talk to him when the others had gone to bed, but of course I refused. Then he said, would I manage to give him a few minutes next day, and intimated, gently, that I'd be sorry if I didn't. I told him that "I'd see"; which is always a safe answer; but I haven't "managed" yet.
When I got back to my room at the hotel I noticed that some of my things weren't in the places where I'd left them; and the writing portfolio in a dressing-case which Sir Lionel thinks is mine, but is really Ellaline's (one of the Bond Street purchases), had my papers changed about in it. The servants in the house seemed so respectable and nice, I can't think that one of them would have pried. And yet—well, the truth is, I'm afraid of being catty, but I can't help putting Mrs. Senter's headache and my disturbed papers together in my mind. Two and two when put together, make four, you know. And her room in the Swanage hotel was next to mine. She might have been sure that we'd all go out after dinner on such a perfect night. But why should she bother? Unless Dick has told her something, after all? I suppose I shall never know whether it was she or someone else who meddled. I looked through all the papers and other things, but could find nothing "compromising," as the adventuresses say. However, I can't quite remember what I had. Some letter may have been taken. I have been a tiny bit worried since, for you know Ellaline would never forgive me if anything should go wrong now. And I've been thinking that, though Sir Lionel is no dragon, there may be something about Honoré du Guesclin which he wouldn't approve. Ellaline may even have her own reasons for thinking he wouldn't approve, dragon or no dragon. Very likely she didn't tell me everything—she was so anxious to have her own way.
But to go back to the journey here. Almost each mile we travelled gave us some thought of Hardy, and acquainted me with the character of Dorset, which is just what I expected from his books: giant trees; tall, secretive hedges; high brick walls, mellow with age and curtained with ivy; stone cottages, solid and prosperous and old, with queer little bay-windows, diamond-paned; Purbeck granite bursting through the grass of meadows, and making a grave background for brilliant flowers; heaths that Hardy wrote about in the "Return of the Native"—heaths, heaths, and rolling downs.
We took the way from Swanage to West Lulworth, and had an adventure on a hill. Sir Lionel is very strict with his little Buddha about examining everything that could possibly go wrong with the motor, and just before we started, I heard him ask Young Nick if he had looked at the brakes after our descent from Tilly Whim. "Oh, yes, sahib," said the brown image. "Oh, no!" said the brakes themselves, on a big hill, as far from the madding crowd as "Gabriel" and "Bathsheba" ever lived. We'd got lost, and that was the way the car punished us. First of all, the motor refused to work. That made Apollo feel faint, so that he began to run backward down the hill instead of going up; and when Sir Lionel put on the brakes, they wouldn't act.