Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

by R. D. Blackmore

“Sir Rowland will repent too late. Sir Rowland will shed the briny tear, the same as might any one of us, even on £3 a-year, for sending his only son out in a ship, when he ought to a’ sent ’un on horseback.”

Mrs. Pipkins nodded assent, and so did the ancient butler: and Trotman felt that public opinion was wholly against him, until such time as it should be further educated.

But such a discussion had been aroused, that there was no chance of its stopping here; and Alice, who loved to collect opinions, had many laid before her. She listened to all judiciously, and pretended to do it judicially; and after that she wondered whether she had done what she ought to do. For she knew that she was only very young, with nobody to advise her; and the crushing weight of the world upon her, if she tripped or forgot herself. Most girls of her age would have been at school, and taken childish peeps at the world, and burnished up their selfishness by conflict with one another; but Sir Roland had kept to the family custom, and taught and trained his daughter at home, believing as he did that young women lose some of their best and most charming qualities by what he called “gregarious education.” Alice therefore had been under care of a good and a well-taught governess—for “masters” at that time were proper to boys—until her mind was quite up to the mark, and capable of taking care of itself. For, in those days, it was not needful for any girl to know a great deal more than was good for her.

Early one September evening, when the day and year hung calmly in the balance of the sun; when sensitive plants and clever beasts were beginning to look around them, and much of the growth of the ground was ready to regret lost opportunities; when the comet was gone for good at last, and the earth was beginning to laugh at her terror (having found him now clearly afraid of her), and when a sense of great deliverance from the power of drought and heat throbbed in the breast of dewy nurture, so that all took breath again, and even man (the last of all things to be pleased or thankful) was ready to acknowledge that there might have been worse moments,—at such a time fair Alice sat in her garden thinking of Hilary. The work of the summer was over now, and the fate of the flowers pronounced and settled, for better or worse, till another year; no frost, however, had touched them yet, while the heavy dews of autumnal night, and the brisk air flowing from the open downs, had gladdened, refreshed, and sweetened them. Among them, and between the shrubs, there spread and sloped a pleasant lawn for all who love soft sward and silence, and the soothing sound of leaves. From the form of the ground and bend of the hills, as well as the northerly aspect, a peculiar cast and tingle of the air might be found, at different moments, fluctuating differently. Most of all, in a fine sunset of autumn (though now the sun was behind the ridge), from the fulness of the upper sky such gleam and glance fell here and there, that nothing could be sure of looking as it looked only a minute ago. At such times all the glen seemed thrilling like one vast lute of trees and air, drawing fingered light along the chords of trembling shadow. At such a time, no southern slope could be compared with this, for depth of beauty and impressive power, for the charm of clear obscurity and suggestive murmuring mystery. A time and scene that might recall the large romance of grander ages; where wandering lovers might shrink and think of lovers whose love was over; and even the sere man of the world might take a fresh breath of the boyish days when fear was a pleasant element.

Suddenly Alice became aware of something moving near her; and almost before she had time to be frightened, Hilary leaped from behind a laurel. He caught her in his arms, and kissed her, and then stepped back to leave plenty of room for contemplative admiration.

“I was resolved to have one more look. We sail to-morrow, they are in such a hurry. I have walked all the way from Portsmouth. At least I got a little lift on the road, on the top of a waggon-load of wheat.”

“How wonderfully good of you, Hilary dear!” she exclaimed, with tears in her eyes, and yet a strong inclination to smile, as she watched him. “How tired you must be! Why, when did you leave the dépôt? I thought they kept you at perpetual drill.”

“So they did. But I soon got up to all that. I can do it as well as the best of them now. What a provoking child you are! Well, don’t you notice anything?”

For Alice, with true sisterly feeling, was trying his endurance to the utmost, dissembling all her admiration of his fine fresh “uniform.” Of course, this was not quite so grand as if he had been (as he had right to be) enrolled as an “eques auratus;” still it looked very handsome on his fine straight figure, and set off the brightness of his clear complexion. Moreover, his two months of drilling at the dépôt had given to his active and well-poised form that vigorous firmness which alone was needed to make it perfect. With the quickness of a girl, his sister saw all this in a moment; and yet, for fear of crying, she laughed at him.

“Why, how did you come so ‘spick and span’? Have you got a sheaf of wheat inside your waistcoat? It was too cruel to put such clothes on the top of a harvest-waggon. I wonder you did not set it all on fire.”