Thomas Hardy - The Well-Beloved - A Sketch of a Temperament

While overtaking and conversing with her he had not observed that the rising wind, which had proceeded from puffing to growling, and from growling to screeching, with the accustomed suddenness of its changes here, had at length brought what it promised by these vagaries – rain. The drops, which had at first hit their left cheeks like the pellets of a popgun, soon assumed the character of a raking fusillade from the bank adjoining, one shot of which was sufficiently smart to go through Jocelyn’s sleeve. The tall girl turned, and seemed to be somewhat concerned at an onset which she had plainly not foreseen before her starting.

‘We must take shelter,’ said Jocelyn.

‘But where?’ said she.

To windward was the long, monotonous bank, too obtusely piled to afford a screen, over which they could hear the canine crunching of pebbles by the sea without; on their right stretched the inner bay or roadstead, the distant riding-lights of the ships now dim and glimmering; behind them a faint spark here and there in the lower sky showed where the island rose; before there was nothing definite, and could be nothing, till they reached a precarious wood bridge, a mile further on, Henry the Eighth’s Castle being a little further still.

But just within the summit of the bank, whither it had apparently been hauled to be out of the way of the waves, was one of the local boats called lerrets, bottom upwards. As soon as they saw it the pair ran up the pebbly slope towards it by a simultaneous impulse. They then perceived that it had lain there a long time, and were comforted to find it capable of affording more protection than anybody would have expected from a distant view. It formed a shelter or store for the fishermen, the bottom of the lerret being tarred as a roof. By creeping under the bows, which overhung the bank on props to leeward, they made their way within, where, upon some thwarts, oars, and other fragmentary woodwork, lay a mass of dry netting – a whole sein. Upon this they scrambled and sat down, through inability to stand upright.

The rain fell upon the keel of the old lerret like corn thrown in handfuls by some colossal sower, and darkness set in to its full shade.

They crouched so close to each other that he could feel her furs against him. Neither had spoken since they left the roadway till she said, with attempted unconcern: ‘This is unfortunate.’

He admitted that it was, and found, after a few further remarks had passed, that she certainly had been weeping, there being a suppressed gasp of passionateness in her utterance now and then.

‘It is more unfortunate for you, perhaps, than for me,’ he said, ‘and I am very sorry that it should be so.’

She replied nothing to this, and he added that it was rather a desolate place for a woman, alone and afoot. He hoped nothing serious had happened to drag her out at such an untoward time.

At first she seemed not at all disposed to show any candour on her own affairs, and he was left to conjecture as to her history and name, and how she could possibly have known him. But, as the rain gave not the least sign of cessation, he observed: ‘I think we shall have to go back.’

‘Never!’ said she, and the firmness with which she closed her lips was audible in the word.

‘Why not?’ he inquired.

‘There are good reasons.’

‘I cannot understand how you should know me, while I have no knowledge of you.’

‘Oh, but you know me – about me, at least.’

‘Indeed I don’t. How should I? You are a kimberlin.’

‘I am not. I am a real islander – or was, rather… Haven’t you heard of the Best-Bed Stone Company?’

‘I should think so! They tried to ruin my father by getting away his trade – or, at least, the founder of the company did – old Bencomb.’

‘He’s my father!’

‘Indeed. I am sorry I should have spoken so disrespectfully of him, for I never knew him personally. After making over his large business to the company, he retired, I believe, to London?’

‘Yes. Our house, or rather his, not mine, is at South Kensington. We have lived there for years. But we have been tenants of Sylvania Castle, on the island here, this season. We took it for a month or two of the owner, who is away.’

‘Then I have been staying quite near you, Miss Bencomb. My father’s is a comparatively humble residence hard by.’

‘But he could afford a much bigger one if he chose.’

‘You have heard so? I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me much of his affairs.’

‘My father,’ she burst out suddenly, ‘is always scolding me for my extravagance! And he has been doing it to-day more than ever. He said I go shopping in town to simply a diabolical extent, and exceed my allowance!’

‘Was that this evening?’

‘Yes. And then it reached such a storm of passion between us that I pretended to retire to my room for the rest of the evening, but I slipped out; and I am never going back home again.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I shall go first to my aunt in London; and if she won’t have me, I’ll work for a living. I have left my father for ever! What I should have done if I had not met you I cannot tell – I must have walked all the way to London, I suppose. Now I shall take the train as soon as I reach the mainland.’

‘If you ever do in this hurricane.’

‘I must sit here till it stops.’

And there on the nets they sat. Pierston knew of old Bencomb as his father’s bitterest enemy, who had made a great fortune by swallowing up the small stone-merchants, but had found Jocelyn’s sire a trifle too big to digest – the latter being, in fact, the chief rival of the Best-Bed Company to that day. Jocelyn thought it strange that he should be thrown by fate into a position to play the son of the Montagues to this daughter of the Capulets.

As they talked there was a mutual instinct to drop their voices, and on this account the roar of the storm necessitated their drawing quite close together. Something tender came into their tones as quarter-hour after quarter-hour went on, and they forgot the lapse of time. It was quite late when she started up, alarmed at her position.

‘Rain or no rain, I can stay no longer,’ she said.

‘Do come back,’ said he, taking her hand. ‘I’ll return with you. My train has gone.’

‘No; I shall go on, and get a lodging in Budmouth town, if ever I reach it.’

‘It is so late that there will be no house open, except a little place near the station where you won’t care to stay. However, if you are determined I will show you the way. I cannot leave you. It would be too awkward for you to go there alone.’

She persisted, and they started through the twanging and spinning storm. The sea rolled and rose so high on their left, and was so near them on their right, that it seemed as if they were traversing its bottom like the Children of Israel. Nothing but the frail bank of pebbles divided them from the raging gulf without, and at every bang of the tide against it the ground shook, the shingle clashed, the spray rose vertically, and was blown over their heads. Quantities of sea-water trickled through the pebble wall, and ran in rivulets across their path to join the sea within. The ‘Island’ was an island still.

They had not realized the force of the elements till now. Pedestrians had often been blown into the sea hereabout, and drowned, owing to a sudden breach in the bank; which, however, had something of a supernatural power in being able to close up and join itself together again after such disruption, like Satan’s form when, cut in two by the sword of Michael,

Her clothing offered more resistance to the wind than his, and she was consequently in the greater danger. It was impossible to refuse his proffered aid. First he gave his arm, but the wind tore them apart as easily as coupled cherries. He steadied her bodily by encircling her waist with his arm; and she made no objection.