The Hand of Ethelberta, by Thomas Hardy

This eBook was produced from the 1907 Macmillan and Co. edition by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.

THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA—A COMEDY IN CHAPTERS
by Thomas Hardy.

“Vitae post-scenia celant.”—Lucretius.

PREFACE

This somewhat frivolous narrative was produced as an interlude between stories of a more sober design, and it was given the sub-title of a comedy to indicate—though not quite accurately—the aim of the performance.  A high degree of probability was not attempted in the arrangement of the incidents, and there was expected of the reader a certain lightness of mood, which should inform him with a good-natured willingness to accept the production in the spirit in which it was offered.  The characters themselves, however, were meant to be consistent and human.

On its first appearance the novel suffered, perhaps deservedly, for what was involved in these intentions—for its quality of unexpectedness in particular—that unforgivable sin in the critic’s sight—the immediate precursor of ‘Ethelberta’ having been a purely rural tale.  Moreover, in its choice of medium, and line of perspective, it undertook a delicate task: to excite interest in a drama—if such a dignified word may be used in the connection—wherein servants were as important as, or more important than, their masters; wherein the drawing-room was sketched in many cases from the point of view of the servants’ hall.  Such a reversal of the social foreground has, perhaps, since grown more welcome, and readers even of the finer crusted kind may now be disposed to pardon a writer for presenting the sons and daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Chickerel as beings who come within the scope of a congenial regard.

T. H.

December 1895.

CONTENTS

 1.  A STREET IN ANGLEBURY—A HEATH NEAR IT—INSIDE THE ‘RED LION’ INN
2.  CHRISTOPHER’S HOUSE—SANDBOURNE TOWN—SANDBOURNE MOOR
3.  SANDBOURNE MOOR (continued)
4.  SANDBOURNE PIER—ROAD TO WYNDWAY—BALLROOM IN WYNDWAY HOUSE
5.  AT THE WINDOW—THE ROAD HOME
6.  THE SHORE BY WYNDWAY
7.  THE DINING-ROOM OF A TOWN HOUSE—THE BUTLER’S PANTRY
8.  CHRISTOPHER’S LODGINGS—THE GROUNDS ABOUT ROOKINGTON
9.  A LADY’S DRAWING-ROOMS—ETHELBERTA’S DRESSING-ROOM
10.  LADY PETHERWIN’S HOUSE
11.  SANDBOURNE AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD—SOME LONDON STREETS
12.  ARROWTHORNE PARK AND LODGE
13.  THE LODGE (continued)—THE COPSE BEHIND
14.  A TURNPIKE ROAD
15.  AN INNER ROOM AT THE LODGE
16.  A LARGE PUBLIC HALL
17.  ETHELBERTA’S HOUSE
18.  NEAR SANDBOURNE—LONDON STREETS—ETHELBERTA’S
19.  ETHELBERTA’S DRAWING-ROOM
20.  THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE HALL—THE ROAD HOME
21.  A STREET—NEIGH’S ROOMS—CHRISTOPHER’S ROOMS
22.  ETHELBERTA’S HOUSE
23.  ETHELBERTA’S HOUSE (continued)
24.  ETHELBERTA’S HOUSE (continued)—THE BRITISH MUSEUM
25.  THE ROYAL ACADEMY—THE FARNFIELD ESTATE
26.  ETHELBERTA’S DRAWING-ROOM
27.  MRS. BELMAINE’S—CRIPPLEGATE CHURCH
28.  ETHELBERTA’S—MR. CHICKEREL’S ROOM
29.  ETHELBERTA’S DRESSING-ROOM—MR. DONCASTLE’S HOUSE
30.  ON THE HOUSETOP
31.  KNOLLSEA—A LOFTY DOWN—A RUINED CASTLE
32.  A ROOM IN ENCKWORTH COURT
33.  THE ENGLISH CHANNEL—NORMANDY
34.  THE HÔTEL BEAU SÉJOUR, AND SPOTS NEAR IT
35.  THE HOTEL (continued), AND THE QUAY IN FRONT
36.  THE HOUSE IN TOWN
37.  KNOLLSEA—AN ORNAMENTAL VILLA
38.  ENCKWORTH COURT
39.  KNOLLSEA—MELCHESTER
40.  MELCHESTER (continued)
41.  WORKSHOPS—AN INN—THE STREET
42.  THE DONCASTLES’ RESIDENCE, AND OUTSIDE THE SAME
43.  THE RAILWAY—THE SEA—THE SHORE BEYOND
44.  SANDBOURNE—A LONELY HEATH—THE ‘RED LION’—THE HIGHWAY
45.  KNOLLSEA—THE ROAD THENCE—ENCKWORTH
46.  ENCKWORTH (continued)—THE ANGLEBURY HIGHWAY
47.  ENCKWORTH AND ITS PRECINCTS—MELCHESTER
SEQUEL.  ANGLEBURY—ENCKWORTH—SANDBOURNE

1. A STREET IN ANGLEBURY—A HEATH NEAR IT—INSIDE THE ‘RED LION’ INN

Young Mrs. Petherwin stepped from the door of an old and well-appointed inn in a Wessex town to take a country walk.  By her look and carriage she appeared to belong to that gentle order of society which has no worldly sorrow except when its jewellery gets stolen; but, as a fact not generally known, her claim to distinction was rather one of brains than of blood.  She was the daughter of a gentleman who lived in a large house not his own, and began life as a baby christened Ethelberta after an infant of title who does not come into the story at all, having merely furnished Ethelberta’s mother with a subject of contemplation.  She became teacher in a school, was praised by examiners, admired by gentlemen, not admired by gentlewomen, was touched up with accomplishments by masters who were coaxed into painstaking by her many graces, and, entering a mansion as governess to the daughter thereof, was stealthily married by the son.  He, a minor like herself, died from a chill caught during the wedding tour, and a few weeks later was followed into the grave by Sir Ralph Petherwin, his unforgiving father, who had bequeathed his wealth to his wife absolutely.

These calamities were a sufficient reason to Lady Petherwin for pardoning all concerned.  She took by the hand the forlorn Ethelberta—who seemed rather a detached bride than a widow—and finished her education by placing her for two or three years in a boarding-school at Bonn.  Latterly she had brought the girl to England to live under her roof as daughter and companion, the condition attached being that Ethelberta was never openly to recognize her relations, for reasons which will hereafter appear.

The elegant young lady, as she had a full right to be called if she cared for the definition, arrested all the local attention when she emerged into the summer-evening light with that diadem-and-sceptre bearing—many people for reasons of heredity discovering such graces only in those whose vestibules are lined with ancestral mail, forgetting that a bear may be taught to dance.  While this air of hers lasted, even the inanimate objects in the street appeared to know that she was there; but from a way she had of carelessly overthrowing her dignity by versatile moods, one could not calculate upon its presence to a certainty when she was round corners or in little lanes which demanded no repression of animal spirits.

‘Well to be sure!’ exclaimed a milkman, regarding her.  ‘We should freeze in our beds if ’twere not for the sun, and, dang me! if she isn’t a pretty piece.  A man could make a meal between them eyes and chin—eh, hostler?  Odd nation dang my old sides if he couldn’t!’

The speaker, who had been carrying a pair of pails on a yoke, deposited them upon the edge of the pavement in front of the inn, and straightened his back to an excruciating perpendicular.  His remarks had been addressed to a rickety person, wearing a waistcoat of that preternatural length from the top to the bottom button which prevails among men who have to do with horses.  He was sweeping straws from the carriage-way beneath the stone arch that formed a passage to the stables behind.

‘Never mind the cursing and swearing, or somebody who’s never out of hearing may clap yer name down in his black book,’ said the hostler, also pausing, and lifting his eyes to the mullioned and transomed windows and moulded parapet above him—not to study them as features of ancient architecture,