A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy

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A Pair of Blue Eyes

by Thomas Hardy

'A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more.'

PREFACE

The following chapters were written at a time when the craze for
indiscriminate church-restoration had just reached the remotest
nooks of western England, where the wild and tragic features of
the coast had long combined in perfect harmony with the crude
Gothic Art of the ecclesiastical buildings scattered along it,
throwing into extraordinary discord all architectural attempts at
newness there. To restore the grey carcases of a mediaevalism
whose spirit had fled, seemed a not less incongruous act than to
set about renovating the adjoining crags themselves.

Hence it happened that an imaginary history of three human hearts,
whose emotions were not without correspondence with these material
circumstances, found in the ordinary incidents of such church-
renovations a fitting frame for its presentation.

The shore and country about 'Castle Boterel' is now getting well
known, and will be readily recognized. The spot is, I may add,
the furthest westward of all those convenient corners wherein I
have ventured to erect my theatre for these imperfect little
dramas of country life and passions; and it lies near to, or no
great way beyond, the vague border of the Wessex kingdom on that
side, which, like the westering verge of modern American
settlements, was progressive and uncertain.

This, however, is of little importance. The place is pre-
eminently (for one person at least) the region of dream and
mystery. The ghostly birds, the pall-like sea, the frothy wind,
the eternal soliloquy of the waters, the bloom of dark purple
cast, that seems to exhale from the shoreward precipices, in
themselves lend to the scene an atmosphere like the twilight of a
night vision.

One enormous sea-bord cliff in particular figures in the
narrative; and for some forgotten reason or other this cliff was
described in the story as being without a name. Accuracy would
require the statement to be that a remarkable cliff which
resembles in many points the cliff of the description bears a name
that no event has made famous.

T. H.
March 1899

THE PERSONS

ELFRIDE SWANCOURT a young Lady
CHRISTOPHER SWANCOURT a Clergyman
STEPHEN SMITH an Architect
HENRY KNIGHT a Reviewer and Essayist
CHARLOTTE TROYTON a rich Widow
GERTRUDE JETHWAY a poor Widow
SPENSER HUGO LUXELLIAN a Peer
LADY LUXELLIAN his Wife
MARY AND KATE two little Girls
WILLIAM WORM a dazed Factotum
JOHN SMITH a Master-mason
JANE SMITH his Wife
MARTIN CANNISTER a Sexton
UNITY a Maid-servant

Other servants, masons, labourers, grooms, nondescripts, etc., etc.

THE SCENE
Mostly on the outskirts of Lower Wessex.

Chapter I

'A fair vestal, throned in the west'

Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the
surface. Their nature more precisely, and as modified by the
creeping hours of time, was known only to those who watched the
circumstances of her history.

Personally, she was the combination of very interesting
particulars, whose rarity, however, lay in the combination itself
rather than in the individual elements combined. As a matter of
fact, you did not see the form and substance of her features when
conversing with her; and this charming power of preventing a
material study of her lineaments by an interlocutor, originated
not in the cloaking effect of a well-formed manner (for her manner
was childish and scarcely formed), but in the attractive crudeness
of the remarks themselves. She had lived all her life in
retirement--the monstrari gigito of idle men had not flattered
her, and at the age of nineteen or twenty she was no further on in
social consciousness than an urban young lady of fifteen.

One point in her, however, you did notice: that was her eyes. In
them was seen a sublimation of all of her; it was not necessary to
look further: there she lived.

These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance--blue as the blue we
see between the retreating mouldings of hills and woody slopes on
a sunny September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no
beginning or surface, and was looked INTO rather than AT.

As to her presence, it was not powerful; it was weak. Some women
can make their personality pervade the atmosphere of a whole
banqueting hall; Elfride's was no more pervasive than that of a
kitten.

Elfride had as her own the thoughtfulness which appears in the
face of the Madonna della Sedia, without its rapture: the warmth
and spirit of the type of woman's feature most common to the
beauties--mortal and immortal--of Rubens, without their insistent
fleshiness. The characteristic expression of the female faces of
Correggio--that of the yearning human thoughts that lie too deep
for tears--was hers sometimes, but seldom under ordinary
conditions.

The point in Elfride Swancourt's life at which a deeper current
may be said to have permanently set in, was one winter afternoon
when she found herself standing, in the character of hostess, face
to face with a man she had never seen before--moreover, looking at
him with a Miranda-like curiosity and interest that she had never
yet bestowed on a mortal.

On this particular day her father, the vicar of a parish on the
sea-swept outskirts of Lower Wessex, and a widower, was suffering
from an attack of gout. After finishing her household
supervisions Elfride became restless, and several times left the
room, ascended the staircase, and knocked at her father's chamber-
door.

'Come in!' was always answered in a hearty out-of-door voice from
the inside.

'Papa,' she said on one occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome
man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay
on the bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then
enunciating, in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or
words that were almost oaths; 'papa, will you not come downstairs
this evening?' She spoke distinctly: he was rather deaf.

'Afraid not--eh-hh !--very much afraid I shall not, Elfride.
Piph-ph-ph! I can't bear even a handkerchief upon this deuced toe
of mine, much less a stocking or slipper--piph-ph-ph! There 'tis
again! No, I shan't get up till to-morrow.'

'Then I hope this London man won't come; for I don't know what I
should do, papa.'

'Well, it would be awkward, certainly.'

'I should hardly think he would come to-day.'

'Why?'

'Because the wind blows so.'

'Wind! What ideas you have, Elfride! Who ever heard of wind
stopping a man from doing his business? The idea of this toe of
mine coming on so suddenly!...If he should come, you must send him
up to me, I suppose, and then give him some food and put him to
bed in some way. Dear me, what a nuisance all this is!'

'Must he have dinner?'

'Too heavy for a tired man at the end of a tedious journey.'

'Tea, then?'

'Not substantial enough.'

'High tea, then? There is cold fowl, rabbit-pie, some pasties, and
things of that kind.'

'Yes, high tea.'

'Must I pour out his tea, papa?'

'Of course; you are the mistress of the house.'

'What! sit there all the time with a stranger, just as if I knew
him, and not anybody to introduce us?'

'Nonsense, child, about introducing; you know better than that. A
practical professional man, tired and hungry, who has been
travelling ever since daylight this morning, will hardly be
inclined to talk and air courtesies to-night. He wants food and
shelter, and you must see that he has it, simply because I am
suddenly laid up and cannot. There is nothing so dreadful in
that, I hope? You get all kinds of stuff into your head from
reading so many of those novels.'

'Oh no; there is nothing dreadful in it when it becomes plainly a
case of necessity like this. But, you see, you are always there
when people come to dinner, even if we know them; and this is some
strange London man of the world, who will think it odd, perhaps.'

'Very well; let him.'

'Is he Mr. Hewby's partner?'

'I should scarcely think so: he may be.'

'How old is he, I wonder?'

'That I cannot tell. You will find the copy of my letter to Mr.
Hewby, and his answer, upon the table in the study. You may read
them, and then you'll know as much as I do about our visitor.'

'I have read them.'

'Well, what's the use of asking questions, then? They contain all
I know. Ugh-h-h!...Od plague you, you young scamp! don't put
anything there! I can't bear the weight of a fly.'

'Oh, I am sorry, papa. I forgot; I thought you might be cold,'
she said, hastily removing the rug she had thrown upon the feet of
the sufferer; and waiting till she saw that consciousness of her
offence had passed from his face, she withdrew from the room, and
retired again downstairs.

Chapter II

'Twas on the evening of a winter's day.'

When two or three additional hours had merged
the same afternoon in evening, some moving outlines might have
been observed against the sky on the summit of a wild lone hill in
that district. They circumscribed two men, having at present the
aspect of silhouettes, sitting in a dog-cart and pushing along in
the teeth of the wind. Scarcely a solitary house or man had been
visible along the whole dreary distance of open country they were
traversing; and now that night had begun to fall, the faint
twilight, which still gave an idea of the landscape to their
observation, was enlivened by the quiet appearance of the planet
Jupiter, momentarily gleaming in intenser brilliancy in front of
them, and by Sirius shedding his rays in rivalry from his position
over their shoulders. The only lights apparent on earth were some
spots of dull red, glowing here and there upon the distant hills,
which, as the driver of the vehicle gratuitously remarked to the
hirer, were smouldering fires for the consumption of peat and
gorse-roots, where the common was being broken up for agricultural
purposes. The wind prevailed with but little abatement from its
daytime boisterousness, three or four small clouds, delicate and
pale, creeping along under the sky southward to the Channel.

Fourteen of the sixteen miles intervening between the railway
terminus and the end of their journey had been gone over, when
they began to pass along the brink of a valley some miles in
extent, wherein the wintry skeletons of a more luxuriant
vegetation than had hitherto surrounded them proclaimed an
increased richness of soil, which showed signs of far more careful
enclosure and management than had any slopes they had yet passed.
A little farther, and an opening in the elms stretching up from
this fertile valley revealed a mansion.

'That's Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian's,' said the driver.

'Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian's,' repeated the other
mechanically. He then turned himself sideways, and keenly
scrutinized the almost invisible house with an interest which the
indistinct picture itself seemed far from adequate to create.
'Yes, that's Lord Luxellian's,' he said yet again after a while,
as he still looked in the same direction.

'What, be we going there?'

'No; Endelstow Vicarage, as I have told you.'

'I thought you m't have altered your mind, sir, as ye have stared
that way at nothing so long.'

'Oh no; I am interested in the house, that's all.'

'Most people be, as the saying is.'

'Not in the sense that I am.'

'Oh!...Well, his family is no better than my own, 'a b'lieve.'

'How is that?'

'Hedgers and ditchers by rights. But once in ancient times one of
'em, when he was at work, changed clothes with King Charles the
Second, and saved the king's life. King Charles came up to him
like a common man, and said off-hand, "Man in the smock-frock, my
name is Charles the Second, and that's the truth on't. Will you
lend me your clothes?" "I don't mind if I do," said Hedger
Luxellian; and they changed there and then. "Now mind ye," King
Charles the Second said, like a common man, as he rode away, "if
ever I come to the crown, you come to court, knock at the door,
and say out bold, 'Is King Charles the Second at home?' Tell your
name, and they shall let you in, and you shall be made a lord."
Now, that was very nice of Master Charley?'

'Very nice indeed.'

'Well, as the story is, the king came to the throne; and some
years after that, away went Hedger Luxellian, knocked at the
king's door, and asked if King Charles the Second was in. "No, he
isn't," they said. "Then, is Charles the Third?" said Hedger
Luxellian. "Yes," said a young feller standing by like a common
man, only he had a crown on, "my name is Charles the Third." And----'

'I really fancy that must be a mistake. I don't recollect
anything in English history about Charles the Third,' said the
other in a tone of mild remonstrance.

'Oh, that's right history enough, only 'twasn't prented; he was
rather a queer-tempered man, if you remember.'

'Very well; go on.'

'And, by hook or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was made a lord, and
everything went on well till some time after, when he got into a
most terrible row with King Charles the Fourth

'I can't stand Charles the Fourth. Upon my word, that's too
much.'

'Why? There was a George the Fourth, wasn't there?'

'Certainly.'

'Well, Charleses be as common as Georges. However I'll say no
more about it....Ah, well! 'tis the funniest world ever I lived
in--upon my life 'tis. Ah, that such should be!'

The dusk had thickened into darkness while they thus conversed,
and the outline and surface of the mansion gradually disappeared.
The windows, which had before been as black blots on a lighter
expanse of wall, became illuminated, and were transfigured to
squares of light on the general dark body of the night landscape
as it absorbed the outlines of the edifice into its gloomy
monochrome.

Not another word was spoken for some time, and they climbed a
hill, then another hill piled on the summit of the first. An
additional mile of plateau followed, from which could be discerned
two light-houses on the coast they were nearing, reposing on the
horizon with a calm lustre of benignity. Another oasis was
reached; a little dell lay like a nest at their feet, towards
which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp angle, and descended
a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit's burrow.
They sank lower and lower.

'Endelstow Vicarage is inside here,' continued the man with the
reins. 'This part about here is West Endelstow; Lord Luxellian's
is East Endelstow, and has a church to itself. Pa'son Swancourt
is the pa'son of both, and bobs backward and forward. Ah, well!
'tis a funny world. 'A b'lieve there was once a quarry where this
house stands. The man who built it in past time scraped all the
glebe for earth to put round the vicarage, and laid out a little
paradise of flowers and trees in the soil he had got together in
this way, whilst the fields he scraped have been good for nothing
ever since.'

'How long has the present incumbent been here?'

'Maybe about a year, or a year and half: 'tisn't two years; for
they don't scandalize him yet; and, as a rule, a parish begins to
scandalize the pa'son at the end of two years among 'em familiar.
But he's a very nice party. Ay, Pa'son Swancourt knows me pretty
well from often driving over; and I know Pa'son Swancourt.'

They emerged from the bower, swept round in a curve, and the
chimneys and gables of the vicarage became darkly visible. Not a
light showed anywhere. They alighted; the man felt his way into
the porch, and rang the bell.

At the end of three or four minutes, spent in patient waiting
without hearing any sounds of a response, the stranger advanced
and repeated the call in a more decided manner. He then fancied
he heard footsteps in the hall, and sundry movements of the door-
knob, but nobody appeared.

'Perhaps they beant at home,' sighed the driver. 'And I promised
myself a bit of supper in Pa'son Swancourt's kitchen. Sich lovely
mate-pize and figged keakes, and cider, and drops o' cordial that
they do keep here!'

'All right, naibours! Be ye rich men or be ye poor men, that ye
must needs come to the world's end at this time o' night?'
exclaimed a voice at this instant; and, turning their heads, they
saw a rickety individual shambling round from the back door with a
horn lantern dangling from his hand.

'Time o' night, 'a b'lieve! and the clock only gone seven of 'em.
Show a light, and let us in, William Worm.'

'Oh, that you, Robert Lickpan?'

'Nobody else, William Worm.'

'And is the visiting man a-come?'

'Yes,' said the stranger. 'Is Mr. Swancourt at home?'

'That 'a is, sir. And would ye mind coming round by the back way?
The front door is got stuck wi' the wet, as he will do sometimes;
and the Turk can't open en. I know I am only a poor wambling man
that 'ill never pay the Lord for my making, sir; but I can show
the way in, sir.'

The new arrival followed his guide through a little door in a
wall, and then promenaded a scullery and a kitchen, along which he
passed with eyes rigidly fixed in advance, an inbred horror of
prying forbidding him to gaze around apartments that formed the
back side of the household tapestry. Entering the hall, he was
about to be shown to his room, when from the inner lobby of the
front entrance, whither she had gone to learn the cause of the
delay, sailed forth the form of Elfride. Her start of amazement
at the sight of the visitor coming forth from under the stairs
proved that she had not been expecting this surprising flank
movement, which had been originated entirely by the ingenuity of
William Worm.

She appeared in the prettiest of all feminine guises, that is to
say, in demi-toilette, with plenty of loose curly hair tumbling
down about her shoulders. An expression of uneasiness pervaded
her countenance; and altogether she scarcely appeared woman enough
for the situation. The visitor removed his hat, and the first
words were spoken; Elfride prelusively looking with a deal of
interest, not unmixed with surprise, at the person towards whom
she was to do the duties of hospitality.

'I am Mr. Smith,' said the stranger in a musical voice.

'I am Miss Swancourt,' said Elfride.

Her constraint was over. The great contrast between the reality
she beheld before her, and the dark, taciturn, sharp, elderly man
of business who had lurked in her imagination--a man with clothes
smelling of city smoke, skin sallow from want of sun, and talk
flavoured with epigram--was such a relief to her that Elfride
smiled, almost laughed, in the new-comer's face.

Stephen Smith, who has hitherto been hidden from us by the
darkness, was at this time of his life but a youth in appearance,
and barely a man in years. Judging from his look, London was the
last place in the world that one would have imagined to be the
scene of his activities: such a face surely could not be nourished
amid smoke and mud and fog and dust; such an open countenance
could never even have seen anything of 'the weariness, the fever,
and the fret' of Babylon the Second.

His complexion was as fine as Elfride's own; the pink of his
cheeks as delicate. His mouth as perfect as Cupid's bow in form,
and as cherry-red in colour as hers. Bright curly hair; bright
sparkling blue-gray eyes; a boy's blush and manner; neither
whisker nor moustache, unless a little light-brown fur on his
upper lip deserved the latter title: this composed the London
professional man, the prospect of whose advent had so troubled
Elfride.

Elfride hastened to say she was sorry to tell him that Mr.
Swancourt was not able to receive him that evening, and gave the
reason why. Mr. Smith replied, in a voice boyish by nature and
manly by art, that he was very sorry to hear this news; but that
as far as his reception was concerned, it did not matter in the
least.

Stephen was shown up to his room. In his absence Elfride
stealthily glided into her father's.

'He's come, papa. Such a young man for a business man!'

'Oh, indeed!'

'His face is--well--PRETTY; just like mine.'

'H'm! what next?'

'Nothing; that's all I know of him yet. It is rather nice, is it
not?'

'Well, we shall see that when we know him better. Go down and
give the poor fellow something to eat and drink, for Heaven's
sake. And when he has done eating, say I should like to have a
few words with him, if he doesn't mind coming up here.'

The young lady glided downstairs again, and whilst she awaits
young Smith's entry, the letters referring to his visit had better
be given.

1.--MR. SWANCOURT TO MR. HEWBY.

'ENDELSTOW VICARAGE, Feb. 18, 18--.

'SIR,--We are thinking of restoring the tower and aisle of the
church in this parish; and Lord Luxellian, the patron of the
living, has mentioned your name as that of a trustworthy architect
whom it would be desirable to ask to superintend the work.

'I am exceedingly ignorant of the necessary preliminary steps.
Probably, however, the first is that (should you be, as Lord
Luxellian says you are, disposed to assist us) yourself or some
member of your staff come and see the building, and report
thereupon for the satisfaction of parishioners and others.

'The spot is a very remote one: we have no railway within fourteen
miles; and the nearest place for putting up at--called a town,
though merely a large village--is Castle Boterel, two miles
further on; so that it would be most convenient for you to stay at
the vicarage--which I am glad to place at your disposal--instead
of pushing on to the hotel at Castle Boterel, and coming back
again in the morning.

'Any day of the next week that you like to name for the visit will
find us quite ready to receive you.--Yours very truly, CHRISTOPHER
SWANCOURT.

2.--MR. HEWBY TO MR. SWANCOURT.

"PERCY PLACE, CHARING CROSS, Feb. 20, 18--.

'DEAR SIR,--Agreeably to your request of the 18th instant, I have
arranged to survey and make drawings of the aisle and tower of
your parish church, and of the dilapidations which have been
suffered to accrue thereto, with a view to its restoration.

'My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, will leave London by the early
train to-morrow morning for the purpose. Many thanks for your
proposal to accommodate him. He will take advantage of your
offer, and will probably reach your house at some hour of the
evening. You may put every confidence in him, and may rely upon
his discernment in the matter of church architecture.

'Trusting that the plans for the restoration, which I shall
prepare from the details of his survey, will prove satisfactory to
yourself and Lord Luxellian, I am, dear sir, yours faithfully,
WALTER HEWBY.'

Chapter III

'Melodious birds sing madrigals'

That first repast in Endelstow Vicarage was a very agreeable one
to young Stephen Smith. The table was spread, as Elfride had
suggested to her father, with the materials for the heterogeneous
meal called high tea--a class of refection welcome to all when
away from men and towns, and particularly attractive to youthful
palates. The table was prettily decked with winter flowers and
leaves, amid which the eye was greeted by chops, chicken, pie,
&c., and two huge pasties overhanging the sides of the dish with a
cheerful aspect of abundance.

At the end, towards the fireplace, appeared the tea-service, of
old-fashioned Worcester porcelain, and behind this arose the
slight form of Elfride, attempting to add matronly dignity to the
movement of pouring out tea, and to have a weighty and concerned
look in matters of marmalade, honey, and clotted cream. Having
made her own meal before he arrived, she found to her
embarrassment that there was nothing left for her to do but talk
when not assisting him. She asked him if he would excuse her
finishing a letter she had been writing at a side-table, and,
after sitting down to it, tingled with a sense of being grossly
rude. However, seeing that he noticed nothing personally wrong in
her, and that he too was embarrassed when she attentively watched
his cup to refill it, Elfride became better at ease; and when
furthermore he accidentally kicked the leg of the table, and then
nearly upset his tea-cup, just as schoolboys did, she felt herself
mistress of the situation, and could talk very well. In a few
minutes ingenuousness and a common term of years obliterated all
recollection that they were strangers just met. Stephen began to
wax eloquent on extremely slight experiences connected with his
professional pursuits; and she, having no experiences to fall back
upon, recounted with much animation stories that had been related
to her by her father, which would have astonished him had he heard
with what fidelity of action and tone they were rendered. Upon
the whole, a very interesting picture of Sweet-and-Twenty was on
view that evening in Mr. Swancourt's house.

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