A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy

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'Then why did you let him kiss you?'

'It is a falsehood; oh, it is, it is!' said Elfride, weeping with
desperation. 'He came behind me, and attempted to kiss me; and
that was why I told him never to let me see him again.'

'But you did not tell your father or anybody, as you would have if
you had looked upon it then as the insult you now pretend it was.'

'He begged me not to tell, and foolishly enough I did not. And I
wish I had now. I little expected to be scourged with my own
kindness. Pray leave me, Mrs. Jethway.' The girl only
expostulated now.

'Well, you harshly dismissed him, and he died. And before his
body was cold, you took another to your heart. Then as carelessly
sent him about his business, and took a third. And if you
consider that nothing, Miss Swancourt,' she continued, drawing
closer; 'it led on to what was very serious indeed. Have you
forgotten the would-be runaway marriage? The journey to London,
and the return the next day without being married, and that
there's enough disgrace in that to ruin a woman's good name far
less light than yours? You may have: I have not. Fickleness
towards a lover is bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is
wantonness.'

'Oh, it's a wicked cruel lie! Do not say it; oh, do not! '

'Does your new man know of it? I think not, or he would be no man
of yours! As much of the story as was known is creeping about the
neighbourhood even now; but I know more than any of them, and why
should I respect your love?'

'I defy you!' cried Elfride tempestuously. 'Do and say all you
can to ruin me; try; put your tongue at work; I invite it! I defy
you as a slanderous woman! Look, there he comes.' And her voice
trembled greatly as she saw through the leaves the beloved form of
Knight coming from the door with her hat in his hand. 'Tell him
at once; I can bear it.'

'Not now,' said the woman, and disappeared down the path.

The excitement of her latter words had restored colour to
Elfride's cheeks; and hastily wiping her eyes, she walked farther
on, so that by the time her lover had overtaken her the traces of
emotion had nearly disappeared from her face. Knight put the hat
upon her head, took her hand, and drew it within his arm.

It was the last day but one previous to their departure for St.
Leonards; and Knight seemed to have a purpose in being much in her
company that day. They rambled along the valley. The season was
that period in the autumn when the foliage alone of an ordinary
plantation is rich enough in hues to exhaust the chromatic
combinations of an artist's palette. Most lustrous of all are the
beeches, graduating from bright rusty red at the extremity of the
boughs to a bright yellow at their inner parts; young oaks are
still of a neutral green; Scotch firs and hollies are nearly blue;
whilst occasional dottings of other varieties give maroons and
purples of every tinge.

The river--such as it was--here pursued its course amid flagstones
as level as a pavement, but divided by crevices of irregular
width. With the summer drought the torrent had narrowed till it
was now but a thread of crystal clearness, meandering along a
central channel in the rocky bed of the winter current. Knight
scrambled through the bushes which at this point nearly covered
the brook from sight, and leapt down upon the dry portion of the
river bottom.

'Elfride, I never saw such a sight!' he exclaimed. 'The hazels
overhang the river's course in a perfect arch, and the floor is
beautifully paved. The place reminds one of the passages of a
cloister. Let me help you down.'

He assisted her through the marginal underwood and down to the
stones. They walked on together to a tiny cascade about a foot
wide and high, and sat down beside it on the flags that for nine
months in the year were submerged beneath a gushing bourne. From
their feet trickled the attenuated thread of water which alone
remained to tell the intent and reason of this leaf-covered aisle,
and journeyed on in a zigzag line till lost in the shade.

Knight, leaning on his elbow, after contemplating all this, looked
critically at Elfride.

'Does not such a luxuriant head of hair exhaust itself and get
thin as the years go on from eighteen to eight-and-twenty?' he
asked at length.

'Oh no!' she said quickly, with a visible disinclination to
harbour such a thought, which came upon her with an unpleasantness
whose force it would be difficult for men to understand. She
added afterwards, with smouldering uneasiness, 'Do you really
think that a great abundance of hair is more likely to get thin
than a moderate quantity?'

'Yes, I really do. I believe--am almost sure, in fact--that if
statistics could be obtained on the subject, you would find the
persons with thin hair were those who had a superabundance
originally, and that those who start with a moderate quantity
retain it without much loss.'

Elfride's troubles sat upon her face as well as in her heart.
Perhaps to a woman it is almost as dreadful to think of losing her
beauty as of losing her reputation. At any rate, she looked quite
as gloomy as she had looked at any minute that day.

'You shouldn't be so troubled about a mere personal adornment,'
said Knight, with some of the severity of tone that had been
customary before she had beguiled him into softness.

'I think it is a woman's duty to be as beautiful as she can. If I
were a scholar, I would give you chapter and verse for it from one
of your own Latin authors. I know there is such a passage, for
papa has alluded to it.'

"'Munditiae, et ornatus, et cultus," &c.--is that it? A passage in
Livy which is no defence at all.'

'No, it is not that.'

'Never mind, then; for I have a reason for not taking up my old
cudgels against you, Elfie. Can you guess what the reason is?'

'No; but I am glad to hear it,' she said thankfully. 'For it is
dreadful when you talk so. For whatever dreadful name the
weakness may deserve, I must candidly own that I am terrified to
think my hair may ever get thin.'

'Of course; a sensible woman would rather lose her wits than her
beauty.'

'I don't care if you do say satire and judge me cruelly. I know
my hair is beautiful; everybody says so.'

'Why, my dear Miss Swancourt,' he tenderly replied, 'I have not
said anything against it. But you know what is said about
handsome being and handsome doing.'

'Poor Miss Handsome-does cuts but a sorry figure beside Miss
Handsome-is in every man's eyes, your own not excepted, Mr.
Knight, though it pleases you to throw off so,' said Elfride
saucily. And lowering her voice: 'You ought not to have taken so
much trouble to save me from falling over the cliff, for you don't
think mine a life worth much trouble evidently.'

'Perhaps you think mine was not worth yours.'

'It was worth anybody's!'

Her hand was plashing in the little waterfall, and her eyes were
bent the same way.

'You talk about my severity with you, Elfride. You are unkind to
me, you know.'

'How?' she asked, looking up from her idle occupation.

'After my taking trouble to get jewellery to please you, you
wouldn't accept it.'

'Perhaps I would now; perhaps I want to.'

'Do!' said Knight.

And the packet was withdrawn from his pocket and presented the
third time. Elfride took it with delight. The obstacle was rent
in twain, and the significant gift was hers.

'I'll take out these ugly ones at once,' she exclaimed, 'and I'll
wear yours--shall I?'

'I should be gratified.'

Now, though it may seem unlikely, considering how far the two had
gone in converse, Knight had never yet ventured to kiss Elfride.
Far slower was he than Stephen Smith in matters like that. The
utmost advance he had made in such demonstrations had been to the
degree witnessed by Stephen in the summer-house. So Elfride's
cheek being still forbidden fruit to him, he said impulsively.

'Elfie, I should like to touch that seductive ear of yours. Those
are my gifts; so let me dress you in them.'

She hesitated with a stimulating hesitation.

'Let me put just one in its place, then?'

Her face grew much warmer.

'I don't think it would be quite the usual or proper course,' she
said, suddenly turning and resuming her operation of plashing in
the miniature cataract.

The stillness of things was disturbed by a bird coming to the
streamlet to drink. After watching him dip his bill, sprinkle
himself, and fly into a tree, Knight replied, with the courteous
brusqueness she so much liked to hear--

'Elfride, now you may as well be fair. You would mind my doing it
but little, I think; so give me leave, do.'

'I will be fair, then,' she said confidingly, and looking him full
in the face. It was a particular pleasure to her to be able to do
a little honesty without fear. 'I should not mind your doing so--
I should like such an attention. My thought was, would it be
right to let you?'

'Then I will!' he rejoined, with that singular earnestness about a
small matter--in the eyes of a ladies' man but a momentary peg for
flirtation or jest--which is only found in deep natures who have
been wholly unused to toying with womankind, and which, from its
unwontedness, is in itself a tribute the most precious that can be
rendered, and homage the most exquisite to be received.

'And you shall,' she whispered, without reserve, and no longer
mistress of the ceremonies. And then Elfride inclined herself
towards him, thrust back her hair, and poised her head sideways.
In doing this her arm and shoulder necessarily rested against his
breast.

At the touch, the sensation of both seemed to be concentrated at
the point of contact. All the time he was performing the delicate
manoeuvre Knight trembled like a young surgeon in his first
operation.

'Now the other,' said Knight in a whisper.

'No, no.'

'Why not?'

'I don't know exactly.'

'You must know.'

'Your touch agitates me so. Let us go home.'

'Don't say that, Elfride. What is it, after all? A mere nothing.
Now turn round, dearest.'

She was powerless to disobey, and turned forthwith; and then,
without any defined intention in either's mind, his face and hers
drew closer together; and he supported her there, and kissed her.

Knight was at once the most ardent and the coolest man alive.
When his emotions slumbered he appeared almost phlegmatic; when
they were moved he was no less than passionate. And now, without
having quite intended an early marriage, he put the question
plainly. It came with all the ardour which was the accumulation
of long years behind a natural reserve.

'Elfride, when shall we be married?'

The words were sweet to her; but there was a bitter in the sweet.
These newly-overt acts of his, which had culminated in this plain
question, coming on the very day of Mrs. Jethway's blasting
reproaches, painted distinctly her fickleness as an enormity.
Loving him in secret had not seemed such thorough-going
inconstancy as the same love recognized and acted upon in the face
of threats. Her distraction was interpreted by him at her side as
the outward signs of an unwonted experience.

'I don't press you for an answer now, darling,' he said, seeing
she was not likely to give a lucid reply. 'Take your time.'

Knight was as honourable a man as was ever loved and deluded by
woman. It may be said that his blindness in love proved the
point, for shrewdness in love usually goes with meanness in
general. Once the passion had mastered him, the intellect had
gone for naught. Knight, as a lover, was more single-minded and
far simpler than his friend Stephen, who in other capacities was
shallow beside him.

Without saying more on the subject of their marriage, Knight held
her at arm's length, as if she had been a large bouquet, and
looked at her with critical affection.

'Does your pretty gift become me?' she inquired, with tears of
excitement on the fringes of her eyes.

'Undoubtedly, perfectly!' said her lover, adopting a lighter tone
to put her at her ease. 'Ah, you should see them; you look
shinier than ever. Fancy that I have been able to improve you!'

'Am I really so nice? I am glad for your sake. I wish I could see
myself.'

'You can't. You must wait till we get home.'

'I shall never be able,' she said, laughing. 'Look: here's a
way.'

'So there is. Well done, woman's wit!'

'Hold me steady!'

'Oh yes.'

'And don't let me fall, will you?'

'By no means.'

Below their seat the thread of water paused to spread out into a
smooth small pool. Knight supported her whilst she knelt down and
leant over it.

'I can see myself. Really, try as religiously as I will, I cannot
help admiring my appearance in them.'

'Doubtless. How can you be so fond of finery? I believe you are
corrupting me into a taste for it. I used to hate every such
thing before I knew you.'

'I like ornaments, because I want people to admire what you
possess, and envy you, and say, "I wish I was he." '

'I suppose I ought not to object after that. And how much longer
are you going to look in there at yourself?'

'Until you are tired of holding me? Oh, I want to ask you
something.' And she turned round. 'Now tell truly, won't you?
What colour of hair do you like best now?'

Knight did not answer at the moment.

'Say light, do!' she whispered coaxingly. 'Don't say dark, as you
did that time.'

'Light-brown, then. Exactly the colour of my sweetheart's.'

'Really?' said Elfride, enjoying as truth what she knew to be
flattery.

'Yes.'

'And blue eyes, too, not hazel? Say yes, say yes!'

'One recantation is enough for to-day.'

'No, no.'

'Very well, blue eyes.' And Knight laughed, and drew her close and
kissed her the second time, which operations he performed with the
carefulness of a fruiterer touching a bunch of grapes so as not to
disturb their bloom.

Elfride objected to a second, and flung away her face, the
movement causing a slight disarrangement of hat and hair. Hardly
thinking what she said in the trepidation of the moment, she
exclaimed, clapping her hand to her ear--

'Ah, we must be careful! I lost the other earring doing like
this.'

No sooner did she realise the significant words than a troubled
look passed across her face, and she shut her lips as if to keep
them back.

'Doing like what?' said Knight, perplexed.

'Oh, sitting down out of doors,' she replied hastily.

Chapter XXIX

'Care, thou canker.'

It is an evening at the beginning of October, and the mellowest of
autumn sunsets irradiates London, even to its uttermost eastern
end. Between the eye and the flaming West, columns of smoke stand
up in the still air like tall trees. Everything in the shade is
rich and misty blue.

Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt and Elfride are looking at these lustrous
and lurid contrasts from the window of a large hotel near London
Bridge. The visit to their friends at St. Leonards is over, and
they are staying a day or two in the metropolis on their way home.

Knight spent the same interval of time in crossing over to
Brittany by way of Jersey and St. Malo. He then passed through
Normandy, and returned to London also, his arrival there having
been two days later than that of Elfride and her parents.

So the evening of this October day saw them all meeting at the
above-mentioned hotel, where they had previously engaged
apartments. During the afternoon Knight had been to his lodgings
at Richmond to make a little change in the nature of his baggage;
and on coming up again there was never ushered by a bland waiter
into a comfortable room a happier man than Knight when shown to
where Elfride and her step-mother were sitting after a fatiguing
day of shopping.

Elfride looked none the better for her change: Knight was as brown
as a nut. They were soon engaged by themselves in a corner of the
room. Now that the precious words of promise had been spoken, the
young girl had no idea of keeping up her price by the system of
reserve which other more accomplished maidens use. Her lover was
with her again, and it was enough: she made her heart over to him
entirely.

Dinner was soon despatched. And when a preliminary round of
conversation concerning their doings since the last parting had
been concluded, they reverted to the subject of to-morrow's
journey home.

'That enervating ride through the myrtle climate of South Devon--
how I dread it to-morrow!' Mrs. Swancourt was saying. 'I had
hoped the weather would have been cooler by this time.'

'Did you ever go by water?' said Knight.

'Never--by never, I mean not since the time of railways.'

'Then if you can afford an additional day, I propose that we do
it,' said Knight. 'The Channel is like a lake just now. We
should reach Plymouth in about forty hours, I think, and the boats
start from just below the bridge here' (pointing over his shoulder
eastward).

'Hear, hear!' said the vicar.

'It's an idea, certainly,' said his wife.

'Of course these coasters are rather tubby,' said Knight. 'But
you wouldn't mind that?'

'No: we wouldn't mind.'

'And the saloon is a place like the fishmarket of a ninth-rate
country town, but that wouldn't matter?'

'Oh dear, no. If we had only thought of it soon enough, we might
have had the use of Lord Luxellian's yacht. But never mind, we'll
go. We shall escape the worrying rattle through the whole length
of London to-morrow morning--not to mention the risk of being
killed by excursion trains, which is not a little one at this time
of the year, if the papers are true.'

Elfride, too, thought the arrangement delightful; and accordingly,
ten o'clock the following morning saw two cabs crawling round by
the Mint, and between the preternaturally high walls of
Nightingale Lane towards the river side.

The first vehicle was occupied by the travellers in person, and
the second brought up the luggage, under the supervision of Mrs.
Snewson, Mrs. Swancourt's maid--and for the last fortnight
Elfride's also; for although the younger lady had never been
accustomed to any such attendant at robing times, her stepmother
forced her into a semblance of familiarity with one when they were
away from home.

Presently waggons, bales, and smells of all descriptions increased
to such an extent that the advance of the cabs was at the slowest
possible rate. At intervals it was necessary to halt entirely,
that the heavy vehicles unloading in front might be moved aside, a
feat which was not accomplished without a deal of swearing and
noise. The vicar put his head out of the window.

'Surely there must be some mistake in the way,' he said with great
concern, drawing in his head again. 'There's not a respectable
conveyance to be seen here except ours. I've heard that there are
strange dens in this part of London, into which people have been
entrapped and murdered--surely there is no conspiracy on the part
of the cabman?'

'Oh no, no. It is all right,' said Mr. Knight, who was as placid
as dewy eve by the side of Elfride.

'But what I argue from,' said the vicar, with a greater emphasis
of uneasiness, 'are plain appearances. This can't be the highway
from London to Plymouth by water, because it is no way at all to
any place. We shall miss our steamer and our train too--that's
what I think.'

'Depend upon it we are right. In fact, here we are.'

'Trimmer's Wharf,' said the cabman, opening the door.

No sooner had they alighted than they perceived a tussle going on
between the hindmost cabman and a crowd of light porters who had
charged him in column, to obtain possession of the bags and boxes,
Mrs. Snewson's hands being seen stretched towards heaven in the
midst of the melee. Knight advanced gallantly, and after a hard
struggle reduced the crowd to two, upon whose shoulders and trucks
the goods vanished away in the direction of the water's edge with
startling rapidity.

Then more of the same tribe, who had run on ahead, were heard
shouting to boatmen, three of whom pulled alongside, and two being
vanquished, the luggage went tumbling into the remaining one.

'Never saw such a dreadful scene in my life--never!' said Mr.
Swancourt, floundering into the boat. 'Worse than Famine and
Sword upon one. I thought such customs were confined to
continental ports. Aren't you astonished, Elfride?'

'Oh no,' said Elfride, appearing amid the dingy scene like a
rainbow in a murky sky. 'It is a pleasant novelty, I think.'

'Where in the wide ocean is our steamer?' the vicar inquired. 'I
can see nothing but old hulks, for the life of me.'

'Just behind that one,' said Knight; 'we shall soon be round under
her.'

The object of their search was soon after disclosed to view--a
great lumbering form of inky blackness, which looked as if it had
never known the touch of a paint-brush for fifty years. It was
lying beside just such another, and the way on board was down a
narrow lane of water between the two, about a yard and a half wide
at one end, and gradually converging to a point. At the moment of
their entry into this narrow passage, a brilliantly painted rival
paddled down the river like a trotting steed, creating such a
series of waves and splashes that their frail wherry was tossed
like a teacup, and the vicar and his wife slanted this way and
that, inclining their heads into contact with a Punch-and-Judy air
and countenance, the wavelets striking the sides of the two hulls,
and flapping back into their laps.

'Dreadful! horrible!' Mr. Swancourt murmured privately; and said
aloud, I thought we walked on board. I don't think really I
should have come, if I had known this trouble was attached to it.'

'If they must splash, I wish they would splash us with clean
water,' said the old lady, wiping her dress with her handkerchief.

'I hope it is perfectly safe,' continued the vicar.

'O papa! you are not very brave,' cried Elfride merrily.

'Bravery is only obtuseness to the perception of contingencies,'
Mr. Swancourt severely answered.

Mrs. Swancourt laughed, and Elfride laughed, and Knight laughed,
in the midst of which pleasantness a man shouted to them from some
position between their heads and the sky, and they found they were
close to the Juliet, into which they quiveringly ascended.

It having been found that the lowness of the tide would prevent
their getting off for an hour, the Swancourts, having nothing else
to do, allowed their eyes to idle upon men in blue jerseys
performing mysterious mending operations with tar-twine; they
turned to look at the dashes of lurid sunlight, like burnished
copper stars afloat on the ripples, which danced into and
tantalized their vision; or listened to the loud music of a steam-
crane at work close by; or to sighing sounds from the funnels of
passing steamers, getting dead as they grew more distant; or to
shouts from the decks of different craft in their vicinity, all of
them assuming the form of 'Ah-he-hay!'

Half-past ten: not yet off. Mr. Swancourt breathed a breath of
weariness, and looked at his fellow-travellers in general. Their
faces were certainly not worth looking at. The expression
'Waiting' was written upon them so absolutely that nothing more
could be discerned there. All animation was suspended till
Providence should raise the water and let them go.

'I have been thinking,' said Knight, 'that we have come amongst
the rarest class of people in the kingdom. Of all human
characteristics, a low opinion of the value of his own time by an
individual must be among the strangest to find. Here we see
numbers of that patient and happy species. Rovers, as distinct
from travellers.'

'But they are pleasure-seekers, to whom time is of no importance.'

'Oh no. The pleasure-seekers we meet on the grand routes are more
anxious than commercial travellers to rush on. And added to the
loss of time in getting to their journey's end, these exceptional
people take their chance of sea-sickness by coming this way.'

'Can it be?' inquired the vicar with apprehension. 'Surely not,
Mr. Knight, just here in our English Channel--close at our doors,
as I may say.'

'Entrance passages are very draughty places, and the Channel is
like the rest. It ruins the temper of sailors. It has been
calculated by philosophers that more damns go up to heaven from
the Channel, in the course of a year, than from all the five
oceans put together.'

They really start now, and the dead looks of all the throng come
to life immediately. The man who has been frantically hauling in
a rope that bade fair to have no end ceases his labours, and they
glide down the serpentine bends of the Thames.

Anything anywhere was a mine of interest to Elfride, and so was
this.

'It is well enough now,' said Mrs. Swancourt, after they had
passed the Nore, 'but I can't say I have cared for my voyage
hitherto.' For being now in the open sea a slight breeze had
sprung up, which cheered her as well as her two younger
companions. But unfortunately it had a reverse effect upon the
vicar, who, after turning a sort of apricot jam colour,
interspersed with dashes of raspberry, pleaded indisposition, and
vanished from their sight.

The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Swancourt kindly sat apart by herself
reading, and the betrothed pair were left to themselves. Elfride
clung trustingly to Knight's arm, and proud was she to walk with
him up and down the deck, or to go forward, and leaning with him
against the forecastle rails, watch the setting sun gradually
withdrawing itself over their stern into a huge bank of livid
cloud with golden edges that rose to meet it.

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