 17 Her welcome spoke in faltering phrase. There is Henry Knight, I did layer, said Mrs Swancourt one day. They were gazing from the jutting angle of a wild enclosure not far from the crags, which almost overhung the valley already described as leading up from the sea and little port of Castle Bottle. The stony escarpment upon which they stood had the contour of a man's face, and it was covered with furs as with a beard. People in the field above were preserved from an accidental roll down these prominences and hollows by a hedge on the very crest, which was doing that kindly service for Elfride and her mother now. Scrambling higher into the hedge and stretching her neck further over the furs, Elfride beheld the individual signified. He was walking leisurely along the little green path at the bottom beside the stream, a satchel slung upon his left hip, a stout walking stick in his hand, and a brown, holland stone hat upon his head. The satchel was worn and old, and the outer polished surface of the letter was cracked and peeling off. Knight, having arrived over the hills to Castle Bottle upon the top of a crazy omnibus, preferred to walk the remaining two miles up the valley, leaving his luggage to be brought on. Behind him wandered Helter Skelter, a boy of whom Knight had briefly inquired the way to Endrelstow, and by that natural law of physics which causes lesser bodies to gravitate towards the greater, this boy had kept near to Knight, and trotted like a little dog close at his heels, whistling as he went, with his eyes fixed upon Knight's boots as they rose and fell. When they had reached a point precisely opposite that in which Mrs. and Miss Swancourt lay in ambush, Knight stopped and turned around. Look here, my boy, he said. The boy parted his lips, opened his eyes, and answered nothing. Here's sixpence for you on condition that you don't come again within twenty yards of my heels all the way up the valley. The boy, who apparently had not known he had been looking at Knight's heels at all, took the sixpence mechanically, and Knight went on again, wrapped in meditation. A nice voice, Elfride thought, but what a singular temper. Now, we must get indoors before he ascends the slope, said Mrs. Swancourt softly, and they went across by a shortcut over a style, entering the lawn by a side door, and so on to the house. Mr. Swancourt had gone to the village with the cure, and Elfride felt too nervous to await their visitor's arrival in the drawing room with Mrs. Swancourt, so that when the elderly lady entered, Elfride made some pretense of perceiving a new variety of crimson geranium, and lingered behind among the flower beds. There was nothing to be gained by this, after all she thought, and a few minutes after a boldly came into the house by the glass side door. She walked along the corridor and entered the drawing room. Nobody was there. A window at the angle of the room opened directly into an octagonal conservatory, enclosing the corner of the building. From the conservatory came voices and conversation, Mrs. Swancourt's and the strangers. She had expected them to talk brilliantly. To her surprise, he was asking questions in quite a learner's manner, on subjects connected with the flowers and shrubs that she had known for many years. When, after a lapse of a few minutes, he spoke at some length, she considered there was a hard, square decisiveness in the shape of his sentences, as if, unlike her own and Stephen's, they were not there and then newly constructed, but were drawn forth from a large store already made. They were now approaching the window to come in again. That is a flesh-colored variety, said Mrs. Swancourt, but all the anders, though they are such bulky shrubs, are so very easily wounded as to be unpronable, giants with the sensitiveness of young ladies. Oh, here is Elfride. Elfride looked as guilty and crestfallen as Lady Teasel at the dropping of the screen. Mrs. Swancourt presented him half comically and knight in a minute or two placed himself beside the young lady. A complexity of instincts checked Elfride's conventional smiles of complacence and hospitality, and, to make her still less comfortable, Mrs. Swancourt immediately afterwards left them together to seek her husband. Mr. Knight, however, did not seem at all incomodal by his feelings, and he said with light easfulness, So, Mrs. Swancourt, I have met you at last. You escaped me by a few minutes only when we were in London. Yes, I found you had seen Mrs. Swancourt. And now, reviewer and reviewed our face-to-face, he added unconcernedly. Yes, though the fact of your being a relation to Mrs. Swancourt takes off the edge of it. It was strange that you should be one of her family all the time. Elfride began to recover herself now, and to look into Knight's face. I was merely anxious to let you know my real meaning in writing the book, extremely anxious. I can quite understand the wish, and I was gratified that my remarks should have reached home. They very seldom do, I'm afraid. Elfride drew herself in. Here he was, sticking to his opinions, as firmly as if friendship and politeness did not in the least require an immediate renunciation of them. You made me very uneasy and sorry in writing such things, she murmured, suddenly dropping the mere cacketry of fashionable first introduction and speaking with some of the dungeon of a child towards a severe schoolmaster. That is rather the object of honest critics in such a case, not to cause unnecessary sorrow, but to make you sorry after a proper manner that you may receive damage by us in nothing, as a powerful pen once wrote to the Gentiles. Now you're going to write another romance. Write another, she said, that somebody may pen a condemnation and nail it with scripture again, as you do now, Mr Knight. You may do better next time, he said placidly. I think you will, but I would advise you to confine yourself to domestic stains. Thank you, but never again. Well, you may be right, that a young woman has taken to writing is not, by any means, the best thing to hear about her. What is the best? I'd prefer not to say. Do you know? Then do tell me, please. Well, Knight was evidently changing his meaning. I suppose to hear that she has married, as Frida hesitated. And what when she has been married, she said at last, partly in order to withdraw her own person from the argument. Then, to hear no more about her, it is as Smeaton said of his lighthouse, her greatest real praise when the novelty of her inauguration has worn off, is that nothing happens to keep the talk of her alive. Yes, I see, said Elfride softly and thoughtfully, but, of course, it is quite different with men. Why don't you write novels, Mr Knight? Because I couldn't write one that would interest anybody. Why? For several reasons, it requires a judicious admission of your real thoughts to make a novel popular for one thing. Is that really necessary? Well, I am sure you could learn to do that with practice, said Elfride, with an ex-cathedra heir, as became a person who spoke from experience in the art. You would make a great name for certain, she continued. So many people make a name nowadays, that it is more distinguished to remain in obscurity. Tell me seriously, apart from the subject, why don't you write a volume, instead of loose articles, she insisted? Since you are pleased to make me talk of myself, I will tell you seriously, said Knight, not less amused at this catechism by his young friend than he was interested in her appearance. As I have implied, I have not the wish, and if I had the wish, I could not now concentrate sufficiently. We all have only our one cruise of energy given us to make the best of. And where that energy has been leaked away week by week, quarter by quarter, as mine has for the last nine or ten years, there is not enough damned back behind the mill at any given period to supply the force a complete book on any subject requires. Then there is the self confidence and waiting power, where quick results have grown customary they are fateful to a lively fate in the future. Yes, I comprehend, so you choose to write in fragments. No, I don't choose to do it in the sense you mean, choosing from a whole world of professions all possible. It was by the constraint of accident merely, not that I object to the accident. Why don't you object? I mean, why do you feel so quiet about things? Alfred was half afraid to question so, but her intense curiosity to see what the inside of literary Mr Knight was like kept her going on. Knight certainly did not mind being frank with her. Instances of this straightened man who are not without feeling, but are reticent from habit, may be recalled by all of us. When they find a listener who can by no possibility make use of them, rival them, or condemn them, reserved and even suspicious men of the world become frank, keenly enjoying the inner side of their frankness. Why I don't mind the accidental constraint, he replied, is because in making beginnings a chance limitation of direction is often better than absolute freedom. I see, that is, I should, if I quite understood what all those generalities mean. Why this, that an arbitrary foundation of one's work, which no length of thought can alter, leaves the attention free to fix itself on the work itself and make the best of it. Lateral compression forcing altitude, as would be said in that case, leaves the altitude, as would be said in that tongue, she said mischievously. And I suppose for no limit exist, as in the case of a rich man with a wide taste who wants to do something, it will be better to choose a limit capriciously than to have none. Yes, he said, meditatively, I can go as far as that. Well, resumed Elfride, I think it better for a man's nature if he does nothing in particular. There is such a case as being obliged to. Yes, yes, I was speaking of when you were not obliged to for any other reason than delight and the prospect of fame. I have taught many times lately that a thin, widespread happiness, commencing now and of a peace with the days of your life, is preferable to an anticipated heap far away in the future and none now. Why, that's the very thing I said just now as being the principle of all ephemeral doers like myself. Oh, I am sorry to have parroted you, she said with some confusion. Yes, of course. That is what you meant about not trying to be famous. And she added with the quickness of conviction, characteristic of her mind, that there is much littleness in trying to be great. A man must think a good deal of himself and be conceited enough to believe in himself before he tries at all. But it is soon enough to say there is harm in a man thinking a good deal of himself when it is proved he has been thinking wrong, and too soon then sometimes. Besides, we should not conclude that a man who strives earnestly for success does so with a strong sense of his own merit. He may see how little success has to do with merit, and his motive may be his very humility. This manner of treating her rather provoked Alfreda. No sooner did she agree with him than he ceased to seem to wish it and took the other side. Ah, she thought inwardly. I shall have nothing to do with a man of this kind, though he is our visitor. I think you will find, Resume Knight, pursuing the conversation more for the sake of finishing off his thoughts on the subject than for engaging her attention, that in actual life it is merely a matter of instinct with men, this trying to push on. They awake to a recognition that they have, without premeditation, begun to try a little, and they say to themselves, since I have tried thus much, I will try a little more. They go on because they have begun. Alfreda, in her turn, was not particularly attending to his words at this moment. She had unconsciously to herself a way of seizing any point in the remarks of an interlocutor, which interested her, and dwelling upon it, and thinking thoughts of her own thereupon, totally oblivious of all that he might say in continuation. On such occasions she artlessly surveyed the person speaking, and then there was a time for a painter. Her eyes seemed to look at you, and past you, as you were then into your future, and past your future into your eternity, not reading it, but gazing in an unused, unconscious way, her mind still clean to its original thought. This is how she was looking at night. Suddenly Alfreda became conscious of what she was doing, and was painfully confused. What are you so intent upon in me? he inquired. As far as I was thinking of you at all, I was thinking how clever you are, she said, with a want of premeditation that was startling in its honesty and simplicity. Feeling restless now that she had so unwittingly spoken, she rose and stepped to the window, having heard the voices of her father and Mrs. Swancourt coming up below the terrace. Here they are, she said, going out. Night walked up upon the lawn behind her. She stood upon the edge of the terrace, close to the stone balustrade, and looked towards the sun, hanging over a glade just now fair as tempest veil, up which her father was walking. Night could not help looking at her. The sun was within ten degrees of the horizon, and its warm light flooded her face and heightened the bright rose colour of her cheeks to her vermilion red, their moderate pink hue being only seen in its natural tone, where the cheek curved round into shadow. The ends of her hanging hair softly dragged themselves backwards and forwards upon her shoulder as each faint breeze thrust against or relinquished it. Fringes and ribbons of her dress moved by the same breeze, licked like tongues upon the parts around them, and fluttering forward from shady folds caught likewise their share of the lustrous orange glow. Mr. Swancourt shouted out a welcome to night from the distance of about thirty yards, and after a few preliminary words proceeded to a conversation of deep earnestness on night's fine old family name and theories as to lineage and intermarriage connected therewith. Night's portmanteau having in the meantime arrived, they soon retired to prepare for dinner, which had been postponed two hours later than the usual time of that meal. Arrival was an event in the life of Elfride now that they were again in the country, and that of night necessarily an engrossing one, and that evening she went to bed for the first time without thinking of Stephen at all. End of Chapter 17 A Pair of Blue Eyes Chapter 18 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tyge Hines A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy Chapter 18 He Heard Her Musical Pants The old tower of West Endelsoe Church had reached the last weeks of its existence. It was to be replaced by a new one from the designs of Mr. Hubie, the architect who had sent down Stephen. Planks and poles had arrived in the churchyard. Iron bars had been thrust into the venerable crack, extending down the bell-free wall to the foundation. The bells had been taken down, the owls had forsaken this home with our forefathers, and six iconic clasts in white fustian, to whom a cracked edifice was the species of mumbo jumbo had taken lodgings in the village previous to beginning the actual removal of the stones. It was a day after night's arrival. To enjoy for the last time the prospect seawood from the summit, the vicar, Mrs. Swancourt, Knight and Elphida all ascended the winding turret. Mr. Swancourt, stepping forward with many loud breaths, his wife struggling along silently, but suffering nonetheless. They had hardly reached the top on a large, loaded cloud. Probably a reservoir of rain, thunder and lightning was seen to be advancing overhead from the north. The two cautious elders suggested an immediate return and proceeded to put it in practice as regarded themselves. Do me, I wish I had not come up, exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt. We shall be slower than you two in going down, the vicar said over his shoulder, and so don't you start till we're nearly at the bottom, or you will run over us and break our necks somewhere in the darkness of the turret. Accordingly Elphida and Knight waited on the leads until the staircase shall be clear. Knight was not in a talkative mood that morning. Elphida was rather willful by reason of his inattention, which she privately set down to his thinking or not worth talking to. Whilst Knight stood watching the rise of the cloud, she sauntered to the other side of the tower, and there remembered a giddy feet she had performed the year before. It was to walk round the top of the parapet of the tower, which was quite without battlement or pinnacle, and presented a smooth flat surface about two feet wide, forming a pathway on all four sides. Without reflecting in the least upon what she was doing, she now stepped upon the parapet in the old way and began walking along. We are down, cousin Henry, cried Mrs. Swancourt up the turret. Follow us when you like. Knight turned and saw Elphida beginning her elevated promenade. His face flushed with mingled concern and anger at her rashness. I certainly gave you more credit for common sense, he said. She readened a little and walked on. Mrs. Swancourt, I insist upon your coming down, he exclaimed. I will in a minute. I am quite safe enough I have done it often. At that moment, by reason of a slight perturbation his words had caused in her, Elphida's foot caught itself in a little tuft of grass growing in a joint of the stonework, and she almost lost her balance. Knight sprang forward with a face of horror. By what seemed a special interposition of a considerate providence, she tottered into the inner edge of the parapet instead of the outer, and reeled over upon the lead roof two or three feet below the wall. Knight seized her as in a vice, and he said, panting, that I ever should have met a woman fool enough to do a thing of that kind. Good God, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. The close proximity of the shadow of death had made her sick and pale as a corpse before he spoke, already lower to that state his words completely overpowered her, and she swooned away as he held her. Elphida's eyes were not closed more than forty seconds. She opened them, and remembered the position instantly. His face had altered its expression from stern anger to pity, but his severe remarks had rather frightened her, and she struggled to be free. If you can stand, of course you may, he said, and loosened his arms. I hardly know whether most to laugh at your freak or to chide you for its folly. She immediately sank upon the leadwork. Knight lifted her again. Are you hurt? he said. She murmured an incoherent expression, and tried to smile, saying with a fitful aversion of her face, I am only frightened. Put me down. Do put me down. But you can't walk, said Knight. You don't know that. How can you? I am only frightened, I tell you. She answered, petulantly, and raised her hand to her forehead. Knight then saw that she was bleeding from the severe cut in her wrist, apparently where it had descended upon a salient corner of the leadwork. Elphida too seemed to perceive and feel this now for the first time, and for a minute nearly lost consciousness again. Knight rapidly bound his handkerchief round the place, and to add to the complication, the thunder cloud he had been watching began to shed some heavy drops of rain. Knight looked up and saw the vicar striding towards the house, and Mrs. Onecourt waddling beside him like a hard-driven duck. As you were so faint, it would be much better to let me carry you down, said Knight, or at any rate inside out of the rain. But her objection to be lifted made it impossible for him to support her for more than five steps. This is folly, great folly, he exclaimed, setting her down. Indeed, she murmured with tears in her eyes, I say I will not be carried, and you say this is folly. So it is. No it isn't. It is folly, I think, at any rate the origin of it all is. I don't agree to it, and you needn't get so angry with me, I am not worth it. Indeed you are, you are worth the enmity of princes, as was said of such another. Now then, when you clasp your hands behind my neck, that I may carry you down without hurting you. No, no. You had better or I shall foreclose. What's that? Deprive you of your chance. Elfride gave a little toss. Now don't ride so when I attempt to carry you. I can't help it. Then submit quietly. I don't care, I don't care, she murmured in languid tones and with closed eyes. He took her into his arms, entered the turret, and with slow and cautious steps, descended round and round. Then, with the gentleness of a nursing mother, he attended to the cut on her arm. During this progress through the operations of wiping it and binding it up anew, her face changed its aspect, from pain and difference to something like bashful interest, interspersed with small tremors and shudders of a trifling kind. In the centre of each pale cheek, a small red spot the size of a wafer had now made its appearance and continued to grow larger. Elfride momentarily expected a recurrence to the lecture on her foolishness, but Knight said no more than this. Promise me never to walk on that parapet again. It will be pulled down soon, so I do. In a few minutes she continued in a lower tone, and seriously. You are familiar, of course, as everybody is with those strange sensations we sometimes have, that our life for the moment exists in duplicate. That we have lived through that moment before. Or shall again? Well, I felt it on the tower that something similar to that scene is again to be common to both of us. God forbid, said Knight, promise me that you will never again walk on any such place on any consideration. I do. That such a thing has not been before we know, that it shall not be again, you vow, therefore think no more of such foolish fancy. There had fallen a great deal of rain, but unaccompanied by lightning. A few minutes longer and the storm had ceased. Now, take my arm, please. Oh, no, it is not necessary. This relapse into willfulness was because he had again connected the epithet foolish with her. Nonsense, it is quite necessary. It will rain again directly, and you are not half recovered. And without more to do, Knight took her hand, drew it under his arm, and held it there so firmly that she could not have removed it without a struggle. Feeling like a colt in a halter for the first time, and thus being led along, yet afraid to be angry, it was to her great relief that she saw the carriage coming around the corner to fetch them. Her fall upon the roof was necessarily explained to some extent upon the entering the house, but both forebored to mention a word of what she had been doing to cause such an accident. During the remainder of the afternoon, Elfride was invisible, but at dinner time she appeared as bright as ever. In the drawing room, after having been exclusively engaged with Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt through the intervening hour, Knight again found himself thrown with Elfride. She had been looking over at Chess Parliament one of the illustrated periodicals. You like chess, Mrs. Swancourt? Yes, it is my favourite scientific game. Indeed, excludes every other. Do you play? I have played, though not lately. Challenge him, Elfride, said the vigour heartily. She plays very well for a lady, Mr. Knight. Shall we play? asked Elfride tentatively. Oh, certainly I shall be delighted. The game began. Mr. Swancourt had forgotten a similar performance with Stephen Smith the year before. Elfride had not, but she had begun to take for her maxim the undoubted truth that the necessity of continuing faithful to Stephen without suspicion dictated a fickle behaviour almost as imperatively as fickleness itself. A fact, however, which would give a startling advantage to the latter quality should it ever appear. Knight, by one of those inexcusable oversights, which will sometimes afflict the best of players, placed his rock in the arms of one of her pawns. It was her first advantage. She looked triumphant, even ruthless. By George, what was I thinking of? said Knight quietly, and then dismissed all concern at his accident. Club laws will have, won't we, Mr. Knight? said Elfride swaysively. Oh, yes, certainly, said Mr. Knight. A thought, however, just occurring to his mind that he had two or three times allowed her to replace a man on her religiously assuring him that such a move was an absolute blunder. She immediately took up the unfortunate rock, and the contest proceeded, Elfride having now rather the better of the game. Then he won the exchange, regained his position, and began to press her hard. Elfride grew flurried, and placed her queen on his remaining rock's file. There, how stupid! upon my word, I did not see your rock. Of course, nobody would have thought they would have put a queen there knowingly. She spoke excitedly, half expecting her antagonist to give her back the move. Nobody, of course, said Knight serenely, and stretched out his hand towards his royal victim. It is not very pleasant to have it taken advantage of, then, she said with some vexation. Club laws, I think you said? Returned Knight blandly and mercilessly appropriating the queen. She was on the brink of pouting, but with a shame to show it, tears almost stood in her eyes. She had been trying so hard, so very hard, thinking and thinking till her brain was in a whirl, and it seemed so heartless of them to treat her so, after all. I think it is, she began. What, unkind to take advantage of a pure mistake that I make in that way? I lost my look by even a pure mistake. Said the enemy in an inexorable tone, without lifting his eyes. Yes, but, however, as this logic was absolutely unanswerable, she merely registered a protest. I cannot endure those cold-blooded ways of clubs and professional players like Stanton and Morphe, just as if it really mattered whether you have raised your finger from a man or no. Knight smiled as pitilessly as before, and they went on in silence. Checkmate, said Knight. Another game, said Elfida peremptorily, and looking very warm. With all my heart, said Knight. Checkmate, said Knight again, at the end of forty minutes. Another game, she returned resolutely. Knight would give you the odds of a bishop, said Knight, to her kindly. No, thank you, she replied in a tone intended for courteous indifference, but, as a fact, very cavalier indeed. Checkmate, said her opponent, without the least emotion. Oh, the difference between Elfida's condition of mind now, and when she purposely made blunders that Stephen Smith might win. It was bedtime. Her mind, as distracted as if it would throb itself out of her head, she went off to her chamber, full of mortification at being beaten time after time, when she herself was the aggressor. Having for two or three years enjoyed the reputation throughout the globe of her father's brain, which almost constituted her entire world, of being an excellent player, this fiasco was intolerable. For, unfortunately, the person most dogged in the belief of a false reputation is always that one, the possessor, who has the best means of knowing that it is not true. In bed, no sleep came to soothe her, that gentle thing being the very middle of summer friend and disrespect of flying away at the nearest troublest cloud. After lying awake till two o'clock, an idea seemed to strike her. She softly arose, got alight, and fetched a chess praxis from the library. Returning and sitting up in bed, she diligently studied the volume till the clock struck five, and her eyelids felt thick and heavy. She then extinguished the light and lay down again. You look pale, Elfride, said Mrs. Swancourt next morning at breakfast. Isn't she cut and hairy? A young girl who is scarcely ill at all can hardly help becoming so, when regarded as such, by all eyes turning upon her at the table, in obedience to some remark. Everybody looked at Elfride. She certainly was pale. I'm my pale, she said with a faint smile. I did not sleep much. I could not get rid of armies of bishops and knights, try how I would. Chess is a bad thing just before bedtime, especially for excitable people like yourself, dear. Don't ever play late again. I'd play early instead. Cousin Knight, she said, in an invitation of Mrs. Swancourt, will you oblige me in something? Even to half my kingdom. Well, it is to play one more game. And when? Now, instantly the moment we have breakfasted. Nonsense, Elfride, said her father, making yourself a slave to the game like that. But I want to papa. Honestly, I am restless at having been so ignimoniously overcome, and Mr. Knight doesn't mind, so what harm can there be? Let us play, by all means, if you wish, said Knight. So, when breakfast was over, the combatants withdrew to the quiet of the library, and the door was closed. Elfride seemed to have an idea that her conduct was at her ill-regulated, and startlingly free from conventional restraint. And worse, she fancied upon Knight's face a slightly amused look at her proceedings. You'd think me foolish, I suppose, she said recklessly, but I want to do my very best just once, and see whether I can overcome you. And certainly nothing more natural, though I'm afraid it is not the plan adopted by women of the world after the defeat. Why pray? Because they know that as good as overcoming is skill in the facing recollection of being overcome, and turn their attention to that entirely. I am not again, of course. Perhaps you're wrong as more pleasing than they're right. I don't quite know whether you mean that, or whether you are laughing at me, she said, looking up doubtingly at him, yet implying to accept a more flattering interpretation. I am always sure you think it vanity in me to think I am a match for you. Well, if you do, I say that vanity is no crime in such a case. Well, perhaps not, though it is hardly a virtue. Oh yes, in battle, Nelson's bravery lay in his vanity. Indeed, then so did his death. Oh no, no, for it is written in the book of the prophet Shakespeare. Fear and be slain, no worse can come to fight, and fight and die is death destroying death. And down they sat, and the contest began, Elfride having the first move. The game progressed. Elfride's heart beat so violently that she could not sit still. Her dread was lest he should hear it. And he did discover at last some flowers upon the table being set throbbing by its pulsations. I think we had better give over, said Knight, looking at her gently. It is too much for you, I know. Let us write down the position and finish another time. No, please not, she implored. I should not rest if I did not know the result at once. It is your move. Ten minutes passed. She started up suddenly. I know what you are doing. She cried, an angry colour upon her cheeks, and her eyes indignant. You are thinking of letting me win to please me. I don't mind owning that I was. Knight responded, phlegmatically, and appearing all the more so by contrast with her own turmoil. But you must not. I won't have it. Very well. No, that will not do. I insist that you promise not to do any such absurd thing. It is insulting me. Very well, madam. I won't do any such absurd thing. You shall not win. But that is to be proved, she returned proudly, and the play went on. Nothing is now heard but a ticking of a quaint old timepiece on the summit of a bookcase. Ten minutes passed. He captures her night. She takes his night and looks very rudimentous. More minutes tick away. She takes his pawn and has the advantage showing her sense of it rather more prominently. Five minutes more he takes her bishop. She brings things even by taking his night. Three minutes. She looks bold and takes his queen. He looks placid and takes hers. Eight or ten minutes pass. He takes a pawn. She utters a little. But not the ghost of a pawn can she take in retaliation. Ten minutes pass. He takes another pawn and says check. She flushes, extricates herself by capturing his bishop and looks triumphant. He immediately takes her bishop. She looks surprised. Five minutes longer she makes a dash and takes his only remaining bishop. He replies by taking her only remaining knight. Two minutes. He gives check. Her mind is now in a painful state of tension and she shades her face with her hand. Yet a few minutes more. He takes her rook and checks again. She literally trembles now, less than artful surprise she has in store for him can be anticipated by the artful surprise he evidently has in store for her. Five minutes. Checkmate in two moves exclaims Elfride. If you can, says Knight. Oh, I have miscalculated. That is cruel. Checkmate, says Knight, and the victory is won. Elfride arose and turned away without letting him see her face. Once in the hall she ran upstairs and into her room and flung herself down upon her bed, weeping bitterly. Where is Elfride? said her father at luncheon. Knight listened anxiously for the answer. He had been hoping to see her again before this time. She isn't well, sir, was the reply. Mrs. Swancourt rose and left the room and going upstairs to Elfride's apartment. At the door was Unity, who occupied in the new establishment the position between young ladies maid and middle housemaid. She astound asleep, madam, Unity whispered. Mrs. Swancourt opened the door. Elfride was lying fully dressed on the bed. Her face hot and red, her arms thrown abroad. At intervals of a minute she tossed restlessly from side to side, and indistinctly moaned words used in the game of chess. Mrs. Swancourt had a turn for doctoring and felt her pulse. It was twanging like a harp string at the rate of nearly a hundred and fifty a minute, softly moving the sleeping girl to a less cramped position she went downstairs again. She is asleep now, said Mrs. Swancourt. She does not seem very well. Cousin Knight, what were you thinking of? Her tender brain won't bear kudgling like your great head. You should have strictly forbidden her to play. In truth the essayist's experience of the nature of young women was far less extensive than his abstract knowledge of him led himself and others to believe. He could pack them into sentences like a workman, but practically was nowhere. I am sorry indeed, said Knight, feeling even more than he expressed, but surely the young lady knows best what is good for her. Bless you, that's just what she doesn't know. She never thinks of such things, does she, Christopher? Her father and I have to command her and keep her in order as you would a child. She will say things worthy of a French epigramist, and act like a robin in a greenhouse. But I think we will send for Dr. Granson. There can be no harm. A man was straight way dispatched on horseback to Castle Botterall, and the gentleman known as Dr. Granson came in the course of the afternoon. He pronounced her nervous system to be in a decided state of disorder, forwarded some soothing draft, and gave orders that on no account whatever was she to play chess again. Next morning, Knight, much vexed with himself, waited with a curiously compounded feeling for her entry to breakfast. The women's servants came into prayers at her regular intervals, and as each entered, he could not to save his life, avoid turning his head with the hope that she might be al-frida. Mr. Swancourt began reading without waiting for her. Then somebody glided in noiselessly. Knight softly glanced up. It was only the little kitchen maid. Knight thought reading prayers a bore. He went out alone, and for almost the first time, failed to recognise that holding converse with nature's charms was not solitude. On nearing the house again, he perceived his young friend crossing a slope by a path, which ran into one he was following in the angle of the field. Here they met. Elfrida was at once exultant and abashed. Coming into his presence had upon her the effect of entering a cathedral. Knight had his notebook in his hand, and had, in fact, been in the very act of writing therein when they came in view of each other. He left off in the midst of a sentence, and proceeded to inquire warmly concerning her state of help. She said she was perfectly well, and indeed had never looked better. Her health was as inconsequent as her actions. Her lips were red, without the polish that cherries have, and their redness margined with the white skin in a clearly defined line, which had nothing of a jagged confusion in it. Altogether she stood as the last person in the world to be knocked over by a game of chess, because too ephemeral looking to play one. Are you taking notes? she inquired, with an alacrity plainly arising less from interest in the subject than from a wish to divert his thoughts from herself. Yes, I was making an entry, and with your permission I will complete it. Knight then stood still and wrote. I'll free to remain beside him a moment, and afterwards walked on. I should like to see all the secrets that are in that book, she gaily flung back at him over her shoulder. I don't think you would find much to interest you. I know I should. Then, of course, I have no more to say. But I would ask this question first. Is it a book of mere facts concerning journeys and expenditure and so on, or a book of thoughts? Well, to tell the truth it's not exactly either. It consists for the most part of jottings for articles and essays, disjointed and disconnected, of no possible interest to anybody with myself. It contains, I suppose, your developed thoughts and embryo. Yes. If they are interesting when enlarged to the size of an article, what must they be in their concentrated form? Pure rectified spirit, above proof. Before it is lowered to be fit for human consumption. Words that burn indeed. Rather like a balloon before it's inflated, flabby, shapeless, dead. You could hardly read them. May I try, she said coaxingly. I wrote my poor romance in that way, I mean in bits, out of doors, and I should like to see whether your way of entering things is the same as mine. Really, that's rather an awkward request. I suppose I can hardly refuse now you have asked so directly, but you think me ill-mannered in asking. But does it not justify me your writing in my presence, Mr Knight? If I had lighted upon your book by chance, it would have been different. But you stand before me and say, excuse me, without caring whether I do or not, and write on. And then tell me there are not private facts but public ideas. Very well, Miss Swancourt, if you really must see, the consequences be upon your own head. Remember, my advice is to you that you leave my book alone. But with that caution I have your permission. Yes. She hesitated a moment, looked at his hand containing the book, then laughed and saying, I must see it. She withdrew it from his fingers. Knight rambled on towards the house, leaving her standing in the path, turning over the leaves. By the time he had reached the wicked gate, he saw that she had moved, and waited till she came up. Elfride had closed the notebook, and was carrying it disdainfully by the corner between her finger and thumb. Her face wore a nettle look. She silently extended the volume towards him, raising her eyes no higher than her hand was lifted. Take it! said Elfride quickly. I don't want to read it. Can you understand it? said Knight. As far as I looked, but I don't care to read much. Why, Miss Swancourt? Only because I didn't wish you, that's all. I warned you that you might not. Yes, but I never supposed you would have put me in there. Your name is not mentioned once within the four corners. Not my name, I know that. Nor your description, or anything by which anybody would recognise you. Except myself. For what is this? she exclaimed, taking it from him and opening her page. August the 7th, thus the day before yesterday, but I will read it instead of reading it, closing the book again with pretty hot tour. Why should I? I had no business to ask to see your book, and it serves me right. Knight hardly recollected what he had written and turned the book over to see. He came to this. August 7th, girl gets into her teens and her self-consciousness is born. After a certain interval past an infantile helplessness it begins to act. Simple, young and inexperienced at first. Persons of observation can tell to a nicety how old this consciousness is by the skill it has acquired in the art necessary to its success, the art of hiding itself. Generally begins career by actions which are popularly termed showing off. Method adopted depends in each case upon the disposition, rank, residence of the young lady attempting it. Town-bred girl will utter some moral paradox on fast men or love. Country-miss adopts the more material media of taking a ghastly fence, whistling, or making your blood run cold by appearing to risk her neck, mem on Endelstow Tower. An innocent vanity is, of course, the origin of these displays. Look at me, say these youthful beginners in mummily artifice, without reflecting whether or not it be to their advantage to show so very much of themselves. Amplify and correct for paper on artless arts. Yes, I remember now, said Knight. The notes were certainly suggested by a manoeuvres on the church tower, but you must not think too much of such random observations. He continued encouraging me as he noticed her injured looks. A mere fancy passing through my head assumes effectitious importance to you, because it has been made permanent by being written down. All mankind thinks thoughts as bad as those of people they most love on earth, but such thoughts never getting embodied on paper it becomes assumed that they never existed. I dare say that you yourself have taught some disagreeable thing or other of me, which would seem just as bad as this, if written. Knight, challenge you now, tell me. The worst thing I have thought of you. Yes, I must not. Oh, yes. I thought you were rather round-shouldered. Knight looked slightly redder. And that there was a little bald spot on the top of your head. Two ineradicable defects, said Knight. There being a faint gassiness discernable in his laugh. They are much worse than a lady's eye than being taught self-conscious, I suppose. Ah, that's very fine, she said, too inexperienced to perceive her hit, and hence not quite so disposed to forgive his notes. You alluded to me in that entry as if I were such a child, too. Everybody does that. I cannot understand it. I'm quite a woman, you know. How old do you think I am? How old? Why, seventeen, I should say. All girls are seventeen. You are wrong. I am nearly nineteen. Which class of women do you like best? Those who seem younger are those who seem older than they are. Offhand, I should be inclined to say those who seem older. So it was not in freedom's class. But it is well known, she said eagerly, and there was something touching in the artist's anxiety that we taught much of, which she revealed by her words, that the slower a nature is to develop, the richer the nature. Youths and girls who are men and women before the come of age are nobodies by the time that backward people have shown their full compass. Yes, said Knight thoughtfully. There is really something in that remark. But at the risk of the fence, I must remind you that you there take it for granted that the woman behind her time, at a given age, has not reached the end of her tether. Her backwardness may not be because she is slow to develop, but because she soon exhausted her capacity for developing. Elfride looked disappointed. By this time they were indoors. Mrs. Swancourt, to whom matchmaking by any honest means was meat and drink, had now a little scheme of that nature concerning this pair. The morning loom in which they both expected a finder was empty, the old lady having, for the above reason, vacated it by the second door as they entered by the first. Knight went to the chimney-piece and carelessly surveyed two portraits on ivory. Though these pink ladies had very rudimentary features judging by what I see here, he observed, they had unquestionably beautiful heads of hair. Yes, and that is everything, said Elfride, possibly conscious of her own, possibly not. Not everything, though a great deal, certainly. Which colour do you like best, she ventured to ask? More depends on its abundance than on its colour. Abundance is being legal, may I inquire your favourite colour? Dark. I mean, for women, she said, with the minuteest fall of accountants, and a hope that she had been misunderstood. So do I, Knight replied. It was impossible for any man not to know the colour of Elfride's hair. In women who wear it plainly such a feature may be overlooked by men not given to ocular intentness, but hers was always in the way. You saw her hair as far as you could see her sex, and knew that it was the palest brown. She knew instantly that Knight, being perfectly aware of this, had an independent standard of admiration in the matter. Elfride was thoroughly vexed. She could not but be struck with the honesty of his opinions, and the worst of it was that the more they went against her, the more she respected them. And now, like the reckless gambler, she hazarded her last and best treasure, her eyes. They were her all now. What coloured eyes you like best, Mr Knight? She said slowly. Honestly, or as a compliment? Of course, honestly, I don't want anybody's compliment. And yet, Elfride knew otherwise, that a compliment or word of approval from that man would have been like a well to a famished Arab. I'd prefer Hazel, he said serenely. She had played and lost again. End of chapter 18. A pair of blue eyes, chapter 19. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tyge Hines. A pair of blue eyes by Thomas Hardy, chapter 19. Love was in the next degree. Knight had none of those light familiarities of speech, which, by judicious touches of epigrammatic flattery, obliterate a woman's recollection of the speaker's abstract opinions. So no more was said by either on the subject of hair, eyes, or development. Elfride's mind had been impregnated with sentiments of her own smallness to an uncomfortable degree of distinctness, and her discomfort was visible in her face. The whole tendency of the conversation latterly had been to quietly but surely disparage her, and she was feigned to take Stephen into favour in self-defense. He would not have been so unloving, she said, as to admire an idiosyncrasy and features different from her own. True, Stephen had it clearly loved her. Mr Knight had never done anything of the sort. Somehow, this did not mend matters, and the sensation of her smallness in knight's eyes had remained. Had the position been reversed, had Stephen loved her in spite of a differing taste, and had Knight been indifferent in spite of her resemblance to his ideal, it would have engendered far happier thoughts. As matters stood, Stephen's admiration might have has rooted in a blindness the result of passion. Perhaps any keen man's judgment was condemnatory of her. During the remainder of Saturday they were more or less thrown with their seniors, and no conversation arose which was exclusively their own. When Elfride was in bed that night, her thoughts recurred to the same subject. At one moment she insisted that it was ill natured of him to speak so decisively as he had done, the next that it was sterling honesty. Ah, what a poor nobody I am, she said, sighing. People like him who go about the great world don't care in the least what I am like either in mood or future. Perhaps a man who has got thoroughly into a woman's mind in this manner is half way to her heart. The distance between those two stations is proverbially short. And are you really going away this week? said Mrs. Swancourt tonight on the following evening, which was Sunday. They were all leisurely climbing the hill to the church, where last service was now to be held at the rather exceptional time of evening, instead of in the afternoon, previous to the demolition of the ruinous portions. I am intending to cross the cork from Bristol returned night, and then I go on to Dublin. Return this way and stay a little longer with us, said the vicar. A week is nothing. We have hardly been able to realise your presence yet. I remember a story which the vicar suddenly stopped. He had forgotten it was Sunday, and would probably have gone on in his weekday mode of thought, had not a turn in the breeze, blown a skirt of his college gown within the range of his vision, and so reminded him. He had once diverted the current of his narrative with the dexterity the occasion demanded. The story of the Levite, who journeyed to Bethlehem, Judah, from which I took my text the Sunday before last, is quite to the point. He continued with the pronunciation of a man, who, far from having intended to tell a weekday story a moment earlier, had thought of nothing but sabbath matters for several weeks. What did he gain after all by his restlessness? Had he remained in the city of the Jebusites, and not been so anxious for Gebeah, none of his troubles would have arisen. But he had wasted five days already, said Knight, closing his eyes to the vicar's commendable diversion. His fault lay in beginning the tarrying system originally. True, true, my illustration fails. But not the hospitality which prompted the story. So he were to come just the same, urged Mrs. Swancourt, for she had seen an almost imperceptible fall of countenance in her stepdaughter at Knight's announcement. Knight hath promised to call on his return journey, but the uncertainty with which he spoke was quite enough to fill out freedom with a regretful interest in all he did during the few remaining hours. The cure, having already officiated twice that day in two churches, Mr. Swancourt had undertaken the whole of the evening service, and Knight read the lessons for him. The sun streamed across from the dilapidated west window, and Knight had all the assembled worshipers with a golden glow, Knight, as he read, being illuminated by the same mellow lustre. Elfride at the organ regarded him with a throbbing sadness of mood, which was fed by a sense of being far removed from his sphere. As he went deliberately through the chapter appointed, portion of the history of Elijah, and the send of that magnificent climax of the wind, the air quaked the fire, and the still small voice, his deep tones echoed past with such apparent disregard for her existence, that his presence inspired her with a forlorn sense of unapproachableness, which his absence would hardly have been able to cause. At the same time, turning her face for a moment to catch the glory of the dying sun as it fell on his form, her eyes were arrested by the shape and aspect of a woman in the west gallery. It was the bleak barren countenance of the widow Jetway, whom Elfride had not seen much of since the morning of her return with Stephen Smith. Possessing the smallest of competencies, this unhappy woman appeared to spend her life in journeying between Endless Road Church and that of a village near Southampton, where her father and mother were laid. She had not attended the service here for a considerable time, and she now seemed to have a reason for her choice of seat. From the gallery window, the tomb of her son was plainly visible, standing as the nearest object in a prospect which was closed outwardly by the chainless horizon of the sea. The streaming rays too flooded her face, now bent towards Elfride with a hard and bitter expression that the solemnity of the place raised to a tragic dignity it did not intrinsically possess. The girl resumed her normal attitude with an added disquiet. Elfride's emotion was cumulative, and after a while would assert itself on a sudden. A slight touch was enough to set it free. A poem, a sunset, a cunningly contrived chord of music, a vague imagining, being the usual accidents of its exhibition. The longing for night's respect, which was leading up to an incipient yearning for his love, made the present conjecture a sufficient one. While kneeling down, previous to leaving, when the sunny streaks had gone upward to the roof and the lower part of the church was in soft shadow, she could not help thinking of Coleridge's morbid poem, The Tree Graves, and shuddering as she wondered if Mrs. Jethway were cursing her, she wept as if her heart would break. They came out of the church just as the sun went down, leaving the landscape like a platform from which an eloquent speaker has retired, and nothing remains for the audience to do but rise and go home. Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt went off in the carriage, Knight and Elfride preferring to walk, as the skilful old matchmaker had imagined. They descended the hill together. I liked your reading, Mr. Knight. Elfride presently found herself saying, you read better than papa. I will praise anybody that will praise me. You played excellently, Miss Swancourt, and very correctly. Correctly, yes. It must be a great pleasure to you to take an active part in the service. I want to be able to play with more feeling, but I have not a good selection of music, sacred or secular. I wish I had a nice little music library, well chosen, and that the only new pieces sent me were those of genuine merit. I am glad to hear such a wish from you. It is extraordinary how many women have no honest love of music as an end, and not as a means, even leaving out those who have nothing in them. They mostly like it for its accessories. I have never met a woman who loves music as to ten or a dozen men I know. How would you draw a line between women with something, and women with nothing in them? Well, said Knight, reflecting a moment. I mean by nothing in them those who don't care about anything solid. This is an instance. I knew a man who had a young friend in whom he was much interested. In fact, they were going to be married. She was seemingly poetical, and he offered her a choice of two editions of the British poets, which she pretended to want badly. He said, Which one of them would you like best for me to send? She said, A pair of the prettiest earrings in Bond Street, if you don't mind, would be nicer than either. Now I call her a girl with not much in her but vanity, and so do you, I daresay. Oh yes, replied Elfride with an effort. Happening to catch a glimpse of her face as she was speaking, and noticing that her attempt at heartiness was a miserable failure, he appeared to have misgivings. You, Miss Swancard, would not under such circumstances have preferred the knickknacks. No, I don't think I should indeed, she stammered. I'll put it to you, said the inflexible knight. Which will you have of these two things of about equal value, the well-chosen little library of the best music you spoke of, bound in Morocco, walnut case, lock and key, or a pair of the very prettiest earrings in Bond Street windows? Of course the music! Elfride replied with forced earnestness. Now you're quite certain, he said emphatically. Quite, she faltered, if I could for certain buy the earrings afterwards. Knight, somewhat blamably, keenly enjoyed sparring with the palpitating mobile creature, whose excitable nature made any such thing a species of cruelty. He looked at her rather oddly and said, Thigh. Forgive me, she said, laughing a little, a little frightened and blushing very deeply. Ah, Miss Elfie, why didn't you say at first, as any firm woman would have said, I am as bad as she, and shall choose the same? I don't know, said Elfride woefully and with a distressful smile. I thought you were exceptionally musical. So I am, I think, but the test is so severe, quite painful. I don't understand. Music doesn't do any real good, or rather... That is a thing to say, Miss Swancourt. Why, what? You don't understand, you don't understand. Why, what conceivable use is there in Jim Crack jewelry? No, no, no, no, she's cried petrantly. I didn't mean what you think. I like the music best, only I like... Earrings better. Boneth, he said, in a teasing tone. Well, I think I should have had the moral courage to own it at once, without pretending to an elevation I could not reach. Like the French soldiery, Elfride was not brave when on the defensive. So it was almost with tears in her eyes that she answered desperately. My meaning is that I like Earrings best just now, because I lost one of my prettiest pair last year, and Papa said he would not buy any more, or allow me to myself, because I was careless, and now I wish I had some light them. That's what my meaning is, indeed it is, Mr Knight. Now I'm afraid I've been very harsh and rude. Said Knight, with the look of regret, at seeing how disturbed she was. But seriously, if women only knew how they ruined their good looks, by such appurtenances, I'm sure they would never want them. They were lovely, and became me so. Not if they look like the ordinary, hideous things women stuff their ears with nowadays, like the governor of a steam engine, or a pair of scales, or gold gibbets and chains, and artist's pallets, and compensation pendulums, and heaven knows what besides. No, they're not one of those things. So pretty, like this, she said with eager animation, and she drew with the point of her parasol, and a large view of one of the lamented darlings, to a scale that would have suited a giantess half a mile high. Yes, very pretty, very, said Knight, dryly. How did you come to know such a precious pair of articles? I only lost one. Nobody ever loses both at the same time. She made this remark with embarrassment, and the nervous movement of the fingers, seeing that the loss occurred while Stephen Smith was attempting to kiss her for the first time on the cliff, her confusion was hardly to be wondered at. The question had been awkward, and received no direct answer. Knight seemed not to notice him manner. Oh, nobody loses both, I see, and certainly the fact that it was a case of loss, takes away all order of vanity from your choice. As I never know whether you were in earnest, I don't know now, she said, looking up inquiringly at the hairy face of the Oracle, and coming gallantly to her own rescue. If I really seem vain, it is that I am only vain in my ways, not in my heart. The worst women are those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways. And I draw it distinction. Well, they are certainly the more objectionable of the two, said Knight. Is vanity a moral or a venial sin? You know what life is, tell me. I am very far from knowing what life is. A just conception of life is too large a thing to grasp during a short interval of passing through it. Will the fact of a woman being fond of jewellery be likely to make a life, in its higher sense, a failure? Nobody's life is altogether a failure. Well, you know what I mean, even though my words are badly selected and commonplace, she said impatiently, because I utter commonplace words. You must not suppose I only think commonplace thoughts. My poor stock of words are like a limited number of rough moles. I have to cast all my materials in, good and bad. And the novelty or delicacy of the substance is often lost in the coarse triteness of the form. Very well, I'll believe that ingenious representation. As to the subject in hand, lives which are failures, you need not trouble yourself. Anybody's life may be just as romantic and strange and interesting if he or she fails as if he or she succeeds. All the difference is that the last chapter is wanting in the story. If a man of power tries to do a great deed, and just falls short of it by an accident not his own fault, up to that time his history has had as much in it as that of a great man who has done his great deed. It is whimsical of the world to hold that particulars of how a lad went to school and so on should be as an interesting romance or as nothing to them, precisely in proportion of his after renown. They were walking between the sunset and the moonrise. With the dropping of the sun, the nearly full moon had begun to rise itself. Their shadows, as cast by the western glare, showed signs of becoming obliterated in the interest of a rival pair in the opposite direction which the moon was bringing into distinctness. I consider my life to some extent a failure, said Knight again after a pause, during which he had noticed the antagonistic shadows. You, how? I don't precisely know, but in some way I have missed a mark. Really, to have done it is not much to be sad about, but to feel that you have done it must be a cause of sorrow, am I right? Partly, though not quite right. For a sensation of being profoundly experienced serves as a sort of consolation to people who are conscious of having taken wrong turnings. Contradictory, as it seems, there is nothing truer than that people who have always gone right don't know half as much about the nature and ways of going right as those who have gone wrong. However, it is not desirable for me to chill your summertime by going into this. You have not told me even now if I am really vain. If I say yes, I shall offend you. If I say no, you'll think I don't mean it, he replied, looking curiously into her face. Ah, well, she replied with a little breath of distress. That which is exceedingly deep, who will find it out? I suppose I must take you as I do the Bible, find out and understand what I can, and on the strength of that swallow the rest as a lump by simple faith. Think me vain, if you will. Worldly greatness requires so much littleness to grow open that an infirmity, more or less, is not a matter for regret. As regards women, I can't say, answered night carelessly. But it is without a doubt a misfortune for a man who has a living to get to be born of a truly noble nature. A high soul will bring a man to the workhouse, so you may be right in sticking up for vanity. No, no, I don't do that, she said regretfully. Mr. Knight, when you are gone, will you send something you have written? I think I should like to see whether you write as you have lately spoken, or in your better mood. Which is your true self, the cynic you have been this evening, or the nice philosopher you were up to tonight? Ah, which you know as well as I. The conversation detained him on the lawn and in the portico till the stars blinked out. Alfreda flung back ahead and said idly, There's a bright star exactly over me. Each bright star is overhead somewhere. Is it? Oh yes, of course. Where is that one, she pointed with a finger. That is poised like a white hawk over one of the Cape Verde islands. And that, looking down upon the source of denial, and that lonely, quiet-looking one. He watches the North Pole and has no less than the holy quater for his horizon, and that idle one low down upon the ground that we have almost rolled away from, is in India, over the hell of a young friend of mine, who very possibly looks at the star in our zenith, as it hangs low upon his horizon, and thinks of its marking where his true love dwells. Alfreda glanced at night with misgiving. Did he mean her? She could not see his features, but his attitudes seemed to show unconsciousness. The star is over my head, she said with hesitation. Or anybody else is in England. Oh yes, I see. She breathed her relief. His parents, I believe, are natives of this county. I don't know them, though I have been in correspondence with him for many years till lately. Fortunately or unfortunately for him he fell in love and then went to Bombay. Since that time I have heard very little from him. Night went no further in his volunteered statement, and though Alfreda at one moment was inclined to profit by the lessons of honesty he had just been giving her, the flesh was weak, and the attention dispersed into silence. There seemed a reproach in night's blind words, and yet she was not able to clearly define a disloyalty that she had been guilty of. End of Chapter 19 A Pair of Blue Eyes, Chapter 20 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tye Hines A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy, Chapter 20 A Distant Dearness in the Hill Night turned his back upon the parish of Endelstow and crossed over to Cork. One day of absence superimposed itself on another and proportionally waited his heart. He pushed on to the lakes of Calarney, rambled amid their luxuriant woods, surveyed the infinite variety of island, hill and dale there to be found, listened to the marvellous echoes of that romantic spot, but altogether missed the glory and the dream he formally found in such favoured regions. Whilst in the company of Elfride, her garish presence had not perceptibly affected him to any depth. He had not been conscious that her entry into his sphere had added anything to himself, but now that she was taken away he was very conscious of a great deal being abstracted. The superfluity had become a necessity, and night was in love. Stephen fell in love with Elfride by looking at her, night by ceasing to do so. When or how the spirit entered into him he knew not, certain he was that when on the point of leaving Endelstow he had felt none of that exquisite nicety of poignant sadness, natural to such severances, seeing how delightful a subject of contemplation Elfride had been ever since. Had he begun to love her when she met his eye after her mishap on the tower? He had simply thought her weak. Had he grown to love her while standing on the lawn, brightened all over by the evening sun? He had thought her complexion good, no more. Was it a conversation that had sown the seed? He had thought her words ingenious and very creditable to a young woman, but not noteworthy. Had the chess playing anything to do with it? Certainly not. He had thought her at that time a rather conceited child. Night's experience was a complete disproof of the assumption that love always comes by glances of the eye and sympathetic touches of the fingers, that, like flame, it makes itself palpable at the moment of generation. Not till they were parted, and she had become sublimated in his memory could he be said to have even attentively regarded her. Thus having passively gathered up images of her, which his mind did not act upon, till the cause of them was no longer before him, he appeared to himself to have fallen in love with her soul, which had temporarily assumed its disembodiment to accompany him on his way. She began to rule him so imperiously now that, accustomed to analysis, he almost trembled at the possible result of the introduction of this new force among the nicely adjusted ones of his ordinary life. He became restless, then he forgot all collateral subjects in the pleasure of thinking about her. Yet it must be said that night loved philosophically rather than with romance. He thought of her manner towards him. Simplicity verges on cockatry. Was she flirting, he said to himself. No forcible translation of favour into suspicion was able to uphold such a theory. The performance had been too well done to be anything but real. It had the defects, without which nothing is genuine. No actress of twenty years standing, no bald-neck lady whose earliest season out was lost in the discreet mist of evasive talk, could have played the part of ingenuous girl, as Elfrida lived it. She had the little artful ways which partly make up ingenuousness. There are bachelors by nature and bachelors by circumstance. Spinsters, their doubtless are also of both kinds, though some think only of those of the latter. However, night had been looked upon as a bachelor by nature. What was he coming to? It was very odd to himself to look at his theories on the subject of love, and reading them now by the full light of a new experience, to see how much more his sentences meant than he had felt them to me when they were written. People often discover the real force of a tried old maxim only when it is thrust upon them by a chance adventure. But night had never before known a case of a man who learned the full compass of his own epigrams, by such means. He was intensely satisfied with one aspect of the affair. Inbred in him was an invincible objection to be any but the first comer in a woman's heart. He had discovered within himself the condition that, if ever he did make up his mind to marry, it must be under certainty that no cropping out of inconvenient old letters, no bow and blush to a mysterious stranger casually met, should be a possible source of discomposure. Night's sentiments were only the ordinary ones of a man of his age who looked genuinely, perhaps exaggerated a little by his pursuits. When men first love as lads, it is with the very centre of their hearts, nothing else being concerned in the operation. With other years more of the faculty's attempt to partnership in the passion, till, at night's age, the understanding is feigned to have a hand in it. It may as well be left out. A man in love, setting up his brains as a gauge of his position, is as one determining a ship's longitude from a light at the mast-head. Night argued from Elfride's unwantedness of manner, which was matter of fact, to an unwantedness of love which was a matter of influence only. On Crédulae lay blue Crédulae. Elfride, he said, had hardly looked upon a man till she saw me. He had never forgotten his severity to her because she preferred ornament to edification, and had since excused her a hundred times, by thinking how natural to woman-kind was a love of adornment, and how necessary became a mild infusion of personal vanity to complete the delicate and fascinating die of the feminine mind. So, at the end of a week's absence, which had brought him as far as Dublin, he resolved to curtail his tour, return to Endlstow, and commit himself to making a reality of the hypothetical offer of that Sunday evening. Notwithstanding that he had concocted a great deal of paper theory on social amenities, and modern manners generally, the special ounce of practice was wanting, and now, for his life night, could not recollect where it was considered correct to give a young lady personal ornaments before a regular engagement to marry had been initiated. But, the day before leaving Dublin, he looked around anxiously for a high-class jewellery establishment in which he purchased what he considered would suit her best. It was with a most awkward and unwanted feeling that, after entering and closing the door of his room, he sat down, opened the Morocco case, and held up each of the fragile bits of goldwork before his eyes. Many things had become old to the solitary man of letters, but these were new, and he handled like a child an outcome of civilization which had never before been touched by his fingers. A sudden, fastidious decision that the pattern chosen would not suitor, after all, caused him to rise in a flurry and tear down the street to change room for others. After a great deal of trouble and reselecting, during which his mind became so bewildered, that the critical faculty on objects of art seemed to have vacated his person altogether. Night carried off another pair of earrings. These remained in his possession till the afternoon, when, after contemplating them fifty times with a growing misgiving, that the last choice was worse than the first, he felt that no sleep would visit his pillow till he had improved upon his previous purchases yet again. In a perfect heat of vexation with himself for such tear-giversation, he went anew to the shop door, was absolutely ashamed to enter and give further trouble, went to another shop, bought a pair at an enormously increased price because they seemed the very thing, asked the goldsmiths if they would take the other pair in exchange, was told that they would not exchange articles bought of another maker, paid down the money and went off with the two pairs in his possession, wondering what on earth to do with his superfluous pair. He almost wished he could lose them or that somebody would steal them, and was burdened with an interposing sense that as a capable man with true ideas of economy, he must necessarily sell them somewhere, which he did at last, for a mere song. Mingled with a blank feeling of a whole day being lost to a woman running about the city on this new and extraordinary class of errant, and of several pounds being lost through his bungling, was a slight sense of satisfaction that he had emerged forever from his antediluvian ignorance on the subject of ladies' jewellery, as well as secured a truly artistic production at last. During the remainder of that day he scanned the ornaments of every day that he met with the profoundly experienced eye of an appraiser. Next morning night was again crossing St George's Channel, not returning to London by the holly-head route as he had originally intended, but towards Bristol, availing himself of Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt's invitation to revisit them on his homeward journey. We flipped forward to Elfride. Woman's ruling passion to fascinate and influence those more powerful than she, though operant in Elfride, was decidedly purposeless. She had wanted her friend Knight's good opinion from the first, how much more than that elementary ingredient of friendship she now desired, her fears would hardly allow her to think. In originally wishing to please the highest class of men she had ever intimately known, there was no disloyalty to Stephen Smith. She could not, and few women can, realise the possible vastness of an issue which has only an insignificant begetting. Her letters from Stephen were necessarily few, and her sense of fidelity clung to the last she had received as a wrecked mariner clings to flotsam. The young girl persuaded herself that she was glad Stephen had such a right to her hand as he had acquired, in her eyes, by the elopement. She beguiled herself by saying, perhaps if I had not so committed myself I might fall in love with Mr. Knight. All this made the week of Knight's absence very gloomy and distasteful to her. She retained Stephen in her prayers, and his old letters were reread, as a medicine in reality, though she deceived herself into the belief that it was a pleasure. These letters had grown more and more hopeful. He told her that he finished his work every day with a pleasant consciousness of having removed one more stone from the barrier which divided them. Then he drew images of what a fine figure they too would cut some day. People would turn their heads and say, what a prize he has won! She was not to be sad about that wild runaway attempt of theirs. Elfride had repented, he said, it grieved her. Whatever any other person who knew of it might think, he knew well enough the modesty of her nature. The only reproach was a gentle one for not having written quite so devotedly during her London visit. Her letter had seemed to have a liveliness derived from other thoughts than thoughts of him. Knight's intention of an early return to Endelstow having originally been faint, his promise to do so had been fainter. He was a man who kept his words well to the rear of his possible actions. The vicar was rather surprised to see him again so soon. Mrs. Swancourt was not. Knight found on meeting them all after his rival had been announced, but they had formed an intention to go to St. Leonard's for a few days at the end of the month. No satisfactory conjuncture offered itself on this first evening of his return for presenting Elfride with what he had been at such pains to procure. He was fastidious in his reading of opportunities for such an intended act. The next morning, chanceing to break fine after a week of cloudy weather, it was proposed and decided that they should all drive to Barwitt Strand, a local lion which neither Mrs. Swancourt nor Knight had seen. Knight scented romantic occasions from afar and first saw that such a one might be expected before the coming night. The journey was along a road by neutral green hills, upon which hedgerows lay trailing like ropes on a key. Gaps in these uplands revealed a blue sea flecked with a few dashes of white and a solitary white sail. The whole brimming up to a keen horizon which lay like a lion ruled from hillside to hillside. Then they rolled down a pass, the chocolate-toned rocks forming a wall on both sides, from one of which fell a heavy jagged shade over half the roadway. A spout of fresh water burst from an occasional crevice and pattering down upon broad green leaves ran along as a rivulet at the bottom. Unkempt locks of heather overhung the brow of each steep, whence at diverse points a bramble swung forth into mid-air, snatching at their headdresses like a claw. They mounted the last crest and the bay which was to be the end of their pilgrimage burst upon them. The ocean blueness deepened its colour as if stretched to the foot of the crags where it terminated in a fringe of white, silent at this distance, though moving and heaving like a counterpane upon a restless sleeper. The shadowed hollows of the purple and brown rocks would have been called blue had not that tint been so entirely appropriated by the water beside them. The carriage was put up at a little cottage with a shed attached, and an osler and a coachman carried the hamper of provisions down to the shore. Knight found his opportunity. I did not forget your wish, he began, when they were apart from their friends. Elfride looked as if she did not understand. And I have brought you these, he continued, awkwardly pulling out the case and opening it while holding it towards her. Oh, Mr. Knight, she said, confusedly, and turning to a lively red. I didn't know you had any intention or meaning in what you said. I thought it a mere supposition. I don't want them. A thought which had flashed into our mind gave the reply a greater decisiveness than it might otherwise have possessed. Tomorrow was the day for Stephen's letter. But will you not accept them? Knight returned, feeling lesser master than here to fore. I would rather not. They are beautiful, more beautiful than any I have ever seen, she answered earnestly, looking half wishfully at the temptation, as Eve may have looked at at the apple. But I don't want to have them, if you will kindly forgive me, Mr. Knight. No kindness at all, said Mr. Knight, brought to a full stop at this unexpected turn of events. A silence followed. Knight held open the case, looking rather woefully at the glittering form she had forsaken his orbit to procure. Turning it about and holding it up as if feeling his gift to be slighted by her, he were endeavouring to admire it very much himself. Shut them up, and don't let me see them any longer. Do, she said, laughingly, and with a quaint mixture of reluctance and entreaty. Why, Elvie? Not, Elvie, to you, Mr. Knight. Oh, because I shall want them. There, I am silly, I know, to say that. But I have a reason for not taking them, now. She kept in the last word for a moment, intending to imply that her refusal was finite, but somehow the word slipped out and undid all the rest. You will take them some day? I don't want to. Why don't you want to, Elfride's swan-court? Because I don't. I don't like to take them. I have read a fact of distressing significance in that, said Knight. Since you like them, your dislike to having them must be towards me. No, it isn't. What then? Do you like me? Elfride deepened in tint and looked into the distance with features shaped to an expression of the nicest criticism as regarded her answer. I like you pretty well. She had length murmured mildly. Not very much. You are so sharp with me and say hard things, so how can I? she replied evasively. You think me a-foggy, I suppose. No, I don't. I mean I do. I don't know what I think you, I mean. Let us go to papa, responded Elfride, with somewhat of a flurry delivery. Well, I'll tell you my object in getting the present, said Knight, with a composure intended to remove from her mind any possible impression of his being what he was, her lover. You see, it was the very least I could do in common civility. Elfride felt rather blank at this lucid statement. Knight continued, putting away the case. I felt, as anybody naturally would have, you know, that my words on your choice the other day were invidious and unfair, and thought an apology should take a practical shape. Oh, yes. Elfride was sorry, she could not say why, that he gave such a legitimate reason. It was a disappointment that he had all the time a cool motive, which might be stated to anybody without raising a smile. Had she known they were offered in that spirit she would certainly have accepted the seductive gift, and the tantalising feature was that perhaps he suspected her to imagine them offered as a lover's token, which was mortifying enough if they were not. Mrs. Swancourt came now to where they were sitting to select a flat boulder for spreading their tablecloth upon, and, amid the discussion on the subject, the matter pending between Knight and Elfride was shelved for a while. He read her refusal so certainly as the bashfulness of a girl in a novel position that, upon the whole, he would tolerate such a beginning. Could Knight have been told that it was a sense of fidelity struggling against new love, whilst no less assuring as to his ultimate victory, he might have entirely abstracted the wish to secure it? At the same time a slight constraint of manner was visible between them for the remainder of the afternoon. The tide turned and there were a blight to ascend to higher ground. The day glided on to its end with the usual quiet dreamy passivity of such occasions when every deed done and thing thought is in endeavouring to avoid doing and thinking more. Looking idly over the verge of a crag they beheld their stone dining-table gradually being splashed upon and their crumbs and fragments all washed away by the incoming sea. The vicar drew moral lessons from the scene. Knight replied in the same satisfied strain. And then the raves rolled in furiously, the neutral green and blue tongues of the water slid up the slopes, and were metamorphosed into foam by a careless blow, falling back white and faint and leaving trailing followers behind. The passing of a heavy shower was the next scene, driving them to shelter in a shallow cave, after which the horses were put in and they started to return homeward. By the time they reached the higher levels the sky had cleared again and the sunset rays glanced directly upon the wet uphill road they had climbed. The ruts formed by the carriage-wheels on the ascent, a pair of Liliputian canals, were as shining bars of gold tapering to nothing in the distance. Upon this also they turned their backs and Knight spread over the sea. The evening was chilly and there was no moon. Knight sat close to Elfride and when the darkness rendered the position of a person a matter of uncertainty, particularly close, Elfride edged away. I hope you allow me my place ungrudgingly, he whispered. Oh yes, to the least I can do in common civility, she said, accenting the words so that he might recognise them as his own returned. Both of them felt delicately balanced between two possibilities, thus they reached home. Tonight this mild experience was delightful. It was to him a gentle, innocent time, a time which, though there may not be much in it, seldom repeats itself in a man's life and has a particular dearness when glanced at retrospectively. He is not inconveniently deep in love, and is lulled by a peaceful sense of being able to enjoy the most trivial thing with a childlike enjoyment. The movement of a wave, the colour of a stone, anything, was enough for Knight's drowsy thoughts of that day to precipitate themselves upon. Even the sermonising platitudes the vicar had delivered himself of, chiefly, because something seemed to be professionally required of him in the presence of a man of Knight's proclivities, were swallowed whole. The presence of Elfride led him not merely to tolerate that kind of talk from the necessities of ordinary courtesy, but he listened to it, took in the ideas with an enjoyable mate-believe that they were proper and necessary, and indulged in the conservative feeling that the face of things was complete. Entering her room that evening, Elfride found a packet for herself on the dressing table. How it came there she did not know. She tremblingly under the folds of white paper that covered it. Yes, it was the treasure of a Morocco case, containing those treasures of ornament she had refused in the day-time. Elfride dressed herself in them for a moment, looked at herself in the glass, blushed red, and put them away. They filled her dreams all that night. Never had she seen anything so lovely, and never was it more clear that, as an honest woman, she was in duty bound to refuse them. Why it was not equally clear to her that duty required more vigorous, coordinate conduct as well, let those who dissect her say. The next morning glared like a specter upon her. It was Stephen's letter-day, and she was bound to meet the postman. To stealthily do a deed she had never liked. To secure an end she had now ceased to desire. But she went. There were two letters. One was from the bank at St. Lancers, in which she had a small private deposit, probably something about interest. She put that in her pocket for a moment, and going indoors and upstairs, to be safer from observation, tremblingly opened Stevens. What was this he said to her? She was to go to St. Lancers' bank, and to take a sum of money which they had received private advice to pay her. The sum was £200. There was no check, order or anything of the nature of guarantee. In fact, the information amounted to this. The money was now in the St. Lancers' bank, standing in her name. She instantly opened the other letter. It contained a deposit note from the bank for the sum of £200, which had that day been added to her account. Stevens' information then was correct, and the transfer made. I have saved this in one year, Stevens' letter went on to say, and what so proper as well as pleasant for me to do, as to hand it over to you to keep for your use. I have plenty for myself, independently of this. Should you not be disposed to let it lie idle in the bank, get your father to invest it in your name on good security. It is a little present to you, from your more than betrothed. He will, I think, Alfreda, feel now that my pretensions to your hand are anything but the dream of a silly boy not worth rational consideration. With a natural delicacy, Alfreda, in mentioning her father's marriage, had refrained from all illusion to the pecuniary resources of the lady. Leaving this matter of fact subject, he went on, somewhat after his boyish manner. Do you remember, darling, that first morning of my arrival at your house, when your father read that prayer as the miracle of healing the sick of the palsy, where he is told to take up his bed and walk? I do, and I can now so well realise the force of that passage. The smallest piece of mat is the bed for the Oriental, and yesterday I saw a native perform the very action, which reminded me to mention it. But you are better read than I, and perhaps you knew all this long ago. One day I bought some small native idols to send you home as curiosities, but afterwards, finding they had been cast in England, and made look old, and shipped over, I threw them away in disgust. Speaking of this, reminds me that we are obliged to import all our house-building ironwork from England. Never was such force I required to be exercised in building houses as here. Before we begin, we have to order every column, lock, hinge, and screw that will be required. We cannot go into the next street as in London and get them cast at a minute's notice. Mr. L says somebody will have to go to England very soon, and superintend the selection of a large order of this kind. I only wish that I may be the man. There before her lay the deposit receipt for the two hundred pounds, and beside it the elegant present of night. Elfride grew cold. Then her cheeks felt heated by beating blood. If by destroying the piece of paper the whole transaction could have been withdrawn from her experience, she would willingly have sacrificed the money it represented. She did not know what to do in either case. She almost feared to let the two articles lie in juxtaposition, so antagonistic where the interests they represented, that her miraculous repulsion of one by the other was almost to be expected. That day she was seen little of. By the evening she had come to a resolution, and acted upon it. The packet was sealed up with a tear of regret as she closed the case upon the pretty forms it contained, directed and placed upon the writing-table in night's room. And the letter was written to Stephen, stating that as yet she hardly understood her position with regard to the money sent, but declaring that she was ready to fulfil her promise to marry him. As this letter had been written she delayed posting it, although never ceasing to feel strenuously that the deed must be done. Several days passed there was another Indian letter for Elfride coming unexpectedly. Her father saw it, but made no remark of why she could not tell. The news this time was absolutely overwhelming. Stephen, as he had wished, had been actually chosen as the most fitting to execute the ironwork commission he had alluded to as impending. This duty completed he would have three months leave. His letter continued that he would follow it in a week, and should take the opportunity to plainly ask her father to permit the engagement. Then came a page expressive of his delight and hers at the reunion, and finally the information that he would write to the shipping agents asking them to telegraph, and tell her when the ship bringing him home should be in sight, knowing how acceptable such information would be. Elfride lived and moved now as in a dream. Night had at first become almost angry at her persistent refusal of his offering, and no less with a manner than the fact of it. But he saw that she began to look worn and ill, and his vexation lessened to simple perplexity. He ceased now to remain in the house for long hours together as before, but made it a mere centre for antiquarian and geological excursions in the neighbourhood. Throw up his cards and go away he feign would have done, but he could not. And thus, availing himself of the privileges of a relative, he went in and out of the premises as fancy led him, but still lingered on. I don't wish to stay here another day if my presence is distasteful, he said, one afternoon. At first your use will imply that I was severe with you, and when I am kind you treat me unfairly. Oh, no, no, don't say so. The origin of their acquaintanceship had been such as to render their manner towards each other peculiar and uncommon. It was of a kind to cause them to speak out their minds and any feelings of objection and difference, to be reticent on gentler matters. I have a good mind to go away, and never trouble you again, continued Knight. She said nothing, but the eloquent expression of her eyes and one face was enough to reproach him for harshness. Do you like me to be here, then? inquired Knight gently. Yes, said Elfride. Fidelity to the old love and truth to the new were ranged on opposite sides, and truth virtuously prevailed. Then I'll stay a little longer, said Knight. Don't be vexed if I keep by myself a good deal, will you? Perhaps something may happen, and I may tell you something. Mere coinus said Knight to himself, and went away with a lighter heart. The trick of reading truly the enigmatic forces at work in women, at given times, which with some men is an unerring instinct, is peculiar to minds less direct and honest than Knight's. The next evening, about five o'clock before Knight had returned from a pilgrimage along the shore, a man walked up to the house. He was a messenger from Camelton, a town a few miles off, to which place the railway had been advanced during the summer. A telegram for Miss Swancourt and three and six minutes to pay for the special messenger. Miss Swancourt sent out the money, signed the paper, and opened a letter with a trembling hand. She read, Johnson Liverpool to Miss Swancourt Enderlstow near Castle Botterall. Amaryllis telegraphed off Holly Head four o'clock. Expect will dock and land passengers at Canning's Basin ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Her father called her into the study. Elfride, who sent you that message? He asked suspiciously. Johnson. Who is Johnson for heaven's sake? I don't know. And the juice you don't. Who is to know then? I have never heard of him till now. That's a singular story, isn't it? I don't know. Come, come, Miss. What was the telegram? Do you really wish to know, Papa? Well, I do. Remember, I am a fully grown woman now. Well, what then? Being a woman and not a child, I may, I think, have a secret or two. You will, it seems. Women have as a rule. But don't keep them so speak out. If you will not press me now, I give my word to tell you the meaning of all this before the week is passed. And on your honour? On my honour. Very well. I have had a certain suspicion, you know, and I shall be glad to find it false. I don't like your manner lately. At the end of the week, I said, Papa. Her father did not reply, and Elfride left the room. She began to look out for the postman again. Three mornings later he brought an inland letter from Stephen. It contained very little matter, having been written in haste, but the meaning was bulky enough. Stephen said that having executed a commission in Liverpool, he should arrive at his father's house, East Endelstow, at five or six that same evening, that he would, after dusk, walk on to the next village and meet her, if she would, in the church porch, as in the old time. He proposed this plan because he thought it unadvisable to call formally at her house so late in the evening, yet he could not sleep without having seen her. The minutes would seem hours till he clasped her in his arms. Elfride was still steadfast in her opinion that on her compelder to meet him. Probably the very longing to avoid him lent additional weight to the conviction, for she was markedly one of those who sighed for the unattainable, to whom, superlatively, a hope is pleasing because not a possession. And she knew it so well that her intellect was inclined to exaggerate this defect in herself. So during the day she looked her duty steadfastly in the face, red, word-words, astringent, yet depressing all to that deity, committed herself to her guidance, and still felt the weight of chance desires. But she began to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the sacrifice of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of propriety compelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She would meet him and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guard against her relapse a note was at once dispatched to his father's cottage for Stephen on his arrival, fixing an hour for the interview.