一双蓝眼睛 英文版 A Pair of Blue Eyes
托马斯.哈代 Thomas Hardy
Chapter VIII
'Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord.'
The mists were creeping out of pools and swamps for theirpilgrimages of the night when Stephen came up to the front door ofthe vicarage. Elfride was standing on the step illuminated by alemon-hued expanse of western sky.
'You never have been all this time looking for that earring?' shesaid anxiously.
'Oh no; and I have not found it.'
'Never mind. Though I am much vexed; they are my prettiest. But,Stephen, what ever have you been doing--where have you been? Ihave been so uneasy. I feared for you, knowing not an inch of thecountry. I thought, suppose he has fallen over the cliff! But nowI am inclined to scold you for frightening me so.'
'I must speak to your father now,' he said rather abruptly; 'Ihave so much to say to him--and to you, Elfride.'
'Will what you have to say endanger this nice time of ours, and isit that same shadowy secret you allude to so frequently, and willit make me unhappy?'
'Possibly.'
She breathed heavily, and looked around as if for a prompter.
'Put it off till to-morrow,' she said.
He involuntarily sighed too.
'No; it must come to-night. Where is your father, Elfride?'
'Somewhere in the kitchen garden, I think,' she replied. 'That ishis favourite evening retreat. I will leave you now. Say allthat's to be said--do all there is to be done. Think of mewaiting anxiously for the end.' And she re-entered the house.
She waited in the drawing-room, watching the lights sink toshadows, the shadows sink to darkness, until her impatience toknow what had occurred in the garden could no longer becontrolled. She passed round the shrubbery, unlatched the gardendoor, and skimmed with her keen eyes the whole twilighted spacethat the four walls enclosed and sheltered: they were not there.She mounted a little ladder, which had been used for gatheringfruit, and looked over the wall into the field. This fieldextended to the limits of the glebe, which was enclosed on thatside by a privet-hedge. Under the hedge was Mr. Swancourt,walking up and down, and talking aloud--to himself, as it soundedat first. No: another voice shouted occasional replies ; and thisinterlocutor seemed to be on the other side of the hedge. Thevoice, though soft in quality, was not Stephen's.
The second speaker must have been in the long-neglected garden ofan old manor-house hard by, which, together with a small estateattached, had lately been purchased by a person named Troyton,whom Elfride had never seen. Her father might have struck up anacquaintanceship with some member of that family through theprivet-hedge, or a stranger to the neighbourhood might havewandered thither.
Well, there was no necessity for disturbing him.
And it seemed that, after all, Stephen had not yet made hisdesired communication to her father. Again she went indoors,wondering where Stephen could be. For want of something better todo, she went upstairs to her own little room. Here she sat downat the open window, and, leaning with her elbow on the table andher cheek upon her hand, she fell into meditation.
It was a hot and still August night. Every disturbance of thesilence which rose to the dignity of a noise could be heard formiles, and the merest sound for a long distance. So she remained,thinking of Stephen, and wishing he had not deprived her of hiscompany to no purpose, as it appeared. How delicate and sensitivehe was, she reflected; and yet he was man enough to have a privatemystery, which considerably elevated him in her eyes. Thus,looking at things with an inward vision, she lost consciousness ofthe flight of time.
Strange conjunctions of circumstances, particularly those of atrivial everyday kind, are so frequent in an ordinary life, thatwe grow used to their unaccountableness, and forget the questionwhether the very long odds against such juxtaposition is notalmost a disproof of it being a matter of chance at all. Whatoccurred to Elfride at this moment was a case in point. She wasvividly imagining, for the twentieth time, the kiss of themorning, and putting her lips together in the position anothersuch a one would demand, when she heard the identical operationperformed on the lawn, immediately beneath her window.
A kiss--not of the quiet and stealthy kind, but decisive, loud,and smart.
Her face flushed and she looked out, but to no purpose. The darkrim of the upland drew a keen sad line against the pale glow ofthe sky, unbroken except where a young cedar on the lawn, that hadoutgrown its fellow trees, shot its pointed head across thehorizon, piercing the firmamental lustre like a sting.
It was just possible that, had any persons been standing on thegrassy portions of the lawn, Elfride might have seen their duskyforms. But the shrubs, which once had merely dotted the glade,had now grown bushy and large, till they hid at least half theenclosure containing them. The kissing pair might have beenbehind some of these; at any rate, nobody was in sight.
Had no enigma ever been connected with her lover by his hints andabsences, Elfride would never have thought of admitting into hermind a suspicion that he might be concerned in the foregoingenactment. But the reservations he at present insisted on, whilethey added to the mystery without which perhaps she would neverhave seriously loved him at all, were calculated to nourish doubtsof all kinds, and with a slow flush of jealousy she asked herself,might he not be the culprit?
Elfride glided downstairs on tiptoe, and out to the precise spoton which she had parted from Stephen to enable him to speakprivately to her father. Thence she wandered into all the nooksaround the place from which the sound seemed to proceed--among thehuge laurestines, about the tufts of pampas grasses, amid thevariegated hollies, under the weeping wych-elm--nobody was there.Returning indoors she called 'Unity!'
'She is gone to her aunt's, to spend the evening,' said Mr.Swancourt, thrusting his head out of his study door, and lettingthe light of his candles stream upon Elfride's face--lessrevealing than, as it seemed to herself, creating the blush ofuneasy perplexity that was burning upon her cheek.
'I didn't know you were indoors, papa,' she said with surprise.'Surely no light was shining from the window when I was on thelawn?' and she looked and saw that the shutters were still open.
'Oh yes, I am in,' he said indifferently. 'What did you wantUnity for? I think she laid supper before she went out.'
'Did she?--I have not been to see--I didn't want her for that.'
Elfride scarcely knew, now that a definite reason was required,what that reason was. Her mind for a moment strayed to anothersubject, unimportant as it seemed. The red ember of a match waslying inside the fender, which explained that why she had seen norays from the window was because the candles had only just beenlighted.
'I'll come directly,' said the vicar. 'I thought you were outsomewhere with Mr. Smith.'
Even the inexperienced Elfride could not help thinking that herfather must be wonderfully blind if he failed to perceive what wasthe nascent consequence of herself and Stephen being sounceremoniously left together; wonderfully careless, if he saw itand did not think about it; wonderfully good, if, as seemed to herby far the most probable supposition, he saw it and thought aboutit and approved of it. These reflections were cut short by theappearance of Stephen just outside the porch, silvered about thehead and shoulders with touches of moonlight, that had begun tocreep through the trees.
'Has your trouble anything to do with a kiss on the lawn?' sheasked abruptly, almost passionately.
'Kiss on the lawn?'
'Yes!' she said, imperiously now.
'I didn't comprehend your meaning, nor do I now exactly. Icertainly have kissed nobody on the lawn, if that is really whatyou want to know, Elfride.'
'You know nothing about such a performance?'
'Nothing whatever. What makes you ask?'
'Don't press me to tell; it is nothing of importance. And,Stephen, you have not yet spoken to papa about our engagement?'
'No,' he said regretfully, 'I could not find him directly; andthen I went on thinking so much of what you said about objections,refusals--bitter words possibly--ending our happiness, that Iresolved to put it off till to-morrow; that gives us one more dayof delight--delight of a tremulous kind.'
'Yes; but it would be improper to be silent too long, I think,'she said in a delicate voice, which implied that her face hadgrown warm. 'I want him to know we love, Stephen. Why did youadopt as your own my thought of delay?'
'I will explain; but I want to tell you of my secret first--totell you now. It is two or three hours yet to bedtime. Let uswalk up the hill to the church.'
Elfride passively assented, and they went from the lawn by a sidewicket, and ascended into the open expanse of moonlight whichstreamed around the lonely edifice on the summit of the hill.
The door was locked. They turned from the porch, and walked handin hand to find a resting-place in the churchyard. Stephen chosea flat tomb, showing itself to be newer and whiter than thosearound it, and sitting down himself, gently drew her hand towardshim.
'No, not there,' she said.
'Why not here?'
'A mere fancy; but never mind.' And she sat down.
Papamight have consented to an engagement.
'Elfie, will you love me, in spite of everything that may be saidagainst me?'
'O Stephen, what makes you repeat that so continually and sosadly? You know I will. Yes, indeed,' she said, drawing closer,'whatever may be said of you--and nothing bad can be--I will clingto you just the same. Your ways shall be my ways until I die.'
'Did you ever think what my parents might be, or what society Ioriginally moved in?'
'No, not particularly. I have observed one or two little pointsin your manners which are rather quaint--no more. I suppose youhave moved in the ordinary society of professional people.'
'Supposing I have not--that none of my family have a professionexcept me?'
'I don't mind. What you are only concerns me.'
'Where do you think I went to school--I mean, to what kind ofschool?'
'Dr. Somebody's academy,' she said simply.
'No. To a dame school originally, then to a national school.'
'Only to those! Well, I love you just as much, Stephen, dearStephen,' she murmured tenderly, 'I do indeed. And why should youtell me these things so impressively? What do they matter to me?'
He held her closer and proceeded:
'What do you think my father is--does for his living, that is tosay?'
'He practises some profession or calling, I suppose.'
'No; he is a mason.'
'A Freemason?'
'No; a cottager and journeyman mason.'
Elfride said nothing at first. After a while she whispered:
'That is a strange idea to me. But never mind; what does itmatter?'
'But aren't you angry with me for not telling you before?'
'No, not at all. Is your mother alive?'
'Yes.'
'Is she a nice lady?'
'Very--the best mother in the world. Her people had been well-to-do yeomen for centuries, but she was only a dairymaid.'
'O Stephen!' came from her in whispered exclamation.
'She continued to attend to a dairy long after my father marriedher,' pursued Stephen, without further hesitation. 'And Iremember very well how, when I was very young, I used to go to themilking, look on at the skimming, sleep through the churning, andmake believe I helped her. Ah, that was a happy time enough!'
'No, never--not happy.'
'Yes, it was.'
'I don't see how happiness could be where the drudgery of dairy-work had to be done for a living--the hands red and chapped, andthe shoes clogged....Stephen, I do own that it seems odd to regardyou in the light of--of--having been so rough in your youth, anddone menial things of that kind.' (Stephen withdrew an inch or twofrom her side.) 'But I DO LOVE YOU just the same,' she continued,getting closer under his shoulder again, 'and I don't careanything about the past; and I see that you are all the worthierfor having pushed on in the world in such a way.'
'It is not my worthiness; it is Knight's, who pushed me.'
'Ah, always he--always he!'
'Yes, and properly so. Now, Elfride, you see the reason of histeaching me by letter. I knew him years before he went to Oxford,but I had not got far enough in my reading for him to entertainthe idea of helping me in classics till he left home. Then I wassent away from the village, and we very seldom met; but he kept upthis system of tuition by correspondence with the greatestregularity. I will tell you all the story, but not now. There isnothing more to say now, beyond giving places, persons, anddates.' His voice became timidly slow at this point.
'No; don't take trouble to say more. You are a dear honest fellowto say so much as you have; and it is not so dreadful either. Ithas become a normal thing that millionaires commence by going upto London with their tools at their back, and half-a-crown intheir pockets. That sort of origin is getting so respected,' shecontinued cheerfully, 'that it is acquiring some of the odour ofNorman ancestry.'
'Ah, if I had MADE my fortune, I shouldn't mind. But I am only apossible maker of it as yet.'
'It is quite enough. And so THIS is what your trouble was?'
'I thought I was doing wrong in letting you love me withouttelling you my story; and yet I feared to do so, Elfie. I dreadedto lose you, and I was cowardly on that account.'
'How plain everything about you seems after this explanation! Yourpeculiarities in chess-playing, the pronunciation papa noticed inyour Latin, your odd mixture of book-knowledge with ignorance ofordinary social accomplishments, are accounted for in a moment.And has this anything to do with what I saw at Lord Luxellian's?'
'What did you see?'
'I saw the shadow of yourself putting a cloak round a lady. I wasat the side door; you two were in a room with the window towardsme. You came to me a moment later.'
'She was my mother.'
'Your mother THERE!' She withdrew herself to look at him silentlyin her interest.
'Elfride,' said Stephen, 'I was going to tell you the remainderto-morrow--I have been keeping it back--I must tell it now, afterall. The remainder of my revelation refers to where my parentsare. Where do you think they live? You know them--by sight at anyrate.'
'I know them!' she said in suspended amazement.
'Yes. My father is John Smith, Lord Luxellian's master-mason, wholives under the park wall by the river.'
'O Stephen! can it be?'
'He built--or assisted at the building of the house you live in,years ago. He put up those stone gate piers at the lodge entranceto Lord Luxellian's park. My grandfather planted the trees thatbelt in your lawn; my grandmother--who worked in the fields withhim--held each tree upright whilst he filled in the earth: theytold me so when I was a child. He was the sexton, too, and dugmany of the graves around us.'
'And was your unaccountable vanishing on the first morning of yourarrival, and again this afternoon, a run to see your father andmother?...I understand now; no wonder you seemed to know your wayabout the village!'
'No wonder. But remember, I have not lived here since I was nineyears old. I then went to live with my uncle, a blacksmith, nearExonbury, in order to be able to attend a national school as a dayscholar; there was none on this remote coast then. It was there Imet with my friend Knight. And when I was fifteen and had beenfairly educated by the school-master--and more particularly byKnight--I was put as a pupil in an architect's office in thattown, because I was skilful in the use of the pencil. A fullpremium was paid by the efforts of my mother and father, ratheragainst the wishes of Lord Luxellian, who likes my father,however, and thinks a great deal of him. There I stayed till sixmonths ago, when I obtained a situation as improver, as it iscalled, in a London office. That's all of me.'
'To think YOU, the London visitor, the town man, should have beenborn here, and have known this village so many years before I did.How strange--how very strange it seems to me!' she murmured.
'My mother curtseyed to you and your father last Sunday,' saidStephen, with a pained smile at the thought of the incongruity.'And your papa said to her, "I am glad to see you so regular atchurch, JANE."'
'I remember it, but I have never spoken to her. We have only beenhere eighteen months, and the parish is so large.'
'Contrast with this,' said Stephen, with a miserable laugh, 'yourfather's belief in my "blue blood," which is still prevalent inhis mind. The first night I came, he insisted upon proving mydescent from one of the most ancient west-county families, onaccount of my second Christian name; when the truth is, it wasgiven me because my grandfather was assistant gardener in theFitzmaurice-Smith family for thirty years. Having seen your face,my darling, I had not heart to contradict him, and tell him whatwould have cut me off from a friendly knowledge of you.'
She sighed deeply. 'Yes, I see now how this inequality may bemade to trouble us,' she murmured, and continued in a low, sadwhisper, 'I wouldn't have minded if they had lived far away. Papamight have consented to an engagement between us if yourconnection had been with villagers a hundred miles off; remotenesssoftens family contrasts. But he will not like--O Stephen,Stephen! what can I do?'
'Do?' he said tentatively, yet with heaviness. 'Give me up; letme go back to London, and think no more of me.'
'No, no; I cannot give you up! This hopelessness in our affairsmakes me care more for you....I see what did not strike me atfirst. Stephen, why do we trouble? Why should papa object? Anarchitect in London is an architect in London. Who inquiresthere? Nobody. We shall live there, shall we not? Why need we beso alarmed?'
'And Elfie,' said Stephen, his hopes kindling with hers, 'Knightthinks nothing of my being only a cottager's son; he says I am asworthy of his friendship as if I were a lord's; and if I am worthyof his friendship, I am worthy of you, am I not, Elfride?'
'I not only have never loved anybody but you,' she said, insteadof giving an answer, 'but I have not even formed a strongfriendship, such as you have for Knight. I wish you hadn't. Itdiminishes me.'
'Now, Elfride, you know better,' he said wooingly. 'And had youreally never any sweetheart at all?'
'None that was ever recognized by me as such.'
'But did nobody ever love you?'
'Yes--a man did once; very much, he said.'
'How long ago?'
'Oh, a long time.'
'How long, dearest?
'A twelvemonth.'
'That's not VERY long' (rather disappointedly).
'I said long, not very long.'
'And did he want to marry you?'
'I believe he did. But I didn't see anything in him. He was notgood enough, even if I had loved him.'
'May I ask what he was?'
'A farmer.'
'A farmer not good enough--how much better than my family!'Stephen murmured.
'Where is he now?' he continued to Elfride.
'HERE.'
'I mean that he is here.'
'Where here?'
'Under us. He is under this tomb. He is dead, and we are sittingon his grave.'
'Elfie,' said the young man, standing up and looking at the tomb,'how odd and sad that revelation seems! It quite depresses me forthe moment.'
'Stephen! I didn't wish to sit here; but you would do so.'
'You never encouraged him?'
'Never by look, word, or sign,' she said solemnly. 'He died ofconsumption, and was buried the day you first came.'
'Let us go away. I don't like standing by HIM, even if you neverloved him. He was BEFORE me.'
'Worries make you unreasonable,' she half pouted, followingStephen at the distance of a few steps. 'Perhaps I ought to havetold you before we sat down. Yes; let us go.'