一双蓝眼睛 英文版 A Pair of Blue Eyes
托马斯.哈代 Thomas Hardy
Chapter XX Page 2
Both of them felt delicately balanced between two possibilities.Thus they reached home.
To Knight this mild experience was delightful. It was to him agentle innocent time--a time which, though there may not be muchin it, seldom repeats itself in a man's life, and has a peculiardearness when glanced at retrospectively. He is notinconveniently deep in love, and is lulled by a peaceful sense ofbeing able to enjoy the most trivial thing with a childlikeenjoyment. The movement of a wave, the colour of a stone,anything, was enough for Knight's drowsy thoughts of that day toprecipitate themselves upon. Even the sermonizing platitudes thevicar had delivered himself of--chiefly because something seemedto be professionally required of him in the presence of a man ofKnight's proclivities--were swallowed whole. The presence ofElfride led him not merely to tolerate that kind of talk from thenecessities of ordinary courtesy; but he listened to it--took inthe ideas with an enjoyable make-believe that they were proper andnecessary, and indulged in a conservative feeling that the face ofthings was complete.
Entering her room that evening Elfride found a packet for herselfon the dressing-table. How it came there she did not know. Shetremblingly undid the folds of white paper that covered it. Yes;it was the treasure of a morocco case, containing those treasuresof ornament she had refused in the daytime.
Elfride dressed herself in them for a moment, looked at herself inthe glass, blushed red, and put them away. They filled her dreamsall that night. Never had she seen anything so lovely, and neverwas it more clear that as an honest woman she was in duty bound torefuse them. Why it was not equally clear to her that dutyrequired more vigorous co-ordinate conduct as well, let those whodissect her say.
The next morning glared in like a spectre upon her. It wasStephen's letter-day, and she was bound to meet the postman--tostealthily do a deed she had never liked, to secure an end she nowhad ceased to desire.
But she went.
There were two letters.
One was from the bank at St. Launce's, in which she had a smallprivate deposit--probably something about interest. She put thatin her pocket for a moment, and going indoors and upstairs to besafer from observation, tremblingly opened Stephen's.
What was this he said to her?
She was to go to the St. Launce's Bank and take a sum of moneywhich they had received private advices to pay her.
The sum was two hundred pounds.
There was no check, order, or anything of the nature of guarantee.In fact the information amounted to this: the money was now in theSt. Launce's Bank, standing in her name.
She instantly opened the other letter. It contained a deposit-note from the bank for the sum of two hundred pounds which hadthat day been added to her account. Stephen's information, then,was correct, and the transfer made.
'I have saved this in one year,' Stephen's letter went on to say,'and what so proper as well as pleasant for me to do as to hand itover to you to keep for your use? I have plenty for myself,independently of this. Should you not be disposed to let it lieidle in the bank, get your father to invest it in your name ongood security. It is a little present to you from your more thanbetrothed. He will, I think, Elfride, feel now that mypretensions to your hand are anything but the dream of a silly boynot worth rational consideration.'
With a natural delicacy, Elfride, in mentioning her father'smarriage, had refrained from all allusion to the pecuniaryresources of the lady.
Leaving this matter-of-fact subject, he went on, somewhat afterhis boyish manner:
'Do you remember, darling, that first morning of my arrival atyour house, when your father read at prayers the miracle ofhealing the sick of the palsy--where he is told to take up his bedand walk? I do, and I can now so well realize the force of thatpassage. The smallest piece of mat is the bed of the Oriental,and yesterday I saw a native perform the very action, whichreminded me to mention it. But you are better read than I, andperhaps you knew all this long ago....One day I bought some smallnative idols to send home to you as curiosities, but afterwardsfinding they had been cast in England, made to look old, andshipped over, I threw them away in disgust.
'Speaking of this reminds me that we are obliged to import all ourhouse-building ironwork from England. Never was such foresightrequired to be exercised in building houses as here. Before webegin, we have to order every column, lock, hinge, and screw thatwill be required. We cannot go into the next street, as inLondon, and get them cast at a minute's notice. Mr. L. sayssomebody will have to go to England very soon and superintend theselection of a large order of this kind. I only wish I may be theman.'
There before her lay the deposit-receipt for the two hundredpounds, and beside it the elegant present of Knight. Elfride grewcold--then her cheeks felt heated by beating blood. If bydestroying the piece of paper the whole transaction could havebeen withdrawn from her experience, she would willingly havesacrificed the money it represented. She did not know what to doin either case. She almost feared to let the two articles lie injuxtaposition: so antagonistic were the interests they representedthat a miraculous repulsion of one by the other was almost to beexpected.
That day she was seen little of. By the evening she had come to aresolution, and acted upon it. The packet was sealed up--with atear of regret as she closed the case upon the pretty forms itcontained--directed, and placed upon the writing-table in Knight'sroom. And a letter was written to Stephen, stating that as yetshe hardly understood her position with regard to the money sent;but declaring that she was ready to fulfil her promise to marryhim. After this letter had been written she delayed posting it--although never ceasing to feel strenuously that the deed must bedone.
Several days passed. There was another Indian letter for Elfride.Coming unexpectedly, her father saw it, but made no remark--why,she could not tell. The news this time was absolutelyoverwhelming. Stephen, as he had wished, had been actually chosenas the most fitting to execute the iron-work commission he hadalluded to as impending. This duty completed he would have threemonths' leave. His letter continued that he should follow it in aweek, and should take the opportunity to plainly ask her father topermit the engagement. Then came a page expressive of his delightand hers at the reunion; and finally, the information that hewould write to the shipping agents, asking them to telegraph andtell 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. Knight had at firstbecome almost angry at her persistent refusal of his offering--andno less with the manner than the fact of it. But he saw that shebegan to look worn and ill--and his vexation lessened to simpleperplexity.
He ceased now to remain in the house for long hours together asbefore, but made it a mere centre for antiquarian and geologicalexcursions in the neighbourhood. Throw up his cards and go awayhe fain would have done, but could not. And, thus, availinghimself of the privileges of a relative, he went in and out thepremises as fancy led him--but still lingered on.
'I don't wish to stay here another day if my presence isdistasteful,' he said one afternoon. 'At first you used to implythat I was severe with you; and when I am kind you treat meunfairly.'
'No, no. Don't say so.'
The origin of their acquaintanceship had been such as to rendertheir manner towards each other peculiar and uncommon. It was ofa kind to cause them to speak out their minds on any feelings ofobjection 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 wanface was enough to reproach him for harshness.
'Do you like me to be here, then?' inquired Knight gently.
'Yes,' she said. Fidelity to the old love and truth to the newwere ranged on opposite sides, and truth virtuelessly prevailed.
'Then I'll stay a little longer,' said Knight.
'Don't be vexed if I keep by myself a good deal, will you? Perhapssomething may happen, and I may tell you something.'
'Mere coyness,' said Knight to himself; and went away with alighter heart. The trick of reading truly the enigmatical forcesat work in women at given times, which with some men is anunerring instinct, is peculiar to minds less direct and honestthan Knight's.
The next evening, about five o'clock, before Knight had returnedfrom 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 whichplace the railway had been advanced during the summer.
'A telegram for Miss Swancourt, and three and sixpence to pay forthe special messenger.' Miss Swancourt sent out the money, signedthe paper, and opened her letter with a trembling hand. She read:
'Johnson, Liverpool, to Miss Swancourt, Endelstow, near CastleBoterel.
'Amaryllis telegraphed off Holyhead, four o'clock. Expect willdock and land passengers at Canning's Basin ten o'clock to-morrowmorning.'
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.'
'The deuce 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 full-grown woman now.'
'Well, what then?'
'Being a woman, and not a child, I may, I think, have a secret ortwo.'
'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 themeaning of all this before the week is past.'
'On your honour?'
'On my honour.'
'Very well. I have had a certain suspicion, you know; and I shallbe 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 laterhe brought an inland letter from Stephen. It contained verylittle matter, having been written in haste; but the meaning wasbulky enough. Stephen said that, having executed a commission inLiverpool, he should arrive at his father's house, East Endelstow,at five or six o'clock that same evening; that he would after duskwalk on to the next village, and meet her, if she would, in thechurch porch, as in the old time. He proposed this plan becausehe thought it unadvisable to call formally at her house so late inthe evening; yet he could not sleep without having seen her. Theminutes would seem hours till he clasped her in his arms.
Elfride was still steadfast in her opinion that honour compelledher to meet him. Probably the very longing to avoid him lentadditional weight to the conviction; for she was markedly one ofthose who sigh for the unattainable--to whom, superlatively, ahope is pleasing because not a possession. And she knew it sowell that her intellect was inclined to exaggerate this defect inherself.
So during the day she looked her duty steadfastly in the face;read Wordsworth's astringent yet depressing ode to that Deity;committed herself to her guidance; and still felt the weight ofchance desires.
But she began to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating thesacrifice of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of proprietycompelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She wouldmeet him, and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guardagainst a relapse, a note was at once despatched to his father'scottage for Stephen on his arrival, fixing an hour for theinterview.