一双蓝眼睛 英文版 A Pair of Blue Eyes
托马斯.哈代 Thomas Hardy
Chapter V
'Bosom'd high in tufted trees.'
It was breakfast time.
As seen from the vicarage dining-room, which took a warm tone oflight from the fire, the weather and scene outside seemed to havestereotyped themselves in unrelieved shades of gray. The long-armed trees and shrubs of juniper, cedar, and pine varieties, weregrayish black; those of the broad-leaved sort, together with theherbage, were grayish-green; the eternal hills and tower behindthem were grayish-brown; the sky, dropping behind all, gray of thepurest melancholy.
Yet in spite of this sombre artistic effect, the morning was notone which tended to lower the spirits. It was even cheering. Forit did not rain, nor was rain likely to fall for many days tocome.
Elfride had turned from the table towards the fire and was idlyelevating a hand-screen before her face, when she heard the clickof a little gate outside.
'Ah, here's the postman!' she said, as a shuffling, active mancame through an opening in the shrubbery and across the lawn. Shevanished, and met him in the porch, afterwards coming in with herhands behind her back.
'How many are there? Three for papa, one for Mr. Smith, none forMiss Swancourt. And, papa, look here, one of yours is from--whomdo you think?--Lord Luxellian. And it has something HARD in it--alump of something. I've been feeling it through the envelope, andcan't think what it is.'
'What does Luxellian write for, I wonder?' Mr. Swancourt had saidsimultaneously with her words. He handed Stephen his letter, andtook his own, putting on his countenance a higher class of lookthan was customary, as became a poor gentleman who was going toread a letter from a peer.
Stephen read his missive with a countenance quite the reverse ofthe vicar's.
'PERCY PLACE, Thursday Evening.'DEAR SMITH,--Old H. is in a towering rage with you for being solong about the church sketches. Swears you are more trouble thanyou are worth. He says I am to write and say you are to stay nolonger on any consideration--that he would have done it all inthree hours very easily. I told him that you were not like anexperienced hand, which he seemed to forget, but it did not makemuch difference. However, between you and me privately, if I wereyou I would not alarm myself for a day or so, if I were notinclined to return. I would make out the week and finish myspree. He will blow up just as much if you appear here onSaturday as if you keep away till Monday morning.--Yours verytruly,'SIMPKINS JENKINS.
'Dear me--very awkward!' said Stephen, rather en l'air, andconfused with the kind of confusion that assails an understrapperwhen he has been enlarged by accident to the dimensions of asuperior, and is somewhat rudely pared down to his original size.
'What is awkward?' said Miss Swancourt.
Smith by this time recovered his equanimity, and with it theprofessional dignity of an experienced architect.
'Important business demands my immediate presence in London, Iregret to say,' he replied.
'What! Must you go at once?' said Mr. Swancourt, looking over theedge of his letter. 'Important business? A young fellow like youto have important business!'
'The truth is,' said Stephen blushing, and rather ashamed ofhaving pretended even so slightly to a consequence which did notbelong to him,--'the truth is, Mr. Hewby has sent to say I am tocome home; and I must obey him.'
'I see; I see. It is politic to do so, you mean. Now I can seemore than you think. You are to be his partner. I booked you forthat directly I read his letter to me the other day, and the wayhe spoke of you. He thinks a great deal of you, Mr. Smith, or hewouldn't be so anxious for your return.'
Elfride was struck with that look of his; even Mr. Swancourtnoticed it.
'Well,' he said cheerfully, 'never mind that now. You must comeagain on your own account; not on business. Come to see me as avisitor, you know--say, in your holidays--all you town men haveholidays like schoolboys. When are they?'
'In August, I believe.'
'Very well; come in August; and then you need not hurry away so.I am glad to get somebody decent to talk to, or at, in thisoutlandish ultima Thule. But, by the bye, I have something tosay--you won't go to-day?'
'No; I need not,' said Stephen hesitatingly. 'I am not obliged toget back before Monday morning.'
'Very well, then, that brings me to what I am going to propose.This is a letter from Lord Luxellian. I think you heard me speakof him as the resident landowner in this district, and patron ofthis living?'
'I--know of him.'
'He is in London now. It seems that he has run up on business fora day or two, and taken Lady Luxellian with him. He has writtento ask me to go to his house, and search for a paper among hisprivate memoranda, which he forgot to take with him.'
'What did he send in the letter?' inquired Elfride.
'The key of a private desk in which the papers are. He doesn'tlike to trust such a matter to any body else. I have done suchthings for him before. And what I propose is, that we make anafternoon of it--all three of us. Go for a drive to Targan Bay,come home by way of Endelstow House; and whilst I am looking overthe documents you can ramble about the rooms where you like. Ihave the run of the house at any time, you know. The building,though nothing but a mass of gables outside, has a splendid hall,staircase, and gallery within; and there are a few good pictures.'
'Yes, there are,' said Stephen.
'Have you seen the place, then?
'I saw it as I came by,' he said hastily.
'Oh yes; but I was alluding to the interior. And the church--St.Eval's--is much older than our St. Agnes' here. I do duty in thatand this alternately, you know. The fact is, I ought to have somehelp; riding across that park for two miles on a wet morning isnot at all the thing. If my constitution were not well seasoned,as thank God it is,'--here Mr. Swancourt looked down his front, asif his constitution were visible there,--'I should be coughing andbarking all the year round. And when the family goes away, thereare only about three servants to preach to when I get there.Well, that shall be the arrangement, then. Elfride, you will liketo go?'
Elfride assented; and the little breakfast-party separated.Stephen rose to go and take a few final measurements at thechurch, the vicar following him to the door with a mysteriousexpression of inquiry on his face.
'You'll put up with our not having family prayer this morning, Ihope?' he whispered.
'Yes; quite so,' said Stephen.
'To tell you the truth,' he continued in the same undertone, 'wedon't make a regular thing of it; but when we have strangersvisiting us, I am strongly of opinion that it is the proper thingto do, and I always do it. I am very strict on that point. Butyou, Smith, there is something in your face which makes me feelquite at home; no nonsense about you, in short. Ah, it reminds meof a splendid story I used to hear when I was a helter-skelteryoung fellow--such a story! But'--here the vicar shook his headself-forbiddingly, and grimly laughed.
'Was it a good story?' said young Smith, smiling too.
'Oh yes; but 'tis too bad--too bad! Couldn't tell it to you forthe world!'
Stephen went across the lawn, hearing the vicar chucklingprivately at the recollection as he withdrew.
They started at three o'clock. The gray morning had resolveditself into an afternoon bright with a pale pervasive sunlight,without the sun itself being visible. Lightly they trotted along--the wheels nearly silent, the horse's hoofs clapping, almostringing, upon the hard, white, turnpike road as it followed thelevel ridge in a perfectly straight line, seeming to be absorbedultimately by the white of the sky.
Targan Bay--which had the merit of being easily got at--was dulyvisited. They then swept round by innumerable lanes, in which nottwenty consecutive yards were either straight or level, to thedomain of Lord Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and thickneck, like Queen Anne by Dahl, threw open the lodge gate, a littleboy standing behind her.
'I'll give him something, poor little fellow,' said Elfride,pulling out her purse and hastily opening it. From the interiorof her purse a host of bits of paper, like a flock of white birds,floated into the air, and were blown about in all directions.
'Well, to be sure!' said Stephen with a slight laugh.
'What the dickens is all that?' said Mr. Swancourt. 'Not halvesof bank-notes, Elfride?'
Elfride looked annoyed and guilty. 'They are only something ofmine, papa,' she faltered, whilst Stephen leapt out, and, assistedby the lodge-keeper's little boy, crept about round the wheels andhorse's hoofs till the papers were all gathered together again.He handed them back to her, and remounted.
'I suppose you are wondering what those scraps were?' she said, asthey bowled along up the sycamore avenue. 'And so I may as welltell you. They are notes for a romance I am writing.'
She could not help colouring at the confession, much as she triedto avoid it.
'Yes; THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE; a romance of the fifteenthcentury. Such writing is out of date now, I know; but I likedoing it.'
'A romance carried in a purse! If a highwayman were to rob you, hewould be taken in.'
'Yes; that's my way of carrying manuscript. The real reason is,that I mostly write bits of it on scraps of paper when I am onhorseback; and I put them there for convenience.'
'What are you going to do with your romance when you have writtenit?' said Stephen.
'I don't know,' she replied, and turned her head to look at theprospect.
For by this time they had reached the precincts of EndelstowHouse. Driving through an ancient gate-way of dun-coloured stone,spanned by the high-shouldered Tudor arch, they found themselvesin a spacious court, closed by a facade on each of its threesides. The substantial portions of the existing building datedfrom the reign of Henry VIII.; but the picturesque and shelteredspot had been the site of an erection of a much earlier date. Alicence to crenellate mansum infra manerium suum was granted byEdward II. to 'Hugo Luxellen chivaler;' but though the faintoutline of the ditch and mound was visible at points, no sign ofthe original building remained.
The windows on all sides were long and many-mullioned; the rooflines broken up by dormer lights of the same pattern. The apexstones of these dormers, together with those of the gables, weresurmounted by grotesque figures in rampant, passant, and couchantvariety. Tall octagonal and twisted chimneys thrust themselveshigh up into the sky, surpassed in height, however, by somepoplars and sycamores at the back, which showed their gentlyrocking summits over ridge and parapet. In the corners of thecourt polygonal bays, whose surfaces were entirely occupied bybuttresses and windows, broke into the squareness of theenclosure; and a far-projecting oriel, springing from a fantasticseries of mouldings, overhung the archway of the chief entrance tothe house.
?' he replied.schoolboys. !
As Mr. Swancourt had remarked, he had the freedom of the mansionin the absence of its owner. Upon a statement of his errand theywere all admitted to the library, and left entirely to themselves.Mr. Swancourt was soon up to his eyes in the examination of a heapof papers he had taken from the cabinet described by hiscorrespondent. Stephen and Elfride had nothing to do but towander about till her father was ready.
Elfride entered the gallery, and Stephen followed her withoutseeming to do so. It was a long sombre apartment, enriched withfittings a century or so later in style than the walls of themansion. Pilasters of Renaissance workmanship supported a cornicefrom which sprang a curved ceiling, panelled in the awkward twistsand curls of the period. The old Gothic quarries still remainedin the upper portion of the large window at the end, though theyhad made way for a more modern form of glazing elsewhere.
Stephen was at one end of the gallery looking towards Elfride, whostood in the midst, beginning to feel somewhat depressed by thesociety of Luxellian shades of cadaverous complexion fixed byHolbein, Kneller, and Lely, and seeming to gaze at and through herin a moralizing mood. The silence, which cast almost a spell uponthem, was broken by the sudden opening of a door at the far end.
Out bounded a pair of little girls, lightly yet warmly dressed.Their eyes were sparkling; their hair swinging about and around;their red mouths laughing with unalloyed gladness.
all directions. clickof a little!
'Ah, Miss Swancourt: dearest Elfie! we heard you. Are you goingto stay here? You are our little mamma, are you not--our big mammais gone to London,' said one.
'Let me tiss you,' said the other, in appearance very much likethe first, but to a smaller pattern.
Their pink cheeks and yellow hair were speedily intermingled withthe folds of Elfride's dress; she then stooped and tenderlyembraced them both.
'Such an odd thing,' said Elfride, smiling, and turning toStephen. 'They have taken it into their heads lately to call me"little mamma," because I am very fond of them, and wore a dressthe other day something like one of Lady Luxellian's.'
These two young creatures were the Honourable Mary and theHonourable Kate--scarcely appearing large enough as yet to bearthe weight of such ponderous prefixes. They were the only twochildren of Lord and Lady Luxellian, and, as it proved, had beenleft at home during their parents' temporary absence, in thecustody of nurse and governess. Lord Luxellian was dotingly fondof the children; rather indifferent towards his wife, since shehad begun to show an inclination not to please him by giving him aboy.
All children instinctively ran after Elfride, looking upon hermore as an unusually nice large specimen of their own tribe thanas a grown-up elder. It had now become an established rule, thatwhenever she met them--indoors or out-of-doors, weekdays orSundays--they were to be severally pressed against her face andbosom for the space of a quarter of a minute, and other--wise mademuch of on the delightful system of cumulative epithet and caressto which unpractised girls will occasionally abandon themselves.
A look of misgiving by the youngsters towards the door by whichthey had entered directed attention to a maid-servant appearingfrom the same quarter, to put an end to this sweet freedom of thepoor Honourables Mary and Kate.
'I wish you lived here, Miss Swancourt,' piped one like amelancholy bullfinch.
'So do I,' piped the other like a rather more melancholybullfinch. 'Mamma can't play with us so nicely as you do. Idon't think she ever learnt playing when she was little. Whenshall we come to see you?'
'As soon as you like, dears.'
'And sleep at your house all night? That's what I mean by comingto see you. I don't care to see people with hats and bonnets on,and all standing up and walking about.'
'As soon as we can get mamma's permission you shall come and stayas long as ever you like. Good-bye!'
The prisoners were then led off, Elfride again turning herattention to her guest, whom she had left standing at the remoteend of the gallery. On looking around for him he was nowhere tobe seen. Elfride stepped down to the library, thinking he mighthave rejoined her father there. But Mr. Swancourt, now cheerfullyilluminated by a pair of candles, was still alone, untying packetsof letters and papers, and tying them up again.
As Elfride did not stand on a sufficiently intimate footing withthe object of her interest to justify her, as a proper young lady,to commence the active search for him that youthful impulsivenessprompted, and as, nevertheless, for a nascent reason connectedwith those divinely cut lips of his, she did not like him to beabsent from her side, she wandered desultorily back to the oakstaircase, pouting and casting her eyes about in hope ofdiscerning his boyish figure.
Though daylight still prevailed in the rooms, the corridors werein a depth of shadow--chill, sad, and silent; and it was only bylooking along them towards light spaces beyond that anything oranybody could be discerned therein. One of these light spots shefound to be caused by a side-door with glass panels in the upperpart. Elfride opened it, and found herself confronting asecondary or inner lawn, separated from the principal lawn frontby a shrubbery.
And now she saw a perplexing sight. At right angles to the faceof the wing she had emerged from, and within a few feet of thedoor, jutted out another wing of the mansion, lower and with lessarchitectural character. Immediately opposite to her, in the wallof this wing, was a large broad window, having its blind drawndown, and illuminated by a light in the room it screened.
breakfast time. ever you like. Good-bye!'entered directed attention.
On the blind was a shadow from somebody close inside it--a personin profile. The profile was unmistakably that of Stephen. It wasjust possible to see that his arms were uplifted, and that hishands held an article of some kind. Then another shadow appeared--also in profile--and came close to him. This was the shadow of awoman. She turned her back towards Stephen: he lifted and heldout what now proved to be a shawl or mantle--placed it carefully--so carefully--round the lady; disappeared; reappeared in herfront--fastened the mantle. Did he then kiss her? Surely not.Yet the motion might have been a kiss. Then both shadows swelledto colossal dimensions--grew distorted--vanished.
Two minutes elapsed.
'Ah, Miss Swancourt! I am so glad to find you. I was looking foryou,' said a voice at her elbow--Stephen's voice. She steppedinto the passage.
'Do you know any of the members of this establishment?' said she.
'Not a single one: how should I?' he replied.