A Pair of Blue Eyes

“A fair vestal, throned in the west.”

Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface. Their nature more precisely, and as modified by the creeping hours of time, was known only to those who watched the circumstances of her history.

Personally, she was the combination of very interesting particulars, whose rarity, however, lay in the combination itself rather than in the individual elements combined. As a matter of fact, you did not see the form and substance of her features when conversing with her; and this charming power of preventing a material study of her lineaments by an interlocutor, originated not in the cloaking effect of a well-formed manner (for her manner was childish and scarcely formed), but in the attractive crudeness of the remarks themselves. She had lived all her life in retirement⁠—the monstrari digito of idle men had not flattered her, and at the age of nineteen or twenty she was no further on in social consciousness than an urban young lady of fifteen.

One point in her, however, you did notice: that was her eyes. In them was seen a sublimation of all of her; it was not necessary to look further: there she lived.

These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance⁠—blue as the blue we see between the retreating mouldings of hills and woody slopes on a sunny September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no beginning or surface, and was looked into rather than at.

And now she saw a perplexing sight. At right angles to the face of the wing she had emerged from, and within a few feet of the door, jutted out another wing of the mansion, lower and with less architectural character. Immediately opposite to her, in the wall of this wing, was a large broad window, having its blind drawn down, and illuminated by a light in the room it screened.

On the blind was a shadow from somebody close inside it⁠—a person in profile. The profile was unmistakably that of Stephen. It was just possible to see that his arms were uplifted, and that his hands held an article of some kind. Then another shadow appeared⁠—also in profile⁠—and came close to him. This was the shadow of a woman. She turned her back towards Stephen: he lifted and held out what now proved to be a shawl or mantle⁠—placed it carefully⁠—so carefully⁠—round the lady; disappeared; reappeared in her front⁠—fastened the mantle. Did he then kiss her? Surely not. Yet the motion might have been a kiss. Then both shadows swelled to colossal dimensions⁠—grew distorted⁠—vanished.

Two minutes elapsed.

“Ah, Miss Swancourt! I am so glad to find you. I was looking for you,” said a voice at her elbow⁠—Stephen’s voice. She stepped into the passage.

“Do you know any of the members of this establishment?” said she.

“Not a single one: how should I?” he replied.

“And I don’t like you to tell me so warmly about him when you are in the middle of loving me. Stephen, suppose that I and this man Knight of yours were both drowning, and you could only save one of us⁠—”

“Yes⁠—the stupid old proposition⁠—which would I save?”

“Well, which? Not me.”

“Both of you,” he said, pressing her pendent hand.

“No, that won’t do; only one of us.”

“I cannot say; I don’t know. It is disagreeable⁠—quite a horrid idea to have to handle.”

“A-ha, I know. You would save him, and let me drown, drown, drown; and I don’t care about your love!”

She had endeavoured to give a playful tone to her words, but the latter speech was rather forced in its gaiety.

At this point in the discussion she trotted off to turn a corner which was avoided by the footpath, the road and the path reuniting at a point a little further on. On again making her appearance she continually managed to look in a direction away from him, and left him in the cool shade of her displeasure. Stephen was soon beaten at this game of indifference. He went round and entered the range of her vision.

“Are you offended, Elfie? Why don’t you talk?”

“Save me, then, and let that Mr. Clever of yours drown. I hate him. Now, which would you?”

“Now, Elfride, you know better,” he said wooingly. “And had you really 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 not good 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.”

“Here! what do you mean by that?”

“I mean that he is here.”

“Where here?”

“Under us. He is under this tomb. He is dead, and we are sitting on his grave.”

Knight rose and leant over the bank. No sooner was his head above it than his hat appeared to be sucked from his head⁠—slipping over his forehead in a seaward direction.

“That’s the backward eddy, as I told you,” he cried, and vanished over the little bank after his hat.

Elfride waited one minute; he did not return. She waited another, and there was no sign of him.

A few drops of rain fell, then a sudden shower.

She arose, and looked over the bank. On the other side were two or three yards of level ground⁠—then a short steep preparatory slope⁠—then the verge of the precipice.

On the slope was Knight, his hat on his head. He was on his hands and knees, trying to climb back to the level ground. The rain had wetted the shaly surface of the incline. A slight superficial wetting of the soil hereabout made it far more slippery to stand on than the same soil thoroughly drenched. The inner substance was still hard, and was lubricated by the moistened film.

“I find a difficulty in getting back,” said Knight.

Elfride’s heart fell like lead.

“But you can get back?” she wildly inquired.

Knight strove with all his might for two or three minutes, and the drops of perspiration began to bead his brow.

“No, I am unable to do it,” he answered.

Elfride, by a wrench of thought, forced away from her mind the sensation that Knight was in bodily danger. But attempt to help him she must.