A Pair Of Blue Eyes - Chapter 2

First published in 1873, "A Pair of Blue Eyes" is a tender and atmospheric novel by Thomas Hardy, set amid the wild beauty of the Cornish coast in western England. It tells the story of Elfride Swancourt, a young woman caught between love, social expectations and the haunting pull of the past. This early Hardy novel is rich with emotional depth and lyrical landscapes, so settle in and let the gentle rhythms of Victorian prose carry you into a quieter time...!

Transcript

Hello there.

Thank you so much for joining me for this reading of A Pair of Blue Eyes,

The charming novel from Thomas Hardy from 1873.

We are following along with the adventures of a high-spirited,

Bright,

Sensitive young woman in a remote part of Cornwall in the west of England in the Victorian times.

She is caught between two very different suitors and we'll be hearing about the romance and social pressures and inner conflicts of that era.

But for now,

Let's just take a moment here to have a nice,

Deep exhale.

Letting go of the day,

Letting go of whichever baggage we might be bringing along with us into this moment.

For right now,

There's nothing else we have to be doing,

Nowhere else we have to be.

So we can just relax,

Get ourselves comfortable and enjoy the charming tale of A Pair of Blue Eyes.

Chapter Two.

T'was on the evening of a winter's day.

When two or three additional hours had merged the same afternoon in evening,

Some moving outlines might have been observed against the sky on the summit of a wild,

Lone hill in that district.

They circumscribed two men,

Having at present the aspect of silhouettes,

Sitting in a dog cart and pushing along in the teeth of the wind.

Scarcely a solitary house or man had been visible along the whole dreary distance of open country they were traversing.

And now that night had begun to fall,

The faint twilight,

Which still gave an idea of the landscape to their observation,

Was enlivened by the quiet appearance of the planet Jupiter,

Momentarily gleaming in intenser brilliancy in front of them,

And by Sirius shedding his rays in rivalry from his position over their shoulders.

The only lights apparent on earth were some spots of dull red,

Glowing here and there upon the distant hills,

Which,

As the driver of the vehicle gratuitously remarked to the hirer,

Were smouldering fires for the consumption of peat and gorse roots,

Where the common was being broken up for agricultural purposes.

The wind prevailed,

With but little abatement from its daytime boisterousness.

Three or four small clouds,

Delicate and pale,

Creeping along under the sky southward to the channel.

Fourteen of the sixteen miles intervening between the railway terminus and the end of their journey had been gone over when they began to pass along the brink of a valley,

Some miles in extent,

Wherein the wintry skeletons of a more luxuriant vegetation than had hitherto surrounded them,

Proclaimed an increased richness of soil,

Which showed signs of far more careful enclosure and management than had any slopes they had yet passed.

A little farther,

And an opening in the elms stretching up from this fertile valley,

Revealed a mansion.

That's Endelstow House,

Lord Luxillian's,

Said the driver.

Endelstow House,

Lord Luxillian's,

Repeated the other mechanically.

He then turned himself sideways and keenly scrutinised the almost invisible house,

With an interest which the indistinct picture itself seemed far from adequate to create.

Yes,

That's Lord Luxillian's,

He said yet again after a while,

As he still looked in the same direction.

What,

Be we going there?

No,

Endelstow Vicarage,

As I have told you.

I thought you might have altered your mind,

Sir,

As you have stared that way at nothing so long.

Oh,

No,

I'm interested in the house,

That's all.

Most people be,

As the saying is,

Not in the sense that I am.

Oh,

Well,

His family is no better than my own,

I believe.

How is that?

Edgers and Ditchers,

By rights.

But once,

In ancient times,

One of them,

When he was at work,

Changed clothes with King Charles II and saved the King's life.

King Charles came up to him like a common man and said offhand,

Man in the smock frock,

My name is Charles II and that's the truth,

Thot.

Will you lend me your clothes?

I don't mind if I do,

Said Edger and Luxillian,

And they changed there and then.

Now,

Mind you,

King Charles II said like a common man as he rolled away,

If I ever come to the crown,

You come to court,

Knock at the door and say out loud,

Is King Charles II at home?

Tell your name and they shall let you in and you shall be made a lord.

Now,

That was very nice of Master Charlie.

Very nice indeed.

Well,

As the story is,

The King came to the throne and some years after that,

Away went Edger Luxillian,

Knocked at the King's door and asked if King Charles II was in.

No,

He isn't,

They said.

Then is Charles III,

Said Edger Luxillian.

Yes,

Said a young fella,

Standing by like a common man,

Only he had a crown on.

My name is Charles III and I really fancy that must be a mistake.

I don't recollect anything in English history about Charles III,

Said the other in a tone of mild remonstrance.

Oh,

That's right history enough,

Only it wasn't printed.

He was rather a queer-tempered man,

If you remember.

Very well,

Go on.

And by Uckerboy crook,

Edger Luxillian was made a lord.

And everything went on well till sometime after when he got into a most terrible row with King Charles IV.

I can't stand Charles IV,

Upon my word,

That's too much.

Why?

There was a George IV,

Wasn't there?

Certainly.

Well,

Charleses be as common as Georges.

However,

I'll say no more about it.

Ah,

Well.

Tis the funniest world ever I lived in upon my life,

Tis.

Ah,

That such should be.

The dusk had thickened into darkness while they thus conversed,

And the outline and surface of mansion gradually disappeared.

The windows,

Which had before been as black blots on a lighter expanse of wall,

Became illuminated and were transfigured to squares of light on the general dark body of the night landscape as it absorbed the outlines of the edifice into its gloomy monochrome.

Not another word was spoken for some time,

And they climbed a hill,

Then another hill,

Piled on the summit of the first.

An additional mile of plateau followed from which could be discerned two lighthouses on the coast they were nearing,

Reposing on the horizon with a calm luster of benignity.

Another oasis was reached.

A little dell lay like a nest at their feet,

Towards which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp angle and descended a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit's burrow.

They sank lower and lower.

"'Endelstow Vicarage is inside here,

' continued the man with the reins.

"'This part about here is West Endelstow.

Lord Luxillian's is East Endelstow,

And has a church to itself.

Passin' Swan Court is the passin' of both,

And bobs backward and forward.

' "'Ah,

Well,

Tis a funny world.

I believe there was once a quarry where this house stands.

The man who built it in pastime scraped all the glade for earth to put round the vicarage,

And laid out a little paradise of flowers and trees in the soil he'd got together in this way,

Whilst the fields he scraped have been good for nothing ever since.

' "'How long has the present incumbent been here?

' "'Maybe about a year,

Or a year and a half.

It isn't two years,

For they don't scandalise him yet.

And as a rule,

A parish begins to scandalise the passin' at the end of two years,

Among unfamiliar.

But he's a very nice party.

Ay,

Passin' Swan Court knows me pretty well from often driving over,

And I know Passin' Swan Court.

' They emerged from the bower,

Swept round in a curve,

And the chimneys and gables of the vicarage became darkly visible.

Not a light showed anywhere.

They alighted.

The man felt his way into the porch and rang the bell.

At the end of three or four minutes,

Spent in patient waiting without hearing any sounds of a response,

The stranger advanced and repeated the call in a more decided manner.

He then fancied he heard footsteps in the hall and sundry movements of the doorknob,

But nobody appeared.

"'Perhaps they bein' at home,

' sighed the driver.

"'And I promised myself a bit of supper in Passin' Swan Court's kitchen.

Such lovely meat pies,

And fig cakes,

And cider,

And drops of cordial that they do keep here.

' "'All right,

Neighbours.

Be ye rich men,

Or be ye poor men,

That ye must need come to the world's end at this time o' night!

' exclaimed a voice at this instant,

And turning their heads,

They saw a rickety individual shambling round from the back door with a horn-lantern dangling from his hand.

"'Time o' night,

I believe,

And the clock only gone seven o' them.

Show a light and let us in,

William Worm.

' "'Oh,

That you,

Robert Lickpan?

Nobody else,

William Worm.

And is the visitin' man o' come?

' "'Yes,

' said the stranger.

"'Is Mr.

Swan Court at home?

' "'That he is,

Sir.

And would you mind comin' round by the back way?

The front door's got stuck with the wet,

As he will do sometimes,

And the Turk can't open him.

I know I am only a poor womblin' man that I'll never pay the Lord for my makin',

Sir,

But I can show the way in,

Sir.

' The new arrival followed his guide through a little door in a wall,

And then promenaded a scullery and a kitchen,

Along which he passed with eyes rigidly fixed in advance.

An inbred horror of prying,

Forbidding him to gaze around apartments that formed the back side of the household tapestry.

Entering the hall,

He was about to be shown to his room,

When from the inner lobby of the front entrance,

Whither she had gone to learn the cause of the delay,

Sailed forth the form of Elfride.

Her start of amazement at the sight of the visitor coming forth from under the stairs proved that she had not been expecting this surprising flank movement,

Which had been originated entirely by the ingenuity of William Worm.

She appeared in the prettiest of all feminine guises,

That is to say in demi-toilette with plenty of loose curly hair tumbling down about her shoulders.

An expression of uneasiness pervaded her countenance,

And altogether she scarcely appeared woman enough for the situation.

The visitor removed his hat,

And the first words were spoken.

Elfride,

Prelusively looking with a deal of interest,

Not unmixed with surprise,

At the person towards whom she was to do the duties of hospitality.

I am Mr Smith,

Said the stranger,

In a musical voice.

I am Miss Swancourt,

Said Elfride.

Her constraint was over.

The great contrast between the reality she beheld before her,

And the dark,

Taciturn,

Sharp elderly man of business who had lurked in her imagination,

A man with clothes smelling of city smoke,

Skin sallow from want of sun,

And talk flavoured with epigram,

Was such a relief to her that Elfride smiled,

Almost laughed in the newcomer's face.

Stephen Smith,

Who has hitherto been hidden from us by the darkness,

Was,

At this time of his life,

But a youth in appearance,

And barely a man in years.

Judging from his look,

London was the last place in the world that one would have imagined to be the scene of his activities.

Such a face surely could not be nourished amid smoke and mud and fog and dust.

Such an open countenance could never even have seen anything of the weariness,

The fever,

And the fret of Babylon II.

His complexion was as fine as Elfride's own.

The pink of his cheeks as delicate.

His mouth as perfect as Cupid's bow in form,

And as cherry red in colour as hers.

Bright curly hair,

Bright sparkling blue-grey eyes,

A boy's blush and manner.

Neither whisker nor moustache,

Unless a little light brown fur on his upper lip deserved the latter title.

This composed the London professional man,

The prospect of whose advent had so troubled Elfride.

Elfride hastened to say she was sorry to tell him that Mr Swancourt was not able to receive him that evening and gave the reason why.

Mr Smith replied,

In a voice boyish by nature and manly by art,

That he was very sorry to hear this news but that as far as his reception was concerned it did not matter in the least.

Stephen was shown up to his room.

In his absence Elfride stealthily glided into her father's.

He's come,

Papa.

Such a young man for a businessman.

Oh,

Indeed?

His face is,

Well,

Pretty,

Just like mine.

Hmm?

Next.

Nothing.

That's all I know of him yet.

It is rather nice,

Is it not?

Well,

We shall see that when we know him better.

Go down and give the poor fellow something to eat and drink for heaven's sake.

And when he is done eating,

Say,

I should like to have a few words with him if he doesn't mind coming up here.

The young lady glided downstairs again and whilst she awaits young Smith's entry,

The letters referring to his visit had better be given.

1.

Mr Swancourt to Mr Hubie.

Endelstow Vicarage,

February 18th.

Sir,

We are thinking of restoring the tower and isle of the church in this parish,

And Lord Luxellian,

The patron of the living,

Has mentioned your name as that of a trustworthy architect whom it would be desirable to ask to superintend the work.

I am exceedingly ignorant of the necessary preliminary steps.

Probably,

However,

The first is that,

Should you be,

As Lord Luxellian says you are,

Disposed to assist us,

Yourself,

Or some member of your staff,

Come and see the building,

And report thereupon for the satisfaction of parishioners and others.

The spot is a very remote one.

We have no railway,

Within 14 miles,

And the nearest place for putting up at,

Called a town though merely a large village,

Is Castle Boterel,

Two miles further on,

So that it would be most convenient for you to stay at the vicarage,

Which I am glad to place at your disposal,

Instead of pushing on to the hotel at Castle Boterel and coming back again in the morning.

Any day of the next week that you like to name for the visit will find us quite ready to receive you.

Yours,

Very truly,

Christopher Swancourt.

To Mr Hubie to Mr Swancourt.

Percy Place,

Charing Cross,

February 20th.

Dear Sir,

Agreeably,

To your request of the eighteenth instant,

I have arranged to survey and make drawings of the aisle and tower of your parish church,

And of the dilapidations which have been suffered to accrue thereto,

With a view to its restoration.

My assistant,

Mr Stephen Smith,

Will leave London by the early train tomorrow morning for the purpose.

Many thanks for your proposal to accommodate him.

He will take advantage of your offer and will probably reach your house at some hour of the evening.

You may put every confidence in him and may rely upon his discernment in the matter of church architecture,

Trusting that the plans for the restoration,

Which I shall prepare from the details of his survey,

Will prove satisfactory to yourself and Lord Luxellian.

I am,

Dear Sir,

Yours faithfully,

Walter Hubie.

Reviews

Can feel that cold heath… great writing (and reading!)❤️🙏🏼