‘Oasis in the desert, you mean,’ said Mrs. Morgan; ‘I haven’t noticed any, but I happened to look up this morning as I was putting on my stockings, and I saw through my port-hole the most lovely mirage3.’
I had been at school with Mrs. Morgan more than twenty years agone, but she had come to the special enjoyment4 of the dignities of life while I still liked doing things. Mrs. Morgan was the kind of person to make one realize how distressing5 a medium is middle age. Contemplating6 her precipitous lap, to which conventional attitudes were certainly more becoming, I crossed my own knees with energy, and once more resolved to be young until I was old.
‘How perfectly7 delightful8 for you to be taking Cecily out!’ said Mrs. Morgan placidly9.
‘Isn’t it?’ I responded, watching the gliding10 sands.
‘But she was born in sixty-nine — that makes her twenty-one. Quite time, I should say.’
‘Oh, we couldn’t put it off any longer. I mean — her father has such a horror of early debuts11. He simply would not hear of her coming before.’
‘Doesn’t want her to marry in India, I dare say — the only one,’ purred Mrs. Morgan.
‘Oh, I don’t know. It isn’t such a bad place. I was brought out there to marry, and I married. I’ve found it very satisfactory.’
‘You always did say exactly what you thought, Helena,’ said Mrs. Morgan excusingly.
‘I haven’t much patience with people who bring their daughters out to give them the chance they never would have in England, and then go about devoutly12 hoping they won’t marry in India,’ I said. ‘I shall be very pleased if Cecily does as well as your girls have done.’
‘Mary in the Indian Civil and Jessie in the Imperial Service Troops,’ sighed Mrs. Morgan complacently13. ‘And both, my dear, within a year. It WAS a blow.’
‘Oh, it must have been!’ I said civilly.
There was no use in bandying words with Emily Morgan.
‘There is nothing in the world like the satisfaction and pleasure one takes in one’s daughters,’ Mrs. Morgan went on limpidly14. ‘And one can be in such CLOSE sympathy with one’s girls. I have never regretted having no sons.’
‘Dear me, yes. To watch oneself growing up again — call back the lovely April of one’s prime, etcetera — to read every thought and anticipate every wish — there is no more golden privilege in life, dear Emily. Such a direct and natural avenue for affection, such a wide field for interest!’
I paused, lost in the volume of my admirable sentiments.
‘How beautifully you talk, Helena! I wish I had the gift.’
‘It doesn’t mean very much,’ I said truthfully.
‘Oh, I think it’s everything! And how companionable a girl is! I quite envy you, this season, having Cecily constantly with you and taking her about everywhere. Something quite new for you, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely,’ said I; ‘I am looking forward to it immensely. But it is likely she will make her own friends, don’t you think?’ I added anxiously.
‘Hardly the first season. My girls didn’t. I was practically their only intimate for months. Don’t be afraid; you won’t be obliged to go shares in Cecily with anybody for a good long while,’ added Mrs. Morgan kindly15. ‘I know just how you feel about THAT.’
The muddy water of the Ditch chafed16 up from under us against its banks with a smell that enabled me to hide the emotions Mrs. Morgan evoked17 behind my handkerchief. The pale desert was pictorial18 with the drifting, deepening purple shadows of clouds, and in the midst a blue glimmer19 of the Bitter Lakes, with a white sail on them. A little frantic20 Arab boy ran alongside keeping pace with the ship. Except for the smell, it was like a dream, we moved so quietly; on, gently on and on between the ridgy21 clay banks and the rows of piles. Peace was on the ship; you could hear what the Fourth in his white ducks said to the quartermaster in his blue denims; you could count the strokes of the electric bell in the wheel-house; peace was on the ship as she pushed on, an ever-venturing, double-funneled impertinence, through the sands of the ages. My eyes wandered along a plank-line in the deck till they were arrested by a petticoat I knew, when they returned of their own accord. I seemed to be always seeing that petticoat.
‘I think,’ resumed Mrs. Morgan, whose glance had wandered in the same direction, ‘that Cecily is a very fine type of our English girls. With those dark grey eyes, a LITTLE prominent possibly, and that good colour — it’s rather high now perhaps, but she will lose quite enough of it in India — and those regular features, she would make a splendid Britannia. Do you know, I fancy she must have a great deal of character. Has she?’
‘Any amount. And all of it good,’ I responded, with private dejection.
‘No faults at all?’ chaffed Mrs. Morgan.
I shook my head. ‘Nothing,’ I said sadly, ‘that I can put my finger on. But I hope to discover a few later. The sun may bring them out.’
‘Like freckles22. Well, you are a lucky woman. Mine had plenty, I assure you. Untidiness was no name for Jessie, and Mary — I’m SORRY to say that Mary sometimes fibbed.’
‘How lovable of her! Cecily’s neatness is a painful example to me, and I don’t believe she would tell a fib to save my life.’
‘Tell me,’ said Mrs. Morgan, as the lunch-bell rang and she gathered her occupation into her work-basket, ‘who is that talking to her?’
‘Oh, an old friend,’ I replied easily; ‘Dacres Tottenham, a dear fellow, and most benevolent24. He is trying on my behalf to reconcile her to the life she’ll have to lead in India.’
‘She won’t need much reconciling, if she’s like most girls,’ observed Mrs. Morgan, ‘but he seems to be trying very hard.’
That was quite the way I took it — on my behalf — for several days. When people have understood you very adequately for ten years you do not expect them to boggle at any problem you may present at the end of the decade. I thought Dacres was moved by a fine sense of compassion25. I thought that with his admirable perception he had put a finger on the little comedy of fruitfulness in my life that laughed so bitterly at the tragedy of the barren woman, and was attempting, by delicate manipulation, to make it easier. I really thought so. Then I observed that myself had preposterously26 deceived me, that it wasn’t like that at all. When Mr. Tottenham joined us, Cecily and me, I saw that he listened more than he talked, with an ear specially27 cocked to register any small irony28 which might appear in my remarks to my daughter. Naturally he registered more than there were, to make up perhaps for dear Cecily’s obviously not registering any. I could see, too, that he was suspicious of any flavour of kindness; finally, to avoid the strictures of his upper lip, which really, dear fellow, began to bore me, I talked exclusively about the distant sails and the Red Sea littoral29. When he no longer joined us as we sat or walked together, I perceived that his hostility30 was fixed31 and his parti pris. He was brimful of compassion, but it was all for Cecily, none for the situation or for me. (She would have marvelled32, placidly, why he pitied her. I am glad I can say that.) The primitive33 man in him rose up as Pope of nature and excommunicated me as a creature recusant to her functions. Then deliberately34 Dacres undertook an office of consolation35; and I fell to wondering, while Mrs. Morgan spoke36 her convictions plainly out, how far an impulse of reparation for a misfortune with which he had nothing to do might carry a man.
I began to watch the affair with an interest which even to me seemed queer. It was not detached, but it was semi-detached, and, of course, on the side for which I seem, in this history, to be perpetually apologizing. With certain limitations it didn’t matter an atom whom Cecily married. So that he was sound and decent, with reasonable prospects37, her simple requirements and ours for her would be quite met. There was the ghost of a consolation in that; one needn’t be anxious or exacting38.
I could predict with a certain amount of confidence that in her first season she would probably receive three or four proposals, any one of which she might accept with as much propriety39 and satisfaction as any other one. For Cecily it was so simple; prearranged by nature like her digestion40, one could not see any logical basis for difficulties. A nice upstanding sapper, a dashing Bengal Lancer — oh, I could think of half a dozen types that would answer excellently. She was the kind of young person, and that was the summing up of it, to marry a type and be typically happy. I hoped and expected that she would. But Dacres!
Dacres should exercise the greatest possible discretion41. He was not a person who could throw the dice42 indifferently with fate. He could respond to so much, and he would inevitably43, sooner or later, demand so much response! He was governed by a preposterously exacting temperament44, and he wore his nerves outside. And what vision he had! How he explored the world he lived in and drew out of it all there was, all there was! I could see him in the years to come ranging alone the fields that were sweet and the horizons that lifted for him, and ever returning to pace the common dusty mortal road by the side of a purblind45 wife. On general principles, as a case to point at, it would be a conspicuous46 pity. Nor would it lack the aspect of a particular, a personal misfortune. Dacres was occupied in quite the natural normal degree with his charming self; he would pass his misery47 on, and who would deserve to escape it less than his mother-in-law?
I listened to Emily Morgan, who gleaned48 in the ship more information about Dacres Tottenham’s people, pay, and prospects than I had ever acquired, and I kept an eye upon the pair which was, I flattered myself, quite maternal49. I watched them without acute anxiety, deploring50 the threatening destiny, but hardly nearer to it than one is in the stalls to the stage. My moments of real concern for Dacres were mingled51 more with anger than with sorrow — it seemed inexcusable that he, with his infallible divining-rod for temperament, should be on the point of making such an ass23 of himself. Though I talk of the stage there was nothing at all dramatic to reward my attention, mine and Emily Morgan’s. To my imagination, excited by its idea of what Dacres Tottenham’s courtship ought to be, the attentions he paid to Cecily were most humdrum52. He threw rings into buckets with her — she was good at that — and quoits upon the ‘bull’ board; he found her chair after the decks were swabbed in the morning and established her in it; he paced the deck with her at convenient times and seasons. They were humdrum, but they were constant and cumulative53. Cecily took them with an even breath that perfectly matched. There was hardly anything, on her part, to note — a little discreet54 observation of his comings and goings, eyes scarcely lifted from her book, and later just a hint of proprietorship55, as the evening she came up to me on deck, our first night in the Indian Ocean. I was lying in my long chair looking at the thick, low stars and thinking it was a long time since I had seen John.
‘Dearest mamma, out here and nothing over your shoulders! You ARE imprudent. Where is your wrap? Mr. Tottenham, will you please fetch mamma’s wrap for her?’
‘If mamma so instructs me,’ he said audaciously.
‘Do as Cecily tells you,’ I laughed, and he went and did it, while I by the light of a quartermaster’s lantern distinctly saw my daughter blush.
Another time, when Cecily came down to undress, she bent56 over me as I lay in the lower berth57 with unusual solicitude58. I had been dozing59, and I jumped.
‘What is it, child?’ I said. ‘Is the ship on fire?’
‘No, mamma, the ship is not on fire. There is nothing wrong. I’m so sorry I startled you. But Mr. Tottenham has been telling me all about what you did for the soldiers the time plague broke out in the lines at Mian-Mir. I think it was splendid, mamma, and so does he.’
‘Oh, Lord!’ I groaned60. ‘Good night.’
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1
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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oasis
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方 | |
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mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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debuts
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| 演员首次演出( debut的名词复数 ) | |
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devoutly
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| adv.虔诚地，虔敬地，衷心地 | |
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complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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limpidly
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| adv.清澈地，透明地 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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16
chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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ridgy
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| adj.有脊的；有棱纹的；隆起的；有埂的 | |
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freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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preposterously
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| adv.反常地；荒谬地；荒谬可笑地；不合理地 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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littoral
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| adj.海岸的；湖岸的；n.沿（海）岸地区 | |
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30
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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31
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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32
marvelled
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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33
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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40
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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41
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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42
dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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43
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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44
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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45
purblind
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| adj.半盲的；愚笨的 | |
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46
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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47
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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48
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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49
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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50
deploring
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的现在分词 ) | |
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51
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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52
humdrum
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| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
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53
cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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54
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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55
proprietorship
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| n.所有（权）；所有权 | |
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56
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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57
berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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58
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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59
dozing
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| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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60
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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