The two women were sitting alone by the drawing-room fire in Gramercy Park. Tina had gone to dine with her cousin, young Mrs. John Junius Halsey, and was to be taken afterward1 to a ball at the Vandergraves’, from which the John Juniuses had promised to see her home. Mrs. Ralston and Charlotte, their early dinner finished, had the long evening to themselves. Their custom on such occasions, was for Charlotte to read the news aloud to her cousin, while the latter embroidered2; but tonight, all through Charlotte’s conscientious3 progress from column to column, without a slip or an omission4, Delia had felt her, for some special reason, alert to take advantage of her daughter’s absence.
To gain time before answering, Mrs. Ralston bent5 over a stitch in her delicate white embroidery6.
“Tina changed? Since when?” she questioned.
The answer flashed out instantly. “Since Lanning Halsey has been coming here so much.”
“Lanning? I used to think he came for Delia,” Mrs. Ralston mused7, speaking at random8 to gain still more time.
“It’s natural you should suppose that every one came for Delia,” Charlotte rejoined dryly; “but as Lanning continues to seek every chance of being with Tina — ”
Mrs. Ralston raised her head and stole a swift glance at her cousin. She had in truth noticed that Tina had changed, as a flower changes at the mysterious moment when the unopened petals9 flush from within. The girl had grown handsomer, shyer, more silent, at times more irrelevantly10 gay. But Delia had not associated these variations of mood with the presence of Lanning Halsey, one of the numerous youths who had haunted the house before young Delia’s marriage. There had, indeed, been a moment when Mrs. Ralston’s eye had been fixed11, with a certain apprehension12, on the handsome Lanning. Among all the sturdy and stolid13 Halsey cousins he was the only one to whom a prudent14 mother might have hesitated to entrust15 her daughter; it would have been hard to say why, except that he was handsomer and more conversable than the rest, chronically16 unpunctual, and totally unperturbed by the fact. Clem Spender had been like that; and what if young Delia —?
But young Delia’s mother was speedily reassured17. The girl, herself arch and appetizing, took no interest in the corresponding graces except when backed by more solid qualities. A Ralston to the core, she demanded the Ralston virtues18, and chose the Halsey most worthy19 of a Ralston bride.
Mrs. Ralston felt that Charlotte was waiting for her to speak. “It will be hard to get used to the idea of Tina’s marrying,” she said gently. “I don’t know what we two old women shall do, alone in this empty house — for it will be an empty house then. But I suppose we ought to face the idea.”
“I DO face it,” said Charlotte Lovell gravely.
“And you dislike Lanning? I mean, as a husband for Tina?”
Miss Lovell folded the evening paper, and stretched out a thin hand for her knitting. She glanced across the citron-wood work-table at her cousin. “Tina must not be too difficult — ” she began.
“Oh — ” Delia protested, reddening.
“Let us call things by their names,” the other evenly pursued. “That’s my way, when I speak at all. Usually, as you know, I say nothing.”
The widow made a sign of assent21, and Charlotte went on: “It’s better so. But I’ve always known a time would come when we should have to talk this thing out.”
“Talk this thing out? You and I? What thing?”
“Tina’s future.”
There was a silence. Delia Ralston, who always responded instantly to the least appeal to her sincerity22, breathed a deep sigh of relief. At last the ice in Charlotte’s breast was breaking up!
“My dear,” Delia murmured, “you know how much Tina’s happiness concerns me. If you disapprove23 of Lanning Halsey as a husband, have you any other candidate in mind?”
Miss Lovell smiled one of her faint hard smiles. “I am not aware that there is a queue at the door. Nor do I disapprove of Lanning Halsey as a husband. Personally, I find him very agreeable; I understand his attraction for Tina.”
“Ah — Tina IS attracted?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Ralston pushed aside her work and thoughtfully considered her cousin’s sharply-lined face. Never had Charlotte Lovell more completely presented the typical image of the old maid than as she sat there, upright on her straight-backed chair, with narrowed elbows and clicking needles, and imperturbably24 discussed her daughter’s marriage.
“I don’t understand, Chatty. Whatever Lanning’s faults are — and I don’t believe they’re grave — I share your liking25 for him. After all — ” Mrs. Ralston paused — “what is it that people find so reprehensible26 in him? Chiefly, as far as I can hear, that he can’t decide on the choice of a profession. The New York view about that is rather narrow, as we know. Young men may have other tastes . . . artistic27 . . . literary . . . they may even have difficulty in deciding . . . ”
Both women coloured slightly, and Delia guessed that the same reminiscence which shook her own bosom28 also throbbed29 under Charlotte’s strait bodice.
Charlotte spoke30. “Yes: I understand that. But hesitancy about a profession may cause hesitancy about . . . other decisions . . . ”
“What do you mean? Surely not that Lanning —?”
“Lanning has not asked Tina to marry him.”
“And you think he’s hesitating?”
Charlotte paused. The steady click of her needles punctuated31 the silence as once, years before, it had been punctuated by the tick of the Parisian clock on Delia’s mantel. As Delia’s memory fled back to the scene she felt its mysterious tension in the air.
Charlotte spoke. “Lanning is not hesitating any longer: he has decided32 NOT to marry Tina. But he has also decided not to give up seeing her.”
Delia flushed abruptly33; she was irritated and bewildered by Charlotte’s oracular phrases, doled34 out between parsimonious35 lips.
“You don’t mean that he has offered himself and then drawn36 back? I can’t think him capable of such an insult to Tina.”
“He has not insulted Tina. He has simply told her that he can’t afford to marry. Until he chooses a profession his father will allow him only a few hundred dollars a year; and that may be suppressed if — if he marries against his parents’ wishes.”
It was Delia’s turn to be silent. The past was too overwhelmingly resuscitated37 in Charlotte’s words. Clement38 Spender stood before her, irresolute39, impecunious40, persuasive41. Ah, if only she had let herself be persuaded!
“I’m very sorry that this should have happened to Tina. But as Lanning appears to have behaved honourably42, and withdrawn43 without raising false expectations, we must hope . . . we must hope . . . ” Delia paused, not knowing what they must hope.
Charlotte Lovell laid down her knitting. “You know as well as I do, Delia, that every young man who is inclined to fall in love with Tina will find as good reasons for not marrying her.”
“Then you think Lanning’s excuses are a pretext44?”
“Naturally. The first of many that will be found by his successors — for of course he will have successors. Tina — attracts.”
“Ah,” Delia murmured.
Here they were at last face to face with the problem which, through all the years of silence and evasiveness, had lain as close to the surface as a corpse45 too hastily buried! Delia drew another deep breath, which again was almost one of relief. She had always known that it would be difficult, almost impossible, to find a husband for Tina; and much as she desired Tina’s happiness, some inmost selfishness whispered how much less lonely and purposeless the close of her own life would be should the girl be forced to share it. But how say this to Tina’s mother?
“I hope you exaggerate, Charlotte. There may be disinterested46 characters . . . But, in any case, surely Tina need not be unhappy here, with us who love her so dearly.”
“Tina an old maid? Never!” Charlotte Lovell rose abruptly, her closed hand crashing down on the slender work-table. “My child shall have her life . . . her own life . . . whatever it costs me . . . ”
Delia’s ready sympathy welled up. “I understand your feeling. I should want also . . . hard as it will be to let her go. But surely there is no hurry — no reason for looking so far ahead. The child is not twenty. Wait.”
Charlotte stood before her, motionless, perpendicular47. At such moments she made Delia think of lava48 struggling through granite49: there seemed no issue for the fires within.
“Wait? But if SHE doesn’t wait?”
“But if he has withdrawn — what do you mean?”
“He has given up marrying her — but not seeing her.”
Delia sprang up in her turn, flushed and trembling.
“Charlotte! Do you know what you’re insinuating50?”
“Yes: I know.”
“But it’s too outrageous51. No decent girl — ”
The words died on Delia’s lips. Charlotte Lovell held her eyes inexorably. “Girls are not always what you call decent,” she declared.
Mrs. Ralston turned slowly back to her seat. Her tambour frame had fallen to the floor; she stooped heavily to pick it up. Charlotte’s gaunt figure hung over her, relentless52 as doom53.
“I can’t imagine, Charlotte, what is gained by saying such things — even by hinting them. Surely you trust your own child.”
Charlotte laughed. “My mother trusted me,” she said.
“How dare you — how dare you?” Delia began; but her eyes fell, and she felt a tremor54 of weakness in her throat.
“Oh, I dare anything for Tina, even to judging her as she is,” Tina’s mother murmured.
“As she is? She’s perfect!”
“Let us say then that she must pay for my imperfections. All I want is that she shouldn’t pay too heavily.”
Mrs. Ralston sat silent. It seemed to her that Charlotte spoke with the voice of all the dark destinies coiled under the safe surface of life; and that to such a voice there was no answer but an awed55 acquiescence56.
“Poor Tina!” she breathed.
“Oh, I don’t intend that she shall suffer! It’s not for that that I’ve waited . . . waited. Only I’ve made mistakes: mistakes that I understand now, and must remedy. You’ve been too good to us — and we must go.”
“Go?” Delia gasped57.
“Yes. Don’t think me ungrateful. You saved my child once — do you suppose I can forget? But now it’s my turn — it’s I who must save her. And it’s only by taking her away from everything here — from everything she’s known till now — that I can do it. She’s lived too long among unrealities: and she’s like me. They won’t content her.”
“Unrealities?” Delia echoed vaguely58.
“Unrealities for her. Young men who make love to her and can’t marry her. Happy households where she’s welcomed till she’s suspected of designs on a brother or a husband — or else exposed to their insults. How could we ever have imagined, either of us, that the child could escape disaster? I thought only of her present happiness — of all the advantages, for both of us, of being with you. But this affair with young Halsey has opened my eyes. I must take Tina away. We must go and live somewhere where we’re not known, where we shall be among plain people, leading plain lives. Somewhere where she can find a husband, and make herself a home.”
Charlotte paused. She had spoken in a rapid monotonous59 tone, as if by rote20; but now her voice broke and she repeated painfully: “I’m not ungrateful.”
“Oh, don’t let’s speak of gratitude60! What place has it between you and me?”
Delia had risen and begun to move uneasily about the room. She longed to plead with Charlotte, to implore61 her not to be in haste, to picture to her the cruelty of severing62 Tina from all her habits and associations, of carrying her inexplicably63 away to lead “a plain life among plain people.” What chance was there, indeed, that a creature so radiant would tamely submit to such a fate, or find an acceptable husband in such conditions? The change might only precipitate64 a tragedy. Delia’s experience was too limited for her to picture exactly what might happen to a girl like Tina, suddenly cut off from all that sweetened life for her; but vague visions of revolt and flight — of a “fall” deeper and more irretrievable than Charlotte’s — flashed through her agonized65 imagination.
“It’s too cruel — it’s too cruel,” she cried, speaking to herself rather than to Charlotte.
Charlotte, instead of answering, glanced abruptly at the clock.
“Do you know what time it is? Past midnight. I mustn’t keep you sitting up for my foolish girl.”
Delia’s heart contracted. She saw that Charlotte wished to cut the conversation short, and to do so by reminding her that only Tina’s mother had a right to decide what Tina’s future should be. At that moment, though Delia had just protested that there could be no question of gratitude between them, Charlotte Lovell seemed to her a monster of ingratitude66, and it was on the tip of her tongue to cry out: “Have all the years then given me no share in Tina?” But at the same instant she had put herself once more in Charlotte’s place, and was feeling the mother’s fierce terrors for her child. It was natural enough that Charlotte should resent the faintest attempt to usurp67 in private the authority she could never assert in public. With a pang68 of compassion69 Delia realized that she herself was literally70 the one being on earth before whom Charlotte could act the mother. “Poor thing — ah, let her!” she murmured inwardly.
“But why should you sit up for Tina? She has the key, and Delia is to bring her home.”
Charlotte Lovell did not immediately answer. She rolled up her knitting, looked severely71 at one of the candelabra on the mantelpiece, and crossed over to straighten it. Then she picked up her work-bag.
“Yes, as you say — why should any one sit up for her?” She moved about the room, putting out the lamps, covering the fire, assuring herself that the windows were bolted, while Delia passively watched her. Then the two cousins lit their bedroom candles and walked upstairs through the darkened house. Charlotte seemed determined72 to make no further allusion73 to the subject of their talk. On the landing she paused, bending her head toward Delia’s nightly kiss.
“I hope they’ve kept up your fire,” she said, with her capable housekeeping air; and on Delia’s hasty reassurance74 the two murmured a simultaneous “Goodnight,” and Charlotte turned down the passage to her room.
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1
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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irrelevantly
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| adv.不恰当地，不合适地；不相关地 | |
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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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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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entrust
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| v.信赖，信托，交托 | |
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chronically
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| ad.长期地 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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rote
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| n.死记硬背，生搬硬套 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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imperturbably
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| adv.泰然地，镇静地，平静地 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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reprehensible
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| adj.该受责备的 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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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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punctuated
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| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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doled
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| 救济物( dole的过去式和过去分词 )； 失业救济金 | |
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parsimonious
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| adj.吝啬的，质量低劣的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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resuscitated
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| v.使（某人或某物）恢复知觉，苏醒( resuscitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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impecunious
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| adj.不名一文的，贫穷的 | |
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persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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honourably
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| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
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withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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insinuating
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| adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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severing
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的现在分词 )；断，裂 | |
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inexplicably
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| adv.无法说明地，难以理解地，令人难以理解的是 | |
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precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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agonized
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| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
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ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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usurp
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| vt.篡夺，霸占；vi.篡位 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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reassurance
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| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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