Her name (in relation to which I shall have something more to say a little further on) is Jessie Yelverton. She is an orphan1 and an only child. Her mother died while she was an infant; her father was my dear and valued friend, Major Yelverton. He lived long enough to celebrate his darling’s seventh birthday. When he died he intrusted his authority over her and his responsibility toward her to his brother and to me.
When I was summoned to the reading of the major’s will, I knew perfectly4 well that I should hear myself appointed guardian5 and executor with his brother; and I had been also made acquainted with my lost friend’s wishes as to his daughter’s education, and with his intentions as to the disposal of all his property in her favor. My own idea, therefore, was, that the reading of the will would inform me of nothing which I had not known in the testator’s lifetime. When the day came for hearing it, however, I found that I had been over hasty in arriving at this conclusion. Toward the end of the document there was a clause inserted which took me entirely7 by surprise.
After providing for the education of Miss Yelverton under the direction of her guardians8, and for her residence, under ordinary circumstances, with the major’s sister, Lady Westwick, the clause concluded by saddling the child’s future inheritance with this curious condition:
From the period of her leaving school to the period of her reaching the age of twenty-one years, Miss Yelverton was to pass not less than six consecutive9 weeks out of every year under the roof of one of her two guardians. During the lives of both of them, it was left to her own choice to say which of the two she would prefer to live with. In all other respects the condition was imperative10. If she forfeited11 it, excepting, of course, the case of the deaths of both her guardians, she was only to have a life-interest in the property; if she obeyed it, the money itself was to become her own possession on the day when she completed her twenty-first year.
This clause in the will, as I have said, took me at first by surprise. I remembered how devotedly13 Lady Westwick had soothed14 her sister-in-law’s death-bed sufferings, and how tenderly she had afterward15 watched over the welfare of the little motherless child — I remembered the innumerable claims she had established in this way on her brother’s confidence in her affection for his orphan daughter, and I was, therefore, naturally amazed at the appearance of a condition in his will which seemed to show a positive distrust of Lady Westwick’s undivided influence over the character and conduct of her niece.
A few words from my fellow-guardian, Mr. Richard Yelverton, and a little after-consideration of some of my deceased friend’s peculiarities16 of disposition17 and feeling, to which I had not hitherto attached sufficient importance, were enough to make me understand the motives18 by which he had been influenced in providing for the future of his child.
Major Yelverton had raised himself to a position of affluence19 and eminence20 from a very humble21 origin. He was the son of a small farmer, and it was his pride never to forget this circumstance, never to be ashamed of it, and never to allow the prejudices of society to influence his own settled opinions on social questions in general.
Acting22, in all that related to his intercourse23 with the world, on such principles as these, the major, it is hardly necessary to say, held some strangely heterodox opinions on the modern education of girls, and on the evil influence of society over the characters of women in general. Out of the strength of those opinions, and out of the certainty of his conviction that his sister did not share them, had grown that condition in his will which removed his daughter from the influence of her aunt for six consecutive weeks in every year. Lady Westwick was the most light-hearted, the most generous, the most impulsive24 of women; capable, when any serious occasion called it forth25, of all that was devoted12 and self-sacrificing, but, at other and ordinary times, constitutionally restless, frivolous26, and eager for perpetual gayety. Distrusting the sort of life which he knew his daughter would lead under her aunt’s roof, and at the same time gratefully remembering his sister’s affectionate devotion toward his dying wife and her helpless infant, Major Yelverton had attempted to make a compromise, which, while it allowed Lady Westwick the close domestic intercourse with her niece that she had earned by innumerable kind offices, should, at the same time, place the young girl for a fixed27 period of every year of her minority under the corrective care of two such quiet old-fashioned guardians as his brother and myself. Such is the history of the clause in the will. My friend little thought, when he dictated28 it, of the extraordinary result to which it was one day to lead.
For some years, however, events ran on smoothly29 enough. Little Jessie was sent to an excellent school, with strict instructions to the mistress to make a good girl of her, and not a fashionable young lady. Although she was reported to be anything but a pattern pupil in respect of attention to her lessons, she became from the first the chosen favorite of every one about her. The very offenses30 which she committed against the discipline of the school were of the sort which provoke a smile even on the stern countenance31 of authority itself. One of these quaint6 freaks of mischief32 may not inappropriately be mentioned here, inasmuch as it gained her the pretty nickname under which she will be found to appear occasionally in these pages.
On a certain autumn night shortly after the Midsummer vacation, the mistress of the school fancied she saw a light under the door of the bedroom occupied by Jessie and three other girls. It was then close on midnight; and, fearing that some case of sudden illness might have happened, she hastened into the room. On opening the door, she discovered, to her horror and amazement33, that all four girls were out of bed — were dressed in brilliantly-fantastic costumes, representing the four grotesque34 “Queens” of Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs, familiar to us all on the pack of cards — and were dancing a quadrille, in which Jessie sustained the character of The Queen of Hearts. The next morning’s investigation35 disclosed that Miss Yelverton had smuggled36 the dresses into the school, and had amused herself by giving an impromptu37 fancy ball to her companions, in imitation of an entertainment of the same kind at which she had figured in a “court-card” quadrille at her aunt’s country house.
The dresses were instantly confiscated38 and the necessary punishment promptly39 administered; but the remembrance of Jessie’s extraordinary outrage40 on bedroom discipline lasted long enough to become one of the traditions of the school, and she and her sister-culprits were thenceforth hailed as the “queens” of the four “suites” by their class-companions whenever the mistress’s back was turned, Whatever might have become of the nicknames thus employed in relation to the other three girls, such a mock title as The Queen of Hearts was too appropriately descriptive of the natural charm of Jessie’s character, as well as of the adventure in which she had taken the lead, not to rise naturally to the lips of every one who knew her. It followed her to her aunt’s house — it came to be as habitually41 and familiarly connected with her, among her friends of all ages, as if it had been formally inscribed42 on her baptismal register; and it has stolen its way into these pages because it falls from my pen naturally and inevitably43, exactly as it often falls from my lips in real life.
When Jessie left school the first difficulty presented itself — in other words, the necessity arose of fulfilling the conditions of the will. At that time I was already settled at The Glen Tower, and her living six weeks in our dismal44 solitude45 and our humdrum46 society was, as she herself frankly47 wrote me word, quite out of the question. Fortunately, she had always got on well with her uncle and his family; so she exerted her liberty of choice, and, much to her own relief and to mine also, passed her regular six weeks of probation48, year after year, under Mr. Richard Yelverton’s roof.
During this period I heard of her regularly, sometimes from my fellow-guardian, sometimes from my son George, who, whenever his military duties allowed him the opportunity, contrived49 to see her, now at her aunt’s house, and now at Mr. Yelverton’s. The particulars of her character and conduct, which I gleaned50 in this way, more than sufficed to convince me that the poor major’s plan for the careful training of his daughter’s disposition, though plausible51 enough in theory, was little better than a total failure in practice. Miss Jessie, to use the expressive52 common phrase, took after her aunt. She was as generous, as impulsive, as light-hearted, as fond of change, and gayety, and fine clothes — in short, as complete and genuine a woman as Lady Westwick herself. It was impossible to reform the “Queen of Hearts,” and equally impossible not to love her. Such, in few words, was my fellow-guardian’s report of his experience of our handsome young ward3.
So the time passed till the year came of which I am now writing — the ever-memorable year, to England, of the Russian war. It happened that I had heard less than usual at this period, and indeed for many months before it, of Jessie and her proceedings53. My son had been ordered out with his regiment55 to the Crimea in 1854, and had other work in hand now than recording56 the sayings and doings of a young lady. Mr. Richard Yelverton, who had been hitherto used to write to me with tolerable regularity57, seemed now, for some reason that I could not conjecture58, to have forgotten my existence. Ultimately I was reminded of my ward by one of George’s own letters, in which he asked for news of her; and I wrote at once to Mr. Yelverton. The answer that reached me was written by his wife: he was dangerously ill. The next letter that came informed me of his death. This happened early in the spring of the year 1855.
I am ashamed to confess it, but the change in my own position was the first idea that crossed my mind when I read the news of Mr. Yelverton’s death. I was now left sole guardian, and Jessie Yelverton wanted a year still of coming of age.
By the next day’s post I wrote to her about the altered state of the relations between us. She was then on the Continent with her aunt, having gone abroad at the very beginning of the year. Consequently, so far as eighteen hundred and fifty-five was concerned, the condition exacted by the will yet remained to be performed. She had still six weeks to pass — her last six weeks, seeing that she was now twenty years old — under the roof of one of her guardians, and I was now the only guardian left.
In due course of time I received my answer, written on rose-colored paper, and expressed throughout in a tone of light, easy, feminine banter59, which amused me in spite of myself. Miss Jessie, according to her own account, was hesitating, on receipt of my letter, between two alternatives — the one, of allowing herself to be buried six weeks in The Glen Tower; the other, of breaking the condition, giving up the money, and remaining magnanimously contented60 with nothing but a life-interest in her father’s property. At present she inclined decidedly toward giving up the money and escaping the clutches of “the three horrid62 old men;” but she would let me know again if she happened to change her mind. And so, with best love, she would beg to remain always affectionately mine, as long as she was well out of my reach.
The summer passed, the autumn came, and I never heard from her again. Under ordinary circumstances, this long silence might have made me feel a little uneasy. But news reached me about this time from the Crimea that my son was wounded — not dangerously, thank God, but still severely63 enough to be la id up — and all my anxieties were now centered in that direction. By the beginning of September, however, I got better accounts of him, and my mind was made easy enough to let me think of Jessie again. Just as I was considering the necessity of writing once more to my refractory64 ward, a second letter arrived from her. She had returned at last from abroad, had suddenly changed her mind, suddenly grown sick of society, suddenly become enamored of the pleasures of retirement65, and suddenly found out that the three horrid old men were three dear old men, and that six weeks’ solitude at The Glen Tower was the luxury, of all others, that she languished66 for most. As a necessary result of this altered state of things, she would therefore now propose to spend her allotted67 six weeks with her guardian. We might certainly expect her on the twentieth of September, and she would take the greatest care to fit herself for our society by arriving in the lowest possible spirits, and bringing her own sackcloth and ashes along with her.
The first ordeal68 to which this alarming letter forced me to submit was the breaking of the news it contained to my two brothers. The disclosure affected69 them very differently. Poor dear Owen merely turned pale, lifted his weak, thin hands in a panic-stricken manner, and then sat staring at me in speechless and motionless bewilderment. Morgan stood up straight before me, plunged70 both his hands into his pockets, burst suddenly into the harshest laugh I ever heard from his lips, and told me, with an air of triumph, that it was exactly what he expected.
“What you expected?” I repeated, in astonishment71.
“Yes,” returned Morgan, with his bitterest emphasis. “It doesn’t surprise me in the least. It’s the way things go in this world — it’s the regular moral see-saw of good and evil — the old story with the old end to it. They were too happy in the garden of Eden — down comes the serpent and turns them out. Solomon was too wise — down comes the Queen of Sheba, and makes a fool of him. We’ve been too comfortable at The Glen Tower — down comes a woman, and sets us all three by the ears together. All I wonder at is that it hasn’t happened before.” With those words Morgan resignedly took out his pipe, put on his old felt hat and turned to the door.
“You’re not going away before she comes?” exclaimed Owen, piteously. “Don’t leave us — please don’t leave us!”
“Going!” cried Morgan, with great contempt. “What should I gain by that? When destiny has found a man out, and heated his gridiron for him, he has nothing left to do, that I know of, but to get up and sit on it.”
I opened my lips to protest against the implied comparison between a young lady and a hot gridiron, but, before I could speak, Morgan was gone.
“Well,” I said to Owen, “we must make the best of it. We must brush up our manners, and set the house tidy, and amuse her as well as we can. The difficulty is where to put her; and, when that is settled, the next puzzle will be, what to order in to make her comfortable. It’s a hard thing, brother, to say what will or what will not please a young lady’s taste.”
Owen looked absently at me, in greater bewilderment than ever — opened his eyes in perplexed72 consideration — repeated to himself slowly the word “tastes”— and then helped me with this suggestion:
“Hadn’t we better begin, Griffith, by getting her a plum-cake?”
“My dear Owen,” I remonstrated73, “it is a grown young woman who is coming to see us, not a little girl from school.”
“Oh!” said Owen, more confused than before. “Yes — I see; we couldn’t do wrong, I suppose — could we? — if we got her a little dog, and a lot of new gowns.”
There was, evidently, no more help in the way of advice to be expected from Owen than from Morgan himself. As I came to that conclusion, I saw through the window our old housekeeper74 on her way, with her basket, to the kitchen-garden, and left the room to ascertain75 if she could assist us.
To my great dismay, the housekeeper took even a more gloomy view than Morgan of the approaching event. When I had explained all the circumstances to her, she carefully put down her basket, crossed her arms, and said to me in slow, deliberate, mysterious tones:
“You want my advice about what’s to be done with this young woman? Well, sir, here’s my advice: Don’t you trouble your head about her. It won’t be no use. Mind, I tell you, it won’t be no use.”
“What do you mean?”
“You look at this place, sir — it’s more like a prison than a house, isn’t it? You, look at us as lives in it. We’ve got (saving your presence) a foot apiece in our graves, haven’t we? When you was young yourself, sir, what would you have done if they had shut you up for six weeks in such a place as this, among your grandfathers and grandmothers, with their feet in the grave?”
“I really can’t say.”
“I can, sir. You’d have run away. She’ll run away. Don’t you worry your head about her — she’ll save you the trouble. I tell you again, she’ll run away.”
With those ominous76 words the housekeeper took up her basket, sighed heavily, and left me.
I sat down under a tree quite helpless. Here was the whole responsibility shifted upon my miserable77 shoulders. Not a lady in the neighborhood to whom I could apply for assistance, and the nearest shop eight miles distant from us. The toughest case I ever had to conduct, when I was at the Bar, was plain sailing compared with the difficulty of receiving our fair guest.
It was absolutely necessary, however, to decide at once where she was to sleep. All the rooms in the tower were of stone — dark, gloomy, and cold even in the summer-time. Impossible to put her in any one of them. The only other alternative was to lodge78 her in the little modern lean-to, which I have already described as being tacked79 on to the side of the old building. It contained three cottage-rooms, and they might be made barely habitable for a young lady. But then those rooms were occupied by Morgan. His books were in one, his bed was in another, his pipes and general lumber80 were in the third. Could I expect him, after the sour similitudes he had used in reference to our expected visitor, to turn out of his habitation and disarrange all his habits for her convenience? The bare idea of proposing the thing to him seemed ridiculous; and yet inexorable necessity left me no choice but to make the hopeless experiment. I walked back to the tower hastily and desperately81, to face the worst that might happen before my courage cooled altogether.
On crossing the threshold of the hall door I was stopped, to my great amazement, by a procession of three of the farm-servants, followed by Morgan, all walking after each other, in Indian file, toward the spiral staircase that led to the top of the tower. The first of the servants carried the materials for making a fire; the second bore an inverted82 arm-chair on his head; the third tottered83 under a heavy load of books; while Morgan came last, with his canister of tobacco in his hand, his dressing84-gown over his shoulders, and his whole collection of pipes hugged up together in a bundle under his arm.
“What on earth does this mean?” I inquired.
“It means taking Time by the forelock,” answered Morgan, looking at me with a smile of sour satisfaction. “I’ve got the start of your young woman, Griffith, and I’m making the most of it.”
“But where, in Heaven’s name, are you going?” I asked, as the head man of the procession disappeared with his firing up the staircase.
“How high is this tower?” retorted Morgan.
“Seven stories, to be sure,” I replied.
“Very good,” said my eccentric brother, setting his foot on the first stair, “I’m going up to the seventh.”
“You can’t,” I shouted.
“She can’t, you mean,” said Morgan, “and that’s exactly why I’m going there.”
“But the room is not furnished.”
“It’s out of her reach.”
“One of the windows has fallen to pieces.”
“It’s out of her reach.”
“There’s a crow’s nest in the corner.”
“It’s out of her reach.”
By the time this unanswerable argument had attained85 its third repetition, Morgan, in his turn, had disappeared up the winding86 stairs. I knew him too well to attempt any further protest.
Here was my first difficulty smoothed away most unexpectedly; for here were the rooms in the lean-to placed by their owner’s free act and deed at my disposal. I wrote on the spot to the one upholsterer of our distant county town to come immediately and survey the premises88, and sent off a mounted messenger with the letter. This done, and the necessary order also dispatched to the carpenter and glazier to set them at work on Morgan’s sky-parlor in the seventh story, I began to feel, for the first time, as if my scattered89 wits were coming back to me. By the time the evening had closed in I had hit on no less than three excellent ideas, all providing for the future comfort and amusement of our fair guest. The first idea was to get her a Welsh pony90; the second was to hire a piano from the county town; the third was to send for a boxful of novels from London. I must confess I thought these projects for pleasing her very happily conceived, and Owen agreed with me. Morgan, as usual, took the opposite view. He said she would yawn over the novels, turn up her nose at the piano, and fracture her skull91 with the pony. As for the housekeeper, she stuck to her text as stoutly92 in the evening as she had stuck to it in the morning. “Pianner or no pianner, story-book or no story-book, pony or no pony, you mark my words, sir — that young woman will run away.”
Such were the housekeeper’s parting words when she wished me good-night.
When the next morning came, and brought with it that terrible waking time which sets a man’s hopes and projects before him, the great as well as the small, stripped bare of every illusion, it is not to be concealed93 that I felt less sanguine94 of our success in entertaining the coming guest. So far as external preparations were concerned, there seemed, indeed, but little to improve; but apart from these, what had we to offer, in ourselves and our society, to attract her? There lay the knotty95 point of the question, and there the grand difficulty of finding an answer.
I fall into serious reflection while I am dressing on the pursuits and occupations with which we three brothers have been accustomed, for years past, to beguile96 the time. Are they at all likely, in the case of any one of us, to interest or amuse her?
My chief occupation, to begin with the youngest, consists, in acting as steward97 on Owen’s property. The routine of my duties has never lost its sober attraction to my tastes, for it has always employed me in watching the best interests of my brother, and of my son also, who is one day to be his heir. But can I expect our fair guest to sympathize with such family concerns as these? Clearly not.
Morgan’s pursuit comes next in order of review — a pursuit of a far more ambitious nature than mine. It was always part of my second brother’s whimsical, self-contradictory character to view with the profoundest contempt the learned profession by which he gained his livelihood98, and he is now occupying the long leisure hours of his old age in composing a voluminous treatise99, intended, one of these days, to eject the whole body corporate100 of doctors from the position which they have usurped101 in the estimation of their fellow-creatures. This daring work is entitled “An Examination of the Claims of Medicine on the Gratitude102 of Mankind. Decided61 in the Negative by a Retired103 Physician.” So far as I can tell, the book is likely to extend to the dimensions of an Encyclopedia104; for it is Morgan’s plan to treat his comprehensive subject principally from the historical point of view, and to run down all the doctors of antiquity105, one after another, in regular succession, from the first of the tribe. When I last heard of his progress he was hard on the heels of Hippocrates, but had no immediate87 prospect106 of tripping up his successor, Is this the sort of occupation (I ask myself) in which a modern young lady is likely to feel the slightest interest? Once again, clearly not.
Owen’s favorite employment is, in its way, quite as characteristic as Morgan’s, and it has the great additional advantage of appealing to a much larger variety of tastes. My eldest107 brother — great at drawing and painting when he was a lad, always interested in artists and their works in after life — has resumed, in his declining years, the holiday occupation of his schoolboy days. As an amateur landscape-painter, he works with more satisfaction to himself, uses more color, wears out more brushes, and makes a greater smell of paint in his studio than any artist by profession, native or foreign, whom I ever met with. In look, in manner, and in disposition, the gentlest of mankind, Owen, by some singular anomaly in his character, which he seems to have caught from Morgan, glories placidly108 in the wildest and most frightful109 range of subjects which his art is capable of representing. Immeasurable ruins, in howling wildernesses110, with blood-red sunsets gleaming over them; thunder-clouds rent with lightning, hovering111 over splitting trees on the verges112 of awful precipices113; hurricanes, shipwrecks114, waves, and whirlpools follow each other on his canvas, without an intervening glimpse of quiet everyday nature to relieve the succession of pictorial115 horrors. When I see him at his easel, so neat and quiet, so unpretending and modest in himself, with such a composed expression on his attentive116 face, with such a weak white hand to guide such bold, big brushes, and when I look at the frightful canvasful of terrors which he is serenely117 aggravating118 in fierceness and intensity119 with every successive touch, I find it difficult to realize the connection between my brother and his work, though I see them before me not six inches apart. Will this quaint spectacle possess any humorous attractions for Miss Jessie? Perhaps it may. There is some slight chance that Owen’s employment will be lucky enough to interest her.
Thus far my morning cogitations advance doubtfully enough, but they altogether fail in carrying me beyond the narrow circle of The Glen Tower. I try hard, in our visitor’s interest, to look into the resources of the little world around us, and I find my efforts rewarded by the prospect of a total blank.
Is there any presentable living soul in the neighborhood whom we can invite to meet her? Not one. There are, as I have already said, no country seats near us; and society in the county town has long since learned to regard us as three misanthropes120, strongly suspected, from our monastic way of life and our dismal black costume, of being popish priests in disguise. In other parts of England the clergyman of the parish might help us out of our difficulty; but here in South Wales, and in this latter half of the nineteenth century, we have the old type parson of the days of Fielding still in a state of perfect preservation121. Our local clergyman receives a stipend122 which is too paltry123 to bear comparison with the wages of an ordinary mechanic. In dress, manners, and tastes he is about on a level with the upper class of agricultural laborer124. When attempts have been made by well-meaning gentlefolks to recognize the claims of his profession by asking him to their houses, he has been known, on more than one occasion, to leave his plowman’s pair of shoes in the hall, and enter the drawing-room respectfully in his stockings. Where he preaches, miles and miles away from us and from the poor cottage in which he lives, if he sees any of the company in the squire’s pew yawn or fidget in their places, he takes it as a hint that they are tired of listening, and closes his sermon instantly at the end of the sentence. Can we ask this most irreverend and unclerical of men to meet a young lady? I doubt, even if we made the attempt, whether we should succeed, by fair means, in getting him beyond the servants’ hall.
Dismissing, therefore, all idea of inviting125 visitors to entertain our guest, and feeling, at the same time, more than doubtful of her chance of discovering any attraction in the sober society of the inmates126 of the house, I finish my dressing and go down to breakfast, secretly veering127 round to the housekeeper’s opinion that Miss Jessie will really bring matters to an abrupt128 conclusion by running away. I find Morgan as bitterly resigned to his destiny as ever, and Owen so affectionately anxious to make himself of some use, and so lamentably129 ignorant of how to begin, that I am driven to disembarrass myself of him at the outset by a stratagem130.
I suggest to him that our visitor is sure to be interested in pictures, and that it would be a pretty attention, on his part, to paint her a landscape to hang up in her room. Owen brightens directly, informs me in his softest tones that he is then at work on the Earthquake at Lisbon, and inquires whether I think she would like that subject. I preserve my gravity sufficiently131 to answer in the affirmative, and my brother retires meekly132 to his studio, to depict133 the engulfing134 of a city and the destruction of a population. Morgan withdraws in his turn to the top of the tower, threatening, when our guest comes, to draw all his meals up to his new residence by means of a basket and string. I am left alone for an hour, and then the upholsterer arrives from the county town.
This worthy135 man, on being informed of our emergency, sees his way, apparently136, to a good stroke of business, and thereupon wins my lasting137 gratitude by taking, in opposition138 to every one else, a bright and hopeful view of existing circumstances.
“You’ll excuse me, sir,” he says, confidentially139, when I show him the rooms in the lean-to, “but this is a matter of experience. I’m a family man myself, with grown-up daughters of my own, and the natures of young women are well known to me. Make their rooms comfortable, and you make ’em happy. Surround their lives, sir, with a suitable atmosphere of furniture, and you never hear a word of complaint drop from their lips. Now, with regard to these rooms, for example, sir — you put a neat French bedstead in that corner, with curtains conformable — say a tasty chintz; you put on that bedstead what I will term a sufficiency of bedding; and you top up with a sweet little eider-down quilt, as light as roses, and similar the same in color. You do that, and what follows? You please her eye when she lies down at night, and you please her eye when she gets up in the morning — and you’re all right so far, and so is she. I will not dwell, sir, on the toilet-table, nor will I seek to detain you about the glass to show her figure, and the other glass to show her face, because I have the articles in stock, and will be myself answerable for their effect on a lady’s mind and person.”
He led the way into the next room as he spoke140, and arranged its future fittings, and decorations, as he had already planned out the bedroom, with the strictest reference to the connection which experience had shown him to exist between comfortable furniture and female happiness.
Thus far, in my helpless state of mind, the man’s confidence had impressed me in spite of myself, and I had listened to him in superstitious141 silence. But as he continued to rise, by regular gradations, from one climax142 of upholstery to another, warning visions of his bill disclosed themselves in the remote background of the scene of luxury and magnificence which my friend was conjuring143 up. Certain sharp professional instincts of bygone times resumed their influence over me; I began to start doubts and ask questions; and as a necessary consequence the interview between us soon assumed something like a practical form.
Having ascertained144 what the probable expense of furnishing would amount to and having discovered that the process of transforming the lean-to (allowing for the time required to procure145 certain articles of rarity from Bristol) would occupy nearly a fortnight, I dismissed the upholsterer with the understanding that I should take a day or two for consideration, and let him know the result. It was then the fifth of September, and our Queen of Hearts was to arrive on the twentieth. The work, therefore, if it was begun on the seventh or eighth, would be begun in time.
In making all my calculations with a reference to the twentieth of September, I relied implicitly146, it will be observed, on a young lady’s punctuality in keeping an appointment which she had herself made. I can only account for such extraordinary simplicity147 on my part on the supposition that my wits had become sadly rusted2 by long seclusion148 from society. Whether it was referable to this cause or not, my innocent trustfulness was at any rate destined149 to be practically rebuked150 before long in the most surprising manner. Little did I suspect, when I parted from the upholsterer on the fifth of the month, what the tenth of the month had in store for me.
On the seventh I made up my mind to have the bedroom furnished at once, and to postpone151 the question of the sitting-room152 for a few days longer. Having dispatched the necessary order to that effect, I next wrote to hire the piano and to order the box of novels. This done, I congratulated myself on the forward state of the preparations, and sat down to repose153 in the atmosphere of my own happy delusions154.
On the ninth the wagon155 arrived with the furniture, and the men set to work on the bedroom. From this moment Morgan retired definitely to the top of the tower, and Owen became too nervous to lay the necessary amount of paint on the Earthquake at Lisbon.
On the tenth the work was proceeding54 bravely. Toward noon Owen and I strolled to the door to enjoy the fine autumn sunshine. We were sitting lazily on our favorite bench in front of the tower when we were startled by a shout from above us. Looking up directly, we saw Morgan half in and half out of his narrow window In the seventh story, gesticulating violently with the stem of his long meerschaum pipe in the direction of the road below us.
We gazed eagerly in the quarter thus indicated, but our low position prevented us for some time from seeing anything. At last we both discerned an old yellow post-chaise distinctly and indisputably approaching us.
Owen and I looked at one another in panic-stricken silence. It was coming to us — and what did it contain? Do pianos travel in chaises? Are boxes of novels conveyed to their destination by a postilion? We expected the piano and expected the novels, but nothing else — unquestionably nothing else.
The chaise took the turn in the road, passed through the gateless gap in our rough inclosure-wall of loose stone, and rapidly approached us. A bonnet156 appeared at the window and a hand gayly waved a white handkerchief.
Powers of caprice, confusion, and dismay! It was Jessie Yelverton herself — arriving, without a word of warning, exactly ten days before her time.
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orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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2
rusted
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| v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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3
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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4
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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5
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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6
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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7
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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8
guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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9
consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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10
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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11
forfeited
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| （因违反协议、犯规、受罚等）丧失，失去( forfeit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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12
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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13
devotedly
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| 专心地； 恩爱地； 忠实地； 一心一意地 | |
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14
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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15
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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16
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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17
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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18
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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19
affluence
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| n.充裕，富足 | |
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20
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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21
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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22
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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23
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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24
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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25
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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26
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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27
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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28
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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29
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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30
offenses
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| n.进攻( offense的名词复数 )；（球队的）前锋；进攻方法；攻势 | |
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31
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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32
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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33
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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34
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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35
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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36
smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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37
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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38
confiscated
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| 没收，充公( confiscate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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40
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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41
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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42
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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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
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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45
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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46
humdrum
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| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
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47
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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48
probation
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| n.缓刑(期)，(以观后效的)察看；试用(期) | |
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49
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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50
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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51
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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52
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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53
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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54
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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55
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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56
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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57
regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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58
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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59
banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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60
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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61
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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62
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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63
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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64
refractory
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| adj.倔强的，难驾驭的 | |
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65
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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66
languished
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| 长期受苦( languish的过去式和过去分词 )； 受折磨； 变得（越来越）衰弱； 因渴望而变得憔悴或闷闷不乐 | |
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67
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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69
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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70
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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71
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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72
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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73
remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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74
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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75
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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76
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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77
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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78
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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79
tacked
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| 用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝 | |
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80
lumber
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|
| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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81
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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82
inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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83
tottered
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| v.走得或动得不稳( totter的过去式和过去分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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84
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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85
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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86
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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87
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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88
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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89
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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90
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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91
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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92
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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93
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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94
sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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95
knotty
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| adj.有结的，多节的，多瘤的，棘手的 | |
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96
beguile
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| vt.欺骗，消遣 | |
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97
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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98
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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99
treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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100
corporate
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| adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的 | |
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101
usurped
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| 篡夺，霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权 | |
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102
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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103
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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104
encyclopedia
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| n.百科全书 | |
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105
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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106
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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107
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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108
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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109
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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110
wildernesses
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| 荒野( wilderness的名词复数 )； 沙漠； （政治家）在野； 不再当政（或掌权） | |
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111
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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112
verges
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| 边，边缘，界线( verge的名词复数 ) | |
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113
precipices
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| n.悬崖，峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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114
shipwrecks
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| 海难，船只失事( shipwreck的名词复数 )； 沉船 | |
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115
pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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116
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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117
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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118
aggravating
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| adj.恼人的，讨厌的 | |
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119
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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120
misanthropes
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| n.厌恶人类者( misanthrope的名词复数 ) | |
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121
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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122
stipend
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| n.薪贴；奖学金；养老金 | |
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123
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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124
laborer
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| n.劳动者，劳工 | |
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125
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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126
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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127
veering
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| n.改变的；犹豫的；顺时针方向转向；特指使船尾转向上风来改变航向v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的现在分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
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128
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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129
lamentably
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| adv.哀伤地，拙劣地 | |
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130
stratagem
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| n.诡计，计谋 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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132
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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133
depict
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| vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述 | |
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134
engulfing
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| adj.吞噬的v.吞没，包住( engulf的现在分词 ) | |
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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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136
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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137
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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138
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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139
confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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140
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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141
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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142
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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143
conjuring
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| n.魔术 | |
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144
ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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145
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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148
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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149
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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150
rebuked
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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151
postpone
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| v.延期，推迟 | |
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152
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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153
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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154
delusions
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| n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 )；谬见；错觉；妄想 | |
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155
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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