Book I Sapphira and her Household V

As soon as the Mistress had left the house, Till and her daughter Nancy fell to and began to give her bedroom a thorough cleaning; pushed the bed out from the wall, and washed the closet floors. All the windows were opened, and the rugs before the wash-basin stand and the dressing-table were carried into the back yard and beaten.

After Nancy had pinned a clean antimacassar on the back of the wheel-chair and put the Mistress’s slippers¹ ready at the foot of it, her mother said they might as well “give the parlour a lick” before the carriage got back.

The two women, their heads tied up in red cotton handkerchiefs, went into the parlour and rolled up the green paper shades, painted with garden scenes and fountains. The sunlight streamed into the room. The parlour was long in shape, not square, with a low ceiling, the brick fireplace in the middle, under a wide mantel shelf. Horsehair chairs and sofas sat about with tidies on their backs and arms. Captain Dodderidge’s old mahogany desk filled one corner. Every inch of the floor was covered by a heavy Wilton carpet, figured with pink roses and green leaves. It was somewhat worn, as it had been “brought over” by Sapphira’s mother when she first came out to Virginia. Upon this carpet the two brooms went swiftly to work.

The room had an air of settled comfort and stability; visitors sensed that at once. The deep-set windows made one feel the thickness of the walls. A child could climb up into one of those windows and make a playhouse. Every afternoon Mrs. Colbert was brought into the parlour and sat here for several hours before supper. Here she could watch the light of the sinking sun burn on the great cedars² that grew along the farther side of the creek³, across from the mill. In winter weather, when the snow was falling over the flower garden and the hedges, that long room, with its six windows and its warm hearth⁴, was a pleasant place to be.

With Nancy at one end and Till at the other, the parlour was soon swept. Till never dawdled⁵ over her work. The housekeeper⁶ at Chestnut⁷ Hill had taught her that the shuffling⁸ foot was the mark of an inferior race. After the sweeping⁹ came the dusting.

“Now, Nancy, run and fetch me a kitchen chair and a clean soft rag. I want to git at the po’traits, which I didn’t have time to do last week.” Any other servant on the place would have stepped coolly on one of the fat horsehair chair-bottoms, — if, indeed, she had thought it worth while to dust the pictures at all, now that the Mistress could no longer reach up and run her fingers along the frames.

When the wooden chair was brought, Till mounted and wiped, first the canvases, then their heavy gilt¹⁰ frames. Her daughter stood gazing up at them: Master and Mistress twenty years ago. Mistress in a garnet velvet¹¹ gown and real lace, wearing her long earrings¹² and a garnet necklace: a vigorous young woman with chestnut hair and a high colour in her cheeks. The Master in a stock and broadcloth coat, his bushy black hair standing¹³ up as it often did now, his face broad and ruddy; he had changed very little. Nancy thought these pictures wonderful. She hoped the painter was really her father, as some folks said. Old Jezebel, her great-grandmother, had whispered to her that was why she had straight black hair with no kink in it.

Anyway, Nancy knew Uncle Jeff wasn’t her father, though she always called him “Pappy” and treated him with respect. Her mother had no children by Uncle Jeff, and fat Lizzie, the cook, had left Nancy in no doubt as to the reason. When Nancy was a little girl, Lizzie had coaxed¹⁴ her off into the bushes one Sunday to help her pick gooseberries. There she told her how Miss Sapphy had married Till off to Jeff because he was a “capon man.” The child was puzzled, and thought this meant that Jeff had come from somewhere up on the Capon River. But Lizzie made the facts quite clear. Miss Sapphy didn’t want a lady’s maid to be “havin’ chillun all over de place, — always a-carryin’ or a-nussin’ ’em.” So she married Till off to Jeff and “made it wuth her while, the niggers reckoned.” Till got the light end of the work and the best of everything. And Lizzie didn’t believe that talk about the painter man; she told Nancy that one of Mr. Henry’s brothers was her real father. From that day Nancy had felt a horror of Lizzie. She tried not to show it, but Lizzie knew, and she got back at the stuck-up piece whenever she had a chance. She set her own daughter, Bluebell¹⁵, to spy on Till’s girl.

Nancy had never asked Till who her father was. She admired her mother and took pride in what she called her mother’s “nice ways.” The girl had a natural delicacy¹⁶ of feeling. Ugly sights and ugly words sickened her. She had Till’s good manners — with something warmer and more alive. But she was not courageous¹⁷. When the servants were gossiping at their midday dinner in the big kitchen, if she sensed a dirty joke coming, she slipped away from the table and ran off into the garden. If she felt a reprimand coming, she sometimes lied: lied before she had time to think, or to tell herself that she would be found out in the end. She caught at any pretext¹⁸ to keep off blame or punishment for an hour, a minute. She didn’t tell falsehoods deliberately¹⁹, to get something she wanted; it was always to escape from something.

Nancy was startled out of her reflections about her mysterious father by her mother’s voice.

“Now, honey, if I was you, I’d make a nice egg-nog when you hear the carriage comin’, an’ I’d carry it in to the Mistress when she’s got out of the coach an’ into her room. I’d take it to her on the small silvah salvah, with a white napkin and some cold biscuit.”

Nancy caught her breath, and looked downcast. “Lizzie, she don’t like to have me meddlin’ round the kitchen to do anything.”

“I’ll be out around the kitchen, an’ Lizzie dassent say anything to ME. An’ if I was you, I wouldn’t carry a tray to Missus with no haing-dawg look. I’d smile, an’ look happy to serve her, an’ she’ll smile back.”

Nancy shook her head. Her slender hands dropped limp at her side. “No she won’t, Mudder,” very low.

“Yes she will, if you smile right, an’ don’t go shiverin’ like a drownded kitten. In all Loudoun County Miss Sapphy was knowed for her good mannahs, an’ that she knowed how to treat all folks in their degree.”

The daughter hesitated, but did not answer. For nearly a year now she had seemed to have no degree, and her mistress had treated her like an untrustworthy stranger. Before that, ever since she could remember, Miss Sapphy had been very kind to her, had liked her and had shown it. As they were leaving the parlour, Nancy murmured, more to herself than to her mother:

“I knows that fat Lizzie’s at the bottom of it, somehow. She’s always got a pick on me.”

1 slippers   

n. 拖鞋

参考例句：

• a pair of slippers 一双拖鞋
• He kicked his slippers off and dropped on to the bed. 他踢掉了拖鞋，倒在床上。

2 cedars   

雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The old cedars were badly damaged in the storm. 风暴严重损害了古老的雪松。
• Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. 1黎巴嫩哪，开开你的门，任火烧灭你的香柏树。

3 creek   

n.小溪，小河，小湾

参考例句：

• He sprang through the creek.他跳过小河。
• People sunbathe in the nude on the rocks above the creek.人们在露出小溪的岩石上裸体晒日光浴。

4 hearth   

n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面

参考例句：

• She came and sat in a chair before the hearth.她走过来，在炉子前面的椅子上坐下。
• She comes to the hearth,and switches on the electric light there.她走到壁炉那里，打开电灯。

5 dawdled   

v.混（时间）( dawdle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Billy dawdled behind her all morning. 比利整个上午都跟在她后面闲混。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He dawdled away his time. 他在混日子。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

6 housekeeper   

n.管理家务的主妇，女管家

参考例句：

• A spotless stove told us that his mother is a diligent housekeeper.炉子清洁无瑕就表明他母亲是个勤劳的主妇。
• She is an economical housekeeper and feeds her family cheaply.她节约持家，一家人吃得很省。

7 chestnut   

n.栗树，栗子

参考例句：

• We have a chestnut tree in the bottom of our garden.我们的花园尽头有一棵栗树。
• In summer we had tea outdoors,under the chestnut tree.夏天我们在室外栗树下喝茶。

8 shuffling   

adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Don't go shuffling along as if you were dead. 别像个死人似地拖着脚走。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk. 外面的人行道上有人拖着脚走过。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

9 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

10 gilt   

adj.镀金的；n.金边证券

参考例句：

• The plates have a gilt edge.这些盘子的边是镀金的。
• The rest of the money is invested in gilt.其余的钱投资于金边证券。

11 velvet   

n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的

参考例句：

• This material feels like velvet.这料子摸起来像丝绒。
• The new settlers wore the finest silk and velvet clothing.新来的移民穿着最华丽的丝绸和天鹅绒衣服。

12 earrings   

n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子

参考例句：

• a pair of earrings 一对耳环
• These earrings snap on with special fastener. 这付耳环是用特制的按扣扣上去的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

14 coaxed   

v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的过去式和过去分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱

参考例句：

• She coaxed the horse into coming a little closer. 她哄着那匹马让它再靠近了一点。
• I coaxed my sister into taking me to the theatre. 我用好话哄姐姐带我去看戏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 bluebell   

n.风铃草

参考例句：

• The girl picked herself up and pulled a bluebell out of her hair.姑娘坐起身来，从头发里摘出一枝风铃草。
• There is a branch of bluebell in the vase.花瓶里有一束风铃草。

16 delicacy   

n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴

参考例句：

• We admired the delicacy of the craftsmanship.我们佩服工艺师精巧的手艺。
• He sensed the delicacy of the situation.他感觉到了形势的微妙。

17 courageous   

adj.勇敢的，有胆量的

参考例句：

• We all honour courageous people.我们都尊重勇敢的人。
• He was roused to action by courageous words.豪言壮语促使他奋起行动。

18 pretext   

n.借口，托词

参考例句：

• He used his headache as a pretext for not going to school.他借口头疼而不去上学。
• He didn't attend that meeting under the pretext of sickness.他以生病为借口，没参加那个会议。

19 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。