“But I don’t go this time, Miss Hilda. It’s your turn to have a maid now.”
The news took a weight of dread5 from Hilda’s heart. She shrank from again seeing her own guilt6 looking at her from Katherine’s tragic7 eyes. She did not need Katherine to impress it; during long days and dim, half delirious8 nights it haunted her, the awful sense of irremediable wrong, of everlasting9 responsibility for her sister’s misery10. With all the capability11 for self-torture, only possessed12 by the most finely tempered natures, she scourged13 her memory again and again through that blighting14 hour when she had appealed for and confessed a love that had dishonored her. She dwelt with sickening on the moment when she had said: “I love you, too!” Her conscience, fanatically unbalanced, distorted it with cruellest self-injustice. Indeed, such moments in life are difficult of analysis; the unconsciously spoken words followed by a consciousness so swift that in perspective they merge16. In periods of clearer moral visions she could place her barrier, but only for mere17 flashes of relief, turned from with agony, as the dreadful fact of Katherine’s ruined love surged over all and made of day and night one blackness.
Hilda’s love for Odd now told her that for months past it had been growing from the child’s devotion, and, with the new torture of a hopeless longing18 upon her—for which she despised herself—she saw in the whole scene with him the base self-betrayal of a lovesick heart.
Only a few days after Katherine’s departure, the Captain returned.
Hilda felt, as he would come in and look at her lying there with that weird19 sense of distance upon her, that her father was changed. He walked carefully in and out on the tips of the Archinard toes, and, outside the door, she could hear him talking in tones of fretful anxiety on her behalf.
He hardly mentioned Katherine’s broken engagement, and, for once in her life, Hilda was an object of consideration for her family. Even Mrs. Archinard rose from her sofa on more than one occasion to sit plaintively20 beside her daughter’s bed; and it was from her that Hilda learned that they were going back to Allersley.
Her father, then, must have enough money to pay mortgages and debts, and Hilda lay with closed eyes while her forebodings leaped to possibilities and to probabilities. The Captain’s good fortune showed to her in a dismal21 light of material dependence22, and she could guess miserably23 at its source. She could guess who encompassed24 her feeble life with care, and who it was that shielded her from even a feather’s weight of gratitude—for the Captain made no mention of his good luck.
“Yes, we are going back to the Priory,” Mrs. Archinard said, her melancholy25 eyes resting almost reproachfully upon her daughter’s wasted face. “It would be pleasant were it not that fate takes care to compensate26 for any sweet by an engulfing27 bitter. Katherine to jilt Mr. Odd, and you so dangerously ill, Hilda. I do not wonder at it, I predicted it rather. You have killed yourself tout28 simplement; I consider it a simple case of suicide. Ah, yes, indeed! The doctor thinks it very, very serious. No vitality29, complete exhaustion30. I said to him, ‘Docteur, elle s’est tuée.’ I said it frankly31.”
Mrs. Archinard found another invalid32 rather confusing. She had for so long contemplated33 one only, that, insensibly, she adopted the same tones of pathos34 and pity on Hilda’s behalf, hardly realizing their objective nature.
By the beginning of May they were once more in Allersley. It was like returning to a prior state of existence, and Hilda, lying in a wicker chair on the lawn, looked at the strange familiarity of the trees, the meadows, the river between its sloping banks of smooth green turf, and felt like a ghost among the unchanged scenes of her childhood.
Mrs. Archinard found out, bit by bit, that it was tiresome35 to keep her sofa now that there was an opposition36 faction37 on the lawn; she realized, too, to a certain extent, what it was that Hilda had been to that sofa existence; without the background of Hilda’s quiet servitude, it became flat and flavorless, and Mrs. Archinard arose and actually walked, and for longer periods every day, drifting about the house and garden in pensive38 contemplation of tenants’ havoc39. She sighed over the Priory and said it had changed very much, but, characteristically, she did not think of asking how the Priory had come to them again. The Captain vouchsafed40 no hint. He went rather sulkily through his day, fished a little—the Captain had no taste for a pleasure as inexpensive as fishing—and read the newspapers with ejaculations of disgust at political follies41.
When Hilda sat in the sunshine near the river, her father often walked aimlessly in her neighborhood, eyeing her with almost embarrassed glances, always averted43 hastily if her eyes met his. Hilda had submitted passively to all the material changes of her life; she saw them only vaguely44, concentrated on that restless inner torture. But one day, as her father lingered indeterminately around her, switching his fishing-rod, looking hastily into his fishing-basket, and showing evident signs of perplexity and indecision very clumsily concealed45, a sudden thought of her own egotistic self-absorption struck her, and a sudden sense of method underlying46 the Captain’s man?uvres.
“Papa, come and sit down by me a little while. I am sure the fish will be glad of a respite47. Isn’t it a little sunny to-day for first-class fishing?” Hilda pointed48 to the chair near hers, and the Captain came up to her with shy alacrity49.
“Even first-class fishing is a bore, I think,” he observed, not taking the chair, but laying his rod upon it, and looking at his daughter and then at the river.
“Feeling better to-day, aren’t you? You might take a stroll with me, perhaps; but no, you’re not strong enough for that, are you? Fine day, isn’t it?”
Now that the moment looked forward to, yet dreaded50, might be coming, the Captain vaguely tried to avert42 it after the procrastinating51 manner of weak people. Hilda did not seem to have anything particular to say, and the absent-minded smile on her face reassured52 him as to immediate53 issues.
“How are you feeling?” she asked; “I have been looking at the trees and grass for so long that I had almost forgotten that there are human beings in the world.”
“Oh, I’m very well; very well indeed.” The Captain was again feeling uncomfortable. An inner coercion54 seemed to be forcing him to speak just because speaking was not really imperative55 at the moment. A little glow of self-approbation suddenly prompted him to add: “You know, I know about it now. That is to say, I wasn’t exactly to speak of it, if it might pain you; but I don’t see why it should do that. Upon my word,” said the Captain, feeling warmly self-righteous now that the ice was broken, “it’s more likely to pain me, isn’t it? Rather to my discredit56, you know; though, intrinsically, I was as innocent as a babe unborn. Of course you helped me over a tight place now and then, but I thought the money came to you with a mere turn of the hand, so to speak; and, as for your teaching—wearing yourself out—well, I don’t know which I was angrier with first, you or myself. I never dreamed of it, it never entered into my head. And then, my daughter and low French cads! Well, he saw to that, and so did I. I saw the fellow too; thought it best, you know; for, naturally, Odd couldn’t have my weight and authority. I was simply stupefied, you know. It quite knocked me over when he told me. Odd told me—“
The Captain took up his rod, examined the reel, and then switched its limber length tentatively through the air. It was embarrassing, after all, this recognition of his daughter’s life.
“Now your mother doesn’t know,” he pursued; “Odd seemed rather anxious that she should; rather unfeeling of him too, I thought it. There was no necessity for that, was there? It would have quite killed her, wouldn’t it? Quite.”
“You need neither of you have known.” All she was wondering about, trying to grasp, made Hilda pale. “It came about most naturally; and, if mamma’s illness and that other unpleasant episode had not broken me down, my modest business might have come to an end—no one the wiser for it. Mr. Odd exaggerated the whole thing no doubt.”
“Well, I don’t know.” The Captain now sat down on the chair with a sigh of some relief. “It’s off my mind at all events. I wanted to express my—pain, you know, and my gratitude—and to say what a jolly trump57 I thought you; that kind of thing.”
“Dear papa, I don’t deserve it.”
“Ah, well, Odd isn’t the man to make misstatements, you know. A bit of dreamer, unpractical, no doubt. But he sees facts as clearly as any one, you know. He showed it all clearly. Rather cutting, to tell you the truth. Of course he’s very fond of you; that’s natural. This sad affair of Katherine’s; if it hadn’t been for that, you and he would be brother and sister by this time.”
It was Hilda’s turn now to draw in a little breath of relief. At all events her father was no ally. No other secret had been told, and she saw, now that the dread had gone, that any cause for it would have involved an indelicacy towards Katherine of which she knew Odd to be incapable58.
“Where is he—Mr. Odd?” she asked, steeling herself to the question.
The look of gloom which touched the Captain’s face anew, confirmed Hilda in her certainty of infinite pecuniary59 obligation.
“Not at home. Travelling again, I believe. A man can’t sit down quietly under a blow like that.”
A flush came over Hilda’s face. Part of her punishment was evident. She must hear Katherine spoken of as the fickle60, shallow-hearted, while she, guilt-stained, answerable for all, went undiscovered and crowned with praises. Yet Katherine herself—any woman—would choose the part Odd had given her—the part of jilt rather than jilted; and she, Hilda, was helpless.
“Papa,” she asked, driving in the dagger61 up to the hilt—she could at least punish herself, if no one else could punish her—“where is Katherine? Is she not coming to stay with us?” The Captain swung one leg over the other with impatience62.
“I’ve hardly heard from her; she is with the Leonards in London. Odd spoke15 very highly of her; seemed to think she had acted honorably; but, naturally, Katherine must feel that she has behaved badly.”
“I am sure she has not done that, papa. She found that she would not be happy with him.”
“Pshaw! That’s all feminine folly63, you know. She probably saw some one she liked better, some bigger match. Katherine isn’t the girl to throw over a man like Odd for a whim64.”
Hilda’s flush was now as much for her father as for herself. She felt her cheeks burning as she said, her voice trembling—
“Papa, papa! How can you say such a thing of Katherine! How can you! I know it is not true. I know it!”
“Oh, very well, if you are in her secrets. I know Katherine pretty well though, and it’s not unimaginable. I don’t imply anything vulgar.” The Captain rose as he spoke and swung his basket into place; “that’s not conceivable in my daughter. But Katherine’s ambitious, very ambitious. As for you, Hilda—and all that, you know—I am awfully65 sorry, you understand.” The Captain walked away briskly, satisfied at having eased his conscience. Odd had made it feel uncomfortably swollen66 and unwieldy, and the Captain’s conscience was, by nature, slim and flexible.
Hilda lay in her chair, and looked at the river running brightly beyond the branches of the lime-tree under which she sat. The flush of misery that her father’s cool suppositions on Katherine’s conduct had seemed to strike into her face, only died slowly. She had to turn from that shame resolutely67, contemplation would only deepen its helplessness. She looked at the river, and thought of the time when she had stood beside it with Odd and recited Chaucer to him. She thought of the humorous droop68 of his eyelids69, the kind, comprehensive clasp of his hand on hers; the look of the hand too, long, brown, delicate, the finger-tips too dainty for a man, and the dark green seal on his finger. Hilda turned her head away from the river and closed her eyes.
“Allone, withouten any companye,” that was the fated motto of her life.
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1
cataclysm
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| n.洪水，剧变，大灾难 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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disapproved
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| v.不赞成( disapprove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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9
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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10
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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11
capability
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| n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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13
scourged
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| 鞭打( scourge的过去式和过去分词 )； 惩罚，压迫 | |
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14
blighting
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| 使凋萎( blight的现在分词 )； 使颓丧； 损害； 妨害 | |
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15
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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16
merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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17
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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18
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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20
plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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21
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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22
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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24
encompassed
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| v.围绕( encompass的过去式和过去分词 )；包围；包含；包括 | |
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25
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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26
compensate
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| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
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27
engulfing
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| adj.吞噬的v.吞没，包住( engulf的现在分词 ) | |
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28
tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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31
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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32
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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34
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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35
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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36
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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faction
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| n.宗派，小集团；派别；派系斗争 | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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40
vouchsafed
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| v.给予，赐予( vouchsafe的过去式和过去分词 )；允诺 | |
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41
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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42
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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43
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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44
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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45
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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46
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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47
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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48
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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49
alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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50
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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51
procrastinating
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| 拖延，耽搁( procrastinate的现在分词 )； 拖拉 | |
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52
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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53
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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54
coercion
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| n.强制，高压统治 | |
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55
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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56
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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57
trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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58
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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59
pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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60
fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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61
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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62
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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63
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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64
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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65
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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66
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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67
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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68
droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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69
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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